Dr. Jack Wheeler
JOHN NEHRING 1942-2008
One of the most beloved members of our To The Point family has passed on. Anyone who knew him could assure you that you'll never meet a kinder, more decent man than John Nehring. There was a sweetness, a gentleness to him, combined with a profound love of liberty and a core of pro-American steel. An Eagle Scout and National Merit Scholar from Columbus, Ohio, John graduated near the top of his class at the Air Force Academy. He was an F-4 Phantom fighter pilot in Vietnam, got a Masters degree in economics at Georgetown, taught business & economics at the Air Force Academy, served in the Air Force for 30 years and retired as a full bird colonel. For the past several years, John taught economics at Embry-Riddle University in Colorado Springs, opening his students' eyes to the great advocates of economic freedom, such as Ludwig von Mises, Frederic Bastiat, and Milton Friedman.
THE CHINA INTERNET FREEDOM PROJECT
While Beijing was sending in troops to crack down on protesters in Tibet, they also made sure to boot out the foreign journalists, jam the short wave radios, and lock down the Internet. So, how did the Tibetans get the news out? By using DynaWeb and UltraReach - tiny software tools that seek out cracks in the Chinese Great Firewall and connect users' computers to the biggest anti-censorship network in the world. These tools scramble the users' communications and shuttle the data back and forth along an underground cyber network in a way that cannot be detected by high-tech monitoring and jamming equipment. At this point, the censors' firewalls virtually disappear to the users. They can now access blocked websites and also freely communicate with the rest of the world. The group that built this special network and tools like DynaWeb and UltraReach and recent additions, GPass and FirePhoenix, is the Global Internet Freedom Consortium or GIF. You may have never heard of GIF, but it is easily the largest and most mature anti-censorship operation in the world -- loved by users, loathed and attacked by censors.
OBAMA THE FASCIST SAVIOR
Speaking last February of the man she knows better than anyone else, Michelle Obama said that her husband, Illinois Senator and Democrat Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, Jr., is the only candidate for president who understands that before America can solve its problems, Americans have to fix their "broken souls." She also said that her husband's unique understanding of the state of souls of the American people makes him uniquely qualified to be President. But then, saving souls is hard work, and Mrs. Obama won't place the whole burden on her husband. He'll make the Americans work for him. As she put it, "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed." At base, Mrs. Obama's statement is nothing less than a renunciation of democracy and an embrace of fascism. The basic idea of liberty is that people have a natural right to live their lives as usual and to be uninvolved and uninformed. And they certainly have a right to expect that their government will butt out of their souls.
ENDING CHINA’S THREAT TO TAIWAN
The single greatest threat to peace in the world, the one with the most potential to escalate into all-out and even nuclear war between China and the United States, lies in the Formosa Straits, the 100 miles of ocean separating mainland China and the island of Taiwan. At this moment, the Communist Chinese have 1,400 CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. The handful of Tien Kung-3 (Sky-Bow-3) air defense missile batteries (based on our Patriot II system) the Taiwanese have is wholly inadequate against this massive threat. What Taiwan needs is a missile defense system that can blanket its west coast facing the mainland as well as its cities, that is cheap to build, quick to build, easy to operate, and very effective. A system that would allow few if any Chinese missiles to get through, that would blow any Chinese attacking warplanes out of Taiwan's skies, and against which any Chinese landing craft in an amphibious invasion would be dead ducks. This system could be put in place within 24 months. Once it is, China's threat to Taiwan is essentially gone. Here's how Taiwan can do it.
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/18/08
The HFR can stand only so much good news. How can it report on things half-full when the glass is overflowing? So this week we'll have to use one of those huge beer steins from which Bavarians imbibe at the Munich Hofbraühaus: 
We begin, of course with Obama The Infantilizomaniac. 
ENDING INFLATION IN THREE WORDS
There is no more horrific tax than inflation. It can wipe out a lifetime of savings with ease. It's also the easiest way for politicians to escape fiscal jams of their creation. Medicare, for example, goes cash-negative within 24 months from now. Its cost to taxpayers will mount almost exponentially in the years to come. There are only three ways to deal with the cost: raise taxes monumentally, cut benefits drastically, or inflate the value of the dollar to cover the ballooning cost. Which one do you think Congress will choose? There is a three-word solution to this, and TTP's favorite Paulista, economics professor John Nehring, had better be prepared or else his head will explode with excitement. The three words are:
DOES CONGRESSMAN WAXMAN WANT TO DESTROY THE US ECONOMY?
What would you think if members of Congress voted to require the U.S. military to forgo purchases of most of Canada's oil and thus be forced to increase their dependency on Saudi Arabian produced oil? As bizarre as it may seem, this is not a hypothetical question. It is precisely what Congress did in passing the falsely named Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote a letter to Chairman Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on March 17 of this year, detailing the "proper interpretation" of the Act. Mr. Waxman's interpretation makes one wonder if his purpose is to cause as much damage to the US economy as possible.
TRULY POST-MODERN ART
"Modern art" is typified by meaningless blobs of paint splattered on a canvas, with "post-modern art" equally mindless and unintelligible. TTP is therefore pleased to salute a real artist Chris Hopkins and his magnificent painting Saluting Reagan: 
The price of the original oil on canvas is $50,000. A poster, however, is only 24 bucks. At that price, we can all afford to salute the 20th century's greatest American president.
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/11/08
The HFR this week salutes Absolut Vodka for its absolute stupidity in running an ad depicting pre-1836 Mexico as a map of "an ideal Absolut world." These Swedish marketing geniuses were inundated with emails like the one I sent, informing them that I shall never, ever, buy a bottle of Absolut for the rest of my life. I encourage you to make the same vow... ... The good news continues in South Korea. The triumph this week of newly-elected president Lee Myung-bak's Grand National Party in parliamentary elections cementing Lee's majority control of the government means his plans for overthrowing Kim Jong-il's communist regime and unifying Korea can proceed... ... The HFR raises a glass of no-pity to the terrorist-loving Palestinians of Gaza... ...and a glass of schadenfreude to Oprah Winfrey, who has seen her popularity and tv-show ratings take a nose dive since she came out in support of Barack Hussein Obama, Jr... ...while celebrating the unfolding exposure of Obambi as a crook and a lightweight. The more one looks past Obambi's smooth rhetoric, the uglier it gets. And the squishier. For it's his ballbreaker wife, Michelle, who has the cojones in the family, not him. More and more now, it's becoming clear: Obama is a pussy.
THE ISLAMIC OPPRESSION OF CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT
I have recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Moslems who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored. A place with rampant police brutality and corruption, where non-Moslems are second-class citizens at best, who are brutally victimized on a daily basis. All this in a nation which is a popular U.S. tourist spot, and has been the recipient of American aid in excess of $28 billion in the last three decades. I wanted to learn what life would be like if our enemies and their allies got their way. What I saw was an example of the harsh life in store for future American generations in Islamic-dominated regions of the U.S. if we do not work to bring attention to the issue of Islamic oppression now at this critical time in American history.
DOES THE DEMOCRAT PARTY BELONG IN JAIL?
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. - Mark Twain (1897) Twain's humorous quip, unfortunately, is all too close to the current reality. "Willful misconduct," a criminal offense, is legally defined as "intentionally doing that which should not be done or intentionally failing to do that which should be done, when knowing that injury to a person will probably result, or recklessly disregarding the possibility that injury to a person may result." Congress, by failing to act in the case of a clear and present danger to parts of the American financial system, could reasonably be considered engaging in "willful misconduct." And here is why.
THE BOTTOMLESS VICIOUS DISHONESTY OF DEMOCRATS
It's not widely recognized that the Wall Street Journal is a left-wing rag, a propaganda organ for the Democrat Party no less than the New York Times. That's because people compare the editorials, not the news coverage. The WSJ is a schizophrenic, split-personality paper with a pro-America editorial page (yes, except for their open-borders nonsense), while that of the NYT's is so anti-American it is often outright treasonous. But if you focus on the front section news coverage, you'll see little difference between the two. A perfect example is this "news" story of April 7 in the WSJ: Democrats' Hopes for Seat Rise. The opening line of the story is: "A conservative firebrand with a connection to a former Ku Klux Klan leader will run for a Louisiana seat in the (U.S.) House of Representatives, raising Democrats' hopes they can pick up what has been a reliably conservative district for more than three decades." The "conservative firebrand" in question is Woody Jenkins, the Republican candidate. That description of him is accurate - he's a passionate pro-life, pro-Christian, pro-capitalist, pro-America, pro-Western Civilization guy. He's stand-up honest, integrity personified, born and raised in the Louisiana district (Baton Rouge) he represented in the state legislature for 28 years. I should know, for he's been a good friend of mine for a quarter-century. And that's how I know the WSJ's smear alleging he has "a connection to a former Ku Klux Klan leader" is a complete willful fabrication. The author of the WSJ article, Susan Davis, is not a journalist, she's a professional left-wing smear artist.
THE OLYMPICS OF FACE
As we enjoy watching the debacle of the Chicom Torch Relay disastrously unfold from London to Paris to San Francisco to points beyond, let's step back to the bigger picture of what these Olympics are all about. They are not about sport and Olympic Ideals, that's for sure. The competing athletes from scores of countries all over the world are only props. These Beijing Games are about one thing only. They are about face - Chinese face. The concept of face - as in "losing face" or "saving face" - plays a critical role in Chinese culture and the way most Chinese deal with reality - a way that is fundamentally opposed to that of Americans. If your "face" is the primary concern of your life, controlling your conduct and morality, then you believe that reality is what other people say it is, not what it is in fact. The morality of face is the morality of pretend. For any country to host an Olympic Games, it's a matter of national pride. But for China, that's all that it is. The purpose of the Beijing Games is China's "coming-out party," during which the world accepts Chicom China as a morally legitimate nation, and publicly pretends it is not a dictatorship. For the Chicoms, this pretense is the Games' only purpose. Which means, if the party is spoiled, it will be a catastrophic loss of face for the Chicoms, and the Han Chinese they rule. What will be the consequences of this?
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/04/08
"Ted Turner Offers To Commit Suicide To End Global Warming." That should have been the headline for this story, in which the founder of CNN declared: "We're too many people; that's why we have global warming." The HFR couldn't agree more with you on this, Ted - with one caveat. What we actually have is too many people like you. Anyone who believes there are too many people inhabiting the earth has only one moral and consistent path of action to take: Start reducing the human population by starting with themselves, i.e., commit suicide. The world really will be much better off without you, Ted. Trust us on this. We don't care how you do it - slit your wrists, drink Draino, whatever - just don't take anyone else along with you unless it's Jane Fonda. In the meantime, the HFR thanks you for so clearly reminding everyone what an incredible idiot you are, and how every time you open your mouth, you do grave damage to the credibility of the commie causes you mindlessly espouse.
HOW TO TRANSFORM ZOMBIES INTO THINKING PARTICIPANTS
This is a story of how I learned to transform a workforce of 1,500 unionized zombies into participating human beings. It was in a Belgian steel mill in 1963. Since then I have been able to replicate this transformation of zombies into thinking participants in different parts of the world. The basic requirement is human contact beyond all barriers and education. Given that, the possibility of such transformation is universal, for human beings are human beings. The limiting factor is culture. The transformation is far easier in some cultures, far harder in others. I have found it to be the most difficult and frustrating with Arabs. Close to the edge of impossibility. In Asia, I found the best to be...
THE FORECLOSURE SCAM AND THE REAL WAY TO CASH IN ON REAL ESTATE
It's hard to miss the full page newspaper ads - such as in the Washington Post and likely in your local paper as well - blaring about "the investment opportunity of a lifetime" by investing in foreclosures. "The current rise in foreclosures is an incredible opportunity for you to make incredible real estate deals!" claims the WaPo ad. All of these ads are scams. Yet it turns out that there is a genuine solution to the mortgage crisis, and those who understand it will be able to make a lot of money. Let me tell you how to do it.
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/28/08
One of the coolest guys on the planet has been a friend of mine for thirty years - Col. Robert K. Brown, publisher of Soldier of Fortune Magazine. We've had various adventures together, like being shot at by Soviets in Afghanistan, and please don't ask him how he got the nickname "Bob Ka-bab," or else he'll tell you about "Snuffy Jack." Thus the first item on the HFR agenda this week is to tell you how you can participate in Bob's Stir The Chicom Pot Contest... ... If done right, efforts to sabotage the Chicom Olympics may reach a "tipping point," turning them, as the Washington Post just noted, into a "politically toxic showcase of repression." Another tipping point was reached this week in the debate on "climate change"... ... Additional happy news on the enviro front comes from the Bush Administration... ... And we can be more than half-full grateful that the Roberts Court this week decided 6-3 for American sovereignty, humiliating Condi Rice in the process...
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRISTIANITY VS. ISLAM
This past Sunday, March 23, 2008, was the most extraordinary Easter we may see in our lives. To begin with, we'll never see an earlier one. Because Easter is dated via the ancient Hebrews' lunar calendar used to identify Passover, it is celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox of March 20th. This year, the moon reached full one day later, March 21st, which happened to be a Saturday. Thus Easter was the next day. You can't have an Easter much earlier than March 23rd. One day earlier, in fact, March 22nd. The last time Easter fell then was 1818; the next time in 2285. The last time Easter fell on March 23rd was in 1913, and the next time will be in 2228. So unless you are at least 95 years old, you've never seen an Easter as early as last Sunday, and unless some Durk Pearson life extension technology keeps you around for another 220 years, you'll never see another. So this Easter was chronologically special - but it was also special for a far deeper reason than that. In fact, it is the combination of two specific events taking place during this Easter Week that may well signify the resurrection of a dormant Christianity and its resultant defeat of militant Islam.
THE REVOLUTIONARY RENDEZVOUS
Get set for a Revolutionary TTP Rendezvous this summer! The dates are Friday, August 22 through Sunday, August 24 - the weekend before Labor Day weekend. The place is where the American Revolution began - Boston. First we'll go to where America began* -- Plymouth Rock. Then to North Church from whose steeple the signal was given for Paul Revere's ride, and follow his ride to Lexington. From Lexington Green we'll go to Concord and North Bridge, where the Revolution started with "the shot heard ‘round the world." We'll host many a lager at the Green Dragon Tavern where Sam Adams and his fellow revolutionaries conspired and plotted against the British. Revolutionary good cheer will also be had at the Bell In Hand, and every Irishman's favorite Boston pub, Dooley's. With the help of our members in Boston like Marco the Wizard and the Dynamic Blonde Duo of Maureen Bowen and Eileen Corcoran, we're putting together a package of hotels, venues, and activities that you won't want to miss at a price you can afford. Details will be forthcoming - but in the meantime, mark your calendar and plan to have a revolutionary good time with your fellow TTP'ers. Boston, August 22-24. [*That's not to forget where America also began - Jamestown, Virginia. Right nearby is Yorktown where the Revolution was won. Obviously a site for a future Rendezvous.]
GOT A QUESTION FOR ME?
Thanks to TTP'er and entrepreneur Eric Martell, we're pleased to announce The TTP Teleconference. It's a sort of "mini-rendezvous" using an interactive format based on a web-site where you can ask questions and a teleconference call where I can answer them. We're now ready to try our first free teleconference. It will be on Monday, April 7th at 9:00PM Eastern Time. The way it will work is simple.
THE DEMS, THE DEVIL, AND THE DEEP BLACK SEA
Could the Democrats' dilemma possibly get any funnier or more entertaining? It's still March, we've got seven more months to election day, and the way things are going, it's going to take a cross between Einstein and Houdini to prevent a McGovernesque disaster. Even weirder, it's beginning to look like they want such a disaster. So weird that maybe their Bureau of Propaganda - otherwise known as the "mainstream media" - wants it too. Dem leaders know Hillary can't win against McCain. They know Obambi can't win against McCain. Yet they would far rather give it to Obambi - for they fear black envy and racist hatred more than they fear destroying their party. They would rather appease the former than avoid the latter. That's masochism, big time.
FROM APPEASING NAZIS TO APPEASING MOSLEMS
Adolf Hitler realized the importance of having a good press. In Nazi Germany with its press censorship, it was easy for Hitler to have a good press. However, during the 1930s the Nazis also tried to control the media in the neighboring European countries that Hitler was planning to invade. The Nazis bullied the democratically elected governments in these countries to censor everything that resembled what today might be called "Naziophobia" - criticism of Nazism. A number of bullied governments gave in to the Nazi intimidation rather than back the few courageous individuals who spoke out against totalitarianism. Today, we are witnessing a similar phenomenon. Islamist extremists want a good press. They do not tolerate criticism. Even cartoons are deemed offensive. They warn those who criticize them "to consider the possible consequences" of Islamophobia.
TAXATION AS LEGALIZED ROBBERY
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously said, "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society," while his predecessor on the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Marshall, also correctly noted, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." The American Founding Fathers, in the Declaration of Independence, state as one of their grievances against King George III, that he imposed "taxes on us without our consent." "No taxation without representation" was a rallying cry of the Revolution, and from that time it has been widely agreed that imposition of a tax without the consent of the governed is a form of tax tyranny. President Calvin Coolidge stated it succinctly, "Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery." (Ronald Reagan admired Coolidge so much he had Coolidge's portrait hung in the Cabinet Room of the White House.) So at what point does taxation move from that necessary for proper government to tyranny?
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/21/08
We should call the HFR this week The Toast Report, because that's what so many folks on the dark side have become in the last few days. Let's start with Obambi. This is going to be like watching one of those spectacular crash-explosion movie disaster scenes shot in agonizingly slow motion. One month from tomorrow (April 22) is the Dem primary in Pennsylvania. Obambi's worshippers in the media will be the guys in the movie scene reaching out in slo-mo and shouting noooooo!, knowing all the while they can't prevent the inevitable. He is going to be destroyed by Mrs. Clinton in PA. Blue-collar Budweiser Democrats will not vote for someone who takes his kids to a church that goddamns America. The same is going to happen to him in the North Carolina primary on May 6, except for his winning the huge black vote there. Then it becomes obvious the Clinton-Obama race is about nothing but race, with Obambi only having the black vote. At that point, the Dems realize they are truly, truly - in Daniel Henninger's delightful term - Mamet-worded.
MONKEYS IN TIBET
I took this picture of the Potala on my first expedition across Tibet in 1986. Even though I've since logged over 10,000 kilometers criss-crossing Tibet, seeing the Potala is always a fantastic thrill, one of man's great architectural masterpieces built centuries ago in Tibet's capital of Lhasa. It is no thrill, however, for Tibetans. For them, the Potala is "dead," for the Dalai Lama no longer lives there. The Potala is instead a bitter reminder to Tibetans that their country has been stolen, that they are slaves to their masters, the Chinese. COA (Chinese Occupational Army) garrisons are littered throughout Tibet. The Tibetans call them Tibu Baptu, Monkey Stations. Tibetans look upon Chinese soldiers as tibu, monkeys; Chinese Communist Party officials as pakba, pigs; and the swarms of Chinese immigrants sent to colonize Tibet as chusin, crocodiles devouring Tibet's culture. After slaughtering two million Tibetans in the Chicom seizure of Tibet since 1951, destroying its sacred monasteries, exiling and demonizing the beloved Dalai Lama, and colonizing it with imperial tyranny, the Chinese Pakba have the audacity to elaborately celebrate each year the "Liberation" of Tibet. This year, wonderfully and finally, the Tibetans fought back. And even more wonderfully, it made world-wide headlines, exposing the brutality and horror of Chinese imperialism to the entire world. For the latest developments on the ground in Tibet, see SaveTibet and FreeTibet. The latter in particular will explain how you can personally participate in the liberation of Tibet and in ruining China's Genocide Olympics. What I want to discuss here are three aspects of the situation you may not otherwise hear about.
GOD DAMN BARACK OBAMA
That didn't take long, did it? That's the way it is with frenzies, whether they're dotcom bubbles or phony messiahs. A few moments of "the madness of crowds," then it's down the rabbit hole of history. So there goes another Great Black Hope, the Great Liberal Dream of absolution from America's racist sins dashed yet again. Better luck in 2012 or 2112, O ye liberal sinners, because it's over in 2008. Obama is toast. You know he's toast when Chris Matthews, who poses as a tough-guy bully but is really just a liberal pussy wallowing in white guilt, goes apoplectically over the top proclaiming Obama's speech in Philly today to be "one of the great speeches in American history," surpassing Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream and "worthy of Abraham Lincoln." To see the total absurdity of this, try imagining Martin Luther King's reaction to a Jeremiah Wright sermon. You can be quite confident he would publicly denounce it as the most vile racism and walk out of the church. Obambi and his not-proud-of-her-country wife stayed for 20 years. This smooth-talking charismatic con man is lying through his teeth when he said he wasn't really aware of his pastor sermonizing "God Damn America." God Damn America? No, God Damn Barack Obama.
HALF-FULL REPORT 03/14/08
This week's HFR is way, way more than half-full - it's overflowing. The delicious destruction of a Democrat fascist is so orgasmic it can't be confined to an HFR blurb, but deserved its own article: The Real Spitzer Scandal. The Hillary-Obambi Destruction Derby keeps getting better. But as we enjoy Obambi having to fire his Israel-hating/Palestinian terrorist-loving advisor Samantha Power for calling Hillary a "monster" (you mean she isn't? who knew?), and the PIAPS having to fire her advisor Geraldine Ferraro for pointing out that people pay attention to Obambi only because he's black (when everyone knows he's only half-black) - let's focus on the real cause of the mud fight: There's no substantive difference between these two moonbats in terms of political principles or ideology or Big Brother/Big Government programs they both advocate. Thus the only way to create a difference between them is through personal invective, attack, insult, and smear. So far, even though Her Thighness had to grovel yesterday (3/13) to blacks in apology for Ms. Ferraro's telling the truth, Obambi has definitely been more damaged in the fight so far than she.
THE REAL SPITZER SCANDAL
Yes, we're all swimming in glee over the glorious sight of a self-righteous governor's complete humiliation. The indignation we feel over the scumbag's dragging his wife along to stand by him and publicly humiliate her in the process confirms we have a right to gloat. Eliot Spitzer is a fascist thug. What has happened to him is not "sad," a "waste," a "tragedy," or any other liberal sob-sister characterization. What has happened to him is called karmic justice. He is getting, and let us hope he continues to get, exactly what he deserves. The real Spitzer scandal, however, has nothing to do with cheating on his wife with hookers. This happens every day in every city in America with guys whose wives aren't bright enough to provide them with fantasy sex - albeit not as extravagantly and brazenly as Spitzer. The real scandal is that Spitzer was for years cheered as a hero for being a fascist thug. The real scandal is that a fascist thug was elected Governor of New York by 70% of the vote. The real scandal is a legal system in America run by fascist thugs calling themselves "Prosecutors."
THE RACIAL SPLIT THAT’S TEARING THE DEMOCRATS APART
Barack Hussein Obama's recent ridicule and rejection of Hillary Rodham Clinton's suggestion that he be her VP running-mate squashes the "dream-team" fantasy of many Democrats. It also means the racial division within the Democrat Party between Blacks and Latinos will continue to widen into a disastrously unbridgeable abyss. What's happening in my home town of Los Angeles is instructive. The Los Angeles Times has been documenting with Pulitzer quality reporting, the racial gang wars in the L.A. basin. The largest and oldest Latino gang, the Mexican Mafia, has ordered ethnic cleansing of formerly all-black neighborhoods. This has led to an increase in black vs Latino violence. Close to my home, the Gateway Harbor area, several blacks have been murdered by Latino gangs in this expressed racial hate crime wave. A six year old black boy was shot in the head and is fighting for his life at Harbor UCLA Medical center -- two Latino gang members were arrested for the "random" shooting. Hate crime charges may be filed. These hate crimes help explain the growing division in the national Democrat Party.
SARKOZY: FROM HEROIC HOPE TO LAUGHINGSTOCK NIGHTMARE
When Nicolas Sarkozy was running for president of France last May, I proclaimed him to be "Europe's best hope." Mr. Sarkozy won the votes of 53 percent of the record 85 percent of the French electorate that came out to vote in the presidential elections. The French approved of his tough rhetoric against the Islamist "thugs" (his word, voyous) who control many no-go neighborhoods in the country, where more than 10 percent of the population already adheres to the Moslem faith. During the presidential campaign his Socialist opponent, Ségolène Royal, warned that a Sarkozy victory would lead to violence in the Moslem neighborhoods. The French refused to be intimidated into appeasement and rose to the occasion. French men and women who normally do not vote because they distrust politics turned out en masse to elect "Sarko." The "thugs" have since begun to ambush police and no longer refrain from shooting at officers, but the Sarkozy government had not clamped down on them. Yet that is only the beginning of the coming Sarkozy nightmare.
POLITICAL FIXES FOR POLITICAL CAUSES OF RECESSION
There is still time to avoid a recession - a recession being technically defined as two quarters of negative economic growth. What needs to be done, and can be done in the next 60 days, follows. First, it is important to realize the present economic slowdown was caused by a series of mistakes by the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the administration, and Congress. Many of our government policymakers and politicians still insist it was the other guy's fault and pretend that taking money from one group of taxpayers and giving it to another (a k a, a "stimulus package") will somehow miraculously revive the economy. The administration is guilty of having both proposed and acquiesced to spending that resulted in more costs than benefits to the economy, which has slowed growth. Even though those in the administration cannot suddenly reverse much of the wasteful spending on their own, they can do several things by presidential directive - Executive Orders issued by President Bush -- to make things better immediately.
WHY DEMOCRATS CANNOT DEFEND AMERICA
[The Council for National Policy is America's premier group of conservative leaders. At its meeting this weekend, I have been asked to address CNP members, explaining in five minutes why Liberal Democrats seem incapable of even wanting to defend our country. This is what I will say.] A good place to start understanding why Democrats cannot defend America is the Amazon jungle. There is a tribe in the Amazon called the Yanomamo. When a Yanomamo woman gives birth, she tearfully proclaims her child to be ugly. In a loud mortified lament that the entire tribe can hear, she asks why the gods have cursed her with such a pathetically repulsive infant. She does this in order to ward off the envious black magic of the Evil Eye, the Mal Ojo, that would be directed at her by her fellow tribespeople if they thought she was happy and her baby was beautiful. So she is afraid to be happy, because of the fear of being envied by her fellow villagers. From now on, whenever you think of a Liberal Democrat, I want you to think of that Yanomamo woman in the Amazon. For it is that primitive jungle fear of being envied that makes a Liberal.
HALF FULL REPORT 03/07/08
This week's HFR focuses on the Obamarama - or as Jack Kelly describes him, the guy in an empty suit with a glass jaw. Naturally, we're all dancing on the bar tables over Hillary's winning Texas and Ohio, ensuring a vicious catfight between her and Obambi from now ‘till Labor Day. What fun. It turns out, though, that Hillary has a woman on her side who is turning out to be one of her campaign's greatest assets, who just may ensure the Hildebeast's victory over Obambi and her nomination. Nope, not Gloria Steinem nor Barbra Streisand nor Halle Berry. I refer, of course, to... *** ...On the international scene, the HFR reports that Jews around the world rioted in violent protest over a British researcher's claims that Moses, the founder of the Jewish religion, was high on psychedelic drugs and hallucinated that he spoke to God on Mount Sinai.
EIGHT MORE YEARS OF ILLEGALS
Over a year ago, Congress passed a law to spend over $7 billion to build a fence to secure our Mexican border. On February 22, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced at a news conference that a high-tech "virtual fence" project on part of the U.S. border with Mexico was finally ready for service. The so-called Project 28 virtual fence was built near Nogales, Ariz. The $20 million project of sensor towers and advanced mobile communications was supposed to be ready by mid-2007, but was delayed by software problems. So Mr. Chertoff's announcement was good news. But only five days later on February 27, the media reported that the Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a virtual fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of that first 28-mile phase by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear.
GIVE WAR A CHANCE
That was the title of a very funny book P. J. O'Rourke wrote a few years ago about Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And it's very apt advice right now for Colombia's Alvaro Uribe. You knew that Venezuela's coke-head clown dictator was going to find a pretext for war with Colombia a month ago in Wars On The Way. The Colombian Army's take-out of Chavez's FARC buddy Raul Reyes, a murderous Marxist midget (he was barely over five feet tall) last Saturday (3/01) provided it. Now let's hope Uribe accepts Chavez's offer of war. For if he does, it's bye-bye, Hugo.
HALF FULL REPORT 2/29/08
We start off this week's HFR with a marvelous confirmation that Yes, Virginia, Hollywood really is that stupid and shallow... Next up is the exhilarating photo flap over Hussein Obambi's looking like a Moslem girlie-man in drag. Then the HFR announces that its Hero of the Week award goes to General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who had the courage to publicly state that "global warming is a total crock" of fecal material... The HFR further announces the impending death of North Korea... And lastly, there appeared this week two astonishingly hopeful signs of moderation in Islam.
EUROPE’S CHOICE: STATISM OR FREEDOM
Ljubljana, Slovenia. As I gaze out on the prosperous and exquisite "old town" of this ancient city, it seems far removed from the country of Yugoslavia of which it was part. After a brief battle in 1991, Slovenia won its independence, and is now a part of the European Union. The tensions between Serbia and Kosovo, the final remnants of Yugoslavia, are felt not much more deeply here than in most other parts of the EU. By almost any measure, Slovenia has been an economic success during the last 18 years, and now enjoys a per capita income (on a purchasing power parity) almost equal to that of the average EU country, and about 60 percent of that enjoyed by the average American. Despite Slovenia's success, it now faces many of the same problems found in the larger EU countries. Back in 1991, Slovenia, tucked up against the Austrian Alps, had the goal to be a little Switzerland with its economic prosperity and personal liberty. Yet, two decades later, the economic system in Slovenia looks more like that of France than Switzerland. Thus the debate here, as it is emerging in so many places in Europe, between retreating into stagnant statism or moving forward into freedom.
AN AMAZING QUESTION ASKED BY EASTERN EUROPE
During the past two centuries, three major European continental nations have tried to impose their will on the rest of the continent, indeed, on the globe. First France in the early 19th century, then Germany in the first half of the 20th century, and finally Russia. In the second half of the 20th century, France and Germany each realized that on their own their importance on a European and global level was going to decline. Hence, they became the motors of the so-called European unification process. Many - especially in Britain, but also in smaller countries such as Denmark and the Netherlands - perceive the European Union to be a joint Franco-German effort at dominating Europe. Eastern European nations such as the Baltic states and Poland fear that one day the Franco-German axis might be enlarged by bringing in Russia. They realize that the biggest threat to their independence is a Franco-German-Russian axis. If one day Paris, Berlin and Moscow decide to join forces the rest of Europe will have to do as they are told. So they have begun to ask themselves an amazing question.
SO SLIPPERY HE MAKES BILL CLINTON LOOK HONEST
Sen. Hillary Clinton has road-tested several versions of attacks on Sen. Barack Obama that don't work. Obviously, and first, don't come out against change and hope - the perennial themes of successful election campaigns. Even my old boss, Ronald Reagan, campaigned for re-election in 1984 in response to the claim that America needed to change on the phrase, "We ARE the change" (as well as on the hopeful theme of "morning in America"). If a candidate is not for change, he is not for us. Nor will Americans ever vote for a presidential candidate on what he or she has already done for us. In American politics, gratitude is always the lively expectation of benefits yet to come. The question is always, what will you do for us tomorrow? Americans will not give Sen. John McCain the White House because we are grateful for his heroism 40 years ago at the "Hanoi Hilton." We are grateful, and he was heroic. Americans might gladly vote a medal, or even an opulent retirement home, but not the presidency.
JOHN THE JERKOMANIAC
In her tribute to Bill Buckley, Mona Charen lauded not only what he had accomplished - a "profoundly consequential life" - but what he was as a human being: "by universal acclimation, the most gracious man on the planet." "It was always Bill," she observed, "who rushed to get a chair for the person left standing" at a meeting. "Always Bill who reached to fill your glass" of water. "Always Bill who volunteered to give you a lift wherever you were going, insisting it was on his way." With his usual impeccable timing, Bill Buckley chose to leave us at just the opportune time to contrast the gracious humanity of the founder of America's conservative movement with the personality of the man claiming conservatives should support his nomination for President of the United States. The Democrat Party and its candidates, Mrs. Bill Clinton and Hussein Obambi, have the neurosis possessed by all liberals - Infantilizomania, the obsessive compulsion to treat adults as children. The presumptive candidate of the Republican Party has a different type of neurosis - Jerkomania, the obsessive compulsion to be a jerk. The only way for McCain to overcome this is for conservatives, when they think of him, to think of Cordell Hull.