Oh, the idiocy of it all (Tales of the Colorado General Assembly)

Posted on 2017-03-10 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Cannabis has been legal in Colorado for some time, now, first for medical use and now for recreational as well as medicinal use.  It seems to have gone pretty well, with a few problems, but none of the horror stories that opponents predicted.  One of the significant problems is people toking up and then trying to work, especially in dangerous activities. but that is little different from alcohol users.

And it is making a fistful of money for the State, to boot. (And for a fair number of entrepreneurs.  Including some that are a lot more interested in industrial hemp than in high levels of THC.)

But the pols are not content.  As Freedom Net Daily republished from the Greeley Tribune, a bill has been introduced in the State’s benevolent, caring, loving, and greedy General Assembly that declares patient-owned marijuana growing to be a “public nuisance,” and bans even growing by organized co-operatives that comply with all the current laws and pay all the current taxes, and would limit private residences (and presumably any other location without all the permission slips from the State) to just 12 plants (down from 99 now “allowed.”)  The evil specter of the black market is used to scare the other legislators to support this. Continue reading →

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Trump the greater warmonger?

Posted on 2017-03-10 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

The website TheAntiMedia is screaming about how much more drone bombing Trump is doing than the Wizard O’bummer did, as reported in Freedom Net Daily reporting calculations from a source at the Council on Foreign Relations that “US drone strikes have gone up 432% since Trump took office.”

Now, the CFR is hardly on my list of reliable sources of information (for that matter, Antimedia isn’t either).

But what makes this something to comment about is their analysis, based on these calculations: “During… two terms in office, he approved 542 such targeted strikes in 2,920 days — one every 5.4 days. From his inauguration through today, President Trump had approved at least 36 drone strikes or raids in 45 days — one every 1.25 days.'”

Not challenging the idea that Trump is a warmonger, this sort of calculation is actually not valid. I love calculations, as readers of these commentaries know.  But the analysis is not good, not valid.  Comparing just a month and a half to a full 96 months just doesn’t work. If this 1.25 day frequency continues for six months, a year, two years, then maybe, but NOT for just 1/100th the time. Continue reading →

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Government as religion – clergy and laity

Posted on 2017-03-09 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Recently, one of my sons and I were discussing the current situation  in the Imperial Capital, where the struggle between the Donald and the Democratic Party – and a number of others – in Congress is growing wilder all the time.

As several commenters have pointed out in recent days, the opposition in Congress and other venues (including many parts of the Executive Branch and the Judiciary – and much of the GOP) is far beyond just spoiling his agenda, just thwarting his plans.  It is obvious that the effort is directed to making his administration, his regime, completely illegitimate.  To go far beyond what any politically powerful opponents of the Wizaard O’bummer, for example, did in more than eight years.  Not just to counter him, but to destroy him.

My son suggested that one of the reasons for the continued (and growing) antipathy is because, even if the man now at 1600 Pennsylvania is (de facto) a politician, he is not really a “politician.”  It is as if the College of Cardinals elected a layman, who never even served as an altar boy, to be Pope. Continue reading →

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Barfing in the morning…

Posted on 2017-03-09 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Reading the blurbs on stories in Freedom News Daily this morning, I came across this “present” reminding me of what a cat will sometimes leave in the doorway when she has an upset stomach, or even what I get to clean out of the litter box.

In the guise of a paean to our wonderful American ancestors who “actually extended and deepened American freedom, equality, and democracy,” writer Harvey J Kaye of “Our Future” continues the diabolical worship of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his evil New Deal, citing Sinclair Lewis in his effort to brand the current regime in DC as “fascist-tinged authoritarian” – apparently in huge contrast to enlightened, liberty-fostering regimes of the last tyrant (the marvelous Wizard O’bummer), and the Bill and Hillary show of the late 20th Century. Continue reading →

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Allies or enemies – France and America

Posted on 2017-03-08 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

The nation is “America’s First and Oldest Ally.”  Massive support with armies and ships, provided to the rebels for half-a-decade from the Ancien Regime in Paris, allowed the struggling thirteen United States to win their war of independence against the United Kingdom – Great Britain.  Although the FedGov and the various revolutionary regimes in France were at war with each other briefly a few years later, and only de-facto allies during the period of the first Napoleon, and although DC made serious threats against the next Napoleon as he adventured in the CSA’s and USA’s backyard in Mexico a half-century later, starting in 1917, the alliance between the two empires has been relatively steady.

De Gaulle’s copping an attitude in the 1960-1980 period was a minor row between friends.  Today, France and its empire (yes, it still has one, though wearing sunglasses and a really ugly sweater) is nearly as tight an ally with the FedGov in DC as Her Majesty’s guvmint in London. Continue reading →

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Trust In Government, Media At All Time Low

Posted on 2017-03-08 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

Whom do you trust? Government, media, doctors, scientists, everyone or nobody? How many of us have been included in these surveys? Do you trust surveys?

Surveys Show Global Trust In Government At All-Time Low, Losing Control Worldwide
Distrust of central governments and institutions of authority plus Internet as an alternative means of gathering information have combined and snowballed into an uprising of nationalism and populism, although the people attempting to run this dog and pony show like to mush those two concepts together with radicalization and extremism… because if you don’t trust your loving central government, you obviously must be a radical extremist.

This sounds like very good news to me. Unfortunately, while a great many people don’t trust the government, or their close allies in media and business, they mostly seem to want more of the same… as long as it fulfills their own desire for unearned wealth and control of others. Very few are talking about individual liberty and self responsibility as a replacement.

So, while this distrust is good, it’s not the whole answer by any means. It’s a starting point, maybe. No guarantees.

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The Efficacy and Ethics of Voting

Posted on 2017-03-07 by MamaLiberty

By Ben Stone

As many times as I have spoken and written on this topic, I chose restraint on formally addressing it again until the madness of the 2016 election cycle faded. The reason for this restraint is that I have suffered the extreme hyperbolic madness of the election frenzy ten times during my life and I have learned not to attempt to reason with piranha while they are feeding. Not that every national election has this effect on the voting public. There have been thirteen national elections during my life, and I remember every one of them. But the frenzy only took hold ten of those thirteen times, because it was only needed ten times to control and manipulate the public.

As an adult, I have spent a great deal of effort studying the American election cycle and I can say with confidence, the election of 2016 was not unique, but rather a built-in aspect of the design of American politics. When any serious resistance to the powers of DC begin to show themselves, magically a hero appears to speak for the American people and lead them back to freedom. (A freedom that exists in their memory but never in reality.) This great hero always appears as an outsider, yet is actually a hand selected member of the elite. Three times incredibly wealthy and powerful New York businessmen from extremely wealthy and powerful New York families, have emerged to convince middle America that they were the champion of the little man, the trust buster, the hero of the downtrodden, and then they went on to cut backroom deals with the banking and industrial powers to start wars and further rob the wealth of the average American. Twelve times the persona of a great general has been used for the same purpose and produced the same results. Once, out of desperation, a movie actor was used. But the lesson to learn here is that no matter who the hollow soulless figure is that is offered as the hero and savior of the people, Leviathan grows and consumes the lives and wealth of all who honestly trade their sweat, blood, and intellect for a few morsels of bread and whatever shelter we can erect. In other words, the winner of every election is the State, and the losers are always the voters. Continue reading →

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Modern colonies and media lies

Posted on 2017-03-06 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

I spend a fair amount of time in the Four Corners, one of the areas in the Fifty States most heavily impacted by the FedGov.  Here in Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico are multiple national parks, national forests, vast areas under the control of the Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, various other federal agencies, and multiple AmerInd nations on their Federal reservations.

To put it bluntly, the area is a vast network of colonies – huge areas directly under federal control, with isolated pockets of communities that are part of various states or AmerInd nations, with various kinds of local government, but always very much aware of the precarious position they find themselves in, when a single tap on a keyboard by a distant bureaucrat or political appointee (or elected official) in far-off Denver, SLC, Phoenix, Santa Fe, or DC, can change daily life in drastic and usually negative ways. Continue reading →

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Bureaucrats Gone Wild department

Posted on 2017-03-04 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

This has been going on for some time. Just a couple of days ago it was in the news again, specifically US News (and World Report) tells us that Pepsi distributors are laying off 80 to 100 workers. It had been known to be coming. One of the city’s largest beverage distributors had said in February that it was cutting 20% of its workforce in March, and one of the big grocery chains will drop 300 jobs. Worse, most of those jobs will probably move OUTSIDE the city to the now-booming stores in the ‘burbs.

So now we see a big-city soda pop tax is both cratering the city budget… and killing jobs.

Two months ago, Philadelphia imposed a 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on both sugary and sugar-free beverages to fund schools and parks. So supermarkets are reporting a drop in sales of up to 50% as city shoppers venture into the suburbs. The city expected to generate $7.6 million a month with the tax, but January’s take is only $2.3 million. And this doesn’t include the drop in sales tax revenue on everything else that people bought in supermarkets. If you are going to pay an extra 18 cents on a 12-ounce can of store-brand soda that probably only sells for 3 bucks a 12 pack (that is 25 cents a can), you aren’t going to make ONE trip to a store to buy eggs, milk, bread and soup, then go to another store (probably much further away) to buy soda. So probably for every can of soda that did NOT sell, you probably also lost the 10 cents per dollar sales tax on another 10 bucks in groceries. And lets not even think about going to a convenience store to buy a 24- or 36- or 44-ounce cup of soda, and filling up with 8 gallons of $2.25 fuel – or the two candy bars (another two bucks) and the taxes lost to City Hall from THAT quick trip to Trenton or some suburb. (Of course, the “new” money for the schools and parks is already spent.)
Continue reading →

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Whom do we believe? And when?

Posted on 2017-03-02 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Every day, we see or read or hear news stories, from locally, our region, the Fifty States, and around the world.

Sometimes, especially for local stories, we see something that is just not right: sometimes not quite right, and sometimes totally wrong.  Is this an error or a lie?

Sometimes, it is both.

It isn’t just the mainstream media.  And certainly not just the “alt-media” or the blogosphere or web- or urban-legends.

In the past few years, I have attended many hearings, and public meetings, and even been in court, and then a few hours or days later, read a report or heard a news story about what was said and done in those gatherings.  And I have been involved in bad situations: accidents, spills, fires, and such; seen for myself what was going on.  And then, again, read or heard something.  And asked myself what meeting or event was the media reporting on?  It didn’t sound or read very much like what I saw and heard (or did) at the the time. Continue reading →

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