Bush & Company

What do Republicans hate and fear (besides Barack Obama)? Democrats, Socialists, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, not to mention Hillary and Bill; even more, Sarah Palin, who almost certainly has the hubris and pretension to run for president.

Although through over-exposure, her popularity may dwindle, they foresee a split in their party if nominated. If in the unlikely happenstance she should win, all of us will be in very deep trouble.

Most dreaded in their lexicon,
The "D" word is the bugaboo;
But dreaded is the "S" word, too,
And makes the Tan Man turn quite wan.

Then there's Reid and Pelosi, who
Are certainly not on a par
With swiftly rising tea bag star
Ms. Palin, more frightening by far.

Competitors will have a fit
When agonizing millions spent
Could make Ms. Sarah president---
No Gingrich, Huckabee or Mitt?

Their party permanently split?
As each exultant Democrat
Is betting she's toss in her hat,
In the belief that to compete

With our Barack would mean defeat,
Which surely must be true, although,

In politics, you never know. . .

The untouchable Dick Cheney (along with his constant companion, the Halliburton company) enjoys, it seems, perpetual immunity from penalty for his misdeeds, both past and continuing.
What irony, if a foreign country, like Spain or Nigeria, causes his downfall. . .If only. . .

No matter what he does or did,
It makes no difference, God forbid
The former veep be put upon,
So rather, he goes blithely on.

Just how presumptuous they are
Determines how impune they are.

Tea Partier Sarah Palin (clubber of fish and murderess of moose) has a knack for self-promotion, but lacks other assets like regard for the truth and the character that her talents would enhance. Her Republican opponents for the 2012 presidential nomination, all linked to the Tea Party movement (so far, Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich and Pawlenty) lack both her baggage, which she turns to her advantage, and her own packaged brand of female freshness and allure.

Yes, Sarah is one of a kind,
Another pol who pays no mind
To what is false and what is fact,
But free style is part of her act,

Against whom so few can contest;
Quite simply, she's the very best
And has the necessary props
For starring in her photo ops,

What other hopefuls don't possess;
The most they have is pitifully less.
They may recall that she's been known
Even her mentor to betray;

You're in the Sarah Palin zone---
Look out, boys, don't get in her way. . .

Never satisfactorily resolved one way or the other, it remains in limbo whether or not Senator John McCain was actually eligible for the US presidency, having been born in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father, a US naval officer, was stationed. At any rate, Senator McCain chose to run.

Earlier would-be presidents George Romney and Barry Goldwater, as well as 21st president Chester A. Arthur, had found themselves in the same circumstance.

The Birthplace of President Obama in 1961, however, questioned over and over, has been proven incontestably to be Honolulu. Hawaii, a US territory since July 7, 1898,
was created a state on August 21, 1959.

The mission of the Right is plain---
They've vowed, though it may be in vain,
Against the president to preach,
Investigate and then impeach.

What is it that they have in mind?
What do they expect to find?
That he's a Socialist out to throw
Cold water on our status quo?

That he's a heathen Muslim man,
Emerged from some exotic clan?
That he's an alien from the wild,
Not born a real American child?

Exactly what would they have done
If Senator McCain had won?
We know that they would never scorn
That president, though Panama born!

The Grand Old Party of Lincoln, no longer the party that Lincoln knew, based on its core principle that government must be small and nonintrusive on the individual, has increasingly become the party of the private sector. Exploiting the old chestnut of untenable cost, Far Rightests preach that government must not be held responsible for the security of its people; instead, that onus must be left to the whims of Wall Street, while funding for medical research, endangered species and wildlife and other optional initiatives to elaborate events hosted by the very wealthy at their fancy.

Although government is the livelihood and claim to fame of the powerful lawmakers, the source of their health insurance and financial security for life, even when voted out or retired, Right Wingers continuously push to undo the very benefits for their constituents that they themselves receive. (Why can't those, like the lachrymose house minority leader John Boehner, remembering his own financially deficient years, identify with others now in similar circumstances?)

They would leave Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration to the vagaries of the financial sector. George W. Bush said on October 21, 2010, that he should have privatized Social Security while in office. They would roll back the health care reform law, privatize public education and deregulate all corporate activity. They are fighting a raise on the already unsurvivable minimum wage. They would impede the extension of unemployment benefits. They would eliminate funding for National Public Radio and quell the voice of all but coservative opinions. They've enabled outsourcing of jobs and manufacturing overseas and in the last three elections and recent midterms finagled to depress the Democratic vote.

Former Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson, a spokesperson for reverse mortgaging, in praising it, describes it correctly as "government insured." Where is the consistency?

Where is the consistency in any GOP position? Where the common sense? Where the concern for country over party, lobbyist financial gifts and personal reelection?

Where is the humanity?

What do they think a government's for?
To keep things as they were before,
Then screw the vets, the sick, the poor
And waste the wild and foul the air

And shift responsibility
For all good works to charity,
While programs that were meant to care
For all those not a billionaire,

Impractical and altruistic,
So costly and so socialistic,
Dismantle and without remorse,
Dispatch to Wall Street's rocky course

And make no effort to appease
Those whose jobs were shipped overseas
Nor ever could become disloyal
To all that benefits Big Oil.

The NRA they'll always woo
(Guns don't kill, only people do)
And making sure to emphasize
They'll never, never compromise.

The opposition derailed in shame,
Made to take whatever blame,
At last, the very best thing still---
A single party on The Hill.

Victorious, the GOP,
With CEOs ruling DC,
Who're not for peace but waging war.
That's what they think a government's for.

Despite humanizing anecdotes and glossing over of negative initiatives, oversights and omissions in the George W. Bush memoir, DECISION POINTS, just released, ghost-written by Christopher Michel, Mr. Bush's former speechwriter, the essentials of the Bush tenure must not be forgotten.

Mr. Bush continues to defend his war in Iraq.

The previous president told Matt Lauer shortly before publication that he is "a contented man." His regrets appear to be minor.

Does this suggest some important lack in his psyche and character?

Do Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska, former vice-presidential candidate, TV star and perhaps 2012 presidential candidate and U. S. Senate hopeful from Delaware, Christine O'Donnell, really believe what they say?

Or are they deliberately spouting nonsense directed solely at their credulous selective audiences, caring not at all about much of the country's mockery? Are they that determined to be Washington bound?

Or are they simply what they seem?

More often than we'd like is seen
The Senate candidate Christine
Who clearly has become so like
Her Sarah Palin lookalike.

The Sarah suit, the face, the hair,
They make a nearly matching pair
(Though one's a bit more off the wall
And may be headed for a fall).

While disinformed, both still compete,
Complaining others are elite.
God talks to both and they believe
That life began with Adam and Eve.

What's more, rape victims must forbear
When great with child, that child to bear.
Each is the other's counterpart;
Between them, one brain and one heart.

The smart among us will admit---
For Washington they're both unfit.

.

Some Democrats have become impatient with the president's reforms, unwilling to wait for them to take hold, unappreciative of his incredible accomplishments (including health care, Wall Street and fuel efficiency standards reforms, equal pay for women, saving the auto industry and its jobs, extending unemployment benefits, stopping the ban on stem cell research) despite continuous obstruction by Republicans in Congress. Their disloyalty and shortsightedness are egregious. They're disregarding what they have in the president they so enthusiastically elected. The midterms are a referendum on Barack Obama.

Some Democrats and independents, listless and hopeless, plan to skip the midterms; Republicans always turn out in mass.

The electorate at large, weary of a hostile economy, the continuing greed of Wall Street and the national banks, in some cases, of their own joblessness, are determined to oust any incumbents and reject candidates with familiar names.

Connecticut is in peril of electing Republican Linda McMahon (a $50 million campaign) former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, an abhorrent industry that causes injury and even death, to the U.S. Senate, rather than 20-year veteran State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, well-known for battling Big Tobacco, Big Insurance, Big Energy and Oil.

Other Republican candidates, particularly those allied with the splintering Tea Party movement, derived from the Religious Right, are alarmingly mendacious, irrational and inhumane.

Electing a Republican majority to Congress means frenetic crusades to repeal Obama's laws, privatize Social Security and Medicare and further assault the environment. The Supreme Court 5 to 4 decision allowing corporations limitless financing of political campaigns ensures, lacking sufficient Democratic votes, a policy of survival of the fittest---perpetuating contempt for the unfortunate; total corporate rule and domination by the 2% economic elite, a rule likely producing yet another war.

Some Democrats have become impatient with the president's reforms, unwilling to wait for them to take hold, unappreciative of his incredible accomplishments (including health care, Wall Street and fuel efficiency standards reforms, equal pay for women, saving the auto industry and its jobs, extending unemployment benefits, stopping the ban on stem cell research) despite continuous obstruction by Republicans in Congress. Their disloyalty and shortsightedness are egregious. They're disregarding what they have in the president they so enthusiastically elected. The midterms are a referendum on Barack Obama.

Some Democrats and independents, listless and hopeless, plan to skip the midterms; Republicans always turn out in mass.

The electorate at large, weary of a hostile economy, the continuing greed of Wall Street and the national banks, in some cases, of their own joblessness, are determined to oust any incumbents and reject candidates with familiar names.

Connecticut is in peril of electing Republican Linda McMahon (a $50 million campaign) former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, an abhorrent industry that causes injury and even death, to the U.S. Senate, rather than 20-year veteran State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, well-known for battling Big Tobacco, Big Insurance, Big Energy and Oil.

Other Republican candidates, particularly those allied with the splintering Tea Party movement, derived from the Religious Right, are alarmingly mendacious, irrational and inhumane.

Electing a Republican majority to Congress means frenetic crusades to repeal Obama's laws, privatize Social Security and Medicare and further assault the environment. The Supreme Court 5 to 4 decision allowing corporations limitless financing of political campaigns ensures, lacking sufficient Democratic votes, a policy of survival of the fittest---perpetuating contempt for the unfortunate; total corporate rule and domination by the 2% economic elite, a rule likely producing yet another war.

Those willing to help in the effort to save wildlife caught in the BP Gulf Coast oil spill may mail any of the following items to the coast:

Rubber gloves (as for dishwashing, any size)
Surgical or examination gloves (any size) (local vets may be willing to donate)
Paper towels
Towels (any size)
Rags
Soft brushes (as for babies' hair)

Send these items to the following:
Patti Hall, Director
Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo
1204 Gulf Shores Parkway
Gulf Shores, AL
36542

Hand-held GPS Units
Cheap digital cameras

Send these items to the following:
Casi Callaway, Director
Mobile Baykeeper
300 Dauphin Street
Suite 200
Mobile, AL
36602

These supplies are sorely needed and will make a difference.
Your donation could save a wildlife victim of the spill.

Those willing to help in the effort to save wildlife caught in the BP Gulf Coast oil spill may mail any of the following items to the coast:

Rubber gloves (as for dishwashing, any size)
Surgical or examination gloves (any size) (local vets may be willing to donate)
Paper towels
Towels (any size)
Rags
Soft brushes (as for babies' hair)

Send these items to the following:
Patti Hall, Director
Alabama Gulf Coast Zoo
1204 Gulf Shores Parkway
Gulf Shores, AL
36542

Hand-held GPS Units
Cheap digital cameras

Send these items to the following:
Casi Callaway, Director
Mobile Baykeeper
300 Dauphin Street
Suite 200
Mobile, AL
36602

These supplies are sorely needed and will make a difference.
Your donation could save a wildlife victim of the spill.

It's finally happened. Two events have struck stunning and seemingly insoluble blows to our already weakened democracy, January 19 and 21, 2010, respectively: the special election in Massachusetts to fill the Senate seat vacated by fighting liberal Ted Kennedy won by ultra-conservative Scott Brown and the 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision to uncap the limit on campaign contributions.

The former prevents Democrats in the House from sending a modified health care reform bill to the Senate, thus obliging them to pass the diluted but better-than-nothing Senate bill for the president to sign into law, one that can be improved upon later.

The latter will negatively affect every current and future issue---including global warming, wildlife, the national parks, outsourcing and health care reform---to be voted on by lawmakers, allowing corporations, including foreign companies abroad, to use their endless funds to lure and intimidate candidates and manipulate elections.

Not above the politicall fray, as the nation's highest court is expected to be, while erroneously applying the First Amendment, the five nonimpartial conservative justices are no better than bullies and thugs, daring any individual or group to cross them, expressly predetermining the consequences of their vote, thereby casting to the errant winds common sense and justice for the many. In the president's words, the decision is "a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington. . ."

There are possible solutions, if the uncorrupted and truly civic-minded members of the legislative branch have the brain power, patience and fortitude to set them in motion.

(We can't expect the likes of senators Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh who, with their spouses Hadassah and Susan, have mightily profited from their strong pharma/insurance industry affiliations or former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, also with ties to the private health insurance business and whose wife Linda is a high-powered Washington corporate lobbyist, to participate in any rectifying process.) What has finally been achieved by aggravated debate and negotiation must be enacted so that health care reform can begin. The president's comments on this subject in his January 27 State of the Union address suggest an unshakable determination similar to that of past presidents FDR and LBJ, whose Social Security and Medicare acts, feared by many as socialist, are of such benefit to Americans today.

Democrats Sen.. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, anticipating the Court's 5 to 4 vote, have been working out possible ways to neutralize it: a ban on corporate political ads; stricter rules on campaigns and outside groups working together; and shareholder approval of political spending. Democrat Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida is urging Americans to sign his petition, saveourdemocracy.org.

Without serious redress of these unfortunate circumstances, our United States of America, already halfway there, will surely be transformed into the Corporate States of America.