6 thoughts on “Monday Open Thread”

1. Is it just me, or do Mondays somehow always seem a little brighter . . . 

   . . . when the Legislature is not in session?!?

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   1. 

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2. This is an excellent read:

   South Dakotans may not like Obama, but they'd like to see the president

   Most in the crowd, which was now three or four people deep, were die-hard Republicans and had little love for this president. “I wonder if he’s a Christian sometimes.”

   “This is good,” she was saying. “This is really, really good.”

   When Obama was done, the bar erupted in applause. A woman sitting in the smoking room by the video poker machines had begun crying.

   “Most of the time I could care less what he’s talking about,” said Jason Hollatz, 37-year-old farmer. “Are all Obama’s speeches like that?”

   “I’ve got goose bumps,” Burchatz said.

   If rural America spent half the energy they expend on hating this man seeking common ground, imagine what we might accomplish as a nation?

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   1. I saw this first thing this morning. It got my day off to a good start.

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3. One woman, who was surprised at how much she liked him, was quoted as saying that he wants to take prayer out of  places like schools and isn't our country founded on religion? Sure she meant Christianity but wrong no matter what religion you're talking about.

   Our country was founded on freedom of thought and conscience and that freedom, including religious freedom, is preserved by a constitution that mandates a government that sticks to the secular sphere and is forbidden to meddle in the spiritual sphere, expressly forbidden to promote religion, favor any religion, or meddle in religious matters at all. That's the only formula for religious freedom and freedom of conscience for all including non-believers in any religion. God didn't give us the constitution. Educated people with different views about religion hashed it out based on Age of Enlightenment rationalism. 

   It's obvious where the people of South Dakota get their info and scary that they are so inundated with hate mongering from Fox and on rightie radio and the internet that it's actually shocking to them that the President  doesn't seem like a Satanic being when they finally see and hear him. Maybe he should find more occasions for trips to speak in the flyover red states.

   Maybe Dems should have encouraged him to get out there instead of treating him like Typhoid Mary in 2014, no doubt not exactly exciting the African Americans who voted for him in 2008 and 2012  to come out and vote for Dem candidates who seemed to be telling the President to please shut up and hide. Maybe we wouldn't have lost the Senate if more ordinary Americans all over the country had been having this South Dakota experience and more minorities and young people had felt motivated to vote. Maybe it really is possible to fight the GOTP spin machine instead of curling up in please don't hate me for being a Dem fetal position. Just sayin’. And, as always, please, Dem Pols, could you grow a pair?

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   1. +1000

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