I will chalk this up as a simple misstatement by Kathleen Sebelius over the weekend. During an interview on ABC, the Secretary said:

The bill has passed the House. The bill has passed the Senate with a super-majority.

To be correct, she should have said:

A bill has passed the house. A bill has passed the Senate with a super-majority.

This is what much of the debate between Congressional Democrats have been about, and why the Health Care Summitt was called the other week. It wasn’t simply because the Republicans have refused to support the legislation, but because the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats passed two different bills. Since the Democrats have lost their super-majority control in the Senate, they are forced to rely on the House to vote for the Senate-version of the bill, which some Democrats refuse to do.  If “the bill” had been passed as Sebelius stated, there wouldn’t be any debate right now, since the President would have already signed the bill into law.

I want to start of this article with a bit of a warning. Most of us either know a registered sex offender or a victim of one, so I am trying to approach this topic with a little discretion. If you choose to respond, please keep that in mind when posting.

The death of Chelsea King is the latest in a string of children being killed after assaulted by a registered sex offender. With each death, the wounds held by past victims and their families re-open, making them relive the experience all over again. The responses to these actions are usually that of a mob-mentality, with calls for stonings, hangings, or at a minimum life in prison. However, the first two are not acceptable in a civilized society, and the latter can be viewed as harsh by others.

Brent King, the father of Chelsea, has called for changes in the current laws. He stated on the Today Show, “Kids [need to be] kids and be safe … and predators should not be allowed within their reach.” I can’t think of anyone that would disagree with that statement. As we grow older, we often think back to the days of our innocence, were we would go out and play, with the only worry on our mind is if we’ll be discovered in a game of hide-and-seek. Children shouldn’t be forced to live with the emotional scars of an attack or live in fear of it happening again.

The Sexual Offender (Jacob Wetterling) Act of 1994, also known as Megan’s Law, was designed to help communities deal with registered sexual offenders living in their neighborhoods. Sex offenders have to register with the local community when they move into the area, and that information needs to be made available to the public. Many states and organizations have created websites that compiles this information, so residents can screen their neighborhoods to see if there are any sex offenders nearby.

This practice is handy, but it isn’t fool proof. How can you disclose where a sex offender lives when the person is homeless? In Michigan, State Senator Bill Hardiman thinks he has the answer. He introduced legislation this week that would require the homeless sex offenders to site what area they are living in. That way, the residents would at least know that there is an offender somewhere in the region, even though that can’t pin-point the address. But even still, sex offenders are not under house arrest, so even if they did live in a house, the person could be a threat elsewhere in the area.

One of the ways to keep the movements of sex offenders away from where children are is by limiting their access to housing around schools. But as noted above, sex offenders are allowed to walk around in public, placing them in proximity with children. State Senator Bruce Burns of Wyoming is all too aware of this. Sex offenders currently cannot live within 2000 feet of a school in Wyoming, but in a state where there are many small towns; there are sometimes no places for offenders to live. He has submitted legislation to reduce this radius to just 1000 feet, giving a wyoming sex offender more flexibility in finding a residence.

So how do you balance the rights of the sex offender with that of the general public? You can’t just build a commune and expect all sex offenders to be moved to these “reservations.” Nor can you place a proximity alarm on a sex offender so that it goes off if he is too close to a school, especially if the only grocery store is on the other side of that perimeter.

This is the challenge of the law enforcement and legislatures around the nation. What rights do sex offenders have, and when are we allowed to infringe on them? Any suggestions?

Another problem with

Anyone out there like Starbucks? It seems wherever you turn; there’s a Starbucks. They have stand-alone stores, they’re found at airports, and they are even in grocery stores. There’s even one next door to my office!

I like Starbucks, but not for their coffee. In fact, I hate coffee. The reason why I like Starbucks is for their unwillingness to be bullied into changing their policies in regards to “open carry” laws. (And before I go any further, I want to tell you that I hate guns almost as much as I hate coffee.)

The issue centers around the privilege that California residents have to walk around in public with a gun openly displayed. Most states within the Union allow open-carry of guns by registered/licensed gun owners – a practice that bothers gun-control advocacy groups. One of these groups is the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and they’ve adopted an unusual strategy to fight the open-carry laws.

It started in Northern California when the establishments Peet’s Cafe & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen were identified as popular gathering places for gun owners. The Brady Campaign approached the restaurants and asked them to change their policy on allowing people to openly display their firearms indoors, with which they complied. Noticing this was a coordinated attack, the gun owners decided to shift to Starbucks.

The gun owners hedged their bets that Starbucks was too large of a company to be pushed around while at the same time believe the company would not want to lose the sudden increase in customer revenue. The Brady Campaign approached Starbucks with the same request, but was turned away after citing they were in compliance with state laws. Not happy with the lack of the preferred response, the Brady Campaign when on the offensive publicly. Brian Malte, a director within the Brady Campaign, stated, “Starbucks put out a statement today saying they don’t want to be in the middle of this fight. Well, they are.  They are the middle. Why are they in middle?  Because they chose — they chose — not to bar guns, so far, in their stores.”

Malte is wrong, of course. Starbucks was placed in the middle by the Brady Campaign, not because they “chose” to observe state laws. As a result, the Brady Campaign has decided to harass a law-abiding company over a difference of opinion.

Starbucks has tried to keep this issue below the radar since they didn’t want to get involved in a war of words. However, after protests and press conferences in front of their stores, the company felt that their employees and customers were being pulled into an uncomfortable position and decided to go public.

We recognize that there is significant and genuine passion surrounding the issue of open carry weapons laws. Advocacy groups from both sides of this issue have chosen to use Starbucks as a way to draw attention to their positions.

While we deeply respect the views of all our customers, Starbucks long-standing approach to this issue remains unchanged. We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws. Where these laws don’t exist, we comply with laws that prohibit the open carrying of weapons. The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.

…

As the public debate continues, we are asking all interested parties to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue.

The Brady Campaign needs to stop this gutter campaign against Starbucks and go back to working with the state legislatures around the nation. If they continue, I encourage Starbucks to challenge the Brady Campaign and sue them for damages due to any loss of sales as well as for harassment. They have a right to allow law-abiding customers to patron their stores.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be a millionaire? Just think of all the things you could do (other than subsidizing our national debt through higher taxes). You can put your kids through college, buy a better home, or retire comfortably without the fear of Social Security going bankrupt a month after you toss our your suit and tie. Yes, being a millionaire would be nice.

In honor of tax season, I’ve decided to give away my copy of “The Millionaire Next Door,” written by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. In this book, the authors provide you with years of research findings on the millionaires in the United States. They cover how they earned their money as well as how the spend it. Additionally, they reveal what professions these millionaires held in order to grow their wealth.

When we think of millionaires, we tend to think about the Wall Street brokers riding around in their limousines while wearing expensive suits and shoes. However, most of the millionaires in the United States come from “dull” careers, such as owners of mobile-home parks, paving contractors, and janitorial service providers. This is just one of the many surprising findings found in the book.

The authors cover seven key principles which the millionaire next door observe when building their wealth:

1) They live well below their means.
2) They allocate their time, energy, and money efficiently, in ways conductive to building wealth.
3) They believe that financial independence is more important than displaying high social status.
4) Their parents did not provide economic outpatient care.
5) Their adult children are economically self-sufficient.
6) They are proficient in targeting market opportunities.
7) They chose the right occupation.

Don’t you wish our Congress would practice those principles when crafting their budgets and spending our money?

Contest rules

Since I only have one copy of this book to give away, I want to turn this into a contest. The rules are as follows:

For those operating a blog
- Post an article on your site mentioning this book offer.
- Link to this article using the tag “U.S. Common Sense”.
- Post a link to your article in the comment section below.

For those who do not have a blog
- Leave a comment below on one of these three topics: what business you would like to start, how would you use your wealth to help others, or how you would change the U.S. tax code.

Make sure you enter a valid e-mail address in your profile when you leave your comment. That will be the means by which I contact you so I can mail you the book.

Since this contest is in honor of the tax season, all entries must be submitted by April 14th. I will announce the winner on April 15th. The winner will be chosen by random.