Going back to the Bush era

In 2012 the Republicans are going to argue that the Obama administration has been so terrible that we need to go back: bring back the days when the Republicans ran the White House and both houses of Congress.

So here is what we’re all looking forward to, if the GOP can beat Obama and retake the Senate, and impose their will in state legislatures. I tried to pick just ten, but the list kept getting longer. Let us pause and embrace the Bush era. Look at the list and pick your favorite!

1.    suicidal budget policies, and playing chicken with the debt ceiling

2.    shifting trillions of dollars away from the middle class and toward the rich and corporations

3.    the death of Medicare and Social Security

4.    the explosion of health costs and bankruptcies

5.    deregulation that gravely damaged our financial sector

6.    holy wars against gays and blacks and immigrants

7.    the effort to kill the unions

8.    the end of Roe v Wade, state by state

9.    incompetence and dishonesty on national security issues like Katrina

10. exploiting and mistreating the troops

11. illegally rewriting laws

12. illegal wiretaps and torture

13. using voter ID to attack voting rights

14. using the power of the executive branch to prosecute political opponents (or expose them like Valerie Plame) and spread propaganda

15. destructive political riots and vandalism and thuggery

16. hundreds of millions of untraced dollars flowing from corporations to GOP officials and campaigns so they can buy elections

17. lies like the WMD story and the birther story and the Usama deniers and the death panel nonsense and…

18. many destructive violations of the Constitution and federal law

I remember being incensed that Speaker Pelosi took impeachment off the table, because Bush easily could have, and should have, been removed from office. He didn’t do anything as dreadful as, say, oral sex, but, even setting aside the innumerable violations of federal law such as the illegal exposure of Valerie Plame, Bush did violate the first three Articles of the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Read on:

Article I: violating Congress’s prerogatives by lying to them to get us into a war, blackmailing them into funding unnecessary troop deployments, defying subpoenas, using illegal signing statements and administrative actions.

Article II: perverting the executive branch into a partisan political weapon, illegally prosecuting Democratic politicians and firing Democratic attorneys, directing government offices to spread dishonest political propaganda, failing to uphold Article II responsibilities by keeping or financial system safe or enforcing product safety laws, sending thugs to disrupt officials from counting votes while screaming “don’t count the votes!”, and trying to convert the Vice Presidency into a fourth branch of government with no oversight.

Article III: violating the prerogatives of the courts by defying orders to preserve emails and concealing evidence.

Bill of Rights: the Big Ten don’t just apply to citizens. So that brings us to the illegal spying and secret prisons and torture, and keeping innocent people behind bars indefinitely.