Republican Candidates spewing more garbage.

      Did these people sleep through middle school civics classes?  Or maybe they never had a civics class.  You know, the part of the lesson on our American form of government, where we have checks and balances put in place to prevent abuses of power?  So we have a legislature, an executive branch headed by the President - and a Judiciary.  The judiciary has powers vested in it to block or stay rulings that it sees as improper, after sober, careful  deliberation.   This is for the protection of all the people, to prevent discrimination and oppression of the majority by some fanatical minority. 

     The ranting of these Republican candidates are downright frightening when one sees them applied to our laws in the future.   Women will have no say in what happens to their bodies.    Females will revert to what they were looked upon in the 1800’s, mere chattel, cattle for men’s whims.     Gay marriage?  Heck no.  They will be chased back into the closet with handguns and tasers.   Other civil rights?  good luck there.

     These forces have already overturned the Miranda ruling, which stated that police have to read a suspect their rights, and make sure they are understood.   They have made it possible for a corporation to donate unlimited funds to a political campaign, thereby corrupting the process.    More people are going to prison than ever, for minor offenses.     Teenagers are finding themselves arrested for infractions that used to be dealt with by families or school officials.  There is less community mental health being offered, and more incarceration.  We are becoming more and more like a repressive communist society - a true police state!

     The Tea Party Nazis won’t be satisfied until everyone is either imprisoned or is wearing 24-hour electronic surveillance  (except them and their families).    Our entire democracy is being destroyed by a few fanatics bent on imposing their own twisted will on everyone.    Today the judges and women’s rights - tomorrow - who knows? 

      And we are telling countries like Iran and North Korea to get their act together?  We need to deal with the fanatic lunatic tea partiers and other conservatives on our own shores first.      Thanks for reading.

Wanna bet?

The debate was lively, even vicious.

Labels flung back and forth like firebrands,
Accusations and ripostes, ducks and jabs.
The truth hid in a corner and listened...

 to six elite political professionals debate,

abase themselves for purported higher purposes...
Results filled the newspapers and airwaves,
different columnists tallied different outcomes.

 New polls will be taken and confidence shaken

as their positions raise and lower, over and over.
The one lagging the pack is doggedly traveling up
and down the highways, appearing anywhere he can.

 If Carter did it, so can he, he reasons, no matter if Carter

was a Democrat running in 1975.  Hope just keeps going.
One thing is for sure - they are stimulating the economy,
with all this traveling and spending, and heating winter air
with never-ending rhetoric and bombast.   A silver lining at last!

- my 0.02 today.

Drop the rhetoric and do something already.

Here in Iowa, there are more cutbacks, increased taxes, and public money bribes to companies to build things like hotels off the beaten path.  Nationally, large companies keep announcing layoffs.  The US Post Office announces huge cutbacks, in order to try and balance it's budget.   Candidates are going around promising to cut more and more services and agencies.  This is the most ominous, depressing TV season I have seen since 2008, perhaps worse. 

     I just wish that the powers-that-be could drop any ideological linkage to party platform, and do what our parents had to do in the aftermath of the great depression.  Even if it may involve public funding of our Post Office  (something George Washington founded to help tie the country together - remember?).  Even if it involves keeping these goverment agencies afloat that do pesky things like research energy alternatives, and keep our seniors healthy.  Instead of cut, cut, cut - America should Reach, Build, Employ.   

     Thats right - just like in the progressive days of the late 1930s and 1940s, we should reach for higher achievements, build up our infrastructure, and Employ every able-bodied American to do it.  Cross party lines, cross ideologies, cross stubborn intransigence, and do something, side by side, shoulder to shoulder, for the common good of all of us.  That is what made us great to begin with.

Nowadays everyone seems to want to cut, close her down, let the Chinese or the Mexicans worry about it, and go to  bed.  We can't do this.   We should take a page from the 1930's, dare to dream again, drop the ideological garbage, and get to work.    Something to think about.  Thanks for reading.