Donald Trump, Fear Mongering and the GOP

I often note that those who fail to know history are doomed to repeat it.  If one looks at today's Republican Party and especially the party's candidates for the presidential nomination, it feels almost like Germany in the early 1930's when the Nazis used fear and claims of conspiracies to convince Germans to give away their civil rights.  Hitler had his Jews and communists to blame for the nation's ills.  Now we see Donald Trump using Hispanics and Muslims - others in the party use gays and "liberals" - to fear monger all with the goal of gaining power.  And frighteningly, most American's do not seem to see what is happening.  A piece in Salon looks at the disturbing parallels.  Here are highlights:

“Paris attack should end criticism of ‘militarization’ of police. NYPD getting ready.” So said the neocon historian Max Boot on Twitter over the weekend, with a link to a New York Times report on the formation of a “standing counterterrorism force” within the NYPD. “After the next attack, the pundits will say ‘This should end your criticism of the government,'” quipped Salon’s Ben Norton.

We’ve been down this road plenty of times before. By now, it’s easy to predict how human beings will react to unexpected attacks like the ones in Paris. Of all human emotions, fear may be the most contagious, and the terrorists know this well. . . . . Of course, fear is a invaluable emotion that prevents human beings from acting recklessly or just plain stupid, but it can quickly become irrational and dangerous — and in many cases, it is a gift to authoritarian politicians.

The infamous Reichstag fire of 1933, which Adolf Hitler called a “sign from God,” is a prime example of how useful fear can be for aspiring dictators. . . . . The day after the fire, Hitler was granted the Reichstag Fire Decree by the German President, Paul von Hindenburg, which suspended many civil liberties and provided Hitler with greater emergency powers as Chancellor. Thousands of communists were arrested, and in the Reichstag elections during the following month, the Nazis gained enough of a majority to pass the “Enabling Act,” which gave Hitler a de facto dictatorship, providing him with the power to enact all laws without parliament. With the scapegoating of Jews, communists, and other minorities, the Nazis managed to further their power, and provide enemies to the people in times of economic desperation.

Today, Republicans and neocons like to invoke the Nazis when discussing Islamic extremism, yet, as the past week has illustrated, these same politicians are the ones who most resemble their fascist forefathers. In July, I wrote about the worrisome parallels between Trump’s rhetoric and that of fascism, and what it says about the modern Republican party. The likeness has become even more disturbing after the terrorist attacks in Paris. Trump has always had the strong man attitude of a fascist. 

The racism and nativism of the Trump campaign (and his competition) is even more disquieting. His anti-Mexican rhetoric has been a cornerstone of his campaign, and now, after the Paris attacks and with the Syrian refugee crisis, anti-Muslim rhetoric has taken hold.

Just as the Nazi’s used the Reichstag fire to their advantage, creating fear of a communist conspiracy (which was nonexistent), Republicans have used the atrocities in Paris as a campaign tool, crafting various conspiracy theories about sleeper cell refugees and anti-West Muslims looking to implement Sharia law in Cleveland, Ohio. Ultimately, this is what fascism was (is) all about: manufacturing and spreading fear. Fear of some foreign ideology invading and destroying a countries traditions, or as Umberto Eco (who grew up in fascist Italy) calls it in is essay, “Ur-Fascism,” the “fear of difference.” There also tends to be a fear (or obsession) of some kind of conspiratorial plot against them.

Fear is a very powerful weapon indeed. Sometimes, it is enough for the majority of citizens to willingly give up civil liberties, or to stop criticizing the militarization of the police, or to become bigoted against those who look different to them. It was certainly strong enough fourteen years ago, when the Patriot Act was signed into law one month after the attacks of 9/11. And the Islamic State is counting on it to be strong enough this time around as well. They are especially counting on European and American nationalists and sympathizers to make the lives of Muslim immigrants and citizens miserable enough (perhaps by making them register in a database?) to make them sympathize with anti-West Islamic fanatics. 

Both Islamic and Western fascists want a clash of civilizations, and they play into each others hands. ISIS creates mass panic and provide politicians like Donald Trump the perfect political tool of fear, while Trump and his GOP cohorts create a toxic anti-Muslim atmosphere that ends up creating more recruits for ISIS, or as President Obama said, “I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric coming out of here in the course of this debate.”

Just a month ago, it would have been hard to imagine the GOP primary becoming even more toxic, but ISIS helped make it happen. Even worse, Trump has made a comeback in the polls, and is now around ten points ahead of his next competition.

After the Reichstag fire, Hitler made the following remark about the communists: “These sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses.” Let us hope the people, the masses, are smart enough to reject the fear and intolerance that the GOP has made its prime selling point.

Libertarian Republicans May Block Marriage Repeal in New Hampshire

One of the announced goals of far right Republicans in New Hampshire has been to repeal that state's same sex marriage law. But despite majorities in both houses of the legislature, they may not be able to gather the 2/3 vote required to repeal the 2009 law. The stumbling block? Libertarian inclined Republicans who see the repeal as a trampling on individual freedom. I would add religious freedom as another victim of the Christianist element in the GOP's jihad against gay marriage. Not surprisingly, some of the cretins in the pro-repeal faction mouth the myth that gay marriage threatens their religious liberty. To these folks, only anti-gay Christians have religious freedom rights. Everyone else can go f*ck themselves per this mindset. The Concord Monitor looks at the uncertain fate of the repeal effort in New Hampshire. Here are excerpts:

While the fate of a bill repealing same-sex marriage in New Hampshire remains uncertain, two facts are not in dispute: Republicans hold veto-proof majorities in the House and Senate. The state Republican Party platform defines marriage as "the legal union between one man and one woman" and opposes "all other forms of civil unions, regardless of where such unions were formed." So what's so hard about getting it done?

Sen. Fenton Groen, a Rochester Republican who has been vocal in his support of the repeal, said last week. "I think that, in the House particularly, we have a significant libertarian caucus within the Republican Party. . . . And there are some Republicans who differ on that within that caucus."

"I'm for liberty and freedom, leaving people alone so long as they don't harm or defraud other people," said Rep. Steve Winter, a Newbury Republican who opposes the repeal. . . . He considers himself a "fiscal conservative and a social libertarian."

Rep. Seth Cohn, a Canterbury Republican who moved here as part of the Free State project, a libertarian movement to relocate to New Hampshire, is also against repeal. Cohn and others believe the bill may pass the House but does not have the two-thirds majority to override a potential veto by Democratic Gov. John Lynch, who signed the bill three years ago legalizing same-sex marriage. "I know for a fact, based on people I've talked to, that if Gov. Lynch vetoes it, that veto is not override-able," Cohn said.

Cohn said he plans to introduce an amendment on the House floor that would take government entirely out of marriage, instead giving all couples a civil union and leaving marriage up to churches and other religious institutions. That same approach is supported by the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire, a libertarian-leaning group that endorsed 107 House members elected in 2010.

[U]nwillingness to take up the mantle in opposition to same-sex marriage has extended to top lawmakers in both chambers. . . . . Gay marriage supporters in New Hampshire say the current of public opinion favors their side. A University of New Hampshire survey in October found 62 percent of residents oppose the repeal and 27 percent support it. The rest were neutral.

Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley also voted against the gay marriage law. But before he could support the repeal bill, he said, language establishing civil unions for same-sex and heterosexual couples must be strengthened so all employers and other entities would be required to recognize them.

Rep. Jennifer Coffey's view has also been colored by life experience. The Andover Republican, a nurse's assistant for 16 years, remembers a terminally ill woman who had been estranged from her family for 20 years because of her relationship with another woman. When the family she hadn't talked to for decades came to visit her in the hospital, they did not allow the woman's partner in the room.

"It really stuck in my mind," she said. "There are certain things you see in health care that break your heart." Still, Coffey - who considers herself a "Goldwater Republican," a "little-'l' libertarian" - voted against the gay marriage law in 2009. Now, she plans to vote against repealing it, but says her position has been consistent all along.

"I voted against government defining marriage," she said. "It doesn't have the right to define marriage in any sense. It is a religious ceremony."

While not addressed in the article, just maybe some in the GOP are waking up to the fact that the GOP's anti-gay positions are driving away both libertarians and the younger generation of voters. Time will tell. Obviously, I hope the repeal effort fails.

Anoka-Hennepin TeachersTest Requires Affirmation of District's Anti-Gay Policy

Faced with a Federal lawsuit and an Office of Civil Rights investigation one would think that the Anoka-Hennepin School District make some small effort not to add ammunition to those who allege that the district - located in loon Michele Bachmann's congressional district - has a serious anti-gay atmosphere which is aided and abetted by the district's anything but unbiased "neutrality policy" that prohibits any positive discussion of mention pro-LGBT topics or information. Christianists (which seem to control the school district), on the other hand are free to spew anti-gay bigotry. Now it turns out that in order to pass a required teachers' test, teacher must endorse the fiction that the school districts anti-gay policy isn't - anti-gay. For those who are honest enough to admit that the emperor, if you will, has no clothes, a failing grade is the result. The supposed correct answer is that the district’s policy limiting discussions of LGBT issues in the district’s schools is intended to make “students feel safe.” Here are some highlights from the Minnesota Independent:

Some teachers at Anoka-Hennepin School District have failed a teachers test because they refused to affirm that the district’s policy limiting discussions of LGBT issues in the district’s schools is intended to make “students feel safe.”

The district’s policy is at the heart of a culture war in the district and is the subject of a lawsuit by six students and their parents who say the district has not taken appropriate steps to prevent bullying against students who are, or are perceived to be, LGBT.

City Pages reported on Wednesday that a training test required by all teachers contains the question: “One of the goals of the Sexual Orientation Curriculum Policy is to ensure all of our students feel safe and respected in our classrooms and/or while participating in school activities: true or false?”

City Pages notes that several teachers in the district are refusing to answer “true,” which causes them to fail the training test.

The policy states that “Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student led discussions.” Yet, the policy only targets LGBT issues.

[T]he Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed suit against the district on behalf of six students and their families.

The federal Department of Education and the Department of Justice have also launched investigations into the district after the suicide deaths of nine students in the past two years, several of whom were known to identify as LGBT.

The policy is a farce and like so much coming out of the mouths of "cultural conservatives" is a outright lie. It's all about allowing LGBT students to be victimized while giving special privileges to toxic "Christian" beliefs. Kudos to the teachers who refuse to support the lie.

Catholic Conference: Marriage Equality Bill Against Religious Liberty

Before writing this post I had to take a deep breath. The audacity of those who have aided and abetted child rapists to make the disingenuous statement that allowing CIVIL law marriage to same sex couples makes my blood boil. If there is any threat to so-called religious liberty, it is embodied in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy and their allies in the Christianist Protestant denominations who seek to impose - is inflict a better term? - their religious beliefs on all. All the while as they - or at least the Catholic hierarchy - ought to be standing trial for obstruction of justices and/or as accessories to crimes against children and youths. These people truly have no same and they have no credibility as leaders on moral issues. Indeed, they are morally bankrupt. Again, why does anyone listen to these men, a significant number of whom are basically little better than criminals? A lead spokesman for this attempt to subordinate the CIVIL laws to sectarian religious doctrine is the corpulent and disingenuous archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan who looks like he's living very high on the hog off the offerings of the ignorant and intellectually lazy. It's time that this red herring of "religious liberty" be exposed for the total lie that it is. The Advocate has details on this bullshit. Here are highlights (try not to vomit):
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The New York State Catholic Conference, which is lobbying to stop the state Senate from voting on the marriage equality bill, argues that support for the bill as currently worded would constitute “a vote against religious liberty and against the very ministries and services that New Yorkers cannot do without.”
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“Do they really want to close adoption and foster care agencies and other religious ministries?” asks the New York State Catholic Conference. “Are they seeking to label faith-based institutions as unlawful discriminators? Will they go after the tax-exempt status of these ‘discriminating’ institutions? Can the Church trust assurances from the same lawmakers who forced Catholic schools and hospitals to pay for contraception insurance or who are trying to make Catholic hospitals allow abortions? Who's kidding whom?”
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[Governor] Cuomo has indicated no inclination to negotiate the language, which New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg described as adequate after his meeting with Senate Republicans in Albany Tuesday.
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However, even with the addition of more religious exemptions, it it difficult to imagine any marriage equality bill that the Catholic Church would not lobby to defeat. A spokesman for the New York State Catholic Conference was not immediately available for comment.
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As I have argued before, either the Catholic Church stops meddling with CIVIL law legislation or it needs to lose its tax exempt status. No longer should the Church be allowed to act like a PAC yet receive indirect tax payer subsidies via tax exempt status.

U.S. Catholic Latinos: Liberal on Gay Marriage?

I missed this aspect of the Public Religion Research Institute's July 21, 2010, report on “Religion and Same-Sex Marriage in California” which must be driving God's Rottweiler to distraction. Especially if Latino Catholics are the likely future for the Roman Catholic Church in America. In addition to supporting same sex marriage, the reports indicates that Latino Catholics trust gay parents more than the Church's clergy when it comes to telling the truth about homosexuality. The report also showed marked difference in the relatively liberal views of Latino Catholics versus Latinos who have been co opted into Protestant churches. I'm sure that the Nazi Pope and the other bitter old relics in desses in Rome will continue their anti-gay jihad, but long term one can only hope that by doing so, they are hastening the Church's demise. Here are some details via The Wild Reed:
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[T]he Public Religion Research Institute's July 21, 2010, report on “Religion and Same-Sex Marriage in California” found that Latino Catholics stand in sharp in contrast to many sectors of American public, especially Latino Protestants, illustrating the sharp effect of religion on Latino attitudes towards homosexuality and civil and human rights for the gay community. Regarding Latino Catholics the report, based on June 2010 polling of 3,351 California adults with oversamples for Latinos, highlights these two social dynamics:

• 57% of Latino Catholics would vote for the legalization of same-sex marriage compared to 22% of Latino Protestants.

• Latino Catholics “say they trust the parents of gay and lesbian children more than their own clergy as a source of information about homosexuality.”
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The Wild Reed Post which includes a piece by Joseph M. Palacios, Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, goes on to note as follows:
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Recently same-sex marriage and adoption rights were legally approved in the Catholic countries of Argentina, Spain, and Portugal, as well as Mexico City. It is important to note that modern Latin Catholicism has a dual nature: it is “conservative” in the sense of family communalism and tradition that the church offers, yet it is classically “liberal” in the sense of not wanting the Catholic Church to have power in political life – particularly after the long historical experience of the Latin American Church “meddling in politics.” As Mexicans put it: “No meta en la política.” A sizeable majority of U.S. Latino Catholics shares these attitudes with them.

Catholic Church Continues to Interfer in Mexico's Civil Laws

As an institution, the Roman Catholic Church has to be one of the most corrupt on earth given the Church hierarchy's decades old policy of enabling and covering for sexual predators within the priesthood who raped children and youth with abandon in many cases. For the same institution to attempt to block the civil legal rights of citizens is beyond out outrageous. Yet that is precisely what the Catholic Church is doing in Mexico where the nation's highest court upheld CIVIL marriage rights fro same sex couples. In my view, it is long past time that the Catholic Church be stripped of all special privileges, tax exemptions and, indeed, all deference and respect. The institutional Church has become an insult to the very Gospel message it claims to preach and the ranks of the hierarchy are among today's modern day Pharisees. As the Miami Herald reports, Catholic protesters have demonstrated two days in a row in Guadalajara where the local cardinal has alleged that the country's Supreme Court justices were bribed in order to secure the pro-gay ruling. Here are highlights:
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Gay rights activists and a group of Roman Catholics in Mexico have yelled insults at each other during dueling demonstrations over same-sex marriage. Some 200 gay rights activists waved rainbow flags and held signs reading "Thank God I'm gay" at a plaza next to the cathedral in Guadalajara on Sunday.
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A similar number of protesters opposed to gay marriage prayed at the cathedral's doors. One of them ripped up a sign held by a gay rights activist, prompting screaming by both sides.
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It was the second confrontation in two days in Guadalajara, where Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez stirred controversy by suggesting Mexico's Supreme Court was bribed to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by homosexual couples.

Obama Subpoenaed in Choi Case

I love Dan Choi's daring and his refusal to be satisfied with mealy mouthed speeches that are followed by inaction. Talking to him one on one by telephone back before the National Equality March last October was a treat indeed. Now, Choi has again demonstrated that he is willing to push the envelop, if you will, and has subpoenaed Barack Obama in the criminal case he and Capt. James Pietrangelo are facing on July 14, 2010, for chaining themselves the the White House fence while demanding action on DADT repeal. I am convinced that just as civil rights advances in the 1960's took place because Martin Luther King and others refused to be non-confrontational and quietly wait for crumbs to be tossed to Black Americans, so too, the movement for LGBT rights will not succeed simply by pandering for "access" and holding no one accountable. Here are some highlights from The Advocate on this latest development:

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The lawyers for Lt. Dan Choi and Capt. James Pietrangelo II Wednesday served a subpoena to President Barack Obama seeking his testimony in their July 14 hearing in D.C. superior court.
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As part of their defense, the two men claim that they were following orders from the commander in chief himself, who as both a candidate and a sitting president requested that LGBT advocates hold him accountable and “pressure” him to deliver on his campaign promises.
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The defense summary notes, in particular, Obama’s remarks during the Human Rights Campaign dinner on October 10, 2009.
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“It’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans petitioning for equal rights half a century ago,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so important that you continue to speak out, that you continue to set an example, that you continue to pressure leaders — including me — and to make the case all across America.”
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The defense lawyers further claim that the president’s statements “support the contention that the Defendants were acting out of necessity, in order to prevent discrimination and greater harm to gay service members now serving.”

The Moral and Constitutional Case for Gay Marriage

There perhaps are some that believe I am beating a dead horse in my frequent posts about gay marriage. However, I do believe that a fair, non-religiously biased reading of the U. S. Constitution requires equal marriage rights now that legitimate medical and mental health experts view sexual orientation as unchangeable. The arguments of Christianist that gays have the same rights as straights to marry individuals of the opposite sex ignores the immutability of one's sexual orientation. Their argument is just as specious as it would be for gays to insist that straights marry individuals of the same sex. We know it and they know it. They simply don't give a damn about gays - or for that matter, the straights that gays marry in an effort to conform only to have the marriage fail and misery be spread around to all involved (including the children born to these doomed marriages). In my view, the Christianists' attitude is one of utter selfishness. They truly do not care what harm or misery they inflict on LGBT individuals. Anything that challenges their simplistic world view or requires serious thought and analysis is to be forbidden. A column Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, New York Daily News recently made the moral AND constitutional case for same sex marriage. Here are some highlights:
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Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty put it this way: "Marriage inequality is a civil rights, political, social, moral and religious issue." He covered all the bases, except one: It's a constitutional issue as well.
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Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: "[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men." The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from harming others. Heterosexuals should not be treated preferentially when the state carries out that role. And no one is harmed by the union of two consenting gay people.
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For most of Western history, marriage was a matter of private contract between the betrothed parties and perhaps their families. Following that tradition, marriage today should be a private arrangement, requiring minimal or no state intervention. Some religious or secular institutions would recognize gay marriages; others would not; still others would call them domestic partnerships or assign another label. Join whichever group you wish. The rights and responsibilities of partners would be governed by personally tailored contracts - consensual bargains like those that control most other interactions in a free society.
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Whenever government imposes obligations or dispenses benefits, it may not "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." That provision is explicit in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, applicable to the states, and implicit in the Fifth Amendment, applicable to the federal government.
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Of course, government discriminates among its citizens all the time. By the 1920s, 38 states prohibited whites from marrying blacks and certain Asians. Until 1954, all states were allowed to operate segregated schools. Thankfully, the Supreme Court invalidated both interracial marital restrictions and school segregation. The court applied the plain text of the Equal Protection Clause despite contrary practices by the states for many years even after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868.
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No compelling reason has been proffered for sanctioning heterosexual but not homosexual marriages. Nor is a ban on gay marriage a close fit for attaining the goals cited by proponents of such bans. If the goal, for example, is to strengthen the institution of marriage, a more effective step might be to bar no-fault divorce and premarital cohabitation. If the goal is to ensure procreation, then infertile and aged couples should be precluded from marriage.
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Instead, most states have implemented an irrational and unjust system that provides significant benefits to just-married heterosexuals while denying benefits to a male or female couple who have enjoyed a loving, committed, faithful and mutually reinforcing relationship over several decades. That's not the way it has to be.
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According to the federal Office of Personnel Management, nearly 60% of Fortune 500 companies confer employment benefits on domestic partners. Yet our politicians, unwilling to privatize marriage, seem congenitally unable to extricate themselves from our most intimate relationships. One would hope, in the coming months and years, that more enlightened federal and state legislators will have the courage and decency to resist morally abhorrent and constitutionally suspect restrictions based on sexual orientation. Gay couples are entitled to the same legal rights and the same respect and dignity accorded to all Americans.

"Ex-Lesbian" Losing Custody to Non-birth Parent

The long and bizarre saga of the Janet Jenkins-Lisa Miller custody battle took a new, ground breaking turn as a Vermont court awarded custody of 7 year old Isabella Miller to her non-biological but court-recognized parent, Janet Jenkins. Given Lisa Miller's refusal to abide by the rulings of both Vermont and Virginia courts, it's not surprising the she now has lost custody. Indeed, she ought to be in jail for contempt of court charges and her attorney, wingnut loon Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel, should be facing sanctions given the number of frivolous actions and appeals he has filed for Miller. Miller and Staver are representative of the far right's belief that they are above the law and can denigrate and ignore court rulings they do not like. I do have to wonder how much Miller is getting paid by the fundies to continue to maintain her "former lesbian" charade. The Rutland Herald has more on the ruling and Miller and Stavers likely next stunt. Here are some highlights:

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A Rutland Family Court judge ordered a first-of-its kind parent custody change Friday in a child-visitation dispute involving a Virginia woman and her former lesbian partner who lives in Fair Haven. In a 21-page order, Judge William Cohen granted sole custody of 7-year-old Isabella Miller to her nonbiological but court-recognized parent, Janet Jenkins. Jenkins and her former partner — and Isabella's biological mother — Lisa Miller, who renounced homosexuality after the couple split in 2003, have been in and out of courtrooms in Vermont and Virginia for years arguing over visitation rights.
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After finding Miller in contempt of court earlier this year for denying Jenkins access to Isabella, Cohen said he decided the only way to ensure the child equal access to both parents was to switch custody. "The court concludes that it is in the best interest of (Isabella) that Ms. Jenkins exercise parental rights and responsibilities," the judge said. "This court stated that continued interference by Ms. Miller with the relationship between (Isabella) and Ms. Jenkins could lead to a change of circumstances and outweigh the disruption that would occur if a change of custody were ordered."
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Miller's attorney, Mathew Staver, said Friday that Miller planned to fight for her daughter on two fronts: appealing Cohen's decision to the Vermont Supreme Court while continuing a battle in the Virginia Court of Appeals regarding the state's authority to enforce Vermont orders that conflict with Virginia's laws.
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While the fight goes on, one legal observer said he believes Cohen's most recent decision will pave the way for future custody disputes involving same-sex couples. "It's a very important decision that I think will be influential beyond the borders of the states where these cases have been argued," Carl Tobias, University of Richmond professor of law, said Friday in a phone interview from Virginia. He said Cohen's decisions thus far had staying power because they treated the legal parents of civil unions — and by extension gay marriages — no differently than parents in heterosexual custody cases. While the Vermont case appears destined for appeal and the court battle in Virginia continues, Tobias said he didn't think appeals courts in either state would overturn the decision.
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One can only imagine the self-inflicted martyrdom that Miller will now wear on her sleeve as Matt Staver and his fellow Bible beaters seeks to sucker more patsies into send his snake oil outfit more money.

The Horrific Bush Legacy

Even a casual reader of this blog will soon realize that I despise the Chimperator who I believe is the worst president EVER in the history of the United States of America. He is exhibit #1 as to why an intellectually lazy, ignorant in terms of other cultures, and blindly religious fundamentalist individual should NEVER again hold the office of President. The Bush legacy is one of doing much damage to the nation domestically and internationally and I believe history will not be kind to either him or Emperor Palpatine Cheney. He at home the Bush/Cheney regime has severely damaged the economy and undermining civil liberties for U.S. citizens. Internationally, he has made torture a U.S. policy and acted as a war criminal. Bob Herbert in the New York Times has an overview of the Bush/Cheney disaster that I agree with fully. Here are some highlights:

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Does anyone know where George W. Bush is? . . . We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions. But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

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When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

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This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

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The Bush administration specialized in deceit. How else could you get the public (and a feckless Congress) to go along with an invasion of Iraq as an absolutely essential response to the Sept. 11 attacks, when Iraq had had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks?

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He then set the blaze that has continued to rage for nearly six years, consuming more than 4,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. (A car bomb over the weekend killed two dozen more Iraqis, many of them religious pilgrims.) The financial cost to the U.S. will eventually reach $3 trillion or more, according to the Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz.

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And then there’s the Bush economy, another disaster, a trapdoor through which middle-class Americans can plunge toward the bracing experiences normally reserved for the poor and the destitute.

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The president would give the wealthy and the powerful virtually everything they wanted. He would throw sand into the regulatory apparatus and help foster the most extreme income disparities since the years leading up to the Great Depression. Once again he was lighting a fire. This time the flames would engulf the economy and, as with Iraq, bring catastrophe.

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The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort. He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”