Facts to consider when casting your vote

We should keep in mind some facts to help us decide how to vote. It is said “all politics are local,” but this election has the extraordinary opportunity to be a referendum on the near-total control of the government by the Republican Party. More than that, it’s a referendum on the Founding Fathers’ principle that there should be checks and balances in our government.

For the past six years the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House. The problems we face are clearly the result of their policies or inattention:

• Iraq — No connection to 9/11, no WMDs, cost now over $300 billion, no end in sight. Obviously a civil war. Nearly 3,000 US troops dead, and tragically under-reported are 44,700 wounded. DoD only reports 20,600 by a perverse twist of logic: if a convoy is hit, only those in the lead vehicle are counted as combat deaths or injuries; if the trailing vehicles rolls over and occupants are killed or injured, they’re not counted as combat casualties.

• Osama bin Laden — Mastermind of 9/11 still hatching plots against us. President Bush said in 2002, “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

• Afghanistan — Now world’s leading producer of heroin. Taliban are taking over again and providing haven for terrorists (including bin Laden).

• Korea — UN inspectors had TV monitors on their only stock of plutonium, the key ingredient of their recent bomb, until two years after Bush took office.

• Iran — In reaction to our invading Iraq, a (relatively) moderate government is voted out of office and replaced by Ahmadinezhad, who is now a threat to US.

• Medicare Drug bill is barely passed; most critical provision for Republicans is to make it illegal for Medicare to negotiate lower costs for prescription drugs… as a payoff to the drug companies.

I’m running out of space, so here are some short reminders: Cunningham, DeLay, Ney, Abramoff, Halliburton, Abu Ghraib, Foley, war profiteering, border security, port security, largest increase in government size and spending in history, largest trade deficit ever, Hurricane Katrina.

But, tax cuts for the rich.

Had enough? Vote for a change.

Jon Monday