Man, is this the strangest election cycle you’ve ever seen, or what? First, on the Democrat side, we start off with what I felt was sure to be a shoe-in with Sen. Clinton. I just knew that with all the money, name-recognition (which is something money just can’t buy), and with all the influential people the Clinton’s knew, that the road to the White House would be a cake walk for Hillary.

In all sincerity, who would have thought that at this point in the game, there would even be a contender still standing? Much less one that could “KO” Sen. Clinton at any moment.

And what about Barack Hussein Obama? This guy spends a little time at the U.S. Senate, and before the paint on his “This space reserved for Sen. Obama” sign in the parking lot is even dry, he’s running for president. The nerve of this man!

I would have never guessed in a million years that this guy would be running for president, and I certainly would have NEVER seen him winning it. And no, for all you liberal talking heads out there, I don’t say that because I’m a conservative redneck. I say that because it’s true. Here is a man who is brand new to the national political scene, has no national record on which to stand, and he’s flipping winning. It’s just incredible!

And on the other side of the aisle, things are equally as strange. We had a strong field in the Republican party this year. The only problem is, you can’t elect them all, and there hasn’t been a single candidate that could unite the party enough to really rally the troops behind him.

For this Christian Conservative, I would have liked to have seen Fred Thompson in the Oval Office. Sadly, though, it seemed like everybody except for Fred Thompson wanted Fred Thompson to be the president.

So, looking down the list, yes, Rudy Giuliani appeared he would be tough on national security…but that was it. He reminded me of John Kerry running against Bush where whenever things got tough, he would always come back to “but I fought in Vietnam.” Except Giuliani always came back to, “I was the mayor on 9/11/01.

So I went on down the list, and I finally found one that I was reasonably happy with: Mitt Romney. Here was my hope. I knew he had some changes of positions in the past, but I felt he was sincere, and I knew he was confident in what he was doing.

He had both the government background and the business savvy to make things happen. I felt that, regardless of the rumors of his church, he had the moral fiber to lead our nation. What’s more, I knew he had the strength of his convictions. Yes, he was THE man.

Gov. Huckabee was one that I never really gave a lot of serious consideration. I was, at best, skeptical of his social conservatism. And I was convinced that he was not a fiscal conservative.

So, I immediately set to work on getting Gov. Romney a new address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I started writing all kinds of articles praising his good works and dedication to the preservation of the United States Constitution. My writings on Romney, and on most of the 2008 presidential field, can be read in my new book, “Mr. Right Opinion- Unplugged and Unashamed” which should be available within the next week at: http://www.51756.authorworld.com/. I hope you’ll check it out.

Anyway, I, and a whole slew of other folks, are hard at work trying to get Romney nominated when…BAMN! In his most Reagan-esque way to date, The Governor from Mass. Drops out of the race for “the good of the party.” I was disappointed by his decision, but I could respect it.

This news kind of knocked me back on my heels, as I’m sure it did many Republicans. It took me a while to figure out what to do next. I was not very impressed when the “Governator” Arnold gave John McCain his endorsement. Quite frankly, I don’t see Arnold as a Conservative. However, I knew if the Republicans didn’t do something, and do it pretty fast, we were going to be in trouble (ala today’s Democrat party). So I decided it was time to “rally round the flag” and support the man who would undoubtedly be our nominee: John McCain.

Since then, I have tried to point out positives about the Arizona Senator. You can go back to previous posts I have written about McCain, and you’ll see that I’ve said that even if you have to hold your nose to do it, if you are a republican, pull that lever for McCain.

But, John, you are NOT helping me here. Going to speak before a conference of La Raza, the pro-Aztlan and pro-illegal immigration group is not exactly a way to shore up your base.

And what about this little speech on global warming. Have you picked up a Science magazine lately? We are in the middle of a five-year cool down. Senator, I have honestly been telling people to hold their nose and vote for you because it would be better than a vote for Hillary or Obama, and it would.

But, sir, it is now reaching the point where we are not merely looking over a few disagreements. We are fast-reaching a point where, for me to tell my fellow conservatives to vote for you, even if they are holding their nose, crossing their fingers, standing on their heads and doing a jig, is for me to tell my fellow conservatives to vote against their own consciences. And I simply cannot do that.

PLEASE Sen. McCain, give us the kind of leadership we need so we can get behind you. If that’s not possible, then it looks like the Republicans are just going to have to miss out on a golden opportunity to keep the White House, even at a time when anti-Republican sentiment is so high that the cake walk that almost never happened may happen after all.

Hello fellow Opinioators! Well, it has officially been three weeks since my back surgery to have a pain pump installed. You know, I have to say that it is not as comforting as I thought it would be...at least not yet.

However, we still have some adjusting to do, the doctor and I, so there is still good reason to be optimistic. So I shall be!

I am hoping that I am going to be able to start posting more. My first post with any real significance will be out today, and I hope to continue from there.

I appreciate you all hanging with me through all this, and I hope you've been listening to Mr. Right Opinion on the air. My friend, Nedd Kareiva (founder of the Stop The ACLU Coailition) and I have a talk show on Blog Talk Radio on Tuesdays and Thursdays which can be heard here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Mr-Right-Opinion. And even if you miss the live broadcast at 1:30 p.m., you can always go back and hear the archive.

Also, don't forget my book which will be out probably next week. It can be purchased for a special price here: http://www.51756.authorworld.com/.

Finally, I mentioned my friend and co-host Nedd Kareiva. His Stop the ACLU Coalition can be found here: http://www.stoptheaclu.org/.

Thanks for your loyalty, and I promise to do my best to keep these ventures going as best I can now that I am slowly but surely feeling better.

God Bless,
Mike Minton

I got the following email today from the co-host of my radio show today, Mr. Nedd Kareiva. By the way, the show will be on from 1:30-3:00 p.m. every Tues. and Thurs. (yes today)! So check it out at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Mr-Right-Opinion.

Anyway, the matter discussed is of great import, and should immediately call all Americans to action. Something has GOT TO BE DONE to reign in oil and gas prices.

Please read the following, and then take the required action to at least TRY to improve our situation. One thing's for sure: IF NOTHING CHANGES, NOTHING CHANGES!

Subject: [FWD: Fw: Signs of the Times - It's a GAssssssssssssssssss]

Folks, have a good laugh here, it's worth it, despite how bad it is.

Also, fax the president a letter, tell him to issue an executive order to begin drilling in ANWR or somewhere here in America - (202) 456-2461. It's better than e-mailing, though you can also call the White House at (202) 456-1414 or 456-1111 for their opinion line. Faxes can't be easily ignored, calls can be forgotten

Please forward to as many Americans as possible, the more people that respond, the better. We need relief soon but until we do, enjoy the cartoons.

Also, if you can make a separate fax (or call) to the White House, urging the president to issue a pardon to Border Patrol Agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos, it would be greatly appreciated. They desperately need our prayers and support and the president must act.

Thank you!

Regards,

Nedd

While perusing Louisville’s Courier-Journal newspaper on Sunday, April 6, 2008, my eyes were naturally drawn to an article entitled “Arizona Waging Immigration Fight On Its Own Terms.” As you may have read, I have focused quite a bit of energy and brain-power on the issue of illegal immigration. In fact, a lot of my new book, Mr. Right Opinion-Unplugged and Unashamed (available soon at: http://www.51756.authorworld.com/), deals with this very topic.

However, I was particularly interested in this article because it sounded as though the newspaper was praising Arizona for dealing with the issue on its own terms, as opposed to waiting for the federal government to get around to it (as if that will ever happen). And if you read the Courier-Journal, or any other Gannett-owned newspaper, you know how out-of-character it is for anything conservative to get positive coverage.

Now, I will be the first to admit that my articles are biased. I report on current events from a conservative point of view, and I make no apologies for it. However, I am the operator of a news and opinion weblog. I am not, nor do I claim to be, an independent source of news. The Courier, however, is supposed to be a newspaper; inherently obligated to report on current events from an unbiased stance. But as we all know, unbiased journalism is nearly impossible to find these days.

At any rate, the story started out on a good note. Reporter Nicholas Raccardi, of the Los Angeles Times (no bias at that paper), starts the article by noting that “Arizona has become a laboratory for whether a state can single-handedly combat illegal immigration.” This statement obviously makes the point that the feds are doing next-to-nothing on the illegal immigration front. And nothing could be closer to the truth.

The article points out that Arizona, in recent years, has made it almost impossible for illegals to receive government services, and that a new law there makes it possible for the state to close businesses that hire illegal immigrants. It also says that the sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, has his deputies, along with “posses” of volunteers, going out to search for “illegal street vendors or immigrants.” All good things in my opinion. Any time a state can solve problems without the interference of the federal government, that is a good thing. That’s how it’s supposed to work.

Apparently, state Rep. Russell Pearce, who has authored some of Arizona’s toughest immigration laws, feels as I do. The LA Times quotes him as saying, “What I love about what Arizona is doing is that we don’t have to rely on the federal government…. It has truly woken the rest of America that states can fix that problem.”

Up to this point, the news story had been strangely, and uncharacteristically, positive about Arizona’s fight against illegal immigration. It just seemed to good to be true…and it was! Mr. Riccardi was just setting us up for the kill. The rest of his article is just a rant about how unfair it is to illegals for American states to actually enforce immigration law. The article spends all of three paragraphs highlighting the positives of the state’s immigration fight, and it spends the remaining twenty-three paragraphs on a huge, bleeding-heart diatribe about the evils of enforcing the law.

By my estimation, that is nearly an eight-to-one allotment of negative vs. positive coverage. This is a terribly unfair advantage to the pro-illegal camp. Especially when one considers the fact that news outlets are supposed to be neutral in the first place!

The article states that “Illegal immigrants complain that it’s impossible to find good work and (they) are leaving the state.” It would seem to me that this outcome is the whole goal of what the state is doing, and that Arizona is therefore meeting it’s goal. That’s really not too hard to figure out.

Mr. Riccardi does point out one legitimate complaint: he says that a minority of illegals have been unfairly victimized by the system the state uses to verify the employability of potential illegals. Apparently, Arizona uses a system called E-verify, a federal pilot project that allows businesses to verify the status of workers. It seems that the system has mistakenly identified a small percentage of people as possible illegals.

However, the acting chief of E-verify, Katherine Lotspeich, said officials would soon be proposing several changes which would make the system more error-free. The reporter then identifies one of the “victims” of the E-verify system, a naturalized citizen who was told by employers that he would lose his job due to information supplied by E-verify.

What the article tries to hide, though, is the fact that the reason the “victim,” Mr. Ochoa, was classified the way he was is that he, like some 3,200 foreign-born U.S. citizens, failed to register his citizenship with the Social Security Administration. Therefore, they are classified by E-verify as possible illegal immigrants. So, in reality, what the reporter tries to call victims of the system are actually victims of their own failure to properly register their citizenship.

It truly is amazing how these folks at the LA Times try to play on our emotions. In one case, they talk about a thirty-two year-old illegal by the name of Jorge Hernandez. They say that Mr. Hernandez, who has lived in Phoenix illegally for the past eleven years, lost a job he had worked at for years because of the new employer-based sanctions enacted by Arizona.

The quote from the newspaper is: “Now he struggles to support his family by working as a day-laborer, and is thinking of leaving.” Seriously, that’s what they say in trying to garner my sympathy for this man who is here illegally in the first place. They say he now dreams of moving to New Mexico, where the anti-illegal immigrant sentiment is weaker.

State Rep. Pearce, whom I quoted earlier, said that the positive effects of Arizona’s efforts were undeniable. “Smaller classroom sizes (and) shorter emergency room waits” have been seen as a result of the state’s work. He also says, “Even if (illegal immigrants) are paying taxes-and most of them aren’t-the cost to taxpayers is huge.”

The state’s work in fighting illegal immigration is having a major impact. So effective is it that the neighboring Mexican state of Sonora has complained about the number of refugees fleeing Arizona and coming back to Mexico. Imagine that…a Mexican state complaining about the number of Mexican “refugees” crossing the border! Only now, the illegals are heading in the right direction!