HOLLYWOOD’S DEATH OF DIE
Ford v Ferrari is an instant box office smash. Matt Damon plays Texan race-car impresario Carroll Shelby (one of the more glamorous names I recall from my 1968–1970 Car Craze years), and Christian Bale is inspired as Shelby’s hotheaded English test driver Ken Miles.
Critics hate it, however, embarrassed that its opening weekend competition – the totally leftist-feminist farce Charlie’s Angels – is a complete box office flop – and infuriated that the Ford v Ferrari hit film dares to lack today’s obligatory Diversity-Inclusion-Equity (DIE).
CAPTAIN QUEEG ON STEROIDS
Watching Schiff's trumped up inquiry about nothing but a phone call, the transcript of which has been available to the public for many weeks, is like watching The Caine Mutiny (1954) without the drama.
The film is about a naval captain whose first officer relieves him of his command when the man demonstrates obvious signs of mental instability. All that is missing from Schiff's on-air mental collapse are the little steel balls that Humphrey Bogart as Captain
Queeg fiddled with while on the stand at the court-martial of the mutineers.
Queeg was obsessed with missing strawberries. Schiff's impending mental breakdown is demonstrably more obvious, less subtle than Queeg's. He intends to see President Trump removed from office, no matter what. His eyes seem to radiate his inner fury and rage. He sits stone-faced while the smart people in the room destroy every bit of his carefully constructed narrative.
Schiff is Capt. Queeg on steroids.
PUTIN TRIES TO REBUILD THE BERLIN WALL
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (front) is accompanied by Hungarian President Janos Ader, Polish President Andrzej Duda, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova and Czech President Milos Zeman at a memorial event commemorating the 30TH anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, November 9, 2019
For over a decade, Moscow’s propaganda machine and its networks of agents and agents of influence have targeted Germany.
Russian narratives have played on German anger about the influx of Muslim immigrants, bolstered the political right’s hostility to change it feels threatens its values, encouraged the political left’s concerns about American influence, and inspired general unease about the consequences of the Western sanctions regime against Russia for the latter’s continuing aggression against Ukraine.
All of this has been well-documented, allowing for multiple close examinations of its impact on German domestic and foreign policies (Krym Realii, August 31, 2018; Gordonua.com, November 15, 2019; Kasparov.ru, September 27, 2014).
But now, the Kremlin is becoming involved in another “internal” German matter as part of its broader campaign to peel that country off from the West, weaken the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, as well as expand Russian influence there and across Europe.
Namely, Moscow is actively supporting a rise of East German separatism. Over the past several weeks, three developments have highlighted this Russian political offensive:
TRUMP IS GUILTY – OF HURTING BUREAUCRATS’ FEEWINGS
POTUS made her cry – an impeachable offense
In December 2008, Barack Obama summarily fired every ambassador appointed by George W Bush.
The media did not care for four reasons. First, it was Barack Obama. Second, they recognized that the president controls the executive branch. Third, it was a parting shiv to Bush. Finally, it was Barack Obama.
Whether any of the ousted diplomats cried is unknown.
But now in the Trump era, as Obama-era somnambulists awake every day to a new outrage that heretofore had been considered standard operating procedure inside the Beltway, a dismissed ambassador is given hours to vent her thoughts and feelz in front of one of Capitol Hill’s most powerful committees.
If you weren’t moved by the sad tale of former Ukrainian Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch—an Obama appointee—getting the ax by Donald Trump, according to Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, you don’t have a pulse.
ARE DEM CANDIDATES LIKE LIZ WARREN AS DUMB AS HANK JOHNSON?
A congressman – Hank Johnson, a Dem from Georgia – in all seriousness asked the admiral if he was concerned that the island in question might “tip over and capsize” with all of the additional people on it. Others, who are not that foolish, deny they have an alcohol or drug problem when it is obvious that they do.
And now there are presidential candidates who claim it is possible to have massive tax and spending increases without making most people worse off rather than better off. Dumb as Hank Johnson – or dumber?
OPEN AND TRANSPARENT
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/15/19
The impeachment charade is not working well for the Democrats. Ratings are in the ditch while the Senate salivates over the chance to hold a trial during the 2020 election year.
Nancy Pelosi has a problem. Does she convert her inquiry into a Constitutional hearing? Does she abandon all hope and open another bottle of Vodka?
People are dying in Syria, Bolivia, and Hong Kong as the will to be free and the iron fists of dictatorships clash.
This is the fourth in our series of Half Full Reports showing real-world, real-time examples of how the balance of power is shifting to those that understand networked organizational systems.
The world is changing.
Come on in, let's talk about it.
Central Planning Continues to Fail
Look around the world, and the evidence remains clear. Governments, political parties, and organizations heavily invested in central planning do not have a solution to their woes.
Some draw the sword, and others use the ballot box.
Some losers attempt to remain relevant through made-for-TV impeachment dramas.
In the end, performance and competency matter, and the will of the people shall be heard.
WHISTLING IN THE DARK
When people are scared Schiffless, they do stupid things.
Rep. Adam Schiff scheduled four days of hearings this week and next for his impeachment “inquiry.”
After the way things went in the kickoff hearing Wednesday (11/12), he should rethink that.
“Day one a dud for Dems on Trump impeachment,” said CNN contributor Scott Jennings. Yes, CNN.
PUTIN’S STAGNATION OF STABILITY
Stability has always been the main promise legitimizing Vladimir Putin’s monopolization of political power in Russia.
Restoration of stability was the winning slogan for Putin in 2012, in claiming the presidency back from his pliant stand-in, Dmitry Medvedev, who had tried to experiment with modernization. And Putin’s reelection in 2018 also utilized a stability-centered propaganda campaign.
Yet, presently, this “majority” has shrunk to statistical insignificance. A recent opinion poll shows that 59 percent of Russians expect and see a need for profound changes, and 31 percent concede that at least some change is necessary (Vedomosti, November 6).
THE 1984 ELECTION OF 2020
Like it or not, the 2020 is going to be a plebiscite on an American version of Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four – a referendum far beyond Donald Trump’s record and his Democrat opposition.
The furor that Trump has incurred, and the radical antithesis to his agenda and first term, have redefined the looming election. It is becoming a stark choice between a revolutionary future versus American traditionalism.
The choice in reductionist terms will be one between a growing, statist Panopticon, fueled by social media, a media-progressive nexus, and an electronic posse.
Online trolls and government bureaucrats seek to know everything about us, in Big Brother fashion to monitor our very thoughts to ferret out incorrect ideas, and then to regiment and indoctrinate us to ensure elite visions of mandated equality and correct behavior—or else!
In other words, the personality quirks of a Trump or an Elizabeth Warren or a Bernie Sanders will become mostly irrelevant given the existential choice between two quite antithetical ideas of future America. In 2020 we will witness the penultimate manifestation of what radical progressivism has in store for us all—and the furious, often desperate, unfettered pushback against it.