In their editorial the liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune focuses on one proposal by Senator John McCain in, "Gas-tax break is a mirage".

First the liberal editorial board cherry picks what Senator McCain said. Here are the exact words he used on suspending all taxes on gasoline:

"I propose that the federal government suspend all taxes on gasoline now paid by the American people -- from Memorial Day to Labor Day of this year. The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus -- taking a few dollars off the price of a tank of gas every time a family, a farmer, or trucker stops to fill up. Over the same period, our government should suspend the purchase of oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has also contributed to the rising price of oil. This measure, combined with the summer-long "gas-tax holiday," will bring a timely reduction in the price of gasoline. And because the cost of gas affects the price of food, packaging, and just about everything else, these immediate steps will help to spread relief across the American economy."

Secondly, what the Sarasota Herald-Tribune does not tell you is Senator McCain's vision for the economy and America's future. There are many more important points in his speech than the suspension of all gas-taxes.

The liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune editorial board does not want you to know about them. Well we do.

Here are some of the really important things that Senator McCain said in his breath taking speech on the economy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA:

"We need rules that assure fairness and punish wrongdoing in the market. We need tax policies that respect the wage-earners and job creators who make this economy run, and help them to succeed in a global economy."

"Americans are also right to be offended when the extravagant salaries and severance deals of CEO's -- in some cases, the very same CEO's who helped to bring on these market troubles -- bear no relation to the success of the company or the wishes of shareholders."

"In the end, the truest measure of prosperity in America is the success and financial security of those who earn wages and meet payrolls in this country. Many are waiting for their first homes... their first big break... their first shot at financial security. And helping them will be my first priority in setting the economic policies of this nation."

"...many in Congress think Americans are under-taxed. They speak as if letting you keep your own earnings were an act of charity, and now they have decided you've had enough. By allowing many of the current low tax rates to expire, they would impose -- overnight -- the single largest tax increase since the Second World War. Among supporters of a tax increase are Senators Obama and Clinton. Both promise big "change." And a trillion dollars in new taxes over the next decade would certainly fit that description."

"I will use the veto as needed, and as the Founders intended. I will veto every bill with earmarks, until the Congress stops sending bills with earmarks. I will seek a constitutionally valid line-item veto to end the practice once and for all. I will lead across-the-board reforms in the federal tax code, removing myriad corporate tax loopholes that are costly, unfair, and inconsistent with a free-market economy."

"...we will institute a one-year pause in discretionary spending increases with the necessary exemption of military spending and veterans benefits. "Discretionary spending" is a term people throw around a lot in Washington, while actual discretion is seldom exercised. Instead, every program comes with a built-in assumption that it should go on forever, and its budget increase forever. My administration will change that way of thinking."

"In my administration there will be no more subsidies for special pleaders -- no more corporate welfare -- no more throwing around billions of dollars of the people's money on pet projects, while the people themselves are struggling to afford their homes, groceries, and gas. We are going to get our priorities straight in Washington -- a clean break from years of squandered wealth and wasted chances."

"I will send to Congress a proposal to cut the [corporate] taxes these employers pay, from a rate of 35 to 25 percent."

"I will also send to the Congress a middle-class tax cut -- a complete phase-out of the Alternative Minimum Tax to save more than 25 million middle-class families more than 2,000 dollars every year."

"Our tax laws and those who enforce them should treat all citizens with respect, whether they are married or single. But mothers and fathers bear special responsibilities, and the tax code must recognize this. Inflation has eroded the value of the exemption for dependents. I will send to Congress a reform to increase the exemption -- with the goal of doubling it from 3,500 dollars to 7,000 dollars for every dependent, in every family in America."

"What we need is a simpler, a flatter, and a fair tax code. As president, I will propose an alternative tax system. When this reform is enacted, all who wish to file under the current system could still do so. And everyone else could choose a vastly less complicated system with two tax rates and a generous standard deduction."

"Those who can afford to buy their own prescription drugs should be expected to do so. This reform alone will save billions of dollars that could be returned to taxpayers or put to better use."

To read the full speech and the sweeping reforms that Senator McCain is proposing go here.

We continue to be amazed at what the liberal Sarasota Herald-Tribune wants you to know but more importantly what it doesn't want you to know.

Their editorial is at best dis-information and at worst political pandering to the liberal view point and dishonest journalism.

Tom Tryon of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune goes out on a limb and bravely talks about discussing race in America in his column, "If we are confined to corners, we can't build on racial progress".

Tom talks about demographics and census figures. One interesting thing Tom points out is that the "Census shows 81 percent of Americans as white, 13 percent as black and 4 percent as Asian. But the Census also shows that 14 percent of Americans identify themselves as Hispanic or Latino, regardless of race -- the fastest-growing group."

What Tom may have discovered is Hispanics self-identify as white. Hispanics don't identify themselves in terms of ethnicity but rather origin. They view themselves as part of the whole cloth of America.

What we and most Americans found troubling about the sermons of Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. was his emphasis on blackness, his Afrocentric church doctrine and anti-American rhetoric. Dr. Wright for over 35 years has been preaching segregation, hate and sedition to his congregation. He has been rewarded by his community, his state and the nation for doing so.

What is most troubling about the political speech of Senator Obama is his statement, "I can no more disown him [Dr. Wright] than I can disown the black community."

Many Americans see Dr. Wright, and Senator Obama's failure to disown him, promoting a belief system that says blacks must be "confined to a corner" in order to be viable. Being black trumps all else, including being American.

To have meaning in their lives blacks must hate "whitey" and "white America" and damn America according to Pastor Wright. Dr. Wright preaches the "we are owed" doctrine of black power.

What is more disturbing is the recent glowing support of Dr. Wright from Reverend John H. Thomas, General Minister and President, United Church of Christ, Reverend Michael Pfleger of the Saint Sabina church of Chicago, Senator Obama, political pundits, the media and some leaders in the black community.

Dr. Wright preached racial segregation and sedition. The same segregation, racial slurs and hate speech that Tom rightly points out came from Southern Democrats such as former Governor and Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace.

Recently we had a comment posted on this blog saying that there are two Martin Luther King, Jr. Day celebrations in Newtown. One for "whitey" and one for the blacks. This is segregation of the most heinous sort on a day that is supposed to celebrate racial equality.

We fully agree with Tom when he ends his column with, "If we ignore our common challenges, if we fail to embrace our common beliefs, religious and secular, we will simply remain in the corners we define by race, afraid and unable to bridge our differences."

The operative words are "common beliefs". What beliefs we have in common defines us as American. History has shown that for a multi-ethnic nation to survive it must have a strong common belief system that trumps race.

Americans rightly are shocked, afraid and angry when they hear black separatist rants. The black community must denounce not only the rhetoric of Dr. Wright but the man himself and those of a similar ilk, who Senator Obama describes as being in a "time warp".

We agree with Tom, some in our community need to get out of their corner and meet the majority of us in the middle of the room.

According to Time magazine, "In a [1956] special session of the [Democratic controlled] Florida legislature, the state house of representatives passed four bills to circumvent a state supreme court ruling that the Florida school segregation laws are invalid. The bills would enable county boards of education to assign pupils and teachers to schools on the basis of intelligence, ability, and "cultural background.'' One representative objected that "some Negro pupils have higher IQs than some white pupils." Snapped a backer of the bill: "But who is going to give the tests?"

The Governor of Florida in 1956 was Democrat Thomas LeRoy Collins (pictured to the left). Democratic Governor Collins publicly condemned the U. S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

As a side note you should also know about The Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (known as the Johns Committee) established by the Democratic Florida Legislature in 1956, during the era of the Second Red Scare and the Lavender Scare.

The Florida committee undertook a wide-ranging investigation of potentially subversive activities by academics, civil rights groups, and suspected communist organizations, and also attempted to eliminate homosexuals from state government and public education.

The Johns Committee was named after Democratic Governor of Florida Charley Eugene Johns.

In the Sarasota Herald-Tribune article by Carol E. Lee, "Reconciliation of racist past stirs in Captital", there is a lot Carol does not tell you about the role of Democrats and the racist past of Florida.

For example, not mentioned in the article is that the all white Florida state legislature of 1956 was also all Democrat and that the Democrats and their KKK "friends" had eliminated Republicans from elected office in Florida by the early 1900s.

The article mentions that there were 63,000 slaves in Florida before the Civil War, but fails to mention that the slave owners were Democrats and fails to mention that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the anti-slavery party, that it won the Civil War against the pro-slavery Democratic Party and that the Republican Party passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution that ended slavery, provided the vote for black men, and outlawed racial discrimination. Almost every Democrat voting NO.

Of the almost 3,000 people lynched by the KKK: 2,000 were black, 1,000 were white, and almost all were Republicans.

Really, it ought to be the white Democrats who apologize to all Republicans and all black residents of Florida for the many historic crimes of the white Democratic Party. The rehabilitation of the Democratic Party begins with it acknowledging its extensive racist history.

Have you ever noticed the primary difference between liberals and conservatives?

Liberals attack government to get more of it.

Conservatives attack government to get less of it.

Our very liberal friend and former editor of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune Waldo Proffitt is the perfect example. In his column, "Hostile takeover of government" he remembers the good old days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mr. Big Government himself.

FDR gave us Social Security, which is about to bankrupt this country. If FDR had supported private savings accounts in the 1930s we would all be millionaires by now. How could FDR have known that government would take the money we put into Social Security and use it to feed more government rather than invest it in our economy? Social Security is the biggest Ponzi scheme ever.

Anyway, Waldo rants against the usual suspects President George W. Bush and former Governor Jeb Bush, "So, here in Florida, with a Bush as president and a Bush as governor, we got a double-strength prescription: Cut taxes, cut services, dismantle regulations. Cripple Social Security. Turn over Medicare to private companies. Make it more expensive for children to get medical care. Make it more expensive to attend college, and more difficult to fund decent public schools. Do not spend enough to maintain roads, bridges and other elements of the infrastructure."

We say fantastic, congratulations to GWB and Jeb. Let's do more of it. Less government regulation, privatize Social Security, privatize and deregulate Medicare, cut taxes, cut non-essential services, privatize our state colleges and universities, provide real school choice by providing vouchers to parents, eliminate the onerous property taxes and move them over to the fairer sales tax, and let families bear the burdens of taking care of their own by empowering them.

Take all the money saved from doing these things and give it to the people and families that pay taxes. Do not give it to those who do not pay taxes. We want to see a national sales tax and elimination of the income tax because one taxes consumption and other productivity. If we can't do this immediately then let's start with a flat tax and have everyone in America pay something toward our national defense. That is fair.

As for the S&L crisis of the 1970s we say we are glad it happened, just as we are glad we are having a sub-prime problem now. That is how the markets work. Lenders gave money to more and more people so they could buy their own homes. Some were speculators and they got burned, good. Some were honest families that stretched their budget to have the American dream, let's try to help them with lower interest rates or a temporary freeze in rates. Some were given loans to feed the greed of the market, punish the predatory lenders. Otherwise let the market correct itself. Will we all feel some pain? Yes. Will we get through this crisis? Yes.

The thing that is really is disgusting about Waldo's article is his "cheap shot" at Senator John McCain. Waldo refers to the Keating Five congressional investigation that was part of the S&L crisis. The Keating Five were 4 Democrats and one Republican.

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Democrats Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, while Democrat John Glenn and Republican John McCain had been only minimally involved. The Committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct."

That is it. In reality the lawyer who headed up the investigation said that he recommended that Senator McCain be dropped from the investigation. The Senate Ethics Committee disagreed because if they did that then it would only be Democrats left. They needed a token Republican - John McCain.

Waldo knows this and still slings mud. Sad that Waldo would stoop so low. But that is what former employees of the New York Times do. Sling mud without basis in fact. We call that in the blogosphere "tabloid journalism".

We agree with Ronald Reagan who said, "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

If we stop feeding the government baby we will get less you know what coming out the other end.