WHAT, EXACTLY, DID OUR COUNTRY DESERVE?

Ralph Nader is 74, and he has definitely proved himself to be unsafe at any speed.

Once again, this year, Mr. Nader mounted an unsuccessful third party run for the Presidency. This time, only about one half of one percent of the voting public cast their ballots for him. This time, he did no damage.

Sadly, that was not the case 8 years ago when Nader’s votes may have shifted the win in a couple of states from Gore to Bush. Had those states gone Democratic, then Florida would not have mattered.

When asked to comment on the potential of a Bush Presidency in the event a scenario like the one I described occurred, Nader said that the country would then get exactly what it deserves. The question arises; what, exactly, did OUR COUNTRY deserve?

Did the country deserve the second worst economic disaster in its history?

Did over 4,000 Americans deserve to die in a war that is being fought purely for profit?

Did the survivors of September 11 and their families deserve to have their loved ones’ memories besmirched by an inability to capture the person responsible for those deaths?

Did our children deserve an unfunded educational mandate that relies more on teaching for the test than on educating?

Did veterans, poor children and the elderly deserve to have their benefits gutted?

No, nobody deserved what the Bush Administration did to this country. That would be obvious to anyone but Ralph Nader. To him, it was just fodder to feed his massive ego. To him it was justification for a run for the White House that he could not possibly win.

Long ago, Ralph Nader was a hero. Now, he is a fool. The time has come for him to retire back to Michigan, or wherever else he might want to go. The time has come for Ralph Nader to never speak in public again. Too much was at stake this year to risk another incident of this egomaniac causing the country to install a new Republican administration in Washington. Fortunately, this time that didn’t happen, but it could have.

Go away, Ralph. Your time has passed, and we would be far better off as a country if you came to understand that and left us alone.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

ON THE WAY OUT THE DOOR, THE BUSH ADMINISTRTION LAUNCHES ANOTHER BROADSIDE AGAINST THE ENVIRONMENT

Not content to shuffle gently into retirement, the Bush administration has announced that it is putting the finishing touches on a series of environmental policy changes intended to reward Corporate America for their loyalty by relaxing numerous critical environmental restrictions that Bush loyalists have identified as standing in the way of their plundering what remains of our precious natural resources.

The so-called “midnight regulations,” named for the way that they are enacted by an administration as it scurries out the door include: rolling back protections under the Endangered Species Act; allowing power plants to operate near national parks; loosening regulations for factory farm waste, and making it easier for mountaintop coal-mining operations to destroy mountains and pollute nearby lakes and streams.

What sucks about the new restrictions is that if the Bush administration passes them in a timely fashion - - and there is no indication that they will do otherwise - - it will be hard for President Obama to do anything about them without a major investment of time and political capitol.

Now you would think in light of the way things turned out on Election Day that George Bush would be too concerned about his own potential for criminal prosecution on a wide range of issues to fuck with the American people any further.

But this is not the case. Perhaps this is a suicidal wish? Or maybe the son of a bitch has such total disregard for the American people that he just doesn’t give a damn and by these actions is challenging the American people to go after his ass?

Either way the bad news is that we have not yet seen the end of George Bush.

Now if only I could blink my eyes and it be the afternoon of January 20th, 2009.

- Denis

THEY HAVE A CASH MACHINE IN THEIR HANDS, AND THEY ARE LOATHE TO GIVE IT UP

This will be the last thing I write before this most critical election, perhaps, of my life time.

Will we elect the first African American President in our nation’s history, or will we seat the first woman to become Vice President?

Will we continue the failed policies of the past years, or will we return to the economic solvency and relative peace that we had when George W. Bush took office?

Will I find that on my next trip to Europe, people are congratulating me on a great choice, or will they be saying once again, how could you have elected that guy?

I don’t know.

What I do know is that the Republicans, once again are doing everything they can to stay in power without actually winning the election. There are reports of early voting machines in several states, most notably Texas, recording McCain votes when ballots are cast for Obama. We know that the Bush Administration is attempting to have nearly a quarter of a million voters removed from the voter rolls in Ohio by questioning their status so close to election day that the problem could not possibly be resolved by Tuesday. We know that members of the 1st Infantry Division are secretly embedded somewhere in the United States, in violation of our laws and our Constitution, with the unstated, but well known, purpose of assuring the election goes the “right” way. We know that the majority in Congress that we now have would, in all likelihood, have been larger had the Republicans Beta version of the software they are using to falsify this election not been used in 2006. We know all of these things, and, yet, we may be powerless to stop them.

They do not want to lose power. They have a cash machine in their hands called the federal government, and they are loathe to give it up. They lie. They cheat, and they steal. Then, they tell us that they are men of G-d, good Christians, who only seek to bring faith and democracy to a world of enslaved non-believers. They don’t even see the oxymoron in the term faith and democracy, if that even can identify an oxymoron when they see one. That’s a difficult task for the morons who vote for them, but it is certainly not for the evil geniuses behind those morons, the Karl Roves and the others who are just like W’s friend “Turd Blossom>”

Yeah, they still think they have us by the short hairs, and, if we are not careful, when we wake up on Wednesday morning, we may, once again, find out that they do.

Or, we can turn out in such massive numbers that no amount of election fraud can do it for them this time. We can, and must, show them that democracy works, and that under the current condition of the Republican Party, it works best when the Democrats are in charge.

We must tell 10 friends to get out and vote.

And they must tell 10 friends.

And they must tell ten friends, until every eligible voter in this country goes out to cast their ballots. It is disgraceful that only about 35% of us thought it was important to vote in the last two Presidential elections. It is even more disgraceful that 3 to 4% of us still don’t understand that by voting for Ralph Nader they might be assuring the downfall of this great country.

As I said at the beginning of this Short Take, this election is the most serious election of my lifetime, perhaps, the most serious of our country’s lifetime. We cannot fritter our votes away. We must vote for the person who can win and who can lead us out of the sewer in which we are currently drowning.

That person is not John McCain. He only represents the same disgusting mess in which we are currently drowning.

That person, for better or for worse, is Senator Barack Obama.

He is the Democratic nominee, not Clinton, not Edwards, not Richardson and certainly no Kucinich. This is too important to screw up.

You’ve got your marching orders. Now march us right back into the White House.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

IF YOU SCRATCH A REPUBLICAN, ALMOST ANY REPUBLICAN, YOU WILL UNCOVER A POLITICAL DIRTY TRICKSTER

I have never agreed with Senator John McCain on most issues. I am a liberal Democrat, and he is a conservative Republican. There is very little common ground between us other than the fact that we both profess to love our country.

I have, however, always respected him as an honest man and a patriot. I no longer do.

I have been on this planet a bit more than six decades. I have lived through the administrations of 11 Presidents, from Truman to the current President Bush, and I have never been as disappointed in the actions of a Presidential candidate as I am in the actions of Senator McCain.

He is a man who pledged to take the high road in this race. After all, the previous leader in the field of dirty politics was Bush 43, and much of his early Presidential campaign shenanigans were at the expense of McCain. And, so, when John McCain promised a cleanly run campaign, I was elated. I was also not certain that he would hold to his promise, and, on that, my worst fears have been realized.

The Senator rarely addresses the issues directly, and when he does, he simply lies about things. He insists that Senator Obama will raise people’s taxes, when the reality is that very few people’s net earnings will be negatively affected by the Obama plan. He has created this background noise about Obama’s associations with terrorism by claiming that casual acquaintances were really the Senator for Illinois’ good buddies. He lies like the Nazis did believing as Joseph Goebbels did that if you repeat a big enough lie enough times, it will become the truth. He complains about Senator Obama’s experience while selecting a far less experienced or qualified running mate himself, and, then, he has the temerity to compare Governor Palin to President Clinton on national television.

My mother, who is 93½ years young observed the rise and fall of Hitler. She believes to this day that there is and will always be an undercurrent of Nazism in the collective German psyche. I do not know if that is true. What I do know is that if you scratch a Republican, almost any Republican, you will uncover a political dirty trickster.

In the case of the current Republican nominee for President, I believe that my assertion has been proven to be correct. He may claim to be a cut above the Bush gang, but he is not. He speaks with righteous indignation of the man he supported 90% of the time as if George W. Bush were a pariah, not his close political ally. He is a dangerous man of limited mental capacity accompanied by a totally unprepared partner in his quest for the White House. And, he is a man who could become the oldest person ever to serve in the Presidency, which creates the what if questions about his health, his mental capacity and the specter of a Palin Presidency.

As my late Grandma used to say, “Oy vey!”

Senator McCain is the wrong person at the wrong time to lead us out of the morass created by George W. Bush and company. In fact, Senator McCain has proven himself to be the wrong person for any time.

But that’s just my opinion.

I hope it’s yours too.

There are only a few days left until the election. You have in your hands the power to chose right or wrong.

You know what to do.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

EVERYTHING GOES IN THE GOP’S LAST DITCH ATTEMPT TO BOOST JOHN MCCAIN TO VICTORY

With little chance of winning on their merits, the scummier elements of the Republican Party are once again resorting to dirty tricks in their hope of leveling the field between Republican, John McCain and Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama, who as of this writing leads the wrinkly old Republican in most of the “battlefield states.”

Targeting mainly minorities and so-called “low information voters”, most of these tricks are pretty mundane stuff such as the use of official looking flyers telling Democrats that they vote on one day while everyone else votes on another day, or the tactic of sending professional looking DVDs to voter’s homes warning of Islam’s impending attack against the West if the US elects anyone other than warmonger, John McCain. Then there is my personal favorite, the one they trot out whenever a Republican candidate is in danger of having his ass handed to him on election day: the official sounding rumor, which threatens to arrest anyone with unpaid traffic tickets or warrants when they show up at the polls to vote.

Now most people see this stuff for what it is and rarely if ever give it more than a cursory glance. But then there are those who take this garbage to heart and either switch their vote at the last minute, or not vote at all. In the interest of protecting these folks, I would like to see law enforcement take these issues more seriously and prosecute the offenders more often than is done at the current time.

And it is not just the scurrilous, quasi-legal political action committees and the 527’s that are the source of these last ditch efforts. Not by a long shot. No less a player than the Christian extremist group, Focus on the Family, has waded into the mix this election cycle with a mailer warning that if Obama gets elected, by 2012 pornographic magazines will be publicly displayed for all to see.

Now clearly this is ridiculous. But this sort of trash gains traction coming as it does from as famous a source as the Reverend James Dobson, Focus on the Family’s leader. Like many evangelical leaders, Rev. Dobson regularly violates the IRS rules preventing non-profits from politicking, and in a more perfect world his actions would have long ago resulted in his group having its non-profit status revoked.

But then again, in a more perfect world, there would be no need for dirty tricks as people would win or loose based on the quality of their ideas and not on how much fear they can generate among the unwashed masses.

I for one, want to live in that better world, a world that can and will be ours if we are successful in electing Barack Obama President next Tuesday.

DISCLAIMER: THE MANAGEMENT OF RECOVERING LIBERAL WISHES TO STATE THAT THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS SHORT TAKE THAT IMPLIES THAT RON PAUL IS A RACIST. YOU WILL ONLY GET THAT IMPRESSION IF YOU DON’T ACTUALLY READ THIS ARTICLE.

My friends (damn, I love doing that,)I am here to discuss a very serious problem that may occur on Election Day known as The Tom Bradley Effect.

For those of you who don’t know, Tom Bradley was a very popular and successful Mayor in Los Angeles, serving 5 terms, the longest tenure of any Mayor of that city. Bradley was also an African American. In 1982 and again in 1986, Mayor Bradley ran for Governor of California and was defeated both times by Republican George Deukmejian. In both elections, he showed a commanding double digit lead in the polls just prior to Election Day. In both elections, he lost. And those losses are where the term, The Tom Bradley effect originated.

It is believed that Mayor Bradley lost because, in the end, when the curtain was drawn, a certain number of White voters couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a Black candidate.

We, at The Lib, are concerned that this year, The Bradley Effect might just turn into the Obama Effect, and that’s not a good thing. So, how do we solve this problem?

Our solution is to suggest to anyone who privately confesses their inability to vote for a Black Guy that they cast their ballots for Ron Paul instead of George W, oops I mean, John McCain. Paul, a conservative running as a third party candidate, differs from other Republicans in that he is vehemently against the war in Iraq. He is that unusual candidate, a conservative peacenik.

The trick here is to prevent Bush, I mean McCain, from getting the votes. This strategy may have sent votes to Ralph Nader in the election of 2000, thus throwing some states into the Republican camp that might otherwise have gone Democratic. If it worked for them, it can work for us.

We need to get the word out.

Of course, we want you to vote for Obama, but don’t vote for McCain if you can’t bring yourself to vote for someone who doesn’t look like you when you stare at the mirror in the morning. By all means, register a protest vote on November 4, if that is how you feel. Just register that protest vote for Ron Paul. He won’t get elected, but, then again, you will have taken the opportunity to remain a closet racist without destroying our country any more than it has already been turned into the worst national train wreck in our history.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

AND MAYBE THAT’S THE SADDEST PART OF ALL

There was a time when I respected John McCain. I did not agree with most of his political positions, but I respected him as a hero and a man of honor. That time has passed.

As the 2008 Presidential campaign nears its close, Senator McCain’s rants have grown farther and farther from the truth, and that trip away from reality has lessened my respect for him. I am sure that I am not the only person in this position.

I listen to him speak, and I shudder. I hear him talk about the tax policies of Barack Obama, and I am horrified. I hear him talk about the war in Iraq, and I quake. I listen to him defend his choice of a running mate, and I am nauseated. I do not know what to make of this man whose honest and forthright nature were once legendary.

He stands on a platform and tells people that Senator Obama’s tax plan will increase most people’s taxes, when virtually all respected independent economists say that it won’t. He describes the Democratic candidate’s health plan as a kind of neo-socialism, when, in effect, it maintains private health insurance while lowering costs. He says his health care plan which will give people a $5,000 tax credit toward the cost of health insurance will save folks money. He neglects the fact that real health insurance costs over $12,000 a year and that employer provided health insurance will be taxed for the first time in our history. He ignores the realities of an economy in crisis and supports the privatization of Social Security, long after that insane plan was discredited. He tells us the war is succeeding in Iraq, but he leaves out the fact that the successes are based on the Iraqi people never assuming responsibility for their own defense and an American military presence in Iraq for, perhaps, the next century. He tells us that he is a “maverick” and forgets to mention that he voted with Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 over 90% of the time. And, most oddly, he compares Sarah Palin favorably with Bill Clinton.

And maybe that’s the saddest part of all.

You see, the former honorable gentleman from Arizona is not in the greatest of health, having had at least 4 instances of cancer. He also exhibits what some believe to be signs of early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Either if these could put Governor Palin in the position of becoming the leader of the free world, and that, my friends, is more than reason enough to vote for Senator Obama.

After all, do we really need another liar in the Oval Office?

I DON’T THINK SO!

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

THE QUESTION IS, WILL NOVEMBER 5 BE THE AMERICAN VERSION OF KRISTALNACHT?

Last Friday night, at the Hamptons’ International Film Festival, I attended a screening of the remarkable documentary, “The End of America,” which is based on the book of the same name by Naomi Wolf. The film and the book relate the ten things that have always happened when dictatorships replace democracies.

A panel discussion on the film was held prior to the screening. The panel lasted a bit longer than expected because the print of the film arrived late. If you have had to deal with the roads on Long Island, this makes perfect sense to you. That additional time allowed the discussion to touch on some terribly important issues.

The participants in the panel were host, Alec Baldwin, author, Naomi Wolf and ACLU National Security Project Director, Jameel Jaffer. During the course of the discussion, Mr. Jaffer mentioned that the 1st Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division had been redeployed from Iraq to a secret location within the contiguous 48 states. It is believed that these troops that are normally headquartered in Fort Riley, Kansas, are in hiding to be available in case the Presidential election doesn’t turn out quite the way the powers that be would prefer.

That is against the law.,

The Posse Comitatus Act substantially limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. This is a matter of established law, not a theory, and, if those troops are here in violation of that law it scares the living crap out of me.

Last night, at a meeting of my local Democratic club, my Congressman, Rep. Jerold Nadler (D-NY), spoke. When it came time for the Q & A, I asked him if he had heard about this. His face stiffened as if he were in shock. I’m not sure if it was the shock of belief or disbelief, but shock it definitely was. He said he hadn’t.

I have known Jerry Nadler for nearly a decade. He is an astute historian, an honorable man and one of the smartest people with whom I have ever had a conversation. Several months ago, we had a difference of opinion over Presidential Security Directive Number 51, which outlines the authorities of various government agencies during times of national emergency. Having gone to the site, www.whitehouse.gov and read the directive several times, I came away with the opinion that it provided a blueprint to dissolve the authorities of Congress and the courts in the event that the Secretary of Homeland Security declares a national emergency. There is no definition of such an emergency in the directive.

My reading gives me the impression that this directive essentially has created the pathway for the Bush Administration to remain in power, illegitimately, after the election as a dictatorship. Congressman Nadler disagreed with my opinion when we spoke about this back then. Now, in the light of the information regarding the deployment of troops in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, if that is in fact the case, I wonder whether Nadler and others will revisit this issue of the Presidential National Security Directive. In his position as Chairman of the House Constitution Sub Committee, Nadler would certainly be justified to do just that, and he should.

I truly hope that Jameel Jaffer was wrong in his assertion that these soldiers are out there waiting to take away our democracy and that I am also wrong in my belief that National Security Directive 51 was designed to do just that.

Naomi Wolf stated that the reason she wrote “The End of America” and its sequel “Give Me Liberty” was the words she kept hearing from a friend, who was the child of Holocaust survivors, “They did this in Germany,” each time a new Bush abuse took place. Her friend was right, as Wolf’s research showed. In fact, as I learned last Friday, they even had a department of homeland security.

The question is, will November 5 be the American version of Krystalnacht, the beginning of the end for the freedom of the Jews in Nazi Germany, or, if a plan to rob us of our freedom exists, will we be able to uncover their plan before it can be implemented?

If we are lucky, then, perhaps, we are just so afraid of these people that we are seeing ghosts in the hourglass.

I hope that we are very very lucky.

I fear that the ghosts are very real, and we may be very very unlucky.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT

OSAMA HAS GIVEN HIS ENDORSEMENT TO JOHN McCAIN. AIN’T THAT PEACHY?

John McCain may have gotten the biggest endorsement of the campaign today, but the question is, does he really want it?

According to the Associated Press, it seems that al Qaida has put out the word that it likes Senator McCain. It really, really, likes him.

A secret al Qaida computer site that has been decoded indicates a message wend out to all of the radical Islamists that believe in the bin Laden mystique that they need to go out and actively work for McCain’s election. Why? Their answer is interesting. They seem to believe that Senator Obama will enter into diplomatic relations with the Arab World that will lead to solving the problems in the Middle East. That is something the Qaida boys simply don’t want.

They go on to say that a McCain Presidency will lead to an American presence in their region ad nauseum, and that presence will give the terrorist fringe an excuse to keep on doing the things that have put the Western World in turmoil.

If peace were to break out in the Middle East, then there would be little chance of convincing the average Arab Joe the Plumber that there is a legitimate reason to become a suicide bomber. On the other hand, if Six Pack were to every seriously look that the real philosophy to the Republicans, he would probably recoil in horror. The real problem is that the Republicans do such a good job of camouflaging the truth that the average Joe and Jane Six Pack simply don’t get it.

So, perhaps, the endorsement of Osama bin Laden will smack these folks up side their heads and make them understand that their sons and daughters will be put in harm’s way if we make John McCain President. In fact all of us will be put in harm’s way if that were to happen.

And that’s a place we’ve been for far too long.

HENRY A. HONIG – THE PUNDIT