Republican US Senate Candidate Linda McMahon has her Democratic opponent on the ropes, revealing him to be a petulant campaigner who is focused on running desperation-initiated negative ads that are easy for McMahon to rebut.

While McMahon's ads focus on Democrat Chris Murphy's record, which frankly, isn't all that hot, his ads in return represent the worst type of personal attacks against McMahon. Obviously Murphy has to go negative against McMahon because he can't go positive about himself.

But wait, the news for Murphy is getting worse. As if he didn't have enough to worry about, one of the last hopes of the Democratic campaign – a splintered GOP vote – is about to fly out the window, with McMahon hosting a unity rally in Groton on October 3.

Republicans and other voters who support McMahon are getting together at 5 p.m., at the Mystic Marriott in Groton to show the world that McMahon is the GOP candidate, everyone understands that and they are supporting here against all comers. The unity rally will showcase her widespread support within the GOP, and is open to independent voters and cross-over Democrats as well.

Just the fact that the McMahon campaign can sponsor such an event spells trouble with a capital T for her opponent. 

Among the many reasons that McMahon's event is such bad news for Murphy is the scheduled attendance by retired Army Colonel, Vietnam Veteran, and former 2nd District Congressman Rob Simmons, who ran against McMahon in 2010.

Murphy is trailing McMahon in legitimate polls – not the media generated propaganda that is over-sampling Democrats by double digits just to keep the ad money flowing into their "news" organizations – and he is suffering from significant negative image issues. Thus an appearance by Simmons at a unity event anywhere in the 2nd Congressional District is sure to draw significant positive attention to McMahon's campaign and her willingness to mend fences.

Simmons, who still maintains a huge support base among 2nd District voters now is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Yankee Institute for Public Policy and in accordance with that organization's policy is prohibited from endorsing political candidates. Nonetheless, Simmons can appear at political events, particularly if he has an opportunity to talk about the issues of the day, which he intends to do on October third.

Reached earlier this week, Simmons said he will be speaking on the failures of the US Senate as it is now configured. "There is no budget, no forward motion and grotesque disclosures of national security information," he said.

The prevailing atmosphere of partisanship in the Senate "lies at the feet of the Democrats," Simmons said. "The Democratic leadership has failed miserably," he added, noting that his experience as a Senate staffer in the 1980s showed him the value of bipartisanship when possible.

Simmons served on the Senate Intelligence Committee working for Senator John H. Chafee (R-Rhode Island) and was named Staff Director of the committee by Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) – a position he held until from 1981 until 1985. But during that time he also saw successful efforts by the Republicans and Democratic senators such as Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D- NY) to find common ground on national issues.

While he worked for some of the most noteworthy national Republicans of that time, and developed his personal positions on the free market in those days, he also saw a fair share of bipartisanship, which he said is sorely missing now. "It is my experience that Republicans and Democrats can work together," he said.

Simmons put the blame for the current gridlock in Washington squarely on the shoulders of Democratic Senate Majority leader Harry Reid. Just this summer Reid made headlines by accusing Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney of not paying any income taxes in the past decade. That statement was disproved virtually immediately but Reid was spared a slander suit because he used the immunity granted to members of the Senate when they are speaking on the Senate floor to protect him.

When Romney released his 2011 income tax returns last week his opponents changed their tunes, saying he paid either too much or too little in taxes and charitable donations.

In addition to appearing at the McMahon unity event in the Mystic Marriott next week, Simmons also has spoken about her campaign in two recent radio appearances and is scheduled for WFSBs Face the State show on Channel 3 at 11 a.m., where he faced off against Susan Bysiewicz. Face the State, hosted by Dennis House, was taped Thursday night and by all accounts is well worth watching.

Also, in a mock debate on the Lee Elci morning radio show two weeks ago, Simmons responded to a statement from his opponent concerning an influx of more than $300,000 to the Murphy campaign from national Democrats by asking "What's he going to do with it? Pay his mortgage?"

Murphy has come under sustained fire from the McMahon campaign on financial issues and how they relate to his time term in office as a Congressman. The campaign has called for an ethics investigation into an increase in Murphy's mortgage from Webster Bank at a low interest rate, just a year after Murphy faced foreclosure on his home due to missing a number of payments.

In an appearance on Regional News Network (WRNN-TV) in Rye Brook, NY Monday night, Simmons quoted Keith Burris, Editorial Page editor for the Manchester, Connecticut Journal Inquirer saying "Murphy is in trouble."

Simmons' appearance in Groton next Wednesday is a major boost for McMahon's campaign, even if he can't make a formal endorsement of her candidacy. His popularity among eastern Connecticut voters can certainly be counted on to make up the minds of undecided voters and further energize a base that already has shown it is significantly on board with McMahon.

That was evident by her nearly 3-1 victory over former Congressman Chris Shays in the August Republican primary. Shays has publicly stated that he is voting for McMahon.

But appearances by Simmons at McMahon campaign events also serve to help him spread another message that is consistent with his work at the Yankee Institute. To maintain a free market economy he avers, and to bring the United States back from its current economic crisis, severe unemployment, increased reliance on government and precipitous decline in stature on the international scene, "The Senate must go Republican. The current Senate is a disgrace."

I won't be watching FOX News this week, at all, which is a major departure from my daily routine and may have some repercussions, but I have been maneuvered into a corner and this is the result.

Usually I start my workday by getting headlines from Fox and Friends, switch to Stuart Varney and Company for an update on business issues and the stock market, and finish off with Neil Cavuto and then Bret Baier's Special Report.

That combination gives me a good overview of what is happening in the world, plus in-depth analyses of selected issues. Generally speaking I find the people I watch to be competent and thorough journalists – although some of their guests and "contributors" generate an automatic channel change.

But all this week FOX and everyone else will be reporting from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. I have been listening to the national Dems spout propaganda and whining like a bunch of spoiled brats ad nauseum for the past four years and frankly I can't take another second of it. (I say 'national' Dems because I have a lot of friends who are Democrats but they have far more common sense than their national spokespeople.)

While I'm at it, here is my entry for the theme song for the Democratic Convention and the Obama-Biden ticket. Maybe we should change the title to Have Pity on the (Un)Working Man! Thanks to Mr. Home Run Holmes for the video.



The lineup of convention speakers mirrors the typical Sunday morning political talk shows and I already know what they are going to say. But to my complete amazement – and probably to the rest of thinking Americans too – the headline speaker for the entire convention is not Barack Hussein Obama, the outgoing president of the country, but Bill Clinton the disgraced former president who was impeached within most voters' recent memory.

It's bad enough to hear the Dems' propaganda specialists gushing about Clinton's appearance as if we all should be so thrilled about it, but the media also seems all too willing to forget that his term in office was an abomination. Take for instance the Fox News Sunday show yesterday – I didn't watch the first half because the guests were Obama apologists and like I said, I already know what they have to say and I rejected their arguments long ago.

But I did watch the panel discussion on the second half and I was amazed, stunned even, when panelist Kirsten Powers said, and I quote here, that Clinton's speech "will be the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" for the Democratic convention and the Obama campaign.

WHAT???!!! When was this woman born? Is she a toddler? Is she still in infancy? What an insult to the people at Good Housekeeping! Oh, right, she was a Clinton staffer. That explains it … I guess. But the thing that shocked me was that no one else on the panel challenged her!

Unless she is in complete denial I invite Ms. Powers to do a simple Google search on her former boss. Using just his name kicks up a few websites for his foundation – he probably has a program that automatically makes thousands of hits each day just to keep it at the top of the Google search results – but the first page of returns still trumpets IMPEACHMENT on the 5th or 6th entry and you can't miss it.

But if you do a Google search for Bill Clinton and any variation on the word 'crime' you get an avalanche of sites that contain myriad allegations of criminal activity going all the way back to his days in Arkansas. Take for instance this website which has a section headlined RECORDS SET and then this partial list of 'accomplishments':

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance
- Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates
- Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify
- Most number of witnesses to die suddenly
- First president sued for sexual harassment
- Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case
- First president to be held in contempt of court
- First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

Wow, and this rates a Good Housekeeping Seal! And that list doesn't even get into issues such as "girlfriends named Monica," or "presidential cigar tricks" or "pranks on friends named Yasser."

So what will I be doing with my time while the Dems are conducting their group whine session? Well, tonight for instance there is two-hour rerun of Gordon Ramsay's Hotel Hell in prime time on Fox television so, since I didn't see the original, it trumps the Dems – which is a given.

Then there is a plethora of other shows to watch on the History, Discovery and HGTV channels including: new episodes of Pawn Stars; new episodes of Storage Wars – YUUUP; new episodes of American Pickers; more of the Gordon Ramsay Trilogy including new episodes of Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef on Tuesday during prime time; new episodes of House Hunters both domestic and international; and of course Holmes on Homes and Holmes Inspection. I even have some recorded reruns of Yard Crashers if necessary.

Do you know what is on at the same time Bill Clinton will be giving his seal of approval speech? Storage Wars Texas – Ricky and Bubba, Stickin' it to Victor! Kind of appropriate don't you think? You know where I'll be at that time.

Oh, and American Hoggers has new episodes on during the Dems' convention. Have you seen those girls chasing down those wild pigs? Wow! I'll bet there's a million guys out there who sit in their recliners every time that show comes on and imagine getting hogtied – so to speak – by either or both of those beauties. Sorry, did I write that out loud?

So you see, there is plenty to do while I insulate myself from a week of false accusations, excuses, lame promises to do better next time – there won't be a next time – and really stupid remarks from the democratic leadership.

But, there is one thing bothering me. Do you think if I quit FOX News cold turkey I could get withdrawal symptoms?

When I was a young boy Dwight Eisenhower was president.

"Ike" was seen as a highly capable, intelligent, lead-from-the-front president who looked like what he was – a successful, wise elder, the universal grandfather who commanded American armies in Europe, defeated Nazi Germany, and still headed the family firm. When he spoke it was direct, to the point, and there was no misunderstanding the meaning of his words.

Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower

When Mitt Romney took the stage at the GOP convention in Tampa Thursday night to accept the formal Republican nomination as the GOP candidate for President of the United States, many – or should I say most – media outlets and pundits were waiting for a Barack Obama speech, full of as one pundit put it, "soaring rhetoric."

What we got instead was a fatherly talking to, as one could envision Eisenhower delivering, or even a fireside chat reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt. Mitt in fact, came across as the universal Father Knows Best, the man you can go to when things get out of hand, who will have answers based on the wisdom of his years.

Mitt Romney gave a speech reassuring Americans that he can and will use all of his strength, his intellect and his experience to right the wrongs currently plaguing our country and I loved it! So did the delegates in the hall, audiences across the nation and those gathered before the television in my home.

I am not the least bit sorry that the media didn't get its soaring rhetoric, but they should have learned from the speech that the outgoing president made four years ago – soaring rhetoric in this case equals empty promises.

Mitt Romney
Greek columns and "soaring rhetoric" increased the national debt by an unheard of $4 trillion, resulted in millions of workers losing their jobs, millions of homeowners losing their homes, millions of retirees losing their savings, millions of college graduates losing their dreams, and America losing its world-class status and our sense of security.

Soaring rhetoric produced only more soaring rhetoric and excuses – "it wasn’t my fault, he did it, he did it, he did it!" And the pundits wanted more of the same? Shame on them.

Even many pundits who say they are supporters of the GOP ticket seem afraid to voice anything except criticism of Romney's speech, apparently because they are walking a self-imposed tightrope. They have been reading and believing their own bogus polls - that routinely have to over-sample Democratic voters by double digits to keep the outgoing president in the running - for so long that now they are terrified of reporting the obvious.

That line of thinking requires everything to be in line with a vision of perfection that they created – but doesn't play well in the rest of America.

Americans are afraid; afraid of what might happen to us if Obama is elected again, afraid of the country being run by an inexperienced, incompetent shadow of a man who gets his management advice from an even more obscure group of advisers whose total history is defined by animosity toward the free market system in general and America in particular.

As Mitt Romney noted "President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet."

Romney by contrast said, "My promise is to help you and your family." I am far more impressed with Romney's promise; and it affects me far more directly than the pie in the sky promises from the outgoing president.

Americans don't need more "soaring rhetoric," they need a capable, competent leader. Mitt Romney is totally capable of soaring rhetoric and perhaps we will hear some of it in the 2014 State of the Union address, which I predict will be his first, and in which he will be able to tout a year of solid accomplishments and provide a vision for more of the same.

But first he must become the next President of the United States of America.

And while we're on the subject of media expectations and total control of the message, let me weigh in on the feeding frenzy over Clint Eastwood's appearance. Yes, it was irreverent, yes it projected a totally different mood than what we were hearing during the rest of the convention, and yes it probably did make Ann Romney squirm in her seat in a couple of places.

But what I think is great, is that it did NOT go off-message, it reinforced the message, from a completely unlikely source, that the outgoing president made a bunch of grandiose promises but delivered on nothing of substance. The best line in my opinion was "Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it."

Clint Eastwood is an 82-year-old Hollywood icon, who unlike the drug addled mindless stars of the modern era, was a businessman who did physical labor before he was discovered as the quintessential cowboy – and later cop, loveable jewel thief, aging veteran and federal agent among many other roles. Eastwood did a hilarious skit in which he talked to an empty chair standing in for Obama, pointing out the vast failures of the current administration.

Of all the reactions, the one I saw that would have made the skit even better was if Eastwood put an empty suit on the empty chair to truly symbolize Obama. That is creative thinking at its best!

If you watch a video of Eastwood's performance you'll see an old man who doesn’t speak quite as glibly as he did 40 years ago when he was Dirty Harry, but who still has a quick wit – he ad-libbed the entire skit for God's sake – a mind like a trap, and a great sense of humor. If you want to know if Eastwood was successful all you have to do is check out the vicious reaction from the media and the rest of the national "leadership" of the Democratic machine - questioning Eastwood's sanity, and questioning whether he is demented for instance.

Once again, as with the current president's vicious attack ads lying about Romney's past, the "leadership" of the Democratic Party is protesting way, way too much. Clint Eastwood was credible, the Democratic media propaganda stooges are not.

Overall the Republican convention was a shining example of the wide appeal of the GOP to the spectrum of American voters. Romney and Paul Ryan presented themselves as inclusive, likeable and most important – capable.

They are about to enter the fight not just of their lives, but of our lives, so it was understandable when Romney got a bit emotional remembering what it was like in supposedly simpler times when he was merely carving out a career and providing for five children who were being raised under the expert tutelage of his wife Ann.

I knew exactly what he meant when he said he wished he could break up just one more fight between the kids, or wake in the morning and find a pile of them asleep in their parents' bedroom.

But Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and the rest of us who still believe in America are now facing the most important battle in America's survival since the Revolution. This is it; this is Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil.

We can win it; that is if we elect Romney and Ryan, if we stand solidly behind them, and with them, and vote them in on Election Day. We can do it, but we all have to stand together, forget the blatherings of people who live in what one pundit called a "media bubble," and remember Clint Eastwood's closing line just before the audience roared "Go Ahead, Make My Day."

We, the people, own this country, he said, and politicians don't rule us, they are our employees.

You probably won't see this in the mainstream media, and if you do, reports like this one will be dismissed as a "conspiracy theory," but I should remind you right up front that the legal definition of a conspiracy requires that only two people be party to it.

Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security is stockpiling some 450 million bullets of the type that are intended only to kill people and play havoc with the human body? These are .40 caliber, hollow-point bullets which mushroom upon impact causing massive shock, blood loss and damage to internal organs. That's nearly one point five bullets for every man, woman and child in the United States, including illegal aliens.

(I understand that any bullet that pierces the body can play havoc with what it hits, but these bullets are designed to leave nothing in doubt, they are anti-personnel bullets.)

But wait, there is more. In addition to stockpiling bullets, I received notification over the Internet the other day that the Department of Homeland Security also is amassing armored vehicles of the type used by our troops for street fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – but this time they are right here at home! And we aren't talking about training exercises on military bases either.

Like this one.

Or this one.
And right alongside the DHS, other federal agencies are stockpiling ammo too, hollow-point .357 magnum rounds in this case, purchased by the Social Security Administration – 175,000 bullets, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration – 46,000 bullets! And to really top things off, the feds say the bullets are for target practice!

As a lifelong shooter, one-time NRA certified instructor, and former member of a competitive rifle and pistol team I can tell you this; you don't normally use expensive hollow-point, anti-personnel bullets for target practice unless you have an endless supply with someone else (taxpayers) picking up the tab. You use target bullets which give you a reasonable level of accuracy to make sure that when you squeeze the trigger the bullet goes where you believe it is going, and they cost far less especially in these quantities.

The benefit of using hollow points is that they provide increased velocity, higher accuracy and the aforementioned results when they impact a human body. They generally don't go through the body, meaning there is reduced likelihood of collateral damage.

But get this; they are illegal in war! That's right, our military can't use hollow points in combat anywhere – legally – but investigators from the Social Security Administration can quell uprisings of 80-year-old pensioners by giving them lethal body shots from a .357 magnum! (The use of hollow points in combat was outlawed in The Hague Convention of 1899 according to Wikipedia.)

Now, after all hell broke loose on the Internet about this issue FOX News did post a blurb on its website. It said: "Federal agencies triggered a firestorm of conspiracy theories this week after they put out orders for thousands of rounds of deadly hollow-point bullets.

But the agencies, most recently the Social Security Administration, are trying to put a damper on the speculation -- noting the ammunition is "standard issue" and simply used for mandatory federal training sessions.

The Social Security Administration solicitation, called for 174,000 rounds of ".357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow point pistol ammunition."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, found itself scrambling to respond to a similar report this week about an order for 46,000 rounds of ammo. Though the agency initially indicated it was for the National Weather Service -- leading to questions about why the National Weather Service could possibly need so many bullets -- a spokesman clarified the bullets are actually meant for the NOAA Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement.

According to NOAA, the specialized agents are supposed to have 200 rounds in their "duty bag," and qualification and training requires another 500-600 rounds per agent.

Yet, even if the Social Security Administration and the Weather Service can make some sort of case that they need armed agents, the .357 hollow points still leave big questions in my mind. Does a forest ranger really need to carry hollow point bullets in case he gets into a tiff with a guy who's keeping trout when he's fishing in a catch and release area?

This smells. And don't forget, the attention has been diverted to the Social Security and National Weather agencies because it seems redundant for them to have law enforcement contingents, but Homeland Security has ordered four-hundred and fifty million rounds of ammunition. For what?

I can go on at length here, but instead I'll just point out that these purchases have a lot of people very suspicious and the reason is that they don't trust the Obama Administration. Period.

The Unity President has been anything but, and he is surrounded by advisers who are openly communist, in addition to a few Islamic extremists, who believe the United States should be dismantled and reassembled as a third-world cesspool. Some of his mentors follow the belief that to effect change in the populace you have to kill 20 percent of the people and the remaining 80 percent will fall in line.

You can't blame Americans who have been listening to four years of non-stop propaganda from these people for not trusting the primary source of that propaganda.

But there is one last point that should be made – and this is for information purposes only. Alarming the populace is never a good idea. Upset masses of the general public have been known to grab torches and pitchforks and storm the palace gates, bringing down all kinds of repressive, dishonest governments over the centuries.

"Y'all" might want to think about that before you go alarming the populace by driving around America in armored war wagons and purchasing massive supplies of anti-personnel ammunition.

There are very few people I know who work as hard as Republican Joe Visconti, the one-time West Hartford Town Council member, candidate for the 1st Congressional District in 2008, and most recently a staunch supporter of former Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays who lost his bid to be the GOP's US Senate candidate in Tuesday's primary.

Joe Visconti

Visconti put in a ton of time and effort with admirable success in getting some earned media for Shays. I saw the result of his efforts all over the Internet, which is saying something because I didn't see much else about Shays until the last week before the voting.

Visconti is as loyal as he is hard-working, brimming with unconventional ideas about getting noticed, and he should be commended for adding an element of seriousness to a campaign that a lot of people didn't appear to take seriously.

That being said, Linda McMahon beat Shays conclusively, which makes her the unquestionable GOP candidate, endorsed by both the convention of party regulars and the wider base of Connecticut's GOP voters. Thus I hope that Shays carries out his promise to vote for Mrs. McMahon and I hope Joe puts as much energy into her campaign as he did for Shays.

I know it is hard to recover from a loss to a candidate you don't support. Been there, done that, don't like it! (Fortunately very few times compared to the overwhelming number of my clients who win). But even before yesterday's primary vote I was watching the McMahon commercials about her Democratic opponent, Chris Murphy and his voting record in Congress. (Another Chris for an opponent. Hmmmm.)

She has a real campaign issue there and should continue to exploit it. But I also heard his commentary after he won the Democratic primary last night and it sounded like a replay of the negativity and avoidance of the issues coming from national Democrats. He accused her of wallowing in sex and drugs while he, the erstwhile Boy Scout, was out creating jobs for Connecticut's workers.

Oh, really? The coming debates on job creation should be very interesting!

I won't pretend that I haven't criticized Mrs. McMahon in the past for the shortcomings of the World Wrestling Entertainment that she built over a couple of decades with her husband. But the fact is, that was then and this is now.

I have no intention of standing by idly while the Obama Administration systematically destroys this country with false claims of race-based class warfare. I have no intention of sitting back and watching as the US Senate retains a Democrat majority, led by Harry Reid. So as I said in a previous column, in November I'll be voting for the Romney/Ryan ticket and I'll be voting for Linda McMahon for US Senate.

I can't think of anything in her past that matters as much to America as what she will do with the future. I know as much about her record and her past business issues as most people I guess; I have read pretty much everything that is out in the public domain.

Yesterday, Republican voters in Connecticut chose Linda McMahon by an overwhelming margin, and that is that.

Murphy started out blasting her history as CEO of the WWE. Ho-hum. I was doing that three years ago. Didn't stop her though did it? I am far more interested in his vote to gut Medicare when I am only a few months shy of being eligible for it, and his non-existent attendance record at key meetings of Congressional committees.

So, Joe, I know how hard you worked and how disappointed you must feel. But today is a new day, and we all are faced with taking back our country and our Constitution. If Linda doesn't have all the answers, then my suggestion is we help her find them.

Because we already know the alternative. Four more years that could very well mark the last four years of the United States of America as it was intended. Want to know what Obama has in store for us instead of fixing Medicare? Take a look at this video. It should give you a pretty good idea what we're in for.

I realize it is dated in that it was made before ObamaCare passed the Democratically controlled Congress and some sections may have been altered. However, as the YouTube version notes "This video is based on HR3200 but it is very closely related to HR3962 with the exception that HR3962 is deemed to be worse!"

My suggestion is to heed the advice at the end of the video. Read the bill, educate yourself on its contents and contact your Congressman. And vote in November!

Mitt Romney ended the speculation and early Saturday morning on the deck of the USS Wisconsin battleship introduced Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential running mate.

The squeals of indignation coming from the White House, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Headquarters were reminiscent of a particularly nasty scene in the movie Deliverance and proved that Romney was dead on with his choice.

Ryan chairs the House Budget Committee and is credited with being smart, a true rarity in Washington D.C. these days, both in and out of Congress. He has an affinity for numbers, leads a clean life, reportedly sleeps on a cot in his office during the session and goes home to his family every weekend as soon as his Congressional work is done.

He is revered by the conservative faction of the Republican Party but he also is highly attractive to fiscal conservatives everywhere because he knows how to shrink government without hurting "the poor" or even "the middle class," and he can prove it.

Which explains the horrendous, grating, screeching, howling cacophony of response from national Democrats when his selection was announced.

Despite the pontifications from the pundits who say Romney has given the Democrats a huge target to shoot at, Ryan is a more-than-competent communicator who not only has the skills to rewrite the federal budget but also to explain how it can be done - in layman's terms - without resorting to spin and obfuscation.

Ryan also has had plenty of practice deflecting false claims from the Democrats that his budget will harm senior citizens through changes to Medicare. Actually, his budget, beginning more than a decade from now, will give people who turn 65 at that time options that can be tailored to their specific needs, and will save billions of dollars.

People who already are over 65 and those turning 65 for the next decade won't be affected by Ryan's plan, but frankly I wish the nation's elderly could have more choice for Medicare coverage. Currently, if you are turning 65 you automatically are enrolled in Medicare for major medical issues and then given an option of having additional money taken from your Social Security income for drug plans and less drastic medical costs. Big Whoop!

If Romney and Ryan are elected this fall and sufficient like-minded Senators and Representatives turn up in the Congress it is quite possible that my children will have some real choices and real options by the time their turn to become senior citizens comes up. That would be one of the greatest gifts I could give them, rather than the institutional bankruptcy their government is forcing on them now.

It was obvious from the Democrats' responses that they know Ryan is the real deal and makes Joe Biden look like … well, Joe Biden.

I hadn't planned on watching Fox New Sunday today to see the reaction to Romney's VP choice because I really didn't want to listen to Debra Whatshernameschmaltz chair of the Democratic National Committee who was one of the guests. But when I turned on the TV to check the latest news it was already tuned to the FOX channel because I left it there before I turned in last night.

Sure enough there was Whatshernameschmaltz but she wasn't screaming about Ryan, I guess I missed that. She was, however, screaming about that lousy ad the White House likes that accuses Romney of being an accessory to murder because a guy who used to be a highly paid steel worker, who foolishly turned down a buyout from Bain Capital years earlier, blamed his wife's cancer death on Romney. The guy and his wife actually had health insurance and she did get medical coverage, and Romney had been gone from Bain Capital years before any of this happened but why let the facts get in the way of perfectly good slander?

But Whatshersnameschmaltz kept shrieking that intent of the commercial is to show that Romney doesn't understand the consequences of his actions not label him responsible for a death. But isn’t that the same thing, especially considering that the commercial features the former custodian saying that Romney was directly responsible for his wife's death? No one is buying that crap; but they don't have any other explanation for such reprehensible behavior.

Anyway I watched the later panel discussion because Democrat Joe Trippi and Republican Liz Cheney were on, and I figured I'd get some good commentary from them, which I did. I also agreed with Cheney when she said she really didn't catch everything that Whatshernameschmaltz had to say because she – Cheney – was laughing too hard. Me too.

Oh, can someone tell Bill Kristol that just because he knows a guy who served in Iraq who knows that when ambushed you charge to the sound of the guns, that concept did not arise in the Iraqi War as Kristol implied? In fact, I wrote exactly the same thing back in September 2006 when Ned Lamont challenged Joe Lieberman for Senator, after Lamont ignored a group of veterans and ran away when they booed him. Please go here and scroll down to the Sept. 11 entry.

So, it now looks like the run-up to the GOP convention in Tampa is going to be exciting and the final 60 days of the campaign are going to be barn burners. I hope Ryan not only comes out swinging, but can take the fight to the Obama/Whatshernameschmaltz's thugs with all the energy and effectiveness they deserve.

Romney/Ryan already have my vote, but it will give me plenty to write about.

Remember that song the Kingston Trio did back in the '60's – The Merry Minuet? OK, maybe that was before your time but I do remember it.

It had a line about "hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain!"

I was thinking about that song when I saw news broadcasts on the drought in the nation's heartland and how food costs already are increasing even though the harvest would barely have begun normally and we really haven't seen food shortages yet. Meanwhile a major tropical storm was making its way across the lower Caribbean and heavy rains were expected in Mexico and the Northeast was getting bashed by severe thunderstorms.

The honest newscasters are mentioning – although often sotto voce – that the current drought is reminiscent of droughts that occurred in the 1950's. Most are just blaming it on global warming aka climate change aka It's Bush's Fault!

A very, very few also are mentioning that the current drought is reminiscent of similar droughts in the 1930's during the Dust Bowl years – indicative of the cyclical nature of weather regardless of which politicians are trying to stick it to the populace at the moment.

Meanwhile both outgoing US President Barack Hussein Obama and the presumed Republican replacement Mitt Romney are coming under fire from each other's campaigns for jobs programs that are alleged to be job killers instead of job creators. And the depth of the accusations on how much they would cost in taxes on the "middle class" would make a statistician's head spin.

Well I have a solution! How about an Interstate Water Supply system that can move excess water from areas with more water than they need to areas where crops are shriveling in the sun? It will create jobs, may or may not result in an increase in taxes but would help keep food costs down which would go a long way toward offsetting any public funds that would be necessary for its implementation.

Remember when the late President Dwight Eisenhower initiated a program to construct an Interstate Highway System? Still before your time? OK, trust me on this one. When you go out for a drive and you get on any road that has a designation starting with a capital I, it is there because President Eisenhower conceived of it, got it through Congress and now you can drive virtually anywhere in the US from anywhere else in the US in about three days.

Eisenhower saw the Interstate Highway System as necessary back in the early days of the Cold War in case we were invaded by Russia or China or both along with all their communist minions. He envisioned being able to move massive military units from one place to another to offset invading forces.

Eisenhower was after all the Supreme Commander of the European Theater of Operations in WWII and knew how much harder the Allied job would have been if Germany could have gotten what it needed where it was needed when it was needed.

The unintended consequence of the Interstate Highway System was the flight to the suburbs by middle-class Americans who no longer depend on public transportation to get to work and shopping.

Another unintended consequence is that the state governments now own the rights of way along the Interstates and connecting limited access state roads. Those rights of way probably won't have to be expanded to install a nationwide web of interconnecting water pipes with say, 8-foot diameters – which would be huge but still 4-feet in diameter less than the standard Interstate lane width.

A project of this magnitude could revive the US steel industry, and open up tremendous opportunities for research on other forms of metals that might prove to be better conduits for billions of gallons of water. It also would lead to jobs for people who make the nuts and bolts that keep the pipe sections connected, as well as the tools needed to install and maintain them.

Thousands of heavy equipment and other construction workers would be needed to build a huge network of massive retention ponds to capture excess storm water runoff that then could be diverted to areas where water was needed but not present. This project could be administered by existing bureaucrats of which there are plenty and way too many sitting around with nothing to do, which would make our government workers more efficient and not add more to overall costs.

I'd recommend the EPA or the Congressional Budget Office, as long as there was intensive oversight, but there probably are others.

Best of all, when it was done, Obama, the outgoing president, couldn't say that we didn't do it. I figure that if there was a partnership of public and private entities, the private sector would conceive of hundreds of ways to do it better and more cost effectively, so in the end everyone involved could take credit.

Photo Credit to the Internet

This project would go on for years, ensuring that jobs would be available on a much-needed improvement to our national infrastructure. We could use existing technology to reduce pollution from making steel – using natural gas as a fuel for example – and machinery with high fuel efficiency.

Ultimately the savings in food costs would likely offset the costs of the project and the United States would have gone a long way to taking the weather out of the farm production equation.

Also, in coming years, even if we have some years with sufficient water, there are sure to be other droughts and as the population increases the impact of lower food production will skyrocket. But we would be ahead of the curve for a change.

I figure, if the Romans could supply water to the Coliseum in Rome for war games and baths, with zero technology but great workmanship, using modern technology we can provide a steady water supply to ensure crop production and stable food prices. Pass this on to President Mitt please.

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!"