Back in the day, 1981 to be exact, when I first started driving, I remember gas prices being around 1.35 a gallon. A drastic contrast to today’s cost. The only word to describe the astonishing high cost of fuel today is “Ridiculous.” Americans are being “screwed” and no one is even screaming out our names.

In 1981, Reagan was president and a “BUSH” was vice president. Things then were much like they are now regarding employment. During the Reagan/Bush “reign” most of the steel mills were packing up and moving overseas because of huge tax breaks being offered them by overseas countries, so many people were unemployed overnight.

I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town not far from Pittsburgh called “New Castle” and the steel mills were the lifeblood of our town, so you can only imagine what happened to my little town; it died. I think the obituary would look something like this:

“Here lies New Castle Pennsylvania, born in 1801 and died in 1981, cause of death has been determined to be a ”Reagan/Bush (Bushbot) assassination.”

As of January there were 7.6 million people unemployed in a labor force of 154 million, producing an official unemployment rate of 4.9 percent. This was a significant increase over the 4.5 percent unemployment rate in mid 2007, and thus one important sign of a weakening economy. Unemployment is likely to keep rising as the economic slowdown continues.

George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

Many of us in the United States do not like the way in which George W. Bush runs the American nation and attempts to run the world. Our numbers are growing. In each of the nine national polls taken, LESS THAN half the respondents are of the opinion that he is handling the presidency well.

More significant still, since he retains a reputation for personal charm which buttresses his standing in the polls, the latest poll reported that only one-third of Americans think the American nation, under Bush, is headed in the right direction. Two polls found that well under 40 per cent of Americans approve of the direction in which he is leading the country.

President Bush sounds like an idiot. The most recent example is his March statement that he still believes the Palestinians and Israelis can reach a peace agreement before the end of his term.

This comes on the heels of an Israeli attack against Gaza that killed more than 100 people, most of them innocent civilians. It was a reprisal attack for a few rockets fired into Israel by some Hamas hotheads. In World War II, when the Germans killed civilians as a reprisal for an attack on their forces, it was called a war crime.

Yet President Bush and the world’s most ineffective secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, can barely force themselves to say, in effect, “Tut, tut, tut. Can’t you folks get along?”  Rodney King would be proud…

One view of history is that it is a record of political leaders making decisions. If they are smart and make good decisions, good things happen. If they are stupid and make bad decisions, then disasters can befall innocent people.

We have elected ourselves a president who is not very smart when it comes to foreign affairs and, even worse, seems to have no real interest in them. Instead of seeking wise counsel, he has surrounded himself with neoconservative ideologues who think the US can bully the rest of the world into doing what they want it to do.

I read an editorial in this mornings Canton Repository that the Iraq War is costing Americans 720 million per DAY and consistent with Bush’s “love” for the poor (not the U.S. poor either) he has asked Congress to “free up” 770 million in emergency food aid for “poor countries” (again, not the United States).

Forget about the $127 billion surplus that President Clinton left the nation after he moved out of the White House or the fact that Clinton paid down hundreds of billions of dollars in federal debt. President George W. Bush has produced nothing but deficits since he’s been in office. Last year’s, at $163 billion, was the lowest in five years.

But it probably would not have been if his trillion-dollar war in Iraq hadn’t been paid for “off budget.” That little budgetary trick by the administration means that cost isn’t tallied in the deficit and debt figures.

Recession, like menopause, is a retrospective diagnosis. You don’t know you’re in one until you’ve been in it for at least two quarters (referring to a recession) or a year (for menopause).

Oh and I must leave you with one last adorable analogy;

“Clinton screwed Monica Lewinsky, but the Bush administration is screwing America and apparently wants to screw the rest of the world, too.”

(I really wanted to use the F word.)

I hope you all have a wonderfully prosperous week!

~Cee~