It's obvious now, more than ever that some Republican family values are more aligned with the values of Russia than with the values that many Americans share.
Gay Rights. Think about it.
Current Republican calls to impeach President Obama must be met head on by Democrats. Now, not later. If you impeach President Obama, you impeach me. You impeach my vote.
One of the potential Democratic Presidential candidates for 2016 needs to step up and engage the Republican rhetoric forcefully, with conviction and with the full and complete support of each and every American who voted for the President.
And then immediately declare his/her candidacy for 2016.
My existence the past 15 years is dictated by Presidential election cycles and trips to the doctor semi yearly. Four year blocks of time define my reality and a bloodletting in January and July of each year to feed my PSA test. I'm barely recovered from one event when it converges quickly into the next. George Bush in 2000 focused me on politics like a laser beam. Before Bush, my primary contribution to politics is my vote. I never have a bumper sticker or a yard sign. Only my civic duty to vote. Now I must do more than vote, my voice never silent.
My vote is stolen in the 2000 Presidential election and the person I vote for is not in the White House even though Al Gore wins the popular vote by 400,000 votes. And only shenanigans in Florida elevates Bush to the White House.
I'm laser focused since. Making certain my voice is not ONLY my vote, because my vote can be stolen, or suppressed and unless we act, impeached.
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I glance out my living room window.
The limbs on the crepe myrtles that surround my house droop almost to the ground from the weight of the snow that fell overnight. I'm up at 4am because the power to my house fails and the silence in the house deafening. I locate the flashlight I keep by the bed, dress, get my camera and venture out.
6 to 9 inches of snow has fallen. I take a few photos. I walk up the street to see if I can determine why I have no power to the house. I initially thought the problem could be the line from the pole to the house, but that was intact.
Nothing up the street, so I walk down the street and find nothing. I live in a very wooded area and there is constant popping and cracking as the weight of the snow prunes the limbs of numerous trees. When I return to the house my electricity is working. Apparently shut off to complete a repair elsewhere.
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I oppose the Iraq war from day one and I'm disappointed when so many Democrats sign on with NO criticism. It takes "NO WMD" and "Mission Accomplished" to persuade many Democrats that a HUGE mistake is made. Close to a trillion dollars spent, a destroyed American economy and almost 5,000 American lives in the Iraq fiasco.
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In 2003 I erect a picket fence around my front yard so I can staple political cartoons. Yea, nothing is stapled on the fence. I was censored. I purchase a dry erase board and sometimes it will be removed from my fence and my yard.
A Ninth Circuit Appeals court overturns a lower-court decision that ruled bloggers aren't entitled to the same free speech protection as journalists. The new requirements at Huffington Post will make HuffPo conversation more CIVIL because NO one is posting comments. Today we have many more options to communicate our political positions. Images and Video as well as short essays.
Funny story about the word erect or elect as the case may be. Four or Five years ago, the VP of Investor Relations, a pretty young lady about 30 or so sent an email to all employees with 5 years of service to the company. Elections had to be made about 500 shares of stock the company was giving all employees who have been with the company 5 years or more. I check the appropriate boxes and create a new email with the subject "My Stock Erection." The spelling for election and erection only a difference of a single alphabet character. I spot my error before I click the send button, but still chuckle at my potential faux pas.
The Koch Brothers have billions to spend. I have a dry erase board, a picket fence and the daily kos to voice my concerns.
300,000 citizens without water and worse the truth about their water because a corporation with inadequate oversight allows the corporation to pretty much do what they please. The people of West Virginia pay the price. West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the union and routinely votes for the Republican Presidential candidate. Question I have is Why? Why do people continue to vote for a party who continue to put the welfare of the 1% ahead of their own? Why do they not vote their self interest?
A paragraph from the book The Good Lord Bird describes the attitudes many Americans have.
Ivory Billed Woodpecker
Let me set the scene:
The Pro Slavers capture a white man who they think is an abolitionist. The Pro Slavers want to hang him and take a vote. Because they aren't sure, 8 of the 16 vote not to hang him, so the leader of the group decides to leave it up to the only slave in the group to break the tie.
Kelly stood there swaying, drunk, in a quandary. He tottered over to Nigger Bob, who sat in the wagon driver's seat, trembling. "Since Pardee here's an abolitionist, we'll let Nigger Bob decide. What's your vote, Nigger Bob? Hang Pardee here or not?"
Pardee, setting in the back of the wagon, suddenly leaped up in a snit, "Hang me then!" he howled. "I'd rather hang than have a nigger vote on me!" he cried, then tried to leap out of the wagon, but fell flat on his face, for his feet were tied.
As I read this paragraph, I thought to myself how appropriate. A white man would rather hang than have a black man's help in a crisis.
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When I was in college I read a book by Walker Percy,
The Moviegoer. A paragraph from this book sets the scene for my vote each time I mark that ballot.
Truthfully, it is the fear of exposing my own ignorance which constrains me from mentioning the object of my search. For, to begin with, I cannot even answer this, the simplest and most basic of all questions: Am I, in my search, a hundred miles ahead of my fellow Americans or a hundred miles behind them? That is to say: Have 98% of Americans already found what I seek or are they so sunk in everydayness that not even the possibility of a search has occurred to them?
Thirty years after reading this paragraph for the first time, I simply don't know.