THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

Two Different Versions! Two Different Morals!

OLD VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building
his house and laying up supplies for the winter
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and
plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the
cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!


MODERN VERSION:

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long,
building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances
and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference
and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well
fed while others are cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the
shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable
home with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp
contrast.

How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor
grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and
everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being Green."

Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house
where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."
Jesse then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the
grasshopper's sake.

Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry exclaim in an interview with Larry King
that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both
call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper
Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of
green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his
home is confiscated by the government.

Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a
defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel
of federal judges that Bill Clinton appointed from a list of
single-parent welfare recipients.

The ant loses the case.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last
bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which just
happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he
doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident and the
house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize
the once peaceful neighborhood.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote.

NEWT NO MORE: WHAT McCAIN FEINGLOD DID TO A GINGRICH BID

by Martha Zoller

"I had to make a choice. American Solutions is in the early stages of being a genuine citizens movement. To walk out on it just as it was getting launched was irresponsible. It's far more important than exploring prospects for the presidency." Newt Gingrich, September 29, 2007

What a difference 48 hours makes in politics. On Thursday, at 10:15 am, while appearing on my program on WDUN AM 550 in Gainesville, Georgia, Newt Gingrich gave the answer to the “presidential question” he would give for the rest of that day and Friday and had been giving through out this year. As soon as his world wide event, American Solutions, was over on September 29th he would have Randy Evans, on his behalf, see if there were $30 million dollars in pledges for a presidential campaign. He said that on October 21 he would give a final answer. As late as Thursday evening on The Sean Hannity Show and later on Hannity and Colmes on Fox News Channel, he said that there was a 20% chance he would run.

When I talked to him on my program and later at the conference, he repeated many of the same things. He was looking for “Red, White and Blue” solutions, he was a “middle-class” guy who couldn’t write a $100 million dollar personal check like Gov. Mitt Romney, and that the way to beat Sen. Hillary Clinton was to have ideas not attacks. He sounded like a man who was running and he looked like a man on top of his game.

The ink was hardly dry on the press release to announce his exploratory committee on a run for president, Gingrich had suspended his contract with Fox News Channel earlier in the week and had fielded and answered a number of questions regarding living in Virginia while basing a campaign out of Atlanta. He looked like a candidate. In fact, a number of news organizations ran commentary with titles like, “Newt will Run.” What a difference a few hours make. Gingrich pulled the plug on his own presidential aspirations.

It appears that Newt Gingrich is the first casualty of McCain/Feingold and the squashing of free speech through campaign finance reform. Gingrich said, "McCain-Feingold has legal penalties. It penalizes being a citizen. We thoroughly understood the legalities of running for president. We didn't realize the implications for American Solutions. We just said this is important. We can't have all these workshops and kill it Monday morning."

Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s spokes person said in an email, “The risk during the exploratory phase would have been being accused of using American Solutions resources to travel, speak, communicate, etc. During this phase, American Solutions would have been open to the factual allegation that while Newt was actually speaking for Solutions, he was instead attempting to drum up support [or pledges]." McCain/Feingold would have made it impossible for Gingrich to continue raising money for American Solutions and explore a run for the Presidency and for a guy who has always had been many things at once, it wasn’t plausible that he could add a presidential run into the mix.

But Gingrich may fight another day. He has ruled out a vice-presidential bid, but hasn’t ruled out a run for president in 2012. I have a moment in time theory about all this. There is a reason that we haven’t had a President Howard Baker or President Sam Nunn -- it’s not because they weren’t talked about or considered or qualified, it’s because they missed their moment in time. While there is some speculation about a Nunn independent run for 2008, it won’t be at the top of the ticket. Is this Gingrich’s moment in time or has it passed? That question can only be answered with time.

His commitment to American Solutions is steadfast and suits him. If he stays with American Solutions and works within the two party system to facilitate change and connections between parties, he may do what presidents and speakers can’t do—bring people together through education. Rush Limbaugh said that the greatest mistake of the Republican Revolution of 1994 is that we thought we had convinced people on conservatism. The current Democrat controlled congress is doing the same thing. They think their win of the House and Senate in 2006 was a vote for them, when actually it was a vote against Republicans who weren’t doing their jobs and were corrupt. Maybe American Solutions is the vehicle for Newt, the teacher, to finally convince the American people about conservatism. It is a way to take the Contract with America of 1994 to a new generation with new ways to spread the message.

Newt Gingrich is a survivor and he is a guy that can get more people together of differing political persuasions than anyone I have every met. He’ll be there for the pendulum to swing back to the right and he will have a say so in where it lands. The sad thing is beginning the weekend with the possibility of a run for president and ending it with the jolt of a definitive, “I am not running,” takes away from what he wanted to accomplish from the weekend. The news became about him and not about the message. However, there will be many more American Solutions weekends and America will be watching.

HILLARY'S INCOME TRANSFER SCHEME

You've heard the latest, haven't you? This one came out last Friday afternoon. Hillary (please sit down) wants for the federal government to "give" every baby born in America a $5,000 account that can start growing and earning interest so that by the time this kid turns 18 they'll have money to go to college.

No .. I'm not kidding. She actually came out with this idea at a speech before a Congressional Black Caucus forum. It's a brand new entitlement program, courtesy of Hillary Clinton.

Just think about it! Download a baby, and presto!, the taxpayers owe your new child a cool five thousand!

This is pure Hillary Clinton. This is a woman who believes that America is government. If government decides that every new baby gets five grand, then that's all there is to it. Every new baby gets five grand.

Where does it come from? Oh, come on now. Ask Hillary and she'll just tell you it comes from the government. If you ask her where the government is going to get the money, she'll prattle on about repealing the Bush tax cuts or some such nonsense. Bottom line? A new entitlement program. Here's your birth certificate, here's $5,000, and welcome to America!

Let me tell you how Hillary's idiotic little income redistribution idea is going to work out in real life --- after, that is, the young single women of this country make her our next president.

First we'll have to figure out whether or not the five grand baby bonus will be paid to a baby born in this country of illegal aliens. Well of course it would! After all, the baby's a citizen, isn't he? We certainly don't want to discriminate. So .. here's a scenario that will become all-too common. Consuelo lives in Tijuana. Consuelo is pregnant .. bulging, wide-eyed pregnant. Sus roturas del agua. Consuelo heads for the border ... eager to get to the emergency room of a U.S. hospital. And why would that be? Why, so her baby can get it's $5,000, that's why? You couldn't figure that out on your own? Must be government educated. Pity.

Another question. Just how will the parents be able to invest the baby's money?

You can be sure there will be restrictions. Maybe this would be a good time to resurrect the Democrat's idea of "economically targeted investments." Maybe the law would say that you could only invest the money in stocks of a company that is deemed to be "union friendly!" Or maybe it could only be invested in savings institutions that show the politically correct inclination to make loans to minorities with bad credit and job histories!

How would the baby bonus play out around election time? Well, that's a simple enough question to answer. The Democrats would have two stock campaign tactics ready for each election: (1) Vote for me and I'll raise the baby bonus to $6000! A sure winner with every pregnant or hoping-to-be pregnant voter out there. (2) Vote for a Republican and they're going to take your baby bonus away!

What happens when spending gets a little tight? This one's simple also. Democrats will suggest that the baby bonus get phased out for people in upper income brackets. In other words, stiff the high achievers. In order to increase the baby bonus for lower and middle income parents, the Democrats will phase it out for the minority who earn the higher incomes. The math is so simple you should be able to figure it out even if you went to a government school. There are more households who make under $200,000 a year in this country than there are those who make more. Cut off the baby bonus for the evil rich, increase it for the poor and middle income types --- and the votes come rolling in.

Remember Hillary shrieking "I want to take those profits" after Exxon Mobile posted a rather hefty profit figure? Sure she wants to take those profits. She already thinks they belong to her anyway! This is a woman who harbors a gut belief that every penny you earn belongs to the federal government. You are to be allowed to keep just enough of what you earn to keep you fat and reasonably complacent. Beyond that, it's hers, and she will throw it around the way she pleases.

Hold tight, my friends. There's sure to be more Hillary absurdities on the way.