By Theodore King

On March 5th, Kentucky freshman U.S. Senator Rand Paul, son of former Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, took to the Senate floor and filibustered President Barack Obama's nomination of John Brennan to head the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Senator Paul did this to get an answer from Attorney General Eric Holder, who during testimony before a Senate committee would not say whether he (Holder) would authorize the killing of Americans inside the country suspected of terrorism, using unmanned drones.

Senator Paul ended his filibuster 13 hours later after the need to respond to a "call of nature," but his efforts paid off. The next day, Senator Paul received a terse one-sentence response from Attorney General Holder, stating he would not use drones to kill Americans.

Moderate Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona and Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, called Paul's efforts a stunt. It must be noted that McCain and Graham were both having dinner with President Obama the evening of March 5th while Senator Paul was in filibuster on the Senate floor. Senator Paul was assisted in his filibuster in what was called "Stand with Rand" by Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona, Marco Rubio of Florida, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, and Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon joined in aiding the filibuster.

On March 23rd, the U.S. Senate passed Senate Resolution 8, a $3.7 trillion budget with a $975 billion tax hike. Senate Resolution 8 passed by a 50 to 49 vote. No Republicans voted for the budget. Four Democrats who are up for re-election in 2014 joined the Republicans in voting no; they were Max Baucus of Montana, Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagen of North Carolina, and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenburg did not vote. The other Senate Democrats claimed the budget shortfalls will be shrunk to $400 billion over the next ten years. The Democrats proposed modest cuts to government programs.

Two days earlier, the Republican-controlled House passed a budget by a vote of 221 to 207 that would cut the deficit $4 trillion more than the Senate Democrats' budget over a ten-year period without raising taxes. The Republican budget, House Resolution 25, proposed by Wisconsin congressman and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, claims the additional cuts would come from cuts to Medicare, food stamps, and other programs. The Republican plan would turn Medicare into a voucher system for those born after 1959, instead of the government's paying all the costs directly. All five members of Oklahoma's delegation, all Republicans, voted for the Ryan budget.

The House and Senate have passed two different budgets for fiscal year 2014. All of this is going to have to be sorted out in the coming weeks. And President Obama, after returning from another vacation or playing another round of golf, has proposed his own budget. His budget would increase taxes by $1 trillion over the next decade. One of his pet projects is a 94 cents per pack hike in cigarette taxes to pay for pre-school programs for children. In 2009, President Obama got Congress to pass a 62 cents tax hike on cigarettes to pay for health care for children. This president is once again attempting to shake down an unpopular minority -- smokers. The truth is elected officials like Obama think they can bully smokers forever. After 20 years, "Big Tobacco" has become a stale bogeyman. And in the last 10 years more has been done to curb smoking than abortions, and yet abortions are always a major topic at election time -- not smoking.

That same day, March 21, a vote was taken in the House to keep cabinet agencies funded through this fiscal year, which ends on September 30. House Resolution 933 passed by a vote of 318 to 109. Congressmen Tom Cole, James Lankford, Frank Lucas, and Markwayne Mullin voted yes. Only First District Congressman Jim Bridenstine voted no. It should be noted that the day before, March 20, the Senate voted on this bill, which passed by a vote of 73 to 26. Both Senators Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn voted no. If House Resolution 933 did not pass, the government would have shut down on March 27.

Here is something you might expect to read in a piece of satire. On March 14, the Senate Budget Committee voted to continue a U.S. Department of Agriculture program promoting food stamps for Mexican nationals. The program is administered through the Mexican embassy and consulates here in America. Many of those Mexican nationals receiving food stamps are here illegally. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions authored an amendment to end this program, his amendment was rejected by a 12 to 10 vote. This insane program was started by President George W. Bush in 2004!

Personnel is policy. That sentence is number 26 of Morton Blackwell's The Leadership Institute's 45 Laws of the Public Policy Process. What that means is that employees should be faithful to the policies of their employers. Mike Schwartz was such an employee. He was the chief of staff for Tom Coburn when he was in the House and later in the Senate. In early February, Mike Schwartz died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. He was 63. Last August, I covered Senator Coburn's town hall meeting in Claremore for a local paper. After the meeting, I asked him: "How's Mike Schwartz?" Senator Coburn responded, "Not good." Dr. Coburn, never one to mince words, said it as plainly as possible. Our mutual friend was on his way out.

In the Spring of 2000, when I was working at the Media Research Center, I asked Steve Byas and Ron McWhirter if I could write for this paper from Washington. They kindly accepted my offer. It was Mike Schwartz who gave me many story ideas about which to write. He was always available to talk to me.

Mike Schwartz, despite his last name, was a proud Irish Catholic from Philadelphia and a Democrat. He told me he stayed in the Democrat party because he wanted at least a few pro-lifers left in that party. He had been heavily involved in the pro-life movement his entire adult life. Before working for Dr. Coburn, he worked for Concerned Women for America and Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation.

In 2004, when Dr. Coburn was running for the Senate, Mike told me that when in Oklahoma he would like to visit Clear Creek Monastery in Cherokee County near Hulbert. That summer, I received a call from him. He said he was staying with the Coburns in Muskogee and would like to go to Mass at Clear Creek, that Sunday. We met in Wagoner and took Dr. Coburn's Ford pickup to the monastery. I remember Mike's driving too fast when we came upon a sharp dip in the road to Clear Creek. I blurted out, "Slow down!" Good thing I did. Had he driven over that dip without slowing down, he might have snapped the axle of Dr. Coburn's truck. Despite his driving, Mike Schwartz was one of the good guys. May he rest in peace.

On April 8th, Baroness Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke in a suite at The Ritz Hotel in London, where a college friend of mine and I once had tea in 2007. She was 87. The Ritz Hotel is just around the corner from Buckingham Palace past Green Park.

Had Margaret Thatcher been to the manor and Church of England born, she would likely never have become the woman we came to know. I should explain that she was not born into Britain's ruling class, many of whom were either supportive of, or ambivalent to, that nation's decline into socialism. She was born to a middle class, Methodist grocer in the town of Grantham, England. Growing up, she believed in small business, hard work, and self reliance. It was those beliefs that she used to transform Great Britain. With President Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II she worked to undermine the Soviet Union, bringing freedom and self determination to millions in Europe. A good book on that transformation is The President, The Pope, and The Prime Minister, Three Who Changed the World by John O'Sullivan.

I shall never forget an evening in early March 2001 when I heard Mrs. Thatcher speak at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. When she told the audience that, prior to her becoming Prime Minister, Britons paid upwards of 90 percent of their income to the government, I saw people looking to the people next to them in amazement. She said something else that evening that we should heed today; she said Russian President Vladimir Putin was a thug and no friend of the West and that we must be wary of him. This was a far cry from President George W. Bush, who "looked into Putin's eyes" and did not see a killer thug. This was the same woman who met Soviet Premier Mikail Gorbachev in 1984 and said he was a man with whom we could work. While many of us did not care for Gorbachev, he was the last Soviet premier, although it must be mentioned that it was never his intention to be the last one. I remember, as a teenager in the early 1980s, thinking how wonderful it would be for eastern Europe to be free of communism. Strange thoughts for a teenager, I know, but because of President Reagan, Prime Minister Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II that became a reality by the time I entered my early 20s.

There is not enough space in this article to cover Margaret Thatcher's legacy, but there's one more thing I'd like to mention: I heard her say in a taped speech she gave in the mid-1990s to the Conservative Political Action Committee in America that while she was a Roberts (her maiden name), she was proud the world came to know her by her husband's last name.

Margaret Thatcher and President Reagan were for me, and I dare say the conservative movement, an inspiration. They both believed in the politics of the possible and in many cases made the possible a reality. We must regain that belief or die as a nation. May Margaret Thatcher and her husband, Dennis, who died in 2003, both rest in peace.

"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning."

- Margaret Thatcher to the Conservative conference in 1980