THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA
This is the black sand beach the US Marines stormed on February 19, 1945, beginning the legendary Battle of Iwo Jima. Overlooking the beach is Mount Suribachi, where four days later Joe Rosenthal took his iconic photo of six Marines planting the US flag on its summit.
You can come here once a year at a commemoration jointly held by the US and Japanese militaries. Guests of honor are the few Marine veterans of the battle still alive. I attended on the 70th Anniversary of the battle in 2015. To be here on these sands and on the summit of Suribachi, where the memorial lauds them – “On Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue” – with these heroic men is an indescribable privilege. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #23, photo ©Jack Wheeler)
TRUMP’S CONFIDENTIAL PLAN TO STRANGLE UKRAINE
US Treasury Sec Bessent meets with Zelensky in Kyiv about the contract (2/12)
Donald Trump’s demand for a $500 billion “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.
The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonization of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved.
In genuine commerce the other side can usually walk away. Trump’s demand is iron-fist coercion by a neo-imperial power against a weaker nation with its back to the wall, and all for a commodity bonanza that exists chiefly in Trump’s head.
TRUMP’S LATEST EXECUTIVE ORDER REINSTATES A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT
Yesterday (2/18), Trump did something extraordinary to return the American government to constitutional principles: He issued an executive order (“EO”) entitled “Ensuring Accountability for All Agencies.”
The leftists are decrying the EO as the end of so-called “independent” agencies, but that’s exactly the point. Under our Constitution, there are only three branches of government, not four. The agencies are subordinate to the Executive branch, and Trump’s EO properly restores that reality.
By the end of last month, we taxpayers were supporting a staggering 438 federal agencies. There’s no doubt that some of these agencies are useful, even necessary, and some are in the Constitution, of course. But now, with this EO, an equally staggering number of them will be headed for the chopping block.
THE FOURTH PEARL OF SHING
There is a series of stepping-stone lakes in a hidden valley in Tajikistan known as The Seven Pearls of Shing. This is the fourth, taken at dawn’s early light with the lake a mirror reflecting the sky and surrounding mountains. Each Pearl are of different colors, each of uniquely mesmerizing allure. It is one of the many wonders – natural, cultural, historical – we’ll experience this again soon in our exploration of all Five Stans of Hidden Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #52 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
ZELENSKY AT MUNICH
[This is the full text of the President of Ukraine delivered at the Munich Security Conference last Saturday, February 15. Full video is here.]
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At the start of the Conference, every country usually shares its stance, priorities, whether officially, openly or through informal talks with journalists, with partners.
This year, a country that was not even invited still made its presence known. A country that everyone talks about here – not in a good way.
The night before Munich this year, a Russian attack drone struck the sarcophagus covering the ruined fourth reactor of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
It was a modified “Shahed” drone – a Russian drone, a technology Iran passed on to Russia. Its warhead carried at least 50 kilograms of explosives.
We see this as a deeply symbolic move by Russia, by Putin.
THE VOTER FRAUD CASE THAT COULD OVERTURN DEM CHEAT-BY-MAIL HOUSE RACES
William “Boss” Tweed (1823-1878) was, of course, a Democrat
Last November, Democrat fraudsters bypassed the presidential race and focused instead on the down-ballot races. In Florida, local Democrat candidates received more votes than either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris at the top of the ballot. Something was definitely amiss.
For instance, Republican Rocky Rochford was running against incumbent Democrat Kathy Castor for the U.S. House seat in Congressional Race 14 (FL-14). The district straddles Hillsborough and Pinellas counties and includes the cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg.
Castor was declared the winner, but Rochford is now contesting the race, claiming voter fraud, primarily by vote-by-mail ballots.
There is deep suspicion that this method of fraud has happened across the country, costing Republicans four Senate seats, about a dozen House seats, and countless local municipal seats and referendums.
A longtime Trump associate, Peter Ticktin, is representing Rochford. The Ticktin Law Group has identified a systematic breakdown of internal election controls that affected the FL-14 race and other races far beyond, those in the Senate and House mentioned above in particular.
TODAY IS NOT PRESIDENTS DAY!
This Saturday, February 22, is the 293rd anniversary of the birth of America’s founder, the equal in nobility, heroism, and virtue of any human being who ever lived — George Washington.
What it is not, nor is any day such as today, Monday February 17, the phony holiday called "Presidents Day."
Let’s be quite clear on this. There is no such holiday. It exists only in the minds of furniture dealers, car salesmen, and those promulgating or deluded by fake news of the left.
It wasn’t until 1870 that there were any national holidays at all, recognized by the federal government and granting federal workers a day off, although four were recognized by most states: the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. In 1870, Congress declared them national.
In 1879, Congress added Washington’s Birthday to the national list, which had been unofficially celebrated by most Americans for many decades.
It still is – as made clear by The National Archives. There is no federal law proclaiming any day “Presidents Day.” Where the fake news begins is with a law called the Uniform Monday Holiday Act passed in 1968. It was the Democrat Congress and President Lyndon Johnson who damaged the memory of George Washington with this act of anti-patriotism. Here it is:
MAGIC MOUNTAINS
In a remote valley between the northern escarpment of the Tibetan Plateau and the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia, you find these magic painted mountains of red sandstone created by Himalayan uplift and millions of years of erosion. It’s at the sunrise light of early dawn that the colors are most apparent before they get sunwashed in the bright of day. It takes quite a hike in pre-dawn darkness to get to the right viewpoints at the right time, but certainly worth it. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #261 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: THE RELIGION OF ENVY
Kilimanjaro from the air ©Jack Wheeler
[This is the sixth chapter of Part I: Envy of my forthcoming book NO FEAR OF THE EVIL EYE: Key to Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity. Previous sections and chapters can be accessed here. I will really appreciate any feedback you have.]
East of the Serengeti, there is a town called Moshi. It lies at the southern base of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the former German then British territory of Tanganyika. Some 50 miles away from Moshi is the town of Arusha, the traditional starting point for an East Africa safari (Swahili for journey) to such places as Manyara, Ngorongoro, and the Serengeti plain.
The way Africans get from Moshi to Arusha is by mini-bus or small van. The driver races madly round and round the town's central square beeping his horn and yelling, "Arusha! Arusha!" Only when it is physically impossible for there to be one more human body squeezed into his vehicle will he depart.
Such circumstances require you to establish a friendly relation with the person next to you, who is virtually sitting in your lap. On this particular occasion, I found myself next to a young fellow who spoke quite good English (Britain was mandated German East Africa by the League of Nations after World War I, and administered it until independence in 1962).
He was clearly intelligent and well-educated. Our conversation went like this (with his words in italics).
"You are from America?"
"Yes, from California."
"Oh, Hollywood, San Francisco. Where are you coming from just now?"
I thumbed towards the famous snow-clad caldera of Kilimanjaro suspended up in the sky to our right. "From Kibo." I looked over at the mountain. "Three days ago, I was standing up there, on the top with my guide and friend, Iringa. He is a Chagga from Marangu. Are you a Chagga? Do you live around here?"
"Yes. My home is in Moshi, but just now I am on school holiday so I go to see my friends in Arusha." "Where do you go to school?"
"For the past two years, I've been on scholarship to the University of Moscow in the Soviet Union."
FLASHBACK FRIDAY – TIGER LEAPING GORGE
Many centuries ago, a tiger was plaguing the Naxi people who live in the mountains where the Yangtse River cascades off the plateau of Tibet. He was eating the goats the Naxi needed to feed themselves. So Naxi hunters chased the tiger into a deep narrow gorge of the Yangtse where they were sure they had him trapped. Suddenly, the tiger sprang onto a large rock in the center of the raging river and from there leapt to the other side and escaped, never to be seen again.
Ever since, where this took place has been known as Tiger Leaping Gorge. Here you see Tiger Leaping Rock. I was first here in July 2002 on our overland expedition across eastern Tibet. Last time 2015. Maybe again? (Photo ©Jack Wheeler)