Methinks the main reason many laws don’t get changed is that legislators can’t admit they were wrong. Let’s take marijuana for example. Admitting that that it is much less harmful than alcohol and that it does have medicinal qualities that can’t be duplicated would force many a legislator to admit they were wrong. Then there is the matter of what to do about all those lives ruined with jail sentences for marijuana. Nope, we can’t even do tests for fear that the truth would make them look bad.

And Remember …….
That among those who desperately want to keep marijuana on the outside are a strange coalition of drug lords whose price & profits skyrocket the harder it is to get marijuana, alcohol companies who have the government keeping their competition out and privatized prisons who get paid by the incarcerated body. Marijuana convictions have been very good to them. One more group that may have a vested interest are drug companies…..

Sign posted by a storage company in NYC

Couple of Thoughts on Hobby Lobby:
First the majority of their customers are women. They are taking what I believe is an anti-woman stance. Most of what they sell can be found elsewhere. Vote with your dollars, folks. It seems to be the only thing those with the money understand.

Second, if the justices rule that corporations are people and can have religious views, I predict the next round of converts will be the health insurance companies. They will claim one and all that following the dictates of the ACA is an abomination and a sacrilege according to their religious beliefs. No doubt there is a bible passage that says this in some vague way.

Talk About Welfare Queens….
Congratulations Iowans, looks like your “business” relations with NASCAR have been extended. I guess we are all owners of NASCAR’s Newton venue whether we want to be or not. $12.5 million worth of ownership. Isn’t there something, something better that the state of Iowa could do with that money? I have never been much in favor of governments giving welfare to businesses in the form of tax abatement, utility abatement, TIF agreements and I do not know how many other schemes that are out there that governments use to get businesses to locate to their area. I am so old that I remember back to the days when Iowa could lure businesses with good paying jobs to the state because we had a highly educated workforce that was high quality and reliable. We also offered a business atmosphere that where there were reliable customers for good products and solid working infrastructures.

Now we use bribes. Once we started bribing businesses we could never turn back. Seems like they are always at the door with their hand out, begging for more welfare. This welfare comes at a greater and greater cost to the individual taxpayer as the business welfare must come from somewhere. The costs to the taxpayers include busted pensions for public employees because governments must cut payments to pension funds to fund the welfare, cuts in services such as libraries, and fees for essential services.

Paying for places of business for professional sports teams is an epidemic in the US, with the welfare queen teams whining and crying for new stadia, new corporate boxes, bigger cuts of revenue, no rent clauses, and other demands else they leave for another city crying out for major league love. Iowa helps build a NASCAR track in Newton just to keep up with the other suckers.

This rant was inspired by my representative, Tom Sands. He is proudly conservative. So proudly conservative that he pushed a welfare bill through the Iowa House for NASCAR instead of using that money for much needed infrastructure repair, or schools that last I had heard the House refused to move on, or fixing the hundreds of bridges in Iowa that are below standards. Let me tell you Tom, they will be back with their hand out and so will their friends.

Of course we are not the only state or community offering welfare to the major sports. One of my favorite blogs is “field of schemes.” This blog details the ridiculous demands of the welfare sports queens and how governmental units screw the schools and essential services to give those welfare queens all they want.

Once More – FDR
Speech That Could Fit In Today

Finally – Is Iowa’s Republican Caucus In Trouble?
Thanks to the Citizen’s United ruling a couple of years back, the wealthy in the Republican Tea Party know they can buy themselves a presidential candidate. So the need to go through the show of a beauty contest in Iowa becomes almost moot. Each candidate will be flying off to Las Vegas and Michigan and Wisconsin or Arkansas and where ever those with the money live prior to Iowa. The race that the Tea Party candidate really want to win now is the backing of some multi-billionaire. Talk about a Tea Party win-win. Candidates that will auction themselves off to the highest bidder and bidders that have train loads of money.

So by the time the Iowa caucus comes around the real test will have taken place and the candidates will come to Iowa wiping lipstick from the lips that kissed some very wealthy rear ends. Isn’t democracy great?