For those of you not familiar with American economic history, this country suffered a major economic downturn in the 1930's. Maybe you've heard about it. Now, the way the Great Depression was stopped, or at least mitigated, was the liberal introduction of money into the American economy.

I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we could be seeing the beginning of the end of an era in politics.

Well, the Holiday Season is finally over. The only thing left to do is figure out where to spend those gift cards and seeing if you can get cash or only store credit for that ugly orange sweater Old Aunt Mabel gave you. So, did you survive the war on Christmas?

Ron Paul has, once again, shocked the Republican world.

It lasted less than a week.

The great upswell of hope coming out of the Annapolis Summit died a young death this week as Israel announced plans to build new housing developments in East Jerusalem, in addition to the announcement by the Defense Ministry that Israel should start killing militants in Gaza.

President Abbas, Prime Minister Olmert, and President Bush met in Annapolis this morning to begin a summit. The goal is peace between Israelis and Palestinians. My first instinct is to roll my eyes and laugh this off. After all, this is clearly an attempt by a lame duck president to find his place in history. President Bush is building his legacy, hoping to have something other than a failed war in Iraq and 9/11 to go into his library.

Two important endorsements have been announced in the last week that have me thinking about the Republican candidates. Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani and the National Right to Life Committee has endorsed Fred Thompson. These two endorsements show exactly how much integrity these two candidates and the two endorsees really have: absolutely none.

Ron Paul just set the Republican record for single day fund raising. Playing on themes from V for Vendetta and Guy Fawke's Day, his supporters rallied around anti-Iraq war/anti-Bush sentiment to raise 4.2 million dollars. Paul's popularity, and his supporters' enthusiasm, is establishing a significant schism within the Republican party.

I don't know about the the rest of you, but I'm enjoying the multitude of political debates this election cycle. It reminds me of what we could have and what we should be demanding of our candidates.

If the veto override fails, the Democrats are going to bring SCHIP back up for a vote pretty soon, and there's a good chance the President will veto it again. If that happens, the Democrats have to get out in front of the cameras and sell this thing to the American people.