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SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE– DAY FOUR – HELP NEEDED!

(Our drive continues very sluggish.  Normally we pick up on the third day.  It didn't happen this time, for whatever reason.  We must do better to maintain Urgent Agenda's services.  If you plan on participating, please do it now.  It's very good for my morale.  Show the liberals that we care!)

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SEPTEMBER 8,  2017

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

A GENIUS SPEAKS – FROM FOX:   Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Lawrence suggested the devastating hurricanes in Texas and approaching Florida were signs of “Mother Nature’s rage and wrath” at America for electing Donald Trump and not believing in man-made climate change.  Lawrence, who is promoting her new drama “Mother!,” appeared on British network Channel 4 on Wednesday, where she discussed topics ranging from the movie to the gender pay gap and Trump.  “It’s scary,” the actress responded to the interviewer’s assertion that there was “an end-of-days feeling” across the world and especially in the U.S.  Well, that settles it.  The hurricane explained.  No need to look further.

GOOD FOR DOJ – FROM THE DAILY MAIL:   President Trump's administration has sided with a Christian baker who refused to make a gay couple's wedding cake because he claimed their marriage went against his religious beliefs.  Forcing Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, to bake a wedding cake for two men would be a violation of his constitutional rights, the Department of Justice declared on Thursday.  The baker is challenging a Colorado law that says  he was wrong to have turned away Charlie Craig and David Mullins, who wanted a cake to celebrate their nuptials in 2012.
Phillips refused because his religion does not support same-sex marriage and said he should not be compelled to bake a cake that would specifically honor that.  I side with the Department of Justice.  Requiring someone to create something, to write something, that violates that person's religious beliefs is a profound step in a democracy.  We have always tried to accommodate religious belief, within reason.  I think the baker's case is within reason. 

LET JUSTICE BE DONE – FROM DAILY CALLER:  Officers of the Dallas Police Department arrested Dominque Alexander on Thursday, the black activist that organized the 2016 anti-police protest in Dallas that left 12 officers shot and five dead.  Alexander faces charges of felony theft, stemming from a previous employer who claims the activist received payments between $2,500 and $30,000 from clients without transferring them to the company, the Dallas Observer reported. Alexander was thrust into the national spotlight in July 2016 after chaos erupted in Dallas during a Black Lives Matter anti-police protest when an angry protestor opened fire on police, killing five and wounding seven. Alexander’s Next Generation Action Network sponsored and helped organize the protest.  “I’m so beyond outraged. This is a bogus-ass charge. It’s ridiculous,” Alexander told the Observer. “This is a civil issue. If I owe this guy money, this is a civil issue.”  Alexander pleaded guilty in 2009 to causing serious bodily injury to a 2-year-old and was subsequently sentenced to probation, FOX 4 Dallas reported.  Another hustler who'll disgrace and mislead the very people he claims he's helping.

September 8, 2017       Permalink

YOU CANNOT MAKE IT UP – AT 11:50 A.M. ET:  Your tax dollars at work.  I hope the Trump administration starts looking into stuff like this.  From the Washington Free Beacon: 

The National Science Foundation is spending over $130,000 on a study that asks four-year-olds about their "internal sense of gender identity."

A grant for a two-year study was awarded to the University of Washington this summer. The project will interview 250 children aged four to six, and their parents, asking a series of questions about "gendered behavior."

"Prominent theories of gender development have discussed the degree to which gender identity results from an internal sense of gender and socialization processes," according to the grant.

"However, tests of these theories have been limited because, for most children, internal gender identity and environmental socialization substantially overlap, rendering it impossible to distinguish the relative impact of each factor on gender development."

COMMENT:  The National Science Foundation is a government agency that finances studies in the non-medical sciences.  This sounds very medical to me.  It also sounds like something that's more about politics than science.  Very much an Obama effect.

I could be wrong, but, from what I've seen, I think I'm right.

September 8, 2017       Permalink

TRUMP RISES AGAIN – AT 9:47 A.M. ET:   Rasmussen shows still one more uptick in the president's approval rating: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-three percent (53%) disapprove.

This is the president’s highest job approval rating since late June.

The latest figures include 29% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 45% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -16.

COMMENT:  True, it's one poll, and others will show different numbers.  But Rasmussen was particularly accurate in calling the election, and runs an excellent daily tracker.

The rising numbers will allow Trump to do what we discussed in the post just below.  He is gaining political strength...and independence.  And he is getting rave reviews over his handling of the hurricane crisis.

It can change, but, for now, he's sailing.

September 8, 2017       Permalink

CHANGE? – AT 9:28 A.M. ET:  There's major yapping about President Trump's decision to join with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in extending the debt limit only three months, rather than the longer period wanted by GOP leaders.

Is this important?  Is Trump throwing the GOP leadership under the bus he has parked outside the White House?  Or is it just a temporary fix?

On the one hand, we can argue that it is a temporary agreement.  It gets the debt extension off the table during the vital period from now until almost the end of the year, allowing for the president's priority, tax reform, to be taken up.  I believe that's what will happen.

But...on the other hand, this could be a major political move, and I think it is.  For some time I've believed that Trump wants to start his own political movement, maybe even his own party.  This may be the opening gun.  After all, he was never a Republican, never even a card-carrying member.  His presidential run was opposed by most of the GOP establishment.  They don't particularly like him.  Moving toward becoming an "independent Republican" would allow Trump to hold a huge club over the GOP.  Work with him and they will have his support.  Oppose him, or do nothing, and he will work with whomever is available to get things done.  I believe Trump has calculated that the GOP needs him more than he needs the GOP.

And he may be right.

It's just a thought, but I would not be shocked to see Trump becoming more independent as we approach the 2018 midterms, and making Republicans work for his endorsement.

And he might even be able to neutralize the more rational parts of the Democratic Party.

Great politics.

September 8, 2017    Permalink

SEPTEMBER 7,  2017

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:52 P.M. ET: 

AND NOW MEXICO – FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES:  A powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Mexico early Friday and was felt as far away as Mexico City, reports said.  The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 8 and struck about 60 miles, or 96 kilometers, southwest of Pijijiapan, off the coast of Chiapas State, near the border with Guatemala.  The United States Geological Survey issued a tsunami warning right after the quake hit. The Associated Press reported that the quake was felt in the capital, Mexico City.  “I felt the earthquake in our neighborhood near downtown,” said Joel Petterson, a New York Times employee on vacation in Mexico City. “Our building started swaying about 20 minutes ago, and many people went out into the street.”  That's a powerful earthquake.  We'll be watching the story closely, as Irma makes its way to Florida.  Nature has become this weekend's big story.

SOMETHING ELSE TO KEEP US UP – FROM BLOOMBERG:  Equifax Inc. said its systems were struck by a cyberattack that may have affected about 143 million U.S. customers of the credit reporting agency, shedding light on one of the largest and most intrusive breaches in history.  Intruders accessed names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver’s license numbers, Equifax said in a statement. Credit card numbers for about 209,000 consumers were also accessed, the company said. Equifax shares dropped more than 8 percent in after-hours trading.  "This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do. I apologize to consumers and our business customers for the concern and frustration this causes," Chief Executive Officer Richard Smith said.   We are incredibly vulnerable to this kind of hack, and yet I detect no sense of urgency in the American public.

SHE'S BAAACK...AND WON'T LEAVE US ALONE – FROM POLITICO:   President Donald  Trump may be the only person in politics truly excited about Hillary Clinton’s book tour.
Democratic operatives can’t stand the thought of her picking the scabs of 2016, again — the Bernie Sanders divide, the Jim Comey complaints, the casting blame on Barack Obama for not speaking out more on Russia. Alums of her Brooklyn headquarters who were miserable even when they thought she was winning tend to greet the topic with, “Oh, God,” “I can’t handle it,” and “the final torture.”  Hillary has been nationally famous for more time than Franklin D. Roosevelt was on the day he died.  And it's not enough for her.  Don't be shocked if she runs again.  The competition is pretty thin, and some of it is older than she is.

September 7,  2017     Permalink

IT'S ABOUT TIME – AT 11:51 A.M. ET:  You've heard a great deal recently about the Southern Poverty Law Center. You saw, after the events in Charlottesville, corporations lining up to send them contributions.

But how much do you actually know about the SPLC?  More important, how much do the "journalists," who presume to give us the news, know about it?

Now, prominent conservatives have signed a letter warning about SPLC and its activities.  From Fox: 

Forty-seven prominent conservatives have signed an open letter warning the mainstream media against using data on hate groups compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

The letter calls the SPLC a "discredited, left-wing political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a 'hate group' label of its own invention."

Founded in 1971, the SPLC gained fame by successfully prosecuting legal cases against white supremacist organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan. It describes its mission as "fighting hate and bigotry and ... seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of our society."

Today, the SPLC is best known for tracking hate groups, which the organization defines as having "beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristic." Currently, the SPLC says 917 hate groups are operating in the United States. 

And...

The letter also warns that receiving the SPLC's hate group label "endangers the lives of those targeted with it." It references the 2012 shooting at the headquarters of the Family Research Council in Washington. The gunman, Floyd Lee Corkins, said he disagreed with the group's opposition to gay marriage and prosecutors said he selected the group as a target using the SPLC "hate map."

"By recklessly linking the Charlottesville melee to the mainstream groups named on the SPLC website," the letter went on, "we are left to wonder if another Floyd Lee Corkins will soon be incited to violence by this incendiary information.

Prominent signatories of the letter include Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III.

COMMENT:  It is remarkable to see how little due diligence has been practiced by the press in reporting on the SPLC.  Makes us question a lot of the other reporting, doesn't it?

September 7, 2017       Permalink

OUTRAGE – AT 9:57 A.M. ET:   At a time of crisis with North Korea, this requires an immediate series of investigations, and demonstrated improvements. I see we're getting some congressional testimony this week.  And we must ask, "Where are the whistleblowers in the United States Navy?"  From CNN: 

(CNN)  A government watchdog is raising new concerns about the safety and readiness of US ships in the Pacific region following a series of collisions that led to the deaths of US sailors.

More than a third of warfare training certifications for the Navy's Japan-based destroyers and cruisers had expired in June -- a five-fold increase from two years prior, the Government Accountability Office has found.

In testimony to be delivered Thursday, the GAO found that 37% of the Navy's destroyers and cruisers in Japan had expired -- up from 7% in January 2015 -- and over two-thirds had been expired for five months or more.

The GAO testimony, a copy of which was obtained by CNN, will fuel new questions on Capitol Hill about the cause of the four Navy ship collisions in the Pacific this year, in which 17 sailors were killed, and the health of the Navy fleet.

After the USS John S. McCain collided with a merchant vessel last month off the coast of Singapore -- an incident that accounted for 10 of the 17 deaths -- the commander of the 7th Fleet was dismissed, and the Navy ordered a rare, one-day operational pause for its entire fleet.

COMMENT:  We take justifiable pride in our armed forces.  But the American people are owed, and the men and women of our forces are owed, first-class readiness and first-class leadership.  I want to see it demonstrated, to a high standard, that we're getting both.

September 7, 2017       Permalink

UNBELIEVABLE – AT 9:41 A.M. ET:  I'm eager to hear, from the fringe left, the excuse for this.  From the Washington Times: 

ISIS terrorists have put out a call for jihadists to head to disaster areas in Texas and do whatever they can to put those outside the Islam faith “out of their misery.”

It’s a call for killings against the nation’s vulnerable, and it came courtesy of the terror group’s telegram channel.

“To all the LMs [lone mujahids or warriors] in the U.S.,” Newsweek reported, citing Jihadoscope, “pop down to Houston and drop in at any of the relief centers housing displaced people from the Houston floods, make sure to bring lots of supplies/gadgets/toys to see if you can help put any kuffs out of their misery.”

Kuffs means disbeliever — those outside the Islam faith.

And ‘lest the message be confused with a call for charitable help, consider this: It ends with emoji icons of a bomb, a knife, an explosion, a gun, a pill, an injection needle. Message received: Kill, by whatever means available.

Newsweek also noted the message was posted by a channel called “Lone Mujahid” on Telegram, an encryption app that’s frequently used by jihadists because of the privacy and protections it offers.

And there is this gem, from the Jerusalem Post: 

If you thought Islamic State had already come up with every horrific and creative way to hurt people, you were wrong.

ISIS is now campaigning and providing instructions to its “lone wolf” supporters for carrying out terrorist attacks with poisons in crowded malls, International Institute for Counter Terrorism Deputy Director Eitan Azani told a press briefing on Wednesday.

Azani made the comments along with ICT Director Boaz Ganor ahead of the IDC Herzliya institute’s conference next week on terrorism.

The deputy director described the new tactic as part of a more general trend in which ISIS is upping its push on social media for followers “to carry out jihad on enemy land, which is the opposite” of “when ISIS called for recruits to come” to Syria and Iraq.

COMMENT:  Based on the history of ISIS, which is unrelenting in its terror campaigns, I'd take these reports very seriously.  Sadly, we must await the next outrage.

September 7,  2017     Permalink