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.

SECOND SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE OF 2018 - HELP!

(Report to readers:  We're sluggish again.  We thank those who have generously participated, both our "regulars" and new subscribers.  But we simply must do better to maintain the services of Urgent Agenda.  Please do subscribe or donate.)

Subscriptions and donations make our work possible.  Without them, we could not continue.  

By participating you'll be supporting our efforts, but you'll also receive our twice-a-week emailed page, the Angel's Corner.  It features posts by subscribers and donators like you, and is our most popular feature.  Our readers can write, many have vast experience in areas we cover, and they have plenty to say.   

Details on subscribing and donating are in the right-hand column of this page, opposite these words, under SUBSCRIPTONS. 

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

You can join us through PayPal, or use SENDINC, which has become widely 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.

I appeared on Silvio Canto Jr's talk show from Dallas yesterday.  It's here.

JUNE 13,  2018

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

THE THREE CALIFORNIAS – FROM FOX:  An initiative to divide California into three states has received enough signatures to qualify it for the November ballot, the California secretary of state's office confirmed Tuesday.  The three-states campaign, dubbed “Cal-3,” submitted more than 600,000 signatures.  Tim Draper, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capital investor, sponsored the ballot measure to divide America’s most populous state into three jurisdictions, the Mercury News of San Jose, Calif., reported.
-- California would be made up of six mainly coastal counties, including Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.
-- Northern California would include 40 counties from Santa Cruz to the Oregon border, including San Francisco and Sacramento, the state’s current capital.
-- Southern California would comprise 12 counties, including Fresno, Kern, Orange and San Diego counties.  All I can think of is the pain it would be to change all those current California addresses on the Urgent Agenda mailing list.  At any rate, only 17% of Californians favored the division in a recent poll.  I don't see much of a chance. 

A VICTORY FOR COMMON SENSE? – FROM COLLEGE FIX:  A program at the University of Texas meant to encourage “healthy masculinities” and discourage “restrictive masculinity” has been put on hold and is currently under review after negative media coverage brought it to the public’s attention.  The university’s “MasculinUT” program is “currently being reviewed by a steering committee that will make recommendations to the Vice President for Student Affairs to assure the program’s mission remains clearly defined,” according to the program’s website.  The program was referred for further clarification when it became clear that “some of the communication and discussion surrounding MasculinUT did not convey” the full intent of the initiative.  Last month PJ Media reported that the campaign “treats masculinity as a mental illness,” something the university denied on its website.  Why do I think we can do without this?  And if federal aid is involved, Congress should investigate.

THE NEXT THING – FROM FOX BUSINESS:  Microsoft is taking aim at Amazon.com with the development of technology that would eliminate the need for cashiers and checkout lines.  It’s a challenge to Amazon’s automated grocery shop, according to Reuters.  Microsoft has shown the idea to retailers around the world and has had talks with Walmart about a potential collaboration on the technology that tracks what shoppers add to their carts.  In January, Amazon introduced Amazon Go, an automated brick-and-mortar store that opened in Seattle.  Technology used at the store scans customers’ smartphones at a turnstile as they enter. Sensors then keep track of items that enter or leave a customer’s cart.  As customers leave the store, Amazon automatically bills their credit card.  Seems logical to me.  Checkout is always a pain.  But what if the technology breaks down and you're billed a thousand dollars for an egg?  Will there be a human there to comfort you?

June 13, 2018       Permalink

MIKE SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT – AT 11:22 A.M. ET:  Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear the American position on nuclearization after never-Trumpers tried to disparage what we gained from the Singapore summit.  From BBC: 

North Korea will not get any sanctions relief until it has demonstrated "complete denuclearisation", US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said.

Mr Pompeo was speaking at a press conference in Seoul with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts.

He said Pyongyang was committed to giving up its nuclear programme.

The conference comes days after President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un held a historic summit in Singapore.

The leaders signed a statement pledging to establish a new relationship. North Korea reaffirmed previous promises to work towards the "complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula".

There has been deep scepticism about the agreement, with observers saying it lacked detail on how North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons and how that process would be verified.

Mr Trump had earlier said that sanctions would "remain in effect" until "the nukes are no longer a factor", but it was unclear exactly what that meant.

"At a certain point I look forward to taking them off and they will come off when we know we are down the road," he told a news conference after the summit.

Mr Pompeo has travelled to South Korea to brief the US's regional allies on the agreement, and on Mr Trump's surprise announcement that he was ending the routine US-South Korea military drills which have so angered North Korea. 

The secretary of state dismissed a report by North Korean state media that Mr Trump and Mr Kim had agreed to a "step-by-step" process of nuclear dismantling.

This has been taken to indicate that the US would grant concessions to Pyongyang along the way.

"We believe that Kim Jong-un understands the urgency [of denuclearisation]," said Mr Pompeo. "That we must do this quickly."

COMMENT:  A rather clear statement.  I suspect we'll have a crisis in the negotiations pretty soon, generated by President Trump, who will make it clear that things are not moving fast enough.  That will be the acid test for Kim – move more quickly and more completely to denuclearize, or go back into his box.

June 13, 2018       Permalink

WHAT? – AT 11:35 A.M. ET:  Is it possible there's good news out of, of all places, Turkey?  From Bloomberg:   

Turkey’s election this month could go down to the wire, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing a tougher battle to cement power or even an upset, according to a poll commissioned by Bloomberg.

Erdogan can win the presidential vote in the first round on June 24 with 50.8 percent support and get the backing of a majority in parliament, the survey by Foresight Danismanlik of 500 people on June 7-11 found. But a surprise victory for the opposition is also within the margin of error.

The key takeaway is that any array of options is possible and the only certainty is that it will be very close. Erdogan and his AK party can’t win alone, and in previous elections they got the support of religious conservatives, free-market liberals or Kurds to govern. Now success hinges on how voters identifying as nationalist cast their ballot, the poll found.

COMMENT:  I'd love to see that little worm knocked out of power.  You'll recall that Obama said that Erdogan was his closest friend in the Middle East.  The comment stunned observers because Erdogan was, and is, an anti-American Islamist fanatic.  Of course, for Obama that never posed a problem.

I doubt if Erdogan will go down.  But the election will be close, and maybe some sober-minded Turks, traditionally friends of the United States, will take heart and come back to fight another day.

June 13,  2018     Permalink

PLEASE DON'T SAY THIS – AT 11:20 A.M. ET:  President Trump made a dramatic statement on North Korea this morning.  I wish he hadn't.  From CNBC:

North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat, nor is it the "biggest and most dangerous problem" for the United States, President Donald Trump said on Wednesday on his return from a summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The summit was the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader and followed a flurry of North Korean nuclear and missile tests and angry exchanges between Trump and Kim last year that fuelled fears of war.

"Everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office," Trump said on Twitter.

"There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"

COMMENT:  Oh, Mr. President, please shut up.  You did well in Singapore.  Don't ruin it by exaggerated statements and grandiose bragging. 

This, of course, is the part of Donald Trump that makes us wince.  After skillful handling of an issue, he blows it away with wild statements and claims.

To the White House staff:  There's an AC cable connected to the president's computer.  At the end of the cable is a plug.  Please snip same.

June 13,  2018     Permalink

JUNE 12,  2018

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

MADNESS – FROM DAILY CALLER:   Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Sunday expressed regret over eating at Chick-fil-A, because of the chicken company’s CEO’s personal views on gay marriage.
Dorsey tweeted a screenshot from his phone that showed a purchase he had made at Chick-fil-A using a mobile application. After a liberal backlash, however, Dorsey apologized for eating at the popular fast food restaurant.  At issue was Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy’s 2012 support for defining marriage as between a man and a woman, which he described as “the biblical definition of a family.”  Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien was among those to call out Dorsey for eating at the self-described home of the original chicken sandwich.  So now we're expected to check out the owner's religious views before ordering lunch?  Not the way a free society works.

GOOD ECONOMIC SIGN – FROM BREITBART:   Overall enrollment in the nation’s food stamp program has dipped to its lowest level in eight years, according to the latest statistics released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).  The latest USDA data reveals that enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—the federal government program that administers food stamps—dropped to 40,083,954 in March 2018.  It's a sign of a healthier economy.  Fewer people need government assistance.  The liberals must be tearing their hair out.

A RATINGS HIT – FROM DAILYWIRE.COM:  The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was one of the most anticipated events of the year, and it showed in the ratings, as Fox News's Sean Hannity dominated all of television — not just cable — during the historic event.
Fox News's coverage of the historic meeting between the two leaders topped cable news, earning the top ranking in both total day and primetime for total viewers as well as the coveted 25-54 demographic, according to Nielsen Media Research.  The highest rated of Fox News's coverage was Hannity's program, which dominated all of television with 5.9 million total viewers, beating out all of broadcast primetime and all of cable.  And then there's CNN's audience of six.   

June 12, 2018       Permalink

NORK PRESS REPORTS ON SUMMIT – AT 11:30 P.M. ET:   The controlled North Korean press has been reporting its version of the summit conference in Singapore.  We read this stuff primarily to get hints as to what the government is thinking.  From AFP: 

Kim Jong Un invited Donald Trump to visit North Korea during their historic summit and the US President accepted, Pyongyang state media reported Wednesday, calling it the start of a “radical switchover” in the nuclear-armed Cold War foes’ fraught relations.

The unprecedented encounter in Singapore Tuesday saw the leader of the world’s most powerful democracy shake hands with the third generation scion of a dynastic dictatorship, standing as equals in front of their nations’ flags.

Kim agreed to the “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” a stock phrase favored by Pyongyang that stopped short of long-standing US demands for North Korea to give up its atomic arsenal in a “verifiable” and “irreversible” way.

In its first report on the landmark summit, the official KCNA news agency ran a glowing dispatch on the talks, describing them as an “epoch-making meeting” that would help foster “a radical switchover in the most hostile (North Korea)-US relations.”

The report said the two men each asked the other to visit their country.

“The two top leaders gladly accepted each other’s invitation,” KCNA said.

Pyongyang has reason to feel confident after the meeting, which was a major coup for an isolated and heavily sanctioned regime that has long craved international legitimacy.

COMMENT:  As we noted earlier, editorial opinions expressed now should be largely ignored.  The president expressed confidence in a Fox interview tonight that the North understands our requirements for progress, which include complete de-nuclearization.  The president made clear that this whole effort may eventually fail, which was his way of signaling the North that he was prepared to walk away from a bad deal, just as Reagan did in negotiating with Gorbachev.

The people in Congress whom I respect on defense matters, like Tom Cotton of Arkansas, are displaying satisfaction at the outcome of the summit and are relaxed on whatever concessions Trump may have made.  Cotton in particular expressed confidence that Trump would not back down on our major demands.  I share that confidence and hope that I'm right.

June 12,  2018     Permalink

THE PRESIDENT – AT 1:35 P.M. ET:   He stands at 49% in today's Rasmussen tracker.  We'll know by Friday how much of a boost the North Korea summit is giving him, if any.  I would love to see him go over 50% and stay there.

Other polls have Mr. Trump lower, but the general trend has been upward. 

We're now starting to get the first real detail journalism in response to the summit conference in Singapore, and the document it produced, reprinted below.  The journalism is predictable.  A press corps that normally operates on a leftist, adolescent level may have gone up half a grade in school in covering the summit, but no more.  One senses an almost desperate attempt to disparage the president's performance, suggesting that he was taken by Kim Jong Un, that nothing real was accomplished, and that it simply proved the need for someone like...Ms. Hillary.

It's absurd.

We're told today by some journalists that Trump put Kim on the same level as the president of the United States.  Is that laughable, or what?  Our visitor from North Korea could barely pay his hotel bill.  His people are starving.  He is surrounded by American strike forces.  We could wipe his country out in 20 minutes.  He can't touch ours.  And Kim, unlike Trump, goes home to...North Korea.  He got a few days of attention, and some cosmetic concessions.  That's it.  Now it is clear he must produce, must make real change happen for North Korea, or he will be back in the box he was in last week, a little leader presiding over a bankrupt country.

And he is facing Donald Trump, not Barack Obama.

Just as Mikhail Gorbachev faced Ronald Reagan, not Jimmy Carter.

You'll be hearing all kinds of opinions in the next few days.  Discount 90% of them.  We will not know the full outcome of this summit for months, maybe years.  The real negotiating now starts, under the skillful hand of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Please remember that we are trying to turn an enemy into a friend.  Maybe some people thought Trump would hit Kim over the head with a copy of "The Art of the Deal."  Not exactly the way to do it. 

At the end of World War II, Douglas MacArthur, who became the regent presiding over the defeated nation of Japan, was photographed with Emperor Hirohito, the very symbol of what we hated – Pearl Harbor, Japanese prison camps, three years of bitter fighting with high American casualties.  But still, MacArthur allowed the photo to be taken.  He knew he had to deal with the emperor, a religious figure, who was permitted to stay on the throne as part of Japan's surrender agreement.

In Europe, General Eisenhower, after Germany's defeat, had to deal with German officials who had been part of the Nazi regime, or fought with Nazi forces.  His job was to turn them into allies, which he did.  Was it not Wernher von Braun, the Nazi rocket scientist, who was brought to America to help build our missile program?  I hated that idea, but understood it.

Unlike his predecessor, Field Marshal Obama, President Trump negotiates from a position of strength.  Several weeks ago, as you'll recall, he pulled out of this summit conference because he didn't feel that Kim was acting appropriately.  Kim straightened up, and the conference went ahead.  Kim understands that Trump can do that again.

Give the president some space and time, realizing that those American carrier groups are still in the region and are not being withdrawn, and that heavy sanctions are still locked on North Korea, and will remain if there are not satisfactory results from our ongoing talks.

Just don't expect a positive press toward the president.  CNN is already at work disparaging the Singapore summit.  Trump will last longer than CNN.

June 12, 2018       Permalink

THE DOCUMENT – AT 10:50 A.M. ET:  It was a pleasure to watch the president, at 4 a.m. our time, holding a press conference in Singapore to discuss the document he, historically, had just signed with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un.  Here is the text of that document:

Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.

President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth, and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Convinced that the establishment of new U.S.-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.

2. The United States and the DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

Having acknowledged that the U.S.-DPRK summit—the first in history—was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the U.S.-DPRK summit.

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new U.S.-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.

[signature]

DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America
[signature]

KIM JONG UN
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

June 12,  2018     Permalink