Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform, is one of the most powerful behind-the-scenes people in Washington. The base of his power is the anti-tax movement--Grover came up with the idea of having politicians sign a pledge never ever ever to raise taxes for any reason if they want the financial and electoral support of his organization. You can find copies of the pledge for federal and state officials at http://www.atr.org/pledge/index.html
And Norquist is only one of many right wingers who think we are being taxed to death.
I just found a news report detailing that Jack Abramoff's "lobbying" efforts in the territory of Guam resulted in an investigation against him in 2002, but--surprise--our illustrious president managed to get the investigator demoted and the whole investigation foundered.
We're living in a strange time in America. Science is bad, faith is good; workers are bad, owners/management are good; jobs are disappearing, but unemployment is down; Iraqi and Afghani insurgents become more and more deadly, but only because they are losing so badly.
What strikes me is that for a populace to buy these views, there must be two things going on simultaneously: (1) People with power and control are lying through their teeth, and (2) the populace is too comfortable with fantasy to be able to see through obvious lies.
The political right, despite the fact that it undeniably holds sway at the moment, continues to play the deniability game in which unofficial spokespeople rant and rave to rouse the rabble, while the "official" political right elected officials generally disclaim all responsibility for this rabble-rousing, and even bemoan the lack of civility in modern politics. This allows them to attack Howard Dean, for example, and his comment about hating Republicans and what they stand for. All without repudiating what their rabble rousers said, of course.
While many people have forgotten all about the shenanigans in Ohio during the presidential election in 11/04, I believe there are still at least two lawsuits still pending there. Now comes a story that seems to indicate that the Ohio Republicans might well have played yet another game or two in the Congressional seat election this week.
I'm back. More to follow, but I finally made it to our new home out west, and got the bitches at the cable company on the problem of the internet.
And so here we go... again.
~A!
As the late Ted Healy said: "Now, that's funny!"
Slow leaking liquid is itself a form of torture, but this week we're seeing slow leaks about torture. Check out this story from the Washington Post, which continues the revelations about how we really have conducted our Iraqi interrogations.
Lee's latest diary entry raises a point I've been keeping an eye for many moons now: That certain economic theories don't hold water.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) today released the June, 2005 statistics on income and savings. It definitely pays to read between the lines.
