One issue that has been overlooked by both major congressional candidates of for the U.S. 4th Congressional District (Marilyn Musgrave and Angie Paccione) is the erosion of our constitutional rights and the consistent attempts by the Executive Office to circumvent the provisions of the constitution.

I know, I know, this makes me sound like I’m looking in the sky for black helicopters, but believe it or not this is a valid critical issue. Our current government may be as benevolent as we all believe they are, but as these fundemental rights set forth by our founding fathers are undermined the potential for further corruption and abuse is astronomical. Just this week, the president signed into law terror detainee legislation that both allows the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the authorization of explicit endorsement of “alternate” interrogations methods (torture to you and I). Now I have nothing against Jack Bauer style interrogation techniques when the circumstances warrant, but any methods of this nature should be loathed and subject to severe scrutiny - not legislated into acceptability.

Unfortunately, Musgrave is more interested in funding the ‘War on Drugs’ and the ‘War on Terror’ than she is defending our rights. Paccione is just interested in covering her own behind and convincing us she’s better than Musgrave. In fact the only candidate that I’ve seen that even addresses this issue is Eric Eidsness. If you are interested in the future of this country and the ongoing ability of our children to live in the Land of the Free I encourage you to watch Eric’s press conference and see what he has to say.

Eric Eidsness