…….do something smart and by that we mean be innovative. Yes, try something new instead of falling into the trap of continuing to follow tradition and precedent and thereby risking to ever reaching their objective. What is the objective? When you hear them talk they want to rescue our great country from its fiscal collapse and demise as a world power. They want to save it for our children and grandchildren.

America is these days being driven towards a financial crisis of enormous magnitude due to the reckless spending of monies this country does not have. This can be primarily attributed to the actions by Democrats in general and President Barack Obama in particular. This man has set us on a course towards bankruptcy and eventual total chaos. His tired claims of having to spend that money because of the “mess he inherited” from his predecessor George W. Bush sound absolutely phony when you consider that the national debt during his just two years in office has increased by nearly four trillion dollars. The American people recognized this and gave him his report card at the November 2010 polls. The Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives and narrowed the divide between the party’s in the Senate.

But where to go from here and what are they supposed to do? It appears that the Republicans in the House are serious about keeping their campaign promises, they repealed the entire ObamaCare legislation and are now working on replacing it with a better one. They are also working on budgetary issues by attempting to reduce the spending limits to 2008 levels. Since the Senate is still controlled by Democrats and the White House has a Democrat in charge at least for the next two years, it will remain to be seen how much the Republicans will truly accomplish to change laws and policies. The President’s veto pen looms large since he intends to remain on a course of more and more spending even if he does not say so.

It is quite clear that the Republicans have to win a majority in the Senate in 2012 and take back the White House in order to achieve their goal to rescue America from the brink of disaster and financial ruin. With 23 Democrat Senators compared to 10 Republicans up for re-election in 2012, the task of winning the Senate majority does not appear too hard. After all, there are quite a few Democrats running in so called ‘red’ States and they could easily be defeated.

But what about the White House? To take it back from an incumbent is obviously much more difficult. We have witnessed in recent months that President Obama is capable of appearing to be willing to compromise and also delivered a message in a few speeches that he is a reasonable person and wants civility and comity in Washington D.C. But let us not be fooled, the man is a hardcore socialist who knows all the tricks in the book and has several means to pursue his goals and objectives through Executive Orders and his thirty-plus Czars he appointed in previous years.

And so, the task to take the Presidency from him is immense and requires an enormous effort by the Republicans. Before we summarize our suggestions for the GOP in Part 2 of this article, we want to list a few things they, the Republicans should definitely NOT do! They should recognize the absolute reality that the mainstream (liberal) media is not and will never be fair to them, therefore be careful in which format they allow the media types to speak to them. If anything specific in terms of policy or programs is suggested by potential White House aspirants, the media will do everything in their power to distort, ridicule such plans and statements. Control media by publishing in writing what it is you, the Presidential candidate, want to say.      To date, the media has openly mentioned names of nearly twenty men and women who could vie for the Republican nomination and they continue in their own speculations as to who might run and when the announcements will be made. It is easy to see that the liberals want to have at this time no frontrunners in the Republican primary season. They want to see televised candidate forums where the stage holds anywhere from a dozen to twenty Republican candidates who answer questions in thirty second sound bites. Don’t let it happen, refuse to participate when the television networks offer you a chance to be there. To be continued.

It is very difficult to maintain a certain amount of respect for our elected officials, in this case, some members of Congress. While watching Congress on CSPAN, one can easily get the impression that it is a strange mix between a funeral parlor and a circus based on what is happening down on the floor of the House or the Senate. Having said that, it appears that we can add another description or dimension to this. It is possible that America gets to witness something new during the President’s State of the Union address on January 25, 2011: Some Democrats have proposed that the members of Congress should try and sit mixed together, that is, Democrats and Republicans will sit right next to each other instead of being seated by party affiliation whereby all the Democrats sit together on one side of the House while the Republicans sit together at the other side.

You ask, where does this all come from? In the aftermath of the grizzly massacre in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8 of this year the liberals could not wait to blame the right-wing fanatics for this tragedy. These charges were led by Pima County Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik who had very little of substance to say about the crime during his early news conferences but he claimed he knew the cause of the shooting: He blamed the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, right-wing talk radio (we guess Russ Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others) and their combined ‘vitriol’ for the violence. The liberal main stream media picked up on this right away and so the blame game started. When it was learned that the killer, Jason Loughner did not listen to radio or even watch politics on television but that he instead was nothing more than a raving lunatic with crazy ideas who simply wanted to kill a Congresswoman and others around her, the media had to retract and change focus. They now blamed the easy availability of handguns and so on. Once again, the liberals had made complete fools of themselves and rushed to judgment without any shred of evidence or supporting facts.

When President Obama visited Tucson to partake in a memorial for the dead and wounded four days after the shooting, he spoke about a return to civility; he did not placed blame on right-wing extremism but called for calm and a return to good behavior by all. This gave cover to the liberals and they now took the message a step further: They now wanted to ‘outlaw’ words that could have incendiary meanings. Wow, this was really something and they as usual praised President Obama for taking a strong leadership role in all this by asking for civility and comity. This then prompted some liberal members of Congress to suggest to change the traditional seating arrangement during the State of the Union Address by the President. A sort of show “that we can all get along well”. This was to give the people of America the warm hearted feeling that Congress was a house full of elected officials who were all friends. Even though some Democrats dumped on this civility by accusing among other things the Republicans of using Nazi tactics (repeating lies often) to fool the American public about the Obama Health Care Law. In other words: Screw comity when it does fit.

At this time, we here at Common Sense University do not know if this will actually take place but we can suggest to our readers to look for signs of extreme comity and friendship. What kind of signs? We suggest to keep a look out for Senators Chuck Schumer (D) and John McCain (R) to play “Itsy Bitsy Spider………..” while sitting side by side and for newly elected House Speaker John Boehner holding hands with Vice President Joe Biden while Nancy Pelosi will constantly hug House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) might be seen giving Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) a kiss on both cheeks.

So much for absurdity. Common Sense University does not believe this will actually happen but what is truly astounding is the fact that members of Congress even think about this public-fooling display of civility and comity. We close with two questions: Who elects these people and are they happy about casting votes for these silly kindergarteners?

Up until the day of the recent tragedy in Tucson, Arizona, America only had heard about one Arizona Sheriff, namely Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. He was and is known for his no-nonsense approach to law enforcement. Over many years, he has pursued those who committed crimes and then treated the convicts in a way that only raised objections from bleeding heart liberals, the ACLU and left-leaning groups. He has been re-elected many times since 1992 with overwhelming margins and has to be therefore considered very popular with a majority of people living in his county which includes the City of Phoenix. He has been attacked over the years by his detractors and is almost daily threatened by those that do not agree with his conservative philosophy and law-enforcement practices. Some of the threats have been extremely serious but Sheriff Arpiao has taken them all in stride. He claims, he is just doing his job in accordance with existing laws.

Enter the Sheriff from Pima County, Clarence Dupnik. This county lies to the south of Mariposa County and includes among other places the City of Tucson. He has been a live-long Democrat and has on occasion stated his objections to laws dealing with criminals and the entire issue of illegal immigrants. As an example, he has voiced his opposition to the 2010 Arizona State Law SB 1070 which deals with stronger checks on potential illegals. In fact, he has stated that he would NOT enforce this particular law. When the tragic shooting rampage happened on Saturday, January 8 by a crazy individual, Sheriff Dupnik gave his first public interview several hours later. While he had very little of substance to say about what exactly happened, how many people had died and so on, he started ranting about what he thought caused this criminal to commit this incredulous crime. To the Sheriff, it was the “hateful vitriol” coming from conservative radio shows and other right-wing people who spewed hateful things on a daily basis. This press conference was an embarrassment to the entire country, period! Had it not been connected to such tragic and dreadful incident, his performance before the media would have been worthy of ‘Saturday Night Live’.

This now was followed by all liberals and left-wing extremists in America making equally ludicrous statements and the continued speculation as to how to deal with this right-wing element in America committing these hate inciting speeches. This is in and of itself not surprising if one remembers that the liberals in the media blamed President George W. Bush for everything that went wrong around the world for nearly a decade. But back to the Sheriff from Pima County. He continued for several days talking to a variety of television interviewers freely expressing his personal opinions that the ‘right’ was to blame for this crime. He admitted that his allegations were strictly his opinion and he had no evidence backing up his statements.         What can we conclude from the above? One thing is becoming very clear: If you are conservative you are automatically a potential hater and when are expressing your opinion you are spreading vitriolic hate implying, the left-wing liberals do not do such things!

While Sheriff Arpaio is enforcing the laws on the books, Sheriff Dupnik is objecting to some which he does not like and says so publicly, it’s called selective law-enforcement. While Sheriff Dupnik received praise and thanks from President Obama during a telephone call last week, Sheriff Arpaio is currently investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department for alleged violations of civil rights of illegal aliens in Arizona.

Nothing explains better what is really going in America these days. It is truly amazing that, instead of concentrating on the person who committed this heinous crime and to persecute him to the full extent of the law, Sheriff Dupnik with his ‘out of order’ personal rants is giving the defense of this criminal potential reasons as to why he did it. It is a very sad commentary about America in 2011 and sickening to think that this is acceptable to many people living here.

One thing always comes true over time: There is an end to everything! And so it is, with former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, his ‘reign’ has ended. But he belongs to the club of those people who in terms of popularity started at the top and ended up at the bottom. When he first appeared on the political landscape in 2003 running for Governor in California, his image from his previous action hero movies was so strong that he was called the ‘governator’. He promised major changes in California politics. A year later, he became the hero at the Republican convention when he referred to the Democrats as ‘girlie men’, the conservatives loved him and there was even talk of changing the U.S. Constitution so that Schwarzenegger (who was born in Austria) could be eligible to run for President of the United States of America.

In 2005, Schwarzenegger placed four propositions on the November election ballot that would have brought about the fundamental changes he had promised had they been approved by the voters in his state. But all four propositions lost by substantial margins and so, he was soundly rebuffed. Recognizing his obvious control over politics in California, he jumped his previous conservative stance and joined the Democrats in their desires. In other words: He transformed into a ‘girlie man’. He became a fighter against the catastrophic consequences of global warming. He also joined the fight for universal health care in California. That resulted in him getting re-elected in 2006 for now he had a greater appeal to Independents and even Democrats.

The years during his second term in office were dominated by budgetary issues in that the State was now running major deficits and could not balance their annual budgets as is constitutionally required in California. Now his self-acclaimed achievements got smaller and smaller and it was reflected in his popularity numbers in the polls, they dropped down to the thirties and eventually ended up at 22 percent, a dismal number for any politician, especially one who had been so popular at the beginning. His conservative base just gave up on him and walked away in disappointment. And it is in fact very sad to see as he now goes on public venues and touts his ‘historic’ achievements, that’s pitiful.

In November 2010, California voters elected his successor Jerry Brown who is getting a third chance at the governorship since he was elected twice to that office in 1974 and 1978. We can easily see what he will do in office: He will do as any solid Democrat has done before: He will blame everything bad on his predecessor. Brown will borrow President Obama’s favorite line: “I inherited a mess!” He has promised not to raise taxes with the minor exception clause: “Unless when it is absolutely necessary.” Guess what, folks, it will not take him two months to come back with that excuse and raise taxes (and fees) on Californians.

But back to Schwarzenegger: One of the last acts during his term in office was the pardon of a few criminals whose sentences he reduced (can you spell ‘cronyism’?) and also the appointment of friends and friends of friends to well-paying Commission assignments. If nothing else, this leaves a very bitter taste in the mouths of a lot of people who believed in him and his conservative virtuous character and voted for him if not twice, at least once. He will go down in history as just another flip-flopping politician whose only distinction to his predecessors was his ’Austrian accent’.

So long, Arnold and whatever you do, do no harm to the American and Californian people, stay out of politics! Enjoy the rest of your life in obscurity, try not to make headlines and offer your personal opinions only into the privacy of your family and the few who still like you.

The year-end tradition of wishing everybody a Happy New Year belongs to the oldest ones in history for all we know. We cannot identify its origin nor when it got started and it really does not matter. The fact remain that we do it anyway, year after year after year after year. But do we ever look back and inquire after-wards how ‘happy’ the new year was. No we do not, after all, there is never enough for reflection.

Without even trying to be approximately accurate, we know that for uncounted millions of people in America (and even many millions more around the world) 2010 was in fact NOT a Happy Year. They lost their jobs or never were employed again, they lost their homes and most of their investments, they became unexpectedly very sick and some even did not survive the past year as a result of it. How many people’s lives were severely changed as a result of traffic accidents or other such misfortunes? The fact is, we do not know the answer to these questions and yet, we are certain that many people wished these folks about a year ago: Happy New Year.

As for the upcoming year, only one thing is certain. Millions if not all the people will wish each other a ‘Happy New Year’ and we wonder how great it would be if it really came to pass for everyone. Yet we know better, don’t we all? The next year will be like any other before in that things will happen in the slightly different way for most people. There will be all kinds of things in the widest possible range for everybody as they live during 2011. Fortunes and misfortunes will happen, life and death in all its variations will occur and before we know it, for those of us who will still be around about 360 or days from now, we will all wish everybody we are with or whom we run into a Happy New Year 2012. This is probably the only thing we can predict with absolute certainty. After all what would be the alternative? Besides, we have to keep up the tradition of saying it, right?

It is in this spirit that we wish you all a Happy New Year 2011!