A new controversy has arisen in America. The government has introduced and is in fact executing what is called “Enhancing airport screening procedures and techniques”. The TSA, the Transportation & Safety Administration, a part of the Homeland Security Department is determined to keep America safe by checking the underwear of among others small children, grandmothers and individuals with health conditions that embarrass them. The only person who has publicly declared that she likes it is attorney Gloria Allred. Enough said!

This is a reaction to an incident that happened nearly a year ago when a terrorist from Yemen traveled on a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.  This Islamist terrorist from Nigeria by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had explosives hidden in his underwear and had planned to ignite them as the plane was flying over parts of Detroit on the landing approach to the airport. His failure to do so can only be attributed to either his stupidity or a malfunction of the explosives in his underpants. A disaster was averted with nobody having anything to do with it. There were no last-second heroes as was the case when so called ‘shoe bomber’ Richard Reid was overwhelmed by fellow passengers and flight attendants in December 2001 and prevented to set off a bomb in his shoes during a flight from London to the States. The one thing the two incidents had in common was the fact that the terrorists boarded the planes in Europe, they were not on domestic flights within America. We do not know what our Homeland Security Department recommended to the two foreign airport administrations in Amsterdam and London, whether or not they suggested  more diligent airport screening procedures over there; all we know is that they worked feverishly to develop enhanced screening procedures in this country.

We are being told by the government that it is necessary to implement this to keep us safe in America! Until this month, the previous screening procedures did the same thing and not one incident occurred whereby a terrorist was able to get on a domestic flight and blow it up between take-off and landing. Even though our government virtually invited them to try when we declared that so called ‘profiling’ air travelers was not allowed. In other words, an Islamist terrorist could not be pulled out of the line to get a little extra checking, oh no, that was political incorrect and therefore verboten! This procedure is still off limits as far as TSA is concerned.

It is very hard not to become cynical with all this. TSA is not looking for suspects of terrorism, they are just checking every tenth or so person in addition to going through the regular screens. They are being asked to step aside and will be given an additional ‘Full body scan’. If that is objectionable to the passenger, he or she will be frisked by a specially trained TSA employee who can touch that person’s body everywhere. The good news is that the person giving this examination to a passenger will be of the same sex. Men to men, women to women .

It is utterly disgusting to seeing this new procedure being implemented as necessary while the people who want to harm us, the Islamist terrorist, are laughing their heads off in foreign lands all around the globe. They have won! It is that simple! And what have we got, we have lost another part of our constitutionally guaranteed rights to privacy. You want to fly in America, get ready for a very personal and ‘touchy’ experience with a total stranger. And do not be embarrassed, our government says it is necessary to keep us safe!

It is mind boggling to think that after many, many years, the existence of congressional earmarks is in the middle of a new definition process. For as long as we can look back, almost all members of Congress – Senate and House of Representative – have participated in ‘earmarking’ monies in the Federal budgets for special projects in their home districts and states. It was commonly known as “bringing home the bacon”. In and of itself, a folksy expression for making sure that Federal money would flow back into the districts for projects or services the electorate had been promised by their respective Representative. And because they brought home the ‘bacon’, it became  also known by another name as it was called “pork barrel spending”.

So far so good.  Over time, ‘Earmarking’ became a dirty for budget hawks and people in general who felt that the government spent too much money and grew too large. As a result of that, some members of Congress distanced themselves from earmarking and proudly proclaimed that they would not participate in such extra budget spending. Some members even railed against this sort of spending and called for it to stop. The American public in general agreed with that position and expressed their unhappiness over that ‘wasteful’ spending by Congress. Every budget was  over time accompanied with the amounts of earmark spending and its reputation got worse. With the current deficit spending by Congress (with nearly 1.5 trillion dollar deficits every year), this past election saw ‘earmarking’ as a heavy contributor of such deficits and many candidates promised their constituencies that they would not participate in ‘earmarking, period!

With the mid-term election behind us and with many ‘earmark’ opponents winning their respective races, the debate over this budget process has been transferred to Washington D.C. and with that we find out who is for and who is against the continuation of the use of earmarking. And with that comes a new insight into this process. We could be wrong but we believe it was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who two weeks ago stated that earmarking did not add to the annual budgets. He continued that it was simply a matter of specifying certain budget items in specific districts or states; that is was Congress allocating monies for projects instead of letting these monies be doled out by governmental bureaucrats. To make this clearer: Instead of letting the Federal government agencies allocate the funds for what they seemed to be proper and more urgent, a Congressman (for his or her district) or Senator (for his or her state) would determine the allocation of certain funds for specific projects or programs. But it would not constitute extra money to be spend by the Federal government.

Common Sense University has to confess: This is a new one for us! And we now have to ask the question: Did the members of Congress know that? If the answer is YES, they should be recalled for false statements and lying to their constituents! If the answer is NO, they should be recalled for being too dumb to serve in Congress! And if the members of the media did know this, we simply should STOP reading their articles or STOP listening to their statements on television or radio, in other words no longer paying attention to the members of the press/media.

Of course, none of these recommendations of ours will come true but we can dream, can’t we? If nothing at all, we will be following developments on “earmarking” and its process. We also can discuss and talk about this congressional ’turkey’ with family and friends while we celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Happy Thanksgiving!

The mid-term elections are nearly two weeks old and Congress is re-convening for what is known as a lame-duck session. This is considered to be the final phase of what is known as the 111^th Congress. Normally, not much is accomplished by Congress, it is sort of a short couple of weeks before Christmas where some lose-ends are tied up or minor items are corrected or finished.

If there is one thing though this year, it is the issue as to what to do about taxes. The party in charge in Congress, the Democrats decided to kick ‘this can down the road’ and not deal with it before the election for whatever reason and it is now becoming critical.

But first, we must address the language as the terms are incorrect. The current tax rates for income earners have been in place for more than seven years but are falsely called the “Bush tax cuts” and that is wrong. But since Bush bashing by Democrats was in vogue during the past few years, why not tie this one to Bush as if there was something bad or evil about tax cuts. Between 2001 and 2003, Congress enacted tax rate legislation and President George W. Bush signed it into law. Of course, they were tax cuts from prior rates and took millions of previous taxpayers off the hook of paying income taxes among other things. Unfortunately, these new tax rates were not permanent but term-limited, meaning, they will all expire on December 31, 2010 and will increase to the tax rates before 2001/2003.

Therefore, we should not be talking about extending the “Bush tax cuts” but instead, we should be speaking of tax increases for everybody if nothing will be done about them by the end of the year. It was Democrats back then who pushed for this date because they know it is much harder to raise taxes and they generally speaking do not like low tax rates since they would like to spend more money instead of less. President Bush probably agreed to this ‘term-limitation’ of the new tax rates back then because he could figure out that they would at least not change but stay the same while he was in office.

This brings us to today and the possibility of raising taxes for everybody in America since the rates will all go up as of January 1, 2011. So, what to do now, should we extend the current rates or let them elapse resulting in increased taxes for all? The Republicans want to extend the rates for everybody while the Democrats – President Obama and most other Democrats in Congress – want to extend these tax rates only for the middle class. These are people by their definition who make less than $250,000/year. The Democrats want to raise taxes on the so called “rich people”, everybody who earns more than a quarter of a million dollars annually. This has been the debate up to date. The Democrats claim that “we cannot afford the extension of current rates for the rich people” . As if this was their money in the first place. Huge numbers have been flying around as to how much this is. Obama is repeatedly mentioning an amount of $700 billion over the next ten years. What he does not mention is that this is a drop in the bucket when one considers that the Federal budget during those ten years will be approximately forty to forty-five trillion dollars. The 700 billion bucks are at most only 1.75 percent of the overall. But, according to the Democrats: We cannot afford that!!

It will be interesting to see what the outcome of this will be. We here at Common Sense University know one thing: Raising taxes during a recession is bad news and does nothing to get us out of it. But then common sense is a commodity that rarely can be found among politicians and the people we elect to run the country.

The 2010 mid-term elections in the United States of America are history and to some extent they made history. While congressional losses in the first mid-term elections for the party holding the White House are the norm, this year stands out in that the Republicans gained well over sixty seats in the House of Representatives and are taking control of that chamber. In the Senate, the Republicans gained six seats and are still in a minority, however by only a few seats. The gubernatorial elections and state houses saw also tremendous gains for the Republican Party. And yet, some States remain unchanged. A glaring example being California where they elected a very liberal Senator, Barbara Boxer for the fourth time and re-elected Jerry Brown as governor, his third term in that office. California is surely no longer the Golden State but has become the Granola State because it is filled with flakes, fruits and nuts. And they seem to be in a majority.

While the experts and pundits on all sides keep talking about what these election results mean or reflect, the only thing that matters is the shift in the power structure in one branch of government, namely Congress. The Republicans ran against the excessive government spending, the fast increasing debt of the country, the poor economic condition with nearly ten percent unemployment and the overreach by the Democrats by passing massive health care reform. They also benefited with the event of the Tea party movement across this land that helped greatly getting some truly conservative members elected.

The main question today is: What will the Republicans do to change these conditions for the better and also achieving their campaign promises? At the moment we are still in a so called lame-duck period until early January of next year (when the new Congress is sworn in) and there is urgent work to be done before this year ends. The number One issue is what to do about the year-end expiring tax rates for all Americans. While the President and the Democrats are favoring an extension on all rates for income earners below $250,000/year, the Republicans want to extend all tax rates, even for the high-income earners (those ‘evil’ rich people). It will be interesting to see what comes of it, whether there will be a compromise or not. We have to remember that the Democrats still have vast majorities in both houses of Congress until early January and could pretty well do what they want without one single Republican vote.

The time until January 2011 will be spent by the House Republicans getting organized and ready for being in the majority. This will involve Committee assignments, especially chairmanship assignments as well as agreeing on the legislative agenda and setting priorities. We should remember that the current Democrat-controlled Congress did not pass one appropriations bill for the current 2010/2011 fiscal year. This job will most likely fall on the shoulders of the Republicans and it will be their first real test of budget restraint and fiscal responsibility. They had promised to roll back discretionary spending to levels of the 2008 budget and only time will tell how successful they will and can be in convincing the President to agree and sign such legislation.

If we here at Common Sense University may offer a suggestion to the Republicans, it is just one minor thing: Stop talking to the media, instead get your act together so that you can hit the ground running in two months when you take over the House of Representatives. Do not be fooled by the media, they are still overwhelmingly liberal and will never be your friends but instead will do anything to undermine, ridicule and criticize you with anything they can find to do so.

Tomorrow’s mid-term elections will be pivotal for America‘s present time and near-term future, if not for its long-term survival as the country that has existed on ideals, principles and values for over two hundred years. Yes, it’s just that simple!!

Why don’t we take a look at some relatively new realities in America: We borrow the following lines from an editorial in a Michigan newspaper:

If a white person dislikes a black person, it’s racism, if a black person dislikes a white person, it’s called his/her First Amendment right; in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is ok but you better not use the word God in the process; you can kill an unborn child but it’s wrong to execute a mass murderer; we can use a human fetus for medical research but it’s wrong to use an animal; we still have freedom of speech but only if we are being political correct; we are unable to control our border with Mexico but have no problem protecting the 38^th parallel in Korea; parenting is now replaced with Ritalin and video games; the land of opportunity is now the land of hand-outs; if you protest against President Obama’s policies, you are a terrorist, but if you burn the American flag it is your First Amendment right; we take money from those who work hard and give it to those who do not want to work; if we lie to Congress, it’s a felony and if Congress lies to us, it’s just politics.

While we as a majority do not like any of the above, we have to recognize it as reality and that is in our opinion here at Common Sense University while tomorrow’s elections are so pivotal.

And while we, of course, do not know the final results. We recognize the fact that three basic scenarios exist and could prevail:

1. The Democrats retain control of the House and the Senate in Washington D.C.,

2. The Republicans win the House by a small margin and the Senate will remain under                 Democrat‘s control,

3. The Republicans win the House by a significant margin and control the Senate.

The first choice is the worst thing that could happen to America in that the Democrats will see the election results as the validation of their tax and spend policies, the President will attempt to complete his agenda to turn America into a socialist country without restraint for at least two more years and it could mean the irreversible downfall of this land of ours. It would also indicate that the population is in a majority believers of takers and that they think government is the answer to all our problems. The progressive liberal agenda will be put into overdrive and ruin America.

Choice number Two is somewhat better than the first one but not by much. We will have gridlock in Washington meaning most decisions will be lousy compromises between the President and the Republicans, the road to socialism will still be traveled but not as fast as was the case during the past two years or would be the case if scenario One above would prevail.

Choice number Three is the only good choice for America for the time being in our opinion. While there will still be a left-leaning and somewhat radical President, the Republicans in Congress can not only totally stop his socialistic agenda but possibly even reverse it by introducing spending caps and fiscal restraint to slow down the reckless liberal agenda of Democrats. In fact, the Republicans could introduce measures and pass laws that will cut spending and even repeal some provisions of the healthcare reform bill. While it is certainty that President Obama will veto them, at least, the Republicans can claim that they have tried to change course for America and hope for a Republican President in the 2012 election.

But what it essentially comes down to is the fact that the country has seen what out of control spending and other liberal and radical policies by Democrat lawmakers including the President can do. The simplest answer to this disastrous problem is a return to conservative rule. While conservatism is recognized (branded) as being “right”, we firmly believe that it is right for America! On the other hand, two years of total liberal control in Washington D.C. has shown us what is wrong for America!

If we do not return to these basic values and principles as anchored in the Constitution of the United States as written by our Founding Fathers, the greatest country on planet Earth will go the way of previous empires in history. The time is now, tomorrow, to get on course to prevent the demise of America in our future, it is not too late but there is also no more time to waste.

America, get back to the values and basic principles that made you what you were and still are, let us be a country of Makers and not a land of Takers!