Frank Salvato

Have Democrats Been Marginalized Within Their Own Party?

We have heard a lot over the past year or so about how President John F. Kennedy wouldn't be able to garner his political party's nomination for the presidency in today's Democrat Party. An examination of his political platform and the principles he embraced would today place him on the right side of the aisle. So, why is it that in just under fifty years the political ideology of the most revered Democrat to hold office in modern times is shunned by the party he served? It's because his party – the Democrat Party – isn't the party of Democrats any longer.

Confronting the Spin on the Fort Hood Massacre

It is sad and disturbing commentary on the state of American culture when the facts surrounding an event, such as the slaughter that took place at Fort Hood, can not only be manipulated to facilitate a political ideology but blatantly ignored in the pursuit of a political agenda. In the face of the most potent enemy the United States and the free world has ever know – aggressive and violent radical Islam – our leaders and members of the mainstream media are doing just that; manipulating the truth to facilitate an agenda, and we are all in danger because of it.

Pretending to Speak for an Entire Culture

One of the things that brings me to the boiling point is when I hear elected officials tell me what “Americans want” or what “Americans think.” To believe that today's federally elected politicians understand – or care – what their constituents want, never mind Americans on the whole, after they belittled town hall attendees and ignored the citizenry's opposition to government-run healthcare is to exist in fantasyland.

When Ideology Masks Ignorance

After giving a talk to a group of family values minded Freeport, Illinois area residents addressing three major threats facing the United States – which I term “The Perfect Storm,” and a solution to a problem that safeguards the US Constitution, I found myself personally and ideologically assailed by a letter-writer to a local newspaper, a Ms. Patricia Wemstrom. I take issue with her critique not only because she mischaracterized each and every point that I made at the event, but also because she wasn't even in attendance.

It’s Time to Pay Close Attention to the Politicians

I have long said that we, the citizens of the United States, must demand good government over politics from our elected officials. The need for this demand has grown exponentially over the past four decades. While We the People were pre-occupied with the trappings of the self-centered 1960s, the self-absorption of the 1970s, the greed culture of the 1980s and the falsely elevated self-esteem culture of the 1990s, political opportunists and special interest operatives, cloaked in the façade of public service, quietly took control of our federal government. Now we are paying the price of cronyism politics over good government.

The Only Real Strategy for Afghanistan

There has been quite a bit of criticism directed at President Obama for his handling – or mishandling – of the Afghan theater in the global conflict with radical Islamists. To be certain, it should be the number one or, at the very least, number two item on his list of priorities. That it is not is deserving of criticism.

Why Obama Will Throw ACORN Under the Bus

The spotlight of scrutiny is shining brightly on ACORN these days and rightly so. Where ACORN's defenders have the audacity to insist that the employees caught on undercover videotape giving advice to a perceived “pimp” and “prostitute” on how to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and internationally traffic in underage Guatemalan prostitutes were simply “a few bad employees,” anyone with a brain recognizes that the problem is systemic in the organization.

“Please, God, No…It’s So Hot, I’m Burning Up”

"The floor is completely engulfed. We're on the floor, and we can't breathe, and it's very, very, very hot...I'm going to die, I know it. Please, God, no. It's so hot, I'm burning up!" These were some of the last words of Melissa Doi, 32, one of the thousands of innocent victims that perished at the hands of radical Islamists on September 11, 2001.

Missing the Larger Point on the Public Option

As Congress prepares to return to work – now there’s an oxymoron – the subject of healthcare is weighing heavy in the air. The August recess provided the American people with contentious town hall meetings where We the People were described by opportunistic, power-hungry politicians as “astroturfers,” “un-American” and “terrorists.”

Challenging the Status Quo

With the death of US Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) the Democrats lose their sixty-seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. This will make the passing of Obama agenda legislation – specifically healthcare – more difficult until Massachusetts seats its next Junior Senator, who promises to be a Democrat.

You Say You Want a Real Solution

As the debate over health care reform rages on – and despite the fact that the debate should be over how to provide true health care affordability to all, if in fact the goal of the “overhaul” is genuinely about the good of the downtrodden – we hear one retort from Progressives, Liberals and neo-Marxists, both in government and out: Where is your plan if you don’t like ours?

‘You Have Awakened the Sleeping Giant’

One of the benefits coming from the recent congressional town hall meetings – of which there are many – is that we now know to what extent the elected class in Washington DC is cognizant of their constituents’ positions on the issues; specifically, healthcare. They aren’t, especially on the Left side of the aisle. Instead, the elected class in Washington – and it is true for an overwhelming majority on both sides of the aisle – has opted-out of their sworn duty to represent their constituents in deference to a blinding loyalty to their political party organizations and the ideologies they hold.

“Birther” Label Overshadows a Real Issue

I have always been one to say that I cannot know the answer to the “birthers’” question of whether Mr. Obama is eligible to hold the Presidency. I can’t answer the question because I am being kept from examining the only documents that do exist to prove the point.

Reading Legislation…It’s Your Job!

It would appear that some of our elected officials – oh heck, let's say most of our elected officials – believe it isn't necessary to read legislation before voting on it. A perfect example of this is playing out right now in Congress with regard to the healthcare legislation where several high-ranking elected officials have unabashedly stated that expecting elected officials to read legislation, in its entirety, before voting on it, is to expect too much. Really...

A Government Run by Mrs. Kravitz

If you are a Baby Boomer you, no doubt, remember the television series Bewitched, starring Elizabeth Montgomery. Ms. Montgomery played Samantha Stevens, a witch who was married to a mortal and who lived in a quintessential American suburb.

Instituting a Safeguard Against Political & Ideological Tyranny

It is fairly clear, to anyone paying attention, that the people of the United States are currently suffering the political tyranny of the special interest minority. We arrive at this point not because the character of the nation has changed dramatically – we are still a center-right nation ideologically, although we have become more permissive in our social views – but because we have fallen prey to exactly the political malady James Madison feared we would: factionalism.

Amid All the Celebrity Deaths, A Reality Check

Some have labeled the summer of 2009, the Summer of the Celebrity Death Watch, and one could successfully argue the point. Ed McMahon, Karl Malden, Farrah Fawcett, Billy Mays, David Carradine, Koko Taylor, Fred Travalena and, most notably, Michael Jackson – to name but a few off the top of my head – have all passed away over the course of June and July.

When In The Course of Human Events…

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” – The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

The Path to the Future Requires a Return to the Roots

As President Obama thunders ahead with his liberal agenda, unencumbered by any significant opposition in either chamber of Congress, the focus for the Right has been on how to re-invent the Republican Party so as to be competitive in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. This renewed and urgent focus is more akin to a meeting of rival mafia families, each faction unwilling to cede influence, power, control or status to another, than it is a quorum of individuals dedicated to true and original Republican principles. In light of this it is appropriate to revisit the founding platform of the party.

With All Things, Facts & Truth Matter

“Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.” – Samuel Johnson Few things are more important in life than the facts and the truth. Ironically, the quest for both has waned over generations. Today, fact and truth suffer the narcissism of a generation of self-indulgent ideologues who have sought to shape the world to their belief system, doing so armed with little more than falsely elevated self-esteem. The result has been to bring our great nation to a divide not seen since the US Civil War; a divide of politics, ideology and culture; a divide that threatens our Republic's very existence.