In recent months, there have been a lot of reports and speculation as to whether or not New York real estate mogul Donald Trump will make a bid to run for the presidency of the United States in the upcoming 2012 election season.

Mr. Trump has been in the news recently less so because of his political views and ideas on how this country can extricate itself from the quagmire of high unemployment, high government spending, and high deficits and moreso due to his attention-getting statements regarding President Obama.  Chief among these statements has been Mr. Trump's growing insistence that the so-called "birther" issue, which purports that the president was born in Kenya rather than in Hawaii, might have more validity to it than merely being the product of a disenfranchised fringe group.

It is understandable why the various media outlets would gravitate toward these statements in their assessments of Mr. Trump as a viable candidate for public office – it sells.  In New York, Mr. Trump's hometown, the daily tabloids that he reportedly reads regularly – The New York Daily News and The New York Post – have had numerous rather unflattering articles about him in recent weeks.  Mr. Trump – always a risk taker – has put himself out there on the ledge with the birther issue, and the media has wasted no time in ridiculing him for it.

However, as far as the voters are concerned, this might not be the best thing for them.  While it may be fun to join in on the sport of Trump-bashing, the fact is that the country's economy and position in the world is still in trouble, and right now it would serve our needs better as a people if we were to shut out all the gossipy white noise and hear from all the potential political candidates about what they would do to fix this country.  If Mr. Trump is the wrong candidate, let him be declared the wrong candidate based on his positions on the issues that are of paramount importance to the voters at this time rather than be dismissed because the press has been myopically focusing on the controversial birther issue.  The way the media coverage has been weighted, if Mr. Trump should be proven to be incorrect about President Obama's birthplace, it would likely deal a devastating and unrecoverable blow to any presidential aspirations that Mr. Trump may have had.  But what if Mr. Trump is the right candidate?  We would have done ourselves an incredible disservice because we did not listen to his entire political platform so that we could have made an informed decision.

It is still too early to write Mr. Trump off as a candidate.  Indeed, in the interviews he's given, we've only heard the barest of talking points regarding what he feels is wrong with the country and what his solutions are to repair the damage done to our country's economic prowess.  We need to hear more from him.  As American citizens who are facing what is likely the most crucial presidential election of the last twenty years, we deserve to hear more.

In various interviews, Mr. Trump has made many intriguing statements regarding the state of the country, our struggling economy, our too-high unemployment rate, our competitiveness in the global marketplace, the outsourcing of jobs to China, the free military assistance we provide many countries with around the world, and so on.

However, the restrictive format of television, in which everything has to be rushed along to the next commercial break, has given Mr. Trump little opportunity to expound on these issues and fully state his case to the American people.

Politics has always been somewhat of a spectator sport, but at this crucial point in our country's history, we would be best served by setting aside the impulse to create spectacle and instead focus with razor-sharp acuity on the ideas proposed by any potential candidate so that we select the best president for the next four years.  The challenges that this country faces will only intensify if we fail to do so.

Online scams have been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, but if the feedback we have been getting is any indication, such scams have only seemed to proliferate in the last few years due to the worldwide economic downturn.

With millions of people out of work, and with millions more worried that their job security is less than rock solid, anxiety levels seem to be at an all-time high.  This has left people feeling desperate, and in that desperation, they have become more vulnerable to online scammers and predators who promise a job, but are only perpetrating a moneymaking scheme with you as their intended targets.

One of the more popular scams is the phony job offer.  Here's how it works: after responding to what seems like a legitimate job listing, the scammer will contact you by e-mail and tell you that you have been hired or "provisionally hired" for employment for a work-at-home position where you will have to perform certain minor tasks in order to receive your weekly paycheck.  However, before employment can begin, you have to provide the scammer with certain personal information.

Because the information is not anything that a legitimate employer wouldn't ask – at least not at first – you may be tempted to respond even if you are somewhat suspicious.  Our advice: do not respond at all.  These e-mails do not come from valid businesses.  They do not have an office or even a way to meet with the employer face-to-face.  Often, these e-mails will try to get around your suspicions by saying that the employer is out of the country for a few weeks, but you would be able to begin working for him or her right away and that he or she will meet with you upon return.  No legitimate company will conduct business in this manner.  Would you?  Of course not.  These ads prey on the desperate, but one should never let desperation override good common sense.  Answering these ads or following up on a suspicious e-mail could leave you in worse shape than you started – financially, emotionally, and even legally.

This is because while some scams are simple identity theft operations that exist just to clean out your bank account or make fraudulent purchases on your credit card, others may require you to act as a shipper of goods on your employer's behalf.  However, these goods can be stolen property or goods that have been purchased with stolen credit card information.  Since your address is the first point of contact, you could find yourself facing criminal charges or at least caught up in a criminal investigation.

Another popular job scam is one in which you are required to receive checks, deposit them in your bank account, and then forward a portion of the money to your employer while keeping the rest.  However, since you are required to forward the money before the checks clear your account, you will lose the money you forwarded when you discover that the checks you deposited have bounced.

Scammers are growing ever more sophisticated in their sales pitches, and they know that people will have a natural amount of suspicion when interacting with someone online or by phone, but they get around that by drawing you into their scheme slowly.  They do not ask for all of your personal information right off the bat, but over time, they will get whatever information they need in order to operate their schemes.  This is why it is best not to answer any ad or respond to any e-mail that sounds even a little bit suspicious.

It bears emphasizing that no legitimate company will hire you – even for a telecommuting job – without meeting you first.  There are legitimate telecommuting, personal assistant, and startup company positions out there, but the prospective employer will want to meet you and arrange a meeting at a public location during regular business hours if they do not have an office.

Some tips on recognizing job scams:

• Ads that have misspellings of common words

• Ads that have awkward phrasing, broken English, or bad grammar

• E-mail responses, such as the one reprinted below, which give you the job – even "provisionally" – without ever having met you in person

• Requests for personal information beyond what you have already given them on your résumé

• An Internet search that does not turn up a legitimate website for the company

• The most basic rule always applies: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Below, we reprint a common e-mail response that people have gotten after they responded to an ad for an Executive/Administrative/Personal Assistant on Craigslist.  Be aware that these fraudulent ads and responses can appear anywhere on the Internet, in newspapers, or on television.

You will notice that the e-mail contains many of the warning signs outlined above.  The scammer tries to allay any suspicions or concerns that you might have by providing a lot of information about his own company and even includes his "real" name.

A simple Internet search told us that the Dun & Bradstreet number provided below has been used to identify other companies besides "New York Insurance Company" such as "Adorama Inc.," "Adorama Camera Inc," "XLM Group," and "CJDouglas Financial Advisors."  The same Dun & Bradstreet number will not be given to multiple unrelated companies.

The website mentioned in the e-mail below navigates to a generic-looking insurance rate comparison form, while the e-mail address that the response came from leads to a domain that has a simple placeholder website with a message from Google Sites requesting that  the domain administrator begin setting up a home page.  Because the e-mail below is using a real person's name, we have changed its spelling.

We contacted Dun & Bradstreet about New York Insurance Company, and we were told by a representative that in order to get information about a company using a Dun & Bradstreet number, we would have to buy a report about the company for $179 or purchase access to the D&B database.  Further, D&B told us that they do not maintain any listing of companies that have previously been shown to be fraudulent or that have received consumer complaints.

However, there is something you can do.  To file a complaint about a company with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), click here: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Sample scam e-mail with all spelling and grammatical errors left in: 

The current meeting of the United States federal government, the 112th United States Congress, will be sworn in today, Wednesday January 5, 2011.  This will be the last congress that will be elected based on the congressional districts apportioned by the 2000 Census.  In 2010, the decade's census was taken, and the current United States population stands at 308,745,538. 

Because of the overall population increase and the shift in population between areas of the country, congressional districts will be redrawn when complete redistricting data is delivered to the states in March. 

This census will also affect the number of seats each state receives in the House of Representatives beginning with the 2012 elections.  Further, because the members of the Electoral College of each state are numbered as the total congressional representation of that state – that is, a state's Representatives plus its Senators equals the number of electors it has in the Electoral College – the 2010 census will have an effect on the 2012 presidential election as well with some states gaining and others losing some  influence.

As a result of the 2010 census, 18 states have shown population changes that will affect their seats in the House of Representatives.  Eight states gained seats: Texas gained 4, and Florida gained 2.  The following states each gained one seat in the House: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah, and Washington.  In the 2008 presidential election, all of these states except for Florida, Nevada, and Washington voted for Republican John McCain.  Note that more often than not in the last 30 years, Florida and Nevada have voted Republican in the presidential elections.

Ten states, including many Democratic strongholds, lost seats in the House of Representatives: New York and Ohio each lost 2 seats, while Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania each lost one seat.

Use the charts below to see the full membership of the 112th Congress.  As time progesses, further information will be filled in such as which Senators and Representatives are members of which congressional committees.  Congressional committees form the heart of the United States legislative process, and their memberships directly affect the country's policies and priorities during this two-year Congress.

The voices of the American people were heard on Tuesday, November 2, and while Republicans did not obliterate every last Democrat off the political landscape, they made significant gains all the way around.  Come January when the 112th United States Congress convenes, the Republicans will be back in control of the House of Representatives, and they picked up 6 seats in the Senate although the Democrats still hold a majority – but when the new Senators are sworn in, that majority will be a lot less pronounced than it had been.  Although the party in power typically loses seats in the midterm elections, the 60-plus House seats that the GOP picked up represents the largest party turnover in over 70 years.  It was all the more notable in that the Republicans were able to gain seats in the Senate without giving up any of their existing seats, and only gave up 3 seats in the House.

In the gubernatorial races, no less than eleven states voted out their Democratic governor in favor of a Republican replacement.  Four states, California, Connecticut, Vermont, and Hawaii, elected a Democrat to replace an incumbent Republican.  Rhode Island's governor's seat shifted from a Republican to an Independent.  Check the tables below for all the details.