The question should be what will democrats do if they take back these republican governorships? Will they reverse the policies of these conservative Governors or will they claim to have stopped the bleeding and leave it at that. Once gains are lost for the people they are very hard to recover.

Did these conservative Governors have an objective going into the governorship knowing full well their policies would cause them to be kicked out of office or at best be one term Governors? Was this the conservative strategy sent down from conservative think tanks: Like the Kato Institute or the Heritage Foundation? What jobs are waiting for these Governors when their terms are up? I would suspect they were willing to sacrifice their Governorship for greater gains down the road. I doubt the people who lost under these Governorships will regain what they’ve lost.

The guest talking about the Muslims said one reason the Muslims are so dangerous is that when one is eliminated, others take their place. And that's different from the anti-choice extremists how?

Any president that satisfies the people's wills, or wishes, will be deemed the surrender president in history. War makes the president a man, that was Bush's motivation. He wanted to be a wartime president, an unelected incompetent doesn't have to do anything in wartime, just use your goon squad.

How do we get money out of politics? Is that question all that important as compared to how do we get actual statesmen into politics. Don't get me wrong, I do feel their are a few statesmen in office, Bernie Sanders being one that stands out. But he's a rarity not a norm. If money is taken out of politics, well how does that keep an endless flood of self serving crack pots from getting elected (well a different set of self serving crack pots). The fact that our government is stated as for the people by the people, then I think its obvious that the citizens should be trained to be statesmen from as young an age as possible. This is not happening, in fact the opposite is happening, critical thinking is being marginalized. If you want to enable the average citizen to be able to run for office, I think the first thing to do is get the average citizen educated in critical thinking, political theory and in depth constitutional review.

We have more than the problem of money in politics, we also have the problem of lack of good political citizens. If you don't have good political citizens, how is the average citizen going to recognize a good statesman vs a charlatan. For that matter, if the average citizen was well educated in political theory, how would that effect the power of money in politics?

I'd also like to see regulations put in place on lobbyists becoming politicians and politicians becoming lobbyists, or ending up working in industry. It should be treated like insider trading on wall street.

I'd also like to put a perjury clause into the political system. A politician that demonstrably lies in a campaign to get elected, or while in office to gain support, should be disqualified for elected office and prevented or removed from office for violating the public trust. What is the point of uttering an oath of office, if there is no mechanism to enact justice for breaking that oath?

N

Another example of the fundamental fear of the right, the fear of democracy. They know that if elections are open, fair, universal and removed from the influence of wealth that their vision of the world will be severely, and justly, margianalized.

Unless there is public financing of elections and all candidates are running clean, every election will have increaingly escalating costs.Every year the cost of candidacy will double.What a waste of money-it only keeps the advertisers happy.It's terrible for democracy if only rich people can run on their own vast fortunes.

At least the Supreme Court is being consistent. I'll give them that. Essentially this ruling will allow people with private funding to easily outspend publicly funded candidates. Their reasoning? Why because money=speech of course! That old gem. Therefore, the more money you have, the louder your voice is according to the Supreme Court. How that idea is not offensive to more people is a bit concerning to me. What's next? The amount of votes we get becomes based on our net worth?

Louise, what really concerns me as I listen to Thom centers around the fact that the Supreme Court, a non-elected body, reigns over our country.

Is it possible America will wake up and save itself from self destruction through Republicans being successful in convincing enough independents that Obama is solely responsible for our economic and employment demise. Twenty years ago I would never have been able to even consider such a possibility. Today it is a real possibility. Racism has come out of the closet and can now be plainly seen and won as a badge of honor by some of our white sisters and brothers instead of smoldering under the covers in the past. Republicans have for 50 years hollered from our mountain tops that the Democrats base party platform is to take away from the whites and give to people of color. Corporations for ten years have written their own laws under Reagan and the Bush father and son and were self regulated. 50,000 factories were closed. Not only were 8 million jobs exported but tax credits were provided them by Republicans. Wall Street, banks, and the oil and gas industries were permitted to self regulate. The result was we very nearly had the 2nd Great Depression and we did have the worst oil spill in history in the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans have made a mockery of Congress, especially in the Senate and the only solution appears to likely not be achieveable. Greed and oligopolies now dictate our way of life. Three Supreme Court Justices have been bought and paid for. The right wing controls most radio talk shows, most printed news sources, and most of the cable news networks. Americans values have deteriorated so far that if we don't get what we want exactly we don't show up at the polls such as in the last mid term elections and tea party candidates were swept into office and provided control of the House. Republicans recently have won control of state legislatures and Governor offices. The minorities and young voters made this possible simply by not showing up at the polls. The reason- Obama was not God and could not deliver on every promise he made. People forget you have to fight for what you want. Nothing is free. This is a very stupid country and Republicans,despite a complete void of decency, integrity, and honesty, have made so many look the other way when they refuse to prevent health insurers from determining who lives and who dies depending on their bonuses, dividends, and balance sheets. They look the other way when Corporate America and the wealthy have achieved record earnings while Americans lose their jobs, homes, dignity, retirement, health care, families,hope, etc. Who is responsible. We are. The average American who did not stand up and say we are not going to take this any more. Those who failed to show up and vote. Those independents who so easily were convinced that Democrats were taking away from the whites and giving to people of color. Congressmen who sold their soles to win election and now have no way out. Free trade agreements that reward American companies manufacturers overseas with slave labor that are permitted to sell back in the U.S. without tariffs. Anyone dumb enough to ignore years of evidence and accept that cutting taxes for the wealthy and Corporate America will produce jobs. Too many people who don't want to get involved unless something happens to them instead of someone else. Too many sex change operations by Democrats who no longer know how to act like men and do the job they were elected to do.The ease with which it is acceptable to lie as a way of doing business in Congress and passing it off as simply "politics". Failure of citizens to hold their Congressmen and President accountable for their actions. Too many relying on someone else to stand up and insist America does not belong to Corporate America, the Republicans, and the Supreme Court. The only thing that will prevent our becoming a Third World Economy is for the average American citizen to take to the streets and demand that our families be protected to the same extent that Corporate America. We must clearly establish what values we want to govern this country. We must extinguish all sources of fraud and corruption and demand our representatives protect our rights as laid out in the Constitution. We must insist lying in the conduct of business is no longer acceptable and transperancy is the guiding principle for the future. We need to determine what corporations want to conduct business in this country fairly under the laws of this country or invite them to get the hell out. We must tell leaders of Wall Street, banks, corporations, etc. that if your fail to follow our laws in the conduct of your business you will go to jail. We must insist on equal protection for the individual and businesses. We must insist that any violation of our laws and regulations resulting in damage to our land, air, or water will no longer be tolerated and repeat offenses will result in shut down of businesses in violation of such laws. We must accept that the only way we can afford health care in this country is medicare for everyone by simply pointing out Medicare operates on 2% overhead and private health insurers operate on 30% overhead.We must no longer allow countries such as France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea to not provide for their own defense while demanding we provide such defense. We must protect our economic interests to the same extent countries in the European Union and China do by reserving our jobs and markets for American citizens and companies who manufacture in the U.S. Everyone else can go to hell. Perhaps then the world will be willing to sit down and discuss world trade on a reasonable and fair basis. We need to finance all elections by public finance. We need to discontinue free interchange of employment amongst Wall Street and Corporate America and the government. We need to publish listing of all lobbyists, a record of all discussions between lobbyists and government representatives or employees, and make this information available to the public. We need to demand that all bills presented by a Congressman and written by a lobbying firm be identified as such. We need to give this country back to the people and we should start by re-electing Obama, maintain control of the Senate by the Democrats, eliminate the filibuster rule in the Senate, and make the Democrats the controlling party in the House. Then we need to expel all Democrats who are not Democrats.

There was a story about how NASA shuttle operations were turned over to private contractors. It was said that those people run everything down to the margin to maximize profits, but in the case of the space shuttle that was not a good idea. I believe the same applies to nuclear power plants.

Palindromedary, Immoral conservative principles, organized political crime, MOBOCRACY, it all fits when you stop and think about people like the Koch Bros. and their involvement with right wing elected officials.