Last month Christopher Hitchens unloaded on Mitt Romney’s “bizarre” religious beliefs. You expect this sort of thing from the far right and it’s arrived on cue, but Romney probably didn’t anticipate having his underwear selection critiqued by atheists and left wing commentators.

Does Mormonism include some strange beliefs? You bet. They think Jesus came to America after he wrapped up the New Testament story. He preached here to a vast, highly developed culture of whose existence we have no evidence. And it goes on and on. Magic stones, a new gospel written on gold plates that no one has ever seen. There’s some odd stuff in there, but does it matter?

Picking on a candidate’s religious beliefs is like making fun of his mother. Sure, maybe she’s batty and erratic, but he loves her. Perhaps you can make an attenuated case that her weirdness is going to affect his performance, but for the most part bringing her into the race is just mean.

I don’t care what the Wall Street Journal said or other so called political genius’ from the GOP establishment, House Republicans blew it this week when they caved into Senate Democrats two month payroll tax holiday scam.

Speaker Boehner should have called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s bluff and forced the Senate to come back to Washington and work with the House to pass the payroll tax cut for a year.

After all, the House passed its year long version of the payroll tax holiday, which the Senate rejected. Yes, it is a tax holiday not a cut because payroll taxes fund the Social Security Trust Fund and can’t be cut forever

The Republican National Committee, the Tea Party, and the California Republican Party all have failed to understand the importance of Los Angeles County and its districts. Now is the time to get these districts on their side. Winning these districts – or at least being competitive in them – is a political course that needs to be explored if the GOP ever wants to be relevant in California again.

This in-house strategy has served the Democrats well. Republicans have been giving Democrats in these areas a free pass because of 30 years of fright and intimidation. We might as well call the 35th “Area 51,” “don’t ask don’t tell.” California Republicans have focused on Orange County and other safe GOP areas, while the urban areas such as Districts 35, 36, 37, 33 and 39 are ignored.

In this 21st century, as the GOP seeks to increase minority membership, it only pays lip device to making itself attractive to small businessman and women in these districts. But talk is cheap, and there is no plan to go after the 35th.

In my opinion, these jokers have got to be the weakest pool of candidates in a decade. However, I will give Mitt Romney credit for running again, and Rick Perry for being lost. I think Michelle Bachmann loves her country but seeing her as President would force me to move out of the USA.

Ron Paul is running on a libertarian ideology that many view as extreme and Newt Gingrich is just out of time. Rick Santorum..I have no clue of why he is running and I do like John Huntsman but he should drop out of the race and support his Mormon brother (Romney).

None of these candidates have a clue on how to make America competitive in the 21st century. Some even act like they want to return to the 50s when we practiced Leave It to Beaver polices not understanding that the world has drastically changed.

Kemp was an urban Republican from the Northeast, a combination of adjectives that in our time sounds like a punch-line. A former football star and a Congressman from New York, he was the last great Hamiltonian of the modern era.

A brutal optimist, he carried an infectious faith in the power of freedom to foster prosperity. As the author of Reagan’s 1981 tax cut (the Kemp-Roth Act) he was one of Reagan’s most reliable allies in Congress. But Kemp was not a prisoner of anyone’s dogma. He applied serious thought to a class of difficult problems that we don’t normally associate with Republicans.

Kemp actually wanted the position of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Think about that for a second. Normally a throw-away position in a Republican Administration, he served in that role under Bush Senior and made it a platform. He relentlessly pressed to shift ownership and decision-making from Washington bureaucrats to the recipients of aid.

He fostered the trend away from failed housing projects toward ownership and voucher-based programs. He brought new emphasis to education issues and helped craft tax increment financing programs to attract new development to run-down areas. He brought passion, intelligence, and humanity to conservatives’ policies on race and poverty.

Newt balanced the nation’s budget and passed welfare reform during his tenure as Speaker —an impressive resume to bring to the 2012 primary job interview considering the voters’ woes over federal spending. That’s why he knows what he’s talking about when he says: “The best social program is a job.”

He knows how to win and how to put together a ground game. He created the 1994 Contract with America and used it to usher in the first Republican majority in the House of Representatives in 40 years.

Newt was largely behind the anti-card check fight of 2009, and during the 2008 election cycle, he penned the phrase: “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” (DHDN) which he developed into a book on energy independence policy. Literally millions of people signed his DHDN pledge and mobilized across the country calling on the U.S. to end its dependence on foreign oil.

The President said that the proposed Jobs Bill is awaiting Congressional action. He needs authority to act. Where is his initiative? The Bush administration “did the necessary” by Executive Decision, and despite what the naysayers may think, Economists agree that the Economy never looked better. Employment was high; Homeownership was at its peak, consumption of Foreign Imports showed robust US demand.

How much of this jobs bill has been vetted with the private sector?

How many businesses were consulted on the solution before it was touted as the cure all for the economy? How many businesses are onboard with his proposal? Experience – the US credit downgrade, and recent stock market tumbles, specifically–leaves me to doubt the President’s decision and question his lack of initiative. The plan is geared to implement contractionary fiscal policy, i.e. limiting the amount of money in the economy. During a shallow recovery, this may not be the most prudent course of action. Current prices are stable and the likelihood of inflation is still remote.

As I prepare to write this, I reflect upon the year 2004. It was the first year I was eligible to vote. I specifically remember the state America was in. We were a nation at war with enemies foreign and abroad. Our nation’s national security was essentially the most imperative nature of interest at that time. I remember viewing George W. Bush as a man of courage and determination to protect the interest of the United States.

I eagerly and unapologetically casted my vote for the incumbent Republican candidate. Two years later, I found myself privileged and honored to be positioned in Washington, D.C. as a White House intern in the Bush Administration. I doubted if I would ever find myself having the same enthusiasm and excitement over a leader again as I did in George W. Bush. Well, little did I know what will occur in the year 2011.

I wish to plead my own case for why I questioned Mr. Roland Martin, and to defend myself against his insatiable personal attacks via Twitter and the reference he makes of me in his article: “No, I Didn’t Attend An HBCU, And Am Still A Proud Black Man.”

I could care less about Mr. Martin being “black enough” or whether or not he’s less black or deprived somehow of his blackness because he didn’t attend an HBCU, those are the least of my concerns. Perhaps he struggles with some sensation of guilt, which is partly evident in his article. Nevertheless, I asked Mr. Martin via Twitter “what has he done for the black community and could he show me the results of his labor.”

He gave me a list of things for which he’s advocated, but provided nothing he’s actually done. He tweeted “Son, I, as one person, can’t solve EVERY problem in Black America by myself. My job is to do my part.” I agree, one person can’t solve the problems faced by Black America; however I have seen no substantial results from the part he currently plays and from what he listed as being a supporter of, or as he put it “advocated.” The black community has nearly halted in progression, at best, it has slowed not because progress is impossible, but because there has been a failure in leadership.

The American people are more than aware that our elected officials are suppose to answer to us not tell us what we “need to know”. In this type of representative government, those who would be our leaders have to understand this on the most fundamental level, and while I join the rest of the GOP primary electorate in its reservations with some of our candidates, I feel comfortable that each candidate who graced the stage at the FOX/Google debate understands this to be true.

The answer to CNN’s question about why politicians in both parties are focusing on patriotism and American Pride is this: Americans have an innate knowledge that we are an exceptional nation, and that is exactly why anyone who dares to run for President and represent us on an international stage must understand that. Not only must they understand it, they must fundamentally believe it.

That is why it is not only brilliant but patriotic to use technology in Presidential debates the way that FOX News and Google did. It gives the average citizen a voice in the electoral process, and whomever “would be President” should remember that the people put them there, and the people hold them accountable.

MITT ROMNEY: Governor of Massachusetts for 4 years. During his tenure. He turned a 3 BILLION $ state budget deficit into almost a 1 billion SURPLUS. HE CUT taxes 19 times. HE ADDED A NET GAIN of over 50,000 jobs to MA. HE lowered state unemployment 1%.

ALL that is fiscal success. Competent, AAA fiscal policy, the kind we need now. That isn’t it tho. By being elected as Governor, Romney breathed life back into the Massachusetts, & New England GOP. He showed he knows how to REALLY compromise with the MA Democrat controlled state legislature he had, to get stuff done.

THEN there’s his logical, rational, rather undeniable electability argument. ONLY ROMNEY has been beating Obama in national, & state battleground polling since December of LAST YEAR. ROMNEY & his campaign have a center-right, pro-business, Independent minded appeal, that really appeals to moderates, Independents, etc. THEY DECIDE ELECTIONS. NO OTHER GOP CANDIDATE can match Romney’s BROAD APPEAL, his superb private sector experience, etc.

Before going any further on the subject of climate change, let’s remind ourselves what science is. Science is a process we use to determine facts, not a method for establishing truth. Truth is a more complex matter. Science takes a question like, “what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”, and finds an answer through observation and repeatable experiments. If there is any lesson we learned from the 20th Century, it’s that science is only helpful in defining reality, not determining our values.

While science is very good at answering a specific question like “how much fat is in this doughnut?” It has a harder time answering complex matrix questions likes, “What should I eat?” In science, the farther you get from any experimental capability, the farther you get from reliable results. It’s not terribly hard to build an experiment that will predict with confidence how much salt there will be in your next order of French fries. It is very difficult experimentally to establish which combination of foods over a lifetime is best for any particular person.

You can find a perfect example of what happens when science is divorced from experimentation by talking to a physicist. The field of particle physics outran its experimental capabilities a long time ago and the mysteries they are confronting, with only limited tools for proof, are making them sound slightly mad.

As Governor Rick Perry positions for his big run, it’s worth examining what accomplishments he can and can’t take credit for. The importance of the exercise stretches beyond his campaign. You can expect that other states might try to duplicate Texas’ relative success in weathering the economic crisis. It’s important that they replicate what works rather than merely believing the propaganda.

First, how well has Texas done? Meh.

Perry has touted Texas’s fabulous success in job creation, but it’s not entirely clear what he’s talking about. The state has created a lot of new jobs and the unemployment rate is better than average – it ranks 24th – with unemployment at a stubborn 8%. It is true that Texas’ population is growing rapidly, but the majority of the growth is coming from Mexico.

Imagine this scenario: You walk into your kitchen on a hot, muggy summer day for a midday snack. You fix yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a common and traditional All-American treat. You open the refrigerator and pour yourself a nice, cold glass of milk.

As you sit down at the table, you are in great anticipation to partake in this delicious snack. As you put the glass of milk to your quivering lips, you suddenly portray a look of disgust and dissatisfaction. The milk is spoiled. It’s been in the refrigerator without use for far too long. You groan in disbelief as you become victim to the sour taste of milk gone bad.

We were once taught that America was the place of opportunity and achievement. We believed in the concept that you can be anything that you desire to be and that America was a beacon of hope for those who dreamed of success. But for those who are looking up to America as a symbolism of hope and prosperity will quickly find that America is simply unrecognizable, and like sour milk, leaves a bitter taste in many people’s mouths.

So what has Obama done right since May that turned around voters? In any negotiation it’s important to know which side has time on their side. Obama knew from the beginning that time rested with him. After all, would the GOP really be prepared to let the nation fall into default and allow their party be seen as political and petty minded? Probably not. But then again, what if they were? What would that mean? If the GOP were that diabolical and beholden to the Tea Party (who represent the majority of those pushing there shouldn’t be a deal) then Obama would have increased leverage with voters and with Congress.

Clearly, Obama doesn’t want default. Interest rates will rise, U.S. treasuries will decrease, the U.S will lose its triple A rating for the first time in its history, and a host of other unintended consequences will come down the pike, the full extent will have yet to know.