Are you misguided, uniformed, heartless or rich? Then you must vote Republican.

Elections for many political offices will be occurring this fall.  The winners of these elections will be responsible for future legislation in federal and state governments that will control our daily lives.

The upcoming mid-term elections are not insignificant nor typical.  One could say that these mid-term elections are the most important election of our time.  The future of our American society could be in the balance.

The Congressional elections for the federal House and Senate could reinforce Republican obstruction or eliminate it, depending on the results.  State elections could make life or death differences to many who cannot receive medical care under Republican obstructed medicaid expansion.

To help you remember or to just inform some of you for the first time, of some of the deleterious effects of having Republicans in office, let me recall some things you should know by now.

America's unemployed work force could be put back to work if the President's American Jobs Act is enacted without Republican obstruction.

Women could become equal in the workforce if legislation to prevent discrimination in wages was lifted by removing Republican obstruction.

America's immigrant families could receive fairer treatment if Republicans could not prevent it.

Opportunity for all Americans and America's economic condition could be improved with an increase in the minimum wage which Republicans refuse to support.

The unfair control of government realized by the few uber-rich American contributors to the Republican party who influence their legislation and activities could be eliminated.

The American worker and middle class could rise in importance and our government could be "of, for and by the people" again.

Poor children would go to bed less hungry if Republican cuts to the SNAP program were eliminated and reversed.

Falsely imposed voting restrictions could be stopped if Republicans were run out of state legislatures.

The Republican party's partisan witch-hunts based on false  accusations would stop being the focus of the Congress and taxpayer money could be used more productively for legislation that Americans need if Republicans lost control of the House.

America would never again renege on their debt obligations if Republicans are not given the power to cause it.

Dealing with scientific facts, the government could make more reasonable decisions to enact laws that protect our environment if Republicans were not in control.

Near treasonous acts that show Republican leadership's opposition to government would end.

Using fear tactics and lies to persuade Americans into voting against their own self interest could end if Republicans are shown that using those unethical tactics cannot win them elections.

The federal government may never face another shutdown if Republicans were not in control.

The Affordable Care Act might be allowed to continue to benefit people; improve the health of America; put money back into the economy with increased jobs in health services; improve the profits of medical device manufacturers, hospitals, doctors, nurses and insurance companies while at the same time making healthcare affordable.

Expanding Medicaid in Republican run states would insure and protect the health of over seven million uninsured poor voters and reduce costs for taxpayers whose premiums are higher in order to cover the costs of those who do not have health insurance.  Hospitals in rural areas of Republican run states could become profitable again and re-open their doors.

America's tax policies could be reviewed and certain unfair loop-holes closed so that all Americans and American Corporations pay their fair share of taxes and revenue could again become part of the equation for budget considerations if  Republicans did not control the federal House.

Ultimately, the mid-term elections are  extremely important.  You should consider this as important an election as a Presidential one and get out to vote. 

If you consider yourself a Republican, perhaps you have inherited that title or been influenced to vote as one from your parents and grandparents whose culture of Republicanism goes back many years.  You should recognize that political parties change over time and may not be the same as the party your parents or grandparents aligned with.  For example, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican who freed the slaves yet some modern day Republicans pass legislation to restrict voting rights to African-Americans.  In regards to empathy toward others, Republicans have changed dramatically.

A political party affiliation should not be treated the same as your genetically inherited characteristics. Although "mutation" is a similarity between genetics and political parties, your party affiliation should be based on how closely a comparison of the overall beliefs and policies of the party match your own personal beliefs.  The comparison should not be limited to one or two policies but to all policies and beliefs so you get a complete picture of a party.  For example, Republican leaders claim to hold to the teachings of Christianity because they support a right to life but their legislation may indicate that they oppose Christianity since they do not support the needy and carry out injustices to other diverse populations.

In order to make such comparisons you should research the facts about the political party's policies; understand how they vote on issues and determine if they represent your views.  It is important to determine these things by reviewing factual reference material while ignoring commentators or others who would attempt to deceive you or are just misinformed themselves.  One way this can be done is by reviewing government web sites such as http://www.house.gov, http://bls.gov and http://www.senate.com.  

To keep informed on current events in politics, watch political television shows on both sides of politics and judge for yourself which is most truthful.  For example, Fox News is known to be conservative television that takes a less factual "entertainment" approach to supporting Republican causes while MSNBC is known to be progressive news reporting that supports Democratic causes.  Seeing these two networks present both sides of the same issue can be enlightening. 

Paul Ryan (R) Wisconsin

That being said, I want to begin analyzing Republicanism with one of the most telling subjects in recent days; the 2014 Republican budget proposal.  It has been said that you can tell where a party's priorities are by the budget they propose.  

Paul Ryan was tasked with the job of preparing a Republican budget proposal that balanced within ten years.  Balancing a budget can be done in many ways, but the Republican budget had to be based on Republican principles which molded and forced the end result.  

One building block of that Republican budget is that tax revenue cannot be increased.  Without new revenue, only cuts in federal programs would be possible. 

Another prerequisite was that military spending must be increased. Increasing military spending without raising taxes means something else must be cut by the amount of increase in military spending.  About $650 billion is spent on the United States military each year which exceeds the combined military spending of the next ten highest spending countries in the world.  Even the US military has stated that the amount is too high and can be reduced.  When Republicans speak of military spending they do not mean government assistance for veterans.  They do mean to increase the wealth of defense contractors.

Yet another prerequisite of the Republican budget is that much of the cost and operation of Federal government programs must be passed on to the states.  Making states take on safety net programs will force them to either increase their taxes (if they plan to continue to provide the service) or cut or eliminate the programs.  In Republican run states I can state almost certainly that these services will be cut.  Overall, their budget expects that the financial burden that they are eliminating from the federal government should be placed on the states.  Provided the states maintain the programs, the savings to the individual would be no different than if the federal government had kept the financial burden except that the taxes would be coming from the state instead of the federal government.

The Ryan budget makes severe cuts to services that support the poor, middle class, students, the elderly and disabled while at the same time rewarding the rich with lower taxes, repealing the alternative minimum tax, reducing corporate tax, and changing international tax laws to allow corporations to avoid being taxed on foreign income brought back into the United States.

By the explanation he gives in his budget's narrative, Ryan tries to convince people that government loans are the reason that students must pay such high tuition costs as these somehow encourage Universities to charge higher tuitions.  Even if this were true, Ryan's solution is to reduce government loans and cap Pell Grants for students, thereby eliminating help some deserving students might be able to obtain without a government loan.  It's funny how Republican reasoning often defies logic.  They accept big business' action of  charging higher tuitions as reasonable given the availability of government money and instead blame the federal government for providing so much loan money.  I guess we are supposed to understand as our Republican leaders do, that the ethics of businessmen can readily be overcome by such easy opportunity for profit.

Sticking to the Republican claims that the Affordable Care Act is the worst thing that could happen to America, his budget calls for the repeal of the ACA leaving no alternative but to return to the way it was before the ACA.   The budget calls for repealing Medicaid Expansion and eliminating healthcare premium subsidies available on the government healthcare exchange.  With these words, Republicans are saying that insurers can deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, so if you lose your job and have a pre-existing condition, you will no longer have health insurance.  They remove healthcare access from millions of the poor who are now covered under medicaid expansion.  Lifetime coverage caps will return so if you get a debilitating and costly disease you may also lose your life savings.  If you have limited income, you will no longer get any help to pay for your insurance premiums.  Certain free services will once again be charged.  Children between 21 and 25 will lose their parent's insurance and be required to purchase their own or not be insured.

Medicare and social security will not be the same for  future seniors.  Not being capable of funding social programs almost certainly means medicare and social security will suffer under Republican rule.

There are many more aspects to the budget that you should see for yourself.  Visit this link: The 2014 Republican Budget to find the actual text.

If you are not in the top 2% financially, voting for Republicans is not in your best interest.  If you are a caring person, voting for Republicans should outrage you.  If you are an informed and intelligent person and not in the 2%, you should never vote Republican.  What does that make you?

Remember to vote in the fall's midterm elections.  It's your protected right and it's what will make all the difference to America.

The real reason Republican leadership hates ObamaCare

The Affordable Care Act (which is now law) provides health insurance to nearly 30 million Americans who did not previously have it.  It requires health insurance companies to treat Americans fairly.  It mandates a set of health insurance standards to ensure that Americans understand the kind of coverage they are getting.  It eliminates "junk" insurance that does not truly provide helpful coverage.  It provides Americans with a known set of insurance coverages which they have the freedom to choose from.

The law provides subsidies to those families and individuals who could not otherwise afford sensible coverage.  It prevents insurance companies from denying insurance for individuals with pre-existing conditions.  It prevents insurance companies from dropping individuals when their illness becomes too costly to the insurance company.  It provides women with free preventive care for such things as PAP smears.  It allows children to remain on their parent's insurance policy until they are 26 years old.  It eliminates lifetime caps and ensures Americans can remain insured during catastrophic illnesses.  It provides for rebates to insured Americans if their insurance company charges more than 20% of their premium price for management and administrative costs.

The Congressional Budget Office has indicated that the Affordable Care Law will return money to

the economy.  They found that repealing the law would increase the deficit by 108 billion over 10 years.  It has been estimated that the increase in the number of patients will add a windfall of profits to doctors, hospitals and medical device manufacturers.  That profit is estimated to be so high, that most medical device manufacturers have agreed to pay the government back over 80 billion dollars in ten years.  The rise in the patient population is said to be good for jobs.

Where expanded medicaid is implemented in the states, it will cover the very poor and improve state economies not only by preventing costly emergency room visits by the uninsured, but also by providing states with 100% of the cost involved in implementing it in the first three years and 90% of the cost in all future years.

The well being and pursuit of happiness of Americans that is guaranteed by our constitution will improve for millions and millions of Americans because of the law.  So what is the real reason that Republican leadership hates it?

We have heard Republican complaints that people will lose their jobs, businesses will  reduce full time employees and death panels led by the Obama administration will decide who lives and dies because of the law.  Is any of it true or is it just more Republican fear mongering?  You can rest assured that none of it is true and it is just more Republican fear mongering.

Fox news has assisted in this fear mongering by inviting a few guests who have misrepresented their situations so as to appear affected by the law, but when investigated by outside impartial observers, have been found to be mistaken.  Fox news' Sean Hannity has had several staged shows where his invited "audience" of Fox news reporters make stuff up to continue the lie that ObamaCare is the worst thing ever.

We know that Republicans hate ObamaCare.  They have proven it over 40 times when they have wasted taxpayer money to try to repeal it unsuccessfully.  Ted Cruz, that Canadian born Tea Party Senator, has even given a performance in a "filibuster of nothingness" to show his determination that ObamaCare is bad.  He's made millions by conning the American public to support his efforts with contributions in television ads.

So lets get down to it.  The real reason Republican leaders hate ObamaCare has a lot to do with Republican leadership's commitment to a decision they made as a group while President Obama was being inaugurated in 2009.  They all agreed to make the President ineffective in any way they could.  During his first term, Mitch McConnell publicly announced that their most important goal was to make Obama a one term President.

Failing that, they continued to support their goal that this President's legacy will show that he accomplished nothing during his terms in office.  Republicans in Congress have used their power of filibuster, obstruction and majority rule in the House to prevent passage of everything proposed by the Democrats and the President.  The 112th and 113th Congresses, both of which have had Republicans controlling the House, have been the least effective in the history of the United States, passing no substantial legislation in either session.  But that is their goal and they are accomplishing it very effectively, regardless of the impact it has on America.

They are hopeful that when time passes and the memory of their personal acts of destruction to America are forgotten, what history will record is that the first black American President could not accomplish anything.  They are counting on the fading memories of Americans who know about their actions and the ones who don't know the difference in the legislative branch and the executive branch, to wrongly see the President as ineffective.  Their hope is to never allow a black Democrat to become elected President again.  Somehow, their perverse and some would say, bigoted ideas about this appear to them to be the thing that returns public opinion and favoritism to Republican candidates for the office.

The one thing that saves President Obama from this is ObamaCare and Republicans hate that fact.  They hate that all of their efforts may be for nothing unless this ObamaCare law is erased from history.  And so it has become the most important thing that Republicans can target in order to accomplish their goal.

Americans must begin to see the truth about ObamaCare.  They must see the lies coming from the Republican party.  Any party that is willing to take such devious actions and sacrifice Americans to carry out their partisan goals does not deserve to be in office.

Your vote is the key to returning decency to government.  I urge you to vote Democrat in all elections.  

Reid to GOP: Give up and become reasonable...(that'll never work.)

Senator Harry Reid (D)

Democrat Senate majority leader Harry Reid sent a letter to John Boehner today asking for a reasonable end to the government closing forced by the unreasonable demands of Republicans.  You can see the entire letter here.

To paraphrase, Senator Reid explains that the actions to close the government are an undeserved consequence of Republican actions which should never have been attempted.

Senator Reid wants Mr. Boehner to become reasonable and pass the Senate version of the clean continuing resolution after which Senator Reid promises to name nominees to a budget conference which he says can start as soon as the government re-opens.

In a nutshell, Harry Reid is asking Republicans to give up their master accomplishment, shutting down the government, in order to behave as reasonable people and compromise on government funding after they wake the government "monster" back up.

There are a number of reasons why Harry Reid's request will not be successful.   However, he doesn't see it because he is a reasonable person who simply doesn't appear to understand the nature of the Republican mind.

First, the radical wing of the Republican party is instigating the government shutdown because they are

anarchists whose purpose is to eliminate government.  They are actually happy that the government is shut-down.  Because they have the ear of some simple-minded citizens and because they have tremendous amounts of cash coming in from like-minded anarchists, they control the Republican party right now.

Their plan all along has been to get the government into this precarious situation.  The first step was to obstruct all Obama era legislation.  The accomplishments of the 112th and 113th Congress since Republicans have been in control of the House are devoid of any substantial legislation.  They are the two worst in the history of the United States.

Next they planned to starve government by allowing the sequester to happen. This was a Republican tactic from the beginning.  John Boehner reminded us of how favorably Republicans see the sequester when he commented that their plan for the continuing resolution keeps the "savings brought about by the sequester."

They saw their next obstacle to government shutdown in Obamacare.  They realized that implementing this program might squash or set their agenda back.  Even their own constituents, as simple-minded as some of them are, might realize that affordable healthcare is something that they want and need from government.  So in their minds this program must be destroyed.

And that brings us to where we are today.  Republicans happy with the damage they have done to America so far, won't be completely satisfied until Obamacare is gone and they will do everything from spreading lies and rumors to creating legislation in Republican controlled states to block it,  blame it, and make it look responsible for their devious behavior.

Congressman Ryan (R)

House Speaker John Boehner (R)

Not only will Boehner not accept Harry Reid's offer, Republicans will allow the government shut down to persist until the next Republican manufactured crisis; the debt ceiling.

It was Paul Ryan who enthusiastically lectured Republicans on live TV just as the government was shutting-down, that the next hostage to use to get their way was the debt ceiling.

So expect the shut down to last at least until then and be prepared for economic melt-down if Republicans hold the debt ceiling hostage.  Economists have compared the damage done by a government shut down to the damage done by defaulting on our debts as the difference between a hand grenade and global nuclear war.

But maybe that is what Republicans want.

The real scandal isn't at the IRS

The IRS is tasked with the responsibility to review applications for tax exemption.  In what is known as the 501(c) process, organizations can apply for tax exemption by providing information which proves to the satisfaction of the IRS, that they are non-political, social welfare type organizations whose primary function is not to advance a political agenda.

The IRS has recently come under attack by Republicans in Congress who claim that the IRS over-stepped their authority when it came to reviewing tax exemption applications from Tea Party type organizations.  The outrage of Republicans is evident  in the chambers of Congress where Republicans led by Darrel Issa, chair of the special investigative committee, have sworn to get to the bottom of the connection of IRS wrong-doing with the White House and more importantly with President Obama.

Perhaps because Republicans are blinded by the rush that getting a chance to implicate the President of wrong-doing elicits, they are missing some of the important facts which could, and by all rights should, turn the tide of wrong-doing onto their constituents.

First, to even refer to an organization as a Republican group implicates them as being political.  This violates the meaning of a 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 and should not entitle them to tax exemption.  Even so, the IRS approved applications for many obviously Republican political groups such as the "Tea Party Patriots" the "American Patriots Against Government Excess", "National Tea Party Group" and "Tea Party Radio."  If you have any doubt that these organizations are primarily politically focused, all you have to do is go to their web sites to see it for yourself.

So why did the IRS approve these applications?  If they followed their own guidelines, they should have known that these organizations were primarily involved in politics.  So what did they base their  decisions on?  Despite what the right wing media and Republicans in Congress are attempting to convey, the IRS did not make their decisions based on the names representing these organizations.  They could not have, otherwise they would not have approved the applications.  They made their decisions based on the information that the organizations provided.  

It appears a safe bet that the information provided to the IRS by the applicants was insufficient to implicate the organizations as political action committees.  If this was done by the applicants to  intentionally mislead the IRS review, then it is a crime which is punishable by fines and/or imprisonment.  That is the real scandal here.  These organizations might have knowingly hidden information from the IRS in order to get unfair and undeserved tax advantages.  That sounds familiar.  Where have we seen this before?  Oh yeah, Romney was pretty good at that.

Lindsey Graham

Now in a relentless pursuit to find something bad to pin on the President, Senator Lindsey Graham (R- SC) is calling for a special prosecutor to investigate the entire IRS "scandal".  This could be the best thing that ever happened for the IRS and the worst thing for the Tea Party Patriots and their Republican leadership.

If a special prosecutor is called who is impartial, then I predict that the IRS and the President will be cleared of any wrong-doing.  Furthermore, some unhappy Tea Party organizations will be paying for their arrogance and deception when the real scandal is revealed.  Perhaps clearer Republican heads will prevail and convince Graham to drop the idea before the truth can be known.

That would be a pity.