The State Of American Politics

           Alberto Gonzales escaped the noose once again after the GOP blocked a Democratic no-confidence vote towards Mr. Gonzales. The republican move is more of a political move rather than a moral one since they are looking forward to the 2008 elections. This may turn back on them later on however as Americans gray more wary on Governmental corruption. From the inner circle of the Bush administration, names like Tom Delay and Louis Scooter Libby stand out due to how close they are or were to the sitting president. Alberto Gonzales though has a history with   George Bush since the Texas days, a time where Alberto helped his boss find legal technicalities to allow him by pass laws that range from sending a mentally retarded man to death to privatizing much of Texas’s social infrastructure. Today, he is still helping working on new ways to either bypass national or internationals to changing laws to serve the house’s ideology.  For this reason, it is rather unlikely that Bush will feed him to the dogs. Few within his walls know how to circumvent laws better then the long time lawyer.

In other political news Michael Bloomberg is creating a lot of buzz now that he left the GOP and has become unaffiliated. One of the main questions not being asked is how his change in political party is going to affect his politics as a whole. For those who live New York know that he often sides with big business at the expense of working class communities. One prime of example of this was the project of the West Side Stadium that was geared to bring the New York Jets back to New York. The outcome of such a project would be a high volume of congestion in a neighborhood where recent studies show a higher than average level of asthma in children. Further more, the project would also include the building of luxury condos and coops with little attention being given to lower income housing. And as history shows, whole areas around sports stadiums tend to be dumping grounds for the stadium itself. The issue divided the city until it was finally voted down. His connection to big business also can be seen in his decision to make CEO of Goldman Sachs, Mark Marcus the head of the rent guidelines board, a panel that makes several decisions regarding such issues as rent hikes. Marcus has an extensive history of siding with landlords, including the worst ones, when it comes to rent hikes and legal justifications for certain actions.

With Christmas just around the corner MTA Union begged the New York mayor to meet with them to discuss viable pay raises and to cut from a proposal by Mr. Bloomberg that would slash benefits for new MTA employees. What is not mentioned much of the time is that the Union conceded several demand before they were forced to go on strike. What is most troubling is that the New York media has chosen to over look these facts, including the usually liberal paper, “City Limits” magazine.

While   the Republicans are changing parties or defending criminals, the democrats are once again looking to make political hay by embracing pop culture. In introducing her new theme song, Hillary Clinton and Bill did a satire of the final episode of the Sopranos. The piece has Hillary Clinton sitting in a diner as Bill Clinton walks through the door. That’s when Hillary puts on the song, by Celine Deon’s “You and I.”    Before the Democrats re-took office in November, they had spoken of bringing troops home from Iraq, oversight and rolling back many of George Bush’s policies and creating some real change in the direction that this country has been moving in for the past 7 years. Since they have retaken control of Congress, there are more troops in Iraq now than before they took office and the spending in Iraq and Afghanistan is more than double what it was a year ago.  The oversight that the Democrats sold us was suppose to have made Bush a lame duck president but there has been little to no change in how the Bush White house has conducted business. In fact he still walks in a similar manor as that of 2002 when he had a 98% approval rate. Today his poll numbers are somewhere between, 28% and 32 %, depending, on which poll sight you follow.

What is most disturbing about the current climate of the Democratic Party is the language that they use when confronting George Bush. For example, the battle between Bush and Congress was not the legality of the war itself which where the focus should have been pointed along with the 600,000+ dead Iraqis according to several sources and more than 3000 dead American soldiers. Further more, the pretense of the Iraq war has also been ignored. The focus usually centers on how the war is being fought or the Iraqi Government’s lack of success in building a security force that is able to stabilize the country. This Congress often ignores the fact Bush appointed overseers who were sent to Iraq in early in 2004 dismantled the entire Iraq military, arresting several former soldiers. So what you now have is the establishment of a major lie that both parties will follow and the media will perpetuate in a manner similar to That of William Randolph Hurst. Future pieces will focus further on this great lie.