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“There are some other trends at work. In the last few decades there has been a growing divide in the United States when it comes to how many recruits different regions provide. A disproportionate number of recruits come from the southern and the Rocky Mountain states. The northeast, upper Midwest, and west coast are much more difficult to recruit from and the recruits are not as good (less education, overweight, bad attitudes).

Recruiters have the hardest time in urban areas. Back in 2005, the Department of Defense concluded that urban high schools were the source of most problems. Not because of leftist teachers in some of those schools trying to keep recruiters out, but because so many potential recruits had to be turned down because of the poor education they had received in those schools. While only a fifth of Americans live outside cities and suburbs, nearly half of the qualified recruits come from these rural areas. What’s strange about all this is that the rural areas spend much less, per pupil, on education but get much better results than urban schools. Part of this can be attributed to differences in cost of living, but a lot of it has to do with simply getting more done with less. Per capita, young people in rural areas are over 20 percent more likely to join the army, than those of the same age in urban areas.

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I am a New Hampshire conservative Independent. I am by no means unique and, in fact, am probably a member of a species that is far more common than most people may realize or care to acknowledge. Over the last several months I have developed distaste for the national Republican Party and it has grown stronger by the day and now, by the minute. I would like to send a few messages to the GOP.

First: Get over yourselves, do what is right for America. Ronald Reagan once said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” I believe that if the Gipper were around today to witness the abhorrent behavior of the Republican Party, he would now be saying the same thing about them. He was a decent man, a fair man. I have no doubt that he would be disgusted with how you are acting. You have betrayed the 11th Commandment, “Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican” time and time again. Although this quote was made popular by Reagan, it was born of a former California Republican Party Chair, George Parkinson. I have no doubt that Ronald Reagan and Mr. Parkinson are turning over in their graves.

Second:  to the national Republican Party members I say – Who the hell do you think you are?

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NH State Rep Leigh Webb (D): “The role of government is to legislate behavior“

…said NONE of our Foundational documents.  But these Progressive Socialists don’t care much ’bout details…or freedom to choice or the free marketplace:

…The City Council on Thursday green-lit a controversial bill that puts a 5-cent fee on plastic and paper shopping bags at grocery, convenience and other stores. The council voted 28-20 for the bill, which will take effect on Oct. 1. It is supposed to encourage people to bring along reusable bags when they go shopping. Co-sponsor Councilman Brad Lander (D-Brooklyn) first introduced the legislation in 2013 with the goal of dramatically reducing the use of plastic bags in the city.

“It works by irritating us into changing our behavior and remembering to bring reusable bags,” said Lander ahead of the City Hall hearing.

Lander added, “While it may be contentious today, [the bill] is going to help New Yorkers together solve a real environmental problem.”

Who do these self-absorbed

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Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump set his sights on conservative critics who condemn his positions on trade during a rally in West Virginia Thursday.

“I’m a conservative, but the conservatives hate me for suggesting I would dare tax somebody,” Trump said after promising he would punish companies that move overseas with high tariffs when they try to ship products back into the United States.

The GOP has brought it (and him) upon themselves.  They have essentially acted like Progressives in bastardizing the common language to the point where “conservative” has no meaning at all.  Seriously, can anyone look at me (or any of the Groksters) and point and ask “Conservative?” and then do the same to Donald Trump without losing your mind?  Sorry, but it’s not HIS fault but it is the fault of the less-conservative, moderate, or plain-voting-with-Democrats-all-the-time Republicans who apply that adjective to themselves or their BFFs at campaign time.

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Here’s an article about Warren Buffet’s well-known view that the rich should pay more in taxes. His bottom-line argument is, “If you’re in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%.” I don’t disagree.

My disagreement with Buffet is the implication that being forced to pay more in taxes has any relationship whatsoever with thinking about the rest of humanity. People are not thinking about the rest of humanity when they are being forced to do something. There is no virtue in paying taxes.

This keeps playing out over and over.  First, let’s get one thing straight: “luck” is simply preparation colliding with opportunity.  You have to not only know what to do when opportunity arises but to be able to recognize it in the first place.  Luck can carry you only so far – Buffet is too modest by half.  Most people who are in that 1% (or higher) are ALSO those that have worked their tails off for decades.  Yes, they are different than most of us in their focus, knowledge, and work ethic. But 

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A response to the Left’s “Guns are only designed to kill people” (emphasis mine):

…First, what are guns designed to do? They’re designed to project force at a distance. They do this by propelling a projectile out of the end of a barrel at a velocity sufficient for the task at hand. The higher the velocity, the more force can be projected at further distances. The heavier the projectile, the more force that can be projected at a given velocity. Guns are machines that allow us to effectively project force at a distance.

To clarify, consider the purpose of a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile tipped with a nuclear warhead. What is its purpose?  Much like that of a pistol, it’s to project force at a (great) distance.  But the Minuteman III wasn’t designed to kill people. It was designed to provide deterrence; that is, to stop other people from killing us. No Minuteman III has ever killed a single person, but it was and is used every day to deter attacks on the United States.

This principle is as old as humanity. The most famous adage associated with it is:  Si vis pacem, para bellum (if you wish peace, prepare for war).

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That would be Dune Capital Management CEO Steven Mnuchin.  I read his bio and if one has been working for the TOPMOST Democrats and Socialists, WHY IN GOD’S GREEN EARTH would have Trump even thought of bringing him on board?  Just the PR of having a Democrat leaning person on staff raises eyebrows – when that person worked for George Soros (Socialist, convicted currency trader), well, it just isn’t going to sit well with the conservative wing of the Party (reformatted, emphasis mine):

More than 80 percent of the campaign contributions Donald Trump’s national finance director has made since 1998 have gone to Democratic politicians, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of Federal Election Commission records. Trump appointed Dune Capital Management CEO Steven Mnuchin to head his campaign’s fundraising operation on Thursday, as he begins to prepare for the general election now that he’s been named the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. But Mnuchin’s extensive history of considerable campaign contributions suggests the Wall Street veteran is more interested in getting Democrats elected than Republicans.

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The entitlements of the welfare state can be summarized by Herbert Hoover’s aphorism: “a chicken in every pot.” True, this is quite small an entitlement, but would be easy enough to multiply the level of the guarantee. In his address on the battlefield of Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln recognized that the first American constitutional document entitled Americans to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and nothing more. Chickens in pots and other entitlements came later. Perhaps the most significant quality of the theory of economic equilibrium is its explanation of the interconnected quality of all economic activity within society. Whatever statement that is made in the context of a product [output] market implies come complementary and consistent statement about the factor [input] market that would render sensible that statement made about the product market. Therefore, an entitlement program that offers a chicken in every pot would require an equivalent statement that promised a period of servile labor to staff the chicken farms necessary to put chickens in pots.

-Dick Wagner (Politics as a Peculiar Business)

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OK, one by by reporting TV station and two by a politician who swears an oath to uphold the Constitution (reformatted, emphasis mine):

A bill making its way through the Statehouse could put more guns on the streets of South Carolina.

Rep. Wendell Gilliard said Friday he believes it’s a mistake to pass a bill that would open South Carolina borders to concealed carry permits from other states. He added, it would give almost anyone the ability to walk into South Carolina with a gun. “Everybody wants the right to carry a gun and that’s dangerous in a free society,” Gilliard said. “We should not allow that.” Part of this bill also amends current legislation; It no longer requires South Carolinians to get a concealed carry permit to carry in public.

…”We’re definitely moving backwards,” Gilliard said. “It’s not a great day in South Carolina.”

So this is a bill about implementing permitless concealed carry (open carry is illegal) in SC and extending more reciprocity to other CCW holders across the US.  That’s really it – but ABC4News, in their opening line (“put more guns on the streets“) is a bit misleading. Only if a whole lot of carrying tourists go visit and a whole lot of SC law abiding citizens decide to now exercise their Second Amendment rights, given that SC is one step closer to being true to the Constitution’s “not infringe”. But having law abiding citizen is a problem in ABC4News’ eyes? But it is Democrat SC State Rep Gilliard’s statement that I found quite odd:

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