PHOENIX – During Tuesday’s primary election in Arizona, voters confronted lines lasting as long as five hours after a drastic reduction in polling sites. In Maricopa County, the largest county in the state and home to Phoenix, election officials cut polling places by 70 percent since 2012 – reducing 200 locations to just 60. While officials point to lack of funding and sparse volunteers, the reduction in polling sites would have likely faced scrutiny from the federal government had the protections of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) been in full effect. The U.S. Congress has yet to amend the VRA since the Supreme Court gutted the formula for federal preclearance of voting laws for states with a history of voter suppression – including Arizona – in 2013.

If you can get presidential candidates in the Democratic or Republican parties to answer any of these, please let me know.

1. President Obama's 2017 budget proposal, according to the National Priorities Project, devotes 54% of discretionary spending (or $622.6 billion) to militarism. This figure does not include care for veterans or debt payments on past military spending. Is the percentage of discretionary spending now devoted to militarism, as compared to what you would propose for 2018,
_______too high,
_______too low,
_______just right.
Approximately what level would you propose? ______________________.

The following quotes (except as noted) are from: https://newrepublic.com/article/120559/honduras-charter-cities-spearheaded-us-conservatives-libertarians

“In the early 1950s the United Fruit Company hired legendary public relations expert Edward Bernays to carry out an intense misinformation campaign portraying then-Guatamalan president Jacobo Arbenz as a communist threat.” -- Scott Price, IC Magazine

If you have ever wondered why the global elite hoards their wealth instead of using it to help break down the violence and injustice in our world, I would like to suggest an answer to your question: self-hatred.

If you have ever wondered why weapons manufacturers make weapons to kill other living beings and destroy the Earth, I would like to suggest an answer to your question: self-hatred.

If you have ever wondered why politicians serve elite interests, I would like to suggest an answer to your question: self-hatred.

If you have ever wondered why a parent is violent towards their own child, I would like to suggest an answer to your question: self-hatred.

The explanation for violent and exploitative behaviors always includes self-hatred. Let me explain why.

Conscious self-hatred is an intensely unpleasant feeling to experience and, consequently, people who feel self-hatred learn to fearfully and deeply suppress their awareness of it when they are very young. Having learned to do this, subsequent opportunities for this self-hatred to be felt are progressively more easily suppressed.

On Tuesday, March 15 nearly 64% of Toledo’s citizens voted YES on ISSUE 1 in support of a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and money as speech.

As a result of this initiative, Toledo will hold its first annual Democracy Day in 2017 - a public hearing on the corrupting influence of moneyed interests in politics that the Mayor and at least one member of City Council must attend.  Afterward, the Mayor is required by law each year to send a letter to our elected representatives in Congress on our behalf urging them to pass a Constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and political contributions are not free speech (meaning they can be capped/regulated).