The word ‘convoluted’ comes to my mind as I sit on the sidelines watching republicans attempt to ruin the government of the United States of America – all the while brainwashing good working class folk into voting for their diabolical scheme to SQUEEZE every possible cent from America’s taxpayers into the pockets of their corporate brethren.  Why, you might ask, would that word come to mind.  Well, the simple reality is that the only realistic way to stop these authoriatarian “robber barrons” – to use a term from one of America’s “previous lives” which these republicans are attempting to recreate – is to rely on the democrats.  I listen to people like Randi Rhodes cheering on President Obama and I really want to be “on board,” but, I’m continually hesitant because I’m just fed up with voting for the best of two bad alternatives.  And, I really hate to put Obama in the bad alternative category – because he’s clearly the BEST alternative we will have in the next election – and, he’s shown himself to be enough the “consummate politician that with a super majority in congress maybe – the next time – he could actually implement “the change we can believe in.”  Unfortunately, Rhodes is carrying the “water” for Obama as the right wing “talkers” carry the water for their compatriats, and for me it’s all a bit dizzying.

Here’s where the word ‘convoluted’ really took center stage for me.  The morning I was on my way to work and heard on the news that John Edwards had been indicted on charges of illegal use of campaign funds my first thought was, “Really?”  Now, I’m not for a second going to defend Edwards – his actions in the 2008 campaign were deplorable.  In my mind, he represents all that is bad about politics – people get caught up in the celebrity of it and they TOTALLY lose track of what is “RIGHT AND WRONG.”  I’m not judging Edwards at all regarding the charges levied against him, what bothered me about what he did is that I totally believe he’d have carried his “secret” right into the presidential campaign had he won the nomination from the democrats.  That’s the one way we could have ended up with someone like a Sarah Palin in national office!  Ughhh!  However, here’s what’s so wrong with what’s going on in our government today. 

It was reported that the charges against Edwards were the result of a two year investigation regarding his use of campaign funds spent to cover up the affair he was having while stumping for the presidential nomination.  Yes, that’s bad!  But, keep in mind, this investigation is coming from the same Obama administration that didn’t lift a finger to investigate George W Bush and Dick Cheney, along with all the other lawless members of their administration – this after BOTH Bush and Cheney have admitted MORE THAN ONCE, admissions that I have seen with my own eyes on national TV during interviews, that they AUTHORIZED waterboarding.  I saw these words, “I’d do it again,” come right out of the mouth of George W Bush (and, believe me, thanks to the tepid “looking forward and not back” excuse for the inexcusable by Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, the next republican president is likely to “do it again”).  Yet, we’re still investigating extra-marital affairs of democratic politicians – it doesn’t seem to matter who’s controlling the White House.  Does anyone besides me find this a bit unnerving?  I’ve gone over the KNOWN violations of the Bush administration many times on this site – there is NO QUESTION they were committing MULTIPLE crimes while in office – yet, no investigations!  Eric Holder, Obama’s (corporate) Attorney General is aggressively investigating Julian Assange for “leaking” the TRUTH about America’s foreign policy via WikiLeaks and now John Edwards for trying to hide his affair from his wife who was suffering from cancer.

Honestly, when I found out what Edwards was doing, I thought he should have been a member of the republican party.  Their “front runner” for the 2012 nomination (well, self annointed front runner) Newt Gingrich set the bar high on this form of moral depravity (don’t you just love how people like Edwards AND Gingrich can make such a moving case regarding “family values”) by informing his (Gingrich’s) cancer stricken wife that he was divorcing her for his “lover” while his wife was dying in the hospital – then, of course, he gave her no financial support after she was released.  Edwards wasn’t quite as bad, but we’re now “splitting hairs.”  Speaking of ‘holier than now republicans’ I just finished a book called “Master of War” about Eric Prince and his private militia.  Prince is also a good “God fearing republican, family values man.”  Of course, that puts him into almost the same category as Gingrich.  In fact, he may have “one upped Gingrich” when he brought his PREGNANT girfriend to his wife’s funeral, who had died of cancer!

So, evidently we’ll be “looking back” at the affair of John Edwards with the case brought by Obama’s Attorney General who claimed that they were going to “look forward and not back” once they took office (evidently, that must be regarding republican misdeeds).  Of course, I’ve explained on many occasions that using the Obama/Holder logic there would never be another prosecution of a crime in America.  The TRUTH is that you MUST “look back” to prosecute criminals because the crime has to be committed BEFORE it can be investigated and prosecuted.  In reality what Obama and Holder have told America – and more importantly the republican obstructionists in the Congress – is that in America we don’t prosecute members of the Executive branch of government or republicans like Eric Cantor (who violated the Logan Act – a felony).  I’m guessing it’s kind of like how doctors and lawyers work – they won’t testify against each other because of the saying “there but for the grace of God goes I.”  Clearly, the republicans have been led to believe there are no boundaries on what they can do.  I’ve said on several occasions on this website that Obama/Holder’s decision to pardon the Bush/Cheney administration – over the “long haul” – will ultimately be viewed as a blunder of historically MAJOR proportions.

We’re seeing the results of this EVERY day now as the republicans try to virtually run our government into bankruptcy.  They would prefer that the government FAIL than for a Black president to succeed.  I’ve heard one pundit after another “tiptoe” around the reality that’s going on with the “right wing” of the republican party – but, at some point they are going to have to “tell it like it is.”  When our government defaults, it will be devestating for MOST Americans, and I surely hope that would be enough for the general public to say they’ve had enough of republicans.  However, considering the DISASTER Bush/Cheney left Obama, it should be clear to almost anyone that the American public are either quick to forgive or STUPID!  I mean, how could they be so dumb as to put republicans in control of congress only two years after FINALLY getting Bush/Cheney out of there?  Well, as I said the first day I heard Obama claim he was going to “look forward instead of back,” President Obama’s decision to avoid the confrontation that was warranted with the republican party once he took office was like a HUGE “green light” to the people like Rush Limbaugh, Roger Ailes, etc.  The ONLY real opposition to the arrogant lies that republicans have proved themselves to be comfortable with deluging the American public with would have been public investigations and, where appropriate, prosecutions of the Bush/Cheney regime.

Here’s a snapshot of what President Obama and Attorney General Holder indirectly said was acceptable government practice:  TORTURE, lying to congress (Mega lying), outing a CIA agent as retribution for someone telling the TRUTH, politicizing the Justice Department, violating the 4th amendment of the constitution regarding the right to privacy, violating the FISA law (a felony) with warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, lying the United States into war, encouraging the ignoring of regulations in government departments – leading to mining and oil-spill disasters, No-bid (cronie) contracts in Iraq and Afganistan with BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars unaccounted for, collusion with the big banks prior to the TARP “bailout,” and war profiteering (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, and others cashing in BIG on the Iraq and Afghanistan fiascos), just to name a few areas that should have been investigated.  Since Obama took office we’ve had Eric Cantor, at the time the House minority “whip” (as stated above) violating the Logan Act by making promises to the Israeli Prime Minister that the republcans would support him (the Israili PM) in any conflict with the Obama administration.  None of this brought a response from the Obama Justice Department, but rest assured we’re going to spend MILLIONS finding out if John Edwards misused campaign finance funds to hide his mistress from his cancer stricken wife!

Forgive me, but this all is just too much for me.  I really DO want President Obama to succeed – but, I don’t want the same culture of corruption to dominate Washington DC that I thought we were electing him to “change.”  The other day Rhodes was listing all the promises that Obama has “kept,” some of which was wishful thinking from my standpoint.  But, no one wants to talk about the effect of his looking the other way at the crimes of the Bush/Cheney administration, no one wants to talk about how our troops (and a whole lot of “contractors”) are still in Iraq or that they are now saying America is leaving Afghanistan in 2014 – THAT’S THREE MORE YEARS!  And, no one wants to talk about how President Obama is NOT reversing the power grab made by the Bush administration regarding excessive executive power.  Just like our constitutional rights, it is easier to lose the “checks” on the executive branch than to regain them once someone has stepped over the line – as did Bush/Cheney.

Those of us who would love to see America honor those who fought and died to create the greatest middle class the world has ever seen, I believe, expected President Obama to be agressively leading the “counter attack” to the “trickle down” assault we’ve endured since the days of Ronald Reagan.  Republicans continue to bandy about his name as if he was some kind of great standard bearer – and, I suppose, for those who hate unions, who hate the social safety net created by the “New Deal” and “Great Society” Reagan was a standard bearer.  However, I continue to believe that the republicans have become masters at manipulating the media, they’ve learned how to control the message and divert the attention of America’s working class voters from the REAL issues, and they are once again close to gaining a stranglehold on the government they profess to HATE.  Why would they want to control something they HATE?  Well, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that, as Grover Norquist stated, they want to “starve it.”  And, the money from the taxpayers is being funneled into the pockets of the republican benefactors.  I’ve been pointing out that America’s REAL war is the internal “war” being “fought” between the forces on the “right” and the “left” right here at home.  An example of why I’m so apprehensive with the present democrats representing ME in this fight:  just the other day I heard that President Obama’s head of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) was agreeing with a  republican request to allow the federal “fairness doctrine” to OFFICIALLY become a thing of the past.

I believe a large part of the repubican conspiracy to gain their “permanent republican ‘majority'” was taking control of America’s airwaves (you know it as the “liberal media”).  Reagan himself essentially ordered the “fairness doctrine” to be “shelved” and since then we’ve seen the rise of the Limbaugh’s, the Hannity’s, the Beck’s, etc. all due to the control gained by right wing forces of the broadcasting licenses AND since Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996.  My point here is that the democrats just keep going along with these republicans and we see the results EVERY DAY on “Main Street,” yet the feeling of powerlessnes is growing.  I guess the real question that continues to BURN inside of me  after watching President Obama cave on the”Public Option,” NOT getting us out of Iraq in 16 months, extending the “Bush Tax Cuts,” failing to EVEN investigate the “Bush Crime family,” and now simply eliminating any hope for the return of the “fairness doctrine,” all of this while KNOWING the republicans are DEAD SET on destroying Medicare and Medicaid and turning the Social Security trust fund toward Wall Street would be;  Is the democratic party too corrupt to stand up and STOP this republican assault on America’s middle class?