HALF-FULL REPORT 12/19/14

Yesterday in the Kremlin, the Putin Huilo gave what Bloomberg described as an "Extremely Long Very Weird Press Conference."

It reminded me of the now-viral YouTube video of the Chinese two year-old missing a putt:

His military seizure of Crimea and 32,000 Russian soldiers attempting (and now failing) to seize eastern Ukraine are part of an existential struggle for Russia’s survival as a sovereign state: It’s "about us protecting our independence, our sovereignty and our right to exist."

Russia is no aggressor, only a victim of the evil West that wants to chain the bear and "tear out his teeth and claws."  Nothing is ever Russia’s, i.e., Putin’s fault.  Yet all the drama and finger-pointing is to no avail.  As the London Economist describes Putin’s Russia, it’s The End of the Line.

What is happening to Russia – and elsewhere – affords an extremely teachable moment in what makes prosperity and indeed freedom itself possible.  Let’s take that moment now.

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What makes prosperity and freedom possible — whether a people, a society, a culture, a nation can become and keep being rich or poor is the extent to which it permits creative destruction.  There’s a good discussion of the concept in A Demon Facing America (June 2014).

The point here is that Russia, together with Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, and OPEC in general are screwed because of it – because of the most creatively destructive technology of our day, the unlocking of gargantuan amounts of oil and gas by fracking.

It drives Putin Huilo around the bend that his strategy of holding Europe hostage to his gas and oil, which also would pay for recreating Soviet imperialism, is coming apart – due to the creative ingenuity of those damned Americans!  And not even the most rabidly pro-Marxist anti-capitalist president in American history could stop them! 

How infuriating can you get?

And how infuriating for the Saudis, who thought that crashing oil prices would crush fracked oil production in the US.  No such luck.  Here’s a "must-read" of the week: Why US Oil Output Rises As Prices Plunge.

Creative destruction at work.  It’s a lesson that thugs in Moscow, Caracas, Abuja, Tehran – or Albany – don’t want to learn. 

The lesson for us to learn is that all we have to do is get the thugs in Washington enough out of the way for American ingenuity to flourish, allowing creative destruction to work its magic, and the Curse of Zero is history.

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With what fracking has done to Russia and OPEC, Uber to taxis and Airbnb to hotels, the next target of creative destruction may be banks – even central banks and their currency monopolies.  Thus another "must-read" is in today’s TTP, The End of Banks?

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All that aside, we nonetheless are facing Two More Years of Hell.  This week provided ample evidence of why.

Yesterday (12/18), taxpayers were treated to a complete total unadulterated shakedown by government gangsters.  Unless you give us hundreds of millions of dollars more, threatened IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, we’ll have to delay the refund money we owe you.

On Monday (12/15), we were treated to the Kafkaesque Headline of the Week:  Democrats Demand Better Protection for Transgender Illegal Immigrant Children.  Actually, that’s way beyond Franz Kafka’s imagination. 

One more step, along with Holder Justice declaring yesterday (12/18) that employers can’t discriminate against transgenders, on the road towards The Homofascist Agenda.

And on Wednesday (12/17), of course, was Zero’s treason with Cuba.  Even the WaPo condemned it: Obama Gives the Castro Regime an Undeserved Bailout.

Charles Krauthammer’s response nailed it:  Is There No Tyrant in the World Obama Will Not Appease for Nothing? 

NRO’s Andy McCarthy gave a great analysis in What Part of Keeping Cuba Isolated Has Not ‘Worked’? 

In Congress, Marco Rubio responded best, calling Zero "Willfully Ignorant," while Rand Paul gave the worst, with typical Anti-American Libertarian (pardon the redundancy) appeasement.

And what, you may ask, about Sony and the Norks?

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Last week’s HFR revealed the Norks were being used as cutouts for Putin’s hackers as a test run for large scale attacks on US companies in revenge for sanctions on Russia.  Yet today (12/19), the FBI "conclusively" linked the Sony attacks to North Korea – so what gives?

By now my cybersecurity sources have downloaded over 100 terabytes exfiltrated from Sony servers by the hackers – and they are more sure than ever that it’s the Russians’ doing. 

The Norks are certainly willing accomplices.  Putin has paid Kim Jong-Un a lot of money (dollars, not rubles!) to be so.  There is simply no way "a country with one light bulb," as one wag puts it, could pull this off.

An example from our cybersecurity experts: 

"Actual Sony server names were written into the malicious code, which meant that the names were known.  NK has an extremely limited infrastructure for the Internet.  It can not support that level of activity."

This also shows, among other indicators, that the Russian hackers had an insider at Sony on their payroll stealing the data.

What’s going on then is the FBI’s doing a head fake.  It and the NSA are monitoring for chatter to find who "thinks they got away with it." 

Note that Zero said in his press conference this morning (12/19) that "We will respond to this damage in a place and time and manner that we choose."  Do not in the least be surprised that along with a leaked-to-the-press retaliation on the Norks there will be a mysterious massive shutdown of a significant sector of the Russian internet.  One hopes it will include a wipeout of Putin’s secret bank accounts.

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Meanwhile, Islam is rapidly becoming a religion of criminal insanity.  It’s being overwhelmed by unimaginable evil is a sign of terminal breakdown.  Just this week, one ISIS thug has been found to have slaughtered 150 women for refusing to be ISIS sex slaves, while a another mass grave of ISIS butchery has been found in Syria.

While in Nigeria, Boko Haram has launched another wave of murders and kidnappings.

Most hideous of all was the proto-hominids of Pakistan’s Taliban murdering 132 children in cold blood in Peshawar yesterday (12/18) – and bragging about it with posed pictures of themselves.

Imagine how Christians worldwide would condemn in outrage the blasphemy of slaughtering children in the name of Jesus, or Jews in the name of Yahweh? 

Yet where is the massive, thunderous, worldwide denunciation of these atrocities in the name of Allah by the Moslem global ummah?  What you hear instead is the sound of silence.

That sound is deafening in its damning Islam’s inhumanity.

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Yes, there is some good news this week.  

*Vermont, the most leftie-socialist state there is, just abandoned its state-paid single-payer health care program.  As John Fund notes, "the lessons for Obamacare are obvious and profound."

*Federal Judge Arthur J. Schwab on Tuesday (12/16) ruled that Zero’s Executive Amnesty is unconstitutional and therefore illegal.

*In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker is telling the EPA to shove its Clean Power Plan up its nose.  Yet another reason to think Walker may walk away with the GOP 2016 nomination.

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OK, folks, it’s a wrap.  Hope your Christmas shopping is done and you can just relax to enjoy friends and family.  Forget about the garbage in DC and the world, just focus on that – for that’s what really matters.

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