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MAY 20,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:55 P.M. ET:

GRIM – From CNBC:  "At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking.  The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows.  A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553 working-age Americans conducted for Express Employment Professionals."  And that's why the unemployment rate appears to be low.  It doesn't take account of those who've given up.  These are not good numbers, for Obama or Queen Hillary.

PRO-ACTIVE – From CBS local:  "HACKENSACK, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — The FBI has targeted Bergen County, New Jersey to stop Islamic State militants from getting a stronghold there – and agents have been going to high school with a message.  Christine Sloan was there when agents visited a Bergen County school on Tuesday. An FBI intelligence analyst who did not wish to be identified spoke at the Bergen Arts and Science Charter School in Hackensack.  He warned students about a new threat – a sophisticated recruitment video trying to lure them into joining the terrorist group ISIS.  'There’s a role for everybody. Every person can contribute to the Islamic State,' a young Canadian man tells viewers in the recruitment video. 'You can even come here and rebuild.'  'It definitely was eye-opening,' said high school senior Zoey Zibor. 'You know, you learn that it’s in your own backyard. It’s Americans citizens wanting to join these terrorist groups.'"  I think it's great that the FBI is pro-active on this, warning young people directly.  We'll see if it has the intended effect.

FARCE – From the Washington Free Beacon:  "Saudi Arabia is making a bid to head the United Nations’ Human Rights Council (HRC) just days after it posted a slew of new job openings for executioners who would help carry out beheadings amid a massive uptick in state-sanctioned killings in the country.  Saudi Arabia, which has come under increasing criticism from human rights groups for an uptick in the number of executions in the country, has been a member of the U.N.’s top human rights body since 2014, along with Russia, China, and Cuba.  It is now making a bid to assume lead control over the HRC after 2016, when the presidency rotates to a new nation.  While the HRC has often been dismissed for hosting nations with some of the worst human rights records in the world, its importance in the coming year could be critical to how the international community deals with atrocities in Syria and other Middle Eastern nations."  The UN Human Rights Council is a farce.  It was dying before Barack Obama and his hard-left colleagues revived it by having the U.S. join it.  (President Bush had correctly stayed away.)  

May 20, 2015       Permalink

IRAN SAYS NO, NO, NO – AT 12:32 P.M. ET:   Nuclear negotiations with Iran are resuming, but the man in charge of Iran is taking a very tough line.  I can't see how these talks can work.  From CNS: 

(CNSNews.com) – As the Iran nuclear talks were due to resume in Vienna on Wednesday, Iran's spiritual leader and its main nuclear negotiator both doubled down on rejecting a core element of any deal – the right of international inspectors to access military sites.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told military commanders Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran's military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers. He said Iran will resist "coercion and excessive demands," the Associated Press reported.

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif insisted that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials would not be allowed to inspect the facilities, and also charged that Western claims to the contrary were merely designed to placate pressure groups at home.

The Obama administration says that Iran agreed to such inspections in an interim “framework” agreement reached on April 2. A White House fact sheet at the time said it was agreed Iran must allow IAEA inspectors “regular access to all” declared nuclear facilities, as well as access to any locations of suspected illicit nuclear activity, “anywhere in the country.”

That nuclear verification regime, described by President Obama as “the most robust and intrusive” ever negotiated,” goes beyond the requirements of the “additional protocols” to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which apply to the nuclear programs of more than 130 countries.

But Zarif, speaking alongside his Hungarian counterpart in Tehran, stated that Iran’s additional protocol implementation – which he emphasized was voluntary – would never entail “excessive and unreasonable” access to its facilities, since “military and even economic secrets” were not covered by the protocol.

The Tehran Times quoted him as saying that certain Western officials’ “sensational” remarks about access to Iran’s facilities were simply intended merely to “pacify” pressure groups.

Zarif also chided the U.S. for what he suggested was its disregard for what had been agreed upon in the framework agreement.

COMMENT:  The Iranians may be playing chicken, not a bad bet when dealing with Obama, but they may stick to their position, which may mean a collapse in the talks...or an extension of them.  It would make perfect sense for the Iranians to seek an extension, and then another.  They would keep running their nuclear program, while holding out the prospect of an agreement.  I'd imagine we'd go along rather than blowing up the talks.

One has to be impressed with the Iranian negotiators.  Iran has a history of highly skilled diplomacy.  They're getting what they want because they've sized us up perfectly.

May 20, 2015       Permalink

GREAT MOMENTS IN MANLINESS – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Sadly, this is one of those signs of the times that points to America as an increasingly wussified nation.   From CBS: 

DETROIT (CBS Detroit) A summer rite of passage in the dog days of summer won’t be available to Boy Scouts at their camps or other activities because the group recently announced a ban on the use of water guns for anything other than target practice and a limit on water balloons.

“Water guns and rubber band guns must only be used to shoot at targets, and eye protection must be worn,” reads page 99 of the 2015 Boy Scout handbook.

The new rule for water balloons dictates their size and origin — no more puffed up balls of latex for traditional water balloon fights.

“For water balloons, use small, biodegradable balloons, and fill them no larger than a ping pong ball,” page 100 of the handbook adds.

The news was revealed in a blog post in Scouting Magazine, written by Bryan Wendell, an Eagle Scout, who is is senior editor of “Boys’ Life,” “Scouting” and “Eagles’ Call” magazines.

“Why the rule?” Wendell added. “A Scouter once told me this explanation I liked quite a bit: “A Scout is kind. What part of pointing a firearm [simulated or otherwise] at someone is kind?”

The position was not received well by commentators on the blog.

“What a load of politically correct crap. What’s the point of super-soakers if you don’t shoot them at others to get wet and cool off on a hot day?” wrote a guy who identified himself as Dave. “And water balloons no bigger than a ping-pong ball? Have you ever been hit by a water balloon that isn’t big enough to explode? It hurts more than one that is properly filled. This is such a load of BSA garbage!!!!”

COMMENT:  Is nothing sacred?  May we not have a water fight?  Is it Islamophobic? 

In World War II, Adolf Hitler ridiculed the United States military, saying American soldiers fought like Boy Scouts.  Well, those Boy Scouts did an awfully fine job.  I wonder what the case would be today if scouting is destroyed by political correctness.  It's going in that direction.

We must ask why.  And we go back to the old adage that evil triumphs when good men do nothing.  The left is militant, devoted, and on the march.  It believes it is righteous.  It believes it has the right, if not the duty, to destroy anyone in its path.  And our side has too often responded with vague speeches, hang-wringing, and business as usual.  The Republican Party, which should be bearing the battle, is too often consumed by me-tooism and a devotion to tax law.  It is the culture that is eroding.  Tax laws can be handled.

May 20, 2015       Permalink

CRAZY STUFF – AT 9:55 A.M. ET:  President Obama is going nuts.  With all the problems we face from Earthbound enemies – including a probable Iranian nuclear bomb – the little guy from Chicago is warning of the dire threat to national security from...climate change.  From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is framing the challenges of climate change as a matter of national security that threatens to aggravate poverty and political instability around the globe and jeopardize the readiness of U.S. forces.

"Make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country," the president says in excerpts of a commencement address prepared for delivery Wednesday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. "And so we need to act and we need to act now."

The president in recent months has pressed for action on climate change as a matter of health, as a matter of environmental protection and as a matter of international obligation. He's even couched it as a family matter, linking it to the worry he felt when one his daughters had an asthma attack as a preschooler.

Some say Dr. Obama is going too far with this.  Yah think?

His speech to the cadets, by contrast, is focused on what the Obama administration says are immediate risks to national security, including contributing to more natural disasters that result in humanitarian crises and potential new flows of refugees. Further, the president sees climate change aggravating poverty and social tensions that can fuel instability and foster terrorist activity and other violence.

Obama said the cadets would be part of the first generation of officers to begin their service in a world where it is increasingly clear that "climate change will shape how every one of our services plan, operate, train, equip and protect their infrastructure."

His prepared remarks said climate change "is not just a problem for countries on the coast or for certain regions of the world. Climate change impacts every country on the planet."

COMMENT:  He really has drunk the Kool-Aid, hasn't he?  You know, there's a famous story from the Civil War that applies here.  An officer complained to General Grant that he could not move more quickly because of deep mud.  Grant's famous, and cold reply was, "General Lee has the same mud."

If we have climate change, other nations will have it, too.  Presumably, it will be a threat to their security, yet I don't hear much talk about that from our allies.  My guess is that Obama is yapping about climate change to cover the fact that he's gutting the U.S. military.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.

In fact, discussing climate change with military men is almost insulting.  The military, by definition, is trained to deal with extreme climate.  Military briefings often begin with a weather report.  The Navy deals with hurricanes, the Air Force with extreme winds.  The Army fights in heat and freezing cold.  And equipment is always built with climate in mind.

I can only visualize experienced officers and non-coms listening to their commander-in-chief lecturing them on the impact of weather.  Maybe they can present him with an olive green umbrella.  Fits his diplomacy as well.

May 20, 2015        Permalink

NEW CLAIM BY NORTH KOREA – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:   Even John Kerry made a minimal effort last week to lecture North Korea on its behavior.   North Korea's response was this, from Fox: 

North Korea claimed Wednesday that it has manufactured nuclear warheads small enough to fit on the head of a nuclear submarine, an announcement that is likely to rachet up tensions in east Asia, particularly with South Korea.

According to Yonhap News, a spokesman for North Korea's National Defense Commission said that the development of the alleged weapons was part of an initiative to boost Pyongyang's self-defense capability.

"It is long since the DPRK's nuclear striking means have entered the stage of producing smaller nukes and diversifying them," the spokesman said, using the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "The DPRK has reached the stage of ensuring the highest precision and intelligence and best accuracy of not only medium- and short-range rockets, but long-range ones."

If the North's claim is true, it presents a fresh threat to the security of South Korea and Japan, as well as the United States. Pyongyang has previously claimed that it has the technology to build a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on an intercontinental ballistic missile, which could reach the U.S. mainland.

COMMENT:  There may well be exaggeration in the North Korean claims.  But the direction of North Korea is not in doubt.  They have the atomic bomb despite "agreements" with the West not to go nuclear.  They have missiles and have fired them.  If they don't have all the capability they claim, they will have it, while Barack Obama stands by and does nothing.

Who will pay the price?  Our children, and their children.  Obama by that time will have his own Mount Rushmore.

May 20,  2015     Permalink

MAY 19,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET: 

RIGHT NEAR US – From Canadian Broadcasting Company:  "Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested 10 Montreal youth they believe were trying to leave the country to join jihadists in Turkey and Syria.  The force confirmed its Integrated National Security Enforcement Team made a series of arrests at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport last weekend.  No charges have been laid and the investigation is continuing.  The passports of those arrested have been confiscated.  RCMP said investigators have met with the friends and families of the people trying to leave Canada."  Remember, the war on terror is over.  Field Marshal Obama has assured us of this.

HUGE RECALL – From Fox:  "The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that Japanese company Takata Corp. has agreed to recall roughly 34 million vehicles because of defective air-bags, in the largest recall in the agency's history.  Takata agreed to the recall of the 33.8 million vehicles amid mounting pressure and fines from the agency over roughly the past year.  The company was being fined $14,000 a day since late February, which now amounts to $1.2 million.  The faulty air-bags have reportedly been linked to as many as six death and dozens of injuries.  Many of Takata's air-bags can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister and sending shrapnel into the passenger compartment."  They've recalled the airbags.  Now if we can only recall the windbags.

WE HOPE IT'S A LONG TRIP – From The Politico:  "Gloria Steinem is among 30 women activists marching from Beijing through the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea in a call for peace next Sunday. The event marks the International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament.  The 81-year-old activist told Reuters that 'it seems to me that the past of no contact has not worked,' invoking former President Ronald Reagan’s call to tear down the Berlin Wall."  The left knows it's in trouble when they start invoking Ronald Reagan.

GREAT MOMENTS IN ETHICS – From the Washington Examiner:  "Former President Bill Clinton netted millions in speaking fees from appearances around the world while his wife served as secretary of state, but earned far less from abroad in the years since Hillary Clinton left the State Department.  Bill Clinton took in $2.2 million from just six international speeches in 2014, according to financial disclosure forms released Friday as required by Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.  By contrast, the former president reportedly earned more than twice as much for appearances made across borders while Hillary Clinton was in office. He reportedly made $4.8 million from 13 speeches in foreign countries in 2010, his wife's first year as secretary of state.  In 2011, Bill Clinton reportedly drummed up at least $5.96 million in speaking fees for appearances he made outside the U.S."  I'm sure people paid those extortionist fees just to hear Bill Clinton's wisdom.  If you believe that, the bridge in Brooklyn is still available.  Needs paint.

May 19, 2015       Permalink

GATES SPEAKS – AT 10:45 A.M. ET:  I haven't always agreed with him, but former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates is a serious man, well respected in Washington.  His "Face the Nation" comments on the Iran nuclear negotiations are devastating, and should be taken seriously.  From CBS:

I have several concerns that I hope can be addressed in the negotiations between now and June – the first is the timing of the lifting of the sanctions. Is it-- are they going to be lifted right away as long as the Iranians agree to implement the agreement. Or will be-- they be phased over time based on performance which has been our position all along. The second is verification. Unless we have sort of on-demand inspection at all facilities, including military facilities, I think, there is a great potential to cheat. Third, I think that this-- the-- the idea of being able to have these snapback sanctions, that sanctions could be re-imposed once lifted is very unrealistic. I think that the pursuit of the agreement is based on the President's hope that over a ten-year period with the sanctions being lifted that the Iranians will become a constructive stakeholder in the international community. That-- that as their economy begins to grow again, that-- that they will abandon their ideology, their theology, their revolutionary principles, their meddling in various parts of the region. And, frankly, I believe that's very unrealistic.

And...

I don't think the alternative is war. One alternative is better deal. I think that you go back to the sanctions, I think you reinforce the sanctions, and you basically say, here are the additional things we need for this agreement to work and to be worthwhile, and an agreement that reassures our allies or at least doesn't scare them half to death. If they choose not to come back to the negotiations, but to race to a nuclear weapon, well my guess is that will show that they intended to do that all along. Despite all their protestations, that they have no interest in a nuclear weapon, but I think-- I think that there is a potential for a better deal.

COMMENT:   A better deal will require, above all, firm American leadership.  Where do we find that right now?  Obama is president.  Kerry is secretary of state.   The appeasement twins, together again for their farewell tour.  They have made one concession after another. 

The negotiating deadline is June 30th, little more than a month from now.  Just yesterday the Iranian foreign minister reiterated his government's position that the deal will include no inspections of military sites.  That should be, in the grown-up world, a dealbreaker.  But we have a national administration that thinks it's running a student government. 

The next month will be critical in American foreign policy.

May 19, 2015       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Nobody has summed up the Hillary weirdness better than Noemie Emery in the Washington Examiner: 

Uh, oh. Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post says it offends her that Carly Fiorina is running for president with a career in business behind her, instead of being a former president's wife. If only she had the gravitas of a Mrs. Bill Clinton, skilled in the arts of bimbo suppression, who went on to stellar careers in her post-Bill incarnation, as … well, as what?

Marcus ticks off the public posts held by Hillary: first lady, senator from New York, secretary of state for Barack Obama. But she fails to say what Clinton did with and in these posts. Were she to try, the seemingly impressive picture would become something considerably less bright.

In 1993, then known as "Bill's better half" and a "new kind of first lady," was given the task of designing a government takeover of health care. This had been planned as the jewel in the crown of the liberal edifice, but it proved a tough nut to crack. In September, 1994 the bill was withdrawn, but not before it had become the great cause célèbre of the upcoming midterms, in which Democrats lost control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in forty years. Elected to the Senate in 2000, thanks in part to her husband's fling with an intern, she voted in 2002 to launch the war in Iraq, turned against it the minute it ran into trouble and then tried to atone by opposing the Surge, which in 2007-2008 made Iraq stable.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's truly delightful.  So many failures.  So little space.

May 19, 2015       Permalink

CARLY ROMPS AGAIN – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  We've said here before that readers should watch carefully the rise of Carly Fiorina.  She is doing a terrific job on the stump.  People love her, love the way she goes after Hillary.

I don't think she can get the nomination for the top slot.  But V.P. maybe?  From Byron York at the Washington Examiner: 

Two of the 2016 Republican presidential field's most accomplished speakers, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., skipped the big Lincoln Day dinner in Des Moines, Iowa over the weekend. But the dinner, which featured 11 candidates addressing the crowd for a strictly-enforced ten minutes each, saw the emergence of another star speaker in the GOP ranks.

Since making a good impression on Iowans at a similar event in January, Carly Fiorina has honed her stump speech to a fine edge. Starting with her own secretary-to-CEO success story, she touches a lot of bases — Hillary Clinton, American exceptionalism, business regulation, taxes, the size of government, the nature of leadership, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Israel, Iran and more. She delivers the message with an intensity that almost forces people to listen.

That's what Fiorina did in Iowa Saturday night. And even though one might think it an amateur mistake to go over the ten-minute limit, as Fiorina did, and to be stopped by rising music and a cut microphone (those were the rules), it didn't appear to hurt Fiorina. When she was cut off — Fiorina was the only candidate who went over — "the crowd groaned," according to Iowa Republican blogger Craig Robinson. They wanted to hear more.

COMMENT:  They always do, when Fiorina speaks.  Keep watching her.  She has star quality, and we can use that on our side.

May 19, 2015       Permalink

AS NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Crime is surging in Baltimore.  Gee, I wonder why.  From CBS local: 

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — City crime spike. A dramatic increase in violence in Baltimore. Dozens of shooting and murders in the last few weeks following the riots last month.

Christie Ileto reports some are concerned police are hesitant to crack down after six officers were charged in the death of Freddie Gray.

No parent should ever have to bury a child, but it’s Vel Hick’s reality.

“He took my baby away from me. That’s my baby,” she said.

Her 33-year-old son Louis is now one of 96 homicides in Baltimore this year–an undercurrent of violence that’s up almost one-third from this time last year.

“People have said its because morale is down, or it’s because the officers were charged. We don’t know that,” said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

While city leaders are working to curb the rash of bloodshed.

A Baltimore police officer who chose to remain anonymous says the Freddie Gray case impacted policing.

“If you want them to be proactive in patrolling and trying to catch people, I could see them not being interested in doing that,” the officer said.

William Scipio heads Sandtown’s Resident Action Committee–an area once at the heart of April’s unrest.

Ileto: “When was the last time you’ve personally seen an officer in Sandtown?”

Scipio: “Since the riots.”

COMMENT:  If you were a Baltimore cop, how enthusiastic would you be about your job?  You go out there and risk your neck, and see six cops overcharged over the death of a detainee, by a politically driven prosecutor. 

Crime is rising in New York as well, as the anti-cop mayor's popularity plunges.

May 19,  2015     Permalink