Have the radicals totally taken over? Have they started rounding up conservatives to send to reeducation camps yet?

Here is parts of an article from Washington Times:

“”California also became the first state in the nation to require a prescription for obtaining any drug containing dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in many popular over-the-counter cough suppressants, including Robitussin, NyQuil and Dimetapp.

Voter identification continued to be a hot topic for legislators in 2011. Four states — Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Texas — approved laws requiring voters to present photo identification before casting ballots.

Employers will be required to use E-Verify to determine the eligibility of their employees starting Jan. 1 in four states — Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia. In California, however, legislators bucked the trend by prohibiting any state or local government from requiring employers to use the E-Verify program unless required by federal law or as a condition of receiving federal funds.

In education, California approved two hotly debated laws slated to take effect on New Year’s Day. The California Dream Act expands eligibility for institutional grants and fee waivers to students who are in the country illegally at the state’s university systems and community colleges.

California also becomes the first state to mandate the teaching of gay history. A new law requires schools to include in the public-school curriculum the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, along with disabled persons and others. The statute, which has no age limit, also bans instructional material that discriminates against those groups.”"

Can anyone living there tells us how this came to be?

Peggy Noonan, who once wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan was, and has been someone who has moved in a NON-conservative conservative direction over the years.

Now, I will not say that Peggy(not her real name) is not a conservative. She is actually very conservative.  However, (and this is a big however) She has repeatadly, and consistenly attacked every single person who ever made the nati0onal stage as  a conservative.

Well, Hey!, screw you Peg!  *

* Yeah, I know that is not very intellectual but so the hell what?

Ok, I am writing this only from memory so bear with me.   Just a few minutes ago, on The Hannity show, Krauthammer said (I paraphrase)

that Newt Gingrich had too much baggage, and that he would “Frighten” much of te electorate.  Well, Historically I say that is Bunk.

Let me state before hand, that I am not a big Gingrich supporter. I actually support and will vote for Perry.  Having said that, I think Gingrich is a phenomenal candidate who can be a transendentil reform candidate.  Romney cannot.

But here is the reason I disagree with a Charles.  Those of us who are old enough to remember the years 1979 and 1980 will recall that EVEN WORSE THINGS were said about Ronald Wilson Reagan.  He was described both by Democrats and some of his fellow Republicans as A Dunce, a warmonger, a racist, a cowboy, and of course, as “uncompassionate”.

But he won by a rather large margin. The reason he won is because AMERICANS ARE NOT TOTALLY STUPID.  Yes, they can be fooled for a short time, But eventually they will see that the far left is a recipe for disaster.  Obama has now been totally painted with the trait of left/liberal/progressivism and there is no chance now that he can crawl away from it.

I don’t think that a person espousing solid conservative values right now can possibly lose to  Obama, unless they do something stupid to self destruct.   That means that Romney could certainly win.  But how much better to have someone more conservative, and more educated, more intellectual, and more experienced.

I think that 2012 will be a growth year and 2013 might be really big growth.  I will explain why I think that in a second but first the recommendations.

1) If you hold gold or other metals be thinking about selling. I already sold half of my gold for a small profit and all the rest will be pure gravy. Gold may go up in the short term but is still in a bubble. I think $2000 is a psychological barrier and I will unload the rest of my gold before that point or if they price begins to drop again.  Watch it daily.

2) Now is actually a good time to buy stocks. But look for solid companies with good P/E and depressed prices.

3) Stay out of debt, but if you need to purchase something big like a car or house, then now is the time since I don’t think these low rates will last much longer.

Now for my explanation.  I think that the markets, business leaders, investors, and almost everyone with any sense has completely discounted Team Obama, and Bernanke.  In other words there is no downward push left to their failed policies.  What everyone is doing now is just basically waiting for regime change.

The Euro debt crises has also had a slow down effect on investment, but I think the Euros will handle their problems and will come out a bit stronger. It is important to note that unlike our nation, nearly every European country has taken steps to reduce it’s huge bloated government. Small steps to be sure, but steps in the right direction. Meanwhile Eastern Europe and the rest of the world are still experiencing growth, just not as fast as before.

My belief based on past experience is that the worst of the Euro crises will coincide with the Republicans solidifying behind one candidate, and by middle of next year there will be a modest increase in investment, and employment.

Of course the idiots in the government could still find some way to screw everything up but you have to have some hope.

Congress has failed to reform agricultural subsidies according to this story from WAPO.

“”"”House keeps farm subsidies, cuts food aid as it passes food and farm spending bill

WASHINGTON — The Republican-led House voted to slash domestic and international food aid Thursday while rejecting cuts to farm subsidies.

A spending bill to fund the nation’s food and farm programs would cut the Women, Infants and Children program, which offers food aid and educational support for low-income mothers and their children, by $868 million, or 13 percent. An international food assistance program that provides emergency aid and agricultural development would drop by more than $450 million, one-third of the program’s budget. The legislation passed 217-203. “”"”

read it here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-government/house-blocks-cotton-payments-to-brazil-renewing-trade-dispute-with-that-country/2011/06/16/AGRZGUXH_story.html

A few years ago I researched and published a Diary on the horrible results of Farm subsidies, They do a LOT more harm than just costing you tax dollars.

I will just reprint it here::

The Real Culprit in the Attack on America (from 8/2008)

Conservatives are quick to accuse Left wingers of being unpatriotic or backing bad economic policies. Left wingers are quick to accuse Conservatives of being callus to the plight of the poor and backing restrictive policies on human rights.  Libertarians and Greens blame everyone for everything.
But there is one group which has really done more than any other to; 1) Undermine America’s standing with the world  2)  Place enormous burdens upon the taxpayer  3) place enormous burdens on consumers  4) facilitate the mass illegal migration and all it’s concomitant problems we are now facing. And, 5)  cause misery in the poorest parts of the world.
Who are these villains? Well, its the Farmers, Agricultural lobby, and big Agri-business.  We are so used to hearing sob stories about the “poor family farm” or the personal steadfastness and virtue of those who work the land. But its mostly a load of Bull.  There are very few small family farms left, and farmers, like any other people have proved susceptible to the seduction of the government hand out.

Agricultural subsidies cost Americans directly and indirectly over 150 billion dollars per year.

According to Brazilian Business Law Scholar Durval de Noronha Goyos JR:

In the USA, there are at present no fewer than 10 direct and 10 indirect programmes of agricultural subsidies. In absolute numbers, US agricultural subsidies reached today an amount of US$ 150 billion for a total agricultural production of US$ 128 billion, which makes subsidies represent 115% of the effective production. These stunning numbers signify that the USA has long ceased being a market economy in the agricultural sector.

According to the Heritage Foundation the cost is:
a total of $190 billion in taxes on American families and an additional burden of $271 billion in inflated food prices.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1510.cfm

Agricultural subsidies aggravate illegal immigration.

Even a Left wing pundit like Steven C. Clemons understands.

Steven C. Clemons

http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&DocID=2985

Congress seems to believe that while the United States must be protected from an invasion of educated, bright and ambitious foreign college students, scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, we can never have too many low-wage fruit-pickers and dishwashers.

In making immigration laws, Congress caters to cheap-labor industries like agribusiness and sweatshop manufacturing while short-changing the high-tech, high-wage industries on which the future of the American economy depends. Witness the Senate bill’s provision to admit 400,000 temporary workers a year, or roughly four million a decade, in addition to the 12 million mostly low-wage illegal immigrants already here, many of whose status would be legalised. Few if any of those guest workers would go to universities, corporate campuses or innovation clusters like Silicon Valley. They would head straight to restaurants, hotels and plantation-like farms.

While the United States perversely tries to corner the market in uneducated hotel maids and tomato harvesters, other industrial democracies are reshaping their immigration policies to invite the skilled immigrants that we turn away. Britain is following Australia and Canada in adopting a points system that gives higher scores to skilled immigrants with advanced education and proficiency in English.

BUT, It goes even further than that. The Agricultural subsidies are not only creating a demand for unskilled labor, but by dumping subsidized produce on world markets you destroy farmer’s livlihood in poor nations such as Mexico and cause those same people to seek their fortune elsewhere.

Agricultural Subsidies cause havoc in the third world, and are a stumbling block to better relations with our trading partners.

Here is the argument made by the NCPA:

Subsidised agriculture in the developed world is one of the greatest obstacles to economic growth in the developing world. In 2002, industrialised countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) spent a total of $300 billion on crop price supports, production payments and other farm programs. These subsidies encourage overproduction. Markets are flooded with surplus crops that are sold below the cost of production, depressing world prices. Countries with unsubsidised goods are essentially shut out of world markets, devastating their local economies. Moreover, farm subsidies lead to environmental harm in rich and poor nations alike.

Prosperous countries give about $50 billion to $55 billion annually in foreign aid to underdeveloped nations. If developed nations reduced their subsidies and eliminated trade barriers — such as import tariffs protecting domestic producers from international competition — this aid would arguably be unnecessary and rural poverty might be significantly reduced.

Historically, agriculture has been a major pillar — if not the foundation — of developing economies because it provides food security, creates employment and generates local capital. For example, in 1790, nearly 90 percent of the U.S. workforce was employed in agriculture. By 1900, farmers dropped to 38 percent of the labor force, and today they account for less than 1 percent. Agriculture accounts for less than 1 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Similar trends in other OECD countries indicate that the path to development begins with agriculture.

Hindering Third World Growth. Every dollar, yen or euro poured into the agriculture sectors of rich nations makes developing countries’ farm sectors that much less competitive. The “dumping” of agricultural commodities at prices lower than the cost of production is devastating to developing countries, since most depend almost entirely on only one or a few products. Every year, farm subsidies cost developing countries about $24 billion in lost agricultural income.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba547/

Here is some more information:

Rich countries spend billions subsidizing their agricultural sector, leading to chronic overproduction and dumping surpluses on global markets. Poor countries demand reform of this trade practice that impoverishes small-scale farmers while enriching large agri-business.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/trade/subsidies/index.htm

Farm subsidies don’t go to small family farms, they mostly go to huge Agribusiness, like Archer Daniels Midland, Con-Agra, and Dole Pineapple, among others.

Here again is the Heritage Foundation:

With agricultural programs designed to target large and profitable farms rather than family farmers, it should come as no surprise that farm subsidies in 2002 were distributed overwhelmingly to large growers and agribusinesses–including a number of Fortune 500 companies. Chart 2 shows that the top 10 percent of recipients received 65 percent of all farm subsidies in 2002.6 At the other end, the bottom 80 percent of recipients (including most family farmers) received just 19 percent of all farm subsidies.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/bg1763.cfm

The most successful program to steal your money from you by  Agri-business is Ethanol subsidies.

Ethanol is touted as the way to get off of foreign sources of energy, But that is a crock.
It is not even accepted that Ethanol production produces more energy than it requires*, and at any rate, bio-diesel, or sugar beet production are both more efficient than ethanol from corn.   This is a titanic boondoggle and a huge lie and slap in the face of Americans who think they are being “Green”.  But someone else said it better than me, This from Vladimir on REDSTATE.Com:

Example: by mandating ethanol in our motor fuel, and by outlawing imports of ethanol refined elsewhere, we’ve had to deal with the impact of high levels of corn production on our ecosystem. Corn is one of the most taxing crops on the soil, and its cultivation requires large amounts of nitrogen fertilizers (derived, by the way, from natural gas). Runoff of nitrogen fertilizer is the primary culprit for the annual “Dead Zone” that forms in the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve seen it variously described as “the size of Connecticut” and “the size of New Jersey”; for our purposes we’ll stipulate that it’s the size of a densely-populated north-eastern state. An oxygen-depleted zone, it virtually wipes out commercial fishing.

* CORN ETHANOL TAKES MORE ENERGY THAN IT MAKES

ENS, USA, July 13, 2005

http://www.sarid.net/technology/050713-ethanol.htm

Berkeley, California, July 13, 2005 (ENS) – Using ethanol as an additive to make gasoline burn cleaner does more harm than good to the environment, finds a new report by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The study concludes that the cumulative energy consumed in corn farming and ethanol production is six times greater than the power the ethanol provides in a car engine.

Beware this evil called Ethanol.

Ethanol,  The last, best, hope for big profits
Ethanol,  The last refuge of a scoundrel
Ethanol,  Like the proverbial lilies of the field, it toils not, neither does it spin
Ethanol,  Full of sound and fury, signifying, nothing
Ethanol,  Crucifying America on a cross of Corn!

This just in!  Ethanol will cause hunger!

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383659/index.htm

I just saw an interview with Herman Cain on the O’Reilly program.  In this interview Cain touted the now traditional Republican mantra about economic recovery; Tax cuts.  When O’Reilly asked him about lowered government revenues while we are so deep in debt, he responded with the normal supply side response that the economy is not to be viewed with static, but rather dynamic analysis.

All that is standard, and it is historically true.  But the questions to ask now are these:  Will any further tax cuts right now actually spur economic growth? Or would other things be more effective? And, will tax cuts really increase revenues, or decrease them.

Unfortunately I am suspicious that many conservatives have a misunderstanding of supply side economics. Tax cuts, and supply side are not magic. They are not a cure all for whatever ails you.  I ask you to witness the current economic environment. Right now, due to various tax cuts in the last two years we are at the lowest rate of both income taxes, and capital gains taxes that we have seen in thirty years. Yet the economy shows no signs of recovery.

Here is the way that supply side equations work.  You have all, no doubt heard of the Laffer Curve, named for economist Art Laffer.  According to supply side theory, if the tax rates are north of the Laffer Curve then increasing rates will so depress economic activity that you get less income than you had before. And if you lower the rate, then you actually increase tax income.

This is all absolutely true and can be seen to have worked several times in the past.  However, What if your tax rates are already below the point of equilibrium on the Laffer curve?   What happens then is that lower in rates further will not noticeably increase economic activity and will result in less revenue for the government.

Right now we have to ask this question, Are we at or below that equilibrium point?  I think there is good reason to conclude that we are.  As much as I like Tax cuts for their own sake, is it responsible to advocate further cutting when such huge deficits loom.  DON’T GET ME WRONG! We can never lower our deficits with just tax increases, We must have real substantive spending cuts.  But the simple truth is that we will probably have to have both.  Just as a case of reality and political necessity.

Please do not take this the wrong way, I am a total believer in supply side economics and I have nothing against Herman Cain or any of the other candidates calling for tax cuts.  But we have to be sober and not rely upon wishful thinking.

Why exactly is the economy so bad, and not responding to tax cuts?  Well there are several likely reasons. A regime which is hostile to business, a huge increase in regulations, a spend thrift congress, huge deficits, and uncertainty about the future.  But probably the biggest reason is the Federal Reserve and their manipulation of the currency. This has caused the Dollar to take a hard fall. That drives up commodity prices and causes us to have what amounts to a huge hidden TAX INCREASE, in the form of fuel, food, and commodity prices.

The AP reports this:

{ FAIRLESS HILLS, Pa. (AP) — Pitching the promise of energy independence, President Barack Obama cautioned Wednesday that it’s going to be tough to transition from America’s oil-dependent economy and acknowledged there’s little he can do to lower gas prices over the short term.

“I’m just going to be honest with you. There’s not much we can do next week or two weeks from now,” the president told workers at a wind turbine plant. It’s a theme Obama’s struck before as he tries to show voters he’s attuned to a top economic concern with gas prices pushing toward $4 a gallon.}

In other words, “You’ll get used to it”

To those of us old enough to remember, this reminds us of the Jimmah “Malaise” speech. In that speech Carter tried to get us to believe that we just had to accept less out of life.  That was the beginning of the end for the peanut farmer. Let us hope this is the beginning of the end of the “Organizer in Chief”.

I think we are missing the boat here. We are arguing about simple tax policy. But since there seems to be problems with both fiscal and monetary stimulus it is clear that something else is needed. (after all, the government HAS to Do something right?)

It is clear to me that we have a lag in aggregate demand because everyone already has what they need. I therefore propose that the government institute a program whereby they go to citizen’s homes at random and destroy their property. If random consumer goods are destroyed then it only stands to reason that this will be a huge boost to demand.

Now some might think that this will fall afoul of the fifth amendment guarantees, but that is a takings clause, and this is not a taking. I feel sure that the legal minds that produced the Obama health bill can come up with the proper justifications.

Larry Summers, of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and all around idiot Keynesian, has murmured something to the effect that rebuilding could temporarily boost the Japanese economy.

That is an amazing amount of lunacy to come from someone who is supposedly a trained and respected economist. It violates one of the basic tenets of economics. Bastiat’s broken windows fallacy.

Don’t let anyone fool you, a disaster or a war, do not boost the economy and will not bring anyone out of a bad economy.  That is because of something called opportunity costs.  Opportunity costs are all the purchases or investments you could make with a given amount of money that you used on something else. Just as the money spent by government on ethanol subsidies or a bridge to nowhere could have been better spent investing in new private sector investment or consumption.

What are the opportunity costs of the billions spent on rebuilding? What do you do about the lose of property that is irreplaceable? (lost heirlooms, memorabilia, lives, pets, and coastline to name a few).  A loss is just a loss.

But didn’t WW2 get us out of the great depression you ask?

After WW2 our nation took off because of pent up demand. There was enormous demand for consumer items that could not be realized during the war because of rationing. Also, we were one of the few intact industrial economies so we gained a large share of foreign trade as well.

But if the Keynesians are correct then we could get the same amount of stimulus today by building battleships and aircraft carriers and then just sinking them.

It seems to me that if anyone posts a diary promoting some Republican presidential hopeful then it quickly becomes a slug fest and an occasion of both denigrating the person being mentioned and promoting some other candidate.

I admit that I have been guilty of this myself, and I apologize. But let’s just cool it ok?  First of all, we don’t even know who is running yet.  In the second place, there is lot’s of time for candidates to either (a) gain more name recognition (b) connect with the nation or (c) gain more “electability”.

So next time someone  wants to promote a candidate that they prefer, think twice before you either come in with both arms swinging, or else use his diary to promote someone else.  

As usual, polite discussion and asking questions are always appropriate.  Accusations and name calling are not.

Thank you.

Texas is still a solid Red state, but this cannot be taken for granted. It is changing rapidly toward Democrat.

Rick Perry is a popular and successful governor who is being challenged by an ex-mayor, Bill White, who left his city with some huge financial problems. (his replacement, Democrat Annise Parker has been much more conservative and has had to slash the cities budget).  Nevertheless, the race is very close.  Recent polls of likely voters have Perry up by only four points, and this in a historic anti-Democrat atmosphere.

Now part of this can be simply Perry fatigue. Perry has been in office a long time. But I am convinced that this is also a result of changing demographics. And I am not just talking about the huge growth in the Hispanic vote, Texas is also being colonized by people who have fled areas of low employment, most notably California. Those who have been residents for six months can start voting.

In the House races Republicans will probably not pick up more than one or two seats, that is partly because they already hold most of the seats, but it is also because Democrats are expected to pick up at least two seats in areas where Hispanic voting has increased.  If you look at a list of Democratic candidates running for the House, you will see that fully half of those names are Spanish.

Now the Hispanic vote is not as monolithicly Democrat as is the Black vote, but it is fairly reliable. The Republican party has no choice but to reach out to Hispanic voters, and run more Hispanic candidates.

How do you reach out to Hispanics?  In my dealings with my Latin neighbors and coworkers I think they are worried about jobs more than anything else.  But they are also very culturaly (or socially if you will) conservative. So values issues have a lot of pull.  We should never pander or offer giveaways like the Democrats do, but money should be spent, and a special emphasis placed, upon getting our messege out to the Hispanic community in the border states, and recruiting Hispanic candidates.

Otherwise we could eventually lose the border states.

 Forget all your theories and equations, it is now possible to simply measure the performance of government economic stimulus, and various attempts to boost consumer demand.

We can look at the 1930′s, the 1970′s, we can look to Japan in the 1990′s, we can look at Europe, and our present situation.

It is not possible for the government to stimulate aggregate demand enough to do anything but put us farther into debt. And consumer oriented tax cuts and one time rebates have almost no stimulative effect.

For the simple reason that such money has nearly no velocity. Middle class people who get a few extra hundred bucks don’t ususally invest in high tech firms, or found new companies with that money.

Inflating the economy, or flooding the financial markets with loose money and low rates also does no good, and some harm.

The only thing that has been proven to work is low marginal tax rates, low capital gains rates, spending restraint, and a lower and streamlined regulatory burden. Coupled with sound money policies, and sound lending policies. There will always be a up and down business cycle, but these policies make the highs less bubbly and the lows less severe.

That is it in a nutshell, It might not be romantic, but that is what works, period.

I now declare that all economics are over, everything further is simply fine tuning. Keynes is Dead! Get over it!

I have been excoriated as an ugly American for not “getting” soccer. So I watched a lot of the world Cup, I gave it a try I really did.

What I saw was pretty bad. There was not much scoring, but when there was the referees called it back.

There was the most horrible flopping and play acting. I even saw a guy who looked like he popped a blood capsule. It was just like watching professional wrestling.

There were the horrible annoying vuvuzelas.(hey at least this time they didn’t riot and kill a lot of people)

And the ridiculous childish announcers and their idiotic GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

In one word, immature.

Finally to all those who say I am an ignorant, close minded American, let us put the shoe on the other foot.

Americans like a large variety of sports. What is wrong with the other nations that they have never expanded their horizons beyond soccer? Why are they so backwards and narrow minded?

Wow, we live in interesting times (curse you ancient Chinese philosophers!).

I have long held out that Obama had yet to prove that he was as bad or as incompetent as Carter, but I tell you, it’s pretty damn close.

Well look who is the latest left wing media about to go belly up? None other than the magazine of the Reds for the last century. The Nation is facing a major shortfall as reported in Politico: Here is an excerpt.

Nation faces $1,000,000 deficit

The Nation is facing a $1,000,000 deficit and, as a result, it’s asking some of its reporters to make pleas for help.

Chris Hayes, the Nation’s Washington editor, sent this fundraising email out today:

Dear Nation Friend:

I’ve never written a fundraising letter — and living in a city where everyone is always hitting up folks for donations, I’m more than happy to keep it that way. I’m a journalist. I write articles and books about politics, Washington, and the world around us. And I’m extraordinarily lucky — I get paid to do so by The Nation. My Capitolism column about the political economy of Washington runs every other week in The Nation, and I just launched a weekly audio-cast called The Breakdown that attempts to take complex inside-the-beltway issues and make them understandable and accessible. It’s the kind of work that I became a journalist to do.

But as you’ve undoubtedly heard, newspapers and magazines are having a rough time. Journalism is in trouble at the very moment when we can’t afford to take our eye off what’s happening in Washington and around the world. So I’ve been asked by our publishing team to ask you for help by becoming one of our Nation Associates.

SO they say they are in dire straights, The truth is this magazine faces a hostile environment and a million dollar deficit.

Really what hostile environment is that? The free market? This just goes to show that leftism is only popular when it is out of power. Because once these people get a little power people quickly remember what they were like.

So you think the world has been turned upside down in the aftermath of the 9/11/2004 terror attacks?

Well what would you think would be the mindset of people in the western world if all of the following happened in a twenty year period?

Attempted assasinations of the heads of state of Spain, Germany, the USA, and Belgium. And attempts against several British ministers and officials.

Successful assasinations of the leaders of the USA, France, Russia, Greece, Portugal, Spain twice, and Austria twice.

As well as bombings with multiple deaths in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, and Barcelona.

Well all of this happened. It was the work of a loose cabal who adhered to a variety of versions of Anarchism. Anarchism was (is) an extremely foolish idea that all government is offensive and bad. Although there was a peculiar group of Anarchists who were also surprisingly marxists. (proving that if you are an idiot you will fall for all sorts of bad ideas).

The anarchists worked to use terror to bring down governments, needless to say their efforts had the opposite effect. It made them pariahs to the common people and caused governments to greatly expand their surveillance and control of the population.

How did the governments of the time deal with the anarchist threat? Well, they didn’t have to, events, (primarily the First World War) caused the anarchist movement to lose steam and fizzle out.

However, our government reacted to the threat in a very energetic manner. Anarchists were arrested and detained on no other suspicion but that they advocated anarchism. The Anarchist lecturer Emma Goldman was thrown out of the country.

A few people protested these actions but they were not all that controversial. More controversial was the arrest and conviction of Saccho and Vanzeti for a killing and robbery. But that is only because the radical left took up their cause. There was never much real doubt that Sacco was guilty, Vanzetti may have been innocent of the murders, but certainly knew about it and was at any rate in possession of weapons and explosives.

I think that these sort of waves of violence and bizarre religions and ideologies will from time to time sweep upon and test the civilized nations of the world. They just have to be dealt with from a position of strength and a lack of fear until the wave passes.

I would like to see lawmakers try to introduce legislation of this type: If any one, or group of persons, either in or out of the government, find any sort of waste, fraud, abuse, or duplication in the federal government, they need to present a paper outlining the problem with a possible solution.

Then an agency of the justice department created for this reason, is ordered to immediately begin to put the solution, or a better one, into place. Meaning they could order other departments of the government to change their procedures or stop certain practices.

Then, the person or persons who presented the report will be rewarded, let us say, 3% of the savings for the next ten years. That could be a whole lot of money.

Furthermore the DOJ will see their funding increase and will receive bonuses, the more Federal money they save. This sets up a case of the government fighting itself, which is a good thing.

It should be noted that something like this was done before, way back in the civil war, and it worked pretty well.

Sorry for this short Diary but I would like to hear the thoughts of others.

The Obama administration has gone out of its way to insult and pick on Israel. There have never in the past been any problem with building homes in Jerusalem, and the shabby treatment of Netanyahu went beyond the contempt which Obama normally bestows on our allies.

I had to ask myself why they are doing this now, knowing that they have a reason for everything they do.

Here is my thought. They know that very soon Israel will have to strike against Iran, Iran continues to build a bomb and it is certain that Obama will do nothing about it.

Therefore Obama is laying the groundwork, by picking fights, to be able to disavow and disapprove of what Israel does in it’s on self defense.

The enlightenment philosopher John Locke is commonly thought of as the first exponent of the doctrine of natural rights, However some trace it back further to the Roman Stoic Philosophers. The Stoics were concerned with right behavior and were respecters of religion but did not admit to the worship of any particular sect or deity.

They postulated that what set man apart from the animals was the divine spark which gave man all of his virtues. And that a man deprived of that spark by subjugation, as a slave, lost those divine virtues and thus became little more than an animal. It was reasoned then, by some that certain rights and freedoms were a necessary component of mankind.

Most people in this country, when they have heard of inalienable or natural rights think of them as God given. But it is not necessary to believe in God in order to accept the idea of preexisting rights.

Natural rights are preexisting, meaning that they are not granted by laws or the state, rather States and Laws are created in order to guarantee those rights. And Government is legitimate only if it protects those rights and rules with the consent of the governed.

Now the Left (liberal, progressive, socialist, call it what you will) Have always been in conflict with this doctrine. And not just because most of them are atheistic. They have always felt that there are no absolutes, therefore everything in the world must be viewed only in it’s proper context. everything is relative.

This is of course a path to disaster. If, at any time the populace concedes that the Government has all of the rights and merely bestows them as it sees fit then it is a slippery slop down to tyranny.

It is not that the left don’t believe in rights, but they are situational, and they are not always the same rights that the founders believed in. Free Speech is situational, religious freedom is really freedom from religion. Keep and bear arms? Guns are just icky. and by the way lets just add a bunch of junk and call it rights, like the right to health care or a free lunch.

As usual the roll of the lefty is to destroy. They would rather destroy our rights and replace it with something much much less.

I was foremost among us who were gloomy and downcast after the election of Obama and the Democrat majorities in Congress. I really thought that it was the beginning of the end.

You see, I had this view point. That the Dems had learned from the experience of Bill Clinton, that they would take an incremental approach, that they would be bipartisan. And in so doing they would be able to co-opt some of the Republicans and essentially get everything they wanted.

I was fearful that such an approach would work all too well, and we would be in for a generation of Democrat dominance. But I was wrong, you see i did not account for the stupidity, arrogance, mendacity, and stubbornness of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi.

Like the Bourbon Kings, they have forgot nothing, and learned nothing. They could have triangulated, compromised just a little and still got nearly everything they wanted, but no, it was not in their genetic make up.

Now, they have turned the giant and stupid middle, the so called independents, against them. And it will be nearly impossible to win them back. Unless, of course, something out of the ordinary happens like a huge natural disaster. But even then, they would be judged on their responses, and i think we all know how that would likely turn out.

So, no more doom and gloom, I was wrong, and the Democrats are just exactly what we thought they were, poltroons, idiots, jackasses, and arrogant bastards.