Opinion

How many candidates do you think have declared their intentions to run for president in 2016? Go ahead and guess.

Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty five?  Thirty?  Place your bets, now.

The answer, according the the Federal Election Commision website, is that over 500 citizens have stepped forward for your consideration.

There are some great names on this list, too. Are we ready as a nation for President Sydneys Voluptous Buttocks? Or how about President President Emperor Caesar (President is a first name as well as a title here.)

WASHINGTON, July 22 – Addressing hundreds of low-wage workers who have gone on strike for a living wage, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said legislation he introduced today would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

“It is a national disgrace that millions of full-time workers are living in poverty and millions more are forced to work two or three jobs just to pay their bills,” Sanders said at the outdoor rally near the Capitol. “In the year 2015, a job must lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and must be raised to a living wage.”

John Kasich has decided to run for the presidency of our great nation:

“I have decided to run for president of the United States.”

Scott Walker has heard the call and is running to become president of the United States.

“Now, I am running for president to fight and win for the American people.”

Who is this guy?

He is a well-known Vermont personality.

Several times he ran for office on the Liberty Union ticket, but he lost.

WASHINGTON, July 10 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and three colleagues today asked the Federal Communications Commission to investigate “ridiculous prices” for cable and broadband services.

“Consumers in our country have little or no choice in their Internet and cable provider,” Sanders wrote in the letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. “As a result, these companies are able to charge ridiculous prices and add hidden fees onto a customer’s bill,” he added in the letter also signed by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.). “It’s no wonder the American public rank these providers last in customer satisfaction,” the senators said.

(I almost missed this one.)

Jim Gilmore thinks it is his time to become your president.

“I bring to the table experience that others don’t have.”

Jim Webb has decided that it is his time to lead the nation as President of the United States:

“I understand the odds.”

I thought it might be nice to re-read the Declaration of Independence, to look again at how this country of ours began.

…

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Chris Christie has the idea that it is his turn to become president of the United States.

“America is tired of hand-wringing, of indecisiveness … in the Oval Office. And that is why, today, I am proud to announce my candidacy.”

WASHINGTON, DC – Rep. Peter Welch today issued the following statement following the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to make same-sex marriage a right in all 50 states:

“The wall of marriage discrimination in America has finally come down. The Supreme Court affirmed today what Vermonters recognized years ago — that the quality of love between two people is more important than their gender,” Congressman Welch said.

When Peter Shumlin announced he wouldn’t be running for Governor again, Rep. Peter Welch announced he would consider becoming the next governor. 

He’s decided  — to run for Congress again.  Here is the statement:

…..