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.

SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE

Urgent Agenda is a 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year operation.  We depend on subscriptions and donations to keep going.  We are entering the most important mid-term election campaign in recent memory, and we believe our service, now 13 years old, will continue to be valuable to readers.

Subscribers and donators not only support our work, they participate in our Forum, which contains their posts and replies to their posts.   Subscribers and donators write on any subject they wish.  The Forum is emailed once a week. 

We do hope you join us.  To do so, simply go to SUBSCRIPTIONS, in the right-hand column opposite these words.  You can use PayPal, or SENDINC, which is a reader favorite for its security and simplicity.  Or, should you wish to use a traditional paper check, please send me an email at
comments@urgentagenda.com, and I'll provide an address.  Subscriptions are $48 a year, or $26 for six months.

Welcome to Urgent Agenda.

SEPTEMBER 21,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

THE BIDEN CROWD'S MADNESS CONTINUES – FROM JUSTTHE NEWS.COM:  Several hundred elite Navy SEALs are in danger of being blocked from deploying with their special operator teams by the Pentagon after failing to get a mandatory COVID vaccine, according to a lawyer and pastor counseling them.
The number involved in the dispute with the Pentagon amounts to as many as a quarter or more of all active duty SEALs, a loss that could impact military readiness since SEAL teams play an outsized role in modern military operations, their advocates told Just the News. Some SEALS were given a deadline this week for the vaccine and have sought a religious exemption.  "My clients include several Navy SEALs who are a small part of a large group of SEALs and other military members who are being asked to choose between their faith and their ability to serve our nation," said R. Davis Younts, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force reserves and a JAG lawyer who is representing several of the special operators as a private lawyer. "They have been told that if they seek a religious accommodation, they likely will no longer be able to serve our country as Navy SEALs and been given an arbitrary deadline to comply with the vaccine mandate."  Incredible.  These brave patriots may be forced from the service, but illegal immigrants pour over our southern border without any requirement that they be vaccinated.  Who really is running this country? 

September 21, 2021       Permalink

DEMS SHOW SIGNS OF A PANIC – OVERNIGHT:  And we should encourage them, for their panic is justified.  The Republicans may be divided on things, but the Dems are on the brink of an ideological civil war.  I can even see them having their next convention in Gettysburg.  From the Washington Examiner: 

DEMOCRATS PANIC. President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have based the future of the entire Democratic agenda on a trick. And now many Democrats are increasingly concerned — terrified, actually — that the trick won't work.

Democrats have huge, New Deal- and Great Society-style ambitions to pass hyper-expensive, sprawling legislation that would "fundamentally change" life in the United States, as Biden said last December. But unlike Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson, who had huge majorities on Capitol Hill, around 300 seats in the House and between 65 and 75 seats in the Senate, today's Democrats have a tiny, three-vote majority in the House and no majority at all in a Senate tied at 50-50. The only way they can pass legislation on a partisan basis, without Republican help, is to corral all 50 of their votes in the Senate and call on Vice President Kamala Harris to break a tie.

There's no way Democrats could break a Republican filibuster and gather the 60 votes needed to pass hugely consequential legislation such as the party's $3.5 trillion "human infrastructure" bill that would, in the words of the New York Times, "touch virtually every American's life, from conception to aged infirmity." There's also no way Democrats could do away with the filibuster with just 50 senators, not all of whom are on board for doing it.

So here comes the trick. There is a method in Senate rules for getting around a filibuster and passing a bill with a simple majority, or even a tie, plus the vice president. It is called reconciliation. The problem for Democrats is that it can only be used a limited number of times, usually once a year, and it must only be done with a budget bill — the idea being that a minority should not be able to use the filibuster to keep Congress from passing a budget for the U.S. government. To be included in a reconciliation measure, a proposal must be "germane" to the budget. It can't be just any policy whim. It must have a real budgetary effect.

But Democrats had an idea. We don't have enough votes to break the filibuster or to pass big parts of our agenda, they reasoned, so let's just throw everything into one gigantic budget reconciliation bill.

We can even throw immigration reform in there! Sure, that's not what reconciliation is for. But let's just do it. We can get around the filibuster and pass a New Deal-sized bill without even controlling a majority of seats in the Senate.

Put the idea in the category of too clever by half. Some Democratic centrists in both the House and Senate are uncomfortable with the $3.5 trillion figure, especially with inflation plaguing the U.S. economy. The Senate parliamentarian blocked the effort to put immigration reform in the reconciliation bill. Several Democratic senators have their doubts about getting rid of the filibuster. They don't agree on climate measures. There is a fight coming over the debt ceiling. Amid all those Democratic disagreements, all of a sudden, the super-clever, let's-put-it-all-in-one-big-bill-Republicans-can't-stop plan looks very vulnerable.

"Dems fear Biden's domestic agenda could implode," reads a headline in Politico. From the Washington Post: "President Biden's governing agenda is at risk of unraveling on Capitol Hill after a mounting series of delays, clashes and setbacks that have sapped momentum from an ambitious and intricate push to deliver on long-standing Democratic policy priorities."

COMMENT:  Read the rest.  This is good, fact-based reporting from one of the best political writers in Washington.  The Biden administration is failing, and that failure will make it that much more difficult to get any program through Congress.  Also, most Democrats in that Congress owe nothing to President Biden.  His coattails are nonexistent.  As his poll numbers drop, and members of Congress think of their own fate in 2022, the Dems may splinter further, trying to disown the very unpopular leftists who have gained a powerful foothold in the party.

September 21,  2021     Permalink

SEPTEMBER 20,  2021

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – OVERNIGHT:

TRUDEAU STAYS – FROM REUTERS:   MONTREAL/OTTAWA, (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hung onto power on Monday as his main rival conceded defeat, saying he had won a clear mandate to govern although he fell short of his goal for a majority win.  Trudeau, in power since 2015 and governing with a minority of House of Commons seats since 2019, decided to gamble on an early vote and capitalize on his government's handling of the pandemic, which included massive spending to support individuals and businesses and a push for high vaccination rates.  Instead, he will end up where he started after an unexpectedly tight election race characterized by a lackluster campaign and voter anger at an election during a pandemic.  Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole, whose party placed second, conceded defeat as results trickled in late into the night. Trudeau spoke to supporters shortly after, pledging to work with other parties for the good of all Canadians.   A disappointment for us, and another reminder that unseating leftists is more difficult than we think, no matter what the country.  Reject overconfidence as we enter 2022.

WE'LL LOOK FORWARD TO IT – FROM FOX BUSINESS:    Fox Business Network will debut a new primetime programming slate on Monday, "FBN Prime," that will feature even more Stuart Varney when "American Built" debuts at 9 p.m. ET.  "The new primetime lineup is all about America's greatness and it's designed to open up our viewers to a point of view that is patriotic, pro-America and pro-capitalism," Varney told Fox News Digital. "That's what we're doing."  "American Built with Stuart Varney" will air each Monday as FBN’s top-rated host dives into the design and ingenuity of iconic American landmarks with back-to-back episodes of the show that began on Fox Nation.   "It’s the story of America's brilliant engineers who opened up a whole continent and made it livable," Varney said.  "It's a story of problem solving, innovation and enormous perseverance."  Varney feels many Americans have forgotten what a truly remarkable country we live in but "American Built" will help remind viewers of its greatness.   "As a newly minted American citizen, I'm in a very strong position to point out what's so good about it," he said. "We wanted the story of America's greatness to be on primetime on Fox Business."  Good idea.  They should make Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton watch it.

September 20, 2021       Permalink

IS THIS COMEBACK REAL? – OVERNIGHT:  We always stress that polls are snapshots in time.  But, let's face it, they can be great fun, statistical mischief in a dreary world.  And so we note with interest the latest Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, which seems to suggest that Donald Trump is winning new respectability with a public that has now seen the presidency of Joe Biden.  From Breitbart: 

Former President Donald Trump is more popular with registered voters than President Joe Biden, according to a Monday Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released by the Hill.

“Forty-eight percent of respondents say they have a positive view of Trump compared to 46 percent who say they have a favorable opinion of his successor,” the Hill reported.

In addition to respondents’ more positive view of Trump than Biden, 51 percent believe Trump was actually “a better president than Biden.”

During Trump’s tenure, the United States succeeded at hammering out trade deals, constructing historic Middle East peace agreements, and raising wages for many varying demographics. In contrast, Biden’s presidency has been defined by the deadly Afghan evacuation that left hundreds to thousands of U.S. documented residents stranded behind enemy lines and droned Afghan civilians.

The Hill, an establishment media outlet with a left-wing bias, admitted the poll’s numbers are “remarkable” for Biden, “who repeatedly out-performed Trump’s favorability numbers throughout the early months of his presidency.”

The left-wing publication asserted the “bruised public perceptions of Biden” are due to his mismanagement of the Chinese coronavirus and virus messaging along with the Afghanistan hostage crisis.

On the coronavirus messaging front, for instance, Biden implemented vaccine mandates on medium to large size businesses while scolding the unvaccinated for refusing to get the “effective” jab, suggesting the unvaccinated are causing the vaccinated ill health.

“Your refusal has cost all of us,” he said on September 8. “We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin.”

Biden’s confusing communication upon the vaccine’s effectiveness has resulted in only 48 percent of U.S. adults approving of Biden’s handling of the coronavirus crisis with 49 disapproving, according to polling by Quinnipiac University. In August, those numbers were flipped, with fifty-three percent approving and 40 percent disapproving.

COMMENT:  Obviously, these numbers can change dramatically, and go either way.  And who knows?  When polls like this are taken at a time when they really start to count, which means after the 2022 midterms, we may not even have a President Biden.  Fate will take its course.

But for the moment, Donald Trump must be feelin' his oats.  And planning, if only in his dreams, his 2024 bid to return to the White House.

September 20,  2021     Permalink