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MARCH 10,  2017

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

PERFECTLY ROUTINE – FROM THE HILL:   Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked dozens of U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Obama to submit their resignations, the Department of Justice announced Friday.  U.S. attorneys are normally replaced at the beginning of new administrations. Of the 93 U.S. attorneys, 46 remain from the past administration, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).  Sessions asked for the federal prosecutors to resign "in order to ensure a uniform transition," DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said in a statement.  “As was the case in prior transitions, many of the United States Attorneys nominated by the previous administration already have left the Department of Justice," the spokeswoman said.  Outrageously, leading elements of the anti-Obama press, like CNN, are trying to portray this as a scandal.  But, as the story notes, it's perfectly routine. 

THIS TELLS THE STORY – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:   In a recent interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean suggested that pro-life Americans are unwelcome in the party because the younger voters that Democrats need to energize are concerned with “social justice,” Townhall.com reported Tuesday.  During a March 2 segment of the program, MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough held out former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear — who gave the official Democratic response to President Trump’s address to Congress — as a model centrist Democrat whom Republicans used to have trouble defeating in much of the country...“Can the Democratic Party ever have a big enough tent to have people who were progressive on economic issues and conservative on social issues in their party again?” he asked Mr. Dean.  “No. Because the young generation isn’t that way,” Mr. Dean, a former Vermont governor replied. “I think the old left/right is an anachronism. It exists in Washington. It exists in the media. Young people don’t think that way.  “They are not ideological,” Mr. Dean added. “They are extremely interested in social justice, so we are never going back to maybe making compromises on abortion.”  Huh?  Pro-life Americans aren't interested in social justice?  What an insult.  What a great way to attract voters to a political party.   May they lose forever.

SUCH GENIUSES – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:   The Barnard College Board of Trustees voted to divest stock holdings in fossil fuel companies that “deny climate change,” but has yet to actually define “climate deniers.”  The move comes after years of activism by the student group Divest Barnard, which initially campaigned for Barnard to divest entirely from fossil fuel investments, according to The Columbia Spectator.  Yet the college will not be divesting from fossil fuels in the traditional sense.  Instead, it will take an approach that no other college has taken before, divesting from companies that “deny climate science or otherwise seek to thwart efforts to mitigate the impact of climate change.”  I'm sure American industry is quaking.  I'm also sure that members of the Board of Trustees will now be invited to even better cocktail parties on Manhattan's West Side.

March 10, 2017       Permalink

A DEPRESSING AND DANGEROUS TREND – AT 10:51 A.M. ET:  There are no doubt many hate crimes that take place.  They are ugly, and must be prosecuted.

But there have also been a disturbing number of false reports of hate crimes.  These are reckless and dangerous.  They cheapen the "hate" issue, they use up valuable police resources, and they can easily result, especially on college campuses, in the destruction of an innocent person.  From Heat street: 

A second University of Michigan student has admitted to fabricating a hate crime, committed in the wake of Donald Trump’s election.

Halley Bass pled guilty, Monday, to filing a false police report, alleging that an unknown attacker had approached her in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, and scratched her face because she had a “solidarity pin” on her lapel—a safety pin worn as sign that she was a welcoming figure to those who felt marginalized by Trump’s victory.

Bass told the judge that she was “suffering from depression at the time” and had scratched her own face with her safety pin after a Women’s Literature class.

“I was suffering from depression at the time,” Bass told the judge. “I made a superficial scratch on my face. It was visible and I was embarrassed about what I’d done. So I made up a story and told a friend that a stranger had done it while I was walking. I was encouraged to report it to the police. I made the mistake of doing that.”

Bass reportedly told officers that the attack was in connection to a “surge” in hate crimes on the University of Michigan campus following Trump’s election. She described her attacker as a middle-aged white male in a black baseball cap and hoodie. She indicated to police that she was certain she was targeted for her overt display of solidarity with anti-Trump activists.

And...

Heat Street reported on the surge in hate crimes as they were happening at the University of Michigan. This is now the second “hate crime,” however, to turn out to be a hoax. A Muslim student came forward several weeks ago to say that she’d also lied to police when she claimed a man approached her and tried to pull off her hijab shortly after Donald Trump was elected.

COMMENT:  I'd imagine this is the tip of the proverbial iceberg.   So-called "social justice warriors" get a certain amount of credit in the movement for being victims of actual hate crimes.  Become a victim, go right to the top.  Someday we may even have our "first victim president."

Overburdened police may not find the subject so amusing.

March 10, 2017       Permalink

THE GHOST SHIPS – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:   There is a new terror threat reported from Britain – the "ghost ships."  From The Times of London:

Hundreds of ships are sailing into European waters after suspicious manoeuvres near terrorist hotspots, prompting fears that they are smuggling people and weapons with impunity.

An investigation by The Times has uncovered how cargo ships and other large vessels routinely switch off GPS tracking so they can disappear, falsify their identification or veer off their usual course.

Figures compiled by Windward, a maritime data and analytics company, revealed that in January and February 40 ships entered Europe from Libya, close to where Islamic State is operating, after “going dark” by ceasing transmission of their location. Twenty vessels travelled through Syrian or Lebanese waters and made dubious stops for up to six hours before reaching the Continent.

COMMENT:   Ships are particularly dangerous.  They can linger in areas, where aircraft can't.  They are large, and can be used, not simply to transport weapons and explosives, but as launching platforms for missiles.  One of the great fears expressed early in our war on terror was that a ship could approach an American coast, under the control of a hostile crew, and launch a missile into one of our cities.  The entire route of the missile might be only 20 miles.

Or, a ship could act as a bomb itself, carrying massive amounts of explosives in crates marked "bananas," with those explosives set off by a suicide crew inside an American port. 

The ships in the story quoted above are turning off their GPS equipment.  Friends don't do that. 

This is chilling.

March 10, 2017       Permalink 

TRUMP'S FIRST MONTH SHOWS ECONOMIC GAINS – AT 8:44 A.M. ET:  The Obamans will take the credit, but the fact is that employers have had months since the election to assess their economic future, and they see that future, under Trump, as good.  From Bloomberg: 

U.S. employers added jobs at an above-average pace for a second month on outsized gains in construction and manufacturing, showing the labor market continued its steady growth in the new year.

The 235,000 increase in jobs followed a 238,000 rise in January that was more than previously estimated, the best back-to-back rise since July, a Labor Department report showed Friday in Washington. The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, and wages grew 2.8 percent from February 2016.

While unseasonably warm weather may have boosted the payrolls count, the data represent President Donald Trump’s first full month in office and coincide with a surge in economic optimism following his election victory. The figures also validate recent comments by Federal Reserve officials that flagged a likely interest-rate increase this month.

“The economy is riding a wave of optimism in the wake of the election,” Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist of jobs website Glassdoor, said before the report was released.

Construction jobs, which can fluctuate depending on the weather, rose by 58,000, the most since March 2007, and followed a 40,000 increase in January. Manufacturing payrolls gained 28,000, a three-year high. Meanwhile, retail positions fell by 26,000, the most since December 2012.

COMMENT:  We've noticed a shift toward gains in the manufacturing and construction sectors, where high-paying jobs are common.  The retail sector, lower-paying, is shrinking.  The shift is welcome.  The key to rebuilding this economy is not simply the number of jobs added, but their quality. 

March 10,  2017     Permalink

MARCH 9,  2017

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

INNOVATION IN CHICAGO – FROM FOX:   On the south side of Chicago, in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods, brazen criminals occasionally hit the gangster’s jackpot: they loot freight containers carrying shiny, new guns.  The guns – boxes and boxes of them – are part of shipments that are destined for gun companies or gun shops across the country. But as gangsters have caught on to the practice, they are ransacking these trains and stealing weapons that eventually make their way to the city’s blood-soaked streets.  "Any time you have individuals who can go in and steal guns from a train, that makes the environment very toxic," said Pastor Cory Brooks, who leads a church around the corner from the freight yard.   Remember, it's Trump's fault.  Or maybe it's Bush. 

INCREDIBLE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:    Stung by recent election defeats, Democrats are leading the charge to lower the voting age to 17, with a little help from liberal billionaire George Soros.  In California, Democratic legislators introduced this week a landmark bill, ACA 10, that would give the Golden State the nation’s youngest statewide voting age by lowering the threshold from 18 to 17 in the name of reversing the slide in voter turnout.  “Young people are our future,” said Democratic Assembly member Evan Low, the measure’s sponsor. “Lowering the voting age will help give them a voice in the democratic process and instill a lifelong habit of voting.”  The proposal comes as the most ambitious of a host of efforts to chip away at the 18-year-old voting age as Democrats seek to bring into the fold younger voters, who traditionally support more liberal causes and candidates than do their elders.  Why not lower the voting age to five, which represents the intellectual level of the Democratic Party?

ARE WE ALONE?  OR NOT? – FROM SPACE.COM:  Bizarre flashes of cosmic light may actually be generated by advanced alien civilizations, as a way to accelerate interstellar spacecraft to tremendous speeds, a new study suggests.  Astronomers have catalogued just 20 or so of these brief, superbright flashes, which are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), since the first one was detected in 2007. FRBs seem to be coming from galaxies billions of light-years away, but what's causing them remains a mystery.  "Fast radio bursts are exceedingly bright given their short duration and origin at great distances, and we haven't identified a possible natural source with any confidence," study co-author Avi Loeb, a theorist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement Thursday (March 9). "An artificial origin is worth contemplating and checking."  These advanced alien civilizations just don't know how to communicate.  They should join Facebook and friend us.

March 9, 2017       Permalink

FIGHTING BACK – AT 10:33 A.M. ET:  The CIA took a tremendous hit this week, with the release of classified sources and methods by Wikileaks.   You'd think there'd be a greater sense of outrage and urgency.  We have a strange indifference.

And yet, Washington is fighting back.  I want to see the betrayers caught and prosecuted.  From Fox:   

Less than 24 hours after WikiLeaks published what it described as the “entire hacking capacity of the CIA,” a federal criminal probe by a specialized FBI unit has begun, Fox News confirmed.

But while tracking down moles is nothing new for the FBI or the CIA, experts are suggesting that this search could prove to be particularly difficult.

The 2010 leak perpetrated by Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, inspired President Obama to create a group dedicated solely to tracking down & catching government leakers. Manning was caught after revealing the extent of her actions to an American hacker, who later testified against her. A short time later, Obama would announce the creation of the National Insider Threat Task Force.

The NITTF was formed "to prevent, deter and detect compromises of classified information by malicious insiders," according to its website. Despite the group’s singular focus on this issue, the NITTF was pointing out in a foreboding Tweet earlier this week that "all of the firewalls in the world won’t stop an insider who is already on the inside of these firewalls."

The formation of the group also did little to stop NSA leaker Edward Snowden from giving WikiLeaks a trove of documents on government surveillance back in 2013. In Snowden's case, he actually unmasked himself as the leaker, and has been on the run ever since.

COMMENT:  The pursuit must be intense, and scare the daylights out of anyone who would do this again.  If caught and found guilty, the betrayers should be given life sentences.  Or two life sentences.

March 9, 2017       Permalink

THE TRUMP EFFECT – AT 9:51 A.M. ET:   Illegal immigration has plunged since Trump took office.  From the Washington Times: 

Illegal immigration across the southwest border plummeted in the weeks after President Trump took office, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly announced Wednesday, calling the drop an early sign that Mr. Trump’s get-tough policies are working.

In addition to a drop in the number of illegal immigrants nabbed while attempting to cross, Mr. Kelly said, they have seen a dramatic spike in the rates charged by smugglers paid to sneak people into the U.S.

Routes that cost $3,500 in November now cost $8,000, he said — another signal that smuggling cartels’ business is suffering.

Mr. Kelly called the drop in apprehensions unprecedented. The number of people caught at the border is considered a good indication of the overall flow, so a drop in apprehensions is believed to signal a drop in total number of illegal crossings.

“This trend is encouraging because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north,” Mr. Kelly said.

All told, 23,589 people were caught trying to enter without permission at the border in February. That was the lowest number for the month in years and a 40 percent drop from the 42,504 caught in January.

COMMENT:  The psychological impact of a president can be as important as his policies.  Obama flashed weakness and appeasement.  Trump, despite many faults, flashes strength and determination.  Apparently,

March 9, 2017       Permalink

A SHARP WARNING ON NORTH KOREA – AT 9:29 A.M. ET:  North Korea could soon be in a position to strike Hawaii.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

North Korea could soon have the capacity to launch an attack on Hawaii that would devastate America's Pacific military bases, accelerating the need for the United States to upgrade missile defenses in the area.

The United States today relies on ground-based ballistic missile interceptors deployed in California and Alaska to protect Hawaii, but these defenses would do little to guard U.S. territory in the Pacific against a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which officials believe is nearing completion.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency in February test fired a new SM-3 Block IIA missile from Hawaii that successfully intercepted an incoming ballistic missile, but the Pentagon does not maintain a permanent missile defense installation or detection capabilities on the Hawaiian Islands.

The Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii hosts an experimental, land-based ballistic missile defense system called Aegis Ashore. The facility served as a prototype for the U.S. missile defense facility in Romania, which was declared operational last year, and another in Poland that will be completed in 2018.

Ariel Cohen, director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources, and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday that the Defense Department needs to immediately upgrade the Aegis Ashore facility in Hawaii from experimental to operational to guard against North Korean aggression.

"Senior national security leaders have stated that the U.S. needs to work off the assumption that North Korea will have ICBM capabilities soon, and in this business ‘soon' could mean five to 10 years, or earlier," Cohen said.

COMMENT:  Ah, for the good old days, when our greatest worry was that Japanese warships would come 'round Diamond Head.  We guessed wrong on that one, and it must not happen again. 

March 9,  2017     Permalink