Ignore the NRA

How do we differentiate ourselves from backward countries like Somalia, Afghanistan, and Syria where life is cheap?  We assert that we are a nation of laws.  We assert we govern ourselves with the ballot.  We have heard a continuous message from the NRA of fear and encouraging escalating gun play in public.  Through ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) the infamous “Stand Your Ground Laws” were enacted.  Maurice Moorer is not the kind of person lawmakers had in mind when they gave Florida the broadest self-defense law in the nation in 2005.  State legislators sold stand your ground as a legal protection for law-abiding Floridians who were forced, through no fault of their own, to defend their family and property.  But the day Moorer killed his ex-wife's boyfriend in 2008 capped two years of violent behavior that had landed Moorer in jail multiple times and left his wife living in fear.  Still, prosecutors set Moorer free, saying Florida's stand your ground law prevented them from pursuing murder charges.  A Tampa Bay Times analysis of stand your ground cases found that it has been people like Moorer — those with records of crime and violence — who have benefited most from the controversial legislation. A review of arrest records for those involved in more than 100 fatal stand your ground cases shows: Nearly 60 percent of those who claimed self-defense had been arrested at least once before the day they killed someone. More than 30 of those defendants, about one in three, had been accused of violent crimes, including assault, battery or robbery. Dozens had drug offenses on their records. Killers have invoked stand your ground even after repeated run-ins with the law. Forty percent had three arrests or more. Dozens had at least four arrests. More than a third of the defendants had previously been in trouble for threatening someone with a gun or illegally carrying a weapon. In dozens of cases, both the defendant and the victim had criminal records, sometimes related to long-running feuds or criminal enterprises. Of the victims that could be identified in state records, 64 percent had at least one arrest. Several had 20 or more arrests.  Florida's stand your ground law has been under intense scrutiny since George Zimmerman claimed self-defense after killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at a Sanford apartment complex Feb. 26. Police and prosecutors said they did not immediately charge Zimmerman because they could not disprove his self-defense claim.  All told, 119 people are known to have killed someone and invoked stand your ground. All of the perpetrators of these homicides were inspired by these laws and sight them as their initial defense. The laws had their intended effect.  They created fear.  That fear caused gun sales to sky rocket.  With sky rocketing sales comes inexperienced users, increased deaths due to accidents, increased homicides, but most importantly, increased PROFITS.  The NRA worked tirelessly on behalf of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker who stripped collective bargaining rights from teachers.  Now the NRA is recommending those same teachers should be carrying weapons to respond to gunmen in the classroom.  How long would it be before a naughty fourth grader grabbed the teacher’s gun and accidently killed himself or another student?  Then what?  Arm all the students?  That would be a great economic boon for Smith and Wesson but hardly the right direction for public schools.  Look at the people that have gone on these murderous rampages, they come prepared.  Handguns aren’t cheap.  Who is going to pay for a sidearm for every teacher?  The GOP won’t even sign off on the debt ceiling on money that’s already authorized by them to be spent.  Our nation wants to have a dialogue about reducing the capacity of suicidal madmen to inflict massive casualties on civilian populations by limiting clip size, banning off the shelf assault rifles, and tightening up sales at gun shows so the paper work is the same as at a gun store.  The longer a madman has to struggle to acquire or modify an automatic weapon, the more likely they will come in contact with the law before they can execute a fatal plan.  While the NRA accuses those that plea for public safety of being gun grabbers and that they will come for shot guns and bolt actions next, take a rational look at who really keeps upping the ante.  We recently found out that “main stream” Republican Dick Armey had an armed assistant help him fire people at his Super Pac then agreed to leave the organization himself with an 8 million dollar golden parachute.  FreedomWorks is still filled with corruption contributing nothing to campaigns, only stealing from contributors.  Is this what we want for our country?  Is absolute corruption and the worship of the almighty dollar regardless the cost in human life, bound to replace the rule of law?  Is promoting fear, lies, and insecurity, important enough that we should live in a virtually lawless nation, similar to Somalia or Syria all for the benefit of increased gun sales?  The NRA does virtually nothing for habitat or game preservation.  Their entire focus is gun sales and politics.  Whenever the response of uniform gun laws (gun shops-gun shows) comes up after a public slaughter the NRA sends out a message of fear that people are out to get your Grandpa’s shotgun and your Dad’s deer rifle from you.  P.S.  You had better buy an AR15 while they’re still legal (to protect yourself).  And don’t forget about those times you can’t have your AR15 with you.  You’ll need a good conceal and carry weapon with knock down power as well as a boot pistol.  And don’t forget the little lady!  No circumstance is too grim or sad to refrain from making their fear filled sales pitch.  Ignore the NRA.  They have already had their say in these sorry circumstances.  If being well armed protected one from madmen, the Newtown killer would be dead on the kitchen floor at his Mother’s hand instead of being his first victim.  Learn about the limited gun controls that are being proposed from a neutral news source.  Don’t trust an organization that pushes a law that ends up helping criminals.    

Round Two

As TheOldSheepHerder surveys the pasture as the fog hangs over the pasture after the election, a few things are clear.  If you had some idea that the day after the election, the sun would rise, there would be a clear and authoritative course ahead and voices of dissention would be moderated you were mistaken but not nearly as off base as old Turd Blossom, Karl Rove.  The Big Spenders Club is irritated with Karl for frittering their money away on the “South Will Rise Again” strategy to win a Presidential election.  There aren’t that many old angry white guys, and even fewer Confederates.  The majority of Americans supported governance according to our Constitutional traditions and rejected heavy handed big government Republican initiatives that interfered with people’s lives and cost money.  American’s are experiencing a crushing burden exploding property taxes in a soft real estate market.  We hear a lot of bragging from the GOP how they have held down taxes.  This lie is described by each of our tax statements arising out of the last legislative session controlled by Republicans.  Destroy my homes value through your recklessness, then heap huge tax increases on my home and tell me how you never taxed me.  President Obama reduced my income taxes to help me pay for my increased property taxes courtesy of the GOP.  The best description I heard of the GOP this year was that they are not a Political Party but a mental illness.  I think it may be helpful for activists to keep this perspective.  We can get a whole lot less crazy in Minnesota if we make getting rid of Bachmann as big a priority as the Take Down Cravaack effort was.  Graves was close.  In two years, with a lot more grass roots cash, who needs an extra $70.00 anyway, we can send Bachmann back to the seventies where you can get patted down for talking like she does.  In two years the mid-terms will see a shit storm of pay back from corporate America.  The Chamber of Commerce is pissed that it lost and it’s coming after you.  Democrats must have a strategy of focusing on 30 extreme House of Representative incumbents for defeat.  A focused strategy will keep the GOP playing defense and continue Democratic gains.  There would be many in that House that would be running when the new Democratic nominee for President runs in 2016.  Taking thirty seats in 2014 would give Democrats a slim majority.  Having all three branches of government would vastly accelerate the rate change that could be effected.  Minnesota State government went all blue.  The Democrats were gracious in victory, pledging to work with Republicans.  In defeat, the Republicans were bitter, mean spirited, and as rigid and partisan as ever.  What a fine example they make for their children.  Just imagine if they were Gay.  The cancerous effects of the right wing media machine are terrifying in our society and how it affected this election.  The reason conservatives complain about Liberal Media bias is that it is a strategy for covering up a decade’s long conservative take-over of media.  Ronald Reagan fast tracked Rupert Murdock’s citizenship so he could own American media.  He turned the news into a version of the “National Enquirer” with a right wing message to it.  A conservative judge ruled that Fox News did not have to tell the truth in its news broadcasts in an FCC ruling.  Republicans have used this media to spread fear, dissention, anxiety, and most of all volumes of lies and slander.  It is a cynical brainwashing tool.  Fox News doesn’t even resemble a program about a News show.  Nearly half of the Nation gets all its news from the same media source that would have you believe that Hillary left Bill for Bigfoot.  Perhaps a court challenge could reverse this ruling and enable Americans to ban false broadcasts of news as Canada did.  Exposing children to Fox News costs taxpayers money.  Studies have shown that people who watch Fox News know less about current events than people who watch no news.  Remedial education in public schools is skyrocketing.  After Hurricane Sandy a simple organizing strategy revealed itself.  The GOP base is so filled with hate that when Chris Christie did his job rather than grand stand, the base hated him.  He committed the unforgiveable sin of being polite to the President.  He thanked the President, who happened to be doing his job too.  They posed for pictures and talked to people devastated by the storm, offering encouragement.  Each of them were executives in charge of large civil relief efforts.  They just don’t do anything remotely like this in the private sector and never will.  I think the most reviled Democrats should speak in the most glowing and personal terms of every high ranking GOP official there is.  How would the base react to hearing Barney Frank describe Jim DeMint as a delightful man, a cherished colleague, or a loyal public servant?  Jim DeMint’s base would know that he and Barney Frank had consummated a personal relationship.  The Republicans have poured gas all over themselves, the least we can do is strike a match.  That bell you heard ringing my friend?  That was just the end of round two.

Judge Not or I Might Give You an Ass Chewing

There is this one old hag that works at the Co-Op and stares at my boots when I go in to pay the feed bill.  I’m careful enough to scrape off the big chunks of sheep manure before I go to town but I aint going to take a microscope to ‘em.  I’ll admit it, there might be a fleck or two of manure on my boots but I know that old bitty votes Republican.  I got news for you.  Her shit does stink.  This is what unlimited money in the electoral process yields. Romney is a blithering money hoarder that yearns to be President in order to satisfy his and like-minded money hoarders deepest money hoarding fantasies. These people have no comprehension of the dynamics of how a civil society should function domestically or internationally. Romney is devoid of tact, wisdom, foresight, hindsight, basic social skills, BUT HE IS NOT LACKING IN MONEY. Thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling, creatures like Romney are bound to be nominated.  The Republicans are not a National Party anymore.  The problem is their message. Romney planned to sell himself as a highly skilled businessman with the knowledge to tackle all the complex financial problems America faces.  That came unraveled in short order.  The myth that Romney was a problem solving CEO with the knowledge to lead America has been debunked by Romney himself, the mean spirited vulture capitalist who would say anything in his lust for power. His campaign is in debt and he has been unable to cloak his GIMME MORE CAMPAIGN with some palatable slogans for Independents to gravitate to. He has written off poor people, minorities, women, union members, Gays, teachers, and Veterans. That only leaves him the angry white vote for support. Good luck winning a general election with that bumbling "business man" strategy.  There just aren't that many bigoted back woods religious zealots that are certain trickle-down economics really works.  The tax code in this country is written by senators and congressmen put in office by wealthy people. That's why the Romney's can write off $77,000 for horse feed and veterinary care for their dressage horse and we pay our vet bills in full and buy our pets food with no tax deduction. Yet it is this entitled elitist who has the gall to claim half of Americans are parasites. Many Americans are fearful and naive. Romney was speaking to the Parasite Club on everybody's favorite 47% video.  The Ayn Rand loving GOP loves to rail about personal responsibility.  What is their interpretation of that anyway?  Taking care of personal responsibility would seem to mean paying their exorbitant tribute to the hallowed "Job Creators" in higher income taxes, spiraling property taxes, and exploding small business property taxes so the wealthy can pay even less. They get 90% of America's paycheck and bitch that they are paying 40% of America's taxes.  The Salt Lake City newspaper endorsed Obama because Romney has no core beliefs and has engaged in such profound deception.  He is behind in Massachusetts by 30%.  The people who know him best have rebuked him.  GOP Representative Scott DeJarlais got one of his patients pregnant while violating his Hippocratic Oath.  The Family Values GOP was outraged over underwear pictures of Representative Anthony Wiener.  Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan did NOTHING in their leadership positions to discipline one of their own for far more serious ethical violations. The Republican leadership allowed him to serve his entire term, unmolested, in order to aid in their obstruction of America's recovery. If coercing a patient to get an abortion after you has violated the Patient/Dr. Boundary isn't enough to catch the attention of one of their own, PRAY TELL JUST WHAT DOES A GOP REPRESENTATIVE HAVE TO DO TO GET DISCIPLINED?  Maybe the Democratic expectation that Romney should speak the truth is setting the bar too high.  Shouldn't a candidate for a major political party be able to read, comprehend, and attribute statements to the proper source? If all you have done your entire adult life is read spread sheets, sometimes the more nuanced way of communicating with WORDS can be difficult if not impossible.  To hear Ann Romney tell it Mormon missionary work is just like military service.  Being told "No, I don't want your pamphlet is just like being shot at and having IED blow up under you, then have your GOP legislators desert you when you come home physically mangled. Yup, just like Military Service.  Dinesh D’Souza the right wing darling movie director and president of Evangelical Kings University shacked up with his secret fiance (who is married as is he) at a big Evangelical conference. While these people call themselves Christians, it is an invented political religion that bears no resemblance to Christ's teachings.  Their professed religion is as similar to Christianity as a squirrel looks just like an elk.  GOP Senator David Vitter serves the same preachy GOP nonsense while carrying around the history of acknowledging being a client of a Washington Madam.  He dragged his wife through his mud and apologized to her and now it’s all good…or is it?  Covetous, judgmental, unforgiving, cruel, and self-absorbed are a few adjectives that reasonably describe all those Republicans subscribing to this bankrupt doctrine.  Family values have been turned into a filthy word by the way these Republicans live their lives.  Anyway, his work is done after scaring the shit out of a bunch of old people with his propaganda film.  He’s Hollywood now.  Or so he hopes because he lost his job at Kings University which paid a million bucks a year.  I bet OBAMA made him do it.  Republicans are so lazy they want public subsidies for their corruption.  The GOP has a national movement afoot in the states to suppress votes of the very old, college students, and minorities, all of which lean Democratic voting.   Are you struggling with high property taxes?  Vote NO!   Estimates range as high as $50 million state wide for voter I.D. just to get it up and running with annual up keep costs every year not yet factored in.  FOR WHAT?!   Voter fraud is a nonexistent problem.  The GOP has flooded our state with misinformation about voter fraud. Don't believe it.  Get informed and vote your pocketbook.  Kurt Bills was a big hit with the Teabagger crowd.  As he spread the “word of the bag” around the state he became a nonviable candidate.  It seems Minnesotans were not ready to embrace his message of the state printing its own money.  Advantages-none.  Disadvantages-too numerous to mention.  But it was the word of the Bag.  After he fell so far behind, the Koch brothers moved their Dark Money to state House races.  Shit really does roll downhill.     Remember Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs? I do. Zero progress was made in the direction of that stated objective. It collided with their political objective of making Obama a one term President. Something had to go.  They substituted vaginas, vaginas, and vaginas and figured nobody would notice.  I did.  Women that would prefer to not be pregnant from the time they get married until their change of life noticed. If you’re a Plutocrat yearning to create a “New China” here in the U.S., eliminating birth control is a good strategy for building a labor pool that has to work for 90 cents an hour and live in squalid dormitories.  The Romney/Ryan ticket is proposing that us 47%ers bundle part of our retirement income, our Social Security, with toxic assets Wall Street needs to balance out with no liability except postage for a too bad so sad letter that our money no longer exists.  Good deal for Wall Street.  Bad deal for account holders.  They would also like to change Medicare into a voucher program.  This is their “This is an emergency, we have to cheat you plan.”  All millionaires are not morally bankrupt.  There are liberal millionaires who believe that U.S. citizens should keep Social Security as it is.  I’m going to vote for that guy.  Of course, I’m just in the Co-Op to pay what I owe, not give that old bitty a brain transplant!!!

Mitt Gets Exposed in Second Debate

How about that?   The OldSheepHerder got the grand tour of Romney’s “mysterious mansion” the other night at the second debate.  We got to see just what was inside this man’s head, what he values, and his depth of knowledge.  Greed, Greed, and more Greed.  His “plans” were a sham, a thin cover for an avalanche of lies to obscure what he has promised the GOP he will do when he assumes office.  Dismantle Medicare, end Social Security, stop “Obamacare”, more and bigger tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, rollback all environmental regulation changing the chemical composition of the water we drink and the air we breathe, shredding the social safety net, public education, Medicaid, destroy Unions, and reduce women and minorities to a sort of cattle status where decision making and voting is highly restricted in their classes.  While taking advantage of these institutions and programs, the conservative base is conditioned to have a baseless hatred of all of these things in spite of the personal benefits which they reap from them.  I hate to brag, but I got sheep with keener perceptions than these guys.  Even his most extreme supporters are tolerating his moderated positions, knowing he has to mislead a lot of people to get elected.  How has Romney prepared for the most important elected office in our country?  He has hired 17 of George Bush’s former staff members as his advisers.  Romney claims it’s time for change by consulting with the staff that crashed the economy and left our diplomatic reputation in shambles.  We can tell from his remarks in the debate about Benghazi that Romney is devoid of all intellectual curiosity.  “The 17” read in their Reich wing blogs that Obama did not define the attacks in Libya as terrorism.  Romney was wrong.  The bloggers were just small time racists, telling lies to slander Obama in order to give Romney an advantage.  It isn't just pathetic that Mittens marched right into, and was devastated by a Republican slander it’s shameful he accepted as fact from these failed Bush advisers that Obama did not define the incident as terrorism.  He brags about what an astute business man he is, yet with the Presidency at stake, makes a fool of himself repeating a GOP racist blog.  Mitt Romney is not a business man in the classic sense.  He is a vulture capitalist who is wholly incapable of assimilating a broad range of facts and making a decision.  Romney only speaks spreadsheet to his benefit.  He is a completely awkward man.  He is devoid of social skills and charisma.  When you add his compulsive lying, condescending manner and bald faced ambition along with his stupidity, greed, and selfishness you might have the perfect Republican Presidential Candidate but you sure as hell don’t have anything close to a person with leadership qualities.         

Republican Icons and What the Party Believes

The Old SheepHerder got to thinking.  For all the bluster the Republican Party puts forward, just how many truly remarkable leaders has this noisy entourage produced?  By acclaim, the very first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, is a man who changed the course of history for the better with the Emancipation Proclamation.  Freeing the slaves defined the Republican Party as the progressive party of its time.  Slowly that begins to change.  Its death throes marked the second great Republican President; Theodore Roosevelt, who took on the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, fractured the Republican Party, but heralded much needed reform.  Next up, Dwight Eisenhower.  He had the vision to tamp down the size of the Pentagon so its budget did not swallow our domestic economy and took the post war ball from Roosevelt/Truman and built the interstate highway system.  It was one of those great economic multipliers whose power is hard to overestimate.  These roads were arteries of commerce.  They provided local, state, and national mobility for the nation’s work force.  They opened up under served markets.  They expanded the countries development.  This monumental endeavor of building infrastructure has paid for itself many times over.  Republicans would like to add Reagan to that very short list.  I think the crumbling Soviet Empire had more impact than the Gipper.  History doesn’t give points for being in the right place at the right time.  When Reagan took office bread lines had been long for 15 years and the population’s patience was wearing thin with even more austerity and death from the Soviets misadventures in Afghanistan.  Soviet youth were having a love affair with stylish western clothing.  The people of the Soviet Empire were chaffing under the oppression and austerity to feed the military in the Cold War.  Reagan proposed “Star Wars” driving our nation deeply in debt while we were battling the most protracted cycle of inflation our economy had ever experienced.  Paul Volker, Reagan’s Fed Chairman eventually tamed that beast but it was on the backs of consumers with sky high interest rates.  Reagan and Gorbachev’s talks failed.  When Gorbachev went home empty handed, the cracks in the Empire turned into a full collapse.  How much credit does Reagan deserve for the demise of the Soviet Empire and ending the Cold War, driving us deeply in debt, then walking away to leave it to Obama to find and negotiate and secure and ship all the loose nukes from the U.S.S.R.?  NOT VERY GOD DAMNED MUCH.  These loose nukes were the weapons Al Qaeda sought.  Thank you President Reagan for leaving one in the chamber, pointed at my head, for the folks you called “the equivalent of America’s Founding Fathers.”  You might recall the GOP kept Clinton sort of busy impeaching him, W was either too stupid, didn’t give a shit, and if he did, he had such horrible international relations; he would never have gained the cooperation of the old Republics.  Was President Reagan a nice man?  By many accounts he was.  Niceness is no measure of a great President.  How does today’s Republican Party honor the greatest of its members?  They honor Lincoln through voter suppression.  They honor Lincoln by re-segregating schools.  They honor Lincoln by re-introducing Jim Crow Laws.  They honor Teddy Roosevelt by pushing for legislative changes to alter the chemical composition of the air we breathe and the water we drink.  They honor Teddy Roosevelt by creating a fable that free market capitalism works by “trickling down”, NOT MARKET DEMAND, therefore all wealth must be concentrated at the top or the economy will collapse.  Gilded Age II.  Teddy Roosevelt was unceremoniously betrayed by the Republican Party for his service to the American people.  The second time he ran he had to form his own political party, the Bull Moose Party.  The GOP honors Dwight Eisenhower by moving U.S. companies to China.  They honor Eisenhower by refusing to invest a nickel in repairing a one pot hole or fix one rivet on the bridges of our interstates.  The Republican Party can’t afford to invest in America.  They believe America is a bad bet.  They believe service to our country in the Armed Forces is somebody else’s job but war profiteering is a family business.  What else does the Republican Party believe?  They believe honesty is for suckers, discipline is for naughty people, and kindness is a sign of weakness.  As Paul Ryan articulated the GOP belief system that life begins at rape and the bitches better not accuse us of anything The OldSheepHerder became disturbed by the shit eating grin on Paul Ryan’s psychopathic countenance.  He grinned as Biden related how people struggled financially.  He grinned as Biden related how people struggled without health care.  He grinned about cutting $300 million from the State Department even though the security cuts cost the Libyan Ambassador his life.  He grinned that poor people a higher tax rate than wealthy people even though he persistently lies about this publicly in the campaign.  It had to be over 30 years ago and there were rumors of rampant corruption on the Fair board judges.  I had this in-bred, castrated, toothless ram I entered in the Fair.  Its hindquarters were caked in manure and its ears were so full of ticks its mouth was drawn back in that phony Paul Ryan grin.  I left a $5 dollar bill under each of the judge’s folder with my card clipped to it.  I won Grand Champion that year.  The Fair Board cleaned house on the judges taking bribes.  Maybe Ryan can’t help that inappropriate grin on his face.  It could be that the Koch brothers have packed so much money up Ryan’s ass, he has to work to keep toned glutes on the PX90 or it will come blasting out like a slot machine pay off.  But I’m wandering all over the pasture when I’m trying to express just what it is Republicans believe.  They often profess Christianity but in fact ignore the teachings in the New Testament.  They claim to be Capitalists but in fact are top down Socialists, who receive more welfare in income tax breaks and corporate subsidies than the rest of the population many times over.  Free trade Republicans believe that means moving American companies overseas then sheltering their profits in foreign banks while receiving tax breaks to do so.  Free for somebody.  They profess family values then try to water down the definition of rape, destroy aid for the poor and elderly in favor of more for the rich, and spurning veteran’s needs after starting wars and beating war drums yet.  You see, Republicans believe in absolute destruction.  They value nothing.  If you are still voting “R” you missed more than one therapy appointment!!!                

MITT HEADED FOR A SHEARING AT THE DEBATE

Wherever you go in the pasture these days you hear the pious Republicans voicing their concern that the United States not end up in the same financial purgatory as Greece because of their “European” decision making.  They claim the only thing that can save us from the ballooning debt crisis is to follow their prescription of severe austerity.  Further cut backs in education, teachers, public employees, infrastructure repairs and replacement, Medicare and Medicaid are claimed to bring order to our fiscal balance sheet.  This fiscally pious message from folks that give away crippling tax breaks to corporations and wealthy individuals loses all credibility as it’s punctuated with even larger tax breaks for the wealthy and more tax breaks for wealthy corporations.  While The Old SheepHerder has never been to Europe, on occasion, I find newspapers now and then that have blown in across the pasture.  It seems that Europe is in a much deeper recession than the United States.  All across Europe they have followed a severe austerity plan to cope with the financial crisis inflicted on the world by the investor class in 2008.  The only discernible differences between the Eurozone and U.S. economies are the much maligned stimulus and the much maligned Detroit bailout.  This is a comparison on the viability of trickle-down economics vs. trickle-up economics.  All across Europe, obscene tax breaks were maintained for the wealthy yet nothing trickled down.  The severe austerity facilitated the continued tax breaks and still no recovery relative to the United States where some investment was made in the middle class.  The results of this investment are undeniable.  Your guess is as good as mine why these inbred aristocrats who need to wear top hats in order to conceal their pointy heads, want to follow a failed European economic model.  A lot has to do with club membership.  In the “Good Old Days” rich plutocrats could get their kids into the best schools with the best degrees for the best jobs with no competition.  We have a President today that made it into those hallowed educational institutions with hard work and talent and as the benefactor of years of civil rights struggles.  Did I mention that he is darker than your average President?  Since his election the cock roaches of blatant racism have over run all political dialogue in the House and Senate.  On the day President Obama was inaugurated, Republican leadership met and planned a slanderous, obstructive, and uncooperative relationship with the incoming President.  The Republicans became the party of sedition.  No consideration of our National Security, our Financial Well Being, our civil contentment, our Nation’s Health or the well-being of our Nation’s children was sobering enough for the Extremist GOP legislators to put their country first.  After the ACA was passed, the GOP propaganda of “Death Panels” was voted as lie of the year by Politico.  Since they led us into war in Iraq, Republican legislators were asked by Harry Reid to write the Veterans Jobs Bill so they could support it.  They wrote it but did not support it.  This will be their shameful legacy.  Is it any wonder the GOP wants wholesale revision of the history books according to their own peculiar perspective?  The Old SheepHerder has to give the Republicans credit.  They recognize they are unworthy and incapable of winning a fair election early on.  In order to address this minor problem they’ve created a whipping boy called voter fraud.  I know it’s kind of shocking at first because voter fraud and Republican go together like Monday night and football.  They’re not giving up voter fraud; they’re raising it to new heights.  Republicans are claiming that voter fraud is rampant in Democratic districts in swing states controlled by GOP legislatures.  It seems The Constitution has been misread all these years and voting isn’t a right after all, it’s a “privilege.”  The way to be granted the voting privilege is to follow a number of new Republican rules.  Following the Republican rules is costly, but if you don’t, you don’t get to vote.  What could be fairer?  Republicans telling millions of Democrats they are not allowed to vote.  The entitled party wants its entitled candidate in office in the worst way.  With the election a little more than a month away and the debates about to begin just what do we know about The Entitled Detroit Dandy?   He is a keen businessman who has had overwhelming “Citizens United” money showered on him by numerous conservative millionaires and billionaires yet his campaign is eleven million dollars in debt.  The whole narrative of Mitt Romney as a businessman doesn’t pass the smell test. In Romney you get a businessman who started Bain Capital through meeting with representatives of South American Death Squads, their way to crush political opposition. He secured several million dollars from them and started Bain Capital. Bain bought companies, borrowed massive amounts of cash against them, then paid out Bain managers obscene management fees, then on the verge of bankruptcy, gutted the retirement systems of these companies, fired the employees, and either went into bankruptcy or sold the company. This isn't an indicator of success; it's an indicator of entitlement.  When running for Governor of Massachusetts he was caught lying about his residency on his tax returns. He chose extremist, Paul Ryan as his running mate and after becoming exasperated for accounting for Ryan’s legislative agenda and weakly asserting a secret Romney agenda, is now privately referred to as “The Stench” by Rep. Ryan.  Paul Ryan even acknowledged that the entire Romney economic plan is based on trickle-down economics, a most broadly and deeply disproven economic hocus-pocus.  Paul Ryan has no standing to speak of financial conservatism. As a Representative he voted for two unfunded wars, the unfunded Medicare drug benefit expansion, and the Bush tax cuts which were the expenditures in legislation which led to the financial crisis we find ourselves in. Would you hire a crack addict as your personal fitness trainer?  Ryan was tasked with solidifying support for Romney in Iowa.  After spewing his lies about Medicare, Iowa is in Obama’s camp.  It seems Obama couldn’t have had a better operative to convince “undecided” to vote Democrat than Paul Ryan.  Paul Ryan epitomizes what is broken in Washington. He publicly professes his Christian faith to low information Tea Party voters but gains his inspiration from a renowned Atheist Ayn Rand. His heavy handed assaults on Social Security and Medicare he describes with a straight face as saving those programs. When one understands the Rand doctrine of contempt for dependence and support for the poor you understand Paul Ryan. There is no such restriction in Rand doctrine from Plutocrats to steal the wealth of their nation. In fact, it is expected that they should. If they don't, they are weak and don't deserve to keep their wealth. Ryan's budget has been condemned by the Catholic Church for its harsh treatment of the poor in order to line the pockets of plutocrats with yet more money. When Ryan is trying to convince voters he is working in their interests he cites his devotion to the Catholic Church.  When he is publicly rebuked by the Church for following the teachings of Ayn Rand and harsh treatment of poor people HE JUST BLOWS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH OFF.  Mitt Romney has a lower approval rating than George Bush.  He had bags of cash to stomp out his competition.  Is this the only talent Romney has?  Possessing large volumes of cash?   The leadership challenges of President are far more complex than Romney is capable meeting.  The Romney/Ryan ticket doesn’t even attempt to use facts in their campaign.  It’s all about fear and hate.  They are simply Cheerleaders for hatred and fear calling themselves Christians.  How inspirational for young people!  Our government is not working.  Republicans made that their objective and they achieved it.  Now they are campaigning on it.  Of course their narrative is skillfully nuanced with lies.  Fair taxation is critical to achieve.  Republicans boast all the time that wealthy people pay 40% of the taxes.  That’s a remarkable number unless you understand that wealthy people take home 90% of America’s paycheck.  If you went out for coffee with a plutocrat at the local café and all you could afford was coffee for a $1.00 but your buddy runs the tab up to $10.00 and only leaves $4.00 every day, how sustainable would that be?  To add insult to injury your former new best friend would brag that they always contributed 40% towards the tab.  Should they be getting applause when they have received 90% of the goodies on the tab?  The Republican Party is no longer a National Party.  It is a patchwork of Civil War Dead Enders, oligarchs, and ignoramuses.  The interests of the Plantation, the Gilded Age, and Thing One and Thing Two are not germane to the American body politic.  As in 2008 America faces a mountain of challenges.  Selfish wealthy people practically own and write this nation’s tax code.  Legislators are put in office by wealthy individuals and corporations who then write tax law designed exclusively to benefit the wealthy.  The Old SheepHerder about choked on his chewing tobacco when he heard that the Romney's received a $77,000 tax write off for their dressage horse. When the public was taken aback by this plutocratic abuse, the Romney campaign pushed back with “Ann has MS and that horse is therapeutic for her!”  The horse tax write off is categorized as a business expense on their taxes.  Does this speak to Mitt’s passion for his wife or am I just a hopeless romantic?  I wouldn’t wish MS or any other debilitating disease or physical condition on anyone.  Right now millions of Americans have debilitating diseases and are working and paying America’s bills as well as paying for Ann Romney’s dressage horse despite the fact that she can well afford it without the help of taxpayers.  God help those Americans who collapse from chronic disease after paying 25% and more income tax their entire working career.  The only thing these people have done is keep America moving, building America, and paying America’s bills.  Republicans attacked the Affordable Care Act with unprecedented levels of slander and lies.  How dare Americans look out for each other!  How dare America cap Insurers percentage of profit!  How dare Americans prohibit Insurers from excluding liability of treatment for the very sick!  Chronic disease is the leading cause of bankruptcy.  Republicans made a historically scurrilous attack as American’s attempted to better follow the teaching that we are our brother’s keeper. Profits before people has always been the business model of conservative governance.   With the money not paid in taxes, these types of manipulative people use money stolen from the tax code to convince poorly educated people that they are just like them in critical elections like these. Bringing this demographic up to a comparable tax rate of working Americans is a first step in addressing budget problems.  Our nation is stronger, safer, and greener if we invest in regional alternative energy co-ops sourcing our energy with wind, solar and natural gas instead of multinational oil companies that milk us for tax subsidies then gouge us on cost.  Once these co-op entities are established, America could offer amnesty to foreign held money in lieu of 15 year investment in the co-ops to help capitalize them initially.  This is a jobs program, an energy program, a manufacturing program, and a banking reform program.  Historically, the period of time the Republicans were completely out of power the longest was called “The Great Prosperity.”  Was this because of all the Socialism and taxes that were inflicted on our nation?  How do failed economic policies result in the longest sustained period of economic growth our country has ever seen?  Compound this question with an explosive growth in Union membership.  People with good paying jobs can make long term financial plans and purchases.  The shelves always need restocking.  That means people keep working.  Wealthy people make money.  The tax base is expanded optimally.  With coherent legislative planning infrastructure projects can be methodically attended to.  Don’t believe Republicans dire pronouncements that America’s best days are gone.  Addition is best accomplished through subtraction when it comes to obstructionist Republicans.  It seems as though the Republicans haven’t been telling the truth again.   It simply isn’t enough to win this election and the majority in both Houses.  We have to win the next election and the one after that and so on.  The Republican Party needs to be relegated to organizing militias in the back country and swamps.  Clearly that is their comfort zone and the level of leadership they are capable of dealing with, drunken target practice.  America has watched as a cancerous pay to play mentality has consumed Washington.  Is that how America should work?  Our country is set up for FAIR representation not minority rule.  American’s who are paying their taxes and are paying America’s bills are constantly under siege from Republicans for Union membership, for being a woman, for being an ethnic minority, for being Gay, for being a Senior Citizen, and for not conforming religiously.  NONE OF THESE STATUSES ARE CONSTUTIONALLY PROHIBITED CONDITIONS FOR CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.  Republicans consistently express contempt for government.  It is time voters returned the favor to these destructive extremists.