What a pleasant surprise to learn that former United States Senator Rick Santorum(R) is considering a run for the Presidency.

Santorum had served in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate. Santorum was defeated in his third-term Senate bid in 2006, by Bob Casey, Jr.

[Note: I followed this election carefully as Bob Casey’s father, the former Governor of Pennsylvania, was deeply admired and respected by social conservatives across the country, myself included. I remember when Casey, Sr. repeatedly stood against his own Democrat Party’s pro-abortion stances, championing the cause of the right-to-life for unborn children. And although he was from a pivotal electoral state, Casey, Sr. was repeatedly denied being allowed to speak at the Democratic National Conventions because of his vehement and vocal pro-life stance. The country lost Bob Casey, Sr. to cancer in 2000.]

Santorum was defeated by Casey, Jr. in 2006, with Casey, Jr. running as a conservative, espousing a strong pro-life position. Sadly, Casey sold out to the Democrat Party by voting for the abortion provisions in Obamacare, not once, but twice (first, for the bill; then against the repeal of the bill). I often wondered how saddened his father would have been to know that his son had compromised on the most precious of all gifts - life.

Fortunately, Santorum did not exit the political landscape after his defeat. As a scholar for the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Santorum has continued to provide detailed analysis of national and international issues.

I met Rick Santorum in 2006, and wrote a post about it here. His actions reflect his character.

Geaux Santorum, 2012!

Tags: Life IS a Civil Right;

America’s Foundation

[The following letter to Bossier City Councilman, Scott Irwin, is being reprinted with permission of the author. Joker picture and highlighted parts of the letter are mine.]

Scott,
I hope you had a restful Thanksgiving.

There are over a dozen “Adopt Ordinance” items listed for the agenda for the Dec 7 meeting, but not a single one of them has any detail as to what is being considered. The only way to get any information about the budget and the ordinances is to be present at the meetings, which most people cannot do (myself included).

Take a look at the Shreveport website for their agendas. They have the full agenda, with links as to the wording and language of the actual amendments and ordinances. This way people can read the details of business within the City of Bossier City. http://www.ci.shreveport.la.us/council/index.htm

There is a serious lack of technological use by the city government, which leaves citizens in the dark and the Mayor and City Council unable to clearly communicate ideas to the constituents. The agendas are bare bones, and are not posted in the Bossier Press-Tribune. The minutes are not emailed out or posted in the BPT either. The website hasn’t been updated. The language of ordinances is unavailable on the website, and are not emailed out.

Basically, I feel that there is little or no attempt on behalf of the city government to make it easy for citizens to know how our government operates and how our money is spent. Would you please consider bringing Bossier City government into the 21st century by utilizing the internet and having a greater online availability of documents and details?

Thank you for your time,
Matt Sciba

After looking at the signup sheet for our office Thanksgiving Feast (sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, pies, cakes….), I decided that if I was going to enjoy seeing old friends today and NOT derail my fitness goals, I’d better come up with a contingency plan to help me deal with the temptation to gorge myself on Thanksgiving fare.

I hope you find these tips helpful.

The party is at 11:30. At 10:30, I’m going to have a mid-morning snack of yogurt topped with granola. The protein in the yogurt and the fiber in the granola will give me a “full” feeling, which means I don’t walk into the party hungry, which would be a sure recipe for over-indulging.

I’ll look for something healthy on the table. In fact, I’ll just bring a salad that looks more like a pretty treat than a boring salad. Lots of dark green lettuces, English cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, walnuts, with a hint of Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing.

I won’t drink “diet” sodas. Ice water is a much better choice. Diet sodas are loaded with sodium. Sodium causes fluid retention, making you look bigger than what you actually are. Not only problematic with sodium, diet sodas are also horrible in terms of their effect upon your bones, particularly for females. I’ll post a linked article on that in the future. Rule of thumb: Diet sodas = BAD

I will skip the dessert table. My own personal goals which I am trying to reach over the next 5 weeks (when Insanity ends) are more important to me than anything that may be on that particular table.

I will be discreet about my choices today, and I will NOT preach to anyone who does decide to indulge. That’s absolutely their choice!

Above all, I’m going to relish spending time with those I don’t see on a regular basis, and I’m going to be truly thankful for the wonderful real estate career and friends with which God has so abundantly blessed me.

Have fun at your office party!

And Happy Thanksgiving!

While conservatives are fighting the DREAM ACT, there are 5 great, common sense bills behind which we should rally.

Analysis of the 5 bills is HERE.

[The following is a reprint of a BeachBody article sent to me by my coach, Marisha. (Yes, I have a coach!) Awesome advice!]

Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

Are you going to take a break from the SuperGym and start again on January 1?
-OR-
Are you determined to stick with your health and fitness routine throughout the holidays?

If you answered “Yes” to the latter read on, if not I’ll be waiting for you on January 1.

Here are some GREAT tips from Team Beachbody:

1. Buy clothes that fit right now.
This first tip might be a bit pricy, but it’s a great motivational aid in staving off weight gain. A new addition to your wardrobe in a size that shows off your summer body can be all you need to prevent those extra pounds from creeping on. Imagine that beautiful holiday dress or great pair of pants, then imagine being unable to zip them up thanks to sugar cookies. Yeah, no one wants that. So before you begin the festivities, go buy yourself something perfect to wear to your parties and hang it someplace visible, so it serves as a constant reminder. Perhaps on the TV where you play your P90X� videos, or in front of that treadmill that might be starting to collect a little dust in the corner, or on your refrigerator door . . . that way, if it doesn’t fit quite the same way the next time you try to slip into it, you know it’s time to get back to work.

2. Write it down.
We try to write down everything we eat, right? We spend hours each month staring at a food diary, adding up our calories, and seeing if we got the correct balance of macronutrients. And then the holidays happen, and our little book ends up in the bottom drawer. It’s almost like we’re hoping that if we didn’t write it down, it didn’t happen. Unfortunately, the scale doesn’t fit in that bottom drawer. The truth is, if we would write down the not-so-perfect meals and treats, we could find a way to compensate for it, at least a bit. For example, you have a peppermint brownie in the break room at work, which you know is carbohydrates and fat. Eat one less portion of carbohydrate and one less portion of fat for your dinner. It’s not ideal, but it’ll help. Or perhaps you couldn’t resist Mom’s homemade scones for breakfast. You could plan on an extra 20 or 30 minutes of your workout tonight. The point is, if we write it down, and do the math, we can lessen the damage. It isn’t a good long-term plan, but to help compensate for a few slip-ups, it can help.

3. Keep exercising.
Most fitness trainers will tell you the slowest point of their year is between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Sure, their clients schedule workouts with the best of intentions, but then they cancel them for parties and gift shopping. It’s hard to remain balanced when you have a million things to do and gifts to buy. Yet the greatest gift you can give yourself is to stay focused on your fitness goals and get your workout in. Shopping getting in the way? Do it online and save some time. Parties getting in the way? Just show up later. Who cares if everyone else is a couple of cocktails ahead of you? You’ll be healthier, and you won’t have to worry about the embarrassing YouTube� videos in the morning. Just stay consistent, even if it’s inconvenient. You’ll be much less likely to look like Santa (both belly-wise and red-nose-wise) at the end of the month.

4. Eat before parties.
Most holiday parties don’t focus on low-fat, low-calorie refreshments, so unless you’re organizing the event, the best damage control is to show up with a full tummy. Make sure you eat your meals and snacks throughout the day, and try to eat a healthy meal before attending any party. If you’re going straight from work, prepare a healthy and filling snack to eat on the way. You’ll be a lot less likely to swim in mayonnaise dips and pigs in blankets if you’re full.

5. Get junk out of the house.
The majority of people don’t get into the car at midnight, drive to the store, buy the ingredients for cookies, bake them, and then stay up to eat them. But if those homemade cookies that Linda in accounting made for you are already on your kitchen counter, you better believe you’ll find a way to justify it. Frankly, at 12:30 AM, after a rotten day, for most of us there’s nothing like a few cookies to drown our sorrows. The secret is to get the enticements out of the house. Send them to work with your significant other, donate them to a bake sale, regift them to your 100-pound friend with the perfect metabolism, or just dump them in the trash. Linda will never know. If you have holiday dinner leftovers, box them up for your guests individually and send them home with them. If your family still sends you that Pepperidge Farm� cookie assortment, invite a bunch of people over for a pre-party party and serve ‘em up before the drinks. Don’t be more wasteful than you have to, but get the less-than-healthy temptations out of your reach.

6. Offer to prepare healthy fare.
This suggestion won’t be well received by those of us who’d rather spend Thanksgiving sitting around watching football than toiling in the kitchen, but if you do the cooking, you have the control. Your family could have a tasty and satisfying meal without ingesting thousands of calories and fat grams. The way the turkey is prepared, the type of stuffing, how vegetables are made, whether the cranberries are real, and countless other things can make or break the healthiness of a meal. There are tons of cookbooks out there that can help you out. Yes, it does require a bit of work. But you work out with Beachbody� fitness programs. You can do anything.

7. Choose wisely and proportionally.
Something occurs during a holiday meal. It’s like a Las Vegas buffet?we feel like we have to eat some of everything. We feel almost like those foods will never exist again, and this is our last meal on the planet. This year, why not try to eat only your favorites, as in two or three items, and keep the portions to the size of your palm? If you’re still hungry, try to fill up on veggies (preferably ones that aren’t drowned in butter or cream-of-mushroom soup). If you want dessert, lean toward a small slice of pumpkin pie (220 calories) as opposed to pecan (a heftier 543), leaving out the hydrogenated nondairy whipped topping if possible. If you’re going to have an alcoholic beverage, go with a flute of champagne (100 calories) as opposed to that rum-laced eggnog (with more than four times more calories, at 420). Just a few wise choices will save you a ton of calories, and probably a significant amount of heartburn as well.

8. Don’t beat yourself up.
Quite possibly the worst thing you can do is beat yourself up over a bit of holiday indulgence. Yes, it does stink to backslide after working your tail off. But sometimes it doesn’t stink as much as dealing with your mother when you turn down her brisket and potato pancakes. Sometimes, we don’t have time to go to work, buy a Christmas tree, decorate it with our kids, make dinner, oversee homework, tuck kids in bed, and spend an hour doing INSANITY�. We can only do our very best. Mentally berating yourself will only make you feel worse, which never helped anyone get back to their fitness program. So if you happen to gain that one extra pound this holiday season, be part of the rare group who actually follows through with their New Year’s resolution and manages to shed it again. A week of hard work and a slight calorie deficit should do the trick. Resolutions don’t come easier than that!

Ok, I just have to say it. The only reason Briston Palin has survived elimination on Dancing with the Stars is because of her mother.

Yes, Bristol is a sweet, shy girl who has worked very hard to learn the dance routines, just like everyone else in the competition. But compared to the other contestants on Dancing, Bristol dances, well, like Sanjaya sings….not so great.

I have no credentials to judge someone’s dancing ability, but Briston just seems heavy on her feet, has little to no expressiveness, and lumbers through her dances in comparison to the others who made it to the semi-finals.

This is just an observation, but if you have watched her body language with her dance instructor during the interviews after the dances, you will see that her partner is warm, affectionate and proud of his student. He puts his arm around her waist and pats her shoulder. Bristol does not return any sort of affection for him, and barely acknowledges that he’s even there. She stands with her hands together in the front, her face reflecting the same expression (or lack thereof) with which she dances. That introverted, non-affectionate personality is why any emotion on her face looks forced during her dances. It’s just how she’s wired, and she just can’t fake it.

To some extent, Dancing is a popularity contest, which is why people like Jerry Springer stayed on beyond what he should have in a past season of the program. But popularity should only get a contestant so far. It’s a dance competition, and Bristol has earned her low scores which have kept her in the bottom two over and over again this season.

But it’s all about how many viewers vote, and viewer demographics must be such that Bristol’s mom is wildly popular with them, enough to keep them dialing up Bristol’s number to move her into the finals. There is no other logical reason.

Honestly, Bristol should evaluate why she is REALLY in the finals. She surely must see that she just isn’t as skilled as the others. Yes, she has heart and she has worked very hard, as has everyone else. But there is no real level of skill that can even begin to compare to the other semi-finalists.

I wish Bristol would give up her spot to Brandy. This could be her concession speech… “I want to thank everyone who continued to vote for me during this season, but I have to be completely honest with myself. I have come a long way, but I am not a dancer. I have neither the natural ability nor the talent to perform at anywhere near the level of Brandy, and it is obvious to me and to the rest of America that people have continued to vote for me because of my last name. I cherish each and every vote of confidence that has been cast for me, but I simply can’t take a spot in the finals which I do not deserve above someone like Brandy who does possess the skills of a talented dancer. Because of this, I wish to give up my spot to Brandy in the finals of Dancing, and will be there cheering her on.”

Give it up Bristol. If you win, it won’t be because you’re the best dancer. It will be because of your mother. And that would be the shallowest of victories.

It saddened me to learn of Bossier Councilman Chubby Knight’s arrest earlier this week.

I’m not judging Chubby’s guilt or innocence, as I am not privy to the police file. What I do know is that the Bossier City Police had enough probable cause to arrest him, and the D.A. believes there is enough evidence to prosecute him.

But guilty or not, Chubby has a great defense. And it isn’t the “they are out to erase me..” conspiracy against him which he cites.

All Chubby has to do is portray himself as merely an ignorant, naive, happy-go-lucky country bumpkin who thought the secret shopper program was a great way to earn extra income, never dreaming that what he was doing was illegal.

If a substance abuse problem, real or fabricated, is thrown into the mix, that would only strengthen his defense of not really understanding that what he was doing was wrong. All he would have to do is convince one of twelve, and he is acquitted.

Please don’t think I’m suggesting that I actually believe this defense. On the contrary, I don’t think Chubby is at all ignorant. I’m just making the point that if he wanted to, he could easily play the Jethro card.

Sure, most reasonable people would recognize an obvious scam and stay far away from it. But Chubby doesn’t have to convince ‘most reasonable people’.

All he has to do is convince one.

I’ve been hearing about Louisiana State Treasurer, John Kennedy’s Plan to Balance the State Budget, but did not have time to take a look at it until today.

By and large, the Kennedy Plan offers suggestions which are stunningly simplistic, common sense approaches toward making huge cuts in the bloated, inefficient Louisiana State Budget. Perhaps some of these suggestions are not as practical or as easily implemented as one would hope, but, at least Kennedy has a plan. We can only hope that members of the Louisiana Legislature will take a serious look at many of Kennedy’s recommendations.

The Louisiana based Pelican Institute for Public Policy has an excellent analysis of the effects of the defacto moratorium on offshore drilling in our state.

“…for every deep well rejected approximately 700 direct Louisiana jobs fall by the wayside, and 350 jobs in the case of shallow wells. So they are “tracking and reporting” the number of permits issued “versus historical rates.”

“The concern is that we still have a de facto moratorium… Up to 30,000 jobs will be at risk in Louisiana if permits are not issued at a reasonable rate,” says Michael Hecht, president of GNO Inc.”

The charts in the article are a poignant reminder that although the federal government may have “lifted” the moratorium, its almost blanket denial of permits for wells achieves the same devastating impact as an official moratorium.