Dr. Jack Wheeler
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...
THE SCAM OF CHINA
The headline on Bloomberg today (10/22) is dramatic: China's Economy Grows 8.9%. So the Scam of China continues, one the greatest feats of cook-the-books fraudulent accounting in history, but at least it's a teachable moment in Chinese - and Communist - metaphysics. First, the scam. How is it possible for China's explosive economic growth to be based on gargantuan exports of manufactured goods, for the sale of those exports to fall off a cliff (down over 20% this year), then continue to grow just as explosively without massive exports? The answer is a) you can believe it because you are Alice in Wonderland's Red Queen who could believe "as many as six impossible things before breakfast," or b) the Chicoms are lying. Which do you choose? They are lying because, for Chinese, and for Marxist Communists, there is no difference between make-believe and reality. There is no such thing as reality. There is only what people believe. If people believe something is true, it is. If they don't, it isn't, it doesn't exist. This is best exemplified by the Chinese concept of "face" or lien.
WHAT INSTRUMENT DOES EMPEROR OBAMA PLAY?
There's a legend that says Nero played the lyre (the fiddle wouldn't be invented for another thousand years) while Rome burned in 64 AD. What instrument does Obama play, as he cavorts indecisively about the world stage? On three fronts - South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting - the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. Let's discuss the first two here, and hold the third for a future discussion by itself.
THE LOSS OF TURKEY
Once the apotheosis of a pro-Western, dependable Moslem democracy, last week Turkey officially left the Western alliance and became a full member of the Iranian axis. It isn't that Ankara's behavior changed fundamentally in recent days. There is nothing new in its massive hostility toward Israel and its effusive solicitousness toward the likes of Syria and Hamas. Since the Islamist "Justice & Development" AKP party first won control over the Turkish government in the 2002 elections, led by AKP chairman Recip Tayyip Erdogan [pronounced air-doh-wan], the Turks have incrementally and inexorably moved the formerly pro-Western Moslem democracy into the radical Islamist camp populated by the likes of Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, al-Qaida and Hamas. What made Turkey's behavior this week different from its behavior in recent months and years is that its attacks were concentrated, unequivocal and undeniable for everyone outside of Israel's scandalously imbecilic and flagellant media.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/16/09
Right about now with some fresh liberal lunacy inflicted upon our country every day by a president and party that hates it, you may be pulling your hair out by its roots or holding tight onto your head to keep it from exploding. You know you can't hold out until the 2010 elections a year from now. But how about for 18 more days? You can make it that long, can't you? As of today (10/16), November 3rd is 18 days away, and it may be a Day of Doom for Zero, the Pelosicrats, and even for RINOs. With few exceptions (like Tom Coburn or Jim DeMint), politicians care more about getting reelected than any principles or integrity they happen to have. Thus the tea leaves of November 3rd may tell dozens of Dems who barely won in 2008 to start running for the exits.
THE REMEMBER THE ALAMO RENDEZVOUS
Are you ready for a Texas-size To The Point Rendezvous? The dates are final: Friday, January 29 to Sunday, January 31. (Note the dates - chosen specifically to lie on the bye weekend between the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl.) The location is fabulous: The Hilton Palacio Del Rio right on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. We'll be just two blocks from The Alamo itself - which we'll of course visit as we rededicate ourselves to remembering the Alamo and recapturing America from the horde of anti-American moonbats who have temporarily seized control of it.
A TIME FOR CELEBRATING WESTERN CIVILIZATION
The second week of October offers a triad of heroic anniversaries worth celebrating by any admirer of Western Civilization. Yesterday, October 11, was time to celebrate the 1,277th anniversary of the Battle of Tours in 732 AD, when Charles Martel (686-741), forever known as The Hammer, and his 30,000 Christian soldiers crushed an invading horde of 200,000 Moslem Jihadis in what is now central France. Tomorrow, October 13, is for celebrating the 84th birthday of the great Lady Champion of Liberty, the most heroic woman of the 20th century, Margaret Thatcher. The story of how she, with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, saved Western Civilization from Soviet Communism is told in Now There Is One (April 2005). Today, October 12, is for celebrating the 517th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America. We commemorate this as a true discovery in contrast to all the claims of Vikings, Chinese, Irish, and others who supposedly came earlier - for once and only after Columbus discovered America, it stayed discovered. Unfortunately, Columbus Day is for most Americans just an excuse for a three-day weekend. What it should be is a commemoration and celebration of Western Civilization - which is why the Left hates Columbus and his holiday.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/09/09
The conversations at the Cosmos Club this week were very subdued. As it has been for generations, this is where the true power elite of Washington gathers. Whether it was in the East Garden Bar, the Old Club Room, or the Members Dining Room, the savviest veterans of Capitol Hill and K Street - Democrat and Republican - had a tone of fear and seriousness you didn't hear the week before. Something had scared them. Scared them like an earthquake had fractured their political foundations. The one whispered word you could overhear more than any other was "Copenhagen." For them, President and Mrs. Zero flying off to Copenhagen to beg the International Olympics Committee for Chicago and being rejected was not a matter of humiliation. It was scales falling off their eyes, and in an eye-blink realizing the enormity of the mistake America made last November. And at breakfast in the Garden Dining Room this morning (10/09), there were hardly conversations at all, just shocked silence. The consequences of giving a president afflicted with pathological egomania combined with pathological amateurishness the Nobel Peace Prize were so grave they were speechless.
A MAGICAL REFUGE
There is a magical island where everything grows - forests of fir, cedar, and sycamore trees along with forests of giant tropical tree ferns, fields of corn and fields of taro (the starchy staple of Polynesia - Hawaiian poi is made from taro), and every kind of flower in riotous abundance. Orchards produce every kind of fruit from tropical to citrus. Herds of cows produce every dairy product including fabulous cheeses - and great steaks. Due to its unique ocean location, the sea swarms with fish and seafood. It's on a main migration route for sperm whales and a dozen types of dolphins. The sport fishing, such as for blue marlin, is fantastic. So is the trout fishing in the mountain streams. So is the golf, the sailing, the scuba-diving, the surfing, the hiking on mountain trails to hidden waterfalls and hot springs. The coastline is dotted with beaches, picturesque fishing villages, and tiny coves with natural rock swimming pools. The interior is dotted with crater lakes, among which is one of the most beautiful lakes in the world. Temperatures are in the mid-60s in the winter and mid-70s in the summer, the sun shines most every day, when it rains it usually pours for 15 minutes then out comes the sun again. There are neither snakes nor mosquitoes. Nor is there any pollution - the air is sparkling clear, the land preserved spotlessly clean by the islanders. The place is so peaceful it's virtually crime-free. The beer the islanders make is good, the wine even better. The islanders are friendly, hospitable, devoutly Christian, and proud members of Western Civilization. A great many speak English, but there are not a great many of them. They number 150,000 spread out over 300 spectacularly scenic square miles. They love liberty so much they've had this motto emblazoned on their coat of arms for centuries: Rather die free than live in peaceful subjugation. You can fly here from the US East Coast in four hours for 300 bucks. If you're looking for a Plan B refuge - or just a momentary escape - from ObamaLand, this magical place could be it.
OUR OBAMA-IZED INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES
The current disagreement between our intelligence agencies and those of our allies regarding Iran's nuclear program reveals the debased state of the US $75-billion- a-year intel system. The Germans, French, Israelis and now the Brits agree that Iran has an active nuclear-weapons program, differing only as to how swiftly Tehran can field warheads. The US intel community's holding out. It's worried about political risks. A reassessment's supposedly under way, but we're clinging to our comforting conclusion that Iran gave up on designing nuclear weapons in 2003. Mounting evidence to the contrary hasn't made a dent. Not only is the intel community fearful of another Iraq-style weapons-of-mass-destruction mess, but the White House has made it clear that it doesn't want more bad news. Our intel agencies have been Obama-ized.
WHY I DREW THE MOHAMMED TURBAN-BOMB CARTOON
[As President Zero was being humiliated in Denmark, a courageous cartoonist from Denmark spoke at Princeton University. This is the text of his speech.] On Sept. 30, 2005, the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons, including my own depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban, that took Islam and Mohammed as their subject. The Danish cartoon affair which ensued turned out to be perhaps the most important free speech case of our time. In the months after the cartoons' publication, protests against them morphed from peaceful objections to irrational violence which included serious threats on my life. The cartoons have become a watershed test for the ability of the press to comment and criticize all religions without fear of violent reprisal. All of us, and not least the students and faculty at an institution such as Princeton, will be on the center front of this debate for years to come. It is important, therefore, that we all understand what is at stake. It is for this reason that I speak to you. I would also hope to explain to you why I acted as I did, and especially why I have refused to apologize for my cartoon despite strong pressure that I do so.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/02/09
It's pretty obvious that the HFR Hero of the Week is the author of Going Rogue. With her book going to #1 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble within hours of the mere announcement it would go on sale in seven weeks (11/17), it's also obvious by now that Sarah Palin has become a conservative phenomenon the only comparison to whom is Ronald Reagan. That's not the Olympian icon Reagan has become for his presidential accomplishments - but the former governor and presidential candidate who ended up obliterating an incumbent president 489 to 49 in electoral votes in 1980. Palin is now acknowledged to be "the hottest brand name in politics." She is the comet flashing across the sky, while Zero is a shooting star flaming out while plunging to earth. She is everything he is not, which can be summed up in two words: for real. She's as genuine as he is phony, as honest as he is deceitful, as pro-freedom as he is pro-fascist, as experienced in the real world as he is ignorant, as American as he is un-. The left is in a hysteria of hate towards her because she is their greatest threat. While most of the left can only indulge in childish schoolyard insults, the savviest among liberals - like Willie Brown, who ran the California legislature and city of San Francisco as his private fiefdoms - now realize that Palin is a "political genius."
REPEAL 1913
One of the more fascinating features of To The Point is the Users Forum, where TTPers share their insights and expertise. An excellent example is the recent (9/26) thread initiated by "Spartan" - Van Kottis - in commemoration of his 1,000th (!) TTP post. He asks for suggestions on what TTP can do to help the TeaParty movement focus its opposition to Zeroism. I have two. The first is to offer specific language that explicitly defines what conservatives are for (not simply against) government-wise. I.e., we stand for not simply "limited government" but constitutionally limited government. This means we want to restore constitutional limitations on central government. It means to go on the constitutional offensive against laws Congress has no authority to pass and regulations the federal bureaucracy has no authority to enforce. The second is to form a movement to repeal 1913. Just between you and me (can you keep a secret?), it's actually a movement to repeal progressivism, repeal the entire liberal-left agenda, but we need a specific target to focus upon.
AMERICA IS A HORROR TO HER FRIENDS AND LAUGHED AT BY HER ENEMIES
Since Obama took office, he has been abandoning one US ally after another while seeking to curry favor with one US adversary after another. At every turn, America's allies - from Israel to Honduras, to Columbia, South Korea and Japan, to Poland and the Czech Republic - have reacted with disbelief and horror to his treachery. And at every turn, America's adversaries - from Iran to Venezuela to North Korea and Russia - have responded with derision and contempt to his seemingly obsessive attempts to appease them. The horror Obama has instilled in America's friends and the contempt he has evoked from its enemies have not caused him to change course. The fact that his policies throughout the world have already failed to bring a change in the so-called international community's treatment of the US has not led him to reconsider those policies. His stubborn insistence on advancing his feckless foreign policy in the face of its already apparent colossal failure is of a piece with his unswerving commitment to his domestic agenda in spite of its apparent colossal failure.
HAVE YOU NO SHAME? HAVE YOU NO DECENCY?
[This literary, moral, and political masterpiece is the text of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 24, 2009] I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people. The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!
HALF-FULL REPORT 9/25/09
Mr. Tough Guy here, Mr. "real Indiana Jones," has a confession. I couldn't get through reading Sarah Palin's speech in Hong Kong without crying like a baby - several times. The contrast of who she is, what she stands for, and what she could do for America as President, compared to who the current president is, what he stands for, and what he is doing to America, was too much to take without emotionally breaking down. Last week we were all on an emotional high, with the historic Million Conservative March in Washington, the ACORN take-down, et al. This week there are too many reminders of the massive, perhaps even mortal, damage being done to America by the man Palin should replace in 2012. The damage mounts by the day. America may not have until November 2012. America may not have until November 2010. An observation and a question encapsulate this quandary.
ECONOMIC MEGATRENDS THAT WILL DRIVE OUR FUTURE
The economic world has changed. There are new trends, megatrends if you will, now at work in our economy. They are "mega" trends because they overarch and impact everything else in the economy and will do so for quite a while. There are other major trends at work as well, but they have been operating as a part of the basic framework of our economy for decades. These megatrends have emerged from the credit cycle because people change their behaviors in response to a crisis, and it would be foolish to assume that everything will just go back to the way things were before. These aren't predictions of the future, because circumstances change. How many economists predicted this crisis? Very, very few. Think of these megatrends more as chalk marks on the playing field that will guide human economic behavior for some years.
THE SPICE ISLANDS
This is a story of hobbits and eggnog, of English heroes and Dutch murderers, of adventure and treachery and astonishing history, of genocidal slaughter and massive corruption, of Communist dictators and of Moslem butchers getting the justice they deserve, a saga that begins over a million years ago and ends with an inspiration - perhaps a quite profitable one. It is the story of 17,000 islands stitched together in a country that nobody thought had a chance a few years ago and now is emerging as a land of the future. This will take a while, so let's settle in with a tankard of ice cold Bir Bintang and a snack of babi kecap, pork in sweet soy sauce. Shall we start with the hobbits?
COMMON SENSE CONSERVATISM
[Text of speech delivered at the CLSA Pacific Markets Conference in Hong Kong on September 23, 2009] You can call me a common-sense conservative. My approach to the issues facing my country and the world, issues that we'll discuss today, are rooted in this common-sense conservatism... Common sense conservatism deals with the reality of the world as it is. Complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful, we believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual. The opposite of a common-sense conservative is a liberalism that holds that there is no human problem that government can't fix if only the right people are put in charge. Unfortunately, history and common sense are not on its side. We don't trust utopian promises; we deal with human nature as it is. Common sense tells you that when you're in a hole, you have to stop digging! A common sense conservative looks to history to find solutions to the problems confronting us, and the good news is that history has shown us a way out of this, a way forward from recession. Ronald Reagan, he was faced with an even worse recession, and he showed us how to get out of here. If you want real job growth, you cut taxes! And you reduce marginal tax rates on all Americans. Cut payroll taxes, eliminate capital gain taxes and slay the death tax, once and for all. Get federal spending under control, and then you step back and you watch the U.S. economy roar back to life. We're not interested in government fixes; we're interested in freedom! Freedom! And why shouldn't we be? We're Americans.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/18/09
Maybe we should call this The Cornucopia Report this week. The deluge of astonishingly good news keeps pouring down, with the moonbat left in response drowning in its own bile of rage and going off the cliff berserk-o. Where to begin amidst this treasure trove? Of course: the Million Conservative March on Washington last Saturday (9/12). With the LFM (Lunatic Fringe Media) desperately ignoring and disparaging it - reporting, e.g., that there were only "tens of thousands" when there were at least close to a million or more - this event marks a genuine turning point in American political history. The only other event comparable was the August 28,1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom which launched the modern civil rights movement and at which Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. There was, however, one major lack and disappointment. Everyone remembers (or learns about in school) that 1963 event because of King's speech. Where was our Dr. King? Where was the speech that the vast multitude of conservatives wanted to hear? In other words, where the hell was Sarah Palin? If there's a parade of history, get out in front and lead it - or the parade and history will pass you by. Carpe diem - or your day will be gone. Sarah had better stop hiding from the world, stop confining herself to posts on Facebook, or this Teaparty Juggernaut will quickly find other leaders. It's not too late, Sarah, but you are burning daylight.
WHAT A RENDEZVOUS!
This was Rendezvous VI. Starting in Vegas in early 2007, and after Sarasota, Colorado Springs, Boston, and Carefree, Arizona, many folks said while they were great, this one in Williamsburg was the best. As one Rendezvous veteran, "Dr. Roseanne," posted on the TTP Forum:
"I can't even say enough good things about this Rendezvous. It was phenomenal. I actually wish it could have been longer as there was so much to learn.... The speakers are so available and approachable and knowledgeable! [TTP-ers] are the most wonderful, rational, freedom-loving people... They are ‘the salt of the earth.' I am happily sleep-deprived from staying up and visiting with some of them. I already miss my TTP friends! Can't wait for San Antonio! Hope you will all plan to be there!"The good doctor put her finger on why these Rendezvous are such a memorably enjoyable experience - it's because of the TTPers themselves. We all enjoy each other's company so much. About half the attendees were first-timers, and they were overjoyed to be welcomed into a rational, freedom-loving, salt-of-the-earth community. I, too, can hardly wait for San Antonio next January. So - what went on last weekend? Here are some highlights.
HOW TEXAS CAN SAVE AMERICA FROM WASHINGTON
As the federal government continuously churns out ideas and policies that drive our nation deeper and deeper in debt, citizens and taxpayers are right to be worried. From federal "stimulus" bills that force state governments to change laws, raise taxes and increase spending, to cap and trade proposals that will run our energy industry into the ground, to emerging plans for an unprecedented and unsustainable expansion of government health care, it is clear that the swollen river of our federal government has overflowed its banks. Frustration with a Washington run amok is fueling the resurgent interest in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Level-headed Americans are pushing back through the growing TEA Party movement. This groundswell of classic American activism is giving citizens a conduit for their beliefs and sending a clear message they will not stand idly by as Washington spends their tax dollars and limits their freedoms with increasing arrogance. I predict that our increasingly frustrated national electorate will look to the states for answers, starting with Texas.
ISLAM
Articles Associated with "Islam"
Join the forum discussion on this postHALF-FULL REPORT 09/11/09
It is certainly and abundantly clear who is the HFR Hero of the Week this week: Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina. Finally, a Republican in Congress who embodies speaking truth to power. "You lie!" now takes its place in history along with "death panels" demonstrating the politically castrative power of two simple words. Sarah Palin's two words were a brilliantly limbic deligitimization of Zero's key program. Joe Wilson's two words were an emotional outburst that will deligitimize Zero's entire presidency. Wilson is who all conservatives long for, a Republican with balls. The species is almost extinct. The chief of staff of a prominent Republican Congressman confirmed to me this morning that the GOP House leadership, Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor, demanded Wilson make a formal apology on the House floor - and that Wilson refused. When the chief of staff started defending Cantor and blaming Wilson, I lost my temper. "When are you guys ever going to acquire a set of gonads? When are your brains ever going to be connected to your spines? Wilson is now a flat-out hero to millions! There will be You lie! signs throughout the 50,000 TeaParty marchers on the Mall tomorrow, You lie! bumper stickers on cars in every state, shouts of You lie! at every Town Hall held by a Democrat - or RINO. People are sick and tired of pussy wimp-out Republican limp dicks! When are you guys going to figure this out?!" I don't know if he'll speak to me again. I've known him for years, but frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
DISHONORING OUR DEAD, WHITEWASHING OUR ENEMIES
Eight years ago today, our homeland was attacked by fanatical Moslems inspired by Saudi Arabian bigotry. Three thousand American citizens and residents died. We resolved that we, the People, would never forget. Then we forgot. We've learned nothing. Instead of cracking down on Islamist extremism, we've excused it. Instead of relentlessly hunting Islamist madmen, we seek to appease them. Instead of acknowledging that radical Islam is the problem, we elected a president who blames America, whose idea of freedom is the right for women to suffer in silence behind a veil -- and who counts among his mentors and friends those who damn our country or believe that our own government staged the tragedy of September 11, 2001.
DOES OBAMA WANT TO LOSE IN AFGHANISTAN?
On the eve of Islam's Day of Infamy, the September 11 Islamic Atrocity upon America, I found my mind drifting back to a day when I was in college. It was May 11, 1965, and as I was walking across the UCLA campus from where I parked my car to my first class, everywhere I looked I saw students reading The Daily Bruin. They were really immersed in some article - and I knew immediately what it was. It was a huge double-spread article of mine emblazoned with the title Victory in Vietnam: Go North. The only way to win, I argued, was to stop playing defense in South Vietnam but go on the offensive against Hanoi - to shut down Hanoi's capacity to wage war upon the South, and as quickly as possible. None of this was done, and as we all too bitterly know, North Vietnam did conquer South Vietnam. We lost a war because we had no intention of winning it. So - is America going to lose another war, this one in Afghanistan, because its government doesn't want to win it? A war against an enemy that perpetrated or helped to perpetrate the September 11 Islamic Atrocity, and will again if they are not defeated?
AN UNRESPONSIVE SPEECH
After all the rhetoric is put aside, one principle ran through President Obama's speech to Congress (9/09): that increased government involvement in health care can solve its problems. Many Americans fundamentally disagree with this idea. We know from long experience that the creation of a massive new bureaucracy will not provide us with "more stability and security," but just the opposite. It's hard to believe the President when he says that this time he and his team of bureaucrats have finally figured out how to do things right if only we'll take them at their word. Our objections to the Democrats' health care proposals are not mere "bickering" or "games." They are not an attempt to "score short term political points." And it's hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use "scare tactics" when in the next breath he says that "more will die" if his proposals do not pass.
JUST HOW ANTI-DEMOCRACY PRO-DICTATORSHIP IS OBAMA?
President Barack Hussein Obama's State Department waited until the cusp of Labor Day weekend before publicly backing Latin America's dictators in their assault on democracy. Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they'd slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's client, Manuel Zelaya, isn't returned to power in Honduras, the United States won't recognize the results of that country's upcoming free elections. Mr. Obama hasn't uttered a single word of criticism for the dictatorships of Chavez or his protégés in Ecuador and Bolivia, nor once demanded free elections in Cuba. But he's going to show those wicked Hondurans, by Hugo! They can't boot out a crazy leftwing president just because he's trying to subvert their Constitution.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/04/09
Can this marriage be saved? How many husbands have been blindsided with the most horrifying words in the English language for them - "I want a divorce!"? It happens to wives too, but most often it's the guys who are clueless until the damage is irreparable. Ask any marriage counselor, and they'll confirm that, try as they may with all their skill, once a certain tipping point of anger, contempt, and distrust has been attained by one spouse, there is little the other spouse can do to salvage the relationship. It has to be sundered. That tipping point may have been reached this week. After being reminded of some pedophile cruising down the street asking schoolchildren, "Hi kids, want some candy?", the American people may be on the verge of demanding a divorce from the man they politically married last November.
A GAGGED GENERAL, A TRAPPED PRESIDENT, A MUDDLED MISSION
The classified status report from Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal was censored by the White House before its submission. As a result, it's all bun and no burger. The administration preferred a politically expedient blah-blah "report" that grants the White House a time-out. But there's no time-out for our soldiers and Marines (our enemies won't listen to the ref). Guess who pays the price while Obama plays Hamlet? The result? We've got a general who's been gagged, a president trapped by his campaign promises, a muddled mission, crippling restrictions on our troops, a resurgent enemy, a worthless Afghan government -- and an AWOL establishment media that, after hammering the Bush administration, gives Obama a pass on American casualties.
“ON OR ABOUT DECEMBER 2010 HUMAN CHARACTER CHANGED”
Those who suffered through being an English major in college may recognize the literary referent. In an essay written in 1924 entitled "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," the English author Virginia Woolf makes the following comment: "On or about December, 1910, human character changed. . . . All human relations have shifted-those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these changes about the year 1910." The liberal craziness of our day - whether in religion, conduct, politics, literature, or art - can be traced back to the emergence of the movement Woolf was talking about, called "modernism," based on a denial of reality and human nature. One hundred years of all this lunacy is enough. So here's a modest proposal.