Medical marijuana is making the news this past week here in Phoenix. We passed a measure a couple of years ago to approve medical marijuana by a 50.13-49.87 margin. The critics of the measure said that it was just an attempt to legalize marijuana. The events that have transpired since passage of the measure have made those criticisms turn out to be true.

Of the approximately 12,000 people that have been approved to receive medical marijuana almost all are males between the ages of 18 and 40. Who are the highest users of marijuana in the United States? Males between the ages of 18 and 40 are the highest users of marijuana. The people we were told would get the permits to receive medical marijuana have not bothered to get permits. During the campaign we were told that the people getting permits would mainly be critically ill people and the elderly. Those people are nearly non-existent in the list of people to receive medical marijuana.

The single most common complaint named to receive medical marijuana is “chronic pain”. Chronic pain is something that cannot be tested for. The doctor either has to believe you or not. I happen to be one of those with chronic pain. I have no desire to ever obtain a permit for medical marijuana. I have a headache that started after nasal surgery in October 1996. No pain before that date, chronic pain after that date. But there is no test to determine if I actually have the pain. The only way to determine it is to study what happens when certain things happen to me. That takes time and documentation. I am sure that the people applying for chronic pain under medical marijuana have not taken the time to document the cycles of chronic pain they are having.

The voting pattern of when the votes came in is also interesting. Early mail ballots went largely for the measure. The later mail-in ballots went against the measure. Ballots cast on Election Day went against the measure. That shows that as more people learned about the measure the worse it fared. Early returns were based on the feel-good voting and the late returns on knowledge based voting. Knowledge based voting always is better than feeling-good voting because you get more logical laws.

With the medical marijuana law in place it puts our public officials in a difficult spot. If they enforce the State Law, they put themselves in jeopardy of being prosecuted for violating the federal law against marijuana. According to Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County Attorney, the federal law trumps the state law. People obeying the state law are just making prosecution of the federal law easier by creating a paper trail for the federal prosecutors to follow. Now, our current administration has sent out a message that they do not intend to prosecute marijuana laws. The next administration might not have that same policy. The federal laws are on the books and so Bill Montgomery has put out a memo forbidding any Maricopa County employee from obeying the state law. That is just to keep all county employees safe from prosecution.

There is talk beginning of putting a new ballot initiative out to repeal the medical marijuana law. Since you cannot enforce the current law, there is no reason to have it on the books. The only question is whether a new ballot initiative could repeal an old ballot initiative. Smarter legal minds than mine will have to decide that question.

Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary on Saturday. He had 40% of the vote and Mitt Romney had 28% of the vote.

On the way to work, Rush Limbaugh was saying the reason that Newt is rising in the polls is not his debate performances, but his ability to articulate conservatism. Rush has predicted for years that anyone who can cheerfully articulate conservatism cannot be defeated. Newt is currently riding a wave where he is doing just that. Newt does have a problem where he embraces many hard left ideas like global warming and single payer health insurance. Those will need to be explained, if possible. So, Newt has many chances to implode between now and the convention.

Romney was poised to knock out his opponents with a win in South Carolina and a follow-up win in Florida. That is not going to happen now. In fact, Florida is currently polling for Newt by a narrow margin. That contrasts sharply with the polling that was taken prior to South Carolina. Voting has already started in Florida. The current votes were cast when Mitt Romney had a commanding lead in the polls. That should mean that the early mail-in ballots would be strongly for Mitt Romney. Polling that happens from now on will be with the changed circumstances. I heard that there have been about 250,000 votes already cast in Florida.

The Republican establishment is not happy with the developments out of South Carolina. They wanted this entire election wrapped up by November 2011. That it has gone on this long is giving them fits. South Carolina guarantees that the season will last until late in the spring. The only one of the four remaining candidates that is in real trouble is Rick Santorum. He needed a better showing in South Carolina to have a chance at lasting much longer. He has been operating his campaign on a shoe string since day one. That will not change after these results. In fact, the funding sources could start drying up on him and cause him to get out if he does not do better in Florida.

Ron Paul came in a distant fourth in South Carolina. For most candidates that would indicate that they should drop out. For Ron Paul, it just means he will keep going. But, like I have said before I do not believe that Ron Paul is really in this race to win it. I think he is in the race to get his message out and incorporated into the Republican planks at the convention. Winning the nomination is something that Ron Paul would like to do, but it is not a primary goal of the campaign. Ron Paul wants to have some clout at the convention to impact the planks in the platform.

The race is basically Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is the establishment candidate. He has done everything the establishment wants to win the nomination. Newt Gingrich is not the establishment candidate. He has to win over the voters in order to have any chance at the nomination. His big problem is his past. Even in his latest book, which just came out within the last year, he wanted to put in a chapter on man-made global warming. He took the chapter out at the last minute because of public outcry. He also was for the individual mandate before Obama was for the individual mandate. Newt has made disparaging remarks about other Republicans that are trying to cut the budget. He has had three wives. Having three wives is not a problem if you handled yourself with decorum in each case. Newt committed adultery with wife 2 before divorcing wife 1. He did the same with wife 3 before divorcing wife 2. One time and I might be forgiving of the indiscretion. Two times and a pattern has developed. If you cannot keep marriage vows, how are you going to keep vows to keep the country safe? Those questions need to be answered between now and the time the nomination is secured. Hopefully they are answered sooner, rather than later.

The South Carolina primary is tomorrow. The polls have narrowed considerably since last week. Some of the polls show that Newt Gingrich is in the lead by a very narrow margin. It will be interesting to see how the interview with Newt’s second wife impacts the vote on Saturday. It cannot help Newt’s vote total. Her assessment of Newt’s character was devastating. But, the sexual infidelity is something that a lot of people will allow these days. It wasn’t so long ago that any hint of adultery and you were not electable to any public office. Today that is different.

In my mind, what disqualifies Newt Gingrich from being qualified is his denigration of the free market system that has made us the most prosperous country in the world. I know he did it to try and bring down the front runner, but the economic system is something that all Republicans should support. If they cannot support that, then they are not qualified to carry the Republican banner. They would be qualified to carry the Democrat banner because Democrats hate freedom. But Republicans are supposed to support freedom. Tearing down freedom, even to attack your opponent, is not acceptable.

The debate last night was a debacle because of the ineptitude of CNN. CNN failed to ask questions of importance to Republicans and the country. So, the candidates had to spar over the usual Democrat talking points that are selected to make Republicans look bad. That said Rick Santorum probably looked the best in the debate. But, when you boil down what he said you are left with nothing. The same thing can be said for Gingrich. He did well, but when you think of what he said you are wondering just what positions he holds. Romney came out of the contest with an acceptable performance. Debating is not Romney’s strong suit. So, his performance was about as expected. Nobody made any hits on him and he did not score any hits himself.

The debate probably will have little or no impact on the vote Saturday. That is a shame, because a good selection of questions could have made a difference. The juvenile questions asked by CNN did not give the candidates a chance to show their knowledge of foreign affairs or even the economy. Since those are the two biggest issues in this campaign, it was a missed opportunity to inform the public on where these candidates stand. So coming out of the debate, if you were for a particular candidate, you still are.

In other campaign news, Gingrich is trying to pressure Santorum to get out of the race. Santorum’s debate performance last night shows that he has no plans to get out of the race until the race is pretty well decided. That is bad news for Gingrich and great news for Romney. It keeps the non-Romney vote split and allows him to pile up win after win. Whether Romney can pull out a win in South Carolina is still iffy. He is close to first. The latest poll has him in a statistical dead heat. That means that he and Gingrich are separated by a margin that is less than the margin of error in the poll. That means that every vote counts tomorrow in the South Carolina primary. The big question is whether Rick Santorum can poll well enough to take the victory away from Gingrich. Also, the impact of Rick Perry’s exit has not been measured in any poll. You would think that Perry’s votes would go to Gingrich or Santorum, but one of his top people in South Carolina went to Romney. That means that Perry’s exit might not help Gingrich as much as he hoped.

Another development is that the Virginia governor endorsed Mitt Romney for President. Romney is piling up endorsements right and left. Virtually all elected officials that have endorsed candidates have endorsed Romney. That endorsement edge has to have an impact sooner or later.

According to news reports, Rick Perry is set to announce that he is suspending (ending) his campaign. The reports also say that Perry will endorse Newt Gingrich. That would be obvious to anyone who was listening to the ads that have been running the past few weeks. Perry and Gingrich have ads that are essentially interchangeable. According to Barry Young on the Nearly Famous Barry Young Show on KFYI, this is a poke in the eye with a sharp stick to Romney.

That Rick Perry is ending his campaign is no surprise. He has been polling in the single digits since Iowa. The polls have not been trending up at all. His endorsement of Gingrich will help Gingrich, but not by much.

That leaves four candidates for President on the Republican side. They are: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. Realistically only Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have a realistic shot at winning the nomination. If Romney wins in South Carolina and Florida, the funding will dry up for everyone except for Ron Paul. That would effectively end all the campaigns except for Romney.

Other news this morning is that the Iowa Caucus has been reviewed by the state GOP. After their review, Rick Santorum is leading by 34 votes. That does not mean much because the results of 8 precincts have been lost. The Iowa GOP declared that the Iowa Caucus was a tie between Romney and Santorum. Either candidate can claim that the missing 8 polling places would have resulted in their achieving a victory. Nobody will ever know the entire story.

In South Carolina, Mitt Romney has been leading in the polls. At one point Romney was said to have a lead of up to 21 points. That is back down to the 5-10% range that has been typical during most of the polling. In 2008, Mitt Romney came in 4^th. Also Newt Gingrich is from the general area. Any victory, no matter how small, will be game changing for Romney. It would springboard him into a gigantic lead in Florida and the nomination. A narrow loss would not hurt Romney much as South Carolina is considered a difficult state for him to win. Gingrich has to win South Carolina convincingly in order to have any chance at winning the nomination. A narrow victory by Newt is better than a loss, but not by much. Newt is essentially on home field. He has to win in order to maintain credibility.

Florida has many voters that moved to Florida from the Northeast. They would be natural Romney supporters. This is showing up in the polls in Florida. The last poll I heard about had Romney up by 12%. That is a poll from about a week ago, so the information probably changed. Winning South Carolina would cause those numbers to jump even further. The decisiveness of a 15-20% victory in Florida would effectively end the candidacy of all the rest of the challengers, except for Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is not really running for President. I believe that he is running to get his message out to the public. The longer he is in the race, the more his message gets out. Ron Paul wants to have some clout at the convention so that he can have some impact on the party platform. I believe that winning the Presidency is not why Ron Paul is running. If he were to win the Presidency, he would love it. But that is not why he is running for President.

For all the candidates except for Mitt Romney, things look bleak. They are looking at defeats in South Carolina and Florida. The desperation is showing in their ads. Gingrich is throwing away his conservative credentials to try and pull out a win. Rick Santorum is running smarter ads, but does not have the campaign cash to set up the campaign infrastructure needed to actually win the nomination. Romney already has the campaign infrastructure set up in all 50 states. Nobody else has much except for South Carolina and maybe Florida.

Kyrsten Synema was a Democrat in the Arizona House of Representatives representing a district bordering Tempe and Phoenix. She resigned from the Arizona House to run for the 9^th Congressional seat that includes most of her old Arizona House district. Her big problem is that she does not live within the boundaries of the new district. That has never stopped her in the past and I doubt it will now.

Kyrsten Synema has always been remarkably articulate and even friendly. She has even made friends with many Republicans in the Arizona House. She always holds the most outrageous positions and does so with a vigor that almost makes you believe her argument. In other words, she has always been something of an enigma to me. She was so far left that her touch with reality was always in question. But, she was able to articulate those positions so well you had a difficult time shooting holes in her arguments.

Yesterday I was reading an article on Big Government that opened my eyes about Kyrsten Synema. Back in 2002 she signed an ad in support of the Arizona Communist Party. This party is part of the Communist Party USA. There has been no mention of this connection in the Arizona media to my knowledge. I live in Arizona and would have heard something if it had been reported. Kyrsten Synema has never come out and distanced herself from this support of the Communist Party in Arizona. The party is pro-Cuba and pro-China.

We do not need another far left person in the Congress, particularly one that has direct connections to the Communist Party USA. I am sure that the vast majority of people within the state do not know of this connection. Whoever her opponent is in the election should make this one of the highlights of his/her campaign. Communists do not belong anywhere near the levers of power in the United States. I realize we have many Communists that have been appointed by the White House in the last 3 years. Hopefully the election in November will take care of that problem. We do not need to add a problem that could so easily be avoided.

I do not know of Kyrsten Synema has been a member of the Arizona Communist Party, but this support is bad enough. It would be interesting to find out if she had ever been listed as a member on the rolls of the party. I am sure that if she had been a member that it has been removed by now. So, documenting her communist ties will be difficult except for this one newspaper ad from 2002. Her name appears boldly in print for everyone to see. That will be impossible to delete and keep from the public if the opposition candidate wants to win the election.

There are a number of politicians in Washington that have to go in order to be able to conduct business as it should be. The race baiters need to go. The politicians that do not take our financial health seriously have to be removed from office. Those that do not believe in a strong military have to be replaced. If this happens, then we can get back to the America that is the leader of the world. As long as this cancer is allowed to stay in positions of power, the country’s health is in danger. Adding a Communist to this mix would be suicide. Kyrsten Synema needs to be defeated for the Congressional seat she is running to hold.

On the way to work today, I was listening to the Barry Young show with Barry Markson as the guest host. He commented on some statements made by people on events in South Carolina that got my goat.

In recent days, a woman named Ruth Williams turned up at Romney events. She said she had been trying to decide between Gingrich and Romney. She was praying every day for an answer. Finally the answer came and she was told to support Romney. So, she followed the Romney bus. When it pulled into a parking lot, she went inside and sang a Romney song. She then talked to Mitt Romney and he gave her between $50 and $60 from his wallet. She is having financial troubles and that came out in her story.

Ruth was invited to appear at future Romney events and she did. At one of them, she met the Governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, and she helped Ruth with her utility bill. We first heard of Ruth because at one Romney event she saw a camera and started talking. It was not scripted or something anybody asked her to do. It just happened.

Because Ruth Williams is black, the race baiters are calling Mitt Romney a racist for helping her. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Ruth cannot do anything about her being black. Mitt Romney cannot do anything about his being white. The fact that he helped her says more to who Mitt Romney is as a person than whether he is a racist. If Mitt was a racist, Ruth would never have had the chance to meet him in the first place. Mitt just happens to be a good person. He saw someone in trouble and thought that he could help. He did not think that he was helping a black person. He was helping someone in trouble. Race did not enter into Mitt’s thinking in this matter at all.

Things have gotten pretty bad if a white person cannot help a black person without it being considered a racist act. I do kind acts for people all of the time. At no time does the person’s race or sex enter into whether I should help them. Obviously I see the person’s race and sex, but it does not enter into whether I help that person or not. I am sure that Mitt Romney has a similar credo that he operates with. To put a racist slant on something that had nothing to do with race is just plain old race baiting. Some people, liberals, never see past a person’s race or sex. Most conservatives I know never really see whether a person is black, white, yellow, green or purple. We just see someone who needs help.

Race baiters never ever get past race. We celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday yesterday. His dream was to see an America that does not really see race. For the most part, I think Dr. King’s dream has been realized. Most of the time people do not consider race in how they treat other people. There are still some people who see everything through the lens of race. Those people either benefit financially from that view or are liberals. Liberals see races other than whites and Asians as inferior. So, they have to see the race in order to know who is beneath them in the pecking order. They hand out goodies to the inferior races because those races are not advanced enough to earn them on their own.

Conservatives treat all races alike. Since all are alike, all should earn their living on their own. Handouts should be a temporary measure for a few weeks or months. Long-term handouts breed dependency. Dependency breeds corruption. To reduce corruption and stagnation, people should be required to work to earn their living. If everyone had the ethos to work for what they receive, the country would be far better off than it is today. Of course, liberals would be relegated to the pages of history as a failed experiment. We can all dream. That is my dream.

In the campaign for President, I am getting upset with some of the so-called Republicans and their ads. We are supposed to be the party of freedom. That means people should be free to pursue their dreams. It means people can succeed and fail. The economic system that best fits our view of freedom is capitalism. Two Republicans have forgotten that principle.

In their effort to knock Mitt Romney from the first place position, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have decided to become Democrats and statists. They decided that Mitt Romney was vulnerable about Bain Capital and his time as CEO. So, they took the position that capitalism is bad and socialism is good. They put that into speeches and ads. As a result of those speeches and ads, any support I may have wanted to give to them is totally gone.

I am a free-market capitalist by heart. To have that attacked by so-called friends is hurtful. I lose respect when people say that they support my position then proceed to attack it. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have done just that. In my humble opinion, they should resign from the race for President because they no longer support American values. The Founders put the Constitution in place to give us a system where capitalism can thrive and grow. Gingrich and Perry have forgotten that message, if they ever truly knew it.

Politicians are continually accused of saying anything to get elected. I think this is a case of just that. In my heart I cannot conceive that either Gingrich or Perry truly holds the position that capitalism is wrong. But, they are giving Barack Obama ammunition that will come back and haunt Republicans all the way up to November. Obama can now say that he agrees with Gingrich and Perry that capitalism is bad. That will confuse many people into thinking Obama’s position is the correct position to take.

Republicans should talk about freedom and how it is important to every person in this country. We should have the freedom to pursue our dreams and succeed. The flip side of that coin is that we should also have the freedom to fail. There should not be a “safety net” to save us from bad decisions. The way we learn is from making bad decisions. We then correct them and go on to the next bad decision and correct it. A “safety net” prevents us from learning the lessons that are there when we fail. We just think that our failure was someone else’s fault and not ours. People at the top have made more mistakes than anyone else. They just learned from their mistakes and prospered.

Freedom is the kind of message that resonates with everyone. To talk about freedom is to give voice to the yearning in everyone’s soul to be free and make their own way in the world. The problem with freedom is that it gives less power to those who “lead” us. That is one reason that our supposed leaders refuse to talk about freedom. They want us to be dependent upon them for things. That gives them power over us and makes them important. If we were free and independent, the “leaders” would become less important. They would never be irrelevant because of the system of government we have. But if we truly had freedom, the power would be diffused among the people, not in Washington. We need more freedom to choose for ourselves. We need to clean out all the garbage that holds us down and unleash the true American spirit.

As I was reading stories on Townhall.com, I read one about voter fraud. It seems that voter fraud is pretty easy in states that do not require voter id. In the video, you never see the person shooting the video because he is using a hidden camera. In the video, the man walks up to the table where ballots are handed out. He asks for a ballot of a person who died. The person at the table checks the voter list and then hands the video taker the ballot. At that point, the video taker says he left his id in his car. The person at the table says you do not need voter id to vote in New Hampshire. The video taker then hands the ballot back with a statement that he does not want to vote if he cannot show id. In other words, he is not there to commit voter fraud. He is just there to demonstrate how easy it would be to commit voter fraud without a voter id system.

The video taker seems to be in his 20’s or early 30’s from his voice. The people he requests ballots for were all in their 70’s and above. The voter’s name, birth date and death date are put on the screen to show the viewer what is being requested. At no time did any person working at the poll question the request for a ballot.

The video lasted 10 minutes and showed multiple examples of potential voter id. I stopped watching after about 4 or 5 examples because they were remarkable identical. So, I cannot comment on the end of the video where the summation is made. But the examples speak for themselves. Any state that does not require voter id is asking for voter fraud to be committed.

Now, I did live in North Dakota. In North Dakota, they do not even have voter registration. If you show up at the precinct and are on their list of people who are eligible to vote you can vote. The difference between North Dakota and most other states is that everyone knows everyone else. It would be nearly impossible to commit voter fraud in North Dakota because the people manning the polling place know virtually everyone in the precinct, probably the city. So, North Dakota is probably not the best example of why you do not need voter id to vote.

In any state where there is a large population, precinct workers generally do not know everyone in the precinct like they do in North Dakota. This is asking for voter fraud because they have no way of knowing if the person asking for the ballot is truly the person standing there.

The argument that voter id will disenfranchise voters is false. You need a valid id to purchase cold medicine or drain cleaner. Virtually everyone in the country has to purchase one or both of those items at one time or another. Since they have to have an approved id for those purchases how would it put some extra burden on the voter to have an id? The simple answer is that it would not put an extra burden on the voter. Every state that requires a voter id also will supply all voters with a valid id at no charge. That eliminates the problem of the person not having the id. If they did not have one previously, they would be able to get one now and be able to purchase cold medicine and drain cleaner.

Eric Holder and the DOJ are just trying to make it easier for the Democrats to commit voter fraud in November. There can be no other explanation. Since their argument that it will disenfranchise voters is bogus, what other possible explanation could there be?

Democrats have been committing voter fraud by stuffing ballot boxes for years. There are stories that votes were manufactured in Chicago to elect John Kennedy in 1960. Votes magically appeared in the Governor’s race in Washington State in the last few years to elect a Democrat during a recount. Then in Minnesota a similar thing happened to elect the current junior Senator from Minnesota. Also, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana was elected with rumors of people busing groups of homeless around New Orleans to vote in various precincts. Democrats are famous for their voter fraud. They always accuse Republicans of committing voter fraud. But Democrats always accuse Republicans of doing what they do. They figure if they do it, the Republicans must do it as well. The problem is that Republicans are too stupid to get away with committing voter fraud. They would have been caught at it had they tried it.

Yesterday was the New Hampshire primary. Mitt Romney won the primary, as expected, with 39% of the vote. Ron Paul was second with 23% and Jon Huntsman was 3^rd with 16%. Santorum and Gingrich essentially tied with 9%. Those results are pretty much as expected. Polling had Romney somewhere between 16 and 20 points ahead just prior to the primary. The election turned out to be a 16 point win.

The big surprise was that Ron Paul defeated Jon Huntsman for second place. Huntsman skipped Iowa and put all his eggs into New Hampshire. He needed to finish second in the voting in order to gain any traction going ahead. He ended up a pretty poor third, considering how much time and effort went into the campaign.

Ron Paul ended up a few points ahead of where people expected him to be. He was supposed to come in 3^rd a few points behind Huntsman. Pulling out second place, decisively, gives him some momentum going into the rest of the primary and caucus states. It probably is not enough to win the nomination, but I am not convinced he truly wants to be President. His victory speech was not the kind of speech you give if you have visions of winning the nomination. The speech was the type given by someone who knows he will not win, but wants to make a difference in the debate going forward. I did get to hear most of Ron Paul’s speech live. I turned on the TV just in time to get most of Ron Paul’s speech. I always find myself agreeing with almost everything he says. It is just his ideas of foreign policy that cause me to shy away from Ron Paul.

Mitt Romney now has two notches in his belt. He needs to secure two more notches to make the nomination inevitable. Even my wife admitted last night that Romney will be the nominee. She has resisted that statement since day one. Not that she is anti-Romney. She just is not into politics and wanted the race to count into Arizona.

Romney is leading in the polls in South Carolina and Florida. If those polls are accurate, then Romney should have the inevitability factor in his favor by early February. The big question of the two is South Carolina. That is the more conservative state and one where Newt Gingrich has the biggest influence. Romney’s lead in Florida is almost as large as it was in New Hampshire (12%).

What is disturbing about the Republican nomination process right now is that Gingrich and Perry are attacking Romney using anti-capitalism as their theme. Republicans are the freedom party. The result of freedom is capitalism. Capitalism has winners and losers. That is just how it works. To hear Gingrich and Perry, you would think that capitalism is supposed to have guaranteed winners. Anyone who has ever participated in capitalism knows that is not the case. Companies go belly up all the time. Freedom allows people to fail. Failure is bad in the short term, but good in the long term. You learn from your mistakes. When you fail, you learn. Then you start over and come back stronger than you were before.

Socialism is where people get guaranteed outcomes. Gingrich and Perry are implying that capitalism should choose winners and losers. That is soft socialism that Gingrich and Perry are preaching. That is why I no longer consider Gingrich or Perry viable candidates for President and really question whether they are conservatives at all. Gingrich talks like a conservative and lives like a liberal. Perry governs like a conservative most of the time, with occasional detours into socialism. Their complaints against Romney play directly into the hands of the Democrats in the fall. In some ways it is good to get these issues out in the open now. But having Republicans bringing them up is self-defeating.

Today is the New Hampshire primary. Mitt Romney is expected to win with nearly 50% of the vote. Dixville Notch, NH voted and Romney tied with Huntsman, 2-2. The others all received one vote each. That is most likely not how the final vote tally will be, but just interesting material for early morning blogging or news reporting.

The most interesting part of today’s news will be who comes in second. That person will get a jump on the not-Romney vote in future. Reports have either Ron Paul or Rick Santorum as the second place finisher. Whoever picks up second place will get an infusion of money to help them in future campaigns.

Jon Huntsman has gambled on New Hampshire. He expects to do very well there. My guess is that Jon Huntsman will end up in a spot no higher than fourth. I expect the end of the Jon Huntsman campaign in the next couple of days.

I expect Rick Santorum to finish higher than Newt Gingrich. While this will probably not finish off Newt, it should dry up his fundraising sources. People will support you through one or two debacles, but Newt is coming across as vindictive in his defeats. That means people will leave him quicker when the chips are down.

After New Hampshire, I expect that the campaign will be Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. The others will either drop out or be so damaged that they will be irrelevant. Next week is South Carolina. None of these three candidates have a natural base in the South. Newt would have been expected to do well in South Carolina, but after failing badly in Iowa and New Hampshire, his support will dwindle to insignificance. Rick Perry might have picked up Newt’s supporters if he had done better in the debates. But, Rick Perry is finished as a viable candidate. His poor showing in New Hampshire after a poor showing in Iowa should finish him off. He may stay in past South Carolina, but that is just prolonging the agony.

Right now I do not see anyone that can stop Mitt Romney from obtaining the nomination. The big tempest in a teapot is a comment Mitt made at a campaign stop in the last couple of days. He said that if a company does not perform, they should be fired. Mitt added that he likes to fire companies that do not perform. The other candidates took a portion of Mitt’s comments where he says he likes firing people and are trying to use that as a bludgeon. If you pause to think about it that is the American way. Americans like to hire and fire people that do not live up to their promises. This non-issue should blow over in a day or two when the other candidates and the news media figure out that people agree with Mitt Romney.

I believe that Florida will be the primary where the nomination will be decided. If Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire as expected and then goes on to win South Carolina, Florida should also go into the win column. After that any other candidate left is just in it for personal publicity. The nomination will effectively be won and we can get down to the general election and its myriad issues.

People say they will not vote for a “Mormon” for President. That may be true, but look at their alternative. Barack Obama is supposedly a Christian that believes in Black Liberation Theology. That is far out of the main stream of Christian thought. It is really communism dressed in Christian clothing. Or Obama is a Muslim like has been rumored for years. Either way, Barack Obama’s religion is more out of the main stream of American Christian thought than the LDS (Mormon) Church could ever be. At least Mormons believe in an America that is nearly identical to that believed in by all main stream Christians. Barack Obama’s America is fundamentally different than the America believed in by Christians. Once Christians realize that is their choice, they will vote for a “Mormon” for President. That would be particularly true if Mitt picks an attractive Vice-Presidential candidate for the Christian community. That is an issue for another day, after the nomination is secured.

This blog is primarily about science and current events, politics being the most common. But every now and then something happens to my favorite sports teams that elicits comments. My favorite team is the Denver Broncos and they pulled off a stunning upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday.

The legend of Tim Tebow is growing. It is growing in Denver and around the world. On CBS Sports, I read that tweets about Tebow were hot all over the world after the Broncos won the game. That is star power. I don’t believe that there is anyone else in the NFL that has the star power that Tim Tebow has right now. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are famous and are great players. But, they do not electrify the public like Tim Tebow. I am not saying Tebow is anywhere near the player that Brady or Manning are. I am just saying that people like watching Tim Tebow play football.

The game yesterday was very exciting. Tebow finally put up numbers that would put him in the elite group, if he put them up every week. To recap the game, it started out bad for the Broncos. The Steelers held them to 8 yards from scrimmage in the first quarter and led 6-0. In the second quarter, the Broncos generally lose leads and fall behind. Not this week, they scored 20 points on a touchdown pass and touchdown run by Tebow, plus two field goals. The score at the half was Broncos 20 and Steelers 6.

After halftime, things started to go the Steelers way. Early in the 3^rd quarter, Roethlisberger threw a lateral to a wide receiver. The wide receiver dropped the ball. It was recovered by Elvis Dumervil. The problem is the official thought it was a pass and blew the whistle. Had the play been allowed to stand, the Broncos would have had the ball on the Steeler 17 yard line and leading 20-6. They would have had at least a field goal and maybe a touchdown from that distance. Since the official blew the call, the Steelers took the ball and scored a touchdown to make it 20-13. The Broncos added a field goal to make it 23-13. The Steelers scored another field goal and a touchdown with little time left on the clock to tie the game at 23. The Broncos fizzled at trying to move the football. The Steelers got the ball and were moving. Elvis Dumervil caused Roethlisberger to fumble and 23 yards later the Steelers recovered. That took them way out of field goal range. They ran two more plays but got nothing.

That brought on one of the most exciting, if shortest, overtimes in NFL history. There are new rules for overtimes in playoff games. Each team gets a chance to handle the football, unless the score is a touchdown. In other words, if the defense scores a touchdown the game is over. If the offense scores a touchdown, the game is over. If the score is a field goal, the other team gets the ball after a kickoff.

This overtime did not require much of anything. Tebow took the snap and faked the ball to McGahee. He then took a couple of steps back and surveyed the field. At that time, Thomas was coming open in the middle of the field. Tebow threw a perfect strike that Thomas caught in full stride. Thomas stiff-armed the cornerback and then outran all the defenders to the end zone. The total time for the play was 11 seconds. That is the shortest overtime in the history of the NFL. At that point in time the stadium went nuts. Players were jumping up and down. Tebow did his pose to pray and then joined the festivities.

This game insured that the Broncos will not select a QB in the upcoming NFL draft. Tebow will be their QB of 2012. They need to fill some holes at Defensive Tackle and Linebacker on defense. Also a couple of their defensive players are getting a little long in the tooth, so cornerback and safety should also be on the list. The Broncos could use a running back to back up McGahee and a wide receiver or two.

But right now, the target is the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. They play this time in New England. When they played in Denver during the season, the Broncos were defeated 41-23. I predict that this game will go differently. The Broncos outplayed the Patriots for 20-25 minutes of the first game. Tim Tebow did not play particularly well. If he plays on Saturday as well as he played yesterday, we just might have a second upset. That is asking a lot of a young QB in a place like New England, but it can be done. The Tim Tebow of yesterday is a long way of the Tim Tebow of the last 3 weeks. Yesterday, he was trying to win the game. The past 3 weeks, he was trying not to lose the game. That is a huge difference and it showed.

You always play better when you are trying to win than when you are trying not to lose. The difference is the confidence the coaches showed in Tebow. The past 3 weeks, the coaches were trying to have Tebow manage the game so it was close at the end of the game. That is a philosophy of trying not to lose. Some QB’s can do that; Trent Dilfer comes to mind in that score. Most people cannot do that successfully very long.  I think we have seen the end of the trying not to lose philosophy of the Broncos. From now on it will be pedal to the metal and win.

Yesterday there was a great story of an eighteen year old mother and some intruders. I do not know the mother’s name, but it is not important to the story. It is just important to her and her family. The mother lost her husband to cancer on Christmas Day. Yesterday two dirt bags decided that her home looked like a likely target. They started to break into the home. The mother has a three month old daughter, who was sleeping in her bedroom.

When she heard the intruders, she grabbed her shotgun and called 911. When the operator answered, she said some people were trying to break into her home and asked permission to shoot the intruders. The 911 operator said she could not give permission to shoot the intruders, but added that she should do what she thought was right. The mother thanked the 911 operator and hung up the phone.

Shortly after the call, one of the intruders successfully broke into the home. He was met with a shotgun blast, killing him instantly. The second intruder ran away. He gave himself up to police later and confessed that he was shook up over his companion’s death.

Fortunately for this mother she lives in a state that believes in the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States. She has the right to own a gun. She also has the right to defend herself and her family from people who intend to do her harm. The police announced that she will not be charged with any crime in the death of the intruder. This mother lives in Oklahoma. If she had lived in New York or some other liberal dominated state, she and/or her daughter might be the one(s) dead today.

I love to hear and read these kinds of stories. This story highlights the problem with the liberal argument that the police are there to keep you safe. This woman needed protection right now. The police were at least 2 minutes away, probably more. During that time, lots of things can happen that are bad, particularly if you have no protection. Because she was armed and knew how to use it, the world is a safer place today. There is one less criminal on the loose and his partner is behind bars.

I am a former Deputy Sheriff. I worked for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Dept. in Golden, CO. After I left the department, I got rid of my guns because my wife wanted me to. But, over the years things have gotten so much worse, I started having second thoughts. So, recently I went out and purchased a shotgun for home protection. I purchased a shotgun because its shots remain local. With a rifle, the shots can carry long distances and cause problems. I opted for a long gun and a shotgun over a handgun because I am not as young as I was. My accuracy would not be as good today as it was when I was a Deputy Sheriff. That could mean missing my target. With a shotgun, that problem takes care of itself. I just have to point the gun in the general direction of my target and pull the trigger. I should hit what I am aiming at.

I am reminded of the John Wayne movie, “Big Jake”. When he gets the Indian to help, the Indian opts for a shotgun because his eyesight is not what it was. I have the same problem. Without my glasses, a handgun would be useless. A shotgun would still be very deadly.

My wife is not happy about the decision, but she understands my reasoning about why I want a gun in the house. I also opted for the long gun over the hand gun because of the little kids living in the house. The long gun will be more difficult for them to pick up and fire, if they could ever figure out how to load it. So, the shotgun is much safer to have around the house than a handgun would be. At least, that was my reasoning at the time. I know a handgun can be very safe if handled properly. I was thinking of worst case scenarios and trying to anticipate problems. Plus a shotgun is much scarier than a handgun any day.

The Republican field is changing daily right now. Yesterday after the Iowa caucus, it looked like Rick Perry was going to drop out and Michele Bachmann was going to stay in the race. By the time the sun went down last night, Rick Perry announced he will stay in and Michele Bachmann announced that she will suspend (end) her campaign. That was quite a 24 hour period.

Newt Gingrich was very upset at the results in Iowa. He is so upset that he has made it a personal vendetta for him to knock out Mitt Romney. On the way home from work, I heard Mr. Morris interviewed, he used to work for Bill Clinton. Mr. Morris said that Newt has it all wrong. If he truly wants to be President, he has to knock out his not-Romney competition before turning the guns on Romney. His reasoning was that the not-Romney vote is currently split. Since it is split, Romney benefits. Romney benefits and picks up wins and delegates. If Romney continues to win thru Florida, the race is effectively over. Newt needs to knock out Santorum first as he is the current darling. The others, with the exception of Ron Paul, will fall unless something happens to Newt and Santorum.

Ron Paul is in the race to the end. I am not sure he truly wants to be President. I think he wants to get his message out to the people. He most effectively does that by staying in the race. If Ron Paul goes back to being just a Congressman, he loses the forum that he has as a Presidential candidate. He will stay in until the convention. I do not think Ron Paul will run as a 3^rd party candidate because that would severely damage his son who has a very promising career ahead of him. For that reason Ron Paul will stay as a Republican.

Rick Perry staying in the race is also good news for Mitt Romney. As I mentioned above, it splits the not-Romney vote. The longer Rick Perry and Rick Santorum remain viable candidates, the more likely it is that Mitt Romney will be the nominee of the Republican Party. If Mitt Romney continues winning, the race will be effectively over by the beginning of March. The majority of the delegates will still need to be chosen at that time, but Mitt will have strung together victory after victory. Every victory makes him more likely to be the nominee. Every loss by the other candidates makes them less likely to be the nominee. The Republican Party is looking for someone to defeat Barack Obama. That person has to win. Stringing together a series of wins makes a candidate appear invulnerable.

The next show is New Hampshire. Mitt Romney will win this primary handily. If it is close, he loses credibility. But the polls have him in the mid 40’s and his nearest competitor at 16%. If that remains the percentages, the win will be decisive.

The next test will be South Carolina. That is where Newt is the strongest. With Rick Santorum and Rick Perry siphoning votes away from Newt, he will get weaker. If Mitt can pull out a victory in South Carolina it could be the knockout punch on Newt. Also the other candidates will be running short on funds by then. Romney should have money coming in to support him as long as he wins. My guess is that the not-Romney vote will continue to be split and Romney wins in South Carolina (or at least comes in a very close second). He then goes on to finish off the rest in Florida. After that, it is just a matter of playing out the string.

The question then becomes who the vice-Presidential candidate will be. Any Republican candidate should be able to make Joe Biden look like a fool. Joe is capable of doing that all by himself. My personal favorite is Allen West. He is feisty and has tons of integrity. Rep. West has said he will not run as a Vice-Presidential candidate. That is fine and dandy now, but when the offer comes and your patriotism is put on the line, I think he would take the opportunity. If not Allen West, then someone like Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum would be great picks.

Yesterday was the Iowa Caucus. The results are a little surprising, but things did go pretty much as expected. Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucus by only 8 votes. That is the closest election in any primary or caucus, ever. Rick Santorum came in second. Ron Paul came in third with a lot of Democrat support. The final percentages are: Romney 25%, Santorum 25% and Paul 21%.

I thought Romney made a big political mistake by hinting that he would win Iowa. He had never been expected to do well in Iowa until recently. In fact, early on there was talk of Mitt writing off Iowa to campaign elsewhere. It is good that he did not take that advice and stuck it out. A win is a win, no matter how close. It would have been better to win by 10 points or more, but still Romney can claim a victory.

Santorum has to be the big winner of the day. He had been polling dismally until the last week. The latest polls had Santorum at about 21% and rising. He did everything right in Iowa and it showed. His problem now is how does he capitalize on this surge? Santorum is still underfunded. This Iowa showing will help him raise funds. But that will not help for at least another week. The New Hampshire primary is in a week. Even if he gets the increased funds, he will have a difficult time in recruiting top level talent. Santorum gets a big boost from Iowa, but it remains to be seen if he can capitalize on it.

Rick Perry is going back to Texas and reassessing the situation. In other words, Rick Perry is not running for President any longer. The Iowa Caucus caused another candidate to drop out due to lack of support. Perry had the funds and name recognition. He made too many mistakes to be taken seriously for the Presidency of the United States.

Newt Gingrich came in 4^th with 13%. He is seriously taking on water. He should probably do what Rick Perry is doing and drop out of the race. He had his day in the sun and could not hold onto it. Newt will probably stick around and try to take out Mitt Romney. Romney ran a smart campaign against Newt in Iowa. He ran ads contrasting the old Newt with the new Newt. As a result, Newt went from the presumptive winner of Iowa to a seriously damaged candidate in just a couple of weeks.

As great as Michele Bachmann is, I think this poor showing in Iowa should cause her to drop out as well. She was born and raised in Iowa. She lives in neighboring Minnesota. If she cannot do better than this in Iowa, she should drop out and try again next time. Michele is a great candidate. I think her ideas are great. She is the most conservative of all the candidates running for office. The problem she has is that with Barack Obama in the White House this is not the time to try and elect the first woman President. At least, that is the message that is being sent by the Iowa Caucuses.

John Huntsman skipped Iowa to concentrate on New Hampshire. He is trying the John McCain strategy. He does not really stand a chance, even in New Hampshire, but at least he had a strategy and is following it.

Mitt Romney wins Iowa. That gives him one notch on his belt and the ability to say he won the Iowa Caucus. That makes Mitt Romney a most formidable candidate in the states to come. New Hampshire is almost home to Mitt. That means he wins there next week. South Carolina comes one week later. With two wins in a row, he will be difficult to stop at that point. He may have the nomination wrapped up by the end of February at the rate he is going.

Rick Santorum could cause some problems to that scenario. It remains to be seen if he can capitalize on the near upset showing in Iowa. If he does, then this could be a shootout between Santorum and Romney to the convention. A big part of this is how fast the donations start coming into his campaign and whether that translates to organization in the future states. That is where Mitt is strongest. Mitt has an organization set up in every state right now. Nobody else in the Republican field has that kind of organization.

Late last week the talk shows and the internet were ablaze over the two doctors that went to Maryland and performed late-term abortions. Those late-term abortions were so late that the baby was born alive and the spine was then severed to kill the baby. They are on trial in Maryland. I was checking this morning to make sure of my facts and could not find any stories about the doctors. My facts may be a little off, but generally correct.

These two doctors came from states where performing abortions, while not illegal, is difficult. Late-term abortions were particularly frowned upon in their states. They went to Maryland because the laws there were more agreeable to late-term abortions. They performed a significant number of these extremely late-term abortions. I cannot remember how they were discovered, but remains of the abortions were discovered in the freezer.

The doctors could very likely go to prison for a very long time. If the facts of the case are what I outlined, they should go to prison for a very long time. Babies born alive deserve the protection of the medical profession, not their murder. These doctors should never see the outside of the prison walls as long as they live. I don’t believe that Maryland practices executions for extreme cases of murder. That would preclude the ability of the prosecution going for execution for the crimes. I believe that long-term jail sentences are what they are facing in Maryland.

To give you some perspective on my position on abortion, I believe all abortions should not happen. Abortion takes a life. Taking an innocent life is unacceptable to me. I hold this position even in the case of rape or incest. The only possible exception would be if the choice had to be to save the life of the mother. In saving the life of the mother you sacrifice the life of the child. But the child would have to be in danger of losing its life as well for this to be a viable option. I would not want an abortion where it is claimed that it is to save the life of the mother and it is really just an abortion of convenience.

To me all life is precious. Artificially ending a life just because it is inconvenient is criminal. I know that pro-abortion people claim it is the mother’s decision. Yes, that is true until she gets pregnant. Then it also becomes the interest of the baby that has to be considered. If you would consider abortion, you should plan on not getting pregnant in the first place. I am not a big fan of birth control, but it does have its place. It is better to use birth control techniques than kill an unborn child.

While my position is most likely not he position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it is probably pretty close. It is also pretty close to the position on abortion that almost all active members would have as well. Getting into politics for a minute, Mitt Romney most likely has a position on abortion similar to mine. When he was a Bishop and Stake President he most likely had to take a position on abortion that was similar to mine. People who say he flip-flopped on abortion do not know his real position. He ran as a pro-choice candidate in Massachusetts because he had to have that position to win election. His real beliefs were not really in play. I would venture that if you asked Mitt Romney his position on abortion, off the record, he would say something similar to me.

The doctors in Maryland, if the facts are true, should never see the light of day as free men again. That kind of thing has to be stopped. Under Obama, that kind of abortion might become more common as the “Whole Life” concept takes hold. We need to defeat Obama to insure that the rights of the unborn are considered as much as the rights of the already born.