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Thursday, February 19, 2026

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L i k e U s ! ! !

SHOULD BARACK OBAMA BE PROSECUTED FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM?


As you read this, a federal judge, Richard Voorhees, is deciding whether or not to sentence a 68 year-old man to, in effect, a life sentence in federal prison (15 or more years) for being a domestic terrorist.

Almost a year ago (3/18/11), Bernard von NotHaus was convicted by a federal jury for the crime of counterfeiting - of "making, possessing, and selling his own coins" in competition with US federal currency.

NotHaus' company, Liberty Services -also known as NORFED, the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Code - produced Liberty Dollars, which contained a specified amount of gold or silver (such as one troy ounce).

It is, of course, absurd to claim Liberty Dollars were "counterfeit" US Federal Reserve Notes - for how can something be counterfeit when it contains something of actual value (silver or gold), compared to something that is simply a piece of paper?

But that is not the issue here.  For the purpose of this discussion, we are going to agree with the federales that NotHaus is guilty as charged.

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WANT REAL TAX REFORM? CALL 9-9-9


Between now and Election Day, President Obama will have to create 8 million jobs just to tie for last place with the previous worst recovery since the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Americans are rightly demanding dramatic overhauls to get this country back on its feet.

What does the president do? He doubles down on his philosophy of continuing the beatings until morale improves.

My fellow presidential candidates, to varying degrees, have been tinkering around the edges. With all due respect, you don't prune weeds - you pull them out at the roots.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's 160-page, 59-point plan has "faculty lounge" written all over it. It protects most of the current tax code. Looking for an executive summary, I flipped to the appendix. Frankly, Mr. Romney lost me after his first two points: "Maintain current tax rates ..." and "Maintain current tax rates. ..." Are those rates really worth maintaining?

Leave it to a politician to start with the current tax code and then move a step or two in the right direction. Leave it to a real businessman to start with what is right and get there immediately.

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REPEAL 1913


One of the more fascinating features of To The Point is the Users Forum, where TTPers share their insights and expertise.  An excellent example is the recent (9/26) thread initiated by "Spartan" - Van Kottis - in commemoration of his 1,000th (!) TTP post.

He asks for suggestions on what TTP can do to help the TeaParty movement focus its opposition to Zeroism.  I have two.

The first is to offer specific language that explicitly defines what conservatives are for (not simply against) government-wise.   I.e., we stand for not simply "limited government" but constitutionally limited government.

This means we want to restore constitutional limitations on central government.  It means to go on the constitutional offensive against laws Congress has no authority to pass and regulations the federal bureaucracy has no authority to enforce.

The second is to form a movement to repeal 1913.

Just between you and me (can you keep a secret?), it's actually a movement to repeal progressivism, repeal the entire liberal-left agenda, but we need a specific target to focus upon. 

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SHOULD THE CIA BE RE-INITIALED CYA?

My old friend, the late James Jesus Angleton (once upon a time the head of CIA's counterintelligence forces) was in a somewhat milder mood than the last few times we'd "talked," thanks to my unreliable ouija board and the relentless static that seems to accompany my efforts to communicate with spirits in The Beyond.

ML: It seems the al-Reuters Agency and others in the deadwood media are painting a fairly depressing picture of your old organization. "CIA Director Porter Goss...faces a shortage of experienced spies created by a post-September 11 stampede to the private sector, current and former intelligence officials say..."

JJA: Haha. Very droll. The usual divertissement from the Reuters crowd.

ML: But still, don't you think it's legitimate to worry about hundreds or thousands of people leaving the clandestine service?

JJA: More like a blessing.

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THE SILVER LINING OF THE KORAN IN THE TOILET

There’s been a lot of acute commentary on the Newsweek-in-the-media-toilet/Koran-in-the-Gitmo-toilet story. It makes the excellent point that rioting Moslems murderously freaking out over this cannot be looked upon with respect and seriousness.

Just imagine, goes one analogy, if upon hearing Al Jazeera published a story about Al Qaeda sympathizers in Pakistan desecrating the Bible, Southern Baptists in Alabama went berserk with rage, attacking a Birmingham mosque and killing everybody inside. How tolerant and forgiving would world and American media be towards their humiliation and bruised feelings?

But of course this would never happen, because Southern Baptists, like other Christians, are civilized. Once again, it turns out, Moslems have disgraced their religion with uncivilized behavior.

There’s also been a lot of justified disgust directed at Newsweek for publishing the equivalent of yelling fire in a crowded theatre. The MSM’s reputation has been taken down another notch, which is a definite social good. Let’s hope Newsweek’s paid circulation drops concomitantly.

Yet there is another silver lining to this sorry episode that may have long term benefits to our national security. It has to do with the identity of Michael Isikoff’s source for the KoranToilet story.

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BACKUP AND SECURITY

Microsoft has just released several important security updates, including a new version of its Malicious Software Removal Tool. In case you still don’t have your system set to automatic updates, go to the Windows Update Site.

Before you do, make a backup of your system state. A while ago I explained how to do it. I’ll go over the steps here again. They’ve changed slightly after installing Service Pack 2. I also urge you to make a backup of your system state every time you install new software, except for small applications by reliable companies, like the Google Toolbar.

You should also regularly backup your system state, as I have previously recommended, especially before cleaning your registry.

Click Start in the bottom left corner, hover your mouse on All Programs, Navigate to Accessories -> System Tools, then click on Backup.

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AN EXODUS OF WEASELS

“The Sheriff,” as new CIA Director Porter Goss is becoming known, is getting rave reviews from the agency’s rank and file for serving notice to the Rogue Weasels that their left-wing views and attempts to sabotage the Bush Administration will receive zero tolerance. “Watch for a lot of road kill on 123 (Route 123, the highway in McLean, Virginia that goes past the CIA main entrance) as the weasels scurry away,” I’m told.

Found lying on the roadside yesterday (11/11) was weasel leader Mike Scheuer, who wrote the Bush-trashing “Imperial Hubris” book under the pseudonym “Anonymous.” While a lot of what Scheuer wrote was right on the mark, namely his withering criticism of the FBI and of senior agency guys (like Tenet) doing the CYA dance over 9/11, he twisted it all into bashing Bush and making an argument for John Kerry-type terrorism-is-a-nuisance-and-law-enforcement problem. That the CIA Review Office allowed him to write this book is a scandal never to be repeated under Sheriff Goss’s watch.

But even better news than the departure of the CIA weasels is the departure of their counterparts on the National Security Council of the White House. Bob Blackwill’s sudden resignation from the NSC, where he was Bush’s key advisor on Iraq and Iran, is a cause for real celebration.

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SHUTDOWN: THERE IS NO DOWNSIDE FOR THE TED CRUZ REPUBLICANS


The Republican Party of John McCain and Mitt Romney lost two presidential elections, the second to a weak candidate in a weak economy. Left to its own devices, it will lose the next presidential election and all the following ones.

By picking a fight on Obama's least popular position, namely health care, the conservative wing of the party led by Ted Cruz galvanized the party base and forced the House leadership into a fight. In a recent poll, the Gallup organization found that just 22% of Americans expected Obamacare to improve their family's health situation, while 47% expected it to make it worse.

As my old partner Jude Wanniski used to say, the electorate is like a diamond, waiting to be cut at exactly the right spot. Ted Cruz pointed the chisel correctly.

It well may be true that shutting down the government hurts the Republicans in the short run. That is immaterial; there is no way to get from here to there except by making a stand against Obamacare. There is no downside, for the Republican Party as presently configured already is a guaranteed loser. A reinvigorated conservative leadership has a chance of leading the party to victory.

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OBAMA’S COMING GOVERNMENT REGULATORY TSUNAMI


Knowledgeable officials are expecting a regulatory tsunami after the election. By law, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to publish a report each April and October about new regulations that government agencies are considering. OMB failed to publish the April report.

The question is why -- what is Obama's OMB hiding?

Given the highly political behavior of the Obama White House, it is not unreasonable to suspect that because of the failure to give notice of impending regulations and the backlog of regulations under review, there will be a tidal wave of new "midnight" regulations immediately after the election.

It also is reasonable to suspect that many of the regulations may be politically unpopular and do great economic damage. If Mitt Romney wins, he may be able to pull back many of those regulations, but if Mr. Obama wins, given his rhetoric and previous behavior, a torrent of new regulations is likely.

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AMERICA’S GREATEST ENEMY

We start the identification process with those enemies of America who are not the most dangerous and powerful threats to her.

Ralph Peters vividly explains this week how this includes the Arabs.  Adding to Ralph's incisiveness, we should also focus on what is being called "The closing of the Moslem Womb."  According to UN population researchers, the Moslem world is currently undergoing "the fastest population decline in recorded history."

Demographic collapse among Arabs, Persians, Turks, and even Malays is now surpassing that of Western Europeans.  "The world's most rapid fertility decline" of all is in Iran.  Islam is collapsing before our very eyes, within a generation.

What about China?  Surely the Chicoms are a real threat to America, far more than a bunch of robots chanting the Koran, yes?

No doubt about it.  Red China has to be taken very seriously.  Big time.  It is the only country on the planet that has a ghost of a chance of taking on America - and the leaders of its government and military really do hate us.   However...

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OBAMA’S POLICY TOWARDS ISRAEL IS INSULTING, DANGEROUS, AND NAÏVE


[This the text of Gov. Perry's speech at the Israel-Palestine Conference held in New York City yesterday, 9/20.]

Thank you. Let me begin by thanking Dr. Solomon Frager and Aron Hirtz for helping us organize this press conference today.

I am joined today by a diverse group of Jewish leaders from here and abroad who share my concern that the United Nations could take action this week to legitimize the Palestinian gambit to establish statehood in violation of the spirit of the 1993 Oslo Accords.

We are indignant that certain Middle Eastern leaders have discarded the principle of direct negotiations between the sovereign nation of Israel and the Palestinian leadership, and we are equally indignant that the Obama Administration's Middle East policy of appeasement has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith.

Simply put, we would not be here today at the precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama Policy in the Middle East wasn't naïve, arrogant, misguided and dangerous.

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THE KURDISH KEY TO THE MIDDLE EAST


Among the most fascinating folks in the world are people known as the Kurds.  They are older than history.  The Land of Kurda is mentioned in Sumerian clay tablets - the world's oldest writing - over 5,000 years ago.  The Land of Kurda - Kurdistan - was ancient five millennia ago. 

The Kurds had been living there for thousands of years before 3,000 BC - and they are still living there today, in the mountains of what is now northwestern Iran, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey.

They number in the tens of millions - five million in Iraq, ten million in Iran, three million in Syria, between twenty and thirty million in Turkey.  They are by far the largest ethnic group on earth without their own country.

This has always made them a threat to the countries that divide up their homeland of Kurdistan.  Always.  The Kurds have been fighting the Persians for 2,500 years, the Arabs for 1,300 years, the Turks for 500 years.  Western governments look upon the Kurds as a problem which threatens to break apart the fragile map of the Middle East into chaotic pieces.

Now at last, the time has arrived to look upon the Kurds as an opportunity rather than a threat, not as a problem but a solution.  The emerging reality is that the Kurds are the key to peace, freedom, and democracy throughout the entire Middle East.

That's why I am in northern Iraq right now, as I am writing this.

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FEAR OF FUN

For the clerical fascists who rule the terror countries of the Middle East, the only education children should have is to sit around and memorize the Koran and the sayings of Mohammed.

The clerics want good little Moslem androids, who will accept the preposterous belief that all knowledge was acquired several centuries ago and that man’s only worthwhile intellectual activity is to imbibe that knowledge in order to recite it when called for.

The most devastating critique of such a system is laughter, which the leaders of the terror regimes can not and dare not tolerate. Laughter bespeaks fun, and fun is totally forbidden.

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MORE WIRED THAN WIRED

The cutting-edge, ultra-tech, hyper-hip bible of the alpha geeks is Wired Magazine. If you want to be knowledgeable about the future of the Information Age, you have to subscribe to Wired.

So it was with a great deal of satisfaction that I read a cover story in Wired’s current June, 2005 issue about a young physicist who was overthrowing Einstein and revolutionizing the concept of time. Satisfying, because To The Point subscribers learned about him almost two years ago, in September, 2003.

The Wired article is entitled Time’s Up, Einstein, on pages 124-126, describing how a high school dropout in Wellington, New Zealand named Peter Lynds wrote a paper, "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuity," that challenges the foundations of modern physics. The paper was published in the August 2003 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Foundations of Physics.

It took Wired a little under two years to tell its subscribers about Lynds. It took To The Point less than a month, in The 21st Century Einstein. Frankly, I think it is very cool for To The Point to be, in this case, more wired than Wired.

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CELL MODEMS

A friend bought a new PDA and offered me his old one at a price I couldn’t refuse. I still feel the wisest strategy, as I mentioned in a previous column, is to wait several months until combination ultra-light portables with digital cameras, radios and MP3 players come attached. Still, for 100 shekels ($22) how could anyone refuse?

I looked for a method of connecting a PDA or laptop to the Internet without having to use Wifi or regular Ethernet connection. Why not a cellphone? My phone is all set up for Internet; at the press of a button I can surf the Web. Was there any way I could transfer that connection to my laptop or PDA?

Turns out there is. Here's how.

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