Nobody's Safe! (according to Dick Cheney...again)

Dick Cheney is at it again. He now warns Americans that if President Obama should dismantle policies designed by Bush/Cheney, the nation is likely to be attacked by terrorists employing biological and nuclear weapons.

What an outrageous comment...and an even more outrageous political set up!

If we are attacked, he will say something like, “So? You won’t question me again, will you?. My advice is: elect only Republicans if you want to be safe in the future.”

If we are not attacked, Cheney, of course, will disavow his Cassandra alert.

What does it take to get this guy off the stage…completely, utterly and forever!!!

We must never forget...

As hard as it may be to believe, a few voters remain undecided. If you know one, remind him or her of a few of the painful days indelibly printed on the Bush legacy:

I hope we never forget the day the bridges collapsed in Minnesota, reminding us that the Bush administration would not support spending dollars from the Highway Trust Fund to repair and maintain our federal highway infrastructure.

I hope we never forget the day the Bush appointed head of the Consumer Products Safety Commission shrugged as she testified before Congress, confessing she could not remember whether or not the Commission had recalled a single toy made in China that was unsafe for our children.

I hope we never forget the near misses by aircraft at Reagan National Airport, and the fact that the FAA does not have the money to install current state of the art systems to keep planes from colliding on taxiways because the Administration does not support such spending.

I hope we never forget when the USDA announced the biggest meat recall in US history, partially because they cannot afford enough meat inspectors to do one of the basic jobs Americans expect from their government.

I hope we never forget that the FDA permitted unsafe drugs to enter the prescription drug market because of lax oversight, and because the FDA cannot afford the experts needed for proper testing in a timely manner.

I hope we never forget the inept reaction of FEMA to the catastrophic damage to the Gulf Coast caused by Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

I hope we never forget that $500 million in federal support for development of a clean coal-fired electric generation project that was withdrawn because such spending would add more dollars to an already bursting federal deficit, even though such spending might result in cleaner more breathable air for all.

These are but a sampling from a very long list. There are many more from nearly every agency and department of our government where, over the past eight years, budgets have been slashed, staffs have been cut, and the delivery of services American taxpayers depend on has suffered.

Then there is the complete meltdown of our economy under the Bush Administration. It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration was not minding the store. They never did.

John McCain says he and George Bush share the same philosophy of government. Is there anything else you need to know?

We will strengthen our republic when we go to the polls next week remembering the failings of the current administration and determined not to forget what it did to our country these past eight years.

The Records

Make no mistake about it, Bush 43 will go down in history holding every record by which we typically measure the success or failure of a President. He will be Number One! He will hold all the important records perhaps in perpetuity. He will hold the record for --

• Greatest increase in national debt during his term (doubled the debt)
• Greatest annual rate of federal spending (on and off budget)
• Largest amount spent on nation building ($1 trillion and counting)
  
• Greatest miscalculation in the cost of the Iraq war
• Greatest miscalculation in the way American forces would be welcomed
• Greatest attack on the constitutional rights of all Americans
  
• Highest price per gallon at the pump for gasoline
• Greatest cuts in Medicaid proposed
• Greatest miscalculation in the cost of prescription drug benefit for seniors under Medicare
• Largest number of Americans lost health insurance
  
• Lowest amount spent on nation's infrastructure
• Lowest approval rating of any President in the history of the nation.
• Greatest fall in the value of the stock market since the Great Depression

Only God knows what record he would have held if the Congress had permitted him to privatize Social Security by taking all of its funds and investing them in the stock market. Now, that really would have been special!

Monday Morning Potpourri

While visiting a Republican friend (yes, I have many) in his office recently, he proudly displayed a complete leather-bound set of speeches by President George W. Bush from 2002-2005. As he turned the pages and talked about the set, I thought “If I owned these, I wouldn’t have to buy kindling wood for five years.”

My Republican friends sometimes ask me “Why do you hate Bush so?” My answer is “I don’t hate him; I’m sorry for him. But I do not like what he has done to our country.” Obviously, by the size of the turnout in the Democratic primaries this year, I’m not the only one who feels that way.

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I bought a Toyota Camry Hybrid exactly one year ago. On a recent weekend trip to visit our daughter in Charlotte, the Camry got 38.8 mpg from Washington to Charlotte and the return trip saw us achieve 40.8 mpg. Needless to say we are extremely happy with hybrid technology. I have to admit it takes some adjustment at first to accept the switching from electric to gas and back again. The first time the car “died” at a traffic light, mild panic set in until I realized the gasoline engine had cut off and the electric engine was so quiet I could not tell it was on. So, bring on the fuel cells and PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) and other alternatives to oil. Developing such technologies over here is better than going overseas to fight oil rich dictators who face us with weapons bought with our oil money. And what better way to reassert America’s economic leadership on the international stage.

The Many Bush Records

Yesterday, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey revealed 71 percent of the American people disapprove of the way President Bush is handling his job. It’s a new record disapproval rating for a modern President. His record even surpassed the high disapproval ratings of presidents Truman and Nixon. I started thinking about the other records President George W. Bush already holds…and there are many:

Record Debt

The current national debt under the Bush administration is a whopping $9.5 trillion. Interest payments on the national debt exceed $406 billion annually. That’s debt of $31,000 for every man, woman and child in America!

Record Annual Spending

$3.10 trillion in proposed federal spending for FY ‘09. Barry Goldwater would not recognize his party today. As Newt Gingrich recently said, the movement he started has been “run off the rails.”

Record Spending on Nation Building

The war in Iraq is estimated to have already cost taxpayers $550 billion in outlays. The Bush-Cheney pre-emptive strike policy (a first for our nation) led us to the Iraq debacle that continues to drain our nation of its human and financial resources. Some estimates put the total costs for Afghanistan and Iraq adventures at more than $1 trillion.

Record price per gallon for gasoline

$3.62 per gallon is the current national average for the price of regular gas according to AAA. The price of crude oil is at a new record, too, currently $120 per barrel. This is, indeed, quite a record when you consider the price of crude was just $15 per barrel in 1998!

Record miscalculation in cost of Rx drug benefit for seniors under Medicare

Originally $400 billion but the cost increased to $720 billion by ‘06, and is now over $1 trillion, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

Record cuts in Medicaid

The Bush administration proposed a cut of $60 billion in Medicaid for FY ‘06 – and later revised the proposal to a cut of $13 billion over next five years. This remains a record for cuts in the nation’s largest health insurance program.

Record loss of health insurance

The number of Americans who lost their health insurance since January 2001 is estimated to be 8.2 million.

Record setting cost proposed for privatizing Social Security

$3 trillion and rising for privatizing Social Security. Republican members of Congress did not wish to share this record so they refused to pass it.

Record “reshuffling of chairs on the deck” of the good ship Bush

As Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved so tragically, the Department of Homeland Security, established after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, has not improved our government’s ability to respond to national emergencies. Nor has DHS, in the minds of most observers, made America safer from terrorist attack. That perception will not be made crystal clear to all Americans until the next attack. And there will be one according to Vice President Dick Cheney. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Good luck to the next President, indeed, to all of us and our children as we struggle to correct the mistakes of this administration. The Bush administration weakened the American presidency with ineptness, undermined the economy with profligate spending, and threatened our national security by creating new enemies abroad through the pursuit of reckless and ill conceived foreign policies.