I was extremely saddened to learn that President Bush and his Administration has dishonored America. No, I am not speaking of the war in Iraq or any of the so-called domestic spying activities which may have taken place on his watch.

I am speaking of the fact that America will become dependent on the Russians to fly American astronauts and scientists to the International Space Station. To purchase seats like a common traveler buying airline tickets. To have our people train in Russia on Russian equipment in order to achieve the necessary flight qualifications. To provide an increasingly hostile foreign nation with the taxpayer’s  hard currency to fund their defense efforts while they continue to spread a malignant influence around the world. To allow our people to be subject to loosey-goosey engineering.

It seems that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) will cease Space Shuttle operations in 2010 and resume them in 2015 when the new spacecraft is anticipated to arrive.

I, for one, do not like to be dependent on another sovereign power who has traditionally played an adversarial role in geopolitics.

I, for one, do not like the thought of thousands of trained personnel to be allowed to dissipate in the wind – to assume other jobs and to squander our “institutional intelligence.”

President Bush has been in office for eight years. Surely some advisor told him that this was happening. Or did he nominate another incompetent crony like Alberto Gonzales, Alphonso Jackson or Harriet Miers  to that position?

How could this happen?

It is said that the Chinese may even beat us with a landing on the Moon before we return to the lunar surface.

Politics be damned. We spend a fortune on military programs that do not work. We spent a little fortune on an electronic fence that deterred not a single illegal alien because it simply didn’t work.

Our engineering work is being outsourced to India, China, Taiwan and other places which places us in the embarrassing position of having to go, hat-in-hand, to simply meet schedules. Our technology is being exposed to our enemies and those who would counterfeit it for profit. We have lost a surprising amount of technical and manufacturing capability to overseas sources.

Why? Because someone thought that it was cost effective to outsource the development, manufacturing and distribution to foreign sources. Thus weakening the United States in the process.

This is unconscionable. Our enemies don’t have to invade the United States, greedy Wall Streeters will sell it to them on the cheap in return for a paltry commission.

It was no accident that the 9/11 attack was on our financial core. And now our own leftist, democrat politicians have almost finished the job of destroying our economy. All in the name of regaining the power to plunder the public treasury and engage in their social engineering experiments based on Karl Marx’s outmoded theories.

We seem so preoccupied with Hillary’s pantsuits, McCain’s story and Obama’s association with domestic terrorists, racists and crooks that no one is asking the hard questions – refusing to accept sound-bites and brush-offs in return.

The media is preoccupied with filling the 24/7 news cycle with celebrities, happy talk and edutainment – hard news is gone – replaced by the sensationalism that is about as filling as a whipped-cream pie.

I, for one, want to know exactly what we are going to do to improve our defense posture?  How we are going to rid the State Department of its effete snobs and return to pragmatic diplomacy?  How we are going to initiate an industrial renaissance which makes us as technology independent as we should be energy independent?

I want to know when the people will wise up and throw out the corrupt politicians on both sides of the aisle and start on the rehabilitation of America. And stop listening to people with charming accents and a history of being wrong?

Enough with the phony fear, uncertainty and doubt – the contrived panics which allow the special interests to raid our treasury with impunity. Enough with the phony science to enable another Enron-like trading scheme in carbon emissions credits. If you believe in global warming, do something to insure man’s survival from the hostile elements of nature – before you try to change planetary ecology, which may well be impossible to accomplish and measure in a hundred lifetimes.

Which one of our national candidates has the guts to throw doctors and others in jail for Medicare fraud which costs us an estimated billion dollars or so a year? No more no-plea bargains for corporations accompanied by “record fines.” Crooked people need to go to jail – accompanied by the accountants and lawyers who set the stage.

You want a revenue stream, a reduction in crime, a reduction in government: simply legalize drugs and prosecute those who offend – it’s done for alcohol, why not drugs?

In today’s culture, big law enforcement, big government and big law want crime to continue – at least the manageable type that keeps them in business.

What would Obama say to throwing gang members in jail and returning communities to their residents? Removing illegal aliens if the did not register and prove gainful employment? Restricting the rights and privileges of citizenship as it is done elsewhere in the world? Who has stood up and asked the candidates what are your national goals and how would you pursue them? What resources would you need? Who do you plan to appoint to office?

All legitimate questions – set aside when an Oprah or Brad Pitt make political pronouncements. Screw the celebrities – consider them to be entertaining clowns and let us get on with the real work of rebuilding America.

We are coming to the closing days of the campaign. I do not want to hear about Reverend Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko, the Hanoi Hilton and the rest of the crap that goes with it.

Tell me how you are going to rebuild America. Tell me your plan. Tell me how you will fund it. Tell me your assumptions on which you base your plans and projections.

Talk to America about what you will do – and who you plan to help you do it.

We have almost destroyed America’s ground warfare capability, our economy, our healthcare system – so Sarah Palin’s bantering does not mean diddly-squat to me.

You politicians have screwed up America. It is time to step up to a leadership position or get the hell out of the way.

And about President Bush – his time has come and gone. He will be judged by History. Let him retire to a gentleman rancher’s life in Texas and fade into the background.

We have serious issues confronting us – and if we do not meet the challenge, we will become a third-world European nation that speaks ChiSpanglish.

-- steve

Quote of the day: “The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.”  - Paul Valery

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