It Cant Be True

WASHINGTON (AP) - What kind of politician brings a teleprompter to a news conference?

Yes. That's exactly it. Not George W who they called a stumbling retard, not Ronaldus Magnus who they called a senile old right-wing crackpot, certainly not BJ Clinton who everybody knew was lying 100% of the time, never the weedy HW, not even the mock-sincere Carter needed to read his answers off cue cards. Yes even Carter, one of the worst presidents ever, could still field questions from a pack of reporters. Think if Nixon had shown up with a teleprompter-equipped podium for the pressers he did as Watergate closed in on him. Dan Rather would have ripped one of the screens off the podium to try to club The Trickster with it. What if Obama gets in a very tight spot where the whole country is pissed off at him, will he bring his teleprompters to that press conference?

Who is this guy? There are these serious things going on all around and he doesnt even seem like a player. Its like having a male model for President. Yes, he is really, really, really good looking, I'll give you that, but do we want Zoolander at the helm of the ship of state while a Category Five hurricane is going on outside and the cargo is on fire? What kind of people voted for these idiots without noticing how completely lame they were?

There are times in the past when I've been embarrassed at my going over the top. My family and friends think that I'm a completely flipped out loonie with my weird right-wing obsessions. Sometimes I believed them. What was wrong with me? Was this the ultimate LSD flashback? Was I hallucinating catastrophe where there was none? Did I really think that all those things I said about liberals were true? They're not really going to end free markets and free speech. I mean, calm down!

What about those other kooks I 'blog' with? Probably a bunch of unwashed agouraphobiacs in dimly-lit house trailers deep in the backwoods in their cammo pajamas, disassembled guns on the coffee table, loose bullets rolling on the floor waking the two obese Akita-Rottwieler mixed spike collared savage mongrel fleabags, sitting in the empty beer can and bargain rye bottled landscape grinding their teeth with anger at the bad old Democratic Commie Conspiracy. It just wasnt going to be that bad, I mean really! We were overreacting, c'mon, admit it!

But it is that bad, we werent overreacting. These Democrats are as bad as the nuttiest fruit-bar drunken fever-brained right-wing lunatic ever imagined they would be. Worse. Those socialist mutts are in the process of screwing everything up ON PURPOSE! Thats how stupid a Harvard degree makes a person. Some guy with a tinfoil hat crouched over a glowing computer monitor in his VA repo double-wide in Beaver Fart, Nebraska has a more sane view of reality then everybody at the Brookings Institution put together! I dont take back one word I've ever said about the Democrats. They havent neglected to be as bad as my worst imaginings thought they would be. In fact, I curse myself for being a mealy-mouthed temporizer who has been too kind to these creeps who stand poised to steal everything I have, cancel the Bill Of Rights and destroy my country.

Why dont the people around me notice that policies are being introduced that will have these effects? They dont notice because they see Obama, not on CSPAN or in the columns posted on RCP.com but on the Tonight Show or in the pages of People Magazine. They dont have a running political commentary in their ears that makes any sense. Things are scary and this really, really, really good looking guy says he's going to deal with it so like chill baby! Just set a few Wall Street Baddies to rights and we can all get on with our lives. National Public Radio hasnt panicked so why should we?

We live in a time when the people who waved fingers and yelled at the top of their lungs at George Bush's $400 billion deficit now are proposing a budget with a two trillion dollar deficit! Half of this is stuffed into a 'stimulus' bill that didnt have one single thing in it that would stimulate the economy in any way. That dead mackerel has been stinking up the political landscape for a few weeks now and I still have yet to read one single explanation of a cause and effect relationship between the passage of this bill and an increase in employment. But liberals arent big on Cause And Effect. They still cant show any data that there is a link between carbon dioxide emissions and global temperatures but they accept that there is because they want there to be to suit their political purposes.

Someone e-mailed me that they thought the Insane Commies were going to drop Cap And Trade or Card Check. They only will do that if some opposition develops that makes it politically impossible. But what opposition? If all enforcement of voter-fraud laws is suspended then they always have as many votes as they need. And the People Magaziners dont care. The fear that The Founders had of democracy is writ large in the actions of the modern Democratic Party. A few more of these destructive policies put in place will create 20-30% unemployment and rampant inflation. And Our Socialist Masters will be happy if carbon emissions decline. Whew! Great! We Saved The Planet! What a sense of planetary pride we'll all have living on a fifth of the income we make now.

Because that is their biggest crime. The Democrats have destroyed our currency. Our money will be worth as much as the empty lies of our leaders. Our economy will not be producing anything anyone would consider worth buying. The era where America was a dominant force in world events is over. The days of decent medical care for anyone but an elite few are drawing to a close. The age of individual automobile ownership are numbered. Your 3000 square foot house will be impossible to heat or cool. We might be lucky enough to afford to run a small refrigerator and a few forty-watt light bulbs. Bye bye the Big Screen! Think you got rid of those danged kids? In poor countries ten and fifteen people of all generations live together in one small house to pool resources.

I hope I'm crazy, but I dont think I am. All these bad ideas have been kicking around for decades. When libs would stand up and propose most of the things that are on their way to become law in the next few months audio tapes would get played on Talk Radio so we could all have a good chuckle at how loonie these left wing nuts were. Well, he who laughs last. The joke is on us.

Whack The Whack-Man!

One of the big rationales for 'moderate Republicanism' is that the hard-core conservatism of the neolithic base turns off minorities who are a rapidly-growing percentage of the population, dooming the party to demographic destruction. Party hacks gaze yearningly into the distance as they envision millions of 'minorities', inspired by the reasonableness of their views on giveaway programs and amnesty flocking across the aisle to vote Republican.

So these guys think they can take this wonderful sensitivity down to South-Central and unseat Maxine Waters? They're not even going to try because the people in charge of the party are afraid to go down there and they dont understand what they need to do to connect with black people and Latinos who live in those neighborhoods. There are many potential conservatives in minority neighborhoods but few potential Republicans. You dont think that there are Latinos who are pissed off about bad schools, rampant crime, high taxes and stupid anti-business government? Well you're wrong. Many of the Central and South Americans are very conservative and very middle class and are looking at Obama leading the same anti-wealth, anti-success zealots who wrecked the economy in the countries they fled to come here. Americans, never having experienced a lawless left-wing dictatorship, might be fooled by this class-warfare guff but Venezuelans have heard it before. People from the West Indies and Africa are also very conservative and they have large communities in the districts that you are targeting. Muslims are also culturally and financially conservative. But all this is academic. Geeks who have graduated from Top Universities engage in minority outreach by having seminars with other geek graduates from Top Universities who happen to be black or have a last name like Martinez. The 'solutions' always involve giving more power to the state and raising taxes. This is what the McLame Republicans think is going to lure 'minorities' to vote for them.

Its not going to happen. Some ethnic groups might become conservatives in reaction to the failure of leftist policies in their own neighborhoods but they are never going to be attracted by a party hardly distinguishable from the Democrats and which is a caricature of The Evil White Establishment. I know of a Korean businessman, a tax-hating, devoutly Christian entrepreneur, who voted for Obama because he just couldnt say yes to the moth-eaten old white guy. When you dont have any ideas appearances become the most important factors in an election. The conservatives who bring minorities to the conservative movement are going to arise from within those communities and are not likely to survive politically if they are wishy-washy moderates.

So if conservatives cant unseat Maxine Waters where can they go to make gains against the Democrats? I suggest that they target my Congressional District, California's 30th. The gerrymandered safe district for a wart-hog-like creature named Henry Waxman. Last year nobody wasted their time running against him. This district includes West Hollywood, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Westwood, Santa Monica and some similar communities on the other side of the mountains. The 30th is the most left-wing area in the country unless Nadler's district in Lower Manhattan or Pelosi's in San Francisco are taken into account. Except for Pelosi, Waxman is the single most obnoxious person in the House except possibly Barney Frank or Charles Wrangel, not forgetting Jack Murtha and David Obey...hey, OK he's in the top five or six, who's counting, the guy's a trainwreck! He conducts hearings against Evil Oil, Evil Tobacco, Evil Banks, Evil Car Executives and Evil Fast Food; if the left thinks its Evil Waxman conducts a hearing against it. He drags the executives in front of his committee and accuses them of...making a profit! He sees himself as a tribune of the people, the little guy's friend against Evil Monopolistic Oligarchs.

Thats great in Gary, Indiana, to be the friend of the burly but disenfranchised workers, but in Beverly Hills? In Beverly Hills their bonuses are cancelled, their stocks are a meltdown disaster area, and their beloved Barak is talking about who's going to pay for a trillion dollar giveaway. And Guess Who? They might be cool with getting a raise on their EITC south of Olympic in Maxine Waters' district but in the hills above Malibu's beautiful seacoast the liberals are meeting with their accountants and wondering about Hope And Change. When they see the breadth and scope of the coming Carbon Tax and realize what that is going to do to the value remaining in their battered portfolios how far to the left will they be then? A lot of the 'Old Money' that supported the left, held by the children and grandchildren of former celebrities, has disappeared. I'll bet donations to The Sierra Club and Greenpeace have fallen off a cliff.

So here's the opportunity. Target not the impoverished WalMart shoppers who are expecting manna to fall from Government Heaven but the people who are going to have to provide that manna from very reduced resources. Other issues could also be used to defeat Waxman in this district. Out of control labor unions (SAG and the WGA) are making demands and threatening strikes that could put all of the myriad administrative studio bureaucrats and behind-the-camera technical crews out of work permanently. Card-check will threaten the bottom line of every non-union studio. One of the bases of Waxman's support is the Jewish community. Not as strong as it used to be as the younger generations intermarry and drift away from strong involvement with the community but still a big factor. Did Waxman vote to reward Hamas with $900 million to make up for those Evil Israeli's unprovoked assault on the innocent rocketeers in the Gaza Strip? Yew betcha! Did he vote to support the assault on offshore tax shelters? Yup. Raising rates on upper income brackets? Ditto. Whereas Maxine Waters votes for goodies for her constituents Waxman consistently votes to strip the poor chumps in his own district of their remaining wealth.

Now, right at the moment the Wax Man seems pretty safe. Even though the Green Idiocy of Global Warming is increasingly discredited and the waffling evasions of the Gorians less and less believable the faith still holds sway in the manicured gardens of the mountain range that runs through the center of Los Angeles. When a Carbon Tax and a raised gasoline tax (Thanx Governator!) and the increasing government campaign to wipe out individual car ownership starts to bite many of these formerly wealthy types might start wilting on the vine, becoming less Green. As we abandon Israel to a new potential genocide at the hands of people even less savory than the National Socialists (at least the Nazis washed) will the Jews be so eager to support the Dems? As taxes pass 60-70% on marginal income and shelters and offshore dodges are removed will the people who going to pay more and more still be Democrats?

In a year this is going to be a very different country, reliable Democrat demographics are going to be questioning the wisdom of some of their most closely-held tenets. In one way Waxman is safe because there is almost universal support for legal abortion in the district and whatever candidate who runs against him will have to be pro-choice. Not pro dumping billions down the stem-cell rathole choice. Not making people who think abortion is murder pay for other people's abortions choice. Not forcing Catholic hospitals and doctors to perform abortions in the new Federal Health Care System choice. Not partial-birth choice--Waxman is in favor of all those things BTW. But in favor of legal abortions in the early stages of pregnancy choice. Since the courts and the California Constitution prevent any change in the laws on this subject and the issue is a total loser in the district for Republicans in these upscale districts the rationale for handing this issue on a platter to the Dems is very thin. However, the few remaining Republicans in the 30th are pretty hard-core and pro-life. Ironically enough a candidate who could seriously challenge Waxman would have a tougher time winning the nomination than whipping the Wart-Hog.

Guns are another matter. Right now the matrons of these neighborhoods think that every one of those extra Y chromosome testosterone gun-toting freaks down in the flats should have every single gun and bullet confiscated immediately. The husbands more soberly understand that the police or the private security service are a distance away up winding hillside roads and keep a discreet pistol or two within reach. As the Hugo Chavez-style class warfare heats up and the state and municipal governments wallow in unpayable pensions and debt while their tax receipts fall there will be fewer police and many more criminals, motivated by a sense of justice against the undeserving rich. When the government takes the police away will those same people, the most likely victims of crime, support harsh measures to take their guns away?

There are other issues. The point is that the Democratic party policies are going to impact the upper middle class and the professional classes disproportionately. Classes which have already lost a huge chunk of their wealth which they will never get back, Obama's high tax rates will make that certain. In districts like the one I live in the incumbents could be attacked using simple catchphrases on billboards that would direct people to a website that had brief, entertaining and very simple videos that put the argument that pro-business is better than anti-business, that the megastate is NOT your friend. Waxman and his zealous followers are easy to lampoon. Make Waxman's face the face of economic decline. If things are as bad as I think they will be then a clear, distinct conservative message will resonate. We all have to do everything we can to keep the message clear and stressing parts of that message that hit where the Democrats are the weakest. The 'moderates' might be some hindrance but the coming hyperinflation and economic decline are going to radicalize people one way or another so there will be fewer of them anyway. If conservatives have the clearest and most logical message we can win in places that have been lost to us for decades.

Hey Bud, Lets PARTY!

As I've been reading other people's blogs and the comments on mine I've come to realize how ill-equipped most 'average' conservatives are for the New Age Of Obama. I've just watched Gordon Brown's speech to Congress and was swept with a black feeling of gloom as his suggestion that we have a Global Managed Economy got a thunderous ovation from the half-wits the voters have chosen to lead us into the pit of destruction. The guy whose cowardly government just expelled a Dutch MP for threatening to show a film that criticizes 'The Religion Of Peace' spoke out against unnamed 'terrorists'. Maybe its Rush Limbaugh he was talking about...

But the point is, when a total zero like Brown, fleeing the angry lynch-mob that is developing in Britain howling for his blood, can come over here and get a standing O for more of the policies that are ending an era of prosperity which started in 1945 and is now being crushed by the megastate, then we are well and truly screwed. Even a total political flip in 2010 wont keep us from a resounding crash, it will only help us pick up the pieces after it happens. And we have to survive in the meantime.

In England in the 70's Cockney rhyming slang for being on the dole (welfare in all its forms) was 'on the rock and roll'. And thats the first lesson of a successful transition to our New Age.
Its not a shame that the government is paying your mortgage, putting food on your table, giving you free medical care, buying you heating oil and paying you to attend some community college classes which are filled with people a nice person like you can only describe as 'losers'. Its cool. Its your right! It frees up all 168 hours of the week for you to be you!

Now, you want to get the most from your permanent vacation and not do anything to mess up getting the maximum the State will pay.

Unemployment insurance is your first stop. In the old days you stood in line and went up to a window with your filled-out form and they then handed you your dough in cash. The first time I was on unemployment I collected at the Hollywood office which was a melange of film industry types, chronic losers and regular criminals. That was the first time I ever saw a three-card-monte game as the foolish and thoughtless were buttonholed on their way out of the office by the local sharks. You always bumped into actors, camera crew, grips and scenery painters and people like that. I had an animation union card. Any craft union card or a SAG card meant that the people behind the desk left you alone. It was a 'get out of jail free' card. Because UI cant send you to a job that pays less than the one you were laid-off from. If that job paid $50 an hour... I collected UI for three months in Hawaii. All you have to do is phone two potential employers a week and you're cool. Now you apply for UI online at home and everything is done through the mail. More civilized, less fun.

The rules of UI are easy to learn and easy to evade. Yes evade! John Adams said that the Constitution would only work for a Godly and moral people. Well, those days are over so dump that Coolidge-Era ethical baggage and learn the joys of situational morality. I mean, after all, if they didnt want you to break the rules then they wouldnt be giving you a crappy $450 a week, extended into infinity by the stimulus bill. You have a right to evade something that unfair! And evade means cash income. Under the table. Thats not so easy now, unless you like shoveling gizzards down at the poultry plant and are fluent in Michoacan-accented Spanish. But once Card Check (the Worker Freedom Act) is passed and unionization and government-mandated wage and benefit rates become mandatory most employers, even the most white-collar, will need a work force who can be hired and laid off on a casual (aka cash) basis. The taxes and work rules on regular employees will become unsupportable and employees will be happy to evade the crushing taxes themselves. Believe me, it will happen.

And one day you will be looking at that little form, with the cash you earned that week in your pocket and you will check NO to the question "did you work that week?" Who cares? Thats the beauty of situational ethics, everything is now! You can be really sorry later if, by some miracle, you get caught. But lets face it, what are the odds of that? This is the government we're dealing with, after all. In my early incarnation as a hippie, when I got laid off from my seasonal job drawing Scooby or The Jetsons at a cartoon studio, I would get my pal Mark to drop a pound of pot off at my shack in Echo Park and just sell ounces to people that I knew for a little off-the-record income. Now, I might have gotten busted by the cops for selling weed but its darned tootin' the folks at Unemployment would have never found out about it.

Is all this reading making you hungry? This compassionate country is not going to let a good citizen like you starve. Since you're on unemployment you've got all day to pull this one off. Dont go alone to any welfare office, especially if you're a male over fifty, so you have someone else to hold your place in line or listen for your name to be called while you brave the reeking crime-infested bathroom or to go outside to the taco trucks parked by the entrance. Its a good idea to do some research on the byzantine rules that govern the issuance of Food Stamps. These programs were set up to serve the illiterate and the incompetent and are relatively easy to game if you think ahead. You want to hand them a form and have a story that meets the criteria. The 'truth' is not an issue here. They dont care about it, they dont want to hear it. They just want to process your form and give you your stamps. No life story, no explanation. The less you say the better. Be drunk or incoherent. This isnt a job interview, you're here because you're a loser so act like one!

The only time I was on Food Stamps was at the beginning of the program in the late 60's. The people in the commune in the mountains of northern New Mexico I lived in took our truck to the junkyard where we purchased a few old wood-burning stoves which we put in a couple of the shacks in our little valley, one even in the teepee, even though we all cooked and ate in the main house that we had built, because Food Stamps, at that time, were given on the basis of 'households', meaning separate kitchens. Too many people in a 'household' would lower the amount each person got. They came and inspected so everybody had to know what to say. The Indians at the pueblo up the river got us up to speed on the rules. Those close-to-the-earth indigenes would all pool their Food Stamps each month, buy huge sacks of sugar that they could mix with left-over plums or apples in the fields and turn into valuable moonshine which they sold to a thirsty public. They even accepted Food Stamps for their White Lightning. So close to nature they were... These days you can probably find out what you need to know on the internet.

Remember 'Acceptamos Cupones' means your stamps will be welcome both at the cash register or in the parking lot. I used to hang out with some junkies in San Francisco who would steal t-bone steaks in grocery stores and then sell them at a big discount in the parking lot for stamps or cash. Then they would sell the stamps at a discount and go score some heroin...the only commodity in that neighborhood that you couldnt buy for Food Stamps. Friendly store owners will sell just about anything for Stamps; liquor, cigarettes, even ammo for some of you Second Amendment types. Prostitutes will have sex with you for Food Stamps. Need a gun or a hot TV set? Stamps are part of the mix. Its like a parallel currency. Once this Depression gets rolling who knows what you'll be able to buy? Cruises to the Virgin Islands, jewelry, the mind boggles.

Remember George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco who was assassinated by Dan White? I lived near a group called 'The Foundation Of Revelation' who were convinced that God was this little Indian dude who lived over on Scott Street with his nine wives. One of God's commandments was that every election day his children would campaign for anybody Moscone told them to work for. In return some of the Foundation's 'children' were made welfare workers charged with overseeing the welfare cases of the others in the Foundation. You see, all existence is circular! Political influence is important so organize your community and you cant go wrong!

Now these are the basic programs. Promising students will graduate to advanced programs like Disability, which pays more than UI and is permanent unless you're like the disabled fireman who got busted because he won a race up the stairs to the top of the Empire State Building. Avoid this sort of publicity. Just be mellow. There's a whole new set of rules and regs coming up because the gov is about to Stalinize the health care system. If you want your Medical Marijuana or party Vicodens for free you better learn the rules carefully. Remember Lady MacBeth saying, "Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it."? Well you should look like a total basket case but be informed and purposeful in your funky t-shirt. Your new career as a ward of the state can be fun and rewarding, make the most of it!