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JULY 5,  2018

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

HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD? – FROM FOX:  James Woods has been dropped by his talent agent, and received the announcement in an email sent during the Fourth of July holiday.  The Oscar-nominated actor shared a screenshot of the email with the subject line “Well…” on his personal Twitter account.  The talent agent, Ken Kaplan, said that he’d come to the decision to no longer represent the outspoken conservative star because he was “feeling patriotic.”  “It’s the 4th of July and I’m feeling patriotic,” Kaplan wrote. “I don’t want to represent you anymore. I mean I can go on a rant but you know what I’d say.”  Woods, in return, tweeted his response to Kaplan, who he described as a “political liberal.”  “Dear Ken, I don’t actually. I was thinking if you’re feeling patriotic, you would appreciate free speech and one’s right to think as an individual,” Woods replied.  “Be that as it may, I want to thank you for all your hard work and devotion on my behalf. Be well.”  Fear dominates Hollywood.  This is a second McCarthy era, but, because the victims are conservatives, Hollywood doesn't much care.

AND SOME IN THE FILM BUSINESS CARRY ON, WITH COURGE – FROM HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:   Nick Loeb, famous for battling ex Sofia Vergara over frozen embryos, is co-directing a pro-life story of the landmark Supreme Court case, with a cast including conservative stars Jon Voight, Robert Davi and Stacey Dash.  As Nick Loeb walked to his car with a production assistant during a day of shooting his upcoming feature film, Roe v. Wade, outside Tulane University last week, a woman wearing a headset approached and asked: “Are you the director?”  “When I told her I was, she told me to go f... myself," Loeb recalls. "Then she threw her headset on the ground and walked off. I found out later she was our electrician."
Anecdotes such as this have become fairly common since Loeb and his production partner, Cathy Allyn, began shooting their pro-life feature film June 15 in and around New Orleans. The industry must end its hypocrisy, and offer support to those who make controversial films.  Otherwise, freedom of expression will be badly, perhaps fatally, damaged, and the industry will be on permanent life support.

REMARKABLE – FROM LMTONLINE:   Seventy may be the new sixty, eighty may be the new seventy, but 85 is still pretty old to work in America. Yet, in some ways, it is the era of the very-old-worker in America.  Overall, 255,000 Americans, 85-years-old and over, were working over the past 12 months. That's 4.4 percent of Americans that age, up from 2.6 percent in 2006, before the recession. It's the highest number on record.  They're doing all sorts of jobs - crossing guards, farmers and ranchers, even truckers, as my colleague Heather Long revealed in a front-page story last week. Indeed, there are between 1,000 and 3,000 U.S. truckers age 85 or older, based on 2016 Census Bureau figures. Their ranks have roughly doubled since the Great Recession.  America's aging workforce has defined the post-Great Recession labor market. Baby boomers and their parents are working longer as life expectancies grow, retirement plans shrink, education levels rise and work becomes less physically demanding. Labor Department figures show that at every year of age above 55, U.S. residents are working or looking for work at the highest rates on record.  I like this.  If people want to work into old age, and can, let 'em.

July 5, 2018        Permalink

INCREDIBLE – AT 1:08 P.M. ET:   The American economy is literally on fire.  We can't even fill job openings.  It is great news for the country, and especially for minority citizens seeking work.  From CNBC: 

America’s labor shortage is approaching epidemic proportions, and it could be employers who end up paying.

A report Thursday from ADP and Moody’s Analytics cast an even brighter light on what is becoming one of the most important economic stories of 2018: the difficulty employers are having in finding qualified employees to fill a record 6.7 million job openings.

Truck drivers are in perilously low supply, Silicon Valley continues to struggle to fill vacancies, and employers across the grid are coping with a skills mismatch as the economy edges ever closer to full employment.

“Business’s number one problem is finding qualified workers. At the current pace of job growth, if sustained, this problem is set to get much worse,” Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said in a statement. “These labor shortages will only intensify across all industries and company sizes.”

And...

Economists expect that employers are going to have to start doing more to entice workers, likely through pay raises, training and other incentives.

COMMENT:   We think politically here, and clearly this economic boom is the president's biggest issue going into the midterms.  The only thing that could disrupt its effect would be a sudden, unexpected downturn, or a direct hit by the Mueller office. 

But we've rarely seen an economy quite like this.

July 5, 2018       Permalink

WHAT?  YOU MEAN AMERICANS LIKE FREE ENTERPRISE? – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  We are now in the second week of clinical hysteria over the nomination of a socialist to be the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York's 14th Congressional District.  Some journalists believe their messiah has come.  Others believe that this means Bernie Sanders will be our next president.  And how about a statue of Karl Marx on the White House lawn?  Or a Joe Stalin Day, with half off for baseball tickets?

Just a sec.  Aside from the fact that the aforementioned socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, won with a voter turnout of 13%, and each day sounds more like a dime-store Evita Peron, the American people don't seem quite ready for the little red books.  From Rasmussen: 

In New York, a Democratic Socialist candidate just unseated a near-20-year veteran in one of the state’s Democratic congressional primaries, and she contends she represents the Democratic Party's future. But voters reject socialism in no uncertain terms.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 74% of Likely U.S. Voters prefer a free market economic system over a socialist system. Only 13% think socialism is a better economic system, and just as many (13%) are undecided.

COMMENT:  Even liberal Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois commented that Evita, I mean, Alexandria, was not the kind of Democrat who could win in the Midwest.  Once voters get to know what socialism really means, I think this new hotshot will be cooled down considerably.

July 5, 2018       Permalink

JULY 4,  2018

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

SCREWBALLS – FROM BBC:  Sheffield's Lord Mayor has "banned" US President Donald Trump from visiting the city.  Magid Magid made the announcement while chairing a Sheffield City Council meeting and donning a sombrero "in solidarity" with Mexico.  The Green Party councillor tweeted Mr Trump was a "wasteman" and "henceforth banned from the great city of Sheffield".  Elected in May, the 28-year-old is the city's youngest ever mayor.  A "wasteman" is apparently slang for a person of minor merit, an apt description of the mayor.

FOX ROMPS – FROM FOX:  Fox News Channel dominated cable news during the second quarter of 2018, leading all of basic cable among total viewers for the eighth straight quarter and thumping CNN in the process, according to Nielsen Media Research.  FNC has been the most-watched cable news network for 66 consecutive quarters.  Fox News averaged 1.4 million total day viewers compared to 930,000 for MSNBC and only 658,000 for CNN. During the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m., Fox averaged 2.4 million total viewers compared to 1.7 million for MSNBC. CNN failed to surpass the one-million viewers plateau during primetime – averaging an audience of only 929,000 viewers.  FNC also won both categories among the key demo of adults age 25-54, averaging 286,000 a day of those viewers and 480,000 during primetime. In the process, Fox News was home to 10 of the top 15 cable news programs in total viewers and eight of the top 15 in the coveted demo.  Fox News has gone through several convulsions in recent years, and is routinely vilified by the mainstreamers.  But it remains at the top.  Be impressed.

NICE FIND – FROM AFP:  London (AFP) - A rare parchment copy of the US Declaration of Independence found at a British archive among the papers of an aristocrat who supported the rebels has been authenticated, officials said.  The manuscript was discovered last year at the West Sussex Record Office in the southern English city of Chichester by a team of researchers led by two Harvard University academics.
Tests supported the hypothesis that it was produced in the 1780s, West Sussex County Council said earlier this week -- just a few years after the declaration itself was issued in 1776.  The document "is the only other contemporary manuscript copy of the Declaration of Independence on parchment apart from the signed copy at the National Archives in Washington DC," known as the Matlack Declaration, a council statement said earlier this week.  Good find.  I'd like to know more about the aristocrat who supported our rebellion.

July 4, 2018       Permalink

ABOUT A WORD – AT 11:15 P.M. ET:  As we celebrate Independence Day, we might pause to consider what "independence" means, and to distinguish it from another word.

"Independence" and "freedom" are different concepts.  They are often merged, as if they are the same thing.  As the colonial era dimmed, countries gained their "independence," but were often labeled "free" by a less-than-careful press.   We would regularly hear tinpot dictators of former British or French colonies shouting, "We are free," as the bonds were broken.

But many of the "independent" countries were, and remain, far from free.  Most, in fact, never were particularly free.  Basic freedoms often eluded the "free" countries of Africa.  Revolutions of the "people," as occurred in Cuba, were too often revolutions of "some people," without any guarantees of real freedom.

And there are countries, like Canada, that are not entirely independent – it is part of the British Commonwealth – but are remarkably free.

The United States is both free and independent.  Our freedoms had to be fought for, and, for some parts of our population, freedom was initially denied.  But today we are a free nation with remarkable opportunities and mobility.  And our freedoms are carefully defined in law. 

The question is whether we can maintain that freedom.  The issue is always in doubt.  Ronald Reagan warned that "freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

I don't believe Americans will lose their freedoms.  I do believe it's possible we will give them up, drawn by the siren song of the vicious left:  "You don't need them lousy freedoms.  We'll tell you what to think."  It is amazing to recall how many people have bought that line...and how many "educators" have taught it to others.

Eternal vigilance is required.  But it will be useless unless the corruptions of our educational system and our media are corrected.  That must be the first line of our defense. 

July 4, 2018       Permalink

THE SECRETARY TRAVELS – AT 12:52 P.M. ET:   While we're celebrating Independence Day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is getting ready to leave for North Korea.   He will leave tomorrow, and his objective is to put in motion a workable, provable plan to denuclearize North Korea.

The Trump Must Vanish press has already discounted, and even ridiculed, Trump's North Korea initiative.  This despite the fact that the president has accomplished what no prior president has – getting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table.

The Trump denouncers have also pronounced that Kim outmaneuvered Trump at their recent summit conference, and actually got concessions from Trump while giving nothing in return.  That is ridiculous.  The most Kim got were a few goodwill gestures.  He got nothing even close to sanctions relief, which North Korea desperately needs.  The anti-Trump whiners – who never showed the slightest interest in the North Korean threat when Field Marshal Obama was in the White House – claim that Kim got prestige by standing next to the American president.  More nonsense.  Presidents stand next to leaders of small nations all the time, and, in fact, North Korea is a nuclear power.  How else was the president to meet Kim – on Skype?

The president has said, and promised, that North Korea would get nothing unless it took actual, physical steps toward eliminating its nuclear arsenal and missile systems.  The president is on the line for that promise, and I wouldn't be shocked if he suspended negotiations and froze sanctions relief in place if he isn't getting what he promised the American people.

The serious talks are just starting.  We should support the president and the secretary, yet insist that they keep their promise.  I think they will.

July 4, 2018        Permalink 

A STEP TOWARD REAL RACIAL JUSTICE – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  The Obama administration, far from uniting America, divided it even further along racial lines.  Now President Trump is trying to undue the damage.  From the New York Post: 

The Trump administration is set to revoke Tuesday a series of Obama-era guidelines that encourage considering race in the college admissions process as a means of promoting diversity, according to a report.

Two sources told the Wall Street Journal that the move comes as the Justice Department investigates whether Harvard University illegally holds Asian-Americans to a higher standard in the admissions process.

The guidelines — put in place during the Obama administration in 2011 and 2016 – laid out legal recommendations that Trump officials argue “mislead schools to believe that legal forms of affirmative action are simpler to achieve than the law allows,” the paper reported.

Anurima Bargava, who led civil rights enforcement in schools for the Justice Department during  Obama’s presidency, disagreed with that assessment, saying the documents simply offered guidelines to schools looking to continue using affirmative action legally.

She said the Trump administration’s move suggests that it doesn’t favor racial diversity.

COMMENT:    That last line is nonsense.  But real racial diversity will come when minority students are held to the same standard as everyone else, and provided with real educations in basic subjects, not propaganda sessions in racial grievance. 

July 4,  2018     Permalink