COLUMN: 10-31-2007

Based on last night's debate, it's really hard to understand why Hillary Clinton is the front-runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, unless you stoop to the lowest common denominator. Senator Clinton claims to be the candidate of change, but doesn't actually propose any policies that are significantly different than the past few years. She also ignores answering every real policy question by twisting the answer into a criticism for President Bush and the Republican Party. She obviously realizes that attacking someone else's policies is not the same thing as having a policy position of your own but is content is play politics on every issue. Finally, she claims to be the candidate of experience, but her experience as First Lady of both America and Arkansas shouldn't count as true executive experience and so her only actual career experience is that of a lawyer for a very short period followed much later by 8 years in the US Senate. The lowest common denominator here is that she is the most experienced Washington insider politician, which explains why she is the front runner with party insiders and media across the country. That is exactly the wrong kind of person to run America at this critical point after having other insiders drive our country towards an extremely wrongheaded foreign policy and towards becoming a third world country in terms of our economy.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 10-26-2007

Senator Clinton on her vote to declare part of the Iranian government a terrorist organization:

President Bush shouldn’t think that "the 2001 resolution authorizing force after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in any way, authorizes force against Iran. If the administration believes that any use of force against Iran is necessary, the President must come to Congress to seek that authority.'’

THE TRUTH: Senator Clinton is clearly more worried about being seen as weak on national security than in making sure that the Bush Administration does the right thing. The administration has shown a willingness to stretch every legal limit to achieve it's goals and giving them the opportunity to attack Iran as a terrorist regime is exactly what she has authorized them to do. If she can't show the political backbone to stand up for America when it matters, she does not deserve to be the president and it's as simple as that.

COLUMN: 10-24-2007

The drumbeats of war can once again be heard in the distance under the auspices of very questionable circumstances. And once again, the regime in question exists as a direct result of the poor judgment of our leaders over the past 50 years.

Whereas we propped up the militaristic Saddam Hussein regime throughout the 1980's and then were "surprised" when he used his idle military to wage war on Kuwait (after we had supported his cruel war on Iran for 8 years), the Iranian regime is the direct result of the interventionist CIA policies of the 1950's. The Bush administration (and all other recent administrations) always neglects to mention this fact when they mention Iranian crimes dating back to the 1979 revolution and hostage-taking of Americans. They conveniently forget that it was our overthrow of their democratically-elected regime in order to install the Shah and get cheap oil that lead to decades of cruel dictatorship by the Shah and that the Americans in Tehran were only taken hostage after our government refused to turn over the fleeing Shah for prosecution for his crimes. (In fact, the rich elite who robbed Iran of all it's wealth from the 1950's until the 1979 revolution continue to live an extremely prosperous lifestyle in America and use this wealth to influence American policy.)

Even if you ignore the historical aspects of the entire situation, it's clear that the same ideologues who led us into Iraq under false pretenses are now rushing to do the same with Iran before time runs out on the Bush administration, whose insulated inner circle allows for easy manipulation by these warmongers. We must not allow them to cause us to lose all of our credibility as a nation, which will take decades to repair, especially in the face of the rising undemocratic powers in Russia and especially in China.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 10-19-2007

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on her return from exile (before the massive terrorist attacks):

"I am not scared. I am thinking of my mission," she had told reporters on the plane. "This is a movement for democracy because we are under threat from extremists and militants."

THE TRUTH: Being against extremist militants does not automatically make you part of a movement for democracy. It's clear that she is being allowed to return from exile so that she can help whitewash the continuation of the presidency of the current military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf. Let's not forget that she went into exile after two separate terms as prime minister due to massive corruption, fraud, and exploitation of national resources for personal gain. She has never believed in actual democracy and America helping her return to power is yet another historic mistake of the Bush Administration. When will America's leaders finally understand that our support of world leaders that suppress the rights of their people is in fact a major source of the terrorism we are supposed to fighting?

COLUMN: 10-17-2007

The housing slump in the USA is a good thing. I know that is a very controversial statement to make, but it's clear that home prices in many areas of America were rising obscenely due to speculators and this is the only way to correct this massive injustice. A similar example on much smaller scale was the selling of Sony PS3 gaming systems during last year's holiday season. The overpriced system (retail price of $599) was being sold for as much as ten times that price in the run up to the launch. After the launch, the price dropped like a rock as it became clear that as many as 60% of the buyers were just buying the system to resell for a profit. When it comes to people's homes, it's a little more difficult to swallow as you are essentially having to make people homeless to correct the market, but those people could never actually afford to live in those homes and so it's hard to find sympathy for those who let their greed put them in an unfortunate position. We should treat these people in the same manner as those who have gambling addictions that caused them to lose their homes and other assets, not any better and not any worse. Prices should be allowed to fall back a reasonable level and interest rates should be lowered, but not the extent of causing another bubble to form. This is the only reasonable course of action unless we want to be in the same bad economic situation a few years down the road.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 10-12-2007

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Iran:

"There is an Iranian history of obfuscation and indeed lying to the IAEA. There is a history of Iran not answering important questions about what is going on."

THE TRUTH: Telling the world about Iranian deception is a futile effort for the Bush administration. After having proven to have been deceptive about the origins of the Iraq War (not to mention other areas of lacking credibility such as respect for the rule of American and international law in regards to military contractors, the status of Guantanamo prisoners and their trials, etc), the only way this administration can do anything about Iran is through our allies and international institutions. The fact that they do not do this either indicates that they are so self-insulated in their Washington bubble that they do not realize their status in world or that they are so stubborn to go their own way regardless of the rest of the world. A liar can only cry wolf a few times before no one believes them and I'm afraid a real wolf will attack us under the cover of the political failures of this administration.

COLUMN: 10-10-2007

Based on the Republican debate yesterday, none of the leading three Republicans actually has any history that should make them the nominee of the GOP. Based on the latest poll numbers that show them leading, it's clear that most Republican voters are more interested in trying to win than in maintaining any core values. This is a recipe for allowing the Democrats to win, despite the American people's disagreement with the liberal positions they advocate.

Rudy Giuliani is clearly trying to use the 2002, 2004, and 2006 Republican strategy of fear-mongering to wash away his extreme liberal views on virtually every issue. While it worked in 2002 and 2004, the 2006 election showed that the American people were not going to be frightened into voting for corrupt officials who promised security and instead turned to the Democrats to clean up the government, despite the conservative views of the majority of Americans. Mitt Romney has showed himself to be a pandering candidate of convenience, following the Bill Clinton model. Swinging to the views of the current electorate is the opposite of what America needs to do right now - we need a strong leader to clean up the extremely messy situations of the economy, foreign trade, overgrown big government, illegal immigration, and our national debt. Fred Thompson has shown himself to have always been more interested in his Hollywood career than in public service. After starting his career as an unsuccessful actor, he used his acting skills to get elected and then used his position of influence to move right back to Hollywood after only 8 years in office. Although he has taken the advice of many who have suggested that he could follow the footsteps of Ronald Reagan towards the presidency, the differences between the two men are night and day. President Reagan had always expressed significant policy positions and interest in advancing America throughout his career. Senator Thompson has only shown an interest in his own acting career and has run for office as a secondary way of becoming more famous.

The Republicans are clearly lost and will lose the election with any of these nominees. Unless something unexpected happens (a different nominee or a strong third party candidate with an actual chance of winning), it looks like we're doomed to at least four years of a liberal Democratic administration until the true conservatives emerge (either as Republicans or outside the GOP, if necessary) with an agenda that will get Americans excited about their values again, like the Contract with America in 1994.

LIE OF THE WEEK: 10-05-2007

President Bush on the latest Labor department payroll report:

"Last month our economy added 110,000 new jobs, and that's good news for people here in our country, indicator that this economy is a vibrant and strong economy... I'm really pleased with the economic news."

THE TRUTH: All of the new jobs created in the past 7 years (resulting from the policies of both the Clinton and Bush admistrations) are low wage service sector jobs. The people taking these jobs are those who have given up on finding decent middle class manufacturing or industrial jobs after their job sectors were off-shored to save on labor costs. Falsely claiming that this is an indicator of a vibrant and strong economy belies the fact that most Americans are struggling financially and the only good economic news in the past decade has been for the benefit of the tiny minority holding the vast majority of America's wealth. Don't misunderstand the previous statement to be advocacy for government redistribution of wealth because that would be a terrible socialist outcome. However, the extremely wealthy must not be allowed to control government policies that level the playing field and allow for a prosperous middle class based on hard work and entrepreneurship because that is exactly what is happening today in our environment of financial "campaign contributions" being the primary concern of nearly all elected officials. The America economy is in terrible shape and we need a major turnaround to reform the entire system before our freedom and democracy wither in the face of an economic depression.

COLUMN: 10-03-2007

The economic policies of the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration are turning America into a third world country. This is an absolute crisis that is happening before our eyes without a mention by anyone in the media or public office. The Bush Administration has been touting the economic growth of the past few years, but they fail to mention that the growth has only happened in the corporate sector and the absolute highest economic class. Everyone else from the upper middle class on down has had no positive income growth in nearly 15 years. In fact, many of them have actually experienced income degradation during this period. The middle class has actually shrunk with many people moving downwards to the lower classes after being unable to find comparable work when their labor sector has shifted to cheaper overseas offerings. One of the biggest indicators of a third world country is when the population is comprised of a tiny elite holding the vast majority of the wealth and the remaining population is kept in the absolute lowest economic conditions. We are headed in this direction as the middle class, which is the foundation of the true democratic process, continues to shrivel to nothing. Another indicator is that the number of uninsured Americans has grown tremendously as many Americans have moved from jobs offering health care to those that do not.

Unrestricted free trade is the major culprit here. Free trade is a good thing, but not when it happens with countries that have no human or worker rights or political freedom that allows for growth. The best two examples are India and China. India is the world's largest democracy and trading with that country has led to the development of a robust and growing middle class, which in turn has helped to reduce government corruption and increase democratic freedom. The result is an approaching equalization of income and rights as India grows to be on par with the world's large industrial democratic nations. The contrast is China's growing economy, which has no true worker or civil rights and wage growth for the bottom sectors of the economy has been kept artificially low, resulting in continual cheapening of world labor as they compete with what is essentially slave labor. This is also one of the causes of the recent massive recalls of so many different products (toys, toothpaste, pet food, etc) from China as they have proven to care little about developing the institutions necessary for democratic development while they have focused on maintaining their dictatorial regime while pushing for economic growth.

We need an absolute turnaround to save America's democratic freedom from the obscene greed of those in power who are destroying our fundamental societal structures in exchange for unrestricted income growth. We must not elect a president in 2008 who will continue to destructive policies of the past two administrations.