I do believe that when one person is denied the right to vote because of some arcane law or practice is an affront to our democracy. Having political hacks at the state and local level cheapens the whole idea.

If I was Black or Brown and saw that far more of us were going off across the globe to do the dirty business of capitalism and "democracy", I would expect that our community would be respected by giving us the benefit of the doubt to vote.

We make it so easy for a Black or Brown person to take up arms and defend the capitalists properties or access to resource and now the party that supports war at the drop of the hat wants to make it more difficult for the families of those Black and Brown men and women to vote.

If I was a Black or Brown person I would be out there calling bullshit with a megaphone.

They love their bodies when they are in uniform but when it comes to allowing that person to vote...

Forget about it...

Election member is one of the most dedicated and selfless political person I met in my 20 years of working with and around the Ohio Democratic Party.

He is taking the fight to keep the expansion of voting hours in Ohio as far as he has to go.

He was always one of those guys who is in it because he truly believes that the Democratic Party is the right party for those who can't afford to mingle with the rich and famous. When you get to the state level, it is the wealthy and well connected who dominate the politics of both party's.

Denny is a great guy and I can tell you he is doing this because, quite frankly, no one else will.

Godspeed, Denny Lieberman and thank you for showing what it means to be a dedicated Democrat, especially in this critical time when money can wash away even the most strident beliefs...

He was on Rachel Maddows show tonight...

The Beatles were from a generation before me and I was 12 when they broke up, but their music is timeless...

The reason why their will never be another band like the Beatles is simply because they knew music from every genre that was alive up until then.

When they were cutting their teeth in Hamburg, they would have to play ten to twelve hours a day and play every kind of song that the sailors shouted out.

They took bits and pieces of tunes and mashed them together in order to create music that is still loved by millions of people.

That's why they were so good for so many albums, they dared to stretch their music and refused to be stuck in any formulaic pop genre.

Look at their cord structures in their songs, look at the pacing, the lyrics matching the music in tone and meaning.

They wrote and recorded over 150 songs in the span of about seven years and they never repeated themselves.

George was cool, but the other two, weill they gave us pop music with a base in everything from High Classical to show tunes to Jazz and did it well.

I wondered why I still love the Beatles today It wasn't because the music takes me back to a better time. Those years that they were on the top of the charts was the worst years of my life. But maybe I was so infatuated with their music because it made me think of something beyond my shitty room, my crappy home life and my seriously awkward social skills..

Anyway, Sir Paul is getting on, he looks and sure he struggles, but he is still out their doing what he loves and what is wrong with that. You can turn the music off, no one was forcing anyone to watch the show.

Every time i see a crowd of liberals I see a whole lot of young faces with home made signs and interesting costumes...

On the conservative side, well, a lot of gray haired people my age and older holding up either signs that show these folks can't spell for shit or slick signs made at tea bag central.

A lot of scowls on the GOP side while the Democrats seem to attract people who are excited about the campaign and hope for the future, big smiles and a lot of kinetic energy.

It's amazing that we are finally seeing the selfish conservatives shuffling off stage while the young faces are bursting all over...

I'm still worried about Pennsylvania but here in Ohio, anyone can vote absentee.

If we lose PA and keep Ohio, that would be okay, not great, but okay.

The number one priority of the National Democratic Party is to do what ever they can to get into those states that have blatant voter suppression rules and fight them.

He is basing most of his campaign on the fact he is a really good business person and yet he wants us to trust him on a very important part of his financial life.

No one in their right mind would buy a used car from someone who says trust me, this car is in tip top condition.

So why does Romney want us to trust him when he tells us he has paid a 13.0% tax rate for all of these years.

Now the very fact that someone who reports in excess of $20 million in "TAXABLE" income and is only paying 13% is ridiculous when people in my tax bracket pay something like 20%-25% and would be lucky to have earned 10% of what Romney reported for one year in a life time of working. Let's put this aside.

But for the life of me, I can't believe he would expect anyone in their right to trust him on his word when that word is, so far in the campaign, well, basically fungable...

I had watched the Triangle Fire that PBS did while I was in the Hospital back in February.

What I am wondering is, will it take something like this to happen to pull us out of our replay of the Gilded Age?

We let people like Mitt Romney get this close to the presidency, a guy who has no idea, not even a clue of what it is like to be an American who survives by working their body to the limit? He has no clue about the men and women doing mind numbing work just so they can scape together enough to eat for the next week.

There is this sense of entitlement that surround both Romney and Ryan, that they were to the manor born, that they were the best and the brightest that this country has to offer....

But what they don't have is a sense of empathy, something that ties them to the humdrum lives most of us live as we take each struggle in strides, hoping for a better day.

These men of providence think it is their right to reap as much as they can because they feel entitled to it simply because of who their parents were and who their parents knew....

I remember when I was campaigning in Union Halls here in Cleveland as I ran first for State Rep and then for the State Senate. I can't tell you how many times I heard I am never going to vote for you because you are going to take my gun or you are going to allow my daughter to get an abortion...

I wonder how many of those workers still have Union jobs now that they have been voting for republicans for a generation.

Anyway, I just get all worked up when someone like President Obama is called out of touch by men who never once in their life had to wonder when their next meal was coming from...

That's it.

Good Night!

I read The Fountainhead, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, On Walden Pond...

Then I read To Kill a Mockingbird, Blue Highways and the Tolkien Trilogy, The Razors Edge and Tom Sawyer a Gore Vidal's novel Julian.

I reread all of these again, over the last few years except for The Fountainhead.

Even as a young man who was fresh out of my childhood, I realized that the Fountainhead was basically the glorification of adolescence.

Think about it, in Randonia you are basically allowed to run free and do what ever you want and that anyone who challenged your ideas or freedom was a big fat sissy face...

There is a catch, you have to be strong and able to crush who ever stands in your way with withering prose designed to make those who stand in your way as sissy faces....

There is another thread here in GD that shows how many people are lifted out of poverty by the very popular government Social Security...

I understand that this is an important part of the discussion.

But it falls short on how those recipients effect the overall economy.

Less just assume that about 90% of those who are receiving SS payments spend that money to live on, the other ten percent have other retirement income that allows them to perhaps not spend all their SS payments each month.

I looked this part on the internet and found this on the internet....

The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012.

http://ssa-custhelp.ssa.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/13/~/average-monthly-social-security-benefit-for-a-retired-worker

There were over 35 million people receiving Social Security retirement benefits. Times that by the average benefit by $14,760, the average SSI yearly benefit, minus out about $1,200 for medicare payments that leaves $13,560.

So if we got rid of Social Security benefits like many on the right would like, we would take $482,730.155,640.00 out of our economy. think about that for minute. Now the yearly amount taken from peoples pay checks would supposedly go to the worker, but if these guys are in charge, I would bet that there would be a shit load of "job providers" who would keep that money by saying the workers wont miss it.....

Just taking half of that money out of the economy would push us into a deep resession....

just something to consider...

Three days in a state that has only six electoral votes...

Why is he in Iowa?

Because he can!

Look, do you really think that President Obama is in any way depending on Iowa to tip him over 270?

I can tell you right here and now the Obama is here only because he can. Wisconsin is a neighbor state and the coverage from there will bleed into Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri and even South Dakota.

It's a great trip for him and his campaign to touch the people in Iowa that will carry the campaign in that state through November.

It also gives President Obama some good old fashion fun. It really is fun to campaign in the state fairs, I've done it and it's a lot better than driving from place to place and standing in front of another crowd. It's mingle time.

So, relax, kick back and watch what happens after Labor Day.

Remember this, most people are busy getting their kids ready for school, trying to squeeze a little more fun before fall kicks in. Just because people here on this board and the media is all crazy about the campaign, most people out there are not paying all that much attention or perhaps they are sick and tired of campaigns running from the day after the last election is over....

The John Wayne John Ford The Searchers, is a tale of a man searching for his niece who was abducted by what was called renegade Indians.

It's a mature movie in that it shows how vengeance and retribution can eat at a man's soul no matter the reason behind all the anguish.

The last scene in the movie, when John Wayne comes back to civilization, he can't cross over to settlement, is gut wrenching.

In a way it's a story as old as we are, one that shows how a man is altered by war, how a man's soul is torn away, how old soldiers just fade away, tossed aside by civilization that doesn't want to be reminded of all that trouble, all that violence, all that loss...

TCM has the movie. Jeffrey Hunter is in it, the actor that gave us Captain Pike on the Star Trek pilot.

The movie takes in the whole southwest and, as Ford always did, that landscape becomes a character in his screen play.

I'm not a great big fan of John Wayne, but this movie rises above all his other Movies, including The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Shootist and True Grit.

That's it...