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

SOUNDS RIGHT TO ME – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:   Politicians, lawyers, telemarketers, and journalists sit at the low end of a new survey asking which profession has the highest ethics and honesty.  Nurses are on top of the latest Gallup survey, with 84 percent viewing their profession as one with “very high” ethics.  Last sit members of Congress. Just 8 percent view them as highly ethical and 58 percent view as having “very low” ethics, the biggest percentage in the annual poll taken since 1976.  Below average are journalists...Some 33 percent of those polled said reporters are honest and have high ethics and 34 percent said the industry’s ethics and honesty are low.  Still, at just 33 percent, the public’s view of the ethics of journalists is at a 41-year high.  Gallup said that’s a good thing and attributes that to a backlash by Democrats and independents to President Trump’s criticism of his coverage. I guess journalists should be grateful for small blessings, but journalism should finally face up to its poor image.

STQTE OF OUR POLITICS – FROM FOX:   Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has revealed that the abuse she and her staff suffered over her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court "was unlike anything I've seen in all the years that I've been privileged to serve in the Senate."  "There were protests at my home for six weeks in a row, protests at my home here in Washington, death threats, threats of sexual assault against me and my staff," Collins told Fox News' Martha MacCallum in an exclusive interview that aired Thursday evening on "The Story." "But, what I'll never understand is why anyone would think that I would be intimidated by those tactics and that they would be successful in converting me or causing me to vote against Judge Kavanaugh."   A woman of valor.  We must work for her re-election in 2020.

I'M NOT SURPRISED – FROM CNS:  Unlike Democrat voters, more Republicans are increasing, instead of cutting back, on their holiday gift spending this year, a new national study finds.  In fact, nearly eight times as many Democrats are decreasing (38%) as are increasing (5%) their holiday gift spending, the new Quinnipiac University Poll of 1,147 American voters, conducted Dec. 12-17, 2018, reveals.  Meanwhile, 19% of Republican voters are spending more on holiday gifts and only 15% are spending less. A similar percentage of Independents (17%) will spend more on gifts, but more (23%) are cutting back on their gift budget this holiday season.  Thus, both Republicans and Independents are greater than three times as likely as Democrats to be more generous with their holiday gifts this year (19%-5% and 17%-5%, respectively).  Scrooge is a Dem.

December 20, 2018