Steve Bannon Hardest Hit

President Trump gave reporters a "tour" of the new ballroom.  People have opinions about it. Mine has changed. In the wayback machine, on the day it was first announced, I thought it was terrible, for the same reason I didn't like it  (see middle of the link) when the Obamas put out a huge tent so they could do a grand, emperial-style state dinner instead of the republican-sized one dictated by the size of the White House. I want to stick with republican scale. 

But then I read up on the way the war in Ukraine is being fought with drones, or how we demolished practically the entire Iranian cabinet at one meeting and realized the days of presidents entertaining in tents outside -- the days of being in non-hardened locations-- are probably forever gone, and the Prez, as per usual, is showing foresight and love of country while managing to communicate only (before today anyway) "the biggest, the best."  

But whatever. What I can't believe is how the press buried the lede.  In the course of his "tour," the President made the point that the ballroom will be finished just as he is finishing his term (scroll to about a minute in), so the ballroom is for future presidents, not himself.  Guys:  this means he has no plans to run for a third term! 

Obama's Bloodless Presser

"Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?"

Watch the President's unbelievable press conference today. 

Or if you can't bear it, listen to Bill Hemmer's summary. 

Or just watch minutes 25-27.  We're all gonna die and the President of the United States isn't going to lift a finger to stop it. 

Dude, We'd Like to Focus on our Actual Problems If You Don't Mind

The president went to Kenya and gave them a lecture about gay rights even though he'd been asked not to. The president of Kenya responded very courteously, but said, in essence, "to hell with your cultural imperialism." Do you notice how hesitant and uncomfortable President Obama looks in this clip?

About Those Angry Trump Voters

I think the post two below this one establishes well enough what I think of Donald Trump. I find his comments about Mexicans to be stupid, not so much that they're racist (what he said was clumsy more than hateful), but just that they're dumb. Mexico isn't "sending" us anyone -- and since when has any country "sent" us its best and brightest? Your poor, your tired, your huddled masses -- that's who comes here, at least when we're talking immigrant waves. The question is, do they begin to rise when they get here, integrating and assimilating and becoming Americans -- and that is the question it drives me crazy that no one focuses on -- because we'd have to look at our own policies. (Link is to me on this subject in 2006.) 

That said, here is what Trump is tapping into like the genius self-promoter that he is. Prior to reading that piece I really had no idea the extent of ICE malfeasance or the problem of "sanctuary cities." 

For instance: 

It got little notice, but on May 28, Sarah Saldana, director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, admitted in a letter to Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that between fiscal years 2010 and 2014, the Obama administration had released “121 unique criminal aliens who had an active [deportation] case at the time of release and were subsequently charged with homicide-related offenses.”Think about that: 121 times over the past four years, the administration has released an illegal immigrant with prior criminal convictions who went on to be charged with murder. That is one every 12 days.

Every 12 days, the Administration releases a murder into the wild? When you put it that way....And the release rate is even higher for sex offenders: 

ICE also does not routinely notify local authorities when it releases illegal immigrants who are sex offenders. Last month, a Boston Globe investigation found that between 2008 and 2012, ICE released 424 sex offenders into communities across the country — including “convicted rapists, child molesters and kidnappers” — and that “immigration officials have released them without making sure they register with local authorities as sex offenders.” The paper further found that “At least 34 of the 424 released sex offenders . . . were back in jail as of last month, state records show, some for heinous crimes committed after ICE released them.”

If we're going to label college students who got drunk and hooked up with an equally drunk girl who now regrets the dalliance sex offenders, couldn't we do the same for, you know, actual sex offenders?

Mansfield On Why You Should Read the Whole Speech

Love this piece by Harvey Mansfield in this morning's WSJ: Give Michelle Obama A Break. If you read a speech through instead of relying on a sound bite clipped out of context, you might be surprised at what you find.

Yes, it's true that the First Lady went through a litany of past and present slights against black citizens. But if you read her speech, she really did not do it in the spirit of "hate whitey," nor did she claim that most whites are racists. She was simply frank with the kids that occasionally they'll have it harder or feel slighted because of their race -- and that is no excuse for anything. 

She's a progressive liberal, so of course not everything she says resonates with me, but its overall message is positive and wholesome: 

Our history provides us with a better story, a better blueprint for how we can win.  It teaches us that when we pull ourselves out of those lowest emotional depths, and we channel our frustrations into studying and organizing and banding together -- then we can build ourselves and our communities up.  We can take on those deep-rooted problems, and together -- together -- we can overcome anything that stands in our way.And the first thing we have to do is vote.  (Applause.)    Hey, no, not just once in a while.  Not just when my husband or somebody you like is on the ballot.  But in every election at every level, all of the time.  (Applause.)  Because here is the truth -- if you want to have a say in your community, if you truly want the power to control your own destiny, then you’ve got to be involved.  You got to be at the table.  You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote.  That’s it; that's the way we move forward. That’s how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.   That’s what’s always happened here at Tuskegee.  Think about those students who made bricks with their bare hands.  They did it so that others could follow them and learn on this campus, too.  Think about that brilliant scientist who made his lab from a trash pile.  He did it because he ultimately wanted to help sharecroppers feed their families.  Those Airmen who rose above brutal discrimination -- they did it so the whole world could see just how high black folks could soar.  That’s the spirit we’ve got to summon to take on the challenges we face today.And you don’t have to be President of the United States to start addressing things like poverty, and education, and lack of opportunity.  Graduates, today -- today, you can mentor a young person and make sure he or she takes the right path.  Today, you can volunteer at an after-school program or food pantry.  Today, you can help your younger cousin fill out her college financial aid form so that she could be sitting in those chairs one day.  (Applause.)  But just like all those folks who came before us, you’ve got to do something to lay the groundwork for future generations.That pilot I mentioned earlier -- Charles DeBow -- he didn’t rest on his laurels after making history.  Instead, after he left the Army, he finished his education.  He became a high school English teacher and a college lecturer.  He kept lifting other folks up through education.  He kept fulfilling his “double duty” long after he hung up his uniform. And, graduates, that’s what we need from all of you.  We need you to channel the magic of Tuskegee toward the challenges of today.  And here’s what I really want you to know -- you have got everything you need to do this.  You’ve got it in you. Because even if you’re nervous or unsure about what path to take in the years ahead, I want you to realize that you’ve got everything you need right now to succeed.  You’ve got it. 

In her own way, she's telling them to be citizens. 

Bibi's Speech

Benjamin Netanyahu during his IDF days. Shamelessly pinched from here. 

(Wikicommons/GPO)

Before we get to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech, may I just pause to say: hubba hubba?

Now that I have squandered my right to be taken seriously, I proceed. 

Not sure what I think about Bibi's having been invited to speak to Congress in the first place. My initial instinct was to think the act was shameful on Speaker Boehner (not Bibi's) part. Not unconstitutional, but shameful, as it undermines the President's foreign policy and no matter how feckless that policy or the President is, showing a divided face to the world is not going to strengthen, but weaken, the nation. The precedent is just awful, and in Democratic hands will lead, mark my words, to craptastic scenes of tinpot dictators coming before Congress to undermine any Republican president's foreign policy efforts. I thank God it didn't occur to Tip O'Neill to invite the Soviet Premier to Congress to talk about a nuclear freeze during the Reagan administration.

I can make two counter arguments. The first is that President Obama is so weak in foreign policy that his own administration is already operating at counter purposes with itself. The Washington Times ran a story in January that I am surprised didn't get more play. The thrust of the story was Hillary Clinton's utter incompetence and malfeasance in Libya, but to me the truly stunning revelation was that the Pentagon was actively undermining her and conducting its own negotiations. 

Top Pentagon officials and a senior Democrat in Congress so distrusted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2011 march to war in Libya that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime in an effort to halt the escalating crisis, according to secret audio recordings recovered from Tripoli.
The tapes, reviewed by The Washington Times and authenticated by the participants, chronicle U.S. officials’ unfiltered conversations with Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s son and a top Libyan leader, including criticisms that Mrs. Clinton had developed tunnel vision and led the U.S. into an unnecessary war without adequately weighing the intelligence community’s concerns.

I read that story and thought: "Expletive!" Forget whether Hillary was right or wrong, who the hell is running the country if State and Defense are conducting independent negotiations? And where the hell is the President? Someone ought to have been sacked and made an example of. If I were President and found out my own Defense Dept. was running its own independent foreign policy, heads would have rolled immediately. No one else seems to have been the least bit troubled by this revelation, however -- neither that we have a rogue Defense dept, nor that the President seems uninterested in the fact that his two most powerful agencies are showing two different faces to the world. 

Which leads to the second argument in defense of Boehner, which is that there comes a point where the threat to the nation or the world is so serious that you've no choice but to put the usual rules aside in a desperate attempt to thwart a deadly stupid policy. If the President has lost control of his own foreign policy, are you supposed to just sit there?

Then I heard Netanyahu's speech, which made a good case that Boehner's in this latter, uncomfortable position. The President is desperate to do something very foolish, to the entire world's harm -- and aren't we even going to discuss it?  

I am not one who believes Iran can be prevented from developing the bomb if it's determined to do so ( my big gripe with conservative critics of the President has been that no one ever explains how they'd prevent Iran from getting the bomb -- they just complain that he's not stopping them).  Nor do I believe for a second that Iran is going to abide by any agreement in the first place. So I don't see why we have to help them along by dropping sanctions. So I agree wholeheartedly with at least this portion of what Bibi had to say: 

I don't believe that Iran's radical regime will change for the better after this deal. This regime has been in power for 36 years, and its voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year. This deal would wet appetite -- would only wet Iran's appetite for more.
Would Iran be less aggressive when sanctions are removed and its economy is stronger? If Iran is gobbling up four countries right now while it's under sanctions, how many more countries will Iran devour when sanctions are lifted? Would Iran fund less terrorism when it has mountains of cash with which to fund more terrorism?
Why should Iran's radical regime change for the better when it can enjoy the best of both world's: aggression abroad, prosperity at home?
This is a question that everyone asks in our region. Israel's neighbors -- Iran's neighbors know that Iran will become even more aggressive and sponsor even more terrorism when its economy is unshackled and it's been given a clear path to the bomb.And many of these neighbors say they'll respond by racing to get nuclear weapons of their own. So this deal won't change Iran for the better; it will only change the Middle East for the worse. A deal that's supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation would instead spark a nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet.

 So. Still thinking about it. Post speech, I feel mildly better about the fact of its having been given. To close on a style point, qua speech, it was enormously refreshing to hear a straightforward argument, introduced graciously, backed by evidence, and delivered as if something were at stake. As an audience member, I felt I was a grown up being addressed by a grown-up. It wasn't another Sophomore student government speech. 

At Least The French Like Cheese

It's been a while since either ninme or I chanted "Die, Boomers, Die," but if the Sec. of State sending a mix tape to France to make amends for not showing up for the anti-terror rally in Paris doesn't convince you, you probably ARE a Boomer.

Kevin Williamson with more on that. 

A word of advice: Next time, send Slayer.
Seriously: If you’re going to send a past-its-prime musical act to an ally in distress — instead of showing up to join the rest of the heads of state in a show of solidarity — then send in the wild boys from Huntington Park, Calif., who are, like the last effective foreign policy maintained by this country, born of the 1980s. James Taylor tells France, “You’ve got a friend.” Slayer tells the world, “You’ve got a problem.” And there’s something in the Slayer catalog for everybody: “Jihad” for the most literal-minded; “Evil Has No Boundaries,” a sentiment that social conservatives could surely endorse; “War Ensemble” for the neocons; and President John Bolton’s agenda for his first 100 days in office: “Raining Blood.” (“Endless war?” President Bolton scoffs. “Try three weeks.”) If you find yourself in a fight, you want to know that you’ve got a friend. But do you really want that friend to be James Taylor?

Works Well for Both Parties Concerned

Joe Biden is distancing himself from Barack Obama.

Michelle to Black People: Thinking Through Issues Not Necessary

The First Lady in a phone interview to black television:

"And for most of the people that we're talking to, a Democratic ticket is the clear ticket that we should be voting on, regardless of who said what or did this. That shouldn't even come into the equation."

Alrighty then.

The Tempest in A Coffee Cup

I am not among those deeply offended by the President's Starbucks salute to his Marine guard. Technically, as a civilian, he shouldn't be saluting at all. The great Ronald Reagan started that practice, with excellent intentions but to my mind not the best results. In any case, when people feel impotent they start nitpicking, and the anger over the half-hearted salute seems to me to be displaced anger about everything else. The salute or lack thereof couldn't in itself be less important.

Neverthless, this amused me.

Perils of On-Line Dating

 Or as American Digest has it, "Regrets, she's had a few...."

Dark Forces

This is a devastating charge if it's true -- and I absolutely believe it is because I know the reporter somewhat and he is a careful and serious fellow.

Did you catch Bret Baier’s special last night about Benghazi? 
If not, know this: the battle of Benghazi lasted a full 13 hours, and throughout it all, the President of the United States and the Secretary of State refused to allow U.S. Forces to deploy to rescue our people who were under attack.
As one former senior CIA official told me: we could have had aircraft overhead in 40 minutes, and troops (from Croatia) in 4 hours. But those orders to deploy were never given.
I’ve got all that and more in my new book, Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi. 

 From an email from Ken Timmerman, www.KenTimmerman.com

So We're Clear

Shamelessly pinched from CatholicVote.org

"Not Me" Foreign Policy

Shamelessly pinched from here.

I know I'm late to the party in denouncing the President's admitting publicly that he hasn't a clue what to do about IS. (I can't call it ISIS, that just makes me think of Saturday morning television.) Dude, here's how you pronounce that: "All options are currently on the table." Same thing, threatens the enemy rather than giving him a good laugh.  You're not just talking to the people in the room, you know.  Which brings me to Noemie Emery's piece:  

When one thing goes wrong, it may be an accident, but when five do at once—Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and our border—the man at the helm may have something to do with it, and a foreign policy based largely on John Lennon lyrics may be the proximate cause.

And then there's this (curtsy American Digest), in which a Facebook friend of Glenn Reynolds says America's becoming Potterville. Quoted in full.

Let’s accept, arguendo, that the outgoing DIA chief is right, and that we are now in an era of danger similar to the mid-1930s. How did we get here? It’s worth looking back into the mists of time — an entire year, to Labor Day weekend 2013. What had not happened then? It’s quite a list, actually: the Chinese ADIZ, the Russian annexation of Crimea, the rise of ISIS, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the fall of Mosul, the end of Hungarian liberal democracy, the Central American refugee crisis, the Egyptian-UAE attacks on Libya, the extermination of Iraqi Christians, the Yazidi genocide, the scramble to revise NATO’s eastern-frontier defenses, the Kristallnacht-style pogroms in European cities, the reemergence of mainstream anti-Semitism, the third (or fourth, perhaps) American war in Iraq, racial riots in middle America, et cetera and ad nauseam.

All that was in the future just one year ago.

What is happening now is basically America’s version of “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The President of the United States — supported to an exceptional extent by an electorate both uncomprehending and untrusting of the outside world — is Clarence the Angel, and he’s showing us what the world would be like if we’d never been born, Unsurprisingly, Bedford Falls is now Pottersville, and it’s a terrible place. Unfortunately we do not get to revert to the tolerable if modest status quo at the end of the lesson: George Bailey will eventually have to shell the town and retake it street by street from Old Man Potter’s Spetsnaz.
But the larger point here is not what’s happening, because what’s happening is obvious. Things are falling apart. The point is how fast it’s come. It takes the blood and labor of generations to build a general peace, and that peace is sustained by two pillars: a common moral vision, and force majeure. We spent a quarter-century chipping away at the latter, and finally discarded the former, and now that peace is gone. All this was the work of decades. 

Look back, again, to Labor Day weekend 2013, and understand one thing: its undoing was the work of mere months.

Who Is Pushing Impeachment Talk?

Democrats, obviously. Not denying that Sarah Palin and a few other outliers like the idea, but nobody serious on the GOP side wants that -- it's to take eyes of the Senate prize. But to prove the point, Nate Silver counts the actual numbers. 

The scoreboard so far in July: Fox News has 95 mentions of impeachment, and MSNBC 448. That works out to about 2.7 mentions per hour of original programming on MSNBC, or once every 22 minutes. 

As he points out, impeachment talk from Dems has Br'er Rabbit quality to it.  

It's Not The Dispassion, It's The Haste

FOX news was on in the background of a family visit last night, its reporters and commentators hyperventilating over President Obama's allegedly dispassionate response to the downing of the Malaysian airliner.

Here's Charles Krauthammer for instance:

The only way to explain the unbelievable passive nature of his speech today…there was no passion there was no interest in this. And I think if you want to explain it rationally, maybe he thinks the U.S. doesn't have to do anything,

Hmm. Far be it from me to defend this amateurish President, but is this criticism fair or wise?

Three observations.

1) I didn't hear anyone propose a concrete policy the President should be pursuing yet isn't.

2) Is it the President's job to emote over national and international tragedies, or to be a calming presence? I don't find his remarks or affect dispassionate necessarily, though I understand why some would. I think an argument can be made he's trying to be level-headed. Since we don't yet have clear facts, great moral outrage would be wasted since there would be no one concrete at whom to direct it.  His address seemed alright to me given what we know so far.

3) Compare Obama's remarks with those of President Reagan after the Soviets downed KAL-007. Reagan's reaction is definitely superior -- he lays out the facts and makes the moral case against our enemies and has the appropriate passion--  but he also has the advantage of working from facts rather than conjecture -- perhaps because he gave his speech to the nation four days after the event and not the following morning.

If there's a criticism to be made of the President's remarks, perhaps it's that he squandered his ability to say anything meaningful by commenting prematurely. He suffers from his generation's belief that one must always be commenting, whether or not one has anything to say.

A Few Questions About Our Border Crisis

Where immigration is concerned, I'm a pox-on-everyone kind of gal, but here VDH asks all the right questions. Such as hey, if Venezuela & Nicaragua & Cuba & Bolivia are such economic successes, why aren't the people streaming THERE? And...

What sort of callous parents simply send their children as pawns northward without escort, in selfish hopes of soon winning for themselves either remittances or eventual passage to the United States? What sort of government allows its vulnerable youth to pack up and leave, without taking any responsibility for such mass flight?

And he has more questions for Wall Street, for Nancy Pelosi, and just about everyone. 

Civics #101

Shamelessly pinched from here.

The Pope & The Potus: Protocol Fail?

Photo credit: CTV, shamelessly pinched from here

How today's encounter between Francis & Obama went depends on who you're reading. "My" side thinks this photo says it all, and reads the Vatican statement on the meeting and, knowing Vatican diplomacy, is pretty sure Francis -- and later his Sec. of State-- was pretty insistent on religious liberty.  

The President said the topic hardly came up (I don't believe him, but since the meeting was private who can disprove it?) and in candor there were plenty of pictures of the Pope smiling with the President. 

Watch the ABC footage provided here though (I'm having trouble embedding.) I call your attention to something else. Two something elses, actually.

First, in the opening seconds, Obama BOWS to the Pope. So this is clearly just what he does, it's not really a bow, it's kind of a head bop, probably a tic he developed because he's tall.

I don't actually think it's in Pope Francis' character to rebuke via grimace -- if that were his intent, the other laughing photos make no sense -- but he does seem oddly subdued with Obama here. What I find odd is that Obama chats and chats and chats sort of nervously and it's obvious the Pope is trying to follow but doesn't really know what he is saying. Finally the interpreter intervenes and Obama laughs at himself and then repeats his pleasantries to her, "Tell him I said....."

Did Obama not know the Pope doesn't speak English?  I am not certain that's what we are witnessing here, but it seems like yet another massive White House protocol fail.  

Update: Shoot. ABC edited the footage so you can't see what I'm talking about. 

Why Obama Won

Watch what Michelle says here in response to the second question (roughly minute 1 to 2). That connection with people who have boring jobs they aren't passionate about is why Obama won and why the GOP can't connect -- because, with the exception of Rick Santorum (who is too angry-seeming for national office) and Paul Ryan behind the scenes but not yet too much publicly, no one in the GOP has mastered the language of defending the little guy, even if its self-understanding is being for the little guy. (I thought I wrote a long post about this around the election, but can't find it. Maybe it was a mind-post. Oh, wait, here it is: what about the quiet americans?)