Privatization's track record

Very not so hot. I'm glad Kevin Drum is all over this issue.

The fix is in

Bush has apparently one thing in mind and one thing only at the moment: Social Security privatization. Which means that we are about to get faced with a debilitating flood of misinformation guaranteed to scare the bejeebis out of Mom and Pop Applepieamerica and open the floodgates for the trillions of dollars of debt that will accrue from a change that DOESN'T NEED TO TAKE PLACE IN THE FIRST PLACE. This is Bush's second term Iraq, and we all know what happened the first time around.

Forget the hype. Here's what it's all about. Right here.

Krugman is on the case, and both of these articles, part I and part II are clear, easy to follow and to the point.

Soon enough, we're going to be hearing more and more from "men on the street" like "common man" Tom DeHaven.

Be A Deadbeat at Any Cost

This is an extremely interesting investigative report on the credit card industry by PBS. Who ever knew a deadbeat was a GOOD thing to be? (Read the article and you will understand...)

Mr. Mxyzptlk, or Nothing But Clear Skies

I realize now the gut sensation that I get from the Bush Administration as a whole. It is the sensation that I used to get when I would read about Superman’s evil doppelganger Bizarro, living in the Bizarro World where everything is what everything here is not. Perhaps this administration is just the result of a visit from Mr. Mxyzptlk.

I realize I’m once again accusing Bush of being evil, but in a world where evil is good, am I not instead Bush of being good? You see how this works…

Rumsfeld, certain to learn what he knows that he does not know what he would know when he knows what he does not know

Rumsfeld, once again proving himself more than ready to serve on a Bush Cabinet for four more years.

Isn't it reassuring to know that in a war that has been going on now for nearly two years, they have been working on the shortage of armor problem "for months"? Yes, reassuring as always...

Snow Job

Well, John Snow is going to stay on as Treasury Secretary after all. So it's good to refresh our memories about the capable staff that Bush is keeping in place, and we can start with this inspiring piece by Arianna Huffington.

Connecting the Dots

Every once in a while, when I get a chance to step back from the absurd Orwellian nightmare that is the current Presidential administration, I realize that with all of the smaller atrocities that they perform on a regular basis, and all the political games that they are constantly playing, it becomes increasingly difficult to see the forest for the trees, to understand the bigger picture that is what induces (or should induce) terror in the heart of any well-meaning American citizen. When they are planning on creating an illusory $1 TRILLION DOLLARS in order to pay for unnecessary Social Security reform, when they are planning to pay for what they have no money to pay for by destroying corporate incentives to help employees get health insurance, when they are talking about their great plan for democracy in the Middle East while in fact causing our standing in the eyes of the citizens of the Middle East to plummet through the floor, it gets more and more difficult to look at the WHOLE thing and try to figure out – what in the hell are they doing anyway, and why are they doing it? Because the sum total of the Bush agenda is no less than the demolition of the federal government and the social safety net as we know it. "Ownership society" means nothing except "every man for himself" and more specifically "government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich" with no recourse for the weak and the poor, and it doesn't take much imagination to picture the outcome of a modern oligarchy run entirely on unrestrained social Darwinism. So it helps when someone comes along to simplify matters, to put them in perspective, and to give a good idea of a bigger picture.

Ed Kilgore provides a good rant about this here, and a good meditation on why good, honest Republicans, and yes they do exist, are allowing the current cynical, hypocritical bunch to run this country into the ground. This article by Molly Ivins is a good micro-macro picture, wherein she describes the Texasification of America (and she should know, good Texan that she is). And this article by Paul Krugman gives a good clear picture of the monstrosity that is the planned privatization of Social Security, and the trumped-up "Social Security crisis" that is being invented by the Bush Administration to justify it.

For the bigger picture, I think it's good to keep in mind as well the Economist article cited below (in my post called The Falling Dollar). If we think the financial picture is bleak now, largely because of the massive amount of debt we're bending under, imagine if the government just randomly decided to create a fictional additional trillion dollars - i.e. took out another trillion dollars in debt - to fix a problem THAT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST. Put this together with the fact that - as depicted in the Ivins article - our government is apparently becoming nothing more than an endless series of cover-ups for cynical bastards whose highest aspiration in life seems to be finding out just how much bilking of their fellow citizens they can get away with before getting caught. If you can find another driving motive, please, help me out...

This ain't no Michael Moore documentary

You'd think that a document this incriminating regarding America's (and specifically the Bush Administration's) abysmal failure in the war for the hearts and minds of the people in the Middle East would have to be from the hands of an "America-hating" liberal like Michael Moore. Maybe the CIA, that bastion of Bush-bashing. The fact that it is really the product of the Pentagon makes it downright staggering.

DailyKos gives a good selection of bits, plus a link to the entire document. More can be read about it in this scathing article by Sidney Blumenthal at Salon (do the Salon Day Pass for non-subscribers).

The falling dollar

Here is a painful report from The Economist about the falling dollar. The Economist is no liberal rag full of Chicken Little Cassandras, it's a strongly fiscal conservative British magazine (it will be noted for example that Bush is never brought up by name in the article). Reading an article like this in The Economist makes me particularly nervous about having no control while the lunatics are running the asylum.

The plan to kill incentives for employee health insurance

Chris Ferris at The Gadflyer has a very good breakdown describing Bush's plan to eliminate business tax deductions for providing employee health care, describing what it is, and why it would be very bad indeed.

So Rummy stays on

So, sooner rather than later, John Snow gets shown the door. Reading this article by Arianna Huffington from a short year and a half ago, one marvels (and yet doesn't, this is the Bush League after all) that he was ever chosen to be Treasury Secretary in the first place.

Staggeringly, and yet absolutely not worthy of raising an eyebrow if you think about it (this is the Bush League after all), the cabinet member who made the most notable hash of his job the first time around, Donald Rumsfeld, is going to survive the current round of house cleaning. Bull Moose has a brief commentary here.

I've figured it out. If Bush has figured out how to get away with the most mind-bogglingly bad choices he possibly could, he will (see his current plan to fund the new addition to the tax cut by taking away business incentives to help with employee health insurance). I think it has something to do with keeping liberals (and anyone else paying attention) in a constant state of paralyzed disbelief...

The proverbial picture worth a thousand words

This picture is just so perfect in so many ways, it speaks for itself...