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But let’s have some fun with it. No, not talking about Obama vs Romney. That has been talked to death already. A different tack. What would YOU do if you were president. … Mos Def, rapper/poet, is not running for president. But it didn’t stop him from riffing on what President Def would do….. Fun to watch ….and Mos gives some solid answers…..while having fun with it all…. Greetings and thank you for the opportunity to express myself in an open manner. I don’t think what I have to say is what you’re looking for, as I am truly undecided in my decision for who should be the next president of our great country. I am not undecided for lack of knowledge of both of the main candidates, nor the third party candidates, as I also watched the third party debates moderated by Larry King and will be watching the final debate on Nov. 5 as well between Gov. Gary Johnson and Dr. Jill Stein. I am undecided because of a lack of information from all candidates because I have not heard any of them speak in support of a minority of people such as myself; the self employed independent contractor. Though I know this isn’t a closing statement, this is more of wanting to find out what all candidates have to say about the hard working self employed, one person businessman, so I will write my viewpoint to you.
First, let me begin by stating that I live in Virginia, and am an independent contractor, teaching the joy of music to the young through elderly in a small, local music store. I am responsible for paying my own taxes, and receive a 1099 at the end of the year. I have heard plenty about the middle and upper class, but I really don’t make enough money to be in either of those brackets. My income is in the poverty bracket, especially factoring in that I have a daughter in high school, and my wife is a cancer patient. We rely on my income to pay the bills, and had to apply for food stamps to try to make ends meet. This is the first time in my life that I’ve had to resort to this, and I’m not proud of the fact. In this area, I see a weakness in the President, as more and more families have had to go this route, and now I find myself in the same position. Neither the President or Governor Romney has mentioned the independent contractor, and I feel it is because we are such a small minority that our votes don’t matter to them, since we can’t help them win, which in turn, makes me feel that we aren’t in the numbers for economic growth. So neither of the forerunners have anything to make me feel secure in voting for them. The ACA presents a double jeopardy for me, as I can’t afford healthcare and will face a financial penalty for not having it. That takes away another point for the President, who has forced me into this predicament.
The only candidate that seems helpful for my situation is Governor Johnson, who wants to abolish the IRS, which would help me tremendously, and sadly he has no chance in winning. I like to say that our colors are Red, White, and Blue, but our only options are Red and Blue, due to PACS and SuperPacs pouring money to help them win. Third Party candidates should be equally represented as the White in a true democracy, where ethics rule over money. The debates should be open to all candidates on the ballot, so that the voters can make a truly informed decision come election day. Money shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but character, vision, wisdom and knowledge should be what we are voting for, representing the best of ALL candidates on the ballot. In this scenario, I see Governor Johnson as the best choice for me. I also agree with him and Jill that Marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed in the same manner as alcohol, reducing the cost of jailing offenders that are not criminals, except for the current laws regarding Marijuana. This would generate a lot of revenue that would be a part of an economic recovery.
It’s a sad time for me, and I don’t see the election changing anything for my circumstances. I do plan on voting, and from what I’ve written to you, it appears that through writing, my choice would have to be for Governor Johnson, though it would be a vote for my integrity, and not helping to elect the next president, so my decision would have to be for what I believe in, or voting for one of the forerunners that I feel would be the less of two evils, knowing that neither would help my situation.
I could go on, but I know have gone well over my 1,000 words, and I know they aren’t a closing statement for any particular candidate, but this issue is nonexistent in the race for the White House.
The problem that Washington has faced over the last 18 years is that Democrats in Congress still do not accept their minority status and have fought the Republican Party since the revolution of 1994. The partisanship increased 100 fold as a result of the Democrat Party reeling that the country had the audacity to oust them from 40 years of entrenched power. Since then, many Congressmen have come and gone, but the so-called “moderate” has evaporated. While the Republicans tend to elect the principled, the Democrats tend to elect the partisan.
Republican presidential candidates are always labeled as extreme – the Democrats favorite label for any Republican. In Mitt Romney, they have a hard time labeling him as such since Romney himself took more moderate positions in his race against Ted Kennedy and for governor. In a twist of good fate, this has worked well for Romney: Democrats cannot label him extreme-right, on one hand, or a flip-flopper, on the other, since you cannot have it both ways. Either you are an entrenched, inflexible extremist, or you have a history of showing empathy for your political opponents.
Mitt Romney’s greatest asset, as we are now discovering in the last week of the campaign, is his ability to work accross party lines, bridge the divide, and work to resolve tough issues. The proof is in his leadership as governor. This was Barack Obama’s mantle in 2008 – using the the ‘not blue states, not red states’ cry – but he has proven to be the most liberal, leftist political partisan the White House has ever seen. There is, in fact, no hope with him or for him.
Mitt Romney will clean up Washington, DC by working with anyone who is ready and willing to tackle the hard issues of today and not kick the can down the road for the next generations to solve.
No Labels co-founder, and former U.S. Comptroller General, David Walker, shares the scariest part of this year’s Halloween celebration: the monster math: We are very excited to introduce our newest contributing RP, Nick Paleologos. Nick was a Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for 16 years, and has since become a Tony and Emmy award winning theatre and film producer. We hope you enjoy his first piece, and many more in the weeks to come.
When I was a kid, I was blissfully unaware of the bone-crushing depression my dad lived through. He grew up on the hardscrabble streets of Lowell, Massachusetts—the son of Greek immigrant parents who were living in a cold-water flat known then (and now) as “The Acre.” My dad (at far right in photo) was nine years old when Franklin Roosevelt beat Herbert Hoover for president in 1932. Hoover was a handsome guy who made a ton of money in the mining industry. By 1914, Hoover was so wealthy he was actually quoted as saying “If a man has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty, he is not worth much.” The country clearly agreed. Between 1921 and 1929 (the first year of Hoover’s presidency) the top income tax rate for worthy millionaires like himself was slashed from 73% to 24%. Result? The Great Depression. By the time Roosevelt took over from Hoover, unemployment was at 25%, two million Americans were flat-out homeless, and all the banks in 32 of the 48 states (including the NY Federal Reserve) had slammed the doors shut on their depositors. On Saturday afternoon March 4, 1933 Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address. Everybody in America (including my dad) was huddled around the radio waiting to hear what the new president had to say:
You’re right. I am afraid.
How did this happen?
What can we do?
Does that mean we all might have to pay a little more?
That’s what Franklin Delano Roosevelt told my father and millions of others in 1933. Within a hundred days of that speech, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was formed. For the next decade, millions of unemployed young Americans found jobs in national forests and state parks all over America. My dad went to Vermont. It was dependable, physical labor from which the country greatly benefited. For his part, dad earned $30 a month, of which $25 was required to be sent back home to his family. So when FDR sounded the call to arms in December of 1941, my father was only too happy to return the favor. He signed up to fight for his country in the Pacific. At the end of World War II, when dad stepped off his PT Boat—proud, penniless, and newly unemployed—the president wanted him to go to college. Even though dad could not afford to, FDR believed that going to college was so important for America’s future that he insisted upon the country paying for dad’s education. Under the GI Bill, dad went to college and became a lawyer. In addition, eight million other veterans went to college, or to vocational training schools, or received low cost mortgages and loans to start businesses. And what a difference they made. NBC’s Tom Brokaw dubbed them the “Greatest Generation.” But they were really Roosevelt’s Kids. Because the country FDR gave them was built upon his conviction that freedom from fear of destitution was crucial to unleashing America’s limitless potential–a belief that largely prevailed…until 1980. That was the year that another affable, popular president was elected. In Ronald Reagan’s first inaugural address he took the country in a profoundly different direction. “In this present crisis” Reagan famously declared, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” In the three plus decades since that assertion (except for a brief interlude in the 90’s) America returned with a vengeance to the philosophy that characterized the Roaring Twenties: tax cuts for the wealthy, Wall Street run amok, and banks acting more like casinos than caretakers—with the same catastrophic result. Baby boomers–who grew up in Roosevelt’s America where the cumulative income growth of the bottom 90% outpaced the top 1% by more than four to one—have only recently realized that during the past three decades in Reagan’s America (our working lifetime) the American economy has gone ass over tea kettle in the opposite direction. The top 1% outpaced the bottom 90% by a staggering 25 to 1. In other words, during the Roosevelt decades (1945 to 1980) as the country got richer, the biggest winner was a rapidly growing middle class. During the Reagan decades (1980 till now) practically all of the wealth created in America ended up in the hands of the top 1%. But don’t take my word for it. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman stated flatly, “There’s no measure I can think of by which the U.S. economy has done better since 1980 than it did over an equivalent time span before 1980.” So when the Great Recession ravaged our country between 2008 and 2010 (according to the Federal Reserve) what little wealth left for the middle class during the Reagan decades (mostly home equity) was all but wiped out. Read the rest of… Imagine a political party “really” wanting America governed progressively. Imagine its platform stressing social justice, human and civil rights, peace, disarmament, and other populist policies. The two-party duopoly may say they support progressive values but upon closer analysis they are actually spurned.
Presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein of America’s Green Party believes another United States is possible but another party is necessary.
She fully embraces the Green Party’s ‘Green New Deal’ platform. The Green New Deal is the only detailed program from any political party for moving America quickly out of crisis into a secure, sustainable future.
Inspired by FDR New Deal that helped us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the ‘Green New Deal’ will provide similar relief and create an economy that makes our communities sustainable, healthy and just.
Here are some but not all of the policies Dr. Stein and the Green Party proposes.
Dr. Stein believes our country cannot truly move forward until the roots of inequality are pulled up, and the seeds of a new, healthier economy are planted. Thus she supports an economic bill of rights that ensures all people:
1. The right to employment through a full employment program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative, offering public sector jobs when private sector jobs are not available;
2. Workers rights including the right to a living wage, to a safe workplace and to organizing a union without fear of firing or reprisal;
3. The right to quality healthcare achieved through a single-payer Medicare-for-All program;
4. The right to a tuition-free, quality, federally funded, local controlled public education from pre-school through college;
5. The right to decent affordable housing, including an immediate halt to all foreclosures and evictions by creating a federal bank with local branches to take over homes with distressed mortgages and either restructuring the mortgages to affordable levels, or renting the homes by expanding rental and home ownership assistance;
6. The right to accessible and affordable utilities, expanded Internet for all, and public transportation through democratically run, publicly owned corporations that operate at cost and not for profit;
7. The right to fair taxation distributed in proportion to earnings and one╒s ability to pay. In addition, corporate tax subsidies will be made transparent by detailing them in public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks.
Let’s start with the President’s record. He was sworn in facing the worst economic conditions in 80 years, and with only three Republican votes enacted an economic stimulus agenda that saved or created 1.4 to 3.3 million jobs. The stimulus worked. He saved General Motors and Chrysler from collapse, signed Wall Street reform legislation and, to top it off, drove through Congress the most important health care reform since the 1960s. He brought our troops back from Iraq as promised. Obama rang up historic accomplishments in the teeth of fierce Republican opposition even to proposals (like Obamacare) with a strong Heritage Foundation roots. In a second term President Obama is committed to further spending restraint and entitlement reform as long as the deficit-expanding Bush tax cuts are, for the super-wealthy, repealed. He’ll make immigration reform and strengthening America’s education system important priorities.
The ideas, bundled into worldviews, which define the parties today will shape the administration of the winner on November 6th. For most congressional Republicans today and their active supporters, government routinely infringes upon personal liberty, undermines self-reliance and is generally inefficient and incompetent. Since government is the problem, taxes should be cut, regulations reduced and—somehow—all be well in time. How that will happen is a matter of faith, not evidence. Republicans would roll back health care coverage for more than 30 million Americans who will finally obtain it through “Obamacare.” They deny the overwhelming scientific consensus about the threat of climate change. The economic plan consists of vague “free market” generalities. People who don’t believe in government don’t run it well. That’s one lesson from the George W. Bush administration. That’s why, given the enormous challenges of making the federal government work well, it should be left in the hands of those who are willing to try. Read the rest of… I’m the proud owner of a uterus, and I’d like to be in charge of it. Period. (And yes, really bad pun intended.) No matter how many positions Romney takes on female reproductive rights (and he’s taken more positions than are in the Kama Sutra), we have to look at his party platform and his choice of running mate, not to mention his unwillingness to withdraw his endorsement from candidates like Richard Mourdock. You know it’s bad when Romney comes across as a moderate, because he actually would allow an abortion exception in cases of rape . . . excuse me? And as for the pundits and online commentators who wonder why so many women are ‘quibbling about irrelevant subjects like women’s stuff instead of the economy’? Even the best economy doesn’t matter to a woman who can’t control her own body, on top of the fact that the GOP also doesn’t believe that women deserve pay equity, or insurance coverage of birth control – and those ARE economic issues, by the way. (Plus anyone who was alive before Roe v. Wade might recall that making abortions illegal doesn’t end them, it just makes them more dangerous. I’m with Bill Clinton in hoping abortions will be safe, legal, and rare.) Add in all of Romney’s mis-statements and condescension to 47%ers, like my mom who’s on social security and depends on Medicare, on top of his refusal to release tax returns, his belief that millionaires should pay a lower tax rate than I do, and his plan to return to the same unregulated, ‘trickle-down economics’ that caused the recession in the first place, his reliance on Bush-Cheney-era neocon hawks, oh, and did I mention his latest lie about Jeep moving to China, even running an ad after Chrysler explicitly refuted that story?) Fortunately, before I start ranting too much, I’ll take a break and launch into song! Everyone says – and the polls suggest – that this year’s election is going to be close. Normally any candidate who keeps his money overseas and who has made his living sending jobs overseas wouldn’t even stand a chance of being elected to the highest office in the land, especially at a time of grim economic times. Romney may win this election, despite all of his flaws, mainly because Obama has done such a mediocre job the last four years at best. Instead of dismantling all of the Bush Era policies, he let them all ride. Many of my Democratic friends are less than enthusiastic about their President because of this. But, I would simply point out to the American people, especially the undecided voters to think about the points that I considered before making up my own mind.
Do you want more of your countrymen to go hungry, lose their homes, suffer and die? If you do, vote for Romney because he says he will increase Defense spending. That will only come from the Social Programs and also ultimately RAISE your taxes. OR would you rather take money from the guys who wasted TRILLIONS of your money in Viet Nam and Iraq, Afghanistan, etc? IF you are not a war-mongerer, like the Republicans then you must vote for Obama. The choices are GRIM either way. It’s only what you feel you can support as the least grim choices we must make. That is the way you should make your decision this year. And it always helps to remember at election time. Which side of the bread is your butter? Do Republicans ever give you or your family anything to make your lives a little better? THINK about your own family for a while before going to the polls. Mike Mathiesen is the Founder of Go Foods Global, Santa Cruz, CA My fellow Americans,
We face serious challenges that demand all our efforts as citizens working together to build a brighter future for our nation, to ensure prosperity, wellbeing and safety for all our people. I pledge to work tirelessly and seek solutions that are sound today and instill hope for our children’s tomorrow. Three areas of primary concern to me are jobs, access to health care and keeping America safe. I believe that our troops and their families must be cared for. When wounded soldiers return, we must provide them the best possible care in a timely manner. It is not in the interest of national security to engage in military actions without thoughtful discussion and solid funding. America is not safe without financial stability. Staggering deficits serve to mortgage our children’s and grandchildren’s future.
Concern for our nation’s safety must rise above partisanship. I believe that the people must have faith that our government will do its job, and that the people’s representatives in Washington will stop the politics that end in gridlock and waste. Partisan politics endangers progress and interferes with oversight of the agencies that monitor the safety of food and drugs, cars, trains and planes, and workplaces. It is extremely important to have a healthy, growing economy. First, we must keep the jobs we have. National policy must be fair to our workers. I pledge to support policies that help working families. Opportunities for job training, re-training and lifelong learning are essential to economic stability in our country. Improving our infrastructure will provide much needed jobs. I will be vigilant in seeking resources to bring new technologies to compete with and lead the world in innovation and securing our growing energy needs. Access to affordable health care should be a given in this country. Healthy citizens are more able to make positive contributions to this nation. I support making affordable health insurance possible for everyone. The middle class have been burden with skyrocketing healthcare costs for over a decade and it has stagnated wages for the middle class. With a thriving middle class, we will be able to start really reducing our deficit and stop just kicking the can down the road. It is our civic duty as a nation, to build the middle class back up along with allowing prosperity to flourish in a free market society. Because when you have a strong middle class, you have a stronger nation. I ask for your support in becoming your United States President. |
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