You can learn all about it here:

ROI Team AdWords Management Services

To your success!
Frank

Like most people striving to stay fit, I’ve tried a wide variety of variations in both diet and exercise to meet my goals. Along the way, again like most people, I was sold on the necessity of ab exercises: Lots of crunches, leg raises, planks, and more.

No more was this more prevalent than when I was training with a personal trainer who was, self-admittedly, obsessed with abs.

Unlike a good personal trainer, this individual never did an assessment and/or questionnaire with me to determine my specific fitness goals, so I came out and told him: I have a closet full of expensive clothes, including some custom hand-made suits that I’d like to fit into again. Specifically, the pants were getting quite tight because my “spare tire” was expanding.

Training began, and what was his “solution”? Endless crunches, sometimes in excess of two thousand (yes, 2,000) per session!

In no time at all my pants became even tighter! To make matters worse, because he was all about building muscle and not losing fat, soon those expensive suit jackets didn’t fit anymore either because my chest had become too large.

When I challenged him on this, his brilliant answer was something to the effect of, “Build tons of muscle and then it will miraculously eat up all the fat.”

Well, there were two major problems with this:

First, recent research shows that the fat-burning ability of muscle mass has been greatly overestimated in the past. Sure, muscle burns calories at rest, but nowhere near as much as previously believed.

Second, even losing all the fat wouldn’t change the fact that I’d added a significant layer of muscle to my abdominal region, meaning those nice pants still wouldn’t fit!

Here’s another story to demonstrate the problem with lots and lots of ab exercises: One of the personal trainers at my gym is hot. Hot. Or, should I say, she was. At one point I thought she was pregnant because of the little belly that was developing. Then one day she was in the gym without a shirt on. (She was wearing a sports bra, not topless, you pervs!) And then I realized she wasn’t pregnant. Instead she’d built up so much muscle mass in her abs that it gave the appearance of a belly. Not attractive at all.

A while ago I asked a friend of mine who is a fitness guru, and in incredible shape, what he does to train his abs. His answer? “Nothing!” He said now and then he might do 8 or 10 crunches but that’s it.

Fast-forward to today. Earlier this year I was forced to take several months off from the gym due to a severe sinus infection and the surgery & recovery period that followed. Having gotten back into the gym in the past couple of weeks, I was obviously very sore after the first couple of workouts. But, even though I don’t do any direct ab exercises, my entire abdominal region was very sore.

Why?

It’s the result of doing sensible, proven exercises that work. Bench presses, flyes, pull-ups, rows, and the usual gamut of effective training. By doing all of the above with perfect form, slow & steadily, I engage my core considerably and my abdominal muscles come into play to stabilize my entire body, negating the need for any direct ab work like crunches, and in reality probably making them counter-productive since they’d overtrain the region.

So take it from me, just a regular guy trying to stay in great shape and not a self-proclaimed fitness guru or some kind of gym meathead: If you want to work your abs, don’t! Stick with sensible, safe, proven exercises routines, do them with perfect form, and your abs will hurt the next morning!

It’s no secret that democrats, and far-left liberals in particular, have a seething hatred for George W. Bush. Columnist Charles Krauthammer even coined the term “Bush Derangement Syndrome” to describe the bizarre, seething, foaming-at-the-mouth reaction that liberals have to Bush. As Krauthammer described it, Bush Derangement Syndrome is “the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the presidency — nay — the very existence of George W. Bush”.

The great irony, though, is that democrats themselves got George W. Bush elected to the White House. Let me explain.

Back around 1988, the desire of ordinary citizens to legally carry concealed handguns began, and Florida pushed the situation over the proverbial tipping point by becoming the first of many states at the time to legalize concealed carry. At that time, Washington, Georgia, Vermont, and Connecticut already had long-standing concealed carry laws, and Indiana, Maine,  and North & South Dakota passed laws in the 1980s; however, for some reason, it was Florida at the center of the media storm and that generated the overhyped paranoid media predictions of Tombstone-style “blood in the streets” if we mere mortals were allowed to carry guns.

Of course, the opposite happened. There was no “blood in the streets.” In fact, crime dropped dramatically and spectacularly wherever concealed carry was permitted. The logic is very simple: Violent criminals prefer unarmed victims. They don’t operate where they know citizens are armed. Instead, they pack up and go to places like New York City and Los Angeles where only the very wealthy or very well-connected have even a fighting chance of getting a Concealed Carry of Weapons (CCW) permit.

Seeing how effective CCW was in reducing crime, the idea caught fire and swept the nation. State after state passed CCW laws – with Texas being a notable exception. And that’s how the door to the Governor’s Mansion was opened to Bush, which quickly translated into the White House.

Then-governor, and democrat, Ann Richards was fiercely opposed to allowing CCW in Texas, and vowed to veto any CCW bill which made it to her desk.

Knowing this, the 73rd Texas Legislature, in 1993, knew they couldn’t send a CCW law to Richards. Instead, trying to find something for her to sign that would make a statement, they passed a bill only calling for a statewide referendum on CCW, not a bill creating an actual CCW program itself. Richards vetoed it anyway, and in the process she publicly mocked Texan gun owners who desired to carry weapons.

Now, if there’s one thing that’s a part of Texas life, it’s guns. Having lived in six states, I’ve never lived in one where guns are so commonplace. Seemingly everyone here hunts, carries a concealed handgun, or both. Even in my seven years of living in Arizona, which is routinely attacked by anti-gunners for having the “worst” gun laws (in reality they have the best), the concealed carry of firearms is still rare. Not so in Texas.

Considering that, you’ll understand why Richards sealed her fate when she publicly made this statement: “I especially want to thank you for standing by me on the day we say ‘No’ to amateur gunslingers who somehow think they’re going to be braver and smarter with a gun in their hand.”

That was a very bad idea in Texas. And it guaranteed that she would lose re-election.

She lost it to George W. Bush. In 1995, the 74th Texas Legislature sent him the Texas concealed carry bill, which he signed into law. Bush became wildly popular as governor, not necessarily for signing the CCW bill as much as for the seemingly miraculous accomplishment of getting his entire agenda passed into law in one legislative session. (The Texas legislature convenes for only 140 days every other year and it’s notoriously difficult to get anything passed.)

Americans love their guns, and nowhere is that more true than in Texas. Even most democrats in Congress know that gun control is a no-win issue and they avoid it in order to save their own hides. Democrats well remember 1994, when they lost control of Congress all because of passing Clinton’s “Crime Bill,” more popularly known as the “assault weapons ban.”

Democrats also secretly know how George W. Bush became governor and subsequently president – again because of their love of gun control.

The gay marriage issue, centered around Prop 8 in California, is marching its way up the court system.

A Federal judge in that state has overruled Prop 8 and upheld the rights of gay couples to marry. On it will go to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is notoriously liberal and will most likely uphold the lower court’s decision, although the 9th Circuit has surprised us on a few occasions, such as their incorporation of the Second Amendment against the states.

However, after all is said and done, I don’t think gay marriage will survive the Supreme Court.

The Court’s current makeup is 4-4-1; that is, four conservatives who will surely uphold Prop 8, four liberals who will surely overrule it, and one swing vote, in the form of Anthony Kennedy. Justice Kennedy leans toward civil libertarianism and has generally upheld gay rights in the past. But, things are different this time, and here’s why:

Supreme Court justices generate their research, and ultimately their opinions, from a variety of sources. The first is the doctrine of stare decisis, which states that judges are essentially obliged to uphold legal precedents established by prior decisions.

Respect for stare decisis varies from judge to judge. Clarence Thomas, for instance, has publicly stated that he has no respect for stare decisis and will overrule any prior decision with which he disagrees. In his words, if a decision is wrong, then it’s wrong, and it needs to be overturned.

The more liberal justices have demonstrated a stronger regard for stare decisis, but one must wonder if it’s because taking such a position has ultimately allowed them to vote their own political beliefs and opinions.

The second major source of justices’ research, of course, is the Constitution itself, and the precedent of Constitutional law. This of course is wide open to interpretation. For example, regarding interpretation of the Second Amendment, Clarence Thomas will tell you that all gun control, in any form whatsoever, is unconstitutional and must be struck down, while Stevens and Ginsburg will tell you that only the U.S. Military and National Guard have any constitutional right to bear arms.

Next on the list would be the writings of the Founders themselves. In attempting to interpret more ambiguous sections of the Constitution, the justices will read the writings and minutes of meetings of the Founders in order to determine what they really meant and intended.

Some justices, including the normally conservative-leaning Kennedy, have used international law as a basis for their opinions, though this practice has proven controversial, particularly among conservatives who, like me, believe that a sovereign nation such as the United States shall not be influenced by alien law, as it is called.

But the one source of justices’ votes and opinions that matters most in this issue is, quite simply, the court of public opinion. While justices firmly on the left or on the right largely ignore public opinion and vote their own opinions, more moderate justices heavily consider public opinion. This was the case with Sandra Day O’Connor, and it is the case with Anthony Kennedy.

For example, in voting to strike down the juvenile death penalty, Kennedy cited the fact that only five states had legalized it.

As things stand today, only six states out of fifty have legalized gay marriage. More specifically – and insidiously for the gay marriage movement – the vast majority of states have outlawed it in the form of constitutional amendments.

And this is why gay marriage has little to no chance of getting past Justice Anthony Kennedy, despite his general support for gay rights.

Justice Kennedy, quite simply, will not usurp the will of the people. While gay marriage advocates will talk about the “tyranny of the majority” or that we’re a republic and not a democracy – which is not entirely true since the United States is in fact a Democratic Constitutional Republic – at the end of the day, six states out of fifty is so overwhelming of a minority in the court of public opinion that it simply cannot stand.

Despite the arguments on both sides of the issue, the fact of the matter is that gay marriage is a states’ rights issue. If a state like California wants to ban gay marriage, that is their right under the Tenth Amendment. If other states such as Connecticut want to legalize it, that is their right as well. Forcing gay marriage on states that oppose it is downright wrong, and violates our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

It is highly unlikely that the Court will strike down Prop 8. They will most likely uphold it, or remand the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration. After all it was lawfully voted in and implemented per California’s system. (Ironically, it was liberals who insisted on implementing the ballot proposition system in California as a way to usurp the legislature. Now they’re crying foul because it’s no longer working in their favor. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways!)

This, of course, refers to the current makeup of the Supreme Court. With Obama’s chances of reelection looking grim, chances are we’ll have a conservative Republican president come 2013, who will appoint conservative justices, should he or she have the opportunity. Alito and Roberts are too new and too young to retire anytime soon. Thomas isn’t going anywhere – he’s even publicly taunted his critics with that statement. It is doubtful that Scalia will leave, with his beliefs and convictions nearly as strong as Thomas’.

That leaves Kennedy as the most likely to retire under our next president (if at all). Which means that the moderate, swing vote conservative, will be replaced by a firmly right-wing, steadfast conservative. And if that happens, gay marriage, along with other liberal causes such as gun control, will be dead for at least another generation.

Tomorrow: I’ll post an article explaining why I oppose the legalization of gay marriage. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with religious or conservative views but instead is, ironically to some, for libertarian reasons.

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin caught my attention the moment I saw it on the bookshelf. I’ve always been intrigued by the Supreme Court – particularly the fact that their daily work is mostly hidden from public view – so I didn’t hesitate to grab a copy and dive right in.

Keeping in mind that books rarely hold my attention, and that finishing them is even rarer, I was surprised at how well this one held my attention, and was even a page-turner for me.

I will say that the book is very well-researched, very well-written, and is certainly one of the most interesting and intriguing books I’ve read as of late. I will also say that the author writes with a clear liberal bias; however, it’s mild enough to easily ignore, look past, and focus on the facts. While some of the author’s leftist comments border on offensive – for example, his statement that the Second Amendment is “ungrammatical” – for the most part they’re nowhere near as bad as the bias one sees on NBC or CNN, so even conservatives like me can admit that the book is mostly factually correct and isn’t the work of fiction that so many liberal journalists put out.

The focus of the book is that while the Framers intended the Court to be a check and balance against the other two branches of the Federal government, which it is to some degree, it is largely a political arm of the presidents who appoint the individual justices. Each justice reflects the political beliefs of the president who appointed him or her, and with some exceptions, justices generally work to institute those beliefs into law. This is also the reason for the tradition of justices only retiring under the term of a president of the same party, in order to insure that his or her seat is replaced by a new justice with similar beliefs.

Most interesting to me was how justices frequently shift their political leanings as time goes on; particularly those of Justice O’Connor and Justice Kennedy. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, O’Connor made a clear move to the left, while Kennedy obviously moved to the right of center. The end result, of course, is that the makeup of the Court stayed as it was.

Another interesting point the book made is that at any given time, one justice usually “owns” the Court; in other words, the Court is usually made up of 4 conservatives, 4 liberals, and 1 moderate. That moderate is the swing vote, and hence the ultimate decision maker in many decisions. It was this fact of our modern Supreme Court that generated many of the highlights of the book, in the stories of the internal lobbying that goes on in the Court with the liberal and the conservative wing each attempting to win the swing vote over to their respective sides.

O’Conner was the swing vote for most of her career on the Court. Today, it is Kennedy who, as I previously mentioned, usually votes to the right of center, leaving us with a moderately conservative Supreme Court.

And that’s where the author lost me. Instead of simply stating that history factually, he painted a picture of some kind of insidious conservative takeover or revolution when, in reality, the justices appointed merely reflected the party and policies of the president who appointed them. He attacked President Bush (of course) and the so-called conservative machine for appointing conservative justices Roberts and Alito, but gave Clinton a free pass for appointing liberals Breyer and Ginsburg who, in all reality, are more liberal than their counterparts are conservative. He also refers to Justice Thomas as an “extremist” throughout the book, when in reality Thomas is merely a Constitutional Originalist who interprets the Constitution as originally written and intended, a view I lean toward myself.

The author is correct in pointing out the hijacking of the Republican Party by the religious right, something that I’m not personally comfortable with, and that I believe alienates a lot of more libertarian-minded voters like myself.

One thing in particular I enjoyed were all the amusing tidbits about the justices, and some of their eccentricities; for example, William Rehnquist’s one beer and one cigarette at lunch daily, along with his seemingly endless betting pools. Or Justice Kennedy’s decorating and laying out his office specifically to intimidate visitors, in a manner that reminded me of Henry VIII.

In the end, despite the author’s obvious liberal leanings, and his attacks on conservatives, I found the book to be outstanding, highly enjoyable, and highly recommended. Chances are I’ll read this one again!

Five years ago, while living in Scottsdale, Arizona, I became disturbed at the fact that seemingly every house in my neighborhood had been burglarized (Arizona’s recent immigration law was passed partly in response to this rampant crime). Realizing that I very might well come home one day to face violent felons in my own home, I obtained a CCW (Concealed Carry of Weapons) permit and began the search for the ideal carry gun.

The Kahr PM9 was all the craze at the time, and still is in the CCW world to a degree. I narrowed my choice down to the PM9 and the Glock 26, mostly because I’ve always liked Glock’s reputation for superior reliability. I read lots and lots of reviews on both guns and came to the conclusion that I couldn’t go wrong with either. (My search was limited to 9mm and .40 S&W autoloaders; I don’t consider .380 a serious round for self-defense.)

Being only 5’8″ and relatively slim I went with the PM9 since the Glock certainly appeared “fat.” I had my new Kahr fitted with night sights, obtained an appropriate holster, and began carrying.

As it turned out, the Kahr PM9 was VERY easy to conceal. Almost too easy, in fact – rapidly drawing the weapon under stress can be problematic because the tiny grip handle isn’t the easiest thing to grab in a hurry. In any case, it was absolutely reliable and comfortable to carry, so I stuck with it for a couple of years.

Fast-forward a few years to my temporary, and in retrospect, foolish, move to California. CCW laws are established at the county, not state, level in CA, and in my particular county, I didn’t own enough handguns to qualify for a permit. Yes, bizarre and arbitrary rules, but that’s a liberal state for you. Suddenly facing the need for another gun in my collection just to satisfy my county sheriff that I was a “serious” firearms enthusiast, I went for the Glock. I chose the Glock 27 over the 26, due to the .40′s superior firepower over the borderline 9mm round.

I tried out some holsters, found one that I liked, and tried carrying the Glock for a while.

I was pleasantly surprised. The “fat” Glock concealed just as easily as the Kahr PM9 for me. In fact, it was somewhat easier, because I had more confidence as to being able to firmly grasp and draw the gun under stress. Needless to say, the Glock became my primary carry gun. It rode with me 90% of the time. The little Kahr made up the other 10% for unusually light clothing.

In addition, the Glock is far easier to shoot, at least in my humble opinion. The trigger is better – the Kahr’s feels like it’s a mile long – and recoil and muzzle flip are far less severe despite the G27′s more powerful round. Finally, the Glock is easier to grip. You know you have a firm hold on it. If you have large hands, you can simply add a pinky rest to the magazines.

As someone who faithfully maintains my defensive weapons so that they’ll always work when needed, I routinely changed the recoil spring assembly in the PM9, since Kahr recommends it around every 1,500 or 2,000 rounds. So, imagine my surprise when I ordered one recently, and it looked nothing like the old one I was replacing! Kahr had a “solution” for this: Simply clip one or two turns off the recoil spring until it fits into the gun.

Umm, no thanks. That kind of cheap fix isn’t something I’m willing to do with a gun that my life may depend on someday.

Then, I had another problem – the slide on the gun wouldn’t move all the way back, and wouldn’t lock back, even with the old recoil spring assembly installed. Off to Kahr it went. To their credit, I will say they have excellent service. I overnighted the gun to them and had it back in my hands less than a week later! They replaced a few parts, and the gun worked properly again. Off to the range I went and put 100 rounds of various types of ammo through it with zero failures. Good job, Kahr.

However, I’m paranoid. There’s something about a gun that’s been through repair, and has a jerry-rigged recoil spring, that leads me to mistrust it. I just don’t feel confident carrying a gun that may or may not work when I need it.

That led me on a quest to find a new subcompact to replace the PM9. In addition, since the gun is SO damn small, I wanted something a little bigger – it’s really a pocket carry gun, not a holster gun. I looked at the Ruger SR9c. Too big. I considered the Ruger LCR, but am not willing to go below 9mm in a defensive caliber, and I prefer autoloaders. I checked out the Kahr K9 and K40, but the grips make them almost as fat as the Glock. I looked at the Walther PPS, which is almost as thin as the PM9, but reviews are mixed. I looked at subcompact 1911s, but the thinnest of them are just as thick as the Glock (contrary to what some people may tell you), and from what I hear, keeping a subcompact 1911 running reliably is up there with keeping a classic British car running reliably – not worth the hassle.

And on and on it went.

In the end, I considered how much I not only like to shoot my Glock 27, but how much I trust it with my life. It has never had a failure, ever, after thousands of rounds, and is more accurate than the PM9 and, for me, easier to shoot.

With that in mind I holstered the Glock, slipped a spare magazine into the IWB mag pouch, and tried on the slimmest fitting shirts I have.

The Glock 27 easily disappeared under all of them. At that point I realized the PM9 would go on Gunbroker or into the back of the safe.

For those of you undecided between a Glock 26/27 and the new breed of subcompact guns (Kahr, Kel-Tec, Walther PPS, and so on), I’d suggest you give the Glock a fair shot. It’s not as “fat” as its detractors would have you believe, it conceals very easily, shoots well, and best of all, it always works. Sure, Kahr is a great company with great customer service and responsive warranty repair. But, that’s just the problem – far too many Kahr owners have had to use their repair service! Glock owners have no idea whether or not Glock has good service or not, because almost none of us have ever had to return a Glock for repair.

NOTE: It didn’t take me long to come to my senses and escape from CommieFornia. I’m now proudly living – and carrying – in the Republic of Texas!

I love wine and spirits. Unlike our current politically correct, prohibitionist, MADD-crazy America, I see nothing wrong with that, and indulge accordingly. One of my pet peeves, however, are the endless parade of mail-order “personal trainers” and “nutritionists” who constantly preach about the dangers of alcohol weight gain and how alcohol will make you – and keep you – fat.

I don’t buy it. The scientific facts prove otherwise, as does my personal experience. But, before I get into details, let me tell you a story…

A couple of years ago my bride Dana and I worked out several days a week with a self-proclaimed fitness guru, who had all of the usual stereotypes of a wannabe tough guy personal trainer. He convinced us that he knew everything about fitness and nutrition, but several months of results proved otherwise (which has been the case with every single personal trainer either of us has ever trained with).

When Dana’s goals of fitting into skinny jeans didn’t come about, he blamed her tennis league. When I gained 5 pounds of fat he blamed one single steak dinner from the previous weekend. The excuses were endless, and blamed everything except for the real cause: The fact that the trainer himself didn’t know what he was doing.

I see this every day in my gym. The staff of personal trainers does the exact same thing with every client, which goes to show that, one, there’s nothing “personal” about the training at all, and two, that the trainers don’t really know how to specialize training for individual clients. What’s worse, few trainers listen to clients’ goals, and do what they think is best instead. For example, my goal in going to the “guru” trainer was to fit back into a closet full of $3,000+ Oxxford and Brioni suits that had become tight in the waist. After months of doing hundreds of crunches per session, the pants had gotten even tighter! What’s worse, he built my chest up so much that I couldn’t even fit into the suit jackets anymore.

Getting back to my point, let’s look at the myth of alcohol weight gain. This new article in Wine Spectator explains that women who moderately and consistently drink alcohol (up to four small glasses of wine per day) gain less weight and stay thinner than women who don’t drink at all.

The reason is simple: While alcohol may be high in calories, those calories are very poorly utilized by the body, and less than 5% are stored as fat!

The real reason people gain weight while drinking is simple: Alcohol is a strong appetite stimulant. That’s why the Taco Bell drive-thru is so popular after a night of drinking. However, if you control your appetite while drinking, and don’t binge on junk food and bar food, you’ll do just fine.

I know this to be true because I’ve tested it myself. Continuing the same diet and same workout routine, I’ve gone for up to a month with no drinking at all, along with a month consuming at least one full bottle of wine per night and sometimes more. There was zero change in my body or weight either way.

Ask any personal trainer though, and they’ll preach the evils and terrors of alcohol. They’ll tell you that even moderate drinking will make your morbidly obese and destroy all of your fitness goals.

Why?

Because, quite simply, almost none of these trainers know what they’re doing. They continue their business by blaming their own failure to improve your body on outside forces. You’re not shredded like you want to be? Blame the alcohol. And on and on it goes.

While there’s nothing wrong with employing the services of a personal trainer (assuming you’ve vetted them well and confirmed that they really know what they’re doing), you need to educate yourself first and foremost, and if your trainer isn’t getting you the results you want, be wary about believing all the dozens of excuses they’ll blurt out at you.

Fortunately, Arizona is a shall-issue CCW state, meaning that I didn’t have to give the authorities a reason why I needed to carry a gun. I simply took the class, passed the background check, and my permit came in the mail about ten days later. I had joined the ranks of millions of other lawfully armed Americans.

(As I write this, Arizona is becoming a Constitutional Carry state, meaning that anyone can carry without the need for a permit.)

Then in 2007, I moved to Newport Beach, California. Knowing that California has a “may-issue” CCW policy, meaning that the authorities are not required to issue a CCW to qualified citizens and have total discretion to issue or not to issue, I began doing my research ahead of time.

Fortunately for me, Newport Beach is located in Orange County, which at the time was under the jurisdiction of Sheriff Mike Carona, an avid supporter of the 2nd Amendment and right-to-carry. However, getting the permit was still no walk in the park.

In order to avoid attracting too much attention from the liberal tyrants in Sacramento who rule California’s citizens, Sheriff Carona had to make the process fairly difficult. After all, if he ran a shall-issue outfit and gave permits to everyone who applied – in a large urban county like Orange – the state legislature would likely ban CCW altogether and go to a no-issue status.

Under California law, a CCW applicant must show sufficient “good cause” before a permit will be issued. Each sheriff gets to decide what constitutes good cause. In Sheriff Carona’s case, valid good cause consisted of being an avid firearms enthusiast who transports guns to and from a shooting range on a frequent basis. The logic behind this had to do with past cases of gang members and other criminals following people home from shooting ranges, only to hold them up in their driveways and steal their guns. In order to prevent those criminals from being able to steal a firearm hobbyist’s guns, Sheriff Carona decided that such people should be lawfully armed.

I went through the tedious and expensive application process, including an in-person interview at the Sheriff’s Department, a training class, qualifying on the range with each individual gun I wished to carry, getting fingerprinted and paying for a background check, and finally, having my carry guns inspected by the Sheriff’s armory.

After all that I picked up my permit and began carrying again in California.

Fast-forward to 2008. Sheriff Carona resigned under indictment thanks to some stupid decisions he’d made as sheriff. The County Board of Supervisors then appointed a new sheriff, Sandra Hutchens, who was previously with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and brought all of the typical liberal, anti-gun Los Angeles hysteria with her. She promptly mailed out letters to Orange County’s CCW holders, myself included, explaining that she intended to revoke our permits.

I objected, and as additional good cause, I pointed out that I as a popular New York Times best-selling author, I have had my share of weirdos show up unannounced at my office, and that I required a firearm for personal protection in the event that a real nut ever showed up.

As a result of my objection, I was allowed to keep my permit and avoided revocation. After all, Hutchens operates under the Los Angeles system where only those who are famous and/or possibly capable of large campaign contributions may have any constitutional rights. I firmly believe that my best-selling author status had a lot more to do with my keeping my permit than with the threat of harm from stalkers.

And that, my friends, is exactly why a may-issue CCW system breeds corruption. It’s been well-known for decades that sheriffs in may-issue states like California and New York essentially sell CCW permits in exchange for campaign contributions. If you want a CCW, you’d better mail a check to the sheriff, and then call in your favor after he or she wins re-election. In the case of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, it appears that she cleared anyone with any high social status or high income to continue carrying, presumably with the hope that those people would reciprocate with a donation to her campaign, and the cycle could continue.

The only fair and equitable way to issue CCW permits is by a shall-issue system. When all citizens who meet basic requirements, including training, passing a background check, and demonstrating safe and proficient shooting skill are granted permits, there is no room for corruption.

For those of you in Orange County, California, Hutchens is up for election this year. Get rid of her in the primary election in June and vote in Craig Hunter, a Republican candidate for sheriff who supports right-t0-carry for all. (Not surprisingly, Hutchens was a lifelong Democrat until she got the job in Orange County and quickly changed her party affiliation.)

I’m in the midst of a dispute with a former landlord. He was in foreclosure and bankruptcy (at the same time!) and so of course I moved out of the property. As a result, he tried to sue me for breaking the lease, when in reality, as someone who has not made any mortgage payments in almost two years, and who had breached the lease in a variety of other ways, such as refusing to make required repairs to the property, he has no right to recover any funds for the balance of the broken lease. In fact, he violated so many provisions of the lease and the law that I could easily sue him for damages! But, alas, this person who has a long history of such behavior, including multiple bankruptcies, is again trying to get money he doesn’t deserve and isn’t entitled to.

And this issue has brought me to the subject of today’s post: Those who try to leech and loot off of others in society will never succeed.

The problem is painfully obvious in 2010 America, otherwise known as Obamaland. Not only did Obama get elected through promises of free stuff for just about everyone, except of course the “evil rich,” but that mentality is spreading throughout American society like a cancer.

As a business owner, I see it every day. More and more customers order products online, take delivery of them – even signing for delivery – and then wrongfully dispute the credit card charges under the mistaken belief that they have some kind of “right” to keep the product for free without paying for it. This behavior is shocking and despicable, and of course highly illegal, yet it’s becoming the accepted norm today. Credit card companies are even marketing their “identity theft solutions” which in plain English means they make it very easy for cardholders to wrongfully dispute charges.

I see it in the sales training world as well. More and more salespeople reject good sales training advice simply because they refuse to do any hard work. They want leads and sales handed to them, and that’s it.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as something for nothing in the real world, and those who seek to get something for nothing will get, well, nothing. Or jail time, or even worse.

As Napoleon Hill has so well said, “Taking the path of least resistance makes all rivers, and some men, crooked.”

Don’t go through life looking for the path of least resistance. Look for the hard path, the one where honesty and integrity live. That’s the path of success and the one that will bring you true success in all areas of life, riches and otherwise.

It’s tax time. I got my return completed and filed early, and no surprise, the IRS cashed my check practically as soon as they received it.

It’s already infuriating to pay high taxes in this country, only to have the majority of the benefits go to lazy government employees and those who are too lazy to produce anything. As Robert Kiyosaki put it so well, “Taxes punish those who produce and reward those who don’t produce.”

Well, as if that’s not enough, now Obama is proposing to raise taxes across the board on all dividends and investments, including raising the capital gains tax from 15% to 20%, as well as the additional 3.8% tax that’s being slapped on all investment income to fund ObamaCare.

What’s most alarming about this proposed tax increase is that Obama’s henchmen are calling it another way to “punish the rich” and make them “pay their fair share,” but in reality, this is going to harm retirees and hard-working middle class Americans fare more than it will ever “punish” the rich.

The left-wing mainstream media does a great job of associating words like dividends and investments with wealthy Americans. In reality, however, those things are a lot more relevant to 401(k)s, IRAs, pension funds, and more. In other words, investment vehicles that the middle class depends on and that the rich don’t need and frequently do not have.

So, the first thing that Obama’s new tax increases will do is reduce the amount of funds retirees and middle class Americans get from their investment vehicles.

Perhaps the bigger problem, however, is that those who these taxes are intended to punish – the elusive “rich” – will be encouraged to hang onto their money instead of investing it. Investment funds new construction, new business, new jobs, and overall economic growth. When those who have the money to invest are threatened with tax increases on investment income, they’re simply not going to invest as much.

Even idiot presidents like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were smart enough to cut capital gains taxes. Doing so stimulates economic growth. Furthermore, every time the capital gains tax is cut, capital gains tax revenues increase! The reason is very simple: Cutting that tax encourages more capital investment, which in turn fuels the economy and more tax dollars are ultimately collected. This happened not only when Carter and Clinton cut the tax, but Reagan and Bush as well.

Most despicable and infuriating is the excuse the Obama administration is giving for these tax increases: The massive looming debt that Obama himself has created! He’s been the most fiscally irresponsible president in history, in only the first year of his term, and now he wants to stick the bill with “the rich.”

Sorry Barry, but it isn’t going to work. Not only will your unfair tax increases infuriate the American people and seal your fate in the 2012 election, but you’re also going to kill an already struggling economy and push unemployment even higher.