NO ORDINARY WEAKLING
Recently published in the Register-Guard newspaper in Eugene, Oregon. Mr. Kash lives in nearby Springfield.
Join the forum discussion on this postHALF-FULL REPORT 10/30/15
Cruz’s detonation of the ludicrously biased 3 main CNBC moderators was the most enjoyable highlight of the debate Wednesday night (10/28). And it will serve a most useful purpose – tearing people’s attention away from the Kim Kardashian of presidential candidates and towards those who actually have something to say.
It may take a while for this to sink in. The Drudge Poll yesterday (10/29) said Trump was the clear winner with 48%, with Cruz at 25% and Rubio under 13%. Let’s be just as clear: anyone who thought Trump won is retarded. Read the debate transcript and see for yourself.
It’s likely then that before long we’ll be left with the Final Four: Cruz, Carson, Rubio, and Fiorina. You may be surprised by Fiorina, but she had a great debate – if you rate substance over style and personality games. Here’s examples…
Let’s get this over with fast. What words can adequately express the disgust we all feel at Paul Ryan’s pathological sellout regarding Boehner’s sellout regarding this insane funding of Zero’s deficit spending for the next two years? And the McConnell Senate then passed it in the dead of night. Obama Hails Passage of Two-Year Budget Deal is the headline that sums up the total moral corruption of the Republicans in Congress.
There’s lots more – and we end with an awesome video. Have your headphones on max.
THE ISLAMIST FOX IN EUROPE’S HENHOUSE
This is the question The Economist asked over two years ago in its cover story on June 8, 2013. It’s become clear since that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s intention is to be another Ottoman Sultan. Turkey’s elections this Sunday, Nov. 1st, may see if his goal is realized.
That goal extends far beyond the borders of Turkey. This map is a frightening display of it:
This map – published in the London Daily Mail yesterday (10/28) – shows the origins and extent of the Moslem invasion of Europe this year – 680,000 so far with tens of thousands more on the way. It’s easy to see the conduit of the hordes from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria is Turkey.
This is no accident, Comrades. Erdogan (air-doh-wan) wants to achieve the great goal the Ottoman Sultans never could – the Islamization of Europe.
SOMETHING DEEPLY DISTURBING IS HAPPENING IN AMERICA
[Director Comey made these remarks at the University of Chicago on October 23]
Part of being clear-eyed about reality requires all of us to stare—and stare hard—at what is happening in this country this year. And to ask ourselves what’s going on.
Because something deeply disturbing is happening all across America. Something has changed in 2015. Far more people are being killed in America’s cities this year than in many years. Let’s be clear: far more people of color are being killed in America’s cities this year.
And it’s not the cops doing the killing.
What could be driving an increase in murder in some cities across all regions of the country, all at the same time? What explains this map and this calendar? Why is it happening in all of different places, all over and all of a sudden?
Nobody says it on the record, nobody says it in public, but police and elected officials are quietly saying it to themselves. And they’re saying it to me, and I’m going to say it to you. And it is the one explanation that does explain the calendar and the map and that makes the most sense to me.
AN INTERVIEW WITH TED CRUZ ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY
US Senator Ted Cruz, the conservative Republican firebrand from Texas, is running for president. Up until a few weeks ago, his candidacy was met with indifference as the media and political operatives all dismissed its viability. But that is beginning to change.
The voices arguing that Cruz, the favorite of Tea Party fiscal conservatives and Evangelical Christians may have what it takes to win the Republican nomination have multiplied.
Since arriving in Washington four years ago, Cruz has arguably been Israel’s most avid defender in the Senate. Last summer Cruz led the national opposition to US President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and continues to lead it today.
I interviewed Cruz by telephone from the campaign trail earlier this week about his views on the purpose of American foreign policy, US-Israel relations, the Iran nuclear deal and the Palestinian conflict with Israel. The transcript of our conversation follows.
DO NOT BET THE FARM ON PUTIN IN SYRIA
Who’s winning the Middle East war? It’s never an easy question to answer, even for the most skilled and informed analysts. Things rarely, very rarely, go the way we expect. Hence “the fog of war.”
The most famous case of a military commander who got it right is Napoleon at Austerlitz, when he seems to have told his men precisely how the battle would go, hour by hour and move by move. It so impressed Hegel that he proclaimed the French general a “world-historical figure.”
Waterloo didn’t follow that template, thereby making my point. It behooves us to maintain a healthy skepticism about likely outcomes.
If you had to bet, you’d probably wager that Putin and Khamenei are solid favorites in Syria. Yet shoring up Assad, which is the Iranian-Russian mission, is no easy task. Russian and Iranian casualties are mounting and in some key areas they are in retreat from “rebels.” Consider this current battlefield report:
THE LIFE-SAVING BENEFITS OF MORE CO2
France’s leading television weather forecaster, Philippe Verdier, was taken off air last week (10/19) for writing that there are “positive consequences” of climate change.
His book published earlier this month, Climat Investigation (currently available only in French) denounced “the planetary scandal of global warming — a war-machine designed to keep us afraid. At its heart, it’s a science manipulated and politicized, of conflict of interest, of corruption… a self-serving engine, a new religion, the framework of a new faith.”
Last week also saw the publication of a comprehensive, thoroughly peer-reviewed report on “Carbon Dioxide — the Good News” for the Global Warming Policy Foundation by the independent American scientist Indur Goklany, to which Freeman Dyson wrote the foreword.
Goklany points out that whereas the benefits of carbon dioxide are huge and here now, the harms are still speculative and almost all in the distant future.
This is the summary from Goklany's report, followed by even more evidence for the life-saving benefits of increasing, not reducing CO2 in our planet’s air.
SAVING PUERTO RICO SHOULD NOT BE DIFFICULT
Ultimately, if you continue to spend more than you take in -- whether you are an individual, business or government -- there will be a day of reckoning. Puerto Rico is likely to reach that day by December 1st.
Back in June, the governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, announced that the government debt of $73 billion had grown so large that it was no longer "repayable." At that time, many of us who have had experience with countries in fiscal crisis made recommendations (see my America's Greece) to avoid what is now almost certain to happen.
As is its pattern, the Obama administration waited until the last minute -- this past week -- to unveil its "solution," dubbed "Super Chapter 9." Chapter 9 is a provision in the U.S. bankruptcy code that allows local governments in U.S. states, but not the states themselves (including Puerto Rico), to declare bankruptcy.
Typically, this “solution” will make the problem worse rather than solving it. The causes of Puerto Rico’s problems are clear – and so are the remedies. Here they are.
THE TRUMPKIN PUMPKIN
Now that’s scary! All trick and no treat.
HAVE A FUN HALLOWEEN!
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/23/15
We have to begin with a HFR Cold Open. Here’s the SNL Cold Open last Saturday (10/17) with Seinfeld co-creator Larry David’s impossibly funny bang-on impersonation of Bernie Sanders, Kate McKinnon as a psycho Hillary, Alec Baldwin as Jim Webb, and Jon Rudnitsky as an effeminate Anderson Cooper:
Only a masochist would put themselves through 11 hours of lying by the PIAPS to the Benghazi Committee yesterday. The most despicable moment was when she actually claimed that murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens was joking when he requested more security in Benghazi. The truly depressing problem about Hillary, however, is not Hillary. Here’s the real problem…
There’s lots more, including the dumbest Pub Gov in America, a Zero appointee as Hero of the Week, and the Question of the Week: What are your plans for this coming New Years Eve?