Category: Politics

The White House gave credentials for a news organization that had existed for less than a week

Jeff Gannon was a reporter for Talon News, a web site owned by a GOP activist. He was given White House press room credentials less than a week after the Talon News website was registered. He had no history of news reporting. He did not have a journalism degree. Once in the room, he asked questions that sounded more like GOP talking points than actually queries. Now he has been exposed by MSNBC. Here is the transcript.

Now, the question is, will the administration take responsibility for this obvious attempt at propaganda? Propaganda by our government against its own citizens is illegal. Will we see anyone prosecuted for this? I doubt it. It is once again time to write your congressman to demand hearings on the White House attempts to manipulate its own people.

The initiatives coming from the White House since the re-election show that the Administration’s attack on the poor is heating up, not cooling down

Previously I’ve talked about how the war on Iraq was in some ways an attack on the poor of this country who disproportionally make up the bulk of our nation’s military which simultaneously benefitting companies like Haliburton. Now with the new Social Security plan and the White House’s proposed 2006 budget cuts, it looks like the administration is waging war on our country’s poorest citizens.

First off, the social security plan. To get this plan in motion, the administration will need to borrow $1,000,000,000 (that is one trillion dollars) so that they can pay for the existing retirees. That is a debt that the rest of us will be paying off forever and will seriously cripple this country financially for decades if not forever. Simultaneously, a huge amount of money that is currently going into government bonds through Social Security will disappear completely as it gets moved into “private” accounts. These “private” accounts are actually controlled by the government so that is just a right-wing spin tactic. Now, the administration cites several other countries who have made this switch, but pretty much none of them has worked and people in those countries get significantly less money than if they had stayed with the old system. So now, we will have to borrow a huge amount of money while simultaneously devaluing government bonds and in the end we’ll be worse off than if we just left the system the way it is. The only one who will come out ahead in this scenario is the stockbrokers who will manage our accounts and the public companies who will get the investments. We’ll be screwed.

Now, the budget cuts. In order to pay for his tax cut for the wealthy and the war in Iraq while being able to claim some sort of fiscal responsibility, George Bush has proposed sweeping cuts in the 2006 budget. These cuts are across the board but will disproportionally affect the poor, the working poor, and veterans. The Washington Post has an excellent article with the details. What is also scary is that the Homeland Security Administration will also be cut. So now the poor will have less opportunity to advance, the rich will save money and we’ll all be less safer.

How the hell can anyone call this man a compassionate conservative? This is the least compassionate administration in the history of this country.

and the Al Franken show has a good idea about what we can do about it

On their blog, they suggest that a campaign is started to get Hume to resign and I’m 100% behind it.

Here’s a link to the proof published in the LA Times

Honestly I couldn’t force myself to watch it, but here is some excellent commentary about it

The Center For American Progress’ Progress Report
Tom Shales at the Washington Post
Chris Suellentrop on slate

Expected, but at least the Democrats stand up

Here’s the article on MSNBC, I’m glad to see that there were 36 “no” votes from the democrats.

Here’s a couple well-known sites that you still might not have heard about and are definitely worth a visit

The Center For American Progress, and their blog ThinkProgress and Air America Radio which also has a lot of good links

It’s time to show the Senate’s most outspoken voice for the opposition that she isn’t alone

Mike Malloy’s website has the details. A kind citizen has set up a deal where you can donate $10 to have three roses delivered to Barbara Boxer’s office on Valentine’s day. If you read this post after Feb 12th, 2005 consider donating money to the ACLU or moveon.org instead.

At least the democrats can all agree that Alberto Gonzales sends a bad message as AG

The vote went on straight party lines, but at least the dems finally got some guts calling out that having an Attorney General who supports sublimation of human rights was a colossal mistake. here’s the article

George Bush is the least fiscally sound Republican ever, why are traditional republicans still supporting him?

It came out this week that this year the US will record its largest ever deficit. This from a person who promised to balance the budget in 5 years during the campaign. This is before we factor in the expenses that he wants to run up this year, like the 1 Trillion dollars for privatizing social security. Here’s an article from the Sydney Times (via the New York Times) about the current deficit. Just to run these deficits on top of the debt we’ve been accruing since he took office, he’s had to ask congress to raise the debt ceiling 3 times! Including in November (right after the election, ‘natch) when it was raised to $8.2 trillion.

Also, what scares me is how much of our debt is owned by foreign countries, such as China. Here’s the figures from US Treasury. Now, let’s take a look at the dollars worth against other currencies over the last few years. This is really scary stuff!

When did the liberals become the fiscal conservatives? Why aren’t more of the traditional conservative think tanks coming out against this guy? He’s trampling traditional conservative values of fiscal responsibility and local control (his education programs and marriage amendment fly in the face of state’s rights). How can most American’s be ok with the wholesale destruction of our children’s future paying the debt of today. What kind of family values are those?