HALF-FULL REPORT 12/05/14

Before we start tearing our hair out by the roots over House Rino perfidy, let’s take a look at some good news this week.  Yes, there is some.

The New York Times finally began – just began – catching up to To The Point on Sunday (11/30) with Russian Money Suspected Behind Fracking Protests.

TTPers have known about this since April 2012 in Is Obama on Putin’s Payroll?  For the last three years, Putin’s KGB has been conducting a massive bribery campaign of politicians, journalists, and greenies – primarily in Europe – to demonize fracking.  It’s now become too obvious for even the NYT to ignore.

Yet that was just the prelude, for the next day, Monday (12/01) is when, as one headline put it: Putin’s Luck Runs Out.

On that day, after the Saudis prevented an OPEC production cut, the Russian ruble fell 9% in three hours.  A year ago, the ruble was at 39 to the euro; today (12/05) it’s 66.  Five months ago, Brent Crude (to which Russian or "Urals" crude is pegged at a discount) was at $112 a barrel.  Today it is at $69.

Here’s how rapid the Putin Collapse has been.  At the start of 2014, Russia had the 8^th largest economy in the world.  It has now shrunk to the size of Spain.  Couple this with Russia being a political and banking pariah after its seizure of Crimea, invasion of Ukraine, and shootdown of MH17.

Thus the gloriously heartwarming news of Monday December 1^st, when the Putin Huilo in a confession of utter humiliation, announced the cancellation of his South Stream Pipeline, designed to lock in Ukraine’s gas enslavement and EU subservience to Russian gas.

This is a major geopolitical BFD.  The billions Putin and Gazprom spent on South Stream are gone.  He blinked in front of the world.  Russians don’t like leaders who blink, who are humiliated.

A further humiliation was delivered by, of all people, the French today (12/05).  Remember last summer when the French said they would deliver two Mistral warships to Russia despite the MH17 shootdown?  Well, this morning, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said fugetaboutit.

On Wednesday (12/03), the London Daily Mail ran a photo story about Putin Huilo toilet paper and urinal stickers being a popular hit in Lviv, Ukraine.

The day before, Tuesday (12/02), StrategyPage ran a short but devastating analysis of the collapse of the Russian military.  Key quote:

"The Russian military is seen as a crippled institution and one not likely to get better any time soon. With so many of the troops now one year conscripts, an increasing number of the best officers and NCOs get tired of coping with all the alcoholics, drug users, and petty criminals that are taken in just to make quotas. With the exodus of the best leaders, and the growing number of ill-trained and unreliable conscripts, the Russian military is more of a mirage than an effective combat (or even police) organization."

Both of these stories are going viral right now in the Russian blogosphere and social networks.  Combine all this humiliation with the Russian Economics Ministry predicting recession in 2015 on Tuesday (12/02).  No wonder predictions that Putin won’t last another year in power are being made from Beijing to Brussels. 

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There will be marvelous news in Louisiana tomorrow (12/06).  Scary Mary Landrieu is going to get crushed by Dr. Bill Cassidy – he’s ahead by 24 points (!) – giving Pubs a 9^th Senate seat.  That makes it a 54-46 GOP majority, with good odds that Dem Joe Manchin of West Virginia will switch to R.

I grew up in the days of the Solid South completely run by Yellow Dog Democrats.  With Landrieu gone tomorrow, Democrats will be left without a single Governor, Senator, white Congressman, or state legislative chamber from the Carolinas to Texas. 

Think about that.  The only southern House seats the Dems have now are Rorschach ink blot districts carved out just for blacks.

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A Solid GOP South doesn’t bode well for The PIAPS – or as she’s also known now, Hillionaire.  You’ll be pleased to know this was a lousy week for her.  The libs at WaPo made fun of her on Wednesday (12/03) with a story headline:  Hillary Clinton Has Lost That New Car Smell.

Proof came that morning when she spoke at Georgetown University: half the seats were empty.  Students aren’t the only folks turned off by her. The BBC says that in general, Democrats Are Cooling on Hillary.  The most respected political handicapper in DC, Charlie Cook, says she’s "lost her fastball" and there’s now only a 60% chance or so she’ll run in 2016.

The prescient psephologists at FiveThirtyEight note that her popularity has been plummeting recently and is now at an all-time low.  Her book sales were disastrous.  The just-released Stand with Hillary country music video is so horrendous that the ultra-libs at Mother Jones say it will "make your ears bleed."

The main thing about Hillary, though, is that she is so totally 20^th century, as in old, lame, who cares anymore.  She’s lost the spark, the charisma, it’s gone, she’s old news and boring.  As heavyweight political analyst Michael Barone says today (12/05), "Clinton’s Stock Declining in Futures Market."

But what in the world will the Dems do if she doesn’t run?  They’ll run around with heads like smashed pumpkins – then try to get excited about Fauxcahontas Warren.  It will be fun watching them do this next year.

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In the That’s-A-Relief Department, we note this headline yesterday (12/04): Court Rules Chimps Don’t Have Same Rights As People.  Wow, it took full-on judicial geniuses to figure that out.

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Okay, time to wallow in the mire with a clothespin blocking the stench from our noses.  Thomas Sowell noted yesterday that it will take a psychiatrist to explain why Boehner & Co want millions of illegal foreign workers to compete with Americans for jobs.

You’d think it would require a shrink to explain why Boehner Negotiates Terms of Surrender to King Barack’s Executive Amnesty.  Especially when every poll there is shows Zero’s Amnesty is incredibly unpopular among the vast majority of Americans, while the left has turned Boehner into a laughingstock: Boehner’s War on Obama’s Executive Action Lasted About Five Minutes.

But it doesn’t require a shrink, just Senator Jeff Sessions to explain what’s going on:

"Part of it is that (GOP House) leadership as proxies for the Chamber (of Commerce) wants the amnesty; Obama’s order provides a way to deliver cheap labor to the Chamber without having to vote for it. Part of it is an absolute fear of any conflict, including even a partial ‘shutdown.’"

And for Senator Ted Cruz to explain how easy it is to defund the amnesty and not get blamed for any ‘shutdown’ – defund Amnesty while funding everything else, so if Zero vetoes the funding, he alone gets the blame not Congress.

It being so easy and not defunding being so massively unpopular, there’s only one explanation:  Boehner and the House GOP leadership have been bribed by the Chamber of Crony Commerce.  They are crooks, and a majority of GOP Congresscritters are too yellow-belied cowardly to vote them out of leadership.

The only hope now, it seems, that the 17-state lawsuit against Zero’s Amnesty, led by Texas, will defeat it.  The full text of the lawsuit is here.

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There are other things we could get upset about this week, but instead, I need to tell you a story.  It’s about how I met an extraordinary man and became friends with 45 years ago.  On Wednesday (12/03) at age 84 he passed away.  His name was Nathaniel Branden.

The story begins in October 1968.  I was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Hawaii, inspired by the philosophy of Objectivism created by Ayn Rand. 

Reading Rand’s Atlas Shrugged the year before had been the most thrilling intellectual experience of my life – in particular the Speech on Money by the character Francisco D’Anconia.  It provided what I always yearned for: a moral defense of capitalism.

It turned out there were a few others on campus so inspired, and since these were the days of 1960s Hippie-Commie-Marxist craziness, we decided to form a recognized student group to bug the left:  Students for Laissez-Faire. 

We wore buttons with dollar signs, wrote articles for the campus newspaper, had our own radio show, and had so much fun scandalizing the lefties (professors and students).

We got Student Union funding to invite a speaker, so of course we invited Ayn Rand.  We got a letter from one of her flunkies turning us down.  We then invited Ludwig Von Mises, the greatest economics genius of modern times and author of Human Action.

I received a wonderful personally handwritten letter from him saying he had to decline due to his age (87).  I have the letter framed on my study wall to this day.

We thought about inviting Rand’s disciple to whom she had dedicated Atlas Shrugged, Nathaniel Branden.  They were partners in running the Nathaniel Branden Institute which taught courses on Objectivism and published The Objectivist monthly magazine.  Rand publicly designated him as her "intellectual heir."

But then we received the October 1968 issue of the magazine which stunned all of us.  She severed all connection with Branden, denouncing him with typical Randian hyperbolic bombast as the apotheosis of evil.  Of course we believed her and canceled our plan to invite him.

Then something began to bug us.  We read Rand’s excommunication letter again and said to ourselves, "OK, he’s a bad person – but what did he do?  She never describes anything specific.  What exactly was the moral treason he committed?"  We got suspicious.

About a week later, we, as did all subscribers to The Objectivist, got a letter from Branden.  It was obvious he was in pain, his writing was awkward, he couldn’t really explain anything and he refused to criticize Rand in any way.  But if you read it carefully, the hints were there however elliptical. 

The light bulb went on simultaneously above our heads.  "Oh, no!!  Not Ayn Rand the High Priestess of Reason!  She’s the Hell-Hath-No-Fury Jilted Lover!!" 

Reading between Branden’s lines, it became clear he – 25 years younger than Rand – had been having an affair with her which he could no longer handle, and had fallen in love with a beautiful woman his own age.  Exploding with Randian Rage she wanted to destroy him in front of the world, and didn’t have the guts or integrity to explain why.

We all looked at each other and said, "Let’s invite Branden."

He accepted.  It turned out we were the very first Objectivist group – of which there were scores all over the country – to reach out to him.  He came with his girlfriend whom he soon later married, Patrecia.  She was wonderfully open, kind, and friendly.  Nathan and I just about instantly became friends. 

I took him around the island (Oahu) and put on my show, jumping off 100-foot cliffs into the ocean.  I told him stories about living with headhunters in the Amazon and nomads in the Gobi, and we talked endlessly about philosophy over many a mai-tai on the veranda of the Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki.

Finally, Nathan said, "I want you to come to teach and get your Ph.D. at USC.  I want you to meet my friend John Hospers who is Chairman of the USC School of Philosophy.  After he meets you, I think he’ll agree with me."

So I got myself to LA that summer of 1969, stayed at Nathan’s home in Trousdale Estates above Beverly Hills, met John Hospers, we clicked, and that’s how I ended up at USC.

For Nathan and me, it was the start of a lifelong friendship.  When I started To The Point in March of 2003, he was an enthusiastic supporter.  Perhaps the most memorable moment of all our Rendezvous was at the 8^th in San Diego, May of 2010. 

Joel Wade had the most insightful and touching interview with Nathan which all of us who were there will never forget.  I encourage you to get the DVD of the Joel Wade-Nathaniel Branden To The Point Interview.  I guarantee it will touch you too.

Joel got his Ph.D. in Psychology under Nathan’s tutelage.  He has written a beautiful tribute to him today:  An Earned Life: Nathaniel Branden 1930-2014.  Thanks, Joel.

And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank those marvelous friends of mine, our merry little band of Students for Laissez Faire:  Leeds and Linda Davis, Lee Moore, Bill Danks, Earl Wheeler (no relation), Roy Stoecker, and Vonnie Brenno. 

I will always have the fondest memories of our joyous times together.

A number of them are TTPers today!  (Drop in and say hi on the Forum if you’re inclined, let us know how you are doing.)

Vonnie, by the way, has become an internationally recognized artist of extraordinary talent.  View her paintings of the Fine Art of Realism at vonniebrennocameron.com.

Nathaniel Branden led one of the most meaningful and impactful lives of the 20^th century.  His books and his elucidation of Rand’s philosophy affected millions.  He put a human face on Objectivism. 

I can see his smile right now, that mischievous twinkle in his eye warning you were about to hear a thought that was both funny and deep, that made you laugh and really think hard at the same time.

Nathan was what Aristotle called a man of megalopsychia – a great-souled man.  He was what Aristotle thought to be the highest virtue, a success at being human.  He was my friend.  He changed my life, and so much for the better.  Thank you so much, amigo. 

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That mention of our Rendezvous probably caused you to ask – when’s the next?  It’s been a while.  So how about the end of April?  But where?  You tell me.  Candidates, according to Miko who’s been talking to TTPers about this, are:

*Washington DC
*Virginia Beach
*Colorado Springs
*Vegas

Or name your favorite.  On the Forum or to Miko: [email protected].  We both await your choices.

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