THE CHOICES & POWER PLAN B WORKSHOP
You're well aware of the "Remember The Alamo" Rendezvous VII in San Antonio January 29-31. It's where TTPers gather together as a family for a weekend of learning, conviviality, and the joyous fun of being with fellow pro-Americans. My brilliant bride, Rebel, who authors TTP's Plan B column, can hardly wait for San Antonio, like me. And now she has come up with a brilliant idea to hold a special one-day Plan B Workshop devoted to enabling you to preserve and protect your financial security. The Choices & Power Financial Plan B Workshop will be held on December 9th in St. Louis. Rebel asked me to be there and speak, and I enthusiastically agreed. She's lined up star speakers like Chuck Butler, publisher of The Daily Pfennig; Frank Trotter, founding partner of Everbank; and Erika Nolan, executive director of The Sovereign Society. Rebel has fire in her eyes when she talks about this. She's seriously determined to help TTPers get out of harm's way in 2010. How serious? She explained to me:
THE DEMOCRATS’ DARK DEPRESSION SECRET
What do you think of when you hear or see a reference to The Great Depression of the 1930s? What emotions come up for you? For you and other normal Americans, words like "catastrophe" and "nightmare" come to mind, along with images of unemployment lines blocks long, soup kitchens, and heartbreaking poverty. All the emotions associated with it are negative. America would have been incredibly better off if The Great Depression had never happened, right? You may think and feel that way, but Democrats - the folks who run the Democrat Party - don't. You may consider The Great Depression to be the worst thing that ever happened to America, next to the Civil War. But for the Democrats, it was the best. After all, the Democrats built their political power on The Great Depression and are very thankful for it. Further, it's their template. If The Great Depression was their path to power before, then replicating it today is seen as the way to maintain their power into the future. This is the Democrats' Dark Depression Secret. Explains a lot, doesn't it?
AMERICAS FUTURE AND THE EAST COAST
Wasilla, Alaska. As I stand here in a high school gymnasium watching freshmen girls' basketball games, I'm struck by the sight of America's future right in front of me - these tenacious young women full of energy and intensity. I want them to realize every opportunity this great, free nation can provide. There are big political races on the East Coast that are coming down to the wire - the results of which will impact policies and political actions that touch all of us in every state. Like other independent Americans, I don't always see eye-to-eye with Republican political committees, so when I tell you that the Republican Governors Association has my complete support and confidence in its campaign efforts back East, know that I really mean it. The RGA is helping lead the conservative comeback beginning this year, and its involvement in the East Coast races is significant. Let's consider the governor's race in New Jersey.
WINDOWS 7 OR SNOW LEOPARD?
Well, most of you may have heard about the new Operating Systems from Apple and Microsoft, Snow Leopard and Windows 7. The more things change, the closer in convergence these OS's have become over time. First one must realize that Windows 7 is really Vista 2 with a lot of cleanup of the interface and improvements in performance. Internally at Redmond, it's called Windows 6.1, however that would not exactly work for the marketing campaign. Marketing would not be able to get away with charging anywhere from $99.00 to $319.00 depending on which version you choose. There are six, from Starter and Home Basic to Ultimate or Enterprise. Apple's upgrade Snow Leopard, which is actually version 10.6, costs out at a $29.99 per box. Apple decided to waver from introducing lots of new features and instead focused on performance enhancements. They should have also focused on getting rid of all the bugs. One of the undocumented undesired "uh-oh" enhancements was a bug that would wipe out users data, if an upgrade was performed with an existing previously set guest account. Oops...
PERFORMANCE-BASED PAY FOR CONGRESS
Public opinion polls show the performance rating of Congress at record low levels. Given that Congress and top administration officials are requiring pay cuts for those in the private sector whose companies have performed poorly, should not the same standard apply to those in government who have had a major responsibility for running the economy into the ground? Don't presidents and members of Congress always claim credit when the economy is performing well? So isn't it fair to blame them when the economy is in a mess? Could it be that one reason Congress has performed so poorly is because, for 100 years, its members' compensation has been totally unrelated to their performance? (All wise observers know that one reason socialism fails is that workers are not rewarded for superior performance or penalized for performing badly.) I do not claim to know what the "right" pay is for members of Congress, but I do know their present compensation system makes no sense. Such a system gives them no vested interest in protecting the rest of us from inflation or any interest in pro-growth economic policies.
A STUPID AND SHABBY WHITE HOUSE
The Obama administration did a shabby and stupid thing last week. If you're a conservative, you're probably asking: "Which shabby and stupid thing was that?" But this was a shabby and stupid thing prominent Democrats think was shabby and stupid. Virginia and New Jersey have gubernatorial elections next week. Polls indicate that in Virginia the Republican candidate, Bob McDonnell, is likely to win a comfortable, perhaps a landslide victory over Democrat Creigh Deeds. The White House evidently agrees with the polls. Last week the Washington Post ran a story under the headline: "Top Democrats Seek to Shield Obama in Case of Election Loss." The Post means Dems at the White House. Other Dems think its shabby abd stupid to bury one of your own before an election.
A FIGHT FOR AMERICA
The reason I'm running for office in New York's 23rd Congressional District is because the American Dream is quickly becoming a nightmare. Unemployment grows, our economy is in crisis, and our elected officials seem out of touch with reality. They are addicted to spending. When they run low on funds they simply create a new tax or raise an old one. Taxes, the deficit, red tape and regulation are breaking the back of the nation, mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren. Americans have had enough and are vocalizing their anger in town hall meetings and on the streets of Washington. They are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore! That's why I am running. I am one of them! Freedom is what Americans want. Economic freedom to reap the rewards of the free enterprise system, personal freedom from the intrusion of big government in our lives, freedom from the nanny state that is being forced upon us.
HALF-FULL REPORT 10/23/09
It was a scary conversation. I was talking to the chief of staff of a solid conservative Republican senator. I think the world of him as a close friend, he's a true good-guy pro-American - but he's so wrapped up in the day-to-day process of the Senate that it can startle him when he's asked to glimpse the reality of beyond the Beltway. We were talking about the fate of ObamaCare, and he had his black hat on telling me how the Dems will ram it through. "If that happens," I said, "out could come the guns." All he could manage in response was a garbled "Huh?" "You and your boss need to grab people where you work by the lapels. They have no real grasp of the depth of anger among their constituents. Those constituents own hundreds of millions of guns. There will be violence, buddy, if this thing passes, politicians gunned down in the streets." To say he was gobsmacked is a gross understatement. I went on to assure him how disastrous I thought the consequences would be - not just for the recipients of the violence but for its perpetrators: "Violence is extremely traumatizing for those who participate in it. The one Eastern European country that overthrew Communism violently - Romania - still hasn't recovered from it." Further, I went on, "violence may be just what Zero wants, as an excuse to steal people's guns and impose martial law. The last thing we want is violence, it's only a truly last resort, which is why you and the good guys on the Hill need to do whatever it takes to stop ObamaCare in its tracks."
A DITHERING DEMAGOGUING WHITE HOUSE THAT IS A DANGER TO AMERICA
[This is the full text of former Vice-President Dick Cheney's speech at the Center for Security Policy award dinner in Washington on October 21, 2009. To The Point salutes Dick Cheney for his courage, honesty, and great contributions to America who should today be in the White House in place of the anti-American impostor currently occupying it.] Thank you all very much. Its a pleasure to be here, and especially to receive the Keeper of the Flame Award in the company of so many good friends...And I thank you for the great energy and high intelligence you bring to as vital a cause as there is -- the advance of freedom and the uncompromising defense of the United States. Most anyone who is given responsibility in matters of national security quickly comes to appreciate the commitments and structures put in place by others who came before. You deploy a military force that was planned and funded by your predecessors. You inherit relationships with partners and obligations to allies that were first undertaken years and even generations earlier. With the authority you hold for a little while, you have great freedom of action. And whatever course you follow, the essential thing is always to keep commitments, and to leave no doubts about the credibility of your country's word. So among my other concerns about the drift of events under the present administration...
ARE THE LIGHTS OUT FOR HARRY REID AND OBAMACARE?
"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," wrote Sir Walter Scott in his 1808 poem, "Marmion." I doubt Senate Majority Leader Harry "Searchlight" Reid (he was born in Searchlight, Nevada) has read "Marmion." But he now has a pretty good idea of what Sir Walter Scott meant. Democrats have been tying themselves into knots in their efforts to conceal from the public the true cost of Obamacare. Yesterday (10/21), their schemes came crashing down around Harry Reid's ears. It may be lights out for Searchlight Harry -- and maybe, cross your fingers, for Obamacare too.