I don't understand how we can celebrate Christmas vacation during a time when democracy has ceased to exist in our country. How can the government take a break when the president has seized all power unto himself. He does not claim to be operating within the FISA law, but rather, he claims that as commander in chief he has the authority to violate any law, to suspend law for whatever he needs that in his judgement protects the country. How is this different from a dictatorship or absolute monarchy? It is a turning point in U.S. history.

And what is this "War against terror?" Who is the enemy? When will it end? How will we know when it's V-day? Isn't the enemy a totally trumped-up, PAPER TIGER? Osama bin Laden? Are we afraid of him? Do we even think about him? No. Saddam Hussain? The bearded man in his underpants, who had no programs of weapons of mass destruction. His armies fought us by being annihilated by our air weaponry and firing their rifles into the night after explosions had destroyed their locations. They fled in the face of our military. Their only weapons are guerilla warfare against our occupying armies. They have no leader, no names. They are "insurgents" in our press, "freedom fighters" in their own.

I've seen these fear mongering Republicans all my life, garnering votes by fear. Most of my life it was fear of the dirty commies. Communism was the enemy. They planned to take over the world. They would bomb us out of existence one night when we least expected it. They tried to convince us that one morning we would awake and NYC and Washington would be smoking ruins and the local democratic party (commies in disguise) would have taken over the country. What a load of crap. Communism collapsed under the weight of its own corruption and ineptitude. Republicans quickly claimed credit for the defeat and danced around, hands held high. But then they lost their paper tiger and Bill Clinton's era of prosperity for the middle class came into being. Rather than celebrating, the right attacked his personal life, things which have previously been offlimits in the press were brought into our living rooms by rightwing smear mongers. It was an unheard of, revolting tactic. They could not win elections so they have stolen them. And do you hear that wind noise sound? That whooshing?

That is the sound of the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of our country. It is the sound of pension funds disappearing, jobs vanishing by the thousands. It is the sound of medicaid assistance becoming unavailable to the eldery poor. Need medical care? You must sell your trailer first and become a ward of the state, then you can get medicaid assistance. Want a student loan, well then pay full price for that loan money. And here's an ironic one, the Republicans, who have howled about doing away with the IRS, have mandated in this most recent legislation that the IRS investigate all student loan applicants to make certain they are not fudging their need for a loan. More big government. More big brother.

Why didn't Bush use FISA for wire taps. There can only be one reason. He knows that FISA would not approve his wiretaps. He said there were WMDs. He said Saddam was connected to Al-qaida. He said Saddam was building nuclear weapons. He said he's only eavesdropping on Al-qaida members in America. When my blog suddenly disappears off the internet. You'll know he was listening in on me. And you are next. He knows you have been reading it!