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LAST SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2016 – HELP!

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DECEMBER 17,  2016

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

HOW DEMOCRATS MOURN – FROM LONDON'S EXPRESS:  Hillary Clinton's post-election holiday party has been compared to a "wake" by an attendee of the event.   The party, which provided an opportunity for Clinton to suck up to top-tier donors whose money was squandered on a disastrously failed election campaign, took place at New York's Plaza Hotel on Thursday.  Donors at the gathering included investment guru Alan Patricof and hedge fund manager Marc Lasry, who have a combined net worth of nearly £1.6billion ($2 billion).  Among the VIP guests were Clinton advisors John Podesta and Robby Mook, designers Vera Wang and Tony Burch. Clinton's ageing husband Bill and their daughter Chelsea were also seen.  But despite the glitzy guests, one person there likened the event to "group therapy".  They said: "It was like a wake with a band.  "It was a little bit of group therapy and a lot of love."  And I trust all came out with a soft and glowing feeling.

THE LAST MANEUVER – FROM CNN:  (CNN) Dr. Henry Heimlich, who invented the world-famous Heimlich maneuver to save people from choking, died Saturday at age 96, his family said.  The news was confirmed by the Episcopal Retirement Services, which owns and manages Deupree House, where Heimlich lived in Cincinnati.  Heimlich died at Christ Hospital after suffering a massive heart attack at home Monday.  "We are deeply saddened at his passing," said Laura Lamb, the incoming chief executive of Episcopal Retirement Services. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family. It was an absolute pleasure serving Dr. Heimlich. He was very kind and caring, and was respected by all."   Everyone at the funeral will get a free squeeze.

WISDOM OF THE AGES – FROM CBS LOCAL:   CHERRY HILL, NJ (CBS) — A woman in Cherry Hill, New Jersey is celebrating a milestone birthday.  Concetta Talucci turned 102-year-old on Friday.  Family and friends threw a big party for her at a Cherry Hill assisted living community.  Talucci was born in 1914 and says the secret to her longevity is “just don’t diet!”  She continued, “Eat! Eat everything you see… but not overeat.”  Talucci said earlier in life she worked as a glass blower and also in the emergency room of a hospital.  Her 99-year-old younger sister joined her at her party.  If you're a married man with notoriously bad eating habits, show this article to your wife for reassurance.

December 17, 2016       Permalink

THE TRUMP WAY – AT 1:49 P.M. ET:  Like him or not, you have to admire the fact that Donald Trump is not afraid to surround himself with powerful, assertive men and women.  From Reuters: 

With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump’s cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation.

Trump, who says Washington is "broken" and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses.

Trump's roster of agency heads and advisers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents. In their place are titans of business and finance from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs and no fewer than three retired generals in key positions.

Many of them are people used to getting their way but will now have a boss to answer to - Trump - while navigating the sometimes frustrating and sprawling bureaucracy of the U.S. government. The incoming Trump administration is poised to undo as much of President Barack Obama's accomplishments as possible, while also attempting to advance a conservative policy agenda in areas such as taxes and healthcare.

A former senior U.S. official who knows Rex Tillerson, the former Exxon Mobil CEO who is Trump's nominee for secretary of state, and Marine General James Mattis, Trump's pick for defense secretary, predicted a massive clash of egos in the cabinet.

COMMENT:  No doubt the clash will occur.  But I like the fact that Trump has picked a team known for accomplishment rather than contemplation.  I think we'll know within three months how well it can do.

What an exciting time.

December 17, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER BULLETIN – THE KEY TO SAVING MEN FROM THEMSELVES – AT 9:56 A.M. ET:  An Australian researcher has found the magic means to our salvation.  Please pass on to all men.  We've been waiting for this for centuries.  From Heatstreet:   

Cats are the solution to toxic masculinity, claims one Australian feminist professor.

Dr. Heather Fraser, who teachers at Flinders University, has been researching “feline masculinities,” which basically means she’s spent a ton of time looking at men and their cats on Instagram.

(You heard that right: That’s a job someone has. Now look at your life, look at your choices.)

In the past, “aspects of orthodox masculinity” stopped men from being too expressive about any affinities for cats, Fraser told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. That same orthodox masculinity, she said, has been correlated with misogyny and violence.

But now, a growing number of men are posting photos of themselves snuggling with beloved kittens, and “that’s a beautiful thing,” Fraser said.

“I like to see men defying the narrow straight-jackets of the ‘he-men’ of the past. In amongst all this, it’s also fun, it’s good. And it allows boys that are growing up to have better relationships with cats and, by extension, other kinds of creatures,” she told the Australian national news service.

COMMENT:  Cats are fine, but I love dogs.  I won't admit that any longer, though.  I don't want to be classified as a violent warmonger.  You do understand, don't you?

December 17, 2016        Permalink

BULLETIN:  ALL HOPE IS GONE – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  Michelle Obama has officially announced that we no longer have hope.  From the New York Post: 

Her husband campaigned on a promise to restore “hope,” but now that he’s turning over the White House to Donald Trump that’s evaporated, according to Michelle Obama.

“We feel the difference now. See, now, we are feeling what not having hope feels like,” the first lady told Oprah Winfrey in an interview airing Monday.

“Hope is necessary. It’s a necessary concept and Barack didn’t just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes. He and I and so many believe that. What else do you have if you don’t have hope.”

A snippet of the interview was shown Friday on “CBS This Morning.”

Michelle Obama — who campaigned for Hillary Clinton while disparaging Trump — took an indirect swipe at the president-elect by claiming her husband is a “grown-up” who inspires confidence.

“I feel like Barack has been that for the nation in ways that people will come to appreciate. Having a grown-up in the White House who can say to you in times of crisis and turmoil, ‘Hey, it’s going to be OK. Let’s remember the good things that we have,” she told Oprah.

COMMENT:  The pomposity of those statements is overwhelming.  Of course, the Obama administration was about Obama, and now we have pretty firm confirmation from the first lady. 

Her message should have been exactly the opposite – that some may be disappointed in the outcome of the election, but there's always hope in America. 

As far as there having been a grown-up in the White House these last eight years, I hadn't noticed.  Who would that person be?  I invite a submission of names.

December 17,  2016      Permalink

DECEMBER 16,  2016

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

GET YOUR APPLICATIONS IN! – FROM HEATSTREET:  The University of Wisconsin-Madison will offer a spring semester class examining “the problem of whiteness” and “what it means to be #woke,” Campus Reform reports.  The course is being offered by the university’s African Cultural Studies department. According to an online description, students will be asked to examine “what it really means to be white,” and consider “how race is experienced by white people” in the United States and abroad.  “Critical Whiteness Studies aims to understand how whiteness is socially constructed and experienced in order to help dismantle white supremacy,” the description reads. “In this class, we will ask what an ethical white identity entails, what it means to be #woke, and consider the journal Race Traitor’s motto, ‘treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.'”  I just can't wait.  One more excuse for not studying physics, chemistry, math, or engineering.

SOUND CHOICE – FROM BREITBART:  President-elect Donald Trump is considering appointing former Republican primary rival Carly Fiorina, who chaired the CIA’s civilian external advisory board during the George W. Bush Administration, Director of National Intelligence (DNI).  The possible appointment of the former Hewlett-Packard executive, first reported by the New York Times, has been described as an unexpected move by some news outlets, such as the New York Post.  Fiorina visited President-elect Trump at New York’s Trump Tower Monday and praised her formal rival after meeting with him.  “It was such an honor to meet with the president elect,” she declared.  “The high quality of people that he’s named already says so much about his executive abilities,” Fiorina also told reporters, praising Trump for appointing “fantastic people” to serve in his administration.  She'd be an asset.  She also knows how to speak to people.  She was one of the most articulate candidates who ran for the GOP presidential nomination. 

THE NEW MARRIAGE CONTRACT – FROM THE LOCAL:  Married couples in Italy will no longer have to promise to be faithful to each other, if a new bill is approved.  The proposed amendment to Italy's Civil Code would remove the word "fidelity" from Italian marriage contracts.  The promise not to cheat is a "cultural legacy from an outdated and obsolete vision of marriage, family, and the rights and duties of spouses", according to the senators who have signed the bill.  They cited a previous ruling from Italy's top court, which declared that judges could not legally place the blame for a marriage separation "on the mere failure to observe the duty of fidelity".  Instead, the other party has to prove that their spouse's infidelity led to the irreconcilable breakdown of the marriage.  What can one say?  The term "decline of the West" comes to mind.

December 16, 2016       Permalink

DELUSIONS OF THE LEFT – AT 10:24 A.M. ET:   To show how delusional the left has become, the following appeared under the byline of Katha Pollitt in the very left-wing Nation magazine: 

I miss him already. Say what you like, President Barack Hussein Obama is supremely intelligent, witty, humane, reasonable, elegant, a great writer, a model father, a good husband, a decent human being. He has empathy and humor. He is sane and calm. He gave us eight years free of scandal and drama: no interns, no corruption, no jobs handed out to outrageously unqualified people (a hallmark of the George W. Bush years—remember “Heckuva job, Brownie”?). Although it’s unfashionable these days to care about dignity and decorum—we’re all vulgarians now, living inside a perpetual reality-TV show— Obama brought seriousness and purpose to an office that had been a kingdom of dimwittery and darkness for eight years. He acted as if knowing what you’re talking about actually mattered. And he did all this as a black man in white America, which went crazy whenever it remembered he was black—for example, when he spoke up mildly in support of a world-famous Harvard professor who was challenged for being in his own home by a local cop. Obama persisted, with grace, in the teeth of a Senate that treated him as so illegitimate that it even refused to hold hearings for his last Supreme Court nominee. To tell you the truth, I don’t know how he could stand it.

COMMENT:  It must be wonderful to live in the world of children.  For eight years we've had a let's-pretend president, and the results, especially in foreign policy, are obvious. 

I intend to lead a group of qualified singers to Ms. Pollitt's window and serenade her.  Our first selection:  "Thank Heaven for Little Girls."

December 16, 2016        Permalink

THE COST OF WEAKNESS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  We have one more explanation for why Hillary Clinton lost the election.  I'm so excited to know all this.  From The Hill:   

The Obama administration decided not to retaliate against Russia for interfering in the election because they did not want to start a cyber war and they expected Hillary Clinton to win, NBC News reported Thursday.

"They thought she was going to win, so they were willing to kick the can down the road," an official told the outlet.

President-elect Donald Trump, who has dismissed assessments that Russia tried to influence the outcome of the election, raised the question on Thursday.

“If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Trump tweeted.

President Obama promised in an interview with NPR that aired Friday morning that the U.S. would retaliate against Russia over its suspected interference.

“I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action and we will — at a time and place of our own choosing,” he said.

"Some of it may be explicit and publicized, some of it may not be,” Obama added.

COMMENT:  Yeah – "at a time and place of our own choosing."  Last time I heard those words they were uttered by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, in the 1950s.

I doubt if Obama will actually do anything.  He only has a month left, and it is now announced that he's going on another Hawaiian vacation.  Russia?  Who cares about Russia?

December 16, 2016       Permalink

NAVY LOOKS TO GROW – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:  Already we see good changes.  The United States Navy, which has been kept too small to do its job effectively, now seeks to expand under Trump.  From the U.S. Naval Institute: 

The Navy released a new fleet plan that calls for 355 ships, outlining a massive increase in the size of its high-end large surface combatant and attack submarine fleets but a modest increase in its planned amphibious ship fleet, according to a Dec. 14 summary of the assessment.

The findings of the latest Force Structure Assessment adds 47 ships to the Navy’s battle force over the 308-ship figure from a 2014 FSA.

According to the summary, the service determined the 355 total was the “minimum force structure to comply with [Pentagon] strategic guidance” and was not “the “desired” force size the Navy would pursue if resources were not a constraint, read the summary.

“Rather, this is the level that balances an acceptable level of warfighting risk to our equipment and personnel against available resources and achieves a force size that can reasonably achieve success,” according to the summary, which notes it would take a 653-ship force to meet all global requirements with minimal risk.

The largest change to the 2014 totals are in the high-end ships classes of attack submarines, large surface combatants – like guided-missile cruisers and destroyers – and aircraft carriers. The new total adds 16 large surface combatants, 18 attack submarines and an additional carrier over the 2014 plan.

COMMENT:  There are some concerns that even this plan isn't large enough, and it may not be.  One thing we should demand, though, is much greater efficiency, control, and quality in our shipbuilding and aircraft acquisition programs.  As readers know, I'm strongly pro-defense, but I am not strongly pro-waste and mismanagement.  Some recent defense programs, like the F-35 fighter-bomber and the littoral combat ships, have raised serious questions about cost and quality.  The questions are legitimate.

Getting the biggest bang for the buck should be a national priority.

December 16,  2016     Permalink