“. . . shaking down businesses. . . .”
It most certainly wasn’t the Democrats who removed regulatory protections for Americans and led the nation into the abyss of subprime lending and massive Wall Street greed that helped launch the nation’s worst recession in 70 years. Apparently, any regulation for the public good is, in Republican views, “shaking down businesses.”
“. . . limiting free speech . . ."
Not only does Mike have amnesia, he’s delusional if he believes it’ll be the Democrats who have plans to restrict free speech. As a reminder, it was the Republicans, not the Democrats, who created the unconstitutional free speech zones to restrict any dissent to as much as a mile away from the President and Vice-president. It was the Republicans, not the Democrats, who pushed for even greater restrictions upon freedom of speech, religion, the press, the right to assemble, and most important the right to petition government for a redress of grievances. It was the Republicans, not the Democrats, who willfully, maliciously, and illegally blocked innumerable Freedom of Information requests. In the arrogant and illogical world of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the Republican National Committee leadership, Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers are merely Old Codgers who don’t understand that the Constitution is now “quaint.”
“ . . . and imposing questionable environmental restrictions.”
It wasn’t those pesky liberals who thought global warming was a hoax, and who pulled the United States out of the Kyoto Protocol, signed by 37 industrialized nations, that would lead to stabilization of greenhouse gases. It certainly wasn’t the Democrats who removed “questionable” anti-pollution restrictions from corporate America, weakened the Clean Water and Clean Air acts, cut funding for toxic waste cleanups, yielded to corporate influence to allow logging and mining in national forests, strip mining in the Appalachians and then left residue in formerly clean rivers.
Apparently, such regulations as the Endangered Species Act, approved by the Nixon Administration in 1973 and gutted by the Republicans during the past eight years, is among the “questionable governmental restrictions” that annoy Mike and the RNC. As a result of Bush–Cheney policies, dozens of species are now extinct; 20,000 polar bears are threatened by global warming because the Administration wants to encourage even further gas and oil exploration in the already diminished arctic sea ice. In the Northern Rockies, 1,500 gray wolves were taken off the list of endangered and threatened species, leading to indiscriminate and unregulated killing until federal courts reversed the orders; and just about anyone in Alaska has the “right” to kill wolves, even from the air.
The “imposition of questionable environmental restrictions” that scare the RNC might include protection of the nation’s wild horses and burros, symbols of America’s independence. Under the Republican leadership, influenced by the cattle industry, 4.1 million head of cattle graze upon public lands, but the Pinocchio Department of the Interior believes it has a divine mission to slaughter most of the 32,000 wild horses and burros because it claims there’s not enough room for them, and they could starve from lack of natural resources.
Perhaps Mike and the RNC are upset that the Obama Administration may establish “questionable environmental restrictions” to reverse newly-enacted policies that allow trophy hunters to kill and import into the U.S. endangered species from other countries. Apparently, Mike and the RNC actually believe that a free enterprise system of environmental destruction with minimal oversight is the American Way.
“I’m proud of the honorable campaigns our candidates ran . . .”
While John McCain and most Republicans conducted honorable campaigns, did Mike even attend a Sarah Palin rally? Was he so concentrating upon strategy that he didn’t hear her say that Obama “pals around with terrorists” or her ultra-right followers at every rally bleating out racial, ethnic, and religious slurs.
“America remains a center-right country.”
Not only is Mike forgetful and delusional, he’s also mathematically-challenged. Barack Obama won in the Electoral College by a near landslide 365–173, and a popular vote of 52 percent to John McCain’s 46 percent, a higher winning percentage than George W. Bush had in 2004 when he haughtily claimed he had a “mandate” from the people. Maybe Mike doesn’t understand that 59 percent of the 2009–2011 House (257–178) are Democrats, 21 more Democrats than two years ago; or that at least 58 of 100 Senators (one race is still being determined) are Democrats, nine more than two years ago. Maybe if Mike closed his eyes tightly and wished upon the nearest oil rig America could still be a “center-right” country.
Lies, hyperbole, and propaganda aside, Mike’s real purpose of the letter was to energize the Republican base to send money to Washington to “ensure that our Party has the funding it needs to hold the Democrats accountable to the American people.” Accountability is a real nice word. It’s something the Republicans didn’t have the past few years. Just about the only thing the Administration did say for most of its term—for any issue—was, “We’re at war, we know best, and if you question what we say and what we do you’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”
By 2008, the American public no longer bought into a campaign of fear, intimidation, harassment, and lies. Loudly and clearly they said they wanted an end to the nightmare of the past eight years. They wanted hope; they demanded change.
[For a more complete look at the Bush–Cheney Administration and its effect upon Americans, read Dr. Brasch’s critically-acclaimed books America’s Unpatriotic Acts: The Federal Government’s Violation of Constitutional and Civil Rights (2004); ‘Unacceptable’: The Federal Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina (2006); and the 560-page Sinking the Ship of State: The Presidency of George W. Bush (2008). All books are available at amazon.com, and most bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch through his website, www.walterbrasch.com, or by e-mail at brasch@bloomu.edu]
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