PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (AP) — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It’s time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg’s municipal offices.

 -The Associate Press.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…

Now where did this money go?  Well, we here all know that don’t we?

The national debt — the amount of money the government owes its creditors — is about $12.5 trillion, or nearly $42,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. About $8 trillion has been borrowed in public debt markets, much of it from foreign creditors. The rest came from various government trust funds, including retirement funds for civil servants and the military. About $2.5 trillion is owed to Social Security.

”Those bonds are protected by the full faith and credit of the United States of America,” Kennelly said. ”They’re as solid as what we owe China and Japan.’

But, see they’re not.  The political plan is to keep on saying “Social Security is running out of money” — and to keep funneling that money into the hands of various corporate and military interests.  It has been a treasure trove to finance all these stupid wars and stuff.

So, sorry. You’re 62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70…..

You’ll always be one year late.

Even though YOU payed for it.

 

When General Dynamics put the money up to groom and run Obama, they knew that we’d be arguing about race. That our side would be divided.

And, as I said, another faction had Hillary put up for the same reasons.

———————————

When I voted for Obama, my hope didn’t seem entirely naive- I thought that at the very worst, he’d turn out to be a slight improvement, and at best a fairly decent improvement.

I was wrong.

And, then at first I came to the conclusion that he was the same as Bush–but now it’s clear to me at least that he’s in fact been much worse.

Here’s my list.

Better than Bush:

1. Israel. Arguably, slightly better on Israel/Palestine.

2. Supreme Court. I don’t like Sotomayer at all, but she’s better than a Bush nominee would have been.  

Same as Bush:

1. Iraq

2. Torture, renditions, Gitmo–all ongoing.

3. Personal freedoms, Patriot Act, TSA, and Homeland (in)Security Dept–the apparatus of a fascist state in the making.

4. Handouts to corporate America–Goldman Sachs and other robber barons.

5. Honduras. We can’t really know for sure what Bush would have done here, but Hillary’s been yelling ‘get over it’ to countries that were against the coup, so I’ll assume no difference here.

6. Iran.

7. ‘Clean’ coal.

8. Endangered species. This one surprises me–that he’s been this bad.

9. Outsourcing.

10. Environment: he’s been putting industry lobbyists in charge, just like Bush.

Worse than Bush:

1. Afghanistan–Bush was pulling out, Obama has expanded this with no end in sight.  

2. Health Care ‘Reform’- Bush could never have pulled off this travesty, which is an attack on personal freedom, and the first salvo of the attack on SS/medicare.  (see 3)

3. The attack on Social Security and Medicare – Bush wanted to do this, but never could have politically. Ten years from now there will be no SS, and no or greatly reduced medicare –and Obama will be the culprit.

4. Militarism of the schools. This seems to be a pet Obama project from his Chicago days.

5. Pakistan. One of Obama’s first actions was drone strikes (some killing civilians) inside of Pakistan’s borders.

6. Nuclear power resurgence.  Bush couldn’t have gone there.  

A must read is the whole mess, but here’s an excerpt  :

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03…

Unsaid in the link of course, but basically, Texas already controls all the text book curriculum everywhere in the United States Of America, because it’s such a huge state, and because most of the text book manufacturers are already Texan, and right wing.

Even though a Lexus ES 350 was involved in a widely publicized accident before the recalls, Lexus sales are up about 5 percent so far in 2010 compared with last year. That is close to the average for other luxury brands.

By contrast, sales of models with the Toyota nameplate fell 15 percent.

Analysts said that sales of Lexus have held up partly because the brand is not included in the most serious recall for sticking accelerator pedals.

Lexus must therefore not have as many problems, right?

Yet on a per-vehicle basis, Lexus is responsible for more reports of unintended acceleration than the rest of Toyota, federal records show. And more than half of the roughly 300 such complaints to regulators since 2000 about Lexus ES and IS series models – the only two models subject to recall – involve vehicles from years that have not been recalled.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03…

Massa calls Rahm “son of the devil’s spawn” and more.

“Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill,” he said, “and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote-unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill, and now they’ve gotten rid of me and it will pass. You connect the dots.”

“I am sitting there showering, naked as a jaybird, and here comes Rahm Emanuel, not even with a towel,” Mr. Massa said, adding that Mr. Emanuel poked “his finger in my chest, yelling at me at me because I wasn’t going to vote for the president’s budget.”

“You know how awkward it is to have a political argument with a naked man?” he continued.

Mr. Massa added: “I didn’t hit him. But we had words. And he hates my guts. He has hated me since Day 1. And now he wins. So he will get rid of me.”

Mr. Massa’s resignation leaves Democrats working to maintain their hold on a hard-won seat. The 29th District extends from Elmira almost to Lake Erie, and from the Pennsylvania border to Rochester. Republicans in the district outnumber Democrats by more than 45,000. Gov. David A. Paterson could call a special election for the seat as soon as next month, although he could also let it remain vacant until the November election.

A Republican who switched to the Democratic Party because of his opposition to the Iraq war, Mr. Massa lost in his first try to win the House seat in 2006. He was successful two years later, defeating the Republican incumbent, John R. Kuhl Jr.

He was a proponent of a single-payer health care system and was among 39 House Democrats to vote against health care legislation, saying it did not do enough to rein in costs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03…

A Rhode Island school board fired all the teachers in a school, in a dispute over working more hours without any more pay, and Obama says, that’s just great, while the right wing applauds.

To get a share of the $3.5 billion in what are known as School Improvement Grants, school officials can choose to transform the learning environments in failing schools by extending instructional hours and making other changes, converting them to charter schools, closing them entirely or replacing the principal and at least half the staff.

The Central Falls superintendent, Frances Gallo, initially chose the first option this year, but after a dispute arose with the union over extra pay for adding 25 minutes to the school day, she broke off negotiations. Backed by the local school board, she announced the firings on Feb. 23. Last Monday, Mr. Obama supported the board’s action in a speech to a dropout prevention group.

NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03…

Of course, it’s just fine to militarize the schools:

Disturbing as well is the prominence of Duncan’s belief in offering a key role in public education to the military. Chicago’s school system is currently the most militarized in the country, boasting five military academies, nearly three dozen smaller Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs within existing high schools, and numerous middle school Junior ROTC programs. More troubling yet, the military academies he’s started are nearly all located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. This merging of military training and education naturally raises concerns about whether such academies will be not just education centers, but recruitment centers as well….

read more at: http://www.greenchange.org/art…

The battle for America’s future is being played out in the schools, charter schools, and Texas-approved textbooks, and the left just doesn’t seem to care.  For 30 years, the right is pushing the schools ever further right, although they don’t plan to send their own kids their– many have pulled their own kids out- for those that can afford it to expensive private schools, and those that can’t, to homeschooling  (82% of home-schoolers are Christian right) .

Well, it seems the Christian Soldiers have taken it all to another level:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/i…

Apparently, mainstream white evangelicals (like Dobson) are merging mixed martial arts/UFC with church and God stuff, because :

“The man should be the overall leader of the household,” said Ryan Dobson, 39, a pastor and fan of mixed martial arts who is the son of James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical group. “We’ve raised a generation of little boys.”

(New York Times)

The Fight Within…

Chirst, Harden Me Against THe Weak Fighter with a Pathetic Voice who cries for the Round to be over instead of praying for endless time on the mat…

from anointedfighter.com,  http://www.anointedfighter.com/

“This whole generation is raised on the idea that they’re in a culture war for the heart and soul of America,” said Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University.

Paul Burress, 35, a chaplain and fight coach at Victory Baptist Church in Rochester, said mixed martial arts had given his students a chance to work on body, soul and spirit. “Win or lose, we represent Jesus,” he said. “And we win most of the time.”

But on that cold night in Memphis, Mr. Renken, the pastor from Xtreme Ministries, watched as two of his three fighters were beaten, one emerging with a broken ankle.

Another, Jesse Johnson, 20, a potential convert, was subdued in a chokehold and decided not to return home with the other church members after his bout. He stayed in Memphis, drinking and carousing with friends along Beale Street, this city’s raucous, neon-lighted strip of bars.

NYT –

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02…

Howard Zinn has died at 87.  The author of the People’s History of the United States.  

Just last week he wrote this in the nation:

One of Professor Zinn’s last public writings was a brief essay, published last week in The Nation, about the first year of the Obama administration.

“I’ve been searching hard for a highlight,” he wrote, adding that he wasn’t disappointed because he never expected a lot from President Obama.

“I think people are dazzled by Obama’s rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president – which means, in our time, a dangerous president – unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01…

I was surprised to learn that the People’s History sold a million copies.  

India Outsourcers Hiring Staff as US Demand Grows

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: January 20, 2010

Filed at 9:44 a.m. ET

MUMBAI, India (AP) — India’s top three outsourcing companies are ramping up hiring and increasing pay as global corporations, mainly from the U.S., send more work offshore to cut costs as they emerge from the downturn.

Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys, and Wipro expanded their global workforces by an average of 5.1 percent last quarter, together adding 16,701 employees, company documents show — an early sign that the Great Recession may ultimately benefit India as cost-conscious companies outsource more work, just as they did after the dot-com bus….

Heck of a job there, O.

Contrast the US response /stim to France:

Ghosn was summoned to meet Sarkozy after France’s second- largest carmaker floated the idea of shifting production of the next Clio compact car to its plant in Bursa, Turkey. The suggestion came after France spent about 600 million euros to boost car sales and provided Renault with 3 billion euros of aid in the face of the worst recession since World War II.

“We haven’t invested all this money supporting our carmakers just to see all the factories moved overseas,” Sarkozy told lawmakers in the National Assembly Jan. 13. The French state is also Renault’s biggest shareholder with a 15 percent stake.

That’s what could have been.

1915- 1934: US Marines arrive & then occupation.

1917: The US wrote Haiti’s ‘Constitution’–  which mainly abolished the previous prohibition on foreign owned land. FDR claimed to have written it.

This document abolished the prohibition on foreign ownership of land-the most essential component of Haitian law. When the newly elected National Assembly refused to pass this document and drafted one of their own preserving this prohibition, it was forcibly dissolved by Gendarmerie commandant Smedley Butler. This constitution was approved by a plebiscite in 1919, in which less than five percent of the population voted. The State Department authorized this plebiscite presuming that “The people casting ballots would be 97% illiterate, ignorant in most cases of what they were voting for.”

The Marines and Gendarmerie initiated an extensive road-building program to enhance their military effectiveness and open the country to U.S investment. Lacking any source of adequate funds, they revived an 1864 Haitian law, discovered by Butler, requiring peasants to perform labor on local roads in lieu of paying a road tax.

– Wikipedia

1921: The Haitian revolt, and the US military kills approximately 15,000.

1946: US backed coup.

1950: US backed coup.

1957- 1987: The Duvalier and Baby Doc era’s :

Duvalier’s paramilitary police, officially the Volunteers for National Security (Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale – VSN) but more commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes, named for a Vodou monster, carried out political murders, beatings, and intimidation. An estimated 30,000 Haitians were killed by his government.

From 1957-1971 Haitians lived under the dark shadow of “Papa Doc” Duvalier, a brutal dictator who enjoyed U.S. backing because he was seen by Americans as a reliable anti-Communist. After his death, Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” became President-for-life at the age of 19 and he ruled Haiti until he was finally overthrown in 1986. It was in the 1970s and 1980s that Baby Doc and the United States government and business community worked together to put Haiti and Haiti’s capitol city on track to become what it was on January 12, 2010.

http://current.com/items/91920…

1991: The US backs a bloody Coup against Aristide — 5000 die, many disappear.

1993: The US military comes back, this time to put Aristede back in power.  After this, Aristede launches widespread human rights abuses, his associates becoming involved in drug running, etc.

Arbitrary arrest, arbitrary detention, summary executions and police brutality became everyday reality.

2004: The US kidnaps Aristide, and puts in another regime:

On March 1, 2004, US Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), along with Aristide family friend Randall Robinson, reported that Aristide had told them (using a smuggled cellular phone), that he had been forced to resign and abducted from the country by the United States. He claimed to be held hostage by an armed military guard.[16]

Aristide later repeated similar claims, in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on March 16. He was pressured to resign from office by U.S. soldiers and James B. Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Haïti, on February 29. An aircraft provided by the U.S. carried Aristide and his wife, Mildred Trouillot Aristide, into exile to the Central African Republic. Goodman asked Aristide if he resigned, and President Aristide replied: “No, I didn’t resign. What some people call ‘resignation’ is a ‘new coup d’état,’ or ‘modern kidnapping.’

……

Some have come forward to support his claim saying they witnessed him being escorted out by American soldiers at gunpoint….

http://www.nytimes.com/aponlin…

Rush Limbaugh is in the hospital again.

I wonder if they’ll ask for his insurance card ?