KERRY CLEANS BUSH'S CLOCK
I won't make any claims to objectivity. I don't like George W. Bush and I would have an obvious bias. But I think George W. Bush is the most corrupt, the most incompetent, and the most murderous president in our history. I thought John Kerry would do well in this debate, but he surpassed my expectations.
The contrast is startling. It makes you wonder how we as a country ever allowed a man like George W. Bush to take the reins of the presidency. The upcoming debate on domestic issues should show an even more stark contrast.
Bush is the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss in jobs. He has run gargantuan deficits for the benefit of his rich friends. He has made the health care system worse. The environment is choking and wheezing because Bush hasn't met a polluter he doesn't like. He has no vision other than making us a more unequal and more repressive society. By all that is holy this incompetent, sniveling, little man and his corrupt administration should be run out of office on November 2.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
MEDIA AS RIGHT-WING ECHO CHAMBER
Even the supposedly mainstream media has a way of appropriating right-wing language and making it seem part of normal discourse. I can remember a TV reporter doing a standup report and referring to the "death tax," even though the tax was the estate tax. Right-wingers wanted to rename the tax to make it appear it was unjust to anyone leaving an estate. Examples abound throughout the media. This report is at www.alternet.org:
Here is a recent New York Times headline of an article describing a George Bush stump speech in Michigan: Bush describes Kerry's health care plan as a 'government takeover.' The San Francisco Chronicle republished the very same piece, except its headline read: Bush blasts Kerry's 'enormous price tag' for health care.
What's wrong with this picture?
"W" IS FOR WOMEN?
Incredibly, some recent polls have suggested female support for George W. Bush because of the "security" issue. You know, big bad George W. would be better at protecting the country than John Kerry (just like September 11, no doubt). This item at corrente.blogspot.com recounts a conversation a female Yale graduate had with Bush a few years ago in which Bush made a highly sexist and chauvinistic comment about women at Yale:
Bush replied that "something had been lost" when women were fully admitted to Yale in 1969, that fraternities were big when he'd been there, providing a "great camaraderie for the men." But that went out the window when women were allowed in, Bush said.
Even the supposedly mainstream media has a way of appropriating right-wing language and making it seem part of normal discourse. I can remember a TV reporter doing a standup report and referring to the "death tax," even though the tax was the estate tax. Right-wingers wanted to rename the tax to make it appear it was unjust to anyone leaving an estate. Examples abound throughout the media. This report is at www.alternet.org:
Here is a recent New York Times headline of an article describing a George Bush stump speech in Michigan: Bush describes Kerry's health care plan as a 'government takeover.' The San Francisco Chronicle republished the very same piece, except its headline read: Bush blasts Kerry's 'enormous price tag' for health care.
What's wrong with this picture?
"W" IS FOR WOMEN?
Incredibly, some recent polls have suggested female support for George W. Bush because of the "security" issue. You know, big bad George W. would be better at protecting the country than John Kerry (just like September 11, no doubt). This item at corrente.blogspot.com recounts a conversation a female Yale graduate had with Bush a few years ago in which Bush made a highly sexist and chauvinistic comment about women at Yale:
Bush replied that "something had been lost" when women were fully admitted to Yale in 1969, that fraternities were big when he'd been there, providing a "great camaraderie for the men." But that went out the window when women were allowed in, Bush said.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
TONY BLAIR OFFERS APOLOGY
British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a Faustian bargain when he threw his political career and his nation's fortunes in with the corrupt and malevolent George W. Bush. Now Mr. Blair is offering an apology for not listening to all the evidence that Iraq wasn't a threat. It's a little late, Mr. Blair, now that thousands have died. But at least you are acknowledging this was a mistake, something that George W. Bush will never do. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
Prime Minister Tony Blair offered his governing Labor Party a qualified apology on Tuesday that the evidence on which he had taken Britain to war in Iraq had proved wrong. "The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons as opposed to the capability to develop them has turned out to be wrong," he told hundreds of party leaders and delegates at their annual party convention as about 8,000 protesters against the war and against a ban on fox hunting demonstrated outside the seaside hall.
BUSH AIDE ADMITS TAX CUTS HAVE CAUSED DEFICIT
In the excuse making Bush administration we haven't had anyone admit that the huge tax cuts for the rich are a primary culprit for the record budget deficits we're now seeing. Now a Bush administration aide has finally admitted there is a correlation. This story is at www.thehill.com:
In a departure from public pronouncements about the federal budget deficit, a senior aide to President Bush said last week that the record deficits have been caused, in part, by tax cuts.
Administration officials have not, in public statements, attributed the rising deficit, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will reach $422 billion this year and the Office of Management and Budget projects $474 billion, to tax cuts.
RIGHT WING MYTHS
Horatio Alger plays a prominent role in conservative philosophy. It's the idea that anyone in America who works hard and plays by the rules can get wealthy. It's also the idea that the very rich are there because they are "self-made men" (mostly) who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. This story is from Forbes magazine, a bastion of conservatism, and it shows that wealth building is dependent on the infrastructure all of us depend on and support. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
According to the just- released Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, 39 percent inherited at least some of their wealth and "the rest have self- made fortunes." In fact, says Responsible Wealth, everyone on the Forbes 400 owes their wealth partly to a taxpayer-financed inheritance of public research and contracts; public schools and universities; communications, transportation and other critical infrastructure, and myriad government institutions from the Federal Reserve and the courts to the Treasury, Defense and Commerce Departments.
"It takes a village to raise a billionaire. Every taxpayer deserves some credit for Forbes 400 wealth," says Mike Lapham, co- director of Responsible Wealth. "Yet while the Forbes 400 richest Americans are doing better this year -- their collective wealth rose $45 billion since 2003 -- the average taxpayer is not. Median household income fell for the fourth year in a row last year."
GORE OFFERS DEBATE ADVICE
Al Gore knows all too well the debating style of George W. Bush, that style of appearing to be a "common man," but not offering any real answers to tough questions. In this column in The New York Times he offers some observations about Bush. The commentary is at www.nytimes.com:
If Mr. Bush is not willing to concede that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, can he be trusted to make the decisions necessary to change the situation? If he insists on continuing to pretend it is "mission accomplished," can he accomplish the mission? And if the Bush administration has been so thoroughly wrong on absolutely everything it predicted about Iraq, with the horrible consequences that have followed, should it be trusted with another four years?
L.A. TIMES BLASTS BUSH
In this editorial at The Los Angeles Times the editorialist spells out the reality about George W. Bush. When it comes to democratic values, Mr. Bush is all hat and no cattle. He has demonstrated that time and time again. This editorial is at www.latimes.com:
Since election day 2000 and through his first term, Bush has talked a better game of democratic values than he has played. And he is not one for nuances in any event. But the point here is not subtle: The right to criticize the policies of those in power is not just one of democracy's fringe benefits; it is essential to making the democratic machinery work. And questions of war and peace — dead young Americans, dead Iraqis, a radicalized Middle East, billions of dollars: Was it worth all this? — are the ones that need democracy the most. Why would any president even wish to plunge this country into war and keep it there without a level of support from the citizenry that is strong enough to survive the obvious counterarguments?
BUSH FLIPS, THEN FLOPS ON IRAQ
Right-wingers have tried to appear clever in painting John Kerry as a "flip-flopper." But Kerry has been far more consistent than their boy. The San Francisco Chronicle has an analysis of Bush's evolving positions on the Iraq war. Can you say flip-flopper? This article is at www.sfgate.com:
An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio addresses and responses to reporters' questions reveal a steady progression of language, mostly to reflect changing circumstances such as the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and the growing violence of Iraqi insurgents.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair made a Faustian bargain when he threw his political career and his nation's fortunes in with the corrupt and malevolent George W. Bush. Now Mr. Blair is offering an apology for not listening to all the evidence that Iraq wasn't a threat. It's a little late, Mr. Blair, now that thousands have died. But at least you are acknowledging this was a mistake, something that George W. Bush will never do. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
Prime Minister Tony Blair offered his governing Labor Party a qualified apology on Tuesday that the evidence on which he had taken Britain to war in Iraq had proved wrong. "The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons as opposed to the capability to develop them has turned out to be wrong," he told hundreds of party leaders and delegates at their annual party convention as about 8,000 protesters against the war and against a ban on fox hunting demonstrated outside the seaside hall.
BUSH AIDE ADMITS TAX CUTS HAVE CAUSED DEFICIT
In the excuse making Bush administration we haven't had anyone admit that the huge tax cuts for the rich are a primary culprit for the record budget deficits we're now seeing. Now a Bush administration aide has finally admitted there is a correlation. This story is at www.thehill.com:
In a departure from public pronouncements about the federal budget deficit, a senior aide to President Bush said last week that the record deficits have been caused, in part, by tax cuts.
Administration officials have not, in public statements, attributed the rising deficit, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will reach $422 billion this year and the Office of Management and Budget projects $474 billion, to tax cuts.
RIGHT WING MYTHS
Horatio Alger plays a prominent role in conservative philosophy. It's the idea that anyone in America who works hard and plays by the rules can get wealthy. It's also the idea that the very rich are there because they are "self-made men" (mostly) who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. This story is from Forbes magazine, a bastion of conservatism, and it shows that wealth building is dependent on the infrastructure all of us depend on and support. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
According to the just- released Forbes 400 list of richest Americans, 39 percent inherited at least some of their wealth and "the rest have self- made fortunes." In fact, says Responsible Wealth, everyone on the Forbes 400 owes their wealth partly to a taxpayer-financed inheritance of public research and contracts; public schools and universities; communications, transportation and other critical infrastructure, and myriad government institutions from the Federal Reserve and the courts to the Treasury, Defense and Commerce Departments.
"It takes a village to raise a billionaire. Every taxpayer deserves some credit for Forbes 400 wealth," says Mike Lapham, co- director of Responsible Wealth. "Yet while the Forbes 400 richest Americans are doing better this year -- their collective wealth rose $45 billion since 2003 -- the average taxpayer is not. Median household income fell for the fourth year in a row last year."
GORE OFFERS DEBATE ADVICE
Al Gore knows all too well the debating style of George W. Bush, that style of appearing to be a "common man," but not offering any real answers to tough questions. In this column in The New York Times he offers some observations about Bush. The commentary is at www.nytimes.com:
If Mr. Bush is not willing to concede that things are going from bad to worse in Iraq, can he be trusted to make the decisions necessary to change the situation? If he insists on continuing to pretend it is "mission accomplished," can he accomplish the mission? And if the Bush administration has been so thoroughly wrong on absolutely everything it predicted about Iraq, with the horrible consequences that have followed, should it be trusted with another four years?
L.A. TIMES BLASTS BUSH
In this editorial at The Los Angeles Times the editorialist spells out the reality about George W. Bush. When it comes to democratic values, Mr. Bush is all hat and no cattle. He has demonstrated that time and time again. This editorial is at www.latimes.com:
Since election day 2000 and through his first term, Bush has talked a better game of democratic values than he has played. And he is not one for nuances in any event. But the point here is not subtle: The right to criticize the policies of those in power is not just one of democracy's fringe benefits; it is essential to making the democratic machinery work. And questions of war and peace — dead young Americans, dead Iraqis, a radicalized Middle East, billions of dollars: Was it worth all this? — are the ones that need democracy the most. Why would any president even wish to plunge this country into war and keep it there without a level of support from the citizenry that is strong enough to survive the obvious counterarguments?
BUSH FLIPS, THEN FLOPS ON IRAQ
Right-wingers have tried to appear clever in painting John Kerry as a "flip-flopper." But Kerry has been far more consistent than their boy. The San Francisco Chronicle has an analysis of Bush's evolving positions on the Iraq war. Can you say flip-flopper? This article is at www.sfgate.com:
An examination of more than 150 of Bush's speeches, radio addresses and responses to reporters' questions reveal a steady progression of language, mostly to reflect changing circumstances such as the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, the lack of ties between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network and the growing violence of Iraqi insurgents.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
DOUBLE STANDARD ON MEDIA
Right-wingers are ready to make Dan Rather walk the plank over the alleged fraudulent memos showing George W. Bush got preferential treatment in getting into the Air National Guard and then ducking his service. But where is the comparable outrage that the august New York Times admitted that it was "taken in" by the Bush administration in cheer leading the Iraq war? This article is at www.sfgate.com:
Just four months ago, lest we forget, the New York Times issued its own mea culpa, acknowledging the repeated use of dubious information in its coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War and the Bush administration's repeated assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. In the case of one story, the Times flat-out said it was duped, although it used the more decorous phrase "taken in."
BUSH DOESN'T WANT FOCUS ON ECONOMY
George W. Bush will mouth the platitudes about what he wants to do to get Americans working again and then spout the bald faced lie that his tax cuts for the rich have made things better. Columnist Thomas Oliphant takes a hard look at the economy in this column at www.boston.com:
President Bush does not want this discussion. His campaign's knee-jerk response to economic commentary is a poll-driven jeer that critics are pessimists, running down the country's engine of prosperity.
Where the economy is concerned, what is missing and what beleaguered Democrats in this battleground state would love to hear is a clear message that the "recovery" is not worthy of the term and that Kerry has plans to put more money in ordinary Americans' pockets to spend so the country can get moving again.
THE DANGERS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
I don't believe in bashing immigrants. But Harley Sorenson has some good points about the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico and how, if politicians were truly interested in protecting our security, they would do something more about illegal immigration. Cheap labor is just too irresistible I guess. The column is at www.sfgate.com:
With all the palaver about homeland security we hear these days, you would think a Number One Priority would be guarding our borders, at least to the extent of knowing who comes in.
What kind of phony diligence is it to pull Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), a well-known peace activist, off an airplane and ship him back to London and yet allow 4,000 unknown people to wander in, unnoticed, from Mexico?
Our avarice is doing us in. We want that cheap labor, but we refuse to consider its price tag.
SNOTTY BUSH STRIKES AGAIN
A headline from CNN stated, "BUSH MOCKS KERRY: 'HE COULD DEBATE HIMSELF'
All I can say is at least Kerry would be debating someone intelligent and someone ethical, in contrast to the thief and liar who will be standing across from him.
WILL PRINT MEDIA DO ITS JOB?
As Paul Krugman points out, you can't count on any objectivity from cable news coverage of the upcoming presidential debates. Bush could show up loaded and waving a pistol and the biased creeps on cable news would find a way to spin that it showed Bush was tough and decisive and a man's man. But the print media can do an objective and fair job. Let's hope they show some integrity, unlike what occurred in the 2000 presidential debates. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."
BUSH WARNED OF CONSEQUENCES IN IRAQ
TWO MONTHS BEFORE STARTING WAR
George W. Bush was going to have his war. It didn't matter that Iraq wasn't a threat to the United States. It didn't matter that no evidence linked Iraq to the September 11 attacks. It didn't matter there were never any weapons of mass destruction. It didn't matter that he would kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. According to this article in The New York Times, it also didn't matter that he received warnings of grave consequences if the U.S. invaded. The story is at www.nytimes.com:
The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.
Right-wingers are ready to make Dan Rather walk the plank over the alleged fraudulent memos showing George W. Bush got preferential treatment in getting into the Air National Guard and then ducking his service. But where is the comparable outrage that the august New York Times admitted that it was "taken in" by the Bush administration in cheer leading the Iraq war? This article is at www.sfgate.com:
Just four months ago, lest we forget, the New York Times issued its own mea culpa, acknowledging the repeated use of dubious information in its coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War and the Bush administration's repeated assertions that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. In the case of one story, the Times flat-out said it was duped, although it used the more decorous phrase "taken in."
BUSH DOESN'T WANT FOCUS ON ECONOMY
George W. Bush will mouth the platitudes about what he wants to do to get Americans working again and then spout the bald faced lie that his tax cuts for the rich have made things better. Columnist Thomas Oliphant takes a hard look at the economy in this column at www.boston.com:
President Bush does not want this discussion. His campaign's knee-jerk response to economic commentary is a poll-driven jeer that critics are pessimists, running down the country's engine of prosperity.
Where the economy is concerned, what is missing and what beleaguered Democrats in this battleground state would love to hear is a clear message that the "recovery" is not worthy of the term and that Kerry has plans to put more money in ordinary Americans' pockets to spend so the country can get moving again.
THE DANGERS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
I don't believe in bashing immigrants. But Harley Sorenson has some good points about the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico and how, if politicians were truly interested in protecting our security, they would do something more about illegal immigration. Cheap labor is just too irresistible I guess. The column is at www.sfgate.com:
With all the palaver about homeland security we hear these days, you would think a Number One Priority would be guarding our borders, at least to the extent of knowing who comes in.
What kind of phony diligence is it to pull Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), a well-known peace activist, off an airplane and ship him back to London and yet allow 4,000 unknown people to wander in, unnoticed, from Mexico?
Our avarice is doing us in. We want that cheap labor, but we refuse to consider its price tag.
SNOTTY BUSH STRIKES AGAIN
A headline from CNN stated, "BUSH MOCKS KERRY: 'HE COULD DEBATE HIMSELF'
All I can say is at least Kerry would be debating someone intelligent and someone ethical, in contrast to the thief and liar who will be standing across from him.
WILL PRINT MEDIA DO ITS JOB?
As Paul Krugman points out, you can't count on any objectivity from cable news coverage of the upcoming presidential debates. Bush could show up loaded and waving a pistol and the biased creeps on cable news would find a way to spin that it showed Bush was tough and decisive and a man's man. But the print media can do an objective and fair job. Let's hope they show some integrity, unlike what occurred in the 2000 presidential debates. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."
BUSH WARNED OF CONSEQUENCES IN IRAQ
TWO MONTHS BEFORE STARTING WAR
George W. Bush was going to have his war. It didn't matter that Iraq wasn't a threat to the United States. It didn't matter that no evidence linked Iraq to the September 11 attacks. It didn't matter there were never any weapons of mass destruction. It didn't matter that he would kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. According to this article in The New York Times, it also didn't matter that he received warnings of grave consequences if the U.S. invaded. The story is at www.nytimes.com:
The same intelligence unit that produced a gloomy report in July about the prospect of growing instability in Iraq warned the Bush administration about the potential costly consequences of an American-led invasion two months before the war began, government officials said Monday.
The estimate came in two classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council, an independent group that advises the director of central intelligence. The assessments predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.
Monday, September 27, 2004
PHILLIP ROTH ON THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION
I'm glad to see another accomplished novelist pointing out the lies and crimes of the Bush administration. Phillip Roth, author of Portnoy's Complaint and other major novels, has a new novel being released in October. He takes a critical look, from the perspective of fiction, at Bush. This article is by Frank Rich at www.nytimes.com:
PHILIP ROTH is one of America's great novelists, but you don't expect him to be barreling up the best-seller list with a book that hasn't even been published yet. "Literary fiction," as it is now stigmatized in the cultural marketplace, no longer flies off the shelves unless struck by the TV lightning of Oprah or the "Today" show. And yet there was "The Plot Against America" in the top 25 at amazon.com this week, at one point the only serious contemporary American novel on the list, sandwiched between Clay Aiken's memoir and "The South Beach Diet." It ascended without benefit of a single author's interview on TV or anywhere else and with only the first few reviews, not all of them ecstatic.
IF YOU WORK FOR WAGES, REPUBLICANS DESPISE YOU
You've probably heard all the gas bag Republican rhetoric from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. A progressive tax system is "punishing the achievers," those people who sit by the pool with their lap top computers and cell phones and make stock deals. They sit in their gated communities and drive the big SUVs with the tinted windows and they exult in mergers where ordinary people lose their jobs. They love layoffs that drive up the stock prices so they can fill up their bank accounts based upon the misery of others. They frolic when they get tax cuts and the burden gets passed on to people who work hard every day at real jobs. That's the discussion from this item at www.dailykos.com:
So after taking away overtime pay from the people who relied on it to pay for school supplies, the Republicans this week went for the kill. They took away the one piece of tax relief aimed at America's working poor. They raised taxes on the janitors, orderlies, and food workers who make the nation run. The Republican Party raised taxes on the hardest-working Americans, and they didn't bat an eyelash.
That's today's Republican Party in a nutshell, summed up by their own terrible deeds in one terrible month. That's why we fight.
WITH BUSH IT'S ALL IMAGE
The Bush campaign has been notoriously anti-democratic in barring anyone from rallies who doesn't agree with President Bunnypants. It makes for good TV images to have just cheering supporters. It gives the impression to the mass TV audience that Bush is immensely popular and fulfilling the will of the people. Helen Thomas writes about it at www.annistonstar.com:
George W. Bush is supposed to be president of all the people - but apparently not on the campaign trail.
At Bush-Cheney campaign rallies around the nation, the only people welcome to attend are Bush supporters, volunteers and undecided voters who lean toward Bush politically.
NOVAK: CIA AND BUSH AT WAR?
Bob Novak may be one of the "journalists" I trust the least. But because he is a right-winger he may have more of an entree into the White House than media the Bush administration stonewalls. In this article Novak suggests that the CIA may be trying to get out the facts about Iraq despite the lies of the Bush administration. The article is at www.suntimes.com:
A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as ''just guessing,'' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.
CONGRESS UNRESPONSIVE TO ORDINARY VOTERS
In this article Chalmers Johnson talks about his Congressman not representing him. I can really identify. The right-wing Congressman from the district where I live just rubber stamps anything the Bush administration wants. In the run up to the war on Iraq he would respond to my letters with talking points from the White House. I have never received anything since all the lies and distortions were revealed with any kind of mea culpa about the war. Even though most of this guy's constituents are working people, he doesn't do a darned thing for working people. This article is at www.commondreams.org.
It is news to no one who pays the slightest attention to American politics that Congress is no longer responsive to the people. Incumbency is so well institutionalized that elections generally don't mean much. Take the case of guns: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay approves of the private ownership of assault weapons and machine guns, despite complaints from police across the country that they're outgunned by criminals, despite the 65% of the public that wants them banned, despite pleas from the relatives of murdered Americans. On this issue, the National Rifle Assn. seems to own the Congress.
WHERE'S THAT COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM?
Stories about the Bush administration screwing the working poor seem to always fly under the radar. The disgusting national media can talk about the Swift Boat liars, or the Scott Peterson trial, or hurricanes, but there's no discussion of how the government of the United States has turned its back on working people. This story is at www.detnews.com:
The Bush administration and Congress have scaled back programs that aid the poor to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that went primarily to those who earn more than $288,800 a year.
To offset the loss of the tax revenue, the administration has amassed record federal deficits and trimmed social spending.
The affected programs — job training, housing, higher education and an array of social services — provide safety nets for the poor. Many programs are critical elements in welfare-to-work initiatives and were already badly underfunded.
ARNOLD IS ALL REPUBLICAN (NAZI)
Arnold "The Groper" Schwarzenegger continued showing his true Republican colors in vetoing a bill that might have averted an energy spike such as California experienced in 2001. Back then Arnold was just a bad and very rich actor and Gray Davis was dealing with the deregulation mess left by Republican Governor Pete Wilson. Arnold, apparently a good friend of Enron crook Ken Lay, just loves the idea of another Enron ripping off California. This story is at news.yahoo.com:
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday vetoed a bill requiring electric utilities to develop long-range plans for meeting energy needs, a requirement backers said would ease the spike-and-drop pattern of California energy supply.
"The bill creates a redundant and burdensome energy procurement process that would steer the state back toward monopoly utilities without some of the consumer protections necessary to protect ratepayers," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
I'm glad to see another accomplished novelist pointing out the lies and crimes of the Bush administration. Phillip Roth, author of Portnoy's Complaint and other major novels, has a new novel being released in October. He takes a critical look, from the perspective of fiction, at Bush. This article is by Frank Rich at www.nytimes.com:
PHILIP ROTH is one of America's great novelists, but you don't expect him to be barreling up the best-seller list with a book that hasn't even been published yet. "Literary fiction," as it is now stigmatized in the cultural marketplace, no longer flies off the shelves unless struck by the TV lightning of Oprah or the "Today" show. And yet there was "The Plot Against America" in the top 25 at amazon.com this week, at one point the only serious contemporary American novel on the list, sandwiched between Clay Aiken's memoir and "The South Beach Diet." It ascended without benefit of a single author's interview on TV or anywhere else and with only the first few reviews, not all of them ecstatic.
IF YOU WORK FOR WAGES, REPUBLICANS DESPISE YOU
You've probably heard all the gas bag Republican rhetoric from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. A progressive tax system is "punishing the achievers," those people who sit by the pool with their lap top computers and cell phones and make stock deals. They sit in their gated communities and drive the big SUVs with the tinted windows and they exult in mergers where ordinary people lose their jobs. They love layoffs that drive up the stock prices so they can fill up their bank accounts based upon the misery of others. They frolic when they get tax cuts and the burden gets passed on to people who work hard every day at real jobs. That's the discussion from this item at www.dailykos.com:
So after taking away overtime pay from the people who relied on it to pay for school supplies, the Republicans this week went for the kill. They took away the one piece of tax relief aimed at America's working poor. They raised taxes on the janitors, orderlies, and food workers who make the nation run. The Republican Party raised taxes on the hardest-working Americans, and they didn't bat an eyelash.
That's today's Republican Party in a nutshell, summed up by their own terrible deeds in one terrible month. That's why we fight.
WITH BUSH IT'S ALL IMAGE
The Bush campaign has been notoriously anti-democratic in barring anyone from rallies who doesn't agree with President Bunnypants. It makes for good TV images to have just cheering supporters. It gives the impression to the mass TV audience that Bush is immensely popular and fulfilling the will of the people. Helen Thomas writes about it at www.annistonstar.com:
George W. Bush is supposed to be president of all the people - but apparently not on the campaign trail.
At Bush-Cheney campaign rallies around the nation, the only people welcome to attend are Bush supporters, volunteers and undecided voters who lean toward Bush politically.
NOVAK: CIA AND BUSH AT WAR?
Bob Novak may be one of the "journalists" I trust the least. But because he is a right-winger he may have more of an entree into the White House than media the Bush administration stonewalls. In this article Novak suggests that the CIA may be trying to get out the facts about Iraq despite the lies of the Bush administration. The article is at www.suntimes.com:
A few hours after George W. Bush dismissed a pessimistic CIA report on Iraq as ''just guessing,'' the analyst who identified himself as its author told a private dinner last week of secret, unheeded warnings years ago about going to war in Iraq. This exchange leads to the unavoidable conclusion that the president of the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency are at war with each other.
CONGRESS UNRESPONSIVE TO ORDINARY VOTERS
In this article Chalmers Johnson talks about his Congressman not representing him. I can really identify. The right-wing Congressman from the district where I live just rubber stamps anything the Bush administration wants. In the run up to the war on Iraq he would respond to my letters with talking points from the White House. I have never received anything since all the lies and distortions were revealed with any kind of mea culpa about the war. Even though most of this guy's constituents are working people, he doesn't do a darned thing for working people. This article is at www.commondreams.org.
It is news to no one who pays the slightest attention to American politics that Congress is no longer responsive to the people. Incumbency is so well institutionalized that elections generally don't mean much. Take the case of guns: House Majority Leader Tom DeLay approves of the private ownership of assault weapons and machine guns, despite complaints from police across the country that they're outgunned by criminals, despite the 65% of the public that wants them banned, despite pleas from the relatives of murdered Americans. On this issue, the National Rifle Assn. seems to own the Congress.
WHERE'S THAT COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATISM?
Stories about the Bush administration screwing the working poor seem to always fly under the radar. The disgusting national media can talk about the Swift Boat liars, or the Scott Peterson trial, or hurricanes, but there's no discussion of how the government of the United States has turned its back on working people. This story is at www.detnews.com:
The Bush administration and Congress have scaled back programs that aid the poor to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that went primarily to those who earn more than $288,800 a year.
To offset the loss of the tax revenue, the administration has amassed record federal deficits and trimmed social spending.
The affected programs — job training, housing, higher education and an array of social services — provide safety nets for the poor. Many programs are critical elements in welfare-to-work initiatives and were already badly underfunded.
ARNOLD IS ALL REPUBLICAN (NAZI)
Arnold "The Groper" Schwarzenegger continued showing his true Republican colors in vetoing a bill that might have averted an energy spike such as California experienced in 2001. Back then Arnold was just a bad and very rich actor and Gray Davis was dealing with the deregulation mess left by Republican Governor Pete Wilson. Arnold, apparently a good friend of Enron crook Ken Lay, just loves the idea of another Enron ripping off California. This story is at news.yahoo.com:
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Saturday vetoed a bill requiring electric utilities to develop long-range plans for meeting energy needs, a requirement backers said would ease the spike-and-drop pattern of California energy supply.
"The bill creates a redundant and burdensome energy procurement process that would steer the state back toward monopoly utilities without some of the consumer protections necessary to protect ratepayers," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
Sunday, September 26, 2004
COUNTERPUNCH SERIES ON GEORGE W. BUSH
I just discovered a series of articles by Jeffrey St. Clair about George W. Bush's less than stellar past. The series is at www.counterpunch.org. The first article has some good tidbits about Barbara "Ma Barker" Bush. This excerpt is about Bush's time in Alabama.
Precisely, how did he wile away those humid nights on the Gulf Coast? According to the intrepid Larry Flynt, he spent part of his time impregnating his girlfriend and, like a true southern gentleman, then escorting her to an abortion clinic. Checkbook birth control, the tried and true method of the ruling classes. A year later, according to Bush biographer J.H. Hatfield, George W. got popped in Texas on cocaine possession charges. The old man intervened once again; George diverted for six months of community service a Project PULL in a black area of Houston and the incident was scrubbed from the police blotter and court records. Today, Bush denies all knowledge of those squalid indiscretions. Just two more lost weekends in George's blurry book of days.
VIOLENCE IN IRAQ IS SPREADING
George W. Bush did his dog and pony show with Iraqi puppet prime minister Allawi and tried to give the impression that things are just going swimmingly in Iraq. The reality is that the violence has been escalating and spreading throughout the country. As the National Intelligence Estimate provided to Bush showed, there is a very real possibility of Iraq descending into civil war. This story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government
RACISM UNDERLIES MUCH OF AMERICAN ATTITUDES
When you hear talk of "big government" by right-wingers or screeching about "redistribution of wealth" a lot of the sentiment is directed by racism. This is an interesting commentary by Edward L. Glaeser at www.latimes.com:
Whether President Bush is reelected or Sen. John F. Kerry prevails, the United States will be the most conservative developed nation in the world. Its economy will remain the least regulated, its welfare state the smallest, its military the strongest and its citizens the most religious. According to data taken from the World Values Survey in the last decade, 60% of Americans believe that the poor are lazy (only 26% of Europeans share that view), and 30% believe that luck determines income (54% of Europeans say so). About 60% of Europeans say the poor are trapped, while only 29% of Americans believe they are. And roughly 30% of Europeans declare themselves to be left wing, but only 17% of Americans do.
DISGRACEFUL SOCIAL SAFETY NET IN U.S.
One thing Bill Clinton did that still enrages me was signing a so-called "welfare reform" law. At the time the economy was doing well and moving people out of welfare to work seemed quite practical. But as many warned at the time, the economy would eventually take a downturn. What happens to people who can't find jobs and also aren't eligible for public assistance? This story at www.washingtonpost.com shows the reality of welfare reform:
Tina Taylor was a model of what welfare reform was supposed to do.
Taylor, 44, a single mother, had spent six years on public assistance. After 1996, when changes were made in welfare law to push people into work, she got a job that paid $400 a week and allowed her family to live independently. For the first time in a long time, she could afford to clothe and feed her two children, and even rent a duplex on the beach in Norfolk.
After losing her job last year, however, Taylor has been unable to find full-time work in an economy that still has a million fewer jobs than it did at the start of a brief recession more than three years ago.
I just discovered a series of articles by Jeffrey St. Clair about George W. Bush's less than stellar past. The series is at www.counterpunch.org. The first article has some good tidbits about Barbara "Ma Barker" Bush. This excerpt is about Bush's time in Alabama.
Precisely, how did he wile away those humid nights on the Gulf Coast? According to the intrepid Larry Flynt, he spent part of his time impregnating his girlfriend and, like a true southern gentleman, then escorting her to an abortion clinic. Checkbook birth control, the tried and true method of the ruling classes. A year later, according to Bush biographer J.H. Hatfield, George W. got popped in Texas on cocaine possession charges. The old man intervened once again; George diverted for six months of community service a Project PULL in a black area of Houston and the incident was scrubbed from the police blotter and court records. Today, Bush denies all knowledge of those squalid indiscretions. Just two more lost weekends in George's blurry book of days.
VIOLENCE IN IRAQ IS SPREADING
George W. Bush did his dog and pony show with Iraqi puppet prime minister Allawi and tried to give the impression that things are just going swimmingly in Iraq. The reality is that the violence has been escalating and spreading throughout the country. As the National Intelligence Estimate provided to Bush showed, there is a very real possibility of Iraq descending into civil war. This story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Less than four months before planned national elections in Iraq, attacks against U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and private contractors number in the dozens each day and have spread to parts of the country that had been relatively peaceful, according to statistics compiled by a private security firm working for the U.S. government
RACISM UNDERLIES MUCH OF AMERICAN ATTITUDES
When you hear talk of "big government" by right-wingers or screeching about "redistribution of wealth" a lot of the sentiment is directed by racism. This is an interesting commentary by Edward L. Glaeser at www.latimes.com:
Whether President Bush is reelected or Sen. John F. Kerry prevails, the United States will be the most conservative developed nation in the world. Its economy will remain the least regulated, its welfare state the smallest, its military the strongest and its citizens the most religious. According to data taken from the World Values Survey in the last decade, 60% of Americans believe that the poor are lazy (only 26% of Europeans share that view), and 30% believe that luck determines income (54% of Europeans say so). About 60% of Europeans say the poor are trapped, while only 29% of Americans believe they are. And roughly 30% of Europeans declare themselves to be left wing, but only 17% of Americans do.
DISGRACEFUL SOCIAL SAFETY NET IN U.S.
One thing Bill Clinton did that still enrages me was signing a so-called "welfare reform" law. At the time the economy was doing well and moving people out of welfare to work seemed quite practical. But as many warned at the time, the economy would eventually take a downturn. What happens to people who can't find jobs and also aren't eligible for public assistance? This story at www.washingtonpost.com shows the reality of welfare reform:
Tina Taylor was a model of what welfare reform was supposed to do.
Taylor, 44, a single mother, had spent six years on public assistance. After 1996, when changes were made in welfare law to push people into work, she got a job that paid $400 a week and allowed her family to live independently. For the first time in a long time, she could afford to clothe and feed her two children, and even rent a duplex on the beach in Norfolk.
After losing her job last year, however, Taylor has been unable to find full-time work in an economy that still has a million fewer jobs than it did at the start of a brief recession more than three years ago.
Saturday, September 25, 2004
RIGHT-WINGERS HATE THE POOR
You could say that the right wing loves poor people because they create so many of them, I guess. But in the latest round of "tax cuts" we see the poor getting shafted again. Republicans love to outsource jobs, keep unemployment high, and keep wages low. This is just another example of their hatred of the poor. The story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.
The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.
WILL THE BUGMAN GET SQUASHED?
Tom the "Bugman" DeLay, the real guy in charge of the House of Representatives, claims he's not a person of interest in indictments that have come down in Texas for illegal campaign contributions. This is the same guy who opposed tax cuts for the poor mentioned in the story above. He claims to be a good Christian, but some of the most vile people in history have claimed to be Christian. This story is at www.capitolhillblue.com:
House Republican leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday the indictment of close political associates in a Texas campaign finance investigation is regrettable, but he denied he's a target of prosecutors.
DeLay, the second-ranking House member, also dismissed as frivolous a complaint filed with the House ethics committee that alleges he abused his office for political purposes. The investigations are attempts to affect this fall's elections, he said.
BUSH FAMILY'S NAZI CONNECTIONS
The basis of the wealth owned by the Bush family was built by dealings with Hitler's Nazi Germany. Combine that with having the political clout and lack of ethics the Bushes have employed down through the decades and you have an immensely rich, immensely corrupt group of people. This story detailing the dealings of Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, is at www.commondreams.org:
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
BUSH'S FISCAL TRAIN WRECK
Bush's budget will add over a trillion dollars in new debt. He is stealing from your children, grandchildren, and their children so very rich people like him can build a feudal society. Why is this guy getting any backing at all? This story is from the Associated Press and linked at www.bushnews.com:
Responding to an election-season request by Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that some of President Bush's budget policies plus other costs would add $1.3 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade.
You could say that the right wing loves poor people because they create so many of them, I guess. But in the latest round of "tax cuts" we see the poor getting shafted again. Republicans love to outsource jobs, keep unemployment high, and keep wages low. This is just another example of their hatred of the poor. The story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.
The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.
WILL THE BUGMAN GET SQUASHED?
Tom the "Bugman" DeLay, the real guy in charge of the House of Representatives, claims he's not a person of interest in indictments that have come down in Texas for illegal campaign contributions. This is the same guy who opposed tax cuts for the poor mentioned in the story above. He claims to be a good Christian, but some of the most vile people in history have claimed to be Christian. This story is at www.capitolhillblue.com:
House Republican leader Tom DeLay said Tuesday the indictment of close political associates in a Texas campaign finance investigation is regrettable, but he denied he's a target of prosecutors.
DeLay, the second-ranking House member, also dismissed as frivolous a complaint filed with the House ethics committee that alleges he abused his office for political purposes. The investigations are attempts to affect this fall's elections, he said.
BUSH FAMILY'S NAZI CONNECTIONS
The basis of the wealth owned by the Bush family was built by dealings with Hitler's Nazi Germany. Combine that with having the political clout and lack of ethics the Bushes have employed down through the decades and you have an immensely rich, immensely corrupt group of people. This story detailing the dealings of Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush, is at www.commondreams.org:
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
BUSH'S FISCAL TRAIN WRECK
Bush's budget will add over a trillion dollars in new debt. He is stealing from your children, grandchildren, and their children so very rich people like him can build a feudal society. Why is this guy getting any backing at all? This story is from the Associated Press and linked at www.bushnews.com:
Responding to an election-season request by Democrats, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday that some of President Bush's budget policies plus other costs would add $1.3 trillion to federal deficits over the next decade.
Friday, September 24, 2004
WHAT A SURPRISE:
BUSH HAS LIED ABOUT KERRY'S RECORD
The Republicans have tried to amuse themselves and muddy the political waters by claiming that John Kerry has flip-flopped in his positions on Iraq. The reality is something else, according to this analysis of Kerry's record. The story is linked at www.sfgate.com:
No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq.
President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday: "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.''
The allegation is the basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.''
Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.
THE PARASITES IN THE INVESTOR CLASS
Right-wingers really love rich people. They will impoverish the country to benefit the rich. They will destroy the environment to benefit the rich. They will leave children in poverty to benefit the rich. They will start wars to benefit the rich. They will justify all of this by claiming that the rich are better than you and me. The rich are the "risk takers" who make it possible for jobs to be created. This piece at makethemaccountable.com takes a different view:
In the last two decades, the dominating investors and managers of our corporate economy have transformed themselves from economic symbionts to economic parasites…
With the rise of so-called "conservatism" (in fact, a radicalism), the investing class has transformed itself from an economic symbiont - prospering conjointly with its producer-partner - into an economic parasite - impoverishing its "host," the workers, and thus, eventually, itself. Like the heart-worm devouring the source and sustenance of its very life, the oligarchs are squeezing the productivity and the disposable income from the workers, which is to say, the well-springs of the oligarch’s wealth. And when the economy collapses, as it must if present trends continue (i.e., massive federal deficits, outsourcing, unemployment, income loss, impoverishment of education and research), the economic parasites will surely be crushed along with the rest of us.
BUSH DIDN'T LEARN FROM VIETNAM
Vietnam should be an example to foreign policy makers in the United States. We stuck hundreds of thousands of troops in a country with supposedly far inferior troops and resources and we lost. According to the military, there was always light at the end of the tunnel. Victory was just around the corner. We're getting the same kind of rose-colored glasses scenarios from the Bush administration. Bob Herbert talks about it in this column at www.nytimes.com:
How is it that he ultimately came to see the fiasco in Vietnam so clearly but remains so blind to the frighteningly similar realities of his own war in Iraq? Mr. Bush cannot explain our mission in Iraq and has nothing resembling an exit strategy, and his troops - hobbled by shortages of personnel and by potentially fatal American and Iraqi political considerations - are certainly not fighting to win.
BUSH'S TIME IN ALABAMA
The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush joined the National Guard (with his daddy pulling the strings) to avoid service in Vietnam. The evidence is that he didn't fulfill his National Guard service either. There has been talk about what Bush did when he was transferred to Alabama, supposedly to work on a political campaign. It appears that he drank rather heavily and used his family name to avoid any responsibility. This story is at www.rollingstone.com:
"George had one story he told a lot," Archibald says, "and the story was about how he was always getting picked up by the police in New Haven during his time at Yale, and how they would always let him go when they found out his grandfather was Prescott Bush. When he told this story, George would always laugh as if it was the funniest joke. The first time I heard it, I said, 'Who's Prescott Bush?' And he said, 'My grandfather - the United States senator from Connecticut.' I thought it was stunning. He knew he was bulletproof because of his family. I had never seen someone with such a well-defined sense of being 'above it.' And it was not so much because of his money as his family."
THE TRUTH IS WHAT MATTERS
The right-wing cannonade against Dan Rather and CBS ignores the inconvenient fact that Bush did dodge his National Guard service. The memos may be fraudulent, but the bottom line is that the memos don't matter; the truth does. That's what this letter at www.latimes.com says:
Why are so many obsessed with false memos that tell the truth, instead of our false president who doesn't?
Tammi Hull
Woodinville, Wash.
BUSH GETS AWAY WITH LOW EXPECTATIONS
In the history of the United States presidency we have had some real leaders. I admire men like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. We've also had some real losers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we could more easily afford ineptitude. There were no nuclear weapons. There wasn't global climate change. Traveling between continents took some time. In this time of the nanosecond we need exemplary leaders more than ever. Why are we tolerating a man as incompetent as George W. Bush? E. J. Dionne writes about lies and low expectations in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:
There is one good thing about President Bush's new advertisement showing John Kerry windsurfing: Kerry does enjoy windsurfing.
That alone puts the ad on a higher plane of truthfulness than many of the statements the president regularly makes on the campaign trail. A press corps that relentlessly nitpicked Al Gore in 2000 in search of "little lies" and exaggerations has given Bush wide latitude to make things up. I guess the incumbent benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations.
BUSH HAS LIED ABOUT KERRY'S RECORD
The Republicans have tried to amuse themselves and muddy the political waters by claiming that John Kerry has flip-flopped in his positions on Iraq. The reality is something else, according to this analysis of Kerry's record. The story is linked at www.sfgate.com:
No argument is more central to the Republican attack on Sen. John Kerry than the assertion that the Democrat has flip-flopped on Iraq.
President Bush, seated beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, said Tuesday: "My opponent has taken so many different positions on Iraq that his statements are hardly credible at all.''
The allegation is the basis of a new Bush campaign TV ad that shows the Democratic senator from Massachusetts windsurfing to the strains of a Strauss waltz as a narrator intones: "Kerry voted for the Iraq war, opposed it, supported it and now opposes it again.''
Yet an examination of Kerry's words in more than 200 speeches and statements, comments during candidate forums and answers to reporters' questions does not support the accusation.
THE PARASITES IN THE INVESTOR CLASS
Right-wingers really love rich people. They will impoverish the country to benefit the rich. They will destroy the environment to benefit the rich. They will leave children in poverty to benefit the rich. They will start wars to benefit the rich. They will justify all of this by claiming that the rich are better than you and me. The rich are the "risk takers" who make it possible for jobs to be created. This piece at makethemaccountable.com takes a different view:
In the last two decades, the dominating investors and managers of our corporate economy have transformed themselves from economic symbionts to economic parasites…
With the rise of so-called "conservatism" (in fact, a radicalism), the investing class has transformed itself from an economic symbiont - prospering conjointly with its producer-partner - into an economic parasite - impoverishing its "host," the workers, and thus, eventually, itself. Like the heart-worm devouring the source and sustenance of its very life, the oligarchs are squeezing the productivity and the disposable income from the workers, which is to say, the well-springs of the oligarch’s wealth. And when the economy collapses, as it must if present trends continue (i.e., massive federal deficits, outsourcing, unemployment, income loss, impoverishment of education and research), the economic parasites will surely be crushed along with the rest of us.
BUSH DIDN'T LEARN FROM VIETNAM
Vietnam should be an example to foreign policy makers in the United States. We stuck hundreds of thousands of troops in a country with supposedly far inferior troops and resources and we lost. According to the military, there was always light at the end of the tunnel. Victory was just around the corner. We're getting the same kind of rose-colored glasses scenarios from the Bush administration. Bob Herbert talks about it in this column at www.nytimes.com:
How is it that he ultimately came to see the fiasco in Vietnam so clearly but remains so blind to the frighteningly similar realities of his own war in Iraq? Mr. Bush cannot explain our mission in Iraq and has nothing resembling an exit strategy, and his troops - hobbled by shortages of personnel and by potentially fatal American and Iraqi political considerations - are certainly not fighting to win.
BUSH'S TIME IN ALABAMA
The evidence is overwhelming that George W. Bush joined the National Guard (with his daddy pulling the strings) to avoid service in Vietnam. The evidence is that he didn't fulfill his National Guard service either. There has been talk about what Bush did when he was transferred to Alabama, supposedly to work on a political campaign. It appears that he drank rather heavily and used his family name to avoid any responsibility. This story is at www.rollingstone.com:
"George had one story he told a lot," Archibald says, "and the story was about how he was always getting picked up by the police in New Haven during his time at Yale, and how they would always let him go when they found out his grandfather was Prescott Bush. When he told this story, George would always laugh as if it was the funniest joke. The first time I heard it, I said, 'Who's Prescott Bush?' And he said, 'My grandfather - the United States senator from Connecticut.' I thought it was stunning. He knew he was bulletproof because of his family. I had never seen someone with such a well-defined sense of being 'above it.' And it was not so much because of his money as his family."
THE TRUTH IS WHAT MATTERS
The right-wing cannonade against Dan Rather and CBS ignores the inconvenient fact that Bush did dodge his National Guard service. The memos may be fraudulent, but the bottom line is that the memos don't matter; the truth does. That's what this letter at www.latimes.com says:
Why are so many obsessed with false memos that tell the truth, instead of our false president who doesn't?
Tammi Hull
Woodinville, Wash.
BUSH GETS AWAY WITH LOW EXPECTATIONS
In the history of the United States presidency we have had some real leaders. I admire men like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, John Kennedy, and Bill Clinton. We've also had some real losers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries we could more easily afford ineptitude. There were no nuclear weapons. There wasn't global climate change. Traveling between continents took some time. In this time of the nanosecond we need exemplary leaders more than ever. Why are we tolerating a man as incompetent as George W. Bush? E. J. Dionne writes about lies and low expectations in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:
There is one good thing about President Bush's new advertisement showing John Kerry windsurfing: Kerry does enjoy windsurfing.
That alone puts the ad on a higher plane of truthfulness than many of the statements the president regularly makes on the campaign trail. A press corps that relentlessly nitpicked Al Gore in 2000 in search of "little lies" and exaggerations has given Bush wide latitude to make things up. I guess the incumbent benefits from the soft bigotry of low expectations.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
ALL THE DEAD IN IRAQ
One of the best blogs on the Internet is Baghdad Burning. This quote found at www.bartcop.com summarizes the enormity of the carnage in Iraq at the hands of our country:
"The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I've attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I've attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic."
--Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, Attribution
LEGAL LOAN SHARKING
In Bush's America some people get away with what is really legal loan sharking. This story is about former child actor Gary Coleman, a company called CashCall, and the enormous interest rates charged on CashCall loans. The story is linked at www.sfgate.com:
Maybe you've seen the commercial. Gary Coleman, the vertically challenged former child star, says he used to be a millionaire but lost his fortune to bad financial advice.
He says he needed money -- fast -- and got it from a company called CashCall.
What the ad doesn't tell viewers is that the interest rate for CashCall loans can run as high as 59 percent, depending on your income and credit history.
THE POOR GET SHAFTED AGAIN
The Bush administration wants to reduce housing subsidies for poor residents of New York City and some urban areas of New England by using a formula that is totally asinine. We have to pay for those tax cuts for the rich somehow, and we have to keep the war going in Iraq so the war profiteers can have a merry old time. This story is from www.nytimes.com:
The Bush administration has proposed reducing the value of subsidized-housing vouchers given to poor residents in New York City next year, with even bigger cuts planned for some urban areas in New England. The proposal is based on a disputed new formula that averages higher rents in big cities with those of suburban areas, which tend to have lower costs.
The proposals could have a "significantly detrimental impact" in some areas by forcing poor families to pay hundreds of extra dollars per month in rent, according to United States Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican. That extra burden could be too much for thousands of tenants, "potentially leaving them homeless," Mr. Shays wrote in a recent letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
ECONOMIC INDICATORS DROP AGAIN
For the third straight month leading economic indicators dropped. Boy, there's a lot of confidence in the Bush economy, isn't there? How can this presidential election even be close? This story is at www.bloomberg.com:
The index of leading U.S. economic indicators fell for a third consecutive month in August, suggesting slower economic growth ahead amid rising crude oil prices, a private group said.
``There is concern about weak consumption and the pace of wage and salary increases,'' said Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, in a statement. ``Consumers worry about their wages and salaries which could limit spending.''
NEOCONSERVATIVE HORROR SHOW
Move over, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft. You can't write any horror stories to compare with what the neoconservative cabal surrounding George W. Bush has visited on the United States and on the world. This commentary is at www.washingtondispatch.com:
"F--- Saddam. We’re taking him out"
The Daily Telegraph reported on September 18 that the above statement, allegedly a direct quotation, was President Bush’s response to suggestions made in early 2002 that any Iraq War would be sowing the wind.
Writers like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts are right to label the adherents of the neoconservative movement as ‘Jacobins’, fanatics for power, spiritual descendants of the upper classes who directed the reign of terror following the French Revolution, willing to damn with a spot of ink, willing to trash the bona fides of those who speak against them. As a recanted and repenting neoconservative, I suppose that makes me a Jacobin too.
One of the best blogs on the Internet is Baghdad Burning. This quote found at www.bartcop.com summarizes the enormity of the carnage in Iraq at the hands of our country:
"The number of Iraqis dead since March 2003 is by now at least eight times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center. They had their last words, and their last thoughts as their worlds came down around them, too. I've attended more wakes and funerals this last year, than I've attended my whole life. The process of mourning and the hollow words of comfort have become much too familiar and automatic."
--Riverbend, Baghdad Burning, Attribution
LEGAL LOAN SHARKING
In Bush's America some people get away with what is really legal loan sharking. This story is about former child actor Gary Coleman, a company called CashCall, and the enormous interest rates charged on CashCall loans. The story is linked at www.sfgate.com:
Maybe you've seen the commercial. Gary Coleman, the vertically challenged former child star, says he used to be a millionaire but lost his fortune to bad financial advice.
He says he needed money -- fast -- and got it from a company called CashCall.
What the ad doesn't tell viewers is that the interest rate for CashCall loans can run as high as 59 percent, depending on your income and credit history.
THE POOR GET SHAFTED AGAIN
The Bush administration wants to reduce housing subsidies for poor residents of New York City and some urban areas of New England by using a formula that is totally asinine. We have to pay for those tax cuts for the rich somehow, and we have to keep the war going in Iraq so the war profiteers can have a merry old time. This story is from www.nytimes.com:
The Bush administration has proposed reducing the value of subsidized-housing vouchers given to poor residents in New York City next year, with even bigger cuts planned for some urban areas in New England. The proposal is based on a disputed new formula that averages higher rents in big cities with those of suburban areas, which tend to have lower costs.
The proposals could have a "significantly detrimental impact" in some areas by forcing poor families to pay hundreds of extra dollars per month in rent, according to United States Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican. That extra burden could be too much for thousands of tenants, "potentially leaving them homeless," Mr. Shays wrote in a recent letter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development
ECONOMIC INDICATORS DROP AGAIN
For the third straight month leading economic indicators dropped. Boy, there's a lot of confidence in the Bush economy, isn't there? How can this presidential election even be close? This story is at www.bloomberg.com:
The index of leading U.S. economic indicators fell for a third consecutive month in August, suggesting slower economic growth ahead amid rising crude oil prices, a private group said.
``There is concern about weak consumption and the pace of wage and salary increases,'' said Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board, in a statement. ``Consumers worry about their wages and salaries which could limit spending.''
NEOCONSERVATIVE HORROR SHOW
Move over, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft. You can't write any horror stories to compare with what the neoconservative cabal surrounding George W. Bush has visited on the United States and on the world. This commentary is at www.washingtondispatch.com:
"F--- Saddam. We’re taking him out"
The Daily Telegraph reported on September 18 that the above statement, allegedly a direct quotation, was President Bush’s response to suggestions made in early 2002 that any Iraq War would be sowing the wind.
Writers like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts are right to label the adherents of the neoconservative movement as ‘Jacobins’, fanatics for power, spiritual descendants of the upper classes who directed the reign of terror following the French Revolution, willing to damn with a spot of ink, willing to trash the bona fides of those who speak against them. As a recanted and repenting neoconservative, I suppose that makes me a Jacobin too.
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
SO MUCH FOR "DEAD OR ALIVE"
In typical cowboy rhetoric George W. Bush proclaimed he would get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Then suddenly bin Laden became inconsequential. In this column Joe Conason talks about how Bush had the opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora and let the fundamentalist killer get away. The column is at www.nyobservor.com:
"Dead or alive."
Those were the three words that came to mind on the evening of Sept. 11, as I looked south from my block at the spectral shafts of light memorializing the lost Twin Towers and the people who died when they fell. That old cliché, which merely sounded callow and theatrical when uttered by George W. Bush, has since taken on deeper significance. In a nation fearful of terror and facing a fateful election, the President’s forgotten vow now stands for terrible mistakes that will continue to endanger us, even if he someday fulfills it.
GLOBAL WARMING CREATES SUPER STORMS
Experts on climate and climate change say global warming will contribute to more monstrous storms such as Hurricane Ivan. Global climate change is an issue that the United States should be taking the lead in, but it's inconvenient to the bottom line of the corporations that support George W. Bush. More blood on Bush's hands. This story is at www.commondreams.org:
Hurricane Ivan, the incredibly powerful storm that killed at least 120 people in the Caribbean and southern United States, may be a harbinger of the Earth's hotter future, say experts.
"As the world warms, we expect more and more intense tropical hurricanes and cyclones," said James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University.
NY TIMES: "PAYING A HEAVY PRICE"
George W. Bush went before the United Nations and, essentially, gave a campaign speech in which he didn't acknowledge all the horrendous mistakes he and his administration have made with Iraq. Bush disdained the world community in invading Iraq and now, when we need allies to help stabilize the situation there, he continues his arrogant disregard of the world community. This editorial at The New York Times talks about the speech. The editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
Mr. Bush has never exhibited much respect for the United Nations at the best of times. But the United States now desperately needs the partnership of other nations on Iraq. Without substantial help from major nations, the prospects for stabilizing that country anytime soon are bleak. American soldiers and taxpayers are paying a heavy price for Washington's wrongheaded early insistence on controlling all important military, political and economic decision-making in post-invasion Iraq.
ASHCROFT HAS NO TERROR CONVICTIONS SINCE 9/11
We got the obscene PATRIOT ACT passed, all kinds of incursions into our privacy, or attempted incursions, all kinds of security hassles at airports, color coded alerts, and all the rest, but so far Attorney General John Ashcroft hasn't secured a single terrorism-related conviction. Nada. Zip. I think that's a clue that we don't need the PATRIOT ACT. This story is at www.talkleft.com:
Law Professor and civil liberties expert David Cole has some astonishing news today. With the collapse of the Detroit terror convictions a few weeks ago, Ashcroft's record is one of zero terrorism convictions since 9/11.
IF YOU FLY, YOU HAVE NO PRIVACY
The federal government has requested from airlines a list of people who flew in June, including what their meal preference was. I would appreciate knowing what relevance meal preference has to terrorism. If you prefer pretzels to peanuts, is that significant? There is a vast difference between legitimate security concerns and this Keystone Kops approach. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
The Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday that it planned to require all airlines to turn over records on every passenger carried domestically in June, so the agency could test a new system to match passenger names against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
The data will vary by airline. It will include each passenger's name, address and telephone number and the flight number. It may also include such information as the names of traveling companions, meal preference, whether the reservation was changed at any point, the method of ticket payment and any comment by airline employees, like whether a passenger was drunk or belligerent in encounters with airline personnel
In typical cowboy rhetoric George W. Bush proclaimed he would get Osama bin Laden "dead or alive." Then suddenly bin Laden became inconsequential. In this column Joe Conason talks about how Bush had the opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden at Tora Bora and let the fundamentalist killer get away. The column is at www.nyobservor.com:
"Dead or alive."
Those were the three words that came to mind on the evening of Sept. 11, as I looked south from my block at the spectral shafts of light memorializing the lost Twin Towers and the people who died when they fell. That old cliché, which merely sounded callow and theatrical when uttered by George W. Bush, has since taken on deeper significance. In a nation fearful of terror and facing a fateful election, the President’s forgotten vow now stands for terrible mistakes that will continue to endanger us, even if he someday fulfills it.
GLOBAL WARMING CREATES SUPER STORMS
Experts on climate and climate change say global warming will contribute to more monstrous storms such as Hurricane Ivan. Global climate change is an issue that the United States should be taking the lead in, but it's inconvenient to the bottom line of the corporations that support George W. Bush. More blood on Bush's hands. This story is at www.commondreams.org:
Hurricane Ivan, the incredibly powerful storm that killed at least 120 people in the Caribbean and southern United States, may be a harbinger of the Earth's hotter future, say experts.
"As the world warms, we expect more and more intense tropical hurricanes and cyclones," said James McCarthy, a professor of biological oceanography at Harvard University.
NY TIMES: "PAYING A HEAVY PRICE"
George W. Bush went before the United Nations and, essentially, gave a campaign speech in which he didn't acknowledge all the horrendous mistakes he and his administration have made with Iraq. Bush disdained the world community in invading Iraq and now, when we need allies to help stabilize the situation there, he continues his arrogant disregard of the world community. This editorial at The New York Times talks about the speech. The editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
Mr. Bush has never exhibited much respect for the United Nations at the best of times. But the United States now desperately needs the partnership of other nations on Iraq. Without substantial help from major nations, the prospects for stabilizing that country anytime soon are bleak. American soldiers and taxpayers are paying a heavy price for Washington's wrongheaded early insistence on controlling all important military, political and economic decision-making in post-invasion Iraq.
ASHCROFT HAS NO TERROR CONVICTIONS SINCE 9/11
We got the obscene PATRIOT ACT passed, all kinds of incursions into our privacy, or attempted incursions, all kinds of security hassles at airports, color coded alerts, and all the rest, but so far Attorney General John Ashcroft hasn't secured a single terrorism-related conviction. Nada. Zip. I think that's a clue that we don't need the PATRIOT ACT. This story is at www.talkleft.com:
Law Professor and civil liberties expert David Cole has some astonishing news today. With the collapse of the Detroit terror convictions a few weeks ago, Ashcroft's record is one of zero terrorism convictions since 9/11.
IF YOU FLY, YOU HAVE NO PRIVACY
The federal government has requested from airlines a list of people who flew in June, including what their meal preference was. I would appreciate knowing what relevance meal preference has to terrorism. If you prefer pretzels to peanuts, is that significant? There is a vast difference between legitimate security concerns and this Keystone Kops approach. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
The Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday that it planned to require all airlines to turn over records on every passenger carried domestically in June, so the agency could test a new system to match passenger names against lists of known or suspected terrorists.
The data will vary by airline. It will include each passenger's name, address and telephone number and the flight number. It may also include such information as the names of traveling companions, meal preference, whether the reservation was changed at any point, the method of ticket payment and any comment by airline employees, like whether a passenger was drunk or belligerent in encounters with airline personnel
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
E. L. DOCTOROW ON BUSH
I respect E. L. Doctorow as a writer and novelist. That's why this commentary on Bush caught my eye. As an aspiring novelist myself, I appreciate the eye of the creative artist looking at one of least creative, venal men in our history. The story is at www.commondreams.org:
But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.
He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.
COLOSSALLY DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY
Central Valley right-wingers just keep topping themselves with stupid rhetoric. In today's Fresno Bee we have a nut job claiming that John Kerry is a threat to freedom of speech. It hasn't been John Kerry who has herded protesters into "free speech" zones, who has people arrested for wearing anti-Bush tee-shirts, who had a lady who lost her son arrested at a Bush rally, and pushed through the onerous PATRIOT ACT. What planet do these people live on? Here's an excerpt at www.fresnobee.com:
If we elect a president such as Sen. Kerry who cares this little about the freedom of speech guaranteed by our First Amendment, we might have something much more serious than his whining to worry about. Our civil liberties could conceivably be threatened.
CBS APOLOGIZES FOR BUSH MEMOS
The CBS memo story alleging that George W. Bush got preferential treatment during his Texas Air National Guard "service" has been the big distraction of the past week or two. CBS staunchly defended the story, but now is retracting. Whether or not the memos are genuine doesn't answer the questions about Mr. Bush's time in the Air National Guard and time he didn't serve. This story is at www.guardian.co.uk:
CBS television issued a humbling apology yesterday for a report on an investigative programme, saying that its story claiming that George Bush had been given special treatment during his stint in the Texas air national guard was deeply flawed and should not have gone on air.
It abruptly changed course after days of expressing confidence in the report on 60 Minutes, which relied heavily on four memos purportedly written by a now dead commander in the guard to show that Mr Bush received special treatment during his military service.
BEWARE A NEW DRAFT
Men and women up to age 35 had better pay attention to this election. They have a lot at stake. The most obvious issue is the talk of reviving the draft so they can be sent off to fight in Bush's unending wars. They should also consider the economy. A Bush economy will not give them the opportunity to get ahead. Even basic survival will be difficult. And if Bush and his cohorts get their way they will eviscerate Social Security and other programs that benefit the poor and middle class. Howard Dean writes about the issue of the draft in this story at www.commondreams.org:
A key issue for young Americans and their families to consider as they prepare to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election is the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if President Bush is re-elected. President Bush should tell us now whether he supports a military draft.
I respect E. L. Doctorow as a writer and novelist. That's why this commentary on Bush caught my eye. As an aspiring novelist myself, I appreciate the eye of the creative artist looking at one of least creative, venal men in our history. The story is at www.commondreams.org:
But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man.
He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.
COLOSSALLY DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY
Central Valley right-wingers just keep topping themselves with stupid rhetoric. In today's Fresno Bee we have a nut job claiming that John Kerry is a threat to freedom of speech. It hasn't been John Kerry who has herded protesters into "free speech" zones, who has people arrested for wearing anti-Bush tee-shirts, who had a lady who lost her son arrested at a Bush rally, and pushed through the onerous PATRIOT ACT. What planet do these people live on? Here's an excerpt at www.fresnobee.com:
If we elect a president such as Sen. Kerry who cares this little about the freedom of speech guaranteed by our First Amendment, we might have something much more serious than his whining to worry about. Our civil liberties could conceivably be threatened.
CBS APOLOGIZES FOR BUSH MEMOS
The CBS memo story alleging that George W. Bush got preferential treatment during his Texas Air National Guard "service" has been the big distraction of the past week or two. CBS staunchly defended the story, but now is retracting. Whether or not the memos are genuine doesn't answer the questions about Mr. Bush's time in the Air National Guard and time he didn't serve. This story is at www.guardian.co.uk:
CBS television issued a humbling apology yesterday for a report on an investigative programme, saying that its story claiming that George Bush had been given special treatment during his stint in the Texas air national guard was deeply flawed and should not have gone on air.
It abruptly changed course after days of expressing confidence in the report on 60 Minutes, which relied heavily on four memos purportedly written by a now dead commander in the guard to show that Mr Bush received special treatment during his military service.
BEWARE A NEW DRAFT
Men and women up to age 35 had better pay attention to this election. They have a lot at stake. The most obvious issue is the talk of reviving the draft so they can be sent off to fight in Bush's unending wars. They should also consider the economy. A Bush economy will not give them the opportunity to get ahead. Even basic survival will be difficult. And if Bush and his cohorts get their way they will eviscerate Social Security and other programs that benefit the poor and middle class. Howard Dean writes about the issue of the draft in this story at www.commondreams.org:
A key issue for young Americans and their families to consider as they prepare to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election is the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if President Bush is re-elected. President Bush should tell us now whether he supports a military draft.
Monday, September 20, 2004
"MANLY MEN" DON'T SUPPORT BUSH
I liked this essay at counterpunch.org. The writer makes a point of how many "macho" men support Bush, but Bush has never behaved like much of a real man his whole life. He was a cheerleader, not a athlete, he was a lousy businessman, he dodged real military service, and he's only too glad to let other men do his killing and dirty work for him. The essay is at www.counterpunch.org:
Being a pom-pom boy for Bush is easy, especially when all the other boys are doing it. On the other hand, citizenship is hard work. Protecting our Constitution requires vigilance. Standing up for America takes guts, especially against cowardly bullies who gang up and claim our flag as their own, jail people based on mere suspicion, and denounce anyone who disagrees as a "traitor."
Do Manly Men have the guts to look past the rhetoric of their Cheerleader-in-Chief, and judge him on his actions?
NEW SEYMOUR HERSH EXPOSE ABOUT BUSH'S WAR
Back in the Vietnam era Seymour Hersh broke the story of the atrocities committed by American troops at My Lai. He has had an a largely distinguished career as an investigative journalist, and deserves much credit for helping to expose the torture at Abu Ghraib. He has a new book about the side of Bush's war in Iraq that the mainstream media doesn't talk much about. This story is at www.salon.com:
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Seymour Hersh has written more than two dozen stories for the New Yorker magazine on the secret machinations of the Bush administration in what the White House calls the "war on terrorism." His revelations, including an investigation of a group of neoconservatives at the Pentagon who set up their own special intelligence unit to press the case for invading Iraq, have consistently broken news.
Arguably his most important scoop came last spring, when the legendary investigative reporter received the now infamous photos of prisoner abuse by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, as well as the explosive report on the abuse by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. The story Hersh published in the New Yorker, followed by a report by CBS's "60 Minutes," created an international scandal for the Bush administration and led to congressional hearings.
FAT HASTERT SLIMES KERRY
Dennis Hastert, the fat Republican Speaker of the House, slid into the gutter by suggesting al-Qaeda wanted a Kerry victory in November. Am I being intemperate in insulting Hastert? Not really when you consider how irresponsible and slanderous this statement was. John Edwards responded, but far more diplomatically than Hastert deserves. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert of stooping ``to the politics of fear'' when he said al-Qaida terrorists may launch another terrorist attack to swing the Nov. 2 election in Democrat John Kerry's favor.
Hastert's comments, at a fund-raiser Saturday night in his home state of Illinois, were reminiscent of recent remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney that Edwards has called ``un-American.''
Cheney, campaigning for President Bush's re-election, recently told supporters that there is a danger terrorists will strike again ``if we make the wrong choice'' and that the response will be inadequate. He clarified the remarks in an interview two days later.
DO NOT FORGET THE SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ
While Fat Denny Hastert and other scumbags of the Republican party act all macho don't forget the American soldiers who have died pointlessly in Bush's war in Iraq. Don't forget the American soldiers who have been maimed for life because of Bush. Don't forget the countless Iraqi civilians dead or scarred for life because of Bush's war. Read this piece by Jimmy Breslin linked at www.commondreams.org:
The names are an indictment of a government that put them into Iraq on a cold premeditated lie. The dead American servicemen of just the last several days - maybe you ought to get the number from information and give them a call to let them know that people love them:
BUSH IS TO BLAME FOR THE IRAQ MESS
The Bush administration has made it a habit to blame problems on everyone else. The economy is in bad shape because they "inherited" a recession and because of the attacks on 9/11. The military is now stretched too thin because President Clinton reduced the size of the military in the 1990s. Health care costs are spiraling out of control because of, you know, those lawyers who file lawsuits. Harley Sorensen talks about how Bush's lying hasn't even stopped with the troops he has put in harm's way. The column is at www.sfgate.com:
Bush wasn't ordered to take us to war. He had a choice. He chose war. It's his war. He alone has the responsibility for what has become of Iraq. He has the blood of 1,025 American troops on his hands. He swims in the blood of countless Iraqis.
It was his action that ended with the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure. It was his action that turned scores of blinded-with-anger anti-American terrorists into armies of terrorists.
NEOCONSERVATIVES AND LEO STRAUSS
I haven't heard of Leo Strauss before this, but he sounds like another Karl Rove type. He's popular with neoconservatives, so it's best we educate ourselves about him. This story is also at makethemaccountable.com:
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done - people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect…
BLOGS AREN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM
As a member of the blogosphere, I want to say up front that I'm just a working person, not affiliated with the Democratic party. But that's not always the case with blogs. A new blog launched in the wake of the CBS memo story is rathergate.com. It seems the "blogger" is a Republican operative, not your average Joe Six-Pack. This story is once again at makethemaccountable.com:
Hundreds of thousands of readers know him simply as "Mike," the creator of rathergate.com, an Internet blog spearheading a petition drive demanding the resignation of CBS News anchor Dan Rather because of his alleged liberal biases.
But what the visitors to his blog did not know when he launched it early last week was that "Mike" is Mike Krempasky, a 29-year-old Republican political operative from suburban Washington, D.C., a detail some might have found relevant…
THAT DISTINCTIVE SMIRK
Defenders of George W. Bush like to claim he's an honest, decent, Christian man who is plain-spoken and honest and decisive. But sometimes body language says more than verbal expressions. This article from www.counterpunch.org looks at Bush's most distinctive expression, that condescending smirk. The story is at www.counterpunch.org:
By the smirk, ye shall know him. It is Bush's identifying mark. The cruel sneer fissures across his face at the oddest moments, like an execution or a spike in the deficit or the news of a light-stick being rammed up the anus of an Iraqi prisoner. It hints at this own sense of inviolateness, like the illicit grin of some 70s porn star--which may not be so far off target if even half of what Kitty Kelley dishes in her delicious book The Family about Bush's peregrinations turns out to be true.
EVEN REPUBS QUESTION IRAQ POLICY
There is clearly unease among some Republican members of Congress about the Bush administration policy in Iraq. Members of Congress know the gory details most of the American public is either oblivious to, or not informed about. This story is at www.reuters.com:
Leading members of President Bush's Republican Party on Sunday criticized mistakes and "incompetence" in his Iraq policy and called for an urgent ground offensive to retake insurgent sanctuaries.
In appearances on news talk shows, Republican senators also urged Bush to be more open with the American public after the disclosure of a classified CIA report that gave a gloomy outlook for Iraq and raised the possibility of civil war.
"The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq ... and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
THE ENERGIZER LIAR
You've seen the commercials for the Energizer Bunny that just "keeps going and going." George W. Bush is the Energizer Liar. He just keeps lying and lying.
I liked this essay at counterpunch.org. The writer makes a point of how many "macho" men support Bush, but Bush has never behaved like much of a real man his whole life. He was a cheerleader, not a athlete, he was a lousy businessman, he dodged real military service, and he's only too glad to let other men do his killing and dirty work for him. The essay is at www.counterpunch.org:
Being a pom-pom boy for Bush is easy, especially when all the other boys are doing it. On the other hand, citizenship is hard work. Protecting our Constitution requires vigilance. Standing up for America takes guts, especially against cowardly bullies who gang up and claim our flag as their own, jail people based on mere suspicion, and denounce anyone who disagrees as a "traitor."
Do Manly Men have the guts to look past the rhetoric of their Cheerleader-in-Chief, and judge him on his actions?
NEW SEYMOUR HERSH EXPOSE ABOUT BUSH'S WAR
Back in the Vietnam era Seymour Hersh broke the story of the atrocities committed by American troops at My Lai. He has had an a largely distinguished career as an investigative journalist, and deserves much credit for helping to expose the torture at Abu Ghraib. He has a new book about the side of Bush's war in Iraq that the mainstream media doesn't talk much about. This story is at www.salon.com:
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Seymour Hersh has written more than two dozen stories for the New Yorker magazine on the secret machinations of the Bush administration in what the White House calls the "war on terrorism." His revelations, including an investigation of a group of neoconservatives at the Pentagon who set up their own special intelligence unit to press the case for invading Iraq, have consistently broken news.
Arguably his most important scoop came last spring, when the legendary investigative reporter received the now infamous photos of prisoner abuse by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, Iraq, as well as the explosive report on the abuse by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba. The story Hersh published in the New Yorker, followed by a report by CBS's "60 Minutes," created an international scandal for the Bush administration and led to congressional hearings.
FAT HASTERT SLIMES KERRY
Dennis Hastert, the fat Republican Speaker of the House, slid into the gutter by suggesting al-Qaeda wanted a Kerry victory in November. Am I being intemperate in insulting Hastert? Not really when you consider how irresponsible and slanderous this statement was. John Edwards responded, but far more diplomatically than Hastert deserves. This story is at www.nytimes.com:
Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards on Sunday accused House Speaker Dennis Hastert of stooping ``to the politics of fear'' when he said al-Qaida terrorists may launch another terrorist attack to swing the Nov. 2 election in Democrat John Kerry's favor.
Hastert's comments, at a fund-raiser Saturday night in his home state of Illinois, were reminiscent of recent remarks by Vice President Dick Cheney that Edwards has called ``un-American.''
Cheney, campaigning for President Bush's re-election, recently told supporters that there is a danger terrorists will strike again ``if we make the wrong choice'' and that the response will be inadequate. He clarified the remarks in an interview two days later.
DO NOT FORGET THE SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ
While Fat Denny Hastert and other scumbags of the Republican party act all macho don't forget the American soldiers who have died pointlessly in Bush's war in Iraq. Don't forget the American soldiers who have been maimed for life because of Bush. Don't forget the countless Iraqi civilians dead or scarred for life because of Bush's war. Read this piece by Jimmy Breslin linked at www.commondreams.org:
The names are an indictment of a government that put them into Iraq on a cold premeditated lie. The dead American servicemen of just the last several days - maybe you ought to get the number from information and give them a call to let them know that people love them:
BUSH IS TO BLAME FOR THE IRAQ MESS
The Bush administration has made it a habit to blame problems on everyone else. The economy is in bad shape because they "inherited" a recession and because of the attacks on 9/11. The military is now stretched too thin because President Clinton reduced the size of the military in the 1990s. Health care costs are spiraling out of control because of, you know, those lawyers who file lawsuits. Harley Sorensen talks about how Bush's lying hasn't even stopped with the troops he has put in harm's way. The column is at www.sfgate.com:
Bush wasn't ordered to take us to war. He had a choice. He chose war. It's his war. He alone has the responsibility for what has become of Iraq. He has the blood of 1,025 American troops on his hands. He swims in the blood of countless Iraqis.
It was his action that ended with the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure. It was his action that turned scores of blinded-with-anger anti-American terrorists into armies of terrorists.
NEOCONSERVATIVES AND LEO STRAUSS
I haven't heard of Leo Strauss before this, but he sounds like another Karl Rove type. He's popular with neoconservatives, so it's best we educate ourselves about him. This story is also at makethemaccountable.com:
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done - people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect…
BLOGS AREN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM
As a member of the blogosphere, I want to say up front that I'm just a working person, not affiliated with the Democratic party. But that's not always the case with blogs. A new blog launched in the wake of the CBS memo story is rathergate.com. It seems the "blogger" is a Republican operative, not your average Joe Six-Pack. This story is once again at makethemaccountable.com:
Hundreds of thousands of readers know him simply as "Mike," the creator of rathergate.com, an Internet blog spearheading a petition drive demanding the resignation of CBS News anchor Dan Rather because of his alleged liberal biases.
But what the visitors to his blog did not know when he launched it early last week was that "Mike" is Mike Krempasky, a 29-year-old Republican political operative from suburban Washington, D.C., a detail some might have found relevant…
THAT DISTINCTIVE SMIRK
Defenders of George W. Bush like to claim he's an honest, decent, Christian man who is plain-spoken and honest and decisive. But sometimes body language says more than verbal expressions. This article from www.counterpunch.org looks at Bush's most distinctive expression, that condescending smirk. The story is at www.counterpunch.org:
By the smirk, ye shall know him. It is Bush's identifying mark. The cruel sneer fissures across his face at the oddest moments, like an execution or a spike in the deficit or the news of a light-stick being rammed up the anus of an Iraqi prisoner. It hints at this own sense of inviolateness, like the illicit grin of some 70s porn star--which may not be so far off target if even half of what Kitty Kelley dishes in her delicious book The Family about Bush's peregrinations turns out to be true.
EVEN REPUBS QUESTION IRAQ POLICY
There is clearly unease among some Republican members of Congress about the Bush administration policy in Iraq. Members of Congress know the gory details most of the American public is either oblivious to, or not informed about. This story is at www.reuters.com:
Leading members of President Bush's Republican Party on Sunday criticized mistakes and "incompetence" in his Iraq policy and called for an urgent ground offensive to retake insurgent sanctuaries.
In appearances on news talk shows, Republican senators also urged Bush to be more open with the American public after the disclosure of a classified CIA report that gave a gloomy outlook for Iraq and raised the possibility of civil war.
"The fact is, we're in deep trouble in Iraq ... and I think we're going to have to look at some recalibration of policy," Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska said on CBS's "Face the Nation."
THE ENERGIZER LIAR
You've seen the commercials for the Energizer Bunny that just "keeps going and going." George W. Bush is the Energizer Liar. He just keeps lying and lying.
Sunday, September 19, 2004
THROW DOWN YOUR BOOKMARK AND PUT YOUR HANDS UP
In the kind of paranoia and stupidity we've seen in the Bush administration bookmarks are now considered concealed weapons. What's next, toothpicks? This story is at www.local6.com:
A weight may soon be lifted off a Maryland woman charged with carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.
It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.
Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It's an 8.5-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.
MAKING REPUBLICAN LITTLE GIRLS CRY
If you wanted to believe the mainstream media, some Kerry supporters took a sign for Bush-Cheney from a little girl, ripped the sign apart, and made the little girl cry. How craven of them, you say. But the truth is something else. This story is at www.truthout.org:
Meet Phil Parlock. Parlock is a family man and a staunch Republican. Parlock has a very sad story to tell about how rotten Kerry supporters are. You see, they made his little girl cry.
Terrible, right? A sign that our national politics have descended into these kind of brutish tactics, right? An embarrassing incident for the Kerry campaign, right? The media certainly thinks so, and has dutifully reported on the incident.
For the third time.
RIGHT-WING ACTIVIST CAST DOUBT ON CBS DOCUMENTS
This story reminds you a little of the 2000 presidential election when we found out about hanging chads, dimpled chads, butterfly ballots, and other arcane matters. When CBS did its story about documents showing George W. Bush dodged his National Guard service we suddenly got analyses saying the documents were forgeries because of proportional spacing, superscripts, and other things that supposedly didn't exist on typewriters back then. Meet "Buckhead," right-wing activist, the guy who started the font controversy rolling. This story is at www.latimes.com:
It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service - a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.
But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.
BLAIR WARNED A YEAR IN ADVANCE OF IRAQ CHAOS
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned at least a year in advance that another war in Iraq would result in chaos, according to secret papers just released. You have to believe that George W. Bush received similar warnings. This story is at www.commondreams.org:
Tony Blair was warned a year before invading Iraq that a stable post-war government would be impossible without keeping large numbers of troops there for "many years", secret government papers reveal.
The documents, seen by The Telegraph, show more clearly than ever the grave reservations expressed by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, over the consequences of a second Gulf war and how prescient his Foreign Office officials were in predicting the ensuing chaos.
THE GROPER IS NO FRIEND TO WORKERS
Arnold "the Groper" Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have raised the puny minimum wage in California to $7.75 an hour. Arnold proves once again that you can call a Republican a moderate, but the bottom line is that they don't ever do anything to help working people. This story is from the Associated Press:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed bills Saturday that would have raised the minimum wage to $7.75 an hour, made Wal-Mart-like megastores more difficult to build and limited schools' ability to give students random drug tests.
WHY AREN'T THE BUSH TWINS IN IRAQ?
If George W. Bush and other right-wing politicians are such true blue believers that Iraq is a just war, why aren't their kids serving? There's a memorable scene in "Fahrenheit 9/11" where Michael Moore buttonholes several Congressmen to ask them that same question. Maureen Dowd talks about this issue in her column at www.nytimes.com:
Mrs. Niederer tried to shout while the first lady was delivering her standard ode to her husband's efforts to fight terrorism. She wanted to know why the Bush twins weren't serving in Iraq "if it's such a justified war," as she put it afterward. The Record of Hackensack, N.J., reported that the mother of the dead soldier was boxed in by Bush supporters yelling "Four more years!" and wielding "Bush/Cheney" signs. Though she eventually left voluntarily, she was charged with trespassing while talking to reporters.
NEW YORK TIMES CALLS BUSH A LIAR
Even though the editorial writer(s) at The New York Times don't come out and use the word "liar," that's what this lead paragraph of their editorial means. The evidence is clear and overwhelming that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction, not human rights violations, nor giving Iraq democracy, were the reason of this war. This editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
For months, President Bush has been playing down the findings of David Kay, the first American arms inspector, who debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein had possessed a hoard of weapons of mass destruction ready to use at any moment. He urged Americans to wait for the verdict of Mr. Kay's successor, Charles Duelfer. That verdict is now at hand, and it only strengthens the case against Mr. Bush's main reason for waging preventive war against Iraq. Iraq was not an imminent or urgent threat, and Mr. Duelfer's report undermines the idea that it was even a "gathering threat," as Mr. Bush now routinely describes it. It more likely was a diminished power, hit hard by two wars and a decade of sanctions, that may have still harbored ambitions to develop new weaponry if the opportunity arose.
In the kind of paranoia and stupidity we've seen in the Bush administration bookmarks are now considered concealed weapons. What's next, toothpicks? This story is at www.local6.com:
A weight may soon be lifted off a Maryland woman charged with carrying a concealed weapon in an airport.
It wasn't a gun or a knife. It was a weighted bookmark.
Kathryn Harrington was flying home from vacation last month when screeners at the Tampa, Fla., airport found her bookmark. It's an 8.5-inch leather strip with small lead weights at each end.
MAKING REPUBLICAN LITTLE GIRLS CRY
If you wanted to believe the mainstream media, some Kerry supporters took a sign for Bush-Cheney from a little girl, ripped the sign apart, and made the little girl cry. How craven of them, you say. But the truth is something else. This story is at www.truthout.org:
Meet Phil Parlock. Parlock is a family man and a staunch Republican. Parlock has a very sad story to tell about how rotten Kerry supporters are. You see, they made his little girl cry.
Terrible, right? A sign that our national politics have descended into these kind of brutish tactics, right? An embarrassing incident for the Kerry campaign, right? The media certainly thinks so, and has dutifully reported on the incident.
For the third time.
RIGHT-WING ACTIVIST CAST DOUBT ON CBS DOCUMENTS
This story reminds you a little of the 2000 presidential election when we found out about hanging chads, dimpled chads, butterfly ballots, and other arcane matters. When CBS did its story about documents showing George W. Bush dodged his National Guard service we suddenly got analyses saying the documents were forgeries because of proportional spacing, superscripts, and other things that supposedly didn't exist on typewriters back then. Meet "Buckhead," right-wing activist, the guy who started the font controversy rolling. This story is at www.latimes.com:
It was the first public allegation that CBS News used forged memos in its report questioning President Bush's National Guard service - a highly technical explanation posted within hours of airtime citing proportional spacing and font styles.
But it did not come from an expert in typography or typewriter history as some first thought. Instead, it was the work of Harry W. MacDougald, an Atlanta lawyer with strong ties to conservative Republican causes who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Times has found.
BLAIR WARNED A YEAR IN ADVANCE OF IRAQ CHAOS
British Prime Minister Tony Blair was warned at least a year in advance that another war in Iraq would result in chaos, according to secret papers just released. You have to believe that George W. Bush received similar warnings. This story is at www.commondreams.org:
Tony Blair was warned a year before invading Iraq that a stable post-war government would be impossible without keeping large numbers of troops there for "many years", secret government papers reveal.
The documents, seen by The Telegraph, show more clearly than ever the grave reservations expressed by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, over the consequences of a second Gulf war and how prescient his Foreign Office officials were in predicting the ensuing chaos.
THE GROPER IS NO FRIEND TO WORKERS
Arnold "the Groper" Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have raised the puny minimum wage in California to $7.75 an hour. Arnold proves once again that you can call a Republican a moderate, but the bottom line is that they don't ever do anything to help working people. This story is from the Associated Press:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed bills Saturday that would have raised the minimum wage to $7.75 an hour, made Wal-Mart-like megastores more difficult to build and limited schools' ability to give students random drug tests.
WHY AREN'T THE BUSH TWINS IN IRAQ?
If George W. Bush and other right-wing politicians are such true blue believers that Iraq is a just war, why aren't their kids serving? There's a memorable scene in "Fahrenheit 9/11" where Michael Moore buttonholes several Congressmen to ask them that same question. Maureen Dowd talks about this issue in her column at www.nytimes.com:
Mrs. Niederer tried to shout while the first lady was delivering her standard ode to her husband's efforts to fight terrorism. She wanted to know why the Bush twins weren't serving in Iraq "if it's such a justified war," as she put it afterward. The Record of Hackensack, N.J., reported that the mother of the dead soldier was boxed in by Bush supporters yelling "Four more years!" and wielding "Bush/Cheney" signs. Though she eventually left voluntarily, she was charged with trespassing while talking to reporters.
NEW YORK TIMES CALLS BUSH A LIAR
Even though the editorial writer(s) at The New York Times don't come out and use the word "liar," that's what this lead paragraph of their editorial means. The evidence is clear and overwhelming that George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction, not human rights violations, nor giving Iraq democracy, were the reason of this war. This editorial is at www.nytimes.com:
For months, President Bush has been playing down the findings of David Kay, the first American arms inspector, who debunked the claim that Saddam Hussein had possessed a hoard of weapons of mass destruction ready to use at any moment. He urged Americans to wait for the verdict of Mr. Kay's successor, Charles Duelfer. That verdict is now at hand, and it only strengthens the case against Mr. Bush's main reason for waging preventive war against Iraq. Iraq was not an imminent or urgent threat, and Mr. Duelfer's report undermines the idea that it was even a "gathering threat," as Mr. Bush now routinely describes it. It more likely was a diminished power, hit hard by two wars and a decade of sanctions, that may have still harbored ambitions to develop new weaponry if the opportunity arose.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
BEE DUMB LETTER OF THE DAY
Did you know that Bill Clinton was responsible for God loosing Noah's flood on the world? Or that Clinton was the reason God unleashed the plagues on Egypt? That's not true, of course, but some day I expect some right-wing yahoo to make those charges. Today's gem in The Fresno Bee claims that President Clinton is responsible for the political polarization in the country today. The writer claims it all started with Bill Clinton and his "disgraceful conduct." Excuse me. It seems to me that Ken Starr and the Republican witch hunters were the primary culprits of the polarization in the nineties. If you go back to the 1988 presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis remember the racism injected into the campaign by the Bushies. Remember how they've tried to demonize liberals. Remember how this current administration has claimed that you're disloyal to the country if you don't support its policies. Here's an excerpt from this dumb letter found at www.fresnobee.com:
So the real question is, just when did this political polarization actually begin in our county? If we are to honestly look at it, it was during the Clinton administration. His dishonesty, disgraceful behavior and his flaunting of the laws of our land so enraged so many Americans that it was exactly during this time that people became so polarized. Maybe Mr. Simon should take a look at that. This backlash on our president now is due to the bitterness of Clinton supporters and it's simply sour grapes.
GOP INSULTS INTELLIGENCE OF WEST VIRGINIA
A GOP mailer sent to voters in West Virginia claims that a Kerry victory in November will result in the Bible being banned and--heaven forbid--men allowed to marry men! Oh, the horror! Is there any level these Republican thugs won't sink to? I'm a liberal, I don't believe in the Bible, but I don't advocate banning it. And I still fail to see why gay marriage is such a threat. I don't think the GOP leadership thinks it's a threat either, but they'll cynically play on the fears and superstitions of people to get their guy elected. This story is at news.yahoo.com:
Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.
The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."
THE "MARKET" PHILOSOPHY DESTROYING OUR HUMANITY
The Social Darwinist ideas of the "free market" advocates are raining havoc and grief on the world, including destroying our very humanity. Everything is about competition and individualism and selfishness. This essay is at www.guardian.co.uk:
Second, there has been the relentless spread of the market into every part of society. The marketisation of everything has made society, and each of us, more competitive. The logic of the market has now become universal, the ideology not just of neoliberals, but of us all, the criterion we use not just about our job or when shopping, but about our innermost selves, and our most intimate relationships. The prophets who announced the market revolution saw it in contestation with the state: in fact, it proved far more insidious than that, eroding the very notion of what it means to be human. The credo of self, inextricably entwined with the gospel of the market, has hijacked the fabric of our lives. We live in an ego-market society.
Did you know that Bill Clinton was responsible for God loosing Noah's flood on the world? Or that Clinton was the reason God unleashed the plagues on Egypt? That's not true, of course, but some day I expect some right-wing yahoo to make those charges. Today's gem in The Fresno Bee claims that President Clinton is responsible for the political polarization in the country today. The writer claims it all started with Bill Clinton and his "disgraceful conduct." Excuse me. It seems to me that Ken Starr and the Republican witch hunters were the primary culprits of the polarization in the nineties. If you go back to the 1988 presidential campaign of George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis remember the racism injected into the campaign by the Bushies. Remember how they've tried to demonize liberals. Remember how this current administration has claimed that you're disloyal to the country if you don't support its policies. Here's an excerpt from this dumb letter found at www.fresnobee.com:
So the real question is, just when did this political polarization actually begin in our county? If we are to honestly look at it, it was during the Clinton administration. His dishonesty, disgraceful behavior and his flaunting of the laws of our land so enraged so many Americans that it was exactly during this time that people became so polarized. Maybe Mr. Simon should take a look at that. This backlash on our president now is due to the bitterness of Clinton supporters and it's simply sour grapes.
GOP INSULTS INTELLIGENCE OF WEST VIRGINIA
A GOP mailer sent to voters in West Virginia claims that a Kerry victory in November will result in the Bible being banned and--heaven forbid--men allowed to marry men! Oh, the horror! Is there any level these Republican thugs won't sink to? I'm a liberal, I don't believe in the Bible, but I don't advocate banning it. And I still fail to see why gay marriage is such a threat. I don't think the GOP leadership thinks it's a threat either, but they'll cynically play on the fears and superstitions of people to get their guy elected. This story is at news.yahoo.com:
Campaign mail with a return address of the Republican National Committee warns West Virginia voters that the Bible will be prohibited and men will marry men if liberals win in November.
The literature shows a Bible with the word "BANNED" across it and a photo of a man, on his knees, placing a ring on the hand of another man with the word "ALLOWED." The mailing tells West Virginians to "vote Republican to protect our families" and defeat the "liberal agenda."
THE "MARKET" PHILOSOPHY DESTROYING OUR HUMANITY
The Social Darwinist ideas of the "free market" advocates are raining havoc and grief on the world, including destroying our very humanity. Everything is about competition and individualism and selfishness. This essay is at www.guardian.co.uk:
Second, there has been the relentless spread of the market into every part of society. The marketisation of everything has made society, and each of us, more competitive. The logic of the market has now become universal, the ideology not just of neoliberals, but of us all, the criterion we use not just about our job or when shopping, but about our innermost selves, and our most intimate relationships. The prophets who announced the market revolution saw it in contestation with the state: in fact, it proved far more insidious than that, eroding the very notion of what it means to be human. The credo of self, inextricably entwined with the gospel of the market, has hijacked the fabric of our lives. We live in an ego-market society.
Friday, September 17, 2004
A VISIT TO ARLINGTON
Bob Herbert, The New York Times columnist, talks about a visit to Arlington cemetery, the rows and rows of simple white markers, and the deeper meaning of those markers. Some people have objected that so much of the current presidential campaign keeps going back to Vietnam. Vietnam should have been a major lesson for this country. But the lesson eluded George W. Bush and the hawks in his administration who have frivilously wasted lives in their absurd "war on terror." This column is at www.nytimes.com:
Richard VandeGeer was not the last American serviceman to die in the Vietnam War, but he was close enough. He was part of the last group of Americans killed, and his name was the last of the more than 58,000 to be listed on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. As I stood at his grave, I couldn't help but wonder how long it will take us to get to the last American combat death in Iraq.
MORE BUSH COMPASSION
As much as I hate this war in Iraq, I can't imagine the grief people feel when they have lost loved ones there. It's some consolation if your loved one dies for some purpose, but this war is a crime against all of us. This story at The Toronto Star talks about a woman whose son died in Iraq. She disrupted a speech by Laura "Pickles" Bush and was led away in handcuffs. It should be Laura, her hubby, and his rotten administration that gets led away in handcuffs. This story is linked at www.buzzflash.com:
A woman wearing a T-shirt with the words ``President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of a soldier killed in Iraq was detained Thursday after she interrupted a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush.
Police escorted Sue Niederer of Hopewell, N.J., from a rally at a firehall after she demanded to know why her son, 1st Lieut. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed in Iraq. Dvorin died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.
A READER'S GUIDE TO KITTY KELLEY
Kitty Kelley's new book about the Bushes called The Family is getting some attention and casting a critical eye at the Bush Crime Family. Slate.com has a "reader's guide" to what they say are the best parts of the book. The guide can be found at www.slate.com:
Want the best (if somewhat dubious) dish from The Family, Kitty Kelley's new treatise on the Bush clan? Follow Slate's reading guide straight to the good parts.
Academic Honors
Page 252: George H.W. Bush comes to the rescue when his sons run afoul of Andover honor codes. Jeb violates the school's alcohol ban, but he's allowed to finish his degree after his father intervenes. Years later, Kelley writes, school officials catch W.'s younger brother Marvin with drugs, but dad talks them out of expulsion and secures for his son an "honorary transfer" to another school.
Bob Herbert, The New York Times columnist, talks about a visit to Arlington cemetery, the rows and rows of simple white markers, and the deeper meaning of those markers. Some people have objected that so much of the current presidential campaign keeps going back to Vietnam. Vietnam should have been a major lesson for this country. But the lesson eluded George W. Bush and the hawks in his administration who have frivilously wasted lives in their absurd "war on terror." This column is at www.nytimes.com:
Richard VandeGeer was not the last American serviceman to die in the Vietnam War, but he was close enough. He was part of the last group of Americans killed, and his name was the last of the more than 58,000 to be listed on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. As I stood at his grave, I couldn't help but wonder how long it will take us to get to the last American combat death in Iraq.
MORE BUSH COMPASSION
As much as I hate this war in Iraq, I can't imagine the grief people feel when they have lost loved ones there. It's some consolation if your loved one dies for some purpose, but this war is a crime against all of us. This story at The Toronto Star talks about a woman whose son died in Iraq. She disrupted a speech by Laura "Pickles" Bush and was led away in handcuffs. It should be Laura, her hubby, and his rotten administration that gets led away in handcuffs. This story is linked at www.buzzflash.com:
A woman wearing a T-shirt with the words ``President Bush You Killed My Son" and a picture of a soldier killed in Iraq was detained Thursday after she interrupted a campaign speech by first lady Laura Bush.
Police escorted Sue Niederer of Hopewell, N.J., from a rally at a firehall after she demanded to know why her son, 1st Lieut. Seth Dvorin, 24, was killed in Iraq. Dvorin died in February while trying to disarm a bomb.
A READER'S GUIDE TO KITTY KELLEY
Kitty Kelley's new book about the Bushes called The Family is getting some attention and casting a critical eye at the Bush Crime Family. Slate.com has a "reader's guide" to what they say are the best parts of the book. The guide can be found at www.slate.com:
Want the best (if somewhat dubious) dish from The Family, Kitty Kelley's new treatise on the Bush clan? Follow Slate's reading guide straight to the good parts.
Academic Honors
Page 252: George H.W. Bush comes to the rescue when his sons run afoul of Andover honor codes. Jeb violates the school's alcohol ban, but he's allowed to finish his degree after his father intervenes. Years later, Kelley writes, school officials catch W.'s younger brother Marvin with drugs, but dad talks them out of expulsion and secures for his son an "honorary transfer" to another school.
Thursday, September 16, 2004
FUTURE FOR IRAQ NOT ROSY
A National Intelligence Estimate prepared for George W. Bush doesn't hold out many rosy scenarios for Iraq. I bet Bush won't be talking about this out on the campaign hustings. The story is at www.nytimes.com:
A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday.
The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.
REPUBS HAVE SOME VERY STRANGE PRIORITIES
The flap over memos that CBS used as its source to say Bush dodged his National Guard service has prompted some Congressional Republicans to call for investigations. Say what? As Maureen Dowd points out, they haven't taken such umbrage over lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But we must have our priorities, mustn't we? The column is at www.nytmes.com:
House Republicans started clamoring for a Congressional inquiry into the documents used by "60 Minutes,'' saying it might be an attempt to manipulate the election. (Isn't that what the Democrats are scared the Republicans are doing?)
These same Republicans never wanted investigations into missing W.M.D., why Congress passed a Medicare bill based on faulty figures, Abu Ghraib or even whether those Swiftie guys were lying, for Pete's sake.
FORMER PROFESSOR SAYS BUSH NOT COMPETENT
A former professor of George W. Bush at Harvard doesn't have fond memories of Shrub. He says the reason Bush stood out in his memory was for all the wrong reasons. The story is at www.salon.com:
"I don't remember all the students in detail unless I'm prompted by something," Tsurumi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But I always remember two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a professor you feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values, compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you never forget. And then you remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite."
A National Intelligence Estimate prepared for George W. Bush doesn't hold out many rosy scenarios for Iraq. I bet Bush won't be talking about this out on the campaign hustings. The story is at www.nytimes.com:
A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday.
The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.
REPUBS HAVE SOME VERY STRANGE PRIORITIES
The flap over memos that CBS used as its source to say Bush dodged his National Guard service has prompted some Congressional Republicans to call for investigations. Say what? As Maureen Dowd points out, they haven't taken such umbrage over lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But we must have our priorities, mustn't we? The column is at www.nytmes.com:
House Republicans started clamoring for a Congressional inquiry into the documents used by "60 Minutes,'' saying it might be an attempt to manipulate the election. (Isn't that what the Democrats are scared the Republicans are doing?)
These same Republicans never wanted investigations into missing W.M.D., why Congress passed a Medicare bill based on faulty figures, Abu Ghraib or even whether those Swiftie guys were lying, for Pete's sake.
FORMER PROFESSOR SAYS BUSH NOT COMPETENT
A former professor of George W. Bush at Harvard doesn't have fond memories of Shrub. He says the reason Bush stood out in his memory was for all the wrong reasons. The story is at www.salon.com:
"I don't remember all the students in detail unless I'm prompted by something," Tsurumi said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But I always remember two types of students. One is the very excellent student, the type as a professor you feel honored to be working with. Someone with strong social values, compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you never forget. And then you remember students like George Bush, those who are totally the opposite."
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
BUSH DOES VACATIONS WELL
In his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" Michael Moore talked about the amount of vacation time George W. Bush took during his first nine months in office. Prior to the attacks on 9/11, Bush took the longest vacation in presidential history. He hasn't changed, apparently. This story from the Associated Press shows that Bush doesn't spend much time at work:
If you're looking for President Bush, don't bother searching the White House. Bush has not spent a full day in Washington since Aug. 2 - roaming the country rather than staying in the Oval Office as he seeks a second term.
On Wednesday, he'll break a 44-day, outside-the-Beltway streak to host a concert and reception at the White House in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. But not for long: He's back on the road the next day.
NOVAK'S ETHICS PRETTY FLEXIBLE
Using the word "ethics" in the same sentence with Robert Novak's name is an oxymoron. Novak is deeply enmeshed in the scandal involving the release of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. Novak won't release the name of his source. But Novak has no problem with calling on CBS to release the name of its source for the documents that George W. Bush didn't fulfill his National Guard service. The hypocrisy, as usual with right-wingers, just makes you gasp. The story is at www.editorandpublisher.com:
Syndicated columnist Robert Novak apparently believes that the principle of not revealing confidential sources is rather flexible.
The man who has stood on this principle for months, in deflecting calls for him to identify who in the Bush administration "outed" CIA operative Valerie Plame, said this weekend on national television that CBS should release the name of its source for the documents at the center of the dispute over its recent program on President Bush's National Guard service.
EMPTY SLOGANS, DISASTROUS RESULTS
George W. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative." Doesn't that sound good? The prudence of conservative philosophy combined with a real world compassion. As we know, it didn't work out that way. The compassion has been reserved for the very wealthy, for corporations, for polluters, and for war profiteers. Now we have the "ownership society," another slogan that is just a Trojan Horse. The New York Times has an editorial about the reality of the "ownership society" at www.nytimes.com:
When President Bush talks about an "ownership society," hold on to your wallet. The slogan, like "compassionate conservative" before it, is sufficiently vague to mean many things to many people, and the few details that Mr. Bush has provided - encouraging more home ownership and offering new tax-sheltered savings plans - seem innocuous enough. But in tax terms, "ownership society" means only one thing: the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks, bonds and real estate. That, in turn, means, by definition, a shift in the tax burden onto wages and salaries - or, put more simply, a wage tax.
The regressive results would be appalling. The richest 1 percent of Americans earn just about one-tenth of total wages and salaries, but almost half of all income from savings and investments - income that would be largely, perhaps entirely, untaxed in an "ownership society." In contrast, taxable wages and salaries make up almost all of the income of most Americans.
In his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" Michael Moore talked about the amount of vacation time George W. Bush took during his first nine months in office. Prior to the attacks on 9/11, Bush took the longest vacation in presidential history. He hasn't changed, apparently. This story from the Associated Press shows that Bush doesn't spend much time at work:
If you're looking for President Bush, don't bother searching the White House. Bush has not spent a full day in Washington since Aug. 2 - roaming the country rather than staying in the Oval Office as he seeks a second term.
On Wednesday, he'll break a 44-day, outside-the-Beltway streak to host a concert and reception at the White House in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. But not for long: He's back on the road the next day.
NOVAK'S ETHICS PRETTY FLEXIBLE
Using the word "ethics" in the same sentence with Robert Novak's name is an oxymoron. Novak is deeply enmeshed in the scandal involving the release of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. Novak won't release the name of his source. But Novak has no problem with calling on CBS to release the name of its source for the documents that George W. Bush didn't fulfill his National Guard service. The hypocrisy, as usual with right-wingers, just makes you gasp. The story is at www.editorandpublisher.com:
Syndicated columnist Robert Novak apparently believes that the principle of not revealing confidential sources is rather flexible.
The man who has stood on this principle for months, in deflecting calls for him to identify who in the Bush administration "outed" CIA operative Valerie Plame, said this weekend on national television that CBS should release the name of its source for the documents at the center of the dispute over its recent program on President Bush's National Guard service.
EMPTY SLOGANS, DISASTROUS RESULTS
George W. Bush campaigned as a "compassionate conservative." Doesn't that sound good? The prudence of conservative philosophy combined with a real world compassion. As we know, it didn't work out that way. The compassion has been reserved for the very wealthy, for corporations, for polluters, and for war profiteers. Now we have the "ownership society," another slogan that is just a Trojan Horse. The New York Times has an editorial about the reality of the "ownership society" at www.nytimes.com:
When President Bush talks about an "ownership society," hold on to your wallet. The slogan, like "compassionate conservative" before it, is sufficiently vague to mean many things to many people, and the few details that Mr. Bush has provided - encouraging more home ownership and offering new tax-sheltered savings plans - seem innocuous enough. But in tax terms, "ownership society" means only one thing: the further reduction, if not the elimination, of taxes on savings and investments, including taxes on dividends and on capital gains on stocks, bonds and real estate. That, in turn, means, by definition, a shift in the tax burden onto wages and salaries - or, put more simply, a wage tax.
The regressive results would be appalling. The richest 1 percent of Americans earn just about one-tenth of total wages and salaries, but almost half of all income from savings and investments - income that would be largely, perhaps entirely, untaxed in an "ownership society." In contrast, taxable wages and salaries make up almost all of the income of most Americans.
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
RULING THE WORLD
I admire some of the accomplishments of past world empires. The Roman Empire made some lasting contributions to humankind and so did the British Empire. But in general I don't admire empires much. I've never been much in favor of bullies and people who try to dominate other people. The Bush administration sees us as an empire, with the purported goals of bringing freedom and democracy to the world. It certainly isn't working out that way in Iraq, though, and if Iraq is a model we certainly can't expect to bring freedom and democracy to anyone. Harley Sorensen at www.sfgate.com offers his analysis:
So we invaded Iraq not to save ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, not to rid the world of a brutal dictator and not to avenge the murders of Sept. 11. We invaded Iraq because Bush and his pals think America should rule the world.
That's why we can't win. The rest of the world isn't going to let us win. The rest of the world might admire us, but they do not want to be dominated by us.
SYNONYMS FOR BUSH
I subscribe to the "word of the day" on one of the Internet sites and the word "cupidity" came up. Doesn't this sound like a perfect description of George W. Bush?
cupidity \kyoo-PID-uh-tee\ noun
*1 : inordinate desire for wealth : avarice, greed
2 : strong desire : lust
NEW YORK TIMES JUST A BIT HYPROCTICAL
Kitty Kelly's new book about the Bush family, not flattering from all accounts, gets an "oh darn" review at The New York Times. They talk about the sleazy level of non-issue issues such as the Swift Boat Liars attacks on John Kerry. But it's major media organs like The New York Times that have consistently echoed all the non-issue issues they decry in this book review. The review can be found at www.nytimes.com:
Kitty Kelley's catty new book about the Bush family is a perfect artifact of our current political culture in which unsubstantiated attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and old questions about President Bush's National Guard service get more attention than present-day issues like the Iraq war, the economy, intelligence reform or the assault weapons ban.
I will give The Times credit for acknowledging what should be the real issues in this campaign. More's the pity that The Times and other major media have not done their jobs:
But the author's undisguised contempt for many of the Bushes, combined with her failure to come to terms with politics and policy, and her tireless focus on sex, drugs and alcohol, will likely play into family members' penchant for assailing the media. It will likely give them an opening to shrug off this book as a snarky exercise in gossip, instead of forcing them to deal with substantive questions about their political record. Then again, in an election season willfully focused on the past and the personal and the unproven, this book may provide yet another distraction from issues here and now.
TAX CUTS: THE CURE FOR EVERYTHING
The way George W. Bush and his thugs handle it you would think tax cuts were the panacea for all the world's ills. Heck, cut taxes and cure the common cold! That's the discussion in this editorial at The Los Angeles Times found at www.latimes.com:
No matter how big the federal deficit may appear to be, the economy can quickly grow its way out. That, anyway, is President Bush's claim. To his coterie of supply-side enthusiasts, tax cuts are the equivalent of a real perpetual motion machine. The faster you cut taxes, so the theory goes, the more revenue the federal Treasury should receive as the economy booms.
LOSING GROUND IN IRAQ
The gruesome headlines from Iraq are becoming a daily event. We were lied into a war that wasn't necessary, we've stirred up a hornet's nest of terrorism, we've murdered thousands of innocent civilians, we've depleted our treasury, we've sacrificed our own men and women for an ignoble cause, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. As Paul Krugman advises, John Kerry should hit Bush harder on Iraq. This column is at www.nytimes.com:
U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, "It's worse than you think." Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call "insurgent enclaves," are spreading - even in Baghdad. We're losing ground.
WE CAN'T AFFORD GEORGE W. BUSH
The Washington Post has done an analysis of the spending plans outlined by George W. Bush at the Republican National Convention and found they will cost at least $3 trillion over a decade. Although Bush has claimed that John Kerry will be a big spender, Bush's spending far eclipses that by Kerry. This story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.
A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
MATT DRUDGE PUTS FOOT IN MOUTH
Right-wing gossip monger Matt Drudge was trying to defend George W. Bush against the charge that Bush lied about serving in the Air Force. But, oops!. The document Matt posted to his website actually shows that Bush was lying. The story is at www.salon.com:
Attempting to bolster President Bush as he continues to stonewall questions about his Texas Air National Guard service, Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a 1968 document from Bush's military personnel file Monday afternoon that purports to buttress a long-ago claim by Bush that he served not only in the Texas Air National Guard but in the Air Force as well. Although this "exclusive" Drudge posting is a trivial sidebar to the larger story of Bush's absence from two years of military service, the document itself -- presumably provided to Drudge by a Republican operative -- turns out to be an incriminating piece of evidence against Bush's case.
I admire some of the accomplishments of past world empires. The Roman Empire made some lasting contributions to humankind and so did the British Empire. But in general I don't admire empires much. I've never been much in favor of bullies and people who try to dominate other people. The Bush administration sees us as an empire, with the purported goals of bringing freedom and democracy to the world. It certainly isn't working out that way in Iraq, though, and if Iraq is a model we certainly can't expect to bring freedom and democracy to anyone. Harley Sorensen at www.sfgate.com offers his analysis:
So we invaded Iraq not to save ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, not to rid the world of a brutal dictator and not to avenge the murders of Sept. 11. We invaded Iraq because Bush and his pals think America should rule the world.
That's why we can't win. The rest of the world isn't going to let us win. The rest of the world might admire us, but they do not want to be dominated by us.
SYNONYMS FOR BUSH
I subscribe to the "word of the day" on one of the Internet sites and the word "cupidity" came up. Doesn't this sound like a perfect description of George W. Bush?
cupidity \kyoo-PID-uh-tee\ noun
*1 : inordinate desire for wealth : avarice, greed
2 : strong desire : lust
NEW YORK TIMES JUST A BIT HYPROCTICAL
Kitty Kelly's new book about the Bush family, not flattering from all accounts, gets an "oh darn" review at The New York Times. They talk about the sleazy level of non-issue issues such as the Swift Boat Liars attacks on John Kerry. But it's major media organs like The New York Times that have consistently echoed all the non-issue issues they decry in this book review. The review can be found at www.nytimes.com:
Kitty Kelley's catty new book about the Bush family is a perfect artifact of our current political culture in which unsubstantiated attacks on Senator John Kerry's Vietnam War record and old questions about President Bush's National Guard service get more attention than present-day issues like the Iraq war, the economy, intelligence reform or the assault weapons ban.
I will give The Times credit for acknowledging what should be the real issues in this campaign. More's the pity that The Times and other major media have not done their jobs:
But the author's undisguised contempt for many of the Bushes, combined with her failure to come to terms with politics and policy, and her tireless focus on sex, drugs and alcohol, will likely play into family members' penchant for assailing the media. It will likely give them an opening to shrug off this book as a snarky exercise in gossip, instead of forcing them to deal with substantive questions about their political record. Then again, in an election season willfully focused on the past and the personal and the unproven, this book may provide yet another distraction from issues here and now.
TAX CUTS: THE CURE FOR EVERYTHING
The way George W. Bush and his thugs handle it you would think tax cuts were the panacea for all the world's ills. Heck, cut taxes and cure the common cold! That's the discussion in this editorial at The Los Angeles Times found at www.latimes.com:
No matter how big the federal deficit may appear to be, the economy can quickly grow its way out. That, anyway, is President Bush's claim. To his coterie of supply-side enthusiasts, tax cuts are the equivalent of a real perpetual motion machine. The faster you cut taxes, so the theory goes, the more revenue the federal Treasury should receive as the economy booms.
LOSING GROUND IN IRAQ
The gruesome headlines from Iraq are becoming a daily event. We were lied into a war that wasn't necessary, we've stirred up a hornet's nest of terrorism, we've murdered thousands of innocent civilians, we've depleted our treasury, we've sacrificed our own men and women for an ignoble cause, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. As Paul Krugman advises, John Kerry should hit Bush harder on Iraq. This column is at www.nytimes.com:
U.S. news organizations are under constant pressure to report good news from Iraq. In fact, as a Newsweek headline puts it, "It's worse than you think." Attacks on coalition forces are intensifying and getting more effective; no-go zones, which the military prefers to call "insurgent enclaves," are spreading - even in Baghdad. We're losing ground.
WE CAN'T AFFORD GEORGE W. BUSH
The Washington Post has done an analysis of the spending plans outlined by George W. Bush at the Republican National Convention and found they will cost at least $3 trillion over a decade. Although Bush has claimed that John Kerry will be a big spender, Bush's spending far eclipses that by Kerry. This story is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The expansive agenda President Bush laid out at the Republican National Convention was missing a price tag, but administration figures show the total is likely to be well in excess of $3 trillion over a decade.
A staple of Bush's stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator's campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.
MATT DRUDGE PUTS FOOT IN MOUTH
Right-wing gossip monger Matt Drudge was trying to defend George W. Bush against the charge that Bush lied about serving in the Air Force. But, oops!. The document Matt posted to his website actually shows that Bush was lying. The story is at www.salon.com:
Attempting to bolster President Bush as he continues to stonewall questions about his Texas Air National Guard service, Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a 1968 document from Bush's military personnel file Monday afternoon that purports to buttress a long-ago claim by Bush that he served not only in the Texas Air National Guard but in the Air Force as well. Although this "exclusive" Drudge posting is a trivial sidebar to the larger story of Bush's absence from two years of military service, the document itself -- presumably provided to Drudge by a Republican operative -- turns out to be an incriminating piece of evidence against Bush's case.
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