Founding Freedoms Sep

09-05 05 Use This Link To Send A Message To The Senate To Oppose John Roberts As Chief Justice Of The Supreme Court. Click HERE

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A version of a magic show or a con game, we know that we are not entertained so it must be a con.

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After years of accusing the Democrats of wanting to take away people's guns...take away your guns in a place that according to the Republicans has "Sunk into Lawlessness"...a place which is the prime example that the NRA used as it's PR to say why they needed citizens to keep guns for protection. If you guessed the Democrats you would be wrong. The Democrats at least bring the issue up to a public forum so that it can be debated openly and fairly, and if the issue is defeated so be it the will of the people prevail. But Bush and the Republicans just marched in and took away your guns without warning without discussion, they just took them away. It is George W. Bush and the Republicans, yes the Republicans! No mater what the reason they The Republicans are taking away your guns period. You have to admit that it is the party as well because have you heard one Republican senator or congress men stand up to protest? No. They are taking away ALL guns. Not just assault weapons or automatic weapons, they are taking away ALL GUNS, except unless if you are with Blackwater Security, which are private contractors. You know the same private contractors that you heard about in Iraq, They meaning the Republicans found that if you call them private contractors people felt sorry for them when they are reported killed in Iraq. Maybe because when you hear that a private contractor is killed you think of a carpenter or a plumber, or an painter, well guess again, they are a heavily armed private army. Please don't misunderstand me the killing of anyone is wrong, when reason can prevail. Isn't amazing though, Bush could not get food or water to the people but he can send in a private army, and take away your guns at gunpoint as well. "Four million NRA members intend to stop this unconstitutional power grab." But will you do it by getting rid of the Republican party, the ones who actually are taking away your guns? The ones who are taking away your guns just in the exact situation that gin owners say they need guns for? The Democrats no matter how bad the situation was in any disaster never took away your guns, limit yes take away...No. Maybe, just maybe the NRA and the Dem's have more in common then you think. Read the posting from the NRA's web.

Disaster Can’t Destroy Gun Rights

Monday, September 12, 2005

National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre slammed New Orleans authorities Monday for seizing legal firearms from lawful residents.

"What we’ve seen in Louisiana - the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster - is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves, " LaPierre said.

"When law enforcement isn’t available, Americans turn to the one right that protects all the others - the right to keep and bear arms," LaPierre said. "This attempt to repeal the Second Amendment should be condemned."

The New York Times reported last Thursday that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to have guns, quoting the superintendent of police that "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."

A Louisiana state statute allows the chief law enforcement officer to "regulate possession" of firearms during declared emergencies. "But regulate doesn’t mean confiscate," said Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief lobbyist.

"Authorities are using that statute to do what the looters and criminals could not: disarm the law-abiding citizens of New Orleans trying to protect their homes and families," Cox said.

"The NRA will not stand idly by while guns are confiscated from law-abiding people who’re trying to defend themselves," he said.

"We’re exploring every legal option available to protect the rights of lawful people in New Orleans," Cox said, "and we’re taking steps to overturn such laws in every state where they exist."

"Local authorities in New Orleans are turning nature’s assault on human life into man’s assault on human rights," LaPierre said. "Four million NRA members intend to stop this unconstitutional power grab."

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An insider comes forward to say that there was in 2004 and are security flaws and back doors into the "Gems Central Tabulator" that counts all the votes nationwide. Not only was the security problems known in the Diebold company, and everyone remained silent at a threat to their jobs, but this Administration knows as well and did nothing to stop the problem. Read the full story Click here

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09-21-05 Something else about Bush and the Davis Bacon act has come to mind. If you think about several things Bush has done, it is getting easier and easier for Bush and this Republican Administration to screw everyone easier and easier. If you remember Bush wants to institute a guest worker program, he also wants to allow ill-legal aliens to continue to work in this country. Second, Bush and the Republican party changed the bankruptcy laws, in a way that even if you loose your home you still need to pay the bill. Third Bush now transport a large portion of the work force that lived in New Orleans hundreds of miles away, making it near impossible to work on the rebuilding, thus removing them from the work force. Fourth Bush is already planning on having Karl Rove of the rebuilding and that means in charge of handing out the contracts. Now I am quite sure that many of the people besides the fact that they are Bush Republican insiders, also employ a large number of Latino's some are probably legal but I'll bet a good number are not. Now put it all together, the people who lost everything and cannot find work but had a home in New Orleans, will be forced to sell their property to settle a bankruptcy, and never get what it was worth, and will be paying for it for years to come, and not owning it in the end. Next Bush and Republican insiders will be using workers that they feel are not worth the price, because as they put it "they are doing jobs Americans don't want to do". The fact that they do not want to pay what the job is worth is another story not addressed. I'm sure that Bush and the Republicans feel that their friends should not have to pay their workers a higher wage, because it might spoil them and then it could set a precedence at paying them more money for jobs that they are already doing for less money. What it boils down to is another Tri-Fecta for Bush and the Republicans. The American public gets stuck again with another bad deal by Bush. Bush and his Friends get the house and we the people get the morgue, they get all the gold in the gold mine and we the people get the shaft.

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09-22-05 What If The Charge Of Vote Fixing Proves To Be True? What if it turns out to have been on a large scale and that the take over of the Senate and house and including the Presidency was accomplished with a use of electronic voting. Now let's say we lock up the people responsible, but do the holders of those offices get removed? Are we then stuck with all the bad legislation like tax reform or Supreme court nominations like Roberts? Finally if nothing it reversed then doesn't that make the crime worth committing because in effect it's like a suicide bomber, you may die but you advance the cause by becoming a martyr for the cause.

09-27-05 Mike Brown Is back at FEMA (See) and his job.... To investigate what went wrong with FEMA during Katrina.

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09-27-05 Bush And This Administration Now Wants To Use The Military Option On American Citizens.

First this administration dismantles FEMA then they do not do a dam thing while New Orleans sinks, (click here) now Mike brown is back and he is to be a consultant onto the investigation into what went wrong. He is now repeating the call that was put out by this administration last week, that we need to use the military and not FEMA, FEMA that has worked so well for every other administration. FEMA that worked until Bush and the Republicans dismantled the agency and put unqualified people in charge. and now the real agenda comes to light. Last week Bush made the statement that we should look into using the military, and now the man who stopped FEMA from working is saying that we should have called in the military. Notice that they are saying "the military" they are not saying the National Guard. This is the same administration that continues to use references to Germany during the 1940's then say they don't, they accuse others of the very things that they are doing. Now they want to use the military on American citizens, I don't care what they are saying, this is a situation that would have never come about if it was not for their incompetence. We are approaching a very dangerous situation, with a at the very least a questionable administration. An Administration that chooses to use a military option for everything. Bush and this administration are extremely dangerous and need to be stopped before they put the country under marshal law. As I said First Bush and this administration destroy a fully functional part of our government, then they want to replace it with something that remove American freedoms. They have repressed decent by creating "free speech zones", when under the Constitution All of America is a free speech zone. They have committed crimes of treason through Karl Rove outing Valerie Plame, Tom Delay and his numerous crimes, voter disenfranchisement on 2000 and 2004 and the list goes on and on and on. They have created concentration camps in Guantanamo, they are abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and no one of rank capable of issuing the orders is either charged or held accountable... and now we are to trust them with turning the military on American Citizens?

09-27-05 The Justice Department and the Security and Exchange commission is looking at Bill Frits for insider trading. Let's see how hard they look and id anything happens to him, unlike Martha Stewart, who made about $110 Thousand, Frist made $112 million.

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09-29-05 National Guard Short 2/3 Of The Equipment Needed For Homeland Security, because most of their equipment is deployed in Iraq. Helicopters, radios, and trucks are among the items that they are lacking. Bush’s shell game is gutting Americas defenses here at home to send it into Iraq, so just how are we to feel safer here when Bush and the Republican party are removing our first line of defenses here at home, desperately needed to respond to emergencies, like hurricanes and terrorist threats here at home. What ever happened to needing to put more money into our Military? The only money he is putting in to the military is going out faster than it is going in, it is spent on supplying gas, oil, food, guns, bombs, and other weapons of destruction used in Iraq and not in building it up the military. According to Gen. Steven Blum $7 Billion dollars is needed to buy the what they need to respond to terrorist attacks or disasters here at home. $560 million is needed to repair National Guard facilities damaged by Katrina, and Rita, and $1.3 Billion needed for immediate requirements.

09-29-05 Karen Hughes Told In no Uncertain Terms, they do not hate Americans, they dislike and distrust the Bush administration. In Ankara, Ms Hughes met a group of Turkish women who demanded an end to the war in Iraq. There is ``no chance for America to make its image better ... while the war in Iraq is still going on (and) people are dying every day,'' Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal told journalists after meeting with Hughes. In Cairo, Karen faced criticism over US treatment of suspected Islamic militants detained at Guantanamo Bay.

09-29-05 Tom Delay Helps The Republican Party Make History by becoming the highest ranking member of congress ever to be indicted on criminal charge of conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. Click Here To Read The 4 Page Indictment.

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Yes Katrina was a natural disaster, and some would say that “You can’t blame Bush for this” and you would be right, except for one thing…no make that several things. To start with there has been an ongoing project to build a series of levees in Louisiana for years, not because people felt that it would be a good source of pork to get money from the federal government, but because this truly a project that should be funded by the government, a project to protect the commons. And in doing so it not only would have protected hundred’s of thousands of lives and property, but the rest of the country would have benefited as well, as we are now just finding out at the pump. Somehow George saw it differently; George felt that there were more important things to be done with our citizen’s taxpayer’s dollars. He felt that people like the Walton’s who are “working Hard” sitting around their pool who do no physically work, should only pay 15% tax on their income, so just last year the Walton family made $8,000,000,000,000.00 that’s 8billion dollars last year to be divided up amongst 9 families. And their response now to lending a helping hand to the people that survived? They put out “the cup” in all their stores and was the first to throw in 1 million dollars and (in Wall Marts name so that they could deduct it next year), and then said now it’s your turn to do the rest. Don’t you think that after making 8Billion dollars that they could afford just a little more than that? After all there income is larger that several small countries combined.

Enough this is not about them; it is about Georges and another failure in his long list of failures. At least before it was only in bad business decisions that other people bailed him out of, that came with a price tag that he is now using our country to pay them back with. Now his bad decisions once again are costing Lives. It is costing irreparable damage to links to our past.
He failed as a businessman and was bailed out by the Saudis.

He failed as a president when he failed to get aid to Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi for nearly a week.

Why didn’t Bush just tell the police to go to all the storeowners and ask for their complete inventory, so that they would know what was there and make arrangements to repay them later. They could just make use of the existing food and medical supplies in the effected areas and distribute the existing food and medical supplies that was already there.

Why is this failure as a President, this failure as a man still in office today? This Man cut the funding repeatedly, year after year, that Louisiana needed to complete the levees, and you know why, you know where the money went. It went into another campaign of destruction that George created, it went into Iraq. No you can’t blame the hurricane on Bush, but you can blame the lack or response on Bush and the Republican Party. You can blame the lack of funding to FEMA on Bush and the Republican Party.

Bush was warned back before 911 about 3 of the most possible disasters to face America was 1. That America would be attacked by terrorist, and he failed to do anything about it, 2. That if the levees weren’t completed there would be a major disaster if a hurricane hit. He choose not to comprehend the gravity of the situations, and now it it cost thousands of lives, instead of money. 3. A major earthquake in California.

He choose to funnel all of the money of this country to the richest people in this country. He choose to invade an unarmed country to steal their oil for his rich friends. He choose to take military funding and give it to Halliburton, and de-fund the military support system.

Yesterday Dennis Hastert said that he didn't think that we should rebuild New Orleans if it is only going to flood again. Funny but when it comes to the rich you spend millions of dollars over and over again, rebuilding a small strip of land in Eastern Long Island when a small barrier beach gets washed away... you also pay to replace their houses, with taxpayers money. A home and a strip of land and homes that is used only by single families, people that can well afford to rebuild them selves several times over. This is just another proof that the Republican Party as a whole just doesn't care about most American's in this country. They have consistently dismantled every social program the We The People wanted, but they saw it only as a loss of income to their rich supporters, that needed to be stopped.

This is the culmination of the failed policies of Economic conservatism that began with Reagan. this is the result of those policies, we become a country that is focused on greed and wealth, at the expense of everything else. This madness needs to stop and it needs to stop now!

It's now time to not only tell people about Bush's shortcomings but to start reminding people that Bush did not do it alone, he had lots of help from all the rest of the Republican Party, and we need to remove them all, if we ever hope to get our country back.

It is time to stop listening to their words... It is time to look at their actions... It is time to see that they are nothing but a bunch of lying bastards.

WE THE PEOPLE MUST TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK FROM THESE LYING THIEVES, AND WE NEED TO DO IT NOW!

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This is the administration that says all life is valuable, when they want to create a topic to cause division in this country, but when the reality comes, they just throw life away like an old shoe. They stand by and do nothing while thousand die. This is an administration that while their citizens are in desperate struggle to survive, they are out going to Broadway plays, and go buying thousand dollar shoes. This while people are starving they are off eating cake at some fundraiser. This while people are dying they are still off somewhere and cannot be found.

I don't see any compassion or conservatism in this administration. An administration the it now responsible for thousands of death, not just the nearly 2,000 American solders, not in the over 50 thousand Iraqis, but now add to it the thousands of of Louisiana citizens who were promised help and then ignored. This an administration that is responsible for the looting of this country's wealth to give it to a select few.

I remember during the 2004 elections Vice Dick Cheney said when talking about our country's security he said "If we make the wrong choice"... Well this administration just proved that we did make the wrong choice, because as Keith Olbermann puts it "They cannot protect us from the simplest of biological weapons... standing water". Why is it that when the Hurricanes hit Florida last year material and supplies were sent in the very next day? Why is it that Alabama's governor claims that the bush administration had supplies staged and ready to go after Katrina hit? Cold it be because you either need to have a brother in the white house, or a republican as governor or has this administration taken partisan politics to a new low. If you are not in their party then you are quite literally expendable. The Governor and the senators and the mayor have been screaming for years that they needed the funding to shore up the levees, but the money like their national guard along with their equipment wound up in Iraq. The funding given to Republican governor to look good and build a bridge to no where to an island with 50 people on it. "The needs of the Few Rich out weigh the needs of the many" Not only do the wealthy get their tax cut but they get the benefits as well and get to use the money that we the average people pay as well, and we are left with nothing.

This administration could not find the time to deal with Louisiana but they could find time last week to send out a mailing to everyone in the party to support the repeal of the estate tax which only effected people who have more than 5 million dollars, certainly not the average person in this country. Again help the rich at the expense of the poor. Give more to the ones that do not need it who, the ones that use the average and the poor to get their money in the first place.

I have said it before and I will say it again This entire administration needs to be Impeached and removed from office. Their incompetence and trail of destruction needs to end.

In the words of the man who actually did win the 2000 election, which he did because a year after all was said and done all the votes in Florida were counted and by several methods, with hanging chads without hanging chads with the dimples and without, and when all was said and don we found out that Al Gore had won Florida.

“If we make the wrong Choice…” those were the famous words Of Dick Chaney. The unfortunate reality is crystal clear. At least half of the country made the wrong choice 9 months ago. Nearly half of the nation made the wrong choice 4 years and 9 months ago. This is something that the rest of us saw by the past record of this administration, that they were only capable of deceit and destruction.

Their first failure came ironically 9 months into this administration first term. We were told that we needed to have a department of homeland to better protect us. What the reality was is that they refused to read or comprehend the no fewer than 56 memos, that we were going to be attacked on 911. That the last memo even said “Bin Laden was determined to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings” We heard the lie “No one would have thought any one would hijack planes and fly them into buildings”? Apparently our old security thought of it, that’s why they wrote the memos that were ignored by George W, Bush and this Republican administration. Their reward for having seen it coming? Dismissal and disbanding the people who actually did warn us that it could happen. They became the sacrifice, so as not to blame George W. Bush. Those of us who saw it, those of us who choose not to look at the situation as a Republican or a Democrat, but to look at the situation as an American saw a dangerous situation forming. We demanded the truth and we were greeted with “not now” and it never became the “now “to know the truth. We were lead down the garden path of more unrelated disconnected lies.

We were promised better security by the destruction of the very offices that did for see the dangers.

We were led into a war on a pack of lies. A pack of lies that only furthered the cause of Bin Laden. Bin Laden wanted us out of Saudi Arabia and we left. Bin Laden wanted Sadum removed from power because he did not support terrorism, because he was progressive and did not follow his brand of the Koran. George W, Bush complied with both of those demands. His compliance cost American blood for a terrorist wish. At a cost of American credibility around the world. At a cost of American tax dollars that instead of going to our military it went to friends of the Administration like Halliburton and Blackwell. Then to help pay Halliburton and Blackwell they take away the benefits of American soldiers who fought for the Lies of this administration. Sure this administration said that they wanted to put more money into military spending and they did, they just did not say for which military. We only assumed and wrongly that it would be the military that our sons and daughters, and fathers and mothers would be in. We never expected it to be in the private military of his friends. We went to war for so many reasons that changed so much I don’t really recall what the last one was, gut I do remember one was to spread freedom and democracy, and as others before me have said “you cannot spread democracy at the point of a gun. If you have something that good you do not need to force it on people the will take it”.

Just how is it you can tell me that if we privatize our government it is a good thing? How does it work out that paying someone like Halliburton $115,000.00 a year for one solider is a rational choice? Maybe that’s why our soldiers have no armored vehicles. Maybe that why our sons and daughters have no body armor, because all the money is going to Halliburton and Blackwater. While our fathers and mothers are left to do the dirty work of this administration unprotected and unprepared, while others who are friends of this administration get rich and richer still. Because that is what happens when you privatize something instead of a not for profit government running it… a corporation that needs to pay it’s CEO’S millions of dollars and needs to pay it’s stockholders millions of dollars a year, there is little money left for anything else. In their case the product is a human life, they did not need to manufacture it, they only need to hire another when their employee get killed… You don’t want to know that there was a law that prohibited Halliburton from ever getting government contracts because of the past record that is not unlike now, of missing money and services nor preformed but yet billed for. Have no fear Dick Cheney and the rest to the Republican “yes” men got rid of that law.

A sport that winning an election was the all-consuming goal and not the ability to do the job.

Now after several years and trillions in debt, we find that the promise of American security was another lie. Another lie to steel our money. This Party and this administration put people in positions of important security that had no credentials other that as friends or supporter of Bush and the Republican Party financially.

We now see that we are not safer today then we were 4 years ago. No mater what is said about Katrina, and who is to blame the sad fact is we are not protected. Other priorities took our resources. Other priorities took the money that was set aside to rebuild the levees in New Orleans. Other priorities took the first responders in this administrations war of choice. Other priorities took the equipment needed to deal with the cries and sent it along with our National Guard to Iraq.

Just why is it that we sent our high water vehicles to Iraq anyway, last I knew Iraq was a desert reign.

Rita has given this administration at least 5 days notice and we still have confusion. If this were a threat of a nuclear missile as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney was fond of implying, you would have had only 38 minutes, not 5 days. We do not even have a working evacuation plan. People are running out of gas on highways stuck in traffic. It was only early Saturday that they realized that everyone was leaving and that they did not need the roads into the gulf and they finally opened both sides of the roads to allow for people to leave. There was not enough gas to fuel all the vehicles, and so people are running out of gas and are stuck. Others cannot get any money because banks and ATM ran out of cash, so if you do not have a credit card too bad. At the airports baggage screamers did not show up, maybe because they were evacuating? So rather then just board the people you make them wait for hours till you provider the ever-false security of inspecting luggage. Where has all the Billions gone in homeland security? To other pet projects I assume… into Iraq. A war that Bush wanted even before he was “selected” president, as stated in Bob Woodward book, Plan of attack.

Now with Rita we again see that this administration has squandered our faith in them, because this administration and the Republican Party keep saying that they want “less government”. They have dismantled and privatized so much of our government that it is barely able to function. It is so clear that they do not believe in government they believe in corporate power. They believe in corporate control of the country. They believe in war above all else, to spread the corporate control on a global scale, because why else it that they age spending just over 50% of our budget on the military, while saying they need more.

Why is it that now when we need government to do what government was created to do… “To protect the commons”, to help the people, this administration and the Republican Party say we need to cut the very social programs we need to help these Americans who have lost so much. It is so oblivious that they want the money to fund an even bigger war machine.

We do not need a new government, as George W. Bush and the Republican Party would like us to believe. The Republicans do not believe in government, and are proud to say it and now proved it, time and time again, once they achieved power.

Our government was working just fine till they came along. Just look at our history and you can see that when we defeated our enemies and we had the most prosperous economies it was when the Democratic Party was in office. The Democrats believe in America, they believe in government.

09-02-05 From The Red Cross Web Site...........Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans? Access to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders The state Homeland Security Department had requested--and continues to request--that the American Red Cross not come back into New Orleans following the hurricane. Our presence would keep people from evacuating and encourage others to come into the city.

09-12-05 "Four million NRA members intend to stop this unconstitutional power grab." But will you do it by getting rid of the Republican party, the ones who are taking away your guns? The Democrats no matter how bad the situation was in any disaster never took away your guns, limit yes take away...No. Maybe, just maybe the NRA and the Dem's have more in common then you think.

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In a May 25, 2001 Morning Edition interview, Grover Norquist told National Public Radio's Mara Liasson, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Norquist got his wish. Democracy - and at least several thousand people, most of them Democrats, black, and poor - drowned last week in the basin of New Orleans. Our nation failed in its response, because for most of the past 25 years conservatives who don't believe in governance have run our government.

As incompetent as George W. Bush has been in his response to the disaster in New Orleans, he wasn't the one who began the process that inevitably led to that disaster spiraling out of control.

It was Reagan who began the deliberate and intentional destruction of the United States of America when he famously cracked (and then incessantly repeated): "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

Reagan, like George W. Bush after him, failed to understand that when people come together into community, and then into nationhood, that they organize themselves to protect themselves from predators, both human and corporate, both domestic and foreign. This form of organization is called government.

But the Reagan/Bush ideologues don't "believe" in government, in anything other than a military and police capacity. Government should punish, they agree, but it should never nurture, protect, or defend individuals. Nurturing and protecting, they suggest, is the more appropriate role of religious institutions, private charities, families, and - perhaps most important - corporations.

Let the corporations handle your old-age pension. Let the corporations decide how much protection we and our environment need from their toxics. Let the corporations decide what we're paid. Let the corporations decide what doctor we can see, when, and for what purpose.

This is the exact opposite of the vision for which the Founders of this nation fought and died. When Thomas Jefferson changed John Locke's "Life, liberty, and private property" to "Live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," it was the first time in the history of the world that a newly founded nation had written the word "happiness" into its founding document. The phrase "promote the general welfare" - another revolutionary concept - first appeared in the preamble to our Constitution in 1787.

Talk show cons and TV talking head cons and political cons - both Republican and DLC Democratic - repeat the mantra of "smaller government," and Americans nod their heads in agreement, not realizing the hidden agenda at work.

Reagan was the first American president to actually preach that his own job was a bad thing. He once said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first." One can only assume he was speaking of himself and his fellow Republicans, and certainly the current Congress's devotion to the interests of inherited wealth and large corporations displays how badly his philosophy has corrupted a role so noble it drew idealists like Jefferson, Lincoln, and the two Roosevelts.

But cons can't imagine anybody wanting to devote their lives to the service of their nation. The highest calling in their minds is to make profit.

As Reagan said: "The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."

This mind-set - that the only purpose for service in government is to set up the interests of business - may account for why not a single military-eligible member of the Bush or Cheney families has enlisted in their parents' "Noble Cause," whereas all four sons of Franklin Roosevelt joined and each was decorated - on merit - for bravery in the deadly conflict of World War II.

There are, after all, no reasons in the conservative worldview for government service other than self-enrichment. As Ronald Reagan said: "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book."

What they don't say is that the reason they want to remove government in its protective capacity is because they can then make an enormous amount of money, and have a lot of control over people's lives, when they privatize former governmental functions. They want a power vacuum, so corporations and the rich can step in. And with no limits on the inheritability of riches after the "death tax" is ended, wealth vast enough to take over the government can emerge.

Given this conservative world-view, it shouldn't surprise us that in 2001 George W. Bush appointed his 2000 presidential campaign manager (Joseph Albaugh) as head of FEMA, or that two years later Albaugh would have left FEMA to start a consulting firm to marry corporations with Iraq "reconstruction" federal dollars, and put in charge of FEMA his assistant (and old college roommate), an equally unqualified former failed executive with the International Arabian Horse Association.

It also shouldn't surprise us that although Dick Cheney has stayed on vacation in Wyoming through all of this, his company, Halliburton, has already obtained a multi-million-dollar contract to profit from Hurricane Katrina's cleanup.

It's not that these conservatives are incompetent or stupid. When their interests are at stake, they can be very efficient. Consider when Hurricane Charley hit Jeb Bush's state - a year earlier than Katrina - on the second weekend of August, 2004, just months before the elections. The White House website notes:

All of this aid was vitally important to Bush family political fortunes in the upcoming election of 2004. Disaster relief checks were in the mail within a week. In just the first thirteen days after Hurricane Charley hit Florida, the White House web site notes that the Bush administration had succeeded in:

That, of course, was for a Republican State, with a Republican governor, the crony brother of the President. Republicans needed to act like they cared about governing, because they wanted people to vote for them three months later.

But now, with no election looming and with death stalking a Democratic State with a Democratic Governor unrelated to the President, we once again see the Reagan philosophy held ascendant.

Bush's call to action? "Send cash to the Red Cross." One of those "thousand points of light" non-governmental organizations his father told us about.

As Brian Gurney, a listener from California, noted: "You can't govern if you don't believe in government."

But you sure can make a buck, and take care of your brother, your campaign manager, and your vice president's company.