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.

PRE-ELECTION SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – LAST DAY!

This is the last day of our subscription drive.  Pretty decent results thus far, but we need more subscribers.  We ask you to consider subscribing.  It's important for the survival and health of Urgent Agenda.  And you'll have a good time at The Angel's Corner.

We welcome all of our new subscribers, but it is imperative that we increase our subscriber base substantially to keep up our progress, as we head toward the most important midterm election in our lifetime. 

This message is especially for readers who've discovered us recently:

Do you like Urgent Agenda?  Would you like to see us survive and grow?  Would you like to have special Urgent Agenda features delivered right to your computer?

If the answer is yes, please become a subscriber.   Without subscriptions, we vanish. 

As a subscriber you 1) support our work and 2) become a member of the Angel's Corner.  Members receive a private e-mail twice a week with features not published on the free site.  Members also participate in our Forum, which we think is the most provocative on the web.  You can write at length on anything you wish.  There are special essays.  And it's at the Angel's Corner where we give the coveted Pompous Fool Award, every bit as revered as the Worst-Dressed Actress Award. 

Unless you subscribe, you're only getting half of Urgent Agenda, and missing a good part of the fun.  We hope, in the future, to expand the Angel's Corner to three times a week.

So please subscribe through PayPal in the right-hand column under SUBSCRIPTIONS.  Or, in that same place, you can donate what you wish.  If you don't like PayPal, let us know and we'll send you a mail address.

This election is crucial.  Your support is vital if we're to be there every step of the way.  Help us see the fight through.

***********************************************

For those interested in hearing the radio show I did with Silvio Canto Jr. on Monday, from Dallas, it's here.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2010

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 8:30 P.M. ET:

BOGOTA, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A former paramilitary leader was crowned a beauty queen at the close of an annual pageant at Colombia's Good Shepherd prison.  Diana Layton, 21, who joined a right-wing paramilitary group at the age of 12 and acted as commander of a death squad, won the tiara and gift bag following the pageant at the Bogota prison, the Toronto (Canada) Globe and Mail reported Friday.

I just want to know if they sang the song:  "There she is, Miss Inmate 625..."  There were teary eyes, I'm sure.

September 24, 2010     Permalink

BIG POLL DROP FOR OBAMA – AT 8:12 P.M. ET:  A new CNN poll, just released, shows more problems for the embattled president:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 (UPI) -- President Obama's approval rating dropped 8 points in three weeks to the lowest level since he was elected U.S. president, a poll released Friday reported.

Only 42 percent of those surveyed for the CNN/Opinion Research Council poll said they approve of the president's handling of his job, while 54 percent said they disapprove. Even more, 56 percent, said Obama had failed to meet their expectations and they are disappointed in him.

His approval rating was 50 percent in a poll at the end of August, CNN reported.

The numbers are bad news for Democrats in the midterm elections with only 37 percent of likely voters saying an Obama endorsement would make them more likely to vote for a candidate. Almost half of likely voters said support from the Tea Party would push them toward a candidate.

Well, that's refreshing.  The poll was taken this week, which means it may reflect voter response to the revelations in the Woodward book.

Ironically, Obama has been gaining in the Rasmussen poll.  We look at polls over a period of time, and RealClearPolitics does a good job of averaging them.  The current RCP average is 45.1% approval for the president, and 50.1% disapproval.

September 24, 2010      Permalink

FINALLY, SOME COMMON SENSE – AT 7:54 P.M. ET:  Remember Bill Ayers, the radical professor, former extremist member of the Weather Underground, and good friend of Barack Hussein Obama Jr., whom Obama claimed he barely knew when running for president? 

Well, Professor Ayers has retired from the University of Illinois.  But a funny thing happened to him on the way to the usual retirement honors.  From the Chicago Tribune:

In a very unusual move, University of Illinois trustees Thursday denied giving emeritus status to controversial retired professor William Ayers.

The vote, at a U. of I. board meeting in Urbana, was unanimous and came after a passionate speech by board chair Christopher Kennedy, who invoked the 1968 assassination of his father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, in saying that he was voting his conscience.

The other trustees, without comment, also voted against the appointment.

Ayers, the Vietnam War-era radical, had been an education faculty member at UIC since 1987. He retired effective Aug. 31 and then sought the emeritus faculty status, a largely honorific title that includes some benefits such as library privileges.

And...

...in an emotional statement, Kennedy discussed his reasons for voting against Ayers' request.

"I am guided by my conscience and one which has been formed by a series of experiences, many of which have been shared with the people of our country and mark each of us in a profound way," Kennedy said.

He said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father."

Kennedy was referring to a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers, "Prairie Fire," which was dedicated to a long list of people including Robert Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S."

We haven't heard much from Christopher Kennedy.  He apparently is one of the Kennedys who has stayed out of trouble and does useful work.  We can only applaud the stand he has taken...on behalf of basic decency, and we're pleased that the other trustees unanimously agreed.

Of course, the usual suspects immediately came out of the woodwork:

A UIC professor said Friday she was "shocked" by the trustees' decision not to grant Ayers emeritus status.

"Professor Ayers has a 47-page resume of academic accomplishments," Barbara Ransby, a professor of history and African-American studies, wrote in an e-mail response to the Tribune....

..."It is a real threat to academic freedom, and the foundation of a democratic university, when we begin to make professional and institutional decisions based on personal or political sentiments, however strongly felt they may be," she wrote.

Yeah, right.  Out comes the academic freedom flag, used regularly to cover up all kinds of misconduct.  I can only imagine what Ms. Ransby's response would be to a similar decision by the trustees regarding a professor who'd made racist comments.

The trustees acted correctly, their decision reflecting well on the values their university should uphold.  No one's academic freedom was affected.

September 24, 2010     Permalink

GOODBYE, EDDIE – AT 9:18 A.M. ET:  Eddie Fisher has died.  Now, for some of our younger readers, that statement may elicit a huge question mark.  But for the rest of us, it elicits memories of a different cultural time in America.

Despite my years in the Hollywood and TV game, I never met the man.  By the time I got in, he was out.  But Eddie Fisher was one of the most important, and one of the best, of the post-World War II popular singers.  Go to YouTube and hear his rendition of "Any Time," and you'll see what I mean.   The voice was pure and musical, and the lyric was treated with respect.  Young girls of the period thought Eddie was singing directly to them.

I recall Fisher's TV program, "Coke Time."  (In those days, coke meant the soft drink.)  The program was 15 minutes in length.  In the fifties, there were a number of 15-minute network music programs.  I remember that Peggy Lee had one.  They were terrific, virtually all music, and good music.  There were actual melodies.  And you could understand the words. 

Fisher was very much the new Sinatra in that period.  The teen-aged public waited on every story about him, especially how he was "discovered" singing at Grossinger's, the Catskill resort north of New York City, by the legendary comedian, Eddie Cantor.  (False.  Tanya Grossinger, a member of the family, once told me, when I worked at the Tonight Show, that the whole thing was prearranged.)

The sad fact, though, is that two things conspired to end Eddie Fisher's reign.  The first was the coming of rock 'n' roll.  He wasn't a rocker, and never could be.  That wasn't his style.  The second factor was even more serious:  Fisher couldn't handle his personal life.  In "the wedding of the decade" he married Debbie Reynolds, who at that time had built an image of "America's sweetheart."  Young, pretty, pure, the girl next door, Debbie was everything a young man in America could want.  (False.  It was an image.  Easy she was not.  One of my friends in Hollywood was a member of her family, and Debbie used to babysit him.  He told me how she'd lock him in the closet.  Just your nice, average American girl.)

But Eddie met Elizabeth Taylor, fell in love, and divorced Debbie.  That was essentially the end of his stardom.  You did not, in those days, divorce the girl next door.  You stayed with her and had a family.  Compare please to Hollywood standards today. 

Eddie descended into drugs and, eventually, another divorce.  He tried to make a comeback, but his time had passed.  Two autobiographies he wrote offended members of his family, especially his daughter with Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia in "Star Wars." 

In recent years, Fisher faded into almost complete obscurity.

But let us remember the great singer that Eddie Fisher was.  His talent cannot be denied.  It was the man who let the talent down.

September 24, 2010     Permalink

WE FEEL SO SAFE KNOWING THESE GUYS ARE IN CHARGE – AT 8:57 A.M. ET:  One of our great, and realistic, nightmares is that nuclear materials can be smuggled into the U.S. across the Mexican border.  In fact, it's probably inevitable.

But not to worry.  Homeland Security is in charge.  Consider this, from Fox News:

The Department of Homeland Security has wasted up to nearly a half billion dollars in taxpayer money and time on its current plans to develop technology at the nation's borders to detect nuclear material being smuggled into the country, according to two recent GAO reports cited by a Republican senator on Thursday.

In one program, the Government Accountability Office concluded the technology was being pushed too hard too fast. In another case, the equipment was too big and it didn't fit into the cargo container inspection lanes.

“This is not a picture of good government at work,” said Gene Aloise, a senior investigator with the GAO who covers homeland security.

He added that the department had been warned repeatedly about the problems.

“It's not good government, it's not best practices and in some cases it wasn't even common sense.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, noted that the lack of basic communication smacked of dysfunction.

“The first thing that you'd think would be done, would be that the department would talk to the agency that's going to use the equipment to find out what would work,” Collins told Fox News on Capitol Hill. “In this case, millions of dollars was wasted because one office did not talk to another office about what was needed.”

COMMENT:  You would also think that, nine years after 9-11, we'd have systems, and even second-generation systems, in place.  What we lack in Washington is a sense of urgency, a sense that these threats can kill us.

Nuclear materials smuggled across our borders can lead to an attack with more casualties than we have suffered in all our wars put together. 

Heads should roll.  But heads are firmly attached in the Washington bureaucracy.  The sad fact is that this story will probably be forgotten in a few days because much of the mainstream media shies away from stories that suggest anything bad can come from south of the border. 

September 24, 2010      Permalink

DEMS CHICKEN OUT ON TAXES – AT 8:36 A.M. ET:  We'll have to wait for the lame-duck session of Congress that follows the election to learn what our tax rates will be next year.  This is really great for family and business planning.  The Politico reports:

Small-business legislation cleared Congress on Thursday even as Senate Democrats retreated from the second big plank of their post-Labor Day session: a vote on making permanent middle-class tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year.

After all the bold talk, it’s a remarkable turnaround — and loss of nerve — that all but ensures that the House also won’t act before going home next week.

Ah, a profile in courage. 

Senate Democrats feel the sting more because they had been at the forefront in wanting to elevate the issue with President Barack Obama before November’s election. The goal then had been to combine small-business relief with middle-class tax breaks in a powerful one-two punch; instead, the party now risks being seen as an aging boxer in the crouch, dodging blows rather than going on offense.

Oh, that's so wounding, so wounding, and so true.

The problem, apparently, is that the Dems didn't want to extend tax cuts for "the rich."  But "the rich," if you look closely, includes many small businesses, struggling for survival, which would see their tax bill go up. 

Republicans should pounce, right now.  Don't let the other side set the narrative, or the vocabulary.  While it's technically true that we're talking about the expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, the practical effect is a tax increase, almost certain to depress the economy. 

September 24, 2010      Permalink

RACE FOR THE SENATE – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  Investors Business Daily has an excellent roundup of where we stand in the Senate races.  They're up to date and the piece is well researched. 

A strong tide should lift Republicans to victories in several Senate races, with polls pointing to an ever-expanding list of states in play.

Of the seats now held by Democrats, Republicans have a good to excellent chance of winning Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Arkansas, North Dakota and possibly Indiana are all but assured GOP pickups. Others, like Illinois and Nevada, remain close in the polls.

Polls out this week show Republicans have a real shot at winning West Virginia while other surveys suggest a New York Senate race is competitive.

The New York possibility is a particular stunner.  However, caution is required.  Dems have made strides in several states recently, as traditional Democratic majorities reassert themselves:

In Delaware, polls all year had Rep. Mike Castle leading Democrat Chris Coons, even though 62% of state voters went for Barack Obama in 2008. But GOP primary voters gave the nod to Tea Party fave Christine O'Donnell. All of the post-primary surveys have given Coons a double-digit lead over O'Donnell.

In California, Sen. Barbara Boxer has led Republican Carly Fiorina in the past six polls, as Democrats' huge party registration edge in the state may be reasserting itself...

...Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., has a tough fight vs. Republican businessman Dino Rossi — who narrowly lost races for governor in 2004 and 2008. Elected in 1992 as just a "mom in tennis shoes," she is no longer an outsider. But after trailing in some polls, she holds a slim lead, hitting 50% or above. SurveyUSA has her up 50%-48%; Rasmussen gives her a 51%-46% lead.

The Democrats, knowing that many in their traditional base depend on government programs, are engaging in their usual scare tactics.  "They're gonna take away your Social Security!"  In fact, increasing dependence on government is practically a Commandment on the left, in part because it guarantees victory at the polls.

But polls in West Virginia and New York offer Republicans hope that they could pull out a Senate majority.

Well, we hope so, but we'll see.  It's very tough.  We're not in the predicting business here, but I'm imagining a Senate with 47-48 Republicans.  That would not mean control, of course, but it would probably be enough to block radical legislation.  It's the Supreme Court nominations I worry about...as well as other judicial nominations.

September 24, 2010     Permalink

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010

SNIPPET OF THE DAY – AT 9:47 P.M. ET:

From London's Telegraph:  A US city is handing out parking tickets with pictures of yoga positions on them in a bid to calm down angry recipients.  Parking control officers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have been issued with 40,000 of the placatory citations. They are the brainchild of one Daniel Peltz, an "artist in residence" with the Cambridge Traffic and Parking Department. The tickets have an image of a yoga position on the front of the envelope, with instructions on the reverse on how to implement various moves.  Susan Clippinger, the city's transportation chief, tells The Boston Herald the purpose of the tickets is to "debunk the idea that all parking tickets are a hostile action. We’re not writing tickets to get somebody. We’re writing tickets to help make the city function.”

Only in a place like Cambridge, Massachusetts, would that logic make sense.  So remember, next time you see the tell-tale summons under your windshield wiper, don't think, "I was legally parked."  Think, "I'm helping to build a multicultural center to increase peace and harmony."  But you'll still have to pay.

September 23, 2010     Permalink

YOU WANT SOME RESPECT, GIVE SOME RESPECT – AT 8:58 P.M. ET:  One reason the UN has essentially fallen apart is the fact that the Islamic nations pretty much control it, and use it for their own purposes.  Thus, this absurdity:

(Reuters) - Islamic states sought on Wednesday to have the United Nations human rights council condemn a U.S. pastor's suspended plan to burn Korans, saying it was part of a pattern of global anti-Muslim violence.

A resolution submitted by Pakistan for  he 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) asks the council to speak out against what it dubbed "the recent call by an extremist group to organize a 'Burn a Koran Day'."

The resolution, which diplomats said was likely to be passed as the OIC and its allies have a majority on the 47-nation body, made no reference to condemnation of the plan by President Barack Obama and other U.S. and foreign leaders.

The arrogance and hypocrisy of this is almost beyond belief.  The resolution will pass, of course, because the "Human Rights Council" would pass a resolution declaring the moon an Islamic state if the OIC asked for it.

But here are nations, many of which are completely intolerant of other religions, where a Bible can be burned with no penalty, and where human rights are flouted as if they're minor annoyances.  And they want the nutty actions of a Floriday pastor condemned, even though the pastor withdrew his call for a bonfire.

And then people wonder why many of these countries live in the tenth century.  They have a misplaced sense of priorities and a perpetual sense of grievance.

European diplomats said they were unlikely to vote against the OIC resolution, as their governments had already condemned the Koran burning idea, but feared it would be used to increase pressure for actions on defamation and "Islamophobia."

Those "actions" would make a mockery of free speech.

The United States joined the Human Rights Council under President Obama.  President Bush refused to join, correctly denouncing the council as a kind of fraud.

Time for us to get out.

September 23, 2010      Permalink

WE WELCOME THE INDEPENDENTS – 8:15 P.M. ET:  A new Pew poll confirms the march of the independents.  It was a different story two years ago:

In an ominous sign for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, independent voters now favor Republicans by nearly the same margins that they went for Obama in 2008 and his party in the 2006 mid-term, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released Wednesday.

“For the third national election in a row, independent voters may be poised to vote out the party in power,” Pew concludes.

From their mouth to you know whose ears.

Unlike the most recent election cycles when independents complained about the lack of progress in Washington on major issues facing the country, these critical swing voters now are expressing high anxiety with what Congress and the White House have already done.

Overall, 45 percent of independents disapprove of the health care reforms passed this year compared to 41 percent who approve of them. A third of independents say Obama’s economic policies have made conditions worse for them rather than better, compared to 24 percent who take a more positive view.

“They feel that the issues have been dealt with but not in a way that is satisfactory to them,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.

That's the point, and it's one the GOP should drive home – that the Democrats ignore what their constituents say, and do whatever they please.   There's an arrogance, a haughtiness.

“Trust in government is at one of the lowest points in 60 years of polling,” said Kohut. “It’s a backlash against what is seen as government policies and programs that are too liberal or too much in the vein of government expansion.”

About the only good news in the survey for Democrats is that a reasonable chunk – about 40 percent – of independents said they still maintain some level of support for the president or his party. Those respondents, however, are not nearly as motivated to vote as their discontented independent brethren.

COMMENT:  That's good news, but please remember that it's a national survey.  We have national polls, but we don't have national elections.  Even a presidential election is really 50 separate state elections for the electoral college.  In November we'll be voting state by state, district by district.  Each race must be fought separately.

September 23, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:35 A.M. ET:  From the great Anne Bayefsky, one of the best foreign-affairs writers of our time, on the Fox News website.  She is discussing Mr. Obama's appearance today before the UN General Assembly, and the way it's being spun by the White House:

The White House described the “dramatically” different Obama foreign policy as one which includes a warm embrace of the United Nations. It also claimed that “the new era of engagement” has been a major success, pointing to U.N. sanctions on Iran, momentum against nuclear proliferation, and U.S. participation in reforming the U.N. Human Rights Council.

The facts suggest otherwise. Nobody at the U.N. believes that the Iran sanctions will prevent an Iranian bomb. The weak Security Council sanctions adopted after 18 months of engagement garnered fewer votes than the sanctions adopted during the Bush years. The president himself has knotted together the issues of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament, thereby making non-proliferation efforts much more difficult.

In May, the president agreed to co-sponsor an international conference intended to redirect the heat from Iran to Israel in the name of disarmament. And a year after the U.S. joined the U.N. Human Rights Council, Libya has become a member, anti-Israel hysteria has reached new heights, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference has informed the administration that reform is dead in the water.

None of that, however, is likely to mean the president will confront real world evils during his moments today at center stage. At a Monday press briefing with America’s U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes indicated that Obama will repeat his tired-out mantra on Iran. It’s still about an “open door” policy that remains open, despite Iran having made it crystal clear it has no intention of walking through. The president is evidently oblivious to the image of weakness he has projected, and will continue to project, in the General Assembly.

COMMENT:  And who will pay the price for that weakness?  America's allies, certainly.  But, ultimately, it may be paid by our armed forces, long after Mr. Obama has left the White House and become secretary-general of the United Nations.

September 23, 2010      Permalink

OH, NOW THEY TELL US – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  Now that General Stanley McChrystal has been forced out and humiliated by President Obama, a Pentagon report vindicates him, and raises troubling questions about the whole episode.  From The Politico:

A Pentagon investigation has determined that neither Gen. Stanley McChrystal nor the senior officers in his inner circle made the disparaging comments to Rolling Stone that led to the general’s downfall in June.

McChyrstal was relieved of his command of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after a Rolling Stone article portrayed his team making snide remarks about Vice President Joe Biden, National Security Adviser Jim Jones and others.

But as first reported Wednesday by the New York Times, the Pentagon’s investigation into the case has established that McChrystal didn’t make any of the comments himself. In fact, Pentagon officials told POLITICO Wednesday that McChrystal was never even a “person of interest” in the probe.

The Times said that the investigation may now be focused on a mid-level naval officer who was also part of McChrystal’s group. But the paper said that the naval officer has told Navy officials that he did not make the remarks in question, either.

And this, naturally...

Reporter Michael Hastings, who wrote “The Runaway General” for Rolling Stone, reportedly declined to talk with the Pentagon’s investigators.

Of course, and I'm sure some haughty reason was given.  Mustn't compromise press independence, you know.

I always thought it odd that a general with McChrystal's experience, and the hand-picked staff around him, would make the inflammatory comments about the administration that roasted McChrystal...especially to a magazine that never had any regard for the military.  Now we know that there's no evidence they ever made these comments.

This reminds me of the case of Ray Donovan, President Reagan's secretary of labor, who was also smeared, then was cleared, then asked publicly, "Where do I go to get back my reputation?"  General McChrystal must feel the same way.

Comments, White House?

September 23, 2010     Permalink

THE JOY IS IN THE DETAILS – AT 8:29 A.M. ET:  I've been a bit uneasy about the generic numbers numbers for Congress recently, as several polls showed a tightening of the gap between Republicans and Dems.  But a new analysis by Real Clear Politics eases our burden:

McClatchy/Marist polled registered voters, and found Republicans leading by two points, 47 percent to 45 percent. Of course, this is of registered voters, not likely voters, and so the actual spread among the electorate is probably a few points more in the Republicans’ favor. A more ominous sign for the Democrats is the fact that Republicans lead 61 percent to 34 percent among those who describe themselves as “very enthusiastic” about voting. Also ominous – the Republicans’ lead seems to be fairly evenly spread between the regions: -2 in the Northeast, +4 in the Midwest, +4 in the South, and +3 in the West.

COMMENT:  If Republicans do very well in November, it will be because of the enthusiasm gap.  In 2008, with Obama leading the ticket, the Dems clearly had the enthusiasm going away.  Times have changed. 

But enthusiasm is temporary.  We still have more than a month to go before the election.  Republicans can get tired and Dems can get energized by the fear campaign being waged by Democratic leaders.  So the GOP must be out there every day, stirring up the troops and getting them to the polls.

September 23, 2010     Permalink

GIVE THE GIRL A BREAK! – AT 8:11 A.M. ET:  It's heartbreaking, and will probably become a TV movie.  Just a few days after Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand turned red when Harry Reid described her as the hottest U.S. senator, she's dissed again in a new New York poll stunner:

SurveyUSA shows New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand leading Congressman Joe DioGuardi by a single point, 45 percent to 44 percent, while Quinnipiac shows Gillibrand with a 48 to 42 point lead. According to SurveyUSA, Gillibrand leads in NYC 54 percent to 35 percent, but is losing upstate and, more importantly, the New York suburbs.

New York is a really bright red state, and the fact that former GOP Congressman Joe DioGuardi is that close is remarkable.  Maybe there is a revolt brewing.

One of Gillibrand's problems is that she could walk down a street in New York, and no one would know who she is.  She was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's seat, but she doesn't have Clinton's political savvy.

DioGuardi is about as beautiful to the eye as Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.  Neither has been invited to appear on "Dancing With the Stars."  But he comes off in TV ads as a practical, sharpened-pencil guy, a trained CPA, and this may be the year in which that has appeal. 

This poll comes a day after another poll had GOP gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino only six points behind Dem stalwart Andy Cuomo. 

Is New York seriously in play?  It appears that way, but we'll be alert for future polls.

September 23, 2010     Permalink