The Bushies' War on FDR

Here's a good article on why the Bushies want to dismantle the New Deal. From Slate.

Dead going on 60 years, FDR still makes self-styled champions of American-style capitalism fulminate, much the same way their counterparts in the 1930s raged against "That Man." Why? The New Deal era reminds national greatness Republicans like Wehner of their party's futility in a time of true national greatness. I also suspect that many Republicans are simply unable to forgive Roosevelt for what may have been his greatest and longest-lasting achievement: saving American capitalism through regulation. And since they can't tear down the Triborough Bridge or the Hoover Dam, these guys act out by going after Social Security.

The theory that new taxes and regulation would inevitably hamper economic growth and destroy America exerted a powerful hold on the minds of the business establishment and the economic right in the 1930s—just as it does today. FDR's proposals seemed to fly in the face of everything these experts knew about how the economy works. In particular, FDR upended the hallowed equation: taxes and regulation equals tyranny and depression.

For 70 years, conservatives have been telling us that the American economy—whether it's in recession or whether it's booming—is laboring under the shackles of the burdensome taxation and misguided regulation placed upon it by FDR and his successors. Somehow, stocks would do better if the SEC were weaker and we'd all be wealthier if seniors weren't guaranteed a minimum income, funded through payroll taxes. But America's economic mastery since 1945 has served as an ongoing and constant refutation of their most dearly held beliefs. It still does today. As George Melloan concedes, "The New Deal basically expanded the reach of government, and things worked out OK." Actually, they worked out great. Some people still can't get over it.

So they're trying to undo the social progress of the last 70 years because it's working? And they're sore about it? What're they gonna say after they wreck the joint - "Oops!"? No, they'll just blame the citizens for being too lazy to work since they won't be able to blame Democrats, for once. Belay my last, they'll find a way. These guys won't even sponsor bread lines -a Communist program if there ever was one- but maybe they'll show compassion and offer folks with no money a discount on "day-old". I know, I'm a hopeless optimist.

What's next? Overturn the Magna Carta?

Get over it, indeed.

The elections Bush didn't want

From Needlenose:

As media coverage of today's elections in Iraq swims in phrases like "major test of President Bush's goal of promoting democracy," and as the Orwell Bush administration does everything it can to claim credit for their occurrence, it seems like a good moment to take a look back at how they really came about -- through a process in which Dubya and his crew were dragged against their will, kicking and screaming, every step of the way.

So, whatever his ultimate intentions for Iraq are, you can thank Grand Ayatollah Sistani for these elections -- his determination made them happen, and his fervent endorsement of voting gave them whatever level of success they achieve. George Bush? He's claiming credit on the surface, but away from the cameras he's grimacing and scheming to keep Sistani from forcing any more unwanted democracy down his throat.

Go read in between the quotes. Once again, it seems, something happened that Bush didn't really want, but since it happened he's claiming credit for it as if it was his idea all along.

Also, "Bush's Resounding Success" from Politics Of Dissent, whose masthead reads "The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. Archibald MacLeish". The post questions the validity of the elections.

Resigned from the herd? Sounds better than being resigned to the herd, huh?

Good Presidents

Robbed this from Doug McDaniel's post on lying Secretaries of State.

The following day, Harrison delivered the longest innaugural address in American history. The President spoke for more than two hours in the rain, caught pneumonia, and died less than a month later. For this, some conservatives say he is the greatest President in American history. Vice President Tyler was inaugurated and Webster remained Secretary of State.

Oh, to dream for deja vu.

Note: Ya think Gordon and I are on to something?

Iraq vote 3

Well, it's over, and I guess it's a success, except for the Sunni areas. Now, stay tuned for Instashithead and all the rest of the freepers to go on and on about how this validates Bush's policies in Iraq.

How's your ass?

100 Companies Receiving The Largest Dollar Volume Of Prime Contract Awards - Fiscal Year 2004. Feel used? Link via Kevin Hayden.

Iraq Elections and Feith-Based Broadcasting

I'm really glad I stumbled on Wolcott some time back. He's got two really good posts, one on the Iraqi election, and one on Feith's new job. You can figure out for yourself which is which. Here's some ticklers:

Yesterday on one of the Fox financial shows, James Rogers, author of Investment Biker, commodities guru, and neighbor-down-the-block (an utterly irrelevant detail I thought I'd toss in to make this blog sound more "personal"), was asked by host Neil Cavuto whether the elections in Iraq would be successful. Rogers said, "They'll be successful because the media will say they're successful," adding impishly, "Fox News probably already has the results."

They must have a bunch of Ohio election workers over there.

However, I can exclusively report that the Pentagon's gain is broadcasting's loss. According to my highly placed imaginary sources in a certain skyscraper on Sixth Avenue, Feith has just been signed by Fox News, which intends to build a weekend show around him called "Feith and Friends."

Breaking the news to the wage slaves and overpaid hosts at Fox, Roger Ailes said, "When I heard that General Tommy Franks had described Feith as 'the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the planet,' I knew he was the man for us." Ailes took a George Burns draw on his cigar. "But I was also taken aback, since I thought we already had the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the planet listed on our payroll," he said, stealing a sly glance at Sean Hannity, who jovially quipped, "I guess that makes me the second fucking stupidest guy on the planet!" "And me, third!" piped up Cal Thomas.

Asked whom the "friends" on Feith and Friends might be, Ailes said he was already in contact with Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher. "A black conservative on the take, a white woman on the take, and the fucking stupidest guy on the planet--sounds like the right mix to me. Certainly no one can say Fox News isn't doing its part for multiculturalism," Ailes chortled, leaving the cafeteria staff no choice but to join in.

Me, I think power and success have gone to Roger Ailes' cigar-smoke-filled head. Doug Feith has an annoying voice and in his Senate testimonies never displayed any talent for bantering with sidekicks or getting off a clever ad lib. Even on television, being stupid isn't enough; you've got to have other things going for you, too.

Being stupid isn't enough? Oh well, there went my broadcasting career. Well, maybe on Fox......

Remember Scott Ritter?

From our friends at PSoTD:

[. . .]

But, through the invasion of Iraq, a crime of gigantic proportions has been perpetrated. If history has taught us anything, it is that it will condemn both the individuals and respective societies who not only perpetrated the crime, but also remained blind and mute while it was being committed.

The Soviet

[. . .]

But now the art of press handling has evolved into actual manhandling. The Bush team has expanded the use of "minders," employees or volunteers who escort journalists from interview to interview within a venue or at a newsworthy event.

[. . .]

As I was dictating from my notes, something flashed across my face and neatly snatched my cell phone from of my hand. I looked up to confront a middle-aged woman, her face afire with rage. "You ignored the rules, and I'm throwing you out!" she barked, snapping my phone shut. "You told that girl you didn't need an escort. That's a lie! You're out of here!"

[. . .]

WaPo via Skippy.

Those of you who are my age and older remember this happening when journalists reported from inside the old Soviet Union. For those of you younger, the Soviet Union was a totalitarian society. Draw your own consclusions.

Words I'd Like To Hear From Bush

"Oh my God! I've been shot!"

A New DUI

From the NYTimes:

To the list of the unforeseen hazards that seem to plague the information age, we can now add another: "drunk dialing."

This late-night cellular faux pas joins such exalted company as the "mistaken dial" (when your mobile phone, inadvertently prompted, dials a number in your address book by mistake) and the annoying ring tone that can interrupt big job interviews or Communion service.

But unlike its predecessors, drunk dialing usually limits itself to times long after the close of business and beyond the daily commute. It is in those dark hours of late night and wee hours of early morn, when most people have retired their cellphones for overnight charging, that intoxicated revelers flip open their cellphones and dial into regret.

Holy shit. Now I've heard everything and have no more reason to live. Will somebody please shoot me?

Note

To John Kerry: Don't run for President in 2008. I ain't voting for ya.

Blogrolling Day

I know our friends, and esteemed colleagues, over at PSoTD (and others) have instituted a tradition of pointing out new blogs every Friday. Well, I don't, because adding blogs that I like is a 'whenever I stumble across one' proposition. I wrote about my not making a big deal over adding to the list. Every blog listed in the sidebar is good, in my humble opinion, or they wouldn't be there. If you haven't yet, read them all regularly.

Iraq vote 2

Early indications show a 72% turnout. We should be ashamed of ourselves over here.

Update: 11:50:

Juan Cole:

Guerrillas launched mortar and suicide bomb attacks at polling stations throughout Iraq on Sunday as thousands of Iraqis headed to the polls. As many as 27 were dead by 1 pm Iraqi time, with several times that wounded.

[. . .]

You can wipe your ass with it

I've been bitching for a while about what Chimpy's economic policies have been doing to the dollar. (here and here).

. . . I still have some of the old 50,000 and 100,000 [Weimar]DM notes that were printed without backing, devalued almost to the point of used toilet paper.

Today, I stumble upon this, via Melanie:

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Bill Gates, the world's richest person with a net worth of $46.6 billion, is betting against the U.S. dollar.

"I'm short the dollar," Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told Charlie Rose in an interview late yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down."

Gates's concern that widening U.S. budget and trade deficits are undermining the dollar was echoed in Davos by policymakers including European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

[. . .]

Gates's $27 billion foundation in September received approval from China's foreign-currency regulator to invest as much as $100 million in the nation's yuan shares and bonds.

[. . .]

Now, love or hate Bill Gates, you have to admit that he knows what he's doing with regards to money. If Gates is bailing on the buck, I'm calling my investment guy tomorrow and moving anything I have in currency hedges to Euros(I got a personal problem with investing in communist countries). I suggest all you folks who don't have hedge funds to start screaming at your elected representatives to curb the White House spending orgy before the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Europeans foreclose on us. And no, I don't consider myself unAmerican by investing in Euros. Chimpy & Co has made an art form out of wasting my money, I ain't wasting my retirement helping to prop up a currency that Bush is trying to destroy.

Reality bites

Via Oliver Willis:

(PUTNEY, Ky., January 20th, 2005, 5 p.m.) -- A man whose religious conversion prompted him to turn his adult novelty shop into a Christian bookstore is giving up because of poor sales.

[. . .]

Braithwaite had a conversion in 2002 after he was booked on charges of distributing obscene materials at his Love World store. He decided to burn all the leather gear, rubber playthings and other naughty merchandise and convert his business into a Bible bookstore named Mike's Place. The obscenity charges were dropped.

[. . .]

Unfortunately, even in Kentucky, porn sells better than Bibles. When he put the store up for sale, Ol' Mike said:

"When you've done all you can do, you turn it over into God's hands," . . .

Maybe God liked porn better too. Now, I'm sure the Jesus freaks would tell ya that the Libruls are at fault for dragging the country's morality into a steaming cesspool of wanton desire. But, what Ol' Mike and the local preacher don't get:

The Rev. John Ditty, pastor of Harlan Baptist Church, said Mike's Place may be the victim of department stores that can sell Bibles at lower prices.

Is that even good Christians look at porn. Probably more than they look at their Bibles. There's a reason porn is the biggest industry on the Internets and a multi-billion dollar a year business. Now we can debate all day about whether this propensity for porn is the Devil's work, but it ain't just the blue state, anal sex loving, sodomites who are buying it. Tell me though, one thing I don't get.

I understand the Christians' distaste for pornography, though I make light of it, but why not the same outrage against violence? Personally, I'd rather my kid see a loving couple express their passion than Rambo kill everybody just because he can.

More hope

An update to my post last week.

TEL AVIV, Jan. 29 -- A meeting between Israel's defense minister and a top Palestinian security official Saturday went well, Israeli officials said, as the two sides try to reconcile widely differing expectations for an upcoming summit between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

[. . .]

Israeli officials described a "good, positive atmosphere," and said the two men would meet again in the coming days. Dahlan left the hotel without speaking to reporters.

The talks were part of preparations for a summit between Abbas and Sharon expected in the second week of February. The summit would be a crucial step in the push to end four years of hostilities and revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

[. . .]

WaPo.

If nothing else goes right in the Middle East this year, I hope this does. Maybe . . . hopefully, the Israelis and Palestinians have had it with war. Peace in the Holy Land will go a lot father to bring 'freedom' and 'democracy' to the region than anything Bush can fuck up . . . er, do in Iraq.

Iraq vote

Good luck to all the Iraqi people who go out to vote today. You're in our prayers.

The Homeland Security State

Nick Turse in TomDispatch:

Since ancient Rome, imperial republics have invariably felt a tension between cherished republican practices at home and distinctly unrepublican ones abroad; or put another way, if imperial practices spread far enough beyond the republic's borders and gain enough traction out there in the imperium, sooner or later they also make the reverse journey home, and then you have a crisis in -- or simply the destruction of -- the republic itself. The urge of the Bush administration to bring versions of the methods it's applying abroad back home is already palpable; the urge to free the President, as "commander-in-chief" in the "war on terror," from all the old fetters, those boring, restraining checks and balances, those inconvenient liberties won by Americans -- so constraining, so troublesome to deal with -- is equally palpable.

Long , long article about the encroachment into all our lives, and then this jewel:

Strange as it may seem, the Air Force has also gotten into the local surveillance act as well with an "Eagle Eyes" anti-terrorism initiative which "enlists" average citizens in the "war on terror." The Eagle Eyes' website tells viewers: "You and your family are encouraged to learn the categories of suspicious behavior" and it exhorts the public to drop a dime to "a network of local, 24-hour phone numbers… whenever a suspicious activity is observed." Just what, then, constitutes "suspicious activity"? Well, among activities worth alerting the flying eagles to, there's the use of cameras (either still or video), note taking of any sort, making annotations on maps, or using binoculars (birdwatchers beware!). And what other patterns of behavior does the Air Force think should send you running to the phone? A surefire indicator of terrorists afoot: "Suspicious persons out of place…. People who don't seem to belong in the workplace, neighborhood, business establishment, or anywhere else." Just ponder that one for a moment -- and, if you ever get lost, be afraid, very afraid…

While the Air Force does grudgingly admit that "this category is hard to define," it offers a classic you-know-it-when-you-see-it definition for calling your local eagle: "The point is that people know what looks right and what doesn't look right in their neighborhoods, office spaces, commutes [sic], etc, and if a person just doesn't seem like he or she belongs…" An… ahem… urban looking youth* in a suburban white community? Call it in! A crusty punk near Wall Street? Drop a dime! A woman near the White House wearing an anti-war t-shirt. Well, that's an out-of-category no-brainer!

*PC Doublespeak for "nigger".

And, in fact, much of this has already begun to come true. After all, "suspicious persons out of place" now do get arrested in the new Homeland Security State for such offenses as wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, carrying anti-Bush signs or just heckling the president. Today, even displaying an anti-Bush sticker is, in the words of the Secret Service, apparently "borderline terrorism." Holding a sign that reads, "This war is Bushit," warrants a citation from the cops and, as an eleven year old boy found out, the sheriff might come calling on you if you utter "anti-American" statements -- while parents may be questioned by law enforcement officials to ascertain if they're teaching "anti-American values" at home.

I've been going on in the past few days about a certain "Old European" trend in this country, like from Nazi Germany and East Germany. This "suspicious persons out of place" deal is designed to cow us into becoming the Ideal Citizen: Go to work, go home, consume in mass quantities, pay your taxes, don't go where you're not "supposed" to and shut the fuck up. Also, snitching people off just because you don't like them is a time-honored tradition. We will be a nation of Rat Bastids, all for "security", of course, so that's OK.

Brush up on the "elements of probable cause". Mere suspicion does not constitute probable cause. Not quite yet, but we're getting there.

As far as stifling dissent, we need more dissent. We need Vietnam-era dissent, constant and loud. I think the upcoming draft will actually help this. When they start drafting the average young American spoiled brat, you won't need a TV to hear the outcry, but that's a whole 'nother subject. We need so much dissent that if they lock every dissenter up, the country will come to a screeching halt. Hopefully in time to keep Bush from driving this country off a cliff.

The article is Part 1 of who knows how many. Go read. Stay tuned.

Well, exactly

This fellow in Memphis sums it up pretty well.

Anytime a program is proposed to help the American people, Republicans cry, "There's not enough money. How will we pay for it?"

However, there's always, always enough money for folly.

The Payoff

Here's the problem:

Bush needs a few European allies to legitimize his preemptive, optional, poorly-planned war with Iraq.

Here's the deal:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy on Friday gave a transatlantic team led by Lockheed Martin Corp. a $1.7 billion contract to build a new fleet of 23 U.S. presidential helicopters, a deal valued at up to $6.1 billion.

The decision was a stunning setback for Connecticut-based United Technologies Corp.'s Sikorsky Aircraft unit — which for nearly 50 years has built and maintained the green and white "Marine One" helicopters that fly the president.

[. . .]

Here's the payoff:

[. . .]

The deal attracted international attention, with Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy personally pressing President Bush on behalf of Lockheed's British-Italian design.

[. . .]

Lockheed Vice President Stephen Ramsey said 65 percent of the US101 would be built in the United States, with the remaining 35 percent to be split between Britain and Italy.

[. . .]

This is the bone Bush is throwing his two little poodles. Blair and Berlusconi jumped on the Iraq bandwagon from the get-go and they're being rewarded for their oral talents. A bit better than Monica was, huh?