As noted here many, many times before, our feckless leaders simply refuse to admit the truth about what's happening to American jobs and to the finances of the nation. The policy is to define "the economy" as corporate profits and stock prices, while distracting attention from the sorry state of workers by:
Harping on spurious unemployment statistics
Breathless reports of "new jobs"
Baldly claiming that those nasty old tax cuts are working 24-7 to create even more jobs
They keep this charade up despite the publicly available grim figures on what's been happening to American jobs, including exactly how many have been lost and how wages have been affected.
If you read today's headlines about Iraq, it's hard to even think the name George Bush without a rush of fury. Now that the curfews are lifted, the reports keep coming, each upping the estimate of the dead for this day, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2006: 30 dead, 37 dead, 41 dead, 46 dead, 56 dead, 66 dead, 68 dead, 75 dead. Bombings, shootings, artillery fire.
We sit now with the first clear, undeniable view of the road down which we have been speeding since George Bush adopted his doctrine (adapted from the Project for a New American Century [PNAC]) that preemptive military action on the part of the United States was the only way to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the evildoers of the month.
Say what you want about disgraced Republican Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. He believed in giving his customers a convenient way to shop!
Continuing America's neverending drama of corruption among the powerful and secretive, the Boston Globe today carries a story on the Orthodox Church in America (described as an offshoot of the Russian Orthodox Church). The church's former treasurer says church officials misappropriated millions of dollars donated by retired chairman of Archer Daniels Midland Co., Dwayne Andreas, US military chaplains, and ordinary parishioners across the country.
Scotland's the Scotsman has the details from the police report on President Bush's fall from his bicycle while in Scotland last July for the G8 meetings, a fall which caused him to crash into a Constable who had to be sent to the hospital.
Part of the story:
After a hard day's discussion with fellow world leaders, the president was looking for some relaxation. Instead, he ended up the subject of a police report in which the leader of the free world was described, in classic police language, as a "moving/falling object".
I swear. We need a new category here at WTW, something we need to call "Gee, didn't I tell you this was a load of....?"
Remember all the Republican outrage over the sale of six American ports to a UAE-owned company?
Lots of analysis has already gone into Cheney's shotting of Harry Whittington, but I haven't seen anything about trying to recreate the events as described by Cheney and the other witnesses.
But Thom Gunn undertook that dangerous task and describes the results in the Whidbey News Times.
Once a year the people who own and run everything hold a little shindig somewhere, present lots of speakers on lots of economic topics, then present summaries to the peons of the world (and the press, if you think that's different).
This year's World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting was in in Davos, Switzerland, where Stephen Roach, Chief Economist for Morgan Stanley, called the American Consumer the "weakest link" in 2006's global growth prospects. There were plenty of other statements and opinions, too.
I am wondering to myself how long it takes before moving aroud and posting on this lovely but confusing (to me) site gets easier.
