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

JULY 21,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:36 P.M. ET: 

OH SHUT UP! – Ron Paul is at it again, doing as much harm as he can to his son Rand's presidential prospects.  From National Journal:  "In the days after the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the former House member has been quick to attack the West and President Obama for pointing any fingers in the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin.  'Just days after the tragic crash of a Malaysian Airlines flight over eastern Ukraine, Western politicians and media joined together to gain the maximum propaganda value from the disaster. It had to be Russia; it had to be Putin, they said,' Ron Paul wrote in an editorial Sunday. 'President Obama held a press conference to claim—even before an investigation—that it was pro-Russian rebels in the region who were responsible. His ambassador to the U.N., Samantha Power, did the same at the U.N. Security Council—just one day after the crash!'  Paul's argument, which he first made in a Friday television appearance, was quickly picked up by the Kremlin-funded English language outlet Russia Today." Paul has always had a certain sympathy for America's enemies, as head of the Taliban wing of the Republican Party.  Of course, Joseph P. Kennedy, President Kennedy's father, had Nazi sympathies before World War II, but Jack knew how to keep dad under the couch pillows when Jack ran for president.  Rand, get pillows.  Thick ones.

CLINTON GETS THUMBS DOWN – The deterioration of Hillary Clinton's poll numbers continues, leading to a flood of speculation that someone else will be the Dem nominee in 2016.  From The Politico:  "A majority of voters are unimpressed with Hillary Clinton’s performance as secretary of state, according to a new POLITICO poll.  Just 14 percent described her time at State — she served four years ending in February 2013 — as 'excellent,' while another 28 percent defined it as 'good.' Another 21 percent called it 'fair' and 32 percent rated her performance 'poor.' Six percent weren’t sure or declined to answer. The survey of likely voters in states and districts with the most competitive House and Senate races was conducted this month as Clinton traveled around the country to promote her new memoir, 'Hard Choices,' and discuss her time at the nation’s top diplomat."  And Bill Clinton just said that Hillary needs more time to decide whether to run for president.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS NOT WANTED – With the economy and many communities under strain, Americans are rejecting the idea of putting illegal immigrants right next door.  From Rasmussen:  "Most voters don’t want any of the young illegal immigrants who’ve recently arrived here housed in their state and say any legislation passed by Congress to deal with the problem should focus on sending them home as soon as possible.  The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters believe the primary focus of any new immigration legislation passed by Congress should be to send the young illegal immigrants back home as quickly as possible. Just 27% say it should focus instead on making it easier for these illegal immigrants to remain in the United States. Fourteen percent (14%) are undecided."  Democrats seem to think immigration is a winning issue for them.  The numbers say otherwise.  The Dems will probably push it too far by claiming that those opposed to the illegals are bigots and racists.  In fact, the great majority are opposed to illegal immigration and immigration chaos. 

TERROR WATCH – From Fox:  "A Norwegian citizen who trained with a master bomb maker in Yemen and recently was added to the State Department’s list of international terrorists has been linked to the increased security screening of flights coming to the U.S., according to congressional sources familiar with the intelligence.  Anders Dale was believed to be trained by the master bomb maker Ibrahim al Asiri, who was responsible for the underwear device that nearly brought down a jet over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, the sources said.  Since he's a top target of the U.S. drone campaign, al Asiri has trained other operatives to build the non-metallic bombs as a kind of backup insurance policy for Al Qaeda.  The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told Fox News that Al Qaeda's desire to bring down a U.S. commercial jet is greater now than it was before 9/11, and the terrorist group has the capability and potential to do so, especially with the growing number of Western recruits fighting alongside the Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria known as the al Nusra front."  And the nuts will be further inspired by the takedown of the Malaysian airliner in the Ukraine just days ago.

July 21, 2014       Permalink

VLAD THE DEFIANT – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  Vladimir Putin is stiffing us on the airliner shoot-down tragedy.  Why not?  He knows that, in the end, Obama will probably back down, and so will many of the European countries, under pressure from local business interests.  From London's Daily Mail: 

Vladimir Putin has issued a defiant warning that the MH17 crash must not be used for 'selfish political ends' and urged separatists to allow international experts access to the crash site.

Wearing a dark suit and looking tired and drawn during a rare television address, the Russian president insisted 'all people' in Ukraine had a responsibility to the families of the 298 passengers and crew who died last week.

No, the people who fired the missile have the responsibility.

But he added: 'No-one has the right to use this tragedy for any kind of vested interest in the political sense. Such incidents should unite people rather than separate them.'

His comments came just hours after David Cameron issued a stark warning to Putin that his billionaire ‘cronies’ will have their assets frozen in London unless Russia co-operates with the investigation.

During his television address this morning, Putin said it is necessary for 'all people' involved in the current conflict in Ukraine take responsibility for their actions.

He said there was a duty to: 'improve their responsibility to their own people, and to the people of the countries whose representatives have been victims of this crash'.

Putin added, 'We need to do everything to ensure the security and safety of the observers and the experts working at the crash site.'

The comments came as Chancellor George Osborne said the UK was prepared to take an 'economic hit' in order to put pressure on Moscow over its involvement in the Ukraine crisis.

COMMENT:  Putin is still not taking any responsibility for the Russian weapon that apparently shot down the airliner.  I think he's hoping this incident will fade away, and I fear he may be right.

July 21, 2014       Permalink

HOW SAD – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  We've noted this before, the end of Christianity in Iraq, but the picture is becoming more clear.  What a sad spectacle in a country we fought to liberate, and abandoned under Barack Hussein Obama Jr.  From Breitbart: 

ERBIL, Iraq - The last Christian reportedly left Iraq's second largest city of Mosul at 12:00pm on Saturday, ending over 6,000 years of Assyrian history in the city. Assyrians have lived in Mosul for over 6,000 years, converting to Christianity over 2,000 years ago. This all came to an end on Saturday, when the last Assyrian Christian left the city.

On Thursday, July 17th, the Islamic State (IS)-- formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)-- released a statement demanding the Christians in Mosul either to convert to Islam, paying the jizya (tax on non-Muslims), leave the city, or be killed. The threat was to be implemented on Saturday. It is being reported locally that by noon yesterday, every Christian had chosen to leave.

Here in Erbil, about an hour an half away from Mosul by car, I have spoken with families who were forced to flee. They describe how ISIS invaded their homes, taking whatever they wanted, and threatening to kill them. The estimates are that over 500,000 refugees have fled Mosul after Islamists took control on June 10th, and the few remaining Christians left yesterday.

One group of Christians I spoke with said that when ISIS first invaded Iraq, they portrayed themselves as armed humanitarians but then they quickly undercut that message by implementing strict Sharia law, such as making women wear the full burqa and banning all western clothing. Those Muslims who stayed behind are being forced to comply with the new puritanical laws and now they, too, are trying to leave the city.

One resident of Mosul I spoke with said, "It is like the Taliban in Afghanistan before the U.S. invasion." There, Al Qaeda created the safe-haven from which they launched the 2001 attacks of 9/11 against the United States.

Some Iraqi Christians had called on the international community to help create a protected zone in Ninevah Province so as to provide protection for all minorities around the city of Mosul and to provide protection from future attacks by IS. While the proposal for a new Ninevah Province has been submitted to the Iraqi Parliament, it was not finalized. Because of the inaction both inside Iraq and the failure of the international community to heed the threats against Christians, the majority of the refugees who have just fled Mosul remain in danger of being attacked once more by IS as it continues its jihadi blitzkrieg across Iraq and Syria.

Several people I have spoken to in Iraq reported that members of IS speak foreign languages and are not from Iraq only. One person said an IS member was speaking an Afghan language and wearing Afghani clothing. Another person said they heard dialects from Pakistan, Libya, and even English.

Everyone I have spoken with has expressed their frustration with the international community’s lack of response to the crisis facing the people of Iraq. They blamed the United States for creating the current situation and for leaving the country so quickly and so creating the vacuum for IS to exploit. Many also think that it was a serious mistake for the U.S. to “give Iraq to Iran,” allowing Tehran to have a major influence in the Iraqi Parliament.

COMMENT:  Note the lack of interest by "religious" groups in the West.  Many of these "religious" groups, especially the National Council of Churches, have become extensions of the political left.  They're religious in name only. 

We note also the lack of interest by the president of the United States, although I find that less than shocking.

July 21, 2014       Permalink

WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Townhall.com has a terrific piece by John Hawkins defining what modern liberalism really is.  Please send it around to friends.  From townhall: 

1) Liberalism is college professors and documentary filmmakers accumulating vast fortunes in a capitalistic system by decrying the evils of capitalism.

2) Liberalism is claiming that the "border is secure" while saying we shouldn't deport anyone who illegally crosses the border.

3) Liberalism is "environmental activists" flying across the world to ride together in SUVs to posh environmental conferences where they call for everyone else to live like cavemen in order to save the planet.

4) Liberalism is spewing hatred and profanity at conservative women, calling for gun control that leaves women defenseless against rapists and murderers, and celebrating misogynistic pigs like Bill Clinton while accusing OTHER PEOPLE of being engaged in a "war on women."

5) Liberalism is people who say that asking for voter ID is racist while claiming that black Americans are too uniquely stupid and lazy to get an ID.

6) Liberalism is forcibly taking money you don't deserve from the people who earned it and calling THEM greedy for not wanting to give you even more.

7) Liberalism is saying that the government should confiscate guns from NRA members and kill them if they resist and then claiming that you have no idea why they think that they need guns to defend themselves.

8) Liberalism is people who sneer at displays of the American flag, tell the world America isn't exceptional, and criticize the country non-stop while getting offended if their patriotism is questioned.

9) Liberalism is calling for higher taxes while you cheat on your own taxes.

10) Liberalism is bitter, race-obsessed people who see EVERYTHING in racial terms, accusing OTHER PEOPLE of being racists.

COMMENT:  There are ten more.  Please read and send. 

It wasn't always this way.  Liberalism is an honorable creed, but the vocabulary has been twisted.  What we have today is not liberalism, but leftism.  The media, however, refuses to identify the change, for fear of being called McCarthyites.  And for fear that the honorary degrees will stop.

July 21, 2014       Permalink

RICK'S SECOND ACT – AT 8:48 A.M. ET:  Governor Rick Perry of Texas is reportedly ready to send elements of the Texas National Guard to help secure the border.  From WaPo: 

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) reportedly plans to dispatch the Texas National Guard to the U.S. border with Mexico, according to news reports.

Perry will announce his plans Monday to mobilize some 1,000 guardsmen to the Rio Grande Valley to increase security at the border, according to the Monitor, a south Texas newspaper. The newspaper quoted a state senator and an internal memo it obtained from a state official’s office.

Perry spokesman Felix Browne told The Washington Post he would neither confirm nor deny the report, but said all details will be given at a news conference at 2 p.m. Central time Monday in Austin. It was unclear what mission the guard will have.

The news comes amid the continued surge of young immigrants, most of them from Central America, crossing the border and scattered protests in a few U.S. cities from those who don’t want them housed in their midst. Perry, a potential 2016 Republican presidential contender, spoke in Iowa and elsewhere in recent days, promising to take matters into his own hands if President Obama does not act.

Perry is among Republicans who have been calling the border situation Obama’s “Katrina,” a reference to the political beating taken by President George W. Bush after federal authorities botched the post-hurricane operation in New Orleans in 2005. It’s a clear signal Republicans will use the border crisis against any Democratic contender in 2016.

“If the federal government does not do its constitutional duty to secure the Southern border of the United States, the state of Texas will do it,” Perry said Sunday at a Republican barbecue in Iowa.

COMMENT:  Perry wants to be president, wants a second chance at running.  The illegal-immigration crisis is handmade for him.  Now he gets the chance to be the man of action, not simply the man of words.

We'll wait to see how well Perry handles this.  There are some legal issues involving questions of whether the National Guard, under state control, can patrol an international border.  I assume Perry has investigated these questions and will have answers.

Perry, sadly, destroyed himself during his 2012 run for the GOP presidential nomination.  He was not ready, he did not know the issues, and he forgot basic facts during debates.  But he still is the longest-serving governor, with a fine record.  The political world has its eyes on him.

July 21,  2014     Permalink

JULY 20,  2014

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

FREE FOR ALL? – It's getting juicy in the Democratic Party.  Despite suffering from severe political hardening of the arteries, the party is stirring, with the possibility of more presidential candidates to challenge Hillary Clinton.  Elizabeth Warren is building up her frequent flyer miles.  Now we hear talk of, you won't believe it, Al Gore.  There's buzz about John Kerry, if he can pull off peace in our time.  And the latest name bounced around is California Governor Jerry Brown, even though he'll be 78 in 2016.  Actually, I think this is healthy for American politics.  Let's have some debate and competition in both parties.  Ronald Reagan had to fight for his nomination in 1980, and it made him a better candidate.

IF YOU'VE LOST ANDREA – Lots of buzz around the internet about President Obama's anemic denunciation of Russia over the airliner incident, as compared with the robust, widely cheered speech of Samantha Power at the UN.  From mediaite:  "MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell noted on Meet the Press Sunday morning that President Barack Obama had not even shown the level of outrage over the downed flight MH17 as U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power had, wondering if Obama was forced to curtail his rhetoric to keep lines of communication open with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  'I understand why critics think that the president’s rhetoric on Friday was not even up to the moral outrage expressed by Samantha Power,' Mitchell said. 'They had the same intelligence, the same evidence, Samantha Power was a more forceful presentation at the United Nations than the president.'"  Well, that's generous.  Its more likely that Obama's spine was in its usually mushy state.  When Power is good, she's very good.  When Obama is good, he's average. 

CHICAGO – It continues in Chicago.  The murders, the shootings.  From the Washington Times:  "Adding to the city’s already violent year, 22 people were shot in just a 12 hour period in Chicago at the start of the weekend.  The violence occurred between 3:30 p.m. Friday and 3:00 a.m., with most of the incidents in areas west of downtown, the Chicago Tribune said.  Among the victims is a 10-year-old girl, who is now at a hospital in 'extremely critical condition,' Chicago authorities said. A 12-year-old-girl was also shot.  Although violence usually ticks up in the summer months, the shootings come just two weeks after the 4th of July weekend where more than 60 people were shot and nine died.  So far in 2014, according to data from the Chicago Tribune, there have been 1,254 shooting victims in Chicago. Violent crimes have been slowly on the decline, down from the high in 2001."  Yeah, slow progress.  Compare to New York, which saw rapid progress under Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg.  That doesn't happen in Chicago, where a mayor, to survive, must genuflect before every local "community" leader before doing anything at all.  The chaos may end the political career of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who has national ambitions.

July 20,  2014     Permalink

GAZA – AT 12:14 P.M. ET:   This has been the deadliest day thus far in Israel's incursion into Gaza, an incursion aimed at stopping the rocket fire into Israel.  From The New York Times: 

GAZA CITY — As Israeli troops and war planes bombarded Gaza, both sides reported death tolls that made clear Sunday was the deadliest day so far in the war. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported 87 Palestinians had died and the Israeli military said 13 soldiers were dead.

The fighting signaled that what had begun as a limited ground invasion by Israel had moved into a more extensive and costlier phase for both sides.

Most of the Palestinians were killed in an eastern neighborhood of Gaza City called Shejaiya. For the Palestinians, it was the deadliest episode since July 8, when Israel began its offensive, first from the air, which was intended to curb rocket fire against its cities and the danger of infiltration through tunnels running under the border from Gaza into Israel. The Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 300 people were injured in Shejaiya. Tolls were not available from the refugee camps in central Gaza, where fleeing residents reported a similar Israeli advance, with artillery.

COMMENT:  What is interesting here is the lack of support being given to Hamas, which runs Gaza, by the Arab nations.  Yes, the Arabs issue the standard condemnations of Israel, but the coolness is evident.  Hamas, a radical terrorist group aligned with Iran, is not very popular among Arab nations.  And indeed even Western nations are giving Israel more leeway than usual, recognizing the strength of Israel's case. 

John Kerry will be in the region tomorrow, and of course he's already messed up.  He was caught criticizing the Israelis in a private phone call, just before being interviewed on Fox, when he didn't realize there was an open microphone near him.  Nice going, John.  You'll really have credibility in Jerusalem tomorrow.

The Obamans are truly the gang that can't shoot straight. 

July 20, 2014       Permalink

RETURN TO THE COLD WAR? – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  American-Russian relations are plunging, and some in Washington are comparing the situation to the Cold War.  From National Journal: 

When asked by CNN's Candy Crowley if U.S.-Russia relations were now "at Cold War levels," Feinstein did not hesitate. "Yes," the California Democrat replied.

"The issue is, where is Putin? I would say, Putin, you have to man up," Feinstein said. "You should say if this was a mistake, which I hope it was, own up. even if it was, it was a horrendous mistake. … and it points out the futility of what is going on in Ukraine."

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, also appearing on CNN, agreed with Feinstein. "I believe, as you asked Senator Feinstein that Mr. Putin is returning to a cold war mentality," he said. "When I was over there, you could see this nationalistic pride, a sort of resurgence to regain the glory of the old days of the Soviet Empire and so we're seeing that happen with Crimea being annexed."

Already-strained U.S. diplomatic relations with Russia have deteriorated in recent months, as a wave of unrest in Ukraine led to Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula. That action and armed separatist movements in other regions of Ukraine have prompted tightening international sanctions on Russia, the most recent of which were announced by President Obama last week.

On Sunday, pro-Russian separatist militiamen took custody of about 200 of the 298 bodies found at the wreckage site of Fight 17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile on Thursday, according to Ukrainian officials.

COMMENT:  Why is this happening?  Well, one reason is Putin himself – who he is, what he is.  But another reason is the vacuum created by American weakness.   This wouldn't have happened with Ronald Reagan in the White House.  Reagan made Russia understand its weakness.  Obama makes Russia dream of its strength.

July 20, 2014       Permalink

ON THIS DAY – AT 11:08 A.M. ET:  This is the anniversary of the day, in 1969, when men landed on the Moon.  The venture began with a speech by President Kennedy at Rice University in 1962: 

"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win . . . This is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not know what benefits await us . . . But space is there and we are going to climb it.”

I remember July 20, 1969 well.  We'd had our first daughter two months earlier, and we propped her up, in a baby seat, in front of an old black-and-white television set, so she could later say that she witnessed the Moon landing.

I was on The New York Times at the time, and was one of the editors assigned to the coverage of the Moon landing by The New York Times Magazine. 

The event was an enormous boost for a nation that was going through turbulent times – the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, a civil rights movement that was deteriorating into the black-power movement, and an assault on our popular culture that we still feel today.

Despite all the upsets, America was great.  The world watched as we, and no one else, went to the Moon. 

In 1969 we still had World War II veterans who were in their early 40s.  The spirit of their generation went with the astronauts to the lunar surface. 

And what has become of us since?  Today America is in the doldrums.   Under the pseudo-leadership of a pseudo-president who really doesn't like his country very much, we are going through a crisis of confidence.  We don't seem to do great things, or even dream great things.  Dreamers are laughed at by the intellectual classes and their lapdogs in the media.  It is "unsophisticated" to climb mountains.

And what of NASA, which brought us to the Moon with the vast assist of the private sector?  Robert Zubrin, space expert and dreamer, tells us.  From NRO: 

NASA may be a government agency with the usual bureaucratic attributes, but it is also something else: It is the epitome of the pioneer spirit. The agency’s formative adventure — and in a very real sense the agency itself — was launched by an administration whose slogan was “The New Frontier.” It is not without meaning that so many of its craft have had names like Liberty, Freedom, Pioneer, Voyager, Discovery, Endeavor, Pathfinder, Opportunity, and so on. Its astronauts are heroes in the most classic Homeric sense of the term, voluntarily risking death to do great deeds and win eternal glory.

The values championed by the Obama administration are comfort, security, protection, and dependence. But the frontier sings to our souls with different ideals, telling stirring tales of courage, risk, initiative, inventiveness, independence, and self-reliance. Considered as a make-work bureaucracy, NASA may be perfectly acceptable to those currently in power. But for mentalities that would criminalize the failure to buy health insurance, the notion of a government agency that celebrates the pioneer ethos by risking its crews on daring voyages of exploration across vast distances to terra incognita can only be repellent.

So in place of the ringing declaration of courageous spirit that JFK gave in his speech at Rice University in 1962, the current administration offers this alternative:

We choose not to go to the Moon, nor do other things, because they are hard. We do not want a goal that will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are unwilling to accept, one that we are quite willing to postpone, and one that we will not win.

This is unacceptable. The American people want and deserve a space program that is really going somewhere. The nation needs a space program that can make a powerful statement to a confused world — as Apollo did in its day — that free societies are the path to the future. Our youth needs a bold space program that inspires them to excellence with the grand challenge of pioneering new worlds. We can have such a program. Despite all the issues of concern — real, exaggerated, or imaginary — from a technical point of view, we are much closer today to being able to send humans to Mars than JFK’s America was to being able to send men to the Moon in 1961, and we did send them just eight years later. Given the will, we could be on Mars within a decade. We can inspire millions of our youth to devote themselves to science and engineering, and once again astonish the world with what free people can do, as we plant the seed of a new branch of civilization that will put our stamp on the human future for ages to come. But leadership is necessary.

COMMENT:  Yippee.  Well said.  And needed.  By both parties.

July 20,  2014     Permalink