Debt Clock Running Out of Room

Just another thing to thank George W. Bush and the Rubber-Stamp Congress for.

From Yahoo News:

The national debt clock, as it is known, is a big clock. A spot-check last week showed a readout of 8.3 trillion — or more precisely 8,310,200,545,702 — dollars … and counting.

But it's not big enough.

Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.

The clock's owner, real estate developer Douglas Durst, knew such a problem could arise but hadn't counted on it so soon.

"We really expected it to be quite some time," Durst told AFP. "But now, with the pace of debt growth only increasing, we're looking at maybe two years and certainly before President (George W.) Bush leaves office in 2009."

Things in Iraq are just fine….really

While George Bush sleeps well and dreams of being remembered as the President who brought stability to the Middle East, reality continues to assert itself. 

From Riverbend:

[...] E. was sitting at the other end of the living room, taking apart a radio he later wouldn’t be able to put back together. I called him over with the words, “Come here and read this- I’m sure I misunderstood…”

He stood in front of the television and watched the words about corpses and Americans and puppets scroll by and when the news item I was watching for appeared, I jumped up and pointed. E. and I read it in silence and E. looked as confused as I was feeling.

The line said:

وزارة الدفاع تدعو المواطنين الى عدم الانصياع لاوامر دوريات الجيش والشرطة الليلية اذا لم تكن برفقة قوات التحالف العاملة في تلك المنطقة

The translation:

“The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by coalition forces working in that area.” [emphasis mine]

That’s how messed up the country is at this point.

[snip] 

The cousin sighed heavily and told us…he was going to check the morgue. A month before, his wife’s uncle had been taken away from a mosque during prayer- they’ve yet to find him. Every two days, someone from the family goes to the morgue to see if his body was brought in. “Pray I don’t find him… or rather… I just- we hate the uncertainty.” My cousin sighed heavily and got out of the car. I said a silent prayer as he crossed the street and disappeared into the crowd.

E. and I waited patiently for H., who was still inside the college and for L. who was in the morgue. The minutes stretched and E. and I sat silently- smalltalk seeming almost blasphemous under the circumstances. L. came out first. I watched him tensely and found myself chewing away at my lower lip, “Did he find him? Inshalla he didn’t find him…” I said to no one in particular. As he got closer to the car, he shook his head. His face was immobile and grim, but behind the grim expression, we could see relief, “He’s not there. Hamdulilah [Thank God].”

“Hamdulilah” E. and I repeated the words in unison.

WE all looked back at the morgue. Most of the cars had simple, narrow wooden coffins on top of them, in anticipation of the son or daughter or brother. One frenzied woman in a black abaya was struggling to make her way inside, two relatives holding her back. A third man was reaching up to untie the coffin tied to the top of their car.

“See that woman- they found her son. I saw them identifying him. A bullet to the head.” The woman continued to struggle, her legs suddenly buckling under her, her wails filling the afternoon, and although it was surprisingly warm that day, I pulled at my sleeves, trying to cover my suddenly cold fingers.

A collection of posts from her blog were made into a book, Baghdad Burning, and published last year. The book was recently nominated for the $50,000 BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize, the 'most lucrative literary award for non-fiction'. 

Rubber Stamp Update

Update: (3.29.06 12:53p EDT) From a commenter at FDL:

2 more on the way! Called in my order and Sandy says they will extend the deadline til 5 pm and that they will extend it further if need be. Said she emailed Jane with that information and thanks everyone here for the great business and asks that we spread the word. Way over 500 have been ordered, maybe close to 1000. — angie

* * * * One hour left to get your order in to The Stamp Maker and take advantage of the 20% discount being offered! (Promo code: SPRING – all caps!!)

Yesterday, over 200 orders were placed, many for multiple stamps!

And, if you want to really feel good, read this:

From Christy @ FDL: I just wanted to take a moment to tell you what a difference you have all made — not just in standing up and participating in a moment of citizen democracy — but also in the lives of the folks who own this business. It’s a woman-owned small business in Michigan, and we were told yesterday that the orders we placed in a single day were more than they usually do in an entire month. As a former business owner myself when I was in private practice, I can tell you that sort of business windfall can make a world of difference — and I’m so pleased that we could help them out while trying to help our nation as well.

Is that a great feeling or what! Knowing you're not only taking a stand and making your voice heard, but helping out a small-business owner!

FDL has all the details here.

Mystery: They sound like tigers, act like jellyfish

Heaven forbid the majority of Congressional Democrats actually take a stand on anything. While Hillary and others are busy testing the wind, a few are making headlines and raising campaign funds precisely because they are standing up and fighting the administration.

What baffles the mind is how these same jellyfish can't seem to understand that the reason Russ Feingold, Ned Lamont, and others are gaining supporters from all over the Democratic spectrum is that rather that playing footsie with GWB and the administration, these Dems are listening to their constituents. 

From the Associated Press:

Congressional Democrats promise to “eliminate” Osama bin Laden and ensure a “responsible redeployment of U.S. forces” from Iraq in 2006 in an election-year national security policy statement.

In the position paper to be announced Wednesday, Democrats say they will double the number of special forces and add more spies, which they suggest will increase the chances of finding al-Qaida’s elusive leader. They do not set a deadline for when all of the 132,000 American troops now in Iraq should be withdrawn.

“We’re uniting behind a national security agenda that is tough and smart and will provide the real security George Bush has promised but failed to deliver,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday.

Well forgive me for not buying it. The Democratic leadership, notably Reid and Pelosi, left John Murtha and Russ Feingold and so many others to sway in the wind when they came out against Bush and the administration – despite the overwhelming public support they received. 

You want to know why I will not support the Democratic Party as a whole? Why I will direct my time, energy, and limited funds to individual candidates? Because the Democratic party, as a whole, does not even support its own members. And, after five years of Bush incompetence, I can't trust them to listen to the actual needs and wants of their constituents. 

Censure Hearings

From Tim Curry, MSNBC:

As Sen. Russ Feingold urges the Senate to censure President Bush, the alleged misdeed that moved the Wisconsin Democrat to propose censure continues: the Bush administration keeps conducting surveillance of calls by suspected al Qaida operatives to and from people in the U.S.

[snip]

Chairman Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., has scheduled a Friday hearing on the censure proposal. Specter opposes censure, as does Judiciary Committee Democrat Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, who said at Tuesday’s hearing, with exasperation in his voice, “The idea of censuring the president — we don’t know what he did.”

[snip] 

Friday’s censure hearing sets up what both Feingold and Senate Majority leader Bill Frist want: a roll call vote on the Senate floor on censuring Bush.

This would force all 100 senators — and especially the potential Democratic presidential hopefuls — Sens. Biden, Evan Bayh, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton — to go in the spotlight and make their choice: either condemn Bush for taking an action which the president argues is necessary to defend the nation from al Qaida attacks — or give Feingold a potential weapon to use against them in the event that he too seeks the Democratic presidential nomination.

A “no” vote on censure would also incur the wrath of Democratic groups such as Moveon.org.

[snip] 

When Feingold was asked two weeks ago whether he would take action against the NSA program by cutting off funding for it, he replied, "Cutting off funding? How are you going to enforce that? If the president has inherent power, he'll just shift some money around. He'll just keep doing it. That's the problem with this doctrine. If the president isn't going to acknowledge that a law we passed such as FISA binds him, why should the cutting off of funding affect him?”

Attention Joe Biden!

Is Joe Biden an idiot, a moron, a brainless twit, a DINO…all of the above? Joe Biden doesn't want to censure the president. Why? Because 'we don't know what he's done.' Well, no kidding!

That's the point of holding hearings. We don't know what he's done, or what other laws he's violated, because he – using his so-called 'inherent' powers – has ignored the Fourth Amendment and the 1978 FISA law.  

Does Congress know what the NSA is doing, who it's spying on, whether it is surveilling legitimate Al-Qaida targets or activists? Does the FISA court know who the NSA is targeting? 

The short answer is no. No one knows what the NSA is doing, except for the NSA and the White House.  

* 

We've been through this before, Mr. Biden. Back in the 70's. A Republican President claimed inherent powers of office during wartime, and used this to order illegal wire-taps on political opponents (Democrats!), anti-war activists, civil rights activists, journalists. Anyone who disagreed with his policies, anyone he saw as an enemy.

Because of that, Congress passed a law to prevent it from happening again. The same law that President Bush has admitted to violating and admitted would continue to be ignored.

Democrats need to join together and tell the White House they will no longer allow President Bush and his administration to violate laws. They will not allow the President to ignore the Constitution of the United States.

Stop debating the supposed wartime powers, and tell the President to obey the law!