From Rasmussen:

In November, 36.0% of American Adults identified themselves as Republicans; 34.7% considered themselves Democrats, and 29.3% were not affiliated with either major party. That’s the largest number of Republicans since February 2005 and the first time ever that Rasmussen Reports polling has found more people identifying as Republicans than Democrats…

Don’t bank on this, by the way – polls of party affiliation are subject to rapid and wide changes. But, still, remarkable at this is the first time in 6 years of polling that Rasmussen came up with more GOPers than Democrats among American adults.

If we don’t screw up – and if Obama just stays Obama – then we might be on to something long term here.

We’ll call this the Hard Work, Savings and Careful Investment Act of 2011. Herewith my economic cure-all:

1. If a business enterprise makes a tangible product (anything; a basket of fruit, a hammer, a thermo-nuclear bomb – as long as it is a tangible product), the profits are tax free. If your business provides a service rather than a product, you get taxed.

2. Each dollar saved results in a 25 cent reduction in your tax bill. Whatever your federal tax bill is, if you save you can cut it down. You have your savings account statement as of January 1st and December 31st – for each dollar that is there on December 31st over the amount of dollars you had on January 1st, you get 25 cents off your taxes. Save $10,000.00, get $2,500.00 off your tax bill.

3. Capital gains on investments held for more than one year – tax free. On investments held 6 months to a year – 5% tax. On investments held more than a month but less than 6 – 10% tax. On investments held less than one month – 20% tax. On investments held less than one week – 40% tax. On investments held less than one day – 80% tax.

Now, we’d still need to get our government spending under control – if we don’t get ourselves at least substantially towards a balanced budget by 2015, we’re sunk…we’ll have to default. In fact, even in the best of worlds, things may get so bad that we can’t pay our government debts (if the world spirals in to another really bad financial crisis, there might not be anyone out there with money to lend, you dig?). But, outside of that, we do need policies which will spur wealth creation and thus help us greatly towards that balanced budget, as well as increasing American economic well being. We also need a sound currency – gold backed would be best, but backed by some hard asset is a necessity.

The three steps I’ve outlined above are the silver bullet – you can add to them, you can modify them a bit but the basics are a requirement: Make it attractive to start or expand enterprises which make, mine or grow things. Make it attractive for people to save money (you can add to this a tax benefit for next debt reduction, if you really want to press this issue). Make it attractive for investors to get in to things for the long haul rather than the short term killing. Presto! We now are back to a rational economy and we’ll thus get wealth creation.

Don’t get me wrong – this is the cure all, but curing the disease of a century will not happen over night. We’ll be a while digging out of the hole. Under the best of circumstances, I don’t expect America to be fully recovered until my grand-daughters are graduated from college, married and have a couple kids of their own (they are less than 5 years old, right now).

The only thing which creates any wealth, at all, is hard work. Making things, mining things and growing things. The only way to provide funds to invest in making, mining and growing things is to have a pool of savings to draw upon. The only way we can ensure that investment funds are properly allocated is to screw the speculators and reward the careful investors. Any economy which is not geared towards rewarding hard work, savings and careful investment is an irrational economy and doomed to ultimate collapse. This is simple common sense – you’ve read this, and you know it. You might quibble with this or that emphasis of mine, but I defy anyone to seriously argue that borrowing money for get-rich-quick schemes is superior to work, savings and investment.

None of this precludes any particular species of government expenditure except in that you can’t have government expenditure in favor of one business or industry over another (no subsidies for “green energy” – unless, that is, you want to subsidize all energy companies, equally; better, of course, to just stay out of it). You can lavish money on welfare, if you like (and as long as you can otherwise balance the budget), and still not screw up this plan (though, of course, if you go with this plan you’ll swiftly find the need for welfare dropping). Anyone with any sense – right, left or center – can sign on to this.

Now, this is not an easy solution – a whole bunch of special interests will have to be chucked aside and some laws and regulations which work as restraint of trade (most notably such absurdities as “Davis-Bacon”, but that is just one of a hundred) will have to be repealed. It is not an easy solution – but it is a simple solutions; and the simple solution (though always very hard) is always the correct solution. Life is only complex for those running a con – for honest men and women, its a lot more straightforward.

Now, will we ever show the courage to be sensible? Time will tell on that.

Entirely unsurprising news – from the AP:

The Obama administration will maintain a long-standing oil drilling ban in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida after considering loosening it before the BP spill, a senior administration official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Just a month before the spill started in April, the Obama administration had announced plans to allow drilling in the eastern portion of the Gulf as part of the management plan for the Outer Continental Shelf…

In actuality, the noises Obama made about allowing more offshore drilling were nothing more than a gambit to get GOP support for “cap and trade”. By dangling a bit of common sense in front of GOPers, Obama hope to get some to sign on to the idiocy of cap and trade. Well, now that cap and trade is likely dead as a doornail, there is no more need to please GOPers on energy matters – but plenty of need to placate a restive left, and no easier way to do that than banning the one, sure measure to swiftly decrease our dependence on foreign oil – you know, producing more of our own.

The cynicism and dishonesty of President Obama becomes more manifest all the time. We’ve got ourselves a President who is just going to keep grinding along in his own, leftist groove and never give a darn about what effect its having. If Obama wants it, then it’s good – so goes Obama thinking, and anyone who contradicts is just entirely out of bounds (racist, you know?).

People were hoping that the worst which will happen under Obama is Carter II…I think that hope is fading away and that Carter may be redeemed and no longer be rated our worst President, ever, by 2012.

Almost makes 2010 worth it, all by itself. From Politico:

The House Democrats’ prized global warming committee died quietly on Wednesday.

It was four years old.

Created in 2007 by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to draw attention to the causes and effects of climate change, the committee didn’t have much of a chance to survive the upcoming Republican takeover. Wednesday, the axe fell…

The only purpose of the committee was to press forward “cap and trade” taxes and provide slush funds for favored, liberal environmental pressure groups. Oh, and to provide yet another Democrat with the title of “Chairman”. In love with the world, Democrat prize power, prestige…and the empty vanity of titles.

This is a symbolic gesture, of course – the tiniest of down payments on the reform of government. But, still, it warms the heart that, at the least, this massive hoax and boondoggle won’t have a committee in Congress.

Suspected it from the start, and now we’ve got proof – the Financial Times is reporting that foreign banks were among the largest beneficiaries of federal bail out cash. What this means, fellow American taxpayers, is that our liabilities were increased in order to prevent banks like Barclay’s from going under.

In the end, of course, it won’t work – the Federal Reserve admits to funneling $3.3 trillion in to domestic and foreign banks (I’ll bet its more than that) and the banks are still insolvent (through “extend and pretend” they are prevented from going in to bankruptcy – but broke they are). In fact, the entire financial system of the world is wrecked – and can’t be fixed because there is too much debt chasing too little wealth.

The only questions we have are:

How long can they keep it up before it completely falls apart?

Which nation will be first to default?

You can’t borrow and spend your way to wealth – only hard work, savings and careful investment can do that. There are no quick fixes – what we’ve been doing for nearly a century now (really, since the end of the First World War) is going for one quick fix after another. More fiat money, more usury, more taxation, more regulation…more of everything except common sense. The bill has now come due – we can put it off by taking out what amounts to a national pay day loan, but we can’t stop it from happening.

Just get ready for it – save as much as you can, and hope to goodness that we don’t have to go through a bit of hyper-inflation on the way to the poor house (I don’t think we will, but some rather sharp observers think there is a chance of it).

From US News:

…”When you get into a presidential election, it decidedly favors Democrats, and every year it is going to decidedly favor them more and more,” says Carville. The duo, armed with polls, detail the changing demographics: Younger voters are leaning Democratic more, as are Hispanics, blacks, and unmarried women—all expanding constituencies. “Look at what’s coming in 2012. Every election becomes less white,” says Carville. “Republicans are forced to double down on older whites, which is, long-term, not a very productive place to be,” he adds…

Translation: “If we can just keep people divided up in to groups and stir up inter-group hatred, we can pull off a win in 2012”.

What Carville is ignoring is the fact that young voters, hispanics and Independents swung towards the GOP in 2010. To be sure, we can expect Obama to win a majority (or, at least, a strong plurality) of young and hispanic voters in 2012, but in order to win he must get overwhelming support from such people. And while Democrats hope that everyone they shove in to a particular category will think and vote alike, the actual people out there aren’t like that.

To say that the GOP is the “white party” is to ignore trends which should scare the bejabbers out of Democrats – including large numbers of non-whites who ran as Republicans in 2010 (Nevada’s new governor is a hispanic Republican, as is the new governor of New Mexico; Florida’s Marco Rubio isn’t exactly white bread, and people like Allen West are the new heroes of the GOP). We GOPers must, indeed, work very hard to get even more non-white support – but, we’re doing it; and unless Democrats get nearly lock-step support in that area, they simply can’t win nationally.

Obama still has to be considered the favorite for 2012 – but simply because beating a sitting President is very difficult. But there is not much chance that Obama will do nearly as well in the South as he did in 2008 – more than likely, he won’t repeat his wins in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, and that switches 55 Electoral Votes to the GOP. Indiana and New Hampshire will probably go back to the GOP, putting 15 more in the GOP basket – which, added to McCain’s 2008 wins, brings the GOP to 228. The toss ups will be Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Michigan, Colorado and New Mexico, holding 77 EVs, and thus deciding the election, one way or the other. And let’s face it, GOPers, with unions still strong in PA, MI and OH, Obama will have a good chance in those States (all of this pre-supposes a moderately improved economy by 2012…unemployment 8% or less by October, 2012; if the economy is in the tank, then all bets are off; ditto if the economy is booming).

The fight is on – between those of us who want to reform and revive America, and those who want to cling on to power and don’t care what nasty, dirty and divisive things they have to do to win. Democrats will make crude, naked attempts to secure votes by appeals to group identity. They will paint us in the most disgusting terms as racist, sexist, homophobic bigots. Whomever we nominate will be cast as pure evil. They will try to provoke us in to saying or doing something stupid.

We must not let them draw us on. We have the issues which appeal to a broad cross section of the American electorate. As Dr. King instructed us, we judge people by the content of their character – while liberals have ignored this lesson, we have taken it to heart. Thus we were able, in two short years, to turn from complete defeat to stunning victory. We can win; it will be very hard – we must think not in terms just of 2012, but of 2014 and beyond. It took 100 years to screw up America, it will take a generation just to get us back on track to greatness.

From CNBC:

Faced with “almost terminal problems,” Dennis Gartman on Monday said the euro could soon unravel.

“Eventually, the euro breaks apart into a northern euro and a southern euro,” said Gartman, explaining that the Continent’s many languages, religions and cultures are too diverse for the singular currency to work.

Gartman said he thinks Europe’s debt troubles won’t stop with Ireland’s bailout and mounting concerns in Spain and Portugal. He thinks it’s a “rolling contagion from one country to the next,” which will likely claim Belgium next…

Once again, too much debt chasing too little wealth. It is debt which can never be repaid. And I mean, never. Unless, that is, the Europeans are re-converted back to Christianity and start living lives of sobriety, hard work and thrift…and start having babies. Simply put, even if the economy recovers, there simply won’t be enough Europeans to pay off the debt – their population is in decline as each European woman, on average, only has a bit more than 1 child. You need a slight bit more than two children per woman just to keep population stable…

In the end, I expect that Europe will die, and then be reborn. Christians are all about that sort of thing – and the small Christian population of Europe will inherit the empty shell of post-Christian Europe, in the by and by. The meek really will inherit the earth, it seems. But that is some decades away, at the least. Meanwhile, Europe is bankrupt – and that bodes ill for the whole world.

If Europe does fly apart financially then the shock waves will roll around the world, eventually causing China and the United States to feel the pain…and perhaps tip both economies in to steep recession.

As I’ve been saying, a lot more interesting times coming our way.

The climate change bureaucrats gather to figure out how we can reduce our carbon footprint:

Of course, sacrifice is for you and me – but not for them.

As the earmark vote shows – with 6 Republicans who will be there in 2011 voting against it:

…Sens. Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), James Inhofe (Okla.), Dick Lugar (Ind.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Richard Shelby (Ala.) voted against an amendment to food-safety legislation that would have enacted a two-year ban on the spending items. Retiring Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) and defeated Sen. Bob Bennett (Utah) also voted against it…

I’ve already said we should boot Murkowski out of the GOP caucus for her behavior after the Alaska primary. Susan Collins and Dick Lugar are “Specter-lite” Republicans…and we should seek a primary challenger to Lugar in 2012, if he decides to seek re-election (the way Indiana went GOP in 2010 shows that we’d have an outside shot at unseating him in 2012). The really dismaying vote is from Inhofe – he knows better and his weak, “then Obama will get to spend the money” defense of his vote reeks of insiderism.

We have to accept that, right now, the Senate GOP caucus is still our weak link. But this vote shows that we can probably rely upon 41 GOP Senators to stick with us in 2011 – enough to sustain a filibuster. Matched with our increasingly conservative House GOP, that should be enough to stop Obama’s liberalism in its tracks.

As for the future – our job, now, is to swamp the RINOs. Elect so many conservatives in 2012 that they won’t matter so much. All such Republicans eagerly look for the chance to cut conservatism off at the knees…and they love it when they can be the 51st vote in favor of liberalism, or the 60th vote to close of debate and allow a liberal measure to go for a vote. They like doing it because they love the applause it gets them from the MSM and their friends in the Democrat ranks…and, of course, doing so ensures they’ll be invited to the elite social events. But, if we can move our conservative GOP caucus from 41 to 51 Senators, they’ll be stymied in their ability to betray us, and thus we can start to use them to work for our side.

This is why, by the way, I was ok with losing with O’Donnell rather than winning with Castle. True, if Castle had been the nominee there was that chance (wrong though it proved) that we could have won the Senate. But with Castle added to the Senate, we’d just have 7 Senators in 2011 we can’t rely upon. A smaller number of GOPers who will actually fight for the people is superior to a larger number who will betray them.

Additionally, the results of 2010 show that conservatism (or, at least, a libertarian version of it) can run well all over the country. We can, if we fight for it, eventually get a reform Congress which will do what needs to be done to control government and restore American manufacturing, farming and mining to pre-eminence. This won’t be easy – and we might not get it before the 2014 elections (we have large opportunities for Senate pick ups in both 2012 and 2014). But we won’t get it, at all, unless we nominate and elect more people like DeMint over people like Lugar.

And now, to work.

Here is the Interpol link. States he is wanted for “sex crimes”.

The plot thickens.

UPDATE: Some details via CNN.

…The Stockholm Criminal Court last week issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force. Sweden asked Interpol to post a “Red Notice” after a judge approved a motion to bring him into custody.