While the GOP is looking ahead to the future, the priority is still having Romney replace Obama, and so every Convention speech (even Christie’s) will be about Romney, Romney, Romney. The Republican Party will show America its patriotic and conservative spirit – spirit that not even a hurricane can dampen.

While conventional wisdom says that embracing a plan as unpopular as Ryan’s is not smart politics, Romney and Ryan might be banking on the fact that most of the negative attention the plan has received is based on the claim that the plan would hurt seniors by cutting Medicare – a claim that is utterly false.

Voters always knew this election would be about a choice, and the stark contrast between the two tickets provides the electorate with a very meaningful choice to make. Prepare yourself America; this is going to be a fiery election indeed.

In his notable dissent in Ligget Co. v Lee (1933), Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted that corporations “have brought such concentration of economic power that so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state.” What Brandeis observed in the twentieth century has again become a threat today.

It’s true that a well-crafted sandwich is more immediately gratifying than an informed opinion. However, it would be more beneficial to our growth as a society if the consumers, when making their purchase (or choosing not to), were armed with the knowledge of the potential impact of their dollar vote.

The new wave of right-wing Republicans often tout their ideological commitment to the free market, but agriculture always seems to be the “exception” that gets a sly wink and nod. These politicians should start by leading the push to keep corn on our plates and out of our gas pumps.

It’s clear from the past four years that Obama and the Democrats are either unwilling or unable to do what a majority of Americans elected them into office to do. They’ve betrayed us or they’ve failed us.

The work of groups like the National Front, which includes renowned Egyptian journalists, academics, and political analysts, keeps Morsi’s powers in check. Hopefully, his quasi-dictatorial powers won’t last long.

Impotent or not, Orwell teaches me, it is writing about the hard topics, speaking out on Syria, that automatically breathes life into my words. Political purpose, it turns out, is nothing less than a writer’s very oxygen.

If anything, our track record in Libya is cause to never support rebel factions again. Overthrowing a tyrant like Qaddafi is something to be proud of, to be sure, but our work in Libya helped create a far larger mess.

As the bishops made clear, the severe Ryan Budget contradicts the most basic premises of Catholic social teaching. The philosophy behind the draconian cuts instead comes directly from Paul Ryan’s high school sweetheart, Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged.

This election just got an upgrade. Ryan will force Romney to talk about the budget, and therefore, it will force the president to talk about the budget.

The Romney-Ryan ticket’s biggest challenge to winning Ohio will be convincing its citizens (who are already concerned about economic future) that their plan for reform will be more successful than Obama’s.

But even more importantly, the selection of Ryan sends the message that Romney will push for policies that he believes are best for this country, even if they may be politically unpopular.

Clearly this isn’t about protecting regular people, this is the state preemptively demobilizing any movement for racial or economic justice, maintaining the permanent underclass of poor and under and unemployed people of color and dividing the working class. Like every war, the "War on Drugs" is really a "War on People."

Of course President Obama could not have accomplished everything at the beginning of his term, but rolling out these orders and policies just months before the election makes me extremely skeptical of Obama’s intentions.

Legalization may or may not be the answer, but one has to admire President’s Mujica’s courage. Perhaps this will break the taboo on alternatives to prohibition and open up an intelligent debate.