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JANUARY 15,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:37 P.M. ET:

AMERICANS' FINANCES DECLINE – From Gallup:  "WASHINGTON, D.C. - More Americans, 42%, say they are financially worse off now than they were a year ago, reversing the lower levels found over the past two years. Just more than a third of Americans say their financial situation has improved from a year ago."  I love living in Obooma times.

HE'D UNDERSTAND IT – From AFP:  "London (AFP) - Thieves tried to steal the ashes of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud and his wife from a crematorium in London, severely damaging a 2,400-year-old urn that housed their remains, police said Wednesday."  The ashes have forgiven the thieves and recommended ten sessions of group therapy and acting out.

WE'RE SLIPPING – A new report from The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation asserts that the U.S. has slipped out of the top ten nations in terms of economic freedom.  We're now twelfth:  "The Obama administration continues to shackle entire sectors of the economy with regulation, including health care, finance and energy. The intervention impedes both personal freedom and national prosperity.  But as the U.S. economy languishes, many countries are leaping ahead, thanks to policies that enhance economic freedom—the same ones that made the U.S. economy the most powerful in the world. Governments in 114 countries have taken steps in the past year to increase the economic freedom of their citizens."

DEM BIGWIG BLASTS WHITE HOUSE ON IRAN – From The Hill:  "House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) hammered the White House on Tuesday for suggesting that lawmakers urging tougher Iran sanctions are advocating for war.  Hoyer emphasized that he's 'sensitive to the administration's concern' that the Iran sanctions proposals floating in both the House and Senate could undermine fragile bilateral talks designed to freeze Iran's nuclear program and prevent the development of weapons. But recent comments from administration officials implying that sanction supporters want a march to war, he said, are 'irresponsible' and demand a retraction."  There has been no retraction.  The White House is tougher on Congress than on Iran.

January 15,  2013     Permalink

WEIRDSVILLE – AT 11:15 A.M. ET:   Is this our future?  From London's Daily Mail:

A Chinese firm claims it is getting closer to allowing parents to pick the embryo most likely to succeed.

Researcher believe that 50-80% of what determines IQ could be inherited.

Now a Chinese firm is mapping the genes of people who are gifted in maths in a bid to isolate the genes that make them smarter that the average person.

Shenzhen-based BGI is mapping the genes of math geniuses, and appealing via its web site for more to take part in the controversial study.

B.G.I., formerly called Beijing Genomics Institute, is the world’s largest genetic-research center, and already has an initial batch of 2,000 DNA samples from high-IQ subjects.

Researchers then plan to compare these against a sample from the general population - and hopefully isolate what makes them special.

In theory, this knowledge could then be used to allow parents to pick 'smart embryos'.

COMMENT:  How cool.  What about an honest-government gene?  Or a strong national defense gene?  How about a gene that immunizes voters against Obama-style campaigns?  Or a gene that forces mainstream media reporters to play it straight?

Math is good.  Other things are important as well.

January 15, 2014       Permalink

OUR DYNAMIC RECOVERY – AT 9:31 A.M. ET:   The Administration constantly tells us that we're in an economic recovery, practically roaring, tofu in every pot and two battery-powered cars in every garage.  Not so, not so.  From The Wall Street Journal: 

About half of the nation’s 3,069 county economies are still short of their prerecession economic output, reflecting the uneven economic recovery, according to a new report from the National Association of Counties.

The overall U.S. economy had reached its prerecession level of gross domestic product three years ago, Commerce Department figures show.

National statistics “mask the reality on the ground,” where some county economies were in recession long before December 2007 and others never experienced one at all, said Emilia Istrate, the association’s director of research and one of the authors of the report. “That’s where Americans feel the economy. They feel it locally.”

The report, released Monday, examined four economic indicators: GDP, total number of jobs, unemployment rates and home prices. It found wide variations.

Almost 400 counties saw no decline in GDP from their prerecession levels. Large counties were hit hard by the recession, but have recovered relatively strongly.

The roughly 800 counties boasting prerecession employment levels by 2013 are mostly in the Midwest and South. And just 54 had achieved their prerecession level of unemployment last year, the report said.

COMMENT:  Other than that, everything is okay.  Ignore, please, the fact that large numbers of any new jobs being created are part-time, and that the unemployment picture for recent college graduates is catastrophic.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.

January 15, 2014      Permalink

IRAN MADNESS – AT 9:03 A.M. ET:  No, this is not made up.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

A longtime aide for Secretary of State John Kerry is urging senators to oppose a new Iran sanctions measure because it would level tough penalties on Tehran should it carry out a terror attack against Americans anywhere in the world.

One of the requirements of a new bipartisan Iran sanctions bill in the Senate is that President Barack Obama certify “Iran has not directly, or through a proxy, supported, financed, planned, or otherwise carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or United States persons or property anywhere in the world” during nuclear negotiations with the West.

If Iran—one of the top global sponsors of terrorism—is caught committing an extremist act, the bill would require new sanctions to immediately take effect.

The anti-terror requirement is now causing outrage among pro-Iran advocacy groups who oppose new sanctions.

Edward Levine, a Kerry confidant who formerly worked on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lambasted the anti-terror mandate in a recent analysis for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

That is a left-wing group.  Many left-wing groups oppose sanctions on Iran because they ally themselves with America's enemies.  But the mainstream media will never tell that to you directly. 

Requiring Iran to cease its terror activities against the United States could harm the negotiations over its contested nuclear program, according to Levine.

“This language would mean that if, say, Hezbollah were to explode a bomb outside a U.S. firm’s office in Beirut, the sanctions would go into effect (because Iran gives financial and other support to Hezbollah) even if Iran’s nuclear activities and negotiations were completely in good faith,” Levine wrote in his analysis. “So, once again, the goalposts are being moved.”

Levine goes on to say that because the bill does not set a specific time period on Iran’s terror activities, “Iran’s past support of terrorism might make it impossible for the president ever to make this certification.”

COMMENT:  This is the kind of thinking that led directly to World War II.  You just look the other way, ignore reality, and engage in "talks."   And you call anyone who disagrees a warmonger.

January 15,  2014     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:41 A.M. ET:  On Iran, from the increasingly important Walter Russell Mead, of The American Interest, who is becoming one of the most thoughtful commentators of the day: 

While officials from the P5+1 countries congratulate each other on an “interim agreement” and a “temporary freeze” on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program, the Iranian negotiating team claims that there is a secret side deal with details on Iran’s right to continue nuclear development over the next few months. While President Obama fights to prevent new Iran sanctions, saying they would be a “march toward war,” Iran is stepping up its military and economic support for Hezbollah, the Assad regime in Damascus, and Shiite militia groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain. While Washington tries to spin the interim agreement with Iran as a step forward for “peace and diplomacy,” Iran’s Foreign Minister pays his respects to a notorious mass murderer (of Americans!), and Iran’s “moderate” new President Hassan Rouhani went on Twitter to boast that “world powers surrendered to the Iranian nation’s will.”

Some have claimed that these actions by Iranian officials signal “insincerity,” but we don’t see anything insincere here. Iran sincerely wants to establish an Iran-dominated Shia Crescent from Basra and Baghdad in Iraq across Syria and into Lebanon, and it sincerely believes that the Obama Administration is weak, vacillating, and desperate enough for the facade of a nuclear agreement to let that happen. Iran sincerely believes that the Sunni world has never been in such disarray or so weak; given all this, a sketchy nuclear deal with the United States that would cement Iran in place as the region’s dominant power looks genuinely attractive to the mullahs in Tehran. Why wouldn’t it?

As long as Iran thinks it can have it all, we won’t be testing whether it is really prepared to settle for a fair compromise in the Middle East. As long as this administration keeps the nuclear talks rolling and enforces a rigid separation between Iran’s activities beyond the talks and progress on sanctions, we won’t know Iran’s real bottom line.

Franklin Roosevelt once said that you can’t turn a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. President Obama appears to disagree. Time will tell who was right.

COMMENT:  The problem, as we see it, is that Obama just doesn't care.  He doesn't see Iran as a threat.  He sees traditional America as a threat.  Our catastrophic withdrawal from the Mideast means victory after victory for radical Islam, presided over by an American president with obviously strong Islamic sympathies.  It's been noted that Obama is rougher on Congressional critics of his Iran policy than he is on Iran.

There were cynical jokes in 2008 that we had elected the Manchurian Candidate.  You know, I'm not laughing any longer.

January 15,  2014     Permalink

JANUARY 14,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:22 P.M. ET: 

CHRISTIE SURVIVING – New polls show Chris Christie's approval rating as governor of New Jersey remains high, though dented, despite the recent Bridgegate scandal.  From the Monmouth University poll:  "Gov. Christie’s job rating currently stands at 59% approve to 32% disapprove among New Jersey residents and 58% to 35% among registered voters. His job approval stood at 65% approve just one month ago. This is the first time since Superstorm Sandy struck the state over 14 months ago that the governor’s approval rating has dipped below 60%. Christie’s current job rating is still higher than any poll ratings he had in his term prior to Sandy.  Republicans are sticking by Christie, giving him an 89% approval rating which is in line with the 85% GOP support he received last month. Approval has dropped among independents from 73% in December to 62% now and among Democrats from 47% in December to 38% now."  If nothing more comes out, Christie can rebuild.  Also, Dems can overplay their hand by expensive "investigations" that go nowhere.

SICKENING – It is simply incredible the way the Iranians spit in our faces while Obama assures us that he has talks with Tehran under control.  From The Times of Israel:  "The White House reproached Iran’s foreign minister on Tuesday for honoring a former Hezbollah commander responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans.  'The United States condemns the decision taken by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Khonsari to place a wreath at the grave of Imad Mughniyeh, a former leader of Lebanese Hezbollah responsible for heinous acts of terrorism that killed hundreds of innocent people, including Americans,' National Security Council Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.  Mughniyeh was a key military commander of Hezbollah’s paramilitary and intelligence arms. American officials have said he was a planner of the 1983 bombings of the US Marines barracks and US Embassy in Lebanon that killed over 300 Americans, a handful of French troops and dozens of Lebanese citizens."  Yeah, I really trust these boys.

TOO MUCH TIME ON THEIR HANDS – From National Journal:  "Senate Democrats pledging to get more aggressive on climate change will soon pressure the major TV networks to give the topic far greater attention on the Sunday talking-head shows.  Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, are gathering colleagues' signatures on a letter to the networks asserting that they're ignoring global warming.  'It is beyond my comprehension that you have ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, that their Sunday shows have discussed climate change in 2012, collectively, for all of eight minutes,' Sanders said, citing analysis by the liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America.  Sanders mentioned the letter during a press conference with most other members of Senate Democrats' new, 19-member Climate Action Task Force, and he elaborated on it in a brief interview afterward."   Sanders is the only member of Congress who is an avowed socialist, although I have suspicions about several others.  I don't think he can do much harm.  Besides, in rushing to a network's headquarters to deliver his protest on global warming he'll probably be caught in a blizzard.

AND THIS ROMANTIC BULLETIN JUST IN – From The Hill:  "Embattled French President François Hollande vowed Tuesday to pick between his partner and his mistress in time for next month's state dinner with President Obama.  Hollande told reporters in Paris he would clarify who the first lady of France is in time for the Feb. 11 state visit. His live-in partner, former political reporter Valérie Trierweiler, was hospitalized for reported shock and exhaustion over the weekend following a magazine report that Hollande had been seeing film actress Julie Gayet."  Whoever it is, I hope they don't put her between Barack and Michelle. 

January 14,  2014     Permalink

THE BEST SHOW IN TOWN – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:   A new book reveals that Hillary Clinton, like Nixon, keeps an enemies list, in which people are rated according to their loyalty to her.  (She would have been such a good Soviet leader.)  Now we find that those on the lesser side of the scale are trying to get back into the queen's good graces.  From The Hill: 

Democrats atop a political “hit list” of politicians who betrayed Hillary Clinton in 2008 are trying to get back in her good graces as she weighs a 2016 comeback.

Clinton campaign aides kept a detailed list of lawmakers who supported Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, according to excerpts from the forthcoming book HRC: States Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton, by The Hill’s Amie Parnes and Politico’s Jonathan Allen. The book says aides ranked them according to the gravity of their perceived betrayal, with several prominent Democrats — including Secretary of State John Kerry, then a Massachusetts senator — earning the blackest of black marks.

The new revelation set off a flurry of praise for Clinton, also a secretary of State, from the damned on Monday.

“Secretary Kerry and former Secretary Clinton share a long friendship,” Kerry spokesman Alec Gerlach told The Hill in an email. “Secretary Clinton’s advice and guidance were both generous and insightful as he transitioned into his role as Secretary of State, and they’ve continued to partner together, most recently at Georgetown University promoting the rights of Afghan women, an effort started by Secretary Clinton and supported by Secretary Kerry.”

The 2004 Democratic presidential nominee endorsed Obama, then an Illinois senator, during a campaign rally in South Carolina at a crucial point during the primaries. Kerry’s declaration that Obama was the right candidate to “turn a new page in American politics” was seen as a jab not only at former President George W. Bush but also former President Clinton, who campaigned hard for Kerry during the 2004 election even as he was recovering from heart surgery.

COMMENT:  I'd imagine that Kerry is really hoping that Hillary won't run in 2016, and he would want her endorsement, despite his past betrayal.

Harry Truman once famously said that, if you want a friend in Washington, get a cocker spaniel.  Apparently nothing has changed.

January 14, 2014       Permalink

THE FRAUDULENT PRESS – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  I don't defend any impropriety that Chris Christie and his staff may have committed in regard to Bridgegate.  But the hypocrisy of the press in covering the issue is nothing short of breathtaking.  You'd think the man had started a world war.  Cal Thomas, at the Washington Examiner, says it best: 

A multiple choice question: Select the scandal(s) that affects the most people and has long-term implications for the country in a time of war, a country with a struggling economy that last month produced the weakest job growth in decades. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 92 million Americans are no longer in the labor force.)

A) The closing of traffic lanes in Fort Lee, N.J., allegedly in retaliation for the refusal of a Democratic mayor to endorse New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie for a second term.

B) The role of the president and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, and the lies and possible cover-up about al Qaeda's involvement.

C) The IRS' refusal to grant nonprofit status to numerous conservative groups during the 2012 election campaign for allegedly political reasons.

D) President Obama's repeated statements assuring Americans that if they like their insurance plans and doctors, they may keep them under the new health care law.

If you are honest you would have to select B, C and D, but who among the media are honest enough to do that?

Christie held a 107-minute news conference Thursday, during which he repeatedly denied knowing anything about the lane closures on the George Washington Bridge. He fired Bridget Anne Kelly, his deputy chief of staff, and blocked the appointment of another close associate to a state GOP chairmanship.

Left-leaning Democrats and the establishment media see an opening to keep Christie from winning the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 and are salivating because they think the Fort Lee controversy might harm his chances against Clinton.

One wishes the media would grill Obama over far more important matters with the same zeal they have applied to Christie.

COMMENT:  But the media will not.  And it is time our side realizes that the media will not treat us fairly in 2014 and 2016, as it did not treat us fairly in recent elections.  John McCain is said to have been stunned by the behavior of the media toward him in 2008.  He'd thought those were his pals. 

Liberals see elections as war.  Previous friendships mean nothing.  It is the cause that counts.  The cause now is the election of Hillary Clinton.

January 14, 2014       Permalink 

SUPREME SETBACK FOR OBAMA? – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  The administration argued a major test of presidential power before the Supreme Court yesterday, and it really didn't go well.  Although we caution that Court votes often surprise us, it may be that the president is in for a serious defeat.  From Breitbart:

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding whether President Barack Obama's appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are unconstitutional. The case will probably be a lopsided defeat for the president, with his own Supreme Court appointees expressing deep skepticism of the Justice Department's arguments.

If the Court goes the route it signaled during argument, all the rulings and regulations from that powerful body over a period of a couple years will be declared illegal, at least temporarily until a new Board can reconsider them.

For decades, presidents of both parties have strayed from the limits of the Constitution's Recess Appointments Clause, which allows the president to fill vacancies when the Senate is in recess and therefore cannot confirm nominations. But Obama made an unprecedented power grab when he declared the Senate in recess even though that body was actually holding meetings, and stacked the NLRB with his supporters. Liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan joined all the conservative justices and Anthony Kennedy in sharply questioning the legality of Obama's actions.

While it is unclear whether the Court will rule narrowly or broadly, it does seem clear the Obama lost yesterday at the Court, potentially by a lopsided 8-1 vote (if not unanimous against him).

COMMENT:  Justice Sotomayor seems especially to be developing an independent streak.  We'll see in the final vote whether the liberal justices will actually follow the Constitution.  I suspect some will, and, with the firepower provided by the conservatives and Justice Kennedy, will cut the president a bit down to size.

January 14, 2014       Permalink

STUNNING – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  Iranian officials are publicly boasting that they won the negotiation over the interim nuclear agreement, and they are correct.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

Iran will be permitted to continue advanced research and development work on its nuclear program under the interim nuclear deal reached over the weekend, according to senior Obama administration officials.

Nuclear talks were reported to have broken down late last year over the issue of whether Iran would be permitted to continue critical research and development in the nuclear arena.

The White House confirmed on Monday that Iran would be permitted to continue developing advanced nuclear centrifuges that will enable it to more quickly enrich uranium, the key component in a nuclear weapon.

Asked by a reporter on a conference call if the deal stops “Iran from designing new types of centrifuges,” a senior administration official admitted that the deal does not prohibit this activity.

“Well, designing is not, all I would say is the, what you would do with a piece of paper and designing, that’s not the sort of thing that the Joint Plan of Action—the Joint Plan of Action talks about research and development, R&D, and it mainly talks about what was going—practices at the Natanz power facility, which is the facility that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has access to and where we have reporting on,” the official said.

“So what’s the practical effect of this R&D [research and development] clarification that you labored over so hard? What does it preclude them from doing?” the reporter asked.

“It—I mean, their commitment is to continue their current enrichment R&D practices, and those are the practices that are laid out in the November Director General’s report,” said one of two senior administration officials on the press briefing. “This—that’s been documented, and that’s what they were—that’s what they will continue to do.”

Reuters reported last week that nuclear talks temporarily fell apart over the issue of centrifuge research, which had been one of the principal sticking points in the deal.

Iran says that Western nations have given it the go ahead to continue with “the installation of new generation centrifuges.”

COMMENT:  This rivals Obamacare in incomptence and deception.  And both are matters of life and death.

The president assured members of Congress yesterday that he would be prepared to take vigorous action if, and we stress if, the interim agreement were not followed by a permanent agreement.  Problem is, it almost certainly will be because Obama will give in at crucial points.  He needs that permanent agreement to get Iran off the table.  And the Europeans need that final agreement, due in less than six months under the terms of the interim deal, to fill their treasuries with the fruits of trade with Iran.   

This may make the Munich surrender of 1928 look like a minor blip in history.

January 14,  2014     Permalink