WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED FROM CELEBRATING THE GREATNESS OF OUR COUNTRY
There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman. Like many, I've spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event. President Reagan said, "We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.
ARE JOURNALISTS JUST LIARS OR CONTEMPTIBLE LIARS?
On Saturday (1/08), Jared Lee Loughner, 22, opened fire in a Safeway in Tucson, killing six and wounding 14. Among the dead was U.S. District Judge John Roll, a conservative Republican. Among the seriously injured was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a liberal Democrat. Long before anything was known about Mr. Loughner, journalists speculated about what really motivated his murder spree. For most in the news media, the arch villain was Sarah Palin, who before the election had marked on her Web site with the crosshairs of a rifle sight the districts of Democrats she thought could be defeated. Among those complaining was liberal Web logger Markos Moulitsas, who on his Web site (Daily Kos) had put a bullseye of his own on Ms. Giffords just two days before (1/06) she was shot. Mr.Moulitsas was upset Ms. Giffords had voted against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker the previous day. "In all my years as a working journalist, I've never seen such shallow, thoughtless, agenda-driven drivel as I have in the past 36 hours," said former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg Monday (1/10).
THE LOUGHNER LEFT
Do you know what the editors of the New York Times look like? Would you recognize them if you saw them? We all know what leftie talking heads on television look like, such as Chrissie Mathews, Keith Olberman, Katie Couric, et al. But how about Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos website, the bloggers of the Democratic Underground, or the writers of the New York Daily News? Now we know what they all look like. Even the talking heads, now we know what they really look like. From this moment on, this is the face they all have, the face that will appear in our mind's eye picture of them whenever we read what they write or hear what they say. This face:
HALF-FULL REPORT 1/07/11
Hasn't this been quite a first week of 2011? It started bizarrely for me with a flood of emails and calls Monday morning (1/03) asking if I was still alive or dead in a dumpster. The Drudge Report was carrying this headline in red letters: Reagan Aide Jack Wheeler Murdered, Body Found in Landfill I had to reassure everyone that:
It's not me. I'm not in a dumpster in a landfill -- I'm home in my easy chair writing this. John Wheeler was always getting confused with me in Washington as he liked to be called by his nickname Jack (like John/Jack Kennedy). I ran into him several times at different DC functions and found him to be a very nice fellow. But I'm no John, just Jack. This is a terrible tragedy and a mysterious one. But for all those who've emailed their concern, it's not me, I'm fine.* * * * * Tuesday morning (1/04) began with an all-together different phone call. My wife answered, and tears quickly began streaming down her face. They were tears of relief and joy - for our son was back home from war. Brandon's unit, 2/6 Marines, saw more combat than perhaps any other in Afghanistan during the last six months, for they were deep in Apache country: Helmand Province. 17 of his men are not coming back. He is so thankful for all the prayers TTPers sent his way that helped sustain him. His mother and I are so thankful for his service with honor, and his safe return. It is with so much pride that we salute our son, Capt. Brandon Wheeler, USMC, and all those who served with him. * * * * * Wednesday morning (1/05) America got to say goodbye to Speaker-no-more Pelosi. It was a sickeningly long goodbye. Electric day-glo blue suit, perfectly coiffed and streak-blonde dyed hair, perfectly frozen smile, perfect oleaginous delivery, Pelosi Galore thought the moment was all about her with her endless and endlessly obnoxious self-serving speech - 12 minutes! Would she ever shut up? - before finally turning the gavel and speakership over to John Boehner. Thank God she's gone. No one has to pay any attention to her ever again. She's history.
GERMANS MUST NOT BECOME STRANGERS IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY
Uncontrolled immigration may at any time threaten the state structures and undermine the stability of a society. The Chinese empire therefore had its Great Wall, the Romans had their Limes. At no time were the securing of the territory and the regulation of immigration something trivial. The complications arising from these issues threatened states and societies to their core and penetrated them deeply. And each time they were accompanied by orgies of bloodletting and violence. In the German media this is frequently concealed. Immigration issues are often treated with a raised admonitory finger, and an attitude that probably can be the best characterized with the slogan: "Peep, peep, peep! We all just love each other." This approach is as unhistorical as it is silly. The growing influx in many European countries are consequences of the predominantly unhistorical, naïve and opportunistic migration policy of European governments. In all countries concerned - whether Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark or Norway - one makes similar observations about the group of Moslem migrants, namely:
AN OPPORTUNITY FOR AMERICAN MOSLEMS
Most Moslems -- at least most of those who live in the West -- do not seek to impose their religion upon others by force. But there are among them some who are eager to kill all who do not believe exactly as they believe. Rep. Peter King, R-NY, the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the House, thinks it would be good for all of us to know which is which. He said Dec. 19 he plans to hold hearings on "the radicalization of the American Moslem Community." In an editorial on New Year's Day, the New York Times described Rep. King's plan to hold hearings as a "sweeping slur on Moslem citizens." Zuhdi Jasser disagrees. He's a physician in Arizona, a former naval officer, and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He thinks Rep. King's hearings will provide "an opportunity for Moslems who don't toe the line of American Islamist organizations to present an alternative vision for American Moslems -- one based in American values and Moslem reform."
THE ANTIPODAL SUCCESS OF CLOWARD-PIVEN
If you Google "Cloward-Piven" plus "Obama" you'll get over 53,000 hits. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" has been fingered by dozens of conservative academics and pundits as the roadmap Zero is using to drive America to ruin. In 1966, Richard Cloward and his wife Francis Fox Piven, as hard-core Marxist professors of sociology at Columbia, wrote an article in the premier journal of the left, The Nation, that launched their strategy: The Weight of the Poor. That strategy is defined as forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. Its goal is to precipitate the replacement of capitalism with Marxist socialism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. Sure sounds like exactly what Zero is doing, right? And sure enough, as we enter 2011, we find the Cloward-Piven Strategy succeeding in spades - antipodally. Webster's defines "antipode" as 1) of or relating to diametrically opposite points on the earth's surface (e.g., the antipode of the North Pole is the South Pole), and 2) exactly or diametrically opposite. That is, Zero, Pelosi & Reid put C-P into effect masterfully, and the result is just what the theory predicted - collapse - except that the revolution this effected was a bourgeois middle-class taxpayer one that is replacing the Democrats' socialism with a renewal of economic liberty and capitalism. Cloward & Piven's impoverished masses - "the workers" - rising up to smash The System turned out to be patriotic God Bless America Tea Partyers! You just don't get irony better than this. Call it antipodal irony.
TOOLS FOR ECONOMIC LITERACY
It is hard to make sense of the world without adequate information and the words to explain fundamental concepts. Some good news for the new decade is that the level of economic literacy is rising, thanks in part to tools being developed at free-market think tanks around the world. Americans in particular have several new tools to evaluate how their tax money is being used and how much they are being forced to spend on what. There is now a successful a global collaborative effort to increase economic literacy across the planet and reduce miscommunication. Everyone will have the same understanding of what specific economic terms and concepts mean available on cell phones or iPads. Meanwhile, U.S. think tanks have been building tools so Americans can more readily understand where their tax dollars are going and how much they are paying for specific government programs.
WHY DOES GOVERNMENT ALWAYS GROW EVEN WHEN IT ALWAYS FAILS?
The blizzard which crippled New York City last week brought at least momentary humility to its billionaire mayor, who could use some. "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg admitted on Wednesday (12/29) that his administration's response to the blizzard that buried New York this week had been inadequate, and he pledged to hold himself and others accountable as the city continued to work its way to normalcy," the New York Times reported. But I don't put much stock in his pledge "to hold himself and others accountable." For in government these days, nothing succeeds like failure. That's because for those in government there are few consequences for failure, or even for deliberate sabotage. Indeed, today, government agencies and bureaucrats are rewarded for failure, not penalized. Here's why: Government grows despite repeated failures to serve the public well because government's purpose no longer is to serve the public. Government now serves primarily the interests of those who work for the government.
HALF-FULL REPORT 12/31/10
Finally, finally, finally... 2010 is over. At last we can get on with 2011, the year America's Rescue begins. I can hardly wait. So can the TTP Forum's "Mae" - Lynda Mae Calhoun, who thanks in no small part to your prayers had a successful surgery and is well on the road to recovery. Congratulations, Mae! Paul Ryan can't wait for 2011 either. You learned about what he's up to in Barry’s Dream yesterday (12/30). Now there's an Update. House Dems got the vapors last night when they learned that Ryan, as Chairman of the Budget Committee, will have the power to set spending ceilings without a vote of the full House. This is a big deal. Any budget that comes out of Congress now cannot exceed Ryan's limits, which will force really serious spending cuts. Add this to Boehner's replacing the Dems' "pay-go" fraud (they exempted all their giant spending bills from it), with the Pubs' "cut-go" rule. This requires that any increase in one government program (including entitlements!!) mandates a concomitant decrease in another. Cut-go forbids any entitlement spending increase be made up with tax increases. All next year, it's going to be like witnesses to Dante's Inferno to sit in the House Gallery and gaze down upon Dems writhing in agony on the House Floor like it's the bottom rung of Hell. When they realize the torture is likely to be eternal - i.e., for the rest of their political lives - expect a lot of them to call it quits.