Can you hear me ? If not now ever?

[Eamonn]

I'm not by nature, what might be termed a "Political Animal".

While it kinda seems clear to me that the voters were trying to send a message to the politicians at both the State and the National level. I think things are going to not be any better and in fact will be worse.

For just about all my life I have either been on the very far Left or Left of center.

At times, much as I maybe hate to admit it, I have and do fall into "I'm all right Jack" And am maybe not as caring as I feel I maybe should be.

While some things are important to me. There does seem to be a lot of hot political items that I fail to see the fuss about.

I fail to see why Gay Marriage is such a hot item. My employer (Pennsylvania State) offer Health Insurance to all Domestic Partners, be they same sex partners or not. Lots of heterosexual couples choose not to get married. So I'm not sure what the big deal is? Yes I do know at times that gay couples do feel that they are treated unfairly, but I think the laws that deal with the areas where they feel that they are not being treated fairly are the ones that need looked at.

While I know the Devil is in the details and I admit to having not read all the stuff that is in the new Health Care Law. I do feel that every civilized country should provide Heath care to all the people who live there. - Maybe the health care that was passed went about it the wrong way? Maybe it went too far? Maybe now that things have changed in Washington DC, it will be tweaked and made more acceptable for everyone? Who knows?

I do like the idea of less interferences into my life. If that is the same thing as less government, then I'm all for it.

I don't need a governing body to take the toys out of my happy meal because they deem that the toy leads to fat kids. Heck I'm responsible enough to not let my kids eat at these places if I believe they will do harm.

I do want to feel that I have control over things that effect me. I'm OK paying the extra cost involved for a PPO health care plan, so I'm not tied to what a HMO might impose on me.

I wish I could only pay for the TV channels I want. The truth is that I don't watch Home Shopping, anything on Fox or the fat nun saying the Rosary.

I was upset earlier this year with all the changes that went on in the banks. I moved my accounts to Credit Unions. The PSECU seemed like a good fit, until I tried depositing money into my accounts. They don't even have deposit tickets in the check books. So I'm left mailing checks in to them and then waiting for the checks to clear. This can take a fair amount of time. When I called and asked them about this. The nice Lady on the phone informed me that they do have some ATM'S that do accept deposits. Together we looked on line and found that the closest one to me was 43 miles from where I live.

I opened another account with a Credit Union just 3 miles from where I live. The problem there was that the Cash Card they offer only works in PA and at this time they are unwilling to make any changes.

The transit authority in Pittsburgh is informing everyone that they are going to have to raise fares and maybe cut some services. Needless to say this upsets a lot of the people who use the services.

I don't have the choice of riding the bus or the train. The last bus went through our little town in the year when I was born.

No one offered me any sort of relief when gas went over $3.00 a gal. I was still expected to get myself to work. Still the guys in Harrisburg are hoping to find a way of helping these bus riders. -It just seems unfair to me. Can I have a bus please?

Talking about Harrisburg. Both Houses and the Governor are now Republican. The Governor ran on a platform of not raising taxes. Being as the State already has a big deficit, I'm unsure how he hopes to do this?

My bet is that he will be true to his word and not raise our State Taxes. But I feel sure that we will see huge increases in local and county taxes.

Does it really matter who takes my hard earned cash? Once it's gone, it's gone.

My problem is that no one seems to really want to take the time to really find out what the little guy on the street is really feeling or thinking.

It makes little difference if it's the guy in D.C. The guys at the State or even the guys elected to the local school boards.

I just don't see anything changing anytime soon.

Ea.

 

[Beavah]

Yah, Amen.

 

I see that despite da shellacking they got in 06 and 08, the borrow-and-spend-and-deregulate-and-bailout republicans haven't learned a thing.

 

Within a day of da election they've promised to make da Bush tax cuts permanent, further cut taxes, and reduce the deficit, with not a single proposal for cuttin' spending.

 

Maybe they're goin' to switch to a cut-and-run strategy in Afghanistan? Cut services to veterans?

 

Only answer at this point is what we're already seeing, eh? They're goin' to collapse the value of the dollar and monetize the debt by inflation. That's da dishonest way of raising taxes, eh? Yeh can still claim yeh didn't raise taxes, yeh just cut everyone's buying power by 10% per year. Just a huge tax on da middle class and poor, so that the AIG tycoons can pass the money they stole from da taxpayer down to their children without paying a dime.

 

It'd be nice to see some real leadership from one side of da aisle or another.

 

Instead we've got kindergarten.

 

Beavah

[jr56]

I would like term limits. If any one thing would even begin to help.

Those folks in Washington have set themselves up like royalty, so that when they get elected, they don't want to make any tough decisions on things like cutting spending. They only want to make decisions that they feel will be popular with enough of the voters so that they can keep their fat butt in Washington and on the gravy train. Wish I had half the salary and half the perks that those bozos do.

[OldGreyEagle]

you dont want term limits, you really dont want term limits

 

When you have term limits the most important person ceases to be the person elected, it becomes the staffer. The career long guy who shows the elected where to live, where to park, where to eat and eventually how to vote

 

The staffers would run a shadow government and we wouldnt know who they are. if we have bozo's in washington, or in your state capitol, I would look to the people who put them there and then allow them to stay, In the words of Firesign Theatre, I think we are all Bozos on this bus

[Eamonn]

"so that the AIG tycoons can pass the money they stole from da taxpayer down to their children without paying a dime."

 

I was over in Ireland a couple of weeks ago.

Things are not good there.

The economy is in tatters.

Just about everyday I was there the headlines seemed to be about the good for nothing, so and so bankers who had allowed the mess to happen.

While maybe some of what was said and printed might very well have been over the top?

When we seen the mess that the bankers on this side of the pond got us into. There just didn't seem to be the same feelings of anger or outrage.

I'm not wise enough or clever enough to know what might have been the outcome if we hadn't had the bail-out?

But if we are going to be upset surely it makes more sense to be upset at the people who got us into the mess in the first place, not the people who tried to fix the problem.

 

We now face two years of the republicans doing their best to make the President look like a real twit, while at the same time trying to work out what to do with Palin.

It seems that shipping her off to Alaska is no longer an option. Maybe Ambassador to Nauru?

Ea

 

 

 

[BrentAllen]

I used to be in favor of term limits, but have since realized that isn't the answer. The real answer is easy - normal, competitive redistricting. Get rid of the ridiculous gerrymandered districts drawn to insure a certain winner. The Republicans are going to be in charge of redistricting in many states, and I sincerely wish they would draw up square-shaped districts with normal-looking boundaries. No more ink-blot districts weaving all over the map, cut out with a laser. Look at the districts drawn in Illinois, Mass., NC and SC, and compare them to Michigan. Michigan isn't perfect, but at least there are a lot of straight lines. When districts are redrawn based on geography and population, instead of voter demographics, then we might have a chance at restoring this country. Otherwise, we are headed for further real trouble, no matter which party is in charge.

 

We need statesmen willing to put country before party to do this. Therefore, I see no chance of it happening.

[AlFansome]

Agree completely with BrentAllen.

 

As a resident of the Golden State, take a look at California to see what term limits and (more to the point) completely safe legislative districts have gotten us. In each party's primary, we get the most extreme candidate (both left and right) winning their primaries, followed by that district's dominant party's candidate winning in the general.

 

They all go to Sacramento and have a p*ssing match to see who can stonewall the longest. (Oh yeah, having a 2/3 majority required to pass a budget doesn't help, either!).

 

This year, we the voters passed an initiative (and defeated a politician-sponsored opposing initiative) that will now remove politicians from directly drawing the district boundaries....assuming the pending court fights won't gut the new law, of course.

 

Also this year, the threshhold to pass a budget was lowered via the initiative process from 2/3 to 50% (or maybe 55%) and legislators don't get paid until they pass a budget.

 

It's akin to taking away a kid's toy until he learns to behave.

[acco40]

We may have the straightest drawn districts but we also have the highest unemployment. I'll trade.

 

Michigan, for better or worse, will now have a Republican Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Republican House, Republican Senate, . . . and, if you are convicted of violating the public trust - no elected office for you for 20 years! (Kwame law).

[Scoutfish]

The first step would be to dump the party system.

 

SAs it is right now, people have so much blind loyalty to a party just because it's one or the other.

 

The Republican govt put us in a bind over 6 years ago, Then when the Democratic Govt took power, the republicans refused to help or go along with anything Obama or the rest of the dems said.

If the Dems said fire was hot, the Republicans would swaer trhat fire was cold just for spite!

 

But the Dems are no better. When the republican Govt gained power, the dems refused to go along with anything either.

 

Ive seen kindergarteners get along more respectfully than that!

 

But that's just a start.

 

Now, along the lines of what Eamonn first said:

 

"While it kinda seems clear to me that the voters were trying to send a message to the politicians at both the State and the National level."

 

I do not think it's so much about wanting Republicans in power or Democrats in power. It's about telling any self serving idiot in power that if he/she ignores us, we will toss them out!

 

I heard a few ads by both parties stating that " Candidate "X" doesn't have experience in government!"

 

Well, my thinking is this: Experience doesn't seem to be working, so why not give the new guy a chance? Could he really make it much worse?

[skeptic]

Somehow, find a way to get the so called fringe parties more of a chance. The way it is right now, even if you have a strong candidate appear outside the R and D stranglehold, you feel like your vote is wasted, should you actually vote for them. So, it is vote your conscience and basically throw it away, or choose the lesser of the two evils that have a chance. Not the way to succeed.

[GernBlansten]

Remove party affiliation from the ballot. If you don't know which party the candidate is, you haven't done your homework. Choose alphabetically. Watch candidates quickly change their names to Adam Aardvark.

 

Term limits, yes. Pass a law to allow any citizen to leave their job, and return to it without consequence after serving. House 1 term, Senate 1 term. Must leave office for one term before running again. Employers must hold their job so they have a place to come back to. Eliminate career politicians.

[CalicoPenn]

I don't think it's just politicians that's the issue.

 

For a time in this country, the media was focused on sensationalism - the "yellow journalism" period. Newspapers competed with each other by trying to out-sensationalize the competition, even if what they printed was just out and out lies. This miserable period of journalism wasn't replaced by solid journalism - it was replaced by celebrity and king-making - with a touch of sensationalism still present. The Hearst era brought us the Lindberg Baby kidnapping - a story that was given far more play than it should have. It was that time periods equivalent of the OJ Trial. Also a story that got far more coverage than it really merited. It was a time when the media barons like Hearst weren't buying politicians - they were creating them. It was a time when media barons like Hearst openly admitted that they could influence events in order to make the news. I believe it was Hearst himself who told one of his reporters something to the effect that the reporter should stick around where he was, Hearst would bring him a war.

 

During and after WW2 -through most of the 80's, journalism went through a renassaince in this country - solid journalism, by solid, trustworthy journalists. People like Brinkley and Cronkite - people with gravitas.

 

Take a look at what we have now - anyone else notice a similarity to both the "yellow-journalism" and the celebrity obsessed king-making periods?

 

Certainly, media is a major part of the problems we're facing. The information we're getting runs the gamut from half-truths to outright falsehoods. When the media is telling us that they keep putting Lindsay Lohan on the front page (figuratively) because that's what the people want, I say it's a self-fulfilling load of BS. They put LL on the front page and we have no choice but to suffer through it to get to the news we really want and since we have now suffered through it, the media claims we want it. Sometimes I think the media companies should be required to hire an independent group of non-partisan fact checkers to sit next to every pundit and newscaster on television with laptop with super-fast internet access while on the air, with a big inflatable baseball bat, and when the pundit, guest or newscaster speaks a falsehood or half-truth, should whack them upside the head with the bat and inform the viewers of the facts. Not the truth mind you, but facts (opinions are fine, and opinions can be "truth", but opinions should be grounded in facts. For instance, if you claim Democrats started the Civil War, that's opinion - but if you further claim they did so because Abe Lincoln was a Democrat, now the opinion is based on a falsehood - and that's a whacking). Alas, I know that's a pipe dream - but somehow we need to get the people to start thinking critically again.

 

Another area we should be concerned with is polling. The problem with polling is that the questions are developed by people with an agenda - even those run by the self-identified neutral media sources have an agenda. We need to stop trusting polls from sources that accept ads for their websites (Rasmussen falls into this category) or from those that partner with (meaning are paid by) other entities (Gallup falls into this category - no more Gallup/CBS polls). Again, we need critical thinking skills. A poll that claims that 65% of people don't like the health care law and doesn't clarify what they don't like about it is worthless. I know a lot of democrats, liberals, progressives, moderates, and even a few conservatives that don't like the health care bill not because it went too far but because it didn't go far enough. Yet both those who don't like it because they don't want government in health care at all and those that don't like it because they don't think there is enough government involvement get lumped in the summary on the same "side" of the issue, despite being polar opposites. And I see that as a problem.

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, gotta agree with Calico, eh?

 

Da Fourth Estate has really let us down.

 

One of da reasons we allowed a completely ineffective, 3000 page monstrosity of a "financial reform" bill go through is because everyone in da press was too lazy or stupid to read and understand the thing, and then alert the American people to what was goin' on.

 

So we got 3000 page of smokescreen, and no accountability. Glass-Steagall was only about 30 pages and protected da system for 70 years. But no, no, we can't possibly expect the banks to make money the boring, slow, old-fashioned way. Not when they can gamble with other people's money with complete immunity.

 

Da health care effort was similar. 2500 pages? Just another smokescreen. Make it too long for the lazy press to read, too complicated for the stupid press to understand, and then yeh can tell 'em whatever yeh want and they'll print it as the story.

 

Beavah

 

[Lisabob]

That's our fault, too, Beavah.

 

Maybe we ought to demand better from our leadership. Maybe we ought to learn more about the issues. Maybe we shouldn't be so easily duped into believing outlandish things about "those fiends" on the other side of the aisle. Maybe we should demand less flash, and more substance. But as you know, anybody who is a moderate, who does anything other than *talk* about compromises, who deals in (sort of mundane) realities rather than sensationalist and demagogic rhetoric, is putting a target on their backs for the next election cycle.

 

Already, some influential conservative folks are talking about "targeting" their own party's moderates for the next electoral cycle.

 

For me, I generally like divided government more than unified government. And I don't think the recently elected group of tea party-backed Repubs will be able to get much accomplished, since they're so unwilling to work together as a party must. By 2012, I think we'll see a lot more anger from American voters who don't know (and don't take the time to know) what's really going on in government, but just know they don't like it and want to blame SOMEONE. And maybe some new group will be able to tap into that anger to win the next election, too. But I don't think anger is a good governing strategy.

 

[acco40]

The "media" gives us what sells. If TMZ sells more than Nightline is that the medias fault?