21 October, 2005

What Do I Stand For? Part 2 - The Arts

A truly great society values its artists. The Roman Empire valued its sculptures, painters, poets, and other forms of art and entertainment. It was the recreation of the people. The artists performed a valuable service and were paid for their efforts. The people grew in the exposure to such culture. It is what defined who they are and stayed as a reminder throughout history that they were more than just a ruthless empire set out to conquer all they saw.

In the UK and Canada, they truly value government sponsored support of the arts. Even the tax to provide quality television programming allows for creative expression that is not allowable on commercial stations.

The United States did try to initiate such an interest in the arts, but the bottom line here is always profit. If there is no monetary value to such a project, it is viewed as a waste of time and money. It is this sort of thinking that cuts school funding for art and music classes as well as decrease support for the National Endowment For The Arts and The Public Broadcasting System. These things are seen as a burden on taxpayers who may not always appreciate what these programmes create and therefore give no value to the nation.

The arts are a valuable thing, but the key is to realize what is art to one is not to others. Just because a handful of political paperpushers without an eye or ear for art must satisfy the status quo and reject or scoff at the value of art to society does not mean it is true. The system is set up wrong and needs to be dismantled and rebuilt, but that does not mean we should not support the arts as a nation.

National Endowment For The Arts [NEA]

There is a good notion in the idea of supplying grants and loans to artists to help them get started with a project they have in mind for the good of the people. However, the way the money is distributed is wrong.

Politicians, not artists with a proven track record in their field, determine who gets the money and who does not. When it comes to giving out money, shouldn't the money go to those who have the talent and ambition to actually create something for the benefit of mankind get the money as opposed to just a crony of someone on the board looking for a handout for a project they can play at which will not really be seen by anyone?

I suggest there should be a board on the NEA of experienced painters, sculptors, writers, and other artists from different background who should interview the ones requesting the money. If an artist wants the money, they should present examples of their work and give the panel an idea of what they want to do with the money along with a detailed report on how the expenses will be used and a timeline for completion and how the work will be shown. This panel of qualified artists can determine if this is truly a person with talent who will use the money for the purpose it was meant. A peer to peer panel is much better than politicians who cater to the whims of whomever put them in the job as to what is a worthy project.

Anyone given a grant by the NEA should then be required to sign a contract that if, as a result of the work accomplished by the grant brings in an income of 5 times the value of the grant, he or she should pay back 10% of future earnings into the NEA to help fund new artists who need the help. Such profitable artists can then deduct this contribution from their income for tax purposes. It at least serves as a way to repay the system that brought to them success as well as fund a system that will not overburden taxpayers.

PBS And NPR

With PBS and NPR, it proves troubling to keep many local stations to keep up with expenses. They must continually have drives to raise money from local listeners in order to stay in business so they can provide content that is informational, entertaining, and different from the mainstream media. It may not seem like a popular idea among those of us who do appreciate such things, but perhaps it is time for them to go commercial or to explore other options such as charging extra for cable and satellite access or developing a premium station where one can only access by paying an extra fee or with NPR using a pay service for those who want to reach them through satellite radio.

The idea of PBS and NPR was more financially feasible before the access of satellite and cable. Today, there are just so many different choices for people in the US that both tend to not seem as appealing as other programming. For these valuable programmes to survive, it needs to think in new ways and evolve with the public.

I think both PBS and NPR should still qualify for help when it comes to creating new and experimental programming, but the actual day to day expenses of running the stations need to be addressed in terms of practicality. If the local market is not interested in what they offer, it is not economically viable to support the station. Perhaps if both were taken out of the local hands and put more on a national level, it would be easier to manage. PBS could run in the same league as NBC or CBS with only one location airing the main content and allowing local affiliates to air shows of interest to their audience at certain times.

Copyrights And Such Issues

All creative people should have their work protected and they should be paid for their services. That being said, there is a big problem out there with copyright infringement laws because of the set up of the system.

Big corporate movie and music studios today are seen as the poor underdog who are protecting the rights of the artists which is why they are so strongly going after anyone who steals the work of the artists. What heroes they must be?!?

To put it bluntly, these people are only trying to shake down those who refuse to pay their hookers which they pimp out. They don't give a care about artists in general, just the artists which they use to create a profit for their shareholders. They are living on an income generated by the talents of other people. They are making more money on their artists than the artist will ever make who is doing all the real talented work.

It's not like these artists or budding filmmakers can go out in business for themselves because these big companies have slanted the field heavily in their favour from the beginning. Unless you do business through them, you have very little chance of success.

The work of the artist should be protected, not just from those who steal their work, but also from those who leech from their talent.

Official Site Of Callen Damornen

20 October, 2005

What Do I Stand For? Part 1 - For The Children

I have been awfully hard on the Democrats over the very nature that they seem to have no soul, no direction, aimlessly wandering about the political arena with their heads up their arses. Then it got me to thinking, why exactly is there no political party out there for me. Perhaps if I could define what I stood for then maybe there would be others out there who are in my same boat where I do not feel so alone, at least politically.

Childhood Obeseity

This is a growing problem among the children. In my apartment complex, my children have a total of 23 friends who I see quite often. All but 3 are overweight. 11 are quite obese. One poor boy often has red cheeks when he goes up the stairs and is out of breath just walking across the parking lot. Most of the children have parents who are also overweight. To boot, many of these kids are in homes with low incomes who border on the line between qualifying for welfare and the working poor who do not qualify for help.

As I have stated in one blog entry, one of the factors of being overweight is being poor because the inability to afford quality foods including fresh fruits and vegetables. The diet of the lower income classes are almost always higher in carbohydrates, bad sugars and bad fats because it is cheap food.

Lower income also means fewer visits to health care physicians who can better keep tabs on the children and their weight.

Health Care

When there are so many children belonging to low income families that have little or no health care and do not qualify for federal or state programs for help, they can often get in serious medical complications by having to ignore symptoms until they get so bad that a trip to an emergency room becomes necessary.

A national health care plan, such as the ones in the UK or Canada could work in the United States. Of course there will always be the options for those who wish to have insurance plans where they can have better control over whom they see, but as a safety net for everyone else without insurance, a national health care plan would help the most desperate. It could be set up with a sliding fee scale if necessary to allow those with no income or very little income to see a doctor free up to the regular fees to those with a higher income. Prescription costs for vital medicines for children should be free.

And along with a health care system, it should also involve preventative medicine. There should be more access to fitness centers where even the poor can get in some exercise. There should be provision to help families who cannot afford essential fruits and vegetables to obtain them.

Food Standards

There should be stricter standards on the foods we are allowed to sell in stores because part of the health problems rest on the dyes, chemicals, artificial products, corn syrups and other perverted sugars, perverted forms of fat, and other dangerous artifacts added to make a cheap product. Long term, this is what will kill us all and to feed them to children is allowing them to go to an early grave.

There is no proof one way or another that genetically modified food is dangerous. It allows food that can grow bigger, stronger and resistant to disease and insects. I think more research should be done in this field to satisfy the question of the long term nature of this proceedure. While it may be good in the short run, we do not know if this could backfire in a very serious way in the future.

The abysmal things we do to the animals we raise for food is also an issue of concern. The so-called Mad Cow disease came about basically by feeding vegetarian animals dead cow flesh. So wrong on so many different levels! We do that in the United States and have not had this happen here...yet. We pump them with steriods, antibiotics, and other unnatural chemicals while we keep them in cramped quarters in miserable conditions in order to maximize the profit potential and bring cheap meat into the market. The meat may be cheap, but it comes with a price to our health and especially the health of the children.

Day Care/After School Programmes

Not every family has the luxury of having one parent stay at home to watch the children. If most employers would pay a decent living wage, even a single parent could be able to work just one job and afford day care at the same time. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Some have figured out the black hole in a two parent family. Unless both parents are working jobs paying more than $15 per hour and have one or more children, they cannot afford to have one parent go in the workforce OR both parents could work with one or both of them working two or more jobs to make ends meet. Often it costs more for the other parent to go to work which defeats the point in working outside the home.

A single parent does not even have that luxury to entertain the notion of always being home for the children if they must work.

I think businesses should be encouraged with tax breaks, government contracts, and special perks for paying decent wages and benefits to their employees. Forget about corporate welfare for companies that use it for the CEOs and stockholders to use in their profit margin or to take jobs out of the country. Give this money instead to the businesses that truly love the country and the people who live in it. Give it to those who value their workers and their customers.

There should be more grants and loans for those wanting to start their own businesses, especially for single parents who may want to start a job they can do at home where they can be with the kids when they need them. Give these grants and loans to business minded people who want to create more local jobs which can hire people in the area who wish to be close to their home and families.

If more people could work decent jobs with decent wages, the problems with over inflated daycare cost would be decreased.

Violence And Outreach

Our society glorifies violence. This is wrong. People tend to act out more and it is considered socially acceptable. Movie and sports stars will get lots of press when they break out in a fit of violence sometimes with a pat on the back or with a slap on the wrist. The news covers so many paranoid stories without all the facts and whips people into a fear based frenzy. Is it a wonder that kids pick up on the fact that the world is not a safe place and violence is an okay way to vent your frustration?

Guns are not the problem. Video games and movies are not the problem. The problem is the embedded attitude that violence is cool. As with the anti-smoking campaign which has reduced the image of the smoker from being cool to being a social outcast, the same needs to be done with violence. It is not acceptable to vent out your rage on others. Children see this and imitate this as normal.

When children pick up these habits, they often get in trouble or become bullies. No one seems to take it seriously. Even if the parents beg authorities or government agencies to intervene, nothing will be done unless the child breaks a serious law and then there is no going back. They will not do something to prevent the child from getting to that point. This is wrong.

There needs to be a campaign against violence. Violence and rage are not cool. It is dangerous and socially unacceptable. We should not praise those or look the other way when people do such things. They should be called on their behaviour and made to see how foolish it is. If the children could see that those who participate in such actions get mocked instead of praised, perhaps they will think twice about venting their rage.

School Prayers

I strongly believe in the seperation of church and state. A public school is not a church, but an entity that is run and funded by the local and federal government and through taxpayers' money. It is not the job of such an institution to enforce or strongly favour any particular religion which is what having a school prayer would do.

That being said, I also strongly believe in freedom of religion. Just because one is not in church does not mean they must stop being religious and that includes being at school. While I would be fully against a school endorsed mandatory prayer during class time, I see no objection to students who wish to come together with or without a teacher or pastor when class is not in session on a voluntary basis. Let the Christians, Jews, Muslims, and any other religious group be able to express their religious freedoms, but do not enforce it or make it mandatory for the rest who do not wish to participate.

Pledge of Allegiance

I know some people are getting bent out of shape over the very nature of the pledge. It seems like a bad 50s conformist code forced upon the masses to prove oneself to be an American. The words "one nation under God" were not originally in this pledge, but added to verify that all Americans are in fact different from those godless Communists. So if you wanted to be considered an American and not a Pinko, you were wanting to be under this nation of God, implying a Christian god really.

There are other arguments to saying it other than the "under God" part. Others object to the fact that the nation was started where all states were more independent of the big nation and could seceed at anytime until the Civil War made that impossible. Still others object that this nation does not grant liberty and justice for all. While others still object to saying a loyalty pledge on the principle that they have nothing to prove to anyone. Should one be forced or even pressured to say a loyalty oath as part of a daily school routine?

There used to be a time for a few decades when both the Pledge and a prayer was the way to start off the school morning. The prayer was always of the Christian variety which would exclude anyone not of the faith who were forced to participate in a state run religious ritual. The Pledge was also considered a religious ritual with the added words, "under God."

I do not wish to say it myself. My children have come to their own conclusion that they would rather not say it. Most of their friends think it is a pretty stupid waste of time even if they don't see the full impact of why because to them it is just something boring they have to do.

Even if those words were taken out and it went back to the original wording, I do not think we should impose loyalty oaths on children who do not actually understand what they are saying. It is a subtle form of patriotic brainwashing and I think it should be eliminated from elementary and high schools.

Sex Education

I am all for teaching children to not participate in having sex until they are ready for the full realm of consequences that go with the territory. In order to teach this form of abstinence, it would require the full details about sexual intercourse, the biological functions of males and females, how one could become pregnant, the sexual diseases and the consequences of them, the emotional aspect of sex with love versus lust, and then the prevention of pregnancy and disease with an emphasis on avoiding it until they are ready for the consequences.

With a good program, it would also include more adult topics such as experimenting with an adult life. The children could get a newspaper and pretend to find a job with the teacher letting them know what job they would get and at what pay. Then they could find a place to live in the classified ad and have to create a budget on what they would live on during the month. When they get the budget together, then they could have the experimental robot babies to carry around and have to care for during a month so they could get a picture of what it means to become a parent.

In addition, they should be allowed to talk to people who have had sexual diseases and AIDS to see first hand the consequences of unprotected sex.

The final judgement as to whether a child will have sex or not is more of a result of what the parents teach. Morality is the parent's job, not the school's. The school can only educate to guide the children with all options available while the parent can guide the child in what is expected from them.

Evolution Versus Intellegent Design

Intellegent Design is a cover for teaching the Biblical account of creation under the guise of being a real science. No matter what it is called, it still is not science and in no way belongs in a science class. For those who strongly believe in teaching Intellegent Design, really ask yourself honestly what are your motives. There is a religious group that believes in Intellegent Design. They believe aliens from another planet formed life on our Earth. They take it just as seriously as Christians, Jews and Muslims take the Adam and Eve story. Is this version of Intellegent Design also acceptable or is it really just a cover to introduce a religious bias within a science class? There is no scientific basis on which to use a Biblical story. Evolution is a scientific theory which follows all the rules of scientific proceedure. There IS a difference.

Education

Teachers are doing the best they can, but are often underpaid and unappreciated for all they have to do. In areas where people are wealthy and pay a higher property tax, such schools in those districts can have the best of everything to make a better education possible. Not all areas are so lucky. The bussing issue only masks the deeper problem that only putting a handful of lucky students in a better school will never make up for the ones permanently left behind.

The schools that need the most help are in the poor areas. The No Child Left Behind sounds great in theory, but in practice is severely lacking. It punishes schools that cannot acheive the standards set out before it and if it fails to meet those standards then funding is cut. A school that is already bad off cannot afford to have more funds cut. They will have enough trouble trying to reach those goals due to decades of being behind the standards and not enough help to get them up to meet the goals. It becomes a sinister way to punish poor schools and shut them down while making the school voucher programme become a more viable option to allow more kids to go to private and religious schools for the same money that could have been used to just improve the school in the first place.

School buildings which are old either need to be repaired or rebuilt. There needs to be programmes to encourage people in college to pursue a teaching career. Teachers need to be paid more and better teachers even more. School books should be current and at least made within the last few years. School libraries should be expanded with more book choices and access to computers. The reading and math should be drilled into the children on every single grade level. If a child cannot perform reading or math at their grade level, they should be kept back or allowed to go to summer school to catch up.

Classrooms need to be split up like it used to be with the advanced level kids in one class, the average kids in another class, the below average kids in another class, and the troublemakers in yet another class so all students can perform at their proper level. It has been a bad experiment to mix the students up. The slower kids are not really being encouraged to be smarter by the mere fact of being in the same class, but are often intimidated and less likely to want to try. The smarter kids are often the target of ridicule and tend to act dumb and not live to their full potential. School is supposed to be for learning the skills they will need as adults and a politically correct system is only dragging everyone behind. Let the kids learn social behaviour on the playground, at lunch, during classes such as Physical Education, Music and Art.

I will comment more later on the things I stand for, but for now, I leave it at this.

AAA Resources For Information And Entertainment

18 October, 2005

The Democratic Party - Where's The Love?

I found it quite irritating when I began vocally airing my opinions against George W Bush that those on the Right automatically clumped me in the same camp with the Dems and all the Left. Up until the point where Bush ran against Gore, I have never voted for a Democrat. Why did I vote for Gore instead of Bush?

I didn't have much faith in the Independents who were running. Bush failed the test for me when he was asked who were the leaders of Mexico and Canada and could not answer it nor showed any intellectual curiosity in the answer. The only saving grace for Gore was he had experience as a Vice President and perhaps would try and do the right thing.

What failed Gore is what also failed Kerry. It is the issue that has sunk the Democratic Party while the Republicans have taken over. It is something that goes far beyond just the politicians themselves, but also the typical Democratic voter. That thing is lack of definition.

Since the late 70s and the development of the Christian Coalition through people like Falwell and others with a strong faith were looking for a political party that would reflect their values. They found it in a Conservative Republican party that was more about the business of running a country than the Liberal Democrats that were more about the social issues which many bordered on things these groups found offensive.

As the Evangelicals were growing in numbers and becoming more vocal, it was a natural thing for the Republican Party to embrace the so-called family values of a group of people who are organized and faithful voters. To ignore such a demographic would be political suicide, so the Republicans went hand in hand with the Religious Right and the label became synonymous to the point where the media painted those in the Republican Party as real Christians and those not in that party as something worse.

Of course, the rational thinking person knows that not all in the Republican Party embrace those same Christian values and a lot of Democrats do embrace Christian values. The difference is the Republican Party allowed this group to define a purpose for what they intended to do which could rally more people behind a safe, secure vision of America that was nonthreatening to the majority of its supporters.

How did this backfire on the Democrats? While the Right was defining its purpose, the Left became a free-for-all, one size fits all agenda for every single social concern that not all within its own party could support. Then when they felt some turn away, they retracted full support over these issues hoping to get some members back into the fold while angering those they promised to help in the first place. A half-hearted campaign to try and please everyone does not work.

The Republicans took to certain issues and values and stuck with it. The Democrats tried to please everyone and in effect pleased few. You cannot be everything to everybody.

Here is one instance of the failure of the Left. If the Democrats truly were for Gay Rights, it could have done more to rally behind the cause instead of half-heartedly trying to cater to the homosexual communities. By even acknowledging they were going after this demographic, they distanced themselves from the stronger Christians in their own party who feel it is sinful and should not be accepted in society. When voters were starting to push away because of the gay issue, the politicians decided to only sort of allow gay rights only where it is convienent. They would never go on record as fully pushing for gay marriage or adoption rights because it would scare off too many people, but because they failed to take a positive stand one way or another, the Republicans saw this fatal flaw and backed them into a corner over this issue.

Here is another issue, corporate welfare and pork projects. While the Dems are famous for tax and spend, they were quick to point the finger at Republicans who were spending a lot of the tax money in giving kickbacks to rich corporate sponsors who backed their campaign and projects which only benefitted their states. Instead of taking a firm stand against this injustice, they participated in it and passively let future investigations of this wasteful spending slide. It could have been an opportunity to stand for something, but instead it was an easier out to just let things go on as usual and perhaps participate in it themselves.

And the issue that really got me steamed over the Democrats who seem to stand for nothing - they allowed the Patriot Act to be passed not only once, but twice. The first time around, they allowed themselves to be rushed through in passing it without reading what it was. The second time, they only half-heartedly thought about it, made an irritated protest and agreed to it.

Could we rely on the Democrats on the free trade arena? No. Knowing that NAFTA and CAFTA both would mean transferring jobs out of the country to give low paying jobs to people in other countries which amounts to exploiting the poor and betraying their own citizens by leaving them jobless, they did not put up much of a fight, just a hissy-fit with a few Democrats before passing it.

There is no standard definition of what it means to be a Democrat. The one size fits all party needs to pull in its reins if it wants to have a serious chance of winning. Despite the foul ups of the Republican Party as of the last few years, they still have a better chance of winning again because they have a united definition of what it means to be a Republican. This is something the Democrats do not have. Showing token support for a lot of different causes is not the same as boldly standing for something. This is why the Democrats will continue to fail. This is why they need to get together and decide where do they go from here.

The Official Site Of Callen Damornen

17 October, 2005

Bush - His Cronies, His Choices

I'm back! Did you miss me? I just had to come out of hiding after reeling in the sickness that has overcome the leadership of the United States. It has always been bad, but now it is even so bad that the staunch Right are now seeing what they deem those of us on the Left have seen from the beginning. We all see clearly that not only is George W Bush unqualified to be President, but he is also unqualified to call himself a Republican.

A Republican, or at least a Conservative in general, believes in responsible government, fiscal responsibility, and handing out benefits towards businesses that actually make a contribution to society at large. Bush has not followed the core Conservative principles at all.

His picks for important jobs have gone to unqualifed cronies who have screwed up in their past, but by the mere fact they praise him were deemed qualified for pretty important positions. Government contracts have gone to strong supporters without allowing bids to qualified competitiors which would have saved taxpayers money and put money into the hands of the deserving. The National Debt has grown so swiftly during the past 5-1/2 years and mostly due to the war he started on false grounds. He has irresponsibly made tax cuts at a time when more revenue is needed to cover the bare necessities of the people he is supposed to watch over. He hands out government welfare to his wealthy cronies to help them take jobs out of the country and gives supports to large corporations that dole out minimum wage, part-time jobs just to say his administration is creating more jobs.

His rule is not only irresponsible, but it is immoral.

Stewart Simonson is the Bush administration's point man for a flu pandemic but he has no public health management experience. He got his job because he is a close associate of former Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Simonson is Assistant Secretary for Public Health Emergency Preparedness at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). His job before joining HHS was as corporate secretary and counsel for Amtrak when Thompson was chief of the rail service. Prior to Amtrak, Simonson was staff lawyer for Thompson when he was governor of Wisconsin. In short, he is not qualified for a public health job that hundreds of millions of people are counting on.

Harriet Miers, from all accounts, is a gracious lady who has spent decades in the law and served ably as Bush’s lawyer in Texas and, for a year, as White House counsel. But her qualifications for the Supreme Court are non-existent. She is not a brilliant jurist and has never been a judge. She is not a scholar of the law. She has not had a brilliant career in politics, the academy, the corporate world or public forum. Were she not a friend of Bush, and female, she would never have even been considered.

Michael D. Brown was nominated by President George W. Bush as the first Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response in the newly created Department of Homeland Security in January 2003. This department was created in response to handling emergency situations after the New York incident on September 11 2001.

Mr. Brown holds a bachelor's degree in Public Administration/Political Science from Central State University, Oklahoma. He received his J.D. from Oklahoma City University’s School of Law.

After Hurricane Katrina, President Bush, initially praised him saying "you're doing a heck of a job, Brownie", but later deflected questions about the resignation, except to deny having discussed the resignation with him.

Before joining the DHS/FEMA, Brown was the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association from 1989-2001. Numerous lawsuits were filed against the organization over disciplinary actions and Brown was forced to resign. Some members interviewed felt Brown showed an imperious attitude, and nicknamed him "The Czar."

John Robert Bolton was nominated by President George W. Bush to become the Ambassador to the UN on March 7, 2005. His nomination had been the subject of a prolonged filibuster in the United States Senate by Democrats. President Bush used a recess appointment to install Bolton as Ambassador to the UN. This recess appointment will last until a new Congress convenes in January 2007.

Bolton is the rightwing's leading declaimer of the United Nations. He once said, "If the UN Secretariat building in New York lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." And when the Bush administration failed to persuade the UN to back its war in Iraq, Bolton observed that was "further evidence to many why nothing should be paid to the UN system."

Bolton has vocally decried the UN for years. Of course the UN has flaws and is in grave need of reform, but what message do we convey to the world when we send the UN someone who has called for total defunding of the institution? The rest of the world already thought the people of the US were arrogant, but to place such a man who thumbs his nose at the rest of the world in a position that requires diplomacy is beyond just a big mistake.

And we cannot forget about those big no-bid contracts made to Haliburton and other Bush supporting firms to profit on the messes left behind by his rule. He mangles Iraq and his cronies profit while doing a half-hearted job at rebuilding the country. Such spots could have been better filled by local Iraqi contractors who know their own people and could hire people in need of jobs. His crony botches the emergency efforts during Katrina and his cronies get lots of money in contracts to rebuild the city with the permission to pay below the normal wages. These spots could have been given to local contrators who could really use the money to rebuild their towns while giving the local citizens much needed jobs at a decent wage. Can you tell me this behaviour on Bush's part is not immoral?

I really feel for those who lent their support and praise for Bush over the past few years where they were blinded by his faults to see the truths we all saw before. I'm not even saying the Republican Party is not a good choice of government because they have some very qualifed people with real values who would have made a better choice such as John McCain or Bob Dole. If either were running against John Kerry, I surely would have voted for either instead. At this point, I would rather have Pat Buchanan in office than George W Bush.

Why not a Democrat? The last election it was more about the lesser of two evils. The problem I had with Kerry and the Democratic Party in general is there is no real definition of what is the agenda of the party. It is a party that fails to make a real stand on any particular issue and panders half-heartedly to a lot of little issues instead of uniting everyone on a big picture. It has been said, and I find it true, "The Republicans are a party of bad ideas and the Democrats are a party of no ideas."

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