OPINION: We're In For A Wild Ride!

This week, I asked our staff at Talk Radio News Service to give me their predictions for the New Year. Our staff members have a wide variety of backgrounds and range from liberal to conservative. So, here are their predictions for the New Year!

Justin Duckham, our youngest staff member and our Pentagon correspondent, says:

• After being denied a speaking spot at the 2012 Republican convention, Ron Paul will irk the GOP establishment by announcing plans to host a competing event on the same days. The drama surrounding the move and the resulting media narrative of a schism within the party will overshadow anything that happens at the Republican convention.

• Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley make the vice presidential shortlist, with one of the two ultimately landing on the ticket.

• There’s serious talk among House Republicans over removing Boehner from his role as speaker and replacing him with Cantor. However, Boehner maintains his position after the bulk of the conference realizes that a sharp turn to the right will alienate general election voters.

• Mark Kelly will run for the congressional seat currently held by his wife, Gabrielle Giffords.

Richard Miller, who is both our military correspondent and a military historian, has the following predictions for 2012:

• Obama will lose, period. It will not be as easy as some righties think, but he will not win. The history isn’t with him.

• No blockade of Homuz. The real story there isn’t intentional war but the risk of accident or action by a rogue IRG element looking to start a war and no red line between Washington and Tehran to settle things.

• The euro folds for good. It either splits into two currencies or just folds.

• Look for an October surprise by an increasingly desperate Obama. The only sustained bump he’s had in two years came when he killed Osama. He might ramp up a military confrontation against Iran.

• No-brainer: Republicans take the Senate and keep the House.

• Economy continues flat.

• Supreme Court hears Obamacare arguments in March and narrowly upholds the law. But if Obama loses, the law will be waived or repealed.

OPINION: New Year's Resolutions

You know about New Year’s resolutions: Lose weight. Exercise. Get organized. Spend more time with family. Get out of debt.

If we actually kept these, then each year we could move on to something different, instead of repeating the same old pledges that we never seem to keep.

Our close relative Uncle Sam has the same problem. Over and over, we hear pledges to reduce spending, cut out waste and fraud, get rid of regulations that kill jobs, and to streamline government.

Psychologists say 90% of new year’s resolutions fail. In Washington, the rate is probably higher.

Things don’t change when our commitments are superficial. Unless we consider all the consequences of political promises, and unless we’re ready to accept those consequences—such as receiving less back from government—then we can’t expect politicians to have any stronger commitments than we have ourselves.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

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OPINION: Are The Days Of Free And Open Internet Over?

There’s a backlash underway against supporters of the Stop Online Privacy Act – known as SOPA. 

The legislation – which is currently stalled in Congress until next month – would give the federal government – working with major entertainment industries – the power to take down websites that may be displaying copyrighted material. 

Domain registrar GoDaddy.com publicly supported SOPA – and now has seen more than 120,000 domain names transferred from its services thanks to a groundswell of Internet activism calling for boycotts on GoDaddy. 

Meanwhile – two main proponents of the Internet censorship legislation – Republican Senator Bob Corker – and Republican Representative Paul Ryan are being target in an online campaign calling for people to dig up dirt on them and ruin their political careers. 

Sadly, the days of a free and open Internet will be numbered if SOPA becomes law.

OPINION: Vote Fraud Is Real

President Obama’s U.S. Justice Department wants to invalidate South Carolina’s new voter ID law, but is ignoring Supreme Court decisions that support such laws.

Liberals often claim that voter ID is unfair to minorities and that voting fraud isn’t a real problem anyway.
Sadly, they use phony math when they claim that it’s discriminatory to expect minorities to have an ID.

Would they undo the security checkpoints at airports because of that? They also should know that for people who don’t drive, states commonly issue other ID cards, often for free.

Voter fraud is real. The infamous ACORN group in 2008 turned in over 400,000 phony or invalid voter registrations. And 55 ACORN workers in eleven states have been convicted of voter registration fraud.

We need common-sense security at the polls with voter ID.

From The Heritage Foundation, I’m Ernest Istook.

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OPINION: The Impacts Of Fukushima

Scientists are trying to figure why scores of seals have washed ashore in Alaska this year either dead or suffering from a mysterious disease. 

The seals have lesions, irritated skin, and hair loss – often symptoms of radiation poisoning - and scientists worry it might have come from the Fukushima plant in Japan. 

So far – there’s been no sign of elevated radiation in the waters in the Pacific Northwest - although the US government moved monitoring from daily to quarterly – but scientists are conducting tests to determine if indeed the seals have been poisoned by nuclear fallout making its way to US waters from Japan. 

Test results aren’t expected for a few more weeks.

A study conducted earlier this month suggested that as many as 14,000 premature deaths in the United States – mostly among infants – might be attributed to nuclear fallout from Fukushima.  

The world is clearly different now, post-Fukushima.