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FEBRUARY 5,  2017

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

COMEBACK – Super Bowl 51 was the most exciting football game I've ever seen.  It was also the first Super Bowl to go into overtime.  The Patriots' spectacular come-from-behind victory is already being compared, in many spots on the internet, to Donald Trump's election victory.  Who could have predicted it?  The lesson, of course, is the one recited often by the late poet, Yogi Berra, who said, "It ain't over 'til it's over."  At the same time, the Atlanta Falcons must have been crushed by disappointment, having been ahead by so much during most of the game.  They behaved with great dignity and class, and should be a role model for the Democratic Party, which never heard of dignity and class. 

SAD – FROM CBS LOCAL:   SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Some East Bay conservatives say they live a secret life. They can never tell anyone what they really feel like in fear of their safety.  Robert Ward is coming out conservative, but in a place he says is risky for those who share his beliefs.  “If you witness what happened in Berkeley, actually they are so violent on top of it. I mean being a conservative in the Bay Area is like being a heretic,” says Ward. “You lead a double life. You can never tell your friends and co-workers.”  Robert says several Bay Area conservatives have secret meet ups like the one KPIX 5 was invited to visit in the East Bay.  There are more and more stories like this.  There's a conservative group in Hollywood that refuses to keep membership lists for fear they'll be stolen and used for retaliation.  This is happening in the land of the free and the home of the brave.  Where are the "civil liberties" organizations?

AN ADULT – FROM THE HILL:   Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is praising President Trump's "strong start," citing his early push to fulfill various campaign pledges.  "We're all watching with interest. He’s obviously gotten off to a very strong start in terms of making a series of executive orders and making the changes that he promised during the campaign," Romney told the Deseret News on Friday.  The 2012 GOP presidential nominee acknowledged that Trump has faced "some bumps in the road."  Trump has issued a series of executive orders, but has faced huge backlash over his Jan. 27 order denying entry to nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries.  Trump attacked Romney viciously, and Romney returned the fire, during the 2016 campaign.  Romney's comments show that he's a big man, a grown-up, who can look ahead rather than behind.  He would have made a fine president.

February 5,  2017     Permalink

SUPER DAY – AT 1:55 P.M. ET:  I love the Super Bowl.  It's so quintessentially American.   I doubt Meryl Streep will watch it, which is one reason I will. 

Naturally, the game is now embroiled in politics, with some commentators actually criticizing New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft and star quarterback Tom Brady because they know Donald Trump.  It's come to that.  I wonder if they'll be any political incidents during the game or the halftime show.  I hope not.

By the way, Bob Kraft, in a Fox interview, described his relationship with the president.  From Fox: 

In anticipation of his team's appearance in the Super Bowl, New England Patriots owner joined "Fox & Friends" Friday to discuss his 20-year friendship with President Donald Trump.

"He's been great to me over those last two decades," said Kraft, whose team is set to make its eighth Super Bowl appearance Sunday.

Kraft's wife, Myra, died from ovarian cancer in July 2011. He said Trump was there for support when he needed it most.

"In the toughest time in my life, he was there for me when my beloved wife died five and half years ago. He came to the funeral with Melania. He visited me at my home memorial. He called me once a week for a year," Kraft said.

Kraft said Trump will play an integral role in creating a vibrant economy to create jobs in the country.

"I think his intent is to do things that can help the business environment in America," Kraft said.

COMMENT:  It's good to hear something good said about the president, amidst all the viciousness.  He sounds like a standup guy to me.

February 5, 2017       Permalink

WILL THE DEMS LOSE THIS ONE? – AT 12:31 P.M. ET:  Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia must now be called a DINO – a Democrat in Name Only.  He represents a state that once was a Democratic stronghold and is now tilting very strongly Republican.  He was governor of that state.

Manchin is up for re-election in 2018, and clearly knows he's at risk if he runs on the Democratic ticket.  So he is distancing himself, more and more.  From Daily Caller:

Imagine the intensifying pressure on West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the Senate’s most approachable Democrat for Republicans.

In the increasingly toxic, partisan Washington, D.C., Manchin walks a treacherous path down the middle of the road. He says, “I’m a West Virginia Democrat, not a Washington Democrat.” He looks for solutions, but says “this toxic atmosphere is not for me. It’s not who I am,” he told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

He describes President Donald Trump voters in West Virginia “like returning Vietnam veterans who did everything their country asked and then got kicked in the teeth.” He says his state has done the heavy lifting for America – mining, manufacturing to be the superpower of the world — but the Obama energy and environment policies crushed West Virginia’s spirit.

When his state elected Trump, they rejected “a traditional Democrat and a traditional Republican,” he said. Critiquing the dominant policies in his own party, Manchin says, it’s almost gotten to the point that “the Democrats are preventing the working class from working.” He thinks Trump is committed to getting things done, and in a “troubled world and a divided country,” Manchin is ready to help.

COMMENT:  Sounds like a man who might switch parties.  I hope he does.  He is not wanted among the Democrats.  Being a white, straight man, he is definitely not wanted.

There are other Democratic senators from very red states who are also up in 2018.  They are all potential defectors. 

February 5, 2017       Permalink

AND WHY NOT? – AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  President Trump has made an outstanding nomination to the United States Supreme Court, and apparently the public agrees.  From CNN:

Washington (CNN) Americans' first impressions of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch tilt positive, and a plurality say the Senate ought to vote to confirm President Donald Trump's selection to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.

Overall, 49% say the Senate should vote to confirm Gorsuch, who is a federal judge. That's roughly the same share that said so about Samuel Alito in 2005 and Sonia Sotomayor in 2009 shortly after their nominations were announced. Support for Gorsuch is just a hair below that of former President Barack Obama's selection for the same seat, Merrick Garland (52% supported a vote in favor), who did not receive a hearing or confirmation vote in the Senate.

About half say Gorsuch's ideological position is about right (49%), less than said so about Garland (56%). About a third, 34%, say they think Gorsuch will be too conservative, higher than the share who said so of other successful GOP nominees Alito (29%), John Roberts (24%) or Clarence Thomas (20%).

Overall, though, 39% say they have a positive first impression of Gorsuch, significantly higher than the 24% who say they have a negative impression of him. More, 45%, said they had a positive first impression of Garland after his pick was announced last year and 54% felt positively about Roberts after his announcement.

COMMENT:  I'm confident Gorsuch will eventually be confirmed, but there will be a bloody fight.  The Democratic Party is increasingly controlled by its militant left wing, and it will try to destroy any Democrat who refuses the path of massive resistance.

February 5,  2017     Permalink 

FEBRUARY 4,  2017

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

HOW THE GIPPER DID IT – FROM MEDIAITE:  The University of California, Berkeley was the site of a major protest this week, though this is hardly the first time the school witnessed a political demonstration. More than 40 years before students protested a speech from Milo Yiannopoulos, they challenged Ronald Reagan while he was the governor of California.  In 1969, UC Berkeley students protested over city plans for the use of a small community park (People’s Park) near the college. Reagan ordered the California Highway Patrol and Berkeley Police to the school, and he instructed them to use “whatever methods they choose” to crack down on the situation.  Watch the clip of Reagan taking on the press and the professors.  A steppingstone to the presidency.

NUT CASE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:   A former Defense Department official under the Obama administration has raised the specter of a military coup to remove President Donald Trump from power.  In an editorial penned for Foreign Policy, senior Pentagon policy official Rosa Brooks publicly suggested a military insurrection against the Trump administration may be the only option to oust one of the most divisive presidents in American history.  “Donald Trump’s first week as president has made it all too clear: Yes, he is as crazy as everyone feared,” Ms. Brooks wrote. “[One] possibility is one that until recently I would have said was unthinkable in the United States of America: a military coup, or at least a refusal by military leaders to obey certain orders.”  For the first time in her career in public service, including three years as senior counselor to the Pentagon’s policy chief from 2009 to 2011, “I can imagine plausible scenarios in which senior military officials might simply tell the president: ‘No, sir. We’re not doing that.’”
Ms. Brooks‘ editorial comes as a recent poll by Public Policy Polling group found that 40 percent of registered voters support Mr. Trump’s impeachment.  Rosa Brooks was one of the most left-wing officials in the Obama administration.  She is the daughter of hard-left writer Barbara Ehrenreich.  Her comments about the military are particularly uninformed, as the military is never required to follow an illegal order.  Indeed, the military is prohibited from following such an order.  A military coup, though, would clearly be an illegal act. 

MORE IRAN MISSILE TESTS? – FROM BLOOMBERG:   Iran carried out further missile tests during an annual military exercise, a day after President Donald Trump imposed fresh sanctions on a raft of individuals and companies in response to the country test-firing a ballistic rocket last week.  The country successfully tested a range of land-to-land missiles and radar systems during the drills in a 35,000 square-kilometer stretch of desert in the northern Iranian province of Semnan, the semi-official Tasnim agency reported Saturday, citing Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ aerospace division.  The issue is whether the missiles are of a type to concern us, and whether they violate the relevant UN resolution.  We'll know more in a few days.

February 4, 2017       Permalink

OBAMA JUSTICE – AT 12:48 P.M. ET:   This  was bound to happen eventually.  I guess the Obama vetting process wasn't exactly first class.  From the San Antonio Express-News: 

A San Antonio man who was freed from life in prison by President Barack Obama is back behind bars after allegedly crashing his vehicle into another motorist and undercover police cars while fleeing from a drug deal Thursday.

Robert M. Gill, 68, whose life sentence for cocaine and heroin distribution conspiracy was commuted by Obama and expired in 2015, was profiled last year in the Express-News about his readjustment to life on the outside.

Jailed from the time of his arrest in 1990, Gill earned a legal education inside prison libraries and successfully petitioned the then-president for a second chance after his court appeals were exhausted.
He was taken to federal court Friday, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad ordered him held without bond pending a bail hearing on Feb. 16. Gill is charged with possession with intent to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine.

He again faces a potential sentence with a mandatory minimum, five years, and could get up to 40.
Gill was one of about 1,700 federal inmates whose sentences Obama commuted as part of a broader campaign to give relief to nonviolent offenders serving long prison terms that dated to a frenzied period in the nation’s war on drugs.

COMMENT:  We shouldn't assume that all commutation cases, or even most, end this way, but we should assume that vetting, like the vetting of immigrants, must be done carefully and thoroughly.

February 4, 2017       Permalink

THE ISIS TRUTH – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  Readers know that at Urgent Agenda we call 'em as we see 'em.  No party line.  No automatic political stands.  We have been very critical of my old newspaper, The New York Times, and for good reason.  But The Times today is running one of the best pieces of journalism, and one of the most important, that I've seen in a long time.  It gives the lie to the term "lone wolf," as applied to terror attacks:

HYDERABAD, India — When the Islamic State identified a promising young recruit willing to carry out an attack in one of India’s major tech hubs, the group made sure to arrange everything down to the bullets he needed to kill victims.

For 17 months, terrorist operatives guided the recruit, a young engineer named Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani, through every step of what they planned to be the Islamic State’s first strike on Indian soil.

They vetted each new member of the cell as Mr. Yazdani recruited helpers. They taught him how to pledge allegiance to the terrorist group and securely send the statement.

And from Syria, investigators believe, the group’s virtual plotters organized for the delivery of weapons as well as the precursor chemicals used to make explosives, directing the Indian men to hidden pickup spots.

Until just moments before the arrest of the Indian cell, here last June, the Islamic State’s cyberplanners kept in near-constant touch with the men, according to the interrogation records of three of the eight suspects obtained by The New York Times.

As officials around the world have faced a confusing barrage of attacks dedicated to the Islamic State, cases like Mr. Yazdani’s offer troubling examples of what counterterrorism experts are calling enabled or remote-controlled attacks: violence conceived and guided by operatives in areas controlled by the Islamic State whose only connection to the would-be attacker is the internet.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  Absolutely required.  The "lone wolf" stuff is nonsense.

February 4, 2017       Permalink

THE PRESIDENT AND THE JUDGE – AT 11:20 A..M. ET:  A federal judge has put a freeze on President Trump's immigration order, and the president is striking back.  From Breitbart: 

The White House issued a statement vowing to file for an emergency stay of a federal judge’s order to block President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting immigration and refugees from high risk countries from the Middle East.

“At the earliest possible time, the Department of Justice intends to file an emergency stay of this order and defend the executive order of the President, which we believe is lawful and appropriate,” read a statement from Sean Spicer to reporters.

The statement explained that Trump’s order was issued under his constitutional authority to protect the American people.

U.S. District Court Judge James Robart took the unusual step of issuing a emergency stay of Trump’s order as the attorneys general of Washington and Minnesota filed a lawsuit to overturn the legislation.

The plaintiffs argue that Trump’s order violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law, including what they say is discrimination against a particular religion.

But Trump defied the order, sending a message on Twitter on Saturday.

“The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!” he wrote.

COMMENT:  I, too, hope the administration appeals the order.  At the same time, I wish someone would cancel the president's Twitter account.  I admire the vigor of his views, but his language diminishes him.  James Robart is not a "so-called' judge.  He's a judge.  Maybe he's the worst judge in the world, but he's a judge, and demeaning him with an insult makes the president look petty. 

This may well reach the Supreme Court.

February 4,  2017     Permalink