BULL IN THE CHINA SHOP

After Donald Trump was elected to the presidency, the stock market started climbing. Presumably this was based on the premise that taxes would be lowered on business and the wealthy. Given the Republican majority in both houses of Congress, this seems likely to happen. However, not everyone is optimistic about the economic outlook over the next four years.

This is partly because we can’t take Mr. Trump at his word. He often does not seem to comprehend the complexities of the issues he deals with. He frequently walks back statements he has made or says they were merely jokes. Sometimes he outright lies and continues to insist of the veracity of those lies long after they have been exposed as falsehoods.

Also Republicans are generally regarded as friendly to business while Democrats are thought of as hostile to business, but recently the economy has flourished under Democratic administrations and floundered while the Republicans had the White House. President Clinton handed President Bush a tidy surplus in the federal treasury. Bush promptly squandered it by lowering taxes on the well-to-do and starting a misguided war in Iraq. Under the Bush administration we saw the greatest economic struggle since the Great Depression. President Obama took the mess that Bush had handed him and turned it around, pulling us out of the Great Recession and handing the economy to President Trump in a much better shape than it was when he received it. Do you have any confidence in Donald Trump’s ability to handle it with care?

Conservatives believe that the marketplace will be able to resolve any issues it faces. If you just let things go, the law of supply and demand will make everything turn out right in the end. They resent liberal meddling, making up rules and regulations that hinder business’s ability to function without interference.

And yet that is just what Donald Trump did when he stepped into a business decision made by Carrier in Indiana. The company was going to shutter two plants and send them to Mexico. Trump talked them into keeping one of those plants open, partly by having his running mate, who happened to be governor of Indiana, grant the company some $7 million in tax credits. Trump also threatened to impose a heavy tariff on any material coming from that Mexican plant into the United States. It is almost like having the central government decided how many pairs of shoes were to be made, as was done during the Soviet government in Russia. 

Can the President step in, in the decision any business makes if he does not agree with it? Is the governor of every state involved going to grant tax credits to companies that say they’re going to move out of the country? What will stop manufacturers from threatening to move out of the country unless they get significant tax breaks? What will prevent the companies that keep manufacturing here from replacing huge portions of their work force with automation?

Mr. Trump blames China and Mexico for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. He threatens to tear up international trade agreements and raise trade barriers in the form of high tariffs against countries he deems our adversaries in trade. However, those jobs are gone forever. More jobs have been lost to automation than to companies sending them overseas. What is needed is not a trade war but education to prepare American workers for the new world that is emerging through automation, computers, and the internet.

If America raises import duties on goods from other countries, they will retaliate by doing the same to us. Such warfare will destroy the delicate symbiosis that keeps the world economy in balance. The real estate bubble that burst in 2008 threw the economy off balance not only in this country but world-wide. The Great Depression of the 1930s was felt in every country. In warfare no one wins. Everyone loses. This is true in economic war as well.

A recent issue of The Week featured Trump on the cover as a bull in the china shop. It was an apt comparison.

PRESIDENT TO TALK TO STUDENTS

OMG, on September 8 the President is going to talk to American students about the importance of education and the importance of staying in school! Help! Help! The sky is falling!

Even though George H. W. Bush and Ronald Reagan gave speeches that were broadcast over public television to a number of school districts, some Republicans believe that Barack Obama’s speech is an obvious attempt to brainwash America’s school children. According to this view, if President Obama speaks to school children, it must be some kind of liberal plot. A spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Party says the President should not be telling children what to do. Evidently that means he shouldn’t be telling them to stay in school. Why doesn’t Obama take a cue from George W. Bush, who was in school listening to children read on 9/11? After he was told about the attack on the twin towers, Bush stayed in the class for another half hour. Perhaps he just wanted to know how the story ended.

If the President is allowed to talk to America’s students, the networks ought to allow Sarah or Rush or some other right wing nut to respond. They can tell the Republican point of view: Education ain’t going to do you no good nohow.

We can understand why Republican think that way. If kids get too much education, they won’t fall for right wing bullshit anymore.

REPUBLICAN VICE PRESIDENTS

You have to hand it to those Republican presidents. Since Reagan they really know how to pick a vice president. George H W Bush chose Dan Quayle as his running mate. What better insurance could he have against assassination? Who would be wacky enough to try to murder Bush if that left Quayle in charge of the country? The guy isn’t smart enough to run a lemonade stand, to say nothing of the country.

Then Bush junior went dad one better in choosing Dick Cheney as his vice president. Anyone who hated Bush the younger enough to contemplate assassination would have to consider what the country would be like with Cheney at the helm in name as well as in deed.

We might have thought that this weird kind of assassination insurance was just something that the Bushes practiced, but John McCain evidently thinks it’s a great idea too. He chose a running mate who combines Quayle’s cluelessness with Cheney’s ruthlessness. God help the country if she ever had to replace the 72-year-old John McCain.

BUSH BREAKS A RECORD

President George Bush has broken a record. At 71 percent he has earned the highest record of disapproval since such records began to be kept. He even beat out Richard Nixon, whose disapproval rate was 66 percent. Kennedy and Eisenhower both had disapproval rates in the thirties. Clinton’s was 54.

Our question is, how is it possible that 29 percent of people surveyed thought George Bush was doing okay? He turned the huge federal surplus that he inherited into the largest deficit ever. He failed to follow up aggressively in seeking out the Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Instead he diverted military resources away from that and sent them to an illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq. In this foolhardy enterprise, he has squandered billions of dollars and the lives of over 4,000 young American men and women along with untold thousands of Iraqi lives. This absurd effort has weakened the U. S. military and damaged the American image of a benevolent nation. The president has illegally spied on American citizens and authorized the torture of captives, thus leaving American prisoners of war subject to torture. He has torn up a treaty to protect the environment. His administration is full of people who rewrite science for political ends and use public office illegally to further partisan politics.

What more does this man have to do before every single American realizes that he has done irreparable damage to the country?

WHO’S TO BLAME?

What is behind the economic mess that the country is in? Senator John McCain, who admits, “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should,” placed the blames squarely on the people who “bought homes they couldn’t afford.” He went on to say that federal assistance “must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren’t.”

Wait a minute! Who was responsible? Was it the Wall Street bankers like Bear Stearns whom the federal government is bailing out? Was it Bear Stearns stockholders, like chairman James E. Cayne, the value of whose company shares fell from $1 billion to a mere $61 million? Was it the politicians and lobbyists who tore down much of the regulations covering the finance industry? Was it the poor suckers who bought a home with money lent to him by a banker who supposed to check the buyer’s ability to repay?

The fact is, it doesn’t matter who is to blame. It’s a mess, and it concerns all of us. The problems in the housing/credit market touch every area of business and affect us all. Before it gets any worse, we had better do something about it.

Hillary Clinton compared John McCain to Herbert Hoover, the man who stood by and did nothing while the country slide into the worst depression it has ever seen. Even George Bush has done more than John McCain is willing to do.

DO REPUBLICANS HAVE A CLUE?

George Bush has been the most clueless president ever. After the UN declared that they had found no weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, George didn’t let facts or logic stand in his way of invading the country. Then nearly five years ago he flew onto the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln to stand in front of a banner that proclaimed “Mission Accomplished.”

We have become so used to Bush’s misstatements that we don’t bother anymore to ask if he is misinformed or lying. We just ignore what he says because for whatever reason, we no longer believe him. Unfortunately George Bush is not the only Republican who doesn’t know what he is talking about. Mike Huckabee, while running for the Republican nomination for president, revealed that he didn’t know where Afghanistan is. This almost five years after the U. S. invaded the country to try to find Osama Bin Laden. Doesn’t the man even read the newspapers?

Huckebee is just a good ole country boy. Maybe he just doesn’t know much about what’s happening outside of Arkansas. But recently John McCain showed a similar lack of awareness of what is going on in the world. McCain has been in Washington since 1977, first as Navy Senate liaison, then as congressman and senator. He is a member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. But he recently stated that Iran was training members of Al Qaeda and then letting them slip back into Iraq where they could attack coalition forces. Iran is suspected of training Shi’ite militias, and these militias have attacked Iraqi police and military, but they are not Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is Sunni, not Shi’ite. Conflict between the Moslem sects is part of the problem in Iraq.

Senator McCain doesn’t know the difference between these two groups. Yet he is sitting in the Senate and the armed forces committee and making decisions that affect us all. He is running for the presidency and urging that we “stay the course” in Iraq. He wants to continue George Bush’s clueless war policy.

Don’t these people even read a newspaper? They are unaware of things that every citizen should know. It is about time that candidates for public office be required to take a current events test before they are allowed to make decisions for the rest of us.

BUSH WILL NOT LET THE WILL OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STAND IN HIS WAY

Speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters, President Bush said, the troops “are not coming home based upon defeat, or based upon opinion polls, or based upon focus groups, or based upon politics, they're coming home because we're successful." He told cheering supporters, "The decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency. It is the right decision in this point in my presidency, and it will forever be the right decision.”

He is not going to let the November elections influence his actions. “Why should I be influenced by the will of the American people or by common sense?” Mr. Bush asked. “I’ve never let things like that stand in my way before.”

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton said that she and John McCain are ready to be commander in chief , while Barack Obama is not. What kind of a Democrat puts down a fellow Democrat while advancing a Republican contender? Not only was Mrs. Clinton’s comment unfair to Senator Obama, it also overlooked Dr. Carl Perrin. Although Perrin is no longer campaigning, he has not withdrawn from the race. Unlike both Clinton and Obama, Perrin has actual military experience. He was a sergeant in the 31st Infantry Division during the Korean War. He was also a senior patrol leader in his Boy Scout troop. And of course he is president of the Computer Club at his retirement village. Perrin has the kind of executive and leadership experience that none of the other candidates have.

VETO MAKES WORLD SAFE FOR WATERBOARDING

President Bush vetoed a bill that would outlaw waterboarding by the CIA. “We want to use the technique on some of those Democratic trouble makers,” the president said, smiling to show that it was just a joke.

Meantime, the vice president’s old company is making soldiers sick—literally. KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton, is supplying water to the troops. The Pentagon found that the water was "was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards." Soldiers were breaking out with skin rashes and other ailments. The water was used for laundry and personal hygiene. Thank God the troops didn’t have to drink the stuff.

In other political news, two Vermont towns, Brattleboro and Marlboro, voted to do the job that Congress should have done. The two towns voted to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney for violating the Constitution. Voters realize that the town has no authority to arrest the president and vice president, but the vote gave them a chance to express their anger about the way that the administration involved the country in the war in Iraq .

U.S. NOT HEADED FOR RECESSION

The U.S. is not headed for a recession according to President George Bush. “We acted robustly to head that off,” he said. “We’re giving everyone $300. We’re even giving it to Democrats, even to people who didn’t vote for us. I hope they’ll remember that $300 when they go to the polls in November. No one can accuse us of just helping rich folks pay less in taxes.”

As for the people losing their homes through mortgage foreclosures, the president said it was just the economy working. “People bought homes they couldn’t afford, and the market place is taking those homes away. That’s the way the system works, and the sooner people learn that, they better off we’ll be.”

By November Mr. Bush believes the market will have made a complete correction, and the people will see the need to keep a Republican government in office. “John McCain has supported our war effort from the beginning. If our troops are not able to discover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the end of my term, I’m sure that the McCain administration will be successful in that search.”

ALL IN FAVOR OF TORTURE SAY, “AYE”

You have to feel sorry for George Bush. The Democrats in the Senate keep coming up with petty things to try to keep the president from doing his job.

Senate sneaks just sent a bill to the White House, which would require that the CIA follow the US Army Field Manual in its techniques of interrogation. The field manual forbids water boarding.

George Bush, naturally, is going to veto the bill. “What’s the point of being president,” he asked, ‘if you can’t authorize a little water boarding now and then?”

Senator John McCain, a former POW, voted against the bill, insisting that the vote was consistent with his position against torture. He went on to explain: “We always supported allowing the CIA to use extra measures. I believe waterboarding is illegal and should be banned.”

Huh? Where’s the straight talk express on this issue, John?

PEACE AND PROSPERITY

Speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, President Bush said, "The stakes in November are high. This is an important election. Prosperity and peace are in the balance.” That is true, but not in the way he means it. We can’t help but wonder what kind of Orwellian logic leads him to suggest his party is offering peace and prosperity.

The country is on the brink of a recession. Perhaps the major cause of the impending recession is the implosion created by sub-prime mortgages, which has caused thousands upon thousands of foreclosures, a credit crisis, a falling stock market, and a loss of jobs. The mortgage industry needed some supervision, which the Republican administration was unwilling to give, because that would have been an interference in the market.

And peace! How dare he talk about peace? The country went to war in Afghanistan to try to take out the people who were responsible for the attack on the World Trade Center. But then, instead of pursuing that war with the intensity it deserved, the Bush administration opened another war, an unjustified war that they tried to justify with lies. That war has been an unmitigated disaster for the United States in countless way. George Bush should be ashamed to talk about peace!

ANN COULTER TO CAMPAIGN FOR HILLARY

Ann Coulter doesn’t think the John McCain is conservative enough. On Hannity & Colmes Friday night she said if the election is between John McCain and Hillary Clinton, she will not only vote for Hillary; she will campaign for her, saying that Clinton is more conservative than McCain. She is particularly incensed that McCain against torturing enemy captives, stating that she is in favor of torture.

She went on to say that Mrs. Clinton lies less than Mr. McCain, and she’s smarter than he is. “He is very, very bad for the country,” she added.

Will conservative stop at nothing? Maybe they will have George Bush or even Dick Cheney himself endorse the Democratic candidate.

MITT ROMNEY, ANOTHER GEORGE BUSH?

Mitt Romney claims he is the candidate most like President George Bush. Both men have a Harvard MBA. Bush sat out the Vietnam War in the Air National Guard, while Romney didn’t serve in the military at all.

Like Bush, Romney wants to bring his businessman’s acumen to the White House. Like Bush, Romney wants to help American businesses—even if it is at a cost to working people. One of Bush’s strokes of genius was his Medicare drug plan. The plan had some minor inconveniences for seniors, like the donut hole. If seniors don’t take care of themselves and became really sick, they have to foot the entire cost of their prescriptions once the cost reached a certain point. That would be an incentive to seniors to take better care of themselves.

The drug plan was a boon to the pharmaceutical industry. The government would not negotiate with drug companies to hold down the price of drugs under plan because that would be an interference with private enterprise. At the same time the Bush administration put a stop to sneaky seniors who were getting their prescriptions filled in Canada. After all, the FDA couldn’t guarantee the safety of those Canadian drugs.

At the same time the government under George Bush made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to buy stuff from China, a place known for the safety of its products. Well, there was that little thing about cancer patients who became paralyzed after taking drugs for leukemia manufactured by Shanghai Hualian. But no one is perfect, and business is business.

Mitt Romney insists he will provide the same kind of pro-business government that we have seen in the present administration.

In other news, President Bush is proposing major cuts in the Medicare program.

Meanwhile drug company Wyeth reported that during the fourth quarter of last year, earnings rose 17 percent, from $855 million to $1.02 billion.

SOUTH CAROLINA MUD

Boy, they really play dirty politics in South Carolina. It was in that state that John McCain lost to George Bush in 2000 after false stories about the Arizona senator. Just before the primary election, stories came out about McCain’s having fathered a black child out of wedlock. In fact, McCain and his wife adopted a child from India. False stories like that contributed to McCain’s loss to George Bush in the primary. That in turn led to the disastrous Bush presidency.

As the primaries loom in the Palmetto State, politicians there are up to their old dirty tricks. Someone sent out a bunch of Christmas cards, supposedly from Mitt Romney. The cards said the former Massachusetts governor endorsed polygamy. Rumors have been spread charging that Huckabee is not a real conservative. (What a low blow!) They’re after McCain again with lies about what happened when he was a POW.

False stories have come out that Obama is a Muslim. In fact he is a devote Christian. Democratic candidate Carl Perrin has been attacked as well. Perrin has been confident of his strength in South Carolina because he served in the Dixie Division at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, during the Korean War. Anti-Perrin forces do not deny his military experience, but they say, “Just because he was in the Dixie Division, that doesn’t make him sympathetic to the Confederate point of view. Even though he was in that division, he was still a Yankee from New Hampshire, a Yankee liberal at that. Perrin never even liked grits. He ate them only once. He thought he was too good to drink white lightning. He always preferred cheap beer. He was in the Dixie Division all right, but he was probably a Yankee spy.”

The professional politicians are prepared for dirty South Carolina-style politics. They have truth squads out to counter the lies and mud that are thrown at them. But Perrin doesn’t have to resources to carry on that kind of fight. He is really worried about what will happen in the South Carolina Democratic primary.

MASTER’S DEGREE IN CREATION SCIENCE

Now you can get a master’s degree in science education with an emphasis on creationism. A Bible-based group called the Institute for Creation Research will be awarding online degrees in creationism. The Institute will use materials from “top schools,” except that it will challenge standard teaching of evolution.

According to the Institute’s web site: “All things in the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of the creation week.” The program, “equips believers with evidences of the Bible’s accuracy and authority through scientific research, educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a thoroughly biblical framework.”

The department offering the degrees will be called the George W. Bush Science Center, to honor the Bush administration’s contributions to modern science. Two years ago the president stated his belief that school children should be taught intelligent design. "Both sides ought to be properly taught . . . so people can understand what the debate is about," he said, according to an official transcript of the session. Bush added: "Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought.”

Henry Morris III, the chief executive of the Institute for Creation Research, said, “We’re very excited about this new program. We plan to add new major areas of study to our science curriculum in the next two years. We’re planning to offer Master of Science degrees in Alchemy, Astrology, and Phrenology.”

CANDIDATE BASHES BUSH

A candidate for the nomination has come out with harsh criticism of the Bush administration’s foreign policy. The candidate in question criticized Bush for not listening to military leaders who urged him early on to send more troops to secure Iraq, charged that the administration’s policy toward Pakistan had been a “waste” and a “setback” and warned that the United States was now more “vulnerable to the animosity of other countries.”

“American foreign policy needs to change its tone and attitude, open up and reach out,” the candidate wrote in an article published in Foreign Affairs. “The Bush administration’s arrogant bunker mentality has been counterproductive at home and abroad,” the article said.

The candidate called for more humanitarian aid to improve living conditions in the Muslim world and to make the people there less receptive to terrorists. He suggested taking a more flexible approach to Iran, including the possibility of greater diplomacy.

“Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons on my watch,” he wrote. “But before I look parents in the eye to explain why I put their son’s or daughter’s life at risk, I want to do everything possible to avoid conflict. We have substantive issues to discuss with Tehran.”

Which Democrat said these harsh comments about the Bush administration? It wasn’t a Democrat at all. It was Mike Huckabee. No wonder he is moving up and making a real challenge to former governor “Flip-flop” Romney and former mayor Rudy Giuliani, one of whose advisers is ready to bomb Iran.

APOLOGIES

It must be the Christmas season. Politicians are apologizing all over the place. Hillary Clinton apologized to Barack Obama after someone on her staff suggested that if Obama became the Democratic nominee, the Republicans would have a field day over drug use during his youth.

Then Mike Huckabee apologized to Mitt Romney over his suggestion that Mormons believed Jesus Christ and the devil to be brothers.

Democratic candidate Dr. Carl Perrin thought some apologies from him were in order. Although he has never made this charge in public, privately he has referred to George Bush as an idiot. Technically an idiot is a person with an I Q below 20. Perrin does not believe the Bush’s IQ is that low.

In private conversation Perrin has referred to Bush as a liar. The former English professor now says that some of the lies about WMD and other stuff that came out of GSB’s mouth may have been fed to him by Karl or Dick or some other henchmen. Perrin apologizes from calling W a liar.

Carl Perrin has also stated that Bush and Cheney should be impeached for misleading the nation in all kinds of things, leading us into a senseless war, and irreparably damaging the nation and its reputation around the world. Perrin is not apologizing for that. He still thinks that Bush and Cheney should be impeached.

WILL HILLARY BE A DRAG ON THE PARTY?

Democratic members of Congress running for reelection are worried that if Hillary Clinton is nominated for the presidency, they will lose votes. This is particularly true of Democrats running in heavily Republican districts. Nancy Boyda, a Democrat from Kansas, is one who could be affected. Sixty percent of the voters in her district went for George Bush in the 2004 election. Now Ms. Boyda faces a tough reelection battle. Some of her supporters are concerned that if Senator Clinton heads the Democratic ticket in 2008, people like Congresswoman Boyda will lose.

Politicians like Boyda are asserting their independence from leading Democrats in hopes of saving their Congressional seats. Democrats running for office are distancing themselves from Hillary Clinton, just as Republican politicians are staying as far away from Bush and Cheney as they can.

It is time to nominate who will not alienate independent voters, a man who has never even been in Washington, someone like Dr. Carl Perrin, a man of the people, and the people’s choice.

ANOTHER SLAM DUNK

President George Bush got another intelligence report stating that Iran had stopped working on nuclear weapons in 2003. The report supercedes the 2005 report that insisted that Iran was hell bent for leather to develop the nukes.

Mr. Bush affirmed that the report proved that he had been right all along. “Because of our efforts, we were able to avert World War III,” he said.

Meanwhile Vice President Dick Cheney has been out of sight for a while. There is some speculation that Cheney has been trying to draft former CIA Director George Tenet as a contract intelligence officer. According to our sources Cheney wants Tenet to prove that Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weapons and aiming them at Washington.

FAIR AND BALANCED NEWS

The White House has created a new office, the Balanced Status Department. The function of the B. S. Department is to give a fair and balanced view of the events within the government. The new department was given a trial run in California this past week when FEMA Deputy Director Vice Admiral Harvey Johnson gave a “news conference.” They gave reporters 15 minutes notice, and when the reporters couldn’t make it to the conference, FEMA employees asked the questions without revealing that that they worked for FEMA rather than to a news organization.

White House spokesman Xavier Phloxm said, “The left-wing, liberal press always distorts the real events, so we wanted to make sure we got the facts out before the press could give their slanted view. They really slammed us after Katrina, so this time we wanted to be sure that the American people know how effective we have been in California.”

Of course this is not the first time that the Bush White House has managed the news. From the beginning of Bush’s campaign for the presidency, local GOP organizations issued tickets to “town meetings” only to loyal Republicans. A couple of years ago in Iraq Condi Rice answered questions put to her by GIs. It was revealed later that the soldiers had been coached and given the questions to ask.

“Reporter” Jeff Gannon used to be invited to White House news conferences. He could always be counted on to ask soft-ball questions, included one that chided Democrats for being “divorced from reality.” It turned out that Gannon didn’t even work for a legitimate news agency. Rather it was a loose organization made up solely of volunteer GOP activists.

The Bush White House has a long history of shaping the way news is presented to the public. With the B. S. Department they have brought that practice to a high art.