Given the conduct of Bush and his Administration these past 8 years in office, I wonder how clear thinking, intelligent and rational it would be not to stand for change and to vote accordingly? It doesn’t seem to me that voting for more of the same Republican antics would be a wise thing to do.
Economic mismanagement
(1) Bush’s tax cuts for the rich have reduced annual tax revenue available for public needs hundreds of billions each year. McCain and Palin’s plan is more of the same.
(2) Bush/Cheney’s occupation of Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq plan has cost citizens trillions of dollars of debt and interest. This is not to mention the human loss of men and women being sent home in body bags who would have otherwise lived, worked and paid taxes. The tab is estimated to be well into the trillions when you add rehabilitation for injured vets, replacement of military hardware, and the value of things Americans could have produced but didn’t. The vets returning home are not getting the medical help they need. McCain and Palin’s plan is more of the same.
(3) Bush and his buddies finished off the deregulation of banking that began in earnest during Clinton’s presidency. This ideological madness has caused the collapse of investment funds, banks, and the stock value of corporations that depend on them (which is to say most of Wall Street and much of the financial world), as well as a steep decline in the value of most homes in America and a sharp rise in the cost of living in them, foreclosures, and bankruptcies. Now the Bush administration has bailed the big guys out, while McCain claimed the economy is fundamentally sound, and postured that he had to suspend his campaign, when in fact, this was nonsense.
Energy
(4) President Bush lied in his September 6th radio address when he said that the oil in the offshore protected areas is equal to 10 years of current production. It’s not true. The Energy Information Agency, which is the government agency responsible for making estimates of oil reserves, says there are approximately 8 billion of barrels of oil in the protected areas. Current production is approximately 3 billion barrels a year and that means the oil in the offshore protected areas is equal to less than 3 years of annual production, not ten years. Is It News When the President Makes Untrue Statements (i.e. lies)?
America’s Oil and Gas Supply: “American Innovation Creating American Energy, American Jobs, and American Wealth” PDF
Republicans like McCain and Palin are pushing offshore drilling in environmentally sensitive areas as part “an ‘all of the above’ strategy to lower gasoline prices and decrease dependence on imported oil. It can’t be true, because there is not enough oil in these areas to have more than a minimal impact on gas prices (e.g. 3-4 cents per gallon) and even this benefit will not be realized for close to two decades.
When Wall Street Needs Money, Rules of Journalism No Longer Apply
Abortion, Contraception and Dirty Politics
(5) Bush is attempting to redefine contraception as abortion. Can you imagine living in a place where birth control is considered an “abortion” and health insurers won’t cover it? Where even rape victims are denied emergency contraception?
It seems unbelievable, but the Bush Administration is quietly trying to redefine “abortion” to include birth control. The Houston Chronicle says this could wipe out dozens of state laws that protect reproductive freedom for women and also protect rape victims. Access to basic health care for millions of women would be jeopardized. And it’s being pushed as a “rule change”—meaning, it doesn’t need congressional approval. The Bush administration’s draft regulations on abortion and contraception can be read at rhrealitycheck.
It would seem that McCain and Palin’s religious choices and their positions on these issues propose more of the same dirty politics when it comes to eliminating reproductive freedom for women.
War
(6) Bush and his Administration sacrificed America’s finest young men and women on the altar of oil while lying and saying that there were WMD when there weren’t. (Note these statistics are in a state of flux.)
U.S. Confirmed Deaths
Reported Deaths: 4168
Confirmed Deaths: 4161
Pending Confirmation: 7
(7) Bush and his administration are responsible for American 30,324 casualties re: the war on Iraq. (Note these statistics are in a state of flux.)
(8) Civilian death toll – Bush and his administration are responsible for the slaying of between 87,558 and 95,557 Iraqi’s to attempt to build American oil hegemony in the middle east and to secure a strategic position from which an attack Iran could be launched (primarily women and children ). (Note these statistics are in a state of flux.)
www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
McCain’s position and voting record on the war Iraq are found here at on the issues.
McCain strongly disagrees with those who advocate withdrawing American troops at this time. His strategy for victory (cough) in Iraq is more of the same of what the Bush administration has produced and Palin is in agreement with him.
Abuse of power
(9) For the past eight years, Americans have witnessed the dangerous consequences of an overreaching vice president who has sought at every turn to enhance executive power at the expense of constitutional, legal and ethical safeguards.
Palin has a record of abuse of power as the Governor of Alaska. The “Troopergate” (video analysis link) Troopergate report PDF, investigation report conducted by an independent investigator and released Friday by a bipartisan legislative committee, tells the tale. It documents the campaign that Palin and her husband Todd waged to get her former brother-in-law fired from the Alaska state troopers. voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2008/10/palin_too_close_for_comfort….
IMO Americans deserve much better representation in the Oval Office than the same kind of behavior that they received under Bush, so I do hope they do vote for Obama and his Blueprint for Change because all McCain and Palin propose is more of the same.
Related posts found in this blog: Gay Rights: Equality or Hypocrisy?
