Wake Up and Smell The Coffee

Here's a little news digest brought to you by the delicious wave of public discontent that is sweeping the country right now:

• Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks has an idea: let's all (individuals and corporations, no matter their political leanings) stop giving campaign donations. Let's strangle the vermin from both sides who have taken this country hostage so that they don't have access to billions of dollars. Since actual campaign financing reform ain't gonna happen any time soon (it is not in the interest of the lawmakers to do so), Mr. Schultz is asking his fellow CEOs to withhold campaign money to both parties. I think it is a lovely idea, but I think it is naive. Are corporations really ready to follow suit and be "team players" (God, how they love to deploy the term but how little they use it), or are they just gonna pat Schultz on the back and continue buying our politicos? I can't imagine the Brothers Koch pledging to stop giving money to their favorite tea party causes. Or any other big business risking the opportunity to buy an election.
Billions of dollars are raised, mostly by corporations, for political campaigns. If this was a true democracy and not the increasingly revolting sham it is, elections would not be bought by corporations. In a fair and level playing field, there should be an equal limit of a very modest federal budget for campaign financing. There could be a cap on fundraising and a cap on how much any given corporation or individual can give, let's say $5000 tops (this is the only country on Earth where, as Mitt Romney pointed out, corporations are people) up to a given amount. Airtime and media space should be donated by the major networks and or media, as public service announcements, and all parties should have the exact same amount of exposure, or use the same amount of campaign money as they see fit. Even though the contributions of individuals like you and me may amount to, as they say in Yiddish, a spit in the ocean, I for one will not give one red cent to the Democratic party or to the Obama campaign moving forward.

• I read that some states want to bring casinos so they can add revenue, since they are falling apart and nobody is raising taxes. This is brilliant, and makes total sense. Instead of raising taxes for corporations and the rich, let desperate people gamble their money away so that the states can have revenue.
Why are the poor always footing the bill in this place?

• The rich are begging to be taxed and no one is listening to them! Everybody should listen to Mr. Warren Buffett.

• After reading about Michelle Bachmann's krazy Christian leanings in The New Yorker, something that should make people truly tremble with fear, it occurred to me that this is one instance in which I would gladly take up arms and violent insurrection, if it came to pass that we elect a president that believes this should be a Christian nation. This is one cause, total separation of church and state, where I can already see myself mixing the Molotov cocktails.