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SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – DAY THREE - HELP!

Our first subscription drive for 2014 is off to a very sluggish start.  As readers know, I've tried to cut the number of drives each year, in part to reduce harassment of our loyal audience and to minimize feelings of crushing guilt among our readership.  And what does my kind and pure heart get in return?  Sluggishness.  Like Rodney Dangerfield, I get no respect, no respect.

This drive is critical.  For Urgent Agenda to continue at its current level, we need your help.  Subscribers and donators are the lifeblood of our work.  Without them, we'd fade away. 

Last year was challenging.  The year after a presidential election is always hard for political sites.  People are politicked out.  Some subscribers come in only for the election season.   So, we're down a bit, although we still have an enviable retention rate.

And now we face another major election year that can determine the fate of this country.

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FEBRUARY 12,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:23 P.M. ET:  

MOST THUMBS DOWN – From Fox:  "According to a just-released Fox News national poll, most voters don’t think the country’s system of government was designed for the president to act unilaterally, and a majority disapproves of Obama bypassing Congress.  The new poll finds that 74 percent think the president using executive orders to get around Congress is not how things are supposed to work in our country. That includes 54 percent of Democrats.  Large majorities of independents (80 percent) and Republicans (93 percent) believe it goes against our system for the president to act independently to advance his policies.  Even when asked to set aside their views on how the government is supposed to work, by a wide 60-37 percent margin voters still disapprove of Obama going around Congress.  Almost all Republicans disapprove of Obama acting without lawmakers (90 percent), as do two-thirds of independents (66 percent).  Democrats approve by a 66-31 percent margin."  The people have spoken.

KATRINA MAYOR CONVICTED – From the New Orleans Times-Pecayune:  "Ray Nagin, the former two-term mayor of New Orleans indicted after he left office, was convicted Wednesday of 20 federal corruption charges for illegal dealings with city vendors, dating back to 2004. A jury delivered its verdict just before 1 p.m., after six hours of deliberations that followed a nine-day trial.  Nagin, 57, joins a list of Louisiana elected officials convicted of misdeeds while in office, but he is New Orleans' first mayor to be convicted of public corruption. Under federal sentencing guidelines, he could face a 20-year prison term, possibly more, lawyers have said."  Nagin is best known for being the mayor of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.  He was found, during the storm, on the high floor of a luxury hotel.  His performance was dismal, but generally ignored by a press determined to pin the blame for disaster response on President Bush.

OBAMACARE REALITY – From Newsmax:  "The White House has been dealt a stunning new blow on Obamacare sign-up numbers with reports showing that only about half of the people 'enrolled' at healthcare exchanges in various states have actually paid their premiums.  With the March 31 deadline for enrollment just seven weeks away, the number of sign-ups in federal and state marketplaces has slowed down to an alarming figure since the sudden surge in the latter part of December and early January.  But the bigger problem for the Obama administration is that roughly 50 percent of consumers who had supposedly enrolled for President Barack Obama's healthcare reform have missed their payment deadline for Jan. 1, according to Investor's Business Daily's website Investors.com."  We've gotten a lot of hype from the Obama press in the last day, boasting of an increase in signups.  The small print, though, tells a different story – premiums not paid, and therefore no insurance issued.

TEENAGE STRESS – From Fox:  "Teenagers in the United States are experiencing higher levels of stress than many adults, USA Today reported.   As a part of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Stress in America survey, more than 1,000 teenagers and 2,000 adults answered questions about their overall stress levels and coping habits. Though the APA has conducted similar surveys in the past, this was the first to focus specifically on stress among teenagers.  Overall, the survey revealed that 27 percent of teenagers reported feeling “extreme stress” during the school year, compared to 20 percent of adults."  Gee, do you think young people will suddenly realize that electing Barack Obama hasn't led to paradise on Earth?  Even young people can wise up, despite the best efforts of educators and college professors.

February 12,  2014     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:04 A.M. ET:  From Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, a man reviled on the left because he won't automatically think what a black man is supposed to think.  From Yahoo News: 

Americans today are too sensitive about race, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a gathering of college students in Florida on Tuesday.

Speaking at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla., Thomas, the second black justice to serve on the court, lamented what he considers a society that is more “conscious” of racial differences than it was when he grew up in segregated Georgia in the days before — and during — the civil rights era.

“My sadness is that we are probably today more race and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school. To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white school. Rarely did the issue of race come up,” Thomas said during a chapel service hosted by the nondenominational Christian university. “Now, name a day it doesn’t come up. Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah. Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person. Somebody has said something that has hurt their feelings or did something to them — left them out.

“That’s a part of the deal,” he added.

COMMENT:  Words of wisdom.  In the 1950s we had in America a man named Eric Hoffer.  He was called the longshoreman philosopher – a laboring man who became a superb writer and commentator on public affairs.  Hoffer said that all causes become businesses, and then they become rackets.  I think we see that today.  The nobility of many just movements has been lost to careerism and posturing.  We have a race industry rather than a civil-rights movement.

Clarence Thomas is a man to be admired – a black man who is truly a free man.

February 12, 2014       Permalink

"REFORM" AT WORK – AT 9:32 A.M. ET:  Whenever I hear the word "reform" in politics, I run in the opposite direction.  I've seen plenty of "reform" here in New York.  I've seen many "reform" politicians who stay in Congress 30 years.  I guess there's a lot of "reform" to do.  And leave us not forget "reform" in education.  Hide your children.

So now we have the new socialist mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio, who came in last month as a "reform" mayor.  He's for the little people.  They all are.  Apparently, though, the more things change...  From the New York Post:

A politically connected Brooklyn pastor was arrested for a pair of open warrants — but was spared a night in jail after Mayor de Blasio called an NYPD boss to inquire about his close pal .

Hours later, Bishop Orlando Findlayter was yukking it up with Hizzoner at the head table at a Bed-Stuy breakfast Tuesday with guest speaker Rev. Al Sharpton and 200 other pastors.

Findlayter — the head of Brooklyn’s New Hope Christian Church who was instrumental in delivering the black vote to de Blasio — was pulled over at 11:21 p.m. Monday in East Flatbush for making a left turn without signaling, police said.

Cops ran his license plate and discovered two outstanding warrants, issued Jan. 16, for failure to appear in court for prior arrests at protests. He was hit with the traffic violation and charged with driving without a license.

Findlayter was looking at a night behind bars because the arrests came too late for him to be arraigned.

So his clergy pals reached out to the mayor and the NYPD.

De Blasio admittedly called a top police spokeswoman, Kim Royster.

I'm sure we could all get that service.

Monday’s arrest wasn’t the bishop’s his first run-in with the court system.

Public records show he has a string of court judgments against him, was foreclosed on by a mortgage lender and also declared bankruptcy.

COMMENT:  Just your average religious leader.  This is really seedy stuff.  The guy has a record.  Mayors with a sense of propriety don't make calls for chaps like that. 

Business as usual.  Oh, the reform.

February 12, 2014       Permalink

AND MORE FROM IRAN – AT 9:14 A.M. ET:  The degree of belligerent rhetoric from Iran is truly disturbing.  It increases every day.   We are told that we must make nice with Iran, and there's now a powerful left-wing coalition in the United States that is allied with the administration in trying to prevent new congressional action that would threaten higher sanctions if no permanent nuclear deal is reached with Tehran.  But the Iranians get away with threats that are worse than anything I saw from the Soviets during the cold war.  From AFP:

In the latest in a series of warnings against the US, Iran’s chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi warned the Islamic republic’s foes that Iran is prepared for a “decisive battle” if attacked

We are ready for the decisive battle with America and the Zionist regime (Israel),” Fars news agency quoted Firouzabadi as saying Wednesday.

He also warned neighboring nations not to allow any attack to be launched on Iran from their soil.

“We do not have any hostility toward regional states, but if we are ever attacked from the American bases in the region we will strike that area back,” he said.

Washington has many military bases in the region, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said late last month that if diplomacy with Iran fails, “the military option of the United States is ready and prepared to do what it would have to do.”

But Firouzabadi accused the US of bluffing.

COMMENT:  And that is the problem.  He probably believes we are bluffing.  They have Obama's number.  He's the man who's weakened this country, pulled entirely out of Iraq without leaving a stabilization force, created a failed "reset" with Russia, pulled back from military strikes in Syria last year, refused to take action against North Korea's nuclear program, and made a horrible initial nuclear deal with Iran.  He also was brought up by Marxists and is clearly sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

If I were an Iranian general, I'd think Obama is bluffing as well.

February 12, 2014       Permalink

I'M SHOCKED, SHOCKED, AT THIS REVELATION – AT 8:58 A.M. ET:  From WaPo: 

The Obama administration acknowledged Tuesday that diplomacy, the main pillar of its Syria policy, is failing even as civil war is destroying the country, leaving open the question of what the United States will or can do to stop the slaughter.

Negotiations between the Syrian government and parts of the opposition are “far from achieving” a peaceful end to the conflict, President Obama said, and in Geneva, the United Nations envoy leading the talks said they aren’t getting anywhere.

“With each passing day, more people inside of Syria are suffering,” Obama said. “The state of Syria itself is crumbling. That is bad for Syria. It is bad for the region. It is bad for global national security, because what we know is, is that there are extremists who have moved into the vacuum in certain portions of Syria in a way that could threaten us over the long term.”

The president’s dire assessment, and an acknowledged dearth of policy options, created one of the most dismal pictures to date of Syria’s violent disintegration and the administration’s inability to affect events.

Obama ruled out direct U.S. military intervention, at least for now, but offered no new substitute to address a crisis he called heartbreaking and risky for the entire Middle East.

COMMENT:  An utterly failed foreign-policy president.  A real president would have the power, influence and clout to organize allies and pursue an effective policy.  This president really has no policy.  And he is, increasingly, seen as a lightweight.  Does anyone in foreign capitals take him seriously?

February 12,  2014     Permalink

FEBRUARY 11,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 10:08 P.M. ET:

IT'S NOT HELL THAT'S FREEZING OVER – From CNS:  "Lake Superior hasn’t completely frozen over in two decades.  But an expert on Great Lakes ice says there’s a “very high likelihood” that the three-quadrillion-gallon lake will soon be totally covered with ice thanks to this winter’s record-breaking cold.  The ice cover on the largest freshwater lake in the world hit a 20-year record of 91 percent on Feb. 5, 1994.  Jay Austin, associate professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minn., told CNSNews.com that he expects that record will be broken this winter when the most northern of the Great Lakes becomes totally shrouded in ice."  Al Gore has been placed on a suicide watch.

LATEST SENATE POLL – From The Hill:  "Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) is neck-and-neck with her main Republican challenger, Rep. Bill Cassidy (La.), in a new Democratic poll of the Louisiana Senate race.  The automated survey, from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, gives Landrieu 45 percent support to Cassidy’s 44 percent support among voters in a head-to-head matchup. That’s a significant drop for Landrieu since October, when she held a 7-point lead in the same poll."  That's going in the right direction, but the Republican is still not ahead.  When I start seeing conservative numbers above 50%, I'll start sharing in some of the pre-election applause.

WEIRD IN AMERICA – From Mediatrackers.org:  "Documents from an Ohio National Guard (ONG) training drill conducted last January reveal the details of a mock disaster where Second Amendment supporters with 'anti-government' opinions were portrayed as domestic terrorists.  The ONG 52nd Civil Support Team training scenario involved a plot from local school district employees to use biological weapons in order to advance their beliefs about 'protecting Gun Rights and Second Amendment rights.'"  I wonder if they give them any training in countering Al Qaeda.  Whoops.  I didn't mean that.  We all know that Al Qaeda is on the run.  Our glorious leader has said that.

GOOD IDEA – Boston is getting some new surveillance equipment.  From CBS:  "BOSTON (CBS) — Homeland Security in Washington DC has awarded the MBTA about $7 million to outfit buses with the latest in live video technology.  Sophisticated new 360-degree lenses embedded in the ceilings and walls of the buses will now capture everything. And on some buses, there will even be flat screens for passengers to see what is going on.  'I think it’s great, anything that makes the public feel safer,' one woman told WBZ-TV.
Another said 'the images are pretty clear. I did not think they were going to be that clear.'  There is no audio but there are also cameras on the exterior of the buses.  The system cost $6.9 million, all paid for by Homeland Security. Right now, about 10 buses are outfitted but by the summer, more than 225 will have these sophisticated cameras."  Sounds fine to me.  It could deter criminals who prey on bus passengers, but fear getting photographed in the act.  It would not deter suicide bombers, but could help identify them, allowing authorities to link them to specific groups.

February 11,  2014     Permalink

OBAMA AND THE RULE OF LAW – AT 11:05 A.M. ET:  The White House has again changed implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known unpopularly as Obamacare.  But can he legally do that?  The aspects that are changed are written directly into the law.  How can a president just change a law according to his whim?  From CNS: 

(CNSNews.com) - President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department issued a new regulation today that for the second time directly violates the plain and unambiguous text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by allowing some businesses to avoid the law’s Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to provide health insurance coverage to their employees.

Initially, on July 2, 2013, the administration unilaterally delayed the deadline for the employer mandate until 2015. Now, the administration is unilaterally delaying it for some businesses until 2016.

In its official summary of PPACA, the Congressional Research Service said: “(Sec. 1513, as modified by section 10106) imposes fines on large employers (employers with more than 50 full-time employees) who fail to offer their full-time employees the opportunity to enroll in minimum essential coverage or who have a waiting period for enrollment of more than 60 days.”

The text of the law itself describes an “applicable large employer” as follows: “The term ‘applicable large employer’ means, with respect to a calendar year, an employer who employed an average of at least 50 full-time employees on business days during the preceding calendar year.”

The final words in the section of PPACA mandating that employers with more than 50 full-time employees provide their employees with “minimum essential coverage” imposes a specific statutory deadline for doing so. It says: “EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”

Last summer, the administration unilaterally moved this hard statutory deadline back one year to 2015 for all employers with more than 50 full-time employees. Now, without any action by Congress, the administration is moving it back again for some employers—despite the plain language of the law.

COMMENT:  I've read some discussion about this.  Apparently, someone must come forward and bring suit against the government to get a court reading on the legality of what Obama is doing.  Congress itself cannot change or enforce the law because Obama will veto any Congressional action.

This is another example of an increasingly lawless administration, an imperial presidency.  And yet, there are few editorials questioning this trend, and the Democratic Party seems content with the dictatorial actions of its anointed one.

That is bad enough, but Obama has now stated openly that he intends to rule by executive action.  Where else will he break the law or violate the Constitution?  Will Americans wake up, or will the words "free benefits" hypnotize them?  The answer, sadly, is probably the latter.

February 11,  2014     Permalink

A DYING STATE? – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  New York, called the Empire State, is on the brink of economic disaster.  It joins other states that are safely Democratic, like Illinois, in being in real danger.  Right now the state is being propped up by tax revenue from Wall Street.  But New Yorkers are voting with their feet and leaving the state in record numbers.  This is what failure looks like.  From the New York Post: 

These boots were made for walking, as the song goes. Unfortunately for New York, they’re walking right out of the state, with the latest Census figures showing Florida about to overtake us as the nation’s third-most-populous state.

The Albany-based Empire Center for Public Policy crunched the numbers and found that since 2010 New York has had a net domestic­migration loss of 328,538 people.

That means more people moved out of New York than moved into it (not counting inflows from foreign immigration). Other big losers ­include Illinois, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Why does this matter? It matters because whatever politicians might say about manufacturing or high-tech or natural resources, the key driver of any growing economy is people. And when people take their skills to other states, they are effectively voting with their feet against the ­status quo.

And...

Meanwhile, states such as Florida and Texas continue to attract people. It’s not just taxes prompting migration to their shores, though certainly the lack of an income tax in either the Lone Star or Sunshine state has to be a large part of the attraction. These growing states are also creating jobs, and generally offer a lower cost of living. And as a general rule, human beings do not move away from opportunity.

That’s what makes these Census numbers so telling. New York has much to offer, any advantages, including an economy roughly the size of South Korea’s and many world class industries. But the state’s taxes, heavy-handed regulation and generally anti-business ethos are making us less and less competitive by the day.

The Empire Center’s E.J. McMahon says “a state’s domestic migration rate is the ultimate measure of policy successes or failures.”

COMMENT:  You'd think states would adopt policies that would attract people rather than drive them away.  But the power of liberal politics, welfare-state ideology, and public-service unions, usually makes that impossible.

I have not heard one major politician in New York say, "Maybe we should look at Florida and Texas."  It takes real leadership to do that.  But New York isn't Wisconsin, and Governor Crazy Andy Cuomo isn't Scott Walker.

Economic reality, and the track records of governors, may give us some powerful hints as to who to run in 2016.

February 11, 2014       Permalink

FROM POLITICAL STAR TO PARIAH? – AT 8:51 A.M. ET:   Clear evidence that Democrats fighting for their political lives are steering clear of President Obama.  From The Hill:

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) on Tuesday said she probably wouldn’t want President Obama to campaign with her if she were up for reelection this year.

Asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” if she would want Obama to campaign with her in states like Arkansas, Louisiana or North Carolina, McCaskill said "probably not."

"I’m trying to be candid and honest on this show. The president’s numbers are not strong in my state, or Arkansas or Louisiana or North Carolina,” she said.

Democratic incumbents are trying to win tough reelection races in all three states and have distanced themselves from Obama.

McCaskill described Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Kay Hagan (N.C.) as "independent voices" for their states and "strong candidates."

Suddenly they're "independent voices."  When Obama was popular they were loyal Obamans.

Hagan did not appear with Obama during a visit he made last month to her state. Her office said she did not attend because the Senate was in session.

McCaskill also touched on recent revelations surfacing about Hillary Clinton.

“First of all there is no one better equipped to handle all the nonsense that comes with a presidential campaign than Hillary Clinton. There is no resume stronger,” she said on “Morning Joe.”

Fact is, McCaskill is number one on Hillary's hate list – for having abandoned Hillary for Obama in 2008. 

COMMENT:  Obama's unpopularity, from which he is not recovering, does not guarantee Republican victory in any state.  It is up to the GOP candidates to win for themselves.  They have a good chance in Arkansas and North Carolina, but the party can actually lose currently held seats in Kentucky and Georgia.  This midterm is not in the bag in any sense.

February 11, 2014       Permalink

SHIRLEY TEMPLE DIES – AT 8:34 A.M. ET:  Shirley Temple, actually Shirley Temple Black if one includes her married name, has died.  For young people, the name might draw a blank.  But she was one of the greatest stars in movie history, and she did it as a child.  From The New York Times:

Shirley Temple Black, who as a dimpled, precocious and determined little girl in the 1930s sang and tap-danced her way to a height of Hollywood stardom and worldwide fame that no other child has reached, died on Monday night at her home in Woodside, Calif. She was 85.

Her publicist, Cheryl Kagan, confirmed her death.

Ms. Black returned to the spotlight in the 1960s in the surprising new role of diplomat, but in the popular imagination she would always be America’s darling of the Depression years, when in 23 motion pictures her sparkling personality and sunny optimism lifted spirits and made her famous. From 1935 to 1939 she was the most popular movie star in America, with Clark Gable a distant second. She received more mail than Greta Garbo and was photographed more often than President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

COMMENT:  It's hard to believe we once had a child star like that.  Today we're more used to seeing our child performers in rehab than on the screen.

Shirley Temple, later in life, became ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and was the State Department's chief of protocol.  She served with distinction.  She was also one of the first prominent women to announce that she had breast cancer, which she defeated.

Shirley Temple, along with the dancer Eleanor Powell, was instrumental in saving Hollywood in the 1930s, when the industry was under severe financial distress.  She also was, in a way, responsible for the career of Judy Garland.  MGM wanted a kid to compete with Temple in the child-star category.  Indeed, Shirley Temple was considered for the role of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz," but the part went to the up-and-coming Garland. 

Major star and diplomat – a rare combination.  She did everything well.

February 11,  2014     Permalink