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DECEMBER 29,  2017

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

ECONOMIC GROWTH – FROM REUTERS:  (Reuters) - A gauge of factory activity in the U.S. Upper Midwest improved to the strongest level in over three years in December, led by much stronger readings on new orders and production, according a private survey released on Friday.  Marquette University and the Institute for Supply Management-Milwaukee said their seasonally adjusted index on manufacturing in the Milwaukee region rose to 65.57 this month from 59.62 in November.  The December figure was the highest since November 2014 when it was 68.9.  A reading above 50 indicates regional factory activity is expanding.
The upbeat snapshot of upper Midwest business activity coincided with a jump in a similar measure for the Chicago area.  On Thursday, MNI Indicators and ISM-Chicago said their jointly developed Chicago Purchase Management Index rose to 67.6 in December, the highest since March 2011.  The Marquette University and Milwaukee ISM survey’s component on new orders, a proxy on future activity, increased to 88.33 from 66.46 last month, while its production gauge improved to 72.65 from 57.94.  Like Trump or not, his economic policies are starting to have effect.  The Dems are in denial.

NICE, HUH? – FROM PJ MEDIA:   An American-accented ISIS fighter who apparently lost a leg fighting with the terror group was featured in a new Islamic State video calling on Western supporters, including the disabled, to conduct knife or gun attacks.  The bearded jihadist is referred to by nom de guerre Abu Salih Al-Amriki, or the American, and is shown using crutches and attaching a prosthetic leg. In "Inside the Khilafah" video released by ISIS' official al-Hayat Media Center in English and Arabic, Abu Salih also calls for would-be terrorists to take advantage of gun availability in the United States.  He begins by telling wounded jihadists with "one leg or no legs" that they have "no excuse" to not strike the kuffar, or disbelievers. "To the brothers with limbs and no limbs, I challenge you to a race toward the gates of Jannah [paradise]," he said.  I guess that passes for athletic recreation.

TOUGH ON THE RUSSKIES – GOOD – FROM THE HILL:  Two senators scrapped a scheduled trip to Russia after Moscow canceled a visa for fellow Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), according to Politico. 
Shaheen planned to depart for Russia on Jan. 11 along with Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), all three of whom sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to meet with Russian government officials.  Johnson and Barrasso canceled the trip when the Kremlin denied Shaheen's visa without explanation.  Shaheen is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a tough critic of Russia, who backed a bill earlier this year that levied new sanctions against the country for its meddling in the 2016 election.  Some good bipartisan solidarity, but I remain amused by the Democrats' sudden concern about Russia.   

December 29, 2017       Permalink

HARF BARF – AT 2:18 P.M. ET:  Marie Harf, late of Obama's State Department, now a Fox News contributor, tried to give credit to Field Marshal Obama for the recent, dramatic defeat of ISIS.  I don't think she was too persuasive.  From Breitbart: 

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Five,” former Obama State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the “strategy” that led ISIS’s defeat was “laid out during the Obama administration by military commanders.”

She added, “President Trump has loosened the rules of engagement. He has allowed the military to use more bombs for example and so I think that has helped. But for me, the bigger question is what is the strategy going forward? There are tens of thousands of ISIS fighters who once they lose this territory in Syria and Iraq are going to go back to Europe they are going to go online they are going to radicalize people like we have seen try to commit terrorist attacks here in the U.S. So in terms of the fight against ISIS  this is a good step, but the fight is going to continue in a different and almost more dangerous way.”

COMMENT:  How profound.  The fact is that President Trump turned this fight over to the military, and let the military win.  And win they did.  Quickly and efficiently.  Winning is good.  As MacArthur said, "In war there is no substitute for victory."  I don't think I ever heard the word "victory" pass Obama's lips.

And yes, the surviving ISIS fighters will return home and some will become terrorists.  That is the threat we face,  But now we have a president who understands the threat, actually uses the term "Islamic terrorism," and doesn't refer to acts of terror as "manmade disasters."  Quite a change from the last guy.  Getting the facts right, and admitting them, is the first step to victory.

December 29, 2017       Permalink 

A NEW MOVIE, BUT THE SAME OLD STORY – AT 11:56 A.M. ET:   There's a new movie out called "The Post," kind of a modern-day "All the President's Men." Directed by Steven Spielberg, it deals with the Pentagon Papers case, wherein the U.S. Government tried to suppress internal documents that revealed, among other things, some artful lying about the war in Vietnam.

Liberals will love it.  Ah, for the good old days.  Vietnam.  Nixon.  Lyndon Johnson.  Who could ask for anything more?  And the movie stars senior Hollywood liberal Meryl Streep, who says she didn't know what Harvey Weinstein was doing all these years. 

I have not seen the movie, but Seth Lipsky, of the old New York Sun, a journalist I respect, feels it takes us in the wrong direction.  I'm not shocked.  From the New York Post: 

Yet this movie deals with only some of the lies about Vietnam. Inexcusable as they were, the lies told by the Americans were relatively small beer.

It was our Communist enemies who told the big lie — that the war was a struggle for liberation by Vietnam’s noble comrades, who took on the Americans with pitchforks. What hooey.

The truth is that the war was a conquest of free South Vietnam by a well-armed, Soviet-backed regime in the north. At the end, the enemy emerged from the jungles with tanks and surface-to-air missiles.

The Pentagon Papers disclosed that our own leaders, in effect, refused to heed evidence that we would lose the war — and sent our troops anyway. “The Post” seems to buy into this theory. Yet it wasn’t sending troops that turned out to be the error.

Rather, it was assuming we couldn’t win. On the ground in Vietnam, our GIs did just that. In the most famous battle, Tet in 1968, our soldiers trounced the Communists. The cause of free Vietnam was betrayed in the US Congress, which had been turned by the anti-war movement.

And...

It fell to President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to try — heroically — to keep Congress from abandoning Vietnam. But early in 1975, Congress cut off supplies of ammo and materiel to our ally.

The Communist conquest quickly followed.

Let President Trump — and his critics — remember: When Congress cut off Vietnam, it wasn’t about saving our GIs. They’d long since been withdrawn.

No, the decision by Congress was to retreat in the face of Soviet Communism. It was about abandoning the hope of free Vietnam itself.

Vietnam’s democracy died in broad daylight.

COMMENT:  Wonderfully written, and true. 

December 29, 2017       Permalink

NEWT SPEAKS – AT 11:25 A.M. ET:  I still think Newt Gingrich is one of the smartest people in American politics.  He doesn't hesitate to go against the crowd, the latest trend, or the prevailing thought.  He assesses 2018, and it might surprise you.  From the New York Post: 

The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory.

After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.

Two very interesting columns (one by Barry Casselman and one by Scott Adams) illustrate how the media is deceiving itself.

Casselman contends that the Democratic victory in Alabama may have blocked a year-long embarrassment and actually strengthened Republican prospects in the Senate. He asserts there may be a new political wave coming, but no one knows whether it will be a red or blue wave.

Adams, the author of Dilbert, has a list of 20 political opinions and predictions made about President Trump and his Administration, which were just plain wrong. He suggests if you were wrong about 15 or more of these assertions, you might quit talking about politics while Trump is in the White House. By Adams’s standard, most elite "analysts" would have to be quiet, because they have been so consistently wrong about Trump.

As I listened to the end of the year "analysts," I was struck by how little they know, how little they have questioned their own mistakes, and how mutually reinforcing their false information has been.

These are not analysts. These are liberal propagandists. Much of what they assert is just plain wrong. Fake news is, sadly, an accurate term. And the topic about which they have been the most fake is the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  It'll make your day, or year.

December 29,  2017     Permalink

DECEMBER 28,  2017

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

AL SAYS GOODBYE – FROM FOX:    U.S. Sen. Al Franken said goodbye to staff members and supporters in Minneapolis on Thursday night, in his first public appearance in Minnesota since being accused of sexual harassment.  Franken will officially step down from the Senate on Tuesday, with his successor – Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith – scheduled to be sworn in Wednesday to complete Franken’s term, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.  The Democrat, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he didn't know what to expect when he first ran for office, “and of course, neither did Minnesotans.”  I was not a political supporter of his, but I hate to see anyone destroyed before getting a true day in court.  This business of guilt based only on accusation is grossly un-American.

GREAT MOMENTS IN EDUCATION – FROM FOX:    A math education professor at the University of Illinois says the ability to solve geometry and algebra problems and teaching such subjects perpetuates so-called white privilege.  Rochelle Gutierrez laid out her views on the subject in an article for a newly published anthology for math educators titled, “Building Support for Scholarly Practices in Mathematics Methods.”  “School mathematics curricula emphasizing terms like Pythagorean Theorem and pi perpetuate a perception that mathematics was largely developed by Greeks and other Europeans," she says, according to Campus Reform.  She also says that addressing equity in mathematics education will come when teachers can understand and negotiate the politics outside the classroom.  “On many levels, mathematics itself operates as whiteness. Who gets credit for doing and developing mathematics, who is capable in mathematics, and who is seen as part of the mathematical community is generally viewed as white,” she writes.  Further, she says mathematics operates with unearned privilege in society, “just like whiteness.”  I'm so glad someone told me this.  I will never again add up my supermarket bill in front of a guy from India, even if he has a Ph.D.  I will show respect. 

PREPARING FOR THE BIG EVENT – FROM AM NEWYORK:  More cops, more bomb-sniffing dogs and more police snipers than ever are being deployed by the NYPD for New Year’s Eve to protect the 2 million spectators expected to cram Times Square to usher in 2018, department leaders said Thursday.
“People will be safe, and they should feel safe, too,” NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said at police headquarters in lower Manhattan.  Terence A. Monahan, the NYPD’s patrol chief, said that beginning at 11 a.m. Sunday, crosstown traffic would be shut from 37th to 59th streets and Sixth to Eighth avenues, and the area will be sealed off with concrete barriers, blocker cars and sand trucks. There will be truck restrictions on those avenues from 34th to 59th streets in effect at 11 a.m., he said.  To stop a suicide bomber from detonating an explosive like the one set off Dec. 11 under the Port Authority bus terminal, police officers will search celebrants twice, once when approaching the Times Square area, then again at each pen — with dogs trained to sniff air off a person’s body, by metal detectors and by officers who look through each person’s bags.  I suspect that the predicted cold will keep the crowd size down, which will make it easier for the police.  But the NYPD is on the job, and is particularly sensitive to terror.

December 28, 2017       Permalink

AND IN THE REAL WORLD – AT 11:58 A.M. ET:  One of President Trump's major national-security challenges in 2018 will be North Korea.  It may be the most critical challenge, the one where we might have to take military action.  A key player is China.  Will China help or hurt us?  Or will it just grab what it can?  From Fox: 

U.S. spy satellites reportedly captured photos of Chinese ships illegally selling oil to North Korean boats some 30 times since October.

Satellite images released by the U.S. Department of Treasury appeared to show vessels from both countries illegally trading oil in the West Sea, The Chosun Ilbo reported Tuesday, citing South Korean government sources.

North Korea was barred in September by the United Nations Security Council from importing natural gas and had its crude oil imports capped in response to Kim Jong Un’s nuclear missile program.

The U.S. Treasury in November also sanctioned North Korea’s Maritime Administration and its transport ministry, in addition to six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, in an effort to block the rogue regime’s transportation networks.

COMMENT:  Not a good sign regarding the Chinese.  The Chinese see us as competitors, and targets of opportunity.  When Nixon first went to China, some experts warned that the ultimate result would be to build the Chinese economy, which China would then use against us.  Eternal vigilance, my friend.

December 28, 2017       Permalink

HOW NEGATIVE ARE THEY TOWARD TRUMP? – AT 11:30 A.M. ET:   A new survey of the American media shows the sheer level of bias against the president.  From the Washington Examiner:

The media’s coverage of President Trump has been overwhelmingly negative, more than three times more critical than the initial coverage of former President Barack Obama and twice that of former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

The Pew Research Center said that the early coverage of Trump was 62 percent negative. By comparison, Obama’s coverage was just 20 percent negative.

“About six-in-ten stories on Trump’s early days in office had a negative assessment, about three times more than in early coverage for Obama and roughly twice that of Bush and Clinton. Coverage of Trump’s early time in office moved further away from a focus on the policy agenda and more toward character and leadership,” said Pew.

The report about the harsh media coverage was included in Pew’s year-ending report titled "17 Striking Findings From 2017."

The media story reviewed the tone of coverage of Trump’s first 60 days in office and found that just 5 percent was “positive.”

By comparison, Obama’s coverage was 42 percent positive.

COMMENT:  Please note that the report only covers Trump's first 60 days in office, but it clearly indicates the hostility that he faced then, and continues to face.  He came to office with the press already against him.  At the end of the year I have seen little change.

The media has two choices.  It can continue on its kamikaze mission, or it can try to do some correcting.  My bet is that it will be a mixed picture in 2018.  Many of the press fanatics will go down with the ship.  But others may see the danger to press credibility and make at least some attempt to do things better.  

Much will depend on the polls.  If Trump continues to rise, at least some of the more mature journalists will have to notice.

December 28, 2017        Permalink

THE UPWARD CLIMB – AT 10:37 A.M. ET:  More progress for President Trump in the end-of-year Rasmussen poll: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 29% who Strongly Approve of the way the president is performing and 44% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -15.

And here's the kicker, from Drudge:

Rasmussen Poll shows Trump at 46% APPROVE this morning, with 53% DISAPPROVE...

What about Obama at same exact date first year in presidency?? 46% APPROVE, 53% DISAPPROVE!

COMMENT:  Take that, CNN.  We will take a bit of a bow here at Urgent Agenda, because we have been reminding readers for months that Barack Obama spent most of his presidency in the forties, despite having the fawning press at his back.

Trump is exactly where Obama was at this point in his presidency, with the press heavily against him. 

I want to hear those CNN "discussions."  Well, not really.  I'd rather watch a good story on Investigation Discovery. 

December 28,  2017     Permalink