SKYE’S LINKS 02/15/24
I didn't make this stuff up. Really! The Special Consul investigating Xiden for illegal retention of classified documents has found clear evidence that he is guilty - but has decided not to prosecute because of Xiden's deteriorated mental state. Note that most of these willful acts occurred many years ago when Xiden did not have the excuse of senility:
Censorship – Zuck's Facebook and its minions are at it for 2024:
Zuck Wants You Distracted: Instagram, Threads to Stop Recommending Political Content
More fun to follow!
THE FLATTEST PLACE ON EARTH
The Salar de Uyuni, 12,000 feet high in the Altiplano of Bolivia, is a 4,000 square mile expanse of salt so flat it is used to calibrate the altimeters of NASA observation satellites of the earth. After a rain, it becomes the world’s largest mirror, 80 miles across. The incredible reflective surface extends to the horizon in every direction – it is both hallucinatingly disorienting and makes for amazing mirror-to-horizon photos (especially at sunrise/sunset).
The brine underneath the salt crust contains 70% of the world’s lithium – critical to our battery-fueled global economy – produced in evaporation pools that are a kaleidoscope of colors.
You can stay here in relative luxury at one of the world’s most unique hotels – the Palacio de Sal, built entirely of salt: walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, sculptures. Being here is one of South America’s more astounding experiences. Let me know if you want a Wheeler Expedition to take you there! (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #39 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)
UNTIL THE BORDER’S IN ORDER
Jack asked me to weigh in on the immigration situation that we are currently facing, to include what advice I would give President Trump in his second term for addressing it all. First and foremost, I would tell him that it took us a long time to get into this mess and it will take at least as long to get out of it.
We need a multi-pronged approach on both the Federal level and with the states. Some will happily cooperate and others will have to be dragged kicking and screaming. But more on that in a minute.
RUSSIAN ECONOMY FEELS THE BITE OF ATTRITION
Russia’s economy benefited from increased military expenditures, but industrial production is stagnating as growth limits. Heavy prioritization of the defense industry is causing contractions in other sectors like consumer goods production.
The Russian energy sector suffers from declining revenues, delayed projects, and challenges in the global market due to sanctions. Sanctions loopholes are being closed, complicating Russian efforts to circumvent restrictions and maintain its economic model.
Ukraine’s victory against Russia hinges on economic ties and integration with Europe, which possesses superior industrial, technological, and scientific capabilities.
OBAMA POISED TO PULL THE PLUG ON BIDEN?
Special counsel Robert Hur did a great service to America last week in two ways that fundamentally and irreversibly transform the Presidential race. As a result, just like in Hillary Clinton’s ‘3 a.m. phone call’ television ad in the 2008 contest, the iPhone is buzzing in Barack Obama’s Martha’s Vineyard compound, and he had better answer it.
The last Democrat president has been warning Biden and party leaders for months -- privately and publicly through former aides like David Axelrod -- that he faces an uphill fight to win a second term.
Now that Hur’s report has detonated like a shaped charge in Biden’s political bunker, Obama is the only man on the planet who can talk Jill and Joe Biden out of standing for re-election.
WINTER WILDFLOWERS
We’re in Portugal preparing for our WWX Portugal Exploration 2024 (May 3-12) where it’s sunny, clear, 64 degrees, and wildflowers are everywhere. This as a huge Nor’easter is burying the whole northeast in snow today (2/13). Lisbon, by the way, is at the same latitude as Washington DC where it’s freezing tonight. (Not many know how far north Europe is – Rome, Italy for example, at 41°53’ North latitude, is north of New York City, at 40°44’N.)
The weather here is as benign as the culture. Portugal is consistently in the top five of the safest, most peaceful and crime-free countries on the planet. There is a total absence of divisiveness, anger, and woke insanity in this country. It is normal in the way America used to be but tragically is no more.
We all, of course, hope and pray that our country will be normal once again and in the not-distant future. But if you’d like to experience normality right now, with extraordinary history, spectacular beauty, and fabulous food and wine thrown in, join Rebel and me on our WWX Portugal Exploration 2024. You’ll have so much fun with your fellow TTPers!
(Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #256 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
DO LEFTISTS NOW BELIEVE LEFTISM DOESN’T WORK?
[VDH at his insightful best]
It is hard to destroy a naturally beautiful city like San Francisco, with ideal weather and stunning infrastructure inherited from far better earlier generations. Yet, San Francisco continues its much-publicized and self-inflicted doom loop.
Cities like Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and New York follow the same trajectory. In all these doom-loop cities, progressive reformers in the eleventh hour are now trying to undo the very policies of those they elected, as if they are slowly waking up from a collective madness—in an election year.
Abruptly, the Democrats insist that after three years and over 10 million illegal aliens into the Biden administration, something must be done—perhaps even a rebranding of what worked in 2020 as their own.
The same rethinking of energy is occurring, as well, among the left—in an election year.
THE SPLENDOURS OF SCOTLAND
Most of you have noticed my adventure travel company of over 40 years, Wheeler Expeditions, is now Wheeler-Windsor Expeditions.
That’s because of my new partner, Edward Windsor – yes, as in the House of Windsor, the British Royal Family, cousin to King Charles, godson of Princess Diana, and the future Duke of Kent.
Everyone calls him Eddy as he’s such a pleasure to collaborate with and so much fun. Quite an athlete too, with a passion for cold water swimming. Here he is at the Seven Pearls of Shing lakes with me in Tajikistan –
Recently, as we’ve had so many requests for Scotland from TTPers, Rebel and I asked Eddy to design his “dream” Scotland trip – and did he ever! He loves Scotland deeply, having lived in the Scottish Highlands and led several private expeditions there for friends.
This will be a truly extraordinary journey – indeed, just between us, we could call it “Royal Scotland,” as where we go, who we meet, and what we learn could only be done by someone of British Royalty, with personal friendships among the lairds of Scottish nobility. He's even arranging a special visit for us at Balmoral Castle, the favorite home of Queen Elizabeth who was like a grandmother to Eddy.
While Rebel and I are going, of course, this is Eddy’s design and he will be leading. He’s known in England as Eddy Downpatrick after his current title, Lord Downpatrick, and uses the English spelling:
When I read what Eddy has planned for us, it simply blew me away – and I think it will do the same to you. Better hurry, though. Click on the link, be mesmerized by all what we see and do, then tell me, “I’m in, Jack!”, before someone else beats you to it, which they will if you don’t. And FYI, we’ll give priority to couples. See you in Edinburgh!A SHORT HISTORY OF RUSSIA
[This Monday’s Archive was first written in January 1985 for President Reagan’s National Security Council at the onset of his second term. It was originally posted on TTP in March 2004. It is relevant today to expose Putin’s “history” claim in his Tucker Carlson interview (2/08) is pure Kremlin propaganda as his lying excuse for invading Ukraine. The above map alone exposes the real history explained in detail below. The Soviet Union was the Russian Imperial Empire with “Marxism-Leninism” as its ideological justification. Putin wishes now to recreate that empire via fictional Russian history.]
A Short History of Russia – January 1985
TTP, March 18, 2004
At various times in her history, America has been at war with and has had as deadly enemies: the French, the English, the Spanish, the Germans, the Italians, the Mexicans, and the Japanese. All are today our friends and allies. There is nothing in the nature of things that makes it impossible for this to someday be the case with the Russians as well.
Yet it is important to understand how the Russians are not like us — how their history enabled them to transform themselves into Soviets running an Evil Empire called the Soviet Union.
JOE BIDEN WILL BE IN THREE STATES TODAY!
