House of Bush, House of Cards

First Social Security, now Medicaid. Republicans are fighting Bush's erosion of a welfare state because they know that they'll lose office if he's allowed to go through with his plans. I'm not going to get too hung up on their motives, I'm just glad Bush is finally taking it on the chin.

:(

From the WaPo:

BAGHDAD, Feb. 28 -- A car bomb targeting Iraqi civilians applying for government jobs exploded outside a health clinic in Hilla south of the capital on Monday, killing 106 people and wounding at least 146. It was among the deadliest insurgent attacks since the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

No smart ass remark out of me this time.

Stuff

ok, short post today, I'm busy getting ready for an Oscars party and getting my music back on my computer again. Yay Wilson Pickett!

Anyway, a thought I've been having in my head lately is applying Lakoff's nurturant parent model to economics and big business. I'll try to actually think about this and make sense out of it soon, but until then, any thoughts?

The Antichrist cometh

who else could this be?

Blog Awards

Ickpth, it's a little late for this if you read any political blog that isn't mine, but here are 2004 Koufax Award winners. Yours truly is not there, being about 3 weeks old, but look out 2005!

Bush on Democracy

I was watching Bush's press conference with Putin in Bratislava yesterday, during which a European reporter (I'm not sure what language he was speaking) asked Bush what he thought about freedom and liberty in the U.S. because the U.S. is less democratic (as far as systems of government go it's true). Bush's response was something like "I live in a great country. We have freedom and liberty, and lots of it. It's a great country."

I'd want him on my dodgeball team.

O Canada

Canada decided to not join the U.S. missile defense system. Considering the state of the missile shield, I'm not surprised. What I found funny was how the NYT reported it:

The long-awaited decision from Prime Minister Paul Martin was a symbolic setback for the Bush administration when it is trying to heal rifts with allies that emerged from the invasion of Iraq.

The Bush administration trying to heal rifts? Who is this jerk-off (Clifford Krauss)? Ah, the SCLM (so called liberal media). We all know that the administration's way of healing rifts is strongarming people into doing what the administration wants. It's pursuing a very obvious agenda, and compromise isn't on it.

Curious George Goes to Europe

Not surprisingly he hasn't had the warmest welcome. There's been the usual talk about strengthening alliances (as Europe moves away from NATO and onto its own organization) and promoting peace (even though Europe is strangely peaceful).

My favorite quote from this WaPo article is:

"They have breached a contract with the international community. They're the party that needs to be held to account, not any of us," he said.

Guess who?

It's Bush on Iran, not Schroeder on America's position on Iraq or global warming.

Wait a second, is it just me or did Bush use a litmus test for international relations? Like needing a permission flip, er, I mean slip.

Republican Strategy

Courtesy of Kos, this is what we're up against.

Chalabi's Out

It seems like Chalabi finally dropped out of the Iraqi elections for PM, after trying to get the position by using a US stacked election to increase his vote.

I'm curious to see what Judith Miller's next story on Iraq is if she's not in jail by then.

Chie

and everyone else who I know, but Chie in particular because I have no idea what your email is or how to get ahold of it, computer just crashed and I lost everything again, so I'm really permanently moving everything to my gmail account, mike.kraft@gmail.com. Email me so I know what your emails are again.

Please Let This Not Be True

It's Iran again.

This is the kind of stuff we scare children with, the stuff of nightmares and foolery. This is not a necessary reality.

This Man Must Be Stopped

First read this on Josh Marshall's site.

I've been railing against this guy for quite some time now. I think he's a dirty, scum-sucking, pathetic weasel, and those are his good qualities. I've hated him since his adoption of censoring, GOP and fascist values on the v-chip, and I'm happy he tanked hard in the primaries. This man is what Dean likes to call Republican Lite. Same awful taste, but you think it's better than the alternative. Let me clue you in to something: it's not. This man is not a Democrat or a progressive by any means. If you see this man paint him red or, and I don't care how you get one, trample him with an elephant.

We don't need Democrats in the party like this tool, Democrats who would love to work together with the GOP by bending over and asking them for another. There is no excuse for supporting the privatization of social security, unless your modus operandi is getting rid of social insurance and creating a situation in which people on the bottom are fundamentally less free than those on the top because they can't afford to live, because the numbers don't add up and it will make things worse. I know this fool is also gunning for a position within the administration, which demonstrates that he's really in it only for himself and doesn't care about the welfare of the vast majority of people in this country. As Marshall points out, this both pins the Democrats down and frees the Republicans up. He's becoming the Zell Miller of this issue, which is something we neither want nor need. I want him formally expelled from the party but save that it's about time we start thinking about mounting a serious primary offensive against him.

Besides, can you really respect someone who used the term 'Joe-mentum?'

Port Insecurity

Like we didn't see this coming.

For the other NYers out there,

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in four rounds of port security grants, received $6.2 million, or 1 percent of the total grants given out through the primary port security financing source, according to federal documents.

When other New York-based government agencies and private corporations are added in, the grants to the New York City area rise to about $35 million, about 7 percent of the total. The port handles 12 percent of the nation's cargo traffic. Much of the grant money directed to New York went to profit-making oil terminal companies, like Sunoco Logistics Partners, to help them pay for security enhancements.

I didn't know about the final line there, but I'm hardly surprised.

InstaBlundit

Someone's never looked into income disparity and the Gini coefficient, has he?

For years there have been widening gaps between the governing class and the governed and between the publicly funded broadcasters and the broadcasted to.

Interesting, and since the gap is probably wider in Britain than in America, it's certainly possible that the impact will be greater -- though not, I'd imagine, if the establishment media can help it.

Yay the great and extant American middle class of the 1950s!

It's Not Propaganda If You Don't Realize It

The Bush administration has been busy distributing their messages through fake newscasting and shifting the praise so that it doesn't look masturbatory and biased for a while now. Of course this is illegal, and it took the comptroller general years to pick up on it, but at least somebody finally did.

That's right, your hard earned tax dollars are going toward propaganda against you (unless you're already drinking the kool-aid). It's kinda like paying someone to break your kneecaps, which, if you're a masochist good for you, but otherwise I think we can agree this government is rotten to its core. Imagine what the Republicans would've done to Clinton if he pulled a stunt like this.

link here.

Iraqi Elections Were a Success

Not!

Yeah, this isn't an isolated or rare incident by any means.

The GOP Splits with the Administration

I would first like to point out that I never thought this would be possible, and second, I never thought that the Bush administration would be taking the more rational side of things. According to the NYT,

The Republican majority leader in the House expressed opposition on Thursday to the idea of increasing or eliminating the cap on earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax, deflating President Bush's first effort to promote bipartisan trust over how to address the retirement system's projected financial troubles.

Just... wow. Of course when they majority leader they're referring to Delay, who's as crooked as Gannon giving Bush a reacharound, but Hastert is also on board. Their logic is that removing the cap, which you only pay SS taxes up to and is adjusted every few years to the CPI and is currently at 90k, would be a tax and taxes are no-nos. Someone should remind him of the buget deficit or his salary if he doesn't like taxes. My favorite quote is this:

[Delay] added: "Besides, that's not fundamental reform, it won't do anything. If you completely remove the cap, it buys you six years; that's not good."

First off, this is a perfect example of reform. It makes it a truly progressive tax. Talking point: Republicans are not progressive, they would rather have the poor bear a higher proportion of taxes than a progressive would. Second, the line about six years is just patently false. Eliminating the cap would help SS run a surplus indefinitely. Note the numbers they're obfuscating here. The trust fund runs a deficit. That doesn't mean SS is insolvent by any means. For more information, check out There Is No Crisis. If Bush's SS plan fails and he splits with his own party I think we could finally see the beginning of the end.

I can't believe Bush agrees with me on something. I need to go take a shower.

Crummy Rummy

This would be really amusing if Rumsfeld didn't actually have any responsibility, sigh.

Rumsfeld vs. Accountability

Round 1

Asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq, Rumsfeld replied: "I am not going to give you a number."

Looks like Rummy gave Accountability the slip, and now round 2.

Did he care to voice an opinion on efforts by U.S. pilots to seek damages from their imprisonment in Iraq? "I don't."

Whoa, the referee, Interest, has just fallen sick with AIDS and died. Rumsfeld can't be bothered to notice. Round 3.

Could he comment on what basing agreements he might seek in Iraq? "I can't."

Rummy gave a sharp jab to the left. Round 4.

How about the widely publicized cuts to programs for veterans? "I'm not familiar with the cuts you're referring to."

Now two right straights followed by a raspberry. Round 5.

How long will the war last? "There's never been a war that was predictable as to length, casualty or cost in the history of mankind."

Rumsfeld lands a left uppercut on Accountability! In the stands, Disbelief faints! Round 6.

When Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) mentioned an estimate of the costs for increases in troops' death benefits and life insurance, Rumsfeld said: "I've never heard that number."

Rummy kicks Accountability in the crotch and it looks like Accountability is down hard and hurting. Round 7.

Rumsfeld responded to Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) as he often scolds journalists: "You had so many questions there. Now let me see if I can pull out another one." As the exchange with Forbes continued, Rumsfeld requested: "Could you speak up a little bit?"

After kicking a downed Accountability hard, the new referee, Transparency, urges Rumsfeld to get back to his corner, but Rumsfeld has taken a deaf ear to the rules. Round 8.

Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.) pressed Rumsfeld on whether he had talked with an aide who was quoted last month as saying Congress had been too generous in expanding military retirement benefits. "No, I have not, nor have I seen the statement that you've quoted in the context that it might have been included," the defense secretary replied.

Rumsfeld is now running rings around Accountability and hitting him with spitballs. Round 9.

When the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq, the secretary said, "I am not going to give you a number for it because it's not my business to do intelligent work." (He presumably meant to say "intelligence.") Ultimately, Rumsfeld admitted he had estimates at his fingertips. "I've got two in front of me," he said.

"Could you share those with us?" Skelton inquired.

Not just now, Rumsfeld said. "They're classified."

Rumsfeld, apparently bored with the match, takes out a gun and shoots both Accountability and Transparency. The crowd starts booing Rumsfeld.

Two dozen members of the House Armed Services Committee had not yet had their turn to question Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at yesterday's hearings when he decided he had had enough.

At 12:54, he announced that at 1 p.m. he would be taking a break and then going to another hearing in the Senate. "We're going to have to get out and get lunch and get over there," he said. When the questioning continued for four more minutes, Rumsfeld picked up his briefcase and began to pack up his papers.

Before he can be lynched Rummy vanishes into thin air! Oh!

All quotes taken from the WaPo.

The Real Meaning of Kyoto

We all know in one way or another that what the Kyoto Protocol does is limit emissions by establishing a finite amount of emissions credits that countries and companies can use. Limiting emissions will help the environment.

All of this is true, but it's not the main reason behind the Protocol's creation and how the Protocol will really help reduce emissions and help the environment. Before we can discuss the Protocol's usefulness and applications we need to take a step back and first begin with property rights and valuation. If you own an asset, chances are you can assign a value to it. The problem with the environment is that no one owns it and as such it has no clear value in monetary terms. When a coal company produces energy you're getting charged for its' costs, but what's missing from those costs is the damage done to the environment. This damage is extremely difficult to measure because, as I said before, there are no real good property rights on the air and water.

What the Kyoto Protocol does, and how it really works, is assign property rights of the air to countries and companies. Now that these property rights have been assigned we have some sort of measure as to how much damage is being done to the air. The idea is to eventually distribute fewer and fewer credits over time until pollution drops to negligible levels. Most of the basic ideas that worked their way into the Protocol can be found in this paper by Graciela Chichilnisky. Disclaimer: I took her class.

If you don't believe me that property rights feed into pollution, let's take another, more clear cut example of natural resources. The idea I'm going to lay down is that global poverty and pollution is linked to resource overextraction by developing countries and then pollution by developed countries. The reasoning goes like this: Why do developed countries import many natural resources from developing countries? Because they're cheaper. Why are they cheaper? Because of legal structure and property rights. Basically, if you extract a resource in a developed country and sell it, implicit in its price are depreciation and replacement costs because that resource is an asset that you own, and we have good property rights laws as well as accounting to make sure things are valued properly. Now let's take a look at a developing country with weak property rights laws and no depreciation/replacement cost accounting. In that country someone (might be a corporation, might be a sharecropping farmer) will extract a resource (wood, coal) from a piece of land that is loosely owned by the government or not really owned at all, take the rainforest for an example, and sell it at the market price. This price does not accurately reflect what the same good would cost in a developed country because of weak legal/property rights/accounting practices. Therefore developing countries overproduce resources, or sell them at a lower price, and developed countries buy these and pollute. This is not an optimal equilibrium by any standard.

A good corollary to this idea can be found in Coase's theorem, which states that as long as property rights are well defined, a situation can be bargained/argued through with a satisfactory result. But the catch is that the property rights must be well defined, which is what we don't have now in developing countries. So what we need is stronger legal structures and property rights systems in developing countries to bring up the price of resources to equilibrium and stop overextraction and pollution.

The irony is that all those crazy free market/no government intervention/libertarians/republicans are right. A true free market economy would really work. The problem is that the markets as we know them today are fatally flawed because they are not well defined enough to include all the costs and benefits, and therefore we have market failures in the forms of pollution and poverty. The answer? Kyoto a go-go.

Kyoto My Darling

The Kyoto Protocol goes into affect today. Finally someone's taking a step to curb emissions growth. For those of you who don't know emissions from emo, we're looking at on average a 5º celsius increase in temperatures by 2100. Kyoto attempts to curb that by imposing limits (well, actually it does more than that) on emissions. Does this mean industrial production will suffer and jobs will be lost? Maybe, maybe not. Will fossil fuel companies take it on the chin? Probably. However, this doesn't mean that the people who lose their jobs in these industries won't be able to get a job in a new, and therefore less productive, which translates into a higher job growth, alternative energy industry. Just because we're limiting emissions growth doesn't mean we're limiting consumption. As I've been saying for a while now, spend the billions on R&D now on wind and solar and you'll have a sizeable payoff soon, both economically and environmentally.

Of course someone had to be the bully and ruin all the fun and lower emissions. That would be the U.S, which produces about 20-25% of the world's emissions. The bottom line for why the U.S. rejected Kyoto was that the oil and coal industries, who contribute heavily to Bush - Haliburton ring a bell, anybody? anybody?, would have to suffer the excruciating torture of lower profits. That's it, pure shortsighted economic self interest wins out over not-even-that-far-in-the-future economic and environmental well being for everyone. According to the CEO of American Electric Power,

American concerns could be handicapped compared with Chinese or Indian competitors, because environmental regulations are stricter in the United States, even without acceptance of Kyoto requirements.

You have to be kidding me, right? You're comparing yourself against countries that don't produce nearly as many emissions as the U.S. does. Nevermind that Kyoto has a clean development mechanism in it that allows for not using up as many emissions credits if you install cleaner factories and power plants in developing countries. I can definitely see French Guyana as an up and coming competitor as well, maybe we should nuke them. I'll make a long post later on what Kyoto really aims to do.

Enron Finds a New Home in the White House

According to the WaPo,

President Bush asked Congress yesterday for $82 billion in emergency spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the Indian Ocean tsunami, making good on a pledge to dramatically scale up efforts to train and equip Iraqi security forces ahead of an eventual U.S. withdrawal.

Something tells me this wasn't mentioned in his FY 2006 budget. How the hell can you propose a budget that doesn't include the cost of the war, and then barely a week later ask for that much money??? By the way, who used to work in a law firm that was hired by Enron? I don't know, but his name starts with an A and ends with lberto Gonzales. It's a cost! Put it on your budget! Bush Co. loves to use the metaphor of a business to describe how they run the government. If any CEO ran his company this way he would be wearing thick, thick pinstripes for the rest of his life.

Progress is in Order

This is kind of a riff on a thought I had while listening to the end of Dean's speech at the DNC winter meeting where he said "Republicans stop progress, but Democrats start progress." It got me thinking about the way those of us on the left frame ourselves and are framed by other people. The moniker that most of us have been using for quite some time now is "liberal." That's how we refer to ourselves and are referred to by other people. For example: "I'm a liberal," "I'm a proud liberal," and "He's a liberal piece of sh*t." According to dictionary.com there are a bunch of definitions, but let's stick with these two for the time being:

1. A political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and protection from arbitrary authority.

2. An economic theory in favor of laissez-faire, the free market, and the gold standard.

As we can see the true definition is a little more specific than most of us are aware of today. Today we usually use the word liberal to connote socially liberal policies. I don't think I've ever heard someone refer to a government's liberal fiscal policies and mean definition 2 above. If anything if someone described a government's fiscal policy as liberal I'd assume he meant that it taxed as was necessary to spend on social programs or maybe it ran deficits in a Keynesian manner. What struck me in Dean's speech was the constant invocation of the word and frame of progress. I started wondering about how different progressivism is from liberalism. Once again, courtesy of to dictionary.com here are a couple definitions of progressive:

1. Promoting or favoring progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods.

2. Increasing in rate as the taxable amount increases: a progressive income tax.

I can't speak for everyone out there, but at least for me once I started thinking about it I realized (and yes this is partially a result of reading Lakoff) that although the difference is not insurmountably huge, I think I identify more with the progressive label than the liberal label. For a contrast, let's take a look at our opponents on the right who style themselves as conservatives. There's only one definition worth looking at here:

1. Favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change.

By contrasting this definition with those above, it becomes obvious that conservativism is not necessarily at odds with liberalism (minus all the connotations we've given it) but is 180 degrees from progressivism. There are a couple of conclusions we can draw from this. First, we must recognize that our opponents in the administration are anything but conservatives. They may be social conservatives in the loosest sense when it comes to gay marriage, but otherwise they are reactionaries. Maybe a hundred years ago they'd have been conservatives, but that time has long passed. The desire to abolish any form of social support (by the state and not the church) is not a conservative value, it's a reactionary one. They're a wolf in sheep's clothes, using the word reform to disguise reactionary policies. Furthermore, the current administration isn't even fiscally conservative, they're more like liberals according to the definition above. What we can draw from this is that we now have a new opening that we can exploit. When so-called conservatives invoke the word and frame of conservative, call them out on it. They're not conservative at all, and feel free to point this out. It will push them back on the defensive and force them to restate and reinvent themselves, and we know how well reinvention on the spot (call it for what it is: opportunism) goes over with people. For even more fun, toss in the environmental connotations of conservativism and see how they respond to that. If they really were conservatives this wouldn't be a problem for them, but that brand of conservativism left the Republican party years ago during Reagan's administrations.

Second, it is time we realigned ourselves with the progressive label as opposed to the liberal label. If our opponents want to call us opportunists then just be sure to point out the question that after we've both realigned with what we really are as progressives and reactionaries, which side would you rather be on? In addition to better representing the ideas and ideals we stand for, progressivism has two additional benefits. 1. Liberalism invokes faith in good government. The cardinal sin that liberals and Democrats committed years ago, and that conservatives and Republicans are committing now, is telling people to trust the government. Fact of life here, people are usually unwilling to trust something that takes their money and tells them what to do. Progressivism has none of this baggage; it just says we want reform and better policies (which should take the form of more transparent government). It lets us communicate simply and clearly that we are for progress, and by contra-definition, our opponents are against it. 2. Using the word progressive invokes the progressive frame and the connotations inherent to it such as better public schools, more fair taxation, more affordable and available healthcare. If you want to be against those things would you also like a cigarette to smoke with your blindfold?

As Dean said, "Republicans stop progress, but Democrats start progress." If the Democratic party is the party of progress and reform then it is time we started effectively communicating that image and one of the first steps in doing so is to define ourselves for what we really are by phasing out liberal from our vocabulary and making a point of using progressive to describe ourselves. From here on out I am no longer a liberal, but a progressive. You should be too.

Iraqi Elections

Now that's actually kind of funny. Although I would've figured that the Shiite alliance would have won an overwhelming majority and provoked outrage by the Sunnis and Kurds, they've only clocked in at 140 seats, which is two more than required for a majority (NYT. The NYT is still reporting that turnout was 60%).

Well, it's not like the violence ended when the elections were held, and I really don't think this violence is going to end now. With under half of the eligible electorate actually voting, it's unclear how popular or effective this government is actually going to be. Remember, an election is a celebration, but it's not a guarantee that the government will be able to govern. Also, this government has to draw up a constitution of some sort. Let's see if they'll be able to do that without alienating a good part of the population.

DNC Winter Meeting

You can watch it here live if you make it in time.

Dean is speaking, yay Dean! He just slammed the Republicans on education, elections, and SS in about a minute. That's the Dean I love. He just called Pelosi and Reid speaker and majority leader to be, and he just brought up framing. Thank god someone understands framing. If you don't or don't think it's important, buy yourself a copy of Don't Think of an Elephant here. He also understands including the base rather than using them for donations (Kerry). The plan is to really mobilize people: "All the ideas in the world won't matter to them if they don't see our ideas as relevant to them." He just said "if you trust voters, they will trust us... and the Republicans will never be able to do that."It's true, running things top down from Washington won't win for us, Republicans can't handle decentralization, and that's how we're going to win. The man also understands that progressive politics are more important and are better in structuring a frame than solely liberal policies. "Republicans block progress, we cause progress." Actually I think I'm somewhat paraphrasing that last bit (someone feel free to correct it), but you get the idea. It's a brilliant frame to use. Not a question of conservative vs. liberal, but rather one of conservative vs. progressive.

That just gave me an idea, I'll post on it later.

I Heart Howard

so does most of the netroots. read and behold.

North Korea has the bomb

I don't know about you, but I hardly batted an eyelash when I read that. For some reason I've been under the (probably correct) impression that the DPRK has had WMD for a while, and was only holding out to wrestle some benefits from the US, the real reason they want to have the bilateral talks. Can they be trusted? I'm not a liberal hawk and I don't really like them, but the answer is still no. Which brings us to another question: why the hell are our men dying in Iraq to protect us from a formerly non-existant threat (that we created by being there) while we let a crazy regime become dangerous while we looked the other way? And we pulled troops out of South Korea to boot.

The sad truth is that the culprit is once again this administration. What was in Iraq that wasn't in the DPRK (besides the lack of a real threat)? 1. Oil. I'm not saying this is the reason we went to war there, but you can't ignore that it is a reason. If you don't believe me, look at what the troops first secured when we got there and what was supposed to pay for some of the cost of the war, and look at what company's doing a lot of construction work there and who used to run that company. 2. A grudge. Yes, Bush is stupid enough to let a grudge he's probably held since Bush Sr. didn't get to annihilate Saddam influence his politics. He's said as much. He probably also sees Gulf War I as the reason daddy lost in '92. 3. Israel. Too many crazy evangelicals and neo-con Jews in the party see Israel as a top priority, either because they need all the Jews to get there and then die so the rapture can occur, or they'd rather work through war and strongarm tactics as opposed to diplomacy in order to frighten Israel's neighbors into uneasy peace.

How can Bush still sell the war in Iraq when the DPRK has nukes? Easy. Look at how many people believe every lie and untruth he has told to date. It's only when people stop watching fox news and get informed that they will throw his crap back at him. But as for the true believers, if he held up a pile of horse shit (you can take that either literally or metaphorically) and told them that it really wasn't horse shit and instead the manna, they'd eat it.

Medicare, ha

In the wake of the hustle and bustle about the new cost of the medicare bill, Bush says:

``I signed Medicare reform proudly and any attempt to limit the choices of our seniors and to take away their prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto,''

Coverage? Well... replace seniors with drug companies and coverage with bonuses. Ah.

quoted here.

Deceit 'R' Us

Who loves America? Not Bush.

The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system.

The report (mentioned in NYT) takes the F.A.A. to task for worrying more about financial problems than security threats, but as long as this administration is covering up information that can help our protection in order to save its yellow behind, it does not care about America.

Fiscal Woes

First up we've got the new revised cost of the Drug Benefit (or should it be drug company benefit) to $720 billion, up just a little from the previous estimate of $400 billion. According to the Post (that's the WaPo) medicare chief McClellan (any relation to our press secretary?)

acknowledged that the cumulative cost of the program between 2006 and 2015 will reach $1.2 trillion, but he cited several major savings and offsets that he said will reduce the federal government's bottom-line cost to $720 billion.

I'd expect it closer to the higher figure knowing this administration.

Next up is the grumbling in the house about the budget. I'm glad no democrats have praised this budget, and I pray Joe Lieberman will not be reincarnated as a rep. on the budget committee. I'm also glad Republicans are cranky about it as well. Of course no budget proposal actually makes it through unscathed, but there's always reason to worry knowing this administration's strong-arm tactics.

Here's a typical example of Bush being Bush: Although he was in Detroit yesterday talking up his social security and financial plans, as well as wanting to cut ineffective programs like Even Start because why should we help poor people learn how to read (and those hated unnecessary lawsuits that are driving the economy into the ground - why, i lost 2 jobs yesterday!), at the same time the AP reports that

The Bush administration hopes to raise about $8 million next year in new tolls on freight ships passing through the St. Lawrence Seaway, a move the Great Lakes shipping industry said Tuesday could cost it business and jobs.

link here. How exactly do people say they can trust this man?

The 2006 Budget

Or should I say the we won't budge-it. Oh boy, you have no idea how much fun math (or subtraction particularly in this case) can be! The full website for the budget is here. To quote, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Let's start with the massive misinformation. The report shows a graph of decline in percent growth of non-security discretionary spending. Yes it's true percent growth is slowing and if all the rosy predictions of this report are true, (which they aren't) then the deficit as a percentage of GDP will decline. However, this analysis leaves out more than a few important facts. First, that decline in discretionary spending is for non-security purposes. Hmmm.... I wonder why there isn't a graph for how much security spending has declined. Second, deficict as a percentage of GDP may be declining, but that doesn't mean that the deficit and the national debt are decreasing in absolute terms any time soon. When the national debt becomes a fraction of a percent of a year's GDP you can make that argument, but that ain't going to be any time soon. Third, it really shouldn't matter how much you're spending as long as you recoup that in taxes. So even if we had a higher percent growth in non-security spending under Clinton (which means less spending), we still cut the deficit by taxing to fund that spending.

Check out this highlight:

Non-security discretionary spending falls by nearly 1 percent, the tightest such restraint proposed since the Reagan Administration.

Ooooh, now there was a shining light for sound economic policy.

On the defense side of things we're looking at a $43 billion dollar increase in spending at minimum. Most of this ($35 billion) will be going to reorganize the army and increase the number of active brigades. Can I get a draft, brother?

In the economic opportunity and education (I guess they're shrinking so much as a percentage of the budget that they can be lumped together), the majority of economic opportunity comes in the form of tax cuts, while most spending on education is to support NCLB. That's right, spend more money to test teachers and kids (while we withdraw their funding to do well), and then withdraw their funding even more when they fail.

The health and compassion part sums to about $140 billion, most of which (88.8%) comes in the form of (surprise!) tax cuts. Heaven forbid you could actually provide them with equal programs. For those Republicans out there who are a little iffy on math, here's a good example. If you tax a person who makes $30k a year nothing, he still comes out a lot worse than a person who makes $100k a year and is taxed at a rate of 50%. That's $50k a year if you're still iffy on the math. So as long as insurance companies keep raising their premiums most Americans (who are those $30k earners) will be screwed. As for highlights from the highlights, we're losing 3.1 billion in tax revenue to increase individual donations to charitable organizations (churches), but we're only increasing spending on AIDS relief by $382 million.

As for science and the environment (why am I even bothering), we've got 27 billion spent on a (oh boy, could it be???) tax credit (yes!!!), while only 2 billion is spent on every other initiative.

I'm not going to go into the specifics for every department, but the NYT describes the budget that would

scale back or eliminate scores of agriculture, education, health, environmental and other domestic programs to help him meet his goal of slashing the budget deficit while providing more money for national security

(except it won't really slash the budget deficit)

Basically, the military spending is a lowball because they don't know how much Iraq is really going to cost and they'd rather ask for an emergency approprations bill later. On the whole, he's slashing 150 programs and cutting spending that is coming out of education, the environment, healthcare, veterans' benefits (yay support our troops), spending more on the military, and not do anything to decrease the size of our debt. Someone needs to go at this budget with a machete, a calculator, and some of the WMD that we didn't find in Iraq.

Yes, he IS a war criminal

So Gonzales has been charged with war crimes in Germany in addition to Rumsfeld and the usual suspects.

Does this mean we can charge Lieberman as an accomplice?

Security of the Fatherland

If you haven't heard about the latest in this administration's attempts to strip away any and all checks and balances in the government as well as civil liberties, check this out.

The text of part of this bill reads as follows:

IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.

Yes, it's exactly what you thought you would never catch in this country. You can find the full bill here, and the particularly offensive stuff is in section 102. If you ever thought sitting on the sidelines was ok or that none of what goes on in government will affect your life, it's time to turn off the t.v., stop being a sheep, and call your representatives in congress! At best this law is blatantly unconstitutional (and reminds me of the laws in Nazi Germany where the chancellor could be given free reign if a state of emergency was declared, anyone know the specifics? Italy as well), and at worst we will see this administration use this law selfishly and at whim to whip us into a state of fear (where we feel more comfortable being ordered around, much like they've done for the past 3 and a half years) to suit whatever corporate or propagandistic interest they see fit.

Dollar Dump

A few days ago Russia decided to stop following the dollar so closely and instead switch to a mix of the dollar and the euro.

It has begun.

John Snow remarked that the administration would continue to let the dollar fall, and it is. There is an upside to the falling dollar in that it helps the export sectors. But we're nowhere near low enough (and we don't want to be) to compete with China or India.

The reason for the dollar's decline goes like this. Countries buy the dollar because it is a strong, frequently used currency, so poor countries might peg their currencies to or even adopt the dollar in order to curb inflation and promote confidence. Countries also buy US foreign debt for much of the same reasons; we're big and reliable. However, because of the Bush administration's fiscal policies that are increasing the budget deficit, this means that our debt is becoming less and less attractive, and interest rates are rising (in order to make our debt as attractive as before). As this happens countries are not as willing to put stock in the American economy and they don't buy as much US debt (which makes it harder to finance the deficit and American lifestyles, which are heavily in debt - and this economy is screwed if a credit crunch comes in soon, look to the housing sector) and they stop pegging to the dollar because they feel it's overvalued and weaker. This just eggs on the dollar fall, as they sell it out of their currency reserves.

Someone should've reminded Bush the job required math.

feeling good and blue

NY's lowest court has legalized same sex marriage, comparing the ban to previous bans on interracial marriage. They've given a month for an appeal to be filed, and you can bet that there will be one, but right now it feels good to live in a blue state :)

federalism yay!

decision is here

while we're on the topic of same sex marriage, our next matchup is the Catholic Church vs. Canada.

To quote Mr. Martin, a catholic, (from the NYT article) "You can't pick and choose the minority rights or the fundamental rights that you are going to defend."

equality?! whoa...

Rice On Iran

I'd like to see her wriggle out of this one if she's lying, let's hope that she's being honest.

from the NYT (subscription required)

LONDON, Feb. 4 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that an attack on Iran by the United States "is simply not on the agenda," despite Iran's "abysmal human rights record" and suspicion that it harbors ambitions to produce nuclear weapons.

Let's hold her and the administration to this.

Glass House Rocks

my band played a gig last night and it went so well.

listen to those tracks! we sound better live!

State of the Union

ok, I know it's a little late, but I'm going to add my two cents anyway.

I'd really like to tear into the speech and analyze it, but it was so full of fluff that I'd rather wrap myself in it and take a nap. Here goes anyway. Bush started off the speech on the domestic front, citing that we can achieve economic prosperity by using discipline in spending (that actually goes a long way to getting at the problem now that I think about it), and that he'll cut the deficit in half by 2009. How're we going to do this? (besides all the spending he wants to allocate further down the road) 150 government programs are going to be axed. What really freaked me out about that line is that there were no specifics about which programs he was talking about. Bye bye non-abstinence sex-ed and healthcare. Wait, wait, wait, I know. The EPA and the IRS, who needs those in a Bush free market ownership society?

Bush then launched into his tirade about how evil frivolous malpractice suits are eating up the cost of healthcare and putting doctors out of business. I mean, come on. All those lawsuits account for only 2% of healthcare spending (courtesy of think progress, who did a great job of blogging the SOTU). Say it with me: tort reform is a non-issue. My dad's a doctor, and while malpractice insurance is annoying (what cost isn't?) he'll tell you that what's killing the industry are the HMOs and patient's insurance providers, not frivolous lawsuits. For those of you who are wondering as to why Republicans keep harping on this issue, it's relatively simple and leads back to the money. Trial lawyers provide Democrats with large donations. Take away their source of money and you make a big blow to Democratic monetary resources. By the way, Bush wants to fix healthcare by increasing spending.

For the record, he still can't pronounce nuclear.

We got a couple lines about the environment and getting energy here. Great, good bye arctic national wildlife reserve, there's black gold there. He said that his Clear Skies Act will cut pollution. This is nothing more than an out and out lie. Clear Skies calls for a reduction of greenhouse gas intensity (emissions/GDP), not an emissions reduction. George Orwell just ate his doublespeak for breakfast. He threw in a reference to clean coal, which again is misleading. The US does not consider CO2 to be an emission, yet it's the largest emissions gas we've got with the longest halflife. It's pretty depressing, but yeah, cleaning out the other emissions like SO2 will only speed up global warming.

Now for his dead on the doorstep baby, social security reform. try There Is No Crisis if you don't believe me, it would take me way too long to get into the math and the economics of it. Again, we were hit with platitude after platitude and no specific information about what Bush wants to do.

We then got the satisfy the evangelicals topics of a federal amendment for marriage, culture of life and no medical research, no activist judges (i've been thinking about what Bush said, but how is a judge who interprets the law not legislating from the bench? Subjectivity? Wasn't that a class in elementary school?), and faith based programs (more $$$).

He mentioned something that sounded like the Ryan-White act, does anybody (wait, no one's reading this yet :P) know what this is?

Now we move on to the foreign policy part of the speech, where Bush said we needed to have freedom from fear. I think terror alert was on fuschia today. Obviously we're winning the war on terror because they're fighting back. Therefore if we were losing they wouldn't fight back... are you listening, Osama? Speaking of which, he didn't get a single mention in the SOTU. So much for that part of the drinking game. Bush understands that peace can be achieved by eliminating fundamentalism. Too bad he hasn't looked in the mirror lately. Explain to me how he can say that America is a freedom loving nation where we have the freedom to do what we want 10 minutes after he says that gay couples shouldn't be allowed to marry? Helloooooo??? But according to Bush that's what "they" want, to impose a form of government and life on the people in their countries, which we would never never do. My favorite line was when he said that they want to create a state "in which a tiny group of rulers control every bit of life." Nuff said, chief.

Bush also laid out who we're going to be invading next. Yeah, it's Syria, Lebanon, Iran, with the usual DPRK mention. He basically spent this part of his speech asserting that preemptive warfare was necessary. Anyone remember how the last preemptive wars went? (hint hint, Japan) A free Iraq, which logically follows when 60% (at highest estimate) of the population vote for candidates they don't know, is also necessary for US safety. Apparently so is creating the largest influx of terrorism we've ever seen.

At the end of the speech I really began to believe that 'freedom' was a big club or spear that you could beat your enemy over the head with and he'd give up. Look for your very own freedom coming to a Walmart near you. Mine's on preorder. Freedom's not the weapon, fool, it's called hope, it's a psychological one, and it cuts both ways since people hope for different things (where's my monkey helper? yes, I see people cower at me when I talk about it... but that's for a different reason). Yes, freedom is anathema to Islamic fundamentalists because they'd rather have their society dictated by the Koran (replace Islamic with Christian and Koran with...). But freedom's not a weapon, it doesn't scare them, the idea of their way of life changing is what scares them.

Alright, let me make my bit on the Democratic response quick.

Sen. Reid took up domestic issues and SS. Everything he said was right and great, but his best line was to compare the deficit to a birth tax. I think everyone should start referring to deficit spending as a birth tax, it's great for framing. The line's also been immortalized in a poster over here, check it out.

Pelosi laid out a plan for how to win in Iraq, it involves 1. actually training security forces 2. diplomacy 3. fixing the Iraqi economy. These are all good points and they should be taken care of, but I still think that won't be enough to win. Still, we should be doing as much as we can, and under our current administration we're not doing squat.

Sorry, but I really couldn't take anything Pelosi said seriously because of whatever Botox/Thermage injections she's had in her forehead. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Those things are supposed to move!

This was all dictated in one breath.

Gonzales will be the first hispanic Attorney General

So what?! At the confirmation hearings yesterday Sen. Hatch went on and on about how it was great for the country that we would finally have a hispanic AG, and continued with Gonzales' long, arduous, and meritorious life story.

I don't get it. Singling out Gonzales' race as a reason to confirm him is a ploy that could only work if his and another candidate's qualifications were equal. By stressing race (if you believe that it exists) as a reason for confirmation, Hatch is 1. using a somewhat racist rhetoric 2. making a completely transparent shill to a voting block. We've been having debates about the confirmation hearings, but they seem less like debates and more like repetition of talking points. The next time a Republican, or Salazar for that matter, iterates that Gonzales is a smart choice for the job because he's hispanic, I want a Democrat to call him on it for "pandering to a special interest group," because that's exactly what they're doing (this argument exists within the RNC noise machine's PR, never mind the torture memos), and this lets Democrats take a much needed step back in their evaluation of Gonzales. Let's put the Republicans on the defensive in regard to special interest groups.

Getting back to Gonzales' life story, gimme a break. He's been a Bush toady for the past 10 years. They should make that story into a TV movie on the networks, I'm sure it would help them sell their points much better. The bottom line is that when considering a candidate for a job like the AG, your race should not matter, and neither should your life story past that which is relevant to the job. Your qualifications are your prior work in the field, your logic, and for the AG, your commitment to serve the American people, not the president.

Besides, haven't they already got a hispanic with a sympathetic life story in the cabinet with Guiterrez? You can't do the same thing twice - booooring!!!!

I have a fez

1st post

right, this is my brand new blog, cup 'o moose. now let me get my particulars in order...