APRIL 30, 2005

ANOTHER BUSH ASSAULT ON THE MIDDLE CLASS

In his "news" conference George W. Bush says his "plan" for Social Security is essentially to cut benefits for the middle class and the affluent. Mr. Compassionate Conservative claims he wants to keep benefits intact for the poor. If you believe that, there's a bridge for sale somewhere. While he rams through enormous tax cuts for the rich and for corporations, Bush claims Social Security is "crisis" and only his grandiose plan for private accounts will save it. This commentary by Roger Hickey is at www.tompaine.com:

According to an analysis by House Democratic staff, when fully phased in, Bush’s “progressive indexing” would be a disaster for the middle class: A worker earning $37,000 per year before retirement would see a benefit cut of 28 percent. Someone earning $58,000 would suffer a 42 percent cut. And someone earning $90,000 would face benefit cuts of 49 percent.

Oddly, the president’s remarks included the repeated assurance that “future generations receive benefits equal to or greater than the benefits today's seniors get.” This sounds like a pledge to cut no one’s future benefits, echoing some in the Republican “free lunch” crowd. But smart journalists will force the White House to acknowledge that this is an empty and misleading promise. What the president described last night is entirely compatible with dramatic cuts in future benefits-which, under current law, are promised to increase substantially as wages and inflation go up. This is a bait and switch of the kind bloggers will be all over in their Friday postings.

BUSHWORLD: CROOKS AND LIARS RISE TO THE TOP

Ahmad Chalabi, who probably fed phony intelligence to the United States, is one of the men responsible for the horrendous and unjustified war against Iraq. Mr. Chalabi , a convicted embezzler, is the new oil minister in Iraq. In Bushworld you don't do the time for doing the crime; you get promoted to the top. Maureen Dowd writes about it at www.nytimes.com:

Ahmad Chalabi - convicted embezzler in Jordan, suspected Iranian spy, double-crosser of America, purveyor of phony war-instigating intelligence - is the new acting Iraqi oil minister.

Is that why we went to war, to put the oily in charge of the oil, to set the swindler who pretended to be Spartacus atop the ultimate gusher?

PREEMPTIVE VIOLATION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT

George W. Bush claimed that God told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. He pushed the doctrine of "preemptive war," which is getting them before they get you. We've seen the folly of that doctrine in Iraq. Here at home Mr. Bush has been busy trashing the First Amendment. People get removed from Bush events because they "might" be disruptive. Democracy itself isn't a tidy process, and the First Amendment was put there by the Founders for a good reason. In this story it's revealed how the Bush crowd has consistently violated the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens. The story by Ann Imse is at rockymountainnews.com:

The White House said Wednesday that simply a belief that someone intends to disrupt a presidential event is enough to get the person removed.

Addressing the ouster of three people from a presidential speech last month in Denver, Press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday, "If we think people are coming to the event to disrupt it, obviously, they're going to be asked to leave."

FRESNO'S MISERLY MAYOR AUTRY

Alan Autry, who played the role of Bubba in the TV series In the Heat of the Night, is a typical Republican. In a letter to the editor of The Fresno Bee Eli Setencich, a former journalist, points out that Bubba spent over $134.00 for a meal for two in Washington, D.C., and left the server a twenty-five cent tip. Way to go, Mr. Autry. It's just more dramatic evidence of the greed, stupidity, and arrogance of Republicans.

APRIL 29, 2005

MORE DARK ECONOMIC CLOUDS

In this article the sluggish economy is blamed on high energy prices. But we should note that it's only in the past few months that energy prices have taken off. The economy has been lousy since George W. Bush moved into the White House. It's no accident. Every time a Republican administration is in charge you can count on a bad economy. This administration is even worse than past administrations, of course. This administration wants to tear down the safety nets that have made it possible to ride out bad economic times. This article by Eduardo Porter is at www.nytimes.com:

The economy braked sharply in the first three months of the year, the government reported yesterday, expanding at its slowest pace in two years as rising energy prices spurred a burst of increased inflation and dragged down spending by businesses and consumers.

The Commerce Department estimated that the nation's gross domestic product grew at a 3.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter, substantially slower than the 3.8 percent growth of the final three months of 2004 and the slowest pace since the first quarter of 2003.

BOOK BURNERS IN ALABAMA

It seems that Alabama already has enough historical baggage to tote around. There was that little thing called slavery, then being a part of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and being on the wrong side in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. Now an Alabama legislator wants to ban any work by a gay author or featuring gay characters. This guy even wants to ban work by Shakespeare! Let's hope this guy gets laughed and jeered right of politics. This story is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.

"I don't look at it as censorship," says State Representative Gerald Allen. "I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children."

JUST A THOUGHT

Over the past several years right-wing Evangelicals have advanced the idea that they are being "persecuted." You know, people say "Happy holidays" and not "Merry Christmas" and that's persecution. Or Nativity scenes are banned on government property. Or evolution gets taught as science and "intelligent design" gets treated as mythology. I would have to say if this is persecution it's the most benign persecution I've ever seen.

But what really strikes me is that Jesus foretold his followers would be persecuted. If the right-wingers are being persecuted, doesn't that mean we're about to see the Second Coming? Isn't that what they want? Instead, we see the people crying "persecution" doing the persecuting.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S CROCODILE TEARS

The financial organ of the reactionary right in this country is The Wall Street Journal. The Journal rhapsodizes about the benefits of the "free market" and the horrors of regulation. It really has a problem with a progressive income system, trying consistently to make the argument that the very rich are overburdened by taxes while those of us in the lower income tax brackets aren't paying our fair share. The Journal is wrong. Jonathan Chait writes about it at www.latimes.com:

So how progressive, or confiscatory, is our tax system? Federal taxes are progressive. According to calculations by Citizens for Tax Justice, workers in the middle of the income scale pay about 16% of their income in federal taxes, while those in the top 1% pay about 25%. But that's offset in part by state and local taxes, which hit the poor and middle class much harder.

Taking into account all taxes, the top 1% pay around 33% of their income in taxes, while the bottom 99% pay 29.7% of their income in taxes. The rich pay somewhat higher tax rates, but not that much higher. (President Bush's tax cuts, which disproportionately benefited the rich, narrowed that gap.)

OUR LOUSY HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

Right-wingers worship the free market. It doesn't matter how much evidence there is that the free market frequently doesn't work. The so-called "invisible hand" talked about by Adam Smith is too often a mailed fist. One very good example is our health care system, which is horrendously expensive and still leaves millions of Americans uninsured. Paul Krugman talks about the special interests and bloated private bureaucracy of the health care system at www.nytimes.com:

This week yet another report emphasized just how bad a job the American system does at providing basic health care. A study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimates that 20 million working Americans are uninsured; in Texas, which has the worst record, more than 30 percent of the adults under 65 have no insurance.

And lack of insurance leads to inadequate medical attention. Over a 12-month period, 41 percent of the uninsured were unable to see a doctor when needed because of cost; 56 percent had no personal doctor or health care provider.

APRIL 28, 2005

DEFENSE CONTRACTORS LOVE BUSH

The growth industries under George W. Bush are defense and prisons. That's some legacy, isn't it? This article talks about how defense industry profits are way up thanks to Bush's unnecessary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The article by Christian Plumb is at news.moneycentral.msn.com:

U.S. defense contractors reported strong quarterly earnings on Thursday as the Pentagon put billions into high tech military equipment and services.

Earnings soared 76 percent at Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC), 30 percent at Raytheon Co. (RTN) and 22 percent at Goodrich (GR). All three aerospace and defense companies beat analysts earnings forecasts, and they raised their earnings outlooks for the rest of the year.

After the news, shares of aircraft part maker Goodrich rose 6.4 percent, while Northrop Grumman stock was up 1.6 percent and Raytheon's shares were 1.9 percent higher.

IN BUSHWORLD THE INCOMPETENT GET REWARDED

The old Soviet Union had nothing on the Bush administration in whitewashing its crimes. Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer could have learned about whitewashing from this gang. In the various torture scandals it's the low level grunts who take the fall while their superiors, who probably ordered the torture, get to skate. Bob Herbert writes about it at www.nytimes.com:

When soldiers in war are not properly trained and supervised, atrocities are all but inevitable. This is one reason why the military command structure is so important. There was a time, not so long ago, when commanders were expected to be accountable for the behavior of their subordinates.

That's changed. Under Commander in Chief George W. Bush, the notion of command accountability has been discarded. In Mr. Bush's world of war, it's the grunts who take the heat. Punishment is reserved for the people at the bottom. The people who foul up at the top are promoted.

THE LOUSY ECONONIC NUMBERS FOR WORKING PEOPLE

You have to think a lot of people who support George W. Bush's economic policies must put their hands over their ears, close their eyes, and chant, "I do believe in Bush." The evidence that the working class is getting clobbered is overwhelming. Meanwhile, CEO salaries are way up, the income of the very richest is way up, and the rich even get other breaks by moving money offshore to dodge taxes. Molly Ivins has a good column at www.workingforchange.com:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has a brand-new study out showing the uneven division of the fruits of the supposed economic recovery:

"The data show that the share of real income growth that has gone to wages and salaries has been smaller than during any other comparable post-World War II recovery period, while the share of real income growth that has gone to corporate profits has been larger than during all other comparable post-World War II recoveries."

In previous recoveries, workers got an average of 49 percent of the national income gains, while corporate profits got 18 percent. This time, the workers are getting 23 percent and the corporations are getting 44 percent -- about one half as much as the share that has gone to corporate profits.

THINGS BUSH IS NOT

In his "news" conference George W. Bush has mentioned that he's not an economist and that he's not a lawyer. Thanks for the bulletin, George. You're also not competent. But you are corrupt and a liar.

JUST SOME BUSH BOONDOGGLES

You have to wonder why the government spent $2.5 million for a new food pyramid, which is mostly the product of intensive lobbying by the food industry. All that money for a logo most people will ignore. Worse than that, though, is the waste of money and the incompetence in the Transportation Safety Administration. The TSA is made up of those wonderful folks who do strip searches in airports. This column by Margaret Carlson is at www.latimes.com:

According to the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, the TSA achieved in three years what it took the Pentagon decades to accomplish. The agency's multiple Sub-Zero refrigerators, $250,000 worth of art and a fitness center with towel service make the Pentagon's fabled $600 toilet seat look like a blue-light special at Kmart.

APRIL 27, 2005

OUR INCREDIBLY UNEQUAL SOCIETY

If you bring up taxes around conservatives, suggesting that maybe a progressive tax system is the most just, they'll get all sanctimonious and condescending and tell you that the very richest already pay most of the income taxes. What they don't mention is that as a proportion of income the very rich are being under taxed relative to the rest of us. The taxes of the very rich have gone down significantly over the past two decades, while their incomes have tripled. This column by Kevin Drum is at www.washingtonmonthly.com:

I see that the Wall Street Journal is busily cementing its reputation as the most dishonest editorial page in the country. Today they crow yet again about the vast tax burden of the upper classes:

An IRS study by a trio of tax wonks shows that, even after including Social Security taxes, the overall tax burden grew more progressive from 1979 to 1999. And while that burden became a tad less progressive after the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, the rich and upper middle class continued to pay far and away the bulk of U.S. taxes.

Now, it's true that the rich and the upper middle class pay the bulk of U.S. taxes. But you know why? It's because the rich and the upper class also have the bulk of the money: the top 20% of taxpayers pay 67% of federal taxes, but they also earn 60% of all income.

THE ENLIGHTENMENT IS A WALL AGAINST RELIGIOUS WAR

Evangelicals like to claim that we're a Christian country, but just a little research shows we're a product of the Enlightenment. The move by the Christian right to turn our country into a theocracy would take us back to the bad old days before the Enlightenment when countries warred constantly because of religion. People were killed as "heretics" for not believing the right way. Science and knowledge were suppressed when they didn't agree with someone's interpretation of holy writ. Robert Kuttner has some thoughts at www.boston.com:

What's under siege here is nothing less than the Enlightenment. Please recall that what we benignly remember as the Renaissance coexisted with centuries of vicious religious persecution -- Christians persecuting heretics like Galileo, expelling and slaughtering Muslims and Jews, then doing bloody battle with each other following the Protestant Reformation.

The philosophers of the Enlightenment were men of science who understood that faith could not be disputed but that reason could be subjected to the test of logic and evidence. The American Revolution was a triple triumph -- for political democracy, religious tolerance, and for the free inquiry demanded by the scientific method.

THE PETROLEUM AGE IS OVER

It's time to face the reality that the age of cheap oil is over. It's also time to begin our transition to a new society based on alternative energy sources. That's not only because oil is going to become scarcer and more expensive, but because the very health of the planet depends upon it. Americans have been the biggest consumers of oil on the planet, so our lifestyle is going to be impacted the most. I'm an optimist. I think we can have a good quality of life without oil. This story by Floyd J. McKay is at www.commondreams.org:

In the long run, the declining supply of fossil fuel is a greater threat to American life as we have known it in the past century than is global terrorism.

If oil production peaks and begins a long downward slide, that will have a profound effect on our domestic and industrial life. Our economy is based on cheap oil, our communities are built around automobiles and we lack the backup transportation and industrial fuels needed to maintain our lifestyle.

America is the only industrialized nation without a functioning passenger-rail system, and we are cutting back intercity bus routes. We have systematically ignored alternative forms of energy, such as solar and wind, relegating research in these areas to the fringes while we build ever-bigger automobiles with ever-larger fuel demands.

STATISTICS ABOUT GROWTH ARE MISLEADING

I think it was Mark Twain who talked about lies, damned lies, and statistics. Statistics, artfully manipulated, can support almost any position. Take, for example, the rhetoric you hear about "growth" in the U.S. economy. As this article points out, we should use the standard of prosperity, which measures the well-being of the majority of us, not just the few at the top who benefit from growth. This article by Joshua Holland is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The self-serving politics of growth has grown ever more dominant since the emergence of the new conservative movement under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, creating a lopsided system that increasingly serves the greed of the few at the expense of the well-being of the many. According to Ed Wolff, author of Top Heavy, the share of national wealth controlled by the top 1 percent of households increased from 20.5 percent in 1979 to 38.5 percent in 1998, while the bottom 40 percent of American households experienced a drop in their share of national net worth, from 0.9 percent in 1983 to only 0.2 percent in 1998.

APRIL 26, 2005

AMERICANS LEERY OF REPUBLICAN AGENDA

I wonder why it took so long, but polls show Americans are becoming increasingly skeptical of some major items on the GOP agenda, including abolishing the filibuster in the Senate and privatizing Social Security. This story by Richard Morin and Dan Balz is from www.washingtonpost.com:

As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

GOP leaders are threatening a rule change to prohibit the use of filibusters to block judicial nominees and have stepped up their criticism of the Democrats for using the tactic on some of Bush's nominees to the federal appellate courts. They say they are prepared to invoke what has become known as the "nuclear option" to ensure that Bush's nominees receive an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

WHY IS QUESTIONING RELIGION SO TERRIBLE?

I've never seen water turned into wine, or an ocean parted, or a virgin birth, or someone raised from the dead. Yet I'm supposed to accept those and other accounts from religion as miracles that happened long ago and proof there is a Supreme Being watching over us all. I have no problem with people who believe in religion as long as they don't try to turn our secular society into a society governed by religious law. I have absolutely no desire to live in a theocracy. Mike Whitney writes about some of the issues surrounding religion in this article at www.smirkingchimp.com:

There's simple rule for atheists and agnostics in America; keep your head down and your mouth shut.

I recently wrote an article for Counterpunch web site criticizing the new pope and organized religion. Boy, did the brickbats start to fly. Many were put off by my assessment of the pope as right-wing extremist who will undoubtedly lead the papal caravan back to the 13th century. More were offended by my dismissive remarks about religion.

DEBUNKING THE RIGHT-WING EVANGELICALS

You hear it repeated over and over again by the right-wingers: The United States is a Christian nation and the Founders were Christians. The Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments and on Judeo-Christian beliefs. It's absolute nonsense. Our country was founded as a secular nation, and the Founders took great pains to keep church and state separate. Thom Hartmann has an interesting article linked at www.commondreams.org:

In fact, Jefferson said, the idea that this nation was founded in Christianity, or that the Ten Commandments were a pattern for the Constitution, was a "fraud of the clergy."

"Christianity was not introduced [to England] till the seventh century," wrote Jefferson in a February 10, 1814 letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, "the conversion of the first Christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it. ...

"In truth, the alliance between Church and State in England has ever made their judges accomplices in the frauds of the clergy; and even bolder than they are."

NOT THE KIND OF GROWTH WE WANT

Here in the Central Valley prisons are big business. We have a prison in Chowchilla and a prison in Corcoran that houses some of the worst criminals in the nation. Prisons are a growth industry in the United States, and I think you have to ask why. Are Americans more inherently disposed to commit crime, or are lots of people being imprisoned who shouldn't be? This article by Alan Eisner is at today.reuters.com:

The U.S. penal system, the world's largest, maintained its steady growth in 2004, the Department of Justice reported on Sunday.

The latest official half-yearly figures found the nation's prison and jail population at 2,131,180 in the middle of last year, an increase of 2.3 percent over 2003.

The United States has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies. The rate for England is 142 per 100,000, for France 91 and for Japan 58.

APRIL 25, 2005

PRIVATIZATION IS RIPE FOR FRAUD

There's a good reason that greed is listed among the seven deadly sins. It's one of the things that can bring down the best of us. With the Bush administration's push to privatize almost everything, including our retirement, it opens up a whole new market for hucksters willing to bilk people who want to make a quick and easy buck. This article by Michelle Singletary is at www.washingtonpost.com:

It's the season to scam.

I think I've used the phrase "low-life bum" more than I care to as I've read story after story this past year of investors being ripped off in new and old scams.

Most recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges against two Maryland businessmen, accusing them of bilking investors of $8.2 million with promises of risk-free returns of between 1 and 5 percent per month.

BUSH ALL TALK, NO ACTION ON ENERGY

When he was first running for president George W. Bush talked the big talk. He would get with the leaders of the oil producing countries, he said, and get them to open up the spigots to keep fuel prices low. Now that he launched an unnecessary war and occupied the second largest oil reserve in the world we see gas prices at historically high levels in the United States. This story by Tom Raum is at www.indystar.com:

Running for president five years ago, George W. Bush pledged to "jawbone" energy-exporting nations to keep oil prices low and win passage of legislation to spur more domestic energy production.

Delivering on either count has proved difficult for the Texas oilman.

Soaring oil and gasoline prices are beginning to take a toll on U.S. economic growth and Bush's approval ratings.

WHY IS COUNTRY MUSIC APPLAUDING RUMSFELD?

I used to be a country music fan. In fact, I still love the music of people like Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Alison Krauss. But I'm really turned off by the right-wing elements in the country music industry that support the Bush administration's policies of war and torture. The latest example was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld showing up at the Grand Ole Opry and being invited up on the stage by Dolly Parton. Country music has supposedly been the voice of the common man, but now we just see a blind jingoistic endorsement of atrocities against the common man.

CHARITABLE CONTRIBUTIONS JUST ANOTHER DODGE

We often hear about some rich person giving some astronomical amount of money to charity, and you think that's great. As it turns out, though, sometimes those charitable contributions aren't really going anywhere. They're sitting in some entity allowing said rich person to pay less taxes. This story by Stephanie Strom is at www.nytimes.com:

George B. Kaiser, a publicity-shy oilman who built a fortune estimated at $4 billion by snapping up busted petroleum businesses in Oklahoma, set aside roughly $1 billion for charitable endeavors from 2000 to the end of last year.

In exchange, he can now deflect taxes on much of his own income over the next several years.

But it turns out that only $3.4 million of the money he set aside has gone to charities. The rest is sitting in an obscure philanthropic entity called a supporting organization, so named because it is created to support a specific charity or charities.

BUSH IGNORES MOST OF US

In this column Paul Krugman talks about how George W. Bush and his administration believe things are going great because they talk only to their base: the Christian right and corporations. I'm a tad more cynical, I guess. I don't think Bush and company care in the least about the majority of us who work for wages. We're just there to be squeezed for more profits, and if we can't deliver, we're just tossed on the scrap heap. This column is at www.nytimes.com:

The administration's upbeat view of the economy is a case in point. Corporate interests are doing very well. As a recent report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, over the last three years profits grew at an annual rate of 14.5 percent after inflation, the fastest growth since World War II.

The story is very different for the great majority of Americans, who live off their wages, not dividends or capital gains, and aren't doing well at all. Over the past three years, wage and salary income grew less than in any other postwar recovery - less than a tenth as fast as profits. But wage-earning Americans aren't part ofthe base.

MORE ON CONGRESSMAN RADANOVICH

It's customary for Rubber Stamp George to send you a prepackaged form letter when you contact him regarding an issue. Recently, I sent Rubber Stamp a message that I opposed repeal of the estate tax. It's a tax that affects just a tiny minority of the very richest people in the country. One thing the tax does is help mitigate the building of an aristocracy. When vast wealth gets passed on from generation to generation, to people who didn't do a thing to earn it, how it that different from the aristocracy in Europe?

Anyway, Rubber Stamp uses the Republican coded language, calling the estate tax the "death tax," and claims that the estate tax has created hardship for families. In the Republican fairy tale it's like Ma and Pa Kettle getting taxed right out of their home. In real life it doesn't work that way. It's especially galling when the Republicans have been slashing and burning every program that helps people who work for wages or who are poor.

APRIL 24, 2005

TOM DELAY THEN AND NOW

As scandals emerge almost daily about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, it's interesting to see how "outraged" DeLay was about corruption a few years ago. DeLay, who has been handsomely rewarded by lobbyists, should be on trial for corruption and not in the House. This quote can be found at atrios.blogspot.com:

"The time has come that the American people know exactly what their Representatives are doing here in Washington. Are they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations, getting wined and dined by special interest groups? Or are they working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American people, have a right to know...I say the best disinfectant is full disclosure, not isolation." - U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, 11/16/95

BANK FEES SOCK IT TO THE POOR

This article from a business publication reveals that banks are making big time bucks from things like overdraft fees. Sometimes these fees are over $30 per transaction. Not surprisingly, most of these fees are hitting the poorest banking customers. This story is at businessweek.com:

Most troubling to consumer activists is that most of the new fees fall on the poorest consumers. Many banks provide truly free services to wealthier clients in order to hang on to their assets. Mason, for one, thinks the poorest 20% of the country's 135 million checking customers generate 80% of the $12 billion in annual overdraft fees. "[Banks] have turned routine fees into punitive finance charges for individuals who have trouble making ends meet," says the Consumer Federation's Fox.

"GOD'S ROTTWEILER" WANTED SEX SCANDAL KEPT SECRET

New Pope Benedict XVI, back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, wanted to keep the investigation into the church sex scandal kept a secret. He ordered that the scandal be kept a secret in a letter that has come to light. Let's see: birth control bad, condoms bad, preventing AIDS bad, but child sex abuse not so bad. This story by Jamie Doward is at observer.guardian.co.uk:

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.

AN INTERESTING LOOK AT FRESNO'S GOP MAYOR

Alan Autry, another former actor turned politician, is the right-wing mayor of Fresno. During his tenure Mr. Autry cloaked himself in the garb of right-wing evangelicals when he led a rally denouncing a court ruling saying the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was unconstitutional. Today's Fresno Bee has a story alleging that Mayor Autry and members of the City Council have taken trips and enjoyed meals at city expense, even though that's a misuse of the city's funds. Sounds a little like Tom DeLay on a smaller scale. The story by Jim Davis is at www.fresnobee.com:

Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and the City Council spent tens of thousands of dollars in the past four years on meals, hotel bills and other expenses with little oversight and less public debate.

The result is a system where expenses often are treated as perks, and policies and practices meant to protect against misuse are commonly stretched or simply ignored.

TRICKLE DOWN DESPAIR

We heard much about the idea of "trickle down economics" during the Reagan years. Give those rich folks tax breaks and it'll free up so much capital and they'll invest and we'll have jobs and a good time will be had by all! It hasn't worked out that way, either in the Reagan years, or in the dark reign of George W. Bush. They can repeal the estate tax. They can pass disgusting bankruptcy legislation. They can pay for the killing fields in Iraq and Afghanistan. They can pass a sham of a prescription drug bill, a big gift for the drug companies. They can pass legislation to despoil ANWR. But there's no money for health care for poor people. This story by Stephanie Simon is at www.latimes.com:

Hundreds of thousands of poor people across the nation will lose their state-subsidized health insurance in the coming months as legislators scramble to hold down the enormous — and ever-escalating — cost of Medicaid.

Here in impoverished southeast Missouri, nurses at a family health clinic stash drug samples for patients they know won't be able to afford their prescriptions after their coverage is eliminated this summer. Doctors try to comfort waitresses, sales clerks and others who will soon lose coverage for medical, dental and mental healthcare.

APRIL 23, 2005

REPUBS EVEN WANT TO TAKE AWAY WEATHER INFO

Under a proposed bill in the Senate, we would no longer get free weather information from the National Weather Service. The greedy and self-serving Republicans think that weather services that get paid for their information are being harmed by the National Weather Service (not to mention those political contributions Republicans are getting). Weather information is really important in places like Florida where there are frequent hurricanes or in states where tornadoes occur on a regular basis. Even here in the Central Valley we get weird weather sometimes, including tornadoes, so having access to weather information is sometimes a life and death issue. This story by Robert P. King is at www.palmbeachpost.com:

Do you want a seven-day weather forecast for your ZIP code? Or hour-by-hour predictions of the temperature, wind speed, humidity and chance of rain? Or weather data beamed to your cellphone?

That information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.

The bill, introduced last week by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., would prohibit federal meteorologists from competing with companies such as AccuWeather and The Weather Channel, which offer their own forecasts through paid services and free ad-supported Web sites.

WHAT IS BUSH AFRAID OF?

Maybe it's the Big Bad Wolf. Bush has shielded himself against any signs of protest since he stole the presidency in 2000. Protesters are cordoned off in "free speech" zones far from Bush events. Potential protesters are screened or removed from Bush appearances. On his tour to sell his Social Security scam Bush has spoken to hand-picked screened audiences while trying to give the appearance of free and open debate. This story by Jim VandeHei shows once again that the Bushies just can't handle dissent. The story is at www.washingtonpost.com:

This is not the first time the White House has faced scrutiny for ousting critics from Bush appearances or trying to stack audiences with friendly Republicans.

In Fargo, N.D., earlier this year, a local newspaper reported more than 40 residents were put on a list of people who should not be let in the door; the White House blamed the incident on an overzealous volunteer.

Several people reported similar treatment at other Social Security rallies, as well as during the 2004 presidential campaign, when the Bush team reportedly required some people to sign forms endorsing Bush to get into the events, and removed dissenters.

WHAT IS BUSH HIDING?

This article talks about the arrogant treatment of the media by the right-wing establishment. It's not that the media haven't been pretty compliant anyway, but there's always that one black sheep who might actually report the truth. The right-wingers use a mixture of buying off "journalists," putting out deceptive information or outright lies, and shutting down access to information that would be unfavorable to them. This article by Eric Alterman is at www.congress.org:

But the White House and its supporters are doing more than just talking trash--when they talk at all. They are taking aggressive action: preventing journalists from doing their job by withholding routine information; deliberately releasing deceptive information on a regular basis; bribing friendly journalists to report the news in a favorable context; producing their own "news reports" and distributing these free of charge to resource-starved broadcasters; creating and crediting their own political activists as "journalists" working for partisan operations masquerading as news organizations. In addition, an Administration-appointed special prosecutor, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, is now threatening two journalists with jail for refusing to disclose the nature of conversations they had regarding stories they never wrote, opening up a new frontier of potential prosecution. All this has come in the wake of a decades-long effort by the right and its corporate allies to subvert journalists' ability to report fairly on power and its abuse by attaching the label "liberal bias" to even the most routine forms of information gathering and reportage (for a transparent example in today's papers, see under "DeLay, Tom"). Some of these tactics have been used by previous administrations too, but the Bush team and its supporters have invested in and deployed them to a degree that marks a categorical shift from the past.

MORE DIFFICULT FOR MEDICARE RECIPIENTS

The callousness and outright cruelty of Republicans still amazes me. It shouldn't, I guess, but it seems they have absolutely no qualms about making life more difficult for people suffering the most. This story says that people denied Medicare benefits by the government have to jump through some major hoops to get an appeals hearing now. The story by Robert Pear is at www.nytimes.com:

A new federal policy will make it significantly more difficult for Medicare beneficiaries to obtain hearings in person before a judge when the government denies their claims for home care, nursing home services, prescription drugs and other treatments.

For years, hearings have been held at more than 140 Social Security offices around the country. In July, the Department of Health and Human Services will take over the responsibility, and department officials said all judges would then be located at just four sites - in Cleveland; Miami; Irvine, Calif.; and Arlington, Va.

APRIL 22, 2005


MEDIA AND THE REPUBLICAN LEXICON


Over the past several years the media have bent over backwards to adopt the Republican lexicon. You don't call it the "estate tax"; it has become the "death tax." You make up terminology such as "partial birth abortion," although there is no such medical procedure. Since Newt Gingrich pushed the Contract on America back in 1994, creating a list of highly-charged language to use against GOP opponents, the Republicans have created their own lexicon and the corporate media have walked in lockstep. Jonathan Chait writes about it in this column at www.latimes.com:


President Bush and his allies are probably going to lose his fight to privatize Social Security. But in the course of losing they have won an astonishing victory: They have established the precedent that a political party can unilaterally force the news media to change its terminology essentially. Push them hard enough, and the media will render verboten any previously agreed-upon phrase, no matter how widely accepted.


THE ANTI-EARTH REPUBLICANS


It wasn't an accident that the Republican Congress passed a disgusting "energy" bill on the eve of Earth Day. Among other things, the bill will allow the rape of ANWR. Environmentalists care more about preserving the environment than they do about quarterly profits for corporations, and that's horrible in right-wing land. The louts in the Republican party really showed us, didn't they?


WILD HORSES END UP AT SLAUGHTERHOUSE


Horses are beautiful animals with a grace and swiftness that has inspired humans for generations. That's unless you're a right-wing cretin like George W. Bush. A new law made it possible for the horses to be captured and sold to private owners. There's more of that wonderful capitalist system at work. This story by the Associated Press is at www.commondreams.org:


Wild horses rounded up on federal land in the West and sold to a private owner have been slaughtered for the first time since a new law went into effect, a government official said Thursday.


"This is something we regret and are very disappointed this has happened," said Celia Boddington, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Washington.

APRIL 21, 2005

OUR ECONOMIC WELLBEING NOT A REPUB CONCERN

Republicans care about the rich. Period. Ordinary working stiffs are just cannon fodder. We're there to be exploited, underpaid, ripped off, sent off to fight their wars. If anyone needed proof of that, just look at two recent pieces of legislation: the bankruptcy bill that gives credit card companies just about everything they want and the bill to permanently repeal the estate tax. This article by Jonathan Weisman and Dan Balz is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Inflation and interest rates are rising, stock values have plunged, a tank of gas induces sticker shock, and for nearly a year, wages have failed to keep up with the cost of living.


Yet in Washington, the political class has been consumed with the death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida, the ethics of the House majority leader, and the fate of the Senate filibuster.


BUSH, MURDER, AND SUICIDES


The Center for Disease Control has a new study showing the rate of murder and suicide is the highest since the early 1990's. Is there a correlation between rotten Republican economics, the laissez-faire availability of guns, and death? I think there probably is. This story by Paul Simao is at news.yahoo.com:


Murder rates are on the rise in a handful of U.S. states, according to a federal study that bolsters indications the nation as a whole may be experiencing its first significant jump in violent deaths since the early 1990s.


The finding, published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was based on data from the first six states to take part in the federal agency's national violent-death reporting system.


SEND THE GROPER BACK TO "B" MOVIES


He's rich, he's charismatic for some, he took steroids and lifted weights, and starred in some violent action movies. Then he took advantage of a coup to become the Governor of California. Even though he has tried to cast himself as a moderate, the Groper is just another sleazy big business Republican, and it's becoming obvious to the voters of California. Maybe he can star in a movie about being a lousy governor. This story is by Bill Bradley at www.laweekly.com:


Arnold Schwarzenegger could well be a one-term governor. Unbelievable as that seemed at the beginning of the year, which the action superstar entered as arguably the most popular governor in California history, it may end up that way.


Suddenly happy Democrats, gathered last weekend at the L.A. Convention Center for their annual state convention, lived up to this e-mail prediction from a Schwarzenegger friend: "It is going to be a gidfest of lefties. They have every right to be happy. They have this governor right where they want him and they are driving the ship."


Schwarzenegger thinks he is still in the center, unlike George W. Bush. But his opponents are succeeding in recasting him to the right, bad news in this blue state.

APRIL 20, 2005

BIGGEST INFLATION JUMP IN FIVE MONTHS

A few days ago New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote about stagflation, which is a combination of high unemployment and high inflation. The "official" rate of unemployment isn't considered bad, although we know the real unemployment rate is probably at least twice as high, but unemployment has remained over 5% for some time now. Low inflation has benefited the Bush administration because lots of people were able to refinance their homes and use the money from refinancing to spend in the consumer economy. But the Federal Reserve will likely react to inflationary fears by raising interest rates, which will put a lid on consumer spending, and unemployment is also likely to rise. This story by the Associated Press is at www.nytimes.com:

Consumer prices jumped 0.6 percent in March, the biggest inflation surge in five months, as the costs of energy, clothing and airline fares all rose sharply.
The Labor Department said last month's increase in the Consumer Price Index, the most closely watched inflation gauge, followed a 0.4 percent rise in February and left consumer inflation rising at an annual rate of 4.3 percent in the first three months of this year. That was a full percentage point above the 3.3 percent rise in prices for all of 2004.

NEW POPE NOT SO WARM AND FUZZY

Image making goes on for the powerful all the time. There's no doubt that the Pope is one of the most powerful men in the world. He may not have an army at his disposal, but he has major influence in governments around the world. His decisions have major impact on all the lives of the true believers in the Church. The image makers say that the former Cardinal Ratzinger is an intellectual, a man who speaks several languages, a guy who walks to work, and even plays piano. They throw in as a casual aside that he was in the Hitler Youth, that he's a hardline conservative more appropriate for a few centuries ago, and that he has turned a mostly blind eye to the pedophile priest scandal in the Church. Bill Berkowitz has a column at www.workingforchange.com:

In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger, who chose the name Pope Benedict XVI, is known for his ultra-conservative views. Since 1981, Ratzinger has been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, chief guardian of the church's orthodoxy; maintaining and enforcing its hard line on issues such as birth control, abortion and women in the priesthood.

INVESTMENT IN OUR DEBT, NOT OUR GOODS

This is an effect of the whopping federal deficits I hadn't thought about. Money that could go to buy U.S. goods is being spent instead to buy our bonds. The bonds attract money because we need the financing to keep the government afloat thanks to the deficits being run up by the Bush administration. The money used to buy the bonds could have been used to buy manufactured goods, but as you know we increasingly don't manufacture anything. We ship our jobs offshore, we destroy the hopes and dreams of a middle class lifestyle for our citizens, and we put ourselves at the mercy of foreign investors. Doesn't this strike you as a rather screwy way to conduct the business of the country? This article by Jerry Mazza is at www.onlinejournal.com:

Ironically, the deindustrialization of America is mostly a result of our large federal deficits. The simple reason is that dollars other nations might spend on our goods are being spent on US Treasury Bonds to support our rising debt. What's more, our government's debt jones is matched by American families' low savings. Ergo US corporations hungering for investment capital have to look far and away.

APRIL 19, 2005

FRIST HAS NO PRINCIPLES

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist tries to cloak himself in righteousness, but the halo just isn't there. I remember Jesus Christ saying, "My followers are not a part of this world, just as I am not a part of this world." Christ may have been the first advocate of church-state separation. But Mr. Frist sees pandering to the nuts on the religious right as a good platform to launch his presidential ambitions. The First Amendment and religious liberty be damned! Richard Cohen writes about the pandering Senator at www.washingtonpost.com:

Totally by mistake, I was summoned to meet Sen. Bill Frist shortly after he first arrived in Washington. This happened because someone in Frist's office confused me with the congressional affairs correspondent of the National Journal, Richard E. Cohen, but I stayed to meet Frist anyway and found him impressive. Time and tide have changed my view. He is now the Senate majority leader and an undeclared but neon-lit presidential candidate who is getting into shape for the long run to the White House by shedding anything that weighs him down. In his case it's principles.

FUNDAMENTALISTS SELECTIVE IN WHAT THEY BELIEVE

They march and fulminate and say the Ten Commandments should be displayed everywhere, but never mind little things like "Thou shalt not kill." It's just a part of how selective so-called fundamentalist Christians are in what they believe. They are horrified at the thought of gay marriage, but they have no problem with the Draconian and obscene bankruptcy "reform" bill just passed by Congress. Jesus said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to inherit the Kingdom. But that's forgotten when Congress votes to abolish the estate tax that affects only the very rich. It seems if you're going to say you believe in the Bible you have to believe in all of the Bible. Sean Gonsalves writes about it in an article at www.commondreams.org:

Given "Bible-believers" deafening silence over a bankruptcy bill that subjects the working-poor to market discipline while doing nothing to hold unethical lending institutions accountable, and their low-key support for the permanent repeal of the estate tax, is blasphemy against the spirit embodied in the very Bible they claim as their guide.

Exodus 22:25-27 speaks of a divine ordinance prohibiting interest charges on money lending. Hebrew and Semitic Language Professor John Gray points out: "The prohibition against interest refers, not to commercial investment, where the interest is simply a share of the borrower's profit, but to exploitation of a poor man's need."

LIBERAL MEDIA? WHAT A LAUGH

The lunatic who wrote an op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times yesterday attacking Air America Radio brought out the old right-wing canard about the "liberal media." Air America won't work, you see, because there is already so much liberalism amuck in the media. That's a crock, of course. If anyone needs convincing, look at who is on the cover of Time Magazine. It's none other than total nut job whacked-out Ann Coulter. Coulter should be in a padded cell, not on the cover of Time, but she gets celebrated as some kind of media icon. David Sirota writes about it at www.smirkingchimp.com:

There's been a lot of debate over whether the media is "liberal" or "conservative." But as I saw this week's cover of Time Magazine, I realized just how ridiculous it is for there to even be a debate.

The cover trumpets right-wing crazy person Ann Coulter. This is a woman who advocating blowing up the New York Times offices and claimed Vietnam war hero/triple amputee Max Cleland didn't deserve to be honored for his losing his limbs on the battlefield.

APRIL 18, 2005

GOP HAS GOT TO GO

California's Governor Groper, once flying so high, is now falling back to earth. Californians were foolish enough to put this phony "moderate" Republican into the governor's office with what was essentially a coup of our duly elected governor, Gray Davis. Arnold has since managed to act like a celebrity, borrow millions of dollars and put us more in debt, threaten teachers and nurses, called the legislature names, vetoed a minimum wage increase, and even threatened the lunch breaks of working people in this state. He's been all pro-big business and anti-worker, which makes him a typical Republican. We see the examples of rotten governance by Republicans everywhere, from all the scandals in the Bush administration, the sleazy Tom DeLay, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. Where's that rail to run them out of town with? This story by Howard Breuer is at story.news.yahoo.com:

California Democrats showed increasing confidence on Saturday in challenging Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after a series of bruising political battles that have weakened the Republican who once seemed invincible.

Speaking at a convention of state Democrats, lawmakers and candidates for the 2006 governor's race criticized Schwarzenegger's handling of the state budget and accused him of catering to special interests.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION NOT VERY TRANSPARENT

George W. Bush has talked about the need for "transparency" in government, all the while trying to hide as much information as possible. A government obsessed with secrecy is hard to trust, and not representative of a democracy. David Sirota has a list of various reports the administration has squelched at www.davidsirota.com:

President Bush has said that "in a society that is a free society, there will be transparency." That means that in America, we have a government where the public gets to see as much information as possible about its government.
But as the record shows, Bush is anything but pro-transparency. A careful look shows the Bush White House has systematically tried to stop publishing government information that it finds embarrassing or disagrees with - the opposite of "transparent." See the record for yourself:

KRUGMAN WRITES ABOUT STAGFLATION

During the Nixon-Ford years we had the experience of what economists call "stagflation," a combination of inflation and high unemployment. Under classic economic models that's not supposed to happen. It puts policy makers into a bind. If you try to increase employment, you may set off a new round of inflation. If you try to reduce inflation, unemployment increases. The problem is worse now because the Bush administration has created such massive deficits it limits the flexibility of the government. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.nytimes.com:

In the 1970's soaring prices of oil and other commodities led to stagflation - a combination of high inflation and high unemployment, which left no good policy options. If the Fed cut interest rates to create jobs, it risked causing an inflationary spiral; if it raised interest rates to bring inflation down, it would further increase unemployment.

Can it happen again?

I WISH WE HAD ANOTHER FDR

We have just observed the 60th anniversary of the death of perhaps our greatest president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR led the country through the dark days of the Great Depression and the Second World War. His administration created programs that have benefited most of us ever since. He was hated by the right-wingers of his day and is still despised by them today. FDR stood for an egalitarianism that appalls the crowd that thinks the rich should just get richer, and the heck with the rest of us. Bob Herbert has a good column at www.nytimes.com:

That more wasn't made of this anniversary is not just a matter of time; it's a measure of the distance the U.S. has traveled from the egalitarian ideals championed by F.D.R. His goal was "to make a country in which no one is left out." That kind of thinking has long since been consigned to the political dumpster. We're now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.
To get a sense of just how radical Roosevelt was (compared with the politics of today), consider the State of the Union address he delivered from the White House on Jan. 11, 1944. He was already in declining health and, suffering from a cold, he gave the speech over the radio in the form of a fireside chat.

ANOTHER STUPID RIGHT WING COLUMN

I'm in no mood to be diplomatic. Today a right-winger had a column in The Los Angeles Times sneering at Air America Radio and at liberals in general. This guy has published with Regnery Publishing, which is to publishing what graffiti is to art. His critique is mostly a rehash of every right media cliche. You know, the rest of the media are liberal. We even have NPR, lucky us! He claims that Air America's flagship station has weak ratings. I don't have the ratings book, so I can't verify that. Ratings aren't the most important issue here. What is important, despite all the right-wing predictions, is that Air America has made it for one year and has expanded to 53 markets. If Air America were so unimportant, this right-wing creep probably wouldn't even be writing a column. The column by Brian C. Anderson is at www.latimes.com:

The liberal Air America Radio, just past its first birthday, has probably enjoyed more free publicity than any enterprise in recent history. But don't believe the hype: Air America's left-wing answer to conservative talk radio is failing, just as previous efforts to find liberal Rush Limbaughs have failed.

APRIL 17, 2005

WHERE'S THE MAD COW BEEF?

If something has terrible and lethal as mad cow disease could get into our food supply, it would seem logical and prudent to take precautions against that happening. But that's not true if you're the Bush administration. We've apparently dodged the bullet so far and, after all, profits are at stake. So of course the Bush administration doesn't mind that so-called "downer" cattle, who are obviously sick, are slaughtered and introduced into our food supply. Better think about that before you get that next hamburger or steak. This story by Randy Fabi is at story.news.yahoo:

The Bush administration said on Friday it may allow some injured cattle to be slaughtered for human food, easing a regulation that the Agriculture Department adopted 15 months ago after the nation's first case of mad cow disease.

Consumer groups said they oppose any changes in regulations aimed at keeping the deadly disease out of the food supply.

The USDA prohibited all so-called downer cattle -- those too sick or injured to walk -- from being slaughtered for human food soon after a Washington state dairy cow was diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in December 2003.

THOSE GOOD CORPORATE TAX CHEATS

The same hypocrites who moan and groan about "overregulation" or the terrible costs of labor are the first to cheat the government out of taxes, it appears. In a perfect world corporations would not be treated as persons, but as big businesses. Their major stockholders and members of their Boards of Directors would be criminally liable for the company breaking the law. The world is far from perfect, though. This story by Robert Kuttner is at www.prospect.org:

Last fall, Citizens for Tax Justice examined federal taxes paid by 275 of America's largest corporations. On average, they paid a rate of 17.3 percent -- lower than the rate paid by nearly everyone who is reading this column.
The statutory corporate rate is 35 percent. The fact that the taxes actually paid were less than half that amount reflects a blend of special-interest laws, shelters, and outright tax-cheating. As McIntyre observes, in the 1950s, U.S. corporations paid 4.8 percent of the gross domestic product in taxes. By 2004 that had fallen to 1.6 percent.

THE "GENIUSES" ON WALL STREET

You think of the character Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street who summed up the 1980s when he said, "Greed is good." It turns out that maybe greed isn't so good after all. The business types on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms, in conservative think tanks, and in the government have driven the U.S. economy like the Titanic and we may be about to hit the iceberg. Those policies of huge tax cuts for the rich, ignoring the importance of global climate change, not dealing with finding energy sources other than oil, outsourcing jobs and technology, and destroying the middle class here at home are coming home to roost. This story by Chris Isidore is at money.cnn.com:

Economists and investors who were confident about the pace of growth only a week or two ago are suddenly much more concerned about a slowdown in the months ahead.

As the first-quarter earnings reporting period speeds up next week and key economic reports are released the next two weeks, there will be talk about whether factors such as high gas prices and rising short-term interest rates could choke off growth in the months ahead.

"We've seen a sea change in the way in the way the financial markets and economy watchers are looking at the world," said Anthony Chan, senior economist with JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management. "For many months, people thought the economy was so strong and robust, they could ignore these head winds."

RIGHT-WINGERS DEFILE THE NAME OF CHRIST

They proclaim their love of Jesus, while they pursue policies totally opposite to what Jesus taught. I'm speaking of the so-called religious right and the politicians who pander to them, the types like Bill Frist, George W. Bush, and Tom DeLay. Dawn Baldwin writes about it in this column at www.commondreams.org:

I'm no Bible scholar, but I can't for the life of me find any exceptions to these directives in the Gospels. Nothing about respecting our neighbors unless they come from a different social class, or unless they happen to be in a distasteful line of work, or unless they happen to have the double misfortune of being poor and sick, or unless they happen to be women, or children. Nothing about making every effort not to harm those around us unless they come from a foreign land and do not share our ways or beliefs. Nothing about non-violent resistance unless we're just too impatient to restrain ourselves, in which case carpet-bombing now and asking questions later is a-okay.

ANOTHER MBNA VICTIM

I really, really hate credit card companies.

They bait you with offers of what a good and wonderful person you are and how pleased they are to offer you a gold or a platinum credit line of whatever amount with all these wonderful benefits. Down there in the fine print is the ticking time bomb, of course.

They can use something like an "average daily balance," for instance, to calculate their interest. They can hit you with a huge late fee for being one day late, even if it's not your fault. They can jack up your rate if you're late on some other bill totally unrelated to them. They can change the terms on their own whim from a "guaranteed" fixed rate to some onerous variable rate.

Now they have the latest gift from Congress in this bankruptcy bill that makes it harder for people to get out from under. MBNA is probably the absolute worst of these jackals, and Lisa Rowe Fraustino writes about them in this piece at www.commondreams.org:

When we sign papers for fixed rates on mortgages, car loans, and student loans, fixed means fixed. We know the deal and can budget accordingly. But credit card companies get to change all the rules whenever they want, and consumers can't do a damned thing about it except pay up or move debt around. There's something wrong with this system. We might even call it morally bankrupt. Instead of blaming the debtor and making it harder to erase credit card debts in bankruptcy, instead of catering to the desires of big business, our government representatives ought to be taking a hard look at the needs of their constituents.

APRIL 16, 2005

PSST! WANT YOUR RETIREMENT IN THE STOCK MARKET?

The Stock Market suffered its third consecutive day of triple digit declines. Just imagine that you're about ready to retire and your retirement is dependent on the performance of the Stock Market. Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea. This story by Jesus Sanchez is at www.latimes.com:

Today was the third consecutive day that the Dow suffered a triple-digit loss, and the widely watched index has now tumbled to its lowest level in nearly six months.

Other financial indexes also posted major losses. The technology-heavy Nasdaq fell 38.56 points to 1,908.15, and the broader S&P 500 lost 19.43 to 1,142.62.
Investors ignored a decline in oil futures prices - which were once again on the verge of falling below $50 a barrel - and some positive earnings reports to instead focus on the most recent batch of economic data that seemed to point to a slowing economy.

"WAR ON TERROR" HAS MADE TERROR WORSE

It's a mark of the Bush administration's dishonesty and of its ineptitude that the State Department is stopping publication of an annual report on terror. The report contains the inconvenient information that terror has increased more than any year since 1985. That "war on terror" has made us safer, hasn't it? This story by Jonathan S. Landay is at www.realcities.com:

The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.

Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.

APRIL 15, 2005

WE'RE GETTING SCREWED

Molly Ivins is one of my favorite columnists because she cuts right to the chase, usually with humor. But there is no humor in Mudville today because it's tax day and it's a reminder of how the tax code has been rewritten for the very rich and the IRS weakened so it can't collect what the very rich still owe. You can thank those wonderful folks in the Republican party. This column is at www.alternet.org:

Every year at this time, conservatives moan and groan and tell us how terribly, terribly overburdened we are by taxes. We wouldn't be overburdened if the tax code hadn't been rewritten by Republicans, and if Republicans hadn't weakened the IRS so much it can barely function. Damn right, this is a partisan effort. And damn right, I'm bitter about it. We don't need to raise taxes in this country, we need to collect them. We need tax cuts that don't favor the obscenely rich. You are getting screwed.

THE TRAITORS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

I'm incensed about this bankruptcy bill that is just a major gift for the credit card companies. It rewards the greedy predators in the credit card industry and punishes people who fall into financial hardship often through no fault of their own. Studies have shown that many people filing for bankruptcy are there because of medical bills. We can thank the Republicans for there being no national health insurance policy too. I blame Republicans for this despicable bill, but the 73 Democrats who sided with the enemy should be castigated too. One of those Democrats was Jim Costa from the Central Valley. This article is by Rob Hotakainen is at www.commondreams.org:

Opponents of the bill said it passed only after lobbyists for the financial services industry spent $40 million. "Let's not kid ourselves: This bill was written for and by the credit-card industry," said Rep. William Delahunt, D-Mass. "It's got nothing to do with the consumer."

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said the means test will take power away from judges, who already have the discretion to deny bankruptcy protection if they believe the law is being abused. He said too many families are "just one medical bill or pink slip away" from financial disaster.

SURPRISE! FAT CAT CEOS FAVOR SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION

To be a CEO of a major corporation it must help when you don't have a conscience. You can collect millions of dollars in salary and perks even when your company is tanking. You can live elegantly while you lay off your work force or pay them miserable wages and benefits. You can buy a Congressman or two and get your taxes cut and the tax burden dumped on to people far less affluent than you. And you advocate privatization of Social Security, putting the retirements of most of us at risk, because you'll rake in millions from brokerage fees. All I can say is these guys better hope there is not a hell. This story by Scott Klinger is at www.commondreams.org:

In 2004, the CEOs of the 26 leading Wall Street firms advocating for social security earned an average of over $17.7 million. Because of the earnings cap, they were done paying their Social Security taxes an average of four days into the new year.

Seven of the CEOs were 'taxpayers for a day.' Their salaries were so gargantuan, they exceeded the $87,900 earnings cap in eight hours or less. These include the CEOs of Bear Stearns, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, and Morgan Stanley.

THE BLOODY HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

I don't consider myself anti-Catholic. Two of my political heroes are John and Robert Kennedy, both Catholics. But the rightward leanings of the current Catholic church are disturbing. And it pays to keep in mind the very un-Christian history of the Church. This article by David Crumm is at www.realcities.com:

The stately nobility of the election about to unfold at the Vatican - eagerly watched by world leaders and members of other faiths - is all the more amazing because of the centuries of corruption, greed and murder in its past.
This first papal election of the new millennium is the crowning glory in a papal history that survived enough bizarre twists to fill a dozen sequels to Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code."

APRIL 14, 2005

GEORGE RADANOVICH IS SCUM

George Radanovich, the so-called Representative from my congressional district, is as reliable as the sunrise when it comes to screwing working people and feathering the nests of big business. Rubber Stamp George went along with the Republican majority in the House in voting for the onerous bankruptcy bill that is just a gift for the predatory credit card industry. Rubber Stamp George voted for the war in Iraq. He voted to rape ANWR. He's supported invasion of privacy by voting for things like the PATRIOT Act. Why would most of us in this congressional district, those of us who work for wages, those of us at the bottom of the economic ladder, vote for this creep?

LET'S TALK REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

George Radanovich and others like him believe the wealthy aren't wealthy enough, even though inequality in the United States is the worst in the industrialized world (except for Russia and Mexico) and getting even worse under Republican economics. According to this story, the poor in Norway are better off than the poor in the United States. But, hey, we can buy TV's and VCR's and drive old clunker cars and go to McDonald's, so the poor in this country have it good, right? This story by David R. Francis is at www.csmonitor.com:

The US has the worst distribution of income of any well-to-do country. In a list of 30 prosperous nations, including smaller economies such as Taiwan and Israel, only Russia and Mexico have a greater maldistribution of income than the US.

"We choose to let the market determine most everything," says Timothy Smeeding, a public policy professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, who compiled these inequality numbers. "We do far less on the social side. We have not as good a safety net. The priorities aren't there. Other countries make other choices."

APRIL 13, 2005

IF MARK TWAIN WERE HERE NOW

Mark Twain wrote about the Gilded Age of his own time. I wonder how he would write about today's more advanced version. The human race hasn't advanced much since Mark Twain lived. This article by Warren Goldstein is at www.courant.com:

This president has offered more blatant class legislation than we've seen since the 1890s. Tax cuts for the richest Americans have done double duty, lining their pockets while starving the state and federal budgets that provide services for the poor and middle class. Public transportation? Why bother when the rich don't use it? The president's current budget cuts 150 social programs. How many of those were directed toward rich people? You guessed it.

WHAT A DEAL

At a time when jobs are being outsoured, health care costs are increasing, and wages are failing to keep pace with inflation CEOs are raking in the big bucks. That's true even if their companies aren't doing all that well. Is there something wrong with this picture? This story by Abid Aslan is linked at www.commondreams.org:

''We have seen a tremendous amount of interest among workers in holding CEOs and their boards accountable,'' said Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the 13-million-member labor federation. ''They are rightfully outraged when they learn about jaw-dropping executive compensation packages. It's time to put the brakes on runaway CEO pay.''

An analysis of securities filings showed that CEO salaries rose 12 percent in 2004 compared with average raises of 3.6 percent for rank-and-file workers, further widening the world's largest gaps between executive and labor pay.
The average CEO of a major corporation received $9.84 million in total compensation in 2004, the AFL-CIO said.

Business Week magazine arrived at similar numbers last week, when it released its 55th annual executive pay scorecard. It pegged the average CEO pay raise at 11.3 percent and described this as ''not far off the rise in shareholder gains'' last year.

WANT TO TRUST PEOPLE LIKE THIS WITH SOCIAL SECURITY?

It happens all the time, but it doesn't get the attention it deserves. It's corporate crime. It's white collar criminals. This story is about a scandal in the Stock Market, the place George W. Bush would like us to trust our retirement money. This article by Carrie Johnson is at www.washingtonpost.com:

Fifteen current and former traders at the New York Stock Exchange were criminally charged yesterday with cheating investors out of the best prices for their stock trades in what could be unparalleled abuse of their position at the world's largest and most prestigious stock market.

The exchange also faces disciplinary action for failing to adequately police its sprawling floor, where 1,366 traders handle an average of 1.6 billion shares a day. The traders are accused of getting in between orders to buy and sell, taking for themselves the best prices and depriving investors who ordered the trades of at least $32.5 million.

GOVERNMENT OWNED BY THE RICH

According to this article, the IRS has just become another tool for the super rich to get even richer. Yeah, let's hear that right-wing argument about how the very richest pay (whatever percentage) of the income tax, and implying the rest of us are just slackers. This article by David Cay Johnston is linked at makethemaccountable.com:

People making $60,000 paid a larger share of their 2001 income in federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes than a family making $25 million, the latest Internal Revenue Service data show. And in income taxes alone, people making $400,000 paid a larger share of their incomes than the 7,000 households who made $10 million or more.

While millions of Americans in the last quarter-century debated about who shot J.R. and scurried for news about who would be Jennifer Lopez's next lover, Congress quietly passed tax laws that shift the tax burden from the 28,000 Americans in households with incomes of $8 million per year or more…

APRIL 12, 2005

A SNAPSHOT OF CENTRAL VALLEY RIGHT-WINGERS

This is a profile of a woman named Jody Hutchens, who evidently thinks gay marriage will be the downfall of western civilization. I'd never heard of Ms. Hutchens before seeing this article, but the attitudes she expresses are all too common here in Dust Bowl West. This article by Joe Garofoli is at www.sfgate.com:

California's religious right is stepping up recruiting for its crusade in the Central Valley, where the culture has more in common with the red states of America's heartland than with the state's coastal cities. Hutchens is calling on pastors throughout the valley, passing out church bulletin announcements and organizing rallies in the name of protecting marriage. The next is scheduled for April 23 in Clovis.

REAL WAGES FELL LAST YEAR

Lots of unprecedented things have been happening with the Bush administration in power. We've seen our government blatantly and unapologetically launch a war against a country that didn't attack us. We've seen the greatest failure of intelligence in our history with the attacks on September 11. We've seen the greatest threats to the Bill of Rights since the McCarthy era. We've seen record deficits with more records to come. Now we learn that inflation-adjusted wages for working people fell last year for the first time in a decade. This story by Steven Greenhouse is at www.nytimes.com:

Beginning in the mid-1990's, pay increases for most workers slowly but steadily outpaced the rate of inflation, improving the living standards for nearly all Americans. But an unexpected reversal last year in those gains has set off a vigorous debate among economists over whether the decline is just a temporary dip or portends a deeper shift that may cause the pay of average Americans to lag for years to come.

Even though the economy added 2.2 million jobs in 2004 and produced strong growth in corporate profits, wages for the average worker fell for the year, after adjusting for inflation - the first such drop in nearly a decade.

THE PHONY ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE ESTATE TAX

In their typical twisting of language, Republicans call the estate tax the "death tax." They also claim that the estate tax hits small family farmers and other good ordinary people. In fact, the estate tax affects a tiny minority of the very richest Americans, and the Republican plan to eliminate the estate tax will only add to the budget deficits that are already ballooning. The Washington Post has a editorial at www.washingtonpost.com:

Those who inveigh against the "death tax" point to the travails of family farmers and other small-business owners whose heirs are supposedly forced to liquidate enterprises to pay the tax bill. In fact, even if the estate tax were to revert in 2011 to its 2001 level -- and no one believes that the exemption will remain at $1 million -- it would affect the estates of only 2 percent of those expected to die that year. At $3.5 million (and $7 million for a couple) -- the level proposed in a Democratic alternative sponsored by Rep. Earl Pomeroy (N.D.) -- a mere three-tenths of 1 percent of estates would be covered. In other words, no one but the richest Americans would be asked to pay estate tax.

MOO!

I recently talked about the Congressman who "represents" the district where I live. I said George Radanovich should be called "Congressman Rubber Stamp" because he just rubber stamps anything the Bush administration wants, no matter how much it hurts his constituents. This piece rightfully compares the right-wing Republicans in Congress a "herd." Whatever Massa Bush wants Massa Bush gets. This article is at tvnewslies.org:

They are the new, mindless and obedient herd of George W. Bush Republicans.
Totally submissive, the GWB Republican herd methodically falls in line. Not unlike the suicidal terrorists they are taught to loathe, they follow their leader even if it means their own demise. They protect the corporations that poison the very air they have to breathe. They vote to eliminate the civil rights that are rightfully theirs. They vote billions of their own tax dollars to the Halliburtons of the world, even as they watch the quality of life around them crumble.

APRIL 11, 2005

REPUBLICAN ECONOMICS: INFLATION, STAGNANT WAGES

For the first time in fourteen years, inflation is outpacing the rise in wages. What makes it worse is that workers are also having to foot more of their healthcare bill, which causes another slide in living standards. Don't you love Republican style economics? This story by Nicholas Riccardi is at www.latimes.com:

For the first time in 14 years, the American workforce has in effect gotten an across-the-board pay cut.

The growth in wages in 2004 and the first two months of this year trailed inflation, compounding the squeeze from higher housing, energy and other costs.

VOLKER: ECONOMY ON THIN ICE

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker warns that our pattern of borrowing more than we produce in the United States is putting our economy at grave risk. This story is at www.washingtonpost.com:

The difficulty is that this seemingly comfortable pattern can't go on indefinitely. I don't know of any country that has managed to consume and invest 6 percent more than it produces for long. The United States is absorbing about 80 percent of the net flow of international capital. And at some point, both central banks and private institutions will have their fill of dollars.

I don't know whether change will come with a bang or a whimper, whether sooner or later. But as things stand, it is more likely than not that it will be financial crises rather than policy foresight that will force the change.

WHAT IF THERE WERE NO INCOME TAX?

That's the question posed by Carolyn Kay in this article at makethemaccountable.com. Libertarians and their ilk have utopian dreams of a government that provides for defense and not much else. But is it the kind of world you'd really want to live in? What would be the consequences of no income tax?

When George Bush was touting his various tax cuts, he used the mantra, "Tax money is your money." But is it, really? Let’s imagine what would happen if Bush were able to do away with the income tax completely—tomorrow.
Would salaried workers and wage earners continue to receive the amount shown as their gross pay on their pay stub? Probably not. Why would employers pay more than the amount employees currently live on, their net pay? Most likely, companies would give their employees an immediate cut in pay—to an amount equal to their former gross pay less what they would have paid in income tax. Consultants who work for fees would be pressured by their clients to reduce those fees, since the consultants would no longer have to pay income taxes.

LIBERALISM IS BASED IN PRAGMATISM

Since the presidential election of 2004 we've heard a lot about "values," mostly from the hypocrites on the right. A recent op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times chided us on the left by suggesting that the New Deal was based in Judeo-Christian values. This writer disagrees. He says the New Deal was based on pragmatism, and it's the right-wingers who aren't living in the real world. I tend to agree. This article by P. M. Carpenter is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Until the New Deal's advent, observed Hofstadter, progressive thinkers on the whole were utopian moralists with their feet fixed just about everywhere except on planet Earth. Yet in the 1930s they began grappling with the "urgent practical realities" of everyday life -- more urgent than ever, of course, because of the Great Depression's toll on human welfare. With their heads forced out of the clouds, progressives tackled as best they could the problems of the newly unemployed, the long-term impoverished, farmers with goods to sell but no markets to sell in, banking and investment calamities, and so on. In short, events compelled progressives to rapidly transform from twinkling idealists to practical thinkers.