My late father, an astute observer of the pugilistic arts, often told me that "A good small man can't beat an equally good big man."

Despite Dad's unassailable opinions there are exceptions to every rule, such as if a small man sneaks up on a big man and hits him in the back of the head with a two-by-four. In that case, the small guy wins.

Similarly, a favorite tactic of a small man fighting a bigger man is to rush the big guy and launch salvo after salvo of punches – and kicks if it is a martial arts competition – that keep the big guy off balance long enough for the small man to get in a shot that brings the big man down. That tactic can work so long as the big guy doesn't respond with a teeth-jarring shot of his own that stops the small guy in his tracks.

This scenario is playing out on a daily basis in the ongoing Presidential campaign with President Barack Hussein Obama using the gutter tactics advocated by his former chief of staff and now mayor of Chicago Rahm Emanuel, while Mitt Romney tries to be fair - the good big guy. The mayor, who is alleged to be co-chairman of the Obama reelection campaign from his base in Chicago while ignoring the needs of the city, has a reputation as being a street-wise tough guy, an image he loves to cultivate. Frankly, I have my doubts.

First, although Emanuel was elected to Congress from Illinois, he earned his "street creds" inside the DC Beltway, where "men" openly refer to themselves as "metrosexual" whatever the hell that means, and brag about their ability to withstand pain if they don't yelp when their manicurist sticks them in the cuticle. A tough-guy rep built under those circumstances doesn't play out very well on Soldier Field or the mean streets of a big city, as Emanuel himself showed us just last week.

Chicago is a city under siege from gang warfare and yet Emanuel's response was to disband the police department's gang task force in favor of beefing up neighborhood patrols. Oh, and Emanuel had a strongly worded message for the gang bangers engaging in drive-by shootings. "Don't shoot near the children."

Seriously. He told the Chicago gangsters to shoot each other in places where there were no innocent children playing so only the targets of the gansta' bullets would be hit.

Not "Get the hell off my street." Not "Get the hell off my block." Not, "Get the hell out of my city or I'll see every damn one of you punks in jail by the end of my first year in office." Nope, Mr. Tough Guy responds to a level of violence not seen since the days of Al Capone and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre by telling the gangs to shoot each other only on DDS's – Designated Drive-by Streets.

What's next, a family circle meeting? "Now I thought we discussed this at the City Council and your lawyers said you'd abide by our common position. I hope I don't have to cut back on your food stamps. And while we're at it, I am adamant that you clean up your spent shells after your firefights, and if possible I'd prefer you use ammo that won't penetrate body armor when shooting at our police."

Maybe he can call in the SEIU to clean up Chicago's gang problem.

Nonetheless, Emanuel apparently has been around real tough guys long enough to pick up some of their tactics and lingo, and it is obvious that he is using the classic small guy attacks on Romney to keep Romney off guard and on the defense in hopes of scoring a few hits that will wear Romney down.

Still, if you apply my father's rationale to the presidential campaign, Romney does have plenty of options. One such option would be the classic one-two; a powerful straight-in left jab to the solar plexus followed by a massive body blow, a right hook to the lower ribs.

I'm speaking figuratively here, by the way. I am not advocating that Romney or members of his campaign staff hit Emanuel. Really.

The shot to the solar plexus immediately shoots excruciating pain throughout the body, causing an involuntary reflex including holding one's breath, that then makes the ribs a tempting target because they temporarily lose their flexibility and either break outright or at least will be seriously bruised when hit by the right hook. You keep this up at regular intervals and around the third or fourth hit the ribs will break and by that time your opponent is flinching every time you even look like you're going launch a body shot.

Then, in mid-October you do it one more time; a straight powerful jab to the solar plexus, followed by a crasheous right hook. This time you'll notice that your opponent automatically drops his elbow to protect his broken ribs and you take that opportunity to bring your hook up and hit him right on the jaw, so hard that his head spins nearly off his neck and he ends up looking out his own ear hole, as John Madden used to say.

Now, as I pointed out above, we are talking figuratively here. So, figuratively, in a political campaign what would constitute a good, solid, pain-inducing jab to the solar plexus?

Well, the Romney campaign could have one of the GOP Super PACs do a commercial questioning Obama's real relationship with urban terrorist Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, formerly of the Weather Underground.

Barack Obama friend Bill Ayers after becoming a respected member of the Chicago Democratic establishment.

That was the anti-government gang that built bombs and blew up people – including their friends - and buildings to protest killing and violence back in the 70s.

Ayers and Dohrn went underground to avoid prosecution and when they resurfaced they managed to avoid serious jail time or civil punishment. Then they went on to become respected members of the establishment they once claimed to hate, living in upper-crust neighborhoods and counting among their friends Michelle and Barack Hussein Obama.

Internet sites say that the Obama's became friends with Ayers and Dohrn well after the days of the Weather Underground were behind them, but who knows? There is so much mystery surrounding Obama's early years that we can't say for certain that he wasn't in on their terrorist activities - perhaps just tacitly - but who knows?

That would work very well as a jab to the solar plexus and it could very easily be followed by other ads with photos of the President in his younger, pot-smoking days, with questions about whether his brain has suffered permanent damage.

This is only a cigarette, according to the Internet.

I mean, the guy's questions about Romney's days at Bain Capital show that Obama just can't wrap his mind around business activities at all, so why not raise that question along with photos and statements from his pothead friends?

That should give us a good template from which to work effectively. The alternative, as I have written before is to try and play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules, which in this type of fight can have only one outcome: the Big Guy will be on the ground the day after Election Day, writhing in pain and moaning "You fight dirty."

Above him, Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, will be laughing derisively and responding, "Yeah, I do. And I won."

And in that case Mr. Governor, American will truly be doomed.

One of the stupidest themes now being fought out on the presidential campaign trail is a demand from President Barack Hussein Obama that Mitt Romney release not only personal tax records from past years, but also minutes of meetings from Bain Capital, a private equity corporation that Romney ran decades ago.

I say this is stupid first because none of it has anything to do with the real issues now facing America, and also because in truth the Obama campaign is on a fishing expedition. Obama already knows that having been in both the public and private sectors for decades, including serving as Governor of Massachusetts, there is very little about Romney that hasn't been gone over previously – with a fine-toothed comb.

So Obama knows there is no smoking gun that will reveal some dark, heinous secret about Romney. Obama is desperately hoping that he can divert voters' attention from his failed economic policies, domestic policies, deplorable foreign policy record, and the fact that unemployment keeps climbing no matter how much his administration cooks Obama's books.

In fact, Obama still has plenty to explain about himself, starting with a lawsuit filed in federal court questioning why he has a Social Security number with a Connecticut prefix.

Obama obviously is hoping that Romney will tell Obama to stuff it, and then the Obama operatives will yell "AAAAAHHHAAAAA! WE TOLD YOU!! ROMNEY WON'T SHOW US HIS MEETING MINUTES AND TAX RETURNS! HE MUST BE HIDING SOMETHING. WE TOLD YOU!!! WE TOLD YOU!!! WE TOLD YOU!!!

In fact, that pretty much happened today when Obama refused to apologize for one of his stooges claiming that Romney is a felon for supposedly lying on federal elections documents, which obviously didn't happen or the mainstream media would be peeing on his political grave as we speak. Obama didn't answer the real question in the issue, that being whether it is appropriate for a campaign operative to deliberately lie, as is happening with increasing regularity in the Obama campaign.

Instead, he went off on the appropriateness of questioning Romney's background. OK, Mr. President, you show us yours first.

More to the point, Obama has one hell of a nerve to demand anything of Romney when in fact we know so little about Obama. Romney, rather than wasting time demanding apologies or explaining ad nauseam that he was running the Olympic Games during the period that Obama says he was still calling the shots at Bain Capital, should be demanding that Obama tells us more about his personal history.

For instance I read just last week that Obama is being challenged in federal court to explain why he has a Social Security Number that was issued in Connecticut but there is nothing official that he ever lived here! Seriously.

A news item that apparently didn't get very much circulation said a private investigator who is running as a presidential candidate in Ohio recently filed a federal lawsuit against Obama, challenging his eligibility and alleging that one of his Social Security numbers starts with 04.

Social Security numbers have a three-digit prefix that tells an informed person where the card was issued, by state. Numbers with a three-digit prefix from 040 to 049 are issued to people living in Connecticut at the time they apply for Social Security. (Oh, I read that the Obama Administration is ending that policy so in the future you won't be able to track a person's background by the prefix on their SSN!)

Of the very little we know of Obama, and of all the questions that have been raised about the phony birth certificate he posted on the White House web site – anyone who knows how to use the zoom control on their computer can see in about four clicks that the document on the White House website is fake – the one thing we have never heard is that he ever lived in Connecticut at any time in his murky past.

So how did he get a Social Security number with an 04 prefix? Good question. Actually, there is some evidence that he has another SSN with a Michigan prefix! During his college years Obama supposedly lived both in California and New York City, yet we are to believe that for some fleeting moment he stopped off in either Connecticut or Michigan and decided to get himself a couple of Social Security cards?

Here, from Wikipedia: Obama attended Punahou School from the 5th grade until his graduation in 1979. … Upon finishing high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled at Occidental College, where he describes living a "party" lifestyle of drug and alcohol use. After two years at Occidental, he transferred to Columbia College at Columbia University, in Manhattan, New York City, where he majored in political science. Upon graduation, he worked for a year in business. He then moved to Chicago, working for a non-profit doing community organizing in the Altgeld Gardens housing project on the city's South Side.

If he was working in business in New York, he should have had a Social Security card and presumably it would have had a Hawaii or California prefix. Or, assuming he never registered prior to graduation from college, he would have to have a New York issued SSN. Wouldn't he?

Here are a couple of other issues that Obama and the media don't want to talk about from the website Western Journalism: Recently, it was discovered that Obama’s Selective Service card may have been doctored; there are questions about how he paid for his Harvard Law School education since, no one has produced any evidence that he received student loans. Obama will not release any student loan details despite repeated requests from the Chicago Tribune; However, it appears that his Harvard education may have been paid for by a foreign source. Khalid Al-Mansour, an advisor to Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talah, told Manhattan Borough president, Percy Sutton, that he was raising money for Obama’s Harvard tuition. Incidentally, Prince Tala is the largest donor to CAIR, a Muslim group declared by the U.S. Government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist financing trial.

So, it would appear that there is far more to be known about Barack Hussein Obama than there is about Mitt Romney. I have no problem whatsoever with political candidates being open and transparent, but in this case, it is Obama who espouses transparency – for everyone but himself it seems.

So what about it Mr. President? Romney already has shown us his, are you going to show us yours?

In what has to be the most fatuous, ego-driven fraud perpetrated on the public since Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938, a group of scientists announced this week that it has found the Higgs boson particle, thereby opening the door to solving all the mysteries of the universe.

Well, OK, the scientists didn't actually find it, but after spending untold billions of dollars to build and operate particle accelerators to smash miniscule items into each other, they say they have found "evidence" of the particle … therefore it exists. As a result, they can now apply for a Nobel Prize in science and get rich selling ever-so-exciting documentaries on their "discovery."

(Yes I know that particle accelerators have useful purposes too, in medical research and cancer treatment for instance. But that isn't what they were used for in this case.)

Before we get too far down the line, despite the scientific assertions this week, the Higgs boson still is a hypothetical particle of matter. From Wikipedia: The Higgs boson is also called the God particle, after the title of Nobel physicist Leon Lederman's The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? which contained the author’s assertion that the discovery of the particle is crucial to a final understanding of the structure of matter. The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted in 1964 to explain the Higgs mechanism—the mechanism by which elementary particles are given mass.

In other news researchers have emerged from the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest with the stunning revelation that they have discovered the elusive creature "Bigfoot!" Well, they didn't actually discover the creature but they said they have found footprints and feces that are "evidence" Bigfoot exists. Therefore it exists.

In other, other news, a group of frost-bitten researchers in the Himalayas has emerged from the frozen mountains claiming to have discovered the elusive Yeti, also known as the Abominable Snowman. Well, those researchers didn't actually discover it but they have photos of its footprints and they too have feces, which apparently is the key to proving "discoveries" of this nature.

In other, other, other news I personally have discovered the elusive Tachyon. More on that in a minute.

For those of you who have been blissfully unaware of all this fuss a little history may be in order. Back in the early part of the last century a man named Albert Einstein – you may have heard of him – spent an inordinate amount of time doing math and postulating on why things are the way they are. From all this math and postulating came his famous Theory of Relativity that says Energy is equal to an object's Mass times the speed of light squared.

He already had at his disposal Isaac Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation which says that all mass in the universe attracts all other mass with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

These theories proved very useful in determining a lot of previously unknown data both on this planet and in outer space. No one seriously questioned them because they didn't really matter in our day-to-day world, and very few other people wanted to spend that much time doing math.

But then in the latter part of the last century a guy named Hubble built an ultra-modern telescope that was launched into space where it started taking pictures and collecting massive amounts of data on of all kinds of extra-terrestrial things. Much of what we have learned from the Hubble comes from images created by focusing on the various frequencies in the light spectrum.

Meanwhile, super computers have been analyzing the gazillions of bits of information on the gazillions of galaxies, stars and planets that have been found thanks to the Hubble's capabilities. Unfortunately, as we learned more and more about the universe, scientists discovered that by using what we thought we knew about gravity and mass and relativity we should have been able to compute the mass of huge groups of objects like galaxies – but the numbers didn't add up.

There appeared to be significantly more mass – now referred to as Dark Matter – in the universe than could be seen, even by the most advanced measuring devices known to modern science.

But our intrepid band of researchers was not deterred and in conjunction with large universities often funded by tax dollars, as well as research labs also funded in part by tax dollars, started doing all kinds of calculations. In their view these calculations would not only solve the mystery of dark matter but would prove the existence of multiple dimensions – as many as 11 some say – which is in my opinion pure nonsense.

Decades of gut-wrenching, hand-wringing failures prompted a massive search for the Higgs boson particle using particle accelerators to put a smack down on increasingly smaller particles – way below the size of atoms – to see what dropped out after each collision. Ultimately they figured they'd find the Higgs boson and all would be well in the universe.

Billions upon billions of dollars later they have what they call "evidence" but still no Higgs boson. The result this week was an intergalactic Cover Your Ass moment to justify these gross expenditures. Despite the assertions, the scientists really haven't found the Higgs boson any more than Bigfoot or the Yeti have been found. Or the Tachyon.

The Tachyon, like the Higgs boson, is a hypothetical particle that travels faster than the speed of light. Its existence was first postulated by the noted scientist Eric Cartman of South Park U who was working off philosophical speculation from Rene Descartes who stated back in the 17th century something akin to I Think, Therefore I Am.

Cartman, taking that hypothesis a step further postulated I Think, Therefore I Am … I Think. This is now known throughout the scientific community as the Tachyon Hypothesis.

Since the Tachyon moves so fast no one has seen it; in fact Einstein would say it can't exist because nothing can travel faster than light. How could he possibly know that? Thought travels faster than light and transcends distance, at least in my opinion.

Nonetheless, I have discovered evidence that the Tachyon exists. Last night I took my sky-gazing telescope out just after sundown, with the intent of looking at some planets, and just over the horizon, just behind our sun, I saw skid marks way out in the solar system.

Now the only thing that could make skid marks like that in the vast emptiness of space is a Tachyon. I figure it must have some sort of intelligence associated with it because I hypothesize that it was headed straight for our Sun but put on the brakes and hung a hard left – hence the skid marks and my "evidence."

The skid marks are gone now but I did see them … so could someone put me in for a Nobel Prize too?

It seems to me that all the money that went into the search for a hypothetical particle that may or may not solve these math problems could have been put to a better use, considering the state of the real world – wars, climate change, pestilence, intolerance, food and water shortages for instance.

You know what really would have been helpful? The scientists could have developed a methodology that could teach any cashier in any fast food outlet that when a customer's bill comes out to say $16.23, and the customer hands the cashier $21.23, the cashier immediately hands back a $5 bill without the blank uncomprehending stare. This frees the customer from pockets full of unwanted coins and a wallet full of $1 bills.

A lot of commentators noted this week that even if or when the Higgs boson particle is really found it won't have much impact on humanity. But a fast food cashier who understands the relationship between seemingly random numbers? That would be an accomplishment!

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama told the American public to "Read My Lips" and vowed "No New Taxes" just before he instituted a bunch of new taxes and then was defeated for a second term in office?

Oh, wait a minute. That was George Bush The First. But how did I confuse that piece of history with the current president, Barack Hussein Obama?

OK, I've got it.

Remember the Volt? The Volt - the now discontinued piece of junk that was an automobile primarily by definition but not by performance, that the Obama-controlled General Motors tried to force on the American public as the savior of our economy and the environment?

The one that couldn't go 30 miles on its batteries without a recharge that took 12 hours because it wasn't designed for self-regeneration the way car batteries were built for decades previously? Yeah, that Volt. Sold a couple of thousand out of the millions of cars in America before the government-owned car manufacturer decided we weren't going to buy it.

Well, I was watching Judge Andrew Napolitano on the Bret Baier show on FOX News the other night, after the Supreme Court of the United States - SCOTUS - ruled that Obama can force his version of health care - more expensive and less effective though it may be - on the American public because regardless of what Obama or any of his stooges call it, Obamacare is a tax. Napolitano said that as a result of that ruling in which Chief Justice John "Brainiac" Roberts was the deciding vote, the government now can make us buy whatever it wants just by taxing us if we don't.

Napolitano, who I admire for his straight talking, no-nonsense style, says that Congress, comprised of the two bodies of highly intelligent, America-lovers and forward-thinkers we all know and adore - now has the right to force just about any product on the American public that it wants.

So go get that economy saving, environment regenerating piece of garbage right now or Congress will tax you to death - with the full support of a majority of the US Supreme Court including Chief Justice John "Brainiac" Roberts. By the way, if it takes less than an hour of driving to discharge the batteries, and 12 hours hooked up to an electric outlet that has just shy of a 50-50 chance of being powered by coal to recharge, how exactly does this benefit the environment?

Just asking.

But back to Barack Hussein Obama. He averred throughout the course of getting his health care package through a Democrat-controlled Congress before the American public took back the House of Representatives in 2010, that it was not a tax.

Did you see the interview he did with alleged journalist George Robert Stephanopoulos while Congress was getting ready to pass his tax package? Stephanopoulos maintained that it was a tax and Obama was adamant that it wasn't.

Obama even chastised his interviewer when George said he looked it up in the dictionary and Obama said that if he had to look it up that in itself was proof that Stephanopoulos didn't know what he was talking about.

Frankly I don't like Stephanopoulos either but to be told you are stupid by Obama is really an insult. Wow!

So, now that Obama has been exposed as the real dummy in that exchange he also will have to spend the next four months claiming that the American public is dumber than both of them. He also will have to convince his lemming-like followers that the Supreme Court, while giving him a Pyrrhic victory, really doesn't know a tax from a fine from a fee from an interest rate.

Personally, I think we, meaning the American voters, are smarter than he thinks.

It looks like we first have to elect some people who know what a crock this all is and change it; and second there should be a Constitutional amendment to prevent Congress from doing something that the Founding Fathers never intended. Taxes, yes. Redefining everything that carries a financial penalty with it as a tax? No, no way, never happen!

If something that devious was revealed as the intent of the founders, George Washington would have led the Whiskey Rebellion himself!

Volt? Obama care? Can this government produce anything of real value? No, don't bother answering. We already know.

I wonder if there is a way to turn a profit in this?

There's trouble in Hebron, Connecticut. That's Trouble with a Capital T which rhymes with B which stands for Budgets.

Hebron, a bucolic town of less than 9,000 people is in the middle of a perfect financial storm – created by a lousy economy, plummeting school enrollments offset by increasing costs for schools and government, interference from the state that limits local options, a just completed property revaluation that drove the Grand List of Taxable Properties down, and a massive reliance on homeowners rather than business or industry to fund local government expenditures.

In fact, Hebron has such a minuscule industrial/commercial tax base that more than 90 percent of local tax revenues come from home values – which plummeted in the recent revaluation as a result of the ongoing housing crisis. Thus to make up for the decrease in the Grand List on which local tax rates are based, projected taxes are going way UP for a large number of Hebron homeowners.

(In the interest of full disclosure, my local taxes, if the current budget proposal passes, will increase by about 10 percent. To put this in perspective, I already pay more each month for property taxes and insurance than I paid for a full year back in 1985 when I built my home. In the last quarter century I have not seen an iota of an increase in local services while the cost has skyrocketed! More than 70 percent of our expenditures go to the schools and most of those budgets go to salaries for teachers and administrators.)

Voters will be heading to the polls again tomorrow, June 5, 2012 for the third round of voting on the annual budget. In the first of two previous votes the municipal budget and elementary school budgets were defeated as was the Capital Improvement Budget and the regional high school/middle school budget. In Round Two the high school/middle school budget made it thorough – primarily because voters in the two other towns that comprise the region came out in sufficient numbers to vote yes – and Hebron's reduced Capital Improvement Budget squeaked through.

But the municipal and elementary school budgets in Hebron were defeated handily. These budgets are voted on as one package, despite a strong preference for bifurcation – budgets voted on individually – and when one goes down, they both go down.

Taxpayers are angry with the municipal government budget because even though we paid off a major debt last year – $688,000 - the current proposal still went UP! And even though local officials are touting more than $500,000 in reductions to the proposed budget increases - according to the local paper - it still is more than last year's spending when you factor in the savings realized by not having a $688,000 debt payment this year.

(UPDATE: I received a somewhat terse email from the Chairman of the Hebron Board of Selectmen after this article was first posted, telling me to get my facts straight on the budget reductions. Something to do with the Regional school budget and the local school budget and the right hand doing this while the left hand was doing that. OK, here it is.

According to the budget overview posted as a legal notice in our local weekly newspaper there are four one-time expenditures in the current budget that are not repeated in the proposed budget. The current municipal budget of $8,929,714 includes a debt service expenditure of $688,114 which is not repeated this year. So to make an apples to apples comparison we have to start with a proposed municipal budget of $8,241,600. After reductions the current municipal budget proposal is $8,168,684 which I think we can all agree is lower than $8,241,600.

HOWEVER - and there always is a HOWEVER. The current budget total also included $364,917 in one time "supplemental appropriations" that are not included in the proposed budget. As it stands now the Regional high school/middle school budget, which passed, is up just shy of $400,000; the proposed elementary school budget is up more than $100,000 despite various claims to the contrary in the papers, and the total we're being asked to approve is only $560,694 shy of the current total of the two school budgets and one municipal budget which is less than $688,000 and a lot less when you add in the additional $364,917 in supplemental appropriations. Did you get that?

Fine, that is what voters will be sorting through tomorrow. Who knows, maybe it will pass. But if it does, our tax rate will increase by 10 percent! In one year! In the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression!End of UPDATE!

Meanwhile, Hebron's education community - the local BOE - also is in the midst of a heated discussion with the BOS and the BOF on the value of ADK which supporters say is necessary due to more rigorous CCSS, and also is complicated by the MBR which was sneaked through the Legislature in 2005 without so much as a peep from our now very vocal local leaders.

(OK, I did that on purpose. Everyone who has ever sat through a Board of Education BOE meeting knows you can't be cool and in the know without a major command of acronyms. They change every year too, so school board members can be smug in their self-assurance that they can talk in code while the attending members of the public are scrambling to find out what this year's crop of acronyms means.)

BOS in my town is Board of Selectmen, the ruling municipal body, and the BOF is the Board of Finance. On the education side, ADK is All Day Kindergarten. CCSS is Core Curriculum State Standards – which supposedly have made it harder to be an elementary school student in Connecticut so everyone now has to send their kids to school all day long from the get go.

Personally I see it as just another attempt to diminish the importance of the American family and I don't like it. And I have read that the "benefits" of putting four- and five-year-old children in school all day generally don't continue past grade three where everyone seems to emerge basically on the same level.

But I have friends who do have a child in ADK and I not only like them, hence the word "friends," I know them to be hard-working, concerned parents who want the best for their children and don't want them falling behind their peers. If they want their students in ADK, that is their choice as parents and I support them.

But the real issue isn't ADK or CCSS. It is the MBR which is tied to ECS. MBR is Minimum Budget Requirement and ECS is Education Cost Sharing. Most if not all towns in Connecticut receive part of their education funding from the state – ECS.

The state ties those funds in a nice bundle with a requirement that if the local education budget as passed by taxpayers is less than the previous year's budget the town will be penalized by a loss in ECS funds - hence the Minimum Budget Requirement.

From the State of Connecticut website: Under the MBR currently in effect, towns must maintain a budgeted appropriation for education at least equal to the amount they budgeted for FY 09 … . The effect of the current MBR is to prohibit towns from reducing education budgets in FY 10 and FY 11 below their FY 09 levels. By law, the penalty for failing to meet the MBR is a reduction in the town's ECS grant for the subsequent fiscal year equal to twice the amount of the shortfall.

So if last year your town spent $1 million on education and this year you budget only $900,000 due to declining enrollments and less personnel costs, the state will take an additional $200,000 away from your Board of Education. If you persist in your efforts to decrease your budget you will have to come up with another $200k in local funding because the state is going to make sure you don’t lay off any teachers or administrators.

In defense of teachers and administrators, I have counted several in both occupations as friends over the years and I even have some in my family. I like them, and have tremendous respect for their profession – especially since I spent several years teaching and advising at the high school and university levels. But most of the people I know in the education profession would never agree to manipulate the system the way we are seeing today.

So what does this come down to for the average voter tomorrow? We will be faced with a Sophie's Choice – vote for the budget to help our friends with children in the school system, or vote against the budget and help keep our own costs in check. Frankly, we never should have been put in this position.

For all the screaming I saw in the letters section of local papers last week from town officials saying we have to pass the budget or the sky will fall, I can't help but wonder why there were no similar efforts to communicate with the voters when the Legislature passed the MBR in 2005 – or changed it several times in the years since.

And I can't help but remember that many of the people now serving on various boards and commissions in our town got a lot of help from me in years past through my political strategy and communications work when they were seeking election. Or that I consider them to be friends. But with friends like these …

Today is Memorial Day and the airwaves are filled with heartfelt and well meant remembrances for those who died fighting for our nation.

Being a capitalist country the remembrances to "honor those who served" also are interspersed with commercials for a plethora of goods related to outdoor activities such as cookouts, camping, beach fun, hiking, food, grills, beverages – adult and otherwise. You know the drill.

I just want to point out that when I was 18 years old and enlisted in the Marines, for the specific purpose of going to Vietnam, most of the things we now mention in our remembrances about those who fought and died were not at the top of my list.

I didn’t fight for barbeque. I didn't fight so I could walk in parades or give speeches. I didn't fight to sit in traffic going and coming to the beach. I didn't fight for summer vacations or second homes to live in for winter ski vacations.

I didn't fight for Ford or Chevy or Plymouth or Oldsmobile. I didn't fight for Mercedes or BMW or Audi either. Nor Honda nor any other form of transportation.

I sure as hell didn't fight for Congress. I didn't even fight so I could wear my war medals. (I counted them yesterday and with the multiple awards, such as 15 Air Medals for flying 300 missions as a helicopter machine gunner, there are more than two dozen. They look nice on the wall and on occasion I refer to them when talking to my children and grandchildren about the sacrifices of military service.)

Being 18 at the time my vision was not as widespread as it is now, but my heart was definitely in the right place. One of the things I worked very hard for was the right to be called Marine, which I did and do consider one of the highest of compliments. I fought to wear the Marine dress blues, because there simply is no better looking uniform. And my Dad taught me that girls like men in uniform.

Unfortunately my Dad fought in WWII, the Big One, when people had a different view of those who served our country. By the time I returned from Vietnam in June 1969 – 43 years ago next month – we were told that wearing our uniforms in public could bring unwanted attention our way.

The truth is I fought for the men alongside me, both those in my Marine helicopter units, HMM-161 and HMM-164, and the infantrymen, reconnaissance Marines and others who stood alongside me in battle. We fought there, so we didn't have to fight here.

We fought so we could have all those things I listed above, plus more, and I fought to earn the respect of my countrymen. I learned afterward that to be respected you have to act respectfully not just once, but for all of your life, and that deeds on distant battlefields may be seen as honorable or dishonorable depending on the political viewpoint.

I learned that others who claimed to be my brothers and comrades sometimes were neither and that sometimes my medals were disdained by those who hadn't earned anything similar. But I also developed the confidence that comes with surviving numerous battles and frankly I don't care if some people don't see military service in the same light as I do. This is America after all and we exist because people are allowed to have different opinions.

My primary message today is to ask that you remember those who didn't come back from battle and those who still are fighting the physical and mental demons that will be with them as long as they live. And please remember those who have died in the years since coming home from their wars – sometimes from residual impacts of their long-ago fighting.



Today I honor my drill instructor from Platoon 214, Parris Island, South Carolina, the late Sgt. Robert F. Starbuck, in addition to those members of HMM-161 who also were Killed in Action. I've listed them exactly as I did in Masters of the Art, with last name followed by first name, rank, service, position they held at the time of their death and a numerical code that represents that last two digits of the year they died, followed by two digits representing the month and the last two for the day of the month.

Akins, Donald--Cpl--USMC--Crew Chief-- 690602
Antonelly, Charles---Cpl--USMC--Maint-- 651106
Barr, Allan--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--690423
Bazemore, William--LCpl--USMC--Gunner--690422
Belknap, Ronald--Cpl--USMC--Gunner--660808
Benson, Martin--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--700206
Brandes, Kenneth--Cpl--USMC--Crew Chief--680822
Cheek, Robert--LCpl--USMC--Crew Chief--681017
Chemis, Charles--GySgt--USMC--Crew Chief--651017
Chmura, Michael--Cpl--USMC--Gunner--651017
Creed, Edward--HM3--USN--Corpsman--660625
DeCraene, Alan--1stLt--USMC--Pilot--700216
Doeden, Nicolaus--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--650606
Ferrazzano, John--Cpl--USMC--Gunner--681017
Foster, Curtis--Pfc--USMC--Crew--650606
Frantz, William--LCpl--USMC--Gunner--681017
Garringer, Jan--Cpl--USMC--Crew--700216
Green, Arthur--LCpl--USMC--Crew--660925
Griffith, Dale--Cpl--USMC--Gunner--690607
Helmstetler, Michael--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--680619
Henricks, Charles--1stLt--USMC--Pilot--690323
Hertz, Allen--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--650606
Hesson, Danny--LCpl--USMC--Gunner--691010
Hutton, William--HM2--USNR--Corpsman--690314
Lenz, Thomas--LCpl--USMC--Gunner--690422
McBee, Carl--LCpl--USMC--Crew--650606
McKay, Gerald--1stLt--USMCR--Pilot--650606
McNally, Paul--Capt--USMCR--Pilot--650606
Morin, Donald--LCpl--USMC--Crew Chief--700216
Parker Jr., Vernon--Cpl--USMC--Crew--660925
Powell Jr., Joseph--Capt--USMCR--Pilot--681017
Reiter, Dean--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot--660925
Sampsell, Joel--1stLt--USMCR--Co-Pilot --700216
Scott, Dayne--HM2--USNR--Corpsman--681017
Sharp, Lufkin--Capt--USMCR--Pilot--680619
Stahl, Donald--Sgt--USMC--Crew Chief--660625
Sweet, James--1stLt--USMC--Co-Pilot--681017
Tracy, Gary--Cpl--USMC--Crew--650606
Wiese, Robert--Cpl--USMC--Gunner--700216
Wilson, Frank--Cpl--USMC--Crew Chief—650606

Today I also am posting this column in memory of Lt. Col. Paul W. Niesen; Cpl. Fred Young; SSgt James O'Connor; Cpl. Ronald Charles Adair and all others with whom I served who have since passed away. And thank you especially to the Corpsmen, who fought alongside us, and did their best to save so many Marines, often at the cost of their own lives. It was never pretty; it was often ugly, but it was the price we paid so I could write this tribute today.
Semper Fidelis

For more than 40 years now I have listened with a certain level of bemusement as people in high and distant places commented on what happened in Vietnam, why we – meaning the military – "lost" and what it is that America's Vietnam veterans "need."

I have watched as the official take on the veteran demographic shifted from "saviors of our country" to poor, disaffected, mentally deranged, deficient individuals who were unalterably diminished due to our service, particularly our Vietnam service. Remember the late '70s and the Walking Time Bomb label?

That the official version of veterans is totally off the mark goes without saying – every legitimate survey shows that we are more stable, more productive, and more capable of dealing with the inconsistencies of humanity that our non-veteran counterparts. We were the best educated generation of veterans ever to go to war, two-thirds of the men who served were volunteers – as opposed to one-third of World War II veterans – and the death rate in combat was not disproportionate toward the poor and minorities, but rather was a mirror image of society as it existed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Decades after the slaughter of millions of Southeast Asians by communist forces in the mid- to late 1970s, there still are many Americans who have no idea of what really caused that debacle – meaning mentally and morally deficient American politicians and bureaucrats.

And unfortunately, now, in 2012, in Afghanistan, where often the only indication we have that a war is in progress is an occasional death notice – officially referred to as the death of a NATO serviceman or woman even when they are Americans – we are on the cusp of creating another generation of Veterans who will be tarred with the same brush.

In Vietnam not only did American forces win every major battle in which we fought, but our South Vietnamese counterparts were successful in defending their country against a vicious and overwhelming invasion by northern communists in 1972 – with the help of our advisers and air power. The communists sent 250,000 troops into South Vietnam and after months of bitter fighting and seesaw battles the final tally was 150,000 communists killed, half of all their artillery and armor destroyed, and the communist's number one national hero Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu, fired and placed under house arrest where he stayed until 1975.

This isn't just my viewpoint, especially the part about the US winning every major battle. Check this out:


Then with an unprecedented success in South Vietnam's immediate history the American Congress voted to accept the lopsided – in favor of the communists – Paris Peace Accords followed by passage of the Case-Church Resolution which cut off all aid – military, economic and humanitarian - to South Vietnam. Two years later, the north invaded again, and left to fend for itself, running out of ammo and bandages, the south fell.

For the next decade our former allies were imprisoned, tortured, forced out into the South China Sea, and butchered by the millions, while America's Vietnam veterans were labeled by the politicians and media alike as the primary cause for this travesty. Do you know the excuse America's politicians and bureaucrats used to justify the slaughter of millions of people?

They said the government of South Vietnam was corrupt! Yeah, our government said that! Can you believe it?

Know one of the major excuses America's politicians and bureaucrats are using to justify leaving Afghanistan before the job is finished, despite the overwhelming successes of our military? That the government of President Hamid Karzai is corrupt! Yeah, our government is saying that! Can you believe it?

So I guess if he is, then it comes down to a matter of degrees. Is Karzai more corrupt than the Obama Administration and Congress? How do you tell? Is it a matter of raw dollars or a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product?

Meanwhile, Americans are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, sometimes at the hands of the very people we are supposed to be protecting, all because the terrorists are fighting for an extremist form of a religion that calls for them to slay "infidels" wherever and whenever they can. And in the meantime our troops are performing magnificently in the field and are trying to put a sufficient beating on the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other versions of this religious terrorism so they can't reestablish themselves and put another hit on America and other allied countries.

This mind you with unprecedented Rules of Engagement hanging over their heads, and stupid politicians and bureaucrats making up the rules as they go, from back in their cushy offices, in between cocktail parties and urgent appointments with international level hookers – which means they look better and cost a lot more than run-of-the-mill hookers, but nonetheless are hookers.

The media, meanwhile, which frankly is a sad and unfunny joke when it comes to reporting on matters such as this, is saying we might just as well quit Afghanistan anyway because Americans are becoming war weary!

War weary Americans? Just how many Americans have been to Afghanistan to fight against the extremists and terrorists? One percent of the population? That would be more than 3 million people and I doubt that we have sent that many over there to fight.

How many Americans have fought in any war? I'll answer for you. Roughly 7 percent of the population. Excuse me, that's how many veterans there are, but not all veterans actually go to the war zone and engage in combat.

In fact, when you talk about people who took up arms and did the fighting the percent is miniscule compared to the overall veteran population not to mention the overall US population.

So exactly how did way more than 90 percent of the American population get war weary when they didn't leave home, didn't go to a distant land, didn't get shot at, didn't see anyone die, didn't put themselves in danger, and in fact, other than having to think for themselves in an economic recession, weren't inconvenienced in anyway.

War weary Americans?

Probably, but consider how most Americans will feel when we leave Afghanistan with the job unfinished, not because of any failure of our military – just as in Vietnam – but because of feckless politicians and a media that would rather cover internal violence in Syria than the potential resurgence of the terrorist network that attacked us on 9-11?

How weary will most Americans be if, within the next decade, we are hit again by the very same forces that our politicians – and particularly the Obama Administration – said were vanquished and neutralized, never to return? Oh, I bet we'll be weary, but I'll bet that most Americans will want heads to roll if we get nailed by a "dirty" nuclear device or a biological warfare weapon that unleashes diseases than can sicken or kill hundreds of thousands.

Then maybe we'll really be war weary. But then, the only alternative will be to surrender and commit our children's children's children to an eternity of slavery. How weary of that crap do you think our offspring will have to be before someone get's off their dead rear end and does something about it?

Or will the media and another generation of politicians and bureaucrats blame the military again and say it was all their fault? They'll get away with it too, just like they did between the 1960s and now because so few people have actually been to Afghanistan and our military is not allowed to speak out.

I can tell you two things that today's veterans want that are exactly what my generation wanted - Victory and respect. With the first comes the second. Go to every military installation that flies the American flag and tell the people stationed there that the United States is going to unleash the full force of its military power against any enemies anywhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and associated countries for one full year or until all terrorists are dead and see what happens.

I bet you'll see a massive surge in volunteers to take part, and the phrase "war weary" will be relegated to the junk pile of populist terminology right alongside "bee's knees" and "Oh you kid!"

About a week ago I heard a news report that said two NATO troops were killed fighting in Afghanistan.

The blurb caught my attention because the American media barely reports on the deaths of Americans fighting in Afghanistan, never mind troops from other countries who are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

As it turned out, the two deaths were American soldiers, but the media, in this case FOX News, called the brave heroes "NATO" troops. Why?

I find this disturbing on many levels. First, I have watched item after item come into my email inbox over the last decade or so, pointing out that there is an ongoing effort in the United Nations to create and enforce worldwide treaties that would gravely restrict the American military and even the rights of American citizens – in our own country and our own homes.

Foremost among these are efforts to pass international gun control treaties that would effectively nullify our 2nd Amendment rights. The Obama Administration's murderous debacle known as Fast and Furious in which our own government undertook an illegal scheme to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels – and planned on "discovering" them at crime scenes in hopes of further restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens in this country – merely reinforces these fears.

Then we have the International Criminal Court treaty that could govern how American troops engaged in combat against our enemies in foreign countries are treated under international law – and in which they could be judged by representatives from the very enemies we are fighting!

The Clinton Administration approved of and signed the ICC treaty but did not submit it to the Senate for ratification. Such a treaty would require a two-thirds vote of the Senate which thus far has not occurred.

The Bush Administration withdrew support for the ICC completely, but the Obama Administration has resurrected it … go figure. In fact according to Wikipedia Obama has voiced his intent to cooperate with the International Court, but so far can't make good on his intentions because he doesn't have enough votes in the Senate to succeed at ratification.

So when I hear an American news outlet refer to American troops as "NATO" troops it concerns me. We already have American soldiers rotting in Army stockades because they have been charged with civilian crimes based on their actions in the heat of battle. That in itself is reprehensible and as far as I can tell is a policy that has no real intent other than to discourage enlistment in the military.

In fact, US Representative Allen West sent an official letter to Obama just this month decrying the release of international terrorist Ali Musa Daqduq, who was instrumental in planning and executing an ambush against American troops in Iraq in 2007.

Daqduq, a citizen of Lebanon, was released by Iraqi authorities even though he was directly implicated in the death of one American officer in the original attack and the further abduction, torture and execution of four more American troops.

Rep. West (R-FL) notes that Obama used the Separation of Forces Agreement negotiated by the Bush Administration as justification for Daqduq's release. However, West also notes that since Daqduq is a citizen of Lebanon he is not affected by the SOFA and easily could have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay or some other suitable American military facility.

Instead, Daqduq, a high-ranking member of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, has been freed by the Iraqis and can now go about the business of planning further attacks on American troops, American allies and even American soil.

In his letter to Obama, Rep. West states that "Your Administration, instead of standing for the Soldiers who perished at the hands of this terrorist handed a senior Hezbollah operative responsible for the gruesome murder of at least five American over to a "so-called" justice system that, with the facts so clearly showing him guilty, set him free.

"As a combat veteran," West added, "I find this incident of the release of Ali Musa Daqduq to be an utter betrayal not only to those who perished at the hands of this terrorist, but to all men and women who paid the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"If terrorists such as Daqduq walk free, then surely men who made mistakes in the fog of war … deserve leniency," West concluded.

And there lies the heart of my concern with the news calling our fighters NATO troops rather than Americans. Last I knew, US forces hammered the hell out of the terrorist network in Afghanistan in 2002 and early 2003. Then they pursued the remnants of Al Qaeda and the Taliban to Iraq where their leadership, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was establishing terrorist training camps to continue the war against the US.

In Afghanistan, NATO forces were left to mop-up operations.

Seven years later after American forces emerged victorious in Iraq our troops were forced to return to Afghanistan where the Taliban had re-emerged. Now US troops are again fighting and dying in Afghanistan, not for the Afghans, not for any NATO nations, and not for the International Security Assistance Force.

Yes there are numerous nations assisting us in one form or another and thousands of troops from NATO countries in Afghanistan. But while we are a part of NATO we sure as hell shouldn't be directed by, under the command of, or working under the dictates of NATO.

I am not bashing the Canadians, British, Irish, or any other NATO nations that have troops in Afghanistan essentially in the platoon to battalion strength - Germany, France, and Italy being the major exceptions - doing jobs ranging from direct combat to airport security.

Their support, assistance and bravery is greatly appreciated. But US troops are not there to save Ireland, or Belgium or Canada or Croatia or any other nation except as an incidental consequence of their mission. That mission is to save the US and defeat terrorists, a job that is hard enough on its face but is even harder what with the constraints placed on them by the Obama Administration.

Did you know that when US troops go on search and destroy missions to root out the terrorists they now have to apply for warrants to enter houses where enemy forces may have refuge? Yes they do.

The Obama Administration is fighting a shooting war as if our forces are doing house-to-house searches looking for white-collar criminals. Didn't see that on the news did you? Actually, we rarely hear anything about the fighting in Afghanistan these days.

Maybe our erstwhile correspondents think the new restrictions apply only to "NATO" troops.

Today is the first in a series of articles on veterans to commemorate Memorial Day this Monday, May 28.

I chose the subject of flag burning so I could be a messenger of sorts for another special day that follows close on the heels of Memorial Day, that being Flag Day on June 14.

In case you weren't aware or have forgotten, Flag Day commemorates the same day in 1777 when the Second Constitutional Congress adopted the thirteen-stripes-and-thirteen-stars flag. The stars reportedly were put on a blue field, "representing a new constellation" in the night sky. (I wasn't there which is why I said reportedly.)

June 14 was officially named Flag Day by President Woodrow Wilson, and the week in which Flag Day occurs is Flag Week. Americans are encouraged to fly the flag in accordance with standard rules and regulations.

I read an article on Flag Day a couple of years ago in which it was noted that federal buildings are "asked" to fly the American flag on Flag Day. Personally I don't think "asked" should be part of the sentence; "told" is more appropriate.

Last weekend the local American Legion post in my community hosted a visit by National Commander Fang A. Wong, a Vietnam veteran and naturalized citizen who is the first Chinese-American to head that organization. During a question and answer session Commander Wong noted that the Legion at the national level has been lobbying for a ban on burning the American flag as a means of protest.

Commander Wong noted that there is substantial and ongoing support within America's veterans to ban burning the flag as a means of protesting dissatisfaction with the government. Yet, he noted to the surprise of many who gathered to meet him that it is perfectly legal to burn the flag during a street protest, but don't try to burn the flag as part of an appropriate observance without a slew of government approvals, at least in New York City.

Yours Truly presents a copy of Masters of the Art, A Fighting Marine's Memoir of Vietnam to American Legion National Commander and Vietnam Veteran Fang A. Wong

June 14 is not only a national day to recognize our flag and what it stands for, it also is a day during which members of the Legion dispose of unserviceable flags. In accordance with a ceremony – the details of which are contained in Legion publications providing guidance for post operations – Legion members gather flags that are no longer in condition to be flown in public and burn them in a suitable and respectful manner.

But when members of Commander Wong's post wanted to hold a flag disposal ceremony a few years ago they were given a resounding "NO" from New York City officials who said they first had to apply for a permit – or several permits. They veterans did as instructed, but the applications were denied.

In fact, in subsequent years, members of the commander's post were told they had to attend fire training at the city's fire training academy, and were given permission to dispose of the flags using the appropriate ceremony only after completing the prescribed course – but only on the grounds of the training facility!

Since we dispose of unserviceable flags on Flag Day at my post each year, and since the volunteer fire department doesn't give us a hard time like city officials do to the New York City's veterans, we offered to host a delegation from Commander Wong's post on Flag Day this year and any other year they so desire.

They can bring as many unserviceable flags as they can carry and we'll be happy to conduct the appropriate ceremony. We do things differently out in the country I guess.

Can you imagine that? An America-hating protester can walk down the street, dragging the American flag on the ground, and on a whim whip out his matches and set the flag on fire without so much as a "by your leave" and absolutely no interference from local officials.

But when a group of veterans attempts to provide appropriate honor and respect they are told to get a fistful of permits and conduct their ceremony at some obscure corner where the public is not allowed!

Nonetheless it was truly an honor to have a veteran of Commander Wong's stature – and Mrs. Wong - visit us and we had a great turnout for his visit. I was honored to present the national commander with a copy of my book Masters of the Art, as was suggested by our state Legion office, and you could tell by the commentary after he left that the membership was duly impressed.

I hope he takes us up on our offer, if not this year, then certainly in coming years. I'm confidant that any town in Connecticut can show our colleagues a better reception than they get in New York City on Flag Day.

New York. My father lived there after he emigrated from Scotland in the 1920s. He grew up there, and for years I had family living there and we visited several times a year. One summer when I was a teen I saw Mickey Mantle hit and inside-the-park home run there and it was a day I have never forgotten.

Still, New York is … strange.

Four years ago when former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was seeking the GOP nomination to run for president he had the backing of his entire family - his wife and five sons.

This time around a family vote was lopsided against another run, but Romney went ahead based on the support of his wife Ann and one son, after she asked and he answered one question; "Is it too late for America, or has it gone over the proverbial cliff?"

Mrs. Romney told a hotel ballroom crammed with Connecticut Republicans in Stamford Monday night that her husband replied "It is late, but not too late." He also assured her that as president he could fix what is wrong with the country and get it started back on the path to greatness.

Ann Romney's faith in her husband's ability to turn things around was a deciding factor in her decision to support him in another run.

Four years ago the state party leadership was lined up against Romney and Connecticut went for John McCain. I voted for Romney anyway since he was a far better candidate in my opinion for reasons that I wrote about back then and have written about since so there is no need to rehash it all.

This time, McCain is an asterisk in the political history books and Romney is poised to take an insurmountable lead in the primary race. It is considered a lock that he will be the party nominee at the national convention in Tampa this August.

Nonetheless, the question that Ann Romney asked her husband seems to be the overwhelming issue facing a huge number of Americans. There is no doubt that under the administration of President Barack Obama America has deteriorated – we are a joke abroad, our economy is in the tank while Obama engages in the Blame Game School of Economics, our military is being denigrated on a near daily basis and not one major problem that arose after or existed before Obama took office has been resolved.

I realize that my world is not the whole world but the people who inhabit my world are pretty astute and represent a pretty significant chunk of both the American public and the American voters. Unlike a huge number of pundits who seem to know everything that "The America People" want, need or are thinking, I don't, but I do see and hear what my friends and neighbors are saying.

Universally I hear the phrase "I am afraid for my country for the first time in my life." That's a terrible legacy that is attached to the Obama name and his term as America's first "black" president - even though there is plenty of information on the Internet that he is mostly of white and Arabic descent - has been a train wreck.

Frankly I wouldn't want to leave any job with that kind of a reputation, but apparently Obama doesn't care, or he is smug in his belief that he can pull off an election upset, probably through his minions manipulating the mother boards on enough computerized voting machines to give him the necessary edge.

Unless of course, so many Americans vote for Romney that even rigged voting scanners won't be able to save Obama.

Ann Romney assured the Republicans gathered in Stamford, Connecticut Monday night that "We will win." I believe that is entirely possible and also that it is crucially necessary.

But it is going to take the participation of everyone who believes that America is a worthwhile country, the best in existence on the earth today, representing the best possible hope for the human race. The current president doesn't think so and has made that point repeatedly over the course of his term in office.

Frankly, it's time for him to go, but he won't unless everyone who has a stake in this country votes him out in November. The media was making a big deal the other day of people voting against Obama instead of for Romney.

I could care less about motivation, we just need to get the job done.

American Greatness. Let's Do It Again.

I'll be dining with Connecticut's most active and influential Republicans tonight at the annual Prescott Bush dinner, and as part of the bargain I will have an opportunity to hear Ann Romney speak of her husband's vision for the future of America.

Mrs. Romney is the keynote speaker for tonight's event and I hope she says that she is proud of her family's successes and that down the campaign road Mitt Romney will be making the point as often as he can that he is a shining example of all that is possible in America. I don't care that his dad was successful too, so was Joseph Kennedy and I don't hear anyone complaining about the advantages enjoyed by John or Bobby Kennedy.

But I do hear President Obama making comments about people being born with silver spoons in their mouths. Frankly I think it would have been difficult to get any type of spoon in Obama's mouth because he seems to have his head permanently inserted in an area where any further insertions would take surgery.

But take a look at Obama's vision for America. Racial strife, divisiveness, class warfare and a return to the Welfare Mentality that his Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton was so proud to help eliminate. This he calls equality.

Contrast that with Mitt Romney's vision - equal opportunity for all, an economic atmosphere that encourages business and job growth, educational opportunities for all, and the chance to follow his example if that is your dream in life.

Romney can, often does, and should continue to portray himself as a person who worked his way to the "shining city on a hill" that Ronald Reagan spoke of, and held out as a true vision of America's greatness and opportunity. We need to return to the concept of American greatness because regardless of whatever difficulties we have faced over more than two centuries - difficulties that usually reflected the world at large not just our culture - we have worked to change and overcome them.

Frankly, I'd like a chance to visit that shining city too, but with the price of gas these days I don't think I can afford the trip.

I am really looking forward to this evening because so much is at stake for our country - just look at France, again leaning toward Socialism which is literally killing Western Europe - and we have to stop the same thing from happening here.

But President Obama embraces socialism - no, actually he embraces Marxism, communism - and trying to downplay his extremism by referring to his viewpoints as socialist is merely creating a smokescreen.

Obama wants everyone on the same level, which is the promise of communism that by its very nature can never be fulfilled. This has been proven decisively in Russia, China, the now defunct Soviet Union and dismal police states like North Korea. You can't have everyone on the same level because you still need someone to lead.

This is where the disputes within communism arise and as a result communist and socialist governments are responsible for an estimated 100 million deaths worldwide in the last century - deaths by slavery, torture, starvation and execution. What an incredible record of achievement.

Yet humanity's achievements come not from our similarities but our individualism in the midst of our universality. Our race despite its failures and drawbacks has proceeded further and faster in the last 10,000 years than any other species on earth. If all societies had been communist in that time much of what we take for granted today would never have been discovered.

Obama speaks of "the poor" in America as if there is some massive hand keeping people down, when in fact, our society presents myriad opportunities to be anything but poor for those who possess a modicum of intelligence and a solid work ethic. Obama speaks of "the rich" as if people who have achieved that financial level are something despicable, something he might have stepped in when he was walking his dog before dinner.

The last I knew, setting lofty goals and achieving them was part of the American dream. Sure there are rich people who have less than admirable personalities and yes there are people who inherited their wealth rather than working for it. But that doesn't negate the fact that America is a land of opportunity where hard work and good sense can make dreams come true and lots of "rich" people also do a lot of work to help others climb the ladder to success.

Let's face the fact and the fallacy of the communist/socialist mindset - You can't give people a hand up if we're all on the same level.

I hope that is what I hear from Mrs. Romney tonight and what I hear from Mitt Romney on the campaign trail in the months ahead.

In the morning I'll be voting for Gov. Romney to be the GOP nominee partly because he is the last man standing and partly because I voted for him four years ago and I see no reason to change my position now. Regular readers of this column know that I have not been easy on him in recent months nor should I have been, but four years ago I took a lot of flak from some of the people I'll be dining with tonight because they were backing John McCain.

Look where that got us.

I'll be voting for Romney again because I believe as I did four years ago that he has the business skills, the leadership skills, the right priorities and the right personality to bring our society back from the brink of extinction.

I don't care what the polls say or the media says ... most people in my world are sick to death of Obama and scared to death of what he would do to this country if he is elected to another term. Enough is enough.

American Greatness. Let's Do It Again.

An estimated 5,000 people – mostly black from what I could see on the television news – led by that stalwart American religious icon Al Sharpton, of Tawana Brawley fame, commandeered the streets in Sanford, Florida Tuesday demanding "justice" in the death of Trayvon Martin.

Martin, who is described on the Internet, but not in most of the mainstream media, as a strapping 17-year-old high school student who was on suspension for smoking dope, was killed by a block watch volunteer about a month ago after Martin and the volunteer, George Zimmerman, got into a fight. Martin was shot by Zimmerman who said it was in self defense.

Several witnesses have told police that they saw Martin astride Zimmerman who was on his back calling for help as Martin was pounding the daylights out of him and bashing his head on the ground. But you wouldn't know it from the news media which spent at least a week showing what appeared to be a decade old photo of Martin as a youngster, and neglecting to tell readers and viewers that he was no longer that age or that cute when he was shot.

The story was simply that an unarmed black child was killed by an overzealous white block watch "captain," and that the "cracker" Sanford police department let Zimmerman go with no charges.

But now we get leaked police reports saying Zimmerman's face was bloodied, and he had soil matted in the hair on the back of his head as well as grass stains on the back of his shirt which apparently corroborated his story. Sanford police determined the shooting was self defense and released Zimmerman without charging him.

The incident occurred at night after Martin was challenged by Zimmerman inside a gated community. What has not been made clear is whether Martin also lived inside the gated community or if he was passing through and his "hoodie" gangster apparel gave Zimmerman the wrong impression of Martin's intentions.

Sharpton, who has made a handsome living for himself after achieving notoriety in the Brawley case, along with others, is claiming that police and local prosecutors exonerated Zimmerman because he is white. But Zimmerman, whose mother is Hispanic, also considers himself to be Hispanic, another item that has been left out of many news reports.

Sharpton made similar claims two decades ago when Tawana Brawley accused white police and a white prosecutor of raping and abusing her. However, after seeing and hearing evidence that totally contradicted her story, a grand jury concluded in October 1988 that Brawley had not been sexually assaulted and that the alleged attack may have been fabricated with her assistance.

The prosecutor successfully sued Brawley and her advisers including Sharpton for defamation.

Back to the present. I have tremendous sympathy for Martin's parents who naturally are devastated. They did after all lose a 17-year-old son. Long ago I lost my 18-year-old brother in an equally senseless tragedy – in that case a car accident – and I know personally the impact of the loss of a family member.

I understand a desire for revenge which in this case is being called "justice," but somewhere in all this there should be some restraint and responsibility. Unfortunately, the media has been fanning the flames of racial injustice and has been tremendously successful in helping Sharpton and his ilk set race relations in America back more than a century.

The situation in Sanford, Florida is so out of hand that self-described vigilantes, aka The New Black Panther Party, aka Obama's National Police Force, have issued a $1-million bounty to apprehend George Zimmerman dead or alive!! (Originally it was supposed to be $10,000 but Rush Limbaugh reported before the end of his Tuesday show that the BP's had upped the ante to $1 million!)

Zimmerman has left his home and is in hiding, but you never know, in this economic climate someone might be convinced to rat him out and get him killed.

OBAMA CALLS FOR NATIONAL POLICE FORCE!
DID HE GET IT?

Commiserating with the loss of a child and agreeing with the national media's deliberate use of the tragedy as an impetus to further divide the races in America are not self-supporting concepts. In fact, in my view of the death of Trayvon Martin they are worlds apart.

Politicians in both parties have run for cover and have turned the issue over to the federal government, aka Obama's National Police. His force is not only re-investigating the shooting but also is investigating the Sanford Police Department and by extension virtually every single member of the white race.

In fact the racial profiling of White Americans has gotten so bad that the New York Times referred to Zimmerman who has a white father and Hispanic mother as a "White Hispanic." Can someone please tell me what the hell a White Hispanic person is?

I have had many friends over the years with Hispanic surnames, but I never considered them to be any different from my other friends who had Eastern European or Asian or African surnames, and I never knew there was supposed to be a difference between us. In fact, two of my best friends who go all the way back to my high school and Marine Corps days, and who I still am in contact with on a regular basis, have Hispanic surnames.

I didn't know until just now that I was supposed to be treating them differently, but then again, I don't think they knew it either. Have we come to the point in American politics where a person's heritage so completely defines them that we have to parse it down to the differences between the parents' races?

What the hell does that make Barack Obama – a White Black? Or a Black White? Which is it? What does that make me? A Scots-Irish, Franco-German white? Say that three times fast if you don’t have anything productive to do.

Look, if Zimmerman used excessive force or if he somehow or other did something that created the confrontation between him and Martin, then maybe the case deserves a further review by outside authorities – which already is occurring by both state police and Obama's federal cops.

But tramping around the streets of Sanford demanding the death of a person and calling it justice because he is part white is vigilantism and isn't going to help anyone. It smacks of the days of the KKK for starters and it certainly won't bring Trayvon Martin back.

The facts seem to have been ascertained by the local police and it appears there would have to be some serious manipulation of the facts to make a case for charges against Zimmerman. But hell, the media is already doing everything it can to lynch this guy so who knows where it might go.

I even saw a woman - Judge Jeanine I think she calls herself - on FOX news the other night, essentially reprimanding a local Florida reporter for mentioning that she had interviewed an eyewitness who had seen Zimmerman on his back getting beaten. The "Judge" Jeanine referred to the interview as occurring with a "so-called witness."

I wonder if she was that impartial when she was on the bench. I guess that would explain why she's on FOX now instead of doing what she was educated to do. Regardless, I won't be watching that show again even if I run into it as I did the other night when I was channel surfing.

I'll find something else to do with my time, like watching Holmes on Homes or Ahmed on the Yard Crashers on the Home and Garden channel while state and federal authorities try to find something to hang on Zimmerman.

Meanwhile, it would probably be a good idea if Sharpton backed off the beleaguered White Hispanics. Zimmerman also has been described as a Democrat and when word gets around to the rank and file that he is at least part Hispanic, Sharpton could find himself bearing the blame for cutting into Obama's voter base.

Did you see the esteemed President of the United States going before the cameras yesterday (what's new?) trying to take credit for a portion of the Keystone Pipeline that doesn't need his approval?

In fact, Obama made his statements – basically that he will "fast track" the pipeline construction by "cutting through the red tape" - standing in front of huge stacks of pipe sections. I'd hazard a guess that the pipe behind him was for other projects since, for the uninitiated in common construction techniques, contractors usually don't invest in millions of dollars of materials unless they already have the job.

And worse, as the president didn't mention in his address in Cushing, Oklahoma, the portion of the pipeline he is now supporting – from Oklahoma to Texas – can credibly be renamed the Pipeline to Nowhere. I say that because according to reports I saw on the news, without the rest of the pipeline coming in from Canada there is no point in constructing that segment of the Keystone XL pipeline unless it also is intended to carry oil from other sources.

OK, that's isn't quite the case. If this pipeline gets built - and who is to say Obama won't change his mind tomorrow if the polls say he should - it will have a use as part of an effort to end a bottleneck in the pipelines in and around Cushing. There are plenty of places to pump oil and I think it is safe to figure that the line Obama suddenly likes so much will have another purpose.

Nonetheless, without the remainder of the Keystone pipeline that Obama is still blocking, the Cushing pipeline can't connect to the nonexistent northern segment that will bring in oil from Canada – which is the purpose of the full Keystone pipeline in the first place.

All this on the taxpayer dime with no real purpose other than to produce Soviet era propaganda that has only one goal, to re-elect Barack Hussein Obama so he can continue to dismantle the United States and impose a Marxist (communist) dictatorship. Oh Please, don't give me that shocked look of disbelief.

If you honestly don't think Obama's administration is anything other than another step to full-blown communism that began way back in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt you really have not been paying attention to 20th and 21st Century American history.

But I guess we shouldn't be surprised at Obama's rare flirtations with the truth and near constant cuddling up to misrepresentations. He has been giving us one line or another that doesn't add up since he first showed up on the national scene.

How about this one where he said his father served in WWII?



Just in case you didn't take the few seconds to watch the video, Obama did say his father served in WWII. But both his father and stepfather were born in the mid-1930s so they would have been children during WWII. Not a soul in the media called him on this. Maybe he meant his grandfather?

Then we have the current administration lie that the United States has only two-percent of the world's oil reserves but uses twenty percent. First, there is a cacophony of responses that say the two percent statement is an outright lie. Geologists and other experts I have seen on the news say we have far, far more than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, and having to place the word "proven" in front of the words "oil reserves" to give credence to the lie is another lie in itself.

If we know the oil is there due to preliminary exploration, and roughly how much is there due to preliminary yet essentially accurate measurement techniques, then it's proven, isn't it? Good grief. We have a government that deliberately parses its comments to give the impression that truth is a lie and a lie is the truth?

That's reason enough to kick the Obama administration out in November if not to impeach the principal character now!

And I have another point here that has not been discussed on the national scene. What if we do use twenty percent of the world's oil reserves? So What?

First we aren't taking any oil away from someone else. If they want it they can get it, but just like us, they have to pay for it. Second, if other countries that have oil reserves don't have the technological capabilities to extract, refine and ship it, and don't have the local need to use it, how is that my fault? How is that our fault, "our" being the populace of the United States of America?

This nonsense that somehow we have to give undeveloped or underdeveloped countries all the fruits of hundreds of years of American innovation, knowhow and freedoms – the kind that still attract the best and brightest minds from all over the world – is just that; nonsense.

There was no one to lead the way for thousands of entrepreneurs over the centuries who took step after step to bring us this world of communication, transportation, travel and overwhelming improvements to the human condition. How is it that somehow we are now indebted to countries that have only a history of repression and butchery? Why do we now have to give them what they couldn't discover or develop themselves?

But back to the esteemed president of the United States of America – who today is ducking questions about Obamacare even though it is the second anniversary of his hopefully briefly successful attempt to ram it down the throats of the American populace – he also suffered another setback this month on the "Green" front.

General Motors, the once proud American auto manufacturer that was given by Obama to the United Auto Workers, has had to halt production of its vaunted Volt hybrid electric/internal combustion engine car because so few people want to buy it. GM calls it an electric vehicle but it has a gasoline engine too.

The big problem with the Volt is that the batteries run down after driving between 20 and 30 miles – not what the press releases say but what people who drive it say – and then it has to be plugged in overnight to recharge the batteries. Now the Volt has a "regenerative braking" system that supposedly helps recharge the batteries, but obviously not enough to run the electric motor consistently.

So Volt owners have to find a place to recharge the batteries overnight. This is a very slow process that could put a huge drain on current power generating facilities. Where do you think those facilities get the energy to produce the electricity?

How about coal and oil and natural gas? Sure as hell doesn't come from water or nuclear power; or not enough of it anyway. How much extra pollution do you think would result from millions of Volts – pun intended – being plugged in every night to get ready for tomorrow's commute of 20 miles or so?

Tons. Thousands of tons. Hundreds of thousands of tons if enough Volts were to be sold which doesn't appear likely.

Hey wait. I have an idea. How about if we re-engineer the Volt to run on algae, the esteemed president's other big idea this year? We could do that. We're Americans, residents of the land of opportunity and innovation.

Get a handle on that and you'd see people leaving their internal combustion engines behind in droves I betcha'. And to quote our esteemed Vice President Joe "The Mouth" Biden, that would be "A big (bleep)ing deal."

The biggest rap against America's two largest political parties is that the Democrats can't keep their hands out of our wallets and the Republicans can't keep their noses out of our bedrooms.

Those points of view merged last week when a Georgetown University Law School student, Sandra Fluke (pronounced FLUK … as in DUCK) went before a Congressional committee and averred that American taxpayers are responsible for her sex life, specifically paying for her contraceptives.

Democrats agree with her, and Republicans are outraged, but found themselves behind the 8-ball in a dispute that shouldn’t even be in the news. And yes, I am an active Republican but I really don't give a damn what you do in your bedrooms!

Fluke's statement to the Congressional committee reveals the obvious – that the dumbing down of the American educational system has reached what used to be some of our best institutes of higher learning, since law students, like medical students, once spent most of their time in class or studying. If they had sex it was fast and furious and then it was back to the books – but that obviously has changed.

Sandra Fluke
GETTY IMAGES

Ms. Fluke also said she represents an ocean of similar-minded female law students who also need taxpayer dollars - at a rate of some $3,000 each - to buy their birth control pills so they won't have to be inconvenienced by telling their sex partners to get their own protection.

Frankly, if I was a young undergraduate I would immediately apply to Georgetown Law, if for no other reason than it seems to have achieved the reputation as the most sexually active campus in America. Getting free sex with no strings attached apparently is not only possible at Georgetown Law, it is likely.

But I have a word of caution to aspiring Georgetown Law students. Anyone who has this much sex, which apparently is not only indiscriminate but also unprotected since Ms. Fluke seems concerned only with not getting pregnant, should take their law dictionary and look up terms like "sexually transmitted diseases." Then they should explore related subjects such as HIV/AIDS, incurable herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia.

I haven't seen anything in all the media coverage about concern for sexually transmitted diseases which proves that the children and grandchildren of the 60s-era hippies, who also believed in free sex, got their brains fried so badly from all the drugs they were taking that they forgot the horrible truth of how many lives were ruined through that lifestyle.

To support that contention Ms. Fluke says that she needs $3,000 to pay for her contraceptives. Apparently we're talking about birth control pills here, since a gross of condoms can be bought on line for far less, and handed out like candy to eager potential sex partners.

Did I tell you that Georgetown Law is a Jesuit School, and that it has been reported that Ms. Fluke, a nearly 31-year-old sexual activist who finally expects to graduate this year, selected it particularly because the Jesuits don't believe in contraception? And now the once hallowed halls of Georgetown Law have become the symbol for the term "den of inequity," particularly when we are discussing licentiousness.

Ms. Fluke has written that American employers and other institutions that provide medical insurance coverage also should pay for people of one sex who aren't happy with the body they were born with and want one that resembles – but can't function as – a body of the other sex. In fact, this apparently is her true calling in life.

Now, the real issue here is that Ms. Fluke is asking Congress to tell every entity in America that provides some form of insurance benefit to others that it MUST provide coverage for sex change surgery, contraceptives and who knows what else.

Her viewpoint probably is unconstitutional besides being stupid, and it has resulted in a firestorm of criticism. For instance, Rush Limbaugh got in trouble the other day by referring to Ms. Fluke as a slut and a prostitute, and plenty of other people chimed in with similar comments. Limbaugh also said that if he was going to pay Fluke and her girlfriends to have sex, he at least wanted access to videotapes of their encounters.

RUSH LIMBAUGH - WWW.RUSH LIMBAUGH.COM

Frankly, I think that was a reasonable position even if his advertisers made him back off on this issue. I also read or heard her referred to as a pig, a skank, a round-heel, a mattress-Mary, and a fairly creative list of similar adjectives.

But I am not going down that road and you won't see those terms applied to her in this column. I am not commenting on her sexual proclivities I am commenting on the unconstitutionality of the government getting into the insurance business, which will occur if it drives private insurance companies out of business by imposing requirements that are financially impossible to sustain.

Then we get Obamacare and instead of indirectly paying so other people can have indiscriminate, unprotected sex, we will be taxed directly. By then, it will be too late.

Limbaugh and others apologized for their comments, primarily because in an obviously well-executed plan of attack the left went after his advertisers, and the weak-kneed among them pulled their ads from his show. But Limbaugh isn't the first to feel the heat over his conservative positions in the recent past.

Glenn Beck who is a firebrand of commentary and evidence against the left has been exiled from FOX News, and Judge Andrew Napolitano who was one of the few people to give FOX viewers a real-world explanation of what the current administration is up to has lost his show too. Napolitano has been relegated back to the "guest commentator" status. Beck is gone.

Then we have the death of conservative activist Andrew Breitbart, who went out to walk his dog one night last week and was found dead on the sidewalk. Know what makes me suspicious of his death?

The very first report I heard on it said in the very first sentence that the 43-year-old died "of natural causes," even though there had been no such determination. Yet news anchors, who should know better than to say what caused someone's death unless there has been a definitive medical ruling, were trumpeting "natural causes" from the very first moment.

Then came the videos of Breitbart saying that President Obama will be "vetted" this year, and that he has videos of Obama in college that will shock America! And then he died.

This is strange; in fact, so strange that to me it is highly suspicious. After an autopsy was performed I heard one news anchor say Breitbart had died of "some kind of heart problem," although the results of the autopsy have not been released thus far and won't be for some weeks yet.

Autopsies are far more specific than that, and yet a left-wing outlet is already floating the theory that Breitbart may have used illicit drugs, thus contributing to his own demise. The same outlet is discounting questions raised by conservative radio host Michael Savage on the oddity of Breitbart's death. I hope the left is wrong and that it is just up to its usual character assassination tactics regarding both Breitbart and Savage.

It seems there is an ongoing effort to shut down conservative communicators so they won't get in the way of an Obama reelection - which would be a travesty for this country - and Sandra Fluke was just one piece of the puzzle. But I have a solution.

If the oh-so-sexually active women of Georgetown Law are so concerned with unwanted pregnancies, why don't they just switch to sex with other women? Seriously. Many in the lesbian community would probably appreciate the opportunity to do some good for America, over the long run they would gain significant stature in the eyes of taxpayers, STDs would decrease, abortions would not be an issue and everyone would walk away happy.

Oh, don't tell me you don't think it would work. I am so tired of negativity.

What was that line Paul Newman had in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? "I have vision and the world is wearing bifocals."