Dear Mitt Romney, Please Go Away.

Today I learned that the President of the United States, took out public enemy number one, Osama bin Laden, last year for the sole purpose of using it as a "cheap ploy" to get reelected in November.

Sigh. Oh, Mitt Romney, when are you going to stop talking about all of Obama's perceived negatives and tell us what your ACTUAL plan for America is should you, [deity] forbid, become the next President? Clearly you don't think justice for Septemeber 11, 2001 is something to throw around as a major accomplishment. You would just rather bop around the country talking about nothing and smiling your ridiculously fake smile in all the right places.

And please don't pretend like W. wouldn't have been throwing his capture of Saddam in everyones face had he been up for reelection. That was the only silver lining to come out of the whole embarrassing ordeal in Iraq, which PS, is no better off now than they were before. And everyone agrees that conditions have deteriorated here at home as well.

Also, that deficit you're so effing concerned about? Not totally Obama's fault. There was a surplus in 2000. Then Iraq and their pretend weapons of mass destruction happened.


You can etcha sketch your own campaign and ideals all you want but the fact are as follows:

-Bush took us into an irrelevant war and ignored the relevant one.
-Obama gave the order to kill bin Laden and ended the War in Iraq.
-Bush was still in office when the economy went bust.
-Obama did his effing best and saved the US Auto Industry you thought we should abandon.


You're an idiot.

It's Primary Election Day in PA. Hey!

Friends. I know Primary election day is not the most exciting day of the year. In fact, with how busy we all have to keep ourselves in order to have food on the table, it's diffcult to even find the time to go to the polls. I am hoping to get to mine just before closing time, which is 8p.m. here in Pennsylvania by the way.

I got a call from the Obama campaign the other day asking if I was going to go out and vote for the President and I was like, "Um, duh." Although, I didn't really even know that was necessary at this point. He is obviously the Democratic Party's candidate for the 2012 General Election. But just like any other candidate, Obama still needs to rack up his apporpriate number of delegates.

Which brings me to my point of this blog. The way we vote in the U.S. is totally effed up for a number of reasons.

1. As previously mentioned, who has time to vote? 7a.m.-8p.m. is not enough time. Especially for students and people with more than one job.

2. What is the point of voting when the candidates have pretty much already been picked by all the states that voted before us? Exactly. Which is why all 50 states should all vote on the same day. This would allow for the "elite media" as Newt likes to call them, to have much less of an influence on the way we vote. We wouldn't know who won what state and by how many votes one or two at a time. It would be a more accurate representation as to who American Citizens actually want as their candidate.

3. Speaking of being a more accurate representation, did you know that some states have what is called an Open Primary while others have Closed Primaries? Pennsylvania has a closed primary. This means that you can only vote for those within your party and if you are registered as an Independent then you don't get to vote at all.

4. I don't know about you guys but, I consider American owned territories relevant. These include places like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. So even though they pay taxes to the U.S. government (except income taxes), and hold their own seemingly meaningless primary elections during our primary season, these places are not represented in Congress and are not permitted to vote in Federal elections. I.e., they can't vote for the next President of the country that technically owns them. Why? Because they're not a state. So there.

5. Anybody remember the 2000 Presidential Election? You know, when Al Gore actually won but then George W. Bush somehow managed to become the President after months of counting and recounting votes. That election taught us that it really doesn't matter what we the citizens of America want because even when the popular vote goes to one candidate, the number of delegates awarded is more important. And the big state in question that year was Flordia. Shocking, I know. The problem had to do with paper ballots. Back in the day, you had to punch holes next to the name of the candidate you wanted to vote for. Unfortunately, this method of voting was faulty. Ballots were difficult to read and incorrect votes we cast. Some votes didn't count at all because they weren't punched hard enought. In the end, W. was awarded Florida and its 25 delegates allowing him to reach the required 270. So, of the 100,000+ Americans that voted in 2000, it really only takes 270 to decided who will be our next leader.
Fun fact, the Governor of Florida at the time of this debacle was none other than Jeb Bush. Relation? Brother of one, President-elect George Walker Bush.

I don't mean to discourage anyone from voting. Your voice still matters because we vote to pick the people who eventually become delegates. Also, we vote for people who run our cities, counties, and states. Here in NEPA we know a thing or two about nepotism and corruption. And we all know it isn't fair and doesn't benefit anyone but the elected officials and their groupies. So we can stop voting for those assholes who don't have our best interest in mind and start voting for other people. It doesn't mean they're going to do any better but at least they'll do it differently.

So go vote today. At the very least, vote in November. Because Frederick Douglass, Alice Paul, and a bunch of white guys would want you to.

                                                                 

                                                                   This guy too.

Because I've Got a Crush on Obama. And you know, logic...

This election season thus far has been dominated by the race for the GOP nomination. And from their debates, TV appearances, and town hall meetings, we know the primary concern of these candidates is to defeat the President in November. The number one issue they are running on is winning. Winning when millions of Americans are losing. We’ve lost jobs, money, opportunities, and some have even lost their lives overseas in the War on Terror. That didn’t all happen in the last four years.
Since taking office, the President has achieved many important things that few give him credit for. He saved the American auto industry in Detroit while others thought we should let it die.  He saved 1.4 million jobs and today Chrysler, GM, and Ford are all once again profitable companies. They’ve paid off their outstanding loans years ahead of schedule and have added 200,000 jobs. In addition, we’ve now seen two straight years of private sector job growth.

No one can deny we are not out of the red yet. Nor are we trying to say that America is back to what it once was prior to the previous Republican administration, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. It took eight years of poor decisions to get us to this crisis that we call the Great Recession and it’s foolish to believe that it could be reversed in only half the time. But we're on the right track. The President has a plan, to rebuild the American middle class.

As college students, we may feel like we’ve been ignored thus far. Education hasn’t been an issue that’s been discussed regularly or at all and the Republican candidates have little more than talking points on their websites. President Obama won the 2008 election thanks in large part to young voters and will not forget what we’ve done for him. In return, he has taken steps to make college more affordable and signed a new law that will make it easier for college students to repay loans. In 2014, new borrowers will pay no more than 10% of their disposable income and allows for any remaining debt after 20 years to be forgiven. Those who take public-service jobs such as teachers, nurses, and members of the armed forces will have their debt forgiven after 10 years assuming their payments are made on time.

The President has also ensured that we can be insured by our parents until the age of 26 under his Affordable Care Act. This is extremely important at a time when thousands of college graduates are having trouble finding full time jobs.

Hey ladies, do you like having your birth control covered? Because the President’s opponents don’t want you to have it. They’d prefer to have states decide how to provide coverage to their citizens. That’s 50 different healthcare plans instead of one that benefits all. In recent months we’ve seen dozens of laws proposed by Republican run states that violate the rights of women and are aimed specifically at making them feel guilty enough to reconsider their choice of abortion. Virginia, Idaho, Louisiana, and even Pennsylvania have all proposed bills that would require a woman seeking an abortion to get an invasive procedure against her wishes and against her doctor’s wishes. This may seem extreme for a party that claims to be against big government intruding on the lives of citizens. The President stands by women and supports their equal rights.

In addition to equal rights for women, President Obama supports equal rights for homosexual citizens. In 2011, he officially repealed the unfair, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law that forbid openly gay men and women from serving in the United States Armed Forces. Since it was signed into law in 1993, 13,650 perfectly good soldiers have been dismissed from all branches of the Army and thousands more may have been deterred from joining. The President, like so many our age, younger, and increasingly, older citizens, understands that sexual orientation has no effect on the ability of a person to defend their country.

Though it is still not yet legal for same-sex couples to marry in all states, President Obama has declared the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. This law defines marriage as being strictly between a man and a woman and denies legally married same-sex couples federal recognition. The President was also the first to provide hospital visitation and medical decision making rights to same-sex couples that were previously denied. Imagine your partner was in a terrible accident and you were barred from seeing them in the hospital. Imagine being told that your relationship is less than someone else’s. It’s true that President Obama has not yet come out and fully supported same-sex marriage on a federal level, but many believe, that if reelected, he will. It is time that this country, the land of the free, where everyone gets an equal chance at the pursuit of Life, Liberty, and Happiness, stop picking and choosing which citizens are worthy of those rights.

But hey, if you don’t like equal rights, if you don’t like affordable healthcare coverage, if you don’t want help repaying your school loans, and if, for some reason, you think record highs in the stock market, an increase in gross domestic product, and a recovering economy isn’t what you want for the next four years, by all means vote for one of the Republican candidates. But if you want a better America, an America that values and practices the ideals we preach to other countries, vote to reelect Obama. He's still a pretty awesome guy.