A Good Week for the President

On the economy, President Biden, faced with terrible worldwide inflationary pressures, has led the US to the lowest inflation of any of the G7 countries -- inflation still hurts but we ARE doing better than most of the free world. 

In foreign relations, faced with the worst war in Europe since World War Two, President Biden has united the west against the fascist Putin -- the authoritarian that his predecessor praises. 

Yes, Joe Biden is even older than me! Like me he moves slower than he used to. Like me he sometimes stumbles over words that he knows well. But the man knows his stuff. His heart is all-American. He loves the Constitution and he respects the rights of, and seeks ways to work with, even his opposition. He has put together a top notch team throughout the executive branch.

He also has a spine of steel and a heart of gold to go with deep knowledge and sound judgement and great experience hammering out agreements with friends and foes.

I am proud to have been an early supporter of this good man for President and am very proud to support his re-election. That's why I am a tiny part of the thousands of Americans who helped him raise more than twice the campaign donations of the twice-impeached and soon to be thrice-indicted opposition. 

Support our Republic. Support President Biden and Vice President Harris.

Here's what Pulitzer Prize winner Eugene Robinson wrote today:

Click this picture to read Eugene Robinson's column: 
From NATO’s summit to the economy, Biden is racking up wins

Gleaning Facebook: Will Rogers

Wise words from Will Rogers -- 

 

Gleaning Facebook: Rome Metro - Great Place to Live!

Tagging John Carlin, great place to raise a young’n’,

Renata Carlin Great place to retire!

 

Gleaning Facebook: No Man Is An Island

This is absolute truth. Those among the wealthy who in their arrogance get to a place of entitlement where they truly believe, as some do, that they have "earned" billions of dollars, are deluded. No one "earns" a billion. However admirably someone has shown discipline, intelligence, originality, wisdom or other worthy traits in amassing a fortune, they have also benefited from good... um... fortune. As John Donne wrote, and as Warren eloquently points out in other words, no man is an island.

In my opinion:

• entrepreneurs should expect a good return for their successful efforts.

• investors should expect a good return for wise efforts.

• businesses should earn good returns for supplying needed products or services

BUT:

• a business should not be viable unless it can pay a living wage to each of its full-time employees

• every business owes the public reasonable safety and health and environmental precautions as a minimum requirement for viability.

• it is perfectly fair and a reasonable expectation to require everyone of us to pay higher taxes on each additional thousand dollars we earn each year. The more a person earns the more they have profited from the freedoms. infrastructure, natural resources, and labor of the nation as a whole.

Comments

Deborah Lake Dawson So happy someone said this, I have gotten verbally attacked for saying this. Mary Lake what I have tried to explain to you.
J Grant Magness Terrell Shaw, does anyone know if Elizabeth Warren has herself ever owned a factory?
Terrell Shaw I don't know, Grant. Do you know if Trump has ever worked for an hourly wage, depended on a next paycheck to cover an electric bill or the price of groceries, or, IDK, stood in a grocery store check-out line?

Ruth Baird Shaw J. Grant Magness and Terrell Shaw, two of the greatest men I know... continue to love and respect one another in spite of political differences..
J Grant Magness Terrell, I'm not a Trumpian, but I am not aware of him having ever spoken degradingly or passed judgement on those who have worked hourly. That would be analogous to Warren criticizing factory owners as one with no such experience. Blessings, G
Liz Tyler This is a person who REALLY tells it like it is. Our best route to a better outcome for our country, kids and grandkids is to LISTEN to her and put this knowledge to work.
Sam Burnham 1) People that own factories pay taxes for those roads as well. They often pay A LOT in taxes. 2) Some folks on those roads have never and will never pay taxes. Ever. 3) Many factories provide their own security teams, industrial fire brigades, and even EMS personnel. A fire at our local paper mill is often extinguished long before the local fire department arrives. 4) It's interesting that poor people and people who have failed in business have the same roads, same services, and the same educated workforce as the successful people. Interesting. Now, if y'all would like to discuss "underlying social contracts", oh I'd love to have that conversation!
Jeannie Blakely 1) Perhaps some factories do, but many do NOT. Pfizer for instance paid no US income taxes from 2010 to 2012. Fedex made over 6 billion in the last three years and hasn't paid a dime in federal taxes. And they obviously use the roads to move their goods. Maybe you're cool with Fedex letting you and me foot the bill for their roads. I'm not that generous of spirit! http://billmoyers.com/.../10-companies-that-dodge.../ 2) Really? They got around the gas tax when they filled their cars up? I would like to talk to them and find out how. 3) And many do not. Or rely on our excellent police and firefighters when things get out of hand (like the huge fire at Bekaert plant here in Rome a couple of years ago - thanks taxpayer supported cops and firefighters for evacuating the area, helping to contain the fire and keeping everyone safe!!). Should we just trust factories to be able to "handle it" even when the potential damage (as in the Bekaert example) can affect our citizens? http://www.northwestgeorgianews.com/.../article_c928b9fa... 4) And it's interesting that you seem to view a meme that I read as a message of "everyone benefits so everyone should pay their fair share" as a rich vs. poor issue. I feel incredibly lucky to live in this country and to benefit directly from all of the services the government helps provide. My kids are well educated, I drink clean water, I enjoy our local parks and I'm employed at a publicly funded institution. I don't love paying my taxes (who does) but I understand that a lot of these things I enjoy are directly related to me doing that. I just wish that some of these super rich business owners that don't want to pay into a system that they get huge benefits from would understand this as well.

BILLMOYERS.COM 10 Corporate Tax Dodgers You Should Know About | BillMoyers.com 10 Corporate Tax Dodgers You Should Know About | BillMoyers.com
Sam Burnham 1) By simply replacing our Marxist tax code with a simple consumption tax, all loopholes will be gone. 2) By the time you factor in the EITC, their tax burden is reduced to zero or, in many cases, they actually get paid in lieu of paying taxes. 3) I'm quite familiar with the Bekaert fire, trust me. 4 The message is not everyone benefits/everyone pays. The message is, the government is the only reason anyone makes it in this world. You're nothing without the government. Which is not just inaccurate, it's a lie. Allow me to add that I'm obscenely familiar with the Bekaert fire. Thanks for the kudos. And back on #4, my point is we all have the same "benefits". If you can look at a successful person with a straight face and say they didn't earn it, why doesn't everyone succeed? They all have the same benefits. Why do people fail?
Laurie Craw Sam Burnham Everybody who operates a car on our roads pays the state gas tax for transportation, which the Republican General Assembly raised last year. Sales and excise taxes hurt the working poor more than the rest of us.
Sam Burnham Laurie Craw the poor and some middle class people receive a tax refund in the form of the EITC even when they paid no income taxes. This amount in welfare receipts is often more than they would have paid in taxes for gas and other taxes. Therefore they actually paid 0 (or were even paid) in taxes. Pocahontas Warren is a joke.
John Carlin But like she said, the government shields those investments from marauding bands of criminals who steal to get by. Yes you loose a lot to the bureaucracy but you'd lose it to violent criminals anyway. And to other countries with their own violent criminals.
Sam Burnham The government IS a marauding band of criminals who steal to get by. What's the difference?
Terrell Shaw The government is you and me Sam.
Sam Burnham By design, not by practice. If the government was limited to what's specifically listed in the Constitution, we would still be the government.
Deborah Lake Dawson Hydrageas blooming and backyard full of camillia group cover is blooming.

Gleaning Facebook: Declining Deficits

If a Republican had the Obama economic record they'd be wanting to carve his image on Rushmore. Yes, it's still a deficit, but you can't get to surplus without first reducing the deficit, and we are on our way, steadily, in the right direction. (As we were under the last Democratic president: Clinton left us in surplus territory.)

Distribution of Wealth in the US: Imagined vs Actual

From Robert Reich: Take a look at the chart below and note the gap between the actual distribution of wealth in the United States (top bar), what Americans think the distribution is (second bar), and what they'd like it to be (bottom bar). If more Americans knew the truth, we'd have a better shot at changing what must be changed -- raising the minimum wage, expanding the EITC, raising the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, limiting the deductibility of CEO pay, making it easier to form labor unions, and increasing taxes at the top to pay for world-class education for all our kids. So, please, spread the truth.

 

Gleaning Facebook: Money in Politics (and more)

The party label is not all, but it is important.

If you love….

• gridlock,

• potholes,

• crumbling public schools,

• closed state parks,

• government shutdowns,

• meaningless saber-rattling,

• continued concentration of wealth in the bank accounts of the 1%,

• tying the hands of law enforcement in the fight against gun violence, and

• more Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United,

… then vote for the Tea Party Republicans

As for me, I'll vote for…

• liberty

• compromise

• good public schools

• great state parks open to the people who own them

• an open government

• tough diplomacy

• policies that promote the general welfare

• sensible gun policies that protect gun rights and the people, and

• overturning Citizens United and McCutcheon

… I'll vote Democratic.

Laurie Craw Eloquent as always, TS.

Jane Jameson Neither side accomplished anything, so having lofty ideals are unproven!

James Grant I would vote democratic but I think we need a third party as the two we have now are both corrupt and are are beholding to big business and big $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Michael J. Burton Seems a lot of Americans have a misbegotten notion that someday they will be billionaires. Duped again.

Terrell Shaw Billy, in a perfect world. But we have a two party system. There is no doubt that in 2000 the majority of the people preferred Al Gore to George W. Bush. But because some thought there needed to be someone who compromised less with the right, a significant number on the left voted for third party candidates like the very improbable Ralph Nader. So instead of an imperfect Al Gore, they got the shallow George W. Bush who embroiled us in two wars, cutting taxes while we were at war, appointing two extreme economic conservatives to the Supreme Court, and ignoring the environment, civil rights, and terror warnings. Al Gore might have infuriated the far left, but there'd be no Citizens United or McCutcheon atrocities, or abandonment of voter rights by the Supreme Court. The attacks of 2001 might have happened anyway, of course, but we'd have had a better chance of catching them with a President who respected the anti-terror effort that was in place. The extreme tax cuts would not have happened, and the Great Recession would not have happened IMO, but if it did, stronger measures would have been taken to overcome it, etc., etc., etc. In the real world, support the mavericks all you want up till the general election, but in the general, vote Democratic or you are, in effect, voting Tea Party.

Raymond Atkins What amazes me more than anything is how many "just folks" in the economic sense see their interests as being better served by the party of plenty (the Republican Party), when in fact the politicians aligned with that party enact legislation that harms regular people over and over again.

June Lovenbury Warfield Raymond, there are many people (on both sides) who base their decision on where the candidate stands on abortion and same sex marriage. The tea party side seems to want less government control in financial affairs and more government control in bedrooms. The democratic side seems to want more government control with things like contribution limitations (i.e., financial affairs) and less government control in bedrooms. Two quadrants are missing (more government in both financial and bedroom issues/less government in both financial and bedroom issues). IMHO

Raymond Atkins I think hot button issues such as abortion and same-sex couples are just that: hot button issues that are used as smoke screens. "Look over here while I vilify same sex marriages and don't look over there while I rob you blind."

James Grant Terrell I usually do vote Democratic because of what you stated However my hope is that people will see that the two parties are just the right and left of one party that owes its existence to maintaining the status quo. A system that maintains the influence of corporations and the ultra wealthy over the government that is now in all accords a “oligarchy'' a government of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%. What we need to do is get money out of the election system and stop treating corporations as if they have the same rights as people. Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed a constitutional amendment to restore the power of Congress and state lawmakers to limit campaign donations. I would also say that third parties have had a major influence on U.S. policy and political debate. The Socialists popularized the women’s suffrage movement. They advocated for child labor laws in 1904 and, along with the Populist Party, introduced the notion of a 40-hour work week, which led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

---------

From Robert Reich:

At a time when American democracy seems to be drowning under big money and a Supreme Court indifferent to its corrupting effects, as well as the distortions of gerrymandered districts and efforts by some states to suppress the votes of minorities, it's worth pausing to consider what Afghanis have just accomplished. Despite murderous Taliban attacks and vows to punish anyone who participated (identifiable for days by the ink on their fingers), long walks to polling stations followed by hours of waiting in the cold and rain, and a legacy of electoral fraud, Afghans have turned out in large numbers to vote for their next president and representatives. Just as remarkable: despite threats and intimidation, two women are running for vice-president -- the first time women have ever run for national office there -- and more women than ever are on provincial ballots.

Democracy is fragile but the determination to be heard is not. America is the cradle of modern democracy, and we are not going to allow it to succumb to the greed of a handful of billionaires or the bigotry of a handful of throwbacks. We're going to get big money out of our politics and protect every citizen's right to vote. We're going to return our democracy to the people. You with me?

----------------

Terrell Shaw
The rulings of the Roberts court are corrosive to liberty.The greatest potential harm of the Bush presidency, so far, has come after he left office. The Iraq war was a horrible, tragic, mistake. But we'll recover.The Citizens United/McCutcheon rulings may destroy our liberal democracy and replace it with an oligarchy. Soros? I am opposed to oligarchy even should the oligarch occasionally agrees with me. I do not want even a benevolent king.

Brian Barcomb
But wait.... The left cheer Roberts w his decision on Obamacare.

Terrell Shaw
Roberts got one half-right. 

Terrell Shaw
Do you support the Citizens united and McCutcheon rulings, Brian?

Raymond Atkins
In spite of this obviously flawed ruling, I am encouraged these days. The super rich were not able to buy the last two elections and I don't think they will be able to buy the next. I think the rest of us have reached the tipping point. We have had enough.

Terrell Shaw
You are correct that they failed to buy the last two presidential elections, … but they made great strides toward winning all sorts of other elections. Koch money is going to all sorts of races and influencing state and local legislation. And our government has been practically crippled by the 2010 Tea Party takeover of the people's House, enabled by GOP Gerrymandering, in turn enabled by the nationalization of even very local races. When I get a political or push-poll phone calls I alway chat up the guy/gal on the other end and find out where they are --- and they are low-paid folks who are usually happy to tell you. They are almost always in other states or even other countries. Money/publicity/advertising for Floyd County Republican candidates often comes from far away.

Neal Brackett
George Sorros and Warren Buffet are not super rich? I guess I wouldn't know. I have never played golf with either one... But our president has, many times. You never see Obama in the hood, just on the golf course.

Terrell Shaw
Repeating: "Soros? I am opposed to oligarchy even should the oligarch occasionally agree with me. I do not want even a benevolent king."
I also am not so stupid as to unilaterally disarm wile the Roberts court allows the other side to corrupt the system … at least Soros is working to limit the obscene political contributions that he is making toward those ends! Hows that for a paradox. But the Kochs have much greater resources and are much more secretive about their activities and have outspent Soros. Still I long for the day when we find a way to maximize disclosure and minimize the influence of money in politics. Until that day I hope Soros and others will continue to make donations on "my" side.
And our President gets to the "hood" more often than the avg chief executive, for heaven's sake. The party of the Bushes attacks the biracial kid that grew up in a broken home as somehow "elite". Sheesh.

Laurie Craw
Having great wealth, either inherited or earned, would be, it seems to me, a great responsibility. What I object to is using one's great wealth to buy political power when that wealth could do so much good. And I don't mean charity. The very wealthy have business skills and business contacts they could use to create new businesses that are models of social good on all levels while also being profitable. We could have full employment at living wages and little need for government welfare programs. We could have clean energy and virtually pollution-free and waste-less industry. The billions of private dollars spent on elections if redirected by wealthy people with a vision and a commitment to the betterment of society could solve most of the problems our governments are being forced to deal with.

Raymond Atkins
The hood?

Michael J. Burton
Travesty in the making.

----------------

Jane Jameson
You honestly believe this?

George Barton
It's called equivocation. The debt is still increasing, but at a slower rate, maybe. Read between the lines here, http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart...

USGOVERNMENTSPENDING.COM

Terrell Shaw
Yes, Jane, I more than believe it, after 67 years of breathing and over fifty years of observation, I know: the trickle-down faith of the let-free-enterprise-be-unfettered crowd does not work. Period.
Providing support to the real job creators (the consumers of the middle and lower classes) DOES raise all ships. In the period after WWII when unions were strong and taxes progressive we reduced deficits, the middle class grew and prospered, and America became the envy of the world.
When Reagan's "revolution" turned us away from that path we began a decline, during which the middle classes stagnated, the poor increased, and the rich cornered an ever increasing share of overall wealth. Without the partial reprieve of the nineties under Clinton, and the stimulus efforts of the Great Recession recovery under the last suddenly wide-eyed bit of W. and the first years of Obama, we'd be in even worse shape. That recovery has been greatly hampered by the obstructionism of the Blind-Faith-in-Trickle-Down Tea Party Republicans.

Raymond Atkins
Maybe we should begin with "we had money in the bank at the end of Bill Clinton's term" and work forward from there...

Terrell Shaw
I'll take Clinton's lies about abominable personal behavior, and Obama's overstatement about keeping bad insurance for a very small minority in a program that would greatly improve coverage for almost all, to the lies about WMD, aluminum tubes, Iran/Contra, and trickle-down of Reagan & Bush.

Howard Smith
Terrell Shaw, all of your friends that don't believe President Obama, swallowed hook, line and sinker the lies about WMD's in Iraq that cost us over two trillion dollars, thousands of American soldiers lives and tens of thousands more wounded and disabled, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in Irag for whose death we bare responsibility. At the same time they fail to give credit to President Obama for not losing even one American soldiers life in a war he started....which is zero wars. All of these folks that can't believe President Obama has reduced spending, decreased unemployment, created jobs, helped the stock market reach new heights, seen the housing market recovery and the auto industry saved, have no trouble rejecting the notion that during the failed Bush presidency our economy all but collapsed, our national debt soared and our standing in the world community took a big hit.....just as they never seemed to realize that calling something "enhanced interrogation" is just another name for torture. The mind can certainly play funny tricks on true believers. Soon, I suspect, they will be purchasing reprints of his paintings to hang in their homes and call it great art.

Jane Jameson
To each his own.

Raymond Atkins
To be fair, Howard, W is a better artist than he was a president...

Jane Jameson
Tell the people of Detroit how Obama saved their city. I am sure they would be understanding. So many move here to our area seeking employment and a better life. Our industries are glad to have them in our GOP state!

Howard Smith
Raymond Atkins, you got me there. And, Jane Jameson, I never said he saved Detroit, although, he did stop the bleeding caused by years and years of GOP economic policies that almost destroyed the city. The right wants to say it was labor unions, but anyone who has actually studied the cause of Detroit's problems knows better. And, regarding our GOP state, and other GOP states like ours, those are the ones as I am sure you know that are most dependent on federal handouts....the transfer of federal tax dollars is from the Dem states to the GOP states...go figure.

Gleaning Facebook: Big Government and Big Business

Lots of "conservative" folk talk about horrible intrusion of government into their lives. I have not experienced a lot of that. Our government, elected by me and my fellow citizens, has, in many instances, enriched my life and my liberties. Of course sometimes I am in the minority and have to accept, temporarily at l;east, government action/inaction with which I strongly disagree.

Our dear friend Laurie Craw posted this comment on a recent thread here. It deserves a reading:

"Instead of talking in abstractions, let's talk about HOW government controls our lives and HOW big business controls our lives, with concrete examples. And I'm talking about how we LIVE our lives, day in, day out. Government, that is, the laws created by our elected representatives in government and enforced by the agencies those representatives also created, tells me I can't do a lot of things but I honestly can't remember wanting to do something the government told me I couldn't do, except get into a national park campground after dark one time. If I were a male and got drafted to fight a war I didn't believe was moral or necessary for national defense, I'd definitely have a problem with "big government" as many young men did in the Vietnam era.

But here's how big corporations (and small businesses) have kept me from doing things I DID want to do. Back in the "old days" before "big government" passed a law or two, I wanted to get a credit card in my own name to establish my credit but the banks said I couldn't because I was a married woman. I also wanted to take a one-month leave from my job when our first child was born, but my employer said I had to return to work as soon as my doctor said I was recovered from childbirth (that is, no longer "sick" under their sick leave policy) or lose my job. My husband and I were evicted from our rental apartment when our baby was born and it was perfectly legal for landlords to refuse to rent to adults with small children. More recently, I wanted to buy our diabetic son some health insurance to help pay for his life-saving insulin and other medicines but NO insurance company would sell him any.

In all these examples from my real life, "big government" stepped in and made laws to enable me to do things I wanted to do, things that were very important to me. So these are my examples. Let's hear examples of how government has prevented you from doing something important to you."

- Laurie Craw

Like many other posts of this sort this one elicited lots of comments. I usually enjoy it when friends like Howard, Sam, Laurie start commenting.

Comments:

Sam Burnham
Edward Snowden's revelations.
TARP
No Child/Common Core
2nd Amendment violations
Income taxes that over half don't pay.
Tax dollars spent on corporate welfare
Federal courts overturning state laws
War, war, war, war
NAFTA
Guantanamo- still going like the Energizer Bunny.
$3.42/gallon
No third or fourth party allowed in debates
Politicians with immense power over my life that appear on no ballot in my state (the reason we started with a republic with weak federal and strong state govts)
That's a start. I guess I'm an equal opportunity complainer. Washington, not just a single party, is the problem.

Terrell Shaw
Whoops… wuzn't through wit this, how'd it it get posted? Oh well…
All of these that are the result of laws were passed by our representatives, though I would like to see us make the Senate more representative and do away with the Electoral College and the return the filibuster to a real one.
TARP - (a Bush program) 97% repaid and may have saved us from a depression.
NCLB - a bad bipartisan program
Common Core - Mostly Common Sense
2nd Amendment violations - huh? Not a single gun taken from any law-abiding citizen yet
Income taxes that over half don't pay - but those half still pay lots of other taxes, and the folks who are paying are paying a smaller percentage than before 1980 and their percentage of the wealth is greater.
Tax dollars spent on corporate welfare - has been moderated some, but I agree
Federal courts overturning state laws - Article VI
War, war, war, war - We have made several mistakes here, but we have elected the guys who did it.
NAFTA - a mixed bag but my guys' should not have gone along with this. They did, and at the time so did I. Note this, it doesn't happen often: I wuz wrong. 

Guantanamo- still going like the Energizer Bunny. I hope we'll take another stab at closing it soon.
$3.42/gallon - OK I guess some govt taxes are part of this, but we need roads and bridges and such.
No third or fourth party allowed in debates - Is there any govt involvement in organizing debates? Usually news orbs and LWV and other private groups set the rules I think.
Politicians with immense power over my life that appear on no ballot in my state (the reason we started with a republic with weak federal and strong state govts) - When we had that horribly weak fed under the Articles it was a horrible failure. Madison and Co definitely wanted to replace that with a strong federal govt with plenty of checks and balances within it, and a balance between it and the states.

Sam Burnham
The electoral college is the last stronghold of the old republic. I'm not surprised that it comes under attack from liberals. Granting 5 or 6 states the numerical ability to elect the president of a 50 state republic is probably the least fair thing that could possibly be done with legislation.

Sam Burnham
And the Senate should still be elected by the state legislatures. The founding fathers designed it that way for a reason.

Terrell Shaw
I can see some value in giving small states some special power, but the huge discrepancy b/w Wyoming and California is just too much. It is anti-republican in my book. Not that any change is coming there anytime soon. 

Terrell Shaw
The Great Compromise was a wonderful thing. It allowed our republic to come into existence. But it WAS a compromise and made our republic something less than a true republic, and may have been a very long-term time bomb. When one senator from Wyoming (less people than Cobb County GA) can stifle our entire legislative branch we end up with the disfunction of 2014.

Terrell Shaw
You are in good company with some of the founding fathers (not all) who were very distrustful of the "people" at large. I am a small-r republican to my toes. I always want the broadest franchise and the greatest equality among citizens. I see no advantage in placing a state legislature filter between the people and their senators.

Terrell Shaw
Now, trying to repeal the 17th is bad enough, but if you go after the 19th Amendment, I'm telling Leigha.

Laurie Craw
Sam, judging from your list, I guess I didn't understand your anti-government perspective from the git-go. I thought you felt that government is controlling YOUR life and restricting your freedom in some ways, but apparently you just feel that the federal government (not state?) is involved in too many things in general. That's another debate.

Sam Burnham
Laurie, yes, the Federal government is too big and is involved on things it was never intended to be involved in. Most of it should be abolished.
On the contrary, the House is designed for the people, the Senate for the states. It would be unfair to bring Wyoming (first to pass suffrage) into the Union without giving it equal protection in the Senate.
Now, if you want to take power from ranchers and farmers and redistribute it to incredibly rich people and corporations in places like New York and California, that's the right course to take.

Sam Burnham
And actually, I'm in line with Founding Fathers like Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Sam Adams that were so trustful of the people that they were willing to leave governing power close to them, to maximize their influence over it as opposed to the Hamilton model of placing it in an ivory tower of strong centralized government.

Howard Smith
Fortunately, for all of you our founders wrote a living document, that both endures and adapts, and created a government, based on law, if not always in practice, and that is, if imperfect, still elected by us....for better and worse....and it only demands of us to make it work better in its pursuit of the common good our earnest participation.

Sam Burnham
So long as the creature doesn't evolve into another entirely different organism,

Howard Smith
That is called evolution and we have to adapt to change so, yes, the "organism" will change, too. and WE THE PEOPLE can and do and will create the future if we survive.

Terrell Shaw
Time out: Though I disagree mightily with you, Sam, I appreciate your willingness to use argument rather than vitriol to express yourself. Too many of us on all sides use that famous argument "[Fill in bad guy, bad idea, failed effort, straw man here] _________________ stinks therefore all you say in nonsense." So thanks for the polite debate.
Time in: Although I certainly believe in simple truths that don't change, I realize we live in complicated times, a diverse society, and a crowded planet. IMO Fifty "sovereign" states are not governable in a way that protects liberty, the environment, physical safety (from domestic & foreign dangers), reasonable economic security, etc.
I am glad that the founders realized that the wholly states-controlled govt of the Articles was a failure. We needed a federal govt and it needed power. I'm also glad they wrote in many checks and balances and divided the powers.
And I am glad that as history has progressed the system they wisely instituted for growth and change has allowed us to expand the franchise and make our Republic more responsive to ordinary Americans.
But as we've grown, inequalities that result from the Great Compromise and the Electoral College have become more pronounced. I see no reason for the ranchers and farmers in WY to have fifty times the influence in the Senate of the ranchers and farmers in CA. That's TOO much. In 1789 Rhode Islanders had about a 10 to 1 advantage over Virginians. Still bad. Useless argument, of course, but there it is.

Sam Burnham
And so many before us in other nations across the world have me believing that last "if" is very big. That is why I stay concerned

Sam Burnham
I'm not much for vitriol for vitriol's sake. I even try to find positives in people I disagree with and respect them in that way. This came in handy during this past summer's visit through Plains and Warm Springs.

Reason, argument and truth. As much as I disagree with the President, "Not Obama" is not a political philosophy. You have to know why you are for and against someone. That's why I'll never vote for either of our senators for any seat under any party, ever. I don't agree in practical application of stated belief. I want less talk and more action.
GWB spoke of smaller government and added an entire department to the federal government. Really? Words should equal actions. Too many folks telling me it's raining when I know better.