Back to Basics

When The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and all other media in America begin to devote lots of space and time to the subject of bed bugs, you know America has a real pest problem.

Uniquely, I know a lot of pest control professionals because I have worked closely with the industry for a quarter century providing public relations services.

So let me say that I have the ANSWER to the nation’s plague of bed bugs.

It’s called PESTICIDES.

Not just any pesticides, but specifically the ones that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has successfully banned or forced pesticide manufacturers to stop registering or manufacturing because of the cost involved.

The truth you will never read elsewhere is that there are pesticides that will rid the nation of this massive bed bug population explosion and they will do so rapidly. Can you imagine an end to the current bed bug infestations just about everywhere in say, a month?

The problem is that the pesticides I have in mind are not available because the EPA has removed them from use by either pest control professionals or consumers. Meanwhile, pest control professionals are doing everything they can with the methods available to them, all the time being called unreliable or worse. The options they have at their disposal are few and usually expensive.

Finally, California shows some sense. Lawmakers trashed an onerous, ill-timed, empty-gesture plastic bag ban pushed by radical greens this week:

California lawmakers have rejected a bill seeking to ban plastic shopping bags after a contentious debate over whether the state was going too far in trying to regulate personal choice.

The Democratic bill, which failed late Tuesday, would have been the first statewide ban, although a few California cities already prohibit their use.

…The bill, AB1998, called for the ban to take effect in supermarkets and large retail stores in 2012. It would have applied to smaller stores in 2013.

Republicans and some Democrats opposed it, saying it would add an extra burden on consumers and businesses at a time when many already are struggling financially.

…The Senate took final action at the very end of the legislative session, reflecting how difficult it had been to muster support. The bill received just 14 votes in the Senate, seven short of the majority it needed.

The inconvenient truth is that the eco-propaganda about plastic bag perils is so much hype. Don’t take it from me. Take it from environmental scientists themselves:

“The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence,” said Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science. “This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”

Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, the Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.

Not only did a lot of people show up at the Lincoln Memorial and around the reflecting pool on Saturday, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s famed “I have a dream speech”, but the mainstream media drew criticism for reporting the obvious. They were mostly white.

Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention in the weeks leading up to the event, but I assumed Glenn Beck was going to use the platform to call attention to the key issues with which the nation is struggling and which will influence the outcome of the forthcoming November midterm elections. Obviously I was wrong.

I have been to an evangelical tent meeting. I actually met the late Oral Roberts long ago in Columbus, Georgia where he invited me to attend. I can still recall the fervor of that evening and I was reminded of it while watching Beck.

There was a lot of talk of God, but I don’t recall that Dr. King, a preacher of astonishing power, was preaching Christ Jesus that day forty-seven years ago. King focused on the problem that had been troubling the soul of America since the days of the Revolution, the days of the Civil War, the Reconstruction, and the hundred years that had passed since then.

I knew what Dr. King was talking about. I had spent enough years in the South to know what it was like to see Whites Only drinking fountains, a separate room at the bus station where blacks had to wait, and all the other wretched reminders of Jim Crow. In time I even met Dr. King after he gave a speech at Drew University in New Jersey.

I was covering the event as a freelance journalist for a black newspaper and Dr. King was greatly amused that the newspaper didn’t mind a bit that a white reporter would write the story. Being cheeky, I told him that greenbacks can be spent by white and black alike. He laughed, we shook hands, and he moved into history.

I am sure that Glenn Beck is sincere about his faith, but I can understand why even a charlatan like Rev. Al Sharpton was unhappy that the day and the place had been usurped by a wannabe preacher who was a television personality.

Remember the “Misery Index?”

If, like me, you are a “child of the 70’s and 80’s,” then you probably have some acquaintance with the term.

Yet we don’t hear much about the Misery Index anymore. And given all that is and is not happening economically in our country right now, it seems like an appropriate time to bring back the index, although we’ll need to amend it just a bit.

Let me explain.

Back in 2009 when my co-author and I were doing research for our new book “The Virtues Of Capitalism,” I came across some background information about the Misery Index. We ultimately decided not to include it in the book (it is a bit “off topic” from what we were writing), but what I read about it did nonetheless get me thinking.

Many Americans, if they’re familiar with the index at all, are quick to associate it with President Jimmy Carter. This is because President Carter, in some strange ways, “popularized” the Misery Index, or at least got people in the habit of thinking about it and referencing it. This increased familiarity with the Misery Index ultimately ended-up hurting Carter politically (I’ll explain that in a bit), and as a result, Carter’s name has become synonymous with the Misery Index in the minds of some.

However, the Misery Index actually predates the “Carter era” by several years, as it was first proffered by American economist Arthur Okun earlier last century (Okun died eight months before Carter was elected President). Eventually, during Okun’s lifetime, the index was utilized to evaluate various period in U.S. and world history.

Hasbara or Pro-Israel PR has become the great obsession of Pro-Israel activists and the Israeli government. One article calls for Israel to spend as much effort on communicating its message, as it does on its defense budget. Another castigates the many failures of Israeli diplomats in getting their message across. Still another features Frank Luntz who has been brought to tell Israeli leaders that they need to use kinder and gentler language to win the debate. Stop saying “security” and start saying “protecting innocent life”, and everything will be well. Except of course it won’t. Because the problem is not in the message, it’s in the reality.

No doubt Israel’s PR could use some work. Like most Western countries, Israel’s diplomatic corps consists  of incompetents who are there as a political favor, and left wingers who are good at what they do, but hate their own country and sympathize with the enemy. Like most Western democracies confronting terrorist groups, it also suffers from allowing a plurality of opinions, which means there will be no shortage of Israeli politicians, activists and reporters who actively work on behalf of the terrorists. On top of that the personality of the average Israeli has much in common with that of the average New Yorker, while the terrorists have no shortage of Marxist academics educated abroad who know exactly how to talk to European diplomats and reporters.

But none of this is really the point, because Hasbara is not really the point. Israel is not suffering from a communications problem. It isn’t losing the debate because it can’t get around to explaining that terrorism is wrong. It’s losing the debate because the media and Western governments don’t agree that terrorism is wrong. They don’t agree that Israelis shouldn’t be under fire or that terrorists shouldn’t be rewarded for killing people. The terrorists aren’t scoring points because isn’t communicating its message. The terrorists are scoring points because their core audience in Europe and in some cases America, agrees with their message.

Israel has repeatedly shot itself in the foot PR wise, but no more so than most of the countries it’s trying to convey its message to, have. Because the PR really doesn’t matter that much. Whether or not people take Israel’s side or that of the Muslim terrorists has little to do with the PR, and a lot to do with their politics, their view of Jews and Muslims, and the legitimacy of terrorism.

That is why most Americans continue to support Israel, even when confronted with a barrage of negative media coverage. It is why sizable numbers of Europeans dislike Israel. European media coverage is more overtly hostile to Israel, and supportive of terrorists– but not by nearly enough to explain the difference.

A poll that shows Europeans rank Israel as the biggest threat to world peace, has to be tied in with polls which show Europeans blame Jews for the economic crisis, and a range of other things. Which is to say that negative views of Israel are likely to emerge from a negative view of Jews, either due to conventional bigotry or political bigotry on the right or the left. That is the same reason why American media coverage of Israel is at odds with the general attitude of Americans toward Israel. The American media skews to the left. The same left which dislikes the military, and has longstanding issues regarding Jewish identity as well. Which is to say talk of better Hasbara is all well and good, but all it means is learning to do a better job of arguing with bigots.

The numbers on Israel have less to do with PR, and more to do with innate attitudes by religious and political groups. Americans and Europeans who are more conservative are more likely to be pro-Israel. But they’re also more likely to be supportive of countries fighting terrorism in general. The picture skews inversely when it comes to the left. The radicalization of liberalism, means that there is much less support among liberals for Israel, not so much because Israel has changed, but because what used to be the hard left is now mainstream liberalism.

Europe did not become hostile to Israel somewhere around 1967 or 1981. It was always hostile to Israel. One only needs to read H.G. Wells or George Bernard Shaw’s comments about Israel and the Jews to see that, long before the modern state even existed. And American liberals were traditionally more supportive of Israel than their European counterparts, because they were less likely to be bigots, less likely to be anti-religious– and less likely to be knee jerk anti-military. Two out of three of those factors have changed dramatically. The third is wavering. And this is what accounts for the growing antipathy among liberals for Israel. As American liberals become more like their European counterparts, that translates into hostility toward Israel.

In Europe some liberals like Nick Cohen try to calmly and reasonably explain the situation, only to receive a round of namecalling in return. That is because you can’t argue with people’s prejudices. Cohen warns the left about the dangers of Islamism, communicates a rational and concise view of the position that Israel finds itself in– and receives exactly the responses at the Observer, that he would have received in Der Sturmer in 1939 trying to explain that Jews really didn’t cause the Great War. And very few Israeli spokesmen or activists are going to be able to communicate half as well as Cohen does.

“If there is no battle and millions of Americans cowardly head for safer areas such as Montana or South Dakota, you will watch cities in the United States transform into poverty, misery, gangs, drugs, lawlessness and unending masses of Third World poor. Think Bombay, Calcutta and Mexico City within the United States. In fact, think of Detroit, Miami, Chicago and Los Angeles today.”
—Frosty Wooldridge

Martin in Montana said, “I moved to Montana, but I am by no means a coward. After twenty years in Colorado we moved to Montana because I learned that you cannot make a difference in globalist Colorado courts. The governor and mayors have sold out to resettling Colorado with illegal criminal Mexican invaders. Right before my eyes I watched education, wages and the standard of living start moving to third world status.

“Most Americans no longer read or research history. Most are deeply in debt. What waking free moments they have are spent in front of the tube, sports or the movies. The only thing that will wake Americans up is a devastating attack on American soil or a collapse of the usury economy. Either event will lay the foundation for internal conflict. Once the food and water riots start our lives will be forever changed. Go visit the largest gun show in Denver some time. Then look around and remember what you see. Ninety percent of the attendees are of what race? They are getting prepared.”

Anybody out there see the hundreds of Mexican flags being waved in the streets of Chicago during the illegal alien immigration marches? Did you see the 100,000 plus illegal aliens demanding their rights? Did you understand that, according to Time Magazine, one to three million more illegal aliens import themselves into America annually? Does that reality send a chill up your spine? Do you understand that your country’s invasion races inward faster than a tsunami?

Have all my columns over the last five years connecting the dots been in vain? Is no one stitching together an understanding of the unraveling of America? What does it take for an entire nation to wake up? What are we waiting for? How many will stand by in ‘silent-assertion’ until we will not be able to stop the destruction of our own country?

If your Congress passes a guest worker/amnesty program, it will be the final death blow to America. It will be our last breath. It will flood us with millions more Third World Mexicans and others from poor countries. We won’t die immediately, but much like what happened in Paris, France, that too, will be our destiny. It’s going to get ugly and then, uglier.

Thousands of letters pour into my computer monthly illustrating the disintegration of hospitals, schools, language, laws, infrastructure and diseases being brought in by illegal immigrants. You think I’m kidding?

Marguerite of Nebraska said, “You’ve hit the nail square on top of its head. I would add I feel terrified by what I’m seeing, reading and watching take place. Being “afraid” is a long ago feeling, and at this point in time, terror would more aptly describe how I feel, and more than that—-fury tops the list. It couldn’t be more obvious we are currently on the tip of horrific things to come, NAFTA, CAFTA…and all their other plans can only mean things will soon get worse. Much, much worse! Where I live, Ord, Nebraska, the folks think the war in Iraq is great, but say the president couldn’t be farther from a Christian than a pig to a rooster!”

Edward of Silver Springs, Maryland wrote, “We are in deep trouble and it is just awful to watch people stand around like it isn’t happening. I live right outside of Washington, D.C. and I don’t have to go to Los Angles. It is happening right here in real time. Last year a man had his hand whacked off by machete and four other people had their throats slashed in one week. They have an open air drinking and crash pad area they have taken over in the parking lot of “Toys ‘R’ Us”. The cops don’t even go there anymore. Why bother? This is a foreign country in Montgomery County, Maryland. It looks horrible painted up like a disaster zone in Haiti or Mexico City. We just gave up on these areas! You don’t want to go in there because they hate white people.”

Sheron of West Palm Beach, Florida said, “As a person that lives in a neighborhood that has been overrun with illegal aliens, I can say that our country has slid down the tubes. One person from Mexico moves to America—they buy homes with the help of Uncle Sam, then they rent their places out to 20 or more people at $500.00 a piece. They snub their noses at our laws by driving with no insurance, something no American is allowed to do and yet they don’t get caught until they have an accident that unfortunately the other person has to pay for because they are uninsured! For those out there that think this isn’t their problem, our taxes pay for most of the homes that house illegal aliens. Our streets aren’t safe anymore because they feel that they aren’t governed by our laws because they aren’t citizens. I feel sad for our tired old America. When I think of where our country is going I am terrified for all the young people who have to try and survive in this mess that our generation has created.”

Bob in Kanab, Utah said, “You probably never heard of Kanab, Utah. Small town in the middle of nowhere! An island in a sea of “Federal Land”! Gateway to the Grand Escalante Staircase Monument! We are fighting for our very existence as a people. If we are going to get anything done to turn this mess around, let it start here. If you could take some time to look at this site. It is put up by the other side. But they have the time and money to do this type of stuff. We are just a small town trying to fight back.”

Jason of Memphis, Tennessee said, “I hope you are waking up those Americans who are still in a mental fog when it comes to immigration. Most don’t care. This illegal immigration fiasco isn’t just an American southwest problem; it’s a problem everywhere now. That illegal immigrant protest march in Chicago last week was only the tip of the iceberg. The reason Bush and the government are turning the other way regarding immigration is because it’s all in the name of globalism. But anyone with any sense knows all Obama says is 100% cow dung.

I believe America has already run its course and nothing will ever be done about this issue. It will only get worse. If this were happening 50 years ago, there’s no doubt that American citizens would have done something about it. The small minority of Americans who can see through all this mess and know exactly what is going on are either labeled racist or mentally ill. If the American people don’t wake up soon, they are going to be shocked at the condition of their country in 15 years. I think the US is in dire need of a third party real soon, before it’s too late. We need a third party candidate to run in 2010.”

© 2010 Frosty Wooldridge

During the 2008 election, the media sold Obama on two key points, repairing the economy, and bringing new focus and ideas into the war in Afghanistan. As the summer of 2010 fades, it’s painfully clear that Obama has failed completely in both areas.

Obama has come out on the wrong side of the economy. His administration’s economic policies are based on the insane notion that the private sector needs to be taxed more in order to fund more government spending. When it’s only private sector capitalism that has a shot at reviving the economy, not government spending. The Democrats mistook their own “tax and spend” rhetoric for reality, tripling the national debt, while ramming through smoking heaps of pork for themselves and their buddies. And so the economy is a disaster area, the public is angry, and the only answer the Democrats have for them is more of the same. But more of the same just won’t cut it.

The Democrats want to keep pushing the message that the problem with the economy is that the rich don’t pay enough taxes. But that’s not the problem with the economy, that’s the problem with their spending bills. America isn’t suffering from economic problems because the people who actually make money aren’t forwarding it fast enough to Washington D.C. That’s the problem that Washington D.C. politicians are suffering from. And they’re not suffering very hard from it, because their approach is to just spend the money anyway, and turn it into debt for the next generation.

And the argument by Dem pols that the people who actually stimulate the economy need to send them more money, so they can spend it faster, isn’t resonating too well with the general public. Americans may not be big fans of big banks, but they’re not fans of big pols either– and they know by now that it’s the pols and the banks who joined hands in the bailout at their expense. Everything else is just theater. After multiple bailouts, the Democrats want to turn around and bash the same banks and companies they bailed out. And that plays about as well as two criminals turning on each other in police custody. “He was the one behind it!” “No it was all his idea.”

Running on the bizarre crypto-economics of Enron advisor and liberal financial court jester Paul Krugman, the Obama Administration and the Democratic congress acted as if the mere act of government spending alone would revive the economy. The more the better. And it’s hard to understand whether they actually believed this insanity, or were just pretending so they could spend unlimited amounts of money and possibly bankrupt America permanently in the bargain, ending economic freedom for good. After decades of mocking “Trickle Down Economics” and any notion that in hard times, it’s the government that should cut back, they got the chance to put their economic policies into action and the state of the nation’s economy is a disaster.

While the public was growing increasingly frustrated, the Democrats began ramming through more social services spending that they had no way of paying for. By acting like it was the depression all over again, they helped turn it into a depression. By selectively bailing out some companies, they rewarded failure and cronyism. And by building up the bureaucracy, they pushed states and small businesses deeper into debt, and entangled them in more layers of government bureaucracy and mandatory spending. Which is exactly the thing you don’t do, if you don’t want to destroy the economy.

By putting the boot down, state governments were forced to lash out at public sector unions. New Jersey Governor Christie became a national celebrity just by taking on teacher’s unions. Democrats in conservative quickly scrambled to follow suit. Suddenly public worker pensions and compensation plans became a talking point. Those swollen salaries and compensation packages were red meat to be tossed to the public. And it turned out that the public even in Blue States was much more outraged about public employees pulling in six figure salaries, or getting paid for doing nothing, than they were about CEO salaries. It’s not the way things were supposed to work in the liberal handbook, where it was enough to point Michael Moore’s camera at a corporate CEO’s golden parachute, and watch them be torn apart by the lions. But it’s the way things work in real life, where people are outraged about their mandatory taxes, than about corporate compensation programs– unless those compensation programs are paid for with their mandatory tax dollars.

Now the unions have turned on the Democrats, and are warning that they won’t bother turning out for mid-term elections. Yet do they really believe that after ObamaCare’s giveaway to SEIU helped nuke Obama’s popularity, that Barry and this even more unpopular congress are going to be taking any more bullets for unions? But unions have been a core part of the Democratic strategy. Federal funding flowing to states and their public sector unions, has meant that taxpayer have essentially been spending untold billions on an election machine for the Democratic party. ObamaCare was supposed to be the next phase, dismantling private health care and turning it all into one big union shop. This would be a model for taking over any vulnerable industry, and turning it into a public utility. Socialism feeding an endless money tap flowing to Democratic politicians through compulsory donations from workers with no say in the matter, thanks to Card Check.

But ObamaCare wasn’t everything the SEIU wanted, and its front row thuggish presence in protest suppression helped bring the ugly connection between the Democrats and corrupt union thugs into the living rooms of millions of Americans. Obama has assured the AFL-CIO that he’ll keep on fighting for Card Check, but who exactly is playing whom here? Card Check at this point is the last thing the Democrats need, particularly those congressmen who are already on the edge in conservatives states. Card Check has limited popularity even within the party. And unions are now about as popular with the general public as cholera on the Orient Express. So either Obama is running on a full tank of delusional, and will continue his policy of trying to ram through the left’s agenda at any political cost, or he’s lying to union bosses. Either way if it happens, Senator Brown will get a chance to burnish his Republican credentials a little. But either way, the show will only deepen the convictions of independent voters that the incumbents need to go. Fast and hard.

The Democrats call their $26 billion, Big Labor/bankrupt states’ bailout legislation the “EduJobs” bill.

Let’s inject some truth in advertising.

The “EduJobs” bill is nothing but a BigGovJobs bill — a massive election season pay-off to Democrat special interests. With your money.

I noted last week that Nancy Pelosi is summoning her minions back to Washington for a special session to rush the Senate-approved legislation into President Obama’s hands (the House had approved an earlier version of the bill). As with so many other political wealth redistribution schemes peddled by the ruling majority and championed by the White House, this one comes wrapped in endless, specific-seeming promises of salvation (it will save “3,000″ in Washington state, “5,000 slots” in Illinois, and “4,200″ in Michigan).

But like porkulus math, BigGovJobs math ain’t all it’s cracked up to be:

“This is potentially great news, because in these economic times we can use some bridge to get us through,” said Lisa Freiburger, chief of operations for Grand Rapids Public Schools. “But we also have some huge questions.”

The bill cleared the Senate on a 61-39 vote, and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has indicated she plans to call representatives back from their August break to vote on the bill, which President Obama is expected to sign.

Well, hallelujah, after FIVE turncoat Senate Republican RINOs voted to approve the inexperienced, highly un-American ethics liberal Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, they also approved $600 million for Border Security.

The controlling liberal Democrats, who are destined to destroy our country, hit two grand slams yesterday with the two actions cited above.  Of course they couldn’t do it without some help from some very sorry species of Republicans called RINOs.  (You all know that RINO means; Republican In Name Only.)

And even before I name these traitors who will not do as their voters back home elected them to do, I would bet that most of you could name them.  But seeing that there are more than five RINOs in the Senate (possibly as many as a dozen) I will give you the names of this current batch who sided with the socialist-communist liberal Democrats.

The most consistently RINO culprits such as the pair from Maine, Collins and Snowe were of course there for the Dems as were ‘Whimsy’ Graham of SC; ‘TrickyDicky’ Lugar of IN; and ‘Judas’ Gregg of NH, the last of which is the traitor who rock-ribbed conservatives of my state of New Hampshire elected to the Senate in the long tradition of sending wise and frugal people to the upper body of Congress.

How these RINOs can turn their backs on the people who sent them there mystifies me; it must run in the blood as it happened before when NH sent ‘Scooter’ Soutar to the Supreme Court thinking he was a conservative but who scooted over to and sidled up with the slippery liberals once he was seated.

It is probably better that Gregg is not running for reelection as he will be saved from the embarrassment of NH rejecting him this time.

But that was only half of the damage that the liberal Dems thrust on our once mighty nation.  They pretended to be concerned about our Border Security when they approved $600 million for Border Security.  I say ‘pretended to be concerned’ because if they were really concerned they would approve a much larger amount.