Okay here's the reason relying on "personal savings accounts" for anything is bad social policy.

A person who saves $100 a month for 20 years at 3% annual interest will have only $32,830 if no withdrawals occur. If the average rate of inflation for 20 years is 2% (big low end assumption, the value of that $32,830 in today's terms would be only $21,917.

Mind you this is meant to cover the medical expenses or retirement fund of the elderly. The average catastrophic hospital visit is more than $30,000. Also, a person who withdrew $800 a month from the built-up $32,830 account, could do so for only 3.61 years before the account is exhausted.

Now a person who saves $200 a month over the same 20 year period, will have $65,000. Still expecting citizens to have enough left over at the end of the month to save is rather foolish expectation of the social system. The more efficient system is to nationalize retirement and health care, and have every single citizen pay a small amount into the system. The burdens of financing retirement and health care should not be placed on the individual or the company, because the costs are too unmanageable and the inevitable end result is larger expenses than would be the case if the system was nationalized.

This idea is not "communistic." The financing comes from everyone, but no goverment is owning the means of production. The government merely pays the bills from the fund, and audits the costs. It is the same idea as a credit union. If all citizens were in the same system, the payment and costs of these two essential elements of society -- old age and health care -- would be more efficiently managed and beneficial for businesses and individuals.

It's really that simple. The arguments to the contrary are either financed by the insurance monolith, or they indicate an inflexibility when it comes to the dualism between private and public economics. Private economics will not always have the public interest in mind when the desire is to make a buck. The assumption that it is in the best interest of private economics to provide quality service has been shown to be a historically inadequate expectation. Sometimes the people, in the form of public economics, have to take part in their own best interest, because the private interests won't be able to see beyond a short-term fixation with profit. Sometimes decisions have to be made for society as a whole.

This is from the Tennessean [SOURCE]

WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert engineered a backroom legislative maneuver to protect pharmaceutical companies from lawsuits, say witnesses to the pre-Christmas power play.

The language was tucked into a Defense Department appropriations bill at the last minute without the approval of members of a House-Senate conference committee, say several witnesses, including a top Republican staff member

...

Trial lawyers and other groups condemn the law, saying it could make it nearly impossible for people harmed by a vaccine to force the drug maker to pay for their injuries

...

At issue is what happened Dec. 18 as Congress scrambled to finish its business and head home for the Christmas holiday.

That day, a conference committee made up of 38 senators and House members met several times to work out differences on the 2006 Defense Department appropriations bill.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., the ranking minority House member on the conference committee, said he asked Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, the conference chairman, whether the vaccine liability language was in the massive bill or would be placed in it.

Obey and four others at the meeting said Stevens told him no. Committee members signed off on the bill and the conference broke up.

...

Keith Kennedy, who works for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., as staff director for the Senate Appropriations Committee, said at a seminar for reporters last month that the language was inserted by Frist and Hastert, R-Ill., after the conference committee ended its work.

"There should be no dispute. That was an absolute travesty," Kennedy said at a videotaped Washington, D.C., forum sponsored by the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

"It was added after the conference had concluded. It was added at the specific direction of the speaker of the House and the majority leader of the Senate. The conferees did not vote on it. It's a true travesty of the process."

After the conference committee broke up, a meeting was called in Hastert's office, Kennedy said. Also at the meeting, according to a congressional staffer, were Frist, Stevens and House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo.

"They (committee staff members) were given the language and then it was put in the document," Kennedy said.

About 10 or 10:30 p.m., Democratic staff members were handed the language and told it was now in the bill, Obey said.

He took to the House floor in a rage. He called Frist and Hastert "a couple of musclemen in Congress who think they have a right to tell everybody else that they have to do their bidding."

Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., also was critical of inserting the vaccine language after the conference committee had adjourned.

"It sucks," he told Congress Daily that night.

Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., another member of the conference committee, was upset, too, a staff member said, because he didn't have enough time to read the language. The final bill was filed in the House at 11:54 p.m. and passed 308- 102 at 5:02 the next morning.

Just look at these corrupt faces of internal guilt:

Bill Frist

Dennis Hastert

Funny how this song means more to me now, than it did when I heard it first in 1982 as an 8th grader at Barbre Middle School in Kenner, Louisiana.

Mr. Crowley, what went on in your head
(Oh) Mr. Crowley, did you talk to the dead
Your lifestyle to me seemed so tragic
With the thrill of it all
You fooled all the people with magic
(Yea)You waited on Satan's call

Mr. Charming, did you think you were pure
Mr. Alarming, in nocturnal rapport
Uncovering things that were sacred, manifest on this earth
(Ah)Conceived in the eye of a secret
Yeah, they scattered the afterbirth

Solo

Mr. Crowley, won't you ride my white horse?
Mr. Crowley, it's symbolic of course
Approaching a time that is classic
I hear that maidens call
Approaching a time that is drastic
Standing with their backs to the wall

Was it polemically sent
I wanna know what you meant
I wanna know
I wanna know what you meant, yeah!

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, yesterday:

“Pace said only one Iraqi army battalion is capable of fighting without U.S. help. That is the same number as in September, when U.S. commanders disclosed that the number of such highly trained battalions had dropped from three to one, prompting criticism from lawmakers.” [AP, 2/7/06]

For those of you who don't know, that "one battalion" consists of 800 men. Yep, after nearly 3 years of Operation Iraqi freedom, the US military effort can only convince 800 Iraqi's to willingly support them.

By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent [SOURCE]

WASHINGTON - President Bush's budget calls for elimination of a $255 lump- sum death payment that has been part of Social Security for more than 50 years and urges Congress to cut off monthly survivor benefits to 16- and 17- year-old high school dropouts.

If approved, the two proposals would save a combined $3.4 billion over the next decade, according to administration estimates....

[T]he benefit is paid in cases in which a surviving spouse was living with the deceased at the time of his or her death. It is also available in some cases for a surviving spouse who lived apart and for some surviving children.

Administration officials said the payment began as a burial benefit in 1939, to assist families with funeral expenses. The amount was set at $255 in 1952 and until 1981, the payment was made directly to funeral homes, they said.

The second change Bush proposed would terminate monthly survivor benefits for 16- and 17-year-olds who do not attend school full time. Current law requires 18-year-olds to remain in school to receive their benefits. Survivor benefits are paid in cases in which a parent has died.

except when winning elections are more important than patriotism.

Howie Kurtz manages to put the NSA eavesdropping fiasco in perspective. Go here

The article essentially glosses over all of the items thrown about in the news. I don't usually like Howie, because he has been wishy-washy in the past, and he often chooses the facts to make the point, instead of using all of the facts to figure out the point. Ignoring poignant facts makes me wonder if the author who does so consistently is really a shill of sorts, as if he is quite mindfull of which side his bread is buttered.

But Howie gets why the news-fo-tainment industry can't provide anything but a slanted, inaccurate perspective of all remotely "political" events. Consider this snippet, which comments on how the news networks covered Senate Judiciary hearings with Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez yesterday:

The cable nets all made a great show of 'covering' the Senate Judiciary hearing by carrying the AG's opening statement, then maybe a question or two from Arlen Specter. Then they trotted out their legal analysts to talk about the meaning of the hearing, which by then must have been eight or nine minutes old. The hearing became video wallpaper as the cable talkers talked. They never even got to Pat Leahy, the panel's top Democrat, meaning that only Republican voices were heard. Gonzales essentially got a free ride.

Then everyone moved on to other subjects. MSNBC went back to the hearing for a couple of minutes but thought better of it. We had CNN looking at Fall Fashion Week, Fox ginning up a debate on Ken Mehlman calling Hillary angry, and MS doing a 'Massachusetts Murder Mystery.'

Now I'm not saying the Gonzales session should have been covered wall to wall (though fortunately it was on C-SPAN). America probably got sick of the preening politicians during the Roberts and Alito hearings. And the cable nets did deal with other serious issues. But they couldn't even be bothered with dipping in and out of the first attempt on Capitol Hill to hold the administration accountable for its domestic spying program. Instead, we had the appearance of coverage, and even that didn't last long.

It's important to understand the seriousness of what happened yesterday. The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzalez, obfuscated every direct question. He could not answer a simple yes or no to the question posed by Senator Leahy: does the United States eavesdrop on American citizens? "I can't answer that with certainty" , "It is my belief that that is not our policy", "I believe that our activities are consistent with the Constitution", and anything else but the one of two words that would have answered the question : yes or no.

Lets not forget that the hearings began with a vote on partisan lines not to put Gonzalez under oath. [see it here] Senator Feingold called for a voice vote, and some of the Republicans uttered "no" while looking down at the table, as if ashamed.

Okay, you say. I'm a good citizen. I'm not ashamed of anything. I have nothing to hide.

But consider the idea at stake. Do we have to have every conversation -- digital or audible -- monitored in order to be safe? Keep in mind that already the entire network of telecommunications within -- and exterior to some extent - - the United States in gathered at the NSA. I repeat. They are already gathering the data. Accessing that data however, or tapping into the instantaneous moment of the network, needs a warrant. If an emergency arises, the executive branch has 72 hours to notify the FISA court with the "probable cause" basis for the action. The FISA court consists of 12 justices appointed by the Chief Justice.

When the government doesn't bother to notify or include the FISA court they are breaking the law.

Nothing is inhibiting the need to protect the public by following the law. The idea that some super-program can filter out the data is ludicrously inefficient. No search query could ever be more than 99.9 % accurate. There are just too many variations. Mind you during the average day, more than 1 billion communications occur. Now lets do the Math. 99.9 % means you have 0.1% error. 0.1% of one billion equates to 0.001 x 1,000,000,000, which equals a minimum of 1,000,000 calls a day.

Okay, now of this 1,000,000,which calls are the actual terrorists. And what of the other "terrorist"-related calls that don't get fished into the net? Since some of the calls will be false positives, what if your listening to these calls gains you incidental information not related to the reason for the monitoring (terrorism?) And what of the false negatives? These will also be missed, and might be more important, so at best, any kind of software is imperfect.

1,000,000 calls a day. How do we filter this residue? Does the administration hire 100,000 people to monitor 10 calls a day? 10,000 people to monitor 100? 1,000 people to monitor 1000? 100 people to monitor 10,000? 10 to monitor 100,000.

Who decides how to resolve the above issues as regards this "monitoring" of NSA communications. You say you've got nothing to hide, but what happens if you wind up in the 0.1% area. Does that mean your name gets put on a list? What is the procedure? Again, incidental information could occur, so what is the systematic approach to the filtering of this "monitoring."

Or would the above information leave us vulnerable to "the enemy" ?

"I can't talk about specifics. Information is obtained. Information is retained. And information is obtained with respect to the rights of all Americans." Alberto Gonzalez, Attorney General of the the Dubya Bush administration. The same Attorney General exclaimed in a recent speech that "reasonable suspicion" was the same as "probable cause" because of the clustered mumbo-jumbo legalese that he gave in the speech. Essentially, the argument boiled down to the proclaimation that "judges have long since agreed," which is not true. Judges have NOT LONG SINCE AGREED because the 4th amendment is absolutely clear on this :

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This type of ongoing, surreptitious surveillance leaves us vulnerable to intimidation. Only fools succomb to the idea that the world is not safe and so therefore we must surrender our liberty. The world has never been safe, and no amount of liberty given or surrendered will increase or decrease the world being unsafe.

It's not like we don't have a history. Pinkerton detectives were hired by many industrialists -- examples: Oil magnate John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, big steel manager Ford Frick-- from the 1890s to the 1930s to infiltrate and destroy the union movement. Lynchings were the ante-bellum methods of supressing the slaves and the black sharecroppers of the early 1900's. Start a cooperative to finance a store that undercut the exorbitant prices of the small town "white" store owner, and a few niggahs found themselves hanging by a rope. And equal to the struggle for civil rights, the Union movement itself involved many people getting shot and assassinated before Franklin Roosevelt enshrined the right the form a Union in legislation.

The director of the FBI in the post-World War 2 world, J. Edgar Hoover was known to be a closet homosexual who blackmailed many people in government and political groups. The Cointelpro operation by the FBI involved infiltrating environmental groups, peace groups, and other groups deemed "leftist" in the effort to disrupt them by all means possible. The Nixon administration used the CIA, the FBI, the IRS, and the Secret Service in every effort to destroy the perceived enemies on the enemies list, which was why the breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's home and the Democratic headquarters at Watergate occurred. Go refresh your history on Nixon, people.

The creation of the FISA court in 1978 was the fruition of the Church investigation by Senator Church of Idaho. The investigation revealed to the nation the incredible extent of the activities of the National Security Administration, the CointelPro FBI program, the use of the IRS to intimidate people, and the use of the secret service to form a police force under the direction of the executive branch.

We've been here before.

From NBC News and news services Updated: 10:15 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2006

[SOURCE]

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the antiwar movement, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush’s State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.

Sheehan, who had been invited to attend the speech by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D- Calif., was charged with unlawful conduct, a misdemeanor, Capitol Police told NBC News. Sheehan was taken in handcuffs to police headquarters a few blocks away and her case was processed as Bush spoke.

Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an antiwar slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.

The T-shirt bore the words “2,245 Dead — How Many More??” in reference to the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, protesters told NBC News.

Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived. Sheehan was to be released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.

A "bi-partisan" commission to offer "bi-partisan" solutions to Social Security. You don't say? Been there done that, people. George Dubya already tried that attempt to destroy Social Security in 2001-2 when he had Daniel Moynihan as the token non-partisan on the commission. The suggested remedy was somehow almost exactly like what Bush promoted last year. Moynihan was reported at the time to be very disatisfied with the operations of the commission and made some snappy quip about how conclusions seemed to exist prior to the investigation.

--- He goes on ---

So there he is acting like there is a problem that "won't go away" that isn't related to his own reckless government spending that is outta control. I repeat. Social Security is not in crisis.

American Competitivenes Initiative. American children get a sound foundation in Math and Science. Alternative Energy sources. A tax credit. Public and Private sectors. Insuring Opportunity for decades to come.

Encourage children to take more math and science. NCLB did what? Did he say bring in 30,000 Math and Science professionals? Okay, specifically how are you going to do this?

He is just now lying about the crime rates, the number of abortions, and the births to teenage mothers. INCREDIBLE. Does anyone read regular newspapers so they catch the stories that would let them know these were lies?

Activist courts that try to redefine marriage?

We have proven the pessimists wrong before, and we will do it again?

Justices must be subserviant to the law and not legislate from the Bench? Whoa, boy, then why did you nominate Alioto, who did exactly that on at least 5 occassions -- in applications of legislative statues to safety regulations, his "theory of the Unitary executive," and his very constant uncommon understandings of the law which on many occasions put him alone as the sole descenting vote on the ruling of the Appeals court.

Of course, whatd'you expect. Vague hyperbole in a cute vernacular or ... or what?

Ugh, how he has just exploited that soldiers dying words and his family ? I cannot recall the last time there was this use of American soldiers as a symbolic mythological creation of a failure for a Presidency.

And just minutes before he declares "We are Winning."

Winning what? What is it exactly that is being "won" ? What does "winning" mean? Give us a vision, sir Presidente, that isn't airy declarations that corrupt overlord gang filed Afghanistan is actually a "democracy" because a few thousand woman in Kabul voted on election day, when the rest of Afghanistan is under the umbrella of the Taliban.