SHOULD PENNSYLVANIA REALLOCATE ITS ELECTORAL VOTES?

I do not support the effort of Pennsylvania Republicans to rig next year's presidential election, and make no mistake; the proposal in question seeks to do just that. You don't see legislatures in states that Republicans figure to carry next year, like Texas, Florida and the southern tier states proposing to toss partial votes to President Obama. Nope, it's only in swing states where Republicans want to rig the game in their favor. You don't have to be a Democrat or an Independent to recognize what an affront to democracy this G.O.P. proposal actually represents.

If Pennsylvania Republicans were honest in their claim of seeking democracy in its purest sense, they would propose an amendment to the Federal Constitution abolishing the Electoral College in favor of a presidential election by straight national popular vote. We all know that won't happen, because that's not a game Republicans believe they can win. Otherwise, they wouldn't be trying to rig the system.

SHOULD PEOPLE WITH ALTZHEIMERS & DEMENTIAL OWN GUNS?

There are always times in our lives when we need to be protected from ourselves. A wise person recognizes those times and does something about it. People suffering from Altzheimers and dementia frequently don't.

On the other hand, there's not much more threatening to an individual than the prospect of losing control over their mind. For an Altzheimers sufferer who finds security in the ownership of a firearm, being deprived of that sense of security would be a difficult burden to accept. Their concerns for personal safety are very real and their anguish deserves validation and respect.

Our society already prohibits felons and certain persons with mental health hospitalizations from owning firearms. Those prohibitions are based on the notion that certain groups of individuals are incapable of safe and responsible firearm ownership. Adding Altzheimers and dementia sufferers to the list of people prohibited from owning a firearm makes sense from a safety standpoint, but let's not lose sight of the fact that we'd be negatively impacting the lives of some of those patients in the process.

MEXICAN DRUG SMUGGLING GOES "Old School"

According to a spokesperson for the Mexican Army, some of that country's soldiers recently confiscated two old-fashioned catapults that the soldiers claimed were being employed by members of a drug cartel to fling bundles of marijuana across the U.S. – Mexican border into the state of Arizona. This is the kind of news item that makes you want to shake your head in disbelief, but it underscores the fact that no matter what this nation does to fortify its southern border, drug smugglers will continue using creative ways to outmaneuver our defenses; even going "old school" if they have to do so.

Everyone in law enforcement who fights drug trafficking in the United States will tell you that as soon as one dealer or drug supplier is taken off the streets, another will immediately step in and take their place. The stream appears unending, and our constantly rising prison population offers all the proof anybody should need.

I find it maddening that, even in our current economic downturn, new prisons are being built in this country while funding for drug prevention and drug rehabilitation programs is being drastically reduced. That approach is doomed to failure.

Illegal drugs are subject to the same forces of supply and demand as any other commodity. If the demand for drugs continues, smugglers will find a way to meet that demand. American will only rid itself of the scourge of illegal drugs when its primary effort in the war on drugs focuses on preventing drug use. I know that sounds "old school", but even smugglers know that sometimes "old school" works.

GREEK PROTESTS

Many leaders of countries in the European Union (EU) are understandably miffed at Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou's on-again, off-again plan to put the EU's financial bailout bill to a public referendum vote in Greece instead of ramming the austerity measure through the Greek Parliament, but the EU ministers are not walking in Papandreou's shoes.

Papandreou is a shrewd politician who recognizes that the measure has absolutely no chance of being approved in a public referendum vote, and to try to force the draconian austerity measure upon the Greek citizenry by a parliamentary vote would be sheer political suicide for him. Papandreou might ultimately cave into his opposition in the Greek government to keep his government from falling, but he'll be putting his own career above the interests of the Greek people if does and the Greek voters will take out their anger on him during the next Greek election.

The people of Greece have been protesting the proposed austerity measures for months now, and some of their protests have even turned violent. I'm not condoning the violence, but it's not hard to understand why everyday Greeks are raving mad about what EU ministers and officials in their own government are asking them to do, which is basically to give up jobs, forfeit all benefits and starve.

Once more, the current Greek financial crisis was not of their making. It was caused by a corrupt Greek government that allowed the country's wealthy and affluent members to escape paying taxes necessary to fund the government and its public servants and pensioners. Now that Greece is awash in government debt and cannot meet its financial obligations, EU ministers and their Greek counterparts are demanding that Greece's retirees, working class and poor shoulder the overwhelming majority of the burden of dealing with the financial crisis instead of the people who caused the crisis. That's just not fair!

European Union ministers have been smug in pretending they played no role in Greece's current predicament, but they too bear a measure of responsibility for the Greek crisis. EU member banks have provided the wealthy and merchant class of Greece with safe haven for their assets with full knowledge that said funds were being held outside Greece to protect those funds from taxation. EU ministers have long recognized that Greek government spending could not be sustained given the massive amount of tax evasion that was permitted by the Greek government, but did nothing to stop those practices because their own member banks were profiting from Greek funds deposited in their banks.

One could hardly blame the Greek people for not giving support to the EU's call for austerity measures. Let Greece's wealthy and EU member banks do the suffering. They caused the problem. They should fix it.

HERMAN CAIN'S "XXX" PAST RISES AGAIN

Sex sells just about anything these days, so it's not surprising that G.O.P. presidential hopeful Herman Cain is making even greater inroads with his party's faithful after reports surfaced that he'd been previously accused of sexually harassing two women and the organization he headed (the National Restaurant Association) paid the women to keep their mouths shut about the matter. Nothing inflames the rabid right like a juicy sexual harassment expose.

It's kind of ironic that Republican die-hards would flock to Cain, as they did to Clarence Thomas decades ago under similar circumstances, yet crucify Bill Clinton for his inappropriate sexual dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, but the G.O.P. faithful have never been known for giving equal treatment when it comes to sex.

The fact is Cain's sexual harassing past is of no moment to me. I've listened to him speak. I've read his political platform and I've digested as much of his political rhetoric as my stomach can handle. In my book, he's not presidential material. He's not even worthy of being in the presidential ballpark, but the fact that Republicans think he is shows just how intellectually weak and dishonest the Republican Party is these days.

RMS TITANIC - THEN AND NOW

When the RMS Titanic departed Southampton, England on April 10, 1912, two thousand two hundred and twenty-three (2,223) people set sail on a vessel carrying lifeboats designed to hold one thousand one hundred and seventy-eight (1,178) individuals. When the Titanic sunk, those lifeboats carried only 705 people to safety. Everyone knows that Titanic's massive casualty list resulted from the absence of sufficient lifeboats, but frequently ignored is the fact that 473 passengers who perished could have been save, but were not, because many of the lifeboats were lowered into the sea with less than a full load of passengers. One boat, meant to hold forty people, departed Titanic holding only twelve. Once in the water, many occupants of those lifeboats refused to pick up passengers who dove into the icy waters of the North Atlantic to escape the sinking ship. The overwhelming majority of those swimmers eventually succumbed to hypothermia and drowned.

The tragic sinking of the Titanic is not unlike today's tragic sinking of our Nation's economy, or the world's for that matter, but history is sadly repeating itself as those fortunate to occupy economic lifeboats callously refuse to offer assistance to those swimming for their very lives.

A case in point was the recent killing of the President's job creation bill by Republicans in Congress. Those Republicans were sitting comfortably in jobs that pay $174,000 per year, with free health care, a generous pension package and as many free lobbyist-funded lunches as their bellies can hold. Is it any wonder that none of them would jeopardize their own safe seat by reaching out to those drowning in the sea around them? I guess not. Little has changed since the Titanic went down.

I'm sure that some will read this piece and cast my opinion aside as just another call for class warfare, but warfare presumes a level of power on the part each combatant that was not present with the swimmers in the waters around the Titanic, and is not present with millions of drowning unemployed Americans today. Titanic swimmers lasted no longer than 15 minutes in the icy North Atlantic. Help didn’t arrive until four hours after Titanic sank. Today's jobless have UC benefits, but those benefits will expire long before good jobs ever replace them. Lifeboats like the President's job creation bill are their only hope.

I admire the President's attempt at job creation. He knows that in trying to pull more people into the lifeboat, his own political ship of state will likely be swamped and sink, but at least he'll know that he went down as a man who sacrificed in an effort to save the drowning, and not as a person who survived by callously rowing away.

PENNSYLVANIA G.O.P. GOVERNOR PROPOSES HOG WILD SPENDING ON SCHOOL VOUCHERS

For the second time in as many weeks Pennsylvania's G.O.P. Governor, Tom Corbett proposes a new tax using a label meant to disguise that tax as something other than a tax. Last week, it was the Marcellus shale gas drilling impact fee. This week, it's the education reform voucher payment. Either way, we taxpayers lose. The voucher payment program is touted as a way to allow parents of children in failing schools to seek a better education for their children, but funds used to pay for those vouchers will be deducted from the state's share of education payments made to school districts. To make up for that loss of revenue, school districts will be forced to raise their local school tax rate. In today's lagging economy, the people in this Commonwealth do not need another tax, whatever its fancy label.

Public education benefits everyone and all should shoulder responsibility for maintaining that system. Parents who are dissatisfied with the quality of their child's education should either work within their district to improve that quality or move to a different district. Increasing taxes so that parents can have the luxury of choosing what school their child will attend is not something taxpayers can afford. You'd think a Republican Governor would understand that. Apparently not!