My Own Political Party

The President's Cabinet has changed over the years. President Washington's Cabinet consisted of only four members: Secretary of State (Thomas Jefferson), Secretary of the Treasury (Alexander Hamilton), Secretary of War (Henry Knox), and Attorney General (Edmund Randolph). The Constitution does not name what cabinet positions there should be, that duty is left to the Congress. Additional cabinet positions were added over the years, including Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and ... Read More

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States, is often regarded as the Father of the United States Constitution. He also authored, with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist Papers. James Madison opposed the proposal to put Congress in the role of promoting the General Welfare: If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the so called General Welfare they may take the care of religion into their own hands. They may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish ... Read More

Medicare was the first attempt at national health insurance. Now that there is a lot of talk about implementing a new national health insurance program, I thought I would take a look at how medicare was started. In 1945, Harry Truman asked congress to fund a national health insurance program. However, too many were afraid of "socialized medicine" and Truman eventually backed off the idea. Instead, officials in the Social Security administrations determined that adding a health insurance program for ... Read More

Ever since the term "War on Drugs" was first used in the 80s, there has been controversy about its effectiveness. Many, included myself, still think that certain drugs should be illegal. There are others, however, who believe that drugs should be legalized. StopTheDrugWar.org is one of those places. Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) calls for an end to drug prohibition (e.g. some form of legalization), and its replacement with some sensible framework in which drugs can be regulated and controlled ... Read More

I posted earlier about Sharpe James, the dishonest ex-Mayor of Newark. He spent over $58,000 in city funds on personal items. PLUS, he sold city property to a "friend" (i.e. girlfriend) for only $46,000. She quickly resold this property for over $600,000. This is money that the city of Newark could have utilized. Thank goodness for justice. Sharpe James was convicted this week on ALL charges. I know that $58,000 doesn't sound like much, but ... Read More

We all know that carrying a box cutter on a plane is illegal. However, a 21 year old man from Tampa decided that he would try to smuggle one on anyway. The man, Benjamin Baines, Jr., was carrying a backpack. Inside the backpack was a book entitled "Fear Itself." When the backpack went through the X-ray machine at the airport, the security guard noticed an image of a box cutter. It seems that Baines had hollowed ... Read More

After eight days at the courthouse, I am finally done with Jury Duty. I know that there are many of you who try their hardest to get excused from this task, but you do learn a lot about our justice system from serving on a jury. The first thing I learned is that it is slow. Although I was there for eight days, three days were spent with jury selection and of the remaining five days, two were spent ... Read More

I have only received on summons for Jury Duty before and it was while I was in college, so I was excused. Eventually, I knew that they would catch up with me and they did. This morning, after trying to fix the shower faucets so I didn't get scalded with hot water this morning, I reported to Jury Duty. There were about 500 people there and they slowly called us into different trials. It it interesting to see our judicial ... Read More

In June, the New York State Senate voted to ban Ephedra. The legislation was sponsored by Senator Fuschillo and bans the over-the-counter sales of ephedra which has been linked to at least 100 deaths. This law does not ban dietary supplements, such as Miracle burn which is made out of natural products. In 2004, the FDA tried to ban all products containing Ephedra, but this was overturned by a Federal Judge. Then in 2006, a ruling by the 10th ... Read More

It seems that the reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine was defeated in the House. The Fairness Doctrine was introduced to ensure that opposing political and public affairs views were presented on the airwaves. On the surface, it just doesn't seem right. Why not just let the listening market decide what and who they want to listen too. On the other hand, the reason the Fairness Doctrine was instituted in the first place is because there are a limited ... Read More