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.

10TH ANNIVERSARY SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE

A bit more progress yesterday.  But we're still not up to the level of previous drives.  It's critical that we do better, as subscriptions and donations make our work possible. 

Please subscribe or donate.  The most important reason is to support Urgent Agenda, but you'll also receive our twice-a-week emailed page, the Angel's Corner, which features posts by subscribers and donators.  It is our most popular feature, and it will let you make your views known to our audience.

If you're already a subscriber or donator, please consider raising your participation to secure our future. 

Details on subscribing and donating are in the right-hand column of this page, opposite these words.  You can join us through PayPal, or use SENDINC, which has become increasingly accepted by our readers.  If you prefer a regular mail subscription, just email me at service@urgentagenda.com, and I'll give you our mailing address. 

We hope to welcome you.

JANUARY 14,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:53 P.M. ET:

I'M SO GLAD WE KNOW – FROM COLLEGE FIX:   A Rutgers University women’s and gender studies professor thinks she has the answer to why white women seemingly voted against their interests in the 2016 presidential and last month’s Alabama US Senate elections.  “Simply put,” Kyla Schuller writes in a guest post for the Duke University Press blog, “sex difference is itself a racial structure.”  The professor, whose research interests include feminist science studies, biopolitics, and Transnational American Studies, claims that “sexual difference, as a concept, emerged as a function of race.” Her new book, The Biopolitics of Feeling, “zeroes in on this generally overlooked phenomenon.”  Indeed. Weird how so many think of sexual difference in terms of biology.  “The binary entities of man and woman were newly understood as thoroughly distinct in terms of mental, physiological, emotional, and psychological capacity,” Schuller writes. “Sex difference was presented as the singular attainment of a teleological evolution moving toward ever greater specialization.”  No doubt about it.  I've been thinking this way for a long time.  I'm glad to be getting new support.  Choke.

SAY IT AIN'T SO – FROM FOX:   An illegal immigrant on a Greyhound bus who allegedly threatened to shoot and kill passengers on Friday — leading police on a chase from Wisconsin to Illinois — was deported five times, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told Fox News.  The spokesperson said on Sunday Margarito Vargas-Rosas, 33, who faces terror charges, was in the U.S. illegally and was "removed" from the U.S. the last five times Border Patrol agents encountered him.  Police responded to a call around 9:40 p.m. Friday from a bus passenger who claimed there was a person threatening to kill people, Fox 6 reported, citing the Racine County Sheriff’s Department.  Vargas-Rosas, of Chicago, was reportedly pacing the aisle toward the back of the bus, and appeared to draw what passengers thought was a weapon from his waistband.  Obviously a misunderstanding.  We're sure Barack Obama can clear it all up.

TAX REFORM COMETH – FROM CBS LOCAL, BY CNN MONEY:   (CNN Money) — The U.S. Treasury and the IRS on Thursday put out new guidance and withholding tables for employers that incorporate changes from the new tax law.  Under those new tables, the Treasury estimates that 90% of people who get a paycheck are likely to see more in take-home pay, as soon as February. Employers will have until Feb. 15 to incorporate the changes in their payroll systems.  But for many taxpayers, they will need to assess whether the new tables really are withholding enough money so that they’re not saddled with a big bill when they file their taxes next year.  The major changes affecting individuals include new tax brackets, (mostly) lower income tax rates, a near-doubling of the standard deduction and the elimination of both personal exemptions as well as many itemized deductions.   We hope this works well.  If it does, it will be another great shot in the arm for the economy, as well as providing ammunition for the GOP in November.

January 14, 2018       Permalink

STRIKING BACK – AT 1:50 P.M. ET:   Some senators who were actually at the meeting in which President Trump is alleged to have uttered the foul phrase are defending him, arguing that the president never actually said what he's accused of saying.  From The Hill: 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Sunday reiterated that he didn’t hear President Trump call Haiti, El Salvador and African nations “shithole countries,” suggesting Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) misrepresented the president’s comments.

"I certainly didn’t hear what Sen. Durbin has said repeatedly. Sen. Durbin has a history of misrepresenting what happens in White House meetings, though, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by that,” Cotton said on CBS's “Face The Nation.”

Pressed on whether he didn’t hear the comment or if it wasn’t said, Cotton said, “I didn’t hear it.”

“And I was sitting no farther away from Donald Trump than Dick Durbin was, and I know what Dick Durbin has said about the president's repeated statements is incorrect,” Cotton added.

Trump during a meeting with lawmakers last week reportedly questioned why the U.S. accepted so many immigrants from “s...hole countries” like Haiti, El Salvador and some African countries. He suggested the U.S. should instead should take in more immigrants from countries like Norway.

Cotton, Durbin, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) were among those present during the meeting.

Cotton and Perdue have said they did not hear the comment.

Durbin confirmed Trump’s comments, then reiterated that claim even after the president denied making them.

COMMENT:  One way of dealing with this dispute is to demand that the Senate Select Committee on Ethics investigate Senator Durbin, who has a history of making comments for which he's had to apologize.  Then we can get to the bottom of this matter. 

I'd also suggest that all White House meetings with opposition members of Congress present be recorded. 

January 14, 2018       Permalink 

IS DACA DEAD? – AT 12:44 P.M. ET:   The president thinks it may well be.  From Fox:

President Trump on Sunday argued again that Democrats and their demands -- not him or fellow Republicans in Congress -- have throttled negotiations to provide permanent legal protection for young illegal immigrants and made clear that any such deal also must end the United States’ lottery-immigration program.

“DACA is probably dead because the Democrats don’t really want it, they just want to talk and take desperately needed money away from our Military,” said Trump, in one of several tweets on the issue of immigration reform and on the related Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

The president and Congress are attempting to reach a deal on comprehensive immigration reform as part of a federal spending bill that Congress must pass by Friday to avoid a government shutdown.

Trump’s tweets Sunday follow an intense week of negotiation on the issue, including a 55-minute, televised White House meeting with him and Democratic and Republican congressional leaders.

Among the issues are Trump’s desire for any such deal to include money for a U.S.-Mexico wall for border security and changes to the lottery and so-called “chain migration” immigration programs.

Democrats want the deal to include the permanent protections for young illegal immigrants, now that Trump is ending such safeguards under DACA, the executive order by former President Barack Obama.

COMMENT:  The president is probably right.  The Democrats are not a policy-oriented party any longer.  They are the anti-Trump party, and, indeed, the anti-military party.  Our military is desperate for the funds being held hostage to DACA.  Dems don't care.  They're far to the left, and their spiritual leader, Bernie Sanders, has proposed cutting the military budget in half.

January 14, 2018       Permalink

CRACKPOT – AT 11:53 A.M. ET:  It is time to call out Jeff Flake, the so-called "Republican" senator from Arizona who has, thankfully, decided not to run for re-election. 

I have no problem at all with members of his own party criticizing the president.  In fact, it should be done more often with all presidents.  But Jeff Flake abuses the privilege.  From the Washington Times: 

President Trump is employing techniques “popularized by Joseph Stalin” to demonize the press and his approach could do great harm to the nation in the long run, Sen. Jeff Flake said Sunday.

An absolutely absurd comment.  If Joseph Stalin didn't like a journalist, the journalist suddenly disappeared.  All Trump does is criticize.

In an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” the retiring Arizona Republican and outspoken critic of the president said he’s deeply troubled by how Mr. Trump attacks the media.

“You can talk about crowd size, and this is pretty innocuous if there’s a falsehood. But when you reflexively refer to the press as the ‘enemy of the people’ or ‘fake news,’ that has real damage,” Mr. Flake said. “It has real damage to our standing in the world. And I noted how bad it is for a president to take what was popularized by Joseph Stalin, the ‘enemy of the people,’ to refer to the press.”

Mr. Flake announced his retirement last year amid continued clashes with the president. Before Mr. Flake’s announcement, the president endorsed his would-be challenger in the GOP Senate primary in Arizona, Kelli Ward.

Since then, Mr. Flake has continued to be one of the loudest Republican critics of the president. Specifically, he takes great issue with how Mr. Trump demeans the media.

“I’m going to talk about how damaging that is,” the senator said. “I just want the president to know that this has real consequences.”

COMMENT:  No, it really doesn't.  Attacking the press is a time-honored tradition.  The press is a powerful institution, and could use a good spanking from time to time.

John F. Kennedy famously banned the old New York Herald-Tribune from the White House because he didn't like how it reported his administration.

Dwight D. Eisenhower denounced "sensation-seeking columnists" at the 1964 Republican convention.

Harry S. Truman scathingly denounced a Washington Post music critic for giving a a poor review to the president's daughter, an operatic singer.

Nixon's fights with the press were beauts.  The press survived.  Nixon did not.

Don't worry about the press being damaged by presidential attacks.  Worry about presidents being damaged by bad reporting.

January 14,  2018     Permalink

JANUARY 13,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:54 P.M. ET: 

I WOULD HOPE SO – FROM DAILY MAIL:   A Civil Defense employee is set to be retrained after a shocking blunder on Saturday morning, when a mistaken alert warning of an inbound ballistic missile sent thousands fleeing for shelter.  The false alarm was caused by a Hawaii Emergency Management Agency employee who 'pushed the wrong buttons' during an internal drill timed to coincide with a shift handover at 8.07am. The all-clear phone alert was not sent until 38 minutes later.  Incredibly, officials said the employee who made the mistake wasn't aware of it until mobile phones in the command center began displaying the alert.  'This guy feels bad, right. He's not doing this on purpose - it was a mistake on his part and he feels terrible about it,' said EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi in a press conference Saturday afternoon.  Retrained?  Was he ever trained in the first place?  I don't think we've ever had an incident like this.  It requires a major investigation, probably at the Congressional level. 

GREAT MOMENTS IN GOVERNMENT – FROM REUTERS:   WASHINGTON, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Chelsea Manning, the transgender U.S. Army soldier who served seven years in military prison for leaking classified data, is seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. Senate seat from Maryland, according to Federal election filings seen on Saturday.  Manning, who was granted clemency by former U.S. President Barack Obama, was released in May from a U.S. military prison in Kansas where she had been serving time for passing secrets to the WikiLeaks website in the biggest breach of classified data in the history of the United States.  Democratic Senator Ben Cardin was elected in 2006 to that seat and is expected to run for re-election this year. He is the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Cardin was easily re-elected in 2012, beating his Republican challenger by 30 points in the heavily-Democratic state.  Manning had been working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. She was convicted by court-martial in 2013 of espionage and other offenses for furnishing more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, an international organization that publishes information from anonymous sources.  What a total jerk.  What an embarrassment to the Democratic Party that Manning is seeking its nomination.  The party should make it impossible for this dubious character to run...based on her service record.

I WILL NOT DO THIS! – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   In an era during which rules seem meant to be broken — and more and more people are calling for gender equality — it should surprise no one that the fashion world is the head cheerleader for change. Case in point: the Fall 2018 Menswear designers presenting a variety of skirts on their runways.  A wrap skirt paired with a matching jacket showed up at the Astrid Andersen show in London, as well as a flasher-worthy trench dress at Alex Mullins, and a a flirty full skirt bounced along at Bobby Abley.  Then, Undercover presenting a plethora of pleated maxi skirts in Florence. Designer Jun Takahashi opened with five looks ranging from minimalist monochromatic to grungy, head-to-toe plaid. But the literal showstopper was the finale: a parade of topless men in white maxiskirts.  This is the end of civilization as we know it.

January 13, 2018       Permalink 

IRAN – THE RUMBLES CONTINUE – AT 11:41 A.M. ET:   We're getting more and more reports to the effect that the Iranian rebellion, presumably put down by the government, is still alive and festering.  From Fox: 

They are risking their lives to bring freedom to Iran, and vow to continue their protests.

"These uprisings have just begun. People are not at all willing to give up," one activist told Fox News from the streets of Iran.

"Their patience has come to an end and they have nothing to lose. Iran will surely not fall down and people will not retreat from their demands."

The defiance comes as President Trump announced Friday that he is waving sanctions against Iran under the controversial 2015 nuclear deal one last time, and gave the European allies four months to change the terms of the agreement or he may seek to scrap it.

The protesters we talked to demand even harsher sanctions.

"They should impose major sanctions on the regime," one protester demanded. Another added there "should be sanctions for human rights violations."

The protesters are members of the long banned opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI, also known as the MEK). The group's leader, Maryam Rajavi, has been directly blamed by the Iranian government for fomenting the unrest.

Social media videos show supporters unveiling large banners with Rajavi's photo over highway overpasses, and continuing their opposition.

COMMENT:  We have to be ready in case the protests erupt again.  President Trump was vigorous in his verbal support for the demonstrators last time, but did little else.  The Europeans, ever conscious of the money they're making in Iran, did nothing. 

January 13, 2018      Permalink

THAT PRESIDENTIAL REMARK – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:    We haven't commented about the president's allegedly obscene remarks this week about certain foreign countries, because we still don't know all the details.  If the president said it, shame on him. 

But shame on others, who seem gleeful over the president's blunder.  The fact that Mr. Trump's ill-advised statement can damage the United States means nothing to this crowd.  They care only about bringing down this president.  Consider these wise observations by Roger Kimball, at American Greatness: 

It is curious how close certain seemingly contrary emotions can be. Consider, to take just one example, the feelings of glee and outrage. At first blush, they seem very different. Glee occupies a positive register in the metabolism of human emotions. There is such thing as malicious glee, of course—the German word schadenfreude captures that perfectly. But by and large, I believe, glee is a sunny, allegro emotion.

Outrage, on the contrary, is a dour beast. It glowers. It fulminates. It glories in moral indignation, which it eagerly manufactures whenever it is in short supply.

And it is there, in the manufacture, affectation, the pretense, of moral indignation that that outrage shades in smarmy gleefulness. You can see this in operation right now, today, by the simple expedient of turning to CNN and watching commentator after commentator explode in gleeful outrage over Donald Trump’s alleged comments about the relative desirability of immigrants from countries like Norway, on the one hand, and countries like Haiti, El Salvador, and various apparently unnamed African countries on the other. (I say “alleged” not because I doubt the substance of the report, but simply because the president has disputed some details of the reporting.)

Two questions: Were all those commentators at CNN (and the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other purveyors of sanctimony)—were they more delighted or unhappy about the president’s comment? Think carefully before answering.

Sometimes, the experience of outrage, and its accompanying moral indignation, is essentially a feeling of displeasure—at a wrong done or suffered, an injustice or cruelty observed, etc.

But sometimes, outrage is but a patina of indignation whose chief motive is incontinent delight. Which is it for the talking heads at CNN?

COMMENT:  Very well stated.  Some of these commentators are overjoyed.  They will hurt their country, but they will serve themselves.  And, after all, which is more important to them?

January 13, 2018       Permalink

FLU – AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  Far too little attention is being given to the fact that we have a serious flu epidemic, and many of our hospitals are poorly equipped to handle it.  This is a case study in what might happen if we have a national catastrophe.  From Texas Tribune: 

Big-city hospitals in Texas have been overwhelmed this week by an influx of flu patients, and state health officials say influenza activity is widespread across the state.

At Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, waiting rooms turned into exam areas as a medical tent was built in order to deal with the surge of patients. A Houston doctor said local hospital beds were at capacity, telling flu sufferers they might be better off staying at home. Austin's emergency rooms have also seen an influx of flu patients. 

Parkland, of course, is where President Kennedy died.

But high emergency room volumes and filled hospital beds are "not uncommon" for this point during flu season, which runs from October to May, said Lara Anton of the Texas Department of State Health Services.

"We definitely know it's widespread," Anton said this week. "We have been at widespread for the past three weeks." But she added that it's too early in the season to know whether this year's flu impact is extraordinary.

On Monday alone, Parkland's emergency department had seen 930 patients — double what the hospital typically sees for people with flu symptoms by this time of year, Dr. Joseph Chang, associate chief medical officer for Parkland, told CBS11.

Across town on Sunday, Methodist Dallas Medical Center rerouted non-emergency ambulance patients to different area facilities in order to take care of “emergency patients like trauma, stroke, and sexual assault" due to the lack of bed availability from flu patients. The hospital said the move was consistent with state and federal laws, The Dallas Morning News reported. 

The Houston and Austin areas are also seeing high volumes of patients. In Houston, area hospitals have filled up, including Texas Children’s Hospital, where a quarter of patients are being treated for the flu. Austin doctors have reported high volumes of patients in emergency rooms, and “the number of visits at health care systems, physician offices and urgent care centers over the past week has really exploded,” Dr. Ken Mitchell of St. David’s Healthcare told KXAN.

As of Thursday, no Texas hospitals had requested state help to deal with flu activity, Anton said.

COMMENT:  A number of deaths have been reported.  Flu is dangerous.  We have perhaps become too complacent.  The flu shots available may not be all that effective against the current strain of flu, but medical people have told me that having the shot can reduce the severity of flu, once it attacks the body.

And what happens with our hospitals if we're hit by a biological-warfare attack?  I hope that's being studied.

January 13,  2018     Permalink