More damage from the omnibus spending bill: a $300 billion cut in student aid, changing eligibility rules for Pell grants in such a way that nearly 100,000 students will lose all or part of their grants. Republicans attempted to pass this rule change last year, but Democrats fought them back. Now they’ve brought it back as part of the budget package.
Tuition has been rising since Bush came into office, as state budgets tighten and more costs are passed on to students. I know this country used to want an educated population. I fear the people in power now prefer to keep everyone poor and ignorant.
Via Suburban Guerilla
Assault on abortion rights begins now
Before the new Congress is even in session, abortion foes are being handed a gift, attached to a must-pass spending bill. The provision assures that health care providers who refuse abortion services will still receive federal funds, and it’s clearly a payback to the religious right for their help in re-electing Bush. Barbara Boxer, who received more votes than Kerry in California and who is an unabashed liberal, has vowed to fight the measure.
The monkey trap
I was talking with some friends last night about Iraq, and how it’s like the traps set for monkeys – a coconut with a hole and some rice inside, the hole big enough to put a hand through but not to pull out when the hand is full of rice. The monkey is trapped because he won’t let go of the rice and pull his hand free.
In my view, the “rice” for Bush and the neo-cons is the permanent bases they want so badly and won’t let go of. And oil, of course, there’s always oil.
Anyway, as it turns out, William Raspberry already thought of this analogy a year ago.
Bill Moyer and NOW tonight
If you get a chance to catch Bill Moyer’s PBS show NOW tonight, he’s skewering Condi on terrorism and 9/11.
UPDATE: They’re kicking Delay’s ass too.
22 more
Every weekday night I watch the PBS News Hour, and at the end of the hour they do a silent memorial for soldiers killed in Iraq whose names are newly released. It’s hard to sit and watch the pictures of these young kids, and know their promise is ended. To me they are very young
Firefox
If you’re not using Firefox 1.0 for your web browser, you really should be.
And once you have it, look in the extensions section for Flash Block and Adblock. You’ll thank me forever.
Protect every child
John Kerry plans to introduce a bill which would assure that every child in the nation receives health insurance. At the moment, eight million children have no insurance, and receive minimal care. This is an issue close to my heart, since I was one of those kids growing up.
Kerry wants you to become a co-sponsor of his bill. Follow the link to sign on, and listen to Kerry’s video message.
The price of war
Well, even though it wasn’t planned for in the budget, the war in Iraq currently costs us $5.8 billion a month, according to our generals. I guess that’s part of the reason why we’ve had to cut our contribution to the AIDS fund.
And even while we’re pumping all that money into the military, the generals say that our military is under a terrible strain, both financially and in terms of personnel.
Our values
Voting irregularities, cont.
I have all these random links relating to voting irregularities in the presidential election. I’m not sure what they amount to, if anything, but I may as well post them here so I can get them out of my browser, at least.
First, I have Greg Palast and Farhad Manjoo duking it out over at Salon on whether and how much the election was tainted.
A post at Suburban Guerilla, who links to a Kos diary, led me to Bev Harris’s account of the Volusia vote lockdown. Now there’s a mess for you.
Keith Olbermann continues to summarize the problems so far. He seems to be the only mainstream journalist paying any attention at all.
And then there are a couple of stray reports which would seem like tinfoil hat stuff, except they apparently come from experts, so may be worth reading. First, Chuck Herrin on why he’s suspicious about the integrity of this vote. He also has an easy, step by step description of how to hack the Gems software.
And finally, Chuck Shea crunches some numbers and explains why he smells a rat.