Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness

When I'm Done, No One Will Want You

[Attention regular readers and irregular Daou Report referrals: if you're looking lighter fare, check out my Sunday coupon and upcoming movies posts below]

Like I've said many times before, it's almost like the Bush Admnistration is scuttling the country to prevent its acquisition by unseen enemies. I'm not sure what the scuttler/scuttlee relationship comes from. Do they think the country is possessed by Satan and therefore, as much as it pains them, cannot be suffered to live? Are they just reproducing the jaunty style of the parasitic aliens from Independence Day? Or are they emulating an angry pimp who wants to make an example of a rebellious ho [a country where subject-specific approval ratings on the economy and Iraq are in the high-20s] by disfiguring her? As the jury selection for the trial of Enron executives begins this week, consider that model of corporate governance as currently applied to the public sector.

(1) The problems include the slow federal cleanup of debris in Mississippi and Louisiana; a lack of authority for Bush's handpicked recovery coordinator, Donald E. Powell; the shortage and poor quality of housing for evacuees; and federal restrictions on reconstruction money and where coastal communities can rebuild.

(1a) New Orleans could lose as much as 80 percent of its black population if its most damaged neighborhoods are not rebuilt and if there is not significant government assistance to help poor people return, a detailed analysis by Brown University has concluded.

(2) The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

(2a) Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

(3) These Justice Department lawyers, backed by their intrepid boss Comey, had stood up to the hard-liners, centered in the office of the vice president, who wanted to give the president virtually unlimited powers in the war on terror.

(4) The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss," but while some dispute its fairness, court challenges have fallen flat.... With yearlong tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers can be forced to stay in the Army an extra 18 months.

(5) There are so many terrible things in the budget bill that it's hard to say what provision is the worst, in terms of consequences. But to my mind, there is one provision that symbolizes all the pointless, wanton, ignorant destructiveness of the last five years: the $4.9 billion in cuts to child support enforcement.

(6) Millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by Congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of Medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report.

I've decided against long commentary on such matters unless I can really add something or one story particularly inflames my outrage. Suffice it to say that Republican governance on the national level is starting to resemble the sort of arbitrarily cruel, inequitable, rapacious, medieval, and idiotic shit we've been experiencing in Texas ever since guess-who was elected Governor in 1994.

Posted by Norbizness at January 30, 2006 06:04 AM