By John Seiler

Our Bill of Rights is our check on totalitarianism. Now, because of the government’s complete snooping on our phone records, it’s “totally gone,” according to Ron Paul, the former U.S. representative and presidential candidate. He says that beginning at about 3:54 in the following video. He says:

“It isn’t the Democrats and it isn’t the Republicans. It’s both of them. And then it’s the toleration of the people. The people put up with it. So it’s very very dangerous. I don’t think there’s anything left to our Fourth Amendment. This whole idea of needing probable cause to get a search warrant, that’s totally gone. and this to me is very very serious. But also, it’s an awakening call. Let’s hope that we can get the progressives together with the libertarians and the constitutionalists, and say enough of … we’ve had enough of this.”

Although the current Democratic Obama administration has conducted this tyranny, it was first approved by Republican President Bush in 2007. And powerful Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina just said he is “glad” the NSA is tapping our phones without getting a search warrant. He actually said:

“I’m a Verizon customer. I don’t mind Verizon turning over records to the government if the government is going to make sure that they try to match up a known terrorist phone with somebody in the United States. I don’t think you’re talking to the terrorists. I know you’re not. I know I’m not. So we don’t have anything to worry about.”

Trust the Obama government! And he’s from the party that’s supposed to favor smaller government.

This may our last chance to save freedom in America. Otherwise, see you in a FEMA camp.

By John Seiler

Government cons us into believing it “helps” people. It really exists to help itself — and hurt those that want to reduce its immense powers.

My colleague Steven Greenhut just visited Washington, D.C., and reported on how rich the area is. At least $4 trillion of our tax dollars flow through D.C., so it’s not surprising that a lot of it sticks there.

When I was growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, the counties North of Detroit were the richest in America because the auto executives and engineers lived there. In recent years, the richest counties have been those surrounding Washington, D.C.

That tells the story of American right there: Money was shifted from those producing things, such as steel and cars, to those producing government: lobbyists, lawyers, congressmen, social workers.

‘What do you expect?’

And government gets really mad when it’s criticized. Former Rep.  Ron Paul explains:

“’What do you expect when you target the President?’ This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave ‘special scrutiny’ to organizations opposed to the current administration’s policies suggest that many in the IRS still believe harassing the President’s opponents is part of their job.

“As troubling as these recent reports are, it would be a grave mistake to think that IRS harassment of opponents of the incumbent President is a modern, or a partisan, phenomenon. As scholar Burton Folsom pointed out in his book New Deal or Raw Deal, IRS agents in the 1930s where essentially ‘hit squads’ against opponents of the New Deal. It is well-known that the administrations of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson used the IRS to silence their critics. One of the articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon dealt with his use of the IRS to harass his political enemies. Allegations of IRS abuses were common during the Clinton administration, and just this week some of the current administration’s defenders recalled that antiwar and progressive groups alleged harassment by the IRS during the Bush presidency.

“The bipartisan tradition of using the IRS as a tool to harass political opponents suggests that the problem is deeper than just a few ‘rogue’ IRS agents—or even corruption within one, two, three or many administrations. Instead, the problem lays in the extraordinary power the tax system grants the IRS.

“The IRS routinely obtains information about how we earn a living, what investments we make, what we spend on ourselves and our families, and even what charitable and religious organizations we support. Starting next year, the IRS will be collecting personally identifiable health insurance information in order to ensure we are complying with Obamacare’s mandates.

“The current tax laws even give the IRS power to marginalize any educational, political, or even religious organizations whose goals, beliefs, and values are not favored by the current regime by denying those organizations “tax-free” status. This is the root of the latest scandal involving the IRS.

“Considering the type of power the IRS excises over the American people, and the propensity of those who hold power to violate liberty, it is surprising we do not hear about more cases of politically-motivated IRS harassment. As the first US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, ‘The power to tax is the power to destroy’ — and who better to destroy than one’s political enemies?

“The US flourished for over 120 years without an income tax, and our liberty and prosperity will only benefit from getting rid of the current tax system. The federal government will get along just fine without its immoral claim on the fruits of our labor, particularly if the elimination of federal income taxes are accompanied by serious reduction in all areas of spending, starting with the military spending beloved by so many who claim to be opponents of high taxes and big government.

“While it is important for Congress to investigate the most recent scandal and ensure all involved are held accountable, we cannot pretend that the problem is a few bad actors. The very purpose of the IRS is to transfer wealth from one group to another while violating our liberties in the process, thus the only way Congress can protect our freedoms is to repeal the income tax and shutter the doors of the IRS once and for all.”

By John Seiler

He’s no longer in office, but the greatest congressman in American history still is telling like it is. Here’s Ron Paul on the fraud “fiscal cliff” deal imposed on us by the scamsters of both parties in Congress:

“While there was much hand-wringing over the “draconian” cuts that would be imposed by sequestration, in fact sequestration does not cut spending at all. Under the sequestration plan, government spending will increase by 1.6 trillion over the next eight years. Congress calls this a cut because without sequestration spending will increase by 1.7 trillion over the same time frame. Either way it is an increase in spending.

“Yet even these minuscule cuts in the ‘projected rate of spending’ were too much for Washington politicians to bear. The last minute ‘deal’ was the worst of both worlds: higher taxes on nearly all Americans now and a promise to revisit these modest reductions in spending growth two months down the road. We were here before, when in 2011 Republicans demanded these automatic modest decreases in government growth down the road in exchange for a massive increase in the debt ceiling. As the time drew closer, both parties clamored to avoid even these modest moves.

“Make no mistake: the spending addiction is a bipartisan problem. It is generally believed that one party refuses to accept any reductions in military spending while the other party refuses to accept any serious reductions in domestic welfare programs. In fact, both parties support increases in both military and domestic welfare spending. The two parties may disagree on some details of what kind of military or domestic welfare spending they favor, but they do agree that they both need to increase. This is what is called “bipartisanship” in Washington….

“While the media played up the drama of the down-to-the-wire negotiations, there was never any real chance that a deal would not be worked out. It was just drama. That is how Washington operates. As it happened, a small handful of Congressional and Administration leaders gathered in the dark of the night behind closed doors to hammer out a deal that would be shoved down the throats of Members whose constituents had been told repeatedly that the world would end if this miniscule decrease in the rate of government spending was allowed to go through.

“While many on both sides express satisfaction that this deal only increases taxes on the ‘rich,’ most Americans will see more of their paycheck going to Washington because of the deal. The Tax Policy Center has estimated that 77 percent of Americans would see higher taxes because of the elimination of the payroll tax cut.”

That explains why Establishment Republicans so opposed Ron Paul in the GOP primaries a year ago: the Establishment wanted to keep the spending scams going, at the expense of taxpayers. Ron Paul would have stopped the scams. So he was stopped in favor of the Republican Establishment functionary Romney, who “lost” to Democratic Establishment functionary Obama.

Read the rest of Ron Paul’s analysis here.

By John Seiler

It’s not just the recent economic and political nonsense by both parties that’s hurting the middle class. It’s more than four decades of it. A new study finds:

“The median net worth of American households has dropped to a 43-year low as the lower and middle classes appear poorer and less stable than they have been since 1969.

“According to a recent study by New York University economics professor Edward N. Wolff, median net worth is at the decades-low figure of $57,000 (in 2010 dollars). And as the numbers in his study reflect, the situation only appears worse when all the statistics are taken as a whole….

“Fully 85 percent of self-described middle-class adults say it is more difficult now than it was a decade ago for middle-class people to maintain their standard of living. Of those who feel this way, 62 percent say “a lot” of the blame lies with Congress, while 54 percent say the same about banks and financial institutions, 47 percent about large corporations, 44 percent about the Bush administration, 39 percent about foreign competition and 34 percent about the Obama administration.”

Typical of these polls, the real culprit was not fingered in the question: The U.S. Federal Reserve Board. In 1968, Richard Nixon — native of Orange County, Calif. — was elected to protect the “silent majority,” as he called it, a/k/a the middle class. In 1971, the fool took us off the gold standard.

Since then, the Federal Reserve Board has waged an unrelenting assault on the middle class by debasing the currency, with the dollar’s value dropping from $35 an ounce of gold in 1971 to $1,711 today. That’s a loss of 98 percent of its value.

In the 1970s, tax rates remained the same — meaning the middle-class was jammed up into higher-income tax brackets, where they remain. Reagan indexed the rates to inflation, but only as of 1985. It wasn’t retroactive.

So, in 2012 Mr. & Mrs. America  pay the high tax rates of millionaires of 1971.

Reagan’s tax cuts, although needed, mainly went to the wealthy. The middle class got tax cuts from the Gipper. But he also increased the FICA/Socialist Security tax as part of the Greenspan Commission in 1983. Those tax increases essentially repealed Reagan’s middle-class tax cuts.

And inflation is why the middle-class in California pays the staggeringly regressive state income tax rate of 9.3 percent, which in the 1960s only affected millionaires.

Greenspan later, of course, became the inflationist head of the Fed, his policies especially destroying the dollar when he panicked after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Today, President Obama, Democrats running the Senate and Republicans running the House don’t really care about the middle class. If they did, they would take retiring Rep. Ron Paul’s advice to “End the Fed.”

And they would roll back middle-class tax rates to 1971.

If you’re in the middle class, as I am, here’s your future:

By John Seiler

The networks are calling the Obama victory, which I’ve been predicting for months. As I’ve been telling everybody, Romney is a liberal Republican whose positions are almost the same as the liberal Obama. So why change?

Republicans should have nominated a real conservative: Ron Paul. He would be winning in a landslide tonight.

By John Seiler

I have a lot of problems with the Republican Party. They don’t come nearly close enough to supporting as much liberty as I do. But it’s also worth pointing out ridiculous attacks on them, such as a new one by Harold Meyerson of the American Prospect.

After reading his article, most liberals are expecting the delegates departing Tampa to form gangs to roam the South lynching blacks.

He begins:

“The Republican ticket may hail from Massachusetts and Wisconsin, but Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan head the most Southernized major U.S. political party since Jefferson Davis’ day.”

Wait a minute. Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America, so by definition he wasn’t a member of a “major U.S.” — that is, United States — “political party.”

“In its hostility toward minorities, exploitation of racism, antipathy toward government and suspicion of science, today’s Republican Party represents the worst traditions of the South’s dankest backwaters.”

“hostility toward minorities…exploitation of racism”? It seems to me the GOP bent over backwards to feature black and Latino stars such as former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Sen. Marco Rubio.

“antipathy toward government”? Except that the Romney plan for the budget — and the somewhat different Ryan plan — don’t cut overall government spending; they only reduce the growth in spending. And like most liberal Democrats, Meyerson simply ignores not only the $16 trillion debt, but the incredible $222 trillion unfunded liabilities of the federal government.

Even if you expropriated all the money of all the “1 percent” in America, and waterboarded them to reveal where they hid their gold, you couldn’t come within a fraction of paying that down.

Climategate

“suspicion of science.” He later mentions “global warming” — apparently not aware that the politically correct nomenclature now is “climate change.”

Yet one of the biggest climate-change “deniers” was not a Republican, but the late Alexander Cockburn, the far-left Nation columnist, which enraged his and Meyerson’s fellow leftists.

And what about the Climategate scandal? After that, it’s not surprising that people have suspicion, not of “science,” but of tax-funded science bureaucrats on a mission to grab more of our money while producing fake results to push their controlling agendas.

I’m not a “climate scientist,” but to quote Bob Dylan, “You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

On “suspicion of science,” he also brings up the “Scopes trial” and “Republicans’ willful resistance to science and, more broadly, simple empiricism.”

Meyerson is under the impression that the Scopes trial was about evolution, probably from seeing the play and movie, “Inherit the Wind.” Actually, it was about eugenics and branding blacks as somehow genetically inferior.

Here’s an actual quote from the evolution book used in the classroom, which Tennessee wanted to ban:

“At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other … the highest type of all, the Caucasians, [is] represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.”

Is Meyerson supporting this “science”? I hope not.

The book Scopes used also said,

“future generations of men and women on the earth [can also] be improved by applying to them the laws of selection.”

That is, by eugenics. That’s the reason the sterilization of blacks, as well as supposedly mentally defective whites, was imposed in the United States, and won the backing of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927. American eugenicists were influential on the even more demonic eugenics of the Third Reich.

California eugenics

And there’s a California angle. This is from the book, “War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race,” by Edwin Black:

“Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a co-called “Master Race.”

“But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn’t originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little known, role in the American eugenics movement’s campaign for ethnic cleansing.

“Eugenics was the racist pseudoscience determined to wipe away all human beings deemed “unfit,” preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in twenty-seven states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in “colonies,” and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

“California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the Twentieth Century’s first decades, California’s eugenicists included potent but little known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate and Polytechnic benefactor Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles M. Goethe, as well as members of the California State Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

“Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America’s most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Stamford, Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics’ racist aims….

“The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz….

“Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California’s quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as the Pasadena-based Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations–which functioned as part of a closely-knit network–published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such asEugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis….

“The grand plan was to literally wipe away the reproductive capability of those deemed weak and inferior–the so-called “unfit.” The eugenicists hoped to neutralize the viability of 10 percent of the population at a sweep, until none were left except themselves.”

After Hitler seized power in 1933 and started attacking Jews and others, eugenics lost much of its force in the United States. And after World War II, the Holocaust and the opening of the death camps discredited the movement.

But it’s well to remember that, back in 1925 and the heyday of eugenics, as exemplified by the book used by Scopes, the country bumpkins of Tennessee actually thought that the Bible told them God created everyone equal, and that doing things like sterilizing blacks was evil. By contrast, Clarance Darrow, the “defense” lawyer who defended the teaching of eugenics and black “inferiority” in Tennessee schools, was the “enlightened,” supposedly “pro-science” person Meyerson is backing!

Meyerson again: “today’s Republican Party represents the worst traditions of the South’s dankest backwaters.”

What a way to smear an entire large section of the country. But remember, it was Tennessee in 1925, whatever racism might have existed in the state at the time, not Massachusetts, that in the Scopes trial defended the equal humanity of blacks and whites by banning a racist textbook.

Do a 180?

Meyerson continues:

“No other party in U.S. history has done such a 180.”

Does Meyerson know any real U.S. history?

The Democratic Party was founded by Thomas Jefferson, the guy who said, “Government governs best which governs least.” He’s one of the few men in history who actually cut government. OK, so the Louisiana Purchase wasn’t constitutional. Nobody’s perfect.

But Jefferson’s small-government beliefs were the bedrock of the party for at least a century — and are 180 degrees opposite of today’s behemoth-government, max-tax, total-control-of-our-lives Democratic Party. In Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolution of 1789, he basically said that the states have almost total freedom from the federal government, and implied that they even can secede. Here’s the first plank:

“1. Resolved, That the several States composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but that, by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes — delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.”

Think even a word of that will make it into the Democratic Party platform to be adopted next week?

And get this. Meyerson wrote:

“They also exploit racist resentments in a way not seen since the Willie Horton spot of 1988.”

But in that election, it actually was Democratic Sen. Al Gore who first up brought up the furlough issue (although not specifically Horton) against Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis in the Democratic primaries. V.P. George H.W. Bush only ripped off the accusation for use in the general election. (Horton, who was black, was paroled when Dukakis was governor, and went on to brutally assault and rape a woman.)

Let’s just chalk it up as another example of Meyerson’s historical ignorance.

Enough. It’s Meyerson himself who exemplifies the ultra-intolerance now exhibited by the Left toward anyone to the right of Joe Biden.

Again, I’m well aware that Republicans and conservatives have a lot of intolerance of their own, for example toward the Ron Paul section of their party. And their talk of balancing the budget doesn’t make sense when they want to start more expensive wars.

But if Meyerson and other leftists want to see extremist fanatics, they should just look in the mirror.

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.

The California primary’s late date, in June, usually makes it irrelevant. By then, one candidate usually has come to the fore of the Democratic or Republican parties.

Yet California commentators still salivate over actually having something worthy to report. Writes Josh Richman: “For months, nobody figured California Republicans would have a say in picking their party’s 2012 presidential contender — the state’s June 5 primary was just too late to matter.”

“But suddenly, as a volatile and vicious GOP battle barrels toward Tuesday’s Florida primary, uncertainty is setting in as some pundits start to wonder: Could the Golden State’s mother lode of delegates actually make a difference?”

Not gonna happen. It’s over. Romney’s the nominee.

He’ll trounce Gingrich in Florida Tuesday. Willard (Mitt) organized and campaigned better. The Establishment coalesced around him, especially its “conservative” wing, and smashed Newt, who came off as an amateur.

And did Newt really think that messy stuff with his wives wouldn’t catch up with him? His South Carolina victory was a fluke, like the Yankees briefly retreating after Fort Sumter was shelled back in 1861.

Then Mitt will win the Western caucus states because a lot of his fellow Mormons will back him.

Then it’s on to Michigan, where he grew up; hence he has a Michigander accent like mine. His father, George Romney, was a terrible governor there in the 1960s, imposing the state’s first income tax and doubling spending in just six years.

Yet George is remembered fondly, perhaps because Baby Boomers are nostalgic for the days of the Monkees and the Detroit Tigers’ 1968 World Series champions, a team so great they make the 1927 Yankees look like a Little League team. (Where have you gone, Denny McLain? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo. Woo. Woo.)

Then Willard will beat Obama. The economy still is pathetic, the recovery a weak joke. Obama is unpopular. He’s Bush III. Nothing changed. He dashed  the “hope we can believe in.”

I’m not a Romney fan, to say the least (if not less). I’m still knocking back the bourbon over Ron Paul’s demise. Maybe if the Establishment media hadn’t deep-sixed their reporting on Ron. Maybe if… Never mind.

And growing up in Michigan in the 1960s, the politican I most loathed after the ogre LBJ was Mitt’s pa.

President Mitt will do what Republican presidents always do: Consolidate and better manage the socialist advances imposed by Democratic presidents.

It’s the American way.

Jan. 29, 2012

The centralized tyranny in the United States has gone too far. It now is assaulting Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

After the TSA’s microwave “scanners” broke down, Paul was ordered — like a concentration camp inmate — to undergo a full body pat-down. He refused. The last word is that the TSA is detaining him.

Sen. Paul obviously is the son of Rep. Ron Paul, who is running for president. Ron finished second in the New Hampshire Primary.

Ron also has sponsored the American Traveler Dignity Act, which would stop the TSA/KGB from molesting us.

So this obviously was retaliation for the father’s attempt to lessen the police-state total control usurped by the TSA.

I recently flew from Orange County to Sacramento and back again. I refused to walk through the new imaging machine. I don’t want to be microwaved like a TV dinner.

So both times they forced me to submit to a pat-down. Total humiliation. I’ve never been arrested, so that never happened to me before.

Basically, now government does anything it wants, all the time, to anyone.

The excuse is to “keep us safe.” But that’s the lying excuse police states everywhere use to terrorize their own people.

Officially, America now is a tyranny.

Jan. 23, 2012

UPDATE 10 am: ABC News is reporting that the TSA eventually released Sen. Rand Paul from its gulag

But it’s worth remembering that Sen. Paul could have been “disappeared” under the new the National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA was opposed by Sen. Paul, but overwhelmingly passed by both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. It was signed into law by President Obama on Dec. 31, 2011.

Under the NDAA, the federal government can arrest anyone without a warrant, imprison or execute him without a trial, and tell no one about it.

The NDAA is the reign of absolute tyranny in America.

Welcome to the American Gulag.

Our old friend Art Pedroza has started a great new blog, OCPoliticsBlog.com. I’ve known Art for something like 15-20 years. Back when I was at the Orange County Register in the 1990s, he wrote great letters to the editor on the shenanigans in Santa Ana city and school politics.

When blogs came around in 2003, he started the Orange Juice blog, which quickly became the top local blog in Orange County. He gave that to others about two years ago. He then started the New Santa Ana blog about the city where he lives.

Like yours truly, Art has wandered among the political parties, and currently is back with the Libertarians. America’s constricted political system doesn’t provide enough choice of where to roost politically. The two major parties have erected numerous legal barriers to competition.

Republicans, despite their small-government rhetoric, too much want to run our lives and invade foreign countries (while making hefty profits on their investments with military contractors). It’s too bad more Republicans aren’t like Ron Paul or Assemblyman Chris Norby of Fullerton. But that’s the fact.

Democrats, who interested Art for a while, believe everything would be great if we just gave the government 100 percent of our money to pay for government-worker pensions.

Art’s now back in the Libertarian Party. He wrote in an email, “That may seem nuts since the new open primary system will shut third parties out of our general elections, but I am hoping the courts will overturn the open primary.  If not, oh well.”

That’s about my attitude on American politics as the country, and California, sink into the slough of despond: Oh, well.

Art wrote, “Have I learned a few lessons over the past couple of years?  You bet. My new blog will be informative and I am sure my sense of humor will pop up, but I am going to try to present OC politics in an informed and entertaining way — and we’ll steer clear of the nuttiness that was the old OJ blog.”

Even if you’re not in Orange County, its politics affect all of California, and America.

So check out OCPoliticsBlog.com.

— Jan. 3, 2012