The News

While the American people have been riveted (with the active aid of the corporate newsmedia) by the Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson and Robert Blake trials, as well as the Atlanta Courthouse shooting, Martha Stewart's release and the Terry Schiavo tragedy/circus, Congress has passed a bill giving over $150 billion in new tax breaks to the corporations, instituted a new round of tax reductions for the wealthiest Americans, passed a punitive bankruptcy law which allows loopholes for the more well off, allowed drilling in a sacrosanct Alaskan nature preserve, curtailed the ability of the citizens to file class action suits, and who knows what else.

In broad daylight they’re looting the country and fleecing the lambs. Speaking of wool, it’s been successfully pulled over the eyes of the populace.



Did the people elect George W. Bush in 2000 (well, semi-elect) and then re-elect him in 2004 to run up the biggest deficits in history, loosen environmental guidelines to allow more pollution, increase corporate welfare by umpteen billions of dollars, blur the formerly inviolate lines between church and state, allow 45 million working Americans to live without health insurance, start a new doctrine of preemptive war, mishandle the military and diplomatic missions attached to that war, turn America from a respected super-nation into a resented super-bully, and keep the homosexuals down?

Well, at least one of those things, the one that’s obviously much more important to some people than all the others.

Back on the Case

In 2000, George W. Bush campaigned on the premise that he would safely cut taxes (mostly for his wealthy benefactors) and still allow for balancing the budget. After he took office and that was seen as no longer feasible (and then again after 9/11) he pushed through the tax cuts anyway. Then, after the war in Iraq was obviously going to increase the burgeoning deficit, he rammed home even more tax cuts.

Speaking of the war, the Bush bunch stated, with absolute smug certainty, that the Iraq war effort would cost the U.S. only $1.7 billion, and here it stands at 100 times that and rising. Many, many of those billions have gone to Cheney's Halliburton and other "connected" companies, most of them by a no-bid process.

The Bushies assured all the gullible citizenry that the prescription drug bill was at a reasonable expense, but experts now project its cost at nearly triple the Administration’s original estimates over the next 15 years. A staggeringly high percentage of this trillion dollar boondoggle is going directly into the coffers of the pharmaceutical industry.

And now they’re peddling more bogus numbers to try to get Social Security private accounts in place. Private accounts won't cure the solvency problems that this program is due to have in the imminent future (well, 2040 or thereabouts) but it will pump hundreds of billions into selected (by the government) corporate stocks.

When are the American people, or at least an electoral majority of them, going to wake up and smell the grifters in the $3000 suits?



Gas prices over $2 a gallon. What a surprise – not!! I predicted as much when Bush was first "elected," seeing as how he, his family and most of his cronies are fossil fuel men who would take windfall profits as the prices went up. It’s no wonder that Cheney – another oil man – fought all the way to the (stacked deck) Supreme Court to hide from public scrutiny the closed door meetings he conducted with the fat cats of the energy industry. That old expression "sold us down the river" comes to mind.

The salient fact of the "shortage" of oil is that it’s not a shortage of crude oil, but of refineries, none of which have been built since Bush/Cheney took office. Instead of pushing hard for that and alternate fuels, the Administration is heavily touting something called "cleaner-burning coal."

My prediction in this matter is that companies in Europe and Asia will take the lead in alternate fuels and leave the U.S. in the dust and smog of high-cost, dirty energy.

Back from the East

For all of you anxiously wondering where I’ve been, in July I took what was supposed to be a 2 week business trip, to Singapore and Taiwan. This was in regard to my garment buttons business. Well, long story short, I was given the opportunity to expand the company into garment buckles (as you might know, a massive undertaking), and proceeded to implement the expansion. Consequently, I made trips to Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong and Kuala Lampur (Malaysia). My return from this last location was set for December 30th, but when the tsunami hit, I decided to stay to help out.

While away, I kept up with the goings-on back here, including the election, but not with any real depth, as I was busy with business and the emergency relief effort. And, believe it or not, there are issues and events in foreign countries that have nothing to do with the U.S., some of which are compelling in their own right.

I've been back for a few weeks now and have been catching up with things on the domestic front. There's so much I want to comment on that I'm pre-typing my thoughts so as to present them better in this blog. More to follow.