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FROM KIPLING TO SINATRA IN BURMA

sinatra-in-burmaBurma is a hidden country. Sandwiched between India and Thailand, it is essentially the drainage basin of the Irawaddy River, rising in the glaciers at the southeast corner of the Tibetan Plateau and flowing south for 1,350 miles to the Bay of Bengal.

Out of a welter of tribal regions and warring principalities, it emerged into history only about a thousand years ago with the Pagan Empire.  It established Buddhism throughout what is now Burma, and constructed over 10,000 Buddhist temples during the 10th-13th centuries.  2,200 remain in the plains of Pagan today, one of the world’s most wondrous sights — especially by hot air balloon as you can see by my picture above.

It was Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) who made Burma the ultimate of the romantically exotic with his poem Mandalay in 1890.  Then came Frank Sinatra.

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THE DERANGEMENTS OF OUR TIME

Trump Derangement Syndrome is only one of the Left’s many derangements
Trump Derangement Syndrome is only one of the Left’s many derangements

The term “derangement syndrome” has made it into everyday speech, thanks to the now-ubiquitous use of the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a term coined by Esther Goldberg back in 2015. But TDS is only one of the many derangement syndromes of our time.

The British conservative author and journalist Douglas Murray made derangement a central theme of his recent book, The Madness of Crowds. Writing in the Daily Mail, Murray contends, “We are going through a great mass derangement. In public and in private, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and unpleasant.”

In his book, Murray claims that in postmodern society’s retreat from the great narratives offered by religion, patriotism, and traditions of family and community, people have found new ideologies to absorb their passions: social justice, identity politics, and intersectionality – derangements all.

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HILLARY IS A RUSSIAN ASSET

hillary-winkIn a difficult period for our country, everyone is let down by commentary that relies on stale talking points.

Channeling Hillary Clinton’s latest podcast eruption, some pundits have lately returned to trying to keep Trump-Russia collusion alive, so let’s go through it again.

To give the complete Trump quote, he said during the 2016 campaign. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 [Hillary Clinton] emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

In other words, a wisecrack any of us might have made playing off the insecurity of Mrs. Clinton’s email practices as well as the press’s hypocritical eagerness to traffic in Russian leaks.  Hear’s what’s really going on….

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RULE OF LAW UNDERMINED IN THE UNITED STATES

rule-of-law-in-the-worldIf your favorite sports league had no rules to govern the game and the actions of the teams in the league, how long could it last?

The rule of law, along with due process, is the cornerstone of civil society. Even communist countries, with an infinitely elastic definition of the rule of law, understand the importance of rules for sports teams, driver protocols and most day-to-day behavior, in order to avoid chaos.

Unfortunately, the rule of law has been undermined in the United States by crooked and/or irresponsible public officials who ignore the U.S. Constitution and its basic protections. The World Justice Project Rule of Law Index now ranks the United States at only 20 out of the 126 countries measured, as can be seen in the accompanying table.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/18/19

keep-america-great-2020-rally Last night (10/17), the President held a massive Keep America Great 2020 rally in Dallas.  The American Airlines Center was packed to its 20,000 seat capacity – as you can see above – with a huge overflow of many thousands more watching on huge screens outside.

rally-on-screen-outside No Dem candidate has a ghost of a chance competing with this – for it’s not simply the gargantuan size of the crowds at his rallies but the crowds’ overwhelming excitement and enthusiasm.  And as always, Trump never disappoints them, with his stirring pro-America message that brings them roaringly to their feet time and again.

The entire 90-minute video is here, while the transcript is here.

Every presidential election in modern memory is claimed to be “the most important election of our lives.”  This one in 2020 really is.  POTUS was precisely correct when he said last night:

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THE STRATEGIES OF TARGETING TRUMP

trump-targetingThere is no logical Democrat explanation for impeaching Donald Trump. The various factions within the Democrat Party calling for impeachment are united only by their loathing of Donald Trump, the person, and his systematic repeal of the Obama progressive project.

After failing with the voting machine gambit, the Logan Act, the 25th Amendment, the emoluments clause, the McCabe-Rosenstein faux-coup, the Comey memos farce, the “resistance” efforts outlined by the New York Times anonymous op-ed writer, the campaign finance violations accusations, Stormy, tax returns, whistleblowers, leakers, the Mueller 22 months charade, and now impeachment 2.0, what exactly is the point of impeaching Trump just 13 months before the election?

Here are the various rationales behind Trump’s Democrat and leftwing opponents’ latest “whistleblower” hoax. None of these scenarios are mutually exclusive.

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THE MEDIA’S CRUSADE TO DESTROY PRESIDENT TRUMP

media-crusade-against-trumpLast week The Washington Post revealed the alarming news that House Democrats were considering having their anonymous “whistleblower” testify from a remote location, and in disguise.

Just as shocking as the details of this plan was the justification the Post ladled on this Democrat effort to hide impeachment information from the public.

It explained, high up in the story, that the cloak-and-dagger approach was merely Democrats expressing “distrust of their GOP colleagues, whom they see as fully invested in defending a president who has attacked the whistleblower’s credibility and demanded absolute loyalty from Republicans.”

This, from a newspaper with a tagline of “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

Maybe the better journalistic epitaph is: “Democracy Dies in Bias.” How did journalism get here?

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FAKE NEWSERS – TOTALLY IN THE DEM TANK

Erin Burnett-CNN. Anderson Cooper-CNN, Marc Lacey-NYTimes last night (10/15)
Erin Burnett-CNN. Anderson Cooper-CNN, Marc Lacey-NYTimes last night (10/15)

If there is one thing that Tuesday night's Democrat debate showed us—as if we didn't know it in the first place—it's just to what degree the media is in the tank for the Democrats.

They're not only in the tank—they built it, filled it with water up to the brim, and would turn up the temperature to boil Donald Trump alive if they could. And maybe they can.

You knew this from the outset when CNN's lead moderator Anderson Cooper, along with his compatriots, one from the New York Times, opened the festivities with a round of leading impeachment questions, giving each candidate in turn a chance to outdo each other in bashing Trump. Only Tulsi Gabbard equivocated slightly.

It went downhill from there.

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A CLUSTER OF TYRANNICAL FANTASISTS

no-president-material-tweetFor conservatives who watched the Democrat debate, it was like visiting Earth-2, as Drunkblogger Stephen Green so cleverly put it.  Conservatives probably could not endure these debates without Stephen Green's infusion of both facts and humor.

Each of those candidates on the stage seemed oblivious to the reality of the last three years — the fabulous economy, lowest unemployment in decades, international trade renegotiated to our benefit, millions no longer on food stamps.

Our military, eviscerated by Obama, is being repaired.  Manufacturing has been revitalized, and the border, despite the intransigence of the Democrats, is slowly being better controlled.  The wall is being built.

The Democrats are losing.  Trump and his supporters are winning.  As others have observed, the Left plays checkers while Trump plays 4-D chess.  He is way ahead of his opponents on every level, every issue.   And boy, was that apparent at that Dem debate last night.

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MAO LEBRON AND THE THREAT OF CHINA

Mao LeBron
Mao LeBron

Over the past several days, Americans have seen exactly how China uses access to its vast domestic market as leverage to coerce American companies thanks to a now-deleted tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in support of Hong Kong.

“Fight for freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” Morey tweeted.

CCTV, China’s state television broadcaster, could not have been more explicit: “We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech.”

NBA star LeBron James agreed, saying “We do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negatives that come with that too.” He assailed Morey’s pro-Hong Kong tweet as “misinformed and not educated.”

Not all athletes agree, but far too many in business with China have made their loyalties crystal clear; and that is par for the course when it comes to dealing with Beijing’s authoritarian regime. It also does not even begin to describe the scope of the threat posed by the Chinese government and Communist Party.

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WHY PORK PUSHED CHINA TO A DEAL WITH TRUMP

pork-china-trumpLast Friday (10/11), U.S. President Trump and China’s Vice Premier Liu He announced a trade agreement that saw Washington suspend tariff increases while China agreed to purchase some $40-$50 billion of agricultural products, including pork.

Behind this development, the financial markets rallied; the Dow Jones rose some 320 points or 1.21 percent. Trump billed the agreement as “phase one” of a broader trade agreement, but behind the soaring rhetoric belies a key motivation for the deal:

The Chinese need pig imports.  Big time. Here’s why – and why Trump’s timing for making a deal is impeccable.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 10/11/19

crystalizing-public-opinionWorld events do not just happen. In many cases, in fact, in most cases, an agenda resides behind events. The multi-billion-dollar Public Relations industry lives behind those agendas. These guys are not marketers, nor are they salespeople as sales, marketing, and advertising all live downstream from the PR house.

Public Relations has several names. Propaganda is one of them. Whatever it takes to crystallize public opinion to shape events for the benefit of the powerful can be fair game.

Scoop up natural gas profits in Ukraine? No problem.

Bombard the Kurds to drive Turkish election demographics? Easy peasy and done by midweek!

What about everybody’s favorite opinion crystallizer? PG&E turning off the power?

Generation Z is the mobile phone generation, and they are as woefully ignorant of the techniques used to manipulate their minds as they are addicted to their screens.

One person, one vote? Who are we kidding? One PR master equals millions of votes.

If we want a better world, we need to understand the industry pulling the levers. We need to teach our children and grandchildren how to play the game.

Come on in, let’s look at the week through the PR man’s eyes:

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PRESIDENT TRUMP’S INFATUATION WITH AN ISLAMOFASCIST WHO HATES AMERICA

trump-and-tayyip-erdoganLet’s start here:  in TTP from October 2015, The Islamist Fox in Europe’s Henhouse.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the Islamofascist dictator of Turkey, Islamizing Turkey while obliterating basic freedoms of speech and the press, the sponsor and protector of ISIS, whose highest goal is Islamizing Europe via an organized invasion of Moslem “refugees.”  He hates Europe, he hates Christianity, he hates Western Civilization, and most of all, he hates the United States of America.

And President Trump, for some unfathomably baffling reason, has a teenage crush on him – rendering him oblivious to all the above.  Plus the dictator’s intentions to commit genocide upon a heroic people who love America and whom the President has now betrayed, and to recreate the terror of ISIS worse than ever before.

This is a disaster.

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