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The Brits know how to do it!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/kuRn2S7iPNU?feature=player_embedded
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Republicans generally roll over and assume the fetal position when they are challenged. Will Trump? If Trump becomes the Republicans's candidate for the first time in recent history things should be different. He might not be a Republican or even a Conservative but he is a gutter fighter and the Demwits have never run up against a Republican candidate like Trump.
Trump is a street fighter and is not afraid to go after the press and media who will continue circling the wagons for the Clinton's unless she is forced to leave the campaign because the FBI is convinced she is indictable.
I truly believe things are going to get interesting.(See 1 and 1a below.)
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As for the market in 2016, I have no way of knowing. I know these are the things that will confront the market and in no particular order:
1)The Fed and interest rates - I look for The Fed to move ever so gently because the recovery is pitifully tepid and the economy remains fragile. There is not obvious reason for domestic corporations to spend capital for expansion.
2)Inflation or deflation - The Fed wants more inflation but it will be hard to come by if the world's economy stays soft including our own.
3) Terrorism - is the wild card. Will Iran feel emboldened and release Hezballah to attack Israel, will ISIS continue to advance and, through surrogates, attack us domestically? I personally expect more domestic terrorism.
4)Obama's last year in office will cause him to accelerate his final unfulfilled goals vis a vis shutting Guantanamo, spending on pet projects, attacking gun control and insuring his transfer and wealth distributions plans become permanent. All this will be attempted through Executive Orders.
I also suspect Obama will continue to lead from behind when it comes to The Middle East and will remain reluctant to follow the advice of the more hawkish.
5) I believe we had an OK Christmas but I suspect the economy will continue to grow in the 2% or so range and the unemployed who want to work, but have given up, will remain high and many of the employed working in the petroleum patch will be laid off as capital spending recedes in that area. I suspect energy prices will not surge above $70 if they even reach that level though I do expect 2017 will see energy pricing steadily improving because demand will begin to outstrip supply.
6) Overall I believe the market will be sluggish but not bearish unless economic activity improves beyond my expectation or terrorism explodes world wide. Another volatile market year with an ending probably lower than where it closes in 2015.
My stock focus remains on AT&T, Merck and Abbvie, stocks that benefit from a modest interest rate rise like Canada's Manulife. Also, Corning and Intel and speculatively OPKO.
Should the economy show more improvement than I expect, Chicago Bridge and Iron and selected depressed energy stocks like Schlumberger and Devon, among others, should do better.
I am neither bullish nor bearish just passive until I see signs deflation is no longer a real possibility.
Finally, a Hillarious victory would, in my biased opinion, not be good for the market though it might bump up initially. A Trump or Cruz election would be positive for the market longer term but probably not initially.
The prospect for America getting back on track is a long way off because we are basically incapable of spending our way out of the mess we put ourselves in because those deficit pigeons are finally coming home to roost.
America is undergoing, and will continue to experience, a structural shift which will continue to result in lower paying jobs.
The Cruz tax plan, if passed pretty much as constructed, could be a needed shot in the arm. Hillarious' tax plan is more of the same and Trump's plan, if not altered, could be even worse than Hillarious' because it calls for more spending and accelerating deficits.
Should the FBI conclude Hillarious has broken the law all bets are off because the election would be unpredictable should Obama allow The Justice Department to proceed. I see no reason why Obama would want to see Hillarious indicted because she is a guarantor of his legacy but neither does any mutual love exist between them.
If Obama restrained the Justice Department from allowing Hillarious to be prosecuted that could result in a lot of voluntary resignations and all hell could break loose politically.
I seriously doubt the FBI would allow their investigations and findings to carry them beyond the election. Thus, I am expecting something in the way of an indication by the end of February, if not before.
Time will tell as it always does.
Click on this You might be surprised:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S2d3d8insc
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You can protest all you want, you can bury your head all you want, you can preach embracing political correctness all you want but reality suggests radical Islamists and Muslims are a real problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S2d3d8insc
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The Demwits are going to have a Coronation instead of a Convention but they will make sure it is entertaining, unless Hillarious' plans are altered by FBI revelations. (See 2 and 2a below.)
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At some point the debates will get down to serious topics ranging from the economy, education, how to get America out of the ditch we are in, Supreme Court appointments, what to do about Islamic terrorism etc.
It will not be something the press and media want to do because these topics may lack sensationalism but at some point they will become the topic of discussion.
Americans,bya nd large, no longer care what the media and press have to say because we no longer trust them and there are plenty of competing outlets and sources that allow us to stay relatively informed without having to eat at their table(See 3 below.)
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Off to Orlando Tuesday to celebrate our youngest daughter and son in law's birthdays and to baby sit Dagny and Blake New Years Eve and to watch Alabama versus Mich. State. Go Crimson Tide!
Have a safe and enjoyable New Year's Eve!
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Dick
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1)Smoking Gun: The GOP Establishment Cannot Beat Hillary Clinton. Period.
by John Nolte
An early Christmas present arrived Christmas Eve in the form of what, at first glance, looked like the usual-usual CNN filler on the slow news day. What it really was, though, is final confirmation that the Republican Establishment does not have the killer instinct necessary to defeat Hillary Clinton. They have no chance of winning. None. Zero. Nada. Zippo.
Below is a transcript of a segment with CNN anchor Kate Bolduan and Ana Navarro, a confidante of Jeb Bush, and someone who is very much a part of the GOP Establishment.
The context of the segment surrounds the War on Women attacks Clinton is already revving up against the GOP, specifically front runner Donald Trump. Trump immediately returned fire via Twitter, warning Clinton not to “go there.”
BOLDUAN: Ana, I think you’re with it now. The war on women argument has worked against Republicans in the past. Do you think Bill Clinton is the best defense against it?
NAVARRO: Absolutely not. Frankly, Kate, I can think of few things to kill the Christmas spirit that would be better than, you know, dragging decades of Bill Clinton’s sexual history on national TV today.
So Merry Christmas to our viewers. (LAUGHTER) No, you know what, leave it alone, for God’s sakes. If Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton has worked out their marriage and have worked out their situation, that’s their business, not ours. I think there’s plenty, plenty to pick on, plenty to scrutinize her on, plenty to ask her about, that are policy-related issues. We don’t have to get into these sordid issues, sordid affairs that have been litigated so many other times in the past. I, frankly, don’t see the purpose of it.
BOLDUAN: As a Christmas gift to you, Ana, I’m going to ask you a question that does not involve Bill Clinton at this moment. So, merry Christmas to you.
NAVARRO: Thank God.
Stick a fork in the Establishment, these serial losers are stuck in 1982.
First off, what you see here is the Establishment once again rolling over to accept the phony premise of a left-wing anchor’s intentionally-misleading and biased question.
Contrary to what Navarro says, what is primarily at issue here is not the Clintons’ marriage. What is primarily at issue here is not “their situation” or “their business” or what has “been litigated so many other times in the past.”
The issue here is something that has nothing to do with the personal relationship between Bill and Hillary Clinton, and it certainly has nothing to do with what has already been publicly litigated.
CNN knows the public has no interest in re-litigating the Clinton’s bizarre relationship or Bill’s serial infidelities; which is why Bolduan dishonestly frames the question in this way. And the Establishment is apparently fully prepared to play along and abide by the same DC Media rules that cost us the 2008 and 2012 elections.
If you let the corrupt media set the debate terms, Republicans lose because those rules are always structured in a way to benefit Democrats. Creepy, extremist, dishonest issues that should have disqualified Barack Obama from running for dog catcher, much less president (Reverend Wright, Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, hidden records, and Benghazi), were declared OFF LIMITS. Unable to take the media pressure,
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Mitt Romney surrendered.
In preparation to usher Hillary Clinton into the White House, as we saw on CNN the night prior, when Don Lemon shut off the microphone of a guest who dared raise the issue, the DC Media is declaring off-limits numerous reports damaging to Hillary that come from numerous women who claim to be victims of rape, groping, sexual harassment and other forms of sexual abuse.
The alleged abuser here is Bill Clinton (who did in fact settle a sexual harassment suit). The issue here, however, is Hillary Clinton, who stands accused of defaming, threatening, and attempting to personally destroy these women in an effort to silence them — to protect their abuser.
Trump understands the potency of the Democrats’ phony War on Women card. Trump also understands that when it comes to playing that card, the DC Media is a huge ally to Democrats. This is why Trump long ago positioned his chess pieces to immediately shut down these phony attacks.
Using the truth, Trump will GO THERE. In return, as we saw with Wright, Ayers, Rezko, and Benghazi, the DC Media will attempt to make it blowback on him. But as we have seen with everything else our lying media has attempted to cover up, Trump will not back down.
On the other hand, our lily-livered Republican Establishment, fearing this media blowback and too incompetent to deal with it, will just roll over and lose the 2016 election. Hillary and her DC Media allies will manufacture another Todd Akin, and the GOP will respond by once again assuming the fetal position.
1a) What makes Trump tick (so far)?
Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel initiative”
“Israel Hayom”
“Israel Hayom”
Notwithstanding international and domestic criticism, and irrespective of his crude and rude style, Donald Trump’s candidacy for the Republican nomination has gained momentum, in part, due to his proposal for a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration, until the introduction of an effective counter-terrorist vetting process. According to a December 10, 2015 Rasmussen poll, his proposal is favored by a majority of GOP voters (66%:24%) and a plurality of all voters (46%:40%).
Trump is leveraging, not shaping, the current US state of mind - and especially that of Republican voters - which reflects frustration with the federal, state and local political and non-political establishment/elites, as well as with political-correctness in the areas of the economy, crime, immigration, foreign policy, the war on Islamic terrorism, and homeland security.
Trump benefits from the drastic erosion in the stature of conventional wisdom/orthodoxy, and, therefore in the stature of conventional/orthodox candidacy.
Trump is aware of the yearning to resurrect the ethos of the American Dream, which featured the USA – until the 2007-2009 Great Recession - as the only moral, economic and military super-power. He attempts to echo the eagerness to stop the slippery slope of the American state of mind from boundless optimism to pessimism, from patriotism to skepticism, from faith and confidence in American exceptionalism to national and personal uncertainty and anxiety, from expected upward mobility to feared downward mobility.
Did the celebrity status of Trump catapult the number of viewers of the GOP debates to 24 million – three times higher than the debates in 2011? Or, has it been the longing for the rejuvenation of the (Declaration of Independence’s) inalienable “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”?
Trump understands the significance of the findings of the December 9 and 15, 2015NBC/Wall Street Journal polls respectively: a staggering majority of 70%:20% of the public believe that the US is on the wrong track (similar to a report by the Pew Research Center); 73% want a change. While the call for a course correction is typical at the end of a second-term presidency, a call for a staggering course correction was issued by US voters at the end of Carter’s, G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush’s (second) terms.
Notwithstanding the lack of depth in Trump’s reference to foreign and national and homeland security issues, Trump has managed to leverage the escalating concern about homeland and national security, and growing disapproval of President Obama on foreign policy and national security, as documented by a December 14, Gallup polland a December 15, 2015 NBC/Wall Street Journal poll respectively. In fact, the lack of confidence in the government’s counter-terrorism policy is starker than it was following 9/11, Ft. Hood (2009) and the Boston Marathon (2013). In recent months, homeland and national security have become the top issues on the public’s mind, overtaking the concern for jobs, government spending, health, climate, immigration and religion. According to the December 9, 2015 Rasmussen Report and a November 16, 2015 Reuters’ poll, the American public assumes that the US is involved in a failed war on Islamic terrorism, that suicide bombings are expected on the US mainland and that the US war on terrorism must be reinforced.
Trump is aware that President Obama has not convinced the American public that “Islam has always been a part of America’s story…,” that “America and Islam overlap and share the principles of justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings,” that Islamic terrorism is an oxymoron, that “Jihad is a process which purifies the soul” and that ‘ISIS is not Islamic.”
While Trump is aware that the state of the US economy is much healthier than European economies, he responds to the public discontent with the economic uncertainty, job insecurity, wage stagnation (the median household income is below the pre-recession and 1999 levels), the widening gap between disposable income and the cost of living, inflated college tuition and the related mounting debt burden, the perception of bloated entitlements, etc. According to a December 20, 2015 Gallup poll, the index of consumer confidence is trending downward: 38% expect the economy to improve, while 57% expect a persistent slowdown.
Public frustration has been fueled by the increasing crime/murders in metropolitan America, as documented by an October 29, 2015 report by the Congressional Research Service: a 16% rise in crime/murders in metropolitan America, compared with 2014, following the contraction of crime in recent years.
Trump is, currently, perceived by GOP voters to be an attractive, non-orthodox (outsider) candidate. He benefits from Republican voters’ frustration with the Republican Party, which has failed to clip Obama’s political wings, in spite of the Republican majority in the House, Senate and Governors’ mansions.
The identity of the Republican presidential candidate will not be determined by public opinion polls, but by a process of primaries and caucuses, which begin in February, 2016. This process will determine whether Trump’s blunt and unapologetic – sometimes rustic - attitude and bombast have struck a chord with Republican voters. Moreover, global unpredictability and volatility – in terms of terrorism, conventional military and the economy – may produce dramatic events, which will weigh heavily in determining the US presidency.
Wishing you Shabbat Shalom, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,
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2)DNC Convention Schedule
Saturday, 27 August 2016Free lunch, medical marijuana, and bus ride to the Convention.Forms distributed for Food Stamp enrollment.Group Voter Registration for Undocumented Immigrants.Opening Flag Burning CeremonySponsored by CNNAddress on "Being the Real You"Rachel Dolezal, former Head of the Seattle NAACP and Caitlyn Jenner"How to Bank $200 Million as a Public Servant and Claim to be Broke"Hillary ClintonHow to have a successful career without ever having a job, and still avoid paying taxes!A Seminar Moderated by Al Sharpton and Jesse JacksonMedals of Freedom presentation to Army deserter Bo BerghdalBaltimore LootersInvitation-only Autograph SessionSouvenir photographs of Hillary and Chelsea dodging Sniper Fire in BosniaTribute to All of the 57 StatesCongresswoman Nancy PelosiGeneral vote on praising Baltimore rioters, and on using the terminology "Alternative Shoppers" instead of "Looters"Announcement of VP NomineeChris Stevens, with a quick rebuttal and withdrawal when Hillary realizes she got him killed in BenghaziThe White House "Semantics Committee" MeetingGeneral vote on re-branding "Muslim Terrorism" as "Random Acts of Islamic Over-Exuberance"Liberal Bias in Media How we can make it work for youTutorial sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times with Guest Speaker, Brian WilliamsTribute Film to the Brave Freedom Fighters still incarcerated at GITMOMichael MoorePersonal Finance Seminar - "Businesses Don't Create Jobs"Hillary ClintonGroup Condemnation of Bitter Gun Owners.Ceremonial We Surrender Waving of the White Flag to Afghanistan, Russia, and ISIS.Short film, "Setting Up Your Own Illegal Email Server While Serving in A Cabinet Post and How to Pretend It's No Big Deal"Hosted by Hillary Clinton"How to Offend Christians While Implementing Sharia Law in America"Sneaky Joe" BidenOfficial Coronation of Hillary unless she is indictedLiberalism is what smart looks like to the low information voter!
2a) Tyrone was having trouble in school. His teacher was always yelling at him, "You're driving me crazy, Tyrone, can't you learn anything!!?" One day Tyrone's mother came to school to check on how he was doing. The teacher told her honestly, that her son was simply a disaster, getting very low marks, and that she had never seen such a stupid child in her entire teaching career.
The mom was so shocked at the feedback that she withdrew her son from school and moved out of Detroit, relocating to Cleveland.
25 years later, the teacher was diagnosed with an almost incurable cardiac disease. All the doctors strongly advised her to have open heart surgery, which only one surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic could perform. Left with no other options, the teacher decided to have the operation, which was remarkably successful.
When she opened her eyes after the surgery she saw a handsome young doctor smiling down at her. She wanted to thank him, but could not talk.
All the sudden her face started to turn blue, she raised her hand, trying to tell him something but quickly died. The doctor was shocked, wondering what went wrong so suddenly.
Then he turned around and saw our friend Tyrone, a janitor in the Clinic, who had unplugged the life-support equipment in order to connect his vacuum cleaner.
Now, If you thought Tyrone had become a heart-surgeon, there is a high likelihood that you will vote for Hillary.
3)
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