Residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are the most negative about their state’s taxes according to an April 9, Gallup poll. At least 75% of adults in the New York tri-state region say their state taxes are too high. Half of the residents in Illinois and Connecticut want to move to a different state according to an April 30, Gallup poll.  I work with investors in all four of these states and can tell you they’re not happy about their taxes. But there’s nowhere to go unless retirement is an option. What I expect will happen is that the successful will retire sooner than planned because big cities like New York and Chicago will continue to overburden their successful residents. But another option I like is for towns to break-away from their mother state that only tends to her big cities. Take Sedgwick, Maine as an example:

Sedgwick, Maine, the first town in the US to legalize any kind of food transaction as free and legal in order to keep the right to produce raw milk, organic produce, free-range eggs, and more, is revolutionizing the way America keeps its food rights – including saying no to GMOs. In other words, it is the first town to declare food sovereignty while opposing both state and federal laws.

The town has passed an ordinance that protects citizens’ rights to “produce, sell, purchase, and consume any food of their choosing.” The ordinance laughs in the face of FDA regulations and their hodge-podge way of giving food a rubber stamp of approval, especially GMO. Three additional towns in Maine are expected to pass similar ordinances as well.

The move is somewhat similar to a move one England town made, where the citizens transformed their entire town’s landscape into a giant food-producing garden. Both are great examples of moving toward food sovereignty.

It isn’t just a declaration on the whim of a few city council members. There is a warrant added: “It shall be unlawful for any law or regulation adopted by the state or federal government to interfere with the rights recognized by this Ordinance.” This means that federal interference is prohibited in our food supply – at least in Maine. If you can’t get Monsanto out of the government, take the government out of your food. It’s a brilliant way around the convoluted system now in place that almost gave Monsanto the right to be exempt from federal prosecution for its poison food and which tries to hoist it upon the whole Nation without consent.

In the late 1940s, Procter & Gamble, the maker of Crisco oil, helped transform the American Heart Association from a small, underfunded organization into the powerhouse it is today. Americans, on the advice of the AHA, began in 1961 to eat less saturated fat and switch to vegetable oils for “heart health.” Read Nina Teicholz here explaining the worrisome track record of vegetable oils and the consequences of giving up butter and lard in the American diet, especially for woman over 50.

“Saturated fat does not cause heart disease”—or so concluded a big study published in March in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. How could this be? The very cornerstone of dietary advice for generations has been that the saturated fats in butter, cheese and red meat should be avoided because they clog our arteries. For many diet-conscious Americans, it is simply second nature to opt for chicken over sirloin, canola oil over butter.

The new study’s conclusion shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with modern nutritional science, however. The fact is, there has never been solid evidence for the idea that these fats cause disease. We only believe this to be the case because nutrition policy has been derailed over the past half-century by a mixture of personal ambition, bad science, politics and bias.

Our distrust of saturated fat can be traced back to the 1950s, to a man named Ancel Benjamin Keys, a scientist at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Keys was formidably persuasive and, through sheer force of will, rose to the top of the nutrition world—even gracing the cover of Time magazine—for relentlessly championing the idea that saturated fats raise cholesterol and, as a result, cause heart attacks.

This idea fell on receptive ears because, at the time, Americans faced a fast-growing epidemic. Heart disease, a rarity only three decades earlier, had quickly become the nation’s No. 1 killer. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955. Researchers were desperate for answers.

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Nina Teicholz at TEDxEast: The Big Fat Surprise

Living in Key West has many bright benefits, the least of which is not Shakti Yoga, run by my good friend Sofia Artola. I’ve practiced yoga with her for years and can personally vouch for its many benefits to both body and mind. The virtues of pranayama—controlled breathing—are reason enough to practice yoga on a regular basis. Read here from the WSJ how one NYC chef counterbalances the rigors of owning three restaurants through diet and exercise.

John DeLucie spends his days and nights bouncing between his three Manhattan restaurants: the Crown on the Upper East Side, Bill’s Food & Drink in Midtown and the Lion near his apartment in the West Village. After leaving his bustling restaurants at 11 p.m. or later, the 52-year-old chef-owner was finding it a challenge to wind down.

Mr. DeLucie says yoga helps quiet his mind from the stresses of the restaurant business and helps offset the aches and pains that ail most chefs. “I’m standing in a kitchen bent over chopping and after a few years that starts to affect your back,” he says. “You have to do something to counteract that.”

Warren Buffett has pulled the wool over the eyes of so many with his “aw shucks” mid-western persona. But in reality he’s a self-preserving stock salesman just as comfortable playing inside Wall Street boardrooms as he is inside the D.C. beltway. On the tax front he’s been of no help to successful Americans trying to keep more of their hard-earned money. He’s all for higher taxes. That is unless it’s his taxes. Then it’s all about his bottom line. The WSJ’s Review & Outlook has more on good ‘Ole Warren here:

So it was fascinating to hear Mr. Buffett explain that his real tax rule is to pay as little as possible, both personally and at the corporate level. “I will not pay a dime more of individual taxes than I owe, and I won’t pay a dime more of corporate taxes than we owe. And that’s very simple,” Mr. Buffett told Fortune magazine in an interview last week. “In my own case, I offered one time to match a voluntary payment that any Senators pay, and I offered to triple any voluntary payment that [Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell made, but they never took me up on it.”

The billionaire was even more explicit about his goal of reducing his company’s tax payments. “I will do anything that is basically covered by the law to reduce Berkshire’s tax rate,” he said. “For example, on wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

Think about that one. Mr. Buffett says it makes no economic sense to build wind farms without a tax credit, which he gladly uses to reduce his company’s tax payments to the Treasury. So political favors for the wind industry induce a leading U.S. company to misallocate its scarce investment dollars for an uneconomic purpose. Berkshire and its billionaire shareholder get a tax break and the feds get less revenue, which must be made up by raising tax rates on millions of other Americans who are much less well-heeled than Mr. Buffett.

The advancement of liberty and free markets deserves to be celebrated. And on May 21 it will be when the Cato Institute presents Leszek Balcerowicz, former Deputy Prime Minister of Poland, with the 2014 Milton Friedman Prize for advancing liberty. Balcerowizc was a student of the “Five P’s”: prior preparation prevents poor performance, explains Cato Senior Fellow Steve H. Hanke. “Balcerowicz was ready when he first took office in 1989. Indeed, he pulled his comprehensive economic game plan to liberalize and transform the Polish economy out of his desk drawer and proceeded to implement what became known as the ‘Big Bang’. As they say, the rest is history,” writes Hanke who compares Balcerowicz’s big bang to communist Ukraine below.

Over the last decade, we’ve been watching Poland from near and afar—visiting family and speaking with business contacts—gathering  on the ground intelligence. We have seen the continuation of the transformation set in motion by Leszek Balcerowicz. New highways, privitazations, deregulation, government deregulation, and rapid development have made Poland one of Europe’s fastest growing economies. Poland was the only European nation to avoid the Great Recession, with cumulative growth near 16% through the 2008-2011 period. Many hands have shaped Poland’s development since it cast off communism, but Leszek Balcerowicz was the prime architect of Poland’s successful transition into capitalism and democracy.

Timothy Jones contributed to this piece.

You can gauge the race for the Senate daily here using The New York Times statistical-election forecasting machine called LEO. The current odds give Republicans a 55 percent chance of retaking the Senate. What does that mean? Not much.

Republicans’ chances of gaining control of the Senate have improved slightly in the time Leo has been up and running. When we launched Leo two weeks ago, Republicans had a 49 percent chance of gaining control, according to the model. Now, we give them a 55 percent chance. So why the change? Part of the reason is some positive polling they’ve had in Colorado and Alaska, but 49 percent and 55 percent really aren’t very different.

Let’s say you have two biased coins, one that comes up heads 49 percent of the time and another that comes up heads 55 percent of the time. You want to figure out which one is the 55 percent coin. If you flip both coins repeatedly and choose whichever coin comes up heads more often, how many coin flips would it take to be confident that you’d made the right choice?

The answer: 375. It would take 375 flips to be correct 95 percent of the time. If it took you five seconds to flip both coins (and record your answers, all the while keeping track of which coin is which), it would take a you half an hour of doing nothing but flipping coins to be able to confidently differentiate one coin from the other.

The race for Senate control really is still a tossup.

Related video:

Republicans Look To Take Control Of The Senate In 2014 Elections

Dateline Ukraine: Here Cato Institute’s Chris Preble explains the nuanced complexities of today’s Ukraine tinderbox.To get a clear handle on the best track for American Foreign Policy, read the multipart series I have prepared based on the work of Mr. Preble (Part I, Part II, Part III). And, as I regularly advise, order your personal copy of The Power Problem . The American media is strongly biased toward a hawkish approach to foreign policy. Such an approach failed America in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. As such, it is perplexing to me that Americans would today wish to re-engage in such a bankrupt foreign policy approach.

The Obama administration’s approach to events in Ukraine and the approach favored by the president’s critics are based on the same faulty premise. Both parties assume Russian President Vladimir Putin has firm control of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine. Therefore, the right combination of coercion and threats will convince him to order a retreat.

However, while pro-Russian forces in Ukraine undoubtedly enjoy Putin’s support, it is not clear that these same forces would stand down if Putin gave the order to do so. Worse, any control that Putin does have rapidly diminishes as the violence escalates.

As often happens, U.S. policymakers feel the need to do something. The policies being debated in Washington fall into two categories. Obama favors economic sanctions. Hawks push a military solution, albeit one fought through proxies.

Sanctions that would be palatable to the Europeans won’t be strong enough to compel Putin to reverse course, even if ending the conflict was within his power. And providing arms to the fragile Ukrainian government won’t solve the country’s deep political and economic dysfunction.

Obama’s approach is at least consistent with the wishes of the American people, who support sanctions against Russia but not providing arms to Ukrainians, and is less likely than his critics’ alternative to draw the United States into a conflict that no one wants.

But that’s not saying much. Considering that U.S. vital security interests are not at stake in Ukraine, the United States should not accept even a small risk of becoming more deeply involved.

Those with the most at stake — pro- and anti-Russian Ukrainians — have demonstrated their willingness to go to extremes to get what they want — namely, to get rid of their enemies. Dozens have been killed or died in violent clashes and the number of incidents appears to be on the rise.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned yesterday, “we are reaching the point of no return — a moment when the escalation cannot be stopped anymore and we literally are on the threshold of a war in Eastern Europe.”

Diplomacy can work when carrots or sticks convince the other side to act in a certain way and when there is an acceptable compromise to be had. In this case, sensible people on both sides might be willing to accept a Ukraine that is independent of foreign influence and at peace with its neighbors. But sensible people don’t control events in Ukraine right now. And the violence in eastern Ukraine is contributing to the rise of warlords who will be hard to dislodge in the future.

No not the top player but the top analyst.  Meet Walter Cherepinsky. Walter is far and away number one in my book, and I have been studiously analyzing the annual NFL draft for decades. If you are an NFL fan and are not familiar with Walter, today is your lucky day. I have linked here for you Walter’s royalty like analysis of round one of this years NFL draft. Walter has some special kudos for my school days favorite Cleveland Browns a huge shock given the Browns horrid record since reemerging back in Cleveland over a decade ago. I was certainly shocked to see Johnny Manziel fall to the Browns later in round one after the Browns had held their breath earlier in round one picking off Walter’s number one in the draft cornerback. What a potentially awesome draft for the Browns. And I like what the Pats did in round one. Enjoy Walter’s outstanding NFL draft analysis. He’s the man!

U.S. Representative Walter Jones just scored a monster victory in North Carolina. The War Dogs savaged Walter and threw down the intervention gauntlet from day one against this most principled American. Every American can be proud that Walter Jones had the courage and dedication to anti-war principles to smack down the heavily neocon-funded War Dogs. America’s most outstanding political columnist, Pat Buchanan, has all the great news for you here, while outlining key players in the War Dogs camp. There can be no bigger menace to America than the war-mongering neocons. Write down the name and organization of every War Dog Pat mentions and circulate this list (Pat will build on the list regularly) to friends and associates.Your list will keep you focussed on the single most dangerous force in America against the Federal Republic form of government intended by our Founders. My heartfelt congratulations to North Carolina’s Walter Jones.Thanks for representing all Americans, Walter.

The GOP Beltway establishment is celebrating the victory of Thom Tillis, Speaker of the North Carolina House, over his Tea Party and Evangelical rivals in Tuesday’s primary for the U.S. Senate.

But the story ended less happily for the Beltway elite in the Tar Heel State’s 3rd Congressional District. There, the planned purge of Rep. Walter Jones was repulsed by his loyal Republican base.

Yet, this massively funded effort, to kill the career of a 20-year House veteran, whose father held the seat for decades before him, testifies eloquently to the intolerance of the ideological and monied elite of the party to which conservatives give allegiance.

Reportedly, a million dollars of super PAC money poured into the 3rd, from Republicans, in support of a brazen Big Lie campaign to paint Walter Jones as a liberal. But what is the Congressman’s real record?

In the Bush I era, he voted against No Child Left Behind.

In the Obama years, he voted against Obamacare and the bailouts of the big banks, Wall Street and Detroit. He voted against cap and trade, and TARP, the trillion-dollar stimulus package.

Jones voted against every increase in the debt ceiling in 10 years and refuses to vote for any U.S. budget not in balance. He stands against same-sex marriage, has a 100 percent rating from National Right to Life, and receives a consistent A from the NRA.

A national organization opposing illegal immigration gives Jones an A+ for battling to secure America’s borders and block amnesty.

Camp Lejeune is in Jones’ district, and he has received awards from every veterans organization from the American Legion to the Disabled American Veterans.

FreedomWorks cited Jones last year as the most conservative member of the North Carolina delegation and one of the 10 most conservative members of the House. And he had the endorsement of Dot Helms, widow of conservative legend Jesse Helms.

Why, then, was the Beltway elite so determined to destroy Jones that they spent a million dollars backing a Bush II apparatchik turned K Street lobbyist who moved only last year to the district?

Why was the War Party determined to kill Walter Jones?

First, Jones has voted for years to end foreign aid, a capital crime to the Israeli lobby AIPAC.

Second, though Jones was so pro-war in 2003 that when France opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq he had the House dining room rename French fries “freedom fries,” when the caskets began to come home he starting having second thoughts.

Walter Jones came to believe that voting to send Americans to fight and die in Iraq was the worst mistake of his career.

So now Rep. Jones spends hours each weekend writing personal letters to every family that lost a son or daughter in a war he wrongly supported. And he has resolved to oppose every idiotic war into which his country is being stampeded.

Walter Jones is a pro-peace conservative, a principled patriot who votes his convictions, puts his country first, and refuses to take dictation from the War Party.

Related video:

Republican Rep. Walter Jones Rails Against Iraq And Afghanistan Wars