Soldiers awarded the Silver Star - Associated Press Dec. 15

Ten soldiers from the 3rd Special Forces Group received Silver Stars for valor during an April 2008 mission in the Skok Valley in Afghanistan.

Following are names of the soldiers, their hometowns and summations of their medal citations:

_ Staff Sgt. Dillon Behr, Rock Island, Ill.Behr held his position even after sustaining a life-threatening wound to his leg. Behr continued to fire at insurgents despite being critically wounded a second time, allowing injured U.S. and Afghan soldiers to be evacuated. Behr fought until he was physically incapable of holding his rifle.

_ Spc. Michael D. Carter, Smithville, Texas.Carter left his covered position and charged 15 feet into heavy fire to get a critically wounded soldier. Carter treated two team members, allowing the medic to render aid to 10 wounded Afghan commandos. Later, Carter assisted in an extremely dangerous rescue of more than six casualties down a near vertical 60 foot cliff.

_ Master Sgt. Scott Ford, Athens, OhioFord organized a counter assault to reinforce his besieged teammates. Ford exposed himself to insurgent fire in order to direct the soldiers in the wadi below to move forward and assist in moving casualties. His upper left arm was almost shot off by a sniper round. With a tourniquet on his arm to stop arterial bleeding, Ford was able to climb down the mountain.

_ Staff Sgt. Seth E. Howard, Keene, N.H.Howard fought up a 60-foot cliff under intense fire after hearing two critically wounded members were in danger of being overrun. Placing himself between his wounded comrades and the enemy fire, he provided counter sniper fire, killing between 10 and 20 insurgents. He refused to withdraw from his position, although he had less than a magazine left of ammunition, until all of his teammates and commandos were off the mountain.

_ Staff Sgt. Luis Morales, Fredericksburg, Va.With total disregard for his own personal safety, Morales ran into the line of fire to aid a wounded teammate and used his body to shield his teammate until he was wounded. Ignoring the severity of his wound, and losing a tremendous amount of blood, he quickly administered self aid and then returned to providing life saving help to his more severely wounded teammate.

_ Staff Sgt. David J. Sanders, Huntsville, Ala.Sanders located an alternate but more arduous route down the mountain. Sanders ascended and descended the mountain three times to move casualties.

_ Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Shurer, Pullman, Wash.Shurer immediately rendered aid to four critically wounded U.S. and 10 injured commandos under intense fire. At least twice, he dashed into the open to treat a wounded soldier.

_ Staff Sgt. John W. Walding, Groesbeck, TexasWalding led an attack five hundred meters up treacherous terrain, braving close air strikes to reinforce the most forward position. Despite receiving a life threatening injury, Walding continued to suppress insurgent positions in order to defend his comrades. One of his legs had to be amputated.

_ Capt. Kyle M. Walton, Carmel, Ind.Walton repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire in order to pull wounded Americans and Afghans to safety. Walton called in effective air strikes and even dropped a 2,000-pound bomb almost directly on his position to prevent insurgent forces from overruning his force.

_ Staff Sgt. Matthew O. Williams, Casper, Wyo.Williams fought for over an hour up a mountain while under intense enemy fire to help rescue wounded members of his team. After his team sergeant was wounded, he ran through a gauntlet of heavy machine gun fire to render aid. He then helped his team sergeant climb down a near 60 foot vertical cliff to the casualty collection point. Williams then braved more fire to climb back up the hill and help his other teammates down the cliff to safety.

Is the Republican Party Dead?

Is the Republican Party dead? Hardly.

According to Hemline University Professor Joseph Olson the Number of states won by Republicans in the Elec tion of 2008 were 30 with the Democrats carrying 20. The Republicans carried 2 million, four hundred and twenty seven square miles compared to the Democrats five hundred and eighty thousand. The population of counties carried by Republicans was one hundred and forty three million, the Democrats one hundred and twenty seven. In Alaska and Oklahoma, all counties were carried by McCain/Palin.

Professor Olson adds "in the aggregate, the map of the territory Republicans won was mostly owned by taxpaying citizens with Democrat terratory mostly encompassing those citizens living in rented or government owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.

We had better hope the Republican party is not dead.

Con - Con

I am concerned about a little known but yet grave threat to the American Constitution and our Republican government and that is the looming possibility of a constitutional convention to be held next year. It appears that Republican legislators are on the forefront of opening the convention which would have as much power as the convention held by the founding fathers in which the present constitution was created and then ratified. The Republicans want the convention, in which anything in the constitution could be changed or thrown out, in order to create a balanced budget clause.

This is a good cause but it is not worth the risk of opening the constitution up to the whims of today's legislators. Our government officials today couldn't hang off the shoe laces of our founding fathers and not one of them should be entrusted with the responsibility of tampering with the constitution. Yet those who want the convention are only 2 states away from ratification. This is indeed a grave threat.

Barney Frank and Worker Welfare

Regarding the bailout of the auto industry, Barney Frank tells 60 Minutes correspondent Leslie Stahl: "No. We’re not propping up companies. "We’re propping up individuals. The world doesn't consist of companies. The world is people. The country is people." When Stahl points out that Frank is then talking about welfare, he responds, "Yeah, I’m for welfare. You’re not? Are you for letting people starve?"

The union auto workers are hardly starving as they earn upwards of $80 per hour along with lavish health benefits and pension plans. The concern should be directed at the taxpayer who is asked to subsidize the benefits of other workers who need to tighten their belts like the rest of us. Unfortunatly, layoffs are a part of the free market and subsidizing workers in one area leads to layoffs in another.

Let the companies restructure, cut back on both union and CEO benefits, and make the same painful decisions the rest of us are required to make. Let them run leaner and meaner companies that produce better and more competative cars.

Managing Global Insecurity

I'm concerned about what I view as a trend toward world government. The Brookings Institute just released the "Managing Global Insecurity Project." John Podesta, who heads Obama's transition team and Susan Rice, nominated by Obama to the post of UN Ambassador, were both involved in this project.

The report calls for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorism, which could give the UN increased authority to interfere in the soverign affairs of nations including ours, a UN sponsored climate-change law that might supercede US law, and the creation of a standing 50,000-strong UN army that could be deployed against nations, presumably including our own, who might be in violation of any one of the increasing number of agreements and treaties coming out of the UN.

This is no right-wing conspiracy theory. Those of us who value liberty beware.

Obama Citizenship - Dec. 5

The Supreme Court of the United States is considering the case of Donofrio v. Wells which raises the question of President-elect Barack Obama's birth certificate and whether he was not born in the United States. Technically, he would be inelegable to hold the office of President of the United States if he were born on foreign soil.

The intent of the founding fathers who wrote the natural born citizen clause into the Constitution was not to prevent someone who was born of a mother who was an American citizen and who happened to be caught in a foreign country when she gave birth and who returned to the United States weeks after giving birth.

Rather, the intent was to prevent a foreign fat cat such as, to use a theoritical example, George Soros, from coming to the United States, obtaining citizenship, and then buying his way to the presidency.

Obama was probably not born in the US, otherwise he would have produced his birth certificate, something he has failed to do. Perhaps in the future, presidential candidates should be required to produce their birth certificates when they declare their candidacies.

Obama, however, was elected fair and square and the will of the people should be honored. Let's put this issue aside.

Jiffy Lube and Rasta employee - Dec 3

Jiffy Lube asked their employee, Bobby Brown, to shave his beard and cut his hair to comply with their new groomong code, a code that applied equally to all employees. Brown, a Rastafarian, refused on religious grounds and sued Jiffy Lube for descrimination. Now, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has overturned a lower court decision and is letting the case go forward.

At stake is whether a private company has a right to include as conditions of employment how their employees present themselves to the public. This is not about race as no company has the right, nor should they have a right, to discriminate against a person because of the circumstance of their birth.

Nor is this about religion per se as a person is free to believe as they choose. This is about the right of a company to determine the code of behavior of empolyees they are paying during working hours. Laws are enacted to balance the right to worship with the right of a private company to conduct their business in a manner they choose. The used to side with business in most cases and this is right.