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MAY 26,  2016

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

WAPO SLAMS CLINTON – FROM THE HILL:   The Washington Post editorial board Wednesday evening condemned Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of State, calling her actions an “inexcusable, willful disregard for the rules.”  The State Department inspector general released a new report Wednesday stating that Clinton broke several of the agency’s record-keeping policies, prompting the Post’s editorial board to call on the FBI to quickly finish its own investigation into the matter.  “While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules. In the middle of the presidential campaign, we urge the FBI to finish its own investigation soon, so all information about this troubling episode will be before the voters,” the editorial read.  Not a good idea for a Democrat to get on the wrong side of an iconic liberal newspaper.  I personally can't wait for the FBI probe to wrap up.  That's the real story here.

THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE... – FROM THE HILL:    An off-the-cuff remark from Donald Trump to a late-night talk show host might snowball into the blockbuster event of the 2016 presidential primary cycle.  Trump, the de facto Republican presidential nominee, and Bernie Sanders, the second-place Democratic hopeful, are flirting with the idea of staging a shocking spectacle in a historically unpredictable presidential race: a cross-party primary debate between two outsider candidates who have shaken up the political establishment.  Both candidates say they’re interested in a debate that Trump has predicted would draw huge ratings.  “This would be a complete circus,” said Democratic media strategist Brad Bannon. “To me, it shows more than anything else that American politics has become entertainment.”  Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), a supporter of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, said in an interview with Julie Mason on Sirius XM that she would tune in.   “I think it’d be fun to watch,” she said.  Trump says his campaign has already been contacted by several networks eager to get in on the action.  I'm guessing this actually won't come off.  But once again Trump has stirred the pot.  You gotta give him credit.

A VICTORY FOR MADNESS – FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:   A Yale professor and his wife who became targets of protests for an email about potentially offensive Halloween costumes are resigning their positions as heads of a residential community at the university.  The professor, Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician, announced on his Twitter feed Wednesday that he was stepping down as head of Silliman College, a residence where he and his wife served as social and intellectual mentors to students.  Dr. Christakis, who directs Yale’s Human Nature Lab, said they were not severing all their ties to the university. He will stay on as a tenured professor. His wife, Erika Christakis, who recently published a book about preschool, will continue her work in that field, he said, though he did not specify in what capacity.  Absolutely sickening.  Two good and gracious scholars brought down by a brunch of pampered college brats who are "offended" by almost everything.  Many of the "cream of the crop" Yale students aren't very creamy after all.  Just babies who can't stand to hear an idea that they don't agree with.

May 26,  2014     Permalink

MAJOR REAL ESTATE NEWS – AT 11:57 A.M. ET:  President Obama has chosen a post-presidency residence.  Looks like he's stepping up from the lowly White House.  From The New York Times: 

WASHINGTON — President Obama and his family plan to move to a mansion in the upscale Kalorama neighborhood of Washington, a mere two miles from the White House, when he leaves office in January, according to people familiar with his plans.

Mr. Obama, who has said his family will remain in the capital until his daughter Sasha completes high school in 2018, will rent the 8,200-square-foot, nine-bedroom home, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal his plans.

The house — valued around $6 million, according to several real estate websites, with an estimated monthly rent of $22,000 on Zillow — is owned by Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary and senior adviser to Bill Clinton. Mr. Lockhart was until this year the managing director of a communications and political consulting practice he founded, the Glover Park Group, but has moved to Manhattan to become executive vice president for communications for the National Football League.

Mr. Lockhart and his wife, Giovanna Gray Lockhart, an editor at Glamour magazine, would not comment on the matter, referring queries to the White House. Jennifer Friedman, the deputy White House press secretary, also declined to comment on the president’s plans, first reported on Wednesday by Politico.

The move will put the Obamas in one of Washington’s wealthiest ZIP codes, in a secluded precinct backing up to Rock Creek Park that is home to diplomats and a focal point of the capital’s cocktail-party circuit. The home itself is luxurious; photographs posted by Washington Fine Properties, which listed it when it sold in 2014, show spacious rooms with hardwood floors, white marble countertops, his-and-her master bathrooms and a terrace with formal gardens.

COMMENT:  Just a man of the people, a community organizer.  I understand that he wants his daughter to complete high school where she is, but I do think it's inappropriate for a former president to live in Washington, in effect competing for attention with the incumbent.   The Obamas could have arranged a residence for Sasha and lived out of town, even in a real place with real people. 

Oh, more Obama inappropriateness:  Today he attacked Donald Trump viciously while on a trip to Japan.  There is an American tradition that holds that politics stops at the water's edge.  Of course, Obama doesn't believe in American traditions, or American principles for that matter.  And who am I to question his cultural sensitivities?  Why, maybe, among the better people, it's considered perfectly okay for a president to attack a presidential candidate while in another country.

May 26, 2016        Permalink

HILLARY'S FIGHT – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:  Numerically, Hillary Clinton is a lock for the Democratic nomination right now.  That's right now.  She's running into serious trouble, though, and yesterday's State Department report acknowledging that she mishandled her e-mail account while secretary of state will not help her.

She's running for president in a party that has veered sharply to the left under Barack Obama.  Now, only 12 days before the largest primary, in California, her opponent has almost caught up to her in that state.  From The New York Times:   

LOS ANGELES — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are locked in a tight race in California, the nation’s most populous state and one that until recently seemed strongly in Mrs. Clinton’s corner, a new statewide poll has found.

The poll, released Wednesday night by the Public Policy Institute of California, showed Mrs. Clinton leading Mr. Sanders among likely voters, 46 percent to 44 percent — within the margin of error. A survey by the organization in March found Mrs. Clinton with a lead of 48 percent to 41 percent over Mr. Sanders.

The survey came as both Mr. Sanders and Mrs. Clinton have stepped up their campaign appearances here in anticipation of the June 7 primary. Mr. Sanders, after initially saying he would not advertise on television here — California is one of the most expensive states for television advertising, given its size and the number of media markets — took to the airwaves this week.

And Mrs. Clinton has quickly responded, with ads set to begin running on Friday in the Los Angeles, Fresno and Sacramento markets: one narrated by the actor Morgan Freeman, another highlighting Mrs. Clinton’s endorsement by the civil rights activist Dolores Huerta. The Clinton campaign will also run Spanish-language ads aimed at Latino voters, and translated commercials in Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Korean.

For Mrs. Clinton in particular, the ad buy is a significant reversal: Her campaign had halted its advertising after her decisive victories in the mid-Atlantic states on April 26, aside from a brief return to television in Kentucky.

COMMENT:  From what I see, the Sanders vote is less about Sanders than about an indifferent attitude toward Hillary.  She's seen by many as old news, a tired warhorse from the 1990s.  In a party now anchored to the left, her reportedly hawkish views on some aspects of foreign policy are a turnoff.  This is not the Democratic Party of Roosevelt, Truman or Kennedy.  Indeed, Jack Kennedy couldn't get anywhere near a presidential nomination in today's Democratic Party.

Hillary's nomination is more or less guaranteed by Democratic convention superdelegates.  Should they turn on her, however, her game is over.  I'm guessing they won't.  But if they do, it's reported that major figures in the party are prepared to push Joe Biden as a replacement, not the socialist from Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders.  If that happens, a Biden-Sanders battle at the convention will require medical teams and psychiatric assistance.  It will also be great television.

May 26, 2016       Permalink

FLUSHGATE – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  The gender/restroom issue is building.  It seems that more than more Americans are dismayed that the federal government, without consulting the people, can make a change in social behavior that repeals thousands of years of tradition and wisdom.  Now some state attorneys-general are taking action.  From CNN:

Washington (CNN) Officials in 11 states, including Texas, will sue the White House over its new transgender directive in schools, once again pitting the Lone Star State against an administration they have relished fighting.

Three individual school districts have also joined the federal lawsuit, according to the lawsuit , which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas and obtained by CNN. Joining Texas are Alabama, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Utah and Georgia. Two school districts in Arizona, one school district in Texas and Maine Gov. Paul LePage are also listed as plaintiffs.

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, would challenge the controversial order, which tells school district to allow transgender students to use the restroom of their choice. No other details were immediately available Wednesday about the number of states joining in on the suit. Abbott announced the litigation in a tweet.

Abbott, a former state attorney general himself, has made his lawsuits against the Obama administration a touchstone of his political profile. The state is currently awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the Obama administration's executive actions on immigration.

COMMENT:  We'll cheer them on.  No matter what side you take in the gender wars, I hope you'll agree that sensitive issues like this should be vetted in public and decided by legislatures.  I wonder how women who enter public restrooms would say if given a secret ballot. 

May 26,  2016     Permalink

MAY 25,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET:

THE MEDIOCRITY FLOWS – FROM THE WEEK:   Students at Oberlin College are asking the school to put academics on the back burner so they can better turn their attention to activism. More than 1,300 students at the Midwestern liberal arts college have now signed a petition asking that the college get rid of any grade below a C for the semester, and some students are requesting alternatives to the standard written midterm examination, such as a conversation with a professor in lieu of an essay.  The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. "A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting," Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin's student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. "But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn't sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically."  To keep driving 40 minutes away?  You mean they drive cars?  Run on fossil fuels?  The disgraceful hypocrites.  The climate monsters.  And who's buying those cars?  Probably those obsolete, pre-progressive creatures called moms and dads.  I think this is a bad dream.

TIME TO RETIRE, NANCE – FROM CNS:   House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said at her press briefing on Wednesday that she is “proud” of President Barack Obama who “will again show the power of his moral courage when he visits Hiroshima” on Friday.  The United States military dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945 and another on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.  I have no idea what she means, since Obama has never shown much courage, moral or otherwise.  If she means that Obama will apologize for the use of an awful weapon that ended the most ghastly war in history, then she'd better be prepared for a backlash.  The bomb allowed hundreds of thousands of American boys to survive the war, and millions of Japanese to survive as well. 

A GOOD STEP FORWARD – FROM GIZMODO:   If you live in British Columbia, don’t try to sneak out a quick text while driving just because you don’t see any cops on the road. The RCMP, Canada’s version of the FBI, have started using DLSR cameras attached to massive scopes to spot distracted drivers from as far as three-quarters-of-a-mile away.  We all instinctively know to hide our phones while driving when we see a police car, but that doesn’t make using them any less illegal. (And it’s incredibly dangerous too, by the way.) To catch drivers in the act, traffic services in British Columbia have been using spotting scopes—which feature a distinctive bend to make them more comfortable to use—for years now. Now the police are adding a 24.2-megapixel DSLR to the rig to capture photos of the illegal act.  Good.  Texting while driving is incredibly dangerous, reckless, and irresponsible.  Penalties should be severe, including the permanent loss of license. 

May 25, 2016       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 11:37 A.M. ET:  As I've noted, I've never seen a presidential year in which there was such dislike of the leading candidates.  David French, of NRO, makes the argument that we need a third choice.  His choice is Mitt Romney, but the same quote can be made about a number of others.  From NRO:

I understand why Mitt wouldn’t want to run. He’s lost twice, running for president is grueling at best, and the vitriol of 2016 makes 2012 look like a gentlemen’s debating club. He would be savaged and vilified by the progressive left and by Trump’s ragged coalition of working-class white voters and Vichy Republicans. He’d be blamed for hurting Trump if Clinton won. For Mitt Romney, there is little upside.

For the nation, however, there is little downside. If either Trump or Clinton win, America loses. A third-party Romney bid would introduce the chance of a different outcome, giving millions of Americans the important option to choose a man of integrity as their president. It’s not just politically important that voters have at least one honest choice, and that parents can tell their children that they stood against the debasement of American politics and the bankruptcy of our national character; it’s culturally critical.

And...

For millions of Americans, the race for the White House is a choice between the two most-disliked, least-honest politicians in the United States. But there’s still time for a better option. No one else is stepping up to risk his political future, Mitt. The country you love needs you now more than ever.

COMMENT:  Well said.  We may not all agree with French's particular choice, but his argument for a third choice is powerful and correct.  I have always believed in the two-party system and, until this year, have never favored third candidates.  As I said, until this year.

May 25, 2016       Permalink

ZAP! – AT 10:48 A.M. ET:  Just in, a new report on Hillary Clinton that could cause her major headaches, treatable only by drugs from the hated pharmaceutical companies.   From AP:

Hillary Clinton disregarded various State Department guidelines for avoiding cybersecurity risks, an internal audit found Wednesday, faulting her and past secretaries of state for weak information management.

The inspector general's 78-page analysis, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, cites "longstanding, systemic weaknesses" related to the agency's communications. These started before Clinton's appointment as secretary of state, but her failures were singled out as more serious.

Despite guidelines to the contrary and never seeking approval, Clinton used mobile devices to conduct official business on her personal email account and private server. She never sought approval from senior information officers, who would have refused the request because of security risks, the audit said.

"By Secretary Clinton's tenure, the department's guidance was considerably more detailed and more sophisticated," it concluded. "Secretary Clinton's cybersecurity practices accordingly must be evaluated in light of these more comprehensive directives."

The review was prompted by the revelations of Clinton's email use, which has affected her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Nevertheless, the review also encompassed the email and information practices of the last five secretaries.

The report said the department and its secretaries were "slow to recognize and to manage effectively the legal requirements and cybersecurity risks associated with electronic data communications, particularly as those risks pertain to its most senior leadership."

COMMENT:  This is trouble, and, ironically, it will be exploited by Bernie Sanders and his crowd, people not notable for their national-security concerns. 

It will also be exploited by the Trump forces. 

There'll be more to come on this.  It's serious, and it's the first shoe to drop.

May 25, 2016       Permalink

GUIDE TO NEW YORK LIVING – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  For those of you contemplating a move to our fair city, please understand your rights.  From Daily Caller: 

Individuals living in New York City can choose from a minimum of 31 different gender identities, many of which allow them to fluctuate between some version or combination of male or female identities.

Businesses that don’t respect and accommodate an individual’s chosen gender identity risk incurring six-figure fines under rules implemented by the city’s Commission on Human Rights.

The list of protected gender identities is available online and includes options such as “gender bender,” “two spirit,” “third sex,” “androgynous,” “gender gifted,” and “pangender.” A city official speaking on background confirmed to The Daily Caller that all of the listed identities are protected by the city’s anti-discrimination laws, but said that the list was not exhaustive.

The city does not provide definitions of the various gender identities, but TheDC was able to define several of them from glossaries provided online by the University of Wisconsin and the University of California Berkeley.

Someone who identifies as “genderqueer,” for example, is a “person whose gender identity is neither man nor woman, is between or beyond genders, or is some combination of genders.”

A “gender bender” is someone “who bends, changes, mixes, or combines society’s gender conventions by expressing elements of masculinity and femininity together.”

COMMENT:  You can show respect for people who are "different" without descending into legal chaos and madness.  That's what New York is doing.  That's what many cities under "liberal" management are doing.  And, as usual, those in charge are vindictive, mean-spirited, and favor a larger, totalitarian agenda that they know they dare not reveal...for now. 

The age of Obama.  And we have seven more months of it.

May 25, 2016      Permalink