Gleaning Facebook: Money In Politics

And those gifts were a mere pittance to each of those 132 givers. For contributions that, relative to their wealth, are negligible to the plutocrats, they are purchasing (really stealing) our government from us. I have not figured it out this time around, but in 2012 this old school teacher donated much, much more in percentage of wealth to candidates than Sheldon Adelman or the Koch Brothers, or Soros or Blumberg.

With the forgotten change they can figuratively dig from under the sofa cushions they can fund the lying direct mail and TV ads that gin up angry votes for Tea Party extremists who, in Congress, keep minimum wage low, deplete our national resources, warm our climate, and block many reforms that have massive public support in our supposed republic. As was recognized by Roosevelt and Taft a hundred years ago, we must reduce the influence of great wealth in our public affairs.

If it takes a Constitutional amendment we must rid our nation of the obscene Citizens United ruling. And each of us must read more than the simplistic hit-pieces and hear more than the lying TV campaign ads or listen to the talk radio/24 hour "news" folk whose living depends on inflaming us.

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Comments

Howard Smith This President has done more to restore America's economic well being than any President since FDR. Those on the right that continue to berate his performance are in denial. Whether its based on party or race or misinformation, they fail to accept the fact that pulling us out of the Great Recession of his predecessor GW Bush is second only to FDR lifting us from the Great Depression. And, one glaring difference is obvious...FDR was able to garner bipartisan support for his policies. President Obama has faced an opposition party that has publicly declared its intent to obstruct him for political gain.
Michael J. Burton Why the disconnect?
Raymond Atkins Seriously, Mike?
Joe Kidd My God, did McDonald's really hire over 200,000 burger flippers??
Laurie Craw I'll flip burgers when the minimum wage gets hiked to at least $10.10. The State of Georgia pays a LOT of its employees LESS than that!

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Comment

Laurie Craw

We need a similar poster for women. This is an pivotal election for women's rights, women's health and economic well-being. While no woman's suffrage leader that I know of was martyred, many spent time in prison, on hunger strikes and endured humiliation and assaults. My own grandmothers for most of their lives did not have the right to vote. My mother was 11 years old when the right was finally secured. Like the anti-slavery and civil rights movements, the women's movement was a long hard struggle and it continues. Let all the women you know who might not vote know that their rights rest on the struggles and sacrifices of many women who went before.

Gleaning Facebook: Vote!

"… cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophesy. If you succumb to it, the regressives who want to take this nation back to the 19th century win it all." - Robert Reich.

Next Tuesday is a day for voting. Likely a very small percentage of those who read these words will vote. They will cynically accept the reasoning that voting doesn't matter. On the very day when their individual vote is the most powerful (a primary run-off election generally provokes the least voter participation) most of you will surrender your blood-earned franchise to the political junkies like me.

Go vote. Even if you are a Tea Party regressive or a rabid all-out socialist, prove me wrong. Go vote. If you are gonna get misty-eyed in a few weeks when you stand with your ball cap over your heart while the high-school band plays the "Star Spangled Banner" at Barron Stadium, then for Heaven's sake put your sorry carcass where your tears are. If you are going to stand and devoutly recite your allegiance to a republic, be a small-r republican. Go vote.

No waiting in line (but do take ID). Walk right in.

7 a.m-7 p.m., Tuesday, July 22, at a precinct near you.

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Melanie Collette Babb
Who would you recommend: Kingston or Perdue?

Terrell Shaw
Melanie, I don't like either one. Each is trying to out-Tea-Party the other. But if I were choosing a GOP ballot, I guess I'd take Purdue as a little less repugnant. At least I haven't heard him talking up impeachment of the president, like Kingston has.
I will vote for Michelle Nunn in the General Election.

Melanie Collette Babb

Thanks, Terrell. I will definitely be voting for Nunn in the general election.