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L i k e U s ! ! !

CRUZ IN THE CATBIRD SEAT

Who’s playing who? Is Trump playing the libtard media as the master publicity-seeker, or is the libtard media playing him with their nonstop coverage of his every utterance month after interminable month?

The answer is Yes. The only real financial asset Trump has – on which 90% of his claimed wealth is based – is the PR value of his name, so that companies will pay him oodles to put the label “Trump” on their products from neckties to real estate developments.

Trump’s genius is to take the old adage of Hollywood movie stars regarding publicity – “Good or bad, I don’t care what you (the media) say about me, as long as you spell my name right ” – to the max. Just exactly like Kim Kardashian or Bruce “Caitlyn” Jenner.

Trump plays the libtard media like a Strad – just like he does the GOPE (the E is for Elite), most of the conservative punditry, a dishearteningly large number of conservatives, and all Pub prez candidates with the one exception of a guy who’s smarter than he is.

That’s Ted Cruz. We’ll get back to him in a moment. Let’s get back to the other half of the Yes above. True, Trump is good for ratings so it makes business sense to run stories about him. But the libtard media aren’t just in business, their purpose in life is to advance their libtard political agenda. So what’s the libtard media’s agenda for constantly providing Trump with publicity?

More specifically, how does it advance their agenda of getting Hillary Clinton elected in 2016?

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IS HAPPINESS SOMETHING WE CAN MASTER?

Are you happy?

Uncountable millions have asked that of themselves or of others for thousands of years. Yet depending on when in history this question is asked, it would mean something very different.

Today, we live in a time where our overall health, opportunities, and options would be considered nothing less than miraculous to our ancestors.

In addition, the practical knowledge we have today of how our choices, thoughts, and habits affect our own experience allows us to be active participants in our own happiness in ways that would have mystified most people through history.

For the Ancient Greeks, happiness was being lucky or blessed (makarios) -- favored by the gods to enjoy prosperity and avoid suffering.

This puts the thoughts, choices, and actions that can lead to happiness outside of our own direction, outside of our own personal agency.

Happiness from this perspective is a matter of luck, not something you can actively influence. But you can. Let’s talk about how you can.

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AMERICA’S FASCIST UNIVERSITIES AND JEWS

The foundations of American Jewish life are under assault today in ways that were unimaginable a generation ago. Academia is ground zero of the onslaught. The protest movements on campuses are first and foremost anti-Jewish movements.

In the past month, for example, students channeling Hitler Youth at Hunter College in New York demanded that all supporters of Israel be kicked off campus. A member of the UC Santa Barbara student council was told he could not vote on an anti-Israel resolution because he was Jewish.

In a recent column, Dennis Prager noted that “the American university is now closer to fascism than to traditional liberty.” Prager is right, of course. But the fascist takeover of American academia will not affect all Americans equally.

Jews are the greatest victims of this state of affairs. That’s because there is an intrinsic link between Anti-Semitism and the Fascism of the Left.

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HOW THE LEFT WILL LEARN TO LOVE ISIS

The West doesn’t really want to defeat Islamic terrorism.

It responds to terrorism while ignoring the ideology. And then it roots around for “root causes” that coincidentally turn out to all involve progressive policy priorities like economic inequality and global warming.

The left sees Islamists as an anti-colonialist minority lobby rather than theocratic supremacists. Moslem Brotherhood front groups, like Communist front groups, are willing to use “useful idiots” on the left. But rather than forming a common front, Communists and Islamists hijack left-wing causes and make them their own.

So, for example, Moslems turn #BlackLivesMatter protests into anti-Israel campaigns

Can the Islamic State evolve into another Soviet Union? Yes, it could – and how often did we see American leftists take the side of Moscow or its proxies like Castro’s Cuba against the US?

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DID OPEC JUST DIE?

The OPEC cartel is to continue flooding the world with crude oil despite a chronic glut and the desperate plight of its own members

Brent prices have tumbled $3 a barrel to below $41, US crude over $4 to below $38, as traders tried to make sense of the fractious OPEC gathering in Vienna last Friday (12/04), which ended with no production target and no guidance on policy. It reeked of paralysis.

Prices are poised to test lows last seen at the depths of the financial crisis in early 2009. The shares of oil companies plummeted in London, and US shale drillers went into freefall on Wall Street.

“Lots of people said OPEC was dead. OPEC itself has just confirmed it,” said Jamie Webster, head of HIS Energy. Instead, there is now a new world order of three and only three oil superpowers. Guess who they are…

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KNOWLEDGE THAT ISN’T

ReaganTroubleVidWhen you hear politicians speak (the president or members of Congress) and they tell you that the science or facts are settled, do you tend to believe them or treat their comments with skepticism?

Those who survey such things show that faith in government and politicians has fallen to record lows. But many other professions have also seen a decline in public trust.

The government produces a "food pyramid" and dietary guidelines telling us what is good for us to eat and what is not. But it keeps changing -- eggs and whole milk were bad, and now they are good.

Global warming alarmists keep telling us the science is settled -- but doomsday keeps being pushed back. Not one of the major global warming models predicted the recent 18-year pause in global warming. Is it any wonder most of us now ignore the constant warnings of warming by Mr. Obama?

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DARTH TRUMP

After the terrifying Dark Helmet in Spaceballs…

DarkHelmet

comes his equal…. Darth Trump!

DarthTrump

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HALF-FULL REPORT 12/04/15

We have an update for Is Obama Criminally Insane? from yesterday (12/03). Here’s the latest headline: Obama Thinks Gun Control Will Deter Terrorists. What more proof is needed that he’s mentally defective?

OK, here’s more: Last night on CBS – the day after the Moslem terrorist slaughter in San Bernardino celebrated by ISIS – Zero actually claimed that ISIS “is not going to pose an existential threat to us…our homeland has never been more protected…than they are now.” The headline for the interview: Obama Says US Safe from ISIS Attack. Wait, there’s still more…

Pub Senate sanity prevailed yesterday when they passed defunding Planned Parenthood and Obamacare. Your hopes, though, will be dashed when you learn how ephemeral Pub Senate sanity was…

Ted Cruz gave a fantastic speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition yesterday, declaring among other delights that “this nation needs a wartime president to defend it, instead of a president who’s an apologist for radical Islamic terrorism.”

Cruz’s full 30 minute speech is worth watching. Note he began with leading everyone in a moment of silent prayer…

Let’s take a break. Surely the funniest story of the week is the surge of sales of blow-up sex dolls in China. And here’s the Darwin Award for the Week. Plus the Jerk of the Week. We close with the Hero.

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IS OBAMA CRIMINALLY INSANE?

SlaughterinCA
This is the cover of the New York Post today (12/03). At least there’s one media outlet willing to state the obvious.

The most obvious fact on earth right now, on a par with it’s cold and dark at the North Pole in December and Mount Everest is a really high mountain, is that there is no mystery, no puzzle – the San Bernardino murderers are Moslem terrorists.

Being literally terrified to state the obvious is The Cost of Envy Appeasement (11/20). It’s a form of insanity, the biggest promoter of which is the current inhabitant of the White House.

“We now have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” claimed Zero. This was a reiteration of what he stated at a press conference in Paris the day before (12/01): “I say this every time we have one of these mass shootings, this just doesn't happen in other countries."

Is he out of his mind? Yes, obviously so. The question now: Is he criminally out of his mind? The follow up question: If he is, how can he be removed from office on that basis?

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CHINA DOOMS PARIS

“The fact of the matter is that there’s a reason why you have the largest gathering of world leaders probably in world history here in Paris. Everyone else is taking climate change seriously.” Barack Obama.

Like a lot of the president’s statements on climate change this isn’t true. In fact there are lots and lots of people in the world who know it’s a hoax. And among them happen to be the ruling elite of the most significant carbon emitting nation of them all: China.

We know this because of a devastating report, The Truth About China, released today (12/02) by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, written by one of the West’s leading experts on the Chinese environmental economy, Patricia Adams.

She reveals that the China has no intention whatsoever of sacrificing economic growth by reducing its carbon dioxide emissions. So it’s going to be fun to watch the Chicoms strangle the Paris COP-21 conference in its crib and Obama pretends he sees nothing.

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WHY DOES RYAN WANT OBAMA TO CONTINUE CONTROLLING OUR KIDS’ EDUCATION?

After seven years of rule by decree by President Obama's Chicago crony Arne Duncan, why are Republicans about to reauthorize the federal government's authority over the nation's public schools?

And why is the new speaker, Paul Ryan, rushing a 1,059-page bill, dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to a floor vote tomorrow (12/02) when the text was released just yesterday (11/30)?

The ESSA’s purpose is to replace Bush II’s "No Child Left Behind," which expired at the end of his second term. For seven years, Obama has governed the nation’s public schools without Congressional authority.

For some mysterious reason, Speaker Ryan wants to give that authority to Mr. Obama in the twilight of his presidency, and serve up a new law that will control public education long after Obama leaves office.

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SAVING HONDURAS WITH CAPITALISM

Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Why has Honduras lagged behind its neighbors and much of the rest of the world?

It is resource-rich, has deep-water ports both on the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, is very scenic and, because of its mountain terrain, has sub-climates that meet most people’s preferences.

As can be seen in this table, Honduras compares poorly with neighboring countries and some other countries of similar size. Guatemala next door has a per capita income roughly 50 percent higher, Costa Rica three times higher, Chile five times higher, and Switzerland and Hong Kong about 12 times higher than Honduras’.

Honduras lags and suffers because of the lack of the rule of law and economic freedom. Now, a highly innovative program based on free market capitalist principles is being launched to come to the rescue of Honduras.

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TURNING A WISH INTO A TRIUMPH

Have you ever watched the downhill skiers in the Winter Olympics before a race, visualizing the run, moving and swaying their bodies as though they’re on the run itself? They all do this now, because the visualization is a powerfully effective strategy for bringing out their best.

But they aren’t picturing themselves with the gold medal and the national anthem playing. They’re crouched down in a skiing stance, imagining how they’ll negotiate the challenges of the run, practicing the specific skills that will get them to that gold medal.

Much is made these days of having a compelling future vision. Picturing yourself on the winner’s block, or with that book published, or that wonderful relationship; imagining a future that you can step into… The pop psychology literature is chock full of advice for seeing yourself having accomplished your goals.

But the pop psychology literature on this is wrong.

When we imagine having already achieved our goals, part of what happens is we feel like we’ve already achieved our goals; and because we feel the reward of the accomplishment already, our motivation to do the inevitable hard work required for any meaningful goal fades.

Dreams that matter are not easy; they take time and considerable effort. Here’s how to effectively turn a wish into a triumph.

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OUR LIGHTS

TTP finally got its office Christmas lights up. It was a lot of work but worth it, as it’s a message of such good cheer.

Osucks

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HALF-FULL REPORT 11/27/15

Here’s the scene. The villain total jerk bad guy steps up unprovoked and without warning slaps Clint Eastwood right in the face, challenging him to do something about it. What do you think happens next?

In the movie, we’d know. But this has happened for real. In a major drama of real-life history, the toughest guy on the planet who has for years carefully cultivated his macho bulging biceps image as someone you absolutely don’t want to screw with has been challenged straight up, contemptuously and murderously so.

What is Vladimir Putin going to do about it?...

One bottom line in this Erdogan vs. Putin crisis is it’s an opportunity to render Putin’s Russia a non-enemy. As in, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” In the fight against ISIS, we need to be on Putin’s side, just as we need to be on the Kurds’.

It also means recognizing that Marco Rubio is a dangerously amateurish idiot for saying “the US should defend Turkey as a fellow NATO member if attacked by Russia.” This highlights Dave Goldman’s observation in TTP yesterday that Rubio reminds everyone of a movie tough-guy hero’s cute younger brother

Any doubt where Zero stands was removed yesterday when, in his Presidential Thanksgiving Message to America he compared the Moslem invasion of the US he is promoting to the Mayflower Pilgrims. Here is the appropriate question to ask of him and his supporters regarding Syrian “refugees”:…

Then there’s the most heartwarming, pathetically hilarious, and most enlightening stories of the week, along with the obvious Hero of the Week and more. Here we go…

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