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DECEMBER 3,  2014

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

A NEW FERGUSON? – A grand jury in New York City has declined to indict a white police officer who got a heavily overweight black man in what appears to be a chokehold during an arrest for a minor offense.  The black man died in the encounter.  There have been demonstrations in New York in response to the decision.  Expect this case to go on.  The entire episode was videotaped, and the tape is disturbing.  Even some conservatives are suggesting that the grand jury might have gotten this one wrong.  The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, although that does not automatically mean that the officer committed a crime.  The Department of Justice will investigate.  The family of the deceased would appear to have a strong civil case. 

SOME INTEREST PLEASE – From ABC:  "An American woman stabbed to death in an Abu Dhabi shopping mall by an assailant wearing a body-covering abayah was a kindergarten teacher who had been mentoring other teachers.  The victim was identified as Ibolya Ryan, who was from Colorado and was the mother of 11-year-old twins, according to the Footprints Recruiting firm that had placed her in the position.  Ryan, who was originally from Hungary, was a licensed special ed teacher from Colorado. She was hired as a kindergarten teacher in Abu Dhabi in 2013, Footprints Recruiting CEO Ben Glickman told ABC News.  Glickman said that Ryan loved living the United Arab Emirates and was mentoring other teachers.  Abu Dhabi police released surveillance video showing the suspected attacker wearing the Arabian Gulf’s traditional black abayah or robe, fully covered by a face veil."  An American has been murdered.  I'd like to see the president show the same interest in this that he showed in the Ferguson case.  We have a tendency to play down the murder of Americans in foreign countries.

MYSTERY SOLVED – From Fox:  "HOUSTON – School officials say dozens of human brains reported missing from a University of Texas research lab in Austin were actually destroyed about 12 years ago because they were in poor condition."  Some of them have now turned up in the heads of Obama's closest advisers.

CYNICAL – From the Washington Times:  "Department of Homeland Security officials wasted little time in ramping up for President Obama’s amnesty, posting 1,000 job openings the day after his announcement and announcing it already has space for hundreds of employees at a new location in Arlington, Virginia — an indication that it had laid its plans well before Mr. Obama’s announcement.  And even though Mr. Obama said his policy is temporary, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is hiring the employees for permanent positions, at salaries of up to $157,000 a year, according to the job postings listed on the official federal jobs website."  This was obviously set in motion long before the election, and long before the American people could judge the program.  Not the way democracy should work.

December 3, 2014        Permalink

NEW GOP GAINS – AT 11:56 A.M. ET:   Everybody loves a winner.  More people are now identifying with the just-victorious Republican Party.  From the Politico: 

More Americans are identifying with the Republican Party after the midterm elections and fewer with the Democrats, according to a new poll.

A Gallup poll released on Tuesday found a small shift in party identification, with 42 percent of those surveyed now identify with the GOP compared with 39 percent that identified similarly before the elections.

Democrats have lost a little support among voters. Before the midterm elections, 43 percent of Americans polled by Gallup said that they “identify as/lean Democratic.” Now 41 percent say they identify with Democrats.

This is not the first time that Gallup has seen a post-election Republican lean following a GOP sweep. Similar shifts in party affiliation among Americans occurred in 1994 and 2002, when Republicans gained advantages in Congress.

This poll was conducted Nov. 5-30 among 12,671 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.

COMMENT:  The idea is to build on these gains, not to let them dissolve in time, which is a Republican tradition. 

December 3, 2014       Permalink

CONGRESS TO MOVE ON IRAN – AT 10:45 A.M. ET:  It's perfectly clear that Republicans in Congress, and many Dems as well, have little faith in this administration's foreign policy.  And they don't intend to remain silent about it, especially as regards Iran.  From The Hill: 

Key senators are vowing to move on sanctions legislation against Iran as early as January, when Republicans take over the upper chamber.

"You're going to see Congress and the Senate play a much more robust role in the first quarter," said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who is poised to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Wednesday at the 2014 Foreign Policy Forum.

U.S. and Western allies agreed last month to a seven-month extension of talks with Iran in hopes of reaching an agreement to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Senators from both parties, though, fear that Iran continue its nuclear program and say they will press ahead with sanctions regardless.

Supporters will likely have the 60 votes needed to push sanctions next year, despite the opposition of the Obama administration, which fears legislation could scuttle ongoing negotiations.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the current Foreign Relations chairman, said Tuesday he was working to refine a bill he co-authored with Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) and hopes it "could be pursued at the earliest possible moment."

Their bill would re-impose sanctions that were temporarily lifted on Iran during negotiations, if no deal is reached.

"After a year of negotiations for which it seems that we have moved towards the Iranians, but the Iranians have made very little progress towards the views that the international community holds ... they need some incentive to move off of their maximalist positions, while we continuously minimize our positions," Menendez told The Hill.

COMMENT:  Good.  Congress must be involved, for the operative principle in Obama's policy toward Iran is appeasement.

Of course, Obama could veto any new legislation, but that could prove very unpopular with the American people, if recent polls are to be believed.  It was sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table in the first place.  Sanctions are hurting the Iranian economy.

If Iran broke off talks because new sanctions are being imposed, then they couldn't have been very serious about negotiations in the first place.

December 3, 2014       Permalink

DECLINE OF THE DEMS – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:  Go back to late 2008.  The Democratic Party was in glory.  It had just elected the first black president, and would control both houses of Congress.  Some pundits predicted a permanent Democratic majority.  The Republicans were nowhere, couldn't even get a cab near Capitol Hill. 

Now look at it.  The Dems are a mess, fighting with themselves.  They've lost both Houses.  Their president's approval rating hovers around 40%, and it's that high only because of the understandable loyalty of the black community.  They have only one well-known candidate for president for 2016, and she's fading in the polls.  There is no happiness.  Happy days aren't here again.

And why?  In one of the best pieces I've seen on the subject, Charlie Cook argues that the Democrats lost touch with the American people, especially critical parts of their own constituency.  From National Journal: 

This challenge for Democrats can be sliced and diced a number of ways: by race, by where people live, and—very acutely—by combining race with socioeconomic status. A Nov. 25 report by the Gallup Organization underscored Democrats' problems with noncollege-educated white voters. According to Gallup Editor Frank Newport, "President Barack Obama's job-approval rating among white noncollege graduates is at 27 percent so far in 2014, 14 percentage points lower than among white college graduates. This is the largest yearly gap between these two groups since Obama took office. These data underscore the magnitude of the Democratic Party's problem with working-class whites, among whom Obama lost in the 2012 presidential election, and among whom Democratic House candidates lost in the 2014 U.S. House voting by 30 points."

There are many reasons for this decline in support for Democrats among certain groups. But an argument can be made that it is because Democrats have subordinated their traditional focus on helping lower- and working-class Americans move up the economic ladder in favor of other noble priorities, such as health care, the environment, and civil rights. Whether these were the right or wrong priorities is totally subjective, but they have come at a cost. Sen. Chuck Schumer recently committed the classic case of a political gaffe, once defined by Michael Kinsley as "when a politician tells the truth—some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." The Democratic Left went crazy when Schumer suggested that the early focus on health care reform in 2009 and 2010, when he says Democrats should have been concentrating on economic growth and job creation, had cost them greatly (something that I have written about for over five years).

And...

At the tail end of the George W. Bush administration and in the early Obama years, financial markets were stabilized (the overwhelming majority of the Troubled Asset Relief Program funds have been repaid, with many of the investments yielding profits for Uncle Sam), and the Obama administration should be applauded for rescuing the automobile industry. But while those actions can be legitimately seen as a good start, we then saw a grand pivot to the environment and health care, with grave consequences for the party. At another time and in different fashion, both are important priorities, but the focus on these issues has effectively decimated the Democratic Party in specific areas and among specific voter blocs. The evidence is the difference in the partisan makeup of the Congress that will be sworn in next month, compared with the one from eight years ago.

COMMENT:  Well said.  The Democratic Party today serves the elites and their intellectual interests.  It actually shows contempt for the very groups that originally built the Roosevelt-Truman-Kennedy coalition.  The contempt for the working American, who is not a minority, is clear and overwhelming.  Eventually, a price is paid.

Some of this can be attributed to the crazy emphasis in universities on "race, gender and ethnicity."  It became a conceit.  Working people might be struggling, but it was just assumed they were racists.  The great works of history were shrugged off as the product of "dead white men." 

This could be the Republican hour.  The party just ran a great campaign.  It had, for the most part, fine candidates, replacing the goofballs of recent vintage.  Now it needs a first-class presidential campaign to complete the retaking of the U.S. government. 

The next two years will be exciting.  They will also be dangerous, as a reckless, embittered Barack Obama does as much damage as possible, and Republicans fight their demons to put a man or woman in the White House. 

December 3, 2014       Permalink

SOWELL SPEAKS ON FERGUSON – AT 8:56 A.M. ET:  Tom Sowell is one of the most brilliant commentators around.  As an African-American with conservative instincts, he's had to brave the artillery fire from the black establishment and its white radical allies (who never have to suffer from the damage they do.) 

Sowell appeared with Sean Hannity, and his comments about the line that has come to symbolize Ferguson protests – "Hands up, don't shoot" – are among the most provocative I've seen.  From RealClearPolitics: 

I thought of Joseph Goebbels' doctrine, people will believe any lie if it's repeated often enough and loud enough. They're repeating it often enough and loud enough. And it will pay off for them personally and politically. People who are out to forward their political careers say and do things that have no relationship whatever to reality or to anybody else's interests but their own. I think what happened in Ferguson, Missouri, it is going to adversely affect blacks yet unborn who will still be paying the price for it 10, 20 years from now because you're not going to have businesses there that you had before. I've seen this happen in other cities. Detroit, is a classic example. Harlem. You run through the whole list of them. A city doesn't get over this kind of stuff in a few years.

COMMENT:  Of course that's absolutely accurate.  It's ordinary black people who pay the price for the racial agitators and the damage they do to a city. 

In New York, whole neighborhoods became war zones in the 1960s.  The professional race baiters and white radicals moved on, but the common people were left with the wreckage.  Then the white radicals would return to their tenured positions in universities and lament, "Look at the condition of these neighborhoods.  Look what white racism does."  The lies flowed, but the trendy media looked to their "higher truth."

December 3,  2014     Permalink

DECEMBER 2,  2014

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

A FERGUSON IN NEW YORK? – The race industry fervently hopes so.  There is a Ferguson-like case before a grand jury in New York City.  The case involves an African-American man who died while struggling with a police officer who allegedly had him in an illegal choke hold:  From CBS:  "NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A grand jury decision is expected to come soon, in the case of the apparent police chokehold that killed Eric Garner on Staten Island this past summer.  Garner, a father of six, died in July after being placed in an apparent chokehold by Officer Daniel Pantaleo. Garner was being arrested for allegedly selling loose, untaxed cigarettes.  The grand jury began hearing evidence in the case Sept. 29.
As CBS2’s Tony Aiello reported, a small, but spirited protest about the Garner case was held outside the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office on Tuesday.  'I hope that Officer (Daniel) Pantaleo is indicted,' said Steve Quester of the group Stand up for Racial Justice.  Quester said he would like to see the officer who was seen on video placing Garner in the chokehold charged with murder."  The grand jury will decide.  Among the issues is whether Garner had the man in an illegal chokehold and whether that was the cause of death. You may be sure that anything short of a murder indictment will bring out the heavy-hitting agitators, regardless of the facts.

PAUL TO RUN AGAIN FOR SENATE – Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky announced today that he would run for the Senate again in 2016.  Paul is also considered a presidential contender for that year, but has a problem:  Under Kentucky law he cannot run for president and Senate simultaneously.  The legislature in Kentucky is controlled by Democrats, and they're not going to ease Paul's way by changing that law.  At some point he'll have to decide.  My guess is that he'll give up the presidential run because support for him, thus far, has been limited.

OIL ACTION SLOWS – The United States is becoming so successful at finding new oil and marketing it, that prices are plunging.  Inevitably, that has resulted in a slowing of oil exploration as the industry may well become less profitable.  From Reuters:  "(Reuters) - Plunging oil prices sparked a drop of almost 40 percent in new well permits issued across the United States in November, in a sudden pause in the growth of the U.S. shale oil and gas boom that started around 2007.  Data provided exclusively to Reuters on Tuesday by industry data firm Drilling Info Inc showed 4,520 new well permits were approved last month, down from 7,227 in October.  The pullback was a 'very quick response' to U.S. crude prices, which settled on Tuesday at $66.88 CLc1, said Allen Gilmer, chief executive officer of Drilling Info."  We are becoming energy independent.  We'll be free of blackmail, and free to explore new types of clean energy at our own pace, and in the best way.  The left is crushed, depressed.  I believe that a portion of oil profits should go to providing psychiatric care and rest homes for leftists and shattered enviro-nuts.  It's only fair. 

December 2,  2014     Permalink

THIS DAY – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:   December 2nd is a special day.  It was on this day in 1942 that scientists at the University of Chicago achieved the world's first self-sustained nuclear chain reaction, a major step in the development of the atomic bomb.  As a U of C student, I passed the plaque commemorating the achievement, done under the leadership of Enrico Fermi, each day. 

What is important to recall is how quickly we developed a nuclear weapon during World War II, before the age of modern computers.  It is important because we are today engaged in a negotiation with Iran that centers on how quickly the Iranians could "break out" to an atomic bomb from their current level of development.  After the Chicago experiment succeeded it took us little more than two and a half years to complete development, using technology that was horse-and-buggy by today's standards.  The first nuclear device was exploded on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico.  An operational bomb was used against Hiroshima only three weeks later, and a second against Nagasaki a few days after that. 

The bombs ended World War II.  They were ghastly weapons, but they probably saved millions of lives.  And "breakout" today by Iran could occur very quickly, before we realized it was happening.  A thought to remember.

December 2, 2014       Permalink

NEW DEFENSE SECRETARY? – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  CNN is reporting that Ashton Carter will be Obama's choice for secretary of defense: 

Washington (CNN) -- Ashton Carter, the former second-in-command at the Pentagon appears to be the top choice to replace outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Pentagon insider may lead war on ISIS The candidates for Secretary of Defense

Barring any last minute complications, Ash Carter will be President Barack Obama's choice as the new Secretary of Defense, several U.S. administration officials told CNN.

An administration official had said that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, a former General Counsel at the Pentagon, was also still on the list of possibilities, but on Tuesday morning, sources said Johnson was no longer being considered. The prospect of an additional confirmation hearing for Johnson's replacement if he were to move to the Pentagon as the Senate switches to Republican control would have been problematic for the White House.

Hagel announced his resignation last week, but has said he will stay on until his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Carter, who served as Deputy Defense Secretary under both Leon Panetta and Hagel, would bring a wide range of experience to a department confronting multiple crises in the Middle East and preparing to enter a new phase in Afghanistan as the NATO combat mission ends.

Carter's ability to hit the ground running from his past experience at the Pentagon, in addition to the respect many senior military leaders have for him are seen as major benefits to winning confirmation should Obama nominate him. 

COMMENT:  I don't know much about him.  Even if he is the most capable candidate, we must ask whether Obama and the 107 dwarfs around Obama, will allow Carter to do his job, which is defending the United States.  Carter, if confirmed, will be Obama's fourth secretary of defense, an extraordinary number in six years.  Bob Gates, Leon Panetta, and Chuck Hagel were the first three, and both Gates and Panetta made clear their dissatisfaction with the White House.  Hagel will probably join in, especially as he's been fired. 

If Carter stands up to the White House he might build a record enviable enough to continue as secretary under the next president, Democrat or Republican.

December 2, 2014       Permalink

JEB MOVES CLOSER – AT 9:05 A.M. ET:  If he declares, Jeb Bush would be a major contender for the GOP presidential nomination immediately.  Even more major would be Mitt Romney, who is now leading Hillary Clinton in early polling matchups.  Jeb will decide soon.  From Fox: 

Speaking at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council Dinner Monday, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he is nearing a decision whether to run for president in 2016.

"I'm thinking about running for president and will make up my mind in short order," Bush said. "I do not know the exact timeline, (but) it will be the same decision making process I've always had."

Bush laid out his blueprint that could serve as his 2016 campaign platform.

Bush said his priorities include an "all-in" energy policy that expands the use of the country's natural resources, a reduction in business regulations, a simpler tax code, an "economically driven" overhaul of the immigration system and a transformation of the nation's education system, the Wall Street Journal reported.

His education platform would better serve the needs of individual children and break up "government-run monopolies" of local school districts, he explained.

He also spoke of his support for higher academic standards and for testing to see if students are meeting them.

Bush also remarked on Congress's potential showdown over the federal budget. He urged Congress to make compromises to pass legislation and take the focus off trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Bush says he disagrees with Obama's decision to protect nearly five million illegal immigrants from deportation, but said Republicans should take the lead on the issue.

Bush said he will make his decision in "short order" and will need to do "a lot of soul searching to make that determination."

"I don't know if I'd be a good candidate or bad," Bush said. "I know a Republican can win, whether it's me or somebody else."

COMMENT:  I'm sorry Bush didn't deal with foreign policy.  And his domestic statements seem vague.

I've always liked him.  He was a thoughtful, capable governor of Florida.  While the government of Louisiana collapsed during Katrina, Bush handled five hurricanes that hit the Florida coast during that same period, and handled them well, without panic. 

I wonder if he cuts a strong enough figure.  I wonder the same about Mitt Romney, but Mitt ran once, knows the ropes, and corrects mistakes.  Both are good men.

Bush is not a movement conservative, and there already is a backlash against him building in the Republican Party.  Conservatives will score some good points against him, and he'll have to handle them.  I hope, though, that in the end the party can unite around its candidate, and go on to a solid victory. 

December 2, 2014        Permalink

SHE SPEAKS – AT 8:50 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton has taken a stand.  The world stops.  It's perfectly clear that she's no longer "inevitable," and so special attention is being paid to anything she says or does that can gain or cost votes.  From the Daily Beast: 

At a speech to the League of Conservation Voters in midtown Manhattan Monday night, before hundreds of deep-pocketed donors, Hillary Clinton praised the environmental legacy of Teddy Roosevelt, touted the prospect of new green technologies, and had warm words for Barack Obama’s aggressive efforts to combat climate change.

Absent from the former Secretary of State’s speech? Any sense of where she stood on the controversial Keystone pipeline project, or what she would do differently as president to steer the nation towards a more sustainable future.

But that didn’t mean that Clinton wasn’t clear about where she came down on environmental matters—she praised both her husband’s record of cleaning up air and water standards, and the Obama administrations recent efforts to strike a climate deal with China and to toughen pollution standards.

“We continue to push forward. But that is just the beginning. Science of climate change is unforgiving, no matter what the deniers may say,” Clinton said, reading off of prepared remarks.

The former Secretary of State alluded to the need to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, but noted that, “the political challenges are also unforgiving. There is no getting around the fact that the kind of ambitious response required to effectively combat climate change is going to a be a tough sell at home and around the world at a time when so many countries around the world, including our own, are grappling with slow growth and stretch budgets.”

Clinton was vague about the kind of response needed to address climate change, coming down neither in favor of the traditional Democratic carbon tax or the Republican (pre-Obama, at least) cap and trade plan.

But...

Clinton did, however, come out in favor of natural gas drilling, known as hydrofracking, which has become a key cause for environmental activists, who say that the risks involved in natural gas drilling are not yet known.

“Yes, natural gas can play an important bridge role in the transition to a cleaner, greener economy,” Clinton said, adding that safeguards should be in place to minimize environmental risk.

But if Clinton waded into the natural gas debate, she entirely avoided the Keystone one.

COMMENT:  So she's in favor of fracking, at least to a degree, but she buys the whole "climate change" package, despite increasing doubts, even among climatologists.  As we reported, a new Purdue University survey shows that barely more than 50% of climatologists now believe that humans cause global warming. 

One of Clinton's problems is that the Democratic Party base is now dramatically out of favor with the rest of the country.  But the base controls the presidential nomination.  She has to appeal to enviro-nuts to get that nomination, then must appeal to a much broader constituency to get elected.  It may be mission impossible.

December 2,  2014     Permalink