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L i k e U s ! ! !

THE ADVENTURE DUET

Two of the world’s most extraordinary natural wonders lie just below America’s doorstep. The first is unknown – you won’t believe the pictures. The second you likely have always dreamed of seeing.

This is an opportunity to experience all of this in just ten days. And the time to do so is now. This is an Immediate Adventure Opportunity – this November, before Thanksgiving. Here’s why. We begin with the unknown.

LiquidRainbow1 LiquidRainbow2

This is Caño Cristales, the Liquid Rainbow, the most beautiful river in the world. From late July to early December, its unique ecosystem allows plants to grow in its gin-clear water that turns every color of the rainbow. There’s no place like it on earth.

It is in a remote region of Colombia at the junction of the Llanos grasslands, the Andes mountains, and the Amazon rainforest. We’ll spend two days here taking pictures your friends won’t believe, swimming in perfect temperature pure water pools and frolicking under the myriad waterfalls. Caño Cristales is not only jaw-dropping beautiful, it’s fabulous fun. Here are more amazing pictures.

Then it’s off to a place on everyone’s bucket list: The Galapagos Islands.

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TRUMPING THE PARTY

Donald Trump has now said that he would reverse President Obama's executive amnesty for "DREAMers" - illegal immigrants who've been here since they were children - and deport every last member of the Undocumented-American community.

The amnesty for the kids was supposed to prefigure an amnesty for their parents - for what mean old politician would advocate breaking up families? But, as he told NBC's Chuck Todd, Trump plans to keep the families together by deporting every single one of them: “They have to go. Chuck, we either have a country, or we don't have a country."

Now there's a campaign slogan. In other words, as every functioning society understood until two generations ago, immigration has to benefit the people who are already here. Government owes a duty to its own citizens before those of the rest of the planet - no matter how cuddly and loveable they might be.

The fact that it is necessary to state the obvious and that no "viable" "mainstream" candidate from either party is willing to state it is testament to how deformed contemporary western politics is.

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ISLAM AND RAPE

There was a brief flurry of outrage at the report that the “Caliph” of the Islamic state had repeatedly raped American aid worker Kayla Mueller before she finally died in an attack against IS targets. The New York Times devoted a lot of space to what it called the “theology of rape” that is an integral part of the doctrine and practice of the “Caliphate.” 

The Times story suggested that the systematic use of rape was of relatively recent vintage for IS, but the violent treatment of women by radical Islamists is nothing new. It ranges from rape and honor killings to beating, to formal, legal definition of women as inferior beings. 

Some years ago, I worked on a story about the daughter of a Palestinian immigrant in St. Louis. It will turn your stomach like that of Kayla Mueller will.

Rape, honor killings, and the oppression of women are not limited to Islamist men. But the systematic use of rape certainly seems more common to them than to any other contemporary group. Why?

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THE ABORTION INDUSTRY IS CORRUPT TO THE CORE

Together with my co-authors of this article, Troy Newman and Mark Crutcher, I have devoted my life, for decades now, to ending abortion. We have done so -- and continue to do so -- with the conviction that abortion, and the industry that sells it, is collapsing under its own weight.

We have each seen, time and time again, how exposing the horror of abortion itself causes many people to reject it, without us making a single argument or rationale for doing so. We simply need to expose to the light of day this evil which continues, in large part, because its purveyors are experts at keeping it hidden.

The abortion industry is corrupt to the core because you can't practice vice virtuously. If your conscience has deteriorated to the point that you can kill babies, you're going to do a lot of other evil as well. Your ability to discern right from wrong has been destroyed, and there's no way that the fallout is only going to impact one segment of your activities.

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JIM WEBB – THE OLD TIME DEMOCRAT

The old Democrat Party was a motley collection of selected plutocrats, labor bosses, Southern segregationists, smaller farmers, urban liberals and, as early as the 1930s, racial minorities. It was no doubt a clunky coalition but delivered big time: winning World War II, pushing back the Soviet Union and making it to the moon while aiding tens of millions of Americans to ascend into the middle class.

Only one Democrat candidate in the 2016 presidential race, James Webb, represents this old coalition. A decorated combat veteran, onetime Reagan Navy secretary and former U.S. senator from Virginia, Webb, 69, combines patriotism with a call for expansive economic policies to help the middle class.

He speaks most directly to white working-class voters, particularly in places like Appalachia, the South and in rural hamlets and exurbs across the country, precisely where Democrats are now regularly thrashed in elections.

So far, his candidacy is attracting little to no mention, because he identifies with an America – white, rural or suburban – disdained or ignored by the official press. Many current Democrats not only dislike these constituencies, but don’t even want to deal with them, counting, instead, on their lock-step support of minorities, rich liberals, single women and prefamily millennial voters.

Today’s “Post-American” Democrat Party is heading where Barack Obama has pushed it – a full-throated program of statist gentry leftism. Jim Webb wants to reverse that direction.

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THE PLAYFUL MARRIAGE

A marriage is not a game; it’s not a trophy to win or a position to battle for. A marriage is a connection between two people who love each other, trust each other, respect each other and enjoy being with each other. It’s not about winning something over the other person; it’s about achieving something together, with the other person.

A happy, committed relationship is a collaboration between two people creating a life together, sharing a common direction, common values, common dreams. A marriage is a team of two committed, devoted allies.

The heart of a relationship comes through small, daily encounters that create an atmosphere, through a reputation between two people for what they can expect together and through “rituals of connection” – the things we do regularly that bring us closer.

One of the most important ritual of connection, one of the most overlooked qualities of a happy, successful marriage is playfulness.

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WEEKEND AT HILLARY’S

The 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie’s features two employees invited to their boss’ beach house for the weekend who, upon arriving, discover Bernie, their boss, has been killed.

Learning that Bernie has ordered their deaths to cover up his embezzlement, with orders to refrain from killing them if he is around, they attempt to convince people that Bernie is still alive. They spend the weekend propping dead Bernie up on the beach. Thus we have today:

HillaryWeekend

 

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HALF-FULL REPORT 08/14/15

There are those who think anger and angst is tearing the Republican Party apart – exemplified by a summer madness over a crony capitalist whining crybaby pro-abortion centimillionaire pretending he’s a billionaire John Wayne.

You can see the real news of the week, however, if you peek over the other side of the fence. It’s the Dems who are tearing themselves apart much worse than we are. Let’s take a break from our own summer squabble and enjoy the show.

This week, Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Michigan (8/11). 2,800 people showed up. The day before (8/10), Bernie Sanders held a campaign rally in Los Angeles. Close to 28,000 people showed up.

The rage of the Left against the Dems is an order of magnitude (meaning 1,000%) greater than the rage of the Right against the Pubs. They’re winning on every front – forcing their total cultural degradation and fascism down our country’s throat, their ultimate dream-come-true with a Hate America MoslemCommieFascist in the White House.

What more do they want? Yet they are ten times madder than us?? Seems to me we should be focused on how to make the moonbats as mad as we can, leverage their looney anger to the max against them. This is going to be a fun HFR.

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FIXING AMERICA

MoreInCommon

There is no silver bullet for fixing America, for there is no one single thing to fix. Yet among the plethora of potentially lethal problems facing our country today, this one stands out: that Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. hates America and is using every power of the presidency he can get away with to destroy it.

Conservatives have contempt for RINO politicians, Republican In Name Only, and for good reason. But the current President of the United States is something vastly worse. Zero is an AINO – American In Name Only.

The basis for conservative contempt of RINOs is their cowardice – the spineless refusal of the GOP Establishment Elite to stand up for their professed principles, and stand up to Zero. They were voted into control of both the House and Senate to do precisely these two things, and they don’t have the courage to do either.

Yet the cowardice of the Democrat Establishment Elite – its politicians and its amen chorus in the libtard media, academia, organizations and blogosphere – is far worse than the Pubs’, for it makes them be AINOs as well.

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FROM SCHUMER TO SULEIMANI

I am not very good at predicting political events, and I did not expect Senator Chuck Schumer to announce his opposition to the Iran deal before the August recess.

Schumer will now bear the full brunt of his party’s rage.  It has already cost him money, no small matter. In my world, anyone willing to pay a steep price for his actions isn’t cunning, but brave.

As a matter of fact, it is much more difficult – at least for me – to account for those who are supporting the Grand Bargain with Iran.

This is because the whole issue boils down to a simple, straightforward question: do we really want to pay Iran to kill Americans?

Just in case you missed it, I’ll ask you again: Do we really want to pay Iran to kill Americans? Because that’s what Obama’s deal does.

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OUR MAFIA OF REGULATORS

What is the purpose of financial regulation?

Advocates of more and more financial regulation say it is necessary to protect the consumer against greedy bankers and other financial professionals and institutions. The latest power grab is the Labor Department’s “Conflict of Interest Rule.”

The awful irony is that every day, government fails in its fiduciary responsibility to spend taxpayer money wisely. If the administration spent more time making sure that the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the IRS and others are well managed and not corrupt, rather than taking on a largely non-problem and turning it into one, Americans would be better off.

The Labor Dept’s power grab is as if a guy from the mafia comes and tells you that for a big fee, he is going to protect you from the carwash overcharging you.

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IT’S IMPORTANT TO HAVE FUN WHEN YOU’RE RETIRED

Hi.  My name is Bill.  Working people frequently ask retired people like me what they do to make their days interesting.

I tell them it's always important to have fun.

For example, the other day I went downtown and went into a shop. I was only in there for about 5 minutes and when I came out there was a cop writing out a parking ticket. I went up to him and said, "Come on, man, how about giving a retired person a break"? He ignored me and continued writing the ticket.

So I decided to have fun with this cop and called him a "Nazi ." He glared at me and after he slapped the ticket on the windshield, he started writing another ticket.

I asked him what was that for.  "Worn tires," he replied. So I called him a "doughnut eating Gestapo." He finished the second ticket and put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started writing a third ticket.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 08/07/15

We could spend all day talking about the Pub candidates’ debate last night (8/06), which is why we won’t. Instead, there’s a link to the full transcripts at the end of this HFR, plus a selection of the best quotes.

Right now, we’ll cut to the chase and answer the two easy questions. First, who won? Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz. We’ll get back to them in a moment. Second, who lost? Answer: rhymes with Chump.

He said nothing of substance whatever – try to find a counterexample in the transcript. A close personal friend of mine has a net worth much higher than Trump’s, has known him for many years, and has intimate familiarity with his business dealings. Here is what he tells me…

We have the fun read of the week, the laugh of the week, and the shock of the week – that’s who the HFR Hero of the Week is, you won’t believe it.

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ISRAEL MUST DO THE UNTHINKABLE TO PREVENT THE UNIMAGINABLE

The Obama administration seems peeved that almost everyone in Israel, left and right, has no use for the present Iranian–American deal to thwart Iran’s efforts to get the bomb.

Obama and his negotiators seem surprised that Israelis take quite seriously Iranian leaders’ taunts over the past 35 years that they would like to liquidate the Jewish state and everyone in it. The Israelis, for some reason, remember that well before Hitler came to power, he had bragged about the idea of killing Jews en masse in his sloppily composed autobiographical Mein Kampf.

Given the 20th century’s history, Israel has good reason not to trust either the United States or Europe to ensure the security of the Jewish state. Indeed, Roosevelt’s men in the War Department did nothing to prevent the Holocaust they knew was occurring.

Israelis have learned from the experience of the Holocaust that, for good or evil, Jews are on their own and can never again trust in the world’s professed humanity to prevent another.

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US FRACKERS HAVE SCREWED THE SAUDIS

If the oil futures market is correct, Saudi Arabia will start running into trouble within two years. It will be in existential crisis by the end of the decade.

The Saudis took a huge gamble last November when they stopped supporting prices and opted instead to flood the market and drive out rivals, boosting their own output to 10.6m barrels a day (b/d) into the teeth of the downturn.

Bank of America says OPEC is now "effectively dissolved". The cartel might as well shut down its offices in Vienna to save money.

If the aim was to choke the US shale industry, the Saudis have misjudged badly, just as they misjudged the growing shale threat at every stage for eight years. This link, by the way, is a delightful read, headlining US oil producers telling OPEC, “Anything you can do we can do better.”

OPEC now faces a permanent headwind. Each rise in price will be capped by a surge in US output. Saudi Arabia is effectively beached.

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