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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas last night.  It's here.

MARCH 12,  2018

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

WHAT DID YOU SAY, HILLARY? – FROM NTK:  Hillary Clinton said that white women voted for President Trump during the 2016 presidential election because their husbands told them to, during a discussion at the India Today Conclave on Saturday.  The moderator asked Clinton why she thinks almost 52 percent of white women voted for Trump, despite them knowing about the controversial “Access Hollywood” tape.  “[Democrats] do not do well with white men and we don’t do well with married, white women,” Clinton explained. “And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should.”  How incredibly condescending.  There are reasons she never became president.

NOT EXACTLY AN ACE TRAVEL AGENT – FROM PJ MEDIA:   At South by Southwest, SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk projected that his first Mars spaceship will be ready for short trips by the first half of next year. He did warn, however, that the first travelers to Mars would likely perish.  "For the early people that go to Mars, it will be far more dangerous," Musk told HLN on Monday. "I mean, really, it kind of reads like Shackleton's ad for Antarctica explorers: It's difficult, dangerous, good chance you'll die, excitement for those who survive."   I think I'd prefer to go to Virginia.

THE NEW RELIGION – FROM FOX:   A religious studies major was barred from Christianity class at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for saying during class that there are only two genders.  Lake Ingle, a senior at the university, said he was silenced and punished by IUP Professor Alison Downie for questioning her during a Feb. 28 “Christianity 481: Self, Sin, and Salvation” lecture.  After showing a 15-minute TED Talk by transgender ex-pastor Paula Stone Williams discussing the “reality” of “mansplaining,” “sexism from men,” and “male privilege,” the professor asked the women in the class to share their thoughts. When no women in the class said anything, Ingle spoke up, challenging the professor on biology and the gender wage gap.  The professor clearly needs to work elsewhere.

March 12, 2018       Permalink

ANOTHER "BELIEVE THE CHILDREN" MOMENT – AT 3:40 P.M. ET:  Oh, I'm so tired of this stuff.  Believe the children.  The youth of America is speaking.  Speak truth to power.  We've heard it all, and it must be said that rarely have "student movements" ended well.  Ask yourself how much experience and wisdom you had at 17 or 18.

But now Harvard has gotten into the act, and students from that tragic school in Florida where the recent shooting occurred, will play the part of the useful idiots.  From College Fix:   

Some of the more vocal students from the site of the Parkland, Florida shootings are headed to Harvard University on March 20.

According to The Harvard Crimson, the high school activists will be part of an Institute of Politics panel titled “#NEVERAGAIN: How Parkland Students are Changing the Conversation on Guns,” and will feature students David Hogg, Cameron Kasky and Emma González.

Dustin Chiang, president of the IOP Student Advisory Committee, said in an email “These students have rapidly organized a nationwide movement and are currently at the center of our country’s political discourse. We are eager to hear their insight on how young people can make a difference on issues they believe in.”

Panel moderator Meighan Stone, a senior fellow at the Kennedy School’s Women and Foreign Policy program, compared the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors to Pakistani activist Malala and US Representative John Lewis:

“The Parkland students have refused to be silent victims, instead realizing they need no one’s permission to be a prophetic voice for change and an end to gun violence in America."

COMMENT:  These children, and that's what they are properly called, are being exploited by the political left.  Reducing gun violence is a serious issue requiring experience and study. Being present at a horrible shooting makes you no more an expert on guns than a robbery victim is an expert on property crime.

I guess the Florida kids are being invited to draw press attention.   Get those press clippings!  Great for a professor's resumé.

March 12, 2018       Permalink

THERE'S AN ELECTION IN RUSSSIA? – AT 2:20 P.M. ET:  Yeah, they have this strange kind of election.  And guess who the winner is likely to be?  From AFP:  

Moscow (AFP) - Vladimir Putin will return to the Kremlin with 69 percent of the vote, according to the last survey by state pollsters before the Russian presidential election on Sunday.

The figure has dipped from highs of 77 percent shortly after Putin announced his candidacy in December, but there is little doubt he will win in a landslide even after a lacklustre campaign.

"There are several reasons why Putin has such a high rating. There are of course his personal qualities. He is the most trusted (candidate)," head of state pollster VTsIOM Valeriy Fyodorov told a press conference on Monday.

Around 90 percent of people who were aware of Putin's programme said they supported it, Fyodorov said.

Putin has not produced an official programme but he discussed poverty and environmental issues during a state of the nation address this month.

He has refused to take part in televised debates with his seven challengers and his campaign videos have relied solely on archive materials.

Pavel Grudinin, the millionaire Communist Party candidate, is expected to come in second with around seven or eight percent of the vote, according to VTsIOM figures.

COMMENT:  So Vlad gets 69 percent and the guy coming in second gets 7 or 8 percent.  I'm sure it will be an open and honest election, based on the democratically proven Chicago model.

And then of course there's the issue of whether Trump colluded with Putin to give Putin a great victory.  No, I'm just kidding.

March 12, 2018       Permalink 

TOMORROW – AT 11:32 A.M. ET:  There's a major election tomorrow in Pennsylvania's 18th Congressional District, to replace a disgraced congressman.  Republican Congressman Tim Murphy resigned late last year after admitting, not only to an extra-marital affair, but to having asked his partner to have an abortion, despite his being publicly pro-life.  What a guy!  The candidates running are Republican Rick Saccone, a lackluster candidate who death will not be marked by any noticeable change in his personality, and Conor Lamb, an attractive young Democrat and military veteran, who's been able to hide his decidedly liberal views.  From CNN: 

Former GOP Rep. Tim Murphy, who ran unopposed in both 2016 and 2014, won the district by 28 points in 2012. Republican President Donald Trump won it by about 20 percentage points, when he was losing the national popular vote by 2 points. It's a district that Republican Mitt Romney won by 17 points, when he was losing the national popular vote by 4 points.

In other words, the race shouldn't be close even if the national environment was neutral. Saccone should be winning by double digits.

Yet, the available polls show Lamb and Saccone neck-and-neck. An average of the three surveys, none of which meet CNN's polling standards, taken within three weeks of the election actually have Lamb up by a point. That means this race is a tossup given the true margin of error with 95% confidence for special House election polling averages (in which there is at least two polls part of the average) being about +/- 10 percentage points.

I'm amused by the term "CNN standards."  I wouldn't pay ten cents for those standards.

Now, any single special election can be a false positive (or false negative, depending on your angle). Eight years ago, Democrats won a closely watched special election in southwest Pennsylvania, but Republicans romped in the 2010 midterms. This year, most observers regard Lamb as a strong candidate, while Saccone is seen as a weak fundraiser. Additionally, the district is ancestrally Democratic, as seen through the 6-point Democratic advantage in party registration in the district. Party registration in the past has been crucial in explaining House results, even after controlling for the presidential lean of the district. 

COMMENT:  The district is typical of those that gave Trump his presidential victory.  It is filled with former Democrats, once part of a powerful labor movement, who saw their party betray them, even laugh at them, even call them deplorables. 

But Republicans have made the classic Republic mistake – putting up a weak candidate, and assuming victory.  Lamb, who clearly has inherited the CA gene – convenient amnesia – seems to have forgotten some of the radical stands he's taken in the past.  He is charming, and charm often overcomes all with some voters.

The president has visited to boost Saccone, and so have other major Republicans.  The national party has poured major resources into the race, hoping to avoid embarrassment.  But the fear is that we will have another Alabama, where a safe Republican seat was lost because of an inadequate candidate.

We'll know tomorrow night.  The press will make a very big deal out of a Republican defeat.

March 12,  2018     Permalink

MARCH 11,  2018

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

PUMP PRESSURE – FROM CNBC: If it seems to be costing you more cash to fill up your tank these days, you're right.  "We've gotten accustomed to cheaper gasoline over the past couple years," Robert Sinclair, AAA Northeast Manager of Media Relations told CNBC's On The Money in a recent interview.
According to AAA, the average cost of a gallon of unleaded regular is about 25 cents more than this time last year.  With fewer miles driven, and less demand during the cold winter months, winter gas prices are usually lower. Why the price spike now?  "We're still riding the wave, if you will, as a result of Hurricane Harvey, where gasoline prices jumped up afterwards," Sinclair said.  After that natural disaster, prices never really returned to pre-hurricane rates.  The Dems will use this against Trump, although they're against the internal combustion engine, so maybe they're even.

MORE NONSENSE FROM BRITAIN – FROM THE TIMES OF LONDON:   Waitrose is selling gender-neutral Mother’s Day cards as retailers reduce their use of the M-word to make today’s celebration more “transgender inclusive”.  The supermarket chain is selling a “Happy You Day” card in its Mother’s Day range in which the word “mother” does not appear.  Waitrose said the move was aimed at “broadening out who the cards can go to, whether it’s grandmas or transgender mums”. Traditional cards are still sold.
Waitrose has been joined by other retailers, including Scribbler, whose Mother’s Day offerings include a “Two mums are better than one” card for same-sex couples and a “Dad, thanks for being the most amazing mum” card.  The changes come after calls by some trans activists to rename Mother’s Day.  There's an old saying that if you want respect, give some.  Maybe it's time for some of the groups knocking at the door, asking for acceptance, to show some regard for traditional values and language.  We can co-exist, but we demand respect as well.

THE PRESIDENT VISIT'S THE ENEMY CAMP – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Donald Trump is coming – at last – to the state he loves to hate, setting foot in California for his first time as president.
This is turf he lost to Democrat Hillary Clinton by more than 4 million votes in 2016. He has mocked its judges for blocking his agenda, sued over its lax enforcement of immigration laws and threatened to pull out federal agents.  But there's something he's dying to see here: the prototypes for his long-promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. And there's something he's eager to do here: raise cash from the Beverly Hills crowd.
Trump's arrival Tuesday will come just days after his Justice Department sued to block a trio of state laws designed to protect people living in the U.S. illegally.  The White House is clearly entering campaign mode.  I think we can expect to see Mr. Trump play an enormous role in the upcoming midterms. 

March 11, 2018       Permalink

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU'RE CAUGHT – AT 11:21 P.M. ET:  Elizabeth Warren continues to battle questions about her claims that she's a Native American.  She's not very convincing.   From the New York Post: 

WASHINGTON – Sen. Elizabeth Warren batted down calls for her to take a DNA test to prove her Native American heritage in an interview that aired Sunday.

“I know who I am. And I never used it for anything. Never got any benefit from it anywhere,” Warren said of her ancestry on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The Massachusetts Democrat has been under increased pressure to provide evidence of her Native American roots, with President Trump repeatedly mocking her as “Pocahontas” as recently as Saturday.

An editorial this month in Massachusetts’s Berkshire Eagle urged Warren to buy a DNA test for $99 to resolve the issue once and for all.

“All the senator needs to do is spit into a tube, wait a few weeks and get her answer,” the paper said.

Asked whether she’d take an ancestry test, Warren said she wants to hold onto the folklore of her parents’ love story.

“My mother and daddy were born and raised in Oklahoma,” Warren said. “My daddy first saw my mother when they were both teenagers. He fell in love with this tall, quiet girl who played the piano.

Head over heels. But his family was bitterly opposed to their relationship because she was part Native American. They eventually eloped.”

She said her parents survived the Great Depression and other hardships as they raised her and her three brothers.

“That’s the story that my brothers and I all learned from our mom and our dad, from our grandparents,” Warren said. “It’s a part of me and nobody’s going to take that part of me away.”

But Warren’s story has come under scrutiny for relying on family lore rather than official tribal documentation of Native American heritage.

COMMENT:  She says she's not running for president in 2020.  If that's so, the matter might die, because the voters of Massachusetts don't seem terribly bothered.

But it's been reported – I cannot verify – that Warren did in fact benefit from her claimed heritage, particularly in getting academic appointments.  Being a "minority" apparently helped.

March 11,   2018        Permalink

THE TRUTH COMES OUT – AT 9:10 A.M. ET:  We 're not gun fanatics here.  I've always said that I'd favor gun safety laws that were Constitutional and actually reduced gun violence.  So far I've seen precious few examples.

John Lott is a well-known pro-gun advocate, but, despite his clear positions, he's also a superb researcher, one to be taken seriously.  We're being told by the usual suspects that we should follow Australia's example in buying back certain guns.  Lott has actually looked at this.  From Fox: 

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop recently offered to explain to Americans the best gun control regulations. Over this past weekend a church in Australia got international attention for putting up a sign saying: “When will they love their kids more than their guns?”

Responding, anti-gun politicians from Hillary Clinton to President Obama have pointed to Australia’s gun laws as a model that we should closely examine.

But looking at simple before-and-after averages of gun deaths in Australia regarding the gun buyback is extremely misleading. Firearm homicides and suicides were falling from the mid-1980s onwards, so you could pick out any subsequent year and the average firearm homicide and suicide rates after that year would be down compared to the average before it.

The question is whether the rate of decline changed after the gun buyback law went into effect. But the decline in firearm homicides and suicides actually slowed down after the buyback.

Australia’s buyback resulted in almost 1 million guns being handed in and destroyed, but, after that, private gun ownership once again steadily increased and now exceeds what it was before the buyback.

In fact, since 1997 gun ownership in Australia grew over three times faster than the population (from 2.5 million to 5.8 million guns).

Gun-control advocates should have predicted a sudden drop in firearm homicides and suicides after the buyback, and then an increase as the gun ownership rate increased again. But that clearly didn’t happen.

For other crimes, such as armed robbery, what happened is the exact opposite of what was predicted.

The armed robbery rate soared right after the gun buyback, then gradually declined.

COMMENT:  There's research, and then there's very good research.  Read the whole thing.  You don't have to agree with Lott, but the man does the job.

March 11, 2018       Permalink 

I THINK VLAD FEELS LEFT OUT – AT 8:45 A.M. ET:  The Russians watch as we confront North Korea, China, and Iran.  They want to feel they're important, and they know how to do it.  From 124news.tv: 

Russia said Sunday it successfully launched a hypersonic missile which President Vladimir Putin called "an ideal weapon" as he unveiled a new array of next-generation arms earlier this month.

The high-precision Kinzhal (Dagger) missile was launched from a MiG-31 supersonic interceptor jet that took off from an airfield in the South Military District in Russia's southwest, the defense ministry said.

"The launch went according to plan, the hypersonic missile hit its target," the ministry added.

The ministry released video footage showing two pilots gearing up for a flight and then running towards a jet with a large missile slung beneath its underbelly. 

Set to rousing, patriotic music, the video then shows a missile detaching from the airborne plane and gliding across the dark sky, leaving a fiery trail behind.

COMMENT:  Far from being in collusion with Trump, Russia has been very aggressive toward him, and Trump has responded in kind. 

In 2012, Mitt Romney, now a Senate candidate in Utah, said that Russia was becoming our greatest strategic threat.  He was ridiculed, literally laughed at by Field Marshal of All of America Barack Obama.  Obama was wrong and Mitt was right.  Never trust the Russian bear.

March 11,  2018     Permalink