Tonight's Very Shrill GOP Debate

I can barely believe what I just heard.

I listened to a good deal of the Republican gubernatorial candidates debate on KCUR-FM radio (89.3 FM).

It was the most shrill, lopsided, emotional, inflamed, disconnected excuse for a responsible, adult debate and conversation I can imagine. Their responses to the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion in Texas alone shows it, too.  The Court pointed out, rightly, how completely unnecessary the Texas requirements of hospitals being no more than 30 miles away, as just one example, was trampled on by these demagoguing

I don't know what's worse, too. I'm not sure if it's Catherine "I'm Bought and Paid For By Rex Singquefield" Hanaway or the shrill, scary Eric "I'm Wearing My Military Service and Religion On My Sleeve" Greitens.

All of their descriptions of Hillary Clinton were outrageous and, again, emotional. If you listened to them, you'd think Mrs. Clinton was the devil incarnate.

The one thing I could agree with, from what I heard this evening, was that, so far, in this campaign, anyway, they say they'll support campaign finance legislation and ending people going straight from a government job to lobbying.  The real proof will be shown when/if any of them are elected, of course, and get in government.

The conclusion I've come to is that today's debates have absolutely been heavily, greatly influenced by the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine and so, the creation of especially the Fox Network.  It's what has given us these, again, shrill, emotional ranters, using fear or trying to, to get attention and votes. It's shameful.  It's also no way to run campaigns, elections or, especially, government.

We should all be smarter than this.

We need to demand more.  And better.

We Do Elections Very, Very Wrong, America

Sure, we Americans do and have done a lot of things right and well, absolutely or we wouldn't have gotten where we have, socially, sociologically and certainly economically, without question. (We've a lot--A LOT--of things wrong like maybe Korea but definitely Vietnam and that unlawful Iraq War and too many things about race, etc. but we'll save that for another time and day).

All that said, one thing we do wrong--and by wrong I mean deeply, wildly and very expensively wrong, all, is elections. Check out just a few notes on how the rest of the world does them:

The longest campaign in Canadian history was 10 weeks.

In the U.K., political parties can only spend $30 million in the year before an election.

In Germany, political parties release just one 90-second television ad.

In 2013, over two-thirds of income to Norway's political parties came from the government.

In Australia, voting is compulsory.

In Brazil, Election Day is on the weekend.

We just aren't very bright. 

We need to undo our election system and campaigns and campaign finance and all those "campaign contributions", folks.

We have got to Get the Big, Ugly Money Out of Our Election System and Government 

Links:  The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

National Elections: What the UK Does Right and We Americans Do So Wrong

So Done

I am so done with this election.

Done with candidates.

Done with debates.

Done with the two political parties (though done with one far more than the other, truth be told).

Done with announcements.

Done with campaigns.

Done with announcements, all of it.

And even ignoring we have, still, a little more than half of this month to go, ignoring February, we have 9 more months of this to go until the actual November election date.

Don't get me wrong, however.  I still know how important this election is and I'm still engaged and still decidedly for my candidate for the presidency but holy cow. These things go on and on and on.

We should be better than this.

We should be smarter than this.

And we are.

Or we could be.

I've written about this before. We could fix this and rather simply. Probably not easily but simply.

The Problems With Our Government--and Our Elections

We need to do what the Brits did, years ago, and limit our elections to one or, at most, two months in length, by law. This way, the big campaign money wouldn't be needed.

Too many Americans likely don't know that's what the Brits did or that that's how they run their elections---or that we could.

Could you imagine elections that don't last 2 years? I know I could. How much better, how much improved would that be?

We wouldn't have to waste all this time and all the money we do on the elections. 

Government officeholders wouldn't be perpetually running the next election race, just to get re-reelected.

We wouldn't have to go through this nonsense.

Link:   We could learn a lot from the U.K. election

3 Simple, Intelligent Improvements/Soutions to Our Current Problems

So simple. So smart. So helpful. So important.

Unlike

On the next elections

Given Eric Cantor's crashing and burning recently, in his election, and the rise of David Brat and his Tea Party support, there are some things that need to be pointed out:

1) Naturally and very obviously, this helped the Tea Party greatly. Beyond that, it will likely have helped the Koch brothers and their money and all the capability of that money a great deal, also.

2) Thad Cochran, in his upcoming election, will, I predict, lose in his election, and for two reasons, at least. First, he's running against a much younger, newcomer from, yes, the Tea Party, and he's an attractive candidate, at least to some--and likely, enough--people.  Second, Sen. Cochran recently shot himself in the figurative foot when he declared he Did 'All Kinds Of Indecent Things With Animals ....    

Oops.

3) In New York, I'd have to say, it looks as though 84 year old Representative Charlie Rangel will also likely lose in his race, after all these years in office, and will be sent home. He is the age he is, he was censured in office not that long ago, he's been there since the 70's and he has tough, tough competition. Fortunately, in a way, he has two competitors but it will likely be enough to do him in.

Fascinating stuff. I know I'll stay tuned in.

Links:  Congressman Rangel Battles For Political Survival

The Cochran-McDaniel ad wars

Politics, elections and government in America today

Our government legislators and representatives have become prostitutes. Prostitutes in the truest sense of the word, to and for money, to and from businesses, corporations and the wealthy for money so they can afford their election campaigns and they can continue to remain in their political positions. It's constant. It is in no way even subtle. They're not sexual prostitutes, of course, but people exchanging money with a quid pro quo, certainly.

This is not healthy. This is not good for our nation.

Not good for the people or the nation in any way.

It only serves the wealthy and the corporations.


We must fight for change.

Things that are weakening America

I got to thinking of things that are actually weakening America, as a nation and came up with a short but, I think, rather powerful list:

1)  The insanely, absurdly, obscenely, even immorally far-too-high costs of health care in our country and our inability to do anything about it. We pay more for health care in this country than any other people or nation, we have the worst health results of the top 17 industrialized nations and more of us go bankrupt from health costs than any other reason in our country. And one political party wants to do nothing whatever about it;

2) Internet neutrality.  Allowing corporations and the already-rich the ability to charge us--and charge us a great deal--for the availability or for faster speeds of the internet.  It keeps us from being informed, from being educated, ultimately from being more tech-savvy and from innovating, creating and being competitive;

3) Our insanely high and extremely wasteful defense budget.  We outspend the entire world, let alone individual countries, many, many times over. And for what?  So we can fight some imaginary World War II?  Or III?

4) Campaign contributions. They allow the, again, already-wealthy and corporations to buy our legislators, their legislation and so, our laws, our government and ultimately, us.  It's insane. We shouldn't allow it;

5) Our elections and the campaigns for those elections. The campaigns are far, far too lang. England made them only so long---one month. (See link, below). And no political party spends any money whatever on these campaigns.  Our campaigns take too much away from our economy, in investment, otherwise, and our representatives don't spend enough time on the issues. Instead, they have to focus on fund-raising (selling themselves to the wealthy and corporations) and to elections and re-elections.  We just aren't that bright. Yet, anyway;

6)  Our endless wars. Our endless wars are weakening the nation from within and without.  It weakens our troops, our military, heck, it even makes our adversaries stronger. How's that for weakening us?  This is the 12th year of our war in Afghanistan. And for what? So we can "weaken the Taliban"? Or al Qaeda? Or so we can build back up that country or what? Why are we there? Why are we still there? What have we--or the world--to gain from this lunacy? I'd love to know. What's our goal now? What's the mission? And does our military know? Do our troops know?

7) Finally, because I don't want to just go on and on and I also don't want to merely drone on negatively----the do-nothing Congress. Not only are we weaker because they are, in fact, doing nearly nothing, they weaken us by not proposing and passing a jobs/infrastructure bill so we can get our economy and nation and people working and working well again. This last Congress is estimated by historians to be the least-productive ever. And this coming year, an election year, mind you, where less gets done than usual, they are scheduled, at present, to only work 97 days, total. Out of the whole year.  And still get their entire $174,000/yr salary.

Folks, we gotta' get busy.

Links:  

Why does health care cost so much in America?

The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill

Net neutrality

List of countries by military expenditures

Most Americans want Congress to cut obscene military budget

End the Obscene Amounts of Money in Campaigns

We could learn a lot from the U.K. election 

America's New Strategy: Endless War(s)

A decade after the 9/11 attack, Americans live in an era of endless war

Do-nothing Congress: Lawmakers pass more blame than bills

And who wins from all this?  The wealthy and corporations:

Lobbyists cash in on do-nothing Congress

Why we must fight to get the big money out of our government

Why we must fight to end campaign contributions in elections in America.

Don't like our government?

What a question, right?  I mean, who does like our government of late?  Well, other than the wealthy and corporations who can and do get whatever they want because they can buy our legislators, their legislation, our laws and so, our government.  They love it, sure.  They're lining their pockets.

But us?

And the thing is, so many say they don't know what they or we should do to fix it, to fix the mess that is Washington, DC.

Well, the one thing I think we can all agree on, no matter if we're from the Left or Right or Middle or whatever.

That is, get the money out.

Get the big, ugly, corrupting influence of the money from the wealthy and corporations out of the government.

And to do that, it has to get out of our elections.

To that end, I propose five uncomplicated, clear, intelligent, straight-forward ways we could do just that--get the money out of our government.

First, legislate an end to the earlier ruling by the Supreme Court that is Citizens United .

To say that corporations can and should be able to unload untold millions and billions of dollars of their money into our elections is insanity. It weakens, badly, each of our own opinions and votes.  Corporations only exist for themselves and for their own existence and continued, ever-increasing profits. People exist for people and the nation exists for the betterment of the people. Those different needs and goals are all we need to know about why we need to work and legislate for us and not for corporations.

Second, Make it illegal to go to and from government positions and private companies. We have to kill the very famous "revolving door" from government to corporations and back. Once again, it puts the corporations first and people second, if even there.

Third, pass The American Anti-Corruption Act.

 



If a legislator is considering legislation that would effect a company, that same legislator shouldn't be able to take money or any remuneration of any sort from them. It makes sense. Again, it's not complicated.

Fourth, we have to fight to end campaign contributions, period, in the country. We have to get the money out of our election system so we consequently, get it also out of our government. We have to eliminate the legal ability for companies and the wealthy to give our representatives these bribes, these "contributions", this money sjust so they can buy whatever legislation they want, country--and people--be damned.  Note:  we also need to get this accomplished on the state level, state by state, so we, the people, win there, too.

Finally, in order to make the need for the money go away, we need to shorten our elections.  This is doable, eminently doable. England wisely did it years ago. We just need to legislate that campaigns are--what?--one month, two months long?  By law. It only goes against what we're used to, that's all. It doesn't make sense any longer.

And none of these take away anyone's right to free speech. They may still speak all they'd like. There would just be parameters to the money and the length of the campaigns, that's it.

So let's get started.  Let's make 2014 the year we begin this big, smart, necessary work.

Here's to us.

Link:  Citizens United : Dedicated to restoring our government to citizen

Next up, in Presidential elections...

Oh, yeah.

First black man elected president, next up, the first woman elected.

Bring it on.

Don't like long, seemingly unending elections?

Keep this quote in mind, then.

If you don't like these interminably long elections or the obscene corporate money in our election system and so, our government, keep this in mind.

It's all this way because we allow it.

Want shorter elections?

Do something about it.

Raise heck with your Senators and Representatives in Congress. Email them. Post as much on their Facebook page.

Don't just sit there and gripe.

Do something.

We can still fix this political mess that is America but it will take work.

And it has to come from us.

NPR asks a great question on our voting

The question NPR asked yesterday is one I've put forward before and it's a good and timely one. That is "Should Elections Be Held On Weekends?" I think the answer is partly tradition and partly so we keep the voter rolls down but really, voting in the middle of the week makes no sense at all. If we want voters voting and we want turnout at the polls--and I suggest most of America does, in fact--then why don't we vote on Saturdays when more people are off work? This would likely help both getting volunteers to man the booths as well as making it easier to get to them to do this civic duty. Oh, yeah, it's time this changed.

Ep. 238: February 17, 2012 - Overtime

Links: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/18/145397003/why-vote-on-tuesday-why-not-the-weekend; http://www.whytuesday.org/

A timely smile

Another American calling for shorter election campaigns

Hopefully this will catch on

Ms. Keli Goff, author, commentator & contributing editor to The Huffington Post, from TheLoop21.com from her column at The Huffington Post yesterday:

Maybe this is one issue where our country -- which I still consider the greatest in the world -- should consider taking a cue from our cousins across the pond. The duration of England's last round of elections? One month. That's right, one whole month. Four weeks for candidates to get their message out to voters, and that month included substantially fewer debates and television advertisements than we are bombarded with in this country. (Although that may have something to do with the country's restrictions on the influence of outside political groups in fundraising and political advertising, another area where we lag behind our allies.)


Shorter election campaigns and campaign finance reform.


Maybe one day, eh?


Link to original post:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keli-goff/what-england-can-teach-us_b_804112.html

Here's a real hoot

Okay, so it's projected that, even if, God forbid, we didn't win the White House this Fall, we Democrats are, it seems, absolutely supposed to be taking over the House and Senate.

Glory Hallelujah!

Sure, we're happy but we really have to keep our representative's "feet to the fire", as the saying goes and we all know.

There's a story out right now, showing that the big money from Big Pharmaceuticals is already flowing more to Democrats than Republicans. (Link to full story here:
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/10/drug-industry-dough-shifting-t.html).

What's really sick is that this information shows that, while it's flowing to Dems now--about 51% to Dems vs. 49% to Repub's--when the Repub's were in charge, it was 2 to 1 for them. It just goes to show you who they think they'll really get the most for their lobbying/bribing dollar from. With Republicans in charge, Corporate America knows it gets much more of what they want with them. Sure, there's still representatives they can buy with Democrats but they aren't as blatant about it. There's some things even a Democrat can't be bought for--so far.

We've just really got to push for reform.

And keep pushing.

One of the first things that should happen, for instance, is that the government should repeal what this President and Congress got and that is, making it illegal for our own government to negotiate lower drug and pharmaceutical costs for us, the American People.

Did you know about that? Unbelievable, really. They passed it some time ago, fairly quietly. Seems the media didn't make a big deal out of it and neither did the American public.

How stupid.

This should never have been allowed.

"Let's just let 'em take us right to the poor house! We don't need affordable medicine in this country! Their huge profits are far more important!"

What's amazing is that, usually, a small donation of from between $5,000.00 to $50,000.00 in contributions to different representatives can gain them multi-million dollar tax benefits.

It's gotta stop.

We have to keep saying "enough", again and again, until we change this government so it works for us again, instead of for Corporate America--and internationals.

Whatever you want to say about Ralph Nader, if you've read him over the years, he's right. Corporate America is now and has been for years, in charge of this country.

We need to take the money--the big money--out of government, away from lobbyists and our representatives and out of our elections. We need to shorten our election time so it's more like the English system. It'll take time but it's what we need to do.

It's time.