The News Civil War: Part 1 The Winds of War continued

      This is the continuation of Part 1 of a multi part post.

      With the election of Ronald Reagan and the improvement of the economy and cooperation of  Congress, the far left, whose next goal was to take over the Democrat Party, had to work well below the surface.  Taking over universities, school boards, and starting to rewrite history were their early objectives. After the election of Bush XL1 in 1988, the left began to take a more aggressive approach. The first was to force Bush, who had stated as one of his campaign promises, "read my lips, no new taxes," to raise taxes.  Bush had been riding a wave of popularity after the utter defeat and expulsion from Kuwait of Saddam Hussien and his huge army including the total devastation of his so called elite Republican Guard.  Despite the quick decisive victory in 1991, Bush saw his popularity, then at an all time high, plummet by the 1992 elections.  That election saw a populist candidate somewhat similar to Donald Trump, named Ross Perot.  He was a Texas billionaire, who made his fortune in data storage, who had a broad spectrum of political beliefs. He had something of a populist platform including opposition to NAFTA.    He bought 1/2 hour television segments to lay out his campaign and at one time led both Bush and Clinton with 39%  of the possible vote, Bush was 34% and Clinton 23%.  Despite these favorable numbers, Perot suspended his campaign temporarily, but by the time he resumed it after getting on all 50 state ballots it was too late.  Still he got 18.9% of the vote, but no electoral votes.  Clinton won with 43% and Bush came in second with 38%.
      Though representing the Democrat Party, Bill Clinton was something of a pragmatist, driven primarily by greed for power, money, and legacy.  Almost out of law school he  became attorney general for the state of Arkansas and then its governor, never working in the private sector.  His wife, Hillary, who has never showed any particular legal prowess, was hired by the Rose Law Firm, Arkansas's most prestigious at the time and made partner when Bill became governor. As First Lady, she decided to rewrite healthcare and spent a great deal of time and money on the effort, only to have it never even voted on. She was involved with one scandal after another, as it turned out, honed her skills at destroying or hiding evidence.   A weak special counsel refused to indict her despite, numerous lies and evidence of obstruction of justice.  Bill committed treason in order to get $20 million in campaign contributions for the Red Chinese Army for his 1996 campaign, by selling them missile guidance technology. The Lewinsky scandal, that occurred simultaneously, served as a diversion.  Still WJC saw the advantage to working with Republicans who had taken over Congress on the basis of their "Contract with America." Even though he raised taxes and practice crony capitalism, the economy did well despite this, as a multi trillion dollar industry, the internet, began and rapidly flourished during his regime.  Whether it was ego or bad advice, but when Janet Reno, Clinton's Attorney General, indicted Microsoft, one of the engines driving the stock market and the economy, the dot com bubble burst and led to a short, but unpublicized recession in 2000.  Meanwhile the far left continued its efforts at taking over our universities.  It should be noted the one of our current Supreme Court Justices, Elena Kagan, did away with Constitutional Law 101 at Harvard Law School and replaced it with Comparative Constitutional Law. Clinton's p4p continued up to his last days, pardoning Mark Rich, a wealthy oil trader, who ignored sanctions illegally dealt with Iraq.  A gift to the planned Clinton library greased the way to the pardon.
      During this period the far left was quietly continuing its take over of universities and school boards and political correctness raised its ugly head.  Identity politics reared its ugly head as the left claimed Republicans were anti senior citizen,  anti women, anti gay, and anti black (things haven't changed). I complained to my children's Jewish Day School when I learned that a teacher had told one of my children's classes that Jeb Bush, running for governor, was anti semitic. That prompted a call to administration, complaining that I did not want my children to listen to far left propaganda.  I also complained about their text books, in particular history books.  When I was told that these were the same books recommended by the California State School Board, I replied, "I rest my case."
      The 2000 presidential election ended in controversy and the Gore vs Bush lawsuit went to the Supreme Court that found overwhelming for George Bush XLIII.  Bush was just starting to turn the economy around after the recession of 2000 (the MSM never reported on it) when radical Islamists destroyed the World Trade center in NYC and murdered almost 3000 people. For a short time, as Americans tend to do, we and the world came together and soon American soldiers were sent to Afghanistan to attack Al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Ladin. The Taliban, anti America government was forced out and it and Al Qada took to the hills.  The war continues to this day.  A committee was formed to study the attack and Jamie Gorelick an assistant secretary of state under WJC was added to the committee to protect Clinton, who had several opportunities to take out Bin Ladin.  In addition, she had forced rules that didn't allow the FBI and CIA to talk to one another.  Another Clinton official, Sandy "the burglar" Berger was caught stealing classified documents in his socks.
      At the same time Saddam Hussien began playing a game of chicken with  President Bush over WMDs.  Though minimal amounts were found, at least some were shipped to Syria and Libya.  An audit by Paul Volcker, former Fed chairman, not only uncovered cheating in the oil for food program, but a bribe of $970k to America hater, Canadian communist and billionaire, and partner of Algore, who was supposed to be overseeing it. Based on WMDs, Iraq was invaded and Saddam Hussien was ultimately captured and executed.  The story did not have a happy ending as multiple factions, including Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds fought something of a civil war as well as an Iranian backed guerrilla war against government and US Forces.  The war in Iraq also became prolonged and began to divide members of Congress.  As a result, the Democrats took control of Congress with the 2006 midterm elections and began dictating economic policy that included raising taxes and restrictions on banking and the economy.  The Community Redevelopment Act (CRA) finally caught up with the economy and the housing bubble collapsed.   President Bush and his cabinet were ill equipped to handle the recession and economic disaster.  Some, in the most important positions, were in favor of big government.  Bush who had been told that his spending on pursuing two wars and increasing the deficit was what was responsible.  With the possibility of some large bank failures, Henry Paulson,  Treasury Secretary, initiated a bailout, but not before Lehman Brothers went under.  As it turned out Lehman Brothers was the chief rival of Goldman Sachs, Paulson's old firm.  Shortly there after, it was decided to bail out AIG as "too big to fail," but the real reason was AIG owed Goldman Sachs tens of billions, that would have disappeared on Goldman's balance sheet with a bankruptcy.
      That concludes the section on the Winds of War.  In Part 2, I will describe the far left's take over of the Democrat Party and the rise of Barack Obama as its leader.