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Sunday, March 13, 2005
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Bankruptcy Bill
Josh Marshall: "When the man makes a good point, the man makes a good point. From today's David Broder column: 'Few policy battles, Social Security being a current example, draw enough public and press interest for the legislators to feel real scrutiny. Most are in a netherworld where media coverage is cursory and interest groups' pressure determines the outcome. That's how bankruptcy reform made it through the Senate and why it will soon pass the House and be signed into law by President Bush.'"
11:46:06 AM 
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The Infrastructure of Democracy
John Perry Barlow: "And I'm no better in this regard. I spent all damned day yesterday in session with many of the stars of Cyberspace, folks like Joichi Ito, John Gage, Dan Gillmor, David Weinberger, Ethan Zuckerman, Marc Rotenberg, Andrew Mclaughlin, Rebecca MacKinnon, etc. etc. Laboring long and loud, we collectively produced the following statement:
The Infrastructure of Democracy, Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World, March 11, 2005 ..."
7:35:44 AM
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Social Security
John Aloysius Farrell weighs in on Social Security in his column in todays Denver Post [March 13, 2005, "Social insecurity"]. He writes, "In its current state, Social Security is an efficient, progressive social insurance program that gives Americans guaranteed protection against the vicissitudes of old age, or disability, or the death of a family's wage earner. More than 47 million people collect benefits, including 30 million retirees, 6 million disabled Americans, and 11.6 million family members of workers who have retired, become disabled or died...The downside of doing nothing lies in the mess that Congress and the president have made of the rest of the federal budget. The Bush tax cuts, increased federal spending, the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, the costs of war in Iraq and the period of economic hard times that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have brought us $400 billion annual federal budget deficits and a $7 trillion national debt.
7:13:15 AM
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2004 Presidential Transition
TalkLeft: "Judd Legum and Christy Harvey of the Center for American Progress explain why filibusters are necessary and why Bush's most lasting and worst legacy may be his judicial appointments."
Daily Kos: "So it's pretty obvious -- we don't love terrorists. We don't want them to win. For them to win would be to realize our greatest fears. The muslim terrorist is truly the anti-liberal. Like matter and anti-matter."
Juan Cole: "Meanwhile, Ukraine really did begin its phased withdrawal from Iraq. Likewise, Poland is beginning its disengagement. Its departure would leave only the UK and Italy with any significant number of combat troops among the coalition. Spain, Norway, Thailand, Holland, and several Latin American countries have pulled out as well. The US is becoming increasingly isolated in facing the Iraq quagmire, as former allies (pulled in by false promises that they would only be doing light peace keeping) peel off."
Josh Marshall: "NYT: 'Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production.'"
Blogs for Bush: "Ladies and gentlemen, it is working: tax cuts have pulled us out of recession into boom times; faith-based initiatives are proving better at delivering aid to the poor than government run, top-down programs; democracy is taking root after being midwifed by American arms and determination, etc, etc, etc. The only real mistake which can be ascribed to the President has been Campaign Finance Reform, and in that he at least has the excuse that he probably never imagined that the Supreme Court would allow that dog of a law to pass Constitutional muster."
6:41:04 AM
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© Copyright 2009 John Orr.
Last update: 3/14/09; 7:23:01 PM.
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