Dr. Jack Wheeler
OUR UNCONFIDENT CIVILIZATION
[Letter to the Wall Street Journal] This is in response to "Our Incompetent Civilization" by Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens. Mr. Stephens ascribes failures to profile Moslems at airport security, think rationally about climate change, or eliminate Somali pirates to "civilizational incompetence." Such failures are not due to a lack of ability but to a lack of will. It is not civilizational competence that we lack but civilizational confidence. On the same day as Mr. Stephens' article (01/04/10), Der Spiegel ran an editorial bemoaning the lack of Western outrage at recent Moslem attacks on Danish cartoonists who caricatured Mohammed. It was entitled, "The West Is Choked by Fear." But fear of what? Whatever that fear is of, it is the cause of our collapse of civilizational confidence. Please allow me to identify it. It is the fear of envy.
THE TO THE POINT BUSINESS NETWORK
We are pleased to announce a new special feature of To The Point available to all TTP members: The To The Point Business Network. There is already the TTP Social Network where TTPers can share their opinions and plan social activities with each other. But what about sharing business expertise and opportunities with each other? There is so much business experience, knowledge, and creativity possessed by TTPers. So we have decided to synergize it. These are troubling economic times. But synergized TTPers can help each other overcome them - and even flourish during them. Whatever your business talents and abilities are, whatever your economic situation, you'll find fellow TTPers willing to share their thoughts and ideas with you, willing to help - just as you can help them. The link to the To The Point Business Network is in the left side bar of the TTP home page, just below the Main Menu categories. So join and sign up now, and start making 2010 a business success story for you and your family. Many thanks to TTP general manager Miko, and Marco "The Wizard" Gilligan, for making this possible!
HALF-FULL REPORT 01/01/10
Happy New Year! Doesn't it feel great to be rid of 2009? To be rid of the entire furshlugginer decade of the Aughts? And what is to be our battle cry as we enter 2010? Fired up and ready to go! The battle cry is ours now. It no longer belongs to that failed schmuck who used it in the long past days of yesteryear to con his way into the White House. Besides, his supporters are so dejected and demoralized that if he tried to fire them up he would be pushing on a string. So - what can we expect to accomplish, what can we expect the world to accomplish, in 2010? First, we can expect it to be chaotic - and the definition of a chaotic system is that small differences in the initial conditions result in really big differences in the outcomes, making the outcomes unpredictable at the start. In other words, expect the out-of-the-blue unexpected. Second, realize that America is not the center of the Universe. Not any longer. More and more countries will behave as if America and its president are irrelevant - like tiny Honduras not reinstating Zelaya or giant China snubbing Zero in Copenhagen. Events in other countries will be more world-changing than events in America. The best current example is Iran.
OUR LEADERS ARE TERROR’S LITTLE HELPERS
On Christmas Day, an Islamist fanatic tried to blow up an airplane whose passengers were mostly Christians. And we helped. Our government gets no thanks for preventing a tragedy. Only the bomber's ineptitude preserved the lives of nearly 300 innocents. How did we help Umar Abdulmutallab, a wealthy Moslem university graduate who decided that Allah wanted him to slaughter Christians on their most joyous holiday? By continuing to lie to ourselves. Although willing -- at last -- to briefly use the word "terror," yesterday President Obama still refused to make a connection between the action, the date, and Islam. You and I know there is a connection. But our government refuses to know it. Despite vast databases crammed with evidence, our leaders -- of both parties -- still refuse to connect Islamist terrorism with Islam.
THE WEAPON OF MASS HEALTH DESTRUCTION
For years our military has been in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our intelligence agencies have also been scouring the world to unearth these threats. Good idea.. wrong location. The single greatest WMD, which will adversely affect every American, was not developed on foreign soil: it is The Obama-Pelosi-Reid Health Care Legislation. WMHD for short. The heart and core of their plan is based on the most inhumane and unethical means of cutting costs: the rationing and denying of care. Even worse, the death panels that will ration and deny care, according to the Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan, will be unelected and unaccountable Federal bureaucrats. On Sunday, November 22, Fox News Sunday interviewed Senator Arlen Specter, who was a Democrat before he was Republican before he was a Democrat. Senator Specter let the "secret agenda" of Obama-Pelosi-Reid slip.
REVOLUTION AND THE BARBER OF SEVILLE
Paris. Christmas in Paris - what an extraordinary time to be in the City of Light. My wife Rebel and I attended Christmas Eve Mass at the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur in Montmartre and Christmas Mass at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Notre Dame is on an island, the Île de la Cité, in the Seine River. If you cross over the Pont d'Arcole to Paris' Right Bank and walk for a short block, you will come to one of the city's most famous streets, the Rue de Rivoli. Walk along it to the left and you will reach the Louvre. Turn right, and it eventually becomes the Rue Saint-Antoine which ends at the Place de la Bastille. There's just a traffic circle there now, with cars racing around a tall (154') column of green bronze topped by a golden statue of a winged Mercury. 220 years ago, there was a huge brooding fortress here, built in the 1370s during the Hundred Years War with England. Louis XIII (1601-1643) turned it into a state prison, which housed but seven prisoners and a handful of guards when it was stormed by a mob on July 14, 1789. The French Revolution began with a chaotic frenzy of a crazed mob - and no one could see it, nor understand its absurdity, better than a man who lived in a resplendent mansion overlooking the Bastille. No one was better placed than he to grasp the difference between a revolution based on a Christian love for freedom and one based on anti-Christian hate and revenge. No one - for as he gazed down upon the murderous mob storming the Bastille, he knew the critical role he had personally played in bringing about both the American and French Revolutions. How strange, he thought, that the uneducated son of a poor clockmaker would come to play a pivotal role in history - twice. So curl up by the fire in a comfy chair with your favorite adult beverage, and let me tell you his incredible story - a story of revolution and the Barber of Seville.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/18/09
Wow - look at that vast array of gorgeously wrapped Christmas presents under the tree. There are so many - which one should we open first? I'm glad you all liked TTP's Christmas present to our country: The Double-D Strategy for Rescuing America. Up only since yesterday afternoon, it's already going wildly viral. I'm especially appreciative of your comments on the Forum, such as this by Mitch Rapp:
Jack, This is like bringing down the Soviet Union. This is the kind of realistic, practical plan that can work. TTPers: heed this call. Spread this message far and wide. This is a free article, so send the link to everyone for whom you have an email address. Troll every bulletin board website you know and post the link. Go to your Congresscritter's homepage and send them the Defund Pledge. Print out a copy and snail-mail it to their office. If they refuse to sign it, they will be run out of office. Go to their local office and hand deliver a copy. This will work. We must spread the word.*** Before we start opening presents, here's a question: Who knew Copenhagen was in Mongolia? For the Danish capital is this week the site of one of history's more gigantic Mongolian Cluster, ah, Foulups... So - our first present is from Hillary Clinton, who...
NO CHANCE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE
[This is the full text of the address given by US Senator James Inhofe, R-OK, delivered to the delegates attending the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Thursday, December 17.] Copenhagen attendees, I want to turn back the clock to December 2003, when the United Nations convened the "9th Conference of the Parties" in Milan, Italy, to discuss implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. At the time, I was leading the Senate delegation to Milan as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works [Mr. Inhofe is now Ranking Member of the committee]. Fast forward to December 2009: the UN is holding its 15th global warming conference-and the delegates are haggling over the same issues that were before them in 2003. I know this because I was there. Recently, with the Copenhagen talks underway, I reread the speech I delivered in Milan. I found that the issues at stake in 2003 are nearly the same as those in 2009. In short, nothing has changed and nothing has been done. So the Copenhagen talks are stalemated. It's clear to all that developing countries don't want burdensome regulations to stifle their economies. I don't blame them. Well, that's the way we feel right here in America. That's why no global warming treaty that causes serious harm to the US economy, or that doesn't include equal commitments from the likes of China and India, will ever be ratified by the US Senate. Further, I want to be sure the 191 countries represented here understand this: an economy-wide cap-and-trade bill stands no chance of passing.
AN ERA OF NARCISSISM AND MADNESS
Perhaps when the history of our times is written, ours will be called The Era of Narcissistic Catechisms. To understand why this is the case it is enough to consider the fortunes of two green movements. 2,800 miles away from the one in Copenhagen, another green movement took to the streets this week. In Iran tens of thousands of anti-regime protesters from the green (the color for Islam) movement for democracy again risked their lives to demand freedom. Unlike global warming, there is no doubt that the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran constitutes a grave threat to international peace and security. There is also no doubt that the most effective way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is to replace the current genocidal jihadist regime with a peaceful, liberal and democratic government. As unlikely as it may seem, at the very moment that freedom in Iran has become most urgent requirement for the world as a whole, the Iranian people have taken to the streets to demand it and are willing to pay with their lives to achieve it. In the face of this miraculous turn of events, the international community has nothing to say. Whereas the West's celebrity icons line up to get their pictures taken next to posters of polar bears, no one stands with the Iranian people.
THE DOUBLE-D STRATEGY FOR RESCUING AMERICA
A friend of mine lives in Kona on the Big Island in Hawaii. He has a fishing boat which he proudly named the 44-DD after a spectacular feature of his wife's anatomy. This is not about that sort of Double-D. While it may be difficult to keep your mind off what that spectacular feature might look like - just as it's hard to comply with the demand that you not think of a pink elephant - let's try and focus on a Double-D that can rescue our country from the clutches of the Fascist Democrat Party and the destruction being wrought upon it by President Zero. So - what does this Double-D stand for? It's a strategy for any Republican wanting to get elected or re-elected to Congress in 2010, and for any Tea Partyer wanting to take individual action now against a government that ignores the Constitution. Double-D stands for...
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/11/09
Certainly the best news of the week is that Copenhagen is imploding. The "Climate Change Conference" is where the world's Fascist Left intended to cement its control of a global bureaucracy. But then China and India balked, demanding they be paid oodles of Western money to reduce their "carbon footprints." Whereupon every hick country from Tuvalu to Sudan demanded they be bribed as well, calling the bribes "climate reparations" from America and the West. Knowing there is utterly no way to extract hundreds of billions in such bribes from Congress, the chief US negotiator at Copenhagen, Todd Stern, publicly told all those demanding bribes to forget it. The US rejects "any notion of debt," he said. "Any sense of guilt or culpability or reparations" are "categorically rejected." Stern is no conservative. Take a look at his bio. Yet this guy - under orders from his boss, Hillary Clinton, which is intensely interesting - has done the quintessential thing most necessary to protect America: reject envy, tell the envious their guilt-mongering has no power. There's still a week to go (the conference ends next Friday 12/18), but this is high drama unfolding. The US has finally told the world to take its envy and shove it. This is Hillary at work, folks, doing a number on Zero who would never do such a thing. Lots of drama on several levels. Enjoy the show.
WORLD ESCAPE HATCHES
[This is my talk at the Financial Plan B Workshop in St. Louis yesterday, December 9th.] With our country under assault from the Fascist Left and a president who hates America, many of you are considering locating an "escape hatch" somewhere in the world until we regain our freedom. What guidelines are there in determining what places are right for you? One place to start researching places to live overseas is the Index of Economic Freedom (IEF) compiled by the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation. The web address is: heritage.org/index. One place to be careful of is the "Quality of Life" index put out by International Living. Any such index that lists France at the top, Number 1 on its list of 194 countries, is not to be trusted. It even claims France's climate is better than Tahiti's! That said, let's take a quick world tour of a number of promising candidates for a second home, a retirement haven, a bolthole until Hurricane Obama passes by and America becomes safe to live in again under a President Palin.
COMRADE LYSENKO IN COPENHAGEN
As the illustrious conclave of global warming true believers, led by President Barack Hussein Obama, gathers in Copenhagen for yet another exercise in environmental doom and gloom, observing the proceedings with the sly smirk of somebody who's "been there, done that" is likely to be the ghost of one Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976). No ordinary ghost that one either, for Comrade Lysenko was Stalin's favorite scientist for decades and the driving force behind the greatest scientific fraud in history prior to "anthropogenic global warming." Indeed, to fully understand the nature, magnitude and implications of the AGW scam, it's worthwhile to revisit Academician Lysenko's exploits, which just happen to bear an uncanny resemblance to the charlatanism currently on display in Climategate. Anthropogenic global warming has become for its supporters what Lysenko's theory of heredity was for the Stalinists. For its small international cabal of top AGW functionaries, it was about more than money, power and prestige, though, with the connivance of sycophantic Western governments and U.N. bureaucrats, there was plenty of that too. It was about ideology.
SARAH AT THE GRIDIRON
[The Gridiron Club, founded in 1865, is the oldest and most prestigious journalist organization in Washington DC. The annual Gridiron Dinner is attended by the media elite, at which the president is traditionally the speaker. This year, President Zero was the first president to refuse to address The Gridiron Dinner since Grover Cleveland. [Last night, Saturday December 5th, the black tie dinner at the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel had double the attendance of recent years - for instead of Zero, the speaker was Sarah Palin. The tradition of the dinner is that the speaker pokes fun at himself and the attendees. Sarah was such a hit there were dozens of the most liberal elite journalists in America laughing their heads off, many wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. Here's her speech. It is as clever as it is funny.] Good evening. It's great to be in Washington. I am loving the weather [it was snowing]. I braved the elements and went out for a jog! Or, as Newsweek calls it, a cover-shoot. I feel so at home here in DC. I can see the Russian Embassy from my hotel room! It's a privilege to be here tonight at the Washington DC Barnes & Noble. Tonight, I'll be reading excerpts from my new book. Perhaps you've heard of it? "Going Rogue." Yukon wasn't sure if I'd go with that title and somebody suggested I follow the East Coast self-help trend and go with, "How To Look Like A Million Bucks...For Only 150 Grand." Todd liked, "The Audacity of North Slope." [She nods to him as he's at the head table] Hey, I considered not having a title at all. I've said it before, but you Beltway types just don't seem to get it. You don't need a title to make an impact. But anyway, let's get started.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/04/09
Here's the question of the week: What if King Canute had been a liberal? You know the ancient tale. Canute (985-1035), son of Sven Forkbeard, Viking ruler of both Scandinavia and England, tired of the endless flattery of courtiers trying to curry his favor, ordered his throne brought to the seashore at Bosham in West Sussex on England's southern coast. Ensconced on his throne wearing his royal robes and commanding his courtiers to stand around him, he delivered a Royal Order to the sea to stop the incoming tide so that his royal feet should not get wet. The sea did not obey, the tide washed over his feet, whereupon he railed at his flatterers: "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey by eternal laws." But what if Canute had been a liberal? What if he really believed he could command the tide - and continued to believe it as the tide washed over him and threatened to sweep him out to sea? Wouldn't that remind you of Democrats facing the tide of 2010? Of glowarmers commanding the tide of truth to stop? Of the OPM (Obama Propaganda Media) denying the very existence of tides?
THE SIEGE OF MALTA
Valletta, Malta. This small European island country in the Mediterranean south of Sicily and close to the north coast of Africa is where civilization emerged from the Stone Age. It is where Western Civilization was saved from being conquered by Islam. Today, Malta is under siege again, from another horde of Moslem invaders. This time, there are no Knights of Malta to protect the Maltese - almost 100% of whom are Christian Europeans - and the barbarian aliens invading their nation are aided by barbarian liberals within Europe. The story is both ancient and is at the vanguard of the future. Europe's future, America's future, and the future of Christianity vs. Islam.
OBAMA ON AFGHANISTAN: NUTS, STUPID, AND IMMORAL
Just plain nuts: That's the only possible characterization for last night's (12/02) presidential declaration of surrender in advance of a renewed campaign in Afghanistan. President Obama will send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan -- but he'll "begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011." Then why send them? If you're going to tell the Taliban to be patient because we're leaving, what's the point in upping the blood ante? For what will come down to a single year by the time the troops hit the ground? Our president is setting up our military to fail -- but he'll be able to claim that he gave the generals what they wanted. Failure will be their fault. He's covering his strong-on-security flank, even as he plays to our white-flag wavers. His cynicism's worthy of a Saddam. This isn't just stupid: It's immoral. No American president has ever espoused such a worthless, self-absorbed non-strategy for his own political gratification.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/27/09
A prefatory note before we begin this Thanksgiving Edition of the HFR: I am celebrating in particular the at-long-last completion of The Jade Steps. The final chapter, the Epilogue, was finished this week. Once the final edit is done, it will be available as an E-Book, and then in a print edition. It is one of history's most epic sagas of heroic love and liberation - and one of the most unknown, misunderstood, and distorted. As I have said, The Jade Steps is a true story. Every principal event described actually happened, every named person really lived and had that name. It all happened almost 500 years ago, but it still remains the cause of the civil war within Mexico's soul. Mexico will never rise out of the Third World and overcome its inferiority complex towards America until this spiritual wound is healed. That is the purpose of this book -- and hopefully, the movie. *** Hear that sound - the wails of fury, the gnashing of teeth of the world's Fascist Left over its defeat by tiny little Honduras?
WHY LIBERALS CAN’T CELEBRATE THANKSGIVING
The reason is history. Not the childish make-believe of your kid's grammar school play of how the noble Squanto taught the helpless Mayflower Pilgrims how to feed themselves. No, the real thing. Here it is. The real history of the Mayflower Pilgrims was recounted by their leader, William Bradford (1590-1657) in his book Of Plymouth Plantation, completed in 1647. It is from Bradford that we learn of Squanto, who did indeed show the Pilgrims how to "set" or plant corn (a new unfamiliar crop for them). Then we learn that the Pilgrims taught the Indians how to grow more corn than they ever had before: "The Indeans used to have nothing so much corne as they have since the English have stored them with their hoes, and seene their industrie in breaking up new grounds therwith." Reading the real history of the Pilgrims is so revelatory that I want you to see it at length. The Pilgrims landed in December 1620, suffered a horrible winter, figured out how to fish and hunt that spring and summer so that there may have been some sort of feast with friendly Indians in the fall of 1621 - although Bradford doesn't recount the incident. But by 1622 they were starving. There was no "Thanksgiving" that year. There was the next - for 1623 saw the Pilgrims in well-fed abundance, and thus was the year of the real First Thanksgiving. What made the difference? Here are Bradford's own words describing Anno Dom.1623:
EPILOGUE
The Jade Steps: Epilogue It was nighttime. Streetlamps spread a mist of light into the Jardin de la Conchita, where Tim and Cindy Jorgensen had been listening for hours to Maria Consuelo tell her story. Now she was finished, and Tim and Cindy were speechless. They sat in stunned silence, until Cindy finally stammered, "That... that is the most extraordinary story I have ever heard - and it is true, it's real history, it all really happened?" Maria smiled gently. "Yes, it's all true. There are witnesses who wrote it down, like Bernal. It is one of the greatest stories of heroism in the history of mankind - and it is the tragedy of Mexicans that they have spit on it." "But how is that possible?" Tim protested. "Why isn't La Malinche worshipped as the great heroine of Mexico?" "She is to us, the mestizos who are her descendants - but not to the criollos, and they have always controlled Mexico."
THE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY OF GLOBAL WARMING
This is what they did - these climate "scientists" on whose unsupported word the world's classe politique proposes to set up an unelected global government this December in Copenhagen. An unelected global government with vast and unprecedented powers to control all formerly free markets, to tax wealthy nations and all of their financial transactions, to regulate the economic and environmental affairs of all nations, and to confiscate and extinguish all patent and intellectual property rights. The tiny, close-knit clique of climate scientists who invented and now drive the "global warming" fraud - for fraud is what we now know it to be - tampered with temperature data so assiduously that, on the recent admission of one of them, land temperatures since 1980 have risen twice as fast as ocean temperatures. Now we know why: As a revealing 15,000-line document from the computer division at the Climate Research Unit shows, the programs and data are a hopeless, tangled mess. In effect, the global temperature trends have simply been made up.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/20/09
Perhaps you've enjoyed reading about how Israel has "brushed off" Zero's demands for no more Jews in Jerusalem. Zero has now stamped his foot and claimed it was "dangerous" for Israel to ignore him and build more homes for its citizens. Israel shrugs. It is becoming blindingly obvious that Zero's antipathy to Israel is due to his being a Third World America/Israel-hating Moslem at heart. There couldn't be clearer evidence for this than his appointing radical Moslems to key positions in the Department of Homeland Security. We should not be surprised that someone who bows to the King of Saudi Arabia would do this. What did America expect by electing someone with three Moslem names and attends a church that prays for God to damn America? Zero's election is an ultimate object lesson regarding the masochism of the fear of envy.
THE DOMINO OF HONDURAS
Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It is an overwhelming, inspiring experience to be here. There are no people in the world more worthy of our admiration and respect right now than Hondurans. For the initial background on the situation here, see The Bravest Country In The World from last July. This is what's happening now. First, the description of Honduras in the State Department Travel Warning is a lie. The US ambassador, Hugo Llorens, is the most despised man in Honduras for his bootlicking of Mel Zelaya, and insists on warning Americans not to come here. This country is at peace. There are no roadblocks, no problems of any kind that I saw. Everything is normal. There are no demonstrations. I went to all four entrances to the Brazilian embassy where Zelaya is holed up. They were blocked by concrete barriers and armed police guards - who couldn't be more bored for there was absolutely nobody, not one single lone demonstrator for Zelaya to be seen. From taxi drivers to businessmen to shoppers in the malls to folks on the street, Hondurans are extremely proud of how their country stood up to the bullying of the world. "We are the little country that could," is an expression you hear often.
IS THERE ANOTHER GOVERNOR LIKE SARAH PALIN?
The last 45 of my 66 years I've spent in a commercial fishing town in Alaska. I understand Alaska politics but never understood national politics well until this last year. Here's the breaking point: Neither side of the Palin controversy gets it. It's not about persona, style, rhetoric, it's about doing things. Even Palin supporters never mention the things that I'm about to mention here. 1- Democrats forget when Palin was the Darling of the Democrats, because as soon as Palin took the Governor's office away from a fellow Republican and tough SOB, Frank Murkowski, she tore into the Republican's "Corrupt Bastards Club" (CBC) and sent them packing. Many of them are now residing in State housing and wearing orange jump suits. The Democrats reacted by skipping around the yard, throwing confetti and singing "la la la la" (well, you know how they are). Name another governor in this country that has ever done anything similar. But while you're thinking, I'll continue.
FORT HOOD AND THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN TERRORIST
Much has been written already about what happened at Fort Hood last week but precious little as to why it happened. To understand why it happened it may be useful to start by reminding ourselves again that the mass murder at Fort Hood was the first act of suicide terrorism on American soil by a homegrown Islamic extremist. To come to this conclusion we do not need to know what motivated Major Malik Nidal Hasan, but only that he was a Moslem and that he was on a suicide mission. There is no doubt about the former and little doubt that somebody embarked on mass murder in a military base had much hope of coming out alive. The real question then, is not what made Major Hasan commit mass murder, but how he became a terrorist. It is a question of seminal relevance given the strong probability that homegrown terrorism might well be a greater threat to homeland security in the future than foreign jihadists. To understand the nature of the problem a quick look at the origins and evolution of Islamic extremism in America and its sponsors is essential.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/13/09
Roatan, Honduras. It's far easier to get from the US to here than from Tikal, Guatemala. It took me an entire day. You can fly from Houston (Continental) or Atlanta (Delta) nonstop in less than three hours. Roatan is the largest of the Bay Islands off the Honduran Caribbean coast, 37 miles long and five miles at its widest, home to 30,000, some 3,000 of whom are expats from the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Increasing numbers of Americans are figuring out that this is the tropical paradise they've been looking for as a safety escape while Hurricane Obama passes by. I'll have lots more to say about it in my report on Honduras next week. *** I just learned from TTPer Paul Rosenberg, developer of Cryptohippie, that I am a character in a libertarian video game called 2011: Obama's Coup Fails. It posits that after the Dems suffer devastating losses in the 2010 elections, Zero suspends Congress and rules by executive decree. An armed rebellion breaks out. The player (you) joins the leaders of the rebellion, known as The Founders, in combat against the crumbling Marxist forces of Obama's loyalist Black Tigers, the Islamic fundamentalist Nation of Malsi, and The Cong - a group of de-elected Democrats. Evidently, I am one of The Founders. In the Breaking News section of the game, a news bulletin entitled "Hillary Clinton Finally Captured," dated March 15, 2011, begins: "Upon receiving an anonymous tip, the forces of Jack Wheeler, Ollie North, and the CIA were able to track down and capture former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton." I don't know the game designers, and just found out about this from Paul. But it's cool, don't you think? That's the fun news. Now for the ominous news.
THE APOCALYPSE OF 2012
Tikal Mayan Ruins, Guatemala. I just got a wonderful birthday present from my wonderful wife. Knowing that scuba-diving is my favorite outdoor activity, and that I've dreamed of diving the famous Blue Hole in Belize - that's what I got for my birthday. It was incredible. Just across the border in northern Guatemala are the gigantic Mayan ruins of Tikal, so I caught a bush plane over to here, and after exploring the ruins am now ensconced in a lodge where I have an internet connection so I can write this - while being serenaded by roars of howler monkeys and barks of toucans in the surrounding jungle. The Tikal temple complex was built by an impressive and successful culture that flourished from 400 to 900 AD. Then it died. It wasn't conquered. It just collapsed, died, and vanished from history, leaving behind only the extraordinary ruins overgrown with jungle, and the Mayan people mired in subsistence poverty, totally ignorant of the great achievements of their ancestors. Sure sounds like a possible future for America, the future the current White House occupant seems determined to have for us.
HEAR, SEE, SPEAK NO MOSLEM TERRORISM
As President Obama belatedly appeared at Fort Hood today (11/10), he did not dare to speak the word "terror." He did not use the word "Islamist." He did not even mention Islam at all. We've already learned that Islamist terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan attended the Northern Virginia mosque of Imam Anwar al-Aulaqi, a fiery al Qaeda supporter who later fled the United States. We know that Hasan's peers, subordinates and patients repeatedly raised red flags that his superiors suppressed. We know he was a player on Islamist-extremist Web sites. The FBI's uncovering one extremist link after another. But to call this an act of terrorism, the White House would need an autographed photo of Osama bin Laden helping Hasan buy weapons in downtown Killeen, Texas. Even that might not suffice.
OUR GOVERNMENT WOULD RATHER ALIENATE AMERICANS THAN ISLAMISTS
Poll after poll indicates that official Washington is held in very low regard by the American people. One reason is that our leaders are seen as out of touch with the realities confronting ordinary folks - and with what those folks' common sense suggests are appropriate responses to such realities. There could scarcely be a more graphic example of that disconnect - and its ominous implications - than the contortions the U.S. government is now going through in the wake of the murder of 13 people and the wounding of dozens more at Fort Hood last week. For example, the FBI declared immediately after the attack that it was not an act of terrorism. Other officials are promoting the idea that it is simply a case of an individual afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or deranged by the prospect of an upcoming deployment to a war zone. Mr. Obama insists that we should reserve judgment, evidently because the facts are open to varying interpretations. Such statements are an affront to most Americans' intelligence which commonsensically applies a prosaic form of the scientific method: They look for the explanation that best fits the facts.
AS THE WORLD BURNS
As USS New York, forged with steel from the Twin Towers, prepares to join the fleet, she will enter a world of crises. As we obsess over worthless Afghan real estate, truly vital problems loom abroad. Violent challenges to our security and strategic position are slighted or ignored, while a combination of politics, pride and inertia bind us to a distant land of marginal relevance. The crises highlighted below are not in order of priority. Any of them could take a painful bite out of Washington's complacency:
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/06/09
Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey never put on a circus better than the one being played for your entertainment right now, today (11/06), on Capitol Hill. Pelosi Galore is in a state of screaming rage and panicked desperation, making every bribe and threat she can to get the votes for PelosiCare to pass tomorrow, Saturday. She knows that if Members can go home for the weekend and get a load of their constituents' volcanic anger before the vote, her bill is toast. So hundreds of Members are having the Congressional Travel Office hold two flight reservations for them, one for this evening, another for tomorrow night. They are waiting for Steny Hoyer (Pelosi's Segundo) to complete his count. Then, if he announces late this afternoon there will be a vote tomorrow, it means he thinks he has enough. If he announces a postponement, it means he doesn't. As Jack Kelly says, bullying from a position of weakness isn't very smart. Trying to threaten people into committing suicide may work for Moslem crazies, but rarely for politicians, even Democrats. It is going to be so much fun watching this slow-motion train wreck.
BAJA DEMOCRATS
Cabo San Lucas, Baja California. The balcony view from a suite at the Marquis Los Cabos overlooking the Sea of Cortez is breathtaking. My wife Rebel and I are here attending a business conference - but at the moment, we are enjoying a margarita and a spectacular sunset in the ocean. Ever-observant, Rebel notices that my eyes have become unfocused, and asks what I'm thinking about. "Nicholas Trist," I answer. "Who's he?" she asks. "One of the great jerks of American history," I respond. She takes a sip of her margarita, gazes out upon the shimmering sheet of sunlit blue in front of us, and waits for the rest of the story. So here it is. Starting almost 500 years ago, it's ultimately about the negative value of Baja Democrats.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/30/09
Have you heard the latest joke in Stockholm? The Swedes love to poke fun at Norwegians whom they consider their Scandinavian country bumpkin cousins (like Canadians tell "Newfie" jokes about folks from Newfoundland). The Swedish Nobel Committee awards all the real prizes, while the one in Norway gets to award the Peace prize as a consolation. So the Swedes couldn't resist ridiculing the Norwegian committee's latest lunacy. "Heard the news?" they're asking. "Obama just won the Nobel Fis Prize." "Fis" is pronounced as rhyming with "peace." It means "fart" in Swedish - a particularly long and odiferous one. The Swedes find it doubly funny because "fis" has the same meaning in Norwegian. *** Speaking of jokes reminds me of Newt Gingrich...
THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF ISLAM
Recent months have seen a number of unexpected and extremely encouraging statements coming out of the Moslem world. Respected, mainstream Moslem leaders in a variety of countries have voiced opinions which are at odds with traditional, conservative Islam. They have challenged aspects of shari‘a and are calling for a liberal, modernist, enlightened Islam compatible with Western norms. Perhaps the most significant of all is a report by a group of British Moslems calling for an end to the apostasy law and for full freedom in all religious matters. Significant cracks seem to be forming within the mainstream Islam. Important mainstream leaders are coming out against long-held key traditional views and Wahhabi-Salafi doctrines and practices, openly supporting ideas compatible with modernity. Here are some examples.
THE CHOICES & POWER PLAN B WORKSHOP
You're well aware of the "Remember The Alamo" Rendezvous VII in San Antonio January 29-31. It's where TTPers gather together as a family for a weekend of learning, conviviality, and the joyous fun of being with fellow pro-Americans. My brilliant bride, Rebel, who authors TTP's Plan B column, can hardly wait for San Antonio, like me. And now she has come up with a brilliant idea to hold a special one-day Plan B Workshop devoted to enabling you to preserve and protect your financial security. The Choices & Power Financial Plan B Workshop will be held on December 9th in St. Louis. Rebel asked me to be there and speak, and I enthusiastically agreed. She's lined up star speakers like Chuck Butler, publisher of The Daily Pfennig; Frank Trotter, founding partner of Everbank; and Erika Nolan, executive director of The Sovereign Society. Rebel has fire in her eyes when she talks about this. She's seriously determined to help TTPers get out of harm's way in 2010. How serious? She explained to me:
THE DEMOCRATS’ DARK DEPRESSION SECRET
What do you think of when you hear or see a reference to The Great Depression of the 1930s? What emotions come up for you? For you and other normal Americans, words like "catastrophe" and "nightmare" come to mind, along with images of unemployment lines blocks long, soup kitchens, and heartbreaking poverty. All the emotions associated with it are negative. America would have been incredibly better off if The Great Depression had never happened, right? You may think and feel that way, but Democrats - the folks who run the Democrat Party - don't. You may consider The Great Depression to be the worst thing that ever happened to America, next to the Civil War. But for the Democrats, it was the best. After all, the Democrats built their political power on The Great Depression and are very thankful for it. Further, it's their template. If The Great Depression was their path to power before, then replicating it today is seen as the way to maintain their power into the future. This is the Democrats' Dark Depression Secret. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
AMERICAS FUTURE AND THE EAST COAST
Wasilla, Alaska. As I stand here in a high school gymnasium watching freshmen girls' basketball games, I'm struck by the sight of America's future right in front of me - these tenacious young women full of energy and intensity. I want them to realize every opportunity this great, free nation can provide. There are big political races on the East Coast that are coming down to the wire - the results of which will impact policies and political actions that touch all of us in every state. Like other independent Americans, I don't always see eye-to-eye with Republican political committees, so when I tell you that the Republican Governors Association has my complete support and confidence in its campaign efforts back East, know that I really mean it. The RGA is helping lead the conservative comeback beginning this year, and its involvement in the East Coast races is significant. Let's consider the governor's race in New Jersey.
A FIGHT FOR AMERICA
The reason I'm running for office in New York's 23rd Congressional District is because the American Dream is quickly becoming a nightmare. Unemployment grows, our economy is in crisis, and our elected officials seem out of touch with reality. They are addicted to spending. When they run low on funds they simply create a new tax or raise an old one. Taxes, the deficit, red tape and regulation are breaking the back of the nation, mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren. Americans have had enough and are vocalizing their anger in town hall meetings and on the streets of Washington. They are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore! That's why I am running. I am one of them! Freedom is what Americans want. Economic freedom to reap the rewards of the free enterprise system, personal freedom from the intrusion of big government in our lives, freedom from the nanny state that is being forced upon us.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/23/09
It was a scary conversation. I was talking to the chief of staff of a solid conservative Republican senator. I think the world of him as a close friend, he's a true good-guy pro-American - but he's so wrapped up in the day-to-day process of the Senate that it can startle him when he's asked to glimpse the reality of beyond the Beltway. We were talking about the fate of ObamaCare, and he had his black hat on telling me how the Dems will ram it through. "If that happens," I said, "out could come the guns." All he could manage in response was a garbled "Huh?" "You and your boss need to grab people where you work by the lapels. They have no real grasp of the depth of anger among their constituents. Those constituents own hundreds of millions of guns. There will be violence, buddy, if this thing passes, politicians gunned down in the streets." To say he was gobsmacked is a gross understatement. I went on to assure him how disastrous I thought the consequences would be - not just for the recipients of the violence but for its perpetrators: "Violence is extremely traumatizing for those who participate in it. The one Eastern European country that overthrew Communism violently - Romania - still hasn't recovered from it." Further, I went on, "violence may be just what Zero wants, as an excuse to steal people's guns and impose martial law. The last thing we want is violence, it's only a truly last resort, which is why you and the good guys on the Hill need to do whatever it takes to stop ObamaCare in its tracks."
A DITHERING DEMAGOGUING WHITE HOUSE THAT IS A DANGER TO AMERICA
[This is the full text of former Vice-President Dick Cheney's speech at the Center for Security Policy award dinner in Washington on October 21, 2009. To The Point salutes Dick Cheney for his courage, honesty, and great contributions to America who should today be in the White House in place of the anti-American impostor currently occupying it.] Thank you all very much. Its a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends...And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is -- the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States. Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier. With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country's word. So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration...