I've recently been traveling the country and it occurs to me that we don't really need "social security" from the Government at all. The future of the social safety net lies in the hands--and hearts--of the charitably-minded American People.



Can anyone imagine this cute robot (unlike the Social Security trust fund) ever going empty? Between that and Celebrations for Children, I think we're pretty much set.

From Empire Burlesque:

George W. Bush has quietly renewed the infamous Executive Order 13303.

...

...In the order, Bush proclaims that any legal action taken for any reason against any American corporation dealing in "Iraqi petroleum products" at any point in the process – from well-head to gas-pump to boardroom – "constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States.

...

Bush declares flatly that any "judicial process" launched against these protected entities "shall be deemed null and void."

...

how to guarantee that his partners and patrons won't be troubled by some rogue nation that still clings to the outmoded principle of law and order? Simple: one of the agencies authorized to "employ all powers" necessary "to carry out the purposes of this order" is our old friend, the Defense Department...

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Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism as it is a merge of state and corporate power.
--- Benito Mussolini
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Jim Pinkerton, FOX news contributor/commissar:

"This is a test of the left-wing blogosphere," said Jim Pinkerton, syndicated columnist and regular contributor to FOX News Watch, who pointed out that The Sunday Times article came out just before the British election and apparently had little effect on voters' decisions.

"In many ways that memo might prove all of the arguments the critics of the war have made," he added. "But the bulk of Americans don't agree, or don't seem that alarmed, so it is a power test to see if they can drive it back on the agenda."

....

Ellis Henican, a columnist for New York Newsday and a FOX News contributor, said the allegations of evidence-fixing had been made before the 2004 election by former senior administration officials Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, and while many people believe they were right, it had little impact on the re-election of Bush in November.

"It's a little late," he said of the memo story, adding that people are resigned to the fact that the United States is in Iraq for the long term, regardless of what events led to the war. "We're kind of stuck."

Catch that first one?

The Downing Street Memo didn't effect the British election much which demonstrates that Americans don't care about it.

If Americans don't care about it, it isn't news.

Of course, if Americans don't know about it, they can't care about it.

Therefore if Americans don't know about something, it isn't news.

Americans don't know about the Downing Street Memo, thus the DSM is not news.




Hennican's argument is doubleplusgood:

If a smoking gun had come to light before the election, the election results would be the same.

How can we know this?

Because the election had a certain result without the smoking gun.

Q.E.D.*

*quod erat demonstrandum - Latin for "Thus it has been shat in your mouth and called a sundae."


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More on the DSM here, here, and an excellent piece here.

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

-- George W. Bush