Now they’re running our of Reagan surrogates. So they are searching for the next best thing. While Giuliani didn’t have an official ceremony where he was presented with a sword and knighted by Reagan in front of a Skull ‘n’ Bones altar or anything, Giuliani is certainly doing his best to act like he’s the next Republican in the line. He has certainly rubbed elbows with George Bush, Jr. He has marched boldly into political battle, with a 9/11 sword and an Iraq War shield, with an accompanying minstrel band singing of his mighty deeds in cleaning up New York City.

With that kind of setting, what kind of President is he going to make? It should be noted that Giuliani is unique among the Presidential front-runners, in that the highest office he has held is City Mayor. However, he has served that time presiding over the city of New York, which cannot by any means be regarded as a city in the regular sense. Being Mayor of New York for seven years has got to be about as challenging as being Governor of someplace like, say, Oregon, for the same length of time.

Nevertheless, he suffers in comparison to other candidates, almost unfairly so, because his experience as Mayor reflects smaller, civic duties which do not map well to the job of running an entire country. He has been a working lawyer for 19 years, more than double the time as Mayor, and furthermore was a prosecuting attorney for much of that time. Granted, he brought down both white-collar crooks and the Mafia, which qualifies as the best job any prosecuting attorney anywhere can do. But even this deprived him of the kind of experience that former lawyers such as John Edwards had, since even Edwards’ cases had more of civil rights and liberties attached to them. Putting crooks in jail is a fine deed, but there’s more to running a country.

Rather than look at his past record, exemplary as it is, we can focus on his campaign promises. He has made a list of “twelve commitments”, the full text of which is available on his website. Briefly, the bullet points are protection from terrorists, secure borders, restore fiscal discipline, cut taxes, make Washington accountable, energy independence, better health-care access, be pro-life, be tough on crime, safe communities, school choice, and more American involvement with the global economy.

These are certainly impressive goals, and meeting them would keep the best of us busy. But on the other hand, they aren’t that radical. Most candidates would pledge to do these things, with the exception of the pro-life one. It sounds like somebody took a default campaign promise template and read it off.

To his credit, he has demonstrated that he has plans in place for meeting some of these goals. For instance, the health care goal has behind it the plan that proposes a tax deduction – not a tax credit, which would benefit everyone – of up to $15,000 for families and up to $7,500 for individuals who purchase private individual health insurance policies. In the case of a tax deduction, you must owe that much in taxes in order to derive any benefit – and then, even the simplest treatment can cost many times that amount.

His sole role in national defense thus far has been his decisive actions in the aftermath of 9/11. And indeed, he revealed himself as a strategic problem-solver during a crisis, and handled the response much better than, say, the Federal government did with FEMA and hurricane Katrina. However, it is also a point that any Mayor in any city would have done much the same thing.

Nevertheless, Rudy Giuliani has a lot going for him on the campaign trail so far. He’s polling at the top for his party, his campaign contributions are at or near the top for the Republican ticket, and he has won the endorsements of Steve Forbes, Tommy Thompson, Rick Perry, and Pat Robertson. If this were only a Republican election, he’d be home free. But he’s polling either tied or below the Democratic front-runners in overall bipartisan polls, indicating that the Republicans may want to think twice about sending a Mayor to compete with a couple of Senators.

It is really amazing when you think about it that the FBI is actually a very old agency. And yet in its long history, the FBI has maintained a high public approval and regard for honesty and their single-minded focus on their purpose, which is to protect the American people. That is why when we think of the FBI we think of the words of their motto which is, “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity”.

The actual history of the beginnings of the FBI date back to the turn of last century with a descendent of the French general Napoleon. The President at that time was Teddy Roosevelt and it was under his Attorney General that an agency known as the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) was established in 1908, almost 100 years ago. That Attorney General was Charles Joseph Bonaparte whose grandfather was Jerome Bonaparte, the brother of the famous Napoleon.

The name of the FBI went through several changes before settling in to what we know it as today. In 1932 it was renamed the United States Bureau of Investigation. Then in 1933, it was again renamed the Division of Investigation (DOI) because it had become part of the Bureau of Prohibition. Finally in 1935 it took on the name we know it as today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Just as the name of the FBI has gone through some changes, so has the focus of its mission. But this does not reflect a lack of vision on the part of the leadership of the FBI as much as it shows that the agency has continued to adapt and refocus as America?s enemies have changed. Over the years, the FBI has had some phenomenal successes in its war against those who would undermine the American way of life including?

. The most notorious and longest standing director of the FBI, J Edger Hoover lead a war on crime when gangsters and organized crime threatened the rule of law in this country. During his administration, the FBI killed or arrested such notorious mobsters as “Baby Face” Nelson, John Dillinger, “Machine Gun” Kelly, and “Ma” Barker.

. The FBI implemented a strategy to attack and slowly stop the infamous Klu Klux Klan from continuing their murderous and illegal activities across the south.

. In the 1920?s, the FBI arrested an entire army of Mexican revolutionaries who were massing on the nation?s border in California eliminating another threat to the American homeland.

. During World War II, the FBI had a pivotal role in that conflict when it broke up a cell of eight nazis where were working inside the borders of the United States planning acts of sabotage to reduce our ability to battle Hitler. Six of those Nazis were eventually put to death.

But the FBI has never rested on its successes. The mission of the agency has continued to grow and change even in the new century as the focus of our enemies has changed to the internet and the war on terror. That new focus has such a high priority that the top three official investigative priorities of the FBI are?

. To protect the United States from terrorist attack.
. To protect the United States against foreign intelligence operations and espionage.
. To protect the United States against cyber-based attacks and high-technology crimes.

Since the September 11th 2001 attacks, there have been dozens of instances where the FBI working with international and other US intelligence agencies stopped our terrorists from causing further loss of life and property in our nation. So whenever you hear of a great breakthrough in the war on terror or an arrest of one of our nation?s enemies, you can be sure that at the heart of that investigation was this hard working group of men and women, the FBI.

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Ralph Nader was born February 27, 1934 in Winsted, Connecticut. Both of his parents were immigrants from Egypt and Lebanon. He graduated from Princeton University in 1955 with a B.A. in government and economics and Harvard Law School in 1958.

He joined the United States Army in 1959, but served less than a year before his discharge. He then began work as a lawyer until 1961, when he became a Professor of History and Government at the University of Hartford until 1964. He then relocated to Washington D.C., and took up a position on the staff of Assistant Secretary of Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He also counseled the United States Senate subcommittee on car safety, and was also a faculty member at The American University Washington College of Law. He has continued to practice law throughout his career, but only in between his other accomplishments.

Through the years and throughout his career, Ralph Nader has been an outspoken activist for consumer rights, the environment, and civic government. He has based much of his career on criticizing big corporations, which have largely taken over control of the United States at the detriment of its citizens. He is the founder of many organizations both in the government and in the private sector whose purpose serves to protect private citizens from the greed and misanthropy of large corporations, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Public Citizen, and several public interest research groups. He has also founded a huge number of non-profit activist and watchdog groups.

He has run for President four times, in 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004. He has never held a public office. However, he has created several regulatory government agencies, most particularly the EPA and OSHA. Virtually every industry from airlines to fast food has changed its practices or added safety features as a result of his work.

Not surprisingly, he has had clashes, run-ins, and struggles with multinational corporations who wanted to silence him. The most famous of these incidents happened after he published his study of car safety, which he gave General Motors failing marks for. General Motors, Inc., responded by numerous tactics to discredit him, spy on him, and even “hiring prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations”. These activities were later the subject of a lawsuit by Nader against General Motors, which he won and received a public apology and a six-figure cash settlement.

Ralph Nader has so far authored, co-authored, or edited 31 books on the topics of consumer safety, consumer rights, and how society is abused by corporate interests. His published bibliography includes a list which would fill this article, but some of his more famous and signatory books are “Unsafe at Any Speed”, “Corporate Power in America”, “Who’s Poisoning America”, “No Contest: Corporate Lawyers and the Perversion of Justice in America”, and “Why Women Pay More”. He has also appeared in several documentaries, and is fluent in English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The current effort to draft Ralph Nader is an expression of his huge fan following. At times, his previous nominations have been what are called “protest candidacies”. So far, the closest thing he has made to accepting the nomination is that he has stated that he might run if Hillary Rodham Clinton receives the Democratic nomination. Since Clinton is indeed the front-runner in the Democratic race, that seems like a very good possibility.

Surprisingly enough, Ralph Nader has shown many signs that he might make a good President, despite not having held public office. He has continuously acted in the best conscience and public interest, he has set up and run many organizations, has gotten things done to improve the quality of life in America well beyond the capacity of many Governors and Congressmen, and has vast knowledge in many subjects which would qualify him to handle almost any problem that came up.

After over two hundred years of history, it?s amazing to see that this government that rules the current America is still very much the product of those cornerstone documents that were written by the founding fathers, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and especially the Declaration of Independence. The national sense of self and that distinctively ?American? personality is very much interwoven with the bold statements in these documents.

For one thing, Americans have an intrinsic sense of their own rights and their ability to function separate from government. As such, government is never outside of the critical scrutiny of the people that it rules. While this seems perfectly normal to the citizens of this country, it is uncommon historically where government ruled with virtual absolute authority and the people were subservient to their leaders. To an American, the ones they elect to serve work for the public. And if they ever forget that or appear to be attempting to gather more power than they are allowed, it isn?t long before the leadership of the country is replaced. This ability of the people to peaceably ?throw the bums out? has kept government in check and constantly on edge for two centuries. And that is a good thing.

The Declaration of Independence would have to be considered a cornerstone of how our system of government works because along with independence from England, that document created a spirit of independence and pride in the American psyche that has influenced virtually every aspect of both public and private life. When America declared itself independent from England, it firmly entrenched into the soul of every American to never be dependent on any other country, government or ruler ever again.

To an outsider, the fierce dedication to freedom and self determination that is so deeply entrenched in American culture seems peculiar. But that fundamental conviction that we are a free people, not just of tyranny from without but free of oppression from within as well affects every aspect of American life. That sense of self will and self awareness is what makes American music, movies, cultural life and art to exciting and addictive around the world.

There was something buried in that bold declaration to the royalty of England that we would be an independent and free people that changed the personality of America forever. We did not just break away to be adrift from our point of origin, in this case The United Kingdom. Rather when we declared freedom, it was not just freedom FROM oppression and the dominance of government, it was freedom TO greatness that rose up out of the people, not from a government that was the keeper of the people.

The Declaration of Independence accomplished it?s short term goal of changing the culture of what was happening on the American mainland from a bold act of colonization into an even bolder building of a new nation. But accomplished so much more by putting a determination in the heart and soul of every American to never again be subjects of a government. Instead government in this new country would forever be the subject of the people, their servant and answerable to them. So Americans keep their government on a short leash, not the other way around. This is a revolutionary concept and one that has been working well for over 200 years becoming the envy of nations all around the world.

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After this, he attended Brigham Young University and got a Bachelor of Arts degree by 1971. He then attended in a joint JD/MBA program between Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School, from which he earned a Juris Doctor for law and an MBA Master of Business Administration. This gives him the rare case of being a lawyer, business manager, missionary, and member of a family with political connections all at the same time.

In fact, his ties to the Mormon church are deeper than usual; his great-great-grandfather, Parley P. Pratt, was one of the founding members of the Mormon religion. For his part, he has served as a part-time lay minister, and has also served as stake president in his church. However, he has stated that he believes that “a president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States”, and he has proposed to serve no single religion, group, cause, nor interest.

Mitt Romney’s first job after graduating was as a member of Boston Consulting Group in 1974. Then he moved to another Boston-based management consulting firm, Bain & Company, Inc., where he served as vice president for six years. In 1984, he founded his own company, Bain Capital, which he served as CEO for 14 years. In the process, he enjoyed phenomenal business success, either investing in or buying companies including Staples, Brookstone, Domino’s, Sealy Corporation and Sports Authority.

In 1990, he returned to Bain & Company as a favor to bail out the ailing corporation. He took over management and turned it around into a profitable business again within a year’s time. Beginning in 1998, he also headed the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games Organizing Committee, and again turned it into business success. As a result of his business smarts, he has a net worth estimated around $230 million.

He had a less successful start in politics, when he lost a bid for U.S. Senate to Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994. Biding his time in the business sector, he ran again in 2002, this time for Governor of Massachusetts, and won, being sworn in on January 2, 2003. Putting his amazing financial prowess to work for the government, he walked in with a $3 billion deficit and managed the state back into the black ink, into a $700 million surplus by 2006. However, he did this by raising taxes and fees, closing tax loopholes, and cutting spending by $1.6 billion, including $700 million in reductions in state aid to cities and towns. In other words, the citizens bailed out the state, under his supervision.

Being Governor of Massachusetts also placed him in the hot seat regarding same-sex marriage, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court made the decision for legalizing same-sex marriages in November of 2003. Caught in the middle between a Supreme Court ruling and his religious beliefs, he compromised with instead only allowing same-sex civil unions, but later reneged and went back to banning them wholesale. In 2005, he announced that he would not seek a second term, and his term as Governor ended in 2007, declaring his candidacy for United States President almost the same day.

Mitt Romney is seen as a hard-right religion-based Republican, who capitalizes on his business acumen. He can count on the support of the Mormon church, the business sector, and financially concerned citizens who are critical of current Federal fiscal policy which has the country currently in a massive debt. He also brings a hefty bankroll to the table, having supplied over $17 million to his own campaign, staying easily ahead of other candidates who must count on campaign contributions.

One of the great debates has been ongoing in American society over it?s history has been over whether it is moral and right to use the death penalty as a punishment for heinous crimes. Whether one is for abolishing this form of punishment or on the side of using it as a just outcome for a criminal, there is no question that the issue itself is a difficult one to decide.

The arguments for or against the death penalty are often not offered from a legal point of view. The positions taken by those both for and against the law fall under a few general classifications?

. The argument from morality against the death penalty. That it is immoral for a just society to take a life, even if it is of a criminal who themselves have taken life.

. The argument from morality for the death penalty. That it is just for the life of one convicted of a heinous crime to lose their lives as a proper outcome of that crime. That certain crimes should always be defined as so grievous that the one committing this crime must not continue to live and that it is the responsibility of the legal system to remove such individuals from society via the death penalty.

. The argument that the death penalty does or does not constitute cruel or unusual punishment.

. The argument that God calls for the death of the murderer under the ?and eye for an eye? statute from the Hebrew Old Testament.

. The argument that God calls for the forgiveness of even the murderer as part of the theology of the Christian New Testament.

. The argument from economy that it costs less to execute a criminal than to keep him or her in prison for life.

. The argument that the most heinous criminal could be rehabilitated to become a productive member of society.

. The argument from revenge, that the family of victims of heinous crimes deserve to see the killers of their loved ones executed.

. The argument from closure that for those same families and for society, seeing the death of a heinous criminal aids in the grief process by providing closure when we see the guilty properly punished.

It is easy to see why this issue is so emotionally charged and continues to be one of debate and dialog both at the governmental level and in political and religious circles.

It really isn?t rational to consider a law or the attempt by lawmakers to frame this issue into legislation as moral or immoral. In our representative form of government, those who would make laws have clear cut guidelines on how they will decide what will or will not become the law of the land.

The top level criteria for what becomes a law in this country is the will of the people. This can be difficult to determine especially in an issue that has fervent believers on both sides. The will of the people is not the sole criteria for a law as the electorate may not be aware of the legal grounds for a law or of the precedent in legal systems that were the background for our system of government. Again, reasons can be found in legal precedent that could be used to justify the legalization of the death penalty or the banning of it.

Finally law makers will turn to the consideration of the efficiency of a system of justice and in doing so try to determine if the death penalty is effective. There are almost as many studies to show that the death penalty does not reduce crime as show the opposite. It is similarly difficult to prove the executing criminals saves money compared to life in prison. But no matter what side of the issue we come down on, there is no question that this will be an ongoing debate in society for decades to come.

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Huckabee has himself stated that he believes it is impossible to separate religion from politics, so there’s no point in trying. He has also stated that he believes in Biblical inerrancy, believing in the literal interpretation of Scripture, which he holds to be absolute truth. Before he started a political career, he was pastor of Southern Baptist churches in Arkadelphia, Texarkana, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

In his first bid for the United States Senate, he lost to incumbent Dale Bumpers in 1992. However, in the next year, he managed to squeak into a seat as lieutenant governor following a hasty special election. In 1994, he was re-elected to a full term as lieutenant governor, where he served until 1996, when he became sworn in after yet another special election as Governor of Arkansas, replacing Jim Guy Tucker who was resigning due to a legal scandal. When Jim Guy Tucker stated that he might re-think his resignation almost at the zero hour when Huckabee was being sworn in, Huckabee retaliated with a threat to impeach Tucker if he didn’t stay down.

While in the office of Governor, he endured a stormy reign. He created a bill which used money from tobacco companies to combine with existing Medicare money to manage children’s health. He was brought up on charges by the Arkansas Ethics Commission for failing to report campaign payments and for using a fund set up for the maintenance of the Governor’s Mansion for his own personal use. He signed a 3-cent increase in tax on gasoline and a 4-cent increase on diesel into law, purportedly to devote the money to improving roads. He also implemented a school reform which he openly acknowledged was borrowed from the plans of then-Governor of Texas, George W. Bush.

However, his rule has not been without its colorful moments. Ignoring for the most part the issues concerning the governance of his state, he took issues with professional sports, stating, “In almost four years as governor, no issue has excited Arkansans as much as the question of where the University of Arkansas should play its home football games.” He also has a band, named “Capitol Offense”, which plays at political events and balls. He also signed the controversial Covenant Marriage Act into law, making marriage even more a matter of political and religious interests intertwined than it was originally.

When he was re-elected as Governor in 2002, he was seen as undermining the Democratic process for also having his wife, Janet, run for the office of Secretary of State. They campaigned for each other, shared contributions, and publicly endorsed each other. Mike Huckabee withstood the controversy to win a second term, while his wife Janet was not elected to her chosen office.

His second term was even more on the edge of controversy. The Arkansas Supreme Court took him to task for failing to address the issue of having an unconstitutional state school funding procedure, and ordered him to fix it. When he failed to do so, the legislature was forced to take matters into their own hands and re-consolidated the school districts. He also a signed into effect a new 3% income tax surcharge, and had to settle in a lawsuit in which he acted with the Arkansas Educational Television Network to unfairly remove a television program from the broadcast schedule.

In 2005, in perhaps his boldest move in defiance of public opinion, he refused to provide relief or support for the 70,000 refugees from Hurricane Katrina whom came to his state seeking aid, preferring instead to push the burden off onto State parks and local businesses instead. In spite of this move, he requested that the Federal Government declare the state of Arkansas a disaster area due to the influx of refugees seeking shelter, for which he was denied.

As of January 2007, he has announced his candidacy for United States President. He can be seen as a candidate that will appeal to the far religious right interested in swaying the country towards a more theocratic society. He bases much of his platform on religious fundamentalism.

People who recall well the Clinton administration will recognize something special in Huckabee: he’s got charisma to spare. While Clinton showed everybody how cool he was by playing the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, earning criticism from the right wing that he was “the MTV President”, Huckabee can rock out with a bass guitar with his band, “Capitol Offense”. So who’s the MTV candidate now? Huckabee also has the advantage of being an ordained Southern Baptist minister and a professional public speaker, so he can give a great speech and he won’t need to rely on speech-writers and cue-cards.

Huckabee spent his first term as Governor of Arkansas doing largely bread-and-butter civic functions. He attended to trivial matters like managing taxes and instituting a new school program and a health insurance plan. Nothing too radical or controversial here. He did run aground of some minor auditing from the Arkansas Ethics Commission over inappropriate use of funds and failing to report a minor contribution, but otherwise managed to stay level.

His second term saw some more tax tweaking and another school improvement program. His most famous act of 2000 was to move into a trailer home on the grounds of the Arkansas Governor’s Mansion while the mansion was being renovated. Although the trailer was barely roomy enough and was a humbling dwelling for a Governor and his family, the move saved the state a costly sum since they didn’t have to relocate his entire staff, had he chosen fancier digs elsewhere in town. He was also was named ?Friend of a Taxpayer? by Americans for Tax Reform in 2001.

One cannot escape the religious influence on the Governor. He has been the very model of a “Christian Conservative”, moving to increase the sacredness of the marriage act by instituting covenant marriages, and proclaiming October “Student Religious Liberty Month” in an effort to encourage kids to pray in school. He has of course sided with pro-life issues, and has delivered impassioned speeches outlining why he felt pro-life is important.

For being fiscally conservative, he has used tobacco companies as a cash cow, first funneling all funds from the state’s tobacco settlement into the health care system, then increasing cigarette taxes later. He has raised taxes some, but overall has done the minimum necessary to balance the books. During his time in office, welfare rolls declined by nearly half while the state’s economy grew at a rate faster than the national average.

“Time” magazine named him one of the five best governors in the U.S. in 2005. He has found the media very easy to charm, having appeared on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” to make the obligatory chin joke, appearing on “Meet the Press”, and he has popped up on TV and print on a semi-regular basis. In his bid to lose weight at a time when his weight severely threatened his health, he ran in the 2005 Marine Corps Marathon, the Little Rock Marathon in 2005 and 2006, and the 2006 New York City Marathon. Not only did he finish these and successfully meet his target weight, but he wrote a book bearing testimony to the power of healthy weight management and won an award for his work as a “health crusader” from the American Association of Retired Persons.

All has not been rosy in the Huckabee garden, however. There was a scandal involving a violent criminal whom Huckabee released, and said criminal went on to commit further crimes. Huckabee has also come under fire for his tax-and-spend record, from groups such as “Club for Growth”. He earned an “F” from the Cato Institute for spending and taxing policy in 2006. It seems like they are a lot of feisty attack dogs nipping at his heels; other groups also criticized him for not raising taxes enough, and when he brought up the creative solution of a “tax me more” fund where people could voluntarily pay money to the state if they felt taxes weren’t high enough, he was further criticized for making a “campaign move”.

Indeed, he has a bad habit of drawing fire for his off-the-cuff remarks. He tends to phrase things in religious terms a little more than is good for a politician. He has also written a book, “Kids Who Kill: Confronting Our Culture of Violence”, in which he quite clearly demonizes homosexuality, environmentalism, sadomasochism, and other legal and victimless alternative lifestyle practices. Even his recent Christmas ad drew fire for having a very obvious and deliberate cross in the background. Huckabee has stated very firmly that he believes religion and politics cannot be separated at all, and he’d be the last one to try anyway.

One thing for certain, we have Huckabee all out in the open. About the best way to sum up his likely popularity as President is to steal from Abe Lincoln: “people who like this sort of thing will find this to be the sort of thing they like.”

When it comes to this vast legal system called ?Medicare?, the best way we can compliment the work of our government in making it understandable is, ?Well, their hearts are in the right place.? Medicare is a system that was designed to help the elderly with their medical bills at a time of life when that help is needed the most. So, all cynicism aside, it is a system of laws that obeys that edit of seeing the government try to do the best for the people it serves.

But many of us find Medicare confusing. And when laws are confusing, it is easy to think that this was done on purpose to keep people from taking advantage of the system. In the case of Medicare, it is more likely that the system become complex because the medical system is itself complex due to the large amount of needs people have, especially in their senior years and the vast amount of options that the medical community puts at their disposal.

One good innovation that the government made standard in Medicare is that every citizen is automatically eligible as soon as they reach retirement age. There is no questioning on who qualifies because if you meet the requirement of citizenship, you have a chance to participate in the program. If we are seeking to simplify Medicare, we would have to first divide into three parts so we can separate what each part does and how it benefits the people it serves.

The first part of Medicare kicks in to cover hospital expenses in case there is need for that level of care. Medicare covers a wide range of services that you might need during hospitalization including room and meals, nursing and other hospital services that are needed during your time in the hospital. But the hospitalization benefit doesn?t end when you drive away from the building. Medicare also covers home health services you might need during recuperation as well as equipment such as wheelchairs and in home needs of the disabled and hospice services for care during end of life situations. Millions have benefited from this part of Medicare?s coverage so by itself it may justify the existence of Medicare.

You may have noticed that the first part of Medicare did not cover the actual medical costs of the care you receive. Part B of Medicare kicks in to help out with those costs. Under this second area of Medicare, doctors bills are covered as well medical procedures needed during your hospital stay, medicine, ambulance care if that is needed and even physical therapy the doctor may prescribe to aid in your recovery. Again, this aspect of Medicare has benefited millions of the citizens and it often very much needed for the elderly struggling with health issues.

For a long time all Medicare coverage fit into one of these two categories. But there has been significant work done on Medicare law of late. So in 2006, a third category was introduced to deal with the cost of prescription drugs. This is a good step forward giving Medicare recipients more choices in what drugs they need and who they will get them from.

There is little doubt that Medicare will continue to be updated and improved to serve the needs of the elderly population. Hopefully we will always be able to say that lawmakers have their hearts in the right place and that they are making laws that we can use and that we can understand as well.

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Turning at this point to his dreams of far-away places and adventure, he moved to Alaska. there he worked a series of odd jobs until eventually running for the Alaska House of Representatives in 1962. He won this election, and started his political career as the representative for Anchorage. He carried on here for two terms from 1962 to 1966, serving as Speaker of the House during this time. He declined re-election to this post in favor of running for the U.S. Senate, a post he successfully won in 1968 to become the Senator from Alaska.

As a Senator, he chaired the Energy, Water Resources, and Environmental Pollution subcommittees, and served on the Environment and Public Works Committee as well as the Finance and Interior Committees. Throughout his term, he was known to oppose nuclear testing and policies in favor of atomic energy.

In 1971, Mike Gravel played a pivotal role in getting the famous Pentagon Papers released. These details of the Vietnam war and U.S. policy concerning same were released to public scrutiny largely under his stewardship. He also crusaded against the legislation renewing the military draft during the Nixon administration. In 1973, he was again the driving force behind the construction of the Alaska pipeline, currently providing 20% of United States oil.

Over the years he also oversaw much legislation that had to do with the health and well-being of his adopted state of Alaska. One of these maneuvers was the defeat of a bill that would essentially have sold most of Alaska’s uninhabited land to the Federal government. In blocking the passage of this bill, he would earn an enemy in Senator Ted Stevens – the same Senator made famous when he dismissed the Internet as a “series of tubes clogged with information”. A later bill to take over Alaska while reserving a paltry few acres for National parks went through, over Mike Gravel’s protests.

In 1972, he made a brief run for Vice President in the Democrat party, and while garnering a sizable amount of support failed to get the nomination. He then won re-election to the Senate in 1974 for a large percentage, but lost re-election in 1980 and had to leave political office. Discouraged from this defeat, he temporarily left politics for nearly nine years while he practiced business in the private sector. In 1989, he formed the Direct Democracy Foundation – an organization to advocate the shutting down of big government and transferring more control to the individual citizen. He has continued to spearhead the campaign to revolutionize United States political fixtures, with some modest cheers from his supporters.

He announced his candidacy for United States President in April, 2006. Taking advantage of his seniority and experience in working his way up in government, he has encouraged voters to think of him as “grandpa Mike”.

Mike Gravel is seen mainly as a hard-left Independent party member occupying the fringes of the Democratic Liberal party. His continued stumping for Direct Democracy has put out a call to radically overhaul the United States government. He has argued for the increase of liberty in many dimensions, such as abolishing drug laws, eliminating tax loopholes for the rich, being pro-choice, regulating big corporations, abolition of the ban on gay marriage, creating a direct citizen-controlled non-profit health care system, and many more radical – but refreshing – proposals.

Mike Gravel appeals mainly to the Liberal-Democrat who borders on the Populist belief system. He is indeed very “old-school” Democrat, and through his working-class background is able to connect well with the low and middle class voter, especially any minority group.