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FEBRUARY 3,  2015

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

REVENGE – From Fox:  "Jordan said it had executed two prisoners early Wednesday after a new video surfaced on the Internet Tuesday showing ISIS burning alive a Jordanian pilot the terror group had held since December.  Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said that prisoners Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli were executed. Al-Rishawi has been on death row for her role in a triple hotel bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005 that killed dozens. Over the past week, Jordan had twice offered to swap her for the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh. However, officials have said his captors did not deliver proof he was still alive, and the swap never moved forward."

THE UN IS SHOCKED, SHOCKED – From AP:  "Beirut (AP) – The U.N.’s World Food Program says it is 'extremely concerned' about images circulating on social media showing Islamic State labels affixed to its food aid boxes in Syria.  It said in a statement Monday that it was still trying to verify the photos, but that they appear to have been taken in the northern Syrian village of Deir Hafer, which was last reached by the WFP on Aug. 5, when a convoy delivered 1,700 food rations, enough to feed 8,500 people for a month."  We're sure the UN is extremely concerned.  Just like it was extremely concerned about Hamas missiles stored in its facilities in Gaza.  Real concerned.

JERK – A perfect label for a particular sports journalist.  From Daily Caller:  "The Nation’s Dave Zirin (the same journalist who brought us the genius idea that not cheering for the Seattle Seahawks is racist) wrote a post-Super Bowl column attributing the Seattle Seahawks’ horrible decision to throw a pass on the one-yard line in the final seconds of the game to “the politics of race” and an anti-Marshawn Lynch conspiracy. The theory, as relayed by Zirin, is that Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll called a pass because he wanted the young, clean-cut quarterback Russell Wilson to be seen as the game-winner, not the renegade running back Marshawn Lynch. The only source for this theory is a disgruntled anonymous figure in the Seahawks locker room."  Tacky, just tacky.

AND WE LET THEM VOTE? – According to a new poll, 77% of 18-34-year-olds cannot name either senator from their own state.  I remember when the vote was given to 18-year-olds.  I thought it was a mistake, that we should go in the other direction and not let people vote for president until they were at least 25.  Actually, I'd prefer 55, but maybe that's a tad undemocratic.  How about 35?

February 3, 2015       Permalink

UKRAINE – AT 8:33 A.M. ET:   Ukraine is coming back into the news, a victim of fairly naked Russian aggression.  But Field Marshal Obama doesn't see it that way.  He just doesn't see it.  From the New York Post: 

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama touted his Ukraine strategy as a demonstration of “the power of American strength and diplomacy.” Word of this stirring success has yet to reach the Kremlin.

While President Obama praised his mastery, Russia’s troops and associated thugs were pressing ahead with the on-and-off invasion of Eastern Ukraine that has seized roughly another 200 square miles of territory the last few months.

The latest Russian offensive has dispensed with the pretense of supporting an indigenous uprising by ethnic Russians and become an even more naked land grab.

We believe in the power of 21st-century international norms. Russian President Vladimir Putin believes in the power of lies and brute force and implicitly asks, in the spirit of Joseph Stalin, “How many divisions do international norms have?”

And...

While Russia rolls its T-80 and T-72 tanks — with at least 1,000 Russian personnel in support — we have countered with night-vision goggles and first-aid kits.

A new report issued by Democratic foreign-policy experts decrying the lack of military aid to Ukraine notes that pro-Russian forces enjoy an advantage “in air superiority, intelligence, electronic warfare, command and control, artillery and rockets, supply and logistics, and sanctuary in Russia.”

Besides that, it’s a fair fight.

The Obama policy reflects the craven logic that says helping a victim defend itself from an aggressor is dangerously provocative.

COMMENT:  Two forces have gained strength during the Obama years – Islamic extremism and old-time Communism.  Hmm.  I wonder if it's a coincidence.

February 3, 2015       Permalink

WE ARE SAVED! – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  Hillary Clinton, moving toward a summer announcement of her candidacy for queen, is making a decision on where to place the royal headquarters.   My town has apparently been saved.  From The Hill: 

Hillary Clinton is focused on housing her 2016 campaign headquarters in New York City — potentially in Brooklyn, which has emerged as a leading contender.

Insiders say Clinton aides are looking at Brooklyn as a possible location, and that an office in White Plains, near the Clintons’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home, has been all but ruled out.

Urgent Agenda is done here, in White Plains.  I am relieved that we are to be spared the burden of Hillary's headquarters.  I mean, how many mink coats can you take in one day? 

For months, some in the Clinton universe thought that setting up the campaign in or around White Plains, a middle-class enclave with dozens of office parks, would be a good home for the former secretary of State’s second presidential campaign.

Well, I guess it would have been fun to zing her knowing she was only blocks away. 

But using Brooklyn for its headquarters could be a useful symbol for a campaign that hopes to win over young people and has already been attacked by Republicans as “old news.”

The borough is New York City’s most populous, and has had a renaissance over the last decade as many of its neighborhoods have been transformed. It is also one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the United States — another aspect Clinton’s team will want to highlight as it seeks to attract minority voters.

Have you heard that two-bedroom apartments in Brooklyn often go for $400,000 or more?  Yeah, real typical American town.

It would provide a stark contrast from the locale where Clinton based her 2008 presidential campaign: the Washington, D.C., suburb of Ballston, Va. Back then, Team Clinton was housed in a stodgy former Immigration and Naturalization Service building.

COMMENT:  No matter where she goes, she can't escape one place...Benghazi.

February 3, 2015       Permalink

WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? – AT 7:58 A.M. ET:  The president has presented his budget.  There are no surprises.  Just get out your checkbooks.  From Fox: 

President Obama has packed more than 20 new tax increases into his proposed 2016 budget, which Republicans roundly blasted Monday as a tax-and-spend agenda that won't get their support.

Together, the tax increases total more than $2 trillion over the next decade. The president plans to use much of that to fund new middle-class tax cuts, as well as ambitious spending programs for highway construction, education benefits and more.

The biggest money-maker for the federal government would be a change allowing top earners to take tax deductions at the 28 percent rate, even if their income is taxed at the top 39.6 percent rate. This is projected to bring in $603.2 billion in revenue over the next 10 years.

In addition, top earners would see an increase in capital gains rates -- to 28 percent, up from the current 24.2 percent rate. The change would raise nearly $208 billion.

Some of the biggest tax hikes in the budget also include a 14 percent, one-time tax on previously untaxed foreign income (raising $268.1 billion); a 19 percent minimum tax on foreign income (raising $206 billion); and a fraction-of-a-percent fee on the 100 financial firms with assets of over $50 billion (raising $111.8 billion).

The budget plan, while gearing tax hikes toward the wealthy and tax benefits toward the middle class, wouldn't exclusively hit the top tier. It would also hit smokers of all kinds, who under the president's plan would see the per-pack tax rise from $1.01 to $1.95, bringing in an additional $95 billion in revenue.

In a message accompanying the massive budget books, Obama said his proposals are "practical, not partisan." But even before the books were delivered, Republicans found plenty to criticize.

"The president is advocating more spending, more taxes and more debt," said House Speaker John Boehner. "A proposal that never balances is not a serious plan for America's fiscal future."

Boehner and other GOP leaders said that the budget they produce this spring will achieve balance within 10 years, curb the explosive growth of government benefit programs and reform the loophole-cluttered tax code.

Of Obama's $4 trillion proposal, Boehner said: "Like the president's previous budgets, this plan never balances -- ever."

COMMENT:  I look forward to the GOP budget.  Obama's budget is unacceptable for reasons Mr. Boehner notes.  There are also hidden taxes that will neutralize the middle-class tax cuts that are promised.  And I don't think any tax should be raised unless we know exactly what it will be used for.  There is no attempt in this budget to address the scandal of failed or vastly overpriced federal programs.

February 3, 2015      Permalink

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK – AT 7:40 A.M. ET:  The incompetence, the cynicism, the deception.  All rolled into one package.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

The State Department admitted on Monday that it misled reporters about a recent delegation of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and allies who were hosted for a meeting with officials at Foggy Bottom.

State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki claimed last week that the controversial delegation of key Brotherhood leaders and allies had been “organized and funded by Georgetown University.”

However, the university denied this is the case when reached by the Washington Free Beacon.

Psaki clarified her original comments made on Jan. 29 during a Monday meeting with reporters.

The meeting between the Brotherhood allies and the State Department sparked controversy in Washington and Cairo, where Egyptian government officials expressed anger at the Obama administration for hosting representatives of a group they consider to be terrorists.

The State Department meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor and other State Department officials.

While Psaki continued to defend the decision to host the Brotherhood allies at the State Department, she clarified that Georgetown actually had nothing to do with the delegation.

COMMENT:  Well, I guess it's good to get the facts straight.  But, bottom line, we have to wonder why our State Department would have a meeting with a group that is anti-American, anti-woman, and anti-Semitic.  Oh, wait, President Obama seems to have a soft spot for the Brotherhood.  Maybe that's the reason.

The government of Egypt is not a perfect government by any means, but it is one of the few that is taking on Islamic extremism, and actually calls it by its name.  Obama shows contempt for the Egyptian government, just as he shows contempt for the Israeli government.  But the Iranian government?  Hey, no big problem.  The Cuban government?  Even a smaller problem.

Do you think we're being had?

February 3,  2015     Permalink

FEBRUARY 2,  2015

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

GOOD FOR HER! – From mlive.com:  "LAPEER COUNTY, MI -- An 11-year-old girl used the shotgun she normally keeps to go hunting with her father to scare off a robber in her home, police said.  The girl was alone at her North Branch Township home on Five Lakes Road about 3:45 p.m. on Jan. 30 when police said she surprised burglars who had broken into the house.  The girl hid in a bathroom closet, where she grabbed her shotgun that police said she stores in a gun safe.  When one of the burglars opened the closet door, police said the girl -- whose parents were due home from work a short time later -- pointed the shotgun at him and he ran off.  'The 12-gauge shotgun is her weapon,' said Lapeer County Sheriff Detective Sgt. Jason Parks."  I don't normally recommend giving guns to 12-year-olds, but in this case the kid clearly was responsible and could handle it.  Salutes to her!

OH, THIS IDENTITY POLITICS STUFF – From Fox:  "The Democratic Party is facing mounting pressure from Latino activists and political insiders to back a Hispanic candidate for the first vacant U.S. senate seat in California in nearly 25 years.  If they don't, experts say, they risk alienating Latino voters nationwide.  Latino activists in the Golden State have grown concerned because they feel that Washington, D.C., Democratic leaders have appeared to anoint California Attorney General Kamala Harris to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2016, and as a result Harris's candidacy has gotten early support and momentum.  Some insiders are concerned that Democrats may miss out on an important opportunity. More than one out of four U.S. Hispanics live in California, and they make up nearly 40 percent of the state’s population – nevertheless there has never been a Latino U.S. Senator from the state."  I really dislike this group politics approach.  How about choosing the best senator?  Hispanic voters are intelligent and influential, and can make sure that the best candidate, whether a member of their group or not, reflects their concerns.  Regarding Kamala Harris, she strikes me as standard liberal equipment.

THE NEW YORK WAY – In a fit of unusual self-righteousness, the New York State Assembly has been cleansed of one Sheldon Silver, the speaker, after allegations surfaced of huge corruption and upsetting practices on Silvers's part.  Silver was one of the most powerful men of New York, and the political world was shocked, shocked, that he would sully himself for mere dollars.  Now is the age of reform in New York, as the state moves forward with...this guy.  From The New York Times:  "ALBANY — History within reach, Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie of the Bronx had seemingly secured the speakership of the New York State Assembly on Monday, as a final challenger bowed out and reports that his campaign spending was once under scrutiny did little to buffet his ascent.  Mr. Heastie, 47, who would be the chamber’s first African-American speaker, has mounted a blistering campaign to succeed Sheldon Silver, the longtime speaker who agreed to step aside last week in the wake of federal charges of accepting millions of dollars in payoffs...
Mr. Heastie’s rise to the speaker’s post suffered an unforeseen bump in the last several days when a number of news stories called attention to his campaign spending and the amount of money he has taken from the government to cover work-related travel and expenses. But initial indications were that the reports had had little impact on his popularity among the Assembly’s rank and file."  I mean, what's a little corruption compared with Silver's greater corruption.  After all, you can't get totally clean overnight, can you?  It's New York.

February 2, 2015       Permalink

TIME TO LEAVE – AT 10:40 A.M. ET:   Some politicians just don't know when to get off the stage.  They need help, or a visit from a psychiatrist.

Martin O'Malley just left the governor's office in Maryland.  A Democrat in one of the most Democratic states in the Union, O'Malley couldn't even help elect a Dem successor.  Maryland now has a Republican governor, Larry Hogan.  O'Malley has been mentioned by the Great Mentioner for the presidency.  Even though he fumbled his succession, it's clear that he still has presidential thoughts.    From The Hill: 

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D), a possible candidate for president in 2016, on Monday called the White House's decision to allow drilling along parts of the East Coast "a big mistake."

"The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster should remind us that the benefits of drilling do not outweigh the threat to local economies, public health and the environment when an inevitable spill occurs," he wrote in an op-ed published in The New York Times.

O'Mally argued that placing oil rigs off the East Coast would result in accidents with broad consequences — noting recent, strong storms like Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

"If a single hurricane has the power to damage or destroy more than 650,000 homes in its path, we should consider what might become of an oil rig," he wrote.

"Expanding offshore drilling is irreconcilable with the realities of climate science and irrelevant, at best, to taking advantage of the vast economic opportunities clean energy presents," he added later in the piece.

This is nonsense, of course.  Environmental setbacks are rare, and are fixable.  The benefits to our economy from increased drilling are substantial, bringing thousands of jobs and feeding thousands of families.

It's clear that O'Malley is positioning himself well to the left of Hillary Clinton.  But I don't think he has any chance at all if she runs.  If she doesn't run, and Elizabeth Warren stumbles, he might try to enter the race as a darling of the left.  The odds are way against him.  I mean, who actually has heard of him?

The Obama administration said last week that it would allow drilling off one part of the Atlantic seaboard and open up more portions of the Gulf of Mexico to drilling. The plan would also ban drilling in parts of Alaska.

In addition to the obvious proximity of O'Malley's home state to the coastal area in question, the former governor may be trying to stake out territory to the left of Obama as he mulls a presidential campaign.

COMMENT:  Everything depends on Hillary's announcement, due, we're told, in July.

February 2, 2015       Permalink

DISGRACEFUL – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  An excellent story about censorship in Vietnam, published in the Washington Post, begins this way, our quote of the day: 

Five years ago I began an experiment — not of my own devising — to study censorship in Vietnam. In 2009, I signed a contract to publish one of my books in Hanoi. Called “The Spy Who Loved Us,” the book tells the story of Pham Xuan An, Vietnam’s most celebrated journalist during the Vietnam War. (He ended his career as bureau chief for Time magazine in Saigon.) Only after the war did we learn that An had received a dozen military medals as a communist spy and served as North Vietnam’s deadliest secret weapon.

COMMENT:  Did you know about that?  I didn't.  But it tells us something – that the history of the Vietnam War is far from complete.  The idea that TIME's bureau chief in Saigon was a Red agent should sicken the profession of journalism, but probably won't.  Journalism, to use the imperative of the 60s generation, wants to "move on."

We won every major battle in Vietnam, but we lost the war.  The enemy's own official history, largely ignored in the United States, admits that they agreed to negotiations because their military situation had grown so precarious by the late 1960s.  But we lost the war.

For more than a generation the Vietnam War has been an open wound in this society.  We are given the conventional wisdom by the political class, that the war was a mistake and that we were defeated by a popular revolution.  Nonsense.  The troops that flooded into Saigon in 1975, as Americans fled in helicopters, were regular infantry and armor units of the army of North Vietnam.  There wasn't a "revolutionary" in sight.

Will we ever be given the full story?  Not likely.  The media is quick to admit little mistakes.  If it gets the spelling of a name wrong, it's corrected.  The big mistakes are buried as journalists proudly "stand by our story."  History is the loser.  So are veterans.

February 2, 2015       Permalink

GROWN-UPS – AT 8:53 A.M. ET:   There actually are grown-ups in the Democratic Party.  Yes, I know, they've been put on the endangered species list, and are not even welcome in the party.  But they do exist.  And, increasingly, they are wondering about the foreign policy being pursued by the Democrat in the White House.  From the Washington Post: 

For more than two years, a breach has been opening between President Obama and the foreign policy establishment of the Democratic Party. Last week, as Russia pressed a new offensive in Ukraine and the Senate debated sanctions on Iran, it cracked open a little wider.

First came the introduction in the Senate, and lopsided passage by the Banking Committee, of a bill that would place new sanctions on Iran if no agreement limits its nuclear program by June. Though fiercely opposed by Obama, the measure, co-sponsored by Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, had won the express support of 13 other Democratic senators by the end of the week. A letter signed by Menendez plus nine of them pledged to delay a final floor vote until March 24, the deadline set by the administration for finalizing the framework of a bargain.

While that postponement avoided an immediate confrontation with Obama, the larger message of the senators was clear: They are “deeply skeptical,” said the letter, that Obama will obtain adequate concessions from Tehran — despite what has been an increasingly single-minded diplomatic push.

At week’s end came another de facto vote of no confidence: a report by eight foreign policy luminaries, due to be formally released Monday, saying the president should “immediately change” his policy of refusing to supply Ukraine with weapons to defend its besieged eastern provinces. “Washington,” it said bluntly, has “not devoted sufficient attention to the threat posed by Russia and its implications for Western security. This must change.”

COMMENT:  It probably won't change.  Maybe people in his own party are finally realizing who Barack Obama really is.  He is a leftist, with sympathy for the third world and for socialism.  He is our first truly leftist (as opposed to liberal) president.  He intends to leave a leftist legacy.

Remember that, just before the 2012 election, Obama was caught on an open mike assuring the Russian foreign minister that he'd have more flexibility after the election.  It was an admission that he was lying to the American people about his foreign-policy views, and would shift his positions when he was no longer politically vulnerable.  A comment like that should have cost Obama the election.  It did not.  It was covered up by the press and quickly forgotten.  And we are paying the price.

Read the whole piece.  It's very revealing.

February 2, 2015       Permalink

ARROGANCE – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  In an interview with the Administration-friendly Today Show, President Obama showed the remarkable arrogance that has become almost a trademark.  He will not admit that anything is wrong.  From The Hill:

President Obama defended his campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in an interview airing Monday, saying the U.S. was “doing exactly what we should be doing” to fight the terror network.

Obama said critics of his strategy would have the U.S. redeploy tens of thousands of U.S. troops, but that ultimately such an effort would prove ineffective without local support. Presently, the U.S. and coalition partners’ military efforts against ISIS have been largely limited to airstrikes in support of Iraqi and Kurdish security forces, as well as Syrian rebel groups.

“It is entirely possible for us to deploy 200 or 300,000 U.S. troops,” Obama said in the interview with NBC’s “Today” show. “If we don’t have inside of Iraq or inside of Syria or inside of Afghanistan both he capacity and will of people to fight for themselves, then any gains that are made eventually dissipate. So this takes longer, but it’s the right way to do things.”

He added that “those who want us to shoot first and aim later” were typically the ones to “get this country into really bad situations,” and that his administration was doing everything it could short of that.

“Anything that we could be doing, we are doing,” he said.

COMMENT:  The very idea that we have exhausted all possibilities is the height of arrogance.  So is the terminology, like "those who want us to shoot first and aim later..."  The Obamans continue to think that they're smarter than everyone else, despite an abysmal foreign-policy record and the fact that, under Obama, the Mideast has burst into flames.

One reason for Obama's narrowness is that he comes from a political class that will not use terms like "victory" or "win."  These are "imperialist" terms. 

But the bottom line is that, internationally, no one takes Obama very seriously any longer.  No one really trusts him.  The world loves a winner and hates a loser.  We are today seen as a nation in retrenchment, in withdrawal.  Notice how many friends that has made.

February 2,  2015     Permalink