My interview with Senator Demint

Today I got to spend some quality time with South Carolina Senator Jim Demint who broke down how boycotting the bailout of the Big 3 is really the only chance there is to save those jobs. Click here to listen

Is Rush Limbaugh hurting conservatives?

Colin Powel made some news this week when he slammed Rush Limbaugh. I remember hearing Rush for the 1st time in 1989 on WABC NY and thinking this is the funniest guy on the radio. I also appreciated his ability to point out how absurd some liberal positions are through comedy. I also remember thinking in 1994 that our party was making a tragic error when the newly elected Reps called themselves the Dittohead Caucus. Then Sean Hannity started getting quoted and then Laura Ingraham and so on and so forth. The point is that Radio entertainers are in fact entertainers. As a party, you lose credibility when you quote them. Rush is by far the most popular radio personality in America with an audience that fluctuates between 14 and 20 million people every year. But that alone tells us most conservatives don't listen to him. Most American voters consider themselves conservative. It's actually 60 %. (Apparently we start every election off with a 10 point lead and blow a lot of them) In this last election Obama received 66.8 million votes to McCain's 58.3 million votes. That's 125 million voters. Meaning 105 million of them don't listen to Rush or probably talk radio in general. So when molding an argument to an undecided voter never say "Well I heard on Rush Limbaugh...", because he's an entertainer. It's similar to when a Democrat says "John Stewart reported..." If an entertainer makes a point you want to enlighten your friends with find the source and quote from there. Ususally they will say today's NY Times or an ABC poll or whatever before breaking it down. Of course you can always quote me because, no one knows who I am.

Republican response to Illinois Gov arrest

At 6:15 AM today the Governor of Illinois was arrested at home, after a Federal wiretap indicated he had been asking for $500,000 to appoint someone as replacement to Barrack Obama's Senate seat. There's a bunch of other tawdry allegations as well which you can read here if you care. The governor's Chief of Staff was also arrested.



Illinois has a long history of corrupt governor's. Governor Blagojevich's arrest today makes him the 5th Illinois governor to be arrested in 5 decades.



Some people including Jack Tapper at ABC News are attempting to link Barrack Obama to this scandal. As a Republican this isn't a thing to rejoice over. It's sad when elected officials betray the trust that people placed in them. The people of Illinois are embarrassed, surprised, and rightfully angry over this latest scandal. Attempting to link Obama to this is a foolish PR mistake by anyone hoping to further conservatism. It makes you appear opportunistic with your own desires being placed over concern for your fellow citizens. It's exactly the way you alienate potential supporters.

When friends ask you what you think, simply acknowledge that it's disappointing. If they clearly want to pry out some "Republican rhetoric" perhaps mention that corruption knows no bounds and we Republicans have numerous scandals of our own. But because men of great influence are often tempted to sell that influence that is another reason you're for smaller government with less influence. Do not get in to a debate over which party is more corrupt! Both parties lose that argument.

Other indicted IL governors

William Stratton 1961

Otto Kerner 1973

George Ryan 2006

Do you know Peter Schiff?

This is a tough blog for me to write. I focus on politics, and attempt to encourage Republicans to return to smaller government, less taxes, and allow free markets to work. Today I'm focusing on the man who worked on Ron Paul's campaign. I ignored Ron Paul for the most part because I didn't think he was electable. I wish I had paid more attention.
Peter Schiff is an Economist who founded Euro Pacific Capital He spent 2006 and 2007 being laughed at by other economists (as you can see on these clips) as he predicted the evaporation of wealth, due to inflated home prices brought on by the Fed keeping interest rates low which led to aggressive lending. The home price collapse would lead to a banking collapse which leads to a stock market collapse leading to a total economic recession that will last for years.

Well the collapse has arrived. 5.8 Trillion dollars evaporated in October. 11 consecutive months of rising unemployment. November we lost another half million jobs. Close to a million jobs are gone from last year. Peter called all of this, and may not have been alone in doing so, but very few gave him weight. Even today some suggest he doesn't know what he's talking about. But not me. His theory makes sense and his past statements have come true.

What does Peter say about the future? More importantly what should you do? First thing is get out of the dollar.


He suggest buying gold, silver, foreign bonds & foreign currency. Now if you're not in the stock market, what about our economy in general. Basically we have to pay the price of borrowing from foreign countries for decades to live the lifestyle we've all lived. We need to produce and save more. We need to spend less. Which is the exact opposite thing the Government is saying. Bush/Obama and all their followers are announcing that this is a confidence issue. Once consumers feel confident again, they'll buy more houses, and cars, and clothes, and trips. So the government is printing money to spread to banks, and big companies, so they can stay in business, which will slow unemployment, and hope that people will go buy stuff to keep these companies afloat. The problem is everyone is drowning in debt. After years of 2nd mortgages on artificially inflated home prices to pay for renovations to make our houses more valuable, we now find out that the kitchen/bathroom renovation that cost 30 grand is worth zero. There's no one left to prop up our economy. The more we print money the deeper the hole is getting. Te best thing we can do now is tighten our belts for a 3 to 10 year recovery, and beg our government to stop bailing things out. In other words let's stop digging the hole.
Just to illustrate this point. Japan had amazing growth in it's economy from 1950-1990. When a market correction began, the government chose to stop it. Their infusion of cash kept things sort of stable but market pressure demanded correction and with that their recession began. Their government still kept printing yen and creating jobs till around 1995. From 1990 till 2001 their stock market had dropped almost continuously. Even after a 7 year "recovery" the Nikkei is worth about 75% of what it was 18 years ago. Now that a worldwide recession has begun Japan is really in trouble because inflation will begin to rise. Watch billionaire Jim Rogers try to explain this to some arrogant reporters.

We're a lot bigger economy, and we're considerably more over extended than Japan was.But we're only at about the 1991 point of the Japanese time line. We can take our medicine in a couple of nasty gulps and be back to prosperity in a few years or drag it out for decades like the Japanese. We need to educate our friends and neighbors as to what this bailout will do. Together as a nation we need to let our Reps in Washington know that we understand tough times are coming but if they try to put it off further to win another election we will vote them out.

I'm going to be filling in for Keven Cohen right after Rush Limbaugh on 560 WVOC Monday and Tuesday (12/15 & 12/16). Peter Schiff's assistant says Peter will start the show Tuesday at 3 with me via phone. If you have any questions you'd like me to ask him please post them here.

How do you cut a program?

Conservatives always whine about bleeding heart liberals. Liberals never met a cause they didn't want to support. It feels right to support causes. Today in South Carolina we have a good example of how difficult it can be to cut programs, that need to go. WIS reports that the head of Project Faith is warning Governor Sanford and the State House that their decision to cut that program will result in thousands of deaths and even more dollars to the SC taxpayers. Project Faith works with churches to prevent the spread of HIV. "For the health of this state, for the benefit of tax payers and for the economy, if you want to save lives and save money, you've got to prevent a disease like HIV," says Dr Gaddist the head of the program.

Are the Republicans so cold hearted, so short sighted that they will cut this program to balance the budget this year and put our young people at greater risk of contracting HIV? 39 Churches are going to ask lawmakers to not cut Project Faith because it's too important. Especially because statistics show South Carolina ranks 9th in the nation in the rate of newly diagnosed cases of aids. Nearly 1,600 people were newly diagnosed with HIV last year in the state. The story doesn't contain a response from Governor Sanford or any of the reps who voted to cut it for 09.

The response needs to be, we care too much about our future to keep funding a program that has proven that it doesn't work. SC is the 24th most populous state with a little under 4.5 million people. If the program was at all effective we'd be ranked around 20th or less with new AIDS diagnosis. If the program was working we should be less than 30th. Instead we're neck and neck with Georgia who has over 9 million residents and Pennsylvania with over 12 million residents. How can a program say it's working when we have the same amount of AIDS cases per year with 1/3 the amount of people living here? Let's be honest with ourselves. This program was started in the late 90's with the hope that government could somehow effect peoples behavior. I don't believe that the government is either responsible or successful at protecting it's citizens from themselves. When we spend money on it, we spend it poorly. SC has spent millions of dollars in attempting educate people about poor eating habits. Yet we're always near the top of any list that ranks, heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes etc. So the fact that we're near the top of an HIV list isn't shocking. It's sad, and needs to be addressed, but this project since it was officially funded by South Carolina in 2001 has had no measurable effect. We have hovered around the top 10 before and after their creation. I can't speak on their methods, because I have no idea what they do. But the results speak for themselves. So sadly, this project must be cut. I say sadly because of course I wished it would work. I wish no family had to suffer the heartbreak of HIV, or the nightmare of AIDS. If we could write a check and make it go away I believe all conservatives would sign up for that. But in very few instances has a government anywhere had the ability to change the behavior of free people. So it's not that Republicans aren't concerned about the spread of HIV/AIDS it's just that spending money doesn't fix the problem, it only makes us feel better about ourselves that we tried. The citizens of SC know that abstinence from sex is the only 100% guarantee. If they do have sex to wear a condom. We also know that eating Maurice's BBQ will raise our cholesterol, and watching the Gamecocks will give us heart attacks. Yet we do what we want, and sometimes regret it later. That's what the pursuit of happiness is all about. The possability that the pursuit will kill you, is the individules decision, not the states.