THE SURVIVAL OF ASIAN EUROPE
Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabagh, de facto Armenia. The only thing most Americans know about Armenia is that it’s where Kim Kardashian’s family comes from. Me, the only thing I know about Kim Kardashian is that she’s one of those PR Celebrities famous for being famous. What exactly she’s popular for I haven’t a clue.
Skye, of course, knows not only about Armenia, but this part of it seized from Azerbaijan in 1992. Yet even he was concerned. “Stay safe!” he cautioned. Yes, this was a war zone until recently, but the greatest danger I face here is imbibing too much Armenian brandy—after all, Winston Churchill considered it the best brandy in the world.
Actually, the scary part is getting here – driving a ridiculously dangerous mountain road with no guard rails known as the Lachin Corridor (see map) connecting Stepanakert to Armenia proper. It’s even more fun at night in rain and heavy fog. They’ve built a new airport and promise to start flights as soon as they believe the Azerbaijanis won’t shoot the planes down.
Once you’re here, though, it’s a big surprise. This place is booming, with construction cranes at work all over, new hotels and restaurants, folks brimming with optimism, not a soldier in sight, streets so safe kids play at night with no worries. I have a good internet connection and a cold Kotayk beer.
It’s great being here – and a perfect place to talk about the survival of Asian Europe.
OBAMA’S FAILURE IN AFGHANISTAN SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE
The troop surge in Iraq brought victory. The troop surge in Afghanistan hasn't. After a decade of fighting, "what do we have to show for our efforts?" asks former Navy SEAL Leif Babin. "A government, under President Hamid Karzai, that is corrupt, largely incompetent, and of questionable loyalty; inept Afghan security forces that regularly turn their weapons on their American and NATO advisers; and a resurgent Taliban poised to regain control of the country after U.S. forces withdraw." Policies peculiar to the Obama administration have made the situation in Afghanistan much worse. But it was President George W. Bush who installed Hamid Karzai, and began "nation building" in what, arguably, is the most primitive society on earth. It's a unique American folly -- going back at least to Vietnam -- to spend so much effort on winning the hearts and minds of the people, when we would be better served by killing the enemy.
OBAMA’S DISASTROUS TRANSFORMATION OF OUR MILITARY
Last week (7/05), in a case before the U.S. Military Court of Appeals, by a 3-2 vote the judges delivered an outrageous decision. Army Ranger First Lieutenant Michael Behenna was deemed to have no right to self-defense when he killed the Iraqi prisoner he was interrogating after the latter threw a concrete block at him and tried to seize his firearm. Unless he is pardoned, Lt. Behenna will remain incarcerated for the next twelve years. (Note: to support Lt. Behenna, go to defendmichael.com.) Unfortunately, under President Obama, service personnel's rising fears of being prosecuted for acting to protect themselves and their missions are but one of many disastrous ways in which the military is being, to use his now-infamous turn of phrase, "fundamentally transformed." Consider a quartet of examples:
THE ZOO INSIDE YOU
One of the delights of science is its capacity for showing us that the world is not as it seems. A good example is the startling statistic that there are at least 10 times as many bacterial cells (belonging to up to 1,000 species) in your gut as there are human cells in your entire body: that "you" are actually an entire microbial zoo as well as a person. You are 90% microbes by cell count, though not by volume -- a handy reminder of just how small bacteria are. It has been clear for a long time that the microbes in your gut are not just passengers but colleagues that help with the digestion of food: releasing vitamins, breaking down toxins and metabolizing nutrients into more useful forms. What's becoming clear from such experiments is that they are also vital to the immune system's capacity to fight infection. It's as if they train the body's defense forces. For instance, breast-fed babies, whose gut microbes are dominated by creatures called bifidobacteria, are less likely than formula-fed babies to suffer not only from diarrhea but also from allergies later in life.
CHARLIE BROWN CONSERVATIVES
Conservatives are a lot like Charlie Brown. We keep believing Lucy when she promises to hold the football. This is partly why we lose so often, even though, according to Gallup's annual poll, we outnumber liberals roughly 2 to 1. The formula UCLA Prof. Tim Groseclose developed for measuring the "political quotient" of the news indicates media bias gives Democrats an 8 percentage point advantage in most elections. Conservatives rail against media bias. But we keep falling for it. Then we exacerbate the problems our gullibility causes by rushing to harsh judgments of our allies. Here's an example of how I fell for it recently myself.
CONGRESS MUST DEFUND THE GLOBAL TAX CARTEL
The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to tax Americans at the federal level. Yet Congress continues to give away this most fundamental responsibility to international organizations, the most dangerous of which is the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Most Americans probably would not approve of their tax dollars being used to support an international organization that undermines their fundamental liberties and promotes giving their hard-earned money to other governments, often run by corrupt or dictatorial regimes. This is precisely what the OECD is doing, with the blessing of the majority members of Congress. The OECD has just released a report bragging about its "progress" in getting countries to engage in automatic sharing of tax information. Entitled "Tool Kit for Automatic Exchange of Information," it states: "The automatic exchange of information involves the systematic and periodic transmission of 'bulk' taxpayer information by the source country to the residence country concerning various categories of income (e.g., dividends, interest, royalties, salaries and pensions)." The Obama administration is actively supporting this effort.
HALF-FULL REPORT 07/06/12
Persistence pays off. At last, after my bugging him for so long, Jack Abramoff has joined the TTP family of writers. It's not just that he's been my buddy for 30 years. It's that nobody can expose what slimy things crawl around under the rocks of Washington like him. Now we get to see him expose that slime on a regular basis. There was a lot of acclaim for his first column (7/04), Why Lobbyists Love John Roberts. And was he on the money: we learned the next day after Jack's column (7/05), federalie lawyers have prepared 13,000 pages of new fascist regs for Zerocare, with Zero marshalling an army of IRS agents to enforce Zerocare punishment and fear. K Street is in heaven. We have another announcement: The 14-Day Free TTP Trial. You can tell your friends they can now try out TTP for free for two weeks. Bring them in to our TTP family! Meanwhile, the blowback against Judas John Roberts ruling on Zerocare continues to mount - so much that it's giving the Pub Congresspussies some fire in their bellies.
“IF YOU CAN KEEP ITâ€
As Benjamin Franklin was leaving Independence Hall at the close of the constitutional convention, a woman approached him. "Well, Doctor, what have we got?" she asked. "A republic, or a monarchy?" "A republic," Franklin replied. "If you can keep it." And how do we keep it? With the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln said, for it "is the only safeguard of our liberties." But an insufficient safeguard, if our leaders ignore it. Emperor Barack I treats the public treasury as his piggy bank; enforces only the laws he likes and ignore the ones he doesn't; and asserts the power, without oversight from Congress or the Courts, to kill American citizens suspected of terrorism. His attorney general dodges lawful subpoenas, protects and promotes vote fraud. The Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare is a vivid reminder that we cannot rely upon others to protect our liberty.
IT’S NOT THE DECLARATION OF DEPENDENCE
As we celebrate our nation's birthday this week, it is important to remember and teach our children the Founding Fathers were declaring our independence, not creating a culture of dependence.This is an especially important lesson, given the Supreme Court's ruling last week on Obamacare. The Readers Digest version of the Supreme Court's decisions last week is this - The Government can require proof of insurance, but not proof of citizenship. Here is the big picture situation in America today. Success used to be measured by how many people we could get off the government dole, but now, under President Obama, we measure success by how many people we can get on government programs. We have it 100 percent backwards in America today. We should celebrate people getting off food stamps, off Medicaid, and off government health care. We are at an inflection point in our nation's history. We have to decide whether we want to revive our economy by growing the private sector or expanding the public sector, to continue our culture of self-reliance versus a culture of dependency, to provide our children with opportunity or a sense of entitlement, and to pursue the American model or give in to the European model. I have vowed not to implement Obamacare in Louisiana, especially creating the exchange and expanding Medicaid, because this November we're going to elect a new President and a new Congress who will repeal and replace the terrible law.
ISLAM IS COMING FOR AMERICA JUST AS IT HAS COME FOR EUROPE
[Last Saturday (6/30), Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders delivered this speech at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado.] Thank you, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, for inviting me to the Western Conservative Summit. It is always a pleasure to come to America. I was here a few weeks ago to meet with my dear friend, congresswoman Michele Bachmann, to talk about Islam and the threat to America and Europe. I feel honored to have been invited to address you today about the situation in Europe and in particular in my own country, the Netherlands. This situation serves as a warning to what might happen in America if you fail to be vigilant. For make no mistake: Islam is also coming for America. Indeed, it has already arrived. Your country, too, is facing a stealth jihad - an Islamic attempt to introduce Sharia law bit by bit. Islam demands separate campus housing for Moslems; Islam demands that women have separate hours in gyms and swimming pools; schools are banning Christmas celebrations and are taking pork off their cafeteria menus to avoid offending Moslem students. And courts - even in America, we have seen an example in Florida - have begun to apply Sharia law. Be aware that this is only the beginning.