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FINAL SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2018

FIRST FIVE DAYS – REASONABLY GOOD, BUT WE NEED MUCH MORE INPUT TO REACH OUR FINANCING NEEDS!!

This week we launch the final subscription drive of the year.  We depend on subscriptions and donations to keep going.  We lean heavily on them to cover the rising costs of research, modernizing of technology, and renting the bandwith to stay on the internet. 

We have a superb, self-selected readership that is both mature and sane.  In our almost 11 years of posting we have expelled only one subscriber, and we got an apology from his wife. 

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To participate, simply go to the right-hand column, opposite this appeal. You'll see SUBSCRIPTIONS.  You may subscribe or donate using PayPal or any of the other methods listed.  We especially recommend SENDINC, as it has proved so popular with our members.  Instructions are given.  If you wish to use regular mail, send me an email at comments@urgentagenda.com, and I'll give you the address of our armed bunker.

I hope you join us.

NOVEMBER 17,  2018

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

IRONY – FROM ROLL CALL:    President Donald Trump on Saturday said he can twist enough House Republican arms to give Nancy Pelosi the necessary votes to become speaker.  The California Democrat publicly says she has ample support within her own caucus to secure the gavel. But all indications are a floor vote could be close, meaning Republicans could opt — for a list of reasons — to put her over the top.  For Trump, making Pelosi speaker would give him the sense that she owes him legislatively and also ensure that his top campaign-trail foil, who remains intensely unpopular with Republican voters, remains in the headlines through his re-election bid.  I want to see this happen.  I love it.  Do you think Pelosi will publicly thank Trump?

THANK YOU FOR INFORMING US – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   Two professors authored a recent essay arguing that calls for civility from college instructors are a “deflection tactic” designed to force people to “fall back in line with the normalized immiseration induced by the wealthy few.”  Johnny Williams and David Embrick, professors at Trinity College and the University of Connecticut, respectively, argue in an article at Inside Higher Ed that much of the demands for civil behavior from faculty are actually calls for “a civility that upholds white supremacist heteropatriarchal capitalist power.”  The calls for civility, many of them from college administrators, “are usually directed at professors interrogating oppression in a manner displeasing to college and university administrations,” Embrick and Williams write. Your son or daughter can be exposed to brilliance like this for only $50,000 a year.  Apply now.  There are only a few seats left.

A PASSING – We note the death of William Goldman, extraordinary screenwriter and chronicler of Hollywood.  He wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Princess Bride, and All the President's Men.  He also wrote the novel, Marathon Man.  He was equally known for his guide to the film business, Adventures in the Screen Trade, in which he dissected the post-Golden Age industry and came to the conclusion that "nobody knows anything."  Absolutely accurate, from what I saw.  Goldman was a screenwriter of the old school, who actually knew how to tell a story.

November 17, 2018       Permalink

THE WAYWARD PRESS – AT 1:44 P.M. ET:  That was the term the late press critic A.J. Liebling used to describe the condition of the media.   But Liebling died in 1963, more than half a century ago, so we know that problems in the media are not new, not recent.  They've just gotten worse over time.  Liebling also said, "People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news."  Right again. 

Ben Bradlee used to say that journalism is history's rough first draft.  Problem is, there is rarely a second draft.

A century ago a whopping error in a local newspaper was just that, a local error with minimum effect.  Today an error by a major television network can change a presidential election, or America's attitude toward a war. 

The press requires major improvement.  It must win back the trust of the American people, half of whom probably tune out organizations like CNN because they can't stand the bias.  From The Washington Times: 

Reporting the news is difficult and expensive. Grandstanding is more fun and everyone has an opinion. That’s why reporters were once taught, often by a stern taskmaster, to leave opining to the columnists and the editorial page, and save their opinions for after work in the bar across the street.

This particular affliction — grandstanding rather than reporting, advocacy rather than observing and distilling those observations before passing them on to press and tube, is the affliction of the modern media. And why not? Talking is cheaper than reporting.

The symptoms have exacted a considerable long-term cost. The Pew Research Center finds that a mere 21 percent of Americans have “a lot of trust” in the national newspapers and television networks, 49 percent have only “some trust” and 29 have “not too much” or “none at all.” A startling 68 percent say the national media reports the news with a bias.

This has been a complaint of conservatives for a long time, a complaint usually dismissed by the mainstream media, so called, as the lament of cranks and churls. This enables President Trump to lay out a persuasive case that the mainstream media is obsessed with destroying his presidency and are using opinion disguised as news. “Fake news,” he calls it. Things have turned so grim in the news trade that some old gray heads who are no particular friends of Donald Trump are beginning to speak up about it.

Ted Koppel, who made ABC News’ “Nightline” a must-watch late-night program an eon ago, mocked CNN’s obsession with President Trump at a panel at the National Press Club, telling a CNN panelist that his network “would be in the toilet without Donald Trump. You can’t do without Donald Trump. You would be lost without Donald Trump.” Ted Turner, who invented CNN, said not long ago that “I think they’re sticking with politics a little too much. They’d do better to have a more balanced agenda.” Bob Woodward of The Washington Post says emotion drives the news coverage. “In the news media there has been an emotional reaction to Trump,” he says. “Too many people for Trump, or against Trump, have become emotionally unhinged about this.” Larry King, who hosted a late-night talk show on CNN for years, says “CNN stopped doing news a long time ago. They do Trump.”

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It is a very good critique.  We can honestly ask whether the "free press" is doing more harm than good, whether it is, in its present state, a danger to the very democracy it claims to be protecting.

November 17, 2018       Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 12:38 P.M. ET:  Florida continues to be America's fantasyland, at least in the election sense.  From Fox: 

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Fresh off its bungled machine recount, Broward County’s second day of manual recounting stopped about an hour after it began Saturday when lawyers from both political parties pointed out that volunteers were counting the wrong ballots.

Hundreds of volunteers spent most of Friday sorting through 32,000 overvotes and undervotes in the Senate race between incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson and Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Broward officials announced Friday night they had finished their manual recount.

On Saturday, the volunteers started sorting about 22,000 undervotes and overvotes in the contentious contest for Florida Commissioner of Agriculture.

That came to a grinding halt when lawyers found thousands of overlapping ballots which clearly showed a vote in the agriculture race but were fuzzy in the Senate race.

“It appears there may have been some ballots from yesterday mixed in with the ones for today,” Broward Canvassing Board Judge Deborah Carpenter-Toye told reporters.

Forty-seven manila envelopes from the Senate recount were mixed in with the envelopes distributed for the commissioner race.

Broward County Canvassing Board Attorney Rene Harrod told Fox News the issue was caught in time and that none of the 47 envelopes made it to the canvassing board. It’s an important catch because it rules out the possibility of some votes being counted twice.

COMMENT:  This goes on year after year in Florida, yet nothing is done.  And we have to ask where else it goes on.  Chicago is legendary.  So is Kansas City, where we've had credible reports of more people voting in election districts than live there. 

In truth, we still don't know for sure who won Illinois in the iconic 1960 presidential election.

The integrity of elections doesn't seem to be a high priority for American journalism – unless the wrong side wins.  Then the journalistic faces turn grim.

November 17,  2018     Permalink

NOVEMBER 16,  2018

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

FASCINATING CASE – FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES:  The Supreme Court announced Friday it will grant an expedited hearing on the Trump administration’s request to add a question concerning citizenship to the 2020 census.  The justices set oral argument for February, converting what had been a narrow request involving one part of the case into a full grant of review.  At stake is one of President Trump’s key goals — asking people to disclose their citizenship when they take part in the 2020 count.  Anti-Trump state attorneys general and immigrant-rights groups sued to stop the question, arguing it will scare immigrants, both legal and illegal, away from taking part in the census, skewing the count. That, they say, will mean some states won’t get the congressional representation nor federal money they are entitled to.  A federal judge in New York has ruled that asking the question isn’t inherently illegal — indeed, it was part of censuses up to 1950, and is still asked by the Census Bureau to some smaller sample sizes. But the judge questioned the motives of the Trump administration in asking it.  Seems to me that asking if someone is a citizen is a key part of any census.  Common sense, please.

I CANNOT WAIT (YES I CAN) – FROM DEADLINE.COM:   Bull star Michael Weatherly and NCIS: Los Angeles co-star Eric Christian Olsen have teamed up to produce First Lady, a provocative drama, which has been put in development at CBS.  Written/executive produced by Jessica Grasl (Designated Survivor), First Lady centers around the beloved First Lady of the United States, who, determined to reclaim her life, does the unthinkable – she divorces her husband while he’s still in office and uses her prominence to become an advocate for truth and justice by revitalizing her career as an investigative journalist.  I'd like to know what "truth and justice" they're talking about.  In Hollywood, that's usually code language for the left-wing line.

SMART WORKERS – FROM METRO:   Quite a large number of British workers reckon a robot could make better business decisions than their own flesh-and-blood boss.  That’s according to a new report that found one in three (34%) of employees believe a robot would be better if it had access to the right business intelligence.  The annual survey, called the Advanced Trends Report, is the third commissioned by British software and services company Advanced. The company asked over 1,000 professionals in UK organisations and found that only 35% of managing directors are said to be driving technology change.   Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents said they would be happy to work alongside robotic technology if it meant less manual processes.  The future workplace.  I hope the robots will tell good jokes.

November 16, 2018       Permalink

ABRAMS QUITS, OR DOES SHE? – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:  Stacey Abrams, Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia, has ended her quest for further counts, recounts, and fantasy counts, and has affirmed that she has lost the election.  But it was a strange withdrawal, consistent with obvious plans for a political future.  From AP and others: 

Democrat Stacey Abrams ended her bid to be Georgia governor late Friday in a speech which she said was not a 'concession' but an acknowledgment that she cannot win.

She said Brian Kemp, the Republican candidate, would win the vote count which was due to be certified at 5 p.m., just as she made the speech to supporters in Atlanta.

But she ended her bid to be the nation's first black female governor defiantly saying that she would be suing in federal court over the election's 'gross mismanagement', taking a bitter election with claims of racist voter suppression into a new arena.

Her move means that Kemp will be named Georgia's governor, having overseen the election's running as the secretary of state.

She  said her announcement was not a concession because that would acknowledge 'an action as right.'

'I acknowledge that former (Georgia) Secretary of State Brian Kemp will be certified as the victor,' Abrams told supporters in Atlanta. 

'But to watch an elected official who claims to represent the people in this state baldly pin his hopes for election on the suppression of the people's democratic right to vote has been truly appalling.'

'So, let's be clear, this is not a speech of concession, because concession means to acknowledge an action as right, true or proper,' she said.  

Abrams, 44, had considered a court challenge to force a runoff, which is allowed by state law if neither candidate gets a majority of the vote. Initial results showed Kemp just over that threshold.

COMMENT:  Not exactly gracious  And, of course, the race card is played.  But let her have her day in court, where she must prove her charges. 

I did think it was poor style for Brian Kemp to remain as secretary of state during the election.  His office oversaw that election.  He should have recused, simply for style.

That said, no serious acts of suppression have apparently been found.  And you may be sure the liberal press was looking.  Stacey was their hero.

A victory for the GOP.

November 16, 2018       Permalink

PRESIDENT RISES MORE – AT 10:21 A.M. ET:  The president's standing in the Rasmussen daily tracker has now been restored to its position just before the election:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 36% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -5.

COMMENT:  He's actually above Obama in this poll, but we stress that it's only one poll.  Others have the president lower.

The trend, though, for Mr. Trump, is upward.  Dems have been full of themselves in the last week.  They might consider deflating a bit

November 16, 2018       Permalink

MADNESS IN GEORGIA – AT 9:53 A.M. ET:  It's so over in Georgia.  Brian Kemp has clearly been elected governor, but Dem fanatic Stacey Abrams, playing the race card all the way to oblivion, may actually go to court to have the election re-run.  Welcome to a bad Hollywood movie.  From AP:

ATLANTA (AP) — Stacey Abrams’ campaign and legal team is preparing an unprecedented legal challenge in the unresolved Georgia governor’s race that could leave the state’s Supreme Court deciding whether to force another round of voting.

The Democrat’s longshot strategy relies on a statute that’s never been used in such a high-stakes contest. It is being discussed as Georgia elections officials appear to be on the cusp of certifying Republican Brian Kemp as the winner of a bitterly fought campaign that’s been marred by charges of electoral malfeasance.

Top Abrams advisers outlined her prospective case to The Associated Press, stressing that the Democratic candidate hasn’t finalized a decision about whether to proceed once state officials certify Kemp as the victor. That could happen as early as Friday evening.

Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Abrams’ campaign chairwoman, is overseeing a team of almost three-dozen lawyers who in the coming days will draft the petition, along with a ream of affidavits from voters and would-be voters who say they were disenfranchised. Abrams would then decide whether to go to court under a provision of Georgia election law that allows losing candidates to challenge results based on “misconduct, fraud or irregularities ... sufficient to change or place in doubt the results.”

The legal team is “considering all options,” Lawrence-Hardy said, including federal court remedies. But the state challenge is the most drastic. And some Democratic legal observers note Abrams would be dependent on statutes that set a high bar for the court to intervene.

She already faces a narrow path to the governor’s mansion. Unofficial returns show Kemp with about 50.2 percent of more than 3.9 million votes. That puts him about 18,000 votes above the threshold required to win by a majority and avoid a Dec. 4 runoff. The Associated Press is not calling the race until state officials certify the results.

Abrams would assert that enough irregularities occurred to raise the possibility that at least 18,000 Georgians either had their ballots thrown out or were not allowed to vote.

COMMENT:  There are probably irregularities in every election, but any problems in Georgia appear small.  I wonder how many Abrams supporters voted early and often, and brought their deceased relatives with them. 

A gracious concession by Ms. Abrams is in order.  Anything else will probably enrage the Georgia public, but endear Abrams to the new Democratic nut brigade in Washington.

November 16,  2018     Permalink