“Regrettably, there was an error in the memo drafted and sent to the respective campaigns,” said the Republican National Committeeman Saul Anuzis, who said the campaigns had been told two statewide delegates would be awarded by a proportional formula, when it should have been winner-take-all on those two delegates.

“There is no disagreement amongst the members that this was the intent of the Credential Committee and there is email traffic between the committee members and counsel discussing the same,” Anuzis added.

Okay, maybe Anuzis is right and there is a good explanation for this, but that doesn’t keep the Santorum campaign from objecting strenuously to how this has played out. I received an email from the campaign last evening that had a very angry tone to it. They clearly are not happy with the results, even though Santorum lost only one delegate.

As you can imagine, all kinds of claims are being made. Twitter went wild with these claims. Jamie Dupree has a list of some of them, but suffice it to say most of them are claiming the establishment is doing what it can to prevent Rick Santorum from obtaining the nomination. I would recommend you read the entire post from Dupree. He quite honestly points out that even though the documents leading up to this delegate allocation seem to point to the fact that nothing is amiss, it still lends credence to the theory that Mitt Romney will do anything to win the nomination.

We are nearly to Super Tuesday, when Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia will be holding their contests to see who their choice for the nomination will be. Several of these states are in contention for each of the candidates. I will be surprised if my home state of Oklahoma doesn’t go to Rick Santorum. Massachusetts will probably go for Mitt Romney and I would expect Georgia to vote for its hometown favorite, Newt Gingrich. I plan to vote for Ron Paul, but I am not sure how much success he will have. He is looking more towards the caucus states, although he and Romney are the only two candidates on the ballot in Virginia.

Speaking of delegates, here is how the 40 delegates that are up for grabs in Oklahoma will be awarded. This is taken from US Election Atlas.

Statewide Delegates: Winner Take all if the top candidate receives a majority of votes or the top candidate is the only candidate to receive at least 15 percent of the vote, otherwise delegates are awarded proportionally to those candidates that receive more than 15 percent of the vote.
Congressional District Delegates: Winner Take all if Majority, otherwise top-vote getter wins two delegates and the candidate with the next highest number of votes receives one delegate.

Did you get all that? If so, am I the only one who thinks the delegate allocation rules are entirely too complicated? Maybe they should have a warning label that headaches and nausea could result if you try to study and understand the results.

Seriously though, this could be a major issue. A lot of delegates are in play on Super Tuesday and with the race being as close as it is, they are a valuable commodity. Depending on the results from next week, this could go on well into April and possibly May, and you can count on one thing. The delegates are going to be counted again and again, as the race draws close to an end. We better buckle our seat belts.

Authored by Senator Roy Blunt, R-MO, the amendment simply allows insurers and employers to opt out of any part of the mandates provided for in Obamacare that they object to on religious or moral grounds. It’s a simple amendment, but on that shouldn’t be necessary. I will be surprised if it isn’t voted down in the Senate controlled by the Senate, but it’s a shame that it even has to come up for a vote.

The debate over the Conscience Amendment is sure to stir up a harsh debate. One of the claims being made by its Democratic opponents says 20.4 million women who are now receiving preventive care will be denied that coverage, if the amendment becomes law. Never mind that access to birth control is one of the easiest things to obtain in this country. It can be obtained at most county health departments, either free or with very little cost. That hasn’t stopped the Democrats from portraying the amendment as an attempt to restrict access to birth control, under pressure from religious authorities. Again, never mind that there isn’t a shred of truth in that claim.

Another claim being made by the Obama administration is that the amendment will restrict the right of women to make decisions about their own health. That is nothing more than an attempt by the President to change the focus of the debate, moving it away from the real issue of religious freedom by making it appear it is about women’s rights. Make no mistake, nothing could be further from the truth.

If we didn’t have a President and a group of far-left liberals that are intent on controlling so many things in our lives, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If they were not focused on mandating that we purchase health insurance, or that religious organizations be forced to provide portions of health care that their religious doctrine objects to, I wouldn’t be writing about the First Amendment and its free exercise clause. Instead, I sit here writing about something that shouldn’t even have to happen, bemoaning the fact that economy, jobs, and other important issues are taking a back seat because we have a President who can’t resist telling us what we should be doing.

If you have spent much time commenting around the Internet, you will likely be familiar with Disqus and how it works. There are two things I want to point out. One is that you can comment without having an account at Disqus. I will never require registration before a comment can be submitted. I want commenting on Political Realities to be easy, not a labor intensive operation that drives my readers away. Without your comments, Political Realities wouldn’t be what it is today, such as it is.

The second has do to with using your user name to link to your website. I want to stress that you can do that with Disqus. Just type your comment and click on the “post as” button. After that, you can fill out your name and email and there is an option to link to your website. Please take advantage of that (I am talking to you, Kurt Silverfiddle, and John Galt). I want our readers to know you have a website and to be able to visit it easily.

One last thing, please continue leaving comments, even if you don’t particularly care for Disqus. If you have any questions or comments, even a suggestion, you can let me know by leaving a comment on this post, or by dropping me an email. I will take it into consideration. I really do want to know what you think.

This article by John Galt is co-published with Robbing America Chronicle

The growth of government intrusion in our personal lives as well as in our economic activities has become the issue of our days in America. It is exacerbated by the growth of government expenditures resulting in government debt and deficits that endanger the efficient functioning of the economy and is affecting our economic freedom. It is indisputable that our personal freedom is intimately related to the economic freedom of the nation as applied through the laws of the land and their application deriving from the policies of our government.

The loss of economic freedom is also closely correlated to an increase in poverty; and becoming poorer is equivalent as becoming less free. Of the top 8 countries that beat the United States on the freedom Index in 2011 (see table below), 6 possessed higher gross national income per capita than America. That is because government intrusion also affects negatively the overall general economic growth of a nation. As the general economic health deteriorates, so our well being deteriorates. It becomes harder and harder to provide for us and our families.

But one’s loss of freedom becomes another’s relative win, in either freedom or material gain. The present political and ideological division of the country is a reflection of the lack of consensus of whether our material gains – especially to those who receive these gains for free – is making us less free. The argument could be partly settled if we had a way of measuring freedom in comparison to other nations and their wealth.

But since 1995 there has been such a ranking of “economic Freedom” created by the Heritage Foundation and inspired by the 18th Century economist Adam Smith’s theories about liberty, prosperity, and economic freedom. The Index of Economic Freedom measures freedom in most countries of the world by establishing bench marks to gauge the success of each nation in the fields of  ‘open markets’, ‘limited government’, ‘rule of law’, and ‘regulatory efficiency’.

I would like to advance that, as we scrutinize the overall rankings, it is important to pay attention to the moving trend of ‘economic freedom’, as much as the static position of any one year. Since we all have the presumption that America is a very free nation and take for granted that we would occupy the first or second place among the freest nations of the world, I hope it would not come as a shock that is not only not the case but that the trend for the future is deteriorating steadily.

We present only the top ten most freest nations in the world for 2012 and the previous 4 years, which pretty much covers the progress – or deterioration – that we have experienced since President Obama took office.

The table starting in pre-crisis 2007 under President Bush, when the United States held an unsatisfactory but dignified 4th place among the freest nations in the world, paints a clear picture of steady and continued worsening of America as a free nation.

It is relevant to point out that the Anglo-Saxon world, as characterized by the rule of law and democratic institutions, was extremely well represented still in 2007, when 8 of the ten most free nations were all ex-British colonies. This is a strong denial to the argument that empires and colonialism bore only negative results. All these successful ex-British colonies inherited parliamentary traditions and the rule of law from the United Kingdom, as we did. However, by 2012, only 7 Anglo nations survive, with the mother country of Great Britain being the outstanding absentee. The downward drift of Great Britain is the obvious consequence of the socialist and entitlement policies of the last 50 years, which in spite of brave resistance by the Margaret Thatcher years, it has been mostly relentless. It still does better, however, than Germany, France, Italy or Spain. This is the lesson that the United   States would do well to learn for it points out to the probability of it being the next Anglo nation to drop out from this privileged list.

The regressive nature of the trend in the Index of Economic Freedom of the United States – that has dropped from a 4th place in 2007 to a tenth place in 2012,  as is made painfully clear in this table, should be a matter of the utmost concern, and it can only be reversed by the conservative agenda of smaller government, lower taxes, sharply reduced regulatory environment, smaller (much, much smaller) entitlement state, and re-enforced measures towards our rule of law (contract law and property rights).

As we become less free we become less wealthy. As we become less wealthy we lose our military hegemony. As we lose our military hegemony we become less secure. As we become less secure we become less free. A deadly circle, indeed.

We need a man that understands how and why nations die.

In letters sent from IRS offices in Cincinnati earlier this month, chapters including the Waco (Texas) Tea Party and the Ohio Liberty Council were asked to provide a list of donors, identify volunteers, financial support for and relationships with political candidates and parties, and even printed copies of their Facebook pages.

“Some of what they (the IRS) asked was reasonable, but there were some requests on there that were strange,” Toby Marie Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party told FoxNews.com. “It makes you wonder if they do this to groups like ACORN or other left-leaning groups.”

You can read the letter the IRS sent to the Waco chapter of the Tea Party here, but I want to quote a portion of the demands the IRS made.

1.  Please provide copies of your current web pages, including your Blog posts. Please provide copies of all of your newsletters, bulletins, flyers, newsletters or any other media or literature you have disseminated to your members or others. Please provide copies of stories and articles you have published about you.

2.  Provide copies of the pages of your social networking sites.

Did you read what they are wanting? I believe this brings us to an entirely new chapter of government overreach, by one of its most powerful departments. This should be enough to convince anyone that the IRS needs to be reformed. By reform, I mean it needs to be hamstrung, if not abolished and closed completely down. The first two items on their list is just the start of a list of demands. While some of them may be normal, I fail to see why they need copies of web pages, social networking sites, or blog posts. Just to approve a 501(c)(4) request?

Some of the other demands include the IRS’ desire to know if the Waco Tea Party has endorsed any political candidates, and if so, they want specific instances and the circumstances surrounding those endorsements. It should be noted here that a 501(c)(4) differs from a 501(c)(3), in that they are allowed to participate in specific campaigns and to endorse candidates. If that is the case, according to IRS rules, why does the IRS need to know who they have endorsed and why? Here is the portion of the letter that makes that demand.

8.  Have you expressly endorsed or oppose candidates for public office or slates of candidates at public events, on your website, on your radio show or You Tube page, in your literature or any other forum? Do you plan to do so in the current election cycle? If so, provide a list of candidates for political office yo have expressly endorsed or opposed, and describe the occasion on which you made each endorsement.

9.  Describe in detail any financial or other support you have given to candidates, slates of candidates, or political parties, or which you plan to give in the current election cycle.

Are you getting worried now? If you aren’t, you should be. I am not a fan or a believer of conspiracy theories, but the IRS has clearly overstepped its authority in this case. Given the nature of their demands, it should also make us realize that those of us who blog about all things political are definitely on their radar. What more will it take to make us realize the direction our government is headed?

These men have more in common than fashion sense.

By the end of today there is the distinct possibility that Rick Santorum will emerge as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination. Ironically, this is partly due to the fact that Republican voters have viewed him as the worst of the conservative candidates in the field. Every other candidate who claimed to be conservative had their shot at the top, and fell by the wayside for one reason or another. Santorum just happened to be the last one to be given a shot to be the anti-Romney. (Huntsman never claimed to be a conservative, as far as I’m aware.)

So as the conservative base rallies around Santorum, I want to give the same warning I gave to another group about a different sweater vest-clad individual—be careful what you wish for. Just as I warned Ohio State fans that Jim Tressel wasn’t the squeaky-clean coach they believed, I’m going to warn conservatives that Santorum isn’t the conservative you think he is. Tressel left Ohio State in disgrace, and the program’s reputation has been badly tarnished. If Rick Santorum becomes President Santorum, don’t be surprised if you end up with the same result as the last time he was in office—the Republican Party in tatters, conservatism in disrepute, and independents fleeing to any candidate without an R beside their name.

Returning to Jim Tressel, Buckeye fans immediately fell in love with college football’s Mr. Sweater Vest when he arrived in Columbus. A born-and-bred Ohioan who coached at Youngstown State before coming to CowTown, he replaced John Cooper, who did a respectable job, but committed the unforgiveable sin of losing repeatedly to arch-rival Michigan. With Tressel Buckeye fans felt the native son would “get” Ohio State football in a way that Cooper never did. And Ohio State fans assumed that Tressel would continue the program’s unblemished record of complying with NCAA rules.

But there were problems from the start. Shortly after taking the helm of the Buckeyes, Youngstown State’s football program was sanctioned by the NCAA for, among other things, “lack of institutional control” over the Penguin football program. Who was most responsible for maintaining institutional control during the time period at issue? Jim Tressel. Buckeye fans, blinded by Tressel’s early successes on the gridiron, didn’t even notice. In spite of his soiled record, Tressel’s reputation as a “clean” coach grew.

Tressel became untouchable after he led the Buckeyes to the national championship with a controversial overtime win over the Miami Hurricanes. But even that crown came with a blemish; star running back Freshman Maurice Clarett left the program under allegations of improper benefits and economic non-performance. (A teaching assistant administered Clarett’s exams orally and swore that he actually passed all of his tests. Red flag!) Buckeye fans looked past the Clarett incident.

Throughout his tenure as head coach, Tressel, in my estimation, pushed the legal limits as to what the program could get away with. For example, “Professor Tressel” consistently taught a two- credit pass/fail class on Football Theory each fall during the season. Naturally most of his players took this course, which I’m sure was extremely rigorous. This didn’t violate NCAA rules, but nonetheless, most coaches don’t do it because of the shady perception from the practice. But OSU fans didn’t seem to mind.

Similarly, Ohio state’s graduation rates were dismal under Tressel. Again, this isn’t a rules violation, but having watched college football my entire life, you learn to spot common characteristics among the programs that end up in trouble. Poor grades and coach-professors are two of them. But Ohio State fans ignored these red flags, and the sweater vest grew into a symbol of a football program run under the highest of standards.

The rest of the story is history, as they say, and I don’t want to revisit the specific events that led to his termination. For those unfamiliar, let’s just say that several Buckeye players broke a number of rules, and Coach Tressel lied and covered up the problem. The scandal broke in late 2010, and Tressel continued to lie during the investigation, which bought Ohio State enough time to play in its bowl game in early 2011.

Tressel was finally fired, and none of the players involved returned to the field for the Buckeyes. And while the specific violations weren’t terribly egregious, nonetheless, Ohio State’s football program has been sanctioned by the NCAA for the first time in its storied history. Supposedly squeaky-clean Mr. Sweater Vest left a program long viewed as an example of how to “win the right way” with a serious black eye. (For more transgressions under Tressel, see here.)

Returning to the sweater vest-wearing man du jour, I have the feeling that conservatives will end up with the same sense of disappointment after a Santorum administration as Buckeye fans felt after Jim Tressel was fired. It begins with the reputation. Just as Tressel had a reputation as a “clean” coach, Santorum is presenting himself as a principled, consistent conservative. Unfortunately for Mr. Santorum, we have a track record to review.

As has been recited many places other than here, Santorum voted for the entire George W. Bush deficit spending blowout, meaning if he’s a fiscal conservative, he’s a born-again conservative (pun intended). Santorum defends himself by saying that he really didn’t want to vote for all that stuff like Every Child Left Behind, but he had to be a team player.

That’s not principled, Mr. Senator. That’s partisan.

Senator Santorum’s blind support for the Bush agenda led to him getting thrown out of office in 2006, losing by the largest margin by a sitting Senator in U.S. history. Indeed, his support for W contributed to the huge Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008 and the brand name of the Republican Party being described by some pundits as “worse than dog food.” In an off-hand way, Santorum’s lack of principled conservatism while in Washington led to Obama’s victory in 2008. Yes, you read that right. I’m saying Rick Santorum is as responsible as anyone for getting Barack Obama elected by failing to be a principled conservative when he had the chance.

Yes, Santorum is talking a lot of conservative talk these days. When it comes to social issues I actually believe him. But if you listen to him carefully, there is a lot of “tinkering” proposed in his platform. For example, he wants to eliminate corporate taxes for companies in “manufacturing,” however you might define that word. That is not a principled free market conservative proposal. That is the kind of industrial policy-talk we expect from Obama and the Democrats, not a “consistent conservative,” and it’s the sort of political allocation of capital that led to the housing bubble.

In the end, I see a lot of parallels between conservative supporters of Rick Santorum and Ohio State fans during the Tressel years. Both groups have attributed characteristics to a man in a sweater vest that the man has not lived up to. My prediction is that conservatives will feel as let down by a Santorum administration as Buckeye supporters feel about Jim Tressel. After all, he disappointed once, so don’t be surprised if he does again.

This article is also posted at The Country Thinker.

However, the more I examine George Faught and how he has conducted himself throughout his political career at the Oklahoma State Capitol, the more I am convinced he is the man we need to send to Washington to represent the 2nd Congressional District. He is not self-serving, choosing instead to do what he can to help others. He seems to really have a servant’s heart and that is something that is sadly lacking in most of our representatives. I can’t think of a better way to show that than to share this video, found on the home page of George Faught for Congress.

I believe George Faught will stand up for us in Washington. Stand up for us and for what is right and good. He has a 100% pro-life voting record and he led the charge against accepting the $54 million that would have begun the first wave of implementing Obamacare. I believe he will stand up against rampant spending that is so prevalent in Washington, as he recognizes that the real problem lies in the spending, not in the amount of taxes that the federal government is collecting.

We need a man who will stand on principle and I believe George Faught to be that man. To that end, I will be helping coordinate the Faught campaign in Sequoyah County. I will be working to make sure we send a true and trusted conservative to Washington to represent the 2nd Congressional District of Oklahoma.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.

Here is what Rick Santorum said about that speech, when asked about it by that objective journalist, George Stephanopoulos. I borrowed this quote from The Other McCain.

“I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Santorum said. “The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.”

Even though I may disagree with some of what Santorum says about his faith, I happen to agree with him on this. For far too long, we have followed the precedent that someone who is a Christian, Catholic, or any other religion, and who is employed by the government, can not use their faith to help them make decisions in their job. To think that is even possible is ludicrous, in my opinion. Anyone who holds a strong faith in their religion is bound to consider that when they are making their decisions.

The belief that our faith can not be brought into our public lives is simply false. There is nothing in the Constitution, or its amendments, that prohibits that. The First Amendment rightly establishes the fact that the government can not prohibit the free exercise of religion, or establish laws that favor a particular religion, but it does not prohibit the President, members of Congress, or any other branch of our government, from using their faith to guide them in how them conduct themselves, both on the job and off.

I didn’t start writing this post with the intention of defending Rick Santorum, since I plan to vote for Ron Paul, but Santorum is right on this. Too many times, people of faith are told they have to check said faith at the door, but that is a false premise that needs to be stopped. I believe our country would be the better for it. That doesn’t mean I want a bunch of laws that reflect the different religious doctrines of this or that member of Congress, but neither does it mean that they should be prohibited from considering their faith when they are representing us in Washington. Just my humble and honest opinion.

Anyway, the gay man evidently bumped one of them with a backpack and that’s where the trouble started. I’ll let the Boston Herald pick up the story.

But Carolyn Euell, 38, mother of two of the defendants, Erika Stroud, 21, of Dorchester and Felicia Stroud, 18, West Roxbury, told reporters the alleged attack “can’t be hateful” because both her daughters are lesbians.

Prosecutor Lindsey Weinstein said the two sisters and one of their domestic partners, Lydia Sanford, also a defendant, viciously beat the man Sunday, repeatedly punching and kicking him after he bumped them with his backpack on a stairwell.

She said the victim, who suffered a broken nose, told cops he believed the attack was “motivated as a crime because of his sexual orientation” since the three women “called him insulting homophobic slurs.”

Just wondering, but how does being a homosexual exclude the three women from being guilty of a hate crime? I mean, if hate crime legislation, as stupid as it is, is going to be applied fairly, why not against these women? From the evidence that has been released, they are clearly guilty of said hate crime. Instead, because they are homosexuals, their lawyers and their mother would like to see them given preferential treatment and not charged with the greater charge of hate crime. Chances are, had it been reversed, ie. three gay men beating up a lesbian, the three gay men wouldn’t be faring so well.

Now to the real reason I wanted to write this post. This case shows the complete and total foolishness of any legislation and/or law that specifically targets a crime because of why it was committed. As one of the prosecutors in this case has mentioned, it really makes no difference. It doesn’t matter what motivated the beating. No matter if these women beat this man because he was gay, or if he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, they are still guilty of assault and battery against a fellow human being. It wouldn’t matter if the women did it because their victim was of a different race than them. The motivation makes it no worse or no better. It’s still a crime and we need no more laws to define it.

Moving across the globe to the state of Pennsylvania, we find a case of Halloween parody gone bad. You can get the full story from Conservative Hideout, but here are the highlights. An Atheist decided to dress up as a zombie Mohammed. This was frowned upon by a Muslim in the neighborhood. The Muslim neighbor attacked the Atheist. The Muslim neighbor was arrested and went to court. The judge presiding over the case happened to be a Muslim as well. He ruled in favor of his Muslim brother and gave the Atheist a rather strong tongue-lashing in the courtroom. Go figure!

I ask again, why must we continue apologizing to the religion of peace? I don’t necessarily agree with disrespecting a religion other than my own, give me a break. Why does accidentally burning a book warrant the reaction we are seeing? Why do so many Muslims hold the opinion that it is perfectly acceptable to riot and march in the streets, kill innocent individuals, and otherwise throw a temper tantrum, all because the Koran was “desecrated” in some small and inadvertent way? Better yet, why was it necessary for President Obama to send a personal apology to Hamid Karzai? To be honest, this kind of mentality makes me wonder if we won’t be apologizing for what happened on 9/11 next.

Please understand, I mean no disrespect towards Islam or its followers. Part of the foundation of America is freedom of religion, freedom to worship God, or not, in a manner of our own choosing, without interference from the government.  As such, I have no use for anyone who would burn the Koran on purpose. Doing so is simply uncalled for. At the same time, I would ask for the same consideration for the Bible. It would trouble me greatly to see someone intentionally burning a Bible, but I wouldn’t consider rioting in the streets and killing innocent civilians.

Not so with the Muslims who seem to be so greatly offended by the burning of the Koran. They are out for blood and claim they are justified in their actions. I can not help but speculate how the Muslims would react if someone did burn a Bible. Would they think we would be within our rights to consider such actions? Would Christians receive an apology for the burning of the Holy Bible? I seriously doubt that would happen. That being the case, I ask one last time.

Why must we continue to apologize to the Muslims? Isn’t it about time they realized not everyone is a fan of their religion?

Now linked at Conservative Hideout.