Bamboozlepalooza

Short version of Bush's Social Security plan:

Interesting. The Post pretty much nails the new Bush plan on the front page of tomorrow's paper: cut pretty much everyone's benefits a lot. The sweetener? Poor people's benefits won't be cut as much!

How much is a lot? Check this out:

Let's be clear, by "low income" we're really talking about "low income." Everyone else gets big benefit cuts. Here's the CBPP analysis of the Pozen plan, which is basically what Bush is embracing.

A "medium" earner, one earning $36,507 in 2005, would see benefits cut by 16% in 2045 and 28% in 2075.

A "high" earner, one earning $58,411 in 2005, would see benefits cut by 25% in 2045, and 42% in 2075.

By 2100, basically everyone earning above $20,000 would earn exactly the same benefit, no matter how great their tax contribution was. You think Social Security provides a poor rate of return now? Just wait.

And don't forget about what this phase-out plan will do to disability and dependent benefits.

The dependent benefits has been the most ignored aspect of social security during this entire discussion, as the bamboozlers want to pretend that the big tragedy is the person who dies when their children are adults. But, for people who have dependent children, when one spouse (even in many cases divorced spouses) dies, social security really does frequently allow the rest of the family to maintain their current economic status. Cuts in retirement benefits would cut these benefits as well, plunging middle class people into poverty when a parent dies.

Less benefits for everyone. Throw more middle class people into poverty. Huge privatization giveaway to Wall Street. Is it any wonder no one supports this plan?

If you keep this up, George, your approval ratings will be in the 30s soon. Don't worry, though, the media whores will still refer to you as a 'popular' president.

Bamboozlepalooza

Devils and Dust

Lest we forget.

1572 U.S. Troops
0 WMDs

Speak the truth, brother Bruce:

I got my finger on the trigger
But I don't know who to trust
When I look into your eyes
There's just devils and dust
We're a long way from home, Bobbie
Home's a long, long way from us
I feel a dirty wind blowing
Devils and dust

I got God on my side
I'm just trying to survive
What if what you do to survive
Kills the things you love
Fear's a powerful thing
It can turn your heart black you can trust
It'll take your God filled soul
And fill it with devils and dust

When will Bush finally feel the righteous anger of a country misled?
When will the media grow a spine?
When can our troops come home?
How do you ask the last soldier to die in a war based on lies?

Devils and Dust

What The Religious Right Wants

Short list:
1. Take your right to privacy.
2. Remove the separation of church and state.

(via Atrios)

Who's side are you on, Americans?

The "black-robed" tyrants who guarantee your right to privacy and your right to worship or not worship whatever religion you choose

OR

The real tyrants who want to tell you who you can worship, who you can love, what you can do with your body, what you can watch, and what you can listen to. And, did I mention, they also like to hang out with the KKK.

Four years ago, Perkins addressed the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), America's premier white supremacist organization, the successor to the White Citizens Councils, which battled integration in the South. In 1996 Perkins paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,000 for his mailing list. At the time, Perkins was the campaign manager for a right-wing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Louisiana. The Federal Election Commission fined the campaign Perkins ran $3,000 for attempting to hide the money paid to Duke.

What The Religious Right Wants

Dear Baseball Gods

Cut my man Nomar a little slack, please? Heal that heinous groin injury and have him lead the Cubs to the playoffs with some clutch hitting down the stretch.

"It can't be any more painful than it was yesterday," he said. "I have an avulsion of the tendon. Basically, I ruptured the tendon off the bone. There's a few tendons that go along your groin area. There's three major muscles and one of the muscles tore away from the bone. That's what the MRI showed."

Please. He's a good guy. He's a team player. He's not a whiny primadonna like Sosa. Nomar doesn't deserve this run of bad luck.

Love,

Steve

Dear Baseball Gods

Rock Snobs of the World Unite

Be still my beating heart.

A blog for Rock Snobs.

They also have a book, which I probably don't need because I am a Rock Snob. I may have to pick it up for some lesser informed Rock music lovers, so they at least know what I'm talking about.

Hell, I may have to pick up a copy for myself too. Consider it Continuing Education for Rock Snobbery.

Rock Snobs of the World Unite

Democrats In Name Only

Dear "Democratic" Members of the House who voted for both the repeal of the inheritance tax and the MBNA bankruptcy bill last week,

Read this.

But I fail to see how 31 House Democrats voted yesterday to abolish an estate tax on the wealthiest families in the country that will add $1 trillion in debt next decade at a time when we are fending off GOP claims that there isn’t enough money for Social Security, and then come back today and vote against consumers and in favor of MBNA and the ABA for the bankruptcy bill.

I don’t care if you call yourself a member of the "New Democrat Coalition" or whatever other CYA label you want to give yourself. If you vote for the extremely wealthy yesterday and for the banks today, where I come from they call you a Republican.

And never, ever, ever ask me again why people who want Democrats to act (and fight) like Democrats are are tempted to vote Green.

You make me sick.

My very own representative, Melissa Bean, is on this distinguished list. I'm so proud. If I wanted someone to represent really rich people who don't need tax cuts AND greedy credit card companies I would have voted for Phil Crane.

Try standing up for Democratic ideals sometime dammit.

Is it possible to cast a more cynical and gutless vote? I don't think so.

Do you think the rethugs won't target you because you supported their legislation? I don't think so.

Can we expect you to defend Social Security with similar zeal? I think so.

And, lastly, WTF?!

Love,
Steve

P.S. Congratulations on making the Loser Democrat list on Atrios' blog. You deserve it.

Democrats In Name Only

Decemberists News

1. They have a great new album, Picaresque.
2. They put on a tremendous show at the Metro on Thursday, regardless of what this intellectually intimidated reviewer had to say. Pre-conceived biases were showing. He obviously doesn't like the new album. (Pitchfork begs to differ, and I'll cast my lot with Pitchfork over any Chicago Tribune reviewer other than Greg Kot.) I also didn't catch any of the smugness Mr. Klein observed at the show. I sensed a genuine connection with the audience. (Perhaps my biases are now showing.) Erudite, yes. Smug, no. Perhaps Mr. Klein prefers dumbed-down, cookie-cutter, cliche rock in the era of Bush. Or, perhaps I am just erudite and smug like C0lin Meloy. You be the judge.
3. They have a blog.
4. They had all their gear stolen.
5. They have a fund if you are so moved to help them replace their gear.
6. They have a very cool new video for their song, 16 military wives. (QuickTime required.)

Decemberists News

Oceans Of Angst

James Wolcott:

I look forward to more frequent blogging because it's shaping up as an interesting spring in the "May you live in interesting times" sense. Forces are stirring, the newly born leaves are flickering messages. The rebuff to Italy's Berlusconi (Bush's pal) in the regional elections this weekend. The sinking poll numbers for Tony Blair's Labour Party and the latest slide for Bush in the CNN/Gallup survey. The desperate, brazen attempt to block Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador from running for president of Mexico against Vincente Fox, which will almost certainly spark social upheaval and widespread demonstrations. The ratcheting up of rhetoric against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who's being lumped with Fidel Castro as the two tropical Saddams by Bush hardliners. And the looming oil crisis which threats to--well, go read this and prepare to shiver.

Our political system has failed us, our media have failed us, and neither have any inkling of the Wagnerian drama about to unfold.

That last sentence is priceless. Be sure to read the Rolling Stone article linked above. Here's an excerpt (prepare to shudder):

Most of all, the Long Emergency will require us to make other arrangements for the way we live in the United States. America is in a special predicament due to a set of unfortunate choices we made as a society in the twentieth century. Perhaps the worst was to let our towns and cities rot away and to replace them with suburbia, which had the additional side effect of trashing a lot of the best farmland in America. Suburbia will come to be regarded as the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. It has a tragic destiny. The psychology of previous investment suggests that we will defend our drive-in utopia long after it has become a terrible liability.

Before long, the suburbs will fail us in practical terms. We made the ongoing development of housing subdivisions, highway strips, fried-food shacks and shopping malls the basis of our economy, and when we have to stop making more of those things, the bottom will fall out.

The circumstances of the Long Emergency will require us to downscale and re-scale virtually everything we do and how we do it, from the kind of communities we physically inhabit to the way we grow our food to the way we work and trade the products of our work. Our lives will become profoundly and intensely local. Daily life will be far less about mobility and much more about staying where you are. Anything organized on the large scale, whether it is government or a corporate business enterprise such as Wal-Mart, will wither as the cheap energy props that support bigness fall away. The turbulence of the Long Emergency will produce a lot of economic losers, and many of these will be members of an angry and aggrieved former middle class.

Food production is going to be an enormous problem in the Long Emergency. As industrial agriculture fails due to a scarcity of oil- and gas-based inputs, we will certainly have to grow more of our food closer to where we live, and do it on a smaller scale. The American economy of the mid-twenty-first century may actually center on agriculture, not information, not high tech, not "services" like real estate sales or hawking cheeseburgers to tourists. Farming. This is no doubt a startling, radical idea, and it raises extremely difficult questions about the reallocation of land and the nature of work. The relentless subdividing of land in the late twentieth century has destroyed the contiguity and integrity of the rural landscape in most places. The process of readjustment is apt to be disorderly and improvisational. Food production will necessarily be much more labor-intensive than it has been for decades. We can anticipate the re-formation of a native-born American farm-laboring class. It will be composed largely of the aforementioned economic losers who had to relinquish their grip on the American dream. These masses of disentitled people may enter into quasi-feudal social relations with those who own land in exchange for food and physical security. But their sense of grievance will remain fresh, and if mistreated they may simply seize that land.

Oceans Of Angst

Return of the Angst

I've been angst-free for a while as the Illini have been on their run, but sadly, the angst is back.

So Carolina won. The spoiled NBA-ready brats who got their first coach fired won the title. Good for them. It would have been too sweet to see them blow a 15 point second half lead.

Too bad they don't award championships for heart and class. Our shots just didn't drop tonight, but our guys played to exhaustion, and there's not much else you can ask from them.

Rashard McCants is still a no-class punk, who disappeared in the second half, but took his shirt off in a typical "look at me" stunt. He's the guy who writes P.O.T.Y (Player of the Year) on his shoes, which is fine as long as we're all clear that the P stands for Punk.

If it wasn't for Sean May, these clowns would be nowhere near the title game.

Thank you Coach Weber. Thank you Illini for a memorable season. I will never ever forget that Arizona game. I will never forget your Final Four victory on Saturday.

Dee. Deron. Luther. James. Roger. Jack. Warren. Nick. Rich. Shaun. Fred.

You made us all very proud. You played old school. You passed up good shots to take great shots. You played intense defense. You were the best of what college basketball has to offer. You had the heart of a champion and never, ever, ever gave up.

Thank you. Let's do it again sometime.

Return of the Angst