HALF-FULL REPORT 03/12/10

Isn’t it supposed to be just about springtime now?  In Florida last week, I heard no end to grousing about how it’s been the coldest winter in memory.  Back in Washington where there are still piles of snow left over from last month’s Snowmageddon, everyone is looking forward to three inches of cold rain and flooding this weekend.

Enough already.  Enough of crazy cold weather – and enough of crazy Democrat politics.  The political climate on Capitol Hill is so bad now that certain GOP Senators and Congressmen are privately (although not publicly) expressing a genuine worry about the sanity of the President of the United States.

Zero’s obsession with "health care reform" is being likened to the deranged Captain Ahab’s obsession with harpooning the White Whale in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.  That didn’t turn out so well for Ahab.

To compound their concern, Zero began yet again this week (3/10) demanding "climate change legislation" that would "cap greenhouse gas emissions" – acting as if the unending exposure of ClimateGate frauds never happened.

The common image the Capitol Hill GOP invokes is to joke about the Democrats’ "circular firing squad."  Yet there is real concern behind the jokes.  "Neither Obama nor Reid nor Pelosi is playing with a full deck anymore," one Senator tells me.  "And neither are their staffers.  My chief of staff was just in a meeting where Gary Myrick, Reid’s COS, said our multi-trillion dollar deficits are no problem because we can just hyper-inflate our way out of them."

"Let the depth of Myrick’s ignorance sink in," he continued.  "This guy has no conception of the consequences of every American’s life savings wiped out with hyper-inflation – or he just doesn’t care.  And he’s the chief of staff of the Majority Leader of the Senate."

For all his fears, though, he was upbeat.  "They’ve got less than six months," he said, "and I just don’t see them getting any seriously damaging legislation through by then."

He meant that, while it’s not quite eight months until the November 2 mid-terms, Congress takes a month-long summer recess (8/06-9/13), and everyone will be gone campaigning during October. 

Take out the 18-day Easter break (3/26-4/12), the 11-day Memorial Day break (5/28-6/07), and the 11-day Fourth of July break (7/02-7/12) – 40 days in all – and the Dems have actually less than five legislative months left.

All of these breaks are officially labeled "State Work Periods" on the Senate/House calendar.  I.e., the pols are supposed to be in their state or district providing constituent services, not on taxpayer-funded jaunts to examine the tourism industry in Hawaii or Paris.

"We’re really counting on the TeaParty folks to give Dems a real Townhall earful this Easter break – or any of our people who might be wavering," the Senator said, "and to keep it up during the subsequent breaks.  I hope the TeaPartyers put the fear of God into them."

I sure couldn’t have agreed with him more.

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Is it my imagination, or is hyper-lib Newsweek Magazine moving to the center with conservative cover stories?  Last week (3/08 issue), "VICTORY AT LAST:  The Emergence of a Democratic Iraq" was emblazoned on the cover, with President George Bush walking on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln with the famous "Mission Accomplished" sign from May 2003.

The story actually gives credit to GW for succeeding in bringing democracy to Iraq, and provides example after example of how much better off Iraqis are today.

This week (3/15 issue), the Newsweek cover story is Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers.  The key to improving education in America’s public schools, the article states, is not throwing more tax money at them, but in overthrowing the control of the teachers’ unions and firing lousy teachers.

Is something afoot here?  You could caveat this all day long, for Newsweek remains loaded with liberal propaganda, and the cover pic of Bush cuts him in half.  Nonetheless, it sure seems a step, or at least a half-step, in the right direction, which is better than no step at all.

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The latest polls (yesterday, 3/11) for the California Senate race show Tom Campbell leading his Republican rivals Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore by substantial margins, and being closest to Democrat incumbent Barbara Boxer.

That’s about to change with recent revelations of how cozy Campbell has been with radical hate-America Moslems.  His history of being so anti-Israel it borders on anti-Semitism, and association with Moslem causes have been detailed in Powerline and FrontPage.

What’s odd about these stories is that they never mention Campbell’s puppet-master, Grover Norquist.  Grover, with his Americans for Tax Reform, is the single most influential conservative activist in Washington.  Yet Grover, for many years, has been an advocate of radical Moslem causes and has succeeded in placing radical Moslems in key positions in the White House, the Pentagon, and elsewhere in the US government.

It was Grover who introduced Campbell to Islamists like Sami al-Arian and Abdurahman Alamoudi, and got Campbell to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Muslim Association – one month after September 11, 2001.

It was Grover, with his effective control over the CPAC convention, who saw to it that there was not a single speaker or panel discussion on the threat of Radical Islam at last month’s CPAC.  It was Grover who insisted there not be any mention whatever of the Moslem threat in the vaunted Mount Vernon Statement of conservative principles, turning it into namby-pamby mush.

You’d think that the lib media would be all over the story of the most powerful conservative activist being an advocate of Radical Hate-America Islam, but they are on his side in this, so they don’t say a word.  Why Grover’s fellow conservative leaders do the same is a real mystery.

In the meantime, say goodnight to your Senate hopes, Tom.

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Speaking of California, a miracle occurred there yesterday (3/11).  The most looney-tunes liberal court in America, the Ninth Circuit, ruled that the words "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto "In God We Trust" on coins and currency, is patriotic rather than strictly religious and therefore constitutional.

The court declared that the Pledge including "Under God" is not a prayer, but instead "a recognition of our founders’ political philosophy that a power greater than the government gives the people their inalienable rights… thus, the pledge is an endorsement of our form of government, not of religion or any particular sect."

So say goodnight, Michael Newdow, one of America’s greatest horse’s asses, whose life work has been to wreck the Pledge.  Schoolchildren throughout the country are now free to recite the Pledge without fear of some Newdow nut complaining. This could be the start of a rollback of the left’s de-Christianization of our schools. 

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There’s a salutary lesson being learned by at least some folks in Washington drawn from tens of thousands of Greek moochers rioting in Athens yesterday (3/11).  They were violently protesting their government’s "austerity measures" of public worker pay cuts, pension freezes and the like.  Reality bites. 

The reality is that Greece’s total debt is $450 billion, 128% of its $350 billion GDP.  The penny-ante "austerity" moves merely allowed it to borrow $6.8 billion on the international bond markets, which buys it a few weeks until Greece has to repay loans of $16 billion in April and $11 billion in May.

And these mindless moochers are rioting over pay cuts and freezes.  In a very short time, there won’t be a single drachma to pay them anything at all.  You probably should forget about a vacation in Greece this summer.

What’s the salutary lesson?  At last, at last, there is talk on Capitol Hill about abolishing public worker or government employee unions.

The people who are rioting in Greece are government workers.  The people who are always trying to shut down France are government workers whenever there is a whisper of a hint their sacred benefits may be reduced by a whisker.  Massive strikes will hit Portugal soon with the government announcing that public sector wages and pensions will be frozen until 2013.

When the Boston Police Department went on strike in 1919, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge put an end to it by firing the entire police force, declaring, "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."

When FDR signed the Wagner Act in 1935 giving private sector unions the right to collectively bargain, he declared unionization could "not be transplanted into public service."

It was JFK, John Kennedy, who signed Executive Order 10988 in 1962, legalizing public sector unions with a right to collectively bargain – i.e, shake governments down for an unending stream of taxpayer-paid outsized salaries and pensions.

In 2004, Fortune Magazine explained how public worker unions extort taxpayers with pay and pension packages that will lead to bankruptcy.

Today, state employee retirement benefits (for all 50 states together) are in the hole over $1 trillion.

Sooner than later, the problems of Greece will be ours, and public/government workers organized by SEIU and the American Federation of Government Employees will be out on the streets protesting, likely with extreme violence, the massive cuts necessary to their make-believe jobs and fat pensions.

Rescinding EO10988 should be a priority for a President Palin.  After all, JFK refused to allow the unionization of the FBI, the CIA, and the military for national security requirements.  Soon, our national security and economic viability will require the abolishment of public/government unions altogether.

If you would like to help this along, consider sending A Brief Illustrated History of Public Sector Unions that Are Bleeding America Dry with the Full Support of the Democrat Party to every politician in your state.

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Believe it or not, springtime is coming.  And what better way to celebrate it than to join your fellow TTPers at the Spring Rendezvous in San Diego May 14-16?

We’re working on a terrific itinerary that includes an outing on a San Diego TTPer’s fishing boat, a visit to a TTPer’s local restaurant, enjoying the beaches and Sea World, plus a great array of speakers.

As an added attraction, my far better half Rebel will be presenting a Patriots Plan B seminar on your financial security the day before, Thursday May 13.

So you want to make your travel plans now – book your flights if you’re not driving, block the time on your calendar, call Miko to secure your Rendezvous reservation.  We’ll have the hotel info to you shortly.

But call Miko now – 703-992-4529, or email him at [email protected] – and tell him you’re coming.  The Rendezvous cost is $290, while the all-day (9 to 5) Patriots Plan B seminar with Rebel is $95.

Springtime – it’s in the air.  Make sure it’s springtime with an ocean breeze with us in San Diego.

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Lastly, Miko was able to load my talk, Why Liberals Are More Dangerous Than Terrorists, on YouTube.  It’s too long for one segment, so there’s a Part I & II.  Here they are – and you can send the links to anyone you want.