Thank you for your service Marine, but Tea Braggers (like you) have voted Republican and are going to vote Republican regardless what I believe or say.

Oops forgot to mention Justin, this has been the case here in Ohio.

Voter anger may possibly break down these barriers of unfair voter registration that favors two party dominance, however don’t hold your breath waiting for corporate dominated mainstream media to sing the praises of any multiparty political movement. It would make it too difficult for the owners of mainstream media to control our elections with big money.

Independent parties like the Libertarian and Green do half decent at national level but have a long, long, long, way to go at neighborhood, town, city, and state grass roots organizing.

Frankly that is why Ross Perot, Ron Paul, Ralph Nader and such cannot win a national race against either a Democrat or Republican, because Independent parties are not good at organizing at the grassroots level. Even if unfair voter registration were lifted in many states that does not mean that the Greens, Libertarian, Constitutionalists, Socialists, Communists or whomever could raise the money or votes needed to compete with established parties.

That said, and despite attacks on me to the contrary I’m all for a multiparty political system that would include even fascists for such a system would dilute their undue power and influence to bully and scare people.

The 2 Corporate parties have been bouncing the American public back and forth like a ping pong ball for decades. There is really no hope with either. 3rd parties are almost completely blocked out by unfair registration processes and the American “free” press. For what it’s worth: http://www.gp.org/index.php AND http://www.lp.org/

Thank you for your links to two truly INDEPENDENT parties, as long as they do not front for the Republican Party like the Tea Braggers do, your links are WELCOME. (though the Libertarian, my party does comes too close to being Republican or Ron Paul would have accepted the Libertarian nomination offered him)

In fact, I welcome links to any multiparty movement as long as it is not a FRONT for either the Democratic or Republican party.

“Think Obstructionism!!! They [Republicans] wouldn’t need to do it if they were exactly the same nor would they need to be Rovian revisionist history writers when that history is readily available to produce to show total hypocrisy. Dems aren’t much better then TEA {once GOP} but exactly the same, give me a break. One thing about being from neither camp you learn the players Real Well!!”

“Put that on CNN or FOX discussion boards. The tea baggers need to know the conservative court upheld corporate interests over the people.”

Now a word from our allies in the so-called War on Terror (giggle) I believe this comes either from a NATO allied citizen in Europe or Down Under.

“It would probably be more sensible, if by chance you want to become a democracy one day, to ask for much more debate about policies and hear less exaggeration in your juvenile corporate media about what a star the Presidential candidate is. Less charisma bullshit and more realism would help to clarify the issues. That way people would not be disappointed with Barrack Obama because he would not have promised so much (and delivered so little).

Citizens of the rest of the world, where the bombs are raining down and people are starving, we are very disappointed that our American friends got it so wrong yet again – and we are running out of time, options and patience.

So, what we want is for the USA to end the wars, declared and undeclared, close all the 700 aggression bases around the world (and torture centres), do business the way others do business, playing by the rules, not standing on our necks and behave generally like a good world citizen – not a rogue state.

Get yourselves a President who is not beholden to the war-making industry and everyone will be happier.”

Willy Bach

“January 21, 2010 statement from Doris “Granny D” Haddock in response to the Supreme Court’s decision today to kill campaign finance reform.

Ten years ago, I walked from California to Washington, D.C. to help gather support for campaign finance reform. I used the novelty of my age (I was 90), to garner attention to the fact that our democracy, for which so many people have given their lives, is being subverted to the needs of wealthy interests, and that we must do something about it. I talked to thousands of people and gave hundreds of speeches and interviews, and, in every section of the nation, I was deeply moved by how heartsick Americans are by the current state of our politics.

Well, we got some reform bills passed, but things seem worse now than ever. Our good government reform groups are trying to staunch the flow of special-interest money into our political campaigns, but they are mostly whistling in a wind that has become a gale force of corrupting cash. Conditions are so bad that people now assume that nothing useful can pass Congress due to the vote-buying power of powerful financial interests. The health care reform debacle is but the most recent example.

The Supreme Court, representing a radical fringe that does not share the despair of the grand majority of Americans, has today made things considerably worse by undoing the modest reforms I walked for and went to jail for, and that tens of thousands of other Americans fought very hard to see enacted. So now, thanks to this Court, corporations can fund their candidates without limits and they can run mudslinging campaigns against everyone else, right up to and including election day.

The Supreme Court now opens the floodgates to usher in a new tsunami of corporate money into politics. If we are to retain our democracy, we must go a new direction until a more reasonable Supreme Court is in place. I would propose a one-two punch of the following nature:

A few states have adopted programs where candidates who agree to not accept special-interest donations receive, instead, advertising funds from their state. The programs work, and I would guess that they save their states more money than they cost by reducing corruption. Moving these reforms in the states has been very slow and difficult, but we must keep at it.

But we also need a new approach––something of a roundhouse punch. I would like to propose a flanking move that will help such reforms move faster: We need to dramatically expand the definition of what constitutes an illegal conflict of interest in politics.

If your brother-in-law has a road paving company, it is clear that you, as an elected official, must not vote to give him a contract, as you have a conflict of interest. Do you have any less of an ethical conflict if you are voting for that contract not because he is a brother-in-law, but because he is a major donor to your campaign? Should you ethically vote on health issues if health companies fund a large chunk of your campaign? The success of your campaign, after all, determines your future career and financial condition. You have a conflict.

Let us say, through the enactment of new laws, that a politician can no longer take any action, or arrange any action by another official, if the action, in the opinion of that legislative body’s civil service ethics officer, would cause special gain to a major donor of that official’s campaign. The details of such a program will be daunting, but we need to figure them out and get them into law.

Remarkably, many better corporations have an ethical review process to prevent their executives from making political contributions to officials who decide issues critical to that corporation. Should corporations have a higher standard than the United States Congress? And many state governments have tighter standards, too. Should not Congress be the flagship of our ethical standards? Where is the leadership to make this happen this year?
This kind of reform should also be pushed in the 14 states where citizens have full power to place proposed statutes on the ballot and enact them into law. About 70% of voters would go for a ballot measure to “toughen our conflict of interest law,” I estimate. In the scramble that would follow, either free campaign advertising would be required as a condition of every community’s contract with cable providers (long overdue), or else there would be a mad dash for public campaign financing programs on the model of Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut. Maybe both things would happen, which would be good.

I urge the large reform organizations to consider this strategy. They have never listened to me in the past, but they also have not gotten the job done and need to come alive or now get out of the way.

And to the Supreme Court, you force us to defend our democracy––a democracy of people and not corporations––by going in breathtaking new directions. And so we shall.

Doris “Granny D” Haddock
Dublin, New Hampshire

Posted by Jay D Alexander on Veterans Today Facebook page

Tom, Grunt, Houston, Texas

Bob, I kept nodding my head as I agreed with everything you wrote.

I totally agree with you when you talk about the holdovers from the Bush legacy as one of the main reasons for the disillusionment, the continuing hawk mentality with continuing wars.

You know my feelings about the Pentagon and Neo-Con’s essentially controlling Obama because he was so naive that he felt there could be bi-partisanship and kept on all of Bush’s hawks and neoconservatives and then has let Hilary Hawk influence his thinking as well.

I have had difficulty getting my head around the health reform bill, perhaps because I didn’t really pay attention. LOL I did, however, suspect what you confirmed, that the health care industry had a win and that there were no real cost controls.

As a former military spouse, I got a chuckle out of the gent who said that Brown and the Republicans scared the bejesus out of every Disabled Veteran, Military Dependent and Retiree, by telling them they’d have to pay the no-health care insurance excise tax.

If only the Democrats could stay on message like that and not be wimps.

I agree with you that the only decent health care reform would be if the fed govt controlled the health insurance and Pharmaceutical companies.

It’s great having you give these opinions as a former neo-con, because I feel you’re spot on.

And you are also spot on in terms of the failure to listen to the liberal Demo’s and liberal Independents, and how important it is to start listening and mobilizing before there is a fascist backlash.

Like you, I am losing hope, it’s not the change I hoped for either. Democrats Abroad had a meeting several days ago. I decided not to go. I told Lisa it was a waste of time because the Demo’s in power weren’t listening to any of us abroad. It’s a shame the meeting wasn’t after the loss in Mass. , as they might listen now.

I plan on sending your article to Lisa, who is the organiser for Democrats Abroad in the Brisbane area? It might help explain to her why I was so disappointed, disappointed enough that I couldn’t be bothered just going to a talk-fest where our ideas wouldn’t be heeded.

Bobbie Christian

You got one thing right about Massachusetts, Republicans and disgruntled Independents, who did not vote Democrat or for Obama in the first place did not stay home. They came out in droves as disenchanted Obama and Democrat voters sit this one out.

We know the drill. The far-right extremists of the Republican Party were ticked that John McCain got the Republican nomination. Palin was a last minute joke (with a dysfunctional family) to appease the religious right.

Republicans were so DISUNITED that Ron Paul put a hurting to McCain’s chances of winning the Presidency more so than Ralph Nader put a dent in Obama’s.

The domestic terrorist on the religious right combined with out of control Tea Braggers tore the Republican Party apart and now they want to put it back together again with a vengeance in their radical image of a fascist revolution.

Frankly, what Republicans really don’t want to see happen is Democrats in Congress and the White House embracing their base and independents.

They know that if Democrats do, Republican dreams of a fascist nation run by gun toting right-wing militias will be put on hold better yet neutralized.

Yep, the Dems wasted all their energy on health care reform that I can agree with Republicans on, but I for one would much rather prefer a SOCIALIST American Republic over a FASCISTS Nationalist America any day or at least during my lifetime.

After I’m dead and gone, you can have your right-wing FASCISTS revolution and nation.

Patriots, my a–, the founding fathers never had in mind MOB RULE, people showing up at town hall meetings shaking their fists, toting guns to threaten elected political leaders of any party, and acting the fool. Go ahead continue acting the fool, but please leave your automatic weapons at home.

Lord forbid if anyone who disagrees with you has to one day take up arms to protect themselves from YOU. No it is not the fact the others disagree with me or those who think like me that is UNPATRIOTIC. It is shoving your fascists, nationalistic, views down our throats that is. That’s not patriotism, call it what it is arrogant nationalism combined with scare tactics and shock troops. The right-wing in Germany used it quite well to rally the angry and disgruntled to their cause and scape goats.

You want another American civil war, and you are armed to the teeth for one.

Fine have at it, but the Union will be preserved as it was from 1861 to 1865, and guess who the Rebels will be this time. The
citizens of the Confederate States of America also called themselves patriots and look where it got them.

Tea Braggers are about as Independent as Karl Rove, and their patriotism as exploited as patriotism can be. Can you spell NATIONALIST!

BTW the link to your right-wing nut video is disapproved. This is not a neocon website or forum. As progressives, we welcome your disagreement but not your links or videos.

Democrats and Independents stayed home period. That is a fact. It is more important that the Democratic establishment believe it not anyone outside that establishment.

Tea Braggers have voted Republican and are going to vote Republican regardless what I believe or say.

Patriotic my butt, Tea Braggers are about as patriotic as Storm Troopers and just as NATIONALISTIC. First you wrap yourselves with the flag and bible then you hide behind it or use it to yell and act the fool at Town Hall Meetings.

Tea Braggers are in fact shock troops for the Republican Party just as Hard Hats were shock troops for the Nixon administration against the Vietnam Pro-Peace movement.

How many ‘Republican politician’s’ town hall meetings did you crazy people crash compared to Democrat – COME ON NOW. Frankly the best defense for such an offensive attack on democracy and civil debate is a good OFFENSE.

Maybe it is way past time for the real angry voters to do as the Tea Braggers did and crash every Town Hall Meeting both Republicans and Democrats hold during the rest of 2010 leading up to November instead of hitting the streets of Washington, D.C. in protest?

Tea Braggers are a front for the Republican Party pissed off that your candidate(s) did not win in 2008. Yep, just because Ron Paul didn’t get the Republican nomination you are ticked that heavens forbid a black man (well mixed black) became President of the United States. Now, you are out for revenge and got it in Massachusetts that’s not spin that’s the real INCONVENIENT TRUTH.

Frankly, it was not the Democrats or Obama that won the election in 2008, although they arrogantly believe they did.

It was the fact that Bush screwed up his administration so bad that it allowed the first man of color to be elected Commander-In-Chief and that really fired up you racists Tea Baggers.

Bull crap racism hiding behind patriotism that is really NATIONALISM.

What you think everyone in America is ignorant enough to buy that scam?

Yep, it is time for ‘out with the Tea Braggers’ and ‘in with the real Angry Voters’ at Town Hall Meetings this spring, summer, and fall.

If WE meet you there then things will really get interesting for our politicians, and mainstream media.

“Finally, A article written with some sense.”

That about says it all.

Thank you blood soul from Morgan State in Maryland my original home state.

Bobby Hanafin

http://www.gp.org/index.php

http://www.lp.org/

A poll was conducted immediately after the election last night of 1000 registered Massachusetts voters who voted for Obama in 2008. Half of the respondents voted in the MA special election for Republican candidate Scott Brown; half of the respondents did not vote at all. The poll definitively shows that voters who stayed home and voters who switched party allegiance share very common frustration and anger at an economy that continues to work better for Wall Street than Main Street.

There’s a real populist anger out there. Voters worry that Democrats in power have not done enough to combat the policies of the Bush era. Both sets of voters wanted stronger, more progressive action on health care reform, as well. In summary, the poll shows that the party who fights corporate interests—especially on making the economy work for most Americans—will win the confidence of the voters. [More here →]http://pol.moveon.org/brownpoll/

Frankly, fighting corporate interests means of course fighting the Pentagon and Defense Industry.

39% said that the Democrats did not fight hard enough to combat the policies of the Bush administration. They sure as heck were not going to vote Republican.
35% said the Democrats were about right in their emphasis on health care but still did not VOTE. They sure as heck were not going to vote Republican.
12% said the Democrats tried too hard on health care, and did not turn out to VOTE Democrat. Though a narrow margin, I believe these folks got it right. Bobby Hanafin
24% were not sure what to do, but were not going to VOTE Democrat or Republican.