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DECEMBER 26,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:09 P.M. ET: 

OUR TERMINALLY OBNOXIOUS PRESIDENT – FROM FOX:   President Obama suggested in an exit interview with his former top adviser that, had he been able to run, he could have won a third term in the White House.  Describing his confidence in an America that is “tolerant” and “full of energy,” Obama said: “I am confident in this vision because I'm confident that … if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could've mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it.”  President-elect Donald Trump fired back Monday in a tweet: "He should say that but I say NO WAY!" He cited the rise of the Islamic State terror group and trouble with Obama administration agenda items including ObamaCare.  There is no end to Obama's ego.  He makes Trump look modest.  I'm sure Hillary Clinton will appreciate Obama's comments, contrasting his political prowess with hers.  I wonder if they'll ever talk again.

PREACH IT, DONALD, PREACH IT! – FROM AP:  WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Days after the United Nations voted to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, Donald Trump questioned its effectiveness Monday, saying it's just a club for people to "have a good time."  The president-elect wrote on Twitter that the U.N. has "such great potential," but it has become "just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time. So sad!"  On Friday, Trump warned, "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th," referring to the day he takes office.  The decision by the Obama administration to abstain from Friday's U.N. vote brushed aside Trump's demands that the U.S. exercise its veto and provided a climax to years of icy relations with Israel's leadership.  Of course, the usual suspects are coming to the UN's defense, with arguments about as logical as the claim that Mussolini made the trains run on time.  On the big issues, the UN is as much a failure as the League of Nations.  If we drastically cut our "contributions," a good signal would be sent.

AMERICANS TURN OPTIMISTIC ABOUT 2017 – FROM AP:   A look at the key findings of the Associated Press-Times Square Alliance poll:  Americans weren't thrilled with 2016. Only 18 percent said things for the country got better, 33 percent said things got worse, and 47 percent said it was unchanged from 2015.  On a personal level, they were optimistic about 2017.  Fifty-five percent said they believe things will be better for them in the coming year than in the year that just concluded. That's a 12-point improvement from last year's poll.  Americans interviewed about the poll's results expressed some of that optimism."Next year will be better than this year, because people will have more jobs and they'll have more money to spend," said Bourema Tamboura, a Harlem resident behind the wheel of a New York car service.  "I'm hoping 2017 will be better," added Elizabeth Flynn, 62, an elementary schoolteacher from Peabody, Massachusetts. "You've got to be optimistic, and I'm going to try."  Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say 2016 was worse for the country than 2015. And Republicans are especially likely to feel that 2017 will be even better for them personally.  University of Miami professor Benjamin Alsup said he needed only three words to explain why 2016 felt worse for him: "Trump, Trump, Trump!"   Trump's election is driving a new optimism.  I hope it's justified, and that the media doesn't disparage any progress that Trump brings.

December 26,  2016     Permalink

YUMMY – THIS IS SOMETHING WE ANTICIPATE WITH GLEE – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:   President-elect Trump has vast opportunities to reshape the federal judicial system.  He should pounce.  From the Daily Mail: 

Donald Trump will be able to fill more than 100 vacancies in the federal courts when he takes office next month.

Trump will walk into the White House as there are a total of 103 empty seats on courts, in addition to the lingering Supreme Court vacancy after the death of Antonin Scalia.

The triple-digit figure is staggeringly almost double the number President Barack Obama had to fill - 54- when he replaced George W. Bush in the Oval Office.

Conservative leaders are already hoping Trump will pick people to further push their ideals on a number of key issues - such as gun control, women's health and rights, immigration, and voter restriction, the Washington Post reports.

'I'm optimistic he'll come at this right out of the gate,' Judicial Crisis Network chief counsel Carrie Severino said.

'Every president can expect to make a huge impact. [Trump] is unique in having campaigned really hard on this issue — the significance of the courts, and of the Supreme Court in particular.'
Severino's group has been staunchly against many of President Obama's court appointments.

COMMENT:  I winced a bit at some of the language used in the article just quoted.  The Daily Mail is British, but has been excellent in much of its American reporting.  However, some of its copy retains the taint of the British left.  Terms like "voter restriction" are inflammatory and inaccurate.  The usual anti-Americans in the foreign press will double down on Trump, having given the "third-world" Obama something of a pass.  They are, like the elites generally, about 50 years out of date, give or take a generation.

December 26,  2016     Permalink

OBAMA'S LAST STAND – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:   He will try to do as much damage as he possibly can in his final weeks.  From Fox: 

A flurry of big decisions out of the Obama administration just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office has rekindled Republican concerns about President Obama’s plans for jamming through so-called “midnight regulations” and other leftover items from his wish-list on his way out the door.

In the last week alone, the Obama administration blocked future oil and gas leases in swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans; granted a record number of pardons and commutations for a single day; and scrapped a dormant registry for male immigrants from a list of largely Muslim countries.

Defense officials told Fox News there is an effort underway to transfer up to 22 additional detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. And Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations stunned Israel on Friday by abstaining on a Security Council measure condemning settlement activity, allowing it to pass.

And Obama still has a month left in office. The most recent announcements were made while the first family was on vacation in Hawaii – leaving unclear what Obama has in store for when he gets back to Washington.

Hanging over any final actions is the likelihood that Trump, once in office, will roll back many of them. “The things he’s done this week will be turned around,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said of Obama on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s in this desperate frenzy.”

But Democrats are urging the outgoing president to pursue further actions, as the administration weighs its next steps.

COMMENT:  Obama has shown little regard for Democratic process or the will of the American people.  He does through executive action what should really be done through Congress.  He will be applauded as he leaves office by the leftovers from a past world.  A nothingburger.  A historical asterisk.

December 26, 2016       Permalink

ANOTHER WEEKEND IN CHICAGO – AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  And not just another weekend, but Christmas weekend.  And the weekend after the announcement that President Obama will make his farewell speech in Chicago, his hometown (for a while).  From The New York Times:

At least 27 people were shot, seven fatally, in a 48-hour period in Chicago over Christmas weekend, according to the Chicago Police Department. It was the latest bloody chapter in a city besieged by gun violence.

Killings and shootings, already an all-too-common hazard in the city, have skyrocketed since last year, when the numbers were already high. The rise in violence is fueled in part by gangs, whose disagreements range from neighborhood turf wars to disputes over girlfriends. The conflicts often escalate quickly to gunfire.

This weekend, one of the victims was an 18-year-old Hispanic man who was shot multiple times in the neck and back while he was driving in the Gage Park neighborhood, on the city’s southwest side, at 1:30 a.m. Christmas Day.

His death would become another entry in a police log of murder investigations, many with no suspects in custody.

Officer Jose Estrada, a spokesman with the Chicago Police Department, said in a telephone interview Sunday that the total number of homicides this year was 745, a 56 percent increase from 476 at the same time last year. This year was the first time in nearly two decades that more than 700 homicides had been recorded in the city, the Chicago Tribune reported this month.

Estrada said the total number of shooting victims stood at 4,252, up 47 percent from 2,884 at the same time in 2015. Data of the shootings over Christmas weekend logged by the Chicago Tribune reflected a relentless crime blotter: Nearly all the people shot were men, the majority younger than 30.

COMMENT:  Of course, it's all the fault of the gun manufacturers.  Or oppression.  Or Israeli settlements.  Or something.

I wonder if Obama will have the courage to mention the near-collapse of his hometown on his watch.  Maybe he'll even stick his neck out and ask why New York was able to put such a huge dent in its crime problem, and Chicago hasn't.  Does the name Rudy Giuliani strike you? 

December 26,  2016     Permalink

DECEMBER 25,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 7:31 P.M. ET: 

CHRISTMAS IN IRAQ – FROM REUTERS:   This is the third Christmas that Staff Sergeant Magdiel Asencio is spending in Iraq. For Sergeant First Class Noel Alvarado, it is number four. And so it is with many U.S. troops stationed less than a hour's drive from the front line with Islamic State.  Few thought they would be back nearly 14 years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein... They can thank the diplomatic genius and military competence of Barack Obama for their plight.  He got out of Iraq in the worst possible way, to satisfy the hard left of his party, leaving a vacuum that insurgents filled.  Think about our troops today, and what they do for us.  And think about the incompetence that put them there.

HOW DISGRACEFUL – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Last minute holiday shoppers have been filmed brawling with each other in New Jersey, Alabama and Georgia shopping malls ahead of Christmas.
A fight broke out at Jersey City's Newport Center Mall on Friday night when two people started punching each other in the middle of a huge crowd.  As onlookers gathered around while several people hit each other, a separate fight broke out off to the side.  Multiple security guards tried to intervene and were punched in the process.   Video shot by a witness captured the ordeal, which happened right near where a line of children were waiting to meet the mall's Santa.  It is unclear exactly how many people were involved in the fight.  We should note that the overwhelming majority of Americans don't behave this way and respect the spirit of the holiday.  Those who don't will declare themselves as victims.

MOST ABSURD CHRISTMAS STORY – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Kim Jong-un is the Grinch who stole Christmas.  North Korea’s tubby tyrant wants the few Christians in the hermit state to spread cheer only to celebrate his grandma, Kim Jong-suk – not the birth of Jesus.  Jong-suk — who was born on Christmas Eve in 1919 — was an anti-Japanese guerrilla and Communist activist, wife of North Korea’s first dictator, Kim Il-sung, and former leader Kim Jong-il’s mother.  Many pay homage to the “Sacred Mother of the Revolution,” who died under mysterious circumstances in 1949, by visiting her tomb.  The daffy dictator is so obsessed with banning Christmas that he even flipped out in 2014 when he found out that South Korea planned to erect a huge Christmas tree along the border. Amid threats of all-out war, the tree was never put up.  Despite his hatred for Christmas trees, they can be found in the capital of Pyongyang — especially in upscale shops and restaurants – but are largely stripped of religious symbols.  This nutbag has nuclear weapons, thanks largely to appeasement by the West.  He hates us, and he hates Christmas.

December 25, 2016       Permalink

THE PRESIDENT-ELECT – AT 12:56 P.M. ET:  From the Palm Beach Post:   

President-elect Donald Trump attended a Christmas Eve church service at a historic church just a short drive from his Palm Beach estate Saturday night.

Trump and his wife Melania and an entourage of Secret Service agents and Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies made the trip from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club to attend the 10:30 p.m. service at the Episcopal Church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea, which sits about 400 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. They received a standing ovation from the congregation when they arrived.

COMMENT:  I'm delighted by the ovation, a change from the usual rudeness that greets the Trump family.

December 25, 2016       Permalink

GOOD FOR HER – AT 12:32 P.M. ET:   Sometimes passion and hard work win.  From the Conservative Tribune: 

When atheists managed to get a Nativity scene banned from the lawn of the Baxter County Courthouse in Arkansas, they probably thought they had struck a blow for secularity.

Instead, one year later, the area now has 61 Nativity scenes on lawns instead of just one. And it’s all thanks to 81-year-old Sue Chrisco.

According to USA Today, Judge Timothy L. Brooks ruled in November of 2015 that the Nativity scene violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. A suit against the display had been filed by the American Humanist Association and resident Dessa Blackthorn, who had been denied permission to put a sign saying “Happy Winter Solstice” on the lawn of the courthouse. (What, no Flying Spaghetti Monster? I’m disappointed.)

COMMENT:  These disputes often arise from misunderstandings of the Constitution.  The First Amendment does not bar Nativity scenes or other religious displays from public property as long as no preference is shown for a particular religion.  The First Amendment bars establishment of religion, not religion. 

The First Amendment reads:  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

December 25, 2016       Permalink

TOP STORIES OF THE YEAR – AT 11:56 A.M. ET:  From the AP:

The turbulent U.S. election, featuring Donald Trump's unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, was the overwhelming pick for the top news story of 2016, according to The Associated Press' annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors.

The No. 2 story also was a dramatic upset — Britons' vote to leave the European Union. Most of the other stories among the Top 10 reflected a year marked by political upheaval, terror attacks and racial divisions.

Last year, developments related to the Islamic State group were voted as the top story — the far-flung attacks claimed by the group, and the intensifying global effort to crush it.

The first AP top-stories poll was conducted in 1936, when editors chose the abdication of Britain's King Edward VIII.

COMMENT:  The top ten stories were:  1)  The U.S. election, 2) Brexit, 3) Black men killed by police, 4) Pulse nightclub massacre, 5) Worldwide terror attacks, 6) Attacks on police, 7) Democratic Party email leaks, 8) Syria, 9) Supreme Court, 10) Hillary Clinton's emails. 

Hmm.  No global warming?  I wonder why not.

December 25,  2016     Permalink