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December 2016

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 27, 2016 23 Comments
Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is no conservative, and certainly no fan of Donald Trump. The headline of a column he wrote during the campaign, after all, was "Trump’s Hitlerian disregard for the truth." Which makes his column of today, "Thanks to no-drama Obama, American leadership is gone," which absolutely rips the bark off Barack Obama, all the more remarkable. Observing that Obama "has been all too happy to preside over the loss of American influence," he describes the current president as having "waved a droopy flag. He did not want to make America great again. It was great enough for him already." On Syria, Obama "threw in the towel. The banner he flew was one of American diminishment."

Posted by Mike LaChance on December 27, 2016 22 Comments
Apparently, the criminal element in Chicago doesn't take time off at Christmas. An alarming number of shootings and connected fatalities took place in the city this weekend. ABC News reports:
Bloody Year in Chicago Continues with 12 Killings Over Christmas Weekend Two men gunned down on a porch in Chicago on Christmas Day were among 12 people slain in the city, where an epidemic of killings continued during the holiday weekend.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 26, 2016 21 Comments
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats starts with words (highlighted) I think of very often:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
I recently highlighted those words, "the center cannot hold," to a friend when describing some of the insane rantings I've seen on Facebook against Trump and about the election result. Liberals have lost it.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 26, 2016 14 Comments
We previously reported on the assassination of a leading Hamas drone engineer in Tunisia. Mohammed al-Zawari (also spelled Alzoari and al-Zoari), who also reportedly worked for Hezbollah, was killed in a hail of bullets while sitting in his car, not long after he had reportedly met with a woman claiming to be a Tunisian journalist living in Hungary. Tunisian authorities say the hit was planned abroad:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 26, 2016 28 Comments
We joined millions of other Americans this Christmas season by heading to the movie theaters. Our target: Rogue One, A Star Wars Story! This is the official spoiler alert, so if you haven't seen the film and want to retain the suspense, please read no further than this. I don't give away much, but I don't want to ruin anyone's cinematic fun, either.

Posted by Kemberlee Kaye on December 26, 2016 4 Comments
With a newborn and a seven-year-old, quiet is a rarity. But everyone is sleeping soundly after our first Christmas as one, big family. This year has been one of the best, if not THE best year of my life. Getting married, gaining a step-daughter, growing a tiny human -- it's all more than I ever imagined. Regular readers know that I've frequently joked (sort of) about what an awful year 2016 has been. An almost uncanny number of well-known, talented people have passed on this year, our entire political world was tased by the silent majority's Death Star, and to top if off, the year is ending with a nation-wide whipped cream shortage.

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 26, 2016 17 Comments
When will celebrities realize they will not suffer backlash for associating themselves with President Donald Trump? He has not had an easy time finding performers for his inauguration, but he found a yes with 16-year-old Jackie Evancho, who will perform the National Anthem. Of course people have bashed the young girl, who broke through on America's got Talent, and claimed the performance will ruin her career. Yeah...her album has hit #1 and sales have quadrupled. I thought the left was the tolerant ones? Who bullies a 16-year-old girl?

Posted by Mary Chastain on December 26, 2016 16 Comments
In 2007, I could have sworn President Barack Obama was supposed to be the savior of the Democrat Party. The smooth talking, suave Illinois senator had everything to bring the party together and end any GOP dominance. Well, it turns out, the Democrats have lost 1,030 seats across the board since Obama took office in January 2008. This includes seats in state's houses and senates, governorships, and Congress.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on December 26, 2016 32 Comments
CNN's presidential historian Douglas Brinkley this morning accused Donald Trump of "big-mouthing" President Obama by speaking out on policy issues during the transition. Co-host Poppy Harlow had teed Brinkely up to slam Trump, worrying that Trump had flouted the "one president at a time" tradition, and fretting that by doing so Trump was "confusing our allies and our adversaries. Brinkley was only too happy to run with the ball, responding: "I think it's very wrong-minded of Donald Trump to be doing this . . . what you don't want to do is to be big-mouthing and big-footing a sitting president . . . . I find it troubling, but I'm not going to be able to stop him from doing it."

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 26, 2016 37 Comments
We've written many times about the Democrats' destruction in 2013, under the leadership of Harry Reid, of the filibuster for judicial nominees below the Supreme Court level. Most of the columns written recently, including by us, discuss whether Republicans will extend that "Nuclear Option" to the current Supreme Court vacancy. And certainly, that's very important. But there is another way in which Harry Reid's gambit is going to hurt Democrats.

Posted by David Gerstman on December 26, 2016 13 Comments
President Barack Obama's legacy at the UN will be marked by the year 2016. The year was bookmarked by the passage of UN Security Council resolution 2231 in January, giving U.N. authority to the Iran Nuclear Deal, and resolution 2334 last week, purporting to declare illegal the presence of Jews in areas in which form a key part of Jewish history. In the case of the Iran deal, the United States led the Security Council and voted for the resolution enshrining the nuclear deal into what passes for international law. In the case of the more recent resolution, the United States abstained, according to some incoherent reasons spouted by US Ambassador Samantha Power, but it looks like, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charges, that Obama orchestrated it. (Yesterday, Netanyahu spokesman David Keyes charged that Israel had "ironclad information" that Obama was indeed behind the maneuver.)

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 25, 2016 7 Comments
On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachov resigned as President of the Soviet Union. The red flag was lowered at the Kremlin, and the next day, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. The BBC reported:
Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Soviet Union for almost seven years and executive president for nearly two, has stepped down from office. He announced his resignation in a 10 minute speech, broadcast live on television, as the Soviet Union passed into history.
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