Imagine with me for a moment... what if Congress (both the Senate and the House of Representatives) was an incorporated entity, publicly traded on Wall Street, and subject to all of the laws created to help guarantee an honest and profitable business?

They would be indicted for fiscal irresponsibility -- for perpetual losses on the Profit & Loss Statement, and for chronic increases of debt on the Balance Sheet.

They would be indicted for non-conformance to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) as it relates to the reporting and maintenance of the Social Security Fund.

They would be indicted for product and service misrepresentation (for promises and representations made not-in-good-faith).

They would be indicted for unethical business practices.

They would be indicted for insider trading, of sorts.

They would be indicted for assigning key roles to incompetent individuals (as in, the Peter Principle).

And that is just the beginning...

I know that Congress cannot be run exactly like a business, but there are so many principles, policies, and laws that govern business that could govern Congress and help it become a much better servant of "We the people."

If by any chance you are reading this AND you are in Congress, please accept my thanks for your service... and please accept my call to reform.  I am not ignorant of how hard that it might be to reform, but reform can begin to take place today, with one step at a time.

Let's ask "What if...," and then let's ask "Why not...," and finally, let's ask "Who will...?"  Since you are alreaady there, how about you?

I would love to help... give me a call.

Just when I was hoping for a short reprieve from the bullhorns of the Politically Correct crowd, they are now blasting another message:

"President Bush is a racist because he used the 'articulate' word!"

Obviously, this is not an exact quote from the PC crowd, but it makes the point.  During a recent interview with Neil Cavuto (FOX News), President Bush was asked about his opinion of Senator Barak Obama as a presidential candidate.  In his response, he referred to Obama as 'articulate.'

This ignited a firestorm of accusation by the left side of the political spectrum.  Their contrived assumption: if President Bush considers Obama (who is black) to be articulate, then he must also believe that most African-Americans are not articulate.

Please, give me a break!

The Presidential race of 2008 is already underway, and it is having an impact at all levels of the political systems of our nation. It is causing tempers to flare and secret –isms of the heart to be made public for consideration by voters across the political spectrum.

Presidential candidate Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware) recently made a positive (but perhaps revealing) statement about another presidential candidate, Senator Barrack Obama (D-Illinois). When asked what he thought about Senator Obama, he said that he is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean."

When asked about his comment, Biden said that he regretted the comments and that he hadn't meant to disparage other blacks who had run for president in the past, including Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the late New York Rep. Shirley Chisholm, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972.

So, is there an –ism to be detected in Biden’s comment? Perhaps, especially when you add this one to the long list of other things that he has said that seem to portray a certain –ism.

This week a high-ranking Hispanic party official, Alvaro Cifuentes resigned abruptly after having a heated argument with an African-American aide to the DNC Chairman Howard Dean.

Twice in the argument he called the aide “boy” and witnesses stepped in to calm the situation. They felt that Cifuentes' actions were physically intimidating, and that his remarks were racially insensitive. Cifuentes was the Chairman of the DNC’s Hispanic Caucus.

So, another temper has flared, and the Climate of Political Warming is, well, warmed even further.

The next 21 months are going to be very interesting as it relates to tempers and –isms being revealed!

Thank You to everyone around the country who has heard the clarion call [sounded out by Dr. James Dobson, Jay Sekulow, and many other Christian community leaders] to contact their Senators in regard to Senate Bill S.1 Section 220 which would severely limit the free speech of the church and other non-profit grassroots organizations.

Here is a copy of a note that Jay Sekulow has posted on the ACLJ website as of yesterday (Jan. 19):

Rather than writing my own version of the situation, below is a copy of an email broadcast from Focus on the Family Action.  Section 220 of Senate Bill S.1 proposes to silence quite a few streams of communication that keeps the public-at-large well informed of what is going on in Washington D.C.

Dear Friend:

The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would infringe on your right to free speech by making it extremely difficult for Dr. Dobson and other pro-family leaders to keep you updated on what politicians in Washington, D.C., are doing.

The new Democrat majority introduced S.1 in an effort to clean up the recent lobbying scandals in Washington. Much of the bill is good, but it contains a provision – Section 220 – that would severely limit your ability to voice your opinions on the important issues facing our country.

If S.1 passes with these outrageous provisions, communications from Focus Action, known as “grassroots communications,” will be tied up in miles of new red tape. These bureaucratic restrictions are clearly a concerted effort to insulate legislators from criticism. At the same time, Section 220 will allow labor unions, trade associations and foreign corporations unregulated access to legislators.

The Senate leadership has fast-tracked this bill in an effort to keep you in the dark. It is crucial for you to voice your concern now, because if Section 220 remains intact, you could be left in the dark on pro-family issues from now on.

It is vital that you take this opportunity to express your outrage about Section 220. Focus Action has set up a special petition Web page. Please sign our petition to help protect your right to freedom of speech. We'll deliver your petition to your senators.

Thanks for standing up for our foundational freedoms.

Please consider viewing the petition page offered by Focus on the Family Action.

Recently elected congressman Keith Ellison, D-Minnesota took his oath of office today after sparking a firestorm a few weeks ago with his announced plan to perform his oath of office with his hand [not on a Bible, but] on a Quran.

The Quran (also spelled Koran) is the ancient holy book of Islam which labels all non-Muslims (and with specific reference to Jews and Christians) as infidels. A segment [large enough to concern any reasonable person] of the Islamic community around the world believes that the Quran is deliberate and literal when it calls for the infidels to either convert or be killed. Thus the firestorm of late.

In a move that was strategic and was intended to calm the firestorm, the congressman arranged to borrow for his oath of office ceremony the copy of the Quran that was part of President Thomas Jefferson’s personal library. Surprisingly (at least to me) this did have a huge calming affect on the firestorm of this controversy. Somehow, the general public seems to now reason that if Jefferson owned a Quran, then how can we be fair in resisting [through public debate] someone else having one and using it in an oath of office ceremony?

I must join my voice with a few others in asking: Where is our discernment as a nation? When did we retire our ability to reason? Just because someone has a particular book in their library does not mean that they endorse it. While we all would agree with that, somehow this nugget of reason has been lost in the current firestorm.

There is a huge difference between owning a copy of a book, and of pledging allegiance to it. Jefferson simply owned a copy (perhaps for academic reference, or as a gift or souvenir), but the congressman is a Muslim – he has pledged allegiance to this book and all that the book commands (commands that he or his Muslim clerics might interpret in a manner that is contrary to our national traditions, our history, and/or our Constitution and all of its Amendments).

While this oath of office ceremony is now passed, let us not assume that he is guilty nor innocent of the aforementioned warnings. Let’s just keep this topic under public “surveillance” and revive our national discernment and capacity to reason without succumbing to the politically correct crowd that says the Quran in an oath of office ceremony doesn’t mean anything. It does, and it will.

I was so pleasantly surprised to read a USA Today article about a ministry in Portland, Oregon called Bridgetown Ministries.  I have a few friends who work in this ministry fulltime, and I have gone to the Night Strikes on Fridays and witnessed these people "love on people."  These people are genuine in their love for God, love for people, and in their desire to express the love of Christ to the people that society -- in general -- have tried hard to forget.

If you would like to experience a life-changing and meaningful event, plan to connect with Bridgetown Ministries and serve at one of their Night Strikes!

Click here for the USA Today article.

 "Those who won our independence . . .
 valued liberty both as an end and as a means.
 They believed . . . that the greatest menace
 to freedom is an inert people;
 that public discussion is a political duty;
 and that this should be a fundamental principle
 of the American government."

~ Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, in Whitney v. California, 1927 ~

Once again, one of the hosts on "The View" has erupted unapologetically with a bizarre perspective:  Joy Behar equated Donald Rumsfeld with Adolf Hitler.

When she was questioned about it, she stood her ground, not even hinting that she thought the comparison was less-than-plausible or just plain outrageous.

Ms. Behar and Ms. O'Donnell have said other things recently that not only indicate -- but outright prove -- that they are "out to lunch" [not exactly a formal diagnosis, I know) when it comes to having a levelheaded perspective on politics, and maybe even life.

A note to Barbara Walters:  Please re-engineer the chemistry of your "View."  These gals are making you look like a journalist who might also be losing perspective (which I don't think you are losing, unless of course "The View" continues to paint a perspective that remains at-large).

For more via Foxnews.com, click here.

When Senator Tim Johnson experienced an unexpected medical event [last week] similar to a stroke (Arteriovenous Malformation) and subsequently underwent brain surgery, he received a lot more media attention than someone normally might get.

The reason?

If he is unable to fulfill his role as a Senator from South Dakota, then a replacement would be assigned by the Governor of his state.  The current Governor is a Republican, and if a Republican was assigned to fill his seat, then the Senate in Washington D.C. would experience an almost complete power shift.

After the recent elections in November, the Democrats gained enough to hold power in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  However, if Senator Johnson is out and a new Republican is assigned, then the Senate becomes a 50/50 situation, and to break a tied vote, Vice-President Cheney would step in and provide the tiebreaker... in a Republican direction, of course.

So, should Republicans pray for Senator Tim Johnson to recover?

Yes!!  Absolutely!

Let us not lose sight of priorities.  This is not a time to withhold prayers in the hope that he won't recover just for our political gain.  That would be immoral and absurd!  This is a man, a husband, a father, a human being.  Let's pray for him, and we can always work on changing the Democrat and Republican balance in the Senate through other legitimate means.

"Senator Tim Johnson, my (and I am sure many other Republicans) prayers are with you and for you.  I am holding your family up in prayers as well as they walk through this valley with you.  We look forward to your soon return to the floor of the Senate!"