Check this article out when you’ve got some time. Incredibly detailed (and depressing) account of the Bush — “Sieg Heil!” — policy of “extraordinary rendition”, which is just a euphemism for state-sponsored kidnapping, torture, and elimination of legal process.

You may have heard some about it before, but this account is extremely well researched and documented.

If you had any lingering doubts about why why the privatization of Social Security is ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad, this article on the “corporatizing” of government ought to set you straight.

Can you believe this crap? Anyone hosting a blog in Utah needs to provide a “content rating” for their site, or possibly face fines and jail. Another abdication of responsibility: “It’s not my job to monitor what my children are viewing!” Shall we just forget the whole free speech thing and go back to a monarchy? We’re pretty much heading down that road already…

Here’s a little editorial I wrote for the local paper on Bush’s “let’s screw the disadvantaged” budget…

The proposed Bush budget is irresponsible, unconscionable and damaging to America. Citizens that truly want the United States to become a better place for all should unite in their opposition to this fiasco in the making.

This ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) stuff is enough to drive one crazy. A sane person, that is. We have some oil here that, from worst case to best case, would provide the U.S. with a year to maybe two years of oil — and that’s only if the price of oil went so incredibly high that it made getting some of the oil out economically feasible. And it would take 10 years and untold billions before we saw a drop of that oil anyways! Our dependence on foreign oil would not be reduced by any appreciable margin for any appreciable time.

So let’s just drill the effing hell out of it anyway! At least that’s the Republican plan. And today’s vote in the Senate didn’t help matters any.

As I heard someone opine on MPR this evening, the Republicans operate from a “supply-side” mentality (just find more oil), while the Dems are preaching the demand side (let’s find ways to reduce our dependence). Do you think it’s because searching for more oil here would provide a temporary boost to the oil industry folks and the local economy (emphasis on temporary)? Or is that just too cynical?

What in the godd*mn hell is wrong with incenting businesses to produce more efficient cars and develop alternate energy sources (like fuel cell technology, wind power, solar power), incenting consumers to use these alternate sources (with tax breaks, subsidized costs, etc.), educating folks about how we’re killing ourselves slowly if we don’t do this, and penalizing the living sh*t out of anachronistic companies that refuse to work towards these goals? Does everything have to come to a crisis before people act? Maybe that’s a rhetorical question…

‘Nuff said.

“And so it begins.” – King Theoden

The assault on life, liberty, and the pursuit of healthiness has begun in earnest. W(easel)’s proposed budget includes at least a $45 billion cut in Medicaid funding. Why should you care? Because the people that are affected are the ones that are the most vulnerable, and the ones that have the most to lose: the poor, the disabled, the elderly. Or does the party of so-called “moral values” really not care about that segment of society that has the least voice and least ability to defend itself? At least the governors are (sort of) standing up to the Great Satan:

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) said governors are united in their opposition to the administration’s cuts and in favor of wanting more flexibility to administer the program. “With respect to the budget itself, we’ve made it clear we oppose that and we’ll see how that issue works out here in the next few weeks,” he said.

Governors objected to the sense that the “budget was driving policy rather than policy driving the budget,” Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) said.

“What they are saying to states is, ‘We’re going to cut you and give you more flexibility,’ and the flexibility is you can cut people off,” Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle (D) said. “That is not acceptable to me.” Medicaid costs have exploded largely because millions more people have lost private insurance, he said.

Washington Post 3-2-2005 (full article here – free subscription required)

And to take things to an even more ridiculous level, Bush-league is screwing the pooch from both ends: the Medicaid program has a special provision that mandates drug companies to provide it with prescription drugs to at the lowest price offered to any private purchaser. But oversight is lax in this area, and the Medicaid program is getting royally ripped off – by up to 16% in some cases! Okay, so there’s a huge opportunity for savings – let’s take advanatage of it, right? Nope. Not only is Georgie not seeking to enforce this law, he’s actively seeking to repeal it in his FY 2006 budget! So:

1. don’t enforce the existing law that requires Medicaid drugs to be offered at the lowest price, and
2. get rid of the law that mandates this, so that
3. drug companies can fatten their purses further, and
4. chop $45-60 billion off the Medicaid budget to boot

There’s an a-hole that really cares about the people.

Okay, so I haven’t read anything but excerpts yet, but this is good (or bad, depending on your preferred usage) stuff. Frank Luntz is a political consultant and pollster for the Repubs, and president/CEO of Luntz Research Companies. He’s been responsible for helping shape Republican strategy for many years. In this role he has created the GOP “bible” on how to present issues and what language to use. That document has now been exposed. Here’s more good commentary on this story from the folks who obtained it.

(more good commentary on this here)

…or is that, “History repeats itself”? Anyway, it’s fer sure that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Why does it seem like those guys sitting around the table in Philadelphia PA 228 1/2 years ago had a clearer vision than most of our elected officials today?

Kieran Healy has an interesting snippet from FDR’s second inaugural speech that was appropriated by Bush during his recent State of the Union speech. As U2 stole back Helter Skelter from Charlie Manson, we need to steal back FDR’s still-remarkably salient words from Bush.

This is the kind of thing that just makes me despair for humanity. What kind of people can systematically rape and kill children? How can anyone justify anything like this as a political tool? I’ve read many times how soldiers lose their perspective, and stop seeing people as human beings, but it’s just impossible to understand.

I once had an intimate experience with this mentality. I was in an so-called “honors” history class in high school, and one of our assignments was to interview a WWII veteran. I talked with a member of our church that served in the South Pacific theatre. He still held a huge grudge against the Japanese, and told me quite dispassionately about burning the “Japs” out of their tunnels using a flamethrower. He really didn’t view them as quite human.

Estimates are that 1000 people a day are dying in East Congo from war, famine, and disease – over four million in the last 10 years! Now, if I were President, this would be the sort of thing that would be of importance to me. My goal as a world citizen would be to make this tiny sphere a more prosperous and livable place for all, not just for a select few.

Is that too Miss Universe/SaveTheWhales/Whirled-Peas sounding? Call me a romantic, a dreamer, a rebel, Dottie…a loner. But this just happens to be a bit more important to me than cheap oil, missile defense systems, and lowering my taxes.

Some additional info about how UN peacekeeping forces are contributing to this horror.