The Big Liars

To emphasize the quote in the post below about the Bushies going "all out," this New York Times story says they are enlisting the Social Security administration itself in their disinformation campaign. Ignoring the objections of people within the agency, they are politicizing the information function of an important program's administration to spread their lies about the imminent demise of Social Security benefits, unless the Bush plan to destroy Social Security saves it.

So not only are they trying to destroy Social Security in order to save it, they are forcing the Social Security administration to lie about their own program by saying they are failing when they aren't, so they can promote its destruction.

This needs to be an issue, because it seems like it should be illegal, and if it is, Social Security beneficiaries and payers into the system (which means just about all of us) may have standing to take the Bushies to court.

The New York Times > Washington > Social Security Enlisted to Push Its Own Revision

The New Big Lie

Two items stacked nicely today on T. Goddard's political wire:

President Bush "plans to reactivate his reelection campaign's network of donors and activists to build pressure on lawmakers" to pass his Social Security plan, the Washington Post reports."The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away."

Bonus Quote of the Day"George Bush and the Republicans are going for broke. They know that a second-term president has no more than eighteen months to force his agenda through -- and they won't waste a minute." -- James Carville, quoted by the Washington Times.

From the folks who brought you WMD in Iraq, Saddam masterminding 9-11 and the Swift Boat Liars for Slander and ReElection, the drumbeat is going to be Social Security is going to hell, and the way to fix it is to destroy it. Sort of the Drill in the Alaskan Wildlife sanctuary philosophy on a grand scale.

It is a lie. There is no crisis, just a problem caused mostly by the fact that presidents like the Bushes have robbed the social security trust fund for such critical items as Star Wars and to line the pockets of their contributors. They are the real thieves and cheaters damaging social security.

So far the Bushie push isn't working. But it's no time to relax, as we learned in November. The Dems smell blood in the water but we all have to resist this Big Lie.

Steeler fan in London with the other Big Ben. If you don't know what that means you've never had a Roethlisburger. Hint: Go Steelers vs. Jets tomorrow. 

Bill Moyers 

The Bill Moyers Factor
by Morgan Dash

It's Friday, and there will be no Bill Moyers tonight.

I was reading the list of Bushie statements on the certainty of WMD in Iraq and wondering where I had seen a similar collection---then quickly remembered it was on the PBS program NOW with Bill Moyers, not once, but twice.

Bill Moyers retired from that program and from broadcast journalism in mid December. I faithfully taped nearly all of his programs, but of course I screwed up and missed his last one. There was a lot to preoccupy us then, but still, it remains sad to me that so little was said about the remarkable career and the remarkable service rendered by this remarkable man.

In this Washington Post column of that day, Tom Schales was already expressing regret at not supporting and praising Moyers more as a strong and steadfast liberal voice.

But Moyers was even more than an increasingly trenchant commentator and a fascinating "reality-based" journalist within the weekly TV magazine format. For one thing, he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, and their team, produced some wonderful news documentaries, which has become a lost art on television. If I were teaching documentary film, I would start with the hour on environmental issues they did just before NOW started.

But Moyers was unique because he regularly and comfortably went beyond news. There simply has not been a TV reporter or program producer who was perfectly comfortable interviewing philosopher Martha Nussbaum, Jonas Salk and August Wilson, then hosting scathing documentaries on campaign finance and global warming, after multiple hours exploring American poetry and medical, religious and economic points of view on death and dying.

His effect on the culture has been unique. He jump-started a health revolution with his series on the relationship of mind and body in medicine. His interviews with Robert Bly put the men's movement on the cultural radar screen. He made Joseph Campbell into an unlikely TV star, at the very end of his life.

From "Listening to America" to "A World of Ideas" and finally to "Now," he has successfully defied labels and survived controversy. Others have been suggested as television's Renaissance Man, but Moyers is the one who comes closest to deserving the title.

There was no interviewer like him for his knowledgeable ease with people in such a wide variety of fields. Yet he always seemed to be, not the celebrity interviewer among celebrity guests, but our stand-in, bringing his curiosity and his experience.

I know his interviews and the books they generated opened doors for me to places I am still exploring, and in the numbing dumbed-down noise of a loudly deteriorating culture, he and his guests were often the company I most needed to keep. I still re-read and re-watch those World of Ideas hours.

Now he's gone from NOW, which has been shrunken to a half hour, followed by an hour of right wing babble. I can't believe that I'm the only one who will miss the Moyers voice and the Moyers touch.

On the bright side, he's probably going to be writing more. His book, MOYERS ON AMERICA, is worth getting and keeping around to read and savor. It is funny, passionate, trenchant and at times inspiring. It often transcends its antecedents in speeches and commentaries. So when he sits down to write pure books, I have high hopes for the results.

Escape from Iraqnam

In another little echo sure to stir memories for many---cousin Lemmuel for example---this report of American Army soldiers fleeing to Canada rather than be sent to Iraqnam. The story mentions 5500 "deserters," which is likely an "at least" figure.


Telegraph | News | US deserters flee to Canada to avoid service in Iraq

Iraqmire

History presents a tragedy, and repeats it as farce, except when a horrible folly becomes both simultaneously. The rampaging procession of assassinations, the brutal, senseless and painful deaths and irreversible injuries, the mindless, brutalizing destruction all continue to spread like an occult plague, the "insurgents" taunt and tempt American soldiers on video, the upcoming "elections" appear more and more surreal, more "coalition" countries, NGOs and for-profit companies are getting out while they have someone left alive, flare through the news so fast no one could keep up and remain sane. So what can you say about today's report that the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is over? Laugh while you weep, or sneer while you throw up?

And to think we're just starting to see the brutalization all this causes here at "home." Iraq veterans already homeless on city streets, another partisan corporate-friendly Homeland Security chief appointed in a hail of toughness adjectives to preside over stamping out dissent and privacy while enriching corporate friends, while another generation gets destroyed, including families of servicepeople, which is yet another innovation of the neocon regime and their ageold philosophy of attrition of poor suckers to benefit the rich.

It's so bad that elements of the Iraqnam coalition in Washington are turning on each other. Politicians of course, but also within the "national security" apparatus: the FBI turning on the CIA turning on the Pentagon turning on itself:

This story from the Center for American Progress, a few days old but not widely reported, quotes the head of the Army reserve as saying the reserve and National Guard are being destroyed by the "dysfunctional policies" of the Bushie Pentagon.

So when a tsunami hits American shores, whose national guard will be turn to for help? Iraq's?

Blue Alert!

According to the Washington Post:

"As President Bush prepares for his second term, Democrats in Washington and around the country are organizing for a year of confrontation and resistance, saying they are determined to block Bush's major initiatives and thereby deny him the mandate he has claimed from his reelection victory last November."

While Bush repeats his earnest desire for bipartisanship that snookered them in the past, the Dems aren't falling for it this time.

...." saying they do not believe Bush is genuinely interested in cooperation or compromise with the opposition.

"The president's idea of bipartisanship is, 'Here's what I want to do, join me,' " said Rep. Robert Menendez (N.J.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "It isn't about negotiating. It isn't about compromise. It's almost this belief that they have the monopoly on what's best for the country."

To which we say, what do you mean almost?

Democrats Are United in Plans To Block Top Bush Initiatives (washingtonpost.com)

AdverMedia

You may have heard about the conservative "journalist" and talk show host who admitted taking $250,000 from the Bushies to push their "No Child Left Behind" program. If not, here's the story:

The New York Times > National > TV Host Says U.S. Paid Him to Back Policy

Among the vocally outraged are conservative "journalists" so the whole thing is pretty funny. Mr. Armstrong is a "journalist" and a PR executive of a small and not terribly successful firm, and the two jobs involve pretty much the same kind of work: talking and writing on behalf of Bushies and evangelicals, for pay or pray. And since the "No Child Left Behind" act is itself a PR campaign, an act in every sense, with lots of money for PR (The Ed Dept pays one big PR firm a cool million a year) but not very much for children or education, it must have seemed like a logical move at the Bushie end, too.

The outrage is just as empty when it comes from the big timers who in one way or another (and usually several) are taking care of their business in ways that would scandalize ethical journalists of a generation ago. The Berlin Wall was not the only wall to fall in recent decades: the Wall that stood between editorial and advertising in print publications and almost made it over to TV, is now so porous that it's like the equator, you know, an imaginary line.

Bush the King

The Guardian on Bush's $50 million Inaugural.

His comment? "You don't like it? So tsuanmi."

Kerry On

Internet provider problems here at Dashville (we're currently cadging offices in the secret mountaintop base of Captain Midnight and the Secret Squadron) as well as other activities are limiting our blogability, but here is yet another final word on the electoral debate of January 6. This is Senator John Kerry's statement as recorded in the Congressional Record:

Mr. KERRY. "Mr. President, free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy. Thanks to the efforts of tens of thousands of citizens, millions more Americans registered and went to the pools this year. But despite this dramatic expansion in public participation, many voters faced barriers to casting their ballot. Disenfranchisement and barriers to voting are fundamentally undemocratic and should be unacceptable in the freest nation in the world.

On November 3, I conceded the Presidential election to George Bush and also expressed my commitment to ensuring that every vote in this election is counted. The questions being raised by my colleagues in Congress about the vote in Ohio are important. As evidenced by the media and Congressman JOHN CONYERS' report of the vote in Ohio, there were many voting irregularities in the November election that led to the disenfranchisement of voters. These included long lines at predominantly minority polling places resulting from the failure to provide sufficient number of voting machines; voter intimidation and misinformation; the restriction of provisional ballots in a fashion that likely disenfranchised voters; and instances in which malfunctioning voting machines transferred Kerry votes to Bush.

I strongly believe that we need to investigate this election and reform our system. However, while I am deeply concerned about the issues the questions and issues being raised by this objection and think they are very important, I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to support the objection and change the outcome of the election and I am not joining their protest of the Ohio electors.

Despite widespread reports of irregularities, questionable practices by some election officials and instances of lawful voters being denied the right to vote, our legal teams on the ground have found no evidence that would change the outcome of the election.

It is critical that we investigate and understand any and every voting irregularity anywhere in our country, not because it would change the outcome of the election but because Americans have to believe that their votes are counted in our democracy.

We must take action this Congress to make sure that the problems voters encountered in Ohio and elsewhere never happen again. We must make sure there are no questions or doubts in future elections. It is critical to our democracy that we investigate and act to prevent voting irregularities and voter intimidation across the country.

I strongly support the efforts of the civil rights and voting rights groups across the country that continue to investigate what happened in 2004 and how we can ensure it will never happen again. A Presidential election is a national Federal election but we have different standards in different States for casting and counting votes. We must have a national Federal standard to solve the problems that occurred in the 2004 election.

I am calling on my Republican colleagues to put election reform on the congressional agenda this year. The Republican leadership in the House and Senate must commit to make protecting voting rights a priority and commit to adding election reform legislation to the legislative calendar this year. One goal must be to eliminate barriers to voting, to encourage the greatest level of civic participation possible, and to restore confidence in the notion that every eligible voter will have the opportunity to vote and to have their vote counted.

I have spoken with Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid and my colleagues in the House and Senate about my intention to introduce legislation this year to ensure transparency and accountability in our voting system and the need for the Democratic Caucus to make voting rights and electoral reform one of our top priority pieces of legislation. Election reform will be one of my top agenda items.

I will be meeting in coming weeks with key leaders on both sides of the aisle and from civil rights and voting rights groups across the Nation. I plan to use the information gathered by Representative Conyers in his report, and information from other investigations underway, to guide my legislation.

We must invest resources in our country to help State and local communities purchase modern voting machines and do research and development on safe and secure forms of voting. We must ensure that our voting machines enable voters to verify their vote.

No American citizen should wake up the morning after the election and worry their vote wasn't counted. No citizen should be denied at the polls if they are eligible to vote. As the greatest, wealthiest nation on Earth, our citizens should not have to be forced to vote on old unaccountable voting machines. And, as the greatest, wealthiest Nation on Earth, our citizens should never be forced to vote on old, unaccountable and nontransparent voting machines from companies controlled by partisan activists.

Together we can put the critical issue of electoral reform on the front burner in Washington and across the country."