How can you put politics over the lives of women? It’s morally reprehensible.

Old time conservatives like Barry Goldwater would have never thought to engage in this debate. He just wanted less government and less taxes. A perfectly valid conservative view.

So when did Republicans become so mean? When the religious right became involved in politics and decided instead of governing, it was their god given right to tell Americans how to morally live their lives. So much for less government!

Here are some other examples of Republican meanness. Santorum doesn’t want to improve the lives of African Americans, Gingrich wants poor kids to clean toilets at school, Paul thinks if your robbed by a black person they can run amazingly fast (I wish some pundit would ask Paul if he has ever been robbed by a black), and Romney isn’t really worried about the poor.

The current crop of Republican candidates is so out of touch with normal Americans, they remind me of the time when the first Bush didn’t know the price of a gallon of milk.

Occupy Wall Street rocks and so do Garfunkel and Oates.

Rick Santorum

“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.”

“I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families,” he added. “The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”

First, there are far more whites on welfare than black. Second, is he suggesting that blacks don’t want to work? Third, the manufacturing jobs Santorum wants to create were moved overseas by Republicans.

Santorum sounds like a desperate candidate trying to improve his standing in a state that is largely white.

If you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be.” – Ron Paul, 1992

“Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.” – Ron Paul, 1992

Ron Paul

“We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.” – Ron Paul, 1992

It’s amazing they only came up now in the presidential campaign. Could it be because Paul has risen in the polls.

The more troubling aspect is that Paul has given conflicting statements. He now says he did not write them even though they appeared in his newsletters. Moreover, in 1996 he admitted to writing them.

Which Ron Paul is telling the truth?

Foodline

“Class warfare … may make for really good politics, but it makes for rotten economics,” … “If you tax something more, you get less of it,” Ryan said. “If you tax job creators more, you get less job creation. If you tax their investment more, you get less investment.”

Actually that is not true. Taxes create roads, bridges, safe food, medicines, national defense, and safe water, and in many cases jobs. It just depends on what type of tax structure you have. One that benefits the many, or the few. You see, the more money the middle class has, is more money they will be able to spend. Thus helping corporations who want people to consume … to consume.

I’m not an economist nor am I Paul Krugman, but this does not seem to be rocket science to me. If the job creators are doing such good job creating jobs, where are the jobs?

Then comes this amazing stat from the United States Census Bureau.

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

No class warfare? Republicans have been waging a war on the middle class for years. Wake up America.

Again, it’s my father’s birthday and he was a huge mama’s boy. He came to Columbus from West Virginia in the 1950′s to find work building airplanes. MeMaw eventually moved to Belpre Ohio, seriously a few steps from the the Ohio river and directly beside the Memorial Bridge which separates Ohio from Parkersburg, West Virginia. As a child I thought that was pretty cool. I now realize it was probably pretty crappy real estate.

Once again, my father was a mama’s boy. As a child, it seemed like we visited Belpre Ohio at least once a month. I remember holding a matchbox car and pretending I was driving to Belpre on the trips.

The biggest thing I remember about the visits to Belpre were the Holidays. I remember Christmas where too many family members were stuck in a small house, but nobody cared. MeMaw always had a Christmas tree with cheesy plastic ornaments underneath. They didn’t seem cheesy to me at the time, today they continue to be a wonderful part of my childhood.

Of course, there was always food. On occasion, we would make homemade ice cream which always seemed to require that we go purchase ice, which seemed cool to me. There was always food. MeMaw was a great cook. My only gripe is she had this thing about corn bread. To this day, I must admit I still hate corn bread. It’s not corn and it’s not bread.

During my years with the Kroger company I was stationed in Athens, Ohio which is not that far from Belpre. I was able to visit MeMaw on numerous occasions and we almost always ate at Bob Evans. She was always humble and embarrassed that she didn’t cook for me. I would always point out that she had spent a lifetime cooking for me and my father and this was my way of picking up the check.

There was something great and magical about those trips from Columbus to Belpre to see MeMaw. I’m sure my father misses her. I do too. Happy birthday dad.

Ron Paul

However, yesterday in New Hampshire he said that there’s no provision in the Constitution for Medicare and Medicaid, the federal programs that cover millions of seniors and children.

There are many services the federal government provides that were not explicitly provided for in the constitution. He is ignoring the part of the constitution that says,

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Medicare and Medicaid? What part of the cononstitution that says “promote general welfare” does Ron Paul not understand?

And here’s why I don’t care. Why doesn’t the CBO do a study on how much we could reduce the deficit if we ended corporate welfare and made billionaires pay their fair share of taxes?

I’m guessing it would reduce the deficit enough to be able to help middle class Americans stay in their homes.

Mary Taylor

So, Democratic state Rep. John Patrick Carney of Columbus went above Taylor’s head and asked Governor John Kasich to come to the General Assembly and testify on what progress has been made on enacting this federal law. Amazingly, he said this.

I’ve got to think these things through.

What’s there to think about. It’s a law passed by the Congress of The United States of America. Put together a team and implement it.

Instead, Kasich has his Lt.Gov. running around the state criticizing the law and calling it Obamacare. Republicans love calling laws they don’t like things they are not. It’s not Obamacare, it’s the Affordable Care Act. It provides health care for all Americans. In case your wondering, that’s a good thing. Of course, it might affect one of the Republicans core financial contributors, the insurance industry. Think Nationwide who is actually probably not on your side, but on the side of the Republican political rulers in Ohio and the nation.

It’s clear that Kasich and Taylor are making no progress on implementing a lawful act of Congress. That’s why the reluctance to inform the General Assembly on their progress. This should not be surprising since it would not be the first time Ohio Republicans have ignored a law they don’t like.

Bernie Sanders

One of their most egregious decisions was the one where they said basically that money was free speech. But as Springsteen guitarist Steven Van Zandt, maybe one of the smartest musicians I’ve heard, pointed out in a Huffington post,

You might wonder why no one in that smart room stood up and said wait a minute, if money is speech, isn’t lack of money lack of speech?

You know, as in the rich get to talk, and the poor don’t? How are the non-moneyed classes represented by this decision?

Nowhere in the Constitution did the founders tie money to free speech. Yet the conservatives want to talk about liberal activist judges.

Now a congressman has stood up to the activist conservative judges on the Supreme Court. Bernie Sanders said the following.

I strongly disagree with the ruling. In my view, a corporation is not a person. A corporation does not have First Amendment rights to spend as much money as it wants, without disclosure, on a political campaign.

Corporations should not be able to go into their treasuries and spend millions and millions of dollars on a campaign in order to buy elections.

The ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy. It has further tilted the balance of the power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when the wealthiest people in this country already never had it so good. History will record that the [2010] Citizens United decision is one of the worst in the history of our country.

I agree with Bernie and Steven. Money is not free speech and sorry Mitt, corporations are not people. They are made up of people who have no responsibly to Americans what so ever, only to their shareholders. That’s a lousy way to run a government and the Supreme Court should have realized that.

Sanders has called for a constitutional amendment to overturn this abuse of money as free speech.

I’m sure Republicans will come after him because he is an avowed socialist Democrat. But if you really look at the true meaning of socialism, it just means doing what is best for the community. Certainly the current conservative led U.S. Supreme Court has not grasped that concept. What part of “We the people,” not some of the people, does the court not understand?