Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A Scattershot View of the News

My vacation was a much-needed respite for your
always-busy Peasant. I took two weeks off to enjoy
Milwaukee's Irish Fest and to take a breather from
the political and economic news so that I could
re-energize. In the meantime, these events took place,
so we'll take a glance of each one and see what there
is to see.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) told the Tea Party
movement to "go to hell" --- Yes, she really did say
that. For those of you, my terrific readers, who may
not know who she is, Waters is one of the most left-
wing members of either chamber of Congress. She
is known for popping off with some leftist drivel
such as calling for the nationalization of the entire
U.S. oil industry (just to give one example). Even
among a group of political characters who are not
known for their civility and their respect for others
with different points of view, "Mad Maxine" (my
name for her) is an especially rabid creature. Your
gracious Peasant wants to take this moment to, on
behalf of our Tea Party movement, to tell the
Congresswoman from California that we shall decline
her friendly invitation to visit her home, but we thank
her kindly just the same.

One of her colleagues, Rep. Andre' Carson (D-IN),
has joined Waters in spewing raw hatred for us Tea
Party activists in this slanderous offering: "This is
the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of
them in Congress right now with this Tea Party
movement would love to see you and me ... hanging
on a tree." Carson spoke these wild words while
addressing a Congressional Black Caucus job tour
event in Miami, Florida on August 22. Carson's staff
even confirmed that he made the remarks, which were
caught on video. The video of Carson's rant can be seen
via a link in the article listed below from abcnews.go.com.
A video of Water's hateful tirade can be accessed in the
article from thegrio.com., also listed after this article.
And these venomous snakes dare to lecture us on civility
in political discourse!

Vice President and Gaffemaster General of the United States
Joe Biden visited China, and while there he praised their long-
standing "one child only" policy, which includes forcibly taking
pregnant women to hospitals and make them undergo abortions
when they refuse to do so on their own after having one child,
and after repeated visits from "family planning" agents of the
communist government to get the women to acquiesce. As
horrible as Biden's commendation of this brutality is, your
politically savvy Peasant is not at all surprised by it. Almost
fanatical in his support of so-called abortion rights, Biden is
just acting par for his sorry course. The other half of the
misbegotten pair in power, President Obama, is even more
rabidly pro-abortion.

Texas Governor Rick Perry has thrown his hat into the GOP
side of the presidential race, finishing a strong sixth (for a
write-in choice; he didn't declare in time to be put on the
ballot) in the Iowa straw poll. Your intrepid Peasant is trying
to learn as much as possible about Perry, and will comment
on him and his candidacy in due course. But I will say this:
the Republican field at this point in time looks underwhelming.
The only candidate that I find that I could possibly get behind
is Herman Cain, but I fear that he will sink in the polls as the
more seasoned politicians in the race raise and spend more
money in getting their messages out, and despite voters
claiming that they like a Herman Cain because his background
is less about office seeking and more about business operating
they invariably gravitate to a garden-variety pol. Sad, really.
Your faithful Peasant has not, however, endorsed anyone yet,
and shall not for some time, as it is far too early in the season.
Look for an overview of each of the Republican hopefuls on
this blog in the weeks to come.

Meanwhile, your favorite Peasant wishes you, my wonderful
readers, a most enjoyable Labor Day holiday! Be strong!


MEM





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Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Joy and Wonder of The Milwaukee Irish Fest!

Hello again everyone! It's good to be back with you,
my fantastic readers!

Your favorite Peasant had a wonderful vacation; I went
to Ireland without leaving the country, my state, or my city!
How, you may ask, did I accomplish this feat? Very simple;
I went to Milwaukee's Irish Fest! This is an event which I
attend every year without fail. I go for all four days of this
tremendous celebration of Irish culture, and I stay for each
and every minute! While there, I attended concerts featuring
outstanding singers and musicians, some accompanied by fine
Irish dancers performing Irish "step dancing" (if you've ever
seen a Riverdance show, or have seen Irish-American dancer
Michael Flatley perform then you have seen this very Irish
type of dance). Among the artists I have enjoyed seeing were
The High Kings, Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones,
Altan, Different Drums of Ireland, The Elders, Seamus Kennedy,
Finbar McCarthy, and of course Milwaukee's own Blarney.
Seeing Blarney perform was very emotional for a lot of us, for
this is the first time that they have performed at our Irish Fest
without their leader Chuck Ward, who passed away last
November after a long and courageous battle with cancer.
Chuck, by the way, also co-founded Milwaukee's Irish Fest
with is brother Ed, who also happened to be in Blarney in
years past.Chuck, Ed, and the Ward family are very dear
friends of mine, and I honor Chuck with a singing group that I
have established, The Chuck Ward Celtic Song Circle.
Our circle has been in singing for one year so far, having
begun just before last year's Irish Fest and Chuck's death.
We started with a different name but I got the idea for changing
our circle's name to pay tribute to my late friend. The surviving
members of Blarney, Dennis Murphy and Kevin Stapleton,
also good friends of mine, thanked me warmly for doing this,
as has Chuck's family. As a fellow Irishman, a patron of Irish
art, and one who has attended, volunteered, and performed at
The Milwaukee Irish Fest over the years, how could I not?
God rest you, my dear friend. When the rest of us have lived
out our earthly lives, we shall have the biggest Irish Fest that
anyone has ever seen in the home of Saint Patrick himself!

Oh, by the way, your red, white and blue (along with green
and orange) Peasant is related to one of The High Kings;
Finbarr Clancy, son of the late Bobby Clancy of The Clancy
Brothers & Tommy Makem renown is a cousin! How cool is
that, especially for one who has Irish ancestry and loves Irish
music? Incidentally, my cousin spells his name with not one
"r" but two.

Other activities that I engaged in were having a free lesson in
playing the bhodrain, an Irish drum which has been a part of
Irish music and history for centuries. I am seriously considering
taking up the instrument so I can play it when our Chuck Ward
outfit holds sessions and appears in concert. I enjoyed wonderful
Irish cuisine; have you ever had Irish nachos? They are potato
slices covered with a cheese sauce infused with sauerkraut juice,
accompanied by shredded corned beef, with diced tomato and
green peppers. I visited my friends in my old song group, The
Milwaukee Irish Fest Song Circle, and heard their concert.
They sound as wonderful as ever. I am proud to have been a
member for five years before starting my own song circle.

As this was the first Irish Fest held since Chuck Ward's demise
there was "A Concert for Chuck" which featured the past and
present members of Blarney, along with Chuck's wife and
children (some of whom are in a great up-and-coming band
of their own, Wayworn. They performed in concert too!),
Seamus Kennedy, Tom Sweeney (of internationally popular
band Barley Bree) and Patrick Murphy of the wildly popular
and world renown band Gaelic Storm! They performed some
of the songs that Blarney had long performed, including Chuck's
favorite songs. It was a most touching tribute to a fine musician,
singer, songwriter, and gentleman who touched so many lives
with his music, his civic activities, his love of all things Irish,
and his love of Milwaukee and her people. Although we've some
other good people in our Irish Fest and Irish cultural circles
here in Milwaukee, we'll never have better! There was also
a tent on the grounds featuring many photographs of Chuck
throughout his life, including photos of Chuck in concert with
his fellow Blarney band members and other performers,
including the late Clancy Brothers & the late Tommy Makem.
The heavenly choir now has a distinct Irish tone to their music,
to be sure!

I worked as a volunteer once again, assisting in the music booth
near the Aer Lingus Stage where I helped sell CDs and DVDs
as well as T-shirts of the featured performers. That is where I
got to visit with my cousin and his fellow High Kings and some
other fine musicians and singers, getting many autographs through-
out the fest. For my signing up to help again I was given in advance
of the fest free passes for each day of the event as well as four
tickets each good for one dollar's worth of food or non-alcoholic
beverages. Irish Fest volunteers are much appreciated and well
cared for! Two more fests as a volunteer and I'll get a 5-year pin
for my work as well!

I met up with old friends, made new friends, and met another
Irish relation at our Irish Fest; this is the best of all of the good
times that I enjoy whenever I come to our grand party! It is, and
shall always be, a staple in my life. I shall continue going to,
volunteering, and performing at our Milwaukee Irish Fest until
I go to join Chuck! And you, my grand readers, whether you live
in, near to, or far from Milwaukee, if you plan on being in Beer-
town in mid-August some summer come on down to our wonder-
ful Milwaukee Irish Fest! You'll be so glad you did! It's a great
event for the whole family, and a wonderful opportunity to
immerse yourselves in Irish culture; it's the next best thing to
visiting The Emerald Isle itself!

For now, your faithful Peasant shall say "see you later" in a good
ol' Irish way: Toora-loo!


MEM





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Monday, August 8, 2011

The Debt Ceiling Debacle

After I share my observations on the debt ceiling "deal"
with you, my fantastic readers, I am going to take a very
much-needed break to decompress, de-stress, and dump
my worries and frustrations with the happenings on our
nation's political scene. The events of recent days have
knotted my nerves like a child's shoestrings! First Congress
drafts and passes a sick joke of a plan to deal with our
mad spending coupled with raising the debt ceiling, then
S&P reduces our debt rating from AAA to AA+, an
unprecedented event which many Americans, including
your beloved Peasant, never for a minute thought would
ever happen.

The upshot of the debt limit pact is that Congress had agreed
to reduce spending by one trillion dollars over the next decade,
while raising the debt ceiling to $16.4 trillion; yes, you read
that right, folks, the debt limit was jacked up, but not quite as
much as was originally planned. There's our so-called spending
cut! And of course the spender-in-chief happily signed off on the
outrage. More shortcomings of this fiscal travesty include the
fact that it doesn't even mention, let alone address, entitlement
and tax reform. The park-barrel projects are still at the public
trough. Illegal immigration costs are still climbing. So are the
costs of the growing number of wars that the current admini-
stration is getting us involved in; has anyone noticed how this
president makes his predecessor look like a timid rabbit when
it comes to military engagements?

And what about the Republicans in Congress? What did they
do, if anything, to prevent such a farce from occurring? To the
credit of House Speaker John Boehner and the House GOP,
they did craft and pass a credible measure that would have at
least done something to deal with all of the aforementioned
problems. But getting it through a much more hostile Senate
would prove to be another matter. Remember, the Senate is
still in Democrat hands; there are also RINOS there, and in
just enough numbers to make passage of the House version
of the debt ceiling bill an even more hazardous proposition.
Sure enough, these nefarious forces combined to kill the
measure.

What the Senate crafted in its place, and the Republican-held
House resigned itself to (knowing that they couldn't possibly
do anything more), was the charade that Obama signed into
law. And S&P knew that the resultant mess was not going to
do diddly as far as relieving the debt and spending woes were
concerned, so the once-thought-to-be-impossible became
ignominious history.

What the debt deal SHOULD have done were these badly-
needed actions:

1) Repeal Obamacare. Stop spending money on a plan to
nationalize our health care system, and place one-sixth of
our economy in the hands of a hopelessly spendthrift, wastrel
government.

2) Amend the tax code to reform corporate taxes in ways that
will make it affordable for companies to bring home their over-
seas profits for reinvestment here at home instead of keeping
them in banks outside the United States.

3) Reform entitlements, and perhaps eliminate a few.

4) Pay back the funds that were illicitly borrowed from the
Social Security Trust Fund. Both parties have raided this
cookie jar too many times over the years, never making a
serious attempt to repay the money.

Instead, what we got was, once again, the shaft from our
so-called representatives and the current regime. After all,
as far as they're concerned, we're not citizens; we're just
peasants, we don't matter! And don't get your boiling-mad
Peasant started on the Obama Administration's response
to the credit downgrade! They claimed that S&P made an
error in their calculations on our debt and our means to
deal with it, and Obama did what he always does when the
going gets tough; he had gone golfing! Elitism, arrogance
and cowardice; the hallmarks of this misbegotten govern-
ment of ours.

Usually I post on Wednesdays, but I simply had to get this
off my chest. I feel much better for having done so, too.
When I return from my rest and relaxation in a couple of
weeks I shall be in a better frame of mind. In the meantime,
thank you, my loyal readers, for bearing with me through
all of this. We are in some perilous times, and there are
more potential as well as actual dangers that lie ahead.
But we also have our next national election ahead of us,
and the presidency will be up for grabs.

Could it be that prosperity is just around the corner?


MEM



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Saturday, August 6, 2011

The Unthinkable Has Happened

Your beloved Peasant was not able to get transportation to
the Milwaukee stop on the Tea Party Express' Wisconsin
tour, as it is being held in a town in the outer-most ring of
suburbs, and bus service out there is sparse on weekdays
and non-existent on weekends. But with what I learned late
last night on the news, this windfall of time is being put to
excellent use. I am pained to inform you, my beloved readers,
that our country's credit rating has --- for the first time ever
--- been downgraded by Standard & Poors. Our nation had
long enjoyed a triple-A credit rating on our debentures; this
meant that our ability to borrow money on the international
debt market has been easy, because of the confidence that
other countries have had in our ability to repay the loans that
they would make to us. But those days are, at least for the 
time being, in the past; we now have a rating of AA+, the
second-highest rating that S&P gives, after AAA.

In a statement late Friday, S&P explained "The downgrade
reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that
Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls
short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize
the government's medium-term debt dynamics." In other
words, S&P believes that after the most prodigious spending
binge in the history of the world, the U.S. government has
crafted what is essentially a non-plan for dealing with the
resultant record-setting debt incurred during this binge.
From what I have seen of the debt ceiling-raising pact,
I sadly must concur. In the coming week I shall give you,
my wonderful readers, my thoughts on that measure, after
I have had the opportunity to do a little more research into
the matter.

I will, however, say this for now: The 2012 elections can't
come soon enough!


MEM
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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Updated Information for the Tea Party Express Visit to Wisconsin

Your favorite Peasant has new information re: the upcoming
Tea Party Express tour in Wisconsin scheduled for this week.

Here are the dates, times, and locations:


FRIDAY, AUGUST 5
Rally in Hudson, WI
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Location: Lakefront Park Bandshell
First Street, Hudson, WI

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

SATURDAY, AUGUST 6
Rally in Kenosha, WI
2;30 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: Birchwood Grill
7515  125th Ave., Kenosha, WI

Rally in Milwaukee, WI
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
Location: Thiensville Village Park
250 Elm St., Thiensville, WI

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

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

Rally in Merrill, WI
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
Location: Riverside Park
East End of O Day Street
Merrill, WI

MONDAY, AUGUST 8
Rally in Rhinelander, WI
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Location: Rhinelander Band Shell
Young St. (Next to Trig's RiverWalk Center)
Rhinelander, WI

Rally in DePere, WI
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Legends Brewhouse and Eatery
875 Heritage Rd., DePere, WI
(Left-most Parking Lot)


And don't forget to vote, you Wisconsinites who live in
the districts where Republican state senators are in recall
elections, and you folks in the districts where Democrats are
in same! We MUST keep the senate to ensure that Gov.
Scott Walker will have no roadblocks to implement his
reforms to our budget and our state government, as well
as our state education system! Remember, as goes the
Badger State, so goes the rest of the country! We are
leading the fight to reclaim our state governments and
to re-establish our places at the table in our states' halls
of power. What happens in Wisconsin will set the tone
for the other 49 states!

In the meantime, enjoy the Tea Party Express rallies!


MEM

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