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.

OUR DAILY SNIPPETS ARE HERE.

SUBSCRIPTION DRIVE – HELP NEEDED!

We are more than halfway through our subscription drive.  Subscriptions are our lifeblood.  If you like what you are reading, and would like us to continue and even expand our work, please consider subscribing.  I think we provide a unique service, tailored to the tastes of a particular audience.  And I hope we do it with a touch of lightness.  We appreciate the number of readers who've told us they make Urgent Agenda their first read every day.  And we appreciate the fact that our retention rate for subscribers is well over 90%, which sends a message.

You can subscribe by going to the column on the right, just opposite these words.

By subscribing you keep Urgent Agenda alive. You also get The Angel's Corner, our twice-a-week e-mailed publication.  At The Angel's Corner you can join our Forum, which has become the most popular feature at Urgent Agenda.  Write on anything you wish.   Did you know that some Angel's Corner pieces are used in college classrooms?  Others are published around the internet. 

And, at The Angel's Corner, we give the very coveted Pompous Fool award, bestowed, after intensive review, on those who meet the very highest standards of absurdity and leftist immaturity.  Be the first to find out who has been so blessed.  But please, don't send candy or cakes to try to get us to name your favorite.  We have morals here.
   
If you ever want to drop your subscription, the unused portion will be refunded with only a few insults and strange phone calls.  But we cannot guarantee that you'll still have friends.

Subscribe today. A credit card will do it. Or, we can send you a mail address, if you prefer.

SATURDAY,  JUNE 12,  2010

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 6:19 P.M. ET:  From superlative Canadian columnist Margaret Wente of the Toronto Globe & Mail, based on her interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Somali-born dissenter from Islam, who is under constant death threats because she has spoken out against Muslim oppression:

Why are so many liberal intellectuals, social democrats and feminists so silent on the more noxious features of Islam – the fierce intolerance toward unbelievers, the repression of individual freedom, the routine abuse of children, the misogyny, the forced subservience of women? “It’s the seduction of totalitarianism,” she says. In her view, Western defenders of Islam are the intellectual heirs of those highly intelligent men and women who used to heap praise on Comrade Stalin. “It’s a blind spot that left-wing intellectuals have always had.”

COMMENT:  Ali is correct, and that blind spot can destroy us.  Most civilizations are not destroyed by foreign enemies.  They commit suicide.  Our suicide can come if we continue to permit the influence of the decadent left to infect our universities, our media, and our culture. 

Fortunately, there are those who are fighting back.  But conservatives in particular have often been too courteous, too deferential, too afraid of the tag of "McCarthyism" to fight effectively.  We have to fight as if our children's lives depended on it, which they do.

June 12, 2010     Permalink

ANOTHER ESTIMATE, YAWN – AT 6:02 P.M. ET:  We now have another estimate about the timeline of Iran's nuclear-weapons program.  From CBC:

It will take Iran at least a year and perhaps three to produce a nuclear device, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.

It will then take more time for Iran to produce a weapon and a system for getting it to a target, Gates said at the meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels.

"But clearly, them getting to the threshold of having weapons is what concerns everybody, and not the other things, and in that area I would say there is a range there from [one to three] years," Gates said.

The time range is based on different intelligence estimates.

Iran insists its nuclear program is purely peaceful, aimed at producing nuclear energy and medical isotopes, but the United States and many allies believe Tehran's real goal is to build weapons.

Gates also said he was disappointed that Turkey voted Wednesday against a UN Security Council resolution to toughen sanctions against Iran.

Turkey and Brazil, which also voted against the resolution, had brokered a fuel-swap agreement with Iran that they hoped would address concerns Tehran was enriching uranium for nuclear weapons.

COMMENT:  It seems to me that the estimates are generally in line with what we've read, although the Israelis believe Iranian success will come sooner.

What is left out, though, is this:  Iran will not need a sophisticated delivery system to use a nuclear weapon.  The great nightmare of many planners is that they'll put a rudimentary nuke aboard a freighter and sail it into an American harbor, where it would be set off by a suicide group.  Or, they could bring that freighter to within 20 miles of New York or Los Angeles, and fire a 1970s vintage rocket, carrying a nuclear warhead, from its decks.

Or, they could smuggle a nuke into the United States, part by part, across the Mexican border, and do a nuclear Oklahama City.  You don't need a circa 2010 missile.  All you need is a circa 1945 nuclear device.

June 12, 2010     Permalink

HEY, THEY NOTICED – AT 8:37 A.M. ET:  The Politico has noticed some very important changes in the candidate list of the Republican Party.  As the lady sings it:  "At Last."

For a generation, the Republican Party's demographic problem has been summed up in three adjectives: too old, too white, too male.

That’s why GOP officials are thrilled by the prospect of a South Carolina gubernatorial nominee whose profile boasts another three adjectives—young, Indian-American, female.

Suddenly, the historically monochrome Republican Party is flashing a few glints of color, with thirty-eight-year-old Nikki Haley the most prominent representative of a class that represents something of a breakthrough.

The congressional and gubernatorial primaries held so far this year have put the GOP on the verge of electing an array of diverse new faces to high office, which stands to upend the party’s country club image and perhaps even diminish one of the most enduring punch lines in American politics.

This won't solve the GOP’s deep structural problems in a rapidly-changing country—namely the party’s weakness among young and non-white voters—but the unusual crop of candidates plays against stereotypes of the party in ways that are a vast relief to top Republican strategists.

A bit of dissent there.  It may not solve problems with African-American voters, who understandably see themselves as a distinct group.  But I have to believe that young voters, who may not be quite as ideological as Democrats think, will take notice.  They've become somewhat disillusioned with The One anyway. 

There has never been a non-white female governor in the nation’s history—yet the GOP could elect two in November. New Mexico’s Susana Martinez, an Hispanic, won her party’s nomination last month and South Carolina’s Haley, who got just under half the vote in her primary Tuesday and is the heavy favorite in a runoff later this month.

COMMENT:  I quoted Bill Bennett yesterday to the effect that "this is not your father's Republican Party."  No indeed.

June 12, 2010     Permalink

TROUBLE ON THE RIGHT – AT 8:18 A.M. ET:  As readers know, one of my fears is that the Republican Party will mess up the path to victory this November.  It's so expert at that, after all.  Now, based on what I'm reading in e-mails to Urgent Agenda and in statements on the web, we're seeing some danger signs.  From the Washington Times:

A skirmish is breaking out on the right just when key components of the Republican coalition - the fiscal, social and national-defense conservatives - appeared to have a tacit agreement to focus on economic issues going into the 2010 midterm elections.

The dispute erupted Thursday when prominent social conservative Tony Perkins challenged Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to retreat from his stance that abortion should be put on the political back burner until the nation overcomes its fiscal woes.

In his newsletter, the president of the Family Research Council complained that Mr. Daniels, widely considered an A-list contender in the 2012 Republican presidential contest, has become "noncommittal about his role as a pro-life leader."

What sparked Mr. Perkins' ire, he said, was a report in the neoconservative Weekly Standard that quoted Mr. Daniels as saying the next president "would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. ... We're going to just have to agree to get along for a little while."

Mr. Perkins said Mr. Daniels "wouldn't even agree to a modest step like banning taxpayer-funded promotion of abortion overseas - which President Bush did on his first day in office, with 65 percent of the country's support."

COMMENT:  This could get serious, and so it's time for some phone calls and maybe face-to-face meetings.  I think Reagan got it about right.  He maintained the GOP's concerns with social issues, while understanding that social change cannot be handed down from the mountaintop and go into effect instantly.

One of the things that attracted many of us to modern conservatism is its commitment to social morality.  At the same time, we cannot become a one-trick pony and start driving people away over one question.  I think Mitch Daniels may have overstated his position.  I didn't get the feeling, in hearing him speak recently, that he was ditching his social concerns.  I did get the feeling that he plans to stress his leadership skills and economic competence.

As I said, some phone calls are in order.  If Reagan could get it right, we can get it right again.  The key: A party can be a big tent, but not an infinite tent.  Truman understood that in 1948 when he wouldn't bow down to either the hard-core segregationists or the crackpot left.  Both walked.  Truman won.  We're a practical people, and an idealistic people at the same time.

June 12, 2010     Permalink

TENSIONS RISING WITH BRITAIN – AT 8:03 A.M. ET:  Did you ever think you'd read that headline in your lifetime?  But it's true.  Our masterful commander-in-chief, head diplomat, and host for neat White House music concerts, has managed to damage our relations with Britain, as with...well, it's a long list.  From Fox:

WASHINGTON -- The Gulf oil spill, with a British company the villain, is raising tensions on both sides of the Atlantic.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron planned to discuss the environmental catastrophe Saturday by telephone, hoping to ease what has become a growing rift between the two countries over the criticism of the well's owner, BP PLC.

As BP struggles unsuccessfully to halt the gushing oil that is bringing environmental chaos to the Gulf Coast, Obama has sharpened his criticism of the British company. He said he would have fired BP's top executive if he were in charge, embraced the idea that the oil giant suspend its quarterly dividend and reproached BP for spending money on a public relations campaign.

And occasionally Obama would refer to "British Petroleum," although the company years ago began using only its initials and, in fact, is a far-reaching international corporation with extensive holdings in the United States, including a Texas refinery and a share of the Alaska oil pipeline.

The sharp rhetoric from Washington, aimed to the address the concerns of angry Americans, especially those in the Gulf Coast region, has produced a backlash in Britain, where BP is viewed as one of the country's corporate pillars. Millions of British retirees depend on BP dividends since pension funds are heavily invested in the oil company, the world's third-largest.

Cameron has tried to find a middle ground. He has said he shares with Americans the "frustration" about not being able to halt the spill and concern about the environmental damage caused by the thousands of barrels of oil gushing from the BP well. But Cameron also views BP "as an economically important company" not only in the United Kingdom but also the United States and other countries, according to his office.

COMMENT:  I love it, I love it.  Obama, that great intellectual sophisticate, can't even get the name of the company right.  I'll bet he loves saying "British Petroleum."  A few nasty remarks about Churchill are sure to follow.

And, of course, I'm sure we'll have another dustup with Israel, and maybe one with Poland or the Czech Republic over missile defense.

Ah, this new foreign policy.  Let us count the victories.  I say, let us count...

June 12,  2010    Permalink 

FRIDAY,  JUNE 11,  2010

HMM, THIS IS INTERESTING – FROM THE TIMES OF LONDON – AT 9:49 P.M. ET:  Will Israel strike Iran when it becomes clear that sanctions are failing and the Iranians are getting their nukes?  This may provide a hint:

Saudi Arabia has conducted tests to stand down its air defences to enable Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities, The Times can reveal.

In the week that the UN Security Council imposed a new round of sanctions on Tehran, defence sources in the Gulf say that Riyadh has agreed to allow Israel to use a narrow corridor of its airspace in the north of the country to shorten the distance for a bombing run on Iran. To ensure the Israeli bombers pass unmolested, Riyadh has carried out tests to make certain its own jets are not scrambled and missile defence systems not activated. Once the Israelis are through, the kingdom’s air defences will return to full alert.

“The Saudis have given their permission for the Israelis to pass over and they will look the other way,” said a US defence source in the area. “They have already done tests to make sure their own jets aren’t scrambled and no one gets shot down. This has all been done with the agreement of the [US] State Department.”

Sources in Saudi Arabia say it is common knowledge within defence circles in the kingdom that an arrangement is in place if Israel decides to launch the raid. Despite the tension between the two governments, they share a mutual loathing of the regime in Tehran and a common fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “We all know this. We will let them [the Israelis] through and see nothing,” said one.

COMMENT:  Makes sense to me.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend.  There has always been some behind-the-scenes cooperation between some Arab governments and Israel when they shared interests.

The key here is whether President Obama, who sometimes tries to be more Islamic than the Muslims, will give his assent.  And yet, if you look at a map, Israeli aircraft could fly to the south, then east over Saudi Arabia, and into Iran, without passing over any areas where the U.S. has air control. 

I think we may have an interesting year coming up.

June 11, 2010      Permalink

THE BP BASH – AT 8:45 P.M. ET:  We're no great fans of BP here.  They've made mistakes, are probably negligent, and their image is zero.  But BP bashing, while popular in left field, is of no value right now.  Will someone please tell Nancy Pelosi?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in her sharpest rebuke yet of the oil industry, said Friday that BP should not make dividend payments to stockholders until those affected by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are made “whole.”

“I’m saying that they should not be paying dividends until they make these people whole and make a better effort to do it in a timely fashion,” Pelosi told reporters. “These people are coming to us and saying ‘I have to take out a loan,’ . . . . which I can ill-afford to repay because BP is not, you know, is not paying. BP has the money, it made $17 billion last year. They went up, what, 12 points on the stock market yesterday?”

BP’s paying dividends to stock holders has grown controversial in recent days, as Gulf shore residents have complained about the speed in which the company has responded to loss of income claims.

The Times of London reported Friday that BP was preparing to defer payment of its next dividend and instead put the money in an escrow account until the full scale of the company’s liabilities from the spill can be determined.

COMMENT:  Oh, grow up, Nancy.  You're right to demand that BP pay up, and it should move faster to settle legitimate claims.  But wrecking the company, or depriving shareholders, including many British pensioners, of their dividends will accomplish what? 

The idea is to demand BP go all out to stop that gusher, help people now, and leave the lawsuits for later.  But the left can never resist bashing the oil guys.

And, by the way, maybe Congress should start looking into the slow response of the Obama White House, and whether the feds have resources that are yet unused.  Apparently, there is some valuable foreign equipment that can be brought in, but accepting it runs afoul of something called the Jones Act, passed in the 1920s.  Requires a waiver, but the unions are against the waiver.   So once again we have a situation where union demands may trump effective action.  Gee, where have we seen that before?

Obama's leadership on the spill has been laughable.  But I'm sure Hollywood won't make a movie about it.

June 11, 2010     Permalink

WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST, CONT'D – AT 8:37 P.M. ET:  We try to remind readers periodically what we are up against in the war on terror, or, if you're an Obaman, the war on man-caused disasters which can be explained by socio-economic deprivation.  From Fox:

A 7-year-old boy was murdered by the Taliban in an apparent act of retribution this week. Afghan officials said that the child was accused of spying for U.S. and NATO forces and hanged from a tree in southern Afghanistan.

Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for the provincial governor of Helmand, said that the killing happened days after the boy's grandfather, Abdul Woodod Alokozai, spoke out against militants in their home village.

Ahmadi said: "His grandfather is a tribal elder in the village and the village is under the control of the Taliban. His grandfather said some good things about the government and he formed a small group of people to stand against the Taliban. That's why the Taliban killed his grandson in revenge."

Shamsuddin Khan Faryie, an elder in the boy's home village of Heratiyan, said that the victim was seized as he played in his garden. He was found hanged from a nearby tree.

The killing of children to punish their families has echoes of Western mafia-style violence. Under Pashtunwali, the ancient honor code of the Pashtuns, it is likely to provoke more vendettas and blood-letting.

Don't you just love the attempt to link this to "Western mafia-style violence"?  You see, all cultures are basically alike, dearies.  And we all have our own validity.

Yuch.

We're fighting the good fight, even if the president doesn't want to be part of it.

June 11, 2010      Permalink

REQUIRED READING – AT 10:22 A.M. ET:  If there's one piece you should read today, or this weekend, it's this one.  Going under the delightful title, ""Goo-Goo Genocidaires:  The Blood is Dripping From Their Hands," Walter Russell Mead, a sane academician, dissects so-called "peace" movements, and finds they have nothing to do with peace:

Of all the mass murderers, genocidaires and enablers of the twentieth century, one group of collaborators does not get its fair share of condemnation and moral loathing. Unfortunately Americans have never really come to terms with the terrible things they did, we have never really named and shamed them, and we have never diagnosed and exposed the bad ideas that led to some of America’s most fateful and costly blunders. Until we do, our society is at risk of repeating these errors.

The people I have in mind are the ‘goo-goo genocidaires,’ the willfully blind reformers, civil society activists, clergy, students and others whose foolishness and ignorance was a necessary condition for tens of millions of deaths in the last hundred years. Unreflective, self-righteous ‘activists’ thought that to espouse peace was the same thing as to create or safeguard it. As a result, tens of millions died. Unless this kind of thinking is exposed and repudiated, it is likely to lead to as many or more deaths in the 21st.

We all know that the road to hell is paved with good intentions; this turns out to be particularly true when it comes to the road to foreign policy hell. Over the years good people or at least people who wanted to be good or thought they were, motivated by what seemed to them to be the highest of motives, have taken political stands and made policy proposals that helped mass murderers gain power in their own countries and launch themselves on international careers of conquest and mayhem. At other times, fortunately, they’ve failed to change policy; still, they wasted a lot of people’s time and made life significantly more difficult for those whose plans to help the world ultimately worked.

COMMENT:  Well written and well argued.  We have railed here against phrases like "anti-war activist" or "peace activist," both of which are willfully deceptive.  No "anti-war" group or "peace" group ever achieved peace, except the kind of peace that led to tragedy and genocide.

The greatest peace activist in the last century has been the American soldier. 

Read the Mead piece.  There'll be a quiz.

June 11, 2010     Permalink 

SOME GOOD NEWS FOR REPUBLICANS – AT 10:03 A.M. ET:  Michael Barone has analyzed Tuesday's primary results, and finds a silver lining for the GOP:

Five of the states that voted June 8 have party registration, and in each registered Democrats significantly outnumber registered Republicans. Yet in three of the five it appears that more people voted in the Republican than in the Democratic primary and in the two others it appears that almost as many did. One reason is that in many of these states Republicans had more seriously contested races than Democrats did.

Barone examines turnout state by state, and concludes:

The bottom line: Robust Republican turnout in South Carolina, Nevada and California leaves Republicans in relatively strong position in the balance of enthusiasm in those states in comparison with where they were in the 2006 and 2008 cycles. And the robust Republican turnout in New Jersey might say something positive about the strength of feeling on the policies of first-year Governor Chris Christie.

COMMENT:  I've always believed that the party that has more fun is in the best position to win.  At one time, decades ago, that clearly was the Democratic Party.  No more.  Today's Democrats are grim-faced, uptight, and fearful.  It's the Republicans who turn out because the GOP has become much more interesting.

As William Bennett put it yesterday, in a speech before our Hudson New York lunch, this is not your father's Republican Party.  Women are up front, minorities run as candidates, not minorities, and there is more concern about basic American principles like democracy and personal freedom than in the opposition party, which is starting to look like the Republicans of the 1930s. 

Let the good times roll.

June 11, 2010     Permalink

OUR DISGRACE – AT 9:02 A.M. ET:  It's a sad anniversary in Iran.  A year ago the democracy protest movement ignited in Tehran.  A year later, it is moribund.  But why?  The Washington Post, in an incomplete piece, examines:

TEHRAN -- When office clerks, housewives, students and other urban Iranians took to the streets a year ago to protest what they said was massive election fraud by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they hailed the birth of a leaderless popular movement that embodied their aspirations for a more open society...

...Using word of mouth, social media and cellphone text messages, Iranians challenged the government in a way long unimaginable in the 30-year-old Islamic republic -- or, for that matter, during the centuries of monarchy that preceded it.

And then this:

Foreign governments, including the United States, lauded the advent of a major grass-roots movement, unprecedented in the Middle East.

Not quite.  It took the president of the United States, Mr. Hope and Change, four days to get to a microphone to say a few pleasant things about the Iranian democracy movement.  With no American leadership, foreign support for the Iranian freedom fighters was limited, to put it mildly.

Now, a year later, the masses that made up the movement have disappeared from the streets of Tehran. Dozens of protesters have been killed in clashes with determined government forces; hundreds have been arrested and put on trial. Faced with overwhelming force, without guidance or organization, the dissidents these days cannot agree on their goals, much less mount a significant challenge to the country's leadership.

Okay, that may be true.  But revolutionary movements have debates all the time.  The real issue here is that the absence of foreign support for democracy, led by an indifferent Barack Obama, was critical to crushing the movement.  Indeed, Obama isn't even mentioned in the story, a serious omission, given the role he refused to play.

We had a chance at regime change.  We blew that chance.

When President Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," it appalled the "sophisticates" in the American foreign-policy establishment.  But in the prisons of Siberia, we later learned, the president's message was tapped out on pipes, and inspired resistance movements.  Barack Obama has proved himself to be a cynical Chicago politician who, at a critical moment, faltered in promoting the best of the American ideal.

June 11, 2010     Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 8:47 A.M. ET:  From Tunku Varadarajan, in the Washington Examiner, examining the cases of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and GOP candidate for governor in South Carolina, Nikky Haley:

Why has no Indian-American liberal risen as high in the Democratic ranks as Jindal and Haley have done in the GOP? Could it be that because Democrats put more of an emphasis on identity politics, an Indian-American Democrat would have to contend with other ethnic constituencies that might think that it’s “their turn” first? And once you go down the “identity” route, your success as a politician tends to rest more on the weight of numbers—the size of your ethnic constituency, or your racial voting bloc—than on the weight of your ideas. The most striking thing about Jindal and Haley’s success is not that they are Indian-American politicians who have triumphed in conservative Southern states, but that they are conservative Southern politicians who just happen to be Indian American.

COMMENT:  Ah yes, identity politics.  Strange, isn't it, that for minorities it's the Republican Party in which the American dream is being truly played out?  In the Democratic Party, as Varadarajan points out, you have to wait your turn, behind other groups who have first claim. 

Lesson for Dems?  I doubt it.  They stopped learning and developing years ago, which is why I joined the millions, like Ronald Reagan, who left.

June 11, 2010      Permalink

GOOD NEWS – AT 8:25 A.M. ET:  Many have been following this story, so it's great to report some good news, from Fox:

CANBERRA, Australia -- A 16-year-old sailor on a round-the-world journey was adrift in the frigid southern Indian Ocean on Friday as rescue boats headed toward her yacht, damaged by 30-foot waves that knocked out her communications and prompted her to set off a distress signal.

After a tense 20 hours of silence, a search plane launched from Australia's west coast made radio contact with Abby Sunderland on Friday.

The boat's mast was broken -- ruining satellite phone reception -- and was dragging with the sail in the ocean, said search coordinator Mick Kinley, acting chief of the Australia Maritime Safety Authority that chartered a commercial jet for the search.

But the keel was intact, the yacht was not taking on water and Abby was equipped for the conditions, he said.

"The aircraft (crew) spoke to her. They told her help was on the way and she sounds like she's in good health," Kinley told reporters in Canberra.

COMMENT:  Once again Australia steps up and does the job.  It would have been nice, by the way, had the AP mentioned up front that Abby is an American, but we have to wait many paragraphs for that.  She's a gutsy American girl.  This voyage may be over, but I have the feeling she'll try again.

June 11,  2010     Permalink