HALF-FULL REPORT 09/26/14

Obviously, the HFR’s glass is more than half-full this week with the announcement yesterday (9/25) that the racist scumbag running the Department of Injustice is quitting.

The disgusting tearful hypocrisy of his goodbye to Zero aside, this is an event to be savored.  A sample of the Congressional goodbyes to the most corrupt, criminal, and law-destroying AG our country has ever had the misfortune to endure:

Louie Gohmert (R-TX): Holder, as Zero’s "Cover-Upper-in-Chief," is "most partisan, partial, prejudiced and self-pitying Attorney General in my lifetime, including John Mitchell who went to jail for his crime."

Paul Gosar (R-AZ):  "Eric Holder leaves behind a legacy of lawlessness, incompetence and hyper partisanship.  His place in history will be marked by shameful violations of the rule of law and despicable circumvention of the Constitution."

Jeff Duncan (R-SC):  "Good riddance Eric Holder. Your disregard for the Constitution of the United States will not be missed."

Steve Stockman (R-TX):  "Holder’s resignation should embolden Congress to seek truth in Fast & Furious, IRS/FBI targeting, Fort Hood & voter ID obstruction scandals."

Yet there is more to celebrate than his resignation – it’s the timing.  There’s lots of speculation on why he chose this moment, but the bottom line is he announced it a scant 40 days before the election. 

By making himself and his record of injustice and criminality headline news, Pubs have the entire crucial runup to Nov 4 to beat the Holder drum, and remind voters of his continuous efforts to suppress the manifold scandals of the Democrats. 

It’s also an opportunity to focus on his efforts, and thus the Democrats’, to create racial division and hate – witness Ferguson; to protect Dem voter fraud – witness attacks on Voter ID laws; to destroy traditional marriage – witness his assault on DOMA; to prevent states from protecting themselves from the illegal alien invasion… it’s a long disgraceful list.

So we need not focus on who his replacement might be.  We need to focus on the awful record of this evil man, on what he – and his fellow Democrats – have done to our nation, so Dems across the board are voted out of office in November.

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Let’s squelch the latest nightmare rumor on Holder – that Zero plans to nominate him for the next Supreme Court vacancy.  There’s as much chance of that as Hillary being able to fly to the moon on her broomstick.

On Tuesday (9/23), the Federal District Court in DC denied Holder’s motion to delay the release of DOJ Fast & Furious documents.  Holder’s criminality on this scandal and so many others will now be coming to light.  The guy will be spending all his time trying to stay out of prison (hopefully unsuccessfully – recall that Nixon’s AG, John Mitchell, was imprisoned over Watergate), rather than trying to get on SCOTUS.

Prison for Holder certainly is the goal of the family of Brian Terry, the Border Patrol agent killed by Mexican illegals with a Fast & Furious gun.  Holder’s coverup of Fast & Furious involves far more criminality than Watergate ever did.

Oh, by the way – the best fun quick read on yesterday’s resignation is Roger Simon‘s "Dosvedanya, Holder: America’s First Soviet Attorney General Steps Down."

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We’re taking a break here for an important public service announcement.  The headlines regarding the Ebola epidemic in West Africa are becoming ever more dire.  That of Forbes yesterday (9/25) was: "Ebola – It’s Far, Far Worse Than You Thought."

TTPers asked our Forum’s resident genius, Skye, what could be done.  Here is his response.  Our suggestion is that you copy and paste it into an email sent to your Congressman, Senator, and any friend who is a health professional.  Who knows how many lives you could save by doing so.

Skye, TTP Forum, Sunday, September 21:

Is there something that the US could do about Ebola?  Yes, I think so, and it would be relatively inexpensive:

Containment of people in pandemic areas would be much easier if they knew life saving treatment was available – if they stayed rather than ran.

What type of treatment? Simple: blood transfusions from those who have recovered. This is a simple inexpensive technology that can be done under primitive conditions.

Rapid simple-to-execute blood tests will be required. The prospective recipient will have to be tested for Ebola so precious immune blood isn’t wasted and the patient blood typed.

The blood donor will have to be blood typed and tested to make sure that they are no longer infectious (no live Ebola viruses) and also for the immune Ebola antibodies (to avoid money seeking imposters).

They will also need to be tested for active common local blood borne infections such as malaria, HIV, hepatitis, etc. However, an Ebola patient who is already infected with something, say malaria, might be well advised and willing to accept malaria-infected Ebola-immune blood.

EPO, folate, and iron can be given to the blood donors (actually willing sellers) to increase their blood production. The blood sellers could also be given vitamins C, D, and E, protein and arginine supplements, and yes, chicken soup, to up their immune system productivity.

The blood donors and the technicians will also have to be protected from kidnapping, so armed troops will be needed. Mostly, though, technicians who have been taught how to use a biohazard suit and draw and administer blood are what’s needed, not troops. No college education required.

What are the unknowns? Primarily how much blood would have to be transfused how often to provide how big a survival improvement. That is what field experiments are for. What we do know is that someone who has recovered from Ebola doesn’t catch it again, at least not in a short time period.

It would be preferable to have as few US troops as possible anywhere near the pandemic areas. They would be an irresistible target for bioterrorism attacks.

Set up a technician training base and experimental field hospital far away from any towns deep in a desert, such as in Morocco’s Western Sahara, or in the southern Mauritania-Mali border region.

The entire program could be set up and operational within a short time at far less cost than other current alternatives.

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How many times have you been subjected to flashing website ads blaring about the "coming collapse of the dollar"?  Two of the best conservative economic minds put the kibosh on this blather Saturday (9/20):  Larry Kudlow & Stephen Moore’s The Return of King Dollar.

It’s clear, they say, the dollar’s longest winning streak against other currencies in 17 years is not because it’s "the least rotten apple in the barrel."  YTD, it’s up 6% against the Swiss Franc, which no one calls rotten.  (Check the WSJ currency index – you’ll see it’s up against every major currency in the world YTD.)

Further, the real measure is that it’s up against gold.  Gold peaked close to $1900 3 years ago and has been steadily falling ever since – it’s now below $1220 and shows signs of falling further rather than rebounding.

One main reason is that QE ends next month (October), and Fed chairman Janet Yellen has given every indication of raising interest rates in a series of steps starting early next year.

Kudlow & Moore credit dollar strength to two primary factors:  "The amazing efficiency revolution in American business that’s taken place over the last five years — U.S. companies have become the best run in the world as they’ve ruthlessly cut costs," plus the fracking revolution in oil and gas, "which is driving down energy costs for American producers of everything from steel to auto parts to microchips to chemicals to corn."

Thus King Dollar has become a "capital magnet" for foreign investment.  Pro-growth policies of a Republican Congress after November should blunt Zero’s anti-growth policies keeping the dollar in a continuing virtuous circle.  It’s a persuasive argument not easily dismissed.

Like I said in Goldbrics last July, you can kiss the fantasy of a competing world currency to the greenback goodbye.

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On Wednesday (9/24), Zero gave a speech at the UN.  The link is to the full text.  It was roundly ridiculed and denounced by many conservative pundits.  The major gaffe was his praise of a Moslem imam who supported a fatwa advocating killing US soldiers in Iraq.

The other cringe-worthy moment was in the obligatory yes-we’re-not-perfect-we-have-faults-too inclusion necessary for criticism-deflection, he chose the ridiculous example of Ferguson.  Worse, he stated it in the context of "a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe." 

For FoxNews’ Richard Grenell, Zero seemed to be "equating the burglary-turned-shooting-death in Ferguson with ISIS beheadings."

Yet, the full text of the speech is worth a thoughtful read.  There’s a lot in it that if said by, say, President George Bush we’d nod in approval.  Here are excerpts.

On  Russia’s action in Ukraine:

Here are the facts.  After the people of Ukraine mobilized popular protests and calls for reform, their corrupt president fled.  Against the will of the government in Kyiv, Crimea was annexed.  Russia poured arms into eastern Ukraine, fueling violent separatists and a conflict that has killed thousands. 

When a civilian airliner was shot down from areas that these proxies controlled, they refused to allow access to the crash for days.  When Ukraine started to reassert control over its territory, Russia gave up the pretense of merely supporting the separatists, and moved troops across the border.

This is a vision of the world in which might makes right — a world in which one nation’s borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed.

America stands for something different.  We believe that right makes might — that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future… We call upon others to join us on the right side of history — for while small gains can be won at the barrel of a gun, they will ultimately be turned back if enough voices support the freedom of nations and peoples to make their own decisions.

 On ISIS/ISIL:

The terrorist group known as ISIL must be degraded and ultimately destroyed.

This group has terrorized all who they come across in Iraq and Syria.  Mothers, sisters, daughters have been subjected to rape as a weapon of war.  Innocent children have been gunned down.  Bodies have been dumped in mass graves.  Religious minorities have been starved to death.  In the most horrific crimes imaginable, innocent human beings have been beheaded, with videos of the atrocity distributed to shock the conscience of the world.

No God condones this terror.  No grievance justifies these actions.  There can be no reasoning — no negotiation — with this brand of evil.  The only language understood by killers like this is the language of force.

On Moslem hate:

It is time for the world — especially Muslim communities — to explicitly, forcefully, and consistently reject the ideology of organizations like al Qaeda and ISIL.

It is one of the tasks of all great religions to accommodate devout faith with a modern, multicultural world.  No children are born hating, and no children — anywhere — should be educated to hate other people.  There should be no more tolerance of so-called clerics who call upon people to harm innocents because they’re Jewish, or because they’re Christian…

That means cutting off the funding that fuels this hate.  It’s time to end the hypocrisy of those who accumulate wealth through the global economy and then siphon funds to those who teach children to tear it down.

That last statement everyone in the audience understood was directed at Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

There’s a lot more, but one of the most interesting aspects of the speech is what he didn’t say.  The address was 4,524 words long.  And for all the apocalyptic talk by Lurch and others in his administration about Warmism, he devoted just 69 words to it:

America is pursuing ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions, and we’ve increased our investments in clean energy. We will do our part, and help developing nations do theirs.  But the science tells us we can only succeed in combating climate change if we are joined in this effort by every other nation, by every major power.  That’s how we can protect this planet for our children and our grandchildren.

That’s it – with the message understood by everyone there, some 120 presidents and prime ministers, the effort will fail because the other major powers won’t join in the effort.  Indeed, the leaders of China, India, and Germany weren’t even there.

The bottom line here is that it’s not productive to automatically have a knee-jerk reaction of ridicule and dismissal to everything Zero does.  He’s the worst president our country has ever had – but that doesn’t mean nothing he does or says is ever right. 

He’s bombing the crap out of ISIS right now, including their oil production facilities which are their main money source.  The French, Saudis, and Emiratis are joining in on the bombing, and soon so will the Brits.  This is praiseworthy. 

(As an aside, note that The F22’s Baptism of Fire in Syria Impresses Defense Experts.)

He’s screwing Putin’s economy.  You can be assured he was well aware of the Russkie Foreign Minister and UN Ambassador laughing in the audience at his UN speech.  Let’s hope that will be an incentive to tighten the screws further.  The ruble is already down 17% for the year.  The price of Urals crude, Russia’s oil export, has fallen $17 since June, down to $93 (Putin needs $100 to keep his economy going).  Inflation is at 10% and accelerating.

It’s going to get worse – much worse.  After that laughter, Zero will ensure it.

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Just how much worse can be seen in this horrifically depressing picture of Russia under Putin Huilo by Russia’s best and bravest journalist, Masha Gessen:  The Dying Russians.  

Ask most any physician, and they’ll tell you about patients willing themselves to die, the life just flowing out of them. Russia is literally dying of a broken heart, and all Putin’s efforts to rev its people up with Great Russian thuggish imperialism isn’t going to heal them.

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Let’s close on something infinitely more enjoyable.  Last Saturday was the 80^th birthday of one of the world’s most extraordinary and beloved women, Sophia Loren.

Although lauded by Charleton Heston as "the only truly international great movie star," she’s far more than that.  Her personal life story is one of real heroism and triumph.  One of grace and charm and class. 

She was married and devoted to one man for 50 years until his passing (in 2007) with nary a whiff of scandal – even though the greatest male stars fell in love with her, from Cary Grant to Tyrone Power to Clark Gable. 

Here’s a tribute to her narrated by Peter Graves.  Here’s to a great lady on her 80^th, Sophia Loren.  

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