Steve

I wonder what the socio-political ramifications of the Zimmerman verdict will be? In Florida it wil likely get out the Black vote in bigger numbers. The Latino vote is a bit of curiosity to me. The Zimmerman case was seen as a Black/White issue but he is really latino or at least 50% and that was never mentioned much during the whole matter but I have to believe that Latinos are very much aware and are distancing themselves from that fact. America has got more polarized during the Obama years. I have more than a few faults with Obama but in terms of racial polarizing he's not done that. His cabinet is centrist, even right of center. He's disappointed the far left. Gay rights is pretty much the only 'progressive', left of center thing he's championed in a big way and lets be honest about the reason. He's gotten a huge amount of gay money. Mostly in the guise of Enterainment money. So, gy marriage was what they wanted in return for their money. I'm not blaming them, I supported it terms of the law. His presidency hasn't seen a boon in Black specific goodies either. There are a plethora of Black speakers and opinion makers who are very, very critical of Obama for not only not doing enough for the poor but see him as an establishment politician no different than any white establishiment politician. The community organizer, socialist that was feared on the right never materialized. Anyway, my guess is it doesn't bode well for the Republicans. If they support immigration they may get some thing out of it but latinos will see any support as being done kicking and biting against their will. Its sad we're becoming polarized yet again but its how this country has been at tmes throughout its history. Its a fact that after his '08 election membership to Aryan, and other fringe groups exploded. Some people who thought they weren't as sympathetic to those groups joined out of fear. A fear that never materilzed but that's how you motivate groups. Fear. Fear of a group or imagined threat. It works on both sides of the ideological table.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/yes-you-should-be-totally-outraged-by-the-farm-bill/277159/ The GOP's aversion to funding food stamps is cultural and deeply ideological. But the less obvious background music playing here is the powerful and pernicious role of money in politics. Three weeks ago, in a report that had nothing to do with farms, the Sunlight Foundation revealed that just 0.01% of the U.S. population -- one ten-thousandth of the country -- accounted for 28 percent of all disclosed political donations in the 2012 election. About one-third the capacity of a large football stadium funds about one-third of national elections. This is just a factoid. But it's a revealing factoid. Relying on the wealthiest Americans to finance our elections isn't bad for the obvious reason, which is that rich people "buy" elections. It's bad for the less obvious reason that rich people buy the attention of the electeds. As Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, recently told the Yale Institution for Social and Policy Studies, senators and congresspeople are functionally telemarketers, whose ambition requires them to spend the majority of their time raising money for the next election. This is about the farm bill, how exactly? Elected representatives trying to raise millions of dollars a pop don't have people on food stamps or unemployment insurance on their speed dial. That would be absurd. But they do have ag lobbyists and large farm donors. And they do have deficit-weary financiers who are scared of debt and the growing safety net. The people on the other ends of these fundraising calls (or at these fundraising events) wield a powerful weapon. Their influence shapes "the limits of acceptable political discourse, one conversation at a time" to the point where passing a bill without increased farm subsidies seems wholly unacceptable but passing a bill without food assistance for 47 million families feels a-okay. "It doesn't really matter what low-income or middle-income voters think about a policy," Sunlight's Lee Drutman wrote. "They might favor it. They might oppose it. It has no real effect on how likely the policy is to happen." When the rich and the poor disagree on policy, Marty Gilens has shown, Washington basically sides with the rich.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-monty-burns-republicans-food-stamps/ Cut food stamps but go all in for corporate welfare for Big Ag? That’s the Republican Party and the farm bill. Reports The Washington Post: House Republicans narrowly passed a farm bill on Thursday that was stripped of hundreds of billions in funding for food stamps, abandoning four decades of precedent to gain the backing of conservative lawmakers. The 216 to 208 vote was a victory for a Republican caucus that has struggled to pass the most basic of legislation, but it also set up weeks of acrimony and uncertainty as House and Senate leaders must reconcile two vastly different visions for providing subsidies to farmers and feeding the hungry. Ross Douthat is not amused: This is egregious whatever you think of the food stamp program, and it’s indicative of why the endless, often-esoteric debates about the Republican future actually matter to our politics. Practically any conception of the common good, libertarian or communitarian or anywhere in between, would produce better policy than a factionally-driven approach of further subsidizing the rich while cutting programs for the poor. The compassionate-conservative G.O.P. of George W. Bush combined various forms of corporate welfare with expanded spending on social programs, which was obviously deeply problematic in various ways … but not as absurd and self-dealing as only doing welfare for the rich. More: Reasonable people can disagree, in other words, about what kind of conservatism would best serve the common good. But everyone should agree that any alternative would be preferable to a Republican Party that doesn’t seem to think about the common good at all. Amen. Every House Democrat opposed this bill because it jettisoned food stamps. Only 12 Republican House members voted against the bill. Only twelve. Andrew Sullivan: There’s no small government consistency here – just an embrace of subsidizing Big Ag and a contempt for the needy in a long, protracted growth recession. Are theytrying to make themselves look like total douchebags? The Monty Burns Republicans. That’s what they are. Look, I will grant you that the food stamp program almost certainly needs reform, given the astronomical rate of growth in the past decade, past even what you would expect in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. On the other hand, we have a lot more poor people, and people barely making it. TheWall Street Journal has a good, balanced piece on the complexities of the food-stamp program and its growth. It has become much easier to qualify for food stamps, but that is on purpose. Excerpt: “We decided to adopt [easier] standards in order to prevent [people] from having to spend all of their life savings,†said Richard Berry, a GOP-appointed director of the agency that screens applicants in Mississippi, where one out of every three children receive benefits. “We didn’t want people to have to become destitute in order to get help.†There are no doubt some lazy people who are enjoying being on the dole, and who have no intention of getting off of food stamps. But I bet most people who came onto the rolls in the past few years are like this guy from the Journal story: With more entering the program, social service groups began recommending it as an option for struggling families that previously hadn’t applied. That is what happened to Basem Eljauni, a 55-year-old cashier at a Sam’s Club in Greensboro, N.C., who lost his two businesses—a grocery store and a gas station—and his $250,000 in savings and investments. The father of six says he now makes around $1,000 a month if he is lucky and supplements his income with about $800 in government-paid food assistance and handouts from charities. “It’s hard to see yourself stuck on food stamps,†said Mr. Eljauni. “Amazing—I never thought I was going to be stuck in the system.†I’ve never had to rely on food stamps, but I have friends who have found themselves in a very tight economic spot, through no fault of their own, and who had to go on food stamps to feed their children. There is no shame in that. It can happen to people you know, to people in your own family. It can happen to you. Food writer Corby Kummer, who, like most people who follow food policy, hates the farm bill, puts this latest GOP move into perspective. It’s not at all a crazy idea to separate agricultural policy from anti-hunger policy, he says: Anyone who looks at the farm bill for a few minutes–or, like Dan Imhoff, devotes a book to it, or, like Marion Nestle, an entire semester’s course to it–sees what a chimera or, more to the point, a monster it is. It has next to nothing to do with the farms most people think of–the ones growing mixed crops, the ones that supply farmer’s markets. It doesn’t mention environmental protection or land conservation, though some of the country’s most important safeguards are in it. And it doesn’t mention nutrition assistance or hunger, though fully four-fifths of it are food stamps. Why not keep the agricultural parts, even if they benefit only industrial agriculture, in what’s called the farm bill, and call the food-assistance portion what it is? That would get the farm bill back on the rails, and stop letting SNAP debates hijack every vote. Here’s why not: because that means, as anyone in the anti-hunger community recognizes, pushing the 47 million Americans on food stamps onto an ice floe. More Kummer: In case it might have crossed your mind that the Republicans–who left subsidies to millionaire farmers untouched and un-subject to means testing, as the Cato Institute pointed out right away–might give a bit more consideration to agriculture lobbyists than to food-stamp recipients, Derek Thompson makes the role of campaign contributions absolutely plain in this good and stark piece. The Republican Party is throwing corporate welfare at farmers, but telling people who are so poor they qualify for government aid to feed themselves that they are not a priority. As a matter of basic politics, the Republicans have lost their minds. This is Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark all over again. President Obama has vowed to veto this GOP farm bill if it hits his desk, so Congress is going to have to try again. You know who needs to find their voice and use it right now? Conservative Christian pastors and leaders. Christians need to seriously reconsider uncritical support for a political party that prioritizes lavishing subsidies on the agribusiness rich while telling the poor to sit quietly and wait for scraps.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-monty-burns-republicans-food-stamps/ Cut food stamps but go all in for corporate welfare for Big Ag? That’s the Republican Party and the farm bill. Reports The Washington Post: House Republicans narrowly passed a farm bill on Thursday that was stripped of hundreds of billions in funding for food stamps, abandoning four decades of precedent to gain the backing of conservative lawmakers. The 216 to 208 vote was a victory for a Republican caucus that has struggled to pass the most basic of legislation, but it also set up weeks of acrimony and uncertainty as House and Senate leaders must reconcile two vastly different visions for providing subsidies to farmers and feeding the hungry. Ross Douthat is not amused: This is egregious whatever you think of the food stamp program, and it’s indicative of why the endless, often-esoteric debates about the Republican future actually matter to our politics. Practically any conception of the common good, libertarian or communitarian or anywhere in between, would produce better policy than a factionally-driven approach of further subsidizing the rich while cutting programs for the poor. The compassionate-conservative G.O.P. of George W. Bush combined various forms of corporate welfare with expanded spending on social programs, which was obviously deeply problematic in various ways … but not as absurd and self-dealing as only doing welfare for the rich. More: Reasonable people can disagree, in other words, about what kind of conservatism would best serve the common good. But everyone should agree that any alternative would be preferable to a Republican Party that doesn’t seem to think about the common good at all. Amen. Every House Democrat opposed this bill because it jettisoned food stamps. Only 12 Republican House members voted against the bill. Only twelve. Andrew Sullivan: There’s no small government consistency here – just an embrace of subsidizing Big Ag and a contempt for the needy in a long, protracted growth recession. Are theytrying to make themselves look like total douchebags? The Monty Burns Republicans. That’s what they are. Look, I will grant you that the food stamp program almost certainly needs reform, given the astronomical rate of growth in the past decade, past even what you would expect in the face of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. On the other hand, we have a lot more poor people, and people barely making it. TheWall Street Journal has a good, balanced piece on the complexities of the food-stamp program and its growth. It has become much easier to qualify for food stamps, but that is on purpose. Excerpt: “We decided to adopt [easier] standards in order to prevent [people] from having to spend all of their life savings,†said Richard Berry, a GOP-appointed director of the agency that screens applicants in Mississippi, where one out of every three children receive benefits. “We didn’t want people to have to become destitute in order to get help.†There are no doubt some lazy people who are enjoying being on the dole, and who have no intention of getting off of food stamps. But I bet most people who came onto the rolls in the past few years are like this guy from the Journal story: With more entering the program, social service groups began recommending it as an option for struggling families that previously hadn’t applied. That is what happened to Basem Eljauni, a 55-year-old cashier at a Sam’s Club in Greensboro, N.C., who lost his two businesses—a grocery store and a gas station—and his $250,000 in savings and investments. The father of six says he now makes around $1,000 a month if he is lucky and supplements his income with about $800 in government-paid food assistance and handouts from charities. “It’s hard to see yourself stuck on food stamps,†said Mr. Eljauni. “Amazing—I never thought I was going to be stuck in the system.†I’ve never had to rely on food stamps, but I have friends who have found themselves in a very tight economic spot, through no fault of their own, and who had to go on food stamps to feed their children. There is no shame in that. It can happen to people you know, to people in your own family. It can happen to you. Food writer Corby Kummer, who, like most people who follow food policy, hates the farm bill, puts this latest GOP move into perspective. It’s not at all a crazy idea to separate agricultural policy from anti-hunger policy, he says: Anyone who looks at the farm bill for a few minutes–or, like Dan Imhoff, devotes a book to it, or, like Marion Nestle, an entire semester’s course to it–sees what a chimera or, more to the point, a monster it is. It has next to nothing to do with the farms most people think of–the ones growing mixed crops, the ones that supply farmer’s markets. It doesn’t mention environmental protection or land conservation, though some of the country’s most important safeguards are in it. And it doesn’t mention nutrition assistance or hunger, though fully four-fifths of it are food stamps. Why not keep the agricultural parts, even if they benefit only industrial agriculture, in what’s called the farm bill, and call the food-assistance portion what it is? That would get the farm bill back on the rails, and stop letting SNAP debates hijack every vote. Here’s why not: because that means, as anyone in the anti-hunger community recognizes, pushing the 47 million Americans on food stamps onto an ice floe. More Kummer: In case it might have crossed your mind that the Republicans–who left subsidies to millionaire farmers untouched and un-subject to means testing, as the Cato Institute pointed out right away–might give a bit more consideration to agriculture lobbyists than to food-stamp recipients, Derek Thompson makes the role of campaign contributions absolutely plain in this good and stark piece. The Republican Party is throwing corporate welfare at farmers, but telling people who are so poor they qualify for government aid to feed themselves that they are not a priority. As a matter of basic politics, the Republicans have lost their minds. This is Mitt Romney’s 47 percent remark all over again. President Obama has vowed to veto this GOP farm bill if it hits his desk, so Congress is going to have to try again. You know who needs to find their voice and use it right now? Conservative Christian pastors and leaders. Christians need to seriously reconsider uncritical support for a political party that prioritizes lavishing subsidies on the agribusiness rich while telling the poor to sit quietly and wait for scraps.

I believe he has help steer more aid to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa that any nation or person. Its something he is little known for. I don't know how much Africans are aware of that but I would assume they know.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/uva-girl-water-beer-jail-181104442.html We really, truly live in a police state.

I am not well versed in climate change, yadda, yadda. However, I wil ask this. What is the worst case scenario of adopting provisions to fight climate change assuming the global warming threat that Gore and others are talking about is not a real threat? Conversely, what is the worst case scenario of disregarding the global warming threat if its real?

If there can be anything even worse than that is for many years now, certainly since the '80s and I'd guess prior, interest groups, from both sides of the aisle, write the bills to be introduce and provide the congresspersons via their top aides or directly the talking points to sell it if they expect to meet some opposition. During the days when they worked closer, House Representatives would do a quid pro quo with opposition members over bills. They all know they are bought by some group so I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine. I recall specicifally an article in the '90s when I was very angry over the Financial Services Modernization Act that Congresspersons were excusing themselves to go into hallway to ask exactly what they should be saying. This act helped basically take the gloves off for the financial industry to do all kinds of mischief. There is hardly a law that is not wholly or in part written by some interest group. This is BOTH sides of the aisle. As for the NSA, etc. its clearly unconstitutional. The government is meetng some resistance about but not much. Not enough outrage. We are collectively sheep now. They can openly spy on us, detain us, pretty much do ANYTHING up to and including murder (drones) and we are all collectively complicit in our own decline. Domestic crime can now be labled terrorism and you are deemed an 'enemy combatant' which is code word for your rights and citizenship means absolutely nothing. I'm speculating but had some of the groups from the '60s and '70s movements been around now they would be enemy combantants. Certainly the Black Panthers and other ultranationalistic Black groups and possibly the various hippy movement groups. Could MLK Jr and the civil rights movement be labled as such? The only clue I have as to how they would be portrayed today is the Occupy Wall Street movement. Whether you agree with them or not, they made it very clear and went to great lengths to make it peaceful. They attempted not to tolerate members who displayed violence. However, the police would incite them and arrest them for the most innocouos things and it happened in so many cities I'm hardpressed not to think it was by collective design. The Tea Party has been investigated and targeted by the IRS. So we have both sides of the ideological divide. Is the constitutional right to protest now pretty much illegal? Or at the very least does the government impede the right to collective protest via various methods (IRS, police harrassment, etc.)? Yeah, I know, I sound like a nut. Maybe I am. But it has depressed me. The U.S. we read about in our civics and social studies book should be a history book now because it NO LONGER EXISTS. Obama has quickened the pace of the civil liberty decline. Faster than Bush/Cheyney it seems if that's not crazy enough. It would have been as bad at the very best had McCain or Romney been elected and thats the sad thing. There is no choice other than bad and worse.

...and the sad fact is the alternatives are worse. If Republicans can show some true integrity and champion a Christie, Johnson or Huntsman then I can respect them but they have gone too far right. The leadership wants moderates but the fringe is more right wing than Gordie Howe (vague ice hockey reference for those who get it). On the other note, my favorite politician Cory Booker is running for senate of New Jersey. New Jersey has two good pols that at least seem to have some integrity.

I've long said the one thing that I am most disappointed with Obama about is the continued and sometimes quickening deterioration of our civil liberties. We've crossed the proverbial rubicon with regards to that. There is NO going back. We will be living in an Orwellian society from here on out. The way the election process is these days its impossible to get elected without being bought by the various powers that be. Obama's gay advocay isn't so much his belief but payback for the money the gays pumped into his campaign. I'm sure he and Michelle want gay rights but the fervor in which Obama is advancing their cause is due to the money they gave.

This is not about gay rights. This chick took money to go to a religious school knowing that they were against this type of behavior. If it were UCLA or Univ. of Texas? Sure, its wrong but this is silly and my fear is that with this new sympathy for gays that it spills over to institutions who are against the behavior. This kind of news is trying to force private institutions to accept things against what they believe in. Boy Scouts comes to mind although I am mixed on it. Its a private institution. If they accept public money then okay but you can't force them. It would be the same for any private group who were anti-semitc, racist against blacks, etc. Its their business.

Putin steals Kraft's Super Bowl ring http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/robert-kraft-vladimir-putin-stole-super-bowl-ring-130732690.html

Why does the mass media even give certain people a platform as if their opinion counts? I want people who are respected by both parties as someone's whose opinion the media should be quoting. I know why? Palin and others ignites people and therefore increases eyeballs on tv, internet screens and newspapers. http://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-u-decision-syria-let-allah-sort-182044264--abc-news-politics.html This could also be someone on the left as well who is out there.

This stuff started happening before Dubya and Obama. 911 gave them an excuse to expand what was already there. The echelon computer was around before either President. Clinton signed the FSA act that allowed companies with diverse information to pool it and gather info on you. So, in theory if a conglomerate owned an HMO and a mortgage company they could in theory know if you've got cancer and deny you a mortgage. There was supposed to be a 'chinese wall' but human nature says 'chinese walls' are ALWAYS violated by someone at some point. For years on here I and others have said there is no expectancy of privacy anymore. I assume all these posts are known and stored somewhere but we are all too unimportant for the government to do anything about it. I'm sure there are literaly hundreds of thousands if not millions of posts similar to these that are on sights way more ominous than what is essentially a 'thai pussy site' to the government (although we know its more than that and dear to our hearts ) This is one thing that both parties have agreed to and are comfortable with. The only ones in either parties that are against it are the 'fringe' of both. The libertarian-esque types like the Pauls and the far left that doesn't trust the government. There is no collective public outcry. The majority of our fellow Americans are sheep. Unti some incident happens to them they are not going to pay it any mind. Its a sad, sad state of affairs. I can't repeat enough, we no longer live in a free and fair Republic. That America died a while back. Hoover's FBI started that and what limited him was technology. His FBI spied on folks and broke every civil libertarian right we had. If you were a nobody you were okay. If you were anyone of note (MLK, entertainers, politcians, activists, etc.) then you had a file and that file had every thing.

I heard Jesse a few times and he's an easy target but I couldn't really find much fault with the things I've heard him say in interviews. The one big mark I ever had against him was his trying to draft Trump into running a few years ago but to be fair, I don't think anyone really knew how crazy Trump was or had become. Jesse was the first one i saw who defended his view of Iran which was leave them alone except for the support of terrorism, by saying that they are pursuing a nuke out of fear. He showed a map of Iran and the number of U.S. bases around it and they were pretty much surrounded on their borders by American bases and their waters patrolled by carriers and then said that if both your eastern and western neighbors were invaded by America and the other (Turkey) was an ally, what would you do? I'm curious to hear his views on social issues (abortion, gay marriage, Manchester United , etc.)

Dean you must be loaded if your neighbor is making that kind of money. Meet your new best friend 'Chocolat Steve' haha...joking. (partially). Hard to know what will happen when Obamacare kicks in. There will be an adjustment period. The current political climate suggests that the opposition will do anything in its power to make it unsuccessful. If it looks like it will be a permanent fixture that can't get killed legilatively then I hope they at least work to iron out any bugs and make it better. You may not like a legislation or an act but if you can't change it at least make it better for the people.

yeah, you're right. Too many people its damn near impossible. its why I find some of these government conspiracies like 911 being staged hard to believe because of too many people, low level people having to be inolved.

Debtors prison making a comebacK? http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/27/18380470-sentenced-to-debt-some-tossed-in-prison-over-unpaid-fines?lite So, instead of putting people in jails that are already overcrowded as well as them becoming a financial burden to society by losing their jobs and having a criminal record, why not have these people work it off? Picking up trash, volunteering at all manner of places in need or even have them wear an electronic bracelet instead of jail time after work and take away their free time. Garnishment of a small percentage over time. Anything is better than jail for unpaid fines.

The '96 ticket of Dole/Kemp was actually a damn good one but the timing was wrong. '90s, bull market, popular prez. Wasn't gonna happen. I especially liked Kemp. Dole actually met with a lot of Black groups in the '90s. NAACP, etc. and I gave him much credit for going there, no press, just him and them to discuss mutual areas to agree and tried to explain why his views that were seen as conservative were actually good for them. Kemp had a great idea while head of HUD to just scrap the public housing system and grandfather in long time residents to own their own apartments and in turn this would make the residents clean up the housing projects since they had a vested interest in increasing their property value. A trial project happened in St. Louis and they found it worked wonderfully. in fact, the rules the tennant/owners set up were at times stricter than the co-op rules of upper class manhattan apartments. ALso he said instead of losing money on maintaining housing, the government would make money off property taxes, etc. He also championed enterprize zones to combaat urban unemployment. Companies would get tax abatements or reduced taxes if they moved production inner city. Also training and internships. Of course all this made too much sense so it was scrapped.

Dole makes some very valid points. Obama, ironically enough known as a great communicator via his speeches has seemed a little bitter I think and has viewed obstruction not as politics but as a personal attack on his person. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't but part of the job as President is to be thick skinned and get on with the job and if that takes visiting key members of Congress and playing nice you put aside your personal differences and do it. You took an oath to serve the best interest of the country. Get it done. When I was a middle level manager in corporate America there were a lot of people who I didn't like personally but I had to get sh*t done. My boss said I was paid to get things done, i wasn't paid to work with who I wanted to. He was right. As for the gridlock, I have often read and its my belief that there are some Republicans that will refuse to work on anything substantive with the President just so that he doesn't get any 'wins'. There is legislation that even Republicans agree with that they will stonewall on. We all know about nominations are that are stalled for the silly and petty reasons, most recently McCain and Graham. The Senate has traditionally been the most congenial of the two houses. Its the House that has been traditioinally the most cantankerous.

Actually there are tons of scams, etc. that go on for a long time unnoticed. Either by luck or the people have their ducks in a row. I know first hand about some stuff that goes on. In poor black and latino neighborhoods there are tons of services, products, etc. one can get and they have gone on for years. Until they changed over the last couple years, food stamps were as easy to get at a discount as you could anything legal. They handed out more than some women and families needed and they were always resold at a 50% discount was the usual markdown. Many people got them to buy meat at a markdown price since that was one of the most expensive things to buy in a supermarket. Everyone in east and southcentral LA as well as Compton knew of a garage and authorized person who could have your car pass smog check for a price. That was routine. Meds such as vicadin and percocet were easily gotten. Same with viagra. These have been going for years. They are never reported because these things are seen as necessary by all involved. The people are poor and no one will report it because its a ":needed" service. Other scams get found out because people get greedy. Falsified tax returns were all the rage during the last half dozen years. In fact, I read a story that many drug dealers in Miami gave up drug dealing for false tax returns because the profits were the same and the penalty if caught were a smidgen of what you do for coke or heroin. In LA it was very common. I personally know of one guy who opened his own Jackson Hewit so that he could run false tax returns through it. There have been some stories where someone has a scam going on for years and years. The thing with any such thing is not only making sure it can't be detected but not getting greedy. Make money and get out even if you think it will take some time to get caught. One of the things to check is the statute of limitations. There are plenty of people who have gotten away with things because they did it too long ago. Most stuff is 5-7 years statute of limitations. In theory you could have said you sold drugs and not go to jail. I think its 7 years.

I changed my view on Ron Paul. I would love him to be head of a department, Secretary of something major. The changes he would make as President would be too much of a shock to the system over all aspects of the government. Too vast. We'd need time to change some things while some things would be okay to change immediately.

God forbid. Any one of you guys with the others in the cabinet is more than good enough. Different ideologies but all with integrity. The best hope for me lies in a few good pols still out there. Huntsman and Johnson would have been very good, the best of the lot running for President in the last election. Neward mayor Cory Booker is who Obama should have been but Obama is no where close. This guy is shockingly honest and good and cares. Christie from the same state is very good as well.

The Benghazzi thingy is a non starter for me. Republicans tryna make a mountain out of a mole hill. I know it sounds crass with people dying but trying to find where the white house may have changed how it was told is silly and petty. ALL presidents do that and i don't begrudge them for it. Its an artform. the IRS going after tea party groups IS major though. The IRS and how it handles collections should be a federal matter....again. The state of california needs to be investigated as well as few other states who are much worse. no oversight such as the IRS. The AP phone records is major as well. Obama is f*cking up. Major. with the last two. The sad thing is this is something I would expect from a Republican administration so the alternative is even worse. Hence why I feel we are all royally f*cked without a viable, HONEST, 3rd party.