The parties have become so corrupt that they will tow the line weather they agree with a point personally or not... its all become a big game to them and they are ruining the country. All they care about is winning their argument instead of working together. I use to like Bill O'Rielly now I really don't care for him too much...

For me personally, the only person I listen to and take seriously right now for me is Rand Paul, he's a Republican, but he supports hemp, ending mandatory sentencing, among other things that go outside of what the republican establishment look down upon. In fact I just saw a headline where he and Cory Booker plan on working together to put an end to the "war on drugs". I also like his proposal for term limits for congress, and a new constitutional amendment that would end any exemptions for congress from the very laws they pass on us. What happened to politicians like this? Just because you're a liberal or conservative doesn't automatically make you have a straight ticket set of beliefs you have to abide by, like you said, its like some type of religion... And the Media has become state propaganda... We had Mitt Romney shoved down our throats as the sure fire nominee while Ron Paul got cut off the screen in every debate... the Media wanted you to accept Mitt Romney as the leading candidate of the party... not supporting or disapproving of Ron Paul, but he didn't get a fair chance like Romney and Santorum did, and the fact that he won several state primaries was completely ignored by TV news. Four years before that on the otherside Hillary was destroyed in favor of this asshat we have now.... Oh and if you're trying to run for president under the DNC or RNC... you're screwed. See here: http://www.politics1.com/p2012.htm

Yesterday I saw that McCain is toying with the idea to run again... fucking kidding me? In fact, I'm tired of these 80 year old decrepit shells of humans that can't even keep their eyes open while talking into the mic. These people can't represent us. Mitch McConnel and Nacy Pelosi cant get enough facelifts to understand today's generation. You run under a party ticket but you represent the people not the party. The party is just a indicator of where a lot of your beliefs stand.. not all of them. Government works for us.. we elect them... but these days they act like we work for them.

Don't get my started on Healthcare.gov... um wtf? Why didn't the geniuses in DC contract Google, Facebook, or Amazon, instead of some Canadian firm? We have 3 perfectly fine American companies that have built successful websites that offer services and handle more traffic than any other site on the web... I may not agree with the law itself, but I think the website debacle is nonsensical and goes to show the corrupt bureaucracy going on right now. You don't think Google, Bing, or Yahoo would have loved to have "Powered by _________" at the bottom of the ACA website?

Our last president made the patriot act and increased our debt... the next one promised transparency and argued against the debt... hes a member of the other party but we now have even more debt and even more spying. Something is not right with that picture.

My political standing can be all over the place. I'm for guns, oil, low taxes, but im also for the legalization of pot, ending the war on drugs, and I don't give a shit if 2 men or 2 women want to get married. Really, its none of the governments business and they shouldn't have to ban or legalize it.... the only reason they have a sword in the fire is becasue of taxes... they don't care about you or your marriage rights, they care about you vote and your money... that goes for both sides.

Its late and I'm rambling.. but back to Bill O'Reilly:

American media is controlled by a handful of old dicks.Its a psyops type campaign to maintain the current power structure. The house of representatives has turned into fucking dinner theater.  The republican party is tearing itself apart from the inside.Poor John McCain with the tea party is like the old man yelling at rowdy kids to get off his lawn. Its a motherfucking disservice to the American people for one side to consistently offer up fucking retarded candidates.WE are being ripped off every time some scientific illiterate goes to Washington. There should be a science test required before you can run for office and politicians need to leave their fucking religion at home. 

I like to read about our politics from the perspective of the UK India Aljazeer etc. You cant count on what is here to get the whole story because there is too much smoke and mirrors. What you can do here is find actual journalists to follow, just like picking different politicians to follow. I like Rachel Maddow and Richard Engel but I read articles all over the place.

I honestly think McCain should have been president instead of Bush, he would have been a better war time president but he got screwed in the primaries at that time. Hilary should have been president over Obama, but a black male president was apparently more electable than a woman.
 
Ron Paul got some coverage on MSNBC, especially during that republic convention that officially announced Romney as the candidate. If I remember correctly, Guam and the state of Maine were very vocal in their protests. I flip through the different channels sometimes to see whats being covered so I can look up more info on different subjects that seem off or only covered by one group. I think the only reason MSNBC was covering Ron Paul at the time was to emphasize the discourse in the republican party. That and these news outlets like to emphasize more coverage on a candidate they feel would not win in a national election to try and get people to split the votes or get the candidate they want into a primary win so they'll be less likely to win against their parties candidate later. People would have voted for Ron Paul if he put his name in to the state elections for write in eligibility. MSNBC knows this, so they cover Paul in the hopes that if he did that, then more republican votes would be split between the two of them and Obama would have had an easy victory. Paul didn't put his name in for write for exactly this reason. Its all mind games and its another reason I don't care for these biased media channels. It worked the same for Fox News, sometime Hilary was given more coverage, other times she was blasted for her opinions. MSNBC didn't seem to like her at all and put all their backing behind Obama.
 
Rand Paul has some good positions that I agree with but others I don't. But the main reason I don't think he'll win a presidential election is because of his stance on abortion and fetus rights. Just that one thing could make him unelectable. And for the democrats, there is Governor Cuomo of NY. Hes done a much better job over the previous governors for this state, but the moment he forced through his anti-gun agenda he lost all potential for presidential election. Same with Rand Paul, just one issue and they're basically both screwed out of getting past their respective primary elections because their own parties wont see them as being electable nationwide.
 
I honestly think Chris Christie would have been a better nominee than Romney. I used to vote republican, I mostly vote democrat now, but I will vote for whoever deserves my vote. If I see a name on a ballot and i don't know who they are, I have the right to leave that part unvoted and thats what I do. I won't vote party line anymore, I need to be convinced. The biggest problem with America is the lack of voters. Its a right that many people do not take advantage of unless it is a presidential election and its a shame. Every politician in power now could be voted out if the other 50%+ of US citizens actually voted.
 
I've seen people bash the tea party for their positions in congress. I've had a tea party representative in congress for my district before. Ann Marie Buerkle. I don't think she did a good job at all, she seemed highly uninformed on a variety of subjects. I know she does not represent the tea party as a whole, but she did not please people in this state and lost her re-election. What was really interesting in that election was that a green party candidate was in the debate, Ursula Rozum. She had some good positions, like the elimination of all existing student debt and that higher education should a be a constitutional right for all citizens.. but none of it made financial sense. Other than a few extreme positions, she could have run on a democrat line, but didn't. It makes me wonder why the Tea Party doesn't run on its own party line.
 
The Obamacare website is a disaster and it reflects on the entire bill. NPR has a decent article about the UK government's digital infrastructure:
 
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/23/240268497/u-k-official-urges-u-s-government-to-adopt-a-digital-core
 
The highlight of this article was at the bottom:
 
 

Finally, the president said Monday that the policy of health care reform . How would you characterize the relationship between what government services purport to do and how much they're dependent on the technological systems?

It is the prevalent distribution model of our time. I don't think you would hear politicians say, "Well, the government buildings, they're not the government," because you have to go to government buildings to transact with them. So websites, digital channels, mobile services, applications, APIs, they are the government. And that's a critical thing. Digital services are public services. The Web services are indivisible from public services

In essence, the website is Obamacare. Because the website is faulty, the entire health care bill is faulty. Without it working correctly, the entire health care reform will not work correctly.

They should have outsourced this to amazon. Amazon's cloud servers and tech powers Netflix and Reddit to name a few. They would have done a much better job and given everyone free overnight shipping of their documents.

On one last note.. all politicians should be required to take science classes. I agree with that.. not just tests, but entire classes so they can be informed. They should also all be required to go to a Department of Social Services and go through the process of filing for welfare and food stamps. Its an all day event, possibly spanning numerous days depending on where you live. They should experience it to know what its like and what the benefits and requirements actually involve. Instead of everyone complaining about welfare queens, they should jump into the system to get first hand experience so they'll know what should be fixed. Same with gun policies. Everyone of them should be required to get a gun permit, take a safety course and buy a firearm so they know what they are talking about. Even if politicians are pro or against any issue, they should actually have knowledge about them before they sign bills that affect them.

Oh.. and birth control should be free. If people don't want welfare queens, then free birth control should be available to prevent unwanted pregnancies and children that are unaffordable outside of massive earned income tax credits and increased welfare benefits.

The problem with politicians needing to take science classes is that they should already know this stuff.. but then again they're so damn old I guess they've missed out on what we know today. With all the aid we sent to countries that don't have our best interest at hand, we could be putting towards science and NASA. We've really digressed in the space program in the past 20 years... I remember watching Curiosity land on nasa.gov and wondering why this wasn't national news. Things like this use to be big time news events... we landed a fucking rover on mars via a drop ship that fired thrusters and lowered Curiosity with cables. Instead of political bickering 24/7 it would be nice to see stuff like this on the news and get people interested in science again. I remember how fascinated I was with science when I was a child. I wanted to be an astronomer when I grew up... that passion is something we've lost, some blame our absorption into entertainment and social media... this could be the case, but I think both of these outlets that have exploded over the past decades could also be used to bolster interest in it.

You're right about the Paul and Abortion and Cuomo and Gun Control, it is a huge draw back when people grip onto their belief in these causes very passionately. (I know I do about guns ) I don't think one issue should drag down a candidate because no one person is going to believe exactly like another person. The problem is, between Bush and Obama there have been some huge power grabs that make the president way to powerful right now. All 3 branches are suppose to be equal, but right now that's not the case, and it needs to be fixed... Congress needs to stop acting a dinner theater as Lady put it, get their act together, and reassert themselves as equals. Same for the Supreme Court. Its suppose to be how we get through shitty presidents. People have become way to polarized into their "party" and not what is best for our country. With a better congress those few issues that go against a candidate can easily be neutralized by the legislative branch, its what its for as its suppose to better represent the people than just one man.

The best example of this was the gun control debate in the senate, even though the democrats own the senate, the bills failed miserably. Or when Bush tried to make heterosexual marriage a constitutional amendment, it never gained steam.

Curiosity was / is awesome! That was a great achievement for NASA and it was treated like the red bull space jump guy. One day of publicity, some memes and then basically ignored. I don't think kids want to be astronauts or astronomers anymore. Most of them have crap educations and only have military service or mcdonalds employment to look forward to. Maybe if we had better coverage of the more advanced sciences on tv instead of ancient alien theories, we'd have a better chance at encouraging the next generation into advancing their education. I'm really looking forward to the new Cosmos series on Fox. I hope it'll be good and maybe accomplish this. Along with new Through the Wormhole episodes, I'd love to see more science shows. There are still people that don't think we even landed on the moon and I'm sure there are people that deny that Curiosity is even on Mars. Speaking of which, I love this video of Buzz Aldrin punching a conspiracy theorist:

There are far too many politicians with no science knowledge and facts. When I used to watch Celebrity Apprentice there was a season with Rod Blagojevich in it.. the former governor of Illinois thats currently in jail, who is 56 years old. Before his court date and sentencing, he was a free guy and was on the apprentice show. Anyway, as I was watching this I couldn't believe my eyes. He didn't know how to use a computer. He literally did not know how to even turn it on or how to type. wtf. He was the governor of a state and did not know how to turn on a computer. It boggles my mind that people like this get into power. There are congressmen / congresswomen that don't understand how the internet works, how gun magazines are reusable, conspiracy theorists, and there are more than quite a few that use brilliant scientists like the flat earth society:

http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djublonskopf/Flatearthsociety.htm

Why a Flat Earth?

 

     Why we don't believe the world is round

     Scientific data and measurements backing up our claims

http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/

wtf.

With the way congress is now, all the large one or two issue problems could become the next focal point of complete gridlock. Its petty, but if one side can push the issue the primary candidate supports, then they'll smear campaign the hell out of it until the general voting population hates them.

I had a science teacher that told me about the the flat earth society in my freshman year in highschool. I was like WTF, people still believe that?

Yeah, I've had bosses that didn't know how to use a computer and I was like WTF? How are these people even over me in this company?

Some people are ignorant by choice. I had a couple Jehovah Witnesses drop by here a week or so ago. I engaged them in conversation about why they believe and why I measure empirical evidence and come to conclusions that are provable facts. These two older men did not know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory. They admitted to being content with getting knowledge (hahahaha) from their scriptures while I said No I want to know everything and even jokingly asked Do you guys even science? when discussing scientific errors in the Bible. They were scientifically illiterate by choice as well as having very little understanding of history, sociology, psychology etc.... Basically it boiled down to they love the high their neurotransmitters give them when they're doing their gawd thing and are content with their ignorance.

You shoulda seen the looks on their faces when I brought up Lot mwahahahaha

I know a lot of people ignorant by choice . Working in a grocery store I encounter them every day. I had someone come up to me bitching about how he bought some peaches and they were hard as a rock so he threw them away... Oh really? Why don't you wait for them to fucking ripen maybe? Do you eat green bananas? He said it wasn't "fair" like we cheated him by selling peaches that he was too lazy to even feel to see if they were close to ripening in the first place, and then was stupid enough to throw away when they would have been good in a few days.

"Do you eat green bananas?" lmfao.

Dear god... Fucking Mitt Romney is thinking about running again...

Oh man I hope not. He's like McCain now. He just won't stop and they both keep losing.