Blah, Social Security, Blah, Etc.

There's a lot of interesting Social Security stuff around today.

Via Josh Marshall, Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) is saying the US is going to default on the Social Security Trust Fund. As mentioned earlier, Dean Baker has calculated this would transfer $1 trillion from the poorer 95% of Americans to the richest 1%. An average household in the top 1% would have "a net gain of more than $730,000."

Also via Josh Marshall, the Washington Post is reporting this:

President Bush plans to reactivate his reelection campaign's network of donors and activists to build pressure on lawmakers to allow workers to invest part of their Social Security taxes in the stock market...

White House allies are launching a market-research project to figure out how to sell the plan in the most comprehensible and appealing way...

The campaign will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away.

It will be just as great as Iraq -- but here in America!!!

Finally, Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler continues his crusade against media cowardice and stupidity. Catch him now before he has an aneurysm.

And continue to read this, because they're only so much time left before this avalanche of lies gives me an aneurysm. Perhaps Bob Somerby and I can share the same aneurysm and save on expenses.