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DECEMBER 13,  2017

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

TODAY'S ACCUSED – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   PBS has suspended late-night talk show “Tavis Smiley” amid misconduct allegations against its host and namesake.  “Effective today, PBS has indefinitely suspended distribution of ‘Tavis Smiley,’ produced by TS Media, an independent production company,” the public broadcaster said. “PBS engaged an outside law firm to conduct an investigation immediately after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley. This investigation included interviews with witnesses as well as with Mr. Smiley. The inquiry uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS, and the totality of this information led to today’s decision.”  Sources close to the production told Variety that PBS hired attorney Sarah Taylor Wirtz of the firm MSK to oversee an investigation into Smiley’s behavior after receiving allegations of misconduct by Smiley, who hosts and produces the talk show. Wirtz declined Variety‘s request for comment. According to sources, MSK took reports from 10 witnesses, a mix of men and women of different races and employment levels in Smiley’s organization, most of them former staffers.  I love all these pompous statements about the "values of standards" of the company doing the firing, as if no one at that company had any idea of what was going on, probably for years.  Tune in tomorrow for tomorrow's accused person.  Who will it be?  And how many lawyers will profit?  Will women be helped?  Don't make me laugh.

MILESTONE – FROM THE LOCAL:  Norway on Wednesday completed its transition to digital radio, becoming the first country in the world to shut down national broadcasts of its FM radio network despite some grumblings.  As scheduled, the country's most northern regions and the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic switched to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) in the late morning, said Digitalradio Norge (DRN) which groups Norway's public and commercial radio.  The transition, which began on January 11th, allows for better sound quality, a greater number of channels and more functions, all at a cost eight times lower than FM radio, according to authorities.   I'd be curious to know how this change will affect content.  It is often technological revolution, or evolution, that has an effect on what is seen and heard.  Consider the introduction of motion-picture sound, or cable television. I recall when hi-fi tuners used FM because it was the clearest form of radio.  It may soon be a backwater.

TAX CUT SCHEDULE – FROM AP:   The IRS says taxpayers could begin seeing less money withheld from their paychecks "as early as February" if Congress passes a Republican tax overhaul plan this month.
The agency says in a statement released Wednesday night that it "is continuing to closely monitor the pending legislation in Congress," and "taking the initial steps to prepare guidance on withholding for 2018."
The IRS says it expects to issue new withholding guidance in January reflecting the new legislation.
The bill would provide generous tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Middle- and low-income families would get smaller tax cuts, though President Donald Trump and GOP leaders have billed the package as a huge benefit for the middle class.  Right now the tax bill polls poorly, probably because people don't have detailed information.  Once the cuts take effect, I'd imagine the polling numbers will change.

December 13,  2017     Permalink

AGREEMENT REACHED ON TAX BILL – AT 2:41 P.M. ET:   We hope this isn't an exaggeration.  From the Washington Examiner: 

Senate and House negotiators reached a deal Wednesday to compromise on the differences between their tax bills, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said.

The Utah senator announced that a deal had been struck hours before the conference committee tasked with hammering out the joint bill was set to meet for its first and only public meeting.

Details of the deal were not immediately available. Negotiators had to work out differences between the Senate- and House-passed bills on tax provisions for non-corporate businesses, international taxation, repealing Obamacare's individual mandate and much more.

Conference committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas said Wednesday morning that his goal was to produce a conference report by the end of the week, so that both chambers could vote on final passage next week.

"I would hope that we’re debating that bill by Monday and voting on it early next week," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Miss.

What is next for the GOP is to turn the agreement in principle into a detailed proposal and obtain a score of its budgetary effects.

Leadership also needs to begin counting votes in the Senate, where Republicans have just a two-vote majority.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the lone Republican to vote against the tax bill in the Senate, told reporters that nothing had been added to the bill in conference to address his objection to the measure, which is that it could add too much to the federal debt.

COMMENT:  Not out of the woods yet, but a major step forward.  Maybe Republicans in Congress can govern after all. 

December 13, 2017       Permalink  

FRANKEN REPLACEMENT NAMED – AT 11:21 A.M. ET:   The governor of Minnesota has named a replacement for Senator Al Franken, who has announced that he's resigning in light of accusations of sexual misconduct.  From The Hill: 

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) on Wednesday named Lt. Gov. Tina Smith (D) to fill Sen. Al Franken’s (D-Minn.) soon-to-be vacated Senate seat.

Smith said she intends to run in November 2018 to complete the remaining two years of Franken’s term. 

“It is up to Minnesotans to decide who they want to complete Senator Franken’s term. I will run in that election, and I will do my best to earn Minnesotans support. And I believe the way to do that is to be the best senator I can be,” Smith said.

Franken announced his resignation last week in the wake of accusations that he groped and kissed women without their consent. He did not, however, set a date for his departure from the Senate, saying only that he would leave “in the coming weeks.” 

Smith on Wednesday said she’s spoken with Franken and his staff, and expects he will officially step down some time in early January.

She said Franken “has been a champion” for Minnesota, adding that “he will continue to work” for the state and country. 

In his speech, Franken noted the "irony" that he is resigning while President Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct, remains in office.

When asked for her opinion about the recent calls from some Democratic senators for Trump to resign in the face of sexual misconduct allegations, Smith dodged the question, saying she’s “not going to get into… what’s going on in Washington right now.” 

COMMENT:  One liberal Democrat replacing another.  I do hope the Republican Party of Minnesota will take a few moments out of its valuable time to find a reputable person to run against Smith next year, so we don't have a repeat of Alabama.  Is that too much to ask?

December 13, 2017       Permalink 

THE INVESTIGATIONS, AND THE SCANDALS – AT 10:50 A.M. ET:  Now that the Alabama election is out of the way, we can return to the major developments in the Washington "investigations" now underway.  The result is disturbing.  From IBD:

Election Meddling: With every new revelation, the "dossier" on President Trump, which got the entire Trump-Russia-collusion story going, looks more and more scandalous. Not because of what it reveals about Trump, but what it is revealing about behind-the-scenes efforts to ruin his presidency.

The latest twist involves a senior Justice Department official who was just demoted for his connection to it.

When the existence of the now-discredited dossier first came to light, it was described simply as information compiled by a former British intelligence operative with a high degree of credibility in the spy community.

The fact that a two-page summary had been presented to Trump and President Obama in early January lent it still more credibility. As one news outlet put it, the dossier was "credible enough to warrant inclusion of their claims in the highly classified report on Russian interference in the presidential campaign."

From that point on, it was treated as an authoritative report pointing to Trump's collusion with Russians to meddle in the U.S. election.

It was only much later — and long after its phony claims had been seared into the public's consciousness — that the truth about this dossier started to emerge.

And everything that we've learned since has seriously undermined its credibility, while raising troubling questions about how the FBI and the Justice Department under Obama used it.

The most explosive revelation was that the dossier was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, a fact that the Clinton campaign took pains to hide, that Clinton officials lied about, and that Fusion GPS refused to reveal on its own. It wasn't an intelligence report at all. It was a political hit job paid for by Trump's opponent.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  There is a major scandal brewing in Washington, and it isn't about President Trump.  It is about attempts to destroy him, even before he took office, with the collusion of federal officials. 

This, not Donald Trump, is a major threat to our democracy.  It will take time to investigate.  If the GOP loses control of both houses of Congress, those investigations may never take place.

That is the fix we are in.  But you'll never hear it on CNN.

December 13,  2017     Permalink

DECEMBER 12,  2017

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

ALABAMA – Democrat Doug Jones has won the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions.  This should have been an easy Republican victory, but the GOP nominated a candidate, Roy Moore, with more baggage than American Airlines.  The defeat may be a blessing in disguise for the Republicans, although, paraphrasing Winston Churchill, the disguise is very thick indeed. 

The Republicans lose a seat in the Senate at a critical time.  The Senate will now stand at 51-49, with the tax reform bill coming up for a vote, assuming a version is agreed upon in the Senate/House committee that is now reconciling the differences between the House and Senate versions.  It is expected that retiring Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee will vote no on a final package, meaning that the maximum number of Republicans left to vote for the bill, assuming no losses, will be 50, with 50 voting against.  The vice president would break the tie in favor of the GOP.  That's assuming no further GOP defections, and assuming all Democrats vote no.  If there is a defection, there will be no tax reform. 

On the other hand, and this is the blessing, the Republicans will not be saddled with Roy Moore.  If Moore won, he would be seated, and would, through Democratic efforts joined by their allies in the press, become the walking symbol of the Republican Party. 

As usual, Doug Jones's victory will be oversimplified.  The"analysts" will analyze it to death.  It does not require analysis.  Jones didn't win.  Moore lost, and only by a hair.  It took Republicans years to regain control of the Senate during the Obama years because they put up bad, even ridiculous, candidates in critical states.  Once again the Republicans are plagued by mediocrity and sometimes craziness.

The media will also paint this as a defeat for President Trump.  Okay, it was.  He campaigned on behalf of Moore because he, understandably, didn't want to lose that Senate seat.  He will take some abuse, especially at CNN, which will see this as a chance to move further toward bringing Trump down.

But the impact of special elections tends to fade after a few weeks.  The main event, the midterms, are less than a year away.  Republicans must have some kind of legislative record to run on, and establishing that record is much more important than the loss in Alabama.

December 12, 2017       Permalink

WE HAVE BEEN WARNED – AT 2:50 P.M. ET:  North Korea is developing biological weapons to go with the rest of their WMD arsenal.  From the New York Post: 

North Korea plans to acquire machinery for a biological weapons program – including factories to produce deadly microbes and labs that specialize in genetic modification, according to a report.

The country also has sent scientists abroad to earn advanced degrees in microbiology, and is offering to sell biotechnology services to developing nations, US and Asian intelligence officials and weapons experts told The Washington Post.

Current and former US officials said they have not yet seen any hard evidence that North Korea has ordered the production of any weapons besides samples and prototypes, the paper reported.

“That the North Koreans have [biological] agents is known, by various means,” a senior US official familiar with military preparations for a biological attack told the paper on the condition of anonymity.

“The lingering question is, why have they acquired the materials and developed the science, but not yet produced weapons?”

The North’s push on the biological front has alarmed US analysts, who say Pyongyang — which is seeking to develop a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the US mainland — could quickly launch an industrial-scale production of deadly pathogens with which to threaten its neighbors or US troops.

US officials acknowledge that spy agencies may not be able to detect a change in North Korea’s program because the new technologies are ensconced in civilian factories that ostensibly produce agricultural and pharmaceutical products.

COMMENT:  Biological weapons kill people but leave buildings intact.  They are perfect weapons for the North Korean regime.

December 12, 2017       Permalink

WHAT IS GOING ON IN 'BAMA? – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Today Alabama elects a senator, after one of the most bitter, most publicized Senate campaigns in history.  The election will decide who replaces Jeff Sessions, who resigned from the Senate to become attorney general of the United States.

But wait a sec.  Have you seen the polls?  Man, they're all over the place.  Roy Moore in a landslide, says one.  Jones in a landslide says another.  You thought polls were scientific?  Well, sometimes.  Nate Silver has an excellent analysis of the kind of polling being done in Alabama, and this should clarify things quite a bit, although it won't predict the race.  From fivethirtyeight:   

Somebody’s going to be wrong in Alabama.

We’ve already urged caution when interpreting polls of Alabama’s special election to the U.S. Senate, which will be held on Tuesday. Some of that is because of the media’s usual tendency to demand certainty from the polls when the polls can’t provide it. And some of it is because of the circumstances of this particular race: a special election in mid-December in a state where Republicans almost never lose but where the Republican candidate, Roy Moore, has been accused of sexual misconduct toward multiple underaged women.

What we’re seeing in Alabama goes beyond the usual warnings about minding the margin of error, however. There’s a massive spread in results from poll to poll — with surveys on Monday morning showing everything from a 9-point lead for Moore to a 10-point advantage for Democrat Doug Jones — and they reflect two highly different approaches to polling.

Most polls of the state have been made using automated scripts (these are sometimes also called IVR or “robopolls”). These polls have generally shown Moore ahead and closing strongly toward the end of the campaign, such as the Emerson College poll on Monday that showed Moore leading by 9 points. Recent automated polls from Trafalgar Group, JMC Analytics and Polling, Gravis Marketing and Strategy Research have also shown Moore with the lead.

But when traditional, live-caller polls have weighed in — although these polls have been few and far between — they’ve shown a much different result.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing, and save the piece.  This is the best explanation of polling techniques that I've read recently. 

We don't know who will win.  Sadly, the Republicans probably won't win no matter what the outcome.  If they lose the race, they lose a critical vote in the Senate, in what should have been a cakewalk.  If they win with Roy Moore, they're saddled with a man with serious sexual-behavior charges against him, and a highly controversial and eccentric background.  Even the senior senator from Alabama, Republican Richard Shelby, refuses to support Moore.

I'd rather see the GOP keep the seat.  But the party needed a much better candidate.

December 12, 2017       Permalink

TERROR AFTERMATH – AT 8:38 A.M. ET:  We should never take a terror attack in stride.  We must learn all we can about each attacker.  From the New York Post: 

The alleged Port Authority bomber spent an hour spilling his guts to investigators at Bellevue Hospital on Monday — saying he picked the specific hallway because of Christmas posters and that he was avenging violence against Muslims around the world, law enforcement sources said.

Akayed Ullah mentioned President Trump and past administrations during the grilling, and said his anger was fueled by decades of anti-Muslim bloodshed in Gaza, Syria and Iraq.

Ullah, a Bangladeshi immigrant, said the attack was specifically inspired by ISIS — “not Al-Qaeda” — and also mentioned seeing Christmas posters before detonating the device in the underground tunnel between the bustling bus depot and the Times Square subway.

The seasonal imagery set him off — inspiring him to follow ISIS Christmas threats, NBC reports.

ISIS propaganda released just weeks ago features a picture of Santa Claus in Times Square next to explosives and the phrase “We meet at Christmas in New York . . . soon,” according to terror watchdog group Site Intel.

An Islamic State militant also drove a truck into a Berlin Christmas market last year, killing 12 and injuring 56.

“He acknowledges he purposely set it off then and there,” a senior law enforcement official said.

He says he acted alone, building his crudely constructed bomb from commercially available parts based on instructions he found online, sources said.

COMMENT:   No, he is not a "lone wolf."  He didn't "act alone."  He was radicalized, and he got his bomb instructions online.  No lone wolf he, and we should stop using that term.  We should also demand and insist that online services stop publishing bomb assembly instructions.  That is no part of First Amendment "free speech" protections.

December 12,  2017     Permalink