Social Security, Busted Flat in B'an Rouge Waiting For A Train

It has been said but bears repeating over and over and over to our rightie friends on the streets and in their cubicles: If we had privatized social security the way that McCain and Bush wanted, fully 25% of the Social Security fund would be gone as of today. And we've got no idea what crisis tomorrow will bring.

It must be the republican efficiency brought to us by the first MBA preznit: He told us Social Security would be busted by 2018. (Others said 2042, making the republicans even more remarkable!) If they had their way they'd have hit that mark a full ten years earlier.

Best Line of the Night at the Convention

Bob Casey, Jr: "John McCain calls himself a maverick, but he votes with George Bush 90 percent of the time. That's not a maverick. That's a sidekick."

I wonder if he crosses his fingers behind his back

In remarks before the Knesset in Israel today, President Bush said "We believe in the matchless value of every man*, woman*, and child*. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation*. We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy* in the Middle East than any other nation in the world."







If this is his vision for a free democracy, or the type of democracy he dreamed of bringing to the oppressed people of the world, I think we can understand what went so terribly wrong.

By the way, in his speech he mentions the democratically elected Hamas only long enough to claim that they want to "wipe Israel from the map". He mentions Palestine or the palestinian people exactly never. I don't say that in support of Hamas, but in grasping the reality of the situation on the ground. Something Mr. Bush has no real interest in doing.

*Much like the game where you read your fortune cookie fortune with the suffix "-in my pants", the statements of George Bush need to be read with the silent suffix -"unless you're Palestinian".

The President Speaks

I watched the president's press conference yesterday. I must say the whole of it made me about as angry as I would have expected it to. His main thrust was that everything that's wrong today is the fault of Congress. He asserted in various ways that he's been unable to get several handy dandy bills through for about the last eighteen months or so. Now, by my math that means that he couldn't even get his own republican congress to help him out from November of 2006 to January of 2007, but I don't think he and I do math the same way.

Watching him, I was struck by how small his thinking is. Alternative energy is only nu-cu-lar and ethanol. Drilling in ANWR will solve our dependency on foreign oil and so on. Had John Kerry been elected we'd be nearly three and a half years into our "Apollo Program" for alternative fuel sources. One would hope these would be more than just those choices that benefit Monsanto, ADM and Cargill as well as GE and ConEd.

So in the midst of all his blather, I didn't pay much attention to the one sentence that became the news shows' soundbite. The President of the United States of America said to us "I firmly believe that, you know, if there was a magic wand to wave, I'd be waving it, of course.I've repeatedly submitted proposals to help address these problems, yet time after time Congress chose to block them."

Here's the funny thing. He has been president for over seven years. He could have done something. But let's recall that what was done in 2005 was to give massive tax breaks to the oil companies and other energy firms. We stopped charging royalties to oil companies who take crude from public land. Essentially, we are allowing oil companies to take from the commons for free. And each quarter these companies are setting record profits.

And, what did George W. Bush say in 2005 when he wanted to pass that wonderful energy bill that would bring down the price of gas, which then had soared to a shocking $2.28 a gallon? He said:

"I wish I could simply wave a magic wand and lower gas prices tomorrow," Bush told the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "But we must act now to address the fundamental problem. Our supply of energy is not growing fast enough to meet the demands of our growing economy."

Three years ago he could have waved that magic wand to improve our mass transit infrastructure (my city is trying to add light rail-a forward looking idea that cons hate), could have extended tax credits to buyers of hybrids rather than Hummers, could have encouraged our auto companies to improve fleet efficiency. Rather, the news this morning in Wisconsin is that GM is laying off 750 people at the Janesville SUV plant. Yeah, who could have seen that coming?

And now, McCain and Clinton and others say that we should have a tax holiday for the summer to reduce the price of our gas by eighteen cents a gallon. Think about that: we give the raw product away, we've given billions in tax incentives to the oil companies and now as an answer, some would like us to forgo our own revenue - money that goes to US citizens for roads and infrastructure improvements, because oil companies are overcharging us? Insane.

Is now a good time to remind everyone that had we kept Jimmy Carter's CAFE standards in place we wouldn't need foreign oil?

Fer Chrissake's I Hope He Doesn't Call Us "Bitter"

This sounds vaguely like something I heard last Friday:

During his visit to the United Nations a few days later, the Pope will address "the false notion that might makes right," according to a Vatican representative.

Some experts also predict the Pope would criticize the "culture of fear" in the United States. The Rev. David Hollenbach, director of Boston College's Center for Human Rights, said recently that this culture is seen as integral to the US involvement in Iraq.

"Fear can lead to angry responses," Hollenbach said, according to the Connecticut Post. "I think the pope's message is going to be 'Don't be afraid.' I think the overcoming of fear can take away the impulse for war."

This came from an article at Raw Story about how the Pope will be skipping dinner with the Bushes. One might begin to wonder if the new "in" trend in dining is to be able to say you turned down an invitation to the White House. Because the Pope's not the first: Last April the King of Saudi Arabia said no thanks.

Your Very Own Torture Memo

It was a Freedom of Information Act request from the ACLU that showed that Bush was in on the torture from the get go. He has admitted as much himself.

In case you are not a card-carrying member of the ACLU (what?), here is the call to action from the ACLU (It's one of those messages I'm supposed to cut 'n' paste into an e-mail):

Subject: Bush's top-down torture policies

On Friday night, in a national television interview on ABC News, President Bush directly admitted that the White House was deeply involved in decisions about the CIA’s use of torture.

Recent reports indicate that members of the Bush administration including Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet met regularly and approved the CIA’s use of “combined” “enhanced” interrogation techniques -- tactics that amount to torture.

I just demanded that my members of Congress support strenuous efforts, including the appointment of an independent prosecutor, to hold President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and other high-ranking officials accountable for their role in crafting torture policy.

I thought you would like to know about this and would also want to do something about it. To take action, just follow the link below.

http://action.aclu.org/topdowntorture

Mr. Toad's Wild Ride

Many bloggers have noted that George W Bush has set a record for the all-time low approval rating. He also set the record for the all-time high approval rating at 90 just after 9/11.



This means he has also set the record for the most precipitous fall of all time, a whopping 71 point decline.

(Harry Truman had previously held both the high and low records as well, dropping from 89 to 22. History remembers Harry Truman kindly. History thinks Bush is a major league twit and an ignorant anomaly).

In related news, Vice President Dick Cheney has reported that having an approval rating in the teens has not in the least hampered his ambitions to completely screw the country. Nancy Pelosi agreed.

Mencken was not talking about Bush.

It's hard to believe but it is true that Mencken did not mean George W. Bush. H.L. Mencken said

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

and many people believe this describes George W. Bush. (h/t to Zoey & Me) If you believe GW to be the everyman cowboy just off the Texas Ranch I guess you are closer to Mencken's opinion. Except that Bush (and not the Kennedys) comes closest to what could be considered an aristocracy in this country of just about any politician in the last 60 years. What Mencken was lamenting was the very American idea that anyone can grow up to be president. He called the middle class the 'booboisie'. Mencken was an elitist, and if one remembers that Bush was born in Newhaven Connecticut, educated at Andover, Yale and Harvard, and is distantly related to Queen Elizabeth, one can see our Bush is definately one of the elite.

Mencken would have been opposed to Bill Clinton. He would have approved the ascendency of both of the Bushes.

The Look of Love

McCain hearts Bushie



I would like this better if it had a boom-chicka-wow-wow soundtrack, otherwise it sums it up pretty well.

SOTU at the Wundruns

It took an awful lot to get through it.

I perked up when he started talking about exploring alternative energy sources. I did tequila shots when he mentioned that those sources are coal gasification and nuclear energy.

A whole 'nother year. Sigh.

Also: Right after the speech, NBC did an unpaid 5 minute advertorial with Mitt Romney. What gives? Romney promised us that he would stay the course by being the agent of change. His hair looked Great! Then, following a fantastic rebuttal by Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius (read it here) the same favor was done for Obama and Clinton. Where was Edwards?

The way I feel about the "Economic Stimulus Plan" is like...

the way a woman feels when her no-good, cheatin', thievin', lyin' abusive husband brings her flowers and tells her to forget about all that bad stuff that happened before.

'Weren't nuthin''.

Smart people talk about it:

Distributorcap
Pygalgia
D-Cup at Jonestown
Chris in Seattle
Tengrain

Retirement: If you get there afore me, Trentie....

"The good news is - and it's hard for some to see it now - that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house - he's lost his entire house - there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."

Good Cop, Bad Cop

One of these guys steps over the line all the time. One of these guys will never cross the line. Somedays you need a scorecard.

Maybe he should put little stickers on the insoles

to tell the left shoe from the right shoe.

It works for my 4yo.

(Image swiped from Commander Other's Otherwhirled)

Update: I think Franiam has helped solve the dilemma: Bush is so far right he refuses to wear the left shoe.

Qwinky Dink, Dr. Dictionary?

Do you think there is anything behind the selection of today's Word of the Day?

Just wondering.

Look what BAC made

This is pretty cool. BAC at Yikes made it. Yay! Yikes!



So true. And she can do a "Laura" episode too.

Oh. We have come to this.

Can you imagine Ronald Reagan saying this:

"It [the missile defense system] is not designed to defend against an attack from Russia. The missile defenses we could employ would be easily overwhelmed by Russia's nuclear arsenal. Russia has hundreds of missiles and thousands of warheads. We're planning to deploy ten interceptors in Europe. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math."

-GeeDubya, October 23rd.

And it doesn't take a CIA analyst to look at the photo:



The Caspian region is the new darling of oil drilling. And, stop me if this sounds familiar, there is going to be a new pipeline soon. Last week they held a summit. As a littoral state Russia was in. The agreement included regional security measures. A security treaty, if you will, between Russia and Iran.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Russia has much to gain economically and politically from standing up to the United States in the rift over Iran. A stronger alliance with Iran would help Russia preserve its dominance in the Caspian region and discourage other ex-Soviet nations from launching Western-oriented pipeline projects that would bypass Moscow's monopoly on pipelines out of the oil- and gas-rich area

Yeah, it's all about the islamofascism. Oil's got nothing to do with it. Keep repeating, and soon we'll get our war.

Chimpy the jokester.

Yeah. That about sums it up.

Ats'a nice quilt...

Duz it keep yer feet warm?

Waxman has been wondering

WTF is up with Blackwater.

Monday, October 01, 2007
Iraq Reconstruction, Defense and Security
New Questions About Blackwater Actions in Iraq

Previously undisclosed information reveals (1) Blackwater has engaged in 195 “escalation of force” incidents since 2005, an average of 1.4 per week, including over 160 incidents in which Blackwater forces fired first; (2) after a drunken Blackwater contractor shot the guard of the Iraqi Vice President, the State Department allowed the contractor to leave Iraq and advised Blackwater on the size of the payment needed “to help them resolve this”; and (3) Blackwater, which has received over $1 billion in federal contracts since 2001, is charging the federal government over $1,200 per day for each “protective security specialist” employed by the company.

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Henry Waxman, chair.

Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater, will testify before congress tomorrow.