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DECEMBER 6,  2017

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

MENTAL HEALTH ALERT – FROM DAILY MAIL:   Labelling millennials 'snowflakes' is damaging their mental health, research claims.   The controversial term is now fashionable to use when describing young adults who are seen as taking offence easily and emotionally vulnerable.  Almost three quarters of 16-24 year olds surveyed believe the moniker is unfair and are adamant it could negatively affect their mental health.  The findings, made by insurance firm Aviva, were derived from a survey of 2,022 British participants between those ages.  The thoughts were echoed by adults of all ages, with 58 per cent claiming the label is unfairly applied, the survey showed.  A further 57 per cent felt that the term 'generation snowflake' could also harm the mental health of young people.   I will be very careful not to do damage to these gentle souls.  I will always caress them with the same compliments my mother gave me when I was three years old. 

WILL WE BE IN THE 2018 OLYMPICS? – FROM THE HILL:   United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said Wednesday there’s still an “open question” as to whether the U.S. will send its athletes to South Korea in February for the Winter Olympics, citing escalating tensions with North Korea.  “I think those are conversations we’re going to have to have. But what have we always said?  We don’t ever fear anything. We live our lives,” Haley said on Fox News.   The 2018 Winter Olympics start Feb. 9, 2018, and are being held in PyeongChang, South Korea, which is roughly 50 miles from the demilitarized zone.  Haley said U.S. officials will monitor activity in the region closely, and determine a way to ensure athletes are protected.
“What we will do is we’ll make sure that we’re taking every precaution possible to make sure that they’re safe, and to know everything that’s going on around them,” she said.  I think there's a bit of appropriate posturing here.  She's stressing to the American audience how dangerous the Korean peninsula has become.

FARCE – FROM FOX:  The House of Representatives overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to impeach President Trump after a liberal Texas congressman forced a vote on his effort.  Democratic Rep. Al Green, who has repeatedly called for the president's removal, introduced two articles of impeachment against Trump on Wednesday.  But lawmakers immediately voted to effectively kill his resolution, with 364 voting to table it and 58 Democrats voting to move ahead.  In a dramatic speech on the floor ahead of the vote, Green called Trump “unfit” for office and accused him of "high misdemeanors."  The thought that a nutcase idea like this could collect 58 Democratic votes tells us much about the state of the Democratic Party.  They want to remove a president on general principles. 

December 6,  2017     Permalink

FRANKEN SUNKEN – AT 1:26 P.M. ET:   Suddenly we have a bunch of Democratic senators calling on fellow Dem Al Franken, of Minnesota to resign.  Franken has faced a battery of sexual harassment charges.  From CNBC:

Fourteen Democratic senators and the DNC chief urged Sen. Al Franken to resign Wednesday following the latest sexual misconduct allegation against him.

After the resignation calls, Franken's office said the senator would make an "announcement" on Thursday. It didn't elaborate.

Earlier Wednesday, Politico reported that a former Democratic congressional aide is accusing the Minnesota Democrat of forcibly trying to kiss her 11 years ago,adding to a string of allegations against him.

In a statement before the calls for his resignation started, Franken denied the latest accusation against him.

In a succession of statements Wednesday, 14 of Franken's Senate Democratic colleagues pushed for him to step down. Among them was Patty Murray of Washington, the third-ranking Senate Democrat and the highest-ranking woman.

COMMENT:  I don't defend what he's accused of doing, but there's a mob mentality here that can be very dangerous.

Why now?  Why has Franken, all of a sudden, been asked to resign by fellow Dems?  The answer seems pretty obvious.  Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the longest serving member of the House, a Democrat, and an African American, was forced to resign yesterday over sex accusations.  Some African Americans are charging, with some justice, a double standard for blacks.  A scalp was needed to prove it ain't so, and Franken's was the best available.  Now, that's my take, and I could be wrong.  But I don't think I am. 

I'd much prefer to see a serious investigation into the charges against Franken.  That's the right way to do it.  But the needs of careers and politics are involved. 

We wait for Thursday's announcement by the senator. 

December 6, 2017      Permalink

THIS WAS ALMOST MISSED IN THE US MEDIA – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  FROM LONDON'S DAILY MAIL: 

The security services believe they have stopped an Islamist suicide bomb plot to assassinate the Prime Minister.

Two Muslim men are suspected of conspiring to attack Downing Street armed with an improvised bomb, suicide vest and knives.

Investigators suspect the pair wanted to detonate a bomb disguised as a bag. They would then attempt to kill Theresa May armed with a suicide vest, pepper spray and knife in the aftermath.

Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, and Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday charged with planning terror attacks.

Rahman, 20, from north London, is accused of planning to bomb Downing Street's security gates and then attack the Prime Minister in the ensuing chaos.

The alleged conspiracy was foiled after a joint operation by Scotland Yard, West Midlands Police and MI5. Security chiefs stepped in amid fears the men were preparing to launch an attack, arresting them at gunpoint.

COMMENT:  Hmm.  An alleged attempt to murder the prime minister of Great Britain, and so little attention is paid to it in America.  Do you think that maybe we have our priorities a bit out of whack?  Yeah, I think so.

December 6, 2017       Permalink

TRUMP HOLDING – AT 10:53 A.M. ET:  The party-line press is now pushing the idea that Trump's support in the country is collapsing.  In fact, I see little change over the last few months.  We like to use the Rasmussen poll because it has a good history, and was quite accurate in the last election: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 42% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-six percent (56%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 29% who Strongly Approve of the way the president is performing and 47% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18.

Rasmussen has had Trump in the low forties for months.  It's had him as high as 46%.  And a new poll, just in, ratifies the notion that Trump is doing better than many mainstream journalists are claiming.  From Washington Examiner: 

President Trump's approval rating increased to 45 percent in the first week of December, the highest mark he's received since September, according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Wednesday.

The majority of voters, 51 percent, did not approve of Trump's job in office. But his approval rating in the Dec. 1-3 survey is the highest since a Sept. 29-Oct. 1 poll in which he was also at 45 percent.

He has not been higher than 45 percent since early July. He then dipped in August in the wake of his reaction to violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Three-in-five voters saw Trump as reckless and 54 percent said he is sexist. Another 47 percent of respondents said he is racist, but 39 percent said he is not.

Forty-six percent viewed the billionaire businessman as knowledgeable, and 44 percent disagreed.

COMMENT:  The numbers are hardly all great, but they're far from terrible.  Barack Obama spent a good part of his presidency in the low forties.  I don't recall much talk about his political demise.

And remember that Trump, at the ballot box, always outperforms his polling numbers.   Some people are apparently reluctant to tell pollsters that they're Trump voters.

December 6, 2017       Permalink

Editor's note:   Trust, but verify.  I made a technical mistake this morning, Tuesday, and the December 5th edition did not switch on. As the networks used to say at a time of technical failure, it wasn't your TV.

You have my apologies. I rushed off to an Anglosphere Society meeting on the persecution of Christians in the Mideast, and forgot to verify that the edition had posted properly. As self-punishment, I will now watch two hours of Barack Obama speeches.

The error was caught just before midnight, and corrected.  So I can now truly say that we have posted every day since we went live on January 8, 2008.  We plan to celebrate our tenth anniversary next month.

DECEMBER 5,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE: 

TAKING IT SERIOUSLY – FROM BRITAIN'S TELEGRAPH: Millions of residents of Tokyo are to take part in evacuation drills simulating a North Korean nuclear attack on the Japanese capital.  The national and city governments are to carry out a series of exercises between January and March to prepare for a potential attack on Tokyo, the Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported, the first time that a major Japanese city will have carried out responses to a simulated attack.  Towns facing the Korean Peninsula have in recent months conducted similar drills, with residents instructed to seek shelter in response to sirens warning of an imminent missile strike.  But the Japanese government has until now resisted calls for major cities to carry out similar exercises on the grounds that they would alarm the public.  Shinzo Abe, the prime minister, has also called in local governments throughout the country to identify underground facilities or buildings that are sufficiently sturdy to withstand a missile attack and to designate those facilities as shelters.   Wise planning.  They also know who the enemy is, unlike our Obama administration, which had some difficulty figuring it out.

RUSSIA KICKED – FROM SKY NEWS:  Russia has been banned from taking part in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea due to concerns over doping.  However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that individual "Russian clean athletes" will still be able to take part as neutral competitors at the event in Pyeongchang from 9-25 February next year.  The president of the Russian skating union has described the decision as "offensive and insulting".  Banning an entire country from the Games is an unprecedented move for the IOC.  It comes following a 17-month doping investigation which concluded that there was a "systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia".   The International Olympic Committee is rarely deserving of praise, but it looks like it got this one right.   

ANOTHER GREAT MOMENT IN BROADCASTING – FROM DEADLINE:   CNN’s Christiane Amanpour is stepping in to fill some of Charlie Rose’s late-night time slot on PBS and WNET.  Amanpour will be offered to PBS stations on an interim basis, from 11-11:30 PM. PBS and the flagship NY station are working on plans to fill the 11:30 PM half hour left open when PBS severed tied with Rose. Amanpour on PBS will launch on New York’s PBS station, starting today, Monday, December 4, and will roll out on PBS stations beginning December 11 at 11 PM.  Amanpour will continue to air on CNN International weekdays at 2 PM and 5 PM ET.  Finally, a TV program that will cure my insomnia.  I actually didn't know she was still around.

December 5, 2017       Permalink

DUKE DOES IT AGAIN – AT 7:20 A.M. ET:  Duke University, in recent years, was best known for the "Duke lacrosse case," in which three innocent lacrosse players had their lives almost ruined by a rape charge lodged by an individual of extremely dubious background, and by a corrupt district attorney, working with Duke, and trying to increase his popularity in a local minority community.

You'd think Duke would be careful.  But political correctness requires total obedience.  From The Hill: 

Duke University's DeWitt Wallace Center is rescinding an award given to journalist Charlie Rose after multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Rose received the Futrell Award 17 years ago. The award — endowed by the family of Ashley B. Futrell Sr., the editor and publisher of the Washington Daily News — is given to "recognize an outstanding Duke graduate working in journalism."

"Today, we are taking the unprecedented step of rescinding our award to Charlie Rose," Bill Adair, the director of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy, said in a statement.

"I have consulted with students, faculty and staff and found an overwhelming consensus that we should take this action and emphasize that the DeWitt Wallace Center does not tolerate sexual harassment in any form."

Adair said Rose, who attended Duke, was known for his "thoughtful questions" and "gentlemanly approach."

"But the thoroughly reported Post story, which Rose himself has substantially confirmed with his apology, makes clear that he used his status to prey on women who worked for him," Adair said in the statement.

"The Post story is a reminder about the important role that journalists play in holding people in power accountable — including people in their own industry."

COMMENT:  Don't you just love that virtue signaling?  Why, we're just wonderful educators and we want to take a principled stand.  Excuse me for choking.

I'd like to see some of these "principled" educators take a stand against ideological bias in mainstream journalism and the suppression of free speech by the left on college campuses.

I don't defend Charlie Rose.  The things to which he's admitted are vulgar.  But he has not been tried before a jury, and he, apparently, has not been charged with, certainly not convicted of, sexual assault.  He is said to be an unpleasant man, hard to work for, nothing like his public image.   He is boorish.

But he earned the award based on his work.  Duke doesn't have to destroy the man entirely to make a point. 

Do women deserve security and respect in the workplace?  You bet.  But the whole sequence of events in the last few months is so filled with stagecraft, that it risks a serious backlash. 

December 5, 2017       Permalink

A FAILURE IN CHARLOTTESVILLE – AT 7:14 A.M. ET:  Ever since the Charlottesville clashes several months ago, when neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and their left-wing counterparts romped through the normally peaceful and civilized town, we've wondered exactly what went wrong.  Now, a fine report has been issued raising serious questions about the strategy of the Charlottesville police department.  From USA Today: 

Last summer in Charlottesville, in a clash between neo-Nazis and confederate monument supporters on one side, and “antifa,” or anti-facist, and Black Lives Matter supporters on the other, numerous people were hurt, and one person, Heather Heyer, was killed when a white nationalist supporter drove his car into a crowd. Now an independent report has come out, suggesting that much of the blame for the clashes, injuries and death lies with poor police work by the Charlottesville Police Department, the Virginia State Police and the University of Virginia Police.

The report, authored by former U.S. attorney Timothy Heaphy for the Charlottesville City Council, found, as reported by USA Today:

Charlottesville police didn’t ensure separation between counter-protesters and so called alt-right protesters upset with the city council’s decision to remove the Robert E. Lee statue from Emancipation Park.

Officers weren’t stationed along routes to the park, but instead remained behind barricades in relatively empty zones.

City police didn’t adequately coordinate with Virginia State Police, and authorities were unable to communicate via radio.

State police didn’t share a formal planning document with city police, “a crucial failure.”

Officers were inadequately equipped to respond to the clashes between the two groups, and tactical gear was not accessible to officers.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  This is an excellent after-action report, the kind that can bring positive change to police departments everywhere.  The only people responsible for violence are the people who commit it, but police departments play a crucial role in preventing violence in the first place.

Charlottesville, where our older daughter lived for decades, is a wonderful town, and should not be judged by the events of one day, which were initiated by outsiders.

December 5, 2017       Permalink

QUESTIONS ABOUT THE FBI AND HILLARY CLINTON – AT 7:08 A.M. ET:  The "no prosecution for Hillary" issue returns, and it could grow.  From the New York Post: 

The former top FBI expert who is in the middle of a political uproar for apparently mocking President Trump in email messages changed a key phrase in the former bureau director’s description of how Hillary Clinton handled classified information, CNN reported Monday.

Records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Clinton’s private email server as the second ranking official in the counterintelligence division, changed ex-director James Comey’s draft language describing Clinton’s behavior as “grossly negligent” to the less serious “extremely careless,” a source told the network.

The shift from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless” was key because the federal law that covers how classified material should be handled calls for criminal penalties for “gross negligence.”

Writing the memo was a team effort with numerous officials weighing in and suggesting changes, sources said.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) questioned the change last month, but the name of the agent who made the change was not known until now.

The agent was taken off the Russia probe after the emails referencing Trump came to the attention of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is heading the probe.

COMMENT:   This issue could grow substantially.  Plenty of people have gone to prison for what Hillary Clinton did with classified material, but she instead became a presidential candidate. 

The ball is in Senator Grassley's court.  I hope he runs with it.

December 5,  2017     Permalink