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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/14/10


Need another example of what's at stake in November?  How about your 401(k) retirement savings? 

Via something called the Employee Benefits Security Administration, a group of fascisti within the Labor Department, the Dems are planning to seize your and everyone else's savings a lá Argentina to fund public union worker pensions. 

The way to prevent this is a Republican majority in the 112th Congress.  If the Dems keep their majority, you will see millions of folks pulling all their money out of their 401(k)s, taking the penalty haircut, and putting it where government goons can't steal it.

All those millions need to remember this in November.

***
Now, how about something that will really tick you off?  This week, plans were announced to build a gigantic 13-story Moslem mosque near Ground Zero, the site of Islam's 9/11 attack on America.

Note it will be called "the Cordoba House."  What a telegraphic punch.  Cordoba was the capital of the Islamic Emirate of Al-Andalus (Andalusia) in Spain, seized by Moslem invaders from Africa in 711 and recaptured by Spanish Christians under Ferdinand III of Castille in 1236.  What better indication could there be of the Islamic intent to make America a Moslem Al-Andalus Emirate?

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OBAMA AS THE ANTI-REAGAN ON ECONOMIC RECOVERY


Is the current recession the worst since the Great Depression? Even though the president, many members of Congress and many journalists keep saying we are in the worst recession since the 1930s, it is an assertion that is premature, to say the least.

At the end of World War II, from 1945 to 1946, there was a very sharp drop in U.S. output (12.1 percent) as the war economy began its transition to a civilian economy.

The deepest and longest-lasting recession the United States has experienced since then began in 1980, when Jimmy Carter was president (the gross domestic product dropped 9.6 percent in the second quarter of that year) and did not end until fourth-quarter 1982, almost two years into the Reagan presidency.

As can be seen in the accompanying chart, both President Reagan and President Obama inherited an economy suffering from a year of no growth, along with rising unemployment.  Yet their approaches to the problem are polar opposites.

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DO SVIDANIYA


That's how you say goodbye in Russian (pronounced das veh-don-yah).  Adios, comrades.  Finita la musica.  The music is over for Putin and all the other commies in the Kremlin.

Putin's personal fortune and the Kremlin's cash cow lies in Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly that supplies over 20% of the government's budget.  Six months ago - last May - Gazprom (GAZP:RU) had the largest market cap of any company in the entire world, US$360 billion.  It is now (11/13) $91b.  It has lost 75% of its value and so has its share price.

Further, it has made a number of large acquisitions with its stock as collateral.  Margin Call City. 

That's gas.  Let's take oil.  The Kremlin says its budget is based on a price of $65 a barrel, while independent analysts think its at least $70.  Yet the collapse of benchmark oil prices to below $60 currently masks the fact that Russia sells a lower grade, Urals Crude, than benchmark grades like Brent or WTI (West Texas Intermediate).

Today, Urals crude closed at $48.80.

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ISRAEL WOUNDS ITSELF


As the threats against Israel mount from all directions, the job of the IDF Chief of General Staff is becoming more challenging by the day.

First on the list of threats is Iran. While it is apparently true that the Stuxnet computer virus continues to wreak havoc on Iran's nuclear program, it is also true that Iran remains dedicated to moving forward, despite all obstacles.

Then there is Egypt. Iran's dictator-in-chief Ali Khamenei has spent the two weeks since the anti-regime protests began in Egypt bragging that the unrest shows Iran's star is rising. The "Islamic awakening" hearkened by the 1979 Iranian revolution is unfolding before our eyes, he says.

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS in Egypt, as well as the sabotage of the natural gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel at el-Arish, show that the southern front is active again after 30 years. The IDF needs to prepare for the possibility of a conventional war in the south and the north. It will have to relearn how to fight a war in the desert. New weapons systems will have to be developed and procured. Troops will have to receive expanded training.

In short, the ways the IDF thinks about war, plans for war, arms for war, trains for war and wages war are all going to have to change.

In light of these awesome challenges, the IDF's next chief of general staff will have to have the attitude of a revolutionary as he guides the IDF through massive change, and commands it in complex and perhaps existential battles.

Unfortunately, chances that such a commander will arise received a blow last week when Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein decided to force the government to cancel its decision to appoint Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant to replace outgoing Chief of Gen. Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi next Tuesday.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/07/10


William F. Buckley's most famous quote is: "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University."

A corollary to this is that we'd all be far safer if we entrusted our national security to NASCAR fans than to Democrats in Washington - as evidenced by the truck of one such fan:

nascar-islam.jpg

***
There is such a cornucopia of happenings this week from which to choose the most important - and here it is.  Let me redirect your attention away from the Gulf Oil Spill and the financial meltdown of Europe to focus on the Republican Study Committee.

Yes, the most significant event in America this week was the announcement that the 115 Members of Congress comprising the RSC have formed a Tenth Amendment Task Force to formulate a legislative program that will "usher in a new era of federalism and disperse power from Washington back to regions, states and local governments" under a GOP majority next year.

This dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill or anything else, folks.  The reason was made clear in the British elections yesterday (5/06).

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HOW NOT TO STIMULATE AN ECONOMY


Has the Obama economic stimulus program helped or hurt? Administration officials keep saying the stimulus program has been beneficial, but where is the evidence?  There are several ways to see if it is working as advertised.

First, what did the proponents say would happen when they were pushing the plan versus what has happened?

Second, how has the United States fared compared to other nations that had smaller or no stimulus programs?

Third, how have the results to date compared to what pro-stimulus, Keynesian-school economic theorists advocated versus what other theorists (principally Austrian-school) who largely opposed the stimulus plans said?

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THERE’S GOT TO BE AN ELEPHANT IN HERE SOMEWHERE


Ronald Reagan was fond of describing the ultimate optimist as a young boy happily digging through a huge pile of horse manure while yelling, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

So after six weeks in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and 7,000 kilometers overland across Chinese Turkestan, I've returned to Washington and the biggest pile of political manure in the history of America.  I can't help thinking that Ronald Reagan would say, "There's got to be an elephant in there somewhere."

First, though, let's dispense with two alleged "silver linings" to this debacle.  Both are stupefyingly naïve. 

One is that this election "heals" the wound of racism and the legacy of slavery, so that nevermore can Sharpton-type race hustlers claim that America is an incurably racist nation.

This is delusionary. 

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WHAT RUSSIA HAS LOST


Last week on January 24, a suicide bomber attack at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport killed 36 people.  According to Russian intelligence, the terrorist act was perpetrated by someone from one of the predominantly Moslem areas of the North Caucasus region.

It's been nearly 12 years since Putin began building his reputation as a tough, no- nonsense leader by promising rather crudely to pursue terrorists everywhere, catch them in airport toilets and "waste them in the outhouse."

By picking Domodedovo Airport for the ninth serious terrorist attack in Moscow since then, the terrorists are telling the Russian people that Putin can talk all he wants but is incapable of protecting them.

This latest tragedy highlights a number of conclusions about Putin's policies and the fate of Russia that were already discernable - for what's now crystal clear is that Russia under Putin has not only lost its war with terrorism, but more than that, it has lost its way as a civilized state and society and faces a very uncertain future.       

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HALF-FULL REPORT 04/30/10


We've a lot of ground to cover for this week's HFR, but first let's ask - who knew Connie Mack (R-FL) has gone senile at 42 years old?  Of course the Fascist Democrats of the Anti-American Left are hysterically demagoguing Arizona's anti-illegal alien law.  But Connie?  What kind of bizarre mental dysfunction caused him to compare Arizona to Nazi Germany?

You'd expect RINOs like Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, and Lindsey Graham to wimp out.  And now we can see that for Lincoln Diaz-Barlart (R-FL), his Hispanic blood is thicker than patriotism.  But again, Connie?  Maybe the open-borders/cheap-labor-for-business folks at the Wall Street Journal got to him. 

Whatever.  Let's now go back to the HFR of January 23, 2009, which said:

What could be more appropriate, on the eve of the TTP Carefree Rendezvous, than to hoist a pint of Four Peaks Ale brewed here in Arizona to an inspiring woman Republican governor who drives liberals out of their minds because she is a pro-family, pro-life, pro-Christian, anti-tax, anti-government spending, anti-illegal immigration Reagan conservative. 

Nope, we're not talking about Sarah Palin - however much the HFR is happy to hoist a glass in admiration of her at any time.  We're talking about another fine lady who, in addition to all the great qualities above, has the greatest name for drinking to one could ever ask:  Jan Drinkwine Brewer...

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THE DESPOTS AND WEAKLINGS OF 1939 AND 2009


1939 was not a good year. World War II started, and much of the world was still in the Depression. The leaders of too many countries were either despots or naïve and weak.

2009 has not been a good year.  There's been a global recession. And seventy years later, as in 1939, the leaders of too many countries are either despots or naïve and weak. Too many of today's leaders all too closely resemble the leaders of 1939 and seem equally capable of starting the chain of events that destroyed much of mankind in the 1940s.

Who among the leaders of free democracies is not a weakling, who has the courage to stop the despots?  Who among them is a Churchill and not a Chamberlain?

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THE END OF THE SILK ROAD


Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China.  As you can see from the map, here is where the branches of the Silk Road came together. 

From Dunhuang it was a straight shot through the "Gansu Corridor" between the snow-capped Qilian (Southern) Mountains and the Gobi Desert to the first big city in China, Lanzhou, and on to the capital of ancient China, Chang'an (now called Xian, famous for the Terracotta Army made for the mausoleum of China's first emperor, Chin Shi Wang (259-210 BC) - after whom China is named although Beijing insists his name be spelled Qin).

For the pilgrims, merchants, and traders who brought the exotic goods of the West to the East, here is where the road ended.  Finally they were in China.  So it seems appropriate that I am here at the end of the fabled Silk Road on the day when the American Road of Freedom came to an end.

This is a day of true historical tragedy, when history's greatest nation of its own free will decided to commit suicide for no good reason whatsoever, an act of inexplicable mass insanity.

Yet this is not a time for bitterness or anger.  It is, instead, a time to shrug.

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WHY THE LEFT BLOOD LIBELED SARAH PALIN


A primary goal of the American Left is to attach a sense of criminality and violence to the American Right in order to make it socially and otherwise unpalatable to support or otherwise identify with it.


By calling the Left out for its behavior, Sarah Palin exposed its agenda. But the logic of the blood libel remained. Trusting the public's ignorance and the liberal Jewish community's solidarity, the leftist media in the U.S. immediately condemned Palin for daring to use the term, hinted she was an anti-Semite for doing so, and argued that by defending herself, she was again inciting violence.

Many conservative thinkers and politicians have long viewed Palin as a liability. By remaining in the spotlight, they allege, Palin is helping the Left. They argue that the media have already destroyed her ability to communicate with non-conservatives. Since she is viewed as a conservative leader, by failing to shut up she is making it impossible for other potential leaders whom the media don't despise to connect with the swing voters they will need to unseat Obama in 2012.

This position does more than harm Palin.
It matter not whether these conservative thinkers support Palin. What matters is that by telling her not to defend herself from libelous attacks, they are accepting the Left's right to criminalize all conservatives.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 04/23/10


Jack Kelly asked this week:  Are there no limits to Democrat corruption?  The corollary question is:  Is there no end to Democrat fascism?  Day by day, the evidence mounts:  the answers are:  no limits, no end.

Prominent political analyst Michael Barone's term for fascism is Gangster Government, and accuses Zero and the Democrats of instituting it.  The Dodd Bailout Bill of "financial reform" is a perfect example.  He notes:

"Republicans have been accurately attacking the Dodd bill for authorizing bailouts of big Wall Street firms and giving them unfair advantages over small competitors. They might want to add that it authorizes Gangster Government -- the channeling of vast sums from the politically unprotected to the politically connected."

The extent of this can be seen in this five page list of exemptions or "carve-outs" in the 1,400 page Bailout Bill.

As TTPer "Rockymount" observes on the Forum, the Bailout Bill will place "the President and his Czars in complete control of this nation's financial system."  Can't get a lot more fascist than that.  The Dems, though, disagree.  They think they're  just getting started.

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THE COMING NUCLEAR EXPLOSION OF THE DEBT BOMB


In just the last eight months, the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the amount of additional federal debt to be held by the public grew by an astounding $4 trillion for the 2010-19 period; and that the amount of federal debt held by the public grew from $5.9 trillion to $7.5 trillion in just the last 12 months.

The federal government (i.e., taxpayers) now owns (primarily through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) or insures (through the Federal Housing Administration and other government programs) about 80 percent of the $14.6 trillion of home mortgages outstanding in the United States.


Last week, Congress passed a bill (House Bill 3221) requiring all student loans be made by the federal government rather than banks, which means the taxpayers will be 100 percent liable for any student loan defaults.

The  Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is considering tapping its Treasury credit line for up to $500 billion. It needs to do this because of the high number of bank failures and because each bank account is insured by the government (i.e., taxpayers) up to $250,000.

Very soon, the debt bomb is going to go nuclear.

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THE SANDS OF THE TAKLA MAKAN


Charklik, Chinese Turkestan.  Since I was a young boy with dreams of exploring the world, the essence of remote mystery was summed up by the innermost heart of Asia called Chinese Turkestan.

What defines the region is one of the world's great deserts, an ocean of sand the size of France yet so empty and vast it has been known for many centuries as The Takla Makan (tah-kla mah-con), meaning, "If you go in, you don't come out."  The Desert of Death.

Thus the fabled Silk Road split in two to go around it to the north or the south.  In 1273, Marco Polo took the south.

What I as a young boy fifty years ago most dreamed of doing was following the route of Marco Polo through Chinese Turkestan, to those lost and forgotten oases of the Southern Silk Road that hardly anyone in the world knew about much less had been to, with the magical names of Yarkand, Khotan, Charchan, and Charklik.

For all but the last few of those fifty years the Southern Silk Road was completely off-limits to foreigners, and the road itself a thousand mile-long four-wheel track of mud and sand.  Now it's open, the road is paved, and here I am, having traversed Polo's route from Kashgar to Charklik.

I was expecting an ultimate in the exotic and remote, for things to have changed little since Polo's day.  In some ways that's what I found.  But for others, I am in a state of shock.  What I have found here astounds me, and I thought I'd share it with you.

For after all, Chinese Turkestan, or Xinjiang as Beijing calls it, is Moslem China.  The native inhabitants, whose homeland this has been for millennia, are Turkic, not Chinese.  Culturally, ethnically, and historically, this place is not Chinese.  But in reality - and reality is what counts - this is China.  Of that there is no doubt, and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

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