The Bush Legacy

Let start 2009 right, shall we?

You know what I’m sick and tired of?

Republicans.

That’s right, I’m fed right up to here with these small-minded, self-righteous, bigoted bastards.

I’m sick of Republicans telling me that I should love it or leave it. I’m tired of Republicans telling me to move to Canada. I’m tired of Republicans telling me what to think – or rather NOT to think, at all. I’m fed up with Republicans telling me what to believe. I’m tired of Republicans telling me who to hate. I’m tired of Republican attempts to rewrite US history in their own image. I’m tired of Republicans deciding who gets to be an American, who gets to marry, who gets life, liberty, and happiness. I am utterly sick and tired of Republicans and their creationist bible waving bullshit who keep trying to shove their pinheaded version of Christianity down my throat. I am sick and tired of Republicans who glory in ignorance and revel in stupidity and want to drag everybody else down to their unthinking level. I am sick and tired of Republicans who thump their chests endlessly about patriotism while not having ever served, not one damned day – unless it was to hide in the National Guard or behind a rich-kid’s draft deferment during Vietnam and then brag about their “service” for the next forty years. I’m sick and tired of watching Republicans gibber in fear like panicked monkeys and reject science that could save my life or let my son live forever or keep a hundred thousand people a year from losing their minds to dementia. And I am sick and tired and fed the hell up with Republicans who manage to shit all over the Constitution at every single opportunity, and then wipe their dirty asses with it on the way out the door.

Yes, I’m sick and Goddamned tired of Republicans and the Republican Party and this jackass of a NeoCon Republican President.

The single best thing about 2009 is that it begins with the end of the absolute worst administration in US history. Bush and his cronies are certain that history will vindicate their actions. Bullshit. The only way history will look favorably on this band of dipshits is if they get to write it – and don’t think they won’t try. They’ve spent eight years blaming Clinton or Congress for their own failings, but it was George W. Bush who personally sent us into an unjustified mismanaged war in two countries – oh yes, it was. Bush demanded the power to personally wage war from Congress, and he got it, and everything that has transpired since is his doing. He can blame whomever he likes, but he gave the orders. It was Bush who sent troops to war without a plan, without armor, without equipment, and without the numbers necessary to hold the ground they had taken – and it was Bush who gave the order to hide away in shame the returning body bags at Dover AFB. It was Bush who implemented torture as a national policy. It was Bush who catered to his rich friends on Wall Street while the economy collapsed. It was Bush who led us into Recession with a capital “R.” It was Bush who tore the Constitution to shreds and said it was nothing more than a piece of paper. It was George Bush’s foreign policy that is responsible for a massive rise in anti-Americanism. It was Bush who implemented faith based programs that have failed utterly to achieve any goals whatsoever and yet have cost us billions. It is George Bush’s education programs that are based on worthless testing programs and ignorance and that pander to the lowest common denominator. It was on George Bush’s watch that millions became homeless and jobless, and the US debt and deficit grew to the largest in history by an order of magnitude – fully eight years after Clinton left office with the lowest unemployment rate and a treasury surplus. It was George Bush, the failed Texas oil man, who’s energy policies led to the energy crises.

Republicans can spin it however they like, but that is George W. Bush’s legacy.

And it’s not over yet.

We’ve got twenty more days of this Neocon Republican bastard, this ignorant, uneducated, backward-assed, inbred, born-again, holier-than-thou, pudding-for-brains, squinty-eyed, pointy-toed, ten-gallon hat wearing chimpanzee of a president – and he is bound and determined to rape this country for all it’s worth right up until he hands over the keys to the Resolute Desk.

His administration got handed the single largest vote of no confidence in recent history. His approval ratings are the lowest, by a significant margin, than any other president in history. The overwhelming majority of American voters clearly, clearly, expressed disdain and disapproval of his policies, actions, ideals – and party. And this means nothing whatsoever to him. Nothing. It means nothing because Bush has never represented the people of the United States, and he has never understood either his office nor the oath he swore. George W. Bush represents the Republican party, the NeoCons in particular, and his rich and privileged friends – and the rest of us can go fuck ourselves.

Don’t believe me?

He’s handing out get-out-of-jail free cards faster than a corrupt conservative judge being backmailed for a gay kiddie porn habit – funny, how it’s his administration’s chief advisors, the holier-than-thou fundies, who need pardons, isn’t it? He’s managed to gut the Endangered Species Act in a enthusiastic display of oral gratification for his buddies in Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Agriculture, and Big Chemical. Screw the environment, screw the future, screw the National Parks and our children’s legacy – when the seas rise and the crops fail and we’re choking in our own shit, Republicans will blame Clinton – or Obama – and pray to Jebus to make it all better. He created a rule last month that limited vision and dental care for more than 50 million low-income Americans. Fuck the poor, if they can’t see and can’t bite, they can’t cause problems. He personally signed a rule into effect that raised co-payments for Medicaid, forcing families already below the poverty line to pay up to 10% for doctor visits and medicine – while handing out tax breaks for the rich. He’s pushing to get new national security rules in place prior to January 20th, rules that would lock in extra-constitutional domestic spying and repeal the backbone of Constitutional law enforcement by allowing state and local law enforcement agencies to engage in direct warrantless monitoring of American citizens, essentially becoming a new arm of US Federal intelligence operations and little different from Secret Police in a country where everyone is a suspect. Bush signed a regulation, written in secret and bypassing review by any federal agency, greatly expanding work place health and safety investigative red tape which will add years and significant expense to the regulatory process – basically hamstringing the government’s ability to protect workers from exposure to toxic workplace environments. And as a final screw you to Organized Labor who voted against the Republican’s chosen heir, Bush gutted the Family and Medical Leave Act – once again demonstrating that NeoCon fundies only give the Jesus love to ‘families’ outside an abortion clinic, once the kid is born it can go fuck itself right along with the rest of us. This same new regulation also implements a labor rule that has been repeatedly struck down by the courts and lawmakers which allows trucking companies to put their drivers behind the wheel for eleven hours, vice the current eight, and reduces the amount of downtime between sustained hauls to 34 hours – in a move virtually guaranteed to kill more motorists.

It’s true that every president in recent history has implemented “midnight regulations'” in their final days in office, but Bush is signing regulations into what is essentially an override of the Constitution at a far, far, far greater volume than ever before – and he is specifically signing regulations that specifically support the Republican NeoCon Agenda and are against what the overwhelming majority of American voters have clearly said they want by electing Barack Obama.

As a final noxious example: Bush is currently expected to sign a midnight regulation specifically designed to impose by fiat the NeoCon Republican Christian Conservative agenda on all Americans. It’s a new Department of Health and Human Services rule that allows any healthcare worker who morally objects to any medical procedure or service to legally refuse to perform it or take part in any way. This is far, far more than doctors having the right not to perform abortions or pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills – this regulation allows anyone involved in ‘healthcare’ to refuse service if they claim moral objection. Anyone. In other words, it allows for legal racism, sexism, ageism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and every other form of bigotry and intolerance that is currently illegal. Under this regulation, janitors in hospitals could refuse to clean the rooms of gay patients if they object to the patient’s lifestyle, food services could refuse to feed them, the nurse could refuse to respond to the call button or refuse to dispense medication she finds objectionable. Doctors could refuse to treat women they feel are engaged in amoral behavior, such as having sex outside of marriage, or having the wrong kind of sex – the right kind being defined specifically by the healthcare provider, any healthcare provider. Ambulances drivers can refuse to respond to emergencies at gay clubs or Jewish homes or that of a black man who in their eyes is the Son of Hamm. A hospital could refuse admission to a wounded soldier, if the on-call emergency room doctor is morally opposed to violence. Sound extreme? Think about the lawsuits currently on the books, think about the stupid selfish things you see people do every day. Think about how people are treated in fundamentalist religious countries. Then tell me it won’t happen. The regulation was designed specifically to protect solely the rights of Christian Conservatives, republicans all, who object to lifestyles not approved by their particular fundamentalist church. Not the rights of all Americans, but solely the rights of Christian Conservatives. Ironically, however, because it is so vaguely worded it would allow Jewish, Muslim, or atheist doctors to refuse treatment to fundamentalist Christians as well – which the mere thought of outrages Christians Conservatives, who seem to suffer a persecution complex and are incapable of understanding the definition of the word “Hypocrisy” or that passage in their own bible about a certain beam and a certain eye. Imagine if this practice were allowed outside of the healthcare profession, firefighters could refuse to respond to a fire at a gay couple’s home. The electric company could refuse to provide service to a straight couple who were living together without being married, so could the cable company, or the gas company, and so on. Understand, the company couldn’t discriminate, that would be illegal, but you can’t refuse to hire people based on their religious beliefs and if the company didn’t happen to have any service people who were willing to perform the service… Again, tell me it won’t happen. Go on tell me again about Christian morality.

January 20th cannot come fast enough for me.