I'm Mike Fitzsimmons with commentary on 920 - KXLY.....

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. It is the day when we Americans celebrate our independence from England as declared by our forefathers in 1776. As we take a day off, and as we enjoy a barbeque and some fireworks, consider that we are not as independent as once we were. The United States is anything but the self-sufficient nation our founders envisioned when they risked their lives and property to take the bold step of breaking away from the mother country.

Americans rely heavily on many foreign commodities. Chief among them is petroleum. Seventy percent of our petroleum comes from foreign providers. Many of these countries do business with us, but share none of our values. Should we find ourselves in substantial conflict with many of these, they could cut us off. That could be a disaster. On this Independence Day we must vow to change this potentially dangerous vulnerablility. We must set a course for energy independence, and head for that destination at flank speed.

Americans no longer manufacture most of the products we purchase and consume. These too come from foreign providers. "Made in America" once truly meant that products were manufactured by American labor in an American factory. Today the term applies to any product that is 51% made in this country. Sadly, very few products are. We must set a course to return to dominance among the world's makers of consumer goods. We must refrain from further allowing our technology to be used against us.

If we were to accomplish just these two goals, our independence would be far more meaningful than it is today. The world admires our way of life, but we must not sacrifice it in order to earn the approval of our enemies. I advocate no isolationism, but at the same time, I advocate the notion that what we have achieved is worthy of protection.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY....I'm Mike Fitzsimmonns

I'm as enthusiastic about technology as anyone. I know we are working on concepts that one day will revolutionize how we communicate, and I favor the research. Automatic speech recognition or computer speech recognition converts spoken words to machine-readable input, and it is already in use by many companies, even though it really isn't ready for prime time. I had a little bout with a mechanical voice recently. In order to avoid paying a real live thinking human being, this company had chosen a mindless machine to placate its customers who call for service. After pressing one for English, I discovered that the friendly mechanical voice that intercepted my call, was no substitute for authentic customer service.

I got a bill I didn't owe. The automatic customer service agent wasn't programmed to help me, but was rather programmed to screen a few callers whose words it was able to decipher. As I was telling it that it was a mechanical device without the ability to think, it must have heard one of those words, because as I wanted the billing department, the nice mechanical guy voice routed me to sales.

One would think that if you get routed, that means you get to talk to a real human, but alas, eleven minutes passed before I spoke to a live person, and during that time I was told, by mechanical voices of course, thirteen times, how important my call was to the company, three times how very important may call was, and four times how the company knew that my time was valuable. Then, when I was finally connected to a genuine human, (I was relieved to discover that the woman wasn't in New Delhi), I was told that I had the wrong department, and further, that the company's computers were down. I was asked if I could call back at a later time.

The company I called is one of the nation's largest telecommunications companies, and with that little piece of information, I rest my case.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

Pixar's latest film, WALL-E opened across the country last week with predictable enthusiasm from moviegoers. The theater was full of young families when I saw the movie with my wife on Sunday. For a kids' movie, WALL-E is about as complete an example of green propaganda as I have ever seen. In the movie a malevolent corporation called Buy & Large had taken control of humankind about seven centuries ago after destroying the Earth with pollution and garbage. WALL-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-class) was left behind when B&L launched every human into space aboard a giant galactic cruise ship. Wall-E is programmed to construct skyscrapers out of the garbage heaps that have made the planet uninhabitable. His only companion is a cockroach.

Even working robots like Wall-E get a break now and then. A female robot named Eve lands on the planet to search for vegetation. WALL-E falls in love. After uncovering a genuine green plant growing in all the filth, WALL-E gets taken to the spaceship where the Earth humans wait for the cleanup of their old planet Earth's cleanup. Now seven centuries later, these pampered people are all obese from living in a fully automated environment where they eat fast food provided of course, by Buy & Large.

The messages are unmistakable....corporations are bad, even when they try to look good....man is destroying the planet....technology makes us lazy...and that which is green is to be worshiped. Little kids think they're just seeing a clever animated story about goodness and loyalty. It occurred to me that if Hitler had access to Pixar's creativity, the Third Reich might well be enjoying its 60th year.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

It is estimated that Washington State has about a million gun owners. The landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court last week will not likely have a negative effect on any of our state laws. Attorney General Rob McKenna says a review of existing laws found nothing that appears to be in conflict with the Supreme Court's ruling.

What could see an impact is a pending ban on handguns in buildings, parks and community centers in the City of Seattle. Just last month, Mayor Greg Nickels signed an executive order authorizing the ban to become effective in July. Second Amendment protest groups say the Supreme Court ruling nullifies such a ban, and Seattle’s must be withdrawn. Nickels won’t do that. He interprets the High Court ruling as saying a jurisdiction cannot totally ban handguns, but the justices recognized there is a need for common-sense gun laws. Nickels says that means Seattle has the ability to enact reasonable restrictions on guns in public property, and his executive order is reasonable. While Nickels intends to stick to his guns, (pun intended), firearms advocates are ready to take him on. The U.S. Supreme Court ruling offered no legal test formula to determine what is reasonable.

Indeed the majority opinion left open and unanswered, a number of specific applications that doubtless will now have to be litigated one at a time as the practicalities and legalities are explored. This process could of course, take many years, and many lawsuits. Litigation over unclear aspects of Constitutional law is the method by which our Constitution is ultimately interpreted. Though it was passed in 1791, the long and tedious exploration of the Second Amendment has only just begun.

With commentary on 920-KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons

Do you suppose it was because Cedar Rapids, Iowa is in the Midwest? Perhaps it’s because it is a more rural setting, but last week as over a hundred square blocks of that community were submerged by flooding, did you notice something very different about this water disaster as compared to the one that devastated the city of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina?

There were no news reports of looting or violence. Cedar Rapids residents didn’t ignore evacuation orders, and they obviously weren’t willing to wait on their rooftops for government to do something. They used every available option to help each other. Mayor Kay Halloran didn’t gripe about a lack of effective state or federal response like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Nobody blamed President Bush, and there was no talk of a government conspiracy to blow up the levees.

There were no reports of the police going around confiscating personal firearms, and no reports of people shooting at the rescue workers, and all the area school busses were driven to higher ground. Nobody in Congress tried to blame bad behavior of flood victims on American society, because, there was no bad behavior by flood victims. The federal government has no plans to move house trailers into the area. Folks will fend for themselves, and there are no plans to pass out $2000 gift cards to victims.

The comparison between the two water disasters suggests that there is a right and a wrong way to behave when nature strikes a blow to your way of life. There seems to be no need for excuses in Iowa.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons.

A new AP-Ipsos poll indicates most Americans believe the country is moving in the wrong direction. Food and gas prices are soaring, home values are falling, the war in Iraq continues and the economy is in a slump. Americans are in a bad mood. Only 17 percent of respondents say the country is going in the right direction. That's the lowest ever recorded since the survey began five years ago.

Sixty percent of the respondents blame the economy for their pessimism, especially the high price of gasoline. President Bush's approval rating is at 29, just above his all-time low of 28 percent in April. But the Democratic-controlled Congress scored even worse, with only 23 percent approval among the survey's respondents. The people are not impressed with either political party, but they want someone to step up and make a difference.

What we have here is a thirst for leadership. Some folks think leadership is found in the ability to give thundering speeches that inspire audiences. Oratory helps, but it isn't the sign of a great leader. Some folks think leadership requires strict adherence to ideology. Core convictions are important, but leadership requires the ability to meet new challenges with new ideas without fear.

In that 83% who think the country is going in the wrong direction, you will find little uniformity. Likely the respondents will each see the problem differently. In a pluralistic society, you will also find many definitions of leadership. Perhaps there is one thing with which we can all agree. Our government isn't performing well. It isn't meeting our needs.

We cannot continue to do much of what we have been doing in the past, and expect a better result. Unfortunately both the men running for president, despite their claims of being agents of change, plan to do pretty much what their respective parties have been doing for decades. Plan on long winter of discontent.

With commentary on 920- KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons.

President George W. Bush didn't expect Democrats to approve lifting a ban on off-shore oil exploration. The subject has been off the table for over two decades. The President expected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to dismiss his plan by saying it would risk public resources. That's been the standard line from Democrats to justify their obstruction. Mr. Bush knew Pelosi would say that his plan sounds likes it was "literally written by the oil industry." That's the way they always reject the suggestion that we should be doing something proactive about becoming energy independent.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says we can't drill our way out of this problem. He says it's a question of mathematics: America has three percent of the world's oil reserves, yet Americans use a quarter of the world's oil. Harry Reid cannot be counted on to tell the truth about these things. He typically cherry-picks the data to fit his conclusion. Like Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid would rather repeat threadbare rhetoric than face the facts. The American people want to start drilling for oil on our own property.

A new poll shows that voters want to be independent from foreign oil suppliers. The poll shows that Americans understand the risks, and we appreciate that oil domestically produced, won't start flowing tomorrow, but they want to start drilling now. The survey of 1,000 likely voters nationwide, conducted for Family Security Matters, reveals that 77% support domestic, while only 18% oppose. Majorities of every demographic group surveyed backed domestic drilling including 91 % of Republicans, 73% of Independents and 67% of Democrats.

The President didn't expect Democrats to lift the ban on domestic drilling. As we struggle with the most expensive gasoline prices in history, he just wanted you to remember who is standing in the way of doing something about that.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

As summer temperatures start to climb, it is likely we will see those neighborhood lemonade stands starting to show up on some Spokane street corners. There is nothing more American than a kid's lemonade stand. When kids get an idea to set up a little business, they should be encouraged. Lemonade and Kool-Aid stands are signs that entreprenuerism is alive and well. The whole experience teaches kids important lessons about business. They begin to understand risk. They appreciate the realities of dealing with an operating overhead, and what it means to make a profit. They learn about promotion and marketing, and they soon learn how important it is to offer a product for which there is a demand. They get a hands-on practical lesson about economics too. We should always support these young business operators.

Too many Americans have no concept about how difficult it is to start and grow a business. Often folks think they are rich because they own a business. Even government treats business owners as though they have plenty of money, but in reality, if it was easy to own a business and assume the risks associated with operating a business, everyone would be doing it, and of course, everybody isn't.

Then there's the story of a Terre Haute Indiana robber who apparently thought a kid's lemonade stand was an easy target, until the crime went sour. The guy grabbed $17.50 from the street corner stand and ran off. The little girl who had set up the lemonade stand chased the bad guy. He ducked into a nearby home. The child called police who, after an hour-long stand-off arrested the thief on a preliminary felony charge of robbery. Stealing from a lemonade stand is really low, but even that experience carries a lesson. Retail businesses with cash on the premises are attractive to criminals. The girl and her friends plan to keep their stand open, but with an adult's supervision. In other words, they have instituted some new security measures.

I encourage summertime entrepreneurs. I applaud any kid who opens a lemonade stand, and if I see one ... I'll stop for a cool drink.

With commentary on 920 KXLY I' Mike Fitzsimmons.

The Idaho Supreme Court ruled yesterday that an illegal immigrant who was injured while living in Ada County is entitled to medical indigency assistance from Ada County. Javier Ortega Sandoval racked up more than $187,000 in medica bills after he had a stroke while working near Boise. Ada County Commissioners denied an application for medical indigency, because Sandoval was in the country, and therefore in thier county, unlawfully.

A majority of justices on Idaho's highest court found that undocumented alien status doesn't affect the residency of a person. The court ruled that the concept of residency doesn't distinguish between citizens and those who enter the country illegally. Therefore Ada County taxpayers will be paying Javier Ortega Sandoval's medical bills. Idaho is one of those states where one might think a ruling like this would be unlikely. Ada County taxpayers supported the refusal by their commissioners, to grant Sandoval's application for medical indigency. They are of a mind that people in this country illegally are not entitled to the benefits of citizenship. Now they know that they are wrong. Now they know that the government services they support with their taxes may be usurped by anyone who manages to slip in to the country undetected and unlawfully, and who elects to mooch off the good citizens of their county.

Join the club, Idaho. With somewhere between twelve and twenty million illegal aliens in our country, access to these services is bleeding taxpayers in every state. Although Ada County's elected officials tried, most politicians won't do anything about this ripoff, and many think we should welcome these people because, like us, they are only trying to provide the best quality of life for their families. Therefore just open your wallets, demand nothing of these folks, and don't think badly of them. Pay to educate their young. Pay their unemployment benefits. Pay their hospital bills, and cover the costs of their brushes with the law. They are residents just like you. They are your neighbors, and of course we all want to be good neighbors, even as we soon go broke.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

The Bush administration is working to persuade the government of Iraq to enable the United States to keep military forces in their country indefinitely. Some Iraqis want us to remain after the country is stabilized, and to establish military bases, while others think a permanent presence of U.S. forces would be like turning Iraq into some kind of American colony. Our supporters in Iraq fear they will be crushed politically and oppressed, if U.S. forces don’t stay to keep the peace, and our detractors want us out as soon as the U.N. Security Council mandate approving their presence expires at the end of the year.

Here at home, the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq is just about as hotly debated, and will be a matter that will drive some voters in the November election. Cynical observers say that President Bush wants a new agreement as soon as possible so that he can declare a military victory in Iraq before he leaves office. Republican presidential candidate John McCain thinks that if our troops remain in Iraq for some time to come, their presence would be similar to the U.S. forces that have remained in Germany and Korea for many decades. He’s taken plenty of flack for that, but the truth is, he isn’t wrong.

I think what’s important to appreciate in this episode, is that whether or not U.S. troops remain in Iraq in the future will be determined by an agreement hammered out between our government and theirs. It isn’t going to be a unilateral decision. We won’t impose bases on Iraq. We are negotiating to establish them, and if that fails, we will depart when our work is done. How many other countries in history have done that, after a military victory?

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons

The driving issue of the 2008 presidential and congressional elections will be the price of gasoline. By November we may be paying as much as six dollars a gallon, and judging from the effect that high gas prices are already having on Americans, we are not going to be in a good mood about this when we vote.

Before our anger clouds our judgment, let us review what these high fuel prices are all about. Gas prices are a reflection of the cost of crude oil on the worldwide market. That price is manipulated by OPEC. The membership of OPEC consists largely of nations that don’t like the United States very much. While we like to think a handful of filthy rich American oil companies are causing our pain by gouging us, it should be understood that combined, the most powerful domestic oil companies control less than two percent of the world’s oil supply. We are deeply dependent on foreign government-owned oil companies that control the other 98%, and therein lies our problem.

It is common in elections to blame the president in office for undesirable economic conditions, and Democrats will blame George W. Bush. Still we voters would do well to remember that Republicans have not blocked domestic oil exploration for the last forty years. Republicans do not oppose drilling in oil rich deposits off the U.S. coast, and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge. Republicans do not oppose extracting billions of gallons of oil from coal reserves in Montana and the Dakotas. Republicans have not blocked the building of new refineries for the last thirty-five years by forcing economically unfeasible, and groundless environmental restrictions. Republicans have not opposed new domestic oil and gas leases. They did not scare Americans into mistrusting nuclear power and they were not the ones who perpetrated the global warming scam on the nation.

Voters are starting to understand that decades ago we could have done something about our dependence upon foreign oil. History reveals that Republicans tried, but their proposals were rejected repeatedly by the very folks who will try to convince you this fall that Republicans are to blame for all this. Don’t fall for it.

With commentary on 920 – KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons

A judge in Kansas City Missouri recently prohibited the teenage victim of a rape from using certain terminology in the presence of the jury. Words the judge prohibited were “rape”, “victim”, “sexual assault” and “assailant”. In addition to the young woman who had been attacked, and who offered testimony, the same restriction applied to the prosecutor and any other witnesses who took the stand. The judge claimed this order was necessary to protect the defendant’s right to a fair trial. What a crock!

Every defendant has the right to a fair trial under the Sixth Amendment, but all of us as citizens have a right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment. What we have here is just another case of political correctness run amuck. One would hope that the serious and thoughtful atmosphere of a court room would be the last place political correctness would be found, but apparently the courts too have fallen victim ... (oops, one of those forbidden words). It appears that this kind of judicial nonsense is becoming a pattern in criminal courts around the nation, in a growing number of rape cases.

Whatever happened to common sense? A victim should be entitled to refer to a defendant at trial as the one who raped her. She should be able unequivocally to call him her assailant. Those are merely allegations. While they have probative weight, those words alone won’t convict a defendant in the absence of more evidence. Such references have never met a prosecutor’s burden of proof without more. How could a judge think that these words are prejudicial? They are the best words to genuinely explain how a victim sees the accused, and she should always be entitled to use them while testifying.

No court has the authority to muzzle free speech. It’s time to seriously consider the people we place on the bench. Some of them, like this Kansas City judge, have no business presiding over trials.

With commentary on 920 – KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons

On May 31, the delegates at the Washington State Republican Convention held in Spokane voted to support formal declarations of war passed by the House of Representatives and to reject any other authorization of the use of force or delegation of the power to declare war to any other body. What that resolution meant was that in the future, if the nation should elect to go to war, Congress would have to debate and then make that decision. Passage of this resolution was seen by the majority delegates as a first step in restoring the U.S. Constitution. I agree with resolution.

Congress has not declared war since it did so on the 8th of December, 1941, after the Japanese attacked our naval forces at Pearl Harbor. That means that the Korean War, The war in Viet Nam, troop deployments to Granada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Desert Storm in 1991, the Iraq War and a handful of other military engagements in the last six decades, were not authorized as the United States Constitution clearly directs. Granted, Congress acquiesed in these military actions, and voted to fund, and expand many of them, but this was not consistent with the provisions of the Constitution. I suspect that it is unlikely that the post World War II tradition of undeclared warfare will be precluded, but no matter how long the Executive branch operates outside constitutional parameters, even as Congress ratifies these military actions, but in my judgment, it will never be proper, or constitutionally defensible.

Since 1941 Congress has abdicated its exclusive war-making role. In the vacuum created by this extraordinary ongoing forfeiture of power, several presidents have usurped powers never intended for Chief Executives. In its cowardice, Congress has not stood against this wrong-minded practice. In 67 years, neither Democrats nor Republicans have exhibited the courage to reverse this troubling trend toward ignoring the clear intent of the drafters of our Constitution. Even the judicial branch has turned a blind eye.

Would that what Republicans resolved at their state convention last month might start a ground swell of national reform, but the realist in me says, it isn't going to happen.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

Illinois Senator Barack Obama has done what no black man has ever done before. He has won the nomination of one of America's major political parties, to be president of the United States. The magnitude of this accomplishment cannot be understated. The significance of this achievement cannot be overlooked. Yet despite this historical moment in the annals of U.S. politics, there remain five more months before voters decide who they will choose to lead the country for the next four years.

The contrasts are like no other campaign in history. An older white man and a young upstart black man. A war hero and a war critic. A Senator with a long political resume, and a Senator with a very short political resume. A well known political figure, and an unknown political figure.

One has the gift of inspiring oratory. The other is plain talking, but not very exciting. One candidate mesmerizes audiences with his speeches, but seldom offers details for our examination. The other offers plenty of detail, but seldom inspires.

Will this election be decided by substance or style? Both candidates have problems with disunited parties, and neither offers a solution to fully satisfy their respective party critics. Both have been dogged by associates whose behavior has been called into question, and whose statements have cast a shadow on the respective candidates.

One talks about change, but offers programs we have seen before. Many of those programs were tried in the sixties and seventies, and they did not work. The other talks about change too, but his party's majorities were tossed out of Congress in 2006 because they had changed too much, and had become the antithesis of their stated core convictions.

What will cause us to choose one over the other? Will it be war? The economy? Crippling record gasoline prices? Terrorism? Race? We have five months to make up,our minds. In politics that can be an eternity.

With commentary on 920 - KXLY, I'm Mike Fitzsimmons

As President Bush enters the final half of his eighth year in office, the media is cooing like a contented pigeon about the day he leaves office. Many in the left-tilting press are talking about his departure as though a cancer is being cut out of the American body. They can hardly contain their glee.

With all the vitriolic commentary about how awful this president has been, seemingly from the day he first took the oath of office, he doesn’t come close to one the media once held high as the nation’s savior in the aftermath of Watergate. Mr. Bush couldn’t hope to match the utter disaster that was the presidency of Jimmy Carter. What’s more, the mainstream U.S. media seems to be missing what’s going on around the world.

Pro-Bush candidates recently won elections in France, Germany and Australia. In Iraq, Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds have noticed that the United States really meant that they would stay and help these people sort out a future they could all be a part of and now what was once thought impossible, has happened. They are working together. Al-Qaeda is almost dead, the Taliban is nearly extinct in Afghanistan, and radical Islamists are losing the support of Muslims the world over. All that is happening while Democrats and their adoring press, seem not to have noticed any of it.

In light of the all George W. Bush had to stand against in the last nearly eight years … terrorism … enemies around the world, and constant political sniping at home, history will record what the president’s contemporaries were too self-indulged to understand … that all things considered, he actually was a pretty good president. We may soon look back on his two terms with a very different view.

With commentary on 920-KXLY, I’m Mike Fitzsimmons