Please note that you can leave a comment on any of our posts at our Facebook page.  Subscribers can also comment at length at our Angel's Corner Forum.

FIRST SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2015

(UPDATE – Results from our first week were reasonable, but below our hopes. We need a boost.  We welcome our new subscribers and once again thank our regular contributors.)

Today we complete the initial week of our first subscription drive of the year.   People subscribe or donate to Urgent Agenda for two reasons – first, and most important, to support our work, and, second, to receive The Angel's Corner, our most popular feature.  The Angel's Corner is our e-mailed page sent twice a week only to subscribers and donators.   It contains the Forum, where you can write at any reasonable length on any subject you wish.  Readers eagerly await the Forum to see what their Urgent Agenda colleagues are saying, and they say a great deal.

These are critical times, and we will soon enter one of the most important presidential election campaigns in the last hundred years.  Urgent Agenda will be there seven days a week...but only with your help!

To subscribe, to support our work and receive The Angel's Corner, simply go to SUBSCRIPTIONS, in the right-hand column of our site, right opposite these words.  You can subscribe or donate through PayPal, which most readers do.  But we offer other subscription methods.  If you don't like any of them, send us an e-mail at service@urgentagenda.com, and we'll give you a standard mailing address.

Current subscribers or donators can enhance their participation, which is doubly appreciated.

Urgent Agenda just celebrated its seventh anniversary.  We retain a self-selected group of informed and involved readers, subscribers, and donators.  We invite you to participate fully by subscribing or donating now.

MARCH 15,  2015

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

ARRESTED – From Fox:  "CLAYTON, MO (KTVI)- St. Louis County Police have confirmed that the suspected shooter of two police officers early Thursday morning outside of the Ferguson police department is in custody. Jeffrey Williams, 20, of north St. Louis County, has been charged with two counts of first-degree assault, firing a weapon from a vehicle, and two counts of armed criminal action. He is in custody with cash-only bail set at $300,000.  The two officers were shot just after midnight, as many protestors were headed home following a night of protests after the resignation of the city’s police chief. The two were standing with other officers in front of the police department on South Florissant Road working crowd control when shots were heard. It is believed that they were fired from behind the protestors."  We are prepared to hear CNN describe Mr. Williams as a "gentle giant," a "picture of compassion," and someone who dearly loves his mother.

REALITY SHOW – From AP:  "NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The arrest of Robert Durst, a wealthy eccentric linked to two killings and his wife's disappearance, came on Sunday just before the finale in an HBO show about his life in which he said he 'killed them all.'  Durst was arrested on a murder warrant just before Sunday evening's finale of an HBO serial documentary about his links to three sensational killings.  In the finale, Durst was asked about similarities in handwriting in a letter he wrote and another linked to one of the killings. Later, filmmakers said Durst wore his microphone into the bathroom.  What followed was a bizarre rambling in which Durst said, apparently to himself, 'There it is. You're caught' and 'What the hell did I do? Killed them all of course.'"  There have been a number of TV programs about Durst, some shown on Investigation Discovery.  In this case the filmmakers caught the guy confessing into an open mike.  Maybe justice will finally be done. 

HILLARY IN DEEPER – From ABC News:  "House Speaker John Boehner is expected to announce this week a new investigation into Hillary Clinton's email practices as Secretary of State, including her admission that more than 31,000 emails were destroyed because she determined them to be personal, top House Republicans told ABC News today.  During a news conference last week, Clinton did not go into the details of how the review of her email was conducted, but said it was 'thorough' and that she went 'above and beyond' what she was required to do in turning over many of her emails to the State Department."  The probes will apparently be conducted during the very period in which Hillary will announce her candidacy.  Not a great way to start a campaign.  Somewhere, Obama is smiling.

March 15, 2015       Permalink

CARLY?  – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:  One of the people who gets very little press in the presidential race is former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, who's running for the Republican nomination.  She's the only woman on our side in the race.  She's given little chance of winning, but may make an attractive vice-presidential choice.  She also has plenty to say, and says it very well.  From National Journal: 

Hundreds of conservative and evangelical activists had been listening politely and applauding on cue as Carly Fiorina talked about God, and opportunity, and work ethic. For many of those attending the Iowa Freedom Summit, it was the first time they'd heard her speak. For some, it was the first time they'd heard of her at all.

Then, more than 10 minutes into the speech, she mentioned Hillary Clinton.

"Like Hillary Clinton, I too have traveled hundreds of thousands of miles around the globe," said Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett Packard. "But unlike her, I've actually accomplished something. You see, Mrs. Clinton, flying is not an accomplishment; it is an activity."

The audience roared and was suddenly engaged, hanging on her words as she criticized Clinton on one issue after another. And when she landed on Benghazi—"Unlike Hillary Clinton, I know what difference it makes that our American ambassador and three other brave Americans were killed in a deliberate terrorist attack"—the crowd surged to its feet with a standing ovation.

"That's the first time I've ever seen her in person, and, frankly, I was moved by the speech. That takes a lot," says Sam Clovis, a former conservative radio host and tea-party favorite in Iowa. "It was the perfect speech on the perfect topic at the perfect place at the perfect time given in the perfect manner."

Fiorina, the only Republican woman actively considering a run for the White House, is taking on Clinton more forcefully and directly than any other GOP contender.

And...

It's not that Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, or other candidates are stepping lightly. Just last month, Clinton's name rang through the Conservative Political Action Conference dozens of times, as Republicans quipped about foreign donations to Clinton's foundation, tacked her name onto criticism of President Obama's policies, or, as Marco Rubio did, called her a candidate of "yesterday."

But Fiorina's offensive is in a class of its own, and for one reason: She's a woman, so she can.

COMMENT:  An interesting candidate, and she's from the business world, and that's both a plus and a problem.  Carly is refreshing, not the usual warmed-over politician.  She speaks sense and she speaks from experience.  But the bottom line is that her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard was tumultuous.  She got poor grades from other executives and the business press, and was eventually forced out.  The very business experience she can point to is her Achilles Heel.   She also ran for the Senate in California, against Barbara Boxer, and lost. 

We'll follow her.  It's a tough climb, but she adds diversity and good ideas to the race.

March 15, 2015       Permalink

SAVED BY FRANCE? – AT 11:03 A.M. ET:  One of the most fascinating aspects of the Iran nuclear negotiations is the role played by France.  Americans often criticize the French for being difficult, but now we should be praising Paris.  The French are holding out for the kind of agreement with Iran that makes sense to a mature adult.  Obama seems to want a piece of paper.  From AFP: 

PARIS, France (AFP) — As the drive to reach an accord with Iran on its nuclear program heads towards a March 31 deadline, France is digging into its role as chief hawk — a position inclined to annoy US allies, but not likely to scuttle an eventual accord, diplomats say.

The French hard-line among its US, British, Chinese, Russian and German partners to hammer out a nuclear agreement with Tehran is rooted in ideological, historical, and even personal concerns that tend to stiffen as Paris recognizes Washington’s increasing pragmatism in seeking to conclude a deal swiftly.

“France has taken the opposite path to that of the United States, which changed strategies with the arrival of Barack Obama,” said Bernard Hourcade, an Iran specialist at the National Centre of Scientific Research, who says France’s current Socialist-led government adopted and defends the wary, intransigent stance towards Iran set down by previous conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy.

“Paris has clearly made the choice of going with Gulf oil monarchies and with a conservative stability” in the region, and frontally opposing Iranian interests and influences that Paris blames for violence and turmoil in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, Hourcade said.

COMMENT:  On this the French are the realists, along with the Israelis and a number of Arab countries. 

It is crunch time in the talks with Iran.  Congress accepts the date of March 24th as the deadline to achieve a general agreement.  John Kerry is now hedging on whether an agreement will be reached by that date.  If it isn't, what will happen?  If it is, what will happen?  Republicans in Congress have said they will move forward with legislation that will give Congress an active role in evaluating any agreement reached with Iran, legislation that Obama has said he will veto.  Another idea being floated is that any agreement will be taken to the UN first for ratification, with Congress left out.

One of the most serious governmental clashes in modern American history may be coming.  The next few months will be critical. 

March 15, 2015       Permalink

CLINTON AND SCANDAL, TOGETHER AGAIN! – AT 10:52 A.M. ET:  We don't quote Maureen Dowd of The New York Times often here, but when she hits a home run, it's out of the park.  Her weekend column on Queen Hillary is a gem:

WASHINGTON — SINCE open letters to secretive and duplicitous regimes are in fashion, we would like to post an Open Letter to the Leaders of the Clinton Republic of Chappaqua:

It has come to our attention while observing your machinations during your attempted restoration that you may not fully understand our constitutional system. Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our democracy: The importance of preserving historical records and the ill-advised gluttony of an American feminist icon wallowing in regressive Middle Eastern states’ payola.

You should seriously consider these characteristics of our nation as the Campaign-That-Must-Not-Be-Named progresses.

If you, Hillary Rodham Clinton, are willing to cite your mother’s funeral to get sympathy for ill-advisedly deleting 30,000 emails, it just makes us want to sigh: O.K., just take it. If you want it that bad, go ahead and be president and leave us in peace. (Or war, if you have your hawkish way.) You’re still idling on the runway, but we’re already jet-lagged. It’s all so drearily familiar that I know we’re only moments away from James Carville writing a column in David Brock’s Media Matters, headlined, “In Private, Hillary’s Really a Hoot.”

When you grin and call out to your supporters, like at the Emily’s List anniversary gala, “Don’t you someday want to see a woman president of the United States of America?” the answer is: Yes, it would be thrilling.

But therein lies the rub.

What is the trade-off that will be exacted by the Chappaqua Republic for that yearned-for moment?

COMMENT:  Read the whole thing.  Maureen hits the bulls-eye.

March 15,  2015     Permalink

MARCH 14,  2015

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:58 P.M. ET:

CONGRATULATIONS TO SARAH – From London's Daily Mail:  "Bristol Palin has announced she is engaged to her Medal of Honor recipient boyfriend Dakota Meyer.  The 24-year-old daughter of the former Alaska governor and failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin shared the news on her Instagram page on Saturday.  Alongside an image of her kissing the 26-year-old former marine, who received the Medal of Honor, she wrote: 'Truly the luckiest girl in the world, cannot wait to marry this man!!!!'"  Good luck to all.

UNDER THE BUS – From the Chicago Sun-Times:  "New York is where they’d rather be.  So let’s cut to the chase.  Sneed is told by impeccable sources that President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, want to live in New York when they leave the White House.  'They want New York, plain and simple,' said a top Sneed source who asked to remain anonymous — but has a relationship with the Obamas.  'It’s not an unusual decision,' added the source. 'The Clintons moved to New York after Bill Clinton left the presidency. It’s a happening place.'  'They love the vibe in New York and don’t plan to have their main residence in Chicago,' a second source said."  Obama has thrown plenty of people under the bus.  Now he's apparently throwing a whole city under the bus. 

WALKER CHARGES AHEAD – Hard-charging presidential contender Scott Walker is relentless, a quality that makes him one of the favorites for the GOP presidential nomination.  He's in New Hampshire now.  From WKOW, Madison, Wisconsin:  "CONCORD, NH (WKOW) -- Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) got a lot of applause and ultimately a standing ovation at a New Hampshire Republican Party training event Saturday morning, but most in attendance said they wouldn't make up their mind on who to vote for in the 2016 GOP primary for a long time.  Gov. Walker also indicated this will be the first of many visits to the Granite State this year, both by him and apparently his sons Matt and Alex. The two are college students at UW-Madison and Marquette University respectively.  'They've twisted our arms to maybe take part of a semester off next year, next fall and come to New Hampshire and come around the country and talk to young people themselves,' said Gov. Walker."  Walker has made some gaffes recently, but he's a very fast learner, and has a habit of winning elections.  Everything at this point is sheer speculation, but I'm guessing that it will eventually come down to Walker or Rubio.

March 14, 2015       Permalink

HATING COPS – AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  One of the best writers on our side writing today is Heather MacDonald, who's associated with the conservative Manhattan Institute.  She is a superb researcher, who backs her opinions with solid facts.  She's now taken on the ugly cop-bashing going on in America today, with the support of the Obama administration.  We have seen two officers murdered in New York, and two more wounded this week in Ferguson, Missouri.  MacDonald confronts the haters.  From the New York Post: 

Government-fueled cop hatred has claimed more victims. Two St. Louis-area police officers were shot Wednesday night during a protest outside the Ferguson, Mo., police department, one in the face, the other in the shoulder.

Both are expected to survive, unlike the two New York City police officers assassinated in December.

Such violence is the sadly predictable outcome of the lies about the police that government officials and the media have stoked for the last year.

US Attorney General Eric Holder has done all he can to keep tensions at a boiling point in Ferguson.

This, though his own Justice Department demolished the hoax that a pacific Michael Brown was killed in cold blood by Police Officer Darren Wilson in August.

The Justice report on the Brown shooting, released last week, demolished every myth around the shooting.

It confirmed virtually everything Office Wilson had testified to, including that Brown had attacked Wilson, tried to grab his gun, then charged at Wilson after the officer exited his car.

Read the entire column.  It's well worth it, as is anything by Heather MacDonald.  She concludes:

By now, the media and politicians are on ample notice that their crusade against law enforcement carries deadly risks. There’s no more excuse for inflaming hatred against the police, especially when the allegations used to inflame that hatred are proven untruths.

Officers put their lives on the line every day to protect law-abiding members of poor communities. Increasingly, those officers are at risk not just from thugs but from the rhetoric emanating from the highest reaches of government.

COMMENT:  Well said.  No one is defending bad cops, and there are bad cops.  But the smears of the last months are well beyond reason, and they have put all cops at risk.  While the president and his outgoing attorney general issue the usual "there is no excuse for violence" statements after every incident, their own rhetoric fuels the violence.  Holder has, remarkably, called for a lower standard of proof in civil-rights cases, the better to get the results he wants, even if those results are not justified by the facts. 

March 14, 2015       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:54 A.M. ET:  The Republican establishment is wringing its hands.  It's always wringing its hands when some Republican gets an idea.  An idea?  Why the nerve.  How will this play at the country club?

We forget that the GOP establishment, in between treatments for hardening of the arteries, was panicked over the possible nomination of Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Establishment lords were do distraught that they tried to insert Gerald Ford onto the ticket as Reagan's vice president, to make sure that Reagan never did anything. 

Now the establishment whines again.  It seems that some Republicans are actually taking action.  They are actually bringing the fight to Barack Obama and his media cronies.  They are...they are...upsetting things.  But I'm glad to see some gutsy Republicans come alive.  Bill Kristol, at Weekly Standard, has it right: 

If you’re an establishment Republican, ripples of doubt are intruding on your normal placid contentment.

A special House committee to investigate Benghazi? Gee, is the public still interested in that? Isn’t it time to move on? And isn’t the chairman, Trey Gowdy, close to .  .  . shudder .  .  . the Tea Party?

An invitation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress? Isn’t he kind of a polarizing figure? Couldn’t he lose his own election next week? Then how will we look? And wasn’t the protocol of the invite sort of mismanaged?

An open letter to the leaders of Iran on the nuclear deal? Isn’t that a touch unseemly? A tad presumptuous? A distraction from the serious debate we’re carefully teeing up for a few weeks or months from now? And look at all those attacks on Tom Cotton! Why didn’t they listen to the cooler conservative heads and grayer Republican beards whose advice has been so helpful in the past?

If brow-furrowing were thinking, the Republican establishment would be geniuses. If hand-wringing were prudence, GOP politicians would be exemplars of Aristotelian virtue. If tongue-clucking were eloquence, conservative elites would be orators for the ages.

But of course Trey Gowdy, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Tom Cotton have done more for conservative principles and Republican prospects in the last few weeks than the brow-furrowers, hand-wringers, and tongue-cluckers have done in years.

COMMENT:  It isn't that all the Republican moves are perfectly executed.  There has been some awkwardness.  But Republican actions have brought the debate over our disgraceful Iran policies front and center.  The public is engaged. 

And it is engaged on Hillary Clinton, finally, perhaps, understanding that Benghazi was the proverbial tip of the iceberg, and needs to be explored. 

Democratic response to Republican action has been predictable:  Who are these people who dare to question the wisdom of Barack?  They're us.

March 14,  2015     Permalink

RUBIO RISING? – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  There has been a marked rise in support for Marco Rubio within the ranks of active Republicans.  He may be the flavor of the month, of course.  (Last month it was Scott Walker), but Rubio's rise could be very real. 

He is an extremely effective public speaker, knowledgeable, and relentless.  He is also Hispanic, a Cuban-American, and this a plus with today's electorate.  From Eliana Johnson, a rising voice in conservative journalism, at National Review: 

Everybody’s talking about Rubio.”

So says a top Republican operative who’s been in touch with nearly every potential presidential campaign, as well as with several top donors.

Jeb Bush’s announcement in December launched both a fundraising juggernaut and an aggressive hiring spree, and Scott Walker’s speech in Iowa the following month lifted Walker to the top of national polls. But a little more than a month later, says the operative, “The Jeb boom is over and people are having second thoughts about Walker.”

The beneficiary in terms of buzz is Marco Rubio, who now has many of the party’s top donors looking at him in a way they weren’t even a month ago. Though Rubio hasn’t made as much noise as his competitors as the 2016 campaign has gotten underway in earnest, his knowledgeable presentations and obvious political talent are nonetheless turning heads or, at least, enough of them. Rubio hasn’t made a big splash, neither building a “shock and awe” campaign like Bush nor delivering a marquee speech like Walker (who afterward seemed almost to be caught off guard by his rapid ascent). Instead, Rubio appears to be gambling on the idea that, in what is sure to be a long primary with a crowded field, a slow-and-steady approach will prevail.

COMMENT:  I agree with that.  I'm a Scott Walker fan, strongly so, but Scott has a bit of a Rick Perry/Sarah Palin problem – not really up on the national issues.  He's a quick learner, though, with a fine record, and I think he can recover some of the loss of momentum he's suffered because of unforced errors – gaffes – when the spotlight turned to him.

But Rubio is polished.  He knows his issues thoroughly.  We'll sense if he's being taken seriously very soon.  Watch for negative articles about him in The New York Times.  If The Times starts to dig up things on Rubio, the way it did when Walker made some noise, we'll know Marco is rising.

I've always liked Rubio, in part because I think he's electable.  He's a candidate of the future, a young, dynamic child of immigrants.  Contrast please with Hillary Clinton, a voice, and a face, from the past.

Rubio's youth will, of course, be used against him.  So was Jack Kennedy's.  In the end, Kennedy overcame it with a dynamic campaign.  Rubio can do the same.

March 14, 2015       Permalink