WHY SOCIAL SECURITY?


Now that the newly-inaugurated President Bush has re-arranged his Cabinet and staff, he has made clear his second term priority:
totally revamping Social Security including the incorporation of private investment accounts.

So far this new proposal has been received cooly up on a now-Republican dominated Capitol Hill. The key House leader, Ways and Mean Chairman Bill Thomas, has already proclaimed Bush’s proposal “dead on arrival” when it gets to the House. And only 33% of the American people - according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll - favor this ‘reform.’

Yet it is clear that the White House intends to push hard for Social Security reform. Reports are that the Administration intends to run a ‘Presidential-style national campaign’ with full-time national staff and commercials and campaigning by the President and his surrogates in key states and districts.

Why?

Why is this the top priority of President Bush when most of his party are not overly in favor of it?

True, down the road Social Security will be in financial trouble.

True, down the line - in 40 years - more retirees will be taking money out of Social Security an there are workers paying into it.

But is this the most pressing domestic and economic problem facing our country?

There are two other issues that are much more dangerous to our country and more immediate, too - and President Bush is ignoring both:

1) Illegal immigration.

2) The exploding cost of health care.

Why isn’t the Bush White House spending their newly-won capital on these two more immediate and vital issues?

Ask anyone and illegal immigration - the millions of illegals already here and the new ones streaming in daily and nightly - infuriates people across the political spectrum.

The Bush answer?

To ‘legalize’ these law-breakers!

He has proposed legislation to give these illegal immigrants ‘guest worker’ status, another term for amnesty. He constantly denies that this is amnesty but of course that is exactly what it is.

How do you think those legal immigrants - who went through the system the proper way including years of waiting and worrying - feel about these illegals ‘cutting the line’?

Bush and Karl Rove cynically believe that this helped Bush get 44% of the swing Hispanic voting bloc.

Is their desire for power so great that what is right has to take a back seat?

On health care, it is driving people into desperate financial straits. No wonder jobs are fleeing to India and other countries; the annual cost of health care is exploding exponentially. Employers can’t afford it here anymore.

Yet not a word about it from Bush or his staff. Perhaps it is too hard to solve and they choose to change the debate to Social Security instead.

But why go into politics in the first place? Isn’t it to solve problems and make our country stronger and safer?

How can we ignore the influx of illegals - and in fact ‘legalize’ them -and disregard the immediate economic impact of soaring health care?

Some are speculating that a reform of Social Security will ‘retire FDR’ and place Bush in the pantheon of great presidents.

Is that the motivating factor here?

Guess what?

That is the wrong reason to do things; the right reason is to use his newly-won political capital to try to fix all three - Social Security, illegal immigration and health care - while he has this unique control over the House and Senate.

Only by aiming high can one expect to achieve greatness.

Dodging difficult issues may be clever and cute to those inside the DC Beltway but to history it is a form of cowardice.

POLITICAL NOTES



1) Iraq: What’s with the announcement that suddenly - now - we’re ‘temporarily’ closing all the borders into and out of Iraq in advance of the January 30 election?

Why wasn’t this done 2 years ago - when we invaded - and before thousands of Iranian and Syrian and Al Qaeda subversives streamed across the border to de-stabilize Iraq?

And why is this measure only ‘temporary’? Why isn’t this move permanent? Why not ‘lock down’ Iraq and purge all the illegals?

2) Ukraine: almost a month after their re-vote of their presidential election, the loser is still stalling and delaying the transition and Inaugural of the winner, Viktor Yuschenko, the pro-western candidate who took on the Russian influence and beat them. Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to congratulate Yuschenko.

Am hearing disturbing reports of coming trouble in the Ukraine from a belligerent Russia. Was recently told, “It ain’t over there by a mile. Trouble is coming.”

And let’s remember that someone - the KGB maybe - poisoned Yuschenko in August with dioxin. Why is it hard for us to believe that Putin is so power-mad that he would try underhanded tactics to keep the Ukraine in Russia’s political orbit?

Putin is a KGB officer. That agency -using Bulgarian cut-outs - arranged the 1981 shooting of the Pope when he was causing all sorts of trouble for the Soviet regime behind the Iron Curtain.

And just last year, in Georgia, the Russians were involved in fraudulent elections that - like Ukraine - were overturned in the face of huge popular discontent.

Watch the coming weeks as Big Trouble may develop in the Ukraine.

That election story is decidedly not over.


3) Social Security Reform: a boring issue which is already causing a stir. President Bush is spending a lot of his newly-won political capital on this issue - especially on the ‘privatization’ aspect.

He is going to have trouble on this from some Republicans. We know the Democrats will oppose him, but - unlike Iraq - this time many Republicans may end up opposing some of the proposed reforms. We’ll see over the next few months.

It is Medicare that is really in trouble and needs urgent reform. So why aren’t we talking about fixing that?


4) Brad Pitt - Jennifer Anniston break-up: what took so long?

5) Howard Dean the favorite to be next Chairman of the Democratic National Committee: Big, Big Mistake for the Dems. Presidential candidates should not be party chairmen; someone with a selfless attitude toward their party needs to try to re-build a totally defunct party. (Not that I care what they do.)

6) The Democrats aren’t really a factor anymore. They are so hard-core left-wing that they have missed out on the steadily right-ward direction of the country over the past 37 years.

7) CBS News plans a new type of evening newscast. Yeah, sure! The same guys are running CBS News. Are we to believe that suddenly they are going to dump their bias and air objective news? I think not.

8) Iran the next target? Well, this is convoluted; Iran is the capitol of fundamentalist Islam. They declared war on us on November 4, 1979 when they seized our embassy and the now-famous 53 hostages.

This President Bush has grossly mis-calculated our Middle Eastern strategy. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars, exhausted our military and squandered much of our national credibility on Iraq - while Iran has been our Biggest Enemy.

Iran is about to begin to pay us back by taking over a big part of Iraq through the very elections we created.

What a tragedy.

LOOKING AT ‘08




While it is way, way too early to even think of the 2008 presidential race, let’s anyway!

Democrats:

This is easy to predict: Hillary is the odds-on favorite to win her party’s nomination in 2008. How can she not win it? She is the ideological favorite of the Democratic base voters who dominate their primaries: liberals, minorities, labor, gays and lesbians, lawyers, and public school teachers.

Her desire - and her husband’s recent machinations - to continue to control the Democratic National Committee by keeping their hand-picked sycophant, Terry McCaulliff as chairman, is indicative of their almost vice-like control of the Democratic Party.

When long-time Clinton aide - and former Clinton White House Deputy Chief-of-Staff - Harold Ickes - in a rare moment of candor - said he wasn’t sure Hillary could win the presidency in 2008, he was suddenly forced out of the DNC Chairman’s race. And suddenly - amid a sea of new candidates for the coveted DNC Chairmanship - the incumbent, Terry McCaulliff - was trumpeted as perhaps the ‘best choice.’

Let’s face it: the Democratic Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Clinton Family. Period. So John Edward and Evan Bayh and Mark Warner and any other potential 2008 challengers face a daunting task in taking on the massive Clinton Money Machine - and the aura of the rock-star Clinton presence.

(Democrats seem not to care - or are naively oblivious - to the destructive nature of the Clintons. During their 8-year ‘Co-presidency,’ the Democrats lost their majority status nation-wide: they lost the White House, the US Senate, the House of Representatives, the majority of governorships - including of the biggest states - and the majority of the crucial state legislatures which conduct redistricting. Yes, the Clintons became rich and famous, but their party has become almost irrelevant.)


Republicans:

The Bush Family dominance over the GOP should not be under-estimated. After Bush ‘41's loss in 1992 to Bill Clinton, the Bushes set out to re-make their image into a ‘conservative’ one that would have utter and total control over the GOP machinery, fund-raising and message. No more challenges from the Right ala Pat Buchanan; from now on the Bushes would control all wings of the Republican Party.

This was a deliberate, systematic effort akin to building a massive corporate structure that could endure for years.

With the ascension of GW Bush in 2000, the Bush Dynasty was born.

Now Jeb is in the wings.

The Bush Money Machine raised $250 million last year; they could do it again for Jeb at a drop of a hat.

Every state party chairman is a Bush loyalist.

All federal political appointees have been carefully vetted for Bush loyalty.

Knowing all of that, why would the Bush Machine allow an outsider like a McCain, a Giuliani, a Frist , an Allen, a Pataki, a Gingrich or a Hagel to take over this massive organization and use it for themselves?

They wouldn’t - and they won’t.

The plan is simple: Jeb may run in 2008. That was why he went with Colin Powell to Asia for the Tsunami relief trip. They want to raise his national - and international - profile over the next year.

In the 2006 Congressional races you will see Jeb all over the country campaigning for GOP candidates, thus building up invaluable IOUs for 2008.

The Bush fall-back plan - should Jeb decide he does not want to run in 2008 - or if Iraq or the economy is so bad that the 2008 GOP nominee will lose - will be to maintain control of the party machinery by running Vice President Dick Cheney.

That way, even if they lose, the Bush Machine keeps total control over the party for the next presidential run - and precludes any other national GOP figure from challenging them.

Thus, the Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bush Family.

So our two-party system based on merit has become a two-family system based on last name.

The Clintons and the Bushes.

Surely this can not last.

NOTES & THOUGHTS



1) Tsunami: I am proud to be an American and a member of the human race this week. The tremendous outpouring of generosity, donations and caring sympathy is a positive sign for all people.

President Bush’s decision to ask former Presidents Bush and Clinton to spearhead the private donations for the disaster is a good move and takes politics right out of a humanitarian disaster.

Sandra Bullock’s and Rupert Murdoch’s donations - each for $1 million - plus all the rock concerts and telethons - show that today’s celebrities, too, are on board with this cause.

Best of all is the sight of our wonderful military forces dropping food and water supplies to the needy - and being seen world-wide as the generous and caring people they truly are. After Iraq, we have to do more to show the world our best side. And this disaster is exactly just such an opportunity.


2) Lasers: It is amazing that the FBI has admitted they are exploring at least seven different incidents involving lasers being directed into jet cockpits while the planes were airborne - not an easy task.

This is a very, very worrisome new development.

Multiple uses of lasers - in Ohio, Colorado, New Jersey and Michigan - mean that ‘something’ big may be going on. A test, perhaps, of a new terrorist ‘attack’ to come? Or is this state-sponsored to wipe out our airline industry and thus cripple our economy?

Don’t believe a word that this is some sort of ‘playing around’ by a father showing his kid some new gadget. Are you kidding me? A plane flying at 300 mph and headed for the Cleveland airport has a laser beam directed into the cockpit? Do you have any idea how sophisticated that technology and aiming capability must be?

This is a story to keep our eyes on in the next few days. Will the USG hush it up as they so often do - not to cause ‘panic” - or will they keep letting the public know the truth about this potentially catastrophic new attack on this country?


3) Jeb Bush ‘08: Jebbie’s inclusion on the Powell tsunami tour of the South Pacific is the first act of the Bush ‘08 campaign. Make no doubt of it.

McCain, Frist, Rudy and all the others who supported GW Bush in ‘04 in hopes of helping their standing in ‘08 are only fooling themselves. The Bushes have total control of the GOP and the US Government - and they aren’t going to let it go.

This is but the first of Jeb’s ‘fact-finding trips’ on behalf of his brother - and father (who calls all the shots, by the way) - and is a prelude after the ‘06 mid-term elections for an announcement that Jeb is indeed running for President in ‘08 despite his denials up ‘til now.

Of this there is no doubt.


4) Happy New Year! To all of my readers, thank you for your comments and thoughts. I hope each and everyone of you has a wonderful 2005 - full of good health and happiness.

And I hope and pray that our wonderful nation has a good year with a united people filled with prosperity and good health.

Whenever you are down in the coming year, think of the things you have - not the things you wish you had - and thank God for those things.

Without God we are mere flecks of sand in the wind; with God we are Kings.

Happy New Year. And may God please bless this special nation.