EARTH DAY CRASHES TO EARTH
Last Sunday (4/22) was Earth Day. If it passed without your notice, don't feel bad. Most other Americans ignored it, too. "Thousands" had been expected for the heavily hyped Earth Day rally in Washington, D.C., but only about 40 attended, a fact which Washington Post reporter Tara Bahrampour did her utmost to conceal. It was a far cry from the first Earth Day, in 1970, when, according to news reports, about 20 million Americans took part in Earth Day rallies. The percentage of Americans who worry "a great deal" about environmental problems has declined substantially since 2000, according to Gallup's annual Environment poll. This is partly because times are tough. People who worry where their next meal is coming from tend not to worry much about polar bears or the rainforest. But it's due mostly to the collapse of hysteria about anthropogenic (man made) global warming.
IS OBAMA ON PUTIN’S PAYROLL?
Just like the Saudis, the KGB has journalists all over the world on their payroll. There's hardly a major newspaper or newsmagazine in Europe, for example, that doesn't have one or more of their prominent writers and editors being paid on the sly by the Saudis to say nice things about them and nothing critical. It's not quite as extensive throughout the US media, but you'd be surprised what US pundits and media stars are on the Saudi take. The Saudis particularly like to see if they can rope in one of them on the right. Well-known conservative columnist and television commentator Robert Novak (1931-2009) was one of their prize catches. For years they paid him a fortune to be pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel. The KGB - since 1991, it was supposedly renamed and divided up into the FSB (Federal Security Service internal to Russia) and the SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), but it's still the same outfit of Russian thugs - does the same, and a lot more.
CAN WE GET OVER FEAR OF FRACKING NOW?
On April 1 and May 27 of last year, two tiny tremors were detected by seismographs with magnitudes of 2.3 and 1.5 in England's Blackpool region of Lancashire. They are being blamed on fracking. The same claim is being made in Ohio. It is now official: drilling for shale gas by fracturing rock with water may rattle the odd teacup. But is highly unlikely to cause damaging earthquakes. That much has been obvious to anybody who has followed the development of the shale gas industry in America over the past ten years. More than 25,000 wells drilled have caused a handful of micro-seismic events that can barely be felt. To call a two-magnitude tremor an earthquake is a bit like calling a hazelnut lunch. Such tremors happen naturally more than 15 times a year in Blackpool but go unnoticed and they are a common consequence of many other forms of underground work such as coalmining and geothermal drilling. So can we now get on with fracking and get over fear of it? The economic and environmental benefits are vast.
DOES OBAMA WANT TO DRIVE BUSINESS AWAY FROM AMERICA?
Mr. Obama's insistence on high business taxes drives away opportunity. How can he not know this? The United States already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Yet this is not good enough for the Obama administration, which is now proposing to make the U.S. even less competitive internationally by reducing the corporate tax deferral on income made abroad. Somehow, Mr. Obama fails to understand that companies can charter themselves anywhere in the world, and their tax rate depends largely on where they are chartered. They do have to pay local tax rates where they conduct business, but that is only on the business done in tha particular state. Companies increasingly have been moving out of the United States for tax reasons, and of greater concern is that many new businesses are deciding to choose a home other than the U.S. This is not good for future U.S. employment and economic growth. Again, how is it possible for Mr.Obama to not know this?
CLAY-LISTON 2012
On Feb. 25, 1964, Cassius Clay shocked the boxing world by defeating heavyweight champion Sonny Liston (9 days later, he would announce he was a Black Moslem to be known as Muhammad Ali). Clay used his superior quickness to evade Liston's ponderous punches, and counterpunched so effectively that Liston didn't answer the bell for the 7th round. The opening rounds of the general election campaign have resembled the Clay-Liston fight. Mitt Romney has counterpunched so effectively Democrats were lying bleeding on the canvas before they knew what hit them. Twice in as many weeks, the Romney team turned Democrat attacks against them. I expect this to happen again and again. The president's numbers will improve if the economy does, but it is getting weaker. So Democrats double down on personal attacks. Their strategy is doomed. Here are four reasons why:
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/20/12
While I was in the deepest bowels of Africa recently - an apt metaphor, by the way, as days after I was in Guinea-Bissau there was a violent military coup - Jack Kelly reported in the HFR of March 30 that Zero was having his worst week ever. Then the following week, in the HFR of April 06, I had to conclude was even worse for Zero than the previous. And last week, in the HFR of April 13, we reveled in the "no-good, lousy, really bad week Zero and the Dems had" - enjoyably worse than the last two. This run of three straight worst-weeks-ever for Zero sure isn't going to be broken this week. This just keeps getting better and better. We're going to have so much fun with this HFR you may not be able to stand it. We'll start with Mrs. Zero's latest dietary advice: "Dog: It's what's for dinner!" Hitler was devastated over this:
MUGGED IN MOSCOW
"A conservative," the old cliché goes, "is a liberal who has been mugged." But some liberals who are mugged refuse to admit that it happened. Observe the rough treatment to which the new American ambassador in Moscow, Michael McFaul, has been subjected since his appointment last January. Since his arrival, the ambassador has been constantly accused in the media of stirring up anti-government protests, and lately he has been ambushed by Russian state-TV crews at his meetings, official and unofficial, suggesting that his phone was tapped. This comes on top of numerous other strong indications that the Obama administration's attempts to "reset" relations with Russia - a policy spearheaded by Mr. McFaul - have failed. But while McFaul has complained loudly about his recent treatment, he does not seem to realize that he, along with his boss Hillary Clinton, have been mugged in a much broader sense.
OBAMA’S FOOT-IN-MOUTH DISEASE
At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia on Monday (4/16), Barack Hussein Obama called for dialogue between Britain and Argentina over "the Maldives or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term." The Maldives are islands in the Indian Ocean. The islands in the South Atlantic over which Britain and Argentina fought a war in 1982 are called the Malvinas by the Argentines. "Barack Obama made an uncharacteristic error, more akin to those of his predecessor George W Bush, by referring to the Falkland Islands as the Maldives," said the London Telegraph. This was wrong on both counts. The error was by no means uncharacteristic of Mr. Obama. Here are a few more examples of his foot-in-mouth disease:
ROMNEY AND YELLOW DOGS
Democrats have perfected Saul Alinsky's Rule for Radicals: "Pick the target. Freeze it. Personalize it. Polarize it." It's called the politics of personal destruction - and today, it's all the Dems and their media lapdogs have left. As they can't argue from principles, policies, or track records, all they can do is engage in personal attacks on their opponents. Now they are so desperate to destroy Mitt Romney, they are dredging up the ancient tale of the family dog, Seamus, riding on the roof of the family car in 1983. Turns out, though, that while Romney's dog ended up on the roof of his car, Zero's dog ended up on the roof of his mouth. There's even a new campaign sign: Romney 2012 -- At Least I Didn't Eat My Dog! The signs continue to mount that Romney is headed for the presidency by a landslide. Zero will be lucky to carry ten states (e.g., California, New York, and Leftie New England - one of them won't be Pennsylvania). One of the main reasons will be dogs - yellow dogs. A new breed of yellow dogs.
WHY DO THE OBAMAS DONATE 22% OF THEIR INCOME TO CHARITY INSTEAD OF THE GOVERNMENT?
Do you think it is more important to have a tax policy that raises the most revenue at the least cost, in order to maximize job growth and economic opportunity - or to have a tax policy like the Buffett rule, which falsely claims it would make all millionaires pay a higher tax rate than their secretaries? President Obama released his tax return last week, showing he had an effective rate of a little more than 20 percent of his income, even though he is rich by his own definition. One of major ways the Obamas were able to reduce their tax rate was by giving away 22 percent of their income to charity, which I applaud. But their actions raise several interesting points. When we donate money to a charity, church or some other worthy cause, we are allowed a tax deduction, which means the government gets less of our money. The president and many in his party keep telling us that the government needs more money, but if they believe this, why are they taking charitable deductions? Why didn't they give it to the IRS which they say needs it so much?