Deadly Quarter

Those ignorant, incompetent, stubborn, arrogant “leaders(?)” in the White House are continuing to do it to our country and its citizens.

In Mr. Bush’s (at Mr. Cheney’s obvious but secret urging) pre-emptive war in Iraq we have hit a new record for American troop deaths. (Not to mention the over 26,000 wounded that the Pentagon admits to.) April, May and June 2007 has become the deadliest quarter of the entire war for our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen. The total for the three months is 330. This compares, for the same three months, with 206 for 2006; 210 for 2005, 257 for 2004; and 141 for 2003 (the year of “Mission Accomplished.) It is also the first time that there has been three months in a row that the death toll has reached 100 or more American troop deaths per month.

Does anyone seem to see a trend here? How much longer do we have to have our American service people slaughtered for the arrogance in the White House? When will the carnage stop?

Are we accomplishing anything at all? The only answer is NO.

Blame Someone Else

Letter to the Washington Post

Re: June 29th article “Bush’s Rare Admission As President: Defeat

Dear editor:

Mr. Bush and the White House crew are busy blaming Congress for the defeat of his Immigration Reform initiative. Twice it has gone down in flames as have all of his domestic programs, and as you say, “he is zero for four.” Of course the blame has been placed on the Democrats, but the story is much deeper than that.

What has to be recognized is the fact that it is called “leadership.” Either you have it or you don’t. He doesn’t have it, except when he uses fear mongering against a perceived foreign enemy. But America is tired of that, as is the rest of the Western World. The problem is that his inabilities are finally showing up, and try as he may, he can’t blame others for his ineffectiveness.

The "Decider" Has Decided

Dear editor:

I cannot believe the “chutzpah” (arrogance) of the president and his staff. They fight against the plain and simple truth of the Constitution of the United States.

In a press briefing held by Donna Perino of the White House press office, the subject of Vice President Cheney’s office refusing to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information dominated the meeting. This has been a contentious subject due to the fact that Mr. Cheney claims he is not just a member of the Executive Branch of our government but also a member of the Legislative Branch due to his secondary, and rarely done, job as president of the Senate. Perino said at the briefing that “This is a little bit of a non-issue because the president gets to decide whether or not he should be treated separately, and he’s decided that he should.” (So speaks the “decider”)

It is time that someone, anyone, at the White House read and understood Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States. It very carefully specifies that “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term.” The president and vice-president were tied together in the executive branch of our government by the founders of our country.

What do the geniuses of this administration not understand?

Vice-King Cheney

Dear editor:

Vice President Cheney’s office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years. Under the order, an "entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information" must report annually how much it is keeping secret. After complying with the order for the years 2001 and 2002, Cheney aides have not filed reports on their possession of classified data and at one point physically blocked an inspection of their office. After the Archives office pressed the matter, the documents say, Cheney's staff this year proposed eliminating that office. Elimination of the office has been rejected.

Mr. Cheney, in all of his secrecy, has forgotten that his election to the office of vice-president was done by a tag-on to the election of President Bush, which makes him a member of the executive branch of the government. His secondary job, as president of the Senate, does not make him a member of the legislative branch, which is his mistaken claim of making him exempt from the order.

The original order was signed by President Clinton in 1995 and reaffirmed by President Bush in 2003. Mr. Cheney continues to make a mockery of U.S. law with the blessing of Mr. Bush and Attorney-General Gonzales.

Bush Opens Our Wallets

Heard an interesting and scary bit of information on CNN last night, about our borrowing as a nation and the national debt.

While we all know that the spending being done by this president and his administration, including the knuckled under Republican majority that existed in Congress before the ’06 elections, we really (at least I haven’t) didn’t know the total effect of the out-of-whack budget and supplemental spending done by our government.

Here it is: U.S. borrowing from other governments and others around the world during all the previous administrations, from George Washington thru Bill Clinton, totaled 1.2 trillion dollars. That’s a lot of money. But they are cheapskates. The first six years of George Bush’s leadership(?) has seen international borrowing by the United States totaling 1.5 trillion dollars. That’s an awful lot of money and more than all the other presidents combined.

Mr. Bush recently said that he does not want to return to the days of “tax and spend.” But evidently he believes in spend now and tax later. We should apologize now to our grandchildren and their grandchildren for allowing such a burden to happen..

Pitiful Veto Threat

Dear editor:
The Associated Press has reported that President Bush warned Congress on Saturday, June 16, 2007, that he will use his veto power to stop runaway government spending. In his radio address Bush said, “The American people do not want to return to the days of tax and spend policies.” If it wasn’t so sad, this would be a very funny statement. This from the biggest spender of all time.

Mr. Bush, the man who has wasted over a half of a trillion dollars for his pre-emptive war in Iraq based upon secretly hidden bad information, poor judgment, and self serving reasoning by him and his neo-con associates (with no end in sight,) has the unabashed gall to mock domestically needed spending. The man with the largest White House redundant staffing in history for both him and his vice-president, who created new top level agencies and czars with staffs that needed new buildings, and has created an unbelievable federal deficit that our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, etc, will have to pay off somehow, chooses once again to verbally abuse anyone who disagrees with him. Now I’m waiting for Mr. Cheney to come out and state that anyone who disagrees with the White House position on spending is unpatriotic and brings comfort to our enemies, which, thanks to the actions of our president, have greatly increased in the past six years.

The president should remember that charity begins at home.

Possible Plan "B" (or "C" or "D")

How is this for a quick thought?

At present the Iraq War is costing the United States in excess of one billion dollars a week, over 3,500 American deaths and over 29,000 wounded in a little over four years. In addition, we have upset things in Iraq (to say the least) and do have some kind of a responsibility to help them put things back in shape.

How about we give the Iraqi government $25,000,000,000, or half a year's cost for us, pull our troops out, which would stop American losses, and let the Iraqi people settle their own civil war. Is that a form of bribery? Sure. But maybe, just maybe, that will help to clean up some of our mess. After all, Sunni and Shiia have been fighting each other for over 1,400 years and no matter how much we spend and give in blood, we aren't going to change anything. So let's just pay them off, pack up and go home. It'll be cheaper in the long run.

Israel not the problem

Dear editor:

The Middle East, home to the Arab people, birthplace of civilization and the three major religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is showing itself currently to be the most dangerous hotspot in the world. A quick look at the current political and religious situation in the region is a frightening story of death and destruction.

Iraq, where “democracy” was claimed with elections that showed its pride by people declaring their participation showing a purple ink stained finger, is now in the middle of a civil war between religious factions of Shia and Sunni. Daily attacks and explosions are commonplace in this country that kills and maims civilians and American troops.

Next door in Afghanistan a resurgent Taliban, an extremist Muslim group, is fighting American (coalition) troops in an unending battle for control of the country and the minds of its people.

In Lebanon an extremist, religious Fatah military wing, backed by Syria, is battling the country’s army in an effort to overthrow the elected government.

In the Palestinian territory of Gaza, Hamas and Fatah are killing each other, in another civil war, for control of the legally elected government.

Kurds and the government of Turkey are threatening each other, on a regular basis, and war on this border with Iraq would not be a surprise to anyone.

And all of these people are forever threatening the State of Israel, even though they cannot get along with their own countrymen. When is the world going to realize that Israel has nothing to do with the wars that these religious fanatics are fighting amongst themselves? As a matter of fact, the greatest defense Israel has going for itself is the inability of the Arabs to get along together. If Israel disappeared tomorrow nothing would change in the Arab world. The killing would go on.

Where to from here?

Dear editor:

So where do we go from here? What will become of Iraq in the near future? How long is the United States going to stay in the country that we preemptively invaded? When will we rebuild the relationships that we had, before the invasion of Iraq, around the world, and how? Will we reinstate the rights of American citizens according to our constitution? How will we bring down our trade deficit, and when will we bring our government spending into line with its income?

All of these are questions have come to the fore as a result of the past six years. And yet all of the umpteen candidates running for the opportunity to become President of the United States have avoided true, workable answers to any of them. Except for Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who says we should get out of Iraq right now, none of these Democratic and Republican candidates have expressed a real solution to the problem of the war other than to say “Forget about why and how we got there, we’re there now.” No plan, only politically correct words.

And when it comes to all the other problems enumerated above, we hear nothing except words that play to the lowest common denominator of the American population. Candidates will say anything to get elected, whether they believe in their statements or not. Just don’t expect solutions that they will put into action if they finally get the highest office in the land. We’ve come a long way since President Hoover ran on the slogan “A chicken in every pot and two cars in every garage.” But the rhetoric that we hear today from all the candidates, on both sides of the political spectrum, is just as ridiculous and unworkable.

American lives are being lost (over 3,500 killed and over 25,800 wounded in Iraq), our treasury is being raided of over a billion dollars a week, our standing in the community of nations is continuing on a downhill ride, civil liberties have been torn to shreds, our borders are sieves allowing increased illegal immigration, and global warming. Instead of coming up with FIRM, WORKABLE plans to solve these problems, what do all the candidates and political parties talk about? How religious they are, late term abortion, an attorney-general who isn’t going to be leaving office no matter what Congress says, stem cell research, Scooter Libby, and John Edwards haircut. And, we have this for another 17 months.

Brilliant move or historical bungle?

Dear editor:

We are an amazing, wonderful country. But are we a country that learns from history (our own) or just a foolish one that keeps repeating the same mistake over and over again? For instance, take the recent announcement that we are going to give American arms to Sunnis to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq.

America has a long history of helping our questionable “current friends” who in actuality are no more than the “enemy of our enemies.” We did it in the 1980s, arming Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, only to wind up having to oust him out of power in President Bush’s Iraq War. We did it with Afghanistan in its fight against the invading Soviet Union, only to have the weapons wind up in the hands of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, who we are currently fighting. We covertly did it with Iran so we could take the money from the sale of those arms and use it to try and unseat a South American dictator. Now we don’t even have speaking relations with the government of Iran. We sold arms to Syria and trained so many of their officers, only to wind up with another country not on speaking terms with us. Or is it actually we don’t speak to them?

When will we learn? Will the militant Sunni groups use these weapons against al-Qaeda as promised? Or will these arms wind up in the hands of extremist groups who will use them in their civil war against the Shiites? Or worse still, will we see them winding up being used against U.S. troops, as history has shown us is the dangerous cost of our largesse? Is it a brilliant move or another historical bungle that we once again live to regret? Only time will tell…..but at what human cost?

Senate Obituary

Dear editor

Now that the United States Senate has failed to cut off debate on the immigration bill, failing to find some form of a solution for the ever increasing problem of illegal immigration, it has shown itself to be completely incapable of carrying on the work of the people it claims to represent. In effect it has died and an obituary seems timely, which I hereby submit:

Washington, DC: The United States Senate died on June 7, 2007. A longtime resident of this city for over 200 years, the Senate struggled against, but finally succumbed to, cancer of the political party and its associated complications of lobbyitis, presidential lack of leadership, loss of independence, loss of purpose, evangelicalism and utter arrogance. Death followed a long sickness which first showed signs of major mental and physical demise six years ago. It is survived by its sister institutions, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch.

Born in Philadelphia to proud parents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the Senate was proficient in both national and international law. Earning a reputation as the country’s greatest debating society and America’s most exclusive club, its independence caused its members to sometimes be referred to as “The Cardinals of Capitol Hill.” Unlike its sister House of Representatives, the Senate, thanks to its six year terms, did not bow to the whims of popular opinion, but rather to long, considered debates, and judiciously passed laws for the benefit of all citizens, majority, minority, or of any religious faith. Over stormy years it sometimes stumbled in its desire to do right, but it always kept its Senatorial bearing and independence. The loss of these caused the demise of that August body.

Funeral arrangements are being handled by Earmarks, Inc. Pall bearers will be; the oil and gas industries, the credit card industry, the logging industry, the automobile industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the gun industry, President Bush, profiteers, and Vice-President Cheney. It will be a closed coffin funeral, at the request of the family, due to the complete loss of face of the late United States Senate. May it rest in peace.