Reaction to Kristen Gillibrand replacing Hillary in the Senate

First of all, all New Yorkers should be proud that Governor Patterson did not buy into the nepotism that is the Clinton, Cuomo and Kennedy families. Patterson did something that is rare in New York state politics and in politics in general; he thought independently. This was a decent breath of fresh air, considering a few weeks ago he signed off on some new "fat taxes" in order to address the state's budge problems.

Kristen Gillibrand represented New York's 20th District in the House of the Representatives. She was currently on her second term as a member of the house. She has a 100% rating from the NRA, a 100% rating from the ACLU, believes in gay rights and was one of the few Democrats in New York to slam Former Governor Eliot Spitzer when he proposed to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. According to her Wikipedia entry she is also a Blue Dog Democrat, which is a Democrat that believes in sane economic polices. Gillibrand is my kind of Democrat and I am proud to say that she is my senator. The question remains if she will run for a full senate term in 2012 but that would also depend on how good of a job she does. She has the potential to be a good senator especially after the fool that has been representing the state the past eight years. Only time will tell.

Israel and Palestine: Why should I care?

I really haven't been paying much attention to the whole Israel/Hamas situation because I really don't care. I'm neither an Israeli, a Jew, an Arab or a Muslim so my concern for what goes on in that powder keg that is the Middle East is next to nothing. The reason I am even writing about it today is because there was a protest against Israel at the job today. I didn't even notice it at first, until I wondered why there were so many cars in the parking lot. Then my answer came in the form of all the people with "We stand with Gaza" signs on the side of the road.

My stance on this current episode of the Israel/Arab conflict is that Israel has it's full sovereign right to defend itself against any attack on it's land and people. Hamas had a truce with Israel and they broke it so they have to reap what they sowed, or as my boss puts it "you poke us with a stick, we hit you with a mallet". My view on the conflict as a whole is that we as a nation need to stay out of it. Let the Israeli's and the Palestinains kill each other and God can sort them out. In addition after seeing time and time again how Israel can take care of itself I believe there is no need to keep giving them foreign aid. This also falls into my general view of foreign policy is that the US tax payer shouldn't have to subsidize other countries.

The groups that believe that we should intervene on Israel's behalf would be;

1. The Fundamentalist Christian Right
2. Neoconservatives
3. AIPAC

Now if you want to support another country for whatever reason, I have no problem with that. My problem is those who want the rest of us to do it with them with our hard earned tax money. America needs to take care of it's own people within it's own borders and no longer be the nanny to the world we cannot afford it anymore.

The Drug War must end

With the money problems the country has why are we continuing one of the biggest in failures in recent history? Like the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs has been nothing but a toilet that we as a nation have been flushing money down since Nixon started it. Not only does it take away resources police can use to instead go after rapists, murders, serial killers and the like it also wastes prison resources. It costs $50 million to run prisons in the country and 42% of the countries prison population are their for drug related crimes.

Those who support the Drug War say that it's for the public good. Remember the last time people claimed that banning a substance was for the public good? Prohibition was the last time we tried banning a substance people consumed on their own free will. Remember how well that turned out? Al Capone, politicians, police, judges and other local officials being bought to protect crime bosses and their allies from justice. All this corruption was for what? To prevent people from having a good time with alcohol. Well at the same things happen with the current drug war. Police, judges and local politicians are payed by organized thugs to look the other way and selectively enforce the policies.


Another reason to end the Drug War besides saving federal and state budges money is that the Drug is considered racist. According to recent statistics 72% of drug users are white while 37% of those arrested for drug related crimes are black. Many of those who support the war on drugs tend to have racist tendencies. True anti-racists like Ron Paul believe that the war on drugs is nothing but a huge failure. It has been proven that throwing someone in jail for having drugs. Drug addiction should be treated as a medical problem not as a criminal one. Would throwing an alcoholic or a gambler in jail help them break their addiction? NO it wouldn't, so why do pro-Drug War people think it would be different for a drug addict? The fact is that the drug war has been another social engineering experiment that has failed and has wasted enough of the tax payers money.

Here is a YouTube Video with Ron Paul explaining his views on the drug war