Government

The federal governement Sets Another New Record

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Spend, spend, spend:

The federal deficit through the first half of this budget year is at an all-time high, underscoring the pressure the budget is coming under as the overall economy slumps.
The Treasury Department reported Thursday that the deficit through the first six months of the budget year totaled $311.4 billion, up 20.5 percent from the same period a year ago. That was the largest deficit for the first half of a budget year on record, surpassing the old six-month mark of $302 billion set in 2006.

And, affirming their dimness, the bush administration couldn’t even get it close to right a little over a month ago:

The Bush administration, when it sent its budget proposal to Congress in February, estimated that the deficit for the whole year will total $410 billion, putting it very close to the all-time high in dollar terms of $413 billion.

But, accuracy has never been a strong point of the administration’s public face.

Toss’m All Out

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Brad Delong quotes Matthew Yglesias and rightfully finds fault with some of the perpetrators:

Matthew Yglesias (March 31, 2008) – The Horror (Foreign Policy):
There was a time when I never could have imagined I’d be reading stuff like this about my own country:

At the age of 19, Murat Kurnaz vanished into America’s shadow prison system in the war on terror. He was from Germany, traveling in Pakistan, and was picked up three months after 9/11. But there seemed to be ample evidence that Kurnaz was an innocent man with no connection to terrorism. The FBI thought so, U.S. intelligence thought so, and German intelligence agreed. But once he was picked up, Kurnaz found himself in a prison system that required no evidence and answered to no one…

Read the whole thing; I don’t really have the heart to make a witty remark.

Only those people who embrace the idea of being evil and think that evil is cool have any business voting for the Republican Party ever again. Ever. Again.

Or, for that matter, voting for the democratic party which has spent the past 7 years enabling the republicans.

spitzer: More Do As I Say Not As I Do

This entry was posted in Culture Government Law on by

eliot spitzer, governor of New York, likes to pretend that prostitution is naughty:

Mr. Spitzer gained national attention when he served as attorney general with his relentless pursuit of Wall Street wrongdoing. As attorney general, he also had prosecuted at least two prostitution rings as head of the state’s organized crime task force.
In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island.
“This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

It seems, though, that dear eliot is a user:

Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute at a Washington hotel last month, according to a person briefed on the federal investigation.

Of course, innocent until proven guilty.

However, I suspect the court of family and public opinion have already made their rulings.