HALF-FULL REPORT 11/12/10
Has it really been that long - twelve weeks since I last wrote the HFR (August 20)? I spent those weeks on my 17th trip around the world - to Central Asia, Chinese Turkestan, North Korea, Southeast Asia, Micronesia, the Caribbean, ending with celebrating 11/02 with TTPers at the Rendezvous. It's good to be back home. And it's good to be writing the HFR again. I can't wait to get started - but first I've got to thank Jack Kelly for so staunchly holding down the HFR fort in my absence. Thanks, Jack! And thanks to all of you who sent me a Happy Birthday message. I really appreciate it. I do have a great birthday - November 9th - as it's also Ronald Reagan World Freedom Day, the day the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, named in honor of the man who won the Cold War. Plus it's followed by the birthday of the United States Marines - the greatest fighting force on earth - established November 10, 1775. Semper Fi! Then the very next day, November 11th, is when all American patriots give thanks to our veterans for serving their country, shedding their blood and so many their lives, to protect our American birthright of freedom. These three days, coming at the end of going around the world seeing so many other countries and cultures, formed for me such an emphatic exclamation point to the preciousness of America, to its unmatched value to peace and prosperity in the world, and to the literally critical importance as never before of defending it from enemies within our own midst who wish to destroy it. Those enemies got knocked to the canvas last week on Nov. 2nd - but it wasn't a knockout. A luta continua, as the Renamo freedom fighters of Mozambique said. The struggle continues. It always will. So here we go with this week's HFR.
PRESIDENT BIDEN
Will the next president of the United States be Joe Biden? That's not the way to bet, of course. But it isn't as unlikely as you might think. It remains to be seen whether what happened Nov. 2 will be an episode, as 1994 and 1946 turned out to be, or the beginning of a political realignment, as the 1930 midterm election was. Because they fear it might be the beginning of realignment, many Democrats do not want President Barack Hussein Obama to run for re-election. He may choose not to. But if he insists, inviting further destruction of the Democrat Party in 2012, he may discover Democrat knives in his back designed to force him to resign. That would make the vice-president president.
LIVE FREE OR DIE
That's the state motto of New Hampshire - right on NH license plates. Most consider it a rephrase of Virginian Patrick Henry's immortal "Give me liberty or give me death." That's the personal message. Yet it's also a message to America: if America ceases to be free, ceases to extol and value the individual liberty of its citizens, America as a nation will die. The voters of New Hampshire absorbed this message with a vengeance last week. Before then, the NH bicameral legislature - called the General Court - had a Dem majority of 225 out of 400 in the state House and 14 out of 24 in the state Senate. Get ready for the new numbers: on Nov 2nd, the Republicans went from 175 to 297 in the House and from 10 to 19 in the Senate. Both are veto-proof super-majorities, which will come in handy when they repeal the homosexual "marriage" law Dems passed last year. Dem Gov John Lynch's veto will mean nothing. A lot of America followed NH's lead last week. The GOP gained 675 state legislature seats nationwide, the most since 1928. It will now control Congressional redistricting for the 2012 election in 13 states with 165 districts - while the Dems will have four states with 40 districts. This on top of: Governors - before 11/02, 26 Dem 24 GOP; now 19 Dem 29 GOP (via cheating by Quinn in IL; MN undecided) Senate - before 11/02, 59 Dem, 41 GOP; now 53 Dem, 47 GOP (via cheating by Murray in WA, Bennett in CO, and Reid in NV) House - before 11/02, 238 Dem , 178 GOP; now 189 Dem, 240 GOP (via Dem cheating in all close races; 6 still undecided) Let's not focus on Dem cheating. That's what Dems do, thanks to their ends-justify-the-means Marxist morality. Let's focus on the extraordinary conservative triumph over the cheating. A great majority of Americans chose last week to live free and not die. We really had something to celebrate at the TTP Victory Rendezvous this past weekend.
WILL THE GOP GO FOR A TOUCHDOWN OR PUNT?
Did you know that federal government spending and revenues in 1968 as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) were almost identical to the levels in 2008?
What is new is the big jump in federal government spending in the past two years, from an average of about one-fifth of GDP to about one-quarter of GDP, and to this must be added another 13 percent for state and local government spending as a percentage of GDP, causing the total government sector to rise from about one-third of GDP to almost 40 percent.
The Republicans' big test is that because they oppose tax increases — correctly in my judgment — they must propose ways to bring down government spending to the historic average of about 20 percent of GDP.
Thus the real test for the Republicans: Will they be courageous and responsible in proposing real solutions to the spending problem, or will they "punt" like the Democrats and watch the economy go over the cliff?
JEWS OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa is a country of paradoxes. On the one hand, it is exhilarating to see the blacks now in charge after their long struggle. On the other, the ruling African National Congress' record of governance is at best a mixed bag.
This has been a great year for South Africa. Throngs of tourists visited during the World Cup soccer championship, and the international press coverage was fantastic. Unfortunately, the relative safety enjoyed by World Cup tourists was a striking deviation from the norm. The ANC has failed to provide personal security for South Africans. According to the UN, South Africa has the second highest per capita murder rate in the world. South African sources place the annual murder rate at 23,000.
South Africa is the rape capital of the world. In a 1998-2000 UN survey, one in three women said they had been raped in the past year. One in four men admitted that he was a rapist. Nearly 20 percent of South Africans are infected with the HIV virus.
On top of this, the ANC regime is one of the most anti-Israel governments in the world today. Although the physical beauty of South Africa is arresting, and the material standard of living that South African Jews enjoy is impressive, it is clear that Jewish life in South Africa will only get worse.
WE MAY STILL HAVE NANCY PELOSI TO KICK AROUND
A surprising bit of post-election news has cheered Republicans and dismayed many Democrats. Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Cal, is planning to run for House Minority Leader.
Ms. Pelosi was widely expected to resign from the House following the drubbing her troops took in the midterm elections. This is what her predecessors as Speaker, Dennis Hastert, R-Ill, and Newt Gingrich, R-Ga, did after they stepped down.
It would seem especially prudent for Ms. Pelosi to follow their example, because she is the most unpopular figure in American politics today. In a poll conducted in late October for NBC and the Wall Street Journal, only eight percent of independents approved of the job she was doing.
Some of the Democrats in the House who lost Nov. 2 have sent a letter to Ms. Pelosi urging her not to run for minority leader.
Meanwhile, Republicans are almost giddy at the prospect of having Ms. Pelosi as the face of Democrats in the House for two more years. Bill Kristol of the conservative Weekly Standard wrote a tongue in cheek editorial endorsing her. Staffers at the Republican National Committee hung a huge “Hire Pelosi” banner from the top of their building.
HALF-FULL REPORT 11/05/10
This is my 11th HFR since I started filling in for Jack. It’s the first in which the political news is genuinely half full. But even in the bad news there is good.
We saw a wave, a big wave, Tuesday. But it wasn’t the tsunami many of us were expecting.
The news about the House of Representatives is certainly more than half full. At this writing, Republicans have a net gain of 61 seats, with 10 races still undecided.
The bad news for Republicans is that Harry Reid is still the Senate Majority Leader. Most of us are disappointed because Republicans gained “only” six seats in the Senate, instead of the eight or nine most pundits were predicting.
The good news about the Senate is that Harry Reid is still the Senate Majority Leader.
STUBBORN AND CLUELESS IN THE WAKE OF DEFEAT
Democrats who didn’t drown in the Republican wave had to be dismayed by the news conference President Barack Obama held Wednesday before jetting off on his $200 million a day visit to India.
Particularly unhappy, I suspect, are the 12 Democrats in the Senate from states that voted Republican Tuesday who are up for re-election in 2012.
With Mr. Obama willing to make only cosmetic changes to his agenda, we’re headed for two years of gridlock. The House will pass bills to repeal Obamacare and reduce the size of government. These will be killed in the Senate or vetoed by the president.
But a clear choice will be established for 2012, for which the midterms were merely the preliminary bout.
PUT THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION IN A TIMEOUT
The U.S. Department of Education was created with the primary stated goal of increasing students' test scores, but test scores for 17-year-old American students have remained essentially flat since 1970. The department's budget has grown to a whopping $107 billion this year. Per pupil, taxpayer-financed education spending (adjusted for inflation) has risen by more than 200 percent since 1970 (and 150-plus percent since 1980). Clearly and unambiguously, the department deserves a grade of F.
The employees and bureaucrats at Education have been rewarded for failure each year by ever-increasing budgets, which give them more control of state education departments and local school boards. If you reward failure, you tend to get more of it, and if you reward success, you tend to get more successes. Thus, it is no surprise that test scores have not improved.
Suppose Congress said to the department, "We are going to cut your budget and payroll by 20 percent per year until test scores start improving, and if they have not substantially improved within five years, the department will be dust." What do you think would happen to test scores?
UNLEASHING AMERICA
I'm sure you're pretty happy today. Not quite as happy as you would be if Little Harry Reid had lost - but realize that he'll be Senate Majority Leader for only two more years. Every two years roughly one-third of the Senate's 100 seats are up, but the party balance shifts. This year it was even, 18 Rep and Dem seats up each. In 2012, it will be 10 Rep and 25 Dem seats up for grabs. The odds for a GOP Senate majority will be high. (Note that those 25 Dems include Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders who call themselves "independent," and just-elected Joe Manchin and Kirsten Gillibrand. Since the latter two are filling out Robert Byrd's and Hillary Clinton's terms, they have to run again two years' hence.) So - taking the Senate was a bridge too far this year. Let's instead be overjoyed at the awesome massiveness of the GOP/Tea Party victory yesterday and the concomitant obliteration of the Zero-Pelosi Agenda for the Ruination of America. And you're asking: Yes, Jack, I'm happy and drank way too much Famous Grouse in celebration, but - what happens now? Good question. Here we go.