In my mind, it was Newt Gingrich back in the 90's who started the fight. He brought a brash spirit, an arrogance, a disregard for diplomacy and statesmanship, a disregard for truth. Political debate for the GOP came to mean that sound bytes would be generated by the party and repeated at every level. Gingrich held meetings to talk about the stategy. Rather than respond to the other side's point of view, the GOP decided to simply call any one asking a question ugly names (e.g. surrender monkeys, cut and run). They developed whole lists of slurs to be used against their enemies. The tactic worked. They surged to power, first in the congress and then in the executive branch, and then in the judicial branch. With the ruthless use of taxpayer's money they have sought to build a "permanent Republican majority". The problem is the GOP leadership are empty suits. They do not stand for moral uprightness which has been America's shining light, not in their personal lives, and certainly not in their politics. They do not stand for wisdom, or a sense of history. They have taken control of America and looted it as the Iraqis did their country when we blasted away their leadership. Americans can see that the GOP's actions have not matched their rhetoric. In fact, their actions are usually the opposite of their rhetoric, an Orwellian nightmare.

The evils of this current administration are so myriad and so constant (today's evil is . . .), that we have become enured to it. A revolution in government has occured, the constitution dissolved line by line, and yet people are not marching in the streets. Some changes are coming however, or people are going to start marching. And mark my words, in 2008 the GOP will suffer historic losses at the ballet box. Of course I am assuming that there will be elections in 2008 and I am not at all confident about that. Martial law is in their minds.

Here in Georgia the GOP has copied the process well. The same legislature that has a shortfall of 140M for healthcare for indigent children in Georgia, has a billion $ surplus it wants to return to property tax payers. Couple of odd things about that for you to consider. The money piled up as a windfall from Georgia's gas tax. The way it works in GA is that the higher the price of gas the higher the percentage of tax is charged. This has created the billion $ surplus, collected from everyone with a car. The legislature wants to return money to HOMEOWNERS, a decidedly different group, a more affluent group. The real crazzzzzy thing is, the state doesn't collect property taxes at all. They don't even know who pays the taxes or how much they pay. The counties do all that. The whole scam is another GOP rob from the poor give to the rich income redistribution idea. (Here's another: 58% of farm subsidies went to farmers with more than $250,000 in income. Did they really need subsidies?) Even though it is not very well thought out, the GOP majority is so large in GA, it may pass anyway. Children's healthcare? They better start pulling on their bootstraps. The preznit has shown the way on that at the national level.