While the focus of the world is on Ukraine, Putin’s Russia, Iraq, nukes in Iran, et al, it has become obvious to a small number of folks in Washington that the world’s most dangerous man is not in any of these places and is off most everyone’s radar scope: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Imagine Fidel Castro in the prime of his life with billions of dollars of oil money. Given his pathological hatred of America, what do you think he would spend his money on? Suppose he thought the President of the United States was trying to knock him off - how do you think he would respond?

The International Monetary Fund has thrown in the towel on emerging markets. After years of talking up the BRICS club of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, it now admits that these countries have either exhausted their catch-up growth models, or run into the time-honored problems of supply bottlenecks and bad government. Yes, China too.

The Fund has cut its forecast for the developing economies by 0.5% to 4.5% this year in its latest World Economic Outlook, and by 0.4% to 5.1% next year.

The 2013 estimates have been slashed by 1.8% for India, for Mexico by 1.7%, and 1% in Russia, compared to forecasts made in April. Similar damage is expected for Turkey, Indonesia, Ukraine, and others with big trade deficits as details are fleshed out.

In what amounts to a mea culpa, the IMF hinted that it had for long been blind to festering problems in the BRICS and mini-BRICs.

It said the economies of Brazil, China, and India will be 8% to 14% smaller in 2016 than had been assumed just two years ago, a revision that calls into question some of the giddiest claims that the newcomers will soon surge past the decaying West. But the West, especially Europe's eurozone, is rapidly decaying just the same.

“The Sheriff,” as new CIA Director Porter Goss is becoming known, is getting rave reviews from the agency’s rank and file for serving notice to the Rogue Weasels that their left-wing views and attempts to sabotage the Bush Administration will receive zero tolerance. “Watch for a lot of road kill on 123 (Route 123, the highway in McLean, Virginia that goes past the CIA main entrance) as the weasels scurry away,” I’m told.

Found lying on the roadside yesterday (11/11) was weasel leader Mike Scheuer, who wrote the Bush-trashing “Imperial Hubris” book under the pseudonym “Anonymous.” While a lot of what Scheuer wrote was right on the mark, namely his withering criticism of the FBI and of senior agency guys (like Tenet) doing the CYA dance over 9/11, he twisted it all into bashing Bush and making an argument for John Kerry-type terrorism-is-a-nuisance-and-law-enforcement problem. That the CIA Review Office allowed him to write this book is a scandal never to be repeated under Sheriff Goss’s watch.

But even better news than the departure of the CIA weasels is the departure of their counterparts on the National Security Council of the White House. Bob Blackwill’s sudden resignation from the NSC, where he was Bush’s key advisor on Iraq and Iran, is a cause for real celebration.

The Republican Party of John McCain and Mitt Romney lost two presidential elections, the second to a weak candidate in a weak economy. Left to its own devices, it will lose the next presidential election and all the following ones.

By picking a fight on Obama's least popular position, namely health care, the conservative wing of the party led by Ted Cruz galvanized the party base and forced the House leadership into a fight. In a recent poll, the Gallup organization found that just 22% of Americans expected Obamacare to improve their family's health situation, while 47% expected it to make it worse.

As my old partner Jude Wanniski used to say, the electorate is like a diamond, waiting to be cut at exactly the right spot. Ted Cruz pointed the chisel correctly.

It well may be true that shutting down the government hurts the Republicans in the short run. That is immaterial; there is no way to get from here to there except by making a stand against Obamacare. There is no downside, for the Republican Party as presently configured already is a guaranteed loser. A reinvigorated conservative leadership has a chance of leading the party to victory.

Knowledgeable officials are expecting a regulatory tsunami after the election. By law, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to publish a report each April and October about new regulations that government agencies are considering. OMB failed to publish the April report.

The question is why -- what is Obama's OMB hiding?

Given the highly political behavior of the Obama White House, it is not unreasonable to suspect that because of the failure to give notice of impending regulations and the backlog of regulations under review, there will be a tidal wave of new "midnight" regulations immediately after the election.

It also is reasonable to suspect that many of the regulations may be politically unpopular and do great economic damage. If Mitt Romney wins, he may be able to pull back many of those regulations, but if Mr. Obama wins, given his rhetoric and previous behavior, a torrent of new regulations is likely.