Tag Archives: Jimmy Carter

The “Go The Fuck AWAY” Club

GTFA

Recently one of my close friends, comrades, and “brother in arms” Nolan Dalla, penned a list of people that he wished, to be frank, would just go the fuck away (I even stole his doormat for this article!). Because he has a penchant for politics (as befitting someone who was in the diplomatic service corps for the States of America in the 1980s) and in tribute to the current virtual Democratic National Convention, he came up with a list of right- and left-wing politicians that he bestowed his inaugural class honors on. With such an impetus, how could I avoid not doing the same thing.

I chose several right- and left-wing politicians (and celebrities too) that have certainly overstayed their welcomes. Their schtick has gotten tiresome and, either for that reason or for the fact they’ve been around too goddamn long, they need to head to the exits. Thus, without further ado, here’s my choices for the “Go the Fuck AWAY” Club.

The Right

Ted Nugent & Kid Rock: I decided to start with these two because they are trying to stay relevant in their careers and they’ve chosen fuckwit politics as the way to do it. Nugent wasn’t this bad back in the 80s, it’s a persona that he has festered into the worm he is today. Robert Ritchie (AKA Kid Rock) is a white boy who glammed onto a gimmick and is waiting for Nugent to die to take over the “white racist redneck” market. While I enjoy their musical contributions (and I’ve written about that before), they’ve both gotten a bit tiresome with the routine.

LahrenCoulterConway

Tomi Lahren, Ann Coulter and Kellyanne Conway: The three stages of a crack whore who sells their soul to promote a dying conservative agenda. Willing to say anything for a dollar, even though Coulter recently is trying to redeem herself with an “anti-Orange Foolius” stance so she can stay relevant in the party after he’s gone. And Kayleigh McEnany is moving up on this list.

Louie Gohmert, Ted Cruz & Tom Cotton: If there were any other better examples of “ignorant fucking redneck racist,” I haven’t seen them yet. They have absolutely NO scruples other than “what’s the party line” while they try to sell their “good ol’ boy” bullshit with their Ivy League diplomas (OK, Gohmert gets a pass here as far as Ivy League). If you told these three that a Democratic idea would bring back Jesus, they’d want to arrest Christ on immigration charges.

The Left:

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer: The very example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party. There is some great faces and knowledge coming up from the grassroots, yet these two think that the ideas they’ve tried for decades to put through is the ONLY way to go? I’ve never been one of those for an “age cap” on being in Congress – Pelosi (at over 80) and Schumer (70) this year aren’t the future of the Democrats, they are the past and they should realize this and GTFA.

Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Campaigns In Las Vegas

The Clintons: Yes, Bill…you were arguably one of the best Presidents of the 20th century for the eight years of your office. But your peccadilloes and dalliances thoroughly damaged everything you did and even trashed Hillary’s (arguably the most qualified person to even run for President) chances at the office. And this doesn’t even touch on the facetious and duplicitous manner that you (and Hillary, for her political career) handled some of those cases. Do like Jimmy Carter…find a charitable cause to get behind and go do it…just stay the fuck out of the operations of the Democrats.

Late night talk show hosts: There’s a handful I toss in here – Samantha Bee, Bill Maher, John Oliver, a couple of others – that, while I enjoy them very much, have pretty much ruined their futures in any other pursuit. Political comedy is best handled in short doses, much like what George Carlin did or Lewis Black does today, not as a weekly bitchfest for the left. It also locks you in a box, as Maher is learning, that the extreme left can turn on you when you actually show that you’re not the uber-lefty that they thought you were. (To be fair, Oliver does sometimes branch out from politics into trying to help his fellow man, so he has moments of redemption.)

This won’t be the last time we deal with this subject. In fact, we may come back with either weekly or monthly nominees. Who would you put on the list?

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Conservatives, You Lost the Right of Moral Outrage Long Ago

MichelleWolf

Under the current administration, there has been no lack of turmoil, controversy and/or outrage. If the day ends in “y,” then Orange Foolius has either said something to insult an ally, tweeted some bullshit racial move to appease his racist base or otherwise shown himself to be a grade A buffoon. Still, this last weekend was one that was special, and it spells out something that conservatives should have learned a long time ago…you have lost the right at moral outrage.

For the second time in his pitiful embarrassment of a tenure in office, Orange Foolius declined to attend the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a staple of the scene in DC since 1921. In that dinner, the President and his staff join the journalistic corps and MEMBERS OF BOTH PARTIES to celebrate journalistic activities and a free press. Except for a handful of times (1930, 1942 and 1951, when it wasn’t held), the dinner has gone off without a hitch. Fifteen Presidents, starting with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, have shown up for the festivities, with only Ronald Reagan (1981, after his assassination attempt), Jimmy Carter (1978 and 1980) and Richard Nixon (1970, 1972, 1974) passing on the affair.

The entertainment for the WHCD has changed over the years. When the dinner started, there were singers between the courses. That developed into a post-dinner show which, in the past, featured entertainers such as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Danny Thomas, Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington gracing the stage of the Hilton in DC (the traditional host of the WHCD). Since 1983, however, the host of the evening has been a comedian, with Elayne Boosler, Stephen Colbert, Al Franken (pre-Senator days), Jon Stewart and Jay Leno (among others) taking the mic.

What hasn’t changed about the night is the format of the program. Whoever was the host would essentially serve as the emcee of a roast, with the various politicians and journalists gathered together both receiving their due course of abuse. For those of you that aren’t comically inclined, a “roast” is where a group gathers to allegedly fete a person, but instead tell off-color jokes, imitations and innuendoes as the night goes on. At the end, the person who has served as the butt of the jokes gets up and gets their revenge, using the same roasting style on the folks who have spoken before him. It is an extremely funny night of entertainment, hence the success of the Friars’ Club roast that dates back to 1950, the Johnny Carson and Dean Martin roasts in the 1970s/80s, and the Comedy Central roasts over the past 15 years that have featured comedian Denis Leary, actress Pamela Anderson and a certain candy ass that can’t show up to the WHCD.

FriarsClubRoast

Orange Foolius, with the vehement war he wages against anybody that wants to tell the truth about his indiscretions, criminal acts and outright subversion and corruption in running for the office in 2015, decided that he wouldn’t attend last year’s WHCD, instead running a “counter-program” of a political rally among sycophants, deviants and deplorables – you know, the GOP – in Pennsylvania. Fast forward the clock a year and, to be honest, it isn’t a surprise that he did it again, only this time in Michigan. What was the surprise was the idiotic reaction of conservatives and the GOP in the face of what has been the gist of the WHCD since its inception.

Comedian Michelle Wolf, an outstanding young comic with a tongue that would eviscerate an alligator, was the emcee for the post-dinner gathering and she spared no barbs. Without the usual subject of the roast available, it fell on the White House staff of the asshole who decided not to show up to face the slings and arrows. What seems to have piqued the irritation of the snowflake GOP and conservatives is this EXACT JOKE (quoted verbatim) that Wolf told:

And, of course, we have Sarah Huckabee Sanders. We’re graced with Sarah’s presence tonight. I have to say I’m a little star-struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Mike Pence, if you haven’t seen it, you would love it.

Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited because I’m not really sure what we’re going to get: you know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies or divided into softball teams. “It’s shirts and skins, and this time, don’t be such a little bitch, Jim Acosta.”

I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like, maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s lies.

It’s probably lies.

And I’m never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You know, is it Sarah Sanders? Is Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what’s Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know: Aunt Coulter.”

AnnCoulter

Now, first off, the ENTIRE JOKE is pretty damn tame when it comes to roast material. Consider that, in a Comedy Central roast, one of the top jokes was about how one of the roasters enjoys picking up truck stop transvestites…you’ll see Wolf’s was a love tap in comparison. But the way that most took the comments were that they were focused on Sanders’ LOOKS.

There is no way in holy hell that there was anything in those comments that could have targeted Sanders’ appearance in ANY MANNER. Yet conservatives acted like Wolf walked up to Sanders and performed one of Orange Foolius’ favorite acts in her face. The White House Correspondents’ Association, the folks who HIRED WOLF TO EVISCERATE THE ROOM, issued a wimpy ass mea culpa and have indicated they are considering altering the program in the future. This is utterly fucking ridiculous.

Perhaps what the WHCA was upset with was that Wolf took THEM down a few notches with her commentary:

Wolf: “There’s a ton of news right now issues a lot is going on and we have all of these 24-hour news networks and we could be covering everything. Instead we’re covering three topics. Every hour is trump, Russia, Hillary and a panel full of people that remind you why you don’t go home for Thanksgiving.

You guys are obsessed with Trump, did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him. I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you. He couldn’t sell steaks or vodka or water or college or ties or Eric, but he has helped you. He’s helped you sell your papers and your books and your T.V. You helped create this monster and now you’re profiting off of him. If you’re going to profit off of Trump, you should at least give him some money because he doesn’t have any. Trump is so broke –”

Audience: “How broke is he?”

Wolf: “He grabs pussies because he thinks there might be loose change in them. Like an immigrant brought here by a parent who didn’t do anything wrong, I got to get the fuck out of here, good night. Flint still doesn’t have clean water.”

FYI, folks…comedy is not pretty, as Steve Martin used to say. And these jokes didn’t even break skin in the context of a “roast.” For conservatives to grab their pearls and look for the nearest fainting couch is pretty damn hypocritical of them considering the bastard that they elected in 2016. You remember him? The one who grabs women by the pussy, who calls foreign nations “shitholes,” who has said pretty much every objectionable thing you can say about minorities, foreigners, women (do you REALLY want to relitigate the Rosie O’Donnell history, GOP?), Gold Star parents, veterans (remember that “I like people that weren’t captured” comment about John McCain?)…and the list goes on.

Then there’s the constituency…need I say more than this:

TrumpSupporters

Conservatives, GOP? YOU have given up any right to the moral objection when YOU elected this shitstain to represent your party. YOU have given up your right to ANY outrage over what is said about someone because YOU don’t even police your own. YOU have shown that you have no MORAL CODE NOR CONDUCT, therefore YOU have no place to raise your voice one iota in commentary on the subject.

Whether the WHCD will be altered in the future – or, if the incoming president Oliver Knox shows the makeup of a spineless cephalopod and ends the historic tradition – is anyone’s guess. But don’t criticize someone like Wolf who shows up and DOES THEIR JOB and pull your support for the very thing you claim to prize – the freedom of speech and of the people to comment on their leadership. And conservatives and GOP trollops who claim indignation about Wolf’s commentary? Why don’t you start with your own, first at the top and then work your way down to other slime bags and their commentary (trust me, Rick Santorum is one that needs gagging on a daily basis). Then you MIGHT start making ground back to having some semblance of morality.

What’s My Problem? It Should Be Everyone’s Problem…

After one of my essays the other day, someone had the audacity to ask me what was my problem with the Republican Party. “Why don’t you go after the Democratic Party the way you go after the Republicans?” the person asked. I offered a quick, Facebook-friendly reply – which wasn’t enough for that person (it seldom is – Facebook is not an essay-friendly arena) – so I thought that I would take the time to fully enunciate what “my problem” is with the Republican Party, at least the way that it is constituted today. When I reach the end, I think that most people might recognize that it should be everyone’s problem.

I came of age in the 1970s, in the post-Watergate/post-Vietnam Era when we questioned everything that made up the government (in fact, it is why I still question it today). Whether it was the federal, state or local offices, none of them were given a break over the conditions in the United States. Republicans back then were not identified by their blind addiction to denial of social norms – abortion was an issue that was just beginning to bubble – but were more likely to be viewed on their business acumen, foreign policy expertise and respect for the military, things that everyone could get behind including their counterparts. Democrats at that time were looked at as the voice of the “people,” the party who would actually stand with those who needed the help the most when the times were the toughest, and protected them sometimes against those businesses that threatened them.

As the 1980s rolled around – and especially after the mixed results that were the presidencies of Richard Nixon (and, after his resignation, Gerald Ford) and Jimmy Carter – the two parties were still somewhat malleable in that they stood for different things but worked together for the improvement of the United States. The election of Ronald Reagan was something the country needed – a new rebirth, if you will – and it did serve to recharge the nation. I served in the United States Marine Corps during Reagan’s presidency and, while seeing him build the world’s greatest military, I also saw the Republican Party’s treatment of its fighting force in decrepit barracks and base housing, inadequate equipment, improper usage in military actions and other various areas of governance, including the denial of the AIDS epidemic and other societal ills.

Because of the success of Reagan, President George Bush – Bush I, as I like to call him – was a natural choice to continue. But Bush was different:  he was practical, he knew that you couldn’t just force the military anywhere for any reason (perhaps because of his days at the helm of the Central Intelligence Agency, he had a bit more “intelligence,” no pun intended) and he also knew you had to pay for the military. Thus, when he paid for the First Gulf War (or military action as “war” was never declared per se) by raising taxes, he was doomed as the 1990s began.

The true segmentation of the Republican and Democratic parties (and there is a segmentation, they are not “the same”) – and the reason for my look at one over the other – came about in the 1990s. When Bill Clinton became President in 1992, the nation took off, arguably because he worked with a Republican-led House of Representatives and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1994 and they maximized the “tech surge” of the mid-1990s. It was the second term of Clinton, however, that put the nail in the coffin for me.

Instead of being pleased with making the country work, the rising “neo-con” movement in the Republican Party – not happy to have a military that was sitting on the sidelines, wanting a bolder and more aggressive foreign policy and willing to do whatever it took to regain not only the power in Congress but also in the White House – seized on Clinton receiving a hummer from intern Monica Lewinsky and turned that into an impeachable offense (ever the opportunist Gingrich, rather than trying to staunch this wave, grabbed a surfboard and rode along with it). Fortunately, a more-rational Senate was able to stave off the slathering idiots that were the neo-con Republicans screaming for Clinton’s removal, but it would only be a momentary pause before the truly shitty schism would develop between the two.

The Republican neo-cons weren’t happy with skewering Democrats, they also ravaged their own. First they took down John McCain in 2000 with a bogus “black child” scam, getting their hand-picked puppet, George Bush (or Bush II), into the nomination, then they would turn the targeting on Al Gore as the election hinged on the state of Florida (the “swift-boating” of John Kerry four years later was just icing on the cake). Having seated 10 of the last 12 Supreme Court Justices, the Republicans were able to use the U. S. Supreme Court to shut down any further review of Florida’s recount in 2000, with 538 voters being the determining factor in Bush’s 2000 Electoral College win (Gore won the popular vote) over Gore.

Once back in power – and with the attacks of 9/11 – the Republican neo-con movement was given the proverbial golden chalice of opportunity to sweepingly affect the United States and they took full advantage of it. They enacted the Patriot Act of 2001 – with a reluctant Democratic Senate coming along (only Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat, voted against it) – arguably the worst piece of legislation in the history of the country. They started first an air campaign against the alleged (true) mastermind behind 9/11, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan, but then for some inexplicable reason transferred most of their attention to an air and ground invasion of Iraq and its dictator Saddam Hussein, in essence starting a two-front war.

While making these mistakes, they also spent money like drunken sailors on shore leave. Instead of maintaining steady tax rates, the neo-cons lowered taxes – apparently thinking that there would be a magical money tree that would just drop $100 bills from the sky – while pushing an extreme anti-everything social policy that impeded on the rights on every person that isn’t a white male in the U. S. If that wasn’t enough, then the fiscal collapse of 2008 occurred – and the resulting “bank bailout” that was started by President Bush – before President Barack Obama came to office.

Now, in my entire existence, the Congress may not have agreed with the President, but they at the minimum did their job and attempted to work with the President. They passed bills, put them to the President and it was up to him as to whether he wanted to enact them. They WORKED with the President and/or his personnel. From the start of the Obama Presidency, however – and epitomized by now-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s infamous “our job” speech (“Our job is to ensure that the man in the White House is a one-term President”) – the Republicans have done exactly NOTHING to further the cause of the United States (and please don’t try to say the 60 or so votes to end the Affordable Care Act constitutes “action”).

Where I come from – my core beliefs – is that government works the best when it does keep its nose out of the lives of its citizens. There come moments in a nation’s history, however, when it does require the “voice of reason” to step in and make a determination. Slavery, the right of women to vote, civil rights, abortion, equal protection for women and LGBT persons…these are all moments when the federal government has to step in and say, as a whole for the nation, that there is one rule for one nation. Through this method, one area of the nation cannot inflict its ignorance, giving the country a black eye over something that should be settled (as Alabama recently did over the gay marriage issue).

With these issues, the Republican Party seldom seems to be on the right side (slavery seems to be one of those rare occasions). Rather than embracing the rights of people, the GOP seems to kowtow to a small sect (and I use that term in its perfect religious intentions) of people who consistently chop off their leaders’ arms for not trying to be more accepting of people DIFFERENT THAN THEM.

I don’t want to see leaders blaming people for being disadvantaged or poor, I want to see those leaders attempt to help those people (a great program in North Carolina, started by a Republican, encouraged people on public assistance into a two-year program that eventually saw those people get off the dole). I want to see schools given every tool available for the children rather than hear politicians cry about the tax expenditure (education is the only way to ensure that we improve as a country) of simply providing textbooks. I want to see leaders who try to improve life for everyone rather than improve it for a few. I want to see intelligence praised instead of derided, as many in the GOP do when it comes to science.

As to the military (and as a veteran), I would like to see our troops used less rather than more. I’d prefer to see them used only as a TRUE last resort instead of as a “peacekeeping” force (as they have been since World War II). And, if you’re going to use the military, supply them with the equipment they need, pay them well, take care of their families and, when they come home, take care of the veterans and their medical conditions. The Republicans who say that they cannot take care of veterans – calling it an “entitlement” – shouldn’t ever darken the door of Congress again.

This means you have to have money for everything. Paying for a strong military, infrastructure, improvements overall for people’s daily lives, business and education improvements…it all takes money. While it can be streamlined, it also needs funding to function. Taxation for government is a necessary evil and denying that increase in revenue is a death sentence to being a third world country.

This isn’t to say all Republicans are evil, just as it isn’t to say that all Democrats are saints. But, when the scales are weighed, I see one side doing more for people and the military overall and it certainly isn’t the one that is represented by the heavier animal. I’m always open for presentation of evidence to the contrary but, for the Republican Party, that evidence is rather sparse.

Is that answer good enough?

How the Democrats Can Become Relevant Again

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how the Republican Party could become relevant again with a few tweaks to their mentality. At that time, I made the statement that the same could be said for the Democratic Party. “But why,” you might ask, “the Democrats have had the White House for the past eight years, they’re controlling everything.” In reality, the Democrats are in control of nothing and need to retool their inner workings if they are to be relevant in the coming years.

As I did with the GOP, I actually sat down and looked at those candidates that are vying for the 2016 Democratic nomination for President. It’s a pretty sorry lot if you look at the choices:  the frontrunner in this year’s race was SUPPOSED to win in 2008, but she (yes, that’s right, a female “Leader of the Pack”) failed to engage on a “personal level” with voters who looked past her towards a young, dashing black man and chose him…oh, by the way, she also has more baggage in her campaign bus than the Allure of the Seas has when it sets sail; the second place choice for the Democrats is a self-admitted “democratic socialist” (which sounds about as possible to me as a person who is “socially liberal, fiscally conservative”) who is saying all the right things regarding changing things in the United States but provides hardly any insight as to what those changes would be if he were elected President; the third place contestant comes off his past two jobs in Maryland and Baltimore, where there has recently been more than enough turmoil in the streets between the citizenry and those in law enforcement potentially caused by his policies, and a few more never-weres who aren’t even registering on the radar. Hell, even the sitting Vice President of the United States, someone who should have the inside track to the nomination after a two-term President leaves office, is reluctant to join this field.

Democrats don’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to recent times in the office of the Presidency. While many like to bash Jimmy Carter as “the worst President of all-time,” he actually did something that no other President has done:  kept us out of a war. That one plus (OK, let’s give him two…an attempt to bring peace to the Middle East with an agreement between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat), however, was heavily pounded by an economy that tanked in the late 1970s, skyrocketing gas prices, the taking of the U. S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian students hell-bent on a religious takeover of the country and a general “malaise” (Carter’s words, which he bore as an albatross for his entire presidency) that fell over the United States.

Carter was such a disappointment as the President of the United States that the GOP took over for three consecutive terms in the office, something that hadn’t happened (one party controlling the White House) since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President during World War II (add in Harry Truman and the Democrats controlled the White House for 20 years during that time). It would take a transformative figure to break the Republican logjam and, when he did break through, it set the spike in the center of the two parties and, to a further extent, the nation as a whole.

Bill Clinton was young, he was telegenic, he did things with his campaign that no other politician had done before (going on a late-night talk show and playing “Heartbreak Hotel” on the saxophone while wearing shades? Groundbreaking, some would say…an embarrassment, others would claim). These attributes – along with his experience as Governor of Arkansas – ushered Clinton into the White House beside Hillary Clinton (who is the Democratic frontrunner in 2016, the Democratic answer to Jeb Bush on the Republican side), who was to have a sizeable impact on the policies of the Clinton Administration.

Clinton would go on to win two terms because, at least in the first term, he got things done. The economy, aided by the surge in computer technology in Silicon Valley, boomed throughout the 1990s as it seemed everyone had all the things desired by the people. There were some on the Republican side – a rising breed called “neocons” – who didn’t see Clinton’s success as a good thing and set about destroying it in its tracks before another Democratic run could get started.

The last four years of the Clinton Presidency was dogged by accusations against not only the President but also the First Lady (give the GOP credit there, they knew that Hillary had her eyes on the White House as the leader of the Free World even back then). An illicit relationship between Clinton and one of his interns led to only the second impeachment of a President in U. S. history, one that was easily squelched but has since damaged the relationship between the two parties. The spike set back in 1996 was firmly driven in and, add in the Gore/Bush election of 2000 and the animosity raised by that, one would wonder how we get anything done anymore (and many would say we don’t).

There are several ways that the Democrats can woo back independents and maybe even some Reagan Republicans to ensure that the party stays viable. All they have to do is change some of their tenets and a more centrist party will be the result.

First off, Democrats, government and spending isn’t the answer to everything that goes on in Washington, D. C. An article in the Washington Post points out the difficulties in one of the pet projects for the Democrats, subsidized housing. The Department of Housing and Urban Development points out that 2.6% of those in housing subsidized by the U. S. taxpayer have exceeded the income limits to be eligible for such housing but haven’t moved out. In one case, a New York family of four makes nearly $500,000 but pays slightly more than $1500 for the three bedroom apartment subsidized by the government. Worse yet, a single person with assets of $1.6 million was still in a $300 one bedroom apartment in Oxford, NE, paid for with help from the government.

Now, 2.6% isn’t much when compared to the 1.1 million families that are in this situation, but the inaction by the government is problematic. Instead of having a plan in place to move people from these situations – like other social programs, meant to be temporary not permanent – the government says they won’t do anything because a policy isn’t in place.

It is time that the Democrats actually look at things on an individual basis – education, drug policy, law enforcement, and the military (at the minimum) – and determine why the money being spent isn’t doing more for the cause. In the case of education, it is obvious that spending more on the situation isn’t helping, so why aren’t we looking at successful nations (such as Japan) and implementing some of their programs. Every student isn’t a “priceless jewel” in the making; sometimes a student just isn’t cut out for accelerated learning programs and a college education. Sometimes that same student will achieve far more by going into other fields than picking up a piece of paper that says they are great at philosophy.

Tightening up the spending in many areas – rather than pitching cash on things that require no changes – is a great first step, Democrats.

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump gets a lot of grief over this, but the Democrats are more than likely the ones to be bitching about every little breach of “political correctness” that occurs. While sometimes necessary, there are times when Democrats will whine about a term used in a joke, which should be a bastion of verbal discussion that is far removed from political correctness. Comedian/political commentator Bill Maher spoke about this last year when, after comparing the situation then to the 1990s, said the following:

“In 2014, political correctness is making a comeback, and now with the Internet, it’s easier than ever.  In the 90s, you had to at least get off your ass to be in a fake group with hurt feelings. You needed signs, you needed petitions. You had to feed Al Sharpton. Back then, getting worked up over nothing was a lot of work.”

“But now, it seems like all the Internet exists to do is point at the latest person who said the wrong thing, so the rest of us can feel morally superior.  And that’s not what the Internet is for.  That’s what college is for. Now social media is all about ‘gotcha.’  A homophobic businessman, or a sexist cartoonist, or a college president who fat-shamed his dog by naming it Waddles…You can’t purge everybody who doesn’t evolve exactly on the timetable you did.”

Things haven’t changed much over the last year. What Maher and many are saying is that the Democrats should grow a pair and quit worrying about every perceived slight that seemingly happens.

Finally, the Democrats cannot be complacent in the belief that the ‘melting pot’ that is the United States will continually be counted on to support their causes. In the Hispanic community, it is estimated that 55% are Catholic; as such, some of the Democratic policies in place may not be in line with some Latinos’ mindset. Hard work is rewarded in the Hispanic, Asian and Indian cultures rather than accepting a great deal of assistance from the government and these blocs are growing vastly in the U. S., perhaps viewing the Republican side as a more viable one.

If the Democrats do these things, then they will be set for the next 50 years, at the minimum, with a viable hand in the political landscape. If they continue to neglect things, especially spending (yes, it is time to cut some of the social programs that are available, along with Social Security and the military), then it will be difficult for the U. S. electorate to hand them the checkbook for the country. Without that change alone, Democrats may win elections from simple numbers but won’t be in position to enact any budgetary guidelines because they can’t handle how to spend the money.