Our Candidates (The Republicans)

So, we have Rudy, Fred, John and Mitt. Tough choices for the Republicans. From a conservative prospective none of these guys look bad. All are strong on defense and they seem to promote family values. Stong point here is none of them are involved in any congressional investigations at this time. I am not throwing my support at anyone yet because if they were to read my blog they might get in touch with me and say "Stop Supporting me, your ruining my poll numbers".
Rudy - Knows how to be a leader. Did a great job as Mayor of NY prior to and during 911. He can get things done and is man enough to stand up to the bad guys when necessary. When those supporting the bad guys offered NY financial aid Rudy basically told them to pack sand. Any Man would admire that action.
Fred - Great actor, well spoken. Has Senatorial Experience. Probably has some Hollywood and Media pull. He has the image of the "Wise Man Grandfather Type" who seems to have the welcome wisdom that this country subconsciously wants in office.
John - Has the experience and the Leadership. This guy is ready to do the job from Day One in office.
Mitt - Articulate, Polished and Intelligent. I think the Christian Right is going to be his downfall though since he is Mormon. Shame, cause I think he would make a fine President. There are a lot of people who see Mormonism as a "Cult". This is why I don't see this guy getting the presidency or even the nomination.

Where is our Next President? (The Democrats)

I don't know about you, but I look at the list of potential candidates and I couldn't be more disuaded. Yet, when the time comes I will choose one and vote. None of them right now are inciting any passion in my heart to vote for them. The debates were about as boring as you could get. Softball questions and everyone getting along. The only thing they all agreed on was that the other party was bad. Like we didn't know this would be their opinion right? Obama has raised more Money than Hillary but she leads him in the polls. I wouldn't trust the polls if I were looking for my Democratic Candidate (I am not a Democrat). There is a saying around motorcycle shops though "Money talks, bullshit walks". If Obama continues to raise more money than the Clinton Machine I would say he has a better chance of being elected than Hillary and therefore Hillary should "walk". Both of these candidates scare the hell out of me though for various reasons. Neither will get my vote of course because of their far-left agenda. Just as I would not vote for someone with a far-right agenda. Obama seems more "Presidential" than Hillary by far though. He has the image, the voice and the intelligence that when compared to Hillary puts her to shame. I do not like where he stands on abortion and I do not like that there are some strong questions about his church. One of the places a man gets his values is from the church he attends. I have heard nothing good about his church, but again, I haven't been there. No, I don't see either of these people in office.

President Bush is Smarter than you!

Ok, have to admit it. I was having my doubts about the troop surge. But it seems to be working. Every military commander in the field is telling us that it is working. They are there, they are on the scene, they know more about the situation than we do. Bottom line, we all had our doubts, even me. In theory it is always best to listen to the Generals in the Field when it comes to mission accomplishment. Our President is doing this and it is a wise choice. He continues to give military commanders what they ask for to get the job done. Now, admit it, his plan is working! He is smarter than all those who doubted it would work. This means he is probably smarter than you. See, he has information that the public does not have. Rather than sacrifice that information to the public and improve his ratings, he chooses to do the right thing and gives the military commanders what they need. I say we wait until September now and stop all the negative rhetoric. Lets wait and see what the Generals say in September.

Tipping

Ok, enough is enough. Everytime I turn around there is a tip jar on the counter. Bad enough that when you pay for things now with your credit card there is a TIP line underneath your cost. You have to put a line through this now so as to make sure someone doesn't add a tip after you have left the restaurant. A good Waiter or Waitress deserves a tip, no doubt. But someone who works at a Megachain Coffee drive through and just makes a cup of coffee? Please! A cup of coffee these days runs about $3.50. I can see handing someone four bucks and saying keep it. But who carries four one dollar bills now? So, you get your change at the window, you receive it hand to hand right next to the tip jar. The pressure is incredible! Do I put in a buck? Or do I put in the fifty cents? Not like I am leaving it on the table at my favorite restaurant and no "Tip Contact" is made with the server. Oh no! This person is right there in your face with their tip jar conveniently poised! If I put in a buck, I'm an ok kinda guy in their world. If I put in fifty cents, I'm a cheapskate dirtbag. I now avoid these places at all costs.

We cannot pull out of Iraq. I hate to say it but we just can't. The civil war and genocide that would occur if we pull out prior to Iraq being able to govern itself would be too devastating to our public conscience. Yes, we created this monster, but now we have to deal with it. It is no longer a question of winning. It is a question of doing the right thing on a humanitarian level. I want our Troops home, but are we willing to watch the onslaught of innocents after we pull out? I'm not.

Veterans First

VETERANS ARE THE PRIORITY
We should pay particular attention to our Veterans. These are people who volunteered to serve our country in time of need. Our time of need is here and they are serving valiantly. How we treat our Veterans and future Veterans is going to affect our country economically, politically and socially for as long as our nation is in existence.
Veterans will be returning home eventually. They need to have a place to prosper when they return to civilian life. We saw from previous conflicts what can happen if we do not find a way to merge them back into society.
Veterans will be facing several issues when they return. We need to be prepared to provide services to meet their needs and help them deal with these issues. Three major areas to concentrate on will be mental health, physical health and employment. We do have programs in place to address these issues but we need to be prepared for the influx of Veterans needing these services.
When it comes to the Veteran’s mental health the major concern of course is post traumatic stress disorder. This is a real diagnosis and it can affect many of our veterans returning from overseas. It can cause veterans to actually end up behind bars and in our prison systems or mental health facilities at the tax payer’s expense if not treated properly. Hopefully, we are ahead of this and are planning accordingly.
We also have the physical health issue. Many of our Veterans are returning from overseas after being wounded in action. The Veterans Administration (VA) has provides rehabilitation services and financial aid for disabled Veterans. The VA also provides prosthetic services to better help our Veterans function in society. We need to make sure that the VA has everything they need to provide proper treatment and aid for the increased number of wounded Veterans.
Finally we have employment. It is in society’s best interest to return the Veteran to the work force. It shows that we have respect for our Veterans. It shows future generations that military service is something you can be proud of. It re-introduces a tax paying member of society back into the economy. Our choice is either support the veteran in becoming a productive member of society or a dependant member of society. As a Veteran I much prefer being a productive member of society and I am sure my peers would as well.

You mean the car Bombs in London Targeted the Gay Pride Parade?

That is what some news agencies are saying. One of the cars found was right on the main street that the parade would be coming through. Let's see, Gays don't like Christians and they call us breeders, hate-mongerers etc etc. I don't think I saw any Crosses hanging from the windows of those car bombs though. Yes Liberals, they want to kill you just as bad as they want to kill the conservatives. Now, the question is which comes first for you liberals? Do you finally admit that these people want you dead despite the way you have tried to defend them? Or do you continue to try to appease them? I know, maybe you can find some gay Islamic extremists to come out publicly supporting your lifestyle.

Scooter Libby is FREE

Hey, Like I said before OUR President is loyal! He knows who has served him faithfully and he does what he can to take care of them. We all knew the sentance would be commuted now didn't we? Who can honestly say that they expected Scooter Libby to actually serve time behind bars? Fred Thompson said in an earlier interview that he also would have pardoned Scooter Libby. I think the President wanted to wait as long as he could on this one but finally his hand was forced. I think he did the right thing really. He knows the full story and how Libby either "Took one for the Team" or he was railroaded by anyone opposed to the Bush administration. In either Case, the commuted sentance was the least that a good leader would do. You take care of your people. All Scooter Libby was guilty of was leaving himself open to be a target.

Congressional Updates

House Squeezes Private Tax Collectors: H.R.2829 allots $1 million for private debt collection this is $6 million short of what the IRS requested. It is written so that it prohibits funds from being used to implement an executive order giving the president greater power over the federal rule-making process. It also provides $1.6 million for White House maintenance and restoration projects. They are still working on this bill and will continue after the July 4th Recess.

Bee's: Bees are the primary pollinators of America’s food crops and they are dying out. In comes bill (S.1694) attempting to fund research to figure out why. The study of "colony collapse" investigates a little understood phenomenon in which worker bees in a Western honey bee colony abruptly disappear.

Ethics Reform Stalls: Although the House and Senate passed legislation to overhaul lobbying and ethics rules, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) threw a wrench in the works by blocking Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) attempt to name conferees. McConnell made his cooperation conditional upon a vote on a separate bill (S.223) that would require electronic filing of campaign finance reports.

Immigration Reform shot down

Well, maybe now they will get back to building the border fence as we originally asked them to do. This bill probably would have been better than doing nothing at all as we are currently doing but at least they listened to the populace on this one. The problem now is that I feel we will be status quo on this issue until after the 2008 election. Current laws are still not being enforced and we are still dragging out feet on building the fence. Well, maybe now we can use cheap labor to help get the fence built.

Immigration Reform

I will say this about our President. He is loyal! He has pretty much stuck up for anyone who has helped him in the past. I don't think thats a bad trait. Remember G.W. is from Texas and owns a ranch. He speaks the local lingo there and has many friends in the hispanic community. For this reason I beleive is why he supports this Immigration Reform Bill. He knows the culture and is loyal to his friends. If your from that area, you know its not a bad culture. It's a culture of strong family ties, Christian beliefs and a hard work ethic. I want them to become Americans but I think we would all be at a loss if we forced that culture to die somehow. The various cultures we have in America are one of the things I love about this country.
I am originally from South Texas and am familiar with the culture there. I also had many friends down there and I would hazard to guess that many of them were Illegal Aliens. I have mixed feelings about this whole issue really. On one hand I do want our borders secure. I am definitely in favor of people coming to our country through legal means. On the other hand, I cannot blame someone for wanting to come to America to better provide for their family. After all this is the land of opportunity.
I guess you have to ask yourself if you are first an American Citizen? or are you first a Global Citizen? As Americans we have a great way of life. Can we blame others for wanting a part of that? As a Global Citizen you would want everyone to have the same opportunities that we have in America. Make no mistake, I am very patriotic but I have seen what other countries are like in my travels. I have lived overseas for over half of my life but I prefer living in the United States.
I have written my Congressman and Senators and told them to Secure the Borders first, then let's figure out what to do with the people we have here. Common sense says that in a sinking boat you stop the leak first, then get the water out of the boat. To date only two miles of the "Border Fence" has been built. Wasn't this a big issue during the last election? Americans told Congress what they want, Congress approved it, the Senate approved it and now its still not getting done? What is holding this up? It could be done in six months if we made it happen. Why are we dragging our feet on this?

Satan's Plan

Satan’s Plan (As I see it)
Of course this is just part of his numerous fronts in his war against mankind. I think his biggest secret is like Al Pacino said in “The Devils Advocate” when he said “Never let em see you coming”. The longer we ignore Satan and the more people that do ignore him, the better off he is.
1. Create a culture of debt.
Using the advertising culture he entices people to buy bigger cars, boats, jet-skis, RVs etc. You cannot sit at home at night without seeing an advertisement for something that you will eventually want. Then you trade in that perfectly good car that you have for a more expensive model because “you deserve it” right? This then puts you into more debt. Keep this up and eventually you create a situation where both parents have to work in order to sustain their lifestyle.
2. With both parents out of the house all day working the kids have to go somewhere. We then send them to daycare or school where they spend most of their day away from family influence and values that the parents would choose for their children to have. This should scare the hell out of the liberals out there because now the Government is dictating what values will be taught in the daycares and the schools. It should also scare the conservatives because Satan has seen to it that Prayer or any mention of Christ in a Government setting is condemned if not outright illegal.
3. Now let’s say I buy that new boat that I saw advertised. I show it off. I take it for a few spins. I park it proudly in my driveway. Actually hoping others envy what I have. When it does, it plays right back into Satan’s plan. It causes others to envy what they see on the surface and repeat the process. They don’t see the bills I pay or the fact that now I have a second job. They want more and the reach out and grab it thus putting them into the same increased debt situation.
4. Now let’s say I tithe. I believe the Tithe is important because it allows the Church to do the things that we are called to do. Money is nothing more than a resource to do God’s work. Now that I have succumbed to the advertising and purchased a boat I find that Gas, insurance, skis, tow ropes, lifejackets, coolers etc are all more expensive than I originally thought. Now I can’t just let my boat sit in the driveway can I? Of course not! So I justify that I can cut my Tithe and gas up the boat this afternoon. This way I spend time with my family! Isn’t that what God wants? Doesn’t he want me to spend more time with my family? See where I’m going? It causes a dilemma of faith when it comes to Tithing. Satan gets a second and third win here as now he has corrupted your faithful giving and taken resources from the Church. You know the Church, it’s that place you tell yourself the guy on the street corner holding up the sign should go for help. You know they have food there, after all, you Tithe right? Or at least you used to.
I welcome comments on how to beat this cycle.

Back to World Events

So, a six year old boy reported that the Taliban tried to "trick" him into becoming a suicide bomber. Seems they strapped a bomb to him and told him that "flowers" would spring forth when he pushed the button. Congrats to the boy for being smart enough to recognize something was wrong. This story basically shows the extent that that bad guys will go to in their attempt to create tragedy at the expense of the innocent.

Let's start with Paris Hilton

Today, Paris Hilton was released from jail. I have no interest in this story but it is everywhere I turn so I feel I have no choice but to comment. Word is that she wants to change her ways and has been reading her Bible. Well, I for one wish her the best. Perhaps she does really want to change but will people let her? The question is "Will she succeed in a positive change in her life?" Well, maybe if people back off and leave her alone she will.