On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 the Great War ended. On battlefields throughout Europe corpses rotted, as did much of the claim and spirit of civilization of The West.

To understand the impact of the war on the great colonial powers it’s instructive, and horrifying, to look at the raw and bloody price we of The West paid for this conflict. The British, for example, had 850,000 solders killed, and another 1.6 million wounded of 45 million people. An entire generation of young men lay under the fields.

From time to time, and always on the November 11th, I like to look up a poem I stumbled onwhen I was youngerthat I find particularly moving… ‘Armistice’ by Paul Dehn. Read it once, it’s quite a bore. Read it a few times and… Read More

Mitt Romney has had a great week in California.

First, on Wednesday night, the Young Republican Federation of California’s Board of Directors voted to endorse the Romney campaign – becoming the first grassroots group in the state to endorse Governor Romney.

To add to that, just minutes ago, the California Republican Assembly joined the YRFC by overwhelmingly voting to endorse the Romney campaign.

By a vote of 148 – 73, CRA took a big step in showing clearly that the conservative base of the Republican Party is coalescing around Governor Romney.

Primary elections are traditionally dominated by the bases of each Party – and within California, there aren’t more representitive voices of the conservative base than YRFC and CRA.

Like I said, it was a big week in CA for Mitt Romney.

(posted from my Treo)… Read More

When you are a popular politician, especially one that likes to do "big things" it is always more challenging and thrilling to be on the offense. But in order to be a winning team, you have to not only get excited about your offensive game, but your defensive game as well. The reality is that with this massive fiscal crisis facing California state government, Governor, it is time to bench your offensive team, and huddle with your defensive team and figure out how we are going to keep California in the game.

Clearly you have a prefered agenda of items that you would like to pursue, including increasing government’s role in health care, and implementing a lot of regulations to reign in man-made production of carbon dioxide. But the reality is that, with these two agenda items in particular, they are going to make California’s financial crisis worse, not better.

On healthcare, it is simply not credible to say that you are going to create a massive new government program with upwards of 14 billion… Read More

When you are a popular politician, especially one that likes to do "big things" it is always more challenging and thrilling to be on the offense. But in order to be a winning team, you have to not only get excited about your offensive game, but your defensive game as well. The reality is that with this massive fiscal crisis facing California state government, Governor, it is time to bench your offensive team, and huddle with your defensive team and figure out how we are going to keep California in the game.

Clearly you have a prefered agenda of items that you would like to pursue, including increasing government’s role in health care, and implementing a lot of regulations to reign in man-made production of carbon dioxide. But the reality is that, with these two agenda items in particular, they are going to make California’s financial crisis worse, not better.

On healthcare, it is simply not credible to say that you are going to create a massive new government program with upwards of 14 billion… Read More

Courtesy of The Hill, we can share this information with you, on which California Congressional Delegation members have endorsed a candidates running in the Democrat or Republican Presidential primary: A few surprises:

Not one California Democrat Member of Congress has endorsed Barack Obama Only one of Duncan Hunter’s California colleagues, Gary Miller, has endorsed his candidacy. Hillary has not been endorsed by Barbara Boxer. It’s surprising that only Dan Lungren has endorsed McCain, given that for a time, he was the frontrunner. Chris Dodd’s four California endorsements isequal the entire Democrat delegation of his home state of Connecticut. Despite Fred Thompson’s splash into the GOP primary, he’s "endorseless" when it comes to the CA GOP Congressional delegation. Only four Republican candidates have California Congressional endorsers. Only two Democrat candidates have California Congressional endorsers.: Given the unpopularity of Congress these days, perhaps those with no … Read More

Courtesy of The Hill, we can share this information with you, on which California Congressional Delegation members have endorsed a candidates running in the Democrat or Republican Presidential primary: A few surprises:

Not one California Democrat Member of Congress has endorsed Barack Obama Only one of Duncan Hunter’s California colleagues, Gary Miller, has endorsed his candidacy. Hillary has not been endorsed by Barbara Boxer. It’s surprising that only Dan Lungren has endorsed McCain, given that for a time, he was the frontrunner. Chris Dodd’s four California endorsements isequal the entire Democrat delegation of his home state of Connecticut. Despite Fred Thompson’s splash into the GOP primary, he’s "endorseless" when it comes to the CA GOP Congressional delegation. Only four Republican candidates have California Congressional endorsers. Only two Democrat candidates have California Congressional endorsers.: Given the unpopularity of Congress these days, perhaps those with no … Read More

In the United States, we advocate a limited role for our government in order to ensure as much liberty and freedom for each and every American. Of course, with individual liberty comes individual responsibility. So we have to be very cautious about those times when the government, at any level, assumes responsibility in place of the individual person or business. When we apply this very basic principle to the current situation with the sub prime mortgage industry, where a seemingly vast number of people took out loans that, in hind sight, they may not have been able to afford. In many cases, these folks stretched too much, and bear an unfortunate responsibility for making a poor decision. In some cases, those who took out these loans were victimized by predatory lendors who "crossed the line" in their methods of getting people to take out these loans when they should not have done so. No matter whether the blame lies with the consumer who bought the loan, or a predatory lending company, you can be sure that who is not to blame is "the American people" as a whole — or their government, which is financed by their tax dollars.

I am… Read More

You don’t have to guess – GOP Porkbuster Jeff Flake (R-AZ) will tell you… … Read More