HALF-FULL REPORT 04/22/11
It’s Good Friday! My wife and I always personally celebrate Good Friday, because that was the day we met almost three decades ago. It sure was a good day for us!
Sunday, of course, is Easter, a celebration of renewal, rebirth, and resurrection. The Resurrection itself was 1,978 years ago (33 AD). Today, America is being crucified on a Cross of Debt, and Congress will soon be faced with a choice to resurrect her or let her die.
By the time the House returns from "Spring Recess" on May 2nd, federal spending will have exceeded the debt ceiling. Expect to see a tsunami of enemedia scare stories predicting an apocalypse if the House doesn’t cave and vote to raise it – such as this one in Politico.
The article encapsulates all the outright lies of the parasite class: "the full faith and credit of the United States" hangs in the balance, the House GOP will "plunge the nation into default" if it doesn’t cave, blah blah.
This is willful lying. The federal government will continue to have plenty of tax revenue to service its old debt, to pay the military, but not for, say, Planned Parenthood or the EPA. What really will "send global markets into a tailspin" is if the debt ceiling is raised and Uncle Sam continues his fiscal insanity.
Standard & Poor dropped the US credit rating on Monday (4/18) because of fears the debt ceiling would be raised, not that it wouldn’t. Which is why the Obama Gangster Government tried to bully S&P into not issuing the downgrade. Three cheers for S&P in having the courage to ignore the bullying.
So here we are, the moment has arrived, and it’s ironic that it comes at Eastertime. The new Republican House can save America or not, the choice is stark. It’s time for them to finally follow what should be their Golden Rule: Do unto Democrats what they would do unto you. To take Rahm Emanuel’s famous advice: Do not let this crisis go to waste.
That is, if it is so vitally crucial for the salvation of the nation that the federal debt ceiling be raised, then the Dems should have no objection to agreeing to the Ryan budget (or better yet, the Rand Paul budget) and the full total repeal of ObamaCare as conditions for the raise.
High drama, high stakes amidst a deluge of enemedia lies. This is going to be quite a show.
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Perhaps the House Pubs should look to Finland for guidance, and one Finn in particular, Timo Soini. He’s the leader of the True Finns party that won big in the parliamentary elections last Sunday (4/17). So big that he’ll be able to block the bailout of Portugal.
The EU has decided to give $115 billion to Portugal so that country can live in poverty while German and French bank loans are paid off. The money comes from all the other EU countries (yes, Greece and Ireland have to shell out billions in their own bailout money to help bail out Portugal) – but the decision has to be unanimous. If one EU government balks – such as Finland – the bailout deal is off.
The fury being directed at "the extreme right wing" True Finns party by the EU mandarins is massive – and pretty funny, given that True Finns’ economic policy is welfare state left wing. But Timo Soini is dead set against more debt, more bailouts that Finland has to pay for.
So thanks to the Finns, the whole EU bailout scheme may crash, the banks and their investors have to get a high & tight buzzcut, the euro itself may be in dire straits with Portugal returning to the escudo and Greece to the drachma, and fiscal sanity may have a future in Europe. Thanks, Timo! Are you paying attention, Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor?
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Here’s a heartwarming headline: Radical Islamist Groups Gaining Stranglehold in Egypt. What an opportunity! This could be fun.
Yes, there’ll be loads of angst in certain Washington corners so afraid of Moslem boogeymen. But seriously, there really is an opportunity to totally discredit Islamists and Moslem Brotherhood types by letting them take over Egypt and completely screw the country up.
Egypt is not like Iran, which is one of the world’s major oil exporters. What Egypt is, is one of the world’s major wheat importers – the world’s largest, in fact. And where does Egypt get all the wheat it must have to feed its people? From us.
The US is the world’s largest wheat exporter and no one can replace us. If Islamists have a stranglehold in Egypt, we have a stranglehold on Egypt. If we shut off our wheat to Egypt, Egyptians starve. That’s a lot of leverage. President Zero, of course, won’t use it. But President Palin will.
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OK, I feel a rant coming on. I keep thinking of late 2007. Every get-together with conservatives back then had the same conversation: "Who are you supporting for the (Republican) nomination?" "I don’t know, no one rings my bell, I haven’t decided yet." And that’s how we ended up with a loser like John McCain. Rudy Giuliani would have eaten Zero’s lunch.
I see the same thing happening now – Hamlet Conservatives indulging in endless ruminating and refusing to make up their minds. Then some of them grasp at charlatan straws like Donald Trump.
At a time when the very existence of our country is at stake, threatened by a president who hates our country and is doing his best to ruin it, to chase after the likes of Donald Trump is grotesquely self-destructive. Almost as self-destructive as electing Zero in the first place.
Two words should disabuse any decent person of even thinking about Trump in the White House: Vera Coking. She’s the elderly widow whose home and property Trump had government goons try to steal under eminent domain so he could use her property as a limousine parking lot for one of his casinos.
Thanks to the Institute of Justice, Vera Coking defeated Donald Trump in court and kept her home.
Trump represents the worst kind of crony capitalism that makes our government – at all levels, from city council to state capital to Washington – so corrupt. He’s a self-promoting con man like Zero, but far more dangerous because he’s much smarter.
If conservatives don’t understand that America’s survival requires a president who represents the opposite of crony capitalism, who is truly self-made and embodies the very best of American values – well, we’re screwed, folks. As the Hindus say, better luck next lifetime.
I think you all know who I’m talking about.
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Which reminds me of a question Zero’s most trenchant critic is fond of asking: "How’s that hopey-changey thing workin’ out for ya?"
According to yesterday’s (4/21) New York Times/CBS News Poll, it’s really really not working out well. So not well, the NYT headline is: Nation’s Mood At Lowest Level In Two Years, Poll Shows. Two years – about the time Zero has been in office.
Zero’s cheerleaders at the enemedia’s greatest bastion must be shocked to learn that 57% of Americans think Zero’s handling of the economy sucks. And 55% say they would rather have fewer services from a smaller government than more services from a bigger one.
Yet the latest Rasmussen Presidential Approval Poll (4/21) shows that 46% of voters still give Zero a thumbs up. Are all these masses of folks moochers, suicidal, or what?
You probably saw the Fox story this week: Government Cash Handouts Now Top Tax Revenues. Moocher Nation Vs. Producer Nation. That’s the New Civil War.
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Speaking of thieves, Evo Morales, the commie thug who runs Bolivia, is set to pull off one of the great heists in history nine days from now. On May 1st (appropriate date, Commie May Day), his government will expropriate – that means steal – all of Bolivia’s privately-owned silver mines.
Bolivia is not the world’s largest silver producer, it is the 11th – Peru (the largest) produces ten times more. Nonetheless, the country cranks out 1.3 million kilograms a year, and once that production tanks due to the inevitable chaos of Morales’ edict, silver could spike (today, 4/22, it’s at $46.68).
Every metals investor on the planet knows this now, so beware of those who shout "Silver going to $250 – buy now!!!" If you want to play the silver game, realize the guys you’re going up against are the pros. Be careful.
And realize that Morales is panicking, he’s in beaucoup deep kim chee. Riots and protests are daily now on the streets of La Paz. A number of mine union leaders have suddenly realized government seizure means their members won’t get paid with the mines shut down or in chaos. So they’ve told Morales to cut it out. Morales may well call the May 1st theft off.
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Let’s close this week’s HFR with good news. We get too focused on the Gangster Government in Washington, and on states only when the thugs threaten them too as in Wisconsin.
Yet the real action for freedom is taking place in states across the land, states where Tea Party Republicans hold new sway. Check out this AP story of April 18 describing the GOP Wave:
"In state after state, Republicans are moving swiftly past blunted Democratic opposition to turn a conservative wish-list into law.
"Their successes, spurred by big election gains in November, go well beyond the spending cuts forced on states by the fiscal crunch and tea party agitation. Republican governors and state legislators are bringing abortion restrictions into effect from Virginia to Arizona, expanding gun rights north and south, pushing polling-station photo ID laws that are anathema to Democrats and taking on public sector unions anywhere they can….
"A close-up review of the first wave of legislative action by Associated Press statehouse reporters shows the striking degree to which the GOP has been able to break through gridlock and achieve improbable ends….
"The realignment in Florida has produced a law imposing more accountability on teachers, along with 18 proposed abortion restrictions, some bound to become law. Immigration controls are motivating lawmakers far from borders, constitutional amendments against gay marriage are picking up steam, Michigan and Missouri shortened the period people can get jobless benefits and Indiana may soon have the broadest school voucher program in the U.S.
"At least 20 states are going after public-sector benefits, pay or bargaining rights. In Virginia, Republicans used a deft legislative maneuver to enact a law that could close many of the state’s 21 abortion clinics…"
On this Good Friday, we can see a lot of doom and gloom – but also promise and real hope. The dangers are huge, but they create new opportunities for freedom and rebirth. Our destiny is in our own hands. All we have to do is seize it and not let go. Happy Easter to you all.