Goes to pattern (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by NMvoiceofreason on Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 01:15:53 PM EST

Bush removal ended Guam investigation
US attorney’s demotion halted probe of lobbyist
http://www.boston.com/news/nat…..nvestigati on/

Bush Thwarted Probe Into NSA Wiretapping
Security Clearances for Justice Department Investigators Were Denied, Gonzales Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01_pf.html

The US attorney mess
http://www.boston.com/news/glo…..rney_mess/

DOJ Threatened Retaliation Against Fired Attorneys
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032107A.shtml

Records Indicate Graves Was Forced Out As U.S. Attorney
http://www.firedupmissouri.com/graves_forced_out

Former top US Iraq commander blames Abu Ghraib scandal for forced retirement
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pap…..blames.php

DoJ Lawyer: Controversial Prosecutor Played Politics at Department
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003081.php

MotherJones JF93: Shredded Justice
http://www.motherjones.com/new…..pizzo.html

Aparently, our system of checks and balances is writing checks it can’t cash.

Probably missed dozens more examples…. (none / 0) (#3)
by NMvoiceofreason on Fri Oct 12, 2007 at 01:18:43 PM EST

Dems: GOP Phone Jamming Case Stalled, Mishandled
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002839.php

CHS, of such stuff are our freedom’s borne of.

And kept.

You are a patriot, and I thank you for this work.

(bows)

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never met a firefighter that made that kind of money…

I was wondering a little while ago if anyone could shed some light on why the News branch of the NYT, Bill Keller, Editor, has gotten so far into the right wing’s pocket while the Editorial/Opinion branch, Rosenthal, Editor, still stands up for what we here believe, at least some of the time.

Any ideas on what caused the News operation to sell out and not Opinion?

Ultimately, I think, it goes back to Pinch Sulzberger and that he is an intellectual lightweight. Judy Miller and Michael Gordon were already writing their Iraq WMD fantasies before Keller arrived. Pinch wanted to jazz up the paper and this in part led to the scandals of fake reporting and departing executive editors. Keller was supposed to be an antidote to all that but really wasn’t. He was one of the first Very Serious People. He was hawkish and at the time this translated into being more of a “realist” in foreign affairs and backing a more “muscular” American stance in the world. The upshot was that rather than questioning the conventional Washington wisdom the Times became one of its main purveyors, and this spilled over into all their reporting. Overall, I agree about Rosenthal, though there have been some op-eds let through that have spouted the worst of the worst of White House talking points and neocon flimflammery.

re: Social Security. So when they warn of the Social Security Trust Fund being out of money in 2035 (or whatever year) isn’t that the way it was designed?

No, Social Security has always been a trust fund.

The fix they put in for Boomers raised the age at which they can retire. It’s based on your year of birth.

The original full retirement age was 65 — I’m a Boomer and under the fix I can’t retire until I’m 67.

Again, Social Security will not “run out of money” — the problem it will encounter is that at some time in the future it will be paying out more money than it takes in.

So you’re correct in one sense that the SS is going to have to be from general revenues. But that was a conscious decision made and endorsed by St ronnie and his minions. Probably in an attempt to destroy SS by the back door.

Actually it was a payoff to politicians of both parties. Workers paying into Social Security now are basically providing politicians with free money to play with through SS taxes which are higher than they need to be. Workers in the future will pay back this money in the period roughly 2017 to 2040. So working Americans will pay this money twice. If there had been no surpluses but taxes SS, income, or corporate were raised when shortfalls begin to occur in 2017, they would have had to have paid only once (but deficits would have been higher in the period 1983-2017).

OT Consider this another installment in my series Adventures in Reading the New York Times.

There is an article at the NYT by David Herszenhorn that is a classic for what is wrong with the traditional media: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10…..ref=slogin
snip

The article is a masterwork of bias. Paragraphs begin with phrases like: “To the delight of Republicans,” “On the energy bill, the Democrats struggled.” No slant there, no sir. But more than this, Herzenhorn presents no spokesperson from this base that he is so eager to criticize. Where does Herzenhorn go instead for political analysis? To Adam Putnam (R-FL) chairman of the House Republican Conference. You can not make this stuff up.

This is opinion masquerading as journalism. It is Beltway wisdom at its worst. Herzenhorn picks and chooses his facts and sources to reinforce his narrative. Forget that Bush is the worse President in our history. Forget all his failures. Forget the disaster that is Iraq. Forget that Republicans enthusiastically embraced Bush’s agenda and continue to vote for it. Forget Republican obstructionism and their lack of accountability. No the real problem is the Democratic base because it represents the majority of the country on many issues, because it believes in responsible government, because it is unwilling to be dominated by the politicians, media, and Beltway class that have supported so fiercely the corruption, incompetence, and criminality of the Bush Administration, because finally, from the point of view of the David Herzenhorns of this world, we do not shut up and do as we are told.

I was wondering a little while ago if anyone could shed some light on why the News branch of the NYT, Bill Keller, Editor, has gotten so far into the right wing’s pocket while the Editorial/Opinion branch, Rosenthal, Editor, still stands up for what we here believe, at least some of the time.

Any ideas on what caused the News operation to sell out and not Opinion?

You are correct. However, it is interesting to note that the SSA uses the very same Republican generated scare tactics in their own brochures found in their offices.

Described in one SSA brochure (with charts and graphs) are some remedies to fix the problem - raising the retirement age and or raising the tax.

There is absolutely no mention of raising the cap on taxable wages. Perhaps because that would be the best remedy for the people and the worst one for corporations.

Those brochures are editorially tweaked every time a new President is elected, so of course the current ones will have Republican scare tactics.

When I spoke with John Edwards on this topic, he said he was in favor of raising the wage cap.

He had strong things to say about the squelching of open debate and exchange on University campuses. [apologies, can’t do linky out here in the boonies, but it’s today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune op-ed pages]

We should take no comfort that BushCo and thug radio are destroying the Repervs. They are destroying America.