Author: William

With the June Primary less than a month away, you would expect that the political mud would to be slinging to and fro on the airwaves of every television and radio station in the State. However, with the exception of the gubernatorial race in the Democrat Primary there is silence. It is almost as if this is either a stealth election where the advantage is to the most grassroots organization that a candidate can muster or we are in such a state of secure incumbent districts that there are just no competitive electoral races in our area. Maybe it is a strange combination of both.

Since Democrats have more reason to get to the polls and make a choice for governor, it would seem that the two measures on the ballot both stand a good chance of passage. Both advocate the Democrat axioms of more indebtedness and taxation.

The first initiative is Proposition 81. This bond measure is for library construction and renovation. It offers the promise of increased literacy in exchange for 1.2 billion dollars in taxpayer money. This measure assumes that brick and mortar libraries like those thirty years ago will be the same for the next thirty years. Do you really believe that the library of 1976 will be unchanged by the year 2036? Dream on!

The next measure (Proposition 82) is the universal pre-school initiative that will be paid for by the wealthiest Californians. This scheme is being projected to generate 2.1 billion dollars annually in an economic vacuum. It is called a voluntary program for all four year olds. Yeah, sure! Compulsory for taxpayers now, compulsory for children later.

There are two fallacies with this initiative. First, those paying the tax get no benefit from this confiscatory initiative. Those who are taxed would likely never turn their four year olds over to the State. Secondly, there is no proof that there is any lasting benefit to children by taking pre-school. In fact, a recent study done at UC Davis proved that any benefit that could be had from pre-school was gone by third grade. I’m not going to say that no children would benefit from pre-school but the expectations attached to this program are exaggerated.

One fault with this type of hype is that advocates of a measure can claim anything they want without repercussions because ballot arguments are not legally binding. They can be well intentioned or bald-faced liars and they are safe from any recriminations for their claims. In the final analysis, those supporting or opposing a measure are both unelected and unaccountable to the voters. Let the voters beware!

One of the stupidest songs ever recorded has to be Imagine by John Lenin. It is a ballad about the creatures finally ridding themselves of the implications of the Creator and setting up a “Worker’s Paradise” on earth.

Only people running from the Cross of Jesus Christ seem to relate to this song. Like the proverbial vampires with no soul doomed to live in eternal darkness, the fans of Imagine have a common bond of despair in this life and no hope of anything better in the life to come.

In the midst of the generation that gave us Imagine, is a shrill voice screaming for attention. A woman with no core values, only pompous words designed for the itching ears of her immediate audience. Yes, it’s the junior Senator from New York State, madam carpetbagger herself, Hillary Clinton.

Hillary, the woman who would be President in 2008, has tried to explain her humble path to a political life. According to an article in Newsday, Hillary had other ambitions but due to her lack of physical ability, intelligence and a hostile men’s world, she ended up going to law school to find her path in the world.

According to the Newsday account, Senator Clinton first imagined herself becoming an Olympic Athlete but she couldn’t run fast enough. Then she tried to visualize herself becoming an astronaut but NASA said they don’t take girls. Then she dreamed of the medical field but she got “woozy” at the sight of suffering (except for unborn children being dismembered on the altar of choice which is the blessed sacrament of Liberalism). Mrs. Clinton also pictured herself as a mathematician or a scientist but she didn’t have the grades. As a last result she opted for law school.

Now she gets to impose her version of Lenin’s utopia on the rest of us. She too will feel our pain because she will be the cause of it. Thus proving that Those who can work, those who can’t pass laws to get even.

While there is little hope that the majority of Republicans in Congress will see the light, there are signs that they are at least beginning to feel the heat. Some are at last beginning to act as if Hugh Hewitt’s warning in Painting the Map Red has been heard in the halls of power.

Following the return this week from the Easter Recess, the Senate has started to move several languishing judicial nominees to a vote and allocated more money for border security. Congress is trying to get more energy production under way and once again is looking to end the “Death Tax”.

Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that the GOP can turn things around. Their best advantage is the incompetence of the Democrats. As long as Democrats are motivated by hatred of President Bush and opposing every Republican idea without offering any of their own they are a doomed party. They have nothing to offer but fear itself. Doom and despair don’t win elections.

Republicans need to give their base an incentive to vote or many will just stay home this year. It looks like this reality is provoking some politicians to take action to energize the base. If Republicans would start acting like the majority party then they would make gains in this off year election.

Unfortunately, senators like McCain and the Northeastern liberal Republicans are the worst enemies of Republican victory in 2006. My hope is that if Republicans can do well enough this year, these Senators will no longer be able to hold the rest of their party hostage to their stupid socialist ideology.

Meanwhile, President Bush is making hopeful changes in the White House. The realities of illegal immigration are being brought to his attention. He seems to be getting closer to making borders more secure before implementing amnesty for illegals that are already here. His personnel changes in the White House seem like good moves.

The most discordant sign has been Republican efforts to try to blame oil companies for the high costs of gasoline instead of the Democrats for their obstructionist policies and idiotic environmental regulations.

Yesterday President Bush apologized to China’s President Hu Jintao for a three-minute outburst from a woman in the photo gallery calling for freedom from the Falun Gong religious sect in China.

Having lived through the shame of the Clinton administration and becoming a father a few years ago, I know that there are several different ways to parse the words “I’m sorry.” They range from “I’m sorry, please forgive me, it was all my fault” to “I’m only sorry that I got caught.”

I think the President meant I’m sorry for this breach of protocol. But I think Bush should have qualified the apology to say something about our nation being stronger for allowing differences of opinion. Suppose he said, “President Hu, we honor freedom of speech even when we might disagree with what is said. Unlike your government we won’t torture and kill this dissenter as a lesson to others.”

I think that President Bush missed a golden opportunity to call for
·  releasing religious and political prisoners
·  ceasing forced sterilization and abortion
·  stopping the harvesting of organs from prisoners for use in transplants
·  ending subsidies of Chinese currency to falsely prop-up their trade balance
·  halting the proliferation of arms to Iran, North Korea and other nations
·  suspending saber rattling and intimidation of Taiwan
·  lifting government restrictions on the Internet

The meeting with Hu seems like a wasted opportunity to reign-in the tyranny of the Chinese government.