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We are traveling in the Southland, on a traditional family trip, back early next week.  Urgent Agenda will continue to publish normally during this time, as we have mobile equipment that connects wirelessly to the internet.  If you suddenly see that we've stopped updating for a day, it means we've suffered a catastrophic technical failure and will be back online when we return, but that is highly unlikely.  We use good stuff.

DECEMBER 4,  2010

TAXES, THE WHOLE ROTTEN STORY – AT 11:53 P.M.   Sorry for the late posting.  We're in central Virginia, and it is snowing.  I am being blamed for the snow by local liberals.  They're comparing me to Christopher Columbus, who brought disease with him to the New World.  I have accepted blame for bringing the snow, and have attributed it to global cooling. 

President Obama's tax plan went down to defeat in the Senate.  As of now, the Bush tax cuts will expire on December 31st.  That is simply unacceptable.  Mr. Obama wanted to extend middle-class cuts but let cuts for the well-to-do expire.  Republicans want all the cuts extended, and their view prevailed, with the help of some moderate Democrats.

The problem for Republicans here is appearances.  No matter how our side spins it, it's going to look like the GOP is once more favoring the rich.  Mr. Obama's position here is the more popular one.  The GOP, following its smashing victory, is in a tough spot and must come up with a creative proposal that will avoid a December 31st tax hike for Americans.  One idea floating around is to extend all tax cuts, but for only a limited period, like two years.  Sounds reasonable to me.  It kicks the can down the road, with the ultimate decision to be determined by the outcome of the 2012 election.

The new, far more Republican Congress, comes in during January.  It would be a politcal setback if it came in with the party blamed, rightly or wrongly, for a tax hike.

December 4, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – THIS MAN IS NUTS – at 11:57 A.M. ET:  Michael Lerner is one of those sixties radicals who never changed, and who believes the national anthem of the United States should be "I Won't Grow Up," from "Peter Pan."

Now Lerner, who calls himself "Rabbi Lerner," having been ordained in one of those storefront seminaries of the kind that made Al Sharpton a "reverend," has some sixties-style advice for the president.  We reprint it to show what happens to a person who loses touch with reality.  From WaPo:

...there is a real way to save the Obama presidency: by challenging him in the 2012 presidential primaries with a candidate who would unequivocally commit to a well-defined progressive agenda and contrast it with the Obama administration's policies. Such a candidacy would be pooh-poohed by the media, but if it gathered enough popular support - as is likely given the level of alienation among many who were the backbone of Obama's 2008 success - this campaign would pressure Obama toward much more progressive positions and make him a more viable 2012 candidate. Far from weakening his chances for reelection, this kind of progressive primary challenge could save Obama if he moves in the desired direction. And if he holds firm to his current track, he's a goner anyway.

COMMENT:  Read the whole column.  Our readers are entitled to a good weekend laugh.

December 4, 2010      Permalink

ANOTHER FREE PASS FOR OBAMA – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  We've said before, we say again, that some of the British columnists have provided the sharpest commentary on the Obama administration.  It was some of these same Brits who first identified flaws in this administration that our our mainstream media ignored.

And the mainstream media is in the "ignoring" mode again.  Nile Gardiner notes it in London's Telegraph:

...the WikiLeaks scandal to date has not resulted in demonstrable consequences for the Obama presidency or for the president himself. This despite the fact the Obama administration appears to have done little to halt the latest leak, even though this is the third unlawful disclosure of government documents this year.
The Obama team has been spectacularly caught napping by America’s enemies like a deer in the headlights. As Marc Thiessen noted in a superb piece earlier this week:

Because of its failure to act, responsibility for the damage done by these most recent disclosures now rests with the Obama administration. Perhaps this latest release crosses a line that will finally spur the administration to action.

And...

There will certainly be Congressional hearings into the leaks, and the US administration’s handling of it, with both the House and Senate seeking answers to a massive security breach. Should these hearings produce clear evidence the Obama administration was culpably negligent, the administration will then no longer enjoy the benefit of the doubt, and will suffer the political consequences it is due.

No such benefit of the doubt would have been accorded to the previous president of the United States, however. Imagine what the response would have been if George W. Bush was president and not Barack Obama? The Left would have been up in arms with pitchforks at the ready, demanding the resignation of his Secretary of State and key intelligence officials, and all but putting the administration on trial.

You can, if you close your eyes, almost hear those voices:  Couric, Olbermann, Matthews, and the ever-boring Christiane Amanpour. 

President Obama, on the other hand, has been given a free pass so far, and has not even felt the need to comment personally on this latest scandal, which happened directly on his watch. Is there a blatant double standard which the Left, and the overwhelmingly liberal “mainstream” media, applies in the United States? Absolutely. And the WikiLeaks fiasco just further confirms it.

COMMENT:  Nile is right, as he usually is.  Despite all the failures of this administration, the double standard still exists, and will be reinforced in time for the 2012 election.  The mainstream media reflects the last gasp of the sixties generation, and will not give up its illusions easily.

I suspect that there are a number of thoughtful people in the media who are troubled by the leaks, and the way The New York Times has exploited them.  But there is fear in media, as in any other business.  There is careerism.  There is a "go along" mentality, the better to assure one's future. 

My dean at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, Edward W. Barrett, once recommended that journalists try to establish a "go to hell" fund, so they could resign in protest if they saw something they couldn't accept.  It's a good idea.  But don't look for too many resignations in protest, even among those who might have such a fund.  Life in some institutions is just too cushy to allow for much dissent.

December 4, 2010       Permalink

GOP GAINING, BUT LOOK AT THE NUMBERS WITH CAUTION – AT 11:06 A.M. ET:  Scott Rasmussen reports on dramatic Republican gains in voter party identification, but adds a note of caution:

In November, 36.0% of American Adults identified themselves as Republicans; 34.7% considered themselves Democrats, and 29.3% were not affiliated with either major party. That’s the largest number of Republicans since February 2005 and the first time ever that Rasmussen Reports polling has found more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats. Permalink...

...In each of the recent election cycles, the victorious party has gained in net partisan identification over the course of the election year.

It is worth noting, however, that the gains are often short-lived. Following Election 2004, the Republican partisan decline began in February 2005. In 2006, the Democratic edge began to decline as soon as they actually took control of Congress in January. Following President Obama’s victory in November 2008, the Democrat’s advantage in partisan identification peaked in December before declining.

Another point worth noting is that the GOP has the edge today partly because the number of Democrats is barely above the lowest level ever recorded in eight years of monthly tracking by Rasmussen Reports. This supports the conclusion that Election 2010 was less a victory for the Republicans than a defeat for the Democrats.

COMMENT:  In other words, Republicans should take only a brief bow, then get to work.  The party must build a positive image, and come up with proposals that excite the American people.  It must think of itself as a governing party, not just an opposition party.  And it must resist the temptation toward ideological rigidity. 

Can the GOP do it?  Can it build enough of a base to win the 2012 presidential election and end the age of Obama before more damage is done?  Replies:  It will be difficult, especially with a hostile press.  But this last election showed, as Ronald Reagan's election in 1980 showed, that a party, or a candidate, can speak above the press to the American people.  And, despite all the ridicule of our citizens that you hear from the self-appointed intellectual elites, they do listen and they do understand.

December 4, 2010     Permalink

DECEMBER 3,  2010

THE SILENT ISSUE – AT 9:57 P.M. ET:  We're traveling, and I commented just yesterday that this could be a major silent issue in the 2012 presidential campaign.  From Fox:

With oil prices climbing near highs for the year above $88 a barrel Friday, energy analysts predicted that oil could rise to $120 a barrel before the end of 2012, adding more fuel to the debate over offshore drilling.
It's hard to say exactly what that would mean for motorists buying gasoline since the price of gas depends upon a number of different variables, including the region, retail prices and local and state taxes, AAA told FoxNews.com.

But the current national average price of gas is $2.90 as of Thursday, according to AAA's website. And in July 2008, when oil prices was above $145 a barrel, the national average price of gas was $4.11.

The rise in oil comes on the same week that the Obama administration announced it will not allow offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico or off the Atlantic coast for at least seven more years because of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in April that killed 11 workers and unleashed about 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf.

That decision was cheered by environmental interests and Democratic lawmakers along both coasts but slammed by Republicans and the oil and gas industry who say the move will kill jobs and make America even more dependent on foreign oil.

COMMENT:  The unemployment rate, we learned today, has risen to 9.8 percent.  If it does not decline, and the price of gasoline soars, our economic mess will be even greater, and it's hard to see how Obama can explain it away.  With his reckless ban on offshore drilling, Obama must take responsibility for at least part of the rise in oil prices. 

No one wants environmental damage.  But the recent Gulf spill "disaster" turned out to be not quite the catastrophe that some alarmists apparently wished for.  That is not to minimize it, or the responsibility of those involved.  But to use that case as a reason for the massive moratorium on offshore drilling seems grossly absurd, and a cave in to Chicken Little and his army of pessimists. 

If we're at 10 percent unemployment and $4.25 a gallon in 2012, Mr. Obama will be joining Jimmah Carter as a pensioner, and will probably do as much mischief as the peanut guy from Plains.

December 3, 2010       Permalink

THE WIKI THING IS WACKY – AT 4:25 A.M. ET:  We've wondered here at Urgent Agenda how the WikiLeaks leaks actually happened.  Apparently, many others are wondering as well, and they're not getting satisfactory answers.  From the Washington Times:

The State Department and other U.S. agencies are not fully cooperating with lawmakers' efforts to probe the WikiLeaks security breach, according to the Republican likely to be the next chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Rep. Mike Rogers, Michigan Republican and a senior member of the intelligence committee, said government officials seem "more concerned about their department's reputation than the consequences [of the leak], and that is a big problem."

And it always has been, and always will be.

"They've been obstructionist up to this point," Mr. Rogers told The Washington Times. "They need an attitude adjustment."

He joins a growing chorus of Democrats and Republicans who are finding fault with the government's post-Sept. 11 information-sharing system, which aims to push intelligence reporting toward the front lines of the war on terrorism.

"Clearly, the rush to share everything with everyone has gone too far," Mr. Rogers said. "Clearly, there'll be changes."

When I was in intelligence work, decades ago, we employed the "need to know" principle. You were only given information that you absolutely needed to know to do your job.  Now we find out, via this Washington Times story, that "a half-million people have access to the network that was reportedly compromised - a classified Pentagon computer system called SIPRNet."

No wonder our secret documents are all over the world, and on every significant desk.

Look, we want maximum intelligence sharing to be sure we don't have another disaster like 9-11.  We learned after that tragedy that different agencies had bits of information about the plotters, but weren't permitted to share it.  But sharing has to be done with some care and common sense.  Apparently, both those things are in short supply in some precincts.

I'm glad to see Congress getting actively involved.  The members seem considerably more agitated than the smug members of the mainstream media, too many of whom only seemed interested in finding some juicy gossip in the leaked papers.

December 3, 2010       Permalink

WHILE THE WORLD SLEEPS – AT 3:44 A.M. ET:  While the world naps, and Keith Olbermann attacks Bristol Palin, serious people are worried about serious things.  From The Wall Street Journal:

VIENNA—The Obama administration told the United Nations nuclear watchdog that North Korea likely has built more than one uranium-enrichment facility, significantly raising the proliferation threat posed by the secretive communist state.

U.S. and European officials are pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to better scrutinize Pyongyang's potential role in sharing its nuclear technologies with third countries. But the U.N. agency's ability to monitor Pyongyang is limited: North Korea kicked out the IAEA's inspectors in 2009.

Oh, that's okay.  Jimmah Carter said last week that North Korea really truly, cross-their-heart-and-hope-to-die wants to negotiate.  Aren't you encouraged?

The IAEA already is investigating evidence that North Korea transferred a nearly operational nuclear reactor to Syria, which Israeli jets subsequently destroyed in 2007. U.S. and U.N. officials now worry Pyongyang could begin exporting its advanced centrifuge equipment to its military allies in Iran and Myanmar.

"A uranium enrichment capability in [North Korea] could bolster its pursuit of a weapons capability and increases our concerns about prospects for onward proliferation of fissile material and of sensitive technologies," Glyn Davies, the U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told the agency's 35-member board Thursday.

Mr. Davies said the U.S. believes Pyongyang may have already developed uranium-enrichment facilities beyond the one site it showed a visiting American scientist, Siegried Hecker, last month.

COMMENT:  And this is after years of negotiations and commitments by Pyongyang.  Now the North Koreans are facing a weak American president and an American population tired of overseas commitments.   But the law of averages here is very much against us.  Sooner or later, we are going to wake up to a mushroom cloud somewhere in this world, and realize the implications for us.  If you think security at airports is tight now, you ain't seen nothin'.

December 3, 2010       Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 3:31 A.M. ET:  You know, you can go after a candidate for public office, but going after the candidate's kids is pretty low stuff...except, apparently, at MSNBC.  Keith Olbermann recently attacked, not Sarah Palin, but her daughter, Bristol.   But Bristol snapped back at the Olber-bully, and we cheer, very loudly:

Bristol Palin has used her Facebook page to hit back at MSNBC's Keith Olbermann for his Monday night declaration that the eldest Palin daughter was his "Worst Person in the World."

Olbermann was criticizing Palin, who is a teenage mother, for her role as an abstinence advocate.

Proving herself a surprising wordsmith, Palin wrote, "Accusing me of hypocrisy is by now, an old canard. What Mr. Olbermann lacks in originality he makes up for with insincere incredulity. Mr. Olbermann fails to understand that in order to have credibility as a spokesperson, it sometimes takes a person who has made mistakes."

She continues: "I have never claimed to be perfect. If that makes me the 'worst person in the world' to Mr. Olbermann, then I must apologize for not being absolutely faultless like he undoubtedly must be."

COMMENT:  Good for you, Bristol.  What was Olbermann thinking?  Well wait.  That assumes he thinks.

Rule of thumb in show business:  Never follow a children's act or an animal act.  Rule of thumb in politics:  Never criticize someone's child. 

FDR once made mincemeat of the Republicans in a now-classic speech defending "my little dog, Fala," who had gotten a ride on a Navy destroyer.  The press ate it up.

I suspect that Olbermann, right now, is researching someone's hamster.

December 3, 2010      Permalink 

DO YOU FEEL SAFER THIS MORNING? – AT 3:03 A.M. ET:  Just to assure you that the most dangerous among us are under constant watch, constant guard, deprived of the privileges routinely granted to their legitimate fellow citizens.  Ah, the inspiration:

Reporting from Sacramento — Contraband cellphones are becoming so prevalent in California prisons that guards can't keep them out of the hands of the most notorious and violent inmates: Even Charles Manson, orchestrator of one of the most notorious killing rampages in U.S. history, was caught with an LG flip phone under his prison mattress.

This will do wonders for LG's reputation.  Is an endorsement deal in the works?

Manson made calls and sent text messages to people in California, New Jersey, Florida and British Columbia before officers discovered the phone, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.

Now wait.  How did he get a cell phone account?  Do his minutes roll over from one month to the next? 

Asked whether Manson had used the device to direct anyone to commit a crime or to leave a threatening message, Thornton said, "I don't know, but it's troubling that he had a cellphone since he's a person who got other people to murder on his behalf."

Although officials say inmates use smuggled cellphones for all manner of criminal activity, including running drug rings from behind bars, intimidating witnesses and planning escapes, it is not a crime to possess one in a California prison.

I've worked among Hollywood agents and producers.  The word crime has a somewhat flexible meaning out there.

Prisoner-rights advocates argue that cellphones let prisoners avoid high fees for making collect calls from prison pay phones — the only allowed method of phone communication, with all calls monitored — and help them maintain crucial bonds with family and friends while they serve time.

But family contact can cut two ways, prison officials say. In September, an inmate at Avenal State Prison in Central California had been calling his 75-year-old mother to get her to collect drug debts owed by customers on the street. After guards found the phone, police raided the woman's La Puente home and found more than $24,000 cash, said Doug Snell, a corrections department spokesman.

That's a heartwarming story.  Family businesses are the rock of America.

COMMENT:  Hey look, it's a prison.  They are called cell phones.  Maybe this was just a misunderstanding.

December 3, 2010     Permalink