Among the people who have experienced infidelity in their marriages, the unfaithful spouse, when discovered, do several things to avoid facing the painful reality of accepting the blame for the affair. Interestingly, you see this same dynamic involved with the Benghazi, Libya story.

For those who maybe have not heard of the scandal, due to the downplaying and non-reporting by most major news outlets, the US consulate in Benghazi was attacked by terrorist groups on 9/11, resulting in four American's dead, including the American ambassador. Prior to this event, extra security was requested, emails and letters were sent to the State department requesting more security. Instead of providing more, they took security away from the consulate. This was done, despite two attacks on the consulate in April and June of the same year, an attempted assignation of the British ambassador, the British pulling out of Benghazi along with the Red Cross, and evidence of a growing threat of terrorism in Libya. To add insult to injury, the attack lasted 7 hours, and no forces were mobilized to help them. CIA operatives in the area were told to stand down and  not help them. And just recently we learn that the counter-terrorism council established in response to the original 9/11 attacks in 2001, were not allowed to convene and coordinate rescue plans as per their mission.

That's what happened. But we've only learned most of this over a period of weeks due to journalist, mainly at Fox News, digging it up. Because what the White House's official line for weeks following the attacks said is that a demonstration got out of hand and attacked the consulate. Not terrorist. And the demonstration was in response to a YouTube video that was anti-Muslim. Some of that was true in Egypt, perhaps, but no evidence existed in Libya that there were protest like they had in Egypt. As a matter of fact, Libya was one of the few places embassies and consulates were not having protest and demonstrations, which points to a larger Al Qida plan to distract from what was going on in Libya by these protest ginned up by an old video in other Arab countries.

Once you realize how unfaithful spouses tend to react in the wake of discovery, you can detect the same unfaithful dynamic going on in the Obama administration. Take the following as examples.

1. Blame shifting. A common reaction for an unfaithful spouse is to attempt to place the blame for the affair onto the hurt spouse by saying they cheated in response to some deficiency in the spouse. If only the spouse had acted better, the affair would not have happened. But such a response ignores that the decision to have an affair or allow it to happen, was one the unfaithful spouse made and is itself culpable as an attack on the marriage more than any other deficiency committed by the other spouse. But it gives the unfaithful partner justification not to take responsibility for their action or inaction.

We see this classic response demonstrated by the Obama administration. Instead of standing up, admitting they blew it, and work to reconcile the damage, they fostered a false narrative that it was really America's fault for having freedom of speech, and allowing a video to air that attacked Islam. That is why Benghazi was attacked. Not terrorism. It was America's fault for not behaving appropriately.

2. Gas lighting. This comes from an old movie where a man tells a woman who sees the gas lights lit, that she's crazy, they aren't lit. She begins to believe she is seeing things, that she can't trust her senses as to what is true. Unfaithful spouses often use such tactics on their spouses. If the spouse finds evidence of unfaithfulness, they unfaithful spouse will tell them it is nothing, it is innocent, nothing happened, they are making it into much more than it is, etc. In other words, don't believe what is right in front of your eyes. Your crazy for thinking it means anything.

In the Benghazi case, we were asked to believe something that wasn't there, a protest mob. We were asked to believe, despite it being the anniversary of 9/11, despite the fact they used advanced weapons a protest crowd would not have had access to, despite all available evidence at the time, that these were nothing, not important information to determine the truth, and that it really was a protest that got out of hand. An event that never happened. Made-up intelligence.

3. Trickle Truth. Unfaithful spouses will often only tell the hurt spouse what they absolutely have to, usually only what they are caught doing. So if a spouse learns they've been unfaithful with one woman, the unfaithful spouse will not tell them everything, that there were more women, in hopes of not making it seem as bad as it really is, so they don't have to face the music. However, over a period of time, the hurt spouse learns more and more of the truth as it trickles out under evidence surfacing or intense questioning. So what you end up with is new revelations coming out regularly because the spouse isn't telling everything they know.

We've seen, due to some investigative reporting, more and more information about what happened in Benghazi "trickle" out over these past weeks. Everyday, it seems, we learn new information that is even more damning than before. The American people are left wondering how many more layers to this onion are there? When will we learn the whole truth? Will this be a cover up and worthy of impeachment trials, should Obama happen to win a second term? It appears the only truth we will get out of them is what they are forced to admit to. It will continue to trickle out to the American people.

These three evidences provide the classic reaction of an unfaithful spouse who doesn't want to face the music of their misdeeds or intentional violations. It fits the Obama administration to a tee in how it has handled the Benghazi attacks.

Guess what? I think it is time for a divorce.

On November 6, I pray the country will do just that. If for no other reason than for our service people who deserve better from the people who are supposed to have their backs. Trust, like in an affair, has been violated for them. And it will take a lot longer than four years for Obama to rebuild that trust, assuming he even tries. Can we feel safe with a military who cannot trust their commander in chief in the face of the threats we face in the world? I pray most Americans will realize the damage caused by this lack of leadership, and vote America down a better path.

As we lead up to election day, now just five days away, make sure you go out and vote for a stronger America.

It would probably be no surprise to anyone reading this blog that I plan on voting for Mitt Romney in November. While he wasn't my first choice in the primaries and I felt he would be weak against President Obama due to the health care issues and the demonizing that was sure to come, I knew what he had to offer was a whole lot better than what we have now under President Obama.

To support my decision, there are a whole host of things that I could list as to why I am more impressed with Romney now than I was in the primaries. However, the main reason boils down to one central set of qualifications that I feel President Obama has lacked from day one.

Leadership and experience.

Being a community organizer and a senator didn't give Obama the experience he needed to lead. He might be able to organize stuff. He might know how to vote on a piece of legislation...when he's there to do so. Over these past four years, we have seen exactly the lack of leadership his inexperienced caused. Allow me to list the main examples.

1. The economy. He pushed through a Democratically controlled Congress in the first two years a stimulus package, spending a historic amount of money in an attempt to stimulate the economy. Only problem? A lot of it went to companies that didn't need it, and turned into corporate welfare and rewards for those who supported Obama to become president. But the money failed to move the needle much in energizing the economy. And each year since then, the GDP has grown smaller and smaller. The shot in the arm did little to bring down unemployment numbers, and ended up rewarding those who didn't need it often at the expense of those who did.

2. The budget. He failed to lead on two points here. One, he failed to fulfill his campaign promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Instead, it has grown during his first term faster and more than any other president. His problem, as I've pointed out before, is that he had a Democratic senate who holds the purse strings, and had spent a trillion per year since they came into office two years earlier. Obama was not successful in directing them to cut the deficit. That's assuming he even tried. Which leads to point number two.

Two, his budget he sent to Congress not only failed to work toward a reduction in the deficit, but President Obama failed to get his Democratically controlled Congress to even bring his budget up for a vote. For three years, Congress has failed to abide by the Law of the Land to pass a budget. We've been operating on the budget in place during Obama's first year in office through his whole term. The President didn't have the leadership and negotiating skills to even get members of his own party to vote for his budget. Not even once. That, in the end, is a failure of leadership. A budget is the practical list of a president's goals and vision, and no one would vote on it. With no budget, there is no fiscal and governmental leadership from the president.

3. Legislation. President Obama has not lead on the legislative agenda much. This is no better illustrated than in the health care bill that most call Obamacare. He gave the job over to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and company to write the bill. I doubt Obama had a clue what all the bill contained. Most people didn't have a clue. No one was allowed time to read it before voting on it, negating President Obama's campaign promise to be the most transparent administration ever. We had to vote for the bill to find out what was in the bill. Because they knew if people found out what was in the bill, there would have been a bigger cry than there already was.

4. Bipartisanship. The President made a campaign promise to work with both parties to get things done. Yet, when he met with them, his message to the Republicans was, "I won, you lost." It was his way or the highway. Negotiation meant you will do what "I say." As a result of his inflexible stand, very little work was done. And when Republicans won the House in 2010, he still refused to work with Republicans. Yes, I know. He will claim they wouldn't work with him. But the fact is, leadership would have found a way to get it done. Reagan did it. Bush H. and W. did it. Clinton did it. But all President Obama did was shut Republicans out of the process. And then he wondered why they didn't do what he wanted. One doesn't lead by excluding people. Especially elected representatives of the people across the country he is supposed to be the president of. Because of that reality, not much got done.

5. Foreign Affairs. He has taken a tact which has made America to appear weak by chumming with dictators and enemies, and dissing our allies, especially Israel, snubbing them on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, he has apologized to the Muslim world for America's past leadership. Whether it was his intention or not, whether he actually made us weaker or not, it is certainly the message he is sending to the terrorist around the world. As a result, the veneer of success he had in taking out Osama Bin Laden, has unraveled with the recent attack by terrorist groups on the Libyan embassy, resulting in the death of our ambassador there, along with three other Americans. The Middle East broke out into demonstrations against America. And to add insult to injury, they tried to pass off the whole thing as a response to a video on YouTube instead of the obvious terrorist attack it was in an obvious attempt to do damage control right before an election. President Obama's leadership in foreign affairs dwindled, what there was of it, as American's have watched it unravel before our eyes.

All these events show that President Obama wasn't ready to take office, and while he's done some on-the-job training, he is far behind especially when it comes to reviving the economy. Using the wrong model, he has actually stymied growth in the economy by taking money out of the economy in taxes, raising our debt to new levels that resulted in the downgrading of our creditworthiness, and printing more money that will cause inflation to rise.

Mitt Romney has the experience in business, leading a state, leading to a balanced budget, and leading to grow businesses. He knows government stimulus isn't the way to grow the economy, but rather tax stimulus in the forms of cut. What President Obama seems to find hard to grasp, is that by cutting taxes, allowing Americans to keep more of their money, is not government spending. And if it is, it would accomplish a whole lot more than any government stimulus he could ever come up with. Because Americans keeping more of their hard earned money means more money to spend in the economy, which means more money for businesses to hire more people, which means more people working, which means more people paying more taxes, which means that imaginary five trillion tax cut President Obama keeps saying Romney's plan will "spend" will in net an increase of taxes, helping to pay down the deficit.

Because Romney understands that simple free enterprise 101 principle, and will implement it, we will see a rebound in the economy if Romney gets elected. Regulations will be pared back that have squished job growth. The uncertain tax situation will get certain. Businesses will again start growing and hiring. That is something we'll never see with Obama. He'd rather government dole the money out to who they think should deserve it.

Because President Obama has failed to lead on many of these key areas of our nation, it is time to say goodbye to him and put Mitt Romney in the White House. He's our best shot at getting this back on track. I certainly have no confidence that President Obama will succeed in the next four years, and the stranglehold of Obamacare alone will sink our nation into a socialistic nightmare and taxing sink hole.

That's the key reason I'll be voting for Mitt Romney this year. He has the experience and the leadership to accomplish what needs to be done to get our nation back on track. We need to leave behind the failed policies of President Obama.

I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but President Obama is making it harder and harder to believe he is not really a plant by the Islamic terrorist to weaken America to the point they can be taken over.

First, President Obama goes around apologizing for America in Egypt and elsewhere, making us appear weak. He essentially said, "It's all our fault, we deserve whatever punishment you dish out to us." He takes the line that if we hadn't been in there pushing our agenda to begin with, these terrorist wouldn't have us in their gun sights. But all his "apology tour" has gotten us is more threats and more instances of terrorist attacks. Like Clinton's big foreign policy failure, he didn't treat the various attacks by these terrorist as significant and worth dealing with. What we received for President Clinton's policy was 9/11 attacks on America soil and over 3000 dead. President Obama is following the same policy of appeasement which has never worked! It always results in war and more lives being killed. A new date will go down in history as infamous if this keeps up.

If Clinton had acted appropriately, 9/11 wouldn't have happened. Because President Obama isn't acting responsibly  our next 9/11 will fall on his shoulders.

Next, President Obama broadcast to the terrorist when we are pulling out of Afghanistan. Huh...since went do we give the enemy such confidential information that ensures we leave with our tails between our legs? Why would the president elect to do this unless he really wanted the enemy to have the advantage? Doesn't compute.

Then, through most of his tenure as president, he has consistently met with dictators alike Cesar Chavez, and  is willing to meet with terrorist to negotiate, but snubs our allies like Israel. And pulls out defenses from Poland? Why would our president throw our allies under the bus while giving preference to our enemies?

Then with the "Arab Spring," we see radical groups taking control over countries that were our allies, and we didn't support them. We intervene in places like Libya but not Syria. Why? The only conclusion appears to be we want the radical Islamist to take control.

Then we move to the latest issue, the assassination of our ambassador and three other American's in Libya  two of them military, where the Administration has attempted to cover up the reality of terrorism being the reason for the attack by promoting a false narrative that a YouTube video was the reason for a protest that never existed. We have evidence from day one that it was a terrorist attack, and the administration ignored multiple warnings including multiple attacks upon American interest in the region and elsewhere leading up to this, but also from the Libyan government, and the security on site at the embassy. And not only did they refuse to provide the extra troops they needed to secure the embassy, they removed troops from Libya right before the 11th anniversary of 9/11. It's as if the administration was saying, "Okay, we've cleared the way for a successful attack on our embassy. Have at it," to Al Qida.

Given all that, most people would conclude that it isn't just administration's incompetence, or ideological blinders causing this foreign policy debacle, but an intentional attempt to weaken America so the radical Islamic groups can regain control over the war and defeat us. Given President Obama's ties to the Muslim community, his disdain of Israel  and all the above cited instances of purposefully weakening America, it is hard to avoid that conclusion.

Am I saying this is the case? No. I have no inside info that would "prove" it is so. I'm not sure whether it is or not. All I'm saying, is it certainly looks that way. And that cannot be good, no matter how you cut it. On foreign policy alone, Obama needs to be voted out of office and have someone put in who has a clue about how to lead. Because the road President Obama is leading us down is to Never Never Land. And I don't think we want to go there.

In any event, these thing will not play well with the American people at the upcoming Obama and Romney foreign policy debate coming up. There is so much ammunition Romney will have, it will be a scandal if he doesn't clean President Obama's clock a second time.

One of the lines of arguments presented at the Democratic National Convention last week was the idea that Republicans like Romney and Ryan want to take away a woman's access to health care.

Translated, that means having government pay for their abortions and birth control. They don't say that, because that doesn't test as well in trial groups. It sound less like whining and more like denial of rights to say their health care is being restricted.

So, let's get this straight. Restriction of health care is equal to the government not paying for "medicine" and services. Yeah. Right. That's why I'm currently being restricted in my health care as a man, because the government isn't paying for my foot fungus medication or getting my teeth fixed. And who is in control right now? Democrats. Therefore, because Obama hasn't said he wants to pay for all this, my health care is restricted. Yeah. Right.

But it goes deeper than that. What I listed are real health care issues. Sure, sometimes it become medically necessary to have an abortion to save the life of the mother. You want to take a stab at how often that actually happens? Yeah. Right. Not that often. By far the bulk of abortions have nothing to do with the health of the woman. They are done for convenience, money, or to avoid the consequences of unprotected sex.

Translated, we are more concerned about a woman's convenience than we are the restriction of health care for the baby. Yeah. Right.

And at what point does birth control come into health care for women? I mean, how often does a doctor prescribe birth control pills to avoid or treat a sickness in a woman? You call avoiding a pregnancy a health issue? I'm sure there are women out there who should avoid getting pregnant due to health reasons. I would imagine most of those get their tubes tied. And a doctor might prescribe the pill or other means to avoid that scenario. But take a stab in the dark how often that happens? Nope, not that often. I'm sure if you did a study, less than 10% of the people who buy birth control do so to avoid or treat an illness.

So, we're ignoring the valid "restriction" of health care of millions of people like me, while claiming that because the government might not pay for abortions and birth control for women is the equivalent of restricting women's access to health care?

Come on. How dumb do you think we are? How dumb would you have to be to make that leap? Are there instances? Sure. But they are far and few in between the many that have little to nothing to do with a woman's health. And the logical fallacy one has to accept to believe that because the government doesn't pay for it is restricting access is crazy. If the government would get out of the way, and let the private sector help, you could see those tax dollars go much further in making real health care accessible for all.

You say the Republicans want to restrict a woman's access to health care? Yeah. Right. Let me know when you come up with the missing link between most abortions done in this country and what disease it is healing. And how the government is the only one that can help, because no one else will. Then we can talk about it.

It appears the message coming out of the DNC for this week is that President Obama is tested, I guess because he's been president for the past 3.5 years.

Okay, I'll buy that. He's been tested. Unfortunately for him, based on the economic indicators, he failed the test.

Being tested alone isn't good enough. You have to be tested and succeed. Like Romney. We tried an untested person to take the test. Now it is time to try a tested person who has succeed at that test in the past to take it, and see if we don't get much better results.

One of the themes you'll see repeated by the Democrats in the next months leading up to the election, is the idea that Republicans want to cut programs, like Medicaid, and are therefore not concerned for the poor or for helping people other than the "rich."

News flash: cutting a government program is not the equivalent of not wanting to help the poor. There are other means to help them than through the government! I know that may come as a shock to some, but it is the truth. Rather, it designates a different approach to solving the same problem. An approach that says the government is the least effective way of helping those who have needs through no fault of their own, and the end result of government programs to do this is in effect stealing from the American people, not to mention the opportunity for corruption is much higher in the government.

How, you may ask?

Private sector charities are less prone to corruption than government run charities. Yes, there are examples of corruption in charities. But guess what? They were discovered, and appropriate action taken legally to rectify the problem. Why? Because all private charities have the government looking over their shoulders, making sure everything is on the up and up, and if it isn't, BAM comes down the hammer.

But what happens in government? Who is looking over their shoulders to ensure corruption not only is spotted, but doesn't go unpunished? The media? Yeah, good luck with that one. They gave up their watch dog status a long time ago, especially when the Democrats are in control of the government. There is no provision for corruption to be effectively dealt with. Consequently, people are able to get away with more in the various government run programs and few will be the wiser.

Conclusion? If you want your money to not be wasted on corruption, your chances are much better off with a private charity if you do your research and the government does its actual job of regulating these groups.

Less of one's dollar goes to actually helping the poor through a government run program than a private sector charity. Private sector charities are required to give their financial statements which report, among other things, how much administrative cost is taken out of each dollar given, and how much goes to actually helping people. Good luck finding that information on a government run charity.

It is well known how much overhead cost the government has in its programs. They routinely require much more administrative cost than even the most inefficient of private sector charities. You want to help the poor? Doing so through tax dollars is the least efficient way to do it.

Conclusion? You are helping the poor much less by doing it through the government.

Government programs create dependencies. Private sector charities help people through hard times. With helping people comes the risk of those who want to use the system to live on, rather than get them through a hard time. Charity should be about helping people get back on their feet rather than just giving them money. Both government and private sector charities run into this problem, but the latter have more incentive and local control to weed out those who are gaming the system.

Government programs tend to be determined successful by how many people they have on their roles. Private sector charities by how many they help to get back on their feet. While government programs determine budgets based on how big a selection of the population that receive their money, providing incentive to put as many people as possible on the rolls to continue to get the bigger and bigger budget allocations for your group, private sector charities have more incentive to show how many they have helped overall. To get someone back on their feet and no longer needing assistance is success, and being able to use that money to help another. The government incentivizes keeping people on the rolls as long as possible to justify their existence and budget requests.

Conclusion? If you want to help people to move back into being productive members of society rather than creating a group that live off the government handouts, your best bet is to put that money into private sector charities.

Government charity robs individuals of both their money, and the benefit of giving freely. I have no real choice in where my tax dollars are spent. Sure, in some measure, through my representatives. But that influence is minimal to nonexistent. If I willing give of my money to a charity, I not only have the freedom to decide to give it, but what causes and groups I will give it to. Every tax dollar taken from me by force is that much less I have to give freely as I desire.

That causes two problems. One, with the government, I have no choice on whether to give or not. It is forceably taken from me by the government at the risk of seizing all my assets. Then other people decide where that money will go. That means I get absolutely no benefit from giving that money because it wasn't done with my volition and choice, nor is it given to causes I would support. Often, like currently, they are given to causes I directly oppose and consider immoral. Therefore, I lose all spiritual and moral benefit that I would have acquired if I had given it freely to a charity of my choice.

Two, the government has become nothing more than a thief, violating my personal liberty and my constitutionally protected privacy. The only money the government is allowed to take by the constitution is that required to fulfill its constitutional mandates. Nowhere in the constitution is the government given the task of taking care of the poor or other charity-style programs provided currently. For them to upsurp my freedom to decide where my resources will go for non-constitutional spending is nothing less than breaking into my home and stealing my money. A government program of this type is immoral at is foundation, and antithetical to the freedoms we hold dear.

Conclusion? If you want freedom to use your assets as you see fit to do so, allowing the government to steal them and spend them on programs it has no business being involved in, violates our constitutional rights. We should be free to give that money to a charity of our choice, or however we wish to use it.

Bottom line? To use the government as a means of charity and "redistributing the wealth" is a loss of freedom, an oppression of the poor, and the most inefficient way to help anyone in true need.

I'm not saying these programs haven't done some good. What I am saying is that same money would have done much more good if given freely to a charity of our choice, and we have not only robbed ourselves of the joy of giving freely, but we've robbed the poor of getting the real help they need.

In short, opposing government entitlement programs and wanting to cut fat out of current programs is not being insensitive to the poor. Rather, it is helping them. Because there will be that much more money available through the many organizations out there if government stops taking money by force and spending it on big government salaries and administrative costs.

Keep all that in mind when you hear the accusation that Republicans like Paul Ryan are wanting to cut programs like Medicare in favor of giving tax cuts to "rich" people, and are against helping the poor in this country. It is false because the government is the least effective way to help people. We oppose the waste in government who is self-regulated, as opposed to the private sector charities who have someone looking over their shoulders. Smaller government means more freedom, more prosperity, and more money available through charities to help those who need it. Cutting programs and moving them back to the private sector is the best way to help the poor. How can that be against the poor? It isn't.

Here is an issue that it makes no sense to me why it is an issue. In various states, one in which I reside, has passed a "voter ID" law, which states the necessity for people who show up to vote in an election to provide an ID card with a photo of themselves. The most common is a driver's license, or its cousin, the ID card the state can issue. Most of these bills were passed into law in Republican control states, like Texas.

The Democrats, however, feel that these voter ID laws are an attempt by Republicans to make it harder for their supporters to vote, especially since many of them would be immigrants from Mexico who may have a hard time providing the evidence, like a birth certificate, to get a photo ID. The charge is it is racist and an attempt to suppress the votes of a traditionally Democratic voting block. Defenders of the laws say they are simply measures to ensure the integrity of the voting system from corruption.

Two thoughts on this. One, a valid ID is required in so many other areas of our lives, it is hard to justify that this should be the exception. To work anywhere, you must provide a valid photo ID, or some form of identification like a passport or birth certificate. The idea is to prove you are a citizen of the United States and are therefore authorized to work in the USA. You don't provide those documents, you don't work, you don't earn a living.

A citizen of the United States should be the only people voting in an election, by law. Most all valid citizens of the USA will already have such a valid photo ID or can easily get one. The only group who would have a hard time getting a valid one is those here illegally. The only honest reason the Democrats would want to block these laws is to make it easy for illegal immigrants to again break the law by voting in an election as if they were citizens of our country. They would be the ones having the hardest time of getting a valid photo ID.

That's the elephant in the room, pardon the pun. Democrats are in effect arguing that we make it easier for people to break the law. Likewise, if they are so convinced that this is really discriminatory and racist, then they should be on a big campaign to remove all identification requirements to get a job, and allow illegal immigrants to easily break those laws as well. Apparently it is racist to want to enforce the laws of the land by practical procedures, like requiring a photo ID when you show up to cast your vote, but not when you work at a job. Go figure.

Two, because a lot of illegals do work in the USA, against its laws, and photo IDs are usually required to gain such employment, fake driver's license and Social Security cards are easily obtained among the illegal immigrant community. This practice is widespread. I know, because I was a bookkeeper for a business that employed over one hundred workers, the bulk of them Hispanic. I would often in reviewing their I-9 documentation, suspect, if not outright know, that the driver's license and Social Security card they gave were not real. Every year the Social Security Administration would send us back invalid Social Security numbers that matched another persons.

Despite all that information, the business could do nothing to deny a person a job based on that information. To do so was to risk being sued for discrimination. Even the Social Security Administration's letter of duplicate ID numbers said that our business could not fire or take any punitive actions based on that information.

People assume that the problem is that businesses are not filtering out illegals like they should. In some cases, that may be true. But in the majority of cases, our country prevents businesses from taking any action or not hiring someone based on suspicions of having a fake ID or SS number. It is not the businesses who are encouraging illegal immigration by hiring them, it is the Federal Government that prevents businesses from not hiring or firing based on fake identification. Don't rail at businesses for hiring illegal immigrants until that is fixed. But that's another issue.

Point being, however, that even for illegals, it is easy for them to get a photo ID that will past muster when shown to an election worker. The election worker will not likely be experienced in spotting fake IDs, and won't have the time to investigate any that they might suspect, and will err on the side of not making a scene telling someone they can't vote based on a suspicion. Illegals will still be able to vote, as most of them already have some form of photo ID, fake though it may be, or can easily get one if they want to vote.

So we've effectively shown that the Democrats can't be basing their opposition to the voter ID law for legal grounds, moral grounds like discrimination, or even a practical fear that illegal immigrants will not be able to vote in sufficient numbers to illegally keep Obama in office. What's left?

The reason the Democrats oppose these laws is because they want to gin up their base among Hispanic voters by painting this as an attack on them by the Republicans. They want to motivate the Hispanic community to turn out. And the best way the Democrats know how to do this is by playing the fear card. "Look what they are going to do to you! Go vote against them!" They've done it with the African American vote, they've done it with the Jewish vote, they've done it with the elderly vote. And this is nothing more than the same political game. Find an issue, whether it be a real one or not, and turn it into an "us vs. them" battle to motivate those voters to get to the polls and defeat the Republicans.

Hispanic voters, their opposition to this law has nothing to do with standing up for your rights, and everything to do with manipulating you to stay in their camp, to not think with your head but from your emotions. I hope enough Hispanics will realize this and push back rather than get sucked in.

I've been away for a while, mostly due to several pressing issues I won't bore everyone with. But I've been prompted to jump back now and maybe will be posting more regularly again (we'll see).

Today, I wanted to touch upon the decision being given to us by the two conventions. They offer two very different paths we can take our country down. Very simply, based on what was presented at the RNC last week, Romney and Ryan have pointed us on an emphasis of free enterprise, reduced government regulation, reduced taxes, and creating an environment where business can thrive and the economy rebound. What you'll hear from the DNC this week is the route to prosperity is more government intervention, hand outs, health care oversight, which will require more taxes to pay for.

Some will say there isn't any difference between the two. If they do, they have their heads stuck in some ideological sandbox. Pull it out and take a serious look. It is plainly obvious to any one who takes an honest look that in another four years with Obama, our country will collapse. Can we really afford another 6 trillion in debt? Our President promised to cut it in half when he started, and it has gone totally the opposite direction. I have no confidence that will change. Especially as we see more and more of the health care plan start up over the next few years.

No, the path that Romney and Ryan have laid out is 180 degrees opposite of where President Obama wants to take this country. The choice couldn't be any clearer, and it boggles my mind that so many are willing to continue down the path of destruction our President is driving us down. You don't keep doing the same thing and expect different results. If you don't like the direction of the economy, then change the leadership.

Yes, Romney wasn't my first choice. He wasn't even my second. But he is a far superior choice than what we currently have. And a vote for anyone else besides Romney is a vote for Obama and the direction he is taking this country. You may not like that, but it is a fact. Here is why I say there is a difference:

Leadership. President Barak Obama came into office in 2009 with little leadership experience, both in government or the private sector. Once he was elected, I hoped for the best. Unfortunately, the public putting an inexperienced leader into the top office of the nation has proven to be a disaster. We've seen him totally unable to lead even his own party. He's presented a budget every year, and every year it doesn't get even brought up for a vote in the Democratically controlled Senate. Three years, and the President has yet to get a budget passed. A fundamental requirement by law, and the blueprint of his leadership. And he is unable to get his own party to vote on it. That is not leadership.

And need we even go into the lack of bipartisan accomplishments? Contrast this with Romney who has both extensive business and government experience. He is leadership tested. There isn't even a comparison. We simply need someone who knows how to lead in the office. Harry Reid is running the country, not President Obama.

Economic Recovery. As the crisis hit during the election in 2008, I hoped beyond hope that Obama would not win. Because I knew if he did, his policies would not help us recover from the recession, but prolong it. He doesn't understand how economics works, so focused he is on ideological issues. He ignores the practical consequences of his decisions upon the working family. Policies cause gas prices to rise? Environmentalist love it, his stated goal was to do that, but what about all those people filling up their vehicles every week? Ask them if rising gas prices are leading to higher rates of employment.

He even wanted (but luckily didn't get passed this time around) the "Cap and Trade" bill, which would have caused energy prices to skyrocket. Goals of this nature totally ignore what havoc this would reek on the economy and people's lives. Romney lives in reality land. He knows you can't have skyrocketing energy prices and expect the economy to recover.

Unfortunately, Obama was elected, and unfortunately, my fears proved well founded. We have not gotten better. His policies and debt-growing "stimulus bills" that only stimulated government jobs, and a few friends of the President, have kept the economy from rebounding as it did under previous administrations. He didn't create the crisis (actually, the Democratic controlled Congress did starting in 2006 when they came into power), but what should have been a major recession is now threatening to become a major depression unless we change course.

Protection of the country. President Obama has sought to befriend our enemies and snub our friends. He has cut the military budget and weakened our ability to defend itself. In a time when terrorist would love to score another "hit" on America, he's left us more vulnerable to attack. While I do agree that America is in too many wars and military activities across the globe, thanks to the political climate created by WWs 1 & 2 that destroyed any hopes of continued isolationism, we can't just suddenly stop without dire consequences. If we don't keep our ability to defend ourselves from outside threats, it won't be long before we'll be attacked not just once, but again and again. In an ironic way, the success of President Bush to keep us safe from further attacks may have created in us a false sense of security that will come back to bite us again.

I could list more issues that cause me to vote for Romney and Ryan this coming November. I hope what is so obvious to me is as obvious to as many other Americans. If we don't change course, we won't have much of a free country left by the time we get to another election. Why? For this one reason:

The more the government controls, the more you depend on it for charity, services, and "rights," the less freedom you have as an individual. Our framers constructed a constitution that was intended to keep the federal government as small as possible and still do its job. They'd just fought a war to get away from a controlling government. They didn't want to then create another. But over time, that is what has happened. With each entitlement program, free money, food, and other "helps" our population becomes that much more enslaved to the government and its control. If you want to remain free, and hopefully roll back the chains that we've already been bound with, then Obama's vision for our country should scare anyone away from pulling the lever for him.

As Clint Eastwood said, when an employee doesn't do their job, it is time to let them go. The question is, will the American people vote to change the leadership and direction, or continue down the path we're going?

The answer to that will depend on how much you value your freedom.

I made an attempt at this post once, and it ended up being so much info and going too many directions, that I deleted it. So now I'm taking another stab at it, with the intent to focus. Which is difficult, given the topic, because there is so much to unpack, and so many knee-jerk reactions one way or the other, that any nuance gets lost in the shouting.

Yes, I'm talking about what is being called, "Gay Marriage." Recently, President Obama made statements that he'd changed his mind about supporting "gay marriage." Previously, he'd said that he didn't support it. Now he does. And there has been much discussion about his reasons for doing so, both political and his "theological" reasons.

The argument for it tends to be defined by two main points. One, it is seen as an equal rights issue. Two, it is seen as a discrimination and bigot issue. Let's take a look at both and think this through.

On the equal rights issues: the charge is made that married couples enjoy some legal rights that others don't. Like insurance, tax breaks, etc. Two people living together who prefer same-sex intimacy, are in most states not allowed to marry and get these legal breaks. Also, sometimes there are other issues relating to visiting someone in a hospital, or caring for a child of the other partner. Not being a member of the family, some hospitals don't allow them to make such visits and decisions.

If this was the main and only issue, this would be a non-issue. For a very simple reason. There are already legal routes to obtaining most, if not all, of these rights for people who are not married. There are civil unions, and there are ways to grant someone legal custody and guardianship of a child.

What? Civil unions don't have all the perks of marriage? Okay, which is easier to get a legislature, governor, and court to do? Make the advantages of marriage and civil unions equal, or get them to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples? Given the bad record so far (I read a statement that 34 states have laws prohibiting gay marriage and 2 states have enacted laws allowing gay marriages), I think the first would be infinitely easier to do.

So the main reason they are wanting to have marriage legally redefined cannot be merely for equal rights. If it was, this would be the least productive way to go about it.

On the discrimination side, that is really a non-factor in granting legal marriage.Discrimination would be based on people being mistreated and not treated equally as others are due to either factors you were born with and cannot change, or a person's preferences. Do gay people get discriminated against? I would say there are cases of such discrimination. But will being declared "married" fix that? No. People will still discriminate against people they don't like or agree with. Even today, years after the civil rights movement, there are true bigots and racist against black people. Changing the laws doesn't change people.

But for those discriminations that could be legally remedied by allowing gay marriage, they could just as equally well be remedied by civil unions and making those benefits parallel to marital benefits. There is nothing magical about the label, "married," that is better than another label. So again, this can't be about discrimination, or else they would use the simpler and more likely to succeed method of focusing on civil unions and getting those statuses updated to an equivalent of marriage in each state.

But I left out one other possible argument for "gay marriage." The idea that if two people love each other, they should be able to express that love in being married. And so the discrimination isn't merely about legal issues, but about being excluded from participating in a legal union between two people who want to spend the rest of their lives together.

But this shows a lack of understanding of what marriage is. Love and marriage should go together, but the two are not necessary for the other. There are plenty of people who are married, but don't love each other. There are plenty of people who are not married, and love each other, are as or more intimate with each other, than many married people. And I can attest, that legal document from the state will not make you love the other person more or less, nor will it do a thing to improve the relationship. Indeed, by statistics, it will tend to engender a feeling of being trapped, and allowing oneself to take the other for granted easier since you know now it is not as simple as grabbing your things and heading out the door. Around 50% of marriages today experience infidelity, and around 50% end up in divorce court. Not great odds. Marriage guarantees no love, and the depth of one's love is not increased by being married.

So why get married? What is marriage for? It is predicated on the existence of creating children. Without that potential in the biological functioning, there is no reason for marriage. If sexual intercourse could never produce a child, and it was just fun and loving thing to do together, and not much more, there would be little reason to commit one's self to another exclusively. Because it is the biological function of sex to create children, there needs to be a social structure built into the biological structure that will take care and raise children. Thus the family is born from that potential. It is the literal fulfilling of the two becoming one flesh.

But what about adoption? Which a gay couple could do? Adoption is predicated on the reality of the family structure designed to create and nurture children into adults. Certainly an adopted child can be as near and dear to a couple as any biological child, but the fact remains, that child had a mother and a father, no matter who ends up raising them. And most adopted children end up wanting to know more about their true parents. Not because they don't love their adopted parents, but because they sense who they are is tied up with the DNA of those that brought him or her into existence.

It has little to do with whether a particular couple can raise a child that is not their own. It has more to do that marriage is about an activity that can produce life, and the bonds that need to be there for two people to innately nurture and raise those children. Adoption is predicated on the reality that the two who brought them into the world, have the bonds and structure in place to foster that same life, biologically.

If it is all about love, you can have all the love and intimacy you need by simply giving it to each other. You can both declare your life-long love for each other, with witnesses if you so desire. You can get the same legal protections, rights, and discrimination protections through civil unions, or get them much easier than changing the definition of marriage. So what really is at the heart of gays wanting to be declared married? There seems to be little other reason for it.

My best guess is the real reason is status. They simply want people to accept them, and they think the route to do that is to get the label of marriage for themselves, and that will make them the same as all other married people. But it won't. Even if the gay marriage movement is successful, you can't change people's opinions and religious convictions based on a label.

And that's why I say, to those against gay marriage, what are you fighting for? A legal definition is meaningless. Legality is only one facet of marriage, and not the main one. There are two main events that make a marriage, a marriage. One is, if you are religious, God. The other is an emotional, social, and legal bond that is tied together and consummated with sexual intercourse: where two people give of their DNA with the potential to create new life. Just because someone is emotionally bonded on a marital level doesn't make it a marriage. That is called a best friend, soul sister/brother, someone you would die for. A social bond of a marital level doesn't make one married. That is called living together, spending your time focused on each other and doing things together, and presenting yourself as a couple to the world.

Likewise, even if the law of the land said that marriage is no longer about just a man and a woman, but can be any combination thereof, doesn't redefine marriage anymore than if a legislature made a law saying that apples will now be called oranges, that it would change the nature of an apple into an orange. It simply doesn't work that way, And until two gay people can have sex and produce a child from it, it is not a marriage. It is not the two becoming one.

If the gay community was serious about wanting equal rights and the removal of discrimination, then they would work to get this through civil unions, not marriage. They are certainly doing this the hard way if that is really their goal. That said, it matters little in the long term if gays get the right to be "married." They'll soon find out it changes nothing for them. They will soon discover they have been tricked into believing they could change the nature of a relationship simply by giving it a different label. And all the hard work, if they were to succeed, will have been for nothing.

So who profits from this? Those that want to keep divisions alive. Those who need your donations and money to keep the fight going against the other side. I know since President Obama's statement, I've been emailed by multiple entities that talk about the horrible other side, and what they are doing that is so bad, so send them money so they can help get people elected who are against those "other people."

And personally, I believe Obama didn't change his mind at all about gay marriage. He's only "come out of the closet" about it now because polling and politics says if he creates this storm, it will get his opponents off message, and debating about things he stands a chance to win on. A lot more so than the economy. And the media will make sure that happens, by focusing almost exclusively on this topic, and not on the lackluster revival from the recession.

And so many on both sides of the debate are only being played for fools, so these entities can keep doing what they want to do and getting the money they need to survive.

The question is, will you play into their hands? Or focus on what is really important, whether you are gay or straight?

If you've not heard of it yet, President Obama has sunk to a new low in his desperation to win a second term. As reported in the Wall Street Journal's article, The President Has a List, columnist Kimberley A. Strassel writes about the concerns we should have whenever a president singles out private citizens for attacks. In this case, insinuating that they have done something wrong when no laws have been broken.

It is obvious what President Obama is trying to do. He's putting all donors to the Romney campaign on notice that they can be potentially singled out and stated by name as being criminal in their actions. He is using the weight of the presidency to intimidate private citizens. Is this why the Obama justice department didn't see anything wrong with the Black Panthers intimidating voters at voting booths? We're seeing a pattern.

Yet, not since Nixon has a president done this. Except Obama has made his list of targets he is willing to go after, if they support his opponent, public. With more to be added as they donate. This is a grave sign, because it goes back to the very reason the country's founders established the first amendment to the Constitution.

It was recognized that the government, through its laws, could shut down free speech, a free press, and the freedom to worship as you believe, if left without any checks and balances. The first amendment was specifically to allow opposing points of view to be freely expressed without threat of the government intimidation and actions because of it.

The first amendment is one of the unique laws that keeps a representative democracy viable, because that which is exposed to the light of public knowledge, will be judged by the voters. Once a government can control what we hear and what we can publicly say, it becomes a dictatorship, not a representative democracy.

And it is this first amendment which the President has violated with these attacks. It may not be Congress making any laws, but he is certainly putting these people on notice that he is willing to punish them with the government's power via his authority as President, and anyone else who dares support his opponent. That's political intimidation pure and simple, and it is the very thing the founders wanted to make sure didn't happen. If the President has not violated the letter of the law as it regards the first amendment, he has certainly violated the intent of it just as much as President Richard Nixon did with his secret list of targets.

It appears his talks with Castro and Chavez were more than polite visits, but "how to" sessions for dictatorships.

If President Obama had any honor and decency about him, he would at least follow the footsteps of President Nixon, and resign in disgrace. He took an oath to uphold the Constitution, and he's done nothing but trample upon it since he took office. If it wasn't so close to an election, I'd say he should be impeached for treason. But I pray the voters will see this for what it is. A man whose power has gone to his head, and we can't risk another four years under his reign of terror on private citizens. His attempt to shut down free speech will only get worse in a second term, and we may not have a country by the end of it.

This infraction is serious. Very serious.

At a critical juncture, Santorum has suspended his campaign, as reported by Fox News. The primary reason given appears to be his daughter, Bella, who has Trisomy 18, came down with pneumonia Friday and has been in the hospital, requiring Rick Santorum's attention at this critical point in his campaign.

He faced elections including his home state of Pennsylvania and others where he stood a good chance of winning and he hoped, gaining the momentum back from Romney, yet again. And personally I was looking forward to voting for him in the Texas primary, now scheduled for June. But I respect that he needs to focus on his family, and doing so wouldn't allow him to run an effective campaign going forward, when more and more it appears that Romney would be difficult to defeat short of a brokered convention.

As readers here know, I've made the case why Romney isn't the best candidate to go up against Obama in the fall. And I still believe he will have a harder time winning the election than Santorum would have. Mainly because it will be harder for him to make the case on Obamacare that Santorum could have, and is a key disagreement so many in the country have against Obama, and because Romney is a ready-made target for Obama's class warfare machine to shoot at. Santorum's down to earth and likeability with the working man would have pretty much ruined that line of attack for Obama that they've built up carefully with Romney in mind.

That said, I've also made it clear that I think Romney still has a good chance if he plays his cards right, and I've said that he will be infinitely better than Obama, and I'll vote for him if he's the nominee. And conservatives are going to hold his feet to the fire on all the statements he's made about governing as a conservative. People like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio will certainly have a thing or two to say if he veers more moderate once in office and doesn't govern like he obviously promised them he would to get their endorsement. So despite reservations about Romney's conservatism, at least I feel there is the promise and expectation that he will govern as one. Otherwise, he'll run into the same problem that Obama has, who ran as a centralist, and then governed as a radical liberal, alienating many of the people who voted for him in 2008.

But I will point out that Santorum has only suspended his campaign. That means two things. One, he still plans on being a force in the coming convention, and should it go brokered, he will have an opportunity. Two, if the circumstances in the race change yet again, it would be easy for him to reactivate his campaign again. So while not likely, I wouldn't rule out that he could end up with the nomination down the road. But assuming Romney stays healthy and goes to the convention, likely he'll snag enough of the remaining delegates to get the nomination by the end of June, and the vote at the convention will be a formality.

At any rate, what will be, will be. And Romney, for better or for worse, is most likely to be our nominee in August. So now we'd better pray and work that he won't be a McCain II campaign, and have good answers for the attacks Obama will make (unlike he did for some of the issues in the primaries) and be able to show some fight and energy. And I'll cast my vote for him, because another four years of Obama, and we won't have much of a country left to hand down to our children.

Obviously one of the plan of attacks from Obama for the general election is to accuse the Republicans by and large, of conducting a war on women. They back this up through a number of accusations. But are they real? Let's take a look.

One, Republicans want to deny women access to birth control. This is so silly, you'd think that alone would make the president's accusations as a whole laughable. But, unfortunately, there are people who will believe him because if he says it, it must be true (despite all the things he's said that turned out not to be true).

This started with the attempt through Obama's health care law to force Catholic institutions to pay for birth control through their insurance. Because the Catholic Church is against the use of birth control, such a move went against their religious beliefs and became an issue of violating their first amendment rights. And because one of the pills, popularly known as the "after morning pill," is included as "birth control," it also means it affects a lot more religions who do not believe in abortion, who will be forced to include it in their health care plans.

But it goes even further. If you don't believe in abortion, your health care plan will have to have that element in it. Even though I'm a guy and will have no need for getting the pill, I'll have to pay for it anyway. So it becomes a freedom of religion issue for every individual who is opposed to these things by conscience.

But the charge is, if this isn't in health insurance plans, it is in effect denying women birth control. Wrong. First, the pill is cheap. Ten dollars a month at Walmart. It makes no senses to have insurance pay for something that only costs ten bucks a month. Second, for those who really can't afford ten dollars a month (and I doubt law school students fall into this category), they can be had for free at local county clinics. There is no reason that being unable to have health insurance to pay for birth control will cause any woman to be unable to get it or afford it.

And the person who everyone holds up as the boogie man on this issue, presidential candidate Rick Santorum, has said repeatedly that he will not only not try to make birth control inaccessible, but he will support keeping it as accessible as it always has been, even though as a Catholic he doesn't believe it is a good thing. And he has votes when he was a senator that proves it. There is no Republican threatening to take away anyone's access to birth control. It is one of Obama's straw boogie men that he's attacking to incite fear.

Two, Republicans want to take away reproductive health services. This accusation is based primarily on Republican efforts to prevent tax payer's money from supporting abortion services, primarily through Planned Parenthood. Since Planned Parenthood also provides some other services, like mammograms, by cutting funding to Planned Parenthood, the charge is that it is cutting off such reproductive health services provided by the same.

Again, another straw boogie man of Obama's. First, it is a plain fact that many Americans believe that life begins at conception, and that abortion is the termination of a human life, no different than if I decided to shoot my son dead because I didn't want to support him anymore. And just as reprehensible as anyone would consider the latter act to be. Maybe some don't believe that, but many do. And they base it upon their religions convictions that taking such an innocent life is against the Ten Commandments, "Thou shall not murder."

So whether any one particular person believes it isn't the taking of a life or not, it should be perfectly understandable that such a large majority of the country do not want their tax dollars paying for something they are totally against. It would be the same as if the government decided that putting oil in the ocean was a good thing for animals, and decided to use tax payer money to fund it. The animal rights groups would be up in arms over such a plan, and rightly so. And if I happened to believe it was a good idea (I don't), that wouldn't make it okay for the government to use taxpayer dollars to fund something so controversial and against the conscious of so many Americans.

Keep in mind, prior to Obama being elected, Planned Parenthood hadn't been receiving federal funds at all under Bush. For eight years. And I don't recall any big outcry then, saying, "Oh, we can't get mammograms!" Why? Because Planned Parenthood isn't the only avenue to get those services! Wow, now there's a surprise. Other groups that don't do abortions do provide women's reproductive services. That money will simply be shifted to those organizations. Not to mention country health clinics and other free services are always available.

These cuts to Planned Parenthood will not reduce options for reproductive services other than taxpayer supported abortions unless medically necessary. Mammograms will still be just as available as they've always been, both for those who can pay and those who can't.

Three, Republicans try to keep women out of positions of power. Hum. I guess that's why Republican administrations tend to have key cabinet post filled by women. I guess that's why there are women running for president, women selected for a vice-president slot, and several key conservative women frequently called upon to lead the charge in Congress and in the party. Yeah, that happens because Republicans are against promoting women into more important roles. ~Sarcasm mode off~

Actually, the Republican charge is that the Democrats are intent on enslaving women through welfare so they are dependent upon the government, in effect taking away their freedom of choice and showing more disrespect for women in the process. Republicans want to empower women by allowing them the freedom to stand on their own feet, and when they can't, then help to get them back on their feet. Not to keep them sitting down while the government spoon feeds them for the rest of their lives.

It is the same attack they have on every other demographic in the party. Give them goodies, which both creates indentured servants they can regulate, and because they become dependent upon government, they will vote for those who promise to continue the handouts. They see women as a voting block, a group to keep fearful of what Republicans will do, of having their "rights" stripped from them, so that they can continue to profit from their servitude. Republicans look at women, blacks, Hispanics, etc., as people, as individuals who are to be respected because they are persons, not a voting block that votes can be extracted from. Who if they need a hand up, need it to get up on their own feet again, not to keep them pressed to the floor so they can't do anything. Republicans help women and others get their self-respect back.

And because of that, women can gain power and rights and freedoms that are lost in the Democratic vision of America.

So, as you can see, President Obama has created some straw men to both create fear in the electorate and have some boogie men they can attack, and promise to save women and other voting blocks from. They've used this strategy over and over again. And sometimes it works, because a new crop of people come into voting age and are easily fall prey to such tactics. But that's all they are, straw men. Not real. Republicans are about as anti-women as Democrats are anti-choice. I hope the women of America will see through these dishonest tactics, and be more concerned that they are being sold another pack of false campaign promises than they are the Republicans would really do any of this stuff.

There simply is no war against women.