Our Founding Fathers designed the U. S. Constitution to be the very foundation of our republic. Having recently thrown off the heavy boot of the British Empire, they purposefully instituted a very limited federal government.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which lists the duties, responsibilities and, therefore, the limitations of the federal government, takes up only two very small pages. You do not find such words as education, environment, energy, housing, urban development, labor, job, occupation and endangered species in the list of responsibilities. That was by design.

The states created the federal government, not the other way around, and they did not want people and entities that were inaccessible to “We, the People” controlling the lives of the people.

Fast forward to today. The federal government is growing exponentially; Continually multiplying, unconstitutional agencies and departments are issuing edicts on a daily basis that are taking more and more rights and liberties away from “We, the People”:

Late last year, our government, including many Republicans, passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the president to seize and indefinitely detain an American citizen who is deemed a threat.

On March 16, an executive order was put in place allowing the president of the United States to take charge of all resources and manufacturing in the U.S. even during peacetime.

These are just two examples of the unprecedented changes that are taking place on a regular basis in our halls of government. As you and I, the common people, go about our daily business, our liberties are being usurped.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you that we have a crack in our foundation, and we had better take steps right away, not just to preserve and defend our Constitution, but also to restore it.

For the past 16 months, I have been traveling around this great state. During the drought this past summer, one of the effects that I observed was fissures in the dry soil that compromised the integrity of various structures and caused cracks in their foundations. Wise owners took immediate steps to repair the threat to their property. We can do no less for our country.

In my bid for U.S. Senate, I am advocating a great "restoration movement" of the U.S. Constitution. It is imperative that we get back to “the book,” as I call it.

While my better-known opponents are content just to reform the over-reaching, unconstitutional federal agencies, I believe that we need to restore the Constitution by eliminating these agencies and departments (the Environmental Protection Agency, for example) and returning powers to the states.

I also believe we need to restore U. S. sovereignty, not just at the state level, but also at the federal level. Our sovereignty has been watered down by the “entangling alliances” that our Founding Fathers warned us against. Many of these alliances are rooted in the United Nations, and I have a simple solution: The U.N. needs to get out of the U.S., and the U.S. needs to get out of the U.N. My opponents, meanwhile, are still just talking reform.

Furthermore, I want to restore the idea of citizen legislators. As such, I have pledged, in the spirit of the Founding Fathers, to serve one six-year term and come back to my day job. I will not sign up for the lavish pension or healthcare plans that the Senate has provided for itself. I will go to serve “We, the People,” not to feed at the taxpayer trough.

I urge you to visit www.glennaddison.com and join me in this fight to preserve the structural integrity of our nation by restoring its foundation: the U.S. Constitution.

Glenn Addison is a constitutional conservative Republican candidate for U.S. Senate. He and his wife, Lorie, own and operate funeral homes near Houston in Magnolia and Spring.

While multiple factors are being blamed for rising gas prices, including tensions in the Middle East, the state of the U.S. oil transportation and refining industry and high global gas prices, the most important point about gas prices is that they are not actually high at all; Gas prices appear to be high and rising because prices are calculated against the dollar, and the value of the dollar is falling.

Presidential candidate and chairman on the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), clearly illustrated the role of monetary policy on gas prices when he wrote on CNBC, “After all, the price of gas in terms of precious metals has actually fallen … you could buy approximately four gallons of gas with an ounce of silver in 2006. Today, that same ounce of silver will purchase over 10 gallons of gas.”

When compared to gold, gas prices are at 85 percent of their average value over the past 40 years, according to Forbes.  The prices are appearing unusually high when calculated in dollars, however, due to inflation.

Forbes says:

“Yet, the basic reason for higher energy prices is being overlooked, even though it is right before our eyes: Oil prices are up because the value of the dollar is down. Our common sense hides this source of higher prices because we view the dollar as fixed, and prices as moving. News reports explain the sharp rise in consumer prices in February were caused by higher energy and food prices, implying that higher prices cause inflation. Of course, higher prices do not cause inflation. Higher prices are inflation.”

Obvious though these consequences may be to the casual onlooker, the Federal Reserve is still trying to dodge the issue. Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, maintains that the Fed’s policies have kept housing prices from falling but that the policies do not play a part in rising gas prices. Well, as the Wall Street Journal points out, they can’t have it both ways; Either the Fed is responsible for inflating falling prices or it is not.

The Wall Street Journal continues:

“Another suspect—one Mr. Obama doesn't like to mention—is U.S. monetary policy. Oil is traded in dollars, and its price therefore rises when the value of the dollar falls, all else being equal. The Federal Reserve throughout Mr. Obama's term has pursued the easiest monetary policy in modern times, expressly to revive the housing market … Oil staged its last price surge along with other commodity prices when the Fed revved up its second burst of "quantitative easing" in 2010-2011. Prices stabilized when QE2 ended. But in recent months the Fed has again signaled its commitment to near-zero interest rates first through 2013, and recently through 2014. Commodity prices, including oil, have since begun another surge … Fed officials and Mr. Obama want to take credit for easy money if stock-market and housing prices rise, but then deny any responsibility if commodity prices rise too, causing food and energy prices to soar for consumers. They can't have it both ways, as not-so-stupid Americans intuitively understand when they buy groceries or gas. This is the double-edged sword of an economic recovery "built to last" on easy money rather than on sound fiscal and regulatory policies.”

This inflation is the foreseeable consequence of the Federal Reserve’s policies, which have devalued the dollar by 96 percent since its beginning in 1913 and have more recently flooded the economy with massive amounts of freshly printed dollars in an attempt to stave off a worsening economy since the 2008 crisis.

The $700 billion in bank bailouts that so outrages the American public would have a negligible effect on inflation in comparison to the astounding $16 trillion dollars the Fed printed in secret (3.8 trillion of which went to foreign financial institutions.) This incomprehensibly large figure, which trumps even the more than $15 trillion in staggering national debt the U.S. took years to accumulate, flooded the economy in the short span of time between December 2007 and July 2010.

The only reason the $16 trillion influx was made public is because of a partial audit of the Fed. Without a full audit, it is impossible to know how much more the Fed has been pumping into the economy during the times that lie outside the audited time span and how much they may pump into a flailing Europe. What we do know is that the Fed’s actions can only lead to higher prices all around.

Congressman Paul, who has himself been a leader on the impact of monetary policy on gas prices and other sectors of the economy, wrote on CNBC that “Americans have grown weary of Washington’s lack of focus, and they are hoping for a leader with the audacity to challenge the status quo, reveal the facts, and provide well-informed answers.”

U.S. Senate candidate Glenn Addison is that leader on monetary policy. He has been an outspoken critic of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. monetary system. Addison will work for a sound monetary policy and will push for a full audit of the Federal Reserve if he is elected. Addison will also support Paul’s legislation requiring the Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve to scrutinize the relationship between higher gas prices and our monetary policy, which will create transparency and lead to accountability for this issue that impacts the lives of all Americans.