1939 was not a good year. World War II started, and much of the world was still in the Depression. The leaders of too many countries were either despots or naïve and weak.

2009 has not been a good year.  There's been a global recession. And seventy years later, as in 1939, the leaders of too many countries are either despots or naïve and weak. Too many of today's leaders all too closely resemble the leaders of 1939 and seem equally capable of starting the chain of events that destroyed much of mankind in the 1940s.

Who among the leaders of free democracies is not a weakling, who has the courage to stop the despots?  Who among them is a Churchill and not a Chamberlain?

A primary goal of the American Left is to attach a sense of criminality and violence to the American Right in order to make it socially and otherwise unpalatable to support or otherwise identify with it.

By calling the Left out for its behavior, Sarah Palin exposed its agenda. But the logic of the blood libel remained. Trusting the public's ignorance and the liberal Jewish community's solidarity, the leftist media in the U.S. immediately condemned Palin for daring to use the term, hinted she was an anti-Semite for doing so, and argued that by defending herself, she was again inciting violence.

Many conservative thinkers and politicians have long viewed Palin as a liability. By remaining in the spotlight, they allege, Palin is helping the Left. They argue that the media have already destroyed her ability to communicate with non-conservatives. Since she is viewed as a conservative leader, by failing to shut up she is making it impossible for other potential leaders whom the media don't despise to connect with the swing voters they will need to unseat Obama in 2012.

This position does more than harm Palin. It matter not whether these conservative thinkers support Palin. What matters is that by telling her not to defend herself from libelous attacks, they are accepting the Left's right to criminalize all conservatives.

Jack Kelly asked this week:  Are there no limits to Democrat corruption?  The corollary question is:  Is there no end to Democrat fascism?  Day by day, the evidence mounts:  the answers are:  no limits, no end.

Prominent political analyst Michael Barone's term for fascism is Gangster Government, and accuses Zero and the Democrats of instituting it.  The Dodd Bailout Bill of "financial reform" is a perfect example.  He notes:

"Republicans have been accurately attacking the Dodd bill for authorizing bailouts of big Wall Street firms and giving them unfair advantages over small competitors. They might want to add that it authorizes Gangster Government -- the channeling of vast sums from the politically unprotected to the politically connected."

The extent of this can be seen in this five page list of exemptions or "carve-outs" in the 1,400 page Bailout Bill.

As TTPer "Rockymount" observes on the Forum, the Bailout Bill will place "the President and his Czars in complete control of this nation's financial system."  Can't get a lot more fascist than that.  The Dems, though, disagree.  They think they're  just getting started.

In just the last eight months, the Congressional Budget Office estimates of the amount of additional federal debt to be held by the public grew by an astounding $4 trillion for the 2010-19 period; and that the amount of federal debt held by the public grew from $5.9 trillion to $7.5 trillion in just the last 12 months.

The federal government (i.e., taxpayers) now owns (primarily through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) or insures (through the Federal Housing Administration and other government programs) about 80 percent of the $14.6 trillion of home mortgages outstanding in the United States.

Last week, Congress passed a bill (House Bill 3221) requiring all student loans be made by the federal government rather than banks, which means the taxpayers will be 100 percent liable for any student loan defaults.

The  Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is considering tapping its Treasury credit line for up to $500 billion. It needs to do this because of the high number of bank failures and because each bank account is insured by the government (i.e., taxpayers) up to $250,000.

Very soon, the debt bomb is going to go nuclear.

If you live in Britain, here's a question ­shortly coming to an examination ­paper near you. What have mathematics, geography or science to do with homosexuality?

Nothing at all, you say? Zero marks for you, then.

For, mad as this may seem, British schoolchildren are to be bombarded with homosexual references in maths, geography and ­science lessons as part of a UK Government-backed drive to promote the gay agenda.

In geography, for example, they will be told to consider why homosexuals move from the ­countryside to cities. In maths, they will be taught ­statistics through census ­findings about the number of ­homosexuals in the population.

In science, they will be directed to ­animal species such as emperor ­penguins and sea horses, where the male takes a lead role in raising its young.

Alas, this gay curriculum is no laughing matter. Absurd as it sounds, this is but the latest attempt to brainwash children with propaganda under the ­camouflage of ­education. It is an abuse of childhood.

Remember the Republicans' Contract With America they promised to implement should they win control of Congress in 1994?  A lot of it was penny-ante inside baseball, like promising to ban committee proxy votes. 

At Tea Parties all over America yesterday (4/15), a new Contract was unveiled - a Contract From America - that tells folks in Congress what to do if they expect to be elected in November.  It is sunlight-to-moonlight better than that wimpy thing of Gingrich's 16 years ago.

It demands politicians, to get the Patriotic American vote, pledge to scrap the entire IRS tax code and replace it with one no longer than 4,543 words - the length of the Constitution - scrap Cap & Trade, scrap all earmarks... and my favorite, defund Obamacare.

Yes, the Defund Strategy, first propounded right here in TTP, then moved forward by TTPer Mitch Rapp with the Defund & Disobey website, has now been adopted by the entire Tea Party movement.  Congratulations, Mitch!  Congratulations to all TTPers who helped bring this about.

Do you think your tax dollars should be used to help those who want to open a house of prostitution and illegally bring underage girls into the United States as "sex workers"?   As you may have seen on Fox News over the last few days, the taxpayer-funded ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) has been doing just that.

Who exposed this latest bit of corruption at ACORN?  The FBI? The local police? A congressional investigating committee? The mainstream media? No, no, no, and no. It was a 20-year-old college student named Hannah Giles and a 25-year-old law student and investigative journalist named James O'Keefe.

I first met Ms. Giles almost a year ago in her home town of Miami. Through mutual friends, she had contacted me to see if I could help her get an internship with a policy group in Washington.

Since Saturday (1/08), our media have reveled in the aftermath of the avoidable slaughter in Tucson, where a young madman - ignored by "tolerant" social, educational and law-enforcement systems - gunned down, among others, a federal judge and a nine-year-old girl, while gravely wounding a Congresswoman reaching out to her constituents.

Caught out in his incompetence, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Arizona's Pima County, railed against conservatives, whom the "lawman" blamed for the massacre on his turf. Other leftists rushed to blame the Tea Party (conveniently overlooking the murderer's internet claim that The Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books-oops!).

The fact is that the shooter wasn't a political creature, but a psychopath. And a hyper-liberal social climate allowed him to go unchecked, despite no end of warning signs and documented complaints from his fellow citizens.

Meanwhile, another massacre occurred on the doorstep of our nation's capital, but the media and left-wing activists ignored it.  That's because it was part of the Endless Liberal Racist Massacre.

Let's start the HFR this week by my asking you to stop reading it.  What I suggest you do right now, this very moment is to pick up the phone and call the local offices of both US Senators in your state.

Ask to speak to the staffer who handles foreign policy/national security issues for the Senator.  Tell him or her that as a voting constituent, you respectfully request that the Senator vote NO on Senate Ratification on the nuclear arms control treaty - mislabeled "START II" as that was a treaty back in January 1993 - with Russia signed by Mr. Obama in Prague on April 8^th.

Explain that you consider this treaty to be dangerous to America in the extreme, as it requires the US to freeze its nuclear weapons technology, but not Russia.  This is, as critics are putting it, an open invitation to Russia to modernize its way to nuclear dominance.

Do not get into a discussion with the staffer and avoid a debate with him.  Make it quick and polite.  Simply state your request, the reason for your request, and conclude with saying that how the Senator votes on this critical issue of US national security will determine how you vote when he or she is up for re-election.

OK - make the calls (that's plural for you have two Senators) and I'll wait ‘till you get back....

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.