More Gas Gouging

Is there any doubt that the current administration has been in cahoots with the oil companies to gouge as much money out of us as it could before leaving office? Gas prices per barrel are almost where they were when George Bush took office in 2001. But we are still paying a dollar more a gallon than when he took office. George Bush and Dick Cheney have destroyed the economy with their greed. He is now in the process of trying to cover up his mess before Barack Obama takes over. I'm sure he was looking forward to John McCain taking over and continuing this farce with our economy. Remember, McCain's wife's family made their fortune from beer, so I'm sure he felt comfortable with someone already rich taking over and keeping the rest of us poor. Now that we have someone who is like most Americans, honest and caring, Bush has to pull a Nixon and hide certain details of his corrupt administration's dealing with the oil companies.

With the constant dropping of oil prices, is there really any urgent need to start offshore drilling and drilling in Alaska's protected lands as Sarah Palin wants us to do? Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. Here in Georgia we suffered for a month through a fake gas shortage supposedly created by Hurricane Ike, while the area it hit was not affected at all. We were told there was a surplus of crude oil but the refineries were shut down and couldn't produce gasoline. We were also told that Georgia uses a special blend of pollution reducing gasoline that the rest of the country doesn't use, therefore we couldn't get the gasoline we needed. But I wrote in an earlier article how the gas prices fluctuated with the poll numbers for the election.

When McCain had started slipping in the polls, prices per barrel started going down. When Palin was announced as his VP choice and poll numbers started rising right after Hurricane Ike, gas prices hit record highs. But as the public got to know Sarah Palin and the poll numbers started going down, so did oil prices per barrel. Now that Obama has been elected, prices are swiftly returning to where they should be. George Bush has a lot of cleaning up to do before he leaves office, but it won't be enough. One thing I remember that Barack Obama said is if he took office he would review everything Bush had done and if he found any wrong doing, he would bring Bush up on charges. Don't forget, both Obamas are Harvard graduated lawyers, with Barack being a specialist in Constitutional law.

Keep in mind, Obama is against unnecessary drilling that can further endanger the environment. There is no shortage of oil in the world, it was reported last week there is a surplus. No need to make more oil people richer. I think this economy will turn around a lot quicker than most people think now that we have the corrupt administration out of office. The Republicans are mad because Obama has threatened to raise taxes on the rich, which most Republicans are. He has also said he will increase spending in certain areas by taking away wasted money in others. Once again, this man has outsmarted Hilary Clinton and John McCain when it came to financially running his campaign, coming through both with surplus money. Why should we expect anything different with him handling the country's economy?

A New Beginning

Now that the election is over and Barack Obama is the President-Elect, the world seems to think this is a new beginning for America. Barack represents hope for millions of people worldwide who believe he will bring respect and dignity back to the perception of how America should be when dealing with the rest of the world. Also Black Americans are proud of White America for doing the right thing by electing the man most qualified for the job. It will be good to have someone running the country who brings intelligence and dignity to the office of President again. The first thing Obama has done is to begin surrounding himself with others who think also. Let me give George Bush credit for one thing right now, and that was passing a law allowing for the transition to the presidency to begin immediately after the election instead of after he takes office in January. This has allowed Obama to recognize the flaws in the current administration and begin putting the right people in the right places.

The one major difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is their views on how the country should be run. The Republicans always want to keep America at war as a show of might, while the Democrats are always working to keep the American economy strong at home. In my lifetime, the Democrats have always inherited a war started by a Republican president. Yes, John F. Kennedy entered the Viet Nam war, but America's involvement was set up by Richard Nixon while he was Vice President under Dwight Eisenhower. He was so sure he was going to win that election that everything had been put in motion for the U.S. to take over the role that the French already knew was hopeless. It took him eight years to get into office and he still couldn't finish what he had started. The situation was so bad that Lyndon Johnson refused to run for re-election in 1968, something unheard of for a sitting president, because no president has lost a chance at re-election while the country was still at war. This is why it has taken George Bush so long to end a war against a country without an army, when his daddy put Saddam Hussein in check in little over a month. Remember that? His daddy lost his chance at re-election because the country was not at war and the economy was in shambles after four years. Little George would not have been re-elected either in 2004 if he had not extended this senseless war.

Which brings us back to Obama, who inherits the same type of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He already had a plan for what he wanted to do with the war, but after briefings with George Bush, and learning more of the misguided strategy they had, he has begun to make definite decisions on what he wants to do to end this atrocity. The Bush Administration has gotten rich off the blood of our children by perpetrating fear of Saddam Hussein when he was no longer a threat thanks to his dad. The mission at hand was to find Osama Bin Laden for the destruction he was accused of creating on September 11, 2001. The talk all this year against Iran has been exactly the same language we heard to justify going into Iraq. Although you may not like the religious views of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his views of Israel, the man does have a point when it comes to dealing with him and any other of our designated enemies. Talk to him, not at him. That is why he is looking forward to dealing with Obama as president. At least he knows he can engage in dialogue with him, unlike George Bush who called him, Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong Il the leaders of an Axis of Evil when he first took office.

George Bush never used diplomacy when dealing with his enemies and we could not expect John McCain to either. Hell, he couldn't handle Barack Obama in the debates and fortunately for us, white America was able to see this also. It has also become quite interesting to hear how Sarah Palin is responding to claims from the McCain camp about her lack of knowledge by calling them jerks. It is so easy for this woman to call people out of their names who don't agree with her. Not a real sign of class or leadership, which was another thing that is appealing about Obama. Through all the name calling he endured during his primary and presidential campaigns, not once did he disrespect his opponents by calling them out of their names. So you can expect him to treat the other leaders of the world the same way, no matter how they are viewed by past leaders. Remember it was Nixon who broke down the barriers with China, and Reagan with Russia. Expect President-Elect Barack Obama to do the same with some of our current enemies.