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Thursday, February 12, 2026

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CANADA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS


Serving as an active Member of Parliament in Canada, and Chairman of both the Parliament's Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs & International Development, and  on International Trade, I have had the unique opportunity to participate firsthand in the changes that our Conservative Government has implemented since taking power.

These changes have made our country more competitive on the commercial scene and more attractive for investors.  But we intend to do more.

Since the Conservatives first came to office in 2006, we have cut taxes and removed barriers that have previously served to not only stifle business development, but to actually drive it away.  

We did this as a minority government, governing with a coalition of parties as we did not have an absolute majority of seats.  That changed with last month's elections on May 2, when Conservatives won 167 out of the 308 seats in Parliament.  This frees us to cut taxes and remove stifling barriers more than ever.

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PREDATORY WEALTH DESTRUCTION


The U.S. and most other governments of the world are issuing debt at such a rapid rate and at such high levels, with no real plans to reverse such behavior, that it is almost a certainty they will not pay back what they owe.

An insightful European banker suggested to me over breakfast a couple of weeks ago that the European political class would use selective expropriation, rather than inflation, to avoid paying back all of the debt.

The way this would be done would be that the political leaders would announce they would only pay back those bonds with full interest that were held by labor unions and other "politically correct" interest groups but not the bonds held by "greedy bankers" and rich people. Maturities would be extended and promised interest rates lowered - effectively reducing the value of the bonds.

My initial reaction was that, yes, such a selective expropriation might work in Europe, but not in the United States. As I thought more about it, however, looked at what was happening, and heard President Obama's rhetoric attacking "greedy" bankers and insurance companies, I began to think that not only was my European friend right about Europe, but his scenario was equally valid here.

Look at the evidence.

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THE EVIL OF ZERO


Is Zero a fascist dedicated to destroying the life savings of Americans, or is he criminally incompetent?

The answer is yes.

So let me tell you about Gao Xiqing (gow shee-ching).  He's one of the smartest Chinese you'll ever meet (and that's saying something).  Graduate of Duke law school, worked at a major Wall Street law firm, returned to his native China to direct the CIC, China Investment Corp., the Chicoms' trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund.

In other words, he's the guy who owns $700 billion of US Treasurys, the guy who Zero is depending on to keep buying.  Should he not show up at the next Treasury auction, the dollar disintegrates the next day.

A friend of mine has gotten to know him (don't ask me how).  "Gao is super-smooth, sophisticated, speaks English as good as you or me, and knows America inside and out," he says.  "He can talk the language of high finance and international capitalism as good as anyone - yet he is a hard core Chinese Communist who regards America as China's enemy.  He despises Obama as the epitome of American weakness."

Gao also thinks that gold is going to $5,000 an ounce and that the dollar's goose is cooked.

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NO VOTING RIGHTS FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS – EVER!


No one who broke our laws to enter this country should ever decide who becomes our president, a member of Congress, a governor or mayor, or a member of the local school board. This is the non-negotiable “die line” those who love our country must defend: We cannot permit a huge criminal voting block to determine our future.

And every person who entered this country without our government’s formal permission is a criminal. Period.

Democrat Party operatives embed their public arguments for amnesty for eleven-million illegals in terms of human dignity and decency.  The reality?  Democrat Party support for amnesty for illegals comes down to one word: “Votes.”  For Dems, it's all about a permanent electoral majority - not human dignity.

The Dems would love to do to Hispanics what they've done to African-Americans: Destroy their strong family values, addict them to government programs, discourage them from pursuing good educations and liberating careers -- then herd them to polling stations to vote for Democrats anointed by party commissars.

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MORALITY AND THE IRS


It is, of course, true that no one loves the tax collector and that taxes are the price we pay for a civil society. But, as with anything else, there are proper and improper taxes and tax collection procedures and methods.

According to news accounts, attacks and threats against IRS personnel are rising, and unfortunately, this trend is likely to continue until there is a fundamental change in our tax laws and collection methods.

People who do not have access to the media and cannot afford expensive tax lawyers sometimes reach such a level of frustration with the IRS that they resort to violent or irrational behavior. IRS officials and workers will say the tax code is not their fault - it is the fault of Congress - and they are only doing their jobs.

It is unambiguously true that the tax code and IRS are creatures of Congress, with all of its self-dealing, corruption, ignorance and incompetence. But this also is true: as was made explicit at the Nuremberg trials, those who carry out orders that they know to be wrong or should know to be wrong are not absolved of personal responsibility.

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THE TRAP OF LIZZIE WEBBER

 
Many years ago when I was running a cinnamon business in South Viet Nam, I flew from Saigon to Jesselton in British North Borneo (now it's Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia).  Out the window I saw all these gorgeous tropical island paradises sprinkled over the ocean.  I asked the captain what they were. 

"The Spratlys," he said.  I pointed to one jewel in particular.  Checking his map, he answered, "Lizzie Webber."

lizzie_webber.jpg

"Yeah, she's beautiful all right - but don't ever go sailing down there," he warned.  "She's a trap, just like all the Spratlys."

Now today, thanks to President Zero, America is caught in the trap of Lizzie Webber.

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HOW DANGEROUS IS MR. OBAMA TO ISRAEL?


As I noted on Judge Jeanine Pirro's show this weekend, I reject President Obama's idea that Israel must cede back its territories to the 1967 line.  

Will we now be in the habit of telling our allies what their borders should be? Should Prime Minister Netanyahu suggest we return to our 1845 borders before the annexation of the southwest of the United States during the Mexican-American War? Should we give back parts of Texas, New Mexico, and California?

But the problem is even deeper. In both his State Department speech last Thursday (5/19) and his speech Sunday (5/22) at AIPAC, President Obama made some seemingly specific comments about the Palestinian state that he wants to see created.  He either misspoke or he has even more dangerous plans for our friends in Israel than he is publicly admitting.

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AMERICA SHOULD BE MORE LIKE SWITZERLAND


Zurich, Switzerland.  Economists, political scientists, reporters and pundits spend too much of their time looking at dysfunctional societies and trying to explain why there are poverty, joblessness and hopelessness. In many ways, Haiti is easy to explain - no rule of law and 200 years of corrupt and incompetent governments. Switzerland is the polar opposite.

It has almost no corruption and has the rule of law with honest, competent judges and government administrators. The question should be, "What can we learn from the Switzerlands of the world about how to do things right" rather than, "What is wrong with the Haitis of the world?"

Switzerland manages to run a smaller government as a share of gross domestic product than the United States and most other countries while providing a higher level of service, security, prosperity and freedom. How does it do that?

Both the United States and Switzerland are federal republics. If one reads the Federalist Papers and the oworks of the American Founding Fathers, it is clear they envisioned a nation that operates much more like Switzerland than one with the large central government the U.S. now has.

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THE OBAMA-PROOF PORTFOLIO


In the wake of Zero's election last November (the DOW was above 9,000 on 11/04), TTP predicted the DOW was headed to below 7,000 (The Word That Can Save America, 11/21).  Wait ‘till you see where we think it's headed now (see below).

By now, it should be clear to anyone with a desire for self-preservation that Zero's economic policies are indistinguishable from those skillfully designed to destroy the American economy on purpose.

Thus the urgent need for strategies to preserve one's savings and assets under attack by Zero's malicious economic masochism.  We all need to develop an "Obama-Proof Portfolio."

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OBAMACARE WILL CREATE A NATION OF FRAUDS


I've become accustomed to dealing with folks who claim to have done things they haven't done and to be people they aren't.  In a near-perfect world, one would just write these people off as nutcases who don't deserve second thoughts.

Let me explain.  I was a Navy SEAL for 27 years, and one of my hobbies in retirement is exposing those cretins who falsely claim to have been SEALs.  You can see how we do this at our website, stolenvalor.com.

In fact, just day before yesterday (5/15), newspapers across the country ran an AP story about us, Sleuths Who Expose Pretend SEALs.

What really gets my dander up though, is when these sad sacks use fabricated military histories, complete with made-up war stories about how they got PTSD or bad backs or trick knees, to justify receipt of Veterans Administration disability benefits.

I could cite example after example of stories these phonies tell their friends and VA counselors (who are sometimes one and the same), but the critical point is how VA fraud is predictive of what will happen when Obamacare wraps its tentacles around the health industry. 

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FINANCIAL STABILITY AND ECONOMIC FASCISM


The expression "Failure is not an option" may be a motivator for very high-risk situations, but failure must always be an option for players in a properly functioning market economy.

If you had a choice between buying a bond issued by a company considered "too big to fail" - which is an implicit government guarantee of its debt - would you buy that bond or one issued by a company without a government guarantee? Companies with government guarantees will be able to borrow at less cost, and, ultimately, their unfair competitive advantage will drive the companies without guarantees out of business.

You may believe that the housing bubble and the subsequent financial meltdown were caused primarily by the Fed or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the two multitrillion-dollar government-sponsored secondary mortgage buyers), or by the very largest commercial and investment banks.

But whichever theory you choose, note that it was either the government or those heavily regulated by the government that were the source of the problem - and all were considered "too big to fail."

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OLD AMERICA VS. NEW AMERICA


The current leader of Japan has the most appropriate name for a politician in world history.  He is Prime Minister Taro Aso, pronounced "ass-hoe." 

This week (2/24), Prime Minister Aso met President Zero in the White House.  Albeit that, at 47, the American is the junior of the Japanese by 21 years and embodies youth and fitness, it was nonetheless a meeting of Old Japan and Old America.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has had a monopoly of power in Japan since the end of World War II.  Here is how Hidekazu Kawai, professor emeritus of comparative politics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, describes the LDP today:

"The LDP has become a source of structural corruption permeating the entire society.  The Aso administration of the LDP exists to win elections, not cope with economic crisis.  All that the ruling party has come up with as a solution to our crisis is to distribute cash."

Remind you of some other party and its leaders in some other country?

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PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE: PAKISTAN


Pakistan - the Land of Spies, Lies, and Terrorists in (not much) Disguise - has done the impossible: It's bumped Saudi Arabia from the top slot as America's number-one enemy. 

Al Qaeda is, at most, sixth or seventh on the list, a symptom, not a cause. Without Saudi money and Pakistani protection, al Qaeda would be about as relevant as VHS cassettes. 

Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI) and its military leadership have managed to hide Osama bin Laden since he fled Tora Bora; continue to harbor and support the leadership of the Afghan Taliban; collude with the savage Haqqani terror network; and nurture a range of anti-Indian terror organizations the ISI created. 

Iran plays in the terrorist bush leagues compared to our Pakistani "ally."

Meanwhile, Washington continues to do the implausible: Kid itself that Pakistan, the world's leading terror sponsor and haven, will ultimately reform and give up its vast investments in terrorism if only we send more money to Islamabad. So here's the one word solution to dealing with Pakistan.

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CONGRESS IS WORSE THAN THE MAFIA


If President Obama and Congress have their way with the so-called health reform bill, the American people will have had their pocketbooks and liberties plundered once again.

The basic purpose of government is to protect individuals and their property and to ensure their liberties. However, Congress and most other legislative bodies spend the bulk of their time doing just the opposite.

They take, primarily through taxation, from one group of people what those people worked hard to produce and give it to some other politically favored group. They pass a never-ending series of regulations, which chip at our liberties until little is left.

When Congress seizes your money, it claims to be creating jobs by giving it to someone else who did not earn it. There is more honesty among those in the Mafia, who at least do not try to claim they are stealing from us for our own good.

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WHAT WE HAVE GOT AND THEY HAVE NOT


One of the more arresting observations of the way we view history, past and current, was that of 18th century British writer (and son of England's first Prime Minister Robert Walpole, 1676-1745), Horace Walpole (1717-1797):

"This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel."

This is because those for whom rationality runs their brains rather than their emotions are more in charge of their lives and destinies.  They can thus look upon the Obozos of history as droll. 

Those who only have their feelings to keep them afloat are mere flotsam in the river of events.  As such, they can't help but see themselves as helpless victims in a tragedy beyond their control.

There is another difference between those who think and those who feel:  they react very differently in a crisis, with one consequence being the former survive more than the latter.  Especially if the former are better armed.

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