Senator Stevens is the poster child of why the GOP got trounced in 2006 and his race was looking to be another Democrat pickup in 2008. However, chance kicked in and preparation with the right ideas met opportunity. Stevens was recently indicted, which has thrown the Republican primary wide open in a race that should be Stevens’ to lose.

Of particular interest in this race, at least from a national perspective, is the debate on earmark reform. Earmarks are legislative tools whereby legislators insert “pet projects” into legislation without debate and shower gifts upon their friends. Senator Stevens, the earmark king, made the practice well-known and despised with the infamous “bridge to nowhere” project where he tried to direct $223 million of federal funds to build a bridge to an island of 50 people.

Cuddy seeks to reform this practice with a common-sense solution, to make earmarks public and subject to debate. In the long-term, he believes the federal government shouldn’t be spending any money on local projects. If a town would like a public swimming pool, they shouldn’t be able to charge taxpayers in another state with the bill. The practice of trying to get “free federal money” needs to stop. It is a bit like sending a sandwich to Washington and lobbying for the leftover crumbs and calling it “success”.

Cuddy comes from a business background and applies economic approaches to policy issues. For health care, he argues it isn’t about who pays. That’s simply a matter of passing the high cost of health care around. The problem is the high cost and inefficiencies built into the health care system. He points to Walmart as a successful example of innovation to take an industry and radically reduce its costs. The high cost of health care is linked to another issue that he speaks on: immigration.

One of the causes of the high cost of health care is the “unfunded mandate” that hospitals must treat everyone who shows up regardless of their ability to pay. This includes illegal immigrants. The result is that those costs for health care are passed off on paying customers through higher fees, higher copayments and higher insurance premiums. The debate on who pays is an interesting aside, but it misses the point. Health care costs are skyrocketing.

Cuddy understands why immigrants would do anything they could to get to the United States. The incentives are so great compared to what is in Mexico, it just makes sense. The senseless moralizing against illegal immigrations (i.e. “ZO NOES! They Broke the Law!”) does nothing to solve the issue, especially when both the governments of Mexico and the United States encourage this. He argues the incentives need to be changed by enforcing the law, particularly on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants to push down wages.

Foreign policy, in general, he argues should disentangle us from foreign engagements. We’re in Iraq and we should finish the job, but the process to close foreign bases and end power projection is a task Cuddy believes the United State should undertake.

Cuddy winning the primary is not a given, he faces another Republican, Vic Vickers who will throw hundreds of thousands of dollars into the race. However, on the issues, Cuddy is clearly superior and shows Republicans what they need to do to stop losing. In short, Republicans need to run on their platform instead of running a platform to redistribute the spoils of power to their friends instead. Cuddy also has the endorsement of the Republican Liberty Caucus which has a strong presence in Alaska.

Cuddy is running to restore balanced budgets, to fix elections that overwhelmingly favor incumbents so that citizens can have a meaningful place in the political process again. It’d be a welcome change from Ted Stevens and hopefully will inspire more candidates like Cuddy to run for Congress.

John Bambenek is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is the author of Illinois Deserves Better and is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He blogs at Part-Time Pundit and is the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

This is the starting point of David Freddoso’s new book, The Case against Barack Obama – The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate. For instance, it is little-known that Barack Obama’s first real election challenge was his primary race against… Hillary Clinton. In 1996, he ran for the State Senate but used Illinois’ arcane (and unconstitutional) election laws to throw every other candidate off the ballot. He won office unopposed.

In 2004, he ran for Senate but the sexual dalliances took down his main primary opponent. The general election race, however, would be pure comedy if it wasn’t so tragic for the Illinois Republican Party. A Republican version of Obama, Jack Ryan, won the primary nod, but he was not well-loved in the inner-circles of the state GOP organization. His divorce files were made public, and more sexual dalliances came out (at least those were with his wife) which sunk Ryan.

For weeks, the Illinois GOP could not find a nominee. They had to import Alan Keyes to run against Obama, who’s only campaign point seemed to be “Jesus would not vote for Barack Obama”. Obama won his Senate seat without any real opposition in what would have otherwise been a very bad year for the Democrats.

To political observers, it seems absurd that a product and participant of Chicago machine politics could credibly claim to be the voice of change and hope to reform Washington D.C. Not impossible, sure, but it defies credulity. Freddoso examines the facts of Obama’s career in Illinois, his relationships and his rise to power to definitively show that Obama is not the sterling immaculate candidate he portrays, but in reality, is just another Chicago politician – albeit with a better speech writer.

Throughout his tenure in the Illinois General Assembly, Obama had given favors and steered state contracts to contributors and friends. In particular, he has a great deal of ties to real estate developers that benefited from his state legislative career and he benefited from their success. Developers having access to the corridors of power is nothing new, especially in Chicago, but for a candidate who is preaching an anti-lobbyist anti-special interest message, the evidence shows he didn’t practice what he preaches.

The Obama campaign has steadfastly refused to speak the nitty-gritty of policy on the stump and has run a “cult of personality” campaign. This is why it is a timely and important work to show the man behind the façade, but to do so in a legitimate way. Many, mostly slanderous, attempts have been made to show Obama as some kind of un-American Trojan horse candidate. This has only helped to inoculate him against legitimate criticism. However, Freddoso sticks to the record with copious footnotes to back him up.

Most of Obama’s more radical leftist connections are public record. The public fallout from the Rev. Wright controversies started to bring to light that strange company that Obama has kept. In particular, Freddoso touches upon Obama’s relationship to Bill Ayers who was part of the terrorist group the Weathermen. Obama may try to walk and talk like a “moderate” on the stump, but he surrounds himself with the far left.

The book is a thorough treatment of Obama’s career, what he has done and how he got there. The image that emerges does not mesh at all with the icon of hope. The media, for their part, simply has not dug deep into the mirage that is the Obama campaign. The book provides a sorely needed analysis for a candidate who is almost getting a free ride to the White House. It is fact-based, well-researched and is critical reading for anyone interested in who Obama really is.

John Bambenek is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is the author of Illinois Deserves Better and is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He blogs at Part-Time Pundit and is the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

However, the same distrust and disgust are just as true with the state government of Illinois. We have a governor under multiple federal investigations, a General Assembly that can never seem to pass a budget, and political patronage happening out in the open with no regard for citizens. The gridlock in Springfield is universally despised and all other attempts to reform Illinois have failed. Change is sorely needed for Illinois.

That is why it is disappointing to see the same firm that crafted the candidate for change was just given a  two to three million dollar contract to oppose a constitutional convention. Among the arguments they will make is that convening a constitutional convention will give power to all the special interests, that the constitution will be made worse, and that there is no way to elect good people to a convention. They have already gone so far as to tell seniors that a constitutional convention will take their pensions away even though federal law is clear that it can't. In short, the ads can be reduced to a sound bite: "No… you can't."

In November, voters will be able to vote to convene a constitutional convention to amend the state charter. This would allow for the ending of gerrymandering, the practice of politicians picking their voters and not vice versa (see Illinois Congressional District 4's map for an illustration of how absurd the maps have gotten). An additional change could be adding the ability of citizens to recall elected officials, a right many states currently already enjoy.

Many of the problems that Illinois faces are a direct result of a constitution written in 1970 to create a "strong government." This allowed politicians to amass incredible power and to engage in rampant and overt corruption. For instance, the Cook County presidency was almost literally bequeathed from father (John Stroger) to son (Todd Stroger) reminiscent of a title of nobility in the Middle Ages. The constitution guarantees state pensions but it was also explicitly written to not require funding of the pensions. This has resulted in the worst funded pension system in the nation. We aren't even close to 49th place.

The governor can treat budgets as advisory and move money around at will. The leader of a legislative chamber can unilaterally kill a bill with no recourse by other members of the chamber (see House Bill 1 which was sponsored by over 80% of the Illinois Senate, yet still killed by Senator Debbie Halvorson).

In all this, the citizens are disempowered. Illinois election law is the most restrictive (and unconstitutional) in the Union. Third party and independent candidates are required to get over 10 times more signatures and are subject to capricious ballot challenges that keep them from being listed on the ballot. Ballot initiatives are not binding and routinely ignored by politicians.

Even the balanced budget requirement in the Constitution is considered a "moral imperative" when crafting the state budget. This requirement is unenforceable which is how the state gets away with trying to pass a budget $2 billion out of balance. Try considering paying your next property tax bill with a "moral imperative" and see how that works out.

Citizens are disempowered and government is dysfunctional. The result has been a grassroots movement comprised of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and those who normally would not associate with a political party. The citizens are demanding that Springfield change. The question is why the same people running Obama's campaign are saying, "Change you must fear."

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is author of the book, Illinois Deserves Better: The Ironclad Case for an Illinois Constitutional Convention and is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The pension problem is chiefly a creation of the current Illinois constitution. The constitution regards pensions as an “enforceable contractual relationship” which cannot be diminished. Come hard times the pension checks must still go out. However, the constitution does not require the funding of the pension system. This was a very intentional choice by the convention delegates in 1970 who wrote the text.

It made sense to the delegates to give the General Assembly discretion in how they funded the pension system. The General Assembly has used this discretion to shortchange the pensions every single year since ratification. Some years they even took money out. This discretion has been grossly abused and shows the General Assembly as a poor steward of the pension system. The chief problem facing the pensions is not “generosity”, it is a chronic and perpetual failure of the state to contribute the amount they promise.

There are those that argue the solution to this problem is to simply let the state out of its promise to workers. The problem is that such a solution would be ruled unconstitutional under the federal constitution. Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution lists several things states cannot do. States cannot enter into treaties, coin money or impair the obligation of contracts. By calling pensions an “enforceable contract”, the U.S. Constitution forbids them of taking them out from under people, even via constitutional amendment.

Those who are vested in the pension system could not have their pensions confiscated, period. Federal case law is clear on this point in cases such as McGrath v Rhode Island Retirement Board. Anyone who says the pensions will be taken is using fear-mongering in an attempt to scare citizens from demanding the reforms they are entitled to.

On the other hand, adopting a “wait and see” approach will only result in an exponentially growing pension debt that eventually leads the state into bankruptcy. There is an exception to the federal contract clause, namely if the diminishment of a contract serves an important public purpose. While it is impossible to know for sure, avoiding bankruptcy of a major state certainly is an important public purpose to which a court may decide a benefits reduction is necessary.

In short, there is no risk to the pensions by trying to address them in a convention, however, waiting for bankruptcy does entail significant risk to those in the pension system and potentially even those already retired.

So what could be done to fix the pension problem in a convention? The only proposal in the state (that isn’t a promise to fix the problem) is one that I created. Namely, the General Assembly has proven they cannot be trusted to fund the pensions and keep their promises. Instead, the constitution should be amended to require the employing agency to pay the pension contributions directly out of their own budget.

The benefits of this are several. One, a state agency can be sued to force them to pay the promised pension contributions, the General Assembly cannot be so sued. Two, employing agencies pay the full cost of abusive pension games to benefit top administrators. Three, employing agencies will bear full cost for employment of people and will make more efficient hiring decisions. This will not fix the debt already incurred, but it stops the massive bleeding from a General Assembly failing year after year to keep their promises.

If you want to save your pension in November, vote yes for a constitutional convention. If you want to roll your dice and gamble with your retirement, vote no. Either way, we deserve a state that keeps its promises.

John Bambenek is author of Illinois Deserves Better which makes the case for a state constitutional convention. He is an academic professional at the University of Illinois and co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition, a group pushing for a constitutional convention. He can be reached at jcb@illinoiscitizenscoalition.com or http://www.illinoiscitizenscoalitions.com.

Two weeks ago, I testified at the Senate Executive Committee hearing on HJCRA28 and spoke specifically about the ability to recall judges. There is understandably some concern with this (and rightfully so) that unpopular but legally sound decisions could cause a judge to be recalled from office. I had proposed that as a prerequisite to recalling a judge, the judicial discipline process in Article VI, Section 15 of the current state constitution be used. At the time, Senator Hendon expressed that he liked the idea and he has incorporated my suggestion into his current amendment.

The big problem with the bill that no one has caught so far (and admittedly, I missed it when I testified two weeks ago) is that an officeholder subject to a recall can also run to succeed himself should the recall succeed. To illustrate, let’s say Blagojevich/Quinn get a successful recall petition that’s on the ballot. Both can, in turn, can submit the right paperwork to run in the succession election that occurs during the same election. It is important to note because of the condensed time frame, there are no primaries. This means, like what occurred in California in 2003, you would have a crowded field running to replace a recalled official. It is entirely plausible that an official who is successfully recalled will be able to get “re-reelected” with a plurality of the vote in a crowded field. That is why most recall provisions prohibit the recalled official running from running as a successor candidate. There is no prohibition in this amendment.

An interesting idea surfaced two weeks ago during the recall debate then, that because the Governor and Lt. Governor run together as a ticket that they must be recalled together. I find this idea rather unconvincing considering that there is no requirement that they must be impeached together. I think it is a ploy to accomplish two things: put Lt. Governor Quinn in the hot seat for pushing this issue and make it harder to accomplish recalling a governor successfully. Voters who may want to recall a Governor may vote no simply because they don’t want to “take it out” on the Lt. Governor. I am not sure how much of an effect it has, but it’s there.

Lastly, the big change and big win is the inclusion of local officials in the recall amendment itself. The amendment, however, restricts recall to only “salaried” elected officials. This immunizes school boards, for one. In smaller towns or counties, elected officials there may not draw a salary. Officials who are paid per-meeting “stipends” may also not be subject to recall. It’s a limitation that I can live with, but I prefer that anyone elected can be recalled. It’s philosophically sound that way. I’m not sure the reason for shielding unpaid officials.

I certainly do think that SJCRA70 is an improvement on HJCRA28 with the adding in of judges and most local officials. I think the threshold for signatures could be lowered to 10% for all the offices and would like to raise the number of counties needed for statewide recalls, but by and large I think most of it is good. The show-stopper here is that a recalled official can run to be their own successor which all but nullifies the intent of recalling them in the first place.

There are two arguments that a constitutional convention is inadvisable: the necessary changes can be made through other means (i.e. electing better politicians) and that there is no way to ensure that reform-minded delegates get elected. Skipping past the individual merits of these arguments for a moment, the arguments perfectly illustrate the problem. On one hand, we need to elect better politicians (I agree); on the other hand, we can’t enough elect good politicians to make a difference (I also agree). The opposition to a convention presents no solutions, just another intractable problem.

Fixing the balanced budget loophole that allows the state to count debt as “income”, ending gerrymandering, allowing binding citizen referenda, creating recall elections, enabling open ballot access and term limits all have to be done in a constitution. There exist only three ways to amend the constitution. The legislature can do it, citizens can have a referendum to amend the legislature article only, or a constitutional convention must be convened.

Currently the General Assembly is required to pass only one bill per year, the state budget. They could not even do that without being months late and still engaging in chicanery. HB 1, one of the many state ethics reforms bills in the General Assembly was passed 116-0 in the House and has 47 Senate Cosponsors. You would think that a bill that is not only supported by 80% of the Illinois Senate, but actually sponsored by 80%, would be law. One Senator, Emil Jones, has killed the bill and that is that.

The General Assembly cannot pass simple reforms right now, much less the constitutional changes that are required to fix our broken government. There are amendments in the General Assembly that contain many of the reforms that Illinois citizens want, they’ve been declared dead on arrival.

Citizens could initiate referendum, but only on the legislative article of the constitution and then only the “structural and procedural” items it contains. Some good reforms could be made this way, but it would not fix the deep-seated structural problems (like counting “debt” as “income”) in the Constitution because those referenda would not be allowed.

That leaves the only option to fix the structural problems with our government and the current constitution is a constitutional convention. This is the precise reason why such a provision was put into the current constitution; to allow the people to take control and reform the government when all other avenues have failed.

The state is in dire shape with over $106 billion in debt, a failing pension, government officials on every level being investigated or indicted on federal corruption charges, and the needs and interests of citizens routinely being ignored. Illinois deserves better.

Electing good politicians would help, but there are structural problems in our constitution and laws that close the political process to “outsiders”. Third party and independent candidates, for instance, have to get 10-15 times the number of signatures as “established” parties, for instance. More importantly, constitutions are written to restrict the harm bad politicians can do. That’s why there are “Bills of Rights” and “checks and balances” with a mind of keeping the level of harm as small as possible.

If a convention happens, it will take work to identify and elect reform-minded delegates and it won’t be easy. However, sitting by and hoping things get better means the state gets driven to bankruptcy, more politicians get indicted and the needs of the citizens continue to be ignored. This November, citizens have the power to take back their government and effect the changes that are needed before it’s too late. The General Assembly has failed; now it falls to us.

John Bambenek is a columnist and co-founder of the Illinois Citizens Coalition.

In what was considered a bizarre response, Chavez ordered several battalions to the border with Colombia and has threatened all-out war with the country. Ecuador is understandably upset, but many attribute Chavez's latest media-grabbing stunt as more saber-waving from a dictator who craves international attention for "standing up to U.S. imperialism." There are important reasons to take Chavez's threats at face value, but first some background.

United States Military Doctrine

Since the 1990s, the United States Armed Forces have held various iterations of a win-win doctrine. The current version of the doctrine (the 4-2-1 strategy) states that the United States will maintain the capability to "conduct two, overlapping 'swift defeat' campaigns… [and] the force must be able to 'win decisively' in one of the two campaigns". In layman's terms, this means the United States has set up its military to win two medium-sized wars simultaneously.

It is also important to note that the United States military debates its over-reaching strategy out in the open for the world to see. Not a single spy is needed to determine how we structure our military and with what aims in mind. A foreign agent can pick up any number of academic journals, surf the various public military and government websites, or read the many books written on the subject. No security clearance is needed. Other countries know full well what we design our military to do and conversely know what limitations we build into our system.

One can look at the current situation of the U.S. military and see how this strategy has worked (albeit not without bumps). The military is engaged in operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq and achieving successes in both countries. The only area where improvement has not been substantial is in the area of nation-building, particularly, getting the native populations to take responsibility for their own political destiny. The lack of will for U.S. imperialism has come at a price.

The current situation shows that the strategy can work and is working. Al Qaeda in Iraq is essentially no more. However, it has also shown that it engages a large proportion of the resources available to the United States military that can be used for war-fighting. The preventative operations still continue, sure, but it is less than clear that the United States could, without significant difficulty, engage in a third conflict; much less a fourth conflict.

The Foreign Policy Objectives of China and Russia

In the sense of power distribution, international relations is similar to a zero-sum game. When one nation loses power, some other nation or nations gain power. The inverse is also true; when a nation gains power, it comes at the expense of another. When the USSR collapsed, the United States largely gained the power that was left on the table. This has been a point of consternation for some time for the former world power.

On the other hand, China, which has never been a superpower, does overtly crave such a status. In order to achieve such a status, the United States would have to relinquish or lose some of its current power. This leaves China and Russia as partners in a similar quest, to gain international power at the expense of the United States, the only country which that power must come from.

As an additional sideshow, there are a variety of powers across the globe that would cheer at the prospect of an American military embarrassment (no small number are European). Many lay commentators cheer on Russia and China, who criticize America's foreign policy, including commentators in the United States. One ought not to be naïve to think that these nations which murder journalists and dissidents, repress speech, and shun the rule of law inside their own borders are suddenly acting with the purity of wind-driven snow once on the international stage.

Currently, both Russia and China have ties with Venezuela (that include Russia shipping military goods to Venezuela). Russia also has historical ties with Serbia and has been a vocal supporter of Serbia against the independence of Kosovo. Currently, both areas are now volatile with Chavez's threats on one side and antagonistic behavior by Serbia on the other. Kosovo and Colombia, on the other hand, are US foreign policy commitments to continue to support those countries.

As an important counterpoint, there are elements in China and Russia that do not see eye-to-eye with the hostile-to-the-US foreign policy. They are minorities but they are the ones with money. Many of the largest businesses in both countries are beneficiaries of the American economy and thus have a vested interest in the status quo.

Could Chavez Be Serious?

Currently, the United States economy is in trouble; there is broad consensus on that at this point. Bad lending is never a good thing for an economy. Full-on economic collapses are usually combinations of multiple factors, bad lending often being one. So if Chavez isn't serious, he, along with Russia and China, is quite stupid. That is a presumption we ought not to make.

The United States military is structured to win two conflicts simultaneously. If both Kosovo and Colombia-Venezuela go hot, even militarily we would be stretched thin, if not to the breaking point. Odds are we would face the choice of sacrificing one or the other to avoid "losing" a war. With forces already on the ground in Kosovo under the auspices of NATO, we would likely have no choice but to fight in that conflict. Colombia, on the other hand, would be very easy to leave out to dry.

If forced to fight in both additional conflicts, it would provide an enormous additional strain on an already troubled economy. Drastic funding choices would have to be made to support the resources required to fight in all four conflicts simultaneously independent of the number of troops consideration. It is entirely possible that it could push an economy on the brink of recession into a full-on recession. Or for that matter, push an economy in a recession into a far worse economic position.

If China and Russia want to take definitive action to ensure American power is decreased, all they have to do is stoke the flames of conflict in Kosovo and Colombia. American political debate is focused on the superficials; no real political movement would support retaliatory action for subtle actions by Russia and China to provoke other nations to pick fights. In short, there would be little political cost to Russia and China in provoking these fights while there is everything to gain.

The only counterbalancing effect is whether those nations would prefer to ride on America's economic coattails or if they'd rather see American foreign power decline to their advantage. With the economic troubles America is facing, it becomes increasingly tempting to think those economic coattails aren't as long as they once seemed. Time will tell which trains of thought will win out.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The structure of HMOs was also largely different than traditional indemnity plans. HMOs require primary care physicians to act as gatekeepers of advanced care and it empowered insurance companies to challenge the medical judgment of doctors. It restricted choice to those doctors and providers “in the network” and any care provided by outside providers, care that didn’t follow the right regulations or didn’t have the right referrals was simply not paid.

It is indisputable that we are currently in a health care crisis with skyrocketing costs and extreme customer dissatisfaction. It is never a good sign when medical providers have to market themselves on customer service. No other industry has to try to convince consumers that “we won’t abuse you” and that “you matter to us”. The current argument is that health care needs to be socialized because the free market hasn’t worked.

First, the central principle of the free market is that the individual parties of a transaction are able to negotiate the terms of that transaction themselves. For instance, if I want to buy a car, I can negotiate with the dealer the terms of the transaction and the dealer can do likewise. If neither of us wishes to proceed, we can move on. Without free choice on both the provider and consumer in deciding terms of the transaction, there is no free market. There is no free market without choice.

The health care system in this country, developed by Democrat Ted Kennedy who now campaigns against his own creation, all but eliminates choice in both doctors and patients.

Limiting the Choice of Patients

Let’s say you, Joe Consumer, want health insurance. Because of the structure of the tax system that enforces what is basically an historical accident, you will probably get this through your employer. Your employer is limited by tax law to only let you make decisions about your health insurance provider at certain times, basically when you are hired and once a year thereafter. You will likely get a few choices, an HMO with higher deductibles and lower premiums, an HMO with lower deductibles and higher premiums (from the same company), and a traditional indemnity plan. If your employer chooses Blue Cross Blue Shield, you’re only going to be able to choose Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Employers decided which insurance company to work with. Their motivation is clear, to save money. As a secondary objective, they want happy employees. However, the insurance company is selling insurance to your employer, not you. So they craft policies that are lucrative to your employer. Maybe 60% of employees are happy with what they get, but the other 40% are pretty much hosed. If they want a different insurance company they need to pay full price and the employer is not allowed to compensate the employee on what their portion might have been. End result: consumers do not choose their insurance company, their employer does. If they want to change their insurance, they can’t until the next benefit choice period dictated by the IRS.

Now you, Joe Consumer, want to go to the doctor. You take your handy dandy provider directory (or go online) and you select from the list of doctors your HMO allows you to go see. You may know you need an orthopedic doctor to deal with your knee problems but that’s too bad, you need to go to a primary care physician first (and pay for that useless appointment that you don’t need). This primary care physician’s job is to limit the amount of advanced care patients receive. In fact, in some cases, primary care physicians get a bonus based on how few referrals they give.

Let’s say you do get a referral. Then you go to where the HMO tells you to go to with even more limited choices in the provider directory. Let’s change the scenario, let’s say instead of knee problems you have cancer. You hear good things about the Mayo Clinic and you want to get care there. Too bad, you need to go where your HMO tells you to go to. You may have a better shot at survival at Mayo, it doesn’t matter.

You may wish to explore alternative treatments, however, your doctor who knows what your insurance company will and will not pay for better than you ever will, simply will limit you to those choices which your insurance company has already decided you will have. He knows that they won’t pay (and he probably won’t get paid) if his plan of care deviates from the dictates of the insurance company’s accountants. These people have never seen you, have no information about you but have near complete control over your health care decisions based on some sparse paperwork sent back and forth. The patient will never get the opportunity to talk to much less negotiate with these people.

Lastly, you want to choose a doctor among the choices that are provided to you in your provider directory. If you want to “price shop”, well, you aren’t provided pricing before hand. This may be difficult in some cases, but patients simply have no pricing information with which to judge before they’ve already committed themselves to care (some exceptions, not many).

The net balance of all of this is that in every single step of the health care system, the consumer is removed from the decision-making loop. The only health care decision the consumer gets to make is whether to have the insurance company pay or to do what they think is right and pay full price out-of-pocket and risk bankruptcy, even if it is the right decision.

Limiting the Choice of Doctors

On the other side of the transaction we have doctors that also have their choices restricted and taken out of the equation. Before a doctor sees his first patient, before he gets an office or buys any equipment, he needs liability insurance. The premium he is charged will be identical to other providers with similar practices no matter what training, experience, qualifications or differences exist between them. A Saturday-night hack artist pays the same as a doctor who has won the Nobel Prize. In Illinois, the premium for an OB-GYN before they see their first patients is about $240,000. In surrounding states it is about one-fourth as much which is why Illinois in particular has a health care crisis. Providers are fleeing the state. Take a look near any state border and you will see a thriving health care practice just on the other side of the Illinois border with that state.

The terms of this insurance policy (in addition to the price) are non-negotiable and designed to do one thing, prevent lawsuits or make them easier to win. For OB-GYN’s the terms are the most notorious. For instance, a woman who has had 2 children already without complications, is having a third low-risk pregnancy needs to go through the same regimen of care as a first pregnancy. If you’ve had children you know how this works. Started second trimester or so, you go for bi-weekly checkups (that become weekly as you get closer to birth). You pee on a stick, you get weighed and they ask you if you have any questions. There’s an ultrasound in there and a couple of blood tests.

With my first child, after a few of these appointments, I began to wonder what was the point. We didn’t have questions. In, out, 15 minutes: that’s $50 (the copay in this case). Why do I bring up this story? Because if you, the patient, decide that these visits are superfluous, your provider is required to drop you as a patient. You may have no complications, you may have no questions and there may be absolutely no reason for these visits, but your provider is required to mandate that you go, regardless of medical need or you can’t be their patient anymore. By the way, you, the patient, pay for this decision made not by your doctor, but by some lawyers at a liability insurance company. The United States has the highest C-section rate in the developed world because liability insurance companies insist that if anything is “abnormal” a C-section must be performed. Not because of medical need, but because of “limiting liability”.

In addition to liability insurance companies dictating the terms of care, doctors then have to deal with health insurance companies (or even worse, Medicaid). About 30% of medical bills sent to private individuals (not insurance companies) are paid. Doctors know that they are being paid by the insurance companies, not the patient. They know that if the insurance company isn’t going to pay them, they probably won’t be paid. The only exception to this is patients who walk into an emergency room or doctor’s office with a Platinum American Express card. Providers know these people are paying cash and they get treated with far more respect than insurance carrying patients do.

Before the question of the “bonus checks” for limiting referrals even comes in to play, doctors know that the insurance company is calling the shots. They know they won’t get patients without joining a “network” of some providers in a given insurance company. The insurance company will then dictate what rates they can charge, what services they can provide, what drugs they can prescribe and in some cases how many patients they can see.

A doctor that practices without taking a major insurance policy will have a hard if not impossible time earning a living. A doctor that practices without a liability insurance policy (even in places where that’s legal to do and that isn’t many) can be considered certifiably insane.

Conclusion

Both doctors and patients have their choices and ability to negotiate their health care severely limited. There is some competition in a very limited sense where employers can choose from a small selection of HMO companies. Doctors can choose too and there is a small subset of liability insurance companies they can choose from as well. One of the major plans for “health care reform” is to simply have the government serve as the HMO instead of private companies. It is unfathomable to believe that taking away the trivial amount of choice in the health care system that is left will result in a better system that is more responsive to patients.

The solution to the health care system is to let those who are part of the transaction, doctors and patients, have the freedom and latitude to decide their own plan of care. Removing the patient from the decision-making loop has only created a health care system that thinks of the patient last. Let’s give the free-market and freedom of choice a chance.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

Let’s assume for the moment that all of Al Gore’s claims on climate change are true. The idea that he gets the peace prize for such claims is what should merit discussion. The president of Czechoslovakia , Vaclav Klaus, also questioned the award for such a reason. To be fair, President Klaus is a climate change skeptic, but his point remains. Isn’t the Nobel Peace Prize about peace?

In 2006, the peace prize was given to Muhammed Yunus and Grameen Bank for economic and social development of poor countries. In 2005, it was to the International Atomic Energy Agency for nuclear non-proliferation work. In fact, in reviewing the entire balance of past award winners, the prize was given to those working to end conflicts, promote human rights, promote economic development in poor countries, or weapons non-proliferation. 2007 marks the first time the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for a reason wholly unconnected to stopping war. Claims that climate change will cause violent conflicts are absurd on their face. People are entitled to think that man-made climate change is important, but that doesn’t make it a peace issue.

In recent years the peace prize has strayed somewhat from its intended purpose to the point that it is mere comedy today. No serious commentator is truly surprised that Al Gore won the award, it was clear six months ago. It is no surprise that recent award winners were mere charlatans who took the award from true peacemakers. Yasser Arafat, Nelson Mandela, and Henry Kissinger wouldn’t be three people on the top of any list of people promoting world peace and there were far more worthy people who could have gotten those awards.

The IAEA and the UN have noble purposes but generally are resounding failures. Their awards were given more as a “stick-it-to-ya” directed at the United States, not because they actually accomplished the mission of peace. However, the wholesale abandonment of peacemaking as the criteria for which the Nobel Peace Prize is offered indicates how far the Nobel committee has fallen from its original purpose. Alfred Nobel was a pacifist, not a politician. He intended to award others who promoted peace, not those who promoted the fad policy of the day.

No one can dispute Martin Luther King Jr.’s contribution to peace, or the contributions of the Red Cross, Doctors without Frontiers, or the Dalai Lama. Even if you accept man-made climate change as 100% true as presented by Al Gore, you must admit that the issue isn’t about world peace. It is a true shame that the committee has so tarnished the Nobel Peace Prize that it has totally abandoned the vision of its founder.

It also hides the great work done by many groups out there who are promoting human rights, freedom, economic development, and world peace. Those people certainly don’t get into that field because they want the glory, but it's a shame that this Nobel Prize takes away one avenue that the public has to see their important work.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The purpose of a university is the free exchange of ideas. Conservatives, rightly, complain that conservative ideas and ideals are stricken from the marketplace of ideas. This undermines the function of the university, leads to de facto indoctrination, and even causes the atrophy of "liberal" thought because it never has to defend itself. In such a system of censorship, everyone loses.

Here, the tables are turned. The president of Iran, a country we are likely to start bombing in the near future, was given a podium and a microphone on an American college campus. He had to face audience questions (and dodges them like the best of our own politicians). No one confused Ahmadinejad's speech with a political rally.

Now you have "conservatives" who once complained about censorship  seeking to employ their own. It's one thing to disagree with having the speaker; it's another to make the extraordinary and unprecedented threat to strip a university of all federal funding and federal grants. No one has a problem with protests. However, we don't need some politician deciding what does or does not get to be said on a college campus. Hunter, by injecting himself into the debate this way, shows that he has more contempt for the United States, its Constitution and its people than Ahmadinejad.

A college campus exists so that all sides of an issue can be aired and debated. This is not fostered by limiting the information flow on a conflict with Iran to only information released by the White House Press Office. Ahmadinejad is a world leader, a key figure in current events, and he's the exact right person that should be giving a talk or two on a college campus. Students and academics should get the information first-hand, not sifted through the lens of the media.

Academic freedom and free speech in general, have plenty of means at their disposal to deal with unpopular or just flat out wrong ideas. Going hog-wild and shutting down talks because someone denies the Holocaust is what the Europeans do.  It is alien to the ideals this country was founded on. Allowing people to speak freely exposes error far quicker than any government censor would.

In fact, the reasoned people who respect America's founding principles and emphatically reject Ahmadinejad's policy and rhetoric felt no need to start bringing down the hammer on anyone giving him a microphone. This quote from Mike Baker sums it up:

If you’ve heard him talk in the past, you could be pretty confident he was going to maintain his seat on the crazy train. In reality, our best defense against Ahmadinejad is to make sure he always has a microphone in front of him and the cameras are rolling. You would have to be psychotic, heavily medicated or enormously naïve to walk away from that speech thinking "… huh, seems like a reasonable and clever fellow.”

In fact, if he had been allowed to go to Ground Zero and display his antics there, there would be no debate about going to Iran and we'd already be halfway to Tehran by now.

The reality is, no one had to go to this talk. His ideas were forced on no one. People went because they wanted to go and it does not follow that they agree with what he said (I've been to many talks in which I disagreed with the speaker). It's one thing to disagree with those ideas, it's another to stomp your feet and demand censorship. The "conservatives" demanding sanctions on Columbia should spend their time learning the founding principles of this nation they claim they want to conserve.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The partisans on both sides will likely use this poll to show how the other party is ruining America. That's what they do and most people have adopted this approach. It doesn't matter who has the most coherent policy, it just matters how you can spin things to show the other party as a moral evil. This line of thinking misses the point.

The poll shows that the average American and the average politician are simply disconnected. The concerns of the average American aren't represented inside the Beltway and it shows that what's huge news on the cable news channels and in the latest partisan shouting matches isn't what matters most to Americans. And America is fed up.

It's not about a single issue, it's about the sum total of all the issues that America cares about that go ignored or are actively worked against by our politicians. Our candidates are pre-selected by party insiders where people who aren't "team players" (i.e. party hacks) are actively discouraged from running. Sure, they'll take your money but they want yes men in office.

We have representatives from every corner of this country in D.C. Yet all issues are effectively nationalized. How does a representative vote on a particular bill? With his caucus, not with the intentions of his constituents. There are rare exceptions, some of those are honest principled men, many are just media whores who like the press image of being a "maverick". And America is fed up.

This poll shows a population that is conditioned to think that the government will fix the big problems. The sub-prime mortgage fallout (which hasn't begun fully to set in) is a great example. Sure, we had banks with overly liberal lending habits that gave money away to people not likely to repay it. They should know better considering most every economic crisis in history was started by bad lending practices. However, the people taking out those loans aren't even on the radar. People don't think that the average citizen should be responsible for making bad economic decisions, it's the government's job to bail them out. Yet, the government consistently fails at doing so.

Katrina is another great example. Governmental failures abounded at every layer of government. The mayor did not use all the assets he had to protect his people. Over two-thirds of the police department walked off the job (and got free vacations to Vegas). Gov. Blanco and the Louisiana state government were more interested in embezzling disaster money than buying the equipment they needed. When it all came to a head because the governor and mayor did everything wrong, FEMA wasn't up to the task to clean up after them. The government told the people they would protect them, but it was the people who took care of themselves who came out of Katrina unscathed.

In every direction one looks, one can find a promise of government to help and that promise being broken. Corruption is rampant in both parties and the talking points that one party is more corrupt than another are simply absurd. Looking at the field of 2008 presidential contenders, it looks like it'll be more of the same. How much lower do approval ratings need to fall until Americans insist that things change?

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

In the information age, or more appropriately the disinformation age, pundits on both sides will spin Greenspan's remarks and globalize them into what they aren't. Greenspan remains, legitimately so, a libertarian Republican. This is not an endorsement of Hillary-care which will likely be re-introduced if she gets elected. However, the fact remains that at least "tax and spend" liberalism is mathematically coherent compared to "tax-cut and spend" Republicanism. Call it what you want, but it's not a conservative policy and that is why the conservatives have not bailed out the Republicans in 2006 and aren't contributing at high levels in 2008. The Republicans had a golden opportunity to cut the massive waste and pork from the federal government's budget and showed themselves all too ready to increase it at far greater levels than any Democratic administration.

Greenspan's book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, spells out some of his criticism and praise of US economic policies of his time at the helm of the Fed. The timing of the book could produce real intelligent discussion on economic policies, but sadly it will not. We don't debate ideas, we duel with soundbites.

The fact remains, deficits do matter. The technical term for a family that routinely deficit spends is "bankrupt". The sub-prime mortgage fallout is just another case of what happens when families do this in bulk. Our deficit spending has driven the dollar to record lows against the Euro. Other nations and central banks are concerned about our spending habits and are acting accordingly.

When a few Chinese ministers threatened to sell their US dollars because of policies toward the Yuan, the threat was real. To be fair, this was probably two ministers trying to make inroads into the Communist Party of China, but we should all stand up and take note that our policies have introduced a significant risk of foreign manipulation to our economy. Someone has to make up the difference between our spending and our tax revenue. In this case it was foreign countries like China who may not have our best interests in mind when they make their financial decisions.

President Bush rarely used his veto pen until the Democrats took over Congress. The result was an out-of-control appropriations process where almost every significant bill was laden with pork spending such as the "bridge to nowhere". Pundits can point to Rep. Jefferson (D-LA) who took a $100,000 payoff all they want, but conservatives expect better from their people and don't want politicians who are just as corrupt as Democrats. Illinois Republicans learned that lesson with George Ryan and the result was that the Illinois Republican party is defunct and no longer capable of winning statewide office. The national Republican Party should look at how rampant corruption and waste worked out for the Illinois Republican party… that's their future unless they get it together.

That said, Greenspan is, as are most conservatives, for "tax-cut and spending-cut" and corruption-free policies. Judging from the field of 2008 Republican nominees, it is doubtful that any of them are up to the task of pruning the budget to end the deficit or cleaning up the corruption in Congress. This is why Newt Gingrich is also right that there is an 80-20 chance that there will be a Democratic (probably Hillary Clinton) president in 2008.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The FEC, in their ruling said “First, the complaint does not allege, nor does publicly available information indicate, that Kos Media is owned or controlled by a political party, committee, or candidate.” (Page 5, lines 17-18). They state this because if there was such an allegation or if Kos Media was a political committee, the media exemption doesn’t apply. The problem is the entire complaint’s sole focus is the fact that Kos Media is a political committee. That was exactly what I alleged. They simply ignored that, pretended I was alleging something else, and dismissed the complaint. This means with about a two-page long pleading and a $350 filing fee, this decision could be overturned trivially on appeal.

The more important issue, however, is the idea that FEC regulation is censorship. This is indefensibly false and every single blogger who claimed that it was goes to show that most bloggers aren’t about facts; they are about hysteria and fear-mongering. It simply is not reasoned commentary but rants coming straight from the black helicopter crowd. To prove this answer the following questions:

Are the RNC and DNC political committees?Do they have hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of members?

Are they regulated by the FEC?

How, in the decades of such regulation, have those hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people been silenced?

The fact is, they haven’t. Disclosure is not censorship by a long shot. We could argue about McCain-Feingold, but even if this complaint succeeds that law doesn’t apply in this case anyway. FEC regulation has not shut down the RNC and DNC, I certainly get enough of their mailings. People still talk about politics even though they are members of a party. Western civilization as we know it has not collapsed. For an organization like Kos Media to whine on one hand about censorship, but on the other call for actual censorship in saying FOX News doesn’t have a right to be on the air is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Apparently they believe the government shouldn’t control who has the right to be on the air… they believe they should have that editorial control.

In between posting agitprop worthy of a Michael Moore movie and posting the victimologies about how a well-funded, well-connected multi-million dollar corporation is oppressed because a private citizen legally petitioned his government, there are some other interesting facts. Namely, Kos’ attorney keeps issuing sometimes overt, sometimes vague threats. If they’re so right, why do they need to keep threatening to file SLAPP suits when they know full well there is absolutely no cause of action. It’s likely because they have something to hide.

At the end of the day, the issue is still not about regulation of blogs. It’s about regulation of political committees who organize online. If Kos Media wants to be in the business of electing Democrats, that’s fine. They just have to register like every other political committee doing the same thing.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

Add into this debate on divorce law the current debate on gay marriage. With easy divorce, marriage has been demoted to the status of a contract. If it's just a meaningless contract, why can't any combination of participants enter into it? A good question that cannot be easily answered when framed that way.

First off, marriage in this society (independent of its religious roots) is not even a contract. Contracts are designed to be enforceable in the event of a breach. Divorce rewards the breaching party most of the time. None of the terms of marriage are enforceable in any real way. There are no options for a spouse to rein in an adulterous partner and the few laws still on the books against adultery are waiting to be declared unconstitutional.

Further, easy divorce ends up putting the entire lives of the parties into the public record and under the control of a judge. One can walk to any courthouse in this country and start reading detailed accounts of broken marriages. Judges have tremendous power to allocate assets, assign living arrangements, and exercise large amounts of control over the parties. This should greatly worry any libertarian.

One wonders why gay people want a piece of that action. Straight couples are putting off marriage because many wonder if it's really worth all the risk. Gay couples certainly aren't immune from divorce either. Marriage is a loaded term devoid of any meaning behind it. It appears that gay marriage is an attempt at social acceptance, not any desire for benefits. Any real look at marriage shows that on the balance, marriage confers a net liability, not a net benefit.

Before discussing who can participate in marriage, the discussion that we should be having is what the institution of marriage should mean. Right now, the institution currently in place in the United States (again separated from its religious roots) is bordering on meaningless. There is certainly no shortage of people who think so considering every time a government program comes down to support marriage, the usual suspects try to stop it.

The fact is, any serious look at the history of the institution of marriage will show that it is a religious institution. Governmental recognition was not only a later development for marriage, but it also is a secondary aspect. The argument that marriage is a legal institution, a mere creation of government, is a profound mutilation of marriage. One would think that the myriad of governmental forms throughout history would have produced a myriad of forms of marriage, but it has not.

If there is going to be public recognition and support of marriage, there needs to be a corresponding public good and duty. Government shouldn't give out money simply because someone wants a paycheck. What public good is fostered by the recognition of gay marriage? The same could be asked of marriage in the way it is practiced here also. The fact is, until the promises made and the obligations uttered on the wedding day are actually binding in any real way, it's hard to find much of a public good.

Instead of arguing the particulars of marriage and haggling over the petty details, it's time the question of marriage in its fundamentals enters the public discourse. What should marriage mean? Should its obligations be actually binding? What public good is to be fostered? These are the questions that really matter.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The underlying notion is that somehow conservative talk show hosts and conservative radio owners have colluded to produce an effective monopoly on talk radio. Instead of bringing anti-trust charges, they’ve decided to try to regulate it. They conveniently forget the frequent attempts (and failures) of left-wing radio to get and stay on the air. The fact that there have been so many left-wing radio shows that make it on the air (but eventually fail) shows that market entrance is not difficult.

There is a latent idea that the public is unable to come to the “correct” conclusions on policy because talk radio is indoctrinating them. This vicious, un-American and treasonous idea is unworthy of political debate in this country. People can be trusted to make up their own minds and much research indicates that people listen to conservative talk radio not to make up their minds, but because their minds are already made up. If people can’t be trusted to make their own minds up, then we ought to be having a discussion on repealing the right to vote, not about media ownership.

One thing to notice is that the market of news and opinion is not synonymous with AM radio. There is the internet, television, movies, podcasting, print, books and lectures. While conservatives do apparently dominate talk radio, liberals dominate television, movies and certainly academic lectures. If one doesn’t want to listen to AM radio, they can turn on the TV, surf the internet, or listen to a podcast. There is nothing even approaching a limitation of the flow of information.

Yet, the fairness doctrine is only to apply to talk radio which is obviously an ideological-based attack on certain speech. It is no mistake that Democrats are the voices supporting this (though to be fair certain Republicans are warm to the idea because politicians always like silencing criticism). The resistance to “immigration reform” (which is essentially legalizing at least 12 million illegal immigrants and then not addressing the problems that caused the issue in the first place) was based on talk radio and the cognizanti don’t want the influence getting in their way.

As a compromise measure, if we are going to enact a “fairness doctrine” for the radio waves, we should do so also for television. Let’s have fairness on NBC, ABC and CBS which are also transmitted over the air. Let’s have fairness on the movies shown on those channels so that they fairly represent all viewpoints instead of the latent left-wing propaganda that animates Hollywood. Let’s have fairness in the various sitcoms that all portray fast and loose morals. We could have real family-friendly entertainment again.

We could also apply the fairness doctrine to the Internet to balance left-wing biases outlets such as Wikipedia and the Daily Kos. Let’s apply the fairness doctrine to colleges and the classroom where indoctrination is most prevalent (and most left-wing). The possibilities are endless and the lawyers could be well-employed. Let’s empower the Family Research Council to litigate fairness on all our media outlets.

The “fairness doctrine” is a relic of the past for a reason which will accomplish little more than stifling speech and more accurately stifle only certain ideological forms of speech. In their benevolence, Democrats will allow conservatives to have “free speech” as long as they are not allowed audiences. Unfortunately for them, “free speech” doesn’t work that way. The free market of ideas doesn’t need to be socialized by those who would pre-ordain the ideas that we are to hold.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) and other women advocacy groups have filed suit against the Bush Administration seeking to abolish Fathers Day. During a press conference held after the filing of the lawsuit, Kim Gandy of NOW said, "the day clearly indicates that it is meant to recognize only fathers."

The American Civil Liberties Union, filing on behalf of the organizations said the day runs afoul of equal protection and Title IX provisions and should be abolished because it is discriminatory against women. "It is time to move beyond the pattern male discrimination against women so prevalent in the home and the workplace," according to a press release.

It wasn't solely the discriminatory aspects of Fathers Day that had the groups aroused, but the fact that Fathers are chiefly responsible for domestic violence, childhood sexual abuse, and are often negligent of their children. Many fail to make their child support payments in a timely fashion, if they make them at all. This has many women's groups wondering what is commendable about fathers that should give them a day to celebrate them. Prof. Hrdy in a recent TIME Magazine article showed that at best fathers only spend about 30 minutes a day with their children.

The Chicago Federation of Women is running a campaign, "What Will It Take", to recruit men to admit their fault in domestic abuse and accept a pattern of reparations. Gandy again cited the culture of support for domestic violence among men that has outlets across talk radio, such as Rush Limbaugh, who encourages violence against women.

Andrea Dworkin, in speaking on the lawsuit, said "Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice," and that there is nothing to celebrate simply because a rape resulted in childbirth. Dworkin said, if anything, people should be mourning the great harm done to women at the hands of men on Fathers Day.

Other women's groups focused less on the history of violence of men and their failure to parent their children but instead focused on women's rights. "It's her body and her choice, the right of women to choose motherhood is solely and exclusively hers. After donating his genetic material, the only contribution necessary from men is to mail their child support payments on time," according to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards.

The lawsuit was met with outcries from men's rights groups and family organizations who attempted to file an amicus brief with the court which was rejected almost immediately. The opinion of the court was that such groups were not entitled to voice their views because they violated the separation of church and state "which is the source of the patriarchal attitudes which they seek to defend."

The Bush Administration was unavailable for comment.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.

There is on thing that immediately comes to mind about the Denver plan. To identify which 500,000 cars will be taken off the road, line up every resident with a car and have them organized from poorest to richest. Then count off the first 500,000 starting from the poor end.  Those are the people who won't have cars anymore. It's just that simple.

These attempts to curb global warming by "modifying behavior" are all designed to simply increase the cost of normal human activity. The result is that the people who are priced out of the game are the poor. An example is in order.

Take Al "the Goracle" Gore. With his mantourage and jetsetter lifestyle he uses carbon emissions comparable to many thousands of people. He has mcmansions here and there and despite being a prophet of global doom, he hasn't personally curbed his lifestyle one iota. The sacrifice to save the planet is never meant to restrict the elite's lifestyle; it’s the poor and middle class that need to sacrifice for the "greater good".

With the supposed concern from the Left about the gap between the rich and the poor, it is ironic at best that they support policies that have no other effect than to push the middle class into the poor and to push the poor down further. In its most radical forms, environmentalists believe the Earth is over populated and that the population should be reduced to about 2 billion. You can bet real money that it won't be them that numbers in the 4 billion or so that are unworthy of life. China's forced-abortion policy solicits nary a peep from "human rights activists". The Serra Club supports abortion for a reason.

Carbon offset programs have been exposed as a fraud and it has just been discovered that hybrid vehicles cause much more environmental damage to produce than a hummer. In the rush to "do something", or at least appear to be doing something, no one every actually examined to see if they were doing something that would have an effect. This mindlessness pervades the entire gamut of environmental thought.

These elites, despite not usually having any real contact with the middle class or the poor, deign to know what is best for us and are more than willing to use government to enforce their values on us from on high. These Henryites demonstrate this arrogant paternalism in their support for bans on smoking (not just in public, but even in private homes), trans-fat bans and their incessant parade of lifestyle legislation designed solely to indicate that the right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness applies only to those who have won life's lottery. Call it the secular humanism version of the Prosperity Gospel.

With all the Hollywood and political elites that support environmentalism, you'd think they'd restrict their lifestyle that uses many more resources then dozens if not hundreds of middle-class or poor families. When they close down their large estates and live solely in one 3,000 square foot home (generous for almost any family I know), then they might have some basis with which to tell the rest of us what we need to cut out of our lives.

Until the time comes that they will share in the sacrifices which they demand everyone else to make, no serious consideration can be given to their interpretation of what the common good is.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.

The law, as passed by Congress, required that complaints be filed with 180 days of the discriminatory act regardless of when it is discovered. Common sense dictates, certainly in the case of wages (which are often held in confidence), that sometimes it takes more than 180 days to discover an act of discrimination. The law as passed by Congress certainly has its flaws. Even the Bush Administration (which argued in favor of the woman's position) sees the flaws and argued against them.

That said, the argument of the lawyers and the woman's groups was that what the letter of the law says does not matter. If the law is deficient, the Court should simply ignore the law and impose a fair solution. It doesn't matter what the law is; what matters is what the law should be. A fair question would be why such groups believe a Congress or legislature is even necessary or desired.

There are several dangers with this position. First, it attempts to insulate and elevate the judiciary above and beyond the reach of the principle of checks and balances. This was most clearly seen in the case of Terri Schiavo, regardless of where you stood in the case. The legislature and executive at both the state and federal level attempted to check the judiciary in that case, and the judiciary told them to go to hell.

People complained about violating checks and balances, yet two branches tried to stop an action of the judiciary. It betrays the idea that checks and balances only apply to the executive and legislature, yet the judiciary is somehow immune. They also complained of interference in a "private matter", yet the matter was already fully vested in the government before any law was passed… the judiciary is government and a public body.

The legislature writes laws based (in theory) on the lobbying and influence of the people. There are few cases, namely those strictly involving the Constitution, where those laws should be overturned. However, imprudent or even stupid laws aren't unconstitutional. It's up to the people to get their elected officials to change the laws. Bambenek's Third Law might perhaps elucidate a principle here:

Those who complain loudest about a tyranny of the majority most often wish to impose a tyranny of the minority in its place.

This should not be read to defend an imperfect law with regards to discrimination; however, the law as written must be the basis for the law as interpreted. In court, only two sides are presented, the defense and the plaintiff, and one side must win. In the legislature, at least, all sides can get a say and there is a general possibility of compromise. Sure, there are lobbyists and there are abuses, but lobbyists of every stripe and ideology get to have a say.

No one is particularly fond of lobbyists and the abuses that tend to accompany them. The fact that "public interest" law firms have emerged which solely exist to effectively "lobby" the courts to create or define laws should give everyone pause. Lawyers have an exclusive profession and they have a particular worldview. Anyone can call a legislator and give them your opinion. Only lawyers can give judges their opinion, and those people, lawyer jokes aside, are not representative of the entirety of society.

That lawyers are running to court to get laws written and that the court has gotten in the business of writing laws, cuts an overwhelming majority of people out of the picture. The important thing to realize is that, regardless of your political affiliation,  this sword cuts both ways. Typically, judicial activism is a left-wing activity. However, if right-wing activists make the bench, left-wing people will find that they'll be on the losing end of court decisions, and there is no one they could lobby, no one they can pressure, and no one they can convince to get their ideas even considered. This is not the way to run a society.

Judges, especially on the federal level, are unaccountable and hold office for decades. It is telling that for a judge to make the Supreme Court his best strategy is to remain essentially silent on every conceivable issue in order to survive the confirmation process. Democracy is not helped by only considering stealth candidates for the bench. The public right to know is compromised when there is nothing to know.

These public interest law firms and groups need to realize that it is in their own interest and the interest of society at large for the courts to apply the law as written.  The practice of judges making up laws as they go and applying the law as they think it ought to be is fraught with peril and destined for rampant corruption. Sooner or later, a price will be paid for such disregard for judicial integrity.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. By trade, he is an information security professional, part of the Internet Storm Center and a courseware author and certification grader for the GIAC family of security certifications. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.

The creation of such an agency is a dangerous political trend. We'll call the political thought behind such actions part of the "Coalition to Protect People from Themselves." People get obese purely through actions (or inaction) of their own. As a society, we eat more and move less than any other nation in the world (though obesity is a growing problem world-wide).

The smoking ban movement, largely successful, has brought into the public consciousness a perception that health decisions are supposed to be part of public policy. In that realm, they could at least pretend to hide behind the effects of second-hand smoke, though anyone who watched close enough knew it was really about sticking to smokers, not about second-hand smoke.

Moves against trans fat, such as what has happened in New York City, and attempts to ban foie gras in Chicago have no such communal health risks. If one person plumps up on trans fat, it means jack to everyone around them. The only one arguably at risk would be the person who ended up underneath these trans fat consumers. These laws are directed purely at citizens who the government believes are not making the best choices and need to be instructed on proper living habits with the force of law.

This near-daily encroachment by the elites in telling us plebes how to live is as meddlesome as it is dangerous. The idea that somehow bureaucratic busy-bodies are better equipped to judge and prescribe our dietary intake is absurd. The key to healthy living is to get the people involved motivated to do it. You can't control peoples' food intake unless you toss them into prison; personal responsibility is key.

More information, sure. Some ads on TV, fine. Trying to do it for people by creating yet more useless state agencies on an already strained budget isn't going to motivate people. Bureaucracies breed dependency, not responsibility. That being said, here's some food for thought.

For now, obesity, smoking, and other "bad health" behaviors are no one's business but the individual involved. There is no societal harm. With the universal health care being pushed by those of the same ideology as the "Coalition to Protect People from Themselves," that dynamic changes greatly. Any personal activity that may theoretically increase the cost of health care no longer is a private matter under a universal health care system. If you get fat and need 12 bypass surgeries, it is society that foots the bill.

One only needs to look to Europe to see how they are handling the problem, since it is their health care system (the one they are moving away from) that the Coalition seeks to emulate. The Health Secretary in the UK has said that the overweight and smokers should be denied health care until they quit smoking or lose weight. That's right, the government says you can't have that "single payer" health care (which should be more appropriately called taxpayer-funded health care) they promised unless you dance to their tune. It's called the Golden Rule. You take the King's gold, you play by the King's rules.

In a universal health care system, the government and society at large have a vested interest in how you live your life – what you eat, how much you workout, your drinking and smoking habits, and so on. You're spending their money, after all.

Government, on one hand, can't be trusted to wiretrap terrorist conversations, but on the other, not only can they be trusted with all of your medical records, but also with authority to make medical decisions regarding your care – indicating how little people have thought through "single payer" health care.

The New Jersey Agency for Fat People is yet another encroachment on the freedom to live out lives undisturbed by silly intrusions by governmental busy-bodies. A free country is no longer free when it has to get Uncle Sam's approval for the family dinner.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.

The ACLU, predictably, said it indicates the struggle between protecting targeted groups and free speech, which apparently means hate speech directed at whites, Christians, or men is a-ok in the ACLU's book.

However, while the media focuses on the hate crime debate, an obvious injustice is missed that is far more concerning. One of the girls at her arraignment was denied bail for her actions, and the other was effectively placed on house arrest. It should be noted that they have not yet been tried, only charged. If the McHenry juvenile detention facility is anything like most county jails in the state, the girl will be allowed two 20 minute visits a week through a plexi-glass window with her friends and family.

In almost every single criminal case, bail is set to something. Most murders get bail. There are only two situations were bail is inappropriate: where the accused is a flight risk in a serious case and where the accused would pose eminent danger to society if released. As an illustration, in Champaign County a man was arrested for brutally raping his girlfriend with a weapon and threatening to kill her. His bail was set at $250,000.

In a Sangamon County case in Illinois, a murder suspect, Mark Winger, was given $1,000,000 bail, and, while he was out, he tried to have a key witness murdered. Muaz Haffar in Chicago was arrested for allegedly beating a victim to death with a bike lock and promptly fled to Syria while on bail.

The cases go on and on. However, in this case a 16-year old girl, who certainly is no innocent victim, has been denied bail because she's had run ins with the police before. Those include curfew violations, having cigarettes, having booze, and once for possession of marijuana. In short, she is a mischievous teenager no different than most other mischievous teenagers. If this girl brutally raped her neighbor and then killed him, she would have bail right now as long as she didn't say the word "fag" while doing it.

The judge, in commenting on denying bail, said that the girl's home situation was unacceptable. It's unclear how a judge can legally take a child out of their home simply because the child shows up in the courtroom for an obnoxious high school prank. We have the Department of Children and Family Services for that. In fact, the judge likely only spent a few moments looking at court documents (that had no home investigation) in making his sweeping judgment about the fitness of the parents. At least DCFS would conduct an investigation before taking custody of kids.

The situation of the other girl, getting house arrest, is also problematic because no adult criminal would be placed under house arrest simply by the virtue of being arrested… even in cases where such a sanction would be warranted. This is made laughable absurd by the fact that the maximum sentence the girls could get is 30 days in juvenile detention. The girl sitting in detention without bail will spend likely an order of magnitude more than that waiting for trial.

What these girls did was obnoxious, but it is certainly no catastrophic threat to society to have them out of jail. It is unclear whether the judge is using the hate crimes law or something else to enforce these ridiculous bail decisions. It is obvious to every child who is watching that society will treat them like thugs to be looked up than actual human beings. They are guilty until proven innocent. And we wonder why society is raising such dysfunctional adults.

John Bambenek is the Assistant Politics Editor for BC Magazine and is an academic professional for the University of Illinois. He is a syndicated columnist who blogs at Part-Time Pundit and the executive director of The Tumaini Foundation which helps AIDS orphans and other children in Tanzania to get an education. He is the current owner of BlogSoldiers, a blog-only traffic exchange.