SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET:

MAJOR CULTURAL NEWS – From Deadline Hollywood: "EXCLUSIVE: The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. 'Southside With You,' a drama in the vein of 'Before Sunrise' chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future president of the United States of America wooed his future first lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. 'Get On Up’s' Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack."  I've already bought my tickets.

SECURITY BREACH – From Business Insider:  "The Defense Department has indicted a civilian Navy engineer for attempting to send schematics for the US's newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to an undercover FBI agent who he believed was working for Egyptian intelligence.  Mostafa Ahmed Awwad was a civilian engineer in the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department at the Navy's shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia. The 34-year-old Awwad worked at the department since February in 2014. One night in September, an Arabic-speaker called Awwad and set up a meeting the next day, where the caller explained that he was an Egyptian intelligence agent.  According to a Justice Department press release, at that meeting, Awwad seemed eager to cooperate and claimed 'it was his intention to utilize his position of trust with the US Navy to obtain military technology for use by the Egyptian government, including but not limited to, the designs of the USS Gerald R. Ford nuclear aircraft carrier."  Chilling story, despite the sloppy journalism.  The first line is wrong.  The Defense Department doesn't hand down indictments.  The justice system does that.  But the facts of the story are sobering.   Our security has been severely compromised by leaks and defections.  We seem to give security clearance to many unreliable people with dubious backgrounds. 

OH COME ON – A discussion of police treatment of minorities is entirely appropriate.  Ridiculous street antics are not.  From USA Today:  "NEW YORK -- Protesters staged a 'die in' Friday night in an Apple store on Fifth Avenue and in Macy's at Herald Square.  Hundreds of people angry over police treatment of African-American men crowded the street outside the Apple store, and some made their way through the store's large glass doors.   Once inside, the protesters stood in circles and chanted while store employees and customers silently snapped photos.  Zandir Santos, 30, of Brooklyn, relished in the idea that protesters had disrupted life at an Apple store and a Macy's in New York. The filmmaker said this is a pivotal time in American history and that police must change how they treat people.  'The CEO of Apple knows we shut his store down--that means capitalist America is going to take us seriously,' he said. 'We are going to shake up your business and we want to hit you where it hurts.'"  I suspect shakedown might be the appropriate word.  Next will come demands to "meet" with corporate executives.  Then the protection checks will be written by those same executives.  When you start reading terms like "capitalist America" you know this has very little to do with police/community relations.  It's the left reinventing itself one more time.  Welcome back to the sixties.

December 5, 2014