THE US REPORT

 On Saturday, we'll observe our country’s official birthday. We’ll cheer the occasion with cookouts and fireworks. Media and bloggers will talk up some of our nation’s founding documents since there’s a solid paper trail dating to the first whispers of the fight for freedom. If we tucked away a newspaper in observance of July 4, 2009, what events would be committed for posterity?

We could start with the Washington Post’s salon gone bust. Politico reported publisher Katharine Weymouth nixed the big do at her house, where “for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to ‘those powerful few’— Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.” As other media outlets and pundits assailed the publisher, they quite naturally missed the boat on the real issue. [Story continued below photo.]

President Calvin Coolidge signs the tax bill that would eventually be called ‘Mellon’s Tax Plan.’ Financier and industrialist Andrew William Mellon was secretary of the treasury from 1921 to 1931, a term of office that spanned the administrations of Presidents Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. During his years as secretary of the treasury, taxes and the national debt were substantially reduced. This seeming paradox was effected, in part, by drastic budget cuts. In 1924, Mellon published Taxation: The People's Business, a plan to put more money in the hands of consumers and businessmen by reducing the federal income tax. His proposal bore fruit in the Revenue Acts of 1924, 1926, and 1928. Andrew Mellon is shown at far left in this picture taken Feb. 26, 1926. Others shown are: Senator Simmons, Rep. John Q. Tilson, Rep. John N. Garner, Senator Reed Smoot, Director of the Budget Lord, Rep. William R. Green standing behind President Coolidge as he signs tax bill.[Photo in public domain from Underwood and Underwood collection, the US Library of Congress.]
Weymouth, if she planned to charge up to $250k, had to feel confident she could get “those powerful few” over for a toast and a little quid pro quo. That’s pretty brassy, to make the type of guarantee that made her confident enough to accept money. That, by the way, is the real story no one’s looking into.

Are you finally convinced much of major media functions as a de facto arm of the government, having been completely ‘Obamatized?’ Happy Birthday, USA.

Then there’s the matter of the memorial in Los Angeles for the late Michael Jackson at Staples Center. The cash-strapped neoliberal sanctuary city in the cash-strapped state is concerned about costs for security and crowd control. No one can even guess at the size of the pending crowd. Happy Birthday, USA.

North Korea plans to send us some big fireworks in the form of missiles. A header on Drudge asks, ‘Shoot down Nkorea missile?’ Our government says we’re ready to do that if it looks like it threatens us. I say President Barack Obama is not likely to permit it—I figure if he did hear a missile was heading for us, he’d link up first with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel whose power is definitely absolute, and the Democratic equivalent of Karl Rove, Obama guru David Axelrod. Then they’d talk to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Then they’d establish a committee to weigh options. The Congressional Budget Office would be charged with cost projections. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would note the need for more ACORN funding. They might do a preemptive stimulus bill since an attack would interrupt our economy. By the time the Democratic Party process concluded, we’d be picking up Russian missile fragments and registering stray cats to vote. Happy Birthday, USA.

At the moment, the small country of Honduras is standing against the New World Order, following the rule of law to remove a president who acted in conflict with the country’s constitution. Translation: President Manuel Zelaya took a page from the Hugo Chavez et al playbook—re-arranging constitutional law so a leader could run for an extra term if he wanted to. And in the land of liberty, the cradle of freedom, our president and our secretary of state backed leaders in thug world states rather than Hondurans trying to hang onto their own freedoms, giving an entirely new meaning to the chestnut, “Politics make strange bedfellows.”

As I tap out these words, our government seeks virtual ownership of American bodies by attempting to control healthcare, one of the few financial sectors doing well, and the House just passed an energy tax bill that will skyrocket energy costs in your house. Tax-loving Democrats in Congress, euphoric in absolute power, have looked at every possible venue for taxation, including a per miles driven tax, a national sales tax, a tax on employee health benefits, more taxes on cigarettes, and a tax on those filthy rich folks making more than $250,000 a year. From her gravesite, Ayn Rand is probably shaking a finger at voters uninformed enough to re-elect official looters every time the polls open.

We wish this year’s party could’ve been more festive, but we are personally celebrating the fact we have not been personally Obamatized. At least half of our family and friends are celebrating the opposite, glorifying in their Obamatization. Whatever our differences, we join our voices in sincere well wishes. Happy Birthday, USA!
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'This July 4th marked by Jackson memorial, WaPo blowup and N. Korea missiles'
Kay B. Day
July 3, 2009