Category Archives: Democracy

Thanks and rememberance on Thanksgiving Day

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We wake up and begin preparations to be with friends and family, to watch football and eat entirely too much food.  It is Thanksgiving Day, a day when we take a moment to recognize all that we have to be thankful for at a time when we spend so much time lamenting what we don’t have. But this Thanksgiving day also gives us reason to pause and remember one of the darkest days in the nation’s history, November 22nd, 1963.  The day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In 1963, the nation was being conditioned to … Read More

Secession applications reveal bitterness and ignorance

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Be careful what you wish for. This is a message that should be clearly given to residents in 40 states who have filed petitions on the White House website to secede from the union and form their own government. The White House website has a page entitled We the People that allows citizens to create or sign on to petitions that cover a vast array of items.  Once a petition garners 25,000 votes, it can be reviewed for consideration. The petition filings comes in the wake of President Barack Obama defeating GOP nominee Mitt Romney in last week’s Presidential election … Read More

Voter turnout key to election victory

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  The debates are done.  The final stretch of campaigning will be a mad dash to try and sway what looks to be about 10% of likely voters who are still waiting to decide who they will cast their vote for. The final result, however, may boil down to one simple premise, voter turnout. In 2008, voter turnout was considered to be historic when President Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).  Historic meant that just over 57% of all people who were at least voting age at the time of the voter registration deadline.  This number, of course, includes … Read More

New year, new hope, new direction, new beginning

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As we close in on the end of another year, we are met with the typical set of resolutions and reflections for the year to come and the year that was. No sense in bucking that trend, so here we go with a slight look back and a hopeful look forward. 2011 started with Republicans regaining control of the House and eliminating what marginal advantage Democrats held in the Senate.  A wave of Tea Party candidates in the House pledged they would attack the debt, Obamacare and unemployment. 11 months later, the only thing these extreme ideologues have attacked is … Read More

Right wing resorts to bigotry to combat Occupy movement

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Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) started the name calling shortly following the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement, when he spoke of the peaceful protesters as a “growing mob”.  Last week, it began to take on familiar right wing spin, citing anti semitic motives, but these pointless, baseless attacks have had absolutely no affect on the movement. So now they have pulled out the easiest right wing attack tactic that rallies opposition from the ignorant masses.  The movement is backed by radical Islamists. Conservative blog Townhall.com wrote that the Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has joined the Occupy Wall … Read More

Cantor comments reflect GOP hypocrisy

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What’s good for the goose is apparently not good for the Cantor. Silly twist on a phrase aside, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va) has called out the people who are part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, expressing concerns about growing “mobs”.  “Some in Washington have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans” Cantor said in his speech at the Value Voters Summit in Washington D.C., an event that gathers the religious right to help promote their “values” based agenda in upcoming elections. Cantor was referring to the fact that, among others, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has … Read More

Libyan liberation only the first step on a long road

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You hear the catch phrases all the time.  “Freedom isn’t free”, or “the cost of freedom” are two of the more popular ones. For the people of Libya, the process of liberation has certainly proven those statements true. Now that it appears the totalitarian regime of Moammar Ghaddafi (spell his last name however you see fit) is about to crumble and be permanently removed from power, they also need to understand that this is just the first step, and peace and prosperity will not be instantaneous. The rebel forces made tremendous advances over the last few days, culminating with them … Read More

GOP tactics continue to foster job losses, double dip recession

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On Sunday, I outlined how the Tea Party/GOP leverage led to a debt deal debacle that will ultimately result in the one thing our economy does not need right now, more job losses. But before Congress adjourned for their Labor Day recess, the GOP/Tea Party Cartel took one more step that will increase unemployment and the related costs while decreasing revenue and increasing the debt/deficit problem. Democrats had proposed a compromised bill (aren’t they all at this point?) that would have temporarily funded the FAA and the multitude of projects that have been on hold while the organization awaited the … Read More

Palin pandering points out political problems

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In the 19 days since my last post, I have been sitting back and watching the political machine from a distance, doing a bit of a personal disc defragmentation if you will, and trying to look at how I can continue to drive home the flaws in our current political process and policies without regurgitating the same material over and over. So while the debt ceiling deadline continues to draw near, and while much of the media stir has been over the twit pic of a “member” in Congress, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to be, well, “frank”, about … Read More

Small budget agreed on, now time for the real thing

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The House GOP, Senate Democrats and the White House came to an agreement with less than an hour to go before the federal government shutdown, then agreed to pass a one week continuing resolution while they finalized the details of the final resolution. According to Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) website, some of the “highlights” are as follows; THE LARGEST SPENDING CUT IN AMERICAN HISTORY.  The agreement will immediately cut $38.5 billion in federal spending – the largest spending cut in American history in terms of dollars – just months after President Obama asked Congress for a spending “freeze” that would … Read More