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MAY 28,  2016

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

WARNING – FROM THE JERUSALEM POST:   Germany's spy chief said Saturday that ISIS is planning a large scale attack at the Euro 2016 championship in France, the Daily Mail reported.  Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution said that while there were no known plans in action, German intelligence admitted they had heard "quite a lot of background noise" which suggested the plot.  At least 2.5 million people are due to attend the championship, spread across 10 stadiums. The games are set to begin June 10.  Tensions remain high in France, still recovering from the November 2015 attacks in Paris, which included three explosions near the Stade de France national sports stadium.  France is preparing in advance for any potential attacks, saying that some games may be played behind closed doors depending on the threat level.   And one has to wonder about the vulnerability of the Rio Olympics, set to begin in early August.

INCREDIBLE PROGRESS:  FROM RED STATE:   Pakistan is considering a measure that would allow husbands to beat their wives “lightly,” – which, if enforced, would actually be a huge step in the right direction.  Of course, this was in response to a group that proposed a law that would forbid husbands from beating their wives at all, a measure which was condemned as being “anti-Islam.”  In the 75-page proposal, Mohammad Khan Sheerani suggests a light beating is acceptable should the need arise to punish a woman. The proposal bans forceful beating, saying only a small stick is necessary to instill fear.  The Council of Islamic Ideology is a powerful constitutional body that advises the Pakistani legislature whether laws are in line with the teachings of Islam.  Its proposed bill is seen as a response to the rejected Punjab Women Protection bill for abused women. The council shunned it as “un-Islamic” and wrote its own bill, which includes the recommendation for the light beating.  Don't you love to see progress?  Why, pretty soon Islamic women might be allowed out of the house without a man's permission.  Who said Islam isn't hip?

RISKY HEALTH RULING – FROM THE BBC:  The World Health Organization (WHO) has rejected a call to move or postpone this summer's Rio Olympic Games over the Zika outbreak.  It said this would "not significantly alter" the spread of the virus, which is linked to serious birth defects.  In an open letter to the WHO, more than 100 leading scientists had said new findings about Zika made it "unethical" for the Games to go ahead.  They also said the global health body should revisit its Zika guidance.  The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said it sees no reason to delay or move the Games because of the mosquito-borne disease.  The outbreak began in Brazil a year ago, but now more than 60 countries and territories have continuing transmission.   Come on, the Olympics are about money.  The health of athletes and spectators isn't on the radar screen.  And all that TV revenue won't be sent down the drain.  Pray for a healthy Olympics.

May 28, 2016       Permalink 

NEW BREATKTHROUGH IN NATIONAL DEFENSE – AT 12:18 P.M. ET:   Our defenses are deteriorating.  Budget constraints, the ideological left of the Obama administration, and a Republican Congress increasingly adrift, make for a bad combination when the national defense of the United States is involved.  But occasionally we see a piece of technology that may help save the day.  From Fox: 

A warning siren bellowed through the concrete bunker of a top-secret Naval facility where U.S. military engineers prepared to demonstrate a weapon for which there is little defense.

Officials huddled at a video screen for a first look at a deadly new supergun that can fire a 25-pound projectile through seven steel plates and leave a 5-inch hole.

The weapon is called a railgun and requires neither gunpowder nor explosive. It is powered by electromagnetic rails that accelerate a hardened projectile to staggering velocity—a battlefield meteorite with the power to one day transform military strategy, say supporters, and keep the U.S. ahead of advancing Russian and Chinese weaponry.

Keeping ahead will be difficult.  The Russians surprised us by bouncing back from their Cold War defeat to build new, excellent weapons.  Putin means what he says.

In conventional guns, a bullet loses velocity from the moment the gunpowder ignites and sends it flying. The railgun projectile instead gains speed as it travels the length of a 32-foot barrel, exiting the muzzle at 4,500 miles an hour, or more than a mile a second.

“This is going to change the way we fight,” said U.S. Navy Adm. Mat Winter, the head of the Office of Naval Research.

COMMENT:  Let's hope the usual bureaucratic mess in Washington doesn't hinder the development of this new system. 

May 28, 2016       Permalink

MR. OBAMA'S MAGICAL ADVENTURE – AT 11:31 A.M. ET:  The president has visited Japan.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but he didn't fill us with pride either.  From the British writer James Delingpole, at Breitbart:   

President Obama has kowtowed to the Japanese and Western liberals by promising at the site of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb “we shall not repeat the evil.”

People who agree with this sentiment ought to do two things.

First they should read the essay – Thank God for the Atom Bomb – war historian Paul Fussell wrote on how he felt when, as a 21-year-old second lieutenant in the US army, he and his comrades heard the news that Japan had been nuclear bombed into surrender.

“When we learned to our astonishment that we would not be obliged in a few months to rush up the beaches near Tokyo assault-firing while being machine-gunned, mortared, and shelled, for all the practiced phlegm of our tough facades we broke down and cried with relief and joy. We were going to live.”

Second, they should familiarize themselves with which country it was started this particular war; which country fought it with such sadistic determination that they would frequently torture and bayonet prisoners – even the wounded, in hospitals they’d over-run and would almost always refuse to surrender themselves, making any assault on territory they held more than usually costly in allied lives.

If ever the US finds itself in such circumstances again, let us pray that the president it has at the time is nothing like Barack Obama.

COMMENT:  That certainly says it, doesn't it?  Daniel Patrick Moynihan liked to use the term, "defining deviancy down."  It defined the process whereby people get used to low standards and bad behavior over time, and start considering it normal.   Have we reached that point in the America of Barack Obama?  Maybe, but maybe not.  It's time to fight back, reject political correctness, challenge journalistic mediocrity and corruption, and slam anti-social behavior.  We did it in our past.  We can do it again.

May 28, 2016       Permalink

ON THIS MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  A magnificent story of a guy who wanted one last mission, and it was his last.  From Fox: 

A retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant who returned to England this month for the first time in 71 years to visit the country he defended during World War II has died during his “final mission.”

Melvin Rector, 94, served in England with the 96th Bomb Group in 1945 as a radio operator and gunner on B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, including on the Memphis Belle, the first heavy bomber to compete its 25-mission tour of duty with its crew intact.

Operating out of RAF Snetterton Heath in Norfolk, Rector flew eight combat missions over Germany during the spring of the final year of the War, with his plane coming back one time dotted with bullet holes on its wings, Stars and Stripes reports.

Rector, hoping to return to the base, decided to leave his home in Barefoot Bay, Fla., to visit Britain as part of a travel program organized by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

"He planned it for like the last six months," Darlene O'Donnell, Rector's stepdaughter, told Florida Today. "He couldn't wait to go."

Susan Jowers, who accompanied Rector on the trip, said on May 6 he stepped foot on British soil for the first time in 71 years and visited RAF Uxbridge in London.

After Rector toured the Battle of Britain bunker, a command center where airplane operations were coordinated during D-Day, he told Jowers he felt dizzy.

There, right outside the bunker, Rector quietly died on the soil where he risked his life to defend decades ago.

COMMENT:  I wonder if some of our college "students," reading this story, will actually understand it.

It is the soldier, not the politician, who guarantees our freedom.  It is the soldier, not the professor, who guarantees academic freedom.

Melvin Rector did his job.  And nobody provided him a "safe space."

May 28,  2016     Permalink

MAY 27,  2016

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

A GREAT STORY – FROM CNN:  (CNN) Dr. Henry Heimlich reached his arms around the gagging woman's body and did what he does best: grasped his left fist in his right hand and thrust quickly and upward.  It was 1974 when he created the lifesaving maneuver and the American Medical Association gave it his name. On Monday -- at age 96 -- he got to use his own maneuver on someone who was choking.
Heimlich was eating a steak in the dining room of the Deupree House, a senior living community in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he noticed the woman next to him start to choke...As more than 100 other diners looked on, Heimlich said he stood up, spun the victim around and launched into his namesake technique.
He placed his arms around her waist, fist below the ribcage -- just above the belly button. Then, Heimlich pressed three times, and Patty Gill Ris, 87, coughed out a piece of her hamburger.  Ris had just moved to the community in March and was dining next to Heimlich for the first time.  "Oh gosh am I lucky that I sat there. And God put me right there at that table right next to Dr. Heimlich," she said.  And that is a truly great and inspiring story.

GOOD! – FROM FOX:   Relatives of the woman shot to death on a San Francisco pier last year filed a lawsuit Friday saying the illegal immigrant accused in the killing should have been in custody if not for a series of mistakes by city and federal workers.  The killing of Kate Steinle in July 2015 and the arrest of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez put San Francisco's leaders on the defensive as critics and outside politicians called for a change in the city's sanctuary law. Despite national outrage, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday upheld those protections for people in the country illegally.  The sheriff at the time of the killing, Ross Mirkarimi, is named in the lawsuit, along with ICE and the Bureau of Land Management. Mirkarimi previously defended the release of the suspect, a repeat drug offender and habitual border-crosser.  Frank Pitre, the lawyer for Steinle's family, said the lawsuit points out "failures at every level."  It certainly does, and the worst failures were at the moral level – the left's insistence that hardened criminals be treated better than the victims of their crimes.  They're oppressed, you know.

WHAT OUR KIDS ARE TAUGHT – FROM THE HILL:   While President Obama visits the site of the world's first nuclear strike in Japan on Friday, a new poll finds Americans are split over the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.  Forty-three percent of Americans say they approve of the use of the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities in 1945, while 44 percent disapprove, according to a CBS News poll released Friday.  That compares to Gallup polling in 2005 that found significantly higher approval among Americans for dropping the bombs, with 57 percent approving and 38 percent not.  The CBS polling found that men are much more likely to support having used the atomic bomb, with 58 percent approving compared to 28 percent disapproving. Women disapproved using the bomb, 54 percent to 33 percent.  White Americans also approved of its use, 49 percent to 24 percent, while non-white Americans strongly opposed having used it, 62 percent to 38 percent.  The bomb was used to end the most horrible war in history.  Ending the war probably saved millions of lives.  It is easy for people some 71 years later to pass moral judgment, especially since they're out of danger and bear no risk from mortal combat.  I suspect some of the poll results reflect what our children are being taught in "history" classes, that America is usually wrong and that other cultural "narratives" must be respected.  It probably also reflects, in the racial divide, the propaganda handed to minority children – that race, gender, and ethnicity are everything, and facts mean nothing.

May 27,  2016     Permalink

NEW YORK LEADS THE WAY BACKWARD – AT 11:52 A.M. ET:  "Progressives" are again on the march, watching over us as we lead reckless, evil lives.  From Fox:

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City plans to start enforcing a first-of-its-kind requirement for chain restaurants to use icons to warn patrons of salty foods after getting an appeals court's go-ahead Thursday to start issuing fines. But it's not the final word on whether the regulation will stand.

The novel rule took effect in December, and some eateries already have added the requisite salt-shaker-like icons to menu items that contain more salt than doctors recommend ingesting in an entire day.

But penalties have been in limbo as the National Restaurant Association fights the measure in court. That clash is ongoing, but an appeals court Thursday lifted a temporary hold on issuing the fines while the case plays out. Fines can be up to $600.

The city will start enforcing the rule June 6.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio applauded the appeals court's decision on what he called "a common-sense regulation that will help New Yorkers make better decisions and lead healthier lives." The city won the first round of the lawsuit in a trial court in February; the restaurant association appealed.

The group called on the city Thursday to delay enforcement voluntarily until the appeal is resolved.

"Today's decision ... will force the men and women that own New York City's restaurants to start complying with this unlawful and unprecedented sodium mandate before the court has the chance to rule on the merits of our appeal," the organization said in a statement.

COMMENT:  We should all lead healthy lives, but the decision should be ours.  This is the nanny state, and the nanny state always grows.

May 27, 2016       Permalink

RUBIO IN SPOTLIGHT AGAIN – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  Marco Rubio, who can have a bright future in the Republican Party if he gets back on track, is now, under pressure from other Republicans, reconsidering his decision not to run for re-election to the U.S. Senate from Florida.  From Bloomberg:

Senator Marco Rubio on Thursday opened the door a crack to staying in the U.S. Senate next year amid a concerted effort by his Republican colleagues to push him to run for re-election.

The Florida Republican’s decision could be crucial to keeping the Senate in Republican hands, given that none of the many Republicans running for his seat have Rubio’s name recognition or fundraising prowess in the pivotal battleground state.

After Rubio was approached by other senators, including Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, asking him to reconsider, he softened his oft-repeated declaration that he will be a private citizen come January.

Now, Rubio -- who said he would not stand for Senate re-election when he announced his failed presidential bid -- said it is "unlikely" he will change his mind before the Florida filing deadline on June 24. The state’s primary will be held Aug. 30.

Late Thursday, Rubio received more encouragement -- from Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who mocked Rubio as “Little Marco” during their primary race.

“Poll data shows that @marcorubio does by far the best in holding onto his Senate seat in Florida. Important to keep the MAJORITY. Run Marco!” Trump tweeted.

“This is just something that happened today or what have you. For me, I need time to even talk to anybody about it, but my sense of it is nothing has changed in my thinking," Rubio told reporters at the Capitol.

Cornyn said he was encouraged at Rubio softening his stance.

"To me that sounds like an opening," he said. "That causes me to be hopeful."

COMMENT:  I'd like to see Rubio run.  He could save the Republicans the Senate seat from Florida, and stay in the news. 

I think it's significant that Trump is also urging him to make the race.  That probably means Rubio is out of the running to be Trump's vice-presidential pick.

May 27, 2016       Permalink

GET LOST,  BERNIE – AT 9:46 A.M. ET:  It was inevitable.  At some point there had to be a backlash against Bernie Sanders in the mainstream Democratic Party, and apparently it's begun.  I mean, the man isn't even a Democrat.  From The Politico: 

For some Democrats, Bernie Sanders’ latest gambit — challenging Donald Trump to a debate to cap all debates — is the last straw.

“B.....it,” said Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “That confirms what we’ve been saying. Why would you expect Bernie should be considerate or be nice or be working to bring everyone together? Why? He’s not a Democrat.”

The party’s frustrations are boiling over with Sanders as the primary season winds down: Namely that Sanders seems unwilling or unable to admit that Hillary Clinton is on course for the nomination.

The ire toward Sanders began earlier this year among the loudest Democratic cheerleaders for Clinton — and now it’s seeping into nearly the entire Senate Democratic caucus.

Lawmakers reacted with puzzlement, sarcasm and barely veiled anger as Sanders’ campaign and Trump himself played up an event that would exclude Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t know why he would do that. I think it’s time to start to winding down the primary,” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). “It’s time to move on.”

“It’s peculiar,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “It’s all about Bernie trying to get the advantage in California. It’s not going to work.”

COMMENT:  I guess Sanders won't win Miss Congeniality in the next session of Congress.  The fact is, the anger is building.  He's an extremist who appeals mostly to low-information college students and leftovers from the 1960s.  Trouble is, they actually come out to vote. 

Sanders will leave his mark on the Democratic platform, and Hillary won't like it.  She knows she has to tilt to the center to win the election. 

I'd love to see if Sanders, currently an Independent in the Senate, actually becomes a Democrat.  After accepting the hospitality of the Democratic Party, you'd think he would.  But he's a committed socialist, so he probably won't.

May 27,  2016     Permalink