The Oasis for
Rational Conservatives
Friday, February 20, 2026
In this scene from Casablanca, when French Capt. Renault (Claude Raines) introduces Rick (Bogart) to Major Strasser of the Nazi Gestapo, he says, “Major Strasser is one of the officers who has earned the Third Reich the reputation it has today.”
This week, TTP dispensed with any double meaning to describe what the most renowned law enforcement agency in America has tragically become: Can We Reform a FBI That Behaves Like A Gestapo?
A good friend of mine since the 80s, TTPer Steve Baldwin, just gave me a personal example…. Here we go with a simply sizzling HFR!
You’re in a nice restaurant with friends with the waiter taking orders for wine, appetizers, entrées or main courses. Then before the meal begins, the waiter presents everyone with a gift on the house from the chef, a bite-size artfully prepared concoction as a glimpse of the chef’s style.
Such a free “pre-appetizer” is called an amuse-bouche (French for mouth-amusement). This morning (2/22) I received a trilogy of the latest tyrannies by FPX minions from a friend who asked of them, “Can it get any worse?”
I replied: “Any worse???? These fascist thieving pigs are just warming up. These are just their amuse-bouches, much less an hors d’oeuvre, much less an entrée, with their main course a dog's breakfast poisonous beyond imagination.”
So a critical part of Keeping Your Sanity is to develop a strategy for the long haul – for America’s current saga of Freedom Lost – Freedom Regained has barely begun.
Let’s be perfectly clear: there is no civil war in the GOP, no major schism, no two sides battling for control of the party of Lincoln.
Poll after poll shows us that Republican voters overwhelmingly see Donald Trump as the leader of the party. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Liz Cheney’s hopes that voters would abandon Trump have been dashed on the cliffs of reality.
So why is the media pretending that some major battle for the future of the GOP has been joined? The Republican Party is Donald Trump’s party. It is today and it will be tomorrow.
What causes wars?
Innately aggressive cultures and governments, megalomania, the desire for power, resources, and empire prompt nations to bully or attack others. Less rational Thucydidean motives such as fear and honor and perceptions of self-interest are not to be discounted either.
But what allows these preemptive or aggressive agendas to reify, to take shape, and to leave tens of thousands, or even millions, dead? Ignoring this lesson, taught by Trump which Xiden refuses to learn:
Nothing is more dangerous than stronger powers, even inadvertently, sending signals that are interpreted as weakness by weaker powers.
Short answer – I doubt it.
But it is a legitimate question to raise because there are still some patriots serving within the ranks of the FBI who are beyond distraught over the gross politicization of their once proud, respected organization. There is genuine, deep seated hatred for Christopher Wray and his coterie of lackeys.
The final straw for many in the bureau is FBI leadership doing everything in their power to paint honest, law-abiding Trump supporters as nascent “white supremacist” terrorists, the frontline agents are finding no evidence for this whatever.
[Prefatory note by Jack Wheeler. Four questions on lakes: What is the world’s oldest lake? The world’s deepest? The world’s clearest? The world’s largest by freshwater volume? The answer to all four is: Lake Bailkal in Russian Siberia. My friend of almost four decades, Paul Goble, here focuses on the last question. Baikal has more water than all of the Great Lakes combined – over 5,600 cubic miles of clear drinkable freshwater. Putin thinks he can sell it to the Chicoms. Paul discusses the pitfalls.]
Will Putin’s selection of water as “liquid gold,” “the new oil” that it can sell to water-short China recapitulate some of the steps the Communist leaders fatefully took in the years preceding the disintegration of the Soviet Union?
[Note by JW: The 100+ million people of Northeast China are chronically and seriously short of water. They would be Putin’s prime customers for Russian Siberia water. Or would they prefer to secede and join Russia instead?]
As people in northeastern China grow increasingly dissatisfied with the central government’s neglect of the region’s economic development, authorities are worried that mass protests could soon break out, according to an insider I know personally. We’ll call him Mr. Lee
The Chinese government is worried that northeastern China will follow Tibet and Xinjiang and seek independence,” Mr. Lee said. “This is one of the biggest concerns that the regime has right now.”
Lies piled upon lies; this will not end well for the Dems. History written from your standpoint?
Once Upon A Presidency - From Populist To Dissident
The near future may be considerably brighter than you think; there are LOTS of people who want to give the elitists the shaft, and there will be LOTS of brand new 21st century ways to do it:
Pinkerton: Just as Politics Has Come to GameStop, So GameStop Activism Will Come to Politics
Are flu hospitalizations really 500 to 1,000 times lower than in previous years or are the Wuhan virus numbers of hospitalizations exaggerated to the Moon?
CDC: Flu Activity Unusually Low, 165 Hospitalizations in Last 4 Months
July, 1984. The KPNLF – Khmer People’s National Liberation Front – was the Anti-Communist guerrilla movement fighting the Soviet-backed Vietnamese Communists in Cambodia. When I was first there in 1961, Cambodia was then a land of serenity, with a gentle and tranquil people who were at peace with themselves and the world. Now it was a land of indescribable Communist horror.
It was such a privilege to be with these brave men willing to wage war against that horror and bring freedom to their country. I told their tale in Turning Back the Terror, the February 1985 cover story for Reason magazine. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #20 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
We camped here overnight in May a year ago crossing Turkmenistan’s Kara Kum (Black Sand) Desert, and we’ll be here again in May next year. The Darvaz Gas Crater – known to locals as “The Door to Hell” – has been burning nonstop since 1971, when Russian engineers set it on fire expecting it to burn off and it never has. This is a night -- and a sight -- you’ll never ever forget. My son Brandon can vouch for that! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #44 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Have you ever seen the ocean turn day-glo pink? It does here naturally during a sunset (this is not photoshopped). Between Samoa and Tonga in the South Pacific is a raised coral atoll, 100 square miles of old limestone between 60 and 200 feet high: the island of Niue (new-way), and it’s is uniquely fabulous.
With no silty river runoff, the water is incredibly clear – visibility can reach over 200 feet. There are a multitude of chasms through which you clamber to these out-of-a-movie tidal pools perfect for snorkeling surrounded by colorful reef fish. The limestone cliffs encircling the coast are riddled with caves with multi-colored stalactites and stalagmites.
You can snorkel or dive with spinner dolphins and humpback whales. The big game fishing is world class – within a few hundred yards off shore. The Niueans are unfailingly friendly and welcoming, the beautiful Matavai Resort is the best bargain in the Pacific, the food and beer is inexpensive, the weather is balmy. It’s a Polynesian paradise you never heard of. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #48 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Many consider this the most surrealistic place on earth. The clarity of the air turns the sky deep cobalt blue, the dunes are so old they’ve rusted red, combining with the white clay floor to give the skeletal trees a scene out of a Dali painting or a science fiction movie. But it’s real.
A thousand years ago the river watering these trees dried up, leaving a white clay pan amidst red sand dunes almost as tall as the Empire State Building. It’s so dry here these acacia trees can’t decompose, their skeletons standing scorched in the sun for ten centuries.
Dead Vlei is in a region of enormous dunes called Sossusvlei. It’s a mind-boggling experience to float over Sossusvlei in a hot air balloon. Namibia, in fact, is full of such experiences – the largest fur seal colony anywhere at Cape Cross, the marvelous abundance of African wildlife at the Etosha Pan, the dramatic shipwrecks dotting the Skeleton Coast, traditional people living untouched by the modern world like the Himbas.
Plus it’s one of the safest and best-run countries in all Africa – certainly worth consideration for your bucket list. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #47 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
That would be Tristan da Cunha in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Some 260 Tristanians live here, all British citizens as the island is a UK Territory, in the island’s only community of Edinburgh-of-the-Seven-Seas. There’s no way to fly here – you have to take a boat for at least a week from Cape Town (and then a week back).
Tristanians are among the world’s most special people. Since the island was first settled in 1810, there has never been a single murder, abortion, or divorce among them. They are at peace with themselves, unfailingly cheerful, hospitable, and contented. If you are lucky enough to reach here, you may not want to ever leave. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #42 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
