Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

AUGUST 23,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET: 

TRUMP RISES AGAIN – From Reuters:   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Donald Trump is pulling away from the pack in the race for the party's U.S. presidential nomination, widening his lead over his closest rivals in the past week, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Friday.  Republican voters show no signs they are growing weary of the brash real estate mogul, who has dominated political headlines and the 17-strong Republican presidential field with his tough talk about immigration and insults directed at his political rivals. The candidates are vying to be nominated to represent their party in the November 2016 general election.  Nearly 32 percent of Republicans surveyed online said they backed Trump, up from 24 percent a week earlier, the opinion poll found. Trump had nearly double the support of his closest competitor, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who got 16 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was third at 8 percent.  One reason for this is that Trump is the only one getting much news coverage.  The other candidates seem to be taking late August off, and that may be just fine in the long run.  The next debate is September 16th, and things may start to shake out after that.

PAUL GETS A BREAK – From Fox:   LONDON, Ky. – The Kentucky state Republican Party on Saturday approved a caucus that will allows freshman Sen. Rand Paul to run for re-election and president at the same time.  Kentucky state law bans candidates from appearing on the ballot twice in the same election. To get around that law, Paul had asked Republicans to create a presidential caucus in Kentucky on March 5.  The Republican Party's executive committee unanimously approved the caucus in the spring. But since then, Paul's campaign has faltered in the polls. Many Republicans have questioned spending up to $500,000 for a caucus when Paul might be out of the presidential race by March.  These Republicans are correct.  Paul is going nowhere.  His foreign-policy views are way outside the mainstream of the Republican Party, and are to the left of many Democrats.  Republicans caught on.

UNINTENTIONALLY HILARIOUS – As Steve Hayward writes at Powerline:  "Democrats, party of the common man, RIP."  He cites this quote from a New York Times story on Hillary Clinton:  Among the places where Mrs. Clinton enjoys stalwart support are the Hamptons, where she and Mr. Clinton have spent the past several summers, walking their dogs on the beach, attending clambakes and raising money for their family’s philanthropic foundation. This summer, the fashion designer Tory Burch is among those hosting fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton.  Is there anything that says "out of touch" more than that paragraph?  The Clintons are renting a home whose rental fee is a reported $100,000 for a couple of weeks.  Then Hillary will go out and talk about income inequality.  The Clintons assume they're so special that no one will object.  They live in their own world.  And all this money came from selling influence.

August 23, 2015       Permalink

CARLY IS RIGHT! – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  Another political outrage is about to take place, unless common sense prevails.  From The Hill: 

Carly Fiorina supporters are criticizing CNN's debate criteria that could prevent the former Hewlett-Packard CEO from grabbing a spot on the main stage at the second debate despite her surging poll numbers.

They say that CNN's decision to include polls from before the first presidential debate will work against Fiorina, who didn't make the main stage at the Aug. 6 Fox News debate in Cleveland but surged after a strong performance during the undercard debate.

"Ludicrous," was how Katie Hughes, communications director for CARLY for America super-PAC supporting Fiorina's campaign, termed it.

"The political class is still trying to keep her off the main debate stage, if you can believe that," argued Sarah Isgur Flores, Fiorina's deputy campaign manager, in a fundraising email to supporters on Friday.

A CNN spokesperson could not be reached for comment.

Hughes said "the polls used should at least reflect the most recent attitudes of voters -- to not do so is ludicrous."

Two separate CNN and Fox News polls released earlier this week showed Fiorina in the middle of the pack of the crowded field with 5 percent in each poll.

Fiorina lacked significant national name recognition and was hovering at about 1 percent in most polls before the first debate.

Officially, Fiorina campaign spokeswoman Anna Epstein said that they "aren't weighing in on this topic right now."

"We're in New Hampshire this week and Iowa next week," she said, noting Fiorina's aggressive campaign schedule in the early primary and caucus states.

COMMENT:  Carly must be on that stage.  If she isn't, the debate is a farce and the Republican Party should not participate.  Going back to polls taken before the first debate assumes that nothing ever changes in politics.  Those polls are irrelevant.

CNN should come up with a common-sense solution, and not stick with absurd methodology.

August 23, 2015       Permalink

HER AGAIN? – AT 11:30 A.M. ET:  The Elizabeth Warren crowd is stirring again.  Strapping on their Birkenstocks.  Downing their tofu.  Clipping on their peace buttons.  Oh, isn't it a time!  From The Hill:

Liberal activists and strategists argue Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) would be beating Hillary Clinton in the polls by now if she had opted to run for president as a champion of Wall Street reform.

At a time when nervous Democrats are eyeing 72-year-old Vice President Biden and former Vice President Al Gore — who left office 15 years ago — as potential alternatives, some liberals say it’s not too late for Warren to jump in.

“I think she’d be beating Hillary. That’s my opinion,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, who earlier this year worked on a campaign to draft Warren to run for president.

“Based on the support Bernie’s got and the way he’s surged in the polls, that shows anything is possible,” he added in reference to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has exceeded expectations by drawing big crowds on the campaign trail.

Clinton leads Sanders by about 20 points in national polls, but he has shown flashes of strength.

A Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald survey from mid-August showed him topping her 44 percent to 37 percent in New Hampshire, the second state in the primary process.

While Clinton has broader support within the Democratic Party, Sanders has generated more enthusiasm on the stump.

Nearly 2,000 supporters flocked to his event in Dubuque, Iowa, this week and more than 27,000 filled the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena earlier this month to hear him speak.

COMMENT:  It was inevitable that the left-wing group in the Dem party would get moving.  But there are differences Between Sanders and Warren.  I don't agree with Bernie, but he's honest and decent.  Warren is a proved liar, starting with her claim that she's a Native American.  Bernie is no hypocrite.  Warren is the phoniest thing going.  She made millions in corporate law, and drove a BMW before running for the Senate as a champion of the little people.  Bernie is at least fun to listen to.  Warren is a bore, and a terrible candidate.

But Warren is the sentimental favorite of the crowd that thinks North Vietnam is just a swell place to live.

Getting interesting on the Dem side.  One more bombshell exploding near Hillary and it can get very interesting.

August 23, 2015       Permalink

FOLLOW-UP – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  We are learning more about the terrorist who tried to attack passengers on a French train, an attack stopped by three brave Americans and British and French passengers.  From Fox: 

The man who boarded a high speed Paris-bound train armed with a Kalishnikov before being subdued by passengers was on the radar of authorities in at least three countries, had ties to radical Islam and may have traveled to Syria, authorities said.

A French official close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, identified the attacker to The Associated Press as Ayoub el-Khazzani, 26, who was known to authorities in France, Belgium and Spain.

Officials didn’t disclose a possible motive for the Friday attack, but Interior Minister Bernard Cazenueve said Spanish authorities had advised French intelligence about the suspect because he belongs to the “radical Islamist movement.” Three people were injured but no one died in the attack. Authorities have credited brave American, French and British passengers with stopping El-Khazzani, who they said was armed with the assault rifle, nine magazines, a pistol and a boxcutter.

El-Khazzani was being questioned by French counter-terrorism police who on Saturday who confirmed through fingerprints their suspicions that he was the same man who had been brought to their attention in February 2014, a French official told The Associated Press. French authorities said he had lived in the southern Spanish city of Algeciras, frequenting a mosque which is under surveillance there. He was transferred Saturday morning to anti-terror police headquarters outside Paris and could be held for up to 96 hours.

COMMENT:  The guy apparently was a walking time bomb, but we understand how difficult it is in Western democracies to keep people like this in detention unless they've actually committed a crime.  There will be more incidents like this.  As we saw in Chattanooga recently, we are not invulnerable.

August 23,  2015     Permalink

AUGUST 22,  2015

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

PANIC – From The New York Times – Hillary Rodham Clinton had planned to spend the last two weeks of August on vacation, unwinding and fund-raising on the exclusive shores of Long Island. But, as it turns out, this is no time for a vacation.  Amid concerns about Mrs. Clinton’s softening poll numbers and her exclusive use of a personal email server as secretary of state, she will interrupt her Hamptons stay next week to travel to the Midwest and try to shift attention back to her campaign message by unveiling new policy positions.  She will then return to the Hamptons, where she and former President Bill Clinton are renting a beachside estate in Amagansett that costs $100,000 for a two-week stay, and will attend several $2,700-per-person fund-raisers hosted there by her wealthy friends.  The optics are awful, just awful.  She interrupts this vastly lavish vacation to spend a bit of time with the peasantry, then will return to her real friends, who'll shell out $5,400 a couple to go to another party.  Woman of the people.  She looks increasingly incompetent and out of touch.  Maybe it's time to retire to a British castle.

MIGRANT CRISIS – There is a migrant crisis in the Mediterranean, which may lead to a new flood of immigrants into Europe, at a time of economic stress.  From AFP:   Rome (AFP) - Italy's coastguard on Saturday successfully coordinated the rescue of around 3000 migrants in the Mediterranean after receiving distress calls from more than 20 overcrowded vessels drifting in waters off Libya.  One of the biggest single-day rescue operations to date appeared to have been concluded without any reports of casualties.  Two navy ships, the Cigala Fulgosi and the Vega, picked up, respectively, 507 and 432 migrants from two wooden boats in danger of sinking just off Libya, the navy said.  The coastguard said its patrol boats had boarded a total of just under 1,000 people from various unseaworthy fishing boats and inflatables that had left Libya overnight Friday-Saturday.  This has explosive potential.  There was anti-immigrant violence in Germany yesterday, and growing friction with immigrant groups throughout Europe.  In the event of a severe economic turndown, this can turn very ugly.

CRUZ DOES IT AGAIN – Whether you like him or not, you've got to hand it to Ted Cruz.  He's one of the most effective speakers and debaters in the GOP, and he pretty much levels every opponent he meets.  From AP:   Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was the hands-down favorite of the Americans for Prosperity annual summit in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend, if the number and volume of ovations during the speeches of five presidential candidates who addressed the annual convention of tea party activists was the measure.  At the other end of the spectrum was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a newcomer to events financed by conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch. Bush was attending his first national conference of Americans for Prosperity and was greeted with respectful but restrained applause by a group that rose essentially out of Republican dissatisfaction with federal spending under his brother, former President George W. Bush.  Bush is simply doing poorly, despite a fine record as governor of Florida.  His "people" say he's maintaining a disciplined pace, going for the long haul, and that may well turn out to be true.  But there are many reports that his donors are frustrated by his lackluster performance thus far.

August 22, 2015       Permalink

TRUMP SPEAKS – AT 1:23 P.M. ET:  It was the biggest rally of the election campaign so far, covered live on both Fox and CNN.  We got a chance to see Trump up close, delivering a full performance.  From the New York Post: 

Donald Trump scored the biggest crowd of any presidential candidate so far this election year Friday, drawing 30,000 raucous, cheering fans to his rally at a college football stadium in Mobile, Ala.

“I’m going to be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. You are going to be so proud,” he declared to tremendous cheers.

The bombastic businessman kicked off an hourlong monologue about himself at Ladd Peebles Stadium with a joke about his hair. “If it rains, right, I’ll take off my hat and I’ll prove once and for all that it’s mine,” he quipped.

Then he repeated his promise to build a wall along the southern border to keep out Mexicans.

He claimed that “7.5 percent of all of the births in this country are illegal immigrants . . . 300,000 babies a year that you have to take care of, that we all have to take care of. In the case of other countries, they don’t do that.”

He boasted about his annual income of $400 million a year and bashed politicians for accepting lobbyists’ cash. “I don’t want your money,’’ he insisted.

He took a direct shot at Jeb Bush, saying the former Florida governor has “very low energy” and is “weak on immigration.”

Bush got a dig in before Trump took the stage when his supporters flew a plane over the stadium with a banner that read: “Trump 4 Higher Taxes. Jeb 4 Prez.”

COMMENT:  So I watched, and carefully.  Look, he's not a stupid man.  He has a way of hitting the very problems that people are concerned about.  He has that ability.  And he understands what makes those people concerned.  On many issues he is absolutely right.  Yes, he's right, there's too much political correctness.  Yes, we are militarily weak compared to where we should be.  Yes, we are seen as a diminished nation.  Yes, our economy is in rags.

And Trump knows how to reach people.  He can be very refreshing.

The problem, though, is that he's coarse.  His is the kind of personality that wears out its welcome.  Note Chris Christie, who has the same problem.  Also, Trump has no record of public service.  He does not prepare his remarks carefully.  He's often short on facts, and certainly on solutions.  Last night he rambled.  It was almost stream of consciousness.  You have to take him on faith. 

He is a rougher version of Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in 1992, and broke into George H.W. Bush's vote, making possible the election of Bill Clinton.  When people asked Perot to specify a solution to a problem, he acted as if they were stupid for asking.  Eventually people caught on.  He had no real solutions.

Trump's speeches are about Trump.  His ego is supreme.  Look, maybe he would be a great president.  He certainly has identified the problems.  But I wonder if he can sustain a campaign, which will have to last more than a year, without buckling down and doing serious homework.  Reagan was a great campaigner, but he knew his stuff and had a record as a two-term governor of our largest state.  Right now, Trump may be asking for too much trust based on too little being offered.

August 22, 2015       Permalink

THE TRAIN ATTACK IN FRANCE – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:  We now know more about heroic Americans, aided by a Brit, stopping a terror attack on a French train yesterday, but there is curiously little about the attacker.  I watched a TV report just minutes ago, and finally shut it off in frustration when I realized that not one word was spoken about the man who was clearly preparing a massacre.  Has political correctness taken over once more?  From the New York Post: 

Two off-duty members of the US military prevented a massacre Friday by overpowering a rifle-wielding madman after he opened fire aboard a high-speed train in France, wounding three people. 

The gunman, identified by authorities as Moroccan national Sliman Hamzi, is a known Islamic militant, CNN reported, quoting a senior European anti-terrorism official.  Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos received medals for the roles they played in stopping the gunman.

The gunfire took place in the rear car of the Paris to Amsterdam express. Three people were shot, including one of the Americans, who was seriously wounded but expected to survive.

A friend of the heroes, Anthony Sadler, also was aboard the train and saw what happened. He identified them as Spencer Stone, of Sacramento, who was injured and Alek Skarlatos of Roseburg, Ore., who was unhurt.

COMMENT:  A statement from the White House praises the heroic men who stopped the attack, but, as usual, doesn't mention the motivation of the attacker.  I guess it was just your generic terrorist. 

August 22, 2015       Permalink

COOLING OFF? – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  The situation on the Korean armistice line is exceptionally tense.  Reporters say it's the most critical in years, with the possibility of a military action, or mistake, prominent in everyone's thinking.  But there are now attempts to cool things.  From Fox:

South Korea and North Korea agreed on Saturday to hold high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Seoul time, 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for the South to take down the loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border. North Korea has declared its frontline troops are in full war readiness and prepared to go to war if Seoul doesn’t back down.

South Korea’s national security director Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo will sit with Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army, according to the South Korean presidential office. Hwang is considered to be North Korea’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un, and Kim Yang Gon, a secretary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a senior official responsible for South Korea affairs.

The meeting comes as a series of incidents, starting with the North's alleged land mine attack that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South's resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who didn’t want to be identified, said the South will continue with the anti-North Korean broadcasts until the end of North Korea’s deadline, but hasn’t made a decision whether to continue with them if the high-level meeting goes as planned.

In the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks under parasols from the summer sun. There was no visible signs of increased security measures, though the city is even under normal situations heavily secured and fortified. More than 240 South Koreans entered a jointly-run industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

North Korea’s state-run media agency has strongly publicized its rhetoric, saying the whole nation is bracing for the possibility of an all-out war. Leader Kim Jong Un has been shown repeatedly on TV news broadcasts leading a strategy meeting with top military brass to review the North’s attack plan and young people are reportedly swarming recruitment centers to sign up to join the fight.

COMMENT:  We hope this ends peacefully, but we have to wonder why the North is so belligerent and provocative.  Could it be – I am speculating – that it senses a weakness and lack of resolve in the South's major protector, the United States? 

August 22,  2015     Permalink