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DECEMBER 14,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

A RARITY – FROM HEATSTREET:   A small group of conservative students have launched a Change.org petition calling for the University of Nevada Las Vegas not to become a sanctuary campus.  Since Donald Trump’s election, students and faculty at as many as 80 universities have pushed for their administrations to officially declare as sanctuary campuses, which offers protections to illegal immigrants attending those schools.  UNLV is one of them; a petition delivered to the university president last week had almost a thousand signatures, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Now, the Campus Conservatives have sponsored the counter-petition, with four or five members drafting it.  “We oppose becoming a sanctuary campus because we don’t think a university—especially a federally funded university—should be deciding what federal laws they follow,” says Jordan Escoto, a senior who co-founded the Campus Conservatives a month and a half ago.  Escoto is a legal U.S. citizen of Mexican descent, and he says he’s tried to help his fellow students understand the other side of the sanctuary campus argument. “The people who are pro-sanctuary campus try to make it an argument about opposing hate speech and bigotry,” Escoto said. “That’s not what it’s really about. They’re opposing rule of law and equal treatment of students.”  This is a great kid.  I hope they don't throw him out of his school.

WE'LL FOLLOW IT AND SEE HOW IT WORKS – FROM AP:  DENVER (AP) - A rural Colorado school district decided to allow its teachers and other school staff to carry guns on campus to protect students.
The Hanover School District 28 board voted 3-2 Wednesday night to allow school employees to volunteer to be armed on the job after undergoing training.  The district's two schools serve about 270 students about 30 miles southeast of Colorado Springs, and it takes law enforcement an average of 20 minutes to get there. The district currently shares an armed school resource officer with four other school districts.  Board member Michael Lawson backed the idea not only as way to protect students from a mass shooting, but also as protection against possible violence connected with nearby marijuana grows, which he believes are connected with foreign cartels, the Gazette of Colorado Springs reported.  If done correctly, it's a perfectly valid idea.  It assumes good training.  "Call the police" has little meaning when an active shooter is already on campus and the police are minutes away.  I hope this works out.

THE COST OF DISRESPECT – FROM THE STAR-TELEGRAM:  DALLAS – Police recruiters are trying to bring in hundreds of new police officers in Dallas.  Nearly 100 officers in the Dallas Police Department have quit or retired since October, according to multiple reports, worsening the department’s deficit of personnel.  Interim Police Chief David Pughes told City Council members Monday night that the department wanted to fill the next academy class with 60 officers but has only hired 30 for the February class, the Dallas Morning News reported. The department is down to 3,252 officers and would like to have at least 3,500.  CBS 11 reported that most of the 99 who left since Oct. 1 were some of Dallas’s most experienced officers, according to the incoming president of the Dallas Police Association.  The recruitment/departure rate problems stem from the last fiscal year, which ended in September, in which 294 officers left and 142 were hired.  The Morning News reported the department has a rising crime rate on top of troubled pension funds and low salaries compared to other cities.  You'll recall that five Dallas officers were murdered recently in a single incident.  It's tough to be a cop, tougher when certain political elements seem more interested in the welfare of criminals.

December 14, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER CRACK IN THE IRANIAN NUCLEAR DEAL – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:   Iran is growing stronger, and does not hesitate to provoke the United States.  From AFP:

In letters read out on state television, Rouhani criticized the US move as a breach of last year’s nuclear accord and told Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation to start work on “planning the design and production of nuclear fuel and reactors for maritime transport.”

The president said he had also ordered the foreign ministry to prepare a legal complaint to the international committee that oversees the nuclear accord.

Under the deal signed in July 2015, world powers agreed to lift international sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran’s nuclear program.

But US lawmakers recently voted to renew 10-year-old sanctions legislation against Iran related not just to nuclear issues, but also ballistic missile-testing and human rights.

US President Barack Obama is expected to sign the measure into law in the coming days, saying it makes no difference to last year’s agreement because the White House will continue to suspend all the sanctions linked to Iran’s nuclear program.

Iranian lawmakers had raised the prospect of building nuclear-powered ships and submarines back in 2012 at the height of tensions with the international community over the nuclear program.

COMMENT:  Secreary of State designate, Rex Tillerson, is on record as opposing international sanctions.  I think he should be asked whether that view applies to Iran.  If the answer is yes, he should be rejected by the Senate. 

December 14, 2016       Permalink

THE POSTMORTEMS MARCH ON – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  The Dems are still in agony, and our hearts break for them.  Assistance is available through Obamacare's "whackjob" coverage.

The latest postmortem involves Hillary Clinton's loss of the traditionally safe Democratic state of Michigan, and it is excellent.  From The Politico: 

Everybody could see Hillary Clinton was cooked in Iowa. So when, a week-and-a-half out, the Service Employees International Union started hearing anxiety out of Michigan, union officials decided to reroute their volunteers, giving a desperate team on the ground around Detroit some hope.

They started prepping meals and organizing hotel rooms.

SEIU — which had wanted to go to Michigan from the beginning, but been ordered not to — dialed Clinton’s top campaign aides to tell them about the new plan. According to several people familiar with the call, Brooklyn was furious.

Turn that bus around, the Clinton team ordered SEIU. Those volunteers needed to stay in Iowa to fool Donald Trump into competing there, not drive to Michigan, where the Democrat’s models projected a 5-point win through the morning of Election Day.

Michigan organizers were shocked. It was the latest case of Brooklyn ignoring on-the-ground intel and pleas for help in a race that they felt slipping away at the end.

“They believed they were more experienced, which they were. They believed they were smarter, which they weren’t,” said Donnie Fowler, who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee during the final months of the campaign. “They believed they had better information, which they didn’t.”

Flip Michigan and leave the rest of the map, and Trump is still president-elect. But to people who worked in that state and others, how Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million votes and lost by 100,000 in states that could have made her president has everything to do with what happened in Michigan. Trump won the state despite getting 30,000 fewer votes than George W. Bush did when he lost it in 2004.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's worth it.  American political history is filled with "sure things" who weren't, as the late President Dewey learned.  And the sure things were products of ego and a sense of superiority.  A description of Hillary and her troops.

December 14, 2016       Permalink

NOW THEY WORRY? – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  There is sudden anguish in the Democratic Party over Russian hacking.  The pain.  The agony.  The fear of national destruction!  But haven't we been here before?  From ace defense reporter Rowan Scarborough, at the Washington Times:

Foreign governments have launched numerous cyberattacks on the U.S. government and sensitive industrial sites, but Republicans say President Obama has not responded in a forceful way to years of Russian hacking.

A more assertive response might have headed off the type of hacking Russia is accused of launching during the presidential election, they say.

Russia, whose supposed cyberoffensive now is generating a Democratic Party movement that would delegitimize the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, has hacked Pentagon systems. In 2014 it penetrated computer networks at the White House and the State Department. Neither the White House nor the mainstream media reacted with any great alarm.

In one of the most extensive hacks on America, Chinese hackers invaded the massive files of the Office of Personnel Management and stole personnel data and security background checks of millions of federal workers.

In other examples, the Federal Reserve, which sets monetary policy and oversees the banking industry, detected more than 50 cyberbreaches between 2011 and 2015, and some were called espionage, Reuters reported in June, citing federal records. The IRS also has acknowledged that taxpayer files have been stolen by hackers.

Mr. Obama’s record on defeating hackers has come into focus during the transition as he orders a sweeping probe of Russia’s alleged hack on the president’s own Democratic Party.

COMMENT:  It's all about Barack.  Nothing much else matters.  The sudden Dem concern about Moscow's hacking is awkward and hypocritical, but the meanstreamers will give it a pass. 

It is a matter of concern, though, as is Russia's overall bad behavior.  Outrage over Putin is part of the foreign-policy tradition, a good one, of the Republican Party.  And so it is entirely reasonable that we should be appropriately wary of the nomination of Rex Tillerson to be secretary of state.  His friendship with Vladimir will be examined as part of the confirmation process.

December 14,  2016     Permalink

DECEMBER 13,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

NOT EXACTLY OLD IRONSIDES – FROM FOX:   U.S. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has a penchant for doling out interesting and unconventional names for new warships, but a petition currently on the White House website wants the next major warship to be named something that may be too outlandish even for him.  The petition suggests that the next major vessel be christened “USS The Deplorables,” as the petition notes, “to honor those citizens who rose up to defend America and the Constitution from the globalists.”  The name is taken from a remark Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made on the campaign trail to refer to supporters of President-elect Donald Trump.  "You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said at a rally in September. "The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And, unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”  It could be a new class of ships.  And the next one could be USS Flyover People.

GOOD PICK – FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:   President-elect Donald Trump has picked Rick Perry to head the Energy Department, said two people familiar with the decision, seeking to put the former Texas governor in control of an agency whose name he forgot during a presidential debate even as he vowed to abolish it.  Perry, who ran for president in the past two election cycles, is likely to shift the department away from renewable energy and toward fossil fuels, whose production he championed while serving as governor for 14 years.  The Energy Department was central to the 2011 gaffe that helped end his first presidential bid. Declaring that he wanted to eliminate three federal agencies during a primary debate in Michigan, Perry then froze after mentioning the Commerce and Education departments. “The third one, I can’t. Sorry. Oops.”  They can laugh all they want.  Perry was an excellent governor of Texas, and was instrumental in building the state's economy.  I also doubt that he'd shift the focus of the Energy Department too far away from renewable energy.  Who really is against renewable energy?  But he will make sure the fossil fuel sector is strong and productive, for we will need fossil fuels for most of the next century.  Whisper that to the Dems.

A MATH PROBLEM – FROM THE HILL:  Voting machines in 37 percent of Detroit's precincts registered too many votes in the presidential election last month, the Detroit News reported Tuesday.  Records from Wayne County show optical scanners in 248 of the city's 662 precincts registered more ballots than the number of votes tallied in the poll books.  The city's voting irregularities prompted a call for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson's office, according to the publication.  President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes, but Hillary Clinton received more votes in Detroit and Wayne County.  The state's recount effort ended Friday after a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court.  Detroit precincts were among some of the precincts that couldn't be counted during the presidential recount because of a state law that bars the precincts from being recounted if the numbers don't match, unless there's a valid explanation.  I'm shocked that this could happen in a city as well governed as Detroit.  Do not take that seriously.

December 13,  2016     Permalink

REX – AT 11:16 A.M. ET:  The expectation is that President-elect Trump will name Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his choice for secretary of state later in the week.  The Trump team apparently wants a few more days before the announcement should signs grow, and they are growing, that Tillerson may face a tough battle for confirmation.  From The Wall Street Journal:   

WASHINGTON— Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Rex Tillerson, the top choice for secretary of state in a Trump administration, faces bipartisan resistance in Congress over his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

GOP hesitation over Mr. Tillerson marked the first sign of division between congressional Republicans and the Trump team over its likely cabinet picks. All of President-elect Donald Trump’s other nominees so far appear likely to be confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Tillerson, a seasoned deal-maker whose company has a long history of doing business in Russia, is drawing unease from senators on both sides of the aisle. Republicans can likely afford to lose only two GOP votes next year in the new Congress when it meets to consider Mr. Trump’s nominees.

And...

Mr. Trump defended Mr. Tillerson as a “world-class player” and said it was “a great advantage” that Mr. Tillerson already knows “many of the players,” noting that he does “massive deals in Russia.”

“He’s more than a business executive,’’ Mr. Trump told Fox News in an interview broadcast Sunday.

Trump transition officials said the president-elect is likely to announce his choice for secretary of state midweek. Mr. Trump has given himself time to alter course should his views change or if he concludes Mr. Tillerson couldn’t win Senate confirmation.

And...

No Senate Republicans have yet said they would vote against Mr. Tillerson. Mr. Corker said in a tweet Saturday that the CEO is “a very impressive individual.”

Still, a number of senators expressed reservations. On Tuesday, another member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), said he had “serious concerns” about Mr. Trump’s selection of Mr. Tillerson to be secretary of state.

Mr. Rubio said the Exxon Mobil CEO “is a respected businessman,” but the senator noted he had broader questions about whether Mr. Tillerson was the right person for the job. Two days earlier, Mr. Rubio said in a tweet that “being a ‘friend of Vladimir’ is not an attribute I am hoping for” in the next secretary of state.

COMMENT:  The position of secretary of state is the most prestigious in the Cabinet.  The secretary of state nomination is taken very seriously.  The position is fourth in the line of presidential succession, after the vice president, speaker of the House, and president pro tempore of the Senate.

I would not be shocked if a Tillerson nomination had to be withdrawn.

December 13, 2016       Permalink

SETTING IT STRAIGHT – AT 11:06 A.M. ET:   Chris Stirewalt of Fox News sets a few things straight about the election.  No Dems need read this.  There may be a medical reaction.  From Fox: 

John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman and the victim of the most famous hack since Jennifer Lawrence, has joined the call from some members of the Electoral College that they be made privy to the secret findings of the intelligence community about Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

The hope of the electors, led by Christine Pelosi, daughter of the House minority leader, is that the information would cause red-state electors to break from the popular vote in their states.

While conservatives may be cheered to see the sudden swell of support for federalism and republicanism on the left, that’s not really what’s cooking here.

It’s been more than a month since Trump pulled off a stunning upset to win the presidency, but some still refuse to accept what happened.

Even before the electoral uprising gained steam today, Democrats were looking for a Russia-inspired reboot. Since the revelation Friday that the CIA concluded Russia was trying to help Trump and hurt Clinton, “#revote” has been bouncing around the internet.

Trump’s win is hard for many Democrats to accept, especially given the fact that Clinton won the popular vote by about 2.8 million votes, but…come on, people.

No one, not even the strongest Russophobe, has suggested that there was any interference in the election by the Kremlin. While only the most chronic consumers of Putin propaganda would say there was no Russian effort to interfere with the campaign, there is no credible reason to believe that Russia messed with any ballots, rigged any vote totals or anything of the like.

Russia obviously meddled in the campaign. There’s no evidence that Russia interfered with the election.

COMMENT:  I think that's a good reading of the facts.  Foreign nations constantly interfere with the politics of the United States.  That doesn't mean they have any effect on American elections.  I'd have to see some real proof that they've ever influenced voters.

December 13, 2016       Permalink

OVER – AT 10:50 A.M. ET:  The great Wisconsin recount is over.  Don't hold your breath.  From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Wisconsin’s historic presidential recount ended Monday resulting in a net gain of 131 votes for President-elect Donald Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said.

Trump added 844 votes to his total for the Nov. 8 election, while Clinton added 713.

Overall, the commission said, voters cast 2.976 million ballots. The recount resulted in a net increase of 837 ballots.

“Completing this recount was a challenge, but the real winners are the voters,” Elections Commission Chairman Mark Thomsen said in a statement after signing off on the statewide results. “Based on the recount, they can have confidence that Wisconsin’s election results accurately reflect the will of the people, regardless of whether they are counted by hand or by machine.”

COMMENT:  Hillary will probably claim that the election officials spoke with Russian agents, or were Fox News contributors. 

In fact, there was never any serious issue raised about the integrity of the Wisconsin vote.  The recount was entirely unnecessary.

December 13,  2016     Permalink