The Republicans are playing him like Nero played the fiddle while Washington (I mean Rome) burned. Did you hear the latest? Obama is playing ball with the Republicans and the Tea Party on reducing benefits to Medicare, Medicaid, you know, the programs that help people and not no-bid crony corporations? It is hard not to try to find the silver lining to our president who promised us change you could believe in. And to try again. And again. Why? Because the alternative in having a heartless “Have More” Neocon in the White House is too dismal to ponder. Let me explain.
Obama and the Democratic Congress in both Houses elected in 2008 were given a mandate by the voters. The voters of America believed in them to make an honest and diligent attempt to right the wrongs of the Bush Administration. Change we could believe in, remember catchy campaign slogan? For instance, we believed Obama and the newly-elected Democratic Congress would change the borrow-and-spend irresponsible policies of the Bush II administration. Obama promised to end the Bush crony-corporation, no-bid contract policies George W. Bush loved so well as the coffers of the military industrial complex filled up with dollars we borrowed from China to pay our bills. Sorry about that, Halliburton, the party’s over. Or so we thought when we went to the ballot box back in 2008. Obama would end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring the troops home. Just vote for me, he said, and he would see to it. We believed Obama would drive the war corporation, lobbyist rats out of Washington just like St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland.
It didn’t happen. We still have boots on the ground in both countries for reasons long ago lied about and forgotten. Promises broken. And now we see Obama playing footsy with the Republicans by opting to cut benefits to Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that benefit the citizens of America directly. Get ready, America, for a flattened pocketbook. Neocons don’t like to share with us riff-raff Americans looking for a fair shake from our government. You see, Halliburton needs those tax dollars for themselves more than us Americans need to be able to be on Medicare when we reach the age of 65. Get ready for the real death panels this time, and this time, such killing of the old people will be brought to you by your friendly neighborhood GOP and cheerleader squad, the Tea Party (no snub intended, Koch Bros; I do acknowledge your sponsorship).
It has been a hard two years to watch our hero Obama and his Super Bowl Team of Congressional Democrats elected in 2008 cave to the Republicans, the Tea Party, John Boehner, and (gag me with a spoon) Sarah Palin. For openers, all the Democrats elected to the new majority in both Houses of Congress said right off the bat that “Impeachment is off the table.” Say what? Let them go? No repercussions for wiretapping us without a court order or FISA Court approval? What about all them campaign promises? But, but…..
But I said I would explain why the alternative to Obama and the wimpy Democratic Congress would be far worse than Obama and a wimpier Democratic Congress. But before that, let us remember the promises Obama and all those Democrats made to get elected to office in 2008. As mentioned absolutely nothing had been done about the wiretapping without proper court orders. The grand snoop, the NSA was increased in size and in number of spies to spy on us Americans. Can’t be too careful when terrorists are still lurking about, can we? In fact, Obama caused the Patriot Act, the Bible to spy on all of us in the name of National Security, to be strengthened right after he took office. Probably made George W. Bush so proud he could put on his cowboy boots and take Laura out honky-tonkin’ at Billy Bob’s in Fort Worth, YEEHAW.
Shucks, Obama even pre-pardoned all the telephone companies that Bush got a hammer lock on to get them to reveal all their records of Americans’ private phone conversations. Obama didn’t see no sense in riling the country up over stuff already passed, regardless of whether any complicity was present when the phone companies conspired to hep Bush torch what was left of the Constitution.
Obama said he would close Guantanamo because torture was not who we are as a country. Didn’t happen, though. Still open for bidness, and military tribunals still hold court on them military combatants who don’t deserve the same kind of law the rest of us Americans get served up to us. Bush destroyed habeas corpus, something Obama promised to restore. Not to be. Habeas Corpus is still MIA and one of the promises broken when the Democrats and Obama were elected back in 2008. But it’s kinda tricky here: habeas corpus was erased from all us Americans, as well as the military combatants. Funny thing.
There are many other Bush II creations, such as the trashing of the Constitution by his cutesy little signing statements affixed to bills passed by both Houses of Congress to be signed into law. That’s right, Bush took to scribbling crap by his presidential signature that negated the legislation of over 800 bills passed in accordance with the provisions in the Constitution that Congress will pass laws……Obama sounded so full of disgust with it when he was running for president; I guess he must have forgot about promising to stop with the signing statements already. Must have slipped his mind.
But Bush II was so much of a spoiled brat president that he, with the stroke of a pen, decided that if he did not like the way a law was written and presented to him for presidential signature, he would change the whole damn law. Take the McCain No Torture Bill that said America will not engage in torture tactics in any way or fashion. Bush attached a signing statement that said that he as president, if he thought it was in the best interest of America and National Security, that he would damn well torture anybody he wanted to. Dictatorship, anybody? Well, guess who continued the practice of affixing signing statements in the Bush tradition of Constitution burning? If you guessed Obama, you get a cigar. Forget that Obama deplored such Bushisms when running for president; he has upheld the Bush tradition in so many ways that some have begun to call him Republican light. Pay no attention to that man behind the screen.
What took the cake and when Obama broke the pick with me was when he came out and favored extending the 2 Trillion dollar Bush tax cuts for the rich for another two years. Damn! Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly must have given each other a high five. Palin probably decided right then and there to run for president. They all knew that would put Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security in the crosshairs. The Beast had been properly starved at that point. There would be no going back to fiscal responsibility. And the Tea Baggers could heap lie upon lie about how social programs, not something as paltry as 2 Trillion dollars more in tax cuts for the rich, were the real cause of the National Debt. Dumb now becomes us. The polls are in. Now the world officially knows for certain that America has fallen and hit its head.
But say, does that sound like a president who is looking out for the people? We got big money problems already, and they have taken the scalpels out to start carving up Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, just ask Paul Ryan. So you take out another 2 Trillion dollars just grab it out of the National Treasury coffers set up to pay our bills and whamo! Now you see it; now you don’t. Poof………is it any big mystery why now, Obama has joined the ranks of Neocon Tea baggers like John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Palin to cut Medicare, Social Security, and other government spending to appease those who would bury working couples and their families by cutting the programs they depend on for bread, medicine, and a decent place to live? It is to me. I don’t know why Obama caved. But he and the Democrats have let a lot of people down. And have let the Neocon alligators swim the moat as they lowered the drawbridge for them to come in and destroy the people in the castle.
Why?
Why doesn’t anybody scream to the heavens that we need to stop all the wars and bring our troops home so that the borrowing and spending on foreign countries can be redirected to saving our own country here at home?
Has anybody ever heard a Republican or a Tea Bagger mention bringing our troops home from foreign countries as a solution to reducing the National Debt and the Deficit? Anybody at all? John Boehner? Sarah Palin? Paul Ryan?
Why is it that you never hear any of the Tea Baggers, Neocons, and the likes of the borrow-and-spend Republicans talk about cutting spending on the endless wars and occupation of countries overseas? Aren’t those Trillions of dollars real money, too? Could not those dollars be summoned to pay for a big portion of our $14 Trillion dollar National Debt? Say what? War is profitable for those who contribute the most for candidates running for office? So what has that got to do with serving the voters who don’t give a damn about continuing to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan when that policy puts Social Security and Medicare on the operating chopping block and Paul Ryan is the carving surgeon? Say, have we been led to the slaughter unaware?
Must we sacrifice our jobs, our houses, our children, and all that we knew to be America in exchange for millions of square miles of sand, scorpions, and spiders somewhere out there? Must we allow our healthcare for the old (ne Medicare and Medicaid) take hits so that Halliburton can maintain its no-bid contracts to sell the Pentagon $500 hammers? And $40 million of meals to our soldiers in Iraq that they never served up? You got to wonder if the whole American system will fall down and crash onto itself before anybody will stop to even notice. You got to think that we must all be brain-dead to continue to allow this mad massacre of ourselves, our financial system, our dollar, our very country and goodness as a people, and yes, our very families, to go on. While the war complex vampires continue to lust for the bloody dollars that used to help the elderly (MEDICARE) and the children (SCHIPS). And the bloody Congress we elected to act as responsible fiduciaries of the people, have started to surgically cut up programs that help Americans. And Obama caved in to help them. As the Democrats we trusted join the Republicans in the carnage of programs to help the American people instead of Iraqis, Blackwater, and other high-dollar drains on the battered Treasury.
The number of caves and why is depressing. I thought about taking parts from each to write about, but the drill is just too depressing. So here is a short Google list based upon only two words placed in the browser window. You can read them at will to the point of ad nausea. Or not.