Meet Tom Cryer. He’s a lawyer from Shreveport, Louisiana who has fought the Infernal Revenue Service and won a major victory. What he did was challenge the IRS to prove, in front of a jury, that there’s a constitutional basis for the nation’s income tax. And they couldn’t do it. So the jury at the U S District Court in Lousiana voted 12-0 to find Cryer not guilty of failing to file income tax returns and failing to pay the IRS the $73,000 they claimed he owed in back taxes for 2000 and 2001.

Now, it’s up to the IRS to try and pursue the case further or just drop it. A spokesman for the IRS, Robert Marvin at the IRS office in Washington, when pressed for a specific law on just how the IRS can get away with what they do, just said weakly, “I can’t comment.” Cryer even promised to pay the $73,000 IF the IRS could prove their case and that hasn’t happened.

Cryer said that the Criminal Investigation Division and the Department of Justice both responded to his challenge with “your position is frivolous. ” But Cryer said he never stated a position so how could they know if it was frivolous or not? He argues that, technically, any income is not necessarily any money that comes to a person but rather falls into categories such as profit and interest. He says that if that argument were presented widely then the amount of money the government confiscates would plummet.

But he says not to worry. He says the government could reduce its expenses sharply by eliminating programs that have no basis in the constitution. How many times have we said here that most government programs are illegal because they violate the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution? As an example, Cryer points to the fact that the Constitution does not authorize government intervention in education or agriculture. Yet it does so with impunity.

He might have also mentioned Medicaid and Social Security, too. They’re not authorized either. In fact, if you eliminated all the illegal government programs, there wouldn’t be any budget deficit. Okay, there’d be a lot of useless bureaucrats out of work but do you really feel sorry for them? Well, maybe a little, because most of them aren’t qualified to function in an honest job anyway but that’s not our problem, that’s theirs.

So congratulations to Tom Cryer for bringing the government mafia, the IRS, to its knees and making them whimper. This is a liberal’s worst nightmare come to life.

It seems like we’ve got more celebrities in trouble today than we’ve got celebrities not in trouble. The latest is a woman of mystery, Lindsay Lohan. I say mystery because she’s just like Paris Hilton, nobody’s sure just what it is she did to become famous outside of getting in trouble. Less than a month ago, Loose Lindsay was in re-hab for drug and alcohol problems.

Well, just this week, she was back out on the streets, driving on a suspended license, drunk as a skunk, was chased by police, and, when she was finally stopped, had cocaine in her possession. She must have paid a lot of attention in her re-hab treatment classes. Folks, she’s really stepped in it this time. And I can’t say that I feel sorry for her in the slightest because she’s nothing but a no-talent spoiled brat with more money than sense who somehow doesn’t think the law applies to her.

I hope they throw the book at her. We’re a country today where way too many people, because they’re rich and famous, and because they have this attitude of “well, jail is for those OTHER people”, think they’re better than everybody else. Well, this little ditz goes to the bathroom the same way every other woman does. And as a country, what’s happened to our value system?

Look at Paris Hilton. There were more reporters at her release from jail than most events that were actually newsworthy. And she was treated like she was some real heroine returning home. At any other time, Lindsay Lohan’s career, whatever it is she does, as well as Paris Hilton’s, would be destroyed. But this is the anything goes era, I suppose. Does it frighten you that these two dips are actually role models for some girls?

Oh, and we can’t forget Brittany Spears, the plastic queen of the no underwear set whose drunken exploits add her to the no-talent hall of shame. Kids—and they are still kids—with that much money are too young to handle it. They’ve been waited on hand and foot all their lives and everywhere they go, for some unknown reason, they’re adored. So they cop an attitude. Mine doesn’t stink.

Now, in the past, we’ve always had rich, spoiled kids. But what’s new in this picture is that the media have made them celebrities and because of a severe lack of true talent in show business, they’ve bought their own hype. I don’t have time here to go into why there’s such a lack of real talent being famous today but just suffice it to say, when you start believing your own hype, the only person you’re fooling is yourself.

Watch out, America, the fat tax is gaining. Right now, it’s still in England but things have a way of crossing the ocean. The latest word is that a research group at Oxford University conducted a study and came to the conclusion that making unhealthy foods cost more would somehow result in a slimmer, trimmer United Kingdom. But the study is not without its critics who say that diet is a private matter and government should keep their nose out of what people eat.

But the Oxford study says that if you tax foods high in saturated fats or salt could change people’s diet habits and make the country healthier. England already has a 17.5% tax on ice cream, snacks, and sodas. And that hasn’t seemed to stop the Brits so what makes this group of over-educated nannies think taxing it even more will help? It won’t but it WILL provide more tax money for the government. Follow the money trail and it will lead you to the truth.

Now, this fat tax is starting to have its advocates over here. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Obesity at the University of North Carolina says it’s a good way to fight obesity. By the way, just what does an “interdisciplinary center” do? At any rate, Popkin says people know what’s good for them but they just don’t do it.

However, he says, if you punish them in the wallet for not eating right, they’ll come around. So he wants to see a steep hike in taxes on soda and beer. These people just don’t seem to learn, do they? Look at cigarettes, for example. The tax on a pack of cigarettes is outrageous yet it hasn’t caused the precipitous drop in smoking it was supposed to bring about.

And as far as raising money for the government, all it will do is create more bureaucrats and more paper shuffling with a total national weight loss of maybe ten pounds. That’s not ten pounds per person. That’s ten pounds overall. Is this constitutionally authorized? Where, in the law of the land, does it say the government has a right to be our dietician? This is just another encroachment of government into the private lives of its citizens. It wants to be our nanny.

What’s next, mandatory annual weigh-ins where you’ll be taxed so much for each pound you’re overweight? Then you’ll be given a diet to follow and, if you don’t, you’ll be sentenced to a fat farm somewhere. Well, I’ve got to go now and meet my connection and buy some black market, tax-free Mountain Dew.

Public approval ratings for Congress are in the tank, folks. A recent survey shows their approval rating at 14%. 14%. To translate to a figure more relatable, it means roughly 7 out of 8 people surveyed think Congress is doing a really bad job. You don’t hear that mentioned much in the liberal media—especially since the Democrats now have a majority in both houses. Oh, no, they’re too busy telling us that President Bush’s approval rating is in the tank.

Yet Bush’s approval rating is twice what the approval rating is for Congress. And the media keep telling us how much the people disapprove of the job HE’S doing. Now, mind you, before the Democrats took over control of Congress, the approval rating was higher than Bush’s approval rating. Well, what happened to cause all this? The last person you should ask is a member of Congress because they’re going to do the cow pattie sidestep and play the blame game.

The latest to offer a fuzzy brained explanation is Senator Chuckie Cheese Shumer, a liberal Democrat from New York. He has a simple answer. It’s the Republicans who’ve caused this fall from grace that Congress is suffering. He said it’s because the Republicans blocked a Democrat amendment that would have mandated a troop withdrawal from Iraq.

And it was the Republicans who blocked the amnesty plus bill despite the fact that 80% of Americans didn’t want Congress to touch that bill with a ten-foot poll. Yet Congress tried to shove it down our throats not once but TWICE. You don’t think that would have anything to do with it now, do you? Ignoring facts, something that liberals do so well, Shumer blithered, “The American people want change and the one thing standing in the way of it is the Republicans.”

Uh, Chuckie, I believe that the amnesty plus bill was Bush’s pet project and he’s one of those Republicans who are trying to block everything. Now, Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, names Bush specifically as the reason people this Congress is nothing but a bunch of bums.

Look, didn’t we get change last November? Maybe the American people don’t like the change they voted for and realize they’ve made a big mistake. But we do have a method of correcting mistakes we make on election day. It’s called the next election day. I can’t wait.

When I say that liberals are completely out of touch with reality, I can point to their embrace of tax increases when other countries of the world are revolting against them. I can point to their passionate embrace of socialized medicine, which doesn’t work anywhere it’s been tried. I can point to any number of things that show how they’re completely lost somewhere in the ozone.

But now, there’s a new one and it concerns one of the liberals’ basic beliefs and that’s infanticide. You probably know it as abortion but it’s the same thing. Well, now, the three leading candidates for the Democrat nomination for president—all liberals, by the way—have pledged their support for government funding of abortions.

Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of the $1200 hair cut pretty boy ambulance chaser John Edwards told a meeting of the Planned Infanticide Action Group that her husband’s health care plan would cover pregnancy termination. John wasn’t there. I guess he was getting a haircut.

Senator Hillary Rodham Klingon and Senator Osama Yo Momma Obama were there at the group’s meeting and they came out firmly for government funded abortion and decried the recent Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on late term infanticide. Are there any Democrats who are against this? If there are, they’ve certainly kept a low profile. All the rest of the candidates are courting the vote of the abortion hags as if the whole election depended on them.

“But, Steve ” you might ask, “that’s nothing new. How are they out of touch?” Okay, I’ll tell you. There’s a new study out done by the Overbrook Research Group out of Illinois that shows that younger women voters, are starting to embrace the pro-life position.

Over 30,00 interviews were conducted between 1992 and 2005 and showed that, in 1992, women between the ages of 18 and 29 were 39% pro choice with pro-life coming in at 23%. Today, those who say they’re ardently pro-life are 36% and pro-choice is only half that, at 18%.

This represents a radical change in the thinking of women who’ve come to see the abortion movement for what it is, Murder, Inc. And Mr. Haircut, Ms. Klingon, and Osama Obama are still standing up in front of a convention of abortion hags still preaching a position that’s losing ground rapidly except with a group of women riding brooms.

Just keep it up, you three, just keep it up. I wouldn’t have you change anything you’re doing in trying to win the popular vote.

The Wyoming Department of Public Instruction Friday filed a lawsuit in District Court in Cheyenne asking that the court order five school districts, one of which is Gillette, to cough up the $44 million dollars the department says the districts owe the state under last fall’s Amendment B passage. There’s an administrative hearing going on now as to whether the state has the right to strong arm these five districts.

But the department of Public Dumbing Down doesn’t want to wait. They want the money now. Isn’t that what this hearing is all about? Why be so impatient? Is it going to cost $44 million dollars more to teach kids to memorize the answers to the final exams, which is what’s being done. Anybody with a grain of honesty about the school system will tell you that’s what they’re doing.

But that’s not the point. The point is that, when the amendment was approved by the voters last November, there was no effective date for it to start. So, therefore, it has to be assumed that, since this was a money matter, it would go into effect at the start of the new fiscal year which began July 1st. Plus, the five districts say the amendment really doesn’t change anything. It only gives the legislature the option to change the law and the legislature didn’t change the law last winter. So nothing’s really changed.

Speaker of the House Roy Cohee of Casper said Friday that there weren’t any lawmakers who knew about the hearing who objected to the Department of Public Instruction taking the five school districts to court. The amendment calls for school money taken in from tax revenues to be turned over to the state in a socialist-like share the wealth program and doled out in a per-student as needed basis. So it’s basically “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his needs.”

Know whose philosophy that was? Karl Marx, that’s who. And isn’t it coincidental that the five school districts are in more prosperous areas of the state? And where does the money go? To the less prosperous areas. And the Department of Public Instruction can’t wait to get their hands on the money in their “no dollar left behind” lawsuit so they can re-distribute the wealth.

Do you recall the Department of Public Instruction so anxious to collect money in the past? If they’re being short sheeted by the Federal Government on funds for education programs, then why not tell the Feds and their no child gets ahead program to take a hike and get back to educating kids?

Immediately following News Break 1270 on KIML, you hear The Michael Savage Show. And, as you know, Michael doesn’t mince his words. He says just what he thinks. And the fact that his views are conservative, you know has to anger feather brained liberals everywhere. And…his show originates out of San Francisco, not exactly a hotbed of patriotism.

Well, he’s done it again. He’s offended another group of lunatics, this time criminal alien advocates who want to get him fired, a la Don Imus, for his remarks about some left wing kook hunger strikers. It seems that these criminal alien advocates are on a hunger strike in support of these trespassers.

During his show on July 5th, Savage said of the hunger strikers, “I would say let them fast till they starve to death because then we won’t have a problem about giving them green cards because they’re illegal aliens ” I don’t see anything wrong with that. If they want to starve themselves, that’s their business. Nobody’s forcing them to eat. Well, some protestors have been offended by Savage’s remarks. And they’ve started a campaign to get him fired.

Now, in a case like this, if Savage had been a liberal on Air America and a group of conservatives had protested, the scream of First Amendment Freedom Of Speech would be deafening. But these kooks are saying Savage’s First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech should be disregarded. So they’re leaning on Savage’s home base station, KNEW in San Francisco, and Talk Radio Network, who syndicates his show, to dump him.

A sheister, left wing lawyer named Mark Silverman who’s with the Immigrant Resource Council, said, “I think wishing the death of people is just beyond belief for someone who has ten million listeners. ” Wait a minute. Hold it right there. Ten million people listen to Michael Savage. Why? Because they agree with what he has to say. It’s a matter of the public choosing what they want to listen to.

Can Air America with its left wing maggot hosts, claim that kind of audience? No, they can’t because only a handful of mental cases agree with them. So you’ve got some suicidal lunatics who want to starve themselves to death. Wouldn’t we all be better off without them? Michael Savage is right, liberalism is a mental disorder.

And what do you want to bet the same people who are screaming about Michael Savage and what he said, were the first people who wanted to see Terri Schaivo starve to death?

Here’s a rule of thumb to live by: When a tax increase is proposed, no matter how soundly it’s decried by lawmakers as unnecessary, it’ll always come back stronger than before. Do you remember in the last session of the legislature how somebody proposed a raise in the gasoline tax and how it was soundly hooted down? Well, guess what. It’s baaaaack.

The interim Transportation Committee agreed on Friday to move forward with two proposals they say would generate funds for road construction and maintenance in Wyoming. The first would raise the state’s gasoline tax from 14 cents a gallon to 24 cents a gallon in stages by 2011. When the top rate has kicked in, it would bring in $70 million more annually.

Right now, Wyoming’s gasoline tax is the second lowest in the nation with Alaska’s being lower. The raise to 24 cents a gallon would put us with a higher gasoline tax than Colorado, who hits drivers up for 22 cents a gallon. Senator Michael von Flatern of Gillette says the proposal would be a tough sell in the legislature. He says committee members need to convince their colleagues in the legislature as well as the general public about the need for money if the bill ever stands a chance of passage.

Last year on my morning show, Senator von Flatern didn’t seem too hot on the idea of the gas tax increase so something must have changed his mind. Okay, let’s do the math on the proposal. It’s supposed to bring in $70 million a year. There are 500,000 or so people in Wyoming. That comes out to $140 extra in gasoline taxes for every man, woman, and child in the state. And that number goes up when you figure that children don’t drive.

Now, for you people who buy that “oil companies are price gouging” bill of goods, do some more math. The oil companies make 10 cents a gallon profit on gas. With the new tax rate, the state would be making almost 2 1⁄2 times that on a gallon of gas. Now, who’s gouging who?

The other proposal under consideration is a 70% hike in the cost of a driver’s license and a license renewal. Right now, a new license is $20 and a renewal is $15. That adds up to a new license costing $34 and $25.50 for a renewal. So remember when a proposed tax increase is hooted down, it’ll be back even stronger. Oh, I haven’t even had time to mention another proposal that got thumbs down last time but the idea isn’t dead. That’s turning I-80 into a toll road.

Don’t hold the funeral for that idea yet.

I want to take the next little bit of time I’ve been allotted for this portion of Newsbreak 1270 to mourn the death Tuesday of Doug Marlette. Doug was an editorial cartoonist who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize back in the ‘80s. I had the privilege of meeting Doug on a couple of occasions in Charlotte, North Carolina where I was working and he was the editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer.

It was those media gatherings where you get together with your colleagues and socialize. So he and I never really got a chance to discuss what our political views were although I suspect his were a little to the left of mine. But he was an equal opportunity thorn in the side of anyone who was just a little pompous or a little self-important. And that crossed political lines so you never really knew where his true sympathies were. And Doug could be irreverent for the sake of making a point as well.

One of his cartoons I remember well was the now-disgraced Reverend Jim Bakker who had the PTL club on television. Some of you may remember it. Bakker had just opened up a theme park in South Carolina, a religious theme park called Heritage USA, complete with a water slide. When it opened, Doug socked it to Bakker in a cartoon. It showed John The Baptist about to baptize Jesus when Bakker come down the water slide into the water yelling “wheeee!”

But Doug could touch your heart at its deepest levels, too. After the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded on takeoff in 1986, killing all seven astronauts on board, Doug had a cartoon that showed the American eagle all alone, looking up a star-filled night sky. And out of one of the eagle’s eyes, you could see a tear welling up, ready to fall. That, to my mind, said more than any editorial cartoon ever did in my lifetime.

Doug went on to work as an editorial cartoonist in Atlanta, where he won a Pulitzer Prize, and later in New York. Many of his cartoons were syndicated to newspapers around the country. Somehow the editorial cartoon business just won’t be the same. Doug’s life came to an end much too soon—he was 57—when his car skidded on a rain soaked highway and crashed. For those of you not familiar with his work, you missed one of the greats.

Doug Marlette was a man with a particular talent to take what was going on in the big picture, shrink it down into a small picture on an editorial page, and make you laugh or think. And most of the time it was both.

How many times have you called a place of business and gotten the automated operator and heard her say, “For English, press 1. For Spanish, press 2”? Well, in Massachusetts, pretty soon there might just be a third option. “For Chinese, press 3”. Activists of Chinese descent in Taxachussets held a rally to call for names on the election ballot to be printed not only in English but in Chinese characters as well.

The Chinese Progressive Alliance—make that read “liberal” alliance—wants the names in Chinese because to assist voters who speak little English, but lots of Chinese. Wait a minute. If they’re not familiar with the candidates by their regular names, then what are they doing voting? Isn’t that a lot like having Stevie Wonder drive the car?

At any rate, Lydia Lowe, the director of the Chinese alliance who has an American name, the name of the candidate is crucial and if it’s written in Chinese, then the non-English speakers will recognize the name with any help from a translator. And here’s the part that shouldn’t surprise anybody. The U S Department of Justice supports the idea.

But Massachusetts Secretary of State William Gavin, who oversees the elections, says the names should be printed in English only. He bases this on the fact that, in Chinese, characters vary by dialect and some could have unintended negative meanings. The Chinese translate English names phonetically by matching the sound of each syllable to Chinese characters.

But because each character can have many different meanings, well, you’ve heard the phrase “it loses something in translation”. But let’s not let that stand in the way of good intentioned, multi-cultural liberals. Once again, their philosophy of “intention is what counts and results don’t matter” takes over again. And, as with all liberal ideas, when they’re put into practice, confusion reigns and you wind up further behind than when you started.

But I think I’ve found a way to solve the problem. You translate each candidates name into Chinese and then put it into characters and that’ll take care of that. For instance, in Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy’s name would translate to “swims while woman drowns”. John Kerry’s name translates to “traitor who found a sugar mama.”

And then there’s openly gay congressman Barney Frank. In Chinese characters, his name translates to “loves his fellow man…every chance he gets."

Folks, I’ve been thinking about this Fairness Doctrine that the liberals want the FCC to re-institute for radio and TV stations. Briefly, what it says is that if you have a conservative on for four hours, then you have to give four hours to a liberal to blither their side of the issue. They keep whining that conservative talk radio is monopolizing the airwaves and something has to be done to stop it.

But is it monopolizing the airwaves? I did a little math and found some very interesting results. Take the station you’re listening to right now, KIML, for example. We have my show in the morning for four hours. We have Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Michael Savage the rest of the day. That totals up 13 hours a day and since the shows are on five days a week, it’s 65 hours a week.

Now, let’s go back to last weekend. NBC, one of the most liberal networks going, gave 75 hours all totaled on their networks to the Al Gore fiasco called Live Earth. And since environmentalists are liberals, that’s 75 hours worth of air time. And, no, that’s not spread out over a week. On their group of networks, they gave that much time IN ONE DAY to the global warming hoax.

Can you imagine the whining and moaning from the left if some network donated that much air time to a conservative cause? You’d never hear the end of it! And what kind of reaction do you think I’d get from NPR, National Panhandling Radio, if I were to call them up and say I wanted to simulcast the Steve Norris Show on their outlets and threaten them with the fairness doctrine if they didn’t go along with it.

Or maybe I wouldn’t be as piggish. I’d just ask for the three minutes I’m allotted for this commentary and have it run on some liberal outlet. Do you think they’d agree to that in the name of fairness? The minute they do, look out the window and you’ll see the Devil go by on ice skates. You see, fairness is a two-way street unless you’re a liberal. When someone disagrees with a liberal in the media, that’s unfair. And when nobody wants to hear a liberal spout their gibberish in the media, that’s unfair.

So it’s a stacked deck, folks, this fairness doctrine. But we could turn it to our advantage if it does come about. We could demand equal time in the name of fairness. Wouldn’t that be fun to witness their reaction? So the liberals are hot to ask for the return of the fairness doctrine. Well, I’d caution you liberals on one thing. Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it.

I think I’ve found a way to completely discredited the global warming crowd. Once a month, have a Live Earth concert at various places all over the world. If Saturday’s Al Gore production was any indicator, the movement will be completely dead by the time cold weather gets here. And you just can’t hold an outdoor concert to warn people about global warming when it’s snowing now, can you? Folks, did any of you see any of the Live Earth productions from around the world Saturday?

I have to admit, I didn’t. All of the NBC owned networks were showing them at one time or another but somehow I missed them. Apparently, I didn’t miss too much. The reviews said the shows were underwhelming. Never mind that the performers traveled nearly a quarter of a million miles all totaled in fossil-fuel-burning jets to get to wherever they were supposed to be performing and each stage used enough power to light ten large homes just for lighting.

Never mind that each act had its own entourage of technicians and lackeys who also burned fossil fuel to get there. That’s beside the point. The point is that today’s rock generation just doesn’t care. They didn’t come out to see their favorite rock stars perform and get preached at. Okay, Live Aid and Farm Aid were successes. And there’s a reason. Live Aid was to help stamp out world hunger and Farm Aid was to help the family farmer survive. Those were tangible causes. You could show proof of what was being attempted.

But Live Earth was just an idea. And one that was completely wrong at that. But right or wrong, it was just selling an idea. And the only people buying were the environmental cases and some big egos who know how to play a guitar. The rest of the people? It was just a mega-rock concert, that’s all. Hey, dude, let’s party! So, in essence, Al Gore and his troupe of environmental cases who put this fiasco on should have learned a lesson from this.

But did they? I don’t think so. Al will continue to preach his one-note sermon and liberals will be shouting amen. This was supposed to be the biggest event in rock music history, bigger even that Woodstock in the ‘60’s. But it wasn’t. There was no sizzle, just fizzle. Next time, Al, I suggest you have a bake sale or raffle off an environmentally friendly bicycle or something. At least, most of your audience will be paying closer attention.

Folks, I don’t know how we could have missed it all these years but we did. However, I’m proud to announce to you today that the problem has been solved. Since early man first walked on this planet, he’s had questions, some trivial, some profound. But in either case, the answer has been there before us and we just didn’t see it. And to think it took Al Gore to open our eyes.

Yes, friends, Al Gore. Ask a rock star if you want a knowledgeable answer. They’re eminently qualified to answer even the most profound questions that have stumped mankind for generations. You see, Al has assembled all over the world, the finest minds known to man, rock stars, to put on a concert that will stop global warming dead in its tracks. Among the featured names will be Madonna, the Madame Curie of our generation.

Why are you laughing? Madonna is a true renaissance woman. In the presidential campaign of 2004, Democrat candidate General Wesley Clark, conferred with Madonna on foreign policy. Ask a rock star like Madonna and you’ll certainly get a profound answer. And as soon as the rest of the world wakes up and realizes how important a rock star’s input is in every situation, the better off we’ll all be.

On his global warming concerts tomorrow, Al will not only feature the wisdom and knowledge of Madonna but also the earth-saving ideas of great intellectual giants such as The Beastie Boys and The Black Eyed Peas. And I’m sure there’ll be others, just waiting to impart their knowledge so that we can save ourselves from the impending doom of global warming. And if the Nobel Prize committee is smart, really smart, they’ll be watching and taking notes.

Move over, Einstein. Here come The Beastie Boys. Isn’t that reassuring? Don’t you know now there’s hope for mankind? Tomorrow, we’ll be getting advice from not only Madonna, but The Beastie Boys as well. What I suggest is that we tap into this fountain of knowledge and before too long, all hunger will end, wars will be a thing of the past, the air will clear up, disease will be only a memory, if we just ask a rock star what to do.

Sorry, all you learned men of science and you world leaders. We’ve found the answer and it’s not you. It’s the rock star, the fountainhead of all knowledge in this life, who’ll save us from a death worse than fate. But, you know, I still have trouble trying to picture Al Gore, getting’ jiggy wid it.

What do you do when the people vote in a constitutional amendment but put no date on it for it to take effect? Well, in the case of most amendments, they’re in effect from the date of approval but there are exceptions. One I can think of in particular is Amendment B, which was voted in last November. That amendment says that some of the richer school districts in Wyoming must relinquish millions in property tax dollars to the state so the state can re-distribute the wealth to other schools.

No, we haven’t had a socialist takeover in Wyoming although the end result is pure socialism. What you have here is a manifestation of jealousy by some Wyoming counties that are less productive than, say, Campbell County and want to punish the more fortunate by taking some of their money away. The bottom line is the same thing but five state school districts haven’t turned over some $44 million for “No Child Left Behind” bureaucrats at the Department of Public Instruction to dole out.

And the reason? Well, the five districts say that the amendment, since it involves money, is a fiscal matter and, since no date for it to take effect was ever specified, reason says you default to the start of a new fiscal year, which was this past July 1.

But Superintendent of Public Instruction Jim McBride doesn’t see it that way. He thinks those five districts should have been paying up all along and, as he so melodramatically put it, the districts are not only thumbing their noses at the voters but they’re, quote, “withholding funds rightfully due the students of this state.”

Well, here’s where that argument goes in the tank. The school funding cycle is on a fiscal year basis, running from July 1 through June 30. The budgets, for whatever department of government, are set in stone. The election was last November and that leaves eight months in the fiscal year. Is the Department of Public Instruction that desperate for money that they can’t wait until the start of the next fiscal year?

Or is it that department can’t wait to throw money at a situation, which is so typically bureaucratic behavior? What do you think?

Okay, so Campbell County got the shaft in the election. Were schools in that bad a shape before this great experiment in socialism got approved, whatever the misguided reason? To hear the Department of Public Instruction tell it, if we don’t cough up that money, and do it now, little Johnny will go to bed ignorant tonight.

Tomorrow, the United States of America is 231 years old. I hope you celebrate it by flying an American flag and going to see the 4th of July parade downtown. And I also hope you proclaim, beginning tomorrow, the second American Revolution, this one with ballots instead of bullets. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson gave a long list of grievances against King George of England and the British government.

Today, I’d like to declare a new declaration of independence against King George of Washington, DC and the United States government. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to for one people to dissolve the political bonds that have that have connected them, it requires they should declare the causes which impel them to separate. On this Independence Day celebration, I shall name just some of them.

The representatives we have entrusted to speak for us in the halls of government have blatantly disregarded the law. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states that any powers not granted to the federal government are reserved for the states and the people.

Yet, we have, without any authorization whatsoever in the Constitution, government inflicted social programs such as Social Security and Medicare, both of which take from our paychecks and are both somehow losing astronomical amounts of money. We have judges who show no sanctity of human life and, instead, bow to the wishes of the blood thirsty abortion hags.

We have judges in this country who call the free expression of religion “hate speech”. We have judges and politicians who openly accommodate the perverted wishes of those who find members of the same sex physically attractive. We have a president and members of Congress who wanted to, in spite of overwhelming feeling against it, force us to submit to a plan that would reward criminal aliens with citizenship.

We have judges and politicians who, while they openly support abortion, publicly decry capital punishment for murderers as the unjust taking of a human life. And we have politicians who want to increase the amount of taxes we pay to advance these causes.

Beginning today, I propose that we remember these people in 2008 and get them out of office in order for America to be America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, a land where there’s true life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I want to take a few seconds here and read to you from the United States Constitution. Now, for you kids in the No Child Left Behind Program, The Constitution is this little used and often completely ignored document that’s the basic law of the land. I’m going to read the 27th amendment. It says, and I quote, “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senate and Representatives, shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened.”

The last election for that was last November. The next one is November of next year. Well, guess what’s happening this year, in between elections? Congress wants to try and vote itself a $4400 a year pay RAISE. Excuse me but didn’t I just read from the Constitution something that covers that? Oh, technically it’s not a raise but a “cost of living adjustment”. Hey, call it what you want, it’s still a pay raise and it’s in violation of the constitution.

Last week, in a 244-181 vote, members of the House of Representatives killed a bid by two of its members to block the cost of living adjustment, which is automatic unless lawmakers vote to block it. Now, here’s the interesting part of this. In 1989, Congress gave up accepting pay for speeches and settled instead on this cost of living adjustment falderal. That was 1989.

Three years later, in 1992, they voted approval of the constitutional amendment I just read you, the one about no pay raises unless an election has taken place. This means that since there was no constitutional provision that Congress could ignore, they voted one in so they could ignore it. Is that arrogant or what? They create laws so they can break them. By the way, the pay increase is 2.7% or roughly $4,400 a year. That puts their salaries up to $170,000 a year.

And next year, without another election having taken place, that 2.7% will add almost $5,000 to their salaries, pushing them up to $175,000 a year. And the year after that, it’ll be 180 thousand a year. And it increases every year. Why? Not only is it illegal, a goodly number of these people don’t represent us anyway. If we hadn’t put the pressure on them big time, the amnesty plus bill, which 80% of Americans didn’t want, would have passed.

Folks, they’re not on our side. They’re just looking out for themselves and their cushy jobs. Don’t you wish you had a job at that kind of money where you give yourself a pay raise, just for telling lies?