WHY IS OBAMA WAGING WAR ON OUR ALLIES AND NOT OUR ENEMIES?
PUTIN’S BRIBES TO ENVIRONMENTALISTS EXPOSED
Which country has the biggest interest in stopping the expansion of the oil and gas industry in Europe and North America? Answer: the Russian Federation is highly dependent -- to the tune of several hundred billion dollars -- on the export of these commodities, particularly to Europe. It is rational, then, for the Russians to spend upward of a few hundred million dollars to influence politicians to stop gas and oil projects in those countries, with the goal of limiting supply, and thus protecting the Russian revenue stream. Researchers at the Environmental Policy Alliance, however, have just produced a very solid, well-documented report, which shows how tens of millions of dollars from Russian interests apparently flowed from a dark company in Bermuda through opaque environmental bundlers, such as the Sea Change Foundation, into major environmental lobbying organizations, including the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the League of Conservation Voters. There have been a number of press stories during the past week on Russian support of American environmental groups, including a very detailed description of the money flows, by Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon. In truth, these reports just scratch the surface of the Kremlin bribery operation paying off not just enviro groups but White House people as well.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/30/15
Are you ready for Vegas? Yes - the TTP Vegas Rendezvous is official! It's at the Platinum Boutique Hotel & Spa, just off the Strip and its most famous intersection of Caesar's, Bellagio, Paris, and the Flamingo. The dates are Friday April 24th to Sunday April 26. We haven't been able to hold a Rendezvous since 2011 as I've been traveling so much. And with so many requests - "Come on, Jack, when's another Rendezvous??" - it was clear we better have one this spring. So give Miko a call at 202-656-3008 or email him at [email protected] to sign up now. I'll see you in Vegas!... Well, here's a first. Never before has the HFR found cause to praise Mrs. Zero, but we're happy to so this week.... Dissolve the intelligence agency that has all the dirt on you, in order to deflect attention away from you for the murder of the investigator exposing you? Good luck, murderess. Argentina's Curse of Cristina may with any luck soon be over... Speaking of murderers. Yesterday (1/30), Texas proceeded with the execution of Robert Ladd after the Supreme Court rejected ACLU arguments that his IQ was too low at 67. Here's why IQ is irrelevant... Our HFR Health & Fitness feature this week focuses on news stories like this on CBS on Tuesday (1/27): Common Allergy Meds May Increase Odds of Dementia. Here's how to avoid that and start thinking sharp and clear at any age...
THE SNOW JOB OF CLIMATE CHANGE
As I was shoveling great gobs of it from my driveway this week, I remembered that Porter Fox, writing in the New York Times last February, predicted "the end of snow." Last winter was the coldest on record for much of the country. At least a dozen cities reported more than twice as much snowfall as normal, AccuWeather said. The record for "major impact" snowstorms in a decade on the East Coast, set in the 1960s, was 10. We've already had 14 such storms in this decade, noted meteorologist Joe D'Aleo. Note that this decade is only half over. One of those 14 was last weekend, mere days after EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said "climate change" could put an end to winter sports. Welcome to Warmism, the greatest snow job in history.
IT’S GOTTA BE A GUV
Last Saturday (1/24) in Des Moines, 23 of the most prominent conservatives in the country spoke at the Iowa Freedom Summit, organized by Congressman Steve King (R-IA) and Citizens United. Was the next President of the United States among them? Let's hope so - albeit the no-shows were Jindal, Paul, Rubio, and Jitt Rombush (or is it Meb Bushney?). It's vastly too early to predict who that will be, but we can start winnowing the field. Let's first eliminate those who are ridiculously tiresome old news. That would be Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, and Donald Trump. Go away and goodnight. Next, there are those for whom the spotlight has moved on... Then there are the long-shot dark horse non-politicians. We move on to Senators who should stay where they are, and stop believing - as almost all Senators do, Dem or Pub - that they would be God's gift to the presidency. With all that said, we come to the presidential timber bottom line: It's gotta be a guv. A governor who's a proven success at applying conservative principles in his (or her) state. Who could that be?
THREE GURUS WHO STILL DON’T GET IT
The real threats to us, and how to deal with them, that is. Lots of well-known former foreign policy/national security officials don't, or feel obliged to appear "realistic" (diplospeak for "don't do anything, keep talking"). Some former military officers do, although only up to a point. Three duly respected policy professionals, Denis Ross (Obama's - and plenty of others' - Middle East guru for a few years early on), Eric Edelman (Bush's under secretary of defense and earlier ambassador to Turkey), and Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations tell us it's Time to Take It to Iran (1/23). But it turns out they really don't get what the "It" really means in their own title. We need to explain it to them.
STALIN, MOHAMMED, AND OBAMA
Pundits agonize over President Obama's resistance to calling Islamist terror "Islamist terror." How can he not see the obvious? How can he ignore the overwhelming and ever-increasing evidence? How can he insist that his subordinates continue their buffoonish insistence that Islamist terror has nothing to do with Islam and that they-secularized Christians and non-observant Jews-know Islam's character better than Moslems themselves? It's easy. President Obama and his commissars fit the longstanding pattern of behavior (insistence, denial, castigation) that the hard left has embraced for generations. Just as Obama's ideological predecessors could never criticize Stalin, so their successors today can never cricize Mohammed.
THE OVERCRIMINALIZATION OF AMERICA
As Americans, we like to believe the rule of law in our country is respected and fairly applied, and that only those who commit crimes of fraud or violence are punished and imprisoned. But the reality is often different. It is surprisingly easy for otherwise law-abiding citizens to run afoul of the overwhelming number of federal and state criminal laws. This proliferation is sometimes referred to as "overcriminalization," which affects us all but most profoundly harms our disadvantaged citizens. How did we get in this situation? Here's how: Congress creates, on average, more than 50 new criminal laws each year. This has translated into more than 4,500 federal criminal laws spread across 27,000 pages of the United States federal code. (Note: This number does not include the thousands of criminal penalties in federal regulations.) As a result, the United States is the world's largest jailer - first in the world for total number imprisoned and first among industrialized nations in the rate of incarceration. The United States represents about 5 percent of the world's population but houses about 25 percent of the world's prisoners. We have paid a heavy price for mass incarceration and could benefit by reversing this trend. We support the following five-step approach to criminal justice reform:
A PRESIDENT WHO LIVES IN FANTASY LAND
If you were a librarian, would you put President Obama's recently delivered State of the Union address in the fiction or nonfiction section? All presidents puff their accomplishments and gloss over their failures, but no previous president has been so blatant in just making up "facts" and numbers that are so disconnected from reality. The Islamic State (which is also called ISIS or ISIL) is gaining territory, yet the president said we are "stopping ISIL's advance." He said, "We're upholding the principle that bigger nations can't bully the small, by opposing Russian aggression." In the year since his last State of Union address, Russia has grabbed Crimea, taken control of part of Eastern Ukraine, and continues to take more territory in Ukraine. If this is success, what would failure look like? The president's description of the economy was also a trip through Fantasy Land.
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/23/15
King Salmon - that's Alaska's State Fish. Because of its "high oil content," says one seafood website, it's "the richest salmon in the world." But why all the headlines about it this morning? Oh... sorry... that's King Salman, the new ruler of Saudi Arabia. It's so easy to get vowels mixed up as written Arabic doesn't have them. Salman wasted no time this morning replacing Abdullah's relatives with his own. He's got to be in a hurry as he won't be around for long either - he's 79 with persistent reports (such as in The Economist) he has Alzheimer's. Thus the Saudi Kingdom could be in beaucoup deep kimchee. For, like the Former Soviet Union, it's not a real country but a colonial empire within its own borders. A history of that with pics is appended below, but for now here's a shot I took of the Ibn Saud Conquest Map inside the Masmak Fort in Riyadh... We'll laugh at Zero's "More Cowbell Speech," but the bottom line is scary serious: he's a fascist. That needs to be said everywhere repeatedly: President Barack Obama is a fascist. Here is precisely why...