Rating: 
Summary: BUSHWHACKED a welcome eye opener
Review: I have the advantage of knowing one of the ordinary (is there such a thing?) people whose story is outlined in this book. I find it interesting that the right wing people who have written reviews use such terms as 'wacko' and 'rabid' and all such inflamatory and emotional terms to describe the book they are supposedly giving rational reviews about. They give no useful arguments to genuinely counter the the solid and complete documentation and genuine journalistic research laid down in these stories. Therefore the reviews which are most helpful are the ones which rationally state why they think the book is valuable.
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Summary: Rapidly dismantling the government safety net
Review: First, it needs to be pointed out that while still sardonic, this is a much more serious and journalistic/supported work by Molly Ivins, as is her earlier collaboration "Shrub", in part due to its coauthor Lou DuBose of the "Texas Observer". Ivins is always solid, but when challenging skilled professional, ruthless, and exceedingly dangerous liars it helps to have watertight research and facts. They are here, unlike the ongoing smokescreen that they reveal and repudiate.I knew beginning this book that it would plunge me into great depression -- however, I also knew it was my civic responsibility, and that as a parent, to read this because it is evident that this country is under attack and that the government and freedoms that have made us great and the envy of the world are under an ongoing barrage from the Bush Administration. Ivins and Dubose state it succinctly and eloquently when they note that Mussolini defined fascism as a merger of corporate and government interests -- an identical pattern is clearly at work in the US today -- right down to similar propaganda clouding the judgement of the average citizen. Deja vu -- or the more apt German translation. This is a frightening, as well as disturbing study. It is comprehensive in terms of the close alliance of the Bush family and foreign interests, the attacks on food safety, education, the criminal justice system, worker safety, the environment, and the entire government safety net. I don't believe Ivin's assertion that Bush's religious posturing is ideological, I think it is a smokescreen, but she and Dubose are definitely on target that his antipathy toward government and support of corporate hegemony are nearly religious in fervor. The mendacity, inequities, cruelness, and stupidity of what is going on in this administration -- largely unchallenged, much less checked -- are comprehensively examined. This is a very important book. To those who would not read it I would caution that the average German probably felt similarly stymied during the 1930's; they, like us were essentially good people whose failure to pay attention and to resist enabled colossal evil to control their society. We are naive to dismiss the possibility that it could similarly occur here.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of Many New Liberal Titles
Review: If you are only going to read one of the many new liberal titles out these days, read this one. Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose have written a book that attacks the Bush administration from a new and different direction. Their aim is to explain how the President's policies affect ordinary people, so they go into areas that authors like Al Franken and Joe Conason don't. I enjoyed those contributions to this genre too, but this is a book that might might convince an independent or a Republican to vote for the Democratic ticket in 2004. Liberals should give it to their apolitical friends at Christmas time. By the time they're done, they'll be mad too.
Rating:
Summary: simply breath taking
Review: One should only have to see the venemous disdain the neo-con one star reviewers have for this book to know what a gem it is. Ivins lays out a clear and insightful view of the goal of a neo-conservative administration on the war path.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is off target
Review: Molly tells it like it is... again... in fantasy land! President Bush has PUT us through 2 of the most sacrificial and glorious years this country has seen since WWII Bush is so accesible that if you happen to be a frontpage headline on a paper someday, or one of his aides, you might actually be able to communicate an idea to him. btw, if you want to live in a backwards religious fundamentalist state, i hear there's room for you in the democratic party... this book is so far OFF target, and i spit on Molly for her emptiness of courage and wit. i will agree, however, with the reviewer that there is some underbrush that needs to be cleared... out of Washington especially. Let's take our country back from the liberal defamers! R.I.P. DNC 2004!!
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Summary: Eye-popping Revelations On the rue Bush Agenda For America!
Review: With this book, authors Molly Ivans and Lou Debose employ both considerable wit and a biting sarcasm to advantage in bringing to ground the terrible truth of how the cumulative actions of the Bush administration massively dislocates the hopes, fortunes, and welfare of ordinary Americans. What the Bush White House and its political appointees across the spectrum of executive departments are about can only be described as a kind of radical right reformation of the federal government and a revolutionary redefinition of the government's role as the defender and protector of the average citizen against the power and prerogatives of massive corporate entities like Enron and the auto industry. In so doing, they are transforming government policies into pro-business and anti-consumers cheerleaders and co-conspirators with the corporate interests, in a retrogressive movement back toward the days of plant lockouts and union busting, when workers were forced by robber barons like the Rockefellers and Duponts to dance to the tune of the capitalistic enterprises without benefit of government regulation or assistance. In so doing, Ivans and Dubose provide us with yeoman services in displaying, for public view, the truly hideous dimensions of the social, economic, and political changes the Bush White House is quietly foisting on average Americans. The authors begin by laying out the horrific consequences of the Bush tax cut package, which have the net effect of ignoring fiscal responsibility during a time of egregious national crises (the war on terror, rotting national utility infrastructure, health care, etc) in favor of a gratuitous financial bonus for the richest one percent of the population. The tax cuts have the effect of transferring net responsibility for repayment of the mountain of national debt to the less privileged socioeconomic classes, and employ fiscal arguments much like those of supply-sider David Stockman's "voodoo economics" to justify the actions taken. The long term effect of the tax cuts will be to send a massive tidal wave of crushing debt rolling down the years to wash over future generations of working class Americans, such that noted economics author Pet Petersen recently characterized it as a an act so reckless and shameful that he didn't know how to explain it to either his children or grandchildren. Likewise, the we are left to puzzle as to why, after literally dictating the terms and conditions of the package of environmental agreements collectively referred to as the Kyoto Accords, the United States would suddenly repudiate the agreement, which amounts to its own businessmen's regimen for how to reasonably alleviate the industrial impact on global warming and other environmental degradations. Meanwhile, that richest one percent of the electorate is benefiting mightily from the changed tax codes and relaxed and rolled-back federal regulations in everything from assistance for cost of winter fuel for heating for the elderly to safety requirements for red meat inspection. As a consequence, average Americans suffered and in some cases died, as Ivans and Dubose document. Theses sweeping retrogressions in public policy can only be described as prima fascia evidence of a return to an age of egregious crony capitalism, where profit trumps public safety and popular concern. It is a blatant transgression of the social compact between the federal government with the citizenry through a betrayal of the public trust, and a vitiation of the vital role that the government plays in ensuring the well being of its populace through socially enlightened policies such as those laid out in FDR's New Deal. In the vision of the Bush era, it turns out to be a case of "every creep for himself". Thus, in taking no aggressive action to ignore the crisis associated with the under-funding the Social Security trust Fund, Mr. Bush et al perpetuate and aggravate a problem that owes much to a history of forty years of annual misappropriation of the surplus monies collected for the fund, which were used by Congress with the blessing of successive presidents to fund other programs in order to mislead the American people of the true dimensions of the federal deficit. We are in a potential crisis state because of near-criminal mismanagement of the Trust Fund by the federal government, and Mr. Bush chooses to conveniently ignore the problem, since his constituency has profound philosophical reservations about what they regard to be social welfare programs. Moreover, even as the Bush team surreptitiously dissembles and prevaricates to the public regarding its systematic acts to deconstruct the intrinsic elements of so-called new deal legislation, they are taking simultaneous action to enormously assault the constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties of its citizens through the invocation of the provision of the so-called Patriot Act, which the Ashcroft team at the Department of Justice has used to enthusiastically pursue a wide spectrum of non-terrorism related criminal and civil offenses by ordinary citizens. Meanwhile Bush whistles in seeming disregard even the economy sputters, all the while his corporate cronies continue to cut costs in pursuit of short term profit by transferring millions of both blue and white collar jobs to places like India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and China. Finally, the White House chooses to ignore the criminal excesses of its Enron buddies like Ken Lay by choosing to pursue media opportunities for 'show trials" with high-profile offenders like Martha Stewart. This is a fascinating book, and one crammed with thought-provoking facts and a lot of food for thought. Enjoy!
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Summary: Tripe
Review: I'm a democrat but I loathed this book. If you think this is a contradiction, please see the review of "wiseguyrunj" ,the "republican." (and look at the other books he/she reviewed). Really, I'm a democrat. And really wiseguyrunj is a republican. And really, all these 5 star reviewers actually bought the book and read it. Do you believe in the tooth fairy too?
Seriously, Molly Ivins is NOT hilarious and insightful. As a Texan, she DOES NOT have the full scope of both how Bush first turned Houston into a #1 city (most pollution, that is), cut taxes to make him look good for president (leaving Texas with a $10 billion deficit in the next budget cycle), among other atrocities. And then moved on to the White House to enrich America.
Bad book!
Rating:
Summary: ASTONISHING, and based on fact, not argument
Review: This book ASTOUNDS me. It's not a "spin book," trying to argue against positions or "prove them wrong," it's simply a look at actual records of decisions and political connections (and their consequences) in the Bush administration. I find myself often gasping and proclaiming out loud to my wife, "Man, I NEVER heard this stuff anywhere else!" And it's not based on fragile strands of interconnecting conpsiracies; it's rather blunt and obvious--but just not commonly revealed in any media. For example, this book documents in detail how Bush had done exactly the same thing with his Harken stock that Martha Stewart might be serving time for, but the SEC investigator on his case was also Bush's own personal lawyer too--and he simply allowed Bush to file his disclosure forms RETROACTIVELY. End result? Bush sells his stock moments before it tanks, costing OTHER people millions, getting rich, and then slipping through the law using the very same methods he'd later scold in his "corporate crime" speech about Enron. Oh, and remember how Cheney's company stashed billions in assets in tax shelters on the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes here? Now THAT'S patriotism! Or how about this one? Bush made emissions controls in Texas VOLUNTARY for corporate polluters. How did polluters ever manage to win such benevolence? In fact, industry campaign contributers literally wrote every word of the law regulating themselves! Of more than 5,000 polluters in Texas, not one actually voluntarily reduced their emissions. Texas reversed Bush's law within the first year of his absence. Unfortunately, nobody has yet reinstated the food safety/listeria regulations for meat products that Bush cancelled during his first few months. Or this one? In 1995, Newt Gingrich repealed the Superfund Tax on corporate polluters, which means that cleaning up Superfund toxic waste sites is now paid for by taxpayers, not by the corporations who made the messes. As a result, the $3.8 billion trust to clean toxic waste had dwindled to only $28 million this year (2003), less than one-fourth the cost of cleaning up a SINLGLE waste site (there are hundreds). So how'd Bush respond? He installed Christine Todd Whitman, a polluter's dream of an administrator, and CANCELLED the EPA's Ombudsman program. That means citizens have no method of raising concerns or reporting toxic sites to the EPA anymore; it's the same thing as cutting the wire on every phone leading to the EPA's reporting agencies. As a result, Bush can show on paper that the prevalence of toxic waste dumps is declining--not because he's done anything to remedy the problem, but because he killed the only available process for identifying and treating contaminated sites in the first place. And the sites that already exist remain untreated! (Is there one in your area? Check at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/) Remember when Bush said that by far, "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the people at the bottom of the spectrum?" And his defense that he would never pass along budget problems to future generations? And that his programs would stimulate the economy and jobs? Well, it turns out that 60% of his cuts go to the upper 10% of people (40% to the upper 1%), with NO cuts (or less than $200) to the bottom class (and yet the service cuts to pay for the tax breaks affect the lower classes the MOST, meaning it actually cost us money). The stock market has lost $4.6 TRILLION during his presidency, with 3 million jobs lost and no net jobs created, a DOUBLING of trade deficits under his gloablzied "free trade" arrangements (which he wants to expand still further!), record numbers (and a record increase-of-pace) of jobs lost to overseas sweatshops, and deficits caused by tax cuts that will extend into the senior age of our children. And so on. The book is plainly written, not dull, and not "catty." It just lays it right out there. Unfortunately, I suspect that any Bush "fan" would simply stop reading it after the first chapter, rather than confront the information offered. I predict you will see very few, if any, reviews that oppose this book by rebutting its facts; watch carefully and guage the balance between people who actually tackle what this books says, and those who slough it off with lazy and cowardly phrases like "more liberal [insert cliche dismissive term here.]" Go, Molly!
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Summary: A Must Read Before the 2004 Election
Review: Molly Ivins really lets the cat out of the bag in this one. We've been living in the shadow of the Bush administration for a few years now, and she goes on to outline how the common man is getting along these days. Unfortunately, the news isn't very good. It seems that the common man is always getting the short end of the stick. One of the major points she outlines is Bush's very close relationship with big business. It's no secret that Bush was an oilman, and that oil companies had a big hand in forming the current energy policy. She also points out that in many agencies meant to regulate industry, the head is someone from the very industry that is meant to be regulated. How can we trust them to do their jobs? And how can we tolerate government policy dictated by industry? For example, the weakening of laws to protect workers, while fat cat industrialists get away with massive tax cuts and offshore tax shelters. If Bush protects the loophole that allows offshore tax shelters, then he can't point his finger at anyone and call them unpatriotic. Not paying taxes is unpatriotic. Another point covered is Bush's nonsensical foreign policy. During the Clinton administration, our country built up a lot of goodwill with the international community. However, after Bush entered the White House through a Supreme Court appointment, we pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty (a treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emission--no mystery where he got that idea), the International War Crimes Court (perhaps he didn't want to be tried for starting a war in Iraq under false pretenses), and many more. He goes to the UN with his mind made up to have a war, and when the world tried to talk him out of it, he stormed out and had his little war anyway. Then he goes back after he made his little mess, and "challenges" the world to jelp rebuild Iraq. I don't know what he was thinking, but nobody likes to be bullied around. Americans have become targets not because of their freedoms (which are quickly being eroded by Bush's Patriot Acts), but because of the arrogance in foreign policy coming from the White House. Also highlighted is Bush's two-sided domestic policy. This book shows how Bush publicly states that he supports an issue, but when it comes down to it, he destroys it with the budget process by underfunding or cutting funds completely from those programs. His No-Child-Left-Behind policy actually eliminates a lot of educational opportunities for children from poorer families. I could go on and on, buy you should just read the book. If you're an open-minded voter, you should check it out. Also if you know someone who will be a first-time voter in the coming election, the best thing you could do would be to buy this book for them as a present. Think of it as an investment in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Evidence
Review: Molly Ivins does not just offer her opinions. She provides evidence, mountains of evidence, to support her claims against the Bush administration. Authors who fail to prove what they say with research could learn a lot from Molly. She does not twist facts or take things out of context. She simply investigated, researched, documented, reported the truth in a way that cannot be faulted. The result: a truly scary account of our nation. I found the book almost overwhelming. It angered me like no other book I've read in a long time. But Molly helps the reader with that -- the final chapters deal with what we can do to combat this situation. I thought that was a nice touch, very humane, very practical. She doesn't leave you feeling powerless.
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