Bush and His Friends' Money

The jowls of the wealthy backers of the President are drooling once again with the dollar signs from the hurricanes wetting their appetites. As Bush bids up the cost of recovery (as he will surely do with the likely damage in his home state of Texas) in an effort to buy votes and to show "compassion" and "leadership", we have to keep in mind where those dollars are already flowing: to Pat Robertson's "charity", to Dick Cheney's Haliburton and to other well-connected, aggressively-paid contractors from the Iraq privitization. This on the heals of his Administration's top government procurement official being indicted for improper acts dealing with the lobbyist closely associated with Tom "The Hammer" Delay (sounds like an organized crime title.) Very little of the money will get to the poor who were dispossessed by the hurricane. Their land is already being bought by speculators who expect the revival of New Orleans will make the properties protected. posh and profitable. The money for cleanup and re-infrastructuring will be poured into the corporate assets that were damaged and the no-bid, cost-plus contracts that guarantee huge profits for Haliburton and Companies. Giving Bush this kind of blanket authority with $200 BILLION dollars or more is a grand effort at accelerating his social policy based on redistribution of the wealth from the poor to the rich.

If you need the figures of the wreckage and economic refugees being created by the conservative storm, take a look at this information:

Income Information

Fetal pain, Pat Robertson and Iraq

The Journal of the American Medical Association printed an article this week reviewing studies on fetal pain with the conclusion that such pain is unlikely to appear until the 28th week of pregnancy. The pro-life community has gone nuts in response, accusing JAMA of lethal bias. It's typical of the right wing's anti-intellectualism. They produce all sorts of nonsense in non-peer reviewed "think" tanks and react wildly against real research and scientific fact if it goes against their rigid set of beliefs. They may still think the world is flat...geographically, I mean, with apologies to Thomas L. Friedman.

Pat Robertson should be applauded for his honesty. Like Ann "Liberals Must Die" Coulter, Robertson spoke the hidden hopes of the farthest right in his call for assassination as a weapon of world (and national?) diplomacy. The vicious haters and power protectors on the far right are getting bolder and bolder as they continue to appeal to the angriest, imbalanced members of the right-wing culture. By every Bushian definition, Robertson should be branded a terrorist and Coulter's rhetoric qualifies as terroristic threats. Shouldn't they be in Bernie Goldberg's book about the people screwing up America? No wait, that's just another "fair and balanced" targeting book for the hate groups.

Bush says he is opposed to the idea of an "immediate" withdrawal of our troops because it would be a defeat in the war on "terrorism". I'm amazed the press continues to let him get away with framing the issue with a lie. Few are calling for "immediate" withdrawal. Most anti-war views recognize we have some responsiblity of cleaning up the mess Bush and the neo-cons created. What we want is an EXIT PLAN from the clueless administration which never had a entrance plan (blind dream maybe), much less an exit plan. Foreign policy experts have come forth with a variety of actual ideas leading to a planned withdrawal begining in December without abandoning the Iraqis to civil war. And to let Bush again tie what he's doing to terrorism is absurd. Virtualy every rational observer understands he's creating terrorists, not defeating terrorism. But of course his supporters still believe that there are WMDs hidden in the sand, that Saddam planned September 11 and Bin Laden is his secret twin brother.

DFL priority: stadiums?????

DFL Senate Majority Leader Dean Johnson called the Sycophant Hartman sports babble show (more on Hartman and his roast at the bottom) Sunday morning to indicate he and Republican House Speaker Steve Sviggum were going to write a letter to Governor Pawlenty seeking yet another "Special" Session of the Minnesota legislature to consider stadiums for the Twins and U of M Gophers, and maybe a pension bill and a new hospital for a growing suburban area. I wonder if Johnson ever calls the Jack Rice Show to talk about policy issues.

If you listen to Johnson, apparently the DFL feels these are the most important needs of Minnesota -- subsidized sports stadiums, fixes for a screwed up pension system based on pandering past legislative decision, and deciding which giant health entity will control the new hospital in Maple Grove (apparently the most lobbied issue at the legislature other than gambling and education). Does Matt Entenza agree? Does Mike Hatch agree? Does Amy Klobuchar agree? Does DFL chair Brian Melendez agree? Does Bob Lessard agree? Does Sarah Benson agree?

Our transportation system is an increasingly costly mess thanks to Pawlenty's veto of the transportation bill. DFLers actually agreed to a budget where low-income families got virtually no help or hope while state government gave new tax breaks to business and high-income earners. The environment was allowed to continue its degradation and destructive ATVs were given virtualy wide-open access to the northern forests.

"Economic development" was hardly a factor other than additional unaccountable tax breaks and subsidies for business. Even the badly needed increase in the minimum wage was trashed by conservatives who think our future lies with lower wages for workers, more investment returns and astronomically high salaries for the wealthy owners and CEOs who contribute and raise vast amounts of money for the Republican party. Tuition rates and property taxes will continue to soar while financial aid stagnates and child care subsidies suffered a permanent $60 million + cut.

Pawlenty and Sviggum obviously want new stadiums because their rich "free-market" business allies want one. Let's hope Johnson and the DFL get an agreement to do something for the rest of Minnesota -- steps towards fairer taxes, a real reform of our top-heavy health care system (if we are going to help an undeserved high-value/income area with it's hospital, it seems "fair and balanced" to provide more access for the poor to health care), and funding environmental initiatives like the clean water protection proposal that even Pawlenty claims to support -- before the DFLers reluctantly hop on the special session bandwagon, which Johnson seems to be begging to fuel.

Oh yeah, re Hartman. He apparently had a nice roast the other night appropriately celebrating his many years in male sports development and idolizing communication. Highlights: Fired Indiana coach and Hartman "close personal friend" Bobby Knight using more foul language than George Carlin or Bill Maher (the WCCO radio broadcast became virtually inchoherent with all the bleeps) and Yankee owner George Steinbrenner sounding like an escaped Alzheimer's patient who had no clue where he was. At least Lou Holtz ws both funny and insightful. I wasn't there, so I can't tell whether women were allowed in or were just permitted to serve the food.

Welcome

This is my first post on my first blog, so bear with me. This blog is dedicated to an open discussion of politics and policy, encouraging new thoughts on how to resolve old problems. Frankly, it's also an outlet (aren't they all) for me to vent my own thoughts, frustrations, criticisms and thank yous to those who influence our lives through elected office.

My emphasis will be on Minnesota because that's where I live and where I know best, but feel free to give examples and information about politics/policy in other states and, certainly, the actions of the Bush government and their opponents are also always welcome and need to be thoroughly explored.

No time frames for me. I might post twice in a day or not for 10. You're welcome anytime.

So let's begin at the end. The Minnesota state government just ended it's record-setting legislative session. Record-setting because there was an inability of the Republican Governor, the Republican House and the DFL (Minnesota's version of Democrat) Senate to reach an agreement before they had to shut down state government -- a virtually unprecedented incompetence among state governments.

What's next? Maybe a special session to figure out the level of subsidy to be given to a major league baseball team, a National Football League franchise and the University of Minnesota Gopher football team to have new stadiums. As our roads erode, our transit is reduced, out education system struggles to keep up, our property taxes climb and fewer people have access to health care, Minnesota's political leaders focus on what's really important: subsidizing professional athletic teams.

That's a good start, so I'll end with the start. Next time maybe we can take on the Iraq war...That would be unique.