SCHotline

by Alex Saitta of www.pickenspolitics.com 

August 4, 2007 

I lived in New York City when Rudy Giuliani was the mayor from 1993 to 2001. Rudy is an extremely capable leader. When he puts his mind to something, it gets accomplished.  

He is fiscally conservative. He was successful in cutting business and personal income tax rates in New York City and reducing welfare significantly. He also is very law and order. He took the mob out of the Fulton Street fish market and the garbage hauling industry, and reduced crime by more than half in the worst areas of the city and cleaned up Time Square, which was polluted with sex shops, and drug users. His social views are liberal. He took actions to protect illegal immigrants from the INS, he supports gay-rights, is pro-abortion and sued gun manufacturers. 

My fear is, Giuliani gets elected President, and we have a Democrat Congress. I think Rudy will see the path of least resistance as pushing through the Democrat Congress his socially liberal ideas.  

If the Republicans take back the Congress, I think Rudy will push his fiscally conservative ideas, knowing he’ll have the votes in Congress to rein in spending and reform government. For conservatives, Rudy would be a good President, if we had the 1994 Republican Congress. 

Having said all that, the Democrats are afraid of Rudy, because they know he is the one candidate Republican candidate who will get votes all along the political spectrum. In NYC, which is 4 to 1 Democrats, Rudy won two elections as a Republican. 

Both parties know if you win 3 of the following 4 states, you win the Presidency: Those states are California, Texas, New York and Florida. A southerner teamed up with Rudy, takes Texas, New York, and Florida and the Republicans win the White House. 

Dems know that, and that is why they don’t want Rudy as a nominee for President or even as the Vice President. They will be gunning to destroy him over the next year. You’ll see liberals pounding on Giuliani for his socially liberal ideas, just trying to discredit him with the Republican voters. It will be a fight that could destroy Rudy as a nominee and VP material.  

If I was the Republican national chairman, I would have advised Giuliani to stay out of the primary and avoided this upcoming fight and the exposure of all his negatives on social issues and in his marriages. Once the Presidential nominee was picked, I would have pushed to make Rudy the Vice President, and then had him work the northeastern states and Florida. Guiliani will deliver New York, the rest of the northeast and Florida, which are rich in electoral votes. If the Presidential nominee can deliver Texas and the south. The Republicans win going away.  

Republicans have the best strategy to win, and I think that is it, but Giuliani is so strong headed, he wants to be at the top of the ticket, so he wasn’t going to go along with that. 

###

By Louis Neiger

I am about to share something that is not considered to be politically correct. Before your young adult daughters go back to public school or college we should continue to sit down with them, even at younger ages twelve or thirteen, and suggest that they wait on God for the right young man.

Abstinence is NOT a bad word. Your daughter has choices if she does not indulge in sex. Once she has sex she lost the choice of keeping her self for the one God has especially prepared for her.

My wife and I have thirteen wonderful children ages thirty-five years down to eight years. We have been additionally blessed with the oldest two children marrying two great spouses and as of this writing nine grandchildren that can almost do no wrong. Well, we do know better, there is the sin nature after all.

God has given us the grace and wisdom to raise our children a different way and correct mistakes and make adjustments as parents in raising up our children by not conforming to how the present liberal left is taking the country in politics, media and our schools.

Our third adult child Heather is preparing for marriage soon to a wonderful man from Baltimore. I was blessed to be part of seeing God work in preparing her for twenty-eight years for the right young man. Also being part of her life in making sure he is a suitable man.

Heather had given me permission to make sure that the one to whom I give her to will indeed be worthy of her. This is not an easy task. Outward appearance is deceiving, and I could be quite capable of being deceived. I screened the young man who would court my daughter. In this screening process I became the chief screener. Do you know what questions to ask and how to ask them? Do you know how to get behind the young man’s facade and know the real man? Well at the end I will share some of those questions.

Heather is a family coordinator for two states in a national Home school organization. She first met the young man in Chicago at a coordinator meeting. The young man was stricken by her looks, work ethics and her ability to be very organized. She is articulate and just has a knack of getting the job done and getting other people motivated. In his mind he thought she would be a wonderful wife for him and she communicated to him he would have to contact me. You see, Heather told me if she was to marry I had to say OK first. “Dad, you must get this right,” she told me, as she does not want to marry a dud.

My adult daughters have all made commitments to themselves and God, for them not to be alone and to develop emotional attachments with any men. Guys come around asking for my daughters’ hand, but they really want much more. They want the entire lifetime I have invested her. They want to reap the harvest that GOD, Linda and I have so carefully tended and protected for the best part of her life. When that young man comes around asking for my daughter, he is making off with a major fruit of my life. My involvement is a protection for my daughters. As a man I can spot insincerity in another man easier than my daughter after her hormones are raging and her brain has gone south. Women want to believe that they can change things about a man once they are married. Only God can change a heart. If a young woman understands this and does not allow a young man to steal her affections before her father has a chance to check him out she will save herself and her future children a lot of grief.

I’ve had several young men ask to court, or marry my daughters whom I was able to eliminate. It’s called marriage Q & A. You ask the right questions, and he tries to give the right answers. There are some concerns that are universal and must be addressed. They are serious enough that any father should reject a suitor who doesn’t measure up. Getting to the truth early and openly is the key.

I read an article ‘Dad’s daughter’ by Michael Pearl’ March April 2006 issue No Greater Joy which he articulates some of my same views and I will be sharing in part from his article of the insights of how to question young men as follows:

…“Now, to get down to serious business.

Before I bothered to check up on references, and immediately upon being approached I cut to the quick with him. The young man was obviously little nervous and unsure of himself, so I put him at ease by being at ease. I started out by asking inconsequential questions that are not likely to be of any great importance,

This first, powerful question will eliminate 75% or more of the unfit suitors. If their answers and their heart have satisfied you so far, then you might want to ask, “Name the last ten movies you have watched, and tell me about them.” Be advised, your daughters’ and his children, your grandchildren, will grow up watching TV with him. Ask him what channel his car radio is tuned to, and the last three music CDs he purchased. Music both molds the soul and expresses it. A person is defined by the music he prefers.

Ask him about his home life. “Are your parents happily married? Do you want your marriage to be like theirs?” Follow up with, “What is it that they do wrong/right, and what would you do differently?” It is a fact that the home life of a young man is predictive of how his home life will be with your daughter. If his father is an insensitive brute, remember that this young man has been molded in his father’s image, for he received his worldview (family view) from his family.

Find out how he relates to his brothers and sisters. If he is fatherly and protective of his younger siblings, then he will be so with his own children. If he thinks they are brats and avoids them, then he is selfish and will not like his own children. How does he view his mother? That’s how he will view his wife.

Pause for a moment and just look at him. He is relaxed again. You have gotten past the hard part, so he thinks. Let the pause be long enough for sobering effect. Establish eye contact now and ask, “Have you ever had sex with a girl?” If he answers that one OK, follow up with, “Have you ever had sexual contact with another male?” Up to one fourth of the boys today have. You know him now. If there is any doubt, pursue it immediately. Look for signs of shame and lying. A growing number of teenagers have. You’d better find out now before it’s too late.

Don’t take shock for guilt. An innocent and naive young man who has been quite protected all his life may be shocked at the question. But if the young adult looks like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, you likely have a porno freak seeking your daughter’s hand. He may end up molesting your grandkids. He has failed the suitor test, not just by viewing pornography, but also by lying about it. Even though he is unfit to be any girl’s husband at this point in his life, you might want to take the opportunity to counsel him for his own good. Warn him against pornography and tell him how it has disqualified him. Assure him that it is not too late to become a man of virtue, but it will take several years of staying clean” before he could be trusted.”…

Many marriages today end in divorce over pornography. This is a very important issue and is usually kept hidden unless a father interested in the future of his daughter and grandchildren takes the time to ask these hard questions. Dads, there is no question whatsoever that the task is daunting. How are two young adults, who are suited to a life together, going to find each other in the fog of sin and folly in which we all live? Pray. I say again a thousand times: pray. Plead with God and ask him for wisdom. Ask him for a miracle. Linda and I prayed for and with Heather and the rest of the family. We continue to pray for our other children as well to find that someone God has created especially for them.

Here is part of the list Heather gave me for the “Prince Charming” several years ago which I did use along with prayer, observation, and with checking up on references before he took her out the 1^st time.

1. Testimony of salvation

2. What is your personal relationship with Jesus like? (Personal devotions, prayer life - maybe ask what the Lord has been teaching him lately)

3. Are your parents in full agreement with this courtship?

4. Have you ever struggled with pornography? If so, how long ago and what steps have you taken to conquer it? What commitments and changes have you made - so this will not happen again?

1. How do you know that this is the Lords will?

1. What do you see in her that is making you pursue her?

7. What is your definition of love?

8. What do you believe is the role of the husband?

9. What do you believe is the role of the wife?

10. Are you financially ready to support a family? If not, when will you be?

11. What is the role of both sets of parents when you are married?

12. If we were to ask your mother how you treat her, what would she say?

13. What is your view and role of children …How many children do you want?

14.What is your belief on a wife working outside the home?

15. What is your view on TV?

16. What is your view on movies, videos, video games, secular and Christian?

17. What is your commitments concerning music? What is your standard for Godly music?

18. Do you struggle with anger?

19. Would your family say that you struggle with anger?

20. Are there currently any significant time-wasters in your life that have hindered your walk with the Lord or become an idol?

21. Were there significant time wasters that the Lord convicted you of within the last few years? If so, how have they been resolved?

22. What scripture have you been meditating on lately?

Parents it is never too early or late in life to turn off the TV and spend good time with your daughters and sons. Linda and I are blessed to be best friends with all of our children. They look to us on many issues for guidance and direction. We have been able to share our successes along with our failures. Hopefully they will never have to go through our failures. Our Pastor Dr. Gary Ledbetter of Kennerly Road Baptist church stated, in a recent message. “God is a God of second chances.” Talk with your children about the mistakes and give them direction or redirection.

Soon they will be gone.

Enjoy, till next time

Lou Neiger has worked in the Insurance Planning field since 1981 and earned his CLU designation from the American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa. Lou has been published in several papers as a guest columnist in South Carolina. He and his family live in Newberry

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Stokes sent tens of thousands of emails (he had over 60,000 at his disposal) to state government email addresses extolling the virtues of Jim Rex, then a candidate for Education Superintendent.  His defense?  Other people did it and “I assumed that it was proper.”  Now that’s a really good defense.

In order to punish Stokes for emailing these overtly political messages to state government email addresses which is a clear violation of the state ethics law, the Ethics Commission slapped him with a $50 fine!  That’s less than 8/100ths of a cent per email. 

The lesson here is that anyone can now send unlimited political messages to government email addresses for less than pennies on the dollar, and all you have to do is claim ignorance of the law.  Not only did Zeke have to pay this hefty $50 fine, but he was rewarded by being given a nice contract (up to $1,200/week) from Jim Rex to make Rex look good and send even more messages to state email addresses.

Sadly, this type of rot and blatant corruption is what we’ve come to expect as the norm at the State Department of Education.  While our children suffer and fall further behind, these folks are playing politics.

The moral of the story is:  Send out all the political emails you want .you get paid handsomely in the end.

Randall S. Page, President

South Carolinians for Responsible Government 3020 Devine Street Columbia, South Carolina 29205

(803) 212-1051

Dissident U.S. intelligence officers angry at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped a European probe uncover details of secret CIA prisons in Europe, the top investigator said on Tuesday.

Swiss Senator Dick Marty, author of a Council of Europe report on the jails, said senior CIA officials disapproved of Rumsfeld’s methods in hunting down terrorist suspects, and had agreed to talk to him on condition of anonymity.

“There were huge conflicts between the CIA and Rumsfeld. Many leading figures in the CIA did not accept these methods at all,” Marty told European Parliament committees, defending his work against complaints it was based on unnamed sources.

The report issued last month said the Central Intelligence Agency ran secret jails in Poland and Romania, with the complicity of those governments, and transported terrorist suspects across Europe in secret flights.

Poland and Romania have repeatedly denied hosting CIA prisons on their soil.

“People in the CIA felt these things were not consonant with the sort of intelligence work they normally do,” Marty said.

He said he had based his findings largely on conversations with “high officials of the CIA (and) highly placed European office-holders, who for different reasons, often honorable reasons, were ready to explain what had happened”.

Since he had no power to summon witnesses, subpoena documents or search buildings, he was forced to rely on such evidence, Marty said.

“The Americans themselves admitted there were secret prisons, that they abducted people from the streets, that people were handed over to countries like Syria, Yemen, Egypt where they were tortured,” he said.

U.S. President George W. Bush acknowledged last year that the CIA had held top al Qaeda suspects in secret overseas detention centers but did not say in which countries.

“The president of United States made a very important statement…, I think we can all expect … in the near future further admissions,” said Marty.

He also said he would not remove name of former Polish and Romanian government officials from the report, although they threatened on Tuesday to take legal action against the senator.

The report said former Polish national security adviser Marek Siwiec and former Romanian Defense Minister Ioan Pascu knew their countries had hosted secret CIA detention centers.

“I have no reason to withdraw his name. I would certainly not be prepared to apologies. He knew exactly what was happening as did his president,” Marty told a news conference, referring to Siwiec and former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski.

“I am not shaking in my shoes,” he said of the libel suit that Siwiec vowed to launch in a Polish court unless Marty removed his name from the report within seven days.

Pascu challenged Marty in the hearing to substantiate his allegations or withdraw them, but the Swiss legislator did not respond directly.

© Reuters 2007.

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by Randy Page

Our state’s largest newspaper printed an editorial last week exhorting the State Ethics Commission to uphold the law prohibiting campaigning with state property. Other media outlets will no doubt rightly concur and possibly offer an editorial of their own on the ills associated with such an activity. Whether it’s Thomas Ravenel using state email to support Rudy Guiliani or Jim Rex’s campaign manager using state resources to benefit his campaign, those who misuse state resources must be held accountable.

And while our organization agrees that public resources should be strictly prohibited from being used in political campaigns, the law stops well short of where it should regarding such practices. There should also be a prohibition against government employees and resources being used for lobbying purposes.

Unless it’s their job to do so, government employees should not be involved in lobbying or political campaigns on the public dime and with public resources. What they do on their own time and on their own dime is fine, but their lobbying and campaign activities should not be supported by our tax dollars. Government employees work for the people - they don’t represent the people. That concept seems to have been lost as government has grown bigger and bigger and has assumed more control over our lives.

Over the past three years, there are numerous examples of the Superintendent of Education (both Jim Rex and Inez Tenenbaum), school district superintendents and others within the public school system utilizing public resources for propaganda purposes and to lobby against the school choice effort. These activities range from hundreds of thousands of email action alerts going out to government employees; to propaganda flyers being printed and distributed in schools; to dozens of government employees using public time to converge on the Statehouse to lobby legislators.

When engaging in these lobbying efforts, not only are these government employees not doing the job for which they were hired, but they are using tax dollars to lobby against measures that those who pay their salaries might very well support. Such activities should not be tolerated.

This practice is certainly not exclusive to just the education establishment, but with their having a $7 billion budget and the largest number of government employees throughout the state, their use of public resources and employees to lobby for or against an issue is exceptionally obvious.

Tax dollars should be strictly neutral. When government employees get involved in political or lobbying campaigns while on the public’s time, it’s akin to the hired help telling the boss what to do. No business would allow that, and if they did they wouldn’t be in business long.

Couple the lobbying efforts of government employees with a state ethics law that allows elected officials to squelch criticism and restrict taxpayers’ political speech, and you have a system in which the inmates are definitely running the asylum. Thankfully, the US Supreme Court recently ruled against such a prohibition on political speech, which will ultimately put some power back into the hands and voices of the people paying the bills. Now, state elected officials need to show some leadership and take the next step in strengthening our “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” by outlawing the practice of lobbying with government resources. Allowing public monies and resources to be used to lobby against taxpayers does not lend itself to such a government.

Kudos to the media for drawing attention to this issue, but a double standard should not apply when it comes to public resources being used in the political arena. Public resources and the government employees who utilize said resources should be barred from both political campaigns and lobbying campaigns while on the public’s time.

Randy Page is President of South Carolinians for Responsible Government, a statewide grassroots organization advocating for more efficient and effective government.

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The Aiken Standard is to be commended for recently publishing two front page articles about illegal aliens in our midst. The level of interest in illegal immigration and illegal aliens among the politically engaged in Aiken is a story that has been either missed or ignored by the CSRA’s mainstream media.

A vast majority of all the questions posed to Aiken County Sheriff Mike Hunt after he finished his comments to the Aiken Republican Club on January 15 had to do with illegal aliens and illegal immigration. The first question asked of U.S. Senator Jim DeMint after he finished his comments to the Aiken Republican Club on February 19 was, “What are your views on illegal immigration?” Another attendee asked him different questions on the same subject.

While some people would argue that we should be compassionate to illegal aliens, I refer to a February 16, 2007 report by the Editors of The Family Security Foundation, Inc., which estimates that illegal aliens murder 2,158 Americans every year, killing more Americans than the Iraq war.(1) Where was compassion when these American citizens were slain?

According to an April 2006 Report for Congress — Immigration Law Sanctions and Enforcement in Selected Foreign Countries — “Japan and Switzerland are effective in enforcing immigration laws because illegal immigration is viewed as harmful.”(2) The American people sense that illegal aliens are harming us, but since firm numbers are hard to come by, we simply do not understand the toll that they are taking, especially on education, health care and law enforcement.

We would be well served to know the comprehensive costs of illegal aliens on the state of South Carolina. In the letter I drafted for selected State Representatives and Senators last year, I cited a number of statistics, including these:

· A July 26, 2005 report from the Pew Hispanic Center

o stated that South Carolina was one of six states with the highest rate of increase in Hispanic populations of any states in the U.S. between 1990 and 2000 (211% increase) and

o estimated that the “undocumented population” in South Carolina numbered between 20,000 and 35,000.(3)

· A March 24, 2006 PowerPoint presentation by William H. Frey of The University of Michigan and the Brookings Institution showed that South Carolina had the third “Fastest Hispanic Growth” between 2000-2004.(4)

Sheriff Hunt and Jon Ozmint, who serves as head of the S.C. Department of Corrections, have both told me that the illegal alien issue must be solved on the federal level. Starletta Hairston, a former Beaufort County Council member who pushed to enact a county policy there to deny licenses to businesses that employ illegal aliens, said, “When the federal government drops the ball on enforcing immigration laws, it’s up to the local governments to protect the taxpayers.”(5) Because Aiken County issues no business licenses, one or more alternative methods of enforcement must be used if the County wishes to follow Beaufort County’s lead.

I interpret the level of interest in illegal aliens among Aiken’s politically engaged to mean that they want for the federal government to take definitive action to stop the invasion. Note: the invasion must be stopped, not disregarded, reduced or renamed. We live in a representative constitutional republic and it is time for our federal elected officials to stand steadfastly for our national sovereignty and the Constitution that they took an oath to preserve, protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.(6) Actions must be taken at all levels: federal, state and local.

Sincerely,

Vicki L. Simons

(803) 652-0923

1. http://www.onenewsnow.com/2007/02/more_americans_killed_by_illeg.php

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/homeland.php?id=737771

2. http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/lawlibrimmreport5506.pdf

3. http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/50.pdf

4. http://www.frey-demographer.org/freyimmig.ppt

5. http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200703/POL20070301a.html

6. http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/oaths.html

by Jeffrey Sewell

Today, America finds herself in a bit of conundrum. Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty are feuding over immigration. Lady Liberty, an immigrant herself, continues to stress that America is an immigrant nation and a melting pot of various peoples. Uncle Sam’s blood pressure rises for many wish to give amnesty to those that break laws.

They go back and forth. Lady Liberty quotes the poem which graces her pedestal, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Uncle Sam counters with the Constitution firmly in his hands. He proclaims, Article I, Section 8 states that “Congress shall have power…to establish a uniform rule of naturalization” and Article IV, Section IV states “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion…”

Uncle Sam, gripping the Constitution even tighter, bemoans that the federal government is failing to uphold its Constitutional duties. Local law enforcement is handcuffed for it cannot serve and protect properly. Gangs of illegal immigrants such as MS-13 bring unwanted crime and drugs to streets across America. Their presence is widespread and yet when they commit a crime, we do not deport them, instead we allow them to spread and fester. As a result, our nation is worried and weakened and we have no idea how many illegal aliens reside within our borders.

Uncle Sam continues, dusting off Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia, and then quotes our Third President, who wrote, “Suppose twenty millions [sic] of republican Americans thrown all of a sudden into France, what would be the condition of that kingdom? If it would be more turbulent, less happy, less strong, we may believe that the addition of half a million of foreigners to our present numbers would produce a similar effect here.”

Lady Liberty interjects that we are immigrants ourselves and our ancestors came here longing for opportunity and who are we to turn away people looking to work hard. She pulls out a newspaper clipping. It congratulates 325 immigrants, who are serving within the U. S. Armed Forces in Iraq for being made American citizens on July 4^th, in Iraq.

They soon find common ground. America is an immigrant nation with laws that must be obeyed. We must continue to welcome immigrants, who come here looking for opportunity and wanting to contribute to our melting pot. And it should be easier for those who choose to come here legally to serve America in uniform to become citizens. However, we must first secure our borders, demand enforcement current federal laws. Enforcing the laws means documentation, detention and deportation of those immigrants, who commit violent crimes and traffic drugs, as they should be deported automatically, while preventing those who wish to disturb the peace and commit crimes from entering our nation in the first place.

This debate is nothing new. It is one which our founding fathers labored over as they drafted the Constitution. The same concerns are present today as they were two hundred thirty years ago. They were feared open borders and gave the federal government the responsibility to protect states from invasion. However, the federal government has failed in their responsibility to protect the borders and the American people and once again we the people are in need of a functional immigration system.

Mr. Sewell is the principal consultant of Sewell Consultancy, a political consulting firm in Lexington County. He is also co-owner of www.SCHotline.com

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by Jeffrey Sewell

As Americans, we expect certain unalienable rights from our government. As citizens, we expect our government to be fair and to provide basic security in exchange for the natural liberties we yield as citizens. We enter into a social contract with the first penny of tax paid or the first liberty exchanged for security or general welfare. This idea dates back to the early principles of democracy, espoused in Plato’s Republic among others.

Our founding fathers showcased these principles in the early dawn of America, when they broke free from the oppression of a British Tyrant, declared independence, and ratified a new government, “in order to provide for a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

As we celebrated America’s independence on July 4th, we did so ever thankful for the freedoms and liberties our great nation represents. However, we must be mindful of the task ahead and the duty to ensure America’s greatest days are yet to come.

Sometimes that charge is overwhelming and we fear that we will leave America worse off than when we found it. Right now, many on the left and in the news media would like us to wallow in self pity over the state of our union.

That we cannot do. Instead, we must remember the leadership of men like George Washington and Ronald Reagan. We must be steadfast in protecting our shining city on the hill and making sure America continues to spread the beacon of freedom as far as she can see.

At home, a simple glance reveals a society which cares more about the philandering of movie stars than what is happening on our border or in our halls of government. Thankfully while, Americans obsessed over Paris Hilton’s freedom, Congress listened to the people and stopped the McCain-Kennedy Amnesty plan.

McCain-Kennedy which would have set a horrible precedence that would loom over the heads of our children and grandchildren for years to come. For the last 231 years, for better or worse, we have been a nation of God fearing, law abiding people, who have emphasized fairness and law enforcement in our core values. McCain-Kennedy would have reversed that trend and made breaking laws a cause celeb while spitting in the face of fairness.

McCain-Kennedy’s defeat is not reason to sit back and relax. We still have an immigration crisis on our hands. We still need a comprehensive policy that ensures our nation continues to prosper, but does so in respect to the laws of our land. We must still secure our border and make sure it’s harder for those who shouldn’t be here to get in. We must also fix our process of immigration. If someone wants to come here, pay taxes, work hard, and strive for the American dream in the land of opportunity, who are we, as children of immigrants, to say go away.

The solution is going to have to be an intricate compromise which preserves our melting pot of cultures, promotes our economy, and protect our laws from being blatantly violated. The worst thing we can do is set a precedent in America that it is better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. Asking forgiveness is fine for a second grader who chooses five extra minutes of recess over his teacher’s request, it’s not okay when it comes to 12 million illegal aliens, who we have no idea who they are, where they came from, or why they’re here.

Thus, we need a common sense, 21^st Century solution which combines the physical presence of brick and mortar along with intelligent design utilizing the latest technology. We must fix the source of the problem first, our border, and then focus on the problem itself, our immigration system. Let us first stop the hemorrhaging, we must secure the border, enable and demand law enforcement to enforce the current laws on the books. Then, we must document; implement an identification system, not an amnesty plan, to figure out who is here illegally and to what extent they are penalized for their breaking of the law.

Mr. Sewell is the principal consultant of Sewell Consultancy, a political consulting firm in Lexington County. He is also co-owner of www.SCHotline.com

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Editor,
Are we following in the footsteps of Venezuela? Is our next President going to
be a dictator? After listening to a couple of the candidates running for office
in two years we may need to start packing our bags and putting our money in
offshore accounts.

This past week Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio wants to get rid of conservative talk
radio all together, but is willing to keep it as long as for every minute of
pro conservative talk is countered with the same amount of pro liberal talk.
What has Mr. Kucinich so upset is that Air America the main liberal talk show
network has filed for bankruptcy, while talk shows like Sean Hannity, Rush
Limbaugh and Neal Boortz thrive. The liberals just cannot handle capitalism or
people making money with their brains.

This past day, Hillary Clinton D-NY was talking to the Democratic National
Convention (DNC), one of her statements was that the government should take the
profits of major oil companies and put them in a national account for energy
alternatives. If this happens, what is to stop her or the government from
taking all of the profits from the local grocer to put into an account to help
feed the hungry, or the local realtor having his profits taken to house the
homeless.

I know this sounds far fetched, but we have two years to elect a new president
and fortunately it will give us two years to look at the candidates and their
records. When I heard the first person say he was running, I was thinking that
this is not good. After seeing and hearing the comments from the aforementioned
and others I am having second thoughts.

Larry Donaldson
Darlington, SC 29532
Dona2026@bellsouth.net

Bill Distracts from Real Cause of HPV Cancer

By Sheri Few and James E. Stands, M.D.

Before any more well-meaning lawmakers sign on to a House bill intended to mandate a new cancer preventing vaccine for female children, there are important questions they might want to ask themselves.

· What about the adverse reactions from the vaccine identified in the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) study?

· What of the unknown possible long-term harmful affects?

· What is the efficacy rate and limitations of the vaccine?

· Should parents have the right to make medical decisions for their minor children?

· Should accurate medical information be provided for parents to assist them in deciding about the vaccine?

· Should we take advantage of this valuable opportunity to educate citizens about the most common sexually transmitted infection?

· And, should taxpayers be forced to pick up the tab for preventing what in most cases are the consequences of what many consider to be irresponsible and immoral behavior?

The recently introduced H. 3136, “The Cervical Cancer Prevention Act”, if passed into law, will require government-sponsored HPV vaccines for all eleven-year-old girls before they are allowed to attend school. Those of us who have been actively promoting and training adults to lead children to abstain from sexual activity until marriage have known for years that the most common sexually transmitted infection, human papilloma virus (HPV), is the cause of cervical cancer.

Much to our dismay, this important public health information was not a part of public discourse until a vaccine was developed that was shown to prevent 2 of the 15 types of HPV known to cause cervical cancer. Since 1997, when research was published proving HPV causes 99% of all cervical cancer, abstinence educators have sought to inform the public that as many women die from HPV-related cervical cancer as do HIV/AIDS. Why hasn’t the government made women aware of this public health threat before now?

In 2001, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported that there is no evidence condoms prevent the transmission of the HPV virus. Could it be that the public health community feared that if citizens knew the truth about condoms they would be less likely to believe their overrated risk reduction propaganda.

Now that a pharmaceutical company has developed the vaccine that could prevent 70% of cervical cancer cases - it appears to warrant a public forum. It is a shame that the more than 50,000 women, who lost their lives to cervical cancer in the interim, could not have been forewarned that an abstinent lifestyle or a monogamous lifestyle with an uninfected partner could have prevented 99% of cervical cancer death. But now that a pharmaceutical company stands to make billions of dollars from this medical break through, women are receiving more information about the risk resulting from their sexual health choices.

We would support a bill that would mandate that the truth about this sexually transmitted disease and other life threatening and life altering sexually transmitted infections be taught in public school reproductive health classes and that the truth about condom efficacy as reported by the CDC and NIH be criteria for relative textbook adoption by the State Board of Education.

But we oppose mandatory HPV vaccines for public school entry on many fronts. Foremost, because parents are ultimately responsible for their children, and therefore we believe they should have the authority to make decisions about their health, especially ones that have moral implications. The decision to vaccinate a child against this or any other sexually transmitted disease should be up to the parent and the parent’s informed consent should be required in order for the child to be vaccinated.

In addition, sexually active women still need regular pap smears because the vaccine is only 70% effective; if you have regular pap smears the chance of getting cervical cancer is extremely low; and one of the largest OB-GYN groups in South Carolina has never seen one case of cervical cancer in women who had regular pap smears. If the cervical cancer vaccine does not prevent all cervical cancers; and because the National Cancer Institute and all leading medical associations still require cervical pap smears regularly when you become sexually active; and if it is an extremely low possibility to acquire cancer if you have regular pap smears, then why duplicate expense by requiring a vaccine and a pap test when the pap is very efficient for preventing cervical cancer?

A conservative estimate for the cost of H. 3136 to taxpayers, both federal and state, is $9 million annually. However, the greater costs could be moral and cultural. This is the first vaccine developed for an infection that is only transmitted through sexual behavior. Should it be mandatory for children and who should bear the cost?

Sheri Few is President of SC Parents Involved in Education, a non-profit educational foundation based in Elgin. Dr. James Stands is a board certified OB/GYN with over 25 years of practice in Columbia.