SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 9:41 P.M. ET:

TRUMP HITS 50% – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   Half of the country – 50 percent – now view President-elect Donald Trump favorably, up 17 points from August, a new Bloomberg National Poll shows.
The survey also gives Trump a glimmer of good news as two-thirds of U.S. adults believe Trump needs to choose between being president and a businessman, though a higher percentage, 69 percent, believe it's a step too far to force him to sell off his businesses to become president of the United States.   Another 51 percent say they believe the billionaire will put what's best for the country ahead of his own individual interests.  Americans are also giving the president-elect some wiggle room on issues, with three-quarters saying it's OK for him to re-calibrate some of his campaign pledges, including one to 'lock up' his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.   'The public seems to be giving him a long leash,' said pollster J. Ann Selzer, whose in charge of the survey. 'Most Americans don't seem concerned about him changing positions that were the core of his campaign.'   The poll reflects, I believe, Trump's genuinely thoughtful approach to picking his Cabinet. I also believe the American people have started to see through the press bias that is directed at Trump every day.

TRUMP ON PEARL HARBOR DAY – FROM BREITBART:   President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement remembering the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor today.  He’s urging the country to remember the 2,403 Americans killed and the 1,178 Americans who were wounded.  “Their shared sacrifice reminds us of the great costs paid by those who came before us to secure the liberties we enjoy, and inspires us to rise to meet the new challenges that stand before us today,” Trump said.  He recalled Reagan’s use of the quote of Gen. Douglas MacArthur reminding Americans that “there is no substitute for victory” in war.  “Today we are the bearers of the torch of freedom these brave Americans passed on to us,” he said. “In honor of their faithfulness, and for the sake of generations to come, we will never allow that flame to be extinguished.”  Very well put.  Trump is developing a presidential style all his own, and it is working.  We're entitled to have our concerns about him, but I'm being won over.

I LOVE THIS – FROM THE BANGOR DAILY NEWS:   PORTLAND, Maine — Thirty-five people gathered at a popular Portland bistro on a recent weeknight to learn how to talk.  Cards were passed and conversations sparked, but this group of branders, photographers, auditors and teachers weren’t merely networking. They were “adulting.”  “Small talk is hard for me,” said Julie Moulton, a thirtysomething marketing coordinator who was attending the happy hour networking class at Sur Lie on Free Street.  The event was organized by The Adulting School, a new program devoted to helping people learn skills they might not have picked up in college or from their parents. The founders take their inspiration from a similar program, The Society of Grownups, in Brookline, Massachusetts.  Adulting is a newly verbed noun that Time magazine described as a way for millennials to “acknowledge and/or make fun of and/or come to grips with that transition [to adulthood] (or how late they are to it).”  Long overdue.  You might wish to send anonymous scholarships to young people you know.

December 7, 2016