"A person should feel secure in their own home. No matter black, white, Hispanic, Asian - I don't care who they are - they should feel secure in their own home. The police have no right to come in your house and push you around and beat you up and do the things they did on March, 15, 2009." - Ryan Deaton, defense attorney for Marco Sauceda

Too often, we elevate the events of the American Revolution to near-mythic status and forget that the real revolutionaries were neither agitators nor hotheads, neither looking for trouble nor trying to start a fight. Rather, they were people just like you and me, simply trying to make it from one day to another, a task that was increasingly difficult as Britain's rule became more and more oppressive.

Caught up in the drama of Red Coats marching, muskets exploding, and flags waving in the night, we lose sight of the enduring significance of the Revolution and what makes it relevant to our world today. Yet the American Revolution did not so much start with a bang as with a whimper - a literal cry for relief from people groaning under the weight of an oppressive government's demands.

The ballot for the August 13 Ames Straw Poll will include nine names, but former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Texas Governor Rick Perry are notably absent from the list.

By a 6-5 vote, members of Iowa's Republican State Central Committee on Saturday determined that the final ballot will include former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

That's in addition to the six candidates guaranteed a spot by spending at least $15,000 each to reserve space at the Ames Straw Poll: Minnesota U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann, former Godfather's Pizza Chief Executive Officer Herman Cain, Michigan U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter, Texas U.S. Representative Ron Paul, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, and former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Rick Santorum.

The lowest qualified bid by the most competent contestant traditionally wins the government contract. Unfortunately, the "Change" gang now wants to fiddle with this decades-old, generally reliable formula.

President Obama hopes to throw another item onto the scale as bureaucrats weigh bids: political donations. A draft executive order would instruct federal officials to consider the political contributions of prospective government contractors. While this move is being portrayed as a matter of increased transparency, it will actually fuel unintended consequences and indirectly overturn an important Supreme Court decision on free speech.

While Rod Blagojevich's jury found him guilty on 17 felony counts last week, jurors found him not guilty on one count and deadlocked on two others. Not much has been written about those other counts, so let's take a look.

The paucity of electronic-surveillance evidence related to those verdicts, the lack of credible witnesses for the prosecution, and the absence of actual harm appeared to hurt the federal government's case.