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And today Krugman is a must read as he destroys the ‘Blacks are cheated by Social Security
because they die younger’ myth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/28/opinion/28krugman.html?hp
Another Gem from
Maureen Dowd:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/opinion/27dowd.html?oref=login&hp
The NYT front page
article on privatization of social Security in
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/
We no longer give money to NPR since they canned Bob
Edwards. The following is a good reason to stop giving to PBS. Both outlets
used to not cave to Republican pressure. No longer is that the case. This is
from http://www.prospect.org/weblog/
KEEPING US SAFE FROM DEMOCRACY. Our barely minted Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has tipped her hand early by successfully pressuring PBS into pulling off the air and episode of a show called Postcards from Buster that was to be about farm life and maple sugar harvesting, but incidentally featured two lesbian couples. As the Los Angeles Times reported: Congress' and the [Education] Department's purpose in funding this programming certainly was not to introduce this kind of subject matter to children, particularly through the powerful and intimate medium of television," Spellings wrote in a letter sent Tuesday to Pat Mitchell, PBS president and chief executive. The response from the Human Rights Campaign was swift: The Secretary's first
act in office denies children an education about the diversity of American
families," said HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg.
"Teaching children about respect for differences promotes tolerance of
their fellow human beings. Those are the values our children should be
learning. Instead, Secretary Spellings is sending the message that differences
should concealed. This creates a dangerous environment for children's growth.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth are disproportionately at risk for
suicide. Creating a climate in which children are taught that differences should
be feared does nothing to promote understanding for peers." Spelling's reaction is as though PBS was running episodes of Real Sex. And PBS, shamefully, reacted accordingly. -posted by Sarah Wildman ***** And the lies continue and no one at the press conference said: “Mr. President you are wrong.” And here is
the problem. The -- as dictated by just math, there is -- the system will be in the red in 13 years, and in 2042, the system will be broke. That's because people are
living longer and the number of people paying into the Social Security trust is
dwindling. And so therefore, if you have a child -- how old is your child, Carl
(sp)? ***** With the elections in
We also don’t think the ignoring of the American deaths by the major media is an accident. ***** The NYT reports that the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a budget shortfall of $862 billion over the next ten years. That number excludes the cost of the war or any Social Security destruction costs. And it also adds in the surplus that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to accumulate over that ten year period. It excludes the $1.8 trillion cost of making the Bush tax cuts permanent which Senator Dr. Frist, the cat killer, announced was one of the ten important items on this year’s Senate agenda. ***** In a related item the NYT reported that “By
pushing war spending so far beyond $280 billion, the latest proposal would
approach nearly half the $613 billion the ***** Republican humor: http://www.dailykos.com/ At the Constitution Ball (part of the inauguration festivities): Though there was no official poem for the occasion, impressionist Rich Little, emceeing the Constitution Ball at the Hilton Washington, did provide a bit of inaugural doggerel. The gist of it was: "Let's get together, let bitterness pass, I'll hug your elephant, you kiss my ass!" And the crowd went crazy. Little said he missed and adored the late President Ronald Reagan and
"I wish he was here tonight, but as a matter of fact he is," and he
proceeded to impersonate Reagan, saying, "You know, somebody asked me, 'Do
you think the war on poverty is over?' I said, 'Yes, the poor lost.' The crowd went wild. (Via David Corn, which eviscerates Gingrich in this post.) That line sure is a knee slapper. ***** When you get right down to it the U.S. has spent $300 billion and counting, and 1500 lives and 10,000 wounded and counting, and an unknown number of Iraqi lives but surely exceeding 50,0000 so that it could replace one dictator with another dictator. But he is our dictator. The fact that Allawi was a Baathist, had a falling out and joined the CIA, and has been supported by the CIA since the early 1980s gives a Manchurian Candidate quality to the election. Again from http://www.dailykos.com/
Iraqi authorities
routinely torture prisoners, a leading human rights group said Tuesday, citing
examples of abuse which will sound all too familiar to those who suffered under
Saddam Hussein. Prisoners have been beaten with cables
and hosepipes, and suffered electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals, the
U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said. Some have been starved of food and
water and crammed into standing-room only cells. "The people of But it is Iraqis torturing Iraqis so it is their business
not ours. That attitude is similar to ***** With the elections in
We also don’t think the ignoring of the American deaths by the major media is an accident. ***** The NYT reports that the Congressional Budget Office is projecting a budget shortfall of $862 billion over the next ten years. That number excludes the cost of the war or any Social Security destruction costs. And it also adds in the surplus that the Social Security Trust Fund is going to accumulate over that ten year period. It excludes the $1.8 trillion cost of making the Bush tax cuts permanent which Senator Dr. Frist, the cat killer, announced was one of the ten important items on this year’s Senate agenda. ***** In a related item the NYT reported that “By
pushing war spending so far beyond $280 billion, the latest proposal would
approach nearly half the $613 billion the ***** Republican humor: http://www.dailykos.com/ At the Constitution Ball (part of the inauguration festivities): Though there was no official poem for the occasion, impressionist Rich Little, emceeing the Constitution Ball at the Hilton Washington, did provide a bit of inaugural doggerel. The gist of it was: "Let's get together, let bitterness pass, I'll hug your elephant, you kiss my ass!" And the crowd went crazy. Little said he missed and adored the late President Ronald Reagan and
"I wish he was here tonight, but as a matter of fact he is," and he
proceeded to impersonate Reagan, saying, "You know, somebody asked me, 'Do
you think the war on poverty is over?' I said, 'Yes, the poor lost.' The crowd went wild. (Via David Corn, which eviscerates Gingrich in this post.) That line sure is a knee slapper. ***** When you get right down to it the U.S. has spent $300 billion and counting, and 1500 lives and 10,000 wounded and counting, and an unknown number of Iraqi lives but surely exceeding 50,0000 so that it could replace one dictator with another dictator. But he is our dictator. The fact that Allawi was a Baathist, had a falling out and joined the CIA, and has been supported by the CIA since the early 1980s gives a Manchurian Candidate quality to the election. Again from http://www.dailykos.com/
Iraqi authorities
routinely torture prisoners, a leading human rights group said Tuesday, citing
examples of abuse which will sound all too familiar to those who suffered under
Saddam Hussein. Prisoners have been beaten with cables
and hosepipes, and suffered electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals, the
U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said. Some have been starved of food and
water and crammed into standing-room only cells. "The people of But it is Iraqis torturing Iraqis so it is their business
not ours. That attitude is similar to ***** From Prairie Angel
at http://arachnae.blogspot.com/ WH plans to scuttle Hubble Further demonstrating their animosity to science and learning, the Administration is proposing that rather than be serviced, the Hubble Space Telescope be 'safely de-orbited'. Lofted into orbit on There is no other telescope, currently operating or planned, on the ground or in space, that can see as far into the universe in visible light with Hubble's consistency, astronomers agree. The James Webb Telescope -- the closest thing to a Hubble replacement -- is planned for launch in the next decade. It will be an infrared observatory, however, and won't record visible light. I guess they don't like the constant reminder that the earth is a sphere and
goes around the sun. Watch for the 'spherical earth' theory to be banned in Posted by: Jane / 6:10 PM ***** We found this lead story from the AP. We thought we were reading from Pravda. WASHINGTON - George W. Bush, awaking at the dawn of
a new term as president, relished taking the oath of office a second time
Thursday, with four more years to pursue freedom around the world and push a
legacy-setting agenda at home…. The president was in a cosmic frame of mind on the eve of his inauguration as he anticipated placing his hand on the Bible and promising once more to faithfully defend the Constitution. ***** The Social Security Surplus adds $171 billion to the Federal budget every year. That’s the excess of payments into the Social Security Trust Fund over money paid out. The Federal Government then issues bonds to borrow that money but that borrowing is not included in the budget deficit reports that we all see. ***** Maureen Dowd was in
rare form yesterday: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/opinion/20dowd.html?oref=login&hp
***** From: http://americablog.blogspot.com/ How much credibility do
you have left Condi? Comments (56)
| Permanent Link | ***** This http://www.thereisnocrisis.com/
is the website to go to along with www.talkingpointsmemo.com for information, argument and rebuttal points
on the Social Security non crisis that the Bushies are promoting to hide how
badly the war is going. Remember the Mars expedition? ***** How far yet to go? When the President of Harvard who is a Democrat (we think) takes five days to finally issue an apology fro hi remarks on women and the sciences ther are miles to go before we sleep in peace. "I deeply regret the impact of my comments and apologize for not
having weighed them more carefully. I
was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of
discouragement to talented girls and women." Girls? Yesterday the head of the ***** As Bush gives his Inauguration
Speech we thought we should give you an extemporaneous speech Bill Clinton gave
in 1998 courtesy of: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/
***** No alert for the Inauguration. Could that be because Al Qeda wants Dubya to be president? Or is it more likely that all those alerts during the campaign were BS. According to DHS head Tom Ridge, "There is nothing that we've seen, not just today, but over the period of the preceding several weeks, that gives us any reason to even consider, at this point, raising the threat level." And if that's not reassuring enough, well, he has more to say: "Normally, it's an aggregation of information we receive that we conclude is credible over a period of time. But there's absolutely nothing out there that would suggest we should even think about it." ***** Allard Lowenstein in
Sunday’s NYT magazine has the must read article on Social Security. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/16/magazine ***** Must be time to invade or at least destabilize Venezuela again: Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice criticized Venezuelan populist leader Hugo Chavez on Tuesday for autocratic moves to stifle opposition in the major U.S. oil supplier. Rice reinforced a barrage of U.S. criticism of Chavez over the last few days as the Bush administration worries the firebrand nationalist has rejected its overtures to improve ties after the nations clashed over democracy last year. "We are very concerned about a democratically elected leader who governs in an illiberal way, and some of the steps he's taken against the media, against the opposition, I think are really very deeply troubling," Rice said at her Senate confirmation hearing. "We have a
long and good history with Chavez accuses ***** Not enough troops for Afghanistan, not enough troops or body armor or vehicle protection for Iraq, and now it is on to IRAN. Bush is nuts. Sy Hersch reports: http://newyorker.com/fact/content/
Today we mention two large lies told
by the President of the Lie #1 The White House said the search for weapons of mass destruction
in The Iraq Survey Group, made up of some 1,200 military and intelligence
specialists and support staff, spent nearly two years searching military
installations, factories and laboratories whose equipment and products might be
converted quickly to making weapons. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday there no longer is an active search for weapons. "There may be a couple, a few people that are focused on that" but it has largely concluded, he said. We were going to say
just for fun except too many folks have died to make that comment. So for
the record, with the news that the U.S. has finally decide to give up the
search for WMD, the AP has presented
some comments from before the “War” and now from Bush and his merry men at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151
Lie # 2 Liar, Liar pants on
fire! George Bush, President
of the United States, speaking to a person aged 27 on “If nothing takes place; if Congress
says, "Oh, don't worry, we'll just push it down the road, you know; why do
we need to deal with it; there's no crisis;” if nothing happens and we don't
start moving on it now, by the time Josh gets to retirement age, the
system will be flat broke. And that's not right; it doesn't seem like to
me. Seems like people who have been elected to office must say, ‘We want it to
be wholesome and healthy,’ like it has been for other generations”. The statement that Social Security will be “FLAT
BROKE” is a lie. It is a bald-faced lie and no one in the press or in attendance
at the Social Security “Forum” Bush was conducting called him on that lie.
Go to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html?hp
to read Krugman’s comments on the Republican Social Security Destruction Memo
we ran last week.
Josh Marshall
continues to do an excellent job on the Social Security Pseudo Crisis at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/.
Judith Miller, the reporter at the New York Times, who wrote rosy scenarios of the Iraq War and also was the lead mis-reporter on the Weapons of Mass Destruction scare mongering before and during the “war’, just happened to obtain early copies of a report sent to Congressional Committees by Paul Volker detailing overcharges in the UN Oil for Food Program. That Program was managed by the UN during the 1990s after the first Gulf War. It is not coincidence that Miller received the reports in
time to write a below the fold story for
the front page of last week-end’s Sunday Times. She has been a shill both for
the Bushistas and the Defense Department for the past four years and her articles
belong on the editorial page of the NYT not on the front page. Her WMD
reporting has been discredited and now she is leading the reportorial charge
against Kofi Annan. The Bushistas and Congressional Republicans want to stick
it to him for not supporting the tragedy of This strategy may play well in the red states, but in the
world it only reinforces the negative image of With all her contacts in the Pentagon and on the Hill it is a wonder that Miller has never been able to file any story on the Halliburton cost over runs and boondoggles which make the over runs in the UN program look like child’s play. By the way: the AP reports that: in an interview with The New York Times
published Friday, Volcker downplayed the
importance of the audits. "There are no flaming red flags in this
stuff," he said. http://www.nytimes.com
Newt Gingrich,
you remember him, he’s the serial philanderer and divorcer who philandiled
while questioning the morals of Bill Clinton. Well, he has a new book out and
it talking about running for President. Hillary versus Newt. That would be fun.
A smart bomb
killed fourteen Iraqi civilians over the week-end when it hit the wrong house.
Yawn time in Tom Ridge, Homeland
Security Czar took time off from his busy duties of preparing to leave his
post by spending time in http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=340420&page=1
Anti-Choice Democrat
and former Indiana Congressman Tom Roemer is joining the race to become Chairperson
to the DNC. He gives the inclusive argument as a reason for choosing him as
party leader. And we learn that former
Senator John Breaux Democrat (?) of La is on the Presidential Commission considering
changes on tax policy. We have always thought that Breaux should just join the
Republicans since he voted with them much of the time.
Several folks wanted to know who Peter H. Wehner is. We printed the
Social Security memo written by him in yesterday’s post. Peter H. Wehner is Karl Rove’s assistant and works in the
White House under the title of Special Assistant to the President.
Boom
This one is a little
startling at first, but The General
is always spot on. http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/
Posted by Gen. JC Christian, Patriot | 4:51
AM John Ashcroft is gone and breasts are back at the Justice Department, we think.
We have posted below another post by
“River ... I'll meet you 'round the
bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Hillary is running for President and Barak will be her Vice President. Today was the day when Hillary separated herself from the pack and Barak showed on his first day in the Senate that he is his own man. Jesse Jackson Sr. told
the crowd - to shouts and cheers, and in some cases tears - that Barbara Boxer
would be joined by Senators Chris Dodd, Hillary
Clinton, Harry Reid, and Barak Obama.
From the House, As always, Krugman is
a must read. If you aren’t registered with the NYT go through the trouble, it
doesn’t cost anything. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/opinion/07krugman.html?oref=login&hp
This is the e-mail
memo stating the Republican plan for destroying Social Security. Take your time
reading it. By the way the facts stated in this memo are false or misspoken and
we will soon we will respond to each of the statements. From:
Wehner, Peter H. I wanted to provide
to you our latest thinking (not for attribution) on Social Security reform. I don't need to tell
you that this will be one of the most important conservative undertakings of
modern times. If we succeed in reforming Social Security, it will rank as one
of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever. The scope and
scale of this endeavor are hard to overestimate. Let me tell you
first what our plans are in terms of sequencing and political strategy. We will
focus on Social Security immediately in this New Year. Our strategy will
probably include speeches early this month to establish an important premise:
the current system is heading for an iceberg. The notions that younger workers
will receive anything like the benefits they have been promised is fiction,
unless significant reforms are undertaken. We need to establish in the public
mind a key fiscal fact: right now we are on an unsustainable course. That
reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness; it is the
pre-condition to authentic reform. Given that, our aim
is to introduce market reforms in Social Security and make the system
permanently solvent and sustainable. We intend to pursue
the first goal by using our will and energy toward the creation of Personal
Retirement Accounts. As you know, our advocacy for personal accounts is tied to
our commitment to an Ownership Society -- one in which more people will own
their health care plans and have the confidence of owning a piece of their
retirement. Our goal is to provide a path to greater opportunity, more freedom,
and more control for individuals over their own lives. That is what the
personal account debate is fundamentally about -- and it is clearly the
crucial new conservative idea in the history of the Social Security debate. Second, we're going
to take a very close look at changing the way benefits are calculated. As you
probably know, under current law benefits are calculated by a "wage
index" -- but because wages grow faster than inflation, so do Social
Security benefits. If we don't address this aspect of the current system, we'll
face serious economic risks. It's worth noting
that wage indexation was not part of the original design of Social
Security. The current method of wage indexation was created in 1977, under (you
guessed it) the Carter Administration. Wage indexation makes it impossible to
"grow our way" out of the Social Security problem. If the economy
grows faster and wages rise, this produces more tax revenue. But the faster
wage growth also means that we owe more in Social Security benefits. This has
produced a never-ending cycle of higher tax burdens, even during periods of
robust economic growth. It is the classic case of the dog chasing his tail
around the tree; he can run faster and faster, and never make any progress. You may know that
there is a small number of conservatives who prefer to push only for investment
accounts and make no effort to adjust benefits -- therefore making no effort to
address this fundamental structural problem. In my judgment, that's a bad idea.
We simply cannot solve the Social Security problem with Personal Retirement
Accounts alone. If the goal is permanent solvency and sustainability -- as we
believe it should be --then Personal Retirements Accounts, for all their
virtues, are insufficient to that task. And playing "kick the can" is
simply not the credo of this President. He wants to do what needs to be done
for genuine repair of Social Security. If we duck our duty,
it can have serious short-term economic consequences. Here's why. If we borrow
$1-2 trillion to cover transition costs for personal savings accounts and make
no changes to wage indexing, we will have borrowed trillions and will still
confront more than $10 trillion in unfunded liabilities. This could easily
cause an economic chain-reaction: the markets go south, interest rates go up,
and the economy stalls out. To ignore the structural fiscal issues -- to wholly
ignore the matter of the current system's benefit formula -- would be
irresponsible. Here's a startling
fact: under current law, an average retiree in 2050 would be scheduled to
receive close to 40 percent more (in real terms) in benefits than
an average retiree today -- and yet there are no mechanisms in place to produce
the revenue to pay out those benefits. No one on this planet can tell you why a
25-year-old person today is entitled to a 40 percent increase in Social
Security benefits (in real terms) compared to what a person retiring today
receives. To meet those
benefit levels, one option would be to raise the age at which people receive
benefits. If we followed the formula used when Social Security was first
created -- make the age at which you receive Social Security benefits above
the average age of mortality -- we'd be looking at raising the benefit age to
around 80. That ain't gonna happen. Another way to meet
those benefit levels is through the traditional Democrat/liberal way: higher
taxation. According to the latest report of the Social Security Trustees, the
current system's benefit formula would require some $10 trillion in tax
increases over the long term. We'd therefore need to raise the payroll tax
almost 20 percent simply to provide wage-indexed benefit levels to those born
this year. This will all sound
familiar. In the past, the way Congress usually addressed the built-in funding
problem was by raising payroll taxes (from 2 percent in 1937 to 12.4 percent
today). In fact, Congress has raised Social Security taxes more than 30
times -- but it has never addressed the underlying problem. Avoiding
the core issue by raising taxes is not the modus operandi of this
President. The other key point,
as you know, is that personal accounts, through the miracle of compound
interest, will provide workers with higher retirement benefits than they
are currently receiving from Social Security. At the end of the
day, we want to promote both an ownership society and advance the idea
of limited government. It seems to me our plan will do so; the plan of some others
won't. Let me add one other
important point: we consider our Social Security reform not simply an
economic challenge, but a moral goal and a moral good. We have a
responsibility to fulfill the promise of Social Security, not undermine it. And
we have a duty to ensure that we do not create an inter-generational conflict
-- which is precisely what will happen if the Social Security system is not
reformed. We need to retain strong ties between the generations, which is of
course a deeply conservative belief. The debate about
Social Security is going to be a monumental clash of ideas -- and it's
important for the conservative movement that we win both the battle of ideas
and the legislation that will give those ideas life. The Democrat Party
leadership, the AARP, and many others will go after Social Security reform
hammer and tongs. See today's silly New York Times editorial (its only one for
the day) as one example. But Democrats and liberals are in a precarious
position; they are attempting to block reform to a system that almost every
serious-minded person concedes needs it. They are in a position of arguing
against modernizing a system created almost four generations ago. Increasingly
the Democrat Party is the party of obstruction and opposition. It is the Party
of the Past. For the first time
in six decades, the Social Security battle is one we can win -- and in doing
so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the
country. We have it within our grasp to move away from dependency on government
and toward giving greater power and responsibility to individuals. There are of course
other important issues dealing with Social Security; for now, though, I've
covered quite enough ground. I wanted to let you know where things stand. If
you have any questions, or if we can send you anything to clarify our plans and
respond to critics, just let me know. The President remains flexible on tactics
-- and rock-solid on the principles. But there's nothing new there. In one of his last
public acts of an extraordinary public life, the late Democratic Senator from And so we shall. This is the kind of
stuff that Rush Limbaugh places on his web site: Out
of Power Democrat Senators Side with Terrorist Murderers Against Gonzales, Bush
The AP has a story today that says that the Bushistas are going to introduce their Social Security Reform (Destruction) Plan in late February. Until then it is probably useless to conjecture but the Bushistas are floating their ideas and we want to comment on just one. According to the AP, workers would be able to divert (none of the stuff we read says whether this is voluntary or mandatory) 66% of the 7.2% of wages that they pay into Social Security every year to a maximum $1000 or maybe $1300 dollars. Our question is what does the worker do with $1000? What is a good case scenario on investment return and what does that good case return promise the worker in actual dollars. Assume the money is invested in a balanced fund and earns an average 7.2% for 40 years. By the way there is no conservative investment vehicle today that guarantees to earn that amount. At that rate the money invested (a total of $40,000) would double every ten years. At the end of the 40 years assuming $1000 invested at that 7.2% and compounding at that rate every year and the worker would have approximately $225,000. (Worksheet available). Since all financial advisers, except us, tell folks to reduce risk at retirement lets assume that 75% of the money is placed in two year Treasuries when the worker retires. Two-year Treasuries currently yield 3% (they yielded 1.5% last year so tough luck if you retired then). The amount of money $168,000 times 3% would return $5062 for the entire year. If the rest of the money continues earning 7.2% that money would earn $4100. And so the retired worker in a very good case scenario would have total spendable money funds of $9162 or $763 per month. And the assumptions on averaging a 7.2% return assumes the worker doesn’t retire in a period like the 1972 to 1980 period, the 1987-90 period or the 2000-2003 period. The S&P over the last 3 years has had an average return
of only 1% per year, for the last five years ending For a recent example let’s assume that the worker retired at
year end We have been conservative with our estimates of investment loss and generous with our estimates of investment return. Any way you slice it the best outcome is that with the Bush Plan folks may receive in 40 years (if you add the $1000 per month SS figure available to retirees in 40 years the Bush proposal contains) the same amount of money the top retirees are now paid by Social Security. All that needs to be
done to make SS whole is to reduce the rate of growth of the top payouts is to
freeze the inflation adjustment for the top 25% of SS recipient for some period
of years and the system problems are cured. KISS. ***** The Republicans in Washington State are still fighting the governor’s election and calling for a new election saying the electoral process was tainted. How quickly they forget. But the one point that all should take from this experience is that unlike Democrat leadership the Republican leadership won’t go down without a fight even after the election is decided. That is one reason they have been winning and control all three branches of government. ***** Republicans have adjusted House rules, requiring at least one Republican to agree to ethics investigations; inquiries now less likely. From http://americablog.blogspot.com/
***** From the AP wires the following: House Republicans suddenly reversed course Monday, deciding to retain a tough standard for lawmaker discipline and reinstate a rule that would force Majority Leader Tom DeLay to step aside if indicted by a Texas grand jury. The caterwauling of Democrat House
Members, the Press and liberal blogs was a help in stopping Repubs from going
forward. The Repubs also decided to scrap their scrapping of the ability of
House Members to bring ethics charges although they will still water the rules
down a bit.
Krugman is back at the NYT with another article on Social Security titled: Stopping the Bum’s Rush. We can guess who the Bum is. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/04/opinion/04krugman.html?oref=login&hp In that article he states, in part: The short version is that the bonds in the Social Security trust fund are obligations of the federal government's general fund, the budget outside Social Security. They have the same status as U.S. bonds owned by Japanese pension funds and the government of China. The general fund is legally obliged to pay the interest and principal on those bonds, and Social Security is legally obliged to pay full benefits as long as there is money in the trust fund. There are only two things that could endanger Social Security's ability to pay benefits before the trust fund runs out. One would be a fiscal crisis that led the U.S. to default on all its debts. The other would be legislation specifically repudiating the general fund's debts to retirees. That is, we can't have a Social Security crisis without a general fiscal crisis - unless Congress declares that debts to foreign bondholders must be honored, but that promises to older Americans, who have spent most of their working lives paying extra payroll taxes to build up the trust fund, don't count. You must read the entire article and follow this discussion
so that you may be able to refer and answer questions from your friends and acquaintances.
Krugman is and will be the economic point man to neutralize the bogus fear
mongering of the Bushistas and their
allies.
And that’s it from the land of milk and honey and ice. There is a good
discussion of the $3 billion shortfall in Social Security that Bush folks claim
exists and where it comes from at http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
.
This excerpt is a
good presentation of the Russert/Powell interview on NBC Sunday morning
covering the reaction the tsunami and ***** Ex-Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman elected to Congress, died on New Year’s Day. She was an inspiration to many folks back in the late 1960s. She ran for President in 1972. RIP. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/obituaries/03chisholm.html?oref=login
. The discrimination she encountered as a black and as a woman is still there,
it is just more subtle in some cases. From the NYT obituary: She was also aware of her status as a woman
in politics. "I've always met more discrimination being a woman than being
black," she told The Associated Press in December 1982, shortly before she
left A group of Catholic
parents in The School’ officials issued a statement saying that the parents’ lifestyle is a slippery slope when determining eligibility for the children attending school. If the morals of the parents become an issue we would guess that there are going to be a lot of closing parochial schools around the country. At all the Catholic schools we attended the ability to pay
the tuition on time, buy the Christmas cards at the David Graham, the researcher at the FDA, who blew the whistle on Vioxx before anyone was listening to whistles, is going to try to publish an article in the British Medical Journal, Lancet that raises the number of estimate of the number of dead from Vioxx from the 28,000 to the 78,000 to 125,000 level. That’s almost on a par with the Asian tsunami. Merck is going to trot out all its PR folks and CEO to deny,
deny, deny; and Graham has said the FDA has threatened to fire him if he
publishes that article since he needs FDA approval to publish.
And that’s it for
today from the land of milk and honey and a lot of ice.
Susan Sontag died December 28, 2004. She was a voice of reason in an unreasonable time. RIP. From the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/29/books/29appr.html ***** Does anyone besides
us find the pledge by the Related to this story in one in the Washington Post where
the reporter quotes a White House official that Bush won’t return to It’s funny that no matter how far the Bushies run they can’t exorcise the memory of Bill Clinton. On December 29 Bush
Boy spoke from We don’t think that is an accident. We think Bush purposefully said $35 billion so that those folks who only watch what he says and don’t read the stories will believe that the figure given was $35 billion and wonder why some are complaining about the minute figure. Or (scary thought) maybe Bush believes that $35 billion is the amount being
given and he himself can’t figure out what all the bitching is about. From http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2004/12/color-of-love-we-were-surprised-to-see.html
The color of love: ***** Welcome to a New Year
of worry and George Bush. Ugh! On what to worry about in the future, Local election of governors being delayed, oil companies taken over, the Ukraine election are just surface symbols of the regression to totalitarianism that is occurring over there. But Putin is Bush’s friend so no complaint is raised. *****
***** This is from Kevin Drum at www.washingtonmonthly.com GETTING IT WRONG....Do we really have to continue reading about George Bush's criminal incompetence for four more years? Apparently so: The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections. ...."There's some flexibility in approaching this problem," said an administration official. "There's a willingness to play with the end result - not changing the numbers, but maybe guaranteeing that a certain number of seats go to Sunni areas even if their candidates did not receive a certain percentage of the vote." The idea of altering election results is so sensitive that administration
officials who spoke about it did not want their names revealed. Some experts on
It's the same story over and over and over again, isn't it? By the time the Bushies finally figure something out, it's too late to do anything about it. At this point, if they let the Shiites win all the seats it's a disaster, but if they arbitrarily take away some of their seats and award them to the Sunnis instead, that's a disaster too. A year ago there were plenty of good proposals that could have avoided the worst of this fiasco. The best of them made use of geographical precincts, like an American congressional election. Under a system like that, there would have been plenty of predominantly Sunni precincts that would have elected Sunni representatives regardless of whether or not turnout was low. It wouldn't have been perfect, but it almost certainly would have been better than the kludge we're ending up with. Watching these guys in action is truly a remarkable thing. I mean, it only makes sense that I think the Bush administration chooses the wrong course on ideological issues. After all, we're on opposite ends of the partisan spectrum. But what continually astonishes me — and yes, I know it shouldn't anymore — is their almost supernatural ability to choose the precisely wrong course even on purely operational, nonideological tasks. You'd think they'd occasionally get something right just by chance, wouldn't you? UPDATE: And speaking of getting it wrong, here's a precis of getting it right from Eric Shinseki, the Army General who got it right before the Iraq war and was — of course — completely ignored by the Bush administration folks who thought they knew better. —Kevin
Drum ***** Ecstasy is going to be tested on terminally ill cancer patients. But no “weed” is allowed. Say what? ***** From http://americablog.blogspot.com/ May their children be the first to be drafted George Wyman: “Mr. Neuharth is
simply UnAmerican.” Ah, red state voters. Somehow calling them fascists doesn't
sound so extreme anymore. (Courtesy of Atrios) Comments (80) | Permanent Link | ***** Comment from http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1380800,00.html A state of chaos
At the same time the vice president, Dick Cheney, has imposed his authority
over secretary of state designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball
Arnold Kanter, former under secretary of state to
James Baker and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy
secretary of state. "Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top state department
official told me about Rice's effort to organise her
office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign
that the state department will mostly be sidelined as a power centre for the
next four years. Rice may have wanted to appoint as a deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Meanwhile, key senior state department professionals, such as Marc Grossman,
assistant secretary of state for European affairs, have abruptly resigned.
According to colleagues who have chosen to remain (at least for now), they
foresee the damage that will be done as Rice is charged with whipping the state
department into line with the White House and Pentagon neocons.
Rice has pleaded with Armitage to stay on, but
"he colourfully said he would not", a state
department official told me. Rice's radio silence when her former mentor,
Scowcroft, was defenestrated was taken by the state department professionals as
a sign of things to come. Bush has long resented his father's alter ego. Scowcroft privately rebuked
him for his In A World Transformed, the elder Bush's 1998 memoir, co-authored with Scowcroft,
they explained why The rejection of Kanter is a compound rejection of
Scowcroft and of James Baker - the tough, results-oriented operator who as
White House chief of staff saved the Reagan presidency from its ideologues,
managed the elder Bush's campaign in 1988, and was summoned in 2000 to rescue
Junior in In private, Baker is scathing about the current occupant of the White House.
Now the one indispensable creator of the Bush family political fortunes is
repudiated. Republican elders who warned of endless war are purged. Those who advised
Bush that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, that with a light military force
the operation would be a "cakewalk", and that capturing Baghdad was
"mission accomplished", are rewarded. The outgoing secretary of state, fighting his last battle, is leaking
stories to the Washington Post about how his advice went unheeded. Secretary of
defence Donald Rumsfeld,
whose heart beats with the compassion of a crocodile, clings to his job by
staging · Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is
sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com
Not One Damn Dime Day - Since our
religious leaders will not speak out against the war in in our name in
"Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work
for the *****
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