Dr. Jack Wheeler
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/13/10
Of all the headlines in all the news publications on the planet this week, there's one that struck me as the strangest. In today's (8/13) British newspaper The Independent, the headline blares out at you: Why Is The World Unmoved By The Plight Of Pakistan? Just to make totally sure you get the guilt-trip, right at the top of the article is a close-up picture of an old woman's tear-filled eye. The story is strange for two reasons. First, "The World" in the headline clearly means "The West." Why are we the world? Did all the oil-rich Moslem countries like Saudi Arabia (which spends billions on turning Pakistani boys into terrorists in their Wahhabi medressahs or Moslem indoctrination schools) just fall off the edge of the earth? Here's the second reason. Instead of this guilt-trip headline, why isn't there a headline in any major news publication asking: Why Is Obama Unmoved By The Plight Of The Unemployed? Far - far - more heartbreaking for Americans than Paks up to their butts in mud is the sight of their fellow Americans hungry, broke, and desperate for a job they can't find. Yet Zero doesn't care - he really actually couldn't care less. He'd rather be playing golf. He has no intention whatever of increasing employment other than put more people on government handouts (or government jobs which is the same thing). Most folks intuit this to be true but don't understand the actual mechanism engineered to make it true.
BLOW IT UP
It is important to drive this message into the thick dhimmitized skulls of New York City's spineless political weasels: The Ground Zero Mosque will not be built - this will literally not stand. Whatever measures necessary to prevent its existence will be taken. Period. While the Dhimmi Pols fulminate over this statement, and engage in the only behavior they know: call names - racist! bigot! - like a 5th grader as they are incapable of logical argument, we can get to work answering questions, starting with: How can the project be blown up as in economically sabotaged so it never gets built and has to be blown up physically? When you think about it, there are lots of ways to blow this thing up, as in ruin it, so that it never gets built at all. The Ground Zero Mosque is, in fact, a perfect opportunity to force the issue of Liberal/Democrat Moslem appeasement, to force the issue of whether Islam really is a religion or a totalitarian political ideology disguised as, pretending to be, a religion.
IF HITLER WAS GOD
The scene: It is November, 1943. We're in Camp Shelby, just outside of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where 5,300 German prisoners of war are interned. The Geneva Conventions are being strictly adhered to, with food (prepared by German cooks), clothing, and medical care equal to their captors. The German POWs have formed soccer and volleyball teams, with descriptions and results of the tournaments between them reported in the camp newspaper, The Mississippi Post. A Nazi church has been erected in the camp, where Nazi worshippers attend services held by Nazi chaplains. In their sermons, the chaplains instruct that: "Nazism is the true religion, the Aryan Soul the only true God, our understanding of Whom has been brought to us by His Holiness, Adolph Hitler. Our Führer, Adolph Hitler is the true Holy Ghost. He is the human form of the Aryan Soul instantiated here on earth. We believe on this earth solely in Adolph Hitler and his sacred teachings." The Nazi Bible, Mein Kampf, is treated with careful reverence by the American camp guards. "The Holy Mein Kampf must never be placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas," state the detailed rules issued by the Pentagon. "Only Nazi chaplains may handle the Holy Nazi Book, or by guards only after putting on clean white gloves in full view of the POWs." "The Holy Mein Kampf," states the Pentagon's directive, "should be treated like a ‘fragile piece of delicate art.'"
CZAR VLAD IS GETTING SCORCHED
Red-headed spy Anna Fermanova is no longer the hottest thing in Russia. Now it's the 500 out-of-control wildfires devouring thousands of square miles of the countryside. This conflagration makes California's annual blazes look like Boy Scout campfires. The fires have consumed entire villages and ravaged the critical wheat harvest; now they threaten a key nuclear-weapons-research facility. A huge naval logistics base burned -- along with 200 helicopters and planes. But the reputation of Russia's new czar, Prime Minister Vladimir "Czar Vlad" Putin, may have been scorched worst of all. The disastrous forest and peat-bog infernos encircling Moscow have exposed the Potemkin-village nature of Putin's vaunted efficiency. All the czar's men can't even put out a brush fire.
HALF-FULL REPORT 08/06/10
Relax. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, then another, think of a beautiful sunset and the smell of an ocean breeze. If it's not too early - the sun is over the yard-arm somewhere - pour yourself three fingers of your favorite adult libation. It's going to be okay. True enough, parts of the world around you went even more nuts this week. A left-wing looney with contempt for the Constitution became a Supreme Court Justice. A left-wing limp-wrist judge with contempt for the very basis of what makes us human and for millions of his state's voters forces his homosexuality upon us all. Yet there's also good news, good judicial news. While Judge "Swish" Walker was emasculating Prop 8, the California Supreme Court upheld Prop 209 - 6 to 1! - this week (8/02) which bans "affirmative action," i.e., preferential treatment of women and minorities in public school admissions, government hiring and contracting. The Left took a real hit on this one. Yet that wasn't the only one, for on that same day (8/02) the Left suffered a double-whammy when US District Judge Henry Hudson refused to dismiss the State of Virginia's suit against ObamaCare on the grounds of unconstitutionality. This, potentially, is a much bigger deal than banning affirmative action. Here's why...
REVOLUTIONARY CONSTITUTIONALISM
Required reading for most any course in the Philosophy of Science is Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Kuhn distinguished between "normal science," which is essentially puzzle-solving - trying to answer unsolved issues arising within a framework or "paradigm" of accepted scientific principles - and "revolutionary science," which is when the unsolved issues can no longer be answered within the paradigm and must be replaced by a new paradigm. The classic historic example is Ptolemaic astronomy, which tried to explain the motions of the planets within the geocentric paradigm - that the sun revolved around the earth. This "normal science" finally became so unbearably complicated that it broke down, to be replaced by the heliocentric "Copernican Revolution" - that the earth revolved around the sun (which Sir Francis Bacon accepted but called "a rape of the senses"). So let's talk about The Structure of Political Revolutions.
BUSH WON THE WAR IN IRAQ, IS OBAMA LOSING THE PEACE ON PURPOSE?
One president gave his premature "Mission Accomplished" speech about Iraq on the deck of an aircraft carrier. Now another has given his own version as part of a Chicago-ward-politics sales pitch to disabled veterans. The difference is that the first guy was sincere. President Obama's pork-barrel speech to the Disabled Veterans of America yesterday (if you want to help our vets, Mr. President, shut up and do it) would have drawn a blush from those Soviet propagandists who cropped purged Politburo members from Stalin-era photographs. Ignoring his own opposition to the liberation of Iraq, supporting our troops and the surge, Obama spoke as if all's well in Baghdad -- thanks to him. We won that war, but we still can lose the peace. Obama shunned the fact that, almost half a year after its last national election, Iraq doesn't have a new government. Determined to abandon "Bush's war," Obama's been AWOL in Baghdad. Does he want to lose Iraq and throw away the sacrifice of all those Americans who died to win there?
THE TRAGIC TREASON OF WIKILEAKS
If we needed yet another example of Washington's self-absorption, we sure got it with the WikiLeaks dump of classified data on AfPak. Government officials promptly freaked about the political consequences. The rush to insist that "there's nothing new here" and that the leaks "really don't change anything" was dishonest even by DC standards. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies! The victims of this tragic event aren't punch-drunk White House staffers or members of Congress up for re-election. They're not the wed-to-Pakistan wonks at State or even the Pentagon's hide-the-bad-news generals. The forgotten victims are our troops on the ground. And the Afghans who've risked everything to help them. And what troubles Washington? The administration, which blithely assured voters it knew how to fix Afghanistan, is worried about eroding poll numbers. Congressional Democrats tied to the president's AfPak policies to prove their toughness on national security are panicked about voter backlash. The troops come last to them.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/30/10
Growing up as a teenage California surfer in the late 50s/early 60s, my favorite music was Surf Rock. The record we all loved the most then is the one that keeps reverberating in my head now with little more than 90 days to go until November 2nd. In 1962, five kids from Glendora High School (Jim Fuller, Bob Berryhill, Ron Wilson, Jim Pash, and Pat Connolly) called themselves The Surfaris, and talked the owner of a small recording studio in Cucamonga, Dale Smallin, into recording a song of theirs called Surfer Joe. Needing something for the throw-away "B-side" of the 45 record, Ron Wilson started blasting away on the drums while Jim Fuller went wild with surf guitar riffs. Dale Smallin decided for a gag to start it off with his crazy Witch Laugh cackle. They named it after what happens to a surfer when a giant wave crashes on his head. Here it is now, the greatest surf music ever played - and it should be the theme song for what's going to happen to Democrats this fall:
THE SPEECH EVERY AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL PRINCIPAL SHOULD GIVE
To the students and faculty of our high school as we begin a new academic year this September of 2010: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people. I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against your country. First, this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity -- your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.
WHO IS GIVING WAR A CHANCE?
Hear them? The war drums, pounding louder and louder. In response to them, the Persian Midget, Mahmoud Ahmadinutjob announced on Iranian Press TV that the US has "hatched a plot" with Israel to attack Iran "within the next three months." Hmmm... three months. That would be, like... October. How convenient. A lot of TTPers are convinced that Zero's October Surprise is an Arab-Israeli attack on Iran for which he can claim credit for allowing or winking at. We should all wish him well in this endeavor. If there is to be an October Surprise, let's hope this is it. Just why Zero will think it will help the electoral chances of Congressional Dems in November is not clear. It will outrage the Moonbat Left, who will just not show up at the voting booth, while all the Pubs and Indies will cheer an attack on Iran and then pull the GOP lever anyway. Now if Zero thinks that giving war a chance is the way to give his Dems a chance, all we can say is, cool - go for it. Wiping out the terrorist mullahs and Moslem crazies of Iran would be the best possible October Surprise. But... how could an anti-military metrosexual pantywaist like Zero come up with this idea? Because it's not his idea, and the person whose idea it is talked him into it. Who could that be? Let's go to Seoul, South Korea to find out.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/23/10
Psalms 23:5. That's what comes to mind this week. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. There will be weeks when our cup is bone dry. This week is not one of them, for truly, our cup is running over the top. We start with the death of the Great New Cause of the Left, its substitute for Marxism as a rationale for control of everyone's life, Warmism. Its insufferably sanctimonious champion had the final nail driven into his reputation's coffin Wednesday (7/21), as two more women came forward with rape-abuse charges. Algore is belly up. That came on the heels of one of the liberal media's most prominent mouthpieces, Newsweek, declaring (7/12) The Green Retreat - that Warmism is over as a major political force. Confirmation came yesterday (7/22), with Reid and Kerry throwing in the Cap and Trade towel. As the Wall Street Journal reported: "Senate Democratic leaders Thursday shelved their effort to cap greenhouse-gas emissions as part of a broad energy bill, putting aside indefinitely a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's ambitious effort to transform the way Americans produce and consume energy." That should make any freedom-lover's week. But there's so much more.
RATIONAL OPTIMISM
As "The Oasis for Rational Conservatives," To The Point espouses a world-view that could be called rational optimism. It is encapsulated every week in (and in the very title of) The Half-Full Report. Smart-aleck cynics claim the term "rational optimism" is an oxy-moron. We can thank them for sharing, and suggest they learn a little history - such as about the most successful presidency of modern times, that of Ronald Reagan whose success was due in large part to his cheerful - and rational - optimism. Sober cynics, however, who have studied history, claim that any optimism expressed today as America's freedom and prosperity are being maliciously destroyed by the Fascist Left is like the devil-may-care insouciance expressed in the movie Cabaret. The scene is Berlin in 1931 as Weimar Germany is facing the emerging Nazi threat. Germans wishing to ignore the threat are welcomed to the Kit Kat Club with the movie's theme song: No use permitting some prophet of doom To wipe every smile away. Come hear the music play. Life is a Cabaret, old chum, Come to the Cabaret! But this is irrational optimism, stupid, adolescent, and cowardly. Rational optimism is based on brains and gonads focused on optimizing the vulnerabilities of the evil with which you are confronted. It is also based on as wide a context as possible. So we're going to start 500,000 years ago, and work our way right down to upcoming state legislature races. Buckle your seat belts.
THE COMING CHRISTIAN CRUSADE AGAINST ISLAM IN AFRICA
The Islamists have it wrong: Islam isn't the world's fastest-growing religion. By birth numbers and convert tallies, it's Christianity. And Africa's at the forefront -- a fact that's going to body-slam Moslem extremists sooner or later. The bombings that recently butchered World Cup fans in Uganda were just the latest in a long line of crazed attacks on African Christians by Islamist fanatics. In the central states of Nigeria -- Africa's most-populous country -- religious pogroms and counter-pogroms between Moslems and Christians have become routine. In Kenya, al Shabaab terrorists from neighboring Somalia stir up trouble and make grotesque threats. And we all know what bestial acts Sudan's Islamist government has perpetrated against black Christians over the decades. Throughout the region, patience is wearing thin. Africa's impassioned forms of Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity won't turn the other cheek forever. The coming backlash could be ferocious. Here comes the next Christian Crusade.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/16/10
Last week (7/08) in This Is No Accident, Comrades, we discussed this possibility:
"Our country is faced with an impending economic catastrophe, a Second Great Depression. It is being brought about on purpose by a political party that cares only for keeping and expanding its power, and looks upon prosperity as a threat to that power. That party is now being threatened with being thrown out of power. If that party is evil enough and fascist enough to cause an economic catastrophe, it is certainly evil and fascist enough to cause a physical catastrophe, an Ultimate October Surprise, that will frighten and enrage voters enough to preserve its power in November. What could this be? The most likely would be another 9/11, a massively horrific terrorist attack, perhaps even nuclear."This week (7/13), the London Financial Times interviewed a key power-broker of the Democrat Party, Robert Shapiro, Clinton's Undersecretary of Commerce and founder of the hyper-liberal Progressive Policy Institute, on Democrat prospects in November. Here's the money quote:
"The bottom line here is that Americans don't believe in President Obama's leadership. He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can't think of how he could do that."Did you just say, OMG?
THE MARINES’ WARRIOR MONK
Nominated last week to replace Gen. David Petraeus as the head of the US Central Command, the Marine Corps' Gen. Jim Mattis may be the finest four-star on duty in any service today. He's certainly the humblest. And maybe the smartest -- but he'll let you figure that out for yourself. If confirmed, Mattis will team with Petraeus on AfPak, but he'll also be responsible for the vast surrounding region. He won't micromanage Petraeus. Instead, he'll support his nominal subordinate every way he can. He'll build the frame, letting Petraeus paint the Afghan canvas. Grunts respect Petraeus. But they love Jim Mattis. His nickname among Marines is the "Warrior Monk" -- because he's dedicated his life to the Corps. So of course, he's hated by the left-wing media.
HOW CORRUPT IS THE AFGHAN GOVERNMENT OUR SOLDIERS ARE DYING FOR?
Almost every story about Afghanistan you read nowadays mentions how "corrupt" the Afghan government in Kabul is - and then moves on, rarely citing any real specifics. So let's get granular with the gory details of just how corrupt, crooked, and criminal the Karzai regime is for which tens of thousands of American soldiers are risking their lives to keep in power. The regime is led by Hamid Karzai and three of his six brothers, Mahmoud, Qayum, and Ahmad Wali (known by his initials, AWK). The Karzai family are tribal leaders of the Popalzai clan of Pushtuns, which is centered in Kandahar. AWK runs Kandahar for the regime, while the other three are in Kabul. The Karzais are the beneficial owners of a number of private banks in Kabul through which they launder money from bribes, extortion, protection rackets, aid money theft, and heroin smuggling. The banks are...
THE SAD DIVISIVENESS OF THE NAACP
I am saddened by the NAACP's claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America's Constitutional rights are somehow "racists." The charge that Tea Party Americans judge people by the color of their skin is false, appalling, and is a regressive and diversionary tactic to change the subject at hand. In 2008, it seemed that with the election of our first black president, our country had become a new "post-racial" society. As one writer in the Washington Post stated: "[Barack Obama's] election isn't just about a black president. It's about a new America. The days of confrontational identity politics have come to an end." We, as a united people, applauded that sentiment. We were proud of that progress. That's why it is so sad to see that 18 months later, the NAACP is once again using the divisive language of the past to unfairly accuse the Tea Party movement of harboring "racist elements." The only purpose of such an unfair accusation of racism is to dissuade good Americans from joining the Tea Party movement or listening to the common sense message of Tea Party Americans who simply want government to abide by our Constitution, live within its means, and not borrow and spend away our children's futures.
PETRAEUS’ TO-DO LIST
Gen. David Petraeus has an unprecedented opportunity to seize back the momentum in Afghanistan: Neither President Obama nor Congress wants a confrontation with this general. During his honeymoon, he can write his own rules. And he needs to. Fast. To turn the current situation around, Petraeus has to address hundreds of what-now-boss? issues -- but a 10-item to-do list should top his priorities. First, the big-picture stuff:
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/09/10
Las Vegas. It's good to be here at Bally's in Vegas among several thousand pro-freedom folks at Mark Skousen's Freedom Fest. It's also creepy that right across the Strip from Bally's, Zero is at Caesar's as I am writing this. He gave a fund-raising speech for Lost Harry Reid last night (7/08). Believe it or not, his very first words of the speech were "Si, si, puede" - the chant in Spanish of illegal aliens, meaning "Yes, yes we can violate America's laws and live off the American taxpayer with impunity" (then become citizens and vote to keep Dems in office in perpetuity). The Las Vegas Review Journal eviscerated Zero's speech this morning in an editorial entitled, Mr. President, Your Economic Policies Suck. Nevada has the highest unemployment of any state in the US, while Zero's "main economic goals," the LVRJ says, "seem to be the punishment and prevention of capital formation and business growth." You should read the entire editorial. One fear you'll hear expressed here - as well as on the TTP Forum - is the Dems planning an orgy of fascist legislation during a "lame duck" post-election session, as described in the Wall Street Journal today (7/09). This fear is way overblown. Here are four reasons why.
THIS IS NO ACCIDENT, COMRADES
Ever since he was inaugurated in January 2009, inheriting an economic basket case from his predecessor, Zero has done the absolute exact opposite of Ronald Reagan - which is why he is failing. Or is he? He is certainly failing at re-launching the American economy. But what if he defines his success to the extent he makes our economy worse, not better? Yes, as someone who is not an actual American, someone who truly and deeply hates our country, his goal is to ruin America as much as he can. Yet this goal dovetails with that of the Democrat Party's: the continuance and expansion of its political power. A Second Great Depression is the Democrat Party's path to power. Are you thinking, aha, but wait until November 2nd? We'll kick these evil Dems out and spoil their dream! Electoral retribution this November is our dream. What could the Dems do to spoil it? I have lost count now of the number of predictions being made of a GOP "tsunami" in November. Serious political analysts, soberly and without hyperbole, are saying that Dem losses in the House, Senate, Governor's mansions, et al, are likely to be of "historic" proportions. And every one of them unfailingly comes with a caveat, something along the lines of, "barring some huge unexpected disaster for the GOP." Now, if you were Rahm Emanuel, what would that caveat cause you to think about?
LEARNING FROM THE GERMANS
Germany's governing coalition is on the verge of collapse, but the country isn't. Berlin's the one major capital likely to survive the global economic plague in strapping health. In the past, I've written mercilessly about German strategic freeloading, but it's time to give Herr Meier (the German Joe-Sixpack) his due: His attitudes toward spending and saving are admirable. Germany isn't without problems. Its eastern states still haven't recovered from the triumphs of "real existing socialism." Its banks are dangerously exposed to southern European debt. Yet Germany books far more credits than debits. As much of Europe stumbles into negative growth, the German economy's expected to expand at 2.1 percent this year. That isn't dramatic, but it's solid. President Obama insists that only added deficit spending can ease the consequences of our previous economic irresponsibility, but no serious German political leader's buying into his call to throw more money away. Instead, Germany's leaders are playing a strong defense, cutting social benefits and spending instead. They have much to teach Mr. Obama.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/02/10
Sark, Channel Islands. This is a uniquely interesting place from which to celebrate this Fourth of July weekend. As one of the Channel Islands (as in the English Channel although they are much closer to France than England), it is a "Crown Dependency" - meaning it is sovereign and independent except for defense and foreign affairs. Guernsey and Jersey (along with small Herm and Alderney) are the other islands and interesting as well - but Sark is fascinating as the only feudal fiefdom left in Europe, and for being a microcosm of a number of America's difficulties. Think of how useful to our freedom the Sark tradition, dating back to 10th century Norman law, of Clameur de Haro would be. If a citizen believes his rights have been infringed, he can confront the infringer and call out in the presence of witnesses: "Haro, Haro, Haro! À mon aide mon Prince, on me fait tort!" ("Haro, Haro, Haro! To my aid, my Prince! I am being wronged!"). After which he must recite The Lord's Prayer - in French. With this, and the complaint registered with the local court, the accused must immediately cease his actions against the accuser. Think of how this could stop fascist tyrannies by bureaucrats, local to national! Whoever is found by the court to be in the wrong - accused or accuser - is fined or penalized. Loser pays. Imagine making a bureaucrat or politician personally pay for trying to violate a citizen's rights.
PETRAEUS’ WAR
We're failing in Afghanistan. Confirmed as our new commander there, Gen. David Petraeus has the unenviable task of producing something President Obama can call a success. If Petraeus can salvage the situation so that our minimum needs are met, he'll confirm his reputation as the greatest American soldier of our time. Should he falter, he'll go down as the general who sold the Pentagon a disastrous doctrine. Petraeus did not want this job. But our president didn't know to whom else to turn in the wake of last week's debacle with Gen. Stanley McChrystal. Petraeus did his duty, saluted and said, "Yes, sir." Politically, Obama couldn't have made a shrewder choice. Petraeus enjoys cult status on both the right and the moderate left. The question is whether he's the right man militarily.
WHY SHOULD THERE BE AN AFGHANISTAN?
Last week, we learned that Afghanistan is The Doormat of Empires. Yet the ignorant myth of the mighty invincible Afghan keeps getting repeated - even by conservative writers who really ought to know better. Washington Times columnist Jeff Kuhner is an example, who has proclaimed (6/24) that Petraeus is "doomed to fail," that "the jihadist iceberg is about to sink the American juggernaut," because:
Afghanistan is not Iraq. It is the graveyard of empires - a nation whose rugged terrain and collection of disparate warlords and tribes is ideally suited for guerrilla warfare. The vaunted Soviet Red Army was crushed in the 1980s. Imperial Britain was defeated - not once, but twice - during the 19th century. The reason: They got dragged into protracted wars of attrition. Eventually, the fierce, primitive mountains, caves and fighters of Afghanistan wore down much superior forces, slowly bleeding them to death.This is ridiculously not true. Kuhner has obviously neither been to Afghanistan nor studied its actual history but is simply repeating memorized slogans. Thus he asks, "Who lost Afghanistan?" as if this is preordained. Let's ask a different question instead: "Why should there be an Afghanistan at all?" Afghanistan is a problem, not a real country. It is a pain in the world's ass. The solution to the problem is not a futile effort of "nation-building" - that effort is doomed to fail - it is nation-building's opposite: get rid of the problem by getting rid of the country. It's a salvage operation - carve the wreck up and parcel it out to its neighbors. Here's how to do it.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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):
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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: