There's some really big news out there, all of which will be done to death by every blogger in town - so I am not going to bother.
The Iraqi Interim National Assembly finally agreed on a partial Cabinet list today, after much wrangling and disputation over ethnic mix. However, the two key posts of Defense and Oil Ministers are still undecided so the whole thing is as yet a bit useless. The list also doesn't have a fair representation of Sunnis because the Shiites made such a stink about Sunni candidates' Ba'athist ties. That means the chance of a general civil war just went up a little too.
"The president's supporters say his recent 60-day campaign has succeeded in highlighting the importance of fixing Social Security. But polls make clear Bush's pitch on private stock and bond accounts has fallen flat with a public wary of the stock market wildcard." So says Reuters, but everyone knows they are biased liberal traitors. Personally, I liked the view of the cartoonist from the Houston Chronicle, who captioned his effort with
I don't want a personal account - I want a percentage of Congress' take from the lobbyists
Heh. If his plans have gone down so well as his supporters claim, why is he holding his first primetime news conference in over a year to tout them tonight?
OK, Reuters may be a bit biased - here is how they ran the first paragraph on this story:
U.S. Senate and House Republicans on Thursday reached a deal on a $2.6 trillion budget plan for next year that would wring savings from some health care programs for the poor while leaving room for additional tax cuts, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg said.
Somehow I doubt he was quite so blatant, even if it is true.
Then there's a couple of stories that won't get quite as much attention, but should.
A new report says that even more Texans have no health insurance than previously thought. Trouble is, Texas was already the league leader for uninsured citizens. Most experts agree that "the large number of low-wage workers is the most powerful factor driving the high numbers of uninsured people in Texas and other southern and southwestern states".
My wife works as a waitress in a popular national chain restaurant. She gets $2.13 an hour, way below minimum wage. She is supposed to be able to make it up in tips and usually does, but as the economy of Texas worsens that is getting more difficult every day. No-one is interested in talking about what happens to workers like her when people can't afford to tip as well as they used to. Want to bet the restaurant chain will say "OK, we will make up the shortfall to minimum wage"? I didn't think so.
Lastly, and by no means leastly, a former translator at Gitmo Bay has come forward to say that fake "nice" interrogations were staged for visiting VIP's. Former Army Sergeant Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.
When will the people who voted for Bush wake up to the smoke and mirrors show that is perpetrating atrocities in their names?
No comments:
Post a Comment