OCTOBER 6, 2005

BUSH'S STRANGE PSYCHE

There has been considerable speculation about the weird and warped psyche of George W. Bush. This was the guy who as a kid thought it was fun to blow up frogs with firecrackers. He became a sniveling spoiled brat who said that poor people were only poor because they were lazy. He was a cheerleader for the Vietnam war as long as someone else did the fighting and dying. He even skipped out on his Air National Guard service. He drank and snorted coke and got into shady business deals. Somewhere along the line he got the idea he was "born again," but that didn't stop him from presiding over a record number of executions when he was Governor of Texas. The hasty and careless process he used may have sent innocent people to their deaths. In this column Maureen Dowd talks about Bush's propensity to surround himself with "work wives," women who have no other purpose in life, apparently, than to cater to Bush. This column is at www.topplebush.com:

The West Wing is a parallel universe to TV's Wisteria Lane: instead of self-indulgent desperate housewives wary of sexy nannies, there are self-sacrificing, buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W.'s every political, legal and ego-affirming need.

Maybe it's because his mom was not adoring enough, but more tart and prickly, even telling her son, the president, not to put his feet up on her coffee table. Or maybe it's because, as his wife says, his kinship with his mom gives him a desire to be around strong, "very natural" women. But W. loves being surrounded by tough women who steadfastly devote their entire lives to doting on him, like the vestal virgins guarding the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation.

HARRIET MIERS AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The Bush v. Gore decision by the Supreme Court that handed the White House to George W. Bush is dramatic proof that we can't afford a hack on the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, in particular, had egregious conflicts of interest, but didn't recuse themselves the way anyone with honor would have done. How confident could we be in a Justice Harriet Miers? She has called Bush the most brilliant man she knows. She had worked as his personal counsel and probably knows where many bodies are buried. We can't afford another Bush crony on the Court. This article by Harvey Wasserman is at www.commondreams.org:

That Bush himself knew Plame was a CIA agent has long since been established. That Libby, Rove and Cheney knew is also beyond doubt.

So how the knowledge of Plame’s status somehow leapt to the ears of columnist Robert Novak and the likes of Judith Miller may be more important than the outing itself.

If Bush, Cheney, Rove and Libby did discuss such a retaliation, and then found a way to make it happen, we are suddenly out of the playoffs and into the World Series.

In Watergate, the coverup became the crime of importance. In Iran-Contra, it was who knew what when. In the Plame case, it could well be who discussed what with whom when.

Whatever the call, this case is certain to end at the US Supreme Court. And here we may or may not find Harriet Miers.

REPUBS WAR ON SCIENCE

It's no accident that the "Intelligent Design" movement has sprung up during the administration of George W. Bush. Republicans have a long history of anti-intellectualism and anti-science policies. This administration is just more blatant than most. They are happy to accept the science that can build nuclear bombs or spy satellites, but not so keen on science that says rapacious corporations are destroying the planet or that there is more support for evolutionary theory than for creationism. This interview is with Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science The interview is at www.motherjones.com:

Disdain for science and scientific expertise has been a hallmark of the Bush White House. Tampering with reports on climate change, suppressing science within the U.S. Department of Fish & Wildlife, radically misrepresenting the research potential of existing stem cell lines—these are just a few cases where the administration has distorted scientific research to appease political and business interests.

Though no previous U.S. government can match the current one for sheer brazenness, other Republican administrations have proved willing, on occasion, to subordinate science to politics. As Chris Mooney argues in his book, The Republican War on Science, disregard for scientists and the scientific method has grown and ripened with the modern conservative movement. From Barry Goldwater's anti-intellectualism, through Ronald Reagan’s sympathy for creationism and Newt Gingrich's passion for science "skeptics," on through the present day, Republicans have shown a marked preference for politically inspired fringe theories over the findings of long-established and world-renowned scientific bodies.

OCTOBER 5, 2005

TAX CUTS FOR RICH PEOPLE, FOOD CUTS FOR POOR PEOPLE

Republicans want to cut food assistance to the poor. Congressional Republicans are congratulating themselves that their cuts are not as deep as what Bush wanted. What a truly despicable bunch. This article by Libby Quaid is at www.commondreams.org:

Under orders to cut agriculture spending by $3 billion, Republicans in Congress propose reducing food programs for the poor by $574 million and conservation programs by $1 billion, The Associated Press has learned.

The proposal by Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., also would cut farmers' payments by 2.5 percent across the board.

Under the plan, payments would be reduced by $1.145 billion over five years. But that is considerably less severe than President Bush had proposed. Bush sought a 5 percent reduction in payments, plus a far-reaching plan for capping payments that would slash billions more dollars from subsidies collected by large farm operations.

1918 FLU WAS A BIRD FLU

The world flu epidemic in 1918 killed 50 million people. Now scientists, who have actual tissue samples of victims of that flu, believe it was a bird flu that jumped species. There are concerns that modern version of bird flu will do the same thing. George W. Bush's solution to this is to use the military to quarantine infected areas. How about pushing for vaccines? How about pushing for prevention? This story by Gina Kolata is at www.nytimes.com:

The 1918 influenza virus, the cause of one of history's most deadly epidemics, has been reconstructed and found to be a bird flu that jumped directly to humans, two teams of federal and university scientists announced yesterday.

The scientists reconstructed the 1918 virus over the course of a decade, using lung tissue from two soldiers and an Alaskan woman who died in the 1918 pandemic. The soldiers' tissue had been saved in an Army pathology library, and the woman had been buried in permanently frozen ground.

BUSH CRIME CONNECTIONS GET SERIOUS

The Godfather is one of my favorite movies, but Don Corleone had nothing on George W. Bush and this crop of Republicans. We know about the scandals swirling around Tom DeLay and Bill Frist. We know that the White House procurement officer, David Safavian, has been arrested for illegal activities connected to lobbyist Jack Abramoff. We know that indictments may be coming any day in the Valerie Plame leak case. In this story Robert Parry talks about actual gangland-style murder. The story is at www.consortiumnews.com:

So far, the mainstream news media has focused mostly on the white-collar abuses of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for allegedly laundering corporate donations to help Republicans gain control of the Texas legislature, or on deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove for disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer to undercut her husband’s criticism of George W. Bush’s case for war in Iraq.

Both offenses represent potential felonies, but they pale beside new allegations linking business associates of star GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff – an ally of both DeLay and Rove – to the gangland-style murder of casino owner Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 2001.

These criminal cases also are reminders of George H.W. Bush’s long record of unsavory associations, including with a Nicaraguan contra network permeated by cocaine traffickers, Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s multi-million-dollar money-laundering operations, and anti-communist Cuban extremists tied to acts of international terrorism. [For details on these cases, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]

OCTOBER 4, 2005

GOVERNMENT THAT WORKS SCARES BUSH

It's a maxim of right-wing belief that government never works and that the private sector does everything better. As one who was always worked in the private sector, I can say that the expertise of the private sector is greatly exaggerated. You get stupid bureaucratic red tape just as surely in the private sector as you do in government. You also get gross incompetence, stupid management, and arrogance that would make a bureaucrat blush. In this commentary Paul Krugman talks about the box George W. Bush is in regarding the Hurricane Katrina victims. On the one hand, he has to do something, but on the other hand he doesn't want government to work too well. The column is at www.topplebush.com:

As for the administration's odd insistence on providing public housing instead of relying on the market, The Los Angeles Times reports that Department of Housing and Urban Development officials initially announced plans to issue rent vouchers, then backed off after meeting with White House aides. As the article notes, the administration has "repeatedly sought to cut or limit" the existing housing voucher program.

This suggests that what administration officials fear isn't that housing vouchers would fail, but that they would succeed - and that this success would undermine the administration's ongoing efforts to cut back housing aid.

MOLLY IVINS ON HARRIET MIERS

White House insider Harriet Miers has been nominated by George W. Bush to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. There are several troubling aspects to this nomination. First, the fact she is "close" to Bush raises issues of cronyism. I wonder how she would rule on any case directly involving Bush that came before the Court. Would she recuse herself? She has no judicial experience. She apparently was involved in the infamous Presidential Daily Briefing that told Bush "Bin Laden Determined to strike in U.S." She is an evangelical and I have great concerns her religious beliefs would trump protecting the Constitution. Molly Ivins knows Texas politics and provides a good perspective on Ms. Miers in this column at www.workingforchange.com:

When pressed, she said she did believe one should be able to legally discriminate against gays, and it is the recollection of two of the organization's officers that the response involved her religious beliefs.

Miers' church states on its website that it believes in biblical inerrancy, full immersion baptism, original sin and salvation dependent entirely upon accepting Jesus Christ. Everyone else is going to hell.

I have said for years about people in public life, "I don't write about sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll." If I had my druthers, I wouldn't write about the religion of those in public life, either, as I consider it a most private matter. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution because this country was founded by people who had experienced both religious persecution and state-supported religions. I think John F. Kennedy's 1960 statement to the Baptist ministers should stand as a model of how public servants should handle the relation between religious belief and public service.

Nevertheless, we are now beset by people who insist on dragging religion into governance -- and who themselves believe they are beset by people determined to "drive God from the public square."

This division has been in part created by and certainly aggravated by those seeking political advantage. It is a recipe for an incredibly damaging and serious split in this country, and I believe we all need to think long and carefully before doing anything to make it worse.

As an 1803 quote attributed to James Madison goes: "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries." Read more in the Molly Ivins archive.

REPUB CULTURE OF CORRUPTION

We have often spoken cynically in this country of banana republics, but since Republicans have attained power at all branches of government we don't have much room to criticize. I thought Richard Nixon was bad. I thought the Reagan administration was awful. But the current crop of Republicans gives corruption a bad name. Any belief in smaller and less intrusive government is out the window. Fiscal responsibility is a foreign concept. Ethics are nonexistent. Putting country before personal gain isn't even considered. Frank Rich writes about the brewing scandals and the scandals to come in this column at www.topplebush.com:

Like the continuing revelations of detainee abuse emerging from Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo, this is a crisis in the governing culture, not the tale of a few bad apples. Every time you turn over a rock, you find more vermin. We've only just learned from The Los Angeles Times that Joseph Schmitz, until last month the inspector general in charge of policing waste, fraud and abuse at the Pentagon, is himself the focus of a Congressional inquiry. He is accused of blocking the investigation of another Bush appointee who is suspected of siphoning Iraq reconstruction contracts to business cronies. At the Justice Department, the F.B.I. is looking into why a career prosecutor was demoted after he started probing alleged Abramoff illegality in Guam. According to The Los Angeles Times, the demoted prosecutor was then replaced by a Rove-approved Republican pol who just happened to be a cousin of a major target of another corruption investigation in Guam.

OCTOBER 3, 2005

LOOK OUT DOWN BELOW!

It bears repeating that the gulf is widening between the rich and the poor in the United States. This is no small matter. Poverty quite literally kills. People in poverty suffer stress every moment of their lives from not having enough money for anything, including basic necessities. It becomes even more stressful if there is a job loss or a medical emergency. Our Draconian system has made it even more difficult to get out from under by using bankruptcy. The gulf is also important because money buys access and government becomes more and more the province of the very wealthy and shuts out the rest of us. Holly Sklar writes about our downwardly mobile society in this article at www.commondreams.org:

America is becoming a downwardly mobile society instead of an upwardly mobile society. Median household income fell for the fifth year in a row to $44,389 in 2004 -- down from $46,129 in 1999, adjusting for inflation. The Bush administration is using hurricane "recovery" to camouflage policies that will deepen inequality and poverty. They are bringing windfall profits to companies like Bechtel while suspending regulations that shore up wages for workers.

More tax cuts are in the pipeline for wealthy Americans who can afford the $17,000 watch, $160,000 coat and $10 million helicopter on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index.

More budget cuts are in the pipeline for Medicaid, Food Stamps and other safety nets for Americans whose wages don't even cover the cost of necessities.

RECESSION COMING?

Recessions and Republican administrations are as chummy as Batman and Robin. The Bush administration has made the danger of a recession even more paramount with its ridiculous tax cuts for the rich economic policy. Lying us into an unnecessary war didn't help. Blowing the surplus from the Clinton administration wasn't smart. Failing to address our dependence on foreign oil was irresponsible. Most of us have suffered from lower or stagnant wages during Bush's tenure. We're now facing higher energy costs, higher credit card minimum payments, and not seeing much light at the end of the tunnel. This article by Tom Raum is at www.usatoday.com:

The "R" word is being heard more often among economists, especially after recent reports showed tumbles in consumer spending and confidence.

New-home sales are down. Auto sales have slowed. Higher energy prices — due partly to the hurricanes that damaged drilling and refining installations along the Gulf Coast — have eroded consumers' buying power. Inflation is trending higher. Interest rates, too.

THE REALITY OF BEING LOW INCOME

It's ironic that towns that were part of the California Gold Rush over a century ago are now in danger of extinction because of high gas prices. Towns that depend on tourism to survive offer only low-wage jobs, if any jobs at all, and the people who work in the service industries for the tourists are getting hammered by high gas prices. This story by Sasha Abramsky is at www.thenation.com:

Close to 10 percent of Siskiyou County's workforce is unemployed. For those with jobs, money is tight: According to Bureau of Economic Analysis data, the county's per capita personal income is $23,807, only 76 percent of the national average, placing it forty-third of fifty-eight California counties. Leave out the government jobs in the county seat of Yreka, and the numbers are even worse: The unincorporated town of McCloud, for example, has a per capita income of slightly less than $16,000.

Following the implosion of much of the timber industry, job options aren't exactly legion here, and what employment there is concentrated in a handful of towns: There's a Wal-Mart on the southern edge of town at Yreka; the county has three bottling plants that package glacial waters from Shasta; there are shopping malls in Redding, to the south; and there are the hotels and restaurants that cater to tourists. "We don't have very much work in the community right now," says Mike Stacher, general manager of the McCloud Community Services District. "We have $8-an-hour jobs here, which is unlivable as far as I'm concerned." Not surprisingly, since 1990 a large percentage of Siskiyou County's working-age population has decamped to other locales.

OCTOBER 2, 2005

STRATEGIC DISASTER

Retired General William Odom said the decision to invade Iraq was a "strategic disaster" and is calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and repositioning them along the Pakistani border in an all out effort to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein was the great white whale and George W. Bush was Captain Ahab, and we've paid a bloody price. This article by Evan Lehmann is at www.lowellsun.com:

The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday, strengthening an effort in Congress to force an American withdrawal beginning next year.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, said the invasion of Iraq alienated America's Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war against terrorists.

The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.

ANOTHER DOOZY IN THE FRESNO BEE

Today's Fresno Bee features a letter talking about Phil Donahue blasting Bill O'Reilly over the deaths of U.S. military in Iraq. Donahue said the 1,900 deaths were for "no good reason." Our brilliant commentator noted that in the same period that there have been over 104,000 traffic deaths in the United States, a ratio of 55:1. He said Donahue didn't make the point that those deaths were also for "no good reason." It's comparing apples to oranges, of course. Traffic deaths are not a deliberate part of U.S. foreign policy. Using that logic, you could say that deaths due to Hurricane Katrina were for no good reason. Deaths from skin cancer are for no good reason. Deaths from the killer tsunami last December were for no good reason. It's a typical conservative style of debate. Throw out a total non sequitur and think that you're making a valid point.

BUSH TAPS INTO DARKNESS OF AMERICAN PSYCHE

I suspect even as troops were entering Berlin and Germany lay in waste there were Germans who still supported Adolf Hitler. That's the way in feels in the United States when you see polls saying that George W. Bush still has the support of over 30% of the American people. This is at a time when everything is a shambles. Our national credibility is gone thanks to an unnecessary bloody war in Iraq. The gap between rich and poor is on vivid display with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Poverty has increased every year Bush has been in the White House. Leaders of the Republican party such as Tom DeLay and Bill Frist are implicated in major scandals. There is growing evidence that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney may have been involved in the leak of a CIA operative's name strictly for political revenge against her husband. The Bush administration has put "journalists" on the payroll to spread propaganda as news or commentary. This commentary suggests that Bush taps into the dark sides of the American psyche such as greed, racism, and homophobia. The commentary by Kevin Gottschalk is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

To go there is to descend into a dark cellar that unfortunately contains the alive and twitching relics of the worst aspects of American history and culture that fester like a boil just beneath the outer skin of the body politic.



So presented for your consideration, are the gut-level, strip away the propaganda, the “we only say these things to close relatives while drinking” reasons that around 35 per cent of the American voting population will support this President no matter what he does.

Greed — In his refusal to raise taxes or rescind tax cuts for the rich to pay for the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast, Bush again highlights a main reason for his core support. The plutocracy of America believes that Bush will let them keep more of their stash than certainly any so-called “tax and spend” liberal (I know, the irony is striking, isn't it?). And let's face it, when you have a movie figure like Gordon Gekko of Wall Street fame turned into a cultural icon by Donald Trump for defending greed, it should not be surprising that even go-to-church Christians who believe God helps those who help themselves, believe in George W. Bush's version of economic Darwinism.

OCTOBER 1, 2005

THE SLEAZEMASTER TOM DELAY

According to reliable sources, there is massive evidence that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay participated in an illegal money laundering scheme to route corporate money to GOP candidates in Texas. Accepting corporate campaign contributions is illegal under Texas law. This is just one incidence of Tom DeLay subverting the law and ethics, of course, but this time he may actually go to jail for it. This article by Christy Hoppe is at www.dallasnews.com:

Grand jurors were presented a load of evidence, including testimony and phone records, that led them to believe Rep. Tom DeLay should be tried on a conspiracy charge, the leader of the Travis County grand jury that indicted the congressman said Friday.

"It was not one of those sugarcoated deals that we handed to [District Attorney] Ronnie Earle," William M. Gibson said.

He added: "Mr. Earle has stacks and stacks of papers - evidence of telephone calls from Mr. DeLay and everybody."

Mr. DeLay has said that Mr. Earle has no evidence to prove that he tried to subvert Texas election laws. The Sugar Land Republican's lawyers did not return calls seeking comments on Mr. Gibson's description of the grand jury proceedings.

GOOD NEWS ABOUT AIR AMERICA

The right-wing media has tried to either dismiss Air America as irrelevant or has claimed the network can't succeed because "liberal radio can't work." Wrong. Recently, the right-wing has circulated the claim that Air America is in deep financial trouble and about to collapse. Also wrong. In this article Danny Goldberg, CEO at Air America, talks about the strength the network is enjoying. The article is at www.alternet.org:

Air America is in strong financial shape. Last week we started broadcasting from our new multi-million dollar studios.

Several weeks earlier the Board of Directors of Air America's parent company accelerated re-payment of a loan from the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club of $875,000 two years in advance of a previously agreed upon repayment plan. In the last several months, Air America has expanded its executive team to augment our efforts on the internet and in affiliate relations.

TOXIC RELIGION

Today The Fresno Bee had another letter defending "Intelligent Design" and saying that evolution "is just a theory." We see evidence for evolution all around us, but "Intelligent Design" can easily be shot through with holes. The biggest question I have is where did the "Intelligent Designer" come from? In this article we learn about a new study showing that countries with the highest religiosity also have the highest level of dysfunction Within the United States the states that have the highest religious belief also are the most dysfunctional in terms of murders, divorces, teen pregnancies, and abortions. The article by Rosa Brooks is at www.latimes.com:

IT'S OFFICIAL: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing.

This is the implication of a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Society, a publication of Creighton University's Center for the Study of Religion. The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of "popular religiosity" and various "quantifiable societal health" indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.

Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services. He then correlated this with data on rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, abortion and child mortality.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2005

THE DUTCH DO LEVEES RIGHT

This article shows a history of Bush administration tax cuts for the rich and the collapse of infrastructure in New Orleans that led to the massive flooding after Hurricane Katrina. House Speaker Dennis Hastert inanely stated that maybe New Orleans should be bulldozed rather than rebuilt because much of New Orleans is below sea level. But the Dutch live below sea level too and the Dutch, unlike the Bush administration, have invested in the necessary infrastructure to prevent flooding in the Netherlands. This article by David Sirota is at www.inthesetimes.com:

Some may try to argue that because of New Orleans’ sub-sea-level geography, there was no amount of funding or infrastructure improvements that could have protected the city. House Speaker Dennis Hastert foreshadowed this inane assertion when he callously questioned whether New Orleans should even be rebuilt. But that argument asks us to simply forget places like the Netherlands—one of the oldest industrialized countries in the world that has thrived right on the banks of the tempestuous North Sea, even though half of the country sits below sea level. After a powerful storm breached dikes there in 1953, the Dutch launched a massive project to upgrade its infrastructure. The Associated Press reported that the most critical piece of the project cost today’s equivalent of $3.1 billion—one half of one percent of the tax cuts the Bush administration delivered to the richest 1 percent of America.

The difference between the Netherlands’ prudent investments and our government’s tax-cuts-before-everything policies can be seen in the most basic comparisons. USA Today reported that “few levees anywhere in the [United States] are built to more than a 100-year standard—capable of withstanding a flood so bad that its probability of occurring is once in a 100 years.” Better-funded Dutch levees, by contrast, are built to a 1,250-year standard. And while the Netherlands’ infrastructure is built to withstand some of the strongest storms, the New York Times reported in September 2005 that “Congress authorized a flood control system to handle only a Category 3 storm”—most likely to save on cost. Additionally, “as a result of federal budget constraints” (that came as the Bush administration was handing out ever-increasing numbers of tax breaks) the flood walls that broke during Katrina “were never tested” and never built to the strength experts made clear was necessary.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION VIOLATED LAW BY BUYING P.R.

What? Republicans committing crimes? Who would ever have thought that? Auditors from the General Accounting Office found that the Bush administration broke the law by paying a public relations firm to analyze perceptions of the Republican party. This is our tax money being used to propagandize us. This article by Robert Pear is at www.nytimes.com:

Federal auditors said today that the Bush administration had violated the law by purchasing favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" inside the United States, in violation of a longstanding, explicit statutory ban.

The contract with Mr. Williams and the general contours of the administration's public relations campaign had been known for months. The report today provided the first definitive ruling on the legality of the activities.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2005

SCREW US NOW AND SCREW US LATER

When Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf he outlined his plans for world conquest. At the time no one wanted to take Hitler seriously. Grover Norquist, a major force in the Republican party, has said he wants to shrink government to the size where it can be drowned in a bathtub. We're seeing that plan in operation. The Bush administration has run up massive deficits, mostly to give tax cuts to the rich. To offset some of those deficits they want to gut programs that benefit the middle class and the poor. What the cuts won't accomplish they will pass on to future generations. It's the rotten government that just keeps on taking. This article by John Atcheson is at www.informationclearinghouse.info:

But if the imperative for the K Street consortium is to simultaneously shrink government and provide corporate Pork, how do the Republicans propose paying for it?

Easy. First, cut programs that benefit people, to help fund the pork. As Jonathon Weisman reported in the Washington Post, over the next several months, Republicans will try to cut Medicaid growth by $10 billion, trim $7 billion from the Student Loan program, sell out ANWR for $2.4 billion in oil revenue; cut the food stamp program by $600 million, among other cuts.

Of course, no matter how much you screw the people, you can’t afford to give rich people massive tax cuts while you give trillions to industry. So, the second part of their strategy is to simply pass on the inevitable bill to our children. If the K Street Consortium implements their policy agenda, in ten years, every child born in the US will "inherit" $36,000 of additional debt.

BUSH CARES ONLY ABOUT THE RICH

No matter how he may try to disguise it, George W. Bush and his administration have nothing but contempt for those of us not in the capitalist class. He has demonstrated it his whole life. When he was at Harvard he sneered that people were poor because they were lazy. He got his daddy to pull strings to get him into the Texas Air National Guard so he could avoid going to Vietnam. Others, not well-connected, went to Vietnam and died or came back maimed. Mr. Bush could snort cocaine and be an alcoholic, but as Governor of Texas was only too happy to send drug offenders to lengthy prison terms He and his cohorts orchestrated the theft of a presidential election in 2000. He has recently tried to snooker us with a plan to privatize Social Security. He is willing to slash programs that benefit the poor and middle class so that he continue doling out big bucks to people who are already obscenely rich. In this column Joan Vennochi looks at this facade of a man who stole the presidency. The column is at www.boston.com:

Where in the president's call for sacrifice is any sense that he now understands the disconnect between his policies and better government, responsive to all, not just the wealthy few? Where in his call for sacrifice is any sense that he is in this post-Katrina-Rita mess with the rest of us?

Bush and his father may get gussied up like cowpokes every so often so the press corps will think they are self-made men. But more Americans understand a Bush administration operates the federal government as a wholly owned subsidiary of America's capitalist class. Bush has nothing but disdain for those clinging desperately to society's bottom rungs. And Bush's weak call for our sacrifice shows disdain for those clinging to the middle rungs, too.

The simple truth: Making an actual sacrifice is less painful than listening to Bush talk about it.

ALTERNATIVE TO OIL

In this commentary David Sirota talks about a process where coal can be converted into fuel. The process was more expensive than oil before oil reached $35 a barrel. Now that oil has surpassed that mark this process might be worth a look. The column is at www.huffingtonpost.com:

Case in point is the Bush administration's unwillingness to show some leadership on coal-to-oil technology. Right now, America has billions of tons of coal that could be quickly and cleanly converted into fuel - fuel that burns far more cleanly than any used today. The process used to convert the coal, called Fischer-Tropsch, has been around since the 1920s, and has been used by countries who (for various political/economic reasons) can't import oil.

The reason why Fischer-Tropsch hasn't been used more widely over the years is because it is only profitable when crude oil prices go above about $35 a barrel. But now, with oil above $60, few think it will ever go back down below the Fischer-Tropsch profit point. That means America has a golden (but as-yet-untapped) opportunity to use its own resources to both improve the environment with a cleaner fuel, and get us off foreign oil. Additionally, the process produces hydrogen that can be stored as fuel for a future hydrogen economy when that technology develops, and it creates electricity as a byproduct.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2005

CORRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

On the day that a Texas grand jury indicted House Majority Leader Tom Leader it's worth remembering all the endemic corruption in the Republican party. This is the party that deliberately stole a presidential election in 2000 and probably repeated the theft in the 2004 election. This is the party that sees opportunity and big bucks in lying us into a war so big corporations can rake in big bucks as war profiteers. This is the party that is exploiting a tragedy in the Gulf Coast so big corporations can make big bucks again and so that Republicans can ram through crackpot ideas like school vouchers. This is a party with a history of corruption. Think of the administrations of Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan-George Bush, and now the worst of them all, George W. Bush. Molly Ivins talks about the horrific consequences of corruption that we see after Hurricane Katrina. The commentary is at www.workingforchange.com:

Look, this is rank, nasty business -- corruption, cronyism and competence (the lack thereof) are the issues here. And as we have so recently and so painfully been reminded, when government is run by corrupt, incompetent cronies, real people pay a real price. There is nothing abstract about swollen bodies floating in flooded streets or dozens of old people dead in nursing homes.

Frankly, it's just a mercy most of Houston didn't drown in a giant traffic jam last week. Already, the corporate vultures are moving in -- contracts are arranged through people like Joe Allbaugh, the former FEMA director who brought in his old buddy Michael ("Heckuva job, Brownie") Brown to run the agency.

CONSERVATION SHOULD START WITH BUSH

I remember all too well how right-wingers mocked Jimmy Carter for proposing that we conserve energy and get away from the use of fossil fuels. President Carter even put solar collectors on the roof of the White House, which Ronald Reagan promptly removed. Now, after saying we should consume, consume, consume fossil fuels George W. Bush is advocating conservation. Unfortunately, he still wheels around in the fuel hog Air Force One as he goes from photo-op to photo-op. He still rides around in a big limousine that is hardly fuel efficient. So maybe Mr. Bush should try some conservation of his own. Maureen Dowd writes about the clueless White House in this column linked at groups.google.com:

I can't wait to see what's next.

Dick Cheney carpooling downtown with Brownie? Rummy Rollerblading down
the bike path to the Pentagon? Condi huddling by a Watergate fireplace
in a gray cardigan?

Maybe now that our hydrocarbon president is the conservation president,
he'll downgrade from Air Force One to a solar-powered Piper Cub as he
continues to stalk the Gulf Coast towns and oil rigs like Banquo's
ghost.

The once disciplined and swaggering Bush administration has descended
into slapstick, more comical even than having Clarence Thomas et al.
sit in judgment as Anna Nicole Smith attempts to get more of the moolah
of her late oil tycoon husband.

A WHOLE NEW CONNOTATION FOR "BROWNIE"

It used to be when you heard the word "Brownie" you thought of a chocolate snack or maybe a girl scout troupe. Now, thanks to former FEMA Director Michael Brown, we will associate "Brownie" with gross incompetence and corruption. In this column Paul Krugman examines all the links to corruption in the Bush administration from the General Services Administration to ties with super lobbyist Jack Abramhoff. The column is linked at call2action.blogspot.com:

A tipster urged me to look for Brownies among regional administrators for the General Services Administration, which oversees federal property and leases. There are several potential ways a position at G.S.A. could be abused. For example, an official might give a particular businessman an inside track in the purchase of government property - the charge against David Safavian, who was recently arrested - or give a particular landlord an inside track in renting space to federal agencies.

Some of the regional administrators at G.S.A. are longtime professionals. But the regional administrator for the Northeast and Caribbean region, which includes New York, has no obvious qualifications other than being the daughter of the chairman of the Conservative Party of New York State. The regional administrator for the Southwest, appointed in 2002 after a failed bid for his father's Congressional seat, is Scott Armey, the son of Dick Armey, the former House majority leader.

SEPTEMBER 27, 2005

THE FEAR OUT THERE

For most of the time since he stole the presidency George W. Bush has used fear as a tactical weapon. He has kept Americans ramped up with fear about a terrorist attack like the one we suffered on September 11. He ratcheted up fear about non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while letting Osama bin Laden, mastermind of 9/11, escape. He has allowed North Korea to become a nuclear threat to us, and his policies encourage nuclear proliferation. Now fear is boomeranging on the Bush administration. People saw the callousness and inept response to Hurricane Katrina. They see an economy that is shot full of holes. It benefits the very rich and is leaving most of us gasping in the dust. So, like his father before him, Mr. Bush sees a record drop in consumer confidence. This story by the Associated Press is at msnbc.msn.com:

Consumer confidence plummeted almost 19 points in September, its biggest drop in 15 years, as Americans worried about the economic fallout of Hurricane Katrina and rising gasoline prices.

The Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index, compiled from a survey of U.S. households, dropped 18.9 points to 86.6, from a revised reading of 105.5.

BUSH'S CHAIN OF DISASTER

George W. Bush didn't heed the warnings that a major terrorist attack was being planned against the United States, including a Presidential Daily Briefing that flatly stated, "Bin Laden determined to strike in the United States." Then Bush attacked Afghanistan, supposedly to capture or kill the people responsible for September 11, and allowed them to escape. Rather than continuing the pursuit of Osama bin Laden, Bush launched a war against Iraq, even though Iraq was no threat to the United States. He didn't commit enough troops to Iraq or equip them properly. He pushed through massive tax cuts for his rich friends even in the midst of two wars. Then he didn't fund repair of the levees in New Orleans, even though there were warnings the levees wouldn't survive a major hurricane. Because the war in Iraq wasn't the cakewalk Bush and company predicted, National Guardsmen have been sent to Iraq, meaning they aren't here at home to deal with natural disasters. Equipment that could have been used to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina is in Iraq. It just goes on and on. This story by Stacy Bannerman is at seattlepi.nwsource.com:

Hurricane Katrina blew apart President Bush's rickety arguments about how invading Iraq would make us safe.

We don't know Hurricane Katrina's death toll, or how many Americans might have lived had the thousands of National Guard troops trained to help in the wake of hurricanes and floods not been protecting oil in the desert.

But we know 35 percent of Louisiana's and 40 percent of Mississippi's National Guard troops were in Iraq while their towns were leveled. National Guard officers repeatedly had warned officials about the catastrophic impact of having so many Guardsmen deployed in the event of a major natural disaster.

LEADING THE INDUSTRIALIZED WORLD IN POVERTY

In Republican land there are no real poor people in the United States. I've heard arguments that people who own VCR's or drive rickety old cars aren't really poor. Or Republicans will take another approach and claim that anyone poor in the United States is there because of being lazy, on drugs, or suffering from some other moral failing. George W. Bush, while at Harvard, once remarked that poor people are lazy. There's something especially galling about a rich punk who inherited his wealth making judgments about other people. In this article Katrina vanden Huevel looks at the issue of poverty in the United States. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

America's claim to shame is that it has the highest level of poverty in the industrialized world. Bush's four and a half years of trickle-down theories have failed miserably. The poor have become even poorer. The nation's poverty rate has climbed from a 27 year low of 11.3 percent to 12.7 percent last year. Thirty seven million Americans are living below the poverty line, a group so large, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter pointed out in a post-Katrina cover article, that it amounts to "a nation of poor people the size of Canada or Morocco living inside the United States."

Bush may talk about addressing poverty in this rich nation, but his coldhearted agenda has made the problems much more pronounced. His administration gave a massive tax break to corporations and the wealthiest individuals in his first term; since then, despite evidence of rising income inequalities, a growing sea of red ink, and $200 billion needed to fight the war in Iraq and another $200 billion we will spend to rebuild the Gulf region, Bush has ruled out repealing any of his tax cuts for the rich.(And this while household incomes failed to rise for five consecutive years--for the first time on record.)

SEPTEMBER 26, 2005

BUSH GIVES BUSINESS A BAD NAME

If you judged business strictly from observing George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and other CEO types in this administration you would conclude that businessmen care only about short-term profits at the expense of the environment, the social fabric, and the future of the country. There are undoubtedly businessmen who are honest, visionary, and care about their community, both locally and globally, and they should step up and denounce this administration. This article by David Olive is at www.thestar.com:

The legacy of the Bush administration may well be that government can no longer be entrusted to business people.

That would be a shame, given that business savants as varied as Kennedy treasury secretary Douglas Dillon and Silicon Valley legend Dave Packard served ably in Washington.

Many of the most prominent CEOs in the current administration aren't real business people at all, but faux CEOs who after a lifetime in politics cashed in on brief stints as trophy CEOs at Fortune 500 firms before returning to public life in George W. Bush's White House.

RELIGIOUS BLOODLUST

All the major religions have their passages calling for mercy, forgiveness, and love. But they contain far too many passages dealing with violence, death, punishment, and damnation. Religious fundamentalists tend to seize on the punitive parts of religion and ignore all the parts about compassion. And that makes them very dangerous. In this commentary Bill Moyers talks about the dangers of politics and religion. The article is at www.informationclearinghouse.info:

The radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America’s great political parties-the country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is-and they are driving American politics, using God as a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on.

They have brought intensity, organization, and anger to the public square. They use the language of faith to demonize political opponents, mislead and misinform voters, censor writers and artists, ostracize dissenters, and marginalize the poor. These are the foot soldiers in a political holy war financed by wealthy economic interests and guided by savvy partisan operatives who know that couching political ambition in religious rhetoric can ignite the passion of followers.

MAYBE THE RED CROSS ISN'T BENEVOLENT

If the mention of any organization's name would make you feel warm and fuzzy it would probably be the American Red Cross. The Red Cross is there providing aid and comfort at scenes of devastation such as Hurricane Katrina. But this article turns a different light on the Red Cross, an organization that rakes in big bucks and also gets money from the government, an organization that solicits blood donations and then sells the donated blood. The article by Richard M. Walden is at www.commondreams.org:

The Red Cross brand is platinum. Its fundraising vastly outruns its programs because it does very little or nothing to rescue survivors, provide direct medical care or rebuild houses. After 9/11, the Red Cross collected more than $1 billion, a record in philanthropic fundraising after a disaster. But the Red Cross could do little more than trace missing people, help a handful of people in shelters and provide food to firefighters, police, paramedics and evacuation crews during that catastrophe.

When New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer asked for documentation of 9/11 expenditures, the Red Cross' response was that it is federally chartered and not answerable to state government regulators. The clamor rose, however, when the media began dissecting Red Cross activities in the 9/11 aftermath. This resulted in the resignation of the organization's president and chief executive, Dr. Bernadine Healy, and the appointment of ex-Sen. George Mitchell (D-Maine) to oversee its 9/11 fund and help clean up its image. Funds were then pushed out the door — including millions to New York limo drivers who said they lost income after 9/11, and to upscale residents of lower Manhattan to help pay their utility bills.

SEPTEMBER 25, 2005

MORE ON WESTCO EQUITIES

Fresno has a property management company called WestCo Equities. Like many of these companies, they "manage" properties for absentee landlords. My experiences with WestCo have included annual rent increases (one time it was $70 in just six months), a constant list of rules that make living in the complex more like being a prisoner than a renter, and now harassment.

Lest someone say, "Why don't you just move?" my response is that it's not so simple sometimes. You have to possess money for deposits and first month rents and a number of other issues. The free market isn't as free as some would suggest.

WestCo constantly wants access to your apartment for "inspections," whether to check the smoke detector or the A/C filters or whatever. I think the "inspections" are more for snooping purposes than for any legitimate inspection. For example, their filter "inspection" consists of leaving a filter that you have to install yourself. Their onsite manager has office hours of 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday. During that time the office is closed one hour for lunch. It makes it virtually impossible for you to see the manager if you work a typical schedule, and then the office is closed on weekends. So, as I've said before, I wouldn't recommend renting any apartment managed by this Big Brother company.

BUSH'S SHAM GOVERNMENT

The Hurricane Katrina disaster brought into sharp focus that you need qualified professionals in government, especially in agencies like FEMA where competence is a matter of life and death. But competence has not been important to George W. Bush. He has stocked the government with lackies who get the jobs mostly because they are loyal to Bush, not because they bring any sense of duty or competence to the job. Bush likes hard-nosed political operatives like Karl Rove, who can stage manage a presidency and divert attention from the American public while our civil liberties get stripped away and corporations get enriched. In this editorial The New York Times talks about the Bush administration's dedication to low expectations for most of us. The editorial is at www.nytimes.com:

Throughout his campaigns in 2000 and 2004, George W. Bush talked about "the soft bigotry of low expectations": the mind-set that tolerates poor school performance and dead-end careers for minority students on the presumption that they are incapable of doing better. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said recently that this phrase attracted her to Mr. Bush more than anything else.

It was, indeed, a brilliant encapsulation of so much of what is wrong with American education. But while Mr. Bush has been worrying about low expectations in schools, he's been ratcheting the bar downward himself on almost everything else.

The president's recent schedule of nonstop disaster-scene photo-ops is reminiscent of the principal of a failing school who believes he's doing a great job because he makes it a point to drop in on every class play and teacher retirement party. And if there ever was an exhibit of the misguided conviction that for some people very little is good enough, it's the current administration spin that the proposed Iraqi constitution is fine because the founding fathers didn't give women equal rights either.

BUSH IS BREAKING SOCIAL CONTRACT

George W. Bush and members of his administration believe they are entitled to their positions of power and that they are entitled to do whatever they want, regardless of the will of the people. For example, a majority of Americans want us out of the loathsome war in Iraq, but Bush insists he will continue the bloodbath. Most
Americans want to protect the pristine environment in ANWR, but Bush and his oil company cronies want to drill there. Most Americans favor addresssing issues about global climate change, but Bush and company dismiss evidence for global warming and drag their feet. The relationship between the American people and the government is that government derives its power from consent of the governed, and Bush has shattered that contract. In this article MICHAEL IGNATIEFF writes about the broken contract. The article is at www.nytimes.com:

A contract of citizenship defines the duties of care that public officials owe to the people of a democratic society. The Constitution defines some parts of this contract, and statutes define other parts, but much of it is a tacit understanding that citizens have about what to expect from their government. Its basic term is protection: helping citizens to protect their families and possessions from forces beyond their control. Let's not suppose this contract is uncontroversial. American politics is a furious argument about what should be in the contract and what shouldn't be. But there is enough agreement, most of the time, about what the contract contains for America to hold together as a political community. When disasters strike, they test whether the contract is respected in a citizen's hour of need. When the levees broke, the contract of American citizenship failed.

SEPTEMBER 24, 2005

BUSH TAX CUTS ACTUALLY RAISE TAXES ON MIDDLE CLASS

"Tax cut" is one of the mantras repeated by right-wingers and the Bush administration. It's the panacea for whatever ails you. What the Bush tax cutters didn't tell us was that their "cuts" would cause the alternative minimum tax to kick in for millions of middle class taxpayers and actually increase their tax burden. This article by David Cay Johnston is at www.nytimes.com:

Over the next 10 years, Americans will not receive nearly $750 billion in tax cuts sponsored by President Bush because the cuts will be offset by the alternative minimum tax, a new report by Congressional tax specialists shows.

The report, prepared by the staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, said that from 2006 to 2015, Americans would pay as much as $1.1 trillion more under the alternative minimum tax, partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts.

The Bush tax cuts reduced the bill for millions of taxpayers to a level that will subject them to the alternative minimum tax instead of the standard tax rate. As a result, the report said, their tax savings would be reduced by a total of $739.2 billion over the 10 years.

CORPORATE CALLOUSNESS MENTALITY

Back in 1973 there was a problem with the Chevy Malibu. If the car was hit in a particular way, the fuel tank would explode and fire would engulf the occupants. So General Motors did a cost-benefit analysis and concluded it would be less expensive to pay out judgments in lawsuits than to correct the problem. There's something really wrong when profits take precedence over saving lives. The same logic applies to the policies of the Bush administration. Patricia Goldsmith writes about it in this article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

In a 1973 court case involving General Motors, documents showed that a GM engineer had created a cost-benefit analysis to decide whether or not to correct a serious defect in the company's Malibu model. The analyst calculated that GM would pay $200,000 in legal costs for each of the projected 500 lives lost each year due to the defect. Fixing the defect, the study showed, would be more expensive than paying the costs of litigation. [1] So they didn't fix it.

GM had repositioned the fuel tank to cut costs. In most accidents, it didn't matter. But when the car was hit in a certain way, fuel-fed fires resulted. The defendants in the case in question suffered "horrible and disfiguring second- and third-degree burns. . . . Three of the children were burned over 60 percent of their bodies, and one of them had to have her hand amputated."

COMPETENCE MATTERS

It's hard to believe a lot of people voted for George W. Bush because he seemed like a guy they'd want to have a beer with. First, that was never going to happen, and standards for the President of the United States should be much higher. When you choose a lawyer or financial adviser or doctor you want someone who is skilled and professional. Why do we relax that standard for the man who holds the fate of millions in his hands? Bob Herbert talks about it in this column linked at www.truthout.org:

There is a general sense now that things are falling apart. The economy was already faltering before Katrina hit. Gasoline prices are starting to undermine the standard of living of some Americans, and a full-blown home-heating-oil crisis could erupt this winter. The administration's awful response to the agony of the Gulf Coast has left most Americans believing that we are not prepared to cope with a large terrorist attack. And Osama bin Laden is still at large.

This is what happens when voters choose a president because he seems like a nice guy, like someone who'd be fun at a barbecue or a ballgame. You'd never use that criterion when choosing a surgeon, or a pilot to fly your family across the country.

Mr. Bush will be at the helm of the ship of state for three more years, so we have no choice but to hang on. But the next time around, voters need to keep in mind that beyond the incessant yammering about left and right, big government and small, Democrats and Republicans, is a more immediate issue, and that's competence.

SEPTEMBER 23, 2005

BUSH EVEN BLAMES REAGAN FOR 9/11

George W. Bush finds a way to always pass the buck. Now he's laying the blame for 9/11 on Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and, of course, Bill Clinton. According to Bush, those presidents' restraint in using massive military force sent a message to terrorists that we were "weak." I wonder, then, why the attack on 9/11, when the tough macho Bush administration was in power, took place. If those previous presidents sent such a wrong message, why didn't the attack happen on their watches? This article by Warren Vieth is at www.latimes.com:

President Bush said Thursday that mistakes made by three of his predecessors, including the Reagan administration's restraint after the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon, had emboldened terrorists and helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks.

Bush said he was determined not to repeat the pattern by pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq before the insurgency there is contained and Iraqi forces are able to provide adequate security.

BEING POOR IN REPUBLICAN AMERICA

In Republican land you're only poor if you're lazy or shiftless or on drugs. It can't be because there are little things like racial and gender discrimination. It can't be because wages are miserly while CEOs live like emperors. It can't be because all the basic costs of living go up and up while wages remain stagnant. This article by Kevin Drum is at www.washingtonmonthly.com:

THE REPUBLICAN WAR ON THE POOR....As it turns out, the Republican Study Committee's list of proposed spending cuts is — aside from some humorous arithmetic errors — mostly just a standard conservative wish list, and not a very serious one at that. What's more, as Joel Achenbach points out, a huge part of it is nothing more than the usual attacks on the poor, including a total (by my count) of $477 billion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts.

Achenbach also points out another conservative hobbyhorse that I noticed as well: "Verify Income of Earned Income Tax Credit Participants." Talk about a blast from the past! The EITC is a way of boosting the incomes of the working poor, one that actually works pretty well, so naturally it's been a conservative target for years. In the mid 90s, just after Newt Gingrich came to power and shortly before the famous IRS show trials orchestrated by Senator William Roth (short version: IRS agents = jackbooted thugs), Bill Clinton caved in to pressure from Republicans who were supposedly concerned about EITC "abuse" and approved a $100 million program to audit EITC recipients.

NOW FRIST MIRED IN SCANDAL

Scandals, scandals everywhere in Republican land. You almost get scandal fatigue We know that House Majority Leader Tom DeLay should probably be indicted, convicted, and sent to prison for various shady deals. George W. Bush should probably be prosecuted for insider trading when he was on the board of Harken Energy, not to mention various other things. Dick Cheney is up to his eyeballs with Halliburton and the massive ripoffs Halliburton has pulled on American taxpayers. Now we learn that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist--gasp!--might be involved in insider trading. This article by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) held on to his shares of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) through thick and thin. When people said it might be a conflict of interest for him to have millions of dollars invested in the largest for-profit hospital chain in America while he presided over legislation affecting the medical industry, he stood firm. He would not sell under any circumstance - that is, of course, unless he got wind of a negative earnings report that was about to come out.

Two weeks before HCA announced their disappointing earnings on July 13, 2005, Senator Frist finally decided to sell all of his shares in the company. What a coincidence, because as luck would have it the earnings news led to the stock of the company dropping 15%.

SEPTEMBER 22, 2005

RIGHT WING LABORATORY IN THE GULF

Iraq has been used as a laboratory for right-wing ideas and now they want to do the same thing in the Gulf Coast. Frankenstein had nothing on these monsters. This article by Julian Borger is at www.commondreams.org:

The White House has argued that the deregulation measures are designed to disentangle the relief effort from federal red tape. But Democrats are furious at the proposals. They view them as an attempt to slip through unpopular policies under cover of the wave of sympathy for Katrina's victims. "The plan they're designing for the Gulf coast turns the region into a vast laboratory for rightwing ideological experiments," said John Kerry, the party's defeated 2004 presidential candidate.

Conservative commentators see the measures as an opportunity to reverse federal entitlement programmes dating back to Franklin Roosevelt's that they argue ingrain poverty by encouraging dependency on the government. "The objection to these Bush proposals isn't fiscal, but philosophical," Rich Lowry, an editor on the National Review magazine, wrote. "They serve to undermine the principle of government dependency that underpins the contemporary welfare state, and to which liberals are utterly devoted."

LOW WAGES, ALWAYS

Even though we have had little inflation until now, the Federal Reserve has been relentlessly raising interest rates. Every time the Fed raises rates it hits people who have variable loans, either home loans or credit cards, and it drives up the cost of credit everywhere. It dampens hiring and growth, which seems to be the way Alan Greenspan and company like it. This article by Randolph T. Holhut is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

No, in Greenspan's mind, inflation is the threat. So this week, for the 11th time since June 2004, the Federal Reserve raised its short-term interest rates.

This is turn drives up the cost of credit for consumers - higher credit card interest rates, higher home equity loans, higher mortgages. A nation already overextended in debt gets another kick in the wallet.

But that doesn't matter to Greenspan and the Fed. As long as economic growth is sufficiently restrained to keep wages low and price growth minimal, who cares who gets hurt? Just keep the financial markets safe.

A rise in the Gross Domestic Product doesn't mean much if your expenses - particularly your energy costs - are rising faster than your salary.

KATRINA NOT ONLY DEFICIT PROBLEM

Hurricane Katrina has brought several issues into stark focus: racism, poverty, and federal deficits, among them. Many in the political establishment have asked how we can pay the costs of rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina, but the issue of federal deficits should be of concern even without Katrina. It's like the mammoth rock that chased Indiana Jones through the cave. It's gaining on us and threatening to crush us. This article by Gene Sperling is at www.motherjones.com:

Consider the following: prior to Katrina, Goldman Sachs estimated that the next 10 years – which had been projected to be surplus years when Bush took office – will now see a cumulative deficit of $4.75 trillion. Projections from Economy.com came in lower, but still over $4 trillion, while the bipartisan Concord Coalition had projected an even higher $5.7 trillion deficit. It is this dramatic swing from projected 10-year surpluses of over $5 trillion to near $5 trillion deficits – and not the one-time costs of Katrina – which poses the most serious threat to global economic stability, our long-term national savings rates, and our ability to address Medicare and Social Security, while still investing in our children. Simply finding one-time savings to pay for the one-time costs of Katrina just means that Goldman Sachs’ estimate will stay at $4.75 trillion and not $5 trillion. Not a staggering accomplishment.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2005

CHRISTIAN COALITION FADING FAST

Wonder if they offended God somehow? The once influential Christian Coalition is mired in debt and fading rapidly, according to this article. Now let's hope the same thing happens to some other right-wing groups. This article by Lee Bandy is at www.thestate.com:

Rocked by financial debt, lawsuits and the loss of experienced political leaders, the Christian Coalition has become a pale imitation of its once-powerful self.

Some say the group — now based in Charleston and headed by a South Carolinian — is on life support, having been eclipsed by higher-profile, better-funded groups such as Focus on the Family.

“The coalition as we knew it doesn’t exist,” says Lois Eargle, former chairwoman of the Horry County Christian Coalition.

DOES KATRINA PORTEND THE FUTURE?

Hurricane Katrina just happened and now another monster hurricane is ravaging the Gulf Coast. I wonder how many right-wingers will continue to mock environmentalists and claim that global climate change is a myth. In this article Richard Steiner talks about what we can learn--or not learn--from Hurricane Katrina that may impact the future of the human race. This article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

Herein may lie our potential evolutionary downfall -- our modern inability to act decisively and cooperatively to avert certain disaster.

In this way, Katrina may provide -- in fast-forward microcosm -- a vision of the very future of Homo sapiens itself. The transcendent lesson of this perfect storm may be that the natural environment is ignored only at our own peril. As Katrina swept away lives and life-support systems on the Gulf Coast, the tragedy may give focus to the deteriorating condition of the essential environmental services the planet provides for the health and welfare of all 6.5 billion of us -- air, freshwater, food, shelter, energy, medicines, nutrient recycling, waste processing, enjoyment, etc.

History is littered with fallen civilizations that ignored their deteriorating environmental condition -- the Anasazi, Maya, Greenland Norse, Easter Islanders, etc. And like Exxon Valdez, Chernobyl and Bhopal, Katrina will now take its place in history as one of the seminal, time-compressed disasters that provide an overnight glimpse of the long-term degradation of the life-support systems of our home planet.

THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT BUSH SAYS

You should not take anything George W. Bush or members of his administration say at face value. In fact, you should assume just the opposite is true. In his photo-op from New Orleans Bush made all kinds of happy sounds about fighting poverty and racism. In the meantime, he and his administration are going in the opposite direction. This commentary by Matthew Rothschild is at www.progressive.org:

Forget about Bush’s words. Watch his actions.

For all of Bush’s pious pronouncements last week about his concern for racism and poverty on the Gulf Coast, he’s already taken steps that belie that concern.

If he’s so worried about poverty, why did he lift the requirement that government contractors pay the prevailing wage on construction jobs?

If he’s so worried about racism, why did he lift the requirement that government contractors have an affirmative action plan in place?

The answer is obvious. He isn’t worried about poverty or racism. He’s worried about helping out his friends in the business community.

That the disaster vultures like Halliburton are already feasting on Katrina is shameless enough.

SEPTEMBER 20, 2005

DON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN

In one of the malapropisms he's famous for George W. Bush once said, "Don't get fooled again." That should be the motto of every American listening to all the promises Mr. Bush makes. There were the lies about Iraq, for instance, and the promises that Iraq would be rebuilt and turned into a model of democracy. Hasn't happened. Now we hear all kinds of promises for rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Don't believe it. Bob Herbert writes about Bush in his column linked at www.startribune.com:

The country has put its faith in Bush many times before, and come up empty. It may be cynical, but my guess is that if we believe him again this time, we're going to end up on our collective keisters, just like Charlie Brown, who could never stop himself from kicking mightily at empty space, which was all that was left each time Lucy snatched the ball away.

In March 2003, in another nationally televised address, the president told us we had no choice but to go to war with Iraq because Saddam Hussein was sitting on "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

ANOTHER BEE JAW DROPPER

Sometimes when you see letters to the Fresno Bee from the rabid right you have to wonder if it's tongue in cheek. Today is a good example. The correspondent makes the astounding claim that what Bush does in the Gulf Coast will be a "blow to liberalism." George W. Bush has been the greatest case for liberalism since Herbert Hoover. He is proof positive that conservatism is about crony capitalism, greed, and exploitation. We have seen surpluses turned into massive deficits under Bush. We have seen civil liberties being ripped away from us. We have seen poverty on the increase. Most people in the middle class are losing ground and lurking dangerously near being poor. Over forty million U.S. citizens have no health insurance. We have seen government ineptitude at an unprecedented level. Yeah, a real "blow to liberalism."

BUSH'S STAGED PRESIDENCY

It wouldn't be accurate to say that George W. Bush's presidency is all show and no substance. It's just that the substance, like the toxic waters in New Orleans, is corrosive. But Bush's handlers have been masterful at photo-ops. They have shown Bush against the backdrop of Mt. Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty. They just finished the photo-op in New Orleans showing Bush against the backdrop of a cathedral, while carefully screening out the devastated parts of New Orleans It's past time for Americans to stop being diverted by the photo-ops and look around at the reality. This article by Pierre Tristam is at www.smirkingchimp.com:

The evening of Oct. 7, 2001, Bush announced the war on Afghanistan in an address to the nation from the White House Treaty Room, with a painting of President McKinley presiding over ceremonies ending the Spanish-American War. McKinley, of course, launched America's 20th century empire. For the first anniversary of the 2001 attacks, the White House planted Bush on Ellis Island, with the Statue of Liberty looming over his shoulder, and rented three barges-full of stadium lights to illuminate the statue during the evening address to the nation. The statue was off-limits at the time, and would remain so until 2004. For a speech from Mt. Rushmore the following summer, the president's podium was set in such a way as to align Bush's profile along that of Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Lincoln. Only God was missing (hold on to your kerchiefs).

SEPTEMBER 19, 2005

NOW THEY WANT THOSE IMMIGRANTS

It has been fashionable in California to bash illegal immigrants. Former Governor Pete Wilson shamelessly and cynically exploited prejudice against illegal immigrants to further his own political career with Proposition 187. Republicans such as Pat Buchanan have been almost openly racist against Latino immigrants. Now, though, the Central Valley agricultural industry finds itself in a crunch because there aren't enough farm workers as the raisin crop is due for harvest. This article by George Rains is at www.sfgate.com:

It's the middle of harvest season for California raisin grapes, and only half of the farmworkers needed are in the fields.

What holds for raisin grapes is happening widely in California agriculture. In the Central Valley alone, there is a shortage of from 70,000 to 80,000 workers to bring fresh fruits, nuts and vegetables to market, according to an estimate by the trade association Western Growers.

ONE BILLION DOLLARS MISSING IN IRAQ

Whenever the Bush administration is involved money has a way of disappearing. We know that projected surpluses left by the Clinton administration have long since gone with the wind. We know that Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company, has profited handsomely from being in Iraq. Now we learn that a billion dollars is missing from the Iraq Defense Ministry, leaving the country virtually incapable of defending itself against the so-called insurgency. This is either theft on a grand scale, or incompetence on a grand scale, take your pick. This article by Patrick Cockburn is at www.commondreams.org:

One billion dollars has been plundered from Iraq's defence ministry in one of the largest thefts in history, The Independent can reveal, leaving the country's army to fight a savage insurgency with museum-piece weapons.

The money, intended to train and equip an Iraqi army capable of bringing security to a country shattered by the US-led invasion and prolonged rebellion, was instead siphoned abroad in cash and has disappeared.

"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi, Iraq's Finance Minister, told The Independent.

"Huge amounts of money have disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."

The carefully planned theft has so weakened the army that it cannot hold Baghdad against insurgent attack without American military support, Iraqi officials say, making it difficult for the US to withdraw its 135,000- strong army from Iraq, as Washington says it wishes to do.

THE U.S. AS FANTASY LAND

There's nothing wrong with dreaming, as long as the dreams are based in some sort of reality. Some of the great ideas and inventions have come from people who dared to dream and sometimes almost obsessively pursued those dreams. But you fear that too many Americans live in a dream world that is becoming dangerous to our survival. The belief that a free market will make them rich, or the fantasy that global warming isn't happening, or that "intelligent design" should be taught on an equal par with evolutionary theory are dangerous impediments to our progress. In this commentary Katha Pollit looks at the way the religious right has thrown reality out the window. The commentary is at www.thenation.com:

For decades the right has worked day and night to delegitimize concepts without which no society can thrive, or maybe even survive--the common good, social solidarity, knowledge and expertise, public service. God, abstinence and the market were supposed to solve all our problems. Bad news--climate change, rising poverty, racial and gender disparities, educational failure, the mess in Iraq--was just flimflam from liberals who hate freedom. Is there another world power that lives in such a fantasy world? Now, in old people left to drown in their nursing home beds, in police who reportedly demanded that young women stranded on rooftops bare their breasts in return for rescue, in the contempt for public safety shown by Bush's transformation of FEMA into a pasture for hapless cronies--we can all see what those fantasies obscured. A government that doesn't believe in government was a disaster waiting to happen.

SEPTEMBER 18, 2005

PARADOXES IN NATURE AND RELIGION

There is a new documentary film about penguins that the Christian Right actually likes. The film is reportedly very good, but what the fundamentalists like is that penguins seem to exemplify the "family values" they claim to represent. The problem is that penguins do not represent all of nature. There is a great deal of cruelty in nature. This little article shows some other facts about nature that wouldn't be as appealing to the fundamentalists. The article by Leader is at film.guardian.co.uk:

But surely the penguin is only one of God's works. Earth also has Bonobo chimps, whose jaw-dropping sexual athleticism would make Hugh Hefner blush; well-fed cats that cruelly toy with their prey; and praying mantises that eat their spouses. How do we know that these creatures do not point The Way? We don't, therefore we should remember the words of the film company executive responsible for March of the Penguins: 'You know what? They're just birds.'

SENSENBRENNER: MODEL OF REPUBLICANS

There's a truly vile Congressman named James Sensenbrenner who voted against aid for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and won't even hold hearings about giving relief to those victims from the despicable new bankruptcy law. The new law requires all kinds of documentation that the hurricane victims may not have because it was lost in flooding along the Gulf Coast. I really hope there is such a thing as karma for people like Sensenbrenner. This article by Martin H. Bosworth is at www.consumeraffairs.com:

Survivors of Hurricane Katrina who were hoping to avoid the weight of the new bankruptcy law may be out of luck. Representative F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has indicated he will not hold a hearing on waiving the law for purposes of disaster relief.

COMPETENCE AND INTEGRITY WOULD BE A NICE CHANGE

In 2000 the American people and the Supreme Court allowed the barbarians inside the gate. The Bush administration has been pillaging ever since. Unlike the Huns and Visigoths of old, the Bushies have the power of television and the blustering propaganda of AM radio to further their destruction. In the 2000 GOP convention the Bushies made sure to have black faces prominently on stage and showing up on TV. In the Hurricane Katrina disaster Mr. Bush has done photo-ops with black folk in an attempt to show he really does care about African-Americans. Frank Rich writes about Bush and the phony facade we've seen in this column at www.nytimes.com:

Like his father before him, Mr. Bush has squandered the huge store of political capital he won in a war. His Thursday-night invocation of "armies of compassion" will prove as worthless as the "thousand points of light" that the first President Bush bestowed upon the poor from on high in New Orleans (at the Superdome, during the 1988 G.O.P. convention). It will be up to other Republicans in Washington to cut through the empty words and image-mongering to demand effective action from Mr. Bush on the Gulf Coast and in Iraq, if only because their own political lives are at stake. It's up to Democrats, though they show scant signs of realizing it, to step into the vacuum and propose an alternative to a fiscally disastrous conservatism that prizes pork over compassion. If the era of Great Society big government is over, the era of big government for special interests is proving a fiasco. Especially when it's presided over by a self-styled C.E.O. with a consistent three-decade record of running private and public enterprises alike into a ditch.

What comes next? Having turned the page on Mr. Bush, the country hungers for a vision that is something other than either liberal boilerplate or Rovian stagecraft. At this point, merely plain old competence, integrity and heart might do.

BUSH'S RHETORIC AT THE U.N.

When he wasn't busily asking Condoleezza Rice's permission to go to the restroom George W. Bush was giving a speech to the United Nations that was filled with hypocrisy. From his speech, you would think Mr. Bush really was a compassionate and visionary leader. But, as usual, the rhetoric and the reality are quite different. In this article by Yifat Susskind there an examination of Bush's real record. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

On September 14, George W. Bush addressed a gathering of over 170 world leaders at the UN World Summit. His speech came in the wake of international outrage against the US for its attempts to derail the Summit's original purpose, which was to make progress on reducing global poverty. Given the disconnect between the President's words and deeds, we offer the following MADRE reality check on some of Bush's more egregious comments at the World Summit.

"Either hope will spread, or violence will spread-and we must take the side of hope."

As the world's biggest arms exporter, the US has clearly taken the side of violence. On Bush's watch, US arms sales have outpaced the second-largest arms dealer (Russia) two-to-one. More than half of these weapons went to governments known for human rights abuses against civilians, such as Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Colombia.[1]