Amnesty Only Encourages More Illegal Immigration

Good luck with that.

“Secure the border!”

Yeah, that, too.

Why not? Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas describes the problem with unenforced illegal immigration laws to Politico’s Ginger Gibson: “The crush of illegals have bankrupted local governments, shut down hospitals, overwhelmed schools and crashed local economies, hurting largely Hispanic citizens.”

He’s against the Senate’s immigration reform plan.

“[It] does not fix our nation’s broken immigration system,” Stockman said. “It rewards lawbreakers and encourages a new flood of illegals, perpetuating the very problems it claims to solve.”

Here’s the money quote: “The surge of illegals strains relations with legal Hispanic citizens, many of whom come from families who have been in the United States longer than most white residents.”

Boom.

From the Gang of Eight Senate proposal: Give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, putting them 10 to 15 years in line behind immigrants being ripped off by lawyers. Make them pay fines and fees from savings accounts they don’t have.

In addition to popular Republican Marco Rubio endorsing the plan, there are more facets appealing to conservatives: the plan shows moral compassion for children brought to this country by relatives, the appearance of fair play and bringing people into the system as contributors to our society.

Problem is, it likely will encourage more illegal immigration.

As for securing the border before proceeding with any level of amnesty, who’s on the committee that decides the border is “secure?” How is “secured” measured?

Robert Gittelson, President and co-founder of Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, told me he believes the framework based on this proposal will be passed this year. It reflects the desire of all to get this done while securing the borders and upholding the rule of law.

Daniel Stein, President of the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform, hopes not. This sort of amnesty would encourage more illegal immigration, costing society billions. His solution? We already have a plan: enforce the e-Verify laws.

Rewind to Alex Nowrasteh and Ryan Radia in the Orange County Register about 18 months ago cataloguing e-Verify failures. They wrote, ” When chipmaker Intel used E-Verify to screen several of its new hires in 2008, over 12 percent were initially flagged as unauthorized. All were eventually cleared to work, but as Intel put it, ‘only after significant investment of time and money, lost productivity and, for our affected foreign national staff, many hours of confusion, worry, and upset.’”

According to a major 2009 audit by research service Westat, 4.1 percent of the system’s initial responses to employment verification queries were inaccurate. E-Verify even approved more than half of all employees who were actually unauthorized!”

And today? While one-third of new hires in Arizona were not even checked through e-Verify, the CATO Institute reports great improvements in the system. Currently, 98.3 percent of people pass E-Verify immediately. 1.7 percent of people who are flagged include a small number of legal, eligible workers.

Nationwide, only about 7 percent of employers use the e-Verify system, which is unfortunate, as a dairy farmer in Arizona told a TV reporter that when federal agents inspected his records, they found 10 illegals working for him. They did not fine him, because he was trying to comply by using e-Verify.

The best start to this might just be to successfully promote e-Verify to businesses in all states, publishing stories like this dairy farmer and showing guilty fat white guys busted for hiring illegals doing the perp-walk on every news outlet in the U.S.

   I have to say that the potato chips of today leave a little to be desired in comparison to potato chips of old.

   Of course when we start talking about the perfect potato chip, a lot depends on personal preference.

   Some people like a hearty chip, with a thicker cut, maybe a ridged chip made to hold up under the scoop of dipping.  And for those seeking the strongest chip, they go for the kettle cooked chips.

   Others prefer a thinly sliced chip, so paper-thin that you can see through it.

  Of course you have to consider flavor, salty or less so?  Sour cream and onion? Or barbecue?  Then there are the people at the edges of good taste who go in for the more exotic flavors like pizza flavored potato chips, or Old Bay flavored. Some of the really out there folks like things like chocolate covered chips.

  But it’s not just  flavor that makes a chip, the perfect chip. It is also about the size and shape of the chip.

  Now I am going to give you my version of the perfect chip, this by no means is intended to mean that it would be the perfect chip for everyone.

  I like a thinly sliced natural potato chip, (not those pre-formed potato products, though they will do when there isn’t a better choice), I like my chips salty, I like a chip that is big enough that I have to stretch my mouth to get it in. But not so big that I have to take two bites. I hate the chips that have gotten folded over in the process. A perfect chip should be the shape of the potato. If the chip is plain and salty, then I like it to have just a hint of the brown color from being slightly over cooked. I guess you would say that I like a more traditional chip.

  My perfect chip however is barbecue, with salt and vinegar coming in a close second. I like my chips with a little kick to them, so that their flavor can stand up to the sandwich I may be having with them. No weak flavorless chip for me.

  Now of course the perfect chip has to be whole and unbroken, there is just something about that whole, unbroken chip that adds to the pleasure and enjoyment of the chip, that is not there with the crumbs at the bottom of the bag.

  You would think that with the many different brands of chips out there and the number of flavors, and the thousand, or millions, of bags of chips in the world, that we would come across the perfect chip every time we open a bag of chips. Not so.

  In fact it is becoming more and more of a challenge to find the perfect chip. One may only come across that perfect chip in every tenth bag, maybe only in every twentieth or so.  Why? Because the bags get handled so very roughly these days. There was a time when the people who were in charge of  putting out the bags would handle them with care, so as not to break the chips into pieces.

  In today’s world however, the people who have the responsibility of putting out the chips seem to be intent on breaking them for no good reason.

  I can’t tell you how many times I have come across what I thought was the perfect chip, only to notice that it had a small green spot at the edge of the chip. Of course I went ahead and ate the chip, even though it tends to leave a slightly off taste in my mouth.

  I can’t begin to tell you how many inferior chips I have had to eat, just to get through a bag of chips in the hope of finding the perfect chip. Of course as you near the bottom of the bag, the likelihood of finding that chip becomes less likely.

  These inferior chips always leave me wanting, longing for the next perfect chip, and so I keep opening bags and eating chip in the hope of the next perfect chip.

  Now as I said, my idea of the perfect chip may run counter to that of others, I mean some strange people actually like potato sticks. Nasty! I have seen some people actually take a brand new bag of chips and bust them all into nothing but a bag of crumbs. I have no idea why. But everyone has the right to their own idea of the perfect chip. Of course there are people who consider themselves potato chip aficionados, and will tell you that the said perfect chip that you have found in that rare bag, is not actually perfect. They may even reach out and snap off a piece just for their own sense of fun. They will also tell you that you shouldn’t eat any chip at all, unless it is a perfect chip according to their standards.

  So, if you have stuck with me this far, and you are wondering what in the heaven’s name I am talking about, and why, well think about this.

  If you replace the idea of the perfect potato chip, with the idea of the perfect political candidate in my writing, well it may make more sense.

   Like the search for the perfect potato chip, there is always the search for the perfect candidate. And like the chip, not everyone can agree on what constitutes the perfect candidate. The same as there is no one perfect chip for everyone, there is no perfect candidate for everyone either.

  Some like a candidate that is strong and able to stand up under the scoop of the media and the opposition party. Some prefer a candidate that is thin  and easily broken to an agenda that fits their views. Some even like the pre-formed candidate that comes out of the can ready-made, with little flavor. And yes, some like the potato stick type candidate. Nasty!

   Like the search for the perfect chip, we will have to search long and hard to find the perfect candidate. We will many times settle for an inferior candidate that leaves a bad taste in out mouths. But we do not throw out the entire bag just because it did not contain the perfect ideal candidate.

    After all, we won’t know if the perfect chip is in the bag until we reach the bottom.

   We also have to contend with the people who have put themselves up as the deciders of perfection. They will be more than glad to tell the world about the small green spot at the edge of an otherwise perfect candidate. Why? In many cases, because they are small,  frustrated people who have been failure in their own attempts to be the perfect anything.

  So,  in the same way we go to a party and find the chip bowl filled with chips that are broken, or of a flavor that may not be our favorite, we will eat them just the same. Because it is better to have something to nibble on until the bowl is refilled, than to stand in a corner whining that the perfect chip has already been eaten.

  Sooner or later someone will refill the bowl. As with candidates, sooner or later another perfect candidate will come along. We must however keep our eye open for them. We must not be so consumed with searching for them, that we miss them.

  We may also have to accept,  that for the near future we will need to accept that small green spot at the edge, and recognise that it really doesn’t taste all that bad, compared to potato sticks.

  It’s time we conservatives here in Delaware face the hard truth, that being, the conservative movement in Delaware is not just fractured, it is completely broken.

   I sat in a room last night with a group of Republicans and listened as they spoke of how we can win elections and actually govern.

  Unfortunately, in my opinion, their focus on national politics is misguided and will doom the GOP and the conservative movement to further defeats in the future. The obsession with the office of the president blinds many to the real problems facing the citizens right here in Delaware.

  Yes, I agree that currently our national government is a complete failure, it is big government gone wild. Both parties at the national level have bought into the idea that government is the solution to all problems facing the American people. When in reality, it is government that has created the majority of the problems facing the American people.

  Now the common view is, that to fix the national government, we must focus on national elections, such as for president and U.S. Senate and House races. That we must fix the problem from the top down. That when we hold elections, the so-called, “TOP”, of the ticket should and will set the agenda. The old idea is that the rest of the ticket will ride the coat tails of the top of the ticket.

   Personally I think that it should be the exact opposite, that to change things at the national level, we must first change things at the local level.  And that the candidates at the local level will bring out the votes for the so-called, top of the ticket, and will have more input into setting the agenda since they are closer to the people.

  We need not look to Washington to see bloated government, we need only look to Dover. We need not look to the U.S. Congress to see an over reaching government, we need only look to Legislative Hall. We here in Delaware have seen government trampling the property rights of farmers and private land owners through regulations from DNREC. We have a county council here in Sussex County considering limiting the number of feather flags a business can display, we have a  town council in Harrington infringing on the rights of a small business based on an ordinance restricting whether an electronic sign can scroll or move in a certain way.

  It is this type of over reaching government at the state and local level, that is reflected in the larger problems facing the federal government.

   Here in Delaware we must find conservative candidates to run for school boards and town councils. We must build a roster of potential candidates to then move on to county council races and state representative and senate seats.

  The conservative movement in Delaware must understand that it is more important, at this time, to focus on local elections, to find candidates that understand, that if we are ever to break the chains placed upon the states by the federal government, then the state must be willing to stand on its own. The state must be willing to refuse the seductive influence of the federal money that is used to bind the state to the federal agenda.

  The only power the federal government has over the individual states, is through the power of blackmailing the states with federal dollars.

  The first goal of the conservative movement should be to elect fiscally conservative candidates at the state and local level, who will cut the purse strings that have bound the state to the federal government.

  Now some will say that an individual state cannot afford to do without these federal dollars. But is that true? How many dollars can a state save by refusing the grant money from the federal government? That’s right save, because every dollar the federal government sends back to a state, comes with unfunded mandates that the state must then fund with state taxes. Many of these mandates are things that the people of the state do not want nor need, but in order to receive the federal dollars, they must abide by the mandates. For that matter, how many dollars can a local school district save by refusing state and federal funding that come with the same types of unfunded mandates? Remember, those state and federal dollars first had to be taken out of the pockets of the people at the local levels to be filtered back into the communities.

  The citizens of Delaware must understand that this is not something we can do in one election cycle, or two, or even three. It will mean taking the long view of the game. It will take time to find and build that roster of future candidates, and in some cases we may have to cut some loose and look elsewhere.

  Before we can focus on national races, we must first be able to win right here within our home state. Let’s win some state rep. seats in New Castle, and some senate seats in Kent, let ‘s win a state-wide race like Treasurer or even Insurance Commissioner.

  Once we can do that, then we can sit around talking about impeaching presidents, but until then, we are wasting our time complaining about the bloated federal government, when we can’t even get our own state under control.

   Well hopefully some of my old friends have followed me to my new home here at Delaware Right, and hopefully I will make lots of new friends here as well.

    I have titled this post “Looking Forward” because I am looking forward to working here at Delaware Right, with a group of people dedicated to creating an environment where it will be possible to have a free and open exchange of ideas.

   Over time I have evolved, (I know how that sounds), due in large part to my willingness to listen to others, and what they have to say, on issues facing our state and nation. I have gone from being one of the angry people, to being a person that understands that, if we are ever to move Delaware forward, it will require  including all citizens of the state.

   That includes not only the conservatives, but the so-called moderates and yes, even the liberals.

  Does this mean that we must forsake our conservative values and principles? No. What it does mean, is that we as conservatives must  work to discover a way to deliver that consistent conservative message, without alienating the rest of the citizens who may not hold to one hundred percent of our views.

   We must be willing to not only teach, but to learn as well. To not only speak, but to listen. To not only demand, but sometime to concede. Not only win, but live to fight another day.

  Some will see this as weakness, but these are people who have set themselves apart from the mainstream, of not only the state and nation, but from the heart of the conservative movement. They have become a fringe element that is eating away at the respectability of the ideology of conservatism.

 I hope, by my participation here at Delaware Right, that I add in some small way to achieving the objective of creating a place where all citizens can come to debate, discuss, and yes sometimes disagree, in a manner that allows for ideas to grow and expand into ways to move Delaware Forward!

Back in 2009 Vice Pres. Joe Biden came back to Delaware to announce that Finland based automotive company, Fisker, would be taking over the former General Motors Boxwood Road Plant near Wilmington, Delaware.

Of course no announcement such as this by our own “Scranton Joe” could come alone, surely V.P. Biden had bigger news.

At the announcement of the take over of the plant, an announcement attended by Delaware Governor Jack Markell (D), Republican Alan Levin, head of Delaware’s Department of Economic Development  it was announced that the federal government would be guaranteeing a loan for $529 million .  Which as of now they have received approximately $193 million, and still not a single car has been produced.

Not to be out done by the federal government in its attempt to socialize a private industry, our own Gov. Jack Markell, guaranteed another loan of $12 million to Fisker, which becomes a grant, if, Fisker spends $175 million renovating the old GM plant and shows that they created 2,495  jobs over a five-year period.

In addition to that $12 million, The Governor promised another $9 million of Delaware tax payer’s money in a grant to offset utility bills for Fisker during retrofitting of the plant. As of now Fisker has received around half of that grant. This brings Delaware’s portion of the government funding of this private enterprise to $21 million, and still not a single car has rolled off the assembly line.

In February 2012 it was announced that Fisker would be laying off around 26 employees at the Boxwood Plant, and even more at their plant in California.  These lay-offs were due to the fact that the federal money had come to a stop, due to the fact that Fisker was unable to meet set sales goals agreed upon to receive the rest of the public funding.

Fisker stated that if the federal government did not renegotiate the terms of the agreement allowing the company to receive the money without meeting the set goals, then Fisker would be forced to move operations elsewhere.

In late 2011 Fisker had raised $850 million in private equity, and even after the announced lay-offs, Fisker raised another $392 million which was announced in April of 2012. And still not a single car has rolled off the line in Delaware.

In April 2012 when it was announced that Fisker had raised another $392 million, Fisker spokesman, Roger Ormisher was quoted as saying, “we are always in the market for equity”.

This brings me to the point of this article. Has the Fisker deal here in Delaware been a failure? Or has it been a fraud played out on the people and tax payers of the state? And what was the original intention of the deal? Was it to actually produce cars and jobs in the state of Delaware? Or was it simply a Ponzi scheme to move both public and private equity around and funnel it back into the pockets of shady equity dealers and politicians?

For right now I will focus on the way this deal has worked and those who have worked it, attempting to show the connections and the way in which this deal has gone down.

At the center of this venture would seem to be a company known as Advanced Equities which is located in Chicago, Il. Take note of that for later!

Advanced Equities (AE) is a late stage investment company.   A late stage investment company works by coming into a venture situation after traditional venture capital companies have invested, and usually after the company has been in start-up for quite some time.  A company like AE will then go out and find individuals to buy into tech companies before they go public.

These individuals are usually not sophisticated investors, this allows AE to use the names of the known and reputable venture capital companies like Lehman Bros., Oppenheimer and Bear Sterns, to entice these buyers into believing they are getting in on a special deal.

This allows the start-ups to find public money without going through the IPO process.

Now some may be saying is any of this illegal?

Well let’s look at the history of Advanced Equities, which was founded in 1999 by Keith G. Daubenspeck and Dwight Badger. The two met while working as brokers for the securities firm Oppenheimer in 1991.They formed a bond that continued  at Stifel Nicolaus, Lexington Securities and Madison Securities.

While Daubenspeck was with Stifel Nicolaus the firm was ordered to pay a client $20,000 after she accused Daubenspeck of churning her account and selling her unsuitable investments. In 1993 Oppenheimer fired Daubenspeck for buying client leads stolen from a rival firm, which Daubenspeck blamed on office politics.

While with the firm of Lexington, Badger and another broker were accused of pumping up stocks and a court ordered the defendants to pay $975,000.

In AE’s first deal they raised $28 million for Pixelon. The video firm went bankrupt 18 months later after chief executive Michael Fenne blew $11 million on a party. Fenne was actually David Stanley, a con man wanted in two states for fraud. Pixelon’s insurer paid $2.6 million to settle claims.

In 1999, AE was ordered to pay back  $327,00 of a $330,000 investment made by 73-year-old Constance Kamberos, who had invested in a company Hymarc. When Hymarc could not pay back the investment, Kamberos visited AE and had it out with Keith G. Daubenspeck, co-founder and chairman, who had her arrested. Kamberos accused AE of misrepresentation and arbitrators ordered AE to pay her the $327,000. AE then fired her broker.

In 2002, eight months after AE put $4.5 million of client money into the video graphics firm Vision Tek, it went bust. AE was sued and, AE, and a supplier paid $3 million to settle the suit.

Vision Tek investors were offered stock in AE backed Alien Technology if they wouldn’t sue, however they retained the right to sue, if Alien Technology did not go public by 2008, which it was unable to do, even at $6 a share. Former Vision Tek investors have filed arbitration claims against Daubenspeck and Badger claiming that they knew that  Alien’s finances were questionable from the start. AE has dumped over $150 million investor money into Alien and are still collecting more.

AE’s fortunes seemed to take a turn for the better when in 2003 the company was asked by the firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers (remember this name also for later), to raise money for a storagemaker Agami. AE raised over $45 million for Agami and five months later the company was bust and even its employees couldn’t tell you where the money went.

So this is how it seems to work with AE, they pump up the value of the investment, one way, by trading on the names of the earlier stage venture capital investors, and also buy these early stage investors selling their shares as part of the investment. The money from these sales would go directly to the earlier investors rather than to the companies. This allows the earlier investors a positive return on their investment, even as the companies go broke. It is the private late stage investors that are left holding the bag, these investors are known as the “last suckers in”.

Now let us come forward in time to 2010.  Less than a year after V.P. Biden announced the take over of the Boxwood GM plant by Fisker Automotive and the fact that both the federal and state of Delaware governments would be forking over tax payer money to fund it. This is the year that AE established “Clean Tech LLC” to allow clients to invest in not only Fisker, but also Serious Energy and Bloom Energy. That’s right, Bloom Energy, which anyone in Delaware knows is another of Gov. Markell’s pet projects to force green energy down the throats of the citizens and in doing so, costing the tax payers and energy rate payers a small fortune.

AE’s involvement should have been a big red flag to all involved, including the Obama administration and Gov. Jack Markell. By this time AE had a reputation within the equity industry that gave pause to traditional established investors.  Between 1999 and 2008 AE’s track record was around a 3.9% rate of success. In that time only six out of sixty-five of AE’s investments had been sold or gone public.

Also in a 2008 Forbes article it was pointed out that at that time,  eighteen former AE clients, had filed arbitration complaints and separately, six brokers had alleged that AE had failed to pay them millions that they were owed.

One has to ask how the federal Department of Energy and the state of Delaware could have missed all of this and could allow such a company to participate. I mean if you put Advanced Equities into a search engine the majority of what you get is about law suits and failures.

In 2012 co-founder Dwight Badger was removed as CEO of AE due to a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FIRA) and a Security and Exchange Commission finding. AE was also ordered to pay a former broker $4.5 million.

This decision involved Fisker, it also involved Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, a firm with close ties to the Obama administration. (Told you to remember that name, but wait there is more)

The complainant in the case sought relief for commissions he was owed after raising funds for Bloom Energy among others. Bloom was Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers first green tech investment and the two remain close even now.

Again in 2012 an investor sued AE and Fisker for failure to perform fiduciary duties and for fraud.

The suit alleged that after buying $210,00 of preferred stock between 2009-2011, that in January of 2011, Fisker and AE demanded more than $83,000, “due to Fisker’s urgent need for equity capital”, or else the investor would lose privileges that came with his purchase of earlier stock.

Now remember that this is right around the time that Fisker was about to lose the funding from the federal loan due to failing to meet set goals for raising capital.

Now pay attention because we are getting close to the payoff, (pun intended).

Fisker may be just the tip of the iceberg.  It seems as though the law firm of Debevoise and Plimpton that was  charged with oversight of the Fisker loan and another $5.9 million guarantee to Ford Motor Co. by the Dept. of Energy, well it seems as if that firm and its employees have a long history of support for Pres. Obama and Democrats.

According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, employees of the law firm gave $199,994 to Sen. Obama for his 2008 presidential campaign.  Over the last three congressional cycles (two-cycles for president including this year), the firm has donated $746,535 to Democrats and PACs, including $284,420 to Pres. Obama.

The firms media relations manager is a former DNC fundraiser. One of the firm’s top lawyers served on Pres. Obama’s National Finance Committee, even hosted a fund-raiser for Obama at his home.

Also over time Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers have donated $2.6 million to candidates, favoring Democrats by a wide margin.

So I ask again, is the Fisker deal a failure or a fraud? Or both? Was it an intended failure which constitutes a fraud?

Advanced Equities seems to be the hub of a Ponzi scheme that in the end has nothing to do with successful investments, but is more about sending money to the pockets of the political power bosses that create the demand for a green tech industry that would not exist without the legislation that they pass.

I will be researching further in the future to see just who received donations from who and for how much. But I can tell you right now in my opinion there seems to be quite a few questionable ties between quite a few questionable people.

We have an investment company, Advanced Equities, who has ties with a law firm Debeviose and Plimpton which has ties to the Obama administration,charged with overseeing the money that they raise. You have another VC firm Kleiner, Perkins,that has ties to the Obama administration which includes V.P. Biden, and Bloom Energy, which our Senator, Chris Coons is involved with through family relations. Kleiner, Perkins is also tied to Fisker.

And while Advanced Equities seems to be the vehicle to launder private money back to the politicians and their cronies, the common factor here really is Delaware and Gov. Jack Markell.

As governor, Mr. Markell is tasked with being the executive that should have his eye on the entire field of play. Gov. Markell has held up both Fisker and Bloom as shining jewels of both his administration and his goal of turning green tech jobs into the job creators that will move Delaware forward.

When in reality they are neither. So it is up to the voters of the state of Delaware to ask this question. Was Gov. Markell a part of a con game to bilk private investors out of millions ? Just to have it end up in the campaign war chest of Democrats? Or was he asleep at the wheel as the investors and the tax payers were robbed of millions?

Either way, Gov. Jack Markell has not earned a return trip to the state capital. He has either participated in one of the biggest shell games ever played on the citizens of Delaware, or he is completely incompetent. The one should earn him a trip to jail, the other should earn him a trip back to private life.

And still, not a single Fisker car has rolled off of the assembly line!!

I am just a voter. I have only one vote to cast for those I choose to support.

I am not privy to  any of the Machiavellian workings of the GOP . I don’t receive the internal memos . Mr. Steele has never called me up to ask my opinion, though I have sent it to him from time to time.

I haven’t put in long hours of phone calls and letter stuffing as so many have. And let me say that I respect all that have worked for candidates that they support.

I haven’t donated thousands of dollars to the party or to candidates.

I am just a voter.

I don’t get paid lots of money to voice my opinion like O’Reilly and Limbaugh. I am willing to give it freely, though many wish I wouldn’t.

I haven’t gone to college to study political science or sociology. I have lived for nearly fifty years though, and have tried to seek out knowledge from as many sources as possible.

I don’t move among the political movers and shakers on the cocktail circuit.

I am just a voter.

I have never been asked, nor have I sought to run for an elected office. And since the art of politics is compromise, and since compromise is not my best suit, it’s just as well.

I am sure that to be an elected official, is a great and heavy responsibility. I am not sure that it is one that I could myself fulfill.

But I am just a voter, and as a voter  it is my responsibility to be informed. As a voter I should be aware of current events. I should know the basic meaning of the Constitution.

As a voter it is my duty to know what each candidate really stands for. I should know how incumbents have voted on key issues in the past.

As a voter I should be willing to hold my elected officials accountable for their positions and votes as they exercise their duties.

As a voter I should never turn a blind eye towards an elected official simply because they happen to be of the same party affiliation as myself.

Voting is the greatest privilege that we enjoy in this nation, we should never take it for granted. Voting is our voice, it is our statement, many times it is our one chance to make a difference within our government.

I am just a voter. I have only one vote to cast for those I choose to support. I will cast it intelligently.