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I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas yesterday.  It's here.

DECEMBER 29,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:43 P.M. ET: 

GEEZ – If true, what an embarrassment.  From The Politico:  "FBI agents investigating the Sony Pictures hack were briefed Monday by a security firm that says its research points to laid-off Sony staff, not North Korea, as the perpetrator — another example of the continuing whodunit blame game around the devastating attack.  Even the unprecedented decision to release details of an ongoing FBI investigation and President Barack Obama publicly blaming the hermit authoritarian regime hasn’t quieted a chorus of well-qualified skeptics who say the evidence just doesn’t add up."  The official U.S. Government position is that North Korea did it.  Of course, the official U.S. Government position is that President Obama's election would make the oceans recede.  More coming on this.

HOW SAD – From Breitbart:  "In a brawl apparently instigated using social media, a thousand or more young teen black girls descended on Monroeville Mall outside Pittsburgh Friday night, resulting in the mall being closed as a massive brawl broke out. An investigation is ongoing, including via social media, although no arrests were reportedly made at the time.  Many of the teens used their phones to capture video of the events and that too is now making the rounds via social media."  Unless these social pathologies are dealt with, black America will be stuck in a tragic downward spiral.  Pat Moynihan warned about this a half century ago.  For his troubles he was called a racist.

MILESTONE – From Reuters:  "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. population is seen at 320.09 million people as of Jan. 1, up 0.73 percent from a year earlier, the Census Bureau said on Monday.  The Census Bureau said in a statement that the figure represents an increase of about 11.35 million people, or 3.67 percent, since the last population count on April 1, 2010.  'In January 2015, the U.S. is expected to experience a birth every eight seconds and one death every 12 seconds. Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person to the U.S. population every 33 seconds,' the Census Bureau said."  At least we're reproducing our population.  Most of the West European nations aren't, and they will eventually fade away, or become Islamicized. 

IT'S GLOBAL WARMING – From Accuweather:  "As cold air continues to plunge southward in the West, a storm will produce rare New Year's Eve and New Year's Day snow for Las Vegas, the Mojave Desert and the mountains in the region.  Pack some warm clothes and perhaps winter boots if you are heading to the Southwest for the New Year's holiday. Motorists heading over the mountains should expect delays due to snow-covered roads.  Soon after snow falls on parts of the central Rockies and Plains, a new winter storm will develop over the Southwest states."  When will we ever show proper respect for Al Gore?

December 29, 2014       Permalink 

THE AIRLINER – AT 10:34 A.M. ET:   Does this sound familiar?  They still haven't found the missing Malaysian airliner.  The plane had (or has) 161 souls on board.   From CNN:

(CNN) -- The search for a missing airliner with 162 people aboard will expand Tuesday, the Indonesian government announced.

Four additional areas will be searched, the national search and rescue agency said.

Seven zones were patrolled Monday, the second day of searching for AirAsia Flight QZ8501. So far, the search has been fruitless.

"Our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea," said Bambang Sulistyo, the head of the search and rescue agency. That belief is based on the plane's flight track and last known coordinates.

Not exactly a comforting name for a search-and-rescue guy:  Bambang.

France dispatched two investigators to Indonesia. They are due to arrive in Jakarta on Monday, France's Foreign Ministry said.

The missing plane is made by Airbus, a French company.

Rescuers say weather was probably a factor in the plane's disappearance.

COMMENT:  We're told that the pilot asked for approval for a change in altitude to avoid weather conditions, but was turned down...on grounds there was too much traffic in the area.

Hmm.  Why was this airliner the only one to ask for a flight change because of weather?   All those other planes in the area were facing the same weather.  And why was this plane, by some strange coincidence, the only one to "disappear"? 

No sign of wreckage.  No "pinging" from the emergency transmitter in the black box that goes on if the plane has a sudden impact.  No nothing. 

They told us initially they knew exactly where the plane was when air traffic control lost contact.  Now they're expanding the search area.

Doesn't feel right.  How do we know that call from the plane asking for a change in altitude was legit? 

Stay tuned.

December 29, 2014       Permalink

WHO WE FIGHT – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  It's easy to forget, at holiday time, that we're still involved in struggles in the Mideast, and that the enemy is getting more ferocious, not less.  ISIS has been somewhat slowed in Iraq, but not in Syria.  And there are regular reports on its attempts to infiltrate into Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinian areas.  From TIME:   

ISIS executed 1,878 people in Syria over the past six months, including 120 of its own members, a U.K.-based Syrian human-rights group said on Sunday.

Most of the people killed by the Islamist terrorist group were civilians, including 930 members of a Sunni Muslim tribe from eastern Syria, Reuters reports, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

All but four of those executed within ISIS’s own ranks were fighters trying to leave and go back home.

ISIS, which has declared a caliphate across a broad swath of Syria and Iraq, and regards breaches of strict Islamic law as punishable by death, frequently releases videos of its executions, including the killings of two U.S. journalists and three aid workers from the U.S. and Britain.

COMMENT:  Despite all the announcements from the White House that the U.S. is "winding down" its military action overseas, the reality is that the enemy hasn't gotten the e-mail.  As we pull out of Afghanistan, we can expect increased Taliban activity.  Iraq is fragile, threatened not only by ISIS, but by a large number of Iranian "advisers," with whom the United States is actually working.

The war on terror isn't over, or nearly over.  In some respects it's just begun.

December 29, 2014       Permalink

INCIDENT IN L.A. – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Was this an attempt to repeat the tragedy in New York?  From the Los Angeles Times: 

Two suspects fired on a police patrol car with a rifle in South Los Angeles late Sunday night, prompting a citywide tactical alert that resulted in the arrest of one suspect and a massive manhunt for the second individual, authorities said.

The shooting occurred about 9:30 p.m. as officers were driving southbound on Hoover Street near 62nd Street, said Deputy Chief Bob Green. The officers returned fire.

No officer was hurt.

Police arrested one of the suspects at the scene and recovered a rifle, Green said. A second suspect remained at large.

A three-block area around the shooting scene was immediately cordoned off as police scoured the area with search dogs. At least 60 officers were involved in the search.

A citywide tactical alert is when every available officer in the city is ordered to a specific crime scene.

The LAPD advised residents to stay indoors. “Armed suspect in the area,” the police station said on Facebook just before 11 p.m. “Please keep our officers in your thoughts and prayers!”

COMMENT:  There was a similar incident in Tampa, Florida.  Three bullets were fired at police officers as they sat in their patrol car. 

Fortunately, no one was hurt in these incidents.  But the intent is pretty clear.

December 29, 2014       Permalink

THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PICTURE – AT 8:52 A.M. ET:  Walter Russell Mead has written a remarkably incisive piece on the state of American politics.  He argues that liberalism, which punches hard and above its weight, is actually in sharp decline.   He writes:  "Never have liberal ideas been so firmly entrenched within America’s core elite institutions. Never have those institutions been so weak and uninfluential."  This is one of those "read the whole thing" pieces.  From The American Interest:

These are frustrating times for the American left. Legislative power has slipped from its hands; the states are more Republican than at just about any time in living memory, and as President Obama nears the end of his term, it seems far more likely than otherwise that, Republican or Democrat, his successor will stand well to the right of the incumbent. As I noted in the first essay in the series, the foreign policy disasters and the financial crash of the George W. Bush administration opened a path to the White House for the most liberal President in history and gave Democrats overwhelming majorities in the Senate and the House back in 2008. Jubilant liberals believed that a new era had dawned, and when they weren’t comparing Obama to Lincoln, they were calling him the “Democratic Reagan” who would reset politics for the left just as Reagan once did for the right.

Six years later, the dream is looking shopworn. President Obama is deeply unpopular, the Democratic majorities are gone with the wind, and poll after poll after poll demonstrates that Obamacare, the Democrats’ signature legislative accomplishment in the Age of Obama, is more of an albatross around the party’s neck than a star in its crown.

Some of this could change. The slow but persistent improvement in economic conditions has finally begun to register with voters; consumer confidence is up and, if the economy continues to improve through 2016, President Obama’s poll numbers should strengthen. The racial polarization that so tragically spiked in the last three months could gradually fade away. And the concatenation of foreign policy and security disasters from the Libyan anarchy to the series of Syria and Iraq fiascoes to the Russian invasion of Ukraine could look less frightening and less like an implosion of America’s world position in two years' time. The lame duck could still swagger off the stage in the end.

But right now that doesn’t look probable, even to liberals. Eric Alterman, one of the left’s most articulate advocates, summarizes the situation with his customary frankness in the Nation:

The Obama presidency has been a devil’s bargain for Democrats. Despite the considerable policy accomplishments to its credit, the administration’s political impact has been virtually catastrophic. Since Obama’s victory in 2008, Democrats are down seventy seats in the House and fifteen in the Senate, giving an increasingly reactionary Republican Party the power to stymie most if not all of the Democrats’ agenda. But this actually understates the damage. Democrats are now the minority in over two-thirds of the nation’s partisan state legislative chambers, their worst showing in history. In twenty-three of these, Republicans will control the governor’s office, too. (The corresponding number for Democrats is just seven.)

Alterman cites two core reasons for the disaster. On the one hand, Democrats haven’t recognized that many of the policies they like on “good government” grounds are political poison. In particular, Obamacare and the immigration amnesty are alienating voters.

COMMENT:  This is great journalism.  Save the piece and see if it projects well into the future.

December 29, 2014     Permalink

DECEMBER 28,  2014

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

GREEK TRAGEDY – Greece has been off the front pages, but may be facing another economic crisis that could impact the European Union, and, ultimately, us.  From the Washington Post:  "ATHENS — The long-dormant euro crisis could come roaring back to life Monday with a vote in the Greek Parliament that is expected to bring down the pro-austerity government and open the way for a radical leftist party to take power for the first time in the history of the European Union.  The vote will be watched closely around the continent as a marker of economic peril in the year ahead as Europe gazes into the abyss of another recession. But it could also be a key political milestone as the center gives way to forces that were once relegated to the European fringe and are now buoyed by a populist, anti-austerity backlash."  Europe could easily slip over the edge.  It has that habit.

AIRLINER LATEST – From CNN:  "(CNN) -- Indonesia's top rescue official says authorities believe the missing AirAsia jet is likely at the bottom of the sea, based on radar data from the plane's last contact.
'(Because) the coordinate that was given to us and the evolution from the calculation point of the flight track is at sea, our early conjecture is that the plane is in the bottom of the sea,' Bambang Sulistyo, head of Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, told reporters Monday.  But searchers still don't know where the plane is, he said, and may need help from other countries for help with an underwater search.  The search for AirAsia Flight QZ8501 resumed on Monday, a day after the commercial jet disappeared in Indonesian airspace with 162 people aboard."  The prevailing assumption is still that violent weather is behind the plane's disappearance, but I'd keep an open mind.  Many other planes were flying in the area yesterday, and they weren't brought down.

SAME OLD STORY – From the Los Angeles Times:  "St. Louis prosecutors on Saturday charged well-known Ferguson, Mo., activist Joshua Williams, 19, with setting fire to a convenience store during protests sparked by the police shooting of teenager earlier this week.  St. Louis County police said in a criminal complaint that surveillance video and news footage show Williams starting multiple fires inside and outside the Quick Trip convenience store as it was being looted early Wednesday morning.  Williams has been widely quoted in the media as an advocate for peaceful protest since Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, 18, on Aug. 9."  We see this same story over and over – some photogenic guy sells himself as a peaceful protester, and it turns out he's an instigator.  Maybe a little less press coverage will put a dent in the professional rioters.

December 28, 2014       Permalink

WARNING – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  The boys are at it again.  From London's Telegraph: 

The West should brace itself for more lone wolf terrorist attacks, an al-Qaeda official has warned in a magazine interview.

Gloating over a wave of recent atrocities, Sheikh Nasr Al Ansi said more were to come in an interview with a glossy Jihadist magazine, Inspire.

Slickly produced and chilling in its content, the magazine not only hails the work of the lone wolf, but also provides the recipe for another bomb which, it claims, will be undetectable at many airports.

Western intelligence experts have voiced fears at the threat posed by individual jihadists without obvious connections to Islamist militants.

Their fears appear to be well-founded, according to the interview.

“The Lions of Allah who are all over the globe, some call them lone wolves – should know they are the West’s worst nightmare. So do not belittle your operations. Do not undermine your Jihad,” Al Ansi tells the magazine.

“Because some deaths are caused by a thousand cuts. And a small blood clot paralyses the whole body.”

He adds: “Allah the Almighty has facilitated for them capabilities that are absent to other Muslims: reaching the heart of the enemy’s land and other targets.”

Advice for the lone wolf ranges from how to produce a bomb to how to handle the publicity from the atrocity.

Written in the style of a commercial cookbook, the “AQ chef”, describes how commercially available ingredients can be used to make a device.

COMMENT:  I would take this very seriously.  I'd also hope that news organizations would stop using the term "lone wolf."  They're not lone wolves.  They've been radicalized by others, whose intent is to radicalize.  They're self-starters, but not lone wolves. 

December 28, 2014       Permalink

MISSING AIRLINER – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  We reported last night that a Malaysian airliner was missing.  It is still missing.  From CNN:

(CNN) -- An AirAsia passenger jet carrying 162 people lost contact with Indonesian air traffic control early Sunday, gripping Southeast Asia with a second missing plane crisis in less than a year.

The search operation for the missing AirAsia Flight QZ8501 has been halted for the night, but big ships won't return to shore and will leave their searchlights on, according to the Indonesian Transportation Ministry.

Before communication was lost, one of the pilots asked to fly at a higher altitude because of bad weather, officials said.

The aircraft, flying from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore, went missing as it flew at 38,000 feet over the Java Sea between the islands of Belitung and Borneo -- a heavily traveled shipping channel with shallow waters, according to Indonesian authorities, who are leading the search and rescue operations. 

COMMENT:  Strange.   No ship apparently heard or saw the plane go down.  Also, there has been nothing heard from the "pingers" that send distress signals from an airliner's black boxes.  There were apparently no cell phone calls. 

News reports are assuming that the call from the cockpit was legit.  I have no evidence to the contrary, but the plane was a modern Airbus with weather-detecting radar capacities.  Experts on the air are skeptical that it could have run directly into weather bad enough to destroy it. 

You'll recall the Malaysian Airliner, Flight 370, that disappeared last March, and has never been found.  Once searching resumes, so the "expert" speculation goes, wreckage from the AirAsia airliner will be found in the Java Sea.  We'll follow the search.

There had been reports in recent weeks that American intelligence agencies expected a terror attack on an airliner to coincide with the Christmas season.  But the assumption was that the airliner would be American. 

December 28, 2014       Permalink

BUSH LEADS IN EARLY POLL – AT 10:56 A.M. ET:  These early presidential polls are more fun than anything else, but at least they stir the pot a bit.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Jeb Bush is the front-runner for the Republican ticket in 2016, according to a new poll.

The former Florida governor was backed by 23 percent of respondents in a CNN/ORC poll. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie came in second, with 13 percent; physician Ben Carson grabbed 7 percent; and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and ex-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee both tallied 6 percent.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan each scored 5 percent, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz polled at 4 percent.

Bush is one of the few candidates in the field to announce he's exploring a presidential run.

Of the Democratic respondents polled, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the runaway favorite at 66 percent, followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 9 percent.

In head-to-head match-ups with Clinton, it's Bush who fared best out of the GOP field. The poll found he'd grab 41 percent of the vote compared to Clinton's 54 percent. Ryan was the second-best, falling behind Clinton in a 56-41 split.

COMMENT:  I get the feeling that this poll was largely a reflection of name recognition.  And, oddly, Mitt Romney seems to have been left out. 

On the Democratic side, Hillary only polls 54% against Bush, which is hardly impressive.  She isn't running away with anything.

December 28,  2014     Permalink