Better Alternatives to Net Neutrality

Net neutrality was the wrong solution.  It just added more government regulations to solve a problem caused by government regulations.  The solution should be to remove the regulations that grant ISP's monopolies free from competition.

ISP's monopoly power comes from control of the "last mile" that connects to your house.  Local governments, like the village I live in, grant exclusive rights to a single ISP.  Nobody else can string coax or fiber in the local government's area.  Congress can outlaw this practice because it's local governments interfering with interstate commerce.

There's also a lot of reserved TV spectrum that could be used for super wifi.  Local TV spectrum is reserved for TV whether it's used or not.  In smaller markets, with only a few TV stations, there is a whole lot of idle spectrum that could be reallocated to provide broadband Internet over the air.  The spectrum could be auctioned off to raise revenue for the Feds.  In low density rural areas, this might be the only way to provide high speed internet.

What Police Didn't Do at Charlottesville

The key to understanding what happened at Charlottesville is what the police didn't do. They didn't keep the white supremacists separated from the Antifa / BLM counter protesters. Keeping the two sides separated is standard procedure in a volatile situation like a white supremacist Nazi march. So why didn't the police keep the two groups separated? The Charlottesville police had agreed to keep the two sides separated, according to Hunter Wallace, a supporter of the white supremacist marchers at Charlottesville. In his blog, as quoted in the LA Times article linked below, he says, "Violent antifa [anti-fascists] were not penned in their own area as per our agreement with the Charlottesville Police Department, but were roaming the streets and blocking the entrance to Lee Park." I think the local Democrat officials and the Governor of Virginia wanted a violent confrontation to stir up racial division. I think they ordered the police not to keep the two groups separated. There are strong rumors that the cops were ordered to stand down. This tactic of withdrawing police protection to facilitate a convenient riot is common in places like Venezuela where the left uses street violence to advance their cause politically. I believe that this riot was intentionally permitted, because the Democrats in charge thought it would embarrass Trump and Republicans in general. It certainly worked better than they could have dreamed. This is just speculation on my part, but I hope some brave journalists will investigate and see justice done.

Who was responsible for the violence in Charlottesville? Here's what witnesses say

Allow Escape from Obamacare

It's clear that Obamacare can't be repealed, but it doesn't have to be. The Cruz Amendment, to allow insurance companies to sell health insurance that does not comply with any of the Obamacare coverage mandates, is the only logical answer here. Let people escape from Obamacare, and you won't have to repeal it. Obamacare will be abandoned by most sensible health insurance customers except for people in high risk categories. If people can vote on Obamacare with their feet, Obamacare will lose. This provision could be included in a reconciliation bill if the government loses enough on each person covered by a subsidy. Any person who left Obamacare for lower cost private insurance would save the government money.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) would have to be leaned on a little bit, but they richly deserve it. The CBO said Obamacare would save the government money. Given how far into a death spiral Obamacare is, that's a big LOL at this point. The Congress needs to pass instructions to the CBO on how to score people who leave the program for less expensive private insurance as part of the bill. The prediction should be based on the rates people paid before Obamacare, adjusted by the cost of living. If the CBO won't follow instructions, fire the top earners in the CBO and get a revised estimate. They serve at the pleasure of the majority party in Congress essentially. It's time to pretend we're ruthless Democrats like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. A provision like this will force Democrats to explain why people can't choose their own coverage, even coverage that doesn't cover pre-existing conditions. The cross subsidy younger healthier people give to sicker older people under Obamacare is something Democrats conceal, because socialism is sold by fraud. Make Democrats explain why Obamacare has to be a government enforced monopoly, why they can't permit any private competition. When the lies about who pays the true costs are exposed, it will be easier to pass a bill. That's the alternative that will work.

US Strategy: Ukraine, Syria and Fracking

Aid to Ukraine was under discussion this week.  The Budapest Memorandum, signed by the Clinton administration in 1994, guaranteed the territorial integrity of the Ukraine in return for the surrender of 1,800 ex-Soviet nuclear weapons on Ukrainian territory. It was signed by the US, UK and Russia. The US has given no arms to Ukraine after Putin seized the Crimea and sponsored the separation of two rebel areas in eastern Ukraine from Kiev. Our inaction demonstrates that our word, at least in executive agreements involving nuclear weapons, is no good. We have done absolutely nothing to defend Ukraine's territorial integrity.

Putin has two big problems. The low price of oil means he's broke, and his suppression of the Union of Mothers of Soldiers of Russia for counting casualties from the Ukrainian conflict, means he can't take large casualties. Putin is trying to distract his populace from their economic problems with military victories.

The way to handle Putin is to give long range artillery and man portable guided anti-tank rockets to the Ukrainians, along with the training to use them properly. The 40 million people of Ukraine are very willing to fight, but they need more effective weapons to increase the cost of Putin's adventurism. The Russians have been fighting us with proxies they armed since the end of World War II. Putin can hardly object to us if we use proxies against him.

If Putin is defeated in Ukraine, he will have to retreat from Syria. If Putin is defeated in Ukraine, he may lose office and, without his position to defend himself, he may lose his life. The last time oil prices were this low, Russia went bankrupt, Boris Yeltsin was forced out of office. That's how Putin gained power. It could easily happen again.

This will not put ISIS in control in Damascus.  ISIS is in the process of being wiped out as a conventional military force that can hold territory. It turns out that the US Air Force can actually kill ISIS forces if the rules of engagement are reasonable, as they are now under Trump. Air power is only ineffective when the president wants it to be, like the Smartest President Ever seemed to want.

Iran wants a Persian Empire stretching from Pakistan to the Mediterranean Sea. Russia has interveniened in Syria to help Iran achieve their goal of empire. I don't think it's in our interests. Iran prays daily for "Death to America." I choose to take them at their word.

I gave you a slight exaggeration on the price of oil.  When Boris Yeltsin was forced out of office, the price of oil was about $25 a barrel.  But the point is that wars are expensive, and up to 80% of Russian export earnings come from energy exports. At $50 a barrel, the Russian government is running a big deficit because it's spending too much.

President Trump's energy policies are going to expand US energy exports and put pressure on world energy prices. Trump withdrew from the stupid Paris agreement. Trump stopped the EPA's war on coal. Trump has opened almost all federal land, including the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling. Under Trump, the federal government has quickly approved every application for a liquid natural gas export terminal. All of the pipelines Obama stopped, Trump approved already.

In natural gas, the Russians are going to lose market share. The European price for natural gas is currently about $5.20 per million Btus. The US price is about $3. Even allowing for transportation costs, the price in Europe has to fall as more US LNG reaches the market there.


 It will be harder for Iran to get everything it wants without Russian help. They will have to chose between nukes and empire. I think they will chose nukes. Your opinion may vary. The most likely outcome in Syria is partition. Damascus will remain under Bashar al Assad's control. A mixed group of Kurds and Arabs will control the Northeast. Shiites or chaos will rule the Southeast. Jordan and Israel will try to keep Sunis in control of the Southwest.

The Russians win in the Middle East if they make a mess, because all they want is for the price of oil to go higher. If there's chaos in the Middle East, there will be less oil production. It's as simple as that. Not giving the Ukrainians any help at all means that nobody will ever give up their nukes ever again. They will know they will get NOTHING in return. Giving the Ukrainians enough arms to stop further Russian attacks is just good sense. It shows Putin that it costs him too much to attack westward. Would you rather wait for Putin to attack a NATO country, like Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia?

Liberals say, "If Assad were removed and replaced be by Sunnis the most likely outcome would be Hezzbollah in Lebanon would be cut off and the result in Lebanon would be Sunni genocide against Christians and Shia"

Malarkey! Hezbollah is the most powerful armed force in Lebanon. Hezbollah controls the Beriut Airport. Iran ships arms to Hezbollah through the Beirut Airport and also through the Damascus Airport and then by truck convoy to Hezbollah territory in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah is the reason that Assad can't be driven from his core territory. They back him up.

Before the Russian intervention, ISIS was the biggest Sunni power. The US, the Kurds and the Iraqi Army have flattened ISIS and killed most of their fighters. They ain't coming back from the dead. The Sunnis in general are not coming back for at least 5 years.

The Syrian civil war has resulted in mutual exhaustion of the local Syrian forces, except for the Kurds in the northeast. That's why all of the locals called in outside help. For example, the Iranians hire Afghan Shiite mercenaries to fight in Syria, because Assad is out of people who will fight for him. The people who still nominally back Assad will fight only to protect their own villages and local areas. It's a matter of self preservation and religious freedom. Assad is the enemy of their enemies. That does not mean they support everything he does.

Liberals need to check their bi-coastal elitist privilege. There’s a whole world out here where arugula ain’t on the menu. The Democrats' openly socialist ideology is a joke out here in flyover country because, like Bullwinkle pulling a rabbit out of his hat, it’s a trick that never works. The latest example is Venezuela, a once mildly prosperous petro state now experiencing famine and food riots. My advice to liberals: if you’re going to be arrogant and dismissive, try to have something behind it other than bluster and manure from MSNBC.

I thought liberals or progressives or whatever were all angry that Trump was selling out to Putin. Their responses on arming Ukraine sound more like they really wanted to sell out to Russia themselves, and are angry that Trump may have beaten them to it.  All of that assumes they believe their own propaganda.  So far, Russian contacts aren't illegal.  In a delicious irony, Hillary's campaign is reported to have contacted Ukrainian sources for dirt on Trump.  But we all know the law only applies to enemies of Democrats.

Article I reacted to:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450140/arming-ukraine-bad-idea?fb_comment_id=fbc_1492167384211642_1492400224188358_1492400224188358

Counter Fake Russian Contact Crimes With Prosecution of Real Crimes

I don't understand why the DOJ is not prosecuting Obama Administration minions for their crimes. We used to have the rule of law in the US. If you broke the law you faced prosecution.

If I were Trump or Sessions, I would have grand juries investigating Huma Abedin, Samantha Powers and Susan Rice for mishandling classified materials. Hillary's email server had essentially no cyber security and over 100 pieces of classified information on it. That's 100 felony counts on the public record. I also would have grand juries investigating John Koskinen and Lois Lerner for obstruction of justice at the IRS. The leading cause of PC hard drive crashes is not subpoenas anywhere besides the IRS. There are obviously other people, like the guy who deleted 30,000 pieces of email while they were under Congressional subpoena, that need to be investigated. All of these prosecutions can be handled by main Justice career prosecutors. I don't understand why this isn't happening. These folks actually WERE criminals.

Face the fact that progressives are like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, sentence first, trial afterwards. There's nothing to be gained by going easy on the previous administration. We lose every news cycle that fake crimes of meeting Russians are on the air instead of the real crimes of abuse of power in the Obama Administration.

I know Obama and the Clintons are untouchable Liberal Saints. There will be a lot of flack if we start prosecuting their minions. To solve that problem, give Barry the Brilliant and Michelle the Magnificent blanket pardons for all offenses during Obama's 2 terms. Offer Hill and Bill immunity from prosecution in return for testimony against their lackeys. We don't need to convict any of them. If we have a high enough number of minion indictments and convictions, their legacies and political influence will be reduced to ashes.

If Sessions is indicting Democrats, it's bound to improve Trump's mood. Right now he's getting pummelled and not hitting back at all. Trump is media savvy enough to know he' losing. His people who quantitatively analyse social media are probably telling him he's losing, which is why he's so angry. Indicting Democrats will change the subject.

In military strategy, you concentrate your strength against your opponent's weakness. Our strength is the rule of law. Democrats' weakness is lots of minions guilty of real crimes. Let's convict those minions for their real crimes . It's time to remove leftist impunity before the next Democrat Administration starts to take advantage of it.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449743/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-president-blame-mueller-affair
http://www.redstate.com/jaycaruso/2017/07/20/republicans-need-go-record-trumps-comments-mueller/

Living with Trump: Watch His Hands, Use the Mute Button

The choice is between a Constitution that means what it says, and a dictatorship of regulatory agencies and rogue courts staffed with progressive "experts." If you favor a Constitution that means what it says, then you have to try to keep Trump from running off the rails, because he's the only chance we have. I'm not saying you have to like him. I am saying you have to avoid taking cheap shots, like a lot of this article. There is no possible decent alternative to Trump. The only real alternative is a resurgent Democrat controlled process moving towards a total Deep State takeover that completely ignores the Constitution.

The reason that progressives reacted so violently to Trump's election is that they were so close to putting the Constitution into the trash can of history. The Constitution currently means whatever the Supreme Court says it means 5 to 4. Supreme Court cases are like NFL games. On any given day, any interpretation is possible. We have almost totally lost the rule of law. That's how close we came.

The key to living with Trump is watching his hands and using the mute button. Trump has immediately approved every application for a natural gas export terminal. Trump has opened almost all federal land, including the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling. Trump withdrew from the Paris Global Warming Pact. Trump stopped the war on coal. Thanks to fracking, the US is now the number 2 oil producer in the world, second to Saudi Arabia. The flood of exported oil and natural gas from the US threatens to bankrupt Russia and Iran. Trump's energy policy is the number one reason that Putin rationally should have preferred Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump.

Trump has eliminated all the stupid rules of engagement that allowed ISIS to exist. Trump allowed the Air Force to drop the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan, killing 92 ISIS in Afghanistan fighters in a tunnel complex, showing we will use any weapon and drop it on any military target without worrying about whether two civilians and a goat might get killed in the process. Trump is letting the military set strategy. Trump's cabinet appointments are marvelous. Trump has ordered reinforcements to the Baltic Countries and Poland. ISIS got wiped out in Mosul and Raqaa is surrounded.

Trump and Congress eliminated a lot of nasty regulations that Obama pushed through at the last minute. Trump is appointing judges that believe the Constitution means what it says. Trump is actually trying to deliver on his campaign promises. Trump is a lot better than a crippled President Pence.

Republican alternatives to Trump are a fantasy. If Democrats succeed in getting rid of him, they see a big comeback in their future, just like after Watergate. That's what I see too. Why would any Republican or Conservative want that?

Taliban Depends on War on Drugs

To beat insurgents, you must cut off the source of their supplies. The American Plains Indians were finished when the American buffalo was hunted close to extinction. Indians depended on buffaloes for food and used their hides for clothing, shelter and their fur for trade. ISIS collapsed when the US bombed their oil trucks and oil fields.

The War on Drugs is the reason we have so many endless guerrilla wars in the works, as well as rogue countries, failed states and violent, heavily armed drug gangs. Selling illegal drugs makes it easy to finance an army. The Taliban runs on opium poppy sales. Opium and heroine prices are higher due to the War on Drugs.  The FARC in Columbia and Shining Path in Peru are cocaine funded insurgents. Cuba, Nicaragua and North Korea all earn a lot of foreign exchange from illegal drug sales. Drug cartels in Mexico and other parts of Latin America are beter armed than the police.

I think it's time to end the War on Drugs. It's the second coming of Prohibition, only much worse. Prohibition, and the violence and corruption that came with it, was limited to the US. The War on Drugs is a worldwide disaster. Frankly, the costs aren't worth the benefits. It would be easier to deal with user rehab programs than multiple crime waves and insurgencies all over the world. We need to legalize drugs and tax them heavily. We can start with marijuana to see how it works out. As I see it, it's a national security issue.

Trump Fights the Chicago Way

Open letter to Never Trump Diehards

What's at stake here is whether the Constitution means what it says. If the left wins, the Constitution, and the law, mean whatever the progressives want it to mean at the moment. The rule of law will be replaced by a dictatorship of regulatory agencies staffed with progressive "experts." The consent of the governed will not be required because progressives believe the people are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent. This is what the 2016 election was all about. This is what we're fighting about now.

I understand you didn't believe Trump would be an improvement. I had my doubts too. But now we know he is a big improvement over Obama and whatever policy Hillary Clinton might have decided would benefit her, personally, the most. Trump recently opened the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge for drilling with no opposition! He dropped the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan, showing he has no stupid rules of engagement.

This is not the time to become picky on style. The Pravda Press has been calling conservatives things like Nazis, fascists and racists for years with no basis in fact and no fear of retaliation. They lately accused Trump of treason and incest without any credible evidence. I don't blame him for counter attacks on twitter. Enough is enough. Being better than they are brought us to losing to Obama twice.

Obama ran a completely outlaw regime that showed every hole in the Constitution progressives could exploit. They were very close to irreversible damage. We can't afford to be nice guys any more. We're fighting Capone, the Chicago way.

Trump Tracks Popularity on Social Media

Trump's campaign used social media to decide where Trump should schedule appearances during the last months of the campaign.  Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, set up a top secret quantitative analysis unit to help the campaign.  They analyzed tweets and comments by location to see where Trump had the best chance to win states.  Then they calculated the best electoral college payoff for each appearance.  Trump didn't win by accident.  Trump won by analyzing internet traffic.     
I think that Trump's people are still doing it.  I think they know better than the polls how they're doing, because they have a lot more data.  They know exactly how well Trump's tweets are playing in Peoria.  While the obsolete mainstream media use obsolete polling techniques to justify their fake news jihad against Trump, Trump knows how the whole thing is actually playing in the country from analyzing social media.  Trump is making adjustments based on the data.  Trump still has impulse control issues and anger management problems, but he controls himself once he sees how it's playing.   Trump is playing the Pravda Press for fools.  

Exclusive Interview: How Jared Kushner Won Trump The White House

Rude Self Defense Tweets Upset Liberal Journalists

When people on TV can call you Hitler with no foundation of at least 100 deaths or 25 calls for genocide, you have a right to self defense. In previous times, it was assumed that Republicans would be polite when responding to childish attacks. I think it's safe to assume that Republicans are tired of being nice. Personally, I accused a liberal of having the intelligence of a 6 year old for saying Jared Kuchner had committed treason based on alleged meetings with Russians, with no admissible evidence that the meetings occurred and of what was discussed. He called me impolite. I told him that when you accuse somebody of treason without evidence, saying "where there's smoke, there's fire," THAT was impolite, so the time for niceties was over.

I think liberals expect a double standard which used to be routine, to continue. However, since they are going to call a man with an Orthodox Jewish son-in-law, a Jewish (converted) daughter, and two Jewish grandchildren, Hitler, polite has left the building. The Marquis of Queensburys Rules no longer apply. Trump is justified, in my opinion, in throwing whatever filth he wants in self defense, using twitter or whatever else he feels like using. We know his methods of retaliation are unacceptable to the polled public. We'll see if it makes any difference in a real, unrigged election in 2018. In my opinion, the blows must be landing because the media talking heads are complaining the tweets are unfair. Well, so was their initial criticism. Surprise! Surprise! Politics ain't bean bag, it's a contact sport.

Recently, the left called Trump's twitter attacks on journalists, unpresidential.  Calls for civility from the left usually indicate blows from the right are causing pain. To reverse Clauswitz, politics is war by other means. The "liberal" goal is to overthrow a duly elected president of the United States by unconstitutional means. I think stopping that effort doesn't require restrained fair play or good manners. It involves fighting mud with mud, no holds barred. I don't care that liberals think my argument has no validity. I think the left's objective is closer to treason than business meetings with random Russians. I took an oath to defend the Constitution when I joined the US Air Force in 1972. Regardless of whether anyone loves or hates Trump, he was elected in 2016. Crude efforts to nullify the election deserve equally crude answers. "Liberals" no longer get to fix the rules so they win no matter what. They should get used to losing, unless they have the votes to win elections.

I believe the Pravda Press thinks themselves above the fray, even though they are the press outlet of the left. They think that they can make any allegations with no basis in fact and suffer no consequences. Under libel laws, they're correct. But as news commentators, they too are public figures. Trump can tweet any outlandish baseless allegations about them with no fear of legal consequences also. Trump's ungentlemanly idea is tit for tat retaliation. It doesn't have to be proportional response. The left wants to remove Trump from office by whatever means necessary. That means the return verbal fire will be equally unrestrained. Why is that hard to understand?  The left never plays fair, so why should their opponents play fair?

Liberals should remember that everything they do creates a precedent for conservatives. If liberals remove a duly elected president for being rude, any flimsy excuse can be used to remove a duly elected liberal president in the future. You can only break the Constitution once. Once it's broken, all the Smartest Horses and all the Smartest (your choice of 23 pronouns here) ain't going to be able to use crazy glue to put it back together.

Five Groups of Clinton Voters

It's fashionable in liberal circles to categorize Trump voters into several insulting and demeaning catagorios. I'm a computer guy, so I need more precise groups to insult and demean. 

My assumption with Clinton voters is that they come in five somtimes overlapping categories: 1. Some are voting their identities, so Hillary's poor performance in office doesn't matter. 2. Some are technologically ignorant, so they don't understand how easy it is to hack an email server like Hillary's with no certificate to encrypt internet traffic, no specialized anti-virus software beyond the basics from Microsoft, and no encryption of the files or emails. 3.People on government payrolls or with government contracts who depend on ever increasing domestic spending for their livelyhood. 4. Clinton foundation donors. 5. People dumb enough to believe the government really will try to help the needy rather than help themselves to taxpayer dollars. None of these people seem to notice that progressives waste money paying themselves salaries for good works that unfortunately are not shovel ready right now, but will be soon at a slight cost overrun.

Huge Damage from Electromagnetic Pulse

Since a solar flares can do the same damage as North Korean or Iranian nukes by creating their own electromagnetic pulse, I think it's time to harden the electrical net in the US..  This is the Holy Grail of federal spending.  It's shovel ready, because it doesn't require new right of way and environmental studies.  It strengthens national defense.  It's an infrastructure project with lots of money spent all over the country, in every congressional district.  It could save the planet from a natural disaster of cosmic proportions.  It should be completely bipartisan.

The fact that Democrats don't want to harden the grid exposes progressives to charges of both treason and not believing in science under progressive rules of evidence required for making allegations.  I really enjoy using liberal rules of allegations.  They are completely unrestricted warfare on the opposition.  So make charges like a liberal.  Throw lots of manure, just to see what sticks.  Remember it takes offense to win the game.

A Scoudrel and Direct Election of Senators

 Prior to 1913, US Senators were elected by state legislators, not state voters.  This procedure gave state governments a lot of direct input into federal government decisions.  Many political theorists believe restoring the power to elect US Senators to state legislatures is a necessary step to restoring the balance of power between the states and the federal government.  So why did it change?

We probaby owe the direct election of Senators to the efforts of one man, William A. Clark.  Mr. Clark was a Montana Copper Baron who wanted to be a Senator.  In 1899, Mr. Clark bought the entire Montana State legislature.  For him, it was relatively cheap.  The scandal caused the US Senate not to seat him until another election was held a year later.  The Montana State Legislature stayed bought.  Senator William A. Clark served one term, 1901 to 1909.  The scandal was a big reason for the 17th Amendment, which changed the election of Senators to be a direct election from the voters of a state in 1913.  Sometimes, one scoundrel can change history.

Who are the Fascists?

The real "liberal" goal is a dictatorship of regulatory agencies filled with progressive experts who believe they can take better care of the people they govern than the people themselves.  "Liberals" don't even bother to ask for the consent of the governed, because they believe the governed are too stupid and ignorant to give informed consent.

In the US, the Constitution has a doctrine of separation of powers. However, regulatory agencies like the EPA, have rule making (legislative), law enforcement (executive) and administrative hearings on the regulations (judicial) all in a single agency.  There is no separation of powers in this structure, but "liberal" jurists use "living Constitution" interpretations to make the Constitution say whatever they want it to say.

When the dumb voters choose to vote for a rude crude  guy who promises more freedom and less regulation, "liberals" start a coordinated program to remove the duly elected president by unconstitutional means.  Who are the fascists?  The people who voted for Trump and won the election according to the Constitution,  or the people who lost and will use whatever means it takes to overturn the outcome of the election and overthrow the legitimate government?

Government by regulatory agencies is generally unpopular.  As these agencies intrude into more areas of life, diversity of ideas is surpressed by enforced country-wide regulated uniformity.  People may not know exactly what's wrong, but the Western Democracies all have the same regulatory overreach and the same unrest.  The ruling regulators are certain they know best.  The people disagree.  The voters will flail wildly until they find escape from the regulators.

Be Polite in the Left's Climate of Hate?

I think calls for politeness are a waste of time.  Calls for polite discourse are usually signs that liberals are losing the argument.  It’s an implied false equivalence that’s completely ridiculous.  Liberals, by whatever name they call themselves to conceal their designs, want to replace Constitutional democracy with a dictatorship of progressive government experts.  They want power to vest in an elected president and his regulatory agencies.  They want to rule by executive and regulatory decree, backed up by “living Constitution” judges who make the Constitution and the law say whatever is convenient at the moment, no matter what was originally ratified or passed in Congress.  There is no way to compromise with people driven to achieve these goals.

The problem is that the rules are not the same for everybody. Liberals are never polite when it comes to attacking their political enemies.  I think turnabout is more than just fair play. I think it’s required for the survival of our Constitutional Republic.  I've personally been called a Nazi in the last 24 hours for expressing support for finding actual evidence of Trump's collusion with Russians before hanging him. Given that my grandfather was Jewish, and my wife and 5 of my 6 grandchildren are Jewish, that's a pretty big insult. Not just Trump, but every major Republican figure has been called Hitler, including the governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker.  Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, daughter Ivanka and their two children are Orthodox Jews, but calling Trump Hitler is considered a normal polite thing to do. I think that at least 1,000 deaths should be required before anyone qualifies for the Hitler accusation. Based on my last name, some liberal lout suggested I was a drunken Indian and thus made no sense. My family is from Moffat, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. I can't count how many times I was called racist for opposing the policies of President Obama, aka Barry the Brilliant. The last time my sister-in-law was in town, she told me to order my beer by saying, "I like my beer, like my sister-in-law, black."  If we don’t answer leftist lies, they are assumed to be true.  Silence is assent under English common law.

Since the left paints the right with a very broad brush as not just misguided, but evil, the patience of people on the right has, understandably, worn rather thin. We are starting to apply the rules that the left applies to conservatives against the left. If the left paints us with a broad brush, we can do the same to them. If the left doesn’t like it, then they should stop dishing it out. If Hillary Clinton can take donations from actual Russians through the Clinton Foundation and then approve the sale of 20% of US uranium reserves to Russian interests as Secretary of State, then apply the same standard of no big deal to Trump staffers' meetings with Russians. Otherwise comrades, the Party is going to experience some rough language, because, speaking personally, I've run out of politeness when it comes to treason allegations with hearsay evidence from unnamed sources.

If the Gabby Giffords shooting was a result of a right wing "climate of hate," why isn't the recent shooting of Steve Scalise the result of a left wing climate of hate? From where I stand, the left’s climate of hate is a lot more intense than the opposition to Obama ever was. Left wing commentators speculate about using the 25th Amendment to declare Trump unfit for office. They call for a military coup to replace Trump. They call Trump a danger to all life on earth. Doesn't that make the left the creators of a "climate of hate" against Republicans by their own logic? Why aren't the Liberal Talking Heads calling for everyone on the left to stand down to prevent further violence? Because they want to promote further violence! Black Lives Matter was only the beginning. Unless we see calls on the left to stand down, the right is justified, by the left's own rulebook, to denounce them for their "climate of hate." The rules have to be the same for everybody. 

Unilateral verbal disarmament is surrender to these “progressive” people.  They want to replace representative government with dictatorship by progressive experts.  If you’re not OK with their program, they are going to get violent.  They will kill police and political figures that get in their way.  Like some college presidents did lately, progressives will order police to “stand down” while leftist mobs do their dirty work.  Politics ain’t bean bag.  These folks are playing for keeps and the entire Republic is at stake.  The time for civil discourse is over.  It’s time to stop pulling punches.

Original Article:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/448643/divided-america-people-must-connect-america-survive

Jail the Clinton and Obama Underlings

I think we need two special prosecutors, one for the IRS harassment of Tea Party nonprofit groups and one for the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation pay to play scandal. However, I think the focus should be different from usual on both investigations. I think that the special prosecutors ought to offer Hill and Bill immunity in return for testimony against their underlings. I think we don't need to go any higher than IRS Department Head Lois Lerner and IRS Commissioner John Koskinen at the IRS. Anybody higher than that I think should be offerred immunity for testimony against Lerner and Koskinen. I think the targets in both investigations should be the underlings. The idea is to put as many as possible in jail. This has a lot of advantages. It doesn't look political at all. These people broke the law, so they get convicted and go to jail. We don't need to bag any high fliers here. What we want is the G-d awful truth. We also want to send a message to the next set of underlings. Your masters will go free. You will go to jail. They can't protect you. You can't protect yourself by testifying against them. It will tend to discourage underlings from following unlawful orders. The current orientation of taking out the hard targets at the top is bad strategy. It looks like a political vendetta, as the article says. However, doing nothing encourages a feeling of impunity, that being a Democrat means never having to say you're sorry. That doesn't work either. Plus, right now, the Democrats are winning every news cycle with their leaks of inuendo and fabrication, signifying nothing. A number of public trials and convictions will reballance the news cycles and remind people that the Obama Administration and the Clintons were outlaws.

Unlimited Government Makes Everything Political

Progressives have gotten pretty far along in getting the government to take care of everything. If government is taking care of everything, then everything is political. Politics becomes more and more personal, because the government decisions involve more and more personal decisions. The scope of government is the scope of politics. If we want less politics in our lives, we need the government to take care of less.

Today's malaise is a function of modern communication and transportation, which allows government to be more intrusive in more places than ever before. In 1917, a picture of the President, Queen or King might have been on the wall, but you didn't have to listen to them every day, explaining how great they were. In 1917, bureaucrats could not travel 3,000 miles in 4 or 5 hours and make sure their orders were being carried out to the letter. Officials couldn't coordinate new rules daily, even if they wanted to. The communications systems of 1917 didn't give officials the illusion that they knew everything. Governments have always aspired to total control, but now they think technology gives them a chance to achieve it. In times past, it wasn't realistic because of the physical limts imposed by transportation and communications technology.

Progressives believe that the world should be run by experts who will make better decisions because they are better informed about what the choices entail. The internet and other Information Technology has led progressives to believe experts have all the tools they need to run almost everything better than people can run it themselves.

Actual experience shows that governments are not good at taking care of everything. They gererally fail at it and go bankrupt. Venezuela used to be a prosperous member of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. In 1998, Hugo Chavez was elected President on a platform of taking care of everything, including helping the poor and free medical care for all. We'll call his program socialism for short. Chavez continued in office until his death in 2013. His hand picked successor, Nicolas Maduro, took over after Chavez died. Now, Venezuelans don't have enough to eat and are short of medical supplies like antibiotics and the poor have nothing to eat.

Government can't take care of everything, because the experts are a relatively small group making decisions when the government runs things. Being human, even super human as progressives believe they are, they can't beat an entire country of individuals evaluating all the information available and making their own decisions based on what they want for themselves and their families. Government experts, or bureaucrats as some people call them, have to oversimplify to set up government programs because otherwise they face information overload. So they set things up with a limited number of options. People have to fit themselves into the limited options. If they don't fit, they are forced to fit. If bureaucrats don't like certain groups, like traditional Catholics and Evangelical Protestants, then the options for them don't fit very well at all. With power comes the temptation to abuse it.

Voters Revolt as Governments Make Decisions For Them

The discontent in Western democracies is due to their becoming less and less democratic.  The problem is increasingly arbitrary decisions governments are making supposedly to take care of their people.  Progressives world-wide seem to believe that large segments of the population are too ignorant and stupid to make their own decisions.  This runs counter to John Locke’s basic principle that government requires the consent of the governed.
 
In the US, consent of the governed is the basic principle the country was built on.  John Locke first coined the phrase as part of his “Two Treatises on Government,” published in 1690 to justify replacing King James II of England with William and Mary in 1688.  So it’s important in Britain as well.  Consent of the governed is what allowed Parliament to legislate the Act of Settlement in 1701, which set the rule of Succession for the British Monarchy that’s still in force today.
 
Locke thought that government exists to preserve the life, liberty and property of each person it governs.  This phrase, edited to make it more user friendly, was used in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.  The chief purpose of government in Western democracies today is to regulate life, constrict liberty and redistribute property, usually without the consent of the governed.
 
Current US government practice is that almost all new laws that pass Congress are passed as shells, which are filled in later by regulatory agencies, executive orders and court rulings.  The problem with regulations, executive orders and court decisions is that none of the processes used to make these things is designed to get the consent of the governed.  Conversely, the voters can’t hold the regulatory agencies, executive departments and judges responsible for their actions.  In the US, regulatory boards are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate, to fixed terms of office.  Judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate for life terms.
 
While I’m not quite as clear about how things work in Europe, it appears to me that the European Union does business the same way.  Most of their important policies seem to be the result of regulatory agencies or court decisions.  Voters don’t get to hold the decision makers accountable.
 
Bypassing legislatures makes the flow of new regulations arbitrary and largely unpredictable.  What are, in effect, laws come out of murky processes in back rooms at regulatory agencies or government executive departments.  Then they are subject to review in the courts where the decisions are also hard to predict.  The process is like a ping pong match, and the ball bounces around with almost no attempt to gain the consent of the people who will bear the burden of the new rules.  The chaotic nature of regulatory processes inhibits long term private sector investment.  You’re not going to invest in something which takes 5 or 10 years to pay off if it could be regulated out of existence in 3 to 6 months.
 
In the US, we have an especially virulent form of this chaos called the “Living Constitution.”  Most people probably think that the Constitution is like a contract.  The meaning of a contract is fixed when the contract is signed.  So logically, the meaning of the Constitution or a Constitutional Amendment should be fixed at the time it’s ratified.  The “Living Constitution” doctrine says that the meaning of the Constitution changes over time, based on changing modern conditions.  This works out as an excuse to alter the Constitution in the Supreme Court by finding new meaning in the Constitution to suit progressive fashion.  In the past, Justices had to decide based on what the law or the Constitution said, whether they like it or not.  Now Justices can decide cases based on what they would like the law to be.
 
The president wields almost all of the power of the modern regulatory state in the US.  He or she issues executive orders, in effect controls all regulatory agencies and appoints all judges, including Supreme Court Justices.  The appointment of “Living Constitution” Justices was extremely important to the left.  Because of Antonin Scalia’s death and the age and ill health of 2 or 3 other Justices, whoever won 2016 was going to be decisive in deciding whether the “Living Constitution” doctrine prevailed or not.  The normal ways to change the Constitution require 3/4ths of the States to ratify an amendment.  Since Republicans control both legislative chambers in 32 states, that isn’t going to happen for progressives.  Their only shot at big changes was cheating with a “Living Constitution” in the Supreme Court.  That’s why Trump published a list of 21 judges he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court.  All of them were original meaning judges, not “Living Constitution” judges.  This list gave conservative Republicans, like me, the confidence to vote for Trump no matter how bad his manners were.  Voting for Hillary would have erased the Constitution by allowing it to be completely redefined.
 
President Obama was especially energetic in concentrating as much power as possible into the Oval Office.  Obama used his pen and phone without restraint in his second term to avoid having to deal with Republicans in Congress.  He created precedents that were safe only if Hillary Clinton succeeded him.  The Democrats went all in, betting that Hillary Clinton would win in 2016 and secure Obama’s legacy.
 
What happened was a Trump victory.  All of the pen and phone power Obama concentrated in the Oval Office will be used to undo the entire hope and change of the last 8 years.  Trump will make at least two Supreme Court appointments.  The Justices Trump appoints will be deciding cases for about 20 years.
 
This sudden disastrous outcome has completely unhinged the American left, and even some of the Republican establishment.  Instead of permanently remaking the country, the left lost everything to a loud mouthed reality TV star with a lower class accent and abrasive manners, who insults the press constantly with tweets at 3 AM.  The Us mainstream media dreams of ways to bring down Trump because they have no other way to fundamentally remake America the way they planned.  They have even gotten as far as speculating about a CIA mutiny or a military coup in the US.  The Pravda Press is in complete denial, looking for any way to roll the dice again for even a small chance to undo the damage..  The left's desperation measures the magnitude of their reversal.