HALF-FULL REPORT 06/08/12

As are many TTPers who attended, I’m still coming down from the high of the Seascape Rendezvous last weekend.  A Rendezvous is a TTP Family Reunion, and it was simply wonderful to see old friends (Don Parker, Dan Barak, and Ken Glass have been to all 12!) and meet new ones (Feebie at last!). 

It was information overload, as the brain power of our speakers – Alex Alexiev, Jack Kelly, David Evry, Will Block, Joe Katzman, Paul Rosenberg, Joel Wade and Bruno Conzelmann – was stunning.  Then there was Dana.

Dana Rohrabacher has been one of my dearest friends since we were in Youth for Reagan in the original Reagan for Governor campaign in 1966.  He was in the Reagan White House as a principal speechwriter for the president for eight years, and since 1988 has been a Congressman from California.  With his seniority, next year he’ll be Chairman of either the full Committee on Science or on Foreign Relations.

He gave a talk from the heart.  He candidly confessed that he and his Pub colleagues "blew it" under Bush, when for six years (2001-2006) they had the House, Senate, and White House yet did not slam the breaks on spending.  No excuses.  He explained how so many of his colleagues not only feel the same way, but now realize "it’s now or never" for the 113^th Congress (which the Pubs expect to have the majorities of in both the House & Senate, plus the WH).

He has asked point blank, for example, a number of members of the Ag Committee whether they would be willing to zero out farm subsidies, and they have all replied yes.  Then he talked about surfing, as it’s his favorite activity aside from infuriating liberals.  He was in Maui on vacation with his family and went to a famous surf spot where the waves were breaking safely for him, about 4 or 5 feet. 

There was a lull in the sets and he began dozing off on his board.  All of a sudden a monster wave appeared out of nowhere, 15 to 20 feet or higher, and he realized that, "I was either going to surf this or die." He had no choice.  Neither do Republicans in Congress.  "We are either going to fix deficit spending and unconstitutional regulation of the economy, or the Republican Party is going to die.  We either surf the wave or die, that’s our choice" he told us.

By the way, he did take off on the wave and didn’t wipe out – it was the ride of his life.

Then he told us about having dinner with Mitt Romney the night before (Friday, 6/01).  Romney explained that simply cutting the budget wasn’t a solution, as it would be a series of one-year attempts that wouldn’t solve anything structurally.  "Cutting budgets is fully insufficient," Romney told him.  "We need to eliminate programs, entire programs, agencies, and departments of the federal government.  We need real structural change to regain fiscal control."

Many TTPers have expressed doubts on the Forum regarding Romney.  I have them myself.  After the Rendezvous, Rebel and I stopped by to see friends of ours on our drive down the coast.  One of them is a man of astounding achievement in the highest echelons of American and international business.  He has known and worked closely with Bill Bain (the founder of Bain Capital who appointed Mitt Romney as its CEO) for decades, and Romney for his entire business career.

My friend’s assessment: 

"Romney is politically conservative but not an ideologue.  He is practical and reality-based in the extreme.  Obama is the complete opposite, a hyper-leftie ideologue incapable of adjusting what he wants to what is.  Comparing Romney and Obama’s competence and brain power is like the New York Giants against the Lincoln High Railsplitters in Brooklyn.

Romney’s a turn-around guy, he’s a genius at it, doing what needs to be done to fix a fouled-up company or organization and make it profitable.  If there was any time that America needed a turn-around, it’s now – and if there is any guy who can do it, it’s Romney.  I know.  I’ve seen him in action many times over many years. He doesn’t cut corners, his integrity is ruthless, he learns from his mistakes, he’ll do what needs to be done, and he’ll stick to the Constitution to do it. 

America has the knack or luck of finding the right man at the right time.  Reagan was who we needed in 1980 and we found him.  Now it’s Romney today, to fix the fiasco of Obama."

Let’s hope my friend is right.  I sure respect what he says.

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OK, time to have some fun taking a wooden stick and bashing the bejezus out of the Piñata of Zero.  Without a blindfold.

After Scott Walker’s fabuloso victory in Wisconsin this week (6/05), even squishy Peggy Noonan is announcing that the Zero Administration is "a house of cards."  For it’s more than Badger frosting on his fallen cake:

"President Obama’s problem now isn’t what Wisconsin did, it’s how he looks each day-careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn’t go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker’s place, where the money is."

And yesterday (6/07), we learned that Mitt Romney is blowing President Superfluous out of the money race.  Last month (May), Romney and the RNC raised almost $17 million more than Zero and the DNC ($76.8m to $60m), even though, as Peggy observes, all Zero does is fund-raise now.

Hey, look at who’s next to us, gleefully smashing his stick into the Zero Piñata.  Why, it’s Slick Willie, sporting his best look of bemused innocence asking, "What stick?  What piñata?"

Right on the heels of praising Romney’s "sterling business career" on CNN last week (5/31), on Tuesday (6/05), Clinton told CNBC that the Bush tax cuts, set to expire as Zero wants, should be extended.

When Dems and their BM poodles howled in complaint that Willie was shafting the president, he was as shocked as Claude Rains, proclaiming he "didn’t have any idea" that he was "wading in to some controversy in the campaign."  The Washington Times observed: "The notion that one of the most gifted politicians of his generation doesn’t know the impact of his words is as credible as his not inhaling."

There has been such an "avalanche of bad news" for Zero over the first six days of June that even the WaPo is headlining the story: "President Obama’s Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Week."

But there’s more to come!  The Associated Press opines that this "Cruel June" has just begun for Zero and the Dems – and "could get a lot worse."  Wait, for example, until the Supreme Court gets rid of Zerocare later this month.

And if you want to revel in Walker’s Wisconsin a bit more, here’s Rich Lowry at his funniest as he explains, "All that’s ‘Left’ Is to Sound the Death Knell for Unions." 

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Obviously, Gov. Scott Walker is the HFR Hero of the Week.  At least lib comic Jon Stewart has a sense of humor over cable news lefties displaying "all the stages of grief" over Walker’s win – "the many, many stages of grief, from denial, to more denial, then on to even more denial."  Watch the Comedy Central video in the link – hilarious.

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There’s good news from other states this week as well. 

As we discussed in Moochers in Paradise yesterday (6/07), truly consequential is what happened in California on Election Tuesday.  In two of the state’s largest cities, San Diego and San Jose, voters overwhelmingly chose to cut pension benefits to city workers.  And they did it for real, not just voting to cut just the benefits of future hires, but also those of current city workers.  San Diego did so with two-thirds of the vote, San Jose with 70%.

In Washington, conservatives organized by Preserve Marriage Washington gained enough signatures (over 200,000) to force a referendum on the state’s new law legalizing homosexual marriage, and blocking its implementation the day before the law was to take effect (6/06).

In Florida, Republican Governor Rick Scott has authorized his secretary of state, Ken Detzner, to tell Zero’s Attorney General Eric Holder to jump in Lake Okeechobee.

Holder is waging a war against state Voter ID laws, to enable as much voter fraud as possible helping Dems next November.  Last week (5/31), Holder demanded Florida stop its efforts to purge its voter rolls of illegals, non-citizens, felons, and dead folks.  This week (6/06), Detzner responded that Florida will not comply with the Justice Department’s demands, and will continue to "ensure that the right of citizens to vote is protected and is not diluted by the votes of ineligible persons."

Then Detzner pokes Holder Justice in the eye, asserting that its interpretation of federal law is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, "which guarantees that the right to vote cannot be denied by a dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote."

He doesn’t stop there, going on to accuse Holder Justice of endorsing Homeland Security’s violations of federal law which are causing the delays providing the rationale for Justice’s demands.  Detzner concludes with a clear albeit implied accusation that Eric Holder’s Justice Department is far more concerned over allowing ineligibles to vote than it is over protecting eligible voters.

You should read the whole letter.  Finally, a state government telling the federal government to shove its corruption up its nose.                                                                

In Alabama, Senate Bill 477 was passed unanimously and signed by Gov. Robert Bentley, which bans any implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 in the state.

Agenda 21 is the attempt of the UN to implement global fascism under the rubrics of "sustainable development" and "smart growth."  Its principal advocate in the Zero Administration is EPA Director Lisa Jackson.  She can hardly wait to make every effort to sell out US sovereignty when she attends, as the representative of the American government, the "Rio+20 Earth Summit" (officially the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development) this coming June 20-22.

She may never get the chance.  Leaders or their surrogates of 120 countries plus every eco-freak on the planet are converging in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest conference the UN has ever held in an orgy of anti-capitalism.  Except – get set for this as it’s so LOL delicious – the whole thing is collapsing into an Epic Fail.

Which is why, along with Britain’s David Cameron and Germany’s Angela Merkel, Zero is not going, even though UN boss Ban Ki-moon is on his knees begging him to be in Rio.  No sale.  Just like Wisconsin where he was also a no-show, he doesn’t want to be associated with a farcical failure.  Besides, it would keep him away from his fund-raising duties.

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We’ll end this HFR with a news bulletin.  A few hours ago, Zero held a White House press conference that was so bad it tempted the WaPo to call him President Uhhh.  The WaPo’s advice:

"If you are president of the United States and you don’t have anything to say, don’t have a press conference to say it.  If you’re the president of the United States and by Thursday it’s widely believed you’ve had one of the worst weeks of your presidency, take Friday off, and specifically avoid having a press conference."

Between Zero’s constant Uhhh’s, what he did manage to say was disastrous, such as his claim that "the private sector is doing fine."  Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was so stunned he blurted, "The president must be on another planet."  Romney equally so:

"The private sector is doing fine? Is he really that out of touch? I think he’s defining what it means to be detached and out of touch with the American people. Has there ever been an American president who is so far from reality as to believe that of an America where 23 million Americans are out of work?"

As the WaPo asks, in Zero’s uttering such absurdities and having such a press conference in the first place, "What was he, uhhh, thinking?"

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What a fun week.  What a wonderful Rendezvous.  I am so deeply appreciative of all those who were able to attend, and I know so many who weren’t able to were there in spirit.  For the attendees, Rebel has a favor to ask.  She has prepared a Rendezvous Survey that would give us useful feedback to help us make the next one even better.

It’ll take just a few moments to complete, then click on the "Done" button, and that’s it.  Thanks.

I can’t resist a trio of pics.  Here’s Dana:

Rebel with Debbie Corns:
 

 Me with Mellie:

And to remind you of America The Beautiful, two of the California Coast.  We’re going to get our country back, folks.