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VERY SLUGGISH IN OUR SECOND WEEK; WE ARE FAILING TO MEET OUR GOALS;  PLEASE SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE.  OUR CAUSE IS JUST. 

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. 

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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.

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NOVEMBER 22,  2018

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

IS THIS HILLARY? – FROM THE HILL:  Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling on European leaders to enact stricter immigration policies in order to counter the growing threat of right-wing populism on the continent.   “I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what lit the flame,” Clinton told The Guardian in an interview published Thursday, referring to the rise of anti-immigrant politicians across Europe.  “I admire the very generous and compassionate approaches that were taken particularly by leaders like [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel," she said, "but I think it is fair to say Europe has done its part, and must send a very clear message — ‘we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support’ — because if we don’t deal with the migration issue it will continue to roil the body politic.”  What say she? Is this a sign she's running for president on a moderate – electable – platform?

TRANSITION – FROM FOX BUSINESS:  Los Angeles biotech billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is betting big on newspapers. After buying the Los Angeles Times for $500 million earlier this year, he’s invested $100 million to build a state-of-the-art newsroom and is hoping to turn a profit soon.  “The Catholic nuns say ’no money, no mission,’ and it’s very true,” Soon-Shiong said at The Grill, TheWrap’s annual media conference. “In order for the paper to survive, it has to thrive. In order to thrive, it has to be self-sustaining as a business.”  In a deal that closed in June, Soon-Shiong also agreed to buy the San Diego Union Tribune, Spanish-language Hoy and several small community newspapers. His investment firm, Nant Capital, agreed to pay $500 million for the papers and will assume $90 million in pension liabilities.  It's great to see someone who believes in newspapers put his money where his mouth is.  I hope he can make the Times a better newspaper, not simply another liberal mouthpiece. 

NOW HERE'S AN IDEA – FROM THE COLLEGE FIX:  The study of Western civilization is in such decline in higher education that it may take an act of Congress to ensure students learn about it, according to an academic group that promotes “intellectual freedom” and “virtuous citizenship.”  This may not be politically feasible under Democratic control of one chamber of Congress, though – a point conceded at last week’s conference call by the National Association of Scholars.  It was organized in part to bring attention to the association’s re-released 2011 study The Vanishing West: 1964-2010. The study documents “the disappearance of Western civilization courses from the college curriculum” and replacement with “world history” courses.  Western civilization courses were generally required in colleges and universities before they were overtaken by progressive political movements, according to President Peter Wood.  “We face a kind of civilizational crisis. The elites are so profoundly dissatisfied at who we are and what we are,” Wood said.  This could be the start of something big, but the intellectual establishments will try to crush it.

November 22, 2018         Permalink

A DATE IN HISTORY – AT 1:30 P.M. ET:  It was 55 years ago today that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.   The nation hardly notices, but the "Kennedy legacy," we are told by shallow journalists, is alive and well in Texas through the person of Beto O'Rourke, who recently came close to defeating Ted Cruz in a Senate election.

Indeed, Beto, whose name isn't Beto but Robert Francis, as in Robert Francis Kennedy (Bobby Kennedy) clearly models himself after the Kennedys, cuts his hair accordingly, and seems, at times, to mimic the style of Bobby Kennedy's speeches, if not Jack's.

Yet, the irony is that Jack Kennedy couldn't come close to a presidential nomination in today's leftist Democratic Party, and Robert Kennedy probably would be seen as a backbencher.  Jack Kennedy's inaugural address would today be delivered by a Republican.   His anti-Communism, and Bobby's, would be scandalous.  Jack Kennedy was a flawed man in many respects, but a leftist or "progressive" he was not.

I was being discharged from the Army the hour President Kennedy was murdered.  I heard the first radio reports while riding back to New York City from Fort Dix, New Jersey, in a Ford convertible.  We were told that three shots were fired, that a couple was seen running up a "grassy knoll" after the shooting.  When we arrived at Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan, the station was almost silent.  Journalists were actually reporting the story, not giving us their instant opinions or their deep feelings and emotions.   I still have the newspapers I bought that day, with the New York Post headlining PRESIDENT SHOT DEAD.

It was a mature era in America.  We still had millions of World War II and Korea veterans in their thirties.  The presidency was serious business.   The last presidential assassination had been that of William McKinley in 1901, although there had been attempts on other presidents.

The nation, and its press, behaved appropriately.  The dignity surrounding the event was remarkable.

I have no idea how America would respond to a similar trauma today.  I don't want to find out. 

November 22, 2018       Permalink 

THANKSGIVING – AT 11:40 A.M. ET:  First, happy Thanksgiving to you all.  We hope for a serene Thanksgiving, but we know we'll be assaulted by the voices of the left, denouncing the day as the origin of all evil.  Ignore them.  It is better to thank God than to thank Marx.

It is exactly 400 years this month that, according to the oral tradition, the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.  (I think the left believes they landed in Berkeley.)  They started the building of a great nation.  True, along the way there were injustices done to native Americans and to other immigrant groups.  That is part of our story, and, indeed, the story of most nations.  But our story also includes the creation of a free nation with a superb and lasting Constitution, and the forging of one people, from many, that has, over the centuries, exhibited character, bravery and breathtaking ingenuity.

There is a reason why millions of people from around the world want to come to America.  They are not misinformed, nor are they mislead by Hollywood movies or the singing of "God Bless America."  They come to a place that is very real, and offers opportunities available nowhere else.  American exceptionalism, now disparaged by the chattering classes and Barack Obama, is displayed every day.  Look for it around you. 

Benjamin Franklin cautioned to the newly independent United States of America, "A republic, if you can keep it."  He was right.  And our challenge today is to keep it, to insure that future generations give thanks for ours.

November 22,  2018     Permalink

NOVEMBER 21,  2018

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

A MAN TO BE THANKFUL FOR – FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE:  Ray Chavez, the nation’s oldest surviving veteran of the attack on Pearl Harbor, died Wednesday at the age of 106.  Kathleen Chavez, who had been her father’s live-in caregiver for more than 20 years, said he passed away peacefully in his sleep between 3 and 6 a.m. Wednesday. His health had declined in recent months and he was in hospice care when he passed.  Memorial services are pending. Kathleen said her father wished to be buried at Miramar National Cemetery.  Chavez surged into national prominence three years ago when fellow Pearl Harbor veterans recognized him as the oldest survivor of the 1941 Japanese attack that ushered the U.S. into World War II.  At its peak, the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association had 58,000 members. Today, there are fewer than 200, according to Stu Hedley, 97, who heads the association’s now-10-member San Diego chapter.  The greatest generation fades, and we miss them.

THIS IS NOT A LESSON IN DEMOCRACY – FROM BIZPACREVIEW:  Rider University in New Jersey sent a survey to students during the spring semester, asking them which restaurants they would like to see the school bring on campus. But when it became clear that Chick-Fil-A was the students’ top choice, the college disregarded the results of the survey.  The school will not bring the popular fast food chain to campus because “their corporate values have not sufficiently progressed enough to align with those of Rider,” according to a Nov. 1 email sent to Rider students and obtained by Campus Reform. The school went on to clarify that the decision was in an effort to “promote…inclusion for all people.”   I guess these brilliant educators are talking about the fact that one of the company's founders doesn't agree with gay marriage.  I wonder how many potential employees won't have jobs because Rider's administration wants to strut its ideological stuff.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE – FROM THE WEATHER CHANNEL:   Wind chills Thanksgiving morning will be in the teens, perhaps 20s below zero in northern New England and the Adirondacks of upstate New York. Subzero wind chills are likely in parts of southern New England, western and central New York and northern Pennsylvania, including Boston, Hartford, Providence, Albany and Syracuse.
Wind chill advisories have been issued for some parts of the interior Northeast for Thursday morning. Frostbite is possible in as little as 30 minutes in these areas.   These will be the coldest temperature anomalies - in other words, the temperatures most below average - anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere on Thanksgiving Day.   For some Northeast cities, high temperatures on Thanksgiving could be close to the coldest on record no matter what day of the month the holiday was celebrated (e.g. Nov. 22, Nov. 24, Nov. 26, etc.).  Be sure your car is in shape, with a fully charged battery.  As you'll recall, we had a traffic disaster in the New York area last Thursday, with many batteries, including ours, replaced the next day.

November 21, 2018       Permalink

TIGHT IN MISSISSIPPI – AT 9:45 P.M. ET:  And it shouldn't be.  There will be a runoff in the state on Tuesday for the US Senate seat vacated by Thad Cochran.  The seat is being temporarily held by Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, who was appointed when Cochran resigned in the spring.  Her opponent is Democrat Mike Espy.

Ordinarily, this would hardly be news.  Mississippi is a solidly Republican state, and Hyde-Smith should be walking to victory.  But a series of blundering remarks by her, interpreted by some as racially tinged, have made the waters rougher.  Espy is an African-American.  From the Washington Examiner: 

The tightening Mississippi race for U.S. Senate is starting to look a lot like a preview of the 2020 presidential election, as President Trump and a slew of potential Democratic challengers have entered the ring to fight for their party contenders.

The contest between Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democratic opponent Mike Espy is headed for a runoff on Tuesday after both candidates tied on Election Day in a race that has seen a spending frenzy on both sides of the aisle.

Hyde-Smith, who was appointed in April to temporarily fill the seat vacated by Thad Cochran, appears vulnerable in the deep-red state after becoming embroiled in a series of racially tinged controversies that have opened up a line of attack for her African-American opponent and his allies.

COMMENT:  The oddsmakers say that Hyde-White will still pull it out, but the closeness in the polls shows how hard Republicans work to lose elections.  The runoff is important.  Republicans currently stand at plus two seats in the Senate as a result of the recent election.  If they lose this seat that will go back to plus one, hardly a great achievement.

November 21, 2018       Permalink

POLITICS AND NUTRITION – AT 1:22 P.M. ET:   Yes, there is a relationship.  The true scholars among Urgent Agenda readers will appreciate this deep research.  From The Dallas News: 

If your relatives make a quick escape from the dinner table this Thanksgiving, it may not be because you served them dry turkey and lumpy mashed potatoes.

A recent study determined that some travelers cut their Thanksgiving dinner short when they were spending it in a place that voted differently than where they lived — effectively avoiding dinner discussions about the presidential election.

In "The Effect of Partisanship and Political Advertising on Close Family Ties," researchers Keith Chen and Ryan Rhola gathered location data from smartphones to track holiday travelers' drives, then matched that to voting data.

The billions of location pings, aggregated in 2015 and 2016 by data-gathering company SafeGraph, cover the 77 percent of the U.S. population that uses smartphones. The researchers isolated travelers who spent both Wednesday and Thursday nights in their own homes, avoiding people whose travel plans were constrained by, for instance, airplane tickets.

Chen and Rhola then assessed each location’s political leanings, based on results from the 2016 election. They also compared the results for 2015 and 2016 to control for the difference in years with and without major elections.

Their findings? Thanksgiving travelers who went somewhere with different political leanings from their own shortened their dinners by 30 to 50 minutes compared with those who traveled to districts with similar leanings.

Why the difference?

Overall, Chen and Rhola estimated that Americans cut out 73.6 million hours of time spent together on Thanksgiving 2016 — 52.2 percent from residents in Republican-leaning precincts and 47.8 percent from Democrat-leaning precincts.

Political advertising exacerbated the difference, according to the study, shortening dinners by 2.6 minutes for every 1,000 political ads in the traveler’s home media market. 

This accounted for 15.9 million hours lost, 46.3 percent of which was from residents of Democratic precincts and 53.7 percent from those traveling from Republican precincts.

COMMENTS:  Absolutely fascinating.  Doesn't it kinda confirm what many of us have thought – that politics affects choices we make that have nothing to do with politics?

So, start checking registration statistics for the place you'll be tomorrow.  Travel accordingly.

November 21, 2018       Permalink

PRESIDENT RISES AGAIN – AT 9:54 A.M. ET:  The president has hit 51% approval in the Rasmussen poll, the only daily tracker left.  This in spite of some gaffes and some rather petty and boastful comments he made after the election.  Maybe the American people have discounted his occasionally coarse indulgences.  Or maybe they're sending a message to the Democrats not to go crazy in their anti-Trump hatred.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-eight percent (48%) disapprove. 

The latest figures include 36% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 40% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -4.

COMMENT:  We always stress that this is one poll, and tends to show the president higher than in other surveys.  The poll result is best used to detect trends rather than hit specific numbers.  The trend for the president in the last week has been upward.  He has gained four points.

November 21,  2018     Permalink