HALF-FULL REPORT 1/14/11

Whoa.  Let’s hope the rest of 2011’s weeks aren’t as intense as this one.  Here’s one key focus.  Remember two weeks ago (12/31/10), the HFR predicted that 2011 would see Black Swans of the Right?

That "black swan" game-changing events out of the blue precipitating a crisis, which the left specializes in using to expand government power, would now turn in our favor instead?

That’s what happened when the Loughner Left jumped the shark with the Arizona Massacre.  The very term "Loughner Left" has gone viral on the Web.  The label I gave the Enemedia on Tuesday (01/11) has stuck and quickly. 

What didn’t stick is the Enemedia’s grotesque attempt to blame the Arizona Massacre on Sarah Palin, the Tea Parties, and all conservatives in general.  The great majority of Americans laughed at the accusation – and so did John Boehner and the Republicans in Congress.

Thus Boehner & Cantor are proceeding with the straight up-and-down vote on HR 2, to take place next Tuesday (1/18).  They even shrugged at the Dems’ demand they change the bill’s name due to it’s "violent" rhetoric.  It remains entitled: Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.

Note the word:  repealing.  As we saw in Making Boehner’s Bones, Boehner intends to repeal ObamaCare outright, not just defund it piecemeal.

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This week was also overloaded with irony.  Sarah Palin gave a masterful address to the nation, which the Enemedia tried to backfire on her with her "blood libel" accusation, which promptly backfired on them instead.  A number of Jewish intellectuals such as famed liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz said Palin’s terminology was perfectly justified.

So while Palin is vindicated again, Zero gives the finest speech of his presidency – it really was good, deserving of the encomiums it received (read the full text here) – yet it was spoiled by the raucous crowd of Democrat weirdos who turned the solemn moment into a disgraceful campaign-pep rally.

Further, the most accurate description of his beautiful speech is that "it was a sermon to himself." 

When he advises:

"At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds."

He’s really advising himself – for who more than he has contributed to our polarized discourse, by blaming everything on George Bush, by describing those who don’t vote for him as "bitter clingers," and Republicans as "hostage takers" and the "enemies" of America?  We can only hope he takes his own advice.

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You may not be able to stand any more good news at this point, but here’s some anyway.  As you may know, Comcast is completing its purchase of NBC from General Electric.  The FCC’s fascist chairman, Julius "Seizure" Genachowski, is placing a host of hamstringing conditions for approval, but the deal will be closed soon.

Good friends of the HFR are on the inside of Comcast, who say that the firing of hyper-liberal Jeff Zucker as NBC President/CEO is only the beginning. 

What Comcast COO Steve Burke (who will replace Zucker) will do next is fire Keith Olberman, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow from MSNBC, realigning it away from the moonbats and towards the right (which Burke will call the "center").

This realignment will carry through to NBC News and all NBC programming.  It’s not that Burke and other Comcast honchos are Tea Partiers.  They’re businessmen who think allowing liberal ideology to trump the bottom line is asinine.  They also have no intention of allowing Fox to continue eating MSNBC’s lunch.  Ergo, say goodnight, Keith, Ed & Rachel.

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Here’s your Constitutional "must-read" of the week:  Walter Williams’ discussion of What the Constitution Permits.  Send it to your Congressman.

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Not even Jason "Mitch Rapp" Attas and his Defund & Disobey site may be able to keep up with all the repeal and defund legislation being proposed in the new 112^th Congress.  So the HFR is going to give you a primer on how to do it yourself.

You may hear about certain bills gaining attention.  Dan Lungren (R-CA) has HR 4 with at current count 245 co-sponsors.  Since passage takes 218, this means it’s a done deal.  It repeals outright the crazy $600 IRS reporting requirement in ObamaCare.

Entitled the "Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act of 2011," the bill’s entire wording is:

"Section 9006 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the amendments made thereby, are hereby repealed; and the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 shall be applied as if such section, and amendments, had never been enacted."

Extremely cool.  But how do you find out about this stuff systematically, for there’s a ton of it now and more coming every day?  Here’s how:

*Go to the Library of Congress website Thomas.gov (named after Thomas Jefferson, the Library’s founder).

*In the Legislation in Current Congress box, click on Try the Advanced Search.

*Scroll down to Date of Introduction near the bottom.  Check the From button and enter date parameters, e.g. 1/07/11 (through) 1/14/11.  Check Public Bills in Type of Legislation.  Click the Search box.

Be sure and keep the date parameters as narrow as you can or else you’ll be overwhelmed.  From Congress’ convening on 1/05 to today 1/14, (and this is with it being out of session three days this week), there are 369 bills listed.

Up will come a list by Bill Number.  This is all the legislation being proposed in Congress within the dates specified.  You’ll find weird stuff like Cliff Stearns’ (R-FL) HR 294 for a "Museum of Ideas."  What?  Where’s the enumerated power you’re citing for this, Cliff?

You’ll find loads of lunatic left stuff headed totally nowhere, like Frank Pallone’s (D-NJ) HR 261: "To amend the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to prohibit the leasing of any area of the outer Continental Shelf for the exploration, development, or production of oil, gas, or any other mineral."

Plus all kinds of silly, inconsequential, or administrative stuff.  But there are lots of real gems.  Here’s a sample.  All are from Republicans (natch).

Steve Scalise (LA) HR59: Sunset All Czars Act

Doug Lamborn (CO) HR 68:  Abolish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Act; HR 69:  Defund National Public Radio Act

Mike Pence (IN) HR 217:  Defund Planned Parenthood Act

Michele Bachmann (MN) HR 86: End Tax Uncertainty Act: "To prevent pending tax increases, permanently repeal estate and gift taxes, and permanently repeal the alternative minimum tax on individuals"

Michele Bachmann (MN) HR 87: Repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

Ted Poe (TX) HR 153:  Ensuring Affordable Energy Act: "To prohibit funding for the Environmental Protection Agency to be used to implement or enforce a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases"

Don Young (AK) HR 213: RARE (Regulation Audit Revive Economy) Act: "To establish a moratorium on regulatory rulemaking actions" (text: "Until the end of the moratorium period, a Federal agency may not take any regulatory rulemaking action, unless an exception is provided [for specified emergencies])

Steve King (IA) HJRES 16: Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the sixteenth article of amendment

See what I mean?  There’s lots more.  By clicking on the Bill Number, you can see who the co-sponsors are, the full text of the bill, and other info.  To keep track of any one bill over time, click the Bill Number button on the Thomas home page and enter the number.

Have fun!

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It might seem strange to combine fun with Orwellian history but we’ll close this week’s HFR with a try.

Remember the definition of a Soviet historian?  Someone who could accurately predict the past.  As George Orwell explained in 1984, a hallmark of a totalitarian state is a continual erasure and reconstruction of history according to its needs, not reality.

Another name for such "Orwellian history" practiced by totalitarians is "political correctness."  We were provided with two examples this week.

First is the bowdlerization of the new edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.  The original contains the politically unmentionable word "nigger" 219 times.  It is now to be replaced with "slave." 

Political correctness always comes with too high a price.  The price for a PC Mark Twain is, as the London Economist notes:

"A sanitized Twain may teach young readers a lot, but it hides from them a crucial insight: that a word they know to be unacceptable now was once utterly commonplace. You can’t fully appreciate why ‘nigger’ is taboo today if you don’t know how it was used back then, and you can’t fully appreciate what it was like to be a slave if you don’t know how slaves were addressed."

Now the Fascists of PC have gone from literary classics to rock and roll classics.  Money For Nothing by Dire Straits is on every rockers’ all time greatest hits, pure R n’ R.  This week, it was banned in Canada for it’s "offensive" lyrics, namely the word "faggot."

You’ve heard the song so many times and most likely often sung to yourself the famous line, "money for nothing, chicks for free."  In 1985, Dire Straits’ lead guitarist/singer Mark Knopfler was in a big box appliance store in New York with a wall of TV screens all showing MTV.  He listened as a delivery man was sneering to his co-workers about the rock bank on the TVs, "that ain’t workin’ – them yo-yo’s get money for nothin’, chicks for free."

When Elton John appeared on the screen, the delivery man was incensed.  Knopfler rapidly scribbled his comments on a scrap of paper.  Thus the lyrics:

See the little faggot with the earring and the make-up
Yeah buddy that’s his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he’s millionaire

The song makes fun of the sneering delivery guys in overalls, not "faggots" – as Elton John, a friend of Knopfler’s, was well aware.  The full lyrics are here (although note the date is wrong – it was recorded in 1985, not 1988).

The crazy Canadian thing is that most all video recordings of the song have been tampered with, inserting "queenie" or "mother" for "faggot."  The original version is hard to find.  Nonetheless, here it is, in its famous MTV animation form that portrays the workers watching Dire Straits on the TV screens.  Rock out!  Politically incorrectly of course.

Dire Straits – Money For Nothing MTV Original Version