These Republicans love to funnel money into the multinational corporations, because they know they will get such an incredible return for their “investments.” They’ve set up our system over the last 30+ years in a way that is allowing these businesses to flourish (in fact, at the first sign of trouble, here came Henry Paulsen and George W Bush with the government checkbook for all these “too big to fail” corporations). Of course, what they don’t like to mention is the amount of money these corporations are “donating” to the “cause.” And, of course, you won’t see a lot of argument from the Democrats because, while they get less money, they still get enough to guarantee the big corporations won’t be short on capital when things get really tough.

Then you have President Barack Obama, aside from the things that I believe he should be doing which he’s not, making a trip to the Middle East and essentially telling like it is FOR ONCE in one of the more profound speeches I’ve heard by an American President on foreign soil. I’ve listened for forty years as our politicians beat around the bush (no pun intended) regarding some of the foreign nations which seem to depend on us for leadership – especially nations located in the Middle East – where we desperately need to rebuild our credibility. And, of course, during the administration of GW Bush, there was absolutely NO LEADERSHIP regarding foreign governments at all. With the exception of Great Britain and a few minor nations, the Bush administration was busy destroying the “moral high ground” that the United States had enjoyed for the past 20 years or so. For example, despite his transgressions in Nicaraugua, even Ronald Reagan had a reasonable following in the international community. And George HW Bush had managed to wait until he had a widespread coalition prior to pushing Saddam out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War in 1991. Bill Clinton had been hailed as a hero around the world during the last few years of his Presidency. George W Bush nearly ruined ALL OF THAT!

Along comes Obama and you have people listening to him from all “corners” of the globe – with one exception – and I’m sure you can guess what that one exception is. You’re correct – THE REPUBLICAN PARTY! These guys are unbelievable. Obama could solve the economic problems left to him by GW, he could create peace in Iraq and Afganistan, he could capture Osama bin Laden, and I could go on – MY POINT – It wouldn’t matter what he did, you’d have these Republican thugs calling him the most egregious names I can think of. And, you wonder if they’re trying to incite some idiot as they did with the Doctor in Witchita. THESE GUYS HAVE TO BE STOPPED! I wish I could get that point across to President Obama. All he would have to do is encourage the investigations that are totally called for. There is a large number of Americans who still believe that GW and Dick didn’t do anything wrong – because they listen to and/or watch Fox “news.” And, these people are listening to “journalists” who they trust call Obama names that are unthinkable to me – even for someone with a genuine disagreement (like me) THIS IS A BIG PROBLEM.

First of all, their rhetoric isn’t that of the normal opposition party. They are trying, obviously, to rile up the fringe crazies in this nation. From one after another calling Obama a traitor, a socialist, a communist, a fascist, a racist, a President who’s making us “less safe,” and more. The other day I heard Rush Limbaugh say on his radio show (I REALLY HATE TO LISTEN TO THIS GUY, BUT I FEEL IT’S MY CIVIC DUTY TO AT LEAST KEEP UP ON HIS VILE RHETORIC IN A SMALL WAY) that “It’s really bad to be a white male in America right now.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? And, so far, I haven’t heard the outrage that comment should inspire – FROM ALL QUARTERS! The truth is that the Republican party is like the Country Club which was forced to allow in a couple token Blacks (hence Michael Steele and Judge Thomas) but in reality hate anyone of color. They can’t stand the idea of “submitting” to the authority of a Black man. More than hating the idea of another woman on the Supreme Court, having a Latina Woman makes it exponentially worse – to the point that they are making utter fools of themselves in public EVERY DAY.  And they are REALLY STRUGGLING to keep their racist beliefs covert.

I’m sure the moderate Republicans hope Sonia Sotomayor gets confirmed by the Senate soon so that these idiots get off the front pages of what’s left of the newspapers in this country and the highlights of the network news programs on TV.  They not only hate the idea of a Black President, but then, on top of that you have Sotomayor,  a Woman (Ok, I know that’s obvious) and to them, far worse, a Latina Woman.  These guys continue to marginalize themselves, and it appears that Obama is willing to just let them continue to do so. However, I will tell you why I disagree with his strategy – there are at least two good reasons I can think of right off the top of my head. First: It is highly likely that there will be some sort of crisis within the next year – either a downdraft of the economy, an attack of some sorts, or something along those lines. These Republicans are betting the farm on that happening and they view that as their only opportunity to get “back in the saddle” so to speak. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO SHUT UP ON THEIR OWN.  They need to be prosecuted for their misdeeds before their wish has a chance to come true.   Second: These guys keep coming back like a bad dream. If they are not put to rest, you can be guaranteed that some of them will be doing the same things we’re harping about again down the road. For example, it’s not good enough for President Obama to say “We no longer torture people.”  If we don’t hold them legally responsible for their actions, TRUST ME, this stuff will happen again!

If we don’t stop these Republicans in their tracks, they will be spewing their venom indefinitely and I don’t even want there to be a chance that I have to write about my government torturing people again. Also, I can virtually guarantee you that if they somehow get back into power, some of the subtle little Presidential directives that get overlooked during this time of economic crisis will come back to haunt us. The next time around they will have a much firmer grip on the ability of dissenters to speak their minds. Keep in mind that President Obama has NOT STOPPED THE DATA MINING OF OUR PHONE CALLS AND EMAILS. There are already countries around the world using the technology developed under Bush’s regime to stifle dissent in their countries by wiretapping massive numbers of phone calls and email messages. Remember George W Bush gave himself the authority to call just about any American citizen an “enemy combatant” and throw them into one of the secret prisons located who knows where and without the right of habeous corpus – essentially “throwing away the key.”

I’ve said this many times on this website that the only way to stop these thugs is through the courts. And the prosecutions MUST start right at the top. We all know that Bush and Cheney both authorized war crimes, because they admitted to as much right on national TV. I SAW BOTH OF THEM ADMIT TO THIS WITH MY OWN EYES. Cheney is guilty of so many crimes that he feels prompted to go on the offensive and enlist the services of Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Savage, and others (I really don’t know them all, because the only one I can manage to listen to for even a minute or so is Limbaugh because I make myself do it) in a major propoganda scheme to intimidate President Obama from pushing for investigations. I guess what Cheney and the Republicans are saying is that if there are investigations they will not go quietly. I SAY THAT’S EVEN BETTER! I’m disgusted with the lack of courage being shown by the Democratic Congress. And, as impressive as Obama has been on his foreign policy speeches and actions along with many of the domestic initiatives he’s put forth, to me he’s just as un-impressive in his timid response to these thugs.

I’m not sure if he thinks they will physically attack him if there are investigations, but I believe he’s more vulnerable by putting the investigations off. And just think what “clout” he would have in challenging the human rights abuses in other countries if he set the example that it is not tolerated in the US.  Everyone knows that our CIA has been acting like the Russian KGB for the past eight years (or possibly longer – read “Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein) and our leaders have authorized their behavior. For Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz (is she running for office? I’ve listened to a couple of her “rants” and she’s REALLY GETTING THE FACTS MIXED UP) to be claiming that waterboarding is not torture flies in the face of long standing legal principles and the “facts” as given by everyone I’ve heard talk about it who has experienced it. I guess the fact that we’ve prosecuted foreign troops AND OUR OWN TROOPS in the past for doing exactly that is lost on them. If Dick Cheney wants to defend the legality of Waterboarding, let him do it in front of a judge! President Obama can put an exclamation point on his own rhetoric from his trip first to Egypt and then to Auschwitz by demonstrating that we truly are a nation of laws and not men, and human rights violations in the United States of America – FOR ANY REASON – will not go unpunished!

It has finally sunk in to me that President Obama may have a “backdoor” strategy designed to “usher in” self-destruction for the “Limbaugh wing” of the Republican party. I really wasn’t intending to write about this tonight, in fact, I wasn’t intending to write at all, so hopefully I can REALLY keep this one short. I did notice as I logged in tonight, that this will be my 140th post. So, I will either have a bunch of “I told you so’s” down the road, or – more likely – like the “real” journalists do, I’ll have a bunch of inconsequential comments that mean nothing and nobody cares about. The main thing for me is that I have a place to “vent” as I suffer through 21st century politics in the United States of America. And, believe me, I’m thankful to be a citizen of this great nation – it’s just hard for me to handle the reality of where we have “gone” despite our high ideals, in basically my adult lifetime.

I think the reason MANY of the “Baby Boom” babies such as myself feel so indignant that our country chose the route of torture in the so-called “War against Terror” (which seems to be a misnomer in itself) is that we feel if our government tortures that means we condoned it. I have voted in every possible election I’ve been eligilble for since I turned 21 (the voter age in “my day”) in 1968. My first campaign ended in tragedy and disaster when Robert F Kennedy was assasinated by Sirhan Sirhan after the Californian primary of 1968. I WAS DEVASTATED! This, of course, came on the “heels” of his brother’s assassination and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. And, I think what has riled me the most about what’s taking place in today’s world – not investigating reminds me of what happened after all those assassinations. The idea, for example, that Sirhan Sirhan (with 4 $100 bills on his person – a lot of money in 1968) acted alone was absurd. But, to this day, I have no idea who he was in concert with (well, actually, I have my suspicians – but the federal government evidently didn’t waterboard Sirhan enough times to get the truth out of him). And the same goes for the assassinations of JFK and Dr. King. We just seem to let some of this stuff go.

When Ronald Reagan was President, members of his administration (many of the same people who are involved in the Bush transgressions) embarked on an illegal war of their own down in Nicaraugua. This led to the Iran/Contra scandal which was never fully investigated and those who were found guilty of crimes were all pardoned – a horrible precedent on the heals of the Watergate scandal and the pardons there as well. And, now we have the multi-scandals of the GW Bush administration and it looks like Deja Vu all over again – no investigations – or if any happen they will be toothless. And, President Obama is probably doing enough – including the aforementioned very subtle dressing down of the Republican “Right” to get re-elected. I can’t imagine enough Democrats Jumping ship based on the things I find repulsive to turn Obama into a one-term President. But, of course, the jury’s still out on that – polls can change overnight.

As I’ve said on many occasions on this site, I gave money to Obama during his campaign (I’m not giving anymore to him or the Democratic party until I see some guts regarding holding Bush and company accountable for their lawbreaking), and I like much of what he’s trying to accomplish. As I’m writing this he’s in the Middle East and I REALLY HOPE he makes a breakthrough on the Palestinian issue with the Israeli’s. I believe the combination of Obama/Clinton has the best chance for this to happen since the days of Jimmy Carter – the President I consider the best of my lifetime and, at the same time, the one who seems to be the popular one to “hate on” by most in the political realms – of course, most of these people continue to talk about Ronald Reagan as if he was some kind of saint – and, to me, Reagan was the beginning of the end as far as our economy was concerned and the cavalier attitude of many in his administration still prevails among members of the executive branch today.

The part I am very concerned about Obama, besides his reluctance to adhere to his oath to defend the constitution (that, of course, is a biggie!) is the fact I believe he has no intention, at this point, of getting our troops out of Iraq. He mentioned a few months ago that he had “changed” his timetable from 16 months to 19 months with the caveat that he’s leaving 50,000 “non-combat” troops there for another 13 months. Well, so far no one’s come home – we still have “pre-surge” levels of troops in Iraq with all the “Contractors” as well. According to Thomas Ricks who wrote both “Fiasco” and “The Gamble” – both insightful books on the Iraq occupation – our military leaders are intending for our troops to be in Iraq for the next 10 to 20 years. And, I believe that David Patreaus, no matter what you think of him, is a very persuasive man. And, it’s true that he did “change” the circumstances in Iraq during the “Surge.” But, to say the “Surge” worked requires one to totally dismiss the original objectives which were getting the Iraqi’s to work out their differences so that Sunni and Shia could govern together (did I forget to mention the Kurds?). None of that has happened. In fact, in my view, it’s just a matter of time until the violence starts to pick up again in Iraq.

In about a year Moqtada al Sadr will return from Iran as the Grand Ayatollah of Iraq with a following of millions. I expect something on the lines of what happened in Iran during the Carter years. Additionally, the so-called “Awakening” is essentially about 100,000 Sunni’s who have been armed to the “teeth” by Patreaus and the Americans, in an attempt (which proved very successful) to have Iraqi’s defeat the Al Qaeda in Iraq faction. The oil problem hasn’t been “solved.” Of course, at this point, it will never be solved according to the original wishes of GW and Dick Cheney – who, I’m sure will never admit that they went to war for oil, but even my sixth grade students, in research papers with no prompting, can figure this out. The point, the Iraq “conflict” is not over. They still have a lot of grievances to work through and, according to our military the only way to keep the country “calm” is to continue our presence until at least 2015 to maybe 2020. There may be a lot of Democrats who will be OK with that, but I’m not one of them.

Furthermore, you now have Patreaus as the head of “Centcommand” which I believe means the entire military operations in Iraq and Afganistan. Look for a continued presence of the US military in Afganistan for the forseeable future. President Obama has already authorized an additional 21,000 troops since he took office and I believe that number will increase. Patreaus recently went before Congress pleading for large increases to the budget for Afganistan and, while our own nation is reeling from the world-wide economic crisis, it looks to me as if we will continue spending hundreds of Billions each year in these two quagmires. It would be great if we could turn them into flourishing democracies – I guess – but, I really am worried about our own democracy. The people voted to get out of Iraq in 2006 and even more strongly in 2008. I will be very disappointed if I don’t see substantial numbers of our troops coming home from Iraq SOON! People say, “It’s the economy stupid” when it comes to politics – I just hope that Obama’s “base” doesn’t allow him to renig on his promise to bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq – and, I really hope he doesn’t get “sucked in” to an endless exercise in nation building in Afganistan.

If you’ve been to this site before you could be getting as sick of Dick Cheney as I am. I’d really rather write about something more significant, but I just feel so strongly that these Republicans need to be put out to pasture – PERMANENTLY – for the sake of our nation that I’ve got to keep writing. I mean these guys ran us all into the poor house (well, not all of us – those trillions that were hijacked from our economy had to go somewhere – and I’m sure if you’re reading this, you have a good idea who got the money – you guessed it, all the right wingers who have been clamoring for tax cuts for the past 30 years while they’ve been raping this economy for unbelievable amounts of money – it appears they are insatiable!), they got us involved in a seemingly endless unwinnable occupation in Iraq, they have virtually worn out our military (you know, in case their dream comes true that we would be attacked under Obama’s “watch” we are borderline defenseless), and they’ve indebted us up to our ears to our worst enemies (at least they should be our worst enemies – for anyone who’s not paying attention, almost all the 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia).

And now Cheney just won’t shut up. He’s creating a pile of lies that could only happen in America where you’ve got a public TV Station disguised as a news outlet (Fox) which continues to give Cheney a forum to make the pile deeper. Unfortunately, there’s a fair number of Americans who will listen and watch this garbage and “take it to the bank.” I work with a man who has a Master’s Degree and should know enough to double check his information, yet he buys this crap hook line and sinker – which just tells me there’s many more people who do the same thing. It’s like they can’t see the forest for the trees. This particular man is likely to lose his job due to the incompetence of the Bush administration and their eight year attack on our institutions (I really am hoping that he doesn’t lose his job, but it looks inevitable to me) yet he continues to speak as if Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly has a microphone imbedded in his system. For a public school teacher not to be able to see past their overt racism is a bit unnerving to me, but I’ve always thought at some point I could get him to see past their lying rhetoric. My point is that there are a lot of good Americans who are unwittingly falling for Cheney’s crap. And, it’s up to the Democrats and President Obama to do something about this.

President Obama doesn’t want to “look backward” because of the divisiveness it will cause. Well, EARTH TO OBAMA, “looking forward” is causing more divisiveness. Cheney and the others know they are guilty of war crimes. It’s like they’re daring us as a nation to do something about it. Cheney has admitted to more illegalities than anyone I’ve seen in my lifetime – at least in front of a national TV audience. And, how can the Justice Department and the President of the United States pretend that they aren’t noticing this. It’s unbelievable to me that we are even having this conversation – on more than one front. First, I can’t believe that the Bush administration lowered themselves to the level of torturers, illegal domestic wiretappers, CIA outers, and liars extraordinaire to get us stuck in this endless occupation. That, in itself, seems unbelievable to me.

Then you have the national tour by Cheney where every day he admits to another major crime as he continually tries to justify “all of the above.” Today he admitted (finally) that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11. He did mention the memo from Mohammed Atta that supposedly linked Hussein with Al Qaeda which was then proved to be a hoax. What he failed to say (and I was surprised that Keith Olberman didn’t know this) was that the memo in question was forged by the CIA on direct instructions that came right out of the Vice President’s office – according to a book written by Ron Suskind (I can’t remember the title off hand, and it’s one of the books I’ve taken to school for my workmates which has caused them to walk the other way when they see me coming, because the reality of what our government has done is too depressing to them to take the chance that I might talk to them about it – they’re all teachers and focused on teaching children not solving national problems). Cheney is the most egregious liar I’ve ever seen. George Bush is pretty adept at lying, but he’s no match for Cheney. Actually, Bush is coming out from under his “rock” and starting to echo some of Cheney’s lies, so I might have to alter this point in the near future. Remember, Bush’s lawyer was none other than Alberto Gonzales – who committed perjury more times than any person I’ve seen, at least on national TV (these guys aren’t shy – or proud), in my lifetime.

As disgusting as all of that is, probably the worst part of all this is the lack of courage by the Democrats in calling a “halt” to things that are so wrong. There shouldn’t be a second thought about standing tall against it. I don’t think I will ever be able to forgive Nancy Pelosi for taking “Impeachment off the table.” How does one in her position do that? If you take an oath to defend the constitution, and the remedy for executives in the government committing “high crimes and misdemeanors” is impeachment, I just don’t get the rationale that one person gets to over-ride a document which has been the backbone of this nation for well over 200 years (in fact, the way to destroy that document is to either not enforce it, or like what is happening in today’s Washington DC – selectively enforce it). And, now you have President Obama and his Attorney General looking the other way as members of the previous administration admit to crimes as harsh as war crimes – on a daily basis. I guess President Obama’s thinking goes something like “If I get the economy straightened out, people will forget about all this torture stuff and I’ll get re-elected” – which may be true, but it will happen without my vote.

Here’s the problem with that kind of thinking. There are going to be more recessions, the economy goes up and down like a roller coaster and will continue to do so, no matter how it comes out of this recession/depression. The only thing that is going to endure from what is happening on the national scene today is the legal crisis which seems to be secondary to our President. We will continue to be at odds with the Muslim world as long as we leave the impression that we are condoning the torture which took place at Abu Ghraib, GITMO, and the other secret prisons around the world. And, it would be those who want us to get attacked again who would be happy with an endless conflict with the Muslims in this world. Jesse Ventura surmised (and I’m thinking correctly) that the reason nothing is happening in the accountability phase of our torture debate is because the Democrats are culpible. Now, I’m thinking if any Democrats are culpible it would be Pelosi and maybe Senator Rockefeller (the guy who caved on the FISA legislation) and for anyone who thinks I’m totally partisan – if they’re guilty of something regarding the torture issue, LET IT BE KNOWN! If we don’t throw the book at the Bush administration (and anyone else involved in their shenanigans) our nation will pay the price for that for the indefinite future. THE REASON I KEEP HARPING ON THIS ISSUE, IS BECAUSE IT’S SO IMPORTANT!

More and more people on the national scene are beginning to come around on this issue. The other day I listened to General Ricardo Sanchez, the General who was in charge in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib scandal say essentially the same thing I’ve been saying for months. THERE MUST BE AN INVESTIGATION – he called it a truth commission. And, he said that the issue of accountability should be determined by the findings of the commission – nothing, including prosecuting the guilty parties, should be “off the table.” After the 2006 elections it was almost as frustrating for me to listen to Pelosi defend her “Impeachment is off the table” stance as it was to persevere during the final years of the Bush administration. And, it’s getting REALLY FRUSTRATING listening to Obama saying essentially the same thing about prosecuting war criminals. You have to wonder if the Republicans have “something” on the Democrats that “keeps them in line.” I know there is one thing I can agree with Newt Gingrich on (although our reasons are totally different) – I say that if there are not agressive hearings in the house regarding the torture, the dismissed justice department attorneys, the ignored subpoenas, the illegal wiretapping, the outed CIA agent, the lying us into war, and Henry Paulsen’s role in the TARP bailouts (to list a few of the outrageous acts of the Bush administration) – if she doesn’t think these things are important enough “to get to the bottom of them” – then just as Gingrich said – NANCY PELOSI SHOULD RESIGN AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE!

I’ll end tonights diatribe by saying I’m not giving President Obama or Attorney General Holder a pass here either – It’s just that I’ve gone way over my limit already tonight. Their hesitancy to uphold our laws is unbelievable to me as well. And, I’m not trying to be totally negative – but, it’s been almost 6 months since Obama took over and as far as I can tell – NOT ONE BRIGADE HAS COME HOME FROM IRAQ. I’ll be speaking more to that issue soon, but if you read Thomas Ricks book “The Gamble,” and you look at what’s happening regarding the two wars which have made their way off the front pages of the news, I think you’ll agree that we are not coming home from Iraq anytime soon and Obama has bought into the “surge” and is applying the same “strategy” to Afganistan – so the reality is that our troops are going to be stuck in those two places indefinitely and we will remain vulnerable to the REAL THREATS that exist in Pakistan, North Korea, and Gaza. More to come on all that later …………..

There’s a lot to like about how President Obama is running his administration. I watched today as General Motors did the almost unthinkable not too long ago, but what was today widely expected, and declared bankruptcy. General Motors is a victim of their own short sightedness and the Bush administration’s horrific lack of governing skills – from top to bottom. It is interesting watching the contrast between how Obama’s administration is dealing with the “bailout” and how Bush’s did. As is all too painful to remember George W Bush was almost invisible in the last days of his Presidency as the country was falling apart all around us. His approach to “bailouts” was to hand money over to large corporations and hope that they would do something responsible with the money. Of course, these were the same corporations who had squandered trillions in a show of incredible greed and then paid themselves lush bonuses because they were all too important to “let go.”

Well, President Obama fired the CEO of General Motors, and when all is said and done with their restructuring, hopefully we will have an auto maker which will build cars that the American people can afford to buy and afford to drive – en masse. The plan, as I read it, was to create a company that can make money with a sales volume of somewhere approaching 60% of what it would take to make the pre-bankruptcy General Motors profitable. A leaner and hopefully “greener” corporation. The United Auto Workers were compelled to take serious cutbacks to make this plan workable and my hope is that the company will come out of bankruptcy stronger and employing as many American workers as possible. And the exciting part of this, I am surmizing, are the empty factories they are closing and the eager workforce which will not be a part of the “new” General Motors. I think that is where President Obama will make his mark – one way or the other – as history looks back on this troubled time.

I listened to Michael Moore on TV tonight making some superb suggestions of what “might be” regarding this restructuring. He harkened back to World War II days when, under FDR, many of the manufacturing facilities of the Detroit auto makers were “switched” to other needs – from airplane engines to I can’t remember what else – but the changeover was done in record time. He also pointed out the rationale behind using government money that might be going to retrain the laid off workers to start up some of these factories producing products that would enhance the future of this nation as we try to pull ourselves out of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and at the same time try to reduce our need for OIL! For example, these factories could be making buses and light rail trains, wind turbines, and I’m sure the list would exceed the dollars necessary to make the transition from cars and trucks that are no longer practical in the U.S. to products that will free us from our dependence on foriegn oil. If we can throw over a trillion dollars at the Wall Street banks, the same banks which helped to create this crisis – we can come up with the money necessary to change the direction of our nation to one that depends less and less on imported oil.

I was talking to a friend of mine who has been working in a steel plant for approaching 20 years and is in danger of being jobless. He’s an engineer and he’s brilliant – you know, one of those guys you get around who seem to be able to build and or fix ANYTHING (he’s also a Republican – what I call the good Republicans who are being left “on the island,” so to speak, by the present Republican party). There are more and more people like my friend looking for work – these are extremely talented and creative individuals. During our conversation he commented on the need to build an electric grid to move the electricity that can be harnessed through wind generators in the Columbia gorge (ie T Boone Pickens). I have read where bringing our “infrastructure” up to code would take approximately 2.2 trillion dollars. Changing the way we move ourselves and the products we use around would take a substantial investment, but in the long run we would FINALLY be doing something sensible for our children and grandchildren – and this change would create MILLIONS of good paying jobs. For the past 25 years we have not only been borrowing as much money as we can as a nation we’ve been mortgaging the future of our children on our greedy backs by using all the good roads, bridges, and buildings built by our grandparents and not repairing or replacing them as needed. WE NOW HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO CHANGE ALL THAT!

I found it very interesting and encouraging that the Stock Market went up over 3% on the day General Motors declared bankruptcy. Considering some people have estimated as many as 3 million jobs are on the line in saving GM, this – to me – showed how shrewed and well thought out this process has been by the Obamal administration. Everyone seems to see the potential benefit from doing this “right” – well, everyone except …….. you guessed it – THE REPUBLICANS. As I’ve stated over and over on this site – from the first day President Obama was elected, let alone his first official day in office, the Republicans have not been “on board” and are not going to be “on board” with ANYTHING OBAMA DOES. They have taken the huge gamble which almost seems to include them hoping for something bad to happen that they are going to fight everything – NO MATTER WHAT. The de-facto leader of the party – Rush Limbaugh (I can’t believe I’m even writing this – but it’s true) – has openly on numerous occasions (that I’ve heard with my own ears) said: “I hope Obama fails.” There are some exciting things happening, and it would be really nice to be having some positive input from the “Right” – somewhere besides the White House – but these Republicans are going to either destroy their own party or cheer for the destruction of our nation. It seems the damage done during the Bush years wasn’t enough, they want to take us totally into the “tank.”

What is curious about their position is they have Dick Cheney going around defending all the blunders of the Bush administration as if they “kept us safe.” Today, I heard him blame the 9/11 attacks on Richard Clarke who was one of the people from the Clinton administration urging those in the Bush administration to take Osama Bin Laden seriously. This is the Dick Cheney who, along with Condoleeza Rice, ignored one memo after another from the intelligence community about an imminent attack. He helped create a defense department under Donald Rumsfeld (Rumsfeld was very certainly “Cheney’s man”) that was at odds with the CIA and the National Security agency creating a void where there should have been close intercommunication which would have uncovered the 9/11 attacks well before the planes ever got off of the ground. Dick Cheney is busy trying to rewrite history in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary of virtually everything he says. IT WON’T WORK IN THE LONG TERM, and his only hope in the short term is that we have a television network (Fox “news”) which is no more than an arm of the right wing of the Republican party. The people on this network are unbelievable (and despicable) to me. I can’t imagine anyone who would call themselves a “journalist” and having any integrity at all, being an extension of a political party. In my mind, some of these guys border on traitors (they talk about sedition, they go along with the right wing rhetoric – no questions asked, and they even participate in the spurilous hate machine attacking the President of the United States).

What is really ironic to me concerning the recent debate has been the concerted effort of the right wing (in concert with Fox) to label the new Supreme Court nominee as a racist. OK, if you can’t see the irony in Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and these others who thought “Barack the Majic Negro” was a funny takeoff of an old song calling anyone a racist, then I would feel safe in saying that you’ve not been paying much attention to American politics of the past few years (probably 20+ years would be more appropriate). These guys will say anything at anytime without the slightest worry regarding the truthfulness of their remarks. That’s because they are backed by a (fortunately shrinking) base of people who question nothing that comes from their mouths. I know this because I have friends who I can’t even talk to about politics anymore because they spew the identical garbage – as if it came out of Rush’s mouth himself – and will defend it to the “death” even if you provide proof that they’ve been listening to lies. For some reason there’s a significant number of Americans who are going to believe what these right wing liars spew out no matter what. The really scary part of all this is that it appears to me that even the Democrats are quaking in their boots about taking these Republicans on – STRAIGHT UP!

I mean, if the only thing that’s going to prevent us, as a nation, from coming out of this financial crisis stronger and FINALLY headed in a direction which will “divorce” us from the Saudi Oil barons and the Chinese bankers is the Republican naysayers – WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? Even Obama seems to feel a need to placate these thugs. There are more and more sensible leaders coming out each day encouraging the Democrats to move forward without a single Republican vote (you got it – SCREW EM!), and more importantly, to “look backward” and investigate the Bush administration’s lawbreaking – prosecuting where appropriate – we’re all just waiting for the Democratic party – AND THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION – to get “on board.” Despite all the good Obama is doing, should he remain stubborn about “looking backward” I will never vote for him again. I am totally encouraged by much of what he’s proposing, but I just don’t “get” the lack of will in enforcing our laws and constitution. To me, looking the other way is not an option. The difference in dealing with the bailout between the Bush administration (no strings attached) and the Obama administration (restructuring GM) is stark – in contrast to how both administrations seem to think that high government officials are above the law. Investigating the Bush administration might be all it takes to shut these Republicans up. The national discourse can be focused on all the exciting opportunities in front of us once Dick Cheney and his co-conspirators are in jail!