HALF-FULL REPORT 11/29/13

Well, so much for Papal Infallibility.

Jorge Bergoglio spent his 77 years devoted to his religion, which is a fine thing, but in so doing he learned nothing about how business and capitalism actually works – living his life until recently in autocratic anti-capitalist Peronist Argentina. 

Last March, he was elevated to the papacy.  This week (11/26), as Pope Francis I, he chose to issue an Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, that very unfortunately contained a collection of thoughtless socialist bromides condemning capitalist "greed" and "inequality."  The Global Enemedia had a field day.  "Pope Francis’ Stinging Critique of Capitalism" was the WaPo’s celebratory headline.

As the IBD explains, it is incredibly ignorant to argue that the free market is a "new tyranny… that rules instead of serves." Rush thinks "it’s sad because this pope makes it very clear he doesn’t know what he’s talking about."

Instead of reciting memorized Marxist slogans of his teachers in Buenos Aires, he could have thought for himself and identified just what is the most powerful institution of greed in the world, composed of the greediest and most selfishly profligate people on the planet who demand to live like royalty and treat those who support them like slaves.

Not capitalism but government.  Not businesspeople but politicians and bureaucrats.  Mr. and Mrs. Zero are the greediest two people on earth.  They spend countless millions of other people’s money on their perks and vacations.  The expense of their international junkets in staggeringly immense.  Last June, the WaPo reported their African vacation alone cost over $50 million.

State Department diplomats live in mansions with servants.  US Embassies are costly palaces in Third World pits – the new one in Burundi cost $133 million.  In Burundi.

It’s like this all the way down the government line.  Government workers in most US states demand salaries, benefits, and pensions that no private business could afford.  And in most other countries, whether in Europe, Africa, or Asia, it’s the same.  Politicians and bureaucrats live in a luxury that most others can only imagine – and yet those others pay for it.  Politicians and bureaucrats don’t create a dime’s worth of wealth. 

They are spongers, moochers, takers, not makers like people in business (real business, not phony-crony capitalism).  They are parasites, not producers, yet demand they, the tax-takers, live high on the hog, and the tax-payers be enslaved at the point of a gun for their benefit.  It’s an absolute inversion of justice and morality.  It’s a tragedy the Pope is blind to reality.

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A Marxist Pope makes the world a more dangerous place.  And there was a lot more bad news creating a lot more danger this week as well.

On Sunday (11/24), an "Interim Agreement" was signed in Geneva lifting economic sanctions on the terrorist government of Iran in exchange for lies that Iran would stop trying to get nukes.  John Bolton accurately described it as "Abject Surrender" by Zero and the other signees.

As John points out, a Nuclear Iran is now inevitable unless Israel (in cooperation with Saudi Arabia) takes it out.  And that will be in the face of every effort and dirty trick Zero is capable of to stop Israel.

The mullahs wasted no time in rubbing Zero’s nose in their victory.  In Zero’s official statement regarding the agreement, he claimed that under it, "Iran cannot use its next-generation centrifuges, which are used for enriching uranium.  Iran cannot install or start up new centrifuges, and its production of centrifuges will be limited.  Iran will halt work at its plutonium reactor." 

On Tuesday (11/26), the Iran Foreign Ministry called Zero a liar, that the agreement "fully entitles" Iran to enrich its uranium and to continue building its plutonium reactor at Arak.

The US Enemedia praised Zero’s "historic" deal, but at least Aussie papers like The Age recognized that Iran is now "free to build a nuclear arsenal."  Sure looks like Caroline Glick is right – that Zero wants Iran to have nukes in order to destroy Israel.  You don’t get more dangerous than that.

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More danger emerged this week, instigated by China.  On Saturday (11/23), it unilaterally announced a vast extension of its ADIZ – Air Defense Identification Zone – over the East China Sea. 

This was obviously to up the ante in the fight it has picked with Japan over 8 tiny uninhabited rocks in Japan’s half of the East China Sea, collectively called the Pinnacles (Senkaku in Japanese, Diaoyu in Chinese – the largest of them is all of 20 acres).  In all of Chinese history, there is no record of any Chinese ever living on them or any Chinese government ever physically occupying them. 

An ADIZ (about 20 countries have one) is not a country’s sovereign airspace out to its territorial waters, but extends beyond to give time for its military to respond to a possible incoming airborne threat.  As such, it always covers undisputed territory – with now one exception: China.

China’s new ADIZ substantially overlaps Japan’s:

Note also it takes care to purposefully claim a small part of South Korea’s.  What could be there?  A submerged rock (15 feet below the surface at low tide) called Ieodo and upon which, in 2001, the South Koreans built an Ocean Research Station with a helicopter landing pad.  Here is "Ieodo Island" –

Obviously, it’s meant establish ROK sovereignty and preclude Chicom encroachment.  Which means, with its new ADIZ, the Chicoms are picking a fight with South Korea as well as Japan.

This is why the Pentagon on Tuesday (11/26) flew two B-52s straight through China’s ADIZ without asking permission, joined by military aircraft of Japan and South Korea, in clear-cut triple defiance of Beijing.  Talk about calling China’s bluff.

When Beijing’s response to this "provocation" was Casper Milquetoast, next day’s (11/27) headlines were that China’s ADIZ imperialism had "backfired." 

However, there are reports today (11/29) that both China and Japan are scrambling fighter jets right now, today, around the Senkakus.  China picked this fight.  Let’s hope Japan can finish it.

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In an HFR from last May (scroll down to end), you learned of an impending Christian genocide being perpetrated by a horde of Moslem monsters who have seized the Central African Republic (CAR).  The raping, looting, pillaging and slaughter of Christians by the Moslem Seleka soldiers has continued and worsened since, until finally this week, the world began to take notice.  Barely.

"France to triple troops in CAR as country descends into chaos," blared the London Telegraph.  Since there are all of 410 French soldiers guarding Bangui’s airport and the French embassy (the CAR is a former French colony), that means a hot 1,230 soldiers to protect some two million Christians in a country the size of Texas.

If the story was "Christians Slaughtering Moslems in Rampage of Horror," it would be front page news all over the world.  But when it’s the reverse, the Enemedia struggles to ignore it. 

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Is there any good news around this place?  Yes! 

Here’s the question.  What do Dennis Rodman, Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Miley Cyrus, and Anthony Weiner have in common with Zero?

Answer:  They all made GQ Magazine’s Least Influential People of 2013 List.  Yep, Zero, #17, is among the "impotent megalomaniacs" who have "overstayed their turns in the spotlight" and used their fame for accomplishing nothing.

GQ says it’s tired of spending "the majority of this man’s presidency watching bad things happen, then hearing a thoughtful speech about how we gotta make sure the bad things never happen again, and then watching as nothing gets done," and ends up describing him as an "eloquent hat stand."

GQ, of course, is a smart-alecky leftie rag, but it’s influential within the Manhattan cocktail party snob elite, so if Zero is an object of derision among them, that’s cool.

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In other good news, Dems up in 2014 are starting to run away from Zero because of Zerocare.  It’s going to get worse after tomorrow, the promised deadline when Healthcare.gov is supposed to be fixed.  There’s about as much chance of that as my finding Blackbeard’s pirate treasure buried in my backyard.

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Meanwhile, I hope you are all recuperating from a Thanksgiving dinner of joyous gluttony.  Thanksgiving is a uniquely American tradition, a combination of thankfulness towards Providence and a celebration of the abundance that freedom and capitalism brings.

I hope also you are staying far away from the lunatic crowds of Black Friday.  This is a time to enjoy home, friends and family.  Let the world be gone for a while.  Happy Thanksgiving to you all.