The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

Once upon a time juvenile delinquents were given a choice: Jail or military service. The military begged judges to stop the practice because it only served to fill the ranks with trouble makers. As weapon systems and battle field tactics became more complex, the problem was exacerbated by the fact that delinquents rarely had the aptitude for military service. It seems that some lawmakers would reignite the issue. Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) and Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) have introduced amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act that would grant amnesty to illegal aliens who join the military. Democrats in the House of Representatives would like nothing better than to use this legislation as a vehicle for slipping the Senate Schumer-Obama Amnesty Bill past the House.

The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

It's rare that anything critical of the Administration makes it into the news since Obama was elected President. This includes stories critical of the treatment of our veterans. The story of the secret waiting lists for veterans seeking treatment at an facility in Arizona was a rare exception in the news, but tragically not a rarity in the treatment veterans have been experiencing. A visit to any internet discussion group involving veterans will disabuse you of any notion that the VA has been doing an adequate job.

The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

In response to an article in the Santa Margarita Patch wherein I expressed my views on national defense, one reader challenged me with that question. Well, what can any one member of Congress do? Read Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile and then ask me that question. You may also watch the film version starring Tom Hanks, but you'll miss a lot of the key answers to your question.

Charlie Wilson, a member of Congress representing a district in Texas, felt that the United States should help the people of Afghanistan repel the Soviets who invaded their country in 1979. Despite indifference in Congress, a doubtful President, and a hostile State Department and CIA who tried to thwart his efforts, Charlie pressed forward. With the aid of a rogue CIA agent, Charlie secured funding and weapons for the insurgents known as the Mujaheddin. When he equipped them with shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles, they were able to drive the Soviets away.

That's what one rinky dink Congressman from Texas was able to accomplish. Why couldn't I have a similar impact on the Pentagon where our national treasure is being wasted on weapons systems that our warriors don't want or need while our soldiers, sailors, and airmen are going without proper training and suffering cuts in pay and benefits?

It's impossible to single out one President as my favorite. Most would assume that Ronald Reagan tops my list and I suppose he might but he couldn't bump Washington and Lincoln from those lofty heights. One other name belongs there and it may surprise you: Calvin Coolidge.

President Coolidge faced the same daunting problems that President Obama found waiting on his desk in the Oval Office. The hard numbers weren't as large in Coolidge’s time, but they were equally as disastrous when you remember that every dollar in his age was worth many more in 2014. The difference between him and Obama is that Coolidge took care of the nation's business.

People are wondering as the world smolders, what would Reagan do? What would he do about Putin's aggression?

A recent article at Investors.com, the Internet edition of Investor's Business Daily, speculates that President Ronald Reagan might revive the European Missile Defense program that President Obama canceled as a genture of goodwill to Vladimir Putin. “Instead of a foreign policy that's a blend of Neville Chamberlain and Monty Python, the U.S. should trade flexibility for some backbone, scrap the reset button and start digging some missile silos.” It's not a bad idea unless you stop to consider that President Obama and his allies in Congress have spent the nation's wealth, and we could hardly afford garden shovels to plant violets, let alone missile silos.

So, what would Reagan do? I believe that the better question is whether or not a President Reagan would even face the same problems? Would Putin even dare attempt such aggression if a person like Reagan were President today?

The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

How well do you remember the movie Bettlejuice? After dying in an auto accident, Barbara and Adam return to their home and find a copy of the Handbook for the Recently Deceased on a table.

Sound familiar? The greatest complaint that we hear from patients in Canada and England is that they won't be seen. They wait for hours to be seen by a triage nurse, then months and years to be treated. Yes, the waiting room for the dead depicted in Beetlejuice is a very apt metaphor.

The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

As if it wasn't bad enough they eliminated civics from the curriculum, now, under Common Core, they're making a mockery of civility and the Constitution. In a recent survey, more high school students could name the Three Stooges than could name the three branches of government. Obviously, the educators who design our schools' curricula couldn't care less. Why should you?

The simple answer as to why we should care about civics is that poorly educated members of our society are making poor decisions that lead to our nation's problems. The following statement that appeared in a Czech newspaper editorial says it best:

A few decades ago while serving in the US Army, I lived in a duplex at Fort Shafter in Hawaii. Another captain and his wife lived next door. On a Halloween evening a young goblin knocked on my neighbor's door and announced, “Trick or treat!”

Inspired by a random impulse, my neighbor responded, “I don't have any treats.”

The perplexed urchin hesitated a moment and asked my neighbor, “Do you have any 'tricks'?”

The child obviously didn't comprehend the Halloween contract.

As I said, this was many years ago. Most likely, the situation hasn't improved. Thus, as a service to posterity, I propose to record my favorite tricks for those who failed to provide treats on Halloween. Some were even committed on selected citizens for no other reason than the fact that they weren't very well liked in the neighborhood.

I suppose that I should begin with the least disruptive or least costly pranks, the ones that were committed by the youngest.

The following was written by me on behalf of a candidate for Congress who sadly failed in his bid to represent his party. 

Many years ago, there was a popular television series about the special relationship between a government agent and the Chiracahua Apaches: Broken Arrow. The agent, Tom Jeffords, and the Apache Chief, Cochise, maintained a tenuous peace by dint of their personal relationship and honor. Ostensibly, the story was based in reality, but how could that be? How could we suspend disbelief to accept the show's premise that a government agent could be honorable? Consider the trail of broken promises – broken arrows – left by our current Administration as regards the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act popularly known as Obamacare:

This isn't the first time veterans have been attacked when they ran for elected office. You may not remember the 1964 contest for President between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. I've studied it. The political battle centered around war: Democrats argued that Barry Goldwater and his running mate, Curtis LeMay, were going to get us into a war. Johnson, they argued, was more reasonably inclined to avoid it. Johnson was elected and proceeded to escalate the conflict in Vietnam into a full blown war involving a half million US troops. It was that incident that provided me with a living example of what is meant by chickenhawks, persons who are willing to commit his nation to war though they had avoided service in their youth.