HALF-FULL REPORT 04/17/15

Russia will lift its ban on the sale of anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, Vladimir Putin announced Monday (4/13). The S-300 is one of the most potent AA missiles in the world today, comparable to the U.S. Patriot.

Acquisition of S-300s by the mullahs would hugely complicate an Israeli air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Our new (and enormously expensive) fighter, the F-35, theoretically can defeat it. Israeli Air Force pilots are training in an F-35 simulator on how to defeat the S-300, but the first delivery of F-35s to the IAF isn’t scheduled until near the end of next year.

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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee reported out unanimously Tuesday a bill which would give Congress the right to impose sanctions on Iran if the administration’s deal with the mullahs lacks adequate safeguards. President Obama –  recognizing the handwriting on the wall – withdrew his threat to veto it.

No bill that has that much support from Democrats can be all good. This isn’t. Iran won’t be required to recognize the right of Israel to exist, and would still be free to engage in terrorism.

The really bad part is the bill treats a vote on the Iran deal as normal legislation.

"If that sounds reasonable to you, remember that in doing so the bill creates what is, in effect, a reverse treaty ratification mechanism," said Jonathan Tobin. "Instead of the president needing a two-thirds majority to enact the most significant foreign treaty the United States has signed in more than a generation, he will need only one-third of the Senate plus one to get his way."

It’s a terrible mistake, said Matt Continetti. A betrayal, thundered Mark Levin.

They’re wrong, said Arthur Herman of the Hudson Institute. "This time, the good guys really did win and the bad guys, including Tehran, lost."

The big loser is the president, Herman said. "Even the New York Times, which savaged the bill as ‘reckless,’ had to admit Obama got his head handed to him."

If Herman gives Corker-Cardin at least two cheers, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, whose opinion on this matter I value more highly than any other, gives it no more than one. He’s unhappy with the requirement for a two thirds vote to stop an agreement, but is in favor of the bill because it increases somewhat the prospects for blocking a bad deal.

If the Obamunists didn’t think the bill was a problem for them, they wouldn’t have tried so hard to kill it.

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A few hours after President Obama announced Tuesday he would remove Cuba from the State Department’s list of nations which sponsor terror, a Cuban-supported terror group murdered 10, wounded 17 in an attack on a military base in Colombia.

Havana "is like a Star Wars cantina of Cold War radicals – including some of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists," said James Kirchik.

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ISIS is conducting an offensive on the provincial capital of Ar Ramadi, Iraq’s 4^th largest city, 100 miles west of Baghdad. Thousands have fled the city.  The situation is "way worse than we’ve been told," said LTC Allen West, USA ret, who spent a lot of time in those parts.

"How did ISIS do this without any detection?" West asks.  "How did they reposition their force – in open desert – and no one saw it? This is a direct reflection of the intelligence failure of the so-called Obama coalition."

Those are very good questions. Why aren’t any of the Lying Swine asking them?

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Al Qaida has seized control of a major airport, an oil terminal, and a major military base in Yemen.

This was a predictable consequence of Saudi air strikes on the Iran-backed Houthis, said Claire Berlinski, who noted we’re providing weapons and logistical support to the Saudis. The Saudis have no presence on the ground. Al Qaida does.

"How could it possibly serve U.S. interests to pursue a policy that allows al Qaida to gain ground?" she asked.

That’s a good question. Why aren’t any of the Lying Swine asking it?

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TWA Flight 800, which blew up over Long Island in July, 1996, was shot down by a missile, wrote Andrew Danziger in the New York Daily News Wednesday. The FBI covered it up.

"Holes were discovered in parts of the aircraft skin that penetrated from outside in – evidence that an object, most likely a missile – had struck the plane. But when investigators began photographing that evidence…the FBI told them to stop," said Mr. Danziger, an airline captain who was one of the pilots to fly Barack Obama around during the 2008 campaign.

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A colonel in the Afghan air force who murdered 8 U.S. Air Force personnel and a civilian contractor in 2011 was paid $250,000 to do it, according to an expert for the task force that investigated the killer’s finances. The Pentagon covered it up.

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MSNBC weekend talk show host Melissa Harris-Perry — who opposes tax cuts – and her husband owe $70,000 in back taxes.

Republicans complain more about taxes, but Republicans are "significantly" more likely than Democrats to think we have a moral obligation to pay them. The only consistent belief of the big shots on the Left is that the rules apply to the little people, but not to themselves.

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Hillary Clinton has agreed to testify before the Benghazi Committee, Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-SC, told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt Wednesday, but he won’t schedule her appearance until the committee has all relevant documents.

"I’d be a really lousy lawyer if I use my one opportunity to talk to a witness before I had all the emails and other documents," said Gowdy, who was a federal prosecutor before being elected to Congress. "So until somebody can make an assurance to me that we have everything that we are entitled to, and by that I mean relevant material to Libya and Benghazi, I can’t schedule her appearance."

Hillary will have to testify a second time about the email scandal, Gowdy said. He also plans to call Sid Blumenthal to testify about Hillary’s private intel service, and Cheryl Mills, her former chief of staff.

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Hillary wiped her private email server clean in part because it was "packed full" of missives to and from her lesbian lovers, said the National Enquirer this week, quoting an anonymous (of course) "high ranking Clinton insider."

"Hillary is particularly concerned about intimate emails to longtime aide Huma Abedin," the Enquirer said. The supermarket tabloid is always sensational, but often accurate, as former Dem presidential candidate John Edwards can attest.

I never thought I’d see the day when more – and more accurate – real reporting is done by the National Enquirer than by the New York Times or the Washington Post.

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Hillary "has fought children and families her whole career," said the press release announcing she will run for president. That’s true, but I don’t think it’s what Team Clinton meant to say. That and other glitches indicate a campaign not quite ready for prime time, said psephologist Sean Trende.

Ms. Clinton declared her candidacy in a tweet and release of an 8 ½ minute campaign video because she doesn’t want to answer any questions from reporters. Then she went on a "listening tour" in Iowa in a van she called "Scooby Doo."

Not that Hillary would have anything to fear from softballs tossed at her by shameless shills such as NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd, who gave her campaign launch an A.

"Every box was checked," he gushed. "The video had every part of the Democratic coalition represented." Her "spontaneous" road trip, which "humanized" Hillary, was the icing on the cake, Todd said.

The "spontaneous" listening tour was a reprise – right down to the name of her van – of what Hillary did when she ran for the Senate in 2000. The van is more like a mobile luxury hotel.

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The handful of people at her stops in Iowa often were Democrat campaign operatives pretending to be "ordinary" Iowans, who asked mostly pre-scripted questions. "All told, she met with less than a few dozen Iowans who weren’t pre-selected," Politico acknowledged.

"Hillary should join Guardians of the Galaxy, because she’s always talking to plants," said Jim Treacher.

Actual ordinary Iowans were "perplexed" Hillary didn’t take time to talk to any people, CNN’s Brianna Keilar reported Tuesday.

There were more glitches, as when "Scooby Doo" parked in a handicapped space during a stop in Council Bluffs. But most of the Lying Swine overlooked them, pretended not to notice the scripting and staging.

On her way to Iowa, Hillary made a "spontaneous" stop for lunch at a Chipotle restaurant in Toledo, about which the news media had been notified in advance.

She carried her own tray, gushed the New York Times. "We’ve never seen her eat a burrito before," marveled Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin.

We still haven’t. Hillary ordered a "burrito bowl," Jonah Goldberg noted. So "Halperin still has something exciting to look forward to."  Hillary didn’t leave a tip, but few of the Lying Swine mentioned that.

In Iowa, a desperate media gaggle chased after her van like "crazed Beatle fans." The Washington Free Beacon has put together a hilarious video of what Iowahawk called "the stampede of the majestic North American Throne Sniffers."

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Not all in the MSM were impressed. Hillary spoke for just 37 seconds in her video, said nothing about any issue, noted Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC.

"The video was relentlessly, insultingly vapid," said liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus. "Inept, phony and shallow," said Peggy Noonan.

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Hillary is campaigning exactly as an unlikeable candidate with stale, unpopular ideas, a record devoid of accomplishment, and a closet full of scandals ought to campaign. She’s been able to get away with it so far because so many in the media are such shameless sycophants.

But maybe not for much longer. The spectacle the "majestic North American throne sniffers" put on was so embarrassing for the Lying Swine even Chuck Todd, Shameless Sycophant #1, criticized it.

In effect, Hillary is promising to deliver Barack Obama’s third term. That was a hard sell for George H. W. Bush in 1988, even though Ronald Reagan was very popular then. Zero and his policies aren’t.

Hillary has to campaign this way to keep restive "progressives" in line. But her Elizabeth Warren impression isn’t going well, says Charles Cooke. (Though she shares with Fauxcahantas a tendency to make up stories about her ancestry.)

In an online MSNBC poll this week, 87 percent said they weren’t supporting Hillary. (It’s unscientific, but has 85,000 responses.) She shouldn’t count on automatic support from blacks, either, said Ebony magazine.

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Sen. Marco Rubio, R-FL, threw his sombrero into the ring Monday. You can watch his announcement speech here.

"Cruz and Paul gave good speeches with good lines I don’t remember," tweeted Matt Lewis. "(Rubio) had a speech, a theme, and a message we won’t soon forget. It’s possible we’ll look back and remember that as one of the great political speeches."

He’s the Republicans’ Barack Obama, said Politico, which thinks that’s a compliment. More like the Republican JFK, said Roger Simon.

Rubio benefited from the contrast with Hillary Clinton’s lame and contrived announcement the day before.

"Just yesterday, a candidate from yesterday promised to take us back to yesterday," he said.

The contrast between Rubio and Hillary is vividly illustrated by their very different responses to (the very same) reporter who approached them as they arrived at an airport.

Rubio was 7^th in the RealClear Politics average of polls, but likely will get a bump from his announcement, as Cruz and Paul did. In a Mason Dixon poll in Florida released today, he led Jeb Bush, 31-30.

Rubio has the most upside potential of any GOP candidate, think David Harsanyi and John Hinderaker and Charles Cooke.

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 Rubio’s entry will hurt Scott Walker most, Jim Antle thinks.

A YouGov poll of "adults" (with a big MOE) released Thursday showed 4 GOP candidates bunched at the top (Walker, 14 percent, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, 13 percent, Jeb Bush, 12 percent). Rubio was tied with Ben Carson for 5^th, with 7 percent.

A poll of Republicans in New Hampshire Wednesday by Public Policy Polling, a Democrat firm, showed Walker leading with 24 percent, followed by Cruz (14 percent), Paul (12 percent), and Bush (10 percent).

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Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, have introduced a tax reform bill. It’s "a departure from Reaganism," frets the Wall Street Journal. Nonsense, says Charles Krauthammer. Hostility to it from some on the right indicates the GOP "is stuck in the past," says AEI economist James Pethokoukis.

The Rubio-Lee bill would reduce the current 7 federal income tax brackets (10 percent, 15 percent, 25 percent, 28 percent, 33 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent) to two: 15 percent and 35 percent. It would create a (partially refundable) child tax of $2,500; would reform and simplify the Earned Income Tax Credit to reduce the high marginal tax rate the poor must pay if they leave welfare for work. It also would make several desirable changes in business taxes.

Like Pethokoukis, I like where they’re going with this. But the bill’s more complicated than it needs to be, and because it reduces the top rate from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, the Dems and the Lying Swine can still dismiss it as "tax cuts for the rich." I’d like to see Republicans raise taxes on the rich a little (while cutting them for everyone else).

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Jeb Bush was going nowhere fast, likely will get there faster after joining Dingy Harry Reid in calling for confirmation of Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee for attorney general. Running as the Lying Swine’s favorite Republican is no way to win the hearts of Republican primary voters.

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This will be my last HFR for a while. It’s been fun, but I’m glad Jack Wheeler will be doing the next one from the Platinum Rendezvous in Las Vegas. I hope to see lots of you there!

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