In his column in The New York Times Paul Krugman discusses the seriously deteriorating situation in Iraq. Some people have suggested we should send more troops. We're clearly undermanned. But there's a major problem. We don't have the troops to send, unless we deplete our forces in places like North Korea. The Bush administration has managed to alienate many of our allies and the United Nations, who are in no hurry to bail us out of the mess. And Iraq is such a boiling cauldron of death now it's understandable that other nations aren't excited about sending their forces there to be slaughtered.

In a piece posted at democrats.com it's revealed that Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company, is having a profitable year. According to the article, Halliburton has seen its first quarter profits leap 80% over the first quarter of 2003. War is good business for some people.

Holly Sklar in an article posted at commondreams.org talks about the difference in CEO salaries and ordinary working people. Adjusted for inflation, CEO salaries have jumped $6.7 million in 2003 over what they were in 1980. Meanwhile, the salaries of ordinary working people have been almost flat, going from $31,769 in 1980 to $31,928 in 2003. That's a whopping $159 annual increase.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson's new book is out and he names the people he suspects of outing his wife as a CIA operative. It was an act of pure political revenge by the Bush administration because Wilson shined the light on the lie that Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger. Mr. Wilson suspects Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, Bush's chief political adviser Karl Rove, and Elliott Abrams of Iraq-Contra fame.

Dick Cheney was firing shots at John Kerry for supposedly being weak on defense. The administration has attacked Kerry's voting record on defense appropriations. It turns out that when Mr. Cheney was secretary of defense under Bush I "he presided over the biggest cutbacks in defense programs in modern history," according to an article by Bryan Bender at boston.com.

Our Fresno Bee DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY is so vile and repugnant it goes off the scale. Our right-wing pundit makes several stupid points, including the Supreme Court ruled "properly" in the Gore v. Bush decision that handed the White House to Bush. Our right-wing legal expert contends the Florida Supreme Court overstepped its bounds in ordering a recount of the vote in Florida. There was no mention of several problems in Florida such as the butterfly ballot, the scrubbing of would-be Democratic voters from the voter rolls, and that in most post-decision scenarios Gore would have been the winner.

Conspicuously absent was the fact that several Supreme Court Justices clearly had conflicts in interest in the Bush v. Gore decision. Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O'Connor, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist all should have recused themselves from the case. Also absent was a mention that Bush's brother Jeb was Governor of Florida and the Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, was in charge of certifying the vote. Katherine Harris was the Bush campaign chairman in Florida, for heaven's sake. Nothing smells there, nothing at all.

Our pundit pooh-poohs the allegation in the new Bob Woodward book that Bush had a deal with the Saudis to manipulate oil prices close to the election. He claims that Woodward's book is politically motivated. There was no mention of Woodward's last book that was almost worshipful of Bush, or that members of the Bush administration cooperated with Woodward in researching the book. Most importantly, there was no mention of the longstanding relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. Of course, all of this is on the up and up.

But our pundit outdid himself when he said that "liberal Democrats" don't have any issues to use against Bush. There are so many issues it could fill a library. Let's start with the failure to prevent 9-11. Let's talk about the war against Iraq when we've been lied to over and over again. Let's talk about the economy, where wealth has been transferred to the richest one percent and the average working person is hanging on by the skin of his or her teeth.

Let's talk about massive deficits that will impact our children and our children's children for decades to come. Let's talk about the failure to deal with global climate change, which may well exterminate life on this planet. Let's talk about nuclear proliferation, which would mean the deaths of thousands or millions if nuclear material falls into the wrong hands. Let's talk about the shredding of civil liberties in the United States. Let's talk about the assault on reproductive rights in this country and the rest of the world.

Most obscenely, though, this idiot says he thinks criticizing Bush is helping the terrorists and critics of Bush are "traitorous." How dare he. Dissent is our right. Dissent is our obligation. Minds far better than this guy's have defended the right to dissent. George W. Bush and the United States are not one and the same. The United States is far greater and more majestic than George W. Bush and his administration could ever hope to be. Nobel Laureate Albert Camus once wrote, "I should like to love my country and also love what is right."

We have the first stories of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners. It's probably only the tip of the iceberg for atrocities committed in Iraq. We know that thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by a war that wasn't necessary. We know that hundreds of our own military have been dehumanized, maimed, or killed by a war that wasn't necessary. How dare these despicable right-wingers call us traitors.

It was the day of the big interview of Bush-Cheney by the 9-11 Commission with no cameras, no oath, and very little truth. Bush said he "enjoyed" the discussion. This is the guy who has constantly invoked the horrors of 9-11, so "enjoy" seems a little strange as a choice of words when you recount the events of that day.

Sinclair Broadcasting is going to preempt "Nightline" on its ABC affiliates because Ted Koppel is planning to read the names and show the photos of the men and women killed in Iraq. Sinclair makes the rather suspicious claim that it is part of a "political agenda." Since when is honoring the dead from the war political? And why are they so afraid that Americans will realize how many deaths we've suffered already in Iraq? If this war is so righteous and so just, they should be standing proud.

Molly Ivins has a column about how the state of Texas is raising most of its tax revenue these days in "sin" taxes. Those are the taxes on things like cigarettes, alcohol, and the like. It seems a very inefficient way of generating a revenue stream for important items like schools. It also creates a paradox of sorts. The more "sin" there is the better the schools are.

Major Bush adviser Karen Hughes was born in France. Who would have thought that with all the French bashing that has come from this administration?

I listen to sports talk radio because there really aren't a lot of options in the Fresno market. I can listen to canned top 40 music or I can listen to AM right wing hate radio. I don't care for either option, so I try to tune into something a little lighter like sports talk. But there's a guy named Tim Ryan who works for the Fox Sports Network who is the sports version of Limbaugh. The guy has to get off his right wing rants almost every day.

The topic of discussion today was an editorial written by a college student which had some harsh things to say about Pat Tillman, the former NFL star who was killed in Afghanistan. The editorial went too far in saying that Tillman was a "Rambo" and implying that he went to war because all he wanted to do was kill. I don't know Mr. Tillman's thought processes. From what I've heard about him, he sounds like an idealist. I think he truly believed he was doing the good and righteous thing by going into the military. And it's terribly unfair to attack someone who can no longer defend himself. It certainly is insensitive to his family.

That being said, however, Mr. Ryan was borderline racist in condemning the college kid for being from Puerto Rico. The rant went something like the kid sure enjoyed the benefits of America, protected by men like Pat Tillman, but maybe he should go back to Puerto Rico. That sentiment goes contrary to what we're supposed to represent in this country and it goes contrary to what thousands of Americans have sacrificed their lives to defend. Part of the price of freedom is hearing ideas you don't like. I personally wouldn't care if all the right-wingers in this country migrated somewhere else, but hearing their venom is also a part of the price of freedom. I like to believe the good ideas will win out in the end.

The tandem of Bush-Cheney is scheduled to testify before the 9-11 Commission, but not under oath and out of public sight. Even note taking will be at a minimum. This is a disgrace. These two clowns didn't prevent the attack on 9-11, they lied about the reasons for a war against Iraq, and they want no accountability whatever. It reminds me a little of the old show "Get Smart." Agent Maxwell Smart battled the evil organization C.H.A.O.S. as a member of C.O.N.T.R.O.L. Smart had a variety of "high tech" devices such as a shoe phone and a "cone of silence" that dropped over him and the Chief of C.O.N.T.R.O.L. when particularly sensitive matters were discussed. Now the cone of silence is being dropped over the rest of the country.

Claudia O'Keefe has a very good article published in salon.com about the brave new world of employment under the Bush administration. Ms. O'Keefe found herself displaced and desperate to find a job. She took a job as a waitress at a swanky resort that caters to the rich and powerful. Employees of the resort were treated as second-class citizens even by their employer. For example, it was frowned upon if they even shopped there. Ms. O'Keefe recounted an incident where a rich creep told her, "Are you the Epsilon who is going to serve us tonight?" The cretin probably thought that anyone waitressing wouldn't understand a reference to Aldous Huxley's novel "Brave New World." The novel depicts a rigid caste system where people are sorted by intelligence. The Epsilons were the least mentally qualified people in the society.

The FCC and Clear Channel Radio have awakened a sleeping giant in the form of Howard Stern. Stern has been one of the most vocal and vitriolic critics of the Bush administration, and Mr. Stern has a significant listening audience. The Los Angeles Times has a good piece about Stern, who calls George W. Bush "Mr. Jesus."

On "60 Minutes II" CBS has photos of Iraqi prisoners being abused by U. S. forces. Six soldiers are being charged. Abuse has included things like threats of electrocution, making prisoners wear hoods for hours, being forced to lie in the sun for hours, and sleep deprivation. Again you have to flash back to Vietnam. War is a dehumanizing experience for everyone involved and, if you accept the idea that we're the good guys, you have to wonder what's happening when we make forays into torture.

"Washington Monthly" magazine has a long, somewhat technical piece about the housing market that is worth a read. The article by Benjamin Wallace-Wells talks about the apparent strange advice recently proferred by Federal Chairman Alan Greenspan for home owners to refinance their mortgates with variable rate loans. Variable loans are tied to "indexes" that increase when inflation increases. Mr. Wallace-Wells believes that Chairman Greenspan is trying to boost the mortgage market because money from refinancing homes has been a major engine in driving the economy recently. But there are major dark clouds on the horizon. The Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates about as low as they can go. Inflation is going to come storming back and anyone with a variable rate mortgage is going to get clobbered.

One more question about Iraq. Let's assume Bush was telling the truth about flawed intelligence and that was the basis for starting the war. Why didn't the administration have an exit strategy? If they have an exit strategy, they are doing a very good job at keeping it a secret.

It's probably appropriate that there's a good story today about global climate change as Fresno and much of California is baking in summer-like temperatures. In Fresno the hot temperatures also bring lousy air quality. Once upon a time it seemed you could enjoy some temperate weather in the spring, but that doesn't seem the case anymore.

George Monbiot has a good story linked at commondreams.org talking about the total abdication of journalists in covering the issue of global climate change. Mr. Monbiot is talking about British journalists, but the same criticism could apply in spades to the corporate journalists in the United States. I thought Mr. Monbiot had some good questions for anyone with a basic knowledge of science. Ask the person these questions and see if they can deny the reality of global climate change:

1. Does the atmosphere contain carbon dioxide?

2. Does atmospheric carbon dioxide influence global temperatures?

3. Will that influence be enhanced by the addition of more carbon dioxide?

4. Have human activities led to a net emission of carbon dioxide?

If you get honest answers to those four questions, there is no question that the burning of fossil fuels is creating global climate change that will be a disaster for the human race and all other life on this planet.

Talking Points Memo makes a good point about a pattern in the life of George W. Bush. He likes to hide behind other people. In his most noted political campaigns Mr. Bush has faced Vietnam veterans in Senator John McCain, Vice President Al Gore, and now Senator John Kerry. Mr. Bush has allowed his subordinates to attack the patriotism and qualifications of his opponents. Lately it has been adviser Karen Hughes, who also made a truly asinine statement suggesting that pro choice advocates are the same as terrorists. Way to go, Karen. You may have just lost a substantial bloc of the American electorate.

I'm not a real fan of Howard Stern, but it's gratifying that his radio ratings have leaped since Clear Channel Radio decided to censor his show. It's also amusing that one Clear Channel station has seen its drive time ratings, the most important ratings of the day, absolutely plummet since dropping Stern's show.

Now we have a star-spangled, bang up DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY in The Fresno Bee. This one gets our coveted ***** rating. It reminds me somewhat of a parody country song a few years ago called the "Perfect Country and Western Song." The song talked about getting drunk the day mama got out of prison, driving a pickup truck, and so on.

The right-wing equivalent is to somehow mention the "liberal media" and a few other choice bromides about George W. Bush such as :

"He has shown courage."

"He has ignored the polls." Uh huh.

"The country is safer because of his courage." The country got attacked because of his incompetence, but oh well.

"We dishonor veterans when we berate the president." Hmmm. Maybe our writer should read a quote by President Theodore Roosevelt. And, speaking of dishonoring veterans, how about a man who lied us into a war? How about slashing veterans benefits across the board to fund tax cuts for the rich? How about the failure to provide even basic equipment to people serving in combat, such as armored vehicles, flak jackets, and decent rations? Maybe in the Looking Glass World that is honoring the veterans. But here on planet earth we have a different name for it.

If you weren't living and experiencing Bush's America, sometimes you would think it was a bad dream. This really can't be happening, can it? We have the surreal "controversy" of right-wingers attacking John Kerry's military record when Kerry was a hero and George W. Bush was apparently a deserter. I saw Senator Kerry interviewed on "Good Morning America" and he was getting pressed by interviewer Charley Gibson about allegedly throwing his medals over a fence during a Vietnam war protest back in the Seventies. The wingers have even tried to imply that Kerry didn't really deserve his medals. All of this when George W. Bush pulled strings to get into a champagne unit of the Texas Air National Guard, and when he didn't even fulfill his duty there.

In Prosser, Washington, a 15-year-old boy depicted Bush as the devil in an art assignment. This prompted school authorities to call the police and even the Secret Service got involved. Heaven help you if you're an editorial cartoonist and don't have a favorable opinion of Bush.

An item about taxes at thenation.com concerns an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the Bush tax cuts. In 2004 a family earning $1 million a year gets a tax break of $123,600. A middle class family gets a whopping $647. But it gets worse. The tax cuts will actually cost middle class families money because the interest on the national debt amounts to considerably more than the tax cuts. The study says that over the next ten years the interest due on the debt brought about by the tax cuts will be $1.1 trillion. That's just the interest, folks, not including the principal.

Sean Gonsalves has another good column, this time about debt slavery, which is where a lot of us find ourselves. Credit card debt is most of the most insidious enslaving devices ever conceived. It seems so attractive and so affordable until you find out that paying off the monster is like shaving ice off a glacier. Mr. Gonsalves said it took him eleven years to pay off a Discover card balance of $1,000. We need financial education in this country for Joe and Jane Sixpack. Of course, that would crimp the style of credit card predators.

I like football, but there's a good piece by Randy Shaw linked at commondreams.org that makes you think a little about football and militarism. Football is fast and it's violent and has lots of military jargon such as "blitz" and "throwing the bomb." The NFL's owners are Republicans and big donors to the Republican party. The death of former Arizona Cardinals star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan brings the military-sports connection more into focus. Mr. Shaw points out that the NFL's growth in popularity took a major surge during the Vietnam era.

Thom Hartmann has an interesting piece about how the White House is even revising the biographies of presidents on the White House website. One good example is the biography of Thomas Jefferson. From the slant at the White House website, you would think President Jefferson was a raving fundamentalist along the lines of Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. In fact, Jefferson was extremely concerned about the intersection of religion and government and advocated a "wall of separation" between church and state. But we have a White House so dishonest and so determined to propagandize they will even distort the historical record.

I find myself mentioning Maureen Dowd a good deal. At bartcop.com he gets upset with Dowd and says she "hates everybody." I think she has been a little too glib in attacking Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore, but she's writing some of the most insightful and discerning columns about the evil of the Bush administration. Her column about "Bushworld" is one of the best summations of the hyprocrisy and danger of this administration.

Today's Fresno Bee features a letter from a guy I'll call Bad Talk Show Host. Bad Talk Show Host had a bad talk show a few years back on local radio. He lost his gig when the station switched to Spanish language programming. But in his run there he loved to knock President Clinton and complained about getting the "damned government off my back." I remember him cutting off a lady once when she said that Alzheimer's might have been karmic justice for President Reagan.

Bad Talk Show Host wrote that he was "distressed" about the Bush-haters attacking Bush so energetically every day and several months out from the election. He quoted Rodney King saying, "Can't we all just get along?" Well, no. Should people have just "tried to get along" while Hitler was coming into power? We have an administration that is borderline fascist and we have an obligation and sacred duty to stand up for our country.

It's amazing in a way that so many right-wingers act like we should all be nicey-nice about the Bush administration when they have systematically demonized everyone they don't like-- from feminists, environmentalists, unions, gays, minorities, and liberals. They like to dish it out, but they certainly don't like to take it.

You would think from conservative rhetoric that Bill Clinton's fling with Monica was the worst event in the history of Western civilization. But the slime flowing from the Bush administration is just something we should ignore or, even worse, praise. What ever happened to any sense of proportion, to any sense of ethics and decency, to any respect for life and the quality of life? So, no, we can't all just get along. I don't believe in see no evil, hear no evil. If evil is there, we have to acknowledge it and we have to fight back.

LATEST DEATHS IN IRAQ: Five reported today.

The Fresno Bee had more anti-Bush letters today than pro-Bush letters, which is a nice change. There was one letter again complaining about people criticizing the president. I've got news for these people. Criticizing the president is our right and our obligation. The greatest presidents--which certainly isn't George W. Bush--have been criticized. Abraham Lincoln was the target of vicious criticism during the Civil War.

But my nominee for DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY gets a *** rating. It's about gasoline prices. The writer complained that Senators Boxer and Kerry are somehow responsible for the high gas prices and shouldn't be criticizing Bush. Although not explicitly stated, I got the impression the complaint was that Boxer and Kerry don't approve of destroying ANWR. The writer cited a conversation with someone from Alaska, claiming that opposing Alaskan drilling was destroying jobs, yada, yada.

First, drilling in ANWR would provide about six months of oil for the United States. That's it. Second, it would take years to begin to tap the ANWR reserves. It isn't going to help our current situation at all. Third, it would destroy one of the most pristine areas on the planet so the oil companies can rake in a few more shekels. And last, plans are for the ANWR oil to be sold outside the United States.

An interesting item from Eric Alterman in thenation.com. He's talking about Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack." People in the Bush administration refer to Dick Cheney as "the Man" when Bush isn't around. It might be accurate to call him the Puppeteer. Cheney pulls the strings and Bush reacts.

A woman working in Iraq named Tami Silicio took photographs of U. S. coffins on a transport plane that got sent to a friend, who in turn arranged for publication in The Seattle Times. It seems publishing photos like this is in violation of Pentagon policy, supposedly out of respect for the dead soldiers' families.

It's a little hard to accept that explanation. The unfortunate soldiers in flag-draped coffins are anonymous, almost as anonymous as they were as soldiers in life. I think the American people should see the photos of the coffins. They should know just what they're supporting when they support the Bush administration's "war on terrorism." They should know what the expenditure of their tax dollars is really costing this country.

Even though George W. Bush has claimed that comparisons to Vietnam are unfair to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, you can't help seeing the parallels. The government lied repeatedly to the American people about Vietnam. We were told "light was at the end of the tunnel." We were told the sky would fall if South Vietnam fell to the Communists. Richard Nixon was elected mostly because he promised to end the war in Vietnam. He allowed it to drag on for years and thousands more American lives were lost, and countless Vietnamese died.

When I heard about the former NFL star Pat Tillman dying in Afghanistan I kept flashing back to a scene in the movie "Coming Home." Bruce Dern gets off an airplane, sporting a limp from a wound he got in Vietnam. In the background you see a conveyor belt filled with body bags. It was ironic in a way that right-wing sports talk radio was talking a great deal about the Tillman story.

Tillman forfeited millions of dollars in NFL salary to volunteer for the military, where he made $18,000 a year. On sports talk radio we kept getting reminded of how we take freedom for granted, extolling the sacrifice made by Mr. Tillman. I couldn't help thinking that Tillman exemplified the liberal ideal of putting country ahead of personal gain. Conservatives like to tell us about rugged individualism, about those heroes of the marketplace, those warriors of capitalism. In Mr. Tillman we had a man who put idealism ahead of making money.

In her column today New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd talks about the obsession with body language in the high ranks of the Bush administration. There are several snippets from Bob Woodward's book about people interpreting body language. Bush supposedly likes to rely on his "gut" rather than intellect when making decisions. That's when he's listening to God, no doubt. If someone kills in this country, claiming they were told to kill by God, they get locked up. If Bush kills, claiming he was told to kill by God, he gets high approval ratings.

Matt Bivens in thenation.com has an interesting take of one of the nuggets from Woodward's book. Bush was asked if he had consulted his father about the attack against Iraq. W replied that his father wasn't someone you turned to for strength. He said he relied on another "father." Maureen Dowd has commented several times on this strange father-son thing between the first Bush and his offspring. I don't think we need to see these psychological dramas played out on the world stage. Trying to out macho your old man is one thing; using the power of the United States military to accomplish it is something else.

I guess the right wingers thought they would find something insidious in John Kerry's military records. It's hard for them to attack Kerry when you look at their guy's apparent AWOL record. Kerry released his records and, according to the headline in The New York Times, Kerry was a "highly praised officer." Kerry was getting wounded in Vietnam while Mr. Bush was otherwise occupied, although George certainly has a record of sending other young men off to die.

In an article linked at commondreams.org, Pierre Tristan makes the case that the 9-11 "attacks were preventable." Mr. Tristan points out that in the first eight months of the W administration attention was focused on an already archaic missile defense system, on cold war threats that didn't exist anymore, and on the drug war. This was despite the fact the outgoing Clinton administration warned W and his gang that terrorism would be their number one national security issue.

The sorry state of United States foreign policy got worse when Jordanian King Abdullah abruptly canceled a meeting today with Bush. People all over the Arab world are incensed at Bush licking the boots of Ariel Sharon and giving Israel anything it wants, even if it means stabbing the Palestinians in the back. Gotta get those Jewish votes this November, though.

There are two nominees for DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY in The Fresno Bee. The first correspondent is distraught that Senator Kerry and others have attacked the Bush Iraq policies. He suggests that critics go "sit in the president's chair." I think that's Senator Kerry's intention. Our second nominee gets a ***** rating. It's from a prominent local Republican politician who represents himself as a member of the Campaign For California Families, another anti-gay group. It's one of those innocuous sounding names that suggests something like a love for warm puppies, hot chocolate, and Fourth of July picnics.

Our politician makes some pretty astounding and sweeping generalizations such as implying that gay marriage means indifference to monogamy, exposure to mental instability, and drug and alcohol abuse. We know, of course, that straight marriages never have any problems. Mr. Bigot didn't bother with any evidence supporting his astounding claims.

Call them environmental wackos, Rush! The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, whose members were appointed by Bush, have released a study saying the coasts and oceans are in serious trouble. The story is linked at sfgate.com.

More impressive Bush foreign policy--Poland and Spain are pulling their troops out of Iraq. Aren't you glad the "adults" are in charge?

The news about Bush taking a lead in major polls has been trumpeted over the corporate media. What the media are not mentioning is that in eight of ten polls released since April 1, Senator Kerry leads Bush. The two major polls favoring Bush are the Associated Press and Washington Post polls. The Washington Post has a distinct pro-Republican bias, so it has to be taken with a certain amount of skepticism. If Bush wins the election in November, we will truly have entered Bizarro World. It means we don't care about the economy, about lying to go to war, about protecting the environment, about women's rights, about workers' rights, or in simple justice.

No nominees from The Fresno Bee for the Dumb Letter of the Day. But like ants at a picnic, we can count on the brain-dead right-wingers to make their presence known. It is nice to get a break if even for a day.

I'm glad to hear that Bob Woodward taped the interviews he used for his new book. The Bush administration is spinning like crazy now, saying that Bush planned the Iraq war in March, not January. I still haven't heard much comment about the money diverted from Afghanistan to prepare for war against Iraq. It is clearly an impeachable offense and Democrats in Congress should be hammering the adminsitration on it.

According to an article by Sean Gonsalves, the touted Bush tax cuts have been mostly tax shifts from the very wealthy to people in the working and middle classes. While there has been a minute reduction in federal taxes for most people, states have been filling their budget gaps by raising taxes, which mostly hit the working and middle classes. Federal taxes have for some time been progressive, meaning that the most affluent pay more in taxes. State taxes are highly regressive, what conservatives like to disguise as a "flat tax."

In the article Mr. Gonsalves points out that the Bush tax cuts gave $197.3 billion dollars in tax breaks to the top one percent (people making $337,000 a year or more). In the meantime, states have faced a budget shortfall almost equal to the tax breaks for the rich. The states have faced budget deficits of about $200 billion.

Mr. Gonsalves also points out that payoll taxes, paid mostly by working people, have risen as a share of federal tax receipts from 17% in 1962 to 40% today. When Republicans talk about tax cuts check your wallet.

It's time for a new feature for this little blog. I want to rate the dumb letter of the day to The Fresno Bee. There are the rare days when The Bee doesn't publish a letter from a right-wing lunatic, but those days are rare. So I'm fairly confident there will be a dumb letter of the day most days. Our rating system will go from one star to five stars, with five stars being REALLY, REALLY DUMB.

Our dumb letter today gets ***. The writer says, "the president's word means something." Huh? Which president are we talking about here? Bush lies about the time of day. The theme of winger letters to The Bee lately is that "we're glad Bush is president" and "looking forward to his reelection." There's usually some little comment about Saddam's Iraq being a haven for terrorists, which shows you how ill-informed these people really are, whether intentionally or not.

Secretary of State Powell has been out on the hustings doing damage control after the new Woodward book revealed Powell had doubts about the Iraq adventure. According to Mr. Powell, he was on board all the way. I hope Woodward has good notes, good transcripts, things on tape. In any event, Mr. Powell has completely destroyed any credibility or integrity he ever had.

At csmonitor.com there's more information about how big corporations have passed the tax burden on to people like you and me. In the boom years 1996-2000 major corporations, for the most part, paid little or no income tax in the United States. Something like two-thirds paid no income tax. By major corporations we're talking assets of $250 million or more. According to the article at csmonitor.com, "corporate taxes have fallen from 5% of gross domestic product. . . in 1946 to 1.4% now."

The New York Times has a feature about one of my favorite writers, John Steinbeck. I admire Steinbeck for writing about working class people. The article concerns the Salinas Valley, the Steinbeck Center, and the final, grudging acceptance of Steinbeck in his home town. He was hated by many of the big growers in the region for books like "The Grapes of Wrath" and "In Dubious Battle." Right-wingers have always been pretty much the same. When I visited the Steinbeck Center three years ago I saw a review attacking "The Grapes of Wrath" because it presented working people in a favorable light and the big growers as the exploiters they were.

The big news of the day seems to be the new Bob Woodward book about Bush's plan to start a war against Iraq. The Washington Post is publishing excerpts from the book. There are some interesting revelations. The biggest scandal, as I see it so far, is that Bush was planning war against Iraq even as the war was going on in Afghanistan, and he took money appropriated by Congress for Afghanistan to use in preparation for Iraq. Without Congressional authorization, that is very similar to what happened with the illegal funding that took place in the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan years. But that's the Bush administration--another day, another impeachable offense that gets ignored.

According to Mr. Woodward, Colin Powell had a darkly cynical view of Dick Cheney and Cheney's subordinates. Powell referred to them as the "Gestapo office."

The Fresno Bee's DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY features a guy who says he was at Tarawa in the Second World War, one of those islands where the Japanese fought fiercely, demonically, and thousands of Americans and Japanese died. The writer's attitude about the deaths in Iraq seems to be so what? Compared to the slaughter of World War II, of course there aren't as many casualties. But that doesn't in any way diminish the tragedy, especially when you consider that the blood in Iraq is unnecessary. We got pulled into a totally unnecessary war that has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and created a charnel house for our own military. Poet John Donne wrote that the "death of any man diminishes me." You would think that someone who had seen the absolute horror of Tarawa would be more sympathetic, more empathetic to the dead of Iraq and their families than those of us who haven't seen combat first hard. I have to be suspicious of the writer's claims because he throws in that old bit of right-wing red meat about "the liberals."

I've started reading the memoirs of President Ulysses S. Grant. As a general in the American Civil War, Grant knew the horrors of war as well as anyone. Early in his career, Grant served in the U. S. war against Mexico, which he considered "unholy." Grant could just as easily been writing about the war in Iraq when he wrote, "It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."

The Fresno Bee has a penchant for publishing letters from really stupid right-wingers, but today's letter went way beyond stupid to absolutely, incredibly inane. The author claimed the Clinton administration didn't do anything to stop terrorism and cited attacks on the Khobar Towers, the embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania, the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, and the attack on the U.S.S. Cole as examples. He didn't bother to mention the attacks that were thwarted, such as an attack planned on LAX as we entered the millenium.

If we wanted to use similar logic, we could talk about various attacks that have occurred under the Bush watch such as the bombing in Indonesia, the various bombings in Iraq, the bombing in Madrid. How has the Bush "war on terror" done anything to truly thwart terrorists?

Our commentator claimed that Bush has established better contact between the FBI and CIA (with no proof), set up the Homeland Security Department (which Bush opposed until the political heat intensified), and stepped in to stop Saddam Hussein's "support of terrorism." Excuse me. There is no credible evidence to this day that Saddam Hussein was involved in any state-sponsored support of terrorism.

The writer also said he was "disgusted" by attacks by Senator Kennedy, Senator Kerry, the "liberal media," etc. I'm sick and tired of right-wingers beating the dead horse of the "liberal media." It doesn't exist. It's a convenient canard for these wackos to blame every time the news is bad for their side. They have no problems with the media when the reports concern stained blue dresses.

Bob Woodward's new book reveals that Bush was planning the war against Iraq even while the war was going on in Afghanistan. Bush also took $700 million in money appropriated for Afghanistan to use in preparation for Iraq, even though this was not authorized by Congress. This smells like the illegal funding of the Contras by the Reagan administration back in the 80's. How many impeachable offenses is this guy going to be allowed?

There was a good comment by a letter writer to The Los Angeles Times. He observed that Bush didn't see anything "actionable" in the August 6 Daily Presidential Briefing, but had no problems with extremely flimsy "evidence" of Iraq trying to buy enriched uranium from Niger. It was a document, as it turned out, that was phony.

In the letters section of The Fresno Bee a defender of George W. Bush claimed that Mr. Bush took his oath of office seriously, particularly the part about defending the United States. If ever a president was contemptuous of his oath of office, it's Mr. Bush. He has trampled all over the Constitution and it was under his watch that the worst attack in history occurred on U. S. soil.

The fact an attack succeeded against us was bad enough, but the mountains of evidence showing that the attack could have been prevented are not only a cause for sadness, but an incitement to rage. Playing golf, talking to the cows on his "ranch," and chopping wood were more important for Mr. Bush than attending to the duties of his office.

News out of Iraq now is that Iraqi nuclear facilities haven't been properly guarded and nuclear material has been taken out of the country. Perhaps the greatest man-made nightmare we face now is a terrorist group or rogue nation successfully building a nuclear weapon. People who don't hesitate to use airplanes as suicide weapons would have no qualms about killing hundreds of thousands or millions by exploding a nuclear weapon.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said he's surprised at the number of casualties in Iraq. That's pretty incredible. If anyone should understand war, it's the Secretary of Defense. War isn't a video game. It's not a John Wayne movie. There is real blood and shattered limbs and exploded buildings and innocent people dying.

An organization called askquestions.org has done some research about who pays the taxes in the United States. The story is linked at commondreams.org. In the article by Cheryl Woodard it's revealed that the richest Americans pay 30% less in taxes than middle-income households. What was that about class warfare?

Hello (cough!), this is from Fresno (wheeze!), part of the great Central Valley of California, now distinguished as having the worst air quality in the country, according to a story in The Fresno Bee today.

In her column in The New York Times today Maureen Dowd talks about the FBI learning about wannabe terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui wanting to learn to fly just two weeks after the August 6 memo that reached Bush. But no one, NO ONE, seemed to "connect the dots."

Molly Ivins talks about the "resolute" George W. Bush. You know, the guy who never flip-flops, but who really does. Now Mr. Bush is happy to take credit for the Homeland Security Department, but he opposed it initially. He is also happy to take credit for the 9-11 Commission, but he vehemently opposed it (for obvious reasons, it seems).

An article linked at commondreams.org by Holly Sklar talks about our very skewed tax system. Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man, is quoted as saying, "If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning." Ms. Sklar talks about how federal tax revenues have fallen to the lowest level since the 1950's and writes, "We can't have a 21st century country with 1950 tax revenues."

You have to wonder sometimes if right-wing ideas are really part of a cult. LIke most religions, you have to accept many things strictly on faith. A good example today in The Fresno Bee was a letter claiming that the economy, contrary to what we all see, is "hot."

The writer says the unemployment rate is about what it was under President Clinton (not quite). The writer calls the Clinton economy a "crack high" and uses the word "debauchery" to describe the 1990's. If it means jobs and rising wages, I hope you'll pardon me for liking debauchery.

We had another anti-gay marriage screed. It must be a right-wing talking point now to say that gay marriage has not been a constitutional right under any "civilized" nation. I think I'd like a definition of "civilized." It might also be noted that constitutional forms of government are relatively rare in human history. We have the oldest Constitution and it was ratified in 1789. Our own "civilized" nation considered African-Americans 3/5's of a human being, slavery was legal, women were not allowed to vote, Native Americans were slaughtered under the slightest pretext, and we had lynchings of African-Americans not that long ago. I think I would be careful about using the word "civilized."

United For a Fair Economy released a new report showing that CEO salaries have skyrocketed, while the salaries of people like you and me have barely kept pace with inflation. According to the report, CEO's now make 301 times the amount made by the average worker. CEO's are taking home the nifty sum of $155,769 a week, while average workers scrape by with $517 a week. If the minimum wage had increased at the same rate as CEO pay, the minimum wage would now be $15.71 an hour.

The smirking boy gave his first prime time press conference in over a year, and I didn't watch. There's something about George W. Bush that makes my skin crawl. It's like a bad allergy. You try to avoid what causes your skin to itch and break out in a rash.

But I did hear some clips, the most notable where Mr. Bush says something "will pop into my mind." That's pretty much the standard for the Bush administration on everything from tax cuts to foreign policy. It's those "voices" speaking to him.

Crisco Boy John Ashcroft testified before the 9-11 Commission and claimed that 9-11 was really the Clinton administration's fault. Supposedly, there were just too many legal restrictions for Mr. Ashcroft, the FBI, and the whole apparatus of the federal government to stop the terrorists on 9-11. You mean knowing that known terrorists were living openly in San Diego wasn't something the FBI could do something about? Or there wasn't something to be done when guys were going to flight school and didn't care about learning to land the airplanes? There was nothing that could be done about guys taking box cutters on to jet airliners?

E. J. Dionne has a column in The Washington Post saying that responsibility starts at the top. Not in this administration, of course. The buck stops everywhere else. I'm not as forgiving as Mr. Dionne. He says that if Bush confessed l the American people would be likely to forgive. I think the absolute incompetence and venality surrounding 9-11 are absolutely unforgivable.

Matthew Miller in The Los Angeles Times talks about the skewed arguments right-wingers make about the federal income tax. You know the argument. It goes something like "the top one percent pay a whopping one third of the federal income tax." Mr. Miller points out, once again, that the federal income tax is just a portion of the revenues collected by the federal government. Most of us not-rich schlubs pay a substantial portion of the payroll taxes. The very rich pay just a tiny portion of payroll taxes. A right-winger in Madera accused me of "muddying" the waters by mentioning the very same facts. Better to "muddy" the waters than to pollute them the way right-wingers do.

Tompaine.com has a good piece contrasting Costco with Wal-Mart. Costco pays its employees substantially better than Wal-Mart pays its employees. And Costco largely outperforms Wal-Mart. They have an obviously better employee retention rate and better productivity than the Wal-Mart misers.

Another day in the Bush administration, another announcement of thousands of jobs lost. DuPont has announced it is cutting 3,500 jobs.

Let's call the guy Party Hack. Party Hack is a local Republican functionary who spews way to the right venom on a myriad of subjects. Today P.H. was attacking the citizens of Inglewood, California, who told Wal-Mart to shove it. P.H. opines that it's unions and other "outsiders" who thwarted the retail giant (isn't Wal-Mart an outsider? They're based in Arkansas, after all.) It's amusing, in a surreal way, that P.H. talks about the number of welfare recipients in Inglewood (Wal-Mart is going to alleviate that?) when the Central Valley, a conservative outpost, has among the highest poverty rates in the country. We also consistently, in good national times and bad, have among the highest unemployment rates in the country. If those good conservative "values" really worked, you would expect the Central Valley to be a virtual paradise of good jobs, low teenage pregnancy, low drug abuse, low crime rates, and all the rest. Unfortunately, it's quite the opposite.

Our groping Governor, Arnie the Great, emulates George W. Bush in many ways. Arnie likes to take vacations. He has recently been in Hawaii. Arnie also hasn't attended a single funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. That's according to a story in sfgate.com.

In The New York Times there's a good piece by David Cay Johnston, an expert on taxation matters. Mr. Johnston writes that tax enforcement against major corporations has fallen markedly under the Bush administration. He says, there has been "virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes."

According to his article, the 11,200 corporations with $250 million or more in assets have seen their rate of audits by the IRS go from more than 50% before 1996 to 33.7% in fiscal 2002, and down to 29% in fiscal 2003. Corporations have all kinds of tax loopholes already, but now they're getting away with not paying even the miniscule share they're still responsible for. Thomas Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal." Under the Bush administration you're reminded of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" where "some animals are more equal than others."

I'm not sure who dubbed the Sunday morning pundits "the gasbags," but it might have been Jim Hightower. I can't stand to watch the John McLaughlin types, but it will be interesting to see the summaries of what the gasbags have to say about the release of the August 6 memo, and the continuing horror in Iraq. It seems the current spin is that the memo didn't mention a specific date or time or that planes might be used as missiles. I guess the terrorists should have been more forthcoming in their plans.

A dumb letter in The Fresno Bee complained that Senator Kerry doesn't address George W. Bush as "Mr. President" enough. Senator Kerry, according to the writer, uses the phrase "the president." She has the audacity to say that the president is elected by the people (not this one) and that Senator Kerry, based on four months of combat service in Vietnam, doesn't have the experience to be president. She even goes on to say that Mr. Bush spent a lot of time learning to fly airplanes. You have to wonder, really, if this letter is tongue in cheek. Sometimes good satire seems like real commentary.

Saturday Night Live featured Janet Jackson playing Condoleezza Rice last night. I didn't see much of SNL, which is mostly unwatchable anymore, but you long for the good old days when they really did some good political satire.

A headline at buzzflash.com pretty much says it all: "Iraq Is In Flames and Bush Is On Vacation." You would think vacation, or the perception of vacation, would be the last place Mr. Bush would want to be right now. It brings back vivid memories of August, 2001, when he was on vacation, also in Crawford, Texas, got a memo about an impending terrorist attack, virtually ignored it, and then we got September 11.

It's amazing the spin the right-wing media has put on the Condoleezza Rice testimony before the 9-11 Commission. Suddenly the right-wing pundits are concerned about black women. Poor Condi was being abused, you see, just because she's black and a woman. I for one couldn't care less about her gender or her race. I care about the fact that she and her boss didn't do their jobs. They are responsible for 3,000 preventable deaths on 9-11. And that event led to the attack on Afghanistan, where thousands more have died, and the excuse of the "war on terror" led to the attack on Iraq, where thousands more have died.

It makes you think of what Joseph Welch told Senator Joseph McCarthy, "Have you at last, Sir, no shame?"

I'm convinced that right-wingers are a lot like Pavlov's dogs. You know the experiments that Pavlov did. He would ring a bell and then feed the dogs. After a time, the dogs would begin salivating when the bell rang. For right-wingers, it's just a knee-jerk reaction to smear liberals for any problems we're facing.

In The Fresno Bee's stupid letter of the day a right-winger was complaining that high gas prices are the fault of liberals like Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry. They have the temerity, you see, to oppose the Bush administration of giving Big Oil anything and everything it wants. There was no mention, of course, that a major refinery in California was closed by Shell, even though the refinery is profitable. There are never enough profits for Big Oil.

The other point the winger noted was our dependency on foreign oil. Duh! Liberals have talked about this for years and the need to find alternative energy sources. I remember President Carter talking about this issue back in the 1970s. Drilling for oil in Alaska, destroying one of the most pristine areas on earth, for about a six month supply of oil isn't going to solve our energy problems.

In his column today Paul Krugman noted that, despite all the fanfare about last month's job growth, it was nothing extraordinary by historical standards. It was the equivalent of an average month during the Clinton years. He noted that in the Clinton years we had eight years of steady and consistent job growth. In the Bush years we're wading in red ink and we've had one good month of job growth. Whose policies do you think worked?

The Washington Post has an item about the effects of the No Child Left Behind nonsense. Despite all the bloviating about states' rights, the Bush administration has imposed strict federal standards on local schools. It seems to me it's more about learning by rote than learning critical thinking. But in any event, even recess and field trips are getting cut now so that more time can be spent on getting kids to pass tests. Whether they really learn anything seems to be secondary.

Today was the big event in the 9-11 Commission hearings. The elusive Condi Rice made an appearance and delivered her well-rehearsed lines. She demonstrated the qualities that typify this administration: arrogance, ignorance, and contempt for the American people.

The biggest whopper I've read from her testimony was that the infamous August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing to Bush while he was at his Texas "ranch" didn't mention a threat about al-Quida. What? The briefing was entitled "Bin Ladin Determined to Attack Inside the United States." I wonder if someone had drawn a diagram, if that would have changed things.

Michael Lind, author of several books, has an interesting piece that was linked at buzzflash.com about the weird people around Bush who have shaped this arrogant and disastrous foreign policy. The names include: Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Douglas Feith, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, John R. Bolton, Elliott Abrams, James Woolsey, Richard Perle, and more indirectly the publishing mogul Rupert Murdoch and the very strange Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his newspaper The Washington Times. The so-called "intellectuals" such as Wolfowitz and Perle remind Mr. Lind of Trotskyites. Mr. Lind theorizes that the weird lurch in our foreign policy is more about protecting Israel than about protecting our own country. You have to wonder. Iraq is a lot closer to Israel than it is to the United States.

It's hard to know which emotion is dominant when you see the news out of Iraq--sadness or outrage. The headlines are blaring that U.S. forces attacked a mosque, killing forty people. Can you imagine what the reaction would be if the Iraqis attacked a Christian church, or a synagogue? And the death toll for U.S. forces in Iraq continues to escalate.

Some good news on the home front. Voters in Inglewood, California, gave a resounding No to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart tried to make an end run around local government to build one of their so-called supercenters, those behemoths that cause traffic congestion, damage the environment, pay lousy wages, and destroy small businesses. David beat Goliath in Inglewood.

A long article in Vanity Fair magazine discloses that the former British ambassador to the United States, Christopher Meyer, confirmed the allegations in Richard Clarke's book. Bush was pressing Tony Blair to attack Iraq just days after 9-11. On September 17, 2001, Bush signed a two and a half page directive for the Pentagon to draw up invasion plans.

During the profits boom from 1996-2000 two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no taxes, according to a story posted at americanpolitics.com. Apparently, foreign corporations also live off the public bounty, but don't contribute in taxes. Why do people making middle class incomes or below pay substantial amounts in taxes and corporations don't? Let's see the right-wingers spin themselves silly trying to explain that. If it's to create jobs and all the rhetoric, it doesn't work. The tax cut and deficit administration of George W. Bush has lost over two million jobs.

A good piece by Nicholas von Hoffman in The New York Observor talks about the "leadership" of George W. Bush on 9-11. Much of what Bush said is demonstrably untrue, such as his claim that he saw the first plane strike the World Trade Center while watching television. Far from demonstrating heroism and leadership on that day, Mr. Bush was flying to Nebraska to a bunker to get out of harm's way.

I don't know if hell exists, or it does exist what it looks like. But you can't help thinking hell would look a lot like the pictures we're seeing out of Iraq. You see the burning vehicles, the crazed people toting guns, and the hatred just leaping out of the photographs. The latest word today, April 6, is that at least twelve Marines have been killed. The United States is now fighting on two fronts against Shia and Sunni militants. What we've created in Iraq is akin to taking a baseball bat and smashing a beehive.

A good website for the roiling Bush scandals is www.crisispapers.org. The insights are provided by Bernard Weiner. What comes through very strongly is that, according to the Bush people, we don't need no stinking privacy!

Fearless Leader attended the home opener of the St. Louis Cardinals and minced out the mound to make the customary first pitch. According to an item provided to a St. Louis columnist, the Cardinals were so concerned Bush would be booed they piped in artificial applause.

In what should be yet another major scandal, but will probably get short shrift in the mainstream media, is the manipulation of data about mercury by the Bushies. In The New York Times there is a report that White House staff members played down the toxic effects of mercury in an Environmental Protection Agency study. Coal-fired power plants are particularly guilty of dumping mercury into the environment. Mercury poisoning has particularly deleterious effects on children. In December,2000, EPA said mercury from power plants should be classified as a hazardous pollutant. In December, 2003, the Bush administration reversed that finding.

During the Clinton years right-wingers liked to yammer on about "character." After three years in the wilderness under the Bush administration, what can we say about the character of this man and his administration? Sometimes the way a person interacts with others tells us a great deal about his character.

Mr. Bush was interacting with reports and took great offense that a reporter dared call him "Sir." I think use of the word "Sir" is properly respectful, but not for His Highness. He sneered and put the reporter on the spot until the reporter used "Mr. President." Mr. Bush seems to think the rest of us should be kissing his derriere.

This isn't the first incident of this type. A man in the crowd at a Bush appearance once told Bush he didn't like the job Bush was doing. Bush's response was, "Who cares what you think?" On a trip to Europe Bush was miffed that a reporter asked the French president a question in French. The reporter was trying to be "intercontinental," according to Mr. Ignoramus. What's astounding is that so many people in this country like to believe this arrogant bumpkin is somehow one of us, just a common guy, a good Christian. He's none of those things.

Call it censorship. The White House is planning to vet the 9-11 Commission report "line by line." I wonder how much information critical of the Bush administration will be allowed to see the light of day.

Bank of America is planning to lay off 12,500 people as a result of its merger with Fleet Bank. Banking, once upon a time, was a fairly safe occupation. The money wasn't great, but at least it was stable. Not anymore. Name any industry that is really stable now. Being in the workforce is like standing on tectonic plates that are constantly rubbing against each other and shifting. The lesson of today's capitalism is that, if you're a worker, you're very expendable.

The environment is all around us and it affects every thing on earth. But we take it for granted. It's amazing how major stories affecting the environment--the very basis of survival on this little blue planet--get so little attention in the mainstream media.

In a story linked today, April 4, at commondreams.org we learn that the Bush administration has been sending out "talking points" to Republican members of Congress about global warming. It doesn't serve the political or economic agenda of Bush or his supporters to admit global warming is a reality. The talking points memo sent by the administration uses the reasoning of a small cadre of scientists who are in the back pockets of the oil industry and puts out the Panglossian spin that the world's forests are spreading, that water is cleaner, and that global warming hasn't been proven.

You have to think a little of the research of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross about death and dying. She said one step on the path to dying was denial. We now have denial from the fossil fuel industries that their industry and the world it has created are dying. At the very best, we have just a few decades left of a fossil fuel driven economy. The oil is running out. Far scarier, though, is the way the climate is being affected by our use of fossil fuels. Our environment may be destroyed even before the fossil fuels are depleted. The fossil fuel extraction industries could take the lead in finding alternative energy solutions, but they choose instead to sink into denial or, perhaps worse, outright lying.

As a Central Valley resident and a country music fan, I've long been a fan of Merle Haggard. It's encouraging that Hag is now critical of the Bush regime. It bothers me to some extent, though, that Hag, who has been an advocate for the working man, is a supporter of people like Nixon, Reagan, and Bush. There seems to be a major contradiction there. How can you support people who make life miserable for working people, while claiming to be an advocate for the working man (or woman)? Country music musicians, the purveyors of "white man's blues" should be more in touch with the disadvantaged and the working class than almost any other genre, but so many country music musicians are ready to wave the flag, spout jingoistic rhetoric, and betray the very people they claim to represent.

Whoops! Secretary of State Colin Powell now concedes that information he presented to the United Nations to justify a war against Iraq might have been "flawed." Mr Powell made a major presentation suggesting that Iraq had mobile weapons labs and now it turns out that information was wrong. Of course, it's not the administration's fault. It's those incompetents over at the CIA.

Oops! The jobs report, hailed as a "surge" by The New York Times and other major media, isn't quite as grand after all. According to a report produced by an analyst for Wells Fargo Bank, most of the new jobs are part-time. The report says, "In fact, the increase in part-timers accounted for the vast majority of the increase in employment." Part-time jobs are not what this country needs. We need full-time jobs with good wages and full benefits.

In an example of karma coming around, our governor, Arnie the Groper, is getting sued by a British TV presenter named Anna Richardson for groping her and libeling her. I wonder how many of those right-wingers so distressed about President Clinton's sex life will be similarly perturbed about Arnold the Barbarian.

Right-wingers are never lacking in chutzpah. In today's Fresno Bee a winger was lamenting the "familiar odor" of the "politics of personal destruction" coming from the Kerry campaign. Supposedly, President Clinton conducted attacks against his opponents and Kerry is following in those footsteps. All the Bush administration has done, when it's not starting unnecessary wars or getting tax cuts for its rich buddies, is try to destroy people. Do the names Valerie Plame, Paul O'Neill, and Richard Clarke sound familiar?

At commondreams.org a story is linked talking about a FBI translator who says she saw papers showing senior administration officials knew of a planned attack by al-Quida.

Bush and the wingers will trumpet the newest job report. Major newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post are calling it a "surge." But I won't be convinced until we have several months of significant job increases. And you have to beware of "revised" figures from this administration. After the initial flurry, it seems that reports unfavorable to the administration get "revised" with the new unfavorable statistics getting far less attention.

Former Senator Gary Hart says he warned the White House at least twice about an impending terrorist attack.

Remember the story that emerged about the low-ball figures on the Medicare prescription drug plan? The White House twisted arms and lied like crazy to get a gift for the major pharmaceutical companies. After the bill was passed, it seems the administration knew its cost estimates were too low. Congress made sounds of investigating why it was lied to--once again--but now the White House is shutting down an inquiry. Congress shouldn't take no for an answer, but we'll see.

It's April Fool's Day, which is somehow emblematic of the Bush administration. After a terrible incident in Iraq yesterday where four American contractors were murdered, their bodies dragged through the streets, and hung from a bridge the response from our government is vengeance. It's deplorable what happened to our fellow Americans, but the administration just doesn't seem to understand why people in Iraq should be so enraged to commit such atrocities. And the response is more of the same, ratchet up the hatred and the violence.

The right wing letter of the day in The Fresno Bee said that holding Bush accountable for 9-11 was like holding FDR accountable for Pearl Harbor. There are many, of course, who have tried to claim FDR had foreknowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack. I don't believe there is any credible evidence to support that charge. In Bush's case, however, there is plenty of evidence that the administration was at best negligent in preventing the 9-11 attack. We learn now that National Security Advisor Condi Rice was going to give a speech on 9-11 about missile defense. Nary a word about al-Quida or the terrorist threat.

Jimmy Breslin has a very good column that points out that the people we are fighting are different from the traditional nation states and the motives are different when he writes, "Ideology and religion are the enemies."

Word now is that Arnie the Groper might be forced to raise taxes in California. Boy, what a shocker that is. Gray Davis was recalled because of raising the "car tax" and Arnie came on like the calvary over the hill promising he could magically reduce waste, cut government spending, and lead us all into the promised land. You would think people would finally learn about the typical Republican bait and switch tactics.