WHEN WILL PEOPLE FINALLY SEE THE OBVIOUS?
One of the most memorable lines from the 1995 movie “The Usual Suspects” is this: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”
With just a little tweak, this statement could be applied to the last presidential election: “The greatest trick the Democrats ever pulled was convincing the voters they did not steal the 2020 election.”
Consider the number of things the Left has been willing to lie to the American people about in recent years. After going to alternative sources to discover facts and weigh evidence, we have stirred a vibrant mistrust of those in whom, just a decade ago, most Americans trusted to tell us the truth.
So why has this leap of faithlessness not jumped over to the obvious facts of the 2020 election?
A REPUBLICAN NEW CONTRACT WITH AMERICA IN 2022
Can Republicans move beyond just completing the original, necessary Trump agenda on closing the border, legal-only immigration, deterrence against China, energy production, immunity from optional military engagements in the Middle East, industrial and manufacturing resurgence in the Rust Belt and conservative judicial appointments?
What would such a new Contract with America entail, if it were indeed wise before the midterms to advertise such a confident Newt Gingrich-like strategy for regaining the House? And should a menu be more rather than less detailed? What about the follow-up for a later Republican presidency?
Here are the Ten Commandments worth running on, some new, some old. Not all are official policy positions. Some are recommendations for action even when the federal government is not directly involved.
LUANGWA LAGOON SUNSET
It’s hard to find a better example of the glory of nature than here – a lagoon off the Luangwa River in Africa’s Zambia. It’s also hard to believe I took this picture just a few days ago – and now I’m back home, and Africa so far away.
It was so fulfilling, so rewarding for me, over the past weeks, to provide a life-memorable experience of real Africa to eight TTPers – they’ll never forget it ever. I’ll be here again in July of 2022 – perhaps you’ll be with me. There’s a primordial magic in Africa that grips your soul like nowhere else. The wisdom of those most familiar with the world is: “If you can visit only two continents in your life, go to Africa – twice.” (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #145 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
DID OVER 100,000 PEOPLE 124 YEARS OLD VOTE IN WISCONSIN?
Even they at 105 weren’t old enough to vote in 1918
If you’ve been wondering about the extent of voter fraud in America, we may be seeing a staggering amount of either fraud or grotesque negligence in Wisconsin voter rolls. A review of the state’s voter roles showed that 569,277 voters registered on January 1, 1918.
Yes, 1918. Of that number, 20% of these people, all of whom must now be at least 124 years old, voted in November 2020. Biden “won” in Wisconsin by 20,682 votes....
Ultimately, there are three ways to account for the fact that 20% of people who registered to vote on January 1, 1918, showed up to vote in November 2020, none of which is good for election integrity:
LOOK WHAT AMERICA JUST ACCOMPLISHED!
The James Webb Space Telescope
This story is not for cynics, nor folks who lack imagination or national pride.
After nearly 40 expensive years of dreaming, planning, designing, building, congressional whining, testing, and hoping, NASA and its army of very smart people have placed into solar orbit a powerful new seven-ton telescope.
The new telescope’s success so far is just one of our nation’s numerous recent space achievements: Landing robots to explore Mars. Flying a research robot through the Sun’s aura. Snatching a scoop of primordial soil from a distant asteroid and bringing it back in the fall of 2023.
Yet this latest achievement, successfully launched one month ago today, is simply astonishing.
THE REAL ATLANTIS
Here we are at the real Atlantis in Knossos, Crete. More nonsense has been invented about Plato’s myth of Atlantis – mentioned briefly in his Timaeus and Critias and not by anyone else in antiquity – than any other legend you care to name.
Yet like many myths, it was constructed out of something that really existed. Atlantis is the Minoan Civilization of Crete, Europe’s oldest. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had created the world’s first peaceful capitalist empire, based not on military might and conquest but on trade, with trade routes across the entire Mediterranean. They became immensely wealthy, building fabulous palaces and villas – but their cities were not fortified. Europe’s original civilization was the most peaceful in European history.
Around 1450 BC, the Minoan island of Santorini 60 miles north of Crete – known to the Greeks as Thera – suffered a colossal volcanic explosion with the resultant mega-tsunami wiping the Minoans out on Crete. It was “The wave that destroyed Atlantis.” Yet you can see for Atlantis for yourself, its excavated villas with fabulous preserved frescoes, and step back into a period of inspiring history. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #68 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
THE SHRINE OF A SILK ROAD SUFI SAINT
In hidden dunes of the Takla Makan Desert of Chinese Turkestan, you find pilgrimage sites such as this devoted to Sufi saints revered by the Uighur (wee-ger) people who live in oases on the great desert’s edges. The trade route connecting the oases is the Southern Silk Road traversed by Marco Polo in 1273.
Sufism is the ancient peaceful interpretation of Islam. Just as Jesus advised the Pharisees to seek God in their hearts, not through the robotic repetition of religious laws and rules, so do the Sufis. Just as Jesus preached a philosophy of non-violence and benevolence, so do the Sufis. Sufism teaches that the path to Islamic enlightenment is not through compulsion of any kind, but through a personal ecstatic experience of the Divine.
Thus these ramshackle shrines in an uninhabited roadless wilderness – you get to them by donkey cart – are havens of serenity in a chaotic world. This is one of the remotest places on earth, but if you ever manage to get here, you will feel serenity in your heart. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #183 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
KEEPING YOUR SANITY BY REDECORATING YOUR MIND
Believe it or not, you have a powerful resource inside your head, one that can provide a reservoir of joy, strength and perseverance. Once you recognize it – and practice tapping into it – you can use it not just to boost your day but to improve the quality of your entire life.
Best of all, it’s as straightforward as hanging a picture on the wall …
Think about the photographs you have displayed in your home. Are they pictures of the miserable times, the disappointments, the conflicts, the traumas? Did you set things up so you are constantly reminded of the events and people who hurt you most?
Of course not. We’ve all had those times, of course. It’s part of life. But when we put pictures on the wall of our home, we choose pictures of the people we love, the peak moments. Now let’s do that with the pictures in your mind.
PELOSI’S PICK
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) tweeted the video clip below. It is of 84 year-old Eleanor Holmes Norton, Delegate (not voting Member) to the House from Washington DC. She was caught on video repeatedly grinding her car into two parked cars trying to park hers.
She then locks her car with her keyfob and casually walks away without leaving a note for the cars she has damaged. Her staffer does the same. This is a hit-and-run crime, to which her staffer is an accessory. As Massie notes, she is Pelosi’s pick to chair the House Transportation Committee.
As one commenter on Massie’s feed says, “If anyone ever needed actual visual evidence of the geriatric, embalmed, mummified, cadaverous remains of the Demoncrat Party then, well...here it is...LMAO!!!”
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – THE TIGER’S NEST OF BHUTAN
November 1990. The “Tiger’s Nest” or Taktsang monastery is built in front of caves on a vertical cliff-face high above the Paro Valley in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Originally a meditation site of the founder of Tibetan Buddhism, Padmasambhava in the 700s, the monastery temples were first constructed in the 1600s.
Bhutan is arguably the most fabulously exotic country on earth, still adhering to the ancient traditions of Ningma (Red Hat) Tibetan culture. It is quite a steep hike to the Tiger’s Nest but certainly worth it. We’ll be conducting an in-depth exploration of Bhutan next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #133 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)