A few days ago the GOP voted against a defense bill with 2 significant bills attached to it. While I am for the defense bill and the two riders, I agree that it is wrong to attach laws that may not pass on their own into bills that would pass for certain.

The original defense bill is a no brainer. It raises the pay of the soldiers slightly and provide additional money for the wars. Both parties would have voted for this. The Democrats attached two bills to this. One is to give legal status for children of illegal immigrants who are going to college or are joining the military. This makes sense to me since we don't punish children for what their parents had done. These young people who are bright enough to go to college or brave enough to fight for us, are exactly what we need. The second one is to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell law of the military". I always say that if anyone is willing to fight for us, I don't see why we would want to discriminate against them.

Having said all that, I still don't think that laws that are totally unrelated to each other should be in the same bill just because the majority thinks that it is easier than to pass them individually. I know the GOP did the same in the past when they were in power. I am sure the Democrats complained bitterly then. Each bill should pass on its own merit. There are many times one will see bills that are distasteful passed because they are riding on a bill that both party want to pass as quickly as possible. This is not right. So while the GOP are hypocrits because they had done this before, the Democrats are wrong by trying to pass two bils on the back of a popular bill this time.

I don't have any problem with the Tea party trying to win seats in Congress. Some of the candidates like Rand Paul are not bad. But some are just awful. Take this Christine O'Donnell who has won the GOP nomination for senator out of Delaware. I don't really have problems with her so called dabbling in witchcraft as she put it in Bill Maher's show 11 years ago. She didn't really claim she was a witch and this happened many years ago. No witch hunt needed here. But the fact that she has not had a real job in several years and living on money from previous campaign donations surely should not give anyone confidence that she is capable of being a senator. I understand there is a backlash against incumbents and "inside" politicians but it is obvious that this person is not qualified. All she says are pedestrian things like "restoring America". What the hell does that mean? She doesn't give any idea what we are restoring or how. She refuses to answer any charges against her and only says that she has not done anything wrong. How can anyone vote for someone like that?

I am not saying that the GOP mainstream or the Democrats don't have their unethical people. Charles Rangel won his primary and will be reelected even though he is under ethical charges. But I mean if you are against government crooks, why are you so easily pursuaded by crooks outside the government trying to get in. I mean I can say all those rhetorics such as smaller government, lower taxes, restoring America, bring back morality to the country etc. You should all send me money so that I can run for office and spend the money afterward for myself.

Israel and the Palestinians are finally back to the peace table. The odds of success, of course, are slim. But that is no excuse for not really trying in the past several years. As I have said before, unless there is peace in the Middle East, we will NEVER be free of terrorism no matter what else we do. The continuation of this conflict is the most important avenue for extremists to recruit terrorists. Without peace, Israel will never be safe and the Palestinians will always live in inhumane conditions.

Despite the long odds, there are some reasons for optimism. Namely the 3 people that are most important in these negotiations. Netanyahu is a conservative. He may lose his right wing supporters if he makes concessions. But he must realize that he is in an unique position to do something historic. Whatever peace agreement he makes will have more legitimacy than one made by say, Simon Perez. This is like Nixon going to China, or closer to his home, Begin making peace with Egypt. Will Netanyahu do it? Well, even Ariel Sharon was changing right before he got a stroke. So hopefully Netanyahu will make a transformation also.

Will Abbas be braver than Arafat and make peace? He is a moderate and so whatever he does will be attacked by Hamas anyway. So he may as well ignore them and take a plunge toward history. He may lose his life if he makes peace. But he will be a legend in history if does.

Then there is Hilary Clinton. She is untested in these type of negotiations. But she has the advantage of being there when Bill Clinton almost got a deal done. She must have learned from his successes and failures. This is also her chance to make history and I got feeling she will go all out for it.

There are bound to be road blocks all over the place. Hamas already started the attack. As I said, the odds are still long. But there are a lot at stakes here both for the world in general and the 3 participants in particular. Hopefully they can come through.