Within 24 hrs of being re-elected, Senator Jim DeMint from South Carolina reneged on his campaign pledge not to vote on increasing the national debt ceiling. Backpedaling on campaign promises is normal in politics, and everyone expects it. Politicians just usually wait for the ink to dry on the ballots before they do it... Backing out on his campaign promise early is a strategy which assumes voters won’t remember his political u-turn six years from now. That may be true. Much of his campaign contributions, the legal ones of course, were from retirees and elderly voters who might not be alive when he is up for re-election.

Once you’re in office, who cares what the electorate think. In six years it will all be forgotten, or you can just deny it. Getting rich and getting re-elected are primary goals. Saint Jim has vowed to make vague, sweeping, ‘across the board’ cuts in government spending. Just what he plans to cut remains a secret. I think his salary would be a good start.

DeMint is the Messiah of the Puritan Tea Party Movement, who are against big government and social reforms. Actually they are against pretty much everything. Re-elected on a platform of bringing God and Christian values back into politics, DeMint answers only to the Almighty. The Tea Party Movement should start to heat up when they realize the Senator has slammed his campaign bus full of promises into reverse, and won’t be fulfilling their oddball agenda. I miss President Clinton and the real good old days. Somalia and Monica Lewinsky were his biggest mistakes but we had the lowest unemployment in thirty years and a budget surplus. Handing power over to President Bush was like giving an alcoholic the keys to my local pub.

So why did America vote for the Party who created their financial pot hole, started two foreign wars, and drove the economic bus into the ditch? People are mad, not the insane type mad of course, just mad as hell. When you’re unemployed, two years is a long time to wait, and voters have little patience. President Obama made the mistake of making job creation his number two priority. Health Care Reform Bill was a huge plus for the American people, but putting people to work should have been paramount.

Republican Senator Lindsay Graham announced to a Halifax, Nova Scotia conference that the US should make a pre-emptive strike against Iran and “neuter” them. Sink their Navy, ground their Air Force and defeat the Army were his suggestions.

Ordinarily this would be chalked up to the ravings of another anti-Islamic republican, but Sen. Graham sits on the influential Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees. Who exactly is going to pay for, or fight this war didn’t come up at the conference. We need another mid-east conflict like we need another Gulf oil spill.

The Iraq and Afghanistan debacle are costing the US two billion dollars a week, which is unfunded and gets tacked onto the Nation’s debt. Not only are my unborn grand children going to be paying for the military campaigns in the Middle East, but they will probably be fighting in it also. The US couldn’t do this without allied support and I really hope the western allied governments will say ‘enough already’ and just like in Vietnam, refuse to support military action. Iraq and Afghanistan were not really campaign issues in the past mid-term elections. That bothers me, as it seems that being involved in a foreign conflict is becoming a ‘business as usual policy’. Casualty lists barely make page (2) in the national newspaper. When did we become so indifferent to our troops being killed in an unnecessary war?

Veterans Day (Poppy Day) takes place this Thursday, Nov. 11. And every year I dig out, and wear my faded Poppy to remember our Heroes. I can’t get one here in the US and my Poppy is a cherished gift.

We set aside one day a year to honour our Nations veterans and we should think of them more often. They deserve better. Across the Pond