We, the PEOPLE!!

President Barack Obama is a great public speaker.  He can always make a ho-hum speech sound interesting and important.  Anyone listening last night to his speech on the end of the US combat mission in Iraq would probably agree.

This speech was not up to the usual excitement generated when Obama was campaigning back in 2008.  The first half of the speech was, in a word, flaccid.  The president mentioned his predecessor, G. W. Bush, without passion or prejudice, and briefly described the seven-year Iraqi war, including the dedication of US troops.

The second half of the speech was a just a little better.  Obama mentioned the problems here at home:  recession, high unemployment, and the huge national debt.  And he actually complimented his predecessor as a patriot.  He mentioned the threats that still remain in both Iraq and to a larger extent, Afghanistan.

To his credit, Obama pointed out that American military might alone cannot defeat terrorism and rogue states.  He also attempted to tie the US’s success in these areas with both the well-being of the US economy and unity at home.  While he is absolutely correct, he probably came across to many of his detractors as an intellectual elitist lecturer, much as a professor lectures a classroom of students.

Clearly, this was a mostly ceremonial speech about the end of dedicated US combat operations in Iraq, and was therefore not designed to be very exciting.  But the democrats need every moment of press exposure to be exciting to shore up their public support, and it wasn’t.  That’s an increasingly persistent problem for this administration.

Worse, heaping bad news onto more bad news, according to the latest Gallup poll, more Americans now believe republicans could do better addressing a bunch of issues than the democrats have demonstrated they can do so far (the poll summary can be found HERE.  Highlights of the poll:

GOP Dems

Terrorism:               55% to 31%

Immigration:           50% to 35%

Federal spending:   50% to 35%

The economy:         49% to 38%

Afghanistan:           45% to 38 %

Jobs:                        46% to 41%

Gov’t Corruption:  38% to 35%

The only areas that democrats lead over the republicans are health care and the environment.  But neither one of these are “make or break” like the economy, and specifically, jobs.

It is a political axiom that people vote their pocketbook.  If people can pay their bills and put food on the table, then much of the other stuff just falls into areas of mild to moderate interest.  But if people are unemployed or underemployed, the party in power is in political trouble.

Of course, the democrats are not responsible for the recession or even the persistent unemployment that they inherited from the Bush years when they took over in January 2009.  And even though the House of Representatives passed into democratic control in 2006, there was still a republican senate and republican president and administration.

But people have short memories.  They’re only concerned with “now”.  Prodded by the GOP, they’re asking what action by the Obama administration has been successful in reducing the unemployment rate over the past 18 months.  The fact that many jobs have actually been created during that time doesn’t offset the fact that Joe Citizen can’t get a job now.

It simply doesn’t matter that the current administration has probably done everything humanly possible to end the job hemorrhage .  What matters is the message that the American people are hearing from the GOP, over and over and over, and believing to be true.  In this area, the GOP excels in getting its message out, which is, essentially:

“The recession is the democrat’s fault.  Their policies over the past 18 months have caused the budget deficit and have just made conditions worse and worse.  We, the GOP, the party of fiscal responsibility, know how to reign in the federal deficit and the national debt.  Give use the chance and we’ll fix EVERYTHING!”

Hey, GOP, wait one minute!!  Where the hell were you during the past eight years, when a federal budget surplus was turned into a whooping annual deficit within the very first year of the Bush administration?  Where were you during Bush’s last budget submission that brought the federal deficit up to over $1.2 trillion??

And the answer is:  Who cares??

Wanna know why??

In court, it doesn’t matter what you believe…it only matters what you can prove.  But in politics…it doesn’t matter what you can prove;  it only matters you believe or can make others believe.

As long as the democrats keep doing what they’re doing and as long as the republicans keep doing what they’re doing, the the handwriting on the wall says the democrats stand an excellent chance of losing at least one house of congress to the republicans on midterm election day, November 2nd, 2010.

What the democrats desperately need right way is a public relations expert to orchestrate their up-coming campaign.

Regretfully….they need Karl Rove.

Many folks believe that the excesses of the Bush administration regarding warrantless surveillance of US citizens have been reined in by the 18-month-old Obama administration. They might be very surprised, though, because it appears that “Big Brother” can track your travels in your very own vehicle whenever they want.  And “whenever they want” means what it sounds like:  without a court-ordered search warrant.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which covers at least eight large western states, ruled in January that government agents can sneak into your driveway in the middle of the night and attach a hidden GPS unit under your car, and they can do it without a search warrant.  What’s worse is that the decision was reviewed by a larger panel of Ninth Circuit judges in response to a request for reconsideration.  The panel let the original decision stand.

You can read all the scary details in the Time Magazine article HERE.

The first concern of many was it seems to be clear violation of the 4th amendment to the Bill of Rights of the US constitution, which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This constitutional guarantee is why wiretapping, house searches when a crime is not in progress, and government examination of your records and papers without a court-ordered search warrant are illegal, and it has been interpreted and defined by 240 years of US Supreme Court case law.

The 9th Circuit Court ruled that the government attaching a GPS unit to anyone’s vehicle didn’t need a warrant because no one can reasonably have an expectation of privacy in their driveway because it is open to delivery/service people as well as neighborhood children.  That means that if you’re rich enough to have your entire property fenced in, this ruling would not apply to you.

Furthermore, they ruled that no one can reasonably expect that the government isn’t tracking them.  In other words, maybe the government is tracking EVERYONE, and we should expect that.  Welcome to George Orwell‘s classic novel  “1984″ about a repressive and brutal police state where the government spies on everyone and controls all human activity.

And finally, according to this ruling the government can tamper and tinker with (and alter) your private property with impunity but without a search warranty!  Does this also mean that anyone can tinker or tamper with anyone’s car, in anyone’s driveway, whenever they want?  Or is it activity just reserved for government agents.  If so, where is THAT written??

In the meantime, in a similar case the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled the complete opposite!  Thus it seems that this case will end up before the Supreme Court.

After years of Bush administration warrant-less surveillance and searches through telephone company records and then claiming justification because of “national security” and also because obtaining a warrant was too “inconvenient”, it’s still chilling to read that this is still happening in today’s America.

And it begs these questions:  Why has there been almost no press on this with the singular exception of Time Magazine?   Why has the Obama administration been so silent about the case?  After all, Obama campaigned on the promise to fix this sort of thing.  And while the president cannot reverse the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, he could have spoken out and ordered the Department of Justice to strictly comply with the 4th amendment and explore a legal action against the ruling.

Maybe it’s just that politics in America is so extremely polarized now that politicians will try to not say anything that the “other side” can jump on.  But some of the dissenters of the ruling was the conservative Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski, who was appointed by conservative president Ronald Reagan.  And the judges on the DC Circuit Court who ruled against the practice were appointed by the past three presidents:  Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2, respectively.

This issue just might transcend the “liberal vs conservative” litmus test.  We should all hope so, because the last thing any citizen should have to worry about is an abusive and invasive government that does all sorts of nasty things in the middle of the night.

After all, if this ruling was allowed to stand, what would be next?  Hidden secret government-installed HDTV cameras in bedrooms to spy on Americans’ sex lives, to make sure it’s only done for procreation, and they better not make noises while doing so?

Next stop:  WikiLeaks or  YouTube.

For those readers old enough to remember, conservative Ronald Reagan’s victory in the presidential election of 1980 over incumbent democratic President Jimmy Carter was the harbinger of a shift within the USA toward right-wing ideals, including the blurring of the separation between church and state.  Nowhere was this more evident than with the insurgence of an organization known as the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 by none other than the famous (or infamous, depending upon your slant) televangelist Jerry Falwell.

This organization had one primary purpose:  Inject Christianity and evangelical ideals into the political/governmental process by influencing the republican party to embrace those ideals.  In fact, the Moral Majority claimed credit for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.  Interestingly, it went out of business in 1989.

The Moral Majority agenda was in many ways similar to the Tea Party Movement’s agenda:  No equal rights for gays, less taxes and therefore less government, acknowledgment of “undeniable” Christian origins and characteristics both in the US Constitution and in the practical application of US Government, sexual abstinence before marriage as a national policy, strong nationalistic slant, and so forth.  Even in the 80′s, the “less government but more government contracts” factor appealed to Wall Street and corporate America, and the donations just poured in to the Moral Majority’s coffers.

But not all Americans were happy with either “Ronnie the Ray-Gun” or Jerry Falwell’s attempts at slavery in the name of Christianity.  In response to the Moral Majority’s increasing visibility, a new and opposite group called the Immoral Minority was formed in Seattle, Washington to counter, often tongue-in-cheek, the rantings of Falwell’s group.

Eventually others began to feel that Falwell was perhaps becoming a bit too influential in the setting of the republican party agenda.  Additionally, the Moral Majority was losing its pull with the Reagan administration itself.  Donations began to drop off and ultimately the group faded into history.

The present day Tea Party Movement formed in 2009, primarily as a protest against the Obama administration and its policies.  It was not led by an ultra-religious leader and thus does not have the blending of church and state as its primary agenda, which distinguishes it from the Moral Majority.  But most dissimilarities end there.

Most of the people who consider themselves Tea Party members or supporters are to some considerable extent right-wing Christians who see nothing wrong with their religion being part and parcel of the US government.  Additionally, many (though not all) of the party’s members and supporters have a bias against people who are not like them, whether by race, creed, philosophy or other distinguishing human characteristic.

In the case of both organizations, the internal belief has been that they represent the view of “most” Americans.  They arrived that this “conclusion” by examining various questionable criteria, not the least was who was screaming the loudest, who was getting the loudest press, and who was having the most protest events and meetings.  In fact, one of these to groups even used the word “majority”in their name to make the “we’re in the majority” claim.

But reality isn’t always in line with what some people want you to believe.  As stated above, the Moral Majority went out of business because it couldn’t pay its bills, which indicates that it had lost its (questionable, to begin with) influence.  And while the jury is still out on the Tea Party’s financial health, the indications are that its influence is either waning or was never that strong to begin with.  This might be because perhaps people are finally seeing the full range of Tea Party atrocities, such as their tolerance of anti-guy, anti-minority and anti-racial-equality views among some of their members.

An example of this waning influence is that the last five candidates that the “theoretically” influential sweetheart of the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, endorsed all LOST their states’ primaries over the past two Tuesdays.

0 for 5 is a terrible track record, especially for someone like Sarah who sees herself as a potential 2012 GOP presidential nominee winner.  But it really goes much deeper than that.  In each case, Sarah tied the Tea Party to her endorsement of these five losing candidates.  If the Tea Party had that much influence in American politics, most or all of the five losers would have WON their primaries.  That fact alone makes the perceived influence of the Tea Party look not very influential.

But what it really says about Americans is that as a nation they don’t tolerate extremism from either the right OR the left for very long, before the the pendulum starts back to the other side.  What it doesn’t say is who might win an election between two moderate candidates from different parties.  And that’s as it should be.

Nonetheless, democratic candidates still cannot afford to let up even a tiny bit on their campaigns this fall.  After all, party leader President Obama was recently (along with his administration) labeled “incoherent”.

Considering that this well-spoken intellectual professional followed the ignorant-sounding, vocabulary-challenged GW Bush, that’s quite an indictment.

ESPECIALLY in this Sarah-Palin-notes-on-the-hand environment!  

At a recent social event, two educated professional women whom had voted for Obama in 2008 (we’ll call them Susan and Tina) were expressing their disappointment in the Obama administration.

“I’m not terribly impressed with his performance so far, since he hasn’t really accomplished that much for the middle class”, Susan said.

Tina jumped in with, “Yeah, and he really hasn’t fixed this economy, either.  Where are all the lost jobs?”

Hasn’t accomplished much??  Hasn’t fixed the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930′s caused by years of deregulation and capitalist abuses???

Thankfully, two men in the group (we’ll call them Joe and Harvey) piped up, detailing the incredible accomplishments of true health care reform, Wall Street reform and even the reforms that protect the middle class from sudden unannounced interest rate increases by credit card companies.  They also mentioned the recent turn-over (finally!) of all combat operations by US forces to the Iraqi military and police forces.  And further, they reviewed the history of pre-Obama financial deregulation.

Joe and Harvey also reminded Susan and Tina of the pre-Obama deficit massive spending sparked by an unnecessary war in Iraq.  The women were further reminded that the Taliban in Afghanistan were essentially ignored beginning in 2003 when US troops whom had routed them in the first place after 911 were sent to Iraq.  Because of Bush’s obsession with invading Iraq, they were allowed to regroup and reinvigorate.

Joe and Harvey also reminded the women that Obama has returned our focus to Afghanistan to finish the job that would have been completed had the previous administration not taken their eyes off the ball.

The two women listened intently as Joe and Harvey went on to highlight the other major accomplishments of the still-very-young Obama administration.   Susan and Tina knew that both Joe and Harvey do a lot of research about current events could even provide references.

The guys proceeded to detail the real benefits of health care reform and of Wall Street reform.  Susan and Tina had been hearing all fashion of doom and gloom about these reforms, including the lie that the “death squads” claimed by republicans to be part of health care reform was actually real, and that financial reform was really an effort to take away private property ownership!!!

Then the guys provided the government web sites set up to inform the American citizens about these reforms:  The Health Care Reform and  Wall Street Reform government web sites.  They told the ladies that despite all of the hate and fear mongering rhetoric by the republicans, no one has accused these sites of lying or falsification, so the sites could be trusted to provide the “real deal”.

By the time the conversation was over, both Susan and Tina had a completely new appreciation for the incredible accomplishments of the Obama administration in its short eighteen months of existence.  With the exception of the 911-attacks-prompted legislative actions, neither GW Bush nor even Bill Clinton had come close to the huge reforms the Obama administration had achieved.

Few Americans seem to be aware of it, though.  Why??

Answer:  The Obama administration really sucks at one thing:  Marketing their successes, particularly over the failures of the previous Bush/republican control.  The democrats  celebrate their victories on the spot, but they don’t dwell on them the way the GOP dwells over and over again on the same message of doom and gloom regarding the democrats.  If there’s one thing the GOP does MUCH better than the dems, it’s marketing.

Successful marketing is sometimes defined as telling someone to go to hell, and then making him or her look forward to the trip; or selling sand to desert dwellers; or selling freezers to Eskimos.  It seems that Obama’s advisers believe that the average person will get the “deal deal” through their own research or maybe skin absorption.  Meanwhile, the GOP, realizing that most people don’t do much research, utilizes a page from the “misdirection” playbook:  fabricate a lie designed to invoke hate or fear (or both), and say it over and over until people start believing it.

The White House needs to get with the marketing:  counter the lies about the Obama administration successes and keep advertising the real benefits over and over and over again.  Continue this until the average middle class citizen has a clear understanding of the benefits of these huge reform victories.  And every single time a contrary message of hate and fear emanates from the other side, it must be met forcefully and repeatedly with data and facts that show that the other side can’t be trusted to tell the truth.

Or…they can just trust that the truth is out there and there will always be a Joe and Harvey to set the record straight…

Yeah, maybe…if they pay us. 

Politics makes strange bedfellows, they say.  And yet, even that axiom has limits.  After all, it’s practically impossible to imagine a more divergent pair than We, the PEOPLE!! and Sarah Palin.  Thus, it would be folly to think that this blog could ever agree with anything substantial that Sarah might say, or even think.

So imagine the surprise (shock, actually) when Sarah wrote the following appeal on her Twitter page regarding the proposed mosque to be built near the 9-11 ground zero at the World Trade Center site in New York City:

“Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts.  Pls reject it in the interest of healing”.

Now, before any readers erroneously think that this single agreement marks an end to the liberal view of We, the PEOPLE!!, or that the blog (a.k.a, we!) drank some of that weird polka-dotted Kool-aid that gets passed around at Tea Party rallies, know that all semblances of agreement between Sarah and We, the PEOPLE!! start and end right here.

Despite the above disclaimer, it is remarkable that Sarah could have said or written anything that would elicit agreement from anyone who understands, as she seemingly does not, that having Canada to the east of one’s state, and being able to see a remote island of Russia from a remote island on the west side of one’s state, does not constitute “foreign policy” experience.

Nonetheless, Sarah quite appropriately made the point in her Twitter comments that the issue was not about religious tolerance in the USA, but about pain and healing.  Constitutionally speaking, the mosque, which is being funded by a private group, has as much right to be built on the chosen site as any other house of any other religion.

This mosque, which is actually only a portion of a larger Islamic center which includes a pool and learning facility, is to be built two blocks from “ground zero“.  But the uproar it has created teaches some lessons about human behavior that Sarah amazing got right.

There are many people who tend to label large and diverse classes of people in broad brush strokes without regard to subclasses, or all the whole myriad differences between people who look, sound, dress, and/or perhaps even eat in similar fashion.  These folks are either too stupid or too lazy to differentiate people on more discriminating and individual levels.  For them, all people of the Muslim faith are murderous terrorists because Al Qaeda participants are Muslim.  What they’re missing (and simply can’t be bothered with) is that Al Qaeda and the perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks were brutal fundamentalists of Islamic faith.

If these overly judgmental but under-informed folks did even the least amount of cursory research, they would learn that fundamentalists of their own (mostly) Christian faith about a thousand years ago raped, murdered and pillaged hundreds of thousands of innocent people and stole their land and possessions in their own religious ‘jihad” which today are called the Crusades.  In fact, fanatical Christian fundamentalists still exist in the USA today, and they would likely do what Al Qaeda does if they thought they could get away with it.

The main reason given by these research-challenged folks …that allowing the Islamic center to be built near the 9-11 ground zero site will be our capitulation to the terrorists, and/or that terrorists will be trained at this site, and/or that all Muslims are terrorists, etc….is completely wrong and inaccurate.  The sad truth is that these same outraged people are conveniently (for them) ignoring the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the US constitution, with its right to freedom of religion, which, by the way, includes the Islamic faith.

However, Sarah appropriately never said that the private group doesn’t have a right to build an Islamic center.  As a result, we had no choice to agree with her..

What she did was appeal to peace-loving Islamic people with human sensitivity that building the Islamic center in the desired locating could be painful to folks deeply hurt by the losses, both personal and national, of the 9-11 attacks.  She asked those same peace-loving Islamists to please consider the pain felt by both individuals and citizens who still feel the anguish associated with the 9-11 tragedy.  And yes, she used the word “please”, abbreviated into “pls”.

We agree with the appeal.  Period.  Just because folks may have a legal right to do something doesn’t mean that they also have moral acceptance to do it. One may have the right to cause emotion pain, but that right doesn’t it and of itself morally justify doing so.

So Sarah got this one thing right this time.  While the private group that funds this project has an absolute legal right to do so, we question the moral judgment of anyone who thinks that this is a good idea, including them.  Of course, it’s a really big distinction to go from “legal right” to “good idea”.

Having said that, Sarah should quit while she’s ahead because it may be a very VERY long time before she’s right again….

Although…she is obviously always extreme right! 

News has just broken that much of the Arizona anti-immigration law has just been blocked by a temporary injunction granted in federal court. 

Surely, the conservative forces in both Arizona and the rest of the USA are going to be up-in-arms over this legal action.  They’re going to blame the Obama administration, and particularly president Obama himself, for favoring illegal immigration over the good and well-being of native born American citizens.

In fact, one can almost hear the outraged screaming calls for impeachment beginning to emanate from the depths of the tea party and other bastions of ultra-conservative dogma.

Thus, it seems a perfect time to share the following very timely letter recently received by We, the People!!

This is for all those who love to hate, who think the constitution is optional, and who want to regress to the ideals of the Confederacy:

Here is a news flash for all the Obama-hating reality deniers out there:  You are entitled to dissent if you wish, but you still need to come to grips with some very stubborn facts:

Barack Obama was freely elected by the people of this country.   He was born in the United States.   He is not a closet Muslim who hates America and wishes it to fail.  He does not hate white people.  He is not the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler or Chairman Mao, as much as you might like to convince us otherwise.

He does not “pal around with terrorists”, nor does he plan to establish his own private army and set up internment camps.   He does not seek to indoctrinate our children into some foreign “ism.”  He is not interested in disarming us.

His health care program does not include death panels.  His ideas to get this nation back on course are not Socialism, Communism, Marxism, and/or Nazism all rolled up into one. If you insist upon believing otherwise, then get a dictionary and learn the definitions of the words that you so casually throw about.

You are not surrounded by enemies who lie and seek to destroy you, nor does the mainstream media deliberately wish to deceive you, regardless of what you hear on Fox news.   Fox News has an agenda and it is anything but fair and balanced.

Environmentalists do not want to take away your jobs, nor are they the ones responsible for environmental damages.   They do not have a secret wish to establish a Marxist economy.

Don’t expect some Divine Being to rain blessings down on this country no matter how many wars you start and how much torture you practice, simply because you oppose gay marriage.  Gays are not a threat to this country, nor are they a threat to your marriage.  And they really don’t want to secretly marry their French poodles.

But widespread divorce is a major problem because of its effects on children. So where is your constitutional amendment prohibiting that?

Regulating the excesses and abuses of unbridled capitalism is not the same as destroying it.   For that matter, a slight reduction in our $533 billion dollar a year military budget does not leave us “naked and unprotected” as much as you might think otherwise.

The solution to every problem is not ensuring the rich have more money.  And if you are a middle class family, Obama has not raised your taxes.   Net income after taxes of $250,000 a year is not “struggling middle class.”

Please don’t try to sell that Republicans were bi-partisan when Democrats voted with a Republican President, but that it’s Democrats who are partisan now that Republicans refuse to vote with a Democratic President.   Save that kind of warped logic for a game of “Twister!”

If you wish to promote a religious belief that justifies war, torture, and feeding the rich, don’t call it Christianity.

The universe is a bit more than 6000 years old. But if you still want to believe the 6000-year figure, please keep it to yourself.   Don’t foist these garbage fantasies on our school children under the false guise of “science”.   In fact, it doesn’t even belong with tales of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk.

Your continual fanning of the fires of racial animosity, your sense that “you’ve been done wrong,” and your paranoid belief that some foreign entity is taking your country away, makes as much sense as your former fear of Social Security, Medicare and fluoride in the water.

Demonizing those who disagree with you ass unamerican and/or unpatriotic is a will-established practice within the long history of your party. So is the practice of creating, justifying, spreading and eagerly embracing the most outrageous, unfounded lies.  These premeditated fabrications are engineered to foment hate and fear, and they are ripping this country apart.  Stop waving the flag while thinking that you are the only true patriots.

Many of you claim to be religious Christians.  You really ought to read your bible a little more carefully, particularly the parts about bearing false witness, killing, and returning hatred with love.  Stop twisting the words to support your own agenda.

We never thought Barack Obama was a Messiah, as you half-mockingly claim.   He was fairly elected and he is attempting to do the very best he can in very difficult situations that he did not create.  Although he has made some mistakes, your obstructionism and negativity isn’t helping this country one bit.

Yes, he is president. And yes, he is an African-American.

So what?

Get over it.

Signed by Secret Sam

It’s been suggested that the Obama administration needs a “Karl Rove” type of political director to counter all the lies being generated from the other side.  Perhaps they should interview Secret Sam.

One similarity among political pundits is that they all are have their political base of supporters.  These supporters essentially believe anything their favorite pundit says or writes, and that’s good enough for the pundit making the statement, regardless of its veracity.  The pundits know that their supporters will defend them, regardless of how many made-up “facts” they use to suit their agenda.

Even when called on the carpet by such fact-checking organizations at Politifact com and others including newspaper editorialists and the like, these fabricators will do the minimum necessary toward admitting a “mistake”, assuming they even respond to inquiries from the fact-checkers.

For some reason, it seems that the conservative pundits are the ones doing the most fabricating.  The fact is clearly observed by the ratio of conservatives  vs. liberals who make statements researched by Politifact and determined to be either “barely true“, “false“, or the most dramatic category, a  “PANTS ON FIRE!” bold-faced lie.  This does not mean that some liberal folks don’t get occasionally caught misrepresenting the truth, but the clear predominance of right-wingers is obvious, particularly in the PANTS ON FIRE! category.

It’s a well known fact that conservative talk radio (or perhaps more accurately, hate-radio) hosts take a lot of liberties with the truth.  Of course, once they reach national prominence, they have their followers to which they can say anything.  Their supporters will buy it, and then repeat it as if it was fact.

Take the case of Mark Williams, who has called all Muslims terrorists, called Allah a “monkey god”, called President Obama a Muslim, a racist and a Nazi, and most recently, took on the NAACP over that organization’s resolution calling upon the Tea Party movement to clearly reject racism.

Ol’ Mark fired off blogs claiming it was the NAACP that was not only racist, but was holding back African Americans.  The GOP, to its credit, ultimately rejected Williams’ claims.  The Tea Party expelled him as the leader of the “Tea Party Express” after Williams published an admittedly fabricated letter, supposedly from the president of the NAACP to President Lincoln rejecting full freedom from slavery for African-Americans during the civil war.  Williams has since removed the offending letter and he even wrote a tongue-in-cheek apology, but could not resist demonstrating his racist nature at the end of the letter when he wrote:

“I would suggest to those offended by the term “Colored People” (the phrase that made my article so controversial) please contact the national Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and join me in calling for an end to this racial slur”.

There’s plenty to demonstrate that Ol’ Mark has no use for real facts, such as the reality that the NAACP was founded in 1909 when use of the phrase “colored” was considered the term of respect.  But maybe he just didn’t have the time to do even the most rudimentary research.  Like checking on Google.

Then there’s Sarah Palin, who recently made statements demonstrating her continuing lack of knowledge and/or research skill by claiming that Kodiak Island in her home state of Alaska is the biggest island in the USA, a falsehood which pissed off the Hawaiians, who REALLY have the biggest island (check it out HERE)…or her making up words that don’t exist and then comparing herself to William Shakespeare (which is located HERE).  Of course, Sarah has her following, too, and those folks aren’t going to let little things like lack of knowledge and research skills get in the way of their goddess-worship.

It’s not just folks of national recognition that are doing this kind of thing, either.  It has to start somewhere.  After all, they were all “nobodies” before they became “somebodies”.

Take, for instance, a small-time hate-radio talk show host on a piddly little ultra-right-wing radio station in a tiny little state that one can drive across diagonally in 45 minutes:  Rhode Island, USA.

This ultra-conservative host has for 5 years been banging away at all fashion of liberal person and idea, has spewed hatred against undocumented workers, and has labeled people and places to suit her conservative agenda.  But she was recently called on the carpet, not only by Politifact, which called her”uniformed” but by an article in the state’s primary newspaper, the Providence Journal, that actually took the time to write about it.

This kind of bull tripe is everywhere, and that since most of the perpetrators and their followers are conservative (or, more likely, ULTRA-conservative), it’s logical to conclude that the GOP must actually have a secret rule in their political playbook promoting the raping of factual data.

It’s pretty effective, too, as long some people are too lazy or too stupid or too programmed to do their own fact-checking.   These pundits will continue to manipulate and fabricate data and then feed this garbage to their worshipers. Those, in turn, will feed it to their equally lazy and/or stupid friends.

Before you know it, they’ll all be voting..to have the Earth declared flat, because the circular-Earth concept is clearly a godless democratic plot to make everyone dizzy so they’ll need health care, and then the “death panels” will decide who lives and who dies..

Former 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has made watching Sarah-watching a genuine joy of surprises and colorful moves since the GOP lost that presidential election.

First she resigned as governor of Alaska with eighteen months still left in her term.  Then she announced a book deal in which she made millions.  This was followed with her increasing activity with the Tea Party Movement that considers her to have a golden touch and really wants her to rule the universe.

And from time to time since the election, Sarah gave interviews which often backfired because of her limited knowledge of many important subjects in politics, such as foreign policy, domestic policy, defense, economics, taxes, etc.  But she never absolutely affirmed that she was going to run for president in 2012.

In fact, the mainstream GOP leadership is hoping that she won’t run because they realize that she only carries support from the most radical conservative right-wing portion of the GOP, and that the moderates and independents still have a negative view of her. This is clearly evidenced by multiple polling available at Pollingreport.com HERE.

Still, Sarah has moved forward, increasing both her visibility and the amount of money in her war chest.  In June of this year, she actually came into the spotlight when it was suspected none other than Fox news that she had breast augmentation surgery, as evidently seen in these photos:

and in this Fox New broadcast:

which, of course, has keep her continuously visible in the media, while the other potential GOP candidates such as Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and others struggle for publicity to stay in the public consciousness.  It’s really not important if Sarah got her breasts enhanced.  But drawing attention to her breasts is a very strategic move on her part, or more likely, on the part of her staff’s public relations experts, because it has caused the media to stand up and take notice, as it were. 

The more significant fact, however, is the recent revelation by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that Sarah has raised almost US$1 million in the past three months alone.  That’s a hell of a lot of money raised by someone who seemingly isn’t running for anything, such as, for instance, the GOP presidential-nomination-hopeful for 2012.  And adding fuel to that fire is that much of that money has gone to hire more staff so that she become more knowledge-”enhanced” about all the political subjects she has flubbed in the past.  A report of her PAC’s income vs. outlay is reported HERE.

Interestingly, her once-future-son-in-law Levi Johnston was engaged to Sarah’s oldest daughter Bristol during the 2008 presidential campaign.  They broke up over a year ago after he fathered Sarah’s grandchild.  Sarah and Levi had been feuding pretty publicly since then.  All of a sudden out of nowhere came a written apology from Levi to Sarah which you can read HERE.  This has been reinforced within the last 24 hours by the report that Levi and Bristol have just gotten re-engaged!

It sure seems to add up to a concerted effort by Sarah and her staff of paid experts to erase Sarah’s past issues and build support in preparation for her run for the highest office in the USA.  And in fairness, it’s a pretty effective effort.

But one factor that is probably going to haunt Sarah is an issue for which no one in the GOP seems to have either the political or economic power to influence in any way.  That is Sarah’s intimate connection to the Tea Party movement with its negative effect on the mainstream GOP.  The Tea Party has come under increasingly intense fire from many sides, including independents, mainstream republicans and almost all democrats.  Much of it is fired by the Tea Party’s silent (and thus tacit) tolerance of racial attitudes and actions by some of its members, as well as its loud intolerance of any ideas that they personally do not embrace.

In fact, the National Association for the Advance of Colored People (NAACP) is proposing a resolution against the Tea Party’s “rampant racism” at its on-going national convention in Kansas City, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations last week went after Tea Party Express organizer Mark Williams for his racist statements about Allah being a “monkey god” and calling Muslims the “animals of Allah”.

Unfortunately for Sarah, she has already embraced the Tea Party movement as it she gave birth to all its members.

It’s going to take considerable effort on Sarah’s part (or more accurately, a gargantuan effort on the part of her newly hired expert staff!) to somehow separate her from her previous support for the Tea Party and from her friends and supporters in the Tea Party.  She will have to do so without alienating them, or even worse, appearing to be “full of it” as she slithers away from this cult.

It’s certainly not clear if such a task is even possible.  But if she and her highly-paid staff can pull it off, then her race to the white house might seem like a cakewalk for her, in comparison.

Yeah.  In her dreams.

Well…it’s taking this week off due to a long move, and will return next Wednesday, July 13th, 2010.

Stay cool!

Ohio republican congressman John Boehner is the US House of Representatives minority leader.  If the GOP gains a majority of seats in the Fall mid-term election, Boehner will probably become Speaker of the House, a position of leadership now held by democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi.

So it is no surprise that Boehner is campaigning to throw the democrats out of congress by stealing the spotlight to showcase himself.  And he did just that in an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Boehner made two of his agenda items clear.  He first suggested that the war in Afghanistan is highest priority activity that the US government is engaged in, and as a result it must be well funded, presumably with unlimited resources.

He then made it clear that he favors raising the Social Security minimum retirement age to 70 as a cost-reduction measure.

Obviously, Boehner and many of his fellow GOP cronies in Congress believe that the Vietnam War-like conflict in Afghanistan is more important than the well-being of America’s seniors.  After all, seniors generally don’t have the resources to contribute large sums of money to political campaigns or to wine and dine politicians.  And if seniors aren’t receiving Social Security benefits until they’re 70, then the government keeps that money for at least three years longer than they do now.  Plus, by age 70 some seniors will die before reaching their seventieth birthday, so their lifetime Social Security contributions potentially can be used by the government for more important endeavors, like a never-ending, largely unwinnable war in a far-off land.

On the other hand, continuous funding of that war provides huge profits for the large corporations who have the lucrative government contracts.  That ensures support from those corporations to keep the machine fed, so to speak, and everyone is happy.

Or, at least, the politicians who are heavily lobbied by those corporations, and the folks who own stock in the war industry will be happy.

The idea of raising the Social Security retirement age is not new.  Ronald Reagan did it in the 80′s, but that action was coupled with an increase in the Social Security payroll tax in order to adequately fund the system.  While controversial at the time, at least on paper the dual actions would have kept social security solvent.  But the additional funds resulting from the higher payroll contributions were soon sequestered to pay for other pro-war programs such as the now-defunct Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative known as Star Wars.

No one can dispute that national defense is an extremely important part of what any government should be doing.  And it is clear that that the troops actually doing the fighting in any act of national defense serve the very best high quality equipment possible.  But why on earth do some people think that this can only occur at the expense of citizens who can least afford it, namely, our senior citizens who worked a lifetime earning a living, paying taxes, raising children, and whom in many if not most cases are beginning to suffer the inevitable physical deterioration of the aging process?

Even more nonsensical is the fact that this country is suffering under the burden of high unemployment.  Folks of all ages are competing for the few jobs that become available.  Seniors have always been less competitive in the job market because of the advantage that young healthy adults have in the hiring process.  So if a senior who has planned his or her resources to last until Social Security kicks in at age 67, for instance,  is now hung out to dry for another three years, what’s that senior suppose to do?  Wrestle a twenty-two-year-old for a job digging ditches?

Interestingly, when asked about Boehner’s remarks, several other  GOP congressmen indicated that they agreed in principal with Boehner regarding raising the Social Security retirement age to 70.  But what they didn’t talk about was how they as congressmen are covered by a federal retirement system that is going to take good care of them when they leave federal service.  Sort of the “do as I say, not as I do” rule.

If the GOP regains control of congress this year, it seems likely they will spend a lot of their time boosting funding for the war, attempting to boost the Social Security retirement age to 70, and repealing the health care reform law in favor of what Boehner wants:  Tort reform and tax credits.

One can imagine the scenario:  500,000 US troops sent to Afghanistan;  Seniors between the ages of 67 and 70 standing in bread lines and soup kitchens waiting for a handout to keep from starving;  and others dying in the streets because they didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford their medicines, since the pharmacies don’t accept “tax credits” as payment for meds.

But, on the bright side, the corporations with government contracts worth hundred of billions of dollars will be working on missile defense projects designed keep the US safe from incoming Soviet ICBMs, so we all can eventually be snug as a bug in a rug.  Just one tiny little problem…or maybe two.

First, the Soviet Union went away eleven years ago.  And second, they can’t make it work, anyway.

Just when you thought it was safe to think life might return to some measure of sanity, two public figures whacked the stuffing out of that concept.

First:   Texas congressman Joe Barton, the senior Republican on the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, apologized (presumably in the name of the GOP and all Obama-hating conservatives) to BP CEO Tony Hayward.  Barton stated that BP’s commitment of at least US$20 billion to mitigate the financial and environmental damage of the oil disaster on us citizens and the Gulf environment that was reached the previous day with the Obama administration was a “shakedown”.  He made this incredible apology to BP just before Hayward’s “I’m not responsible, and I know nothing” testimony before the Energy and Environment subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing investigating BP’s role in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and subsequent historic oil spill.

Barton has since been criticized by just about every human alive.  He was almost immediately forced to retract his apology by his own republican party.  But the damage was done, and there was truly no way to reverse it, nor the damage done by Barton to his own political career and to his party, the oil-industry-and-big-corporation-supporting GOP.

In fairness, Barton did get some support from far-fringe right-wing extremists such as Republican Study Committee chairman Tom Price, who described the US$20 billion BP fund as a “Chicago-style political shakedown”, and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who told CNN that Obama is using BP as a “permanent ATM card” in an effort to take over “private industry.”  Or republican Mississippi governor Hailey Barbour, who claims that forcing BP to invest money for the purpose of paying out claims robs them of money to use for more offshore drilling so that they could make more money to pay out claims. (??)

Actually, though, they kind of add to that special “WACKO” atmosphere, don’cha think? 

Second:  Perhaps even more bizarre, US Army general Stanley McChrystal, appointed by president Obama in early 2009 to command the war in Afghanistan, along his staff spoke freely (if you can even believe it!) to none other than Rolling Stone magazine, bashing the civilian policy-makers of the Obama administration and even mocking US vice-president Joseph Biden‘s last name, purposely misstating it as “bite me”.

Even if one dismisses the fact that constitutionally, in the USA the military takes its orders from the civilian government leadership, the fact are clear:  The USA is in its longest-war ever in Afghanistan.  This war was triggered by the 9-11-01 attacks on the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City and Pentagon building in Washington DC.   The USA allowed itself to be militarily distracted with the unnecessary and extremely expensive 2003 invasion into Iraq, which unfortunately (but predictably) allowed the insurgency in Afghanistan to regroup, rearm and reestablish itself.  Had that not occurred, it is possible that the war against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan would be over by now.

As a result of all of that, the Afghanistan war today is much more difficult, and requires at minimum a united allied effort to succeed.  But how on earth can a united allied front be presented when the commanding US general in charge of the entire military effort in Afghanistan is seen and heard mocking and insulting the folks he answers to?  After all, one would expect this commander to understand the absolute need for unity, right?  So what does it say about General McChrystal telling Rolling Stone magazine anything that demonstrates just the opposite to the entire world?

To give credit where it’s due, McChrystal did apologize humbly and publicly last night for the exercise of poor judgment in this debacle.  President Obama ordered McChrystal to present himself at the White House today to offer an direct explanation of his words and deeds   But evidently McChrystal could not adequately provide convincing justification to the Commander in Chief for his act of disunity.  As a result, McChrystal was asked to resign.

it’s hard to fathom how folks such as Barton and McChrystal can rise through the extremely competitive and challenging ranks of political or military service and not learn the most rudimentary lesson that discretion is often the better part of valor.  People who are insane or sociopathic can behave in this manner, but commanding generals?  Elected congressman??

People who observe such weird human behavior with secret amusement must be smiling at the almost endless parade of WACKOs and their unjustifiable acts and statements.  And the folks who support these WACKOs because of their fanatical and warped view of the world are just as much fun to observe.  They provide reaffirmation that humanity is far from being very superior or even very intelligent, all scientific evidence to the contrary.   

One can expect more “WACKO” stuff to emerge as midterm election approach and as certain folks in power forget that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

But let’s face it:  A great human pleasure comes from watching bizarre and/or unbelievable behavior of others and being able to ask:

“Are you for real???”  

Last night, US President Obama gave a speech about the now-58-day old oil disaster caused by British Petroleum’s (BP’s) less-than-totally-effective emergency contingency plans.

In his address to the nation, the president outlined a three-pronged plan to address this disaster:  1.  Stop the leak; 2.   Clean up the leaked oil and repair its damage;  and 3.  ensure this never happens again.

Today the president emerged from an hours-long meeting with the leadership of BP, and announced that BP has agreed to place a minimum of US$20 billion into an escrow fund to be administered by an independent third party for claims by businesses and individuals negatively impacted by the oil leak catastrophe, as well as to pay for oil cleanup operations.   This escrow account in no way limits anyone’s capability to further sue BP in court.

Although multiple investigations are on-going including a US Justice Department criminal probe and other technical investigations into what worked and what failed in the run-up to the oli rig explosion and subsequent oil leak from the ocean floor, BP announced today that they are also conducting their own internal investigation into the causes and factors leading up to this disaster.

Considering their knowledge that other investigations are progressing, and coupled with the fact that BP is keenly aware that it cannot possibly skate away from this, it appears that BP’s leadership has decided to cut its losses and has made the very smart decision to simply own up to its role and responsibility in this fiasco.  They appear to have agreed to pay whatever they would have to pay, anyway, if they were sued by every single damaged party.  As part of this response, BP also announced that no further dividends would be paid to its shareholders this year.

To his credit, president Obama also publicly announced every step being taken and every expectation people can have regarding the ultimate total recovery from the 58-day, countless-millions-of-gallons-of-leaked-oil damage.

In the meantime, the GOP has been largely silent about BPs oil leak and the GOP-backed contributing abuses and safety shortcuts. They’ve also been extremely silent about offshore oil drilling in general.  But they found their voice in their attempts to make the oil leak the direct fault of president Obama.  They would have the American people believe that Obama actually “pulled the plug” on the oil well to create the leak “for sport”, or some other totally off-the-wall garbage.  The GOP keeps trying to convince Americans that the oil still leaking into the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of perhaps 60,000 gallons a day is somehow Obama’s fault, because he didn’t scream and curse and jump up and down enough when it first happened.

In fact, Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Michael Steele said last night, in response to president Obama’s speech, that “the president’s actions demonstrate his inability to lead the nation out of a disaster and show an “appallingly arrogant political calculus.”

Hey Michael…are you for real??

Someone needs to remind ol’ Mikey of the flacid and totally ineffective federal response to the 2005 one-day event known as Hurricane Katrina (as opposed to the 58-day-and-counting BP oil leak), when tens of thousands of New Orleans residents that were trapped inside the New Orleans Sports Arena without drinking water, food or sanitation for a full four extremely hot & humid days while republican president GW Bush was seen on newscasts worldwide telling the Federal Emergency Management Agency head Michael Brown, “You’re doing a hell of the job, Brownie!“

And besides the political efforts of the GOP during the BP oil crisis, it is amusing to note that that former US vice-president Dick “Tricky Dick” Cheney, whom while in office held an energy summit in secret with oil companies, the result of which have never been publicly released, has been totally silent (invisible?) during this debacle.  So has Sara Palin, and except for a statement that “sometimes accident do happen” early in the event, Rand Paul.   And the Tea Party?

Well…perhaps they’re enjoying a vacation in the South Pacific and are out of communications range.

Or perhaps…these supporters of the “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and “environment-be-damned” dogma are laying low because they cannot justify their misguided and/or selfish views with such a huge oil spill situation occurring as they speak (or don”t speak).

Either way, those whom are critical of president Obama’s response to the BP’s mess seem to require nothing less than for the president to put on a wet suit, jump into the Gulf of Mexico and stick his fingers into the leaking oil pipe to physically stop the oil  and gas being released into the water.  They also seem to want him to create non-existent equipment out of thin air to suck up every drop of oil on the water’s surface.  And if he can’t do these things, then he is a miserable failure…according to the GOP and its supporters, who normally hate for the federal government to get involved in anything!

Is it just We, the PEOPLE!!, or does anyone else see the shameless hypocrisy in all of this?

Last night’s primary elections highlighted the fact that anti-establishment (a.k.a the “good-ol’-boy” network) women are a force to be reckoned in this mid-term election year.

Four women won elections in republican primaries in South Carolina, Nevada and California. One of them, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, took a commanding 49% of the vote in a four-way race against three men

Incumbent democratic U.S. senator Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas won a democratic primary run-off, and Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell of Maine won her state’s Democrat primary for governor.  A woman also won the New Mexico primary on June 2nd.

All told, seven of eight women candidates won their states’ races, which says that 2010 is the Year of the Woman.

Contrast this formidable accomplishment by women with life in the some of the more primitive regions of Earth, such as certain parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  In those places, women can be imprisoned, tortured or worse for simply exposing their faces in public, or expressing their opinions, or attempting to be human equals.  It is well known that fundamentalist Islamists and certain African and Asian cultures believe that women should not be allowed to drive or even be taught to read and write.  Such groups believe that it is the ultimate sacrilege for a woman to be in charge of anything involving men, money or property.  And to enforce the purity of their cultures, a number of these groups also practice a heinous and brutal ritual known as female genital mutilation (FGM).

Thank goodness this kind of stuff doesn’t happen in enlightened and evolved countries such the USA or other western industrialized nations.

Or does it?

The Women’s Ordination Conference has been challenging the Roman Catholic church’s prohibition against women becoming priests.  They correctly surmise that the lack of women in the priesthood, in concert with unrealistic and unnatural celibacy policies for priests and nuns has contributed greatly to the church’s clergy child sexual abuse scandal.  Clearly, the church’s demand of life-long celibacy upon a young man who joins the priesthood or young woman who becomes a nun is so biologically contrary that these celibacy vows have been so often violated, in hundred of thousands (or actually, more likely millions and perhaps billions) of cases over the centuries, with the most innocent victimized:  children.

But the Roman Catholic church, as stubborn as any group that believes that “God is on our side!”, has refused to budge.  Better to allow conditions conducive to sexual abuse and permanent scarring of trusting and unsuspecting children than to allow those pesky, egocentric, evil, unclean adult females to be equals, and, “‘Deity’ forbid!“..to engage in and enjoy sex, except for forced procreation.

And then, there’s FGM.  According to some resources, over 140 million living women have been subjected to this barbaric, brutal, painful, torturous ritual.  Incredibly, over 98% of all women in Somalia endure this outrage.  And while many of the practicing groups are Muslim, some are also Christian and other religions.  Groups in India and other parts of Asia, for example, believe in and implement FGM.

Learn more about FGM, including this site.  Although it is very disturbing, it is also important to be informed.

The National Organization of Women (NOW) is seeking to raise awareness and universal prohibition of FGM, including the transporting of girls and young women out of the USA and other western countries for the purpose of inflicting them with FCM, by criminalizing such acts.

For those that think this can’t happen here, over 140,000 women in the USA have been subjected to this.  And in utter defiance of belief, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) actually endorsed a mild form of FGM called “nicking the clitoris“, before reversing this policy in the face of extreme political pressure.  Yes, folks, shamefully this is real.

One can only applaud the National Organization of Women for their courage and strength in bringing and keeping this issue forefront in the collective consciousness.  Bravo!

And even though the women who won their elections in the recent primaries are generally conservative (some are, in fact, Tea Party candidates), We, the People!! is pleased that women are becoming more prevalent in politics and government in general.  Perhaps they will succeed where men have not only failed miserably, but, for the most part, have only halfheartedly attempted to right the wrongs against women which have been so pervasive in almost every society since before civilization (if one can even call present-day humanity civilized).  Even in the “enlightened” USA, only men could vote until the early 20th century!

What’s wrong with male humans, anyway?  Why do they feel so threatened by women?  Why have they made a total human history out of subjugating, controlling, imprisoning and enslaving women within the confines and chains that these self-same men have unilaterally chosen for them?  Are men so afraid of a womans’ allure that they have to treat women like livestock and brutalize them?

Is it a symptom of a man’s own sense of inadequacy and fear that some other guy might make a woman (or “your” woman) “happier”?

Guys…you better get a grip.  Because when women finally break out of the chains we men have put them in for millennia….they will own the planet in six months.

That would, in fact, be true justice.

The BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, already the worst human-caused environmental debacle in US history, and headed towards that title on a global basis, reconfirms what We, the People!! has been advocating, and what conservatives have been denying:  Big business cannot be trusted to always do the right thing.  It takes a strong central government to ensure that its citizens are protected from the public safety abuses that always creep into the free market profit model.

Executives of large corporations are under enormous pressure from their bosses and/or stockholders to produce as large a profit as possible, and they’re paid enormous salaries and bonuses to do so.  They naturally don’t want to lose that money.  So they attempt to meet the profit expectation by reducing expenses while concurrently maximizing financial return.  That’s how big business works.

However, it would be folly to believe that all of these executives will always do the right thing, or the human safety thing, or the expensive-extra-protection thing, particularly if there is no strong watchdog organization with enforcement power,  or no legal requirement to do so, or no incentive other than profit to consider.

For corporate executives, it’s throwing the dice:  If nothing bad results from whatever shortcut is taken, the executives are stars for enhancing the corporate profits.

For centuries, even if bad stuff did happen, there was no one and nothing to answer to, except the boss, the creditors, and company owners.  Good or bad, as long as the money rolled in, it was okay.  So sorry for the dead fish/miners/workers/child laborers/etc., but you know, sometimes accidents do happen.  Survivors…back to work!

Now imagine for one second if “big government” regulation did not exist today.  The BP oil spill would have simply been a case of “too bad, so sad”, and BP would simply move on.  It’s shareholders would be happy that BP’s profits continued to flow, despite the fact that off-shore oil industry was losing several rigs a year to explosions and other lack-of-safety issues.  But y’know…they’re so cheap to produce that losing a few is no big deal.  The environmental damage?  Not our problem.  The death of oil rig workers?  Not our problem.  The destruction of a fishing industry?  Not our problem.  Stuff happens, y’know.

When America was barely a hundred years old, it was common for children as young as five or six to be working twelve to sixteen hours a day in sweatshops and/or in conditions so dangerous that death and serious injury were commonplace occurrences.  Politicians that were backed by powerful industrialists resisted any kind of interference with the free market profit system.  The industrialists had no intention of spending any of their enormous profits on “unnecessary safety equipment” or other items that would enhance workplace safety.  It was far cheaper to just hire new workers as necessary.

Since the government sat back, unions became organized and ultimately forced change on the industrialists.  The unions also learned to be political, and slowly workplace safety regulations began to become law.  For the industrialists and their conservative cronies, this was big government interference with their right to make a profit.  But to the average worker, this was necessary protection from the abuses that always come with the free market profit system, i.e., the dollar is more important that the people producing it.

And it’s not just physical work environments that needed protection from corporate abuse.  Imagine if the laws regarding access to your credit rating and your right to dispute errors didn’t exist.  Imagine if anyone with a catchy label on a bottle could sell any substance claiming it was good medicine, when it either was colored water, or worse, possibly poisonous or fatal.  Imagine if the food you buy wasn’t inspected for wholesomeness and freshness. The list is endless.

Despite this, there are those that claim that the US government is way too big and involved in private enterprise.  The new darling of the ultra-conservatives, Rand Paul has said about the BP oil spill that “sometimes accidents just happen”.  Of course, even the shoddiest of research will reveal that BP took shortcuts regarding safety equipment on the oil rig that exploded in May 2010. In fact, BP is now under federal investigation regarding this and similar safety violations on other rigs.  In other worlds, this wasn’t a case of “sometimes accidents just happen”, but of a preventable disaster set in motion like a time bomb by human negligence.

So the next time you hear some ultra-conservative like Rand Paul or Sarah Palin, who strenuously promotes uncontrolled off-shore oil drilling as well as in the pristine Arctic wilderness…or if you hear those rodeo clowns who host hate radio telling you the government should stay out of it, think about what your life and your childrens’ lives would be like if there was no “big government” to protect your workplace safety, food safety, drug safety, medical safety, financial safety, housing safety, health safety, water safety, environmental safety….

Or put another way:  Would you like moldy-potato fries with that rat-meat feces-encrusted dioxin-soaked lard-cooked burger during your 3 minute lunch break in that 16-hour-a-day unventilated methane-gas-filled coal mine?

And our fish catch was already dead from petroleum overdose, but they’re still yummy!

The United States space shuttle Atlantis returned from a 12 day trip to the international Space Station (ISS) yesterday, during what is presently scheduled to be its last space mission.  The mission, named STS-132, (STS=Space Transportation System, the NASA designation for shuttle missions) is the 132nd space shuttle flight.  STS-132 flew 48 million miles.  Atlantis have flown more than $120 million miles during 32 space missions since it began operations in 1985.

In 2003, then-president GW Bush, partially in response to the space shuttle Columbia disaster, made the decision to terminate the space shuttle program by 2010.  However, this decision, tempered by the need to finish construction of the ISS, came with the initiation of a new human space program called Constellation, which was to some extent an upgraded and updated Saturn-Apollo program designed to return Americans to the moon by 2016 (later slipped to 2020), followed in as little as 5 to 10 years with trips to Mars.  US$9 billion have since been spent on Constellation.

Saturn-Apollo was America’s moon program.  Apollo 11 put the first two men on the moon in 1969 and Apollo 17 put the last two on that surface in December 1972, for a total of 12 Americans on the moon.  There were supposed to be three more moon missions, ending in Apollo 20, but then-president Nixon canceled funding for them in 1970, while concurrently supporting the development of the space shuttle program.

When Barack Obama took office in 2009, he commissioned the blue-ribbon group “Augustine Commission” to examine the true state of America’s space program before setting space policy.  When the panel released its findings, the most shocking revelation was that the Constellation program had been grossly underfunded, and could not possibly take humans back to the moon before 2030.  Additionally, humans missions to Mars weren’t even on the radar, based upon the program’s progress and foreseeable funding levels.

Finally, the time lapse between the space shuttle program termination and the beginning of Constellation’s capability to carry humans even to the ISS in low-Earth-orbit (LEO) was going to be at least 7 years, and likely longer.  During that period the USA would have no direct human access to space, but instead would be at the mercy of the Russians and perhaps later the Chinese, Indians and even possibly the Europeans before it once again possessed its own human-rated space transportation system.

However, the USA does depend upon private enterprise for access to space involving commercial and even military payloads.  Thus, president Obama and his advisers reasoned that the USA’s immediate LEO space transportation needs to the ISS could be met most quickly by private companies, if the NASA budget provided seed money for these companies to develop newer, better, and faster technologies that translated into a human-rated “space taxi” capable of transporting humans to and from the ISS.  But for these funds to become available, the space shuttle program would have to end as planned in 2010.

Further, it was reasoned that a trip to Mars or other deep space destination will require technologies not yet developed by either government or private enterprise because of the costs of doing so.  But funds could be available if Constellation was canceled.   Deep space destinations would then be reachable much sooner.

Thus, in accordance with this plan, there are only two shuttle missions left:  STS-133 on shuttle Discovery in September 2010, and STS-134 on shuttle Endeavor in November.  Both are supply missions to the ISS.  Though the schedule may slip into early 2011, these two are the last two approved shuttle flights.

Shuttle Atlantis will be utilized as a backup, ready to roll to the launch pad, for shuttle Endeavor’s STS-134 mission.  This is in keeping with the safety policy NASA instituted after the Columbia disaster, i.e., a second shuttle is always ready to launch on a rescue mission should something happen to primary mission shuttle on launch.

Because Atlantis will be essentially “ready to launch” on a crew rescue mission for the last Endeavor flight to the ISS if necessary, many are reasoning that the launch-ready Atlantis could and should be flown one last time, in June 2011, for one last re-supply mission to the ISS.  It would leave the ISS in better shape once the shuttle program lands.  It would also shorten by at least six months the time that the USA is without it own human space transportation system.

And finally, it would buy some time.  After all, the space shuttle has been America’s premier space vehicle for almost thirty years. It has transported hundreds of humans and most of the ISS components into orbit and made the several in-orbit repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope possible.  Significantly, it’s being retired without another system at least in development.

So hope that the White House and NASA approve that last mission for Atlantis.  Because when the final shuttle finally does land for the last time, it will be a very sad day…the end of a very proud era.

Tuesday, May 18, 2010:  Primary elections (and one special election) were held in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon, USA.

The results:

1.  Pennsylvania:

a.  Arlen Specter, who served five terms as US senator from Pennsylvania (four and 5/6 of which were served as a republican), was defeated in the democratic primary by democratic US congressman  Joe Sestak.

b.  The only real (special) election of the night between a democrat and republican for the remaining term of deceased US congressman from Pennsylvania John Murtha, was decisively won by a democrat, Mark Critz, who served as an aide to Murtha.

2.  Kentucky:  Extreme-right-wing Tea Party member Rand Paul, son of Texas libertarian-leaning republican congressman Ron Paul, won the republican primary to be the republican candidate for US senator in the November election.

3.  Arkansas:  Incumbent conservative democrat US senator Blanche Lincoln, with 45% of the vote, bested Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, with 43% of the vote, in Arkansas’ US Senator Democratic primary.  However, since she did NOT win a majority of the votes (more than 50%), she will face Halter again on June 8th in a runoff election.

4.  Oregon:  In the only significant primary election in that state, incumbent US Senator Ron Wyden won the democratic primary to seek a third full term.

So what does it all really mean?

The GOP had been predicting a huge anti-democrat wave, but in the only official national election for office of the evening, the democrat Mark Critz won the congressional seat vacated by John Murtha against a republican.

The anti-incumbent sentiment might well have had a minor impact on the defeat of Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania, but the 80-year old had been battered by his opponent during the campaign, and many citizens within the electorate had had enough of the king of political “switcheroo”.

Additionally, many politicos had been predicting the demise of the democratic party, referring to the history of the first two years of the Bill Clinton administration as a guide to what’s going to happen in November 2010.  They pointed out that the party that pushes health care reform invariably incurs the anger of the average US voter.  And they also referred to the historical fact that the party that wins the presidential election loses seats in congress during the first national mid-term election after the presidential race.

Perhaps that anti-democrat sentiment combined with the anti-incumbent movement will sweep the old out in favor of the fresh and the new…regardless of political party.  That would favor the GOP, at least from a “numbers” perspective.

But maybe this time there are new dynamics are in play which defies prediction.

There is no question that Americans are upset about the economy, In addition, there’s no question that many forget when the economic recession and resulting job loss actually started.  If the Obama administration rules over a lack of job recovery, than they and everyone associated with them are doomed.  But even this alone cannot explain the mixed results of last night’s balloting:

1.  Arlen Specter, the incumbent, lost.  But he was a switcheroo republican-turned-democrat, having spent 29 of his thirty years in the US senate as a GOP’er.

2. Incumbent Blanche Lincoln did not achieve the required majority to win her primary outright, but she still won a plurality of the vote cast, and is still alive to face the run-off primary election in June.

3.  In Oregon, incumbent US Senator Ron Wyden won the democratic primary to seek a third full term.

So much for the anti-incumbent theory.

In the “new dynamic” category, and in what can only be described as both a Tea Party victory and a defeat for the establishment GOP, Rand Paul won the republican primary.  However, whether he can actually win against a democrat in November is a totally different matter, and one which this blog will be watching closely.

And finally, defying the GOP claim that democrats are dog-meat in 2010 just as they were in 1994 when the last big health care reform overhaul effort failed to pass, democrat Mark Critz won the only real congressional election of the night against a GOP candidate.

So much for the “republicans will sweep the democrats from power” concept.

So what does it all mean?

Almost nothing.

Folks still seem to remember that the republican administration of GW Bush took us to the recess and massive deficit spending.  However, they are also impatient with the Obama administration for not having fixed all this in its entirety over the past year and a half.  Point scored and then point penalized, as they say.

The Tea Party movement has been making a lot of noise about government spending, and government being too big.  But they also have attacked some of the wrong causes and have alienated many moderates within the GOP and independent voters.  Point scored and then point penalized, as they say (again).

The anti-incumbent sentiment against Washington, congress, and government in general is loudly vocal, but not, it seems, strong enough to “throw all the bums outs”.  Point scored and then point penalized, as they say (one more time).

Based upon last night’s results, there is only one solid conclusion that intelligent observers can draw regarding the general elections coming up in November:

There’s going to be an election.  And no one knows who will win…yet.

There is a distinction between a country whose population is religious in nature, and a country governed by religion.

Iran is a religiously-governed nation.  So is the Vatican (yes, it really is an independent country).

Although Israel is considered a Jewish state, it is really governed by a European parliament-based government.  As is Turkey, though its citizens are predominantly Muslim, and Italy, though its predecessor state was the Holy Roman Catholic Empire and its citizens are predominantly Catholic.

It is an axiom that the more conservative one is, the more one wants his/her religion to be part of their country’s government.  As a result of that desire, those folks will claim that their country is based upon, or founded in a (insert your preferred religion here) tradition.

This is certainly evident in the USA, where the vast majority of the population is Christian, with Judaism next largest religion.  All other religions pale in contrast to these two insofar as percentage of population is concerned.

The citizens of the USA seem to be somewhat more involved in their religions than most other western industrialized nations.  Thus, it can be accurately stated that the US population is somewhat religious.  But, much to the chagrin of the religious right, that does not translate into the USA being a Christian-governed, or even a Judeo-Christian-governed nation, all claims by the far right to the contrary.

Curiously (ignorantly?), many conservatives will argue that the founding fathers were Christians who stamped their faith into and upon the US Constitution.  They will also claim that some of the early leaders of the USA, such as Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, all of whom were involved in authoring of the US Constitution, were Christian men who wanted Christianity  imprinted in that document.  But is that really true?

Let’s look at the facts.

The authors of the US Constitution were for the most part naturalists.  These were educated men who did not rely upon their religion for explanations regarding the physical world around them.

Consider the following statements by Jefferson, Adams and Paine:

Thomas Jefferson wrote regarding religious freedom in the “Revised Code of the State of Virginia”, considered to be his second most important writing:

“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.”

Thomas Paine, in his “Age of Reason”, wrote:

“I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own Church.”

And finally, John Adams was a man who had strong faith and religion in his personal life, shunned religion in public life.  This is clear in the “Treaty of Tripoli”, which, as US president, he signed in 1796.  Chapter 11 of the treaty reads:

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; (emphasis added) as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”

Additionally, consider the language (and associated 220 years of Supreme Court case law on the issue) of the First Amendment to the US Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now compare those statements from these educated and consummate leaders of early America to the recent statements by Sarah Palin: 

“Go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant — they’re quite clear — that we would create law based on the God of the bible and the ten commandments.

Click on the links in this article and/or do your own research.  Then answer the following question:

Who’s right?

When the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico owned by British Petroleum (BP) exploded last month, most people did not expect that two weeks later, the Gulf coast, from at least Texas to Florida, would eventually be threaten by what is becoming one of the biggest oil spills in history.  After all, the oil industry and its conservative deregulation-supporting friends have been claiming for years that modern-day oil drilling is safe, environmentally friendly and good for everyone.

Of course, they have neglected to define whom “everyone” is, in the context of their statements.  Most likely, they simply “forgot” to include such people as fishermen, restaurateurs, and folks whose livelihoods depend either directly or indirectly (as in the domino effect) upon the intertwined economies of the Gulf coast communities, or anywhere else where an “impossible” massive oil spill might occur.  And they must have simply “forgotten” to include environmentalists and people who have properties that might be contaminated by any such “impossible” massive oil spill.

When Sarah Palin ran as the GOP vice-presidential candidate in 2008, she frequently supported opening up America’s coastlines and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. She shouted “drill, baby, drill!”

She very recently repeated her mantra of “drill, baby, drill!” at a speech before the Tea Party movement.  Other conservatives have been equally verbose in their support for continuing America’s addiction to oil by encouraging increased oil drilling in America’s environmentally sensitive areas.  “It’s absolutely safe!”, they keep chanting, as they criticize those pesky lunatic environmentalists warning of a potential disaster.

Over the past two weeks, however, these same oil-drilling supporters have been strangely silent, as the BP oil rig sank and three holes on the ocean floor that BP had been harvesting oil from continued to spew out 210,000 uncontrolled gallons of oil a day.  BP has tried to stop the oil by sealing the underwater wells, though so far it has only been successful in sealing one of those outlets.  The massive oil slick, which is growing in size, made landfall in Louisiana on April 30th.  Sadly, most experts at this point expect the situation to get much worse long before it gets better.

Most shocking of all, however, is the revelation thatinvolves a remote-control shut-off device called an “acoustical switch“.  This device is a last-chance fail-safe device designed to choke off an oil well in an emergency. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the US Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service, decided against requiring the use of this device by oil companies operating in America, rationalizing that it was not necessary because “rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.”  This rationalization by an agency of the Bush administration came after the oil companies complained about the expense (US$500,000 each) of having to install the “acoustic switch”.  Concurrently, these self-same oil companies were reporting enormous profits of over US$40 billion a year (at least!!) at the time!

But wait!  There’s more!!

Remember “Tricky-Dick” Cheney, Bush’s vice-president and overseer of the super-secret Cheney Energy Task Force meetings with the oil industry.  His and Bush’s policy of deregulating everything they possibly could got a boost in those meetings.  According to a recent interview on the Ed Shultz show (which you can watch for yourself HERE), the results of those closed-door meetings were orders issued to the government agencies involved, such as the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, to deregulate as much as possible, and to not regulate anything new.  Were it not for this, the “acoustic switch” might well have probably been required for every off-shore oil rig in the USA, just as they are in other countries, such as Norway and Brazil.  And the Gulf oil spill might have been prevented!

Regardless of political leanings, most people would agree that a primary function of government is to protect public safety, particularly when people cannot do so on their own.  Protecting an industry and environment which is depended upon by a population for their livelihood and economic well-being, as well as their health, is certainly an issue of public safety.  But when a government sacrifices that well-being of its people, even in a small region, in favor of protecting short-term profiteering on the part of the financially powerful, it is not living up to its purpose.  And why would anyone, besides the ruthless profiteer, want a government that does not serve the purposes of the greater good of its people?

It will be months or possibly even years before the full impact of this environmental disaster is completely evaluated.  But it will take more than just investigation to determine exactly how to prevent it from happening again.  It will also take a lot of courage on the part of congress and the Obama administration to make the hard choices necessary to ensure the public safety against another disastrous oil spill.

Step one might just be for President Obama to say, “Oops…on second thought, maybe off-shore drilling isn’t such a good idea, after all.”

For being the land of “liberty and justice for all“, America has a very checkered past when it comes to treating all people equally, fairly and decently.

Much of the US engaged in slavery of Africans who were either kidnapped in their native land or born of slaves right here, when this country was founded.   Additionally, other minorities emigrating to the USA within the past 230 years endured hatred and rejection by the people who were here before them, with a notable exception:  Native Americans were here first, but were almost wiped off the face of the planet in the 19th century by invading and land-grabbing white men, who, presumably, were full American citizens.

Not so long ago dark-skinned minorities in most southern states of the US were forced ride in back of the bus, and lynchings were a reality in these same places.  Thankfully (unless you’re still a racist and/or white supremacist), most of that changed in the 1960′s with the civil rights movement and the social revolution that took place.

Yet, most people when asked before Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, responded that they did not think an African American could win a presidential election.

However, Obama did actually win the last presidential election, to the absolute horror, hatred, fear and disgust of those folks who still believe that the white race is the superior race, and should be in charge.  They are by nature extremely conservative anyway, so Obama’s non-conservative agenda infuriates them even more.

Enter the “tea party“movement.  The racists and white supremacists flocked to this organization like flies to roadkill.

While it is true that not all tea party supporters are racists and white supremacists, it is true that according to a recent University of Washington poll, and as reported by Newsweek magazine, a large portion of tea partiers may well be “race-resentful”.

There is a ton of increasingly frequent proof that tea partiers are, at a minimum, “racist-tolerant”.   This is clearly true when one reads by some of the placards seen and racial slurs heard at tea party events.  Many of these are seen here, and you will find endless references to such things here, which result from a Google search of “tea party racist comments”.  This is verified data, folks.

But the ‘race-resentful” within the tea party movement seem to dislike Latinos, Asians and other minorities as well.  People with similar beliefs passed and signed Arizona’s new mandatory racial profiling law, which will force police to demand immigration documents of anyone they might suspect of being a non-American citizen.

But what if a person of Mexican descent but who was born in the USA is heard speaking Spanish in the streets?  The police might “suspect” that this person is an illegal immigrant, and absent immigration papers (which US Citizens don’t possess or carry), this person is arrested and incarcerated.  This stupid and most likely unconstitutional law is a racial disaster waiting to happen.  But the tea party applauds and supports it.  Why?  Because everyone knows that Latinos are nothing but lazy good-for-nothing brown-skins who only want to suck the USA dry.  Or so the tea partiers babble at themselves and anyone else who’s listening to them.

But their thinking is irrational, motivated by hatred, and fueled by bias.  Here’s the  proof:

Imagine that instead of being attended by white men who toted their guns, their hate-spewing  placards and insulting shouts of anti-Obama rhetoric, the recent 2nd Amendment gun rights in Washington DC was instead attended by African Americans during the Bush administration.

Imagine the reaction around the US under those conditions!   Many whites would have seen it as an unacceptable terrorist action by militant and dangerous African Americans!  The outrage by many in the USA would have been massive!  Interestingly, this reaction and response, as compared to the muted reaction to the actual event, would have occurred solely because of a difference in skin color!

Other examples of “what if they were African-American (or Latinos or Asians) instead of whites” are listed here.  They are incredibly thought-provoking.

The field day the hate-radio talk-show hosts would have had with it would have been enormous!  One can almost hear the Rush/Hannity/O’Reilly hate-mongering group panicking the population, making them fear a violent armed conflict by these uppity extremist terrorist black people, and demanding the national Guard search every non-White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) home in American for guns, and drugs and communist literature…..

Annie, get your gun…and make sure it’s the assault rifle!!

But seriously, folks…    …

…do Americans really want to be represented in the world as well as in history by these hypocritical wing-nuts who claim to love America but can’t stand Americans…or at least those who don’t look like them?

Think about how contradictory that is the next time you watch the tea partiers on TV or read about them in the press.

Heating up in the dark recesses of congress is the Obama administration’s desire to reform some of the USA’s current financial regulations (or lack thereof) that allowed the “too big to fail” financial companies on Wall Street to let AIG make stupid and/or risky financial decisions with shareholders’ money.  These companies near-failures (saved only by taxpayer-funded Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP) played a huge part in pushing the economy into the worst financial recession since the great depression of the 1930′s.

Because they were indeed considered “to big to fail”, meaning that their failures would pull down many more companies in a vicious cycle of related bankruptcies, John & Jane Q. Taxpayer was forced to bail them out.

This latest recession is considered by most economists to have officially begun in December 2007, the sixth year of  G.W. Bush’s presidency.  Bush and his supporters religiously believed in the free market system, i.e., free of government interference.  To his credit, however, when the full depth of the recession became apparent, even Bush himself admitted that he was starting to rethink that concept.

Meanwhile, like the health insurance companies before them, the Wall Street “too big to fail” boys have launched a massive advertising campaign which, with the help of the big-business-friendly GOP, is intended to make Americans shake in their boots over any regulation over the power of these companies to again cause financial chaos that taxpayers would have to bail out.  To date, not one single GOP senator in congress has agreed to support financial reform.

The following letter from a loyal reader of We, the PEOPLE, really does a great job of summing up what’s wrong with the GOP’s view of financial reform:

“Conservatives have opposed just about every reform ever enacted while predicting the swift demise of the nation.

“In 1905, Upton Sinclair gave us a glimpse into the free market utopia that today’s Conservatives are so intent on recreating. His book, “The Jungle”, is set in the meat packing plants of Chicago where they discover that rats have been feasting and defecating on the meat. In response, they place poison bread as bait and then dead rats, rat feces, poison bread and the rancid meat are all ground up and sold as sausage.  Progressive efforts to reform the situation with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 were met with resistance from the Beef Trust and Conservatives who insisted such a law was unconstitutional.

“Also in 1905, President Grover Cleveland warned that if women were given the right to vote “the wives and daughters of the poor would have new opportunity to gratify their envy and mistrust of the rich.”

“In 1908, Conservative Senator Weldon Hayburn of Idaho opposed Child Labor laws assuring citizens that if such laws were enacted  “the child might become a very dominant factor in the household and might refuse to do chores before 6am or after 7 pm or to perform any labor.”

“In 1938, the National Association of Manufacturers condemned the idea of a minimum wage saying it was “a step in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.”

“And in 1961 Ronald Reagan speaking of Medicare warned  that if Medicare were enacted, “We are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our childrens’ children what it was once like in America when men were free.”

With each effort to improve the lives of the average American,  Conservatives have attempted to convince average citizens to support policies that benefit the very richest and warned that such legislation was Socialistic, Communistic and if successful America would be forever changed.

“One wonders if today’s Conservatives and Tea Heads are secretly longing for the days when we each went to the market and took our chances, free from the meddlesome, freedom killing, influence of those Marxist Socialist Federal meat inspectors!

(Name withheld upon request)

The bottom line is that as loathsome as government regulations can be, they become an absolute necessity whenever any of the following conditions exist:

a.  when public safety is at risk,

b.  when abuse of citizens is rampant, or

c.  when the taxpayers have to pay extra because of the uncontrolled incompetence and/or greed of others.

In the case of Wall Street and its “too big to fail” companies, all three conditions were in play.  The recession and subsequent massive unemployment were the result.

It’s really hard to believe that the conservatives in this or any other country really want a repeat of the recent financial meltdown.  But then it was also hard to believe that they really didn’t want an end to health insurance greed, abuse and stupidity.  But they voted against that, too!

Maybe they’re right…maybe we should just go back in time and trust the meat packers to do the right thing.  And the GOP can take the credit.

Enjoy that sausage, folks!