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AUGUST 29,  2016

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

SOCIAL NOTES – It is announced in New York that Ms. Huma Abedin, known professionally as
"body woman" to Hillary Clinton, has chosen to take leave of her husband, the formerly Honorable Anthony Weiner, late of the U.S. Congress.  Ms. Abedin reportedly objected to certain of Mr. Weiner's self portraits.  Mr. Bill Clinton, former president of the United States, disbarred lawyer and respected zipper expert, has sent a note to Mr. Weiner saying, "I know how it feels, bud."

A MYSTERY SOLVED – FROM FOX:   LOS ANGELES – The famous human ancestor known as Lucy walked the Earth, but it was her tree climbing that might have led to her demise, a new study suggests.  An analysis of her partial skeleton reveals breaks in her right arm, left shoulder, right ankle and left knee — injuries that researchers say resulted from falling from a high perch such as a tree.  Also, they found a letter from the tree owner's lawyer offering a settlement of three apples and ten leaves.

A LIFE AFTER POLITICS – FROM THE TEXAS TRIBUNE:  An entertainment website is reporting that former Gov. Rick Perry will be joining the new season of "Dancing With the Stars," but Perry's camp declined to comment on the report Monday night.   According to Entertainment Tonight, Texas's longest-serving governor will be a contestant in the 23rd season of the dance competition show, which premieres Sept. 12 on ABC.   The lineup is set to be announced Monday morning on ABC's "Good Morning America." ABC said Monday it does not comment on casting rumors.  Given our celebrity culture, maybe an appearance in a dance contest will boost Perry's chances at the presidential nomination in 2020.  Perry was an excellent governor, but could not connect with Republican voters in presidential primaries. 

August 29, 2016       Permalink

A SMALL START, BUT SOMETHING – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  To put it mildly, the Republican Party has neglected fast-growing minorities, especially Hispanics.  And yet, Hispanic-Americans, with their ambition, devotion to traditional values, and patriotism, are a natural Republican constituency.  Some Hispanics are now supporting Trump.  From Breitbart: 

ANAHEIM — A group called “Latinos for Trump” held its first rally in Orange County on Sunday, named “Operation Taco Bowl” after an infamous Donald Trump tweet. Hispanics and African Americans joined other Trump supporters in voicing both their support for the Republican presidential nominee and their opposition to the Democratic Party and its nominee, Hillary Clinton.
“The Democrats think they can own and acquire Hispanics’ loyalty for generations to come,” Jorge Herrera, 31, said into a microphone at a podium in front of Anaheim City Hall, where dozens of Trump supporters had gathered for the rally. “Who do they think they are? They will never own my loyalty. They will never own Hispanics’ loyalty.”

When asked how he feels about the Democratic Party claiming the Hispanic vote, Herrera told Breitbart News:

It’s just pandering. They don’t care about us. We can see middle class income down, Hispanic wealth is down, African-American wealth is down. You look at the top Democrat cities, they’re all down. It’s all about talk, no action. The statistics prove they have done nothing for everybody.

Asked how fellow Hispanics react to his political leanings, he said:

They’re not informed. They listen to Univision. They listen to the mainstream media, which happens to be very biased. They don’t know the truth and why we’re here, what we stand for. That’s why we’re having this event today and trying to get that message out to the community.

Approximately 60 people were at the rally, which saw no counter-protests.

COMMENT:   A small beginning.  Trump is now starting to reach out to minorities, but he'd better make it good, and professional, with a real program, especially one that features economic advancement. 

August 29, 2016       Permalink

HILLARY AND FRIENDS – AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  It's so hard to have embarrassing friends.  Sometimes you just want to hide in the limo, or, better still, the White House.  We must help our Hillary through this new period of humiliation, even worse than the previous 33 periods of humiliation.   From Paul Mirengoff, at Powerline: 

The name Gilbert Chagoury will be familiar to many readers. He’s a friend of Bill Clinton and a major donor to the Clinton Foundation. According to Judicial Watch, which cites Clinton Foundation documents, Chagoury has appeared near the top of the Foundation’s donor list as a $1 million to $5 million contributor.

Chagoury’s name came up recently in a newly released 2009 email from Clinton Foundation official Doug Band to Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, who were then top aides to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Band told Mills and Abeden to put to put Chagoury in touch with the State Department’s “substance person” on Lebanon. Band explained that Chagoury is a “key guy [in Lebanon] and to us.”

At $1-5 million, you bet he’s a key guy to the Clintons.

In our post about this email, we noted that Chagoury was convicted in 2000 in Switzerland for laundering money from Nigeria. He is thus another in a long line of crooks with whom the Clintons have closely associated themselves, dating back to their Arkansas days.

But Chagoury isn’t just a crook. The Los Angeles Times reports that Chagoury was denied entry into the U.S. last year because of his ties to a Lebanese organization that has allegedly given money to the terrorist group Hezbollah. (Hat Tip: Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller.)

According to the LA Times, the State Department denied Chagoury’s visitor’s visa after he applied for one at the U.S. embassy in Paris last summer. The State Department made its determination based on a 2013 FBI intelligence report which cited sources saying that Chagoury gave money to Michel Aoun, a Lebanese politician who was suspected of “facilitating fundraising for Hezbollah.”

COMMENT:  Nothing to see, nothing to see.  Probably just a misunderstanding, or those pesky law-enforcement types insisting on doing their jobs.  

We have become a society of breathtakingly low standards.  This is a major scandal, but the powers in the media just want us to "move on," the operative word of the Clintonistas and their fellow travelers.

August 29, 2016       Permalink 

BAD STUFF ALERT – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  Imagine international plotters who can do, from a computer, what big-city machines used to do with precinct captains.  From Michael Isikoff at Yahoo: 

The FBI has uncovered evidence that foreign hackers penetrated two state election databases in recent weeks, prompting the bureau to warn election officials across the country to take new steps to enhance the security of their computer systems, according to federal and state law enforcement officials.

The FBI warning, contained in a “flash” alert from the FBI’s Cyber Division, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, comes amid heightened concerns among U.S. intelligence officials about the possibility of cyberintrusions, potentially by Russian state-sponsored hackers, aimed at disrupting the November elections.

Those concerns prompted Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to convene a conference call with state election officials on Aug. 15, in which he offered his department’s help to make state voting systems more secure, including providing federal cyber security experts to scan for vulnerabilities, according to a “readout” of the call released by the department.

Johnson emphasized in the call that Homeland Security was not aware of “specific or credible cybersecurity threats” to the election, officials said. But three days after that call, the FBI Cyber Division issued a potentially more disturbing warning, entitled “Targeting Activity Against State Board of Election Systems.” The alert, labeled as restricted for “NEED TO KNOW recipients,” disclosed that the bureau was investigating cyberintrusions against two state election websites this summer, including one that resulted in the “exfiltration,” or theft, of voter registration data. “It was an eye opener,” one senior law enforcement official said of the bureau’s discovery of the intrusions. “We believe it’s kind of serious, and we’re investigating.”

The bulletin does not identify the states in question, but sources familiar with the document say it refers to the targeting by suspected foreign hackers of voter registration databases in Arizona and Illinois.

COMMENT:  If Vladimir Putin is elected president of the United States you'll know we have a problem.  I hope we act sooner than that.

We also have to be concerned about domestic hackers, especially those affiliated with political groups.  We cannot really say that the voting system is secure.  Maybe we'll have to go back to paper ballots, and I'm not being funny.

August 29,  2016     Permalink

AUGUST 28,  2016

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

GREAT MOMENTS IN BROADCASTING – FROM AP:   LONDON (AP) -- One of Britain's leading broadcasters has blacked out its programs for an hour in hopes of spurring viewers to get some exercise.  ITV shut down broadcasts on several of its channels Saturday morning as part of its effort to entice UK citizens to sports clubs, which are being opened for free this weekend as part of a national event called "I Am Team GB."   Many viewers lauded ITV's challenge to couch potatoes, describing on social media the activities they'd been inspired to do.  Others, predictably, stuck to their sofas and poked fun at the gesture, describing the blank screens as the best entertainment they'd ever seen on ITV. One viewer said his remote-control thumb had a good workout.  It's a great idea.   MSNBC could shut down for five hours a day and urge viewers to spend the time looking for honest journalism.  Maybe that'll take ten hours.

NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW – FROM THE SMOKING GUN:   A U.S. Postal Service employee stashed nearly 50,000 pieces of undelivered mail in her California home, according to a criminal information filed against the worker.  Federal investigators charge that Sherry Watanabe hid "approximately 48,288 pieces of United States mail" in her apartment. The mail was intended for delivery to customers along Watanabe’s route in Placentia, an Orange County city.  Watanabe, 48, was named in a one-count felony criminal information filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Watanabe has admitted to the mail hoarding.  According to the plea agreement, Watanabe was hired as a mail carrier in June 2006, and she began collecting “large quantities of such mail” in her Placentia residence in 2011. While the undelivered mail was seized by law enforcement agents in late-2013, court filings do not indicate why more than two years passed before Watanabe was charged.  It probably took that long for the charges to reach the courthouse via mail.

OVERPAID – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Furious San Francisco 49ers fans are burning Colin Kaepernick jerseys after he refused to stand for the national anthem as part of a racial protest.  One fan even played The Star-Spangled Banner as he set light to the Number 7 shirt, watching with his hand on his chest as it was reduced to ash.  Another, who uploaded a video to Instagram under the handle Nate3914, called the $19-million-per-year athlete an 'ignorant son of a b****.'   He has a perfect right not to stand, and the fans have a perfect right to judge him for it.  The right side will win out, believe me.

August 28, 2016       Permalink

NAACP FIGHTS AGAINST BLACK CHILDREN – AT 1:31 P.M. ET:   Why should we be shocked?  So-called "ethnic" interest groups often operate against the interests of their followers, and for the interests of their leaders and powerful associates.  This is a must-read, a devastating piece from The Wall Street Journal: 

Interest groups tend to care more about money and influence than the people they represent, but some sellouts deserve special attention. Here’s one: The outfit that helped end segregation in public education now works to trap poor and minority kids in dysfunctional schools.

Last month the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People introduced a resolution at its national convention in Cincinnati calling for a moratorium on charter schools, which are public but free from union rules and control. The measure also says the NAACP “will continue to advocate against any state or Federal legislation” that “commits or diverts public funding” to private or charter schools. The resolution must be formally adopted at a board meeting later this year.

Some 28% of charter-school students are black, which is almost double the figure for traditional public schools. A report last year from Stanford’s Center for Research on Education Outcomes found that across 41 urban areas black students in charters gained on average 36 extra days in math learning a year and 26 in reading while Hispanic students gained 22 in math and six in reading. Black students in poverty notched 59 more days in math. This is the definition of “advancement.”

The NAACP didn’t bother to ask black parents what they think: A 2013 poll of black voters in four southern states by the Black Alliance for Educational Options found that at least 85% agreed that “government should provide parents with as many choices as possible.” No less than half in every state supported charter schools. Another sign of support is the hundreds of thousands of black students nationwide who sign up for lotteries for a seat at a charter.

COMMENT:  Eric Hoffer, the "longshoreman philosopher" of the 1950s, said that all causes become businesses, then they become rackets.  The NAACP, like many similar organizations, is taking that path.  It seems to exist primarily for special interests.  The "feminist" groups are equally bad.  They often appear indifferent to the real needs of woman, especially women living under Muslim regimes, but very sensitive to the needs of leftist party liners.

Always be careful about "leaders" who say they love you.

August 28, 2016       Permalink

OH, THE EMBARRASSMENT – AT 12:15 P.M. ET:   Of course, we're not supposed to judge public figures by the company they keep.  That's guilt by association, isn't it?  Yes, indeed.  And let's do it anyway.  From the New York Post: 

As secretary of state, women’s-rights champ Hillary Clinton not only spoke at a Saudi girls school run by her top aide Huma Abedin’s ­anti-feminist mother, but Clinton invited the elder Abedin to participate in a State Department event for “leading thinkers” on women’s issues.

This happened despite evidence at the time that Saleha M. Abedin had explored the religious merits of sexual submissiveness, child marriage, lashings and stonings for adulterous women, and even the circumcision of girls.

The elder Abedin, whose daughter helps run Clinton’s presidential campaign, did take a pro-gender-equality stance on at least one issue: Muslim women’s right to participate in violent jihad alongside men.

As The Post first reported, Huma’s mom edits the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, which has suggested that America had 9/11 coming to it, because of “sanctions” and “injustices” the US allegedly imposed on the Muslim world.

The journal also opposed women’s rights as un-Islamic, arguing that “‘empowerment’ of women does more harm than benefit.”

But that’s not all.

In 1999, Saleha translated and edited a book titled “Women in Islam: A Discourse in Rights and Obligations,” published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs. Written by her Saudi colleague Fatima Naseef, the book explains that the stoning and lashing of adulterers, the killing of apostates, sexual submissiveness and even female genital mutilation are all permissible practices under Sharia law.

COMMENT:  Perhaps the Democratic candidate can explain this to her public.  Perhaps she can explain it to so-called "women's" groups, which often seem mighty silent when women's rights are really in jeopardy.  Mustn't interfere, after all, with the leftist party line. 

Wake me when you see one national journalist asking Hillary about this. 

August 28, 2016       Permalink

THE TREND AGAINST HILLARY – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  Each individual poll is independent, but there does seem to be a trend – of uncertain duration – against Hillary Clinton.  From The Hill, this morning:

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump has been halved in one week in a new national poll.

Clinton leads Trump by 3 points, 43 percent to 40 percent, in a head-to-head match-up in the Morning Consult poll released Sunday morning.

One week ago, Clinton led Trump by 6 points, 44 percent to 38 percent.

Voters view both candidates unfavorably, pollsters found, with 58 percent holding a negative view of Trump and 57 percent saying the same about Clinton.

Clinton has the support of 79 percent of African-Americans, compared to 5 percent of black voters who back Trump.

Trump also trails Clinton among women, 44 percent to 35 percent.

The new poll of 2,007 registered voters, conducted Aug. 24–26, has a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

COMMENT:  Care must be taken.  This is a national poll, and we vote by states.  Indeed, I think it's quite possible that Trump will catch Hillary in the national polls, but lose the election in the electoral college.  It happened to Al Gore. 

It's also possible for Hillary or Trump to win by getting far below 50% in the vote.  Happened to Bill Clinton in 1992. 

I was intrigued by one number in this one poll – that Hillary is only getting 79% of the black vote.  That's not great for a Democrat.  It may be verified by Trump's own internal polling, which may be why Trump is now going all out to reach black voters.  If he can cut into the black vote, he can win the election.  Ditto the Hispanic vote, which the Republicans have thrown away in recent years.  Trump has much to say to Hispanics about employment and education, but he has botched the job thus far with his confused, overheated rhetoric about immigration.

We've reported that the Democratic strategy appears to be to run out the clock, to have Clinton "sit on her lead."  The election will be held in two months and a week and a half.  That's a long time to sit on a lead.

August 28,  2016     Permalink