Vice President Jindal?

With the Republican National Convention just around the corner this summer, much talk has been floating around as to the Republican nominee for Vice President, to run alongside Senator McCain. Last Friday, May 23, 2008, Senator McCain held a dinner for many political personalities, business CEOs, and friends. Among the attendees were people such as Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and former Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (former Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and MInnesota Governor Tim Pawlety were also invited but turned down the invitation due to previous family engagements).

The one guest the media and others are speculating will receive the nod as Vice President is Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Bobby has been the governor of Louisiana since being inaugurated in January of this year. Previously he has served as secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, executive director of the National Bipartisan Committee on the Future of Medicare, president of the University of Louisiana System, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation, United States Senator, principle policy advisor to the secretary of Health and Human Services, United States Congressman, on the House Committee on Homeland Security, the House Committee on Resources, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and vice-chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks.

Governor Jindal has a record of being a strong Conservative. He is pro-life, anti-stem cell research, pro-intelligent design teaching in schools, pro-copayments in Medicaide, and pro-PATRIOT Act. While in Congress he voted with the Republican Caucus 97% of the time.

Overall, Bobby Jindal is just the Conservative Republican McCain needs to unite the party this November. With McCain’s record of voting in the Senate and being more of a liberal Republican, many people have speculated as to his ability to get the much-needed conservative vote. But with a strong conservative such as Jindal running alongside him, he can pull votes from both sides of the party.

Another aspect of having Jindal as his Vice President is the age factor. While McCain has often been ridiculed and questioned because of his age, Jindal would bring youth to the White House at a mere 37 years of age. While his youth is refreshing, it does not come without experience. As mentioned earlier, Gov. Jindal has already had experience in the House, the Senate, and in local politics in Louisiana.

The race factor also comes into play with Governor Jindal. Bobby was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, after his parents immigrated from India to complete work on their master’s degrees (his mother went on to become the information technology director for the Louisiana Department of Labor). Jindal was of the HIndu faith but converted to Roman Catholicism in high school. He later went on to Brown College and graduated with a degree in biology and public policy. He then received a master’s degree in political science from New College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar.

As a strong conservative Republican, I support Bobby Jindal and believe he would be a great addition as Vice President to any President. He has a proven record and I know he will stand strong for our republican beliefs.

AGAIN?!?

Can someone please inform the Obama campaign that they cannot be campaigning at polling places? This is the second time an Obama volunteer has been caught influencing voters as they were entering a building to vote.

This is completely illegal and has been outlawed in most if not all states. It should be punished, especially since they have been warned before.

Clinton/Obama Ad

As a spoof of the NBA playoff commercials, here’s a Clinton/Obama ad:

Answer Me This

In my last post I introduced the website CanWeAsk.com. This is the Republican National Committee’s website for Americans to voice their questions to Senator Obama about practically anything. So when I heard about this website, it got me thinking. What if I could ask Obama a few questions, what would I say? So I took a few minutes the other day, sat down, and read through his stance on the issues as posted on his website. I copied and pasted a few paragraphs from what I read and commented on them. So here are my questions I have for Senator Obama:

His website statement: Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

My response: What will this do to companies such as H&R Block and Hewitt Financial? This all but destroys them.

His website statement: Improve Our Immigration System Obama believes we must fix the dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy and increase the number of legal immigrants to keep families together and meet the demand for jobs that employers cannot fill.

My response: Since when are employers struggling to meet the demand for jobs? Last I checked, American college graduates were the ones struggling to find good jobs in the workforce. And how is bringing in more immigrants, legal or not, going to help the current situation?

His website statement: Obama will launch the most aggressive diplomatic effort in recent American history to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East. This effort will include all of Iraq’s neighbors - including Iran and Syria. This compact will aim to secure Iraq’s borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction.

My response: How do you plan on isolating a group that has infiltrated just about every continent on planet Earth?

This is only an abbreviated version of my original list (I spared you all some ranting and raving). I know these questions will not be answered but in the spirit of free speech, I listed them here.

Senator Obama, you are constantly screaming for change in America and promising that you are that change, but from what I see in your policies, a) you never say what your plans for change are in your speeches and b) you have the same ideas Democrats have had for centuries; how is that change?

You spend more time attacking other candidates, cleaning up after your pastor, explaining away your lack of patriotism and outright disrespect for our nation, and smiling. How about an explanation of why we as Americans should choose you for President when you’ve never passed legislation in the Senate, never been re-elected, and never outlined any policy positions. Answer me that.

Can We Ask?

The Republican National Committee recently launched the website CanWeAsk.com. This is a site where Americans can text or type in their questions for Senator Obama. While Sen. Obama does not truly read and respond to these questions, this is a place for Americans to air out their thoughts about Sen. Obama and raise some important questions about his campaign. Here are a few of the questions that were asked:

(Anonymous) Sen.Obama:”Could you give us a clue to what you stand for? Thank you………

(Anonymous) You said you would take a pro choice approch because you feel that your daughters should have the option available. Well what is your opinion for keeping the parrents informed in other words should a minor be allowed to get an abortion with our their parents ever knowing about it?

(Robert - Rockville, MD) First let me clearly state that I AM a Democrat and that if you (Sen. Obama) are on the ticket coming November I will vote for Sen. McCain. Now, the question; can you PLEASE tell me why is it that in every single debate you’ve had with Sen. Clinton you seemed to always also take ownership of her ideas when it came to the issues?

So America, what question would you like to ask Sen. Obama? What section of his stance on the issues are you just not quite sure about?

In a post to come, I will lay out my questions for him.

A Soldier’s Diary of Iraq

Major Joe Pullen over at Sand Box Adventures left me a comment on one of my posts and after reading through his site, I decided to add him to my blogroll and write a short post about him. I do not know him personally, nor does he know me. But I do know he is risking his life for me. And for that, I thank him.

Joe has been in the Army for 17 and is being deployed to Iraq next week. He has a wife and young son whom he will be leaving behind. While in Iraq, he will be keeping a diary on his blog about his time there.

Thank you Joe and Katy for all you are doing for our country. You both will be in my thoughts and prayers over the next several months.

I know he and his family would covet your prayers during this time.

From General to Commander in Chief: Dwight D. Eisenhower

No other President with maybe the exceptions of George Washington and Ulysses Grant brought more fame, success, and military genius to the office of President as Dwight Eisenhower. As a result of an overwhelming love from the American people, Dwight David Eisenhower became the thirty-fourth President of the United States in 1953.

Bringing to the presidency his prestige as commanding general of the victorious forces in Europe during World War 2, Dwight Eisenhower obtained a truce in Korea and worked incessantly during his two terms to ease the tensions of the Cold War. As he left office it was noted by Eisenhower that “America is today the strongest, most influential, and most productive nation in the world.”

Born in Texas in 1890 and raised in Abilene, Kansas, Eisenhower was the third of seven sons. He excelled in sports in high school and received an appointment to West Point when he graduated. Stationed in Texas as a second lieutenant in the newly-formed tank corps, he met Mamie Geneva Doud, whom he married in 1916.

In his early army career, he excelled in staff assignments, serving under Generals John J. Pershing, Douglas MacArthur, and Walter Krueger. After Pearl Harbor, General George C. Marshall called him to Washington for a war plans assignment. He commanded the Allied Forces landing in North Africa in November of 1942 and was supreme commander of the troops invading France on D-Day, June 6, 1944.

After the war, he became president of Columbia University, then left to become the supreme command over the new NATO forces that were formed in 1951. After serving faithfully overseas for NATO, he was approached by Republican Committee members with the idea of running for the presidency.

The most remembered aspect of Eisenhower’s campaign was the slogan “I Like Ike.” Buttons, bumper stickers, pins, and all sorts of memorabilia bore the slogan as people cheered on their military hero. Eisenhower won an overwhelming victory and in 1953, he became the thirty-fourth President of the United States.

Negotiating from military experience, he tried to ease the tensions between the United States and Russia during the Cold War. Not only were tensions with Russia high, but communism had spread to Korea and Eisenhower came in on the tail end of a discouraging war in Korea. In 1953, the singing of a truce brought an armed peace along the border of South Korea and temporary peace. That same year, Russian leader Joseph Stalin died, changing the relationship between America and Russia. The new Russian leader consented to a peace agreement, thus apparently ending the Cold War. But behind the scenes, both America and Russia had developed hydrogen bombs in case of an attack. With such destruction at the touch of a button, Eisenhower met with leaders from Britain, France, and Russia at Geneva in July.

President Eisenhower proposed that Russia and America trade blueprints of each other’s military bases and “provide within our countries facilities for aerial photography to the other country.” Russian leaders answered Eisenhower in silence, even though tensions throughout the meeting had been relaxed.

Suddenly, in September of 1955, Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in Denver, Colorado. After seven weeks of recovery he left the hospital and in February of 1956, doctors reported a complete recovery. In November of that same year, Americans reelected Eisenhower for his second term as President.

Probably like no other President in history, Eisenhower had to face pressures on both fronts of the presidency. Between the Cold War and tensions in Korea, Americans were restless in the endless search for justice and equality for all races. Rosa Parks had refused to sit in the back of the bus, Martin Luther King Jr had given his speech, and the black population was screaming for the justice they were long overdue. As desegregation of schools began, President Eisenhower sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas, to assure compliance with the orders of a federal court to allow African American teenagers into Little Rock Central High School. During this time, he also ordered the complete desegregation of the Armed Forces. On the subject he wrote, “There must be no second class citizens in this country.”

In domestic policy, President Eisenhower pursued a middle course, continuing most of the New Deal, set into place by Franklin Roosevelt, and the Fair Deal, constructed by Harry Truman. He focused on balancing the budget of the United States and is said to have done much to help the economy following the military campaign in Korea.

Eisenhower’s presidency can be summed up with the observation that he focused on maintaining world peace. He watched with pleasure the development of his “atoms for peace” program-the loan of American uranium to countries who needed it for peaceful purposes.

Before President Eisenhower left office in January of 1961, for his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he urged the necessity of maintaining an adequate military strength, but cautioned that vast, long-continued military expenditures could breed potential dangers t our way of life. He concluded with a prayer for peace “in the goodness of time.” Both themes remained timely and urgent when he died, after a long illness, on March 28, 1969.

President Eisenhower was probably the most “successful” President of the 20th century. No other President had to face as many fronts of “war”-both internal and external. He managed to accomplish peace with such powerhouses as Russia and Korea, while breaking racial barriers in American life. He set in motion the wheels of justice and equality that we all enjoy today. All the while, he built our military strength and did much to strengthen the economy and trade with other countries. President Eisenhower was not only a military hero, he was an American hero who will never be forgotten.

Fellow Americans, I Honor You

This post isn’t about whether you support President Bush or not. This isn’t about whether the war is right or not. This isn’t even about when or how we should pull out. This post is about people.

People you know. Your neighbor. Your coworker. The cashier at the store. The guy at the gas station. The lady at the nail salon. The man who mows your lawn. The mechanic who changed your oil. The girl who cooked your hamburger at lunch. The teacher who teaches your children. The dentist who fixes your teeth.

These are all people you know. People you come in contact with each day. They are like you. They are Americans. They face struggles like you do. They enjoy life like you do. They are ordinary people like you and me.

Soldiers. What makes them different than those people you know? Why do we treat our neighbors better than we treat our military? What makes us stoop to pick up a piece of paper for a stranger yet fail to respect the men and women who are risking their lives for our safety? They didn’t ask for this war anymore than we did. They don’t want to be over there anymore than we would want to be.

It blows my mind how little respect we as Americans give our soldiers. They are our fellow Americans. Don’t you realize that they have given their lives so you can live yours however you want? Don’t you realize they face danger so you can live in peace? Don’t you realize all they sacrifice for YOU?

I hope this video helps open your eyes to how well off we have it here in America. We don’t think twice of hitting the snooze button and sleeping in a little; yet so many soldiers go days without sleep, fighting off terrorists so that September 11 will never happen again.

You may recognize the words in this video, but watch until the end. I wish every soldier were treated with the kind of respect and honor they are so due.

California Law Update: Lawmakers to Ban Spanking

How many of you are old enough to remember it being legal for teachers and principles to spank students if they were misbehaving? I am not. But I have heard stories. If you misbehaved, you faced the “ruler,” the “yardstick,” or the “paddle.” Abuse? Not hardly. Parents okayed the discipline and even reinforced it at home. Children grew up respecting authority and fearing them (in the good way of a respectful fear).

How far have we come as a nation? We punish parents who are trying to apply SOME kind of parental discipline and teach their children right from wrong.

Now hear me out. I am not in any way advocation child abuse. That is just wrong and I am adamantly opposed to it. But think about it. Since when it is the government’s responsibility to dictate how a parent will raise their child? As history shows, with the decline of discipline in the homes comes the increase in violence in schools. A coincidental analysis? Some could say so, but I believe they are paralleled.

Richard Arum, director of the SSRC’s program on educational research and a NYU professor of sociology and education, leading expert on education reform and the author of Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority, has commented on the subject of school violence: “We’ve had violent images in our media for a long time. You go back to the ’50s and ’60s, we had westerns and war movies that were very violent. We also had guns readily available in this country in the ’50s and ’60s. These rampage school shootings, however, are a fairly recent phenomenon.

There was one dramatic case in the ’60s in the U.S. at a university in Texas. There was one case I know of in the ’70s. But in the ’80s and ’90s, we started seeing these rampage school shootings occurring not just every year but now almost monthly in this country. So I think what’s really changed in the last two decades is how schools have been affected by legislation and regulations that have made it very difficult for them to deal with troubled kids, both at the college level but also at the elementary and secondary levels.”

While Dr. Arum refers to the legislations placed on schools in the handling of children as the cause of increased violence, I believe it is due to the legislations placed on parents in how they can and cannot raise their children.

So now, Assemblywoman Sally Lieber has introduced a bill that will effectively ban spanking in California. Identical to last year’s highly publicized AB 755, this new AB 2943 will make it a crime to spank a child.

“Last session this same bill received national attention because of its assault on parents rights to discipline their children,” stated Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Family Impact. “We succeeded in stopping the bill because parents were so outraged that an arrogant lawmaker thinks she knows better than parents how to raise their children.”

According to AB 2943, a parent who spanks their child would be placed on probation for a minimum of 4 years, and would be forced to attend a “nonviolent parental education class” and the child would receive a criminal court protective order “protecting the victim from further acts of violence or threats” and “residence exclusion or stay-away conditions.”

AB 2943 declares it illegal to inflict “physical pain or mental suffering.” These ambiguous terms include any suffering cause by instruments including (but not limited to) “a stick, a rod, a switch, an electrical cord, an extension cord, a belt, a broom, or a shoe.” Parents often use wooden spoons or rulers to discipline a disobedient child. Under AB 2943, such discipline would be illegal.

“In the legislature we often hear that schools have become too unsafe and we need ’sensitivity’ or ‘tolerance’ training,” stated Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for CRFI. “But the reason children are unruly is because they aren’t being disciplined. Taking away the rights of parents to lovingly discipline their children will only worsen the behavior problems that justify indoctrination classes in schools.”

“Current laws already punish abusive parents for shaking or harming children,” explained England. “This bill goes much further and seeks to prohibit parents from raising healthy, responsible children.”

“The legislature’s analysis of this bill last year actually quoted from Bible passages admonishing parents to discipline their children, citing these quotes as justification for banning spanking,” stated Turney. “There is contempt in the legislature for Judeo-Christian values and AB 2943 is the most blatant evidence of this attempt to take away our freedom to raise children according to our beliefs.”

AB 2943 will be heard in the Assembly Public Safety Committee in the next few weeks.

Small Town Politics, Big Time Impact

I moved to Lancaster, California, four years ago. At that time I was not as involved in politics as I am now. But early on I met Sherry Marquez. Sherry and I had a common bond in that we both had lived in Florida and were Florida State football fans. That got us talking and one things led to another and the subject of politics came up. Sherry is really the woman behind my political madness. She dragged me to political meetings and small meet-up groups. Through her friendship and influence, I have made politics a large part of my life.

Well, Sherry approached me some time ago with the idea of running for city council here in Lancaster. She has been very involved in attending city council meetings, petitioning unjust laws, and overall just making sure our city officials best represent the people of Lancaster.

She has been very active in the expelling of section 8 residents from our community and in keeping our neighborhoods safe by protesting the housing of ex-cons in Lancaster. She was key in the formation of the Antelope Valley War on Gangs and Crime and she holds a position as a committee member of AVWOGC. She sees the problems in our city and has been actively fighting to restore Lancaster to the city she once was. Now Sherry has decided to run for city council and I couldn’t think of a better person for the job.

Here’s a word from Sherry:

As a community volunteer and citizen crime fighter, I am fed up with the city politicians who have squandered our tax dollars and failed to reduce crime in our neighborhoods. I offer the commitment and conservative values needed to make Lancaster a place we all can be proud of once again. As your representative on the City Council, I will provide honest and independent leadership that holds our government accountable for results.

MY COMMITMENT TO YOU:

Reducing Crime-This must be Lancaster’s top priority!

* Increase Sheriff’s Patrols in our neighborhoods and parks;
* Shut down problem rental properties and stop Section 8 housing abuse;
* Strengthen city ordinances to impede illegal immigrants who drain our local programs and penalize employers who hire them.

Fiscal Responsibility:

* Oppose higher taxes on homeowners and local businesses;
* Conduct regular audits to identify waste and economize city spending;
* Cut unnecessary travel, consultant contracts and unnecessary spending by Council Members and staff.

Quality Planning:

* Improve City Planning Standards to promote water conservation and protect our neighborhoods from inappropriate development.
* Increase our tax base by providing more shopping and dining amenities. Therefore, our tax dollars spent for these necessities will remain in Lancaster.
* Support Intelligent Economic Development to create local jobs and reduce commuter traffic.

MY RECORD OF SERVICE:

Public Safety:

I am dedicated to protecting the citizens of Lancaster! I have served as a Committee Chairwoman for the Antelope Valley War on Gangs and Crime, and as the Antelope Valley’s Zone Coordinator for We Tip, Inc.

Community Standards:

For more than a year, I have been working to preserve our neighborhoods as a Public Representative on the General Plan Citizens Advisory Committee.

Military Family:

I am the daughter of a US Navy Chief (Retired). I was a military spouse for 21 years and our son serves as an officer in the US Air Force. I am a former employee of Edward’s AFB.

Church Leader:

I have been a staff member at Lancaster Baptist Church for the past 14 years as a secretary and Women’s Counselor.

To find out more please visit sherry4lancaster.com, or email me at sherry@sherry4lancaster.com

Thank you for your consideration and your vote.

I wholeheartedly endorse and recommend Sherry Marquez to you for City Council. I guarantee you she will get the job done.