Ken Nelson

Without one religion anyway

Some, Commenter Carl for instance, rant on about how Christians want to control every move you make. They ignore Muslims that actually do want that level of control. And they ignore nanny statists that force you to separate your trash, drive slower than you should have to, and steal more than 1/2 your income.

I do not lose sleep at night over Christians. I know any group that large will have some kooks, but they are nowhere near power. But I know, right now, as I write, there are  hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of progressives and liberals plotting to use the force of government to make me do something they think I should do, or not do something they don’t want me to do. Or not eat what I want to eat.

The latest assault comes from Nanny Central, New York state, where a law has been introduced to ban the use of SALT in preparation of restaurant foods.

"No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part.

No… I’m not worried about the “Christians”.  Their faith centers on free will.

I just wish our government still did.

No papers!

Lindsey Graham has an idea. So you know you are in trouble – right?

He and Chuck Schumer (another paragon of self-promoting idiocy) want to have a national ID card.   Like so many other politicians they want to ride concern over a valid problem – illegal immigration – to promote an idea they will use to squash freedom and dissent.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker.

Uhmmm. NO THANKS.

I do not want anything Lindsey Graham or Chuck Schumer think is grand.  A national ID would provide a basis for no privacy and internal movement controls. No thanks!

The ACLU, in one of the good things they do to hide their basic anarchist goal, doesn’t like it:

"It is fundamentally a massive invasion of people’s privacy," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. "We’re not only talking about fingerprinting every American, treating ordinary Americans like criminals in order to work. We’re also talking about a card that would quickly spread from work to voting to travel to pretty much every aspect of American life that requires identification."

And neither do I.   Now an “Idiot Identification Card” might be handy. Schumer and Graham would be first in line for such an honor.

You didn’t vote for me? Screw you.

Sportsman generally hate Obama. I’ve never met a serious shooter, fisherman, or ATV rider that didn’t tilt way right or libertarian.

Obama hates them right back and appears ready to give the greenies a big thank you by banning fishing in some waters:

The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.

Never mind that Obama is supposed to be EVERYBODY’s President, not just be for those that donated to him.   No, he listens to the greenies and they want fishing stopped, because, as you know, eco-kooks lay awake at night worried that somebody somewhere is having fun outside.

Given that the scope of this process appears to include a new set of policies for all coastal and inland waters of the United States, the omission of economic considerations is inexcusable."

This is not the only access issue threatening the public’s right to fish, but it definitely is the most serious, according to Chris Horton, national conservation director for BASS.

I’m tired of fighting Obama and his minions and we are only a year into it.   I don’t know why they hate us, and America so, but they do, and I guess we will just have to suck up a little wind and continue to fight back.

What I’m really tired of is having a President I’m sure hates America. How the hell did that happen?

What if Congress had incentives?

Lets travel back in time to Feb 2009. A new President, rich in hope and promise, moved to deal with economic crisis.

He sent a bill with two pages to the Congress. The first page was blank. The second had just one paragraph:

Put your plan on the first page. If it reduces the unemployment rate to 6% in the 1st year, and is deficit neutral over its entire life, each member of Congress will receive $1,000,000.

Might have 2009 been different?

Don’t like bribing Congress to do the right thing?  You could flip it and punish them with 100% taxation on their reelection funds and income.

We need to do something to get that rat bastard crew in Washington to look out for all of us, not just themselves or their SEIU donors.

If you don’t like this idea, I’m all ears for your great scheme, as long as it doesn’t involve saying crapola like “our current system is working” or “you are free to vote out your Congressman”.

From to in just 1 year!

So far, this week, Barry has asked me to believe:

• that 10 years of taxes with 6 years of spending is deficit neutral then the 7th year of spending isn’t in deficit. Set up the algebra if you still remember how. It is IMPOSSIBLE. Oh heck… let me do a simple variant of it for you:

  10t + 6s = d
  10t + 7s = d

  Can both of these be true?  Only if “s” is zero. And that isn’t his plan.

• He invited Scott Matheson (D-Utah) over to the White House to jawbone him about being wishy-washy on the healthcare bill, but DIDN’T bring up putting his brother up for a Federal judge slot?  And Rahm Emmanuel was in the meeting?   ROFL.
• That he can suspend the law of supply and demand and make price fixing in healthcare work. Let’s review:

  price = supply vs demand

  if you fix price, what happens if supply drops?  Demand rises.
  if you fix price, what happens if demand increases?  Supply drops.

  Sorry Barry, you may be “the one” but not God.

We borrowed money from China to pay for this fabulous piece of work

In World War II the nation borrowed so that we and the world could remain free from tyranny.

Last year we borrowed to fund bad art.

Time to stop that don’t you think?

According to the Nolan Chart Quiz I just took at GlennBeck.com

Take it here is you like: http://www.nolanchart.com/survey.php

My desire to project American force abroad against terrorists kept me off the peak of libertarianism.

I don’t like license plates. I don’t like vehicle registration. They are just money makers for the state and generally pains in the butt. What does a license plate do? It identifies the car. Does it identify the driver? No.  Does it prevent stolen cars? Nope. Just change the plates, about a 1 minute operation.

Just think about it… do you need a license plate? Do you use them? Who uses them? The Government!  Do they use them to help you?

The only thing license plates and registration stickers do is make money for the state, give police a reason to stop you, and in general cause you pains in the butt once a year times every vehicle you own. 

If I were Governor of Utah one of the things I’d love to get rid of is vehicle registration and the bureaucracy it creates.  I’d also eliminate license plates, but permit any store to sell Utah plates with random numbers on them for traveling in other states.

Some states, like Georgia, are buying automatic license plate readers that automatically scan license plates in parking lots or even while driving looking for hits on BOLOs and expired registration. They sell it as a theft aid:

Last October, Lt. Scott Burke of the Portsmouth, Va., Police Department said he took one of their new systems out for a test, and in 33 minutes got a "hit" on a sedan reported stolen in a carjacking.

But the real reason is so they can make money finding expired tags. And ultimately to track your movements.

We need to pay for roads, but with driving ubiquitous, road infrastructure should be paid for out of general taxation.

License plates pose a privacy and government intrusion risk – they should be eliminated.

“I could look at me all day”

An actual psychiatrist has diagnosed, from afar, President Obama with ‘malignant narcissism”.

The question is what real damage Obama may do to the country. This man has been entrusted with the greatest power in the world. He will have that power for the next three years at least.

But he may not be able to emotionally tolerate any real limits on his need for self-aggrandizement and power. And still he can’t be allowed to beat the country into submission.

And he has one of the best quotations I’ve heard lately:

We don’t have a national crisis today. Obama is our national crisis.

I’ve felt for some time that Obama was a dangerous narcissist. In past posts I’ve explained that you need not compare Obama to the narcissist Hitler or Stalin because Obama doesn’t (yet) have access to totalitarian power.  But I did compare him to narcissistic Lyndon Johnson and Douglas McArthur – both more favorably viewed by history, but both causing deep damage to individuals and the country.

The comments on the post are interesting… debate goes on about if he is a Muslim, one even suggests he is a homosexual. Those are things he can readily hide, so lacking him facing Mecca five times a day, or dating a man, I don’t think they merit much discussion.  However, Obama’s psychosis clearly manifests the longer we have time to see him interact with others and govern.

It’s going to be a long 3 years.

25 years later the headline is finally right

I hope Obama is more like Ronald Reagan than Jimmy Carter.

Why?  Reagan was a good talker but was ineffective at changing the long term course of the country. Carter was a dope but managed to ruin foreign policy for us perhaps permanently.

I don’t like Ronald Reagan. I don’t idolize him. I think he was a good talker but ineffective. He compromised and set the nation on the path to ruin.

Reagan’s peak ineffectiveness came in 1986…

But Ken… he lowered tax rates. Well, sure, the rates might have been higher early in Reagan’s terms, but there were lots of deductions and loopholes. Only dopes paid the actual printed rate.

Then it all changed. 1986 came. A cruddy year. The Space Shuttle crashed and our income tax rates were cut along with most deductions/loopholes. Simplification.

He got rolled on this. They lowered the rates, and took away the deductions. But now they’ve raised the rates again, but where can you hide money now?  My financial guys show me things that make my eyes bleed they are so complicated and expensive.

Federal spending, as a percentage of GDP and debt as a percentage of GDP, have all risen dramatically since Reagan and 1986.

Also in 1986, Senator Alan Simpson, recently resurrected to further screw the country on Obama’s “don’t’ cut the deficit” panel, sponsored a bill to let illegal’s become citizens. Reagan signed it and with the stroke of a pen gave California and its 56+ electoral votes to the Democrats.

He got rolled again!  He’d already given government a path to more money. And then he ensured the people most likely to grow government would have the California Assembly and Governors office, as well as a much better shot at being President. We see the result now as we worry if California’s expected financial failure  will ruin just it, just its region, or the entire country.

1913’s income tax set up the long term ruin of the country. Ronald Reagan’s terms weren’t a speed bump on the way to ruination – they were  gas on a fire.

So the next time someone goes on about Reagan, tell them to shut the hell up, they don’t know what they are talking about.  A cult of personality isn’t endearing even if nominally conservative.

Government has worked for the political class for much too long.

Chris Christie
Governor, NJ

Entire speech here.

Personally, I’d like to see some Congressmen forced to testify before a panel of car dealers, about the budget deficit’s Sudden Acceleration Problem.

Glenn Reynolds aka “Instapundit”

I’d prefer it be Toyota employees. Car dealers,  most of whom have built businesses preying on the stupid and impulsive, have plenty to answer for and deserve no “pulpit”.

Hold it sort of like a knuckle curve

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), a former Detroit Tiger,  was the only pitcher ever to strike out Ted Williams three times in one game.  But I think his Senate career has largely been a strikeout.

He is in the news for holding up a $10 billion that is heading to Federal highway projects around the country and also to extend unemployment benefits to an unprecedented 2 years for some unemployed workers.

I’m of two minds about Bunning. My first mind is “why now”?   He’s been a conservative, but he spent, and he earmarked.   Now that he is retiring, he finally gets finicky with the people’s money?  Why the wait?

My second mind is why support something unconstitutional? He says that once $10 billion is cut elsewhere he will support the bill.   Federal unemployment payments aren’t Constitutional in my book. The Feds have no role here in any serious reading of the Constitution. Highways, I can see, although these projects are mostly not worthy.

So Jim Bunning may be the “best” type of fiscal conservative the Senate can offer right now. But to me that just makes it even clearer why our fiscal house is in such ruin.

Kudos to the Arizona Tea Party for NOT endorsing either candidate in the John McCain / J.D. Hayworth primary battle in Arizona.

Both are narcissistic careerists who should be doing other things than the peoples work.

Of course, their reasons reach higher lofts than mine… They wrote:

Roger Boone, organizer of the Flagstaff Tea Party, added, “The Tea Party should not endorse individual politicians, as their future actions may reflect poorly on our organization. We encourage our members to endorse and vote for whomever they choose, but as a group we will not endorse officially.”

That is an admirable position. It can lead to confusion as to who among the candidates upholds the Tea Party ethos.  But if endorsing leads to compromise of core Tea Party principals about which there can be no compromise, then the risk of not knowing which candidates to support is minimal – you’ll know.

Good job Arizona Tea Party!

  over 

Right now the “professional” Republicans chortle that the Democrats will lose their majority if they pass healthcare.   They might as well just shout out “we love our party more than the country”.  I hear it that way anyway.   And I hate it when “pundits” say that some Democrat that believes the health care bill is good will vote against it out of career fear.  Your job isn’t worth something bad for the country – got it!  

Healthcare passed because the Democrats need to pass “something” will still be law.  I’m more interested in Republicans, or Democrats, that oppose it and promise to kill it later if it passes.

I’m more interested in candidates and elected representatives that represent themselves honestly, and if elected represent the entire country, not just the unions that give them some money, or even their district or state. 

I’m happy to do something that hurts Utah a bit but is good for the country. An example would be handling radioactive waste here. We have the right type of places to do it, it needs to be done, so as long as it is done safely, bring it on.   That is the attitude ALL of our “representatives” need to have, not the “whats good for me, and then whats good for who voted for me, then what can I claim is good for my district” that too many have now.

Those who value the current system must think there aren’t 400 some odd other politicians, possibly more powerful, looking to hose other districts.  And it changes.

A better route would be to send candidates there to represent us on the nations business, not represent us at the feast.