Veteran's advocates, a Vietnam Brother our needs help

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday December 02, 2016 · 11:38 AM PST

2016/12/02 · 11:38

This is a very short diary and what I am asking for is how can we help a fellow Vietnam Veteran who has been screwed for 40 years plus by the VA.

I was having lunch at a bar yesterday, and saw a gnarly old guy with a POW-MIA hat on and I sat next to him. I asked if he was a Vietnam veteran because I said he looked old enough to be one. I am also a Vietnam veteran, so it’s OK to be that blunt with someone you never met before. He told me that he was, and that he had spent 23 months in a NV POW camp. I asked if it was the Hanoi Hilton, and he told me that it was near Cam Ranh Bay. I have no way to say if this could be true, but I took him at his word.

He went on to tell me that once he had been captured, the Army changed his status from MIA to KIA (Killed in Action), his wife re-married while he was gone, and that once he was repatriated, he was told that his records were lost. In over 40 years, he has never had his records recovered, and because of that, he has been denied VA benefits, Pension benefits, and other things related to being a veteran. I have no way to determine if any of his story is true, but again, I am taking him at his word for that.

My question for those who may be here who know how to deal with the VA and the Army, and the Records Center in St. Louis, how can we help this man, our Brother, get some justice from the VA and the Army, assuming his story is true and can be verified?

If someone can point me in the right direction, I want to help correct a wrong that has not been addressed for over 40 years for our Brother.

Thanks.

Two Million Veteran's March

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday November 13, 2016 · 9:43 PM PST

2016/11/13 · 21:43

In the spring and summer of 1932 over 10,000 American veterans, who had been promised “Adjusted compensation” and corrupted into “War Bonus” by spinners of the day by 1945, wanted Congress to accelerate the payment of the adjustment because many veterans were out of work, had families and more immediate needs. They wanted to get their promised “bonus” and decided to march on Washington to get the bonuses paid. See the videos below for some background on the issues.

YouTube Video

It took the veterans 10 years to achieve their goal of receiving promised adjusted compensation for lost wages as they defended America and democracy around the world in 1917 and 1918. They kept coming back until their legitimate demands were met, which is similar to all other movements for societal equity in American history. Women’s Suffarage, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, School desegregation, Women’s Rights (still in progress), LGBT Rights (still in progress), and nearly every other movement for improved social status and equity in our society.

I feel that it is a given that the administration of Donald Trump will, from day one start to work to turn back every right and improvement in societal equity that have been fought for over the last 100 years. Workplace safety (OSHA), clean air and water, climate change, health care, both Medicare, Medicaid and PPACA, Social Security, Civil Rights, Voting Rights, and so many others that our military members, myself included, have been sworn to defend for nearly 250 years. The First Amendment and the rest of the Constitution are also under direct attack by Mr. Trump and his henchmen. Our First Amendment right to freedom of speech, right to peaceably assemble and right to a free press are already under attack by this depraved and unprincipled group.

There are nearly 22 million living US veterans, over 2 million currently serving Americans (Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard and reserve units, which have paid a high price with deployments since 2001. Nearly every American is related to a veteran or currently serving miltary personnel. This constitutes a massive force of moral courage that can defeat any political movement if we organize it correctly and demonstrate the moral courage necessary to stop this assault on our constitution, our values and our very nation.

I believe that in the first 100 days of the Trump administration will prove beyond any doubt that the depredations I have alluded to above will be legislated and implementation for these un-American actions will begin to take place in America. Without concerted resistance by the millions of veterans who have seen tyranny (I personally witnessed the imposition of Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillipines) who have seen the devastation visited on nations by authoritarian regimes of both the left and right, I believe it can, and is likely to happen here.

To counter this, I propose that as this tyranny is attempted to be implemented by this unscrupulous and unprincipled group of anti-constitutionalists with a propaganda ministry every bit as powerful as any in history can be stopped by the moral authority of 24 million current and former service men and women; and their families. Trump was charged by the voters with the authority to change things, but not to destroy our freedoms, and if we lose our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, we also lose America itself.

I propose:

1. A PEACEFUL movement to, using the First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition our government for redress of grievances, to marshal the moral authority of 24 million veterans who either fought for, or by other means if they served in peacetime, protected our constitution and our freedoms.

2. Have two million or more veterans and their families descend on Washington and let Congress and the new president that we will not stand for the loss of our freedoms, and that we will not allow Congress or this president to take them away. I am aware that not all veterans can travel to Washington to join this protest, but they may be able to travel to their state capitol buildings, or city halls in every city, town, county and village to stage their own protests.

3. Since it has been demonstrated again and again that movements intended to blunt the advance of tyranny and change the momentum of bad policy and change the behavior of those who will oppress us, that this cannot be a weekend event, but a long term, continuous movement that extends for months, or if necessary, years.

4. We own the moral high ground. As Martin Luther King, and before him Mahatma Gandhi, proved, non-violent struggle is the high ground, and if violence is visited on this movement, it will not come from us. It will come from those who seek to oppress us, and they will not prevail.

5. The legitimate news media needs to be freed from the shackles of corporate ownership who may be willing to suppress accurate reporting of the depredations of the Trump administration and the cowed and compliant congress and possibly courts due to their own economic and political interests. We will take control of the electronic social media to form the background of communications among our members who will have the capability to instantly adapt to efforts by this administration to cut us off or silence us. We will not be silenced.

I’m an old sailor from the Vietnam War. I believe that I, and the cohorts before us (WWII and Korea) and those after us, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, Gulf War II and the current military have one more good fight left in us. We will not allow our country, its freedoms and its constitution to be destroyed by this unprincipled group of Chaos Theory advocates whose intend to use this event to America for their own personal gain, and damn everyone else, no matter what.

And I recall from my military training nearly 50 years ago, that no soldier in America is compelled to obey an illegal order. I think it is imperative for those who train service men and women, Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). An explanatory definition of what constitutes an illegal order is below:

(c) A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it. See the discussion of lawfulness in paragraph 14c(2)(a). Source Link

Do not interpret this as me advocating the violation of ANY LAWFUL order, only an unlawful one, such as being told to fire on unarmed, peacefully assembling and protesting civilians. It is my strong belief that at some time during the reign of error that will be the Trump administration, our military men and women may be called upon do follow orders that are illegal, unconstitutional or immoral. I want our military to know their rights, and I want the military leadership to inform EVERY military man and woman what those rights are. In my experience, there is a pretty easy test about whether an order is unlawful, and that is, if you told your mother that you followed such an order, would she be proud that you did it? If you can’t answer yes to that question, then the soldier needs to really think it through before choosing to execute the order. It really gets down to moral choices, and this is as individual as there are individuals in the military. In the “would mom be proud” consideration, I did not say the individual should choose in every case not to follow the order, I said that this becomes a “let’s think about this for a minute” event. And in some situations, the soldier in question may only have the blink of an eye to make that choice. I always hope an American solder will make the right choice.

As I said, the living veteran cohort has sufficient numbers, and the moral authority to move Congress to place limits on the misbehavior we expect from a President Trump. I think it is inevitable that this will happen, and to deny that inevitability is both dangerous an naive. Our first target will be moving the Senate to choose not to ratify the choices of unprincipled, unqualified and anti-constitutional appointments to cabinet and judicial posts.

Let’s get started.

Questions, no Answers, with Poll

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 03, 2016 · 9:20 AM PDT

2016/10/03 · 09:20

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are tightening their grips on the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations.

This is a short diary, and I have only questions, no answers. I would like people to provide their own answers in the comments, and please, if you think of them, ask more questions.

Are you better off now than you were eight years ago?

Is America better off now than it was eight years ago?

Is the stock market better off now than it was eight years ago?

Are there more jobs in the economy than there were eight years ago.

Is the unemployment rate lower or higher than it was eight years ago?

Do you have better health care than you had eight years ago?

Do we have more or less servicemen and servicewomen in harm’s way than we had eight years ago?

Is Osama bin Laden dead?

Is al Qaeda still the threat it was eight years ago?

Is the world, under Obama’s leadership making progress in defeating ISIL/ISIS?

Do you think engaging Islamic nations in the fight against ISIL/ISIS the right approach?

Do you think carpet bombing ISIL/ISIS is the right approach?

Do you think ordering our troops to torture (and worse) captured opponents is a good way to defeat ISIL/ISIS?

Do you think killing the families of ISIL/ISIS members is the way to defeat ISIL/ISIS?

Do you think alienating the entire Islamic world is the way to defeat ISIL/ISIS?

Do you think if we stole all of Iraq’s oil would have helped prevent ISIL/ISIS?

Do you feel safer than you did eight years ago?

Do you think women are “dogs”, “pigs”, housekeepers”, “ugly”, “disgusting”?

Do you think our president should tweet at 3:00 AM?

Can you respect a presidential candidate who carves out a position that if he/she loses, “the election is rigged” and who calls for “revolution”?

Do you respect a presidential candidate who urges his followers to deal with the opposing candidate with “second amendment solutions”?

Do you respect a candidate that encourages violence at his/her rallies?

Will you vote for a president who is openly racist?

Will you vote for a president who is openly misogynist?

Will you vote for a president who champions an economic plan that will cost our economy 3.5 million jobs?

Will you vote for a presidential candidate whose economic plan will add $5 trillion to the deficit?

Do you think a presidential candidate who has lost a billion dollars twice is a “genius”

Do you think a presidential candidate who pays no taxes is “smart”?

Do you think a presidential candidate with a thin skin and how is known to hold grudges for petty things is temperamentally fit to have the nuclear codes?

Do you think a presidential candidate who disparages a Gold Star family is fit to be our president?

Do you think a presidential candidate who launches a week-long attack on a beauty show participant is temperamentally fit to lead the free world?

Do you think a presidential candidate who can change a position three times in the same sentence has the mental stability to be our president?

Do you think a presidential candidate who is a bully and coward deserves your vote?

Do you think a candidate who has been helping people for their entire life can make a good president?

Do you think a presidential candidate who has met the leaders in 112 countries may know something about solving international disputes without going to war can earn you vote?

Do you think a presidential candidate whose first instinct is to military means to resolve international disputes has earned your vote.

Do you think your kids and grandkids will be safe from war with a shoot first, ask questions later president in the White House?

Do you think a presidential candidate who supports universal health care has earned your vote?

Do you think a presidential candidate who wants to ease the financial burden of attending college deserves your vote?

Do you think that a presidential candidate who seeks societal, tax and financial equity in our country deserves your vote?

This list of questions can go forever. Please provide some answers in the comments, and please propose new questions. I will H/T and put them up if I can. I have half an hour before I need to leave for an appointment. Will return two hours after that. Please comment and give me new questions.U

Update: H/T to a2nite, two more questions:

What do we do about making taxes more fair?

What do we do about bad/criminal yet unpunished policing?

Poll

46 votes Show Results

Who will you vote for?

46 votes Vote Now!

Who will you vote for?

Jill Stein

1 vote

Gary Johnson

0 votes

Donald J. Trump

1 vote

Hillary Clinton

44 votes

Perspective on a "BIG" win in Nevada (with Poll)

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday February 25, 2016 · 11:36 AM PST

2016/02/25 · 11:36

I’ve been away from my keyboard for most of the last 10 days. In that time, Donald Trump has won a couple more primaries, and the Republican establishment, or what remains of it, has suddenly got the idea that Trump would be a disaster, both for the Republican Party, but also for America. They are worried that Trump wouldn’t listen to them, or be willing to be controlled by those invested in the Republican Party, and when I say invested, I really mean invested, as in billions of dollars invested in owning politicians in every state in the union, plus most Republicans in Congress and a fair number of Democrats in Congress as well. But I really don’t want to talk about Donald or Republicans.

I want to talk about Hillary’s win over Bernie in the Nevada Caucus, and the media meme that Hillary had a BIG win there and now has MOMENTUM, or the BIG ‘MO. I have not seen a single media quantification of the voting numbers, other than 53% to 47% as the victory margin. Has anyone looked at the number of votes in Media? Here they are. Hillary Clinton received 6,316 votes, and Bernie Sanders received 5679 votes in the most recent numbers I have seen; www.nbcnews.com/…

So Hillary won a tiny subset of Nevada Democratic political activists by a total of 637 votes. Had 319 voters switched to Bernie, he would have won the Nevada Caucus. The Hillary Clinton political apparatus, known as big, organized and six months ahead of any Bernie Sanders organizing activity in Nevada AVERAGED 53 votes per month over Bernie’s organizing efforts. This hardly is a groundswell of momentum for Hillary’s campaign, nor a BIG victory. If anything, where Bernie was at least 30 per cent behind before his Nevada campaign and likely as much as 50 per cent behind, so if one looks at that measure, Bernie Sanders had, and has the momentum in this primary campaign. So in three contests, the Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary, and the Nevada caucus, Hillary Clinton’s campaign who had massive leads a few months ago, managed to eke out two narrow caucus wins, by a total of a few hundred votes, and a massive 21 point loss in the only real primary to date.

Let’s look at some more numbers. Nevada has 595,890 registered Democratic Voters. In the Caucus, a total of 12,002, including 8 who voted Uncommitted, voted in the Democratic caucus. This represents 2% of all Nevada Democrats. It represents 0.8 per cent of all registered voters in Nevada, including all the independents (295,319), Republicans (493,612), Libertarians (12,400) and American Independent (a party) (70,323). www.nvsos.gov/…

I fail to see how a big political machine that eked out a win by a total of 53 votes per month of organizational advantage has the BIG ‘MO. I just don’t.

Full Disclosure, I am a Bernie Sanders supporter, but please look at the numbers and judge for your self.

While we are at it, we should be asking media including all the big national print and web publications, all the national broadcast and cable outlets (including MSNBC) why they haven’t done even a cursory evaluation of the numbers, as I have done here, and if by an examination of the numbers, how can any honest observer/pundit get a BIG WIN out of a contest that would have gone the other way if ~~637~~ 318 people had voted the other way. I think it is a fair question.

Another fair question is how much value in kind has the national media (MSNBC included) been GIVEN to the Donald Trump campaign. I heard this morning, Donald Trump is spending NOTHING on the Super Tuesday advertising because, in reality HE DOESN’T HAVE TO, he has been given $2 Billion in in-kind advertising by all media. I think this should be reported to the FEC as an In-Kind contribution. Not that the FEC has any power to do anything, but we should question why the Media is so set on giving free access and publicity to Donald J. Trump.

Update, changed 45% to 53% in Hillary’s vote percent. Typo.

Update 2. Changes 637 to 318 2 paragraphs above. Typ.

Poll

23 votes Show Results

How much cash value do you think media has GIVEN to the Trump Campaign?

23 votes Vote Now!

How much cash value do you think media has GIVEN to the Trump Campaign?

$100 Million

1 vote

$250 Million

4 votes

$500 Million

5 votes

$750 Million

2 votes

$1 Billion ($1,000,000,000.00)

3 votes

$1.5 Billion ($1,500,000,000.00)

2 votes

$2 Billion (2,000,000,000.00)

2 votes

More than $2 Billion

4 votes

Bob Sloan needs our help

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 16, 2015 · 8:10 AM PDT

2015/09/16 · 08:10

Bob Sloan, a Kossack who for years has led the fight against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC), mass incarceration in America, the Koch brothers and a host of other things has had some recent health problems (3 back surgeries with another on the way).

Bob has run and funded the Voters Legislative Transparency Project (http://vltp.net/) for 5 years and is no longer financially or physically able to continue this. The site is in danger of shutting down.

Bob Sloan also is blog founder and administrator of the American Legislative Transparency Project blog on Daily Kos.

I want to post an email I received from him this morning below.

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday June 03, 2015 · 2:21 PM PDT

2015/06/03 · 14:21

The Columbus Dispatch announced that they have been sold to New Media Investment Group. The Wolfe family, which for over a century dominated central Ohio media and Republican politics will retain ownership of its broadcast media and other investments in Ohio and elsewhere. If anyone knows anything about New Media Investment Group, what their politics are, please comment below.

Link to story:

http://www.dispatch.com/...

Response to bogus inquiry from my congressman (with poll)

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday April 18, 2014 · 9:41 AM PDT

2014/04/18 · 09:41

Yesterday I received an email from my Congressman's office, seeking input on his support for the Balanced Budget Amendment and also his support for a "limited Constitutional Convention" called by the states with the presumably limited purpose to draft a Balanced Budget Amendment.

I consider these inquiries bogus because in my view, dissenting responses are tossed and a canned "thank you for your response" message is returned with some meaningless drivel about just why the congressperson thinks what he wants to do is really the way to go, and bye, bye, I really didn't want to hear opposition.

So I typed the following response, but didn't send it because I know that only three sets of eyes, the staffer who reads his email, the person who the letter opener says, hey, take a look at this, and maybe, just maybe, the congressman himself.

So I decided to let some other eyes see it, and if you like it, or dislike it, please comment below.

Poll

59 votes Show Results

Should your elected representatives:

59 votes Vote Now!

Should your elected representatives:

Represent you?

0 votes

Represent your family?

0 votes

Represent your family and neighbors?

0 votes

Represent your, and your family and neighbor's economic interests?

5 votes

All of the above?

51 votes

Represent their funders?

0 votes

Represent Lobbyists (K Street)

0 votes

Represent corporate interests?

0 votes

Represent the Koch brothers and other plutocrats?

1 vote

Represent ALEC?

1 vote

Items 6 though 10 above?

1 vote

DailyKos Brainstorm - Progressive Ideas Advancement (with your help) - USPS email (with poll)

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday February 06, 2014 · 6:03 PM PST

2014/02/06 · 18:03

I will begin this diary with a short discussion I started in a thread that was part of a much larger discussion, which I will add a link to. I will also include a link to the initial diary that these discussions came out of. First, the diary was titled Elizabeth Warren: Let Post Offices Replace Payday Lenders.

My suggestion to a much longer comment thread on the topic of having the USPS offer ISP (internet service provider) service to Americans, was to have the USPS offer a secure email service that had the force of the American postal laws behind it regarding secrecy, mail fraud, and all of the other protections that the mail service has that other message delivery services do not have. A few people agreed with me that there was some merit to the idea, and I decided to see if we can get a Daily Kos discussion to brainstorm the question.

The thread is below:

Post a Comment | 287 comments | Permalink

I've felt for a long time that the USPS should run (17+ / 0-)

its own secure email service that offers the same level of protection to privacy and against mail fraud as a service that people pay for. If a spammer wants to put 10 million commercial messages, maybe they have to pay a penny a mail box for the privilege. That would put $100k in the postal bank account, and, with various classes of email, say 2 cents for First Class Email, 1.5 cents for Second Class, and 1 cent for bulk, the American public would strongly support a system with these features. Every American would have the ability to have their own, portable forever, USPS Email Address that can be used anywhere, with the full support of the USPS and its attendant legal protections.

That would make the telecoms squawk, but so what? The Postal Service is the only message delivery service mentioned in the US Constitution, and it should adapt to the technologies of the day, whatever day that happens to be.

Republicans are like alligators. All mouth and no ears.

by Ohiodem1 on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 01:14:56 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

I'd jump at the chance - (5+ / 0-)

middle finger extended to the NSA!

by Nannyberry on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 02:11:09 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Yeah! (8+ / 0-)

Oh, man, do I LOVE the idea of making junk e-mailers pay to have
their garbage delivered to me! If nothing else, let's make THAT happen!

OF COURSE the New Right is wrong - but that doesn't make WRONG the new
RIGHT!

by mstaggerlee on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 02:18:58 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

How about a Do Not Spam List with mail fraud (0+ / 0-)

penalties applied? I like that.

Republicans are like alligators. All mouth and no ears.

by Ohiodem1 on Wed Feb 05, 2014 at 09:51:51 AM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

And the library of Congress (9+ / 0-)

should run a not-for-profit search engine that operates on the
principle of intellectual freedom.

After all, the internet only has content because users put there
in the first place. Its our information, not google's.

"YOPP!" --Horton Hears a Who

by Reepicheep on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 03:46:32 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Severe Laws Regarding Mail Fraud (9+ / 0-)

Holy crap, mail fraud has been a law you don't want to be
charged with for many years. Why that doesn't extend to email
is a mystery to me, but if the USPS were to operate an email
service, wow, massive teeth in mail fraud.

A perpetual personal email address? Anyone else thinking it
might become a pretty nice electronic voting tool? With a
massive double penalty of both voter fraud and mail fraud
sitting on top of it?

Tampering with the mail? Another charge I wouldn't want to
have to defend myself from.

The establishment of post offices is part of the constitution so I
don't know where these ass-hat absolutists come off thinking
they can privatize it.

by JohnnySacks on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 07:35:44 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Email scams coming through a USPS email system (4+ / 0-)

could get the full federal law mail fraud statutes coming
down on the scammers. What's not to like about that?

We should get someone in Congress to propose this
system. How about Senators Warren, Sherrod Brown, and
Nancy Pelosi on the House side?

Republicans are like alligators. All mouth and no ears.

by Ohiodem1 on Tue Feb 04, 2014 at 09:19:38 PM EST

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

And viruses. Send a virus, go to federal prison.
(0+ / 0-)

There's a lot to like in such a system.

Republicans are like alligators. All mouth and no
ears.

by Ohiodem1 on Wed Feb 05, 2014 at 05:32:26 PM EST

Note: Redacted redundant elements like signature lines and DK formatting for brevity. the indented formatting did not come over at all when I copied it, and I did the best I could to see the thread. The actual thread is here, and the much longer parent thread is here.

Below the separator I will share why I think a United States Postal Service email system would be a good idea, and I invite others who visit to put their two cents in as well.

Poll

27 votes Show Results

Should we have a safe, secure, with privacy protections USPS email program?

27 votes Vote Now!

Should we have a safe, secure, with privacy protections USPS email program?

Yes

21 votes

0 votes

Maybe

4 votes

Pie

2 votes

(updated) Ohio charter school fail, and fail, and fail, and future fails

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday November 19, 2013 · 8:14 PM PST

2013/11/19 · 20:14

This diary started out as a letter to some of my fellow anti-ALEC activists. I took another look at it, and decided that there was something there worth getting out in the open, and to help shine a light on an aspect of the radical right War on public education.

I have felt for a long time that it has become more and more difficult in America to obtain a decent public education because there are political forces at work in America to destroy public education, not by neglect or poor implementation of educational improvements, but BY POLICY.

Please take a look follow some of the links, listen to a few minutes of videos, and decide for yourself if you think that we have powerful political forces at work to break teacher unions, create a public school funding death spiral, brought about by the diversion of public educational funding to charter schools, online charter schools, publically funded parochial schools and a host of other financial and administrative actions.

Below the separator, I will first reproduce, with minor editing, my letter to my colleagues.

Update: H/T to ManfromMiddletown for this little gem, the Indiana school "reform" package from ALEC. From this you can see it is a very well planned and executed strategy, which also includes reducing teacher qualification standards, which is intended to weaken teacher's unions.

http://www.alec.org/...

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 14, 2013 · 9:15 AM PST

2013/11/14 · 09:15

This won't be much of a diary but I have had a bunch of thoughts bouncing around in my head since I visited our nation's Capital a few weeks ago. But none of these thoughts are organized in any coherent or rational fashion, kind of a thought salad, not unlike Ms. Sarah Palin's word salad, or at least I hope it's not THAT disorganized or bad.

I took the train in from my suburban hotel, and got off at Smithsonian Station, and you emerge from the escalator right in the center of the Mall near the Smithsonian Castle. Very convenient.

My first impression, like the first impression of many people, I suppose, is that this is the capital of a great nation, a nation with visionary thinkers, founders the laid the foundation that could support a great nation, with inventors, a 200 year commitment to public education of the mass of people. A nation big enough to allow people of differing opinions to live together, to be free enough to express those differing opinions, and not to be enemies because they don't agree. A nation big enough to face any challenge when confronted by big problems.

A nation with a political system that has sufficient flexibility and diversity to allow solutions to common problems without going to war over those differences. This system failed only once, and after a war that shapes our thinking to this day, our nation was re-united and made stronger.

We live in a nation that will pull together when faced with an existential threat, like in World Wars I and II, and one that can unleash the full power and creativity of our millions of people when called upon to do so. We joined together to win those wars. When we came home, we banded together to establish the GI Bill, and create the most powerful middle class the world has ever seen. We took it upon ourselves to right many of the wrongs that were created by slavery and the Jim Crow laws in the South. We built the largest public works project in the history of mankind, the Interstate highway system. Our nation invested in itself, and became stronger and a better place to live.

More below the separator.

Poll

38 votes Show Results

Should the Tea Party rank and file ask questions of?

38 votes Vote Now!

Should the Tea Party rank and file ask questions of?

Charles Koch

2 votes

David Koch

3 votes

John Boehner

3 votes

Mitch McConnell

0 votes

Their own congress person

10 votes

Fox News

5 votes

Sean Hannity

0 votes

Bill O'Reily

0 votes

Glenn Beck

1 vote

Rush Limbaugh

1 vote

Other

4 votes

Pie

9 votes

Updated x 1 - ALEC Fundraiser in North Dakota needs to be Demonstrated, with Poll

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 01, 2013 · 7:12 AM PDT

2013/11/01 · 07:12

Our anti-ALEC network passed this article along to me:

http://bismarcktribune.com/...

A social event will be held next week in Bismarck for lawmakers to meet and raise money for a legislative organization that pushes for free-market legislation.
MDU Resources will be hosting a beer and wine tasting for lawmakers Wednesday at its corporate campus in Bismarck. The event is to promote and raise money for the American Legislative Exchange Council.

North Dakota lawmakers will pay $250 each to attend. I wonder how much corporate lobbyists and executives will pay to influence the members of the North Dakota Legislature to enact laws that favor those corporate interests over those of the people who elected them to office.

MDU Resources Director of Government Affairs Geoff Simon said the event is intended to raise money for future ALEC events and build support for the organization. Simon is one of ALEC’s private sector co-chairmen for North Dakota.
The group’s public sector co-chairmen for North Dakota are Republican Reps. Al Carlson and Bette Grande of Fargo.

If there are any North Dakota Kossacks in the Bismark area next week, this would be a nice event to demonstrate to let your fellow citizens know that ALEC runs your legislature, and that the legislature, which YOU pay and elect, does the bidding of ALEC at your expense.

It's time to find out who your ALEC Representatives and Senators are and run them out of office at the next election. They do not represent you. They represent MDU Resources and other corporate interests.

You have 5 days to get organized. ALEC has a 40 year, less 5 day head start on you. You can win by shining the light on their nefarious activities.

You can look up some of their members here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Here is a better list, h/t to MNDem999.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/...

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Ohio Republicans endlessly creative about voter suppression update

Ohiodem1

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday October 28, 2013 · 8:50 AM PDT

2013/10/28 · 08:50

Today I present a very short diary about voter suppression in Ohio, and some new Republican methodology.

First, we have the Licking County BOE cutting the number of polling places in the county of about 500 square miles from 47 to 25.

While cutting the county’s polling locations in September from 47 to 25 saved about $15,000 in poll-worker pay, some people will have to travel a little farther to cast their vote on Nov. 5.

Source

Further down the article, "a little further" is defined as:

Among the most upset are residents of Buckeye Lake, whose lone village polling place moved from Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church to the Union Township complex in Hebron, 7 miles away.
Buckeye Lake Fire Capt. Dave Ruton told the village council that “moving the polling place out of the village is the most-idiotic thing I’ve heard in my life.”

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