The Oasis for
Rational Conservatives

The Amazon’s Pantanal
Serengeti Birthing Safari
Wheeler Expeditions
Member Discussions
Article Archives
L i k e U s ! ! !
TTP Merchandise

HALF-FULL REPORT 06/04/10

Download PDF

We begin with a happy announcement.  Thanks to TTP’s one and only Miko, To The Point is now on Facebook!  Get on board, connect with your fellow TTPers, get all your friends on board too.  Have fun and spread the TTP word.  Thanks, Miko!!

***
When I saw my friend Sara Carter’s report yesterday (6/03) in the Washington Examiner about the Mexican government opening a satellite consular office on Catalina Island in California to provide illegal Mexican immigrants with identification cards, I sent Congressman Dana Rohrabacher the following email:

"Dana – since Catalina is in your district, when are you going to take action against this?"

Well, I almost sent it, for at the very time I was about to push the "Send" button, I learned that Dana had already flown to Catalina that very morning and was proceeding to embarrass the Mexican officials there into shutting their operation down.  Is he our kind of Congressista or what?

As most of you know, he’s been my buddy for 44 years.  I’m prouder of him than ever.  Glad I didn’t push that Send button though.

***
You know Jack Kelly is right that The Thrill Is Gone for the media when you see the liberal newspaper of Capitol Hill – distributed daily to every Senate and House office – The Hill describe the Obama Presidency as a combination of the incompetence of Jimmy Carter and the sleaziness of Rod Blagovejich.

"The worst of the worst," meaning Carter says The Hill, "is better than what we’ve got now."  That’s because as Zero becomes ever more mired in the goo washing up on Gulf shores, he’s becoming ever more mired in Blago/Chicago sleaze. 

Sestakgate is metastasizing into Jobsgate as another Dem candidate (Andrew Romanoff in Colorado) was offered a White House bribe.  Magnifying Jobsgate will be Blago’s bribery trial that will put Rahm Emanuel and Valerie Jarrett in the hot oath vs. perjury seat regarding White House bribes to Blago.

Jimmy Carter + Rod Blagojevich = Barack Obama.  That’s the actual headline of The Hill story.  Again, The Hill is a liberal publication slated towards the Dems and read by everyone among the power elite of Washington. 

You could say it doesn’t get better than this.  But it will.  The disintegration of the Zero Presidency has begun.

***
Our entry this week for the if-you-think-you’ve-got-it-bad department is the latest enviro-disaster in
China.  The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River has flooded hundreds of square miles, kicking 1.4 million people off their land and forcing them to move elsewhere.  It’s the largest dam and electricity-generating plant in the world.

Turns out it’s causing earthquakes, landslides, and destabilization of the entire area around it, an impending environmental mega-disaster.  Hundreds of thousands of more people will have to be evacuated – and the local Commie officials and their families come first.  Schoolchildren and collapsing schools come last.

In its report on the growing disaster, the London Times quotes a worker – the sort of person whom Communism claims to be dedicated  – as asking:

"What kind of dogshit government moves itself out and moves us into somewhere like this?"

I would think a lot of Louisianans, not to mention masses of Americans everywhere, now describe their government in Washington with exactly this label.

***
When I wrote China’s Three No’s back in May of 2004 (no water, no wives, no banks), I noted that while Northern China was drying up with some 600 cities suffering water shortages, at least Southern China was still green and wet.  No more.

Now Bloomberg is reporting that Southern China is drying up as well.  And what water remains is polluted.  70% of China’s lakes and rivers are so contaminated, and the groundwaters of over 50% of China’s cities are so polluted they are unfit for human consumption.

Bloomberg focuses on the investment market for water treatment services.  The bigger geopolitical picture is that water, or clean lack thereof, is going to dry up China’s economy.  Putting up more dams, like on the Mekong, is not going to be the solution, as Three Gorges shows, and merely traps what water there already is.

No, the solution is for China to acquire more territory that has lots more water.  Where could that be?  110 million Chinese live in China’s three northeast provinces.  Across the border lies an area the size of Western Europe filled with endless forests, rivers, and lakes – and almost no people:  Russian Siberia.  It’s not going to be Russian for much longer.

***
Speaking of Europe, here’s some good news.  In Greece, the government debt problem has not only forced government worker unions to accept cuts in their pay and extensions of their retirement age (from 53 – ! – to 67) – but is now forcing the privatization of state-owned businesses such as railroads, water companies, and even the Greek Post Office.

For once, a crisis expands freedom, rather than contracting it.

And the Swiss, bless their competitive souls, are ticking off other European governments by lowering corporate taxes.  26 Swiss Cantons are competing among themselves to offer tax deals to companies so they’ll relocate from former tax havens like Bermuda and the Caymans that can no longer withstand the enormous pressure from Uncle Fascist to cease banking and business privacy.

Switzerland is one of the few remaining places on earth that can tell US authorities to stuff it.  The Swiss are taking advantage of the opportunity, so it’s little wonder that business is now flowing into the Land of William Tell.

***
I hope you’re primed now for some really good news.  How about this for a cool headline – of a news report (6/02) of the New York Times no less:  Abortion Foes Advance Cause At State Level.

"At least 11 states have passed laws this year regulating or restricting abortion, giving opponents of abortion what partisans on both sides of the issue say is an unusually high number of victories. In four additional states, bills have passed at least one house of the legislature," the NYT reports.

Can you imagine how much it pained the NYT editors to run this story?  It’s at the state level where the battle for life is being fought – and the pro-life side is winning. 

***
We close this week with congratulations to America’s champions of health freedom, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw.  They were the lead plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the FDA for violation of First Amendment rights regarding health claims – and they just won.

Here is the press release of Durk & Sandy’s law firm, Emord & Associates:

"We are pleased to report that the law firm of Jonathan Emord, Emord & Associates, has defeated the Food and Drug Administration in The Alliance for Natural Health USA v. Sebelius before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

"The decision issued on May 27, 2010 upsets the FDA’s attempt to overturn the six prior decisions Emord has won against the agency’s prior censorship of health claims.

"It reaffirms that the FDA is subject to the strictures of the First Amendment in its evaluation of health claims, and it faults the FDA for failing to follow that standard, holding its suppression of the selenium-cancer risk reduction claims unconstitutional.

"In the present case, Emord filed suit on behalf of The Alliance for Natural Health USA; Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw; and Coalition to End FDA and FTC Censorship against the FDA, alleging that its censorship of ten selenium-cancer risk reduction claims violated the First Amendment.

"In its decision, the Court held:

The Court concludes that the FDA’s position fails under Pearson I. The Agency  has not provided any empirical evidence, such as ‘studies’ or ‘anecdotal evidence,’ that consumers would be misled by… plaintiffs’ claims were they accompanied by qualifications…. Moreover, the explanation the FDA offers to demonstrate that plaintiffs’ claims are misleading ? that the claims leave out pertinent information ? is not support for banning the claims entirely, but rather favors the approach of remedying any potential misleadingness by disclosure of additional information.

"The Court further held FDA’s lengthy and misleading disclaimers unconstitutional because they were neither succinct nor accurate but defeated the meaning of the claim rather than qualified the meaning. The Court ordered the FDA to reconsider all challenged claims and come up with reasonable disclaimers to accompany them.

"This decision is the seventh won by the firm for its clients [Pearson & Shaw] in federal court challenges against FDA claim suppression. Despite the repeat victories, the FDA continues to avoid compliance with the First Amendment mandates of the courts. Emord and Associates welcomes your inquiries at (202) 466-6937."

The FDA – more appropriately known as the Federal Death Administration – has waged an unconstitutional fascist war against the vitamin and nutritional supplement industry on behalf of Big Pharma for decades. 

By violating the First Amendment rights of the industry, it has cost the lives of millions who were prevented from learning truthful health information that could have saved or extended their lives.  Fewer people will die now and more will live because of Durk & Sandy’s heroically persistent efforts to force the FDA to obey the Constitution.

To The Point is happy to salute Durk & Sandy.  All Americans owe them a great debt of gratitude.