Dr. Jack Wheeler
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/02/15
A brand new year. Is it time for predictions? OK, here's one you can count on. There will be a whiteness of Black Swans. Yes, a "whiteness" is the collective noun for swans, even when they are black (the subspecies Cygnus atratus in Australia). These days, a capitalized "Black Swan" refers not to a bird but an event - something that comes sailing into history right out of the blue and bites us right in the tuches. The worst, most negative Black Swan in modern American history continues in 2015 - the Zero Presidency. Interestingly, the Curse of Zero will test my next prediction: that whatever and how many Black Swans bite the world this year, America will sustain them - even triumph over them - better than anywhere else. Now why would that be?... It's also time to introduce a new feature in the HFR. Most every week, I'll try to include a useful tip on health & fitness. None of us are getting progressively younger, but we can all do any number of things to slow our progress down in the opposite direction. Here's the HFR's first entry... We're going to close with... Perspective Time. Just to make you feel good.
POLYGAMY AND VIOLENCE
[Note: this essay may be most fruitfully read in conjunction with Terrorism and Tiny Zibbs from September 2003-JW] When the Kurdish peshmerga forces broke the siege of Mount Sinjar last week, there was no trace of the 5,000 Yazidi women and children abducted from the area in August. It is thought that they have been mostly sold as concubines to jihadist fighters of Islamic State. When the London Times reporters posed as two British girls interested in joining Islamic State, they were told: "The only way to guarantee being together is marrying the same man." Meanwhile, the 219 girls still missing in Nigeria after being abducted in April have been "married off," according to the leader of Boko Haram. My point in connecting these incidents is that throughout history polygamy has fueled violence. Might it be worth suggesting to Moslem leaders, religious and secular, that they push for monogamous norms as one way to reduce violence and bring more peace to the Middle East and to north and west Africa?
2015: THE YEAR OF GLOBAL DOLLAR DANGER
America's domestic economy can handle a surging dollar and a fresh cycle of rising interest rates. Large parts of the world cannot. That in a nutshell is the story of 2015. Tightening by the US Federal Reserve will have turbo-charged effects on a global financial system addicted to zero rates and dollar liquidity. Yields on 2-year US Treasuries have more than doubled from 0.31% to 0.74% since October, and this is the driver of currency markets. Since the New Year ritual of predictions is a time to throw darts, here we go: the dollar will hit $1.08 against the euro before 2015 is out ($1.21 on 12/31), and 100 on the dollar index (already at 90 at year's end). Sterling (the British pound) will buckle to $1.30 ($1.57 on 12/31) as a hung Parliament prompts global funds to ask why they are lending so freely to a country with a current account deficit reaching 6% of GDP. There will be a mouth-watering chance to invest in the assets of the BRICS and mini-BRICS at bargain prices, but first they must do penance for $5.7 trillion in dollar debt, and then do surgery on obsolete growth models. What are the odds for either?
WHAT TO READ 2014
Happy New Year's Eve! And welcome to the third annual TTP What to Read list. We initiated this tradition with a list of the books I read and recommended in 2012, the first What to Read. That was followed a year later with What to Read 2013. So here we go with what I've read and suggest for your consideration in 2014. I'm sure that on New Year's Eve, you're planning to spend the evening curled up with a good book, right? You better not be... Tomorrow and beyond is another story. A good book can help clear your brain from the night before - in addition to a lot of the amino cysteine to detox your system (best sources: Durk & Sandy's Party Pills, N-Acetyl-Cysteine at your local GNC, or a multi-egg omelette with plenty of garlic, onions, and ricotta cheese). All of the books below you can get on Kindle/iPad (instantly and much cheaper). Let's start with the political and geopolitical, then move into science and history...
THE NEW & IMPROVED GOVERNMENT LIES OF PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION
Have you heard of "parallel construction"? If not, take a breath, this one is rather shocking. Here's what parallel construction is, as Wikipedia reports it: "A process of building a parallel - or separate - evidentiary basis for...creating criminal cases against Americans that are actually based on NSA warrantless surveillance." If this sounds like a rights violation to you, you're correct. Warrantless surveillance is a blatant violation of the fourth amendment, and illegally-obtained evidence is generally inadmissible under the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. Nonetheless, this is exactly what's happening these days. The NSA is grabbing nearly 100% of all American Internet traffic, emails, etc., sorting it all, then handing it off to be used in criminal prosecutions. And to prevent cases like this from getting thrown out of court, the they have developed special tricks, like parallel construction. Here's how it works, and how to protect yourself from it.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/26/14
Welcome to the Last Half-Full Report... of 2014. Next week we begin a whole new year, so let's say goodbye to this old one. Should we also say good riddance? This being the HFR, the judgment should be, well, at least a bit more half-full than half-empty. Before we start, however, first a thank you. That would be for all the kind comments, both on the Forum and by personal email, regarding Revolutionary Constitutionalism and Declarations of Defiance (published on Christmas Eve, 12/24). One comment by email from a long-time TTPer and dear friend was truly humbling... Now, what's half-full around here? Looking around the world, 2014 was way more than just half-full for India. And the best news for us and much of the world is the worst for the jerks of the world (e.g., the governments of Russia, Iran, and Venezuela). There's other good news as well -- and news from an elite US college that's morally evil. Plus a video of the HFR Hero of the Week that will make you cheer and laugh your head off at the same time...
REVOLUTIONARY CONSTITUTIONALISM AND DECLARATIONS OF DEFIANCE
At the end of 2014, it is clear that our constitutional order is breaking down. Whether by Alinskyite design, the cowardice of the GOP Elite, or a sense of hopelessness by people in general, the barbarians are at the constitutional gates and are rabidly tearing them down. Barbarians celebrating the murder of two NYPD police are marching down 5th Avenue in New York today (12/24), while barbarians in the Zero White House have issued over one thousand two hundred unconstitutional "regulations" to further suffocate our freedom in just the last two weeks. Our Barbarian-in-Chief rules by executive decree without any concern for the Constitution he swore to uphold. There is no normal way to fix this. Our country's political and cultural situation has become so dire that only a radical, indeed revolutionary fix will do. This can be done, however, without the violence of a Second American Revolution, but constitutionally, fully within America's founding legal framework. That is, rather than another Revolution, what we need is a revolutionary interpretation of the Constitution, "revolutionary" only in the context of how far we have strayed from its original meaning. Here's how to go about it.
DEMOCRATS ARE COP KILLERS
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/19/14
Yesterday in the Kremlin, the Putin Huilo gave what Bloomberg described as an "Extremely Long Very Weird Press Conference." It reminded me of the now-viral YouTube video of the Chinese two year-old missing a putt:
THE END OF BANKS?
Banks are intermediaries, and it's the business of the internet to eliminate unnecessay ones. Thus a friend of mine observes:
What Lending Club and other P2P lenders do is provide an online market-place that connects borrowers and lenders directly; think the eBay of loans and you have the right conceptual grasp. Moreover, the business model of online market-place lending breaks with a banking tradition, dating back to 14th century Florence, of operating on a 'fractional reserve' basis.So what happens to a world that moves ‘ex-bank' and where most new loans are extended peer-to-peer? In such a world, the banking multiplier disappears along with fractional reserve banking (and consequently the need for regulators?). What happens when bankers stop lending their clients umbrellas when it is sunny, and taking them away when it rains?
TWO MORE YEARS OF HELL
Asking you not to read this is like telling you not to think of a pink elephant. Of course I want you to read this - or else why am I writing it? - but I want to enjoy Christmas first. Christmas is one week from today (12/18). This is a time to set problems aside - personal, national, global - and simply bask in the blessings of our family, our loved ones, our friends, and of the life with which Providence has gifted us. It sure isn't a time to wallow in the mire of what's coming - but if not now, when? After Christmas, we're looking forward to celebrating a happy new year. No, it's best to get this over with quickly. For we have to brace ourselves: the next two years are going to be the longest two years of our lives. They will get continually worse as our country descends into the Hell that a satanic president wants America to be. Zero is not Lucifer incarnate, let's be clear, but it's obvious now that he is literally "satantic" in the sense of being fiendishly and maliciously intent on damaging America's culture, society, and founding institutions as much as possible. So what do we do? Here are five options.
PUTIN LOSES CONTROL
Vladimir Putin has lost control of Russia's economy and may be forced to impose Soviet-style exchange controls after "shock and awe" action by the central bank failed to stem the collapse of the ruble. "The situation is critical," said the central bank's vice-chairman, Sergei Shvetsov. "What is happening is a nightmare that we could not even have imagined a year ago." The currency spiked from 71 to 98 against the euro yesterday (12/16) in the biggest one-day drop since the default crisis in 1998 as capital flight gathered pace, despite a drastic rise in interest rates to 17% the day before (12/15) intended to crush speculators and show resolve. It closed at 87, and at this writing today (12/17) is at 83. Yields on two-year Russian bonds spiraled to 15.36%, while credit default swaps are pricing in a one-third chance of a sovereign default. The shares of Russia's biggest lender, Sberbank, fell 18%. Neil Shearing, from Capital Economics, said the spectacular failure of the rate shock may bring matters to a head. "If a rise of 650 basis points won't do the job, we are near the end. That means stringent capital controls," he said. In Washington, the White House said it had no intention of easing pressure on Russia to halt the freefall. "It is President Putin's decision to make. The aim is to sharpen the choice that he faces," said White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday. After years of bluster and suggestions by Mr. Putin that the US is a paper tiger, the Kremlin is now coming face to face with the cataclysmic consequences of what it has done by invading Ukraine and changing Europe's borders by force.
DIFI DEFINES BEING A USEFUL IDIOT
I kept asking myself, why would DiFi - Senator Dianne Feinstein - approve a "report" whose main effect inevitably would be to damage America? And it occurred to me that it might be a mistake to try to understand this bizarre event in the usual context of domestic politics. It probably belongs to a different realm of analysis: national security, international affairs, and espionage. Maybe that was really the point of the operation. It benefits our enemies, after all. It undermines other countries' willingness to share information, and to work with us "in the field." Anyone who takes life seriously must acknowledge that, quite aside from the merits of the "case" brought by Democrat staffers on the Senate Intel Committee, we've been damaged. The real scary question is: Did DiFi and her Democrat colleagues issue the "Torture Report" for no other purpose than to damage their own country? The report itself contains a very large clue why the answer may be yes.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/12/14
"Boehner Wins Funding For Obama's Amnesty." Welcome to this morning's headline. It's hard to imagine more nauseating news, confirming all of our suspicions about what Rino rectum sellout corrupt scumbags are John Boehner and the House GOP leadership. It is now clear that Boehner and the GOP Establishment is in collusion with Zero to grant unconstitutional amnesty to millions - uncountable millions with subsequent chain migration - of illegal non-Americans.... It's hilarious that no member of the Enemedia has ever questioned Zero's intelligence. For while he has the ruthless cunning of a mafia gangster or narcissistic sociopath, he shows no evidence of being either educated or very bright. A case in point is... With the exposure of the UVA Rape Hoax, the question now is what effect will that have on the other FemiLeft Rape Cause, that of the destruction of Bill Cosby?.... Get comfortable for what's coming next, preferably with a tumbler of your favorite adult beverage within easy reach. This is one of those gems that by itself is worth a year's subscription to TTP.....
HOW TO PROPERLY TORTURE A TERRORIST
The treasonous release of the Democrats' "Senate Torture Report" this week (12/09) is definitive proof that they lack any patriotism or even basic decency whatever. If they had any integrity - of which they don't have a picogram - they'd change their name to the HateAmerica Party. Like most normal Americans, I couldn't care less how a Moslem terrorist is interrogated, other than what he knows about terrorist attacks on Americans be extracted from him as efficiently and dependably as possible. The monsters of Al Qaeda and ISIS et al have divested themselves of any claim to human rights. The only practical argument against torturing terrorists is that it's so undependable: the guy will say anything to stop the torture. Often, a dramatic presentation of the threat of torture works better. Take the Israeli way: When a Palestinian terrorist is captured, how many Israeli lives can be saved depends on how quickly Shin Bet (Israeli Security) agents can make him squeal. They strip him naked and sit him in a chair with his legs forced apart. They bring in a large Doberman pincher whose muzzle is placed inches from his genitals. They explain: "This is Herman. Herman is a very unusual dog. Herman can smell when someone is lying. When someone lies, it gets Herman very mad. And when Herman gets mad, he bites - really hard. So we suggest you tell us the truth." Works like a charm. At least in many cases. In those that don't, the consequences are really gross and the Palestinian is rendered useless in the needed time-frame. A more reliable method is required. Here are three. Buckle your seat belt.
TEAM OBAMA’S TORTURE REPORT IS TREASONOUS
Tuesday's (12/09) willful, unnecessary and gratuitously destructive release of the one-sided "torture report" at the insistence of outgoing Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) - backed by the White House - amounts to nothing less than providing aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. Can anyone cite one practical good accomplished by releasing this gratuitously destructive report at this time? Will revealing successful practices make us more secure? No. The report provides a propaganda windfall for Islamist fanatics. Will it benefit our allies? No. It exposes those who took great risks to help us in the wake of 9/11. Will it "set the record straight?" No. It distorts the record grotesquely in the interests of political correctness, blame-shifting and short-term political advantage. Of course, the release of this report just now - which may lead to the deaths of more Americans, as the senator has been warned - is another sign of the Obama administration's desperation. Team Obama's genius for failure in every policy field, foreign or domestic, has left the administration's inner circle frantic to deflect attention from its parade of deceptions, derelictions and disasters.
THE SHRILL CHERRY-PICKED SCREED OF THE DEMOCRAT TORTURE REPORT
Yesterday (12/09), the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein (CA) publicly issued an unclassified Executive Summary of its classified report to Congress on the Central Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program in response to the terror attack on America of September 11, 2001. It has been dubbed the "Torture Report" by the media. As CIA Director from May 2005 to February 2009 I'm not here to defend torture. I'm here to defend history. The Senate Democrat report is exceedingly graphic in its description of several interrogations; it is designed to shock and it does. So too would an equally detailed description of drone strikes, which are currently supported by these same lawmakers and, by the way, deemed lawful by the Department of Justice. The Senate Democrat document reads like a shrill prosecutorial screed rather than a dispassionate historical study. What happened here seems clear. The staff started with a conclusion and then "cherry picked" their way through 6 million pages of documents, ignoring some data and highlighting others, to make their case.
THE CATASTROPHE OF THE CORRUPTION OF SCIENCE
As somebody who has championed science all his career, carrying a lot of water for the profession against its critics on many issues, I am losing faith. Recent examples of bias and corruption in science are bad enough. What's worse is the reluctance of scientific leaders to criticize the bad apples. Science as a philosophy is in good health; science as an institution increasingly stinks. This past week has seen three egregious examples of poor scientific practice. The most recent was the revelation last week that scientists appeared to scheme with environmental activists to get neonicotinoid pesticides banned, rather than open-mindedly assessing all the evidence. Second example: last week, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a supposedly scientific body, issued a press release stating that this is likely to be the warmest year in a century or more, based on surface temperatures. Yet this predicted record would be only one hundredth of a degree above 2010 and two hundredths of a degree above 2005 - with an error range of one tenth of a degree. In any case, the year is not over with 16% of the 2014 data not yet recorded, so why the announcement now? Oh yes, there's a political climate summit in Lima this week.
CHINA BUBBLE
China's stock market boom has reached outright mania, with equities galloping higher at a parabolic rate, despite threats of a crackdown by regulators and the continued slowdown of the national economy. The Shanghai Composite Index has risen 32% in the past six weeks, blowing through 3,000 to a three-and-a-half-year high even though corporate earnings are declining steeply. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said late last week that it would "increase market supervision, resolutely crack down and earnestly safeguard normal market order." It warned that stock manipulators had been "raising their head" and would be dealt with. The cautionary words have been ignored by retail investors as they throng brokerage offices, lured by momentum trades. For the stock boom comes as Chinese industry battles with massive overcapacity in everything from steel to shipbuilding, coal output, cement and solar panels. The bottom line is that it may be impossible for China to deflate its epic bubble painlessly.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/05/14
Before we start tearing our hair out by the roots over House Rino perfidy, let's take a look at some good news this week. Yes, there is some. The New York Times finally began - just began - catching up to To The Point on Sunday (11/30) with Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests. TTPers have known about this since April 2012 in Is Obama on Putin's Payroll? Yet that was just the prelude, for the next day, Monday (12/01) is when, as one headline put it: Putin's Luck Runs Out. Here's how rapid the Putin Collapse has been... There will be marvelous news in Louisiana tomorrow (12/06). Scary Mary Landrieu is going to get crushed by Dr. Bill Cassidy - he's ahead by 24 points (!). I grew up in the days of the Solid South completely run by Yellow Dog Democrats. With Landrieu gone tomorrow, Democrats will be left without a single Governor, Senator, white Congressman, or state legislative chamber from the Carolinas to Texas. Think about that... Okay, time to wallow in the mire with a clothespin blocking the stench from our noses. Thomas Sowell noted yesterday that it will take a psychiatrist to explain why Boehner & Co want millions of illegal foreign workers to compete with Americans for jobs... There are other things we could get upset about this week, but instead, I need to tell you a story. It's about how I met an extraordinary man and became friends with 45 years ago. On Wednesday (12/03) at age 84 he passed away. His name was Nathaniel Branden.
AUTO-RACIST AMERICA
On November 18, a senior at Georgetown University in DC named Oliver Friedfeld wrote a letter published in the campus newspaper, The Hoya, headlined "I Was Mugged And I Understand Why." The kid blamed himself for being robbed at gunpoint by two black muggers. He's being such a living caricature of liberal candy-ass white guilt has caused a deluge of conservative media contempt, from Breitbart to Rush to FoxNews' Greg Gutfeld who belittled him as "a discredit to his race - the human one." Yet how different from Oliver the Pajama Boy is every talking head on TV News save for Fox? The "narrative" or meme of Racist America is all that counts for the white media-academia establishment. Everything must be twisted into it or ignored. What is clear is that the white media-academia establishment is determined to aggravate racial tension and hatred of blacks against whites in America - they want violence and riots and protests against whites. Why? It's too facile to simply answer, "white guilt." For that begs the question, "What is the cause of white guilt?" Why should whites feel guilty? Guilty for what?
“J’ACCUSE!” TO THE UNITED NATIONS
[On November 24, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor gave this extraordinary heroic speech to the UN General Assembly. It was given in response to the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Protocol calls for such speeches be addressed to the President of the General Assembly, a ceremonial position currently held by Uganda Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa.] Mr. President, I stand before the world as a proud representative of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast aside. The fact of the matter is that when members of the international community speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fog descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity. The result isn't realpolitik, it's surrealpolitik. The world's unrelenting focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an injustice to tens of millions of victims of tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East. As we speak, Yazidis, Bahai, Kurds, Christians and Muslims are being executed and expelled by radical extremists at a rate of 1,000 people per month. How many resolutions did you pass last week to address this crisis? And how many special sessions did you call for? The answer is zero. What does this say about international concern for human life? Not much, but it speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the international community.
IT’S GAME OVER FOR THE SAUDIS VS AMERICA ON OIL
Saudi Arabia and the core OPEC states are taking an immense political gamble by letting crude oil prices crash to $66 a barrel, if their aim is to shake out the weakest shale producers in the US. "The resilience of US shale may prove greater than the resilience of OPEC," said Alistair Newton, head of political risk at Nomura. There is no question that the US has entirely changed the global energy landscape and poses an existential threat to OPEC. America has cut its net oil imports by 8.7m bpd since 2006, equal to the combined oil exports of Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. OPEC has misjudged the threat. As late as last year, it was dismissing US shale as a flash in the pan. Abdalla El-Badri, the group's secretary-general, still insists that half of all US shale output is vulnerable below $85. This is bravado. US producers have locked in higher prices through derivatives contracts. Noble Energy and Devon Energy have both hedged over three-quarters of their output for 2015. Further, efficiency is improving and drillers are switching to lower-cost spots, confronting OPEC with a moving target. "The (price) floor is falling and is not nearly as firm as the Saudi view assumes," says Citigroup.
ISIS WANTS ARMAGEDDON – LET’S GIVE IT TO THEM
It's a tyrannical theocracy, crucifixions and decapitations are routine, women are shrouded and intimidated, the grim religious police are all over the place. It's your Islamic State, aka ISIS. How do we know? Basically from defectors, now as during the Cold War the most valuable sources for Western intelligence services. Some of these ex-ISIS followers are free in the West, others are standing trial, as in the case of the 46 Belgians who returned from the IS and are accused of crimes ranging from torture and murder to extortion and terrorism. One of these confessed upon discovering that Belgian authorities had some incriminating telephone intercepts, as when he told his girlfriend: "Today I killed a man. An infidel...his family had collected only thirty thousand euros for him, but the price was seventy thousand. I killed him with a shot in the head. Bang! I wanted to make a video but my camera didn't work right..." Young men are excited by the chance to murder, but when you sign up with ISIS, you have an excellent chance to lose your own life, and this is often an eye-opener for some of the bourgeois European believers. After seeing their comrades drive off in suicide vehicles, they sagely reconsider.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/28/14
It's so obvious who the HFR Heroes of the Week are that we need to dispense the suspense and laud them right out front. They are the six white men, three white women, two black women, and one black man who comprised the Saint Louis County Grand Jury that refused to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson. We must add to them the St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch, whose statement announcing the grand jury decision on Monday (11/24) is here. They all knew their lives could be at stake with the murderous anger and multitude of death threats against them, yet they opted for the truth straight in the face of it. That's flat out American heroism. We owe them a grave debt of gratitude... There are good lessons to be learned from this Ferguson Lunacy, and benefits to be gained. Here's the most important... There was another major event that rivaled the Ferguson grand jury decision in importance this week. For background, who is the GOP Congressional Establishment leader you most love to hate?
SWITZERLAND AND THE 6,000 YEAR-OLD GOLD BUBBLE
Five million Swiss voters will decide on Sunday (11/30) whether to force the Swiss National Bank to repatriate all its gold from vaults in Britain and Canada, boost its holdings of bullion to 20% of foreign reserves and then keep the metal forever. The "Save Our Swiss Gold" referendum is a valiant attempt by Switzerland's army of gold bugs -- and the populist Swiss People's party (SVP) - to lead the world back to the halcyon days of the international Gold Standard. It is a primordial scream against a quantitative easing and money creation a l'outrance (at all costs) by the leading central banks. Yet there is a snag. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is the biggest printer of them all in relative terms, far outstripping the Bank of Japan, let alone the US Federal Reserve or the Bank of England - mere amateurs at this game. At one stage it was mopping up half of the entire sovereign bond issuance of the eurozone each month, a scale of action that the European Central Bank's Mario Draghi can only dream of. You have to smile when you hear Swiss gold enthusiasts complaining that these foreign bonds - bought with electronic fiat francs created out of thin air - are now losing value as the euro slides against the dollar. But then we all suffer from cognitive dissonance.
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING CELEBRATED THE BOUNTY OF CAPITALISM
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans gather with their family and friends to celebrate the blessings that Providence has bestowed on their beloved country. A deep appreciation of these blessings involves understanding that they were earned. It is to understand the awesome truth of how "God helps those who help themselves" applies to the Mayflower Pilgrims and their First Thanksgiving at America's birth. This is an appreciation and understanding of which those on the Left are incapable - for it would mean celebrating the capitalist freedom that made that original Thanksgiving possible. This no liberal, no Democrat, no leftie can do. Thus they must distort history instead. The distortion starts in Kindergarten, with the childish make-believe of your kid's school play portraying the noble Squanto teaching the helpless Pilgrims how to feed themselves. So let's drop the curtain on the distortion and watch the real thing. Here it is. This is what needs to be taught to every schoolchild in America, instead of the garbage they learn now.
THE AYATOLLAH SPITS ON OBAMA
The New York Times headline yesterday (11/24): A Nuclear Deal for US and Iran Slips Away Again. He did it again, as we should have expected. Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei walked us right up to the finish line, spat on Obama, and walked away. Months and months of secret and public talks, letters, back channels, and gestures produced nothing of the sort the president, assorted foreign ministers, pundits, and politicians had been predicting. Instead we are to keep talking, and keep paying the Islamic Republic for the pleasure and privilege. It's not Barack Obama's unique failure; the same thing happened to Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Both of them came to believe they had a deal with Khamenei, and both of them were rudely disabused of their error when the Iranians walked away. No sensible person doubts Obama's willingness to be generous to the Iranians. Any lingering skepticism should be definitively eliminated by the latest "extension," which reportedly bestows $700 million on Khamenei every month for continuing to talk. You read that right: British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond announced that "Iran will receive about $700 million per month in frozen assets." Iranian Assets Unfrozen ran the headline. Khamenei could certainly have had a very good deal if he wanted it. If he didn't take one, it's because he doesn't want it. Why?
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/21/14
I just got back from what you know by now was The Mystery Adventure I couldn't name last September - for I am on the Mullah Regime's blacklist. I was able to secretly scribe Hope for Iran then post it in Istanbul yesterday, and now have to play catch up with what's been going on in the world. Yet again, I can't thank Jack Kelly enough for penning two marvelous HFRs in my absence. Let's start by taking a break to read the best description I've seen of Zero's almost impossibly mendacious demagoguery last night (11/20): Ben Shapiro's Kneel Before Zod. His opening line: "It was historic, both in its scope and its dishonesty: the speech represented a closely-woven and incredible tapestry of falsehood, exposited with a straight face by the greatest liar in modern American history... (It was) like watching a madman describe, with preternaturally perfect sincerity, how the moon was constructed of cheese." The bottom line for me was how much this drama is a truly Reaganesque moment. It's a lesson of history for the GOP -- and wait 'till you see the pictures of how it might happen.
HOPE FOR IRAN
Shiraz, Iran. "Where are you from?" the Iranian man asked me. With a big smile, I happily answered, "America." He responded with a smile of his own. "Ah, America... America Number One!" He hooked his two index fingers together. "American people, Iranian people, good... friends." He unhooked his fingers and waved his hand in a gesture of contempt. "Governments, no good." We both belly-laughed. I and my friends with me repeatedly had the same experience, whether in Tehran, Sari, Mashad, Yazd, Isfahan, Shiraz or Tabriz. We lost count of the people - men and women - who approached us to ask where we were from, and upon being told we were Americans, without exception they would react with surprise, then a beaming smile and say "Welcome." We never once received a negative reaction or a frown. Collectively we've had encounters with hundreds of people over the past twelve days with people all over Iran who spoke some English, some well, some just a few words, and the one thing they wanted us to know was the abyss of difference between them - the people of Iran - and their government. The mullahs who ran their government and preached hate for America did not speak for them. One lady covered in a black hejab tightly grasped the hand of one of the women among us to plead, "Please tell your friends in America that we Iranians are not their enemy." As one shopkeeper in Isfahan's bazaar told us, "What I want is for more Americans to come to Iran, and for all the mullahs to leave." Here's how to do it -- and yes, there are my pictures.
OBAMA IS NOT A MONARCH
The Constitution designs a system of checks and balances for our nation, and executive amnesty for immigrants here illegally unilaterally decreed from the White House would seriously undermine the rule of law. Our founders repeatedly warned about the dangers of unlimited power within the executive branch; Congress should heed those words as the president threatens to grant amnesty to millions of people who have come to our country illegally. To be clear, the dispute over executive amnesty is not between President Obama and Republicans in Congress; it is a dispute between President Obama and the American people. The Democrats suffered historic losses in the midterm elections largely over the prospect of the president's executive amnesty. President Obama was correct: His policies were on the ballot across the nation in 2014. The elections were a referendum on amnesty, and the voters soundly rejected it. There was no ambiguity. Undeterred, President Obama appears to be going forward. It is lawless. It is unconstitutional. He is defiant and angry at the American people. If he acts by executive diktat, President Obama will not be acting as a president, he will be acting as a monarch. Congress, representing the voice of the people, should use every tool available to prevent the president from subverting the rule of law. Here are two of them.
THE IRANIAN DEAL FANTASY
What sort of deal is being concocted between Obama and the Iranian regime? Pundits, experts, reporters, and pols are weighing in on epiphenomena ranging from the number of Iranian centrifuges that will be allowed to how quickly or slowly the remaining sanctions will be lifted. Here in Washington the "inside story" that has been circulating for more than a week is: the deal is all done and it will be announced before the 24th, the nominal deadline for the negotiations on a "permanent" agreement. I've been here since 1977, approaching forty years, and "inside stories" have been wrong...almost always. Say 80-90 percent of the time. That's because the "information" is circulated to advance or sabotage policies or individuals, not to inform. So I don't pay much attention to such stories. Especially when it comes to Iran, there's always a considerable amount that we don't know and aren't going to know, so it's best to be tentative. But we do know some things, and there is an historical record that is pretty consistent, so let's go with that stuff.
WHAT IS OR IS NOT ISLAMIC FOR OBAMA?
In his speech on September 11 announcing that the US would commence limited operations against Islamic State, US President Barack Hussein Obama insisted, "ISIL, [i.e. ISIS or Islamic State] is not Islamic. No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Moslem." To be sure, it is hard to see how any human faith can countenance IS's actions. For the past several months, on a daily basis, new videos appear of IS fighters proudly, openly and wantonly committing crimes against humanity. This week for instance, a video emerged of an IS slave market in Raqqah, Syria, where women and girls are sold as sex slaves to IS fighters. Despite the glaring contradiction between divinity and monstrosity, the fact is that IS justifies every single one of its atrocities with verses from the Koran. IS referred to its sex slave market in Raqqah for instance as the "Booty Market... for what your right hands possess." The phrase "what your right hands possess" is a Koranic verse (4:3) that permits the sexual enslavement of women and girls by Moslem men. By contrast to what he says about IS, throughout his tenure in office, Obama has gone out of his way to mainstream Moslem extremists. This has taken the form of granting senior appointments to people aligned with the Moslem Brotherhood. Further, Obama has befriended radical Islamic leaders who openly support terrorism, including Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. How are we to explain this seeming anomaly?
THE DAWN OF AMERICA 3.0
It's time for...
THE GREAT DOLLAR BULL RUN HAS STARTED
The US dollar has surged to a four-year high against a basket of currencies and has punched through key technical resistance, marking a crucial turning point for the global financial system. The index - a mix of six major currencies - hit 87.4 on Monday (11/03), rising above the key level of 87. This reflects the plunge in the Japanese yen since the Bank of Japan launched a fresh round of quantitative easing last week. Data from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange show that speculative dollar bets on the derivatives markets have reached a record high, with the most extended positions against the euro, the yen, the Australian dollar, Mexican peso, the Canadian dollar, the Swiss franc, sterling, and the New Zealand dollar, in that order. The Swedish and Norwegian currencies are also coming under heavy pressure. David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said a "seismic change" is under way and may lead to a 20% surge in the dollar over a 12-month span. The mega-rally of 1980 to 1985 as the Volcker Fed tightened the screws saw a 90% rise before the leading powers intervened at the Plaza Accord to cap the rise. "We are only at the early stages of a dollar bull run. The current rally is unlike any we have seen before. The greatest danger for markets and forecasters is that they fail to adjust their behavior to fully reflect a very different world," he said.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/31/14
Boo!
A TREMBLE OF EUROWEENIES
Some of my favorite words in the English language are "collective nouns," the colorful names for groups of animals going back to the 15th century that every kid had to know to go hunting with his dad. Not knowing them was laughable ignorance. We would laugh today if someone said a "herd of fish" instead of a school, or a "flock of cattle," instead of a herd or drove. We know it's a pride of lions, but it's a leap of leopards, a crash of rhinos, a shrewdness of apes, a skulk of foxes. Perhaps you've heard of a murder of crows or an exultation of larks, but it's an unkindness of ravens, an ostentation of peacocks, a bouquet of pheasants, a parliament of owls. Collective nouns were applied to groups of people as well. We still call it a congregation of churchgoers, but it's an impatience of wives, a boast of soldiers, an impertinence of peddlers, an illusion of painters. I love the one for prostitutes: a flourish of strumpets. It's a tremble of cowards. That certainly was the appropriate designation for the French-German Euroweenie portion of participants at the Paris conference I attended earlier this week. It was a conference on Global Security organized by the French Ministry of Defense, the US Department of Defense, and NATO. It had a dual focus: on the threat of Russian aggression in Ukraine, and on cybersecurity. Held in the King's Council Chamber of Les Invalides, among the 40 some attendees were ministers of defense and ambassadors from several countries, high level EU and NATO officials, Pentagon generals, and key executives from major defense and cybersecurity companies. I attended as the geopolitical strategist for one of the conference sponsors. There was no press, and no attribution for anything said was permitted. Given that restriction, here is what happened.
THE LEGEND OF THE LONE WOLF TERRORIST
When I last wrote about this subject (Ledeen's Lair May 2013), they called them "homegrown" terrorists, the phrase of the month a year and a half ago. Back then, such imaginary monsters were bombing marathons; today they are shooting Canadian parliamentarians and security guards, and attacking NYPD guys with their jihadi axes. It doesn't really matter what you call them, because they're figments of the "expert" imagination. The legend-mavens tell us that there are "normal" Americans (this part is very important) who somehow just go bad, and turn into murderous terrorists. There is no foreign input, no alien country or intelligence service, no global conspiracy. The terrorists are homegrown and they are on their own. They are Lone Wolves. It's not so. There are homegrown terrorists like the Unabomber, but these aren't the people we're talking about just now. Unabomber is a nut, but he's a distinctly American nut, and definitely a lone wolf. The so-called lone wolves of recent days-the killer in Canada, the axeman in New York, and, we should add, the Oklahama City decapitator - aren't loners, they're members. They've been inspired by local or online jihadis.
A VIRTUOSO OF MALICIOUS INTENT
Since he assumed office nearly six years ago, US President Barack Hussein Obama has been dogged by allegations of managerial incompetence. Obama, his critics allege, had no managerial experience before he was elected. His lack of such experience, they claim, is reflected in what they see as his incompetent handling of the challenges of the presidency. In everything from dealing with the Congress, to reining in radical ideologues at the IRS, to handling the chaos at the Mexican border, to putting together coordinated strategies for dealing with everything from Ebola to Islamic State (IS), Obama's critics claim that he is out of his league. That he is incompetent. But if Israel's experience with him is any guide, then his critics are the ones who are out to sea. Because at least in his handling of US relations with the Jewish state, Obama has exhibited a mastery of the tools of the executive branch unmatched by most of his predecessors. Obama is a master of mendacity, a virtuoso of malciousness. Consider two recent news stories:
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/24/14
Ten days to go until Election Eve. Is it time to play this? {youtube}QvMQWte5pik{/youtube} Yes, there's still time for things to go sideways, and many races are close enough for the Dems to cheat their way to victory - especially in Colorado. But every time I start to worry about Dem voter fraud this year, I think of Joe Biden. Remember his incredibly obnoxious performance debating Paul Ryan in 2012? It was the single VP candidate debate on national television, with Ryan trying to have a serious discussion about serious issues, and all Biden did was smirk and eye-roll ridicule everything Ryan said. A voice of alarm went off in my brain - which I unfortunately ignored as I couldn't believe it at the time - that Biden was signaling the fix was in. He couldn't take the debate or the entire campaign or voter sentiment seriously because he knew Dem Party operatives had made sure the election would follow Stalin's dictum: "It doesn't matter who votes - what matters is who counts the votes." You won't find SloJo being a smart-ass now - or any other Dem and Enemedia pundit. They are all in a state of gloom and panic living in Sour Grapes City. That alone tells you the Pub margin of victory in many races is too big for Dem cheating to overcome. So maybe we really can sing along with the 1967 Beatles, It's Getting Better All The Time. Let's look at some specifics.