Says it right here - "the Bush administration "strongly opposes" Democrats' housing rescue package, calling it a bailout that would expose taxpayers to excessive risk."
I suppose the billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars he authorized to bail out Bear Stearns posed no risk, hm?
And here's something else Bush doesn't like, either: a Senate vote seeking equal pay for women. I guess it's okay with him for women getting only 77 cents for every dollar men earn for doing the same job. We are in the 21st century, right? The Civil Rights act did become law forty-four years ago, right?
And Senator John McCain decided to skip the vote last night in order to campaign for president, saying he opposed the measure because it would prompt a flood of lawsuits. I know it's a critical time for McCain - he's got to really strive hard to get that Republican nomination for president. Waitaminnit! Hasn't he already got the nomination? So...what, exactly, was so critically important in his presidential campaign that he had to skip out on this vote?
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Reagan knew whereof he spoke concerning W.
I liked Ronald Reagan - I still do. Yes, he trashed our economy. Yes, he trampled on education, the media, and the environment, and he would be considered a terrible president, except for two things: he won the Cold War (remember the duck-and-cover drills in school? No? These were safety drills for nuclear attacks. Reagan ended the need for them.), and he made us proud to be Americans once more. The Cold War threatened all life on earth, people - and I credit him for ending that threat. For all that he did that was wrong, I, a liberal progressive Democrat, will always consider him as one of our best presidents.
Reagan was a smart man - and he knew a waste of time when he saw it. The below is from his memoirs:
"A moment I’ve been dreading. George brought his ne’er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."
Does anyone remember how America came together after 9/11? Of course. Most of the world stood behind us then. Jacques Chirac said, "...today, we are all Americans." We were on the hunt for bin Laden, and we invaded Afghanistan because they were hiding him. Such was the right and proper response by President Bush.
That and his refusal (thus far) to invade Iran are the only things he has done right.
I call myself an amateur historian, and it is sad to think that the last years of my military career were served under the worst president in American history. He has ignored laws, ignored the Constitution, violated international law and the Geneva Convention, supported torture, imprisoned hundreds for years without trial, publicly ruined the careers of those who were courageous enough to report the facts (and in doing so exposed an entire intelligence network), ignored the warnings of the attorneys general of all 50 states about the impending housing crash, invaded a country on false pretenses...ANY ONE of this incomplete list of crimes should be enough for impeachment.
What are the historians already saying?
In May of 2004, in a survey of 415 historians, 81% already deemed his presidency a failure, and 12% had already called his presidency the worst in history.
In February of 2008, in a survey of 109 historians, 98% deemed his presidency a failure, and 61% said he was the worst president in history. In fact, in the survey only four said his presidency even ranked in the top two-thirds of U.S. Presidents.
Normally I don't like to cut-and-paste, but here's what one historian said in the survey: “No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
I must admit I am glad that Reagan never knew just how literally right he was when he called Bush a "ne'er-do-well", which term literally means never...do...well.
Reagan was a smart man - and he knew a waste of time when he saw it. The below is from his memoirs:
"A moment I’ve been dreading. George brought his ne’er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work."
Does anyone remember how America came together after 9/11? Of course. Most of the world stood behind us then. Jacques Chirac said, "...today, we are all Americans." We were on the hunt for bin Laden, and we invaded Afghanistan because they were hiding him. Such was the right and proper response by President Bush.
That and his refusal (thus far) to invade Iran are the only things he has done right.
I call myself an amateur historian, and it is sad to think that the last years of my military career were served under the worst president in American history. He has ignored laws, ignored the Constitution, violated international law and the Geneva Convention, supported torture, imprisoned hundreds for years without trial, publicly ruined the careers of those who were courageous enough to report the facts (and in doing so exposed an entire intelligence network), ignored the warnings of the attorneys general of all 50 states about the impending housing crash, invaded a country on false pretenses...ANY ONE of this incomplete list of crimes should be enough for impeachment.
What are the historians already saying?
In May of 2004, in a survey of 415 historians, 81% already deemed his presidency a failure, and 12% had already called his presidency the worst in history.
In February of 2008, in a survey of 109 historians, 98% deemed his presidency a failure, and 61% said he was the worst president in history. In fact, in the survey only four said his presidency even ranked in the top two-thirds of U.S. Presidents.
Normally I don't like to cut-and-paste, but here's what one historian said in the survey: “No individual president can compare to the second Bush,” wrote one. “Glib, contemptuous, ignorant, incurious, a dupe of anyone who humors his deluded belief in his heroic self, he has bankrupted the country with his disastrous war and his tax breaks for the rich, trampled on the Bill of Rights, appointed foxes in every henhouse, compounded the terrorist threat, turned a blind eye to torture and corruption and a looming ecological disaster, and squandered the rest of the world’s goodwill. In short, no other president’s faults have had so deleterious an effect on not only the country but the world at large.”
I must admit I am glad that Reagan never knew just how literally right he was when he called Bush a "ne'er-do-well", which term literally means never...do...well.
Monday, April 21, 2008
America - FORTY-FIFTH on list of life expectancy.
This is the single most shameful fact that the Conservative elite don't want America to know: on the list of life expectancy, America - which spends more on health care per capita than any other country in the world, is forty-fifth! That's lower than Jordan. That's even lower than Bosnia-Herzegovina, for Pete's sake!
And you know what? The Cons say we can't have Universal Health Care because it would 'bankrupt America'. After all, we're nearly spending 16% of our GDP on health care. Funny thing is, Germany - which has the world's oldest Universal Health Care system (since 1883), spends only 10.7% of their GDP on health care. Singapore's world-class UHC system only uses 3% of their GDP.
A majority of American doctors support UHC (even though I suspect most would stand to lose money in such a system). Nursing unions support UHC. Americans as a whole support UHC by a 2-1 margin. Even a slight majority of Republicans want UHC!
Who doesn't want UHC? It's the HMO's and the insurance companies...and the Republican candidates they bankroll. That's really, truly sad.
And you know what? The Cons say we can't have Universal Health Care because it would 'bankrupt America'. After all, we're nearly spending 16% of our GDP on health care. Funny thing is, Germany - which has the world's oldest Universal Health Care system (since 1883), spends only 10.7% of their GDP on health care. Singapore's world-class UHC system only uses 3% of their GDP.
A majority of American doctors support UHC (even though I suspect most would stand to lose money in such a system). Nursing unions support UHC. Americans as a whole support UHC by a 2-1 margin. Even a slight majority of Republicans want UHC!
Who doesn't want UHC? It's the HMO's and the insurance companies...and the Republican candidates they bankroll. That's really, truly sad.
Welcome to the Ex-Con's blog.
Ex-Con? Ex-Convict? No, Ex-Conservative.
For it was while I was serving in my Navy career that my eyes were opened. I had been taught all my life that America was the only place where one could truly be free and happy...but the more countries I visited, the more I came to understand how isolationist many Americans are, and how such isolationism also leads to ignorance and prejudice.
The theme of this blog will be to not only address some of the larger issues of the day, but more importantly, to help raise public awareness of truly important news that is flying under the radar.
For it was while I was serving in my Navy career that my eyes were opened. I had been taught all my life that America was the only place where one could truly be free and happy...but the more countries I visited, the more I came to understand how isolationist many Americans are, and how such isolationism also leads to ignorance and prejudice.
The theme of this blog will be to not only address some of the larger issues of the day, but more importantly, to help raise public awareness of truly important news that is flying under the radar.
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