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SEPTEMBER 15,  2018

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

THERE'S A TIME TO GET OFF THE STAGE – FROM BREITBART:  This week during a student town hall at Emory University, former President Jimmy Carter said he would change “all” of the policies of President Donald Trump.  When asked what he would do if he became president of the United States again, Carter said, “If I were foolish enough to feel I could be president again and I got to be president, I think the first thing I would do would be to change all of the policies that President Trump has initiated since he has been in office.”  He continued, “I pray for him fairly regularly.”  Carter explained, “If he answered my prayers, he’d have to change a lot of things.”  He added, “I hope he will do well if he finishes out his first term.”  Carter’s comments were given a standing ovation.  I guess then that Carter would repeal the policies that led to our booming economy.  This man should have retired before running for president.

SHOW SOME HEART – FROM FOX:  One China Eastern Airlines flight attendant is reportedly out of a job, months after accepting a viral marriage proposal from her longtime boyfriend during the middle of a flight.  On September 10, Channel 8 reported that the unnamed female flight attendant received a dismissal letter in the mail from the carrier over the May incident.  According to Asia One, roughly thirty minutes after take-off, the woman’s boyfriend got down on one knee at the front of the aircraft and popped the question. Accepting the offer, the two share a sweet embrace and the passengers applauded, in video footage that has since gone viral on YouTube...Now, her employment with China Eastern Airlines has been terminated over concerns that she “neglected passenger safety.”  Oh please.  The airline should have a heart, take her back, and send her on a honeymoon, with apologies for embarrassing her. 

THE FRAUD CONTINUES – FROM DAILYWIRE:  Socialists want everybody to get everything — as long as they get theirs first.  And socialists looooove money. Take Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Independent who touts himself as a socialist. He's got three houses, including a shorefront house on Lake Champlain.  Same goes for the hot new socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She's everywhere now as she runs for a New York seat in the U.S. House. And with that comes money — and bling.  In a photo shoot for Interview magazine, Ocasio-Cortez was pictured wearing a $3,500 outfit as she posed with construction workers. She was decked out in a Gabriela Hearst blazer ($1,990), Gabriela Hearst pants ($890), and some Monolo Blahnik shoes ($625).  It didn't take her long, did it?  This story was always about her look, her glamour.  It has little to do with politics.  The turnout in her "historic" primary was 13 percent.  Her 15 minutes of fame will soon be up.

September 15,  2018     Permalink

NIKKI SURVIVES THE SMEAR – AT 1:21 P.M. ET:  The New York Times attempted yesterday to smear Nikki Haley.  They picked the wrong customer, and had to admit it.  From the New York Post:

Hours after posting an online smear of Ambassador Nikki Haley, The New York Times on Friday afternoon corrected the article to make it clear she had nothing to do with the decision to spend $52,000 on mechanized curtains in her official New York residence. Hours of criticism had left the Gray Lady no other choice.

The original piece, headlined “Nikki Haley’s View of New York is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701,” snarked about the expense in a blatant effort to make Haley seem like several other Trump administration officials (mostly ex-officials) who demanded outrageous taxpayer-paid perks upon taking office.

Besides noting the expense — $29,900 for the curtains and $22,801 for automatic open-and-close hardware — the Times report flagged the fact that the installation came at a time when the State Department faced deep budget cuts and a hiring freeze.

Only at the end did the article mention that the plans to buy the tapestries were made in 2016, by the Obama State Department.

It took hours for criticism from the likes of CNN’s Jake Tapper (on Twitter) to move the Times to acknowledge key facts. It turns out the whole apartment is new: Career State employees determined the UN ambassador’s official digs had to change after a Chinese company bought the Waldorf-Astoria, the old site of the diplomatic residence.

All the furnishings, including the curtains, were chosen by State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations — as is standard for US diplomatic cribs all around the world. Haley had nothing to do with any of it.

So, as the Times’ correction notes, “The article should not have focused on Ms. Haley, nor should a picture of her have been used.” 

COMMENT:  Good news organizations should adopt the caution used in the medical profession:  First, do no harm.

They do a great deal of harm and wreck many reputations.

In this case the Times at least ran a correction.  But the real question is how a story like that got published in the first place.

September 15, 2018        Permalink

THE REALITY – AT 11:30 A.M. ET:  We may not want to face it, but more and more I'm hearing people on our side saying that they're tired of President Trump.  They say that they applaud his ideas, his spectacular record of accomplishment, his speaking real truth to power, but that they can't take his personality.  They want a president they can be proud of.

I understand.  There are many times I feel the same way.  Why doesn't he talk about policy and just shut up about everything else, especially his petty feuds? 

It's a serious dilemma.  We're facing an opposition party where truth is never a requirement and where the presidential bench is on a junior-high level.  And yet we often yearn for someone who can carry the Trump message with the Reagan touch.

Rich Lowry, who has struggled, as we have, to support the president on his important journey, feels the same way.  We have the right message and a badly flawed messenger, and it is causing anguish.  From the New York Post: 

President Trump is showing it’s possible to preside over a period of peace and prosperity, and still be notably unpopular…

…In much of the recent polling, he’s dipped back under 40 percent after a steady, monthslong run of being at about 43 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

He hasn’t done this with any spectacular misstep. What Trump has done, predictably, week after week, is mess up the easy stuff.

It’s not hard — through gritted teeth and insincerely, if necessary — to say the appropriate things about an American hero upon his passing.

It’s not hard to limit your tweets on the morning of September 11, for just a few hours, to the topic of the anniversary of the attacks and leave commentary on a recorded cable TV show for some other time.

It’s not hard to avoid attacking your own attorney general in public, repeatedly and in an escalating fashion meant to inflict the greatest possible humiliation.

It’s not hard to avoid throwing around the word “TREASON” loosely or to muse about changing the libel laws to exact legislative retribution on your critics.

Granted, it’s harder to build a cohesive White House team, but it ought to be easy to exclude volatile C-list stars from your old reality show and generate enough coherence to stem nonstop self-serving, backbiting leaks (let alone attacks on you in anonymous op-eds)…

It’s not as though any one thing — the Stormy Daniels affair, the Cohen plea deal and the Manafort conviction, the security-clearance controversy, the Omarosa book, the anonymous op-ed, the Woodward book — is as consequential as it’s portrayed in any given news cycle, but one damn thing after another adds up.

Trump has an amazing ability, through the force of his personality and his instinct for the mediagenic provocations, to blot out the sun. He wouldn’t be president without this quality. It’s just that, given the positive state of the country, less blotting and more sun are called for….

…An economic boom is a terrible thing to waste.

COMMENT:  Very well said.  Look, we're not goin' anywhere.  The president is pursuing good policies, and he's spoken truths that needed to be spoken.  But, like Nixon, many people, including his own supporters, simply dislike him and, like Nixon,  he faces an irrationally hostile press. 

There is no obvious solution, as Trump refuses to quiet down and grow into the office.  But 2020 is just around the corner, and I'd hate to see all the progress being made destroyed by the president's own personality.  His ideas deserve better.

September 15,  2018     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 14,  2018

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

AS THE PRESIDENT SAYS, FAKE NEWS – FROM MEDIAITE:  The Weather Channel is defending one of their own after a video of Hurricane Florence coverage went viral.  The video, uploaded to Twitter, shows Weather Channel meteorologist and reporter Mike Seidel bracing in the wind during a live shot in Wilmington, NC.  As he is struggling to keep his footing, two people walk behind him showing no signs of struggle.  Quick, CNN, hire him as a political reporter.

HOW WOULD SHE KNOW? – FROM PAGE SIX:   Jane Fonda believes the downfall of Leslie Moonves won’t be the last we’ll see among powerful entertainment industry executives.  “It’s a shame he didn’t behave, [but now] it’s come back to get him,” Fonda said at Thursday night’s Los Angeles premiere of the HBO documentary “Jane Fonda in Five Acts” at the Armand Hammer Museum.  Moonves departed on Sunday amid a cascade of sexual assault and misconduct allegations.   She continues to be an embarrassment.  Now she's predicting the future in her apparent bid to be Chief Feminist.

JUST WHAT WE ALWAYS WANTED – FROM CAMPUS REFORM:  The University of Maryland at College Park announced Friday a new diversity support group to create a “safe space” for white students to discuss their feelings about “interactions with racial and ethnic minorities.”  The support group, called “White Awake,” will help white students who may “sometimes feel uncomfortable and confused before, during, or after interactions with racial and ethnic minorities.”  “This group offers a safe space for White students to explore their experiences, questions, reactions, and feelings,” the description explains. “Members will support and share feedback with each other as they learn more about themselves and how they can fit into a diverse world.”  The description asks students if they want to “improve [their] ability to relate to and connect with people different from [themselves]” or if they want to become a better “ally.” The new group is now one of four in the university’s “Diversity Issues” program series.  I'm already taking notes.  Tell all your friends about this educational opportunity.

September 14, 2018       Permalink 

THE JUDGE DENIES IT – AT 11:18 A.M. ET:  And it shouldn't even be an issue.  From Fox: 

“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” Kavanaugh, 53, said in a statement Friday.

Feinstein on Thursday released a statement insinuating Kavanaugh could be guilty of a crime after saying she turned information about Kavanaugh over to the FBI. She did not detail the accusation.

“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Feinstein said in her surprise statement. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”

Fox News has confirmed that the letter involved an allegation about Kavanaugh while a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda, Maryland in the 1980s. A woman, who was also in high school at the time, accused Kavanaugh in the letter of holding her down and trying to force himself on her during a party, before she got away. The details were first reported Friday by the New Yorker.

The woman also claimed Kavanaugh was joined at the time by a friend who turned up music to conceal her protests. That unnamed classmate reportedly told the New Yorker, “I have no recollection of that.”

Meanwhile, the Judiciary Committee on Friday received a letter from 65 women who said they knew Kavanaugh from high school and vouched for him as a “good person.” The letter was addressed to Feinstein and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

“We are women who have known Brett Kavanaugh for more than 35 years and knew him while he attended high school between 1979 and 1983,” the letter, obtained by Fox News, reads. “For the entire time we have known Brett Kavanaugh, he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect. We strongly believe it is important to convey this information to the committee at this time.”

The White House blasted the charge on Thursday as a last-minute gambit.

“Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new ‘information’ about him," White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in a statement.

The accusation comes after the Senate Judiciary Committee already grilled Kavanaugh and other witnesses and prepares to vote on sending his nomination to the full Senate.

COMMENT:   McCarthyism, plain and simple.  That's exactly what it looks like...and I worked with real victims of McCarthyism.

The Democrats should be ashamed.  But there is no shame for people who think of themselves as superior.

September 14, 2018       Permalink

WHERE THE PRESIDENT STANDS – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  He stands pretty well, considering the pounding he's taking.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove. 

The latest figures include 34% who Strongly Approve of the president is performing and 43% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -9.

COMMENT:   Not great, but not too different from where Obama stood, although the mainstream media seems to be avoiding that point.

However, the president must do everything he can to build approval, not destroy it.  Once again, he's gotten himself into an unforced error by questioning the death toll when the last hurricane hit Puerto Rico.  Of course, we all know that the monumental incompetence of the Puerto Rican government contributed mightily to the toll, but why does the president have to involve himself and question the numbers?  All he's done is come off as unfeeling, which he's not.  Emphasize the economy.  Stop getting into needless fights.

September 14,  2018     Permalink