Uh Oh! There Are Only 36 Shopping Days Until The Iowa Republican Caucuses

The Vampire Elite Runs Our Lives. The corporatocracy has become more powerful than government. Congress is bought by special interests. The Supreme Court has ruled that Dow Chemical and Exxon Mobil have the same rights as people. It is for these reasons that it is time for a national referendum on what I call Proposition 29.

Proposition 29 is simple in the extreme: "It is the will of the American people that the tyranny of the elites must be checked. Therefore, lobbyists and government must be kept separate at all times and in all respects."

Wait a minute! What a stupid idea.

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It is difficult to view immigration as the third-rail issue it was only a couple of years ago.

The more draconian state anti-immigration laws are being rolled back or reconsidered, while Newt Gingrich seems to have joined Rick Perry in endorsing what President Bush called for: a general amnesty for illegal immigrants who have paid taxes and lived within the law. Like Bush, the views of these two GOP presidential wannabes are apostacy to Michele Bachmann and others of the hard right-wing persuasion.

"I don’t see how the party that says it's the party of the family is going to adopt an immigration policy which destroys families that have been here a quarter century," Gingrich said during the most recent presidential debate. "And I’m prepared to take the heat for saying let's be humane in enforcing the law without giving them citizenship, but by finding a way to create legality so that they are not separated from their families."

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Has there ever been a more openly racist candidate for president that Herman Cain?

As ironic as it seems for a man whose race was enslaved, then emancipated but still victimized well into the latter half of the 20th century to be spouting bigoted blather, Cain does so with an extraordinary nonchalance whether it is the suggestion that an electrified fence be erected on the Mexican border or his dismay when he found out that the doctor operating on him for colon cancer might be a Muslim.

The physician was named Dr. Abdallah, which he told a crowd at a Christian-themed amusement park "sounded too foreign."

Don't worry, he's a Christian from Lebanon," a medical aide reassured him.

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Speaking of Cain, it turns out that he is a bit of an embarrassment to students at his alma mater, Morehouse College in Atlanta, or at least freshman Daniel West.

Speaking at a student-sponsored political forum, West said he was dismayed by Cain when he watched him in a debate pitching his 9-9-9 plan in a manner that reminded him of an infomercial hawker.

"I was like, 'You're the only black person in a room full of white people, and that's the way you act? Come on!' "

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The mantra of the Anyone But Mitt Romney crowd is simple: If the former Massachusetts governor is the nominee, conservatism dies and Obama wins.

My question is, does Romney even need purity-test conservatives to get the nomination? Possibly not considering that John McCain got the nomination in 2008 despite a right-wing revolt against him led by Rush Limbaugh, who considered the Arizona senator "an imposter."

Limbaugh eventually came around and is likely to do so again, while Ann Coulter already has broken ranks and endorsed Romney.

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It is beyond obvious that Rick Perry is at war with history. The man who as Texas governor promoted the secession of the Lone Star State from the Union, which is a constitutional no-no, he is now arguing that the military and not the commander in chief should have the final say in wartime.

This also is a constitutional no-no, but Perry is having none of that: "For us to micromanage them, in a civilian way, without their commanders being truly in charge, is absolutely irresponsible, and as commander-in-chief of this country, I will not let it happen." Well, it's highly unlikely that he'll get the chance.

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How serious are the presidential wannabes about foreign policy? Not serious at all, and that's fine with the news media. Europe, which is on the verge of imploding, did not come up a single time in the two foreign policy debates, nor was there any discuss about North Korea, the crisis in Egypt and the Arab Spring in general, let alone other hot spots.

There was, however, time for a robust discussion about further stressing America's national security apparatus by monitoring Muslims more closely than other citizens.