JANUARY 31, 2005
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE IRAQI ELECTION
The early headlines are that the turnout for the elections in Iraq was high, despite threats of violence and actual violence that took over 30 lives. We will hear from the Bush administration that the election was a rousing success, proof of "freedom on the march," and how it is bringing democracy to Iraq. But there may be consequences to this election that are not so favorable to the United States or to the spread of democracy. Robert Fisk writes about it in this article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Shias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election tomorrow that will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat.
America has insisted on these elections - which will produce a largely Shia parliament representing Iraq's largest religious community - because they are supposed to provide an exit strategy for embattled US forces, but they seem set to change the geopolitical map of the Arab world in ways the Americans could never have imagined. For George Bush and Tony Blair this is the law of unintended consequences writ large.
A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE
If you or I misplace $20.00, or fail to balance our checkbook, it can be fairly traumatic. The Bush administration can't find $9 billion and it's no big deal. The $9 billion was transferred to government ministries in Iraq that just didn't happen to have financial controls. This is either incompetence or graft on a massive scale. This story is by LARRY MARGASAK at www.guardian.co.uk:
The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.
The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general.
THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
In theory, the government of the United States at all levels represents the will of the people. We're a "republic" conservatives will be quick to remind you, which means that we elect people to represent us rather than using direct democracy. Direct democracy with a country as big and unwieldy as the United States would be a messy and inefficient process. You would think the "representatives" could do a better job, but the system isn't intended to truly represent the will of the people. The people get to pretend they're being represented while the big players manipulate the system. This article by Mike Whitney is at www.makethemaccountable.com:
One of the illusions of American-style democracy is the notion that policy is driven by the will of the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the entire corporate system of delivering information ("the media") is predicated on the idea of selectively creating a message that is compatible with the aims of elites. The interests of the public are never seriously entered into the policy-making equation, except in terms of how their approval can be obtained through the normal channels of calculated misinformation.
Policy is shaped by elites, for elites. It only changes when particular policies lose favor among the men who are ensconced at the foot of power. That's what makes the Baker-Scowcroft-Brzezinski insurgency worth noting; they point to the growing number of policy-wonks, corporate big-wigs and political powerbrokers who no longer support the Iraq occupation. Their position of influence and respect among their colleagues would seem to make them the last best hope for anti-occupation Americans…
THE TANGLED WEB OF BIG RIGHT WING FUNDING
You like to believe your thoughts are your own. You like to believe that your opinions are shaped by a careful examination and assimilation of the facts. But is it true? For years now very rich families such as the Coors family have poured money into shaping public opinion. There are the various media organizations owned or controlled by right-wingers and there are the "think tanks" that churn out policy papers that are echoed by the media, assimilated by the consumers of the media, and used to influence lawmakers in crafting legislation. This article by Eric Alterman with Paul McLeary is found at www.americanprogress.org:
We pick up again this week with insights gleaned from a close reading of Jeff Krehely, Meaghan House and Emily Kernan's report for the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) entitled, "Axis of Ideology: Conservative Foundations and Public Policy," which has so far gone entirely ignored by the mainstream media during the six months it has been available. The report analyzes long-term patterns in the world of right-wing philanthropy and the powerful effect that the $254 million given just between 1999 and 2001 has had in helping to determine the shape of America's democratic discourse. While "Axis of Ideology" spells out who these foundations are and which organizations receive the most money, it also offers a deeper glimpse into the overarching ideology behind these grants, and hence invites the reader to examine the manner in which this money has altered the American political and media landscape in ways too often overlooked.:
Sunday, January 30, 2005
JANUARY 30, 2005
THE GROPER HAS NO SHAME
Our Governor Groper is going to outside interests to find financing to push his agenda for destroying the public pension system and for redistricting (that is, aligning things in favor of Republicans). This is a matter for Californians only, and I deeply resent Arnie bringing in outside big wheels. This story is by Robert Salladay and Peter Nicholas is at www.latimes.com:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would enlist donors from across the country to fund a multimillion-dollar fight over California's public pension system and its voting districts - reforms being watched with keen interest on Wall Street and a bit of panic in Washington, D.C.
The governor's comments signaled that his ambitions for 2005 could flood California with campaign contributions from lucrative new sources. And raising money on a national scale would allow Schwarzenegger, frequently mentioned as a presidential hopeful even though the Constitution bars foreign-born citizens from serving, to take a wider stage and expand his fundraising network.
THE RIGHT WING MEDIA MACHINE
The media were once called "the fourth estate," suggesting that they were independent and nonpartisan observers, critics, and reporters about affairs of the government. The fourth estate has increasingly merged into becoming a part of the government, acting as its propaganda arm. Mouthpieces such as Rush Limbaugh have tried to pass themselves off as entertainers, but they are nothing more than well-paid and widely exposed propagandists, who have been able to spread their evil because the "fairness doctrine" was abolished during the Reagan years. Now that we learn the Bush administration has even paid "journalists" to spout the party line things are even more insidious. Robert Parry has an article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Tens of thousands of conservative "journalists" are dependent on its perpetuation for their livelihoods. There are mortgages to pay and school tuitions due. It's much easier just to continue doing the job and keeping the assembly lines of propaganda humming, rather than trying to shut the operation down or dramatically change the product.
In that way, the conservative "journalists" are like workers in a factory that's polluting a river which flows through the neighboring countryside. If the pollution is stopped, they fear they will lose their jobs. So it's in their interest to fight environmental controls, keep the factory running and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.
A LOCAL RIGHT WING HERO
There have been a number of letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee about Victor Davis Hanson, a professor of classical studies at California State University Fresno (Fresno State). Mr. Hanson has written extensively about the ancient Greeks. More recently, he has become an intellectual guru of the Bush administration, finding rationales for the war against "Islamic fascists" in the way the ancient Greeks conducted war. It's really amazing the way some right-wingers behave like prepubescent teenagers idolizing a rock star when they talk about this guy. But it boils down to praise for a guy who doesn't seem to mind the slaughter of innocents. Killing innocent people and torturing "suspects" seems antithetical to the idea of democracy as we have grown to understand it.
MORE DISTURBING GLOBAL WARMING NEWS
Global warming may be even worse than we thought, according to this article. The Bush administration's inattention or outright negligence in dealing with global warming reminds me of the inaction by the Reagan administration against AIDS. It was clear there was a developing crisis with AIDS, and Reagan did nothing. Countless deaths have occurred since that didn't have to occur. The same thing will happen with global warming if the Bush administration continues to put profit above doing what's right. This article is at www.newscientist.com:
THE Earth could be even more sensitive to global warming than we imagined. If carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere double, as they are widely expected to do, the planet's temperature could rise by a huge 11.5 °C, according to early results from a project that uses home PCs to test climate models.
DEADLY TRAIN WRECKS RAISE CONCERNS
Two fatal train crashes, one in South Carolina, and one in southern California raise concerns about rail security. The crash in South Carolina resulted in the rupture of a tanker car and the release of deadly chlorine gas. The southern California crash involved a suicidal man who left his vehicle parked on the tracks. It makes you wonder how much worse the tragedy would have been had the vehicle been loaded with explosives, biological, or chemical agents. And you should remember that George W. Bush wants nuclear wastes hauled across the country to store underground in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This story by Sara Kehaulani Goo is at www.seattletimes.nwsource.com:
Two deadly railroad accidents this month have sparked new debate about federal efforts to secure the nation's rail system and ensure that such accidents do not provide new opportunities for terrorists.
In Graniteville, S.C., a train carrying hazardous materials derailed near a switchyard, causing a cloud of chlorine to leak. The accident killed nine, the deadliest such crash in more than 20 years, and prompted hundreds of people to be evacuated from their homes for days. On Wednesday, a suicidal man parked his vehicle on the tracks in California, causing a multi-train accident that killed 11 and injured 200.
THE GROPER HAS NO SHAME
Our Governor Groper is going to outside interests to find financing to push his agenda for destroying the public pension system and for redistricting (that is, aligning things in favor of Republicans). This is a matter for Californians only, and I deeply resent Arnie bringing in outside big wheels. This story is by Robert Salladay and Peter Nicholas is at www.latimes.com:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday he would enlist donors from across the country to fund a multimillion-dollar fight over California's public pension system and its voting districts - reforms being watched with keen interest on Wall Street and a bit of panic in Washington, D.C.
The governor's comments signaled that his ambitions for 2005 could flood California with campaign contributions from lucrative new sources. And raising money on a national scale would allow Schwarzenegger, frequently mentioned as a presidential hopeful even though the Constitution bars foreign-born citizens from serving, to take a wider stage and expand his fundraising network.
THE RIGHT WING MEDIA MACHINE
The media were once called "the fourth estate," suggesting that they were independent and nonpartisan observers, critics, and reporters about affairs of the government. The fourth estate has increasingly merged into becoming a part of the government, acting as its propaganda arm. Mouthpieces such as Rush Limbaugh have tried to pass themselves off as entertainers, but they are nothing more than well-paid and widely exposed propagandists, who have been able to spread their evil because the "fairness doctrine" was abolished during the Reagan years. Now that we learn the Bush administration has even paid "journalists" to spout the party line things are even more insidious. Robert Parry has an article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Tens of thousands of conservative "journalists" are dependent on its perpetuation for their livelihoods. There are mortgages to pay and school tuitions due. It's much easier just to continue doing the job and keeping the assembly lines of propaganda humming, rather than trying to shut the operation down or dramatically change the product.
In that way, the conservative "journalists" are like workers in a factory that's polluting a river which flows through the neighboring countryside. If the pollution is stopped, they fear they will lose their jobs. So it's in their interest to fight environmental controls, keep the factory running and leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.
A LOCAL RIGHT WING HERO
There have been a number of letters to the editor of The Fresno Bee about Victor Davis Hanson, a professor of classical studies at California State University Fresno (Fresno State). Mr. Hanson has written extensively about the ancient Greeks. More recently, he has become an intellectual guru of the Bush administration, finding rationales for the war against "Islamic fascists" in the way the ancient Greeks conducted war. It's really amazing the way some right-wingers behave like prepubescent teenagers idolizing a rock star when they talk about this guy. But it boils down to praise for a guy who doesn't seem to mind the slaughter of innocents. Killing innocent people and torturing "suspects" seems antithetical to the idea of democracy as we have grown to understand it.
MORE DISTURBING GLOBAL WARMING NEWS
Global warming may be even worse than we thought, according to this article. The Bush administration's inattention or outright negligence in dealing with global warming reminds me of the inaction by the Reagan administration against AIDS. It was clear there was a developing crisis with AIDS, and Reagan did nothing. Countless deaths have occurred since that didn't have to occur. The same thing will happen with global warming if the Bush administration continues to put profit above doing what's right. This article is at www.newscientist.com:
THE Earth could be even more sensitive to global warming than we imagined. If carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere double, as they are widely expected to do, the planet's temperature could rise by a huge 11.5 °C, according to early results from a project that uses home PCs to test climate models.
DEADLY TRAIN WRECKS RAISE CONCERNS
Two fatal train crashes, one in South Carolina, and one in southern California raise concerns about rail security. The crash in South Carolina resulted in the rupture of a tanker car and the release of deadly chlorine gas. The southern California crash involved a suicidal man who left his vehicle parked on the tracks. It makes you wonder how much worse the tragedy would have been had the vehicle been loaded with explosives, biological, or chemical agents. And you should remember that George W. Bush wants nuclear wastes hauled across the country to store underground in Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This story by Sara Kehaulani Goo is at www.seattletimes.nwsource.com:
Two deadly railroad accidents this month have sparked new debate about federal efforts to secure the nation's rail system and ensure that such accidents do not provide new opportunities for terrorists.
In Graniteville, S.C., a train carrying hazardous materials derailed near a switchyard, causing a cloud of chlorine to leak. The accident killed nine, the deadliest such crash in more than 20 years, and prompted hundreds of people to be evacuated from their homes for days. On Wednesday, a suicidal man parked his vehicle on the tracks in California, causing a multi-train accident that killed 11 and injured 200.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
JANUARY 29, 2005
MORE TROUBLING ECONOMIC NEWS
The economy had its slowest growth rate since the first three months of 2003, according to this story. It's interesting all the good spin they try to put on this. For instance, the story says that the economic growth for all of 2004, discounting the last quarter, was the highest since before the start of the last recession. It's also interesting that an economist says the dollar doesn't matter much anyway. So the declining value of the dollar is nothing to worry about? Who knew? This story by Joel Havemann is at www.latimes.com:
U.S. economic growth, hobbled by a reduction in demand for American goods and services overseas, sagged to an annual rate of 3.1% after inflation in the final three months of last year, the government reported today.
It was the lowest growth rate since the first three months of 2003, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said.
WONDER IF BUSH WOULD CRITICIZE THE FOX NETWORK?
George W. Bush was pontificating about the "indecency" on TV and made the rather astonishing claim that government must "call to account" people who show such indecency. That sounds a lot like government censorship to me. I wonder if Mr. Bush would like to comment on the indecency of wars started on lies or torturing people. Probably not. This story by Edwin Chen is also at www.latimes.com:
Weighing in on the debate over indecency standards on television, President Bush said the government must "call to account" programming that "gets over the line," but he conceded that making such a distinction would be a problem.
In an interview with C-SPAN to be broadcast Sunday, Bush also made clear his view that there is an excess of inappropriate programs on TV, and called on parents to form "the first line of responsibility."
IS U.S. GOING TO BECOME SECOND RATE POWER?
According to a report from the National Intelligence Council, the U.S. may cease to be a dominant world power in about fifteen years. If people like Bush continue in power, the decline is not a bad thing. But I don't know the full implications of this. The story is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council-the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.
DICK CHENEY AT AUSCHWITZ COMMEMORATION
Dick Cheney stood out like a sore thumb in his parka and hiking boots among the formally-attired world leaders who attended the 60th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. But it was more than poor fashion that distinguished Cheney. His record and the record of the administration he represents have many parallels to the Nazis responsible for the atrocities at Auschwitz. This article by Bill van Auken is at www.wsws.org:
Who is Cheney to represent the American people at Auschwitz? The US vice president is identified with the most right-wing political forces in America. In the 1980s, as a Republican congressman from Wyoming, he acted as a defender of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, voting against a resolution calling for an end to the quarter-century imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. Currying favor with homegrown racists, he likewise voted against the decision to make Martin Luther King’s birthday an official holiday.
MORE TROUBLING ECONOMIC NEWS
The economy had its slowest growth rate since the first three months of 2003, according to this story. It's interesting all the good spin they try to put on this. For instance, the story says that the economic growth for all of 2004, discounting the last quarter, was the highest since before the start of the last recession. It's also interesting that an economist says the dollar doesn't matter much anyway. So the declining value of the dollar is nothing to worry about? Who knew? This story by Joel Havemann is at www.latimes.com:
U.S. economic growth, hobbled by a reduction in demand for American goods and services overseas, sagged to an annual rate of 3.1% after inflation in the final three months of last year, the government reported today.
It was the lowest growth rate since the first three months of 2003, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said.
WONDER IF BUSH WOULD CRITICIZE THE FOX NETWORK?
George W. Bush was pontificating about the "indecency" on TV and made the rather astonishing claim that government must "call to account" people who show such indecency. That sounds a lot like government censorship to me. I wonder if Mr. Bush would like to comment on the indecency of wars started on lies or torturing people. Probably not. This story by Edwin Chen is also at www.latimes.com:
Weighing in on the debate over indecency standards on television, President Bush said the government must "call to account" programming that "gets over the line," but he conceded that making such a distinction would be a problem.
In an interview with C-SPAN to be broadcast Sunday, Bush also made clear his view that there is an excess of inappropriate programs on TV, and called on parents to form "the first line of responsibility."
IS U.S. GOING TO BECOME SECOND RATE POWER?
According to a report from the National Intelligence Council, the U.S. may cease to be a dominant world power in about fifteen years. If people like Bush continue in power, the decline is not a bad thing. But I don't know the full implications of this. The story is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Who will be the first politician brave enough to declare publicly that the United States is a declining power and that America's leaders must urgently discuss what to do about it? This prognosis of decline comes not (or not only) from leftist scribes rooting for imperialism's downfall, but from the National Intelligence Council-the "center of strategic thinking" inside the U.S. intelligence community.
DICK CHENEY AT AUSCHWITZ COMMEMORATION
Dick Cheney stood out like a sore thumb in his parka and hiking boots among the formally-attired world leaders who attended the 60th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz. But it was more than poor fashion that distinguished Cheney. His record and the record of the administration he represents have many parallels to the Nazis responsible for the atrocities at Auschwitz. This article by Bill van Auken is at www.wsws.org:
Who is Cheney to represent the American people at Auschwitz? The US vice president is identified with the most right-wing political forces in America. In the 1980s, as a Republican congressman from Wyoming, he acted as a defender of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, voting against a resolution calling for an end to the quarter-century imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. Currying favor with homegrown racists, he likewise voted against the decision to make Martin Luther King’s birthday an official holiday.
Friday, January 28, 2005
JANUARY 28, 2005
DEFICIT IS ANOTHER QUAGMIRE
George W. Bush has been successful in creating quagmires on multiple fronts. We have the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq and no practical way out. We have deficits the size of Mt. Everest and all we get are empty platitudes, or outright lies, from the Bush administration. Jonathan Chait has a commentary at www.latimes.com:
I don't mean to sound cynical, but it's starting to look as though the Bush administration does not seriously intend to get the federal budget in order. At least that's the impression I got from White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's attempt this week to explain the unfortunate fact that the administration projects that the deficit will climb this year.
To grasp the full vacuity of the administration's rationalization, you need to consider it piece by piece. Here's how McClellan began his response to a reporter's question about the growing deficit: "And in terms of the deficit, the president has a deficit reduction plan. It's based on strong economic growth and spending restraint."
BUSH PLAYS THE RACE CARD
It's almost amusing that right-wingers screech about racism if you oppose a nominee who happens to be African-American or Latino. You aren't supposed to look at the record of the individual, or their policy positions, but only at the color of their skin. The rest of the time right-wingers couldn't care less about racial minorities. In another cynical use of the race card, George W. Bush is saying African-Americans should favor privatizing Social Security because black males have shorter life spans and, therefore, don't get to collect their benefits. What a craven, despicable argument. Paul Krugman discusses it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
This isn't a new argument; privatizers have been making it for years. But the claim that blacks get a bad deal from Social Security is false. And Mr. Bush's use of that false argument is doubly shameful, because he's exploiting the tragedy of high black mortality for political gain instead of treating it as a problem we should solve.
Let's start with the facts. Mr. Bush's argument goes back at least seven years, to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation - a report so badly misleading that the deputy chief actuary (now the chief actuary) of the Social Security Administration wrote a memo pointing out "major errors in the methodology." That's actuary-speak for "damned lies."
BUSH IS TOO EXTREME EVEN FOR SOME CONSERVATIVES
There is conservative and there is reactionary. George W. Bush passed conservative a long time ago. Even many conservatives are growing uneasy about Bush's mammoth deficits, a war launched on lies, and plans to destroy Social Security. This story is at www.americanprogressaction.org:
As the White House pushes its right-wing economic agenda into overdrive, opposition is coming from the most unlikely of places: conservatives. In Congress, in state capitals, and among socially conservative activist groups, President Bush is finding that his plans to privatize Social Security and enact more tax cuts while gutting funding for priorities like veterans' health care are running up against voices of conscience on the right. The result is that just a week after being inaugurated, the president's legislative agenda is in jeopardy.
REMEMBERING THE CHALLENGER
On this day in 1986 I remember watching one of the morning news shows and seeing a story about the planned launch of the space shuttle Challenger. Like many others, I had come to take shuttle launches for granted. That morning I remember there was some talk of the cold temperatures in Florida, and icicles were even hanging off parts of the shuttle. I had a brief moment of uneasiness and then went on to work. I didn't hear about the explosion until I left for lunch. It has been almost two years since the shuttle Columbia exploded. Let's remember the brave men and women who died in these shuttle missions and vow to peacefully push into space for the good of all life on earth.
DEFICIT IS ANOTHER QUAGMIRE
George W. Bush has been successful in creating quagmires on multiple fronts. We have the quagmires in Afghanistan and Iraq and no practical way out. We have deficits the size of Mt. Everest and all we get are empty platitudes, or outright lies, from the Bush administration. Jonathan Chait has a commentary at www.latimes.com:
I don't mean to sound cynical, but it's starting to look as though the Bush administration does not seriously intend to get the federal budget in order. At least that's the impression I got from White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's attempt this week to explain the unfortunate fact that the administration projects that the deficit will climb this year.
To grasp the full vacuity of the administration's rationalization, you need to consider it piece by piece. Here's how McClellan began his response to a reporter's question about the growing deficit: "And in terms of the deficit, the president has a deficit reduction plan. It's based on strong economic growth and spending restraint."
BUSH PLAYS THE RACE CARD
It's almost amusing that right-wingers screech about racism if you oppose a nominee who happens to be African-American or Latino. You aren't supposed to look at the record of the individual, or their policy positions, but only at the color of their skin. The rest of the time right-wingers couldn't care less about racial minorities. In another cynical use of the race card, George W. Bush is saying African-Americans should favor privatizing Social Security because black males have shorter life spans and, therefore, don't get to collect their benefits. What a craven, despicable argument. Paul Krugman discusses it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
This isn't a new argument; privatizers have been making it for years. But the claim that blacks get a bad deal from Social Security is false. And Mr. Bush's use of that false argument is doubly shameful, because he's exploiting the tragedy of high black mortality for political gain instead of treating it as a problem we should solve.
Let's start with the facts. Mr. Bush's argument goes back at least seven years, to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation - a report so badly misleading that the deputy chief actuary (now the chief actuary) of the Social Security Administration wrote a memo pointing out "major errors in the methodology." That's actuary-speak for "damned lies."
BUSH IS TOO EXTREME EVEN FOR SOME CONSERVATIVES
There is conservative and there is reactionary. George W. Bush passed conservative a long time ago. Even many conservatives are growing uneasy about Bush's mammoth deficits, a war launched on lies, and plans to destroy Social Security. This story is at www.americanprogressaction.org:
As the White House pushes its right-wing economic agenda into overdrive, opposition is coming from the most unlikely of places: conservatives. In Congress, in state capitals, and among socially conservative activist groups, President Bush is finding that his plans to privatize Social Security and enact more tax cuts while gutting funding for priorities like veterans' health care are running up against voices of conscience on the right. The result is that just a week after being inaugurated, the president's legislative agenda is in jeopardy.
REMEMBERING THE CHALLENGER
On this day in 1986 I remember watching one of the morning news shows and seeing a story about the planned launch of the space shuttle Challenger. Like many others, I had come to take shuttle launches for granted. That morning I remember there was some talk of the cold temperatures in Florida, and icicles were even hanging off parts of the shuttle. I had a brief moment of uneasiness and then went on to work. I didn't hear about the explosion until I left for lunch. It has been almost two years since the shuttle Columbia exploded. Let's remember the brave men and women who died in these shuttle missions and vow to peacefully push into space for the good of all life on earth.
Thursday, January 27, 2005
TED TURNER BLASTS FOX
In a speech before a group of media executives Ted Turner, the creator of CNN, linked the Bush administration, Fox News, and Hitler. You wonder what Hitler would have done with something like Fox News instead of just utilizing Josef Goebbels. The story by Ken Ritter is linked at www.sfgate.com:
Cable news pioneer Ted Turner used an appearance before a group of television executives to criticize the Fox network as a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and to compare Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany before World War II.
Turner, 66, in a speech Tuesday before about 1,000 people at the National Association of Television Programming Executives targeted "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for timidity in challenging the Bush White House.
SEYMOUR HERSH: BUSH GANG A CULT
In the belief systems of people, is there anything more dangerous than fundamentalist religion? Religion doesn't have to be limited to beliefs in traditional deities. It can be unquestioning belief in a politician or an economic system. That's what we have with many supporters of George W. Bush. They support him with an almost religious fervor. This excerpt is from a speech by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and is found at www.democracynow.com:
One of the ways -- one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is.
BUSH SS PLAN IS MORE SOCIAL DARWINISM
What makes a country like the United States great is devotion to certain common ideals such as the concepts found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution even begins with the words, "We the people." Today's breed of conservative doesn't believe in "we" for anything. It's about me, me, me. This commentary by Benjamin R. Barber says the Bush plan to "privatize" Social Security is just more of the social Darwinism that is the foundation of conservatism. The commentary is at www.latimes.com:
Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: It dissolves the bonds that tie us together. The social contract takes us out of the state of nature; it asks us to give up a part of our private liberty to do whatever we want in order to secure common liberty for all. Privatization puts us back in the state of nature where we possess the natural power to get whatever we can but lose the common power to secure everything to which we have a natural right.
REALITY IS SO ANNOYING
You hear George W. Bush say "we're making progress" in Iraq despite the bodies piling up like cord wood. Every day brings accounts of new atrocities, whether it be Americans killed in helicopter crashes, suicide bombings, torture by the United States, beheadings by Iraqis. Just what has Bush gotten us into? This story by Sydney H. Schanberg is at www.villagevoice.com:
In the new America, images rule. Positive images. That's because reality is annoying. So in Washington now, the images are of Oz. President Bush, in his invisible bell jar, has just been inaugurated for the second time—$40 million worth of fat-cat parties and banquets and balls. In Baghdad, there are explosions—not celebratory thank-you fireworks, just explosions. And then bodies in the streets.
BUSH WANTS TO EMULATE PINOCHET
Conservatives like to cite Chile's privatized retirement system as a model for the United States. You know you're in trouble when you start playing copy cat to a dictator like Augusto Pinochet. This story shows that most people in Chile would much prefer their old system, similar to our Social Security system, than the havoc the privatized system has caused. This story by Larry Rohter is at www.nytimes.com:
Nearly 25 years ago, Chile embarked on a sweeping experiment that has since been emulated, in one way or another, in a score of other countries. Rather than finance pensions through a system to which workers, employers and the government all contributed, millions of people began to pay 10 percent of their salaries to private investment accounts that they controlled.
Under the Chilean program - which President Bush has cited as a model for his plans to overhaul Social Security - the promise was that such investments, by helping to spur economic growth and generating higher returns, would deliver monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer.
In a speech before a group of media executives Ted Turner, the creator of CNN, linked the Bush administration, Fox News, and Hitler. You wonder what Hitler would have done with something like Fox News instead of just utilizing Josef Goebbels. The story by Ken Ritter is linked at www.sfgate.com:
Cable news pioneer Ted Turner used an appearance before a group of television executives to criticize the Fox network as a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and to compare Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany before World War II.
Turner, 66, in a speech Tuesday before about 1,000 people at the National Association of Television Programming Executives targeted "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for timidity in challenging the Bush White House.
SEYMOUR HERSH: BUSH GANG A CULT
In the belief systems of people, is there anything more dangerous than fundamentalist religion? Religion doesn't have to be limited to beliefs in traditional deities. It can be unquestioning belief in a politician or an economic system. That's what we have with many supporters of George W. Bush. They support him with an almost religious fervor. This excerpt is from a speech by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and is found at www.democracynow.com:
One of the ways -- one of the things that you could say is, the amazing thing is we are been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. Just how and why and how they did it so efficiently, will have to wait for much later historians and better documentation than we have now, but they managed to overcome the bureaucracy and the Congress, and the press, with the greatest of ease. It does say something about how fragile our Democracy is.
BUSH SS PLAN IS MORE SOCIAL DARWINISM
What makes a country like the United States great is devotion to certain common ideals such as the concepts found in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The Preamble to the Constitution even begins with the words, "We the people." Today's breed of conservative doesn't believe in "we" for anything. It's about me, me, me. This commentary by Benjamin R. Barber says the Bush plan to "privatize" Social Security is just more of the social Darwinism that is the foundation of conservatism. The commentary is at www.latimes.com:
Privatization is a kind of reverse social contract: It dissolves the bonds that tie us together. The social contract takes us out of the state of nature; it asks us to give up a part of our private liberty to do whatever we want in order to secure common liberty for all. Privatization puts us back in the state of nature where we possess the natural power to get whatever we can but lose the common power to secure everything to which we have a natural right.
REALITY IS SO ANNOYING
You hear George W. Bush say "we're making progress" in Iraq despite the bodies piling up like cord wood. Every day brings accounts of new atrocities, whether it be Americans killed in helicopter crashes, suicide bombings, torture by the United States, beheadings by Iraqis. Just what has Bush gotten us into? This story by Sydney H. Schanberg is at www.villagevoice.com:
In the new America, images rule. Positive images. That's because reality is annoying. So in Washington now, the images are of Oz. President Bush, in his invisible bell jar, has just been inaugurated for the second time—$40 million worth of fat-cat parties and banquets and balls. In Baghdad, there are explosions—not celebratory thank-you fireworks, just explosions. And then bodies in the streets.
BUSH WANTS TO EMULATE PINOCHET
Conservatives like to cite Chile's privatized retirement system as a model for the United States. You know you're in trouble when you start playing copy cat to a dictator like Augusto Pinochet. This story shows that most people in Chile would much prefer their old system, similar to our Social Security system, than the havoc the privatized system has caused. This story by Larry Rohter is at www.nytimes.com:
Nearly 25 years ago, Chile embarked on a sweeping experiment that has since been emulated, in one way or another, in a score of other countries. Rather than finance pensions through a system to which workers, employers and the government all contributed, millions of people began to pay 10 percent of their salaries to private investment accounts that they controlled.
Under the Chilean program - which President Bush has cited as a model for his plans to overhaul Social Security - the promise was that such investments, by helping to spur economic growth and generating higher returns, would deliver monthly pension benefits larger than what the traditional system could offer.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
JANUARY 26, 2005
THE COUNTRY IS DROWNING IN DEBT
The budget deficits produced by George W. Bush are becoming almost unfathomable. The country simply can't sustain the kinds of deficits we're now seeing. And how we were these deficits created? How did we go from fiscal responsibility, from a time when there were budget surpluses, to this nightmare? Could it be unnecessary tax cuts for the very affluent? Could it be unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? This story by Joel Havemann is at www.latimes.com:
The budget deficit is becoming a knottier problem in the short term and will be a potentially catastrophic one in the future, the Congressional Budget Office reported today.
The report suggests that President Bush, in the budget he will deliver to Congress in two weeks, will have a harder time keeping his promise to cut the deficit in half during his presidency.
BUSH'S PREDICTIONS ARE ALWAYS WRONG
Back in 1978 George W. Bush was a congressional candidate and he predicted that Social Security would go bust by 1988. This guy is really good a making lousy predictions. The war in Iraq was just going to go swimmingly. Tax cuts for the rich would just make the economy roar. And now Bush is making ominous predictions again about Social Security. This item is at www.davidsirota.com:
Both USA Today and the Texas Observer have reported Bush claimed in 1978 that Social Security would go broke in 1988 unless Congress privatized the system. As the Observer reports, Bush "warned that Social Security would go bust in ten years unless people were given a chance to invest the money themselves."
According to USA Today, as a congressional candidate in 1978, George W. Bush was claiming "Social Security would go broke in 10 years" - 1988. Even then, he said the only way to fix this crisis was to privatize the system. [Source: USA Today, 7/28/2000]
This is proof positive that Bush will say anything - no matter how ridiculously inaccurate - to claim Social Security is in "crisis" and needs to be privatized. Nothing he says about Social Security being in crisis today should be regarded as credible once these past statements are taken into account.
SO MUCH FOR THE LIBERAL MEDIA
If you deal with right-wingers very much you'll hear some mention of the "liberal media." It's almost a Pavlovian response. And it's patently untrue. This commentary shows the right-wing bias in the media. This article by Ari Berman is at www.commondreams.org:
During inauguration day coverage, Republicans and conservatives outnumbered progressives nineteen to seven on Fox, ten to one on CNN and thirteen to two on MSNBC. On prime-time, the trend continued. Conservatives outnumbered liberals twenty-five to four on Fox News, seven to one on CNN and nine to five on MSNBC. When the occasional Democrat did actually appear, he or she was usually paired against a rival Republican, whereas most conservatives appeared solo or with fellow ideologues. Even a panel discussion with CNN's Carlos Watson included four Republicans, and only one Democrat and one swing voter.
A MODEL TO STAND AGAINST TODAY'S OPPRESSION
This article by Adam Hochschild deals with the launching of the anti-slavery movement in Britain in 1787. A small group of people got together and decided that slavery was wrong and they were going to do something about it. That initial meeting grew into a movement that got slavery outlawed in Britain in 1838. There are evils that may not be resolved in our lifetimes, but it's important to start the process moving. This article is linked at www.commondreams.org:
The building that once stood at 2 George Yard was a bookstore and printing shop. The proprietor was James Phillips, publisher and printer for Britain's small community of Quakers. On that May afternoon, after the pressmen and typesetters had gone home for the day, 12 men filed through his doors. They formed themselves into a committee with what seemed to their fellow Londoners a hopelessly idealistic and impractical aim: ending first the slave trade and then slavery itself in the most powerful empire on Earth.
The interests they were taking on were entrenched and influential. Britain dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Roughly half the slaves taken across the ocean to its lucrative West Indian sugar islands, to the United States and to other European colonies were transported in British ships. Starting an anti-slavery movement in Britain in 1787 was like starting a renewable energy movement in Saudi Arabia today.
THE COUNTRY IS DROWNING IN DEBT
The budget deficits produced by George W. Bush are becoming almost unfathomable. The country simply can't sustain the kinds of deficits we're now seeing. And how we were these deficits created? How did we go from fiscal responsibility, from a time when there were budget surpluses, to this nightmare? Could it be unnecessary tax cuts for the very affluent? Could it be unnecessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? This story by Joel Havemann is at www.latimes.com:
The budget deficit is becoming a knottier problem in the short term and will be a potentially catastrophic one in the future, the Congressional Budget Office reported today.
The report suggests that President Bush, in the budget he will deliver to Congress in two weeks, will have a harder time keeping his promise to cut the deficit in half during his presidency.
BUSH'S PREDICTIONS ARE ALWAYS WRONG
Back in 1978 George W. Bush was a congressional candidate and he predicted that Social Security would go bust by 1988. This guy is really good a making lousy predictions. The war in Iraq was just going to go swimmingly. Tax cuts for the rich would just make the economy roar. And now Bush is making ominous predictions again about Social Security. This item is at www.davidsirota.com:
Both USA Today and the Texas Observer have reported Bush claimed in 1978 that Social Security would go broke in 1988 unless Congress privatized the system. As the Observer reports, Bush "warned that Social Security would go bust in ten years unless people were given a chance to invest the money themselves."
According to USA Today, as a congressional candidate in 1978, George W. Bush was claiming "Social Security would go broke in 10 years" - 1988. Even then, he said the only way to fix this crisis was to privatize the system. [Source: USA Today, 7/28/2000]
This is proof positive that Bush will say anything - no matter how ridiculously inaccurate - to claim Social Security is in "crisis" and needs to be privatized. Nothing he says about Social Security being in crisis today should be regarded as credible once these past statements are taken into account.
SO MUCH FOR THE LIBERAL MEDIA
If you deal with right-wingers very much you'll hear some mention of the "liberal media." It's almost a Pavlovian response. And it's patently untrue. This commentary shows the right-wing bias in the media. This article by Ari Berman is at www.commondreams.org:
During inauguration day coverage, Republicans and conservatives outnumbered progressives nineteen to seven on Fox, ten to one on CNN and thirteen to two on MSNBC. On prime-time, the trend continued. Conservatives outnumbered liberals twenty-five to four on Fox News, seven to one on CNN and nine to five on MSNBC. When the occasional Democrat did actually appear, he or she was usually paired against a rival Republican, whereas most conservatives appeared solo or with fellow ideologues. Even a panel discussion with CNN's Carlos Watson included four Republicans, and only one Democrat and one swing voter.
A MODEL TO STAND AGAINST TODAY'S OPPRESSION
This article by Adam Hochschild deals with the launching of the anti-slavery movement in Britain in 1787. A small group of people got together and decided that slavery was wrong and they were going to do something about it. That initial meeting grew into a movement that got slavery outlawed in Britain in 1838. There are evils that may not be resolved in our lifetimes, but it's important to start the process moving. This article is linked at www.commondreams.org:
The building that once stood at 2 George Yard was a bookstore and printing shop. The proprietor was James Phillips, publisher and printer for Britain's small community of Quakers. On that May afternoon, after the pressmen and typesetters had gone home for the day, 12 men filed through his doors. They formed themselves into a committee with what seemed to their fellow Londoners a hopelessly idealistic and impractical aim: ending first the slave trade and then slavery itself in the most powerful empire on Earth.
The interests they were taking on were entrenched and influential. Britain dominated the Atlantic slave trade. Roughly half the slaves taken across the ocean to its lucrative West Indian sugar islands, to the United States and to other European colonies were transported in British ships. Starting an anti-slavery movement in Britain in 1787 was like starting a renewable energy movement in Saudi Arabia today.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
JANUARY 25, 2005
BUSH THE BULLY
In a visit to Canada last month George W. Bush tried to bully the Canadians on missile defense. Mr. Bush, as you'll recall, wants to waste billions of our tax dollars on a ridiculous "missile defense" system that doesn't work. It won't work in the foreseeable future with our current technology. And when our major effort should be against people who use rocket propelled grenades and box cutters, why are concentrating on missile defense? It couldn't be that Mr. Bush wants to funnel money to defense contractors, could it? This story comes from www.canada.com:
President George W. Bush tried to bully Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S., the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The newspaper quoted an unidentified Canadian official who was in the room as saying Bush waved off their attempts to explain how contentious the issue is for Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government.
U.S. SENDING ROBOT KILLERS TO IRAQ
You thought Robo-Cop was just science fiction? The United States is getting ready to deploy robot soldiers to Iraq. They aren't as sophisticated as the movie Robo-Cop (not yet), but this is a disturbing trend. We keep finding all kinds of new ways to slaughter people. This story by Michael P. Regan is at www.suntimes.com:
The Army is preparing to send 18 remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq.
They will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat. Unlike soldiers, they don't need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and warehoused between wars. But officials say they're not the autonomous killer robots of science fiction. They shoot only when a human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras.
INAUGURAL FREEDOM REFERENCES JUST HOT AIR
It's obvious now that George W. Bush's frequent use of the words "freedom" and "liberty" at his coronation were meant to sound good to his cult, but didn't otherwise mean much. Even on the face of it, we know that the United States, powerful as it is, cannot bring freedom to the whole world. And our definition of "freedom" may not even be right for everyone. The Bush administration, after all the rhetoric, is still content to play footsie with a number of governments that do not provide freedom to their citizens. E. J. Dionne comments at www.workingforchange.com:
Could it be that the speech was designed to sound great but not commit the president to much of anything? "People want to read a lot into it -- that this means new aggression or newly asserted military forces," former President George H.W. Bush told reporters on Saturday. "That's not what that speech is about. It's about freedom." Well, yes, but it also seemed to be about asserting freedom more aggressively. Is that part now inoperative?
BUSH'S BRIDGE TO THE 19TH CENTURY
Ah, the good old days, those wonderful times when there was unregulated capitalism and everyone in the country prospered without the heavy yoke of government. Wait a minute. It wasn't that way at all. It was a time when you had absolutely no security. Lose your job, tough luck. Go out and scrounge in the garbage. Get old and have no savings to fall back on. Tough luck. Find a family member to live with, or die on the street. The examples go on and on. I've never quite understood why right-wingers think the "good old days" were so flaming wonderful. Molly Ivins has a column about Bush's delusions at www.workingforchange.com:
He's delusional: He cannot possibly believe his tax cuts are making this country more just and equal -- they are making it more unjust and unequal every day, not to mention getting us ever deeper into debt. One does not provide "freedom from want and fear" by privatizing Social Security. We've been there, we've done this -- we tried unregulated capitalism at the end of the 19th century, and it was awful.
AMERICANS NOT AS ADMIRED AS SOME CLAIM
You think of the old Disney song "It's a small world after all." George W. Bush has succeeded in making a good part of the world hate us. Not only that, but a good part of the world doesn't see the U.S. has a model for much of anything. This story by Andrew Moravcsik is linked at www.commondreams.org:
The truth is that Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do others not share America's self-regard, they no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievements. The loss of faith in the American Dream goes beyond this swaggering administration and its war in Iraq. A President Kerry would have had to confront a similar disaffection, for it grows from the success of something America holds dear: the spread of democracy, free markets and international institutions—globalization, in a word.
Countries today have dozens of political, economic and social models to choose from. Anti-Americanism is especially virulent in Europe and Latin America, where countries have established their own distinctive ways—none made in America. Futurologist Jeremy Rifkin, in his recent book "The European Dream," hails an emerging European Union based on generous social welfare, cultural diversity and respect for international law—a model that's caught on quickly across the former nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In Asia, the rise of autocratic capitalism in China or Singapore is as much a "model" for development as America's scandal-ridden corporate culture. "First we emulate," one Chinese businessman recently told the board of one U.S. multinational, "then we overtake."
BUSH THE BULLY
In a visit to Canada last month George W. Bush tried to bully the Canadians on missile defense. Mr. Bush, as you'll recall, wants to waste billions of our tax dollars on a ridiculous "missile defense" system that doesn't work. It won't work in the foreseeable future with our current technology. And when our major effort should be against people who use rocket propelled grenades and box cutters, why are concentrating on missile defense? It couldn't be that Mr. Bush wants to funnel money to defense contractors, could it? This story comes from www.canada.com:
President George W. Bush tried to bully Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking Canada's participation to future protection from the U.S., the Washington Post reported Sunday.
The newspaper quoted an unidentified Canadian official who was in the room as saying Bush waved off their attempts to explain how contentious the issue is for Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government.
U.S. SENDING ROBOT KILLERS TO IRAQ
You thought Robo-Cop was just science fiction? The United States is getting ready to deploy robot soldiers to Iraq. They aren't as sophisticated as the movie Robo-Cop (not yet), but this is a disturbing trend. We keep finding all kinds of new ways to slaughter people. This story by Michael P. Regan is at www.suntimes.com:
The Army is preparing to send 18 remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq.
They will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat. Unlike soldiers, they don't need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and warehoused between wars. But officials say they're not the autonomous killer robots of science fiction. They shoot only when a human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras.
INAUGURAL FREEDOM REFERENCES JUST HOT AIR
It's obvious now that George W. Bush's frequent use of the words "freedom" and "liberty" at his coronation were meant to sound good to his cult, but didn't otherwise mean much. Even on the face of it, we know that the United States, powerful as it is, cannot bring freedom to the whole world. And our definition of "freedom" may not even be right for everyone. The Bush administration, after all the rhetoric, is still content to play footsie with a number of governments that do not provide freedom to their citizens. E. J. Dionne comments at www.workingforchange.com:
Could it be that the speech was designed to sound great but not commit the president to much of anything? "People want to read a lot into it -- that this means new aggression or newly asserted military forces," former President George H.W. Bush told reporters on Saturday. "That's not what that speech is about. It's about freedom." Well, yes, but it also seemed to be about asserting freedom more aggressively. Is that part now inoperative?
BUSH'S BRIDGE TO THE 19TH CENTURY
Ah, the good old days, those wonderful times when there was unregulated capitalism and everyone in the country prospered without the heavy yoke of government. Wait a minute. It wasn't that way at all. It was a time when you had absolutely no security. Lose your job, tough luck. Go out and scrounge in the garbage. Get old and have no savings to fall back on. Tough luck. Find a family member to live with, or die on the street. The examples go on and on. I've never quite understood why right-wingers think the "good old days" were so flaming wonderful. Molly Ivins has a column about Bush's delusions at www.workingforchange.com:
He's delusional: He cannot possibly believe his tax cuts are making this country more just and equal -- they are making it more unjust and unequal every day, not to mention getting us ever deeper into debt. One does not provide "freedom from want and fear" by privatizing Social Security. We've been there, we've done this -- we tried unregulated capitalism at the end of the 19th century, and it was awful.
AMERICANS NOT AS ADMIRED AS SOME CLAIM
You think of the old Disney song "It's a small world after all." George W. Bush has succeeded in making a good part of the world hate us. Not only that, but a good part of the world doesn't see the U.S. has a model for much of anything. This story by Andrew Moravcsik is linked at www.commondreams.org:
The truth is that Americans are living in a dream world. Not only do others not share America's self-regard, they no longer aspire to emulate the country's social and economic achievements. The loss of faith in the American Dream goes beyond this swaggering administration and its war in Iraq. A President Kerry would have had to confront a similar disaffection, for it grows from the success of something America holds dear: the spread of democracy, free markets and international institutions—globalization, in a word.
Countries today have dozens of political, economic and social models to choose from. Anti-Americanism is especially virulent in Europe and Latin America, where countries have established their own distinctive ways—none made in America. Futurologist Jeremy Rifkin, in his recent book "The European Dream," hails an emerging European Union based on generous social welfare, cultural diversity and respect for international law—a model that's caught on quickly across the former nations of Eastern Europe and the Baltics. In Asia, the rise of autocratic capitalism in China or Singapore is as much a "model" for development as America's scandal-ridden corporate culture. "First we emulate," one Chinese businessman recently told the board of one U.S. multinational, "then we overtake."
Monday, January 24, 2005
JANUARY 24, 2005
BUSH'S HOBBESIAN "OWNERSHIP SOCIETY"
Thomas Hobbes was the philosopher who observed that "life is brutish and short." That's really the gist of George W. Bush's "ownership society." We aren't in this thing together, you see; it's every man/woman for himself. I hate to think of what society would be like if we all just insistently pursued our predatory self-interest instead of sacrificing something for the greater good. This article by Joshua Holland is posted at www.alternet.org:
The Ownership Society represents a new form of distinctly right-wing economic populism. It turns the notion on its head; while liberals offer a populism that promises underserved groups that "We will stand with you against the heartless and powerful," the central theme of the Ownership Society is that we're all big capitalists just waiting to blossom - even the lowliest among us. If only we could get the yoke of taxes, asbestos litigation and regulations off our backs we would all be in a position to worry about losing a piece of our multi-million dollar estate to the "death tax." Forget about a semblance of economic justice, it's about giving you, the individual, the tools you need to beat your neighbor. And if you can't beat him, he'll beat you. It's a populism born in the Hobbesian belief that we all struggle alone in a world where life is nasty, brutish and short.
ARE WE AT POINT OF NO RETURN IN GLOBAL WARMING?
I wonder if George W. Bush and his apologists will tell us about "good science" now that Bush's own expert has said we have to take action immediately on global warming if the human race is to survive. This is sobering stuff in an article by Geoffrey Lean at www.commondreams.org:
Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world's top climate watchdog.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive".
THE CODED LANGUAGE IN BUSH'S INAUGURAL
In one of the debates with John Kerry George W. Bush mentioned the Dred Scott decision in talking about freedom of choice on abortion. At the time I thought it was just a typical Bush non sequitur, but it was in fact a coded message to his supporters on the religious right. Matthew Rothchild has discovered several coded messages in Bush's inaugural address, which should give pause to all who believe in the separation of church and state. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
Bush’s Inaugural Address contained many explicit references to God, but there were even more hidden allusions to the Bible that may have been lost to many in his audience, as they were to me, before I did some research.
The subtle subtext of his speech carries with it a profoundly disturbing message about the separation of church and state in this country.
U.S. BECOMING A FAKE DEMOCRACY
Democracy in the United States is becoming nothing more than a phony stage prop for the Bush administration to pursue its policies of aggression against other countries and to destroy the middle class here at home. Joel S. Hirschhorn has a commentary also linked at www.commondreams.org:
In a fake democracy, citizens play a role defined by the power elite, but are not truly empowered or engaged. In Cuba and other fake democracies, citizens are hostages to raw state power that controls personal freedom. In the U.S., citizens are hostages to consumerism. Controlled distraction replaces brute force. Instead of overt government propaganda, U.S. Citizens are victims of sly corporate media.
At the same time that Bush supporters were celebrating his second term in inaugural balls there was no public outcries about how undemocratic all the celebrations were. The general public could not attend official balls by paying a reasonable amount of money. No, they were for the power elite who really determine government policies and actions; that is what they were really celebrating.
HOW DID BUSH GET ELECTED?
According to a right-leaning poll, George W. Bush has an approval rating of 44%. I think even 44% is way too high, considering what an awful president this guy is. But it makes you wonder how a guy who is so universally disliked could win an election. This item comes from basie.blogspot.com:
The Republican-leaning polling outfit Rasmussen Reports has a new tracking poll that does not bode well for the President. They write of their latest poll:
Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans give him their Approval along with just 14% of Democrats and 37% of unaffiliated voters.
During 2004, reports on the President Job Approval were based upon surveys of Likely Voters. Typically, a survey of Likely Voters would report a Job Approval rating 2-3 points higher than a survey of all adults.
On Election Day, the President's Job Approval was at 52%. During all of 2004, the President's Job Approval ranged from a high of 57% in early January to a low of 48% on May 17.
THE MAESTRO SENDS SOUR NOTES
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, dubbed the "Maestro" by reporter Bob Woodward, has been pretty accommodating of the gigantic Bush deficits until now. But now there are indications that Greenspan is concerned about the magnitude of the Bush deficits. This story by Edmund L. Andrews is at www.nytimes.com:
The Fed and its chairman, Alan Greenspan, have arguably been Mr. Bush's most important economic supporters. Mr. Greenspan gave his blessing to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and, less enthusiastically, to those of 2003.
Despite Mr. Greenspan's reputation as a staunch opponent of fiscal deficits, he tiptoed around criticism of the soaring federal debt that Mr. Bush ran up in his first term and will almost certainly continue to run up in his second.
BUSH'S HOBBESIAN "OWNERSHIP SOCIETY"
Thomas Hobbes was the philosopher who observed that "life is brutish and short." That's really the gist of George W. Bush's "ownership society." We aren't in this thing together, you see; it's every man/woman for himself. I hate to think of what society would be like if we all just insistently pursued our predatory self-interest instead of sacrificing something for the greater good. This article by Joshua Holland is posted at www.alternet.org:
The Ownership Society represents a new form of distinctly right-wing economic populism. It turns the notion on its head; while liberals offer a populism that promises underserved groups that "We will stand with you against the heartless and powerful," the central theme of the Ownership Society is that we're all big capitalists just waiting to blossom - even the lowliest among us. If only we could get the yoke of taxes, asbestos litigation and regulations off our backs we would all be in a position to worry about losing a piece of our multi-million dollar estate to the "death tax." Forget about a semblance of economic justice, it's about giving you, the individual, the tools you need to beat your neighbor. And if you can't beat him, he'll beat you. It's a populism born in the Hobbesian belief that we all struggle alone in a world where life is nasty, brutish and short.
ARE WE AT POINT OF NO RETURN IN GLOBAL WARMING?
I wonder if George W. Bush and his apologists will tell us about "good science" now that Bush's own expert has said we have to take action immediately on global warming if the human race is to survive. This is sobering stuff in an article by Geoffrey Lean at www.commondreams.org:
Global warning has already hit the danger point that international attempts to curb it are designed to avoid, according to the world's top climate watchdog.
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told an international conference attended by 114 governments in Mauritius this month that he personally believes that the world has "already reached the level of dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere" and called for immediate and "very deep" cuts in the pollution if humanity is to "survive".
THE CODED LANGUAGE IN BUSH'S INAUGURAL
In one of the debates with John Kerry George W. Bush mentioned the Dred Scott decision in talking about freedom of choice on abortion. At the time I thought it was just a typical Bush non sequitur, but it was in fact a coded message to his supporters on the religious right. Matthew Rothchild has discovered several coded messages in Bush's inaugural address, which should give pause to all who believe in the separation of church and state. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
Bush’s Inaugural Address contained many explicit references to God, but there were even more hidden allusions to the Bible that may have been lost to many in his audience, as they were to me, before I did some research.
The subtle subtext of his speech carries with it a profoundly disturbing message about the separation of church and state in this country.
U.S. BECOMING A FAKE DEMOCRACY
Democracy in the United States is becoming nothing more than a phony stage prop for the Bush administration to pursue its policies of aggression against other countries and to destroy the middle class here at home. Joel S. Hirschhorn has a commentary also linked at www.commondreams.org:
In a fake democracy, citizens play a role defined by the power elite, but are not truly empowered or engaged. In Cuba and other fake democracies, citizens are hostages to raw state power that controls personal freedom. In the U.S., citizens are hostages to consumerism. Controlled distraction replaces brute force. Instead of overt government propaganda, U.S. Citizens are victims of sly corporate media.
At the same time that Bush supporters were celebrating his second term in inaugural balls there was no public outcries about how undemocratic all the celebrations were. The general public could not attend official balls by paying a reasonable amount of money. No, they were for the power elite who really determine government policies and actions; that is what they were really celebrating.
HOW DID BUSH GET ELECTED?
According to a right-leaning poll, George W. Bush has an approval rating of 44%. I think even 44% is way too high, considering what an awful president this guy is. But it makes you wonder how a guy who is so universally disliked could win an election. This item comes from basie.blogspot.com:
The Republican-leaning polling outfit Rasmussen Reports has a new tracking poll that does not bode well for the President. They write of their latest poll:
Forty-four percent (44%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Republicans give him their Approval along with just 14% of Democrats and 37% of unaffiliated voters.
During 2004, reports on the President Job Approval were based upon surveys of Likely Voters. Typically, a survey of Likely Voters would report a Job Approval rating 2-3 points higher than a survey of all adults.
On Election Day, the President's Job Approval was at 52%. During all of 2004, the President's Job Approval ranged from a high of 57% in early January to a low of 48% on May 17.
THE MAESTRO SENDS SOUR NOTES
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, dubbed the "Maestro" by reporter Bob Woodward, has been pretty accommodating of the gigantic Bush deficits until now. But now there are indications that Greenspan is concerned about the magnitude of the Bush deficits. This story by Edmund L. Andrews is at www.nytimes.com:
The Fed and its chairman, Alan Greenspan, have arguably been Mr. Bush's most important economic supporters. Mr. Greenspan gave his blessing to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and, less enthusiastically, to those of 2003.
Despite Mr. Greenspan's reputation as a staunch opponent of fiscal deficits, he tiptoed around criticism of the soaring federal debt that Mr. Bush ran up in his first term and will almost certainly continue to run up in his second.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
JANUARY 23, 2005
MORE DISTURBING BUSH SECRETS COME TO LIGHT
According to this story, the Bush administration is once again attacking Posse Comitatus. That was the law that came into being after the Civil War prohibiting the use of the military as police in this country. The paranoia and arrogance of the Bush administration is getting scarier all the time. Now they have an elite group of commandos whose job is to "protect the presidency." Bush is acting like a king, not an elected official. This story by Eric Schmitt is at www.nytimes.com:
Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before.
As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were poised to act under a 1997 program that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the military has historically been used on American soil.
RUMSFELD ALSO OVERREACHING HIS AUTHORITY
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is taking power traditionally centered in the hands of the CIA to gather intelligence. Once again, we see a pattern in the Bush administration They consistently try to back door their way around laws they find inconvenient. They do it under the justification of "fighting the war on terror." Laws against torture? We can't obey those. Laws protecting civil liberties? Those get in the way. Free speech? Free speech is aiding the terrorists. This story by Barton Gellman is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.
HIDDEN MEANINGS
I've never seen the Virgin Mary in a tortilla, or seen the Madonna on the side of a building. I don't see that cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is promoting any kind of agenda, much less a homosexual one. But the right-wing crazies who call themselves Christian see SpongeBob as a major threat. They see an insidious gay agenda the way Tailgunner Joe McCarthy saw Communists lurking everywhere back in the 1950s. Maureen Dowd has some thoughts in her column at www.nytimes.com:
I can't believe I thought he was just an innocent little sponge wearing tight shorts.
What in the name of Davy Jones's locker would a sponge be doing holding hands with a starfish or donning purple and hot-pink flowered garb to redecorate the Krusty Krab if he weren't a perverted invertebrate?
Before this is over, we're going to find out that SpongeBob is the illicit spawn of the Tampa shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge. Who knew SpongeBob would become as fraught as the cover of "Abbey Road"?
LET'S CALL IT THE ROTTEN DEAL
Some presidential administrations live on in succinct descriptions such as the New Deal for FDR, the Fair Deal for Harry Truman, the New Frontier for JFK, and the Great Society for Lyndon Johnson. Maybe we should christen this administration the Rotten Deal, both for its efforts to overturn all the good things that came from the New Deal and other Democratic administrations, and for the policies it has inflicted on this country and the rest of the world. Sidney Blumenthal talks about the Bush administration in this article linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
In his second term, President Bush is determined on regime change. The country whose order he seeks to overthrow is not ruled by mullahs or Ba'athists. But members of his administration have compared its system to communism. The battle will be "one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times", the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove wrote in a confidential memo. Since the election, the president has spoken often of the "coming crisis" and he has mobilised the government to begin a propaganda campaign to prepare public opinion for the conflict ahead. The nation whose regime he is set on toppling is the United States.
MORE DISTURBING BUSH SECRETS COME TO LIGHT
According to this story, the Bush administration is once again attacking Posse Comitatus. That was the law that came into being after the Civil War prohibiting the use of the military as police in this country. The paranoia and arrogance of the Bush administration is getting scarier all the time. Now they have an elite group of commandos whose job is to "protect the presidency." Bush is acting like a king, not an elected official. This story by Eric Schmitt is at www.nytimes.com:
Somewhere in the shadows of the White House and the Capitol this week, a small group of super-secret commandos stood ready with state-of-the-art weaponry to swing into action to protect the presidency, a task that has never been fully revealed before.
As part of the extraordinary army of 13,000 troops, police officers and federal agents marshaled to secure the inauguration, these elite forces were poised to act under a 1997 program that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 attacks, but nonetheless departs from how the military has historically been used on American soil.
RUMSFELD ALSO OVERREACHING HIS AUTHORITY
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is taking power traditionally centered in the hands of the CIA to gather intelligence. Once again, we see a pattern in the Bush administration They consistently try to back door their way around laws they find inconvenient. They do it under the justification of "fighting the war on terror." Laws against torture? We can't obey those. Laws protecting civil liberties? Those get in the way. Free speech? Free speech is aiding the terrorists. This story by Barton Gellman is at www.washingtonpost.com:
The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
The previously undisclosed organization, called the Strategic Support Branch, arose from Rumsfeld's written order to end his "near total dependence on CIA" for what is known as human intelligence. Designed to operate without detection and under the defense secretary's direct control, the Strategic Support Branch deploys small teams of case officers, linguists, interrogators and technical specialists alongside newly empowered special operations forces.
HIDDEN MEANINGS
I've never seen the Virgin Mary in a tortilla, or seen the Madonna on the side of a building. I don't see that cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is promoting any kind of agenda, much less a homosexual one. But the right-wing crazies who call themselves Christian see SpongeBob as a major threat. They see an insidious gay agenda the way Tailgunner Joe McCarthy saw Communists lurking everywhere back in the 1950s. Maureen Dowd has some thoughts in her column at www.nytimes.com:
I can't believe I thought he was just an innocent little sponge wearing tight shorts.
What in the name of Davy Jones's locker would a sponge be doing holding hands with a starfish or donning purple and hot-pink flowered garb to redecorate the Krusty Krab if he weren't a perverted invertebrate?
Before this is over, we're going to find out that SpongeBob is the illicit spawn of the Tampa shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge. Who knew SpongeBob would become as fraught as the cover of "Abbey Road"?
LET'S CALL IT THE ROTTEN DEAL
Some presidential administrations live on in succinct descriptions such as the New Deal for FDR, the Fair Deal for Harry Truman, the New Frontier for JFK, and the Great Society for Lyndon Johnson. Maybe we should christen this administration the Rotten Deal, both for its efforts to overturn all the good things that came from the New Deal and other Democratic administrations, and for the policies it has inflicted on this country and the rest of the world. Sidney Blumenthal talks about the Bush administration in this article linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:
In his second term, President Bush is determined on regime change. The country whose order he seeks to overthrow is not ruled by mullahs or Ba'athists. But members of his administration have compared its system to communism. The battle will be "one of the most important conservative undertakings of modern times", the deputy to White House political director Karl Rove wrote in a confidential memo. Since the election, the president has spoken often of the "coming crisis" and he has mobilised the government to begin a propaganda campaign to prepare public opinion for the conflict ahead. The nation whose regime he is set on toppling is the United States.
Saturday, January 22, 2005
JANUARY 22, 2005
BILL O'REILLY IS A NITWIT
I don't know if Bill O'Reilly is just a totally corrupt creep, or just incredibly stupid. He made a statement suggesting that Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators would be members of the ACLU. The ACLU stands for civil liberties, you moron, and dictators by their nature are opposed to civil liberties. Your guy, Mr. Bush, has far more in common with Hitler and Stalin than does the ACLU. This story is at www.mediamatters.org:
Discussing the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) objections to the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district's plans to include "intelligent design" theory in their high school biology curriculum, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly declared: "Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin. Castro probably is. And so would Mao Zedong."
On the January 19 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly read portions of the statement about "intelligent design," which the Dover Area School District requires its biology teachers to read, and complained that even this statement does not directly mention God:
BUSH THE GUY WITH THE WHITE HAT
You would get the impression from George W. Bush's inaugural address and the redundant use of the word "freedom" that he's the cowboy in the white hat come to chase out those mean and evil varmints that are oppressing the people of the world. For all of his talk about democracy, however, does Mr. Bush really want democratic elections that would install leaders hostile the United States? In her confirmation hearings before the Senate Condoleezza Rice had unkind things to say about Venezuela, for example, a country with a democratically elected leader the Bush administration doesn't like. This story by Mark Silva and Stephen J. Hedges is at www.chicagotribune.com:
President Bush's mission for the United States as a liberator of oppressed people worldwide should not signal a dramatic new course in American foreign policy, experts both inside and outside the administration said Friday, but they noted that it conflicts with many of Washington's existing relationships.
Critics questioned the president's commitment to democracy in nations where unfettered voting could produce hostile regimes, such as in Pakistan, and they faulted the administration for already being too free with U.S. arms sales to questionable governments as a means of securing allies in the war on terror.
TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH DON'T STIMULATE THE ECONOMY
Right-wingers love plutocracy. They love people who have lots of money. To rationalize the greed and excess of the very rich, they claim that the rich "create jobs" and that they are the "risk takers" and that the rich will take their tax cut money and invest it back into the economy. None of those claims hold water. The rich stick most of their money into savings or other investments that don't necessarily create anything but more wealth for the rich. This analysis comes from Christian E. Weller at www.americanprogress.org:
It is a widely cited right-wing mantra that tax cuts are good for growth and for jobs. Supposedly, the Bush tax cuts were a good economic stimulus when the economy needed it in the recession in 2001. In his radio address on March 10, 2001, President Bush argued that the economy was "sputtering" and that people needed more money to "buy products."
To achieve the stimulus goal, President Bush could not have designed a worse tax cut. For one, the changes did not happen when the economy actually needed it. Out of a massive tax cut totaling $1.3 trillion, only $74 billion, or 5.5 percent, actually occurred in 2001, when the economy supposedly needed it the most. Instead, the vast majority of the tax cuts would happen five years later, when the economy was hopefully no longer in need of help.
TORT REFORM JUST ANOTHER HOUSE OF CARDS
George W. Bush likes to cite "frivolous" lawsuits as a major contributor to rising health care costs. He claims that litigation is a drag on the economy and we can boost the economy by legislating "tort reform." The net effect of any reform Mr Bush advocates is that you and I would have virtually no recourse against corporations that have caused us grievous harm. This commentary by Lawrence Mishel is at www.prospect.org:
In an era of great economic flimflams, “tort reform” is one of the greatest. “Lawsuit abuse” has become one of just a handful of issues that the Bush administration and its business allies say must be addressed in order to generate more growth and jobs. Yet, it turns out, there’s not a shred of evidence anywhere that the proposed changes in the tort system have anything to do with either economic growth or job creation.
BILL O'REILLY IS A NITWIT
I don't know if Bill O'Reilly is just a totally corrupt creep, or just incredibly stupid. He made a statement suggesting that Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators would be members of the ACLU. The ACLU stands for civil liberties, you moron, and dictators by their nature are opposed to civil liberties. Your guy, Mr. Bush, has far more in common with Hitler and Stalin than does the ACLU. This story is at www.mediamatters.org:
Discussing the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) objections to the Dover, Pennsylvania, school district's plans to include "intelligent design" theory in their high school biology curriculum, FOX News host Bill O'Reilly declared: "Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin. Castro probably is. And so would Mao Zedong."
On the January 19 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, O'Reilly read portions of the statement about "intelligent design," which the Dover Area School District requires its biology teachers to read, and complained that even this statement does not directly mention God:
BUSH THE GUY WITH THE WHITE HAT
You would get the impression from George W. Bush's inaugural address and the redundant use of the word "freedom" that he's the cowboy in the white hat come to chase out those mean and evil varmints that are oppressing the people of the world. For all of his talk about democracy, however, does Mr. Bush really want democratic elections that would install leaders hostile the United States? In her confirmation hearings before the Senate Condoleezza Rice had unkind things to say about Venezuela, for example, a country with a democratically elected leader the Bush administration doesn't like. This story by Mark Silva and Stephen J. Hedges is at www.chicagotribune.com:
President Bush's mission for the United States as a liberator of oppressed people worldwide should not signal a dramatic new course in American foreign policy, experts both inside and outside the administration said Friday, but they noted that it conflicts with many of Washington's existing relationships.
Critics questioned the president's commitment to democracy in nations where unfettered voting could produce hostile regimes, such as in Pakistan, and they faulted the administration for already being too free with U.S. arms sales to questionable governments as a means of securing allies in the war on terror.
TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH DON'T STIMULATE THE ECONOMY
Right-wingers love plutocracy. They love people who have lots of money. To rationalize the greed and excess of the very rich, they claim that the rich "create jobs" and that they are the "risk takers" and that the rich will take their tax cut money and invest it back into the economy. None of those claims hold water. The rich stick most of their money into savings or other investments that don't necessarily create anything but more wealth for the rich. This analysis comes from Christian E. Weller at www.americanprogress.org:
It is a widely cited right-wing mantra that tax cuts are good for growth and for jobs. Supposedly, the Bush tax cuts were a good economic stimulus when the economy needed it in the recession in 2001. In his radio address on March 10, 2001, President Bush argued that the economy was "sputtering" and that people needed more money to "buy products."
To achieve the stimulus goal, President Bush could not have designed a worse tax cut. For one, the changes did not happen when the economy actually needed it. Out of a massive tax cut totaling $1.3 trillion, only $74 billion, or 5.5 percent, actually occurred in 2001, when the economy supposedly needed it the most. Instead, the vast majority of the tax cuts would happen five years later, when the economy was hopefully no longer in need of help.
TORT REFORM JUST ANOTHER HOUSE OF CARDS
George W. Bush likes to cite "frivolous" lawsuits as a major contributor to rising health care costs. He claims that litigation is a drag on the economy and we can boost the economy by legislating "tort reform." The net effect of any reform Mr Bush advocates is that you and I would have virtually no recourse against corporations that have caused us grievous harm. This commentary by Lawrence Mishel is at www.prospect.org:
In an era of great economic flimflams, “tort reform” is one of the greatest. “Lawsuit abuse” has become one of just a handful of issues that the Bush administration and its business allies say must be addressed in order to generate more growth and jobs. Yet, it turns out, there’s not a shred of evidence anywhere that the proposed changes in the tort system have anything to do with either economic growth or job creation.
Friday, January 21, 2005
JANUARY 21, 2005
WATCH OUT FOR THE CARTOON CHARACTERS!
When I read the daily news it just never occurs to me that cartoon characters are a major threat to our way of life. But the Bible thumping religious right is looking for some insidious "agenda" everywhere. Now they're all in a lather about the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob is apparently a front "person" for the gay "agenda" or some such nonsense. Poverty, disease, death, war don't disturb these yahoos, but a cartoon character does. This story is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
TO A REAL "OWNERSHIP SOCIETY"
If George W. Bush truly wants an ownership society, where every American has a chance to have a decent life, then he will do an immediate 180 and reverse the policies from his first four years. This commentary is from Robert Reich at www.tompaine.com:
I want to be among the first to commend the president for choosing as his major domestic theme the "Ownership Society." What could be more important than giving more Americans an opportunity to own assets and build wealth? The president is obviously concerned that ownership in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been since the days of the robber barons in the late 19th century. The richest 1 percent now own as much as the bottom 90 percent put together.
BUSH'S SOCIAL SECURITY PLAN FULL OF HOLES
We simply can't afford the Bush plan to privatize Social Security. It will create enormous debt for the country and destroy the best program ever created by the government. One of the basic premises of the Bush plan is that stocks outperform bonds,and therefore people will build a better retirement nestegg with investments in the stock market. In this column Paul Krugman shows why that isn't so. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
Fifty years ago most people, remembering 1929, were afraid of the stock market. As a result, those who did buy stocks got to buy them cheap: on average, the value of a company's stock was only about 13 times that company's profits. Because stocks were cheap, they yielded high returns in dividends and capital gains.
But high returns always get competed away, once people know about them: stocks are no longer cheap. Today, the value of a typical company's stock is more than 20 times its profits. The more you pay for an asset, the lower the rate of return you can expect to earn. That's why even Jeremy Siegel, whose "Stocks for the Long Run" is often cited by those who favor stocks over bonds, has conceded that "returns on stocks over bonds won't be as large as in the past."
THE GAP BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
To hear George W. Bush, members of his administration, and the echo chamber in the right-wing media you would think everything was just coming up roses thanks to Mr. Bush. Iraq is moving toward democracy (not). The economy is great (not). We have a great health care system (not). Richard Cohen writes about the gulf between Bush's fantasies and the hard reality we all face at www.washingtonpost.com:
Alchemy is the purported science of turning base metals into gold. It does not exist. Political alchemy is the ability to turn hard failures into gossamer triumphs. It does exist. The inauguration of George W. Bush for a second term proves it.
ANOTHER HOMELAND SECURITY DEBACLE?
Bernard Kerik was forced to withdraw his name from consideration to head the Homeland Security Department when several unsavory things came to light. Now something interesting is surfacing about Bush's latest nominee, Michael Chertoff. Mr. Chertoff may have ties to financiers of the 9/11 attack on the United States. This story is at www.universitystar.com:
Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff’s ties to the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks may prevent his confirmation as Homeland Security Chief.
According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir.
BUSH AND SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE WHILE DEATH GOES ON IN IRAQ
The lavish balls to celebrate George W. Bush's return to office make you think of the Gilded Age when the rich were rich and the poor were poor and there was no in between. Even worse, the celebrants went on their merry way, oblivious to the carnage in Iraq that is the direct responsibility of Mr. Bush. Bob Herbert comments at www.nytimes.com:
Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.
WATCH OUT FOR THE CARTOON CHARACTERS!
When I read the daily news it just never occurs to me that cartoon characters are a major threat to our way of life. But the Bible thumping religious right is looking for some insidious "agenda" everywhere. Now they're all in a lather about the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants. SpongeBob is apparently a front "person" for the gay "agenda" or some such nonsense. Poverty, disease, death, war don't disturb these yahoos, but a cartoon character does. This story is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
TO A REAL "OWNERSHIP SOCIETY"
If George W. Bush truly wants an ownership society, where every American has a chance to have a decent life, then he will do an immediate 180 and reverse the policies from his first four years. This commentary is from Robert Reich at www.tompaine.com:
I want to be among the first to commend the president for choosing as his major domestic theme the "Ownership Society." What could be more important than giving more Americans an opportunity to own assets and build wealth? The president is obviously concerned that ownership in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it's been since the days of the robber barons in the late 19th century. The richest 1 percent now own as much as the bottom 90 percent put together.
BUSH'S SOCIAL SECURITY PLAN FULL OF HOLES
We simply can't afford the Bush plan to privatize Social Security. It will create enormous debt for the country and destroy the best program ever created by the government. One of the basic premises of the Bush plan is that stocks outperform bonds,and therefore people will build a better retirement nestegg with investments in the stock market. In this column Paul Krugman shows why that isn't so. The column is at www.nytimes.com:
Fifty years ago most people, remembering 1929, were afraid of the stock market. As a result, those who did buy stocks got to buy them cheap: on average, the value of a company's stock was only about 13 times that company's profits. Because stocks were cheap, they yielded high returns in dividends and capital gains.
But high returns always get competed away, once people know about them: stocks are no longer cheap. Today, the value of a typical company's stock is more than 20 times its profits. The more you pay for an asset, the lower the rate of return you can expect to earn. That's why even Jeremy Siegel, whose "Stocks for the Long Run" is often cited by those who favor stocks over bonds, has conceded that "returns on stocks over bonds won't be as large as in the past."
THE GAP BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY
To hear George W. Bush, members of his administration, and the echo chamber in the right-wing media you would think everything was just coming up roses thanks to Mr. Bush. Iraq is moving toward democracy (not). The economy is great (not). We have a great health care system (not). Richard Cohen writes about the gulf between Bush's fantasies and the hard reality we all face at www.washingtonpost.com:
Alchemy is the purported science of turning base metals into gold. It does not exist. Political alchemy is the ability to turn hard failures into gossamer triumphs. It does exist. The inauguration of George W. Bush for a second term proves it.
ANOTHER HOMELAND SECURITY DEBACLE?
Bernard Kerik was forced to withdraw his name from consideration to head the Homeland Security Department when several unsavory things came to light. Now something interesting is surfacing about Bush's latest nominee, Michael Chertoff. Mr. Chertoff may have ties to financiers of the 9/11 attack on the United States. This story is at www.universitystar.com:
Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff’s ties to the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks may prevent his confirmation as Homeland Security Chief.
According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir.
BUSH AND SUPPORTERS CELEBRATE WHILE DEATH GOES ON IN IRAQ
The lavish balls to celebrate George W. Bush's return to office make you think of the Gilded Age when the rich were rich and the poor were poor and there was no in between. Even worse, the celebrants went on their merry way, oblivious to the carnage in Iraq that is the direct responsibility of Mr. Bush. Bob Herbert comments at www.nytimes.com:
Even as President Bush was taking the oath of office and delivering his Inaugural Address beneath the clear, cold skies of Washington, the news wires were churning out stories about the tragic mayhem in Iraq. There is no end in sight to the carnage, which was unleashed nearly two years ago by President Bush's decision to launch this wholly unnecessary war, one of the worst presidential decisions in American history.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
JANUARY 20, 2005
RICE'S NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP
Condi Rice made her appearance before the Senate to get confirmed as the next Secretary of State and, for the most part, the Senators questioning her bubbled with enthusiasm. Never mind that even Joe Biden, one of the bubblers, came up with a glaring contradiction in the number of Iraqis who have been trained by the U.S. Rice says 120,000 and Biden came up with 4,000. Doesn't anyone notice there's a pattern in the Bush administration? It's called lying. This column by Maureen Dowd is at www.nytimes.com:
Just look at Condoleezza Rice.
She's clearly a well-educated, intelligent woman, versed in Brahms and the Bolsheviks, who has just been rewarded for her loyalty with the most plum assignment in the second Bush cabinet.
Yet her math skills are woefully inadequate.
THE GROPER IS GETTING SUED FOR LIBEL
The Fresno Bee published a letter from a writer who claimed to be an eighth grader. The writer was effusive in praising our Governor Groper. Someone praising this guy makes me tend to think they probably are in the eighth grade. The Groper hasn't done much except stick his foot in his mouth, sign off on an execution, and increase California's debt. Now his past life as a groper is coming back to haunt him. A British interviewer who said our governor groped her breast, and then subsequently libeled her, is bringing a lawsuit. The story is at www.sacbee.com:
A British judge ruled Thursday that a libel case being brought by a television host who says she was groped by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will go ahead.
Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, had attempted to have the case thrown out, claiming that allegations bought by television presenter Anna Richardson had no chance of succeeding if they reached court.
GRANER TOOK THE FALL FOR TORTURE
I don't think Cpl. Charles Graner is a nice guy, and he should have had the integrity to refuse to torture prisoners. But I believe there is a strong probability his orders to torture Iraqi detainees came from higher levels. We know that George W. Bush's Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo that authorized torture. We know that he has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint." Are we to believe that the Charles Graners in the U.S. military acted strictly of their own accord? This commentary by Scott Horton is at www.latimes.com:
In past weeks, we have been treated to a show trial of sorts at Ft. Hood, Texas, starring Cpl. Charles Graner and other low-ranking military figures. The Graner court-martial and the upcoming trial of Pfc. Lynndie England are being hyped as proof of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's explanation for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures: A few "rotten apples" — not U.S. policy or those who created it — are to blame.
THE ONEROUS BUSH AGENDA
Former Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart writes about the dreams of the neocons who currently control the United States government. They want to destroy any social safety net such as Social Security, they want to "bring democracy" to the rest of the world by force, and they want the federal judiciary packed with right-wing ideologues. This commentary is linked at www.commondreams.org:
Today's inauguration of George Bush will be all about his vision for uniting America. Three radical forces will colour the second term. The first is represented by those concerned to dismantle America's social security system, the cornerstone of the Rooseveltian New Deal and the heart of the United States' social safety net. The second by those attempting to remake the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, the fulcrum for institutionalising the cultural agenda of the religious right. The third is represented by those seeking to salvage the neo-conservative project to bring democracy to the Arab world at the point of a bayonet.
RICE'S NUMBERS DON'T ADD UP
Condi Rice made her appearance before the Senate to get confirmed as the next Secretary of State and, for the most part, the Senators questioning her bubbled with enthusiasm. Never mind that even Joe Biden, one of the bubblers, came up with a glaring contradiction in the number of Iraqis who have been trained by the U.S. Rice says 120,000 and Biden came up with 4,000. Doesn't anyone notice there's a pattern in the Bush administration? It's called lying. This column by Maureen Dowd is at www.nytimes.com:
Just look at Condoleezza Rice.
She's clearly a well-educated, intelligent woman, versed in Brahms and the Bolsheviks, who has just been rewarded for her loyalty with the most plum assignment in the second Bush cabinet.
Yet her math skills are woefully inadequate.
THE GROPER IS GETTING SUED FOR LIBEL
The Fresno Bee published a letter from a writer who claimed to be an eighth grader. The writer was effusive in praising our Governor Groper. Someone praising this guy makes me tend to think they probably are in the eighth grade. The Groper hasn't done much except stick his foot in his mouth, sign off on an execution, and increase California's debt. Now his past life as a groper is coming back to haunt him. A British interviewer who said our governor groped her breast, and then subsequently libeled her, is bringing a lawsuit. The story is at www.sacbee.com:
A British judge ruled Thursday that a libel case being brought by a television host who says she was groped by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will go ahead.
Sean Walsh, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger, had attempted to have the case thrown out, claiming that allegations bought by television presenter Anna Richardson had no chance of succeeding if they reached court.
GRANER TOOK THE FALL FOR TORTURE
I don't think Cpl. Charles Graner is a nice guy, and he should have had the integrity to refuse to torture prisoners. But I believe there is a strong probability his orders to torture Iraqi detainees came from higher levels. We know that George W. Bush's Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo that authorized torture. We know that he has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint." Are we to believe that the Charles Graners in the U.S. military acted strictly of their own accord? This commentary by Scott Horton is at www.latimes.com:
In past weeks, we have been treated to a show trial of sorts at Ft. Hood, Texas, starring Cpl. Charles Graner and other low-ranking military figures. The Graner court-martial and the upcoming trial of Pfc. Lynndie England are being hyped as proof of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's explanation for the Abu Ghraib prison tortures: A few "rotten apples" — not U.S. policy or those who created it — are to blame.
THE ONEROUS BUSH AGENDA
Former Senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart writes about the dreams of the neocons who currently control the United States government. They want to destroy any social safety net such as Social Security, they want to "bring democracy" to the rest of the world by force, and they want the federal judiciary packed with right-wing ideologues. This commentary is linked at www.commondreams.org:
Today's inauguration of George Bush will be all about his vision for uniting America. Three radical forces will colour the second term. The first is represented by those concerned to dismantle America's social security system, the cornerstone of the Rooseveltian New Deal and the heart of the United States' social safety net. The second by those attempting to remake the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, the fulcrum for institutionalising the cultural agenda of the religious right. The third is represented by those seeking to salvage the neo-conservative project to bring democracy to the Arab world at the point of a bayonet.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
JANUARY 19, 2005
LET THE FACTS SPEAK: CONDI RICE IS A LIAR
You almost have to take an anti-nausea pill when you watch or listen to confirmation hearings in the Senate. Republicans especially just gush over what wonderful people George W. Bush has sent up for approval. Today it was Condi Rice, nominated to be the next Secretary of State, who got the praise. It's pretty disgusting that California "Democrat" Dianne Feinstein joined in the gushing, but we've come to expect that from Feinstein by now. Condi Rice's whole record clearly and unambiguously shows she is a liar, no matter her protests about her "integrity." This story by Sonni Efron is at www.latimes.com:
Clashing sharply with critical Democrats, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice today defended the Bush administration's decision to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and repeatedly asked senators at her confirmation hearing not to impugn her integrity or suggest she had been untruthful about the reasons for going to war.
FIRST CALIFORNIA EXECUTION IN THREE YEARS
The death penalty is an issue I struggle with. I thought I was totally opposed to the death penalty, but there are crimes so heinous I now believe the death penalty is appropriate in some rare cases. But I keep coming back to the fact that Donald Beardslee killed three people. George W. Bush has been responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 innocent people, and our Governor Groper and others don't seem bothered by that in the least. This story is from news.yahoo.com:
A three-time murderer who claimed he had a brain defect that made him easily swayed by others was put to death early Wednesday in California's first execution in three years.
THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE DRAPED IN BLACK
On the eve of George W. Bush's coronation we should drape the entire country in black. Four more years of Mr. Bush are nothing to celebrate. If you define success by a wrecked economy, more poverty, dirtier air and water, being hated by the rest of the world, thousands of people dead, civil liberties in tatters, and torture as part of government policy Mr. Bush has been a success. G. Jefferson Price III has some thoughts in this article at www.baltimoresun.com:
The inaugural will be celebrated expensively and ostentatiously, full of pomp and pomposity. The other day I learned from National Public Radio that the Ritz-Carlton in Washington is offering a $150,000 package for the event that includes charter jet (from Texas, probably) to Washington, the most expensive suite in the house, and an endless supply of caviar and Dom Perignon for the two- or three-day visit.
NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE NEWT GINGRICH
The disgusting Newt Gingrich is largely responsible for the "Republican revolution" in 1994. He and his phony "Contract With America" set the stage for the hard lurch to the right we see in George W. Bush. Yet Gingrich still seeks to invoke the mythical liberal boogeymen for the problems the country is facing. This comes from an article by Scott Martelle at www.latimes.com:
In an echo of President Nixon's famous "silent majority," Gingrich's conservatives are victims. Gingrich writes: "Since the 1960s, the conservative majority has been intimidated, manipulated and bullied by the liberal minority. The liberal elites who dominate academia, the courts, the press, and much of the government bureaucracy share an essentially European secular-socialist value system."
Yet since the 1968 election, Republicans have occupied the Oval Office 24 years to 12 for the Democrats, the courts are likely to continue a rightward shift over the next four years and Congress is even more solidly Republican than two years ago.
LET THE FACTS SPEAK: CONDI RICE IS A LIAR
You almost have to take an anti-nausea pill when you watch or listen to confirmation hearings in the Senate. Republicans especially just gush over what wonderful people George W. Bush has sent up for approval. Today it was Condi Rice, nominated to be the next Secretary of State, who got the praise. It's pretty disgusting that California "Democrat" Dianne Feinstein joined in the gushing, but we've come to expect that from Feinstein by now. Condi Rice's whole record clearly and unambiguously shows she is a liar, no matter her protests about her "integrity." This story by Sonni Efron is at www.latimes.com:
Clashing sharply with critical Democrats, Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice today defended the Bush administration's decision to topple Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and repeatedly asked senators at her confirmation hearing not to impugn her integrity or suggest she had been untruthful about the reasons for going to war.
FIRST CALIFORNIA EXECUTION IN THREE YEARS
The death penalty is an issue I struggle with. I thought I was totally opposed to the death penalty, but there are crimes so heinous I now believe the death penalty is appropriate in some rare cases. But I keep coming back to the fact that Donald Beardslee killed three people. George W. Bush has been responsible for the deaths of at least 100,000 innocent people, and our Governor Groper and others don't seem bothered by that in the least. This story is from news.yahoo.com:
A three-time murderer who claimed he had a brain defect that made him easily swayed by others was put to death early Wednesday in California's first execution in three years.
THE COUNTRY SHOULD BE DRAPED IN BLACK
On the eve of George W. Bush's coronation we should drape the entire country in black. Four more years of Mr. Bush are nothing to celebrate. If you define success by a wrecked economy, more poverty, dirtier air and water, being hated by the rest of the world, thousands of people dead, civil liberties in tatters, and torture as part of government policy Mr. Bush has been a success. G. Jefferson Price III has some thoughts in this article at www.baltimoresun.com:
The inaugural will be celebrated expensively and ostentatiously, full of pomp and pomposity. The other day I learned from National Public Radio that the Ritz-Carlton in Washington is offering a $150,000 package for the event that includes charter jet (from Texas, probably) to Washington, the most expensive suite in the house, and an endless supply of caviar and Dom Perignon for the two- or three-day visit.
NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE NEWT GINGRICH
The disgusting Newt Gingrich is largely responsible for the "Republican revolution" in 1994. He and his phony "Contract With America" set the stage for the hard lurch to the right we see in George W. Bush. Yet Gingrich still seeks to invoke the mythical liberal boogeymen for the problems the country is facing. This comes from an article by Scott Martelle at www.latimes.com:
In an echo of President Nixon's famous "silent majority," Gingrich's conservatives are victims. Gingrich writes: "Since the 1960s, the conservative majority has been intimidated, manipulated and bullied by the liberal minority. The liberal elites who dominate academia, the courts, the press, and much of the government bureaucracy share an essentially European secular-socialist value system."
Yet since the 1968 election, Republicans have occupied the Oval Office 24 years to 12 for the Democrats, the courts are likely to continue a rightward shift over the next four years and Congress is even more solidly Republican than two years ago.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
JANUARY 18, 2005
BUSH LEADING US OVER A CLIFF
The outrageous news today is that the Bush administration is planning another war, this time against Iran. Did Iran attack us-- and I just didn't get the word? This guy seems determined to unite the whole Muslim world against us and to start World War III. In this editorial The Nation talks about the start of a second Bush term and the trail of disaster left by Term I. The editorial is at www.thenation.com:
Bush starts this second term blind to the consequences of the havoc he has wrought and misleading the very voters who returned him to office. His record is one of failure: aggressive war on Iraq that has led to thousands of American and Iraqi deaths; officially endorsed policies that led to torture in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere; a botched assault on terror that has isolated America while replenishing the ranks of terrorists; exploding fiscal and trade deficits, with the dollar sinking in value; inequality not seen since the Gilded Age; the worst jobs record since Hoover; and indifference to the threat of catastrophic climate change combined with growing dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, Bush's failures have increased Americans' kitchen-table concerns: good jobs leaving, replaced by jobs with lower wages and fewer benefits; a broken healthcare system, with millions unable to afford adequate care; failed promises to invest in schools along with cuts in college grants at a time of soaring costs; a retreat on clean air and water.
THE DEATH FANTASIES OF THE REACTIONARY RIGHT
David Podvin is a consistently interesting writer, and in this column he talks about the fantasies the reactionary right conjured up during the New Frontier years. They wanted a "terrorist" attack against the United States to build fervor for a war against Cuba. Cuba was the Iraq of the early 1960s. JFK, unlike George W. Bush, wasn't ready to slaughter thousands upon thousands of innocent people. This article is at www.makethemaccountable.com:
In 1962, President Kennedy was horrified when the Joint Chiefs of Staff introduced a plan that involved launching a terrorist campaign designed to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba. The much-honored warriors who crafted the scheme, led by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, strenuously argued that the greater good required terrorizing American civilians by hijacking domestic commercial airliners and bombing major U.S. cities.
BUSH CAN'T BE TRUSTED
It takes incredible arrogance for George W. Bush to claim the election was an "accountability moment" on the war in Iraq when he and his administration consistently lied about the war, both for the reasons for starting the war and about the status of the war. The same tactics are being employed in the attempt to destroy Social Security. Paul Krugman comments at www.nytimes.com:
Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. Three years ago, the supposed threat from Saddam somehow became more important than catching the people who actually attacked America on 9/11. Today, the mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security.
But there's another parallel, which I haven't seen pointed out: the politicization of the agencies and the intimidation of the analysts. Bush loyalists begin frothing at the mouth when anyone points out that the White House pressured intelligence analysts to overstate the threat from Iraq, while neocons in the Pentagon pressured the military to understate the costs and risks of war. But that is what happened, and it's happening again.
USA TODAY IS A RIGHT WING RAG
USA Today published a Social Security hit piece by a writer named Stefani D. Carter, a former fellow at the very right wing Heritage Foundation, that was filled with lies about the imminent demise of the program. Among the most recent claims is that African-Americans are getting ripped off because of shorter life expectancies. You can check out the facts at mediamatters.org:
But while whites do have a higher life expectancy than blacks, the difference between the two expectancies is largely due to higher mortality rates among infants and the young. Infants pay nothing into the Social Security system, and youths who die in their teens or 20s pay a relatively small amount. According to the report Health, United States, 2004 PDF, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics, the difference in life expectancy for blacks and whites who survive until 65 is about two years (depending on birth cohort).
BUSH LEADING US OVER A CLIFF
The outrageous news today is that the Bush administration is planning another war, this time against Iran. Did Iran attack us-- and I just didn't get the word? This guy seems determined to unite the whole Muslim world against us and to start World War III. In this editorial The Nation talks about the start of a second Bush term and the trail of disaster left by Term I. The editorial is at www.thenation.com:
Bush starts this second term blind to the consequences of the havoc he has wrought and misleading the very voters who returned him to office. His record is one of failure: aggressive war on Iraq that has led to thousands of American and Iraqi deaths; officially endorsed policies that led to torture in Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and elsewhere; a botched assault on terror that has isolated America while replenishing the ranks of terrorists; exploding fiscal and trade deficits, with the dollar sinking in value; inequality not seen since the Gilded Age; the worst jobs record since Hoover; and indifference to the threat of catastrophic climate change combined with growing dependence on foreign oil. Meanwhile, Bush's failures have increased Americans' kitchen-table concerns: good jobs leaving, replaced by jobs with lower wages and fewer benefits; a broken healthcare system, with millions unable to afford adequate care; failed promises to invest in schools along with cuts in college grants at a time of soaring costs; a retreat on clean air and water.
THE DEATH FANTASIES OF THE REACTIONARY RIGHT
David Podvin is a consistently interesting writer, and in this column he talks about the fantasies the reactionary right conjured up during the New Frontier years. They wanted a "terrorist" attack against the United States to build fervor for a war against Cuba. Cuba was the Iraq of the early 1960s. JFK, unlike George W. Bush, wasn't ready to slaughter thousands upon thousands of innocent people. This article is at www.makethemaccountable.com:
In 1962, President Kennedy was horrified when the Joint Chiefs of Staff introduced a plan that involved launching a terrorist campaign designed to trick the public into supporting a war against Cuba. The much-honored warriors who crafted the scheme, led by Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, strenuously argued that the greater good required terrorizing American civilians by hijacking domestic commercial airliners and bombing major U.S. cities.
BUSH CAN'T BE TRUSTED
It takes incredible arrogance for George W. Bush to claim the election was an "accountability moment" on the war in Iraq when he and his administration consistently lied about the war, both for the reasons for starting the war and about the status of the war. The same tactics are being employed in the attempt to destroy Social Security. Paul Krugman comments at www.nytimes.com:
Everyone has noticed the use, once again, of crisis-mongering. Three years ago, the supposed threat from Saddam somehow became more important than catching the people who actually attacked America on 9/11. Today, the mild, possibly nonexistent long-run financial problems of Social Security have somehow become more important than dealing with the huge deficit we already have, which has nothing to do with Social Security.
But there's another parallel, which I haven't seen pointed out: the politicization of the agencies and the intimidation of the analysts. Bush loyalists begin frothing at the mouth when anyone points out that the White House pressured intelligence analysts to overstate the threat from Iraq, while neocons in the Pentagon pressured the military to understate the costs and risks of war. But that is what happened, and it's happening again.
USA TODAY IS A RIGHT WING RAG
USA Today published a Social Security hit piece by a writer named Stefani D. Carter, a former fellow at the very right wing Heritage Foundation, that was filled with lies about the imminent demise of the program. Among the most recent claims is that African-Americans are getting ripped off because of shorter life expectancies. You can check out the facts at mediamatters.org:
But while whites do have a higher life expectancy than blacks, the difference between the two expectancies is largely due to higher mortality rates among infants and the young. Infants pay nothing into the Social Security system, and youths who die in their teens or 20s pay a relatively small amount. According to the report Health, United States, 2004 PDF, compiled by the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics, the difference in life expectancy for blacks and whites who survive until 65 is about two years (depending on birth cohort).
Monday, January 17, 2005
JANUARY 18, 2005
BUSH'S STRANGE NOTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY
George W. Bush claims that his "reelection," which I believe was probably illegitimate, somehow excuses the lies and incompetence that led to the war against Iraq. What a vulgar, callous man this guy is. He doesn't express any remorse whatever for the deaths of U.S. military personnel, or the countless thousands who have been disfigured, or for the lives of innocent Iraqis. This story is by Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher is at www.washingtonpost.com:
President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.
"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."
BROKEN MILITARY ANOTHER BUSH BLUNDER
According to this story, George W. Bush's unnecessary war in Iraq has created billions of dollars of "hidden costs" to the U.S. military. Bush has weakened the military and made the country more unsafe. This story by Bryan Bender is at www.boston.com:
A forthcoming request for additional funds to continue waging war in Iraq will not begin to address the "hidden cost" of the conflict, according to Pentagon officials and other government authorities who say that tens of billions of dollars more will eventually be needed to repair or replace heavily used equipment and to compensate for the wear and tear on members of the armed services.
ONCE AGAIN BUSH IS LYING ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY
George W. Bush is trying to create a generational conflict between younger workers and older people who will soon be eligible for Social Security benefits. Bush is telling the younger workers the system will be broke by the time they're ready to retire. To ramp up the fear, Bush and his cronies are suggesting the system will be in serious trouble as soon as 2018. It's a lie. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:
In a forum last Tuesday aimed at persuading "younger folks" to support privatization, he said that Social Security would be "flat broke" in the coming decades. That is false. The system's trustees expect that even if nothing whatsoever is done, the current system will be able to pay full benefits until 2042, when it will be able to pay 70 percent of the promised benefits. The independent Congressional Budget Office is even more optimistic. Of course, no one is suggesting that no reforms be made. But modest, straightforward tax increases and benefit cuts, phased in over generations, are all it would take to bolster the current system.
BUSH WANTS SS FUNDS TO CREATE A BULL STOCK MARKET
I'm no expert on economics or the stock market, but this is an interesting piece about some of the reasons Bush and his Wall Street pals are pushing Social Security privatization. This story is by Robert Lockwood Mills at www.freepress.org:
In reality, the only sure way to create a bull market, and enjoy the reflected glow of approval it implies for a president, is to find a new source of funds. That’s where privatizing Social Security comes in. Create a new investment account, and the laws of physics take over. Momentum defies gravity. Remember what happened in the 1980s, when everyone, even the wealthiest taxpayer, was suddenly invited to open an I.R.A. account?
REMEMBERING MARTIN LUTHER KING AND BOB KENNEDY
Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy are two of my heroes and they died within months of each other at the hands of assassins. I wonder how much better the country might be today if they had lived. I miss a time when leaders were compassionate and visionary and eloquent. We lost two such leaders when Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy were murdered. This quote comes from a speech Bob gave before a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana, on the night Martin Luther King was killed:
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
NOT MUCH FAITH AFTER ALL
Contradictions abound in people like George W. Bush, who claim they have such a devout belief in God and in God's protection. If that's so, why the paranoia about security? Why all the guns, bullets, tanks, and missiles? Why do everything under the sun to accumulate wealth here on earth? This commentary by Lonna Gooden VanHorn is at www.opednews.com:
In spite of his insistence that the world is safer now because Saddam Hussein has been removed from power and terrorists are “on the run.” Despite his pollyannish statements that so many Americans love him and voted for him that he won a “mandate.” Despite the fact that he believes God wants him to be president, and that God speaks both to him and through him, George W. Bush trusts men, money and guns rather than God to protect him at next Thursday’s inauguration, by far the most restrictive as well as expensive from a security standpoint, inaugural in American history.
DARK MOMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Bob Herbert writes about memories of Martin Luther King and torture in Guatemala. It seems we've stepped back in time. Dr. King fought against racism and injustice. During the Reagan years the United States sponsored death squads in Central America. We sponsored torture, and now we're sponsoring torture again. Now we're even going to elevate a man who signed off on torture to be the next Attorney General. This column is at www.nytimes.com:
From my perspective, this is a dark moment in American history. The Treasury has been raided and the loot is being turned over by the trainload to those who are already the richest citizens in the land. We've launched a hideous war for no good reason in Iraq. And we're about to elevate to the highest law enforcement position in the land a man who helped choreograph the American effort to evade the international prohibitions against torture.
BUSH'S STRANGE NOTION OF ACCOUNTABILITY
George W. Bush claims that his "reelection," which I believe was probably illegitimate, somehow excuses the lies and incompetence that led to the war against Iraq. What a vulgar, callous man this guy is. He doesn't express any remorse whatever for the deaths of U.S. military personnel, or the countless thousands who have been disfigured, or for the lives of innocent Iraqis. This story is by Jim VandeHei and Michael A. Fletcher is at www.washingtonpost.com:
President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.
"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. "The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me."
BROKEN MILITARY ANOTHER BUSH BLUNDER
According to this story, George W. Bush's unnecessary war in Iraq has created billions of dollars of "hidden costs" to the U.S. military. Bush has weakened the military and made the country more unsafe. This story by Bryan Bender is at www.boston.com:
A forthcoming request for additional funds to continue waging war in Iraq will not begin to address the "hidden cost" of the conflict, according to Pentagon officials and other government authorities who say that tens of billions of dollars more will eventually be needed to repair or replace heavily used equipment and to compensate for the wear and tear on members of the armed services.
ONCE AGAIN BUSH IS LYING ABOUT SOCIAL SECURITY
George W. Bush is trying to create a generational conflict between younger workers and older people who will soon be eligible for Social Security benefits. Bush is telling the younger workers the system will be broke by the time they're ready to retire. To ramp up the fear, Bush and his cronies are suggesting the system will be in serious trouble as soon as 2018. It's a lie. This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:
In a forum last Tuesday aimed at persuading "younger folks" to support privatization, he said that Social Security would be "flat broke" in the coming decades. That is false. The system's trustees expect that even if nothing whatsoever is done, the current system will be able to pay full benefits until 2042, when it will be able to pay 70 percent of the promised benefits. The independent Congressional Budget Office is even more optimistic. Of course, no one is suggesting that no reforms be made. But modest, straightforward tax increases and benefit cuts, phased in over generations, are all it would take to bolster the current system.
BUSH WANTS SS FUNDS TO CREATE A BULL STOCK MARKET
I'm no expert on economics or the stock market, but this is an interesting piece about some of the reasons Bush and his Wall Street pals are pushing Social Security privatization. This story is by Robert Lockwood Mills at www.freepress.org:
In reality, the only sure way to create a bull market, and enjoy the reflected glow of approval it implies for a president, is to find a new source of funds. That’s where privatizing Social Security comes in. Create a new investment account, and the laws of physics take over. Momentum defies gravity. Remember what happened in the 1980s, when everyone, even the wealthiest taxpayer, was suddenly invited to open an I.R.A. account?
REMEMBERING MARTIN LUTHER KING AND BOB KENNEDY
Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy are two of my heroes and they died within months of each other at the hands of assassins. I wonder how much better the country might be today if they had lived. I miss a time when leaders were compassionate and visionary and eloquent. We lost two such leaders when Martin Luther King and Bob Kennedy were murdered. This quote comes from a speech Bob gave before a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana, on the night Martin Luther King was killed:
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
NOT MUCH FAITH AFTER ALL
Contradictions abound in people like George W. Bush, who claim they have such a devout belief in God and in God's protection. If that's so, why the paranoia about security? Why all the guns, bullets, tanks, and missiles? Why do everything under the sun to accumulate wealth here on earth? This commentary by Lonna Gooden VanHorn is at www.opednews.com:
In spite of his insistence that the world is safer now because Saddam Hussein has been removed from power and terrorists are “on the run.” Despite his pollyannish statements that so many Americans love him and voted for him that he won a “mandate.” Despite the fact that he believes God wants him to be president, and that God speaks both to him and through him, George W. Bush trusts men, money and guns rather than God to protect him at next Thursday’s inauguration, by far the most restrictive as well as expensive from a security standpoint, inaugural in American history.
DARK MOMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY
Bob Herbert writes about memories of Martin Luther King and torture in Guatemala. It seems we've stepped back in time. Dr. King fought against racism and injustice. During the Reagan years the United States sponsored death squads in Central America. We sponsored torture, and now we're sponsoring torture again. Now we're even going to elevate a man who signed off on torture to be the next Attorney General. This column is at www.nytimes.com:
From my perspective, this is a dark moment in American history. The Treasury has been raided and the loot is being turned over by the trainload to those who are already the richest citizens in the land. We've launched a hideous war for no good reason in Iraq. And we're about to elevate to the highest law enforcement position in the land a man who helped choreograph the American effort to evade the international prohibitions against torture.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
JANUARY 16, 2005
AN EXAMINATION OF CONSERVATISM
One of the great mysteries to me is how working people can embrace "conservatism," which is totally antithetical to their self-interests. Not only that, conservatism is an immoral philosophy that promotes war, torture, greed, bigotry, and exploitation. This is an analysis of conservatism by Philip Agre at polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html:
From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people and their allies are the conservatives.
THE RIGHT WING MARKETING MACHINE
One of the great achievements of public relations experts is to take something bad, slap some new paint on it, and make it something good. That's in essence what has happened with conservatism. In 1964 Barry Goldwater was trounced in the presidential election by Lyndon B. Johnson. Goldwater's ideas may not have been as extreme as today's version of conservatism, but conservatives have learned how to market themselves better. They actually have ordinary people believing that conservatives represent their best interests. This story comes from Laurie Spivak at www.alternet.org:
While the leaders of the conservative movement like to boast that the power of their movement lies in the power of its ideas, the ideas of today's conservative movement are the same old failed policies from years gone by, spit-shined and with user-friendly names. The power of the conservative movement is not in its ideas, rather it is in the marketing of these ideas, primarily through effective packaging, promotion and distribution.
MARTIN LUTHER KING SHOULD BE A HERO FOR US ALL
I've never worked for a company that gave its employees Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday. This article talks about how many companies and even local government agencies still don't recognize the holiday. One of the misconceptions about the holiday is that it's only for African-Americans. You can be white and admire Martin Luther King. This article is by Earl Ofari Hutchinson is at www.alternet.org:
The biggest reason, though, for the continued shunt of the King holiday is the holiday itself. The still widespread public perception is that the King holiday is a holiday exclusively of, by, and for blacks. The blizzard of tributes, proclamations, and speeches on King are rendered more often than not by black officials. The parades and celebrations in cities are held mostly by blacks. Most of the streets, schools, and monuments, parks, and public buildings that have been renamed after King are in black communities, and in many cases they are in the poorest of the poor black neighborhoods.
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS A MESS
My employer increased the employees' "contribution" for health care this year, and that's fairly common across the country. Millions of Americans have no health insurance at all. George W. Bush wants to dump health care costs onto employees and away from employers and the government, so he comes up with schemes like Health Savings Accounts, which benefit people with bucks but are almost impossible for people with average incomes. This article by Dina ElBoghdady is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Those workers spent ever larger shares of their paychecks on health care and got less for their money in recent years, federal and independent studies suggest. The number of Americans spending more than a quarter of their income on medical costs climbed from 11.6 million in 2000 to 14.3 million last year, Families USA said. And premiums increased faster than overall inflation during the past six years, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported.
AN EXAMINATION OF CONSERVATISM
One of the great mysteries to me is how working people can embrace "conservatism," which is totally antithetical to their self-interests. Not only that, conservatism is an immoral philosophy that promotes war, torture, greed, bigotry, and exploitation. This is an analysis of conservatism by Philip Agre at polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/conservatism.html:
From the pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the self-regarding thugs of ancient Rome to the glorified warlords of medieval and absolutist Europe, in nearly every urbanized society throughout human history, there have been people who have tried to constitute themselves as an aristocracy. These people and their allies are the conservatives.
THE RIGHT WING MARKETING MACHINE
One of the great achievements of public relations experts is to take something bad, slap some new paint on it, and make it something good. That's in essence what has happened with conservatism. In 1964 Barry Goldwater was trounced in the presidential election by Lyndon B. Johnson. Goldwater's ideas may not have been as extreme as today's version of conservatism, but conservatives have learned how to market themselves better. They actually have ordinary people believing that conservatives represent their best interests. This story comes from Laurie Spivak at www.alternet.org:
While the leaders of the conservative movement like to boast that the power of their movement lies in the power of its ideas, the ideas of today's conservative movement are the same old failed policies from years gone by, spit-shined and with user-friendly names. The power of the conservative movement is not in its ideas, rather it is in the marketing of these ideas, primarily through effective packaging, promotion and distribution.
MARTIN LUTHER KING SHOULD BE A HERO FOR US ALL
I've never worked for a company that gave its employees Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday. This article talks about how many companies and even local government agencies still don't recognize the holiday. One of the misconceptions about the holiday is that it's only for African-Americans. You can be white and admire Martin Luther King. This article is by Earl Ofari Hutchinson is at www.alternet.org:
The biggest reason, though, for the continued shunt of the King holiday is the holiday itself. The still widespread public perception is that the King holiday is a holiday exclusively of, by, and for blacks. The blizzard of tributes, proclamations, and speeches on King are rendered more often than not by black officials. The parades and celebrations in cities are held mostly by blacks. Most of the streets, schools, and monuments, parks, and public buildings that have been renamed after King are in black communities, and in many cases they are in the poorest of the poor black neighborhoods.
HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS A MESS
My employer increased the employees' "contribution" for health care this year, and that's fairly common across the country. Millions of Americans have no health insurance at all. George W. Bush wants to dump health care costs onto employees and away from employers and the government, so he comes up with schemes like Health Savings Accounts, which benefit people with bucks but are almost impossible for people with average incomes. This article by Dina ElBoghdady is at www.washingtonpost.com:
Those workers spent ever larger shares of their paychecks on health care and got less for their money in recent years, federal and independent studies suggest. The number of Americans spending more than a quarter of their income on medical costs climbed from 11.6 million in 2000 to 14.3 million last year, Families USA said. And premiums increased faster than overall inflation during the past six years, the Kaiser Family Foundation reported.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
JANUARY 15, 2005
A BLOODY MESS
George W. Bush and others who are pushing to privatize Social Security should be honest and ask people to look at the British system. The British tried to do something essentially the same, although the British had better resources to do it, and it hasn't worked. Paul Krugman talks about it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
The U.S. news media have provided readers and viewers with little information about how privatization has worked in other countries. Now my colleagues have even fewer excuses: there's an illuminating article on the British experience in The American Prospect, www.prospect.org, by Norma Cohen, a senior corporate reporter at The Financial Times who covers pension issues.
Her verdict is summed up in her title: "A Bloody Mess." Strong words, but her conclusions match those expressed more discreetly in a recent report by Britain's Pensions Commission, which warns that at least 75 percent of those with private investment accounts will not have enough savings to provide "adequate pensions."
BEWARE OF "TORT REFORM"
Any time a right-wing politician throws out the word "reform" it's time to check your wallet. You know some major gift to corporations is in the works. George W. Bush has been blaming trial lawyers and lawsuits for the horrendous price of health care in the United States. It's those litigious people filing lawsuits driving up the costs, not the corruption and incompetence of doctors, hospitals, and drug companies. We learned recently of heavily-advertised products like Vioxx and Celebrex having serious, possibly fatal side effects. Under the Bush plan you would be limited in what you could recover if you or a loved one had a stroke or died. Bob Herbert writes about it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
But the administration is like an ardent lover in its zeal to shower the rich and powerful with every imaginable benefit. So tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to firms responsible for drugs or medical devices that turn out to be harmful.
BUSH DRAWS FIRE FROM PAT BUCHANAN
I don't like Pat Buchanan's ideas much. He's way too far to the right on most issues , but there are times I find myself agreeing with him. Buchanan takes on the Bush administration in this article linked at www.makethemaccountable.com.
Our Arab allies are resisting the Bush-proclaimed "world democratic revolution." But has anyone considered what we would do if it succeeded, and revolutions brought down regimes in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia? How would the United States respond if our indispensable ally in the war against the Taliban, President Musharraf, fell to one of the assassins who have been seeking his death since he cast his lot with America?...
GOP CONGRESS ACTS ELITIST AGAIN
The Repubs in Congress once again demonstrate they don't believe they should have to follow the rules that apply to everyone else. This time it involves employment discrimination. This story is from www.boston.com:
House Republican leaders want to exempt members of Congress from laws against discrimination that apply to private employers, despite the Republicans' Contract With America pledge that ''all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress" and a decade-old law that placed Congress under antidiscrimination statutes.
A BLOODY MESS
George W. Bush and others who are pushing to privatize Social Security should be honest and ask people to look at the British system. The British tried to do something essentially the same, although the British had better resources to do it, and it hasn't worked. Paul Krugman talks about it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
The U.S. news media have provided readers and viewers with little information about how privatization has worked in other countries. Now my colleagues have even fewer excuses: there's an illuminating article on the British experience in The American Prospect, www.prospect.org, by Norma Cohen, a senior corporate reporter at The Financial Times who covers pension issues.
Her verdict is summed up in her title: "A Bloody Mess." Strong words, but her conclusions match those expressed more discreetly in a recent report by Britain's Pensions Commission, which warns that at least 75 percent of those with private investment accounts will not have enough savings to provide "adequate pensions."
BEWARE OF "TORT REFORM"
Any time a right-wing politician throws out the word "reform" it's time to check your wallet. You know some major gift to corporations is in the works. George W. Bush has been blaming trial lawyers and lawsuits for the horrendous price of health care in the United States. It's those litigious people filing lawsuits driving up the costs, not the corruption and incompetence of doctors, hospitals, and drug companies. We learned recently of heavily-advertised products like Vioxx and Celebrex having serious, possibly fatal side effects. Under the Bush plan you would be limited in what you could recover if you or a loved one had a stroke or died. Bob Herbert writes about it in his column at www.nytimes.com:
But the administration is like an ardent lover in its zeal to shower the rich and powerful with every imaginable benefit. So tucked like a gleaming diamond in proposed legislation to curb malpractice lawsuits is a provision that would give an unconscionable degree of protection to firms responsible for drugs or medical devices that turn out to be harmful.
BUSH DRAWS FIRE FROM PAT BUCHANAN
I don't like Pat Buchanan's ideas much. He's way too far to the right on most issues , but there are times I find myself agreeing with him. Buchanan takes on the Bush administration in this article linked at www.makethemaccountable.com.
Our Arab allies are resisting the Bush-proclaimed "world democratic revolution." But has anyone considered what we would do if it succeeded, and revolutions brought down regimes in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia? How would the United States respond if our indispensable ally in the war against the Taliban, President Musharraf, fell to one of the assassins who have been seeking his death since he cast his lot with America?...
GOP CONGRESS ACTS ELITIST AGAIN
The Repubs in Congress once again demonstrate they don't believe they should have to follow the rules that apply to everyone else. This time it involves employment discrimination. This story is from www.boston.com:
House Republican leaders want to exempt members of Congress from laws against discrimination that apply to private employers, despite the Republicans' Contract With America pledge that ''all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress" and a decade-old law that placed Congress under antidiscrimination statutes.
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