Bush and the Republicans have betrayed their own neo-con brethren. And for what? Do they think progressive America is gullible enough not to see their clumsy attempts to buy their votes? Prescription drug benefit? How about just a big government hand out to the drug companies? Help for farmers? More like subsidies for agribusiness. Tax cuts to stimulate the economy? More like a huge hand out to rich people to cover their losses from when they screwed the pooch during the dot-com-bomb. How about a tax cut for the working people at Enron.

    Brad argues in his articles that those who pay lots of taxes are mostly Republicans. Okay. Good. I'm sure Ken Lay and the other Enron executives are mostly Republican and that a large percentage of their victims are Democrats. I'm comfortable with that. You can have them, Brad. They're all yours. I'll spend my day with hard working Americans any day over a bunch of greedy scumbags who steal from the the middle class. But hey, these modern day robbers can't be all bad right? They pay taxes so they're just fine.

    At John Edwards correctly points out, we are seeing an emergence of two Americas. One America can be represented by the Ken Lays of the world, their stooges, and those gullible enough to believe that one day they can really make it on their own through hard work. The other America is busting its ass trying to pay the bills while their rich Republican bosses scheme for ways to move their company overseas in order to avoid having to comply with the various humane working condition laws imposed on them in the United States.

    Not everyone has a rich connected dad who can buy them an oil company to run into the ground like George W. Bush had. And sure, there is going to be some small percentage of "losers" receiving government assistance who probably don't deserve it but at least can use it to live. But I'm a lot more comfortable with those "losers" getting a few bucks to live on than I am with the same percentage of "losers" who got rich by screwing everyone else for their dollars.

    This Fall we will see which America will win. The America that thinks it's not okay for the US to run around invading countries on a whim. Or the America that chooses to use 9/11 as an excuse to impose our will and culture on millions of people in the middle east.  The America that believes in working hard, playing by the rules, and respecting international law. Or the America that would stuff a Walmart on every corner in every city on earth while calling its opponents unpatriotic even as they ship jobs of to communist China.  The America that thinks that ensuring every American, rich or poor, should be provided with basic health care. Or the America whose response to the sick and elderly is to proclaim the importance of natural selection even as they try to restrict its teaching in public schools in favor of creationism.

    I don't know if Kerry or whomever will be able to beat Bush. Bush has $200 million and rising waiting to attack Kerry with. And Bush has the support of supporters who seem not to care at all about what their leader does to their country. Our grand children will be paying off the debts created by this President. This President, handed the largest budget surplus in the history of the world has, in the course of 4 years, turned it into the largest deficit in human history. And in doing so has caused 2 million jobs to disappear. Jobs that won't come back because they're being shipped off to China and India. But Bush and his friends don't care, they see a day in which their kind is managing foreign workers while the rest of America can go to hell as far as they're concerned.

    This election will be a turning point not just for the United States but the world. With all the damage this man and his Republican cohorts in congress have caused, I am not sure the world can withstand an additional 4 years.