The Grand Old Party

They ripped off a presidency with the intent to drain the life blood out of this country, sold off most of our assets and mortgaged us to foreign interests until we were lucky to have a job or a home or a life intact. They got us into an endless war, and in the process they stuffed their pockets with payoffs from greedy corporations already gouging us pitiful working families with their lies and exorbitant prices until we were desperate just to keep our heads above water. And in some places, like New Orleans, a city was destroyed and thousands literally failed to keep their heads above water.

And while that was going on, when we were slipping down the best of the best lists, our schools unable to keep up with the schools in other countries, our infrastructure falling apart, our jails filling with depressed young fugitives, our health care systems crumbling under the corruption and jacking up their prices so they could get some of the bounty, what was happening with the grand old party folks thumbing their inarticulate right wing, gun toting, noses at us in our desperation? Well, according to Emmanuel Saez, the Berkeley economist, “the year 2007 was an incredibly good year for the super rich. The 14,588 families who made up 2007’s top .01 percent averaged $35,042,705 in income, 1,080 times the $32,421 average income of America’s bottom 90 percent. The gap between the top .01 percent and the bottom 90 percent, before 2007, had never stretched over 1,000 times.” And that doesn’t even mention the massive number of people who earned zero to $32,421, the people who do the hard jobs, cleaning and feeding and tending to the rest of us--when they can get jobs at all.

Just when we were all about to go under for the third time, Barack Obama stepped into the arena and offered us some hope. And since he came into office he has been working feverishly to deliver.

So what are the Grand Olds up to now?

They have continued to undermine every attempt to put this country back on track. And they are not only doing that here at home, but they are now going to other countries trying to block any advances Obama has made, or hopes to make, to bring peace to the middle east and to mend all the GOP-damaged fences.

The dictionary defines a traitor as-- "a person who betrays a friend, country, principle, etc."