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FINAL SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2018

FIRST SIX 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. 

As a subscriber or donator you will receive our twice-a-week emailed page called The Angel's Corner, which contains our Forum.  You may submit posts to the Forum of any reasonable length and on any subject you choose.  It is our most popular feature.   But the most important reason to subscribe or donate is to keep Urgent Agenda coming to you. 

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 18,  2018

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

THE EMBARRASSMENT DOES IT AGAIN – FROM DAILYWIRE:  Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed this weekend that she has no idea what the three branches of the U.S. government are during a conference call with prospective far-left political candidates.  "If we work our butts off to make sure that we take back all three chambers of Congress — uh, rather, all three chambers of government: the presidency, the Senate, and the House," Ocasio-Cortez said on Saturday while on a call with Justice Democrats.  The three branches, not chambers, of the U.S. government, are the executive, legislative, and judicial.  But that's her "narrative."  Who are we oppressors to challenge her?  This is what white supremacy is all about.

SOMETHING ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT – FROM CNS:  A report in the Christian Post contends that the number of witches (and Wiccans) has dramatically increased since the 1990s, to the degree that there may be at least 1.5 million witches in the United States, which is higher than the 1.4 million mainline Presbyterians.  "[T]he practice of witchcraft has grown significantly in recent decades; those who identify as witches has risen concurrently with the rise of the 'witch aesthetic,'" reported the Christian Post in October, citing data from Quartz, a Trinity College study, and the Pew Research Center.  Between 1990 and 2008, the number of Wiccans in the United States grew from 8,000 to 340,000, according to three religious surveys conducted by Trinity College in Connecticut. In addition, the Pew Research Center reported in 2014 that 0.4% of the population -- 1 to 1.5 million Americans -- "identify as Wicca or Pagan."  Anyone who's ever watched Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris speak in the Senate knows that this story is true.

FOR BETTER OR WORSE – FROM BLOOMBERG:   Living together is become more popular than marriage for young American couples, according to Census Bureau data. Fifteen percent of people in the 25-to-34 age group shared quarters with an unmarried partner this year, up from 12 percent in 2008.  Among those between 18 to 24, cohabitation is more prevalent today than marriage with 9 percent living with an unmarried partner versus 7 percent living with a spouse. Fifty years ago, only 0.1 percent of people between 18 and 24-year and 0.2 percent between 25 and 34 lived with an unmarried partner.  Married couples do have an edge, though. More income.  I make no judgment, but decisions have consequences. 

November 18, 2018      Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 2:14 P.M. ET:  DEMOCRATIC SENATOR BILL NELSON CONCEDES THE SENATE RACE TO REPUBLICAN RICK SCOTT IN FLORIDA.

THE ACOSTA PROBLEM – AT 1:33 P.M. ET:  A federal judge has ordered the White House to return CNN showoff Jim Acosta's press pass, lifted after he engaged in some boorish behavior during a presidential news conference.  But that decision does nothing to settle the issue of proper behavior by reporters at such news conferences, which are not required to be held by the president, but which have become a tradition.  From Michael Goodwin in the New York Post: 

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. That age-old advice about the distinction between freedom and wisdom came to mind as I read the ruling that requires the White House to reissue media credentials to CNN blowhard Jim Acosta.

Federal Judge Timothy Kelly said Acosta must be allowed to return because there was no due process in the decision to suspend him. Kelly, appointed by President Trump, emphasized he wasn’t ruling on the merits of the suspension or Acosta’s behavior, only the process.

“I have not determined that the First Amendment was violated here,” he wrote, adding that the White House has no obligation to call on Acosta for questions.

While the outcome is a setback for Trump, it is also sensible and points the way forward. The president responded by saying his team will draw up rules requiring “decorum” and standards of behavior, and predicts ultimate victory.

Actually, he’s already won something bigger than the case at hand. He’s established the principle that a press pass is not a license to lecture and hector the president while refusing to yield the microphone, all of which Acosta did.

The principle is so obvious it shouldn’t need to be clarified, but written rules are necessary because Acosta abused his privilege. Now the details of the rules must be spelled out to cover any future cases.

But there won’t be any future cases — if the press corps get its act together. The White House Correspondents’ Association must find the courage to police the bad apples in its ranks instead of waiting for the government to act, then running to the courts for protection.

COMMENT:  Well said.  The president can decline to hold press conferences, or restrict them to periodic meetings with four or five reporters standing around the Oval Office desk.  My own sense is that mass news conferences have outlived their usefulness, and produce almost no news.  But if they're held, there must be formal rules, and discipline for "journalists" who break them.

November 18, 2018       Permalink

ON THE BRINK IN FLORIDA – AT 12:50 P.M. ET:  The Senate race in Florida will, barring more Democratic lawyers riding in on horseback, conclude today, with a victory for Republican Governor Rick Scott.  If all goes as assumed, that means that the GOP will add two senators to the US Senate, making the confirmation of judges more secure.  From NPR: 

After two recounts and a deluge of lawsuits and loaded political rhetoric, the 12-day election marathon in Florida seems to be nearing its close.

Official results were due to Secretary of State Ken Detzner's office from all of Florida's 67 counties at noon on Sunday. About an hour before that deadline, Broward County, which has been one of two counties at the epicenter of the state's recount drama, announced that it had completed its recount and submitted the results.

The Democratic nominee for governor, Andrew Gillum, conceded Saturday night, and all eyes are on Democratic incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson. He trails the Republican nominee, current Gov. Rick Scott, by more than 12,000 votes, and the results of last week's machine recount slightly widened the margin in that race.

Because the margin between Nelson and Scott was less than a quarter of a percentage point after that first recount, state law mandated a hand count of ballots that a machine could not make a clear reading on, either because the race was left blank or because there were other markings that made the ballot unclear.

The results turned in by county election officials on Sunday will reflect those recounted totals, as well as ballots received from military and overseas voters. As long as ballots from abroad were postmarked before Nov. 6, they will be counted if they were received by county officials by Friday.

A federal judge has denied a number of lawsuits filed by Nelson in an effort to put a dent in the deficit. They included a request to count vote-by-mail domestic ballots that were received after Election Day and a request to nullify a state law that requires voters to use the same marking method for different races across their ballots.

The Scott campaign has been calling daily on Nelson to concede. In a show of confidence, Scott attended an orientation in Washington last week for incoming senators.

In a statement issued Sunday, the Scott campaign said Nelson has a choice: "Be remembered as the statesman who graciously conceded after 42-years of public service ... or be remembered as the sore loser who refused to face the people he served."

COMMENT:  One hopes that Florida, one of the four most populous states in the Union, will modernize its voting procedures by 2020, an election in which the state will play a critical role.  I am not hopeful.

November 18,  2018     Permalink

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