Congratulations, Americans, you did it. Yesterday, with a vote of 53-46, the United States Senate FINALLY heard what you were saying. The amnesty plus bill that George W. Bush and the America-hating leftists in Congress wanted passed is now dead. I don’t think in my lifetime I’ve ever seen the America people as united as they were on this issue. The telephones at the Senate were ringing off the hooks with calls to protest this jack legged attempt at rewarding criminals for breaking the law.

For a long time, I’ve been saying that the word that strikes a chord with the politicians is the word “vote”. If you threaten them with their cushy jobs, they’ll listen. And that was proven again. See, democracy isn’t such a bad idea after all, despite the attitudes of some arrogant members of Congress who think their words came down the mountain with Moses.

They didn’t and I’m sure that was a traumatic experience for George W. Bush, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, and the rest of them who wanted to see 12-20 million criminals REWARDED for thumbing their noses at the law. But that’s their problem and not ours. If anything, I hope this wakes up the American people shows them that they’re still in charge. These people work for US. And we can keep them on if they do their job and we can fire them if they don’t. That’s the real world.

I hope this makes more and more Americans take a closer interest in what the people we send to legislative positions are doing with our trust. My thanks and the thanks of people of Wyoming go to Senators Enzi and Barrasso for voting no on the amnesty plus bill. Somewhere Thomas Jefferson is smiling and with good reason. His vision was true and we’ve seen it work.

But don’t let down your guard now because this bill will be back in 2009, I’ll guarantee you that. f there’s a Democrat president, that’s a certainty. But now, the fight is turning to another area, talk radio. There are people in Congress who want to shut up talk radio because they say we got this bill defeated. How lame is that? But these losers who were for this amnesty plus bill want media that just read their press handouts and nothing more. That’s the next battleground, folks, mark my words.

Talk radio is in their crosshairs and they’ve got blood in their eyes. But we’re ready to take them on. But for right now, let’s celebrate a victory. Care to join me in a chorus of “Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead”?

Let’s talk about something that’s near and dear to the hearts of every liberal, government sponsored health care. Although they like to call it universal health care, it’s really socialized medicine and, like every government, it’s nothing but a useless and monumentally expensive waste of money. Do you want an example?

Okay, let’s look at the C D C, the Center For Disease Control in Atlanta. The C D C is a government health program charged with fighting and preventing disease. And every year, they go to Congress to get additional funding which, of course, comes from your tax dollars. Right now, their budget is at $10 billion. That’s billion with a “B”.

And what have they done with this funding? Well, they’ve constructed a $106 million visitor center complete with a $20 million TV studio. That ought to go a long way in making the world disease free. They spent $109 million for the Arlen Specter Emergency Operations Center and used $9.8 million to buy office furniture.

They even have a “Lifestyle Facility” fitness center with such medical necessities as “zero gravity” chairs and mood-enhancing light shows plus two “quiet rooms” and two “dry heat saunas.”

Now remember, folks, you’re paying for this with money confiscated from your paychecks. Is that all? Of course, that’s not all. You shelled out money so that 150 of these medicrats, that’s 150 of them, could attend a conference in Thailand to see a drag queen show, a fashion parade, and Brazilian dresses made from condoms. How have we all been able to live this long without this great medical breakthrough?

And for a mere $315 thousand, they went to the International AIDS conference in Toronto last year where they saw a presentation designed to encourage prostitution as “legitimate legal work”. Were there any free samples given out?

You want more? Well, the CDC gave away $2.7 billion to study bioterrorism and that includes $83 million to Los Angeles County alone, and $14 million of was never spent by the county. Yet they received an additional $27.9 million last year which includes $10 thousand for gift certificates and $13,600 for pens, digital thermometers and bags for the gifts.

I don’t have time to tell you about the trans-gender beauty pageant they sponsored or a “gay bar” night by the STOP AIDS project. There’s government sponsored health care hard at work for you. Now, are you sure these are the people you want looking out after your well being?

(MUSIC: “Who Let The Dogs Out”)

Folks, this isn’t a shaggy dog story. This is real. In Federal Way, Washington, an absentee voting ballot was sent in by someone named Duncan M. McDonald. The first time one of Duncan’s ballots was received, it was processed with no questions asked. But the second time, an eagle-eyed election official woke up from his nap and noticed something a little unusual about the ballot. Instead of a signature, it had a paw print.

You see, Duncan is a dog, an Australian Shepherd-terrier mix. And Duncan’s owner, Jane Balogh, had registered him to vote to protest Washington state’s voter-registration law which she says makes it too easy for non-citizens to vote. Okay, so what happened when they found out Duncan was a dog? Well, it took three more ballots, count ‘em, three more ballots before officials contacted Duncan’s owner.

Jane Balogh explained it this way, “I wasn’t trying to do anything fraudulent. I was just trying to prove that the system is flawed and now that I have, it’s gotten me in trouble.” Prosecutors have offered the grandmother and Army veteran a plea bargain. Plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of making a false statement to a public official and they won’t file felony charges of giving false information on a voter-registration application.

Balogh says she doesn’t plan to fight it because she says she knows she’s guilty. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of ten hours of community service and a $250 fine providing she commits no crimes for a year. If she does, what’ll they do, swat her on the behind with a rolled up newspaper? Meanwhile, there’s been no comment from Duncan but there has from Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg. He says, “you can’t let dogs vote.”

Oh, really? Why not? Every time there’s an election, don’t all the politicians sit up and beg? And after they’re elected what do they do? They roll over and play dead. And from some of the legislation that’s either been passed or proposed, it’s obvious they’re not house broken. And liberals are always barking up the wrong tree. So what’s the problem? You folks, keep an eye on Rover when it gets close to election time. If he wants to go out, it might mean he’s sneaking off to vote.

After all, he just might have a leg up on the situation.

I think I’m going to like Dr. John Barrasso as a Senator. I like the philosophy he stood for in those TV and newspaper ads in which he urged people to take responsibility for their own health rather than rely on the government. I like his conservative voting record in the Wyoming Senate, voting FOR prayer in school and voting AGAINST measures that would promote gay marriage. Plus, he’s against infanticide, the real word that should be used to describe abortion.

Barrasso was chosen by Governor Freudenthal from the final three out of thirty original candidates by the Wyoming Republican Central Committee. Governor Freudenthal pledged his cooperation to make sure Barrasso is a successful senator and I wonder how, in this era of sharply polarized party differences, how that went over with the Democrats, Freudenthal’s party. And already the liberal magpies in academia are already starting to squawk.

A political science professor at Laramie County Community College says he’s surprised at the appointment, given that Barrasso has limited experience despite his having been a state senator for five years and being chairman of a committee looking into ways to remedy the lack of money in the highway maintenance program. Well, that’s all well and good that the professor of political science is so surprised.

After all, when you graduate from college with a degree in political science, isn’t that degree a B S degree? Now, when John Barrasso is seated in Washington, he’s going to dropped into the middle of a dog fight over the amnesty plus bill that President Bush and a handful of liberal senators want to jam down our throats in spite of its having been rejected soundly once before and not too long ago.

I think Barrasso understands that America was made a great nation not by its government but its people. He understands that personal responsibility for our actions is at the heart of the American ethic. But I wish him well in this era of politicians who want nothing but to be elected and re-elected and think that the more government programs you promise people, the more successful the nation will become and government programs will somehow remove personal responsibility from the picture.

Well, the opposite of that is true and he knows it and will fight for it. My congratulations to the new senator and thank you to Governor Freudenthal who seems to have put the well being of Wyoming over party politics.

Go get ‘em, Senator.

We’ve said time and again that liberalism is a fraud and now we’ve got the perfect example to prove it. Liberals are all behind the immigration bill to reward common criminals with citizenship. And they think Americans agree with them. And they’ll go to any lengths to create the impression that Americans do. So what happens when Americans don’t? No problem. Fake the evidence that Americans overwhelmingly agree with them.

I’d like to point to a particular example that happened recently at a pro-immigration rally attended by, among other liberals, Tequila Tipsy Ted Kennedy. They addressed reporters while standing in front of a huge stack of boxes they said contained over a million letters from supporters of the amnesty bill.

According to their press release, the letters were part of a campaign launched by a Spanish language radio personality and they touted it as “the first time a letter writing campaign has generated such a large response in support of immigration reform. ” Now, here’s where liberals don’t know when to shut up. The liberals who were ballyhooing the bill kept referring over and over to the stack of letters and kept harping on how this was the first time ever, blah, blah, blah.

Well, a photographer from the Washington Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper began to get suspicious. He could see light shining through the handles on the boxes and that told him the boxes weren’t full. So, after the big whoop-de-doo about the boxes, the photographer decided to sneak a look for himself. And what do you think he found. HE FOUND THE BOXES WERE COMPLETELY EMPTY.

There wasn’t a single letter. It was just a stack of empty boxes the liberals had put there to create the impression of this great groundswell of support for the amnesty bill. It was a phony, a fake, a scam, just like most things that liberals propose. Now, since this story broke, how many members of the liberal media have confronted Tipsy Ted and his henchmen about the fraud? The number who have is exactly the same number as there were letters in the boxes, namely, none.

If a conservative had tried something that shallow and stupid, it’d be banner headlines everywhere. Does that give you any idea of whether the media have their heads as well as the liberals trying to foist off this hoax on us? I can’t say exactly but suffice it to say I bet there’s not a whole lot of sunshine there.

Okay, folks, I said if I was wrong about this, I’d admit it openly and, yes, I was wrong. I really thought that State Representative Colin Simpson of Cody would be one of the three that the Republicans would pick to forward his name, along with two others, to Governor Freudenthal, who’d pick one to fill in temporarily until the special Senate election next year to replace the late Senator Craig Thomas.

Well, apparently Fred Parady and the rest of the Republican Central Committee didn’t see it the way I did so they picked three others. The three names the governor will be considering now are Tom Sansonetti of Cheyenne, who’s the former chief of staff and legislative director for Senator Thomas, Dr. John Barasso, a state senator from Natrona County, and former state treasurer Cynthia Lummis.

Now, the ball’s in the governor’s court and we’ll know by Monday just who’ll represent Wyoming in the U S Senate for the next year and a half or so. Now, the question is, will whoever the governor chooses run in the special election run again next year as sort of a quasi-incumbent for the rest of the term which expires in 2012?

Ray Hunkins, who lost the governor’s race to Freudenthal last year, was the only candidate who said he wouldn’t run to fill out the rest of Thomas’s term and I think that may have hurt him because the Republicans were looking for the momentum of an incumbent rather than start flat footed in a race with the Democrats who are heady with victory from last year in the both the Senate AND the House.

But, in the meantime, whoever the governor selects will be walking into a dogfight, and I’m referring to the criminal alien amnesty plus bill. You know that the Bush White House is going to be putting pressure on the new senator big time to go with their plan to reward these criminals with amnesty AND citizenship. Whoever the governor picks better know going in that this is going to happen and not be dazzled by all the attention they’re sure to receive.

Bush needs every vote he can get on this and he’ll figure that here’s somebody I can win over. Let’s hope not. I don’t think the people of Wyoming would sit still for that and that would hand the election to a Democrat in 2008. Okay, so I was wrong about Colin Simpson being one of the names selected. Does this mean that the Barbara Cubin people want me to predict that he’ll beat her in the House race next year?

This meeting of the “man is responsible for global warming” skeptics club will now come to order. First, I have an announcement to make. We had booked a speaker for today’s meeting who claims he has indisputable evidence that global warming caused by man is a fact. Unfortunately, he will not be able to be with us today because he was snowed in in a June snow storm in Sweden.

Well, so much for his credibility. You know, we have incident after incident of documented occurrences that directly contradict all the global warming falderal. Now, a man named Reid Bryson, who is known as the father of scientific climatology, has called the global warming scare a bunch of “hooey”. Bryson is professor emeritus of climate studies at the University of Wisconsin and he says “there’s no doubt the earth is warming because we’re coming out of a Little Ice Age and you’d expect temperatures to go up on their own.”

He admits that man is polluting the air and adding carbon dioxide to the environment but he says it’s a barely measurable amount. He says the environmental movement has no scientific evidence to back up its claims, just raw emotion and scare tactics. He says that reporters will often call the university meteorology department and some student will answer the phone and say that he or she is a meteorologist and it gets reported in the media as “scientists say.”

And he says—and rightly so—that the environmental movement has become a religion. He says you have to believe in man-made global warming or you’re considered nuts. And there are other problems with the global warming crowd. Last year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that 2006 was the warmest on record, proof, they say, of global warming. They cite data from over 1200 rural weather stations but it turns out that some of the temperature measuring devices were placed on hot concrete.

One of them, in Tahoe, California, was right next to a drum where trash was being burned. One in Forest Grove, Oregon was only 10 feet from an air conditioning exhaust vent. But the global warming alarmists just keep harping away at their supposed scientific basis for their conclusions even though the revised statistics for 2006 show it was the coolest year in a decade. So what does this tell you? It should tell you that the man-made global warming scare is the most elaborate hoax ever perpetrated.

Okay, class, let’s come to order here and let me read you from an essay that some fourth graders did at East End Community School in Portland, Maine. It’s about global warming and it sounds awfully familiar. No, their teacher isn’t Al Gore but it’s understandable if you thought so after hearing what these kids have to say. I quote from the essay:

“We want everyone to help curb global warming. It truly means that the Earth is getting warmer. The ocean is warming at such an alarming rate that the continents are in danger. Such a warming is fuel for more severe hurricanes such as Katrina. Katrina was only a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida. It became a monster storm by feeding off the warm water in the Gulf of Mexico.

"The United States is the leading contributor to global warming, producing one-third of all greenhouses gases in the world, more than South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia combined. Have you ever wondered what life might be like in 50 to 100 years? Imagine huge cities and skyscrapers underwater. That’s what life will be like if we keep burning fossil fuels. We will be in great danger if we don’t get this problem in the minds of all people and curb the unchecked growth of greenhouse gas emissions.

"It’s our future the nation is playing with. We encourage everyone to take action and stop global warming.”

As I said, does that sound familiar? It should because it’s the same tripe the environmental cases have been crying wolf about. And, come on, these are fourth graders, ten and eleven years old. You don’t think they figured this theory out all by themselves, do you? Somebody, namely the global warming alarmists in the school system brainwashed them into thinking this way.

And in this indoctrination that these kids regurgitate so well, did they hear any of the true facts about global warming, that it might be a naturally occurring cycle or there might be temperature variations on the sun or that the other planets where no people are and there aren’t any fossil fuels being burned are also experiencing a warming trend.

And you know liberals are behind this malarkey these kids are swearing is gospel because they’re quick to blame America for its use of fossil fuels. America is always the villain, even if the problem is imaginary. So if your kids come home, spouting the same falderal, tell them to save up their allowance money…and buy some carbon offsets.

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who said “only two things are certain, death and taxes. ” Well, if old Ben were around today, he’d have to change that around a little to make it say, “only two things are certain, death and taxes. And if Democrats are in power, tax increases. ” And it never fails. The Democrat bandits who now control Congress want to do it again. Under one of a whole litany of possible tax increase ideas, one proposes that about one million families who make over $500 thousand a year pay a 4.3% surtax.

Now, for you kids in the federally-financed-with-tax-dollars No Child Gets Ahead program, a surtax is a tax on a tax. I believe that would be double taxation but Congress has never let the law stand in its way in the past so why should they start now? Representative Richard Neal, a Democrat (wouldn’t you know) from Taxachussetts tries to justify the plan by saying it would raise enough money for the government to allow them to abolish the alternative minimum tax.

That was a tax that another great Democrat socialist, Lyndon Bonehead Johnson, rammed through because a handful of people who were making over $200 thousand a year back in the ‘60’s weren’t paying any taxes at all. So, for the sins of a few, you punish everybody. And this tax wasn’t indexed for inflation so it started trapping more and more taxpayers every year. Do you hear Bill Clinton saying “I feel your pain” here?

Folks, knowing that the Democrat party and telling the truth don’t even have a passing acquaintance, do you really believe it when they say they actually want to do away with a tax? Haven’t we heard this song and dance before? Didn’t Slick Willie campaign in 1992 on a tax cut for the middle class and then in 1993 gave us the biggest tax increase in American history on EVERYBODY? That was the work of Bill and Hillary, the Bonnie and Clyde of politics. And what job is Hillary trying to get?

Well, so much for the credibility of the Democrats. Their whole method of operation has been the Marxian class warfare strategy. Convince people that the rich are stealing from them. If you don’t have it, how the rich can steal it hasn’t been explained to anyone’s satisfaction but I’m looking for logic here and that’s the road to frustration. If this proposal becomes law, maybe we just ought to be honest about it and change the national motto from “In God We Trust” to “This Is A Stickup.”

[MUSIC: “Smoke, Smoke, Smoke That Cigarette”]

I want to share something with you about this friend I had once in Ohio. Smoking in their home was forbidden…unless it was marijuana. Then it was okay. The reason I mention that is because we have some smoking news out of Amsterdam, Holland today. The Dutch have a smoking ban that’s going to go into effect next year for all restaurants, including coffee houses. Now, a lot of smoking goes on in coffee houses in Holland.

But it’s not smoking as you might think. In the coffee houses there, you can buy marijuana to smoke on the premises. It’s legal. Now, this is where the rub comes in. Most people who use marijuana…SMOKE it to get high. And the government says it won’t make any exceptions to the rules for the coffee houses which do quite a business with the cannabis trade.

Now, if you think the bars in Cheyenne and Laramie are going to lose business, think about the coffee house operators in Amsterdam. You can get a cup of coffee anywhere so that’s definitely going to affect their business. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said, “Employees should not have to work in an environment where they’re constantly exposed to the risks of second hand smoke.”

Wait a minute. This is a country where smoking marijuana is legal and they have live sex shows on stage and prostitution is legal and you could catch AIDS and he’s worried about second hand smoke? Does this make any sense at all? So just outlaw tobacco. That’s the villain, according to his line of thinking. Come to think of it, here in America, the Nicotine Nazis are strangely quiet about second hand MARIJUANA smoke.

And that takes me back to my friend in Ohio. No second hand cigarette smoke but pass that joint now. I contend that if there were no such thing as tobacco and we still had marijuana, there wouldn’t be any of this flap about second hand smoke anywhere. At least we wouldn’t have the Nicotine Nazis. But we’d still have the food police, complaining about all the people getting fat from eating all those Twinkies and potato chips.

Can’t you see it now? You turn on the tube for the evening news and you hear, “Good evening, the world is going to end at noon tomorrow. But first, let’s bring you up to date with the latest on Paris Hilton.” It’s almost that bad, folks. Is this the biggest non-story of all time or what? Let me ask you this. If Paris Hilton rots in jail for the rest of her miserable socialite life, how will that affect you? It won’t. So why are the media acting like this is the story of the century? Is it because the media are all as vain and shallow as she is?

There is some merit to that argument. But I don’t think that’s the real reason. Oh, I’m sure all the media consultants with their clip on ties and their palm pilots think this is what America wants to hear about. And the timing of the Paris Hilton non-story couldn’t have come at a better time.

So here’s what I think is happening. Now, listen carefully. This criminal alien amnesty bill that got creamed in the Senate, thanks to the outrage of the people, was not only supported by George W. Bush, the Republican Jimmy Carter, but it was also supported by the name liberals in the Senate, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and the rest of the usual left wing lunatics. These are the people the empty suits in the media worship. Well, they just got handed their heads.

And far be it from the media to say that America has spoken and expressed its opinion in no uncertain terms and they didn’t want the malarkey we were being sold. So what to do? The media have no other way to put it. Their darlings just got rejected big time.

Now, enter Paris Hilton, the spoiled brat who thinks because she’s an heiress that the law doesn’t apply to her. It’s the perfect out for the media. They can throw up a Paris Hilton smokescreen and maybe people will forget. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Give ‘em wall-to-wall Paris Hilton. And because the liberal snobs in the media think the average American has the attention span of a housefly, this is what you get. Aren’t you thrilled that you’re held in such high esteem by the media?

So there you have it. There was no mention whatever of the outcry of the American public against a bill that would have given amnesty to criminal aliens. Instead, we get Paris Hilton, day and night. Which would have affected your life more, 20 million criminals being rewarded with citizenship and taking possibly your job away from you or every moment in the life of some ditzy babe whose claim to fame will be the first episode if they ever bring back “Unsolved Mysteries”?

Americans, you’re to be congratulated. You’re to be congratulated on showing government who’s boss…and that would be us, the people. The amnesty bill is, for all purposes, dead. And you were the ones who killed it. It would have rewarded all those common criminal aliens who slipped into the United States in total disrespect of immigration laws with an easy path to citizenship. In other words, this bill would have rewarded them from breaking the law.

American CITIZENS who break the law go to jail. These people would have found it easier to become citizens than those who came to this country legally in hopes of realizing the American dream for themselves and their families. Does that sound like equal opportunity to you? And the fact that George W. Bush, who, as president was 100% behind this bill will solidify his place in history as the Republican Jimmy Carter.

When news of this bill’s proposal made the news, the phones started ringing off the hooks in Washington with calls of protest. You folks threatened these hot air politicians with the ONLY thing they consider sacred, your vote. And that got their attention. Maybe this was a wake up call for both sides. For the politicians, it told them we, the people, were still the boss. We call the shots. You do it the way we want or we’ll find somebody who will.

For the people, it was a lesson in what government has become, especially at the federal level and that is a group of people who think they’re gods sitting on Mount Olympus and we’re just mindless sheep to be manipulated to whatever ends they decide. Now, do you folks see what can be accomplished? I would dare say that if it hadn’t been for the outcry of an angry American population, this bill would have sailed right through with only token opposition.

And those who opposed it would have been painted by the liberals as nothing but a bunch of kooks. But this is no time to rest on our laurels. If we do, these politicians will forget what happened and fall back into their old ways. We need to hold their feet to the fire. We need to make sure they represent US and not their own best interests or otherwise we’re in trouble. They can’t exactly point with pride to what they’ve done for us, can they?

I’m reminded of something that Thomas Jefferson said and, oh, is it true. Jefferson said, “When the government fears the people, we have liberty. When the people fear the government, we have tyranny. ”

Go for it, America.

The ACLU, Atheists, Communist, and Lunatics United, or, if you prefer, All Criminals Leave Unpunished, has struck again. This time, they’re suing an outfit called Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, claiming it provided secret CIA transportation to shuttle terrorists overseas, to other countries where they could be tortured.

The lawsuit charges that Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA where these terror suspects were herded overseas where they were subjected to, quote, “forms of cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. So? Are they trying to get us to believe that the beheading of prisoners isn’t cruel, inhumane, and degrading? Well, of course not. The way the ACLU sees it, we can’t interfere with THEIR sovereignty. That’s just the way they do things. But America?

Well, it’s a given that we’re the source of all evil in the world. Didn’t you know that? Just ask Hillary, or Osama Yo Momma Obama, or John Edwards, or any of the other Amerca hating liberals. They’ll set you straight. The ACLU says its latest attack on America is being filed under something called the Alien Tort Statute, which permits aliens to bring claims in the United States for violations of the law of nations or a United States treaty.

It says the statute recognizes international norms accepted among civilized nations that are violated by disappearance, torture, and other inhumane treatment. Now, that’s all well and good but where was the ACLU when those prisoners were beheaded and where was the ACLU when those three soldiers disappeared and one was found floating in the Euphrates River? Does the ACLU not consider 9/11 to be an act of inhumane treatment? Hey, things like that are covered by this law, aren’t they?

Or is that just for Americans to obey? And where is this lawsuit being filed? Why in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California, that’s where. And that’s kangaroo court if there ever was one. So what’s the big deal with taking a few terrorists to other countries where they know how to get information out of them? Oh, but that’s inhumane treatment and we can’t lower ourselves to their standards even if they do torture and behead people. Have you heard liberals say that? I have.

And what should be our response to something like that? “Paging Jack Bauer”.

Senator Craig Thomas This is Steve Norris and I’m not running the usual introduction for this portion because this is not a shot across the boughs of anyone. Today, the state of Wyoming is in mourning. Senator Craig Thomas died Monday night at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland at age 74 of leukemia. Senator Thomas had been diagnosed with the disease last fall and announced just after the election that he had it.

At first, the diagnosis was pneumonia and he watched the election returns from his hospital bed. Then, after the diagnosis of leukemia, he underwent chemotherapy treatments and he returned to work in the Senate a month before he was scheduled to. In fact, he was on my morning show after his return to the Senate and he told us that he felt great, that he had even resumed his morning running regimen. Then came the announcement that he was planning to undergo another round of chemotherapy treatments.

We didn’t think too much about it at the time because that’s not unusual for cancer patients. Then, yesterday afternoon, we received word that he was hospitalized again and this time his condition was serious. When I heard the news that his family was at his side in his hospital room, I had an uneasy feeling about it. But I don’t think anyone expected the end to come this quickly. We were all caught off guard with what happened.

I didn’t always agree with Craig Thomas on the issues but I never for a moment doubted that he was saying what he believed. He didn’t play the Washington beltway publicity game and that’s very much to his credit. But this is a time when you put politics aside and you mourn the loss of another human being, a man who was just starting his third term in the United States Senate, having been re-elected with 70% of the vote in Wyoming.

What will happen now is that the state Republican party will meet and select the names of three possible successors. Then Governor Freudenthal, a Democrat, will pick one to fill out the nearly full term that Craig Thomas had left. But today, we grieve because we’re stunned by his death. We really weren’t expecting this after the senator himself had issued such optimistic reports himself about his health. Senator Enzi called Thomas “the core of our delegation” and Representative Barbara Cubin said he was a “true statesman.”

I liked what the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said about him. “The Senate is a lesser place without him but Wyoming and the nation are much better places because he was here.” Life will go on, as it should but there’ll always be a void there that was once filled by Craig Thomas.

Godspeed, Senator, and thank you for your service to Wyoming.

Over the weekend, three people were arrested and one other is being sought about a plot to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport. The plot involved a plan to blowup a jet fuel line at JFK, setting off a massive explosion that would have killed thousands of people. The plot was hatched last July or August and one of the plotters sought help in carrying out the attack and luckily went to an FBI informant, thinking he was on their side.

U. S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf said “had the plan succeeded, the devastation would have been unthinkable. ” Oh, yes, the suspects involved are Muslims, members of that religion of peace the liberals keep telling us it is. If that’s the case, does it seem a little odd to you that all the attacks of recent years have involved Muslims?

Now, while all that was going on, the Democrat candidates, with the exception of Osama Yo Mamma Obama, were in Iowa for a $500 a plate fund raiser and to try and determine a surrender and “run with our tail between our legs like a whipped puppy” date from Iraq. Are they still harping on that? In light of developments at JFK, what’s wrong with that picture? You know, it’s almost amusing how the Democrats who are the most vocal anti-war ranters these days are the same Democrats who voted FOR the war?

Hillary “Anyway The Wind Blows” Clinton and John “I Feel Pretty” Edwards both voted for it and now they’re sounding like conscientious objectors. And you couple this with the fact that neither Hillary or that arrogant ambulance chaser even bothered to read the national intelligence report before authorizing the war. And the report said it doubted the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Edwards even lied flat out about reading it when he didn’t. His campaign said, “He misspoke”. Hogwash! He lied, plain and simple.

A campaign spokesman said, “He misunderstood the question. ” Misunderstood the question? Excuse me but I think the question was “Did you read the national intelligence report on Iraq when you were on the Senate INTELLIGENCE Committee? ” How do you misunderstand that? Meanwhile, let’s be thankful that the JFK plot was foiled before it became a real disaster on a par with 9-11, or worse.

And as for John Edwards, liar liar, pants on fire.

What does a business do when they have a job opening? Most of them put an ad in the help wanted section of the classifieds. Maybe that’s what we should do given the complete lack of leadership we’re seeing in the current crop of presidential candidates. And I’m not just laying this at the feet of the Democrats. The Republicans don’t seem to have anybody who’s officially a candidate for the job who isn’t trying to convince the American people that they’re not liberals anymore, that they’re good staunch conservatives.

But you’re already aware of that. And the reaction to these counterfeit conservatives is underwhelming. So let’s put an ad in the paper, one that says:

“WANTED: President of the United States and World Leader, no political party affiliation preferred. Job duties include winning a war against Satan worshipping terrorists, plugging the holes in the American border so criminal aliens can’t get in, drastically reducing or even eliminating wasteful government social programs, keeping taxes at a bare minimum, overseeing and influencing the repeal of the Roe vs. Wade decision of 1973, strengthening America to the point where little jerkwater countries will worry what we think about them instead of the other way around, and keeping in line a bunch of left wing radical Democrats and spineless Republicans in Congress. A veto pen supply will be provided. The ideal candidate must be someone who couldn’t care less about opinion polls and focus group and is outspoken in their convictions. No politically correct or multi-cultural types need apply. The job is challenging, that’s for certain. But the rewards are great in knowing you’ve restored the greatest country on earth to its former state of greatness. Applications will be accepted until November of 2008.”

Folks, unless a candidate appears suddenly on the horizon, I don’t think we have much choice. As an e-mailer to my morning program put it, we have two parties in Washington now, the Republicrats and the Communists. Don’t you think it’s about time the American people flushed the toilet in Washington? That decision is yours and if we’re given a candidate like the one I just described, I don’t think there’s any doubt as to what the outcome will be.

Right now, the inmates are running the asylum. Stevie Wonder is driving the car. Surely we can do better than the cesspool in charge right now. We have to. Our country depends on it.