Ousting Republicans. The Democrats have waged an astonishingly incompetent campaign this year, so feeble and inept that one really must wonder if they want to lose because they have no exit strategy for Iraq and want the Republicans to be destroyed by growing antiwar disgust. Still, it's possible they will win the White House and even one or both houses of Congress. Certainly we need the kinds of change they would bring in many areas, and must stave off the "reform" of the bankruptcy code the Republicans want to enact, which would make bankruptcy unavailable to ordinary people while preserving it for corporations. The Republicans want to trap people in debt, and that idea, if brought home to the electorate, would so terrify voters that they would vote Democratic in landslide numbers.
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But the Democrats won't say one word about debt or bankruptcy, so may go down to disastrous defeat. I searched the welcome screen of the www.johnkerry.com website and the opening screen in the jobs and economy area of that website for "debt", "usury", "bankruptcy", and "interest" (as in interest rates). None of the words "debt", "usury", or "bankruptcy" occurs in either page. The word "interest" appears only on the site's opening screen in the phrase "special interests". Amazing. Is it possible they don't realize how oppressive debt has become for over a hundred million Americans? Is it possible they don't care? I am very concerned that the Democrats will lose this election badly, leaving the White House and both houses of Congress controlled by plutocratic Republicans who will indeed trap Americans in debt.
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Letting Bush Get Away with Everything. Why is George Bush allowed to use government airplanes in campaign travel? He is regularly seen emerging from Air Force One or the helicopter "Marine One", arriving with all the majesty of the Office of President of the United States, which has to make an impression upon people. That is inexcusably improper, but the Democrats, in their astoundingly incompetent campaigning, have made no objection. Why not?
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Why have they not hit him hard on debt, oil prices, the catastrophic war in Iraq, the endless lies that Bush and Cheney keep telling about Saddam and 9/11? Why is Bush getting a free ride on hatemongering and scapegoating gay men and lesbians to distract people from the real issues? I have never seen such an incompetent campaign. We are entering the heating season, and costs for heating not just by oil but also by gas and electricity are expected to be very high this year, but the Democrats haven't landed on this issue hard either. Many people thought the attack on Iraq was a "war for oil" (it wasn't, but that was a widespread perception), yet we have the highest oil prices on record, and that is reflected in prices at the pump and prices of heating oil and competing energy sources. Yet the Democrats haven't said ANYTHING about any of that. They keep talking about "our soldiers" in Iraq, an issue they can't win on, while ignoring all the hard economic worries people have. Appalling.
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Business Week online has a story from last week that is hilited today on AOL, about which candidate would be better on which economic ("wallet" or "pocketbook") issues. It's worth checking out if you haven't already read it.
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Bush has enlarged government by intruding into the area of education, in which the Federal Government is NOT AUTHORIZED TO ACT, all the while pretending to be opposed to Big Government! Rather than call him on it, the Democrats are co-conspiring in his assault upon federalism, promoting centralization of power, which is DANGEROUS to this Republic, which depends upon federalism. We need strong states in a strong union, not an all-powerful central government dictating to the people with no state intermediary able to protect us from tyranny.
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George Bush CUT the Federal program to hire more police at the local and state level, but poses as a champion of law and order, all the while states and localities will have to find their own sources of funding or CUT POLICE FORCES. His mishandling of the economy and cuts in aid to local governments have caused fire houses to close, police departments to cut hiring, libraries to cut hours or shut their doors, and on, and on, but the Democrats haven't called him on it. Why not?
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On the No. 1 issue that the Democrats have let Bush set, "national security", the Democrats should be able to blast him and his party out of power with the simple, obvious fact that THEY DIDN'T PROTECT US from the 9/11 attacks. They were WARNED (a) that al-Qaeda was actively considering hijacking planes and using them as missiles and (b) that Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons in this country but DIDN'T WANT TO LEARN HOW TO LAND! It wasn't as tho these men were learning to fly in Afghanistan, sub-Saharan Africa or some other remote locale, out of sight. They were taking flying lessons IN FLORIDA, a key "battleground" state, and the Bush Administration IGNORED warnings that their behavior was extremely suspicious.
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Bush didn't put air marshals on flights; didn't strengthen cockpit doors; DIDN'T WARN THE PUBLIC that if they were hijacked they weren't going to be flown to Cuba but rammed into buildings and all be killed! Had he done only that, the passengers would have PREVENTED the WTC attacks by fighting back against hijackers, as the hero passengers over Pennsylvania did. The worst that would have happened is that individual planes might have crashed, killing their passengers, but the WTC would not have been destroyed. Why haven't the Democrats said plainly that 9/11 was GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT!?
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The man who failed to protect us is posing as our great defender! He who CAUSED the disaster has become a HERO from it! Amazing.
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There are so many reasons the Bush Administration should be whacked by the voters tomorrow. I gave ten of the top reasons in this space October 22nd (which see), and have discussed the No. 1 reason, debt, a couple of times at length. But the Democrats have not pursued any of these with any vigor, so they are likely to go down to ignominious defeat. And the people will continue to be abused by the rich. Bankruptcy "reform" may well be enacted in the next Congress and signed by Bush, and trap over a hundred million Americans in thousands and thousands of dollars of debt per household.
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The only hope is that the people will be their own salvation and somehow, despite Democratic incompetence, oust Bush and his party at the polls. Good luck to us. But we will have to make our own luck.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 1:04 PM