We had wanted the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop the government-approved slaughter of wild horses and burros in the southwest, but were disappointed that the cattle industry used its money and influence to shelter politicians from Americans who asked for compassion and understanding of  breeds that roamed freely long before the nation’s “Manifest Destiny.”

We wanted to see the federal government protect wolves, foxes, and coyotes, none of whom attack humans, have no food or commercial value, but are major players in environmental balance. But, we knew that the hunting industry would prevail since they see these canines only as competition.

We wanted to see the Pennsylvania legislature stand up for what is right and courageously end the cruelty of pigeon shoots. But, a pack of cowards left Pennsylvania as the only state where pigeon shoots, with their illegal gambling, are actively held.

For what seems to be decades, we have written against racism and bigotry. But many politicians still believe that gays deserve few, if any, rights; that all Muslims are enemy terrorists; and publicly lie that Voter ID is a way to protect the integrity of the electoral process, while knowing it would disenfranchise thousands of poor and minority citizens.

We will continue to write about the destruction of the environment and of ways people are trying to save it. Environmental concern is greater than a decade ago, but so is the ignorant prattling of those who believe global warming is a hoax, and mistakenly believe that the benefits of natural gas fracking, with well-paying jobs in a depressed economy, far outweigh the environmental, health, and safety problems they cause.Ee will continue to write against government corruption, bailouts, tax advantages for the rich and their corporations, governmental waste, and corporate greed. They will continue to exist because millionaire legislators will continue to protect those who contribute to political campaigns. Nevertheless, we will continue to speak out against politicians who have sacrificed the lower- and middle-classes in order to protect the one percent.

We will continue to write about the effects of laying off long-time employees and of outsourcing jobs to “maximize profits.” Until Americans realize that “cheaper” doesn’t necessarily mean “better,” we’ll continue to explain why exploitation knows no geographical boundaries.

The working class successfully launched major counter-attacks against seemingly-entrenched anti-labor politicians in Wisconsin, Ohio, and other states. But these battles will be as long and as bitter as the politicians who deny the rights of workers. We will continue to speak out for worker rights, better working conditions, and benefits at least equal to their managers. We don’t expect anything to change in 2012, but we are still hopeful that a minority of business owners who already respect the worker will influence the rest.

There are still those who believe education is best served by programs manacled by teaching-to-the-test mentality, and are more than willing to sacrifice quality for numbers. We will continue to write about problems in the nation’s educational system, especially the failure to encourage intellectual curiosity and respect for the tenets of academic integrity.

Against great opposition, the President and Congress passed sweeping health care reform. But, certain members of Congress, all of whom have better health care than most Americans, have proclaimed they will dismantle the program they derisively call “Obamacare.”

During this new year, we will still be writing about the unemployed, the homeless, those without adequate health coverage—and against the political lunatics who continue to deny Americans the basics of human life, essentials that most civilized countries already give their citizens.

We had written forcefully against the previous president and vice-president when they strapped on their six-shooters and sent the nation into war in a country that posed no threat to us, while failing to adequately attack a country that housed the core of the al-Qaeda movement. We wrote about the Administration’s failure to provide adequate protection for the soldiers they sent into war or adequate and sustained mental and medical care when they returned home. The War in Iraq is now over, but the war in Afghanistan continues. The reminder of these wars will last as long as there are hospitals and cemeteries.

We had written dozens of stories against the Bush–Cheney Administration’s belief in the use of torture and why it thought it was necessary to shred parts of the Constitution. We had hoped that a new president, a professor of Constitutional law, would stop the attack upon our freedoms and rights. But the PATRIOT Act was extended, and new legislation was enacted that reduces the rights and freedoms of all citizens. At all levels of government, Constitutional violations still exist, and a new year won’t change our determination to bring to light these violations wherever and whenever they occur.

The hope we and this nation had for change we could believe in, and which we still hope will not die, has been minced by the reality of petty politics, with the “Party of No” and its raucous Teabagger mutation blocking social change for America’s improvement. We can hope that the man we elected will realize that compromise works only when the opposition isn’t entrenched in a never-ending priority not of improving the country, but of keeping him from a second term. Perhaps now, three years after his inauguration, President Obama will disregard the disloyal opposition and unleash the fire and truth we saw in the year before his election, and will speak out even more forcefully for the principles we believed when we, as a nation, gave him the largest vote total of any president in history.

We really want to be able to write columns about Americans who take care of each other, about leaders who concentrate upon fixing the social problems. But we know that’s only an ethereal ideal.  So, we’ll just have to hope that the waters of social justice wear down, however slowly, the jagged rocks of haughty resistance.

There isn’t a household in Pennsylvania that has active voters that hasn’t been subjected to at least two dozen TV political ads each day, several robo-calls a week, and a few dozen direct mail full-color 8-1/2-by-11 inch postcard campaign ads. Many households have already received three or four dozen such ads in the past month.

Pennsylvanians aren’t the only ones who have been subjected to a deluge of political campaign ads the past six months. In California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Connecticut, Wisconsin, and West Virginia, in every state in which there is a possibility of Republicans taking Senate, House, and governor seats from Democrats, there is a battle. The tactic is fear. The facts don’t matter. It makes little difference. It’s the results the politicians, their parties, and innumerable special interest groups care most about.

This year, more than $4 billion will be spent on Congressional and Gubernatorial races on the mid-term election. From individuals. From corporations. From special interest groups. Leading the donations from special interest groups are the conservative U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which pledged to spend more than $75 million; American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, formed by Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s political advisor, which is expected to spend about $65 million; and the Republican Governors Association, which has already donated more than $30 million, leaving the Democratic Governors Association, which has contributed about $10 million, in its dust. Other Democrat-leaning organizations are Act Blue, which will spend about $15 and Moveon, which will probably spend about $25 million, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Thanks to a 5–4 ruling by the Supreme Court in January, corporations now enjoy the First Amendment rights of individuals. And corporate money, mostly to conservative causes, has poured into the campaigns. None of the special interest groups — no matter which political ideology they embrace — are taxed.

In the third quarter alone, 23 individuals have contributed more than $100,000 each — 15 to conservative causes, seven to liberal causes, one to a non-profit, according to the CRP. Five of the six who gave more than $1 million in the past three months have donated to Republican/conservative campaigns.

The leader in campaign giving, according to Federal Election Commission data, is Bob J. Perry, owner of Texas-based Perry Homes. During the past decade, Perry donated about $35 million to conservative candidates and special interest groups, and was a founder of Swift Boat Veterans, which targeted John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Perry isn’t the only financial whale. Former eBay CEO, Meg Whitman, has put up about $140 million of her own fortune in a bitter contest against Jerry Brown for the governorship of California. The job pays $212,000 a year. In Connecticut, Linda McMahon will spend almost $50 million of her own fortune to try to defeat Richard Blumenthal, who has spent about $6 million, to be one of the state’s two senators, according to CRP data.

While persons, corporations, and special interest groups are donating billions to the mid-term elections, American companies and corporations in every village, town, borough, and city will have outsourced about 1.6 million jobs in 2010, according to data compiled by Forrester Research; the same companies and corporations have outsourced about 5.5 million jobs in the past decade to foreign countries in order to increase the “bottom line.” About 14.8 million Americans are unemployed, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

On the streets of America, banks and various lending institutions will have foreclosed on about 1.2 million families in 2010, according to Daily Finance.

Here is another statistic. While persons, corporations, and special interest groups are donating billions to the mid-term elections, in every village, town, borough, and city in America about 750,000 persons will be homeless tonight. By the time the winners in the November 2 election take office in January, more than 3.5 million Americans, about one-fourth of them veterans, will have been homeless in the year in which more than $4 billion was spent to elect political candidates. The politicians will be warm during their inaugurals; the homeless won’t be.

We are being told to fear the swine flu virus, and then learn that the vaccine, which was supposed to be available in mid-October, won’t be ready for awhile.

It makes little difference anyhow, since about fifty million Americans don’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford the cost of vaccinations or treatment.

The ogres of health reform, also known as Republicans and the insurance industry, have already frightened Americans by spewing lies and hatreds no costumed kid could ever top.

The teabaggers, thousands of Americans dressed in work clothes but who seem to despise the working class, disgorge even more lies, half-truths, fear, and hatred, along with spurts of poisonous doses of racism and bigotry, since they have to blame someone for their own problems.

The minority party has long since ceased being the loyal opposition and are now just bitter and venomous cogs in the progress of society. These pseudo-patriot reptiles who have taken over the Republican party have further shown just how disloyal they truly are when they hissed at the President of the United States for winning the Nobel Prize and then cheered that Chicago lost the Olympics bid to Rio de Janiero. The increase of hate isn’t likely to level off soon.

Also not leveling off are unemployment, bankruptcies, housing foreclosures, and the problems caused by increased homelessness, all of which began increasing more than two years before Barack Obama became president. As long as the Party of No, with the assistance of Blue Dog Democrats, can block reform, don’t look for an eight-year-old wearing a devil’s costume to be the scariest thing around.

American taxpayers have doled out billions to banks, which have figured out new ways to scam their customers and clients. The taxpayers have also bailed out auto manufacturers who had frivolously spent more than a fleet of drunken sailors while not being able to figure out how to get their own operations in ship-shape competition.

Americans, who are struggling just to survive, are being tricked by banking, insurance, and investment portfolio executives who are wearing Cheshire cat grins while they continue to reap in millions in taxpayer-provided bonuses for being incompetent and inefficient.

The fear instilled by the 9/11 attacks led Americans to willingly yield some of their Constitutional rights, while pretending that such laws as the PATRIOT Act would protect them from further harm. The fear of the past eight years that has led to the theft of six Constitutional amendments is scarier than any costumed pirate.

Frightening is also having a mass media that prefer to do play-by-play reporting on the latest celebrity break-up or coupling, real or imagined, rather than looking into critical social issues.

Indeed, ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night don’t stand a chance of competing on Halloween with the fear that now exists in our country.

We have recently learned that former President Bush and former Vice-President Cheney had authorized the use of torture. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

The Supreme Court has ruled there have been significant and substantial constitutional violations during the Bush-Cheney era. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

More than 46 million Americans don’t have health insurance. Millions don’t get the health care they need or are turned away because they can’t pay. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

The unemployment rate has climbed past 8 percent. More than 12 million Americans are unemployed and actively looking for work. About three million have been unemployed more than half a year. About 2.6 millions jobs were lost just in the past four months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies have eliminated jobs, forcing the remaining employees to work beyond their capacity. These companies have cut wages and benefits; they have shipped jobs overseas. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

About 38 million Americans are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

About 3.5 million people were homeless last year. More than one million of the homeless are children, according to the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Over a half-million are veterans. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

Almost every reputable scientist has told us that the world’s environment is in jeopardy from man-made destruction. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

We are killing off our animals by a combination of neglect and planned destruction of their lives and habitat. About 1,600 animal species are critically endangered, according to the World Conservation Union; about 25 become extinct every year. But, we as a nation are not outraged.

But, we are outraged about one thing. Our money.

We are outraged that Wall Street financiers, corporate bankers, and real estate brokers have seemingly conspired for personal greed, leading to a plunge in the value of our own stocks and investments, forcing the nation into the worst economic crisis in more than seven decades.

We, as a nation, are outraged that Bernard Madoff scammed individuals and charitable foundations for billions.

We, as a nation, are outraged that executives at failed insurance giant AIG are receiving millions in bonuses paid for by taxpayer funds. In Congress, conservatives and liberals, many of whom were part of the problem of the subprime mortgage crisis, have united for the first time in years and have expressed their outrage. The President, who inherited this mess, is outraged. The media who had failed to adequately report this mess are outraged. Almost every American is outraged.

And why are we outraged? Because it’s money.

As homeless children sleep beneath bridges, as millions desperate for work are told to go home and collect a pittance in unemployment, as innocent Iraqis die, as young soldiers return without limbs, as our earth is being destroyed, we sit and yawn through the news, desensitized to the horror. But, sadly, the one thing we react to, the driving impetus to contact our legislators, and the one thing that moves us to outrage is money.

And we criticize the Wall Street financiers and investors, the greedy bankers and those wanting to make a quick-flip profit in housing?! Perhaps our outrage comes from a deeper place, an inner reality that we see just a hint of ourselves and what each of us is capable of if we were given the financial opportunity.

“I don’t believe in the executive power trumping everything,” Reid, the Senate’s majority leader, told the political newspaper, The Hill. He said he believed “in our Constitution, three separate but equal branches of government.” For emphasis, he warned, “If Obama steps over the bounds, I will tell him. … I do not work for Barack Obama, I work with him.”

Feinstein, incoming chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, whined that Obama didn’t consult her before nominating Leon Panetta, former Clinton chief of staff, to be CIA director. She then tagged her complaint with an unveiled attack upon Panetta. “My position has consistently been that I believe the Agency is best-served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time,” said Feinstein.

Both concerns by Reid and Feinstein might be commendable–had Reid and Feinstein been as tough on George W. Bush before his popularity sank lower than a Texan wearing Hush Puppies at a line dance.

Reid and Feinstein voted for the PATRIOT Act not once but twice. Feinstein was even one of the co-sponsors to renew the Act. By the time Congress voted to renew the PATRIOT Act, the federal courts had already ruled several parts to be either unconstitutional or constitutionally questionable.

Reid eventually opposed the President’s illegal wiretapping of citizens. However, Feinstein supported continued wiretaps without court authority. She later joined a coalition of conservative Democrats and Republican senators to support a reduction in proposed civil liberties protection in the modified Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and to extend the power of the executive branch.

Both Reid and Feinstein willingly approved the invasion of Iraq. They eventually changed their position more than four years later, at a time when Americans, who once said anti-war protestors were traitors and un-American, had finally realized that they had been lied to as to reasons for the invasion.

One reason Obama may not have consulted with Feinstein about Panetta’s nomination, although he later apologized for the “oversight,” may be because Feinstein supported CIA activities under the Bush–Cheney Administration. Panetta’s nomination was partially because Obama wanted a strong administrator at the CIA and partially because he was sending a clear message that unquestioned execution of Bush–Cheney policies that led to rendition and torture would not be tolerated under an Obama Administration. Feinstein supported Bush’s nomination of Porter Goss as CIA director. Although once a CIA agent, Goss had spent three decades as a career politician who had viciously attacked those whose political beliefs didn’t agree with his; as director of Central Intelligence he allowed his agency to massage data to the Administration’s wishes.

Although Reid did call Bush a “loser” and a “liar,” he later apologized for the comments and showed little rage against the bullying tactics of the Republican-controlled Congress during Bush’s first term. During Bush’s last term, Reid became more aggressive against the Administration’s incursion upon civil liberties, and did lead his Democratic colleagues to oppose numerous Bush–Cheney power plays. However, as minority leader in December 2005, he acknowledged in an interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News that Congress “has done very very little oversight” of the President’s actions.

Barack Obama is the most popular president-elect in almost four decades. He received 52 percent of the popular vote, a higher percentage than Bush received in his second election, and for which the second term president said he had a mandate from the people. At the end of 2008, a CNN/Opinion Research poll revealed that two-thirds of all Americans said they admired Obama, about three-fourths said Obama was a strong and decisive leader, and four-fifths said they believe Obama inspires confidence.

Reid and Feinstein’s challenges to the hugely-popular incoming president, one who unlike Cheney and Bush believes in following constitutional and international law, as well as transparency of government, were unusual and defensive. More important, they weren’t necessary two weeks before inauguration.

The Republican right wing wants to dress Barack Obama as a socialist terrorist, putting on him a large black beard, a kufi hat and abaya robe. Instead of handing out candy, these wing nuts have Obama handing out dollar bills, which he stole from hard-working conservative millionaires.

The Right Wing doesn’t say much about Joe Biden, knowing he’s sharper than any of the candidates about foreign affairs, but he does occasionally put a foot in his mouth. Maybe they can dress him as a podiatrist.

The Democrats want to glue John McCain to George W. Bush, and parade them door-to-door as conjoined twins. Assuming that isn’t acceptable to McCain — at least now — maybe the Democrats can dress McCain as a Mission: Impossible tape recorder, knowing at some point he’ll self-destruct.

It shouldn’t be too hard to find a costume for Sarah Palin. During the past two months, the Republicans spent $150,000 on clothes for her and her family, plus at least $23,000 for makeup. After figuring out that the nation is in a Recession, that most Americans don’t even earn $170,000 in three years — and that some outraged Americans found out about her shopping spree — Palin spun out and claimed that the clothes really aren’t hers and will be donated after the election, most probably to starving Republican day traders. For Halloween, and for a truly scary appearance, maybe Mooseburger could remove all the makeup and lipstick her handlers put on her to make salivating middle-aged men believe that outward beauty is an acceptable cover-up to inner vacuousness.

While large numbers of wolves, polar bears, and moose have been seen registering to vote, hoping that Palin wins and leaves their state, Palin is busy stalking Dick Cheney’s footprint, hoping to continue her mind-meld with him.

And speaking of Cheney, a nice costume for him might be a repaired heart, assuming he had one. But, since he has again suddenly disappeared from sight, he might be dressed as the Ghost of America Thankfully Past.

Ralph Nader, who has good ideas, hardly any media coverage, and absolutely no chance to be president, could wear a large fluorescent green leaf, and carry an organic sign — “Hey, I’m over here!”

Bob Barr is running for president on the Libertarian ticket. He is an NRA board member and was once a conservative Republican who led the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Lately, he’s been on an extended speaking tour for the ACLU. Perhaps we could dress him as the Statue of Liberty, a rifle in one hand and what’s left of a shredded Constitution fiercely clutched in his other hand.

There are more than 200 other third party and independent candidates. It would be far too expensive to give them all individual costumes, so why not dress each of them as sheep on steroids, bleating to be free of the pack, and hoping to attract voters who are disgusted with the policies and candidates of the Democratic and Republic parties.

We’re not scared about the voters. They’ll do whatever it is that voters do for whatever reasons they do it. We’re scared about what happens to their votes after they’re crunched by pro-Bush Republican-dominated Diebold, the company that manufactures most electronic voting machines in the country.

Like 300 million other Americans and several billion in other countries, we’re scared about the economy. You know, the one that was spurred by a combination of greed, incompetence, and lack of governmental regulation. Children and their parents are all going to be trick-or-treating this Halloween, hoping there are still some families that have extra food to give to those who may soon become homeless.

Finally, we’re really scared that in a few months we’ll all hear George W. Bush and Dick Cheney tell us, “We’re Baaaack!”