Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

Our Angel's Corner archive is here.

JUNE 2,  2016

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

ANOTHER TRIBUTE TO EXCELLENCE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:    A Texas high school forbids overachieving students from wearing National Honor Society stoles at graduation because officials fear it might alienate other kids.  The principal at Plano Senior High School in Plano confirmed on Tuesday for a local ABC affiliate that NHS insignia is prohibited at its June 9 ceremony. The prestigious distinction is allowed at other schools in the area.  Students who qualify to wear the special stole have a GPA of 3.6 or higher and were heavily involved with community service projects.  “I’m not just an honor student — I’m an NHS student. I worked hard,” senior Garrett Frederick told the station. “I put in the hours.”  Mr. Frederick, who plans to attend the University of South Carolina, completed 20 hours of community service every semester.   Good lesson in life, Garrett:  Achievement is often resented, not admired.  There'll be other moments like this. 

FLYING DISCOUNTS – FROM BUSINESS INSIDER:   Walmart is getting into the drone game.  Walmart's VP of Emerging Sciences Shekar Natarajan demoed the retailer's new technology to reporters from a Bentonville, Arkansas, distribution center on Thursday, on the eve of its annual shareholders meeting.  The drone technology will be replacing the jobs of inventory quality assurance employees, cutting inventory checks across massive distribution centers (the one in Bentonville is 1.2 million square feet) from one month down to a single day.  Wonderful advance.  But Walmart will be judged, appropriately, by how it treats those employees whose jobs are being made obsolete.  Retraining, I hope. 

AND IT BEGINS – FROM THE WASHINGTON POST:   Cyclist Tejay van Garderen has removed his name from from consideration for the U.S. team that will compete in the Rio Olympics, becoming what is believed to be the first U.S. athlete to back out because of concerns about the Zika virus.  Van Garderen, who was likely to make the team, is concerned that, if he contracted Zika, he could pass it along to his pregnant wife, who is due to give birth in October.  “If Jessica were not pregnant right now, assuming I was selected, I would go,” he told Cyclingtips. “But the fact is, she is pregnant. If we were just going to start trying, I’d say we could start trying six months after the Olympics. But when she has a baby in her belly, I don’t want to take any chances.”  A good man.  He puts his wife and baby first. 

June 2, 2016       Permalink

GETTING MORE AND MORE SERIOUS – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:  As each day goes by, Hillary Clinton's legal problems seem to mount.  A State Department inspector-general report on her use of a private server while secretary of state was damning.  Now comes this story, which make the reader wonder what is being hidden.   From the New York Post:   

WASHINGTON — Former State Department employee Bryan Pagliano, who set up Hillary Clinton’s infamous home email server, will refuse to answer questions in an ongoing civil lawsuit and doesn’t want to be videotaped invoking his Fifth Amendment rights, according to court documents obtained by The Post.

“Mr. Pagliano will invoke his right under the Fifth Amendment . . . at the deposition noticed for June, 6, 2016,” Pagliano’s legal motion says.

The deposition was scheduled as part of a suit against the State Department by Judicial Watch, a conservative group seeking access to Clinton’s emails.

COMMENT:  And the FBI probe into Clinton should soon wrap up.  The whole image is damaging, a kind of drip, drip, drip, that may explode at any moment.  It has to be hurting Clinton in the polls. 

And there are clearly growing doubts within the Democratic Party that Clinton can win in November.  Yet, the party powers hardly want a Vermont socialist to get the nomination.  Once again we're starting to hear the name Biden, the man to be brought in by the Obama forces if Clinton is forced out by her troubles.

Nothing would surprise me.  Not this year.  But I think we'd better take a hard look at the presidential nominating systems of both parties, because they're simply not producing first-class candidates.  The smoke-filled rooms did better.

June 2, 2016       Permalink

I'M SO SHOCKED AT THIS; WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT..? – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  You mean, the genius Obama's opening to Cuba hasn't produced instant democracy in that island nation?  My pills!  Get me my pills!  From the Miami Herald:   

A leading Cuban dissident Wednesday described his homeland as in foment, with political repression on the rise, opposition to the Castro government growing and a fledgling movement toward capitalist outposts in the communist country that has left people puzzled.

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session in Washington, José Daniel Ferrer García, who was imprisoned from 2003 to 2011, said he supported the opening with Cuba that President Barack Obama initiated in December 2014. But he acknowledged that other dissident leaders are against it and said the opposition movement was generally split.

He also decried the continued flow of people from Cuba, which saw some 38,000 arrive in the United States last year, more than twice as many as in 2013. He urged his fellow Cubans to stay home.

“People feel that either you obey (the government) or you leave the country,” Ferrer said. “Our message is that there is a third option: You can enjoy freedom here if you fight for it.”

Ferrer’s news conference in Washington was part of a rare tour of the United States following the re-establishment of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic ties last year. His visit took him last week to South Florida, where he saw his mother and brother in Palm Beach for the first time since they left Cuba five years ago. While there, he met with the editorial board of the Miami Herald. A sister left Cuba more recently and lives in Austin, Texas.

After his Washington briefing, Ferrer flew to New York, where he met with Samantha Powers, the U.S. representative to the United Nations. He also was scheduled to meet with editors and reporters at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

COMMENT:  I think we could gotten so much more for the people of Cuba in our negotiations to begin ties with the Castro regime.   We threw the people of Cuba under the bus just so Obama could get his photo op while visiting Havana recently.  It's the legacy, you know.

He did the same last week when visiting Vietnam.  No mention of human rights.  Obama is truly a man of the left.  No liberal he.

June 2, 2016        Permalink

WHEN YOU LOSE AN ACLU EXEC... – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  This is quite a remarkable story, about a high-ranking official of the ACLU, who saw the light when her own children were at risk.  From Powerline: 

Maya Dillard Smith, interim director of the Georgia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, has resigned over the ACLU’s position on who can use which public restrooms. The resignation occurred after her two daughters were traumatized by encountering men in the women’s restroom. Dillard Smith explained:

I have shared my personal experience of having taken my elementary school age daughters into a women’s restroom when shortly after three transgender young adults, over six feet [tall] with deep voices, entered. My children were visibly frightened, concerned about their safety and left asking lots of questions for which I, like many parents, was ill-prepared to answer.

Dillard Smith complained that the ACLU has become “a special interest organization that promotes not all, but certain progressive rights” and that the “hierarchy of rights” the ACLU chooses to defend or ignore is “based on who is funding the organization’s lobbying activities.” Further expressing her disillusionment, Dillard Smith stated:

I understood it to be the ACLU’s goal to delicately balance competing rights to ensure that any infringements are narrowly tailored, that they do not create a hierarchy of rights, and that we are mindful of unintended consequences. I believe there are solutions that can provide accommodations for transgender people and balance the need to ensure women and girls are safe from those who might have malicious intent.

COMMENT:  Well, that ends her career in the "civil liberties" industry.  She's already under attack.  She's highly educated, and a heroine.  Do not expect to see her interviewed by the mainstream media.

June 2,  2016     Permalink

JUNE 1,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:49 P.M. ET: 

BERNIE MAY TAKE CALIFORNIA – FROM BREITBART:  A new poll has confirmed that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has caught Hillary Clinton in the California primary, reaching a statistical dead heat with less than a week to go before the June 7 primary.  The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, released Wednesday, shows Clinton with 49% support from likely Democratic voters and Sanders with 47% — well within the poll’s margin of error of 4.2%.  The poll was conducted May 29-31 among 557 likely Democratic primary voters. Significantly, Clinton is ahead, 58% to 41%, among those who have voted already. The state began sending mail-in ballots to most voters in early May; roughly two-thirds of voters are expected to cast their ballots early. That means Sanders’s late surge may not be enough to outweigh Clinton’s support among early voters.  I suspect this is much more an anti-Clinton vote than a pro-Bernie one.  Bernie is getting increasingly obnoxious, and sounds like a hack.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  North Korea’s state media published an op-ed slamming Hillary Clinton and praising Donald Trump on Tuesday, roughly two weeks after the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said he’d be open to direct talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to try to halt the communist nation’s nuclear program.  The commentary describing Mr. Trump as “wise” and Mrs. Clinton as “dull” came amid a flurry of other developments Tuesday that saw a top North Korea official arrive for a visit to China just as Pyongyang carried out yet another failed ballistic missile launch — its fourth such unsuccessful test in two months.  This is a crushing disappointment to the Bernie Sanders base in the Democratic Party, which dearly wanted the Kim Jong-un vote.  As for Trump, someone should whisper in his ear that mature political adults disavow this kind of praise from a thug regime.

OUR DISGRACE – FROM FOX:   An Afghan who served alongside U.S. Marines, then sought refuge in Germany after being denied safe haven in America, told FoxNews.com he fears being sent back to his homeland where the resurgent Taliban has vowed to kill him.  Sami Kazikhani served U.S. troops as a translator during the war in Afghanistan, but was outed as a “collaborator” in a dramatic incident after most American troops pulled out of the region. FoxNews.com wrote in November of the incident that sent the 32-year-old, his wife and kids fleeing for their lives and riding the human wave of refugees to Germany.  Kazikhani, wife Yasmiin and infant daughter Roxanna have been living in camps for more than a year, fearful of being outed once again by fellow refugees, and steadily losing hope that their application for a U.S. visa will be approved. Now they have been told Afghanistan is "stable," and thousands of refugees from the war-torn country will soon be sent back.   What kind of a country are we, to turn our backs on this man and his family?  But there have been too many cases like this.  And Republicans are as much to blame as Democrats.

June 1,  2016     Permalink

MAJOR PSYCHIATRIC THREAT – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:   There is serious psychological danger to students at Johns Hopkins University.  Read all about it.  The oppressor is near.  From the College Fix: 

Letting employers and graduate schools know your grades is an attack on “marginalized” students.

That’s the claim by “two dozen student groups” who are up in arms over Johns Hopkins University’s plan to stop hiding freshmen first-semester grades from their transcripts starting with 2017’s entering class, The Baltimore Sun reports.

A handful of other colleges have similar policies, but according to the JHU committee that recommended the end of the 45-year-old “covered grades” policy – transcripts say either “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” – it’s harmful to students:

Hopkins administrators say covered grades might give students a chance to goof off, put off learning good study skills, or cram difficult courses into their first semester.

“The students who we attract to Hopkins are highly accomplished and academically strong, but we do recognize that they need support in transitioning to the Hopkins environment,” said Kevin Shollenberger, the vice provost for student affairs. “We feel that the best way to help them transition is to give them the study skills that help them do well here.

“We’re concerned that the covered grades may delay them in seeking that type of help.”

Student groups say that if the world knows their grades for their first semester at Hopkins, they’ll be “stressed out” and have even worse mental-health problems.

And, of course, it’s racist:

“A lot of kids come here from private schools,” said Chase Alston, a rising senior from Waldorf studying public health. “They’re better equipped to handle coming to school.

“Students from marginalized populations, they may need more time to figure out what resources work for them and what study habits work for them.”

COMMENT:  I assume that counselors will be made available to handle the trauma.  While handling said trauma, maybe the counselors could introduce these damaged souls to the immigrant experience – where kids from homes where English wasn't even spoken were thrown in with privileged kids from independent boarding schools, and often beat the pants off them. 

What a mess our colleges have become.  What of the future of this country?

June 1, 2016       Permalink

THE HORROR OF CHICAGO – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  The president's home town has become a living hell for many of its residents.  From Daily Beast:   

There have been more than 1,400 shootings and nearly 300 homicides in Chicago in 2016 already, and there is little hope the shooters will ever be caught.

CHICAGO — Abe Simmons sat down on a bus bench at the corner of Chicago and Leclaire late Saturday, watching as police worked one of dozens of shooting scenes that played out across the city over the holiday weekend.

Chicago’s ghost shooters—charged in only 26 percent of the city’s homicides last year—wreaked havoc on summer’s unofficial kickoff weekend, a three day period that saw at least 36 shot and four killed by Sunday morning, according to the Chicago Tribune. There have been more than 1,400 shootings and nearly 300 homicides in 2016 so far.

“I’m tired of this. I’m tired of this city, man,” Simmons, 36, said. “It’s messed up, man.”

The country wants to know why. Media descends on holiday weekends to track the violence and attempt to put it in perspective. But for many in Chicago, the mayhem is simply a part of life.

“This is every day in Englewood,” said Terrell, who declined to give his last name, at the scene of a homicide on the city’s southwest side Friday night just down the street from his new home.

The father of two young girls came to West 75th place—a quiet block of stout brick bungalows in a neighborhood where many police officers live—from Englewood, one of the city’s most violent areas. He moved in Friday and was watching a body being pulled from a car Friday night.

“This makes me think twice,” he said.

COMMENT:  There has to be a will to win in order to overcome crime.  That will existed in New York when Rudy Giuliani was mayor, and declared that murder had to stop.  He and his successor, Mike Bloomberg, working through a vastly improved and modernized New York Police Department, lowered the murder rate by 80%.   And one of Rudy's best characteristics was that he refused to bow down to "community leaders."

In Chicago, the top politicians do plenty of bowing down.  Local hacks have little incentive to lower crime rates, especially if it means greater incarceration of their "constituents."  Indeed, it can be argued that many minority leaders actually benefit from high crime rates.  The sheer spectre of violence gives them a kind of power.  They become the "go to" guys for cooling things off, and the go-to guys always want their cut of the "social program" funds. 

It's a business.  Political commerce...in human lives.

June 1, 2016       Permalink

TERROR ALERT – AT 8:06 A.M. ET:  This appears to be serious.  It's one of several terror alerts surrounding the same event.  From AFP: 

The United States warned its citizens Tuesday that this summer’s Euro 2016 soccer tournament and related events across France and Europe will present “potential targets for terrorists.

The month-long European Championship finals start in Paris on June 10, drawing the best international teams from the continent and hundreds of thousands of fans.

“Euro Cup stadiums, fan zones, and unaffiliated entertainment venues broadcasting the tournaments in France and across Europe represent potential targets for terrorists,” the State Department said.

The warning was contained in an update to its long-standing warning to US travelers to beware extremist attacks on transport and public gatherings in Europe.

“We are alerting US citizens to the risk of potential terrorist attacks throughout Europe, targeting major events, tourist sites, restaurants, commercial centers and transportation,” it said.

“The large number of tourists visiting Europe in the summer months will present greater targets for terrorists planning attacks in public locations, especially at large events.”

The French government has ruled out cancelling the prestigious tournament, which is expected to draw two million fans to cities across the country.

To strengthen security at Euro 2016, France has extended a state of emergency put in place after attacks last November on a concert hall, cafes, police and a football crowd.

COMMENT:  I'm often struck by the fact that France, which has some of the best relationships with Muslim nations, remains a major target of Islamic terror.  Maybe it's because the Islamists have such easy access to France.  But it demonstrates that a nation's "policies" may not be the cause of terror against it. 

June 1,  2016     Permalink