More Politician Tricks than Treats This Halloween

Election Day is almost upon us for the Senate and Governor races and as usual, I’ve approached them with a heavy dose of cynicism. Do any of these jokers actually care about our well being or are they only in it for a buck? Do any of them have new ideas for improving our daily lives or will it just be more of the same slow swirl down the drain of graft, higher costs, lower incomes, and fewer freedoms?

Since virtually all politicians spew the same negative junk in their campaign ads, using millions of dollars in donations just to create spots that look and sound more like Bravo TV reality show commercials than messages that share their actual platforms, I decided to do something different this year. I mailed 10 Yes/No questions to 11 different local Georgia politicians. There was one set for the federal office seekers and another set for the state office seekers. I knew going in that most wouldn’t bother answering me. After all, politicians want your blind allegiance based on party affiliation and generic platitudes they can later redefine to suit any given crisis. They don’t want to earn your vote through availability, transparency, honesty, and hard work. Nevertheless, I thought it would be an interesting exercise and it was.

Here are the 10 questions I sent the Federal office seekers:

1.       Would you vote in support of the Keystone Pipeline?

2.       Would you vote to send ground troops to battle ISIS?

3.       Would you vote to continue sending financial support to Middle East allies such as Israel, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq?

4.       Would you vote in support of lowering corporate tax rates based on the percentage of American workers on the company payroll?

5.       Would you vote in support of legalizing the sale and possession of marijuana?

6.       Would you vote to eliminate imprisonment sentencing for drug possession (not including the intent to sell)?

7.       Would you vote in support of the funding and construction of a Border Wall with Mexico?

8.       Would you vote in support of Congressional term limits?

9.       Would you vote in support of a Balanced Budget Amendment?

10.   Would you vote in support of a substantial reduction and/or elimination in federal farm subsidies

I sent this first list to David Purdue, Amanda Swafford, Michelle Nunn, and Bob Montigel. Purdue, Nunn, and Swafford are running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by the retiring Saxby Chambliss. Montigel is running for Georgia’s 6^th district spot in the House of Representatives against incumbent Tom Price.

I sent the state list to Andrew Hunt, Jason Carter, Connie Stokes, Fran Millar, Tamara Johnson, Elena Parent, Scott Holcomb, Brady Young, and Karen Bennett. Hunt and Carter are running against incumbent Republican Governor, Nathan Deal. Stokes, Millar, Johnson, Parent, Holcomb, Young, and Bennett are running for State Senate seats.

You’ll notice I didn’t mail many incumbents. The reason for that is two-fold. First, like just about every other person in this country if you believe the polls, I’m dissatisfied with our current leadership. I’m a firm believer that if you want change, you need to create change. Second, most politicians seem to dissuade communication once they are elected. Their websites don’t offer email addresses. Their online forms demand addresses and phone numbers. Funny how that works, isn’t it? They only want to hear from you when they need your vote. Once they’re in office, bureaucracy and general voter apathy tends to keep them in power as long as they like.

Just one of the 11 politicians bothered to answer my questions. Montigel replied but didn’t provide any answers. Parent asked me where I lived in her district and when I explained that I lived in a neighboring district, she promptly went silent. Nunn had the gall to add me to a mailing list, spamming me with eight campaign messages already. Only Andrew Hunt was willing to give me the answers that will allow me to intelligently decide whether I want to vote for him or not. Those answers were:

1.       Would you vote in support of toll lanes on Georgia highways? Only if reduction in gas tax along with this.

2.       Would you vote in support of raising gas taxes in Georgia? Only if other taxes are reduced more than this would increase taxes.

3.       Would you vote in support of blocking direct Tesla sales in Georgia? No and I would allow other cars also direct sales.

4.       Would you vote in support of solar panel leasing in Georgia? Yes

5.       Would you vote in support of an amendment allowing newly formed cities to create their own school systems? Yes, and all cities.

6.       Would you vote in support of legalizing the sale and possession of marijuana in Georgia? No. but I am for decriminalization and medical.

7.       Would you vote for stricter gun laws in Georgia and if so, what restrictions would you add? No

8.       Would you vote for stricter abortion laws in Georgia and if so, what restrictions would you add? No, but I will inspire more private groups to offer women good path to life options.

9.       Would you vote in favor of restrictions on PAC contributions to candidates for Georgia elections? Yes if they can be enforced.

10.   Would you vote in favor of raising the state minimum wage? If so, to what? Yes. By inflation. I have Job Powerhouse program that will incentivize full time jobs paying $11/hr or more.

If you’ve read many of my past blog posts, you’ll know that most of his answers match what I’m looking for in a political leader. Even though a few don’t, the fact is, he showed an interest in me as a constituent and a willingness to provide real answers. That’s more than any of the other ten candidates or un-mailed incumbents were willing to do. Andrew Hunt just earned my vote on Tuesday. I hope you’ll consider giving him yours too.

The Unemployment Conundrum

There is a growing unemployment crisis in the United States that the bogus 6.7% unemployment rate touted by the Obama administration purposely obscures. A smaller percentage of Americans are in the work force today than any time since 1978, coincidently, the last time a big government Democrat was in the Oval Office. Only 62.8% of Americans are in the work force. The rest rely on government assistance and/or retirement savings in order to survive.

The current argument between Democrats and Republicans is whether to extend recently expired unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed. The Democrats of course, want to extend them in the belief that we must help the poor and that the best way to do it is to offer them charity. On the other hand, the Republicans want to cut the overall unemployment benefit budget by half, essentially gutting most assistance to the less fortunate and apparently deciding they can fend for themselves. The problem is, they can’t.

Paying people for years to not work is bad policy and even worse budgeting, but leaving millions of citizens destitute and starving is not only horrible, it’s probably cause for violent revolution. You’d think with Congress currently housing its biggest share of millionaires ever, we’d have plenty of financial geniuses in office that are capable of fixing these sorts of things. Laughable, I know. Our current Congress is easily one of the worst in our nation’s history. They’re lazy, corrupt, inept, and in more cases than most of us would care to imagine, many seem to be downright stupid.

Given this lack of leadership and ability to propose ideas that might actually find compromise between the two parties, let me offer three that I believe could make a huge difference in our economy. None of them is truly new, but expansions on ideas I’ve posted in the past and/or read about from others.

The Border Wall – While both parties agree that it should be easier for immigrants to obtain work visas and citizenship, Republicans want to tighten border control first. I side with Republicans on this one. Making better rules for how to enter and stay in our country legally is nearly useless if it’s easy to break those rules. The majority of long term unemployed workers are in the west and south and have backgrounds in manufacturing and construction. Anyone else seeing a 1+1 here? A giant public/private venture to build a wall across the entire border with Mexico could generate tens of thousands of jobs over the next decade in a variety of fields including those manufacturing the wall components and those then building it. Cities along the border such as San Diego, Tucson, and El Paso would need to build additional housing, open new schools, restaurants, shops, and health facilities. Plants would need to purchase more ore and hire more workers to create the necessary steel and other materials. Once built, the wall’s gates would need additional border patrol officers. So how would all of this be paid for? The federal government would chip in any money saved from cutting benefits as well as any profits gained by the sale of the bank and automobile assets it purchased during the 2008 bailout. Border states would be required to pay their share based on the increased tax revenues these new jobs would bring into their coffers. And finally, private firms should be partnered with in terms of advertising space on the wall in the more heavily populated areas.

The Keystone Pipeline – Another political hot potato and potential giant project is the Keystone Pipeline that would transport crude oil from Canada and the northern United States all the way across the country to the Gulf of Mexico. Like a Border Wall, this has the potential to create thousands of blue-collar jobs. It would also be one more step toward reducing energy dependence on the Middle East. The Republicans in favor of this project will need to make some environmental concessions with Democrats if it’s going to get approved in Congress, but the result could be a huge boon to the western U.S. job market.

Fracking – Yet another energy-related industry that rankles many in environmental circles, but this new form of underground drilling has created a booming industry and helped turn the U.S. into one of the largest oil producing countries in the world. Why isn’t the government funding training programs in these states instead of handing out welfare checks? Why not help fund housing near these drill sites to encourage more of the workers to bring their families and boost the local economies? If countries like Saudi Arabia can teach us anything, it’s that oil export can make a nation rich. Our government should be doing more to encourage this industry while also improving safety where possible.

These are just a few ideas, but there are many others. In short, our government should start prioritizing American job creation instead of encouraging welfare dependence. It should stop supporting off-shoring, automating, and fattening Wall Street and executive wallets while the middle class suffers. It should also stop spending billions of dollars propping up religious factions in the Middle East. Instead, it should start spending that money at home where it could do more good. This seems like a reminder to our elected officials that ought to be unnecessary, but where the preamble to our Constitution states “We the People”, it’s referring to us, not to the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other foreign nation. America needs jobs and if our government officials refuse to spend their time and effort creating and supporting them, then those officials have failed us and need to be replaced.

The Shutdown Debacle

Once again, Congress proves it’s only interested in posturing and expanding its own power rather than working for the good of the country it’s sworn to serve. The current government shutdown is the latest example of just how worthless our elected officials have become and how desperate the need is to clean house and find a new batch of leaders to guide this country back to respectability and success. I haven’t written here in quite some time, but I thought I’d take an opportunity to implore each and every reader to vote out all incumbents in the next few sets of elections. And when I say vote out the incumbent, I’m not saying vote for the other major party. Democrats and Republicans are the same and neither is worthy of your vote. Vote for whatever Independent candidate is on the ballot. The only way any incumbent Congressman should receive another of your votes is if they publicly agree to support the following:

A Congressional term limits amendment

A balanced budget amendment

An end to the Congressional pension system

These three things would go a long way to improving the quality of our Congress by eliminating lifetime politicians, reducing corruption, reducing the need for the constant campaigning of officials, and ensuring that our government’s power to spend money is limited to what it is able to earn.

Anyone that believes Republicans’ main motivation for creating the current stalemate is because of their desire to spend less money is naïve at best and probably edging more into the realm of stupidity. But that portion of their rationale is a good one, even if misguided. Allowing our middle class to suffer and die because they can’t afford the legalized gambling that we call the “insurance industry” is not the way to save money. But saving money is most certainly something we need to do.

So what should we be doing to help balance the budget? I’ve written about several of the ideas below in past blog posts and many are politically difficult, but here are some of my suggestions for real solutions to our budget crisis:

Pull all ground troops from the Middle East and stop all funding to foreign governments including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, and Israel. Trade agreements and providing food, medical, and disaster relief are the tenants of a successful foreign policy. A strong spy program is a necessary component of such a policy. Armed intervention and propping up dictators with cash is how you turn the world against us.

Legalize and tax marijuana. This drug should be treated no differently than alcohol. The war on drugs is a failure and right now we’re just encouraging crime and corruption by leaving the profits for Mexican cartels.

Eliminate prison time for drug possession. While some states have already done this, others continue to burden taxpayers with supporting these minor criminal offenses via expensive prison costs. Treatment, fines, and house arrest are much better options.

Prior to 2009, unemployment benefits were limited to 26 weeks. Since then, they remain at 99 weeks. We need to find some middle ground and we need to do more to encourage work over welfare dependence. I suggest we limit this program to 52 weeks with an additional 36 weeks of paid job programs. During those last 36 weeks, beneficiaries must choose from a variety of government programs to work in, gaining job skills and better preparing themselves for gaining employment before the total 88 weeks of government assistance ends. For those people unwilling to put in the time and effort, their time on the taxpayer dime ends at 52 weeks.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) should add soft drinks and candy to its list of exclusions since they offer no nutritional value whatsoever and contribute to our national obesity problem. While this wouldn’t necessarily reduce the cost of SNAP, it would at least make a dent in the medical costs for its members by reducing problems like diabetes and high blood pressure.

Any adult of child-bearing age receiving Medicaid benefits for more than five years must agree to a Medicaid-paid tubal ligation (female) or a vasectomy (male) in order to continue receiving benefits. If people spend years unable to afford health care, even with the advent of Obamacare, then they should be limited in how many children they can add to the tax burden of others. I know many people will gasp at this one, but if those able to pay their way are having less children due to cost while those unable to pay their way keep having more, you do the math and tell me where this country will end up.

Approve the Keystone Pipeline, improving our ability to profit from oil. To mitigate some environmental concerns, earmark a percentage of the tax profits for environmental programs.

Reduce farm subsidies. Unlike the 1920s and 30s when these subsidies were first introduced, farming is now big business. Taxpayers should not be forced to improve the profitability of these massive companies.

 

There you have it, real solutions instead of political grandstanding. Wouldn’t it be nice if our leaders took a similar approach?

Band-Aid Anyone?

In mid November, I outlined my ideas for how our politicians ought to address a long term solution for the pending financial cliff. With just three days to go, clearly a long term solution isn’t in the cards before the deadline. With that sad but not unexpected reality in front of us, what can Obama, Boehner, Reid, McConnell, and the rest of our court jesters manage to do to at least avoid every American paying thousands more in taxes this year? Below is my band-aid solution until the longer term plan can be developed.

First, it’s glaringly clear that neither side is going to “win”. If anything is going to be agreed upon, it’s going to have to be a compromise. Both sides will get something they want and both will give up something they don’t want to lose. From a revenue perspective, Boehner has suggested limiting the higher, Clinton era tax rates that are about to kick in to millionaires only. This is in response to Obama’s call for applying those higher rates to anyone making over $200K per year. Limiting the higher tax rate to millionaires would mean only the richest 250K Americans would pay more. That’s about $250B in new revenue over 10 years.

For the sake of a short term deal, let’s say Obama and the Democrats take Boehner up on this offer. Now, to make the Republicans (and Libertarians like me) happy, let’s find $250B in savings over the next decade to match that increased revenue without stripping our military, intelligence, or needy communities bare.

If Congress and Obama do nothing, automatic cuts to spending will come out to $1.2 trillion dollars over the next ten years. That’s $120 billion a year, split almost evenly between defense and benefits. To satisfy our balanced band-aid approach, let’s ask for less than ten percent of that. $10 billion in annual DOD discretionary spending and another $10 billion from the combined departments of Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Treasury, and Interior. That’s $20 billion saved per year, totaling $200 billion over the next ten years.

Next, as I mentioned in that November post, we’re giving away over $8 billion in aid to Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan every year. Let’s cut that in half. $40 billion saved over the next ten years and it doesn’t impact a single citizen.

And finally, the EPA has an annual budget of $8.7B. Their job is to make it more expensive for companies to do business by enforcing higher environmental standards on things like fracking and mining in order to provide cleaner air and water. Let’s ask the EPA to take one for the team themselves over the next decade to the tune of $1B per year. That’s the last $10 billion we need to make our goal.

Make no mistake, $250 billion dollars over ten years won’t solve our deficit problem, but it would solve the crisis our government and people are facing this weekend and might be the sort of compromise that could lead to a bigger, better deal down the road.

Reflecting on Sandy Hook

 

Like many of you, I don’t know how to express the horror and sadness I feel about the murder spree that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Friday morning. I’m rattled and I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m a parent. My world would be utterly destroyed if something like this befell any of my children. There is nothing on this Earth that can balance what was taken from those poor mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.

I think all of us want answers. Why would anyone ever do such a horrible thing? How could anyone, no matter their level of hatred, target innocent children? And already, we’re beginning to point the finger of blame. It’s hard not to.

Many people, apparently President Obama included, are pointing to gun control. They believe that access to guns is the reason for this type of violence in America and that the only way to stop it is to severely limit or ban access to those weapons. I wish it were that simple. A look at both history and a glance around the world tells me that it isn’t.

We came to a similar conclusion about alcohol in this country in 1919 when we implemented Prohibition with the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution. After 14 years of organized crime reaping record profits and committing an unprecedented level of violence as they fought for control of this illegal market, we repealed that “solution” with the 21^st Amendment.

Today, we’re fighting that same hopeless battle against marijuana. This recreational drug has never been more popular. However its illegal status in the U.S. allows Mexican cartels to make all the profit, killing over 50K people in the past six years as they compete for routes and territories.

Making guns illegal will not keep guns out of the hands of those that would do evil with them. It would only prevent citizens from protecting themselves from violence and tyranny. It would also transfer the profits of the sale of those weapons exclusively to the criminal organizations that would continue to provide them to other criminals.

I do not know anything more about Friday morning’s mass murderer, Adam Lanza, than you do. I’ve read that he was troubled, that his mother, who he still lived with, was strict, and that his parents divorced three years ago. I don’t know who he hung out with, what his hobbies were, what television shows he watched, what video games he played, or if there were any warning signs that someone should have caught. But what I do know is that guns have been around for centuries. Guns are available to people all over the world. I also know that anger, hatred, poverty, and injustice exist all over the world and have since the earliest days of civilization. If all of those things are true, what makes our country and this past decade or two so different? Why do we have Columbine, Aurora, Clackamas, and now Newtown?

I believe the difference is our current culture and both the economy and the media that spawned and perpetuate it. I believe the United States has lost its moral way. People no longer have good jobs that they’re proud of. People are no longer confident that they have a secure future ahead of them. People no longer know and love their neighbors. People are no longer able to stay home and raise their children. They both work.  As a country, we decided two-income families should be the norm in order to continue the growth of our consumer-based economic policies. We decided it was better to spend than save. We decided shareholders were more important than workers. Instead of a parent being there to teach and guide our children about life and the differences between right and wrong, we could rely on poorly paid public educators and 24/7 television.

Instead of entertainment and news programming that depict the value of community, the wonders of love, and the benefits of giving, we’re deluged with reality tv, dramas, and sitcoms that bombard us with messages that we must be better looking, richer, greedier, meaner, sluttier, and famous at any cost if our lives are to mean anything. It’s more important to be a celebrity than to be a good person. Instead of video games where cute protagonists chomp dots or navigate mazes full of amusing baddies, we have hyper-realistic games of war or ultra-bloody carnage.

We’ve desensitized a generation to violence and marginalized charity and kindness in favor of gluttony and doom. I know turning around a culture is no easy or short-term task and by no means am I suggesting we can or should try to regulate our way to a more gentle nation. What I am saying is that perhaps it’s time all of us question ourselves. What is truly important? What warrants our time, our attention, our devotion, and our passion and have we misplaced those things today? When will we turn off the television and go outside? When will we stop shopping and start saving? When will we stop texting and start talking? And finally, when will we stop waiting for “them” to solve our country’s problems and start fixing them ourselves instead?

Over the Cliff and Across the Sea

The United States of America had a deficit of $1.3 trillion in 2012. That’s trillion with a t. That number is tough for some of us 99 percenters to fathom so I’ll write it out. $1,300,000,000,000. And that’s just the annual number. All told, our country is in debt to the tune of around $16 trillion. Almost half of that debt is owed to foreign investors, China and Japan being the two largest. These sobering statistics provide some back-drop to the current “fiscal cliff” drama that is playing out between the Obama administration and Congress over how to lower our debt without dipping the country into another (or worse) recession. Obama and some of the more left-leaning Democrats believe we should raise taxes on those making over $200K per year in the form of not renewing the Bush-era tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of December while extending those cuts for anyone making less than that threshold. John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and their rightwing Republican counterparts want to extend those tax cuts for all Americans, no matter their income level, and believe the deficit should be reduced via cuts to domestic spending, i.e. welfare benefits for the poor. Both parties have been steadfast in their refusal to bend on these stances and if a compromise isn’t reached in the next month, the result will be a higher tax bill for all Americans. Estimates put that tax increase at $2000-$3000 per American family.

Neither of our two major political parties is tackling the problem properly. Raising taxes per the Democrats’ plan punishes the very business owners that we need to create more jobs. The less they can profit, the more wages, benefits, and jobs they’ll need to cut. On the other hand, cutting benefits to the poor, elderly, and unemployed in an already weak economy will only drive us further away from being a land of equal opportunity and closer to the type of caste system found in India and Pakistan.

What we should do is reduce the size of government, create tax policies that foster bringing jobs back onshore, legalize and tax marijuana, and most importantly, pull our troops and funding out of the Middle Eastern countries that pretend to be our allies only to repeatedly stab us in the back. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are estimated to cost our country four to six trillion dollars when all is said and done. Obama’s proposed 2013 budget earmarks over $8 billion dollars in aid for Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan alone. That doesn’t even include the billions set aside for “friendlier” countries like Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

Earlier today, Iraq’s representative to the Arab league, Qais al-Azzawy, told that body "Iraq will invite (Arab) ministers to use the weapon of oil, with the aim of asserting real pressure on the United States and whoever stands with Israel.” This is a representative of the country that we spent trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives freeing from the tyrannical grip of Saddam Hussein telling his fellow Arabs that they should charge Americans more for oil in order to pressure us to leave them alone in their mission to destroy Israel.

Meanwhile, Pakistan holds our supply routes for ransom, demanding astronomical fees on top of the billions of dollars we already provide them while they spent years protecting the architect of 9/11, Osama bin Laden. I don’t think anyone in this country is naïve enough to believe that Pakistani officials wouldn’t have spirited bin Laden out of that compound if Obama had given them warning of our Navy SEALs mission that night.

Enough is enough. Spending must be reduced and it needs to start with slashing the funds to these foreign cutthroats. Let them fight their own battles and fund their own nation building. We have a nation of our own that is crumbling while our leaders’ eyes are across the sea instead of focusing on what they were elected to do.

The Insanity of American Politics

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That quote is generally attributed to Albert Einstein, a man most consider to be one of the smartest people to have made a mark on our country in the past hundred years. I wonder what he’d say about yesterday’s election results.

If you pay attention to some of the Republican blowhards in this country, you’d think the reelection of Barack Obama is the end of our country and way of life. It isn’t. But his reelection and that of the vast majority of Congressional incumbents begs the question, why do Americans keep voting these people into office if they aren’t happy with the direction our country has been going? The answer you’ll hear most often is that voters are given no real choice. Congressional House districts are gerrymandered to ensure they never change hands and election funding rules allow the two major parties to accumulate and spend vast amounts of money on campaigning in order to drown out any opposition.

The United States’ two party system is now so entrenched that nearly 99% of the 1.2 million voters yesterday chose between Obama or Romney despite the fact that 28 candidates received at least 500 votes each. That is the power of money in politics and the influence money has on the American press. I’d wager 98% of those 1.2M voters couldn’t even name one of the other 26 candidates.

My candidate, as documented in my previous post, was the Libertarian nominee, Gary Johnson. With two successful terms as governor of New Mexico, he has more political experience than Romney or Obama before Obama took office in 2008, but he still wasn’t invited to the debates, wasn’t reported on by the press, and came in a very distant third place with just over 1.1 million votes. Why is that? Money, of course.

In George Washington’s 1796 Farewell Address, he shared the following warning about political parties:

 “They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests.”

Washington’s fears have come to pass. Our federal government no longer serves the people, but serves only itself and those rich corporate donors and PACs that pay for it. Politicians vote based on party platform rather than conscience, common sense or the voice of their constituents.

The saddest part of this is that American voters have been fooled into believing one party is better and significantly different than the other. In fact, the majority of voters passionately believe this, but they’re wrong. Unless you make over $200K per year, there’s almost no difference in how the two parties’ tax plans will impact you. Neither supports pulling all troops and funds out of the Middle East. Neither supports smaller government and significant deficit reduction despite rhetoric from the Republican party stating otherwise. Neither has the political will to solve the mounting crisis of Medicare costs or the corruption of Wall Street. Neither supports the legalization and taxation of marijuana despite the revenue it would generate, the huge hit it would deliver to the Mexican cartels, or the fact that it’s no more medically dangerous than alcohol. Neither supports Congressional term limits despite the fact it would reduce corruption and force regular change within the ranks of leadership. In short, for almost all of the major issues facing this country’s well being, the choice of Democrat or Republican doesn’t improve a thing in the life of a typical American citizen.  

So what’s the answer? 3^rd party candidates. If you want real change in this country, you must stop voting for the candidates our two major parties and their media cronies spoon-feed you and begin voting for independent candidates instead. Support independents at every level; city, state, and federal. Sure, they probably won’t win in the next election or two, but movements must start somewhere and the longer we wait, the longer things remain status quo.