[With a final chapter 34 and an Epilogue to go, The Jade Steps is nearing completion.  So it's worth re-emphasizing again that The Jade Steps is a true story.  Every principal event described actually happened, every named person really lived and had that name.  It all happened almost 500 years ago, but it still remains the cause of the civil war within Mexico's soul.  Mexico will never rise out of the Third World until this spiritual wound is healed.  That is the purpose of this book.]   The Jade Steps Chapter Thirty-Three:  Reaping The Whirlwind   "Doña Marina! Doña Marina!"  Someone was screaming at her, shaking her violently.  It was Doña Luisa.  Dazed from fainting, Malinali stared at the woman in confusion.  "You must not stay here! The Aztecs are attacking!"  She heard the words with no understanding.  She felt herself being pulled roughly to her feet and pushed into a run.  They reached a set of trees.  She looked around in bewilderment.  There was this incredible noise, but it seemed so far away. She looked in the direction of the noise and saw the Tacuba causeway.  It was filled with screaming Aztec warriors swinging their macuahuitl obsidian-edged wooden swords and racing towards Pedro de Alvarado and his men.  Somehow the sight of it seemed as distant as the noise.  Suddenly, like the wave of a storm, the full sight and the sound of the battle crashed upon her.  She heard claps of thunder, but the sky was clear.  Then she saw the brigantines in the lake on either side of the causeway, firing their canons into the Aztec mass.  She recognized the captain of one of the ships, Juan Jaramillo, the officer who had protected her during La Noche Triste. She saw Pedro de Alvarado lead his horsemen into a charge straight into the Aztecs, as the musketmen and crossbowmen formed positions on the edges of the causeway to fire into them.  So many Aztec warriors had filled the causeway in their fury and rage to get at the Spaniards that they couldn't move.  They just became targets for the cannons and muskets and arrows and the hooves of war horses.  They died in the hundreds, and still more hundreds, until they gave up the assault, retreating back into the city shouting insults and taunts that they had killed... Then the terrible sight that had caused her to faint appeared before her eyes, the bloody head of Cortez bouncing and rolling in the dust, and she screamed in horror.  Doña Luisa embraced her and she clung to the Tlaxcalan princess, sobbing uncontrollably for "My Captain, my Captain..."  She finally let go, and, whispering her thanks, she walked alone along the shoreline to stare vacantly out upon the waters of Lake Texcoco.

What is it with little guys with egos as big as their billionaire bank accounts who think they can get elected President of the United States as a third party independent? Beats me.  But while it was horrifically destructive the last time - in 1992 - it may be marvelous today.  Right now, I'm rootin' for Bloomie. Ross Perot was five-foot-six.  Michael Bloomberg is maybe a half-inch taller.  We owe the Clinton Presidency to Perot - the 19% of the vote he gained was mostly a protest against George H. W. Bush.  If Perot had not run, Clinton would have lost.  Thanks, Ross. Now Little Mikey thinks it's his turn to come to America's rescue.  I can see the ad now, Bloomie strolling along a sun-kissed beach, looking straight into the camera, and saying: "Hi, America!  I know what you're suffering from, causing you so much frustration and anxiety.  You're a victim of Electile Dysfunction - the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.  You want a cure for this terrible malady, America?  Well, you're looking at it - me, Mike Bloomberg for President."

The Washington Post, flagship of the liberal elite in our nation's capital, ran the most marvelously revealing story this week (1/15).  In typical heart-tugging WaPo style, Emergency Care Waits Found To Be On Rise described the growing nationwide "deadly" crisis of hyper-crowded hospital emergency rooms. After providing examples and stats showing how much longer it takes to see a physician in an emergency room, the article listed the causes of this "frightening trend."  Guess what they don't mention.   The idiom "elephant in the room" refers to ignoring something overwhelmingly obvious, pretending it doesn't exist.  Liberals take this one step further - they really don't see the elephant, they willfully blind themselves to the elephant's existence, in this case taking up most of the space in the emergency room of most of the hospitals in the country. Any of you who have been in an ER recently know exactly what I am talking about:  they are overflowing with illegal aliens speaking a torrent of Spanish demanding free medical care. It's another example of why the issue of illegal immigration is such an Achilles Heel for Democrats in November.

Which presidential contenders would be best for the economy and which ones worse? Unfortunately, much of the campaign has revolved around a series of largely meaningless sound bites and words like "change." Some candidates find they can get away with policy prescriptions totally disconnected from their stated goals and empty platitudes, because many in the press demand nothing more, even in the "debates." I suspect that there are millions of other such voters who haven't a clue about various candidates' positions, let alone understand the actual implications of their declared policies.  So let's discuss them, one by one, and see if that helps us answer the question.

"Right on track, Jack."  That's what one of the main campaign managers of The Man Who Wasn't There told me today. He and his colleagues are happy, happy guys n' gals.  "This is going exactly as expected," they exude.  "And it's a strategy that has never been tried before.  If it works like we think it's going to, the world will think we're bloody geniuses." Pause, after a bemused glance is directed at them. "Yeah, well, right, it's the boss's strategy, so, okay,  he's actually the genius." "The boss," the man who wasn't there in Iowa, Wyoming, and New Hampshire, the man who won't be there in Michigan, Nevada, or South Carolina, is, of course...

If you Google "Obama" and "assassination" you will get 384,000 hits. All over the world, the media is speculating on the possibility.  Typical is the January 8 (the day of the New Hampshire primary) headline in one of Australia's major newspapers, The Australian: Obama Must Be Wary of the Assassin's Gun. The "news angle" of thousands of such stories is the same.  The first line of The Australian story is:  "Barrack Obama is crazy brave.  His victory in Iowa puts him in the crosshairs of many a gun-toting racist for whom the thought of a black president is an abomination." It's the drumbeat theme echoing around the globe:  evil racist-fascist right-wing war-mongering child-eating nazi conservatives will always destroy America's hopes of being a peaceful humanitarian nation. After all, it was just such a fascist-nazi right-winger that murdered JFK and killed Camelot, right?  What's that?  Lee Harvey Oswald was a Communist?  Oh... Please ignore that impossibly embarrassing fact.  Especially since it brings up the real question that no liberal dares to think, much less ask: Will Hillary find an Oswald of her own to take out Obama?

Hear that wonderfully melodious sound?  It's the crack-up of Global Warming, the Left's crazed attempt to seize global power after the failure of Marxism crashing and burning.  2008 is starting off just right. A tip off that it's over for the eco-wackos was the announcement of the Pantone color mavens that green is passé for 2008, that the hip color is blue - as in blue skies, no clouds, no rain, just sunshine and deep blue sky. Then on New Years Day, the liberal bastion itself, the New York Times, scandalously ridiculed glowarmers, calling them "availability entrepreneurs," sneering at them as "the activists, journalists and publicity-savvy scientists who selectively monitor the globe looking for newsworthy evidence of a new form of sinfulness, burning fossil fuels." When the New York Times laughs at glowarmers - well, it's like Global Warming is so over.   So it's time to start celebrating CO2.  I have a really good suggestion on how to do so.

How much did the federal budget deficit rise in 2007? Answer: It did not rise, it got much smaller. The deficit has been declining rapidly for the last three years and is now only about 1 percent of gross domestic product, which is far lower than the average deficit for the last half-century. Left-wing ideologues, such as Paul Krugman of the New York Times, have been predicting for years that the Bush tax cuts would lead to ever-growing deficits. Wrong again. When did the recession of 2007 begin? Answer: It never started. CNN and other news media are quoting polls showing many Americans think the economy has been in a recession. But the economy has grown in every quarter of 2007, and employment is at a record high, despite the subprime mortgage problem and the rise in oil prices. Economic growth in 2007 will be more than 2 percent - not great, but not a disaster or a recession. The reason so many think the U.S. is in a recession is the unbalanced reporting about the economy from many in the left-leaning media who overly report the comments of Bush-hating politicians and the bad, but not the good, numbers.

Madrid, Spain. Spain has been one of the great democratic and economic success stories of the last three decades. But there is now some reason to fear for its future. The Spaniards have moved in two generations from conservative church-going Catholics to some of the most socially liberal people on the planet (the Californians of Europe). Recent surveys have shown the Spaniards to be among the happiest people on Earth. In sum, Spain seems to have everything going for it.  There are problems, however, big problems in paradise.

For many conservatives, the most infuriating outrage of the Bush Presidency has been the prosecution and imprisonment of two Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, for shooting a Mexican drug smuggler in the ass. It is the drug smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, and the federal prosecutor, Johnny Sutton, who belong in jail, not them. For defending our border from mass foreign invasion, Ramos and Compean will be spending Christmas in solitary confinement, rather than with their families. It's hard to think of a more Christian, a more pro-American thing you could do this Christmas than send them a message of support and a donation to their wives and children. Here's how:

OK, it's all set.  We gave you a heads up two weeks ago in Sarasota Rendezvous.  Now the details.  The To The Point Winter Rendezvous will be from Friday February 8 to Sunday February 10 at the Hilton Longboat Key Beachfront Resort in Sarasota, Florida. We have blocked a number of rooms at amazing rate of $199 (that's for a double or less than $100 per person, and realize, this is right on the beach at the highest of high season, when everyone wants to escape from February snow and ice to Florida sunshine). To reserve yours, just click on the Rendezvous picture on the TTP home page (top of the left side bar) or click here for Rendezvous Reservation. The cost of the Rendezvous itself is $285.  That includes dinner Friday and Saturday nights, breakfast Saturday and Sunday mornings, and all meetings and activities.  There will be in-depth briefings and discussions by me and To The Point stars such as Jack Kelly and Dr. Joel Wade. And of course, there is the wonderful fun of getting together with your fellow TTPers. We'll do so right on the beach with its world-famous white sugar sand - sunset beach parties with a bar set up on the sand just for us.

If you want to see a bunch of really happy folks who think Christmas has come early for them and can't wait for the coming new year, come to the Capitol Hill Club, the power watering hole for Republicans in Washington. There, you'll see GOP Congressmen, Senators, and their top staffers all slapping each other on the back and saying, "We're not in 2006 anymore, Toto," or "2006 is like, so over."  Happy, happy guys n'gals. And why shouldn't they be?  The President's got their back and they've got the hapless Dems by the short hairs.  It's fun to be in DC this December. What's that?  Do I hear you saying in a tone of cynicism, "Yes, Jack, but the Pubbies never know that when you've got your foe on the ropes, you put him down on the canvas.  As always, they'll let the Dems off the ropes rather than finishing them off." There's a lot of history to justify such cynicism.  Arguing that it's different this time is like the definition of a second marriage:  the triumph of hope over experience. Yet there are three good reasons for such hope:

Hillary Clinton has been playing a dangerous game with China.  After over a decade of illegal contributions to the Democratic Party and special favors to the Clintons by the Chicoms, Hillary has turned on her old Chinese friends and sold them out in a desperate bid to win in 2008.  The American dollar and economy have suffered collateral damage in this Clinton double cross with China. "Chinagate" was the name for numerous illegal campaign contributions from the PRC to the Democrats that helped them to win the 1996 elections.  As you may remember back in 1996, the Clintons apparently traded missile secrets to China via Loral in exchange for donations from the PRC.  Thus when Hillary started her run for president, she was in a position to count on the support of the PRC.  Poor residents of Chinatown were making large donations to Hillary.  She was getting numerous suspicious donations from Chinese operatives including Norman Hsu and the Paw family on the west coast, and also from numerous suspicious donations from the East coast.  This might have continued in a simple repeat of the 1996 election scandal if Hillary had any loyalty to her PRC benefactors.  However, the reality was that she had more to gain from selling them out than continuing the game.  Consider the benefits to turning on her former friends:

I'd sure like to make a suggestion for an ideal Christmas gift for someone you really care about:  a membership in To The Point!  Just click on that link and you can sign up a friend for a wonderfully memorable and enlightening month's membership for less than ten bucks - or for those you really care about, a full year. I'd also like to suggest you consider products made by your fellow TTPers. There's WineStar crystal wine glasses offered by Ed & Susan Sanders.  They beat Reidel hands down.  You won't believe how much better wine tastes with Ed & Susan's stemware.  They make a great way to celebrate the Christmas-New Year's holidays, any other holiday, and life every day. Alex & Laurie Alexiev have 800 olive trees on four acres on their ranch near Paso Robles, California that produce the best-tasting, highest quality olive oil you've ever had.  Their Allure Estates Liquid Gold Tuscan-style extra-virgin oil has now won numerous awards.  You can gift yourself with a bottle, as well as your friends. Then there's my sister Judy (an avid TTPer!), with her marvelously illustrated children's book, Jessica The Furry Baroo, that's such a fun way to impart a love of nature and the critters in it to kids. Of course, there's Dr. Joel Wade's new book, Mastering Happiness.  What a great gift for anyone you want to be happy!

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:

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!

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.

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.