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FREEDOM OF SPEECH:

The internet protest causes Republican senators to withdraw support for PIPA. Why did they have to wait for this protest? Are they clueless about how unpopular these bills are? How Hollywood lost the PR battle.

"Hollywood had Chris Dodd and a press release. Silicon Valley had Facebook."

No contest.

"It seems that Hollywood still does not realize that it is in the information age. Knowledge moves in real time, and events move accordingly. The medium is the message in a fight like this. Five days ago, almost nobody knew or cared about SOPA. But with lightning speed, the leviathans of the Internet, including Google and Facebook and Wikipedia, managed to brand this battle as Bad and mobilize millions of followers."

This is a temporary victory for the new and innovative over the old and static, but it won't last. The government wants to control the internet. The government is a natural ally of Hollywood and record companies in this. Here's a good explanation of why internet censorship laws will become reality.

"What it boils down to is that SOPA was an attempt to put the power of information back in the hands of an elite few who are rapidly losing the ability to control what the masses are reading, hearing and seeing. Alternative news and ‘extremist' information was the target (and still is)."

This internet protest just scared the crap out of the politicians by showing that the internet empowers people and businesses. This is what they've feared all along. They will push harder than ever to seize control of the internet after this. Geeks may feel powerful now, but the empire will strike back.

TAX AND SPEND:

Chart and analysis showing the US government is bankrupt.

REGULATION:

How regulators, in concert with the Fed, caused the 2008 meltdown.

"The Basel banking regulations provided the incentive for bankers to load up on mortgage securities, which up to that point history had shown were very safe. Thus, the capital that regulators required to be held against these assets was tiny. Bankers acted logically by investing in what they thought (and importantly what regulators told them) were safe assets that they could grow their businesses with the least amount of capital required."
"Messrs. Friedman and Kraus find no evidence for the popular theory that bankers acted recklessly because of Too Big to Fail incentives or because compensation packages induced them to be careless about long-run returns."

Regulations distort the price signals in the economy, leading to crises like this, the gulf oil spill and the mine collapse.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

If you adjust for inflation, gasoline costs the same today as it did in 1980.

GLOBAL WARMING AND ENERGY:

Obama kills Keystone pipeline. This shows once again that Obama's agenda is the total collapse of the US economy under the burden of government. He doesn't want to create jobs. He intentionally destroying wealth and jobs. Obama blames Republicans even though clearly his default position is to kill jobs.

Cars used to be more fuel efficient. Government regulations have made them less so.

FOREIGN POLICY:

The best way for the Iranian government to gain power over the middle east is to abandon its nuclear program. It seems unlikely the Iranian government would do that. This part of the argument is very perceptive:

"Bearing all this in mind, the conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran has absolutely nothing to do with nuclear power or nuclear weapons. Instead, the pointless conflict is all about cold, hard political power in the Middle East, with the Israelis hoping to secure a vice-like grip on the region."

The US has been at war with Iran since the CIA toppled its government in 1953. This current covert war has nothing to do with nuclear power or weapons. That's just the current excuse. One that works well on Americans. Here's another perceptive observation:

"The Americans and their European underlings would have little reason to continue their unjust and bellicose sanctions if the Iranians did precisely what was demanded of them. Continuation of the sanctions would only appear to be unjust and Iraq-like meddling in the Islamic world in the arrogant hope of "regime change" for Washington and Tel Aviv’s benefit. The reversal of sanctions, on the other hand, would almost instantaneously revive Iran’s economy, as petrodollars once again flooded the economy."

If Iran gave up its nuclear program, there would be no popular reason for western aggression. If western governments continued, they would expose the charade and weaken themselves, so this would end the aggression, at least temporarily. Here's the weak part of the argument:

"The Iranian government will not lose face with the rest of the Islamic world if it decides to terminate its nuclear program completely, as Israel and Washington demand, and diffuse the entire situation."

I don't see this at all. It would look like the Iranian government caved to western powers. This would cause them to lose face. I don't see how it could be otherwise.In fact, we can turn this argument around. The US government could win by engaging the Iranian government and endorsing its peaceful nuclear program. This would boost the status of the US in the region and around the world. But the establishment would lose face, so they won't do it. It would mean ending 60+ years of covert war against Iran. Ron Paul would have to be elected to do that.

POLITICS:

Palin promotes Gingrich in South Carolina.

Washington Times poll shows likely Republican primary voters split on policing the world. Ron Paul is the only candidate that supports that position.

Paul campaign says it is focused on winning.

I got a lot of criticism for exposing the Marxist ideology behind the Occupy movement.

"The US’s largest Marxist organization Democratic Socialists of America is moving to infiltrate and direct the Occupy Wall Street Movement into a more organized and socialist focused protest movement. DSA is working hard to sustain ‘Occupy’ over the winter in readiness for a major “spring offensive” largely directed at Republican controlled state capitols as they struggle to address massive budget problems."

Stalin was right when he called these people useful idiots.

I think we knew that if Paul ran third party, it would help Obama just like Perot's run gave Clinton a second term. But Paul won't run third party because he isn't going to ruin Rand's future chance.

As rich as Romney is, if he isn't protecting his wealth from taxes in a tax haven, he's stupid and should be disqualified from being president.

Before Obama became the food stamp president, Bush the Younger was the food stamp president.

"The number of people who went on food stamps was slightly larger during the tenure of President George W. Bush: 14.7 million people during Bush's two terms — a 63% increase — compared with 14.2 million people since Obama took office, according to Agriculture Departmentdata obtained by FactCheck.org."

This highlights once again that Obama is the third Bush term.

LOCAL:

I'm not usually surprised by government, but this honest appraisal by ODOT surprised me.

"Some of Ohio’s largest road and bridge construction projects wouldn’t have to wait decades if state leaders considered using private companies to build and operate transportation venues normally controlled by government, Ohio Department of Transportation officials said Wednesday."

You don't say. The only thing wrong with these public-private partnerships is the public part. The government should fully privatize them.