Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

George Bush began his White House residence with the budget surplus the Democrats left him.  But Bush has generated a staggering budget of almost $10 trillion, greater than all the combined national debt since the U.S. was founded.

Leading U.S. author Gore Vidal declared that it may take one hundred years to recover from the cumulative foreign and domestic harm that this Bush Republican administration has accomplished.  

To think that George Bush is chasing all over Europe with Air Force One and his speeding motorcade and entourage, telling European leaders how to handle Middle East problems.  

After his horrifying track record in Iraq as well as the U.S.A., who would want to listen to any of his foreign policy messages?

During the Iraq War a question was asked Bush, "Do you consult your father for counsel on your Iraq policies?"

Bush shook his head and said he was not consulting with his father, the ex-president, the Elder Bush, but with his other father, meaning of course his heavenly father God.

Now we know, after all this horrifying death, destruction and debt, with the Iraq War lasting 6 years, longer than any other war in which the U.S. was involved, that it would be blasphemy to suggest that Almighty God was behind the Iraq debacle.  

Who was Bush really consulting with?

Now as gas prices skyrocket all over the world, here in the United States the public demanded that Congress do something to end this greedy speculation causing havoc with the airlines, like United Airlines, firing 5,000 employees, cutting hundreds of flights, and air fares skyrocketing as high as 375 percent.

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer June 11 headline read:

SENATE REPUBLICANS BLOCK WINDFALL PROFIT TAXES ON BIG OIL

The Associated Press article by Josef Hebert datelined Washington had this to say:

"Saved by Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to be hit with a windfall profit tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming."

GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing big oil won't do a thing to lower $4 a gallon the price of gasoline.

High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to meals on wheels deliveries to the elderly.

The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year.

With unemployment in the U.S. at its highest in 22 years, the Democrats tried to get Congress to go along with a 3-month extension of unemployment benefits.  Again this was defeated by Republicans.  

All this was going on while George Bush struts and waves for TV cameras in Germany as he declares in dealing with Iran, "All options are on the table."

Tragically, the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, when it came to starting impeachment against Bush for launching the Iraq War without justifiable cause that  "Impeachment is off the table."

Dennis Kucinich has introduced 35 articles of impeachment against Bush.  He had earlier introduced articles of impeachment against Cheney.

The U.S. can only gain the respect of other nations when Bush, Cheney and other officials responsible for the Iraq War's deaths, destruction and debt have been brought to justice.  

The Constitution of the U.S. has been trashed by deliberately deceiving the American public, and it must stop as soon as possible.

In the June 8 Seattle Times Sophia Kishkovsky of the New York Times wrote, datelined St. Petersburg, Russia:

"In his first major economic speech since becoming president Dimitri Medvedev said Saturday that the world might be in the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."  

However, on Thursday, June 5 in the Seattle Times, an Associated Press article by Jeannine Aversa datelined Washington read:

"Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says, because today's economy is more resilient and better able to absorb a painful punch" is why the 1970's stagflation will not do a re-run.

However, Ben Bernanke apparently fails to recognize what a different scene the U.S. economy is in in 2008 compared to the 1970's.

In the past 40 years the U.S. population has gained a fantastic 100 million new residents.  World trade agreements have sent many of our basic manufacturing plants overseas to circumvent the wages U.S. labor demands, and obtained the cheapest labor in the world (sometimes akin to slave labor) to fatten Wall Street's profiteers.

Oil prices have never skyrocketed this high!  Why don't you consider the $10 trillion debt?

Are you blinded by wishful thinking, Ben Bernanke?

Peter Kogler wrote in a Letter to the Editors that appeared June 1 in the Seattle Times that Bush has been vindicated, explaining, "The whole dynamic of war in the Middle East has changed in our favor."

Richard B. Ellenberger of Normand Park, Washington's response to Kogler's optimistic assessment of Bush appeared in a Seattle Times Letter to the Editor that appeared two days later, June 3:

"Bush as one of the greatest?  Quick, where is my air-sickness bag?"

With Bush's popularity standing at 25 percent according to the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll a lot of people might reach for their air-sickness bags!