Last summer and fall the subject of earmarks and “pork barrel” spending was in the headlines almost every day due to the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals.  Those scandals and the prospect of regaining control of the House of Representatives prompted the Democratic House leaders to promise earmark reform.  Earmarks are the funds that Congress attaches to legislation, generally appropriations bills, to send targeted money back to their home district.  After Congress spent approximately $32 billion in earmarks last year and the Republican loss of both houses of Congress, President Bush pressed the legislative branch of the government to cut earmark spending in half.  Progress has been made in some respects but there is a long way to go.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed to make the practice of earmark spending more transparent and the leadership has made the paperwork accessible to the public, but only in the Appropriations Committee’s offices.  The goal is to make it accessible online, but the Democratic leadership set no timetable to accomplish the goal.  In other words, they can claim that they laid the groundwork, but make no real moves to actually post the reports online.  The Democrats have done more than the Republicans did to make earmark spending more easily accessible to the public, but they have left an awful lot to be desired.  They could have easily set the timetable to post the reports online and no politician in Washington would have wanted to be seen as opposing the bill.  Unfortunately, the political minds went to work and realized that rhetoric speaks louder than action in Washington.

The new reporting system has allowed watchdog groups to see that although the Democratic leadership has started to release the reports on earmark spending, it has not really slowed them down.  Speaker Pelosi has sent nearly $100 million back to her San Francisco district.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has sent close to $86 million back to his district here in Maryland.  The House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey has directed $96 million to his Wisconsin constituents.  The leading Democrat overseeing defense spending is Jack Murtha, who sent $186 million back to his home district in Pennsylvania.

The Speaker has received more than 1 percent of all of the earmarks in the House.  She has said that she is against earmark spending and would do away with it all together if she could.  I guess she has decided that since she cannot end the practice that she might as well exploit it for all that it is worth; hardly a noble effort on Ms. Pelosi’s part.

Before my liberal friends start screaming about the Republicans, I want to point out that if the Republican had lived up to their fiscally conservative talking points, we wouldn’t be having this discussion now.  The leading Republican on the Appropriations Committee, Jerry Lewis, sent $124 million back to California.  Bill Young is the leading Republican on the Defense Appropriations panel; he and Murtha follow the unwritten rule that the majority gets 60% of the pork, while the minority is left with 40%.  Young received $142 million to pass along to his Florida district.

While these numbers seem to be staggering, the Senate has made no moves to make the earmark spending transparent or to rein in their pork fetish.  As a comparison Senator Dianne Feinstein has sent close to $400 million back to the state of California.  Senator Cochran, a Mississippi Republican, added $112 million to the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill.  That is for one appropriations bill. The Agriculture Appropriations Bill had $26 million added by the Mississippi Republican. A total of $393 million was added to the Homeland Security bill for earmarks.  $587 million was added to the Senate’s Commerce Appropriations Bill.

With new rules in the House regarding earmarks, it has made it harder for those not sitting on one of the powerful appropriation panels to attach their pet spending projects.  Unfortunately, even with the new rules we have seen that power and money corrupts the politicians no matter what they espouse on the campaign trail.  The numbers I have listed came from 2 sources.  You can go to Taxpayers for Common Sense for lists of appropriations bills for both houses of Congress and who requested which earmark and how much each state received.  I also recommend reading this article from the San Francisco Chronicle.  Citizens Against Government Waste also provides an excellent review of Congress’ spending habits.  I realize that with an annual Federal budget of over $3 trillion these earmarks are a drop in the bucket, but remember that the government does not produce any product to make money.  Each and every dime of the budget, and every one of the earmarks, comes from your tax dollars.  You wouldn’t spend your own money in such a manner, so why do we allow the elected prima donnas in Washington get away with what amounts to legal embezzlement?

Another week during the highly expedited presidential election season and we have more and more candidates getting caught with their proverbial pants down.  Every campaign season seems be about the same thing these days.  How can the candidates portray themselves as something they are not.  The election season doesn’t necessarily have to be for President of the United States, it could be for the mayor of Baltimore.  Every candidate tries to make themselves relatable to the average citizen, or to a particular segment of the population, but the extent that some go to has become somewhat extreme, if not entertaining.

In Baltimore, where I currently reside, the mayor’s race is heating up.  The current mayor, Sheila Dixon, has been in office since taking over after the former mayor Martin O’Malley became Governor.  She, as well as most of the other major candidates for the office, has been members of the city council for at least the past 10 years.  During that time we have seen the murder rate consistently hover around 300 per year.  For a city such as New York or Chicago, those numbers would be welcome, but with a population of just over 600,000, it ranks the city as one of the deadliest in the country.  The rhetoric coming from the mayor’s office and the other candidates is that it is mostly “thug on thug” crime, most of which have drug ties.  Is this supposed to make us feel safer?  I see that they have identified the problem, but why haven’t they done anything to remedy the problem?  All of the candidates proclaim that they are tough on crime; but if after more than 10 years in positions of power within the city you have not accomplished anything on crime, why should anyone take you seriously on crime issues?

This past week, the news came out of Washington that the Republican Senator from Idaho, Larry Craig, was arrested 3 months ago in an airport bathroom in Minneapolis for lewd conduct.  Craig was accused of peering into a stall at another man, a plainclothes police officer, and making signals to the effect of soliciting lewd behavior.  The senator pleaded guilty to public misconduct in hopes of making it all go away.  He maintains that he is innocent and that he is not gay.  My problem is not whether or not Senator Craig is gay, that is between Craig and his family and God.  I take issue with another politician putting on a front to get elected.  If the senator is gay and had been honest about it, would he have been elected?  We do not know for sure, but if he is gay, he obviously hid it for one reason or another.

Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has brought back memories of the 1996 presidential campaign season with the disclosure that Norman Hsu, a Clinton campaign donor and fundraiser, has an outstanding arrest warrant for fraud in California.  Mr. Hsu has reportedly raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for various candidates over the years, sometimes from questionable sources.  As you may recall, the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign was embroiled in a fundraising scandal when it was revealed that some of the contributions came from questionable Chinese sources.  Senator Clinton has tried to distinguish her campaign as above the fray when it comes to fundraising, but it is getting harder to believe when we see more and more stories of close associates of Clinton’s being investigated and convicted of questionable bookkeeping of campaign financial records.

Then there is John Edwards, former senator from North Carolina, who is also running for President.  Mr. Edwards has been campaigning on the notion that there are 2 Americas; one for the rich and powerful, and one for the rest of us poor slobs.  He embarked on a poverty tour earlier this year to highlight the plight of the poor and downtrodden.  During his tour he collected speaking fees of $55,000 for speaking to college students about poverty.  That news was tempered with reports that he was paying $400 for a haircut.  The Edwards campaign said that the speaking fees and the exorbitant haircuts were an oversight.  Now the news has come out that while speaking out against poverty, Edwards was heavily invested in a company that was foreclosing on Katrina victims.  Mr. Edwards has said that he is divesting the interest he had in the company.  Again, when your actions speak louder than your words, you have a problem.

As the election season heats up, especially with several states vying to be the first to hold their primaries, we can expect to see more and more candidates, from both sides, showing their true colors.  I know it is too much to ask, but wouldn’t it be nice if politicians actually stood for something beyond their own personal and political gains?

On September 15^th, General David Petraeus, the commanding General in Iraq, will deliver his report to the President and Congress on the progress of the troop surge.  Almost immediately after Petraeus was unanimously confirmed by the Senate to be the next commander in Iraq, the same politicians who voted to confirm him started to ridicule and question his ability to lead.  The troop surge is the increase of 20,000 new troops being sent to Iraq to provide security in Baghdad and Al Anbar.  The surge was initiated in February and just recently the last of the 20,000 new troops arrived in Iraq.  The democrat controlled Congress has debated ever since over the outcome of the plan. 

In June, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said that the war is lost and the surge is a failure.  Let me remind you that not all of the 20,000 troops had arrived in Iraq, but yet Senator Reid has declared himself a prophet.  He can foresee the future.  Reid could see in June that we were going to lose.  Or was it that he wanted the surge to fail for political reasons?  Before the insults start, and I am inevitably called a variety of names, which by the way none of them are new, allow me to complete my diatribe.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has stated that she has already made up her mind that the surge has failed.  She has said that it doesn’t matter what the commanding General in Iraq says in September, she believes it has failed.  Even after good news was reported in Iraq, Pelosi said that the political situation hadn’t improved, so the military advances meant nothing. 

Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee Carl Levin went to Iraq and actually admitted that the troop surge was in fact working.  He then decided that he needed to instruct the Iraqi Parliament to remove the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iraq.  He said that the political environment in Iraq had not progressed far enough so Prime Minister Maliki needed to go.  Have you noticed a trend yet?

House Majority Whip James Clyburn has said that if the report from Petraeus is good, it could be a big problem for Democrats.  He was referring to the 47 Blue Dog Democrats that would then feel compelled to keep the troops in Iraq until victory is ultimately achieved.  Many on the left have spun his remarks to say that he was not referring to the Democrats being politically invested in the defeat of our troops.  If the Blue Dogs will be swayed by good news from Iraq and the rest of the Democrats will not be, what exactly are we supposed to think?  If news that our troops are winning does not change the Democratic policy of surrender and defeat, then one can only surmise that they are only interested in our defeat.

The Democrats have tried to change their strategy of late.  As more and more good news from Iraq comes out, the party leadership has tried to shift the focus off of military success to political success of the fledgling Iraqi government.  Senator Hillary Clinton has changed her position to one of a hawk that would leave the troops in Iraq for at least 2 years after her hopeful election as President.  She has gone from staunch supporter of her vote to send the troops, to Bush lied to me to get my vote, to I would bring them home as soon as I am elected, to now I would leave them there to finish the job.  Is it any wonder she has the highest negative ratings of any of the current crop of candidates for President?  It is very hard to support a candidate that decides which position to take on an issue by licking their finger and sticking it in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

I admit that the news from Iraq over the past few years has not always been very good.  I also admit that the Iraqi government has not done enough to help unite the opposing factions.  We should not arbitrarily pull our troops out of Iraq, or leave them in Iraq just because it will benefit one political party or the other.  I will admit defeat when I see it, but we are not there yet; especially when the report from Petraeus has not even been written up.  I must ask a few questions of my friends that oppose the war.  Is there any circumstance that you would admit that we have won?  If the report from Petraeus comes out in a few weeks with all benchmarks met and the security of Baghdad and Al Anbar is under control; will it be a good thing for the United States and Iraq or a bad thing?  Sadly, I believe that the Democratic leadership is anchored to the defeat of our troops and the Iraqi government; and nothing will change their minds.

Evangelical, fundamentalist, and Christian conservative are all terms that have become a lightning rod for debate and scorn from many on the liberal side of the aisle.  The often controversial Rosie O’Donnell has even gone as far to claim that evangelicals were far more dangerous to our country than Al-Qaeda.  The very admission that I am an evangelical Christian causes some to start to hyperventilate as they rail against my faith.  I would like to analyze a few of the most common terms used to describe myself and others who believe as I do, and try to come to an understanding as to what is so frightening to those on the other side of the philosophical spectrum.

Before we start the discussion, I believe it is only fair to express my beliefs so that there is no doubt as to where my thoughts and opinions are coming from.  I believe that the Bible is the written Word of God.  I believe that God did in fact create the earth, and everything else, in 7 days.  I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.  He was born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem.  He ministered for 3 years and was crucified on the cross.  He was buried in a tomb, and rose from the dead 3 days later.  He came to the earth to sacrifice himself for each and every one of us, even those who choose to reject him, so that we would have a way to get to heaven.  All we are asked to do in return is to acknowledge that we are sinners, meaning not perfect, and pledge to follow Jesus and his teachings.  These are a few of my core beliefs that all of my decisions, morals, and values are based upon.

Merriam-Webster defines the word fundamentalist as a member of the 20^th century Protestant movement that emphasizes the literal interpretation of the Bible as being fundamental to Christian life and teaching.  For anyone who has read the Bible, I am unsure as to why the very mention of the word, fundamentalist, would conjure up such feelings of angst and sometimes fear.  Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, not just those who agree with us.  He also taught us to live our lives as living examples of Christ.  We all fall short of that example, but we continually strive to achieve that goal. 

Webster defines the word evangelical as being in agreement with the teaching of the Christian gospel, especially as it is presented in the four gospels.  An evangelical also emphasizes the salvation by faith in the atoning death of Jesus Christ through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with ritual.  This definition as well does not portray the vilified portrait of one who seeks to destroy our country.

I realize that there are Christians out there who do more damage than good, by there actions and attitudes about those who do not believe in Christ.  I am speaking about the type of Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church.  You may recall that this church goes to funerals of soldiers to hold signs that say “Thank God for IEDs”, “Soldiers Die, God Laughs”.  Their message is that because of the acceptance of homosexual lifestyles in the United States, God is punishing us with the war in Iraq and terrorism.  These Christians are not the typical evangelicals.  They do not represent, in my opinion, what it means to be a follower of Christ.  I am not a theologian, but my interpretation of Jesus’ teaching shows that he went out to meet with the adulterous woman, an unthinkable act of the time, and helped her to see the error of her ways.  I do not see Jesus holding a picket sign outside her house and yelling insults at her from the street.  I believe that we could look at any group of people and find a few bad apples.  Why is it that all Christians are lumped together with those who blow up abortion clinics “in God’s name”? 

Most of the evangelical Christians that I know are ready and willing to share their faith at a moments notice, but they are not the ones that yell and scream insults at homosexuals to try to convert them.  No one is ever truly persuaded using strong arm tactics.  “A person convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.”  I am unsure of who first coined that phrase, but it holds true to Christianity, politics, or anything else you can think of. 

I spoke to a local pastor, one in which I look up to with great respect as a man and a teacher, about what he felt Christians should be doing in the secular/political world.  He believes that if Christians would truly be followers of Christ, we could make an enormous contribution to our nation.  He sees the role of Christians as one of defender of the helpless.  Just look at the story of British statesman William Wilberforce, made into the movie “Amazing Grace”.  His deeply held faith convicted him that slavery was wrong and that it should be stopped.  One man’s convictions started the debate to end slavery in Great Britain.  I believe that is what being a Christian in our country and throughout the world is about.  By living my life as a living example of Jesus Christ, I will work to end the injustices in our country and around the world. 

Many people are terrified of evangelical Christians being in positions of power.  They point to President Bush and say that he has overstepped his bounds in his thirst for war in Iraq.  We can debate that over and over again, but how is that decision and example of how Christians would work in a position of power?  Where did his faith play a role in that decision?  In my opinion, he believed that there was injustice under the rule of Saddam and that played a key role in his decisions.  Is the President a perfect Christian?  Am I a perfect Christian?  The answer is a resounding no.  There are no perfect Christians.  We all fall short of the glory of God, but we all continue to strive to be better Christians.  As I become a better Christian, I become a better man, husband, father, friend, employee, and yes even a better writer. 

My faith in Christ is my guiding compass.  Just because my guiding compass is my faith, does that make my values, morals, decisions, or opinions any less valid than yours?  Your compass has been determined undoubtedly by many things throughout your life.  It is comprised of your experiences growing up, at work, at school, with your friends, or even the news networks.  I do not discount your ideals because they do not agree with mine, I may debate or argue with you over them, but I do not discount them.  It is not place to judge anyone.  It is my goal to try to show you a tiny bit of Christ by the way I live my life.  I pray that it does not offend you, but it will not change my faith or my desire to show you the way to Christ.

Each and every time you turn on the local, network, or cable news the “experts” are pontificating over their particular area of expertise. They make predictions about everything under the sun from global warming and the current political campaigns, to the economy and the stock market. The amusing aspect of this nightly “expert” analysis is that a few months or years down the road, the experts are all shocked at the outcome. The shocking aspect is that the same news producers continue to trot out the same shocked experts to provide the “expert” analysis on the topic of the day.

Let’s start with the economy and the so-called experts that are all over the news analyzing the current economic health of our country. It does not matter what they predict, in 3 months when the quarterly reports come out, they will inevitably be shocked at the results. They are either much higher or lower than the “experts” predicted and they are left to explain why their predictions were wrong. All the while, they pompously tell us why they are the experts and how even though they were wrong, they were actually right.

We have presidential candidates that are running on the “2 Americas” theory. They believe that there is the America for the rich, which by the way all of the candidates are part of, and the America for the rest of us poor slobs. They cite numbers about the poverty rates in the U.S. and how they will change the lives of the masses. One question I have is that we have had the “War on Poverty” since 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson enacted several programs meant to end poverty in the United States. How is it that we have fought this “war” for 43 years and we still have “2 Americas”? The experts in the campaign tell us that we need more reform to end the poverty. Reform in political speak is more bloated government programs and much higher taxes for all of us, not just those in the “rich” America. By the way, the economic experts would actually be right for once if the proposals were ever implemented.

The experts also love to try to be prophetic with the weather. I am not talking about your local weatherman; there are plenty of jokes about weatherman and their forecasts. I am speaking of the experts predicting the hurricane seasons. How many experts did we hear tell us that 2005 would be as bad as it was? How about 2006? 2006 was predicted to be just as bad as the year before, but we ended up with just a few named storms with no storm making landfall in the United States. Now we have heard that the initial predictions for 2007 were too high and the experts have lowered their numbers. You can be sure that come next hurricane season the same experts will be on TV warning us of the doom to come.

I am not a global warming advocate nor am I a scientist; I freely admit that I am just a regular guy with an opinion. The global warming scientists have been warning us for the past 25 years about how the end is near and the point of no return is rapidly approaching. What I don’t understand is that we can’t predict what the weather will be like tomorrow or next month or even how many hurricanes we will see, but yet the experts tell us that we will see the ice caps melt within our lifetime. Like I said above, I am no expert and am very cynical on global warming, but when you have experts blaming global warming for the bridge collapse in Minnesota last week, or for even the mine collapse in Utah this week, how can anyone take them seriously?

In the political world the experts repeatedly use polls to tell us what is going to happen in even the smallest of elections. How many times over the past few decades have they been shocked at the outcome? I can hear the furious typing already, Bush stole the election! Voter fraud! Disenfranchisement! Hanging chads! Please get over it already. For all of your screaming, Bush is still in the White House and will be until January of 2009.

I believe that these experts are glory hounds that thrive on the face time on TV. They live to hear their sound byte on the news or see their pompous smiling face on TV. The producers of these “news” shows put them on for a variety of reasons, except of course for their accuracy. The next time you see an “expert” holding court, remember what they say and predict, because you will see how buffoonish they are when their predictions all fall flat.

A recent study has revealed that teenagers in Great Britain are the worst mannered teens in all of Europe. The study found that the British youth are more likely to have been in fights, use drugs, engage in underage sex(I could not find the study’s definition of “underage”), and rarely sit down to a meal with their parents. Most of the findings of this study are not surprising and probably could have been done in the United States with some of the same results. What I found shocking was the response and the suggested cures to the behavioral problems found in many teenagers.

The British government officials plan to spend 1.4 billion pounds to keep schools open 10 hours a day for art and drama clubs and “out of hours” homework. They hope to promote mothers going back to work full time and to aid “latchkey” children in the after school hours. I am all for art and drama clubs and providing help for the unattended children, but why do they think that the kids will automatically just show up at these clubs? My biggest problem with their ideas is that bureaucrats always believe the best answer to any problem is a government program.

Another issue I have is their desire to draw more mothers back to full time work. Now I realize that some families need both parents to work in order to survive, but I don’t see how a mother being away from her children more hours of the day is a solution to a behavior problem. If the politicians want to find a government program to help, I believe a better program would be finding ways so that one parent could stay at home with the children.

When did we get away from parents actually taking the responsibility for raising their children? This is a problem here in the U.S. and apparently Great Britain as well. Our societies have developed a mentality that the government has all the answers and therefore the responsibility for every aspect of raising our children. We have shirked off our responsibility as parents to teach our children about sex. We have come to believe that the government schools are better equipped to teach our offspring about sex, whether or not we may agree with what they are teaching. We allow the schools to teach our children their values and then question why the kids are so ill mannered.

Of course this mentality of the “Nanny-state” is not exclusive to child rearing, it has taken over almost every aspect of our lives. After all why shouldn’t we have government funded/run health care, or welfare, or retirement? With the bureaucrats record of accomplishments, they are the best equipped to cause the program in question to cost ten times as much and never achieve the promised result. The same politicians with whom we have entrusted our children’s welfare, seem unable to solve the chronic drugs and crime problems in many of our cities.

We need to take responsibility for the education and raising of our children, as well as every other aspect of our lives. There are way too many adults that need to grow up and realize that if they are going to achieve any type of personal, financial, or business success, they need to do it themselves. I can think of no successful person throughout history that has ever had to stop and thank the government for making them a success. Government programs always start out with the best of intentions, but always end up costing way more than predicted and never truly solving the problem they were “designed” to solve.

It seems as though every Presidential campaign has it’s wildcard candidate that stirs things up and directs the campaign season in a whole new direction. This election season is no different. In the Republican primary battle, we have many well known names and faces, but one candidate in particular has gotten very little press coverage. Texas Congressman Ron Paul has amassed more money than Senator John McCain, but polls far lower than the “top tier” candidates. His supporters are very vocal about his constitutionalist ideals, and many take offense if his name is left out of any discussion of Presidential politics.

I would like to take a closer look at the Texan OB/GYN turned congressman. Paul has a record of consistency of only voting along constitutional lines, not party lines. He has stated that if it is not in the Constitution then he will not support it. He has been a strong advocate on Pro-life issues, gun ownership rights, and fiscal responsibility. With positions like these and his apparent fund raising abilities, one would surmise that Paul would be mentioned with the likes of Giuliani, Romney, and McCain. I believe the issues that separate Dr. Paul from the rest of the Republican field are his views on how and when the military should be used.

He voted against the Iraq War and the Patriot Act, which by the way certain front runners on the Democratic ticket are unable to say, and has been calling for the return of our troops. He wants the return of our troops not only from Iraq, but also from every other foreign station around the globe. He holds firm to the warning from George Washington when he left office, saying that we should not become involved in the affairs of other nations. I personally believe that the world is a much more dangerous place than the one in which Washington lived. During the colonial period, it could take months for a foreign invader to reach us. With the technological advancements of our time, a foreign government could send one agent with a nuclear device across our borders to slaughter millions of our citizens. We cannot afford to pull our troops home from around the globe. We are the lone superpower in the world and with that comes a responsibility to help protect the defenseless.

We can all argue about the merits of going to war in Iraq and whether or not there were ever weapons of mass destruction, but one simple fact remains, we are there now and we must see this to its end. The Democrats and certain Republicans, including Ron Paul, are calling for us to bring our troops home now, but the sad little secret is that even if one of them wins in November of ’08, the troops will not, let me say that again for my “intellectual” friends, will not be spirited home by the middle of February of ’09. None of these candidates will sign off on that. They all know that it will create a bloodbath of the kind that has not been seen since we pulled all of our troops out of Vietnam. Although they would like nothing more than to saddle the Bush administration with that legacy, they are still human enough to do what is necessary to prevent the needless murder of millions.

While reading about Ron Paul, I realized that I share many of his same views on a majority of his issues, but I also realized that there are certain issues that are more important. I cannot in good conscience support his candidacy based on his positions about the use of military force. He is completely correct when he says that we should never send our troops into war without a declaration of war from the Congress. Unfortunately, in our politically charged times, we do not have a Congress that is mature enough to take the responsibility of such a declaration. They would rather shirk their responsibility off to the President, so that they may feign surprise and disgust at the President’s hunger for war. We live in a very dangerous world and at times we do need to preemptively strike to preserve our freedom and the freedom of our friends around the world.

Race, religion, ethnicity, and gender are all factors that are being put in play by the myriad of presidential candidates. The particular candidates are betting that their gender, or race, or religion, or ethnic background is the ‘X’ factor that will push their candidacy over the top. The majority of the Democratic candidates basically have the same set of core beliefs or positions. The same is true for the Republican candidates. Each campaign is looking for the one thing that sets them apart from the other candidates. Do these “classifications” really matter? Should they?

Will Italian-Americans flock to the polls just to vote for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani? Will veterans turn out in record numbers to vote for former Vietnam prisoner of war John McCain? Does the celebrity status of “Law and Order” actor Fred Thompson have enough power to propel him into the nomination? Will members of the Mormon church have enough sway to allow Mitt Romney become the first Mormon President? Will women vote for Hillary just because she is a woman? Will Hispanics feel compelled to vote for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson? Does Barak Obama have enough support from African-Americans to become the first African-American President?

New York Senator Hillary Clinton is vying to be the first woman President. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former Senator John Edwards, has created headlines this past week by suggesting that Clinton is campaigning more like a man than a woman. It was an obvious attempt to convince women voters that she is not the best choice for President. The Clinton campaign is hoping that women voters will gravitate towards her because of her gender. One thing I don’t understand is that by following that logic, the men will then vote for a male candidate. In my opinion, the campaign strategy is insulting to believe that women voters only look at the gender but men vote on issues.

I believe the idea that African-Americans are going to vote for Barak Obama based on the fact that he is an African-American, or that Hispanics will pull the lever for Bill Richardson because he is Latino is just as insulting. The same holds true for Giuliani’s Italian heritage. Why does anyone believe that a candidate’s ethnicity qualifies or disqualifies them to be President? Isn’t that a bit racist?

On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has fielded questions about his Mormon faith. Aspersions have been made about Romney’s faith and polygamy. First of all, I find it interesting that for all of the polygamy talk, Romney is one of the few Republican candidates that has been married only one time. Secondly, there are many other issues to consider before a candidate’s religion comes into play.

In the workplace, employers are required by law to overlook a person’s race, religion, gender, and many other factors in regards of hiring them for a job. In politics, many candidates are asking us to take a closer look at them because of these same characteristics that we are required to overlook in everyday life. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted an America where all people were judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. I am sure that he would agree that the candidate’s character is more important than their race, religion, or gender. You can make your own decision as to who to vote for in next year’s election, but I hope that your decision is based on more on character and issues than religion, ethnicity, or gender.

Shortly after the mid term elections last year the newly elected Democratic leadership promised the American taxpayers to “fix” the Alternative Minimum Tax. The AMT is a little known tax that was created almost 40 years ago to force 150 or so wealthy families to pay taxes. These families had not broken any law by not paying taxes, they simply used the tax code to avoid paying any income taxes. The AMT has grown over the 3 plus decades that it has been in existence to include over 3.8 million taxpayers in 2006. The major flaw with the AMT is that it does not take into account inflation or any tax cuts that have been implemented over the years.

I know what many are thinking right now. “This tax does not affect me. I am not in the top 1% or even the top 10% of wage earners.” The sad news is that within the next 3 years at least 26 million more taxpayers will be paying the AMT. The AMT does not take the place of your existing tax rate, it is an additional tax on top of your income tax. Estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, show that nearly every family with a total income of $100,000 will be paying $2000 more in taxes next year. Worse yet, many families with incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will see a $1000 increase in taxes.

Some Senate Democrats have proposed a plan that would eliminate the AMT but raise taxes on those with more than $500,000 in income. Many politicians up for reelection next year are afraid to back such a plan, because of being seen as proponents of tax increases. Another plan is to simply postpone the effect of the AMT for 2 years, conveniently after the next election, and then work on tax increases to offset any loss of tax revenue from the AMT. Why does the government always expect the taxpayers to do with less money, but never even consider that they should do with less money?

Let’s not forget that the Republicans were in control of Congress for 12 years and failed to do anything about the AMT. They also failed to act on making Bush’s tax cuts, which by the way have caused an increase in tax revenues over the past 6 years. Whatever happened to Republicans being the party of tax cuts and fiscal responsibility? I am not saying the Democrats have been any better about spending since they have been in power. The political promises of last election season that earmark spending would be transparent, has yet to be accomplished. Both political parties have been severely lacking when it comes to tightening the purse strings in Washington. Isn’t any wonder why congressional approval ratings are at historic lows?

Late Sunday evening, President Bush commuted the 30 month prison sentence for Scooter Libby. Libby, as you may recall, was convicted of obstructing the investigation of the CIA leak case and of making false statements during the investigation. Bush’s commutation does not pardon Libby, but rather allows him to remain a free man.

I would like to take a moment to review why Libby was even in his current predicament. Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as a Special Prosecutor to investigate who had leaked the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative. The crux of the case was that Plame was a covert CIA operative and the White House blew her cover as a smear attempt against her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson had written an op-ed in the New York Times condemning the administration’s claim that Iraq had attempted to obtain “yellow cake” uranium for weapons of mass destruction. The covert status of Plame has been debated time and time again and will continue to be. After all of the investigation one simple fact remains, Richard Armitage, then Deputy Secretary of State, was the original leak of Plame’s identity.

Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew within days of opening the investigation that Armitage was the leak, but yet Armitage was never charged and Fitzgerald continued his investigation. During his investigation he brought Libby before the Grand Jury multiple times. While on the stand, Libby made contradicting statements that led to charges being filed against him.

I may be a conservative in the minority by saying this but, Libby made false statements while under oath, and so he was correctly convicted of that charge. Even though he may have had a momentary lapse of memory, he still made false statements while under oath. I cannot in good conscience condemn former President Clinton for lying under oath, if I do not hold members of my own party to the same standard. I believe that Libby would never have been charged if Fitzpatrick had ended his investigation when Armitage came forward. After all, when Armitage admitted to being the source of the leak, the sole purpose of the investigation had been fulfilled. Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, saw an opportunity to make a name for himself, and continued the investigation in hoped of finding someone to charge with a crime.

As I stated above, Libby broke the law and was correctly convicted of his crimes. We could debate over the severity of Libby’s sentence of 30 months in prison, but that is a mute point now that his sentence has been commuted. President Bush has the constitutional right to commute the sentence or pardon anyone he deems worthy. Just as every President before him had the very same constitutional right. The political outcry was immediate and intense. Former President Clinton slammed the Bush administration for the decision to commute the prison sentence of Libby. Clinton seems to have forgotten his own presidential history of pardons, particularly the politically tied pardons of former congressman Dan Rostenkowski and Clinton loyalist Marc Rich. I say again, every President has the constitutional right to pardon anyone they want to, but it smacks of hypocrisy to hear a former President deride a current President’s choice of whose prison sentence to commute.

I personally support the President’s right to commute the sentence of Libby, but I am tired of the politically elite from both parties walking away from charges for which the average citizen would be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Would you or I be given the commutation? Would you or I be able to walk away as a free man if we had stolen classified documents from the National Archives as Sandy Berger did? For all of the yelling and screaming over the commutation, both sides need to check their partisanship at the door and look closely at historical precedence of pardons and of lying under oath.

The United States Senate failed pass a cloture motion that would have ended the debate over the controversial immigration reform package. The final vote was 46 in favor of cloture and 53 opposed. This was a stunning turnaround from the earlier vote this week that allowed the debate to edge closer to passage. If you have read my previous postings on this sham of a bill, you already know my feelings on this issue. So I won’t bore you with the myriad of reasons why this whole debate was ridiculous. I do want to talk about the message that many of the Senators that were ardent supporters of this reform package have sent to the people of the United States.

Throughout the past month of debate, we have heard many “intellectual” Senators in favor of this reform deal deride talk radio; claiming that the talking heads like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and Ingraham were leading the public astray with their lies and distortions. These claims are not new, in fact we have heard these same claims from many of the same people that are crying foul now. The difference this time is that Republican Senators are joining the chorus.

Senator Trent Lott claimed that talk radio was running the country, and that something needed to be done about it. Senator Lindsey Graham said that the “loud people” were the ones opposing the bill. I find it amusing that these same Senators have no problem appearing on talk radio shows when the commentators are agreeing with their point of view, but as soon as there is disagreement, then talk radio needs to be silenced.

Senators Diane Feinstein and Dick Durbin have openly called for the discussion to start on the return of the “Fairness Doctrine” to rein in talk radio. Senator Jim Inhofe claims to have overheard fellow Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer discussing the need to find a “legislative fix” for talk radio. Why do politicians, of both parties apparently, automatically resort to finding a “legislative fix” for silencing their opposition? After all, wasn’t that what the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act was all about?

Before my left leaning friends start the cacophony of agreement with these misguided Senators, let’s take a closer look at the possibilities of such an action. First of all, it is disheartening to see Senators looking into silencing opposition. Their claim is to want balance in the media, but who decides what is balanced? If it is left up to the Senators, then we would be reading about how this immigration bill flew through Congress with bipartisan support.

Secondly, would the policy change every 2 to 4 years depending on who was in control of Congress or the White House? Obviously not everyone believes that the 3 major news networks are unbiased, so how would we get everyone to agree on a set of standards of “fairness”? What I believe is fair is not necessarily what you believe. If the Democrats are in control then we have Al Franken on the all talk radio, but if the Republicans win then we have wall to wall Rush?

No one is stopping Air America from becoming a success. The only thing standing in their way is their management, and maybe their talent. Rush Limbaugh is a success because he is a very talented talk radio host. Does he espouse conservative principles? Yes he does, but he is also very entertaining at the same time. Air America had the idea of just hiring liberal hosts and expecting it to work because they were the alternative to Limbaugh. Like it or not, talk radio is a business. Without listeners, who drive the ratings, no advertisers are going to buy air time on your shows. To keep the listeners, you need to provide some value to them. If the “Fairness Doctrine” is implemented, then stations will be required to offer a balanced format from both sides. Limbaugh would not go away, he is the most listened to radio program in the country, he would just be followed by someone like Al Franken. Based on Franken’s ratings while on the air, the radio station would start to lose money on advertising. The station management would be left with 2 choices, stay with the current format and lose money, or change formats.

Where would the “Fairness Doctrine” stop? Would it be limited to just political commentary? Or would religious programming be affected as well? Would the local Christian music station be required to play secular music just to be “fair”. Would a station that airs “Focus on the Family” be required to air a secular equivalent to James Dobson? What about the internet? Would we still be able to post on blogs without providing a “balanced” approach? I realize that the internet does not fall under the same rules as radio, but once you start playing the “fairness” game, it is awfully hard to stop, especially for politicians.

Congressman Mike Pence introduced legislation in the House to prevent the “Fairness Doctrine” from ever become law again. In Pence’s words he says, "The Broadcaster Freedom Act will prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from prescribing rules, regulations, or policies that will reinstate the requirement that broadcasters present opposing viewpoints in controversial issues of public importance. The Broadcaster Freedom Act will prevent the FCC or any future President from reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. This legislation ensures true freedom and fairness will remain on our radio airwaves, and I would encourage my colleagues to cosponsor and support this bill.”

Will this legislation ever see the light of day? Only time will tell, but I believe that any attempt to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” is the wrong action to take. We should question any politician that wants to stifle the opposition legislatively. Remember that even though you may not like Rush and what he stands for, the limits placed on him could eventually be placed on your interests in the future.

The President and Congress refuse to listen to the American people and let the latest version of the immigration reform bill die. The proponents of the bill speak about the need to do this now and that any changes will render the entire bill meaningless. They vilify anyone who dares to question the aspects of the bill. They have used a myriad of insults and labels to try to quiet the deafening outcry from the very same people who voted them into power.

The latest poll done by Zogby International has shown that virtually no one in the country believes that Congress or the administration is properly handling the illegal immigration issue. A paltry 9% of respondents support the President’s efforts on this topic. As bad as Bush’s numbers are, Congress rates even lower at a shocking 3%. These numbers are even more surprising when it is revealed that the illegal immigration issue is the second most important issue facing our country today. How can a President and a majority of Congress ignore over 90% of the American public?

Over the past several weeks we have witnessed many of the advocates of this bill go on a media blitz to try to win support. All of them use the same lines about how we are all just wrong about the bill and how now is the only time we can accomplish this reform. There are several questions that have risen up in my feeble little mind while listening to the rants.

First of all, we are told that this bill does not provide amnesty because those that are here illegally must pay a fine and wait about 8 years before they can become citizens. In the meantime they can apply for Z visas and live and work as normal U.S. citizens. This aspect of Z visas is a slap in the face of all of the legal immigrants that are currently here working on H1B visas. These legal immigrants cannot change jobs or get a promotion without losing their place in line for a green card. Z visa recipients are not held to these same standards.

Secondly, we are told that the act of crossing the border illegally is nothing more than a misdemeanor and the punishment, a $5000 fine, fits the crime. That logic assumes that once here the illegal immigrant breaks no other laws. The proponents have told us that they are here to do work that Americans won’t do. Let’s look at that statement. In order to do work “legally” they must have a valid social security number, which because they broke the law to get here, do not. In this case they either buy a valid SSN, which has been stolen from someone else, or they simply make one up. Both situations are crimes. If they decide to work “under the table” without reporting any income to the IRS, then we are looking at tax fraud. Add these to the already acknowledged misdemeanor of being here illegally and the punishment certainly does not fit the crime.

Following the logic that they are here to do work that Americans won’t do, if the jobs paid more than Americans would line up to work in the fields. The illegal immigrants accept less money than American citizens do to do the same work. They accept less because of their illegal status. Does anyone believe that they will continue to work for less money than the employee next to them once they attain legal status? There are also many cases where INS has gone in and conducted raids at manufacturing facilities and rounded up hundreds of illegal immigrants. The factory then has to fill those positions with legal workers. In every case those jobs, that Americans just won’t do, were filled immediately.

The proponents of this reform legislation have said that the current laws don’t provide stiff enough penalties to employers or illegal immigrants to deter anyone from breaking the law. That is why we need to act now to beef up the law. That is a frightening statement. So if a punishment is not harsh enough, we just don’t enforce the law? That does not make any sense, but yet that is essentially what we are being told. Here is a novel idea. Why don’t we try enforcing the current laws as written and see how effective they are?

This is precisely why the American public does not have any faith in the government, be it the President or Congress, to make this reform package work. The bureaucrats in Washington tried this same approach in the 60’s and the 80’s to combat illegal immigration. Even the feeble minded, like myself, can see that their reforms didn’t work in either case previously, but yet we should trust them to get it right this time? The country is at a unique point in our history, the voters of both parties are very unhappy with their elected representatives. The elections of next year could very well determine what path our country goes down. Will we continue with the status quo approach of sending the same tired candidates back to Washington? Or will there be a political uprising, where the voters of this great country send men and women to Washington who are more interested in doing what is best for our country than furthering their political careers?

This week marks the 20^th anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s speech before the Berlin Wall. Reagan’s remarks were immediately condemned by the left wing political pundits, the state department bureaucrats, and the media. Their main point of contention was the phrase, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Their fear was the same throughout Reagan’s entire presidency. The bureaucratic apprehension was that at any moment, Reagan would plunge the United States and the rest of the world into a nuclear holocaust.

For all of the wailing and shrieking from the far left, Reagan was elected in a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter. Four years later, Reagan defeated Walter Mondale in a historic landslide victory. What made Reagan unique was his steadfast belief in freedom and the potential of the American people. His policies and leadership brought the country out of the malaise of the Carter years. Reagan’s conservative ideals turned around the double digit inflation and nightmarish unemployment lines.

This week also marked a renewed effort by President Bush and the Congress to push through the Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill. The bill has created a deep rift between the administration and the conservative base of the Republican party. The base is demanding that the border be secured first and then we can discuss the other aspects of the immigration bill. The supporters of the bill have alienated all those who are opposed to the bill, causing many within the party to question the commitment of the party to conservatism.

I realize that Reagan signed the immigration bill in 1986 that granted amnesty to over 3 million illegal immigrants, but I believe that the Republican party needs a Reaganesque candidate for 2008. I firmly believe that the Republicans don’t stand a chance unless someone emerges to lead the party back to conservatism. Reagan believed that all of us were created to be free, and with that freedom we have the potential to be great. Listening to the current crop of declared candidates from both parties, reminds me of a bad high school play. A group of amateurs trying to act like something they are not.

Senator John McCain may try to sound like a conservative, but his recent staunch support for the immigration bill has sealed his fate as a RINO(Republican In Name Only). Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is a conservative on some of the issues, such as the war on terror and taxes, but on many of the other pressing issues he has struggled to find a position. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is conservative as well on many issues, but he has labored over the past few years to find his conservative voice. Shouldn’t a presidential candidate know where they stand before they declare themselves a candidate?

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a conservative that knows where he stands and hasn’t waffled on the issues of today. Newt’s biggest obstacle, should he decide to run, is that he led the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton while he was having his own extramarital affair. I know that the impeachment was not about sex or adultery, but it is too big of a target for the media, blogosphere, or the Democratic competition.

Former Senator Fred Thompson is also a potential candidate who knows where he stands on the issues. Thompson has been a conservative for his entire political career, but questions arose when he supported the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform bill. Fred has honed his communication skills over the years as an actor in movies and the TV series “Law And Order”. Thompson could be the candidate to carry the Reagan mantle, but only time will tell. There is still plenty of time before the first votes are cast in the primaries.

I am an opinionated conservative. Because I have strong opinions and I am not afraid to voice my opinion, I have developed a thick skin for name calling and personal attacks. I am not unique in that respect. Many of my friends on the opposite end of the political spectrum have become accustomed to the vitriolic attacks on their beliefs. Most of us that enjoy the political process realize that this is all part of the game, but normally the attacks come from the other party.

This latest feeble attempt at immigration reform has brought out some of the worst attacks from the leaders of the Republican party. In the past couple of weeks, anyone who is opposed to the bill has been called xenophobic, bigoted, racist, unpatriotic, and had our intelligence questioned. Linda Chavez wrote an article recently where she equated the opposition to the bill to racism and hatred for anyone from “south of the border”. When pressed on the issue, Chavez admitted that a minority of the opposition, roughly 10%, is made up of the xenophobes.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal recently released some audio of one of their editorial meetings. Their condescension for the conservatives that were opposed to the bill was loud and obnoxious. I am the first to admit that I am not a scholar or an intellectual. I do not have a Master’s degree or even a Bachelor’s degree. I think the only time I am the smartest person in the room, is when I am alone. Even though I am intellectually challenged, I can see that this is bad legislation. One aspect stands out though, the “Intellectuals” have been working on reforming immigration for over 40 years and not resolved the problem. Maybe it is time we listen to those of us who are the uninformed and less intelligent than the political elite.

Not all of the politicians in Washington D.C. have succumbed to the political pressure from their parties to back this bill. From the start of this debate over 2 weeks ago, the supporters of the bill warned that any changes to the bill would cause the legislation to be ineffective. Many proposals have been blocked by the once staunch supporters of the reform. One amendment that was defeated was to block the legal status of those illegal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported by a judge, but then failed to appear in court.

The Democrats are not without blame on this reform bill. Senator Edward Kennedy was a driving force in the writing of this bill. Kennedy has been a key player on every major immigration reform package since his political career began over 40 years ago. I have to ask the question, if Teddy has not been able to fix this problem in 40 years of trying the same tactics, why does he believe this will be any different? Can anyone tell me a simple definition of insanity? For my “intellectual” readers, doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently said that if this bill fails it will be seen as a failure for President Bush. I agree that it will be seen as a failure for Bush, but it should also be seen as a failure for Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and any other politician that backed this bill. They should also be held accountable if the bill passes as it is written now. Reid and the Democrats could not even muster the necessary 60 votes to end debate on Thursday and bring the measure to a full vote. They only managed to get 33 votes to end the debate. Hardly close to the slim majority that the Democrats hold in the Senate.

I am usually not prone to political predictions, but in this case I will go out on a limb and make a few predictions. If this bill passes as it is written now, the Republicans will lose more seats in both houses of Congress and have zero chance of a Republican candidate winning the White House in 2008. The conservatives will not suddenly vote for the Democrats. They will back challengers to the incumbents in the primaries and will stay home on election day rather than vote for any candidate that had a hand in passing this legislation into law. One other point that has conservatives up in arms is the wall to wall assault by the administration in support of this bill. Where has this energy been on other issues for which the conservative base was screaming?

On Wednesday the Gather homepage, www.gather.com, posted a poll that asked if you would be willing to pay more in taxes for Universal Health Care. Out of the almost 200 respondents, a shocking 57% answered yes. I assume that most of the people answering yes have an amount that would be too high to pay in taxes for health care, social security, welfare, or even national defense. The poll did not mention how much you would have pay in taxes for the coverage, which is not that different from many of the health care plans being touted by some of the presidential candidates.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama released the “details” of his plan recently, during which he mentioned that it would provide an average of $2500 savings for each individual covered. He plans to make the government, businesses, and consumers share in the cost. Allow me to translate that last statement. Each and every one of us will be footing the entire bill for this health care coverage. The government has no means of making money to pay into the system. They rely on tax revenues from all of us to pay the bills. Businesses pay their taxes, for everything not just health care, by incorporating their taxes into the price of their product or service. Their customers pay their taxes by buying their product or service. If the business tax goes up to help pay for health care then so will the price of their product or service. Lastly the consumer is privileged to pay whatever cost is left.

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton was first on the scene in 1993 during her husband’s first year in the White House. She was the point person for the Health Care Reform plan that the White House tried to push through Congress. Her website states that she wears the “scars” of fighting for health care reform. Her reform was ultimately defeated after “aggressive opposition”. Keep in mind that her version of reform was defeated by a Democrat controlled House and Senate. Her own party rejected her plan in 1994 and was one of the reasons for the Republican takeover of Congress that same year. She has not offered a new plan, so we can only surmise that she will reintroduce her original health care reform plan.

Former Senator John Edwards offer the most details of his health care plan, calling for, among other things, all Americans to contribute to drive down the cost of health insurance, and to expand Medicaid. He also talks of tax credits and using “innovative” ways to control health care costs. I admit that I am leery of any politician that says they will “find innovative ways to control health care costs”. In my skeptical mind, that simply means higher taxes. A brief look at history will show that most attempts by the government to “control” the cost of a product or service, usually drives the price of that product or service up in the long run.

Proponents of this Universal Health Care, or Socialized Medicine, point to Canada and to Cuba as shining examples of how well Socialized Medicine does work. A simple Google search provided a few major media stories that show a different story. Canada offers free health care for all, but you just have to wait in a little line to be seen. One doctor spoke of a letter informing a patient of an electrocardiogram in 3 months, a significant wait for someone with a heart condition. An added statement on the letter is frightening. It added: "If the person named on this computer-generated letter is deceased, please accept our sincere apologies." Controversial filmmaker Michael Moore’s recent movie “Sicko” is a look at health care and points to Cuba as having world class health care. Mr. Moore neglects to point out that when Cuban dictator Fidel Castro needed surgery he had a Spanish surgeon flown in to perform the surgery. If Cuba has the finest health care available, why would the leader of that country need to fly in a surgeon for his own surgery?

One aspect of each plan posited that is the same is that in order to pay for the reform, taxes will need to be raised. None of the candidates have mentioned how much taxes will need to be raised to pay for their plans. Obama mentions that he will rollback the temporary tax cuts for the wealthy. He does not inform us of what the criteria is for being considered wealthy. Wealth is a relative term. For a person who makes $20,000 a year, anyone who makes more than they do could be considered wealthy by comparison. I find it amusing that the last time a presidential candidate publicly admitted that they were going to raise taxes if elected, it was 1984 and the candidate was Walter Mondale. For the record, he lost 49 out of 50 states in the general election to President Ronald Reagan.

Health care in the United States is by no means perfect, but what country in the world has better health care? There is room for improvement in any system, but creating a socialistic system of health care is not the answer. Every time the government tries to “reform” something, we all end up paying more in taxes and the “reform” is worse than what we had in the first place. The Medicare reform plan that was passed a few years ago, more than doubled in cost before the ink on the bill was dry. Why does anyone believe that this government plan will be any different?