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DECEMBER 19,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET:

NO STYLE – FROM BREITBART:  Political pollster and analyst Pat Caddell told Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Monday that, concerning the Obamas leaving the White House, “We are watching this ending here. It’s not quite as bad as the Clintons … but the lack of grace, that’s what’s missing here.”    Caddell continued, “The Bush people, they had a certain conduct. … George W. Bush kept his mouth shut about Obama forever. What’s Obama doing saying, ‘I’m going to be back here right after vacation. … I need to be in Washington. I need to comment’? Where’s the part where you gracefully leave the stage?”  Additionally, pointing out that, post-election, no one in major media was fired or demoted for getting the election so wrong. “None of them have been fired. Are you kidding?” he said.  “The pollsters who are bad,” he continued, “what are they doing? They’re back with new polls this week.”  Said Caddell, “The media has forgotten that the election even happened. They are giving no ground on anything.”  He is absolutely right.  The left is increasingly contemptuous of elections or any other democratic norms.  Their concept of democracy is that it's something that happens only when their side wins.

ANOTHER ONE WITH NO CLASS – FROM THE POLITICO:   President-elect Donald Trump “doesn’t know much,” former President Bill Clinton told a local newspaper earlier this month, but “one thing he does know is how to get angry, white men to vote for him.”  Clinton spoke to a reporter from The Record-Review, a weekly newspaper serving the towns of Bedford and Pound Ridge, New York, not far from the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York. The former president held court on Dec. 10 in Pleasantville, New York, where he took questions from the reporter and other customers inside a small bookstore.  On the question of Russian cyberattacks damaging the candidacy of his wife, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the former president said “you would need to have a single-digit IQ not to recognize what was going on.” But he blamed FBI Director James Comey for her loss, telling those gathered around him that he had “cost her the election” by announcing with less than two weeks to go before the election that the bureau was examining fresh evidence related to her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.  I can understand disappointing.  Fantasy is another story.  Bill Clinton knows full well what happened and whose fault it was.  Maybe he's just trying to avoid another family blowup.

LATE NEWS ON TERROR – FROM FOX:    The man believed to have driven a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin Monday evening had come to Germany as a refugee from Pakistan this past February, multiple German media outlets reported.  The attack killed at least 12 people and left 48 others injured. Officials in Germany and the United States have described the crash as an apparent terror attack, though no group has claimed responsibility.  If confirmed, the revelations are likely to heap more pressure onto German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose decision to accept waves of migrants from Africa and the Middle East has stoked controversy and unsettled Germany and Europe.  Der Tagesspiegel reported that the suspect, whom the paper said was Afghan or Pakistani, was known to police for multiple minor offenses, but had not made the radar of anti-terror authorities. The dpa press agency reported that the suspect used multiple names, making it difficult for authorities to confirm his actual identity.   Watch.  The mainstream media will blame the attack on frustration with Donald Trump.  Don't be shocked.

December 19,  2016     Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 5:46 P.M. ET:  The Electoral College has elected Donald Trump as president of the United States.   Some votes still need to be tallied, but Trump has 304 votes, some 34 more than needed for election.  There was no revolt among electors.

NEWS NOTE:  The Electoral College votes today to formalize the election of Donald Trump.  Electors meet in their state capitols.  Despite all the craziness going on, especially the attempts to influence electors to abandon Trump and vote for someone else, the vote will probably be routine, and the results essentially the same as what we expect. 

LIKE OLD MAN RIVER – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  The "reasons" for the Democratic loss just keep rolling along.  Maybe the Dems should just practice some silence.  From The Hill:   

President Obama is blaming his party's electoral losses this year on Democrats' failure to "show up" and make their argument all around the country.

In an interview with NPR broadcast Monday, the president said the country has a "scrambled political landscape."

"There are some things that we know are a challenge for Democrats — structural problems," he said.

Obama noted that Democratic voters are often clustered in urban areas and on the coasts.

"So as a consequence, you've got a situation where there're not only entire states but also big chunks of states where, if we're not showing up, if we're not in there making an argument, then we're going to lose," he said.

"And we can lose badly, and that's what happened in this election."

Obama said he doesn't think the Democratic Party's problem is its core argument. The values presented by the Democratic Party have strong support, he said, citing the minimum wage.

"There are clearly, though, failures on our part to give people in rural areas or in exurban areas a sense day-to-day that we're fighting for them or connected to them," he said.

COMMENT:  I'm glad he noticed.  Only now are Democrats starting to realize the full extent of their electoral disaster.  It's not just the presidency that's involved.  The party is in its worst political position in almost a hundred years.  The House, the Senate, state legislatures, governorships – all centers of Democratic loss. 

Will the party change?  Will it move back to the center left?  Will it recognize its mistakes?  If the answer to all three questions isn't "yes," the Democratic Party may cease to exist as a national party.  It's partly there already. 

December 19, 2016       Permalink

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK – YOU CANNOT MAKE THIS UP – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Another day, another conference of the oppressed.  This one, partly paid for with your dollars, didn't go well.  From College Fix: 

This year’s University of California Students of Color Conference unproductively devolved into something of an “oppression Olympics” between different minority groups, prompting arguments between participants and ultimately leading to some canceled sessions at the annual event.

UCLA student Jacqueline Alvarez told The College Fix as much in a recent telephone interview, standing behind an op-ed she wrote in the Daily Bruin campus newspaper detailing the same.

She described the conference not only as an “oppression Olympics” but also “a safe space gone wrong” in her opinion article.

Ralph Washington, president of UC Student Association, which organized and hosted the conference, confirmed there were “tensions” at the mid-November gathering, and that its schedule was altered.

“The Students of Color Conference is always a space when tensions get a little high,” he said in a phone interview with The College Fix. “This mirrors that nature of our lived experiences. But this year there was a lot of harm thrown around to the various organizers, and some people came into the conference without understanding what the theme of the conference was. There are constructive things that we can do to prevent this happening in the future.”

“I think that sometimes in conferences schedules are changed to meet a more pressing need. It isn’t a problem when those who are organizing the conference change things around to meet the needs of participants,” Washington said.

Washington declined to provide to The Fix a copy of an apology letter conference organizers issued to participants after the conclusion of the event.

The crux of the debate centered around the conference theme: “Fighting Anti-Blackness.” Apparently it was not communicated to students that the conference would have a particular theme this year. At the event, held at UC Irvine, students of different minority groups began arguing when it became known that the conference would focus almost exclusively on discrimination against the African American community.

In one of the larger workshops, one of the students raised a question about why the only issues being discussed were those involving anti-blackness, prompting an African-American student to respond that black students are the most oppressed, to which a Muslim student made a comment about her people being bombed in the Middle East, according to Alvarez.

COMMENT:  I've got a radical idea:  Why don't some of these students try to understand that the best antidote to "oppression" isn't another movement, or another conference, but being needed?  The words that will set these children free are math, engineering, physics, and chemistry.  Not "marching, meeting, and demonstrating." 

They cannot or will not face reality and maturity, which is at the heart of their problems. 

December 19, 2016       Permalink

MORE TROUBLE IN EUROPE – AT 9:36 A.M. ET:  In another blow to the concept of multinational agencies, a French court has come down hard on a major figure.  From The New York Times:

PARIS — Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was found guilty on Monday of criminal charges linked to the misuse of public funds during her time as France’s finance minister, a verdict that could force her out of her post.

Ms. Lagarde, who began her second five-year term at the I.M.F. in February, will not face any jail time, the judge said. The scandal has overshadowed her work at the fund, to which she was appointed in 2011, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director when he was accused of having sexually assaulted a maid in a New York City hotel.

The move is likely to destabilize the I.M.F. as it faces a host of thorny issues, including questions over its participation in a multibillion-dollar bailout for Greece and uncertainty about the United States’ role in the organization once Donald J. Trump becomes president in January.

The verdict was a surprise, after the prosecutor in the trial said last week that the case against her was “very weak” and did not appear to be enough to win a conviction. It is a theme prosecutors have previously repeated.

COMMENT:  The importance of this verdict is that it's one more example of an international figure acting in a high-handed way.  It is one more argument that will be used by those who argue, both in Europe and America, that government must be brought closer to the people. 

While the IMF is not the European Union, it has a similar symbolic status – an international body not directly accountable to democratic institutions.  In the next few years, France will decide whether to elect those who favor withdrawal from the EU, a step Britain has already taken.  Verdicts like this will indirectly hurt the EU cause.

December 19,  2016    Permalink

DECEMBER 18,  2016

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

HOPE FOR HILLARY – FROM CBS:   MASVINGO, Zimbabwe -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who turns 93 in February, was endorsed on Saturday as the ruling party’s candidate in a national election scheduled for 2018.  The ruling ZANU-PF party announced its support in the southeast town of Masvingo, where the party’s youth wing even proposed that Mugabe should rule for life with broad powers.  Opposition groups have described such adulation as a sign that Mugabe and his loyalists are out of touch with the desperation of a nation that is suffering massive unemployment, cash shortages and company closures.  A perfect example of the cult of personality.  When you see huge posters saying "Hillary 2020, 2024, 2028," you'll know the malady has come here.

TRUDEAU STUMBLES – FROM REUTERS:    OTTAWA, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's approval rating has dropped 10 percentage points in the last three months amid rising dissatisfaction with the economy and concern about pipeline approvals, a public opinion poll released on Friday showed.  Still, Trudeau remained far more popular than his two political opponents and more popular than any recent prime minister, with 55 percent of Canadians expressing confidence in his performance, the Angus Reid poll showed.  That was down 10 points from the 65 percent approval rating Trudeau enjoyed in September, according to the survey, which carried the headline "Is the honeymoon ending?"  "While this level of approval may well be the envy of prime ministers past and future, it also represents the lowest approval he has recorded at any point since his Liberal Party won a majority mandate in last October's election," Angus Reid said in the poll.  Canada tried what we tried – put a kid in office and hope for the best.  But hope is not enough, as Americans have painfully learned.

BLAME EVERYONE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  The Hillary Clinton campaign and its allies, rallying behind the contention that cyberwarfare played a role in swinging the presidential election for Donald Trump, are now taking parting shots at the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the media for failing to treat the Russian hacking threat with sufficient urgency.  Many Clinton confidants place blame for the Electoral College defeat squarely at the feet of FBI Director James B. Comey, arguing that his letter to Congress 11 days before the election reopening the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s private email server turned the tide decisively in favor of Mr. Trump.  But Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said Sunday that the FBI is also culpable for negligence in response to suspected Russian meddling in the democratic process.  Mr. Podesta said the agency did not contact him about the hack into his personal email account until after WikiLeaks began publishing his emails by the thousands on Oct. 7.  People are getting tired of this.  It's like a baseball manager blaming global warming for the loss of the seventh World Series game.  The Clintonistas should blame themselves for falling out of touch with the American people.

December 18,  2016     Permalink

A GREAT THING – AT 12:38 P.M. ET:   Remembering those who have served, during this holiday season.  I hope the ACLU has no objections.  From the Washington Times: 

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Tens of thousands of volunteers will fan out across Arlington National Cemetery to set hundreds of thousands of donated wreaths at the headstones of those laid to rest there.

The Wreaths Across America project has become an annual tradition at Arlington. It began in 1992 when a Maine wreathmaker donated 5,000 surplus wreaths to the cemetery.

Last year, more than 70,000 volunteers helped lay the wreaths, which arrive from Maine via motorcade.

COMMENT:  I hope the sponsors involve college students in this noble effort.  I'm sure many students would love to get away from the stifling political correctness of our mediocre college campuses, and feel like Americans again.

Every American who can should visit Arlington.  It is remarkably inspiring, and reminds us that freedom has a cost, and that all lives matter.

December 18, 2016       Permalink

A DECENT MAN – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:   RealClearPolitics runs an extraordinarily fine piece on the smear campaign being mounted against Senator Jeff Sessions, who is President-elect Trump's choice to be attorney general:

Let’s stipulate upfront that the Senate battle over Jeff Sessions’ nomination for U.S. attorney general is not about Jeff Sessions. Everybody knows this. Everybody also knows the Senate is going to confirm Sessions. No, the opposition to Alabama’s senator is about two things: One, the left’s reflexive opposition to all things Donald Trump. Two, the left’s prep work for the next confirmation battle over Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The fight over Sessions’ confirmation to head the Justice Department is spring training, a preseason tune-up for the regular season, i.e., the confirmation showdown with Senate Democrats over Trump’s pick for the high court.

Everybody knows this, because most everybody in the Senate knows Sessions. He’s been there for 20 years. He hasn’t used – is not using – the Senate as a steppingstone to something greater. He has a record. His colleagues have worked with him. He gets along with most of them, Republican and Democrat. Consider, for example, Sessions’s work on behalf of crime victims. As law professors Paul Cassell and Steven Twist recently pointed out, Sessions worked with California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the late-Sen. Ted Kennedy in this important area.

All of which makes the left’s opposition to this good and decent man ultimately counter-productive for Democrats. The efforts to cast Sessions as some kind of closet KKK admirer who also opposes the nation’s disabled children is just so predictable. Their ritualized “Borking” has lost its sting. The public has become inoculated to it. “In Jeff Sessions’ America …” We’ve been there, done that over these last ugly decades.

COMMENT:  Sessions, a serious man, will make a fine attorney general.  And we hope he de-politicizes a Justice Department that has been a political hotbed during the Obama years.

December 18, 2016       Permalink

SMART MOVE – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus shows how the pros do it in handling the issue of Russian hacking.  From Fox:

Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus suggested Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump will accept that Russia is behind the hacking of Democrats' email accounts during the 2016 White House election if the leaders of the U.S. intelligence community draft a report with that consensus agreement.

“I think he would accept the conclusion if they would get together, put out a report and show the American people they are on the same page,” Priebus said on “Fox News Sunday.”

Trump won the presidential race in an upset victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, whose campaign was hurt by a raft of emails hacked from campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account, then released by WikiLeaks.

The Trump campaign has suggested the effort to tie Russia to the leaks is an attempt to delegitimize his victory.

“There’s no evidence that shows the outcome of the elections was changed by a couple of dozen John Podesta emails,” Priebus, who is still chairman of the Republican National Committee, also said Sunday.

He added that the intelligence community is “almost there” on a consensus finding about Russia’s involvement.

“I think they’ll get there,” he said.

COMMENT:  A reasonable approach, with Priebus wisely adding that there's no evidence the e-mails actually changed the outcome of the election.

If truth be told, foreign nations regularly try to influence our politics and, by extension, our elections.  The Brits had a huge influence program in the U.S. just before World War II, trying to influence American opinion.  There are many foreign lobbies.  We have the Foreign Agents Registration Act to try to keep track of them.

The only difference now is the method – hacking.  Is it wrong?  Sure.  And Russia should be sanctioned over it.  But we now know that President Obama was aware of the hacking long before election day, and did virtually nothing about it. 

I find it amusing that suddenly the Dems are concerned about Russian influence – something new for the modern Democratic Party which applauded the "reset" with Russia put in motion by President Obama and announced, ironically, by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The Electoral College meets tomorrow.  Donald Trump will win.  He'll be president.

On the other hand, Trump's relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin is an entirely appropriate matter for discussion.  I'm concerned about it, and it should be monitored and explored.  But it's an issue separate from the hacking story, and more important.

December 18,  2016     Permalink