First, I predicted Bush 53%-46% in November, and current polls show Bush with 51% and Kerry's negatives rising. After months of pounding, a just coming to life economy, a long road ahead still in Iraq, an unequaled partisan assault in the 9/11 commission, and Bush is ahead in the polls? Barring some unforeseen catastrophe, the future isn't too rosy for JFK2. Now, I make another prediction.

With the creation of 300,000 plus jobs, January's 159,000, and February's 46,000 (bls.gov) it is obvious that the employment issue isn't going to help Kerry. In fact, I want to take a look back to when the steep decline began, early 2000. It is really interesting to see how the Democrats want to pin everything on President Bush, but can't accept that whether it is terror or jobs, problems began under Clinton. Now, do I blame him directly for the recession and 9/11. No, but he gets culpability because he did not act upon the data. We knew for years al Qaida was a threat, according to Richard Clarke, and yet Clinton did nothing. And we knew for almost a year that the job situation was declining, but again, Clinton did nothing. He precisely did nothing because any action would be to acknowledge that there were problems. His was simply a failure of leadership. It was also a failure of unwillingness to accept personal accountability.

Now, what will be the Democrats next issue? You heard it here first. It will be income inequality. They will claim that the rich are getting more than their "fair share". Now, I don't know how you judge fair, but I'm sure John Kerry does. A big part of Kerry's problem is that he isn't very likeable, and has a hard time connecting with people. So, he isn't going to motivate alot of people like say Kennedy, Reagan, or dare I mention him in their presence, Clinton, who was the master in personal politics. Second, Kerry is losing issue after issue, and on the most important one, terror, Bush out polls him by over 30 points, while they are close on the economy. So, he has to get as many of anti-Bush people out as he can. Notice that I didn't say his people, which in Howard Dean's case, would have been "his people". Dean had a following. Kerry simply has a mob. They are united by one thing, they hate Bush.

Kerry has to get anyone and everyone who dislikes President Bush to vote for him. It is sad when this is what an election comes down to, a campaign based on hate. But, Kerry is going to have to get one group of Americans hating another group, and what better way than to have the unrich hating the rich. And this is where income inequality comes in. It is easy to target "the rich", they account for such a small percentage of the population. And, since there are a large number of people who aren't "rich", then it is easy to make them think that the reason is because of inequality. Whether he campaigns under the mantra of "economic justice" or "greater equity", or whatever half-baked slogan, he will use it to play one American against another. He has no other choice.

Income inequality. You heard here first. Again. Another reason why Kerry must be kept as far away as possible from 1600 Pennsylvania.

So, I see Kerry is in San Diego talking in front of a gas station, and behind him is a huge sign that says, "Fuel drives America's economy", or something close to that. And he's blaming high gas prices on Bush and saying he'll bring them down. This is so funny, you have to laugh, except that I think he's serious, and he's got a real chance at being president. Which is entirely not funny.

The Democrats have been telling us for years that we need to reduce the amount of fossil fuels we use. They have been pushing, including Kerry, for higher gas taxes. About all the economics they know is that higher fuel prices will reduce our quantity demanded. But alas, our quantity demanded is up over 4% from last year. And now, Kerry wants to reduce gas prices. Hey, maybe he drives an SUV.

Kerry claims he's going to lower prices by pressuring OPEC. Fine, except that in 2002 we produced over 9 million barrels a day, and imported over 11 million, of which almost 7 million were non-OPEC.(Dept of Energy) So, of the 20 million barrels of petroleum, 4 million, 20% come from OPEC. Something doesn't add up here. I think that Kerry is hoodwinking us here. And how is he going to "pressure" OPEC? Maybe he's going to ask repeatedly, maybe threaten to seek UN sanctions, maybe send Tereza. Well, that would scare them.

And how do you reduce the price of anything? Government price controls? All that will do is cause shortages. What you need to do is to increase the supply of gas, which means expanding drilling. But, the Democrats have fought drilling in ANWAR and drilling offshore in California.

Another way to lower the prices is to reduce demand. (economic note: the difference between the quantity demanded and demand is this: the quantity demanded means the amount of gas demanded at any price range given the current situation. Quantity demanded changes only due to changes in price. Demand means the entire demand curve, i.e. the demand at any price. Changes in demand come only from changes in competitive or complemenary goods, tastes, preferences, etc. In other words, if bell bottoms become fashionable, then demand increases, thus at any price, more people will want bell bottoms. However, given the current state of fashion, any change in the price of bell bottoms will only chagne the quantity demanded.) Liberals love France. France gets 77% of her electricity from nuclear power and only 8% from fossil fuels. We get 21% from nuclear and over 71% from fossil fuels. (CIA factbook) So, if we developed nuclear power, we would be dramatically reducing our demand (i.e. gas becomes less fashionable) for fossil fuels. But of course, we can't expect any movement towards nuclear energy from the left.

Liberals attack fossil fuels, they insist that we reduce our usage, they promote high gas taxes, they attack SUV's, they attempt to increase mileage standards, and now Kerry wants cheap gasoline.

They can't have it both ways.

Gee, how nice of Senator Kerry to call for Condi to testify before the 9/11 commission. In 1996, Clinton claimed executive privilege in refusing to turn over 2000 files in the Filegate scandal. In 1997, he again claimed executive privilege regarding an investigation of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy. (personal disclaimer: Mike Espy gave the NRA keynote address in 1990.) And in 1998 he again claimed executive privilege regarding the Monica Lewinsky allegations.

Seraching the internet for John Kerry criticizing Clinton for claiming executive privilege came up empty. No surprise there. But now he wants Condi Rice to testify. She has already testified for four hours and has offered to do so again. The commission is not asking for further testimony, let alone public testimony. This is duplicitous grandstanding at best, politicizing and jeopardizing our national security solely for political gain at worst. I choose the latter.

Her role is as advisor. The National Security Advisor must be free to offer her opinions and ideas in full confidence that they will never be supoenaed. She cannot ever fear that what she says might be used against her, or her employer.

Let me quote Michael Dorf, from Findlaw.com. Citing the case of US v. Nixon,

The Court recognized "the valid need for protection of communications between high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in the performance of their manifold duties." It noted that "[h]uman experience teaches that those who expect public dissemination of their remarks may well temper candor with a concern for appearances and for their own interests to the detriment of the decisionmaking process."

Nonetheless, the Justices concluded that the executive privilege is not absolute. Where the President asserts only a generalized need for confidentiality, the privilege must yield to the interests of the government and defendants in a criminal prosecution.

And there you have it. There is no criminal prosecution. Thus there is no need for Condi to testify. Kerry again shows why we cannot afford to have him anywhere near the Oval Office.