This Wednesday, in what has practically become a weekly ritual this election season, the four remaining Republican Presidential contenders will gather in Arizona for their 26^th debate together. While political junkies like myself will probably tune in anyway to comment on any slight differences we can detect in the candidates’ strategies or performance, the vast majority of Americans are beginning to view all these debates as too standard, too similar, and too unproductive.

Therefore, if these debates are to have any lasting relevance during this primary season, the networks must strive to use new techniques to reach a new audience. There is one particular demographic which is impacted most directly by many of the issues discussed by the candidates but whose participation in previous debates has been minimal if not nonexistent: the American youth. Despite this trend, it makes perfect sense that those young citizens who have the most at stake in this next election be able to help vet the candidates that will determine their future prosperity. In order to accomplish this, we hope to build support for a “Youth Debate” that will give all Republican Presidential hopefuls the platform necessary to address young voters directly.

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From Bloomberg News:

Welcome to the YouNews/Mama Belle’s Quality Country Inn All You Can Eat Buffet Republican Primary Debate. From the Belle Vue Room, Route 2, Plainfield, U.S.A. Your moderator is Sherm Willinson, YouNews Web designer and blogger and Mama Belle’s food and beverage manager.

SHERM: Gentlemen, let’s begin the debate. You know the rules. See what you can get away with. We’ve asked the audience to stay silent throughout the debate, except when Speaker Gingrich has the floor. Governor Romney, let’s begin with you. What did you think of the buffet?

MITT ROMNEY: I loved it, Sherm. And so did my beautiful wife, our five sons and five daughters-in-law and our 165 grandkids and their spouses. You know, this is breakfast in America. And America is an All You Can Eat Buffet, or rather, should be. This president wants us all to eat gruel — the very same gruel. And he wants to take the Mama Belle’s fine maple- sweetened turkey off my plate and give it to you. Now I’m happy to share it with you, Sherm, and as you saw on my tax returns I share a lot of my good fortune, which I’m not ashamed of, with the many less fortunate among us. And I’ll continue to do that and more, which is why it’s imperative that we keep charitable contributions deductible. But, Sherm, not every American can afford to participate in a full buffet. Now the speaker, I noticed, went up to the buffet the first time with a small plate, suggesting he might just participate in a more modest, less costly option of cold cereal and fruit. Well, sure enough, he came back with the same small plate and helped himself to the more expensive hot service area. That’s a violation of ethics. I don’t mislead people, Sherm. I don’t promise one thing and then do another. That’s corruption and fraud, and that leads to far worse things that are dangerous to our country. I don’t do that. The speaker does. (more…)

NEW YORK (AP) - Donald Trump says he is pulling out of a Republican presidential debate he had agreed to moderate in Iowa.

Donald Trump says he is pulling out of a Republican presidential debate he had agreed to moderate in Iowa.The real estate mogul announced Tuesday that he was stepping back in order to preserve the option of running for president in case he’s not satisfied that the eventual Republican nominee can defeat President Barack Obama. The conservative website Newsmax was to host the debate Dec. 27.

But the debate has been in jeopardy ever since Mitt Romney signaled he would not participate. Other candidates bowed out. Only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum agreed to take part.

Many Republican strategists warned that a presidential debate moderated by Trump, star of “Celebrity Apprentice,” would create a circus-like atmosphere that might diminish the candidates vying to challenge Obama.

Have you ever been told to settle for something you weren’t happy with or to ‘just deal’ with the hand you’d been dealt because … well, it is what it is?

Yeah. I’ve been dealing with that a lot lately – especially when the talk turns to politics. So it comes as no surprise that while I was enjoying my manicure earlier this week, CNN’s John King was smugly billowing orders to all Conservatives and Republicans alike to stop complaining and get used to the current Republican Presidential Candidate field.

King, who by his very nature gets on every last nerve in my body, went on to spout his wisdom by indignantly proclaiming ‘this is the hand you’re dealt and these candidates are what you have to work with.’ One could almost see the smile playing on the edge of his lips as he foresaw the future – the future of another four years of Obama-Nation …

Hum. Is this really OK? Are we stuck with what we got out there now? After the last several debates, I’d say the option of having a super-candidate to defeat the current Presidential Disaster is slim … but not hopeless. Never. Ever. Hopeless.

See, this is where we Conservatives – and a lot of Republicans – differ from the gloom and doom of our liberal counterparts. Some might call it always ‘believing the grass is greener on the other side’ or wanting something we see as not possible (i.e., Chris Christie entering the race … But what’s up with this new announcement? Can’t the drama end soon?). But it’s not. It’s simply knowing what is possible and fully understanding what we want in a candidate.

Right now, it may not seem any one candidate fits the bill for our total agenda – i.e., Perry’s lax immigration policy; Ron Paul’s older than a dinosaur; Gary Johnson, being from a state most people don’t even realize is even a state (hey, I am from NM and people still ask me if I am from MEXICO when I say NEW MEXICO) …and Mitt Romney’s joke called RomneyCare … And let’s not forget Bachmann … whose main strike against her is lack of experience and her inability to let a subject just drop (you won’t ever hear me say her biggest issue is she’s a woman … because it’s just not. A Conservative woman in a place of power can perform miracles … I believe it truly.).

So do we settle? Well, that’s not the American way, is it? In fact, we are taught throughout history that settling gets you communism, socialism and slavery.

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First, a simple question: At retirement would you rather have a million dollars or social security benefits?

The answer to that one should be pretty simple. What boggles the mind, though, is that the former is not altogether impossible; in fact it may be more likely for those in Generation X or younger to save a million dollars than for social security to still be solvent when they retire.

Social Security has been a tremendous source of debate recently – an issue that becomes one of contention from time to time – particularly with the Republican candidates for the 2012 presidential election. Rick Perry has taken plenty of heat for referring to social security as a Ponzi scheme.

Since Social Security was created in the 1930s it has been a controversial issue; becoming only more contentious as the federal government borrowed against the trust to finance other government programs. The idea that it is a Ponzi scheme is certainly nothing new – Charles Ponzi having perpetrated his fraud that coined the term before the Social Security Act was ever passed.

The argument over whether Social Security is a fraud, heated though it is, is quite frankly overdone and irrelevant – not that it is near its end. No offence to Tea Partiers, but the odds of successfully seeking charges against the United States federal government for fraud seems somewhat low.

What can’t be argued about the United States Social Security System is whether it is a good investment plan for Americans. It is absolutely apparent to anyone who does the math that, fraud or not, Social Security is a loser from an investment perspective.

Supporters of social security, due to their lack of investment knowledge and ignorance of time value of money, often argue that Social Security is a profitable system for its participants. They point out that under the current system, Americans are repaid all their contributions in just 5 or 6 years, and that everything paid out after that is a gain to the contributor. This completely ignores the time value of money; and how it grows over time. So let’s do the math:

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I have a deathly fear of water.

I’ve always been kinda shy around it – even as a kid. But this turned into a full-blown fright fest when I was working at my first newspaper as an obituary clerk.

In my first few weeks at The Farmington Daily Times (Farmington, NM), I wrote the obituary of my high school friend, Chelly, who drowned in Navajo Lake near my hometown, while trying to save a little girl’s life. So, that, coupled with an already slightly ridiculous inability to back float, spiraled into me spending more time tanning on the side of the pool while my friends played Marco Polo and water volleyball. Such is the life of a land-bound girl with tan lines …

I talk about fears today because I am seeing fear throughout our Conservative ranks right now. We are a group who is more prepared for the upcoming Barackolypse (“If Obama is elected again inflation will make food and energy prices so high we won’t be able to buy bread!”) than we are in actually trying to mount an offensive and defeat him.

We have respected leaders in our own movement, telling us to head for the hills and store up food in order to take care of you and your own should the worst happen and Obama become reelected as president. I am reminded of the mania surrounding New Years Eve 2000 when everyone thought the new millennium might bring earthquake, death, destruction and a need to retreat to the caves and caverns of the Midwest. Have we already succumbed to the fear of fears here? Are we not even willing to see what we can do as a group large enough in number to actually make a difference?

As a group, it seems we have let our fears consume us. We have decided we don’t have a voice big enough to beat the bias of the media, take down the liberal mob or counter-act the power of the current government.

In watching the Republican debate earlier this week, I was yearning for a message of hope – a message OBAMA seemed to give so many people in 2008 – that actually made them vote for him. But I was left with nothing. All I heard were the problems this country had – not the potential. ‘ObamaCare will ruin the economy,’ ‘Withdrawl of troops jeopardizes our safety,’ ‘Our borders aren’t safe despite what Obama says ..’

Let’s face it. There’s not a person reading this who is involved in our Conservative circles who thinks President Obama has done a good job. We all know he’s sucked horrendously as Commander in Chief and we would like nothing better than to run him out of Washington on a rail … But I don’t need our Republican candidates to remind me of this time and time again. Tell me the problem. Tell me your solution. And lastly, tell me what we have to look forward to.

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When Texas Governor Rick Perry in the Republican debate at the President Reagan Library described Social Security as a “Ponzi Scheme”; Perry hoped the media would hyper-ventilate and scream that his political career was over. Back in 1982, Democratic Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill legendarily damaged the President’s and the Republican’s popularity by spinning that Reagan’s efforts to return Social Security to solvency was an effort to destroy the program. Perry understands that Social Security still remains popular; but he intends to use as a wedge issue against Democrats the fact that few Americans are willing to pay more taxes make the program solvent and that younger voters believe they will never receive the benefits they are paying for.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes a Ponzi scheme as “an investment swindle in which some early investors are paid off with money put up by later ones in order to encourage more and bigger risks.” Social Security began collecting taxes in 1937 and began in 1940 to pay their first benefit recipient, Ida May Fuller. Ms. Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program before she retired. The Social Security taxes on her salary were $24.75; her initial monthly check was $22.54; and she lived to collect $22,888.92. Essentially, Ms. Fuller earned a spectacular 925% return on her investment.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was quoted by his Labor Secretary Francis Perkins as trying to make sure Social Security would not be a swindle to future generations:

“Ah, but this is the same old dole by another name. It is almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the Congress of the United States to meet in 1980. We can’t see the United States short in 1980 any more than in 1935.”

Prior to the 1970s, the Social Security program was fairly well funded; because it took a highly visible Act of Congress to change the payments. But in 1972 Republican President Richard Nixon increased benefits by 20% and created a formula to automatically adjust Social Security payments by a cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. President Jimmy Carter in 1977 more than tripled the Social Security tax on wages; but price inflation continued to drive COLA payments up faster than the taxes on wages.

When President Reagan tried to reinstate the original COLA calculation in 1982 he was pummeled by Democratic Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, who famously told the press that trying to change Social Security was the political equivalent of asking for the instant death of touching the “third rail” of an electric train. Republicans lost 26 Congressional seats in the following midterm elections, as the Democrats made preservation of Social Security the centerpiece of their campaign slogan: “It’s not fair … It’s Republican”.

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