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SECOND SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – 2014 – WEEK TWO

The first week of our new subscription drive went quite well.  In fact, it was one of the best first weeks of a subscription drive that we've had at Urgent Agenda.  Thank you to new subscribers and to our old reliables.  But this is just the start.  More is needed.  Please help keep Urgent Agenda running by subscribing or donating.

Last week we began our second subscription drive of 2014.  This is a critical year for Urgent Agenda – perhaps the most important midterm election year in America's recent history.  But maintaining our daily, day and night, coverage of this year is costly.  It is subscribers and donators who keep us going.

Like all political sites, we face increasing competition each week as more bloggers join the internet.  As a site in our sixth year, we face the reality that some subscribers will drop out, and some will pass.  We've had several sad moments in the last few months.  Our retention rate is still spectacularly high, but there will still be a certain amount of slippage.

Please consider subscribing or donating by going to the right-hand column of this page, under SUBSCRIPTIONS.  You can subscribe through PayPal, or use several other methods that are listed.  If you wish to use regular mail, just let me know at service@urgentagenda.com, and I'll give you a traditional brick-and-mortar address.

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JULY 6,  2014

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:45 P.M. ET: 

NEW AIRPORT SECURITY – From CBS:  "Enhanced measures that have come in the thick of the busy summer travel season mean that passengers flying to the U.S. will have to show screeners their cell phones and other electronic devices actually work.  Just days ago the Department of Homeland Security ordered stepped up security at certain airports overseas. The electronic devices of some U.S. bound passengers will now be checked...The increased scrutiny came amid concerns that terrorist groups in Syria and Yemen might try to sneak undetectable, non-metallic bombs onto U.S. bound flights."  Remember when Obama took office that he tried to relabel terrorist attacks "manmade disasters"?  Didn't last long.

PARTY EVERY NIGHT – From the Daily Caller:  "The Obamas have spent over 44 million dollars in taxpayer money on travel and vacations. Some are even calling him the 'most well-traveled, expensive' president in our nation’s history...Our president vacations a lot — we’re talking $44,351,777.12 worth of 'a lot,' with most expenses charged to the American taxpayer.  As of March 2014, Obama has spent more time traveling internationally than any other president, taking 31 trips since assuming office in 2009. The 119 days spent overseas have cost taxpayers millions of dollars."  But just look at the gains in our foreign policy!  Well, better not.

NORTH DAKOTA BOOMING – From AP:  "WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) -- Foreign investors more familiar with projects in the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and tropical escapes of Southeast Asia are finding a new destination for their dollars and francs: Western North Dakota's oil patch that's home to booming towns, low unemployment rates and high incomes.  SelectUSA, a government foreign investment initiative, said the state has drawn at least 31 publicly announced foreign investment projects since 2003 worth a total of $1.04 billion."  This will enrage the environmental religionists, who'll see it as sin.

July 6,  2014     Permalink 

SWINGS AND MISSES – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  One of the most noteworthy stories of this past year is the number of times the administration, through Eric Holder, has lost in the Supreme Court.  From John Fund and Hans Von Spakovsky in the New York Post: 

If Eric Holder were a baseball player, he’d have been benched long ago — if not kicked off the team. His batting average before the Supreme Court is abysmal, losing again and again in his efforts to undermine the Constitution.

This term featured four big strike downs.

First was Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which the Supremes tossed out ObamaCare’s contraceptive abortion mandate and upheld the First Amendment rights of several family-owned businesses to make their living in conformance with their religious beliefs.

Although the government was not party to another case, Harris v. Quinn, the Justice Department filed an amicus brief on the side of Illinois and the SEIU, arguing that unwilling home health-care workers could be forced into unions (and made to pay compulsory dues) simply because their services are paid for through Medicaid.

Fortunately, the Court ruled against Illinois’s heavy-handed attempt to help bolster its political allies, public sector unions.

On June 26, in National Labor Relations Board v. Canning, all nine Justices ruled that President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the NLRB violated the Constitution.

Not only did Obama’s own judicial appointees vote against him (including his former solicitor general), but the majority opinion was written by Stephen Breyer, a liberal stalwart of the Court.

The Administration also lost United State v. Wurie, in which the Holder Justice Department claimed that the police and federal authorities did not need a search warrant to seize all of the information stored in the cellphone of someone who had been arrested.

Once again, the administration lost all nine justices.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  It's very well reported.  Unanimous decisions?  Against the Obamans?  Who would have thought it?  It shows the level of extremism in the administration.  Even Obama's own appointees to the court are rebelling, at least sometimes.

July 6, 2014       Permalink

HILLARY – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  There is a really juicy story floating around.  Its origin is Ed Klein, whose new book on the feud between the Clintons and the Obamas is getting much attention.  I cannot confirm the accuracy of this story, but it is going viral, for understandable reasons.  From London's Daily Mail: 

President Barack Obama is said to have begun quietly backing Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as a potential successor in what would be a snub to his one-time rival and later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The president has remained publicly mum about who he would back in the 2016 race for the White House, but reportedly he has expressed concern that Ms Clinton - who has long been the unofficial frontrunner for the Democratic nomination - would undo many of his policies.

Senator Warren, a former Harvard law professor and administration aide, could energize the left wing of the Democrat Party more than the centrist Ms Clinton would, in the same way President Obama did in 2008, Edward Klein argues in the New York Post. Warren also helped set up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011.

Klein wrote that sources told him President Obama has quietly promised Senator Warren his support if she runs and has authorized his chief political adviser, Valerie Jarrett, to convince her to join the race.

Ms Jarrett has held a series of secret meetings with Senator Warren in recent weeks, arguing that she be more likely to carry on President Obama's legacy after he departs the White House.
'Barack, Michelle and Valerie have been talking about Elizabeth Warren for quite some time,' an

Obama administration source told Klein. 'Valerie has told Warren that Obama is prepared to throw a great deal of money and organizational support behind her.

'The Obamas believe that Warren sees things from the same ideological point of view as they do. She is a committed progressive who, like Obama, wants to transform America into a European-style democratic-socialist state.'

In interviews, however, Senator Warren has emphatically stated that she has no plans to run for president.

COMMENT:  Again, this is a one-source story, but it wouldn't shock me if it were true.  Obama is notorious for his disloyalty.  He sees only himself and his own interests.  And his ego is out of control.  We've written here before that he would likely not want Hillary Clinton to succeed him because she is more centrist than he is, and more capable.  She would outshine him in a second.

At the same time, I caution readers, citing the old bromide, to be careful what they wish for.  We are accredited Hillary bashers here, but Elizabeth Warren makes Hillary look like Ronald Reagan.  Hillary, with all her faults, is at least rational.  Reports from the front say that she was often a dissenter when secretary of state, arguing for a more centrist, traditional American foreign policy. 

I've always wanted each party to nominate its best candidate.  I never hope that the opposition party nominates someone who is "easily beatable."  That person may not be beaten, as Democrats, hoping for a Reagan nomination by the GOP, learned in 1980.   An "easily beatable" Elizabeth Warren, with the crazed backing of the leftist press, might just squeeze through, especially if Republicans falter in 2016 and put up a weak presidential contender.  Between Hillary and Warren I'd certainly choose Hillary to be president.  Another Obama leftist in the White House would be catastrophic.  We could probably survive Hillary.

July 6, 2014       Permalink

AND AGAIN – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  There has been another apparently Islamist-inspired attack in Kenya, where there have been some horrible attacks in the past year.  Islamists are increasingly active in that country, considered one of the most modern in Africa.  Barack Obama has a Kenyan background, through his father, but has shown, as usual, no particular interest.  From AP:

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Twenty-two people were killed in overnight attacks by gunmen in two counties on the Kenyan coast, where al-Qaida-linked militants last month claimed responsibility for killing 65 people, the Kenya Red Cross said Sunday.

The Saturday night attacks took place in the towns of Hindi in Lamu county and Gamba in Tana River, Kenya Red Cross chief Abbas Gulet said. Al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants from Somalia claimed responsibility for the attacks.

According to the Lamu county commissioner Njenga Miiri, a group of about 15 gunmen raided the Malamandi village of Hindi and started shooting at residents. The gunmen also attacked Gamba police station, Kenya's police chief David Kimaiyo said.

COMMENT:  Africa has become a major battleground in the war on terror.  American and British authorities fear that some residents of our two countries, especially from Somalia, are returning to become jihadists in their native lands, with the idea of bringing their terrorist skills back to the West.  The prospect is frightening.

July 6,  2014     Permalink

JULY 5,  2014

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

GREAT EDUCATORS AT WORK – Clowns like this are teaching our children.  From College Fix:  "Did you know that fireworks are actually a 'propaganda campaign that inures us—especially the children among us—to the real wars half a world away'?  That’s according to Bill Bigelow of Rethinking Schools magazine and the Zinn Education Project, who calls fireworks 'pretend war':  'Apart from the noise pollution, air pollution, and flying debris pollution, there is something profoundly inappropriate about blowing off fireworks at a time when the United States is waging war with real fireworks around the world.'"  That is on the intellectual level of a 12-year-old. 

THE PRESIDENT'S HOME CITY – From DNAInfo.com:  "CHICAGO — At least 20 people have been wounded in shootings across the city since the evening of Fourth of July.  The shootings include an incident in which police shot and killed a suspected gang member in Portage Park and an incident in West Englewood in which suburban teenagers riding in a car may have been mistaken as gang members.  Additionally, there was a Mayfair shooting in which a bullet fell on a man's head during what may have been a July 4th celebration."  Note the deep concern by the president of all the people.  He's about as interested in this as he is in American foreign policy. 

THIS JUST IN – VOTER FRAUD EXISTS – From NewsBusters:  "Voter fraud is so rare 'you’re more likely to get hit by lightning than find a case of prosecutorial voter fraud,' according to Judith Browne-Dianis, co-director of the liberal Advancement Project.  Apparently lightning has struck very hard in a local primary election according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune whose only real reference to voter fraud in the past two years was to reprint a St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial mocking the possibility of its existence as 'GOP voter suppression efforts.' What has made the Star Tribune suddenly discover the (GASP!) existence of voter fraud is that it was allegedly perpetrated by one Democrat candidate against another Democrat in a primary:  'The Hennepin County attorney’s office is investigating whether a private mailbox center in Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been improperly used as an address for more than 140 voters.  State records show that 419 Cedar Avenue S. has been used by some of the voters as far back as 2008.  No one lives at the address.'"  I cannot believe things like that go on in fine, liberal, Democratic areas.  This is McCarthyism.

July 5, 2014       Permalink 

MADNESS – AT 11:14 A.M. ET:  Do you remember the abducted Nigerian girls?  Remember how "world leaders" held up little signs saying "Bring back our girls"?  That was only weeks ago, and yet the trendies have already moved on – a phrase they love – to other pressing matters.  The girls are forgotten.  After all, who wants to hold a cocktail party in Manhattan or Beverly Hills for Nigerian girls? 

And what is going on in Nigeria is frightening, a warning to us of spreading Islamist influence in Africa.  From CNN: 

(CNN) -- Authorities have arrested three women who have been secretly recruiting members for the female wing of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, Nigeria's Defense Ministry said Friday.

"The arrested trio suspects were luring ladies, especially widows and young girls, by enticing them with male suitors who are mainly members of their terror group, for marriage," said Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, director of defense information.

"Before their arrest, they were on a mission to take additional briefings from the leadership of the terror group," said Nwachukwu.

The suspects, identified as Hafsat Usman Bako, Zainab Idris and Aisha Abubakar, were arrested while traveling to the town of Madagali.

Officials say one of the women, Hafsat Bako, was married to a member of the terrorist group who was killed by the military. "Hafsat continued with the terror group, specializing in surreptitious recruitment of members into their fold," said the ministry.

The arrests were made after a recent suicide bombing attempt on a military facility in the state of Gombe, carried out by a female suspect who blew herself up.

Boko Haram has been terrorizing Nigeria's Borno state in recent years and thousands have fled the violence. In April, the terrorist group abducted more than 200 schoolgirls in Chibok. The girls are still missing. 

COMMENT:  In country after country, radical Islam is on the march.  Nigeria.  Syria.  Iraq.  Libya.  Yemen.  Our influence is crumbling, yet the president seems largely unconcerned. 

And nuclear negotiations with Iran are faltering badly.  More on that tonight or tomorrow.

July 5, 2014       Permalink

THE STRANGENESS OF OBAMA – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  Peggy Noonan, once President Reagan's speechwriter and yet a supporter of Obama when he ran for president, clearly has regrets.  She's gotten increasingly sharper in her criticism of Obama, and is dead on in this, from The Wall Street Journal:   

I don't know if we sufficiently understand how weird and strange, how historically unparalleled, this presidency has become. We've got a sitting president who was just judged in a major poll to be the worst since World War II. The worst president in 70 years! Quinnipiac University's respondents also said, by 54% to 44%, that the Obama administration is not competent to run the government. A Zogby Analytics survey asked if respondents are proud or ashamed of the president. Those under 50 were proud, while those over 50, who have of course the longest experienced sense of American history, were ashamed.

We all know the reasons behind the numbers. The scandals that suggest poor stewardship and, in the case of the IRS, destructive political mischief. The president's signature legislation, which popularly bears his name and contains within it the heart of his political meaning, continues to wreak havoc in marketplaces and to be unpopular with the public. He is incapable of working with Congress, the worst at this crucial aspect of the job since Jimmy Carter, though Mr. Carter at least could work with the Mideast and produced the Camp David Accords. Mr. Obama has no regard for Republicans and doesn't like to be with Democrats. Internationally, small states that have traditionally been the locus of trouble (the Mideast) are producing more of it, while large states that have been more stable in their actions (Russia, China) are newly, starkly aggressive.

That's a long way of saying nothing's working.

Which I'm sure you've noticed.

And...

It is weird to have a president who has given up. So many young journalists diligently covering this White House, especially those for whom it is their first, think what they're seeing is normal.

It is not. It is unprecedented and deeply strange. And, because the world is watching and calculating, unbelievably dangerous.

COMMENT:  Read the whole piece.  It's terrific.  And Noonan's last point is especially important – journalists believe this is normal, and it really is not.  They think it because they were poorly educated in elite schools and because they're members of a profession that worshipped Obama when he ran. 

Obama was worshipped by journalists because they'd been taught that race, gender, and ethnicity were the main ingredients in life and history.  It's a very distorted view.

July 5, 2014       Permalink

GOOD INDEPENDENCE DAY NEWS – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  Not because of, but in spite of, the Obama administration, the United States is roaring ahead in energy production.  This is a glowing spot in our otherwise so-so economy.  From Bloomberg:

The U.S. will remain the world’s biggest oil producer this year after overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia as extraction of energy from shale rock spurs the nation’s economic recovery, Bank of America Corp. said.

U.S. production of crude oil, along with liquids separated from natural gas, surpassed all other countries this year with daily output exceeding 11 million barrels in the first quarter, the bank said in a report today. The country became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2010. The International Energy Agency said in June that the U.S. was the biggest producer of oil and natural gas liquids.

“The U.S. increase in supply is a very meaningful chunk of oil,” Francisco Blanch, the bank’s head of commodities research, said by phone from New York. “The shale boom is playing a key role in the U.S. recovery. If the U.S. didn’t have this energy supply, prices at the pump would be completely unaffordable.”

Oil extraction is soaring at shale formations in Texas and North Dakota as companies split rocks using high-pressure liquid, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The surge in supply combined with restrictions on exporting crude is curbing the price of West Texas Intermediate, America’s oil benchmark. The U.S., the world’s largest oil consumer, still imported an average of 7.5 million barrels a day of crude in April, according to the Department of Energy’s statistical arm.

COMMENT:  This is driving the environmental religionists crazy.  They seek higher gasoline prices so Americans will drive less, even though they don't have anything to replace gasoline.  Hey, who cares about those middle-class suckers who have to drive to work?

We are moving toward energy independence, and can reach it as early as six years from now...assuming Washington doesn't interfere.  But Washington will interfere.  Republicans, combined with the few remaining moderate Democrats, can counter the interference, if the will is there.

July 5,  2014     Permalink