HALF-FULL REPORT 09/23/11
Question of the week: How do we reconcile Perry's incredible President Zero ad - the most powerful political ad of modern times - {youtube}8EL5Atp_vF0{/youtube} with his botched debate performances, which keep getting worse, as we saw last night? Isn't he supposed to be a kick-em-in-the-groin take-no-prisoners Texas Aggie? And what's up with the you-have-no-heart schmaltz if you deny in-state tuition to illegals? Perhaps, however, you think the question should be: What about Sarah? When Perry announced and she refrained, it was clear she was waiting to see how Rick would do. She was never worried about Bachmann, knowing that MB would flame out and she has. Now that Perry might also, will she jump in? The HFR has learned there is another reason for her hesitation beyond the patience of a huntress.
ISN’T FASCISM FUNNY?
It looks like a Photoshop gag, but it's real. At 13 minutes and 50 seconds into the CNN video of Zero's risible Jobs Speech to Congress (9/08), Slo-Jo flicked his tongue out for a moment to lubricate his dry lips at the exact time Zero closed his eyes to blink - so in a freeze-frame capture, one looks like the doofus he is, the other blind like he is. The WaPo's lib columnist Dana Milbank noted that Zero's speech had the GOP Senators and Congressmen in hysterics, treating it as a "big fat joke." Can you recall a time when a Joint Session Congressional audience actually laughed at the President of the United States? An angry outburst, like Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" at Zero, or audible grumbles of disagreement by Dems at George Bush, yes - but out loud laughter and ridicule to the president's face? A fascist becoming a joke whom nobody respects is a very good thing. It's hard to be afraid of an object of ridicule. Losing our fear of the fascists continuing to tighten their chokehold around our lives is a vitally necessary condition for starting to fight back against them.
FAR WORSE THAN WATERGATE
More scandals swirl about Barack Hussein Obama than any president before him. Each one seems worse than Watergate. Taken together, they dwarf the scandal that caused Richard Nixon to resign the presidency. *After receiving a $535 million guaranteed loan from the Obama administration, Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar panels, filed for bankruptcy this month. In apparent violation of federal law, private investors were given priority over taxpayers for claims on Solyndra's assets. Solyndra is owned by Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a major fund-raiser for Mr. Obama. He and Solyndra executives made 20 visits to the White House before the loan was made. While Solyndra wasn't actually lethal to anyone, LightSquared could get people killed, and Gunwalker already has.
OBAMA’S POLICY TOWARDS ISRAEL IS INSULTING, DANGEROUS, AND NAÃVE
[This the text of Gov. Perry's speech at the Israel-Palestine Conference held in New York City yesterday, 9/20.] Thank you. Let me begin by thanking Dr. Solomon Frager and Aron Hirtz for helping us organize this press conference today. I am joined today by a diverse group of Jewish leaders from here and abroad who share my concern that the United Nations could take action this week to legitimize the Palestinian gambit to establish statehood in violation of the spirit of the 1993 Oslo Accords. We are indignant that certain Middle Eastern leaders have discarded the principle of direct negotiations between the sovereign nation of Israel and the Palestinian leadership, and we are equally indignant that the Obama Administration's Middle East policy of appeasement has encouraged such an ominous act of bad faith. Simply put, we would not be here today at the precipice of such a dangerous move if the Obama Policy in the Middle East wasn't naïve, arrogant, misguided and dangerous.
THE UN DIPLOMACY THAT MAY LEAD TO WAR
In her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "The Guns of August," Barbara Tuchman chronicles how a cascading series of seemingly minor developments led inexorably to World War I and the worst carnage known to man up to that time. In the future, historians may point to the present "Diplomacy of September" as the catalyst for the next horrific conflict now in the offing in the Middle East, and potentially beyond. Specifically, this means three agenda items slated to take place in the United Nations or on the margins of its meetings in coming days. Combined, their synergy could lead to a horrific war.
HOW THE IRS DOESN’T OBEY THE 16TH AMENDMENT
The stealth wealth tax may be the single-largest tax ever imposed on the American people, yet virtually no one knows about it. What is particularly unconscionable about this tax is that it has been imposed upon the most responsible citizens and the elderly in a most disproportionate way, and the real tax rate on American savers has soared to record levels. Inflation is a non-legislated wealth tax. If you had kept a $100 bill a year ago, today you would be able to buy just $96.20 worth of goods and services, given the current 3.8 percent inflation rate. The Fed, by its failure to preserve the value of the currency as it is charged to do, has imposed a stealth wealth tax on you. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has made it worse by imposing a tax on nominal savings income, not just on inflation-adjusted income. The 16th Amendment to the Constitution gave the federal government the right to impose a tax on "incomes." A change in the price level caused by inflation is not income by any economic or sensible definition of the word.
THE DEMOCRAT’S ARMAGEDDON COULD BE IN PENNSYLVANIA
After GOP victories in special elections for the U.S. House in New York and Nevada, liberals were on the verge of panic. Then Dominic Pileggi really freaked them out. On the very day of these victories (9/13), Mr. Pileggi, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania senate, announced he'll introduce a bill to allocate Pennsylvania's electoral votes by congressional district. The winner statewide would get the two electoral votes for the state's U.S. senators. (The GOP gained majorities in both the state senate and state house, plus the governorship in 2010.) Mr. Obama carried Pennsylvania by 10.31 percent points in 2008, garnering all 21 electoral votes. If the Pileggi proposal had been in force, he'd have gotten only 11. "In a close national race, an obnoxious scheme like this can alter the entire presidential election, all because Republicans are afraid to fight on a level playing field," wrote liberal Steve Benen in the Washington Monthly. "It's just a cynical ploy to arbitrarily favor the Republican party," wrote liberal Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. Yes, they are freaking out.
HALF-FULL REPORT 09/16/11
Little doubt who the HFR Hero of the Week is, right? No one else but a 70 year-old retired cable guy from Queens named Bob Turner. Let's put his victory on Tuesday (9/13) into real historical perspective. It's not just that New York's 9th Congressional District has been held by the Dems since the election of 1922. It's that Dems have held it for all but nine years since 1857[1]. So Turner's win is about as historic as congressional turnovers get. The effects are immediate, in no way confined to being a Dem panic signal for 2012. First, NY9 drives a stake through the heart of Zero's "Jobs Bill" (what Jack Kelly calls Son of Porkulus). It is now officially DOA. Second, Zero is now forced to take specific pro-Israel actions at a critically dangerous time for Israel. He will now order his hate-Israel UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, to veto the upcoming Security Council vote on granting full statehood for the Palestinian Arabs. He's got to flip the bird to the Saudis and their impossibly arrogant (then again, when aren't they?) threat that the veto would end the "special relationship" between them and the US. Well, hallelujah.
THE SARACEN TOWER
The Amalfi Coast on the Sorrentine Peninsula south of Naples, Italy, is considered to be the most beautiful coastline in the world (click on Read More for pictures). It is riddled with crumbling stone buildings known as "Saracen Towers." They were built over a thousand years ago to protect the region from invasions and attacks from "Saracens" - the term Medieval Europe used for Moslems, from the ancient Greek Sarakenoi, the nomad bandit tribes of Arabia. In the centuries before the invention of Islam when all of the Middle East was predominantly Christian, the Sarakenoi developed a fearsome reputation for their raids on monasteries and murdering monks. This became vastly worse when they acquired a religious rationale for their banditry. They called their new religion Islam, the Arabic word for "submission," claiming it meant submission to their deity Allah - but what it really meant was "unbelievers" submitting to them. And what that meant was they had a religious right to enslave Christians. Last Sunday, we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 Moslem attack on America. The 19 terrorists, most with Saudi visas, murdered 2,977 innocent people in a more grotesque way than any horror movie. It was an unforgivable act of unmitigated evil that traumatized us all. We continue to deal with the trauma today - and what may help is to place it in a historical context. The examples of Islamic barbarity history provides are legion - so let's focus on that of the Saracen towers.
CRONY CAPITALISM WILL DESTROY US IF WE DON’T ROOT IT OUT
In my recent speech in Iowa, some eyebrows were raised when I took on our government's enormous economic problems caused by crony capitalism. As if on cue, just days later President Obama selected someone who exemplifies a major crony capitalism problem to sit next to the First Lady when he delivered his "jobs plan" speech before Congress. He selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt as his honored guest. Having grown up with great respect for GE thanks to stories my grandfather shared with us about his days working for the company and even meeting GE spokesman-at-the-time Ronald Reagan during a company event, I am saddened at GE's leadership evolution. This corporation is now the poster child of corporate welfare and crony capitalism. Joining GE in the pantheon on crony capitalism is another Obama favorite that has been in the news of late: Solyndra.