December 31, 2007
IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

SORROW AND ANGER

In right-wing land you're an "America hater" if you don't cheerlead everything about the United States and its history. You aren't supposed to talk about the blemishes on American history--things like slavery, Native American genocide, and wars of conquest. You aren't supposed to talk about the war big capital has waged on labor throughout our history. But, try as they may, right-wingers can't get around the crimes committed by the Bush administration They launched an illegal and immoral war against Iraq, a war that has claimed as many as one million civilians. They have bled the treasury dry to pay for this war, while giving tax breaks to their fat cat friends and benefactors. They have looked at short term profits for corporations while ignoring the possible planet-killing effects of global climate change. They have violated the Constitution time and time again and sunk us into the gutter by kidnapping and torturing people in the name of the "global war on terror." The New York Times takes a look in this editorial at www.nytimes.com:

There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.

It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.

The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.

December 27, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

PULLING FOR EDWARDS

Ralph Nader justified running a presidential campaign that he knew would hurt Democrats because he said Democrats and Republicans were just different versions of the same party. I don't think that's true. But some candidates, such as Clinton and Obama, are certainly more in the pockets of big corporations than I would like. John Edwards has a message that resonates with me. As a working class person, I believe John Edwards is speaking to the traditional Democratic Party values. This article is at www.thenation.com:

To a far greater extent than Obama or Clinton, Edwards has struck at the heart of issues that should matter most in the race to replace not just George W. Bush, but the Bush agenda of corporate giveaways, job-crushing free trade deals, war profiteering in Iraq, and subprime mortgage profiteering in Indiana, Idaho, Illinois and, yes, Iowa.
Edwards summed up his increasingly aggressive and powerful anti-corporate themes with a declaration: "What makes America is at stake: jobs, the middle class, health care, preserving the environment in the world for future generations.
"But all those things are at risk. And why are they at risk? Because of corporate power and corporate greed in Washington, D.C. And we have to take them on. You can't make a deal with them. You can't hope that they're going to go away. You have to actually be willing to fight. And I want every caucus-goer to know I've been fighting these people and winning my entire life. And if we do this together, rise up together, we can actually make absolutely certain, starting here in Iowa, that we make this country better than we left it."
IT'S NOT "BUSH HATING"
I see the phrase "Bush haters" in letters to The Fresno Bee all the time. Right-wingers want to trivialize all the justified anger we feel about this administration and the damage it has done to the country by reducing our anger to a personality contest. I wouldn't like George W. Bush under any foreseeable circumstances, but it is the absolute disregard for ethics, morality, and the Constitution that outrages me the most. It is all the innocent blood that has been shed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is the destruction of our credibility around the world and the failure to do anything about the threat of global warming. My anger extends far beyond George W. Bush. It's all the people who enable this administration, who even shout approvingly of its despicable policies. This commentary by David Michael Green is at www.regressiveantidote.net:
Regressives like to call people like me Bush-haters, and so it is important to address that claim before proceeding, because the entire intent of hurling that label at the president’s critics is to undermine their credibility. If you simply hate the man, they imply, you’re not rational, and your critiques can be dismissed. But it isn’t that simple - not by a long shot. First, it should be noted that the regressive right is far wider a phenomenon than just one person. It currently includes an entire executive branch administration, almost (and, just a year ago, more than) half of Congress, a majority of the Supreme Court and probably a majority of the lower federal courts, a biased-to-the-point-of-being-a-joke mainstream media, and tons of lobbyists, think tanks and profitable industries.

December 24, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

HUCKABEE THE FLAT TAXER

Mike Huckabee's fundamentalist Christian beliefs are disturbing and his ideas for a "fair tax," another name for a flat tax, are just as disturbing. The progressive income tax, when it's been allowed to work, has served us well. But Republicans just don't believe rich people should pay taxes. In economic terms Americans are far from equal, but for some reason I'm supposed to pay the same tax rate as billionaires. This article by Tim Watkin is at www.commondreams.org:

There are any number of practical reasons why a flat tax is a bad idea in practice. For one, switching to the Fair Tax - that is, an effective 30% tax rate on every purchase, with rebates paid in advance on purchases up to the poverty level - would mean repealing the 16th amendment of the US constitution , which empowers Congress to "collect taxes on incomes", but not consumption. Huckabee’s as likely to get the constitution amended for tax reform as he is to walk on water. (Some commentators, such as Dean Baker in Comment is Free earlier this week an>.html>, point out that in reality the rate could climb as high as 40%.) For another, government services would depend on people continually increasing their spending at a time in history when we need to learn to live sustainably and save more.

Flat taxes also mean an end to tax deductions, which in the US means an end to deductions on household mortgages and the whole array of deductions businesses claim each year. If you’ve every wondered if the current mortgage crisis could get worse, or asked what it could take to tip America over the edge and into, not just a recession, but a full-on stock market crash, there’s your answer.

Without doubt it would increase inequality in a country that is already as dangerously skewed as it was in the Gilded Age of the 1920s. Averaged across the 1920s, the richest 10% of Americans grabbed 43.6% of total income (excluding capital gains), and the richest 1% a whopping 17.3%. In 2005 the comparable figures were 44.3% and 17.4%. The richest Americans already have a much greater slice of the pie than they have had for several generations and are doing very nicely indeed under a graduated tax rate (complete with Bush’s tax cuts). A flat tax would destroy the system that seeks to redistribute some of the country’s finite wealth amongst its people in the form of schools, roads and other public goods. And before the whining begins, this isn’t a cry of class warfare, it’s economic common sense. Even if you reject arguments around fairness and moral obligations to those less fortunate, by and large economies with more equality are more prosperous and the countries more stable.

THE RIGHT WING INEQUALITY DODGE

Right-wingers go into contortions to downplay the issue of inequality in the United States. They'll claim that the very rich are there because they're more deserving. The poor are there, they claim, because they're lazy or into drugs or alcohol or other dysfunctional behaviors. They never acknowledge that the system is designed to create inequality. When conservative policies are pursued inequality invariably worsens even for people who are not particularly dysfunctional. This article by Paul Krugman examines some of the great dodges right-wingers will use to justify their vile economic and social policies. The article is at www.nytimes.com:

First is a narrow technical issue — the misuse of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, which is used to claim that there hasn’t been much rise in spending inequality. First of all, that’s not true even if you believe the survey; plus, there’s good reason to believe that the Survey has been systematically underreporting the growth in higher-income-group consumption. See CBPP on all this.

Second is the use of very long-run comparisons — what I think of as the "but even Louis the XIV didn’t have electricity!" defense. Yes, over the centuries economic progress has reduced some gross disparities — modern Americans are relatively unlikely to simply starve to death (though it can happen), so in that sense the gap between rich and poor has narrowed. But the question isn’t whether society is, in some sense, more equal than it was in 1900. It’s whether it is radically more unequal than it was in 1970. And of course it is.

Third is the downplaying of poverty. Seventy percent of the poor have cars! They must be doing fine! Except that they often can’t afford medical care, sometimes can’t afford enough food, and usually can’t find a way to get their children a decent education.
Finally, there’s the failure to appreciate just how rich today’s rich are. They’re not people who drive cars just like the rest of us, only fancier. In his book Richistan, Robert Frank (the other one) of the Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report — yes, the Wall Street Journal — reports what he found when he began looking at how the rich live:

December 23, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

EDWARDS FOR THE WORKING CLASS

We members of the working class have been hammered by Republican administrations and by Democrats who have been complicit in voting for Republican policies. We've heard about the advantages of "free trade," but agreements like NAFTA and GATT have exported good jobs from this country and left disaster in their wake. We've seen politicians make tax cut after tax cut for the very rich and for corporations, but basic infrastructure in this country is crumbling. Millions of us don't have health insurance. Millions of Americans live in desperate poverty. FDR was called a "traitor to his class" and John Edwards has been attacked by right-wingers for being rich, but talking about helping the poor, the working class, and the middle class. I support John Edwards for president. This article is by Stephen Crockett from www.democratictalkradio.com:

The wages of Americans have been suppressed. The ability to unionize in order to achieve higher standards of living has been attacked by federal legislation, right wing court rulings and harassment by oppressive federal government regulation by the Bush Administration. Edwards is the most labor-friendly Presidential candidate of the top-tier candidates. With Edwards, we have a candidate who both walks the walk and talks the talk. Edwards is strongly opposed to outsourcing American jobs and is committed to ending unfair international trade deals or tax policies that encourage corporations to move jobs out of the nation.


Poverty in America has largely been ignored by our political leadership since the 1980’s. We waste trillions of dollars fighting unnecessary wars but seem unwilling to seriously commit to eliminating institutionalize poverty. Edwards is the only candidate really talking about poverty in America. Poverty is a serious issue in many rural American communities and inner cities. Most candidates ignore the poor because they do not write big campaign donation checks. Edwards can give the poor hope and get them voting.

We remain the only nation out of the 75 most economically advanced nations not to have government guaranteed universal health insurance. We cripple our corporations in international competition by forcing them to provide for healthcare. As a nation we spend 17% of our economy on healthcare while our competitors spend 8%. Our competitors cover all citizens while we have 47 million uninsured citizens and even more underinsured. If we had not abandoned our FDR political traditions, this situation would have been corrected long ago. Edwards is committed to universal healthcare.

AMERICAN DREAM IS DISAPPEARING

We get told in the United States that if you work hard and play by the rules you'll be a success. Now if you work hard and play by the rules you lose ground. The productivity of workers in the United States is the highest in the world. But the gains from our productivity are going to fat cats and not being shared with us. This column by Bob Herbert is at www.truthout.org:

Record bonuses on Wall Street at a time when ordinary working Americans are filled with anxiety about their economic future are signs that the trickle-down phenomenon that was supposed to have benefited everyone never happened.
The rich, boosted by the not-so-invisible hand of the corporate ideologues in government, have done astonishingly well in recent decades, while the rest of the population has tended to tread water economically, or drown.

A study released last month by the Pew Charitable Trusts noted that "for most Americans, seeing that one's children are better off than oneself is the essence of living the American dream." But for the past 40 years, men in their 30s, prime family-raising age, have found it difficult to outdistance their dads economically.

As the Pew study put it: "Earnings of men in their 30s have remained surprisingly flat over the past four decades." Family incomes have improved during that time largely because of the wholesale entrance of women into the work force.

For the very wealthy, of course, it's been a different story. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the after-tax income of the top 1 percent rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005.

What seems to be happening now is that working Americans, and that includes the middle class, have exhausted much of their capacity to tread water. Wives and mothers are already working. Mortgages have been refinanced and tremendous amounts of home equity drained. And families have taken on debt loads - for cars, for college tuition, for medical treatment - that would buckle the knees of the strongest pack animals.

December 22, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE CLASS WARFARE ADMINISTRATION

The eyes of right-wingers bulge out and their faces turn puffy in fury if you talk about making the very rich pay their fair share of taxes. Class warfare! they howl. But they have absolutely no problem with top down class warfare the way we've seen in the Bush administration. Whether it's the failure to pass real minimum wage reform, or gutting environmental regulations, or eviscerating consumer safety laws, Bush has done everything he can to enrich the already rich and shaft the rest of us. This article by Peter Dreier is at www.commondreams.org:

Virtually every week since he took office, the Bush administration has made or proposed changes in our laws designed to help the rich and powerful while harming the most vulnerable people in society and putting the middle class at greater economic risk. The list of horrors can be so numbing that one can lose sight of the cumulative impact of these actions. Taken together, they add up to the most direct assault on working people, the environment and the poor that the country has seen since the presidency of William McKinley over a century ago.

Bush has been a persistent practitioner of top-down class warfare , but the media rarely characterize his actions that way. In contrast, when progressive activists, unions, environmental groups, community organizations and politicians support legislation and rules to redress the balance of power and wealth, they are inevitably described as engaging in class warfare . Top-down class warfare seems to be OK, but bottom-up class warfare is apparently a no-no.

The class warfare rap is now being used against John Edwards, when he talks about challenging the power of the insurance and drug corporations. In a recent speech, Edwards said that his campaign was about challenging "the powerful, the well-connected and the very wealthy." But wary of being criticized for fueling class resentments, even Edwards felt it necessary to say "This is not class warfare. This is the truth."

LAND OF THE POOR

While we read about huge bonuses going to Wall Street moguls we learn that millions of Americans are having a hard time getting even necessities like food and shelter. Many of those Americans are children. Let's hear about "family values" and the other drivel we get from right-wingers. We're a country that spends and wastes billions of dollars on military expenditures. We're a country that cuts taxes for the already obscenely wealthy, but we can't even provide adequate food and shelter for our citizens. This article is at www.cbpp.org/12-20-07pov.htm:

During the holidays, many Americans make a special effort to help the less fortunate. Sadly, there is no shortage of families in need.[i] According to the latest government figures:

36.5 million Americans — roughly one in eight — live in poverty.[ii] Despite relatively strong economic growth since 2001, poverty has remained stubbornly high, and today’s poverty rate is higher than it was during the last recession. That the poverty rate is still above its recession level is especially distressing given that poverty usually declines during recoveries and rises during recessions. If the economy goes into a slowdown or recession in 2008, poverty likely will only increase further.

15.4 million Americans live in extreme poverty. In other words, their family’s cash income is less than half of the poverty line, or less than about $10,000 a year for a family of four.

December 17, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

THE ENLIGHTENMENT PREVAILED IN SPITE OF RELIGION

One of the major right wing canards is that the United States is a "Christian" nation and founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs. Right-wingers claim that the Founding Fathers were Christian and that there is nothing in the Constitution establishing a wall of separation between church and state. In fact, the Founders were Deists, who were concerned about the intersection of religion and politics. This article by James Carroll is at www.commondreams.org:

Romney’s "Faith in America" speech, riddled with mistaken assertions about religion, was itself a warning. But other presidential candidates, debate moderators, pundits, and religious leaders all share a dangerous confusion about questions of faith and citizenship. Here are only a few: Is America’s goodness grounded in God? When Romney and others assert that American virtues, generally summed up in the idea of "freedom," are based on faith, a cruel fact of history is being ignored. The politics of human rights, like the idea of individual freedom, were born not in religion but in the Enlightenment struggle against it.

When Thomas Jefferson located "inalienable rights" in an endowment from the Creator, he was decidedly speaking from outside the mainstream of any denominational faith. Jefferson’s point was not to affirm God, but to deny King George.

It is not an accident that "God" does not appear in the Constitution. Following the American lead, religions, too, learned from the nonreligious improvements of modernity, but it is dishonest to claim after the fact that religions somehow sponsored them.

Were "the Founders" religious? It is a convention of political speechmaking to ascribe faith to the Founders, but what kind of faith, and what Founders? The Pilgrims, for whom "freedom" and "rights" meant nothing, wanted a theocracy. One hundred fifty years later, the Deist revolutionaries assumed a distant God whose interest in creation, much less the young nation, was minimal.

By Lincoln’s time, traumas of war drove piety, and it was only then that present notions of public devotedness were born. (It was Lincoln who established the motto "In God We Trust.") In truth, the power of faith in American politics has waxed and waned. There is no consistent tradition to be upheld or to be betrayed. Is "secularism" dehumanizing? When Mitt Romney praised vital American religion in contrast to Europe where churches are "so grand, so inspired, so empty," one could wonder what the collapse of institutional faith in Europe actually means. Romney condemned the "religion of secularism."

December 16, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

"CHRISTIAN" CONTROL FREAKS

After the miserable experience of George W. Bush, you hope that people will be properly skeptical of anyone claiming to be a Christian and using that as a basis for their presidential campaign. So it is with GOP candidate Mike Huckabee. These so-called "Christians" are really control freaks. They want to dictate what we watch, what we read, that we celebrate their version of Christmas, that their morality can intrude into our personal lives, and that religion and government can mix. This article by Nick Paccione is at www.smirking.com:
It's clear that Christian religious fanatics want their way in regards to religion and public life. They are determined to impose their views on all Americans. They constantly cry that they are the victims of discrimination when in fact they are the relentless discriminators.

Fundamentalist Christians including Huckabee want American tax dollars used to fund private religious schools. Is there any similar request coming from Jews, Muslims, atheists, wickens, gays, lesbians, liberals or soothsayers?
They want laws passed to keep Gays from marrying. Are Gays trying to pass any laws that infringe on a Christian's personal life or rights?

They want abortion made illegal and don't believe that it's a private matter to be discussed by a pregnant woman and her doctor.

They want to be a part of people's life and death decisions in matters like the Terri Schiavo case.

December 11, 2007

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IMPEACH CHENEY

THE RULING CLASS ISN'T BETTER

The French Enlightenment philosopher Diderot once observed that people will not be truly free until the last king is strangled by the entrails of the last priest. Through the ages the human race has been held prisoner to superstition and to an unwarranted awe of the rich and powerful. To maintain their hold, the ruling class have propagated a variety of myths. They're powerful because God wants them to "lead" and other blather. Working people are "supposed to know our place" and be grateful for whatever crumbs come down from the ruling class. Enough of that nonsense. This article by Bob Higgins is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The forces which have so cynically manipulated public opinion to bring about the death of democracy have always been with us and have, at various times, risen and ebbed as evil tides, of "red scares," "commie menaces," of "outside agitators," and the currently in vogue "Islamofascism," <> a term popularized by some Goebbelian marketing wonk in the bowels of Dick Cheney's office and pressed forward by money driven waves of irrational fear, and the malignant energy of powerful and pathologically dishonest men.

With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, caused in large measure by the abdication of reason by rank and file Democrats, the racist and anti-democratic march to plutocracy, halted and long delayed since the thirties by the common blessings of FDR's "New Deal," was born again, hidden behind thinly disguised code words like "silent majority," "hard hats," or "family values."

The incubation of this poisonous philosophical monstrosity did not begin to reach it's full virulence until large measures of neo-conservative and rabid theocratic ingredients stirred into the mix at the millennium, at which point those who most despised the Constitution and the rule of law were then able, due to a perfect storm of world events, a combination of public dread and apathy, congressional and judicial meekness, and the complete corporate takeover of the fourth estate, to seize control of the very government they long held in such contempt and begin it's thorough looting, dismantlement and replacement with corporate rule.

Now we have a Department of Agriculture run by agribusiness, the Mine Safety and Health Administration run by corporate mining interests, a Department of Energy thoroughly in the control of multinational oil and gas and coal conglomerates, a health care system run by the insurance and drug industries and on and disgustingly on through every federal department and agency.

December 10, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

THE RIGHT'S PROPAGANDA ON HUNGER

According to right-wing think tanks, there is no poverty in the United States. If you have an old car that's falling apart, a VCR, an old TV, whatever, you can't possibly be poor. They're expanding their argument into the issue of hunger. People don't go hungry, they say; the poor eat too much. If you believe people like the Heritage Foundation, slaves had it good. They had food and a roof and a place to labor every day. This article by James Ridgeway is at www.motherjones.com:

There's another side of the story, of course, that addresses realities Heritage and its followers choose to ignore. Adam Drewnowski, professor of epidemiology and director of the University of Washington's Center for Obesity Research, believes diet is determined by economic and social factors far more than by personal choice. "Healthier diets are more expensive," he says flatly. It's easy to point to specific exceptions like doughnuts vs. beans or Coke vs. milk (well, not always; my local Safeway charges 40 cents more for a half-gallon of milk than for a two-liter bottle of Coke). But research generally has shown that "energy-dense foods," which often are high in refined grains and added sugar and fat, "provide dietary energy at a far lower cost than do lean meats, fish, fresh vegetables, and fruit," as Drewnowski wrote in a 2004 article for Nutrition Today. Processed foods also dominate store shelves in poor neighborhoods, are quick to prepare, and simply taste better to some people than some nutritious foods available on the cheap—think cabbage, condensed milk, and canned fish.

Drewnowski calls Rector's arguments "rubbish, written from a position of class privilege—let them eat broccoli, indeed." He cites the suggestion that the poor should purchase cheap, nutritious foods rather than processed stuff. "When you suggest that people buy rice, pasta, and beans," he says, "you presuppose that they have resources for capital investment for future meals"—since these healthy staples come in large bags—"a kitchen, pots, pans, utensils, gas, electricity, a refrigerator, a home with rent paid, the time to cook. Those healthy rice and beans can take hours; another class bias is that poor people's time is worthless. So this is all about resources that middle-class people take so much for granted that they do not give them another thought. Not everybody has them."

On the other hand, he says, "buying a doughnut for dinner does not involve any of those middle-class resources. You pay 55 cents for this meal only and there you are. Yes, rice would be cheaper if only people had the time and were not working two jobs on minimum wage."

December 06, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

MONEY FOR NOTHING

In their never-ending quest to give everything to the rich, right-wingers even reshape the language. The inheritance tax suddenly became the "death tax." You're taxing the money twice! they wail. It was taxed once when Rich Person #1 made it and then taxed again when it was passed on to the Heirs. It's a stupid argument. We're all paying taxes on money that has already been taxed. When you get your undoubtedly modest paycheck you're paying taxes. Your employer has paid taxes on the income that trickled down to you in your paycheck. What right-wingers want is a rich aristocracy that doesn't pay taxes like you and I do. This article by R. J. Eskow talks about Whoopi Goldberg buying into the "death tax" nonsense. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Why, you may ask, do wealthy children get a tax break that others don't? Because our country's lawmakers have traditionally favored the idle rich over working people. Whoopi, I think you understand that. And while everybody understands the desire to leave our wealth to the children we love, hardworking Americans aren't really happy about the 'tax-free' part.

This "death tax" phrase was designed and marketed by conservatives to confuse people into supporting the idea that rich kids shouldn't pay any tax at all on their unearned multi-million dollar income. And it won't go away. I saw a headline the other day that read "Dexter: Let's drop death tax." I thought it was referring to the serial killer on TV named Dexter. If he paid taxes for every victim he murders, that would be a "death tax."

(Actually, "Dexter" is a Canadian politician who's using the phrase for its intended purpose, which is to confuse voters.)

"If I have to give something to my kid I (when) already paid the tax," says, Whoopi, "why do I have to pay it again because I died?" Er, Whoopi ... you don't. They do. Just the same way your gardener and maids have to pay taxes on the money you give them, even though you paid taxes when you earned it. (Except for the fact that they don't get the first two million tax-free.)

THE BUSH ECONOMY IN ACTION

Worker confidence in November hit a record low. We're seeing exploding costs in health care, food, and energy, but our wages remain flat. Jobs are being shipped to other countries, but no one tells us what is supposed to replace those jobs. George W. Bush and right-wingers are creating an economic perfect storm. This article from Reuters is at news.yahoo.com:

Worker confidence stumbled to a record low in November, reflecting growing pessimism over jobs and personal finances stemming from housing and credit troubles, a survey released on Wednesday shows.

The Hudson Employment Index dropped to 91.9 points, the lowest ever for this gauge. The November reading was lower than the 100.8 in October and 105.3 a year ago.

"Simply put, U.S. workers are worried that job growth is going to slow significantly in the coming months," Robert Morgan, co-president of recruitment and talent management at job placement firm Hudson Highland Group (HHGP.O), said in a statement.

December 04, 2007

IMPEACH BUSH

IMPEACH CHENEY

BUSH'S LETHAL LIES

Politicians lie. Presidents and their administrations lie. But the magnitude of George W. Bush's lies surpasses ordinary lies. He deliberately and with aforethought committed mass murder in Iraq. He wants to do the same thing in Iran. The administration has blustered about a nuclear threat in Iran. A new National Intelligence Estimate shows that, once again, Bush and his henchmen couldn't care less about the truth, about decency, or about preserving the lives of innocent people. This commentary by Tony Hendra is at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/:

Here are the salient points from the NIE:

We judge with high confidence that the halt (in trying to develop nuclear weapons, not producing them) has lasted at least several years. (Four to be exact, a lifetime in war and politics).

We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon. (Or has ever had one).

We judge with high confidence that Iran will not be capable of producing and reprocessing enough plutonium for a weapon before about 2015. (Which Bush - and for that matter Gates - flatly lied about this morning implying that the NIE said they could re-up anytime).

Let's be quite clear how far the men in the White House were willing to go. In the lethal linguistic fog these warmongers and the rightwing quislings who enable them, have plunged us, reasonable people seem to have lost sight of what we're talking about. Nuclear weapons aren't a bigger better version of Daisy Cutters. Nuclear weapons aren't just more bang for the buck. Nuclear weapons are the most cowardly killing devices ever devised by our benighted species. Nuclear weapons are instant genocide. Nuclear weapons are designed to murder as many unarmed noncombatants as possible, by the hundreds of thousands if not millions. Using nuclear weapons - even throwing around the threat to use them - was is and always should be unthinkable. Yet the monsters, yes monsters in the White House were willing to lie through their teeth - again - to get the chance to use them. On innocent people who posed no threat to us.

December 02, 2007

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IMPEACH CHENEY

GOP FIELD IGNORES ECONOMIC REALITY

When you listen to the GOP presidential candidates you hear the same old formula that has created massive deficits and put the U. S. economy into a perilous condition. It's mostly about tax cuts for the rich, slashing domestic spending, a huge military, an unending presence in Iraq, ignoring our crumbling infrastructure, ignoring our health care crisis, ignoring global climate change, ignoring the disintegration of the middle class, and pretending that everything is fine and dandy. This article by Robert Borosage is at www.tompaine.com:

The Republican CNN/YouTube debate lasted over two hours Wednesday night. But once more, we learned nothing about what the candidates would do about the economic straits we are in.

Not a word about the housing crisis—the rising tide of foreclosures, plummeting housing prices and sales—and the credit crunch that now roils banks across the globe.

Not a word about the recession that Wall Street is now betting on.
Not a word about the stagnant wages and rising costs of food and gas and college that had two-thirds of Americans thinking we were in a recession or near it when the Bush economy was at its best.
We learned nothing about what Republican candidates would do about our broken health care system. Nothing about what they’d do about gas prices, energy dependence, global warming or trade deficits that have made our economy dependent on the kindness of strangers—primarily Chinese and Japanese central bankers and Arab princes.

We learned only that these candidates can repeat the conservative gospel. All (except Duncan Hunter in an "emergency") vow not to raise any single tax while in office, not even the shameless tax break that has billionaire private equity barracudas taxed at half the rate of their secretaries.

With the economy slowing, all would slash domestic spending. Mitt Romney calls for capping and cutting by 1 percent a year, and promises to "go at something like our entitlements." Fred Thompson mumbles about his plan to "save Social Security," which does so by slashing benefits nearly in half over 60 years. Rudy Giuliani calls for "5 to 10 percent" across-the-board cuts, and cutting the federal workforce—already near record lows—by 25 percent through retirements. If the one guy named Bob who is tasked with testing toys for the Consumer Product Safety Commission retires, Giuliani will just leave it up to the Chinese to keep the lead out. John McCain fulminates about vetoing any pork-barrel spending, a Titan boasting of squashing a gnat. Ron Paul at least knows where the money is, pledging to bring the boys home and save billions out of the military budget.

No one—not one—gave any indication that cutting spending—and jobs—as the economy slows might not be such a good idea. These guys have been in campaign bubbles for so long they don’t have a clue about what is happening around them.

December 01, 2007

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IMPEACH CHENEY

A MEAN-SPIRITED BUNCH

When he ran for president George W. Bush advertised himself as a "compassionate conservative." That alone should have set off alarm bells because "compassion" and "conservative" are contradictory. Bush has run one of the most heartless and corrupt administrations in our history and the current crop of GOP candidates would like to continue the tradition. This editorial is from The Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com:

Even without a question from a talking snowman, Wednesday's CNN/YouTube Republican debate made for lively viewing. It also left an unsettling aftertaste. Eight years ago, George W. Bush began his first presidential campaign by proudly identifying himself as a "compassionate conservative." But on Wednesday, many of the Republicans who aspire to succeed Bush seemed to be competing for the title of "meanest candidate."

In pursuit of that goal, the candidates' hearts were especially hardened toward illegal immigrants, including children. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) boasted that "I built that border fence in San Diego" and promised that, as president, he would fence off the entire border in six months. Mitt Romney professed dismay at the fact that Mike Huckabee, his fellow former GOP governor, had "fought for giving scholarships to illegal aliens." Rudy Giuliani, on the defensive over charges that New York City was a "sanctuary city" during his administration as mayor, conceded he allowed undocumented children to attend public schools -- but insisted he wasn't interested in giving them an education as much as trying to keep them off the streets "at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave."

November 30, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

MAKING GOVERNMENT BAD

Right-wingers tell us that government, particularly "big government," is bad. Big government encroaches on our freedoms, they say. But they aren't bothered in the least by things like spying on us, suspending habeas corpus, attempts to dictate our sexual behavior, monitoring what we read, and listening to our phone calls. Oh no. Government is only bad when it interferes with the ability to make money. People who say government doesn't work are only too happy to prove it when they get into power. We saw that in spades during the Reagan years and it's been worse with George W. Bush. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.nytimes.com:

As the Bush administration sinks deeper into its multiple quagmires, the personality cult the G.O.P. once built around President Bush has given way to nostalgia for the good old days. The current cover of Time magazine shows a weeping Ronald Reagan, and declares that Republicans “need to reclaim the Reagan legacy.”

But Republicans shouldn’t cry for Ronald Reagan; the truth is, he never left them. There’s no need to reclaim the Reagan legacy: Mr. Bush is what Mr. Reagan would have been given the opportunity.

In 1993 Jonathan Cohn - the author, by the way, of a terrific new book on our dysfunctional health care system - published an article in The American Prospect describing the dire state of the federal government. Changing just a few words in that article makes it read as if it were written in 2007.

THE BUSH PERSONALITY CULT

Some of the most detestable people in history have their fans. Serial killers on Death Row usually get lots of mail from women wanting a relationship. There are devotees of Hitler. Charles Manson had his groupies. There are still people in this country who think George W. Bush is a smart and courageous leader. If Bush is intelligent, he disguises it very well. This article by Jaime O'Neill is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

People who cling to the insane notion that George W. Bush is a smart guy who's been good for the country are fond of citing the fact that the 43rd president of the United States has degrees from Harvard and Yale. Other delusional defenders of Bush intelligence point to the assertion from the White House press office that Bush read 94 books in the first nine months of this year, despite all those other time-consuming duties he had to perform.

That's the same Bush, I guess, and the same avid reader who could not be troubled to read a one-page summary of the possible negative results of an American invasion of Iraq, a summary boiled down especially for him by career military and State Department officials precisely because it had generally been known that this was a president who doesn't read much, a fact he acknowledged in an interview with Fox's Britt Hume way back in 2003when he copped to the fact that he doesn't even read newspapers. "I glance at the headlines just to kind of (get) a flavor of what's moving," Bush said. "I rarely read the stories." So, those career foreign service people condensed lots of info into one page˜and still the man didn't read the thing, an act of nonfeasance in office that is still bearing rotten fruit.

Last year, after Bush spokespeople had spent a couple of years trying to spin Bush's lack of curiosity and reluctance to read stuff, Bush told NBC's Brian Williams: "I said I was looking for a book to read, Laura said you ought to try Camus. I also read three Shakespeares. ... I've got a eck-a-lec-tic reading list."

November 26, 2007

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IMPEACH CHENEY

NO MORE REPUBLICAN ECONOMIES

Ever since Herbert Hoover, Republicans in power means lousy economies. Hoover mismanaged the economy and the Great Depression came and took hold. In the Nixon era we saw high inflation and stagnating wages. In Reagan's era there were tax cuts and bonanzas for the rich, but most of the rest of us didn't benefit. The lousy economy in 1992 helped defeat George H. W. Bush. Now with Junior in charge things are worse than ever. I hope that George W. Bush will go down with Herbert Hoover in the memory of Americans of just how rotten things get with these trickle down, give-everything-to-the-rich, thugs in charge. This commentary by Paul Krugman is at www.nytimes.com:

What’s really remarkable about this dismal outlook is that the economy isn’t (yet?) in recession, and consumers haven’t yet felt the full effects of $98 oil (wait until they see this winter’s heating bills) or the plunging dollar, which will raise the prices of imported goods.

The response of those who support the Bush administration’s economic policies is to complain about the unfairness of it all. They rattle off statistics that supposedly show how wonderful the economy really is. Many of these statistics are misleading or irrelevant, but it’s true that the official unemployment rate is fairly low by historical standards. So why are people so unhappy?
The answer from Bush supporters — who are, on this and other matters, a strikingly whiny bunch — is to blame the "liberal media" for failing to report the good news. But the real explanation for the public’s pessimism is that whatever good economic news there is hasn’t translated into gains for most working Americans.

One way to drive this point home is to compare the situation for workers today with that in the late 1990s, when the country’s economic optimism was almost as remarkable as its pessimism today. For example, in the fall of 1998 almost two-thirds of Americans thought the economy was excellent or good.

THE ALLEGED "LIBERAL MEDIA"

With right-wingers it's a Pavlovian response. "Liberal media" pops out of their mouths instantly if there's something in the news they don't like. If the media are scourging Democrats or liberals, right-wingers don't have a problem. But have a report about racism, economic inequality, Republican corruption, or global climate change and immediately it's the "liberal media." If there is any conclusive proof the media aren't liberal, look at the Scott McClellan revelations about the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. It's gotten virtually no attention from the "liberal media," but we've heard about Natalie Halloway all over again. This article by Dave Zweifel is at www.commondreams.org:

A sneak peek at former White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s soon-to-be-published book reveals that virtually every bigwig in the Bush administration passed along lies about who was involved in outing CIA agent Valerie Plame — including the president himself.

McClellan in 2003 stood at the White House press room podium and said that neither Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby, the two most senior aides to George Bush and Dick Cheney, had anything to do with leaking to several members of the press that Plame was an undercover CIA agent. She was exposed in an apparent retaliation for a guest column her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written for the New York Times, claiming that Bush had lied about Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in his State of the Union address.

As it later turned out, not only was Bush’s speech a lie, but McClellan’s defense of Rove and Libby was also an outright lie. McClellan’s memoir, to be published next spring, claims that five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in his telling that lie to the press and the rest of the nation: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.

But the McClellan excerpts got little play last week in our so-called anti-George Bush liberal media.

November 24, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

THE CHRISTMAS LEMMINGS

Call me a Grinch, I guess. I don't like Christmas. I don't like the avarice, I don't like the crowds, and I don't like the hypocrisy. This season is supposedly about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, but it has little to do with Christ and lots to do with consumerism. Historical evidence doesn't even support the idea that Jesus was born in December. Christmas was borrowed from the Roman holiday Saturnalia, which is mostly about the winter solstice. Other pagan traditions, such as the Christmas tree, have been incorporated down through the centuries. It would be a much better season if we just had a simple celebration of the solstice. I don't mind the bright lights and other festive decorations to brighten up the darkness of this time of year. But let's ditch the consumerism, the phony cheer, and the insincere platitudes. This article by Danny Schechter is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

BOSTON, MA November 24 2007: You could almost run that old Lone Ranger theme - the famous William Tell Overture - as the soundtrack to the local news stories I watched here in Boston on Thanksgiving day featuring perky local news "correspondents" stirring a buying frenzy with upbeat reports on manic consumers racing into malls for "midnight madness" sales.

It was, in the words of Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping, a "shopopocalyse." His crusade against out of control consumption is pictured in the new film "What Would Jesus Buy?," opening at some theaters in LA and San Francisco.

This highly relevant film was not on TV, of course, because our media is deeply complicit in promoting/encouraging mindless consumerism through newspapers, commercials and on newscasts. This is a well-practiced formula mirroring TV's promotion of the war in Iraq, as the line between selling and telling disappears. Media outlets are amply rewarded with endless ad revenues hyping all the discounted goodies you can get with the Boston Globe packing no less than 43 advertising/sales supplements (down from 47 a year ago) into a paper that had wall to wall Macy ads, including some offering $10 coupons to bribe you into the stores. Marketing is what the media does best.

The only negative note was the fear among some that toys might be unsafe because of lead or other dangers. Some 26 million toys have been recalled this year, a sign that the regulators were asleep on this front in the economic wars as they were on Wall Street. The real danger may not be lead in the toys but another type of lead in our heads that leads to denial on the part of millions that we can go on with addictive well-cultivated crazed consumption habits.

PAYING DEARLY FOR IRAQ WAR

One of Hemingway's short stories has the line "the war was always there." It's that way with Iraq. No matter how many distractions there are, the war is always there It has cost us dearly in American lives and wounded, in the huge military outlays, and in credibility around the world. It's also costing us in food and fuel prices. I dread trips to the grocery store or the gas station. We're getting the worst of all worlds: flat or declining wages and skyrocketing prices. This article by Blake Fleetwood is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

There is a compelling article in yesterday's New York Daily News by Pulitzer Prize winner William Sherman.

Sherman shows that there is not much for us to be thankful for in terms of the cost of food we put on the table this week.

Consumers are getting slammed with the biggest increase in food prices in a decade -- fueled by a perfect storm of rising grain prices and a falling dollar.

Poultry -- including your Thanksgiving Turkey -- along with dairy products have risen the most. A glass of milk costs New Yorkers up to 42% more than last holiday season.

The wholesale price of eggs has soared 86% compared to last fall, at one point.

"I'm spending $50 to $80 more a week on food than last year", according to one Harlem shopper.

The surge is driven by a ripple effect -- the Iraq war, the rise in oil prices, the growing deficits -- and a confluence of factors beginning with corn and wheat crops diverted to ethanol production, according to economists.

November 23, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

CONSERVATIVES ARE LIARS

The only time conservatives aren't lying is when their mouths aren't moving. They have a rotten filthy ideology. The only way they can sell it is by lying. They combine the lying with bigotry, hate mongering, and greed, but lying is the major tactic. This article by David Michael Green is at www.commondreams.org:

These lies are legend, and they’re endlessly retold. Everything from the one about the liberal bias in the media, or the one about Ronald Reagan ending the Cold War, to the one about how the private sector is so much more efficient than the government. And how about Saddam’s arsenal of WMD, eh? Or the tax cuts that weren’t going to drive the federal government into deficit? Or remember when George Bush told us that the war in Iraq was over, before it had even really started? Or the bit about how global warming is just a great big conspiracy among those noted well-known cabalists, er … climatology scientists?

I’m only just getting started here, but you get the point. If you’re a conservative you basically have two choices - lie or lose. ‘Cause if you tell the truth, no one in his or her right mind would buy the garbage you’re peddling.

The list of lies is endless, but my personal favorite is the one about how conservatism is the ideology of freedom, and specifically freedom from an overweening, intrusive, liberty-stealing, nanny-state government.

Sometimes when I hear that howler, I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not off in some virtual reality world (like ‘Liberty’ University, or the Republican national convention) somewhere. Because, clearly, between me and the well-programmed fool mouthing these hopeless inanities, one of us is, that’s for sure.

But I’ll tell you what, if conservatism is the ideology of freedom - then I’m the Queen of England. And, one thing you can be sure of is that I’m not the Queen of England. I don’t even have the right parts and pieces, and the only crown I’ve ever worn was given to me forty years ago by some pimply-faced teenager working the cash register at Burger King. Somehow, I don’t think that counts.

MOBBED UP RUDY

There are lots of disturbing things about Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani. His convenient flip-flopping on issues should send off alarms. His stance on attacking Iran is a major red flag. But his record as mayor of New York and his ties to organized crime should also raise concerns. This article by Howie Klein is at www.alternet.org:

Giuliani's problems go well beyond his immediate associates-- criminals and ne'er-do-wells like best buddy/Mafia bagman Bernie Kerik, South Carolina cocaine dealer Tom Ravenel, or an assortment of monstrosities in his inner circle from child molesting priest Alan Placa to countless unscrupulous money men and paid off shills working to rig the election for Giuliani, like Paul Singer, the guy who has been bankrolling the attempt to steal California's electoral votes and the one fireman willing-- for cash-- to dispute Rudy's shameful real 9/11 record.

Today's Chicago Tribune has been digging where Republicans feared someone was bound to go eventually: Giuliani's multimillion dollar, very shady business connections. And "each revelation raises new questions for the first major presidential candidate in memory to build a multimillion-dollar business on the foundation of his time in elected office, and not the other way around."

Giuliani has managed to hide most of his mobster connections-- but not all. He hides behind "confidentiality agreements" and, basically, says that the crooks he's dealing with are entitled to their privacy. "Questioned during a campaign appearance Tuesday in Chicago, Giuliani said that, 'all of Giuliani Partners' clients, maybe with one or two exceptions, I'm not even sure that's right, are public. ... At least the ones that I was familiar with.'"

November 22, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

REMEMBERING JFK

It was this day in 1963 that President John F. Kennedy was shot down in the streets of Dallas, Texas, while riding in an open limousine on his way to deliver a campaign speech. American history took a decisive and ominous turn on that day.

JFK dealt with virulent right-wingers in his time. That morning a full page newspaper ad in Texas called JFK a traitor because he wanted to take a new direction with the Soviet Union and because he didn't overthrow Fidel Castro in Cuba. The right wing probably didn't like movements toward improving life for ordinary Americans in programs that were to pass in the Johnson administration such as Medicare and civil rights legislation.

We saw several assassinations of progressive leaders in the 60's, including Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, and Malcolm X. Violence and repression are the tools of the right wing. But throughout human history the repressive elements have been defeated. We have a lot of work to do, but work we must.

LET'S START WITH IMPEACHMENT

It's too bad that life can't work the way a computer works. You have a "system restore" option on a computer to take it back to settings from an earlier time. The United States needs a system restore now, but we can't undo so much damage that the Bush administration has inflicted on the country and on the world. We can't bring back the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan. We can't undo the massive physical and psychological damage to the troops wounded and killed in Bush's wars. But we can establish this as a dividing line to show that we've learned from this experience and will not repeat what we've witnessed during the Bush years. I believe a first, actually a modest step, is to impeach Bush and Cheney. It will show that we, along with the world, abhor what has happened. It is not acceptable. This column by Robert Parry is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

In early fall 2003, George W. Bush joined in what appears to have been a criminal cover-up to conceal the role of his White House in exposing the classified identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson.

That is the logical conclusion one would draw from a new statement by then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan when it is put into a mosaic with previously known evidence.

McClellan says President Bush was one of five high-ranking officials who caused McClellan to lie to the public in clearing Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis Libby of any responsibility for the leak of Plame’s employment as an undercover intelligence officer.

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” McClellan said. “So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.”

November 20, 2007

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THE BUSHES MAKE THE MAFIA LOOK HONEST

The Bush family has been a parasite in the body politic. They've used the government and their connections to enrich themselves at much harm to the country and to the world. Prescott Bush, grandfather of the current Oval Office occupant, was a financier for Adolf Hitler. Former President George H. W. Bush headed up the CIA before moving on to the vice presidency and presidency. Junior was a failed businessman, bailed out consistently by his daddy's friends. He has brought that same dismal standard to the White House. The Bushes have been heavily involved with the Saudis, including the bin Laden family, for decades. The Mafia makes money in things like prostitution, drug running, and gambling, which seems almost honorable in contrast to war profiteering. This article by Bill Gallagher is at www.commondreams.org:

Making money from government service and war, and lining the pockets of family and friends is a sacred creed in the Bush family. The Corleone family in “The Godfather” showed more restraint and was less inclined toward violence than the greedy gangsters the Bush crime family unleashed on the world.

Using public office and influence to make millions is so ingrained in the Bushevik regime that they don’t even think twice when they raid the public treasury to take care of themselves.

Vice President Dick Cheney cashed in on his stint as secretary of defense to rake in millions in government contracts as CEO of Halliburton. The no bid, cost-plus contracts Halliburton subsequently landed in Iraq are just good business deals, expected spoils for imperial lords. The fact that Cheney was still getting residual payments from the company should in no way be considered a conflict.

As the Bushes gather this week, they have much to be thankful for. Their family business thrives and their wealth grows as the rest of the nation worries about having a job, making mortgage payments, having health insurance and paying for college tuition — concerns unknown and unfelt among the well-stuffed Bush brood.

Neil Bush, the president’s brother, is cashing in on the No Child Left Behind Act. Neil, you’ll recall, escaped indictment for his role in the collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan. The taxpayers picked up the tab for his malfeasance. Failure in business means nothing when all you have to do is shake down your daddy’s pals for your next entrepreneurial experiment.

MCCLELLAN: BUSH INVOLVED IN PLAME LEAK

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan in a new book says that George W. Bush and top White House officials were involved in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name. McClellan, when he was working for the White House, denied such involvement. The evidence is clear that Bush and his minions leaked Valerie Plame's name to get revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, for writing an op-ed piece in The New York Times disputing Bush's claim that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. Bush and company compromised important intelligence and undoubtedly caused contacts of Valerie Plame to be killed in reprisal. This is just one in a series of impeachable offenses committed by Bush. This article by Matt Apuzzo is at www.sfgate.com:

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."

Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.

November 19, 2007


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IMPEACH CHENEY

RACISM AT THE CORE OF CONSERVATISM

Some people are upset that Ronald Reagan's image has been "tarnished" by suggestions that Reagan was a racist. He wasn't personally bigoted, they tell us. But Reagan used race-baiting effectively in his political career, as did Richard Nixon. Racism was an issue they could use to attract the Southern white voters they wanted. Racism has played a role in California too. Proposition 187 a few years was targeted at Hispanics. When you hear rhetoric about illegal immigration from Republicans there's more then a smidgen of racism involved. The "war on terror" has a heavy racist influence. Some of the more extreme right are claiming that the Muslim world is out to destroy the white Christian world. This column by Paul Krugman is at www.commndreams.org:

The centrality of race - and, in particular, of the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support of Democrats to overwhelming support of Republicans - is obvious from voting data.

For example, everyone knows that white men have turned away from the Democrats over God, guns, national security and so on. But what everyone knows isn’t true once you exclude the South from the picture. As the political scientist Larry Bartels points out, in the 1952 presidential election 40 percent of non-Southern white men voted Democratic; in 2004, that figure was virtually unchanged, at 39 percent.

More than 40 years have passed since the Voting Rights Act, which Reagan described in 1980 as “humiliating to the South.” Yet Southern white voting behavior remains distinctive. Democrats decisively won the popular vote in last year’s House elections, but Southern whites voted Republican by almost two to one.

The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.

And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.

NEW WINE, OLD WINESKINS

Right-wing ideology is essentially about selfishness. You justify selfishness by suggesting that other people aren't as worthy of success. They're inferior and there to be exploited. It reminds me a little of the metaphor attributed to Christ in the Gospels. He spoke of new wine and old wineskins. You didn't put new wine in old wineskins. Conservative ideology is a consistent repackaging of the old ideas of social Darwinism, imperialism, and exploitation. You find some way to put an intellectual veneer on the old ideas, whether it be some racist tract like The Bell Curve or this book, A Farewell to Alms, that says some societies, such as the British, prospered because the rich and successful passed along the traits that made them successful to their children. This article by Daniel Brook is at www.thenation.com:

In his account of the relationship between literacy and economic growth, a relationship considered to be central to explanations of industrialization, Clark dismisses both the Marxist idea that the technological advance of the printing press was crucial to the spread of literacy and the Weberian insight that converting from a religion where the laity was forbidden to read the Bible on their own (medieval Catholicism) to one where they were encouraged to do so (Protestantism) increased literacy rates in Britain. For Clark, the rise of literacy is explained by the reproduction of a population that was better at reading. Similarly, Clark dismisses the structural arguments of both Jared Diamond, who in Guns, Germs, and Steel attributes the West's dominance to geographical good fortune, and Kenneth Pomeranz, who explains in The Great Divergence that Britain's resources--some naturally occurring, such as coal, and some pilfered, like the North American colonies themselves--were the keys to industrialization. Clark has little patience for those who suggest that democracy, which renders kleptocratic rule untenable, matters much at all. And the Adam Smith disciples at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank fare even worse. To Clark, the incentives of Smith's "invisible hand" work only for peoples who have already had the bourgeois virtues bred into them.

The most important question raised by A Farewell to Alms is not raised by Clark himself, however, but by the publication of his book. In the late nineteenth century, America's best-known social Darwinist, William Graham Sumner, a professor of political and social science at Yale, wrote, "Let every man be sober, industrious, prudent, and wise, and bring up his children to be so likewise and poverty will be abolished in a few generations." For Clark, this is exactly what came to pass in England. Clark eschews the term "social Darwinism," but it's an apt description of his thesis. The question raised by the publication of his book, then, is: why is social Darwinism back in vogue?

November 18, 2007


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THE EVOLUTION OF CREATIONISM

A few hundred years ago you could imagine a shaman or priest leading a ceremony to ask the favor of the Rain God, or some other member of the pantheon of nature gods that prevailed in primitive religion. A few days ago Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue led a prayer calling for rain in drought-stricken Georgia. It's just evidence of how superstition still holds a major place in American society. A good percentage of Americans don't accept evolution theory and still buy into the creationist myth in Genesis. In the past few years there has been a movement called Intelligent Design to give creationism a scientific gloss. PBS aired a good documentary about Intelligent Design, the "think tank" that promotes Intelligent Design, and how Intelligent Design fails to stand scientific muster. This article by Gordy Slack is at www.opednews.com:

But like bacteria adapting to antibiotics, creationism has slimmed down once again, this time shedding even a mention of an intelligent designer. A new textbook put out by the Discovery Institute, the Seattle think tank that promotes I.D., doesn't even have the words "intelligent design" in its index. Instead of pushing I.D. explicitly, "Explore Evolution: The Arguments for and Against Darwinism," promoted as a high school- or college-level biology text, "teaches the controversy." Teach the controversy is the new mantra of the I.D. movement.

"We want to teach more about evolution," says Discovery Institute's Casey Luskin, "not less." The "more" they want to teach, of course, is what they see as evolution's shortcomings, leaving an ecological niche that will then be filled by intelligent design.

But not all creationists have embraced the strategy. Many responded to the Dover trial by coming out of I.D.'s big tent, which once gave shelter to young earth creationists, old earthers, academics interested in I.D.'s hypotheses, and anyone who wanted to promote a Christian-compatible view of science. Judge Jones' decision was like a lightning strike on the big top, sending many of the constituents running home through the rain. Creationist groups like Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, and Reasons to Believe are now attacking I.D. for not having the guts to call its designer God or to be explicit about such key questions as the age of the world. (Answers in Genesis' answer: about 6,000 years.)

November 16, 2007


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SAY ONE THING, DO ANOTHER

George W. Bush once described the Constitution as "an expletive deleted piece of paper." But Bush gave a speech yesterday before the ultra right wing Federalist Society extolling the virtues of Constitutional checks and balances. This is the guy who has trampled all over the Constitution and civil liberties sermonizing about the Constitution. Adolf Hitler couldn't have done it better. This article by Robert Parry is at www.consortiumnews.com:


In a Nov. 15 speech to the right-wing Federalist Society, the President embraced the Constitution’s checks and balances as a vital protection against tyranny. And he demanded that federal judges act as fair referees, not political or ideological partisans.

To many Americans who have been aghast at Bush’s six-plus years of trampling the Constitution, such pronouncements might represent a textbook case of “cognitive dissonance,” a psychological term describing the uncomfortable tension when one’s stated principles are at odds with one’s actions.

For Bush, however, this divergence of words from behavior may be closer to the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, when the monarch strutted about in invisible garments while his terrified subjects kept quiet about his nakedness.

In this case, the Washington press corps reported on Bush’s speech as if the President were entirely sincere and left out contradictory facts.

November 15, 2007


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THE EDUCATION MYTH

Corporations, business, and their political bedfellows consistently find ways to blame working Americans for our declining standard of living. We have to be "competitive," you see. It's all about "efficiency" and "maximizing profit." The reason we're sliding downhill, according to some pundits, is that we just aren't educated enough. Get that degree, Bucky, and you'll be fine. The data don't bear that out. People with degrees have been taking the biggest hits thanks to insane trade deals that allow outsourcing of American jobs. This commentary by David Sirota is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Fortune magazine, for instance, recently reported that economic data proves that "the skill premium, the extra value of higher education, must have declined after three decades of growing." Specifically, "the real annual earnings of college graduates actually declined 5.2 percent, while those of high school graduates, strangely enough, rose 1.6 percent." Similarly, Businessweek has reported that "real wages for young Americans with a bachelor's degree have declined by almost 8% over the past three years" and "economists suspect that global competition has something to do with it."

That's an understatement, as shown in a stunning new report out today from the good folks at the Economic Policy Institute. Using government data, the think tank finds that "the educational group most vulnerable to offshoring are those with at least a four-year college degree." That vulnerability helps drive down wages for better-educated workers because they know that if they try to demand good pay, their employer could simply pick up and leave.

Obviously, this has everything to do with America's corrupt NAFTA-style trade policy - a policy that the U.S. House ratified last week in its vote for the Peru Free Trade Agreement, and that now awaits Senate ratification. This trade policy without enforceable labor, wage, environmental, human rights or product safety standards encourages large corporations to manufacture a race to the bottom in which workers have to keep accepting lower and lower wages (or other standards) in hopes of keeping their employer in their country.

THE RIGHT WING'S ROAD TO SERFDOM

Economist Friedrich von Hayek wrote an influential book called The Road to Serfdom whose central idea is that free market economies and political freedom go together, and that any government "encroachment" into the private sector leads to loss of political freedom. The great example of that for von Hayek and others is the Soviet Union. However, when you look at von Hayek's ideas put into practice in places like Chile you see a crushing and oppressive system. Augusto Pinochet's regime was a horror and right-wing systems everywhere are proving just as oppressive. This is an analysis of Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine and the dangers of right-wing economics. The article by Christopher Hayes is at www.inthesetimes.com:

Written in exile, while Europe burned, The Road to Serfdom’s simple but powerful thesis was that the encroachment of the state into economic affairs inevitably leads to an encroachment in all spheres. For Hayek and his intellectual descendants—from Friedman (Milton) to Friedman (Thomas)—political freedom and economic freedom were inseparable and mutually reinforcing. And over the last 30 years, the adherents of the Friedman/Hayek School have pointed to two coincidental trends in global political economy to back this grand claim: First, the fall of command-and-control economies and the dismantling of welfare states. The second, the rise of democratic governance. With cunning aplomb, neoliberal writers and historians have packaged these two distinct phenomena together as one single story of progress and development. Look: Freedom’s on the march!

Klein resurrects Hayek’s argument and inverts it, showing how time and again, the “economic freedom” envisioned by Hayek and his ilk has been imposed at the expense of political freedom, often, Klein writes, “midwifed by the most brutal forms of coercion.” From Chile to Iraq, majorities empowered to choose their own government don’t start clamoring for flat taxes, privatized post offices and an end to controls on foreign capital. Instead, they often form unions or call for increased social spending. The Shock Doctrine is an encyclopedic catalog of the tactics that governments, corporations and economists have used to impose— usually over popular opposition—what Klein calls the “policy trinity” of the Chicago-School program: “the elimination of the public sphere, total liberation for corporations and skeletal social spending.”

November 14, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

REALITY CHECK: MOST OF US WON'T BE RICH

Some working class people oppose taxing the very wealthy what the very wealthy should pay because they, the working class people, think by some happenstance they too will be rich one day and they don't want to pay those taxes. If I were to get rich, I don't think I'd mind paying taxes all that much. I would still be rich. But the fact is that most of us will never be rich. The system is designed to keep most of us at subsistence level. This article by John Buell is at www.commondreams.org:

Though polls suggest American citizens would support such reforms now, many working-class Americans still shrug off or even resist any tax increase. They assume that they too will become rich, either by working hard or developing a new product or just through luck. Call it Powerball politics.

Some might change their minds if commentators, even those on the left, did more to remind citizens that many of today’s wealthiest did not, as the Smith Barney ad used to say, “Make money the old fashioned way, they earned it.” Behind many of today’s great fortunes lie abuses of power and privilege by those already well placed. In addition, not only have these actions failed to bring the poor and working class along, they have contributed to their problems.

Sklar points out that much of today’s great wealth comes from Wall Street speculation. The current difficulties in the subprime mortgage market are symptomatic of larger pathologies. Guardian (London) business writer Will Hutton points out: “lending 100 percent mortgages to borrowers with no income, employment or assets, packaging up the resulting debt and selling it to banks around the globe while taking a handsome fee on every transaction - can be launched with impunity.”

Conflicts of interest and abuse of insider information taint the entire system. The firms issuing the new securities pay the purportedly impartial rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard and Poor. The Bush administration touts the freedom to create these new exotic financial instruments. Nonetheless, when the whole system eventually starts to implode, the same insiders who once demanded freedom from government beg the Federal Reserve to opens the discount window to keep big financial houses from failing.

GIULIANI IS A THUG

I heard that the Congressman from the district, Republican Rubber Stamp George Radanovich, has endorsed Rudolph Giuliani for president. Radanovich has been onboard for every vile thing the Bush administration has done, and apparently likes the cut of the cloth of a thug like Rudy Giuliani. It's interesting that Pat Robertson, that "pro-life" guy, has also endorsed Rudy. Robertson isn't bothered by Giuliani's past support for abortion rights, among other things. This commentary by Margaret Kimberley is at www.truthout.org:

Now Giuliani is running for the Republican presidential nomination and he is the very worst of a bad lot. He unabashedly supports the occupation of Iraq and a military attack on Iran. He doesn't think simulating drowning via water boarding is torture and agrees wholeheartedly with the Bush destruction of civil liberties.

If a potential Giuliani presidency in any way resembles a Giuliani mayoralty then the country would be in for a truly awful time. As mayor Giuliani promoted the worst, least competent people to high positions in New York City government. Bernard Kerik, an undercover cop, had the shrewdness to put himself in the right place at the right time when he volunteered to drive Rudy around during his mayoral campaign. Despite the lack of any other credential, his rise to power was swift. First he was made a Deputy Commissioner at the Department of Corrections, then Commissioner.

Kerik was nothing but a crook. Fully aware that Kerik was under investigation for taking money from a construction company with organized crime connections, Giuliani nonetheless appointed him Police Commissioner. While others insist that they informed Giuliani of Kerik's mob ties, Rudy claims not to remember. He certainly didn't remember when he recommended his pal for a cabinet level position as Secretary of Homeland Security. When Kerik imploded under an avalanche of bad publicity Rudy just shrugged his shoulders, confident that he would continue to get away with doing whatever he wants.

November 13, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

NEOCONS AND FALSE NARRATIVES

Several years ago there was a movie called "Capricorn One." The movie's premise was that a manned Mars landing was faked. It looked real on television, but it wasn't really happening. Neocons who have sold the American public on things like trickle down economics, the dangers of "big government," and huge and costly military adventures have been running their own version of "Capricorn One" for a long time. Even as the Soviet Union was tottering, the neocons constructed another reality about the danger of the Soviet Union and the need for a huge military buildup. Robert Parry talks about it at www.consortiumnews.com:

As the Soviet Union continued its decline through the 1980s, the Reagan administration kept its eyes wide shut. The housebroken CIA analytical division knew better than to continue challenging the Soviet-juggernaut narrative.

Ironically, when the Soviet empire broke apart from 1989 to 1991, the CIA analysts came in for ridicule for “missing” the Soviet collapse.

But the neocons simply adjusted the narrative: Rather than accept that the Nixon-Ford détente-ists had been right about signs of Soviet weakness in the 1970s, the narrative became that Ronald Reagan had “won” the Cold War by supporting brush-fire wars, lavishing money on the Pentagon, and telling Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that wall.”

An accurate narrative might have suggested that Reagan and the neocons had unnecessarily extended the Cold War, enriched military contractors, inflicted needless bloodshed, and strengthened future enemies like bin Laden. But the accepted narrative essentially justified all the carnage and corruption as essential to victory.

IS "DISAPPROVAL" STRONG ENOUGH?

New polls show that Americans are increasingly fed up with George W. Bush. Pollsters like to use a nice word like "disapprove." "Disapprove" is when someone talks a little loudly at dinner. It's not nearly strong enough to describe my feelings about this creep and the people who have supported him. They have the unmitigated gall to preach "morality" to us, or talk about U. S. sovereignty, or to claim that the war against al-Qaeda is the apocalypse. In the meantime, they rake in their war profits and they and their families don't risk a thing in fighting this "clash of civilizations." This commentary by Eugene Robinson is at www.thenewstribune.com:

It’s official: Bush Derangement Syndrome is now a full-blown epidemic. George W. Bush apparently has reduced more of his fellow citizens to frustrated, sputtering rage than any president since opinion polling began, with the possible exception of Richard Nixon.

That should be a pretty good indicator of where Bush will rank when historians get their hands on his shameful record – in the cellar, alongside the only president who ever had to resign in disgrace.

A new Gallup Poll released last week showed that 64 percent of Americans disapprove of how the Decider is doing his job. That sounds bad enough – nearly two-thirds of the country thinks its leader is incompetent. But when you look more closely at the numbers, you see that Bush’s abysmal report card – only 31 percent of respondents approve of the job he’s doing – actually overstates our regard for his performance.

According to Gallup, if you lump together the Americans who “strongly” approve of Bush as president with those who only “moderately” feel one way or the other about him, you end up with about half the population. That leaves a full 50 percent who “strongly disapprove” of Bush – as high a level of intense repudiation as Gallup has ever seen in its decades of polling.