First Principles

I wish this debate had happened sooner.  Although it definitely helped that there were fewer candidates on stage – it’s not an accident that fewer candidates and no absurd timeclock led to a far more substantive debate than we’ve seen in the past. I haven’t seen a lot of the post-debate spin from other people [...]

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A reader recently E-mailed me with this question, and I thought the night before the Iowa caucus would be a time to reflect on it here. Is there a good “conservative” “Republican” in the race? As much as I’d like to think the guy currently in office is vulnerable, the Republicans seem to be trying [...]

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The other day these guys were protesting on the sidewalk between my office and the courthouse.  I thought they were just a regular #Occupy protest, and most of them looked the part.  (Yes, how you dress matters, hippies.  If you want to be taken seriously, shower, shave, take the fishing tackle out of your face, [...]

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I missed last Thursday’s debate where Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann took aim at the Supreme Court, and indeed, the Federal Judiciary generally.  But since then Newt has kept at it, and his answers make me incredibly nervous. The principle of limited government means that government must be strictly limited – even if you like [...]

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Jon Ralston wrote a fascinating column this weekend arguing for reforms to the Legislature that were inspired in part by NPRI’s recent lawsuit arguing that state employees cannot legally serve in the State Assembly or Senate.  Primary among Ralston’s complaints is the part-time nature of the Legislature itself.  He argues: But the worst and most [...]

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Via Big Hollywood, Adam Carolla on the #Occupiers.  So, so, so awesome.  (Also gloriously vulgar – fair warning.)

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Mike Chamberlain has a great post questioning the mission creep of the Clark County School District Police, who are writing tickets far beyond their jurisdictions.  He’s right to question the costs of them coloring outside of their lines. But the larger question should be this – why do we have separate school police departments at [...]

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True social conservatism, that is – not Big Government nanny-statism in the name of the Lord. Last week, various tea party movement activists from around the country sent a letter to GOP leaders asking them to back off the social issues and focus on deficits and spending.  I agree with them to a point, but [...]

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So Harry Reid wants to protect Nevada from that big, bad President Obama and his profligate spending, now, does he? Like many senior lawmakers, Reid opposes abandoning “congressionally directed spending” – the allocation of funding for projects, or earmarks – in favor of leaving the money decisions to officials in government agencies. 

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Today I came across this very interesting – and relevant – article in the City Journal about how California’s public employee unions have contributed mightily to the Golden State’s economic destruction. [W]hat was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and [...]

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Attorney General Cortez-Masto’s decision to ignore the Governor’s request and to not join over one third of the Union in a Constitutional challenge against ObamaCare is a travesty.  The threat to our country and to our state particularly is real and immediate, and our participation in the lawsuit is critical to the rule of law [...]

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I’m trying to imagine going back in time and asking the Federalists, “Now, if we ratify this thing, will it give the federal government the power to regulate tournament rules for collegiate sporting events?”

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Well, no big surprises.  He made the same promises that he made a year ago, and the only difference is that now we can be even more sure he won’t keep any of them. The big takeaway from me on this was just how unserious this speech was. 

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The Wisconsin Legislature is preparing for disaster!  I wonder if they could rent out Dick Cheney’s old Secret Bunker… The [Wisconsin] Legislature is getting ready to pass a bill that allows lawmakers to designate secret successors.  The bill would allow each legislator to name three to seven successors. They would come into play if an [...]

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I’m greatly amused over the hippy boycott of their former-favorite grocery store, Whole Foods, over WF CEO John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal Op/Ed on health care reform.  Fortunately for all the working stiff WF employees liberals claim to care about, it doesn’t seem to be hurting the company’s bottom line any. The thing that kills [...]

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently sat down with ABC’s Jake Tapper, and the discussion inevitably turned to health care.  From that short discussion, the Prime Minister revealed two important things for us to keep in mind – one intentional, and one probably not so much. Most important was the accident.  When asked if Canadian [...]

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Nancy Pelosi’s article calling the Obamacare protesters “un-American” is, of course, ridiculous.  It is beyond parody.  If I wrote it word for word under her name as satire, I would be accused of straining hyperbole to beyond all limits and beyond.  Only slightly less absurd are the “factual” claims she makes in the piece. But [...]

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Obama has declared the program a “success.” But what does that mean?  Consider: Congress authorized $1 Billion for the program, and expected it to last until November.  It didn’t make it past the first week of August.  This is an important thing to consider when considering the President’s own spending and deficit projections. That first [...]

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I just got home from Reno’s Tea Party, and it was great fun.  What better way to spend America’s Birthday than to talk and think and debate and celebrate the founding ideas of the United States! There was certainly anger in evidence, and rightfully so.  But that was a small undercurrent in what (to my [...]

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California has long boasted one of the most “generous” public welfare systems in the nation.  Now they’re talking about doing away with it completely for lack of funds.  The horrible irony is that the one thing led to the other.

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