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We are limping along trying to repair as much of the electronic damage as possible that occurred here in the last few days.  We can operate, but some archival features of Urgent Agenda may take longer to bring back online than others.  We try to keep our expenses down, however we will have to modernize our software and install some new security bumps.  Some of our software dates from the Lincoln administration.

I preferred the old type in a stick.  No software.  No Russian hackers.

Pencil and paper, even better.

MARCH 11,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

MICKEY IS ANGRY – FROM FOX BUSINESS OVERNIGHT: The Walt Disney Company was confronted at its annual shareholder meeting Wednesday by an activist shareholder who accused the company of "complicity in China genocide," claiming the entertainment giant was being hypocritical for pulling its business away from Russia over human rights abuses but turning a blind eye to atrocities committed in China. The shareholder was the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog that proposed a resolution requiring Disney to conduct an annual due diligence report "evaluating the human rights impacts of its business and associations with foreign entities," including foreign nations. The resolution failed. Paul Chesser, director of the NLPC's Corporate Integrity Project, presented the resolution and spoke at the meeting, lambasting the company for allegedly claiming such a report would be a waste of resources while it invests heavily in China and dedicates millions to social justice initiatives elsewhere. "They had the time and money to film ‘Mulan’ in the part of communist China with among the most disgusting and egregious human rights violations in the world – in Xinjiang," Chesser said in his remarks, referencing the Chinese province where more than a million Uyghur Muslims have been detained in concentration camps and purportedly used as slave labor. I'm shocked that someone found hypocrisy in Hollywood. All my illusions are being shattered. Does Minnnie know?

March 11, 2022 Permalink

ALTHOUGH OUR EYES ARE FOCUSED ON UKRAINE, WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET THAT WE HAVE A CRITICAL ELECTION IN NOVEMBER.  IT'S COMMON, WHEN AN INTERNATIONAL CRISIS ERUPTS, FOR PEOPLE TO DOWNGRADE THE IMPORTANCE OF DOMESTIC POLITICS.  PLEASE DON'T.  EVERY ELECTION AFFECTS OUR DESTINY.  FROM BREITBART: 

Conservative leaders are rallying around National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Rick Scott’s (R-FL) “11-Point Plan to Rescue America.”

Eighty-eight conservative leaders from the Conservative Action Project signed a memo supporting Scott’s plan titled “Conservatives Applaud Sen. Rick Scott’s Plan to Rescue America.”

The memo said:

Politicians should tell voters what they are for, what they plan to do, and then they have to do it. This is the clarity – and the accountability – that voters want to see from their elected leaders. Conservatives should be talking about our ideas as much, if not more, than we talk about Democratic missteps and overreach. While not everyone will agree with every parameter of Sen. Scott’s agenda, he should be applauded for his willingness to step up to the plate and to lead. More elected leaders should be following his example.

The memo also condemned Scott’s Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate who have attacked Scott for proposing his plan. “However, according to reports, Sen. Scott has been attacked by his own colleagues for leading where they have not,” the memo said.
“We condemn such attacks. The conservative movement has long asked for the type of visionary leadership that Sen. Scott has exhibited. We are proud to stand with him and urge more Senate leaders to follow his example.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently spoke out against Scott’s 11-point plan. “If we’re fortunate enough to have the majority next year, I’ll be the majority leader. I’ll decide in consultation with my members what to put on the floor,” McConnell said.

COMMENT:  Scott is right.  McConnell is wrong.  Voters prefer positive, affirmative ideas.  One of the things people admired most about Ronald Reagan was his willingness to say, "This is what I want to do," and then he'd do it.  Even his critics admired his forward motion, and positive, often cheerful demeanor. 

In the 1990s, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich came up with his "contract with America," a formal promise of exactly what Republicans wanted to accomplish if they gained power.  It was a success, and contributed to Republican victories in congressional races.

This is not the time for us just to say what we're against.  The Republican Party is brimming with good ideas.  Don't get sold on simply attacking the bad guys.

March 11,  2022     Permalink

Urgent Agenda is experiencing technical problems on our main computer and our two backup computers.  We may have been hacked overnight or been the target of a cyber attack.  There may be minor delays as we repair the damage, but please stick with us. 

MARCH 10,  2022

THE SIEGE – OVERNIGHT (DELAYED):    We've been watching a vicious war develop on television.  I don't know whether the viewing makes us more or less sensitive to the suffering.  Psychiatrists will study that.  I do know that our young generation, if they're watching at all, will start to realize what life is like for people their age.  There are more challenging problems than forgetting to charge the i-phone.   And real war is more complicated than a slogan on a "peace" sign.  From Fox: 

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the green light on Friday for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels to fight in Ukraine, doubling down an invasion that the West says has been losing momentum.

The move, just over two weeks since Putin ordered the invasion, allows Russia to deploy battle-hardened mercenaries from conflicts such as Syria without risking additional Russian military casualties.

At a meeting of Russia's Security Council, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to come to fight with Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

"We know many of [these volunteers], they helped in the fight against ISIS during the last 10 years," Shoigu said, according to TASS.

"If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone," Putin said.

COMMENT:  The "volunteer" is an old Soviet and Chinese device.  The Chinese announced during the Korean War that hundreds of thousands of "volunteers," or "people's volunteers" stood ready to enter the conflict.  I doubt if any actually volunteered, but it sounded good.

There is also talk of "volunteers" from Belarus and other countries in the Russian sphere of influence, coming into the war, especially if the Ukrainians continue to put up spectacular resistance.  I would not be shocked if Putin presses his plan forward, no matter how many are killed.  It's in him.

March 10,  2022     Permalink

MARCH 9,  2022

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THE VILLAGE IDIOT RISES TO SPEAK AGAIN – FROM FOX:   President Biden’s climate czar, John Kerry, said that while the Ukraine refugee crisis is a "problem" amid Russia’s invasion, it pales in comparison to the wave of migration that will come if climate change is not addressed.  Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, said during the annual CERAWeek conference in Houston Monday that the U.S. must not lose sight of its path toward clean energy now that the Russia-Ukraine war has accelerated the global energy crisis.  "We’re already seeing climate refugees around the world," he said. "If you think migration has been a problem in Europe, in the Syrian War or even from what we see now, wait until you see 100 million people for whom the entire food production capacity has collapsed."  Kerry is far from the first fool to predict mass starvation unless we follow his lead.  It's the standard prediction.  However, as a precaution, I personally am stocking up on Friendly's chocolate fudge swirl.  I refuse to die like the rest of them.

March 9, 2022       Permalink

TIME OUT FOR POLITICS – OVERNIGHT:  AS THE CLOCK TICKS TOWARD THE NOVEMBER MIDTERMS, THE DEMOCRATS ARE APPARENTLY PREPARING TO LOSE, AND TO PLACE THE BLAME, TWO OF THE FEW THINGS THEY DO WELL.  FROM TOWNHALL.COM: 

The midterm elections are still eight months away but Democrats are already laying the groundwork to make excuses for losses as the writing on the wall suggests Joe Biden's party is headed to the woodshed in November.

In an NBC News piece on Americano, the "nation’s first Spanish-language conservative network" launching on satellite radio this week, Marc Caputo began constructing a narrative to allow Democrats to blame losses among Hispanic voters on "disinformation," a story fed by flailing Democrats in Florida that insults Hispanic voters' intelligence and smears conservatives. Pretty standard fare for the mainstream media's Democrat lapdogs:

The network, called Americano, arrives during a crucial inflection point in U.S. politics, as more Hispanic voters show signs of drifting right and Democrats continue to sound the alarm about Spanish-language right-wing disinformation on social media and local radio, particularly in Miami, which is also Americano’s home base.

A Democrat pollster quoted in the NBC News piece warned that for "those concerned about the disinformation problem harming Democrats' chances with Hispanics, this is a Defcon 1 moment," and Democrats "should worry."

Yet this feigned worry over disinformation was missing during four-plus years of disinformation about the Russia collusion hoax and a litany of other Democrat-planted stories that the rest of liberal media — including mainstream Spanish-language outlets — happily parroted. Univision's Jorge Ramos has engaged in selective reporting that dishonestly depicted migrant caravans headed to Biden's open border. And what about Robert Francis O'Rourke, who decided to rename himself? "Beto" is just more Dem disinformation.

And yet Democrats are pretending that the launch of a conservative Spanish-language network is somehow beyond the pale of what should be acceptable — likely because to them, it is unacceptable for minorities to be conservative:

Ahead of the Tuesday broadcast, Democrats in Florida raised concerns publicly and privately that the programming would contribute to the spread of misleading claims targeted at Spanish-speakers that skyrocketed during the pandemic and the 2020 campaign.

COMMENT:  The fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals is that conservatives believe they have a better idea.  Liberals believe they're better people.  Thus, it is emotionally impossible for Democrats to believe that Hispanics, who traditionally have voted Democratic and are therefore better people, to descend to a lower human status by voting Republican.  Why would anyone do such a thing, when it's such an honor to be a Democrat and be ignored by your party between elections?

I understand that Democratic psychiatrists are fully booked from now until the election, trying to ease the anxieties of party stalwarts who can't believe what they're seeing and feel they're going mad. 

Hey, they've been mad for years.

March 9,  2022     Permalink