One of the great hopes of the Democratic Party in this year’s election cycle is to win back the Senate. The last time Democrats held the upper hand in the upper house of Congress, was when former Majority Leader Tom Daschle persuaded former Republican Senator Jim Jeffords (Ind,Vt.) to caucus with the Democrats in 2001.

Ah, but how the doings of those bereft of principle, honor--and loyalty--revisit those who would turn away from such attributes for personal gain. By the next election in 2002, Senator Jeffords, or “Jumpin Jim” as he was called by some, was in the minority with the Democrats—relegated even more so to the back bench as he soon lost his party-switching appeal.

By Vincent Fiore

     If President Bush is to have a legislatively meaningful remaining term in office, he must know the difference between the people, and the press.

     In the eighties, when diplomat Clark Clifford unceremoniously dubbed Ronald Reagan as an “amiable dunce,” and journalist Nicholas von Hoffman petulantly quipped that it was “humiliating to think of this unlettered, self-assured bumpkin [Reagan] being our president,” Reagan lost little sleep.

     Civil Rights icon, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was know to have said: “Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”

     Certainly, Dr. King, and his recently-deceased widow, Coretta Scott King, never had to worry if such a direct, yet monstrously poignant query were ever asked of them.  All one had to do was read the words of King’s “Letters from Birmingham Jail” to know what he was doing.

by Vincent Fiore

     It isn’t too often that one who pens opinion articles will fully allow himself to “let it all out,” and quite possibly say more than ever intended.

     Here then, is one of those rare times--a time when I cannot contain myself, consequences be damned.  For today, I will speak in no uncertain terms about one of America’s greatest elective mistakes, James Earl Carter, Jr.

     Lately, a typical day in the life of the mainstream media sounds something like your average trial-by-mob assemblage.

     For our purposes here, the setting will be the White House press room.  On “trial” is the entire Bush administration.  Specifically, the main topic of discussion is the recent accidental shooting of a fellow hunter and friend by Vice President Cheney.

     White House press secretary Scott McClellan holds what is commonly referred to as the “Gaggle,” a near-daily briefing given to the chief White House correspondents of their “respected” news outlets.

It is almost impossible these days to open a newspaper or watch any of the alphabet-media empires without hearing President Bush or his administration cast in negative terms.

On the cable outlets, the media castigation of Bush and the GOP only worsens, as the viewer gets to hear CNN and the like regurgitate the latest Bush “scandal” every 12.5 minutes or so.

     Regarding the recent misadventures of the Bush administration in relation to the running of several U.S. ports by a United Arab Emirates (UAE) company, here is a scenario that some on the left have breathlessly chattered on about:

     While Cindy Sheehan and the Washington press pool were camped out on the Texas prairie last August, Karl Rove was busy.

You have to laugh when you see once-upon-a-time UPI reporter Helen Thomas.  A creviced stump of a woman, she nevertheless goes toe to toe with anyone in the White House that happens to bare the initials “GOP.”

So, in keeping with the natural order of things--for it is rumored that Thomas has been inside the White House press room long enough to ask Lincoln if freeing the slaves was worth the lives of so many Americans--Thomas again decides that embarrassing a president is much more personally indulgent than merely acting the part of a professional journalist:

     One has only to reference the showing by some 500,000-plus legal and illegal Mexican aliens in Los Angeles last weekend to realize that the discussion regarding Immigration and its legality and security concerns is now “The” topic of discussion across America.

     But perhaps “showing” is too kind a word to describe what took place this past week, as hundreds of thousands protested--it seems to the casual observer even--the “right” to be in the United States illegally.

Unquestionably, the Republican Party as a whole has grown over the last twenty-five years.  Along with the self-proclaimed “independent” or “moderate” voter, the GOP has seen its rolls swell at the expense of the Democratic Party.

What has led to the expansion of the party, and therefore a fair amount of dominance of government on a local, state, and federal level, has been primarily two factors: