Ballot Access - North Korea vs USA

From CNN (although I could have used numerous other sources, all mocking the idea that North Korea actually has an election process):

This Sunday, North Koreans will be required to show their assent for this political system at general elections universally expected to return the current incumbent Kim Jong Un.

 

While critics say the poll is merely a political show to legitimize the country's rubber stamp parliament -- previous elections in 2009 returned Kim Jong il (Kim Jong Un's predecessor and father) with a 100% mandate on a 99.98% turnout -- observers will be poring over the list of legislators for clues as to how Kim will govern the Communist nation over the next five years.

Kim himself is running for a seat in the Paekusan Constituency No.111; significant because the numbers are regarded as auspicious in Korean culture and because North Korea claims Mount Paektu, located in Paekusan on the border with China, to be the legendary birthplace of his father.

 

The ruling Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland holds all 687 seats within the Supreme People's Assembly and voters have only one candidate to vote for in each of the seats.

 

While the umbrella grouping officially contains four parties -- the Workers' Party of Korea, the Korean Social Democratic Party, the Cheondoist Chongu Party and the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan -- all candidates must be sanctioned by the party including three independents currently sitting as deputies in the assembly.

 

While it is possible for a voter to cast a ballot against a candidate, they must walk to a special booth to do so. Critics say few are brave enough to cross out the name on the ballot.

 

From The New York Holy Times (although I could have used numerous other sources, all mocking the idea that the USA actually has an election process):

 

Two Libertarian candidates were tossed from Ohio’s primary ballot on Friday by Secretary of State Jon Husted in a ruling that sparked immediate plans for a legal challenge. Mr. Husted, a Republican, said he had adopted a hearing officer’s recommendations in disqualifying a candidate for governor, Charlie Earl, and an attorney general candidate, Steven Linnabary.

 

Their nominating petitions were challenged on two grounds: that signature gatherers failed to comply with Ohio laws requiring them to be either Libertarian or a political independent and another requiring them to disclose their employer.

 

Mark Brown, a lawyer for the Libertarian Party of Ohio, said it will challenge the decision in federal court. He said the ballot protests were an extension of Republican efforts to keep second third parties off the state’s ballot.

 

Mr. Earl could draw votes from Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, in his re-election bid this fall.

 

So.... We Libertarian Party folks are accustomed to skullduggery from the Beltway Party, trying to keep us off the ballot.  (I won't deny that we sometimes stumble when trying to get over the hurdles they place before us.) 

 

But it does appear that North Korea does offer an easier process for other parties to be represented. 

 

Just go to the alternative booth to vote for someone other than those in power.   

 

I've often said that it's easier for a Southern Baptist to get on the ballot in Saudi Arabia than it is for a Libertarian to get on the ballot in Oklahoma.  Or Ohio. 

 

And we are the country that sends its army and navy all over the world to guarantee free and fair elections. 

 

 

 

 

Libertarian, Quite Contrarian - by Caroline Gorman

My friend Caroline Gorman posted this on Facebook the other day.  It's about how some small government types will sometimes use symbols from the Confederacy, just to show that they, too, are rebelling against Washington.  Or are being iconoclasts.  Or just want to be controversial. 

I went to a school whose fight song was "Dixie".  I started playing that song (drums) in marching band in the 5th or 6th grade.  Then I went to Ole Miss, where the fight song was "Dixie".  Transferred to Delta state, where the fight song wasn't "Dixie", but we played it a lot just because we were in.... Dixie. 

For the benefit of the Brits, Aussies and Kiwis who visit this site, "Dixie" was the fight song of the Rebel/Confederate army during the U.S. Civil War. 

I played the drum part to "Dixie" after every touchdown, field goal, extra point, blocked punt, and kickoff for about 12 years.  I've played it in parades and during basketball games.  Some level of racial sensitivity kicked in about 1984, shortly after I left school, not just at Ole Miss, but at colleges across the deep south, and you never hear the song any more.  Therefore, I think I may have played the pro-slavery war song "Dixie" more times than anyone now alive.  I've also carried my share of rebel flags, so I was interested in Caroline's take on Confederate symbols.  (BTW, now that I've put away that childishness, you won't catch me within 20 feet of a rebel flag.  Symbols don't mean what you think they mean.  They mean what OTHER people think they mean.) 

Here's Caroline:

Background: Jack Hunter, director of social media for Senator Rand Paul, was ‘outed’ in mainstream news outlets as, variously, “a fan of the old Confederacy,” (Slate), someone who said “John Wilkes Booth’s heart was in the right place,”[1]“anti-Lincoln,” (Chris Hayes, both) and related slurs. It’s unclear why this became news now, since Jack Hunter’s past as an outrageous radio personality named The Southern Avenger is certainly no secret. In any event, all of these slurs were taken as indicators of the number-one accusation: that Jack Hunter is a racist.

In response to this, libertarians jumped in to defend Jack Hunter. My Twitter and Facebook feeds were crowded with libertarians who wanted to assure me that they’d “never met a nicer libertarian” than Jack Hunter, that he was “a pillar of the libertarian community,” a “real lover of liberty” and most importantly, a nice guy. Or at least, he had been nice to his white fellow libertarians. Then came the proliferation of articles in his defense. A post on Lew Rockwell added some venom, as usual, but nothing substantive, again as usual.

But the most stereotypically libertarian – and flagrantly wrong reaction – was fromTom Woods and his scathing article on ‘Sweetie Pie Libertarians.’

Tom Woods’ argument reads as a brilliant, brave stand for intellectual freedom against ‘zombies’ and other intellectual light-weights. He begins with a blazoning “Now there are perfectly good reasons one might have to oppose the Lincoln regime.” And then he lists several. Then he turns his attention to the Sweetie Pie Libertarians, those who cravenly rush to be in the good graces of “Mr. Nice Media Person, sir.” These Sweetie Pie Libertarians are “policing the thoughts” of the brave, noble libertarians, in a cowardly, backward attempt to be “more attractive.” These Sweetie Pie Libertarians are just caving in to public opinion. Fortunately, we have big strong brave men like Tom Woods to stand up to the Establishment and tell it like it is!

Tom Woods, answer me this question: What does wearing a luchador mask with the Confederate flag on it have to do with a rational, intellectually honest exploration of the historical issues concerning the advent of the Civil War?

Answer: Absolutely nothing.

Jack Hunter’s use of Confederate symbolism had nothing to do with bravely questioning standard histories. He was taking a side in identity politics – and on the side of violent racists and bigots (note: even if, for some reason, you think that the Confederates weren’t violent racists and bigots, note that in the 150 years since then, that symbol has been used by violent bigots from the KKK to the murderers of James Byrd, Jr., - which means that symbol is now a symbol of racism).

I thank Tom Woods for his article. He entirely missed the point about why Jack Hunter should not work for a politician, or anywhere that he has a chance to put his racist views into action, but he did highlight another problem in the libertarian community.

He exemplified the‘Libertarian, Quite Contrarian’ Syndrome.

What is the "Libertarian, Quite Contrarian" Syndrome? It presents in the form of people who, if told to do one thing, will do another. These people are more predictable than zombies. Zombies at least have desires of their own (well, one desire: delicious brains). The Contrarian Libertarians don’t know what they want until they hear what they’re not supposed to want. They are individuals! They do what they want! Which is always, without fail, the opposite of what you are telling them to do.

Libertarian, libertarian
Quite contrarian
How does your movement grow?
When they say yes, you say no
They go left, you go right
Always spoiling for a fight
They say up,
you say down,
Turn that argument around!
They say red, you say blue
You can’t tell me what to do!

How is this relevant to the Jack Hunter situation? Jack Hunter, and the libertarians who support using Confederate imagery, just want to do something controversial. They want to use that word because they’re not supposed to. They want to say inflammatory things. And they want to pretend it’s brave.

Using Confederate imagery has nothing to do with historical revisionism, with individual rights, with states’ rights, with anything libertarian. To use the Confederate flag is to prove, supposedly, that you support freedom – by using a symbol of a time when human beings were enslaved.

Instead, using the Confederate flag is a perfect example of the dark side of individualism: relentless contrarianism. This contrarianism has nothing to do with questioning standard histories (perfectly admirable), taking a moment to reconsider childhood lessons (absolutely necessary) or understanding that few issues areas clear-cut as we would like (I wish more people understood that).

The use of Confederate symbolism which has swirled around the libertarian movement and the more populist elements is only a base childish desire to do something ‘naughty,’ dressed up in libertarian colors. Let’s stop protecting these people just because they know enough to use the language of liberty to justify their immaturity.

The irony is that being a Contrarian Libertarian is about as anti-individualistic as you can get. It also involves the same actions they so disdain in the mainstream media: race-baiting, kneejerk reactions instead of measured debate, and a profound acceptance of authority.

Because if you’re wearing the Confederate flag to prove that Civil War historical revisionism is necessary, you have lost. You have let the mainstream media put you in one of two boxes – for or against the Civil War. For or against the Confederacy. If you want to dislike Lincoln, go for it. If you want to question the cause of the Civil War, go for it. But accepting that questioning the traditional account of the Civil War equates to supporting the Confederacy (and wearing a flag is a pretty blatant symbol of support) is accepting their rules.

Why don’t you take the unusual third position of opposing the Civil War and opposing the Confederacy?  Of exercising your intellectual freedom to question the traditional Civil War narrative while also refusing to emotionally ‘take sides?’ That would be truly individual, and truly unusual!

Caroline K. Gorman is the Chair of the Travis County Libertarian Party in Austin, Texas. She also serves on the State Libertarian Executive Committee and is heavily involved as an activist at the local level.

Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit)

Back in 2010, an Agriculture Subsidies Welfare Queen named Stephen Fincher ran for Congress and won.

Here's a campaign pic of the smiling Fincher family, content in the knowledge that no one will ever legislate that they be Drug Tested prior to receiving their corporate welfare check.  CPS will never show up at their home to ensure that the parents of these kids aren't blowing the money (that you sent them) on crack.   You donated to the Fincher family on April 15, tax day, whether you wanted to or not. 

Here's some of the rant I posted about his campaign a couple of years ago:

Stephen Fincher, a Republican candidate for congress in Tennessee's 8th district, favors small-government, lower taxes, and he has an appropriate disdain for Obamacare.

Good for him.
He's also a gospel singer.
He's a succesful cotton farmer.

And in one eleven-year period, from 1995 - to 2006, Fincher and his wife received 2.5 million dollars in crop subsidies from government you.

Now, just for the sheer joy of it, imagine if the Democrats dared to nominate a traditional welfare queen for Congress. Someone who sits around the house all day, collecting welfare and producing little babies who will reliably vote for Democrats. Do you think there might be an uproar?

So what is there about this form of welfare that bathes Stephen Fincher in such down-home, cottony goodness?

When our government subsidizes a particular crop, it confuses the price signals. In a truly free market, if too much cotton was produced, the price would drop. Fewer people would grow cotton. The price would then reflect what people were willing to pay for it, and what farmers would willingly be paid to grow it.

If not enough cotton was on the market, the price would rise. More and more people would grow cotton until the price dropped again.

Are Obama and Pelosi and Reid paying too many people to grow cotton? We'll never know.

But are you having to pay too much for cotton T-shirts, shirts, socks and sheets because of farm subsidies and prohibitive tariffs on cotton imports? Hell yes.

The rant continues for a few more paragraphs, explaining how Brazil was going to retaliate with tariffs on our exported cotton because of Uncle Sam giving handouts to Welfare Queens like Fincher.  We compromised by buying most of the Brazilian Cotton crop.  I swear to God, that's how we solved the problem. 
I hope you'll read the whole thing. 
Go here for it. 
I grinned several times, having forgotten most of the thing.   

Congressman Fincher is back in the news, this time because he wants to cut food stamps while maintaining his own place at the public trough. 
Hell, I'm all for feeding people, but we could easily make a lot of progress on lowering the price of food by ending the Fincher Subsidy, and then ending all the quotas, tariffs, and limitations related to what Mr. Obama allows to come through the bars of our national cage.  The Institute for International Economics estimates the annual cost of U.S. foreign protectionism at $6,027 per household.   

I think that $6,000.00 per family would make up for a lot of food stamps, don't you?  But then Mr. Fincher's farm has to be protected.  Here's what was in today's Huffington Post:

Fincher has said his farm would have shut down without the subsidies, which he argued protect American farmers from more heavily subsidized foreign competition. "We would be all for not having government in our business," Fincher told the Washington Post in 2010, "but we need a fair system."

The federal government's complex system of farm subsidies is supposed to shield farmers from some of the uncertainties inherent to the industry, but critics like the Environmental Working Group say the safety net unfairly benefits the biggest farms at the expense of smaller ones.

You think that farming has "some uncertainties inherent to the industry"???  Try building fruitstands.  Open a restaurant.  Start a used bookstore.  Open a clothing store.  Go into the carwash business.  Drive a semi-truck.  Those businesses open and struggle and crash and burn every day.
There's risk everywhere. 
But the risk in farming is just more....wholesome, right? 

And that's how Welfare Queens like Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit) wind up getting $70,000 a year from the government  from you. 

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend, and that everyone pause for a few minutes to think of those who fought and died to support Stephen Fincher in the style to which he has grown accustomed. 

Too harsh.  Have a GREAT Memorial Day weekend!!!  Be safe!!  

From The Splendid Table

A professor at NYU has attempted to read the entire 2012 Farm Bill, and teach its contents to her students.
It ain't pretty. 

Go here for the whole thing. 

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: You decided to teach the farm bill. Why?


Marion Nestle: Well, I didn't know anything about it. I knew that I would be asked about it by reporters, because I'm asked by reporters about everything and they think I know everything. In 2006, when the previous farm bill was under discussion, I actually tried to read it. I opened up the file that was on the Internet and the table of contents was 14 pages long. The entire thing was 663 pages and it's totally incomprehensible.

So, I've decided to take it on, and I must say I've had moments when I've regretted it deeply. But it's been absolutely fascinating and the class is enormously exciting. I've got 45 students who are jumping out of their seats because what they're finding out is so absolutely amazing and none of us knew any of this before. We're learning it together.

LRK: What's making them jump out of their seats?

MN: Well, it's so astonishingly irrational it just takes your breath away. This is a bill that started in the 1930s and has been added onto incrementally without anybody sitting back and saying, "[What would we do] if we wanted to promote farm policy -- a rational farm policy we all agree would feed everybody, would make a living for farmers, would protect farm workers, would protect the environment and would promote health?"

The bill does anything but that. It is designed to protect certain parts of the food supply but not others: commodities, not fruits and vegetables. With today's concerns about obesity, the idea that the farm bill does not promote production and consumption of fruits and vegetables seems bizarre.

Some things are so completely irrational they just take your breath away. For example, if a commodity producer decides to grow vegetables, that producer will either lose all of the subsidies he's getting or will have to plow the vegetables under. They are required by the way this law works to plow them under, treat them with Roundup and kill them, or let them freeze. But they're not allowed to actually grow and sell them.

There are real discouraging things in it that actually discourage the production of fruits and vegetables. You would think that somebody in Congress would sit back and say, "OK, let's take a look at this and let's try to get agricultural policy aligned with health policy." But that is so far from the political reality that what this course is really about is the political realities and what you have to do if you want to change those realities.

LRK: Is there any way for the consumer to get any kind of say on any of this?

MN: One of the things that's most disturbing to me about the bill is that it is so absolutely incomprehensible that nobody can understand it. It is so vast and includes the most astonishing details about the most astonishing number of programs -- dozens and dozens and dozens. I've not yet been able to identify them all.

Each section of the farm bill covers different kinds of programs. These range from tiny earmark programs that affect only a few people, to things like food stamps and the SNAP program, which affects 45-50 million people.

What the food assistance programs are doing in the farm bill is another thing. Neither one of them could be looked at rationally because they're completely linked. The reason that they're linked is the senators and House members who have interest in one or another aspect say, "I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine."

So, the food assistance programs are held hostage to farm subsidies and the farm subsidies are held hostage to food assistance programs. You cannot read the farm bill because each aspect of it refers to amendments to previous bills. So unless you know the 30 different previous bills that have been passed, you really can't. It doesn't read like a text.

One more point: Nobody in Congress can understand it either.

LRK: That's ... scary.

MN: That's scary.

The Whited Sepulchre: No, having a Department Of Agriculture, with Food Bills and Farm Bills and an "Agricultural Policy", all at the mercy of political contributors....That's what's scary. 

.

Why Mitt Romney Lost

Here's Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine on why Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election. 

How Mitt Romney will really harm the middle class

Almost every day of his life, George Mason University Economics professor Don Boudreaux writes a letter to the editor.  He's been doing this for years in a vain attempt to correct economic misinformation. 

Here's a recent corrective that Boudreaux sent to The Wall Street Journal, explaining that the John The Baptist Of ObamaCare is just as goofy as the founder of ObamaCare:

John Taylor is correct that Mitt Romney’s economic policies are less likely to thwart growth than are those of Pres. Obama (“The Romney Cure for Obama-Induced Economic Ills,” Oct. 4). The bar, alas, is low. Because entrepreneurs and investors aren’t keen to produce and take risks when the president threatens them with higher tax rates, saddles them with crushing regulations, and scolds them for allegedly being selfish, ungrateful, predatory, and (to boot!) not especially important to economic growth anyway, entrepreneurs and investors respond by producing less and taking fewer risks.

Mitt Romney does seem to be less hostile than is Barack Obama to entrepreneurship, commerce, and private investment.

Get ready people.... Get ready.  Here comes the patented Don Boudreaux Karate Kid Crane Kick !  THIS IS GONNA HURT !!!

But contrary to Mr. Taylor’s claim, Mr. Romney’s trade proposals are not clearly better than are the president’s. Mr. Taylor writes that “Mr. Romney intends to move ahead on trade agreements and create global enterprise zones to remove barriers to trade.” That would be grand. Yet what we hear most loudly about trade from Mr. Romney isn’t about freeing trade; it’s about restricting it. Mr. Romney repeatedly boasts that he’ll raise taxes on Americans who buy imports from China.

So rather than making a principled case for removing barriers, Mr. Romney’s singular trade obsession seems to be to raise barriers and thereby make trade less free.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

John Taylor, consider yourself bitch-slapped.  Please offend us no more in that way.  Boudreaux WILL come back. 
The Mason Nation logo at the top came from the George Mason University bookstore site.  My arch-nemesis, Dr. Ralph, was good enough to get me one of the shirts, which I wear often.  You know you're a political geek when you wear your favorite university shirt because of the economics department, not the football or basketball team !! 

Why shouldn't Olympic earnings be taxed?

Florida's Marco Rubio is trying to ensure that Olympians aren't taxed for bringing home gold, silver, or bronze medals. 

The Florida Republican introduced a bill today to exempt U.S. Olympic medal winners from paying taxes on their medals. In addition to gold, silver or bronze, medal winners receive cash payments to go with their hardware.

Rubio said the American medal winners get honorariums from the U.S. Olympic Committee of $25,000 (for winning gold), $15,000 (for silver) and $10,000 for bronze, with the Internal Revenue Service ever ready to collect.

"Our tax code is a complicated and burdensome mess that too often punishes success, and the tax imposed on Olympic medal winners is a classic example of this madness," said Rubio, a Tea Party favorite. "Athletes representing our nation overseas in the Olympics shouldn't have to worry about an extra tax bill waiting for them back home."

Similar measures have also been introduced in the House, by Reps. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., Mary Bono Mack, R-Calif., and G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C.

Under the legislation, the gross income of U.S. Olympians "shall not include the value of any prize or award won by the taxpayer in athletic competition in the Olympic Games." If the bill becomes law, it would apply to prizes received after Dec. 31, 2011.

Ok, so Michael Phelps works his butt off to win $25K, and wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
 
Some other guy who isn't on television works his butt off to write a book, sell a painting, or even puts a lot of money at risk to win $25K at the blackjack tables in Vegas.  He still has to pay taxes on that, because he isn't representing our nation overseas?? 

Can someone please clarify the distinction that Rubio is trying to make? 

In case you're new to this site, I believe that 80% of all tax dollars are mis-spent.  The worst thing that can happen to an Olympian's hard-earned dollar is for Tim Geithner to get his grubby little paws on it.  But I don't think it makes sense to exempt Group A from taxes but not Group B.  Especially when Group B supplies the donations that make Group A's useless but entertaining activity possible. 

The Political Party that nominated John Roberts is now running this ad

The Political Party that nominated John Roberts is now running this ad....

They really don't have a clue, do they? 

The Libertarian Party awaits. 

This is what happens when Republicans appoint judges

Go here. 

Way to go, George Bush. 

The Libertarian Party awaits. 

Pat Roberts of Kansas and the 2012 Farm Bill

For reasons that I don't quite understand, the infamous Farm Bill comes up for renewal every five years. 

It's one of the few scandalous giveaways that has to be reworked and reapproved. 


Here's Townhall.com:

Every vote in Congress can be viewed as an opportunity to either increase liberty or increase government. Right now, the Senate appears poised to choose the latter as they prepare to vote on the 2012 Farm Bill.

The 1,000-page bill that Senators Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts are pushing through the Senate is chock full of massive spending, new entitlements, and new regulations. With corporate welfare and generous subsidies thrown in for good measure, the bill reflects everything wrong with out-of-control government. No wonder Congress is sporting a 17 percent approval rating these days.

The farm bill is another in a long line of government boondoggles that simply builds on the big expenditures of a previous bill. The CBO estimates that the 2012 farm bill will up spending to $969 billion over the next ten years. Locking in at those levels in the midst of a debt crisis and credit downgrade is beyond fiscally irresponsible. Overall, the Senate farm bill punts on the opportunity to contribute to deficit reduction and shows a startling lack of political courage.

Ok, let's pause for a moment.  Farming is risky.  Erratic.  Unpredictable.  But, on the other hand, so is long-haul trucking.  So is running a lawn service or a coffee bar or an upholstery shop. 
Upholsterers aren't organized into a lobby, though.  Sucks to be them, doesn't it???

The 2012 farm bill’s most noticeable “reform” is the elimination of direct payments to farmers. In its place is a new entitlement program most commonly referred to as “shallow loss,” a new federal crop insurance program. It’s meant to serve as an income safety net that will automatically trigger payments to farmers when their crop yields fall below 90% of their average levels over the past five years. However, the past five years have seen a spike in crop yields, meaning that shallow loss is locking in rates that are due to fall. It’s unnecessary corporate welfare, despite what the farm lobby claims. According to the American Enterprise Institute:

“The current average debt-to-asset ratio in the farm sector is less than 9 percent and has been declining steadily over the past decade. Moreover, farms fail at a rate of less than one in two hundred a year, and, from a financial perspective, farms are better placed than almost any sector of the economy to handle year-to-year variations in revenues and costs by themselves. Yet, effectively, farmers want a tax payer-funded guarantee that their revenues will never fall below about 90 percent of their recent levels.

I'll throw in some more about "shallow loss" programs in a moment.  If you can't stand the suspense, go to the end of this post, and prepare to be depressed about the gullibility of the American public. 

The addition of a farm entitlement program is one of countless examples of the federal government encouraging dependence at the expense of liberty. Additionally, telling farmers that they can keep their revenues and have the taxpayers absorb their losses invites risky behavior on their end. Apparently too-big-to-fail has yet to go out of style.

Here's a quote on the Farm Bill from the New York Holy Times.  Any time you hear a politician or a "journalist" claim that people on both sides should reach across the aisle to get things done and break the gridlock?  You should hide your wallet, lock up your daughters and bury the family silver in the backyard.  You're about to get screwed.  Here are Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas:

“This bill represents significant reform,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “It cuts subsidies, it cuts the deficit and it creates jobs.”


Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and the ranking member on the committee, called the legislation the best bill possible. “It shows what can happen if we break the logjam of partisanship and work together to get something done,” Mr. Roberts said.

 Debbie, you ignorant slut.
You claim that this theft "creates jobs".  But what is the cost of taking the money from taxpayer A and giving it to farmer B?  Has it occurred to you that taxpayer A might have wanted to create some jobs of his own, you Statist looter?  
And Pat, a lot of us were depending on that logjam that you just managed to "break".  We want it back.  We want you to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.
In addition to wanting to give money to farmers, Pat Roberts also wants to lower the tax burden on Kansas taxpayers.  Gag me with a dirty diaper.  Anyone voting for this old fraud should have his taxes doubled. 


God almighty, I'm in a bad mood this morning. 

Here's the skinny on the "shallow loss" farming program.  The older programs guaranteed an income.  This new one guarantees a profit.  Well done, Pat and Debbie.  Well done. 

Shallow-loss programs are costly: Depending on structure and crop prices, these programs could cost the taxpayer as much as or more than the direct payments program they would replace, averaging as much as $8 to $14 billion a year over the next five years.

 

• Shallow-loss programs amount to a new entitlement: Payments would be automatically triggered by revenue shortfalls and would be linked to average revenues over the past five years. So, when prices and yields increase, payment triggers will also increase, creating a new, partially disguised entitlement program that locks farmers into near-record incomes at the taxpayer’s expense.

• Shallow-loss programs based on farm-level yields create incentives for the wasteful use of economic resources by buying down deductibles associated with federal crop insurance: Farmers would reap the benefits of record crop yields and prices. However, because a high percentage of revenues are guaranteed, farmers may adopt more risky farming techniques.

• The Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimates for shallow-loss programs assume that recent historically high prices will be sustained: If corn, wheat, soybean, rice, and cotton prices return to the average levels observed between 1996 and 2011, however, program costs will balloon. A county-based program would cost taxpayers between $8.4 and $13.98 billion, depending on the rate of reimbursement. The Stabenow-Roberts shallow-loss proposal would likely cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the mix of farm-based and county-based programs.

• Shallow-loss programs will perpetuate the federal farm program tradition of giving the majority of subsidies to farms that do not need them in the first place: Shallow-loss subsidies, like direct payments and crop insurance subsidies, would be tied to the amount of land that households farm. Consequently, the largest and wealthiest farmers enjoy built-in buffers in the form of substantial equity in their farm operations (debt-to-asset ratios average less than 9 percent in the entire American agricultural sector). These individuals would receive the lion’s share of shallow-loss subsidy payments.

Here's how it ought to work.
If corn prices aren't high enough for farmers to make a profit, that means there are too many people growing corn.
The farmers affected need to grow something else. Or become upholsterers.

Can you imagine Mitt Romney running this ad?

Why Scott Walker's win is a good thing

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker handily won his recall election. 

(Note to the Brits, Canadians and Aussies who read these pages:  Republican Scott Walker campaigned for governor on a platform of reducing the state's long-term debt obligations.  When he tried to reduce the state's long-term debt obligations, the state labor unions launched a "recall" effort.  It's kinda like a vote of "no-confidence" in Parliament.) 

Walker is a Republican, meaning he's in a party that is pro-drug war, pro-oil war, anti-civil liberties, kinda pro-theocracy, and pro-national debt.  In other words, he's as bad as a Democrat. 

But here are the reasons that come to mind why Walker's recall election victory is a good thing:

1) When a government official and a union boss sit down to "negotiate" a new deal, no one at the table is representing the taxpayer.  It's two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner.  I have friends who are just a few years older than I am who have already retired from government jobs with massive pensions.  They'll probably be paid for not working for more years than they were ever paid for working.  This isn't sustainable.  (And yet NPR's "Sustainability Desk" has never commented on the problem.  Strange.) 

2) Requiring people to contribute to a third party in order to hold a job is wrong.  Unions bosses have grown fat and happy off these mandatory fees.  A significant number of union employees would like to get out of the system.  1/3rd of union households voted for Walker, BTW.  Give workers a choice in joining the union vs. not joining, and look what happens.  Here's Alanna Goodman, writing in Commentary magazine:

The state’s second-largest union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, had membership fall to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, the Journal said Thursday. The organization’s Afscme Council 24, composed of state workers, fell more than two thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.

A key reason that membership dropped was because the labor law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, forbids automatic collection of union dues. Instead, workers must voluntarily say that they want to continue to continuing paying dues to remain members of the union.
Union workers have also dropped out because of high pension and healthcare costs, and others believe that the unions are no longer influential.

The last sentence is wrong.  The unions were highly influential in diverting slush to the Democrats.  And now that Sugar Teat is gone. 

3) Union fees are spent on politicians.  Politicians are then obliged to spend even more money on make-work projects to keep the unions busy.  The circle never ends.  The debt increases. 

4) The conflict was usually described by the Lamestream Media as a matter of union "rights".  Sorry folks.  There's no such thing as a "right" that infringes on the money, time, or property of someone else.  They should've used the phrase "union privileges". 

5) The only way a union can be successful is to keep out the poor s.o.b.'s who are willing to do the job for less.  Mandates that state projects use union labor guarantee that all government projects will cost more than they should.  And please don't give me any crap about union expertise.  Compare any union LTL freight carrier with their non-union counterparts.  No difference.  The woods are full of people who can out-teach a lot of the teachers' union footsoldiers.

Every time I've had to deal with the unions at Chicago or Vegas tradeshows, it's been a case study in corruption.  Without fail.  They don't even have union employees working the damn things.  They hire temps to drive the forklifts and unload the crates much of the time.  But the vendor still has to pay them the union rate.  If you challenge the extra fees they tack onto the bill, you get ominous warnings about how much difficult it'll be for you next time.  Screw the Teamsters.  All of them. 

6) Barack Obama supported the unions and the recall effort.  Yeah, Obama was widely criticized for not showing up or making more speeches in favor of the recall. 

But I repeat:  Barack Obama supported the unions in this recall effort.  When Obama supports something, it's almost always bad for the country.  Seriously. 

A compass that is 99% wrong 99% of the time is still useful for navigational purposes.  If I could take Obama to a Vegas sports book and double-down opposite his wagers, I'd be a rich, rich man. 

Hope you all have a great day.  I'm going to go to our non-union shop where we employ people without having to give a dime to James Hoffa, Jr. 

And you thought the Democrats were the big spenders?

In the last week, a lot of bandwidth has been wasted over which president caused the biggest spending increases. 
Rex Nutting of Market Watch published a graph that looks like so....

Parts of this silliness (the Obama part) were promtly blown out of the water by Yossi Gestetner at The American Thinker. 

1) While in regular times a budget gets approved months earlier, the FY2009 budget was pieced tighter in many separate votes and bills, one of them signed on... March 12 2009 by... President Obama! AP wrote back then the "bill includes significant increases" on a host of things. But of course it's Bush Fault. Right?

2) Obama was a member of the Senate Majority who... approved the FY2008 and FY2009 budgets. It's of his making either way. He didn't arrive to Washington in January 2009 as a Governor. Senator Obama in the majority party since 2007 created the mess together with Pelosi and Reid.

3) Much of the 2009 spending (from TARP, to Stimulus, to Auto Bailout, to Loan Modifications), were officially one time things. However, four years later and we are still spending well above the 2008 levels. A Spending Binge indeed!

4) Much of the 2009 spending were officially "loans" and "investments" that Obama claims were "paid back" by the Auto Industry and others. As such, it's inaccurate to claim that all the money that left Treasury in 2009 was "spending."

5) Even if you want to ignore all of the above notes; a headline reading "Obama Didn't Increase Spending Much Since 2009" would have been more accurate. But to suggest that we are not on a Spending Binge just because Government outlays didn't increase much since the year that we spent officially on one-time things and loans is spin of the highest order.

This guy has a slightly different take: 



But here's what nobody is arguing. Look at the percentage increases under Reagan, Daddy Bush, and Little Bush's first term.  (Yeah, yeah, yeah, Congress does the spending. But the president sets the tone.) 

As Veronique De Rugy has pointed out multiple times, if you want to increase government spending, elect a bunch of Republicans.

It really is that simple. Any time you hear someone describe himself as a "Reagan Republican", imagine a meth addict with stolen credit cards. Your credit cards. And you can't call Visa or Amex and report them stolen. You are the one who gave them away. We really shouldn't have co-signed on that loan with the Republican Party.

And one day the mailman WILL arrive with the bill.  

Ron Paul: Gateway Drug To Libertarianism

I went to hear Ron Paul speak at the Will Rogers Auditorium in Fort Worth last night. 
It was pure greatness. 
I tried live-blogging it by cell phone.  If you have the patience to wade through that failed effort, you can go here, and hit "next post" after every 1.875 sentences. 


I saw Anna Tinsley from The Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the crowd, and managed to get interviewed again.  Here's Anna's piece that ran today:

FORT WORTH — U.S. Rep. Ron Paul isn't getting out of the presidential race anytime soon.
But the Lake Jackson doctor did say that fellow Republican Rick Santorum's decision to suspend his campaign has led many to ask Paul about his plans.

"There were 12 [GOP candidates] at one time. Now there are three," he told a standing-room-only crowd at the 2,856-seat Will Rogers Auditorium on Wednesday night. "It looks like we are cutting the field down.
"They ask me if I'm going to quit. I thought we were just getting started. We have a revolution to fight, a country to change."

Paul, who trails Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, reiterated his themes of limited government, personal liberty and a balanced budget.

He said that troops should come home, that government should be reduced, that the Patriot Act should be repealed, that foreign policy interactions should decrease, and that the middle class needs to stop shrinking and stop becoming poorer. As for the nation's healthcare plan, "the easiest thing is to repeal the whole thing and start all over," he said.

Many in the crowd, who stood throughout Paul's speech, waited for hours to get in. Once inside, they were quick to show their support.

Four shirtless men had painted "R-O-N-!" on their chests. Others spontaneously chanted "President Paul." And many carried signs or wore promotional buttons and T-shirts.

Cries of "I love you, Ron Paul," could be heard throughout the auditorium once he began speaking.
Paul said such enthusiasm is encouraging.

The people with seats down stairs didn't sit down throughout the entire speech.  Can you imagine someone bothering to stand throughout another Obama lecture?  Or a Mitt Romney Powerpoint Sing-Along?  Ugh...

"People ask, 'When are you going to drop out?' When nobody wants to support the cause of liberty," he said. "There's a lot of people who care about freedom ... so we will keep going until we have victory."

Paul's supporters are expected to be a force at state GOP conventions nationwide -- as they were during his 2008 presidential bid -- trying to become delegates for Paul at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., in August. They hope for a brokered convention that could open the door for Paul to become the nominee.

This is his third bid for the White House. His others were in 1988 as a Libertarian and in 2008 as a Republican.

His goal with this week's three-city Texas tour -- Fort Worth is home to his doctor son Robert -- is likely to make sure that people in his home state hear his message.

"He's trying to preach to people his mission and create a libertarian understanding of politics," said Jim Riddlesperger, a political science professor at Texas Christian University.

"The longer this primary season goes forward, the more opportunities he has to preach the message of libertarianism across the United States.

"The people who have heard his message ... are true believers."

Count Allen Patterson, who heads the Tarrant County Libertarian Party, among those believers.

"Ron Paul has been the gateway drug to libertarianism for a lot of people," Patterson said. "His movement has gained an incredible amount of traction in the past eight years."

Lance Kennedy, 24, of Dallas said he is a fan but is afraid that Paul might not be able to win the nomination.
Kennedy, a law student at Southern Methodist University, said that even if Paul doesn't win, his libertarian message will continue -- perhaps through his son U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

"The movement will continue, and I think we could still see a Paul in the White House eventually," Kennedy said.

Marion Hostetler, 45, said his drive from Ovilla was worth it to see Paul.

"Ron Paul is one of the few people I actually believe," he said. "When he says something, I think I can count on it being true.

"Hopefully America will start waking up and see we only have one candidate."

I beg to differ with Marion on that.  The Libertarian Party will select a candidate in a week and a half.  Once RP drops out of the race, and he will drop out of the race, there will be two real choices:  The LP candidate or one of the Obamneys. 

On Rootgate

Semi-Libertarian sports handicapper Wayne Allyn Root has managed to stick his foot in it again. 

Drop in on Hammer Of Truth for details. 

I think the important thing now is to make sure Obama is not elected,and that means in my mind, I would love for a libertarian like Gary Johnson the two term governor of New Mexico would actually get elected President, but I think we all know that’s not going to happen so therefore it’s got to be Romney there is no choice.

Root is a fun guy, a nice guy.  John Spivey and I once spent a pleasant evening someplace in Austin drinking most of the free beer that Root had iced down in his bathtub.  He's still shaking off the Republicanism, but I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in (to quote LBJ out of context). 

Go here to read Root's obligatory backpedaling. 

I know about a dozen Libertarians who are headed to the National Convention (in Vegas, BTW) with pitchforks and torches. 

On Judge Roy Moore's statue of The Ten Commandments

We need to talk theology for a few minutes. 

Judge Roy Moore, an Alabama Republican, is back in the news.  Here's the Montgomery Advertiser:

Roy Moore said about 2 a.m. Wednesday that even though he had not been declared the winner of the Republican primary for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court that he expected to win without a runoff.

“Statistically, there is just no way we’re going to have a runoff in this race,” the former chief justice said to reporters just before leaving his election night headquarters.

Moore, the former chief justice who was removed from office refusing a federal judge’s order, said about two hours earlier that, with him well ahead of his two competitors in the Republican primary, “the people have spoken.”

Moore was eventually removed from office during his previous judgeship because he wouldn't remove his Ten Commandments statue from his courtroom.  Later on he built this large statue of the Ten Commandments and had it placed in the courthouse yard. 

The man does love his statues. You could safely call him the Raymond Nasher of Montgomery, if not all of Etowah County. 

Moore is well known for two legal fights over the 10 Commandments.

As a judge in Etowah County, he placed a small plaque with the commandments in his courtroom. The American Civil Liberties Union sued unsuccessfully to try to have the plaque removed.

As chief justice, Moore had a more than two-ton granite monument that included the 10 Commandments placed in the rotunda of the state’s judicial building. Several organizations including the ACLU sued over the monument and a federal judge ordered Moore to remove it. Believing the order was illegal, Moore refused and was removed from office.

As a devout, foot-washing, snake-handling Libertarian, I should be objecting to Moore's statue of the Ten Commandments because of separation of church and state.  Yeah, I shouldn't support my courthouses being decorated with statues of The Big Ten, scrolls from the Torah, plaques from the Kabbalah, needlepoint samplers from the Koran, or paint-by-numbers quotes from the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Bless His Noodly Appendage).

But I have to object to Moore's statue on theological grounds.

Here's why.  Here's Commandment number three in its entirety:

Exodus 20:4....Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Moore's statue doesn't feature the entire verse.  (It's kind of wordy, and would take too long to chisel.) 

With his 10 Commandments statue, Judge Roy Moore has created a graven image of a law that outlaws all graven images.  We aren't supposed to create any likenesses of any thing on heaven, earth, or in the water. 

Read it again, folks. 

Exodus 20:4....Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Commandment #3, which Moses supposedly brought down from the mountain, outlaws statues, paintings, pencil sketches, needlepoint samplers, that old photo of your grandparents, carvings of Christ on the cross, Michelangelo's Pieta, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, your senior portrait, your baby pictures, half of the internet, most stained glass windows, all art that isn't totally abstract, and the cover of Roy Moore's book. 

I repeat:  This crazed Alabama Republican has made a statue of a set of laws that outlaw statues. 

I don't care who you are, that's funny. 

Ordinarily I would link to the sources for all of these pictures graven images, but I don't want to spread sin. 

Republican primary preferences by age group

The Mainstream Media often seems perplexed by the college kids voting for Ron Paul. 
Why do they vote for Ron Paul?
Because he as always advocated a smaller government and a stable money supply. 
Why is that attractive to college students? 
Because they will be the true "producers" who will have to work overtime to clean up their parents' mess. 

It really is that simple. 

The Texas Republican Party ballot proposals for 2012

The Texas Republican Party is going to give their voters another fascinating list of proposals on their primary ballots. 

Go here to read some commentary on their earlier proposals. 

Here's what made the final cut for 2012.  I'll address these one at a time.


SCHOOL CHOICE:

The state should fund education by allowing dollars to follow the child instead of the bureaucracy, through a program which allows parents the freedom to choose their child's school, public or private, while also saving significant taxpayer dollars. Yes or No.

Well, yes.  Unfortunately, the Texas constitution requires the state to provide an education for all children who move here or were born here.  Fortunately, it doesn't specify how.  This proposal would be the way to go.  But let's see you boys slide this one past the teacher unions.  And the lawyers.  And the Supreme Court. 


REPEALING OBAMACARE:
Congress should immediately repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) and reject the rationing of healthcare by government or the intrusion by government into the doctor - patient relationship. Yes or No.

Once again, here is a common sense "Yes" that the rational voter can check and feel good about himself.  Unfortunately, Texas voters can check resolutions and ballot proposals until they run out of #2 pencils, and it won't do them a bit of good.  We sold our souls to Satan with the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid.  The entire godawful system is now centered around government intrusion. 

The Republicans also have this problem....

Texas Senator John Cornyn was one of the first senators to propose keeping the good parts of ObamaCare and eliminating the bad parts, which is kinda like trying to pick up a turd by the clean end.  After intense criticism from just about everyone, Cornyn immediately started back-pedaling like a circus monkey and repented of his statement.  I promise you that John Cornyn will be re-elected in a landslide.  Texas Republicans will still vote for him despite his fondness of the Obama Doctor Rationing System.

Texas Republicans will also vote to nominate Mitt Romney for president.  You might remember Mitt as the Midwife Of ObamaCare, the John The Baptist of Massachusetts whose RomneyCare system prepared the way for the real thing.

So yes, repealing ObamaCare would be a good thing.  But Republican voters will foolishly try to achieve this goal by voting for Republican politicians.


PUBLIC PRAYER
Government should be prohibited from restricting the content of public prayer. Yes or No.

I am so tired of beating this dead horse.  According to Jesus, no Christian should ever, ever, ever pray in public. 

Matthew 6:5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Do we really want John S. Jones standing up in City Council meetings and offering up prayers to The Flying Spaghetti Monster?  Do we want to equip our football sidelines with Muslim prayer rugs?  Can the Tioga Texas school board afford to purchase that many rosaries? 
Are all of these just silly questions about a silly proposal?  Yes.   
This one should get a "No" vote. 


BALANCED BUDGET / COMBINING GOVERNMENT GROWTH
Out of control spending should be stopped at all levels of federal and state government through constitutional amendments limiting any increase in government spending to the combined increase of population and inflation without voter approval. Yes or No.

Texas already has a balanced budget requirement.
Washington does not. 
This is a good idea on the surface. 
Here's what's wrong with it. 

"....limiting any increase in government spending to the combined increase of population and inflation..."

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and Ben Bernanke would cheerfully inflate the currency to the point of worthlessness in exchange for more funding and more government.  Hell, their predecessors have done it just for fun.  You can't leave those people with a loophole like that one. 

Those are the Texas 2012 Republican Party ballot proposals.  I'm pleased that there's nothing on there this year about pissing off immigrants, alienating gays and lesbians, or forcing teen mothers to watch videos of fetuses being thrown into blenders.  But couldn't they afford to get a first year political science student to review these things for relevance, feasibility, and common sense? 

The picture of the Texas Republican Party logo came from here, in an article about Texas Republicans voting to ban oral sex. 

I don't care who you are, this is funny

Wikipedia and Reddit go Galt.

Go to Wikipedia.  They've shut it down. 
Go to Reddit.  They've shut it down. 
Go to Google.  It's still up, but they have a black "Censored" bar over their logo. 

In protest against Texas Republican Lamar Smith's anti-piracy law, these companies have "Gone Galt".  (If you're not familiar with the Galt concept, look it up on Wikipedia tomorrow.  Not today.  Wikipedia has gone Galt. 

This is what democracy looks like. 

Here's a link to Lamar Smith's website.  He's the author of the now-infamous SOPA bill (Stop Online Piracy Act.)  Piracy being potentially defined as stuff the government doesn't like. 

As of January 18th, there's some hilarious crap on Smith's site about job creation: "We know what will help create jobs in this country –lifting the burden of regulations that is strangling small businesses."   Good work today, Lamar. 

Here's a link to the site of the Libertarian who ran against this Statist last time.  James Strohm. 

Sign came from here.