Payolagate

Oliver Willis is blogging up a storm over the news that the Bush administration has been illegally paying journalists and PR firms big bucks to sway the public toward their policies. (Never mind the speaking fees, free travel, etc. that corporations and trade associations give to journalists...)

So it seems like a good time to remind readers of this story. The Bushies awarded the contract to supply oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to one of the core funders of the Right. What a coincidence! At a time when oil prices are higher than ever, many have questioned why the government wouldn't at least put a hold on oil purchases -- not to mention pumping some oil OUT of the reserves to lower demand. But that would mean that Koch gets less of our money to put to use funding the Right! Well, it isn't about the interests of the people of the country, it's about the interests of The Party.

Local Boy Makes Really, Really, Really, Really Good!

Blogger Tom Burka, in NY Times, The New York Times > Opinion >Washington Week in Revue. It's a humor column, so you serious, serious Seeing the Forest regulars will probably want to skip it.

Torture Is So Last Year -- Now It's Death Squads

Pentagon May Use Death Squads in Iraq:

"Now, Newsweek has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.

[. . .] Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions.

[. . .] The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option."

I'm actually too upset to comment on this. I keep writing something, deleting it. It's fear. Laws just don't matter. ALL the checks and balances have been removed. And if they are willing to do it there ...

Freedom?

Iran Government Censors Blogs:

"Friends in Iran, journalists and technicians, are saying that judiciary officials have ordered all major ISP to filter all blogging services including PersianBlog, BlogSpot, Blogger, BlogSky, and even BlogRolling."

What were our troops fighting for, again?

Correction - Oops. I screwed up. I mistook IraN for IraQ. Well at least I didn't invade and kill tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of people and destroy America's credibility.

Washington Democrats

I think I've found a pretty good definition of what some of us characterize as "Washington Democrats." Tim Grieve, in Salon's Not with a bang but a whimper sums up what it is about the "Washington Democrats" that bothers me:

"And the Republicans weren't the only ones who seemed to give the protest short shrift. Minnesota Sen. Mark Dayton, a Democrat, took to the floor to criticize Boxer for facilitating the protest, saying she would undermine the country's confidence in its democracy if the protest were to succeed and the election were thrown to the House of Representatives. And while Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid ultimately spoke of the need for election reform, he spent much of the protest debate on the other side of the aisle, kibitzing with Santorum and a few other Republican senators.

When it came time for the roll call, Boxer was the only senator to vote for the protest; John Kerry, who had announced Wednesday that he wouldn't take part in any protest, conveniently found himself on a mission to Baghdad. In the House, 31 Democrats voted to support the objection. Eighty-eight House Democrats voted against it, and 80 of them didn't bother to vote at all. For their efforts, Rep. John Conyers and the others who pursued an investigation in Ohio got neither a serious debate over the voting irregularities nor a commitment from Republicans even to think about electoral reform."

It doesn't matter where you stand on whether the Ohio vote produced legitimate results. When a substantial block of your party feels strongly about something like this, you don't mock them, you treat them with respect and take the issue seriously. The grassroots and the "netroots" don't feel that we are taken seriously by the "Washington Democrats."

I think the problem is that many of these Representatives and Senators probably don't KNOW how so many people they represent feel about issues like this! My recommendation is that the DNC have someone on staff who writes up a daily digest that is delivered to Congressional offices? They could start with the Daou Report.

Update - I have heard the argument that this only gives Republicans an opening to overturn election results next time should a Democrat win while Republicans still control the Congress. This is what I call the "Democrats who are afraid that Rush Limbaugh will say something bad about them" syndrome. If the Republicans are going to try to overturn a Democratic win, they're going to -- it's what they do, and they don't do the things they do in reaction to Democrats. They do them because they are pursuing an aggressive offense strategy, and it is working.

PrivatizeThis.com

PrivatizeThis.com :: Don't Let Bush Gamble with Your Retirement!

Government Paying Journalists To Promote Right-Wing Policies! Are They Paid To Promote Bush, Too?

"Our" government is paying big money to journalists to promote right-wing legislation. Think about that for a minute.

White House paid commentator $240,000 to promote No Child Left Behind

"...the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the [NCLB] law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same."

This $240,000 bribe is ON TOP of what the guy makes for his show, speaking fees, OTHER bribes, etc.

The contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "And it's propaganda."

MAY be illegal? Is there any question about it? The government is giving money to journalists to promote legislation that is before Congress? And with that kind of money being handed out I wonder if this journalist - or any other journalists receiving or hoping to receive payoffs will EVER question anything Bush does? This explains a LOT!

This humble blogger wants to know, what OTHER payoffs to journalists are being handed out by the Bush administration? Did journalists receive money from the government to promote the Iraq war? To help the Swift Boat Vets smear Kerry? This $240,000 was a direct payoff from the government itself. But what about other kinds of payoffs? Corporate and trade association speaking fees are payoffs. Exclusive retreats are payoffs. Gifts, dinners, travel ... there are may ways to pay people off.

Government payments to journalists is obviously, flatly, blatantly illegal. But is there a chance that the Bush Justice Department will investigate? Is there a chance that the Republican Congress will investigate? The Republican FBI? And here is the real laugher -- with $240,000 payoffs to journalists in the air, how many "journalists" will look into this? We'll have to wait and see.

Because this government payoff story places all journalists under suspicion I think it would be a good idea for all journalists to disclose whether they have received speaking fees, gifts, travel, etc. from any interest group of any kind. But that's just me.

Tucker Carlson to be ousted from CNN

Apparently CNN’s viewers have had it with right wing shouter Tucker Carlson and “shout shows” in general. TV insider blog Cynopsis reported this morning that the bow-tied Carlson has been told his contract will not be renewed, and that his program vehicle, Crossfire, will be canceled. Crossfire itself is getting tired and Carlson's conservative rants and half-truths have not pulled viewers away from Fox to boost its slumping Nielsen viewership ratings. Carlson, who had to eat his words on air when his prediction that Hillary Clinton’s book would bomb bombed, has been petulantly complaining about his TV exposure and rumors are that he will move to the more right-wing friendly MSNBC to fill Deborah Norville's spot at 9 pm at the end of the month. A bad trade for MSNBC viewers but a good one for the CNN audience. Now if only he would vacate PBS. Email PBS CEO Pat Mitchell at viewer@pbs.org and suggest that if Carlson is not good enough for CNN, he is darn sure is not good enough for PBS.

Seeing The Forest Nominated For Best Group Blog

Wampum: The Koufax Awards: Best Group Blog

Congressional Ethics

The other day I wrote that the media had been fooled again - that the Republican "reversal" on ethics rules actually wasn't. It was a trick. The new rule -- the supposed "reversal" -- does the following:

Dismisses any complaint when the evenly split Ethics Committee has a tie vote. This measure provides an effective 'veto' of any complaint filed against a Republican.

Eliminates the 45-day deadline for action on a complaint. This change enables the Republicans to "bury" ethics complaints indefinitely.

Rules Committee member Louise Slaughter of New York (Democrat) says,

"This package represents a very serious and grave threat to the credibility and integrity of this institution. And sadly, is being forced upon the Congress and the American people for the benefit and protection on one man, Tom DeLay."

"The Republican Party has already gone to extraordinary lengths to cover for and protect Mr. Delay from his long pattern of unethical behavior. Now they are changing standing rules of the House to gut the ethics process, a shameful business for the Majority to be involved in."

The rules package is set to be debated before the full House this afternoon. A vote for adoption will follow. If you live in a Republican district, call your representative today and complain about this! If they think the public is paying attention, it could make a difference!

DNC Candidate Roemer, Please Explain

Tim Roemer is one of the candidates for DNC Chair. Here's something I came across, Roemer's bio at the Mercatus Center:

Tim Roemer is a distinguished scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and president of the Center for National Policy.

Is that THIS Mercatus Center and George Mason University? (Also, see this and this.)

Explanation, please!

Update - I was rushing out the door when I wrote that. I think I should explain in greater detail why I think this is important, so I'll try to do that in this update. What I probably should do is write a new post from scratch...

At Seeing the Forest I write about the Right's network of organizations, and how they influence our politics by influencing public attitudes as well as setting up channels to influence politicians themselves. Some of these organizations are set up to "educate" opinion leaders and public officials on why they think right-wing ideology offers better solutions to public policy problems. (I'm trying to paraphrase typical right-wing wording...) Without going into detail, let me just say that their solutions are not always what you and I would consider to be in the best interest of the public-at-large. For example, their "market solutions" often translate to "one-dollar-one-vote" corporate-oriented policies -- as compared with boring, old-fashioned, democratic "one-person-one-vote" solutions that require such pesky oversight provisions as transparency, accountability, public consensus, equal opportunity, serving all citizens equally, etc. -- all those things the Right calls "inefficient" and "bureaucratic..."

The Mercatus Center, for example, at George Mason University describes itself as promoting the

"use of market-based tools and analysis to discover workable solutions to pressing economic and governmental problems"

And just look at who is funding them, as well as the amounts! (Click here, and see the reports linked at the end of this post, for some background on who these funders are and what they stand for. Carthage Foundation is a Richard Mellon Scaife (more here) foundation, for example.)

As I wrote above, before this update, Tim Roemer is "a distinguished scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University." Roemer's bio at Mercatus also says,

"Roemer is a key spokesperson for the Mercatus Center's Capitol Hill Campus outreach and education program, which seeks to improve public policy outcomes by teaching economics and policy analysis to congressional staff."

One of the ways the Right "educates" public officials, opinion leaders,etc., is to send them to expensive "retreats" at exclusive resorts, nice hotels, etc. where they are wined and dined and treated to first-class amenities. (This is not unlike the technique of giving free trips to people to attend presentations for time-share retreats or condos.) For example, the Right sponsors retreats for judges that have caused some controversy when reported. (See also here, here, here and here.) Following is the text of an e-mail Roemer recently sent out to Congressional Chiefs of Staff, inviting them to a retreat:

Subject: 2005 Chief of Staff Retreat

Dear Fellow Democrats,

I would like to encourage you to join me in Philadelphia on February 4th and 5th, 2005 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel for the 2005 Chief of Staff Retreat. This Retreat is probably the best opportunity of the year for gathering with other senior-level
congressional staff both from our party but also with our colleagues across the aisle.

The Retreat is hosted by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. I have been affiliated with this organization for the past two years in an effort to promote sound economic thinking that leads to a more prosperous and fiscally responsible America. The Mercatus Center is a non-profit and non-partisan group that seeks to educate congressional staff about markets, global prosperity for the poor and economics as they relate to the issues you are working on in your congressional or committee office.

This year's program is highly relevant to the issues facing the 109th Congress. We will discuss topics ranging from drug reimportation to Social Security, tax and pension reform, to understanding learning disparities between black and white children. I will be there to discuss national security and intelligence reforms. While we have made important progress in modernizing our intelligence system, there are several important issues confronting congress.

At a time of partisan divide, this is an opportunity to share thoughts and ideas. Any time that you can get away from the Hill to view issues from different angles, you should do it. I look forward to seeing you there.

If you are interested in learning more, or registering, please click here:

http://www.mercatus.org/capitolhillcampus/article.php/933.html

Best regards,

Tim Roemer

A flyer for the retreat says:

The Mercatus Center provides lodging and meals for all Retreat participants and their guests. In addition, we will provide complimentary transportation to/from Philadelphia via select Amtrak trains. Information on these trains will be posted here as the retreat draws closer.

I'm not saying there is anything illegal here. But I am saying that this sounds suspiciously like other activities of the Right that have come to light, designed to spread right-wing ideological influence.

Here are some things that this humble blogger would like to know. What will be going on at this "retreat?" What kind of "sound economic thinking" is a right-wing-funded organization going to be promoting at the retreat? What sort of "Social Security, tax and pension reform" is a right-wing-funded organization going to be promoting to Democratic Chiefs of Staff? Who is funding this retreat (and why?)? And, most important to me, what is a candidate for head of the Democratic Party doing working for this crowd? Anyone interested in the race to become head of the Democratic National Committee deserves answers to these questions, and a full explanation.

I would also be interested in knowing if any Democratic Chiefs of Staff have accepted the invitation!

For those interested in more infomation about the right-wing organizational infrastructure see the tables of contents of reports here and here. While these reports are written for trial lawyers and teacher unions, their intent is to describe the Right's infrastructure of advocacy/communication organizations, who is funding it, what their goals are, and looking at what we might do to counter this effort and recover our democracy. See also: A collection of links to articles, reports and resources for learning about the right-wing movement, its history, how it is funded and how it operates.

(This update was revised at 5:30pm PST.)

My Moral Values

My Moral Values

Happening Here

Orcinus worries about where things could go:

"My very clear impression of the rank-and-file American right is that many if not most of them, at the behest of their leaders, now believe that opposing George W. Bush and the Iraq War, as well as his handling of the War on Terror, is an act of genuine treason worthy of the ultimate social condemnation, including incarceration and execution. They feel not only vindicated but profoundly empowered by the election result, empowered to silence their opposition, by force if need be."

I've been noticing this in the tenor of posts and comments at right-wing sites but especialy on the radio, saying us Progressives hope America loses in Iraq and siding with Saddam or bin Laden, that we hope our troops get killed, that we are helping undermine troop morale... If you have relatives or friends in Iraq, and you believe this stuff, what is it encouraging you to do?

The leadership of the Right certainly isn't asking them to tone it down or to stop. Have you heard Bush condemn such talk - ever?

From a comment following the Orcinus post I discovered this piece at the Libertarian Lew Rockwell site:

"Year's end is the time for big thoughts, so here are mine. The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.

This huge shift has not been noticed among mainstream punditry, and hence there have been few attempts to explain it – much less have libertarians thought much about what it implies. My own take is this: the Republican takeover of the presidency combined with an unrelenting state of war, has supplied all the levers necessary to convert a burgeoning libertarian movement into a statist one.

[further down, talking about increasingly violent right-wing rhetoric] ... I'm actually not surprised at this. It has been building for some time. If you follow hate-filled sites such as Free Republic, you know that the populist right in this country has been advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now. The militarism and nationalism dwarfs anything I saw at any point during the Cold War. It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth – not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.

Along with this goes a kind of worship of the presidency, and a celebration of all things public sector, including egregious law like the Patriot Act, egregious bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security, and egregious centrally imposed regimentation like the No Child Left Behind Act. It longs for the state to throw its weight behind institutions like the two-parent heterosexual family, the Christian charity, the homogeneous community of native-born patriots.

[. . .] In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism."

This from the head of a Libertarian think tank! There's more there, worth reading. So go read. An alliance between Progressives and Libertarians to fight the Republicans?

At American Street

I have a post up at American Street, titled The Gap, about the information gap that exists between boggers, blog-readers, and Washington Democrats.

And it is surprising how so many Washington Democrats seem so ill-informed about so many of the issues, or so out of touch with things that every single Progressive blogger and blog-reader understands. How many of them understand that the Republican Social Security proposal phases out Social Security? But webloggers and their readers know this.

Journalists challenge Fox, threatened with $1 million legal bill

TV Spy’s ShopTalk reported Monday that two TV journalists have challenged the license renewal of WTVT Fox-13, charging that it deliberately broadcast false news reports about Monsanto’s secret use of potentially cancer-causing growth hormones in milk. Reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson filed the petition Monday against Fox’s Tampa station after a Florida Appeals Court overturned a $425,000 jury award to them and then ordered them to pay court costs and issued rullings allowing Fox to seek $1 million in legal costs from them for defending itself against their Whistleblower lawsuit. The court said broadcasting false news reports is not a crime, striking grounds for their suit. The journalists are appealing.

Their petition to the Federal Communications Commission to deny the station's license renewal includes evidence that the station’s managers repeatedly ordered them to distort a series of news reports about Monsanto’s secret use of the artificial hormone in dairy cattle throughout Florida and nationally. The reporters charge that station executives demanded their news stories be falsified to avoid a lawsuit by Monsanto and potential loss of advertising from the dairy industry. The petition also charges WTVT violated federal rules by removing complaints about the hormone story from its files.

Progressives should jump in and help because (1) the Appeals Court’s finding that it is not illegal for Fox or any other TV outlet to broadcast news that is patently false gives all corporate media an on-the-record license to lie, and (2) the Court's ruling that Whistleblowers who lose a suit can be sued for huge legal bills by the companies they are suing shuts down a powerful tool for kicking corporate media in the teeth when they do lie. This is a big-stakes case and these two have been fighting it mostly alone for years. (They received a Goldman Prize in 2001 for reporting the story and fighting Fox and Monsanto.) They need money, volunteers, and moral support. If they lose this one, Monsanto can poison us all it wants and Fox can fool us with impunity. Full details of their case, the Appeals Court order for them to pay, their challenge to Fox 13’s license renewal, and how you can help can be found here.

Clear Channel Stations' enlarge your breasts contest

Radio giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. ran a Christmas contest in which stations granted breast enlargement surgeries to women in four cities. In the "Breast Christmas Ever" contest, 13 women were awarded the procedure after writing essays to the stations explaining why they wanted larger breasts. Click here to add your complaints to those going to the FCC.

Media Fooled Again

By now you're read that the Repubicans "backed down" on their ethics rule changes. Well, no. They changed the rules to prevent ANY ethics probes of ANY Repubicans, ever:

"Five members of each party serve on the House ethics panel and under the current system, a tie vote would launch an ethics probe. Under the new rule, a tie or failure to make a decision within 45 days would mean no action would be taken."

Why Not Oppose Gonzales?

The Bush administration has nominated Alberto Gonzales to be our Attorney General. Gonzales is one of the people behind the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo and in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also asserts that "quaint" international law does not apply to the United States, and that United States law does not apply to President Bush. From Gonzales Torture Memo Controversy Builds:

The Justice Department in 2002 asserted that President Bush's wartime powers superseded anti-torture laws and treaties like the Geneva Conventions. Gonzales, while at the White House, also wrote a memo to President Bush on January 25, 2002, arguing that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."

The article says, "The Democrats have not yet decided whether to try to block Gonzales' confirmation."

OK, I know that some of you, and some on your staffs, read Seeing the Forest. Here's what I don't get: What do you get out of failing to oppose Gonzales' nomination? Is it that you're afraid that Rush Limbaugh is going to say bad things about you if you oppose him? Are you worried about how the media will portray you, maybe say you are "obstructionist?" Are you afraid that you'll be portrayed as "anti-Hispanic?"

Here's what I think YOU don't get: THIS IS ALL GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO! Rush Limbaugh IS going to say bad things about you. The Right-wing echo-chamber WILL portray you as obstructionist. They WILL portray you as anti-Hispanic. THEY WILL DO AND SAY THESE THINGS NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO! And, the irony is, these past several years have shown that the more you cozy up to their side, the more they will do this to you, because it shows them that you think you are vulnerable and afraid of your constituents. This is their strategy of strategic lies, and the way you are going to get past it is by embracing truth and righteousness instead of worrying about how you will be "portrayed." The "portrayal game" is over and you lost. Get past that. Start doing the RIGHT thing and the truth of your righteous acts will shine through the fog. Your constituents want "tough and principled."

A "West Wing" for the Pentagon

NBC ordered a pilot from Jerry Bruckheimer called E-Ring (Warner Bros. TV) yesterday, focusing on the inner workings at the Pentagon. The idea was created by David McKenna, who wrote the script, and Ken Robinson a former Green Beret who consults for CNN on terrorism and military intelligence. McKenna also wrote S.W.A.T., Blow, and Get Carter. NBC describes "E-Ring," as a" West Wing" set at the Pentagon . Robinson has been fairly even-handed at CNN, once telling Wolf Blitzer that , “…we can't treat al Qaeda like it's the boogeyman and stop living. But there has to be vigilance.” The show could be an opportunity for Progressives to ramp down the fear and claims of endless war on terror trumpeted by the Administration and the Conservative echo chamber, or it could devolve into a “desert western” with good guys catching Muslim terrorists by trampling civil rights. Progressives with Hollywood connections might want to monitor this one because for sure the Administration will.

More on Americans missing in the tsunami

Some trolling Rethuglicans jumped on me for my cynicism about Administration motives in not preparing the American people for traumatic casualty counts in the tsunami. Get a life, one advised. I'd be curious as to how such folks would have reacted to the suggestion, Get a life, after 9-11.

Well, Powell, one of the few grown-ups in the Administration, has touched this political hot potato.

"The number of private citizens or citizens unaccounted for still lingers around 4-5000," he said, adding the figure was based on phone calls from relatives or friends inquiring about their whereabouts.

Mr Powell said this did not mean they were necessarily casualties in the catastrophe.

But he added: "We can't ignore the very distinct possibility that there are Americans within this number who have lost their lives. We just don't know that".


Recall there has only been one missing victim recovered alive in the last 24 hours.

Is It Time?

It might be the right time to start another Mac software company. What would you like to see on a Mac? Would you pay actual money for it?

When Good Empires Go Bad

In The Left Coaster: Successful Societies, Mary writes about why societies fail. Then in More on Declining Empires, soccerdad adds ... more. Good reads.

From this astonishingly dishonest Washington Post story:

"In just 14 years, the nation's Social Security system is projected to reach a day of reckoning: Retiree benefits will exceed payroll tax receipts, and to pay its bills the system will have to begin redeeming billions of dollars in special Treasury bonds that have piled up in its trust fund. To redeem those bonds, which represent money taken in years when Social Security ran a surplus and used for other government operations, the federal government would likely have to cut other programs, raise taxes or borrow more money."

Let me translate this into "regular people" terms:

In just 14 days your bank faces a day of reckoning: your mortgage payment is due. You have spent the money, so the bank must lay people off, cut vacations and eliinate health insurance in order to reduce their financial requirements."

What's REALLY happening? In just fourteen years, the full impact of Bush's tax cuts become clear. The money that paid for these tax cuts -- which went primarily to the rich -- was supposed to be saved for your retirement. That retirement money came from taxes on incomes below $75,000-$85,000 (depending on the year). A tax on the middle class and poor, that was handed to the rich.

The most obvious solution is to increase taxes on the rich to pay back what was taken from your retirement money and given TO the rich. Duh. So instead smoke, sand, dust, fog and anything else they can think of are being thrown into the air to keep you from realizing what has happened to your retirement money.

Santa Cruz

Spent the day in Santa Cruz. One great thing about Santa Cruz is you can listen to KPIG on the radio. KPIG is a country/ reggae/ Grateful Dead/ folk/ rock/ bluegrass/ hippie/ dope-smoking-redneck-hippie kind of station -- playing music that you just will not hear on the kind of corporate Clear Channel-style station that saturates most "markets." (You're a "market," not a person.)

KPIG was the very first radio station on the internet but had to stop when the new royalty rules killed free online radio simulcasts. More on that here. (You can listen online if you have AOL or RealAudio RealPass.)

While we were driving home they played this song by James McMurtry, "We Can't Make It Here"

Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing, both hands free
No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's stretched so thin
And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

That big ol' building was the textile mill
It fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
We can't make it here anymore

See all those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna set there till they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks
Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here 'less you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are workin? two jobs and livin? in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself Mr. CEO
See how far 5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one of your stores
Bet you can't make it here anymore

High school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career, forget about school
Can she live on faith? live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Wow I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in the damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

And that's how it is
That's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper
Read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind
If you're listening at all
Get out of that limo
Look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone
Tell us all why

In Dayton, Ohio
Or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down along with the school
And the hospital and the swimming pool
Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley
And trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore

You can download this song here for free!

Which Side Of The Tracks Are You On?
	I'm living what he's singing about!
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What about American Tsunami Casualties?

Well the Swedes have declared a day of mourning for the Swedes who died in the tsunami. The Germans are preparing their citizens for the worst. The American government, concerned as always more about image than death and suffering, has acknowledged 12 American dead, and advises the thousands of Americans missing to call Mom as soon as possible.

Yeah, right. Why does this picture remind me of the Administration allergy to the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq? Cover up the bad news as much as possible. Keep voters from the truth, so the Rethuglicans and friends can keep their lock on power and continue looting the country.

When are we going to have a government that gives a d*mn about the American people?
It's a shame, a real shame.