MARCH 11, 2005

WE SHOULD SAY NO TO TORTURE

In his State of the Union address George W. Bush said, "Torture is never acceptable, nor do we hand over people to countries that do torture." We know that's a lie. The United States has regularly been handing over prisoners to other countries to be tortured in a process known as "extraordinary rendition." One of the most notorious instances was a Canadian citizen taken to Syria. He was tortured for about a month and the Syrians concluded he wasn't connected to terrorism in any way. The Los Angeles Times has an editorial at www.latimes.com:

The more haunting problem with Bush's war on terrorism remains the moral one: A nation that considers itself a beacon of freedom seems unable to practice the respect for law and human rights it ardently preaches to others.

BUSH'S PLAN FOR SOCIAL SECURITY IS WRONG. PERIOD.

Jonathan Chait writes about the call to be "open-minded" on George W. Bush's call for privatization of Social Security. No, a thousand times no. Bush is a destroyer. I'm immediately suspicious of anything he or Republicans tout as "reform." I don't trust any statistics they offer because usually they're as phony as a three dollar bill. Just look at the history of this administration. We were told huge tax cuts were needed to stimulate the economy and the ensuing tax revenue would more than compensate for any deficits. Now we have a Mt. Everest of debt. The Bushies lied about the cost of the prescription drug bill they sneaked through in the middle of the night. It's going to cost at least twice as much as originally claimed. Now we have this unbelievably awful bankruptcy bill sailing through Congress that will effectively destroy a safety net for poor and middle class Americans. This column is at www.latimes.com:

In the Social Security debate, apparently the worst thing anybody can say about you is that you've made up your mind. A Washington Post editorial writer penned an Op-Ed article praising "the thoughtful voice of a Democrat not reflexively opposed to personal accounts." Joe Lieberman's spokesman piously insists the Connecticut senator is "still in a listening and learning stage and keeping an open mind." Well, good for him. But I've read several books and many articles advocating Social Security privatization, and it still strikes me as a horrible idea. Can I stop listening and learning now? Or must I remain thoughtfully agnostic while the same unconvincing arguments are repeated ad nauseam, in the hope that another repetition will finally sway me?

THE LYING NEVER STOPS

George W. Bush and his cronies have broken all the rules. They did it in the way they got into the White House in 2000. They've done it by claiming a mandate when their guy got less votes than the other guy. Through their incompetence, they allowed the attacks on September 11 to occur, and they were able to turn that attack into a political asset. They lied about the reasons for a war with Iraq and so far they've gotten away with it. They took a relatively healthy economy and they've turned it into a wildly careening mess where we're dependent on foreign capital to keep the government afloat. They managed to disparage John Kerry's record in Vietnam while their own guy was less than honorable. Now they're even using government agencies such as Social Security to lie. Paul Krugman talks about it in his column at www.nytimes.com:

Social Security officials have been playing a clearly partisan role. James Lockhart, the deputy commissioner, has become a regular fixture at pro-privatization rallies - and has been dispensing misinformation. Last week Mr. Lockhart echoed a misrepresentation by President Bush of a statement in last year's report, telling the audience that each year that there are no changes to the program costs "hundreds of billions."

REMEMBERING THE HISTORY ON THE IRAQ WAR

It's easy to get caught up in the latest story being hawked by the media and forget important history. Today, for example, CNN was doing wall-to-wall coverage about the tragic shooting of a judge, a court reporter, and a deputy in Atlanta, Georgia. Tragic as that story is, the war in Iraq is an ongoing tragedy. We're nearing the two-year anniversary of the war that should never have been launched. The rationales that George W. Bush and his administration have offered for the war have changed over the past two years. First, it was weapons of mass destruction. Then we started hearing about Saddam's human rights violations. Now we're hearing that Iraq is the fuse that will light democracy in the whole Middle East. This article by Joseph G. Galloway takes us back to the original reasons used to justify this obscene war. The article is at www.commondreams.org:

Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein? President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years.

Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003.

MARCH 10, 2005

BUSH HAS LEFT LOTS OF HOLES IN SECURITY AT HOME

The official and glitzy propaganda coming from the Bush administration is that democracy is on a roll in the Middle East. There are lots of reasons to question that. Even more, we should be questioning all the holes in domestic security (I hate the word "homeland"). The FBI hasn't even got a decently-operating computer system, we've been allowing people on terrorist watch lists to buy guns, we don't have enough people in the CIA and other agencies who speak languages like Farsi, and our security agencies may have been infiltrated by spies. Maureen Dowd has some thoughts at www.nytimes.com:

Every time we turn around, some administration official charged with our protection is claiming that it will take three more years, or five more, to fix something that should have been put in place right after 9/11 - or even 20 years ago.

The F.B.I. has abandoned its latest computer follies: the $170 million effort to upgrade the bureau's computer system so analysts can accomplish such difficult tasks as simultaneously searching for "aviation" and "schools." Now it's going to take at least three and a half years to develop a new system. Bill Gates has been donating computers and software to poor grade schools; maybe he could take pity on the poor F.B.I. and donate a system that works.

ITALIAN PRIME MINISTER QUESTIONS U.S. ACCOUNT IN JOURNALIST SHOOTING

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been a staunch ally of George W. Bush and the war on Iraq, but even Berlusconi is asking questions about the shooting incident involving freed journalist Giuliani Sgrena. Sgrena, who had been held hostage for about a month, was finally freed and a man traveling with her was killed in the shooting by the U.S. military. The official U.S. account is that the shooting was a mistake, but Sgrena has indicated she thinks the shooting may have been deliberate. Sgrena has written articles critical of the U.S. occupation in Iraq.

There's a local right-winger I called Mr. Anti-Choice. He writes The Fresno Bee frequently condemning freedom of choice and pontificating on a variety of Republican talking points. His topic today was the Sgrena shooting. We on the "radical left" and who "hate Bush" are suggesting this was deliberate.

At one time I would never have believed the U.S. government would be capable of some of the obscenities I've seen in the past four years. From the time he stole the presidential election in 2000, George W. Bush has been a thug. He gets on his high horse constantly and lectures other world leaders about how he, Bush, wants things to be. He has gotten a largely compliant press in the United States, but foreign journalists have not been so cooperative. Recently, CNN executive Eason Jordan was pressured to resign because he suggested journalists in Iraq had been targeted by the U.S. military. We know that the whole war against Iraq was predicated on lies. We know the U.S. has sanctioned torture. Why is it so beyond the pale to believe the Bush administration would try to assassinate a journalist it doesn't like?

This story by Alan Cooperman and Walter Pincus is at www.washingtonpost.com:

U.S. military officials in Iraq had approved an Italian intelligence officer's mission to free a kidnapped journalist and were expecting their arrival at Baghdad's airport on Friday when U.S. soldiers opened fire on the Italians at a checkpoint, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Wednesday.

In a speech, Berlusconi provided new details of how the Italians worked over the past month to free journalist Giuliani Sgrena from her Iraqi kidnappers, only to have the effort end in the death of the Italian intelligence officer who arrived in Baghdad that day to receive her from her captors.

MILITARY RECRUITMENTS ARE WAY DOWN

In his manic quest for death and destruction, George W. Bush has overcommitted the U.S. military. A good portion of our military is now bogged now for the foreseeable future in Iraq and Afghanistan. National Guard reservists are having to serve extended tours of duty in Iraq. The "backdoor draft" has kept many in the military past their enlistment dates. And apparently it's getting harder to sell prospective recruits on the glorious life in the military. This story by Tom Regan is at www.csmonitor.com:

A study conducted by the Army last year and posted recently on a Defense Contracting Command website (but since removed after news stories discussed the study) indicates that women and young black men are increasingly staying away from the Army. The poll, based on interviews with 3,236 youth ages 16 to 24, showed that "recruiting an all-volunteer Army in times of war is getting increasingly difficult."

Associated Press reports that these trends, combined with "the negative effects of the Army's image as a last-resort career choice for what one study called the 'average Joe,'" mean the military, and the Army in particular, could be entering a "prolonged recruiting slump" just at the time when the US government wants to increase the Army's numbers.

MARCH 9, 2005

WAL-MART WOULD HAVE LOVED SLAVERY

Those commercials Wal-Mart runs with their happy employees, or their little smiley guy rolling back prices, are enough to make you gag when you know the truth about Wal-Mart. It's a greedy, union-busting, employee-abusing company that doesn't deserve the support of any working person anywhere. The latest outrage is that the good people at Wal-Mart would like truck drivers, those people who drive those monster eighteen wheelers, to work sixteen hour shifts. Never mind how lousy that is for the drivers, or how it puts people driving on the roads with the truck drivers at risk. Gotta keep those profits rolling in. This story is at www.pamspaulding.com:

Wal-Mart is shooting to keep those prices low, no matter what. First, violations of wage and hour laws, then landing in court with sexual discrimination suits, and, sickeningly, paying its workers so little that they are forced into state-funded health plans -- it goes on and on.

The latest outrage is a bill in Congress, being pushed by retailers like Wal-Mart to allow drivers of 18-wheeled, lethal weapons to drive 16 hours. How on earth does this make any sense, other than to fatten the bottom line of companies? It certainly shows no regard for the safety of people on the road. Truck drivers are already falling asleep at the wheel. It should be noted that the sponsor of this amendment has received nearly $100K in campaign contributions "from Wal-Mart and its employees." (CNN):

NO MORE TAX CUTS FOR THE RICH

Projections of deficits over the next decade are staggering, especially if George W. Bush gets his tax cuts for the rich made permanent. Bush's accounting is so dishonest it doesn't include pricey items such as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and his proposal to destroy Social Security. We need a swing of the pendulum back to the middle and working classes. We need to roll back this disgusting bankruptcy bill that Congress is giving to the credit card industry, we need to raise the minimum wage so that anyone working full time can stay out of poverty, and we need a national health care system so that no one in this country goes without needed medical care. This article by Dale McFeatters is at www.beaufortgazette.com:

The Congressional Budget Office's latest estimates say that in the next decade the federal deficit will get no lower than $229 billion in 2010. The CBO said the cumulative deficits of Bush's budget over the next 10 years would be $2.58 trillion - $1.6 trillion of that largely from making the president's tax cuts permanent. And that does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cost of adding private accounts to Social Security or the cost of readjusting the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The CBO also cast doubt on the president's promise of halving the deficit by 2009. If CBO is right, the 2009 deficit of $246 billion would be well short of halving last year's record deficit of $412 billion.

THE EL MOZOTE MASSACRE

When people were waxing nostalgic about Ronald Reagan not many mentioned the massacre that occurred at El Mozote in El Salvador at the hands of soldiers trained by the U.S. military. The Reagan administration was finding any excuse to fund thuggish people in Central America in the name of fighting communism. Most of the people massacred at El Mozote were children under the age of twelve. David Corn writes about it at www.davidcorn.com:

The El Salvador government has never conducted an independent investigation of the massacre, though there is no denying it occurred. Forensic anthropologists have collected irrefutable evidence. These experts have exhumed the bodies of 271 of the victims and determined that 195 of this group were under the age of 12. Most were shot multiple times at close range. Remember, your tax dollars, as spent by the Reagan administration, were used to train and supply the soldiers who did this.

BUSH DOESN'T DESERVE CREDIT FOR DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The right-wing pundits are spinning recent developments in the Middle East as a positive outcome of George W. Bush's immoral war against Iraq. No weapons of mass destruction, no connections to terrorism, thousands of people dead, but, hey, we removed Saddam and that started democracy percolating. Robert Kuttner has a contrarian analysis at www.boston.com:

The only trouble is, the picture isn't true.

For starters, each of these events has its own dynamics. The new Israel-Palestine reality reflects the death of Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon's decision to seize the moment, defy his party, and do a ''Nixon to China" by dismantling some Israeli settlements in Arab lands. This shift has nothing to do with Bush or Iraq. Indeed, the Bush administration has been less active in promoting a Palestine settlement than any in memory. (Watch out, when Fidel Castro finally dies and democracy comes to Cuba, Bush will take credit for that, too.)

Saudi Arabia remains a dictatorship and an intimate ally of the Bush administration. The prospect of genuine democracy breaking out there soon is laughable. Egypt, a place where the CIA sends highly sensitive prisoners to be tortured, is a similar story. If Iran is negotiating about its nuclear ambitions, it is thanks to European diplomacy and over US objections.

MARCH 8, 2005

BUSH'S OWNERSHIP SOCIETY A MASSIVE SHAM

When George W. Bush and other right-wingers talk about "ownership" they're talking about money, primarily for the very wealthy. When it comes to the most intimate areas of your life, including your own body, right-wingers don't believe in ownership at all. They believe the government has the right to interfere with your most personal and most intimate decisions. This article by David Morris is at www.alternet.org:

President Bush certainly does not believe one should be able to "own" one's body, certainly the most essential of all forms of ownership. He's sent federal agents into California to arrest a woman trying to reduce chronic pain by using a plant (marijuana) grown in her own backyard, an act the good citizens of California had declared legal by direct vote.

President Bush believes people can - and perhaps should - lose their jobs because of what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms. He has moved aggressively to overturn state laws allowing the aged to die with dignity under their own control.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION INCOMPETENCE IS MIND BOGGLING

How do you keep terrorists from attacking the United States again? If you're the Bush administration, you allow them to buy firearms. According to this story from The New York Times, "dozens" of terrorist suspects have been able to legally buy firearms. This story by Eric Lichtblau is at www.nytimes.com:

Dozens of terror suspects on federal watch lists were allowed to buy firearms legally in the United States last year, according to a Congressional investigation that points up major vulnerabilities in federal gun laws.

People suspected of being members of a terrorist group are not automatically barred from legally buying a gun, and the investigation, conducted by the Government Accountability Office, indicated that people with clear links to terrorist groups had regularly taken advantage of this gap.

WHY DON'T THE MEDIA COVER THE REAL NEWS?

I've heard more than I care to hear about Martha Stewart being released from prison, or the juicy and salacious tidbits from the Michael Jackson trial. The media should be covering the stories that impact us all, not fixating on celebrities. This article talks about the media obsession with trivia while the important news gets swept aside. The article by Bill Gallagher is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

George W. Bush says he wants to "liberate" and bring "freedom" to the Muslim masses in the Middle East, "reform" Social Security, and protect the environment with a "clean air" initiative.

Tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich are intended to create jobs and "help middle-class Americans." Forty-five million Americans have no health care at all. Those who do are paying more and more to keep the benefit, and for many the unconscionable cost of prescription drugs is simply unaffordable. Bush and his Republican minions in Congress assure us there is nothing fundamentally wrong with health care and all we need to do is offer "vouchers" and "personal medical accounts" for the growing number of the uninsured.

THE SHAMEFUL BANKRUPTCY BILL

Paul Krugman writes about the pattern we've seen in the past few decades of making life more insecure for working people. Employer pensions are going the way of the dinosaur. Millions don't have health insurance. Long-term unemployment is up while unemployment benefits, if you can get them at all, expire sooner. Republicans have tried to paint debtors forced into bankruptcy as irresponsible spendthrifts, but the truth is most people are forced into bankruptcy by either catastrophic health care costs or job loss. The right-wingers in the Bush administration and the Republican party have clearly shown what side they're on. This column is at www.nytimes.com:

The bankruptcy bill was written by and for credit card companies, and the industry's political muscle is the reason it seems unstoppable. But the bill also fits into the broader context of what Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale, calls "risk privatization": a steady erosion of the protection the government provides against personal misfortune, even as ordinary families face ever-growing economic insecurity.

The bill would make it much harder for families in distress to write off their debts and make a fresh start. Instead, many debtors would find themselves on an endless treadmill of payments.

MARCH 7, 2005

THE VILE, VILE RIGHT WING

The referendum was one of California's great innovations in democratic government. Unfortunately, the referendum has been seized by the right-wing freaks, who now use it to destroy democracy. Arnold The Groper has threatened to use the ballot initiative process to get his way on a number of issues that he can't ram through the legislature. Today I had the experience of a meeting a petition taker outside a grocery store. They're pushing an initiative that would require a minor female to get her parents' permission before she could get an abortion. My question is: what if her parent is responsible for the pregnancy? It happens a lot more often than we would care to think. Despite all the hot air we'll hear, this is just another attempt by wacko right-wingers to force their ideology into the most intimate areas of our lives. Butt out! Get off our backs!

IS THE U.S. A SUPERPOWER IN THE TRUEST SENSE?

We hear commentators proudly describe the United States as the only remaining superpower in the world. Looked at in terms of a big economy and a big military, you could probably use that description. But when you consider our huge deficits, the weaknesses in our infrastructure, the hatred for the United States that is burgeoning around the world, you have to wonder just how long the superpower description will be accurate. Jonathan Schell has a commentary linked at www.tompaine.com:

One of the most difficult things to judge in the world today is the extent of American power. On the one hand, there is no doubt that the United States possesses a far larger pile of weapons than any other country, that the American economy is also larger than any other country's and that America's movies and television programs are consumed globally. America is widely accorded the title "only superpower," and many of its detractors as well as its supporters describe it as the world's first truly globe-straddling empire. On the other hand, it is not yet clear what the United States can accomplish with these eye-catching assets. For power, as Thomas Hobbes wrote in one of the most succinct and durable definitions of power ever offered, is a "present means, to obtain some future apparent good." Power, after all, is not just an expenditure of energy. There must be results.

U.S. INACTION ON AIDS COULD KILL MILLIONS

Among various huge failures, one of the worst during the Reagan administration was not taking the threat of AIDS seriously. In smarmy right-wing land you make dismissive cruel remarks about gays and suggest their "deviant" lifestyle is responsible. Never mind that AIDS is a major threat to heterosexuals too. Now we have the even worse Bush administration sitting on its hands and letting the AIDS epidemic in Africa go unabated. This story is from news.bbc.co.uk:

At best, taking more action against HIV/Aids could save 16 million people from dying of the disease and a further 43 million people from contracting it, the UN says.

"Millions of new infections can be prevented if Africa and the rest of the world decide to tackle Aids as an exceptional crisis that has the potential to devastate entire societies and economies," said UNAids chief Peter Piot.

ANOTHER RIGHT-WING ASSAULT ON WORKING PEOPLE

Senator Rick Santorum, another extremist right-winger, has a bill before the Senate that would supposedly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 an hour. But whenever a Republican offers a bill that seems good, look under the surface. This bill would actually end minimum wage protections for millions of workers. The bill would also abolish overtime for millions of workers. What's worse, the extremists in the GOP would like to take away the right of states to have higher minimum wages than exist at the federal level. The cruelty and greed of these people is almost unbelievable. This story is at www.nathannewman.org:

This is as low as it goes, as the GOP fights to expand sub-minimum wage sweatshops across the country. Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum is leading the charge for a GOP bill that would ostensibly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 per hour, but in reality would cut wages for millions of American workers and expand unregulated sweatshops across the country.

As this Economic Policy Institute analysis details, the bill is a trojan horse for assaulting workers rights.

SOME DISTRESSING FIGURES ON AMERICAN IGNORANCE

This article has some dismaying statistics on just how ill-informed so many Americans are about basic science. It has been known for centuries, for instance, that the earth orbits the sun, but a sizable percentage of Americans believe otherwise. How did we reach this pathetic state? This article by Michael Ventura is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:

LOTS OF TROUBLING SIGNS IN ECONOMY

This story tries to put a cherry face on a dismal economic picture. We hear about job growth, but the writer has to admit there are lots of problems. Unemployment is up and wage growth is weak. Where, I ask again, is that robust economy we were supposed to get thanks to Bush's tax cuts for the rich? This story is at money.cnn.com:

The unemployment rate ticked back up to 5.4 percent. Now part of that was because the Labor Department's household survey (separate from the establishment survey that measures reported hirings and firings by companies) showed more people entered the labor force. That often happens when unemployed folks see that friends and neighbors are starting to find work. And if you enter the labor force to find a job but haven't found one yet, you help push up the jobless rate.

The household survey also showed a drop in the number of employed, which also helped push up the unemployment rate. Sounds weird, but the two surveys often diverge, at least temporarily.

MARCH 6, 2005

TRUTH SQUADS ARE FOLLOWING BUSH

This is heartening to see. Truth squads are following George W. Bush around to debunk his lies on Social Security. We know the mainstream media won't do it. We have to become the media now. It reminds me a little of some of Alvin Toffler's books about the changes in technology such as The Third Wave. We've seen media change down through the years from primarily print to radio to television. Then we got things like VCRs that gave us more control over what we watch. We now have the Internet. We have satellite radio. Cable television, which at first seemed an alternative to the mainstream media, has, if anything, been even more coopted by the right-wing. Organizations like moveon.org are showing a new way. This story about the Social Security truth squads is at www.theleftcoaster.com:

It’s a very rewarding thing to see a political strategy that we here at the Left Coaster have been pushing for over a year come to fruition, in arguably one of the most important political battles of our time. We argued over the last couple of months that our previously developed plans for a Truth Squad campaign to follow Bush around the country and rebut his lies and deceptions be coupled with an aggressive political operation aimed at vulnerable House Republicans who can be pressured into staying neutral or opposing Bush’s privatization plan. It is a pleasure to read this story in Saturday’s Washington Post, which capsulizes this combined strategy perfectly.

DID U.S. TRY TO ASSASSINATE ITALIAN JOURNALIST?

Recently an executive at CNN was forced to resign because he suggested that the U.S. military was targeting journalists in Iraq. Now we have the case of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who was held hostage for a month, being fired upon when she was released. A man traveling with her was killed in the incident and there are suspicions the attack was deliberate. Ms. Sgrena has written articles critical of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. This story is linked at www.commondreams.org:

The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate.

"The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home.

"They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints."

NO SURPRISE: BUSH AUTHORIZED OUTSOURCED TORTURE

The New York Times is reporting that George W. Bush signed a secret order within days of the September 11 attacks authorizing the CIA to outsource torture. This is compelling evidence that the activities at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were not the actions of a few bad apples, but the policy of the highest levels of the U.S. government. I have to wonder how many laws were broken in these clandestine human rights violations. What does it take to get this guy impeached? This story is by Douglas Jehl and David Johnston at www.nytimes.com:

The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.

The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.

MARCH 5, 2005

A BAD WAY TO RUN A PRESIDENCY

This article talks about the George W. Bush style of governance, which includes a lot of seat of the pants decision making. Bush has proudly proclaimed himself as decisive, meaning what he says and saying what he means. But being decisively wrong, particularly when it affects millions of people, is no way to run a presidency. This article by Bob Burnett is linked at www.commondreams.org:

The typical Bush decision is one-third pragmatism, another third obstinacy, and a final third "blink." The pragmatic part stems from the political reality that continuing to build NMD is good for major Republican aerospace donors, such as Raytheon and TRW. Similarly, the war in Iraq may be bad for America, but it is good for Halliburton. NMD is a neo-conservative article of faith, and Bush and his advisers are true believers. Despite dramatic evidence to the contrary, they stubbornly hold on to the major Neo-con tenets, such as: Star Wars will make us safe; Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; cutting taxes is good for everyone; and war is peace. The final ingredient in the Bush rationale is "blink," seat-of-the-pants reasoning. Malcolm Gladwell argues that instantaneous decisions are best formed out of years of experience. In other words, it's okay to reach quick decisions, but there should be an underlying "seasoned" process. The problem with most of Bush's "blink" decisions is that there is no evidence of this foundation. What we see, instead, are snap decisions wrapped in authoritarian rigidity. Once Bush locks onto a solution to a problem, he won't consider any other alternatives. For example, while North Korea has nuclear weapons and a missile-delivery system, the Bush Administration assumes that NMD will protect the American mainland and, therefore, remains closed to all but military solutions to solve the danger of the rogue nation. The US refuses to participate in real diplomacy.

THEY MUST HAVE STUDIED BUSH

George W. Bush made most of his fortune by becoming a partner in the Texas Rangers baseball team. The Rangers, with the help of the city of Arlington, took a good deal of land from private owners by using eminent domain. As much as I like baseball, seizing private land to build a stadium under eminent domain is pretty sleazy. Now cities around the country are seizing land, usually the land of relatively poor people, so private businesses can build hotels and other tourist-friendly attractions. This story by Carol Lloyd is at www.sfgate.com:

Last week, I wrote about Kelo vs. New London, the recent U.S. Supreme Court case in which a Connecticut woman is fighting against her city's right to seize her home to make way for a large private development. The increasing use of eminent domain for economic development (in which the government seizes your property to give or sell it to a private developer) has come under scrutiny as cities around the country have resorted to using this power--or, more often, the threat of it--as they scramble for ways to increase their tax base by luring retail, hotel, office and high-density residential projects.

CHOICEPOINT ANOTHER GOOD REPUBLICAN COMPANY

It's disturbing that so much personal information about each of us is being gathered not only by the government, but by private companies like ChoicePoint. ChoicePoint was involved in the voter purge in Florida in 2000, a purge that took legitimate names (Democratic for the most part) off the voter rolls, and was part of getting George W. Bush into the White House. Now ChoicePoint is involved in another scandal where private information was released to identity thieves. Maybe this kind of data collection should be illegal. What do you think? This story by Robert O'Harrow Jr. is at www.washingtonpost.com:

The imposter's attempt to gain access to even more files would not only expose the scam, but spark a national outrage and congressional hearings over whether the nation's growing commercial data industry is doing enough to guard personal information.

Yesterday, the burgeoning scandal led ChoicePoint to cut off access to some sensitive data to thousands of small businesses. The company also announced in filings with the government that two senior executives were under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock trades that took place after they learned about the scheme last fall but before they made it public.

BUSH'S BUDGET: OCEANS OF RED INK

George W. Bush took us from budget surpluses to massive deficits in his first term. Some apologists for Bush have tried to claim it was a recession he "inherited" and the attacks on September 11. I believe in Occam's Razor, which says the simplest explanation is usually the best explanation. It was Bush's tax cuts for the rich that are more responsible than anything else for the budget deficits we see now and for the next decade. Bush is so indifferent to the issue that he wants to make the tax cuts permanent and slash anything that benefits people who are less well off. You get the feeling that if Bush were in a lifeboat with a few other survivors he would be ready and willing to push the weakest survivors overboard. This story is from apnews1.iwon.com. The article is by Alan Fram:

President Bush's budget would keep federal deficits over $200 billion annually over the next decade, Congress' top budget analyst said Friday in a report raising doubts about White House efforts to contain the shortfalls.

The analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Bush's plans for spending and taxes would yield deficits through the decade ending in 2015 totaling $2.58 trillion. That is $1.6 trillion worse than they would be if none of the president's fiscal plans become law, the budget office said, the chief factor being his plan to make already enacted tax cuts permanent.

MARCH 4, 2005

ARE YOU SICK OF THE PREDATORS WINNING?

The new bankruptcy "reform" bill is just another Bush administration gift to the predatory credit card industry. I don't know about you, but I get flooded by solicitations from credit card companies with the "pre-approved" label. They have these little teasers about wonderful interest rates that suddenly evaporate after a few months. They have some real bombshells hidden in the small print, such as the bank having the right to change the terms at any time and any reason. Think you have a fixed rate? Wrong, sucker! Your payment is one day late? You get nailed for at least a $29.00 late charge and possibly a rate increase from all your creditors. It's a nasty little provision called "universal default." The slime in the Republican party are even making it harder for soldiers who encounter financial problems because of serving in Iraq to file for bankruptcy. Why does the military support these thugs? This editorial is from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:

Proponents focus on tales of materialistic families of mall rats who max out their charge cards and fecklessly file for bankruptcy to start anew. The truth is far more complicated - particularly for low- and middle-income families driven to bankruptcy by catastrophic medical expenses. But the overhaul bill under debate, long sought by banks and credit card companies, would ratchet up the collection powers of an industry that blankets the nation daily with aggressive offers of consumer credit.

GREENSPAN IS NO FRIEND TO WORKING PEOPLE

Alan Greenspan, who signed on to Bush's huge tax cuts for the rich (and the deficits that go with them), who has more or less endorsed Bush's destruction of Social Security, has now given a blessing of sorts to a "consumption" tax. That's sales tax for you and me. It's just another version of the Republican utopian dream of a flat tax, where you and I pay the same rate as millionaires. In fact, if you ever read Ferdinand Lundberg's book The Rich and The Super Rich he presents a case for why the sales tax actually hits lower income people far harder than the more affluent. Why doesn't Greenspan just show up in a suit of armor and advocate the building of castles, drawbridges, and moats? This story by Edmund L. Andrews is at www.nytimes.com:

Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, cautiously endorsed a shift in the nation's tax system on Thursday from one that primarily taxes what people earn to one that taxes what they spend.

Testifying before a presidential advisory panel on overhauling the tax code, Mr. Greenspan steered away from sweeping plans to replace the income tax with a national sales tax.

But he supported what many of President Bush's advisers see as a backdoor version of a consumption tax: expanding the role of tax-free savings accounts so that people could shield their income from taxes until they actually spend it.

RELIGIOUS BELIEF PLUNGED THE WORLD INTO THE DARK AGES

In an earlier part of human history strict religious belief imposed by the Roman Emperor Constantine was instrumental in plunging the world into the Dark Ages that followed the fall of the Roman empire. Constantine's brand of Christianity was chillingly similar to the kind of unthinking religiosity we see now. Science and thought become the enemy, while revelation is the accepted path. This article by Will Englund is linked at www.makethemaccountable.com:

With religiosity comes certainty, and with certainty comes a complete lack of curiosity. Jacoby points out that religious belief in some common forms is antithetical to democracy itself. "Those who rely on the perfect hand of the Almighty for political guidance, whether on biomedical research or capital punishment, are really saying that such issues can never be a matter of imperfect human opinion," she writes. Not wanting to know might be the new American ethos.

ONCE AGAIN, U.S. IS NOT BASED ON CHRISTIAN RELIGION

You see the letters to the editor in The Fresno Bee all the time that the United States, and western culture itself, are based on Christianity. The writers usually go on to claim the Founding Fathers were Christian, yada, yada. Thom Hartmann has an interesting piece quoting Thomas Jefferson on English common law, which was the basis for our own law. Contrary to what the "Christian" propagandists write, English common law was in existence before Christianity even made its way to Britain. This article is linked at www.commondreams.org:

"Sir Matthew Hale [a conservative advocate for church/state "cooperation"] lays it down in these words," wrote Jefferson to Cooper: "'Christianity is parcel of the laws of England.'"

But, Jefferson rebuts in his letter, it couldn't be. Just looking at the timeline of English history demonstrated it was impossible:

"But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first Christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here, then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it...."

Not only was Christianity - or Judaism, or the Ten Commandments - not a part of the foundation of British and American common law, Jefferson noted, but those who were suggesting it was were promoting a lie that any person familiar with the commonly-known history of England would recognize as absurd.

GREENSPAN IS JUST A PARTISAN HACK

It's time for Alan Greenspan to leave as Federal Reserve Chairman. He unethically and dishonestly supported George W. Bush's massive tax cuts for the rich. Many economists warned that the tax cuts would create massive deficits and they were right. Now, rather than admit that the tax cuts were wrong and should be rolled back, Greenspan calls for cuts to programs like Social Security. Paul Krugman points out in this column that the country prospered for half a century under higher taxes than we have now, so why are higher taxes so unthinkable? This column is at www.nytimes.com:

And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth."

Really? America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?

MARCH 3, 2005

THE REALLY STRANGE PRIORITIES OF THE MEDIA

It reminds you a little of The Wizard of Oz when the Wizard said, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain." The media in the United States increasingly merge entertainment and "news." We get an avalanche of coverage of celebrity trials such as Michael Jackson, or sensationalist cases like the Scott Peterson trial. We hear about babies being ripped from wombs or hillsides engulfing people in southern California, but there's no discussion of poverty in the United States, or the burgeoning wealth gap, or corporations finding more inventive ways to rip us off. There's certainly no discussion of the reality of the war in Iraq. Al Kennedy has some thoughts in this article at www.guardian.co.uk:

Army specialist James Kiehl, he's dead now. He was killed in the same attack that won Jessica Lynch so much air time, but that wasn't enough to make him famous. Lance Corporal Shaun Brierley and Lt Philip Green, they're dead now. They died for Mr Blair, but that doesn't mean anyone should have heard of them. Peter Mahoney, he fought for Mr Blair, too. He's dead now. Killed himself. But that was last year - his wife and four children will be fine.

How do I know? Because that's the way the real world works. Remember all those poor, dead 9/11 victims we're supposed to be avenging? Many of their fragmentary remains have been dumped in the Fresh Kills landfill without even a memorial. Because we're over them. We can get over anything. It's the only way.

BUSH WANTS LEGAL RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION

George W. Bush wants charities that receive our federal tax dollars to be legally allowed to discriminate in their hiring policies. Under Bush's plan, the charities could consider an applicant's religious beliefs in hiring decisions. This is just another blatant breach of the church-state wall of separation and it's a very slippery slope. Just where does the discrimination stop? Suppose that a religious charity thought people of color were evil and it was contrary to that religion's belief system to hire anyone but white people. Would that be allowed? The list could go on and on. This story by Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

President Bush on Tuesday threatened to impose controversial new policies to let federally funded religious charities make hiring decisions based on the religious beliefs of potential employees.

Calling for an expansion of his faith-based initiative, Bush said that if Congress did not vote for the changes in hiring law this year, he would consider doing it himself through "executive action." Administration officials later said it remained unclear what powers the president had to affect hiring laws through executive order.

ANOTHER THREAT TO FREE SPEECH

According to this column, "improperly" linking to a candidate's website could result in fines for bloggers. The FCC is reviewing the policy now. I think it's a pretty far stretch to put a monetary value on putting a hyperlink into a blog. This story by Bradley Smith is at news.com.com:

In just a few months, he warns, bloggers and news organizations could risk the wrath of the federal government if they improperly link to a campaign's Web site. Even forwarding a political candidate's press release to a mailing list, depending on the details, could be punished by fines.

ANOTHER OUTGROWTH OF TORTURE

George W. Bush opened a Pandora's Box when he authorized torture against detainees (yes, I believe the orders came from the top). Now the U.S. military is funding development of a weapon meant to inflict pain from a short distance away. It's mostly designed for use against rioters, we're told. We're also told that the pain is only temporary. I'm reminded of the young woman in Boston who was celebrating the Red Sox. She wasn't doing anything wrong, but a police officer fired a beanbag into her eye and killed her. This is truly obscene stuff. This story by David Hambling is at www.newscientist.com:

The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.

"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."

MARCH 2, 2005


A BOOK TO AVOID

Ari Fleisher, the bald, smarmy former press secretary of George W. Bush, has a new book out. It sounds like the usual whiny piece of right-wing claptrap. You know, that nasty liberal press was always picking on our boy Ari and his beloved president. The New York Times review blasts the book, which should make Fleisher happy. What else would that "liberal" newspaper think? This story is at www.editorandpublisher.com:

Wasting no time in dismissing a book published just today, The New York Times on Tuesday reviewed “Taking Heat,” the memoir by former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Veteran Times critic Michiko Kakutani called it “tedious and tendentious” and a “sorry volume,” and that was just for starters.

GREENSPAN PERSONA NON GRATA WITH ASIAN INVESTORS

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, has been a powerful man for a long time. A word dropped here and there can send markets off in all directions. But Greenspan lost much credibility when he endorsed George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, which have plunged the United States into deep deficits for years to come. According to this article, Asian investors hold $1.1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds, so they have the clout to ignore Greenspan. This article is at quote.bloomberg.com:

Greenspan recently referred to a ``conundrum,'' whereby U.S. Treasury yields fell in the face of rising official rates. Yet trends here explain why: Asia's vast purchases of U.S. Treasuries, which reduce U.S. yields, are rendering the mighty Fed impotent in its efforts to cool the economy.

These days, markets react more to rumors about Asian central banks selling U.S. debt than what Greenspan says about the economy. One could argue that his comments about low yields were the bond market's ``irrational exuberance'' moment. In December 1996, Greenspan's concerns about overvalued stocks caused shockwaves. Not so when he mentioned low debt yields.

BUSH'S HYPOCRISY IS REIGNITING NUCLEAR ARMS RACE

Even while he condemns Iran for supposedly developing nuclear weapons, George W. Bush is pushing for more nuclear weapons to be developed by the United States. Nuclear weapons are terrible no matter who owns them. Maybe it's time to step back from the bottle containing the nuclear genie and find a way to pursue peace. This article by Amtibah Pal is linked at www.commondreams.org:

But is it that surprising that these nations are going nuclear, especially given the aggressiveness of U.S. nuclear policy under the Bush Administration?

In its Nuclear Posture Review (the major policy statement on the subject of nuclear weapons), the Bush Administration, far from taking steps to get rid of its reliance on nuclear arms, revealed a more aggressive attitude in its willingness to utilize them. The Nuclear Posture Review recommended "greater flexibility" in using nuclear weapons and stated that they can be used to "hold at risk a wide range of target types." It even named seven countries as potential targets, with both Iran and North Korea making the list. (The other five were Russia, China, Syria, Libya and Saddam's Iraq.)

BUSH'S "BLEEDING WITH LEECHES" KIND OF SCIENCE

Today's Fresno Bee featured another letter to the editor talking about the "abject hatred" of George W. Bush and making the usual claims that the United States is founded on Christian belief. My first response would be to ask what has George W. Bush done as president that can remotely be described as "Christian"? Has he followed the Golden Rule in even the tiniest respect? Has he fed the hungry and clothed the naked? Has he protected the environment? Did he turn the other cheek after September 11? Can anyone who really believes in Christianity be president of the United States? This article by Thomas Oliphant talks about Albert Einstein. It was 100 years ago that Einstein shook the world with his ideas about energy and mass and relativity. One hundred years later we have an administration that would like to take us back to an era when sick people were thought to be possessed by demons, or that God used the weather to punish sinners. This column is at www.boston.com:

The Bush administration, however, has chosen to dishonor the triumph of America's best known immigrant. Instead, it is starving the research activities of people working on potential breakthroughs across the board, especially those attempting pure research and thought of the kind that Einstein devoted his life to. It is also erecting political roadblocks to other forms of research on the basis of religion-based absolutes. It is scorning science in its policies on the environment, needle exchange and sex education to curb the spread of HIV-AIDS, and climate change. The Bush idea of faith in science's potential is best expressed in the billions being flushed down the toilet for missile defense and work on a new generation of nuclear weapons.

MARCH 1, 2005

.50 CALIBER WEAPONS ARE LEGAL, LIGHTERS ARE NOT

In Bush's America we keep venturing into Bizarro World. It's now illegal to take a cigarette lighter aboard an airplane. But it's perfectly legal to buy a .50 caliber rifle that is capable of shooting down an airliner on takeoff or landing. The weapons can be effective for up to a mile. I wonder how the NRA will spin this. This story is at releases.usnewswire.com:

Our strategy against terrorists, to quote President Bush, must be one of pre-emption," says Thom Mannard, Executive Director of the Illinois Council, a participant in Freedom States Alliance. "The manufacturers and sellers of .50 Caliber Sniper Rifles advertise and sell the terrorist weapons on the Internet and in catalogues, making them readily available throughout the world for terrorists to view and for terrorist agents in the United States to purchase."

"Our message to those who oppose stopping terrorists from easily buying .50 Caliber Sniper Rifles that can shoot down planes landing and taking off is this: You are either for taking pre-emptive action against terrorism or you are for enabling the terrorists," Mannard warned.

"IMMORAL" DESCRIBES BUSH'S BUDGET

Right-wingers have tried to cloak themselves in righteousness for some time. They're against gays and abortion and they want prayer back in the schools. So that makes them "moral." Never mind that their policies make life even more miserable for the poor, including millions of children. Never mind that they enthusiastically support wars that kill thousands of innocent people. Real morality lies with us on the left, and it's time to cast right-wingers as the immoral hypocrites they are. This story David R. Francis is at www.csmonitor.com:

Last week, Mr. Greenstein spoke to religious groups in New York and Washington on the "moral standards" in the budget. Early in the month, CBPP and the Children's Defense Fund hosted a press conference on the same topic, featuring a few church leaders - Bishop Peter Weaver, president of the bishops' council of the United Methodist church; James Forbes, senior minister of Riverside Church (New York); and Barbara Shaw, president of overseas missionary activities of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

To Greenstein, the Bush budget is not moral because it hits the politically weak, that is, the poor and disadvantaged, and benefits the powerful, the companies, and the well-to-do who make campaign contributions.

LET'S TALK ABOUT WAR PORN

Word is that new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a.k.a. Torture Guy, is following in the footsteps of nutcase John Ashcroft in putting a priority on prosecuting "obscenity." I doubt that his definition includes torture of detainees in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or the obscenity of this war in Iraq. This article by Pierre Tristam talks about "war porn," those Pollyannish bits of propaganda that say how good we're making things in Iraq. They've got elections! They've got water! Women are free to vote! The schools are good, the hospitals are wonderful, and it's becoming a virtual utopia. Well, not quite. This article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:

Most of us get them, those e-mails promising bushels of porn, the end of impotence, permanently flaccid mortgage rates or lucrative friendships with wayward African princes seeking bank accounts to bunk with. It's harmless clutter. It's also a reminder that marketing sugared in smut and guile always finds an audience, otherwise its retailers wouldn't keep at it. So it's natural for the merchants of Operation Iraqi Freedom to hitch their pipeline to our in-boxes.

They sell porn of a different kind -- the pornography of war as a beautiful thing, as an orgy of good news the media just won't show because, as one incensed e-mail has it, "a Bush-hating media and Democratic Party would rather see the world blow up than lose their power." (If it's possible for the propagandist to find good news in Iraq it must be equally possible to find a Democrat still in power in the United States.)

FEBRUARY 28, 2005

A PROGRESSIVE THINK TANK AT STANFORD

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

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

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

BUSH BLEW IT ON NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

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

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

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

A BETTER WAY TO FIGHT TERROR

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

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

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

WHY DOESN'T BUSH STOP THE TORTURE?

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

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

FEBRUARY 27, 2005

A PAYOFF FOR THE BOW-TIED ONE?

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

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

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

ROBERT INGERSOLL ON SUPERSTITION

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

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

MAYBE BUSH DOESN'T SEE THE IRONY

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

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

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

ANOTHER INSIDIOUS MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

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

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

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

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

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

FEBRUARY 26, 2005

DEMOCRACY AND TORTURE ARE NOT SYNONYMOUS

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

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

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

HERE ARE BUSH'S "HAVE MORE" SUPPORTERS

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

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

THE 14 WORDS REPUBS DON'T USE

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

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

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

A HUMOROUS LOOK AT INTELLIGENT DESIGN

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

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

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

FEBRUARY 25, 2005

SMEAR, SMEAR AWAY

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

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

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

NO TO WAL-MART IN NEW YORK

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

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

THE WORLD PRESS DOESN'T CHEER FOR BUSH

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

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

MAYBE WE CAN DO A NEW REALITY SHOW

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

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

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

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

FEBRUARY 24, 2005

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

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

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

THE SWIFT BOAT LIARS

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

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

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

DO YOU FAVOR GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF THE
STOCK MARKET?

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

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

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

THE UNSAVORY HISTORY OF CORPORATIONS

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

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

FEBRUARY 23, 2005

I KNEW I LIKED JEFFERSON

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

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

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

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

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

HUNTER S. THOMPSON ON GEORGE W. BUSH

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

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

WHAT A SURPRISE--ANOTHER BUSH WAR PROFITEER

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

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

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

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

THESE PEOPLE ARE IN CHARGE OF NATIONAL SECURITY?

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

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

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