FEBRUARY 28, 2005

A PROGRESSIVE THINK TANK AT STANFORD

I really like this. Some students at Stanford are launching a progressive think tank called the Roosevelt Institution, partly as a counterpoint to the right-wing Hoover Institute also based at Stanford. The right-wing is extremely well-funded and they've been extremely well-organized. Using well-funded think tanks and the media, they've been able to dominate the political debate, even though their policies are detrimental to this country and to the world. If progressives can get our ideas out there, we'll win. This article by Dave Murphy is at www.sfgate.com:

When a presidential election leaves you smarting, create a think tank.

That's the strategy of hundreds of Stanford University students, who are assembling what they call the nation's first student think tank, the Roosevelt Institution, which offers analyses and suggestions on public policy issues.

BUSH BLEW IT ON NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

This article talks about a Pakistani nuclear scientist named Abdul Qadeer Khan and how Khan has sold plans for building nuclear weapons to countries like Libya. What makes this worse is that the Bush administration knew about Khan running an international smuggling ring and sat back on its hands. For all his rhetoric about "fighting terror," George W. Bush has been ineffectual at stopping the real dangers to the United States. This story is by Douglas Frantz at www.latimes.com:

Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year.

Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes provide an excellent starting point for anyone trying to develop an effective atomic warhead.

A BETTER WAY TO FIGHT TERROR

The core philosophy of neo-cons is that might makes right. They couch aggressive and bloody warfare as the way of securing freedom, or bringing democracy, but freedom and democracy are secondary to hegemony, power, and control. We know that the people in the Project for a New American Century wanted to attack Iraq years before the attacks on September 11. We know that almost within hours of the attacks that the Bush administration was talking about attacking Iraq. We know that the evidence for attacking Iraq was phony, and we know that Bush's explanations for why this country were attacked don't hold water. In this article by John Friedrich an alternative is offered to war as a way to combat terrorism. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

Redirecting resources from the Iraq occupation and the bloated military budget to confront worldwide poverty and suffering would go a long way toward winning back the “hearts and minds” of the people we need on our side. A shift in global opinion of U.S. foreign policy - particularly in the Middle East -- would help dry up the ground upon which violent extremists have been feeding and growing.

If, instead, the Bush Administration resumes business as usual through prolonged occupation of Iraq and/or invasion of Syria or Iran a tremendous opportunity will be lost. Recent history provides ample evidence to fear this direction. After all, George Bush has made the War on Terrorism the centerpiece of his Administration, and he won re-election campaigning as the “war president”. Little is said or done that is not filtered through the “new realities” facing us in our post 9-11 world. Like the Cold War, the War on Terrorism is used to justify unlimited military adventures and expenditures without constraint.

WHY DOESN'T BUSH STOP THE TORTURE?

George W. Bush is such an incredibly bad president and an incredibly bad human being it's hard to know where to start. He has the unmitigated gall to lecture other countries about freedom, but his administration has presided over systematic torture of other human beings. It's clear that Mr. Bush doesn't consider Muslims to be equivalent to White Anglo Saxon Christian Protestants. His thinking is somewhere back in the Middle Ages and it's just another indication he's not qualified to hold the office of president of the United States. Bob Herbert talks about torture and "extraordinary rendition" in this column at www.nytimes.com:

President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."

FEBRUARY 27, 2005

A PAYOFF FOR THE BOW-TIED ONE?

I haven't liked George Will for a very long time. He's pompous and hypocritical for one thing. Here's a guy who calls himself a journalist who was a consultant to Ronald Reagan in Reagan's debates with President Carter. Then Will sits on a panel critiquing the debate! Who do you think Will is going to praise? He sits in his ivory tower extolling the virtues of the free market and looking down his nose at working class Americans. Now he gets a journalism award? As Wiley Miller, who draws the "Non Sequitur" comic strip notes in this article, it makes you wonder if this is yet another form of Bush payola. This article by Dave Astor is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

NEW YORK When the conservative Bradley Foundation awarded a $250,000 prize to George Will last week, it raised some eyebrows at a time when Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus have been criticized for accepting government money.

The foundation is a private entity, but it is reported to have ties to the Bush administration, and its president/CEO is a former Republican National Committee member.

ROBERT INGERSOLL ON SUPERSTITION

The Fresno Bee had a good letter to the editor on George W. Bush's apocalyptic world view, and the danger that world view presents to us all. Centuries after the Enlightenment we still have mindless superstition influencing so much of world events. I like this Robert Ingersoll quote on superstition:

The foundation of superstition is ignorance, the superstructure is faith and the dome is a vain hope. Superstition is the child of ignorance and the mother of misery.

MAYBE BUSH DOESN'T SEE THE IRONY

When George W. Bush gets up before the world and pontificates about freedom and democracy maybe he doesn't see the irony of his proclaiming those great ideals while he systematically violates them. On his recent grand tour he lectured the Russians about the virtues of a free press. This comes after the Jeff Gannon scandal, the Armstrong Williams scandal, the Maggie Gallagher scandal, and the bootlicking coverage of most of the major U.S. media. This comes after people at CBS were fired for the Dan Rather "Memogate" story, but reporters who parroted the Bush administration line about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq continue employed. Maureen Dowd talks about how the incredible hypocrisy of Bush in this column at www.nytimes.com:

It was remarkable to see President Bush lecture Vladimir Putin on the importance of checks and balances in a democratic society.

Remarkably brazen, given that the only checks Mr. Bush seems to believe in are those written to the "journalists" Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher and Karen Ryan, the fake TV anchor, to help promote his policies. The administration has given a whole new meaning to checkbook journalism, paying a stupendous $97 million to an outside P.R. firm to buy columnists and produce propaganda, including faux video news releases.

ANOTHER INSIDIOUS MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Back during the Reagan administration the idea of a space based missile defense system was floated and billions of dollars have been spent since then trying to develop such a system. You have to think the hawks in the Bush administration would really like to militarize space. We learned recently that robots, although still fairly primitive, are being sent to Iraq. There will probably be more robots, increasingly sophisticated, in the next few years which will make war less objectionable to people here while spreading death around the world. Now we learn that nano technology is being used by the military to develop new weapons that make nuclear weapons seem almost tame. Nano technology builds materials atom by atom, as this article points out, and this application is similar to the effects of biological or chemical warfare without being as obvious. This article is at www.indiadaily.com:

First, nano-materials massively damage the lungs. Ultra fine particles from diesel machines, power plants and incinerators can cause considerable damage to human lungs. This is both because of their size (as they can get deep into the lungs) and also because they carry other chemicals including metals and hydrocarbons in with them.

Second, nano-particles can get into the body through the skin, lungs and digestive system. This may help create free radicals that can cause cell damage. There is also concern that once nano-particles are in the bloodstream, they will be able to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Third, the human body has developed a tolerance to most naturally occurring elements and molecules that it has contact with. It has no natural immunity to new substances and is more likely to find them toxic.

Fourth, the most dangerous Nano-application use for military purposes is the Nano-bomb that contain engineered self multiplying deadly viruses that can continue to wipe out a community, country or even a civilization.

FEBRUARY 26, 2005

DEMOCRACY AND TORTURE ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS

While George W. Bush trotted around Europe meeting with various leaders and lecturing them about democracy he never mentioned that torture has occurred on his watch, torture that has undoubtedly been authorized by the highest levels of the United States government. Since George represents himself as such a devout Christian, I wonder if he could show us in the Bible where Jesus Christ said torture was a good thing for Christians to do to other people. Maybe George should adopt a new backdrop when he gives his speeches from the teleprompter. I think an image of the Grim Reaper would be most fitting. This story by Victoria Brittain is at www.guardian.co.uk:

George Bush is this week having an extravagantly orchestrated series of meetings with Europe's leaders, designed to show a united front for the creation of democracy around the world. Tony Blair talks of our "shared values". No one mentions the word that makes this show a mockery: torture.

It is now undeniable that the US administration, at the highest levels, is responsible for the torture that has been routine not only, as seen round the world in iconic photographs, at Abu Ghraib, but at Guantánamo Bay and Bagram. Meanwhile, in prisons in Egypt, Jordan and Syria (and no doubt others we do not know about), Muslim men have been tortured by electric shocks to the genitals, by being kept in water, by being threatened with death - after being flown to those countries by the CIA for that very purpose.

HERE ARE BUSH'S "HAVE MORE" SUPPORTERS

While most of us struggle paycheck to paycheck, often doing without health care, CEO bonuses are up 46%. And Bush thinks poor souls like this need tax cuts. You have to wonder about the logic of the free market where people like CEOs get fat bonuses and make outrageous fortunes for doing things like laying off their work force and outsourcing jobs to foreign countries. This story by Seth Jayson is at themotleyfool.com:

Yes, it's that season again. Once a year, the folks at The Wall Street Journal publish their bit on CEO bonuses, and this year's numbers will give the U.S. press plenty of headline fodder. Here's the rub: CEO bonuses are up 46% to a median $1.4 million. These stories have no trouble in stirring up a measured dose of outrage because those compensation numbers are so, well, outrageous. It really is enough to make you grab a pitchfork and torch and join the rabble for a run at the Bastille, or some American capitalist equivalent.

THE 14 WORDS REPUBS DON'T USE

Frank Luntz is a Republican pollster. He's one of those guys who uses focus groups to determine the hot button issues Republicans can distort and capitalize on. He sounds like he's out of the Newt Gingrich school. Back in the 90s Gingrich crafted a strategy of using language to demonize opponents and to dress up the horrible Republican agenda in fancy new clothes so it would look fresh and appealing. This story is at watchingthewatchers.org:

Sometimes it is not what you say that matters but what you don’t say. Other times a single word or phrase can undermine or destroy the credibility of a paragraph or entire presentation. This memo was originally prepared exclusively for Congressional spouses because they are your eyes and ears, a one-person reality check and truth squad combined. However, by popular demand, I have included and expanded that document because effectively communicating the New American Lexicon requires you to STOP saying words and phrases that undermine your ability to educate the American people.

So from today forward, YOU are the language police. From today forward, these are the words never to say again.

A HUMOROUS LOOK AT INTELLIGENT DESIGN

"Intelligent Design" is that newest backdoor way to get creationism taught in schools on the same level as evolutionary theory. By omitting the word "God" and instead suggesting a "designer" the creationists think they have us fooled, I guess. There are lots of problems with the intelligent design argument, of course. The most obvious problem is that it can't be proved. But if you look at nature and the universe you can raise lots of questions about how "intelligent" the design really is. One point in this article I like deals with all the empty space in the universe. You look out into the expanding universe for billions of light years and, as far as we know, there is no other species like us out there. How intelligent was that, to build such a huge universe for such a tiny population? Oh well. This article by David Holahan is linked at www.commondreams.org:

But enough about us. Let's move on to the virtually infinite universe, our Manifest Interplanetary Destiny. It's humongous and getting bigger every time we gaze skyward. Yet in all that unexplored, inaccessible space, scientists can't identify, with their exquisitely sophisticated telescopes, any planet near or far that is likely to support life forms comparable to us. Even if intelligent beings exist out there in the void thousands of light years away, it's unlikely we'll ever get to palaver with our cosmic cousins.

Now I enjoy my personal space as much as the next person, but doesn't that lifeless expanse -- with its black holes, supernovas, nebulae, pulsars, and white dwarfs -- strike you as over the top?

FEBRUARY 25, 2005

SMEAR, SMEAR AWAY

In this column Paul Krugman writes about the tactics of the far right. The far right's economic policies clobber most of us. They've been successful electorally by rolling out social issues like gay marriage and abortion. They have very little intention, of course, of doing anything about those issues, but they work well in getting voters out to support them on election day. After that, they're free to pursue their onerous economic policies. Their tactic now is to tar the AARP with being "pro gay marriage" or "anti-soldier" in hopes of steamrolling their Social Security scam. This column is at www.nytimes.com:

The message of Mr. Frank's book is that the right has been able to win elections, despite the fact that its economic policies hurt workers, by portraying itself as the defender of mainstream values against a malevolent cultural elite. The right "mobilizes voters with explosive social issues, summoning public outrage ... which it then marries to pro-business economic policies. Cultural anger is marshaled to achieve economic ends."

In Mr. Frank's view, this is a confidence trick: politicians like Mr. Santorum trumpet their defense of traditional values, but their true loyalty is to elitist economic policies. "Vote to stop abortion; receive a rollback in capital gains taxes. ... Vote to stand tall against terrorists; receive Social Security privatization." But it keeps working.

NO TO WAL-MART IN NEW YORK

Break out the Sinatra song about New York, New York because New York told Wal-Mart to get out of town. As the spokesman for the New York City Central Labor Council says in this article, Wal-Mart is bad for workers and bad for small business. The quote from Brian McLaughlin can be found in this article at story.news.yahoo.com:

"We know well that Wal-Mart is a staunchly anti-union employer who has deployed ruthless intimidation tactics to suppress workers' rights to organize a union, while driving down wages and benefits in the retail industry," McLaughlin said.

THE WORLD PRESS DOESN'T CHEER FOR BUSH

There is a book called On Bended Knee about the deference the press gave Ronald Reagan during his years in office. Reagan wasn't just a "Teflon" president by accident. He was helped immeasurably by the press not doing its job. If anything, it's worse now with George W. Bush. We have the most incompetent, lying, dishonest president in our history, and the U.S. media just pretend it's see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. We can at least be grateful for the world press, which isn't mesmerized by the Thug In Chief. This story by Jefferson Morley is at www.washingtonpost.com:

The divergent coverage of Bush's apparent drug use is a textbook study in the difference between the international online media and their American counterparts. On the issue of youthful illicit drug use, most U.S. news editors -- liberal, conservative or other -- defer to Bush in a way that their foreign counterparts do not.

MAYBE WE CAN DO A NEW REALITY SHOW

Since George W. Bush seems determined to take us back to the 19th century, maybe we should have an ongoing reality show about living 19th century style in the 21st century. It's a world where you're unemployed, underemployed, employed with stagnant wages, employed with no health insurance, breathing dirtier air, drinking dirtier water, with a big bullseye painted on your back because most of the world hates you for being an American. It's a world where you have to wonder if the car you drive will be safe, or if the tires will explode on the freeway, or if the over the counter drugs you take will kill you or a loved one, and you can't even sue because of Bush's "tort reform." It's a world where you can work without overtime because Bush's Labor Department is determined to take away overtime. It's a world where you can't even escape to a pristine area like Alaska because Bush wants to open it up for oil drilling. This commentary about our current version of the 19th century is by Holly Sklar and linked at www.commondreams.org:

While Bush runs up the national debt to reckless levels, risking economic crisis, to give more tax breaks to millionaires, his budget cuts education, a pillar of individual and national progress, on the pretense of fiscal responsibility.

The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was in 2000. About one out of six Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies are illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the meager official poverty line -- and many more can't make ends meet above it.

Yet, Bush's budget slashes already inadequate small business assistance, workforce development, community economic development, public health and safety, Medicaid, housing assistance, public transit, food stamps, childcare and much more.

FEBRUARY 24, 2005

DO YOU REALLY WANT TO TRUST YOUR RETIREMENT TO BIG BUSINESS?

George W. Bush's Social Security scam asks us to put a great deal of trust in big business and the free market. We should be skeptical because the first beneficiaries of the plan will be the stockbrokers and others who will collect fees and commissions from the transfer of taxes from Social Security to these so-called "private" accounts. The stock market, in case you didn't notice, took a major dive a couple of days ago. What if you were retiring and your portfolio suddenly lost its value because the stock market took one of its periodic dives?

Another issue to consider is the honesty, or lack of honesty, in the accounting procedures of big business. George W. Bush believes in the kind of accounting that puts major expenses off budget--little things like the war in Iraq or two trillion dollars to transition from the current Social Security system to privatization. Remember a couple of years ago how Enron used cooked books to inflate its stock price, and how quickly the value of that stock tumbled. This plan would be risky even if the players were honest, which they clearly are not. Lord knows we have to live with enough insecurity in this world. It would be nice to be able to depend on something that is rock solid the way Social Security has been since it was created.

THE SWIFT BOAT LIARS

The Swift Boat gang that lied about John Kerry's record in Vietnam is back in a new role, this time to trash the AARP and Social Security. They've attacked the AARP for being "pro gay" and "anti-soldier." Neither of those charges has merit, but I have to wonder what that has to do with Social Security anyway. Maureen Dowd points out this is a familiar tactic of George W. Bush. He keeps himself directly out of the smear while his thugs do the dirty work. He did it with John McCain, he did it with Al Gore, he did it with John Kerry, and now with the AARP. This guy would demonize babies with lollipops if he could score a few political points. Maureen Dowd's column is at www.nytimes.com:

Once again, just as W. runs into political trouble, he floats above the fray while the help takes out his opponents. Just as John McCain was smeared by Bush supporters in 2000, Swift Boat assassins can rid the president of any meddlesome adversaries now.

The USA Next group intends to combine the two ruthless success stories of the Bush re-election: the Swiftian tactic of amplifying its vicious and dishonest attacks through the media, and the Rovian tactic of hanging gay marriage like an anvil around the neck of a foe.

DO YOU FAVOR GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF THE
STOCK MARKET?

George W. Bush's plan to borrow two trillion dollars to convert Social Security to a privatized system makes the government the major player in the stock market. Two trillion dollars carries a lot of clout. It carries a lot of influence. People who truly believe in the free market would be concerned, you would think, about a major government intrusion into the free market. This article by Marc Perkel is linked at makethemaccountable.com:

It's called "privatizing Social Security" - but that's not what it really is. A side effect of Bush's plan is the government takeover of the stock market.

Think about it. With two trillion dollars of buying and selling power the federal government - or the private parties who are doing the government's investing - become, by a factor of 100, the biggest single investor in the world. And I doubt that anyone will ever make a stock decision without wondering what move the government is going to make.

THE UNSAVORY HISTORY OF CORPORATIONS

The Bush administration has been doing everything in its power to limit the liability of corporations for cheating, lying, stealing, or marketing products that maim or kill people. Supposedly, "frivolous" lawsuits are such a drag on the market and increase the cost of doing business. But the history of big companies knowingly marketing products they know to be harmful is not reassuring. About the only language corporations understand is the pocketbook. Now Bush wants to take away our power to hit big companies in the wallet where it hurts them most. How many more lives will be lost or destroyed thanks to Bush? This story by Jeffrey Kaplan is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

If you've ever had the feeling that some big corporations don't care if you live or die, you're right -- and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. With federal enforcement of health and safety laws in a downward spiral, the courts have been one of the few places people could defend themselves or seek restitution. Yet the Bush administration is out to change that by limiting lawsuits intended to punish corporate endangerment of workers and the public in the name of halting "junk lawsuits."

FEBRUARY 23, 2005

I KNEW I LIKED JEFFERSON

A so-called "Christian" group has called Thomas Jefferson an "enemy of the Gospel." Yeah, Jefferson had this annoying way of actually thinking about things, instead of taking them on blind faith. He questioned the miracles in the Bible, for instance. He, as this article points out, was influenced by Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and John Locke. If these wackos don't like Jefferson, they sure won't like Thomas Paine. His Age of Reason is a reasoned, thorough debunking of the Bible. This story by Gina Farthing is at www.newsvirginian.com:

Presidents’ Day is when many Americans honor the country’s past commanders-in-chief.

At the Christian Heritage Center in Fishersville, Thomas Jefferson was not on the list of honorees Monday.

It was the day a call to arms went out, to Christians everywhere, to band together and fight religious persecution they encounter even today.

It was the day to recognize the perpetrator, that “enemy of the Gospel” - Jefferson, according to Christian Heritage officials.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON ON GEORGE W. BUSH

The late Hunter S. Thompson will be missed. He had a way of dissecting the facts and getting to the truth. This quote from Thompson is at www.cursor.org, and describes George W. Bush in a way our media never will:

In an extract from his book, "Kingdom of Fear," Thompson wrote: "I am the one who speaks for the spirit of freedom and decency in you" -- unlike "these flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush ... who ... speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character."

WHAT A SURPRISE--ANOTHER BUSH WAR PROFITEER

George W. Bush's uncle "Bucky" Bush made at least $450,000 for being a war profiteer in Iraq, according to this story. Middle class and poor kids are fighting and dying in this despicable war, but the Bushes find a way to make a profit. This story by Walter F. Roche Jr. is at news.yahoo.com:

The Iraq war helped bring record earnings to St. Louis-based defense contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc., and new financial data show that the firm's war-related profits have trickled down to a familiar family name — Bush.

William H.T. "Bucky" Bush, uncle of the president and youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush, cashed in ESSI stock options last month with a net value of nearly half a million dollars.

"Uncle Bucky," as he is known to the president, is on the board of the company, which supplies armor and other materials to U.S. troops. The company's stock prices have soared to record heights since before the invasion, benefiting in part from contracts to rapidly refit fleets of military vehicles with extra armor.

THESE PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL SECURITY?

Think back just a few weeks when the Bernie Kerik nomination for Director of Homeland Security exploded because all kinds of unsavory information emerged about Kerik. You wondered just how the White House vetted Mr. Kerik, or if they vetted him at all. Now we have the sordid tale of one Jeff Gannon a. k. a. James Guckert who posed as a journalist at White House news briefings. He represented an organization called Talon News Service, which is essentially just a Republican front organization. As facts about Mr. Guckert's life as a gay prostitute have emerged, you wonder once again just what process the White House uses to vet people in such sensitive positions. It's not comforting to think that people guilty of such carelessness or outright stupidity are in charge of national security. They can't vet a guy like Jeff Gannon, but we're supposed to trust them to stop Osama bin Laden? This story by Eric Boehlert is linked at www.commondreams.org:

When the press first raised questions about why Jim Guckert had been awarded access to the White House press room for two years running while he worked for Talon News, critics charged that Talon, with its amateurish standards and close working ties to Republican activists, did not qualify as a legitimate news organization. It turns out the truth is even stranger: Guckert was waved into the White House while working for an even more blatantly partisan organization, GOPUSA.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan originally told reporters that Guckert was properly allowed into press briefings because he worked for an outlet that "published regularly." But that's when the questions were about Talon. More recently McClellan offered up a new rationale. Asked by Editor and Publisher magazine how the decision was made to allow a GOPUSA correspondent in, McClellan said, "The staff assistant went to verify that the news organization existed." (Emphasis added.)

FEBURARY 22, 2005

DOES THIS SOUND LIKE BUSH?

I ran across this quotation from free thinker Robert Ingersoll. It sounds so contemporary and so descriptive of George W. Bush:

To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob-that is blasphemy.

BUSH HASN'T DONE WELL ON SECURITY ISSUES EITHER

Anyone except the most brain dead right-wingers can see that Bush's domestic policies have been an unqualified disaster for most of us, everything from the economy to women's rights to reproductive rights to protecting the environment. It's all in a shambles. The Bush administration has always tried to posture as strong on national security issues to deflect attention from the gross incompetence on the domestic front. Paul Krugman points out Bush hasn't been all that great on national security issues either. This column is at www.nytimes.com:

The fact is that Mr. Bush, while willing to go to war on weak evidence, hasn't taken the task of protecting America from terrorists at all seriously.

Consider, for example, the case of chemical plants.

Just days after 9/11, many analysts identified sites that store toxic chemicals as a major terror risk, and called for new safety rules. But as The New York Times reported last fall, "after the oil and chemical industries met with Karl Rove ... the White House quietly blocked those efforts."

Nearly three and a half years after 9/11, those chemical plants are still unprotected.

THE GOP SHAFTING OF THE AVERAGE PERSON

In GOP land we of the working class are just there to be exploited in one way or another. We're there to work for low wages and then told to shut up and take it or the jobs will be exported to even cheaper labor markets abroad. We're told we can't have a national health care system because that's "socialized medicine" and we sure can't have that in the U.S.A. We're told we shouldn't have any privacy rights because that interferes with the functioning of the "free market" or maybe even helps terrorists. We're told that credit card companies should be allowed to shaft us for the slightest excuse such as a late phone bill. Robert Scheer writes about it in this column at www.latimes.com:

Here's the agenda, as laid out by the president and the Republicans who control Congress: First, limit people's power to right wrongs done to them by corporations. Next, force people to repay usurious loans to credit card companies that make gazillions off the fine print. Then, for the coup de grace, hand over history's most successful public safety net to Wall Street.

Of course, the GOP and the White House use slightly different language for this corporate-lobbyist trifecta: "Tort reform," "eliminating abuse of bankruptcy" and "keeping Social Security solvent" are the preferred Beltway phrasings for messing with the little guy.

BUSH FLIP FLOPS ARE AMAZING

George W. Bush and his minions want to create a generational conflict on Social Security. The Bush spin machine makes it sound like the elderly are just loafers who prey on the hard work of the younger generation who will be paying the Social Security taxes to support the program. The fact is that most of the elderly are not living lives of luxury. For many of the elderly, Social Security is all that keeps them from living in poverty. An interesting point is made by E. J. Dionne in this column. A few months ago when Bush cut taxes on dividends he made a big point of saying that the tax cut helped elderly people who get dividend income. That is very small percentage of the elderly, but how many other programs have been cut to support that tax cut and those wealthy seniors? This column is at www.workingforchange.com:

Consider President Bush's cut in the tax on dividends. When he pushed that reduction (a slightly scaled-down version eventually became law), he bragged about its impact on the elderly. "We are helping seniors who rely on dividends," he declared.

But that's a pretty narrow slice of seniors. "The majority of elderly have fairly modest incomes and would receive little or nothing from this tax proposal," according to a 2003 report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As for helping seniors, "nearly 43 percent of the benefits of the dividend exemption... would flow to the 2.5 percent of elderly people with incomes exceeding $200,000. More than three-quarters of the benefits that would go to the elderly from this tax cut would flow to the 19 percent of elderly with incomes above $75,000."

FEBRUARY 21, 2005

AMERICANS CARE ABOUT REAL MORAL VALUES

We got all the nonsense about "moral values" being the reason George W. Bush squeaked his way back into the White House. It turns out most Americans aren't hung up on abortion and gay rights. They care about feeding the hungry and alleviating suffering. That means Republicans have to go. This story by Thomas Hargrove and Guido H. Stempel III is at capitolhillblue.com:

Americans who think that combating hunger and child abuse are important moral issues far outnumber those concerned about same sex marriage or abortion.

A poll by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University of 1,001 adult residents of the United Sates found considerable disagreement over which issues Americans would list as important moral concerns. The study found that "moral values" _ the top concern cited by voters in exit polls during the Nov. 2 presidential election _ is a highly diverse concept that means a great many things to different Americans.

SEEING MUSHROOM CLOUDS

When the Soviet Union fell it looked like the world might be ready to make a major breakthrough in ending the nuclear arms race. Although there were still too many nuclear weapons around the world, it looked like a start. Count on George W. Bush to open the Pandora's Box again. We know that North Korea has claimed it has a nuclear weapon. We know that Iran is suspected of developing the bomb. We know that Israel, Pakistan, and numerous other countries possess nuclear threats. It appears that Bush, with his warmongering, threats, and intention to develop new nuclear weapons is setting off a new arms race. What a guy. This story by Lynda Hurst is from The Toronto Star:

In 1992, in the warm glow of the Cold War's end, the United States stopped making and testing nuclear arms, halting its arsenal at 10,000 warheads and pledging to cut back further still.

Four years later, it was the first country to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban treaty. But though committed to it in principle - certainly in regard to other nations - the U.S. wanted to keep its options open and, in 1999, to universal dismay, refused to ratify the treaty.

What happened on 9/11 could mean America never will ratify - or not, at least, while President George W. Bush holds office and the Republicans hold Congress.

"INTELLIGENT DESIGN" HAS SOME MAJOR FLAWS

You would think it was the Scopes Monkey Trial all over again from the way creationists are trying to backdoor religious dogma as a scientific counter to evolution. The latest assault is called "intelligent design," which asserts that life is just too complicated to have evolved on its own. It reminds me of a story about a watch being too complicated to be created without a watch maker. The intelligent design argument doesn't explain where the "designer" came from, of course. And if there is a designer, why are there so many inefficient things in nature, so much cruelty? Did the designer create parasites, for example? Did the designer create disease organisms? This is an interesting article by Jim Holt at www.nytimes.com:

But if we can't infer anything about the design from the designer, maybe we can go the other way. What can we tell about the designer from the design? While there is much that is marvelous in nature, there is also much that is flawed, sloppy and downright bizarre. Some nonfunctional oddities, like the peacock's tail or the human male's nipples, might be attributed to a sense of whimsy on the part of the designer. Others just seem grossly inefficient. In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

Such disregard for economy can be found throughout the natural order. Perhaps 99 percent of the species that have existed have died out. Darwinism has no problem with this, because random variation will inevitably produce both fit and unfit individuals. But what sort of designer would have fashioned creatures so out of sync with their environments that they were doomed to extinction?

THANKS, BUT YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED

The whole war on terror debacle launched by George W. Bush has created injustice and tragedy on many fronts. We know that Bush has suggested cuts in veterans benefits in his new budget. We know that the military in Iraq have had to without essentials such as armor for their Humvees. It seems that many reservists who have served in Iraq are coming home to find they don't have jobs anymore. This story is by Matthew B. Stannard at www.sfgate.com:

When Steve Pittman Jr. finally returned to California from Iraq late in December, he was thinking about getting back to two things. One was his girlfriend. The other was his truck. Not necessarily in that order.

One thing that didn't worry him was his job at a lube shop, where he worked until he was activated by his California National Guard unit. But once he was in Oxnard (Ventura County), employment suddenly moved to the top of the list.

YOUR REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT IN ACTION

Don't you just grieve about how hard it is for business to function in this country? I mean, it's just terrible when you're expected to pay decent wages, provide decent benefits, protect the environment, obey the law, and not sell products that can maim or kill. How gauche of us peasants to expect any accountability from business. Apparently, that's the way Republicans think because almost everything they do helps big business and clobbers the rest of us. This story Stephen Labation is linked at makethemaccountable.com:

These are heady days on Capitol Hill for business lobbyists. Just as the House of Representatives was completing work on one measure sought by some of the most powerful business lobbyists - which would sharply restrict class-action lawsuits brought against companies - the Senate began work on a second measure, to overhaul the bankruptcy system. It has long been sought by major banks, credit card companies and retailers and has its strongest chance of quick passage in years. It now heads to the Senate floor as soon as the members return from their recess in early March.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF IRAQI THEOCRACY FOR WOMEN

Riverbend's Baghdad Burning blog is one of the best blogs on the Internet. She's an intelligent, compassionate woman living in sometimes hellish conditions, and she's a terrific writer. In this blog she talks about the threat to basic freedoms of women if Iraq adopts the kind of government we see in Iran. The blog is linked at smirkingchimp.com:

It's also not about covering the hair. I have many relatives and friends who wore a hijab before the war. It's the principle. It's having so little freedom that even your wardrobe is dictated. And wardrobe is just the tip of the iceberg. There are clerics and men who believe women shouldn't be able to work or that they shouldn't be allowed to do certain jobs or study in specific fields. Something that disturbed me about the election forms was that it indicated whether the voter was 'male' or 'female'- why should that matter? Could it be because in Shari'a, a women's vote or voice counts for half of that of a man? Will they implement that in the future?

SOME WORDS FROM ROUSSEAU

The philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote extensively about political science. I thought this quotation was very descriptive of the Bush administration:

In a word, abuses are inevitable and their consequences fatal in every society where the public interest and the laws have no natural force, and are perpetually attacked by personal interest and the passions of the ruler and the members.

THE REAL MEANING OF NEGROPONTE APPOINTMENT

John Negroponte has been a fixture in the right-wing Reagan and Bush administrations in various posts, including Ambassador to Honduras during the Reagan years. He has been named by George W. Bush to be the new intelligence "czar." Negroponte had a detestable record in Honduras, either being complicit or ignoring death squads there. Robert Parry takes a look at Negroponte in this article at www.consortiumnews.com:

Despite the bipartisan praise Negroponte’s nomination is eliciting, a clear-eyed look at his record would suggest that the Bush administration intends to continue making two demands on the U.S. intelligence community: that analysts wear rose-colored glasses when assessing U.S. policies and that field operatives turn a blind eye to atrocities when committed by U.S. clients or American interrogators.

Given the human rights records of the Honduran military and the Nicaraguan contras who set up shop in Honduras in the early 1980s, Negroponte will have no moral standing as a public official who repudiates abusive interrogation techniques and brutal counterinsurgency tactics. Indeed, some cynics might suggest that's one of the reasons Bush picked him.

HUNTER THOMPSON, ANOTHER GREAT JOURNALIST, GONE

A few months ago we lost Gary Webb to a reported suicide and now Hunter S. Thompson is also a reported victim of suicide. It makes me think of the Simon and Garfunkel lyric from "Mrs. Robinson": "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" Hunter had a phrase that perfectly described the Nixon administration, and it applies equally well to George W. Bush: "fear and loathing." This story is by Troy Hooper and Claire Martin at www.denverpost.com:

Hunter Stockton Thompson, who coined the term "gonzo journalism" to describe the unique and furiously personal approach to reportage exemplified in his 1972 book "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," died Sunday night of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Woody Creek home. He was 67, family members said.

FEBRUARY 19, 2005

THE ABSOLUTE AUDACITY OF BUSH'S FOREIGN POLICY

Sometimes when I see George W. Bush or his cohorts give speeches on foreign policy, making pious and grandly hypocritical assertions, I have to wonder how much sniggering goes on once the camera goes off. There is Bush denouncing Iran for supposedly developing nuclear weapons, while the United States is busy adding to its own nuclear arsenal. There is Bush pontificating about Syria occupying Lebanon while the United States occupies Afghanistan and Iraq. Helen Thomas writes about it at www.thecarolinachannel.com:

At a news conference Thursday, Bush demanded that Syria end its occupation of Lebanon, but he stopped short of accusing Syria of assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. An investigation to assign blame is under way.

It would also help if Bush were to practice what he preaches. His orders to Syria might carry more weight if the United States were not occupying Iraq, digging in for the long haul with reported plans for more than one dozen permanent military bases there.

THE ABSOLUTE LUNACY OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF

I'm sick of hearing after some untimely death or terrible tragedy that it's "God's will." Or we hear one hundred percent jackasses like Jerry Falwell claim that a crime such as 9/11 was God punishing the United States for our sinful ways. God, according to these jerks, conveniently ignores people starving or dying of horrible diseases or being oppressed by whatever powerful earthly entity wants to oppress them. Barbara Ehrenreich has an interesting piece linked at www.commondreams.org:

The Christian-style "God of love" should be particularly vulnerable to post-tsunami doubts. What kind of "love" inspired Him to wrest babies from their parents' arms, the better to drown them in a hurry? If He so loves us that He gave his only son etc., why couldn't he have held those tectonic plates in place at least until the kids were off the beach? So much, too, for the current pop-Christian God, who can be found, at least on the Internet, micro-managing people's careers, resolving marital spats, and taking excess pounds off the faithful--this last being Pat Robertson's latest fixation.

If we are responsible for our actions, as most religions insist, then God should be, too, and I would propose, post-tsunami, an immediate withdrawal of prayer and other forms of flattery directed at a supposedly moral deity--at least until an apology is issued, such as, for example: "I was so busy with Cindy-in-Omaha's weight-loss program that I wasn't paying attention to the Earth's crust."

A BUDGET ISN'T JUST NUMBERS

No matter how the Bush budget is finally resolved, Mr. Bush clearly showed his priorities. Compassion wasn't high on the list. Even though I don't much care for religion, I like this writer, who is a progressive evangelist. Jim Wallis writes about a more human side of religion that throws out the old fire and brimstone vindictive tyranny of the Old Testament. This article is also linked at www.commondreams.org:

The cost of the deficit is increasingly borne by the poor. The budget projects a record $427 billion deficit and promises to make tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest permanent.

Religious communities spoke clearly in the past years about the perils of a domestic policy based primarily on tax cuts for the rich, program cuts for low-income people and an expectation of faith-based charity.

We must speak clearly now about a budget lacking moral vision. A budget that scapegoats the poor and fattens the rich, that asks for sacrifice mostly from those who can least afford it, is a moral outrage.

BUSH IS GREAT AT INSPIRING NEW ALLIANCES

George W. Bush liked to call himself "a uniter, not a divider." He is increasingly uniting most of the world against the United States. We learned recently that Syria and Iran have a tacit alliance. There are increasingly close ties between China and Russia. That's the subject of this article by Sudhir Chadda at www.indiadaily.com:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese authorities decided to form the strategic alliance for defense, trade and energy. Russia will deliver oil to China and China will collaborate with Russia in Geopolitical strategic defense of Euresia.

A RANDOM THOUGHT OR TWO

Tapes that were secretly recorded when George W. Bush was contemplating a presidential run reveal he definitely used drugs. Right-wingers have crucified any candidates to the left of the political spectrum for any drug use, but they'll try to find some way to excuse Georgie. I bet they'll be castigating the guy who made the tapes and then released them, rather than their boy Bush.

You have to wonder why Bush has been so stingy about giving press conferences with all the fake journalists the administration evidently has on its payroll. Just fill the room with people on the take and call on them. Even the mainstream media are bad enough at being shills for Bush, of course, but there's always the chance a probing question might be asked and then George will be seen around the world stumbling and bumbling and lying his way through it.

FEBRUARY 19, 2005

BUSH IS A REVERSE ROBIN HOOD

George W. Bush's agenda has been to transfer as much wealth as possible to his rich friends. In a notable segment shown in Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11 you see Bush giving a speech before a crowd of rich people and he says he's talking to his base, "the haves and the have mores." He has managed to divert the attention of people on the Christian Right by throwing out the occasional bone on abortion or gay rights, and he has managed to deceive even more people with the "war on terror." But the core of his agenda is turning us into a society of many poor and a very few rich. Geov Parrish writes about it in this column at www.workingforchange.com:

Follow the money. This is not fiscal prudence; it is a massive wealth transfer scheme, an effort to use the power of federal spending to benefit the economic elites who are George W. Bush's core constituency. This is the thank-you for the hundreds of millions poured into Bush's re-election campaign.

NEW REPORT SHOWS CLEAR EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

Right-wingers like George W. Bush are killing our planet. While throwing up smokescreens about "good science," Bush and his business cronies continue to eye short-term profit as more important than preserving the ecosphere of the earth. I hate to think of the millions upon millions of people who will lose their homes, their health, or even their lives because of the effects of global climate change. I hate to think of all the species that will become extinct because they can't survive the changes caused by human greed. This story by David Perlman is at www.sfgate.com:

Ice ages come and go over millennia, and for the past 8,000 years, the gradual end of the last ice age has seen a natural increase in worldwide temperatures, all scientists agree. Skeptics have expressed doubt that industrial activity is to blame for world's rapidly rising temperatures.

But records show that for the past 50 years or so, the warming trend has sped up -- due, researchers said, to the atmospheric burden of greenhouse gases produced by everything industrial, from power plants burning fossil fuels to gas-guzzling cars -- and the effects are clear.

BUSH'S SS SCAM HITS POOR THE HARDEST

The elitists in the right-wing of the Republican party like to talk about things like "personal responsibility." They like to advance the belief that if you're poor it's somehow your fault. You should be able to save and get rich in this wonderful capitalist society. The real world doesn't work quite that way. Even people who are smart and work hard don't necessarily accumulate a lot of money. But at least there was Social Security to provide some kind of safety net when they got too old to work. Bush wants to take that away. This article by Jim VandeHei is at www.washingtonpost.com:

No group of Americans would be affected more by President Bush's Social Security plan than those earning the least. Just ask 46-year-old Brent Allen.

Allen, who recently lost his job at a Massachusetts paper mill, faces a retirement financed exclusively by the money he has been paying into the Social Security system for the better part of 30 years. Like nearly half the U.S. population, he has no pension or savings to speak of. And his brief flirtations with the stock market have largely flopped.

FEBRUARY 18, 2005

SOME HISTORY ON JOHN NEGROPONTE

The Bush administration is drenched in blood. Bush himself is responsible for two unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where thousands of innocent people have been slaughtered. He's also responsible for our descending into torture in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. He's responsible for people being exported to other countries to be tortured. He has appointed Alberto Gonzales, a man who believes torture is legitimate, to be Attorney General. He has appointed a man named Michael Chertoff to head the Department of Homeland Security. Chertoff has signed off on torture. Now he brings back John Negroponte, a relic of the Reagan administration. This item about Negroponte's bloody history is at http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001464.html:

Negroponte is certainly a good choice to get inside the mind of a terrorist, since as U.S. ambassador to Honduras under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, he reportedly collaborated with a top-secret Army death squad, ominously called Battalion 316, that kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of civilians there. Honduras was a key ally for the Reagan crowd in its covert "contra" effort to topple Nicaragua's leftist government.

BUSH'S LEAVE NO CORPORATION BEHIND BILL

George W. Bush has signed legislation that limits class action lawsuits against corporations. Bush tries to couch this in terms of stopping "frivolous" lawsuits and "tort reform." It's really just another big gift for big business. The legal system is being restructured so that people like you and I can't sue corporations. It's a license to maim and kill for big business. This story by Jesse J. Holland is at story.news.yahoo.com:

As President Bush signed legislation Friday aimed at discouraging multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuits, he made clear he had his sights set on much broader restraints.

Next up, Bush said, should be curbs on asbestos litigation and medical malpractice awards.

"We're making important progress toward a better legal system," he said during an East Room signing ceremony for the class-action bill. "There's more to do."

THE BUSH SEX SCANDAL IN THE MAKING

Think back just a few years about how the right-wing media feasted on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. We had the sordid Ken Starr investigation and an impeachment and the shrieks of right-wingers that Clinton had destroyed the country with his licentious ways. It's poetic justice somehow that a sex scandal looks ready to engulf the Bush administration. This may also swamp the administration of George H. W. "Poppy" Bush. In her book The Family Kitty Kelly uncovered allegations that "Poppy" may be a pedophile, but there has been scant attention from the mainstream media until now. This story by Wayne Madsen is at www.onlinejournal.com:

Now that is has been discovered that "Jeff Gannon" (real name James D. Guckert), a "reporter" for Talon News Service, a front operation run by the conservative Republican-oriented GOPUSA.com, was using an alias as a cleared White House reporter, details are emerging that threaten to immerse the Bush administration in a major scandal.

"Gannongate," which is only now being mentioned by the mainstream news media, threatens to expose a potentially damaging GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring dating back to the 1980s and the administration of George H. W. Bush. James D. Guckert, using the name Jeff Gannon and possibly other aliases, was also running gay porn sites, one with a U.S. Marine Corps theme that solicited males for prostitution.

CRITICISM OF BUSH IS LEGITIMATE AND VERY AMERICAN

Singer/songwriter Iris DeMent has a song called "Wasteland of the Free." In the song she talks about the various hypocrisies you see from right-wingers, such as touting Christianity, but doing everything contrary to the precepts of Christianity. The Right has tried to inculcate the belief that you can't criticize Bush or his policies, or you're aiding the terrorists. Never mind that starting unnecessary wars, or torturing people supplies ample arguments to terrorists to justify their actions. Reggie Rivers has some thoughts in this piece linked at www.commondreams.org:

But how many rules can the United States break before it's guilty of engaging in simple violence rather than legitimate warfare? Can you imagine us giving our blessing to any nation that held American POWs without giving them protection of the Geneva Convention? We would immediately condemn that action. But somehow, when we're the nation committing the same offense, we shrug as if it's no big deal.

I know I'll be accused of being a member of the Blame-America-First crowd, and that's OK. Too many of our citizens are part of the Blame-America?-Never! mindset, and that has the danger of leading us down a very tyrannical path. But how many rules can the United States break before it's guilty of engaging in simple violence rather than legitimate warfare? Can you imagine us giving our blessing to any nation that held American POWs without giving them protection of the Geneva Convention? We would immediately condemn that action. But somehow, when we're the nation committing the same offense, we shrug as if it's no big deal.

I know I'll be accused of being a member of the Blame-America-First crowd, and that's OK. Too many of our citizens are part of the Blame-America?-Never! mindset, and that has the danger of leading us down a very tyrannical path.

FEBRUARY 17, 2005

HOW WE HATE BUSH'S SS PLAN: LET US COUNT THE WAYS

If someone lies and lies to you and leaves behind a trail of disaster and death, don't you finally think that person has lost any credibility? That's George W. Bush. Just review the guy's whole record, from the way he left business partners holding the bag, from the way he made most of his wealth with the Texas Rangers baseball club, his connections to the Saudi Royal family, the lousy way he left the state of Texas after being Governor there, the way he stole the presidency in 2000, and the way he lied us into a war with Iraq. And yet there are still people foolish enough to believe in this guy. This piece by David Smith looks at the sucker punch Bush wants to deliver on Social Security. The article is at www.tompaine.com:

With a stunning absence of specifics, President Bush used his State of the Union address to propose a radical "reform" of Social Security that would result in lower guaranteed retirement benefits for virtually all Americans born after 1950, add trillions to the national debt, and jeopardize our best program to provide for workers and their families in the event of disability or death.

The president suggested that by 2018, the system would be paying out more than it would be taking in, and that by 2042 it would be exhausted and bankrupt. He is wrong on both counts.

THE MYTH OF SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

I'm still reading K.C. Cole's book The Universe and the Teacup. In one essay she talks about the myth of "sustainable growth." It's a concept used to justify the idea of MARKET, MARKET, MARKET. We have to find new markets, doncha know. Everything has to be sacrificed to THE MARKET. In this essay she talks about some work by Albert A. Bartlett:

Bartlett recently wrote a paper designating people who believed in the continual possibility of growth as the modern-day Flat Earth Society. That's because a flat Earth could extend infinitely in all directions, accommodating any amount of garbage or providing any amount of land to grow crops or atmosphere to absorb the gases we pump in.

MEET YOUR NEW DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

John Negroponte is like an insect infestation you just can't eradicate. He keeps swarming in some new role where he can create mayhem. Negroponte was recently Ambassador to Iraq and now Bush has appointed him to the new post of Director of National Intelligence. This spot is designed to consolidate our intelligence into one "czar." Back during the Reagan years Negroponte was down in Central America denying there were death squads roaming places like Honduras. These were death squads being funded by our taxpayer dollars. David Corn writes about the new "czar" at www.thenation.com:

While he was in Honduras and for years afterward, Negroponte refused to acknowledge the human rights abuses. In a 1982 letter to The Economist he said it was "simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras." The next year he maintained, "There is no indication that the infrequent human rights violations that do occur are part of deliberate government policy." And during his 2001 confirmation he stated, "I do not believe then, nor do I believe now, that these abuses were part of a deliberate government policy. To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras." How then does he account for a 1997 CIA Inspector General investigation that concluded, "The Honduran military committed hundreds of human rights abuses since 1980, many of which were politically motivated and officially sanctioned" and linked to "death squad activities"?

THIS HAS A REALLY ROTTEN SMELL

The Bush administration wouldn't issue phony terror alerts or lie to get Bush elected, would it? This story reveals that Tom Ridge, former head of Homeland Security, met with pollsters during the Bush campaign. How, pray tell, do pollsters relate to homeland security? There seems to no depth this gang won't sink to. This story by Pete Yost is linked at www.commondreams.org:

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge met privately with Republican pollsters twice in a 10-day span last spring as he embarked on more than a dozen trips to presidential battleground states.

Ridge's get-togethers with Republican strategists Frank Luntz and Bill McInturff during a period the secretary was saying his agency was playing no role in Bush's re-election campaign were revealed in daily appointment calendars obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," Ridge told reporters during the election season.

FEBRUARY 16, 2005

IN DEFENSE OF THE GOLDEN RULE

One of the great hypocrisies of the Christian Right is that it advocates survival of the fittest. The Christian Right is an enabler of predatory capitalism, which is totally contrary to the Christian teaching of the Golden Rule. I was skimming an essay by mathematician K.C. Cole who notes that math proves the Golden Rule. In her book The Universe and the Tea Cup she quotes Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan from their book Microcosmos:

Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.

THE COWARDS AT CNN

This column is about a man named Eason Jordan, a former executive at CNN, who had to resign after controversy arose over some remarks he made. He allegedly said that journalists in Iraq had been targeted by the U.S. military. There have been incidents of the U.S. military firing into areas where journalists are known to be. In any event, the matter should have quickly disappeared. But in the right-wing atmosphere that predominates today he wound up resigning and CNN accepted his resignation. It makes you think a little of the movie High Noon where Gary Cooper played a sheriff forced to face down a gang of thugs by himself because the townspeople were nowhere to be found. This column by Jack Lessenberry is at www.metrotimes.com:

Many years ago, Charles Eisendrath, who runs the Knight-Wallace fellowship program at the University of Michigan, told me he had just met a brilliant young man who was reinventing international news coverage.

His name was Eason Jordan, and at that time he was in charge of international news at CNN, which, as you may remember, beat the dung out of the traditional networks with its coverage of the 1991 Gulf War. Jordan then was barely 30; after that his rise was steady, and as of a week ago he was the network’s executive vice-president and chief executive for news.

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH

George W. Bush has made a big deal of "faith based" initiatives. It's one of those things where you divert federal funds to religious organizations to do good things like help the poor and needy. Like a number of Bush's proposals, this one hasn't seen much action. Bush cares about things like tort reform that help big business, or destroying the environment to help big business, or starting wars to get oil for big business. This story talks about how Bush stiffed his "faith based" supporters. The story by Alan Cooperman and Jim VendeHei is at www.washingtonpost.com:

A former White House official said yesterday that President Bush has failed to deliver on his promise to help religious groups serve the poor, the homeless and drug addicts because the administration lacks a genuine commitment to its "compassionate conservative" agenda.

David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for much of Bush's first term, said in published remarks that the White House reaped political benefits from the president's promise to help religious organizations win taxpayer funding to care for "the least, the last and the lost" in the United States. But he wrote: "There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda."

IF THE GANNON STORY HAPPENED DURING THE CLINTON YEARS . ..

I don't like tabloid news. I never paid that much attention to the hot air about the Monica Lewinsky story because I thought it was mostly a non-story if you care about really substantive news. Now we have the story of Jeff Gannon, a.k.a. James Guckert, a "reporter" for Talon News Service. It turns out Mr. Gannon is allegedly a gay prostitute. Can you imagine the caterwauling that would have occurred in the right wing media if Bill Clinton's administration had been connected to a gay prostitute/journalist? Fire and brimstone would be raining from the sky. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and all the rest of these creeps would talk about it 24/7.

This is yet another case of turnabout being fair play. I'm particularly interested in how Mr. Gannon got clearance to attend White House press conferences. Was national security compromised? Joe Conason takes a swing at the right-wing media in this column linked at www.commondreams.org:

Proof that "the liberal media" is but a figment of right-wing mythology has now arrived in the person of one James Guckert, formerly known as Jeff Gannon. Were the American media truly liberal—or merely unafraid to be called liberal—the saga of Mr. Guckert’s short, strange, quasi-journalistic career would be resounding across the airwaves.

The intrinsic media interest of the Guckert/Gannon story should be obvious to anyone who has followed his tale, which touches on hot topics from the homosexual underground and the investigation into the outing of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame to the political power of the Internet. But our supposedly liberal media becomes quite squeamish when reporting anything that might humiliate the Bush White House and the Republican Party.

FEBRUARY 15, 2005

ANOTHER GOOD ARGUMENT AGAINST THE REPUBS ON SS

It's ironic, isn't it, that an alleged deficit in Social Security spending sends Republicans into a tizzy, but they have no problem with the garganguran deficits run up by the Bush administration? This is a good argument that I found at www.bartcop.com:

"In 2018, Social Security will begin paying out more money than it takes in. This is what Dennis Hastert calls the “crisis point.” But the entire federal government is paying out more money than it takes in right now. Indeed this has been the case for four years, thanks to GOP tax-and-spending policies, and it will continue. Why is it that a modest deficit in Social Security that won’t begin for over a decade requires immediate radical action, while a vastly greater overall federal deficit occurring right now doesn’t?"

--Paul Glastris, using logic to decipher GOP greed

THE LATE ARTHUR MILLER DESCRIBED THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

The late playwright Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in the 1950s in response to the excesses of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his Communist witch hunts. Although The Crucible was set during the Salem witch trials, it was clearly an allegory for what was happening with McCarthy. It is appropriate now in another time of witch hunts and intolerance of dissent. This speech by a character in The Crucible sounds eerily like John Ashcroft or George W. Bush saying there is no middle ground. You agree with them or you're aiding the enemy. E. J. Dionne writes about it in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:

For our own moment, consider this speech by Deputy Governor Danforth defending the role of Salem's witch-hunting court. "But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time -- we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God's grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it. I hope you will be one of those."

FEBRUARY 14, 2005

ALL THE MISLEADING ARGUMENTS TO PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY

I saw a letter to the editor of The Fresno Bee a few days ago that took the approach of saying that Social Security wasn't really safe until 2042. The Social Security trust fund is secured by government bonds, and this guy was saying the government won't have the money to redeem the bonds. Voila! A crisis. If the government doesn't have the money to secure Social Security, then the government wouldn't be reliable for anything, it seems to me. That would be a simply catastrophic situation on every front, not just Social Security. The no- money- for bonds argument is addressed in this article by Charles R. Morris linked at www.commondreams.org:.

Repudiating American government bonds would be such a catastrophic financial event, for both the country and the world, that it is usually regarded as unthinkable. But it takes only mild paranoia to imagine that some “conservatives” may speculate that repudiating obligations just to the trust funds may not have such dire consequences-that external investors may somehow consider them a different order of promise; indeed, that Wall Street and other big-asset holders might be relieved to see them dispensed with. And to the mildly paranoid, the administration’s drive to make its tax cuts permanent, even as it raises the alarm over Social Security, seems almost designed to force such an outcome.

IF ARMAGEDDON IS NIGH, WHY IS SOCIAL SECURITY IN "CRISIS"?

An interesting idea. Right-wingers bleat about the rapture being upon us, so they don't care about little things like global climate change or nuclear proliferation. But they have problems with the alleged bankruptcy of Social Security? There's something inconsistent here. This item is from www.thiscantbehappening.net:

HERE'S A THOUGHT, BY GOD--Bill Moyers and Robert Scheer both say America is in the hands of a fundamentalist cult that believes in Armaggedon, and that these people have no concern about the future--global warming, vanishing oil reserves, dead oceans--because they think we're headed for the rapture anyhow and God will provide. They may be right. And yet, these same arch-conservative religious fundamentalists are backing the President's scam to gut Social Security on the (false) grounds that it will face bankruptcy in 40 years. If Armaggedon is upon us, who cares about Social Security? Could it be they, like the president, just want to kill the program...

WAL-MART: THE MALEFACTORS OF GREAT WEALTH

You wish President Theodore Roosevelt could be here to talk about Wal-Mart, the country's biggest retailer. Back in his day Roosevelt talked about the "malefactors of great wealth," and there is no greater example than Wal-Mart. They force down wages, destroy unions, drive out small businesses, and systematically violate labor laws. Meanwhile, members of the Walton family, Wal-Mart's owners, are multi-billionaires. Just remember how Wal-Mart treats its employees the next time you see the TV commercial with the little smiley guy rolling back prices. This story by Steven Greenhouse is at www.nytimes.com:

Wal-Mart Stores, the nation's largest retailer, has agreed to pay $135,540 to settle federal charges that it violated child labor laws in Connecticut, Arkansas and New Hampshire.

Labor Department officials said most of the 24 violations covered by the settlement involved workers under age 18 operating dangerous machinery, including cardboard balers and chain saws. In the agreement, Wal-Mart denied any wrongdoing.

FEBRUARY 13, 2005

SINCLAIR BROADCASTING: BIG TIME RIGHT WING PROPAGANDA

How can you take someone seriously when they claim that 95% of the corporate owned media lean to the left? How can you take them seriously when they state that Dan Rather claimed that Saddam Hussein is a "nice guy"? This is the story of the far right network Sinclair Broadcasting and its CEO David Smith. The story is at www.rollingstone.com:

Last year, when conservative commentator Armstrong Williams took $240,000 in payoffs from the Bush administration to promote its education policies in the media, he needed to reach a national television audience to satisfy the terms of his lucrative deal. Fortunately for Williams, he was good friends with David Smith, the CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group, the nation's largest owner of television stations.

THE MANY COSTS OF OUTSOURCING

People who want to defend the outsourcing of American jobs by corporations might want to consider there are consequences beyond the loss of jobs in this country. There is also a transfer of technology to other nations, and increasingly there is a transfer of private information about each of us. CNN anchor Lou Dobbs is a strong opponent of outsourcing and he talks about the issues involved in an interview posted at motherjones.com:

Among the many consequences is the pain that is being felt by working men and women in this country, particularly our middle class. But the other impact is the transfer of technology and our knowledge base. We’re exporting our privacy as well, because medical and financial records are being exported so that cheap overseas labor can work with those documents and records.

Each time we transfer knowledge bases overseas, whether it be manufacturing or technology or research, that is a service that will obviously be performed by a competing economy -- whether emerging or not, a competing economy. And it is work that will not be done by the U.S. economy and our workers. The result is -- and this is at the margins at this point, but could grow to an increasingly larger share of the trade-deficit problem -- the result is further pressure on the U.S. economy.

BUSH JUST LIES AND LIES ABOUT THE DEFICIT

Molly Ivins outrages right-wingers because she's so dead on with her analysis and her reporting. She also has an incredible wit. In this column she talks about the absolute travesty of the new Bush budget and how the claim that this is a deficit reduction is an absolute bald-faced lie. This column is at www.workingforchange.com:

In the first place, they're trying to fool you into thinking the deficit is less than it is by using a fake number from the previous year -- an early deficit estimate set way high so they could claim the deficit had been "dramatically reduced." Last year's actual deficit was $412 billion, the largest ever, and under Bush's budget this year, it will be $427 billion. The actual deficit, with war spending included, would balloon to $1.4 trillion by 2010 under this plan.

RIGHT-WINGERS CHANGE THEIR TUNE WHEN IT'S PERSONAL

Right-wingers sit on high throwing down their lightning bolts of denunciation at all mortals who sin against the mighty doctrine of conservatism. But when it's personal, they suddenly change their minds. Rush Limbaugh was only too happy to call for harsh punishments for drug offenders until el-Rusho got caught with his hand in the pill jar. Nancy Reagan is in favor of stem cell research. It's not easy to be self-righteous and judgmental when it involves you or your family. This commentary by Ellis Henican is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Nancy Reagan supports stem-cell research after her Ronnie gets sick.

Dick Cheney opposes the gay-marriage ban after his daughter comes out.

Rush Limbaugh is suddenly an advocate of treatment - not prison - for people addicted to narcotics. Oh, I almost forgot: The epiphany comes while Rush is being investigated for drugs.

FEBRUARY 12, 2005

READ KITTY KELLEY'S BOOK THE FAMILY

I've been skimming Kitty Kelley's book about the Bush dynasty. The Family reveals the Bushes to be the thugs most of us knew they were, but there is good documentation to use for anyone who wants to believe in the goodness of George W. Bush and his cohorts. All the Bushes are despicable, but I have a particular interest in the guy who stole the White House. This section of Kelley's book shows the whole "compassionate conservative" schtick was phony all along. Bush ran for Congress in 1978, and this excerpt is from page 545:

During the 1978 campaign, he had vehemently opposed abortion rights, gay rights . . ., and affirmative action. . .. He also said that Social Security would be bankrupt in ten years unless people were allowed to invest the money themselves. Not exactly the views of a "compassionate conservative," as he later labeled himself. He took the same positions during his 1994 campaign for governor, adding to the political mix two more items key to his agenda: guns and God.

CONVERT OR ELSE

This is outrageous. A group of villagers in India were told they had to convert to Christianity, or they wouldn't get any aid to help them cope with the devastating tsunami that swept away their village. I don't ever remember anything in the Bible that says you forcibly convert someone. This story is at in.news.yahoo.com:

Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.

Samanthapettai, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on the December 26 when massive tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives.

ANOTHER GOOD ARGUMENT AGAINST BUSH'S SS SCAM

I hadn't really thought about this, but this letter in The Fresno Bee has a good point. If we have to depend on the stock market's performance for our retirement, then we have to go contrary to our own interests in many other ways, such as decent wages, benefits, caring for the environment, and so on. Have you ever noticed that when there is a major merger, usually accompanied by major layoffs, how the value of the stock of the merged companies increases? So, on the one hand we cut our own throat while trying to salvage our retirement. This letter is at www.fresnobee.com:

If the masses depend on the stock market for their retirement funds, they will have a stake in shrinking their own interests. This system will, of course, favor corporations, while dividing and forcing working people against each other. Labor unions might become obsolete. Privatization of Social Security is a very bad idea.

THE RISE OF NEO-NAZIS

This is scary stuff. Neo-Nazi hate groups are trying more and more to go mainstream. The present climate in this country gives them a good opportunity. With our government fostering policies that openly target Arabs and Muslims as suspected "terrorists" it's not a far reach to start scapegoating any non-white groups as dangerous to the "American way of life." This article by Stephanie Simon is at www.latimes.com:

White supremacist groups around the country are moving aggressively to recruit new members by promoting their violent, racist ideologies on billboards, in radio commercials and in leaflets tossed on suburban driveways.

Watching with mounting alarm, civil rights monitors say these tactics stake out a much bolder, more public role for many hate groups, which are trying to shed their image as shadowy extremists and claim more mainstream support.