Oh, hurray up January 20th and get here as soon as you can, PLEASE!!!! In the last week I’ve watched the stock market a bit, and it seems that just the thought of a change of administrations is encouraging, even to Wall Street. Now, keep in mind that the Bush administration is planning to funnel as much of the taxpayer’s money as they can to their friends in the business world, but even these people (the business community) understand the enormity of the incompetence. I believe it’s just a select few that are receiving the benefit of the $700 billion bailout. And, of course, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it’s the friends of Henry Paulsen. The guy has a lot of nerve, as have most of the members of this administration over the past eight years. They would walk into your house and take money off of the living room table, right in front of your eyes, with a sense of arrogance that you wouldn’t have the nerve to say anything and you’d just let them get away with it.

I believe this arrogance comes from dealing with the Democrats in congress. Talk about a spineless bunch of politicians. While I truly believe that Bush will go down in history as the worst President ever, the congress will rank right up there with him as the worst congress ever. Considering the mantra of the republicans for the past 30 years it was no surprise to me that they capitulated, completely, to Bush during his first 6 years in office. And, of course, that was when most of the damage was done. However, in 2006 a lot of people went to a lot of effort to “throw the bums out,” so to speak, expecting an heroic democratically controlled congress to put a halt to the criminal activity of the Bush administration. In stead what we got was a congress that basically got hood-winked at every turn by the republicans and who were ruled by the fear that they might not win the election in 2008. What we have ended up with is a congress that will probably continue to be intimidated by the republicans and who will let these guys walk away as if nothing ever happened.

Everyone talks about what a fraternity the senate is. And I was personally sick to my stomach when I listened to all the farewell speaches in support of Ted Stevens who got voted out (barely) by the Alaskan voters after being found guilty of seven felony charges relating to corruption. The senate continues to make me feel that the direction of this country is “aimless” because they don’t have the guts to stand for what is right by any reasonable standard. GW Bush is putting into place many executive orders as he goes out the door, and I’m almost totally convinced that the congress and the new president are just going to allow him to walk away – even though he is arrogantly issuing orders that are totally in opposition to the recent mandate of November 4th – because they don’t want to make any waves. And the republican attack machine will be in full force soon after the new president takes office, and Obama and the democratic congress are going to look the other way as they try to implement their “new” ideas.

What is really bothering me is the extent of the lying by this past administration and the republican party that supported them. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have never seen a national politician who didn’t “spin” just about every issue. But these republicans, along with the Bush administration, have been implementing a concerted effort to brainwash the American public for the last 30 years, and the extent of their lying has gone way beyond the pale. It has gotten to the point where if they propose something like say, “the healthy tree initiative,” what you can count on is that they are proposing a way to harvest more trees for the large logging companies. I recently read a book titled “Cruel and Unusual” by Mark Crispin Miller where he has evidence that the Christian “right” which has been the backbone of the republican party for years, in their leadership’s inner circles (Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, etc.), have been justifying outright lying by saying “the ends justify the means.” And this philosophy has spilled into the republican inner circles and their “talking points” have long since disregarded any semblence of the truth. I’ve listened to many of my republican friends justify this by saying that all politicians lie – which is like me as a school teacher telling sixth graders that if one of them lies, then it’s OK for the rest of them to do so as well.

And these republicans, worse yet, are lying in a calculated manner – coordinated among the so-called pundits, to influence public opinion by flooding the air waves with propoganda that allows them to steal our treasury blind – and then they attack en masse anyone who calls them on their thievery as “enemy combatants” or something of that nature. The epitome of this is their pulling off this latest heist – the $700 billion, half of which has been blown already with little or nothing to show for it – on “Main Street.” At the same time, while many of us are focusing on the bailout, Bush is making one executive order after another reducing the environmental requirements on businesses that have donated large sums of money to his campaigns to dangerous levels – and I’m sure the republicans will say this is OK because every outgoing President does this. All I can say is that, if they do, it’s time to stop. And Bush’s lies and theivery is of such magnitude, that the biggest crime will be if he is allowed to get away with this. I have no idea how Bush, Cheney, Paulsen, Gonzales, Addington, Libby, Feith, and the others sleep at night. They have virtually destroyed this country’s government, yet it’s like they are going to get as much as they can “while the getting is good.”

This is because Bush and Co. are so certain that the democrats do not have the spine to do anything about it. Now think of this, $700 billion is about $2800 for every man, woman, and child in this country. The democrats allowed themselves to be scared into virtually giving this money to the “friends of Bush” with no strings attached, and maybe they are embarrassed to even look into where the money went because they were so careless in appropriating it. Do you think giving that money to the taxpayers who are going to have to pay it back would have been a better way to “jump start” the economy? I think it would be interesting to hear some of the back room conversations among the republicans as they have been pulling all of this off. I can hear the response to someone telling Bush that these actions violate his oath of office, and he would say that the oath is meaningless because the congress has totally abdicated it’s oversight role as provided in our constitution and there’s nothing to worry about. I guess what I’m saying here is that it is easier for me to understand the greed of the republicans causing them to steal from the taxpayers without conscience – it’s almost as if they are drug addicts – they’ve gotten away with so much, they have to keep “pushing” until they meet some resistence. What is disheartening is that with the democrats, there is no resistance!