On KFYI this morning, Barry Young was teasing us with information about a Texas Lawmaker at a hearing. He was listening to a Hispanic activist give testimony in Spanish with a translator. The Lawmaker reacted. I did not stay in the car long enough to hear the response, but I can guess what it was like.

My guess on what the Texas Lawmaker said is something like this: This is America. In America we speak English. If you are going to give testimony before this committee, you should give testimony in English. If you cannot give testimony in English, you are finished giving testimony before this committee.

At least that is what I think the person said. It is what I probably would have said in his position. This is America. The dominant language in America is English. Official business in the United States and in every state is done in English. Some official business gets translated into other languages for ease of the public, but it is still transacted in English. The United States does not have an “official” language. But, we have a language that is in all our founding documents and is the language used in all our primary levels of organization. That should establish an “official” language by usage, if not by law.

I am tired of picking up the phone and having to select a number for English or another for Spanish. I do not remember the site, but one assumes you want to continue in English. If you wish to conduct business in Spanish, you select another number. But to continue in English you do not have to do anything, except endure the inevitable Spanish part.

I believe that every American should speak a second language if possible. When I was given that chance, I was afraid and turned it down. I could have served a mission in a foreign language mission, but insisted on English. So, I went to England instead of a foreign speaking mission. It is a decision that I have questioned myself about for years. My Bishop wanted me to go to Japan. Most of my friends went to Spanish speaking missions. I was chicken. I had a difficult time learning German in High School so I was afraid I would struggle with a foreign language.

I have encouraged all my kids to pick up a second language. Most have learned Spanish as their second language. My oldest learned French. Spanish is very common here in Arizona, so picking up Spanish was easy for my other kids. I never learned to speak another language. I know enough German, Norwegian and Swedish to get myself in trouble. But I cannot really speak any of those languages.

I believe that any official business in the United States should be conducted in English. That means hearings before State and Federal committees should be conducted in English. Law enforcement is official business, but you cannot restrict law enforcement to just English. Law enforcement needs to have the ability to use any language common in the area to conduct business. That is so they can respond more quickly to emergencies. But courts and legislation should be in English. There is time enough to get English speakers to conduct the official business. In law enforcement, there is usually not time to find English speakers before action would need to be taken to solve the problem.

Last night on Glenn Beck, he talked about a UN program called Project 21. This is a program that is written like a climate change program but is really one designed to take away the liberty of all the peoples of the world. That means to fight the initiative you will need to discuss science. But the science is not important the control over people is what is important.

Part of this plan is to register all weapons in the world. The goal of this plan to register all the legal weapons in the world is to control terrorists. The problem with this idea is that the terrorists and other criminals will not be registering their weapons. That would defeat the purpose of the plan to register all guns. But, like all “Progressive” plans what you get on the surface is not what the real goal is. After all weapons are registered, the plan would be to ramp up gun laws to make it more and more difficult to own guns. That would keep up until all guns are eventually seized by the governments of the world. Then the potential opposition would be silenced because they would have no way to fight. Clinton and Obama like this plan and support it. They have not signed off on it, yet. But, they could in the next two years.

The climate change plan would use the control of carbon to justify taking away the liberty of all people. Then when all liberty is gone, the government would be all powerful. People would be completely under control of the state, like they were under communism. Only the technology is so much better now. The communist government would be able to have greater control over people than any government in the past.

Right now, many local governments are implementing aspects of Project 21 under the guise of “sustainable development”. If you hear the term “sustainable development” used, you know that the group or government involved is using the plan from Project 21. The people at the local level may or may not know what they are doing, but they need to be stopped. If enough local governments implement Project 21 plans our freedom would be compromised. We need to keep vigilant to maintain our freedom. If we detect any threat to our freedom, it is our obligation as Americans to stand up and be counted in opposition to that threat. That is true no matter the odds.

In the history of the world only 5% of the people ever born have lived under freedom. That means we are truly blessed. We cannot throw our freedom away because we want security. The freedom our founders gave us enabled us to succeed beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. But, it also gave us the freedom to fail. We need the freedom to fail in order to have the freedom to succeed. If you take away the freedom to fail, you take away the freedom to succeed. The two go together. Just like in sports, you have to have the chance to lose before you can have the chance to win. The same holds true in real life.

As Glenn Beck said last night, God has a stake in having free people on the earth. They do not have to be us, but right now they are. We can keep our place as free people and be a tool for good. Or we can give up our place as a free people and give some other people that chance. It will not stop God’s plan. It may delay the plan, but not stop it.

When the last stimulus was passed in 2009, we were promised
that there would be 3.5 million jobs saved or created by the summer of 2011. Since that time we spent nearly $1 Trillion to save or create those jobs.
Since the summer of 2011 will happen in a few days, we should be close to the
3.5 million jobs created or saved if we are on track.

Back in 2009 when the stimulus bill was passed we had just
over 141 million people working in the United States. In a report issued for
the end of May 2011, there are now just under 139 million people working in the
country. There was a net loss of 1.9 million jobs. That means we are about 4.4
million jobs less than we were promised by the Obama administration at this
time. That stimulus bill sure worked, didn’t it?

Barack Obama made a joke at a meeting to discuss jobs. The
joke was that the shovel ready jobs were not quite as shovel ready as they
thought. At the meeting, everyone thought it was the height of hilarity. To
those that are out of work because of the incompetence of this administration,
the joke should have fallen flat on its face.

An example of how the Obama administration treats companies
that are trying to build plants that will hire people is the NRLB suit against
Boeing. Boeing wants to open a plant to build the 787 in South Carolina. This
will mean hundreds of jobs at the plant and thousands of jobs in support
companies in South Carolina and surrounding states. The NRLB wants Boeing to
build the plant in Washington State where the unions are strong. That would
mean a much higher price tag on the plane and a much less desirable product.
The NRLB has offered a concession to Boeing that if they build their next plant
in Washington State, they will drop this suit. This is nothing short of
blackmail. The NRLB has no authority to tell Boeing where they can or cannot
build a plant. The suit would be tossed from court as soon as it arrived. But
the Obama administration is hoping that Boeing will get tired of the suit and
settle. This is a job killing effort by the Obama administration that is not
getting any press.

Obama talks a lot about creating jobs. If he created as many
jobs as he talks about, we would have 500% employment in this country. We have
an official unemployment rate of 9.1%. That translates to an effective
unemployment rate of around 16%. That is the level that was common during the
Great Depression of the 1930’s.

Speaking of the Great Depression, there is a poll out that
says that 48% of Americans believe that we will be in a new Great Depression
within the next few months. That is the first time that percentage has reached
those numbers since they started asking this question decades ago. You can
believe that if 48% of Americans believe that we are looking at a Great
Depression, things are pretty bad in this country.

In Arizona the Democrats are hoping that the Republicans
defeating the continuation of the unemployment insurance will hurt the
Republicans at the polls. They forget that people remember that it was
Democrats that made them unemployed in the first place. Republicans want to get
them employed and earning a wage, not receiving a dole from the government. I
do not think that the vote will hurt the Republicans in November 2012 at all.
The Democrats are responsible for the economy. They will pay a stiff price for
their mismanagement of the economy. Republicans will only be hurt by those that
would have voted for the Democrats anyway.

There is a lot to talk about today. There is the Republican
debate last night, the Wallow fire and the AZ Legislature not extending
unemployment. All are important, but the one generating talk in Arizona is the
Arizona Legislature not extending the unemployment benefits.

I was listening to KFYI on the way to work. Barry Markson
was in for Barry Young. He was lamenting that the Arizona Legislature had not
extended the unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. He said he
agreed with the premise of not extending the benefits, but that battle was lost
in Washington. Now the money is available and all the legislature has to do to
get it is to pass a bill authorizing the extension. He made the comment that
the money was “free” money. There is no such thing as “free” money. I think he
meant that the money was going to be spent and our not taking it would not save
it. But it was taken from taxpaying Americans and would be given to people that
have been unemployed for about two years.

I have always believed if something was wrong it is wrong. I
believe that is the stance the legislature is taking. They believe that it is
wrong to extend unemployment benefits beyond two years. Unemployment benefits
were originally intended to be a short term benefit and were available for just
a few months. If you did not find employment in that time period, you lost the
benefit. When the economy started to tank, the Democrats started increasing the
amount of time you could receive unemployment. You can now receive unemployment
for so long it is basically a new welfare program. The original intent of the
program has been lost.

This morning, just before I got out of the car, a business
owner called up and told Barry Markson that she paid unemployment insurance to
the state and the federal government. The longer a person receives unemployment
payments, the higher her unemployment insurance payments are. That would be
logical as the money does not generally come out of the budget. That is why
Democrats love increasing the unemployment payments. They can increase the time
people receive payments and not impact the federal budget. They just impact the
“evil” business owners. Since they are evil, impacting them negatively is just
fine.

One thing we need to do in this economy is to make it more
advantageous to own and operate a business. You do that by decreasing the
impact that government has on each business. Getting the unemployment program
back to its original intent would go a long way to help businesses get back on
their feet. Other measures would also need to be taken to get business
ownership back in the positive arena, but it would be a good start. You also
need to decrease taxes, decrease regulations and generally make it a positive
experience to own a business.

Democrats love to demonize businesses and business owners as
the embodiment of evil. They do this because they have to generate divisions in
the public. If they generated togetherness in the public, Democrat policies
would be the first casualty. It used to be in this country that people wanted
to be wealthy and own their own business. Democrats have worked hard to destroy
that dream. Fortunately, Americans are tough and there are still a lot of
people that dream of becoming rich and owning their own business. We need to
encourage business ownership, not discourage it.

The Governor and the Democrats are trying to extend
unemployment insurance another 20 weeks. Unemployment insurance is for
temporary unemployment for a couple of months until you find another method of
earning money. These people have been off work now for about 2 years. If they
have not found work by now, extending the unemployment for another 20 weeks
will not help them at all.

Democrats want unemployment insurance to be another method
for people to receive welfare payments. It sounds better than welfare. But the
intent would be the same, make people dependent on the government for your
living. We need to make people dependent on their own initiative rather than
the government. Democrats see extending unemployment insurance as a way to get
more people to vote Democrat. Republicans see it as another extension of the
welfare state.

Why Governor Brewer is supporting the extension, I will
never know, but she does. Extending the unemployment insurance another 20 weeks
is just an attempt by Democrats to make more Democrat voters and increase
Democrat power in the state. We need to decrease Democrat power in the state,
not increase it.

If Democrats really loved the country and believed in a
Republic, then having Democrats in positions of power would not be bad.
Democrats of today do not believe in a Representative Republic. They want a
centralized power form of government like they had in the old Soviet Union or
they have now in Cuba. As long as that is the goal of the Democrat Party, having
them hold any position where they can damage this country is dangerous.

What we need to do in this state and this country is make it
more advantageous for people to start and run businesses. That will mean they
will hire more people thereby reducing the unemployment. To do that means we
have to reduce the amount of government regulation and taxation. If you listen
to Democrats you hear about more government regulation and more taxes. If you
listen to Republicans you get a mixed message.

Republicans, Libertarians and others who believe in freedom
need to come together and agree on a core set of principles to get this country’s
economy moving again. Right now, there are about as many plans to improve the economy
as there are Republican and Libertarian politicians. They tend to agree on a
generalized set of reduced government regulation and taxation. But, there is
little agreement on how to actually implement any program to get the economy
moving.

In my humble opinion, remember I am no economist, the Fair
Tax plan seems to be the best one for fixing all of the problems associated
with the sluggish economy. The problem that I see with the Fair Tax is the
initial implementation of the Fair Tax. The big question is could we trust the
politicians to remove the ability to tax at or around the time they implement
the Fair Tax. The loss of power to politicians almost dooms the Fair Tax to oblivion
before it really gets a chance to be discussed in the marketplace of ideas. But
something like the Fair Tax or a flat tax would need to be the beginning of any
plan. Then you can work on the rest to remove regulations to bring back Freedom
to the country. Freedom brings the ultimate in possibility. It also means that
some will fail. That is just fine. The ones that fail will not stay on the
bottom. They will pick themselves up and work their way to the top.

The Wallow fire is now about 350,000 acres. The people
fighting the fire estimate that they have it about 5% contained. That is a lot
better than the situation on Wednesday where they had 0% containment. Still, 5%
is not much. The fire is still basically out of control except for one small
area. It burned 22 homes yesterday.

We really now need to look at the blame for the fire.
Obviously whoever set the fire is primarily to blame. If they had not set the
fire, the fire would not be going. But that is not the entire story. Because
the conditions in the forest were so bad, the fire was going to start sooner or
later and it was going to be bad. So, the people that set the campfire that was
not put out are partially to blame. It would have happened anyway from a
lightning strike or some other method.

Conditions in the forest were allowed to degrade to the
point that the underbrush was so thick that a fire that started was inevitably
going to be a catastrophic fire. There are a couple of reasons why the
conditions were allowed to deteriorate so much. First is that the environmentalist
groups like the Sierra Club would file lawsuits every time someone would
suggest clearing out the underbrush. The environmental groups believe that the
forest is to be left is a pristine condition without any human intervention at
all. Managing a forest that way is asking for a catastrophic fire every few
years.

The second reason why the conditions were allowed to
deteriorate so much is the Forest Service itself. The Forest Service was
established to insure that the United States has a steady supply of lumber.
Over the years the Forest Service has been infected by environmental groups.
That means the people doing the managing of the Forests are every bit as much
an environmentalist as the environmental groups fighting against managing the
forest. That means they cave to the environmental groups very quickly. They
also do not make second or third attempts to get the forest managed properly.

My experience with the Forest Service has been extensive. I
worked with them for about 20 years when I worked with the Natural Resources
Conservation Service. They do not like people outside of the Forest Service
giving suggestions on how to manage the forest better. My experience usually
was that if you suggested an improvement, they would implement something
exactly the opposite just to show you that you were wrong or that they could.
These spiteful actions usually resulted in the environment being harmed. They
did change over the years. When I first started, a suggestion from an
environmental group was met with derision. When I retired, a suggestion from an
environmental group was taken seriously.

There is a lot of blame to go around in the Wallow Fire.
Primarily, the blame should go to the environmental groups that have prevented
sound forest management for years. Even though the Forest Service knows what to
do, the environmental groups have prevented the Forest Service from
implementing those cures by filing lawsuits. Secondarily, the Forest Service is
to blame because they did not fight hard enough to implement the sound forest
practices that would have prevented the fire from becoming catastrophic. In
areas where sound management was practiced, the fire is not causing much
damage. In the rest of the area where sound management was not being practiced,
the fire is destroying everything. That was also seen in the Chedeski-Rodeo
fire years ago. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have learned from the earlier
fire. Hopefully, people will learn from this fire. I have my doubts that the
environmental groups will learn. My experience with them is you could show them
facts and they would ignore them to stick to their fantasy. That will probably
be the case here.

The last of the blame is on those who left the fire and did
not put it out entirely. You should always put a fire completely out before you
leave your campsite. Unfortunately, people do not always do that. So, the
government in its wisdom treats everyone like the idiots that do not know what
to do. They ban all fires. Those of us who know how to build and put out
campfires are penalized because the people that do not know cause problems. I
could go into the most fire prone area of the country and have a campfire
safely. There would not be a fire caused by my campfire. When I left, the fire
would be completely out and the ground would be cool. There are thousands of us
who could say similar things. The government cannot tell those of us who can
take care of ourselves from those that cannot. So, they just ban everything. It
is easier to enforce and achieves their goal. It is just more inconvenient and
less enjoyable for the rest.

For some reason, it is nearly impossible to actually
concentrate on the news that is truly important. About all the news you can
hear is Anthony Weiner, his tweets and related incidents.

The news is reporting that his wife, Huma, is pregnant. She
is either really pregnant or it is a play to garner some sympathy. Huma was
born in Saudi Arabia and moved to the US prior to attending college. She is a
top aide to Hillary Clinton. That gives her two strikes. That she knew about
the tweets he sent does not say much for her integrity. Most wives would have
put their foot down when they found out. She evidently did not do that.

The picture that Andrew Breitbart had has now been released.
Breitbart was visiting the Opie and Anthony show and was challenged on whether
he truly had the picture. He pulled out his cell phone and showed Opie and
Anthony. Breitbart was under the impression that there were no video cameras
running. There were video cameras running. They captured a picture of Breitbart’s
phone with Weiner’s truly bad picture on it. After someone sent a copy of the
picture to Opie and Anthony, they tweeted the picture as much as they could.
Breitbart is truly upset that the picture got out. He wanted to keep the
picture under wraps because he did not want to be accused of piling on.

The women that are involved with Anthony Weiner are coming
out of the woodwork. While they are not the subject of any scorn, they are not
totally blameless in this. As Michelle Larson said on KFYI this morning, they
did not have to respond to Anthony Weiner. Once they found out he was a married
man, they could have not responded and it would have ended. They continued to
respond to his posts, so they have some blame. They have much less blame than
him, but they are not squeaky clean, either.

The one woman that got the picture that started Anthony
Weiner’s downfall has been interviewed by the media. She would have been better
served to just be in the background. Trying to come out and look credible, she
made herself look stupid. As they say, you can’t fix stupid. She may not be
stupid, but that is the way she is coming across in the news media. That is not
saying Anthony Weiner is coming out looking good, he is still looking like the
schnook that he truly is.

Many are calling for Anthony Weiner to step down and resign.
He has said that he will not do that. For 2012, it would be better to have him
not step down. He is now sitting in a district that is not that much a Democrat
district with a big fat target on his back. If there is a Republican with any
credibility in that district, they should run against Anthony Weiner and he
should easily be defeated. People do not like their leaders to be sleazeballs.
Anthony Weiner is a sleazeball.

Hopefully the Anthony Weiner mess will let up a bit and we
can get back to the important news of the day. We need to keep informed on the
real issues, not these peripheral issues. Obamacare went to the 11^th
District Court yesterday. That is a big deal. It was pushed off the news cycle
by all the Weinergate news.

As a country we are in a financial hole. The vote to raise
the debt ceiling is imminent. They want to raise the debt ceiling from $14.3
Trillion to $16.3 Trillion. China has been dumping our Treasury Bonds lately.
As a result, Treasury bonds are difficult to sell. The government is
considering raising the interest rate on the bonds to make them more
attractive. The problem with that is if you raise interest rates before the
economy is ready, you can destroy the economy. Whenever that situation has
happened, you end up with hyperinflation and total financial meltdown.

It was reported in the news yesterday that the Republicans
are considering a short-term default on some of the debt payments. That would
be devastating to our sales of Treasury Bonds. No government wants to be late
on a payment for a Treasury bond. To be late means you are in the process of a
financial meltdown. Or at least that is generally what it means.

On the debt ceiling, if we do not raise the debt ceiling we
have the money to pay the debt off and some essential government services but
not much else. The Democrats are saying that we would have a total financial meltdown
if we did not raise the debt ceiling. Their rationale is that we would continue
to spend at our current rate when we did not raise the debt ceiling. Of course
that would be a catastrophic situation. You cannot continue to spend at our
current rate and not raise the debt ceiling. If you do not raise the debt
ceiling, severe cuts would have to be made in the current year budget. In my
mind, that would be a good thing. We are spending way too much on government
right now. Cutting way back on government spending would be great. It would
remove a large portion of the government off of our backs.

I am no financial guru. My background is in science. If you
talk about biology, chemistry or even climate, I am your guy. If you talk about
history, I am an amateur historian. I specialize in American history between
about 1620 and 1880. My primary emphasis in history is the period leading up to
the Revolution and continuing through the end of the Revolutionary War. I have
very little financial training. So any comments I make are based on the
information I obtain from Talk Shows and News reports.

We need to get our financial house in order. When my family
has financial trouble, we cut back in the things we do. The essential things
are kept fully funded. The extra things are cut back or eliminated until the financial
situation turns around. The government should do the same thing. With Democrats
in charge, the non-essential things are kept fully funded and the essential
things get cut back. The Democrats also think that raising taxes brings in more
revenue. That is completely false. According to history, if you cut taxes you
bring in more revenue. That has been proven by both Republican and Democrat
Presidents. Today’s Democrats are more interested in “fairness” than they are
in total revenue. So, in the interest of “fairness” they believe that raising
taxes on the “evil” rich will be fair. The rich pay too much in taxes as it is.
Taxes should be something everyone pays, not just the “rich”.

I heard someone say that we should institute a policy
whereby someone that receives a handout from the government gives up their
right to vote. The reason behind that is that people that receive handouts and
vote will vote to continue to receive the handout regardless of what it does to
the country. Voting should only be for those people who really have a stake in
the country. Those people who have a stake in the country are those who really
pay taxes. The people that receive handouts would receive their vote back when
they start paying taxes. They just temporarily give it up to receive the
benefits. I like that idea.

Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) sent a picture of himself to a
young girl half his age about two weeks ago now. He immediately recognized his
mistake and took the picture down. But, then he started to tell lies to cover
his mistake. He said his account had been hacked. When he learned that if his
account had been hacked the police would be involved, it became a prank. The
story kept changing, but he would tell the story to anyone and everyone.

Finally he came clean yesterday and said that he sent the
picture. That was not the first picture he had sent. He has sent pictures of
himself to at least six other young women over at least the last three years.
Both before he got married last year and since he got married.

Just like all these scandals, the initial event is embarrassing
and usually not career threatening. The party involved is afraid that people
will find out so the lies start to come. Because the lies are not based on
reality, they have to change as the situation changes. This is the dead
giveaway that the story is a lie. Anthony Weiner’s story continually changed
during the time he was trying to hide the truth.

What is usually the biggest problem is the cover-up, not the
original event. Had Anthony Weiner come out right away and said he made a
mistake and admitted to the picture, he would be rid of the story now. Because
he tried to lie his way out of the situation, it is still here and there is an
ethics investigation in the House of Representatives.

Bill Clinton found himself in the same situation. If he had
admitted the Monica Lewinsky situation at the beginning, it would have
disappeared. Because he tried to cover it all up, he was impeached. Here in
Arizona, Scott Bundgaard found out the hard way that telling lies about the
situation gets you in more trouble than admitting the original mistake. People
will forgive mistakes. People make mistakes all the time. As I teach in my
Biology classes, to be human is to either have made a mistake, be making a
mistake right now or you will make a mistake. Nobody is immune from making
mistakes. That is why people are so forgiving when people admit mistakes. What people
are not forgiving of is covering up mistakes, especially from their supposed
leaders.

Should Anthony Weiner leave Congress? Yes, if he was a
Republican, he would have been forced out when the pictures first appeared
regardless of what his story was. Because he is a Democrat, people know that he
has no moral standards and do not expect any from him. They expect better from
Republicans and generally get it.

If Anthony Weiner stays in the House he will feel emboldened
and the seat will now be his by right. Having a seat in the House or Senate is
a privilege. You should honor that privilege by living up to the highest
standards. Knowing people are human, people will forgive mistakes that are
admitted to when they are discovered. But, as a member of Congress a person
should try and uphold the highest standards. If you fail to do so, you should
resign and give someone else a chance to fill the seat.

No matter what people say, this calling for Anthony Weiner
to resign is not about sex. It is about the cover-up. Had he admitted to the
mistake right away, I would have forgiven him the mistake. Attempting to cover
up the mistake is unforgiveable in a public official.

We have a major fire here in Arizona. It is in the northeast
part of the state near Showlow. Today on KFYI, they were talking about the fire
when the state senator from the area called up. She was very informative of the
situation that existed prior to the fire and conditions right now.

Right now, the conditions are that the fire is zero percent
(0%) contained. That means the Forest Service does not have any control over
the fire at all. The fire can go in any direction it chooses and the Forest
Service cannot stop it. The Forest Service says that they do not expect to get
any containment of the fire until the Monsoons hit. The fire has destroyed
approximately 300 square miles right now. It is the third worst fire in state
history. The monsoons are not expected to start for at least another two weeks
to a month. Given that much time before they have any containment the fire will
cover a minimum of 600 square miles and probably much more than that. It will
most likely be the worst fire in state history after all is said and done.

Conditions used to be that there was logging in Arizona. It
was never as big an operation as the Northwest in Washington and Oregon, but it
employed about 11,000 people. Environmentalists in the Forest Service decided
that the purpose of the Forest Service was not to provide timber to the United
States. The Forest Service was to protect all the wildlife that exists within
the borders of the Forests. A brief history of the Forest Service is in order.
The Forest Service was set up to insure that the United States would have a
continual supply of timber. The Park Service was set up to protect all the
wildlife that exists within its borders. In other words, environmentalists
changed the goal of the Forest Service from producing timber to protecting
wildlife.

To make their point, environmentalists would file lawsuits
to prevent any logging on National Forest land. They also worked to eliminate
or reduce any livestock grazing in the forests. This resulted in a forest that
was not managed. It produced a forest that was essentially like the situation
that existed in Yellowstone National Park prior to their catastrophic fire.

A catastrophic fire happens when a forest is mismanaged. A
well-managed forest will have fires, but never have a catastrophic fire. A
poorly managed forest will have fires that become catastrophic. This fire is
catastrophic. It proves that the management of the forest was wrong. Whatever
policies were managing the forest have to be changed to allow the forest to
fulfill its purpose.

The wildlife that were supposedly protected by mismanaging
the forest have been destroyed by this catastrophic fire. The environmentalists
will come here and try and tell us that the fire was a result of global
warming. That is absolutely false. It is a result of mismanagement. Whoever was
mismanaging the forest should be replaced with people who will do a good job of
managing the forest. That will never happen because a government agency manages
the forest, but is what should happen. Public agencies never take
responsibility for their actions. They just cover their backsides and go on
doing what they were doing until someone calls them on the carpet. That will
not happen under this current administration.

The area destroyed by this fire will recover. It will never
be anything like it was during the lifetime of anyone alive today. But about
80-100 years from now, the forest will be returned to what it was before the
fire. Hopefully, the forest will be better managed.

I hate to ever say that Europeans ever do anything better
than us, but Germans know how to manage forests. German forests have little
undergrowth. Our forests have tremendous amounts of undergrowth. We have lots
of catastrophic fires. Germans have almost no catastrophic fires. The
difference is in the management of the forests. They do it right. We try and do
it without doing anything. I thought we had learned that lesson after
Yellowstone. But we keep learning the lesson, but never making the changes. The
reason is we are dealing with environmentalists. Environmentalists are like
kids. They know everything while actually knowing nothing. Since they know
everything, you cannot teach them anything. But because they know nothing, they
continually do the wrong thing. With kids, they eventually learn that they do
not know everything and act accordingly. With environmentalists, that period of
waking up never happens. They continue to act as if they know everything.
Environmentalists are killing us slowly.  

On my facebook account, Mark Levin posted that Mitt Romney
said that he believed that global warming was, at least, partially man caused. For
me, that is a deal breaker. This election cycle, Mitt seems to be entirely poll
driven. If it is the most popular position, Mitt is there. That is not what I
want in a President. I want a President to have positions and defend them. I do
not want someone who takes a poll and then goes where the majority goes. We had
that in Bill Clinton and that did not work out well.

It is obvious from Mitt Romney’s statement that he either
does not have a scientist on his campaign staff or that he ignored the
scientist. Any reputable scientist does not believe that man causes global
warming. That idea was entirely debunked a few years ago with the release of
the emails from East Anglia University. There the global warming enthusiasts
were conspiring on how to skew the evidence to fool the public into believing a
lie. Any reputable scientist would have known that and cautioned Mitt Romney
from taking such a stupid position. So, either he does not have a scientist on
his campaign staff or the one he does have is not a “real” scientist.

The other interviews with Mitt Romney the past couple of
weeks have been raising red flags that something was wrong. He only liked the
most popular TV shows. He only listened to the most popular music, etc. That
smacks of poll driven ideas. Any true candidate would have a more realistic
approach to what TV shows they watch or what music they listen to. They might
listen to the most popular, but also some other music not so popular.

I am not saying that Mitt Romney is a fraud. I am just
saying he is listening to his pollster too much. He should speak from his heart
and mind. As Americans, we can get the poll driven stuff ourselves. What we
want is a “real” person in the White House. A person with real world likes and
dislikes. They might be the same as mine or different. That does not matter.
What does matter is where they stand on the issues and what they will do in
office. Only having poll driven position on trivial matters makes you question
what you would do on the important things you would have to face as President.
It makes you wonder if you truly have what it takes to be President.

Like I said, I like Mitt Romney. I supported him for
President in 2008. Like Mitt, I am a Mormon. I would love to see a member of
the church become President. But they have to become President on their own
merits, not on what the polls say.

My initial reaction this election cycle was to continue my
support for Mitt Romney. But, the more I learn about his campaign this year,
the less I like. That is not how it is supposed to go. It is supposed be that
you like a person more and more as you get to know them. With Mitt this year, I
feel he is becoming a poll driven candidate that cannot or will not think on
his own. We do not need that kind of person in the White House. A lot of the
other candidates also interest me. I will have to evaluate them to determine
which one will be my new front runner.

On KFYI this morning they were talking about the Republicans
running for President. The group agreed that the primary criteria should be is
the person one that could defeat Barack Obama in November 2012. It is not who
is the most ideologically pure. It is not who will send the best message. It is
not who is the most conservative. It is who can win, period.

According to Barry Markson, fill-in host of the Barry Young
show, some Tea Party groups were upset with Mitt Romney and are going to find a
candidate to support. He was surprised at the speed with which the Tea Party
groups threw Mitt Romney overboard. He then brought up some friends of his
would not vote for a “Mormon”. There is some of that with Mitt Romney. There is
a nut job who is actively working against any “Mormon” running for any office
because he believes that Mormons support the Devil. Those people are definitely
in the minority. They can have an influence on others if they are careful how
they say things. Mike Huckabee is definitely in this group of people. He
actively worked against Mitt Romney in 2008 because he was a Mormon, not
because he thought John McCain was a better candidate.

Right now, Sarah Palin is sucking all the air out of the
news media. Her tour is generating so much press that other announced
candidates cannot get any press. Mitt Romney gets his press because he is the
front runner for the nomination. The others get elbowed out of the way because
they are not deemed important enough by the press.

Mike Huckabee announced that he just might get back into the
race. That would be a disaster for the Republicans. As Barry Markson said this
morning, Mike Huckabee holds similar positions to Barack Obama. He just does
not want to go as far as Obama. Mike Huckabee is a Progressive Republican.
Having him as President would mean that Republicans would start to support the
liberal agenda instead of fighting it like they are doing today. The best thing
Obama did for the country was wake up Republicans. Huckabee would put
Republicans back to sleep. Also, Huckabee is a bigot. I cannot support bigots.
I will never support Huckabee for President or any other office. If he is on
the ticket, I will either not vote or will vote to defeat him. I will not say
that for any other Republican.

In evaluating potential candidates you have to look at two
things, can they win the nomination and can they win the Presidency. Most of the
Republicans running have the potential to pull off a victory in the Republican
primaries if everything goes their way. Mitt Romney is the only one who could
withstand things going against him and have a chance to recover. The others are
too narrowly based to have the recovery ability Romney will have. The same
would hold true for a national election for President. For almost any
candidate, except for Romney, everything would have to break their way. I am
not saying it could not happen, I am just saying that right now the chances are
slim for anyone except for Romney to pull off a victory in November 2012. The
main reason for this is Romney has lots of money and broad support. But, just
like the Platte River Romney’s support is a mile wide and an inch deep. The
other candidates have much deeper support, but also much narrower support. The primary
season should clear away the clutter that we have at this time. We need to get
down to one or two candidates before we can adequately judge whether they have
a good chance in November 2012.

Mitt Romney is announcing that he is running for President
today. That he is running is not a surprise. He has been running for President
since 2007. He is just making it official for this election cycle. Ordinarily a
Presidential announcement is made when there is a gap in news coverage for
other candidates. This gives the candidate a chance to have wall-to-wall
coverage of the announcement for at least one day. In Romney’s case, Sarah
Palin is doing a tour where she is sucking all the news coverage out of the
air.

That is the problem with this election cycle. If Sarah Palin
runs, she gets all the news coverage. She also gets the largest crowds. She has
the highest positives of any potential Republican candidate. She also has the
largest negatives of any Republican candidate. That is due to the fact that the
Democrat Propaganda machine has made it their goal to make Sarah Palin seem
like the second coming of your worst nightmare. Even with the Democrat
Propaganda machine working overtime to make her look bad, she is the most
popular Republican in the land.

If you look at organization and money, Mitt Romney has the
nomination in the bag. He has the most money by far and the largest
organization. Most of the top Republican political talent is on the Romney
team. Sarah Palin has few people in her organization with any experience
running a Presidential campaign. Romney’s team is well experienced and well
oiled.

One thing that Romney is doing that I do not like is he is
trying to appeal to everyone. He had an interview so that the public can get to
know him. Lo and behold, he watches every top rated TV show. He listens to the
top rated music of every kind. If it is the most popular, Mitt Romney watches
or uses it. That, to me, does not seem genuine. Most people have natural
biases. For example, I like the Denver Broncos in football. No matter where I
am and who I talk to, the Broncos are my team. Most people are like that.
Romney is coming across as someone without any strong convictions on anything.
That is not going to get you the Presidency.

Despite the Democrats trying to tie Obamacare and Romneycare
together, it is not working. The public can see the difference between the two.
Some people still get things mixed up, but the majority of the voters can see
the difference between the two. It still would have been best had Romney
disavowed Romneycare a couple of years ago, but it is too late now. Tim
Pawlenty had a similar problem and said that he was stupid to have supported
his prior position. That gets him top points for realizing a mistake. Romney is
not doing that.

On KFYI, they were speculating how Sarah Palin could
possibly win the nomination or even the Presidency with the strategy she seems
to be employing. The consensus was that she might be able to win the nomination
with a strategy of not having the Republican establishment on your side. But to
win the Presidency, you have to have solid party support. If she pursues the
maverick approach, she will have a hard time gaining the party support when she
really needs it.

Things are getting interesting. As time passes, they get
more interesting. As each candidate rolls out their campaign, you can see what
they are trying to do. Herman Cain seems to be helping himself the most with
the early campaign. Tim Pawlenty seems to have disappeared off of the face of
the earth. It is still early. Any one of the candidates could pull out and win.
We may not even have the eventual winner in the race right now. Time will help
us sort out all these issues.

Today was the second in a series of articles by Thomas
Sowell. Thomas Sowell is one of my three or four favorite authors. He was
specifically talking about Barack Obama and his treatment of Israel. He also
brought up England as a second example to support his premise.

He said we should not be surprised at Barack Obama’s poor
treatment of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. Thomas Sowell mentioned
a picture that Barack Obama had taken early on in his Presidency of him on the
phone with Benjamin Netanyahu. In the picture, he is shown sitting with his
feet on the desk and his feet are toward the camera. That makes the soles of
his feet showing in the picture. In the Middle East, to show the soles of your feet
is a mark of disrespect to a person. This picture was not taken by accident, it
was deliberate. People do not just wander around the White House taking
pictures. They only take pictures when they are specifically authorized.

Putting that picture into perspective, Barack Obama was
showing his disrespect for Benjamin Netanyahu. He wanted everyone to know it,
especially the Muslims in the Middle East. The Muslims got the message loud and
clear.

Since his inauguration, Barack Obama has treated Benjamin
Netanyahu with disrespect. When Mr. Netanyahu was here on a state visit, Obama
got up and said he was going to dinner. He then left Mr. Netanyahu to cool his
heels in the meeting room while Obama had dinner with his wife. That is
something you would never do to a guest in your house. You would either invite
them to eat with you or you would have ended the meeting and escorted them out
prior to having dinner.

Anyone who has studied Barack Obama and his background
should not be surprised at any of these developments. He was raised by people
with an anti-Israel sentiment. He attended church with a minister that preached
hate for Israel and heard nothing wrong with that. He is surrounded with people
in the White House that are anti-Israel. For him to give any support to Israel
at all is what is surprising. That would be surprising except for the fact that
the vast majority of Americans support Israel and its right to exist.

Obama also has treated England with a similar disrespect. I have a particular soft spot for England as I spent two years there in the early 1970's. Gifts
to British Prime Ministers have been inappropriate. He returned the bust of the
greatest leader in English history, Winston Churchill. That bust had been a
gift to America after the 9/11 attacks to show English solidarity with America.
In visits to England, the Obama’s have treated the Queen with disrespect. In
this last visit, Obama failed to recognize the English National Anthem. So he
gave a toast to the Queen during the playing of the National Anthem. He failed
to see a problem until the Queen said something to him under her breath.

Obama has consistently treated our friends with disrespect
since taking office in 2009. He is courting our enemies and disrespecting our
friends. If this trend continues, we will not have a friend left in the world.
That is one of the main reasons that Obama has to go in 2012. Our friends
cannot stand another four years of Obama pushing them away. They might not even
be around in 2016 if Obama continues to push our friends away.

Obama has changed things for the worse since he took over in
January 2009. As we look at the world of 2011, we see chaos replacing the order
that existed when he took office. We no longer can trust our friends, because
they can no longer trust us. We cannot trust those that hate us, because they
hate us. That is despite the golden treatment that Obama has given them since
he took office. If someone went to sleep in 2008 and woke up today, they would
be completely at a loss to explain what had happened. Nothing would make sense
unless you realized that Obama does not have the best interests of the United
States in mind when making decisions.

The news media is not thrilled with the Republicans running
for President at this time. That is probably because none of them are liberal
Republicans. At least none of them are talking like liberal Republicans. They
would rather have a liberal Republican run for President. They are easier for a
Democrat to defeat. The news media tends to favor the Democrat by a slim margin
of about 95-5.

There are actually some pretty good nominees currently
announced and some others that are currently unannounced. Polling has Mitt
Romney leading the announced candidates. Sarah Palin is leading the unannounced
candidates, depending on the poll you read.

For me, there is not a “perfect” candidate. I am sure that
is true for most of the Republican voters looking at candidates during this
time period. I do not have any that I would not vote for. Those have already
dropped out. I have some I like better than others and those tend to be at the
top end of the polls.

During 2008, I strongly supported Mitt Romney. I felt he was
dealt a stab in the back by Mike Huckabee during the campaign or otherwise he
would have been the candidate for President. I feel he had the ability to win
it all in 2008. During this election cycle, he is trying to pander for everyone’s
votes and I am not as supportive as I was in 2008. His support for ethanol
subsidies is the latest thing that I just cannot support. We should not be
giving support to farmers to help them grow food for fuel. If we were helping
them grow food, that would be different. But we are burning our food and we are
approaching a food shortage. It does not make any sense at all, unless you are
pandering for votes.

Ron Paul sounds the best on domestic issues. He sounds the
worst on foreign issues. He would make a great Treasury secretary or having him
in charge of the Fed would be fantastic. But, I would not like his foreign
policy ideas at all. We need a strong defense. His idea of pulling everything
back to the American border is not practical. We live in a world where travel
is shrinking the world. Pulling back to our borders would have worked 100-150
years ago. But today, we have to be a little more pro-active in targeting the
groups that want to do us in.

Chris Christy is not in the field and does not seem to be
interested. He is fantastic on domestic issues and foreign policy. Social
issues cloud his candidacy. Being from the northeast almost requires that you
be a liberal on social issues. That usually dooms northeast liberals from
winning the nomination.

Rick Perry from Texas is another candidate that is not
announced and seemingly not interested. He has been making sounds like he just
might be interested in the Presidency. If he runs, I think he would have the
inside track to the nomination. He has all the right social issues and domestic
issues. His views on foreign policy are right down the main street of
Republican thought. He would probably be the best overall candidate, if he
decides to run.

The liberal media has written off the Republicans running as
too lightweight to defeat Obama. They discount the huge unhappiness with Obama.
The news media believes that Americans might be unhappy, but not really ready
to dump Obama from office. They have a shock coming in 2012.