We, the PEOPLE!!

 As reported by “We, the PEOPLE!!” last week in “What’s US$482 Billion Among ‘Friends’”, the citizens of this nation are being strapped with an enormous national debt in excess of nine trillion (that’s trillion with a “T”, folks) dollars.  Much of it has come about by Bush’s incredibly incompetent “excellent adventure” in Iraq, while Bush concurrently provided tax cuts to the very rich, including the obscenely profitable oil companies. 

In the meantime, Iraq now has a budget surplus of $50 billion!

This is a war, you will recall, that we were all told would pay for itself because of the oil revenue generated by Iraq’s oil reserves, the third largest oil reserves on Earth.

We were also told that invading Iraq in 2003 was absolutely necessary for the following reasons:

1.  Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

2. Saddam Hussein was aiding and abetting terrorists, including those tied to 9-11 (whatever “tied” meant).

3.  Saddam Hussein was acquiring “yellow cake” uranium to make fission bombs.

Each of these premises was proven to be false, or in other words, a lie.  Nonetheless, America rushed to invasion, and in the process, either destroyed the civil infrastructure or through the worst post-invasion planning in memory, allowed the insurgency to destroy it.

But one part of that infrastructure was repaired immediately, and every time it was subsequently damaged:  The oil industry.  Today, Iraq is pumping two million barrels daily, and is capable of producing up to five million barrels a day.  Yet, even at a measly two million daily barrels, at $120 a barrel, that’s a gross revenue of US$240,000,000 a day, or almost a billion dollars every four days!

For quite some time more and more people have been asking about this:  How can it be that Iraq doesn’t fund its own military and civilian reconstruction and infrastructure recovery, while the American taxpayer does?

Senators Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan and senate armed services committee chairman, and John Warner, Republican from Virginia, both wanted answers to the same question.  So they asked the U.S. Government Accountibility Office (GAO), to investigate.

The GAO found that while the financially abused American taxpayer has been footing, and continues to foot the bill for reconstruction projects in Iraq, the Iraqi government has only spent a small fraction of its large oil revenues on its own reconstruction, security, military, etc.  Instead, it has placed enormous sums of its money in the Development Fund for Iraq at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, earning interest a la 401K.

That’s right.  Iraq has a virtual 401K fund right here in the USA, having invested thirty BILLION dollars in an American bank, earning American revenue!  You can read more about it HERE. 

Senators Levin and Warner issued the following joint statement:  “It is inexcusable for the U.S. taxpayers to continue to foot the bill for projects the Iraqis are fully capable of funding themselves.  We should not be paying for Iraqi projects, while Iraqi oil revenues continue to pile up in the bank, including outrageous profits from $4 a gallon gas prices in the U.S.”

At some point, even the staunchest Bush suck-up/McCain supporter has got to think, “Hey, wait just one minute…you mean I’m paying taxes to support Iraq, while Iraq is investing in its USA-based 401k to support…what….??” 

After all, well over five years after the US’s horribly misguided invasion of Iraq, the citizens of Iraq still endure daily massive electricity outages and only partial running water.  America funds the reconstruction projects, as well as the training and equipping of the security and military forces.

And meanwhile, Iraq plays “Wheel of Fortune” in the USA with funds that could go a long, LONG way toward not only rebuilding its own country, but also relieving the American taxpayer of Iraqi reconstruction costs and perhaps an additional $50 billion being tacked onto our national debt.

“We, the PEOPLE!!” doesn’t understand what the 28% of Americans that still support Bush and the 42% that support McSame don’t understand.

If you do, please explain it to the 70% who don’t support Bush and the 56% who don’t support McSame. 

We’re listening…

The USA is a great place to live, but recently it hasn’t been easy for many people.  High energy costs, a crashing real estate market, failing mortgage companies and suppliers, oil companies that want more land and offshore areas to drill into when they don’t drill on most of the land and offshore areas they already have access to.  Higher food prices, loss of disposable income, an outrageously expensive but not very responsive health care system, the never-ending war in Iraq, crumbling infrastructure such as bridges and roads, a reducing middle class…one wonders what it would take to fix all of this.

How about $482,000,000,000?  Or put another way, almost half a trillion dollars?  We’re talking serious money here.

When GW Bush came into office in January 2001, he inherited a $128,000,000,000 surplus.  He quickly converted that into a budget deficit with his very first budget proposal, which was formulated before 9-11.

In 2002, Bush had the pleasure of working with a republican majority in both houses of the US Congress.  For the next four years, through 2006, this governmental lock by the republicans gave us huge yearly budget deficits.  Keep in mind that the Republican Party is supposed to be the party of fiscal restraint, which means that they should be restricting their spending, not blowing cash they have to borrow from the Chinese every year and that has to be paid back by our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, for starters.

Besides the outrage of violating this basic tenet of conservatism, republican congressmen and senators, spending like  an entire aircraft carrier of drunken sailors, earmarked special projects such as the infamous Alaskan “bridges to nowhere”, which you can read more about HERE.  In fairness, republicans were not the only ones doing earmarks, but they were the ones in power, controlling the votes in Congress and ultimately it was Bush who signed these spending bills into law.

It is significant that Senator Ted Stevens, republican from Alaska, was one of two republican senators from Alaska involved in the “bridges to nowhere” debacle.  Steven was indicted on seven counts of lying on senate disclosure forms yesterday, July 29, 2008, by a federal grand jury in a case involving his accepting gifts in excess of $250,000 from a firm involved in oil production.  It is illegal for federal employees to accept such gifts.  You can read more about this HERE.

It evidently is as easy for some to spend the money of others as it is for them to accept expensive illegal gifts from others.  The largest yearly budget deficit in history, $482,000,000,000, has been proposed by Bush in the last six months of his term.  While some of that has to do with the questionable economic stimulus package of several months ago, the almost half a trillion dollar deficit, lumped onto the existing national debt of over $9 trillion dollars, will take virtually forever to pay back, particularly with no increase in taxes.  It’s simple math.  You can watch the national debt climb second by second HERE, if you can stand it.

Bush’s tax breaks for the rich while funding a useless and unnecessary war in Iraq, rewarding big business for taking jobs overseas, tax incentives for the oil companies whose profits are obscenely enormous, etc., are all directly and indirectly responsible for the recession-like state of our economy, the international fall of the dollar, and the real threat of increased inflation in the coming months, as predicted by some experts.

In true “do as I say, not as I do” fashion, the Bush administration has castigated democrats as irresponsible “tax and spend” folks.  But no one in history has ever proposed such a large budget deficit as Bush has.  The republicans will forevermore be known as the “recklessly borrow and spend” party.  After all, it’s not their money.  It’s yours!

Four hundred and eighty two billion dollars.  $482,000,000.  Almost half a trillion dollars.  Almost half of $1,000,000,000,000.

And we can’t spend one single dime on stem cell research for curing cancer.

One immutable sign of an advanced society is its embracing of justice and the premise of equal justice under the law.  With that in mind, the civilized nations of the world, in the United Nations Charter of 1945, long ago gave rise to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands.

The United States withdrew from compulsory compliance of the International Court of Justice in 1986, during the administration of republican Ronald Reagan, approximately at the time of the Iran-Contra controversy.  The result of this unilateral action of the USA is that after the International Court issues a decision, the USA gets to accept or reject that decision based upon its own interests.

An offshoot of the UN International Court of Justice is the International Criminal Court, commonly known as the “World Court” also headquartered in The Hague.  It was established in July 2002 to deal with issues of human rights and crimes against humanity, such as war crimes. 

In recent days it has been announced that Radovan Karadzic, who had been the Bosnian Serb president in the mid 1990’s, and who had ordered the genocide of Muslim men and boys during his reign, has been apprehended and will face trial in the World Criminal Court in The Hague, on charges of war crimes and genocide.

This is actually not new.  Internationally recognized tribunals have held trials and issued verdicts and sentences as far back as the Nuremburg trials on 1946, during which the USA, along with other countries, prosecuted nazi official on charges of war crimes and genocide.

With Karadzic in custody and facing trial, the issue of the World Court returns to center stage.  The concept is sound and essentially states that civilized countries recognize certain codes of human behavior, including but certainly not limited to respect for human rights.  Most countries already guarantee such concepts in their governing documents.  Even the USA’s Declaration of Independence states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Obviously, denial of human rights, including human rights outrages, torture, and genocide are violations of these “unalienable Rights, that among (which) are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In fact, the USA is presently conducting war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who allegedly was Osama Bin Laden’s driver, and who is being charged with and tried for conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism.

So what does it say that one hundred six nations on Earth are members of this esteemed World Criminal Court but that the USA, under republican president George W. Bush, has joined China in refusing to sign on to the World Criminal Court.

Of course, it’s just a coincidence that another republican president is leading the USA during this refusal.  Equally coincidental is the fact that the timeframe for becoming a member of the World Criminal Court is roughly the same as the US invasion of Iraq and mismanagement of that selfsame war.

It has been stated that the USA is not a member of the World Court because members of the Bush administration fear being prosecuted “for political reasons”. 

If true, then one must presume that “political reasons” might be defined as the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign country, destruction of that country’s civilian infrastructure, causing mass misery to a civilian population, suspension of habeas corpus rights for captives, the murder of unknown numbers of prisoners held in secret prisons, and the planning, ordering and implementation of all the above.

In the meantime, in typical “do as I say, not as I do” fashion, the Bush Syndicate continues a questionable, often secretive military tribunal system in Guantanamo, having fought against prisoners’ legal rights for years (much as China has been known to do), and yet refuses to participate in what just might be the highest and most credible system of justice on the planet, endorsed by over one hundred countries.

How can this be possible?  Or, in the vernacular…WTF??

(posted enroute @ Las Vegas Airport)

Aboard the M.S. Ryndam in Vancouver, British Columbia - Americans are much divided regarding the wisdom of the American invasion of Iraq and continuing Iraqi war.  A very large majority is now convinced that it was and is a mistake, while a very small and shrinking minority continues to support the Bush “Excellent Adventure”.  After all, according to the supporters, we “liberated” Iraq and its people form the evil Saddam Hussein and we were subsequently welcomed as “liberators”.  Or so we were led to expect.

This writer had the opportunity to interview an Iraqi woman who, along with her family, is a member of the Iraqi Christian minority.  She married a European and was able to leave Iraq, although she still has family there seeking to leave. As an Iraqi Christian, she is not involved in the Shi’ia vs. Sunni conflict.    In fact, as an extreme minority, her family was anything but confrontational with the Muslim majority in Iraq.

The woman, whom shall be identified only as “Maria”, made it clear that she and her follow Christian Iraqis recognized Saddam as a tyrant that one did not want to cross.  She was equally clear that Iraqis recognized that opposing Saddam was tantamount to a death wish, and that someone who did dare to speak out against the dictator might simply disappear off the face of the planet.

Having prefaced her comments with the aforementioned facts, she compared the life of the average Iraqi under Saddam with conditions five years after the American invasion.

Under Saddam, different religious beliefs were accepted and tolerated..  Christians and even the small Jewish population lived in peace alongside Muslims.  Shi’ias and Sunnis coexisted.  It was known that Saddam would not tolerate religious intolerance, and a violation of this premise could be very dangerous to one’s health.

Women were allowed to work, drive, and attend universities.  As a result, there were a large number of educated women in Iraq who held relatively well-paying jobs.  Doctors and hospital operated normally.  Electricity flowed through the utility lines to homes and apartments, and water flowed through the pipes in similar manner.

Crime was at a minimum, and criminals were apprehended and severely punished.  People felt it was safe to walk the streets, and left their doors unlocked at night.  Gasoline was cheap and plentiful.  Some goods were hard to come by, but food and most necessities were available.  Medical care was available on a continuous basis.

Five years later, there is total religious intolerance in Iraq.  Women are subservient to men and Islam. Crime is rampant, led by religious and political assassinations and suicide bombings.  This woman told of her friend’s sister and mother having been killed last week in their home after gunmen first robbed them and then murdered them because they were Christians. 

The previous week, her friend’s brother was killed as well. 

The Iraqi police are incapable of tracking down the perpetrators of so many criminal acts which occur each and every day. Non-Muslims are no longer tolerated or safe.  If you are not Muslim in Iraq, your life can be in danger.

Electricity is available perhaps two to four hours a day.  Water often doesn’t reach the kitchen sink.  Gasoline is scarce and expensive.  Medical services are also scarce since many doctors and nurses have left the country.  There is no end in sight to the misery that exists in that country.  The present Iraqi government, supported by the USA and its military forces, appears incapable of solving basic infrastructure problems, let alone create an environment of liberty, tolerance, and safety.

When “Maria” (not her real name), who for safety’s sake had to hide her very Christian name in favor of a Muslim name to disguise her Christianity in Iraq, was asked if the Americans should continue their mission or leave, she emphatically stated that Americans should leave as soon as possible, because the only purpose served by them as seen by the Iraq people was to continue “more of the same”.  She went so far as to say that although Saddam was an awful tyrant, that most Iraqi long for a return to life as it was under Saddam.

That’s quite a commentary for the war that Bush built, during which over 4,100 Americans have given their lives.  Instead of this waste of American and Iraqi lives, a better way to effect positive change in Iraq would clearly have been through covert internal means, perhaps supporting an alternative Iraqi leadership group in exile.

Make no mistake:  Saddam Hussein was a bad person, a dictator, a tyrant who murdered anyone that got in his way.  But so is Mohammar Khadafi of Libya and Kim Yong Il of North Korea, as well as many African and several Asian national leaders.  Yet, the USA did not invade any of those countries.  The reason the US invaded Iraqi but not the others?

1.  Oil (in Iraq), or lack thereof (in the other countries);

2.  The other leaders didn’t try to kill GW Bush’s dad, as Saddam did;

3.  Other reason(s) too sensitive for We, the PEOPLE to know.  See #1 and #2 above.

There is little hope that anything in Iraq will improve within the six months and one day left in Bush’s debacle administration.  But perhaps after January 20, 2009, the long journey back to Iraqi civilian stability can begin.  According to “Maria”, Iraq needs not strong external propping, but strong internal leadership to solve its problems….strong internal leadership it at present is not evident.

Is she right?

Anyone paying the least bit of attention to the news lately knows that a very serious near-missed collision event occurred at Kennedy Airport, also known globally as JFK, over the past few days.

One airline jet on short approach to the runway had to “go around”, or abort the approach and proceed with alternate unsafe published instructions for a another approach later, while another airline jet was taking off from a perpendicular (90 degree offset) runway. The two jets came very, VERY close to colliding and killing perhaps up to four hundred people.

This writer has thirty-three years of air traffic control experience, and is now recommending to his family that they take the train, or at least fly out of less-congested airports than the biggest ones, such as JFK, in the USA. There is an obvious safety-related reason for this.

For the average US citizen, most of the turmoil that has overtaken the US Air Traffic Control System, known internally as the National Airspace System (NAS) since 2002 has been invisible. But the Bush Administration has been hard at work attempting to dismantle the previous presidential administration’s, and ex-Federal Aviation Administrator (FAA’s) Jane Garvey’s actions to ensure the safety of the American flying public, both present and future state.

Jane Garvey was appointed by President Clinton to a five-year term as FAA administrator in 1997. You can read more about here HERE.

Garvey acutely understood that the extremely technical and highly stressful profession of air traffic control demanded that people actually involved in the daily practice of this profession be the ones making decisions about its future demands and requirements. To that end, she worked very successfully with the nation’s air traffic controller workforce to ensure the highest levels of safety. Liaison positions of controllers on management teams were created to ensure that the user interface, i.e., where the rubber meets the road, was taken into consideration when establishing new air traffic procedures or designing new air traffic equipment.

When Garvey’s term was up in 2002, GW Bush nominated, and the republican US senate confirmed, Marion Blakey as administrator.

Blakey had a primary task assigned by Bush: Turn FAA into a profitable business model, so as to facilitate contracting out the NAS to a private contractor, as is done in Canada (with 10% of the air traffic of the USA); Minimize the influence of the workforce, since they are not concerned with business models, but only safety, in their daily work.

It is clear that private contractors are primarily concerned with profit, and NOT safety. Remember that as you read on.

The union/management contract, negotiated under Garvey and beneficial to both the government, in terms of facility staffing and technical support, and to the workforce, in term of pay and the ability to input into technical advances, was due to be renegotiated in 2005. When the Bush team and controller (National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a.k.a. NATCA) team met, it immediately became apparent that the Bush administration was never interested in negotiating a fair contract replacement. Based upon a quirk in federal law, the Bush Administration, through its puppet Blakey, declared a negotiation impasse, and in September of 2006, the FAA was able to impose draconian and unnegotiated work rules upon their air traffic controllers, some of which included a 30% reduction in pay.

The Bush administration has never been good at timing, as evidenced by the Iraq war and its aftermath, and it didn’t contradict this record here, either. It imposed its non-negotiated work rules and pay reduction upon the controller workforce, just as thousands of air traffic controllers, hired as replacements after the 1981 PATCO air traffic controller strike during which 11,700 controllers were fired, were becoming eligible to themselves retire.

Two thousand controllers have since done exactly that, leaving the NAS desperately wanting for experience. The FAA, slowly responding to the huge self-caused staffing shortage, would hire anyone under the age of 31 who can spell their name two out of three times without making a mistake. And that’s exactly the kind of response they’re getting, after having reduced the salaries of new hires to the point that they cannot live normal lives.

It will take three to five years to train these new “slave-wage” workers.

And what does this mean to you, the American flying public?

It means that veteran controllers, who cannot yet retire, have to pick up the slack, work much longer hours under increased traffic conditions, under extreme mental fatigue conditions, with procedures they sometimes feel are unsafe and into which they had no input.

Imagine that you need an operation on a brain tumor. Imagine that your brain surgeon has to pick up the slack for three others that left for whatever reasons, and the only replacements are still in their internship. Further imagine that your surgeon is now really tired and fatigued because to the increased number of operations per day. Imagine his last operation of the day, under these conditions, is YOU.

That’s the status of the present Bush-raped, experience-starved, profit-motivated, contractor-ready, mistake-laden FAA Air Traffic Control/NAS system in the USA.

McCain, whom is extremely anti-union/anti-worker, has stated that he supports the present FAA management practices.

Wanna fly? Do you feel lucky today?

Need more convincing? Check out THIS SITE:

Click HERE for the latest on this fiasco!

You might remember the saga of U.S. senator Larry Craig, republican from Idaho, who was arrested last summer in the men’s room at Minneapolis Airport for soliciting sex in a men’s room (frequented by men, you realize). Craig pleaded no contest to charges and paid a fine. You can read more about this incident HERE.

You might also remember U.S. senator David Vitter, republican from Louisiana, who has admitted to consorting with prostitutes over a long time frame. You can read more about this “pillar of integrity” HERE.

Just this week, a group of ten right-wing republican senators reintroduced the “Federal Marriage Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution, which proposes, in pertinent part:

“Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman.’.

These two aforementioned bastions of hypocrisy were among the ten who cosponsored the proposed constitutional amendment. You can read multiple articles about this HERE.

You will notice in bold that the proposed amendment includes a prohibition of civil unions, meaning that same-sex couples living together, but not allowed in their state to marry, could not even access joint health or beneficiary benefits, or a thousand other benefits presently legally available to both married couples and folks in legal civil unions today.

Thankfully, this stupid amendment, which attempts to inject certain religious beliefs about marriage and civil unions into the U.S. Constitution, has no hope of passage, or even having a hearing scheduled in the U.S. Senate. But it does raise issues that need to be addressed.

First, marriage in the legal sense and marriage in the religious sense are two totally distinct entities. From a legal point of view, which the “state” clearly administers, it is essentially a legal financial contract between two people. Many laws at multiple levels come into play for and between two legally married people, which primarily impact real and personal property, assets and benefits. If children are involved, the state has legal jurisdiction over their fate should the married partners not agree, most commonly during and/or after a divorce, just as it has legal authority over disposition of property and assets.

Marriage in the religious sense, while touching on the above, has no legal standing in the United States or other western industrialized nations. Religious marriage is often considered to be permanent and has its roots in ancient history. The teachings of Judeo-Christian religions make clear that marriage is a union between people of opposite sex because of a primary religiously mandated marital function, which is procreation. This, placed against the property and children disposition of legal marriage, is a huge distinction between religious and legal marriage.

Additionally, religious marriage is defined differently depending upon whether one follows Catholic, Jewish, mainstream Protestant or fundamentalist Protestant teachings. Catholics and some fundamentalists do not accept divorce.

Clearly, the state does accept divorce and exercises considerable control over the procedure.

Thus, to accept a religious-oriented view of marriage into the U.S. Constitution would clearly violate the First Amendment protections (with subsequent Supreme Court case law) which states in pertinent part: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” .

But the most amazing issue to surface out of this marriage amendment debacle is that Larry Craig and David Vitter co-sponsored this legislation. Clearly, these two guys think they are fooling their constituents, and now the rest of the American people.

Craig and Vitter obviously subscribe to the “Do as I say, not as I do!” philosophy that so many of history’s hypocrites before them have followed. Besides not having any integrity, or the good sense to remain quiet and invisible for the rest of their tainted terms, they also seem to be incredibly stupid. That doesn’t say much for the folks that elected them in the first place, either.

If the republicans can’t find a way to move away from these two guys, and others like them, then they deserve the pounding that they seem likely to get this November.

As far as same sex marriage is concerned, as long as it (or anything else) doesn’t cause the price of gas to go up, people should mind their own business. After all, there are a LOT of heterosexual marriages out there that totally suck.

Shouldn’t these “do as I say” folks be concentrating on fixing those marriages, as well as their own, FIRST?

In this waiting time between the end of the spring primary season and the startup of party conventions in late summer and early fall, the presumptive candidates, Obama and McCain, are doing what they can for the American people to maintain interest in their respective campaigns. One might even call it is “silly season”, when one considers some of the topics they are battling over. Still, the polls seem to be trending slowly but steadily toward a slight but increasing lead by Obama among likely voters.

Ultra-conservatives are in a quandary about McCain, because they perceive him as too liberal for their tastes. But they will either vote for him anyway, or in rare cases vote for the libertarian candidate Bob Barr, or they’ll simply stay home.

More moderate and traditional conservatives and independents are seemingly the groups that McCain is having some trouble with, albeit for different reasons. The true conservatives see McCain as more of that same GOP that has abandoned traditional republican goals of smaller government and states rights. Independents, while sharing the same concerns as the traditional conservatives, see McCain as another Bush, and as someone who they are unsure of regarding where he stands on issues, since McCain’s stand on issues seems to tilt slightly toward the audience he addressing at the moment.

One might say that McCain is suffering from overexposure of his little-understood, often conflicting philosophies, or perhaps his unexciting way of talking to people and the press. Which tends to occur with 71-year-old people. He could probably benefit from a little pizzazz in his campaign to shake things up. Additionally, to distance himself a bit further from GW Bush could only help him, since Bush’s average approval ratings of the five most recent national polls give him an approval rating of 27.6%. You can read the polls HERE.

The solution for McCain is simple: Select a woman as your vice-presidential running mate! And make the selection before Obama announces his!

The benefits of this strategy are enormous. First, it would shock everyone, forcing them to take a new look at McCain. Second, it would demonstrate that he really does want change in the GOP as well as the nation. Third, it would get everyone’s eyes off Cindy McCain whenever she accompanies her husband on a campaign trip.

Depending upon whom he selects, other benefits come on line as well. Here are some suggestions and their associated perks:

1. Laura Ingram: McCain would have a built-in lawyer in Laura, and as a radio and TV talk show host, she can tell him what to say and how to say it, and when. Plus, she’s attractive to look at, and thus she would improve the visual when McCain is present. She also flew in a Navy jet once, so she and McCain can talk avionics. Read about her HERE.

2. Phyllis Schlafly: Very conservative author and anti-feminist, she opposed the Equal Rights amendment in the 1970’s. Her membership in the John Birch Society will warm the hearts of the most extreme right-winger out there. Because she is 84 years old, she will make McCain look like a spring chicken. More about her HERE.

3. Ann Coulter: A very attractive woman who will enhance McCain’s stature, and get everyone’s eye off of Cindy. Ann is a near-fascist-sounding conservative author, lecturer, and commentator with anyone who will give her the microphone. She has made a fortune warning America of the evils of all democrats. Known for her quick wit and scathing commentary, she is also a huge Grateful Dead fan. Couple that with McCain’s love for ABBA’s song “Take a Chance on Me!”, and folks will be happily humming all the way to the voting booth. Read more about Ann HERE.

Of course, the one woman who could provide the most benefit to McCain’s campaign has yet to be mentioned:

Hillary Clinton.

Hillary would provide experience, power, knowledge, and give McCain the opportunity to prove that he truly is for change and for working with people from the other political party. He has already worked with Hillary in the senate, so he knows her capabilities. It would be the perfect marriage of republican and democrat, conservative (sort of) and liberal (sort of), and at the age of 60, she still looks good enough to enhance the visual when Cindy is not around.

But best of all would be when Hillary declines the offer. McCain can then say, “Hey, look, I offered, right?”

Not only that, but the Obama camp would then have a clear reason not to offer the same thing to Clinton. After all, didn’t she just show the world that she’s not interested in the vice-presidency? Why would they ask someone who has already declined?

Hillary’s supporters would then flock to McCain since he offered and Obama didn’t.

See? The perfect strategy for McCain’s lackluster campaign.

Sometimes the perfect solution is just waiting for someone to spit it into the sunshine.

Dedicated to George Carlin

If someone came to you today and told you the gas station on the corner was selling regular gas for US$3.29 gallon, wouldn’t you consider that a bargain?  Just a bit over two months ago, We the PEOPLE!! lamented the fact that regular gas had reached $3.29 a gallon.  You can read that article HERE.

With the price of regular gas in the USA at now at $4.10 a gallon and still rising, people are realizing the  truth of real economic trouble.  After all, it is gas (or diesel for trucks, or a kerosene derivative for jet aircraft) that fuels commerce in this country and the rest of the world.  With the price of transport and heating/cooling going up, inflation is already with us and has every opportunity to get worse. 

This situation is strangely reminiscent of the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo which shook the western world and made a fragile economy suffering from the remnants of the Vietnam War endure double-digit inflation.  Those who lived through it remember the gas lines and sporadic wildcat gas rationing by gas station owners.  The price of a gallon doubled in a year, and the US government, first under Nixon and then under Ford promised to make the USA safe from any future control by a foreign entity where our energy needs were concerned.  In other words, the USA was going to be energy independent.

Nixon made everyone in the USA crawl along the superhighways at 55 miles per hour and Ford pushed through legislation granting minor tax credits for people who bought heat pumps, insulation, and alternate energy producers, such as they existed in 1974 and 1975.  People abandoned their large gas-guzzling American cars for foreign sub-compact automobiles just large enough to seat four people, a box lunch, and a citizens band radio.

And both the government and private industry promised advances in alternate energy that would guarantee energy independence for the USA.

Fast-forward to 2008:  Thirty-four years later, Bush and his syndicate of oil-company- friendly administration officials are at the end of a long line of administrations, two of which were democratic and five of which were republican, that failed to deliver on the alternate energy promise. 

Certainly, technical advances have occurred with ethanol, solar and wind power, fuel cells and hydrogen, but not one of them has translated into a solution against the huge importation of foreign oil that occurs daily in the USA.

Instead of pushing the envelope on alternate energy, the Bush administration continues to push the envelope on increased oil drilling in places on the continental shelf and in the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve (ANWP) that have been off-limits to the oil companies for many years because of environmental concerns.  Bush claims that allowing his buddies to drill for oil there will “bring enormous benefits to the American People”.

This, of course, is spoken by a man who distinguished himself as the owner of an oil company whose sole accomplishment was digging dry holes into the earth.  Bush’s own Department of Energy refutes his claim, stating that drilling in Alaska would do little to reduce the price of oil.  Furthermore, drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) would have no impact on the price of oil before the year 2025, fully sixteen years from now.  Even then, it might just shave $2.25 off a barrel of oil which stands at $140 today.  The effect on the price of gas would be minimal.  You can read more about it HERE

But the worst part of all of this is that the oil companies already own leases on an enormous amount of federal land and offshore areas that are not being developed by the oil companies.  Of the over 90 million acres of federal land and off-shore areas leased by the oil companies, fully 68 million acres is not being developed by them for energy production.  Put another way, over 75% of the land and off-shore areas leased by oil companies is undeveloped.  And yet, they want more land and off-shore areas while their friend Bush is still in office (which mercifully ends in seven months).  You can read more HERE.

And even if the oil companies could somehow explore, drill, refine and distribute more domestic oil, they would only be prolonging their ability to rake in the enormous profits they are making at the expense of research and development into the alternate energy sources this country and the rest of the world desperately need as soon as possible.  Brazil, considered by some to be an inferior country to the USA, realized this in the 1970’s when it decided to do something as a nation about foreign oil dependence:  It developed ethanol as its primary transportation fuel, and grew both sugar cane and infrastructure.  Today, Brazil in energy independent, and all of its cars can run on ethanol.  And it exports excess energy!

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy made a USA commitment to send men to the moon and return them safely to Earth before the end of the 1960’s.  Merely eight years later, humans walked on the moon and returned safely home.  They derived their energy from fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make water.  They did this almost 40 years ago!!  With 1960’s technology!! 

So… how come we still don’t have mass-produced fuel cells powering our vehicles and warming/cooling our homes and factories?  How come we don’t have wind-turbines and solar panels on every home in America?

Most importantly, how come the oil companies want more acreage when they’re not developing three quarters of what they already have?

Because guys like Bush (and now McCain) believe that drilling is good for us.  Kind of like when he was a Texas oil company owner drilling dry holes in the ground.  It was good for him.  It set him up to be president of the USA…the worst in history.

One of the mantas purported to have been heard leading up to the famous historical Boston Tea Party of 1773 was “No Taxation Without Representation!”  This basic premise defines the barest of rights under democracy, i.e., that in order for a government to operate in a proper manner, it must have the consent of the governed, particularly in the case of taking money from the governed for whatever purpose.

Conversely, an entity operating a business under this “no taxation without representation” premise may, under certain not-for-profit conditions, be relieved from paying taxes.  This applies even though the entity may benefit from some of the programs that taxes are paying for.  And, of course, anytime one entity does not pay its fair share of taxes, someone else must pay more to pick up the slack.

Most citizens who pay taxes would agree that these not-for-profit non-taxpaying entities are acceptable in that they operate essentially unheard and unobtrusive in the modern environment.  The Red Cross is an organization which comes to mind under these criteria.

But what about organizations that seem to be making profits by, for instance, owning large mansions which are rented out for large social gatherings or that are holders of   obscenely expensive real estate which continuously increases in value and yet they pay no property taxes. 

What about organizations which, perhaps in addition to the above, engage in the political process by endorsing one candidate over another, or preaching against one political party over another, or direct people to vote in certain ways?  Shouldn’t political influence peddling be a pay-as-you-go activity?

Both republicans and democrats have had to deal with certain religious leaders whom just can’t stay out of the political arena.  These religious folks just have to get involved in the political process of selecting and electing our representatives.  And if one believes in the first amendment, one would have to agree that these religious leaders, as embarrassing as they might be to the political candidates they claim to support, have the right to express their views.

But if they use a church pulpit to do so, and particularly if that church owns property and other money-producing holdings, the money of which is supporting the speech-making activity of the pulpit speaker attempting to influence the political process for or against a political candidate, doesn’t that fly in the face of the tax-exempt status of those churches (and any other religious or otherwise tax-protected organizations)?

The answer is yes, it flies in the face of the tax-exempt status.  The Internal Revenue Service has specific regulations about this activity.

To be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3). In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.  You can read more about it HERE.

Of course, under the Bush administration’s war on science, religious organizations have had free reign to violate these regulations without threat of enforcement action.  This has led to increasing political influence peddling on the part of some religious leaders such as Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Chicago Catholic Priest Father Michael Pfleger. 

This doesn’t even begin to address the massive real estate holdings, and the money coming in as a result, of certain religious entities throughout the USA.  Clergy abuse accusations have been fought for years by high-priced lawyers in high-prices legal venues by certain church organizations, and the awards and settlements have often been paid by the selling of expensive real estate on which no taxes of any kind were paid, including sales tax.

The US Constitution’s Bill of Right Amendment One states, in pertinent part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…  You can read the entire amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights HERE.

There can be no question that everyone in the USA is free to practice the religion of their choice, and every religious leader is free to express their views as they see fit. 

But when those selfsame religious leaders and or organizations cross the line and enter the political arena with their views and influence, the rest of us should not have to take up the financial slack with increased taxes while these “pundits on the pulpit” get a free ride.

Last night June 3, 2008 Senator Barack Obama made American history by securing enough pledged delegates and super-delegates to achieve the democratic nomination for president of the USA. As a result of this tremendous accomplishment, the National Democratic Convention will formally name him their nominee in August to face republican John McCain in the general election in November.

For her part, Hillary Clinton also made history by becoming to first woman in the USA to make it as far as she did during the primary season. By most counts and criteria she achieved more primary popular votes than anyone in history, including Obama. This is possible because of the weirdly diverse way different American states conduct their primaries or caucuses, or both as in the case of Texas.

The same is true when it comes to votes for president: One can win the popular vote, as Al Gore did in 2000, but lose the election because of the archaic, but still constitutionally mandated Electoral College system utilized in the USA.

Nonetheless, the fact is that both Obama and Clinton each earned approximately 18,000,000 votes each during the primary season. This incredible vote tally broke all previous records for primary election voting in the USA.

Significantly, in varying percentages during exit polling, voters stated that they might not support the candidate they did not vote for, should that opposing candidate become the democratic nominee. In the case of Clinton voters, surprising numbers of voters stated during exit polling in numerous states that they would either vote for McCain or simply stay home if Obama became the party’s nominee. Depending upon the state, the percentage of Clinton supporters who stated they would not support McCain in the general election in November ranged from 30% to in excess of 60%. This was particularly true in states such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio and Pennsylvania to a lesser extent.

The reasons for this are varied but are primarily based upon the perception that Obama is more liberal and elitist than Clinton among what used to be called “Reagan democrats”. These are white, blue-collar workers whom generally are not college graduates. This demographic cannot be ignored if a liberal democratic candidate wants to win a swing state that otherwise might go for a more conservative candidate, as these states did in 1980 for Reagan. Ergo the phrase “Reagan democrat”.

There are those who abhor Clinton for a variety of reasons, none of which is the subject of this blog. Those folks claim that other potential vice-presidential candidates, such as state governors who supported Clinton, can achieve the party unity and required Clinton supporter-vote salvaging in these swing states by drawing the Clinton supporters over to Obama. Their thought process is flawed. After all, who would go to a Madonna concert if her cousin was going to replace her in the show?

Thus, their desire to keep Clinton off the ticket at all costs, though, could well cost Obama the election.

The fact is that Hillary Clinton should be on Obama’s ticket as the vice-presidential candidate. Eighteen million people voted for her, and if even 35% of them voted for McCain instead of Obama, or stayed home and didn’t vote, we could be looking at Bush’s third term of criminal abandon of the Constitution, criminal violation of federal law, four more years of a useless war sacrificing our country’s finest soldiers, and incomprehensible incompetence in mishandling the economy.

Those who fear that Clinton would be unmanageable for Obama need to get a grip. The vice-president has very specific (and few) roles to play in the American constitution, and Obama can easily control when and for how long she has his attention. He, and only he, can assign her tasks as he sees fit. And if Bill Clinton is a concern, know that he would probably want to spend his time playing golf, unless he is tapped for a role in Obama’s administration, such as ambassador to Sweden or some such.

But seriously, folks.

This election is far too important to allow for a personal vendetta to cause the wrong person to be elected. Obama made history last night, and he deserves his time in the sun and to bask in the glory of the moment.

But he has the ability to win over countless voters who did not support him by making even MORE history: Being the first ever African-America presidential nominee teamed with the first ever female presidential candidate to reach almost as far as he did during the primary elections, running as the vice-presidential nominee, together winning office and forever erasing the scourge of the most backward, corrupt, criminal, incompetent, constitution-stomping administration in the history of the USA.

Or we could have four more years of the McSame.

We, the PEOPLE!! often quotes the US Constitution, adopted in 1787, and perhaps the finest example on Earth of a charter by which people govern themselves.  This blog obviously takes its title from the opening remarks of that document:

“We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…”  You can read more about the US Constitution HERE.

Far less perfect, but by no mean less influential upon history is the US Declaration of Independence, written prior to the Constitution in 1776, and which contains this famous passage:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  You can read more about this document HERE.

For over one hundred and thirty years, based partly upon the wording of the Declaration of Independence, most states within the USA did not allow woman the right to vote.  Hillary Clinton’s mother, in fact, was born before women in the USA had the right to vote in every state.  Under those conditions, a woman running for president of the USA would have been laughed out of existence in those days.  After all, women were supposed to stay home, stay pregnant, raise kids, cook, clean, sew and perform all the other tasks that Judeo-Christian tradition demanded.

The only problem with that was that women were citizens of the country that claimed to be the beacon of liberty to the world (just not to its own female citizens).  It took a women’s movement known as Suffrage (read more about it HERE). 

The Suffrage Movement women fought to achieve the right for women to vote, and there were numerous organizations at the time that opposed them.  It was not unusual for a Suffragette to be verbally abused, and told to drop out of the movement and “get back into the kitchen where she belonged”.

Nonetheless, in the face of abuse and scorn, this movement and its women were able force a change to this unfair practice in 1920 with the passage and implementation of the nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution.  This amendment gave American women the right to vote.

Since then, there have been women throughout recent history who claimed to be running for president of the USA, such as Shirley Chisholm in 1972, but these attempts were more political statements than true efforts to win a serious party nomination.  It was not until 1984 when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferraro as his vice-presidential running mate that a woman was seriously considered for high elected executive office within the US government.  And as history would have it, Mondale and Ferraro were seriously defeated in a huge landslide re-election victory for Ronald Reagan in 1984.

All of this history underscores the extraordinary events of the democratic presidential primary campaign of 2008.  For the very first time in history, a woman has had a real run at the nomination for president of the USA of one of the two major political parties in the USA.  And while Hillary has made some mistakes, so has her opponent, Obama, whom, it must be stated, is making history of his own (a subject to be covered at “We, the PEOPLE!!”), the fact of her running and reaching as far as she has to date is history in the making.

Hillary Clinton has achieved a milestone that a short year ago would probably have been considered impossible for a woman (or an African-American) to achieve:  She has won approximately half of all the votes cast in the democratic primaries within the USA to date, and stands to achieve an even higher percentage with a predicted sizable win in the Puerto Rico primary this Sunday, June 1, 2008. 

And while it appears almost certain that Obama will outrace her to the democratic nomination for president in 2008, even he has publicly acknowledged Clinton’s historic accomplishment this primary season, and how his own daughters will benefit from Clinton’s efforts.

So why are there so many folks (one suspects mostly men, but that is unproven) demanding that she abandon her historic quest now, with three primaries still to be held, that she simply drop out of the race because her chances of winning seem so remote?

One wonders if these same “Liberty and Justice for all” Americans that are demanding Clinton cease and desist might also be standing short of the finish line at the Boston Marathon, demanding that all runners after the winner “drop out of the Marathon, since they can’t win”.

Obviously, these folks seem to be motivated by something other than democratic ideals.  They are either Hillary-haters, oblivious to history, or are so impatient about the race that they will hang on anything and everything, including Clinton’s misspoken statement about RFK’s assassination (for which she has apologized and the apology accepted by the Kennedys and Obama himself), as justification to have that “shrill-sounding bitch” get out of the race (and back into the kitchen, perhaps?)?

Whether one is a Clinton, Obama, or McCain supporter, one must acknowledge the obvious historical reality of these times.  Clinton has accomplished something that no woman in history has ever done:  She has come exceedingly close to winning the democratic nomination for president of the United States of America.  She has broken down barrier after barrier against women being accepted as strong and competent competitors for national office of the most powerful nation on earth.  And she has irreversibly opened the door for other women to seriously run for president of the USA in the near future.

Those who continue to demand her withdrawal from history should hang their heads in shame.

Over the past few days the world had learned that a great American and champion of the “little people” has been diagnosed with a terminal malignant brain tumor.

The news alone is devastating for those of us who know Senator Edward M. Kennedy, recognized throughout the world as Ted Kennedy, who is the last surviving brother of his generation.

The Kennedy family, which has contributed so very much to the American political scene and to the benefit of working and disadvantaged Americans, has suffered unimaginable loss, more than any family should ever have to endure.

Ted Kennedy’s oldest brother, Joe, was a bomber pilot killed in action over the English Channel in World War Two. His next brother, John F. Kennedy, was the youngest, and perhaps the brightest president the United States has known, but was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963. The following brother, Robert (Bobby) Kennedy, was well on his way to winning the democratic nomination for president in June 1968, when he was assassinated in Los Angeles, California.

Ted Kennedy’s son had his leg amputated due to cancer. His nephew, John F. Kennedy Jr., died in 1996 when his plane crashed just short of Martha’s Vineyard.

And, of course, Ted Kennedy himself was involved in the tragic death of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969, which is perhaps the real reason that he didn’t run for president in 1972 and 1976. You can read more about Ted Kennedy’s life HERE.

During his forty-six years in the US Senate, Kennedy staunchly and faithfully defended the working men and women of <