Back to Basics

by BurtPrelutsky

A few years ago, the folks on Martha’s Vineyard, a favorite Massachusetts island getaway for New England liberals, were under siege by a wild turkey named Tom. Unlike most turkeys who can be scared off by waving your hands or shouting at them, Tom enjoyed nothing better than attacking people. Shouting and waving merely egged him on. Compounding the problem, Tom led a flock of like-minded birds. If you think of the Hells Angels, but with wattles and feathers, you’ve got the picture.

Tom would even terrorize people in cars, daring them to come out and face him man to turkey. If they chose to wait him out, he’d peck the paint off their doors.

One day, the folks who rented cribs and cradles to vacationing tourists couldn’t make a delivery because Tom was chasing them around their truck, trying to draw blood with one of his spurs. In a panic, they dumped the stuff in the front yard and drove off. When the cops were called, Tom attacked them. Four bullets later, Tom was dead.

Naturally, Martha’s Vineyard being a community of liberals, it was the cops who came in for tons of grief. These are, after all, the same folks who get their shorts in a knot when American soldiers shoot jihadists, so you can imagine their outrage over a turkey being whacked.

I am recalling this event not merely to amuse you at the expense of liberal chickens, although that would normally be motive enough. This time, I am leading up to a reason why I think it’s time we divided America. I mean, can you imagine a town in Oklahoma, Montana or Alaska, being held hostage by psychotic poultry? That bird would only have had to look cross-eyed at a Texan and his next appearance would have been on a dinner platter with a side of cranberries.

It only makes sense to divide the United States along political lines. I’m not saying it would be easy, but it’s pretty obvious that the nation is growing increasingly polarized with roughly half the population favoring a huge federal government that oversees everything from smoking to nutrition, while the other half believes that the federal government has gone from being a necessary evil with the emphasis on necessary to one that is increasingly evil.

As I see it, the entire Pacific coast, along with the Northeast, favors Obama and the Democrats. Unfortunately, those two areas are separated by about 2,500 miles. Therefore, I would suggest connecting those two parts of the country with, say, a 30 mile corridor south of the Canadian border that would run through parts of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. That America would include California, Washington, Oregon, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey. We conservatives would give up Hawaii in exchange for Alaska. You can see where that would make for an odd-looking country, but no odder than the congressional districts that have been gerrymandered by the Democrats here in California.

I’m not being capricious about dividing a nation that has already cost 600,000 American lives lost during the war that was waged to preserve the Union.

It was quite a sight. The Republican Governor of New Jersey strode into the cavernous legislative chamber in the Trenton statehouse, filled mostly with Democrats, and proceeded to receive one round of applause after another.

Chris Christie is rotund in a way that suggests you wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark ally. Before becoming Governor in 2011, as the U.S. District Attorney he had amassed an impressive record of putting bribe-taking legislators in jail, along with a long list of other criminals.

Moreover, he arrived on the scene to put an end to former Governor Jon Corzine’s fiscal destruction of the State; a feat he accomplished with MF Global, the investment firm that made headlines when it collapsed with unaccounted billions in “lost” customer funds.

New Jerseyeans were sick of governors who made promises they did not keep. From 1994 to 2001, Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican, had held the office until resigning to become President Bush’s director of the Environmental Protection Agency. She was quickly fired from the post.

She was followed by a series of interim governors until James E. McGreevey was elected in 2002. McGreevey, a Democrat, discovered he was a homosexual after his appointment of a boyfriend to a high paying state job was exposed. He resigned, was replaced by a congenial old “pol”, Richard Codey from 2004 to 2006, when Corzine was elected.

In the course of all this, New Jersey, thanks to massive mismanagement became a State famed for having the highest tax rates in the nation. People and businesses had began to flee, reducing its tax base. By fiscal year 2011, the State had a record deficit of $11 billion.

Gov. Christie literally taught a largely Democrat legislature conservative principles. He held town halls all over the State and became famous for his confrontational style. YouTube videos of his slap-downs were viewed by millions of people. They liked what they saw.

In his State of the State speech, delivered on Tuesday, January 17, you would think he was addressing a Republican legislature. He was interrupted with applause and got a standing ovation at the end of it.

“We had spent too much as a State. We had lived beyond our means. And, by trying to tax our way out of it, previous governors and legislators had left New Jersey in 50th place—dead last among the States—in the total tax burden it placed on our citizens. We had the highest tax rate in the nation, the highest unemployment rate in a quarter century, and the largest budget deficit per person of any State in the Union.”

How blunt is that? Little wonder he was talked of as a possible candidate for President in 2012. Gov. Christie decided to finish his first term and has since become a vocal supporter for Mitt Romney.

The real miracle was the way he worked with Democrats to turn the State’s fiscal problems around. “We cut 375 programs in that first fiscal year, saved two billion dollars for the taxpayers and brought Jon Corzine’s budget into balance.” Together, they cut spending in every department of State government.

Then, together, they put a cap on property taxes that had risen 70% in the decade that preceded his election. The legislature imposed a 2% cap on property tax increases.

Many’s the time I asked that of myself during his first two terms. We’re still living under the aftermath of goofy policies set in place by our boy Jerry. Aside from an early alliance with the public service unions and their constant demands for more for less, our then-Governor Brown cozied up to the environmentalists and curtailed water storage and dam building, guaranteeing the almost perpetual water shortages faced by parts of the state.

Jerry Brown also curtailed freeway construction, which has greatly contributed to the various traffic gridlocks here. But most of all, I remember him for his opposition to the death penalty and his soft ball approach to law enforcement and the penal system.

It may be argued that many of the infrastructure problems that we are faced with now had their birthing under Jerry ‘Moonbeam’ Brown. I remember that unemployment was high in the state and construction was slow. Our Mr Brown did nothing to alleviate the job situation in the state, but did preside over the beginning of the exodus of business from the state by his insatiable appetite for regulation and taxation.

It is a trend which has continued to this very day and the economic debris-field you see before you, in this once most prosperous state in the union, is mute testimony to what awaits other states who are unwilling to face the new economic reality.

California is on the verge of, if not in fact, bankruptcy in all but name. Traditionally, as California goes, so goes the nation. I really hope not. For all you non-Californians out there, I wouldn’t wish this collection of nuts and fruitcakes on anyone else. It’s sad enough as it is, to watch the idiot shenanigans that pass for a legislative assembly here. Out of touch? Well, yeah. Just ask people all over this state who still can’t find jobs, or the ones whose companies are closing or moving away to friendlier states.

The exodus of jobs from the state that was presided over by Brown is still there, only now it’s a torrent. I don’t believe for one minute that Jerry Brown has any sort of an idea how to pull this state out of the depression it’s in. Now, Jerry has to pay the piper from the one group whose money got him elected in the face of a huge money challenge by Meg Whitman. Jerry long ago sold his political soul to the service unions. He’s their guy.

It’s the same unions that are going to be the objects of Jerry’s chopping block, because the citizens of California will rise up against his proposed tax increases in a special election to be held in June. Then, he may be forced to go to genuine deep cuts in agencies and departments, and cut the plethora of regulatory agencies that are choking the life out of business and product development in the state. Don’t look for him to to tackle the entitlement issue… I don’t think he has the courage for it. Not if he wants the unions to keep him in power, that is.

But don’t count on it. California will continue to be a foreign land for Conservative Republicans and business a while yet.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2011

For the past three nights, the city of Los Angeles has been terrorized by immigrants (illegal?) who are not pleased with the fact that lethal justice was dished out to a drunken Guatemalan who threatened a police officer with an already-bloodied knife.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, in part:

“Tensions flared Monday in the immigrant neighborhood of Westlake as dozens of protesters and Los Angeles police faced off at the site where a day laborer was fatally shot by police a day earlier.

“The angry crowd gathered at 6th Street and Union Avenue, a bustling corner where Los Angeles Police Department officers said they were confronted Sunday by a knife-wielding man who refused commands to drop his weapon.

“The protesters, claiming the man was unarmed, used a bullhorn to shout in Spanish —
“Assassination!” “Assassination!” and “We want justice!” — as they marched along 6th to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart station. Onlookers watched from their apartment windows, while others joined the procession as LAPD officers monitored the action from nearby corners and adjacent streets.

“At one point, police in riot gear faced off with a shouting throng near a series of memorials hung from a fence by the sidewalk where the man was killed on 6th Street. He was identified by friends as Manuel Jamines, 37, a Guatemalan immigrant who came to Los Angeles seven years ago.

“He was not a criminal,” said Juan Velasquez, who said he is from the same village as Jamines.”

Of course, the words of Juan Velasquez are to be taken as gospel truth. Indeed, the fact that Velasquez asserted that his pal was not a criminal should be sufficient to cause the arrest and prosecution of the killer cop.

The sort of irrational nonsense propagated by Velasquez can be blamed on the citizenry of Los Angeles who elected Antonio Villaraigosa.

Villaraigosa is an unapologetic advocate of Sanctuary City status which panders and bows to illegal aliens at the expense of American citizens.

Villaraigosa’s only attribute is that he is not bright enough to pass the California bar, sparing California the grief of another knot-headed, racist attorney!

In truth, Antonio Villaraigosa is more concerned about aiding and abetting illegal immigration than ending the invasion of criminals.

Want to clean-up Los Angeles?

CALIFORNIA

The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps out, bites the Governor and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie “Bambi” and then realizes he should stop; the coyote is only doing what is natural.

2. He calls animal control. Animal Control captures coyote and bills the State $2000 testing it for diseases and $5000 for relocating it.

3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $2500 testing it for diseases.

4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends $35,000 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

5. The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $1,000,000 survey to make sure the area is free of dangerous animals.

6. The Governor spends $500,000 in state funds implementing a “Coyote Awareness” program for residents of the area.

7. The State Legislature spends $20 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

8. The Governor’s security agent is fired for not stopping the attack somehow and for letting the Governor attempt to intervene.

9. Additional cost to State of California: $125,000 to hire and train a new security agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.

10. PETA protests the coyote’s relocation and files suit against the State.

ARIZONA

The Governor of Arizona is jogging with her dog along a nature trail. A Coyote jumps out and attacks her dog.

1. The Governor shoots the coyote with her State-issued pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $0.35 on a .380 hollow point cartridge.

2. The Buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that’s why California is broke.