The State Of American Politics

The State Of American Politics 

           Alberto Gonzales escaped the noose once again after the GOP blocked a Democratic no-confidence vote towards Mr. Gonzales. The republican move is more of a political move rather than a moral one since they are looking forward to the 2008 elections. This may turn back on them later on however as Americans gray more wary on Governmental corruption. From the inner circle of the Bush administration, names like Tom Delay and Louis Scooter Libby stand out due to how close they are or were to the sitting president. Alberto Gonzales though has a history with   George Bush since the Texas days, a time where Alberto helped his boss find legal technicalities to allow him by pass laws that range from sending a mentally retarded man to death to privatizing much of Texas’s social infrastructure. Today, he is still helping working on new ways to either bypass national or internationals to changing laws to serve the house’s ideology.  For this reason, it is rather unlikely that Bush will feed him to the dogs. Few within his walls know how to circumvent laws better then the long time lawyer.

 

In other political news Michael Bloomberg is creating a lot of buzz now that he left the GOP and has become unaffiliated. One of the main questions not being asked is how his change in political party is going to affect his politics as a whole. For those who live New York know that he often sides with big business at the expense of working class communities. One prime of example of this was the project of the West Side Stadium that was geared to bring the New York Jets back to New York. The outcome of such a project would be a high volume of congestion in a neighborhood where recent studies show a higher than average level of asthma in children. Further more, the project would also include the building of luxury condos and coops with little attention being given to lower income housing. And as history shows, whole areas around sports stadiums tend to be dumping grounds for the stadium itself. The issue divided the city until it was finally voted down. His connection to big business also can be seen in his decision to make CEO of Goldman Sachs, Mark Marcus the head of the rent guidelines board, a panel that makes several decisions regarding such issues as rent hikes. Marcus has an extensive history of siding with landlords, including the worst ones, when it comes to rent hikes and legal justifications for certain actions.

 

With Christmas just around the corner MTA Union begged the New York mayor to meet with them to discuss viable pay raises and to cut from a proposal by Mr. Bloomberg that would slash benefits for new MTA employees. What is not mentioned much of the time is that the Union conceded several demand before they were forced to go on strike. What is most troubling is that the New York media has chosen to over look these facts, including the usually liberal paper, “City Limits” magazine.

 

While   the Republicans are changing parties or defending criminals, the democrats are once again looking to make political hay by embracing pop culture. In introducing her new theme song, Hillary Clinton and Bill did a satire of the final episode of the Sopranos. The piece has Hillary Clinton sitting in a diner as Bill Clinton walks through the door. That’s when Hillary puts on the song, by Celine Deon’s “You and I.”    Before the Democrats re-took office in November, they had spoken of bringing troops home from Iraq, oversight and rolling back many of George Bush’s policies and creating some real change in the direction that this country has been moving in for the past 7 years. Since they have retaken control of Congress, there are more troops in Iraq now than before they took office and the spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is more than double what it was a year ago.  The oversight that the Democrats sold us was suppose to have made Bush a lame duck president but there has been little to no change in how the Bush White house has conducted business. In fact he still walks in a similar manor as that of 2002 when he had a 98% approval rate. Today his poll numbers are somewhere between, 28% and 32 %, depending, on which poll sight you follow.

 

What is most disturbing about the current climate of the Democratic Party is the language that they use when confronting George Bush. For example, the battle between Bush and Congress was not the legality of the war itself which where the focus should have been pointed along with the 600,000+ dead Iraqis according to several sources and more than 3000 dead American soldiers. Further more, the pretense of the Iraq war has also been ignored. The focus usually centers on how the war is being fought or the Iraqi Government’s lack of success in building a security force that is able to stabilize the country. This Congress often ignores the fact Bush appointed overseers who were sent to Iraq in early in 2004 dismantled the entire Iraq military, arresting several former soldiers. So what you now have is the establishment of a major lie that both parties will follow and the media will perpetuate in a manner similar to That of William Randolph Hurst. Future pieces will focus further on this great lie.   

When The Pinch Comes Down On Everyone

 

            If you listen to Fox news or to most of the major networks, you’d get the impression that the economy is at the start of a new bubble and that the Clinton record employment was around the corner. Unfortunately, what is being reported and the everyday reality for most Americans is vastly different. The unemployment rate for teens looking for summer jobs is looking to hit a 57 year high because post college graduates and older workers are forced into jobs that would normally be considered entry level positions. 

 

While it has been a decades long accepted fact that the thirty to forty year old generations will be the first two in history that will be forced into lower living standards than our parents or our grandparents. This fact is but one reason the housing market continues to be in a steep slump that will last for the foreseeable future. Many real estate agents are now jumping the now sinking US housing ship which is a clear sign that the employ pool looks to only get deeper which will feed the situation of the failing market. When one considers the ever increasing prices in the major metropolitan which includes steep property taxes you can see why there is an exodus from cities like Tampa Bay. As a side note, Florida Crist did promise to lower property tax in the state, even held a special session, but now seems to be backing out of the promise of his campaign. There were a few Democrats did warn about potential problems from the bill that came out of the special session. Some suggested that the bill surly did not do enough to lower the property tax on home owners. The long term outcome of the bill has been a domino effect on jobs concerning the housing market. This goes behind just agents but reaches into the construction business.

 

            The most interesting aspect of a failing economy that is starting to unveil itself, is not the fact that it is hitting the poor and middle class, that’s the accepted norm. But it is now affecting the white collar worker. One has to only look at the past three days and the fact that even Wall Street is showing the signs of crumbling under the weight of its own cannibalistic nature. This is not to say that we will see a total collapse of anything tomorrow nor the next day or next year but the limitation of the past 7 years when it comes to our economy is starting to show itself. One would have to ignore history or be ignorant of it to not notice a spiraling trend.  For starters the federal coffers are now bare. The increase in our international trade deficit continues to reach historical highs every year. As of now, China continues to finically support the Bush White house’s drunken spending spree which ranges to the illegal war in Iraq to the missile defense system that is moving us ever closer to another arms race with Russia. More frightening, the White house continues to try and put pressure on their savings and loans Country of the East to accept trade agreements that favor our country. Such arrogance is odd considering we continue to slip ever more into debt. But this seems to make little difference to those who drive the great machine forward towards a likely economic cliff. There is also a sense that our funding for cheap goods relationship with China will continue as it had under the Clinton administration. Sooner or later China will find greener pastures dealing with the EU which for both parties would make economic and political sense. What growing economy wants to be tied to a sinking ship? The truth is, not many. 

      

   

And then there is the United States unwillingness to move away from oil as their economic base and b. as our main fuel source. When one looks at those countries that provide the world’s oil, many of them have either pulled away from the US hegemony like Venezuela and Iran or they are in total chaos like Iraq and Darfur, a country that has turned to China as one of their man customers, to few other African countries. The volatility those Governments of oil producing countries can be seen at the gas bumps here at home. While it has helped the sales of the hybrid automobile, it has done little to convince those in Washington to push for a real green energy infrastructure. The best they could come up with is ethanol which will prove to only increase the green house effect. The exhaust from any burning vegetation is methane gas which is far denser than CO2 but even the Democrats are far too tied to farming lobby groups to speak out against this quasi green energy alternative which is nothing more than a pay off. Further more, the shear cost both in production and distribution of fuel will be astronomical according to several sources. Fewer people will be able to afford to drive. The fact is that ethanol is an environmental in the same way that the group “Ducks Unlimited” is a conservation group. It’s really front for those who continue to push our economy down the rabbit hole.  

 

Until nest time.

   

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1181335128505.wmv

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1181334918474.wmv

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1181334739380.wmv

http://www.groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1181334561818.wmv

Cindy Sheehan Leaves As Public Face And War In Iraq Spirals Further Into Civil War

 

After extended attacks against her by both the right and the Democrat left, Cindy Sheehan has decided to leave the anti-war movement as a public face. This comes a little over a week after the Democrats and the White house passed the Iraq war spending bill that basically gives George Bush a blanch check. But Sheehan the end for came due to the hate mail and death threats that she started to receive after she and those at camp Casey attempted to hold the Democrats under the same level of scrutiny that the Republicans have been under the past two years. Sadly enough, as she stated in her diaries, she will have to live with the fact that her son died for no reason, more accurately though, the death of her son came as a mere stepping stone for those who trade on Wall Street.   

 

As Cindy Sheehan steps down from her post and the left scrambles to find a new face to rally behind, the death toll of Iraqi citizens, insurgence and US troops continues to skyrocket as May proved to be one of the deadliest months for all sides which is a clear sign of how fast the country continues to spiral into a civil war. And the Democrats once again act like a defeated party, handing Bush what amounts to a blank check and at the same time painting themselves into a corner. Of coarse they could have ended the war with three words, no more money. While Bush walks around like the cock of the roost and the Democrats once again break the hearts of their supporters, the number of Iraqis citizens who have been killed since March by military intervention is getting dangerously close to 80,000. This number does not include those who have died from suicide bombers, nor does it take into account those who have died from disease and militia attacks. Those numbers have been reported some where between 400,000 and 700,000+.

For American troops, the number is approaching 4000 which numbers of serious injuries reaching the 10s of thousands. There still is no sign of any mission to secure peace in Iraq but for those who have been following the news over the past several years, this comes as no surprise. In fact have been several reports before the first bomb dropped that warned of a civil war breaking out in the region.

 

For those who are serious about finding about what is irritating the situation beyond the 14 hours of energy a day, the new Iraqi oil bill that would hand the country’s main resource over to US oil companies and the surge in killings since 03, you can Google an article called Carving Up Iraq. The piece paints a clear picture of a US plan to carve up the Iraq in similar fashion to that used in the Middle East by the British. Don’t forget that Bush did propose a plan to do this very thing. His plan would create a Kurdish territory in the North and then split up the rest of the country Shiites and the Sunni’s with no regions set assigned for the Turkish man. Each leader, undoubtedly  would have to be approved by US authorities. One only has to follow the patterns that have been followed for the past 6 years. The plan was rejected of course and the pentagon has been given the green light by the White House to build multi-billion dollar, permanent military bases. Reports of the bases by human rights state these bases have one purpose only, long term occupation. The Bush white house has stated that they see a US presents for the next 50 years, as stated in the Metro.  Perhaps the Democrats would have been well advised to have paid attention to these details before they passed Iraq war spending bill.  

 

So there you have it, as the Democrats blow it, again, Cindy Sheehan  steps down at the worst possible time but, looking at her situation, one could hardly blame her.

 

Until next time

 

 

  

 

 

http://groundhog.tv/apps/editor/staticplayer.jsp?clip=1180705172497.wmv

Press Release

For Immediate Release

  

            “Organic Hotels” the newest poetry collection by Matthew Abuelo is now available.  The work looks at modern day America through the eyes of a political activist and a maturing artist.  Enlarging on themes from his first book, “Last American Roar”, “Organic Hotels” moves away from youthful issues such as drug abuse, alienation and loss to focus on current events such as the war in Iraq, the sterilization of New York City and the author’s disenchantment with the US Government.   Thankfully, Mr. Abuelo avoids lamenting about the vagaries of his parents an all-too-common subject for young poets.

 

Heavily influenced by the “Beat” style of writing in his earlier work, “Organic Hotels” shows the author developing his own voice.  There is a music and cadence to his words reminiscent of the raw energy of the 1970s New York scene.

 

Organic Hotels is available for purchase on the website, lulu.com and will soon be listed on Amazon.com and on the websites of most major book stores.