HALF-FULL REPORT 08/15/14

We begin by noting the passing of two famous women this week.  The first is the natural death at 89 of Lauren Bacall, a woman of sublime beauty, character, class, and talent:

She became a Hollywood icon with her very first movie in 1944, To Have and Have Not with Humphrey Bogart, whom she subsequently married.  Her "whistle" scene remains today as one of the most famous in motion picture history:

The second passing is the political death at 66 of a lady who is the antithesis of beauty, character, class, and talent:

This was the pic Drudge used yesterday (8/14) for the headline "Hillary’s Horrible Summer," linking to a spate of bad news stories stemming from her interview with Atlantic Magazine published last Sunday (8/10), in which she broke from Zero on foreign policy.

The money quote that has Obamunists fuming: "Great nations need organizing principles, and ‘Don’t do stupid stuff’ is not an organizing principle." 

This prompted Daily Kos, the leading blog of libtard moonbats, to rage: Hillary Clinton’s Atlantic interview may be fatal to her chances for the presidency.  Well, let’s hope so.

Her Atlantic interview just didn’t tick off the moonbats, though, but Dems across the board, as itemized by the Washington Times:  Hillary Alienates Liberals with Harsh Critique of Obama Foreign Policy.

The PIAPS’ attempt to de-link herself from Zero’s foreign policy when she as SecState was in charge of it is, of course, pathetic.  As we all know, she has a decades-long history of "doing stupid stuff."  Just think of the "Reset" with Putin’s Russia, or "What difference does it make?" regarding Benghazi.

The most devastatingly honest critique of her is that of Charles Hurt:  Hillary Clinton:  A Woman of No Convictions.  His analysis of her Atlantic interview begins:

"The rank spectacle of ex-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suddenly turning on her commander in chief and former boss to shiv him in the back over the burning ruins she helped make of the Middle East is staggering to behold."

She’s a "washed-up presidential has-been," he concludes, the "worst of the worst drawn to politics."

So her obituary is being written yet again this week.  But the Clintons are political vampires – they always rise from the dead.  She’ll be back to suck America’s blood soon enough.  One day there will be enough stakes in her black heart to finish her off – that will be a four-fingers of Glenmorangie day[1].

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We need to acknowledge a third woman this week – a great lady and great American who today celebrates her 90^th birthday, my friend of many years, Phyllis Schlafly.  The link is to a wonderful tribute to her on AT.  Happy Birthday, Phyllis!

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More proof this week that Warmism has fully replaced Marxism in the Left’s lunatic quest for a pseudo-religious rationale for power.

On Wednesday (8/13) in Honolulu, one of the world’s most pompous airheads – John Kerry – gave a speech that can only be described as flat-out deranged.  The unhinged rant starts at the 26^th paragraph.  After praising Algore and ultimate climate fascist James Hansen, he brags that "President Obama has made climate change a top priority — he’s doing by executive authority what we’re not able to get the Congress to do."

Then he goes Full Apocalyptic.  Unless the world commits to "rescuing the planet’s climate" from evil man-made CO2 emissions, the consequences will be "devastating – entire habitats destroyed, entire populations displaced from their homes, in some cases entire cultures wiped out… that’s what’s happened with climate change – unprecedented storms, unprecedented typhoons, unprecedented hurricanes, unprecedented droughts, unprecedented fires."

He concludes with the claim that "the biggest challenge of all that we face right now, is climate change."  The IBD‘s response is to question his sanity:  "As the world melts into chaos and threats to the U.S. homeland multiply, America’s top foreign policy official seems bizarrely, even dangerously, fixated on … global warming… Kerry has gone off the climate rails."

In addition to reading the IBD editorial on Kerry’s lunacy, I strongly recommend The Neglected Sun: How the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe, by prominent German environmental scientist Fritz Varenholdt.  As a Warmist, he was asked to review a draft of the 2009 IPCC report on "climate change," and found it so riddled with distortions and phony science that he ended up a climate "denier."

The Warmists hate him for his "treason," but his scientific data is solid and his explanations are clear.  The Sun is the primary driver of our climate (who knew?), not man’s puny CO2 output.  He focuses, by the way, on the relationship between the Sun’s fluctuating magnetic field and cloud formation by cosmic rays – which was explained in TTP’s original debunking of global warming nine years ago: Solar Warming (Sept. 2005).

The good news of the week on the Warmist front is on Monday (8/11), 27 news organizations and advocacy groups filed an Amici Curiae (Friend of the Court) brief supporting the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s  being sued by infamous Warmist Liar Michael Mann.

The full list in the brief is amazing, including the ACLU, the American Society of News Editors, the Association of American Publishers, Bloomberg, Fox, Gannet, the National Press Club, and the Newspaper Association of America.

Mann is the guy who made up the fraudulent "Hockey Stick" graph by ignoring the Medieval Warm Period and "hiding the decline" of factors that wouldn’t show his spike in warming, claimed to be our fault.  In the December 9, 2009 HFR, the "decline" was explained:

"The basis of the glowarmers’ argument rests on the dry-labbed (faked) Hockey Stick graph of ‘climate researcher’ Michael Mann with a secret algorithm he won’t disclose.  The UN glowarmer IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) has used it as its gold standard for ‘settled science’ since 2001.

"Mann could eliminate the Medieval Warm Period and smooth out other factors so that various types of measurements showed this huge recent spike in global temperatures – except for the tree ring data, which showed a precipitous drop after 1960.  So here’s how his hockey stick ‘hid the decline’: [click on the link for the graphs].

TTP has been calling Michael Mann a fraud and a cheat for close to five years now.  You claimed you were libeled when CEI called you "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science" because you "molested and tortured data in the service of politicized science."  We’re happy to repeat the accusation.  Want to add us to your libel suit, you dishonest putz?  Be TTP’s guest.

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Yesterday (8/14), in Are We Really Going to Let This Hate-America President Destroy Us?, I said that the race riots in Ferguson, Missouri this week were different "because of SWAT Team fascism.  This time it’s race riots with Molotov cocktails vs. the militarization of virtually every local police department in the country."

And lo and behold, there is a plethora of stories today (8/15) about just that.  Newsweek has How America’s Police Became an Army.  National Interest has The Crisis in Ferguson Meets Libertarianism.  National Journal has How Congress Helped Create Ferguson’s Militarized Police.

The WaPo‘s story begins: "The events in Ferguson, Missouri this week are an uncomfortable reminder of the militarization of America’s small town law enforcement agencies. The photos coming out of the town–of heavily armed officers in full combat gear squaring off against unarmed protesters–look like images we’re used to seeing from places like Gaza, Turkey, or Egypt, not from a midwestern suburb of 21,000 people."

Thus, as my article yesterday said:

"The Ferguson riots are an opportunity for conservatives and Tea Partyers to join responsible black leaders and start protesting the militarization of our police forces, to call for the elimination of SWAT Teams in their community.  It’s something you personally could do: demand the elimination of your own community’s SWAT Team, the fascist militarization of your own local police department."

This is not anti-police or anti-law enforcement.  It’s to oppose the militarization of your police, which can change a friendly cop on the beat to a thug – sadly, it’s human nature, something Christians know something about.  This is the issue where you can personally start to return our country to freedom.

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We’re going to end with the best idea not just of the week but of the year, maybe the millennium so far.   

On Wednesday (8/13), National Journal ran an article entitled How to Eliminate Almost Every Federal Agency.  Prompted by the Heartland Institute’s well-reasoned proposal to Eliminate the EPA, it’s a compendium of previous and ongoing efforts to eliminate the Federal Departments of Commerce, Energy, Education, Interior, HUD, Transportation, Agriculture, Labor, Homeland Security, and the SBA.

Sounds like the perfect to-do list to achieve a post-Zero America 3.0 (see my "Are We Really.." linked above re America 3.0).  At least it’s a start.  We’ll also need to eliminate the FDA and OSHA from HHS (Health & Human Services) and fire the entire senior management of the VA.

We’ll need a Justice Department but with tight restrictions to prevent Holder-type corruption; a Treasury Department but eliminate the IRS; and a State Department on a greatly reduced budget to prevent asininities like a $133 million embassy in Bujumbura, Burundi.

The National Journal article is written tongue-in-cheek, poking gentle fun at what it sees as conservative fantasies.  But they need not be fantasies at all.  There’s going to be a massive backlash against the Leviathan of oppressive intrusive federal government in post-Zero America.  You can see it starting already regarding police militarization.

The elimination of unconstitutional federal agencies and programs should be our Freedom Agenda.  And why wait for Zero to be gone to start?  One fellow who isn’t waiting is Congressman Chris Stewart (R-UT).  

For a while now, Fox News has been running stories on the over 70 federal agencies with armed gun-toting agents.  Even the EPA, the FDA, and Dept. of Education.  The Post Office gun-toters are among the worst.  So Chris Stewart is doing something about it.  He’s taking on the armed federal agencies.

Stewart has authored HR 4934: The Regulatory Agency Demilitarization Act.  Dropped on June 23,  the "RAD Act" already has 30 co-sponsors and will gain many more.  It specifically removes law enforcement gun-toting powers from all federal Inspector General Agents, such as those of the IRS, the EPA, the Post Office, Forest Service, dozens in all.

The only agencies whose agents can be armed, under the act, would be: Defense, Justice (FBI), Homeland Security, Capitol Police, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, State Dept. Diplomatic Security, and the CIA.  Surely that’s enough.

Here is Chris’ explanation of his Bill.  His Twitter hashtag is #DisarmRegulators.  How cool is that?  I could not encourage you more to support his effort any way you can.  One, certainly, is to contact your own Congresscritter and request he/she co-sponsor HR 4934.

Rep. Chris Stewart is the HFR Hero of the Week.

It’s good to be back at the HFR helm.  Thanks once again to Jack Kelly for his superb job for the last two weeks.  See y’all next week.
  

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[1] .  Another reason to like Glenmorangie.  It matures in white oak casks from their own forest in the Ozarks, which are aired for two years then leased to Jack Daniels to mature JD bourbon for four years.  Then they are shipped to the distillery in Tain, Scotland.

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