I am so sorry, but I have had a catastrophic failure today within minutes of being finished with today’s article. I will try to reconstruct the work of several hours and present it to you next week. If not, at least I’ll have a new computer.
Was that too snarky? [EDITOR: Yes.]
Once again, I am so sorry.
Mellie
Over its long history, New York City has had every kind of mayor under the sun.
Most have been reasonably competent, some have been bold and brilliant and some turned out to be crooked to the core.
But to my knowledge, Zohran Mamdani is in a class of one. He is the first mayor in modern times who appears to hate the city and many of the 8 million people who call it home.
As he constantly makes clear, he is not here to fix things. He is here to smash the city as it is and build a socialist utopia in its place.
A troubling result is that seven months into his tenure, Mamdani remains in constant campaign mode. His appearances and public remarks are aimed exclusively at his supporters, here and in leftist outposts around America and the world.
Governing in the broad public interest of the people who actually live in the city does not appear to be part of his plan. What does interest him is creating and seizing opportunities to keep his base fired up as he pursues the radical political and social agenda that carried him to City Hall last year.
The first of The Seven Pearls of Shing is called Mijnon or The Eyelash. It’s at 5,300 ft in the Fann Mountains of Western Tajikistan. At dawn, the air is still and crystal clear as is the water. The surface of the lake becomes a mesmerizing mirror with the early light reflecting the vertical cliffs above while penetrating to the translucent lake bed below. It is an epic example of the boundless beauty of our world.
Yet Tajikistan is only one of the “Stans” of Central Asia, an ultimate of the world’s mysterious, remote, and wondrous places. There are four others: Kazakhstan, Kyrghistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. A number of your fellow TTPers have been there with me and can tell you what a fabulously life-memorable adventure it is to explore all five.
We’ll be there again sometime soon. Be with us with your loved one, your children, or grandchildren and you’ll all have an experience to treasure for all of your lives. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #263 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
I’d like to speak today about revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries. Whether we realize it or not, we’ve been in a progressive revolutionary cycle for about 50 years.
And by that I mean there has been the effort of most of the Democratic Party, and now the radical elements to accelerate that efforts as emblemized by the democratic socialists to take control of government, expand it, redistribute income so that many people in blue states especially are paying over 10% of their income, in addition to 38% of their federal tax or two or three percent in Obamacare tax and other add-ons.
And it’s not very difficult to pay 50% of your income or more for the taxpayer who’s salaried without much write-offs.
And the welfare state, which has distributed over twenty trillion dollars since this started under the Great Society, is getting bigger and bigger, at least until Donald Trump.
Perhaps it got too obvious not to notice.
But the Democrat party indeed is a dumpster fire of chaos, unpaid bills, and flung objects, now that so many sources of funding have vanished in the Trump era. No wonder they are putting out so many freakish candidates. One can only wonder how long such a mess will last.
According to the Times, whose headline was: Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party:
The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections.Turns out they all hate each other.The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms.
So much is going politically right for Democrats these days. President Trump’s approval is down, gas prices are up and an unpopular war with Iran drags on. But dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats.
The magnificent Sher-Dor Madrassa, built in the early 1600s, is part of the Registan public square complex of the ancient Silk Road oasis of Samarkand. “Sher-Dor” means “Adorned with Tigers” in Persian – flaunting Islamic blasphemy of living beings in art. Here is the mosaic depiction of a tiger chasing a deer and on its back a rising sun deity with a human face. This is honoring the pre-Islamic history of Samarkand that goes back almost 3,000 years.
It was centuries old when Alexander conquered it in 329 BC. For a thousand years as Central Asia’s great entrepot on the Silk Road between China and the Mediterranean, it was a cosmopolitan center for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorian Christianity. Incorporated into the Islamic world in the 700s, sacked by Genghiz Khan in 1220, rebuilt by the time Marco Polo in 1272 described it as “a large and splendid city,” Tamerlane made it his capital in 1370.
Colonized by Czar Alexander II in the 1860s within the Russian Imperial Empire, and by the Soviets in the 1920s within the Uzbek SSR, Samarkand is flourishing today in independent Uzbekistan. Exploring Samarkand is like a dream come true. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #208 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
Today I want to talk about the positive state that we want to aim for most of the time – which will connect us with the emotional resources and clear thinking we need to make our best decisions.
Researchers like Steven Porges call it our social engagement system.
When we feel safe, and trusting, and relaxed, our heart rate and blood pressure lowers, and our heart rate variability increases – our heart rate rises a little on the inhale, and lowers on the exhale, and the difference between these is our heart rate variability.
Higher heart rate variability is a good thing. This is all very beneficial for our immune system, our cardio-vascular system, our organs, and our overall health.
On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced that Tehran would answer America “an eye for an eye,” which he intended not as proportionality but as a threat.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded that the President’s policy is “a head for an eye.”
The usual pearl clutchers erupted in horror. But this is exactly the right policy. And not just “right” in the sense of “correct.”
War is terrible, and should not be engaged in lightly. But once the decision is made to go to war, America must use disproportionate force to actually win, as it did routinely prior to Korea and Vietnam.
The days of Colin Powell’s “you break it, you buy it” rule are over.
Iran—which has considered itself at war with the United States for 47 years and acted accordingly—can stand down, stop attacking its neighbors, stop attacking civilian ships, stop destroying civilian water plants, stop attacking hotels, or we will compel it to do so in the most “convincing” ways available.
Which one is up to Tehran.
We’re all familiar with the sufferings of Job in the Old Testament’s Book of Job. But what happened to Job after his sufferings were ended? All the OT says is that, with his health and riches restored, he lived long enough to see his great-great grandchildren.
The OT says Job lived in the “Land of Uz,” which was “beyond the Euphrates.” That would place it in modern day Iraq. There is no connection between this Hebraic name and the land of Uzbekistan – meaning the Land of Uzbeks, a Turkic people. Yet the Silk Road city of Bukhara in today’s Uzbekistan is thousands of years old.
Jews have lived in Bukhara for 3,000 years, although almost all have emigrated now (some 150,000 Bukharan Jews live in Israel). Thus it is a very ancient legend that during a terrible drought in Bukhara, Job visited the city and struck the ground with his staff – causing a spring of healing water to gush from the ground, and continues to do so today.
A shrine was built around the spring – the Well of Job – and the water is clear and drinkable. One of the many extraordinary experiences in what we call Hidden Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #114 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
[Last Thursday (7/23), in the garden of the Presidential Palace in Kiev, Ukraine, US social influencer Laura Loomer interviewed Volodymyr Zelensky. In so doing together with experiencing Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, she broke from the increasingly demented Woke Right world of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Marjorie Taylor Greene to join us Rational Conservatives at TTP in supporting freedom and victory for Ukraine over Russia. Loomer’s Zelensky interview on X now has 1.6 million views. It’s 43 minutes long so watch it at your leisure. Here, instead of a Monday Archive, we invite you to read this outstanding analysis from the London Telegraph of what has just happened, in Ukraine and MAGA America. This is epic history unfolding before our eyes. – JW]
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It takes courage to admit when you are wrong. For Laura Loomer, a MAGA influencer, it took a night in a Ukrainian bomb shelter and a trip to a firebombed McDonald’s.
Ms.. Loomer’s extraordinary about-turn this week – from a provocateur who frequently said she did not care about the Russian invasion to a Ukrainian sympathizer cozying up to Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine – is the clearest sign yet that MAGA America has changed its mind on the war.
“Just experienced my first air raid in Ukraine. Sirens blaring. This is every day for every Ukrainian,” she wrote in an X post to her almost two million followers. “I often said I don’t care. Looking back, that wasn’t very nice of Mr. to say. We need to have moral clarity.”
Ms. Loomer is one of a growing number of MAGA influencers who believe that Russia has been insincere in the quest for peace. Ukraine, on the other hand, has emerged as a military underdog, surviving a four-year onslaught to become the leader in the techniques of modern warfare.
On a grassy plain in a wide valley of the Altai Mountains in far western Mongolia, we set up a private ger camp near a nomad encampment. This was my “ger” – a Mongol nomad round tent with a wooden frame – that was my home while we learned about the nomad way of life, including, out here, hunting with eagles. It’s hard to describe how peaceful and serene it is in this remote place – like we had a whole world to ourselves.
There are very few places left on earth where a truly nomadic life still flourishes, a life that uniquely experiences a special freedom. You find it here. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #305 photo ©Jack Wheeler)
I asked Grok what would Senate Majority Leader Thune look like as Judas Iscariot – and here you are. The SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) was passed by the House in April 2025 – 15 months ago – and ever since Thune has resolutely blocked it. It’s got to be more than he’s a RINO.
To me, there are only two possible explanations: Thune is either being bribed or being blackmailed. The disaster of TDS-demented CommieFascist Democrats seizing the House and Senate this December will be catastrophic for our country, and the only way they can do so is to massively cheat with fraudulent mail-in ballots.
It was the explicit purpose of Biden’s Open Border to flood the country with illegal alien fraudulent voters. The only way to stop this is with the SAVE Act. Q.E.D.: The only possible reason for blocking or not voting for it is wanting the Dems to cheat-to-win the November midterms.
Or is it that the Senate GOP has some kind of political Death Wish?
One thing for sure – POTUS doesn’t. Here’s what he’s got up his sleeve to stymie Judas Thune and save the midterms. Let’s roll!
[This Monday’s Archive was first in TTP on May 9, 2012. It is obviously more germane than ever in 2026. It’s both revelatory and funny – wait until you find out who the "UN Special Rapporteur” on an “official visit to the United States” is – you’ll laugh your head off. And it is explains so much on why the “BM” (Big Media) is so demented. You’ll really enjoy this!]
TTP, May 9, 2012
This scene from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), where US Cavalry Colonel Nelson Miles explains the truth to Sitting Bull and rejects his made-up legends is virtually a documentary, for Miles is recounting actual real historical facts that show Sitting Bull is lying. It’s one of the most honest scenes in all the movies about the American West – which is why our Legacy media hates and ignores it.
The most destructive, dishonest, and criminally hypocritical people in America today are not Democrat politicians, black race hustlers, Ivy League Marxist professors, or crony/shyster capitalists.They are the publishers, editors, journalists, and commentators of the Liberal Media: Associated Press-New York Times-WaPo-ABC-NBC-CBS-CNN-MSNBC et al.
We’ll abbreviate Big Liberal Media to simply "BM" – appropriately enough for their product is the same as what those initials usually stand for. A stunningly perfect example of BM perfidy appeared in headlines in newspapers all over the country this past weekend. It was the lead story on Drudge: US Should Return Stolen Land To Indian Tribes, Says United Nations. The Associated Press report’s headline was: Mt. Rushmore Should Be Returned to Indigenous Native American Tribes, UN Official Says.
The last Democratic candidate to appeal to the white working-class voter was Bill Clinton. He needed every one of those voters in his 1992 and 1996 races. Yet he still failed to win 50 percent of the popular vote because of Ross Perot’s third-party candidacy.
Hunting for the Left-Wing Blue-Collar American
Since then, the Democratic brand has lost the white working-class vote in nearly every presidential election. Yet this demographic still makes up 40 percent of the electorate and registers and votes at much higher rates than non-white groups.
Apparently, during the Biden-era influx of 10 million illegal aliens, Democrats really believed their own slogans about an “Emerging Democratic Majority” and how “Demography is destiny.” They therefore confidently abandoned most efforts to recruit white working-class voters.
In 2017, the then-neocon—and now leftist Mamdani supporter—Bill Kristol (who has advocated abolishing ICE altogether) spoke of the need to open the borders to replace the “lazy” American worker: “Look, to be totally honest, if things are so bad as you say with the white working class, don’t you want to get new Americans in?”
Kristol then characterized this apparently dispensable group as “decadent, lazy, spoiled.”
And yet, until the novelty of Barack Obama’s candidacy and the demographic overconfidence it inspired, Democrats regularly lamented that, aside from the moderate Bill Clinton interlude, their steady leftward turn was becoming both irreversible and electorally costly.
On July 7, 2026, at about 7 am in Houston, Texas, an ICE agent fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo as they tried to arrest him during an immigration enforcement operation.
As the details, and the disputes over them, continue to resonate, it is generally accepted that ICE sought Araujo, who was a Mexican national, for arrest during a “targeted enforcement operation.”
ICE said that Araujo tried to run over an ICE agent with his vehicle, resulting in that agent shooting him.
Araujo died later at a hospital.
This unfortunate incident took place in a region of Texas that really isn’t the Texas most people think of. Culturally closer to Louisiana than cowboyish inland Texas, it’s a patchwork of different sorts of people.
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