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JULY 22,  2017

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

THE MARCH OF SCHOLARSHIP – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A Florida high school principal who had teachers do his son’s math homework, pressured teachers to alter grades, and charged students money to attend school-hours functions, has been allowed to maintain employment within his district.  An investigation also determined that Lake Worth High School’s George Lockhart had submitted phony reports which concealed the in-school “fundraising” efforts, and at times did not submit any official reports regarding student suspensions.   He has been demoted, but the fact that he's been kept employed by the school district is troubling.  Aren't there better people to hire to guide our kids?

GOOD LUCK – FROM FOX:  Ulysha Renee Hall will make history in Dallas in September, when she becomes the Texas city’s first female police chief.  Hall, 46, currently deputy chief of the Detroit Police Department, was selected from a field of seven finalists that included another woman, Deputy Chief Carmen Best of Seattle.  Hall followed in her father’s footsteps by choosing a career in law enforcement. He was killed in the line of duty when she was just 6 months old.  Now, Hall will head a Dallas force that’s still coping with the tragedy of July 7, 2016, when a sniper killed five city officers and wounded nine others, as well as two civilians.  We wish her well.  We want her to be superb.  But I still get the uneasy feeling that many law-enforcement posts are being filled by tokens, no matter how qualified, in order to appease segments of the community.  It's unfair to the city, and unfair to the candidate.  But let us hope that this new appointee gives Dallas a new start.

MORE O.J. INSANITY – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:  The four-person Nevada parole board that granted O.J. Simpson’s release from prison on Thursday snapped a selfie before the hearing.  “The 4 board members right before the hearing,” board member Adam Endel wrote in a Facebook post with the photo of the smiling board members.  Endel also had the Twitterverse abuzz with talk of the red-and-gold striped Chiefs tie he wore during the parole hearing.  Who cares about those people who were murdered?  Yesterday's news.

July 22,  2017     Permalink

THERE IS ACTUALLY SOMETHING GETTING DONE – AT 2:31 P.M. ET:   And it's truly Congress that is doing it.  From the Washington Times: 

Congress has reached a final deal on new Russia sanctions legislation, leaders announced Saturday, clearing the path for final approval of legislation that would codify penalties imposed by the Obama administration and would require President Trump to seek approval from Capitol Hill should he want to lift the sanctions.

The bill has been stalled for weeks over a constitutional hiccup — the legislation involves raising revenue but since it began in the Senate, it violates the Constitution’s stricture that all revenue bills start in the House.

But lawmakers also stumbled over how much leeway Congress should have to stop Mr. Trump should he want to lift the sanctions.

The fight — and the broader legislation — have taken on bigger significance as questions about the president’s family and aides and their dealings with Russia proliferate.

“Given the many transgressions of Russia, and President Trump’s seeming inability to deal with them, a strong sanctions bill such as the one Democrats and Republicans have just agreed to is essential,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.

All sides said they expect massive bipartisan support in the coming days for the legislation, giving Congress a solid victory in a year otherwise devoid of major accomplishments.

This one, however, strikes at Mr. Trump, which helps explain why Democrats are eager to sign on.

GOP leaders said they would combine the Russia sanctions with other sanctions against North Korea and Iran, hoping to sweeten the deal for lawmakers who don’t want to be seen as slapping down Mr. Trump.

In general, the bill takes Russia penalties issued by President Obama and writes them into law, right down to naming specific Russian government and intelligence officials. The sanctions were imposed both because of aggressive Russian action in Ukraine and because of Russian cyberwarfare activities.

COMMENT:  Apparently, there are veto-proof majorities in both houses, making it impossible for the president to stop the bill.  I hope he goes along with it without objection.  If he doesn't, and speaks against the Russia sanctions, it will open up the Trump-loves-Putin argument even more.

July 22, 2017       Permalink

OUR DECADENT SOCIETY – AT 1:40 P.M. ET:  Whatever happened to good taste?  It used to be a social goal.  Now, for too many, it seems quaint.  Add in a little O.J. Simpson, and good taste goes completely down the drain.  From USA Today: 

TALLAHASSEE — When O.J. Simpson was granted early parole Thursday after nearly nine years in prison, Silver Airways decided it was time for a "Bust Out the OJ" deal.

The airline company, which flies out of Tallahassee, is offering travelers a chance "to slash" 20 percent off one-way trips through Monday.

The post promoting the deal claims, "with deals so hot, you’ll need to wear gloves to nab them" - a reference to Simpson's murder trial in the stabbing deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.

Simpson was acquitted of both murders.

The truth and neighborhood jury verdicts are often different.

The first promotion for the deal appeared on the airline's Facebook page Thursday afternoon following the Nevada parole board's decision. Simpson was arrested and convicted for the 2007 robbery of memorabilia dealers.

A second post for the promotion was posted Friday afternoon.

"Don't lose your chance to escape your prison-like day-to-day routine with our liberating deals," the promotion said on Facebook. "And the only bars you might see are the kinds serving frozen margaritas & piña-coladas." 

COMMENT:  That is beyond embarrassing.  People should flood the airline with complaints.  I'd love to know whether Silver has lost customers...or gained them.

July 22, 2017       Permalink 

THE PLOT GETS THICKER – AT 11:57 A.M. ET:  In my more optimistic moments, two of them in the last month, I see a situation wherein the Trump investigations boomerang, and the accusers regret ever having gone after the president.  Are we reaching that point?  From Fox: 

Glenn Simpson, whose Fusion GPS firm has been tied to anti-Trump efforts and pro-Russian lobbying, will not talk to lawmakers in response to a subpoena, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committe said Friday.

Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., confirmed in a statement that they subpoenaed Simpson to appear before the committee Wednesday as part of a hearing about the influence of foreign lobbying in last year's presidential election.

"Simpson’s attorney has asserted that his client will invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to the subpoena," Grassley and Feinstein said.

During the campaign, Fusion GPS contracted former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele to look into rumors about Trump's financial and social connections in Russia. The resulting "dossier," which was leaked to the media following Trump's victory in November included a number of sordid allegations about the president's sexual proclivities.

Last week, Fox News reported that Fusion GPS had ties to Russian efforts to undermine U.S. sanctions that were led by attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya. 

COMMENT:  Hmm.  I wonder how the mainstream press will report this?  Will they report it at all?  Televise the guy invoking the Fifth? 

I want to see those "discussions" at CNN, and how they'll try to turn them against the president.

July 22,  2017     Permalink

JULY 21,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:06 P.M. ET: 

MINNEAPOLIS POLICE CHIEF RESIGNS – FROM REUTERS:  Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau resigned on Friday at the request of the city's mayor, who said that she and the community had lost confidence in Harteau following the fatal police shooting of an unarmed Australian woman.  The death of Sydney native Justine Damond, 40, from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen fired through the open window of a police patrol car, has outraged her family members and the Australian public. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called it "shocking" and "inexplicable."  Mayor Betsy Hodges said in a written statement that she and Harteau agreed on Friday that Harteau would step aside.  "I've lost confidence in the Chief's ability to lead us further - and from the many conversations I've had with people around our city, especially this week, it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well," Hodges said in the statement.  A press conference Hodges called to discuss the personnel change was interrupted by a group of protesters calling for her to resign, a witness video posted on YouTube showed. 

NOT MUCH JUICE IN THE JUICE – FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:   TV ratings aren't as big as they used to be, even for O.J. Simpson.  Based on preliminary Nielsen data provided by various networks that carried the hearing, around 13.5 million TV viewers watched the Thursday hearing in which the former football star, actor and pitchman was granted parole after serving nine years in prison for a Las Vegas hotel room heist. The hearing was carried across four broadcast networks and several cable outlets, including ESPN.  The estimated figure pales next to previous multinetwork broadcasts of culturally iconic Simpson moments. An estimated 150 million viewers watched Simpson’s 1995 acquittal after standing trial for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. In June 1994, 95 million people tuned in to see police in a low-speed pursuit of Simpson in his white Ford Bronco through the streets of Los Angeles and on the 405 Freeway.  The trial and verdict were 22 years ago.  There's a whole generation out there who's probably never heard of O.J. Simpson.  Millions have never heard of Johnny Carson.  Don't underestimate the impact of time.

SPICER SPEAKS – FROM FOX:  Outgoing White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Friday that President Trump did not want him to resign but Spicer felt there were “too many cooks in the kitchen” promoting the president’s message.  “I just thought it was in the best interest of our communications department, of our press organization, to not have too many cooks in the kitchen,” Spicer told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview hours after he resigned from the White House on Friday.  Spicer quit in apparent protest after Trump tapped Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was promoted Friday to replace Spicer.  I have a feeling we'll see other changes soon.  I wouldn't be shocked to find out that Rex Tillerson's days at State are numbered.   More about that in future editions of Urgent Agenda.

July 21, 2017       Permalink

GONE, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN FOR AT LEAST TEN MINUTES – AT 7:08 P.M. ET:   Sean Spicer, a good guy, has resigned as White House press secretary.  He was reportedly upset at the appointment of a new White House communications director.  When his concern was not honored by the president, he decided, understandably, to leave.  He is a competitive, very well-informed man who was beaten up badly by the anti-Trump media when he was giving the daily press briefings.  Those briefings are now being given by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who will succeed Spicer as press secretary. 

And the new communications director, who raised Sean's ire?  NBC News has a good portrait:  

Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, is a Wall Street hedge fund manager and a top Republican fundraiser who's known as "The Mooch."

The 53-year-old businessman and author joined Donald Trump’s campaign in February 2016 after the South Carolina Republican primary. He'd previously supported Republicans Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. After Trump won the White House, he joined the transition team.

Scaramucci founded SkyBridge Capital, a billion-dollar investment firm, in 2005. The company had nearly $12 billion assets before he announced he was selling it to a Chinese firm earlier this year.

Prior to founding SkyBridge, Scaramucci was the co-founder of Oscar Capital Management and a vice president at Goldman Sachs.

He hasn't previously served in government and dodged questions Friday on how he plans to work with Trump, who often usurps his own communications team. The president, Scaramucci said, is "the best communicator" in the White House.

"I love the president and the president is a very, very effective communicator," Scaramucci said. He praised Trump's use of social media to get his message out, saying, "To me, it’s been a very effective use to reach the American people effectively, and I welcome him to continue to do that."

And…

"Coming from a middle-class Italian American family on Long Island, you were always fighting for people to take you seriously. When someone slighted you, you remembered it," he wrote. "Embarrassment and shame were the worst feelings of all."

Scaramucci eventually worked his way through Tufts University outside Boston, where he received a degree in economics. He then went on to earn a law degree from Harvard.

COMMENT:  He's an interesting and very articulate man.  His background is not typical for communications directors, but that doesn't matter.  What matters is how he does his job in a very chaotic atmosphere.  He acquitted himself very well today.  The Trump White House needs much improvement.  Maybe this new unknown can provide some of it.

July 21, 2017       Permalink

IF YOU KNEW SUZIE, LIKE THEY KNOW SUZIE – AT 4:50 P.M. ET:  One of the behind-the-scenes stories that doesn't get emphasized in the liberal press is the ongoing, although quiet, investigation of misconduct by the Obama administration.  From what we can figure out, the current phase of the probe appears to be focused on two people – the well-known teller of tales Susan Rice, and the ultimate yes-woman, Samantha Power. 

We expected more of Power when she became our UN ambassador.  She had written a well-researched book on genocide, and we thought she'd stand up a bit more strongly against the totalitarian temptations of the Obama syndicate.  Alas, in the end, she was a company man, ur, woman, or anything she wishes to be.  But she was company.

Right now Ms. Rice is apparently on the hot seat, and without a literary agent.  From Fox:

Former national security adviser Susan Rice met privately Friday with Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, Fox News has learned – in one of several Capitol Hill sessions involving Obama administration officials.

A closed-door session with Rice had been expected earlier this week on the House side, but ended up being pushed off. It remains unclear whether Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., or any other senators were present for Friday’s meeting.

Some lawmakers have made clear they want to hear more from Obama administration officials, especially Rice, over their potential role in "unmasking" the identities of Trump associates from intelligence reports last year.

Rice has come under fire for her alleged role. Congressional investigators have issued subpoenas to the NSA, CIA and FBI seeking "unmasking" information related to three individuals: Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.
Rice initially told PBS's Judy Woodruff in March that she “knew nothing” about the unmasking of Trump associates. But weeks later on MSNBC, she admitted she sometimes sought out the identities of Trump associates who communicated with foreigners, a request known as “unmasking” in the intelligence community.

She never told the same story twice.  At least she was original.

But “I leaked nothing to nobody,” Rice told MSNBC, a reference to media reports detailing, among other conversations, those between then-national security adviser Michel Flynn and Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Reports of those conversations led to Flynn's resignation in February.

In an interview with New York Magazine published earlier this week, Rice suggested that her race and gender may be playing a role in the controversy. 

She's down to that.  You know there's a problem.

Power, too, has agreed to testify before the House intelligence committee as part of its Russia probe, Fox News has learned.

COMMENT:  It is critical that the Republicans be unrelenting.  In earlier Benghazi hearings they were lackluster, gentlemanly...and Republican.  Whenever I see Republicans in committee hearings I wonder if they're really thinking about how their ties look.  Nice ties.  Good ties.  Brooks Brothers.

July 21,  2017     Permalink

BRILLIANT, BY HANSON – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson, one of the finest of conservative historians, has written the best piece by far on what's happened to the American media.  It should be widely quoted.  From the Hoover Institution: 

In the 2008 campaign, reporters ignored the close and disturbing relationships between the mostly unknown Obama and a cast of unsavory characters: his racist and anti-Semitic pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the neighborhood confidant and former terrorist Bill Ayers, and the wheeler-dealer and soon-to-be felon Tony Rezko.

Instead, journalists quickly started worshipping candidate Obama in a manner never quite seen before, not even in the days of the iconic liberal presidents like Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Newsweek editor Evan Thomas declared Obama to be a deity (“Obama's standing above the country, above the world, he’s sort of God.”) His very words were able to make the leg of MSNBC’s Chris Matthew “tingle.” His pants’ crease proved for David Brooks a talisman of his future greatness, along with the fact that the mellifluent Obama “talks like us.”

While a few journalists were aware of their cult-like worship, most were hooked and competed to outdo one another with embarrassing hagiographic praise. Upon election, Obama was summarily declared by one presidential historian and television pundit to the smartest man with the highest IQ ever to have been president.

And...

By the time of 2016 presidential race, the media had lost their credibility as disinterested guardians of objective truth. And while Hillary Clinton in 2016 was no Barack Obama in 2008, reporters still gave her special privileges. CNN talking-head Donna Brazile fed debate questions to the Clinton campaign prior to a Clinton-Sanders televised debate. And the John Podesta Wikileaks trove revealed that a number of marquee reporters were openly colluding with Clinton to defeat Trump.

Once the media crossed the Rubicon of partisanship, there was no turning back. The unchecked ebullience that they had showed for Obama has now been replaced by an undisguised hatred for Donald Trump. Just as journalists saw no negative repercussions in their adoration of Obama, they are now able to denigrate the conservative populist Trump without consequences. Arrogance plays a role: the media feel that they displayed power in getting Obama elected and now they wager that they can also ensure Trump’s defeat, or at least derail his presidency

The liberal Harvard Kennedy School and Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy issued a report recently showing how the media has established a “new standard” of negativity in presidential reporting. It noted that the aggregate news stories from the first 100 days of the Trump administration were about 80% critical. Some networks such as CNN aired 93% negative coverage of the president.

And...

What caused the media’s Trump meltdown? There were a variety reasons.

Trump represents everything that the media despise: a crude reality-TV billionaire without military or political experience, whose orange skin, combed over dyed blond hair, sharp Queens accent, and confrontational attitude seemed vulgar and crass.

The nexus between beltway politics and the media, often cemented through marriages and familial relationships, recoiled that an outsider like Trump sought not just to overturn the Obama agenda but to do so unapologetically and with the same executive orders that Obama himself had bragged about in his “pen and phone” ultimata to make laws without the help of the Congress.

Moreover, Trump campaigned on an us/them, red-state/blue-state dichotomy. He smashed the proverbial Democratic blue wall—a fact that caused great unease to liberal journalists who sensed that half the country found their coastal progressive culture not just foreign but apparently hypocritical and elitist.

Finally...

If the media became unhinged in the adulatory Obama years through hubris, it might have earned back its respect and professionalism by covering Trump in even-handed fashion. But Nemesis does not work that way: those it destroys, it first makes mad.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  Send it around to literate liberals, both of them.  Hanson lays out a scenario that is frightening.  The press is not doing the job that the First Amendment intended.   How does a free society solve that crucial problem?

July 21,  2017     Permalink