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DECEMBER 15,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

MAJOR HEALTH NEWS – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  New York City is offering its municipal workforce counseling services and other support for dealing with election-year stress brought on by Donald Trump’s election.  In a Dec. 1 email, the de Blasio administration pointed to mental health resources that are available to workers who are “feeling distressed or vulnerable following the election results.”  “We have seen the concerns expressed on social media and we are monitoring them closely,” the emails reads.  If you see a New York City employee, be sure to hug her.  You'll either get a warm thank-you or a lawsuit for sexual harassment.

WELCOME TO THE IVY LEAGUE – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   The president of the Cornell University College Republicans was shoved to the ground and called a “racist bitch” the night after the election, and campus officials are currently investigating the incident.  “I was actually assaulted on campus for being a Republican,” Olivia Corn told The Tab. “I had someone throw me to the ground and say: ‘Fuck you, racist bitch, you support a racist party.”  Corn gave the same account to The Ithaca Voice.  “Out of nowhere I was on my phone and looking at my email and out of nowhere I felt two hands grab my shoulders and just sort of threw me to the ground, and they were yelling ‘F... you racist bitch, you support a racist party,'” Corn said.  She has reported the incident to Cornell police and the university’s Title IX office.  We'll follow this.  I suspect the university will express "concern," maybe take a few minor steps, then let the matter drop. 

WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? – FROM CNS:   The four richest counties in the United States, when measured by median household income, are all suburbs of Washington, D.C., according to newly released data from the Census Bureau.  They are Loudoun County, Va., where the median household income was $125,900 in 2015; Falls Church City, Va., where it was $122,092; Fairfax County, Va., where it was $112,844; and Howard County, Md., where it was $110,224.  The Census Bureau treats independent cities such as Falls Church, Va., as the equivalent of a county when calculating its median household income statistics.  These counties are filled with government people and people who depend on government-related work – lobbyists, lawyers, endless consultants.  Government is big business.  It needs to be smaller business.

December 15, 2016       Permalink

THE PLAYPEN SPEAKS – Hollywood heroes launch a last-ditch effort to deny Donald Trump the presidency.  SEE them go into action against the forces of greed.  SEE them take on the underworld.  SEE them make fools of themselves.  From the New York Post: 

Celebrities are teaming up to beg Republicans in the Electoral College to vote against President-elect Donald Trump, pledging their “respect” for potential “heroes.”

A slew of other has-been and B- or C-list celebs have piled on, calling for 37 “conscientious Republican electors” to swing the Dec. 19 Electoral College vote away from Trump. The Republican is expected to win 306 votes — more than the 270 necessary to win — based on the results from last month’s general election.

“Republican members of the Electoral College, this message is for you,” begins a preachy Martin Sheen. “As you know, our Founding Fathers built the Electoral College to safeguard the American people from the dangers of a demagogue and to ensure that the presidency only goes to someone who is to an ’eminent degree and down with the requisite qualifications.'”

“I’m not asking you to vote for Hillary Clinton,” some in the video say — just don’t vote for Trump.

“As you know, the Constitution gives electors the right to vote for any eligible person,” a celeb in the video states.

Sheen, who played the president in the hit series “The West Wing,” whose cast campaigned for Clinton, adds: “Any eligible person — no matter which party they belong to.”

And...

The video, released on YouTube by Unite for America, not only features Sheen and Schiff, but also Debra Messing, James Cromwell, BD Wong, Noah Wyle, Freda Payne, Bob Odenkirk, J. Smith Cameron, Michael Urie, Moby, Mike Farrell, Loretta Swit, Christine Lahti, Steven Pasquale, Dominic Fumusa and Emily Tyra.

COMMENT:  Oh, what a bore.  Sheen is hard leftist and a flake – the two formally go together.  As for the others, I think I've heard of three or so.

December 15, 2016       Permalink 

CLINTON STILL IN HOT WATER? – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  Apparently, Hillary Clinton's legal troubles are not over.  And this involves Bill and Chelsea as well.  From Daily Caller: 

Officials at FBI headquarters instructed its New York field office to continue its corruption investigation into the Clinton Foundation following the election of Republican candidate Donald Trump, according to a former senior law enforcement official.

The instructions ordered agents to “go forward” with their ongoing inquiry into the Clinton Foundation which is focusing on issues of corruption and money laundering, according to the source.

“There were no instructions to shut it down, to discontinue or to stand down on the investigation, but to continue its work,” the former official told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

He said he received this information about a week ago and that the order originated from the bureau’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. well after the November 8 election. He did not know who at FBI Headquarters issued the order.

The same source broke the news to The DCNF that the FBI was conducting a multi-city probe of the foundation in as many as five cities: New York, Little Rock, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and Miami. The source did not know the status of the bureau’s work in the four other cities.

COMMENT:  In a way, this story is inevitable.  It would be legitimately suspicious if the FBI shut down the investigation simply because the election was over.   If there were suspected legal violations, the probe should continue regardless of the political scene.

The Clintons "earned" an estimated $95-million since Bill Clinton left the White House.  Obviously, those who wrote the checks weren't buying good government.  I'd like to know exactly what they were buying, and how much they got.

December 15, 2016       Permalink

WHAT A BUNCH OF PHONIES – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Google, which has "liberal" written all over it, has suddenly discovered the virtues of conservative outreach.  From Reuters:

Alphabet’s Google is racing to hire more conservatives for its lobbying and policy arm, trying to get a foothold in President-elect Donald Trump’s Washington after enjoying a uniquely close relationship with the administration of President Barack Obama.

In the weeks since the Nov. 8 election, Google has ramped up efforts to hire Republican lobbying firms and in-house lobbyists to change the composition of its Washington office, according to three lobbyists with knowledge of the matter.

The company also posted an advertisement for a manager for conservative outreach and public policy partnership, seeking a "liaison to conservative, libertarian and free market groups."

While the position is not new, it gives Google a chance to make a hire that reflects the new political climate. Conservatives already are represented in the office.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the record for this article.

And...

Liberal-leaning Silicon Valley bet heavily on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton winning the White House, and many technology companies have found themselves scrambling in the wake of Trump's election. But Google, which forged deep ties to the Obama White House and was the largest corporate contributor to Clinton's campaign, appears to have been caught especially off guard, Washington insiders said.

COMMENT:  Trump met with many of the top people of Silicon Valley yesterday.  It was all smiles.  Trump is very smart to meet with those who opposed him.  The war is over, the peace treaties are now being signed. 

I wouldn't be shocked if some Silicon Valley firms started building devices that make it impossible to write the name "Hillary."

December 15,  2016     Permalink

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