GLOBAL TAX THUGGERY
Do you think the Internal Revenue Service should have the right to share your tax information with foreign governments -- even ones run by thugs and those that engage in human rights abuses and/or suppress freedom in their countries? A meeting was held in Mexico City last week under the auspices of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), whose implicit goal is to create a global high-tax cartel. In order to create a global tax cartel, the OECD needs to have tax information shared among nations -- which means that the citizen of any country that signs on to this scheme may have his or her tax information shared with other member jurisdictions. The Obama Administration is fully supportive of this wholesale violation of basic rights.
AN UNRESPONSIVE SPEECH
After all the rhetoric is put aside, one principle ran through President Obama's speech to Congress (9/09): that increased government involvement in health care can solve its problems. Many Americans fundamentally disagree with this idea. We know from long experience that the creation of a massive new bureaucracy will not provide us with "more stability and security," but just the opposite. It's hard to believe the President when he says that this time he and his team of bureaucrats have finally figured out how to do things right if only we'll take them at their word. Our objections to the Democrats' health care proposals are not mere "bickering" or "games." They are not an attempt to "score short term political points." And it's hard to listen to the President lecture us not to use "scare tactics" when in the next breath he says that "more will die" if his proposals do not pass.
JUST HOW ANTI-DEMOCRACY PRO-DICTATORSHIP IS OBAMA?
President Barack Hussein Obama's State Department waited until the cusp of Labor Day weekend before publicly backing Latin America's dictators in their assault on democracy. Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they'd slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez's client, Manuel Zelaya, isn't returned to power in Honduras, the United States won't recognize the results of that country's upcoming free elections. Mr. Obama hasn't uttered a single word of criticism for the dictatorships of Chavez or his protégés in Ecuador and Bolivia, nor once demanded free elections in Cuba. But he's going to show those wicked Hondurans, by Hugo! They can't boot out a crazy leftwing president just because he's trying to subvert their Constitution.
ARE THERE ANY OTHER BLACK RACIST COMMUNISTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
Around midnight on the Saturday (9/05) of the Labor Day weekend, the White House announced Van Jones had resigned as President Obama's "green jobs" czar. "On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me," Mr. Jones said in his resignation letter. "They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide." The lies and distortions consisted of reporting Mr. Jones' arrest during a riot, and quoting, accurately, from statements Mr. Jones had made that are overtly communist, racist, and wacko.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/04/09
Can this marriage be saved? How many husbands have been blindsided with the most horrifying words in the English language for them - "I want a divorce!"? It happens to wives too, but most often it's the guys who are clueless until the damage is irreparable. Ask any marriage counselor, and they'll confirm that, try as they may with all their skill, once a certain tipping point of anger, contempt, and distrust has been attained by one spouse, there is little the other spouse can do to salvage the relationship. It has to be sundered. That tipping point may have been reached this week. After being reminded of some pedophile cruising down the street asking schoolchildren, "Hi kids, want some candy?", the American people may be on the verge of demanding a divorce from the man they politically married last November.
A GAGGED GENERAL, A TRAPPED PRESIDENT, A MUDDLED MISSION
The classified status report from Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal was censored by the White House before its submission. As a result, it's all bun and no burger. The administration preferred a politically expedient blah-blah "report" that grants the White House a time-out. But there's no time-out for our soldiers and Marines (our enemies won't listen to the ref). Guess who pays the price while Obama plays Hamlet? The result? We've got a general who's been gagged, a president trapped by his campaign promises, a muddled mission, crippling restrictions on our troops, a resurgent enemy, a worthless Afghan government -- and an AWOL establishment media that, after hammering the Bush administration, gives Obama a pass on American casualties.
HEALTH AND BUREAUCRATS
Do you think pedophiles should be given Viagra at taxpayers' expense? Despite what appears to be an absurd question, that is exactly what occurred in Britain under their National Health Service (NHS). Reports surfaced last week that a pedophile who had abused an 11-year-old girl had been spared jail, yet was continuing to receive Viagra, courtesy of the British taxpayer. If the United States creates a government-run health system, it is a safe bet the same types of abuses and problems that plague Britain will occur. The reason is simple: There will only be limited funds available for the government-run health care system, and thus individuals employed by the government will decide who gets what and when. Some of the decisions will be wise; others will be foolish, wasteful, or just plain daffy -- because humans who spend other people's money don't tend to be all that careful.
AFGHANISTAN IS OBAMA’S FAULT NOW
The war is not going well. U.S. casualties so far this year are already higher than in any of the previous seven years of our involvement in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama must be wondering how this could be happening to him. Afghanistan was supposed to be the good war. He'd embraced it less out of conviction than out of political calculation. Mr. Obama was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq, but mindful of the perception many voters have that Democrats are weak on national security. By embracing the war in Afghanistan, he could argue he was willing to use force, too, to protect Americas national security. He was just smarter about it than George Bush was. Now Robert Gibbs, who is rapidly replacing the hapless Scott McClellan as the worst White House press secretary in modern times, says the mess in Afghanistan is all George Bush's fault. Mr. Gibbs says this about every mess President Obama finds himself in.
“ON OR ABOUT DECEMBER 2010 HUMAN CHARACTER CHANGED”
Those who suffered through being an English major in college may recognize the literary referent. In an essay written in 1924 entitled "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown," the English author Virginia Woolf makes the following comment: "On or about December, 1910, human character changed. . . . All human relations have shifted-those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature. Let us agree to place one of these changes about the year 1910." The liberal craziness of our day - whether in religion, conduct, politics, literature, or art - can be traced back to the emergence of the movement Woolf was talking about, called "modernism," based on a denial of reality and human nature. One hundred years of all this lunacy is enough. So here's a modest proposal.
Chapter Thirty-Four: LA MALINCHE
Here at long last is the final chapter of The Jade Steps. I could not understand why I just couldn't seem to finish it - until I realized that I didn't want to let Malinali - known to history as La Malinche (lah-mah-lin-chay) - and her incredible story go. Now I have. Her saga is one of the more extraordinary in all history. Now it is complete - save for an Epilogue, which explains why it is so critically important for the truth of her story be known. So it's worth re-emphasizing again that The Jade Steps is a true story. Every principal event described actually happened, every named person really lived and had that name. It all happened almost 500 years ago, but it still remains the cause of the civil war within Mexico's soul. Mexico will never rise out of the Third World and overcome its inferiority complex towards America until this spiritual wound is healed. That is the purpose of this book.] The Jade Steps Chapter Thirty-Four: La Malinche Malinali sat on the roof of her home, serenely looking out upon the sunlit waters of Lake Texcoco. Cortez had the home built for her, here in Coyoacan, next to the palace of the former King of Coyoacan that he was using as his headquarters to manage the growing empire of New Spain. It was cool here, with the breeze coming off the lake, and the shade of the awnings and all the plants Cortez had brought up to the roof to make it a garden. It was peaceful and quiet - which is what she appreciated the most. Almost a year had passed since the fall of Tenochtitlan, the capture of Cuauhtémoc, and the death of the Aztec Empire. As she looked back upon all that had happened since, that day of what the Spaniards called August 13 [1521. It is now mid-June, 1522.] It seemed like just a day before yet so long ago.