1. Nothing substantial will get through the Republican House on gun safety issues.
2. Spending is not out of control. The Republican Tea Party Congress is out of control.
3. The issue is not "big government" or "small government." Neither of those positions have any substantive meaning behind them. Neither addresses the function of government vis a vis the needs of its citizens.
4. I saw a piece in the paper today about news gatherers in the inner cities having their camera equipment stolen at gunpoint. This is a bad sign. It's possible that the "revolution" that some tea-partiers advocated might be in the offing, but it won't be the one they thought it would be.
5. I voted for Barack Obama. Two times. I was very happy when he won. Both times. I still am. I am also beginning to wonder if the one thing his election has accomplished might be that it is proving the basic racist nature of the country as a whole. How else to explain the "failure of his administration at any cost" scenario that the Republican Party as a whole has endorsed over and over again? Why else would compromise with "that man" threaten to spell defeat for any Republican legislator? Far from his presidency signaling a "post-racial" American, I think it shows much more clearly a very racist America.