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Dr. Jack Wheeler

HALF-FULL REPORT 06/25/10

Good grief, what a weird week.  Which headline is more bizarre - the one in Cincinnati, "Naked Man Arrested With Stolen Cheese At Library," or the one in Portland, "Al Gore Accused Of Being A Crazed Sex Poodle"? We all know, of course, that Algore's former boss is a serial rapist.  But Mr. Save-The-Planet?  Goodnight, Al, and take your warmism with you.  At least now, folks will think that Global Warmism means Rape-The-Planet with lunatic Marxist Fascism. *** Meanwhile, Zero's unconstitutional fascism gets more grotesque by the day.  Reports that he intends to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens by executive fiat have prompted a number of Senators (all R's) to sign a letter to the president (dated 6/21) requesting he deny the reports. Like you, I have this little devil who resides on my left shoulder whispering off-the-wall provocations in my ear.  Right now, he's saying he hopes Zero goes through with this.

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THE COMING NIGHTMARE OF CRACK NICOTINE

On Monday, June 21, the demented state legislature in Albany passed a bill increasing cigarette taxes.  A pack of smokes will average $9.60 across the state, and will be $11 a pack -  $11 for a single pack of cigarettes - in New York City. This is not only pro-smuggling, it is pro-terrorist.  Who do you think runs the most lucrative cigarette smuggling operations from Virginia and the South into New York?  Hezbollah and Al Qaeda.  The higher taxes will mean higher profits for them, which they will use to kill Israelis and Americans in Afghanistan. The state legislators who voted for the taxes should be tried for aiding and abetting terrorism for this alone.  But the consequences could be vastly worse.  New York's new tobacco tax law is an example of the Law of Unintended Consequences run amok.  It's the coming nightmare of Crack Nicotine.

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THE DOORMAT OF EMPIRES

I couldn't agree with Jack Kelly more in his approval of Zero's firing General McChrystal.  Stanley McChrystal is an insufferably arrogant putz whose criminally stupid Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan deserve more than being relieved of his command. They deserve a court-martial and prison.  His "courageous restraint"  ROE's are directly responsible for getting our soldiers killed.  He thinks the lives of Afghans are more important to save than Americans.  As of last week, one of those Americans fighting and risking their lives to bring freedom to Afghanistan - and one of those lives McChrystal's political correctness is jeopardizing - is my son.  Afghanistan is personal - for me, and because of 9/11, it should be for all Americans. Here we'll dispense with the idiotically ignorant myth that Afghanistan is the "Graveyard of Empires."  Afghanistan has been steamrollered by conquerors for millennia.  Then, next week, we'll discuss how easy it would be for us to do so and why it's important that we do. In 327 BC, Alexander the Great married a beautiful princess named Roxanne in Balkh, capital of Bactria.  She was the daughter of the King of Bactria, Oxyartes, and Alexander had just conquered his kingdom.  Bactria is now northern Afghanistan - Alexander's wife was Afghan. At this moment, US and NATO forces are preparing to secure Afghanistan's second largest city, Kandahar.  The city was founded by Alexander in 330 BC and is in fact named after him, from the original Iskandaria (Alexandria - Iskander being the Persian pronunciation of Alexander's name).

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PUTIN IS SCREWING OBAMA IN CENTRAL ASIA

Last Friday (6/19), Kyrgyzstan's interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, flew to the site of this month's ethnic violence -- and raised the estimate of the dead to 2,000. Some 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks have become refugees, with 100,000 safely across the border in Uzbekistan and 300,000 trapped in Kyrgyzstan. Their homes have been burned, their relatives beaten, raped or slaughtered. The Kyrgyz military and police stood by and let it happen -- or pitched in. The interim government couldn't control them, once the ethnic cleansing began. And it matters to us. Remote Kyrgyzstan has permitted our forces to use Manas air base to shuttle troops and supplies into Afghanistan. The base is vital, but our continued presence was already iffy. Now the Yankees may be told to go home. This latest bout of butchery also matters because it fits in with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's strategy of re-establishing Russian hegemony over Central Asia. That's why he denied a Kyrgyz request for Russian peacekeepers.  That's why he's screwing Obama in Central Asia.

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ELENA KAGAN AND MOSLEM LAW

Hats off to Senator Jeff Sessions! The top Republican on the Senate's Judiciary Committee has opened up an important new front in the debate over Solicitor General Elena Kagan's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court: Her attitude towards the repressive legal code authoritative Islam calls Shariah and her enabling of efforts to insinuate it into this country. By so doing, the Alabama legislator has given his colleagues and the country an opportunity not only to flesh out and evaluate the thin public record of President Obama's second nominee to a lifetime appointment on the nation's highest court. The Senator has also afforded us all what Mr. Obama might call a "teachable moment." Specifically, this Supreme Court nomination offers a prism for examining the concerted and ominous campaign underway to bring Shariah to America, thanks to the troubling role Ms. Kagan played during her tenure as dean of Harvard's Law School.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 06/18/10

Do you hear that music?  Sure sounds beautiful.  As the Left becomes more disenchanted with Zero, folks inside the Zero White House are leaking what's going on to leftie blogs.  Here is a compilation of those leaks that is appearing all over the liberal-left blogosphere. 

Disturbing and mesmerizing whispering that the Oval Office is the scene of stormy and romantic melodrama between POTUS and his most senior and trusted advisers. Whispering that POTUS is sleeping poorly and is much aggrieved at slights, shortfalls, interruptions. Whispering that POTUS is vulnerable to jet lag. That POTUS has returned to chain-smoking. That POTUS hesitates to heed his advisers, because POTUS frets that he is being sand-bagged by experts, allies, confidantes. Whispering that POTUS frailties most in display in West Wing settings. That POTUS evidences a Nixonian persecution mania. Can any of this be confirmed? Not easily. Less detailed, POTUS is said to express his opinion to pals in Chicago that he dislikes his job. Wilder whisperings that some pros are now weighing that POTUS try an LBJ exit after one term - rather than face a Carter collapse.
What music to our ears.  You may recall this from The Zero Resignation Challenge from a year ago (June 2009):

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AMPUTATE OR DIE

It was a sobering dinner party last night (6/16).  Hosted by a London billionaire in his exquisite home - a Boccaccio hung on the wall behind me - the wine flowed liberally, but the conversation between the ten of us was stone-cold serious. There were lighter moments, as when I proposed a toast to "a great hero of Europe - Geert Wilders."  Every one raised their glass in a smile, but the biggest smile was that of a spectacularly gorgeous super-model (you've seen her in many a high-fashion ad).  She was from Holland. Then a well-known Hollywood producer raised his glass to toast his hero - Ronald Reagan.  "We need him again," he commented.  I guarantee you've watched one of his TV shows. But when a self-made billionaire with an 11-figure private equity fund and a clear grasp of Austrian economics starts to talk about America's prospects, you listen.  So we all listened.

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A TRILLION DOLLARS’ WORTH OF BAD NEWS

Afghanistan just got its worst news since the Soviet invasion three decades ago: American geologists have charted as much as a trillion dollars' worth of mineral deposits in that tormented landscape. Up to now, Afghanistan's internal factions and neighbors have been fighting over worthless dirt, Allah and opium. Assigning the battlefield a trillion-dollar value is not a prescription for reconciliation. Expect "The Beverly Hillbillies" scripted by Satan. Even were Afghanistan at peace, its endemic corruption would generate a grabocracy -- a Nigeria, not a Norway. Throw in inherited hatreds and the appetites of its neighbors, and Afghanistan may end up more like eastern Congo, a playground for state-sanctioned murderers and looters. Beyond reportedly vast deposits of rare minerals (lithium, etc.) essential to popular technologies, there's copper, cobalt, iron and gold in them thar hills. Afghanistan never before offered so much to fight over. Afghanistan's one hope was that, eventually, outsiders would leave it alone. That hope's gone now. Development of a full-blown mining industry will take decades, but that just means decades of violent competition.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 06/11/10

Well, hasn't this been a fun week.  An icon of the liberal media - the execrable Helen Thomas - is exposed as a disgusting anti-Semitic racist and her life career ends in ruins.  Zero exposes himself as a no-class punk president who belongs in Junior High School rather than the White House. His kick-your-ass taunt is that of some 8th-grade wimp trying to pretend he's tough.  All such a taunt gets is derision and ridicule.  It invites the response for which the Brits are applauding London Mayor Boris Johnson  - "Hey, STFU!"  On both sides of the Atlantic, this summer's most enjoyable pastime promises to be Dissing Zero.  Kicking things off, America's favorite Congresswoman, Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) views Zero as "infantile," and "the worst president in US history."  That was followed by the leader of that cabal of America-haters, the ACLU, saying "I'm disgusted with this president." Now for more fun...

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WHERE ARE THE CHRISTIAN TERRORISTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

Last weekend, the Feds popped two more US citizens who yearned to kill their fellow Americans for Allah.  Add them to the would-be Times Square car bomber, the guess-what's-in-my-knickers Christmas Day airline bomber, no end of got-‘em-in-time apprehensions, plus the Ft. Hood butcher, Major Nidal Hasan... both the Feds and the media barely hint at what all these fanatics have in common. Dare to suggest that radical Islam might be to blame, and you're a bigot.  Just as pointing out that Palestinian terrorism led to Israel's hard line stand makes you a fascist.  But those who reject radical Islam's role as the driving force behind today's terrorism must answer one obvious question: Where are the Christian terrorists? The ignored persecution, deprivation and massacres aren't in Gaza, the global left's favorite petting zoo.  The cover-up victims are the Middle East's Christians.

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DEMOCRAT WEEDS IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL GARDEN

Here is the great conundrum of our day:  Why can't conservatives and Republicans be as ruthlessly and passionately focused on reducing government power as liberals and Democrats are on expanding it? Until a solution to this is found, government guns and bureaucrats will relentlessly continue to control ever more of our lives, as they have for generations.  The most that can be achieved, such as under President Reagan, is to marginally slow down the continuing advance of fascism. Here's a metaphor.  Suppose you had a beautiful garden and you let the weeds grow in it.  The only gardening you did was half-hearted because you had to work to make a living and couldn't take the time - or you were just too lazy - to trim and prune and de-weed adequately. How would your garden look after a few years?  After a hundred years?  Would the folks who originally created the garden recognize it?  No - of course not, it would be an overgrown morass of weeds and brambles that had choked the garden out of existence. Democrats are the weeds in America's garden of government.  Republicans are supposed to be the gardeners - and they've done such a lousy job they've let the weeds take over.  The problem is not so much that too many of them are RINOs or insufficiently principled.  It's that they don't understand the job Republicans are supposed to do.

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JEW HATRED IS BACK IN VOGUE — AND IT’S ON THE LEFT

In other times, Hearst Newspapers White House Correspondent Helen Thomas's demand that the Jews "get the hell out of Palestine," and go back to Poland, Germany and America would have been front page news in every newspaper in the US the day after the story broke. In other times, had the dean of the White House Correspondents Association expressed such hatred for the Jews, the White House would have immediately removed her accreditation rather than wait three days to criticize her. In other times, the White House Correspondents Association would have expelled her.  In other times, her employer - Hearst Newspapers - would have fired her. Our times, instead, are times of Jew hatred. Our times are times when hatred breeds strategic madness -- especially among those on the Left.

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WHY DON’T YOU GIVE ME A CALL, MR PRESIDENT?

50 days in, and we've just learned another shocking revelation concerning the Obama administration's response to the Gulf oil spill. In an interview aired yesterday (6/08), President Obama admitted that he hasn't met with or spoken directly to BP's CEO Tony Hayward. His reasoning: "Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he's gonna say all the right things to me. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions." First, to the "informed and enlightened" mainstream media: in all the discussions you've had with the White House about the spill: did it not occur to you before yesterday to ask how the CEO-to-CEO level discussions were progressing to remedy this tragedy? Second, to fellow baffled Americans: this revelation is further proof that it bodes well to have some sort of executive experience before occupying the Oval Office -- as if the painfully slow response to the oil spill, confusion of duties, finger-pointing, lack of preparedness, and inability to grant local government simple requests weren't proof enough.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 06/04/10

We begin with a happy announcement.  Thanks to TTP's one and only Miko, To The Point is now on Facebook!  Get on board, connect with your fellow TTPers, get all your friends on board too.  Have fun and spread the TTP word.  Thanks, Miko!! *** When I saw my friend Sara Carter's report yesterday (6/03) in the Washington Examiner about the Mexican government opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island in California to provide illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, I sent Congressman Dana Rohrabacher the following email: "Dana - since Catalina is in your district, when are you going to take action against this?" Well, I almost sent it, for at the very time I was about to push the "Send" button, I learned that Dana had already flown to Catalina that very morning and was proceeding to embarrass the Mexican officials there into shutting their operation down.  Is he our kind of Congressista or what? As most of you know, he's been my buddy for 44 years.  I'm prouder of him than ever.  Glad I didn't push that Send button though.

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WHY SHOULD WE ASSUME OBAMA WANTS PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST?

In hindsight, it probably will be obvious that the missteps of the Obama administration vis-a-vis Israel were critical catalysts to a war that today seems ever more likely to engulf the Middle East, and perhaps the world more generally. Assuming - assuming - such an outcome is neither the intention of the president and his team nor is desired by them, American course corrections must be taken urgently. Throughout their 17 months in office, the president and his senior subordinates have been at pains to demonstrate a more "evenhanded" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to "engage" the Moslem "world." The practical effect, however, has been to excuse, empower and embolden those hostile not just to Israel, but to the United States as well. Consider just a few ominous examples:

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OBAMA IN OKINAWA

Yukio Hatoyama is a weird guy, so weird his countrymen have nicknamed him "E.T.", the Extraterrestrial.  What possessed the people of Japan to, 8½  months ago (Sept. 2009), select Yukio Hatoyama as their Prime Minister is a mystery for historians to unravel.  He screwed things up so badly with such a massive mix of incompetence and corruption that yesterday (6/02) he resigned. The excuse he gave was Okinawa.  Yes, Okinawa. No one in mainland Japan really cares about Okinawa.  No one, certainly, in Hatoyama's party - the DJP (Democratic Party of Japan) - which won a landslide victory that sent the long-ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) into the political wilderness last September. What DJP politicians care about is preserving their power - which they look sure to lose in the upcoming elections next month, July 11.  Heading towards electoral disaster, they threw Hatoyama under the bus.  Okinawa is just the cover story. Now - do you know of any other political party that won a landslide victory in their country's last election, and is now staring Electoral Armageddon in the face because of the gargantuan incompetence, corruption, and unpopularity of its leader?  Any party, any leader, any country come to mind?

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COMMENCEMENT 2010

[This commencement address was originally published five years ago. We  rerun it annually at college graduation time. Feel quite free to send this to any recent college graduate you may know.] Mr. Chancellor, Members of the Board of Regents, Members of the Faculty, Honored Graduates, Families and Friends: It's funny that they call this ceremony a Commencement, for you've all reached the finish line:  college, goodbye, we're outta here.  Yet of course, "commencement" means a beginning, not an end. But one is supposed to at least start - commence - a talk such as this by saying funny things.  So I'll start by talking about Clark Gable movies.  If you've heard of Clark Gable at all, you know he was the biggest movie star in Hollywood a long time ago.  His most famous movie was Gone With The Wind. He made a movie in 1955 called The Tall Men with Jane Russell as his girlfriend and Robert Ryan as the heavy.  It's a pretty ordinary Western flick with outlaws and cowboys and Indians - and at the end, Ryan, the bad guy, and his henchmen get the drop on Gable, the good guy, and all seems lost.  Suddenly, surprise, Gable outfoxes Ryan and triumphs.  Gable makes his exit, and after he does, Ryan delivers a line that I want you to never forget. Serendipity is funny, a very funny thing, finding something where you least expect it.  Out of the blue, out of a movie awash with pedestrian dialogue, comes a line so profound it detonates inside your brain. Ryan turns to his men and says:

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THE PROBLEM IS TURKEY, NOT ISRAEL

The "aid convoy" incident off the coast of Gaza on May 30 wasn't about bringing humanitarian supplies to the terrorist-ruled territory. It wasn't even about Israel. It was about Turkey's determination to position itself as the leading Moslem state in the Middle East. Three ships of that six-ship pro-terror convoy flew Turkish flags and were crowded with Turkish citizens. The Ankara government -- led by Islamists these days -- sponsored the "aid" operation in a move to position itself as the new champion of the Palestinians. And Turkish decision-makers knew Israel would have to react -- and were waiting to exploit the inevitable clash. The provocation was as cynical as it was carefully orchestrated.

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MAXINE HAS THE SOLUTION TO HEALTH CARE FOR SENIORS

maxine.jpg While discussing the upcoming rationing of health care under ObamaCare with my sister-in-law the other day, I think we have found the solution.   I am sure you have heard the ideas that if you're a senior you need to suck it up and give up the idea that you need any health care.   A new hip?  Unheard of.  We simply can't afford to take care of you anymore.  You don't need any medications for your high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. Let's take care of the young people.  After all, they will be ruling the world very soon. So here is the solution.   When you turn 70, you get a gun and 3 bullets. 

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TREASON IN THE WHITE HOUSE – DOES ANYONE CARE?

This week (5/26), the New York Times published another front-page article based on a leaked classified document. This time, it was an order signed by Gen. David Petraeus authorizing black operations against adversaries and such dubious friends as Iran, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Gee, thanks. We really needed to know that. The world's a better place now. Yet the Times' sin was the lesser one. The paper has long since given up any pretense of patriotism.  Its editors are just publishing and perishing as citizens of the world. It's whoever leaked the document that bears the burn-in-hell blame. And that person resides somewhere in the White House.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/28/10

Fantasies aside, like Zero having a total mental breakdown and resigning, it's not clear how this week could have been realistically better. The Gulf Oil Spill is rapidly becoming Zero's Katrina.  Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu and Democrat guru James Carville - both Louisianan - are just unloading on Zero for his insouciant incompetence.  The anger and contempt that lots of Democrats - Democrats - feel towards him now is growing.  Even Chrissie Tingle-leg Matthews is blasting him. More and more Americans are realizing that the "damn hole" that needs to be plugged is the one between Zero's nose and chin, which gushes verbal pollution far more destructive to America than any oil spill. Then there is Sestak-gate.  It is a complete win-win.  It torpedoes Sestak's chances to get elected, virtually handing Snarlin' Arlen's PA senate seat to Republican Pat Toomey.  And, as Jack Kelly points out, most people will decide it's the Chicago Boys in the White House who are lying, not a Navy Admiral turned Congressman.  Thus it adds to growing public belief that the Zero Regime doesn't tell the truth and cannot be trusted.  Adding further is Republican insistence that Attorney General Holder appoint a special prosecutor to investigate what could be an impeachable offense by Zero. Plus the economy continues to sink, the DOW is tanking, gold is rising and so is unemployment.  All of this is great news.  The worse things are, the worse things are going to be for the Dems in November.  Yep, the glass is more than half-full this week.

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SERENDIPITOUS HOPE FOR THE PROBLEM OF THE WORLD

Purple Turtle Beach, Dominica.  Serendipity is finding something where you least expect it.  I found it on Purple Turtle Beach. This is just about the only appreciable beach on Dominica (da-ma-neek-ka), a tiny island Caribbean nation of 73 thousand folks, 290 square miles (less than 1/5th the size of Rhode Island), and 365 rivers - more than one river per square mile.  (You saw a couple of these rivers in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies filmed on Dominica.) I'm here keeping a promise to an extraordinary lady I met 25 years ago.  Eugenia Charles was Prime Minister of Dominica in the 1980s, an ally of America's and friend of Ronald Reagan.  When a Soviet-Cuban sponsored coup seized control of the island nation of Grenada in 1983 and began converting it into a Communist colony of the Kremlin, Eugenia Charles, in her capacity of chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, appealed to President Reagan to liberate Grenada. As we all know, Reagan did so, but he would not have been able to without the unwavering support of Eugenia Charles.  It is thanks to her that the rollback of the Soviet Empire began. At the time of the Grenada liberation I was in Angola with the anti-Soviet UNITA guerrillas.  I'll always remember sitting by a campfire in the Angolan bush listening to BBC reports on my short-wave radio - and the coughs of lions out in the darkness.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/21/10

35,000 feet over the Caribbean.  Right after the Rendezvous, Rebel and I took off for Belize to attend an asset protection conference at which I was the keynote speaker. It's Friday now and I'm on my way to look at other possible escape hatches in the Caribbean - and flights and connections in this area make it difficult to get the HFR and TTP Weekly Report out on schedule - so I hope you'll cut me some slack today. You may have read on Drudge yesterday about how the Fascicrats snuck a Capital Controls Act into the Orwellian-named HIRE (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment) HR 2847 bill that Zero has signed into law. The Offset Provisions - Subtitle A-Foreign Account Tax Compliance section of 2847 directs banks to withhold 30% of money you want to wire overseas.  It's outrageously fascist-totalitarian and it was snuck into a bill supposedly about increasing employment with no one noticing. It made Drudge because a CBS News stringer, Brian Brawdy, was at the Belize conference where it was discussed in analytical detail and wrote a story on it that got Drudge's attention. This Capital Controls Act is only one of a score of Zero's efforts detailed at the conference all of which are designed not to increase jobs and prosperity, but to increase government control over our lives and steal as much money from us as the government thinks it can get away with.  The only bright spot is...

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THE IRAN-TURKEY-BRAZIL NUCLEAR DOTS

The world changed this week and we yawned. Our government and media utterly failed to grasp the meaning of the Iran-Brazil-Turkey nuke deal. What Brazil and Turkey just did wasn't intended to impede Tehran, but to make it harder for Western powers to impose sanctions. Both countries want Iran to run interference for them. Once Iran gets the bomb and takes the (slight) heat, Brazil and Turkey both intend to go nuclear. As Western states fantasize about a "nuclear-weapons-free world," their developing-world darlings are scrambling like mad to develop nuclear arsenals. And we don't get it. Which leads to the second problem with our asleep-at-the-wheel foreign policy (content to equate Arizona's human-rights record with China's): New alliances are developing that are already destabilizing our strategic architecture -- even without nukes. Let's connect a few of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil dots:

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SUNSHINE FOR THE CONSERVATIVE SOUL IN SAN DIEGO

The TTP San Diego Rendezvous was our 8th, and by general consensus, the best one yet.  Yes, there are TTPers like Ken Glass, Don Parker, Mark Gilligan, and Dan Barak who have been to all 8.  There are several who come close, like the Dynamic Blonde Duo of sisters Eileen and Maureen or Joel Berman.  There were so many TTPers who have become good friends over the years, and a goodly number of first Rendezvousers.  We all had a wonderful time. And for those of you who couldn't make it - we had most every session recorded by professional videographer (and TTPer) Mike Maslow.  Mike did a fantastic job and we'll have CDs available soon. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher started things off Friday evening (5/14), who stressed the importance of Republicans proposing viable positive alternatives in addition to their necessary opposition to the Dem agenda. This was followed by a tour de force by Skye D'Aureous, the Forum's resident genius.  In response to my intro of him which mentioned his IQ of 240, he wanted us to understand what IQ doesn't measure:  moral values, creativity, seeing the big picture rather than focusing on complex small problems.  Two of his thoughts:

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AN INCIDENT OF WHICH YOU SHOULD BE AWARE

Mr. Kevin W. Toomy President and Chief Operating Officer Ruth's Chris Steak House Re:  An incident of which you should be aware.   Dear Mr. Toomy, As you are reading this, so are tens of thousands of people on the Internet. This past Monday evening, May 10th, with my wife at a dinner business meeting I decided to treat myself to a steak at Ruth's Chris - which I consider the best steak in America this side of Peter Luger's in Brooklyn. I arrived at the Ruth's Chris in Tyson's Corner, Virginia (8521 Leesburg Pike), a little after nine.  My server was a very nice and competent lady named Shannon.  As it was late, the place was fairly empty:  two fellows in a booth across from me, a quartet at a table to my left, another group to my right, and a third group that I could hear but not see. Shannon took my order and soon afterwards, both the group on my right and left departed.  Only the group that I couldn't see (plus the two fellows in the booth) were left and now that the other folks had gone, I noticed how loud they were.  Really loud.  As I listened, the language they were speaking was unmistakable.  It was Arabic.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/14/10

Need another example of what's at stake in November?  How about your 401(k) retirement savings?  Via something called the Employee Benefits Security Administration, a group of fascisti within the Labor Department, the Dems are planning to seize your and everyone else's savings a lá Argentina to fund public union worker pensions.  The way to prevent this is a Republican majority in the 112th Congress.  If the Dems keep their majority, you will see millions of folks pulling all their money out of their 401(k)s, taking the penalty haircut, and putting it where government goons can't steal it. All those millions need to remember this in November. *** Now, how about something that will really tick you off?  This week, plans were announced to build a gigantic 13-story Moslem mosque near Ground Zero, the site of Islam's 9/11 attack on America. Note it will be called "the Cordoba House."  What a telegraphic punch.  Cordoba was the capital of the Islamic Emirate of Al-Andalus (Andalusia) in Spain, seized by Moslem invaders from Africa in 711 and recaptured by Spanish Christians under Ferdinand III of Castille in 1236.  What better indication could there be of the Islamic intent to make America a Moslem Al-Andalus Emirate?

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BEAUCOUP DEEP KIMCHEE IN AFGHANISTAN

The Afghan room has more than its share of corners, and we've painted ourselves into every single one of them. Setting aside the Taliban, we're suffering from plenty of self-inflicted wounds. To start, there's the continuing denial that Islam has anything to do with the Taliban's persistence or Afghan resistance to our goodwill gestures: This mullah's corrupt; that suicide bomber wasn't very religious(!); that local uprising's just a neighborhood feud. Religion has nothing to do with it. Next, Afghans aren't interested in fighting for a foreign-backed government or for ethnic groups other than their own. If you want to succeed in a tribal society, you exploit tribal identities. Our officials insist that would undercut our goals. Well, perhaps our goals should be more realistic. So we wind up supporting yet another disdained "president" because we insist that a tribal society must subject itself to a strong central government defended by an American-model army that refuses to be built. This is not a formula for success. Another sign that Afghanistan's in "beaucoup deep kimchee" (as a former NCO of mine used to say) is that the pundits are already assigning blame -- even on Obama.

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THE FATE OF THE WORLD

San Diego, California.  The view from my Westin hotel room overlooks San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean beyond.  The bay is filled with Navy warships, huge cruise ships, and small sail boats.  The weather is perfect, 69°, the skies cloudless and smog-free.  California!  The Golden State.  I grew up here, in the halcyon 1950s portrayed in the Happy Days television series and the Surf City ode to it by the Beach Boys.  So as I look out at the gorgeous view, I can't help wonder:  How is it possible that Californians screwed their state up so badly? Because they ignored the warning of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) after traveling through America in 1832, that the greatest danger to America was no external enemy but would come from within, when "the voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury." You've all heard the Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times.  Hinges of history are always interesting.  They are forks in the road, where the world or an important part of it must choose between freedom and cowardice.  We have arrived at such a fork, such a historical hinge. Prominent economist Robert Samuelson has proclaimed the debt crisis from Greece to California as "The welfare state's death spiral."  But what sort of phoenix will arise from the ashes of Western welfare states?  Will it be Western at all?  Or will it be Chinese?

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HALF-FULL REPORT 05/07/10

William F. Buckley's most famous quote is: "I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." A corollary to this is that we'd all be far safer if we entrusted our national security to NASCAR fans than to Democrats in Washington - as evidenced by the truck of one such fan: nascar-islam.jpg *** There is such a cornucopia of happenings this week from which to choose the most important - and here it is.  Let me redirect your attention away from the Gulf Oil Spill and the financial meltdown of Europe to focus on the Republican Study Committee. Yes, the most significant event in America this week was the announcement that the 115 Members of Congress comprising the RSC have formed a Tenth Amendment Task Force to formulate a legislative program that will "usher in a new era of federalism and disperse power from Washington back to regions, states and local governments" under a GOP majority next year. This dwarfs the Gulf Oil Spill or anything else, folks.  The reason was made clear in the British elections yesterday (5/06).

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COWARDICE DOESN’T APPEASE TERRORISTS

Appeasement doesn't work. It doesn't work with dictators, and it doesn't work with terrorists. The attempted Times Square bombing on May 1st was yet more proof. We've allowed Islamist extremists to dictate what we can say, print or portray. We don't want to offend them. The First Amendment bows before Islam. The Obama administration has ducked all unwelcome evidence that such appeasement doesn't work. Instead, it goes to absurd lengths to convince Moslem radicals that we respect their views.  Since the Obama administration deepened our submissive attitude toward Islam -- banning all references to "Islamist terror" or "Moslem radicalism" from government documents and statements -- the number of terror attacks on our soil has gone up. Do any of you believe this is just a coincidence?

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THE BIGOTRY OF THE LEFT

American and European leftists share the conviction that the immigrant, legal or illegal, is always right -- and the native-born citizen is always wrong. This bigotry toward the law-abiding American, Brit, Frenchman or Italian doesn't help the immigrant in the end. Instead, it's a powerful engine driving divisiveness. There are deep differences between Europe's experience with legal immigrants intent on importing intolerant lifestyles and our problem with illegals responsible for social friction and violent criminality. But the left's blame-game is identical: Anyone who doesn't elevate the "rights" of the immigrant over the rights, safety and desires of the citizen is a bigot. No exceptions. Could there be a formula better designed to excite anti-immigrant sentiment?  As the left's blame-the-citizen demands for special privileges for all immigrants only intensify an anti-immigrant backlash, let's apply some commonsense maxims:

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CINCO DE REALITY

Today is May 5th - celebrated by American gringos as an excuse to drink cheap tequila margaritas and eat bad Mexican food by calling this day "Cinco de Mayo." Nobody in Mexico cares about May 5th.  Only we, us gringos, pretend to.  For if you ask just about any reveler at the nearest Pancho Villa's Cantina or some such Mexican-themed bar anywhere in the US, just what is being celebrated today you'll get either a blank stare or "It's their July 4th " ignorance. So first the real history.  Then the reality - the horrific reality of how the fascists of the  American Left are using Mexico to destroy their own country.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 04/30/10

We've a lot of ground to cover for this week's HFR, but first let's ask - who knew Connie Mack (R-FL) has gone senile at 42 years old?  Of course the Fascist Democrats of the Anti-American Left are hysterically demagoguing Arizona's anti-illegal alien law.  But Connie?  What kind of bizarre mental dysfunction caused him to compare Arizona to Nazi Germany? You'd expect RINOs like Karl Rove, Jeb Bush, and Lindsey Graham to wimp out.  And now we can see that for Lincoln Diaz-Barlart (R-FL), his Hispanic blood is thicker than patriotism.  But again, Connie?  Maybe the open-borders/cheap-labor-for-business folks at the Wall Street Journal got to him.  Whatever.  Let's now go back to the HFR of January 23, 2009, which said:

What could be more appropriate, on the eve of the TTP Carefree Rendezvous, than to hoist a pint of Four Peaks Ale brewed here in Arizona to an inspiring woman Republican governor who drives liberals out of their minds because she is a pro-family, pro-life, pro-Christian, anti-tax, anti-government spending, anti-illegal immigration Reagan conservative.  Nope, we're not talking about Sarah Palin - however much the HFR is happy to hoist a glass in admiration of her at any time.  We're talking about another fine lady who, in addition to all the great qualities above, has the greatest name for drinking to one could ever ask:  Jan Drinkwine Brewer...

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CALIFORNIA’S CROOKED CORRUPT COURTS

A distinguished 70-year-old attorney in poor health has been sitting in solitary confinement in "coercive incarceration" in the notorious Los Angeles County Men's Central Jail without being charged, tried, or convicted of anything since March 4, 2009.   In effect, he was thrown in jail for an indefinite period with no bail or hearing set for blowing the whistle on judicial corruption in California. The chain of events that led to his incarceration was set in motion in 2000, when Richard Fine became aware that L.A. superior court judges were receiving illegal "judicial benefits" payments from Los Angeles County, despite the fact that lawsuits against that county were often adjudicated by these same judges, thus creating clear conflict of interest problems. In other words, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, with taxpayer funds, was bribing superior court judges to decide cases in favor of the county.  This is "the greatest judicial scandal in American history," as Mr. Fine says, and he has become an American political prisoner because of it.

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THE BARBERS OF DUSSELDORF

One of Margaret Thatcher's more trenchant observations is:  "The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." The purpose in life for most politicians anywhere in the world is to, by whatever sleight-of-hand shell game they think they can get away with, make that run-out-of-other-people's-money moment forever later. The world's spotlight is currently on politicians in Europe who are frantically, hysterically, desperately engaging in this shell game.  The question of the immediate moment is:  will the barbers of Dusseldorf let them get away it - or at last and for once, put an end to it? For if they opt for the latter, they could precipitate an end to Washington's shell game here in America. First, the background, starting with the Greek Limbo Dance. 

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OUR #1 NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT IS MEXICO

South of the border, down Mexico way, a new and savage revolution rages just beyond our inspection lanes. After less than five years of fighting, estimates of the dead have reached 22,000. The rate of killing accelerates each month. And Washington covers its eyes like a kid at a scary movie. Well, the Mexican narco-insurgency, in which well-armed guerrilla forces confront the authority and presence of the state, is our No. 1 security challenge. The chaos in northern Mexico has far deeper implications for our country than Islamist terror or even an Iranian nuclear capability (as grim as those threats are). The rule of law has collapsed from Tijuana (across from San Diego, California) on the Pacific's edge to Matamoros (across from Brownsville, Texas) on the Gulf of Mexico. Major cities are now "ungoverned spaces," as our diplomats refer tidily to distant trouble spots. And Arizona's "discriminatory" new state law empowering police to pursue criminal aliens? Should Phoenix let the rule of law collapse because Washington prefers political correctness to public safety? In DC, it's about politics. In Arizona, it's about survival.

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HALF-FULL REPORT 04/23/10

Jack Kelly asked this week:  Are there no limits to Democrat corruption?  The corollary question is:  Is there no end to Democrat fascism?  Day by day, the evidence mounts:  the answers are:  no limits, no end. Prominent political analyst Michael Barone's term for fascism is Gangster Government, and accuses Zero and the Democrats of instituting it.  The Dodd Bailout Bill of "financial reform" is a perfect example.  He notes: "Republicans have been accurately attacking the Dodd bill for authorizing bailouts of big Wall Street firms and giving them unfair advantages over small competitors. They might want to add that it authorizes Gangster Government -- the channeling of vast sums from the politically unprotected to the politically connected." The extent of this can be seen in this five page list of exemptions or "carve-outs" in the 1,400 page Bailout Bill. As TTPer "Rockymount" observes on the Forum, the Bailout Bill will place "the President and his Czars in complete control of this nation's financial system."  Can't get a lot more fascist than that.  The Dems, though, disagree.  They think they're  just getting started.

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THE MUSEUM OF BARBARISM IN THE ISLAND OF LOVE

Paphos, Cyprus.  There are 45 countries in Europe -- and when I got the chance to take a look at the only one I hadn't yet been to, I couldn't pass it up.  So here I am in Cyprus. Let's begin our story with Aphrodite, the Greek Goddess of Love, who was born here.  Then we'll talk about Audrey Hepburn, Lazarus, Richard the Lion-Heart, Snow White, and Othello before we get to the Museum of Barbarism.  We'll wrap it up with what I would recommend regarding Cyprus to President Palin.

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DON’T WORRY AMERICA – ISRAEL IS BEHIND YOU

Israel's status as the US's most vital ally in the Middle East has been so widely recognized for so long that over the years, Israeli and American leaders alike have felt it unnecessary to explain what it is about the alliance that makes it so important for the US. This week - April 19 - we celebrate Israel's 62nd Independence Day.  As the Obama administration is openly distancing the US from Israel while giving the impression that Israel is a strategic impediment to the administration's attempts to strengthen its relations with the Arab world, recalling why Israel is the US's most important ally in the Middle East has become a matter of some urgency. Much is made of the fact that Israel is a democracy. But we seldom consider why the fact that Israel is a representative democracy matters. The fact that Israel is a democracy means that its alliance with America reflects the will of the Israeli people. As such, it remains constant regardless of who is power in Jerusalem. All of the US's other alliances in the Middle East are with authoritarian regimes whose people do not share the pro-American views of their leaders. The death of leaders or other political developments are liable to bring about rapid and dramatic changes in their relations with the US.

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