Lerxst

A "Black Man" worth how many millions, graduating from which school, working which career again? He wasn't some "gang banger" from a ghetto, or a "blues man" from Mississippi. Nor was he a "rebel" like Maclom X or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was a conformist, smooth talking, multi-millionaire that can sit up there with the best Conservatives Republicans have to offer.... Clarence Thomas for instance (another "black man"). Get past the "race cards" and see the politicians for who and what they are. Obama started and continued endless wars, with hundreds of drone strikes, and billions of dollars worth of Wall Street bail-outs - he was hardly a Liberal and not nearly the "Leftist" Fox News gripes about. The only classical Liberal thing Obama had any say in, was same sex marriage. Even his "Obamacare" is a Conservative Utopia for billion-dollar insurance companies. The fact that people voted for his skin color and then call themselves "Liberals" is exactly why the US is screwed. Those are the people who should be holding the sit-ins, protesting the government, and raising Hell on the streets, but they're just "Republican-Lites" at this point in the political climate and are totally ok with letting actual issue slide under the radar. These are the same people that raised hell about a "Russian conspiracy" after Trump won the election, but never once... at any point... questioned WHAT those leaked emails contained. The fact that they exposed, verbatim, the overt acts of corruption in the Democratic Party, is irrelevant for this group of supposed "Liberals". They act like a prisoner blaming their sentence on the security camera in the bank they robbed. If we have Republicans supporting a guy who states his gender relations as "grabbing women by their..." yeahhh... that Right Wing is too far gone to rely on for anything useful at any point in the future. If we have the Democrats being totally fine with extreme levels of corruption in their own political party and taking a "whatever it takes" mentality to simply winning seats, instead of addressing issues, then they're as equally useless to us as the Republicans. So where's this change supposed to come from that will magically shift the US off the course it's taken? The third parties, which don't have the money to have a say in our politics? The US democracy is too corrupt to actually function as a democracy anymore. If we were any other country, going through the same changes, the UN would start placing us on watch lists. Thank you for proving my point! If I criticize Clinton, I'm called a sexist and people want to run me down with their cars. If I criticize Trump, people start showing me their "Second Amendment rights", tucked under their jackets. If I wave a gun of my own around the government, they could just drone-strike my house while I sleep. If I threaten anyone in DC, the nice men in black suits take me away to an undisclosed location. So how does one go about changing anything in a system like this? Go on... I'm all ears.

Do people here realize that democracy works by giving opposing views a voice in their government? The branches of government are designed as a system of checks and balances. Thanks to GOP meddling, and the Dems being not much better, that no longer exists. We have Trump suggesting it, the House writing it and the Court approving it. Nowhere, is there any person or branch saying "what if...". Sexual misconduct or not, that's the danger in Kavanaugh; he's going to be another "yes man" for whichever GOP stooge is in charge at any given point in time. And since he's now appointed for life, and "we the people" have zero say in any of it, get ready for that proverbial pile of excrement to perpetually be hitting the fan.

I realize that Canada follows the UN guidelines of asylum. Most of it refers to immediate threat of harm, but... what about a first-world country that has third-world statistics in its social welfare policies and lack of a democratic process in its government? Yes, I'm talking about the US. If you look at our situation, it's truly hopeless. There are a few very wealthy, influential people and special interest groups on the top, embedded in our government; the NRA, Pharmaceutical companies, billion-dollar industries with equally rich leaders, etc. Even if the supposed "Left" impeaches Trump, we get... Pence. He's a religious zealot who's worse than Trump simply because he's not at that same level of idiocy. After him, we get the selfish, psychopathic Ryan with his "screw you, I got mine! mentality of government. Then we get the real winner... Orin Hatch - the octogenarian Mormon who's waiting for his Heavenly Father to beam him up to his sacred planet Kolob, at any moment (I only wish I was exaggerating that!). Our Supreme Court is now, forever slanted to the will of these people, after being cram packed with them, thanks to their cronies in DC offices. Not to mention, our Justices serve for life. Democracy doesn't apply to them, since there are no term limits or elections and they are not selected via a democratic process. Our Legislative Branch has been gerrymandered beyond recognition, to diminish the "Blue" voter's influence. Large concentrations of those voters are bunched together in one district, while the outlying voters are pushed into "Red" districts, essentially removing their votes in local elections for Congressmen and Senators, giving the one solitary condensed Blue district one vote, while those thinly filled Red districts get several. Even our supposed "Liberal" Left is a laughable attempt as a fake Progressive agenda, while the Democrats happily marry themselves to Conservative values that used to be considered the Republican platform back in the 80's. We're a country where half the population doesn't get a say in who our leaders will be, since half the voters aren't registered with either major party who decides the candidates and therefor, can't vote for them, as Hillary's primary campaign made crystal clear. The minority-elected leadership then rigs the system to ensure that any opposition vote won't count and can't be heard, when they redraw the voting districts. If lucky enough to be in office when a Supreme Court seat is open, they then get to decide among their like-minded friends, who they want to place in that open seat. The United States no longer has a democratic government at the helm. Comparing it to Nazi Germany would be accurate right about now, except, of course, the whole genocide thing! Those of us who do oppose what our government has become and is doing, lack any power to change it. In light of this, under what conditions and how long do you think it will take to get there, would US citizens start to qualify for asylum in other countries like Canada?

Yep! McDonalds, WalMart and Dunkin Donuts are really thriving! IT, Healthcare and public schools, not so much though. None of those stats tell you about the PhDs stuck in retail jobs, or the 60 year olds spending their final working days as a WinDixie cashier.

MSNBC is so much better: CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO LINK We're relegated to "alternative" news sources because the actual news won't talk about this. Local AZ stations were broadcasting "something wrong with the registrations" on the local stations and interviewed some people mentioned in that article that had their party registration mysteriously changed and the 75% reduction in voting stations was a matter of record, also captured by local media. New York Times? Nothing. CNN? Also a devoid of any news on it. Other news stations were broadcasting results for Clinton's victory while only 1% of the votes were actually counted. Huffington Post has been writing articles and The Young Turks has been making videos about this and other events like it. Major Media though, as the video above shows, "forgets" to mention anything about Sanders potentially winning anything. Anyone up there watch the results? (really, I am asking) Sanders won more delegates with Utah and Idaho, winning almost 80% of the vote in each state, than Clinton won in Arizona, but good luck finding any actual news about that. Even if Sanders wins the entire election process, the media will probably start reporting about cats stuck in trees, than acknowledge anything in DC at that point.

Arizona: Hillary Clinton’s Election Fraud Masterpiece The Clinton machine used brazen voter suppression and election fraud to steal Arizona http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/arizona-hillary-clintons-election-fraud-masterpiece/ri13524 Ignoring some of the wording bias, this article gives you a pretty good glimpse into US politics. Having lived in Arizona and living next to it at the moment, nothing being said there is far off. Some insight: Phoenix in the capital with a population of 1.5 million people. Maricopa County is the primary county the city is located in. Phoenix acts as a financial mecca for many banks and investment firms (Wall Street money).

I think it's funny to watch international reaction to Trump. Most of us on the other side of the spectrum here already know he's a joke. He's a major campaign contributor to the Clintons in the past. He's said in the 90's that he would run as a Republican if he ran, because they're (basically) stupid enough to vote for him. Republicans hate him because he's not one of them. Democrats hate him because he's a boisterous, irrational Republican. If people think Obama's term has been filled with obstruction, just wait until we see a Trump in office! And of course, that's assuming he's even a "real" candidate. You'd have to understand the Clintons to know exactly what that implies. There's way too much "circumstantial" evidence that suggests Trump is only running to stoke the Clinton fire. Democrats usually lose in this country due to low voter interest/turnout. What better way to promote interest than to have a hateful, divisive candidate on the other side gain popularity? It works. You know how many Democrats say they'll vote just to not see Trump in office? Just about all of them! The wildcard that I don't think either Hillary or Trump predicted in this fiasco was Bernie Sanders. No one took him seriously to start with and now he's within 8% of the votes for tying Clinton and 9% of leading ahead of her. Right. Despite what the Washington Post, NY Times, Fox, NBC etc will show you on the news, the actual figures are really that close. Winning primaries in states here means nothing if the margins are narrow enough to split the votes equally, which most have been. Media down here will tell you that the race is over and start crowning Clinton tomorrow, but what they won't tell you is that the race is less than 50% through and Hillary used up the ace in her pocket with the Deep South early on. The states coming in the future have more delegates and are much more Liberal than anything Clinton has won yet. Of course, if you look at the past 20 years of corporate donations, you can see exactly how much each of the networks donated to the Clintons in the past and their organizations outside of campaigns in order to see exactly where loyalties lay. This relates to Trump because... Sanders will absolutely wipe the floor with him. Trump's biggest fear in this election, if he goes all the way isn't Clinton, it's Sanders. If you want a dangerous candidate, look at Cruz. That guy shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a position of authority. While Trump might appear as a psychopath, Cruz actually is a sociopath. He's calm, cool-headed and absolutely evil below that crooked smile on the surface. Trump is at least a "what you see is what you get" candidate.

You realize the Democratic primaries are only half over and Clinton is only ahead by 58% to Sanders' 42%, right? In addition, Clinton's stronghold in the South is all dried up and we're moving on to much more Liberal/Anti-establishment territory like Washington, Idaho and Oregon. Point is, Obama nudged a door that should have been open decades ago. If/when we get an actual Progressive in office, that door will be opened much wider, as will others. On the other hand, if Clinton gets into office, that door may end up being nailed back shut with her war-mongering history. And don't worry about Trump. He's hated by Republicans more than Democrats. Any term of his will be nothing but a quagmire of red tape, and non-action by both sides, until his 4 years is up. The worst he'll do is make us look like global idiots. Worry more about the "Party" candidates; they're the ones with access to Armageddon

My wife calls me a music "snob". But when you play guitar for more than half your life and songs like this have been your influence... it takes a lot to impress

Is it taboo to post a Rush song on a Canadian message board? This song is "our song" for my wife and I.

I was a registered member of the Green Party down here. We won 0 elections. We were cut out of nearly every race due to insider politics and ridiculous criteria for nominations. We have a delegate system in the primaries that excludes anyone not of the 2 major parties and "flunks out" anyone in those parties who fails to garner enough votes. We have televised debates hosted by one of the two major parties, with little regard given to any of the third parties. As of 2105, I'm now a Democrat because this messed up system won't allow me to vote in the primaries/caucus unless I am one. Bernie Sanders is an Independent that had to run as a Democrat in order to be "taken seriously" and have access to the same resources as the others in order to be on equal ground. Our 2 party system is the reason most of us aren't represented by the very government that should be representing us. No, we are not "okay" with it, when most of us are given no voice in our own government. God help Canada if you ever go down this path!!

Let's just focus on this one: Conservatives are already among the minority - I've read in the neighborhood of the 40%. They've carved up districts nicely to get more votes for less of the people. So, 80% of the minority is representation how, exactly? That means about 70% of the overall population wants some sort of national healthcare system but they have this one f***stain of a politician leading an effort to block it. The others options you mentioned vary drastically state by state and only apply if you fall below a poverty line that is lower than most other countries in the world - and then you still have to pay for most of them. Obama, the same as Clinton of a freakin' Republican. Why do people insist on thinking he's some sort of Socialist Commie Nigerian Muslim? He's more Conservative than any Republican pre-1960 and has continued and started wars around the world. The only thing that makes him look remotely Liberal are these freaks of nature like Cruz running around DC. So, any wonder why a Conservative would stop fighting for a national healthcare system? Surely it wouldn't be because they get a shit-ton of money from the industry. Of course not! Just like Hillary didn't get paid off in the 90's, before she mysteriously stopped her campaign for it, and Obama hasn't promised the industry millions of government dollars in addition to premiums we still have to pay for out of our pockets, or face $500-$900 fines for not having. So now, what does Cruz want to do if he drops Obamacare? Probably foot the bills back over to us for the $400+ dollars the government promised to pay to insurance companies in the form of tax credits to us. No thanks, I'd rather face the fine. And.. oh look at that - I no longer have insurance... again! So, f*** Cruz. He'd rather watch 70% of us die in the streets if it meant he and his buddies could get richer off of our corpses. Fortunately, Sander would wipe the floor with him in a general election. Unfortunately, Hillary already rigged that system to her favor and will suffer a humiliating loss to the GOP. So odds are now, we're looking at either a Trump or a Cruz presidency. Fortunately the Second Amendment will be well protected, so we can all go out a buy ourselves a gun and blow our brains out before having to suffer the effects of "slow-death-by-non-representation".

Did I really just read a post (or several) about Cruz being a good guy?? I had to swallow my vomit there for a minute. It may look different fom the North, but Cruz was responsible for shutting down the government in 2013. If you don't understand what that implies... every federal agency simply stopped - a complete and total void in anything funded and run by the US government. National Parks, closed (No biggie, unless you were one of the thousands of unlucky tourists travelling thousands of miles to see the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone for instance). Mail service, stopped. People didn't get paid. VA hospitals closed most services. Everything just became a void. And who was at the head of this decision? Your wonderful Ted Cruz. He has also been one of the leaders heading the revolt against "Obamacare". Might not seem like a big deal up there, but we don't have any national healthcare. If we get sick, we pay. If we can't afford to, we stay sick. Cruz doesn't give a single rat's ass about "the people" he's supposedly representing. His list of "achievements" goes on and on. I do seriously wonder if people in Canada don't realize how extremely far to the Right the US has been pulled since McCarthyism destroyed our Liberal voice in the 1950's. First McCarthyism, then JFK and Martin Luther King JR. Carter came along, but it was already too late - people didn't like the fact that he wasn't militant and all aggressive over the Middle East after the hostage and oil crisis in the late 70's, so he was ousted by Reagan. Any balance to Conservative views was destroyed over a 20 year period. It's like having a Yin with a slightly bigger Yin instead of a Yang. Lincoln was a Republican - he freed the slaves. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican - he broke up monopolies and established labor laws. Eisenhower was a Republican - he strengthened Social Security and raised taxes. Then Nixon came along and decided a losing war over a rice field no one cared about was a good thing, before his impeachment. After him, Reagan started tearing this country apart from the top down. Now we have Cruz and various Tea Partiers wanting to drag us, kicking and screaming, even further to the Right. I could also go on about ClInton and the Democrats since those trade agreements were such a wonderful thing - because after graduating from college with a 5 figure student load debt, I wanted my IT job outsourced to India, really, I did! Trump simply won't be able to get anything done. Republicans and Democrats hate him equally. He may be President, but no one under his command will listen to a thing he says and his entire term will be nothing but a Lame Duck that gets us nowhere. Cruz, on the other hand, is a freakin' closet sociopath. He's worse than Trump because he represents the billion dollar business interests and may actually get his bills passed and have supporters in the rest of his party. Then we'll have all 3 branches of our government representing one party that represent the minority of the voters in the country (Republicans actually compose much less of the general population that polls would show... thank you gerrymandering). Cruzz... uughhh. You guys want him back? Pretty pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!!!

Hehehehehehehe... sorry I just got a laugh out of the entire dialog between you two there. My wife and I don't own a TV and my son has never watched a show in his 2+ years of life yet. Very few shows air that I actually have an interest in and none of them are really about any type of blind American patriotism - Family Guy, Simpsons, Big Bang Theory and... well, that's it really. I find myself going online to watch more and more British, Australian and Canadian series (or at least syndicated shows) like Aircrash Investigations, Sherlock and a number of National Geographic shows and other documentaries, than I do wasting time in the wasteland of American TV. It's just interesting to be reading this from a 3rd person perspective.

I've followed Canadian politics, as well as other countries, enough to know some basics, but our media overwhelms most of our outlets to anything "not us". Even overseas, i run across the bias as much of the media is owned, "friendly" with, or associated with companies here in the US. The one thing I know in what I have followed is that I personally like Trudeau. Compared to everything we have down here, the guy's a saint!

*sigh* yep, and yep to the rest. As a transplant from New York City, I'll give you a taste of what I go through living in the good ol' southwestern USA. I have a college degree in Business, industry certifications in IT and years of corporate training under my belt. I decided to use that expertise to work for non-profits and took a massive pay-cut. I was ultimately fired from my last job in the field because the employer just plain didn't like having someone who knew more than they did. They denied me unemployment insurance, so I took them to court. The court agreed that they had no reason to fire me and granted me the insurance. I now work a part-time job, driving a passenger van, that I've had for 4 years because at full-time employers have to provide you with benefits and there are no full-time jobs available that need or want to pay for my qualifications. I have 0 time off since I am only part-time and when my son broke a bone a few weeks ago, I not only didn't get paid, but had to pay out about $700 in medical bills... WITH insurance that I had to purchase myself to the tune of $225 a month after the Affordable Care tax credits people are raving/bitching about down here. We have no labor unions in the so-called "right to work" states because the hillbillies down here think that's come kind of Commie Socialist thing. I have to drive by Koch Brother funded Tea Party signs on my way to work almost every day and wait behind faded GW Bush and Mitt Romney bumper stickers at stop signs. I then get to come home and somewhere on my news feed at least once a week is an article complaining about our "Socialist" President Obama... I'm saying this because I have talked to people in real life and online from the UK, Japan, Australia and other places and end up in a debate with them, only to find they don't realize how far to the Extreme Conservative Right the reality in this country is. A lot of those debates have usually revolved around workplace policy or different aspects of local governments. For example, people may start talking about how Conservative they are and how they want more traditional values,etc. in their society and they don't realize that I not only live in that type of society, but I live about 1,000 times to the extreme of what they're talking about. So to me, someone saying they want things to be more Conservative, I see the only place left for us to go is all out Nazi Party or donning white hoods and hanging black people. My neighbors are freakin' idiots. People I work with are freakin' idiots. Even some of my family members are freakin' idiots. I gave up on the idea of the "American Dream" years ago when I moved to Arizona and had an employer that under-paid and stretched the limits of the law thanks to the lack of collective bargaining in the state. It was a culture shock, considering labor unions were simply a fact of life when you live in the New England area. I've seen money buy out companies, then pay off local officials to get ordinances removed that would get anyone else fined, or even thrown in jail for violating. And that's just in this small town of 4,000 people! I would have to argue though, that the masses of us aren't all stupid; ignorant, maybe, even oblivious or gullible, but not always stupid. Looking at the presidential primaries in this country, we have Hillary Clinton running against... ? If you ask most people that only read the newspapers or watch TV, her opponent is a mystery at best, a failure of a radical Left Wing nut-job at worst. All of those news outlets though, have a money trail that leads directly to the Clintons, some even have CEOs that are good friends with them. Even one of our satire outlets, "The Onion" recently came under new Clinton-friendly ownership and started running articles that are less satire, and more of a compliment to Clinton. None of those major outlets will say a word about Bernie Sanders, and if they do, it's only to paint his as the aforementioned "nut job". hey fail to point out the hundreds of legislation and amendments he passed while in office. They fail to mention that he was there marching with Martin Luther King Jr and getting arrested while protesting for Civil Rights. They fail to mention how much money his plans would actually save in overhead costs for people, and instead, focus on the immediate tax increase that amounts to pennies on the dollar compared to the savings they "forget" to mention. I can go on with this list for pages, upon pages. Meanwhile, Clinton gets asked a bunch of fluff questions that offer no real challenge to her and gets invited to TV shows that already like and are already in bed with her. Welcome to American politics!! Oh, and the GOP is a lost cause. I'm not even going to talk about that lead weight dragging us down. I think I'm going to bash my head against a wall now until I lose consciousness....

Immediate short term tax cuts and other incentives (or lack of deterrents). Pro business is not pro market. GDP may decline, but business profits and the top-tier money will increase. Once they have theirs, whatever happens next is beyond their interest. Last poll shows 30+% of Bernie Sanders supporters will not support Clinton. That leaves 3 choices - 3rd party, abstaining or voting Republican. An average of that would be a 10/10/10 split. And those voting Trump are doing so for anti-establishment purposes in the first place. The "idiot" category can be seen in our TV ratings and political polls. People who don't pay attention vote by name recognition - explaining why Clinton does well in the "deep south"despite being against everything that would help them. If they think a name is enough to be a President, then they are idiots by default

I've seen similar documentaries and have known of people/neighbors in my town investigated for it. Just the act of investigating someone for it is enough to destroy their lives, charge or no charge. When in prison, they don't do much better as the stereotype there is met with hostility among other inmates. Personally, I think there are several flaws with the classification. As mentioned, just because people have the desire, doesn't mean they will act on it - the people I have known who were investigated never lured a child in to their homes and molested them. As suggested, there a huge, criminal difference between undressing a co-worker with your eyes and actually raping them. Then there are "degrees" of pedophilia I can't help but consider: There are the physical acts vs. the mental ones mentioned above. There are also imaginative ones vs. actual ones (pretending to role play, write stories, etc. vs. performing the acts on a child) There is also an age factor: In the US and Canada, the age of consent ranges from 14-18, yet images of anyone under 18 is considered child porn. How does that even come close to making sense? There is another factor on age to consider and that is the historic one. Having any sort of "age of consent" is a relatively modern concept. People in the pioneer days were married as young as 14 or 15. In Medieval times, a person was married as soon as they could breed; age wasn't a factor. Why do we now suddenly draw an arbitrary line at a certain number like 18? As any pubescent teenager can tell you; when you look at the opposite sex, you're not looking at their age. Two 18 year olds can engaged in sexual relations, but a 17 year old and an 18 year old legally can't. A 40 year old can engage in relations with a 19 year old and not be charged with a crime, but if a 38 year old did so with a 17 year old, people scream "Pedophile!". However, there is something about a grown person being attracted to an 8 year old that seems... off. That's the level I'd consider it to be a sickness of sorts. An 8 year old boy can't functionally perform with a 30 year old woman; that's just not a natural physical compatibility. Now, a 15 year old and a 30 year old is a different story. But there's that arbitrary 3 year "waiting period" they have to engage in. I'd say, I didn't actually mature into a mature person until I reached about 30; I made up my mind abut most things and had a hefty dose of "life" to base my decisions around at that point. So, if consent laws are made to reflect the average age of maturity among people, 18 is ,much, much , much too young. They should raise it up to about 25-30. It sounds ridiculous, but then, so does saying a number like 18.

The director was so hardcore, they filmed that movie only in natural daylight, which led to very short filming days. He also refused to use CGI enhancements, which also gives the film a gritty, natural look. This is one of the best movies and best looking movies I've seen in a reallllllllllly long time. AND it isn't a sequel!!

I'll tell you the kinds of Trump supporters we have and I have seen (know of personally as well): The idiot - They know nothing about politics and spend their time watching Reality TV shows on Fox. They know Trump because of his shows, airlines and casinos but know nothing else about the man. These are also people that have no clue how politics work and the nuances of things like trade agreements, interest rates and the Federal Reserve. The capitalist - Likes money, wants money and will get money no matter what. They see Trump as their means of amassing as much wealth as possible and take a "scorched earth" policy towards doing so. Other billionaires who have been in the game for a while don't like this approach though, as it tends to be bad for business if half your clientele are dead and/or boycotted you. The pissed-off - Another "scorched earth" approach, only this time, at the entire political process. (Fair notice - I'm a borderline member of this) We hope for 1 of 3 things: Complete implosion of both major parties; finally seeing cooperation among both major parties as they try to oust Trump; total rioting and anarchy among the people that could normally care less, rebelling against Trump. Now, for those of us who turn beet red at the mention of other country's minimum wages, paid vacations, maternity leaves and national healthcare systems, we want our government to do a total 180. We feel like passengers in a horse carriage that's running full speed off a cliff... and the team of horses is too ignorant to know the screaming and yelling in back doesn't mean "go faster!". Not all of us are the idiots the news networks make us out to be There are a large number of us who know what Democratic Socialism means and have spent the past year+ campaigning for Bernie Sanders. But our system is crooked and corrupt. Our political candidates "own" the owners of the media networks - the NY Time, Wall Street Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etc. There is nearly no way a candidate rallying against the type of oligarchy can stand a fair chance at an election... and that brings us to the Trump factor.

I actually never have thought of it looking like that. Well, I sort of have and that's the reason I would vote for him. He would definitely shake things up quite a bit and that's just what the government needs. His tendency to attract some of our most militant hate groups (KKK, Aryan Brotherhood, etc.) though, would give pause to most sane people. Wouldn't stop us from voting for him, but would definitely place some doubt in people's minds. And his track record with both, business and marriage - several bankruptcies and divorces - cause most moderate financial types to scratch their heads. I think , if given an option, many of his followers would vote for another candidate. But with our 2 party system restricting people on one side from crossing to the other for most of the Primaries, his supporters have little choice.

The Cat's In the Cradle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCpsD0ZDfus This song hits me from 3 directions at once - being the father of a 2 year old boy. Being the son of an older father. And knowing Chapin died in a head-on collision with a truck, 7 years after writing this song.

I've joined this group because I'm curious what our neighbors to the North think of the last year or so worth of evens down here in the US. Our media's influenced by so many outside interests that getting a feel for what the rest of the world thinks, cares, does is nearly impossible. We have FOX News, the Wall Street Journal and most financial papers which are owned by Republicans and their allies. We have CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times and Washington Post that are owned by Clinton allies. We only have a couple media outlets that voice an outside view on things and those are few and far between. Do people up there even follow what's happening down here with the coming election? Is it just a casual, conversation in passing; "water cooler talk"? Are there people who take it seriously and think "Oh crap" when they see any of the news about us? I talk to some people from the UK and Canada who give me a smile and a big thumbs up - kind of like patting a small child on the head when they do something good - when they hear us talk about Bernie Sanders. And then I also get the "Holy Hell! What is this thing you let loose!" when they hear us talk about Trump. But that's from the people who are already down here. What do people who are safely tucked in nice and comfy up in Canada think of all of this?

Greetings from the US by the way.... Us Sanders supporters support Sanders. Period. At least many of us do, especially those that followed his career prior to his candidacy. Clinton is pro-everything-that's-wrong-with-this-country. She wants to keep Obama's torch burning, even though the torch was made up of wet towels. People here call Obama a "socialist". They will also call Clinton a "socialist", even though her policies are even more Conservative than Obama's. Our extreme Right-Wing that has taken over much of our Congress doesn't understand the difference between Socialist and not.. or at least pretends not to in order to appeal to their constituency. A lot of us see Clinton as more damaging to the country than Trump, for she will just continue us down the same road and we'll be like the frog slowly boiled in a pot of water. With Sanders, we have a chance to push the "reset" button on our politics and finally have something of a reasonable government, that this country hasn't seen since FDR or even Eisenhower was in office. If he loses to Clinton, the only other "reset" button we have is Trump. He will inflame so many people that could otherwise care less about politics, that people will be forced to "do something" about him. You'll have Republicans and Democrats working together for the first time in decades, against a common enemy. And you'll have rioters in the street rallying against Trump. Either way, we'll get our "reset" button, one is just a bit more ambiguous than the other. Or, going back to the frog for a moment - you can either remove it from the water to end it's suffering pleasantly, or you can flash fry it to end its suffering violently. According to some later polls, about 30% of us will NOT vote for Clinton if she chea...lie...steal... wins the nomination.