TRUMP 39% CNN POLL DOMINATION 2016

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Trump dominates GOP field heading into 2016

www.cnn.com

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump seems set to end 2015 as the dominant force in the race for next year's Republican nomination for president, with Texas Sen.Ted Cruz now a clear -- yet distant -- second after a strong debate performance, a new CNN/ORC poll released on Wednesday has found.

Trump tops the field with 39%, according to the poll of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters. That's more than double the share backing Cruz, who, at 18%, has inched up 2 points since the last CNN/ORC poll, which was taken in late November.

Trump has been a constant atop the polls since his ascent to the lead in July, and this new poll marks the first time Cruz stands significantly apart from the other candidates vying for the nomination. Behind those two, Ben Carson and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have each slipped a few points and now stand tied at 10%.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found a tighter race between Trump and Cruz, a finding that clashes with most other recent polling on the national race. It is one of only two live interviewer national polls released since Thanksgiving that found Trump with a lead smaller than 10 points. Across the 10 polls released during that time, Trump's lead over Cruz averages 16 points.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted after the Republican debate hosted by CNN and Facebook in Las Vegas on December 15. Among those Republicans who say they watched, 33% say Trump did the best job in the debate, 28% Cruz, 13% Rubio. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie follows with 6%. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, widely seen as needing a strong debate performance to boost his standing in the polls, was rated best by just 1% of debate watchers.

Six in 10 Republican voters in the poll now say there are one or two candidates they'd prefer to see win over the rest of the field, up from 48% who had identified favorites in July. That consolidation is reflected in voters' overall preferences. This marks the second CNN/ORC poll in a row in which more than three-quarters of Republicans now support one of the top four candidates (77% choose one of Trump, Cruz, Carson or Rubio), and 57% now support one of the top two candidates. That latter figure marks the highest share for any two candidates combined this cycle.

Trump's standing in the race for the nomination is bolstered by widely held trust that he can best handle the top issues facing the nation. Trump holds massive advantages over the rest of the field as the candidate best able to handle the economy (57% Trump, his next closest competitors are Cruz at 8%, Rubio at 7%, Carson at 6% and Bush at 5%), illegal immigration (55% trust Trump, followed by Cruz at 15%, Rubio at 10%), and ISIS (47% prefer Trump, 21% Cruz, 7% Bush and 6% Christie).

And Republicans are coming around to the idea that the Republican Party has its best shot at winning the presidency by nominating the New York real estate mogul. Overall, 46% of GOP voters say the Republicans have a better chance to win in 2016 with Trump as the party's nominee, while 50% say the GOP has a better shot with someone else at the top of the ticket. In August, just 38% said Trump brought the Republicans their best chances.

Perhaps obviously, Trump's supporters are most likely to think the GOP has its best shot with Trump as its nominee (85% say so), but even among those who aren't current supporters, 21% think Trump would be better than the alternative.

Among those who say the party has a better shot with someone other than Trump, Cruz is the preferred candidate, 25% would like to see him win the nomination, 16% Rubio, 13% Carson, 9% are Trump backers, 8% Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, 7% Christie and 4% each Bush and Kasich.

There are signs in the poll that Cruz's debate performance may have helped improve his appeal. Though he remains well behind Trump, Cruz gained ground on the front-runner on handling illegal immigration and ISIS, both a central focus of the debate's questions, while Rubio and Carson faded on both issues. Cruz's favorability rating has jumped 22 points among Republican voters since September, and he now holds the highest favorability rating among Republican voters of any of the seven candidates tested. He's also posted the largest increase in favorability rating among all adults since September, climbing from 27% favorable in September to 45% now, an 18-point gain. Trump (+8) and Rubio (+14) posted smaller increases.

More Republican voters (62%) say Cruz has the right experience to be president than say so about Trump (57%) or Rubio (53%), and two-thirds say Cruz shares their values and is someone they would be proud to have as president (66% each). Slightly fewer say either sentiment applies to Trump (63% values, 60% proud) or Rubio (64% values, 62% proud).

Education remains a stark dividing line among Republicans, but since last month Trump has gained ground with the party's college graduates. In the new poll, 27% of GOP voters with degrees back Trump, up from 18% in the late-November poll. Among those without degrees, 46% back Trump, the same share as in November. Non-college voters could prove to be an Achilles heel for Rubio, who holds just 6% support among that group compared with 19% among those who hold degrees.

The CNN/ORC poll was conducted by telephone December 17-21 among a random national sample of 1,018 adults. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. For results among the 438 registered voters who are Republicans or independents who lean toward the Republican Party, the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

COMMENTS

Warmest Christmas Eve on record to unfold across eastern US

www.accuweather.com

Any hopes of a white Christmas that the weekend chill brought will be dashed in the eastern United States, with this Christmas Eve shaping up to be the warmest on record in many communities.

According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tom Kines, "On Christmas Eve, parts of the mid-Atlantic and New England could be just as warm as they were on the Fourth of July."

Record high temperatures, including some record warm minimum temperatures, are likely to be set from Florida to Maine.

Balmy Christmas Eve

According to AccuWeather Chief Long Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok, "On Christmas Eve, daily record highs may be broken in the morning, followed by monthly record highs in the afternoon."

Records in the major cities of the Eastern states date back to the middle 1800s.

Another northward bulge in the jet stream will be responsible for the warmth in the East this week.

The jet stream is a strong river of air high in the atmosphere that guides weather systems and separates warm air to the south from cold air to the north.

Christmas Eve will feel more like Easter with highs ranging from the 50s in Maine to the 70s in the mid-Atlantic and the lower 80s in parts of the Southeast. That equates to highs that are 15 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.

"Temperatures could touch 80 as far north as the mid-Atlantic states," Pastelok said.

Widespread record highs will not only be challenged but also shattered in many towns and cities. The potential exists for records to be topped by more than 10 degrees from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to New York City and to Burlington, Vermont.

"It appears high temperatures will be in the 70s on Christmas Eve in New York City, which is about 35 degrees above normal for the date," AccuWeather Meteorologist Bill Deger said. "It was also unusually warm last Christmas Eve in 2014, when Central Park reached 58 F for a high."

Subtropical air will be drawn northward along with the warmth and will make it feel humid to some people.

Along with erasing any hopes for a white Christmas, the warmth will mean residents can leave the heavy winter jackets, hats or mittens at home when heading out for last-minute shopping or to Christmas Eve services.

RELATED:January to yield winter's first outbreak of icy air in eastern, central USSnow drought, unusual warmth create 'extremely challenging' season for Northeast ski resortsForecast temperature maps

The only chance of a white Christmas will be in the Tug Hill region of New York state, east of Lake Ontario, and northern Maine, where old snow may remain on the ground.

The warmth will come despite some clouds and a couple of showers in the area. Those wanting to take advantage of the warmth by caroling, taking a walk, firing up the grill or engaging in any other outdoor activity should plan to keep an umbrella handy.

The passage of a cold front will ease the extreme warmth in the Northeast for Christmas Day, but temperatures will still be well above normal for the holiday. In the Southeast, Friday will likely be a repeat of Thursday.

Since temperatures will be so high during the overnight hours on Thursday, record highs for Christmas day may be set before dawn in a number of locations.

According to AccuWeather Meteorologist Ed Vallee, the return of persistent cold will not be the theme for the remainder of 2015.

"The extreme warmth of late will certainly be muted after Christmas Day, but above-average temperatures continuing through the end of the month will set the stage for December monthly temperature records to be broken in some areas of the East," he said.

COMMENTS

REPORT: Republican Lawmakers Laugh In Paul Ryan’s Face For Trusting Harry Reid

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty

by MICHELLE FIELDS23 Dec 20155,185

Republican lawmakers reportedly laughed at House Speaker 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

56%

 after he told them he had been given a promise from Senate Democratic Leader 

Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV)

2%

.

Lawmakers were amused at Ryan’s naiveté for thinking that Reid is someone their party can trust.  “I know, I know,” Ryan replied with a smile, according to The Hill.

Reid and Ryan just finished working together to help pass a $1 trillion dollar spending bill, which many argue contained far more liberal policies than conservative ones. Reid has promised Ryan that he will return to regular order in the New Year. According to the Hill, Republicans on Capitol Hill aren’t buying it.

They feel they’ve been burned one too many times by Reid, who repeatedly filibustered House-passed appropriations bills this year and has a reputation for launching broadsides against the GOP from the Senate floor. And they’re not so sure the Nevada Democrat will allow bills to move through the Senate Appropriations Committee to the floor, where after they are approved they could be merged with House-passed legislation.

“I personally don’t trust Harry Reid as far as I could throw him,” quipped 

Rep. John Carter (R-TX)

49%

 (R-Texas), chairman of the Committee on Appropriations’ Subcommittee on Homeland Security.

“I’m extraordinarily skeptical,” added Ryan’s Wisconsin colleague, GOP 

Rep. Reid Ribble (R-WI)

64%

.

“I don’t want to be pessimistic, but Harry’s a tough character to deal with and he’ll find some way to stop virtually anything that he doesn’t completely support, which is most of what we care about,” said House Small Business Committee Chairman Steve Chabot (R-Ohio). Still, he added, “I wouldn’t discourage Paul from trying.”

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U.S. plans raids to deport families who surged across border

www.washingtonpost.com

The Department of Homeland Security has begun preparing for a series of raids that would target for deportation hundreds of families who have flocked to the United States since the start of last year, according to people familiar with the operation.

The nationwide campaign, to be carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as soon as early January, would be the first large-scale effort to deport families who have fled violence in Central America, those familiar with the plan said. More than 100,000 families with both adults and children have made the journey across the southwest border since last year, though this migration has largely been overshadowed by a related surge of unaccompanied minors.

The ICE operation would target only adults and children who have already been ordered removed from the United States by an immigration judge, according to officials familiar with the undertaking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because planning is ongoing and the operation has not been given final approval by DHS. The adults and children would be detained wherever they can be found and immediately deported. The number targeted is expected to be in the hundreds and possibly greater.

The proposed deportations have been controversial inside the Obama administration, which has been discussing them for several months. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson has been pushing for the moves, according to those with knowledge of the debate, in part because of a new spike in the number of illegal immigrants in recent months. Experts say that the violence that was a key factor in driving people to flee Central America last year has surged again, with the homicide rate in El Salvador reaching its highest level in a generation. A drought in the region has also prompted departures.

The pressure for deportations has also mounted because of a recent court decision that ordered DHS to begin releasing families housed in detention centers.

Although Johnson has signaled publicly for months that Central American families not granted asylum would face deportation, the plan is likely to trigger renewed backlash from Latino groups and immigrant advocates, who have long accused the administration of overly harsh detention policies even as Republicans deride President Obama as soft on border security.

Advocates have not been briefed on the plans and on Wednesday expressed concern. They cited what they called flaws and abuses in the government’s treatment and legal processing of the families, many of whom are fleeing danger or persecution in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“It would be an outrage if the administration subjected Central American families to even more aggressive enforcement tactics,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “This administration has never acknowledged the truth: that these families are refugees seeking asylum who should be given humanitarian protection rather than being detained or rounded up. When other countries are welcoming far more refugees, the U.S. should be ashamed for using jails and even contemplating large-scale deportation tactics.”

Groups that have called for stricter immigration limits said the raids are long overdue and remained skeptical about whether the scale would be large enough to deter future illegal immigration from Central America.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “What share is this going to be?. . . It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the number they’ve admitted into the country. If you have photogenic raids on a few dozen illegal families and that’s the end of it, it’s just for show. It’s just a [public relations] thing, enforcement theater.”

Marsha Catron, a DHS spokeswoman, would not comment on any possible ICE operations but pointed out that Johnson “has consistently said our border is not open to illegal immigration, and if individuals come here illegally, do not qualify for asylum or other relief, and have final orders of removal, they will be sent back consistent with our laws and our values.”

The raids could become a flash point on the 2016 campaign trail, where GOP presidential contenders, including front-runner Donald Trump, have made calls for stricter border control a central issue. Trump’s rise has come as he has promised to deport all undocumented immigrants and bar entry to the United States for Muslim refugees in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., policy prescriptions denounced by Democratic candidates, including Hillary Clinton.

The immigration issue has often bedeviled Obama, who came into office under pressure from supporters to end the George W. Bush administration’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, crackdown on illegal migrants. Instead, the administration increased deportations in its early years, drawing repeated fire from Latino groups and immigration advocates. Then, in summer 2014, came the surge of children flocking across the southwest border.

While most public attention focused on minors who were crossing the border alone, the number of children who came with a family member — known as “family units’’ in DHS parlance — also spiked dramatically.

With the government overwhelmed at first, many of the families were simply released and told to appear at later immigration court dates to determine if they would be granted asylum.

Some never showed up or had their asylum claims rejected and were ordered deported by immigration judges, officials familiar with the process said. That population is among those expected to be targeted in the upcoming raids, they said.

Immigrant rights advocates and legal experts say the families and minors were in many cases not granted adequate representation and were confused by the asylum procedures in court.

DHS, meanwhile, reacted to the surge by opening family detention centers, two in Texas and one in Pennsylvania. Those centers now house more than 1,700 people, DHS officials said Wednesday. But even as DHS officials have long vowed that the migrants will be treated humanely, their advocates have said conditions are crowded and inhumane in the centers, which often house women with children.

As the administration wrestled with how to handle the families, Johnson in November 2014 issued a set of new immigration enforcement priorities. Much of the attention focused on his public statements that undocumented immigrants who had been in the country for years should be integrated into society rather than deported. And Obama, on the same day, announced an executive action intended to shield up to 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation.

But Obama’s action has been blocked in the courts. And Johnson has also made clear that families, children and others who had illegally crossed the border recently and did not obtain asylum status — and anyone ordered deported starting on Jan. 1, 2014 — would be subject to removal.

DHS “will also continue to expedite, to the greatest extent possible, the removal of those who are not eligible for relief under our laws,’’ Johnson said in a September statement about the family detention centers. “We take seriously our obligation to secure our borders.’’

In August, a federal judge in California ordered the administration to begin releasing in October children and family members from the detention centers. The judge said DHS had violated a 1990s consent decree that said minors taken into custody, whether accompanied by an adult or not, had to be treated humanely and allowed to quickly contest their incarcerations.

The administration has said it is complying with the ruling, but it has also filed an appeal with a federal appeals court, and officials said the decision left them feeling hamstrung. “It doesn’t allow us to hold onto people, to detain them until we can deport them,’’ said one person familiar with the internal debate.

Then, in recent months, the flow of families crossing the border suddenly shot up again. The numbers of family units apprehended rose 173 percent in October and November, compared to the same period last year, according to DHS data analyzed by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The court decision and the sudden spike led to the decision to begin planning the upcoming raid, said officials familiar with the deliberations, who said DHS knows the deportations will be inflammatory but believes it must enforce the law.

COMMENTS

Utopia and Communism share a common thread

Private car ownership is on the road to becoming a rarity

www.marketwatch.com

Henry Ford was a smart guy, but he never did the math when he decided to put every American household on wheels.

A century after the Model T, the world has a problem with cars. The U.S. and China will consume about 40 million light vehicles in 2015, according to IHS. Globally, we’re on track to hit 100 million vehicles in 2020.

That’s not a lot of cars. That’s an ocean of cars, an inundation, wave after wave breaking on the shores of the industrialized world. And yet policy makers and common folk alike have been powerless against the siren song of the automobile. Even in the most car-blighted burg in the world, the toxic parking lot they call Beijing, the appetite for the automobile—as status item, as luxury, as totem of personal mastery in a fragile postcolonial mind-set—is driving millions more into its smoggy embrace, despite limits on ownership and the government’s rising alarm.

The Future of Everything: From the end of auto ownership to America’s changing battlefields to a revolution in fast food to the next sports superstar, a special Wall Street Journal magazine asks a team of experts and reporters to tell us what lies ahead.

The absurdity of our century-old, ad hoc approach to mobility is captured in one statistic: The utilization rate of automobiles in the U.S. is about 5%. For the remaining 95% of the time (23 hours), our cars just sit there, a slow, awful cash burn, like condos at the beach.

But what if, like condos, automobiles could be shared? It’s one of life’s first lessons—how to share toys, parents, rooms, feelings. But as little consumers grow into adults, they forget the joys of selflessness. That’s about to change. And I don’t mean the collaborative consumerism we see around us—peer-to-peer transportation like Uber—which is symbolic and transitional, lasting only until automation happens, at which point we can get rid of the wetware. And by wetware, I mean us.

The Waze app has packed residential side streets with traffic

The navigation app Waze offers drivers alternate routes to busy roads, but it's also clogging some local streets with bumper-to-bumper traffic — and upsetting residents. Photo: Joe Flint/Wall Street Journal.

Within a generation, automobiles will be endowed with what’s known as Level 4 autonomy—full self-driving artificial intelligence for cars—which will not so much change the game as burn down the casino. Autonomy will make it possible for unmanned automobiles to be summoned, via app, to your location. And not just any passing tramp steamer, but exactly the vehicle you need for the occasion, cleaned and fueled, for as little or as long as you need (offers may vary in your state). When you’re done—poof!—it will go away.

You don’t pay for the car. You pay for the miles. And only the miles. It’s a whole new way to fly. Let’s start small. Need a pickup for three weekends a year but don’t want to pay for the other 49? Autonomy can make that happen easily without a visit to the dreaded U-Haul depot. Need a car to take mom to the doctor’s, or fetch a spouse from the airport? A decade hence, major auto makers and smaller players will be at each others’ throats for the privilege of sending consumers vehicles a la carte, for a one-way trip, an afternoon, a weekend, a month. These transactions will move through the glowing bowels of your monthly credit accounts, and you won’t even feel them.

Americans will look back on pre-autonomy like the age of Casio calculators and DOS prompts. Remember cab drivers? Remember traffic jams? Remember when parents lived in dread that their children would die in a car accident? Death and major injury from traffic accidents will drop drastically. The automobile’s other costs—decreased productivity, fuel burned in uncoordinated traffic—will be swept away. “Beyond the practical benefits, autonomous cars could contribute $1.3 trillion in annual savings to the U.S. economy alone,” wrote Ravi Shanker, a Morgan Stanley analyst covering the U.S. auto business. Global savings? Somewhere in the neighborhood of $5.6 trillion.

Read: Elon Musk’s hyperloop fantasy may be more realistic than we think

You may be wondering, back here in 2015, if the auto industry is worried about shared mobility. Doesn’t it spell declining sales? It could. But in a mature market like the U.S. turnover will remain fairly stable. What would change is the number of passengers that passed through every vehicle—including a vast untapped market that doesn’t drive today. “Level 4 AV technology, when the vehicle does not require a human driver, would enable transportation for the blind, disabled or those too young to drive,” says the Rand Corporation in a report on the subject. “The benefits for these groups would include independence, reduction in social isolation, and access to essential services.”

These same benefits would return mobility to millions on the margins, including the elderly, the working poor and those who have lost their driving privileges due to a criminal record. (It’s not hard to see the throughline between autonomy and the hobbling economic effects of mass incarceration.)

In August 2015, Morgan Stanley nearly doubled its price target for Tesla TSLA, -0.11%  , to $465 per share, based on an analysis of Tesla’s so-far secret shared-mobility plan. “We view this as a business opportunity,” wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, “[that could] more than triple the company’s potential revenues by 2029.”

And, far from funneling consumers into fleets of lustless electric drones, autonomy could have the opposite effect. Immersive-connected consumers will be able to draw from a vast and constantly replenished motor pool of shared vehicles—dune buggies, pickup trucks, German luxury sedans—with little or no notice, a cast of automotive avatars.

At this point a fair reader might wonder if I have ever been to America. The notion that we as consumers will forgo the awesome pleasures of the automobile—the privilege, the mobility, the identity—to share vehicles is, I grant, unfamiliar.

But America’s much-sung-about love affair with the automobile has grown cold. Rates of motor-vehicle licensure are already plummeting among young Americans. The obligations and costs of transportation—an average 17% of household budgets—are driving them out of automobility altogether. And enthusiasm for automotive culture is waning too, as the empty seats at Nascar events attest.

Personal-vehicle ownership isn’t going away. Some people will own and cherish cars. But those people and their cars will be considered classics. Rates of ownership will decline, an artifact of an era of hyperprosperity and reckless glut. Twenty-five years from now, the only people still owning cars will be hobbyists, hot rodders and Flat Earth dissenters. Everyone else will be happy to share.

Don’t miss: The Future of Everything.

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Obituary 1776 - 2016

THINK ABOUT IT AFTER YOU READ IT  THEN READ IT AGAIN!  

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior: "A democracy is always Temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent Form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until The time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous Gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority Always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from The public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally Collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a Dictatorship."     "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the Beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 Years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:     From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage." The Obituary follows:     " United States of America ",  Born 1776, Died 2016 It doesn't hurt to read this several times. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning The last Presidential election:     Number of States won by:         Obama: 19               Romney: 29 Square miles of land won by:    Obama: 580,000      Romney: 2,427,000 Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million  Romney: 143 million Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:                                            Obama: 13.2             Romney: 2.1     Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Romney won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.     Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low Income tenements and living off various forms of government Welfare..."     Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of Democracy, with some forty percent of the nation's population Already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase..     If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million Criminal invaders called illegal’s - and they vote - then we can say Goodbye to the USA in fewer than five years .     If you are in favor of this, then by all means, delete this message.     If you are not, then pass this along to help everyone realize just how Much is at stake, knowing that apathy is the greatest danger to our Freedom..

Under Vladimir Putin, Josef Stalin’s Popularity on the Rise in Russia

Getty Images

by MARY CHASTAIN22 Dec 201596

Under leader Vladimir Putin, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who purged between 20 and 60 million of his own people, has become increasingly popular in Russia.

The Russian Communist Party celebrated Stalin’s birthday on Monday at Moscow’s Red Square. Gennady Zyuganov, head of the party, gushed over Stalin to the crowd.

”Today, the experience and courage of Stalin, his genius and talent, should nourish all government officials who truly desire Russia to be kind, happy, and truly sovereign,” raved Zyuganov.

Zyuganov did not mention Stalin’s atrocious history and war crimes. Instead, he praised the mass murderer for leading “the Soviet Union to victory in World War II and stood up to the West during the Cold War.”

“By reinstating and continuing the best Russian imperial practices, following the war he created the most powerful block,” he continued. “A block of Slavic governments and their friends that held NATO at bay, which the entire world feared.”

The Communist Party in Penza declared2016 as “the year of Stalin” and will conduct many events to honor the dictator. Local party chief Georgi Kamenev declared events at the local Stalin Centre will “counter the falsehoods and attacks on Stalin’s reputation and legacy with facts and the truth.”

Kremlin propaganda outlet reported the “long-awaited cultural center” opened on Monday.

“Time itself defines the actual heroes of today,” declared Kamenev. “The image of Stalin is becoming more and more popular, first as a person, but as a simple man too. He was very modest, even though he was the head of a huge country.”

The so-called Luhansk People’s Republic in east Ukraine, a breakaway region, unveileda statue of Stalin this month. Luhansk is one of the areas controlled by pro-Russian rebels and Russian soldiers since March 2014. After Parliament ousted Russian-backed President Viktor Yanukovych, east Ukraine declared itself independent from Kiev. The area’s leaders placed the statue at the offices of the Union of Communists of the Luhansk Oblast.

“At the present time the ideology, symbol, personality of Stalin is important not only for the Luhansk [O]blast, but for the entire world since once again Nazism is on the rise, and for victory over it we need the harsh, strong hand of the leader,” claimed local communist Oleg Popov. “Stalin should serve as an example of creation and restoration against the destruction reigning in Ukraine.”

According to an April poll by the Levada Center, the enormous economic progress under Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalinjustified all the “sacrifices” made by Russians, including the genocide of his own people.

The independent center polled the same question two years ago, but only 25 percent agreed. The latest poll is up to 45 percent.

“[Stalin is being rehabilitated because] the current Russian authorities and [President Vladimir] Putin in particular seek the legitimization and justification of their actions by resorting to the past. It gives them a certain endorsement,” explainedAlexei Levinson, the head of the Levada Center’s social and cultural studies department. “There are two consequences of that: On the one hand, the state might triumph in the further consolidation of its power. On the other hand, we are engaging in a conflict with the rest of the world and our regime will not last long under such pressure.”

Putin has previously expressed nostalgia for the former Soviet Union. He once said the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century. In April 2014, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told NBC News that Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union. Putin’s actions have indicated Yatsenyuk may be correct. Putin invested unused Olympic funds to start a fitness program that dates back to the Soviet Union. Putin also praisedthe horrific Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in World War II. Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science purged thousands of “unsuitable” textbooks from schools, eliminating the business of many book publishers. The only one left untouched was Soviet-era publisher Enlightenment, which is also owned by Putin’s close friend Arkady Rotenberg. Another example is Putin’s foul language law, which bans profanity in the arts–echoes of the Soviet days.

Communist leader Stalin murdered more people than Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. Georgian historian Roy Medvedev listed the atrocities committed under Stalin:

Medevedev’s grim bookkeeping included the following tragic episodes: 1 million imprisoned or exiled between 1927 to 1929; 9 to 11 million peasants forced off their lands and another 2 to 3 million peasants arrested or exiled in the mass collectivization program; 6 to 7 million killed by an artificial famine in 1932-1934; 1 million exiled from Moscow and Leningrad in 1935; 1 million executed during the ”Great Terror” of 1937-1938; 4 to 6 million dispatched to forced labor camps; 10 to 12 million people forcibly relocated during World War II; and at least 1 million arrested for various “political crimes” from 1946 to 1953.

Author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn claims the number is closer to 60 million, while writer I.G. Dyadkin suggests the number is between 56 and 62 million, “with 34 to 49 million directly linked to Stalin.”

Stalin conducted the Great Purge between 1936 and 1940, which eliminated Communist Party and government officials Stalin viewed as a threat. Historians believethe numbers of deaths connected to the purge are between 680,000 to 1.2 million.

He also executed the Holodomor, which means “extermination by hunger,” in Ukraine. Between 1932 and 1933, between 2.5 and 7.5 million people died due to aforced famine from Stalin, intended to end the Ukrainian independence movement. Stalin is dear to Russian imperialists for his work in Ukraine, as they consider Kyiv the birthplace of Russia. The regime received mass shipments of grain, but did not distribute enough to civilians. Stalin also forced Ukrainian farmers to participate in collectivization.

Stalin developed the gulags for criminals and those who threatened his regime. Figures show that he imprisoned ten million people between 1934 and 1947, but historians believe the number is higher. Officials believe 15 to as many as 30 million people died in the gulags from 1918 to 1956.

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