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MARCH 30,  2016

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

FRIGHTENING – From PJ Media:   According to The Register, a UK-based news site about tech security and related issues, “hackers infiltrated a water utility’s control system and changed the levels of chemicals being used to treat tap water.”  The hackers had “ties to Syria,” and the attack, although the location of the utility has not been revealed and its name has been changed in reports, seems most likely to have taken place in the United States.  This is yet another indication of how determined jihad terrorists are to murder Americans in large numbers.  Revelation of this attack comes from the March 2016 security breach report published by Verizon Security Solutions, which referred to the water plant that was attacked with the alias “Kemuri Water Company (KWC).” It explained how the hackers had been able to burrow deeply and repeatedly inside the workings of the company. They were only stopped from doing massive damage by their ignorance of how water plants actually operated.   That's a pretty chilling report, and probably a prediction of things to come.  The terror groups learn more every day.  ISIS is more sophisticated than Al Qaeda.  Flash forward 10 years...and imagine.

THE WAY THINGS WORK – From, of all places, London's Daily Mail:   The Florida-based prosecutor whose office will handle the battery case of Donald Trump's campaign manager is a Hillary Clinton supporter who once characterized the Republican frontrunner's rhetoric as 'divisive and inflammatory.'  Dave Aronberg, the 44-year-old State Attorney for Palm Beach County, was a former Democratic state senator and in November was named as part of Clinton's 'Florida Leadership Team.'  These political connections have caused Trump supporters to take to Twitter worrying that Corey Lewandowski, Trump's campaign manager who yesterday was charged with simple battery over an altercation with ex-Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields, wouldn't get a fair shake.  A representative for Aronberg's spokesman Mike Edmondson said the office would not be commenting on political matters.  An obvious conflict of interest.  Mr. Aronberg should recuse himself, but standards are low these days.

MAJOR CRISES IN LAW ENFORCEMENT – From legalinsurrection.com:   The idiocracy is upon us.  A woman in Hartford, Connecticut called 9-1-1 when she realized the pizza shop messed up her order. Fox61 reported:  “I just have a question,” the woman identified as Ashley said. “If I order pizza and they don’t want to give me my money back, can you guys do something?”  “Ma’am, that’s something you have to take up with them,” the dispatcher said. “But, that’s not something you would dial 9-1-1 for. 9-1-1 is for life threatening emergencies only.”  The dispatcher remains calm and patient through the call.  “Can you call the pizzeria or something?” Ashley asks again.  I regard a messed-up pizza as a major cultural insult.  This woman deserves the help of a compassionate nation.  I have advised her to call the diversity adviser at the local college.  This is big enough to bring in the best.

March 30, 2016       Permalink

BORN TO BE TROUBLE – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  One of the leading Republican nightmares is that Donald Trump, should he not get the GOP nomination for president, will bolt the party and run his own campaign.  Let the nightmare begin.  From Fox: 

Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would no longer honor his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee for president, while fellow candidates Ted Cruz and John Kasich refused to say whether they would back the party's pick.

All three GOP contenders appeared at a CNN town hall in Milwaukee one week before Wisconsin's April 5 primary.

When asked if he would keep the pledge he signed last September, Trump responded "No, I won’t."

The real estate mogul explained that he was taking back the pledge because, "I have been treated very unfairly," and listed the Republican National Committee and party establishment among those he believes have wronged him.

Cruz, who is running second to Trump in the delegate race, shrugged off the question of whether he would support Trump in November, saying "Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee. We're going to beat him." The Texas senator added that nominating Trump "would be an absolute train wreck" and "would hand the general election to Hillary Clinton."

Trump, who followed Cruz on the town hall stage, said he didn't need a promise of support from Cruz.

"He doesn’t have to support me," he said.

COMMENT:  Trump is clearly playing the "third party" card, knowing that a third party candidacy by him would probably destroy any chance that a Republican could be elected.  He has the cash to launch the effort. 

Trump was undoubtedly speaking to those maneuvering to have an open convention, which, after a certain number of ballots, could theoretically choose anyone the delegates wished.  While "stop" movements rarely succeed, the "stop Trump" movement does appear to have some legs, and those legs will grow stronger if Trump loses Wisconsin on Tuesday.

March 30, 2016       Permalink

ISIS WARNS – AT 9:33 A.M. ET:  And, given the record, I'd take their warnings seriously.  From Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times: 

Islamic State terrorists have taken to social media to tell the West that the March 22 attacks in Brussels are just the beginning of waves of violence that will strike more targets in Europe and the United States.

The messages were produced by the Islamic State’s media company, Al-Wafa, which published a series of deadly predictions that indicate the terror army based in Syria has scores of attacks in the pipeline.

“America, You Are Next” is the headline on one column. The U.S. is leading a coalition whose objective, through air strikes and commando raids, is to defeat or destroy the Islamic State and its so-called Caliphate in Syria-Iraq.

“America has forgotten that Muslims do not accept humiliation and will not forget to retaliate,” says the article, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors jihadi communications traffic

“We haven’t forgotten the screams of the virgin girls who were raped when you invaded Iraq. Today, with Allah’s help, we will avenge them and restore every maiden’s honor. Today we will blow up your honor, today we will eliminate your myth, today we will take your women captive and sell them at slave markets at prices reserved for the most unclean. Today we will take your children and raise them among Muslim children until they grow up, fight, and break the noses of those who remain among you.”

The writer points to the San Bernardino massacre carried out by American-born Syed Farook and his wife.

“Then how about we send you 10 Syed Farooks? How about we send you eight lions like the heroes who set France on fire [Nov. 13] and turned it on its head,” the writer says.

The Islamic State, also known was ISIL and ISIS, has pledged in previously posts to infiltrate with its terrorists the streams of refugees from the Syria civil war.

President Obama over the weekend said he plans to bring more migrants into the country as a show of opposition against ISIL.

Another Al-Wafa article specifically threatens Europe under the headline, “Today It Is Brussels and [Its] Airport, and Tomorrow It Might Be Portugal and Hungary.”

COMMENT:  Is anyone listening?  Hillary?  Bernie?  Donnie?  Ted?  John?  Our political campaign has gotten so childish and trivial, that we are forgetting the huge locomotive coming at us.

The Brussels attack came only four months after the Paris attacks.  That shows ISIS has the ability to carry out major attacks in rapid succession.  Clearly, we have to be on guard against an ISIS attempt to disrupt our presidential election.  What a prize for those who dream of a new Caliphate.

March 30, 2016       Permalink

CLOSING IN ON HER MAJESTY – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  We're getting more and more hints that the federal probe into Hillary Clinton's antics is serious, and expanding, and that the American people might even see real justice.  From the Washington Times: 

Former Secretary Hillary Clinton and her State Department colleagues have given “constantly shifting” stories about her secret email account, a federal judge said Tuesday, finding there’s evidence the Obama administration showed “bad faith” in how it followed open-records laws.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth said it remains to be seen whether the government did try to obfuscate matters, but said there’s at least enough smoke that Judicial Watch, the conservative interest group suing to get a look at all of Mrs. Clinton’s records, should be allowed to press for more details about how the State Department made its decisions.

“Plaintiff is relying on constantly shifting admissions by the government and the former government officials,” Judge Lamberth said.

Mrs. Clinton declined to use a State.gov email account during her term as secretary, instead using an email account tied to a server she kept at her home in New York.

All of her messages that concerned official business were supposed to be archived by the State Department, but she kept them, only returning them in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office and only at the prompting of the House committee probing the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi.

That meant that during her four years in office and nearly two years afterward, the State Department was not searching those documents in response to open-records requests from Congress or the public.

Last month, the State Department finally finished processing more than 30,000 pages of Mrs. Clinton’s emails and made them public on the department’s Freedom of Information Act web page — a mammoth undertaking that has put a treasure trove of information in the public’s eye.

Judicial Watch and others argue that some 30,000 other messages Mrs. Clinton sent from her secret address during her time in office, but which she has deemed private business, should also be reviewed by the government.

COMMENT:  We await the conclusion of the FBI investigation.  That could determine Hillary Clinton's future, and ours.

March 30,  2016     Permalink

MARCH 29,  2016

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

HAVEN'T YOU EVER SEEN A GLEE CLUB BEFORE? – From Breitbart:   The FBI is now investigating a group of 17 Middle Eastern men camping in the Mojave Desert who were briefly detained on Easter Sunday, then released, after a 911 phone call was made to the Victor Valley Sheriff’s Station alleging that they had fired over 100 shots in the area.  “They were up all night chanting ‘Allah akbar’-type stuff,” an unidentified police officer was heard saying on an audio recording from a police scanner that was posted online.  It's a routine Mojave Desert function.  Nothing to see, nothing to see.

IT'S ALL FOR THE CHILDREN – From Fox:   Twelve current and former Detroit school principals were among 14 people accused of bribery and other crimes Tuesday by federal officials.  Investigators allege that Norman Shy, the owner of longtime Detroit Public Schools vendor Allstate Sales, would submit fraudulent invoices for chairs, paper and other supplies. To ensure the invoices would be approved, prosecutors claim Sly paid out more than $900,000 in cash, gift cards and checks to school officials.  In return, Sly's company received $2.7 million from the district for supplies that were delivered in far lesser quantities than promised or were never delivered at all.  Minority kids were the ones most hurt, but I guess their lives don't matter.

THE CRUZ SURGE – There's growing evidence that Ted Cruz is surging, but the continued presence of John Kasich in the raise is limiting the effects of the surge.  From Newsmax:  Billionaire developer Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz are virtually tied in a head-to-head race among Republican presidential voters, according to a national poll released Tuesday.  Here are the results of the latest Public Policy Polling survey of 505 GOP voters, conducted between Thursday and Saturday:  Trump: 46 percent.  Cruz: 44 percent.  However, in a battle involving Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the New York developer leads the field:
Trump: 42 percent.  Cruz: 32 percent.  Kasich: 22 percent.  The survey also found that 51 percent of Kasich supporters would back Cruz, versus 23 percent who said they would vote for Trump.  "The Republican race nationally would be a toss-up if it was just Trump and Cruz," said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, in analyzing the results.  "But as long as Kasich stays in there splitting the anti-Trump vote, Trump continues to be in a good position," he said.  I'll speculate that Governor Kasich will get a phone call in the next few weeks from some influential chap urging him to get out of the race for the good of the party, and recommending that he run again in 2020, with establishment backing.  Might be an offer he can't refuse.

March 29, 2016       Permalink

TRUMP'S COMPLAINT – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  I know we have Trump supporters among our very high-level readership, but frankly I'm tiring of the man.  He lowers the level of every argument he enters.  Last week, as we watched Brussels explode, as we saw our president humiliate this country and himself in Cuba and Argentina, Donald Trump was involved in a trivial debate over who insulted whose wife in the Republican nomination process.  I can't say that Ted Cruz was that much more impressive, but at least Cruz knows the issues.

A new tack by Trump is that the whole nomination process is unfair (to him), and he's promising trouble.  Lawsuits, to be specific.  It's the way the real-estate business is done in New York, but it's not usually the way we conduct a national campaign.  Rich Lowry, in the New York Post, explains just why Trump's position is weak. 

Donald Trump has made his first threat to sue over the procedures for selecting delegates to the Republican convention. It surely won’t be his last.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Ted Cruz may come out of Louisiana with as many as 10 more delegates than Trump, even though the mogul narrowly beat Cruz in the popular vote there. In a tweet, Trump pronounced it “unfair,” and worthy of litigation.

The Louisiana delegate picture isn’t evidence of anything untoward. Trump and Cruz both won 18 delegates on election night. Marco Rubio, who has since dropped out, won five, and another five are uncommitted. The Cruz campaign has done the nitty-gritty work to see that those delegates are likely Cruz supporters.

The only scandal here is that the Cruz campaign, built on grass-roots organizing muscle, knows the process and is working hard for every advantage. Trump’s plaint is a little like showing up at a Cricket match and crying foul because the opposing team knows the rules and all you know is that you swing a bat.

The Louisiana flap is a window into the intricate, state-by-state process of picking delegates to a convention in Cleveland where the allegiance of every last delegate might matter. If there is an open convention, Trump will argue that the voters should rule, not delegates no one has heard of, selected at obscure precinct, county, district and state meetings. He will, in short, declare the entire exercise of a contested convention illegitimate.

And...

Trump has thrived so far without an extensive, traditional political operation. But politics isn’t only about TV interviews and big rallies.

There’s a reason that the system also rewards candidates who can motivate and muster people to do the grass-roots activism involved in winning small victories at local meetings. This is literally getting people involved in the process, and it could take on an outsized significance in deciding the immediate future of the Republican Party.

Trump would be well-served to complain less about the rules, and learn more.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It's a good primer on convention politics.  Lowry, of course, is correct.  Conventions matter.  They're the critical components wherein delegates can step in and name a candidate if no one has a majority, based on primaries and caucuses.  That's why they hold conventions.

Abraham Lincoln came into the 1860 Republican convention well behind.  He emerged as the nominee.  The 1976 Republican convention was contested, and Ronald Reagan almost upset incumbent President Gerald Ford.  It was at the 1952 convention that Dwight Eisenhower became the GOP nominee, not before.

I'm hoping for a contested convention.  It would be a breath of fresh air, and exciting.  And the best candidate might actually emerge. 

March 29,  2016     Permalink

ANOTHER CONFIDENCE BUILDER – AT 8:16 A.M. ET:  British authorities openly fear a major terrorist attack, perhaps ten attacks simultaneously  This may be one of the reasons why.  From London's Telegraph: 

Fifty of Europe's most dangerous offenders including murderers, rapists, paedophiles and one of the world's most wanted terrorists have slipped into Britain undetected, a new analysis has found.

Vote leave, the eurosceptic campaign group led by Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary, warned that foreign offenders are using EU freedom of movement laws to enter Britain despite being convicted of serious crimes.

At total of 45 of them have gone on to commit further crimes in Britain, including 14 who have gone on to kill, 13 who have committed sex offences and nine who carried out violent assaults. 

The cases include that of Arnis Zalkans, a Latvian suspected of murdering 14-year-old schoolgirl Alice Gross before killing himself. Before entering Britain he served seven years in prison in his home country for murdering his wife.

In another high-profile case Adelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgian citizen who orchestrated the Paris terror attacks, entered Dover last year despite being subject to an arrest warrant.

In several of the cases senior judges expressed their astonishment that the offenders had been allowed into Britain despite the severity of their offences.

COMMENT:  The policies that allowed these savages into Britain are the result of the relentless, ideological pursuit of power and influence by the political left.  Even under conservative governments, it is the left that often controls the everyday workings of many government offices.  That is true throughout Europe. 

As Toynbee said, great civilizations aren't murdered, they commit suicide.  These porous-border policies are part of the West's suicide.  If not stopped, we know what the result will be a generation from now.  Will the next generation forgive this one?

I hope Britain votes to get out of the EU, with its unaccountable, faceless bureaucrats.  Then maybe it can become Britain again.

March 29, 2016       Permalink

THE NEW NANNY STATE, WITH FISTS – AT 8:04 A.M. ET:  It seems that government nutrition "recommendations" are becoming more than recommendations.  Eat your tofu, or else.  From the Washington Free Beacon:

The federal government is taking steps to fine schools that do not comply with first lady Michelle Obama’s school lunch rules.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service issued a proposed rule Monday to codify parts of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by Mrs. Obama.

The regulation would punish schools and state departments with fines for “egregious or persistent disregard” for the lunch rules that imposed sodium and calorie limits and banned white grains.

A West Virginia preschool teacher was threatened with fines for violating the rules by rewarding her students with candy for good behavior in June 2015. The teacher ultimately did not have to pay, but the school had to develop a “corrective action plan” with training on the policies.

The government now seeks to make fines enforceable by regulation. Section 303 of the law requires that the federal government “establish criteria for the imposition of fines” for all the Department of Agriculture’s child food programs.

COMMENT:  This is pretty chilling.  The intrusion of the federal government into our lives, our schools, grows greater every day.  And the dream of the current Democratic Party is to extend that control.  We are in danger of losing our very freedoms, but we seem indifferent.  The Republican Party would be the logical organization to depend on for a reversal, but would you depend on the Republican Party?

March 29,  2016     Permalink