What if we all as a nation stopped selling American designed weapons, like airplanes, ships, subs, missiles, helicopters, tear gas, et cetera to foreign nations and groups?

What if we brought home all of our overseas troops, no matter where they are, discharged all of them except the ones we need to secure our own borders, and sent all of them to University or Trade School?

What if we create a new kind of entity called a Corporation that had to die after 75 years? All the corporate patented and trademarked assets would become public domain, and physical assets liquidated and distributed to shareholders.

What fs we taxed at 100% all estates above a certain threshold, and ensured that a hereditary oligarchy would be stopped in its tracks?

What if we increased the highest tax rates to 65% of income or capital gains or any kind of investment income?

What if we became a single-payer nation for health insurance, and reinvested in creating upward mobility by making our public Colleges and Universities the inexpensive wonder of the world they once were?

Just imagine if the purpose of government was to provide for the general welfare and common defense by taking care of certain things like infrastructure, environmental regulation, education, and health care so that people could focus on the more important things in life, like becoming the best, most creative, generous, kind and loving person in their work and personal lives, fully invested citizens. If we all recognized that we are all in this together, that “E pluribus unum” are words by which a great nation should live.

We can make this progressive dream happen.
Doesn’t that world, where all pursue their dreams because all the stuff that government does really well are being taken care of sound great? The only way to make it happen is to pay attention, wake up, organize, and vote!

On Monday night, Judge Mary Scriven issued a scathing and fiery decision against Florida Governor Rick Scott’s Pee Test law, which required that state’s applicants for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families submit to drug testing at their own expense. The contract for said drug testing, it should be noted, is held by said Governor’s wife’s company.

Rick Scott’s Pee Test Fails a Court Test | Mother Jones.

I don’t understand the “if you’re not guilty, you have nothing to worry about” mentality. It’s so un-American, and goes against the idea that one is considered innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt enshrined in our Constitution. It goes against the Fourth Amemdment’s prohibition on unreasonable search and seizure. It goes against the idea of human dignity; the idea that all people have an inherent worth, and are deserving of respect.

Thanks, Tea Party Republicans, for wasting our time and money once again in one of your racist, “morality” crusades.

Crazy Eyes won the Iowa Straw Poll this past week. And then she appeared on Meet the Press today, and faced more questions about her bizarre and hateful anti-gay rhetoric – take a look:

Her claims to not judging clearly and in defiance of the record. So many times she has called lgbt people so many wretched names, that I don’t see how she cannot be said to be judging, bigoted, intolerant, and against civil rights.

All Americans should rejoice this historic decision to repeal the seventeen year old discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy.  First put into place during the first term of the Bill Clinton Presidency, this policy had weakened our national security at a time when we we face enormous challenges.  Thousands of loyal, dedicated Americans hiding a key part of their lives endangered their comrades-in-arms by not being able to be truthful with them.  The constant fear and stress caused by DADT made it more difficult to do the jobs our fellow LGBT citizens were trained to do.  The discharge under DADT of servicemen and -women trained in critical skills – linguists and translators, intelligence analysts, medical professionals, special operations, and even more mundane jobs like supply clerks and quartermasters, infantrymen, computer specialists, cooks, barbers, chaplain’s assistants weakened our national security by getting rid of some of the most talented and dedicated citizen-soldiers.  With the 65-31 vote in the US Senate, with all Democratic Party members and 8 Republicans voting with them, this policy will start to come to an end.

The final year I was in the U.S. Navy, I was investigated under the DADT policy, and although I was not discharged because of DADT and served my full contract, the tremendous stress of the investigation caused me a grief and emotional turmoil of the like of which I hadn’t experienced since.  Had I not been investigated, I would have re-enlisted and made a career of military service, so much was my sense of patriotism and service.  So, it’s with bittersweet emotions that I celebrate the legislative repeal.

Thank you, 111th Congress, President Obama, Joint Chiefs of Staff, various circuit court judges.  Thank you LGBT and other civil rights activists for demonstrating, lobbying, and otherwise applying pressure to our public servants.  Thank you, fellow American citizens, for changing and growing and recognizing that your LGBT brethren are just like you and are fully deserving of equal rights.

Woo-hoo!

"We need to vote them off the bench to send a message across Iowa that we, the people, still have the power," said Bob Vander Plaats, a Republican politician who is spearheading the campaign. "Not only will it send a message here in Iowa, but it will send a message in California, in Arizona and across the country that the courts have really taken on too much power." The Iowa campaign is a new front in the fight over same-sex marriage, a hot-button issue this year after a federal judge in California invalidated Proposition 8, that state's voter-approved ban on same-sex unions. This week, former Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman disclosed that he is gay and that he supports the federal court's action in California, a case that probably will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. His announcement further fueled the emotional debate over the topic, given his stature in the GOP and his earlier involvement in efforts to mobilize voters by exploiting opposition to same-sex marriage. The effort in Iowa worries not only gay rights advocates but some legal experts who say it is wrong to punish judges for an unpopular decision.

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The lawsuit, filed Aug. 13 by David Shupe-Roderick, 25, and Ryan W. Dupree, 21, is the first legal challenge in recent memory to Wyoming’s law defining marriage as being a contract solely “between a male and a female person.” The couple, who are representing themselves, filed the lawsuit after the Laramie County Clerk's Office refused three times to issue them a marriage license. That's unequal treatment, they said, and they're asking U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson to stop the state from enforcing any laws that block gays and lesbians from access to civil marriage. “We determined that a lawsuit was the only possible way for them to get to recognize us as people,” Shupe-Roderick said. “I think it’s time that Wyoming lives up to its title. You know they call themselves the Equality State? Well, they’re not so equal.”

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1972
The U.S. Supreme Court dismisses Baker v. Nelson, an appeal of a Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that found limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples did not violate the state constitution. The Court finds the case does not ask a substantial federal question, and some argue that dismissal set a binding precedent that could influence the Court's eventual consideration of Proposition 8.

1993
The Hawaii Supreme Court rules in Baehr v. Miike, finding that laws denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated state constitutional equal protection rights unless the state could show a "compelling reason" for such discrimination and sending the case back to trial court. The ruling was later credited with sparking a backlash in the form of laws and constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Hawaiian voters later passed a referendum giving the legislature jurisdiction over marriage, bypassing state courts.

2010
In two separate cases, a federal judge in Boston rules July 8 that the federal Defense of Marriage Act violated the Constitution by denying federal benefits to married gay men and lesbians and by forcing Massachusetts to discriminate in order to obtain federal funds. Meanwhile, in California on Aug. 4, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker rules that Proposition 8 violated gays' and lesbians' due process rights. The decision is currently on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

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