Democrats Can't Pass Budget - Republicans Can't Tell Budget Cuts - What to do?

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So we have a stalemate in Washington, what else is new? Since neither the majority nor minority party has demonstrated any leadership to date on controlling our budget maybe they would like to hear from the people about how to go about balancing the budget.

Here is my primer on how to get control of America, our budget deficit and national debt.

1. No Congressman (House or Senate) should be allowed to vote on any bill benefiting their campaign contributors. A very straight forward law to prevent conflicts of interest. It should be illegal to vote on bills where the congressman received campaign money from a special interest. Such a rule does not exist and is long overdue.

2. Consolidate half of the overseas military bases in the USA along the Mexican border bringing home - 20,000 - 25,000 troops and support staff to each of four new bases, one in Arizona, one in New Mexico, and two in Texas strategically located along the border to discourage illegal immigration.



Over 1 million American troops are stationed overseas and NOT in a war zone. By relocating a total of about 100,000 troops back to America we would save billions of lost dollars and substantially reduce the cost of keeping troops overseas. A second phase of this relocation would be to bring home an additional, 500,000 troops over the next five years.

3. Require pharmaceutical companies to provide prescription drugs for 25% less than currently charged for the Medicare and Medicaid programs the first year, and an additional 25% less the second year. If they resist get generic drugs.



4. Require health insurance companies to reduce premiums by25% through eliminating unnecessary testing and treatment and adopting tort reform.

5. Create a National Trust for National Parks as a private, profit making enterprise and require the selling of stock to purchase these national treasurers and make them more profitable. Make stock available to all citizens allowing the purchase of trust stock with tax refunds and other incentives. All National Parks should be highly profitable and services could be expanded with private capital available for expansion. This could save raise several billions in the purchase of the Park property by the private trust and the profits from the operation could earn stock holders significant annual dividends. Right now there is no way for the average citizen to earn a fair return on their money.



6. Reduce foreign aid by 50%.

7. Establish small business development initiative to encourage rapid expansion in small business and innovation. Among components would be free patent service for small business, free trademark service for small business, free laboratory testing of small business products and a senior corps of retired business executives to consult with small business owners. This would eliminate some of the prohibitive start up costs of small business encouraging more hiring and expansion. The cost to the government would be more than offset by the increase in taxes paid by the businesses.

7. Offer free medical insurance to anyone agreeing to work beyond the Social Security retirement age of 62 or 67. Raise the retirement age to 65.



8. Undertake a one year review of all government expenditures, waste, duplication and lack of legal authority for the existence of programs with a goal of reducing agency costs by 15%. This review would give the agencies a chance to offset losses with cost efficiencies and elimination of waste.

9. Expand charter schools to 50% of all public education students within three years establishing performance standards on the charter schools and requiring them to give first preference for teacher hiring on displaced public school teachers.



10. Require an economic impact statement on all new expenditures which documents the legislative right to fund the program, identifies a five year budget for the new initiative, identifies the permanent funding source for the program, and determines the cost analysis of hiring employees versus contracting out for the service.

This is part one of my program to balance the federal budget and begin to eliminate the national debt. I welcome all other ideas from readers to help our congress do the job we elected them to do.

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How BP Gulf Oil Spill should effect Comprehensive Energy Policy in America

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Now that we have heard all the chest beating claims of the liberals and conservationists and the crescendo of photo ops and sound bites from our politicians making all kinds of nonsensical claims about the effect this spill Must Have on energy policy, are we ready for a taste of the truth?

The truth is this. America is dependent on oil to grow and survive. We are not the greatest user of energy per capita, that is Canada. The United States ranks number 7 in per capita consumption. Because of our population we use the most energy.

We use about 100 quadrillion BTUs a year, of which 40% is fossil fuel. In the category of fossil fuel petroleum is 23%, 23% natural gas, Nuclear provides 8.4%, and renewable 7.3% which is mainly from hydroelectric dams. Overall per capita consumption in the US has remained stable since the 1970's.



The alternative fuels being pushed by Obama and others are a viable long term solution but to put them ahead of an aggressive program to secure energy independence from foreign sources through expanded use of oil, natural gas and coal, is simple nuts. With the primary renewal sources of energy providing less than 5% of our total energy needs, the most liberal of development projections would not result in US energy independence with renewable fuels until the end of the 21st century if then. Remember we have to allow for economic growth.

The truth is the only short term investment that can lead to energy independence is use of the oil, gas and coal reserves in an environmentally friendly manner. Meaning, we need regulatory enforcement which did not happen in the BP oil spill case, improved regulations in terms of the back up plan for any future off shore oil drilling, and expanded drilling areas.



With the BP experience we can protect our environment while expanding drilling. We have already seen hundreds of wells drilled off shore in deep water with no problems. We can always improve the back up plans and permit process but should not strangle the use of oil, gas or coal as a result of the BP and Interior Department problem. BP drilled the well but Interior approved the plan and permits.

If we do not do this, or if we get caught up in environmental radicalism we will strangle the American economy and never have the growth necessary to support long term alternative energy development. Make no mistake, alternative energy development is going to result in far more expensive energy and the American public cannot support huge increases in gas and electric costs.

Obama has already embraced the liberal clean energy movement to the point of threatening the short term economic growth of our nation. If we go green today we will go broke. It is that simple. Yet we can start the transition process of going green without going broke by a two tiered energy policy, the aggressive development of fossil fuels to seek energy independence thus lower energy costs while we give incentives for a long term transition to a green energy economy.



Right now most money invested in green energy is going into the pockets of investors, Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, pseudo environmental groups like Al Gore and his Goldman Partners, and not for the benefit of the industry or to lower energy costs for people.

As for the lesson of the Gulf oil spill, it should serve the same purpose as Three Mile Island. The 1979 TMI nuclear disaster was unexpected, not covered by federal regulations, and brought the nuclear industry in America to a standstill. A cost of billions of dollars were involved in the clean up though no lives or jobs were lost. It is the price you pay for new technology which is exactly what happened in the deep water drilling. We discovered problems never anticipated before.

While nuclear provides just 8.4% of our energy, it supplies up to 70% of the energy in some countries. An unexpected disaster like TMI or the Gulf spill should enable us to learn and make sure it does not happen again. Right now there are far more off shore oil wells, over 2,000, than nuclear plants in the USA, 103 commercial plants, and for the short term oil can be in service in far less time and at far less cost than new nuclear or alternative sources.



Use the BP Gulf experience to learn and grow, not to strangle the future economic growth and independence of America. It is time for the president and congress to do what is right for America, not just what is politically expedient.

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The Washington Press Corps - the New Age Idols and Idol Makers

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Have you ever heard the expression "you've lost your compass", meaning you have lost your way? Well when it comes to the news media corps in our nation's capitol it seems their compass is hopelessly lost in the Bermuda Triangle. That's where the needle of the compass just starts spinning.



I've worked in Washington for the Office of the President and for Congress and spent some time with different federal agencies. Then I worked in Washington with private corporations and not as a lobbyist which means I've lost a lot of potential revenue.

For the past couple of years I have been observing Washington and my focus has been on the news media and whether they really fulfill their role as the eyes and ears of America. Such a romantic thought, that the journalists in the news media were protecting the nation from the crooks in Washington and on Wall Street.

Let me tell you my conclusions. First, there are a few good journalists there who really try to act like the news media of the old days, seeking out truth and reporting objectively. Unfortunately they are few and far between.



There is a new standard for news media in our capitol just as there are new standards for politicians, Wall Street executives and special interest groups. Today's media seem to spend more time interviewing each other on the many news, talk and entertainment shows than they spend interviewing real news makers.



What is with that? Since when did the reporters become the stars? At what point did they acquire the audacity to believe they were the news makers? Fox, MSNBC, CNN and even the network news shows have far more so called reporters as guests than real opinion makers.



And speaking of objectivity, when reporters speculate on what is going to happen in the future, like Chuck Todd, White House correspondent for NBC and MSNBC did recently when he said what would happen in the Florida Senate race that is not over until November, it makes you wonder at what point did the news corps become their own source for information.



Just how objective can Chuck Todd be if he is predicting the outcome of a story? Wouldn't that influence him to report the story in a way that makes him look right? Far worse, of course, are the many made for television reporters whose liberal or conservative views dominate anything they report on. If partisanship is bad for politics as Obama likes to say, then ideologically slanted reporting is the death knell for news journalism because almost every reporter who is leaning to the right or left has lost their ability to be objective.



I often wonder if the current courses for journalism in college might not include classes like make up, camera awareness, how to write a book with no experience and nothing to say, battling for the anchor's seat, charisma and charm and of course, finding the right dentist for maximum whiteness. Come to think of it, with the time today's reporters spend on camera they might need acting courses as well.



Then there are the editorial journalists, the self-proclaimed sergeant in arms for discipline of the ranks, the self-perceived "Chosen One" to keep the people's philosophy in line. Truth has little to do with the field of ideological warfare. More entertainer than journalist, at least these types seldom claim objectivity.



While the TV journalist is required to write and possibly sell books, the editorial journalist is expected to crank out books, coffee mugs, do live, stand up on stage appearances, and generally whatever it takes to whip the true believers into a frenzy. They are also required to complete basic evangelizing courses.



Those claiming to be reporters who do television interviews, not of news makers but them being interviewed by the many so called news and opinion shows who can't get quality guests, also seem to belong to the club of "longing to be loved by celebrities and politicians".

As professional name droppers whose standing is measured by whether they are on a first name basis with the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, they are sent into long periods of depression if they aren't invited to the most expensive affairs of the Washington elite. To them success is measured not by winning a Pulitzer prize but by Obama knowing their name or a backstage pass to meet Sting.



If the journalists were doing their jobs the economic collapse would have been known ahead of time, the crooks who caused it would have been exposed, politicians would no longer be able to lie to the press, illegal influence of special interests would have been exposed long ago, and perhaps we would have known the truth. As it is, the only truth we may find is with the citizen journalists blogging their stories while the paid news media is getting smashed at the latest White House gala.

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Earth Day Today - 40th Anniversary - Americans Do Care

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It is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day when attention is focused on what needs to be done to protect the environment but we should not lose track of what has been done already even before Earth Day became popular. The reason I say that is much of the environmental progress in America has not come from federal government initiatives but the creative genius of local states, cities and people.



I can remember back about 50 years ago when my high school class in Iowa decided to transform an island overgrown with weeds that had been used as a dump site for decades into our own private beach and boating area. We spent two years cleaning, clearing and moving the tons of debris from the woods and water to make it a place we could go to get away from it all. To this day it remains a centerpiece for the city.



Later in Omaha, Nebraska I worked with the Mayor's Office on nationally recognized programs to Keep Nebraska Beautiful, a riverfront development program that transformed former warehouse districts, contaminated railroad yards, former metal plants and stockyards into nationally recognized projects that helped transform Omaha into a model and vibrant city today where it remains the home of Warren Buffett.



Also in Omaha we worked with Father Flannigan's Home for Boys, the world famous Boy's Town, on creating a farm using only natural products for fertilizer, pest control and land restoration. It was successful in demonstrating that crop yields from natural farming could equal the yields of chemicals.



While in Omaha the mayor and I worked on the riverfront development program and during the 1970's oil crises by OPEC we set up a solar energy company that put solar systems in several hundred homes and small businesses across the country. We were able to get the help of major corporations like Goodyear Tire and Rubber, Pittsburgh Plate Glass, Dow Chemical and Phillips Petroleum to make our patented components. It was highly successful until congress eliminated the solar tax credit when oil prices fell.



While working for the Executive Office of the President and Congress in Washington I helped set up first the Federal Energy Agency, later upgraded to the Department of Energy, and worked on a number of legislative bills to manage energy, promote conservation and reduce oil dependence.

When I worked for Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey in the 1980's we launched a series of nationally recognized environmental initiatives including the first statewide mandatory recycling program, whose stunning success eliminated the need for 19 massive incinerators in the state to process solid waste.



Working with New York we were able to eliminate offshore ocean dumping and eventually to permanently close down the Fresh kills landfill on Stanton Island, formerly the largest landfill in the world and a major source of beach and water pollution along the New Jersey oceanfront.

We adopted the first state energy master plan, the first in the country to block future nuclear plants until all existing plants had decontamination programs for shutting down old plants and restoring the land and until there was a nuclear waste disposal plan. America is still debating nuclear waste disposal.



The first statewide land use and preservation plan was adopted in New Jersey limiting growth in areas and initiating an aggressive plan to protect up to 20% of all New Jersey land from future development. Since New Jersey is the most densely populated state in America this was a massive and controversial undertaking. At the same time we implemented one of the first farmland preservation programs that bought future development rights to protect thousands of acres of farm land in the Garden State.



The Governor also launched an ambitious program to acquire thousands of acres for parks and recreation including 18,000 acres for the Sterling Forest bordering New York, reclaiming Hudson River waterfront for Freedom and Liberty Parks, reclaiming Delaware River waterfront for parks, and many other initiatives.

We were also one of the first states to sue oil companies and won millions of dollars in court settlements for the state. A company in New Jersey owned the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and we were involved in the clean up process from the 1979 accident, the biggest nuclear disaster in America. We were also one of the first states to implement the new EPA Super Fund program cleaning up toxic sites.



In the mid 1990's, after the 1986 tragedy of the Chernobyl nuclear explosion in the Ukraine (then the Soviet Union), I got to meet the children of Chernobyl in Scotland in one of the most humane programs I have ever witnessed. The kids contaminated with radiation in the disaster, and thousands were contaminated, were still living in the danger zone years later with high rates of cancer and often a short life ahead. It has been suggested that the Chernobyl disaster released as much as 400 times the radioactive contamination of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.



Countries in Europe that were victims of contamination themselves set up programs to bring the Chernobyl children for vacations in Scotland, the UK, Ireland, Germany and other nations. If the kids spent a couple of weeks a year in these countries it actually extended their life expectancy by a year or more. I met a group in Scotland and was amazed at the courage and spirit of the children and the act of compassion by the Scots and others.

Now I find myself in Maryland on the Potomac River not far from the Chesapeake Bay where pollution remains a problem, especially the contamination of the rivers and bay. It has cost the area much of the fishing, crabbing and oyster industries of the watermen while contaminating the waterfront from human and farming waste like fertilizers and pesticides. After converting my home to a green model and putting a nitrogen reduction septic system in I found yet another example of environmental concern.



One day I was called by neighbors because a Bald Eagle was injured. We have about nine Bald Eagles living in our village. When the Eagle was blown off a dock into the Potomac it did not have the strength to swim so into the river I went and grabbed the eagle when water was just about to my neck. After getting it to shore and having it taken to a Bald Eagle rescue center in Delaware I learned it was sick from eating contaminated fish from the river, lead poisoning. It was healed and I got to release it back into the wilds.

My point of all this is in most of the activities I outlined over the years we were not forced to do the things that were undertaken. It was not orders from the federal government that led to the creation of programs to meet our needs but the initiative of local citizens working with schools and professionals because of their personal concern for a clean environment. Never underestimate the value of people discovering and solving some of our major problems because it is the right thing to do. That is the secret strength of Americans and our hope for the future.

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Goldman Fraud Charges to Test Obama Administration Morality, Ethics & Transparency

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The first salvo of taking America back from the clutches of greed and corruption was launched by the SEC with fraud charges against Goldman Sachs but this is just the opening salvo of what could be a long, drawn out legal battle to bring morality where it is needed most, in the financial affairs of Wall Street.

The reason is because cleaning up the mess entails more than making a few scapegoats out of corporate executives and the multi-million dollar bonuses. What is really needed is to expand the legal actions to include all of those former Wall Street executives who went to work for the government and led America down the path of self-destruction.



Greed was as much a motivator for government employees as it was for Wall Street crooks and campaign contributions and kickbacks were the tools that bought off government protection from these master thieves.

Even former President Bill Clinton had a mea culpa of sorts this weekend when he said he was wrong in letting his former Treasury Secretaries, namely Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, create the regulatory laws that opened the floodgates to corruption, fraud, conflicts of interest and ethics violations that brought about the collapse of the economy.



Just before Clinton left office his economic advisors, with the help of Wall Street, changed the rules of the game and created layer after layer of unregulated opportunities on Wall Street. The sub-prime mortgage market was just one of many. But it took more than Wall Street to hoodwink the public, it took government insiders and congressmen that could be bought off.



Then there was the curious case of Rahm Emanuel, yet the same Emanuel serving as the most important advisor to Barack Obama, who was also Clinton's chief fund raiser all the way back in 1992, who was hired by Clinton to raise money while being paid $3,000a month by Goldman Sachs for consulting.

The Emanuel, Rubin and Summers trio remained with Clinton throughout his presidency and were the movers behind the NAFTA treaty and Mexican Peso crisis, both of which lined the pockets of Goldman. This was before the secret regulatory reform by the same trio that opened the floodgates to derivatives and swaps used to fuel the sub-prime fraud.



Then Emanuel was placed on Freddie Mac's Board by Clinton where he was paid $350,000 as the two government funded housing programs put up the funds for the housing scam. The SEC action against Goldman is just the tip of the iceberg.

Senator Chris Dodd, the indignant Senator who is retiring because of the mess in DC is another player and cohort of the insiders who steered the government into the hands of Wall Street. In his case he benefitted from illegal mortgage loans at highly favorable rates and millions in campaign contributions from these same firms destroying our economy.



Yet we have only begun the process of cleaning out the mess. All the players are still inside the Obama White House as paid staff or key advisors. Many details about Obama's own relationship to Goldman Sachs are yet to be revealed.

Did he know his key advisors spent almost two decades putting in place the regulations and deals to destroy the housing market? What role did Emanuel and Goldman play in buying off Obama's two major challengers in the US Senate race in Illinois when both the top Democrat in the primary and top Republican in the general election mysteriously withdrew for personal reasons opening the door for the unknown State Senator to explode on the national political scene. Remember that the unknown Obama was the featured speaker at the Democratic Presidential convention in 2004 while he was the underdog candidate for Senate.



What about the secret meetings between Obama and Goldman executives in Chicago early in his presidential campaign, or the secret practice debate Goldman arranged with Tom Brokaw of NBC in NYC during the presidential campaign?

With Obama still surrounded by Goldman people should he protect his own integrity by ordering them to stay out of the investigations, and many more are to come, and recluse themselves from any action that might benefit Goldman and other Wall Street firms? It would seem to be the only way to clear the record and protect the public from them influencing actions by federal agencies as well as policy, programs and regulatory initiatives that might unfairly benefit the institutions.



At the same time someone honest in Washington, if there are such people left, should demand that any congressmen or Obama administration officials receiving funds for special interest campaigns or political campaigns should also recluse themselves from participating in any actions impacting on these firms if the firms are being investigated for fraud.

Money runs deep in DC. There is a direct deposit line between Wall Street and the offices of president and congress. The surviving financial institutions like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley spent more than $21 million lobbying Congress last year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.



They also employed plenty of Washington's brand name lobbyists to work their influence, including: former House Democratic Leader Dick Gephardt; Steve Elmendorf, a former top Gephardt staffer; Chuck Brain, former President Bill Clinton's top lobbyist; Ken Duberstein, a chief of staff in the Reagan White House; and Tony Podesta, a prodigious fundraiser close to the Obama administration and much of the Senate Democratic caucus.

As more charges are released and attention moves from housing to oil futures to credit markets to debt financing for foreign governments there will be pressure on the investigative agencies to plea bargain the cases, a standard practice in the past. This will amount to no more than a reward to these firms as they can avoid responsibility for what they are charged by not admitting guilt, thus protecting themselves to some degree from civil actions by the investors who lost billions of dollars.



For example, the SEC action against Goldman, if plea bargained, will not recover the $1 billion in investor losses that resulted from the fraud. If Goldman can afford to pay $25 billion in bonuses they can certainly repay $1 billion in losses.

The media thinks the Wall Street mess will be used for political advantage. Of course it will, it is a case of the politicians being just as guilty as the Wall Street executives. The politicians share the guilt and must not be overlooked.

But if the Obama administration agrees to plea bargains they will still be guilty of aiding and abetting the crooks. Obama, in the interest of his much ballyhooed transparency, needs to get transparent real fast and explain his role with Goldman and other financial institutions dating back to his Senate race, he needs to get transparent and release all documents, memos and emails from the Goldman gang in the White House including Emanuel, Summers, Rubin, and the many other staff in the White House and Treasury who worked for Goldman and were still benefiting from stock and dividend payments from the behemoth, and he needs to denounce the plea bargain as a tool for settling cases involving billions of dollars of damages from fraud.

We have not even begun to scratch the surface of the depth of the moral bankruptcy in America and we need to move fast and furious to make sure it does not engulf our politicians in an ever growing web of deceit and deception. We can not let them forget the millions of lives hurt by the actions, the billions of dollars lost to them, and the pain and suffering from people around the world who were victims.

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Save Savannah Guthrie from NBC & MSNBC

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Why we must Save Savannah before it is too late.



There are not many reporters out there in the media wonderland whose careers seem worth saving as there are not many reporters left period. Most have chosen to get sucked into the television ratings game and have lost their objectivity as they now play a variety of roles from reporting to speculating to advocating positions to biased news analysis.



Now there is nothing fair and balanced about it and anyone from Fox, MSNBC, CNN or even PBS that claims to be fair and balanced has clearly lost their marbles or ability to tell the truth. The truth is the media business is all about sensationalism, partisanship, making someone look bad or good depending on that person's conformance to the network party line, and even manipulation of truth.



Why the bizarre behavior of cable network and even major media reporters would drive a journalism purist to suicide if they took them seriously. Yet after all the exposure of so called news celebrities it seems as if the people of America have got better things to do. Of course that's not what you would think listening to the ego maniacs on the air pontificating on what you need to believe.

However, facts are facts and these are the facts. On a typical weekday on cable TV news, which includes Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, HTN (CNN Headline News) and CNBC, Fox has the 13 top ranked shows on cable news. In a dismal response by the liberal MSNBC, viewership and target audience numbers are both down from last year with Keith Olbermann, the flagship of MSNBC, losing 29% of average viewers and 43% of the target audience the past year. Perhaps people are tiring of the nonsense.

Base on average number of viewers, the top morning and prime time shows at Fox are O'Rielly 3.5 million viewers, Beck 2.8 million, Hannity at 2.5 million, Baier at 2.5 million and Shep at 2.1 million. At MSNBC Olbermann is 963,000, Maddow 802,000, Matthews 580,000 and Ed at 500,000. Fox and Friends has 1.1 million while The Morning Joe show has 340,000. The news isn't much better off at CNN as the Rick Sanchez and Wolf Shows have lost 52% of their target audience and 43% of average viewership the past year.



So Fox has been increasing while the other networks decreasing. A typical show at Fox gets 4 times the audience of the MSNBC show at the same time. Does that mean America is 4 times more conservative than liberal? What it does mean is that while 20 million or so watch cable news shows every day about 295 million Americans don't so maybe there is hope for America.



Then there is Savannah Guthrie, named NBC White House correspondent not long ago who was recently given a show, The Daily Rundown, by NBC on MSNBC following the Morning Joe Show. It is too bad that MSNBC had already lost a chunk of the morning audience before they gave it to her and that just 340,000 out of 315 million Americans are watching Morning Joe. What kind of promotion is that?

Truth is she was put on MSNBC to increase the ratings at a time when NBC, including MSNBC, was being sold by General Electric to Comcast Cable. What in the world will a profit driven owner like Comcast do with MSNBC? At least GE stood to make millions of dollars off Obama and his Green America programs so they had a reason to take the liberal position and support him.



As Obama collapsed in his ratings this past year so did MSNBC and it was no accident Obama's liberal agenda was not what America wanted or expected to hear from him. Yet he seems oblivious of the polls, the lack of support for his agenda, and the beating liberals are taking in the elections since he was elected. That does not bode well for MSNBC who attached their hopes to a falling star.

Savannah Guthrie has great credentials as a trained journalist and lawyer and has done an exceptional job of avoiding the tendency of NBC reporters to take the liberal slant to everything. You can bet MSNBC will be trying to mold her into one of their liberal mouthpieces like Olbermann, Maddow and Matthews. It could ruin her career.



So I want to start a Save Savannah campaign to get her out of MSNBC and NBC before Comcast takes over the networks. Fair and balanced is a phrase used by all these cable networks but none can really live up to it. She still does. Help Save Savannah before it is too late. Write NBC and MSNBC, and tell them to not make her into a liberal puppet. Better yet, write Savannah and tell her to get out before it is too late.

By the way, to be fair and balanced and fully transparent, let me say the fact she was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona and graduated from the University of Arizona has nothing to do with it. The fact I went to the University of Arizona and played basketball there also has nothing to do with it. The fact I used to go watch Linda Ronstadt sing in Tucson, met Sonny and Cher there, got to sing with the Kingsmen of Louie Louie fame, was a frat brother with Gary Lewis, watched two other fraternity brothers perform on the ABC TV hit show Hootenanny, and dated the Queen of the Rose Bowl parade who was in my class had nothing to do with it.

The fact Arizona is one of my favorite places in the world and I remain close to the Hopi Native Americans of Arizona also has nothing to do with it nor does the fact the Grand Canyon is one of the wonders of the world. Okay, the fact I have worked with the National Park Service exploring ancient and sacred Native American sites, some thousands of years old, also has nothing to do with it.

I admit that riding on horseback four hours up a deserted canyon above the Grand Canyon with Park Service archeologists and my crew to film one of these sites also had nothing to do with it. I mean I had a coyote, the trickster, cross my path and soon after got thrown from my horse, broke three ribs, was hours from medical help so I kept riding and filming for 8 more hours. How could that have anything to do with it?



No bias on my part. In spite of our University of Arizona and Tucson ties I've never met Savannah. But I have seen her work and we need her to report the truth to America about what is happening in our nation's capitol. Not the NBC liberal truth but the honest truth like she does. I say Save Savannah and there is hope for the future.

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