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Saturday, February 14, 2026

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L i k e U s ! ! !

A DECADE OF CONSPIRACISTS?

Who has most peddled conspiracy allegations in the last nine years—all of them false and nearly all of them influencing national elections and public policies?

Once a target is constructed as Hitlerian, almost any means necessary to quash that perceived existential threat become justified. And we have seen a lot of them in the last nine years.

Russian collusion did not work.

Christopher Steele was a fraud.

Robert Mueller came up empty.

The Alfa Bank ping caper was a myth.

The Russian laptop disinformation was a lie and ruined the reputations of the “51 former intelligence authorities” who sanctioned it.

The first Trump impeachment was a strictly partisan vote, activated when Trump lost the House and Mueller had come up empty.

Only ten Republicans impeached Trump a second time; the Senate again acquitted then-private citizen Trump.

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THE DEMS’ ADMIRATION FOR BIDEN IS SINCERE

saint-biden“Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.”

That quotation comes from Macbeth.

The Thane of Cawdor had just been executed for treason, and the king’s son described his virtuous repentance on the block.

That phrase popped into my mind when I thought of all the Democrats sincerely praising Biden for pulling (or being pushed) out of the presidential race in the same way they’re now sincerely praising his presidency.

They’re not being hypocrites. Biden was great for the Democrat party and is now, by leaving, continuing to be great.

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OSCE DECLARES ‘DECOLONIZATION OF RUSSIA’ AS NECESSARY FOR PEACE

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has declared that the “decolonization of the Russian Federation is a necessary condition for sustainable peace” and that Russia is pursuing a “policy of genocide” in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine did not begin “suddenly” but was the logical result of the neo-imperial evolution of post-Soviet Russia’s politics and a lack of action from the West against this expansionism.

The decolonization of Russia will be a long process and should not be reduced to an ethnic conflict of “non-Russians against Russians,” which could lead to war throughout Eurasia.

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FLASHBACK FRIDAY – AT THE NORTH POLE WITH MY 10 YEAR-OLD SON

jacksons-at-north-poleApril, 2003. On my 21st expedition to 90 North, the geographic North Pole, I took my son Jackson. He was nine, but handled it like a trooper. And no wonder – it was his third time! The first was when he was just six, following his brother Brandon whom I had taken to the Pole back in 1990.

We landed our ski-equipped Twin Otter on the sea ice – and as it’s featureless with the ice slowly moving on the Arctic Ocean surface, nothing stays there for long. So if you want a physical candy-stripe North Pole, you have to bring your own! It is so indescribable to actually be on the very top of our planet that it has to be experienced to be understood. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #95 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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SCOUNDREL’S VIEW OF MOUNT EVEREST

scoundrels-view-of-everestYou’re looking face on Everest’s West Ridge, the border of Tibet and Nepal. On the right is the Southwest Face in Nepal, on the left is the North Face in Tibet. Called Scoundrel’s View because this is a better view than trekkers to Everest Base Camp see (a viewpoint called Kala Patthar).

You have to make another trek up the Ngozumpa glacier (longest in the Himalayas) in the Gokyo valley, where above the fifth Gokyo lake at 16,400 feet you get to call yourself a “scoundrel” for seeing what Everest trekkers don’t.

High on the Northeast Ridge on the left horizon is the last place Mallory and Irvine were seen heading for the summit in 1924, and then disappeared. Hillary and Tenzing summited in 1953 via the Southeast Ridge over the right horizon. Everest Base Camp in Nepal is at the foot of the big snowy buttress below the West Ridge. Called the West Shoulder, it blocks any view of Everest from Base Camp.

On our Himalaya Helicopter Expeditions, we get an abundance of spectacular views of Everest, up close and personal – Scoundrel’s View is only one of many. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #29 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE LAND OF THE DRAGON’S BLOOD TREE

dragons-blood-treeThis is the Dragon’s Blood Tree, Dracaena cinnabari. It can be found in only one place on earth, a remote island called a Lost World for its uniqueness, the “most alien-looking place on our planet.”

Although it’s known as the most alien, strangest, weirdest, and bizarre place you can go to, it’s also completely safe and incredibly beautiful. Anybody who comes here returns saying, “You have to see it to believe it.” What is this place?

It’s the World Heritage Site of the island of Socotra, the “Galapagos of the Indian Ocean,” 240 miles off the coast of Yemen and now secured by the UAE. It’s hidden, remote, and far away.

We were there in 2014, and it’s been almost impossible to get to ever since. But we’ll be back next year. Let me know if you’d like to be with us. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #34 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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THE WATERFALLS OF KUANG SI

kuang-si In the jungles of Laos less than 20 miles from the Laotian Royal Capital of Luang Prabang, you will find the entrancing waterfalls of Kuang Si. Multi-layered cascades of emerald green pure water pour into a series of pools ideal for swimming. The warm sun filters through the dark green jungle canopy. The laughter of Laotian children combined with that of the rushing waters adds to a unique serenity. Here is a place that will wash away all your woes. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #185 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

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HALF-FULL REPORT 07/19/24

Easy to believe an Act of Providence saved his life for the sake of America, isn’t it?  The slightest turn of the head at the very last fraction of a second was the difference between life and death by a few millimeters:

trump-in-crosshairs

Glenn Beaton expressed the consequence many have noticed:

“(At) the Convention, Trump seemed different. He seemed more calm, more at peace. Fire no longer spews from his mouth. Rather, a radiance shines from his eyes.  He’s becoming a leader. Not the “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” type, although those were his words as his fists pounded the air when he rose from the stage floor last Saturday afternoon.

 

That was then, when he’d been cowardly ambushed by another messed-up product of our messed-up culture. Trump’s defiance and fight were the natural and right reaction.  But bravado now is unnecessary and unhelpful. Now, he knows he’s been tasked with something big, and so do the people. Now, he and they know that he’s fully capable of performing this task. Now, he and they know his orange head has a purpose more noble than being exploded by a bullet, and more graceful than spouting inflammatory rhetoric.

 

His old opponents in the Republican Party have gathered round him. He has the endorsement of virtually all of them and many who are new to the Party – from Silicon Valley moguls, to one of the world’s richest men, to each of his vanquished rivals, to an ever-increasing share of Black America, to most Hispanic Americans. What they see is what I see: A quiet confidence, an unexpected patience, a deep resolve to complete – or at least resume – a task much bigger than he.

 

Trump is no longer a man, you see, but a movement. A mission. We’re witnessing something historic.”

 

Many of the RNC Convention speeches were inspiring and remarkable, but even more so was Trump’s last night – 92 minutes straight of dragon energy, eloquent and profoundly moving.  Watch at your convenience the full video here, read the full transcript here.

But before we discuss where we go from here, there’s something I have to get off my chest.

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GAME OVER

No Archive today – overtaken by the astonishing events of last Saturday afternoon (7/13) and since. The purpose here is to make one simple result of those events:

It’s Game Over. For FJB’s or any other Dem’s presidential candidacy.  For the woke scumbags who run the FJB White House. For the Dem woketards in the House & Senate. For the woke media.  For DEI hires in government and business (epitomized now by the head of security for Pepsi Cola in charge of the Secret Service). For the entire agenda of the Hate America Left to destroy our country.

There will be all manner of pathetic whimperings to uselessly prevent this.  What will end them quickly would be a full-throated demand by speaker after speaker at the RNC Convention starting today (7/15) that FJB personally, along with innumerable Dem politicians, their media propagandists, and brainless “celebrities” apologize to President Trump for creating the hate that made the assassination attempt upon him possible if not inevitable.

FJB must be made to personally apologize and take responsibility for the consequences of this:

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SKYE’S LINKS 07/18/24

jack-smith-unappointedThere’s no joy in Mudville, D.C. today. Judge Cannon has finally ruled Jack Smith’s appointment as unconstitutional, and the attempted assassination of President Trump has changed the narrative. We’ll look at the many and varied responses and reactions to that serious event, as well as some surprising new information about Covid origins and the refusal by the FDA to inform the public of vaccine side effects. Then there’s the unsurprising (to TTPers) results of DEI on our military, the inevitable pains of the Minsky Moment approaching, and other looming financial realities. Hold onto your hats!

Jack Smith (Trump Florida classified documents case) gets the Constitutional boot:

Judge Tosses Documents Case Against Trump; Jack Smith Appointment Unconstitutional

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VON HANSON – UKRAINE WINTER WAR

In early World War II, on Nov. 30, 1939, a Soviet-Russian army invaded Finland in a surprise massive attack.

The Finns were eventually outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. The population of the Soviet Union in 1940 was 50 times larger than that of Finland.

Finland’s former anti-Soviet ally, Nazi Germany, had sold it out under the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which made Germany and Russia de facto allies.

Finland’s other allies, particularly France and Britain, were slow in giving aid. Both were unsure whether Finland had any chance of survival.

And they were further confused as to whether their archenemy Germany was friendly or hostile to Finland.

 

Yet for nearly the next four months, the Finns fought ferociously. They were led brilliantly by their iconic general and commander-in-chief, Carl Mannerheim.

By March 1940, however, the brave but exhausted Finns were being slowly ground down.

Soon they were facing abject defeat—even after courageously inflicting nearly 500,000 Russian casualties, 10 times the number of their own dead, wounded, and missing.

Finnish ferocity shocked Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

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TRUMP, BIDEN, SECRET SERVICE, AND THE ASSASSIN

“It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

Those are the ill-timed words Joe Biden used in a political call to action days before the attempted assassination of  Donald Trump, which our team covered in real time.

There is no direct association between those words and the attempt on Trump’s life other than they characterize Biden’s caustic campaign rhetoric asserting that Trump is a grave existential threat to “democracy.”

Biden, whose administrative record is littered with a plethora of domestic and foreign policy failures, has centered his whole campaign on the diversionary theme of saving our nation from the Trump threat, and his low-information voters are sucking it up.

As I have noted, the proliferation of Biden’s faux “democracy” rhetoric is very deliberate in its obfuscation about the founding tenets of American Liberty.

When he autocratically demands that you “support democracy,” he means the statist authoritarian rule of democratic socialism, now the foundational platform of his Democrat Party.

That reveals Biden and his leftist Demo cadres are the real threats to our Republic and Liberty.

Given that Biden’s notion of “democracy” is the antithesis of our nation’s founding tenets, in that context, in fact, Trump is an enormous threat to Biden’s statist authoritarian “democracy.”

What follows is a mix of observations and analysis regarding the attack on Trump by Biden, his leftists, and a radicalized assassin.

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WHAT SHOULD WE MAKE OF TRUMP’S VP PICK?

[TTP:  The news is out that President Trump’s VP pick is J.D. Vance (see Monica Showalter’s article in American Thinker) but this writer has some very important points to make about the Veep position regarding the future.]

President Trump will be announcing his running mate within the next few days, and opinions are flying about the qualities he should seek in his next vice president.

 

Experience, state of origin, race, sex, loyalty, and past comments regarding President Trump are all factors voters are focusing on when deciding their preferred candidate to round out the Republican ticket.

The common goal is to draw turnout from as many typically non-Republican voting demographics as possible. However, the most consistent theme is that many seem to believe that Trump needs to pick someone who can be his successor.

This belief may be based in ignorance.

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THE MYTH OF MARKET FAILURE

market-failure-homerA prominent topic that economics students anywhere cannot avoid is market failure.

Students everywhere are taught that the free market is inherently unstable and causes problems that can only be fixed through legislation and regulation.

As a result, most of those who take an economics class come out of it believing that the state helps counter the shortcomings of the free market.

However, the concept of market failure is fallacious as it is based upon faulty economic reasoning.

Belief in market failure is often complementary with seeking to promote politically desirable goals rather than to promote economic growth.

 

First, a free market operates on freedom of association and property rights. Therefore, for any transaction or exchange to be conducted on a free market, it must be voluntary.

Further, if both parties agree on an exchange, then both parties must assume that the exchange is beneficial to themselves.

Whenever consumers buy a product, they value the product more than the money they pay for it. Similarly, the store sells them the product since it values the money earned more than the loss of the product that they sell to consumers.

It may be the case that one party is mistaken and ends up not preferring the exchange retroactively, but this is not a determining factor in the choice to transact.

Through this process, value is created through free markets. As people are free to interact and exchange, they make mutually beneficial trades that benefit both parties.

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