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

SET YOUR RECORDERS – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  Al Gore will host a 24-hour broadcast special on climate change next month featuring an array of celebrities and musical performances by artists that include Moby and the Goo Goo Dolls.  The former vice president on Tuesday announced the eighth annual “24 Hours of Reality: Protect Our Planet, Protect Ourselves,” which will be televised in more than 125 countries and streamed live online at 24HoursofReality.org, according to a news release.  The special will include performances by Moby, the Goo Goo Dolls, Sting & Shaggy, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, among others, as well as celebrity appearances by Jaden Smith, Bill Nye, Téa Leoni, Claire Danes and Cody Simpson.   I hear the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra is right up there with Glenn Miller. 

LATEST CAMPUS SICKNESS – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:  Students at the Georgia Institute of Technology have launched a protest against the upcoming appearance of former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the keynote speaker at the school’s upcoming December commencement ceremony.  Her pending visit has prompted a group of progressive students to pepper the campus with anti-Rice fliers and launch a campaign against the first African American woman to hold the post of Secretary of State.  A petition headlined “Say No to Condoleezza Rice” is now making the rounds. It was created by Georgia Tech’s Young Democratic Socialists chapter and decries Rice’s legacy as one of “deceit, torture, imperialism, illegal warfare, and other appalling human rights violations.”  What are nuts like this doing at a leading engineering school?

SHE'S BACK – FROM REUTERS:   WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nancy Pelosi was expected on Wednesday to become the Democratic nominee for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, giving her the inside track to reclaim the House’s top job in January, when critics in her own party may seek to block her.  The 78-year-old San Francisco liberal, a frequent target of Republican critics, faces a small faction of Democrats who are refusing to back her for the post in which she made history from 2007 to 2011 as the first woman speaker.  Pelosi critic Representative Kathleen Rice said on Tuesday that while the rebels could not stop Pelosi from getting the Democratic caucus’s nomination for speaker at a closed-door party meeting on Wednesday, they could block her election on Jan. 3 when Pelosi must win a majority of the whole House, both Republicans and Democrats, to become speaker.  The party is a mess.  At least Pelosi has some experience.  Now all they need is ideas. 

November 27, 2018