HALF-FULL REPORT 01/09/09

The barkeep here at the HFR Saloon can’t keep up with the drink orders this week.  Half of them are drinks to celebrate the never-ending pratfalls of the Zero Circus.  The other half are for glasses of beer to cry in, since the Circus’ biggest pratfalls will be the ruination of America’s economy and national security.

Every celebrant, it seems, wants a different cocktail.  One fellow has a Sidecar.  "Do a lot of business in Albuquerque," he says.  "Every business guy in town knows what a corrupt crook their governor Bill Richardson is – he’s the Blagojevich of New Mexico.  You telling me Zero’s people didn’t know this, that the FBI has a major investigation on him?  I’m telling you, Zero is not ready for prime time.  By the way, always make a sidecar with bourbon, not brandy."

Nearby was someone with a Manhattan.  "I’m from Chicago and we know Blago.  He’s much smarter than Richardson who’s dumb as a stump.  Look how Blago snookered that arrogant little worm who pretends he runs the Senate.  Blago knew if he nominated a white guy it would be blocked, so he picked a black guy whose only qualification was that he was black, old Tombstone Burris.  Harry Reid had to cave.  Sure proves we’re post-racial after November 4, huh?"  He took a sip.  "Be sure and have your Manhattans  with rye, not Canadian, whiskey."   

At the end of the bar was a grandfatherly type who was into his second Long Island Ice Tea and feeling no pain.  "Doncha just love Slick Willie’s chief of staff running the CIA?  If that isn’t a hoot, what is?  Until we get nailed by another 9/11, that is.  That Feinstein broad got her panties in a twist because Zero didn’t pick her boy Kappes."

"That traitor belongs in jail" he continued.  "Steve Kappes was the chief ‘rogue weasel’ leaking classified info to the Washington Post in order to screw Bush and Goss – and it all worked!  Porter Goss resigned as Director and Kappes got promoted to CIA Deputy Director!  So Zero turns Kappes down, figuring if he was a traitor to Bush he could be a traitor to him.  He wants somebody ‘loyal’ to him, he says.  Does that fool really think Leon Panetta will be more loyal to him than his old boss Clinton?" 

Also at the bar was a gentleman with the bearing of a military officer nursing a Glen Morangie on the rocks.  "The world is going off the reservation," he announced, "as it no longer has any adult supervision.  Russia doesn’t know how to behave except as a bully, and the Euroweenies will take it, even while they are freezing in sub-zero cold and Putin cuts off their gas.  China will do whatever it likes.  So, thank heavens, will Israel."

He glanced at the man with the LLIT.  "To call him a fool regarding Panetta is far too mild, my friend.  This man is rewarding Hamas by announcing he’ll negotiate with them.  He is an impossibly dangerous fool.  It’s much worse than turning the world into a zoo.  It’s opening all the cages of the animals and letting them escape."

Sitting at a table was a man with a weathered face, a buzz cut, and heavily muscled forearms.  He was drinking a pint of Guinness with a Jack Daniels chaser.  "Meanwhile our own cages are being locked tight," he growled.  "I got a cash business.  I also got a cousin who works for the IRS.  He tells me I’m going to get hammered."

He took a tug on his Guinness.  "You think Zero is just going to go after the rich?  My cousin laughs at that.  He tells me swarms of IRS agents will be going all over the country looking for small businesses, restaurants and their waitresses, anybody in a cash business and auditing them to see if they’re not ‘tax cheaters’ who are not ‘paying their fair share’ during this ‘difficult time of shared sacrifice.’  My cousin thinks its really funny how all the ‘little people’ who voted for their Messiah are going to get screwed by him.  Me, I don’t think it’s funny at all."

A couple was sitting at the adjacent table, he with a Grey Goose martini, she with a Tres Generaciones margarita.  Everybody had noticed when she informed the bartender that Tres Generaciones was the favorite tequila of John Wayne.

"That’s so interesting about your cousin," she said.  "My brother is a Congressman, one of those so-called Blue Dog Democrats.  As you know, the 111^th Congress started its session this week, and he called me about this little buzz going around.  It seems that it’s dawning on some of them that their pensions may be in jeopardy."

The entire HFR Saloon suddenly became very still.   "The pensions Congress has voted for themselves are very generous and indexed for inflation.  But what about hyper-inflation?  Zero’s predicting ‘trillion-dollar deficits for years to come‘ makes hyper-inflation, real Weimar Germany wheelbarrows of money inflation, a certainty if Congress votes for his endless ‘stimulus packages.’  That means their very own pensions will be worthless, fractions of a penny on the dollar as they can’t vote fast enough to index it to that."

She took a sip of her margarita.  "Oh, that’s good.  John Wayne would have approved," she said as the bartender nodded in appreciation.  "So maybe, if enough of my brother’s colleagues come to realize that Zero’s program is going to impoverish them personally we may have a chance that they won’t impoverish the rest of us."

"I met John Wayne once," her husband piped up.  "He warned me about tequila.  ‘You’ve got be very careful about drinking tequila,’ he told me. ‘If you drink too much tequila you can fall down and hurt your back’."

He was proud of his joke and his John Wayne accent.  She patted his hand and said, "Enjoy your martini, dear."

A tall young man with a striking resemblance to Errol Flynn stepped up to the bar.  "Do you have any chilled champagne?" he asked the bartender.  "Nothing extravagant like Louis Roederer Cristal or Dom, just something acceptable.  Pol Roger Extra Cuvee?  Excellent!  Will everybody join me?"

Flutes were distributed, champagne poured, and the young man raised his glass.  "Let us all drink to 2009 as the Year of Incompetent Chaos.  The Congressional Budget Office is predicting a ‘long, deep recession’ with a budget deficit of $1.2 trillion – and that’s without Zero’s ‘stimulus package.’  In response, Zero proclaims that ‘only government’ can be the solution! 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I toast the almost superhuman idiocy of the man America has chosen as its next president.  Almost everything he does, almost everything Congress does – such as pass the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or the Paycheck Fairness Act – will be to block wealth creation and the freedom necessary for our economic recovery.

"This, I propose, is suicidal stupidity on a truly historic level.  We are perversely privileged to witness it.  We might as well witness it with good champagne."

With that, they all drained their glass.  The young man smiled.  "By the way, I also have good news, thrilling marvelous news – it’s that the New York Times may go out of business this May.  It’s $1 billion in debt, about to default on $400 million more debt, has only $46 million in cash reserves, and no one wants to lend them a dime.  Say goodnight, Pinch!" They all knew who NYT chairman Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger was.

The fellow with the buzz cut spoke up.  "Thanks for the champagne and all – but just what do we do to protect ourselves from all this coming stupidity and chaos?"

"Well, the first thing I’m going to do," the young man responded, "is go to the To The Point Carefree Rendezvous in two weeks.  You’re going, aren’t you?"  When Buzz nodded in ascent, he surveyed the room.  "You all are coming, right?  I mean, there’s no better place to learn how to get ourselves out of this, and no better people to be with – agreed?" Everyone nodded.

"I wouldn’t miss it for all the coffee in Vietnam!" enthused the grandfatherly fellow with the Long Island Ice Tea. 

Noticing everyone looking at him strangely, he said, "You mean to tell me you all don’t know that Vietnam is, next to Brazil, the largest exporter of coffee in the world??  How come you don’t know that?  After all, I read it in To The Point."