What is a Republican anyway?

Over the past few weeks a number of letters to the editor and several articles have appeared in my local papers about the ongoing disarray within the GOP ranks. Some writers have called for the firing of the state party chair and others continue to nibble away at the makeup of the rank and file like flesh-eating bacteria…but to compare those people to bacteria is to insult the germ.

While recovering in the hospital last week, I was visited by Ellen and Bill Spiegel. She is the new State Assemblywoman for my district, taking my place. She and her husband also happen to be Democrats, he more than she. I am still registered Republican, but I have often wondered aloud in conversation with Bill as to whether or not I should change my registration. The party has changed and not at all for the better.

Bill told me in no uncertain terms that I should not register Democrat. He is a consistent reader of this blog and in his opinion I am a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. It is his feeling that I would feel even more out of place in the Democrat ranks than in the GOP. Why is that? What is a Republican?

It used to be that to be a member of the party; one had to share certain common beliefs with the other members. Some of those beliefs were in the reality and rock solid foundation of our constitution. The constitution and not the casual interpretation of it by activist judges was the law of the land. To be a Republican you had to stand for freedom and civil rights, and for those rights to be available for all…equally. One group could not have additional rights or freedoms above another, period and regardless of politics.

You had to be in favor of allowing the market to do its job without governmental encumbrance. A business failed or succeeded on its merits, not because it was a better thief than the others. Understanding that the free exercise of religion was a paramount item in the formation of this country was also very important. How that religion was practiced was not so important, just the freedom to do so…and it did not matter where you did so, regardless of who became upset over your praying.

For myself, I believe that being a Republican means being honest, forthright, compassionate and pragmatic. Simply because someone has more than someone else does not mean they are a better person or have more rights and privileges within our society than anyone else. We are supposed to be a nation of law, not of lawyers. As for the free market, it is meant to be survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest. The government has no place in commerce outside of general regulation to keep everyone honest. Anything beyond that is a direct violation of our constitution.

Tammy Bruce opined the other day that a lot of people in Washington deserve to be behind bars. I tend to agree with her. She only mentioned Democrats, but I say that the crimes are bipartisan and we have more than enough villains in both parties to go around. Money has become the chief arbiter of power and legislation these days and today’s Republican Party cannot abide an honest man. I may not fit in the Democrat niche, but it is certainly no picnic here in the GOP closet either.

Magic Negro funny...if you’re not a Democrat

Paul Shanklin wrote a song parody to the tune of “Puff the Magic Dragon” about the March 2007 opinion piece by LA Times writer David Ehrenstein. The title of Ehrenstein’s piece was “Obama the Magic Negro”, about how voting for Obama would alleviate the collective white guilt built up about all the wrongs the white race has committed in the past.

What is not written in the variety of liberal columns decrying this latest example of conservative hate is the list of parodies and outright vicious slanders written about Republican candidates and Presidents. Where is it stated that Democrats get a pass in their behavior? Who decreed that the 98% of the media who slavishly follow liberal dictates get to not only anoint our leadership, but also are given the power to destroy the reputation of anyone who disagrees with their political opinion.

Barrack Obama is not God; he isn’t even god with the little “g”. He is a fallible human animal, just like all the rest of us. A number of people reading this reading may consider that last statement as blasphemy of the highest order. I’ll go along with them if Obama can pass one little test. All he has to do is be born of a virgin, follow God’s law implicitly while performing several verifiable miracles, be crucified unjustly, killed and then rise again after three days in the presence of witnesses and then rise into heaven. If he can do that, he’s got my vote for deity status.

Another example of liberal heavy-handedness is the uproar over Obama’s invitation of Pastor Rick Warren, author of “The Purpose Driven Life”. That book wasn’t the unforgivable sin for the liberals, though it wasn’t taken as an example of proper teaching. No, Warren’s sin was to say he agreed with California’s Prop 8. He didn’t campaign for the proposition’s passage. He didn’t spend much time discussing it, not even from the pulpit. All he did was exercise his constitutional right to state an opinion, but as far as the liberals are concerned, only they have that right.

If Pastor Warren is allowed to be involved in the inauguration of America’s first President of color, according to the liberal, a crime against the constitution will be committed. To be accurate, Obama is not black, he is not Negro, he is of mixed parentage; black and white. In spite of this glaring inconsistency, the liberal media considers Barrack Obama to be the leader on their short list of historic black American political figures. Figures such as Justice Thomas and Secretary of State Rice need not apply. According to liberal dogma, they surrendered their black identity when they “gasp” joined the conservative ranks.

Liberals have somehow gotten the idea that Black American can only go one way, to the left. This flies in the face of statistical demography. In my own Assembly district in Nevada, more black voters than not voted for candidates the liberals would have said not to. A number of these candidates were not Republican, and to be completely honest, they were not Democrat, even though they ran under the label; they were representatives, not politicians.

America’s voting public comes in every skin tone imaginable, not just the pale peach we call white, or the sienna brown we call black. In all colors, including the ruddy American tones and the ocher oriental, they operate under a constitution that was written by men well aware of what an oppressive governmental system can and will do. If the voters allow the media to make their decisions for them, they deserve every loss of freedom that will occur. It is obvious to any observer with half a brain that the ownership of today’s media considers the First Amendment their sole property and that all others, especially those few in the media who do not share their socialistic dictatorship agenda, have no such right. Paul Shanklin and Rick Warren, and yes even President-elect Obama have placed themselves directly into the crosshairs of this conflict by standing up for their beliefs.

I wish more Americans would do the same.

This Christmas

Christmas is a time when nearly every person in the western world wants to be home with friends and family gathered around. The mental picture of the first Christmas brings a warm scene of Mary holding her newborn to her breast while Joseph looks on. Peering over Mary and Joseph’s shoulders are the animals lodged within the stable. Since that first Christmas, that feeling is what we all strive for. Friendship, the communal sense of family and of belonging, these are what make Christmas, Christmas. The presents, the food and the never-ending carols are all simply additional window dressing.

This Christmas is the first where I am the oldest living member of my family. It is a strange and rather lonely feeling being the “older generation”. Let’s face it, people of my age were the generation that brought along tie dye, long hair, patchouli oil masquerading as hippie perfume, and the free-form twitching we called dancing. We are the generation that vowed to never grow old and to never trust anyone over thirty. Now, I have socks older than thirty and underwear that qualifies for AARP. But I have never lost my love of Christmas.

Some folks consider only the gifts where Christmas is concerned; the larger, the more elaborate and expensive the gift, the better the Christmas. All right, let’s consider that criteria: The first Christmas present wasn’t gold, frankincense, or myrrh, it was far more valuable. The creator of the universe, the one who stands outside of time and space and envisioned the utter incomprehensible complexity of the web of life, stepped out of heaven and entered base humanity as a helpless baby, and not just a baby, but one born to a family on the poor side of the tracks. The reason for that gift comes along every Easter.

This Christmas is especially poignant for me, and not just because of the reason I mentioned earlier. For the past few months I’ve been dealing with a progressive numbness that began with my toes and now extends upwards to my hips. Because of a family history, I was worried about the possibility of MS or even cancer, but that turned out to be a needless fear. It seems my body doesn’t metabolize all those B12 vitamins I’ve been taking all these years. The result is the formation of an inflammation within the cervical spinal cord similar to that caused by Transverse myelitis. The difference being that this form doesn’t come along with the agonizing pain of the other. Treatment is a course of steroids over a period of three days and several B12 shots.

So, I get to spend the three days after Christmas in the hospital. If any one wants to visit, I’ll be in the St. Rose facility off 125 and Eastern just outside of Anthem. Just be forewarned, I’ll be a highlands Celt on steroids.

There is no First Amendment Right to Lie

The news about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his retailing of Obama’s Senate seat has spread across the news media at light speed. What is most surprising about this is the number of people shocked at this revelation. Apparently quite a few people in this country are still under the impression that most politicians are honest, decent people. We are still, obviously, a nation of Pollyanna’s. Of course, the election of Obama proves that contention.

In the past a few courageous representatives had the cahonies to offer up bills that would have mandated honesty in political speech. The reaction of their peers was, to say the least, telling. In strident tones akin to how Obama’s pastor delivers a sermon, these men and women were dressed down as fools at best and traitors to the American way of life at worst. Illinois is not the only bastion of corruption in the country. Washington DC has been offering graduate courses in the discipline for nearly two centuries. Here in my home state of Nevada we have a sign dedicating a government building. On the sign are the names of the County Commissioners that were sitting in office at that time. Of the seven on that list, four are now serving prison terms.

When I served in the Nevada Legislature, I worked up the number of legislators I felt could be counted on to keep their word, regards of the financial or political cost. The list was considerably longer at the beginning of my term than at the end.

Expediency now rules that day. I have been told more often than not buy sitting politicians that unless I am willing to compromise my integrity, I have no hope of ever gaining another political office. The big campaign donors will not support someone who has standards. Sadly, I have come to believe them.

The First Amendment to the Constitution reads thusly: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

You will notice that speech is the third clause in this contract with the American People. The Founding Fathers felt that dealing with religion was more important. (That revelation alone would cause a riot in some universities.) You will also notice that “false speech” is not mentioned. Simply because lying is not listed does not mean it is included in the freedom of speech. Some lawyers are paid per day what most if us consider a nice quarterly wage to research contextual intentions in our country’s founding documents. A very brief read-through will show that lying was condemned by every member of the constitutional convention. In fact, “dealing falsely” was one of the reasons for the seceding of the Americas from the British Empire. So why do our governments, State and Federal, bend over so far to protect liars? Why do they react so violently when honesty is suggested as a mandated item in political performance?

The reason is that dishonesty has become an ingrained part of the American way of life. We begin with the “little white lie” to protect someone’s feelings, and when enough of those have numbed our conscience, we move on to larger and larger lies, including the ones we tell our spouses and the IRS. Perhaps this is why Sarah Palin was so viciously attacked by women’s groups and continues to be so, including in the funny pages.

Some say a politician who is “too honest” is a danger because of the diplomatic repercussions. People are forgetting the legacy of Ronald Reagan. He refrained from telling even the little white lies, managing rather to place the uncomfortable truth into true diplomatic terms, adding a touch of humor and thus adding to his respect.

Today our broadcast media is filed with lies…most of them commercials for items that we not only don’t need but could be potentially fatal if used. The purveyors of these products hide behind their perverted view of the First Amendment as protection and those whose duty it is to police the airwaves sit back and let the crooks get away with their crimes. It was once said that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it. That day has indeed come and I don’t see it getting any better until the American Voter wakes up.

We do not need Ideologues, we need Idealists.

I have found that it is an understanding of the subtleties of the English language that is the last item on the learning list, especially if that learner is a member of the media; doubly so if that learner is a political pundit who believes their own hype.

This lesson is no more apparent than in the ramblings of the right wing fringe that piloted the ship of the GOP onto this last election’s iceberg. The general topic of conversation from these ideologues has been about how the so-called moderate republicans were the ones who caused the current situation. For the life of me, I cannot see how those who thought the Bush agenda of talking conservative while spending and acting like Harry Reid’s evil twin was the wrong way to go, could be the source of the GOP’s current lack of power.

It must be pointed out that these same ideologues were the one’s who saw no dichotomy in proclaiming John McCain their perfect candidate, even though the good senator’s voting record and bills suggest he is far from what any intelligent observer of history would call conservative. These same pundits saw no hypocrisy in supporting McCain while in the background they worked overtime to trash the reputation of his running mate, Sarah Palin. In my opinion, it was the Alaskan Governor’s unfailing and effective opposition to corruption, even when it arose within her own party, which set these so-called bastions of conservatism against her.

In my own state of Nevada, I experienced a similar reaction. As a freshman State Assemblyman, I was attacked by my own party leadership because I wrote a bill that would have forced a business leader to obey an existing law protecting employees from theft by those employing them. For those reporters reading this, I will restate it in simpler language. My bill would have stopped the boss stealing from his workers. Because of this bill, every leading member of the Republican Party in Nevada began working to remove me from my Assembly seat. I was even warned by a sitting State Senator, a State Senator who attends nearly ever bible study held during session, to remove my opposition to this businessman’s theft. My Canadian readers will notice the obvious hypocrisy.

An ideologue will follow the party line regardless where it leads. Corrupt, illegal, even immoral actions are of no consequence. Only party loyalty matters. Those who step out of line, especially those who effectively clean up corruption within the party, are considered traitors to the cause. An idealist is an anathema. An idealist cannot be corrupted and is therefore untrustworthy to the corrupt. Even worse, an idealist cannot be bought. The phrase, “He’s too honest, we can’t trust him,” was spoken by the Nevada Republican Party Chairwoman concerning my own political future after I proved I wasn’t for sale at any price. This was the same chairwoman who violated both state and federal law by ordering the state convention closed before the final vote could be counted. This order came after Ron Paul won the majority of delegates. His wasn’t the prevailing ideology the leadership could afford to support.

To be fair, both major parties are rife with corruption. In fact, corruption has become the common state of affairs; the recent Senate Seat for Sale affair in Illinois is an example of Democrat corruption. Ted Stevens’ 30 year reign of selling his vote in Alaska is a prime example of GOP corruption. Between these two towering infernos of graft stands the thinning herd of idealists. To the idealist, the constitution should be the final arbiter of any concern within and without this country. The Founding Fathers set up hard and fast rules as to how this country should treat its citizens and how the citizens should act out their citizenship. Party ideologues find the constitution an inconvenience at best, and an enemy to be thwarted at worst. They will place the welfare of governments openly hostile to America before that of Americans if there is money to be had in the deal. The ongoing negotiation with Mexico in regard to the US/Mexico super highway is an example. The arrest and conviction of Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean because they had the audacity to stop a Mexican drug runner from completing his mission, is another. The Bush Administration’s firing of every federal prosecutor who appeared to be competently honest, is a glaring third. For an ideologue, honesty is not a virtue.

We need Idealists in this country, not Ideologues…whether they be right wing or left wing makes not difference. The past eight years has shown us the result of ideologue leadership. Ronald Reagan asked a very pertinent question of America when he was debating Jimmy Carter, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” I can ask the same now, but let’s change the number from four to eight. Carter’s ideology evaporated the last vestiges of a robust economy like the summer sun on a snowflake. Bush’s ideology has produced an even more devastating result simply because he was granted twice the amount of time.

An idealist functions within the framework of what should be, not what is. The Founding Fathers gave us a template of what should be. Within that framework is the principle of fairness regardless of you circumstances. Everyone, regardless of sex, race, age, or position should be given the same consideration and the same opportunity. Position, power, wealth…none of these should matter in the eyes of the law. That is the world of the idealist and it is adamantly opposed to that of the ideologue.

At least, that’s how it should be.

Right Wing Insanity

The Nevada Legislature held a special session this last Monday, December 8th. The minimum cost of this special session was $100,000 per day. The reason for this lavish waste of the taxpayers money? To cut costs. A brief skim of the Nevada Constitution will show that the power to do this rests in the Governor’s hands, but our Governor, “Thumbs” Gibbons (over 800 text messages to his girlfriend while he was cheating on his wife), didn’t want to do the hard job of deciding where to cut cost and to raise revenue. So he called in the legislature to do the dirty work for him.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. During the 2007 session of the legislature, the Mayors of Reno, Sparks and Carson City wanted to have the Legislature ok the formation of a Northern Nevada Water Authority, even though they had full authority to do so on their own. They didn’t want to do so because it was more expedient for the voters to be mad at us than them. It is interesting to note that honesty in politics, real honesty, is as rare as hen’s teeth. The media, the pundits, the politicians and yes, even the voters, will attack honesty whenever it rears its offensive head.

Yesterday an article was printed in the Las Vegas Review Journal entitled “We Need More Right Wing Ideologues”. The author of that article is know for strident criticism of anyone he considers to be less than his idea of pure Republican, even though he is not a member of the party. During the last election, the GOP received a total shellacking and lost any semblance of power they may have had during the last session. RWI’s (right wing ideologues) like as this writer (I will not name him because he has done nothing to deserve such acknowledgement) have done more to hurt the Republican Party than corrupt governors have hurt the Illinois Democrats.

Cheap shot though it is, the statement is true. If the radicals are allowed to take over any organization, logic and civil discourse leave. I have tried to speak intelligently to the writer. Doing so is impossible. An ideologue cannot carry on a conversation, much less a debate without emotion taking over. Compromise and consensus are concepts totally alien to them, and if forced to participate, only result in frustration for all involved.

During the last eight years the Republican Party experienced a nearly fatal combination of Ideologue fanaticism and Democrat-style spending. The mix of the two have given us Democrat supermajorities in both Washington and several states. One would think that an intelligent person would see history in action and learn from it. Apparently that is too much to expect from the writer. A basic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time. What does it say about a person when they insist on not only repeating the disastrous action, but doing more of it?

Right Wing Insanity

The Nevada Legislature held a special session this last Monday, December 8th. The minimum cost of this special session was $100,000 per day. The reason for this lavish waste of the taxpayers money? To cut costs. A brief skim of the Nevada Constitution will show that the power to do this rests in the Governor’s hands, but our Governor, “Thumbs” Gibbons (over 800 text messages to his girlfriend while he was cheating on his wife), didn’t want to do the hard job of deciding where to cut cost and to raise revenue. So he called in the legislature to do the dirty work for him.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. During the 2007 session of the legislature, the Mayors of Reno, Sparks and Carson City wanted to have the Legislature ok the formation of a Northern Nevada Water Authority, even though they had full authority to do so on their own. They didn’t want to do so because it was more expedient for the voters to be mad at us than them. It is interesting to note that honesty in politics, real honesty, is as rare as hen’s teeth. The media, the pundits, the politicians and yes, even the voters, will attack honesty whenever it rears its offensive head.

Yesterday an article was printed in the Las Vegas Review Journal entitled “We Need More Right Wing Ideologues”. The author of that article is know for strident criticism of anyone he considers to be less than his idea of pure Republican, even though he is not a member of the party. During the last election, the GOP received a total shellacking and lost any semblance of power they may have had during the last session. RWI’s (right wing ideologues) like as this writer (I will not name him because he has done nothing to deserve such acknowledgement) have done more to hurt the Republican Party than corrupt governors have hurt the Illinois Democrats.

Cheap shot though it is, the statement is true. If the radicals are allowed to take over any organization, logic and civil discourse leave. I have tried to speak intelligently to the writer. Doing so is impossible. An ideologue cannot carry on a conversation, much less a debate without emotion taking over. Compromise and consensus are concepts totally alien to them, and if forced to participate, only result in frustration for all involved.

During the last eight years the Republican Party experienced a nearly fatal combination of Ideologue fanaticism and Democrat-style spending. The mix of the two have given us Democrat supermajorities in both Washington and several states. One would think that an intelligent person would see history in action and learn from it. Apparently that is too much to expect from the writer. A basic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time. What does it say about a person when they insist on not only repeating the disastrous action, but doing more of it?

Right Wing Insanity

The Nevada Legislature held a special session this last Monday, December 8th. The minimum cost of this special session was $100,000 per day. The reason for this lavish waste of the taxpayers money? To cut costs. A brief skim of the Nevada Constitution will show that the power to do this rests in the Governor’s hands, but our Governor, “Thumbs” Gibbons (over 800 text messages to his girlfriend while he was cheating on his wife), didn’t want to do the hard job of deciding where to cut cost and to raise revenue. So he called in the legislature to do the dirty work for him.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. During the 2007 session of the legislature, the Mayors of Reno, Sparks and Carson City wanted to have the Legislature ok the formation of a Northern Nevada Water Authority, even though they had full authority to do so on their own. They didn’t want to do so because it was more expedient for the voters to be mad at us than them. It is interesting to note that honesty in politics, real honesty, is as rare as hen’s teeth. The media, the pundits, the politicians and yes, even the voters, will attack honesty whenever it rears its offensive head.

Yesterday an article was printed in the Las Vegas Review Journal entitled “We Need More Right Wing Ideologues”. The author of that article is know for strident criticism of anyone he considers to be less than his idea of pure Republican, even though he is not a member of the party. During the last election, the GOP received a total shellacking and lost any semblance of power they may have had during the last session. RWI’s (right wing ideologues) like as this writer (I will not name him because he has done nothing to deserve such acknowledgement) have done more to hurt the Republican Party than corrupt governors have hurt the Illinois Democrats.

Cheap shot though it is, the statement is true. If the radicals are allowed to take over any organization, logic and civil discourse leave. I have tried to speak intelligently to the writer. Doing so is impossible. An ideologue cannot carry on a conversation, much less a debate without emotion taking over. Compromise and consensus are concepts totally alien to them, and if forced to participate, only result in frustration for all involved.

During the last eight years the Republican Party experienced a nearly fatal combination of Ideologue fanaticism and Democrat-style spending. The mix of the two have given us Democrat supermajorities in both Washington and several states. One would think that an intelligent person would see history in action and learn from it. Apparently that is too much to expect from the writer. A basic definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result each time. What does it say about a person when they insist on not only repeating the disastrous action, but doing more of it?

The Death of Common Sense

A Memorial to Common Sense:
Common Sense died this year in a tragic mishap. Common’s best friends, Responsibility, Morality, Ethics and Virtue seemed to have also been victim’s of the tragedy. Civil Rights, a close associate of Common Sense is currently in the ICU; the prognosis is not good.

An obituary such as this may seem cynically comical, but in actuality, it is not. Consider the current climate in Washington. Many think the election of Barrack Obama to the Presidency signifies a new era in American government. They see the elimination of poverty, sickness and corporate greed. Somehow, simply putting a black man into the seat of power solves all our problems. The Arabs will no longer hate the Jews. Slavery and oppression will cease to exist and every child will have what they desire waiting for them under the tree on Christmas morning. To many, Obama is not merely the President-elect, he is the Messiah.

The Democrat landslide that swept through this year’s electoral cycle removed even the pretense of bipartisanship that existed last year. Current stories in the press about Nancy Pelosi’s recent moves as Speaker give a good indication of what will be coming our way after the 2009 inauguration.

As a junior Senator, Barrack Obama had the most consistently liberal voting record in American history. Even Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could not bring themselves to support some of the radical causes championed by their soon to be new boss. Partial birth abortion, friendship with terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, and the elimination of the Second Amendment, all have a place at Obama’s table. His proposed tax policies will not create the universal wealth he claims, but drive the current recession we are now experiencing into a full blown depression.

There was a time in recent history where the state of New Jersey was one of the least taxed states in the nation. At that same time it was one of the few states where the Governor had the unique pleasure of dealing with an ongoing budget surplus. The New Jersey legislature, in an attempt to assuage certain special interests, decided to raise taxes on business. Surprisingly, to some, revenues went down, not up. The legislature was unable to learn from history, no surprise there, and raised taxes. Revenues fell a bit more and now New Jersey, rather than being one of the most prosperous states, is one of the least. They function in a state of continuous deficit.

There are some who think all our problems would be solved if the situation were reversed and the GOP held the reins of power. The problem with that sort of thinking is that we have already experienced that scenario and the end result was, after a brief economic expansion, a long steady slide into laissez-faire greed and corruption that culminated in the great depression of the early 1900’s. Now it appears that we are repeating history.

Common Sense would dictate that if doing things one way results in failure, then it would be wise to try something else…possibly in the opposite direction. Two problems with that sort of thinking are, one; it means admitting you were wrong, and two; being able to work outside of your own self interest.

So Obama may not be a native-born U.S. citizen, so what?

Over the past few months a quiet controversy has been brewing about the possibility that the President-elect, Barrack Obama may not be entitled to hold the office. The reason is not that enough people did not vote for him or that he is guilty of any exclusionary crime. No, the reason is that the circumstances of his birth may exclude him from being able to take office.

The Constitution requires presidents to be natural-born citizens of the United States who are at least 35 years of age and have resided in the United States for 14 years. Though earlier versions had restrictions for race and sex, those have long since been removed. The birth thing, however, is still in force.

World Net Daily has a story up with a very disturbing embedded video. It can be found at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=82503 The item I find most disturbing in watching it is I know how to produce counterfeit documents like that. In the days before digital technology, such fakes were far more difficult to make and detection of professional quality counterfeits even more so. Now, anyone with a good quality scanner and a decent graphics-ready computer can get in on the action.

Every scanned image is made up of “pixels”. A pixel is a tiny square that can either be in grayscale or color. The size of the pixel depends on how fine the scan, or how high the camera definition is set. It is not inconceivable that President Obama’s birth “proof” was faked, if what World Net Daily reports is accurate. An image that is pasted into Photoshop will show a border, even if done in the highest of definition. Only an expert in such techniques could mask that pasting with any surety of no detection. It must be noted that the liberal left tried, convicted and hung Sarah Palin on far more flimsy evidence than that, and they were not gentlemanly about it at all.

So what happens if this is true? Nothing. Obama has a legislative branch that is overwhelmingly on his side. Congress will not overturn the election and the Attorney General will go right along with them. Even if they have knowledge of the fact, they will continue on with business as usual. Is this surprising? Not at all. Our constitution has been shredded by our politicians so often that it more closely resembles a collection of knitters' mistakes. Would Obama have done this? Would he have run for our highest office with the full knowledge that he was not qualified to legally do so? Of course he would. As a Nevada Assemblyman I saw far worse done for far less power. The only thing more attractive to both sexes than money is power.

Now I know that there are those out there who will consider this column to be a direct attack on Barrack Obama and nothing more than hate-filled sour grapes rantings from a sore loser. All that will be said even though a search of the text will show only a reporting of the controversy. The liberal left does not want equality, they want domination. President-elect Obama can silence the controversy by simply producing an original hard copy of his birth certificate, college transcripts and the other assorted documents he has steadfastly refused to show. If McCain had won and had committed the same refusal, we would still be watching every single evening news program with a lead off story concerning what the Republican President-elect is hiding. Assumptions would be presented as facts. Sarah Palin had accusations made about her that were far more egregiously unfounded and she produced the demanded proof. The left has refused to believe it and the attacks continue on a daily basis, even though the election is over.

As of now, Obama has done nothing. He has presented no specific solution for one single problem this country currently faces. His message of change, based on his cabinet choices, seems to mean change back to the Clinton Administration. This may or may not be a good thing; we have yet to find out. I did not vote for him, but that means nothing. He now hold the elective office. If he succeeds in improving our lot as a country, well and good, if he fails, those attacking Sarah Palin will blame the GOP.

But the real question still remains, is he qualified?

Make English our official language and build that wall.

This morning on the BBC World News I heard a cholera patient from Zimbabwe describing what he went through to reach the hospital where he was being treated. This man spoke perfect English. His syntax, grammar and use of vocabulary were impeccable. This is because in countries like Zimbabwe, English is used as the connecting language, bringing some sense of unity to the various tribes that make up that country’s population.

Over here, in the United States, we have gone the other way. Some might used the term “degraded”, and in some way they could be correct. There was once a time when immigrants to this country had to learn to use the common tongue in order to achieve citizenship. Now there are those in power who want to see an unencumbered flow of immigrants, regardless of situation or intent, pour across the border. One problem with this is that a significant percentage of these “immigrants” is not only unable to understand the English language; they do not even know how to read or write in their own.

Several decades ago, when this country had an actual immigration policy, those who were allowed access to this country brought something with them the United States could use; marketable skills, talent, and education. They may have colored the English language with their own unique accent, but they knew how to use it, in both speech and writing, to communicate ideas and to share wisdom. Now they bring cheap labor, drugs and disease. In addition, another cost few people consider is added to the bill; printing.

Here in Nevada, it cost $10,000 each time a bill or an amendment to a bill is printed. That is because of the number of copies mandated. Now multiply that $10,000 by every single form, pamphlet, booklet, etc the government has to print and then double it because they all have to be printed in both Spanish and English. Now we are talking serious money.

The United States is one of the very few countries who spend a good sized portion of their budget accommodating foreign speakers. Mexico does not. France has not and just added a law requiring fluency in their official tongue for consideration of residency. In Turkey you can be jailed for being “Turkish”. While we do not want to emulate Turkey in any way, it is foolish to allow our country to dissolve under a wave of influence and illiteracy.

Of course many will call such a statement as being bigoted, shortsighted and unfair. No, being practical has no relation to bigotry. There is a way to have our cake and eat it to; it is called thinking outside of the box. Even though the government is not the best organization to do anything, sometimes we need bigger, not better. The southern border wall is one example. We should finish that wall sooner, not later, and make it deep enough so that it cannot be tunneled under and tall enough so that it cannot be climbed; then, about every fifty miles or so, construct and staff an Ellis Island style complex to filter those wanting entrance into the country. Those with communicable diseases can be stopped and treated. Those with drugs, weapons, etc. can be jailed, and so on. People who make it through the filtering process can be treated for noncommunicable problem and also taught a rudimentary knowledge of the English Language. Those who do not want to become citizens, but only find a job can be issued a traceable temporary work visa. Work visas and a way of tracking and taxing temporary workers is a far better method than what we have now.

Of course, a plan such as this will be opposed, and not surprisingly by the GOP leadership. They have created a vested interest in the corruption that currently abounds. How many companies friendly to the Bush Administration currently have illegal immigrants doing jobs citizens won’t do (at that price)? The CEO attitude we saw at the recent Congressional inquiry about the Detroit bailout is far more common than people want to believe. To them, this plan is a nightmare that would force them to pay a legal wage. Too bad.

We have a budget crisis that has become a certified recession. Some think it will grow into depression. We need to begin saving costs now, not when it no longer inconveniences politically sensitive groups. Printing costs is one way. Bringing a massive underground economy into the light and taxing it is another way. Causing pain to those whose greed helped bring this recession upon us...just icing on the cake.

Sarah Palin's faith

One of the chief complaints the detractors of Christianity have against Christians is that they apparently, actually believe the content of the Bible. This was one of the big knocks against Sarah Palin. Leaving all the manufactured attacks against her intelligence aside (the liberal elite cannot fathom that anyone disagreeing with them could possibly be intelligent), let’s examine those beliefs.

The one constant jibe concerns the creation of the earth. “How could anyone possibly believe that this world took only six days to make!” I could question the equally incomprehensible belief that man is descended from monkeys. The same amount of evidence exists for either, which is none. It takes the same amount of faith to accept a theory as fact as it does to believe in a religious text. But what about the text; the passage from the Old Testament book of Genesis reads. “On the first day…” Is the passage really describing a 24 hour period of time or an epoch? For the liberal elite, an epoch is a period of time that denotes the beginning and ending of an event, often geologic in nature. By description, each of the six days of creation could be construed as six individual epochs, each possibly lasting a billion years. For an eternal being, that length of time is nothing. Therefore, it is quite reasonable for a believing Christian, even by liberal standards, to take the Genesis passages on faith.

Another bone of contention is the divinity of Jesus. All right, let’s do a comparative study. The same people who sniff at that fundamental plank in the Christian faith spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the furniture in their room is aligned just so. To my mind it takes more faith to believe that the placement of a Lazy Boy will affect your future than to believe in God’s ability to father a son. What about the Islamo-Fascist belief that blowing up innocent women and children will send a terrorist to a paradise staffed with 72 virgins? And they call Sarah Palin dangerous.

Search any of the myriad religions throughout the earth and you will find something to ridicule, but a search through basic Christianity will show nothing that is a danger to anyone but the corrupt or the immoral. Is it corruption and immorality the liberal elite are desperate to protect? The horrors credited to the Christian Church are done so through errors in understanding and were actually predicted in the New Testament. Just as the defenders of Islam attempt to point out that the 911 terrorists were not representative of the Islamic Faith, the bureaucracy that carried out the Spanish Inquisition and ordered the crusades was in no way representative of Christianity. The main difference is that Christians will condemn the inquisition and all other so-called “Christian atrocities”, a Muslim will never condemn the acts of Hammas, Al Quaida, et al.

To many detractors it is more basic than a collection of beliefs. It is that even believing in a Christian style creator is a danger. In a perfect world, to them, all those who hold such a belief would be stripped of all rights and placed into reeducation centers until they came to their senses. To many, such a statement is extreme hyperbole. Unfortunately, it is not. When all the arguments, snide commentary, derogatory sniffs and other assorted expressions of disgust over a woman of faith having the temerity to even think of seeking high office are cast aside, that is what the atheistic liberal elite truly believe. They are not interested in accommodation. They do not want to live side-by-side. There is no desire for honest discussion or discourse. They have bedrock, fundamental belief that their faith is the true faith and everything else is a lie.

Interesting, isn’t it?

Governmental bigotry

Our current Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice along with the First Lady-Elect, Michelle Obama have yet again made statements that this country has moved toward true maturity by electing a person of color. They both have qualified that statement by saying that we still have a ways to go until racism is forever gone from this land. What surprised me was the quality of the debate that followed. I did not hear one mention of Dr. Martin Luther King. Have we moved along the path of political correctness so far that his words, "by the quality of his character and not the color of his skin" have now vanished over the horizon? This is all only a symptom. If you have skin as pale as mine and you question Obama's continued lack of any substantial plan, you will be called a racist. If you wonder if Jesse Jackson will ever get a real job, you are accused of bigotry. Character is ceasing to matter and color is in. Well, today's culture could not be more wrong. Character does matter, regardless of your race, regardless of the circumstances you were born into, regardless of your peer group and regardless of your parents, or lack thereof...character matters. How you speak matters. How you treat your neighbors matters. How you add to the lives of the people around you, rather than taking away matters. Color should have to do with art, not politics.

Of course, this is all wishing upon a star. Bigotry exists and it is growing. Bigotry and racism are not simply the opinion of a white southerner concerning uppity blacks. They also encompass the opinions of blacks concerning whites, Hispanics concerning Orientals, everyone concerning Jews and so on. And, every combination there can be mixed and matched depending upon which bigotry is at the fore. It has been said that the media, that bastion of compassion and fairness, has its own preferred scapegoat, White Christianity. They will of course admit to that prejudice when hell becomes a hockey rink.

Giving preferential treatment to any group is simply wrong. This country, even though the founding fathers did not notice their own failure in this regard, was intended to be a place where fairness prevailed. Programs that give preference to minorities, simply because they are minorities are violations of that principle. Affirmative action only affirms that some people are recognized by the government as having privileges the rest of the population do not. That is bigotry in action. It would be far better to simply hire the best person for the job regardless of what they look like or how old they are. Higher education should have the same criteria. Those who show they have the capacity and the drive to succeed in school should be those enrolled, even if they have pale skin, blue eyes and testosterone.

If you object to this opinion, you are a bigot.

Politics protects Child Porn

A child pornography operation in the Las Vegas Valley was finally dealt a serious blow the other day when police arrested nine men involved in the photographing and distribution of that disgusting material.

Terry Ziegler, Tom Krattenmaker, Paul Smith, Michael Ward, Juan Vega, Hector Gonzalez, Daniel Combes, and Anthony Flores were the ones arrested. The men lived and operated their ring in both Las Vegas and Henderson, Nevada. Hoping to keep the level of public anxiety down, the police administration went on to deliver the usual big lie: "after discovering the images and videos on the suspects' computers, police said Tuesday they want to ensure the public that there are no additional victims within the Las Vegas Valley. "

Right, and no one gambles or smokes in Las Vegas either. A close read of the story will show that only those holding copies of the porn were arrested. They still have not gotten a hold onto the ones doing the filming, or did these videos just appear by magic? No additional victims? The ones doing the victimizing still have to be found, you idiot!

It is interesting to note that the story was published in the Las Vegas Sun, a left-leaning paper that in many ways is little more than a mouthpiece for the Democrat Party. The Las Vegas Review Journal, the Republican mouthpiece owned by a publisher, of who it has been said has bragged that he staffs his printing facility with mostly cheap illegal alien labor, is silent on the issue. This is because stories that may cast a shadow on the business community in the Las Vegas Valley are typically quashed. Sex is a huge business in Southern Nevada, and illegal sex even more so. The underground trade in human slavery has been estimated to bring in nearly 2 billion a year in untaxed dollars. A fair amount of those dollars find their way to the pockets of those politicians and law enforcement officials willing to look the other way when it comes to little things like human trafficking and child porn.

I have a friend who expereinced the trauma of child abuse in a horrible, personal manner. His name is unimportant to this, but he was subjected to a failed, prepubscent forced castration attempt back in New York for the purpose of keeping his voice from changing. The stage producers of that day didn’t like spending money on child performers and then have their voices deepen. It gave him a very distinctive vocal characteristic. He is one of those people who just cannot sit by when something wrong is being done. It’s too bad so many others don’t feel that way. Over a year ago, he noticed signs of something “hinkey” going on in his condo community. Because of his theater and film background, and the fact that people associated with the company that used to manage his community had aproached him about the possibility of doing voice overs for child porn fims, “kiddie looping”, he recognized the signs. The trouble was, no one in authority, other than my office, was interested in listening. I made some calls, including to the FBI, but the general attitude I got was, “Yeah, we know, but we can’t do anything about it.” Well, after more than a year something has finally been done. I guess he was right.

My friend now has the unique opportunity to say “I told you so”, and be completly right in his estimation. The law enforcement leadership have had to admit he was right. When they were first approached they refused to believe such a disgusting activity was going on. I have news for them, listen to your officers; this isn’t Mayberry RFD. A number of officers who work in both Henderson and Las Vegas have communicated to me their frustration at what politics has done to their jobs. Far too often they have been called off cases because someone near the top has gotten nervous about what could be uncovered. I have to note that the vast majority of police men and women are caring, civic-minded people who only want to do their jobs and they are frustrated beyond description with the status quo. It will be interesting to find out who these nine name as their contacts in the child porn industry, if the officers involved are allowed to ask.

A final question; if the police department had listened and investigated from the first warning, how many children would have been saved from the trauma and abuse they must have suffered?

Can Johnny read? Apparently, nobody cares.

As a member of the Nevada Legislature, I was placed onto three legislative committees; Government Affairs, Health and Human Services and Education. Of the three, Education was my favorite. Government Affairs primarily existed to massage the egos of the various municipalities around the state and Health and Human Services was run by a chairwoman so corrupt she makes Ted Stevens look like a Boy Scout.

One of the things a member of the Education Committee gets to do is see how a state administrates its schools from behind the curtain. Here in Nevada, we had and continue to have a real problem in both the lack of evenhandedness of administration and the perception of what the job of a teacher entails. Top administrators in Nevada’s schools can earn upwards of $300,000 or more. A classroom teacher begins at about $30,000 and has to apply for food stamps just to eat. A top Administrator works an average of 45 hours per week, shifting most of the actual hands-on duties to their staff. A teacher will put in over 60 hours with no staff help at all. Administration can retire with nearly no loss in the shift from salary to pension, including all the additional benefits. Most teachers wind up having to take on a part time job after retirement to make ends meet. Teachers are not allowed to keep their Social Security. No, I’m not kidding. That is what happens and it is a matter of law.

Well, you say, teachers only work 9 months out of the year, don’t they? No, that is a media and talk show host lie. Today there are nearly as many 12-month schools as there are 9-month schools, and even if a teacher is contracted to work at a standard 9-month school, it is only the classrooms that shut down in summer. For the teacher, the job continues. There is summer school, lesson planning, meetings, continuing education to keep up with all the changes that happen if every discipline, and so on. Those who say that teachers have it easy and are overpaid for what they do, know nothing. In every single case these commentators are parroting a lie in the hopes that if they repeat it often enough the people will believe it. Unfortunately that is exactly what has happened.

To the vast majority of Americans, teaching is viewed as an easy high-paying job. So, can Johnny read? As far as the American public is concerned, who cares? It is obvious to anyone willing to look that most parents don’t care. Politicians seem only to be concerned about their own campaign and Swiss bank accounts. On the Republican side of the aisle, they don’t want to expend any resources to support the teacher, unless it is for the staff in an exclusive private school their spoiled children are attending. On the Democrat side of the aisle, they are more than willing to raise taxes for schools, but they will only allow the money to go into the hands of the Administration who then let only a tiny fraction of what they have acquired trickle down into the hands of the teacher.

Nevada has pundits on both side of the aisle. It is interesting to note that those of a libertarian bent who continuously denigrate public education, have never had a child in school. The liberals are the same. These fountains of endless wisdom either home school or send their kids to an exclusive private facility. So when you read their rants, read them with the understanding that they are making everything up and have no experiential knowledge whatsoever.

You may scoff at this, but there are far more conservative teachers in the classroom than not. Most of the liberal elitism comes from the School Board, school administration, and union leadership. Many of these teachers have corresponded with me about what they face on a daily basis, and in spite of vast inequalities, these men and women continue to do a job far beyond the pay they receive. Many will purchase school supplies that they give to children in their classroom. I have seen teachers buying cases of paper because their school will not supply it, while at the same time demanding that the paperwork be done. Numerous teachers have detailed additional paperwork being handed down from the administration, paperwork that rightfully should be handled by the office and has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching.

So, it comes down to this question: what would you do to improve education? Should teachers be paid a wage that matches what they do? Should administrators take a cut to help? What about making parents responsible for their kids? The comment box is open.

California's Prop 8, no big deal.

The homosexual demographic in the US is the only group I am aware of that has a sexual activity as its primary source of identity. Blacks use race whereas Orientals use family and Hispanics value their ancestral homeland. Whites seem to be the only group that places what their occupation is before any other factor as an identifier. Within the Caucasian race, the Celts, like Hispanics, use the homeland.

Homosexuality is not a right and it is not a race. It is, in fact, an aberration from the normal template of nature. Any scientist worth the title will tell you that nature’s primary purpose is to propagate itself, in essence, “go forth and multiply”. A homosexual couple can try from now until the sun goes dark, but until one of the chromosomal ingredients changes, no child will be created. Lawsuits can be thrown at society ad nauseam, but that fact will not be changed. Don’t blame society, blame nature’s template. It takes a male and a female to propagate. Adoption is not propagation.

This brings us to the current hysteria over the passage of California’s Proposition 8 cementing marriage as being an official recognized ceremony between a man and a woman. When the counts were tallied, homosexuals across the country went ballistic. Riots erupted and some homosexuals took their anger out on people and property, even to the point of physically attacking an elderly black woman because the Black Church, along with the Mormon Church was one of the larger groups voting for the ban. It is interesting to note that when Christian groups were on the losing side of voter issues, no riots ensued, they didn’t even commit a single act of littering.

I spent some time living in San Francisco and, as a professional artist, had the opportunity to work in fairly close quarters with a number of homosexuals. I have even been hit on by a few. In most cases, I found these people to be gracious and competent, but as a demographic they tend to be far more egocentric than others, even more so than heterosexual artists. Reports of the reactions to proposition 8 tend to support my personal sampling. The passage of the California initiative has been taken as a personal attack. To them, their lives had been irreparably harmed from one day to the next, even though not one physical or fiscal item had changed.

Charges of racism, hate, bigotry and homophobia flew like grapeshot through the media, the airwaves and now the courts. It did not matter that the majority of the people of California spoke and 52% of those voters decided to keep marriage between a man and a woman. Domestic partnersships are still quite legal, and if two consenting adults in California choose to live together, even in a homosexual relationship, they have a right to. And, the law is quite specific; they even have a right to marry…as long as the partner in that marriage is of the opposite sex.

In answer to the charges, it is impossible for someone who disagrees with any portion of the homosexual agenda to be committing an act of racism. A sexual activity is not “race” or even a factor in static physical appearance. Bigotry…possible, but it is stretching the definition of the attitude, and charging homophobia is simply being ridiculous. As a recognized psychosis, homophobia is way down on the list of fears. Arachnophobia, agoraphobia, and many others are far more common. Simply disagreeing with a person’s political position is not being phobic, and it certainly is not an expression of hate. Quite frankly, the way our country’s laws are written, the passage of Proposition 8 happened exactly the way the founding fathers envisioned things. The 10th amendment to the US Constitution states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Thomas Jefferson said, “The States should be left to do whatever they can do as well as the federal government."

We have strayed so far from that ideal that many US citizens are not even aware that the 10th amendment even exists, and yet it does, often as an irritant to the more socialist-minded politicians and community organizers. The Supreme Court Row vs. Wade decision is one glaring example of the Federal Government stepping way outside of its bounds where that portion of the constitution is concerned. The law of the land is not there to cater to every select group that comes down the pike. Homosexuality happens to be an aberration from the natural way of things in the same manner that kleptomania, pedophilia, and compulsive eating disorders are. Should society offer up laws that accommodate every human disorder simply because they have banded into political action groups? If a store owner stops a kleptomaniac from shoplifting, is that an expression of racism, bigotry and hate? The comparison is ridiculous for a point. Giving preferential rights to homosexuals simply because of the way they choose to act is equally ridiculous.

All right, so California has stated that within its boundaries marriage is left to heterosexual unions. That does not mean that other states can choose to rule differently. The US Constitution says they have that right, and because we are a union of individual states, you have a right to move to the state of your choice. You do not have a right to riot. You do not have a right to assault. You do not have a right to commit destruction of property, and you do not have a right to not be offended. The Declaration upheld only 3 rights as being self-evident: Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness, by itself is not a guarantee, only the pursuit of that goal is guaranteed.

There is no guarantee of prosperity. There is no guarantee of satisfaction and there is no golden parachute issued by the government to guarantee easy street to every citizen. The law is supposed to affect every citizen equally, and when it doesn’t, we call that corruption.

Palin for President!

The GOP needs to change. This phrase isn’t by any degree new; nearly every conservative and liberal writer has said the same, but I doubt many have said it in relation to what is really needed. The drubbing McCain took in this past election and the ascendancy of the liberal left into every seat of power this country has to offer is a lesson yet to be learned by the Republican heads.

Obama’s campaign team hit a nerve when they continuously attacked McCain’s ties to the Bush administration. The recent developments in this ridiculous bailout scam are only yet another symptom of the disease that riddles the beltway. The ones making these decisions are so out of touch with everyday America that when an issue is brought forward with a common sense solution, they cannot understand what is being said. In many cases the one offering the solution is ridiculed as being naive. This happened to me while solutions were being discussed with regard to my state’s fiscal problems. Now, those who did the ridiculing are being forced to implement what I suggested two years ago. Will any credit be given where it belongs? Not on your life. This is the world of politics after all.

Infighting within the Republican ranks has been escalating since the first ad hit the airwaves for the Presidential elections. This tells us that change is not something the Republican party wants to consider, at least not the change it truly needs. Consider Mike Huckabee’s attacks on Sarah Palin. What they boil down to is what the GOP says about every party member who stands up against the corruption within the party, “She isn’t Republican enough.” Apparently Governor Palin, in order to be a real republican, should have gone along with outgoing Senator Ted Stevens’ corruption, and not stood against him. To many in the party it is better to have a politician who breaks the law on a daily basis than to have them replaced with a Democrat. To the Republican Party leadership change means not having to say you’re sorry.

Governor Huckabee needs to learn the lesson of the electorate. American is not so interested in moving to left as it is interested in cleaning house. Average America wants honorable leadership. They want “Read my lips” to be a statement of truth, not a lead-in to a broken promise. When they are watching their bank accounts dwindle, they do not want to see those who oversaw the demolition of the economy get a golden parachute. They want honesty, even if it inconveniences the wealthy and the powerful. Sarah Palin gets that and so does Mitt Romney.

It is already obvious that Obama’s promise of change only went as far as the occupancy of the White House. He is busily building his staff out of insiders from the Clinton and Carter Administrations. Governor Huckabee apparently believes Sarah Palin’s climb into the spotlight is more dangerous to our nation than what President-elect Obama is preparing to do. Here is why; Governor Palin struck a chord with the American people, and if she had been coupled with Romney rather than McCain, the result of the election may have been quite different. GOP insiders are almost as afraid of what Palin portends as are the liberals.

Sarah Palin, in spite of what my Democrat acquaintances say, would make a great President. What many of them forget is that much the same arguments against a Palin Presidency were also made about Ronald Reagan before he trounced a totally incompetent Jimmy Carter.

Yes, the GOP needs to change. It needs to embrace Middle America and it needs to embrace the truth, even if the truth costs them money. Rather than driving out those members who stand against corruption, the GOP leadership needs to grit their teeth, wave goodbye to the bribe money, and stand with them. America wants representation, not politics as usual. And remember, the news networks have no relation with real America.

The Religion of Global Warming

If a teacher admits to praying, especially if it is a Christian prayer, they can lose their job in some school districts. Sarah Palin admits to consulting God in the big decisions and she is pilloried by the press. Some talking heads at MSNBC actually went ballistic over that one. If you say that human evolution is still only a theory and not established fact, you are derided as being absurd, nonintellectual and possibly a danger to modern society. Declare that abortion, whether legal or not is still the taking of a human life, and you are called every name in the book, few of them printable, but not one of the protesters can offer scientific evidence to dispute the declaration.

The separation of Church and State is one of the primary mantras of the left. Before I continue, I have to make a point. By the left, I do not mean Democrats. The left is fairly inclusive and has adherents from every party except possibly the Independent American Party whose plank, by its very nature excludes any liberal thought.

Elitism, such as the left expresses, considers the Christian Church to be the greatest danger America has ever faced. The very idea of a politician even associating with Christianity is anathema to the left. They cannot wrap their tiny little minds around the concept that there may exist a being who is the creator and who may judge their actions. Even discussing the subject causes anger, and in some cases rage. But then comes along Al Gore and the Church of Global Warming, or the GW church.

Christianity’s detractors consistently bring up the Catholic inquisitions and other heinous acts by those who purported to be church leaders. They also consistently forget that Christ himself warned of wolves in sheep’s clothing. So why do these same detractors so avidly follow the church of Global Warming? Archeology has proven many times over that the bible is not a simple work of fiction, but there has yet to be a single scientific proof to the claims of Global Warming’s chief prophet. In fact, in a recent article published in the Telegraph in the U.K., the numbers used by the GW church were based on lies.

Within the article are these paragraphs: “So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerized temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

The error was so glaring that when it was reported on the two blogs - run by the US meteorologist Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre, the Canadian computer analyst who won fame for his expert debunking of the notorious "hockey stick" graph - GISS began hastily revising its figures. This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.”

The Telegraph article goes on to describe the fanaticism of one Dr. Hanson. Dr Hansen almost single handedly began the Global Warming scare in 1988 with his testimony to a US Senate committee chaired by Al Gore. Later on Hanson was forced to admit that the Global temperature in the 1930’s was warmer than it was in the 1990’s. In fact, rather than gaining a degree, as the GW church prophesied, the earth has cooled by a third of a degree. But facts do not affect religion. For example, polar bears are actually breeding faster than humans. Those famous photos of a bear on a “shrinking” ice berg, do not show the endless ice sheet a few degrees to the right of the photo. When an elementary school teacher was given a report detailing facts contrary to Global Warming’s claims, she said. “That’s nice, but I know what I believe.” That is a statement of faith, not of knowledge.

Global Warming adherents are expressing a faith, not facts. Far too many truly reputable scientists have brought forth evidence that nature and the universe, not humanity has had a far greater affect on earth’s global climate. Volcanoes, the sun, meteorites and comets have all left their mark on the archeological record. For those in the Global Warming Church who scoff at this fact, I just have one question. How many SUV’s did prehistoric man drive?

The so-call Fairness Doctrine

This column was posted a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating, with an update at the end.

Why is it that the fundamental American way of life is the only thing left on earth that can be ridiculed, offended, belittled and discriminated against with impunity? The world’s best known talk show host, Rush Limbaugh read the regulations our neighbor to the south has in place for those who are not Mexican citizens wishing to build a business or purchase property.

The law is in essence: If you immigrate to Mexico, you have to speak the native language. You have to be a professional or an investor; unskilled workers are not allowed. Bilingual education is not taught in the schools, and there are no special ballots for elections. No government business will be conducted in any language other than Spanish. Foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office. Take that Arnold.

Immigrants to Mexico are forbidden to be a burden to taxpayers. They are not entitled to welfare, food stamps, or any other government social program. Investment is a requirement to immigration: an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. However, there are restrictions on the purchasing of land and where foreigners can own homes. Beachfront property is limited to Mexican citizens, and foreigners must relinquish individual rights to the property.

There is no right to protest. No right to demonstrate. Only the Mexican flag can be flown. Political organizing is forbidden and speaking ill of the administration can land the speaker in jail. Also, entering Mexico illegally is a direct route to prison.

When Limbaugh read those laws as if they were his suggestion for the US, the protests were deafening, and not one of the protesters changed their opinion after it was revealed where the law originated. After all, only the U.S. can be at fault.

The same occurs in regard to the Middle East. The only Middle Eastern country where women hold equal status with men is Israel. Yet because Israel’s constitution closely mirrors that of the U.S. and America has consistently upheld that tiny country’s right to exist, Israel has become a target for contempt right along with fundamental America. Israel is also the only Middle Eastern country where you have a right to worship as you please, as long as you allow Israel its right to exist. The other countries, Islamic to a fault have a real problem with that existence. Neither America nor Israel should be here. Because of them, Islam’s spread has no been as fast, nor as complete as it should have been.

All of the deriders manage to miss the fact that within Islamic countries, women are little more than property and are not even as important as a prized camel or sheep. In many of these countries female children are sexually mutilated in a disgusting ritual disguised as a rite of adulthood. They are, in essence, treated as foreigners within their own country. They are not allowed to own property, achieve anything resembling an education, or even defend themselves if attacked. In fact one of the most common crimes a woman under bondage to Islam can commit is being raped. Where are the feminists? They are amazingly silent on this issue. Could it be that Islamic women, not being able to further the feminist agenda, have no importance to the cause?

Here in the U.S. we jailed a pedophile who claimed to be a prophet. His name is Warren Jeffs. He attempted to use religion as a shield for his crimes. Fortunately for future children who may have come under his influence, fundamental America was there and Jeffs is now sulking behind bars. Unfortunately for millions of Middle Eastern children, the false prophet Mohammed was not stopped. There was no country established whereby all were granted self-evident rights. A minor Babylonian moon god called Allah was given far more importance than the cult deserved and the rest sadly is history.

Now we have a left-leaning majority in power and the first thing many of them want to do is further tighten the restrictions on American free speech. Enter the so-called Fairness Doctrine. What the doctrine says and what it will do are two entirely different things. On the surface, any broadcast medium must have a “balance” of opinion; both sides of a given issue must be allowed equal time. As an example, the FOX network must reformat every single one of their talk shows into a Hannity & Combs clone where both the conservative and liberal opinions are offered up for the listener to digest. The same would have to be done at MSNBC and CNN, but do you really think that would happen? Remember, this would be overseen by the likes of Whorehouse Harry Reid and Nancy “give me your guns” Pelosi. Can you imagine either of them allowing a conservative voice into the diatribe at MSNBC? Not a chance.

What will happen is that the only network left in the world that gives an alternate world view to all of the others will be silenced. That is what the left calls fairness.

It Shouldn't be That Way.

NRS 608.160 Taking or making deduction on account of tips or gratuities unlawful; employees may divide tips or gratuities among themselves.
1. It is unlawful for any person to:
(a) Take all or part of any tips or gratuities bestowed upon his employees.
(b) Apply as a credit toward the payment of the statutory minimum hourly wage established by any law of this State any tips or gratuities bestowed upon his employees.
2. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to prevent such employees from entering into an agreement to divide such tips or gratuities among themselves.


Every state has laws that protect working people, and in every state there are those who consider these laws to be inconvenient at best. It is their belief that any law that prevents the employer from being able to take money from those who work for them at a whim is wrong. In plainer language they consider such protections to be “socialist claptrap”, “communist propaganda”, and other assorted descriptions. The fact that such laws exist, are on the books and are enforceable…let’s put it this way, to them it is extremely ill-mannered to even bring them up in conversation.

Terry Graves is one of the board members of the Henderson Chamber of Commerce here in Southern Nevada. I have known him for over 2 years and in all that time, even though I strongly support business and he knows it, he hasn’t forgiven me for introducing AB 357, a bill that would have stopped the violation of the above law.

According to Terry and every other Republican in any position of leadership, any politician who stands against businesses violating employee protection laws is, by definition, an enemy. It is the same mentality union members run into when they refuse to steal from their employer by the various assorted methods their associates have cooked up. It is the same mentality Frank Serpico ran into when he decided to refuse the offered bribe money his fellow cops were taking. It is the reason Sue Lowden, the Nevada State Party Chair said of me, “He’s too honest, we can’t trust him.” The world of politics has become a sewer and the rats are running the system.

Not every politician is dishonest or hypocritical, but damn few aren’t, and it is up to the voter to do the weeding. Unfortunately that requires work and the ability to read. Why do you think politicians talk so loudly about improving education but rarely do anything to do so?

When I stood up and declared my intention to represent all my constituents regardless of their race, age, sex, income or power, I immediately alienated every member of my Assembly Caucus except for two people, Lynn Stewart and Garn Maybe. It should be noted that Garn retired and was replaced by yet another hypocrite NeoCon. The party tried to replace Lynn but lost badly. Sometimes good people actually get a second chance.

Employee protection laws exist because for too long employers considered those people working for them to be little more than just another one of their possessions; beasts of burden at best. Well, the law says different. If you don’t like what the law says, change it through the legislative or initiative process. You do not have the option to simply ignore it…or you shouldn’t have. Two of my fellow Republican scholars agreed with that attitude wholeheartedly, that is until I proposed a law that would have inconvenienced them; immigration reform that would have targeted those employers who knowingly violate America’s immigration laws. It seems they were enjoying the benefits of hiring illegal aliens at a small fraction of the minimum wage and since the people working for them were illegal, they were also profiting by not having to pay taxes, benefits, etc. Isn’t it interesting that folks who call themselves constitutional scholars can so readily violate the constitution when that violation puts cash into their pocket?

The problem is that we as Americans have become so used to our representatives being lying two-faced hypocrites that we don’t know how to handle it when we actually get one that doesn’t fit that mold. The media certainly can’t. They have used the line “We can’t find anything,” meaning scandal, “So they must be hiding something,” and then go to press with the assumption that that individual is guilty before proved innocent. We saw this with the treatment of Sarah Palin. The political parties are very aware of this and will treat those who run for office accordingly. They will decide who may upset those business interests and organizations that donate to the party and work to trash that person’s reputation all for a few more campaign dollars. Whether or not such action is moral or even right is beside the point, its politics.

It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. The sad part is that it has become accepted.

As long as we're changing, make pot legal.

Paraphrased from a Wikipedia article: “Salvia Divinorum, also known as Diviner’s Sage, or by the genus name Salvia, is a psychoactive herb which can induce strong effects. It is a member of the sage genus and the Lamiaceae mint family. The Latin name Salvia Divinorum literally translates to “sage of the seers”.”

Cannabis Sativa is so far the onlyherb outlawed in the United States. Because of it’s similarity to Cannabis, hemp is nearly as illegal though the only thing smoking hemp will do to you is cause you to smell like burnt rope. Hemp was outlawed because the cotton lobby didn’t want competition. It isn’t fair when hemp won’t rot like cotton. Cannabis Sativa is illegal for a number of stated reasons, but the basic is because it was the favorite drug of blacks, and making their favorite drug of choice illegal was one of the ways to control a populace the powers that be wanted kept at a rung below theirs.

Tobacco contains a drug far more powerful and addictive than Cannabis or rather marijuana could ever deliver, even with laboratory help. Nicotine is so powerful and so dangerous that in other forms it is used as an insecticide. One drop placed into the mouth of an animal kills, and yet cigarettes, a nicotine delivery system are legal and tobacco growers are protected and subsidized by Washington. Talk show hosts continuously complain about the anti-smoking lobby and the damage they are doing to our freedoms. So where are these people when it comes to an herb far more innocuous than nicotine, alcohol or salvia?

Let me tell you about salvia. It is legal in most states and cheap. Some forms of the herb have been engineered to the point where smoking it can produce effects even more powerful than LSD. It delivers a dissociative high that makes marijuana seem like a couple of aspirin. John Kennedy’s father made his fortune smuggling bootleg alcohol and then cornered the market on scotch imports. Isn’t it interesting that JFK was one of the loudest voices in maintaining the marijuana strictures? The thought of regulating and taxing the herb never entered into their minds.

We are missing a bet here. More than enough medical and scientific evidence has been entered into the record to prove that if anything Cannabis Sativa should not be outlawed. It is not even close to methamphetamine as a danger and in fact, alcohol is more of a gateway drug. Tobacco could also be considered as such and yet Washington smiles and cashes those tax receipts. So why not do the same with pot? One sure bet is that our prison system and the courts would become less crowded if the more innocuous drugs were legalized, regulated and taxed the same as alcohol and tobacco. The monies collected could go into giving teachers a much-needed pay raise with perhaps a few billion bucks left over to do some other needed jobs.

There would be a blow back, but not from American citizens. The loudest complaints will come from organized crime outside our borders. Mexico, whose income is largely derived from illegally feeding addictions, would consider it an act of economic war. So would Indonesia. So what? It is high time America cared more for Americans than it did for those who consider us ill-mannered at best. For far too long we have shipped our income overseas and garnered small returns. We had our revolution. Let them have theirs if they ever find out they have a spine. America has long been a nation of free choice. We have the right to be stupid or not to be. We should not, as citizens, be forced to pay for the stupidity of others or the damage they do to themselves. If you choose to get high and then turn yourself into a vegetable, that should be your choice and your cost, not mine.

For disclosure purposes, I don't smoke anything, never have and don't want to. Neither do I like being around people who do. In my opinion the scent is nauseating, but more nauseating is the abridgment of freedom of choice. I outgrew nannies when I was in elementary school. I don’t need one now.

Let the insanity and backpedaling begin!

I have to preface this column with a background story. During the 2007 legislative session in Nevada, I was approached by a group of card dealers who worked in the casino at the Wynn Las Vegas. They had written to nearly every single member of the Nevada legislature trying to get one of the Assemblymen or Senators to even listen to them about their employer confiscating a portion of their wages.

Steve Wynn is the owner of this casino. For decades he has built up a network of politicians who owe him favors. One is Bill Raggio, then the Senate Majority Leader and a long-time legislator from Northern Nevada. Raggio is also a lawyer whose law firm happens to have a number of gaming concerns as clients. Can anyone spell “conflict of interest”? I was the only member of the legislature to respond. One out of 63.

In 1971 a state law came into effect that plainly stated the illegality of any employer taking any portion of an employee’s tips. Card dealers, like many other workers in Nevada subsist almost entirely on tips, and a few make a pretty decent living. Apparently Wynn thought his employees were making too good of a living because, in violation of the standing law, he instituted a policy that took 20% of the tips, excluded any of the dealers from being present when the tips were counted, and used those confiscated monies to boost the pay of managers being paid an hourly wage several times greater than the minimum wage paid to the dealers. Because a few of the dealers took home the occasional paycheck greater than that of their manager, Wynn called his policy fair, new, and refreshing. To the people losing 20% of their pay off the top it wasn’t refreshing at all. To the Nevada Revised Statutes it was a clear and direct violation of the law as it was written. But when you have a few Senators, Assemblymen and judges in your pocket, the written law is no barrier, especially when you can get a judge or two to say that the law doesn’t mean what it says.

I wrote a bill that would have forced the state to actually enforce the law. Wynn went ballistic and Bill Raggio shouted at me for 10 minutes about attacking his good friend. It’s amazing how much “friendship” money can buy. Prostitution isn’t an exclusive female occupation.

Now comes the elections and Raggio no longer has his big office, the leadership position or the majority. He is relegated to just being one of the boys in the minority and can no longer tell people what to do. So, what does he do? He issues a press release saying that the Republican Party must move to the middle and abandon the far right attitudes that obviously caused this electoral calamity. As is usual, Bill Raggio could not be more wrong. What caused the problem wasn’t Republican conservative ideals, what caused the problem was years of broken promises, greed and infighting. The party doesn’t need to move to the middle, what the party needs to do is go back to the days of Ronald Reagan and reestablish a set of core principles that benefit all citizens regardless of age, race, sex, religion or income. Then the party needs to stick to those principles even if it inconveniences their leadership or the rich and powerful. Of course, several members of the party would have to step down to do this, because one of those principles would include being principled.

They Only Have Themselves to Blame

It is not surprising after the solid butt-whipping the Republican Party received at the hands of the Democrats in last week’s election that a number of stories about party disarray have surfaced. Some of them are bitter-edged recriminations that blame the voters for their lack of trust. Some, like what I have written, hold a tinge of gloat because the neocons who stole the party got what they so richly deserved. As a Republican Assemblyman who was recently defeated by the rigorous efforts of the Republican leadership, I have a personal interest in those stories. My contention is that while there may be some party disarray, this really is the end result of a concerted effort on the part of the leadership to purge the Republican Party of any and all moderation.

I lost my primary in August to a candidate (John Ozark) who did not even live in my district until shortly before primary voting ended. The “ideologues” in my own party wanted me out of this seat badly enough to ask as many as eight people to run against me. Last winter, I received a call from Heidi Gansert, the Nevada Assembly Minority Leader, asking me to step down in favor of Bob Seale, the man who held my seat before me, and I refused. Not one of the eight, including Seale, agreed to run, until they found Ozark, a candidate who has been trying to get into the Assembly through “district hopping” for the past 4 years at least. When Ozark agreed to run, the campaign of lies and deception started. The overblown yellow journalism that George Harris (publisher of Liberty Watch), Chuck Muth (a political blogger and not a Republican) and Ed Vogel( a Las Vegas Review-Journal stringer) cooked up about my forgetting to turn off the contribution page on my website during the special session this summer is a prime example. The story did not once mention all of the other Republican Assemblymen and Senators who, in the intense confusion of a special session being on, then off and then on again, also forgot to turn off their own websites. That incident, along with many other lies and half-truths, was used as a direct attack during and after the primary as a purging effort and to ensure that only the “ideologues’” mouthpiece was elected. The level of hypocrisy shown by these people is staggering. They complain about “ethical challenges,” but a check on the financial disclosures of John Ozark will show an interesting disparity in what he declared and what was spent. Just how much does it take to send out over a dozen high-end mailers in a primary? These “ideologues” ignored their own polls that showed that I had the highest fiscally conservative voting record in the Assembly, choosing instead to back a totally untried candidate, agreeable to anything they said and willing to be led about by the nose, as long as he got to play Assemblyman. But as history now shows, this strategy backfired terribly for them, causing the loss of a Republican seat and a Democrat supermajority in the Assembly.

There are similarities between a number of races race and mine. Many moderate representatives are honest and interested in representing all of their constituents, not just the “pure” Republicans. The problem is, the leadership may not be as ethical or as interested in representation. The GOP Nevada State Party Chairwoman, Sue Lowden said this about me, “He is too honest, we can’t trust him.” And if you go back and check the campaign literature, the Democrat attacks regarding these representatives were along the same lines. They never questioned the candidate’s honesty, but merely claimed he or she couldn’t be trusted. Isn’t it interesting that the GOP leadership never came to any of these folk’s defense? I believe it is because they are statesman, not politicians and where the GOP stands right now, statesmen need not apply.

Because of all of this “cannibalism,” I chose to support Ellen Spiegel, the Democrat Assemblywoman-elect in District 21. This is not because she isn’t a Republican, but because she was the only ethical candidate. Ellen will represent all the citizens in District 21, and not just those who reflect “party purity.” Now Harris, Muth and the assorted members of their cabal blame me for the Nevada Assembly’s Democrat super majority. Perhaps they should look into a mirror to fix blame.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley should send them a large, expensive fruit basket as a thank you for their efforts in the Democrat majority’s victory.

Africa is a Continent, and Palin knew that.

The other day I had one of my typical discussions on politics with my neighbor Jerry. Jerry is a great guy, a construction supervisor for our school district and he bleeds Democrat blue. One of the things that separate him from the liberal elite is that he is capable of deciding an issue on the facts, not on rhetoric or talking points, except where Sarah Palin is concerned.

Let’s take a look at what the elites have said and are continuing to say about this woman: she must be a terrible mother because her daughter became pregnant. Ok, so Sarah Palin is facing what a vast majority of mothers with teenage daughters is facing or does this only happen in Republican families? She decided to keep her downs syndrome baby, so she must not care about women’s issues. They still talk about that notorious interview with Katie Couric but Ms. Couric deliberately misquoted Henry Kissinger. Earlier than that, ABC News misquoted the Bush doctrine in an obvious attempt to throw off Palin, their chosen scapegoat.

Sarah Palin surprised everyone in the debate with Biden, including those McCain staffers who are working overtime to trash this woman’s reputation, Joe Biden was wrong about that restaurant he claimed to go to in order to learn about the middle class. It closed down in 1986. Biden doesn’t have a time machine nor has anyone in the elite media done a live broadcast from the nonexistent Katie's Restaurant to point out that Joe Biden is just out of touch with reality. On the other hand, Sarah Palin has received just that sort of treatment and unlike Biden she didn’t lie. There were approximately 14 “factual mistakes” uttered by Biden in that debate but the media hasn’t even mentioned one. Let Sarah Palin utter a single malaprop during a private rehearsal and suddenly she thinks Africa is a country and not a continent.

The liberal elite love the sort of libel that is coming from the McCain staffers. They saw that Palin was a far better candidate than McCain could ever hope to be…and she was better in a debate than Obama’s best showing. This woman had to be silenced. So the stealth attacks and the phony leaks began. In one egregious incident Sarah Palin heard that Bill O’Reilly wanted her on his show. Palin called O’Reilly and agreed to go on. McCain’s staffers heard about the call and, behind Palin’s back canceled the appearance. They then told her that O’Reilly had cancelled her appearance, which was a lie.

Republicans, just like Democrats have their own elite snobbery. McCain made the fatal mistake of filling his campaign staff with people of that stripe. If anyone was out of touch, McCain was right there along with Obama and Biden. Sure, he may have had a hard time in Vietnam, but he has spent far more time living the good life in Washington. He has been pampered and coddled to the point where it is the norm. He would no more recognize middle class America than Joe Biden would. For him, eating at a truck stop would now be torture. This is why people like Adams, Franklin and Jefferson instituted term limits. They saw the danger and hoped to prevent its occurrence. For the Republican elite in McCain’s campaign Sarah Palin was a contamination not to be tolerated.

Now, the liberal elite attacking someone like Palin is understandable. The fact that Michelle Obama can make a statement about how important her children are to her and that they will be her chief focus in Washington…the fact that that becomes a point of honor by the media, but when uttered by a Republican woman becomes a concern…we can all recognize and understand the obvious hypocrisy. Biden lies and it is ignored. Obama stumbles during a debate and it is called a “thoughtful pause”. Sarah Palin has a moment of anger behind the scenes about her treatment by the media and she is a shrill, spiteful monster. What really gets me is that so many Democrats are totally blind to the lopsidedness here. Judgments are made about an individual with regard to her home life, her character, her intelligence and even her thought processes and they have never even met her nor done one single bit of research on their own. Here is the capper; they call that “fair”.

A message to the GOP

Yesterday I heard the talk show host Laura Ingraham complain bitterly about the so-called “moderate republicans” ruining it for everyone. In her estimation, John McCain lost because he wasn’t republican enough. As much as I respect Laura, she couldn’t be more wrong and her attitude is just digging deeper the hole GW and the rest of the party purists dredged out with their 8 years of drunken sailor spending. If you add up all the debts every administration since George Washington and combine them with those of the Clinton administration you will not even come close to the back breaking deficit Bush junior has put us into. Every gutless pundit, every sycophantic talk show host, every liaise fair neo con, all have had their part in both the fiscal crisis we currently find ourselves in and in the distrust the American electorate showed for the GOP label.

Some are saying Obama won more so than McCain lost. In one thing they are right, Obama did win, but not because McCain lost, but because the Republican Party lost. You can’t make promises for 8 years while lying through your teeth and then expect people to believe you when the chips are down. Sure you may have cost a CEO or two a bonus here and there if you kept your word, but you’d still be in office. Sadly, I think this is yet another one of history’s lessons you won’t catch on to.

Ronald Reagan never made a campaign promise he did not at least try to keep. That is why he is remembered so fondly. Being a man of your word is not a weakness, my late GOP acquaintances ( I can no longer use the term friends), it is a matter of honor. Because the law says something that may cost your business a portion of its profit margin, that doesn’t mean that you as an elected official can ignore it. As you see, the American people can and will do something about it. Your problem is that if a Reagan came along today, you and yours would pan him as not being Republican enough, when in reality, it is you who have lost your way.

Excuse me if I gloat

Excuse me if I gloat.


Anyone who has read my blog will wonder at the title, especially based on who we now have as our President-elect. In my humble opinion Obama is going to administrate an economic and civil rights disaster of historic proportions, especially since he now has a congress and senate amenable to his stated Marxist policies. My friends, America is on the verge of losing its vaunted freedoms and you handed our country over, and that is partly why I’m gloating.

Here is Nevada, I was the target of the Liberty Watch crowd, an odious group of party Purity Republicans who attack anyone who disagrees with a single splinter in their plank. Rather than support a conservative who can cross the aisle to get things done, they published and circulated lies about character, voting records and even what was said in a televised forum, all in an effort to put their puppets into office; puppets who would support their ongoing system of corruption and favoritism. The reason I’m gloating is because that effort here was done against me and it is symbolic of what the Republican Party did for the past 8 years nationwide.

This does not mean that the Democrat Party is even one iota less guilty of the same tactics. One of the best representatives I know is Rosemary Womack, a Democrat. Her own party drove her out of her Assembly office because she had committed the sin of disagreeing with Barbara Buckley, the Assembly Speaker. Rosemary wanted to be an actual Representative, not just another drone politician.

Back onto the Republican side, an obsequious little kid by the name of John Ozark was put in against me by Liberty Watch. Never owning any home in Nevada and not even living in my district when he began proclaiming that he knew my constituents best, Ozark began parroting the lies written for him by the magazine’s publisher. What was published about me would be actionable as libel, fraud and even slander if it were done in any state other than Nevada, but here we do things a little differently. We put our crooks into office…well, not this time.

Ellen Spiegel is woman who reminds me of Rosemary. She ran as the Democrat for my Assembly seat and I supported her. Yes, I supported a Democrat and you Party Puritans can kiss my rosy red rump. Compared to Ozark, Ted Stevens is an innocent man. Ellen was not supported by her party, which tells you something. She is not a puppet and she is actually willing to study the issues that affect the district. We have talked about several ideas and what bills could be used to move them forward. These ideas would make it easier for small business to prosper and remove some of the burden from the economic backs of the taxpayers. Does that sound like Nancy Pelosi to you? To me, it’s a reason to gloat.

I am also gloating because so many of the Liberty Watch crowd got their clocks cleaned in this election. Many of them were Assembly members and Senators who joined in on the lies and corruption I saw behind the scenes in Carson City. Sometimes it doesn’t matter who gets into the office, just as long as who was there is out.