Fascinoma

Permanent Kleptocracy

The GOP has long assumed, with Tom DeLay, that if they can just transfer enough wealth to their constituency, by cutting services and shifting taxes to others, through earmarks, no-bid contracts, Faith-Based Initiatives, dismantling of regulatory agencies et cetera, then that wealth would come back to the them in a sort of recirculating torrent, creating a permanent majority, which because it is permanent, is totally unaccountable. The Day of Reckoning will never come, partly becuase they will always be able to buy enough media, and cut enough reporters' paychecks to ensure the public never knows the truth.

Now I doubt if The Plan has ever been formulated this explicitly, and I'm sure that for the most part the Republicans just think of it all as some sort of Godsent "sweet deal" -- what's good for Republicans is good for America or even the whole world. They're just doing real well by doing good. The list of Republican outfits that have been looting the treasury gleefully for the past five years is vast. In just the past week there have been huge stories about what graft-mills the reconstrcutions of Iraq and New Orleans have turned into, and today we learn that Bush is funneling as much as a third of the promised AIDS money to the his Christofascist cronies. They pompadoured parsons will suck up the cash, tell their flocks to just say no, launder the dough somehow and kick back to the GOP -- so it all can go around again. Meanwhile the Senate is about to install a Supreme Court Justice whio thinks that corporations can do no wrong and that waht this country needs is a king.

Josh Marshall has been reminding us of recent history -- reminding us how in 2000 everybody with a column or a TV punditry laughed when DCCC filed a RICO suit against the GOP, calling the K Street Project the criminal conspiracy it manifestly was and is. They're laughing still but the joke is getting unfunnier by the minute.

posted by Kalkaino @ 1:51 PM