Life's Inanities and Ironies

The body of Rancher Rob Krentz and his dog were found shot to death on his ranch. Krentz, who always was good-natured and willing to help people, had called in that he had found an illegal alien and was assisting him. That was the last that was heard from him before his body was discovered. Rob Krentz was a lifelong rancher in Southeastern Arizona, 12 miles north of the U.S./Mexico border and 25 miles northeast of the city of Douglas. He was the father of three children. The ranch has been in his family for three generations, more than 100 years - since 1907, and sits on about 35,000 acres with 1,000 head of cattle. Running a ranch is hard work and with the influx of illegal aliens increasing, Rob was at ground zero of the stampede that is destroying the fragile desert landscape. The Krentz family has received numerous threats in the past by illegal aliens trespassing on their property. In 2002, the family was physically threatened when one of them stumbled upon a group of 39 illegal a...

During the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote a song about a star-spangled banner waving over the land of the free. Is this land still free? Are you free to earn a living as you see fit? More and more jobs now require a license to practice. The licensing board, made up of your would-be competitors, can block your entry because they better connected politically than you are. Are you free to enjoy the fruits of your labor? The government takes roughly half of everything you earn. In addition, the government is encumbering your future earnings (and the earnings of future generations) by amassing ever increasing debt. Are you free to use your property as you see fit, as long as you do not infringe on the rights of others? You are required to get the permission of bureaucrats before you can build anything on your own property. Even if you submit to all of the government's use requirements, your home and property can be taken from you in favor of a "public use" (such as a fur...

The reason that conservatives bit the dust in the recent health-care battle is simple: their fateful decision to abandon their principles many decades ago cost them any chance of defeating President Obama's socialist health-care plan. Think back to the 1960s, when liberals were celebrating the enactment of LBJ's Medicare and Medicaid plans as much as they are celebrating Obama's plan today. Those were the halcyon days when the statists were proclaiming that Medicare and Medicaid would bring a health-care paradise to America. At the time conservatives were warning Americans against traveling down this road to socialism, a road to serfdom, a road that would lead to national bankruptcy, a road to where socialism has led Greece today. But Americans wouldn't listen. Surrendering to the siren's song of the statists, the American people embraced Medicare and Medicaid (and the welfare state), in the process ditching what was once the finest health-care system in the world, ...

See who you should be voting out of office this November.

Mr Donnelly, Many times in the year I have written with my concerns and opposition to the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” What are you going to do if Mr Obama does not issue the promised executive order? Or more likely the suits that will be filed to reject the order succeed? To quote Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List. "The executive order on abortion funding does absolutely nothing to fix the problems presented by the health care reform bill that the House will vote on this evening,” she said. “The very idea should offend all pro-life Members of Congress. An executive order can be rescinded at any time at the President's whim, and the courts could and have a history of trumping executive orders. Most importantly, pro-abortion Representatives have admitted the executive order is meaningless." What are you going to do this November Mr Donnelly when you are removed from office for not listening to those you swore to represent, for ...

Nancy Pelosi just unveiled Plan B. If she can't strong-arm the votes she so desperately needs to shove ObamaCare down your throat, she's going to simply "deem" the Senate version of ObamaCare passed in the House of Representatives without actually voting on it. House Minority Leader John Boehner called this latest development a "controversial trick." Rep. Thaddeus McCotter used the phrases "acme of arrogance" and "shredding the U.S. Constitution" to describe what is going on right now. But even Boehner's and McCotter's descriptions might be gross understatements. Think about it... why stop at allowing radical leftists in Congress to "deem" that laws have passed without votes? Why not disband the Senate and the House of Representatives altogether and allow Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to simply invoke laws the American people oppose by direct declaration? Isn't that, after all, what they ar...