The Last 2 GOP Administrations Were Monumental Failures

George W. Bush and Donald Trump are very different men. Bush is a decent person, while Trump is not.

But the administrations of both men were monumental failures. And they failed for basically the same reason -- both Bush and Trump thought they knew better than the professionals working in the government.

Here is just part of how Ezra Klein, at Vox.com, describes those failures:

Trump’s rise has driven a rehabilitation of the George W. Bush brand. Bush’s personal decency, his impulse toward tolerance and inclusivity, glows against the backdrop of Trump’s casual cruelty and personal decadence. But the catastrophic misgovernance in which Bush ended his presidency, and Trump ends his first term, reveals the continuity between the two administrations.

When Bush left the White House in 2009, the Iraq War was a recognized debacle, with thousands of Americans, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, casualties of its chaos. The global economy was in collapse, driven by a calamitous void of regulatory oversight of Wall Street, and the disastrous decision to let Lehman Brothers fall. Less than 10 years later, the next Republican president is ending his first term with nearly 200,000 Americans dead of the coronavirus — the worst pandemic performance, by far, of any rich nation — and an economy in shambles. . . .

Liberals often wonder how conservatives can think the government too inefficient to offer health insurance but capable of invading and rebuilding foreign countries. The answer to the riddle is simple: Bush, at least, didn’t think the American government would have to do the hard work of governance in a foreign land. All it had to do was destroy the existing government.

The Bush team’s contempt for government took a different form than the Trump team’s contempt for government. The Bushies saw themselves as reformers who knew better than the government they led. They were capable, experienced, steeped in the values of the private sector. They wanted to remake the government in their own image. But their administration was a disaster in part because they didn’t know better than the intelligence officials they dismissed, the financial regulators they later ignored, the FEMA staffers they left under incompetent leadership. They didn’t respect the institution they ran enough to listen to what it knew.

The Trump team is more outrightly hostile to the government they lead. They fear “the deep state” too much to try and reform it. They don’t want to remake federal agencies so much as corrupt them for their own gain. Where the Bush team was, at times, too interested in the minutia of the agencies they led, second-guessing even the smallest decisions from civil servants, the Trump team is detached from the agencies they run, unaware, annoyed, or threatened by the workings and responsibilities of the executive branch.

But the coronavirus disaster highlights the way different manifestations of contempt for the government can end in the same place. Like the Bush administration before it, the Trump administration is led by a president who thought he knew better than the experts, and didn’t. Like the Bush administration before it, the Trump administration sidelined internal critics, silencing those who said the administration was doing insufficient planning and committing insufficient resources. Like the Bush administration before it, the Trump administration has been dismissive of the concerns and models offered by foreign governments and contemptuous of international organizations. And like the Bush administration before it, the Trump administration’s misjudgments have led to a shocking casualty count and an economic crisis.

There are many differences between Bush and Trump as individuals, and many differences between their administrations. But both of them represent a Republican Party soaked in contempt for, and mistrust of, the federal government. When you don’t respect, or even like, the institution you lead, you lead it poorly. When that institution is incredibly, globally important — as the US government is — leading it poorly can invite global catastrophe. And sure enough, under the last two Republican administrations, it has. There is continuity here, of the most consequential sort: a continuity of terrible outcomes.

The U.S. Should Stop Interfering In Politics Of Venezuela

The United States is interfering in the internal politics of the nation of Venezuela. It's not the first time. The U.S. has been angry with Venezuela since they elected Chavez (and he nationalized Venezuelan oil -- taking it away from U.S. corporations). The U.S. even funded a coup attempt during the Bush administration (and is likely doing the same right now). Trump has even suggested several times using the U.S. military to intervene in Venezuela on the side of the right wing in that country.

This is the height of hypocrisy. While American politicians decry the intervention of Russia in our own political system, those same politicians (of bot political parties) see nothing wrong with interfering in Venezuelan politics.

The United States government needs to STOP interfering in the politics of Venezuela. Venezuela must solve its own political problems without outside interference -- just like the U.S. needs to do without foreign interference.

The following open letter is from Common Dreams:

The following open letter—signed by 70 scholars on Latin America, political science, and history as well as filmmakers, civil society leaders, and other experts—was issued on Thursday, January 24, 2019 in opposition to ongoing intervention by the United States in Venezuela.

The United States government must cease interfering in Venezuela’s internal politics, especially for the purpose of overthrowing the country’s government. Actions by the Trump administration and its allies in the hemisphere are almost certain to make the situation in Venezuela worse, leading to unnecessary human suffering, violence, and instability.

Venezuela’s political polarization is not new; the country has long been divided along racial and socioeconomic lines. But the polarization has deepened in recent years. This is partly due to US support for an opposition strategy aimed at removing the government of Nicolás Maduro through extra-electoral means. While the opposition has been divided on this strategy, US support has backed hardline opposition sectors in their goal of ousting the Maduro government through often violent protests, a military coup d’etat, or other avenues that sidestep the ballot box.

Under the Trump administration, aggressive rhetoric against the Venezuelan government has ratcheted up to a more extreme and threatening level, with Trump administration officials talking of “military action” and condemning Venezuela, along with Cuba and Nicaragua, as part of a “troika of tyranny.” Problems resulting from Venezuelan government policy have been worsened  by US economic sanctions, illegal under the Organization of American States and the United Nations ― as well as US law and other international treaties and conventions. These sanctions have cut off the means by which the Venezuelan government could escape from its economic recession, while causing a dramatic falloffin oil production and worsening the economic crisis, and causing many people to die because they can’t get access to life-saving medicines. Meanwhile, the US and other governments continue to blame the Venezuelan government ― solely ― for the economic damage, even that caused by the US sanctions.

Now the US and its allies, including OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, have pushed Venezuela to the precipice. By recognizing National Assembly President Juan Guaido as the new president of Venezuela ― something illegal under the OAS Charter ― the Trump administration has sharply accelerated Venezuela’s political crisis in the hopes of dividing the Venezuelan military and further polarizing the populace, forcing them to choose sides. The obvious, and sometimes stated goal, is to force Maduro out via a coup d’etat.

The reality is that despite hyperinflation, shortages, and a deep depression, Venezuela remains a politically polarized country. The US and its allies must cease encouraging violence by pushing for violent, extralegal regime change. If the Trump administration and its allies continue to pursue their reckless course in Venezuela, the most likely result will be bloodshed, chaos, and instability. The US should have learned something from its regime change ventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and its long, violent history of sponsoring regime change in Latin America.

Neither side in Venezuela can simply vanquish the other. The military, for example, has at least 235,000 frontline members, and there are at least 1.6 million in militias. Many of these people will fight, not only on the basis of a belief in national sovereignty that is widely held in Latin America ― in the face of what increasingly appears to be a US-led intervention ― but also to protect themselves from likely repression if the opposition topples the government by force.

In such situations, the only solution is a negotiated settlement, as has happened in the past in Latin American countries when politically polarized societies were unable to resolve their differences through elections. There have been efforts, such as those led by the Vatican in the fall of 2016, that had potential, but they received no support from Washington and its allies who favored regime change. This strategy must change if there is to be any viable solution to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.

For the sake of the Venezuelan people, the region, and for the principle of national sovereignty, these international actors should instead support negotiations between the Venezuelan government and its opponents that will allow the country to finally emerge from its political and economic crisis.

Signed:

Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus, MIT and Laureate Professor, University of Arizona 

Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program, Center for International Policy 

Greg Grandin, Professor of History, New York University 

Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History and Chicano/a Latino/a Studies at Pomona College 

Sujatha Fernandes, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, University of Sydney 

Steve Ellner, Associate Managing Editor of Latin American Perspectives 

Alfred de Zayas, former UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order and only UN rapporteur to have visited Venezuela in 21 years 

Boots Riley, Writer/Director of Sorry to Bother You, Musician 

John Pilger, Journalist & Film-Maker 

Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research 

Jared Abbott, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University 

Dr. Tim Anderson, Director, Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies 

Elisabeth Armstrong, Professor of the Study of Women and Gender, Smith College 

Alexander Aviña, PhD, Associate Professor of History, Arizona State University 

Marc Becker, Professor of History, Truman State University 

Medea Benjamin, Cofounder, CODEPINK 

Phyllis Bennis, Program Director, New Internationalism, Institute for Policy Studies 

Dr. Robert E. Birt, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University 

Aviva Chomsky, Professor of History, Salem State University 

James Cohen, University of Paris 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, Associate Professor, George Mason University 

Benjamin Dangl, PhD, Editor of Toward Freedom 

Dr. Francisco Dominguez, Faculty of Professional and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, UK 

Alex Dupuy, John E. Andrus Professor of Sociology Emeritus, Wesleyan University 

Jodie Evans, Cofounder, CODEPINK 

Vanessa Freije, Assistant Professor of International Studies, University of Washington 

Gavin Fridell, Canada Research Chair and Associate Professor in International Development Studies, St. Mary’s University 

Evelyn Gonzalez, Counselor, Montgomery College 

Jeffrey L. Gould, Rudy Professor of History, Indiana University 

Bret Gustafson, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis 

Peter Hallward, Professor of Philosophy, Kingston University 

John L. Hammond, Professor of Sociology, CUNY 

Mark Healey, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut 

Gabriel Hetland, Assistant Professor of Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies, University of Albany 

Forrest Hylton, Associate Professor of History, Universidad Nacional de Colombia-Medellín 

Daniel James, Bernardo Mendel Chair of Latin American History 

Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Alliance for Global Justice 

Daniel Kovalik, Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh 

Winnie Lem, Professor, International Development Studies, Trent University 

Dr. Gilberto López y Rivas, Professor-Researcher, National University of Anthropology and History, Morelos, Mexico 

Mary Ann Mahony, Professor of History, Central Connecticut State University 

Jorge Mancini, Vice President, Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA) 

Luís Martin-Cabrera, Associate Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, University of California San Diego 

Teresa A. Meade, Florence B. Sherwood Professor of History and Culture, Union College 

Frederick Mills, Professor of Philosophy, Bowie State University 

Stephen Morris, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Middle Tennessee State University 

Liisa L. North, Professor Emeritus, York University 

Paul Ortiz, Associate Professor of History, University of Florida 

Christian Parenti, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, John Jay College CUNY 

Nicole Phillips, Law Professor at the Université de la Foundation Dr. Aristide Faculté des Sciences Juridiques et Politiques and Adjunct Law Professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law 

Beatrice Pita, Lecturer, Department of Literature, University of California San Diego 

Margaret Power, Professor of History, Illinois Institute of Technology 

Vijay Prashad, Editor, The TriContinental 

Eleanora Quijada Cervoni FHEA, Staff Education Facilitator & EFS Mentor, Centre for Higher Education, Learning & Teaching at The Australian National University 

Walter Riley, Attorney and Activist 

William I. Robinson, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara 

Mary Roldan, Dorothy Epstein Professor of Latin American History, Hunter College/ CUNY Graduate Center 

Karin Rosemblatt, Professor of History, University of Maryland 

Emir Sader, Professor of Sociology, University of the State of Rio de Janeiro 

Rosaura Sanchez, Professor of Latin American Literature and Chicano Literature, University of California, San Diego 

T.M. Scruggs Jr., Professor Emeritus, University of Iowa 

Victor Silverman, Professor of History, Pomona College 

Brad Simpson, Associate Professor of History, University of Connecticut 

Jeb Sprague, Lecturer, University of Virginia

Kent Spriggs, International human rights lawyer

Christy Thornton, Assistant Professor of History, Johns Hopkins University 

Sinclair S. Thomson, Associate Professor of History, New York University 

Steven Topik, Professor of History, University of California, Irvine 

Stephen Volk, Professor of History Emeritus, Oberlin College 

Kirsten Weld, John. L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Department of History, Harvard University 

Kevin Young, Assistant Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst 

Patricio Zamorano, Academic of Latin American Studies; Executive Director, InfoAmericas

Trump Presidency Is Just A Racist Bush II Presidency

(Caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey.)

Trump had promised his followers that his presidency would be different, but he has flip-flopped on many issues. His presidency is turning out to differ from the failed administration of George W. Bush in only one aspect -- it's more racist.

The following is part of a thought-provoking article by Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine:

The Bush presidency was the most comprehensive governing failure of any administration since at least Herbert Hoover, and it ought to have poisoned the party’s national brand as deeply as it did Hoover’s GOP (which did not win another presidential election for twenty years). But the Republican Party managed to largely skirt the reputational fallout from the Bush catastrophe. It did so, in part, through the tea party: Conservatives hailed right-wing protests against Barack Obama as a call for ideological purity, cleansing the supposed big-government, cronyist tendencies of the Bush administration. The Republican Party of the Obama era insisted it had learned the lessons of the Bush years, when its agenda had devolved into little more than shoveling cash to K Street. The post-Bush GOP was allegedly sadder and wiser and filled with righteous abhorrence for the temptations of lobbyists and deficit spending.

Those lessons have all been forgotten. The Republican government, under Trump, has retraced the steps it took under Bush — from the obsession with tax cuts for the rich, to the vanishing line between the party’s paid lobbyists and its public servants. The reality is that, contrary to the willful misreading of conservatives elites, the tea-party revolution was not fundamentally a reaction against deficits or crony capitalism: It was a heavily racialized backlash against social change. And that spirit — the true animating spirit of the grassroots right — has lived on in Trump’s presidency.

My magazine story from a few weeks ago identified Trump’s ethnonationalism as the one clearly successful strand of his presidency. Trump has drawn from a relatively continuous line of thought, running from his early history as a landlord who excluded African-Americans, to a demagogue who publicly demanded the execution of five innocent minority teenagers, to a politician who ultimately brought the alt-right into the Republican coalition. His agenda for law enforcement, immigration, and national identity has reinforced the unifying ethnonationalist theme that allowed him to prevail over his more orthodox Republican competitors. In the weeks since my piece was published, that agenda has continued to race forward. The Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its capacityto assemble Trump’s promised deportation force. And the Department of Justice is eliminating a commission on forensic science, which had refuted some questionable methods used by law enforcement.

As my essay argued, Trump’s ethnonationalism reverses a trend in the Republican Party: Beginning with Bush, it had repudiated its Southern strategy and attempted to craft a racially inclusive message that would broaden the constituency for its oligarchic economic agenda. Bush and his ideological heirs sought to compromise on immigration while taking seriously minority concerns about discriminatory law enforcement. Trump has reversed Bush’s aspiration for a racially inclusive party completely, while rediscovering his economic blueprint.

The Trumpian mix of K Street economics and Breitbartian racial messaging is not a perfectly natural one. Trump’s vicious ethnonationalism makes his wealthy advisers and donors (many of them the same people) uncomfortable, especially the portions that disrupt their transborder workforce. And Trump’s elitist economic policy is the opposite of what his downscale white base thought he would deliver. But it fits together closely enough to function. The political reality Trump has discovered through trial and error is that he is delivering each constituency the thing it most craves. Trump’s white-identity politics satisfy his voting base enough to make his plutocratic economics tolerable. And the financial and political elite are willing to swallow their qualms about his ugly ethnonationalism because they are going to get paid. If you thought George W. Bush was generally swell, but too racially inclusive, you are going to like Trump’s presidency.

More Evidence That Trump Does NOT Have A Mandate

Donald Trump is still trying to claim that the American people have given him a mandate to institute his policies. That is not even close to true. About 2.68 million people more voted for Clinton than voted for Trump -- and if that's not enough evidence that there was no mandate given, then look at the charts above.

As the top chart shows, Trump is the only recent president to have less than 50% approval of how he's handling the transition period (41%). And he's also the only recent president to have less than 58% of his cabinet choices (40%).

In addition, he's the only recent president to have less than a 60% favorable rating (with his being only 37%). And then there's the bottom chart, showing the public still doesn't think much of Trump. Although he gets decent marks for patriotism (60%) and being a strong leader (52%), he falls short in several other categories -- honesty (41%), inspiring (41%), qualified (37%), moral (31%), and good role model (26%).  He is also viewed as being hard to like (68%), reckless (65%), and having poor judgement (62%).

Far from having any kind of mandate, Trump still has quite a way to go before even getting half of the population to support him.

These charts were made from a recent survey by the Pew Research Center -- done between November 30th and December 5th of a random national sample of 1,502 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error..

The U.S. is Responsible For The Current Refugee Crisis

(This image of Iraqi refugees heading for the Turkish border is from dw.com.)

If war does nothing else, it creates refugees -- people fleeing war-torn areas to save their lives, and to give their families a chance to have a future (which no longer exists in their country of origin). And the endless war in the Middle East is no exception. It has created millions of refugees (at least 7 million from just Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria).

Most of these refugees are now in camps (with Turkey bearing the largest burden), but that is no answer to the refugee problem. There is no future to living in a refugee camp, and as the wars drag on in the Middle East, there seems to be no hope of those people returning to their home countries. Now many thousands of them are fleeing for Europe, where they hope they can make a decent future for their families. This is not a new phenomenon, but it is increasing -- and it is making headlines around the world.

To their shame, some European countries are trying to stop the immigrants from entering (or staying) in their country. Other, to their credit, are stepping up and accepting many refugees. Austria and Germany are to be commended for accepting thousands of refugees.

This brings up a question -- why isn't the United States stepping forward to accept many of these refugees? I know there is a definite anti-immigrant and anti-muslim attitude among many Americans, but we should be a much bigger player in solving the refugee crisis. After all, we have at least as much responsibility (if not more) in creating this crisis than anyone else.

Right-wingers will deny it, but the unnecessary invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq by the Busk/Cheney administration is what started the mess that has turned into a refugee crisis. They thought they could quickly depose regimes they didn't like and install an American-style democracy in those countries  with military force. They were wrong. All they did was impose a seemingly endless cycle of violence and destabilize the entire area. And their insane action has been the root cause of the many millions of refugees that now exist.

We were not the only nations causing the crisis. Many European nations joined us in those ridiculous wars, but we were the primary architects. Europe is now reaping the "benefit" of their going along with the U.S., and it is my opinion that the United States should now step forward and do its part. We should be accepting many of those refugees and helping them start a new life. And we should be funding more of the cost of relocating refugees to wherever they want to go.

You cannot create a mess, and then turn your back on it. It just isn't decent (or moral).

The Only Surprise About Iraq Is That It Took This Long

(This image of Islamic forces in Iraq is from Crash Magazine Online.)

It looks like the puppet government installed by the United States in Iraq is crumbling. Sunni militants (ISIS) have now taken over the northern half of the country, and are threatening Baghdad -- and the Iraqi soldiers that the U.S. spent billions to train are running away rather than fight (which shouldn't surprise us since they joined the army because we had destroyed their country and there were no jobs available -- not because they loved the puppet government and were willing to fight for it).

One of the silliest stories about this new Iraqi crisis is that CNN is saying that American intelligence knew this was coming. Well, DUH! Anyone with half a brain knew this was coming. They just didn't expect it to take this long to happen. And the United States must accept the primary responsibility for the current mess.

George Bush was not smart enough to see through the flawed arguments of the neocon war lovers (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield, John Bolton, etc.) when he became president. They convinced him that his father had been wrong to leave Saddam in power, and that he could easily "fix" that by invading Iraq. They assured him that victory would be easy, and the Iraqi people would love us for bringing "democracy" to their country. I think Bush was really taken aback when those neocon assurances turned out to be false.

There were at least two major reasons for the failure in Iraq. The first was a lesson we should have learned in Vietnam -- that you can't impose a lasting regime change and democratic system on a foreign nation at the point of a gun. That must happen through the desires and actions of the people of that nation, or it will not survive.

Second, we did not install a truly inclusive democracy in Iraq. We chose sides between the religious factions in that country, and installed a shiite regime (because they supported our invasion) and excluded the sunnis (because they were part of Saddam's regime). This was a critical (and stupid) mistake -- and it assured that there would be conflict after we left that country (and no longer kept the puppet regime in power through our military presence).

Now the country's in the middle of that easily predicted religious war, and there's not much the United States can do about it. Sending in ground troops is unthinkable, and while the Obama administration is considering air strikes, I'm not even sure that is advisable. The truth is that we really no longer have a dog in this fight. If the Maliki government survives, it will be because the Iranians stepped in and gave them assistance (including ground troops) -- and if they don't survive, Iraq will be governed by sunni extremists. Neither would produce a government that could in any way be considered an ally of the United States.

The only real option for the United States is to step back and let Iraq solve its own problems -- and then begin the long process of trying to make friends with the eventual rulers of that country. It will be a long and difficult task -- but that is the bed we have made for ourselves, and we must now lay in.

GOP Is Not Serious About Immigration Reform This Year

After the last election the national leaders of the Republican Party realized they had a serious problem -- a problem that would only grow over time. The problem was that they have lost several voting groups (women, young people, minorities). Especially important among these groups is the growing Hispanic population in this country. It is by far the fastest growing portion of the population, and that trend is not expected to change in the future.

With the percentage of Whites dropping by about 2% in each presidential election, and the Hispanic portion growing (and expected to grow even faster in the future), it is clear that if the Republican Party clings to its "whites only" policies it will continue to make up a shrinking portion of the electorate. It could become irrelevant on the national stage and might even cease to exist (as the Whigs did).

The national leaders urged congressional Republicans to alter their policies against immigration reform (a reform considered to be very important by Hispanic voters). By moderating their policy on immigration, and helping to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, they hoped to reach out to Hispanic voters. This would have been reasonable, and might have even worked (since Hispanics have voted for Republicans in the past). But the congressional Republicans didn't listen to the advice from the national party, and continued to block any comprehensive reform bill. They preferred to address only punitive measures (border security and deportations).

Recently the party tried one last time to come up with an immigration reform bill, and thought they had done so. It was not a good bill -- offering only legal status to undocumented workers, but no path to citizenship. It was a feeble attempt at reform, but an attempt nonetheless. But it would require all House Republicans to be unified to pass it (since Democrats would be unlikely to support any bill not offering a path to citizenship). But now it looks like even this feeble attempt at reform will be unable to get through the Republican-dominated House, because too many right-wingers are opposing it.

Paul Ryan, one of the authors of the inadequate reform bill, admits now that the bill is not going to be able to be passed this year. And seeing that they will once more be opposing real immigration reform, Ryan and his fellow Republicans are now trying to deflect blame away from themselves. They now claim that their inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform is not because of their own bigoted and anti-immigrant views, but because President Obama cannot be trusted to enforce any new bill (especially on border security and deportations).

This is not just untrue -- it is an outrageous lie. The truth is just the opposite. The flow of unauthorized immigrants into this country has slowed, and at this time there are more undocumented workers leaving than entering the country. In addition, the Homeland Security Department has given our border security its top rating. The fact is that we have already done what can be done to close our borders.

As for the willingness of President Obama to enforce the immigration laws, that is also untrue. The chart below shows the deportations for the last three years of the Bush administration and the first three years of the Obama administration. Note that the Obama administration has deported more undocumented people in each year than any of the years under George Bush. The one thing that the Obama administration has accomplished is that they have put a greater effort toward deporting those convicted of criminal violations (a fact I think most Americans would appreciate).

Clearly the Obama administration has done a better job of enforcing current immigration law than the previous Republican administration did -- making the current Republican excuse a ludicrous one. And there is no reason to believe he would enforce a new law any less rigorously than he has enforced the current law.

So, what is the real reason the Republicans can't even pass their latest feeble attempt at reform? That's pretty obvious to anyone willing to think -- the Republican base remains in the grips of a xenophobic fever, and they are not willing to accept any reform that would make life easier for undocumented immigrants. Note in the chart below that those GOP base voters oppose any level of legalization for those workers -- whether it is temporary, permanent, or a path to citizenship.

The congressional Republicans are just doing what their bigoted base wants them to do (regardless of what is good for the country as a whole). They are afraid if they vote for reform, they will face a right-wing opponent and possibly lose their seat in Congress. There attempt to deflect blame to President Obama is just a futile attempt to help them in the general election (after they survive the primary). I doubt it will help much though. It is just too obviously a lie.

The charts below were made from a recent YouGov Poll -- conducted on January 28th and 29th of 1,000 nationwide adults, with a 3.9 point margin of error.

Considering The Whole Picture

Thetruth is that the Obama administration has not had nearly as many attacks on diplomatic targets as occurred during the years of the Bush administration. Of course, the Republicans don't want to talk about that. They only want to talk about Benghazi, in a pathetic attempt to smear Hillary Clinton in case she runs for president in 2016 (because a Clinton candidacy scares the hell out of them -- and rightfully so). They also don't want to talk about how they handicapped Obama and Clinton by cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in embassy and consulate security -- which makes their attempt to scandalize Benghazi just another GOP exercise in hypocrisy.

Worst President Ever ?

I think it is a valid question to wonder if the Bush presidency was the worst ever. George W. Bush certainly had a whole list of failures -- from a failed economy going into recession (and costing millions of jobs) to two unnecessary and very expensive wars and a pitiful and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina.

Bush still seems to believe that history will treat him kinder than the general public does (where a majority still consider his presidency to be a failure). But he may well be wrong about that. Siena College did a survey of historians in this country back in 2010 (the last time such a survey was done), and the verdict of today's historians was that President Bush was the fifth worst president this country has ever had. Only A. Johnson, Buchanan, Harding, and Pierce were seen as worse presidents than George W. Bush.

The historians rated each president in 20 separate categories. Bush was rated next to last in several categories -- foreign policy accomplishments, handling of U.S. economy, ability to compromise, and communication ability. Overall, they rated Bush 39th out of 43 presidents (with President Obama not being rated because his president was not yet finished).

The following charts are from the Washington Post's Wonkblog, and illuminate some of the Bush presidency failures. There are more charts and a discussion of them at that site, and it's worth a visit.

And if that's not enough for you, Alternet has compiled a list of 50 reasons why Bush was a poor president. It highlights the shockingly bad Bush presidency.

Duping America

The mantra of the Republicans these days, which they repeat incessantly, is that the budget deficit of the federal government is out of control and growing rapidly. They says that more budget cuts must be made to bring the budget deficit down. Is this true? NO!

The truth is that the budget deficit was out of control in the Bush administration -- due to tax cuts for the rich (including lowering the capital gains tax), two unpaid-for wars, and an increasing military budget. But since President Obama has entered office the budget has been significantly cut -- and the budget deficit has been reduced. The deficit has not only been reduced, but even if no more cuts are made it will continue to go down in the coming years.

The sad part is that most Americans have bought into the Republican lie. As the chart above shows (compiled from a Bloomberg News poll), about 62% of the general public thinks the budget deficit is getting larger and another 28% believe the budget is staying the same. Only 6% of the public knows and understands the truth -- that the budget deficit is going down. The Republicans have successfully duped (with the help of the mainstream media) about 94% of Americans.

NOTE -- The national debt is still growing, since there is still a budget deficit. But that debt growth has also been slowed (since the budget deficit is shrinking), and will continue to slow. More budget cuts will not help though, since that would just slow economic growth and cost jobs. What is needed to start to bring the national debt down is robust job creation and more government revenues -- and stopping the growth in military spending certainly wouldn't hurt.

Supply-Side (Trickle-Down) Economics

For the last 30 years or so (since the presidency of Ronald Reagan) the Republicans have put all their economic faith in supply-side economics (more commonly called "trickle-down" economics). This is the belief that deregulation and lower taxes for the rich (and corporations) will result in a thriving economy -- providing more investment growth, productivity growth, overall growth, and job creation.

That is their theory, but in the real world it just hasn't worked out that way. As the charts above (from Think Progress) show, all four of those areas of growth have actually been slower under the supply-side administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than under the more Keynesian (non-supply-side) administration of Bill Clinton.

And the Clinton administration not only out-performed the supply-side administrations, but was more fair overall. The trickle-down economics, while performing worse, has also resulted in a vast gap in wealth and income between the rest and other Americans -- and triggered the most serious recession since the Great Depression. The sad fact is that supply-side economics simply doesn't work very well and is bad for the economy in general.

That's why it's puzzling to me why Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) still clings to this failed and discredited economic theory. Is it because he doesn't care about anyone but the rich? Or is he just not bright enough (or courageous enough) to abandon it and find something better? Whatever the reason, it has now become very clear that electing Romney would result in a return to the failed policies of the Bush administration (a majority of his aides are even from the Bush administration). We simply can't afford that.

Hurricane Poses Problems For The GOP

It now looks like the Republicans have dodged a bullet. Hurricane Isaac will not directly hit the part of Florida where they are holding their convention (Tampa). There will still be some bad weather, and the delegates will probably be getting wet, but now that the hurricane has shifted its course to the west the Republicans will be able to get on with their convention. For a while, there was speculation that the convention might have to be called off, but that won't happen now.

But while the GOP has dodged one bullet, there are a couple more that could also cause them serious damage. One is that the convention will not be able to completely hog the news as was hoped by the Republican Party. In a normal election year, the week of a party convention (by either political party) is dominated in the news by what is happening at the convention. And Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) really needed that to happen this year. He is not liked by most Americans (even some of his supporters), and he needed the opportunity at the convention to redefine himself and try to make himself more likable.

But this year that's going to be harder to do, because the convention will be happening at the same time that Hurricane Isaac in making landfall. And much of the news-time that would have been spent covering the convention will now go to hurricane coverage -- both the storm and its aftermath. The Republicans will be lucky to get half the coverage they would have gotten if Hurricane Isaac did not exist (or did not threaten the United States).

The second is that Hurricane Isaac is now headed for the worst possible landfall location for the Republican Party -- the New Orleans area. It has only been seven years since Hurricane Katrina hit that area with devastating consequences, and the images of Katrina have not faded from the American consciousness. And another thing that is vividly remembered (to the embarrassment of Republicans) is the totally incompetent way the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was handled by the Bush administration -- with many storm survivors having to wait for days to get any help at all.

Right now, it doesn't look like Hurricane Isaac will cause the same devastation that Hurricane Katrina did (although that could change). But even so, the American people will be watching to see how the government reacts this time -- and comparisons of that reaction to the Bush failure of Katrina are inevitable. If President Obama is smart (and I believe he is), then he already has FEMA, the Coast Guard, and others ready to spring into action as soon as they know where they are needed. And any competence the Obama administration shows will make the Republican Party look bad by comparison.

The Republican Party certainly did not need this hurricane to happen at this time. It bears nothing for them but an ill wind.

Bush Still To Blame For Massive Deficit

The Republicans have been very vocal in trying to place the blame for this nation's current deficit completely on the shoulders of President Obama. This is more than a little disingenuous. They ignore the fact that President Clinton left the country with a nice surplus, and it was President Bush that ran up a huge deficit -- a deficit that was dumped on President Obama in the middle of a serious recession (caused by Republican trickle-down economic policies).

And the legacy of the Bush administration is still the major factor that is ballooning the current deficit. Note the chart above. If the two wars had not happened and the Bush tax cuts not enacted, by next year the deficit would less than half of what it is projected to be (around $400 billion instead of more than $1 trillion) -- and the cause of that remaining deficit would be the recession, not Obama's efforts to stimulate the economy. And personally, I believe if a more substantial stimulus and jobs plan could have been passed even that part of the deficit could have been much lower.

Here's how Paul N. Van de Water, Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, puts it:

President Bush’s tax cuts, and the legacy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan explain virtually the entire federal budget deficit projected for the rest of this decade (that is, through 2019).  That is, there would be practically no deficits over that period if the tax cuts, the wars, and the downturn had not occurred and other policies remained the same. . .

For the years ahead, CBPP found that the tax cuts (if policymakers extend them in full) and the wars, plus the lingering effects of the recent downturn, essentially account for the entire deficit between now and 2019.  Indeed, the tax cuts and the wars alone account for nearly half of the public debt by 2019.

Will Congress Let Bush Tax Cuts Expire ?

The Bush tax cuts, which mainly went to the rich (who got huge cuts while other Americans got tiny cuts), are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. Neither party wants all of the cuts to expire. The Democrats want to keep the small cuts for those making under $250,000 a year, while the Republicans want to keep the cuts for the rich. Last year, the Democrats gave in and voted with Republicans to extend all the cuts, but that is unlikely to happen this year. The Democrats can read the polls, and they know that a large majority of Americans think the rich should be paying more in taxes.

So what's going to happen? It's starting to look like nothing will happen. Since neither side has the votes to get their way in the current Congress, it is starting to look like they both may just wait until the new Congress meets next year. That means they will let the cuts expire for everyone.

Both parties are hoping to do well enough in the November elections to get their way next year. They would then pass a new tax cut bill in 2013. If Romney and the Republicans win in November, those new cuts will go to the rich and the corporations. If Obama and the Democrats win, the new tax cuts will only go to the working and middle classes. In other words, they are going to let the voters decide who will get tax cuts and who won't.

This is just one more reason (among many) to vote the Republicans out of office in November.

The Economy Under President Obama

The Republicans want America to believe that President Obama has done a poor job of overseeing the American economy. They know that their only chance of regaining the White House and Senate (and keeping control of the House of Representatives) is to convince the voters that President Obama has done worse with the economy than George W. Bush did (or at least as bad).

They must make people believe that because they have no new economic policy to offer. They are still trying to push the same old failed "trickle-down" economic policy of Reagan/Bush -- the policy that threw this nation into recession, cost the country millions of jobs, and created a vast gap in wealth and income between the rich and the rest of America.

But, as usual, the truth is quite different from what the Republican Party claims it is. While the economy has not improved as much as we had hoped it would, it has improved under the guidance of President Obama -- and it is now in much better shape than when President Bush left office. Bush and the congressional Republicans left the economy in a real mess.

President Obama has taken that Republican economic mess and made it better. And the most remarkable thing is that he has done it in spite of the congressional Republicans trying to kill, block, or otherwise obstruct everything the president has tried to do. There is much more that needs to be done to restore the American economy to a healthy status (with massive job creation), but it can't be done without a Congress willing to cooperate/compromise for the good of the country (which is a very good reason to vote as many Republicans out of office as possible in November).

The two charts above (from the CNN website) show the growth in jobs and the growth of GDP under President Obama's stewardship. If you look beneath the fold you will find several other charts on various aspects of the economy (like inflation, the stock market, home foreclosures, home prices, industrial production, gas prices, interest rates, unemployment rate and consumer spending).

Bush Still Blamed Most For Bad Economy

(Caricature above is by the talented DonkeyHotey.)

The Republicans had tried their best in the last three years to shift the blame for the recession and loss of millions of jobs on to President Obama, and away from George W. Bush. That's because they were complicit in whatever Bush did. They happily went along with his deregulation of Wall Street, his tax cuts for the rich, and his unnecessary wars (all of which combined to help kick off the recession).

But their attempt to shift the blame has only had a partial success. People are very unhappy with the government's failure to fix the economy (or really do much of anything to try and fix it in the last few years). And they give President Obama part of the blame -- not for causing it, but for not doing enough to fix it. But the people still know who caused the mess we're in, and they give George W. Bush much more credit for the current bad economy than President Obama. Even 49% of Republicans say Bush has a great deal or a moderate amount of blame for the current economic mess.

The most recent Gallup Poll asking people to assess blame for the current bad economy was done June 7th through 10th. They surveyed 1,004 random national adults (and the survey had a 4 point margin of error). Here are the results of that survey:

HOW MUCH DO YOU BLAME GEORGE BUSH/BARACK OBAMA FOR THE CURRENT ECONOMY?

General Public
Bush...............68%
Obama...............52%

Independents
Bush...............67%
Obama...............51%

Republicans
Bush...............49%
Obama...............83%

Democrats
Bush...............90%
Obama...............19%

Figures like these should make Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) very nervous. While many people don't think President Obama has done enough to fix the economy (much of which is due to GOP obstructionism), they still blame Bush for starting the whole mess. And what is Romney offering? Nothing but a return to the old failed Bush policies -- deregulation of Wall Street, massive tax cuts for the rich (and corporations), and more spending on the military (including an extension of the Afghan War, and very possibly a new war with Iran).

Haven't we had enough of the Reagan/Bush policies? Would they work any better with Romney in the White House? Of course not! It's time to return to sane economic policies -- and the only way to do that is to vote the Republicans out of power.

Are We Already At War With Iran ?

Some of you may be shocked at my title question. After all, hasn't the president done all that he can to avoid war with Iran? Hasn't he joined with the European countries to put economic pressure on Iran, in an effort to avoid attacking them? Well yes, he has done that -- but that may just be a cover for the much more aggressive actions this country has initiated.

We already know about the American rocket that killed civilians in Iran. According to the government, that rocket was meant to explode in Iraq and just went awry. And then there's the matter of the drones we have been sending over Iran. One of them was actually shot down by the Iranians, so we can't deny doing that anymore. Again, the official story is that they just got off course.

But there is another matter that is even more serious -- an intentional attack on Iranian property by the United States government. The attack tool is called "Stuxnet". It's a computer "worm" created by the United States (and Israel) to wreak havoc on the Iranian government's computers. It was first discovered when a screw-up in the program sent the worm around the world instead of just to Iran's computer system. And it's been going on for years now.

The cyber-attacks were started by the Bush administration, but President Obama made the decision to continue, and even increase, them after he took office. The attack was a unilateral one, and another example of the United State's policy of "preventative war" -- a Bush doctrine that seems to have been adopted by President Obama.

This brings up a valid question. Isn't an attack on another country's computer system an act of war? If another country were to attack our own government's computers, you can bet our government would consider it an act of war (just as surely as if they had attacked one of our ships or airplanes or military bases). And we would retaliate.

Ask yourself what the United States would do if Iran killed American citizens with a missile, sent drones over U.S. territory, or launched a cyber-attack on our nation's computer system? You know the answer. At the very least the U.S. would bomb the hell out of Iran, and it very well could lead to all-out war.

Too many Americans will deny it (because they believe the U.S. can do no wrong), but our government has already launched the first strikes against Iran. The only reason we are not already in a shooting war is that Iran is showing remarkable restraint (and good sense). Perhaps they know we are trying hard to prod them into responding, so we'll have an excuse to launch our bombers.

Please Tell Me This Is A Joke

Could this possibly be true? The world's most famous "C" student and worst president in the history of this country, George W. Bush, is writing a book. That's what the New York Times tells us. That's right. The ex-president who has trouble even speaking the English language is going to write a book (in English). But that's not the worst part. There are proof readers working for publishing companies, who can work tons of overtime hours translating Bush's book into readable English.

The really crazy part is what the book is going to be about. In his book, George is going to tell America how to solve its economic problems. Yes, you read that right. The man who inherited a budget surplus and turned it into the nation's largest ever deficit, sending this country into the deepest recession since the Great Depression, is going to give us his advice on how to boost economic growth. Here is his economic record:

* Inherited a budget surplus and turned it into a deficit of over $4 trillion.

* Presided over the biggest Wall Street crash since 1929 (costing investors trillions of dollars), and then spent $700 billion to bail out giant Wall Street banks (while hundreds of smaller banks across the country went under).

* Between 2001 and 2007 (before the crash and the recession) the Bush economy had the worst economic expansion of the post World War II era.

* In the first seven years of his presidency, Bush had the smallest job growth of any administration since World War II (and then many millions of jobs were lost in 2008).

* The Bush administration experienced the lowest GDP growth of any administration since World War II (and this is true even when the recession year of 2008 is not counted).

* Household income growth under Bush was negative for the first time since it started being tracked in 1967 (except for the 1% and the corporations, who did very well under Bush).

Is this really the man we want to be taking economic advice from? If this book is written, published, and purchased by bookstores for re-sale, it would be a crime to put it in the economics section. Maybe there'll be some room on the shelves dedicated to comedy. That's where it would belong.

Afghan War Not Going Well

If you listen to the administration and the generals running the war in and occupation of Afghanistan, you might think things are going well in that never-ending war. The president says things are going so well that we can now start reducing troops and replace them with units to train Afghan soldiers and police. The generals agree, but would like to continue the war a bit longer first. Frankly, that has me wondering -- if those police and troops haven't been trained and that country pacified after ten years of war, how long is it going to take?

I have never thought things were going as well as both the Bush and Obama administrations would like for us to believe. If they were, then our soldiers should have been home by now. Now the truth is starting to come out. It seems that the intelligence community in this country thinks things aren't going nearly as well as the generals do. here is part of an article in the Los Angeles Times on testimony before Congress by intelligence officials:

Senior U.S. intelligence officials offered a bleak view of the war in Afghanistan in testimony to Congress on Thursday, an assessment they acknowledged was more pessimistic than that of the military commanders in charge.

“I would like to begin with current military operations in Afghanistan, where we assess that endemic corruption and persistent qualitative deficiencies in the army and police forces undermine efforts to extend effective governance and security,” Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at its annual worldwide threat hearing.

The Afghan army remains reliant on U.S. and international forces for logistics, intelligence and transport, he said. And “despite successful coalition targeting, the Taliban remains resilient and able to replace leadership losses while also competing to provide governance at the local level. From its Pakistani safe havens, the Taliban leadership remains confident of eventual victory.”

Burgess testified alongside James Clapper, director of national intelligence, who said that the Taliban lost ground in the last year, “but that was mainly in places where the International Security Assistance Forces, or ISAF, were concentrated, and Taliban senior leaders continued to enjoy safe haven in Pakistan.”

Clapper was asked by committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) about reports in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere describing a recent National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan that questioned whether the Afghan government would survive as the U.S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance.

After ten years of war, I have no doubt that the intelligence estimate is probably much closer to the truth than anything else we've heard from the government. The war is not going well, and could still drag on for years without a resolution. Isn't it time we withdrew our troops from that country? The corrupt government we are propping up in that country cannot survive -- and is not worth the life of even a single additional American soldier.