• Hundreds of billions of dollars are appropriated for the giant defense industry and the proliferation of senseless wars while, at the same time, there is a deep set resistance to funding job creation, so badly needed by millions of Americans who desperately need work.
• Hundreds of billions of dollars went into the TARP bailout of Wall Street that also included foreign banks, but the necessary funding for rebuilding our national infrastructure, which would create millions of new jobs, has been given no major priority.
• Egypt has received an average of $2 billion in U.S. aid since 1979, most of it going to its military. These taxpayer dollars would better be used to fund our rapidly deteriorating system of education.
• Israel received $3.4 billions of aid in 2013 while all efforts to increase the minimum wage for American workers are regularly defeated.
• The highly profitable oil corporations receive billions in subsidies while Congress cuts billions from the Food Stamp program.
The conduct and behavior of this Congress can only be described as appalling and deplorable. An increasing portion of its members are a disgrace to this country and should be subjected to the scorn and derision of the American people for the unmitigated damage that they are inflicting upon it.
How about the White House and the two presidents who have occupied it in the 21stcentury? It's becoming very evident that when a U.S. president is elected this person must leave the principles of ethics and morality outside the Oval Office. There is no way that an American president can follow these normally accepted standards of conduct when placed under the control of the combination of the embedded Washington Establishment and the ultra-powerful Military-Industrial Complex.
That's why under G.W. Bush this nation conducted the unconscionable and unjustifiable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the use of torture and renditions, and the launching of deadly drones in attacks against sovereign nations. And that's why President Obama has taken the use of these drones to even higher levels, causing the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians in the process. Neither of these presidents hesitated in ordering these attacks even though they knew innocents were needlessly losing their lives. And neither has ever indicated the slightest publicly stated remorse for these contemptible actions.
Ethics and morals are on the verge of becoming extinct in this country and society. It's as if there is no longer a place for them. Of the many discussions and debates I have heard on TV or read about in newspapers I really can't recall many of them identifying the absence of these principles as the central cause of various disturbing political or social conditions. Typically, these discussions are dominated by finger pointing and arguments over opposing political ideologies.
We watch as President Obama strongly supports the actions of the NSA, the National Security Agency which blatantly pursues its massive program of spying on the American people, calling it absolutely necessary. Indications are that it has no intention of making any changes to its aggressive agenda of monitoring all forms of communications in this county. And this president strongly stands behind those who run it even though he knows that what they are doing represents a clear invasion of the Constitutional rights of citizens' privacy.