Dr. Jack Wheeler
THE NEXT GREAT ADVENTURE
"Hey, Jack, when's your next expedition and where to?" That's the question, or variants of it, I'm asked most. For a while now, I've been frustrating a lot of folks who've been bugging me for an answer because I've been unable to give it. Now I can. I've been leading expeditions to remote places in the world for over a third of a century, and during all that time I had a dream of an ultimate way to experience the world, an ultimate set of adventures and expeditions. Now that dream is coming true. Suppose you wanted to traverse the entire length of the Nile River, all 4,000 miles from source (Jinja, Uganda where it exits Lake Victoria) to mouth (Alexandria, Egypt, where it enters the Mediterranean). Or visit the most exotic, the most untouched islands in the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean. How would you do it? You'd have to charter a boat, for a lot of money, and take a lot of time - week upon week, even a month or two. What if there were a way to do it in days? Quickly, comfortably, at substantially less cost than a boat charter yet seeing and experiencing more than from the surface of the water? The world would open up to you in a way impossible before. That's the dream. But how? The answer is...
OUR KIND OF ATTORNEY GENERAL
The current Attorney General for the State of Florida is Bill McCollum. After being a Congressman representing Florida's 5th District for 20 years, he ran for Senate in 2004 only to be screwed by Karl Rove, who wanted Bush's buddy Mel Martinez. Thus we have the pro-illegal alien Martinez in the Senate - but at least Florida lucked out to have McCollum bounce back to be elected its AG last year. How lucky can be seen by a letter McCollum wrote this week (12/03) in his official capacity to the president of the University of Florida. American universities are today dominated by professors and administrators who viciously attack any attempt at giving their students a pro-America education. Finally, here is one state attorney general who has the guts to legally prosecute such viciousness. America needs more Bill McCollums. Here is his letter:
SARASOTA RENDEZVOUS!
Get ready for a To The Point Winter Rendezvous on the sugar-sand white beaches of Sarasota. The dates are Friday February 8 to Sunday February 10. A lot of TTPers are putting a lot of effort into making this work, so that it will the most successful and the most fun Rendezvous so far. Sarasota is Florida's unknown gem. The Ringling Brothers made the place and for years it was the winter headquarters of their famous circus. It's on Florida's west coast 56 miles or an hour's drive south of Tampa (so getting there with direct flights or from Tampa International is easy). It's famous for its white "sugar-sand" beaches, gorgeous sunsets, and many cultural activities, but hasn't got the crowds of snowbirds many other places in Florida have. We'll be updating you with schedules and costs, but we wanted you to know now: Beach Party Rendezvous, 2/8-10, 2008. We are going to have a great time. See you in Sarasota!
SURPRISE! DEMOCRATS STRIVE TO MAKE SUBPRIME MESS WORSE
The global financial problem, stemming from the U.S. subprime mortgage mess, is a direct result of the irresponsibility and incompetence of the U.S. Congress That Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been engaging in Ponzi scheme with taxpayer-subsidized money is obvious to anyone - even Congressmen - due to a series of major accounting and financial corruption scandals in recent years. Politicians have used the board positions in these organizations to reward political cronies (e.g., the fired and indicted head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines, was Bill Clinton's Office of Management and Budget director). Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been very major contributors to congressional campaigns. But rather than clean up the mess they created by getting back to market basics, Democrats in Congress decided last week to make the mess much worse.
WHAT IF THEY WENT HOME?
Recently, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News, wrote a column titled, Mexican Visitor's Lament. She interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while she was visiting Denver. Hernandez said, "They (illegal aliens) pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes....what happens to your country's economy if 20 million people go away?" That's a good question --- it deserves an answer. Over 80% of Americans want secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million vacated America? For starters here in California where I practice law, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupted hospitals and overrun prisons.
PRO-COMMUNIST CONSERVATIVES?
This Tuesday, November 27, a weird full-page ad appeared in The Washington Times directly targeting conservatives. Its headline in big bold print: U.S.-Russia: Toward a political, economic and military alliance. It was paid for by an outfit called america-russia.net. It's not clear if these folks are on the KGB payroll, but they might as well be. They seem to be the same group of Blame America First Conservatives I wrote about back in July of '05: the folks at American Conservative and antiwar.com infected with the disease of Anti-Semitism, who hate Israel more than they love America, who root for America's defeat in Iraq. Now they're rooting for the KGB Billionaire Mafia that runs Russia. Last February, you learned that Putin is The World's Richest and Most Dangerous Gangster, the most corrupt ruler in world history, having accumulated a personal fortune of over 20 billion dollars - and control over thousands of nukes. You also learned that Bush and Cheney were contemplating exposing Putin's billionaire corruption. There's been a lot of debate in the White House about this, but it looks like the first salvo has finally been fired.
SNIPE HUNT FOR PEACE
Karl Marx was an evil fool, but he did utter an occasional witticism - such as history does get repeated: "The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." You can imagine his bitter laughter if he had witnessed Condi's Farce in Annapolis this week. There have been a number of first times, efforts of bottomless naiveté to "achieve peace in the Middle East." It's hard to believe, after all of this, that Condi Rice and her boss can be so actually naïve to think another Snipe Hunt for Peace is anything but. Annapolis, however, is Condi's show, not Bush's. He's not that naïve to bet his legacy on a snipe hunt. Texans know what a snipe hunt is. So he let Condi stage her extravaganza, delegates from 49 countries including a gaggle of Arabs from such places that don't recognize Israel as Bahrain, Qatar, Morocco, and Pakistan. The main achievement was they all agreed to continue talking. In the Middle East, continuing to talk is considered close enough, like in horseshoes and hand grenades. But if the talk is to actually accomplish peace between Israel and her neighbors, then three requirements have to met. First, it's got to use the actual word in Arabic for "peace," not the phony substitutes.
ISLAMOFASCISM THROUGH THE FINANCIAL BACK-DOOR
Since September 11, 2001, the men and women of the U.S. Department of the Treasury have worked tirelessly to identify and cut off sources of financing for terrorist organizations and other threats to our national security. However, their efforts are now taking place alongside an emerging financial trend that could threaten our national security in ways not yet fully grasped: the penetration of Islamofascism-tainted countries and radical Islamists themselves into Western financial markets and other Western strategic industries. The problem consists of two elements.
THE NEXT CARTOON FREAKOUT
A white South African political cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, famously controversial in his country, got really upset the other day when the editor, Tim Du Plessis, of a popular South African magazine, Rapport, fired one of his writers, Deon Maas, for writing a column calling for tolerance towards believers in satanism. Shapiro draws his cartoons under the pen name Zapiro - and the one he drew in anger towards Du Plessis has ticked off a major fraction of the entire population of South Africa. This just happened, with Zapiro's cartoon appearing in the November 21 edition of the Mail & Guardian newspaper day before yesterday. It's unlikely, however, that there will be Christian riots in Joburg, or elsewhere in the world, protesting Zapiro's comparing the Holy Trinity to the Easter Bunny - or Hindu riots in Delhi over comparing Shiva to the Tooth Fairy - or Jewish riots in Jerusalem over comparing Yaweh (Jehovah) to Zeus. That's because these folks are mostly grown-up adults who just wearily shake their heads at juvenile attempts to ridicule their religion. But you can bet on folks who have never grown out of the Dark Ages to engage in yet another violent world-wide temper tantrum over comparing Allah to Casper the Friendly Ghost, and worse, actually depicting Allah in a scribbled drawing. So sit back and get set to enjoy the next great Mooselimb Cartoon Freakout. Here's Zapiro's cartoon:
HILLARY’S LAUGHABLE EXPERIENCE
For months, Mrs. Hillary Clinton has hinted that Sen. Barack Hussein Obama, less than three years into his first Senate term, lacks the preparation to deal with U.S. foreign policy challenges. In a speech last Monday (11/19), she suggested the nation's budget deficit, income inequality and lack of comprehensive health coverage also required a more experienced steward. As the Associated Press reported: "The economy needs help and fast, Hillary Rodham Clinton declared Monday, claiming the experience for the job and saying the nation can't afford to break in a newcomer... ‘There is one job we can't afford on-the-job training for - our next president. That could be the costliest job training in history,' Mrs. Clinton said. ‘Every day spent learning the ropes is another day of rising costs, mounting deficits and growing anxiety for our families. And they cannot afford to keep waiting'." Good grief. What plausible claim does Miss Hillary have to experience in managing a national economy, balancing a budget or fixing income inequality? Even on health care, according to her husband, the aspiring "First Louse" (he wants to be called First Laddie, but I think the derivation from First Spouse works better) claims that she didn't have much to do with HillaryCare - it was his fault.
LOSING FAITH IN EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE
When the citizens of Eastern Europe rejected communism 18 years ago they were inspired by dissidents who told them that people have a right to "live in the truth" and that democracy equaled liberty and justice. Now, 18 years later, democracy is in crisis in Eastern Europe, where people have come to realize that they have not gained truth, freedom or justice. Eastern Europe is going through the same crisis of political disillusionment as Western Europe. While in Budapest last week, I read the German-language Budapester Zeitung. It had a front-page article about the adoption of a bill against hate speech. This is the same bill that the European Union is imposing on all its member states. It restricts the freedom of the people, who are no longer allowed to say things that might be deemed offensive by "ethnic, sexual, religious or other minorities." In Western Europe this legislation is not merely used to prosecute genuine racists, but is increasingly abused to clamp down on those who oppose the Islamization of their countries or on those who disapprove of homosexual behavior. Here in Eastern Europe, authorities wish to do the same, putting in place legislation to silence the defenders of Hungary's national identity and traditional morality.
DEMOCRATS AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Most Americans clearly want their government to secure the borders and enforce immigration laws. They understand what many elected officials still don't: rewarding lawbreakers with amnesty only encourages a new flood of illegal immigrants. In September, New York Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a plan to allow illegal immigrants to obtain New York drivers' licenses. The proposal has been sharply criticized across the nation. A recent poll found 77 percent of Americans oppose drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants. The public outcry ultimately forced Mr. Spitzer to withdraw his proposal, but the damage was done. With the 2008 elections less than a year away, senior Democratic leaders and members of Congress are desperately trying to strike the right tone on immigration. But efforts by Democrats to toughen talking points against illegal immigration are disingenuous at best. In fact, Democrats and various interest groups have never been serious about reducing illegal immigration. In the last two years, an overwhelming majority of House Democrats voted against almost every piece of legislation aimed at reducing illegal immigration. For example:
THANKFUL FOR AMERICA WITHOUT GUILT OR FEAR
All my life, I have always thought it was the coolest thing on planet Earth to be an American. I have been to something close to 200 countries and political jurisdictions in the world, and whenever someone asks me, "Where are you from?" it is a special thrill to be able to answer, "America - I'm an American." Thanksgiving is the unique American holiday. We share Christmas and Easter with every other Christian nation. Most every country celebrates its Independence Day, and the birthdays of their founding heroes. Thanksgiving is ours, where we give our deepest thanks to Providence for the extraordinary gift of America to mankind. Other countries have their special times to celebrate their uniqueness, when their citizens take justifiable pride in their country's achievements, and all to the good. Thanksgiving is America's Day, the time when all Americans - all - get to celebrate the achievements of the most successful society in human history. Tragically, however, there are two groups of Americans for whom Thanksgiving will be bleak. Liberals and pessimists. The purpose of Thanksgiving is to be thankful for being American. Thankful with no buts. This is the day to celebrate the goodness of our country - the moral goodness, the moral decency of American institutions, American history, and the character of the American people. No whining and moaning about what happened to the Indians, or about slavery and poverty and racism. No buts. Think that liberals can do this? Let's see.
SOROS REPUBLICANS TO THE RESCUE?
I've heard it from more than one COS (Chief of Staff) of Republican Senators now, and the buzz is growing among Capitol Hill staffers in the House as well. Word is that a number of "Soros Republicans" are about to step up to the plate. Big time. The term is unfortunate, attaching the name of scumbag George Soros to patriotic Americans. What is meant by it is that just as Soros opened up his billion dollar wallet for the Dems, so billionaire Republicans are about to do the same for the GOP. It's about time. The Democrats' 2008 campaign is going to be the most vicious attack on America ever conducted. The recent ad blitz for local and state elections earlier this month was a taste - one over-the-top character-rape of Republican candidates after unending other. The RNC (Republican National Committee) estimates that the Dems will raise and spend - via the Clinton machine, Soros-type donors, the labor unions, the moonbats - two billion dollars to capture the White House and keep control of Congress. Finally, the Pubbies are waking up to the danger.
THE SHIA ANTI-IRAN ALLIANCE
TTPers have known for many moons now that the American military is winning a tremendous victory in Iraq. This week, Tony Blankley and Jack Kelly provide updates in Declaring Victory and Declaring Defeat. The media is finally and begrudgingly acknowledging the reality of victory. So far, however, the focus has been entirely on the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Yet this has been a two-front war, a war to terrorize and destabilize Iraq waged not just by AQI, but by Iran. Now we learn that not only is terrorist violence vanishing in Sunni regions of AQI focus, but in Shia regions of Iranian focus. AP is reporting that Basra violence is down 90%. America's victory in Iraq means that both Al Qaeda and Iran have been defeated... simultaneously. Now here's a question to consider: Was this George Bush's goal all along? Iraq as a two-fer! Let's not go there, though. Let's focus instead on the consequences of defeat in Iraq for Iran. They are very grave. One of the gravest examples is the emerging Arab Shia Anti-Iran Alliance.
REAGAN 21: Applying RR’s Principles to the 21st Century
It's been nearly 20 years since Ronald Reagan left the presidency. Yet, even people who don't remember his presidency (or his governorship in California) as I do, have positive views of his legacy. Yes, he lowered taxes and ended the Cold War. But we remember him for even more than that. He stood unwavering by his principles, his personal integrity was never in question and he had that immutable optimism. Today, Congress has a record-low approval rating of 11 percent. Republicans lost the majority in part because they spent too much, had ethical lapses and did not deliver on illegal immigration and other issues. The people put Democrats in charge, but they have disappointed even more than Republicans. Americans are crying out for leadership with principle, integrity and courage. They want to believe again in an optimistic vision for America's future. Reagan 21 is the project of a group of about 20 senators and representatives to provide that fresh, bold leadership.
DECLARING VICTORY
It has become obligatory for both pro- and anti-war commentators to never mention the possibility of victory in Iraq. The most that anti-war people will admit is that the surge has gained a temporary military advantage in a war that cannot be won militarily. The most pro-war commentators will claim is that they see the possibility of "success" perhaps, maybe, someday, somehow. But as of Veterans Day 2007, I think one can claim a very real expectation that next year the world may see a genuine, old-fashioned victory in the Iraq War. In five years we will have overturned Saddam's government, killed, captured or driven out of country almost all Al Qaeda terrorists, suppressed the violent Shi'ite militias and induced the Sunni tribal leaders and their people to shun resistance and send their sons into the army and police and seek peaceful resolution of disputes. And we will have stood up a multisectarian, tribally inclusive army capable of maintaining the peace that our troops established.
Chapter Thirty-Two: “WE HAVE KILLED MALINCHE!”
[After an absurdly long bout of inexcusable procrastination, Chapter Thirty-Two of The Jade Steps in finally here. There are only two more chapters to go: The Sowing of the Whirlwind, and La Malinche, followed by an Epilogue. The end is in sight!] The Jade Steps Chapter Thirty Two: "We Have Killed Malinche!" Cortez lay awake in his bedchambers at his headquarters in Tepeaca. He and his forces had returned from Huaquechula in time to celebrate All Saints Day and pray to those who had achieved the beatific vision in heaven that this "ultimate end of human existence" might possibly be granted to them when they die. That was yesterday. Today, they held the Feast of All Souls Day, to pray for those departed Christian souls being cleansed of their sins in purgatorium. For some reason, he had felt an unusual uneasiness during the prayers at Mass, which he expressed to Doña Marina. Now he was even more uneasy, for where was she? Gone on one of her evening learning expeditions. This one was taking too long. He wished that she was next to him right now. Suddenly she was. She had burst wordlessly into the room, quickly removed her dress, and snuggled up to him in their bed. A look into Cortez's eyes told her what he had been thinking. And when he looked back into hers, he knew something was wrong. He waited for her to tell him.
ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING ABOUT $100 OIL
Yesterday (11/08), the Wall Street Journal ran an article giving ten reasons Why $100 Can't Float. They were good, persuasive reasons. Yet taken together, they were not sufficiently persuasive as they ignored the political dimension of the problem. Put in a nutshell, we have near $100 oil instead of energy independence at a fraction of the cost because Congress is an obstacle rather than a solution to the problem. Right here in America, we have enormous energy reserves of coal, natural gas, liquid oil, and oil shale. With foreign oil now so expensive, it should be easy to produce our own energy at far less cost. And it will be easy if Congress does three things:
MOSLEM TERRORIST DRUG LORDS WITH NUKES
How's that for your basic nightmare scenario? Welcome to Pakistan's future. And for once, the Moonbats are right. It is Bush's fault. It is not, of course, Bush's fault that Pakistan is a make-believe country ludicrously constructed by the colonial British, as we learned in The Lunacy of a British Legacy. It's not his fault that Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI - the Pak CIA) created the Taliban as a joint business venture to run the Afghan heroin trade (as we learned about in The Bourne Absurdity). But it is his fault for not eliminating Afghanistan's poppy fields, which are capitalizing the Islamist maelstrom engulfing Pakistan. That's because the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, along with the family's business partners in New Jersey, are making millions from Afghan heroin as well. All the media attention is now on Pervez Musharraf and his consolidation of power, with predictable puerile moaning about his "threat to democracy." Naturally, almost no big media attention is paid to the heroin drug money fueling the crisis. If they did, reporters' attention might better be directed away from the riotous streets of Islamabad and towards a McMansion on a leafy quiet street in Mendham, New Jersey.
THE ENTITLEMENT CRISIS AS A MORAL CRISIS
The U.S Comptroller General and head of the GAO, Government Accountability Office, has described the entitlements crisis facing this country as a "tsunami" that approaches while we continue to party on the beach. What GAO head David Walker is talking about are the massive upcoming obligations under Social Security and Medicare that we have no funds to meet. Tens of trillions of dollars of supposed commitments, promises made to us by our government, that today we have no clue how we'll pay. In those rare moments when our political "leaders" screw up sufficient courage to acknowledge this dark and ominous fiscal cloud hanging over us, the discussion is invariably technical. Proposed tax increases, cap increases, retirement age increases, benefit cuts, indexing -- all geared to "save the system." But who has considered that, despite all the discussion about unfunded liabilities, what we really have on our hands is, at root and core, a moral crisis?
MAY THIS STRIKE LAST FOREVER
From Islamabad to London to Paris to Moscow to Los Angeles - wherever a flickering video image could reach - the nerves of the world became more frayed this week with the images of mass demonstrations in the streets and the stunning announcement that Hollywood writers have gone on strike for more humane working conditions. The contract between the 12,000-member Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) expired Oct. 31. (Who knew it took 12,000 writers to produce the dreck coming out of Hollywood these days?) Imminently we will be seeing the pathetic consequences of the strike: heartbreaking images of Jay Leno telling lame jokes (well, not all things will change), Jon Stewart silently making mere faces at the camera (his clever lines having been unwritten due to the strike), Stephen Colbert, denied the words written for him to mock Bill O'Reilly, forced to pointlessly over-gesticulate.
MOSLEM NAZIS
During the Second World War, the Nazis worked on plans to build the Messerschmitt Me 264 Amerikabomber, an airplane specially devised to fly suicide missions into Manhattan's skyscrapers. Albert Speer, the Nazi minister for armaments, recalled in his diary Inside The Third Reich: "It was almost as if [Hitler] was in a delirium when he described to us how New York would go up in flames. He imagined how the skyscrapers would turn into huge blazing torches. How they would crumble while the reflection of the flames would light the skyline against the dark sky." Hitler hated Manhattan. It was, he said, "the center of world Jewry." Less than 60 years later, Hitler's plans were executed by Moslem immigrants living in Germany. At the 2003 trial of the network around Mohamed Atta (the pilot who flew into the World Trade Center), Shahid Nickels, a German convert to Islam and a friend of Atta's, said that the Islamists had targeted Manhattan because it is "the center of world Jewry, and the world of finance and commerce controlled by it." The parallels between Nazism and Islamism are overwhelming. Yet the subject is a taboo.
DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRATS, AND TAXES
In response to The Salvation of 2008, TTPer "Bogie" was thoughtful enough to post on the User Forum a list of 50 reasons for The Fair Tax. Together, they make a pretty convincing case for replacing all personal/corporate income taxes, FICA payroll taxes, gift/death taxes and the AMT with a national retail sales tax. I would add #51, the end of the depreciation schedule for a business' capital expenditures. Yet there is another overarching reason for the Fair Tax replacing our present tax structure, which is that it is vastly more democratic, and provides a far firmer and more stable foundation for a democracy. Which is why Democrats are against it because they don't want a real democracy. Take a look at the Who Pays Income Taxes charts from the National Taxpayers Union. You'll see that over the last several years, the percentage of total income taxes paid by the top 1%, top 5%, top 10% of taxpayers has gone up, while that paid by the bottom 50% has gone down. 1% of taxpayers now pay almost 40% of all personal income taxes, while 50% pays 3%. How dangerous this is for a democracy can be seen with this simple image: imagine balancing a pyramid on its point.
WE NEED PROTECTION FROM POLITICIANS TRYING TO PROTECT US
Skiers sometimes die, as do mountain climbers and motorcyclists and bicyclists, because what they do routinely is dangerous, risky. Indeed, there is very little in human life that does not entail some measure of risk, even fatal risk. When I moved into Silverado Canyon in Orange Country, California, I did so with full knowledge that the place is exposed to certain serious hazards - earthquakes would hit harder because the houses are on steep slopes, fires would spread faster because vegetation is abundant, even mudslides are likely because after a fire the ground is ready to move around quite freely. Yet I liked the area a lot. The Sierra Madre atmosphere, the funkiness of the neighborhood, the rustic abode in which I would be living meant enough to me to take on the risk of living there. The region was also near enough to more populated and developed areas so that one wouldn't be out in the boonies like a hermit. So, I decided that the risk of my home burning down wasn't great enough to override the benefits I would gain from living there. And to this day, even after the fires that may still consume my home, I would insist on this. But California Senator Diane Feinstein and her cohorts disagree with me, think the risks of living in places such as Silverado Canyon are too great and no one ought to be permitted to assume them. You might ask, "The risks to whom?"
TECHNOLOGY, FREEDOM, AND SAVING LIVES
When a super-genius tells you that you may have saved millions of lives, it really makes your day. You read about Durk Pearson last August, that he has an IQ M.I.T. was unable to measure as it was so far above the upper measurable limit of 220. And you read about my having dinner with Chief Justice John Roberts last week in The Only Issue. I was telling Durk about the dinner and how it wasn't appropriate for me to ask him substantive case questions, but that I was able to contribute to the conversation. The connection between technology and freedom was raised and I offered to give an example. The technology of gene sequencing, I said, can now, at the cost of many millions of dollars, sequence the entire genome of an individual person, identifying all the recognizable mutations and genetic defects that person has. Gene sequencing technology is improving at such a rapid rate that a Moore's Law is now kicking in regarding it.
WHY OBAMA IS A FIZZLING MILQUETOAST
The House Democrat leadership delayed a planned vote this past week on ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007. The bill, introduced by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, makes employment discrimination against homosexuals and bisexuals illegal. One reason that momentum on moving the legislation has stalled is because Rep. Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin wants a provision covering transsexuals and transgenders, originally in, then removed, put back in. President Bush has indicated that, if passed, he will veto this legislation. And he should. But beyond the bill's many technical constitutional difficulties, it's worth considering it in the context of the ongoing cultural war taking place in this country. It's also especially instructive as to why the presidential campaign of Barack Hussein Obama has fizzled.
RUNNING WITH RUDY
So many folks here in Washington are taking it for granted that Bill Clinton's wife has the Dem nomination sewed up that they've gone on to handicapping who her running mate will be. Her ridiculous performance in the Dem debate this week (10/30) may have given them a moment of doubt, but just a moment, for she has, they will tell you, no serious opposition. Hillary supporters can't take bat-eared neophytes like Obambi or the Breck Boy seriously. The rest of the Gang of Eight up on the debating stage with her are just there for the media spotlight. Except for one fellow who's really not running for president, but running for running-mate. That's New Mexico's Governor Bill Richardson, and he's everyone's odds-on favorite to be Hillary's pick. He's dumb as a stump (which he confirmed this week when he said the government should "come clean" over what it knows about aliens crashing their spacecraft in Roswell 60 years ago - just about nine months before Hillary was born, by the way.) Nonetheless, word is he's her #2. More interesting is who will run with Rudy.
THE ONLY ISSUE
Until a few nights ago at a small dinner at a private home in Washington, it never even occurred to me that I might someday actually call the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by his first name. Yet for several hours as we sat next to each other, it was "John" and "Jack" for the evening. I cannot tell you what we talked about, and he of course did not say anything untoward or inappropriate. What I can tell you is that besides being seriously smart and having a funny albeit dorky sense of humor (he came up with some real groaners), he is a Great American in every sense that you and I understand it. He is one of us. I couldn't help glancing at his profile inches from me in gratitude to President Bush for placing him in his office - then shuddering to think of who his next fellow Justices will be should Bill Clintons' wife get to choose them. For a large number of voters, one issue is of overriding importance to them. Judicial appointments is a good example. National security is another. Or illegal immigration. Or abortion, homosexual marriage, cultural degradation, increasing government control of our lives and economy, the list goes on. For me, the only issue that matters is preventing the Democrat Party, the Party That Hates America, from winning the White House.
DO YOU CARE ABOUT THE DOLLAR?
Do you care about the fall of dollar against the euro? Here's why you should care and what might be done about it. The exchange rate movement implies that the whole physical stock of Europe (land, buildings, machines, art, etc.) is suddenly worth 40 percent more in dollar terms than it was six years ago - and this of course is nonsense, given there has been no drastic difference in the performance of the relative economies in the last six years. Many economic commentators argue that the dollar has fallen relative to the euro largely because of the U.S. trade deficit, and must fall further to rectify it, even though the United States has been running a trade deficit for years. In fact, it has been the desire of foreign governments, companies and individuals to buy dollar assets, such as U.S. government bonds, which has caused the trade deficit. For them to obtain dollars to invest in the U.S., they must sell us goods and services.
A COUNTERJIHAD IN SWITZERLAND?
Last Thursday (10/18), a group of 80 people from 15 European countries, plus Israel, Canada and the United States, convened in a conference room on the seventh floor of the European Parliament building in Brussels for a "Counterjihad" meeting. They listened to speakers such as the Egyptian-born scholar Bat Ye'or, author of the book Eurabia, who explained how the European Union (EU) has become a vehicle for the Islamization of Europe: "The EU has promoted massive Moslem immigration... hoping that the Euro-Arab symbiosis through economic development, soft diplomacy and multiculturalism would guarantee [Europe] peace, markets and oil." Fortunately, there is some good news as well. With the elections of October 21, a political Counterjihad may have begun in Switzerland.
PELOSI AND THE PKK
House Speaker Pelosi Galore has suffered a bombardment of criticism for pushing a vote for the Armenian Genocide Resolution, H. Res. 106. Note its date of introduction to the relevant committee with a registered bill number: January 30, 2007. Over eight months later, she starts flogging this dead historical horse. Why now? The criticism has all been for Pelosi's "ignorance" of Turkish sensitivities in the matter and her "incompetence" for her embroiling the House in a pointless debacle. As Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) said in the Orlando GOP presidential candidate debate (10/22): "Nancy Pelosi is not a very good Speaker and is a lousy Secretary of State." But what if she's much worse than that? What if she is pushing the Armenian resolution for the conscious purpose of damaging America's increasingly successful war in Iraq? And there is an even more frightening question.
HOPE IN TORONTO
One of the more depressing aspects of our current cultural morass is the overwhelming dominance of the Marxist Moonbat Left on our college campuses. The massive support and sympathy for Islamofascism and what I call Fabian Sharia-ism (constant demands for special consideration for Moslems in accordance with their phony "Sharia" Islamic "law") is seen at universities everywhere. That's why what's happening at the University of Toronto is interesting. Canada for the most apart is even more wimp-out appeasing to Moslem demands than the US. So it's not surprising that the popular campus restaurant, Bluff's, caved to the Moslem Student Association (MSA) and changed its menu for all chicken and beef dishes to be certified "halal," the Moslem equivalent of kosher. That of course wasn't good enough for the Moslems, who see, just like the Communists, any offer of accommodation as weakness, thus an invitation to make further demands. They claimed Bluff's changing its menu according to their wishes was actually "offensive" to them, for Bluff's continued to serve them food in an "unsuitable" environment. That is, Bluff's continues to serve beer and play dance music.
THE RE-SOVIETIZATION OF RUSSIA
Every move the Putin administration makes today is dictated by the desire to shape Russia's future internal power structure and to set the course for the country's foreign and security affairs in general, and its relationship with the United States in particular for years to come. Keeping the relationship with Washington on the verge of a crisis and inventing an imaginary "American enemy" is creating much needed legitimacy for the current Russian leadership, which now has only Mr. Putin's personal popularity as its political base. The image of Russia surrounded by enemies is absolutely necessary for today's Russian ruling class of senior secret police officers, as it positions them in the eyes of the people as the saviors and defenders of Mother Russia. Russia is being Re-Sovietized.
HANDICAPPING THE SENATE
One of the nicest and sharpest guys in the Senate is John Ensign of Nevada. As the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he's in a good position to handicap the Senate races for 2008. He did just that at a small briefing on Capitol Hill this week, promising to do so without any Pollyannic varnish. Judge for yourself. Currently, of 100 Senate seats, 51 are Democrat (counting Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman), 49 are Republican. The odds seem slim that the GOP could gain the majority, but less slim that the Dems will expand theirs. Thirteen months is an eternity on an election clock. There will be surprises on both sides, count on it. There are 22 Republican seats up, including five retirements, while the Dems have only 12. Many GOP seats are vulnerable, but the Dems' main targets are:
DO YOU WANT TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION?
A fellow I know, Dave Marlett, answered yes to this question and has come up with a real way to do so. A real way any individual American can. It happened when he wanted to get his house painted last spring. He couldn't find, out of all the house painting businesses that he called, one that could guarantee it didn't employ illegal alien workers. There have to be companies who follow the law and refuse to hire illegals, he told himself. But how would he or anyone find them? What if there was a way to find them, a sort of clearinghouse enabling customers all over the country to locate companies that have pledged to hire only legal workers? That's how Dave conceived of ProAmericaCompanies. http://rebelholiday.biz/ rebel holiday
A ROMAN HOLIDAY FOR ETHANOL
The Germans have a word for it: schadenfreude (shay-din-froy-deh). It means someone being happy over someone else being unhappy. The only English equivalent is the term "Roman holiday," referring to the happy excitement Romans got over gladiators' suffering in the Colosseum. It says a lot about us that we don't even have a word for this terrible and all too-common emotion. Yet all of us have probably experienced it at one time or another, and right now it's hard to resist it regarding folks who are biting the financial dust with ethanol. As this recent story, Ethanol Boom Is Running Out of Gas, in the Wall Street Journal details, the glut of ethanol plants has caused a collapse of ethanol prices while the price of the corn from which it is made is rising. Thus many ethanol companies are now "under deathwatch." So of course, the corn farmer lobby and ethanol producers are screaming for more subsidies from Congress. They won't get them because a Nobel Prize winner has just pounded in the final nail in ethanol's coffin. No - not the phony you just thought of, a real Nobel Laureate.
THE SALVATION OF 2008
Americans are by and large in a sour mood. The only hope for Republicans in 2008, it seems, is that voters will be more soured on Democrats than Republicans for House and Senate seats, and be more turned off by Hillary than whomever the GOP offers up. It's a slender reed of hope on which to bet the future of America. For if the Dems sweep the White House and Congress, every Republican Bush-hater will soon long for the yesterday of GW. A Socialist-Fascist America run by a criminal political mafia and enforced by hundreds of hyper-liberal judges. Yet fear of this, fear of Hillary - FOH - will not be sufficient to prevent this. What the voters have to be offered is something so exciting, so electrifying, so positive yet well-grounded, well-thought-out and researched so it is actually achievable, that it sweeps away the sourness. This is what happened in 1994. The electorate was in this same crummy mood, and the GOP came up with the Contract With America. The CWA was an exciting positive vision that was real and achievable. Voters responded by ending the Democrat Party's monopoly control of 64 years (with two irrelevant interruptions) over the House. What Republicans need is the CWA's equivalent for 2008. There is such a thing, and what's more, a growing number of key Republican Party leaders are beginning to embrace it. It may turn out to be the Salvation of 2008.
IRAQI OIL AND THICK SUNNI SKULLS
Late last month, just as the Senate was voting 75 to 23 for a "sense of the Senate" resolution calling for Iraq to be divided into Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish "federal regions" with a weak national government to "facilitate sharing of oil revenue," eight tanker trucks arrived in Jordan with crude oil from Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Not a single Senator noticed, nor made the ironic connection. For the arrival of the tankers is a more important event than the Senators' vote of frustration. The tankers had to cross all of the Sunnis' Anbar Province to get to Jordan. It hasn't yet penetrated thick Sunni skulls that their land may contain more oil than the rest of Iraq. When it does, Iraqi Sunnis are going to look at the political map of the Middle East very differently. Unsurprisingly, thick Senate skulls are unable to figure this out.
SO MUCH TO CELEBRATE
On our hike through the Garden of the Gods at the TTP Summer Rendezvous last August, TTPer Ed Sanders gave me a good-natured ribbing about my mentioning in some previous article that I loved to celebrate things by drinking good red wine in a Reidel crystal glass. Ed and his wife Susan, it turns out, are the US distributors for Reidel's competitor, WineStar. "Our hand-blown unleaded crystal leaves Reidel in the dust, Jack," Ed told me. "If you drink a favorite red from our Diamond Cru instead, you'll be blown away by the difference." Ed kindly offered to send me a sample to prove it. There was a shipping delay and it just arrived. Okay, I asked myself, I've got the glass - what do I celebrate? Well, tonight, October 12, there is celebration to savor. Not only is it time to toast the 515th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America, but of the world's greatest buffoon winning the world's most tawdry and degraded award. Whatever glass you have, WineStar or not, fill it full and raise it to Algore's Nobel. You can be quite sure that one person who will not is Hillary Clinton.