Debate or Debauchery?

What they are calling debates is a joke. It has become little more than a game of "Who can say the most attention grabbing, people pleasing answer to maintain poll numbers in order to assure they get to the next GOP debate?" 

Ben Carson: he said the "sequester" is ripping the heart out of our military. As I'm sure many of you know, Reason has even pointed out that the sequester barely puts a dent in spending, much less puts us where were in 2004 and nobody says we weren't "safe" then. 

Chris Christie: He should've ran against Bush with all that 9/11 pandering. We don't want more police and surveillance State shit. Go home, Chris, you're drunk...with power hunger.

Donald Trump: He's just a bag of hot air that gets the Tea Party wing going. He'll never be taken seriously by most Republicans.

Jeb Bush: He is among the herd thinking his failed Governorship will make good talking points. Not if you spend more than ten minutes looking at what his administration did to Florida. Let's not forget, he stumbled and fumbled on the now infamous, "Should your brother have gone into Iraq question. 

John Kasich: He seems to be running for Governor again, continually citing his record here. Though, he lied multiple times about the size and scope of tax cuts and job growth under his administration.

Marco Rubio: He wants to extend the NSA and Patriot Act indefinitely. Next.

Mike Huckabee: Provided he got his way, we'd have a good old fashioned Theocracy. No, just no.

Rand Paul: During the paltry 4:48 they allowed him to speak, he consistently championed Libertarian values and refused to apologize for it.

Scott Walker: He also seems to be running on his terrible Governorship while adding some feel good juice to it.

Ted Cruz: He largely agrees with Rubio that what we need is to double down many of the same failed policies from the past.

To recap, it looks to me like we still have a Republican Party shattered from the Bush years that doesn't know what it's stances or plans actually are and they're hoping you and I don't care.

  

How Obama's Hope and Change Became Nope and Strange

President Obama tapped into social media during his 2008 campaign with what was, at the time, unprecedented gusto. He spoke often of my generation, The "Millenials", and how it is quickly becoming a leader for societal change. He spoke of the astronomical costs of college and the need to reign them in because my generation is the first to graduate college with an average of just over $30,000 in debt. He embraced BlackBerry and the Fist Bump. He promised hope and change of the Washington status quo which, to us, meant he'd end Corporate Welfare, bust up businesses so large they have a near monopoly and prevent average citizens from starting businesses, and, in general, give us a voice in politics.

Nearly eight years later, he has largely abandoned many of his promises, much less his hopeful rhetoric aimed at us. He has done little more than offer empty threats to college for their refusal to stop raising tuition. He proceeded with George W Bush's plan to bail out the banks after saying they should fail because in a Capitalists society, reckless business decisions lead to failure. He started aggression in Libya, doubled down on Afghanistan, and is now slogging us back toward Iraq after he called Bush foreign policy misguided and counterproductive. He kept many Bush holdovers including DEA head Michelle Leonhart who has now resigned in shame after being unable to admit what virtually everyone already knows while under oath during a Congressional hearing: that Marijuana is not as dangerous as Cocaine or Heroin which, it has been scheduled with since the Nixon administration. He used the DEA to raid more medical marijuana dispensaries than the Bush administration did during its eight years before he was even in office for six months. Then, he issued the Ogden Memo notifying the DEA and DOJ to stop arresting and raiding for marijuana where it is legal according to State law. This still hasn't been enforced despite that fact that Obama, as a candidate and Senator, called the Drug War "an utter failure and a forty billion dollar mistake."

Make no mistake, though, my generation is affecting change both inside of politics and out. Once it was realized we are not a collective group of "lazy,apathetic, freeloaders" (by the way, why doesn't anyone ever talk about the fact that if we COULD be accurately stereotyped this way it would be a direct result of the way our parents raised us? We were, after all, the first generation to be told, "Everybody wins! You all get a trophy! Our parents' generation chose that, not us) and we, in fact, turned out with 59.5% of us voting, politicians began to take notice. Now, nearly every politician uses social media and at a minimum gives some amount of lip service to the issues we care about. Outside politics, one need to look no further than the resurgence of locally grown and organic foods. Companies are practically tripping over themselves to drop artificial everything and it has been widely acknowledged America has us to thank. Whatever your opinion of us, it should now be realized we are here to stay and we are pushing to leave our mark on the world, political and non.