HALF-FULL REPORT 02/08/13

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s  debt  limit is a sign of leadership failure.  It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills.  It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies…  Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’  Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.  Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit."

These are the first and last lines of a speech delivered on the floor of the US Senate on March 16, 2006.   The speaker was Illinois Senator Barack Hussein Obama.  The full text of the speech from the Congressional Record is appended at the end of this HFR.  Feel quite free to cut and paste the full speech into an email informing your friends of the hideous hypocrisy of President Zero.

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Speaking of hideousness, our next subject is The PIAPS – The Pig In A Pants Suit – Hillary Rodham Clinton.  This week, just days after turning over the keys of Foggy Bottom to John Traitor Kerry, she launched a website of self-promotional puffery and began raising money for her 2016 run for the White House.

Millions of Americans were reminded of how much they despised this woman when she brushed off the butchery of four Americans in Benghazi with "What difference does it make?"  I have despised her from the get-go.  A few weeks after Slick’s inauguration in January 1993, I wrote a Strategic Investment column describing her as a viciously dishonest hyperleftist, and her marriage with Slick as one of sexless power-grabbing convenience.

What got everyone’s attention, of course, was not this, but my disclosing that she’s bisexual.  Two Secret Service agents had told me they inadvertently walked into the Lincoln bedroom to see Hillary in flagrante delicto with actress Markie Post.  She was one of many, such as actress Mary Steenburgen, and Hollywood writer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, wife of TV producer Harry Thomason.

The Thomasons had a several business interests, one of them a travel and air charter company.  Linda told Hillary she’d like the business of the White House Travel Office.  Hillary promptly ordered the seven travel office staffers fired and replaced with Thomason cronies.

The White House Travel Office was headed by Billy Dale who had been working there since 1961.  He was beloved.  He and his staff were apolitical, just enormously proud to do the best job they could for the President whoever he was.  When Hillary was informed by the White House Counsel’s office that employees like Dale and his staff could not be fired like appointees, she exploded in foul-mouthed fury (she has one of the great gutter-mouths in Washington) and ordered the FBI to investigate them.

Think about this.  Hillary Clinton criminalized and ruined the lives of good decent people to get them out of the way in order to get business for her lesbian lover.  Billy Dale was put on trial and found not guilty.  Hillary was found to lie through her teeth under oath to an independent prosecutor – called "factually false statements" – but the prosecutor said there was "insufficient evidence" to prosecute her.  The whole mess was called Travelgate by the press – the first of many Clinton scandals.

Today, if you Google "Hillary Clinton" + "bisexual" you’ll get 1,160,000 hits.  A number of them reference an op-ed I wrote in the Washington Times back in June 2004:  "They [Bill & Hillary] have had a pact for decades: He gets to fool around with women, and she gets to fool around with women (plus the occasional man like Vince Foster)."

Far more hits, however, are about Huma Abedin, Hillary’s Moslem aide who travels with her everywhere.  But Huma’s sexual orientation isn’t the important issue.  It’s her relationship with the Moslem Brotherhood.  This is a matter of clear national security, which the CommieMedia blithely ignores.

The PIAPS entire tenure at State has been one failure after another.  It’s no record on which to build a campaign for the presidency, but the CommieMedia will build it for her regardless.  Hopefully, though, gutsy people with huge audiences will help to tear the flimsy edifice down – like Jay Leno did with devastating ridicule Tuesday night (2/05), and in just 20 seconds:

 
And there’s an additional reason her dream of 2016 may flame out.  There’s a joke making the rounds on Capitol Hill.  The reason she didn’t attend Kerry’s swearing-in as SecState on Wednesday (2/06) is that she had a prior engagement… with Jack Daniels.  JD Black Label was her choice for many years, but now she insists on JD Single Barrel.  She has it ordered by the case.

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By contrast, TTP’s kind of woman is Leanne Snelgrove of West Columbia, South Carolina.  She’s the owner of Taco Cid, a tiny Mexican restaurant who’s generated a humongous controversy with her How To Catch An Illegal Immigrant T-Shirt. 

The first link above is her website, in which she declares, Taco Cid Runs on Constitutional Rights.  The second link is to the local WLTX TV news story which has an interview of Ms. Snelgrove, who refuses to back down or apologize in the face of libtard death threats.  Note the newscasters report her business is booming now and she’s selling her t-shirts all over the country.

There’s a great lesson here:  Libtards can’t tolerate ridicule – it drives them crazy.  And what drives them more crazy is a refusal to grovel or apologize for something that outrages and makes fun of them.  This is a critical vulnerability.  Every conservative in America should think of ways they can publicly mock libtards.

Leanne Snelgrove is an inspiration for this, and the HFR salutes her.

Oh, and here’s the HFR thought for the week…. Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented immigrant" is like calling a drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist."

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Someone else who got libtard panties in a twist this week is the head coach of Lauderdale County High School in Rogersville, Alabama, Bob Grisham.  You’d think that no one wouldn’t care less what some high school coach in a miniscule town of 1,200 people that no one ever heard of – but not when he was recorded on the sly complaining about "fat butt Michelle Obama," whose Nanny State obsession was causing his players’ 600 calorie lunches.

Instantly, Grisham has become – along with Snelgrove – the libtards’ racist villain du jour.  It’s so tiresome.  Besides, Mrs. Zero does have a giant ass.

You might consider sending this notice to any school Mrs. Zero is scheduled to visit:

 
Remember, reality cannot be racist.  If it’s true, it can’t be racist.

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In light of the libtard attacks on Leanne Snelgrove and Coach Grisham, this anonymous quote a friend sent me is particularly apt:

"Liberalism is a faux religion. It is complete with stories elevated to gospel, saints, sinners, martyrs and heretics. But because it is a relatively new religion, it cannot stand to have its dogma challenged. Its adherents are smug, stubborn, intolerant, self-righteous. It is why the press will not criticize the sitting pontiff. It is why the congregation of liberals ban dissent, circle the wagons of protection when their leader are challenged, and shun outsiders. We do not understand liberals because we assume that they are advancing misguided principles. They are not. They are proselytizing and defending their faith.

Old Screwtape would understand. He has created the perfect orthodoxy with which to fight the war against religion itself: If God truly loved man, he would have created a perfect world. That he did not proves he is unjust. Liberalism in all its forms will correct the injustice. In a perfect world, all pets will be treated equally, including the pets that walk on two legs. But like pets, we who will be equal will have lost our freedom."

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"They were just dismissed and that was the end of it… I mean, they don’t give a damn, why do they expect anyone else to?"

From the clip of his CNBC Squawk Box interview aired this morning (2/08), it’s not clear who Clint Eastwood is referring to as "they."  Nonetheless, the headline being blared all over the country today is:  "Eastwood asks, if Washington doesn’t give a damn, why should Americans?"

Misinterpreted or no, it’s an extremely good question.  Clint is no libtard – I can attest to that.  (I got to know him during my BR days – like history divided into BC and AD, my life is divided into BR and AR, before and after Rebel – and we had an adventure then that I can’t talk about on family-friendly TTP.)

So even though he was doing the pox-on-them-all act, he hates Zero’s guts.  But it doesn’t matter, and that’s Clint’s message – what Washington is doing shouldn’t matter to you.  Why should you care about the Federal Fascisti?  Figure out how best to organize your life to make them as irrelevant as possible. 

This depends on your risk appetite.  I have a friend, a total anti-government libertarian, who goes through the tortures of the damned every year to comply with every rule there is in the tax code. I have another who just files what he thinks he can get by with to avoid getting tax-raped.  It’s your call. 

Aristotle defined courage (andreia) as a balance between its deficiency, cowardice or deilos, and foolish recklessness or thrasus.  The critical point to understanding Aristotle’s virtue of courage as a balance or "Golden Mean" between excess and defect is that it is a balance appropriate to you.

Aristotle (387-322 BC) was the son of a doctor – Nicomachus, court physician to King Amyntas III of Macedon, grandfather of Alexander the Great – and understood the individuality of a person mattered, not as a cipher in a collective as did Plato.  A physician applied the principles of medicine to the individual, not treating all patients the same.  Aristotle did this with ethics.

Just as eating enough food should be a balance between too little (deprivation) and too much (gluttony) – the general principle – there is no right balance for everyone.  What is the right balance or amount of food for Milo the Wrestler, for example, is too much for most others.  The same with courage.  Everyone should strive for the right balance between cowardice and recklessness, between fear (phobos) and over-confidence (tharsos) – the right balance for them as the individual they are.

How do you know what’s the right balance for you?  Aristotle had no term for "push the envelope," but that’s what he advocated.  Or, as my friend, philosophy professor Tibor Machan’s favorite admonition says, "Assert yourself – thoughtfully."

We are entering as gravely dangerous a period of American history as the Revolution or the Civil War.  You must decide what the most appropriate steps are necessary to preserve your liberty and that of your loved ones.  It is a choice only you can make.

And that, ultimately, is Clint’s message to us.  We have no moral obligation to care about the Federalie Fascists of Washington.  We have no moral obligation to obey them and their rules.  The only obligation is prudential.  It is up to you to decide how much and to what extent you obey.

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Just be sure and realize that Obama Is Obsolete.  He really is.  He and all his libtard stooges are OBE – Overtaken By Events – or soon will be.  Just like the Soviet Union, their fate is to end up on the ash heap of history.

So let me leave you today with a magnificent example of Aristotelian courage in the face – straight in the face, speaking to the world – of Zero’s tyranny of arrogance.

Dr. Benjamin Carson is the epitome of an Aristotelian hero.  Raised in the poverty of inner city of Detroit by a single mother, he refused to be a victim of it to become not just a medical doctor, but a pediatric neurosurgeon, a world specialist on the surgical separation of Siamese twins.  He operates on average of 300 children a year, is the Director of Pediatric Surgery at Johns Hopkins, received over 60 honorary doctorate degrees, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

Yesterday morning (2/07), he spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.  Sitting on the dais right next to him as he spoke were Mr. and Mrs. Zero – and with extraordinary humanitarian eloquence, he condemned Obamacare right to their faces.  It is a deeply moving performance by a heroic American. 

Please take 27 minutes of your time to watch and listen to Dr. Benjamin Carson, the HFR Hero of the Week.

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Addendum:
Congressional Record Text:  Floor Speech, U.S. Senate, March 16, 2006, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D-IL).   

Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President [of the Senate], I rise today to talk about America’s debt problem.

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is ‘‘trillion” with a ‘‘T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers.  And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why:

This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities. Instead, interest payments are a significant tax on all Americans-a debt tax that Washington doesn’t want to talk about. If Washington were serious about honest tax relief in this country, we would see an effort to reduce our national debt by returning to responsible fiscal policies.

But we are not doing that. Despite repeated efforts by Senators CONRAD and FEINGOLD, the Senate continues to reject a return to the commonsense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts. The Senate had to abide by the commonsense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. Unfortunately, the principle was abandoned, and now the demands of budget discipline apply only to spending.

As a result, tax breaks have not been paid for by reductions in Federal spending, and thus the only way to pay for them has been to increase our deficit to historically high levels and borrow more and more money. Now we have to pay for those tax breaks plus the cost of borrowing for them.

Instead of reducing the deficit, as some people claimed, the fiscal policies of this administration and its allies in Congress will add more than $600 million in debt for each of the next 5 years. That is why I will once again cosponsor the Pay-go amendment and continue to hope that my colleagues will return to a smart rule that has worked in the past and can work again.

Our debt also matters internationally.  My friend, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, likes to remind us that it took 42 Presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just 5 years. Now, there is nothing wrong with borrowing from foreign countries. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours.

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally.  Leadership means that ‘‘the buck stops here.” Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren.

America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.