I do take my responsibility to vote very seriously, and I show up at the polls. But in all honesty, if the day arrived when two candidates for president were running and I held both in contempt, I am not at all sure I could convince myself to vote for either. So far that has not happened, but it just might one day unless the Democrats experience some sort of miraculous political reawakening and return to classic Democratic values. Were that to happen that with two candidates had unacceptable positions on important issues and weak moral fiber that I just could not vote for either, I think I would remember that civics lesson.

But there is nothing more important in politics and voting than doing one's homework before following through with a voting decision.

I often think of Nader saying during election 2000 there was no difference between Bush and Gore. I wonder what he thinks about that statement now. I personally was horrified to hear him repeatedly say that, but I do my own research. I was very familiar with the histories of both of these men, and I knew that was a huge misrepresentation (I will be polite here).

I wonder when I hear Jeb Bush is thinking of running, does he honestly believe half this Country has forgotten his behavior (and his lies) during that debacle and that we would possibly consider voting for him? So many problems we have in this Country today, 14 years later, we are experiencing from the George W. Bush* fingerprints in office. Jeb enabled that to happen, violating the Constitution all along the way. Fourteen years is not long enough to forgive and forget.

There are very few things in life one should consider are "win at all costs" -- and stealing elections is not one of those things.

When it comes to being able to respect someone even though they have different personal political leanings, one of the people who is among the top five people I most respect, is former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who is a Republican. He was appointed by Gerald Ford to replace William O. Douglas. In his dissent to the Bush v. Gore majority decision, he wrote the words that actually soothed my soul, meaning I knew when I read them a Republican was confirming my anxiety and distress were well justified. What a man of courage:

It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today’s decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/00-949.ZD.html

Of course, with things as they are now, sometimes it just easy to look at the different positions on important issues, and make it an issue election. But with the amount of wholesale lying, coupled with the "performance art" of being a politician, it does get very murky at times, doesn't it? But people like Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Al Franken, Wendy Davis give me hope.

Always a pleasure chatting with you, H20 Man. You keep things provocative but civil.

Sam

I think a lot of my father who passed suddenly without warning. He passed in the middle of the night, suffering a massive heart attack. He was only 50 years old, so as you can imagine, this loss impacted his family pretty hard.

His first wife, my mother, also died of a heart attack in the middle of the night. She was only 28 years old and left behind four young children. The oldest child was seven years old, the youngest was nine months. She was a beautiful, loving woman, a joy to her family and friends.

To his credit, this 28 year-old man made many sacrifices to keep his family together. It was extremely difficult because he had a low-paying job in Knoxville, Tennessee, working as a milk man. He did not make enough following the loss of my mother to pay for child care while he worked his job. Many in the family suggested he had no other choice but to put us in foster homes or adopt us out. This he steadfastly refused to do. As our only surviving parent, my father became our everything.

And so we all moved in with my grandparents, where we stayed until my father remarried a couple of years later. He moved his new wife and his four children from Tennessee to the DC metropolitan area. And here we have lived for decades. I have looked back on those early years and thought not too many people would have had the determination my father had in protecting the unity of his family while still grieving over the loss of the woman he loved and the mother of his four children. But he persevered and made it work. These words are written to explain why he was so important to us.

Five years ago, thinking about the sacrifices he had made for me I wanted to pay a small tribute to him. He loved many things, but one thing he often mentioned was how beautiful the dogwood trees in Tennessee were and he missed seeing them in this area. I decided to plant a dogwood tree in my father’s memory. I ordered just a very small twig-like dogwood tree from a nursery in Tennessee. I had no gardening skills under my belt, and so I thought I should start out small and keep my expectations low for success.

When the little tree arrived, I dug a reasonably sized hole, planted the tree, fertilized it, and put beautiful reddish mulch around it. I surrounded the mulch with decorative bricks. I tended it everyday, checking its progress. It started to take root and grow. I named it My Daddy Dogwood tree.

The next year, it was gaining height and looking healthy. Then disaster struck. My next door neighbor’s little son lost control of his bike and ran my little tree down. It was broken near the base. I was devastated. Two of my neighbors knowing the sentimental value of the tree to me came over and patched the tree back together. They told me it had only a small possibility of survival.

Each year I have tended to the tree with care. It sprouted another trunk at the point where the base had been severely severed, and from that trunk grew a mid-size tree. But it never bloomed. I had resigned myself to accepting this was the way it would be.

Until today. On this Easter, I discovered from my window five little blooms on my Daddy Dogwood tree. I ran out and looked the tree over carefully, and there are more blooms at the top. I cried when I saw them. The blooms are white with pink edges.

Happy Easter, Dad. Your dogwood tree is beautifully in bloom.

Sam

Roberts is sitting in the Chief Justice's seat as payback for services he rendered to George W. Bush* and the 2000 election controversy. During that time frame, he left DC and went to Florida to volunteer his services to Jeb Bush in the recall battle.

Roberts is supposed to be a Constitutional specialist. But many of the public threats made by the Republicans during that time were actually unconstitutional maneuvers. And I do believe a Constitutional expert would have known that, but most lawyers would assume the public would believe whatever it was told. An excellent example of that was the threat issued if Gore prevailed as a result of the recall vote, the legislature would still send a Republican state to the Electoral College. Many people believed it would have followed through with that threat. However, the Florida Constitution specifically provided for the slate to be determined by the plurality of the popular vote. Had the legislature actually done that, the Electoral College could have thrown the slate out, leaving Florida with no vote, for violating its own election law.

As you know, "To the victor belongs the spoils" and the spoils we endure as a result of the Bush* taking of the Office of the United States President do include Roberts sitting in that Supreme Court chair. But "spoils" does not begin to suffice to describe his collective work to date....

Sam

I have written several times here that the reason the Republicans want to privatize Social Security (or as Bernanke mentioned once, it can be repealed) is due to the fact the government "borrowed" the money and cannot afford to repay its debt. In order to withdraw funds from the Trust Fund account, a like amount of securities must be sold to replace the marker for those funds. In this economy, that is extremely difficult to do. Restructuring seniors retirement could be done in such a way that debt evaporates, thus cutting the overall debt Uncle Sam owes by that amount.

Additionally, the Government has borrowed from Federal Employees retirement funds. There is a law which enables them to do this. Of course, statements have been made this money will be repaid, but more cries that the Federal employees pensions are too high drown that out. Cutting the pensions would over time alleviate part of that debt.

Also, we know the U.S. Post Office has accumulated 75 years worth of funds to pay its employees benefits. I have been looking from time to time in which pocket those funds are being held to determine the total. I cannot find the pocket. It stands to reason that if Uncle would borrow against employees' pensions and Social Security, it probably could not resist dipping into the benefit funds the Post Office has accrued. Privatize that organization and eliminate that debt.

We do know in various states, governors neglected to make mandatory deposits into their employees' pension funds. When the time has come the money is needed, we hear governors saying employees' pensions are too high.

If the Government cannot afford to repay its debt, it obviously it is not going to say that, it can just "erase" a lot of it.

There is a pattern to all this and it is not pretty.

Sam

Those three very different dimensions of this man carry entirely different responsibilities and massive varying weights.

This is a human being who told us after winning his first election in 2008 that we would not like everything he did. During his campaign, he uttered a gazillion times he did not want to be President of the red United States, or just the blue United States, but ALL of the United States. I believe that while this was not quite pleasing to all of his base, he has followed through with that personal goal he set for himself. And that was and is his prerogative.

Although I have spoken out against some of his goals, overall I do believe he will go down in history as one of the United States greatest presidents. He deserves it.

Sam