The competition to be the number one corrupt Republican legislator in Washington, D.C. is keen.

Recently the corruption spotlight shone brightly on the longest serving Republican senator of all, Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Stevens had become the "King of Pork".  The word "pork" in Senate terms defines pet projects of House and Senate members for an assortment of cash for the people who put them in office.

Stevens had sent a series of huge sums back home to Alaska as the "King of Pork".  His most notorious achievement was the Alaskan Bridge that led to nowhere.  

The choice of Delaware's Senator Joe Biden demonstrated solid strategic thinking from Barack Obama and his high command.

The strengths that former 2008 Democratic presidential aspirant Biden brings to an Obama White House run were manifested in Biden's initial effort after being selected, with salient points being raised in his Springfield, Illinois speech that need to be drummed home to the electorate between now and the November election.

By choosing Biden, Obama trumped the major point being relentlessly raised by John McCain and surrogates from the outset, that of the Arizonan's experience.  Biden has been in the U.S. Senate most of his adult life after having been elected by the people of Delaware at the age of 29.

While McCain talks the game, Biden has delivered in the experience sweepstakes in a manner that the Arizonan has not, by retaining a touch with reality and growing in office while the Republican solon has dodged, swerved, and ultimately vegetated.

The August 4 issue of Time headlined this incredible story with this sobering thought:

"With Russian and U.S. warheads on a hair-trigger alert, the Cold War's last sentries remain ever vigilant."

Every citizen of the world should read and carefully analyze what this thoughtful article by Eben Harrell  has to say:

"In a small control room buried in a mountainside fortress high above Colorado Springs, the cold war rages on.  Behind 25-ton blast doors, U.S. and Canadian soldiers work 12-our shifts in crews of five, , their sole mission to distinguish benign rocked launches from missiles traveling toward North America at 4 miles a second bearing nuclear warheads capable of destroying cities.  They have a matter of minutes to make the call that could unleash nuclear Armageddon."

The initial installment of this series ended with the 1972 presidential election.  The string of pollsters drawing solid conclusions at the termination of presidential races was challenged in 1976 due to the speed bumps along a rocky U.S. seventies' political terrain, but when all was said and done things transpired basically as predicted.

Following the resignation of Richard M. Nixon as a result of the Watergate Scandal it was initially thought that the Democrats would score a resounding victory in the 1976 presidential election since Republican fortunes were then running at low tide.  One advantage the Republicans had was that, in resigning in the summer of 1974, the party had better than two years to engage in operation damage control.

Another Republican advantage was that of incumbency in that Congressman Gerald Ford assumed the vice presidency after he had been selected by Nixon and approved by Congress following the resignation of Spiro Agnew.  Ford did his best immediately to repair damage in the wake of Nixon's rule of "presidency by secrecy" to convey openness and congeniality with former fellow House members as well as Senators.

Two thorny problems damaged Ford, his pardoning of Nixon as well as the worst recession to grip America since the Great Depression.  Ford was the victim of an oil embargo employed by Arab nations believing that they had not received fairness in dealing with the U.S., asserting that American policy was tilted toward Israel to their detriment.  

"Get the government off the people's backs," was the famous Ronald Reagan mantra.

Republicans love to look back on the Reagan era, and boast how wonderful it was during this era.  How absurd can this nostalgia get?

The hue and cry of businesses, large and small echoed the dangerous Reagan mantra, "Get the government off people's back" with delight.  

These business gurus obviously didn't want anyone closely watching their crooked schemes in action.  The almost total lack of ethical government supervision empowered them to operate fraudulent business practices without being busted.

On July 25, the New York Times front page article by Steven Erlanger, datelined from Paris, had this to say:

"Barack Obama, who came to Europe once in the last four years, making a stop in London on his way to Russia, the response of many Europeans to his potential presidency has been gratifying, emotional, responsive, replete with the sense of hope he seeks to engender about a more flexible, less ideological America.

"On Thursday evening in a glittering Berlin, Mr. Obama delivered a tone poem to American and European ideals and shared history."

Five words that stand out concerning Obama's words on this whirlwind Middle East and European tour were that Barack Obama spoke "with the sense of hope."

It might be asked of Senator John McCain if he has any decency left.  Whatever he had he apparently checked at the door long ago in quest of the presidency as a Republican, where standards of decency are as antiquated as any mention that the Republicans are the "Party of Abraham Lincoln."

Remember, this is the John McCain who was happy to be called a "Maverick Republican" and proclaimed to be a supporter of campaign reform and fiscal responsibility.

We recall what happened when McCain sought the Republican presidential nomination against none other than then Texas Governor George W. Bush in 2000.  The South Carolina primary, a must win situation for Bush, was arguably the slimiest such contest in the annals of a party that, since the fifties, had seen the likes of smear artists Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy and in 1988 featured the antics of George Bush the Elder.

Karl Rove, in the tradition of his idol Nixon and as direct successor to sleaze artist Lee Atwater, had his highly financed manure tossers attack McCain, his wife, and even his daughter.  The adopted daughter, who came from Bangladesh, was referred to as "McCain's black daughter" while his sanity was called into question and all stops were pulled out in pursuit of the victory that resulted.

There was Barack Obama electrifying two hundred thousand Berliners listening with fascination to every word this spectacular presidential candidate had to say.

They welcome change in U.S. policies that have threatened world peace for eight years.  These were turbulent times, years fraught with hate, death and destruction.

Barack Obama's father was a black man from Kenya who tended his goats.  Barack's mother, an idealistic white woman, had left Barack with his white grandparents.

These grandparents guided his destiny from childhood to manhood.  

There they are, rushing to show how fearful they are regarding being punished for their dark deeds.

The New York Times revealed that "Several members of the conservative legal community" are pushing the White House to grant what are called "pre-emptive pardons" for officials involved in so-called counter-terrorism programs.  

Legal experts say the president can issue a pardon at any time whether the charges have been filed or not.  The U.S. Constitution has been the traditional safeguard to preserve what the founders of our nation established.

Tragically the Bush Republican administration has trashed the constitutional safeguards that have protected U.S. citizens for over two hundred years.  Intercepting private communication without the traditional required warrant to permit this has been circumvented blatantly and without apology by the Bush administration.

George Washington, the father of our country, warned, "Stay out of foreign entanglements!"

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned wisely against an unwarranted military-industrial complex.

The horrifying Bush-Cheney team has ignored the wise warnings of George Washington and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Acting with ignorance and supreme arrogance, Bush plunged the U.S. into the Iraq with a series of frightening falsehoods.

They were both senators from Arizona, Republican Party nominee Barry Goldwater in 1964 and John McCain in 2008.

Even a cursory look at the dynamics in play between the two races reveals the chance for the Democrats to emulate what President Lyndon Johnson's board of strategy achieved almost a half century ago, when the Democratic incumbent secured an overwhelming popular vote victory of 23 points with an overwhelming 61-38 % landslide.

Johnson later told interviewers that Goldwater lost all opportunity to become a credible candidate when, in his acceptance speech at the party's San Francisco convention, the Arizona solon made a statement that brought him his hottest, most resounding response of the night from his in person audience of zealots, including Ronald Reagan, but left a vast majority of voters cold in November.

Referring to the fact that Democrats were seeking to paint him as a right wing extremist, Goldwater took the bait in a personally harmful way and delivered one of the most memorable lines in convention history:

In the May 16 New York Times Jennifer Steinhauser wrote the following:

"LOS ANGELES - In a highly unusual use of a federal law generally employed in computer fraud cases, a federal grand jury here on Thursday indicted a Missouri woman accused of using a phony online identity to track and taunt a 13-year-old girl, who committed suicide in response to the cyberbaiting.

"The woman, Lori Drew, is charged with one count of conspiracy and three counts of accessing a computer without authorization and via Interstate commerce to obtain information to inflict emotional distress.  Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison."

Mrs. Drew of O'Fallon, Missouri, created a My Space Account using a phony name of Josh Evans.  She contacted a young girl named Megan Meier, pretending to be a man.  

Friday, June 27 the New York Times headlined an article of a jury convicting a motorist of causing a train crash.

Jennifer Steinhauser in a story datelined from Los Angeles wrote the following:

"The man who caused a catastrophic train crash that killed 11 people and injured scores of others was convicted on 11 counts of first degree murder and may face the death penalty.  

"The defendant, Juan M. Alvarez, a 29-year-old laborer, had intended to commit suicide early on January 26, 2005, when he drove his Jeep Cherokee onto the track of a heavily traveled commuter railroad line near downtown Glendale, but abandoned the plan at the last minute and simply failed to get the vehicle off the track.

Repeatedly, we hear we are trying to bring freedom and democracy to these nations where we do battle, the vision the U.S. taxpayer is funding is to deliver the U.S. lifestyle to these needy nations.

However, before we can deliver this American dream style of living we have a lot of homework to do to improve the American lifestyle.  Recognizing what is happening these days in the U.S.A. demonstrates this fact dramatically.

A horrifying fire near Spokane, Washington was started by a thoughtless homeowner enjoying a backyard barbecue.

In a forest setting such as the mountains of Spokane a backyard barbecue fire is not only the ultimate thoughtless act, but can prove deadly.

Tom Porteous, London director of Human Rights Watch, put the issue in perspective as he told the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament regarding human torture:

"It is pretty clear the U.S. and the U.K. are relying rather heavily on the well-known abusive Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-services Intelligence, in the counter-terrorism operations.  It is one of the mot brutal intelligence agencies in the world."

Human Rights Watch as well as Amnesty International had stated to the Foreign Affairs Committee that British intelligence officers were colluding in torture.

In a July 15 headline story in The Guardian by Ian Cobain, Members of Parliament are calling for an investigation into allegations that the British intelligence agency MI5 has been "outsourcing" the torture of British citizens to Pakistani security agencies after hearing accounts of abductions and mistreatment while sometimes being released without charge.