According to genealogy records and to family lore, I have more Cherokee blood than Warren, but the thought of ever using the small amount of Indian blood I have as something to gain an unfair advantage over someone else never entered my mind - in fact, the thought is abhorrent. Ergo, the difference between a conservative mind and a liberal one.

In the old days before public sector unions (i.e., before JFK's executive order enabling public sector unions which even FDR said were unworkable), people went to work for the government knowing their salary would be lower than the private sector, but they knew they would have great job security and benefits. Since the advent of public sector unions, government employees make considerably more that their private sector counterparts, mainly because when the unions negotiate there is no one sitting on the other side of the table. We tax payers do not have a voice in the negotiations - and the politicians collude with the unions to get their votes with our money. It is an incestuous relationship which must be terminated if we are to survive

Pamela, too many people rely on SS as their retirement - and what a shame that is. No one can live any kind of descent retirement on SS if that is their only source of income.

Pamela, it certainly would have been in better shape than it is now if the fund had not been diverted, but it is still a Ponzi scheme. Eventually, as in all Ponzi schemes, there are not enough new entries into the scheme to pay for those already in it - and the only thing that can be done is to reduce benefits, delay the start of payout date, or just default. Can you imagine how much better off our economy and we would all be if each of us had our own private retirement account, along the lines of a 401K, which would allow each of us to build real wealth which we could dispose of as we saw fit rather than depending on the crumbs that are thrown our way through SS.

Ann always has her facts right, and she does this time, as she has the entire year in her support for Romney. Romney knows, and has expressed in several debates, that all that is necessary to solve the illegal immigration problem is to eliminate ALL incentives that bring them here and keep them here. Get rid of ALL of the magnets and the illegals will return home (probably in more style than how they arrived), i.e., no jobs, no government benefits of any kind, no free education, no free medical treatment, no anchor babies, etc. It is really a very easy problem to solve if we have leaders who really want to solve the problem - and Mitt is the first potential president who has had any interest in solving it since Reagan.

Very well said. The legal Hispanics who are honest and hard working (I'm not talking about those on the dole who will never vote Republican) do not want illegals in this country competing with them and artificially driving down wages.

Captain Shays, did you not read what Ann wrote? Anyone who equates Romney to Obama is an idiot in the first degree - so either you are an idiot, or a liberal troll - but I repeat myself. And how does someone who has never been in Washington and who has earned every penny he has ever made in the private sector, free market ecomony become the Washington Establishment? You, and many like you, are complete imbeciles - and if you do want to get rid of Obama you had better start focusing on the real villain.

Carlos, you couldn't be more wrong. Romney stands firm in his support of the 2nd Amendment for ALL Americans, not just the privileged few. He gets bashed by uninformed gun lovers (I am a gun lover, but I also know the facts) as being anti-gun because he signed a law in MA that would have not satisfied the most ardent gun enthusiast in Texas. He signed it because the NRA asked him to because it was so much better than the current legislation in the state. Give the man a break, would you please. He is our nominee and I can tell you that if Obama is reelected all bets are off regarding our gun rights.

I'm sure all of us conservatives would agree 100% on every name he would supply. You talk about a no win proposition.

I guess Romney should have just call Obama the Marxist that many of us know he is - I'm sure that would have done wonders for his general election prospects. Fortunately, his IQ is off the charts, while yours - not so much. By the way, he balanced the budget in liberal MA while cutting taxes every year, he won the support of the most ardent pro-life organizations in the state, and Romney care was the attempt to keep irresponsible individuals from freeloading on the MA health care system (supported by the Heritage Foundation and most other conservatives at the time). Can you please give the man (and us) a break and get on with winning the war of getting rid of Obama?