Al Davis of the Raiders died over the weekend. I would not be telling the truth if I said I was sorry to see his passing. My football team is the Denver Broncos. The one team we hate the most is the Raiders. The person that personifies the Raiders more than anyone else is, Al Davis.

At one time, Al Davis was on the cutting edge of football. The Raiders were one of the leading teams in the league, sorry to say. But something changed in Al Davis and football. Football changed and evolved into a passing league. Al Davis was still stuck in the 1970’s where he saw all of his success.

Al Davis is one of those owners that has to have his fingers in every pie. He dominates during the NFL draft. So, the Raiders draft players that Al Davis likes, rather than players that would help them win. Al Davis dominates the coach, so the best coaches won’t coach for the Raiders. The only coaches that will coach for Al Davis today are the ones getting a start and are desperate or ones that have worn out their welcome elsewhere. When a coach shows some promise and starts to win, Al Davis figures out a way to get rid of him. That is why the Raiders have been one of the worst teams in the league for the past 10-15 years.

The Broncos used to be patsies for the Raiders in the early years of the AFL and when they first joined the NFL. The Raiders regularly won both games each year. That is why they built up a huge lead in wins. That huge lead has come closer to 50/50 in recent years, but the Raiders still lead.

As a Bronco fan, I was glad to see Al Davis in the Raiders owner’s box. Whenever he was there, I knew the Raiders were going to put a mediocre to poor football team on the field each year. Now that he has gone, the anchor that was holding the Raiders back is now gone. I would expect the Raiders to return to respectability here in the next few years as the disasters of Al Davis drafts diminish. Al Davis is famous for drafting players with blazing speed and stone fingers. For those of you who do not know, that means they are very fast, but cannot catch the ball. The quarterbacks he drafted had extremely strong arms, but were dumber than a fence post. They could throw the ball 100 yards on the fly, but could not figure out how to read defenses or run the offense. Those kind of picks were so common, you could count on it during the NFL draft.

Al Davis did have a great story. He went from coaching the team on the field to owning the team. That is something I don’t think anyone else has done. George Halas owned the team, then decided to coach, so it is not the same thing. Al Davis had no ownership in the team when he coached. He bought the team a few years after he finished coaching. He was instrumental in hiring some coaches of Hispanic and Black origin before anyone else. But they could not win with the Al Davis system any more than any other coach could win with Al Davis in the owner’s box. Al Davis was the wrench in many things that the NFL wanted to do as well. They will give lip service to his glories, but are secretly glad that he is gone. In short, the NFL will be a better league with Al Davis gone. This is my honest opinion. Of course, I am biased as a Broncos fan. But, I think a few years from now, all will acknowledge that I was correct in my assessment.

Barack Obama held a news conference yesterday. It could have been a video tape. He said absolutely nothing new in his part of the news conference. In the question and answer portion, he was asked about the Occupy Wall Street group. His response was generally favorable and supportive of the group. That was probably the only truly newsworthy event at the news conference.

First, the American people generally do not support the Occupy Wall Street people. The Occupy Wall Street people are communists, socialists and anarchists. The American people are generally slightly conservative. Those two groups are about as far apart as you can get in the American political spectrum. That is not to say that the Occupy Wall Street people are not bringing up actual grievances. They are bringing up things that are real problems. The only problem is that the protesters solution to the problem is bigger, more intrusive government. The American people want less government. The two are incompatible.

It tells us a lot about where Barack Obama is politically when he supports communists, socialists and anarchists. They are using Alinsky rules to cause chaos. Obama taught Alinsky rules to people in Chicago when he was a community organizer. Community organizers use the book, “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky as their primer on how to disrupt society. So, Obama is very familiar with their tactics. He most likely approves of their tactics and how successful they have been at pulling it off so far. That is why he was so supportive at the press conference.

The Tea Party groups brought up many of these same ideas two years ago. At that time, the Tea Parties were vilified as radicals and worse. In fact, the Tea Party groups are still being attacked as racist and radicals by the far left in Washington. When the racist, radicals actually show up in the streets, the far left endorses their actions. That is unbelievable. If they had any honest bones in their bodies, and they don’t, they would have endorsed the Tea Party groups and denounced the Occupy Wall Street groups.

Obama is becoming a broken record. Everything is not his fault. It is either the fault of George W. Bush or the current Republicans in Washington. Since Obama is supposed to be so smart, something should be his fault by now. Any smart person should have figured out how to fix anything the “dumb” George W. Bush could have screwed up. Also the smart person should be able to figure out how to defeat those “dumb” Republicans in the House and Senate. That he has not figured out a way to defeat them shows that he is not nearly as smart as people give him credit. I am not calling him stupid, but he is definitely not the brightest bulb in the bunch, either.

Most Presidents by their third year have taken ownership of the economy and everything else that is taking place under their watch. Not Obama, everything is someone else’s fault. Harry Truman had the plaque that read, “The Buck Stops Here”. Barack Obama should have a plaque that reads, “It is not my fault”. At least, that is what he keeps saying whenever something goes wrong. If something goes right, he is there with both feet to take 1000% of the credit. Now, everything that goes wrong is not his fault. Also, everything that goes right is not to his credit as well. A good President and leader knows when to take credit and when not to. He/she also knows when it is his/her fault and to take the blame or not. Obama has never learned that lesson. It is something most people learn by the time they are about 6. He is a little slow at picking that one up.

Bad news on the jobless front this week, 400,000 new people filed for unemployment. That is terrible news if you are hoping that America gets back to work. If you want to fundamentally transform the economy, then it is good news. With this addition, it means that almost half of the households in the United States are now on some form of government assistance. Government assistance for more than a couple of weeks makes you get the entitlement mentality. The entitlement mentality is what has caused America to go soft.

Barack Obama in his typical fashion will give a speech on this issue later this morning. He will typically blame the Republicans for everything because nothing is ever his fault. Four years ago as a candidate Barack Obama said that if things were not better by the end of his first term, he did not deserve a second term. Even he admits that the American people are worse off today than we were four years ago. That is quite an admission from the infallible one. Of course, he blames the Republicans for all the problems. According to Obama, if we had just done everything he had asked we would be basking in full employment and no deficit. But, that is what he says. What he does is make sure that unemployment goes up and the deficit is worse than ever.

If Obama had come to the Presidency with a plan to destroy the American economy, I cannot imagine what he would have done differently to accomplish his goal. He has just about terminally destroyed everything about the economy in just a little less than three years. Four years ago, I would have thought it impossible for one President to have that much of a destructive impact on the country.

It will take much longer to dig out of the hole Obama has dug than it took us to get in the hole. Typically it takes a long time to build wealth and it can all disappear within a very short time. Obama has proven this adage true by his actions in the last three years.

The way out of this mess is simple, if we have the intestinal fortitude to do it. Politicians would have to relinquish power, something they have never shown a willingness to do. There are a couple of notable exceptions to that rule, but generally politicians want more power, not less. George Washington is the prime example of a person who could have had total power and turned it down. He could have been king and everyone would have supported him in that action. But, he knew that was wrong, so he became President. After two terms of office, he felt he had been President long enough and it was someone else’s turn. With those actions, George Washington showed that he had the very best moral character. Politicians today only want their hands on more money and more power. They cling to both as long as possible. You have to pull them away kicking and screaming. Jon Kyl from Arizona is walking away from the Senate in 2012. He could be a Senator for life or even a Vice-President. But, just like Washington, he feels it is time to step down and let someone else have a turn.

We need leaders like George Washington or Jon Kyl in Washington today. Those people are rare. There are not more than a handful of people like that in the entire 535 people in Congress today. I really doubt I could come up with even 5 that are like that. We need 300 like that, not 5, if we are going to solve our financial problems.

Reducing dependence on government is paramount in restoring our American heritage. Americans have always been self-reliant. Today, too many wait for the next handout instead of working to improve themselves. We won WWII because when all the officers were killed, the noncoms took over. When the noncoms were killed a private took over. In the German and Japanese armies, if the officers were killed, that unit was out of action. The soldiers were unable to make decisions for themselves without officers. I am afraid that would be our lot today. We have become too dependent on government. That dependence has to end.

The illustrious Ben Bernanke came out yesterday to give an account of the economy. His assessment, we are on the edge of more problems. The economy is not doing well because the unemployment is too high and people are not spending. World to Bernanke, you and your boss are responsible for the high unemployment and the fact that people are not spending.

Experts are predicting that we are on the edge of another recession. Or in other words, we could be entering a double-dip recession. The last time we had a double dip recession in this country, was during the 1930’s and called the Great Depression. Both situations were caused by the same problem, too much government intervention into the markets. The depression of 1920 was actually worse than the depression of 1929 or even our current depression. It only lasted a few months because the government stayed out of it and the markets corrected themselves. What the government did in 1920 was reduce its impact by cutting the budget almost in half. That resulted in the Roaring 20’s. Government intervention in the marketplace results in long-term high unemployment and a poor economy. What got us out of the government caused Great Depression was World War II. Let’s hope that we do not have to resort to a war to get us out of this double-dip recession.

Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama and the economic team in Washington have no clue how to fix the economy. They have tried everything that they know how to do and nothing has worked. In fact, everything they have tried to do has made things worse. I could have told them that before they started. Any free-market person could have told them that their “solutions” were doomed to failure. We have a free-market economy. The market corrects itself over time. When you intervene and select winners and losers, you distort the market. Right now our markets are so distorted, that it will be a major jolt to fix things.

I know that the interventionists will have a cow over my next statement, but what needs to happen is to get government out of business. We need to cut government regulations by at least 80%, probably more. We need to stop corporate welfare that selects winners and losers. That distorts the markets because it props up businesses that should fail and stops businesses that should succeed from taking their place. We should reduce the size of the federal government by at least 50%, probably more. That is the policy that Garfield and Coolidge used to solve the depression of 1920. They were so successful that people are not even aware that there was a depression in 1920.

If I was President, I would reduce government regulations by 95% and the size of the federal government by 75%. That would put us more in line with where we are supposed to be according to the Constitution. None of that could happen overnight, but in a 3-5 year span those kinds of cuts could be implemented with few problems. The unemployed federal employees would be unhappy, but the economy would be humming along so fast that they would have jobs. The annual deficit would disappear within 1-2 years; the overall debt would disappear within 10 years. Everyone would be happy except for the communists, socialists, anarchists and those dedicated to destroying the American economy. Unions would actually be happy because with the economy humming along, the pressure would be off the unions. So they might even see an increase in membership. They also might see a decrease as they lose all those federal and state workers that belong to the unions.

Even though this would be best for the country, it will never see the light of day. The Democrats and their allies will never allow this to happen. It is too logical and will be successful. Any party that implemented this plan would see themselves in power for the next hundred years or so. The party that obstructed this plan would be out of power for at least 1 generation, probably more.

We who love freedom are at a crossroads in history. The ones that want to enslave us are on the march. They are manufacturing riots called the “Days of Rage”. These protests are unfocused as far as their goal because they want as many people as possible to come. The real purpose behind these riots is to bring down the western way of life. The first targets are the “evil” bankers. So, you have all these protesters outside the banks telling stories on how the banks destroyed their life or the life of someone else. When these stories are fact checked, you find out that the story is mostly false. Some of the facts in the story are true, but the main thrust of the story is false.

The Days of Rage protests are part of a world-wide series of protests from a book called, “The Coming Insurrection”. The people behind the book are officially not named. But, the groups supporting the Days of Rage are the usual suspects. The communists are out in force. The socialists are there, as are the anarchists. The unions are getting their people to attend to swell the crowds. But the bulk of the people in these protests are basically mind-numbed robots. When someone comes and speaks, they repeat everything the person says including the farewell part of the talk. When the mind-numbed robots are questioned on why they are there, they give answers like it is something to do. They are being used and as long as the protests remain vague in purpose they will continue to come.

The Hollywood leftist crowd is lending their support to this effort. So far, Michael Moore and Susan Sarandon have been to visit the crowds. There may have been more, those are just the ones I have heard about. These actors really do not know anything. They just support leftist causes because it sounds good. When questioned, they do not know why they support leftist causes except for their feelings. But, people will come out if these leftist actors show up.

The Days of Rage by the communists, socialists, anarchists and unions looks fairly impressive, but it shows their hand. By showing their hand this early, they are sowing the seeds of their eventual defeat.

When the Tea Party people were demonstrating, the left accused them of being everything the Days of Rage crowd actually is. When that did not work because the Tea Party people are not like that, they tried to ridicule them. That is not working as well. The arguments made by the Tea Party people are similar to the complaints made by the communists, et al. But, the difference is that the Tea Party people truly have answers to solve the problems they have identified. The communists and others just want to make those problems worse until they replace the current system that works with one that has failed every time it has been tried. The communists and their supporters feel they will do it better than it has ever been done in the past, but they are wrong. They will fail, just like all the others. The system is a failure, not how you run it. The system was not run wrong, the system is the failure and cannot work at any time.

We can defeat these leftists, but we have to act responsibly. If we try and emulate their tactics, we lose. If we use the tactics of Gandhi, Marin Luther King and others like them, we win. We have the choice today to give in and become the slaves the communists and others want. Or, we can remain free and independent by defeating these people through a common effort of independence and love. The choice is ours to make. The easy choice will be to give up and become a slave. The hard choice will be to fight and win. I choose to fight and win because I am an American and believe in American ideals.

The Days of Rage is coming here to Phoenix. The protests appear to be unfocused. The groups that are protesting do not seem to be able to articulate their message. This is by design. If you do not have a target message, others can jump into the protest and believe that you have the same goal as they do. If you articulate your message, then you limit the number of protesters that are available to protest.

The protests are being organized by the communists, socialists and anarchists. They are being supported by the unions, primarily the teachers unions and SEIU. The goal is to bring down the financial system in this country and get people to hate bankers. If this goal can be reached, then they can work on their next goal which is to undermine capitalism.

The ultimate goal of these groups is to destroy the Western Way of Life in America. They cannot do it all at once, so they have to take baby steps. It is just like eating an elephant. You eat an elephant, one bite at a time. You destroy America, one small piece at a time. Eventually you have destroyed the infrastructure and the entire system collapses on its own. When it collapses, you are nowhere to be found. You ate away at the foundation long enough to make the system vulnerable to destruction, but you did not cause the ultimate destruction. But, you are there with a ready solution to pick up the pieces.

This is the thinking of the communists, socialists and anarchists that are working together to bring down the system. They even like the support of the radical Muslims. Each group believes that it will eventually be on top when the dust clears. Unfortunately for the communists, socialists and anarchists, the radical Muslims will come out on top. For one thing, there are more radical Muslims than there are communists, socialists and anarchists all together. For another, they believe in a higher power and that belief will make them the stronger partner when all is said and done. There is nothing anyone can say to any of these groups today to get them to see the truth. Each believes they have the perfect plan to come out on top. Only one will eventually win if that is the ultimate destiny.

Things do not have to go that way. We can stand up and be a force against that. The first thing is to become informed on the goals of each of the groups. Each group is arrogant enough to print the goals and methods in pamphlets and books, so understanding their goals and tactics is not really that difficult. You then have to figure out where the biggest threats come from. Again, that is not really that difficult because the ones with the biggest followings are the ones that are the biggest threat. But the ultimate biggest threat is not necessarily the largest group. The biggest threat is the best organized and run group. That is how the Nazi’s defeated the communists in Germany. They were better organized and run, plus they were far more ruthless.

Our future security depends on how we react to this threat from these groups. If we ignore them, we stand little chance. We have to understand what is happening and how to counter their ill effects. I don’t have all the answers, but I do see the threat. Right now, that is enough. We need thinkers who can put together plans to counter the negative effects from these subversive groups. We also need to get our fellow Americans awake to the threat. That way we will be ready for whatever comes. Whatever happens, we cannot react how the subversives expect us to react. That throws them back to regroup and gives us time to counter their actions.

Here in Arizona, we have the opportunity to recall our elected representatives for just about anything. The State Senate President is being recalled. His district is in Mesa. I do not live in his district so I do not have any dog in this hunt. He has a main challenger and one that most people believe is a “ringer”. One “funny” fact about Russell Pearce and Jerry Lewis is that they both are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and belong to the same Ward (local unit). That would make it difficult for members of the ward to decide who to vote for.

The Senate President is Russell Pearce. His main challenger is Jerry Lewis. The candidate everyone is questioning is Olivia Cortes. She has been unavailable for comment for the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, she had to show up in court to tell why she is a “real” candidate and not a “sham” candidate.
She does have a web site, but she could not tell the court the person who developed the site. When someone at KFYI checked who owned the site, it came back owned by a company that protects the identity of the person who owns the site.

During questioning, Olivia was very vague in her answers. She did not really seem to know what was going on. When questioned by reporters after the hearing, she just told them to go to her web site which would have all the information. Something just does not smell right about her candidacy. There are too many loose ends for her to be a legitimate candidate.

The question then becomes who put her up to be the candidate? The most obvious answer and one that the news media and talk show hosts have grabbed, is that Russell Pearce or his supporters got her involved. That does make sense. If she is a candidate, she could siphon votes away from Jerry Lewis and help Russell Pearce win the election.

There is one thing that makes me question that assumption. Russell Pearce has won this district handily for years. His election has never been in doubt at any time. Why would he jeopardize his re-election just to pull off a stunt like this? It does not make sense to me. On the other hand, what if Jerry Lewis put her up to it? Everyone will assume it was Russell Pearce, so he gets off scot free. He can claim to be the victim and make Russell Pearce look like a bully. Jerry Lewis has everything to gain and almost nothing to lose if Olivia Cortes is on the ballot. He only loses if her candidacy actually goes through to the election unquestioned. On the other hand, Russell Pearce only wins if her candidacy goes through to the election with no questions. If there are any questions, Russell Pearce loses. So, it makes more sense for Jerry Lewis to put her name up to run than it does Russell Pearce.

I am not accusing anyone of anything. I do not live there and have no ax to grind. I am just looking at this race from the outside and questioning what is happening. To me, it makes more sense that Jerry Lewis put Olivia Cortes up for the election than Russell Pearce. I could be wrong, but on most scenarios Jerry Lewis wins and Russell Pearce loses. In only one scenario does Pearce get a win and Lewis loses.

 This recall election has been full of rancor and intrigue since it was first started. I will be glad to have it over with and settled. Things like this are never good for the operation of good government.

The Obama administration pulled a fast one this week. They decided to “fast track” Obamacare to the Supreme Court. Everyone expected that they would appeal to the full 11^th Circuit Court for further consideration. This would have delayed taking Obamacare to the Supreme Court for 3-4 months. Deciding to do it now puts the Supreme Court in the middle of a dilemma. They have to decide this controversial issue during an election year. No matter what they decide, they will be vilified by the losing side.

The Obama administration, through Jay Carney, Press Secretary, is sounding confident that Obamacare will be found constitutional. Obviously he has not read his pocket constitution lately. If he had read his pocket constitution lately, he would discover that there is no mention of health care in the constitution. Their reliance on the commerce clause to force people to purchase health insurance is stretching the commerce clause far beyond any use of the clause in the past. The clause is part of the preamble to the section dealing with commerce. But, Progressives have decided to hang their hat on the commerce clause and ride it to death. This time they have gone too far.

Any attorney or judge with an open mind will find Obamacare unconstitutional based on the mandate. The government cannot require people to purchase anything. If they start with healthcare, where will it stop? The government could mandate that people should purchase just about anything that they thought we should have. This is a slippery slope that we should not step on. The vote to make Obamacare unconstitutional should be 8-0, if all justices are honest.

Justice Kagan worked on Obamacare when she was part of the administration. According to Supreme Court rules, she will be required to recuse herself from hearing the case. At least, that is what an honest person would do. I fully expect to say that her input into Obamacare was minimal at best so she will hear the case. I also expect all the liberal justices to vote that Obamacare is constitutional. That is because the liberal justices do not believe in the constitution, so anything a liberal President wants would be fine with them.

I expect the four conservative justices to vote that Obamacare is unconstitutional. That is because these four read the constitution and try and determine what the Founding Fathers meant when they wrote it. Based on those guidelines, Obamacare is toast.

Anthony Kennedy is always the hardest Justice to read. That is because sometimes he follows the Constitution and sometimes he ignores it. You are never really sure which way he will go. Since this is so obviously unconstitutional, I expect him to uphold the rule of law and rule that it is unconstitutional. That would make the vote 5-4, if Justice Kagan is dishonest. If Justice Kagan is honest, the vote will be 5-3.

The results should be known about the time the Republicans nominate someone for President. That would make Obamacare a political football during the campaign season. The Democrats feel that they can make Republicans and the Supreme Court the “evil” ones by declaring it unconstitutional. They do not seem to realize that most Americans think that Obamacare is unconstitutional.

This next 9-12 months should be interesting for those that watch the Supreme Court. It would be fun to be a fly on the wall to hear their discussions on the merits of this case. But, either way it rules, the Supreme Court will be persona non grata by the supporters of the side that loses.

Last night I watched the Glenn Beck show. He showed a video clip of a man on his knees making a scene. He said that his parents were out of work. He said that the bank he was in front of had taken his parent’s house. His father had a PhD, two Master’s degrees, and a college degree. His mother had a Master’s degree. He also said he was a law student at George Washington University. The way he carried on in the video, he was very believable. The regular news media believed him and were promoting everything that he said.

One news reporter heard the rant and noticed that he said his name and even spelled it. So, she wrote down his name and did some checking on the credibility of what he said. Yes, his father does have the PhD, the Master’s degrees and the college degree. His mother has the Master’s degree. He is a law student at George Washington University. But, his parents have not lost their home. They live in a $500,000 home in St. Paul, MN. They are selling the home because the neighborhood has become too conservative for them. But, the house has not been foreclosed on by the bank and is in no danger. The house is worth $500,000 and the loan has a balance of $60,000. His mother makes over $100,000 working for a non-profit and his father makes more than that. In other words, the crux of this man’s argument is completely bogus.

In the video, this man comes across as completely believable. Nobody would act this way unless the facts were true. He even submitted to arrest to prove his point. But, we have to remember that he is part of the “Day of Rage” demonstration going on in New York. My guess is that if he gets a law license, he will be able to deliver powerful deliveries to the juries. As a result, he will make tons of money but will also be a shyster lawyer. I do not know the man. I am just basing my assessment on his actions in front of that bank in New York.

This Day of Rage protest in New York is becoming a Hollywood event. Michael Moore was interviewed and Susan Sarandon is slated to appear. The events are being run by unions, communists, socialists and anarchists. You always wonder when communists and anarchists work together. They have opposite views of what should be the outcome. Communists want total government control. Anarchists want no government at all. But, at this juncture, they both want to collapse the current system. They both believe that if the system collapses, they will be the ones picking up the pieces. There are not enough communists and anarchists to make the protests appear valid. That is where the unions come in. They can supply the manpower to give these protests enough people to justify the news media putting people into reporting.

The goal of this Days of Rage protest is to get people mad at banks and bankers. They make all sorts of bogus claims against banks that the news media does not refute. After enough people have heard the protests and claims, they start to believe them. This protester that Glenn Beck showed is a prime example. He is totally bogus, yet appeared totally believable. I am sure if you checked all the other protesters at these events you would have similar results on their credibility. But, the news media is not doing their job. They are not checking out the claims of the protesters. They are just taking what the protesters are saying and not questioning them at all. In other words, the news media in general is not doing their job. That is nothing new. They have not been doing their job for many years. That is how we got the current occupant of the White House.

Barack Obama must be in trouble with his base. There is a blog with information that says that the fundraising by Obama is not as lucrative as in the past. A poll by the Economist magazine, an English publication, shows that his approval numbers are down to about 36%. That is below the 42% that the American news media is showing.

When you couple all that information with the fact that Obama is talking nonsense, you can make a pretty good case that his internal polls are probably at least as bad as the Economist and probably worse. Obama is talking nonsense by taking things that happen at Republican events and blowing them up to reflect that all Republicans believe that. For example: at the last debate a question was asked a candidate about a gay individual and healthcare. The question to the candidate asked if he would just let the gay person die. Before the candidate could answer, about 3 people shouted out that they would. This is from an audience of 300 or so. I am not sure how many were at the debate, but it was far more than the three that shouted. These three could have been plants for all we know. The candidate distanced himself from the people in the audience and so did the audience. Obama is talking like all Republicans shouted out that the gay person should die and the candidate endorsed the idea. To be this wrong is usually an act of a desperate character or someone at the very last days of their campaign.

Barack Obama needs to get his base excited and raring to go get those “evil” Republicans, rich people, etc. That way they will give him more of their money and he can then outspend the Republican candidate. If they keep their money in their pocket, he will be in even bigger trouble. He has no message and without money to overcome that handicap, he would stand no chance.

Another poll that came out recently said that 49% of the people in this country believe that the government is so big that it presents a danger to their health and life. That is essentially half of the country. The internals of the poll are also interesting; 81% of Republicans agreed, 57% of independents and only 25% of Democrats agreed with that statement. If half the country believes that the government is so big that it presents a danger to their life, which is significant. That will be a real high mountain for Barack Obama to climb. He has to convince people that the huge federal government should be larger. Already half of the country says it is too big. The Republican just has to convince that 49% that he/she truly wants to cut the size of the federal government then he/she will win in a landslide.

Obama has a lot of problems staring him in the face as he goes into this election season. People believe government is too big. The economy is terrible and not getting any better. His polling numbers are headed south with little prospect that they will head north any time soon.

Obama has one chance to win back the White House. He has to convince people that no matter how bad things are, under a Republican they will be worse. His problem with that scenario is that people remember that under George W. Bush they were employed. Under Obama, they are unemployed. I do not think he can pull it off, but stranger things have happened. I just hope he fails in this endeavor.

Late last week, Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll known as “P-5”. What is the significance of the P-5 poll? Every person who has won that poll has gone on to be the Republican nominee for President. That Herman Cain won was a major upset. Rick Perry had been the front runner. There is something very wrong with the Rick Perry campaign. He does not seem to be able to handle the flak from the other candidates. If he cannot handle the flak from fellow Republicans, he would never withstand the major flak from Obama.

Maybe we need to look a little closer at Herman Cain. I have always liked his positions, but he is weak on experience in government. He has never held an elective office. That is never a disqualification, but Obama’s first problem was that he had no experience. Putting a candidate up with no experience would not help that criticism.

Herman Cain does have extensive experience in business. His major claim to fame was that he ran Godfather’s Pizza chain and made it profitable. In the highly competitive world of pizza, that is a major accomplishment. That does give him credibility when he says he can cut the government and still deliver the services that are needed.

His latest occupation is as a talk show host. Talk show hosts have to be well prepared and knowledgeable about a wide variety of topics. It also has made him quick on his feet in the “debates”. In the debates his biggest problem is foreign affairs where he shows some lack of knowledge and understanding of the situation.

None of Herman Cain’s weaknesses are fatal. They are all correctable by study and the right staff to work with him. Right now, he has had to operate on a shoe string due to a lack of funding. This victory in the P-5 poll may give him more financial backing which would enable him to get better staff work. Better staff work leads to fewer gaffs in public. Or, at least it does unless the candidate is gaff prone like Joe Biden on the Democrat side or Michele Bachmann on our side. A gaff is an unforced error. It can cost you an election if the gaff is made at the wrong time and is easily recognized. Gerald Ford made one in a debate with Jimmy Carter and it probably cost him enough votes to win the election. So, preventing gaffs should be a priority in any campaign. Gaffs happen to any campaign and to any candidate. Candidates get tired and make mistakes. A great staff can smooth out a gaff before it takes root and grows.

Mitt Romney won a poll in Michigan. That is to be expected. He and his father are still well respected in Michigan for what they did for Michigan and the auto industry.

There seems to be some changing of the guard right now in the Republican ranks. Rick Perry is losing some luster. Chris Christy is talking about getting in the race. He is great in person and in fiscal matters. I love his singular destruction of the education unions in New Jersey. I am not sure about Gov. Christy when it comes to social matters. There is still a long time before I have to make a vote. I am still unsure who is best. The race is a marathon, not a sprint. Who is ahead now does not mean that person will win in the end.

The food police are coming for your dinner. If you doubt that, look at New York City and their Mayor Bloomberg. He has taken the salt shaker from the tables in an effort to reduce salt usage in the City. Michelle Obama got Darden Restaurants to remove French Fries from their kid’s menus. There are more examples, but I think you get the point.

Restaurant owners are obviously worried about bland food in the future. So, they had the head of the Department of Agriculture come and talk. He said they are working on ways to make food taste better and be healthy. But, the kicker is that he also said that people will have to get used to the new taste of healthier foods. That means we will have to change our eating habits to suit the government, not because we want to.

Somewhere the food police seem to have forgotten about freedom. This country was founded on the idea of liberty and freedom. One of the first motto’s the country had was, “Don’t tread on me.” The entire idea of the American Revolution was to give more freedom to the people of the United States. That has been the goal of the people and government for over 250 years. Now, with the Obama administration we have the idea that freedom is somehow an outmoded idea. The government can do anything it wants and people have to comply because the government knows best.

Everyone I know can tell numerous stories of how the government has messed up this or that. In fact, the government rarely gets things right. It may luck out and get it right in Maine, but that same idea flunks in Arizona. When I was with USDA, we had regulations that said we had to develop erosion plans for each farmer we worked with. That regulation made perfect sense in the Midwest. In Arizona, the regulation was majorly stupid. In the Midwest, every acre of ground is susceptible to erosion. An erosion plan is essential to insure that the ground stays there. In Arizona, to stop erosion, you have to irrigate. But, to grow a crop you have to irrigate. So, if you have cropland you control erosion. Governments don’t care that their ideas don’t work everywhere. They just make the rule and everyone has to jump through the hoop.

The idea that we need to reduce salt intake comes from a Nobel Prize winning scientist by the name of Linus Pauling. Linus Pauling won two Nobel Prizes, one in Chemistry and one in Physics. He was not a biologist. He knew about as much biology as your average high school student. But, because he was a Nobel Prize winning scientist, he had credibility with government officials. There have been numerous studies trying to prove that his arbitrary amount of 2400 mg is the proper amount. So far, there has not been a single study that proves the idea true. John Stossel did a special on Junk Science about 10 years ago when he was with ABC. He does a better job of detailing this controversy than I do. But the bottom line is that someone took an idea completely out of thin air and the government has been running with it for the past 50 years. Now the food police have come into complete power under Obama. They are going to put this arbitrary rule into law. We are going to comply or go to jail if the food police have any say in the matter. For now, they have a lot to say. On November 6, 2012, they may lose their authority, but that is up to us.

Salt is just one of the things that the food police are coming for. It just happens to be the headliner. We have to stop them from enforcing this arbitrary amount or we will all be much less free. This is supposed to be the land of the free. It is not the land of the free if the Obama administration has any hand in it.

For the past two days, there has been a massive selloff on Wall Street and around the world. It was started when Ben Bernanke came out and said that this poor economic climate could last for years. This is different than most selloffs. Most of the time, people sell stocks and put their money in bonds. This time, people are selling stocks and sitting on the resulting cash. That is particularly terrible for the economy. Buying bonds and gold would be preferable to holding cash for the economy.

Things are set up so that we have the same economic conditions in play that were in play in Germany during the Weimar Republic. That means that we can expect either hyper-inflation or wage and price controls. Both would be destructive to the United States and our way of life. Hyper-inflation would destroy the dollar and possibly usher in a dictatorship. No good can come from hyper-inflation. Wage and price controls are not any better. That would totally wipe out our current economic system.

Ben Bernanke is looking at the economy as if Democrats will be running the show for the next few years. If that is the case, then he is correct. If the election in 2012 puts Republicans in charge, I expect major changes to the economy. That would mean a return to prosperity for all. The climb from this gigantic hole to prosperity would not happen overnight. It would happen over time because you have to restart the economic engine that is the United States economy. Right now it has been shut down for a number of years. Restarting it could take a year or so. After that, it is Katy bar the door because we will have a return to the economic policies that unleash the economic engine.

This selloff the past two days has even hit gold. Gold is down $75 the last I heard about 9 am. That means that if you have cash, you have some opportunities to purchase things in the next few days at a greatly reduced price. The value of some of the stocks cannot have dropped that much. Even the bluest of the blue chip stocks are down in this selloff. Those blue chip stocks would still be valuable to hold, so picking them up at these reduced prices would be fantastic. The problem is you have to have cash to do that.

Wage and price controls basically would turn our market based economy into a centrally planned economy. That would totally destroy our economic system. Putting the ship right after some time under wage and price controls would be difficult and risky. The buildup of pressures would be enormous the longer we would have the wage and price controls. That is because wage and price controls artificially change the market conditions. A few months under wage and price controls would not create too much instability. A year or more would create a lot of instability when the wage and price controls are removed.

My best guess is that the Obama administration would feel that wage and price controls would be the better option during an election year. That way they can artificially keep the prices low and make everyone think that economic conditions are better than they really are. For the uneducated and uninformed, wage and price controls could convince people that Obama and his minions really know how to get our economy going. They might even be tricked into voting for the fraud that is the Obama administration.

A week or so ago, Rick Perry said that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme. At the time, the liberals in the media blasted him for labeling Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. There have been people in and out of government who have called Social Security a Ponzi scheme since it was started in the 1930’s. So, Rick Perry is not the first to call it a Ponzi scheme, he was just the latest.

First, what is a Ponzi scheme? A Ponzi scheme is where you have an investment scheme. You sell people the idea that they will become fabulously wealthy on your scheme. You take the money people invest and pay the people that have previously invested. This continues until you run out of new investors. At that time you are discovered and go to jail.

Does Social Security follow the pattern of a Ponzi scheme? Yes, it does. It took money from initial investors and used money from new investors to pay off the earlier investors. This has continued to the present day. Originally there were about 16 people per retiree. Today that number is less than 3 and will soon fall below 2. The pattern is exactly the same as a Ponzi scheme. The difference is that in a Ponzi scheme, the investors are willing and there is an end. In Social Security, the investors are not able to make financial decisions. The operators of Social Security just keep changing the rules to keep it running for a few more years.

Can Social Security be fixed? Yes it can. Chile had a similar problem about 20 years ago. They solved the problem by giving each person a private social security account where their money was sent. The person had control and ownership over that money. Now, the retirees in Chile are making more money than the workers because the system has been such a success.

About 40 years ago, there was a short window where cities or counties could opt out of Social Security and operate privately. There were at least two cities in Texas that did just that. Retirees from those cities bring home about 2-3 times the amount of money that a typical Social Security recipient does. That is because the money is invested for the long term and you get compound interest on the money.

A similar fix would solve our Social Security problem. It would have to be phased in because those at or very close to retirement are stuck with the antiquated system we have today. The younger workers would have to pay for the older workers until they all die. Then, the system would be fully vested for each person and retirement would be financially viable for each and every person regardless of their income over their lifetime. The forced savings from Social Security would cause most people to retire as millionaires. Oops, I forgot that the word millionaire is a forbidden word in today’s liberal vocabulary. But, I bet if you asked anyone if they would like to be a millionaire, they would say yes.

The problem with fixing the problem of Social Security is the Democrats in the House and Senate. If you fixed the Social Security problem, they would lose a campaign pitch that Republicans are out to take Social Security away. That is why as long as there are liberal Democrats in the House and Senate, the fix for Social Security will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

In a news report this morning, it was reported that the American flag will fly in Libya soon. They also mentioned that Barack Obama wants to make Libya an economic powerhouse. That struck me as odd. Obama is working overtime to destroy the American economy, primarily because he has no clue on what makes an economy work. Then, he says he will make an economy he knows even less about an economic powerhouse. That just does not compute.

If Barack Obama was trying to make America an economic powerhouse, then I could understand how he could make Libya an economic powerhouse. If he could make his home country with all the knowledge that is here powerful, then he could take that knowledge and help another country. At least that would be the theory.

The facts on the ground show that Obama is out to destroy the American economy. He says he is trying to improve conditions, then he imposes regulations or taxes designed to do exactly the opposite of what he said he was going to do. With that kind of a track record, I would not get my hopes up for Libya. At least I would not get them up until at least November 2012. If the election turns out like I think it will, then the American economy will turn around and become strong. That would give the people in Libya hope that their economy could also improve.

Barack Obama is a committed Marxist. As a Marxist, he would be unable to install the conditions necessary to insure success for an economy. He would try and install a planned economy which always ends up in disaster. Of course, the planned economy that never works always has an excuse on why it fails, but the fact that it always fails should tell you something.

On US soil, the first planned economy was by the Pilgrims in Plymouth. I must say that my ancestors were involved in that activity. I have two members of the Mayflower as ancestors, one man and one woman, not married. They had an economy where everyone had everything in common. Everyone donated their labor to the overall economy and got back what they needed, not what they earned. Before long, people realized that they did not have to work hard to still receive. After that happened, the starvation started. The Pilgrims realized that they had to make a change. So, they gave each colonist some land that was their own that they could work after they were finished working for the colony. It did not take long before the private land out produced the colony land. The bad economic times were over and the colony became a success. They thus proved that a planned economy is always a failure. A private economy where people work for their own living on their own land is always a success.

Every other time a planned economy has been tried, it has ended up in failure. Another example that breaks my heart is Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. As Rhodesia, the economy was private and tiny Rhodesia was the breadbasket of southern Africa. After the government changed, it became a planned economy. Zimbabwe has runaway inflation, starvation and generally the worst economic conditions in Africa. I know that Apartheid is wrong and had to be changed. But the economic system did not have to change as well. Had they kept the economic system intact, Zimbabwe would be the envy of Southern Africa. As it is now, Zimbabwe is an economic basket case.

Barack Obama is incapable of making anything an economic powerhouse. He can only destroy that which is good. He is on track to do just that in America. That is why the election in November 2012 is so important. Defeat Obama and economic prosperity will be just around the corner. Keep Obama and we will become a 3^rd world country or worse.