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AUGUST 25,  2015

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

AND THE NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN MEMORIAL PRIZE GOES TO... – From Times of Israel:   British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said Monday he believed in Iranian’s genuine desire to “turn a page” with the West and develop better ties, the Telegraph reported.  Hammond spoke at the end of a two-day visit to Tehran and a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to mark the reopening of the two nations’ respective embassies after a break of several years.  While he stressed that the countries’ relations remained complex and difficult, he said Iran as a regional power was too important to ignore on Middle East issues.  “It’s hard to see what is the point of advocating dialog with someone who you know has a very different view of the world from you, unless you are anticipating some give and take,” he said.  He added that the visit had changed his view of the Islamic republic.  I'm surprised he didn't say he was bringing us peace in our times.  What is it about British diplomats?

MORE NUTSINESS FROM BRITAIN – From Fox:   Hard-left British politician Jeremy Corbyn, who has sought warmer ties with Putin’s Russia and compared U.S. troops to ISIS, appears to be leading the race to take over one of Britain’s two major parties – a development that could have serious repercussions for the "special relationship" between the U.K. and U.S.  The Labor Party – one of two main parties along with Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party – lost the general election in May under the leadership of the left-wing Ed Miliband, who resigned, triggering a vote for a new leader. Many analysts assumed the center-left party would move back to the center with a new leader in the mold of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.  The analysts appear to have been wrong.  Oh, that's okay.  Obama will love Corbyn.  Remember, it was Obama who sent back to Britain the bust of Winston Churchill that rested in the Oval Office, in an obvious snub.  Now Obama can order a bust of Jeremy Corbyn.

WELL, YOU'VE GOT TO INVEST IN SOMETHING – From space.com:   Could the first Mars colony be called Buffettville, or Zuckerburgh?  The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One aims to establish a permanent settlement on the Red Planet, beginning with the touchdown of the first four pioneers in 2027. The biggest challenges facing the project are financial rather than technical, so a big donation from a deep-pocketed person concerned about his or her legacy could make a huge difference, Mars One representatives said.  Mars One "is so ambitious and — I think 'crazy' is the right word — that we might actually get a phone call from a billionaire who says, 'I want to make this happen. I want the first city on Mars to be called Gatesville or Slim City," said Mars One co-founder and CEO Bas Lansdorp, presumably referring to Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu.  Believe me, it'll be called Trump Tower. 

August 25, 2015       Permalink

SIGN OF THE TIMES – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:   Need a cop today?  If you're in Dallas, you may have to wait.  From CBS: 

DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – The head of the Dallas Police Association tells CBS 11 News that longer 911 response times can be blamed in part by officers being mentally beaten down.

“The bottom line is response times are up, violent crime is up, and officers are fed up,” said Ron Pinkston, president of the Dallas Police Association.

Many of the 3,000 officers he represents are moving slower because of concerns over safety and fears about violating department policies, Pinkston said.

“The motivation is a little lacking,” he said. “I think it’s just the fear of doing the right thing and that they are going to get disciplined for doing that.”

Pinkston said officers are too often being reprimanded for the way they drive during high speed chases or for the difficult decisions they have to make when using deadly force.

“The only way we are going to get this response times to turn around is get a different management style or get a different manager,” Pinkston said.

Dallas Police Chief Brown told city council members Monday that new training requirements are responsible for the slower response to priority one calls – now at eight minutes and 13 seconds – the highest in at least three years.

Priority two calls take more than 22 minutes despite a city goal of 12 minutes.

Pinkston said Monday’s promotion of more high-ranking officers takes more patrol men and women off the street and leaves those out there feeling vulnerable.

“When they see criminal suspects that look suspicious, they are not going to engage those suspects from fear that nobody’s going to support them,” Pinkston said.

COMMENT:  Thank you, President Obama, for helping to create this situation with your anti-police attitudes.  And thank you CNN for harping on every "incident," whether valid or not. 

There are police practices that can stand some improvement.  And, yes, there are occasional uses of excessive force.  But, overwhelmingly, the police in most cities do a solid job every day, at risk of their lives.  And police lives matter.

August 25, 2015       Permalink

HILLARY FADES – AT 10:24 A.M. ET:  The party is turning on her.  The talk show guys are turning on her.   And the public seems to be turning on her.   From Rasmussen:

Growing national security questions about Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server during her time as secretary of State are drowning out much of her message as a presidential candidate and causing many of her fellow Democrats to worry about the future of her campaign. Is it time for Clinton to put her campaign on temporary hold?

Voters are almost evenly divided on that question: the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Clinton should suspend her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination until all of the legal questions about her use of the private e-mail server are resolved. Nearly as many (44%) disagree. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Even one-in-four Democrats (24%) agree that the front-runner for their party’s nomination should suspend her campaign for the time being. But that compares to 73% of Republicans and 46% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

Forty-five percent (45%) of all voters - but only 18% of Democrats - now consider the national security questions raised about Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server while serving as secretary of State to be a serious scandal. Twenty-eight percent (28%) of likely voters consider the matter an embarrassing situation, while nearly as many (23%) say it’s no big deal.

At the same time, Vice President Joe Biden is reportedly moving closer to a decision whether to challenge Clinton for the Democratic nomination because of her e-mail woes. Our latest Hillary Meter shows the former first lady losing ground noticeably among voters, but Democrats weren’t overly enthusiastic about a Biden run earlier this month.

COMMENT:  The numbers for Clinton get worse and worse, and we're only in August of the year before the election.  Obviously, if she's exonerated by the e-mail investigation, she might get back on track.  But the perception is that she's a weakened candidate who arouses little passion.

And yet, Rasmussen's warning about Joe Biden should also be taken seriously.  The hard base wants Elizabeth Warren but the hard base doesn't win elections.

August 25, 2015       Permalink

MARKET – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  The Dow is, at this moment, up almost 300 points from yesterday's close.   So we're seeing the expected rebound.  But that number changes by the second.  I wouldn't, so to speak, take it to the bank.  From NBC: 

The wild ride isn't over on Wall Street — and this time the big move is up.

Investors were as hungry to buy on Tuesday as they were desperate to sell the day before. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 350 points at the opening bell, the biggest rally of the year on Wall Street.

China relieved investors by stepping in overnight to cut interest rates and prop up the world's second-largest economy. Worries about economic growth in China have driven days of chaotic selling in stock markets around the world.

COMMENT:  And next week it'll be another explanation.  Commentators will gravely inform us that investors, or, as they say in New York, investahs. are looking at this, or that.  And they conjure up this image of wise investahs poring over charts and graphs.

Felix Rohatyn, one of the statesmen of Wall Street, once called the stock market a casino.  And, from what I've seen, that's what it is.  I don't see too much wise investing.  A lot of playing and guessing.  But there will be deep analysis in the morning.

I do, though, see across the internet a genuine apprehension about days to come.  Our economic "recovery," if there is one, is fragile.  And a large drop in the market can lead to a return of caution, and the laying off of employees.  And an impact on the presidential election.

August 25, 2015       Permalink

IT ISN'T JUST ISRAEL – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  Obama and his followers like to say that the only opponent of the Iran deal is the Israeli government.  That is dishonest, to say the least.  It's no secret that the Arab gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, are opposed, even though they made pro forma public statements of mild support.  And now we're hearing rumblings that France, which always had doubts, is actually against the deal, but will publicly support it.  From The Wall Street Journal:

A month later, this much is clear about the approach of the other European parties to the deal: Neither German Chancellor Angela Merkel nor U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron have made an explicit link between Congress’s possible September vote against the agreement and anything resembling the Obama administration’s notions of instant cataclysm.

After initially nodding “yes” to the deal, the French have partially reverted to form reflecting their traditional hard-nosed antinuclear proliferation position. It’s OK in Paris to acknowledge that the accord is an oversold mediocrity, and its character nonhistoric. Mr. Obama’s notions of co-opting a suddenly tranquilized Iran to embrace the Forces of Good in the Middle East can get characterized as naive. American sanctions experts say big French banks have informed them they are in no rush to return to Iran.

Citing the profound weaknesses of an agreement that allows controls over Iran to end after 15 years and the mullahs to keep an absurdly high number of centrifuges, a French official told me he graded the accord as C-plus. He expressed concern about America’s willingness over time to continue paying the enormous expense of its vast Iranian surveillance operations. And he also said that the deal’s concessions to Tehran made a pressing reality of Saudi Arabia’s quest for an atomic weapon.

One of the toughest of the country’s hard-nosed security experts, Bruno Tertrais, wrote last month in the Canadian newspaper Le Devoir that “with pressure from the Obama administration” European negotiators’ original intent deteriorated from a rollback of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to their containment.

Camille Grand, director of the Foundation for Strategic Research—a think tank with a reputation for telling truths the French government might prefer to avoid—told me how this slippage had come about. “From 2013 on,” he said, “the Americans gave the impression they wanted the deal more than Iran did. The administration put more pressure on its friends in the negotiations than on the Iranians.”

And...

So how come France didn’t lie across the tracks to block the accord? My explanation:

Because an economically nonperforming President Hollande couldn’t say “no” to French industry wanting a shot at new Iranian contracts. Because France no longer musters the international political levers to shoulder splendid isolation. And because it would not assume the cost of being regarded as Benjamin Netanyahu’s single objective ally.

And now, French buyer’s remorse? In theory, a bit. But not enough to try holding off on its own what France knows is a lousy Iran nuclear deal.

COMMENT:   The truth comes out, doesn't it?  The real villain here, aside from Obama and Kerry themselves, are the sheep in the Democratic Party, who are going along for the greater glory of Barack.  Nancy Pelosi, a moonbat if I ever saw one, is leading the battle in Congress for Democratic support of what she calls a "diplomatic masterpiece." 

Republicans must hold Democrats in Congress responsible for their vote.  Let's see if the Republican Party can muster up the spine to do just that.

August 25,  2015     Permalink

AUGUST 24,  2015

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

IDIOT – From Breitbart:  Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns told host John Dickerson he believes America is still a racist nation, and those who have questioned the legitimacy of President Obama’s birth certificate, namely, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, have done so as an alternative to using the N-word.  Burns outlived his usefulness years ago.  His Civil War series on PBS was excellent, but it's been downhill ever since.  He is a race-obsessed leftist, a graduate of ultra-leftist Hampshire College.  In my view, his constant anti-American drumbeat has diminished his effectiveness as a filmmaker.

MESSAGE TO HILLARY? – From The Hill:  The White House on Monday said President Obama may offer an endorsement in the Democratic primary, which could pit his former secretary of State against his vice president.  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is the front-runner for the party's nomination, but Vice President Biden is looking at the race.  “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of an endorsement during the Democratic primary,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday.  That means there'll be an endorsement, and it will go to Biden.  I can't imagine Obama really wanting Hillary to be president, especially with legal problems hanging over her.  By contrast, he's known to have a warm relationship with Biden.

THE NERVE – From Reuters:   MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday the United States has been sending "signals" that it wants to start mending ties with Moscow, badly strained over the past year and a half by the conflict in Ukraine.  The United States and European Union slapped economic sanctions on Russia last year after its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and support for a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine.  Moscow, which denies arming the rebels, responded with its own counter-sanctions against Western countries.  Why would we want to mend ties when the Ukraine situation is still unresolved?  Again, as with Iran, it looks like Obama is on an appeasement mission.  I wonder what we'll give away this time.  Probably Ukraine.

August 24, 2015       Permalink

BIDEN TALK – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  Joe Biden is the flavor of the week.  Next week it'll be cherry vanilla, followed by marshmallow swirl.  The fact is, many Democrats are turning on Hillary Clinton.  She still may win the nomination, but only those in her employ may be in the hall cheering.  From CBS: 

With the specter of Vice President Joe Biden jumping into the 2016 race for the White House, some prominent figures in the Democratic party seem less sure of Hillary Clinton's chances at clinching the party's nomination.

Notable Democrat California Gov. Jerry Brown weighed in Sunday on the possibility of Biden's run, saying if he were in the vice president's position, he would give "very serious consideration" to the 2016 contest.

"All I can say is, if I were Hillary, I would say [to Biden], 'Don't jump in,'" Brown told NBC News. "If I were Joe Biden, I'd probably give it very serious consideration."

Joe Biden's political star has risen in recent weeks, with his national poll numbers climbing despite his unofficial status as a potential candidate. In a move that could signal more earnest consideration of a run, Biden this weekend met privately with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a progressive policy leader of the Democratic party.

Brown, who once made a bid for the Oval Office in 1992 against Bill Clinton, added that his own personal experience has shown him presidential politics are "uncertain."

When asked if he expects Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination, Brown responded, "I don't make these expectations. I've been around politics long enough to know things are uncertain. I don't know. I think she's a good person. She's got a lot of experience, but the vagaries of politics are such, I think expectations are worth about that."

The two-time California governor also expressed concern for how Clinton's brewing email controversy could impact her run, calling the issue a "vampire" haunting her campaign.

COMMENT:  The message is sent.  Any idea of Hillary's "inevitability," which is what her camp was selling just months ago, is down the drain.  She isn't inevitable, although the numbers say she's still probable.

Much will depend on the progress of the e-mail investigation, and that, in turn, may be dependent on the wishes of Barack Obama, who controls the Justice Department.  If you were Obama, would you want Hillary Clinton to succeed you?  Or close friend Joe Biden?

The soap opera will go on for a time.  But Hillary is clearly in trouble.

August 24, 2015       Permalink

WELCOME TO REALITY – AT 10:16 A.M. ET:   Some elements in Britain and Europe are slipping right back to the mentality of the 1930s, and are starting to grovel to Iran, the better to get business deals early.  Con Coughlin, one of the leading Britain terrorism experts, is giving this crowd a stern word of caution.  From London's Telegraph:

Here we go again: another British foreign secretary in Iran with the hopeful expectation of forging closer ties with the ayatollahs. Ever since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, the holy grail of British foreign policy has been to reach out to the moderates in Tehran, thereby isolating the hardliners.

Back in the Eighties when, thanks to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British hostages such as Terry Waite and John McCarthy spent five or so years chained to radiators in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, Sir Geoffrey Howe, our then foreign secretary, frequently told me that the hostage crisis could be resolved if only we could establish a working relationship with the moderates in Tehran. But for all our entreaties, the hardliners won the day, and the hostages were eventually released when the ayatollahs deemed them to be surplus to their agenda.

More recently, in 2003, New Labour’s Jack Straw believed he had identified a similar moderate tendency in Iran’s political establishment, during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami. This, of course, was in the aftermath of the Iraq War, when the ayatollahs feared – not unduly – that they might be next on President George W Bush’s hit list.

The overthrow of Saddam Hussein certainly had a salutary effect on Tehran, which quickly suspended work on the nuclear weapons research programme that had made enormous strides under Khatami’s leadership. But the Straw initiative came to nothing, and the West’s reward was the election two years later of arguably Iran’s most divisive president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

So has anything changed in the past decade in this elaborate game of diplomatic cat and mouse? Well, to judge by Iran’s actions since the Obama administration’s controversial nuclear deal was signed with Tehran earlier in the summer, the omens are hardly encouraging.

He concludes:

When the US and its allies signed the nuclear deal, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, tweeted a picture of President Obama holding a pistol to his head, apparently committing suicide. That is how the Islamic regime thanked Washington for its attempts to forge a new understanding.

And there can be no doubt that Britain, too, would be committing suicide if it abandoned its traditional Arab allies in the Gulf in favour of the Islamic fanatics who currently hold sway in Tehran.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's a good presentation of what today's Iran really is, and what it stands for. 

There are thousands of American graves in Europe because of the degeneracy of pre-World War II Europe. We are seeing Europe's sequel.

August 24, 2015       Permalink

MARKET LATEST – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Related to the post just below.  From the Washington Examiner:   

Stocks plunged Monday as U.S. markets opened, as fears over China's economy roiled global asset markets.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened down over 900 points, over 5 percent.

Markets across Europe have also fallen sharply after the Shanghai Composite in China fell 8.5 percent Monday.

Chinese markets have been in turmoil since the central bank moved to devalue the yuan on August 11, a step that suggested that the Chinese government was concerned about the possibility of slowing economic growth.

As of the close of markets Monday, the Shanghai Composite was lower than it was at the start of the year, despite being up roughly 60 percent earlier in the summer.

Futures indicated a rout in U.S. markets Monday to follow a massive drop Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by over 500 points to end the week, and all major indices were down over 3 percent as fears related to China cause a broad-based decline in stock prices.

COMMENT:  Amazing, isn't it, how dependent we are on China? 

The 2008 election was upended by the financial crisis that broke out, conveniently, just before the election itself.  It no doubt helped Barack Obama win the White House, despite his empty record.  If we have a new financial crisis, who will be helped?  Or hurt?  It's quite possible that Donald Trump, who's been complaining about Chinese economic power, and cautioning that this country is "running on fumes," could be helped substantially.  He, like Obama in 2008, is the outsider.

August 24, 2015       Permalink

MARKET TUMBLE? – AT 9:16 A.M. ET:  The financial world is very jittery this morning.  Declines last week, coupled with a steep decline over the weekend in Chinese stocks are creating a serious panic attack.  Will American stocks crumble?  From Reuters:

LONDON (Reuters) - Alarm bells rang across world markets on Monday as a near 9 percent dive in China shares and a sharp drop in the dollar and major commodities panicked investors.

European stocks were more than 5 percent in the red and Wall Street was braced for similar losses after Asian shares slumped to 3-year lows as a three month-long rout in Chinese equities threatened to get out of hand.

Oil plunged another 4 percent, while safe-haven government U.S. and German bonds and the yen and the euro rallied as widespread fears of a China-led global economic slowdown and currency war kicked in.

"It is a China driven macro panic," said Didier Duret, chief investment officer at ABN Amro. "Volatility will persist until we see better data there or strong policy action through forceful monetary easing."

Many traders had hoped that such support measures, which could include an interest rate cut, would have come from Beijing over the weekend after its main stocks markets slumped 11 percent last week.

With serious doubts also now emerging about the likelihood of a U.S. interest rate rise this year, the dollar slid against other major currencies.

COMMENT:  We'll be watching.  So will the political class.  If there's an economic turndown in the next six months, it clearly will affect the 2016 election.

August 24,  2015     Permalink