Saturday, December 6, 2008

a lame-duck coup d'etat!

Isn't it amazing how a president elect's campaign promises can be shelved so quickly after the election and even before the victorious candidate takes office. As Barack Obama assembles his new cabinet and puts programs together so he can "hit the ground running" on January 20th, he is being hobbled by mounting claims on current and future revenues of the US government.

Seven hundred billion dollars for the self-dealing executives on wall street and another 35 billion for the mismanaged auto industry who lobbied governments to continue production of gas-guzzling, environment-destroying mega-cars without proper public oversight. And if the auto industry deserves a bailout, who steps up to the plate next - hotels and hamburger joints? Can we really afford to see all those burger flippers and desk clerks out of work and unable to make payments on their sub-prime loans?

These claims are being made against a national treasury already in record deficit thanks to the failed-state economics of the Bush administration. If Obama borrows the funds from countries like China or India, what surrender of sovereignty will be required? No limit on imports, no restriction of job exports? There go 2 more of Obama's promised changes.

If Bush's economic time-bomb isn't enough, there are presidential orders being churned out of the "lame-duck" White House to allow environmentally destructive energy exploration, gutting of the endangered species act and creating impediments to any programs Obama may be considering to reverse global warming and other threats to our planet's capacity to sustain life.

Then there are all the graduates from Pat Robertson's Regent University Law school who were salted into the Attorney-General's payroll and who forgot to ask, "What would Jesus Do?" when that Department justified torture and the elimination of Constitutional legal protections. I suppose they already have their petitions prepared for unlawful dismissal

Finally there is the presidential pardon privilege. How many crooked K-street lobbyists will be released from prison - maybe even a Canadian Lord who looted his holding company while regulators looked the other way - When these right-wing Marielitas hit the airwaves like the Watergate bandits and Oliver North, Obama's honeymoon will be over.

I don't blame Obama if he can't keep his promises. I blame Bush for what amounts to a lame-duck coup d'etat!

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