It's not Democracy, It's Federalism
Last week's news that Tony Blair will step down from Prime minister give evidence to that fact that America's brand of democracy is better than the worlds. In america we have federalism, a system that involves power in both the state and national governments, and checks and balances between the three different branches of government. As in Enlgland and most of the world a parlament controls the prime minister and the courts, because a parlaments laws have the force of a constitutuion. This system can give a party enormous power. Such as the power to remove an elected official from primeminister any time it wants to, as did the labor party in Great Britain. In America such power does not exist, and this prevents tyranny and the kind of politcal stability that very few countries enjoy.
Iraq is perfect example of why federalism is needed. In Iraq the current constitution does not provide a federalist constitution. In Iraq 60% of the people are Shiite, 20% are Sunnis and 20% are Kurds. Since the national government has all the power in Iraq and since the Shiites have the majority they will control the entire nation. If Iraq were a federalist nation the Kurds and Sunnis would have an amount of self government. Also Iraq is a country that has had a history of tyranny. Iraq will be at risk of tryanny again for a long time because of this history and because it is in the Middle East. If Iraq were a federalist nation with all its competing but yet not dominating powers it would be lawfully safe from tryanny.  ¶ 2:39 PM 9 comments

  Sam Brownback is the Dark Horse for Republican Ticket
In the lead for the Republican Ticket for presidency in 2008 there are many canidates who fit into the same mold of liberal on social values and conservative on economic policy. These include Mitt Romney, George Pataki, Rudy Giuliani, Jon McCain, and Condoleezza Rice. The frontrunners for the nomination are all pretty much offer the same thing. Many republicans will want something different. That’s why they could vote for Sam Brownback. He is conservative on social values unlike the current front runners, which gives voters another option to vote. Most people know very little about Sam Brownback, so he will get to paint his own picture of himself instead of the media or the opposing party. Name recognition won't be a problem. Christian Conservative leaders have already offered their support to Senator Brownback. At a time of his choosing he could accept their support and make himself very well known. Only a few other candidates would even be able to challenge him among Christian. The only major challenge would come from Bill Frist who has lost a lot of popularity lately because of his actions on stem cell research and Terry Schiavo. Sam Brownback certainly is the Dark Horse to win the Republican primary.  ¶ 1:28 PM 5 comments

  Lieberman Good Bet for President With the latest news coming out of Connecticut, Lieberman now has the best chance of anyone to become President of The United States in 2008.The current voting patterns show that the number of independents has been growing for many years. With current amount of opposite party hate going around Lieberman is the big name independent that fed up independents and moderates would vote for. The big name is important. Most people don't support independents because they have no chancel, but Lieberman’s reputation will give him a chance right away, he will need no silver bullet or huge controversy to get a chance. Money will be a problem for any independent, but Lieberman’s name recognition helps here as well, also he won't need as much money because he will not have to pay to run a primary campaign. One other underrated advantage that Lieberman has is that he has run for president before. He ran in 2000 for vice president with Al Gore. That experience is a good advantage to have when running for president.  ¶ 3:14 PM 2 comments

  Al-Qaeda Reveals Its Incompetence
The terrorist plot that was foiled today confirms one thing that we have always suspected about Al-Qaeda. We knew that they are evil cowards, but now we know that they are also very stupid. Osama Bin Laden does not seam to have the intelligence to realize that he can't keep targeting the same things every time. We all know that there many unprotected areas in America that Al-Qaeda could target. Instead the terrorist organization just keeps going after airplanes. Its just a like a football coach that calls the same play the entire game. We know exactly what Al-Qaeda is going to try to do. They are trying to blow our planes up. They always have and they always will. If we were to destroy all the airplanes in America and England Al-Qaeda would still be making plans to blow up our planes. Not only can we easily protect a single target, but also Al-Qaeda’s consistency completely undermines the whole point of being a terrorist organization. No American is afraid of Terrorist in their day-to-day life. We only even consider terrorism when we are on a plane. The next time we pray, we should thank God that Al-Qaeda is so stupid.  ¶ 7:08 PM 2 comments

  Lebanon Israel Conflict Outcomes Vary

On the surface the current conflict in the Middle East is very discomforting. If the conflict spread it could involve Syria and Iran. Many people could be killed and hatreds would be reignited. If America were to back Israel in such a conflict it could enflame the people of Iraq against America.
The flipside is that the conflict could have a very great outcome. The current reports say that Lebanese opinion is turning against Hezbollah. This could allow the Lebanon government to take control of their country and expel Hezbollah. Then to smooth things over Israel and the US could pay to rebuild the damage done by Israeli air strikes. For the US such money would be hardly anything, but to Lebanon this money will show the regret of Israel having to bomb the Lebanon country. Lebanon could become friends within the region, much like the US and Germany after WWII. This scenario would severely limit the amount of Influence that Syria and Iran can have to threaten Israel. This would help make Isreal and stabilize the region.  ¶ 11:52 AM 1 comments

  The Economy is Something to be Proud About One thing you won't hear Democrats attacking Bush over any time soon will be the economy. Earlier this year I predicted that the unemployment rate would reach a 4.9 percent low. I was wrong; the current rate is 4.7 percent. People are more confident about their job security and are now spending more. Companies are also more confident and are investing more money into business  ¶ 8:04 PM 1 comments

  Senate Fails on Immigration If a wide receiver caught a ball and was heading to the end zone with no one threatening to tackle him, you will never see him stop turn around, and throw the ball into the crowd, but that is exactly what the Senate did last week with immigration. They had a widely supported bipartisan bill that would have made nearly everyone happy. Unfortunately a few republican senators threw a fit and were able to get amendments on the bill that killed it. The majority of my fellow republicans who supported the bill should have showed no loyalty to these Senators, and should have passed the bill. Everyone in the Senate just made themselves look inept and incompetent. They should realize that the incumbency re election rate in the Senate for their failure. I suggest to the Republicans who allowed these amendments to look back at what they lost and see what this bill could have done. They should then come back after the recess and pass this bill with out the amendments.  ¶ 6:49 PM 0 comments

  Immigration Controversy is Coming The Senate is debating a bill on immigration this week that would make every illegal immigrant and anyone who assists them a felon. Immigration is a divisive issue in that it divides each party. It will probably take a presedential election where both canidates agree to find a consensus on the issue. I find this bill awful because there are many charities that help immigrants once they get into America. These charities would now become a bunch of felons. The way I see it is if you have to take your family to America so that you can feed them, then the government shouldn’t stop you. We could use more border control, but we should also let in all Mexicans that want to live in America. If we let them come in legally we can control border security. We should better secure our borders, as long as it doesn’t cost too much money. I have included links to several different views on immigration.

Mexican View
http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/3/30/103635.shtml?s=ic

Conservative View
http://conservativecogitation.blogspot.com/2006/03/problem-with-problem-of-illegal.html

Liberal View
http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2006/03/immigration-and-politics-of-left.html  ¶ 1:53 PM 13 comments

  Jill Carrol Freed Christian Science Monitor journalist Jill Carroll was freed today by her captors known as Brigades of Vengeance. She had been a hostage since January 7. This is great news. This has been the secon hostag release this month. It seams that terrorists will have to back away from taking hostages now because they have failed with this tactic twice in the past few weeks.  ¶ 7:02 AM 2 comments

  George Bush Could Be A Little More Like Clinton This week President Bush has made several appearances this week culminating in a press conference. This seems to be working for President Bush, he made a similar week long campaign in late November and early December of last year, and his approval ratings went way up. This was the constant style of the Clinton Presidency. President Clinton was always campaigning even when election was not approaching. His Presidency was marked by a constant appeal to the public to support his programs. I believe that this has redefined how the office of the president works with the media. Having these week long campaigns would work well for Bush if he did this about every other week. This would especially help with the public’s view of the Iraq war. The most important way we judge Bush in Iraq is on whether or not he has a plan to win the war. If he is constantly talking to the public about the war we have the sense that that he has a plan. From FDR's fireside chats we can learn that in wartime every president should heighten their communication with the public. There is always doubt in war and the president needs to alive those doubts.  ¶ 10:20 AM 2 comments

  Hostages Rescued
Three Christian aid workers hostages were rescued in Iraq today. There are many good details in the story. British and American troops were both used in the operation, showing that our troops are working well together. Iraqi forces were used in the operation, showing that we can trust them in such an important operation. With the rescue of the hostages terrorists will hopefully think twice before taking more hostages.  ¶ 8:42 AM 0 comments

  Atheism Should Be Treated As a Religion One issue that America is always striving with is religion. Many times we try to protect the freedom of religion, but yet we destroy that freedom. One problem is that people think the only way to protect the freedom of religion is the government endorsement of Atheism. Atheism, however, is a belief about god, and so it is a religion. Treating Atheism just like any other religion would protect the freedom of religion in the U.S. If we are in a setting where we do not see using a religion as appropriate, we should not use atheism.  ¶ 7:53 PM 3 comments

  Dubai Company To Hand Over US Ports Today I am a little disappointed with America. Dubai Ports World has decided to hand over operations to a US firm. This decision was of course based on all the grief that congress has given the president about the ports deal. This grief was solely based on racism. The only reason that people questioned this deal was because the company is from a Muslim country. It is racist to think Muslim means terrorist, which is what people have been assuming. Some people cite terrorists in the United Arab Emirates, but England, the country of the former owner of the ports, has more confirmed terrorists than the UAE.  ¶ 5:24 PM 1 comments

  The Long War Yesterday I came across a new term that could be very important in the coming years. This term is to describe the strategy to win the war on terrorism. The defense department has decided that the war on terror and extremist Muslims will last over the next 10 to 20 years, hence it have named the conflict The Long War. The Long War Strategy also says that there will be short unexpected conflicts and crisis that will require quick response. The DOD does not predict where these conflicts will happen, just that they will.
This means several things. First the department of defense will invest more in things such as cruise missiles from submarines, close to shore naval capabilities, and more unmanned aircraft. It also calls for making partnerships with foreign governments because they will be more capable in many situations because of their knowledge of the area of a crisis. The strategy also calls for more covert action.  ¶ 8:17 AM 0 comments

  Anti-gay Anti-American Activists Disgrace Soldier's Funerals I was appalled by what I read on cnn today. I can't really explain to you why they are doing this because I don't understand it, but anti-gay activists are holding protests at fallen soldier's funerals. These hate filled people are evil, and are a disgrace and discredit to our country and everything we stand for. They're form of bullying should be stopped. They have already held protests at dozens of funerals.  ¶ 8:27 AM 0 comments

  Why the Nuclear Deal With India? It seems that over the past few weeks that the media has done a bad job of covering some very important stories. They neglected why the port deal is happening, which I wrote about in my previous post, and now they have neglected why President Bush singed a deal giving India Nuclear technology. At the heart of the deal the reason was not to bring India into the nuclear community and have inspections of some of their nuclear plants. What good does it do that we inspect just some of their plants, and leave the rest to do whatever the Indian government wants? The real reason the president signed such a deal is environmental. India has such a fast growing population that will surpass China, for the world’s larges population, within 50 years. The Indian economy is growing just as fast. All this growth means that India will need a lot of energy to fuel its economy. The US would be severely hurt if they had to compete with India for nonrenewable energy sources. So instead we can now get India to use Nuclear energy, meaning more oil and coal for the US.  ¶ 4:55 PM 0 comments

  The Story Behind The Port Deal I have been surprised that with all the controversey about the Dubai Port deal no one has brought this up. The sale of Eastern US Ports to The United Arab Emirates is affected by Iran policy. If we wanted to bomb nuclear facilities or nuclear weapons in Iran, the United Arab Emirates would have an air base that we would need to be able to reach Iran. If we don't have the use of that air base, Iran would ahve very little stopping it from making nuclear weapons. For this reason we can not afford to drastically hurt our relationship with the UAE.  ¶ 7:02 AM 1 comments

  Senator Approval Today I found a poll of US Senator approval ratings. Go check out what the approval ratings for your senators are.  ¶ 3:47 PM 4 comments

 
Today was the Miami County Republican Convention. 481 delegates voted on whom Miami county Republicans would endorse in statewide primaries in May. As I walked into the gymnasium there was a gauntlet of candidates and supporters showering me with campaign material. One of the first things I received was a bag that I put everything in. I called it my bag of things I'm not going to read. Mrs. DeWine even gave me a cookbook from he DeWine Campaign and I told her that I would put it in my bag of things I wasn't going to read. Before everything began people went from person to person greeting whom they know, or greeting one of the candidates or their supporters.
The actual business of the convention went slowly. The keynote speaker was new House Majority Leader John Boehner. One notable endorsement was that the convention voted to endorse Tim Grendell over Betty Montgomery, a woman who just a month ago was running for governor. Also Mike DeWine had four opponents. Two of them picked up a handful of votes but David Smith had 118 votes. The convention endorsed Tim Grendell for Attorney General, Greg Hartman for Secretary of State, Jannette Bradley for Treasurer, Mary Taylor for Auditor, John Boehner, Mike DeWine for Senator, Dianna Fessler for 79th House District, and Kenneth Blackwell for Governor.  ¶ 7:29 PM 2 comments

  Usually this blog covers politics, but today I will post about a different kind of news. If you haven't heard the incredible story of Jason McElwain, go read it. It is a great story showing the greatness of the world around us in a story not even Hollywood could make up.  ¶ 9:37 PM 1 comments