| Morning Jolt
. . . with Jim Geraghty March 27, 2014 MSNBC: Meh in Ratings, Worse in Revenue Boom: 
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Dylan Byers: "Conventional wisdom has it that cable news doesn't have much of a future: The audience is old and getting older, the television landscape is growing more and more fractured, appointment viewing is becoming a thing of the past, etc. Certainly, every cable news network lost viewers last year. But this version of events often ignores the incredible revenue gains made each year by Fox News (like a rocket) and CNN (far more gradual, but we're still talking billions)." | Crazy new federal law goes into effect July 1st of this year Now, for the first time ever, one of America's top financial analysts says we can accurately predict the exact day of the U.S. dollar's official collapse. It will coincide with a shocking new Federal law going into effect on July 1st, 2014. What does this law mean and why are even some liberal media calling it a "nightmare and disaster." Get the facts here for yourself. You can be among the first to understand the details. Everything you need to know is explained here…  | | | Nice Work If You Can Get It, Huh, Wendy Davis? Have you ever noticed how many elected officials have private law practices? Particularly those at the local or state levels, with jobs that aren't necessarily year-round or full-time? It would be tough to ban these practices entirely, but it always seems like a potential backdoor for bribery, or at least relationship-building. If you want to get a lawmaker or local official on your side, hire him as your lawyer. There are limits on campaign donations in most places, but the only limit to the number of billable hours is the number of hours in the day. Some states notice the potential for trouble here. The Montana Bar Association, for example, issued an official opinion that "an attorney elected to full time state-wide public office must dissolve an existing law partnership." By contrast, in Texas, a city attorney is not considered an officer for purposes of constitutional dual office holding limitations, and thus an attorney working for one portion of the government can hold an office in another part of the government. That's good news for Wendy Davis, who is doing legal work for various Texas public agencies and entities while being a state legislator. Davis and her law partner, Brian Newby, at Newby Davis, a two-person firm, work as bond counsel, most recently on a $109 million bond issue for Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, and on a nearly $319 million bond sale for the Tarrant Regional Water District. If you're sniffing a whiff of potential conflict of interest for local government entities to be paying a state legislator to do legal work for them… well, you're not the only one: Only last month, Davis' firm worked on two deals that were brought to market: a $201.5 million bond issue for the airport and a nearly $319 million bond sale for the Tarrant Regional Water District. The bond issues Newby Davis worked on for the water district had this twist: the agency's financial director is Sandra "Sandy" Newby, Brian Newby's wife. In total, the various transactions for which Newby Davis served as co-bond counsel on have represented at least $6.3 billion in new securities and refinancings. Convenient, huh? "Hey, we need a lot of expensive legal work done? Good news, my husband's a lawyer!" You are probably unsurprised that Greg Abbott, the current Texas attorney general and Republican nominee for governor, is deeply troubled by this, contending, "When legislators, through their private work, become intimately involved in the financial process of local entities, ethically problematic situations develop wherein legislators find themselves with a personal incentive to increase local debt." He wants to ban these sorts of cozy arrangements: The recommendation would prohibit legislators, including the Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House, from serving as bond counsel for any public entity. Violation of this requirement would be a Class A Misdemeanor. "Elected officials shouldn't profit off of their positions and line their own pockets at the taxpayers' expense," said Greg Abbott. "They are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents rather than their own self-interest. It is particularly reprehensible for lawmakers to profit from taxpayers as bond counsel for public entities that add more to the public debt of taxpayers. My ethics reform plan puts an end to this unethical practice." Recasting Indiana Jones? I've Got a Bad Feeling about This WARNING: This is going to get geeky, and the following may be my most self-indulgent writing since the Twin Peaks analysis. This is a bad idea, in its current form. But it doesn't have to be. Our ever reliable sources are informing us that while Harrison Ford might still play Indiana Jones in the next film of the franchise, the window of making that happen is getting smaller and smaller. There is a date and if Indiana Jones 5 is not moving forward by then, the studios are 100% prepared to recast a younger Dr. Jones and ready up a new trilogy. Let's be realistic, Harrison is not the box office draw he once was and he is only getting older. Don't think of it as a reboot but just recasting the same way the James Bond (Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig) movies have been doing for the better part of five decades. And who just might be one of the actors that the studio is looking at ? The word is that they are looking at several but Bradley Cooper is at the top of the list. Like I said, as is, this is a terrible idea. We've actually had four actors play Indiana Jones besides Harrison Ford – River Phoenix as Young Indy in the beginning of Last Crusade and then Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. But when you say, "Indiana Jones," everyone thinks of Harrison Ford. He owns the role. It's his. Leave it to him. There's no need to rehash the criticisms of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull; needless to say, most of the fan base left deeply disappointed, and has likely concluded that it doesn't want, or need, any more Indiana Jones movies. But we sure as heck would love to see more movies in the tone and style of Raiders of the Lost Ark. So allow me to offer Disney two possibilities. Option One: Tell a 1930s-1940s-1950s pulp adventure story featuring another adventurer, perhaps someone who's heard of Indiana Jones or mentions him as a rival. (In Raiders, Indy himself mentions he has rivals going after the same treasures he does: "This is where Forrestal cashed in… He was good. Very good.") A lot of real-life archeologists are mentioned as "the real life Indiana Jones" or claimed to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones -- Roy Chapman Andrews, Hiram Bingham, Percy Fawcett, Howard Carter, Frederick Mitchell-Hedges, among others. Alternatively, let Cooper play one of Professor Jones's first students, determined to emulate Indy. Maybe even bring in Ford for a cameo; maybe this student is looking for the one treasure Indy never found. Make clear this is a story that's taking place in the world of Indiana Jones, but that Indy is enjoying retirement with Marion. Option Two: The other possibility -- one I prefer -- is to tell a story that takes place in the modern day. Cooper could be a descendant of Indy's, or just some young archeologist who's uncovered Indy's personal papers (his own "grail diary?"). Maybe today's archeologists dismiss Jones as a bit of a lunatic and reckless daredevil. (See Professor Jones Gets Rejected for Tenure.) But our protagonist -- a bit of a stand-in for the audience -- thinks Indy is the coolest guy that ever lived and is determined to follow in his footsteps. Like in the other scenario, he finds a reference to some long-lost treasure that Indy sought but could never locate… and of course, a key missing clue has only now been found at some recent archeological discovery -- the gold at the Temple Mount, the Egyptian city buried under the Mediterranean Sea, even the ship found underground at the site of the World Trade Center. Like Indy, our Bradley Cooper character begins with a bit of a mercenary side to him, chasing fortune and glory -- maybe even talking aloud to his unseen late mentor, "I hope you're watching from up there, Indy, 'cause I'm gonna do what you never could!" -- but gradually learns to be a more well-rounded person, caring for others, and learning there's more to life than just treasure and punching people. You can still tell a pulp-style Indiana Jones story in today's world; our globe still has enough far-off dangerous and exotic corners -- the mountains of central Asia, the pirate-laden waters of Southeast Asia and the horn of Africa, the jungles of the Amazon, just about anywhere in the Middle East… Just remember to include femme fatales and feisty companions, comical sidekicks, villains that you love to hate, constant fistfights, gunfights, chases, and at least once, a menace of a lot of dangerous animals in a confined space -- perhaps the saltwater crocodiles of Ramree Island, Burma. As you can tell, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking about this. My friend Flint Dille -- a writer on the old Transformers and G.I. Joe cartoons, and all kinds of video games, including the Indiana Jones-esque Uncharted series -- invited me to participate in a joint writing project called TikiWikiFiki, a series of interconnected pulp stories set in World War Two era (or immediately post-war) South Pacific. Who knows, maybe if enough copies of this book sell, I'll get to tell those stories. Most importantly -- and perhaps the element that makes Bradley Cooper the right guy to carry the torch -- any new films need to remember to include the two key moments of every Indiana Jones sequence: [A DANGEROUS SITUATION DEVELOPS] Our hero suddenly realizes he's bitten off more than he can chew, eyes bulge, and we share with him a split-second of panic or "oh, crap" 
This is what I look like when I'm on cable news and realize the show changed topics without telling me. [THROUGH HIS QUICK WITS AND PHYSICAL SKILL, OUR HERO ESCAPES] Our hero smiles. 
This is what I look like when I've steered the topic back to the one-liner I wanted to use. You're welcome, Disney. From Our Sponsor:
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