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APRIL 10,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – From NJ.COM:  "ORANGE — An Orange elementary school teacher has been suspended for having her third-grade students write 'get well' letters to an inmate convicted of killing a cop, school officials announced today.  In a statement provided by Orange Superintendent Ronald Lee, district officials sharply criticized the assignment given by teacher Marylin Zuniga to write letters to former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal.  School officials said they 'vehemently deny' having prior knowledge of the assignment, and said Zuniga neither sought prior approval nor notified parents about this 'unauthorized activity.'"  At least the district did the right thing.  But how did a nutcase get hired as a teacher in the first place?

OBAMA CAVES AGAIN – From Fox:  "CARACAS – Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, is claiming 'victory' after President Obama said in an interview earlier this week that 'Venezuela is not a threat.'  Maduro is attributing Obama's supposed change of stance to his initiative of gathering 10 million signatures protesting 'U.S. imperialism.'  'Venezuela is not a threat to the U.S. and the U.S. is not a threat to Venezuela,' Obama told EFE, apparently changing the language used in the March 9 executive order announcing sanctions against seven government officials and calling the situation in Venezuela 'an unusual threat.'"  Hey, who cares about a few words from long ago – March 9th – right?  Once again Obama reverses himself if any foreign dictator merely sneezes at him.  Whatever happened to American leadership?

OH, PLEASE SAVE US – The "humanization" of Hillary Clinton has begun.  We are told that she is a person, just like we peasants.  From London's Daily Mail:  "Hillary Clinton 'whooped' for joy at the birth of her granddaughter before she saw Bill becoming tearful in the hospital waiting room, she has revealed.
The former Secretary of State gave details of her daughter's pregnancy in a new epilogue for her memoir, Hard Choices, released just days before she is expected to announce her presidential run. In the new chapter, shared by the Huffington Post on Friday, she suggested that the birth of her granddaughter made her think about the future of all children and had motivated her political plans."  Oh, right.  Just reading stuff like this will affect my health.  Please suggest remedies.

April 10,  2015     Permalink

MARCO MOVING – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  We've long had a high regard here for Marco Rubio.  I personally believe that, of all the Republican would-be presidents, Rubio may well make the most attractive, and successful candidate. 

Remember – political parties don't nominate presidents.  They nominate candidates.  You have to win the election first, something that Republicans have occasionally forgotten.  It's not like the Olympics, where they hand out a silver medal if you come in second. 

Rubio has remarkable personal qualities, including the ability to be quick on his feet and have immediate answers.  It is widely expected that Rubio will announce his candidacy within the next few weeks, and his backers are getting organized.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Republicans connected to disparate wings of their party are collaborating to run a super PAC supporting Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential candidacy.

The super PAC is called "Conservative Solutions" and was unveiled by organizers on Thursday, four days before the Florida Republican is expected to kick off his 2016 bid. The group is being led by a quartet of political professionals with roots in the Tea Party, the GOP Establishment, the key early primary state of South Carolina and the crucial swing state of Ohio.

The political diversity of the super PAC's organizers along the GOP spectrum reflects Rubio's political approach as a candidate who would run for the nomination as a unifying candidate, rather than a niche insurgent. The super PAC is to be run primarily by Republican consultant Warren Tompkins out of his Columbia, S.C., office. Federal law prohibits Conservative Solutions and Rubio's campaign from coordinating.

"Support for Marco's positive conservative vision and his potential presidential run is growing every day, and I'm honored to help in that effort," Tompkins said in a statement. "This race will be won by the candidate with the best vision for where to take this nation and the resources to ensure that message is heard. Marco has the vision."

COMMENT:  I like the way Rubio is organizing.   Broadening the base.  Going for victory.  The race is getting exciting.

April 10, 2015       Permalink

ALL HILLARY ALL THE TIME – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  Well, it's Friday, and can Sunday be far behind?   Hillary's announcement of her candidacy is two days off.   To maintain your sanity, I recommend you stay away from your TV's.  It'll be Hillary and more Hillary.  The Queen will be addressing her subjects.

Bottom line, she'd better do a lot better than she's done.  Almost every story about Hillary recently has been negative.  She can't play the granny game forever.

The Los Angeles Times has some reporting on what her campaign will probably look like:

Clinton’s team will say only that the launch will be light on big rallies and speeches and heavy on the candidate interacting with small groups of voters in such cozy venues as homes and diners.

The first such event will attract the most attention. Nobody close to Clinton will say where it will take place.

Even without much — or any — viable opposition for the Democratic nomination, Clinton will leave nothing to chance. A flawed approach in the 2008 primary played big in her eventual defeat that year to then-Sen. Barack Obama. Clinton built her candidacy then almost exclusively around experience, putting off voters who sought a more personal connection, and possibly a more humble candidate. She avoided highlighting her potential to make history as the first female president, despite polls showing it was a big selling point.

While the announcement for the 2016 election is a chance for her to start fresh, it is also an opportunity for the media to resurrect all the mistakes she made in her last run. Every location where she has a meaningful connection also has drawbacks. Early primary states invite comparisons to 2008. Arkansas suggests she is mounting a bid for a third term of the last Clinton White House. Illinois, her native state, might suggest she is seeking a third term of the Obama one.

COMMENT:  Well, that's one point of view, I guess.  But I think the L.A. Times gets some things wrong.  Hillary was defeated by Barack for one primary reason:  on the political left, race always trumps gender.  The first woman president is kind of inevitable.  It will happen.  But the first black president was exciting, especially to the left wing of the Democratic Party, which has an inordinate voice in presidential primaries. 

Also, despite Hillary's past role as a kind of feminist role model, her policies in 2008 appeared "center left."  Obama's appeared "real left."  That is still a problem for Hillary.  Not quite left enough. 

So, we'll see what happens Sunday.   Hillary has been slipping in the polls, which is probably why her announcement is being made early.  Polling in the next few months will probably determine whether others get into the race seriously. 

April 10, 2015       Permalink

A BIT OF BOTHER – AT 9:37 A.M. ET:  We learn more about the Iran nuclear "agreement" every day.  What we are learning is that there's no agreement at all, simply some working papers put out by different governments, with no one really agreeing with anyone else.  In fact, there may not even be an agreement on June 30th, which is the deadline for achieving one.   From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Snap back? Not so fast.

The biggest enforcement provision in the preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran is turning into one of the mostly hotly contested elements. And the debate barely involves Iran.

Instead, it concerns the Obama administration’s promise to quickly re-impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic cheats on any part of the agreement to limit its nuclear program to peaceful pursuits.

This would be relatively straightforward for the sanctions imposed by the US, as Congress is eager to keep the pressure on. But it is far from clear whether President Barack Obama can guarantee such action at the United Nations, which has imposed wide-ranging penalties that all UN members must enforce.

At present, there’s no firm agreement on how or when to lift the sanctions in the first place. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday they want all sanctions lifted on the first day of implementation. That’s not the position of US and other negotiators, a major issue that still must be worked out.

Assuming it can be, that still would leave the big question of possible re-imposition.

The disagreement on this issue is between the US and its European allies on one side, and Russia and China on the other — all countries involved in the nuclear negotiations. And even though all six world powers and Iran agreed last week to the framework agreement that is supposed to be finalized by June 30, the “snapback” mechanism for UN sanctions remains poorly defined and may prove unworkable.

“If Iran violates the deal, sanctions can be snapped back into place,” Obama declared last week.

He went further this week, saying that restoring the international sanctions would not require consensus among UN Security Council members. And Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who helped seal last week’s pact, insisted “no one country could block the snapback.”

That assertion rests on an informal compromise reached at the talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, to bypass the typical UN Security Council process if Iran breaks the agreement.

COMMENT:  I love the term, "informal compromise."  Apparently, there's a lot of "informality" in the "agreement."  The fact is, once sanctions are lifted, powerful economic interests in the West will seek to make fortunes in Iran.  Governments, especially Germany, will be hard pressed to reimpose those sanctions.

And how will we define a "violation"?  Will we announce it, or restart negotiations, which could take years, to "explore" the issue.

Iran announced yesterday that it would never permit inspections of military sites.  Without those inspections, the agreement is meaningless.

It's pretty clear that the "agreement" announced last week is essentially meaningless.  The devil, as usual, is in the details, and the details haven't begun to be worked out, if they can be worked out at all.

April 10, 2015       Permalink

PATHETIC – AT 8:54 A.M. ET:  The usual suspects in the American press are lining up to support Obama's hug-up to the Cuban dictatorship.  The Associated Press reports on the new warmth, with a story clearly tilted to suggest that more than 50 years of estrangement was kind of our fault:

PANAMA CITY (AP) — Turning the page on a half-century of hostility, President Barack Obama signaled Thursday he will soon remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, boosting hopes for improved ties as he prepared for a historic encounter with Cuban President Raul Castro.

Hours before his arrival in Panama for a regional summit, Obama said the U.S. State Department had finished its review of Cuba's presence on the list, a stain on the island nation's pride and a major stumbling block for efforts to mend U.S.-Cuba ties. A top senator confirmed that the agency had recommended removing Cuba from the list, all but ensuring action by the president within days.

"We don't want to be imprisoned by the past," Obama said during a visit to Kingston, Jamaica. "When something doesn't work for 50 years, you don't just keep on doing it. You try something new."

With his optimistic assessment, Obama sought to set the tone for the U.S. and Cuba to come closer to closing the book on more than a half-century of estrangement, when he and Castro come face to face at the Summit of the Americas. Obama arrived Thursday evening in Panama City.

COMMENT:  So casually stated, so obvious to the "intellectual" classes.  But what about the people of Cuba, who've lived under the Castro dictatorship for more than five decades?  What happens to them?  How do they benefit from this new warmth?  Why isn't the United States demanding an easing of repression on the island as the price for American recognition?  Why aren't we demanding truly free elections?

The answer is that the Obama crowd, and the political faction it represents, don't really care about human freedom or individual rights.  They demonstrate this over and over.  One day it's Cuba, the next day it's Iran.  North Korean repression?  Why, who cares?  We're building a legacy for Barack. 

And we see where that legacy is taking the cause of human freedom.

April 10,  2015     Permalink

APRIL 9,  2015

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

IT IS WRITTEN – There are signals throughout the political world that Hillary Clinton will announce her candidacy on Sunday, and do so on Twitter.  I just can't wait.  Why, I think we'll stay home just to see the announcement as soon as it's made.  Besides, we expect churchbells to ring in the neighborhood.  Oh, the humanity!  I hope she doesn't run as the "trust and integrity" candidate.  We've had enough laughs in recent politics.

REVOLT – At the same time, there are increasing rumblings within the Democratic Party over the staleness of its leadership.  Some of the rumblings are directed at Nancy Pelosi, whose leadership has turned a solid Dem majority in the House into a pathetic minority.  Republicans are in their best congressional position since the 1920s.  And yet, the noisiest Democrats want the party to lurch even further to the left.

ABOUT TIME – From the New York Daily News:  "Stay away, Rev. Al.  That was the message from the family of South Carolina police shooting victim Walter Scott to the civil rights activist Thursday two days before the funeral for the slain father of four.  'We don’t want another Ferguson type of circus here,' a source close to the Scott family told The Daily News.  That was a reference to the Missouri town that was rocked by violent demonstrations last year after black teen Michael Brown was killed by a white cop."  I'm glad to see that a grieving black family is refusing to be exploited by Rev. Al, a schemer and no-good.  We know him well in New York.

FIGHTING BACK – From AP:  "WALKERTON, Ind. (AP) - A northern Indiana pizzeria that closed after its owner supported Indiana's religious objections law has reopened.  Memories Pizza owner Kevin O'Connor says he reopened about 4 p.m. Thursday. He says that within an hour, all eight tables were filled and six people were waiting for carryout orders. There were no protests as of 7 p.m.  O'Connor faced criticism after he and his daughter, Crystal, said they would never deny service to a gay customer but would decline to cater a same-sex wedding because it would conflict with their Christian beliefs. Protests led them to close the Walkerton pizzeria about 20 miles southwest of South Bend."  I'm glad they're back.  No one should be forced to participate in a ritual or religious ceremony.  That, to me, offends the First Amendment.

April 9,  2015     Permalink

IT GETS WORSE BY THE DAY – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Virtually every statement coming out of Iran regarding the nuclear "agreement" should set off alarm bells.  We are being taken to the cleaners.  From MNA, an Iranian news agency: 

TEHRAN, Apr. 07 (MNA) – Iran’s Zarif, the foreign minister, and Ali Akbar Salehi attended a closed session in the Parliament today to brief the MPs on Swiss Statement regarding Iran and the 5+1 nuclear talks.

And...

Zarif was quoted to have asserted that the additional protocol must be passed by the Parliament. He stressed that Iran would allow no online cameras to be installed in nuclear facilities as the country had have several tragic experiences in which Iranian nuclear scientists had been assassinated due to having been identified.

“I have told the western diplomats that Iran is capable of making an atom bomb anytime it wills, but the one and only fact that has stopped us from doing so is Ayatollah Khamenei’s Fatwa (an Islamic legal pronouncement) and not the sanctions and pressures levied at the country,” Zarif was quoted as having said.

COMMENT:  How encouraging.  No online cameras?  What are they hiding?  Do we have to ask?  And bragging that Iran is capable of making nuclear weapons at any time will not endear this "agreement" to the U.S. Congress.  The big guy issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons?  Fatwas can be reversed.

Congress takes up the nuclear negotiations with Iran next week.  Congress must have a say, with or without Ayatollah Barack.  Oh, I mean the president. Sorry.  No disrespect meant.

April 9, 2015       Permalink

A GOOD REVERSAL – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  We told you last night that the University of Michigan had canceled a showing of "American Sniper" after complaints from Arab students and their leftist fellow travelers.  Apparently, someone reminded the university, which is publicly funded, about something called "free speech."  Now, a reversal.  From the New York Post: 

The University of Michigan, which had scrapped plans to screen the Iraq war drama “American Sniper” because some students were upset by its “stereotypes,” reversed course late Wednesday, saying it would show the film after all.

University Vice President for Student Life E. Royster Harper issued a statement that called the decision to cancel the Friday-night showing a “mistake.”

“The initial decision to cancel the movie was not consistent with the high value the University of Michigan places on freedom of expression,” Harper said. “The movie will be shown at the originally scheduled time.”

The university had canceled the film after sophomore Lamees Mekkaoui started a petition against the Best Picture nominee, saying the Clint Eastwood-directed film “condones a lot of anti-Middle Eastern and North African propaganda.”

COMMENT:  This is only speculation on my part, but I'd imagine some of the funders in state government, possibly the state legislature, gently noted that this is America, and that the people of Michigan might disapprove of canceling a movie because it upsets some students.

Whatever the reason, Michigan has now made the right decision.

April 9, 2015       Permalink

RAND STUMBLES – AT 8:28 A.M. ET:  Rand Paul's first day as a presidential candidate didn't go well at all.  He is very confrontational, and even got into an argument with Fox News, which is an achievement for a Republican.  He seemed unprepared to answer questions, and his staff apparently didn't prep him very well.  The first reviews, even from conservative sources, are less than glowing.  From the Washington Post: 

MILFORD, N.H. — Less than 24 hours after Rand Paul announced his White House bid before hundreds of jubilant, flag-waving supporters, his fledgling presidential campaign seemed to be defined more by his defiant performance when the cheering stopped.

In a series of interviews after the freshman senator from Kentucky declared his candidacy on Tuesday, Paul turned prickly — briskly sidestepping tough foreign policy questions from one journalist, lecturing another on how to conduct an interview, and testily declining to clarify his position on abortion.

And so, as Paul’s first full day of campaigning drew to a close, the narrative surrounding his campaign came straight from the candidate. It just wasn’t one he’d chosen himself.

Rand Paul has never been one to shy away from confrontation. He launched his political career on an anti-establishment message. He’s gained renown for trolling his political opponents on social media. Even the first half of the slogan for his presidential campaign skews combative: “Defeat the Washington machine.”

But the rocky media rollout of his presidential effort highlighted a key question facing him now: whether the same tough approach that has made him a favorite among tea party activists and libertarians might be limiting in a national campaign, as he looks to build a broader coalition rich with voters from beyond his base.

COMMENT:  That's a fair report.  Chris Christie has also stumbled to a degree because his confrontational, tough, New Jersey style wears out its welcome after a time.

Rand Paul has an interesting message.  He's got to learn to deliver it.  And he must confront, thoughtfully and respectfully, the doubts about him over foreign policy.  When confronted with past statements that seem isolationist or even left-wing, he often bristles rather than providing solid replies.

It's early, but you don't get too many breaks on the presidential trail.

April 9, 2015       Permalink

WILL CONGRESS ACT? – AT 8:17 A.M. ET:  The key question in Washington is whether the House and Senate will pass legislation giving Congress a clear say in the Iran nuclear deal...and with enough votes to override a presidential veto.  From Reuters: 

WASHINGTON - A Democratic US senator on Wednesday offered an amendment to an Iran nuclear bill that would remove the measure's tie to Iranian-sponsored terrorism, a change that could attract more support for the legislation from his party.

Despite President Barack Obama's threat to veto the bill due to concerns it would undermine final talks with Iran, many Democrats are lining up with Republicans to pass the legislation giving Congress a say in any final pact.

Senator Chris Coons plans to have his amendment called up for debate on Tuesday, when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to work on the bipartisan legislation.

Negotiations are to conclude by the end of June following last week's announcement of a "framework" deal for Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for an easing of economic sanctions on Tehran. It was not yet clear how much support Coons' amendment will receive in the Republican-controlled Foreign Relations Committee.

COMMENT:  The White House is putting major heat on Democratic senators to abandon this bill, or, if they participate in passing it, to refuse to vote to override a presidential veto.  Some outside interest groups are even threatening Chuck Schumer of New York, who favors the bill, that they will move to deny him the Senate minority leadership if he continues on his course.

If Obama were smart, which he's not, he'd withdraw his veto threat and pledge to work with Congress, rather than defy it.  If he were smart, which he's not, he would have done this originally.  He probably would have picked up enough support in both parties to help him with his talks with Iran.  But maybe he feared sharing space on Mount Rushmore with some senators.

April 9,  2015     Permalink