The Tea Party Express is Returning to Wisconsin!

Your diligent Peasant just received word that the Tea Party
Express is returning for another visit to the Badger State! In
the first week of August, just before the recall elections on
nine state senators (three Democrats, six Republicans), the
Express is coming to visit my home state again to help rally
support for the six GOP senators who are targeted for recall
by radical union activists and assorted other left-wing pests
who just cannot stand the thought of the people having a say
in matters of governance, election results be damned. We are
recalling three of the Democrat state senators who have done
their worst to derail Gov. Scott Walker's budget reform bill,
even going so far as to flee the state to attempt to prevent a
quorum of senators to vote on the measure.

Wisconsin has become "ground zero" in the war between the
hard-working, taxpaying people with their fiscal conservative
allies in public office and greedy union bosses with their allied
troublemakers on the left side of the political spectrum.. The
six Republican state senators who are being forced to run
again for their senate seats just after being elected (or re-
elected) in November are targeted by these bullies simply
because they want to serve the workaday, taxpaying, already
overtaxed citizens --- the very people who elected them for
that reason in the first place. Heaven forbid that the peasants
should have a voice in how their government operates! But
if we lose even a few of these recall elections then the results
of the watershed election of last fall will be erased, and the gains
which we have made in Madison will be taken away, likely
for a very long time.

Remember, what happens here in Wisconsin will set the tone
for the rest of the country. If we falter here, the ramifications
for the other states will be grim. We MUST get our fiscal
houses in order, not just in Washington but in each and every
state! ALL of us must make tough decisions; everyone must
make sacrifices. Taxpayers have been told "you must sacrifice
for the government" for too blasted long! Now, government
must sacrifice. Public and private union members must sacrifice.
Supporters of whatever pet programs must sacrifice. WE
CANNOT GO ON SPENDING OURSELVES INTO
OBLIVION!!!!

My fellow Wisconsinites who, like me, care about our state
and its --- our --- well-being, come on out and attend one of
the rallies on the Tea Party Express' "Reclaiming Common Sense"
Tour Route! Here is the schedule:


FRIDAY, AUGUST 5
12 noon - 1:30 PM
Rally in Hudson, WI
Location: Lakefront Park Bandshell
First Street
Hudson, WI

5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Rally in La Crosse, WI
Location: Copeland Park Oktoberfest Shelter
1130 Copeland Park Dr.
La Crosse, WI

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6
2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Rally in Kenosha, WI
(More information to come)

5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Rally in Milwaukee, WI
(More information to come)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 7
11:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Rally in Fond du Lac, WI
Location: Village Park

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Rally in New London, WI
Location: Crystal Falls Banquet Facility
1500 Handschke Dr.
New London, WI

6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Rally in Merrill, WI
(More information to come)

MONDAY, AUGUST 8
12 noon - 1:30 PM
Rally in Rhinelander, WI
(More information to come)

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Rally in DePere, WI
Location: Legends Brewhouse & Eatery
875 Heritage Rd.
De Pere, WI


As I get more information as to locations for those rallies
which do not, at this time, have established locations I of
course shall post them in a subsequent posting. Meanwhile,
if you have any questions regarding the tour please visit the
Tea Party Express Website: http://www.teapartyexpress.com/
and follow the instructions given there to pose your questions
to their helpful staff.

Your favorite Peasant plans to be at the Milwaukee rally!
Come on out and join me! As an attendee of two previous
Tea Party Express rallies, I assure you, my wonderful
readers, that you'll have the time of your lives meeting fellow
patriotic Americans and enjoying great live entertainment,
as well as hearing inspiring talks that will fuel your zeal in
our quest to reclaim our country's government at all levels
from the greedy elitist pigs and their pals who have been
using government as a tool to confiscate our money and
rob us of our freedoms which are guaranteed us in our
Constitution! Let's show the left-wingers what democracy
REALLY looks like!

See you there!


MEM

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The Republicans Show Some Spine!

Great news, my fantastic readers! With the brouhaha over
the U.S. debt ceiling raging, House Speaker John Boehner
and the Republicans in both the House and the Senate are
standing firm against President Obama and the Democrats
over whether to raise the debt limit and accompanying con-
ditions for raising it. The situation is thus:

The government fiscal clock is ticking toward the date for
resolution or default on the debt boundary; that date is
August 2. If there is no agreement by the White House
and Congress as to a resolution concerning the debt
mark, then Washington's meeting its financial obligations,
which include outstanding loans, entitlement programs,
and such will be delayed. This will cause international
financial uproar, along with a reduction in our country's
credit rating, which is currently AAA. If the U.S. credit
rating is downgraded it will make borrowing more money
from other countries more difficult as well as expensive,
thanks to a higher rate of interest; credit will become
less available and more expensive for domestic borrowers
as well. Businesses will have less access to vital funds
to expand their operations. Families will have similar
difficulty acquiring education loans to fund their children's
college education. Mortgages will become harder to
arrange for home buyers.

The Tea Party activists have advocated a program termed
"Cut, Cap and Balance", which would do three things to
start us on the way back to responsible fiscal policies and
resultant sound fiscal health. They are as follows:

1) Cut --- This bill calls for discretionary and mandatory
spending reductions in FY2012 by cutting next year's
projected $3.6 billion in expenditures by $111 billion.

2) Cap --- The legislation places caps on spending over
the decade to come from 24.1% of the U.S. economy
this year, 22.5% in 2012, to 19.9% in 2021. Overstep-
ping a cap would result in an automatic cut in spending.
Social Security, Medicare, Veterans, current military
personnel, and interest due on the debt would be exempt.

3) Balance --- The measure mandates that Congress
pass a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution
and send it to the states for ratification before the Presi-
dent's request for a debt limit increase is granted.

President Obama and the Democrats have been doing their
nefarious best to scare the populace into going along with
their proposal for dealing with this dilemma, which is
raising the debt ceiling, accompanying it with higher taxes
coupled with spending cuts. On examination, the cuts
would amount to mere shavings rather than real savings;
they would be superficial. And don't forget, this president
has never retreated from prodigious spending throughout
his presidency thus far! As for taxation, same deal:
the more the merrier! Obama laughingly calls his plan a
"balanced approach". Boehner correctly calls Obama's
plan a "blank check", stating that it "isn't going to happen."

So the President blames the Republicans for being unwilling
to compromise. The truth is, House Speaker Boehner,
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the GOP
members in both chambers have sent President Obama a
compromise plan that, while not as strong as "Cut, Cap and
Balance", would still begin the badly needed fiscal healing
that we need --- without any tax increases, only to have it
thrown back in their faces by a stubborn and truculent
Obama. So today the House voted on Speaker Boehner's
latest compromise (a second compromise by the GOP, by
the way; they now lead Obama & Company 2-0 on that
score), a plan calling for a two-step increase in the debt
ceiling coupled with some spending cuts which will not be
as much as fiscal hawks hope for. As your favorite Peasant
types this piece, the resulting vote has not yet been
announced. Meanwhile, Speaker Boehner is being perceived
by political observers on Capitol Hill and from around the
country as being in a position of strength, while President
Obama is looking weak and vulnerable. Even some of his
fellow Democrats in Washington are frustrated with his
stubborn refusal to embrace what even they see, to their
credit, reasonable ideas for ending the debt ceiling impasse.
And the American people are clamoring all the more for such
a settlement, one that won't demand more "sacrifice" from
them, as Obama terms it, in the form of increased taxes
to pay.

Your optimistic Peasant proclaims that President Obama
has painted himself into a corner over the debt ceiling show-
down, with his unrelenting insistence on taking even more
money out of our pockets to pay for a bloated government
which he has made even more bloated than it had been before.
The country is starting to see just who is serious about fixing
our economy and who wants to milk it --- and us --- in the
name of political gamesmanship and lust for power. And isn't 
it wonderful to see the previously milquetoast congressional
Republicans confront the Democrats a steel spine and fierce
resolve? And none to soon, I can tell you!

I can't wait for the 2012 elections. How about you?


MEM

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• Boehner Plan Back to the Drawing Board (minx.cc)

No Respite for a Traitor

A Vietnam War-era figure is back in the news this week.
No, it's not an aging bomb-thrower on the run from the
law, nor is it some old gray hippie rocker; the figure of
record here is actress, activist, and Viet Cong comrade
Jane Fonda.

Now in her 70s, the daughter of the late actor Henry Fonda
re-emerged in the news for having had an invitation from the
cable TV shopping network QVC yanked away in the face
of Vietnam Veterans and other Americans complaining about
her being scheduled by QVC to promote her new book, about
making one's later years more fulfilling and enjoyable. This is
something that many, many of our military people who died in
the Vietnam War, some of them in the North Vietnamese
POW camps (contrary to Fonda's claims that no American
prisoners in those camps were mistreated in any way), have
been brutally denied them. The vets and sympathetic citizens
were all set to boycott QVC over Fonda's appearance; indeed,
many Americans (your faithful Peasant being one) to this day
boycott her movies, her books, and all else that she makes,
sells, or endorses.

And why shouldn't we? In a time of war "Hanoi Jane" openly
sided with the enemy, communist-ruled North Vietnam. She
spoke out against our efforts to keep South Vietnam out of
the North's grasp in speeches on college campuses; she infa-
mously proclaimed while speaking at Michigan State University
that if we understood what communism was that we would pray
to be communist. Henry's wayward girl went to North Vietnam
to give succor to the Viet Cong and the communist regime there;
many of us still remember the photo taken of her seated upon an
anti-aircraft gun. Fonda in later years apologized for that snapshot,
but has defiantly defended the rest of her antics from that era,
which included denouncing our military leaders as "war criminals".
and also made several propaganda broadcasts from
North Vietnam to erode our troops' morale.

And she never was brought to trial, let alone punished, for her
crimes against our country. Moreover, she is still living the life
of a wealthy movie star in California, living "La Dolce Vida".
All this makes many Americans' blood boil from the gross
injustice of it all! While we Americans can, and do, respect
the rights of people to express themselves, including stating
opinions which many of us vehemently disagree with, we will
not --- shall not --- countenance a traitor going unpunished
and prospering from our way of life, who had denigrated the
many who sacrificed so much to protect that very way of life!
And now Hanoi's Honey is railing against QVC for listening
to and respecting the concerns of outraged Americans:
"I am ... deeply disappointed that QVC caved to this insane
pressure by some well-funded and organized political
extremist groups."

No, Jane, QVC respected the Vietnam War veterans and
the patriotic, everyday Americans who don't want to have
an unrepentant, spiteful, self-righteous traitor shoved down
their throats. Your tantrum and your fantasies cannot
obscure this truth.


MEM

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Obama's Empire of Debt

Recently Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts Governor
and Republican presidential hopeful, recently made
an eye-opening statement while addressing a roundtable
of small business owners in New Hampshire. Romney
informer those gathered that "... (Obama) is on track to
have added so much debt to this country, that by the end
of his first term, he will have added as much debt as all
the prior presidents of this country combined." Now,
President Obama has been busy slinging the red ink all
throughout the land since he took office in 2009, but
to have accumulated more national debt than all of
his presidential predecessors in sum? I refer you,
my inquisitive readers, to a recent article that caught
your favorite Peasant's attention:

According to PolitiFact, a national fact-checking network
which investigates the claims of politicians for veracity,
with the aid of the U.S. Department of Treasury's "Debt
to the Penny" calculator they have ascertained that from
the end of fiscal year 2008, when the total debt from the
43 presidents preceding Obama was $5.851 trillion, to
the end of fiscal 2012, when the debt is projected to reach
$11.881 trillion, Obama's contribution to the national debt
comes to $6.03 trillion; indeed, this figure tops that of the
43 previous presidents. Now, PolitiFact also considered
the date range starting when Obama was inaugurated in
January 2009 and finishing with the end of fiscal year
2013. At the time of Obama's being sworn in as our 44th
president, the accrued debt was $6.037 trillion, with the
projected debt at the end of FY2013 forecasted as being
$12.784 trillion. This leaves Obama's share of crimson
fluid at $6.747 trillion, still beating out the rest of the pack.

Now, to be fair, PolitiFact also examined the matter from
the perspective of the time frame beginning with the end of
FY 2009, when the accumulated debt from the previous 43
was $7.506 trillion, and finishing with the end of FY 2013,
with a projected paucity of $12.784 trillion. The subtraction
yields a result of $5.278 trillion; certainly well behind the
sum debt of the past 43. But this just shows that small
changes in assumptions can make for greatly different
outcomes, as was pointed out by PolitiFact in this article,
which was published in my hometown newspaper
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Now, your scrutinizing Peasant wants it understood that
it remains to be seen as to whether or not Obama actually
will preside over as much public debt as foreseen, as new
budgets and projections will make for varied debt outcomes
each year. However, this is the conclusion reached by the
sharp and thorough research staff at PolitiFact regarding
candidate Romney's claim.

My wonderful readers, unless we vote this mendacious
spender, this devourer of our prosperity, this threat to our
fiscal health out of office, our country will drown in a sea
of bloody red ink. Obama is King of the Spendthrifts, as
he has built an empire of debt while building an empire
of government. We have had our share of both financially
reckless presidents and congresses, but the damage to our
economic well-being from this president and the 111th
Congress, the latter now mercifully relegated to the past,
has been more threatening to us as a nation than anything
we've seen before. Obama is threatening both our prosperity
and our liberty. We MUST work to find a suitable candidate
to run against him, work to advance his campaign, and vote
that person into office.

Let's get busy.

The Peasant wishes to thank PolitiFact Wisconsin, the
operation of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and part of
the PolitiFact network, for this story, which the Journal
Sentinel published in its July 12, 2011 edition. The
Peasant also wishes to thank Maryalice Gill, the reporter
with PolitiFact.com, who wrote this story.


MEM

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A Wonderful Evening With The Concord Coalition

On Wednesday, June 22, your beloved Peasant was taking
in, and taking part in a wonderful, eye-opening presentation
on our national budget, its deficit, and our national debt. The
speaker was Sara Imhof of The Concord Coalition, a well-
known national, non-partisan grassroots organization which
advocates for fiscal responsibility from our federal government.
These folks also do educational outreach to the public with
presentations like the one I attended at the Elm Grove
Library on the aforementioned date. Named for the Battle of
Concord, a turning point in the American Revolutionary War,
the group was founded by two U.S. Senators, Warren Rudman
(R-NH) (Ret.), and the late Sen. Paul Tsongas (D-MA) in
1992, and is most influential and greatly respected on Capitol
Hill.

Sara gave a short talk, then handed out to each attendee a
workbook along with a guide to the budget measures currently
before Congress to be deliberated and voted on. Our guest
speaker then placed the audience into the role of members of
Congress, deliberating and voting on the measures!

We were given information on the net effect on the budget deficit
each measure would have if passed or defeated. We each shared
insight on what each of us valued as necessary programs and what
we deemed as wasteful and unnecessary, and voted our opinions
on each measure. The exercise sparked spirited though civil
debate, and provided an educational experience that no one in the
audience will likely forget; this fortunate Peasant certainly won't!
I kept my materials and placed them into my political archives.

This event was of great value to those of us who attended it. Your
grateful Peasant thanked Sara and gave her the link to this blog,
forging an alliance for restoring sanity and sense to our country's
runaway budget. So look for stories on and references to The
Concord Coalition in the weeks and months ahead. For more
information on The Concord Coalition, I guide you, my great
readers, to their web site: http://www.concordcoalition.org/
where you will learn about its history, its current staff, the issues
the group currently is researching, and much more. Your
faithful Peasant highly recommends visiting the Concord folks
at their website and, if you have an opportunity to attend a
presentation given by a Concord representative, mark the date
on your calendars and go; you will be glad you did!

The Peasant wishes to thank Sara Imhof, Midwest Regional
Director for the Concord Coalition, for her most informative,
interactive, and riveting presentation.


MEM

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My Summertime Blues

Well, your favorite Peasant's Fourth of July was a most
enjoyable holiday; it usually is, as I love to celebrate our
wonderful country's birthday each year and attend some
picnics, parties, and fireworks shows. I certainly did all
that again this year as well.

But I did receive a setback during my little break from
wielding my trusty Pitchfork: another home fell through.
I have been in the market for a new place to rent since
March, and although I have viewed several places, got
on some waiting lists, and have networked like mad, I
still have had no luck in finding a suitable rental to move
into. I was so sure that I would get a plain but comfortable
duplex at the end of June, but I was passed over in favor of
another on the "list". Other places, I didn't even have that
much success! One place in Elm Grove, a quaint, lovely
village near Wauwatosa where I presently reside, was
most appealing to me. After finding it on Craigslist I had
e-mailed the landlady to arrange a date and time to view
the place, and she got right back to me, having set it up
with one of the tenants there (the landlady lives in Chicago).
She told me in her e-letter that if I was ready to commit or
if I had any questions to e-mail her again. Wonderful.

Well, I e-mailed her with a question, just a simple one,
no big deal. I gave her my phone number as well. I heard
nothing from the woman over the next eight days, so I e-
mailed her my question again, with all else that I added in
my first e-letter. Five days passed, still no word. I e-mailed
her a third time; a few more days with stone silence. After
a fourth attempt was also blown off I gave up on the rental
in question. It was a beautiful place with many mature trees,
lush grass, and other attractive homes surrounding it, and
it was surprisingly affordable for its location; Elm Grove
is rather pricey to own or rent a home due to its almost
rural beauty and natural charm, but it has long been my
dream to live in the verdant village nearby where I grew
up in New Berlin and Brookfield.

Since then I have tossed a wider net; some landlords and
landladies have not even responded to my initial e-mail
inquiries. Others, after responding, then dropped away
when I tried to arrange meetings with them to see the rental
units. Now, I do realize that with rental homes the market
has transformed from being a renters' market to a landlord's
market, with many folks losing their houses via failure to
keep up their mortgage payments in this sagging economy,
and many of these people bought homes with mortgage
deals that they had should not have received in the first
place either from avaricious mortgage bankers or due to
regulations from our friends in D.C. mandating that some
mortgages be underwritten for people who would have a
snowflake's chance on a hot griddle to keep up the payments,
thereby triggering the real estate bust. And these beleaguered
souls have to go somewhere to live, so its apartments for
them, causing a surging demand for those, sending many to
the market for rooms to rent in houses. Then, naturally, the
demand for rooms surges as well. But this does not excuse
owners of rental properties from having the basic decency
and consideration to inform prospective tenants and lodgers
that they have been turned down. If it were a case of an owner
having had a vast number of responses to his ad announcing a
rental unit, then that's a different matter, as it would be a huge
 task to contact each of the hopefuls to inform them that they
weren't chosen, but I know for a fact that this was not at all
the case with at least a few of the rentals that I was up for.
So I'm still sitting among my mostly-packed up belongings,
still hunting for my next home. I shall set my sights on moving
there, wherever it will be at the end of July. But this is
having an stressful impact on my enjoyment of summer,
my favorite season. And I don't need this stress at anytime
of the year, to be sure.

Meanwhile, we shall still get together for our weekly visits to
traverse our nation's political and economic landscape, exam-
ining news items, praising those deserving of praise while
castigating those deserving of castigation. Today, I castigate
those who think that simply ending communication with pro-
spective renters is a sufficiently fair way of letting them know
that they have been rejected as tennants or lodgers. Is courtesy
too much work and bother to exercise in our society anymore?
I suppose that things like manners will soon become quaint
anachronisms relegated to history books and that books on
same will become museum exhibits. And that would be as
serious a blow to our country and our way of life as the
economic policies of the current presidential administration,
for our country will soon cease to exist as we know it.


MEM

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