It’s time for us to get serious and work like hell during this election season.  We need to hold the Senate and the White House, and at least come close to taking back the House.  Why?  Just take a look at an analysis of the Ryan budget, and his stand on women’s health issues.  This man is not a cuddly wonk.  He is a Randian ideologue.  Here is a convenient summation of just what this man stands for.

And we’ve got to donate money to the Brennan Center for Justice, and the ACLU who are fighting these blatant voter suppression laws that are being passed in swing states like Iowa, Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  You can find a lot of information about the actions that are being taken by Republican state legislatures and Republican governors to deny access to the  polls to hundreds of thousands of minority voters, the poor, students and the elderly at the Brennan Center’s website.  This is a travesty.  If these measures were being passed in some third world country we would have observers on the ground and be screaming about this undermining of democratic ideals and institutions.

As my friend George R.R. Martin wrote on his blog “they are oligarchs and racists clad in the skins of dead elephants.”  This is not your daddy’s Republican party.  I doubt the sainted Ronald Reagen could win a nomination for dog catcher in today Republican party.

And let’s not forget the Supreme Court.  The next president will potentially nominate three justices to the high court.  Do you really want those choices to be made by men who oppose women’t rights?  To the point of denying a woman an abortion even in the case of rape or incest in Ryan’s case.  And there is a chance that a more moderate court will revisit the disaster that is Citizens United and start to get the vast sums of money out of politics.