DeMon's America (If I were president)

If I were president this is what my agenda would look like.

T. DeMon Spencer's Ideal America

1. Legalize gay marriage in all 50 states. 

2. Abolish the death penalty (state and federal).

3. Reverse “Citizens United” that gives corporations permission to anonymously funnel unlimited amounts of money into the election process.

4. Create a nonpartisan federal commission to construct and implement guidelines to standardize all elections. No matter what state you live in, your voting process will be identical.

5. Disallow private money in presidential elections. Each candidate will have a federally funded campaign budget. This can be funded by a small tax added to everyone’s driver’s license fees (2 or 3 percent should be enough).

6. Attach the federal minimum wage to the fluctuation of the living wage. (Minimum wage = living wage + 20%)

7. Free health care for all Americans.

8. Create new restrictive regulation on Wall Street to protect our financial system.

        a. 2% tax on every stock trade

        b. Reinstate the capital gains tax 
        c. Sever the ties between banks brokerages and hedge funds 
        d. Limit high speed stock transactions (add another 1% tax for these types of trades) 
        e. Reinstate the “Glass Stiegel” act and the good parts of “Dodd Frank” 

9. Legalize marijuana.

10. Limit prison sentences for non-violent offenders and offer rehabilitation programs for first-time offenders instead of prison.

11. End elections for district attorneys and county sheriffs. These positions will be appointed by county commission boards with input from the town’s mayor and the state Attorney General.

12. Close all privately owned prisons.

13. Divert a majority of resources away from the failed war on drugs and use it to improve low income neighborhoods.

14. Restore voting rights to nonviolent felons.

15. End district attorney job promotions that are based solely on conviction rates.

16. Create legislation that says the government cannot regulate the internet in any way under any circumstances. 100% off limits for the FCC

17. Create a program that offers zero percent interest for student loans.

18. Increase salaries for all teachers and give them performance based bonuses.

19. Legalize work unions in all states.

20. Corporate CEO’s cannot give themselves bonuses if the company did not meet projected earnings for that year. (every time the CEO gets a bonus all workers get one as well).

21. End all drone attacks and reduce the number of American military bases in other countries.

22. Fund a huge government program to encourage organic farming.

23. Heavily invest government funds into legitimate energy alternative research and implementation.

24. Create a program that gives unemployed workers an opportunity to get their unemployment benefits in a lump-sum to start a cooperative with 9 other unemployed workers to start their own company.

25. Ban former senators, legislators, and congressmen from becoming lobbyist after they leave public office.

26. Rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure which will create a lot of jobs in every state.

27. Make it easier for the poor to get low income housing in nice neighborhoods.

28. Undo tort reform laws and remove judgment compensation limits.

29. Allow illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship after completing and meeting certain criteria.

30. Ban all assault weapons and extended clip ammunition and require extensive background checks for every weapon sold, given, or traded.

31. Abolish ALL stand your ground laws in every state.

32. Give employers tax incentives for implementing a pension plan for their employees instead of a 401k plan.

33. End the anonymous silent filibuster in the senate.

34. Close tax avoidance loopholes for corporations.

35. End predatory lending in poor neighborhoods (pay-day loans, pawn shop check cashing, title loans), and make it easier to repair and/or maintain a positive credit score.

36. Fund a program that gives start-up capital to entrepreneur who wants to open a business in their neighborhood (to lessen the amount of outside people who have no ties to the community from owning every store and restaurant.)

37. Make all textbooks digital and give the students a free ipad or laptop in the 9th grade.

38. Offer free high-speed internet for low-income families.

39. Legalize gay adoption in ever state. Gay couples will have to meet the same requirements as straight couples.

40. Implement a 10 year term limit for Supreme Court appointees.

41. Make contraceptives available for all high school students who ask for it (from a guidance counselor who will also give them information about and talk one on one with them about pregnancy, sex and STD’s.)

42. Every public high school must have a gay straight student alliance club.

43. Give tax break incentives for those who register as an organ donor.

44. Break up huge media conglomerates into smaller companies to create a less bias corporate driven media industry.

45. Create a new government office under the FEC whose sole purpose is to monitor the fluctuation in income disparity, and report their findings once a year along with suggested courses of action to return it to a reasonable position.

46. Remove the legislation that protects gun manufactures from being sued for wrongdoing.

47. Ban lobbyist from writing bills and legislation.

48. Close ALL American prisons and detention centers in other countries.

49. Lessen time limits for drug patents and make life-saving drugs obtainable for 3rd world countries.

50. Take a much firmer stance with Israel and strongly push for a two state deal giving Palestinians the land they were forced away from.

President Obama's First Debate 2012

The first debate of the 2012 Presidential election is over. Now the pundits and the American people are deciding who won.  Just to be fair I feel I need to let you know that I have been and always will be a very liberal democrat.  After watching the debate I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the way the President handled things.  I could concoct some kind of spin or rationalization that would diminish President Obama’s shortcomings during the debate and leave the impression that I believe Romney lost.  But that wouldn't be the truth and if I go down that road I’ll become everything I abhor about Mitt Romney.  His history of misrepresenting the truth, flip flopping, changing his message to suit each crowd he’s speaking in front of (pandering), and spouting outright blatant lies whenever it’s politically advantageous.  But like I said, I can’t do that.  My conscience and upbringing just won’t allow it.  So here’s the truth.  President Obama lost this first debate.  Simple as that.  I’ll get into what this may cost him politically and if it’s as important as some might think later in my post.  But first I want to go over what I think were the President’s biggest missteps.  The first thing I want to talk about is body language.  I picked up on this very early into the debate.  Most of the time when Romney was speaking President Obama had his head down writing notes.  Romney was facing the President trying to engage him and look him in the eye.  This was a pretty big mistake for the President because it made him look passive.  No one anywhere in any country, business, organization, etc wants a passive leader.  It’s an oxymoron to even put those two words together; “passive leader”.   But let me be clear about this because I do not want anyone misunderstanding what I’m saying here.  I said it made the President “LOOK” passive.  Anyone who can remember Obama vs Hillary four years ago saw from the very beginning that this man is definitely not passive.  But in these kind of televised debates perception is more important than truth or reality.  Mitt proved that point time and time again.

The second misstep was letting Romney say misleading things without correcting him in the moment.  This drove me completely crazy the whole night.  I was almost yelling at the television at some points.  Here are a couple examples:  Mitt said “I don’t have a $5 trillion tax cut.”  Which was a seriously bold statement when anyone with a calculator and a little common sense can easily prove that this is a lie.  An independent economist at the Tax Policy Center (http://bit.ly/ODj7Mv) have shown that the price tag for Romney’s tax cuts equals about $360 billion in the first year which extrapolates to $5 trillion over a decade.  It’s simple arithmetic and for those that don’t believe me I included a link to the Tax Policy Center’s website where you can see it for yourself.

Here’s another example of Mitt misrepresenting the truth:  About half way through the debate Mitt says “We’ve got 23 million people out of work or who have stopped looking for work in this country.”  It’s true that we do have a lot of people still out of work in this country due to the Republican’s bad economic policies under George Bush, but the actual figure is 12.5 million.  Not 23 million.  Here’s how slick Mitt manipulated the numbers to lie for dramatic effect in the debate.  He counts more than 8 million wage earners who hold part-time jobs as also being “out of work”.  Clever but still misleading?

One of the biggest outright lies of the night was when Romney said “Pre-existing conditions are covered under my plan.”  He suggested that his health care proposal would guarantee coverage to Americans with pre-existing conditions.  This is just not true.  Under Romney, if you have a pre-existing condition (such as I do) and have been unable to obtain insurance coverage or if you have had to drop coverage for more than 90 days because you lost your job or couldn’t afford the premiums, you would be out of luck.  I was born with Sickle Cell and the cost of my medical care throughout my life so far has been upwards of one million dollars.  Someone like me needs this pre-existing condition protection to get proper medical care.  So for people like me this is a life or death issue.  Watching Romney be so careless with the truth and exhibit such a callous disconnect infuriates me to no end.   Under Romney’s plan Insurance companies could continue to discriminate and deny people like me coverage.  This whopper of a lie was even too big for his campaign staff to stomach.  Immediately following the debate Romney’s top adviser had to release a statement saying that Romney  “misspoke about his health care plan including pre-existing conditions”.

In my opinion someone who lies so easily has no right to become president.  Some people might bring up Clinton as a counterpoint to this statement, but I would ask them to think about what both individuals have lied about.  President Clinton lied about straying from his marriage.  Mitt Romney has lied about his economic plan, lied about President Obama’s record, lied about details in his health plan and misrepresents many other politically important issues that will affect the direction of this country.  Bill Clinton’s lie had absolutely ZERO effect on the welfare of the country and it’s people.  That’s why the comparison of the two isn’t even legitimate.

Back to the debate; now the final misstep President Obama made that cost him the debate.  Letting Mitt Romney play the bully all night and gain control of the debate format.  It was very clear early on that slick Mitt Romney wasn’t going to abide by the debate rules that both parties agreed to prior to taking the stage.  President Obama should have seen that coming.  I knew even before the debate began that Mitt wasn’t going to keep his word and abide by the rules.  That’s just who he is.  Mitt Romney believes that rules and laws aren’t meant for wealthy people like himself.  His whole attitude and outlook was shaped by the privileged world of wealth that he grew up in.  He’s shown us this time and time again.  Remember the hate and disdain he showed for the 47%  who he deemed as leaches and lost causes because they grew up with financial hardships and work low paying or minimum wage jobs.  This man speaks a completely different language when he’s among his wealthy peers.  There’s no way he can relate to real Americans and he acts as if it’s a bother to even try.  So based on the 47% video, his economic disconnect and his history, the Obama team should have seen the bully takeover coming and prepared ways to counter it. 

There are a few more areas where the President could have improved his performance but those are the main ones that ended up costing him this first debate.  Now, it remains to be seen whether this changes the polls any and that will be apparent in the days to come, but if we look at past presidential debates where an incumbent lost his first debate, we’ll see that it really has no correlation to winning the White House.  Here are the stats:

DeMon's Debate History Chart:

YEAR	DEBATE OUTCOME	ELECTION WINNER
1976	Incumbent Gerald Ford lost 1st debate against Carter	CARTER WON ELECTION
1980	Incumbent Carter lost 1st debate against Reagan	REAGAN WON ELECTION
1984	Incumbent Reagan lost 1st debate against Mondale	REAGAN WON ELECTION
1992	Incumbent George Bush Sr lost 1st debate against Clinton	CLINTON WON ELECTION
1996	Incumbent Bill Clinton won 1st debate against Bob Dole	CLINTON WON ELECTION
2004	Incumbent George W Bush lost 1st debate against John Kerry	GEORGE W BUSH WON ELECTION
2012	Incumbent Barack Obama lost 1st debate against Romney	??????????????????????

So history tells us that out of the last 7 presidential debates, three incumbents lost the first debate but still won the election.  And an equal amount of incumbents who lost the first debate also lost the election.  I’m using this piece of presidential history to make a point.  Romney may have won this first debate, but it really isn't that big of a deal when you put it into the proper perspective.  So I want my fellow dems to stop with the doom and gloom.  President Obama is still leading in every single poll they've taken in the swing states.  Romney still has to deal with his likability issues and he has to somehow try and make Americans forget that he wrote off 47% of the country as moochers and lost causes who can’t take responsibility for their own lives and they consider themselves victims.  That’s a HUGE hurdle to cross and 5 weeks is a very short time to do it in.  It’s time we own up to the loss of this first debate, then move on and find ways to help the president win this election.  Let this ignite our resolve and do whatever we can to take an active role in this election. President Obama is only one man and he can’t win all by himself.  I can do more, you can do more, we ALL can do more.