By John Seiler

It just was reported that federal officials are going to seek an eight-year sentence against Kinde Durkee for ripping off Democratic campaign funds to the tune of millions of dollars.

But why? California Democratic (and Republican) officials have ripped off the state to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. And national Democratic (and Republican) officials have ripped off Americans for tens of trillions of dollars. Yet is the federal government that is prosecuting poor Kinde!

Where do they think she got her ripoff ideas?

Where do they think the $16 trillion (and counting) federal debt came from? Does anybody believe we have frugal and honest government?

Seeking an eight-year sentence against Kinde is like letting a bank robber off but throwing the book at a homeless man who lifts a beer from a grocery store.

Let the call go up: Free Kinde Durkee!

By John Seiler

The California Republican Party’s slogan is: Party of Yes.

Yes — to what? To more government? To higher taxes? Tighter regulations?

Apparently not. They’re against those things. Or at least most Republicans say they are.

So, if they’re against higher taxes, more regulations, etc. then they must be the Party of No. Yes? No. I don’t know.

Seriously, Republicans are stuck in the unenvious role of opposing Democrats’ nutty ideas. When Republicans do that, as under Reagan (mostly), they actually do well.

When they become the Party of Yes — as under Nixon-Ford, the Bushes and Schwarzenegger — they just give us more government, which means more Democratic-voting government workers. President Bush II gave us medicare expansion, expensive wars he lost, then-record deficits and debt (since superseded by Obama), new bureaucracies like Homeland Security and the groping TSA, restrictions on our liberties from the USA Patriot Act, etc. — and a massive recession, Democratic control of Congress in 2006 and Obama in 2008.

When Democrats say, “Hey, how about this great new program, which we can pay for with a small, temporary tax that — by increasing jobs — actually will boost the economy and pay for itself” — Republicans are supposed to say, “Hey, wait a minute.”

That’s why the best Republican congressman, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, also an M.D. obstetrician, earned the moniker “Dr. No” for voting against every new tax, spending program or regulation, even if it was promoted by his own party.

And in 1955, when National Review started out, editor William F Buckley penned a mission statement that read, “It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

Somebody has to be the designated driver at the party.