Congress has failed us. It has lost its focus. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people or for the people.

The bureaucracy of this nation is constantly growing. This bureaucracy will only lead us closer to a government that controls every facet of our lives.

Do you want a government that tells you how and when you can spend your money?

Do you want a government that tells you when and where you can seek medical care?

Do you want a government that tells you how and if you can defend yourself and your family?

Do you want a government that allows anybody into this government and provides for their well being at the cost of the taxpayer?

Most of our elected officials in Congress has been there for more than a decade. Congress is full of career politicians whose prime objective is no longer to represent the people of this great land.

Most of our elected officials don't even know who "the people" are anymore.

It is time we give our representatives a clear message:

They work for us, not themselves.

When our elected officials lose their focus we must replace them with someone that will work for the people and puts the needs of American citizens before their own.

I am running for the United States House of Representatives to represent the 1st Congressional District of Washington State.

I can no longer sit idly by and complain about the way things are going without doing something about it.

If elected, I will truly work for the people. I will help lead this country back to a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

When it comes time for you to choose who you want to represent you in Congress, I hope that you will decide for real change. The right kind of change. 

I hope that you will choose me as your next representative.

Steve Long. The Right Kind of Change.

an odd, little fashion show held in late June in Paris in the underground ballroom of the George V Hotel that was both a comic, costume exercise in futility and an attempt to drag Saudi religious and cultural sensibilities into the 21^st Century. Fresh on the heels of French President Nicholas Sarkozy’s proclaiming that the enshrouding burqa was “…not welcome…” on the streets of the French Republic, Dior haute couture designer John Galliano, the French design houses of Nina Ricci and Jean Claude Jitrois and the Italian labels Blumarine and Alberta Ferretti valiantly tried to remake the Saudi Arabian abaya into a playful, more modern version of its black, drab, overcoat-like self.

 

The show’s organizer was the general manager of Saks Fifth Avenue in Saudi Arabia, Dania Tarhini. She was obviously thinking of her wealthier and more worldly-wise clients when she stated, "I realized that most of the Saudi clients are wearing designer brands, but they're covered by a black abaya. It is an obligation to wear the abaya there, but let them feel good about it."

 

So Tarhini let slip one of those open secrets that under that abaya and hijab headscarf or abaya and niqab facial veil with slits for the eyes, upper-crust Saudi women are actually fashion conscious. The twenty ornamented abayas shown with matching veils or hoods ranged from $5,500 to $11,500 but were given away to her favored trend-setting Saudi clients after the show in the hopes that others would follow their lead and purchase the lower priced versions at the Saks stores in Riyadh and Jeddah come September 2009.

 

Something about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear springs to mind here. The reason why the designers mentioned “couldn’t imagine” making “a designer abaya” is that the abaya represents a static garment requirement of a static culture and static religion. Fashion is a Western concept and is all about change, growth and cultural evolution. It is a restless and infinitely innovative reconsideration of the human shape and form as understood by a dynamic culture at a specific point in time. While Western fashion borrows from the past, it never recreates it and it doesn’t stay satisfied with itself in the present. There is always a new, best thing to be had. By the time the average woman affects a new look, the upper echelons have moved on.

 

What the designers involved in Ms Tarhini’s show did understand was the money-making end of the equation and that’s why they participated. However, if you really want to see what is happening with Islamic dress, switch gears and take a look at what is going on in Malaysia at the Ministry of Tourism’s 10th annual Malaysia Mega Sale Carnival.

 

Malaysia is pushing “Islamizing clothes” with pastel outfits suitable for a remake of “I Dream of Genie” but with out the bare midriffs. In what has an ominous sound to it, the wife of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, Rosmah Mansor, said, “The clothes displayed are suitable for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Most clothes are inspired by Islamic art with a touch of Malaysian art. Malaysia is amongst Muslim countries that are keen on preserving their art and heritage. "

 

Got that, you non-Muslims? Thanks to multi-culturalism, you’ve been stripped of your heritage and pride but look at what’s waiting to fill in the vacuum! If you think that burqa will make you look fatwa, just slip into a Malaysian slubbed silk triple layer get-up in 90 degree weather with only your face and hands showing or else the morality police in Muslim “no-go zones” might slap you with 50 lashes for strutting about like a “Western Doll”.

 

This brings us full circle back to Sarkozy’s banning of the hijab in French public venues and his dismissal of the burqa as unsuitable wear on French streets. Whether Galliano or the other designers at that Saks Fifth Avenue abaya show realize it or not, they’ve been gamed. Western fashion was proving too seductive to the Islamic world so now it is perverting fashion in order to Islamize it. The Malaysians now have the excuse to claim that these Western fashion designers are getting on board the Islamic gravy train.

 

Emirati designers Rabia Z, is busily sewing hijabs into tracksuits so that veiling resistance Muslim women can exercise in their version of gang clothing while Badr al-Budoor claims about the abaya that, "It is not a tent that covers us all. We can still look pretty and elegant and sexy - just as covered and as traditional as we need to be."

 

Pretty? Only if outer wear dressing a la The Matrix is your ideal Elegant? The whole point of the abaya is to deny the femininity of the wearer. Sexy? In your dreams, Playgirl!

While the rest of the fashion world is buzzing about US First Lady Michelle Obama’s new up do that took her from a Laura Petrie wannabe into the Victoria Beckham top not crowd, a bizarre little news story about a disturbing trend in British headwear has largely gone unnoticed. Yet the implications of the article are far reaching and an ultimate threat to the authority of police women in all Western countries.

 

So let’s visit the seemingly obliging police force of Avon and Somerset in England to see how the secularist state’s mania for political correctness has come up with an uncalled for catering to Islamic “sensitivity” concerning community relations. In a move that only those in love with subservient dhimmitude status can dream of, non-Muslim police women in Avon and Somerset now are issued with headscarves to wear when they enter local mosques on police business. There are somber black scarves for police uniforms and blue ones for Police Community Support Officers.

 

Naturally, Muslims were delighted to be consulted especially since modern Islamic headscarves are a sign of political resistance to Western culture and not a religious requirement although politically minded Muslim women within the UK’s police and medical establishments already clamored for and got uniform style hijabs accepted for their professions. No matter what the sex of the wearer, when you strip away a part of a police officer’s uniform, you symbolically strip away the power and the authority of the office. It’s the same reason why security guards’ uniforms so closely resemble police uniforms; there is power inherent in the outfit. Police uniforms are a visible sign of authority, which carries not only the full support and approval of the state, but also the compliance and respect of the citizenry.

 

In effect the Islamic communities in Avon and Somerset have neatly reduced the female side of the secular police force to lower status than their male counterparts. They have also made the non-Muslim female British police officers exponents of Islamic veiling resistance too and one wonders now if, when carrying out actual police business, these same female officers would be barred from the men’s section in the mosque. In Islam, a woman’s word is only half that of a man’s so would two women police officers be required for one report?

Of course, the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths Muslim community leaders have nothing but praise for this latest Sharia-style development. City of Bath Imam, Rashad Azami, stated: "This will go a long way in encouraging a trustful relationship between the police and the Muslim community." Then the director of Bath’s Islamic Society, Mr Azami, had this to add, "The police have been working closely with the Muslim community in the area on many levels for the last few years." However, one needs to note what Abu Waleed of the London School for Sharia has said about the UK’s domestic policies and its push for Muslim integration into UK society, “The domestic policy of the British government is enough to radicalize you.” Waleed, who considers Islam “superior”, rejects integration as a “conspiracy” by the British government against the Ummah, i.e. the whole Muslim world including those pockets of Islamic communities ever-growing within all of our countries today. So, police women of Avon and Somerset in the UK and eventually Dearborn, MI and Huston, TX in the US, today it’s the scarf but maybe tomorrow it’s the burqa even topped off with the niqab. Or maybe, since Muslims frown on women working outside of the home, your police careers may soon be very short-lived. Hey, but don’t let that worry you; evidently the big political fashion news taking up editorial time right now between the US and the UK is debating the merits of the high-waisted “Mom jeans” worn by President Obama when he threw the first pitch at a St. Louis baseball game and the vacationing UK’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown’s chinos. The liberal, Main Stream Media has to put everything into perspective, don’cha know…