As we approach 2009 and the end of the horror of the administration of George W Bush, and hopefully the end of 30+ years of republicans trying to destroy our government in the name of conservatism – but in reality a scheme to funnell the nation’s monetary resources upward – it’s time to start thinking of how do we extricate ourselves from the rubble the republicans have left behind. And make no mistake, THERE IS A LOT OF “RUBBLE.” The mess is huge, and from what I can see, the republicans are in a total state of denial as to why we may be entering the “next” great depression. One of the major problems that I see with the struggle to free ourselves from the disaster that is consuming virtually every phase of American society at this point is the aforementioned denial from the republicans and the refusal to “tell it like it is” from the “other side of the isle.”

I was watching Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC tonight, and I don’t think many would argue against the point that Maddow is decidedly liberal, and the one thing that I still don’t see happening from those who are trying to “guide” us forth – just ponying up the fact that none of this seemingly endless disaster is by accident. The republicans have been trying to destroy our government since at least Nixon, with “high gear” occurring during the Reagan years. So as the pundits intellectualize the circumstances, in my mind if they don’t start calling this purposeful assault like it is, the solution becomes infinitely more difficult. For anyone who believes that they (republicans) are satisfied with the damage done, just listen to people like John Boehner and Mitch McConnell – Republican leaders in the House and Senate respectively – and you will quickly realize that they are not finished. Not finished with the obstructionism of the past two years since they lost control of congress in 2006, and not finished with the idea that the best place for whatever money is left in this great nation belongs with the rich – whatever that means.

They will continue to fight the unions in this nation, they will continue to fight for consolidation of the media to continue the control they hold on information, they will continue to fight for deregulation of business, and they will continue to fight for the control of Congress through the lobbying system that has so generously rewarded them and their republican buddies over the last three decades. When it comes to greed, I just don’t see any sign that their insatiable appetite has been met. The negative spin regarding Detroit, Obama, and the upcoming “stimulus package” is already heading into full force. I’m convinced that the democrats are going to cave into the temptation to actually hold these theives accountable (probably because of the vulnerability of complicity) so we’re going to have to go forward while Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove/Gonzales/et al walk away “Scott free.” OK, I’ve finally come to grips with that (although, I’ll hold out hope that Obama is above that until the “cave in” is reality).

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night with my first thought of a decision that would head us in the right direction – in several ways. I believe one of the first things President Obama needs to do is to put a significant gas tax on the books as soon as possible once in office. People can and will only spend so much on gas (as proved by the reduction in demand in reaction to the high gas prices of just the past few months). Now would be the perfect time to do this – and I’m talking about at least 50 cents per gallon. The prices have dropped more than in half, and you know that the oil industry is going to do everything in its power to get the prices up again. So why not help them. I don’t know how much this would raise for our government, but it would go a long way to pay for the infrastructure rebuilding that is presumably going to be a centerpiece of Obama’s stimulus package. For those of us who this would affect the most (myself included) we would be forced to drive less, take mass transit where possible, or drive more fuel efficient vehicles. Americans have a short memory and with the prices down over 50% I want to make sure that we don’t forget the real problem and make sure we work as a nation to free ourselves from this dependency on oil. A percentage of this money could be used to stimulate the research that will be necessary to find alternative ways to power our vehicles.

The other thing that I believe is important is that, in a sign of fortitude, President Obama needs to immediately rescind the “Bush Taxcuts” that provided un-needed and for many un-wanted tax relief to the people who needed it the least (most not at all). This is a “principal of the thing” move that would send the right message to all Americans that there is no elite group in this country that will benefit because they have the money to influence the political process in their favor. I realize the political process is in a constant state of being influenced, but we need to send the message that the people with the most benefit the most from this nation and the idea that somehow by giving them even more there will be huge benefits to the ordinary citizens is a clearly debunked myth. And the idea of our government actually operating within a balanced budget is a good idea. Now, there’s no practical way for Obama to balance the budget in his first few years in office, but I don’t buy into the theory that it’s not important, and these two ideas alone would, based on my mental “math” calculations, cut the deficit for the first two or three years in at least half – and more importantly it would send the message that all Americans are going to participate in the restructuring of how we do business and paying for the changes. People like me would pony up everytime we filled our gas tank and the millionaires and billionaires could feel like they were doing their part every April 15th (and, you know what – if President Obama just hiked their taxes back up to where they were during the Clinton years – they’ll all still have plenty left over).

We need to set the goal for a national surpluss again, as we had when George W took office. I still remember how disgusted I was when I listened to the republicans disdainfully claiming that paying off the national debt was stupid – “It’s not the government’s money, the citizens know better how to spend it.” The thing that bugs me the most about their argument is that somewhere in excess of 3 trillion of the national debt has come from the Social Security trust fund – with the apparent intention of turning Social Security into a “Ponzi Scheme” by never intending to pay the money back. And then, of course, after robbing the fund republicans complain about how Social Security will be insolvent in 2040 or some distant year – always with the idea that somehow maybe they can destroy it and get all that money flowing into Wall Street. Can you imagine what the result would have been had Bush and Company succeeded in “privatizing” Social Security? What we need to do is restore the money they have “borrowed” from the fund and tell the government to go elsewhere the next time they need a loan – as witness the recent $700 billion bailout of Henry Paulsen’s buddies on Wall Street the government can just speed up the printing presses if they need money bad enough.

So, my idea is to start the process of balancing the federal budget from day one of the Obama administration. I believe the two logical first steps that would significantly impact such a plan would be a gas tax of at least 50 cents per gallon (I forgot to mention – not for fuel used to transport goods such as deisel for truckers, etc.) and the repeal of the “Bush taxcuts” for the upper 1% of Americans who don’t need it in the first place. There are ways you could minimize the impact on low income people with something like food stamps only make it “gas stamps.” The idea would be that as a nation we all commit together to participate in restoring this nation to its rightful place as the “moral authority” in the free world. Of course there’s much more that would need to be done to accomplish that goal, but this would be a good start. All Americans need to understand that we all benefit from a sound economy that is not based on smoke and mirrors. Our sacrifice needs to be more significant than to “keep shopping.”

Should there be anyone out there who reads my rants here, I apologize for the seemingly endless tirade against the administration of George W Bush. If you read closely, I hope you can see that the tirade is really against the republican party as it presently is constituted. And I’m very afraid that President Elect Obama is going to “move ahead” without dealing with the corruption and lawbreaking that will have proceeded his administration come January 20th, 2009. In my view, this will be a huge mistake and I’m doing everything I can to encourage him to reconstitute the justice department of the United States of America with lawyers committed to the pledge they take to enforce the constitution once their service begins. The damage from the George W Bush administration is deep, but it is just a furtherance of what started under Richard Nixon and was put into high gear by Ronald Reagan.

Make no mistake, Ronald Reagan is still the “darling” of this republican party. If you don’t believe me, just go back and listen to any republican debate during the previous presidential primary season. Hardly a reference to George W Bush (likely because he was even more effective in destroying government than Reagan and happened to be “at the wheel” when everything started to crumble) during the past year of republican politicking, but a sickening number of references to Reagan – who, while I agree that GW Bush is the worst ever – will be close to the top of horribel presidents once history has a chance to truly digest the consequeces of the so-called conservative revolution.

Quite simply, their goal has been to destroy government as we knew it coming into the seventies. The republicans hated the New Deal, despite the fact that it brought this nation out of the worst financial collapse in history (of course, Bush may have outdone Hoover – time will tell) and set the foundation for the healthiest middle class in the history of the world. They hated the legislation of Lyndon Johnson which empowered Blacks and minorities in the voting booths, in the courtrooms, and in the workplace. The idea of government “watching” what business does and regulating it “for the good of the many” was, and is, antithetical to the “conservative movement.” Now, I was one who read Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” and, while I didn’t agree with many of his positions, I always looked at him as the “Father of the modern conservative.” But, as I think back to what he wrote (and, the book is out of print, so I have been unable to find another copy to re-read) I have to think he’s “rolling in his grave” at what has become of the conservative movement and the republican party. They have become so brazen and arrogant in their actions, daring Congress to intervene apparently knowing it won’t happen, that as the government, the economy, and the nation is heading toward third world status, they want more!

I have watched in horror as government agencies were headed, one after another, by people whose intention was to tear it down. I remember when Reagan was first in office, he named James Waat to head the Interior department. Waat was widely known to be a staunch opponent of the interior department and his job was to essentially destroy it. The only thing that stopped him, as I remember it, was his foul mouth – something he said (I can’t remember exactly what it was) was brazen enough, even in that atmosphere, to force him to resign. But in the ensuing years that’s what the republicans have been doing – trying to destroy the very institutions they are supposed to be running. And they’ve done a remarkably good job of it. It’s taken a virtual total collapse of our economy to get people’s attention, and it remains to be seen what Obama does with the opportunity that he has to rebuild things.

The way government has worked under George W Bush (and this is just kind of like a ball rolling down a hill – after the example set by Reagan – they’ve just picked up the momentum, so to speak) is that he brings his cronies in to head government agencies, they get rid of anyone who is a lifetime civil servant they can while finding ways to undermine the very intention of the agency they supposedly serve. These agencies then become, instead of watchdogs on private enterprise, enablers of businesses that want to avoid regulation and, more importantly, want to lower their obligations to the lowly workers. The agencies look the other way as safety standards are reduced or removed altogether, benefits are taken away, and companies are allowed to force workers to do more for less. In fact, in the last 8 years productivity has significantly gone up in this nation while workers salaries and benefits have gone down. This is like Christmas every day to conservatives. Then what happens is that the crony that screwed up the government agency at the benefit of the corporation gets a job paying many times over his/her government salary at the very company that benefitted from his/her intentional incompetence! And what is really incredible, until the economy finally collapsed under the weight of all the incompetence and corruption, PEOPLE KEPT VOTING FOR THESE THUGS!

A good example of what I’m trying to point out here would be New Orleans. It has been at least three years since the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Now, I remember well the advance notice that this hurricane was potentially going to do what it actually did, yet there were no emergency personel there to help with the evacuation of the people who needed it most, with the end result being something like 2000 fatalities. As there should have been, there was a lot of angst about the incompetence of the Bush administration, and I do think that this was the beginning of the end of their charade – but the outrage should have been much greater. FEMA, which was a very effective agency just a few years previously under the Clinton administration, seemed almost non-existent. And I’ll never forget the words from President Bush, “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie” referring, of course, to the now infamous Michael Brown who had no business being the head of any government agency let alone one with this importance, but this was just one of the best examples of the results of 30+ years of conservative rule in Washington DC. Brown was the heir to a guy I believe named Joe Allbaugh who was also not qualified to lead FEMA except that he was a loyal Bushite (which we later learned in the US attorney scandal – was the main requirement for employment in government) and he was committed to destroying the very agency he was in charge of.

Now Allbaugh had moved on to the lobbying business and turned the reins over to Brown. This is how it works for our great conservative philosophy. Allbaugh had done as much as he could to neuter the agency he was in charge of so it was time to get into the private enterprise system to “cash in” on all his good work. Well, after the hurricane, you didn’t see a bunch of the locals who had been lucky enough to survive doing the cleanup and reconstruction work (as in the past, to prop up the economy of the disaster area) – you saw the private contractors who had been giving money to the republicans swoop in with massive no-bid government contracts to “rebuild” New Orleans like a bunch of scavengers who had just discovered some prime road kill. And, of course, many of the companies that benefitted from this “reconstruction” were the companies being represented by Allbaugh. It shouldn’t be too surpising that the poorest neighborhoods of New Orleans still lie in ruins as I write this and it is only part of the reason this whole scenario is so disgusting. Everybody who has paid any attention to politics over the past 40+ years, the length of time of my interest in the subject, knows that the republicans are unapologetic racists (of course publically, they try to say the “right” thing once in a while, but their actions are conclusive) – so it has been no surprise to me that they could leave the Black neighborhoods of New Orleans in ruins until the time they are being finally thrown out of office. It’s the flagrant thumbing their collective noses at legality, morality, and civility – without consequence number one – that bothers me the most.

This gets me back to the point that I’ve been writing about since shorty after Barrack Obama’s election. The damage these guys have caused is HUGE! They can’t be allowed to just walk away and not have to pay for what they’ve done to our government and the people it serves. The big obvious issues are the warrantless wiretapping, the torture, and the financial fraud on Wall Street – but make no mistake – all of this is part of a bigger fraud that has been imposed on the American people with more and more brazenous as the years have progressed since Reagan destroyed the Air Traffic Controllers in 1981. They have been purposely and with premeditation destroying the very government they have pledged to defend. Their handiwork has led to an assault on workers from every corner of the economic spectrum, and it has funnelled the money that is represented in our 11 or 12 trillion dollar deficit into the hands of their cronies. This has been the greatest fleece job, by far, in the history of the world. And there’s a bunch of them that should be walking around thinking of their need to possibly require legal counsel.

The only way this will happen, however, is if Obama and the Democratically controlled congress finally develop a spine and start “fighting back.” This has been a war waged by a bunch of selfish, greedy, people who figured out how to take the entity that they despised the most, the US Government, and turn it into an incredible “Cash cow.” And the sad thing is that they’ve figured out how to get the very people they are fleecing to vote for them and keep them in power (if anyone thinks this war is over just because Obama won this past election, you’re kidding yourself). It is time for all of the corrupt activities to be investigated and for the criminals who have used our system of government to enrich themselves and their buddies to be prosecuted. And whether Obama wants a “unified” nation (I’m longing for the same thing) or not, we’re not going anywhere until this stuff is dealt with. And the window of opportunity is not large. They have to begin the process immediately upon assuming office. They can implement the programs that will get the economy going and do this at the same time. There are plenty of good Americans who will answer the call once it is clear what we need to do to save this nation – but we need to scour these arrogant criminals from our government and prosecute those who have stepped over the line of what is legal and what is not. We can’t have a nation of laws when the people at the top are flipping our legal system “the bird!”

I think what is really bothering me of late is, as I read in a New York Times Op Ed today, the “rush to the bottom.” As a school teacher I watch how hard other teachers are working to help our students succeed in an atmosphere that is set up for failure, that being the so-called “No Child left Behind” policy of the Bush administration. Then I read and listen as many “pundits” place the blame for “failing schools” on the teachers. This is an unfortunate “setup” created by right wing politicians who want to see public education destroyed. And then you watch their attacks on one of the last bastions of productivity in this nation, the domestic auto industry, and you realize these guys have no scruples whatsoever. You don’t have to look too far past those two examples to get further evidence of what makes these, mostly republican, “lawmakers” tick. Today I read an article about the lobbyists who have been in a feeding frenzy over the graft provided by Ted Stevens of Alasks who is soon to be a part of the history of the US Senate.

Stevens, according to this article, was personally responsible (I hope that’s the right term) for about $60 million per year in lobbying fees paid to members of the “K Street” lobbyists who were in his inner circle. Stevens was sending billions in “earmarks” to Alaska each year and these lobbyists were evidently the conduit in which his power was connected to whatever mechanism made this work for the people of Alaska, the lobbyists, and the contractors all of which I’m sure were very unhappy to see him go, despite conviction on 7 felonies of political corruption. The thing that probably bothers me the most is that, while Stevens may very well have been at the top of this example of greed personified, it is pretty much commonplace in Washington DC over the past 30 or so years and kicked into high gear over the past 8 years. So while these republicans are attacking teachers and blue collar workers, especially those represented by unions, they and their compatriots have been fleecing the system by the billions with hardly any notice.

It’s not like people don’t know this is going on – I mean large gated communities with million dollar estates are springing up all over the Virginia counties adjoining Washington DC. And I’ll be that if someone were to check on who is filling these communities, who has the where with all to afford such an exhorbitant lifestyle, you’d find a combination of the contractors who are benefitting from the contracts passed around through the house and senate like candy, and the lobbyists who are facilitating the process. While all this is happening, the federal government is headed toward bankruptcy, the “financial sector” is in the process of bilking close to another trillion out of Uncle Sam, and all the while the people in those gated communities are complaining about how Obama might raise taxes on the “rich” and how the auto workers are making too much money and that’s what’s wrong with Detroit. Just take a quick moment to think about how all these communities have electronically controlled gates around them and some of the homes inside do as well. That is even happening out West where I’m writing this from. What we’re seeing is a great example of the “haves and the have nots” emerging in America.

In their intense effort to destroy unions and “put workers in their place” these politicians, lobbyists, and executives evidently are feeling a bit unsafe (has anyone out there read Marx and the ultimate destruction of a capitalist society once greed has squeezed almost everyone out of the middle class). It reminds me of my trip to Mexico a few years ago. Now, I’m not much of a world travelor, in fact I’ve only been to Mexico and Canada once each. My trip to Mexico lasted about a week, long enough to help build a small guest house at a children’s home in Madera which is located in Chiwawa (I hope I came close to spelling that correctly). During that week one of the things I remember was as we went back and forth from the hotel to the work site the difference between the run down homes of the average Mexican and the few nice homes of the, I assume, privileged. Each of the nice homes had high steel fences surrounding them with electronically controlled gates protecting the property. I remember thinking how this must be due to the fact that there is so much unemployment in Mexico that the people with nice homes feel the necessity to protect their property. Do we want this to happen in America?

Evidently there are many who would like this society to regress to something like that. I’m not sure how possible that is, but I’m anxious to see who purchases the millions of homes that are being foreclosed upon due to the political failures of the last eight years (I realize that republicans can always find someone else to blame for the problems that happen on their “watch” but I’m just telling it like it is – their greed has finally brought us all to this unpleasant place). The idea of gated communities for the rich – I guess the gates are necessary because the general public won’t be able to afford police and with a high level of unemployment there must be a bit of concern about people breaking into their homes – so that gates and fences must be designed to stop crime. I won’t be surprised if I start seeing security guards inside the gates ensuring that no one attempts to get in. Do you see what I’m getting at here? Sure, progress is happening, but is this the kind of progress that is good for the country? I’m honestly not understanding how some of these people think they can get along fine without the rest of us. Is somebody going to invent a car that has protective devices which will allow these people to go out into public if it gets that bad? Personally, I believe it’s time for this country to tear down the gated walls and rebuild the middle class!

Another night where I just need to write to make myself better able to deal with the reality of what is happening to this country that I love. And if you’ve read many of my posts, you know that I’m not much of a fan of George W. Bush or the republican party as it is presently constituted. In fact, the more I watch what is going on as the days slowly dwindle away in the administration of President Bush giving way to the optimism of the Presidency of Barrack Obama the more I’m concerned about the next four years. I’ve watched with a quiet curiosity as Obama has put together a “team” which will be challenged as no other president has been challenged since the days of Franklin D Roosevelt. I’m going to reserve judgement on his choices, most people are very impressed with the majority of them, and I’m not even in the camp that is upset that Obama has reached out to Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration – I’ve read the book that made Warren a national figure “Purpose Driven Life,” and found it quite good – because someone has to let the so-called “Christian Right” understand that the conservative movement in this country is no more “Christian” than many of the issues they vehemently oppose. In fact, I’m convinced that once the Christian movement fully realizes what they’ve been the “base” to, the republican party will either have to make monumental changes or be a “thing of the past.”

My concern tonight is the nagging thought that Obama is going to do too much reaching and not enough extinguishing (for lack of a better word). I’m really worried that President Obama, in the interest of “unity,” is going to just “move on” and let bygones be bygones. In my opinion, if he chooses this path, IT WILL BE A HUGE MISTAKE. I’m reading lots of stuff, In fact the other day I was stuck in my car during a snow storm and decided to force myself to listen to some conservative talk radio, and I’m convinced that the conservative movement is all fired up and is gearing up the propaganda machine to start the attacks on Obama well before he becomes President (In fact, they’ve already started). I actually like the thought of unity, but not at the expense of standing up for the principles that have brought this nation to the role of “leader of the free world.” I believe that if Obama shows the “gumption” to emphasize that this is a nation ruled by laws and not “men” we will have taken a huge step forward. Unfortunately, in my opinion the reverse holds true as well. Should he choose to allow the “Bush Crime family” to walk away without consequence for their actions he will have just proved what the republicans always say, that the democrats have no spine – they are weak.

Let me give you some examples of the problems that I see growing if something isn’t done forcefully about them (and, believe me, there are plenty more than what I’m going to list here). Because it’s so important in my mind; there simply HAS to be accountability for the abuses in President Bush’s “warrantless wiretapping” program. I continue to be amazed that there isn’t more outrage about the fact the government has been and is spying on virtually all of it’s citizens. As with most of their abuses the Bush administration throws up the “National Security” excuse for a behemoth of felonies committed on the behalf of stopping terrorist attacks – even though they had the necessary authority to stop 9/11 and bungled everything when the opportunity was there. To me, the thought that every email I send, every phone call I make, and even every purchase I make online (and probably offline using a credit card) is being monitered by my government is more than a bit chilling. The fact that they don’t have a reason to worry about what I’m doing is not the point (although, when you think about it, the day could possibly be closer than we think, should this continue, where bloggers could be considered “enemy combatants” if their thoughts are not in concert with the “powers that be) – the point is that we seem to be willingly giving up one of the basic rights (the right to privacy) that men and women have been fighting and dying to protect for the past 200+ years.

Here’s what’s worse about the warrantless wiretapping program. The United States of America has spent billions of dollars creating huge facilities to gather, store, and analyze an unbelievable amount of data over the past 8 years (they were spending a lot prior to Bush II but he’s really raised the bar and there seems to be no limit on what he’s willing to dole out for the latest greatest technology). In the process we have become beholden to at least two companies from Israel(I believe a third is emerging) who specialize in gathering information from cell phones, hi speed internet cables, whatever methods people use to communicate from one to another. These companies, quite naturally, are in business to make a profit – and the satellites and internet cables they have figured out how to intrude on actually circle the globe many times over. Cell phones and the internet are not just common in America, even many third world countries are wired to the hilt – many of the countries where we are concerned about the human rights practices of their governments – like Viet Nam, China, Sudan, etc. These countries are buying the technology that is being developed by the Israeli complanies for the US government, but technology that the US government has no proprietory ownership of, and they are using this same technology to virtually halt any dissent in their nations. There is not only technology to gather virtually all the info, but now they have developed software to “sift” through this technology at alarmingly fast rates to descipher key words or phrases. So not only has this program of Bush’s allowed our government to intrude on its citizens, it is allowing foriegn nations to clamp down on dissenters who are seeking free societies. THE DAMAGE OF THIS PROGRAM IS SEVERE.

The people involved in this program have known all along that it is illegal, even to the point that when it was made public in 2005 the employees began training on how to lie in front of congress if they were called to testify about what they were doing. Bush and Cheney got a couple of their own lawyers to write bogus legal “opinions” to provide them “cover” but they knew right from the start what they were doing was illegal. They just didn’t want to go through the hassle, and possibility of denial, that would have been involved in getting the FISA law tweeked to give them more leeway in “fighting terrorism.” These two guys in particular just didn’t like the idea that the President of the United States was obligated to follow the laws that they had taken an oath to protect when they took their offices. This attitude, of course, carried over into other areas. The idea that the United States of America is now regarded internationally as a country that believes in torture, is torture to me – as a citizen. In my research into this problem I discovered that torture isn’t something altogether new for our government, it’s just been done in more discreet ways in the past.

For example, during the 70’s and 80’s our CIA facilitated several coups in South America and other places around the globe, orchestrating in governments that were willing to support our taking their national resources (such as copper in Chile, oil in Venezuela, etc.) in return for us helping them to stay in power and to thwart dissent through “disappearing” of dissidents and the secret prisons that have become so commonplace since 9/11 – no wonder our CIA is looked at around the world with such disdain (the reason the Iranians hate us is because in the 50’s our CIA put the Shah in power at the expense of a freely elected government with the result being a despot who was, in the minds of many, worse than Saddam Hussein). IT IS TIME FOR THE US TO LET THE REST OF THE WORLD KNOW THAT THIS STUFF IS GOING TO STOP!!! And the way to do this is for Barrack Obama to hold those in the Bush administration accountable who authorized “enhanced interrogations.” We know this includes Cheney and Rumsfeld via admissions on national TV, and there can be little doubt that this includes the President as well. The thought that a few sargeants and privates would take the fall for Abu Ghraib, for instance, is deplorable. Obama can take a huge step toward REALLY CHANGING the direction of this country if he stands up to these arrogant cowards! (Yes, cowards – neither Bush nor Cheney would ever have thought about going into combat, but they didn’t think twice about ruining the lives of millions of people in their quest for oil or whatever else was on their mind when they illegally invaded Iraq).

I’m not going to get into detail about the abuses that have occurred in the “financial sector” of our economy – but there has to be accountability there as well. These people have been robbing us blind for years and it hit the crescendo stage during the Bush administration. Many of the “thieves” in Bush’s “army” got their start under either Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan. And don’t kid yourself, most of these people are the ones best ready to “weather the storm” that lies ahead in the economic recession/depression that Obama is facing as he takes the “reins” of office. These guys didn’t go away during the eight years of Bill Clinton (in fact they have the money to pay for the attacks that will insure that our nation stays divided, because that’s how they make such huge amounts of money) and they won’t go away during the Obama administration if they are not ferretted out and held legally accountable for the corruption that has been rampant during the last 28 years. One thing that is really important here, there can be no favoritism for democrats over republicans, which is why this part of the accountability will be so difficult. There will be a lot of Washington’s “elite” going down if this is fully investigated. When you get an environment where it is OK for the CEO’s to be earning (I say earning a bit tongue in cheek) 4500 times what their workers are earning, you know things are way out of tilt. A quick look at the lobbying “industry” and how it is connected to the Senate and Representative “industry” and you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that there’s a lot of corruption “on both sides of the isle.” This need to be investigated if we are going to have the “Change we can believe in.” Without accountability for the past corruption and lawbreaking change will be an empty word.

Well, we’ve got a foot of snow at my house, it’s still falling, and it looks like my appointment at the doctor’s office two days from now is up in the air. I can say this, a good snow storm helps me to appreciate the beauty of “Mother Nature,” even though it’s got me stuck where I’m at. Actually, it’s kind of nice to be forced to just relax and do nothing for a while. Today, a neighbor happened by with his family for a bit of hot tea, cocoa, and cider. We had a very nice discussion. My friend is an engineer at Hewlett Packard and always blows me away at his ability to tear things apart and put them back together as if they suddenly became new again. As a school teacher, when I’m around him – and others with such talent who have done something with it – at first I marvel and then I think about how I can motivate the students I have with natural talent to develop it and strive to “make something of themselves.” Tonight, our converstation evolved into a discussion about the American “obsession” with “accountability” while at the same time looking downward on workers which has brought us to a place where many in our workforce (including my friend) are kind of walking on “pins and needles” in their jobs as upper management uses the threat of job loss to extract every bit of whatever they can get from their employees. The sense of community and loyalty that once was pervasive in companies like Hewlett Packard (They once took pride in having never “laid off” an employee) is a thing of the past. Anything and everything that corporations can “outsource” to save a few dollars at the expense of this sense of loyalty gets outsourced. I’m really getting tired of calling “customer service” and being routed through India. I’m saying this in the wake of the so-called “auto bailout” which is really a bridge loan that, in my mind, is Bush’s way of passing the problem onto Obama, still hoping for the demise of the United Auto Workers.

I’m OK with that. Now it is up to President Elect Obama to show some leadership (which is what I’m hopeful will be his strength) to ensure that the UAW succeeds, our domestic auto industry succeeds (I’m still baffled by the number of republicans that seem to think losing our domestic auto industry would be OK), and unions in general start to make a comeback in this country. While I’m pretty focused on the corruption of the corporations in America, the political parties in America, and of course the Bush administration – there can be no doubt that over the course of years the labor unions have had their share of corruption. Keep in mind that this has been largely abuses by the leadership of these unions – but the reality is that the union workers, the ones who fought for worker’s rights from the thirties up until this day, have been the backbone of this nation. They are the reason for so many workplace benefits that I believe many of us Americans just take for granted, that the time has come when we have to band together and re-commit to the value of collective bargaining and the reality that without it you end up with a system that is totally out of balance such as what we are experiencing today.

When it is not unusual for corporate CEO’s to be making multi-million dollar salaries and then issuing themselves huge bonuses – in today’s economic atmosphere despite tremendous corporate losses – and then doing everything they can to reduce jobs, something is terribly wrong. How did we get to the point where, en masse, we just seem to stand by and watch this happen? I’m sure there are less people working in America today than the day George W Bush took office almost 8 years ago. That is a damning and disgusting fact. And it appears that it is going to get worse before it gets better. We are still listening to too many people arguing that GM should be allowed to go bankrupt – to me more the victim of the financial meltdown (remember, most Americans have to go to the bank to be able to buy a new car) than their own lack of foresight as to how they should compete in the market we are now faced with. My friend who works at Hewlett Packard tells of how their company merged with Compaq and one of the “benefits” was the elimination of thousands of jobs. Additionally, thousands of other jobs were eliminated because, due to the advances in technology (for example face to face meetings over the internet), it is very easy to replace an American worker with one in Singapore who will work for less.

The CEO’s who are doing a good job of eliminating these jobs are being rewarded with huge bonuses. Last year the CEO at Hewlett Packard was compensated with a salary of $23 million. Well, that is less than the CEO of GM who received $28 million – so I suppose that gives him something to “shoot” for. And today I read where the CEO of Merrill Lynch (keep in mind that to avoid bankruptcy they were purchased in a “hastily arranged” takeover by Bank of America – after losing something close to $10 Billion) was compensated with $83 million – because he took over after most of the damage had been done, I suppose someone thought that it could have been worse. The point I’m trying to make is that until we change the mindset that has been programmed into the minds of the American people allowing for these abuses to happen, while thinking it’s OK for genuine workers who actually produce things to “go down,” we are in a world of hurt. The greed level in the US is unbelievable. My friend and I looked at his children and I referred to my grandchildren and grown children, and we agreed “We have to start speaking out about this.” Trickle down economics don’t work and the money has become “stuck” at the top of the “food chain.” Our children deserve the opportunity to have their work valued in a way that will support their future families.

OK, if for some strange chance that you’ve been reading any of my posts, you’ll know that one of my obsessions is that I’m very concerned that President Elect Obama, in concert with a spineless Democratic Congress, is going to let the Bush administration walk away “scott free” from a crime spree that lasted most of the eight years they were in office. Especially, when you learn that the warrantless wiretapping actually started pre 9/11, although in reading “The Shadow Factory” it’s not totally clear to me that this abuse was originally authorized by the President. However, it is clear that the incredible buildup of the NSA after 9/11 was directly authorized by Presdent Bush and directed by Dick Cheney and his right hand Lawyer David Addington, both of whom have been disgruntled about the FISA legislation since it’s inception in 1978. And the resulting “bugs” are going to be very difficult to get rid of. The crimes of this administration are many and they are excessive. Torture, war profiteering, forging documents to justify war, and lying us into a war are just the tip of the iceberg. The thought that the Democrats won’t pursue prosecution doesn’t surprise me, but I have to say that I will be devastated if Obama, for the sake of unity, pursues a course that lacks accountability for these crimes.

It appears that Obama is going to go along with the strict accountability for the auto industry regarding the “bridge loans” the government is providing in an attempt to preserve the main part of our industrial complex that has not been outsourced to third world countries. Hopefully, the end result of this won’t be that we are buying Chevrolet’s built in China and shipped back to the US for purchase. How can we expect this accountability while ignoring the other? Yes, restoring good jobs in this country is of paramount importance. At some point, we as a nation need to start looking out for each other and realizing the importance of keeping good union jobs in this country. I have no idea how the leaders, during the last two decades could rationalize the idea that we could have an economy built almost entirely on consumption. Of course, when you add in the abuses of the Wall Street fat cats, the CEO’s of the corporations who are left in this country, and the incompetence of our government under the “trickle down” economic theory, the present economic meltdown should not be a big surprise. And I realize that Obama’s main priorities need to be revitalizing the economy, dealing with a health system that itself has “cancer,” and completely redesigning our priorities to finally confront the global environmental crisis – the crisis that republicans would ignore until there was conclusive evidence that the planet was dying – I don’t think there is a last second bailout procedure for that problem. But Bush/Cheney et al MUST BE INVESTIGATED, if for no other reason the sake of posterity – I REALLY DON’T WANT THIS TO EVER HAPPEN AGAIN!

The truth is that Obama could be totally focused on those economic issues (and of course, don’t forget Iraq and Afganistan – they are going to take a lot of focus) and just appoint an independent counsel to investigate the previous administration letting the “cards fall where they may.” This could be done without a bunch of fanfare in the scaredy cat Democratic Congress (Patrick Fitzgerald would be OK with me – a good republican investigating republicans). The Democrats could continue to blame the senate republicans for everything that doesn’t go right which seems to be what they’re good at and we could just hope and pray that they could get enough republican support to pass Obama’s initial stimulus bills, but in the end, the “Bush Crime Family,” as many refer to them, would have to answer for their deeds, one way or the other. In my view this is the best way for us, as a nation, to tell the rest of the world that we “get it.” We need to send the message that torture is, again, unacceptable in the US along with invading soveriegn nations, and random massive wiretapping. Now, just to make sure that I’m clear, in this past three years of consuming books on how our government works, it is clear to me that our CIA has been overstepping it’s bounds for decades. They have facilitated many government coups causing “socialist” governments to succumb to tyrants in the name of cheap natural resources for our multi-national corporations who have bought off virtually every politician who’s been in Washington for any length of time. And I guess this is why many don’t want to prosecute Bush and company, because when we learn the “truth” about what our government has been doing, more heads may “roll.”

But, I’m convinced the time is right for this to finally happen. If we don’t face up to the actions of our government now, with Barrack Obama becoming our first African American President, I don’t know when we will. If he, and the Democratic party, don’t start showing some backbone and stop worrying about what the press is going to say, they won’t last more than four years in office. I think it’s great that Obama wants to “bring people together.” But the way to do this is not to look the other way in the face of obvious criminal actions by the Bush administration. For example – and a good one at that – the other day I watched with my own eyes as Vice President Dick Cheney, a man who has a lot of legal vulnerability – and in my opinion is beginning to get the reality of that – on national TV admitted to authorizing torture of the degree that we had Japanese tried and executed before the Hague after WW II. Waterboarding, along with several other of their “enhanced” interrogation techniques is clearly a war crime. Whether or not some other country is going to attempt to hold these guys accountable, I think Cheney’s “admission” in a strange way tells us that he’s a bit worried (so far, our pitiful response is putting a few “privates” in the brig with the assumption being that we, the public, will buy the idea that this torture was their idea – unbelievable!).

At first, I thought “What an arrogant SOB” to just say all this on TV, kind of daring someone to prosecute him (Cheney). But, after a couple of days to digest this I’ve come to a very different conclusion. If Cheney authorized this and participated in meetings in the White House where it was discussed, which is what he clearly said, then the assumption has to be that Bush was there, as was Rice, Rove, Addington, Libby, Rumsfeld, and others. The key is that we now know that Bush was there – although that was already clear to me (and it was no secret that Rumsfeld authorized it as well). But Cheney is pushing the issue. Now, why would he do this? Well, I believe it falls under the old theory we followed when I was in the sawmill called CYA. Cover your ass! I believe Cheney is trying to force Bush to issue pardons for everyone who was present at those meetings, including himself of course. Now, I’m not sure whether or not you can pardon someone prior to them being convicted of a crime, or even accused – it seems to me that you would need to be convicted first. But at the bare minimum, it seems to me that if you pardon someone, that means a crime has been committed. Doesn’t that put Bush in a difficult spot? Won’t a blanket pardon for torture be an admission by Bush that he authorized torture? I’m glad Cheney is finally speaking honestly about what was done. I believe that Obama should accomodate him with the opportunity to talk about everything that happened during these eight years, including the outing of a CIA agent. Bush is busy trying to define his legacy and I think Cheney being investigated could go along way in doing that. In fact the way things are going, when this is all over I’m not sure Bush and Cheney will still be such good friends!

Just in case someone might be reading this, I’ll make this short, the first thing I checked when I got up today was the state of the proposed bridge loan for GM and Chrysler (as I’ve done to start every day for several weeks now). Henry Paulson and George Bush have finally decided to do the right thing, making most republicans in the “trenches” very unhappy, at least on the surface. Just a caution here. Originally, they were talking about something in the neighborhood of $14 Billion dollars as a package to keep both companies afloat until President Elect Obama takes over. That was the amount blocked in the Senate vote a week or two ago. Now they are offering the companies $17.4 Billion. Wow, they’ve thrown in an extra $4 Billion dollars! Cause for celebration, right? Uh, wait a minute, don’t forget these guys don’t skip a beat.

Now think about this clearly. They’ve offered $17.4 Billion, but there’s only about $14 Billion left of the original amount allocated by Congress before they go back for the authority to spend the second $350 Billion of the original “TARP” “bailout” money. Ah, ha, now I get it. It’s not that they want to save the auto companies, they want to get their hands on that second $350 Billion. Here’s how it works. Paulson, today December 19th, makes a request for authority to use the second allotment of funds. Congress, which is in recess until January 2nd, when it has to swear everybody in, has 15 days to reject Paulson’s request – both houses have to reject his request it or he gets the money. Now, fifteen days from now will be, let’s see, hmmmmmm by golly January 2nd! Can you imagine our congress having it together enough to block that request on the day they are due back in Washington? I mean, let’s face it, with all the democratic pickups they still don’t have the 60 votes in the Senate to stop debate.

So there you have it. The price “We the People” will pay for the republicans passing on the opportunity to break the United Auto Workers will be George Bush and Henry Paulson getting their grubbly little fingers on another $350 Billion taxpayer dollars. I don’t know about you, but I think Henry wouldn’t have a bit of trouble getting most of that money “into circulation” in the 18 days he would have left in office. And do you think, with all the arrogance these guys have shown, that they won’t be doling as much of this “dough” out to their buddies as they can? I hope I’m wrong, I really do – so far they haven’t put a penny where it’s needed most, and that is to help out the homeowners who are losing their homes in this country by the millions. The one thing I was really counting on was the second half of the so-called “bailout” money would be spent by the Obama “team” to help those Americans who are losing their homes, but could stay there with modified loans. Do you think Bush is just wanting to speed up this process? Let me finish by asking this question; Would you trust George and Henry with another $350 Billion?

OK, a few days have passed and it looks like even Paulson didn’t have the guts to try to get the additional $350 Billion, although I’ll believe this when I see it. I still have hope that this money will be used to help my friends (and I’m sure yours) who are hard working responsible people and have got caught in this squeeze.

It’s very late (or early, depending on how you look at it) and I really should be getting to bed, but I just read another NY Times piece about how President Bush is considering an “orderly” bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler. I’m going to try to make this short, and if you read it I encourage you to get on the phone and call the White House and encourage them to just loan GM and Chrysler the money. I couldn’t believe it when Bush was quoted as saying “I don’t want to put good money after bad.” Well, in the first place do they even have any “good” money. Let’s face it, the $700 billion came freshly off the printing press. I don’t believe our government has any “good” money left. Bush has squandered it all – which is the first reason I find that statement incredulous. The second reason is they just completed giving over $300 billion to the financial “sector” on Wall Street, which is basically their “lunch buddies.” How can they not call that sending “good money after bad.” Well, I guess using my premise that none of the money is good would answer that question. But, isn’t that the height of hypocracy???

Of course, that shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been following politics in the last 8 years. These guys are unbelievable. The republicans are drooling at the thought of destroying the United Auto Workers – they just can’t help themselves. I’m not sure if they don’t understand the consequences of doing this, or if they do and just don’t care. Their icon, Ronald Reagan, was all about destroying unions and I’m sure it’s been a point of frustration that they’ve been unable to get rid of the UAW for all these years. Keep in mind these republicans are the ones who have been trying to undo the “New Deal” for over 40 years, and they think the minimum wage should still be $1.25 and hour – in fact they probably think there shouldn’t be a minimum wage. I have listened to all the propaganda about how much the auto workers make that I can stand. The Limbaugh types keep harping that they make $70 per hour, which I actually wish they did, but of course they make something like $28 per hour. It’s the people who are ripping us off for these huge executive bonuses, who don’t want to pay any taxes, who think that $28 per hour is too much. And, of course, the fact the auto workers have health insurance is another bone to pick for the republicans. They call themselves the party of “family values” and I interpret that as their values are to destroy as many families as they can.

I teach in a low income area and see the results of families where the parents (who are working) have two jobs and rarely see their kids. It translates into students who have no suprevision at home, who by the sixth grade are giving up on school becuase they believe they are destined to follow in their parent’s footsteps, and who know more about things like drugs and R-rated movies than I do (and these kids are 11 years old – it’s startling). Republicans want their minimum wage jobs to be for less money than they are, and they don’t want even the kids to have decent health care. It’s very difficult to witness this stuff “right up front,” but as a teacher, it is inevitable. If the republicans succeed in destroying the UAW in Bush’s last month in office, I hope they cease to be a viable party in this nation. People need to speak out about this and demand the media get off their butts and start covering the news fairly. I say this because it’s so unbelievable to me that they can’t provide a bridge loan – without all these conditions that the republicans want to throw on – after just giving away over $300 billion to banks that are using the money for bonuses and dividends. GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

And make no mistake about this – if our auto industry goes into bankruptcy, “orderly” or not, the likely “rescuers” will be foreign entities. Whether it will be Toyota, Mercedes, Nissan, or another auto maker, or just Chinese entities with a wealth of dollars, I believe the mainstay of what’s left of our industrial base will be owned by “outsiders.” The thought of this is both frightening and disgusting to me. Talk about a blow to our national security. How can the people of this nation turn their backs on the history of GM and Ford. These companies are the backbone of the industrial revolution that turned this nation into the most powerful country on the planet. I heard on the radio today that if the actual wage of an average auto worker is $30 per hour, that would mean their annual pay would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $60,000 – which I’m sure that most republicans would find that excessive (unless it was what they had to live off of). Well, one of the GM executives earned $28 million last year, which is the equivalent of about 4500 blue collar salaries. NOW YOU TELL ME WHERE THE PROBLEM IS.

Of course there’s a lot of fat to be trimmed from these companies, but the trimming needs to start at the top. And the companies need to be boosted along so that the trimming is possible. They need to get the same “guarantee” that Wall Street got – we’re going to keep them going. In my view, THEY ARE MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO OUR NATIONAL ECONOMY THAN WALL STREET!!! The problem with letting Wall Street banks fail is that the “trimming” would come from Henry Paulson’s portfolio along with many other of the republicans who want to see the UAW dead. Make no mistake about this, seeing the United Auto Worker’s Union dead is their goal. When you buy an IBM Thinkpad, it is now called Lenovo and the company is Chinese – I never thought I would see the day that a Chinese company would be allowed to own a significant portion of IBM (I guess that was who was making the computers anyway) – but the thought of a Chinese company owning GM makes me shutter. I truly hope that these companies can figure out a way to make it until February and give Obama a chance to throw them a lifeline. Our President is determined to demonstrate his incompetence as a leader and his disdain for our government right up till his last day in office. Bush is like a possum in the headlights, just staring blindly as this huge disastor is about to roll over him.

It’s 33 days to go, and I’m not sure I’m going to make it. Yesterday, I listened in shock as George W. Bush said his biggest achievement as President was “Keeping America Safe.” I guess if you accept the republican premise that everything that happens during a republican presidency is the fault of Bill Clinton or some other democrat (soon to be Barrack Obama) you can write of 9/11 as somebody else’s fault. Of course, when you look at the evidence closely, the Bush administration was overwhelmingly “sleeping at the wheel” prior to 9/11 and there are even those who suggest they wanted something like that to happen so they could invade Iraq. The reality, to me, is that even to suggest that we are safer is further evidence of how delusional this man really is. I harken back to the advice I got several years ago as a teacher when stuggling with the issue of students lying – a psychologist told me, and as I’ve observed people since I believe he was right on, that once someone who is constantly lying reaches about 14 it becomes part of their character. And the worse part is, they start believing their own lies – I’m convinced that George W Bush believes his own lies – even in the face of millions of Americans just shaking their collective heads as he says them.

When you get past the 9/11 tragedy and all the evidence that it should never have happened (read “The Shadow Factory”) you can turn your eyes toward Iraq. I can’t imagine how anyone can say that the Iraq war has made us safer. It is true that things are getting safer, at least temporarily, in Iraq (although I believe it could “explode” at anytime because the Shia still hate the Sunni), but the reality is that the “war” never should have been in Iraq. The people who have made us “unsafe” are in Pakistan and Afganistan and they, al Qaeda, are probably stronger than ever. In fact, one of Osama bin Laden’s goals was to get the U.S. bogged down in an “unwinnable” war in the Middle East (well, actually, they want us completely out of the Middle East, but knowing that aint going to happen this is the next best thing for them) so Iraq has served them well. It has depleted the resources of the US, it has turned the rest of the world, not only Arab countries against the US, and it has weakened our military so that if there was a real threat to our national security we would be in a tough spot trying to respond to it. Additionally, our involvement in Iraq has been a recruiting “boon” to al Qaeda and they are supposedly in better shape for another attack than they were at the time of 9/11. I don’t call that safer!

I guess Bush doesn’t factor in the economy when he talks about keeping us safe. Based on his performance in managing the economy this shouldn’t be too surprising. However, in my mind the fact that we are possibly going into the most severe economic downturn ever – including the thirties – it’s hard for me to say that keeps us safe. And today, Bush is quoted as saying a bankruptcy with a “gentle” landing might be good for GM. The guy, and his republican buddies, just can’t avoid the opportunity to possibly destroy one of the largest unions in the nation – this has nothing to do with keeping us safe. Keep in mind that during WW II GM played a huge role in building the things we needed for that war. WE NEED SOME KIND OF INDUSTRIAL BASE – AND IT NEEDS TO BE AMERICAN!!! I believe they are figuring out that this “crunch” is going to be huge no matter what they do, so they might as well try to get rid of the United Auto Workers in the process.

Let me summarize, 9/11 happened on George W Bush’s watch and there were plenty of opportunities to stop it. The NSA knew the whereabouts of the two original “plants” who facilitated the whole thing and due to the “bickering” among the different agencies once Bush/Cheney took office these guys were allowed to roam free for almost a year making call afte call on cell phones that the NSA should have been monitering (of course now they’re monitering your calls and mine to make up for their blunder). Our government has been torturing people, even Vice President Cheney admitting on national TV that he authorized it, which doesn’t keep us or our troops safer. Our economy is in the tank, which makes us all unsafer. And, worst of all, our military has been stretched to the breaking point in an illegal occupation of another nation, which really makes us unsafe. The truth is that any attack will most likely come after Bush is out of office, but make no mistake about it – George W Bush is the person who has made this country UNSAFE!

I’ve had about all of Chris Matthews that I can stand. I am a regular viewer of Keith Olberman on MSNBC because he was the most courageous of the “news” broadcasters during the last couple of years as “We the People” have been exercising our right to “throw the bums out” meaning, in this case, the republicans who nearly pulled off the impossible by controlling all facets of our government. Their plan for a permanent republican majority was stopped because, I’m sure in their minds at this time, they chose the wrong Bush to “close the deal” they had been working on for about the last 25+ years or so before GW Bush took the oath of office on January 20th 2001. Our framers, when originally writing the constitution that has been the longest lasting self-rule document in the world’s history, tried to make it virtually impossible for one group to control the entire government. Their plan of “checks and balances” was remarkably brilliant, especially when you consider the time in which it was devised, and it was put in place to protect Americans from the possibility of tyranny by the majority.

The United States of America is not, and was never intended to be, a pure democracy – despite the rhetoric of most of our national leaders on “both sides of the isle.” We have what is called a representative democracy and there were many “checks” put in place to insure that all Americans have a voice in our representative government. The three branches of government and how they are inter-related, the bill of rights, the constitution itself, and even things like the electoral college were all intended to prevent one group from being able to impose its will on the “minority.” In fact, (as another of my long list of “sidenotes” if you’ve read many of my posts) I have listened to many of the people who have been in agreement with me in the last election berate the electoral college as something whose time has come and gone. I couldn’t disagree with them more – even though I rarely these days agree with the people in Montana or Idaho or other small states – it would be a direct violation of the intent of the framers to reduce the influence of these areas by electing a president via just the popular vote. While, in most cases (2000 being the significant exception) the popular vote and the electoral college agree. Disbanding the electoral college would, in my view, make it highly unlikely for places like Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, etc. from being more than a passive part of any election. This is just one of the many “checks” the framers put in place to prevent what the republicans almost pulled off.

Had GW Bush not been so incompetent, I believe the republicans would have succeeded. They just needed one more term in the White House to get at least a one or two generation “grip” on the Supreme Court. They had a grip on the congress and that was lost as the backlash against the incompetence and the corruption of the Bush administration slowly managed to creep outside the perview of the so-called “mainstream media” that the republicans so affably refer to as the liberal press (despite the reality that it is owned and operated by about 5 devout republican leaning corporations). This grip on the information that has become no more than a propaganda “machine” pushing their lies out as “truth” is still a major stumbling block to restoring this nation to what it was before what I call the “Assault on America” (they originally referred to it as the “Contract for America”). Bush screwed up so badly that even the pundits like Matthews couldn’t continue to defend him and a flood of books and internet blogs hit the scene starting toward the end of Bush’s first term that brought enough “light” to the public that they finally repudiated these barbaric policies that no right minded American, no matter what their political persuasion, would support if they knew the truth.

The problem is that with people like Matthews in positions to be influencing millions of people every day, the battle rages on. I’m saying all this to frame what I saw tonight, which if you’ve been reading any of my past posts you’ll know that I have been lobbying for President elect Obama to push for prosecution of crimes committed by George Bush, Dick Cheney, and anyone else involved in their administration (in fact, anyone in government who violates the law should be held accountable, if for no more practical a reason than our leaders take an oath to defend the constitution, and if there is no accountability for them – well, what do you expect the ramifications to be as the knowledge of this “trickles” down?). I have been pointing out that the republicans have created this huge mess and they are planning to blame all our troubles in the next few years on Obama and the democrats ALREADY and they would love nothing better than to get back into power with all these abuses “in tact.” Just reversing some of GW Bush’s decisions does not send the proper message. They need to answer for their actions in a court of law. Both George Bush and Dick Cheney have admitted to committing felonies on camera, on national TV.

Matthews, in my view, is the epitome of someone who will say whatever he needs to say to keep his audience. His program is named “Hardball” as if he is really a tough questioner. But when you get under all the exterior “show” he doesn’t stand for much. And he seems to me to be about the easiest of the pundits that I have occasion to watch to be manipulated by the different politicians – keep in mind out of general principles I refuse to watch FOX “News.” I once discontinued my Dish TV service for about a year and to try to keep me as a customer they kept a few channels live, one being FOX “News” – and I watched it for about 2 or 3 months before I just couln’t stomach it anymore. I figured out that most of the “reporters” on that station were part of the republican caucus. It was actually one of the things that started me reading all the books I’ve read in the past three years to find out what is really going on with our government. When a so-called “News” outlet is “connected at the hip” with a political party – that is alarming. This is a threat to our democracy as defined by the framers.

However, I’m almost thinking that Matthews is worse. Let me tell you why. One of my big concerns has been that when all the “stuff” dies down about the Bush administration, if there is no accountability, they have another Bush in the “wings.” Well, tonight the propaganda started and Matthews was right there pushing it. I thought it would take a couple years before they had the nerve to do this, but Jeb Bush was the “man” on Matthews show this evening. The plan is for him to be the next senator from Florida and then president in 2012 or 2016 depending on the success of Barrack Obama. My stomach sank as I was listening to Matthews extole the virtues of the man who was directly responsible for his brother stealing the 2000 election and therefore the last 8 years of virtual destruction of our government and its reputation around the world. HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING??? I can tell you, I’ve had enough Bushes for my lifetime and hopefully the lifetimes of my children. I can see it now, Bush/Palin in 2012. Ughhhh!!!! How someone like Chris Matthews could do this at this time just goes to show that these people have absolutely no scruples. The last thing this country needs right now is even the thought of another Bush as president!