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Interesting you find conservative idealogues are distasteful while the liberals sicken you in their 'right and duty to cram lies and half-truths down everyone's throat'. Lord knows we have seen ANY of that from the right. You are certainly entitled to your opinion but you are nothing more than a 'compassionate conservative' masquerading as an 'independent' and you prove it daily.
ej...how about letting Aristide out of seclusion??? How about letting him sit in front of some reporters (alone and unsubstantiated)[i/]?? But no, put the blinders on and choose our government. Hey, ej, I too choose and have an incredible desire to believe my government but guess what, they have lied to me too many times!!! Uh, HELLO, are we supposed to believe the words of our government??? Oh, Oh, oh, if I don't believe my government I choose 'anarcy and corruption'. You, like many that veer far to the right, and in fairness, to the far left, simply ignore the vast middle where most likely the truth is found, but under this administration unlike any in my lifetime, IMO, will do whatever is necessary to obfuscuate (I'm being kind) the truth.
Uh, HELLO, are we supposed to believe the words of a dictator (alone and unsubstantiated) ousted by his own people for corruption and lies, or our government? I choose our government.
Your entire post is laughable, entirely devoid of any ability to reason. I look forward to a 'liberated' Haiti lacking the Bush administration common denomiator: oil.
Ghors, interesting post. Would you care to add a little more filler to us non-Texans?? Thanks!!
Tucker: Boy, you're right. Scotty owned East Texas. Let's just pray that the compassionate conservatives don't take over Marshall like they have in Smith County. You can hardly get a fair trial in that jurisdiction. Brown, McCarroll out of Austin has a large office in Smith County and they are defending alot of the big products cases in East Texas. We'll see.
F6, you have to be careful....Howard Dean was skewered for stating the capture of Saddam made him no safer. Both good articles, thanks. As an aside, this administration reminds me of Deepthroat in Watergate, but to paraphrase: 'Follow the oil'.
From His First Day in Office, Bush Was Ousting Aristide
Where were the media when Haiti's leader was railroaded and rousted?
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
If the circumstances were not so calamitous, the American-orchestrated removal of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti would be farcical.
According to Aristide, American officials in Port-au-Prince told him that rebels were on the way to the presidential residence and that he and his family were unlikely to survive unless they immediately boarded an American-chartered plane standing by to take them to exile. The United States made it clear, he said, that it would provide no protection for him at the official residence, despite the ease with which this could have been arranged.
Indeed, according to Aristide's lawyer, the U.S. blocked reinforcement of Aristide's own security detail. At the airport, Aristide said, U.S. officials refused him entry to the airplane until he handed over a signed letter of resignation.
After being hustled aboard, Aristide was denied access to a phone for nearly 24 hours, and he knew nothing of his destination until he and his family were summarily deposited in the Central African Republic. He has since been kept hidden from view. Yet this Keystone Kops coup has apparently not worked entirely according to plan: Aristide has used a cellphone to notify the world that he was forcibly removed from Haiti at risk of death and to describe the way his resignation was staged by American forces.
The U.S. government dismisses Aristide's charges as ridiculous. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has offered an official version of the events, a blanket denial based on the government's word alone. In essence, Washington is telling us not to look back, only forward. The U.S. government's stonewalling brings to mind Groucho Marx's old line, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
There are several tragedies in this surrealistic episode. The first is the apparent incapacity of the U.S. government to speak honestly about such matters as toppling governments. Instead, it brushes aside crucial questions: Did the U.S. summarily deny military protection to Aristide, and if so, why and when? Did the U.S. supply weapons to the rebels, who showed up in Haiti last month with sophisticated equipment that last year reportedly had been taken by the U.S. military to the Dominican Republic, next door to Haiti? Why did the U.S. cynically abandon the call of European and Caribbean leaders for a political compromise, a compromise that Aristide had already accepted? Most important, did the U.S. in fact bankroll a coup in Haiti, a scenario that seems likely based on present evidence?
Only someone ignorant of U.S. history and of the administrations of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush would dismiss these questions. The United States has repeatedly sponsored coups and uprisings in Haiti and in neighboring Caribbean countries.
Ominously, before this week, the most recent such episode in Haiti came in 1991, during the first Bush administration, when thugs on the CIA payroll were among the leaders of paramilitary groups that toppled Aristide after his 1990 election.
Some of the players in this round are familiar from the previous Bush administration, including of course Powell and Vice President Dick Cheney. Also key is U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega — a longtime aide to Jesse Helms and a notorious Aristide-hater — widely thought to have been central to the departure of Aristide. He is going to find it much harder to engineer the departure of gun-toting rebels who entered Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.
Rarely has an episode so brilliantly exposed Santayana's famous aphorism that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
In 1991, when Congressional Black Caucus members demanded an investigation into the U.S. role in Aristide's overthrow, the first Bush administration laughed them off, just as this administration is doing today in facing new queries from Congressional Black Caucus members.
Indeed, those who are questioning the administration about Haiti are being smeared as naive and unpatriotic. Aristide himself is being smeared with ludicrous propaganda and, most cynically of all, is being accused of dereliction in the failure to lift his country out of poverty.
In point of fact, this U.S. administration froze all multilateral development assistance to Haiti from the day that George W. Bush came into office, squeezing Haiti's economy dry and causing untold suffering for its citizens. U.S. officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a balance-of-payments crisis, a rise in inflation and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion.
Another tragedy in this episode is the silence of the media when it comes to asking all the questions that need answers. Just as in the war on Iraq's phony WMD, wherein the mainstream media initially failed to ask questions about the administration's claims, major news organizations have refused to go to the mat over the administration's accounts on Haiti. The media haven't had the gumption to find Aristide and, in failing to do so, to point out that he is being held away from such contact.
With a violence-prone U.S. government operating with impunity in many parts of the world, only the public's perseverance in getting at the truth can save us, and others, from our own worst behavior.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-sachs4mar04,1,7743936.story
memphis, you said:
"decisions were made using the best available information.... which, by the way had been evaluated with the Exact Same Conclusions by our previous President.... "
First of all, the 'Exact Same Conclusions by our previous President' did not lead to the Exact Same Conclusion and secondly, there is also information available that Bush made his decision regarding Iraq long before becoming President.
Ahhh....back from the promise land
zitboy, I understand Rooster and you are in seclusion on the mountaintop (I believe you call it a 'circlejerk')so no reply is necessary, but I just can't get a recent post of yours out of my mind. Your response to my post regarding The Maestro, Mr. Greenspan, selling his soul to the right:
I said: (#1610)
Well, well, well, turned on CNBC and look who is speaking (or shall I say double-speaking), why The Maestro of fiscal responsibility, the guardian of financial prudence, Mr. Greenspan himself. And what is he proposing??? That 'we the people' (you remember us, right zitboy??) will have to prepare for the cutting of future social security benefits. Now who would have thunk it?? Cut taxes, spend like crazy on guns, invade a country or two, but hey, now it is time to sacrifice. Bend over baby, The House of Bush is just warming up and Greenspan: you sold your soul and lost your moral compass 3 years ago.
Your reply: "regarding the deficits, how many times does he have to answer the same question with these boneheads in congress?......he has been consistent with his economic view
new taxes?...no
cut spending?...yes
greenspan quote regarding a healthy economy....."to continuously cut taxes""
Zit, thought you might enjoy this boneheads opinion:
Maestro of Chutzpah
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 2, 2004
The traditional definition of chutzpah says it's when you murder your parents, then plead for clemency because you're an orphan. Alan Greenspan has chutzpah.
Last week Mr. Greenspan warned of the dangers posed by budget deficits. But even though the main cause of deficits is plunging revenue — the federal government's tax take is now at its lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950 — he opposes any effort to restore recent revenue losses. Instead, he supports the Bush administration's plan to make its tax cuts permanent, and calls for cuts in Social Security benefits.
Yet three years ago Mr. Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, warning that otherwise the federal government would run excessive surpluses. He assured Congress that those tax cuts would not endanger future Social Security benefits. And last year he declined to stand in the way of another round of deficit-creating tax cuts.
But wait — it gets worse.
You see, although the rest of the government is running huge deficits — and never did run much of a surplus — the Social Security system is currently taking in much more money than it spends. Thanks to those surpluses, the program is fully financed at least through 2042. The cost of securing the program's future for many decades after that would be modest — a small fraction of the revenue that will be lost if the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.
And the reason Social Security is in fairly good shape is that during the 1980's the Greenspan commission persuaded Congress to increase the payroll tax, which supports the program.
The payroll tax is regressive: it falls much more heavily on middle- and lower-income families than it does on the rich. In fact, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, families near the middle of the income distribution pay almost twice as much in payroll taxes as in income taxes. Yet people were willing to accept a regressive tax increase to sustain Social Security.
Now the joke's on them. Mr. Greenspan pushed through an increase in taxes on working Americans, generating a Social Security surplus. Then he used that surplus to argue for tax cuts that deliver very little relief to most people, but are worth a lot to those making more than $300,000 a year. And now that those tax cuts have contributed to a soaring deficit, he wants to cut Social Security benefits.
The point, of course, is that if anyone had tried to sell this package honestly — "Let's raise taxes and cut benefits for working families so we can give big tax cuts to the rich!" — voters would have been outraged. So the class warriors of the right engaged in bait-and-switch.
There are three lessons in this tale.
First, "starving the beast" is no longer a hypothetical scenario — it's happening as we speak. For decades, conservatives have sought tax cuts, not because they're affordable, but because they aren't. Tax cuts lead to budget deficits, and deficits offer an excuse to squeeze government spending.
Second, squeezing spending doesn't mean cutting back on wasteful programs nobody wants. Social Security and Medicare are the targets because that's where the money is. We might add that ideologues on the right have never given up on their hope of doing away with Social Security altogether. If Mr. Bush wins in November, we can be sure that they will move forward on privatization — the creation of personal retirement accounts. These will be sold as a way to "save" Social Security (from a nonexistent crisis), but will, in fact, undermine its finances. And that, of course, is the point.
Finally, the right-wing corruption of our government system — the partisan takeover of institutions that are supposed to be nonpolitical — continues, and even extends to the Federal Reserve.
The Bush White House has made it clear that it will destroy the careers of scientists, budget experts, intelligence operatives and even military officers who don't toe the line. But Mr. Greenspan should have been immune to such pressures, and he should have understood that the peculiarity of his position — as an unelected official who wields immense power — carries with it an obligation to stand above the fray. By using his office to promote a partisan agenda, he has betrayed his institution, and the nation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/02/opinion/02KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2....
ej64...behind on my posts but had to respond to your saying "The Republicans really got the ball rolling with Clinton, and the Democrats have taken the game to a whole new (and disgusting) level with their anti-Bush hate-mongering." Please explain to me how the Democrats have taken it to a whole new disgusting level after witnessing a virtual standstill in our government while the Republicans pursued their relentless attacks on Clinton, starting (and continuing for years) with Whitewater and culminating with the impeachment for lying about having sex. I guess lying about the reasons for a war in Iraq and the cost in lives and expense is small potatoes (threw a Quayle in there) compared to sex.
Shame on anyone who would question Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's motives or possible conflict of interest!!!! Any bets on whether he will recuse himself from Cheney's appeal???
THE NATION
Scalia Took Trip Set Up by Lawyer in Two Cases
Kansas visit in 2001 came within weeks of the Supreme Court hearing arguments.
By Richard A. Serrano and David G. Savage, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was the guest of a Kansas law school two years ago and went pheasant hunting on a trip arranged by the school's dean, all within weeks of hearing two cases in which the dean was a lead attorney.
The cases involved issues of public policy important to Kansas officials. Accompanying Scalia on the November 2001 hunting trip were the Kansas governor and the recently retired state Senate president, who flew with Scalia to the hunting camp aboard a state plane.
Two weeks before the trip, University of Kansas School of Law Dean Stephen R. McAllister, along with the state's attorney general, had appeared before the Supreme Court to defend a Kansas law to confine sex offenders after they complete their prison terms.
Two weeks after the trip, the dean was before the high court to lead the state's defense of a Kansas prison program for treating sex criminals.
Scalia was hosted by McAllister, who also served as Kansas state solicitor, when he visited the law school to speak to students. At Scalia's request, McAllister arranged for the justice to go pheasant hunting after the law school event. And the dean enlisted then-Gov. Bill Graves and former state Senate President Dick Bond, both Republicans.
During the weekend of hunting in north-central Kansas, Graves and Bond said in separate interviews recently, they did not talk about the cases with Scalia, nor did they view the trip as a way to win his favor.
Scalia later sided with Kansas in both cases.
In a written statement, Scalia said: "I do not think that spending time at a law school in which the counsel in pending cases was the dean could reasonably cause my impartiality to be questioned. Nor could spending time with the governor of a state that had matters before the court."
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that Scalia had been a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney on Air Force Two when they went duck hunting in southern Louisiana. That trip came shortly after the high court had agreed to hear Cheney's appeal seeking to keep secret his national energy policy task force.
The details of the Louisiana hunting trip, coupled with the visit to Kansas, provide a rare look at a Supreme Court justice who has socialized with government officials at times when legal matters important to them were before the high court.
Federal law says that "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned." By tradition and court policy, justices are free to determine for themselves what constitutes a conflict.
Specialists in legal ethics differed on whether the Kansas trip presented a conflict of interest for Scalia.
"When a case is on the docket before a judge, the coziness of meeting privately with a lawyer is questionable," said Chicago lawyer Robert P. Cummins, who headed an Illinois board on judicial ethics. "It would seem the better part of judgment to avoid those situations."
Added Monroe Freedman, who teaches legal ethics at Hofstra University: "A reasonable person might question this, and that's the problem." He said Scalia "should have rescheduled the trip until after" the cases were over.
Other experts noted, however, that no one who met Scalia in Kansas was a named litigant in the two cases, in contrast to the trip with Cheney, who is the appealing party in the upcoming energy task force case.
"I'm not troubled by this because of the law school setting," said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor. He said he saw no problems with the hunting trip. "The dean was an advocate, not the litigant."
Scalia said that if Supreme Court justices were prohibited from taking such a trip, then they "would be permanently barred from social contact with all governors, since at any given point in time virtually all states have matters pending before us."
Since the two sex-offender cases in 2001, the state of Kansas has not had any matters argued before the high court.
Scalia said he accepted an invitation to the law school "sometime before October 2000."
"I had worked for a couple of years on getting him to come here. And he asked whether there was any good hunting," McAllister said. "He said he had hunted turkey and deer, but not pheasant, so that was appealing."
In the spring of 2001, the high court voted to hear both Kansas cases, and they were set for argument that fall. McAllister said he called to alert Scalia that he would be arguing the two Kansas cases before the court at about the same time as the justice's scheduled trip.
McAllister said Scalia responded that he would come as scheduled, and that he would not accept a speaking fee and would pay for his own hunting.
On Oct. 30, 2001, two weeks before the trip, McAllister and state Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall appeared before Scalia and the other Supreme Court justices in the case of Kansas vs. Crane.
The case tested whether the state could continue to hold sex offenders after they had completed their prison terms. The two Kansas attorneys argued that inmates likely to be a danger should be kept in custody.
Scalia arrived in Kansas on Nov. 15, 2001. He addressed a class and spoke to law students, and attended a reception with local judges and lawyers.
"We kept him busy," the dean said. "And the students really loved it. It's also a good change from Washington for the justices."
The University of Kansas, a state school, paid for Scalia's flight, meals and lodging, according to Scalia's financial disclosure statement.
The next day, the dean dropped the justice off at the airport in Lawrence, Kan., where he met the governor and the former state Senate leader.
Bond, a 14-year state senator who retired at the end of 2000 as president of the Kansas Senate, said he spoke with McAllister before Scalia came to Kansas. "He was bringing out Scalia and he said Scalia really wanted to go pheasant hunting," Bond recalled.
"He said he [McAllister] couldn't go because he was going to have a case before the court and it would be inappropriate. He said he had no problem with bringing him in and having him speak to students, but that he could not go out and socialize with him."
Bond spoke to Graves. The former governor, in a separate interview, said he was honored to have the chance to go hunting with a Supreme Court justice.
Graves said he and Bond decided to take Scalia to the Ringneck Ranch near Beloit, Kan., which was owned by Keith Houghton, a friend of the governor.
Graves said they flew from Lawrence on the governor's official plane, which he described as a King air prop, and returned on the same plane after hunting. Scalia reimbursed the state $121.87 for the round trip.
"The controlled shooting part of the trip was good," Graves said. "They plant birds, and that gives you a better attempt to get some birds."
Added Bond of Scalia, "We stayed the night and had a delightful time. He was just charming to be around."
Bond said that because the trip was two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Scalia had told them in advance that he did not think it wise to fly from Washington with his own firearm. So, Bond said, "I loaned Scalia a gun. I have plenty."
Graves and Bond said the two court cases never came up during the trip. "There was no conversation along those lines," Graves said.
Added Bond, "The cases were never discussed or mentioned. Zero."
However, both officials said the legal matters were critically important to the state, or they would not have expended the money and effort to take them to the Supreme Court.
The two also said they did not see a conflict in socializing with the justice while the legal matters were pending.
"It's kind of a stretch to tie that together," Graves said.
When the trip was winding down, Bond recalled, "Graves and I told him we would like him to be our guest and pay his way, and he said no."
Houghton, the ranch owner, said Scalia wrote a personal check for "several hundred dollars" to cover his hunting, meals and lodging at the camp. "Once he realized that we were a commercial institution, he made a point that he had to pay for this," Houghton said.
To commemorate the trip, Houghton said, they took several photographs of the justice — including one that now hangs in a large frame at the camp.
After Scalia returned to Lawrence, McAllister said, the dean and others associated with the law school took the justice to dinner.
Two weeks after hosting Scalia, the law school dean was back in Washington to argue on behalf of Kansas in a case called McKune vs. Lile. That case tested whether Kansas could force sex offenders to confess all their past sex crimes as part of prison treatment.
Robert Lile, an inmate, argued that the state policy would force him to incriminate himself. A federal district court and appeals court agreed, and Kansas was asking the high court to overturn those rulings.
During the oral argument, Scalia questioned whether the inmate had a constitutional basis for his complaint. "Your client had been deprived of no liberty to which he was entitled, not a single liberty to which he was entitled," he told Lile's lawyer, Matthew J. Wiltanger.
The Supreme Court sided with Kansas in both cases, with Scalia voting on McAllister's side each time.
In January 2002, the high court said in a 7-2 ruling in Kansas vs. Crane that state officials could hold sex criminals beyond their prison terms if they prove the convicts had a "serious difficulty" in controlling their behavior.
Scalia dissented, but not because he opposed the Kansas law. The court, he said, should have given the state even greater freedom to hold sex offenders. The ruling "snatches back from the state of Kansas a victory so recently awarded," he wrote, referring to a Supreme Court decision allowing the state to hold certain inmates indefinitely.
In the second Kansas case, the court in a 5-4 ruling said state prison authorities could compel inmates to confess to past crimes as part of a treatment program, and they could take away privileges from those who refused.
The lawyers who lost the two Kansas cases said that while they were curious about the law school visit and the hunting trip, they never expected to win Scalia's vote in the first place.
"I trust that Justice Scalia would have stepped aside had his ability to rule been compromised by his hunting trip in the state," Wiltanger said.
Back in Kansas, Bond and Graves said Scalia had earned their respect as a marksman. At one point in the field, the hunters were surprised by a quail, and Scalia shot the bird in midflight.
"He came back with a bag full of birds," McAllister said, "cleaned and packed in ice, ready to take back on the plane to Washington."
Justice Scalia's Statement
The following statement was issued by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in response to a Los Angeles Times inquiry about his 2001 trip to Kansas:
I was not the guest of Stephen McAllister, but of the University of Kansas Law School. The invitation, in fact, had come not from Stephen McAllister but from his predecessor as dean of the law school, Michael Hoeflich. That invitation was issued in December of 1999 and accepted (by phone) some time before October of 2000 — long before the October and November, 2001, cases you refer to were on our docket. My travel expenses to Lawrence were reimbursed by the University of Kansas, not by the state. I flew with the governor and others on the governor's plane from Lawrence to Beloit and back, and promptly reimbursed the state of Kansas for the cost.
I do not think that spending time at a law school in which the counsel in pending cases was the dean could reasonably cause my impartiality to be questioned. Nor could spending time with the governor of a state that had matters before the court. Indeed, if the latter were so, Supreme Court justices would be permanently barred from social contact with all governors, since at any given point in time virtually all states have matters pending before us, either in accepted cases or in petitions for certiorari [or requests for the court to hear a case].
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/scotus/la-na-scalia27feb27,0,3200137.story?coll=la-...
What, no election???? Just kiddin'
when w was elected I really felt he would follow in daddy's footsteps as a one termer...then came 9/11 and I truly felt he found a cause and would be difficult to beat...but you may be correct about the dna
Hey Art, they had their playbook set and ready long before capturing the big house. Iraq, tax cuts, gut environmental legislation, reform medicare (to their liking), the list is endless, and Bush is the perfect point man: personable, aw shucks, just one of us. Only problem from their point of view is the timing....if only all this stuff would stay in murky water till mid November. These guys are good...and ruthless.
Dang, good post F6...just catching up. I really appreciate your thoughts.
Good posts migo, F6, Raymond, bulldzr, and wow, took the evening off only to find this morning the poop hit the fan and to think the election is still 8 months or so away. Fortunately it appears 'we the people' are awakening from a long slumber and are willing to become engaged.
Migo, my cliff notes version of what is and has happened regarding The Maestro, Mr. Greenspan is this: Greenspan is a true intellectual, fiscally conservative man intent on doing what is right. Along comes the Bush administration whose motivation is not what is intellectually right but rather strong ideological positions formulated long before taking office. One such ideological position was to wipe out the surplus through tax cuts, increased military spending even though all were aware medicare and social security demands were going to increase significantly in the coming years. Greenspan wimped out and hoped for the best. Well, the best never came and the worst has turned out to be worse. Now it is time to pay the piper, but hey, there is no money soooooo.....guess what, the easiest place to start to correct the problem is SS and medicare which just happens to fall on the backs of the middle and lower economic class of Americans (just the way 'they' planned it). Greenspan is honest today when he could have been real honest and showed some backbone 2-3 years ago. I lost all respect for the man and now he is simply a pawn in the House of Bush.
Is A. Greenspan engaged in some type of subterfuge against the administration: speaking today about the need to reduce SS benefits and raise the retirement age?
is he sabotaging the administration? or is he an honest broker, believing that the only way that this nation can avoid catastrophic failure is to continue with tax cuts, and cut more spending?
That was a good one, GoDuke. Make sure you forward that to all the Marines in Iraq and the parents of those who lost a son or daughter there.
Many Democrats angry with Bush — and loud about it
By Nancy Benac
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
02/23/04
WASHINGTON — In Arizona, Judy Donovan says she feels desperate for a new president. In Tennessee, Robert Wilson says he finds the president revolting. In Washington state, Maria Yurasek says she'd vote for a dog if it could beat President Bush.
A subtext to this year's presidential campaign is the intense anger that many Democrats are directing toward Bush, an attitude that has been growing in recent months.
"I've never seen anything like it," says Ted Jelen, a political science professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "There are people who just really, really hate this person."
Fully a quarter of Americans — mostly Democrats — tell pollsters they have a very unfavorable opinion of the president, more than double the number from last April. When only Democrats are polled, more than half report they feel that way.
Further, in exit polls conducted during Democratic primaries, a sizable chunk of voters have been describing themselves as not just dissatisfied with Bush but outright angry — 51 percent in Delaware, 46 percent in Arizona and New Hampshire and 44 percent in Virginia and Wisconsin.
"They really have a head of steam up against Bush," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. He said the level of political polarization surrounding Bush, the division between Republicans who favor him and Democrats who don't, exceeds even that for President Clinton in September 1998 during the impeachment battle.
"I've never seen a Democratic Party more unified and more focused, and the anger helps do just that," GOP pollster Frank Luntz said. "The intensity level is just so high. They're using four-letter words to describe him."
In a recent focus group that Luntz conducted for MSNBC, technicians had to adjust the volume levels because the Bush-haters were "so gosh-darn loud" they were drowning out the president's supporters, who were more numerous, Luntz said. "It was a real problem."
Bush was asked about the anger in a recent interview on NBC and said he found it perplexing and disappointing.
"When you ask hard things of people, it can create tensions. And heck, I don't know why people do it," he said.
His campaign spokesman, Terry Holt, dismisses the anger as something stoked by Democratic presidential candidates and confined to core party activists. He said it also reflects Democratic frustration at Bush's success in pushing through his agenda.
John McAdams, a political scientist at Marquette University, said resentment of Bush is particularly strong among liberals who already hold three things against him: "First, he's a conservative. Second, he's a Christian. And third, he's a Texan. When you add all of those things up, that invokes pretty much every symbol of the cultural wars."
Political analysts say the intensity of the anti-Bush sentiment could translate into higher turnout by mobilizing the Democratic base. The possible pitfall for Democrats, however, is that strident anti-Bush rhetoric could turn off swing and independent voters who like Bush personally but might be convinced through reasoned argument that his policies are wrong.
"Anger is not necessarily a productive emotion when it comes to politics," Luntz said. "The anger against Bill Clinton was so fierce and over the top that it helped him in 1996 and then again during the impeachment in 1998. People got more angry at those yelling at the president than at the president himself. You could easily see the same thing happening here."
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/politics/2004/president/n0223bush.htm
greenspan quote regarding a healthy economy....."to continuously cut taxes"
Prior to 2001, never heard that quote. Smoke and mirrors. You're right, though, any bonehead can see this and it gets old listening to this...from both sides of the aisle.
Well, well, well, turned on CNBC and look who is speaking (or shall I say double-speaking), why The Maestro of fiscal responsibility, the guardian of financial prudence, Mr. Greenspan himself. And what is he proposing??? That 'we the people' (you remember us, right zitboy??) will have to prepare for the cutting of future social security benefits. Now who would have thunk it?? Cut taxes, spend like crazy on guns, invade a country or two, but hey, now it is time to sacrifice. Bend over baby, The House of Bush is just warming up and Greenspan: you sold your soul and lost your moral compass 3 years ago.
Motorola vs. Nokia - THE FINAL BATTLE IS BEGINNING?
Nokia and Motorola have presented yesterday at the 3GSM show in Cannes two new smarphones that will battle this year to conquest the leadership in this segment of the market. They have similar characteristics, but they use different operating system, but overall finally we will have two smartphones with not only GPRS but WI-FI too.
Who of the two will win this “final battle”? Symbian or Microsoft?
The one from Nokia is the new Communicator 9500 that will arrive on the market in Q3/04 at an estimated price of about 800 euros. The 9500 is a triband GPRS/EDGE and utilizes the Symbian 7.OS, it has WI-FI integrated (IEEE 802.11b) and his weight is 222 grams . Double display, 65k colours both: the internal one has a resolution of 640x220, the external 128x128 and uses the same user interface of the Series 40.
VGA camera integrated, full Bluetooth connectivity (connectivity to a pc is also possible via USB utilizing the DKU-2 cable), e-mal client POP3 and IMAP4, browser HTML/XTML, HTML 4.01 with Javascript compatibility and support for secure protocols SSL/TLS – Ipsec VPN. The Nokia 9500 will come with a full range of applications to handle documents, sheets, multimedia presentations. There will be a full range of accessories too: the Connectivity Desk Stand to synch and recharge, the Mobile Holder to install the 9500 in the car and a line of covers to personalize the exterior of this smartphone.
Key Features
Full QWERTY keyboard and two 65,536-color displays
Tri-band operation on five continents
80 MB built-in memory, support for additional memory with memory card (MMC)
High-speed data connectivity with EGPRS (EDGE)
Wireless LAN access
Email, Personal Information Management (PIM), HTML 4.01 / xHTML browser
Business applications like word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation editor, and viewer
Office tools: Documents, sheets, presentations (Microsoft compatible, MS Office 97 onwards)
Security solutions: SSL/TLS, VPN, Ipsec, WPA
Integrated VGA camera, video recorder, MMS
Symbian 7.0 OS (series 80 platform), Java MIDP 2.0 and Personal profile
Advanced voice features: Integrated handsfree, conference call
Bluetooth technology and Pop-Port™ interfaces for versatile enhancement support
On the other side, Motorola has officially announced the new smartphone MPx that will become the top of the Motorola’s line of cellular phones with Microsoft Smartphone 2003 and will be available in the second half of this year. It is a tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 and GPRS phone.
The MPx will be a PDA phone, a real Pocket PC with integrated IrDA, Bluetooth and WI-FI connectivity, one camera 1.3 mega pixel with flash, a multifunction QWERTY keyboard, and an innovative system to open the flip: it can works vertically to be used like a normal cellular phone or it can works horizontally to be used to works with PDA applications and to play.
The display is obviously touch-screen type, 2.8” with a resolution of 240x320 and 65K colours. There is also an external colour display.
The MPx is fully compatible with all Pocket PC applications and supports SD and MMC till 1GB of capacity.
With the Windows Media Player, the Motorola MPx also provides users with essential entertainment options to balance out the busy workday. In a snap, executives on the road can take pictures using the MPx’s integrated camera with flash and send them home to family and friends.1 Powerful messaging capabilities and the large dual-hinge internal landscape and portrait display also make sending and receiving movie or video clips a breeze via e-mail, MMS, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth.
"Mobile email is the "hero" application for mobile professionals looking to stay in touch in real time. This revolutionary compact form factor combines powerful hardware and software enablers and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile software, to create a true mobile assistant – helping mobile professionals stay ahead of the curve," Tom Lynch, executive vice president and chief executive officer, Personal Communications Sector, Motorola, Inc. "The MPx expands the MOTOPro portfolio, enabling businesses and mobile professionals to leverage the power of mobility and convergence."
The Motorola MPx offers:
Microsoft Windows Mobile software: Making the Motorola MPx truly an extension of your desktop, this cutting-edge device supports a multitude of business applications including Microsoft Outlook e-mail and PIM, Microsoft Word, Excel and more.
No strings attached: The Motorola MPx tri-band GSM/GPRS device supports integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology for both data centric and voice centric communications with compatible devices, for the ultimate in hands-free connectivity.
Design: Boasting a truly unique and innovative form factor, the Motorola MPx is the must-have solution to help driven professionals manage their mobile lives in realtime while adding new convenience to the converged device, resulting in a user-friendly and stylish mobile.
Advanced camera capabilities: With an impressive 1.3 mega-pixel camera and flash embedded on the Motorola MPx, messages can be delivered with more than just words.
Expansive memory: To leverage the device's ability to download Microsoft Pocket PC and Java applications, games, photos and more, the model MPx comes with a SD/MMC slot supporting up to 1 GB of memory.
Synchronization: Built in "ActiveSync" and "Air-sync" makes the model MPx capable of synching with Microsoft Outlook for easy organization. Additionally, the device supports Infrared IRDA 115 kbps for data exchange and Consumer IR (CIR) for control of audio/video and home automation equipment on the fly.
Ease of use: The Motorola MPx supports a variety of input methods making it quick and effortless to transfer data, including a numeric keyboard, a thumb QWERTY board and stylus and touch sensitive screen to support smooth operations.
The size is 99.7x61.2x24 millimetres and the weight 174 grams .
Motorola has declared an autonomy of 140 hours in stanby and 180 minutes in conversation.
http://www.smartfone.net/?m=show&id=354
besides cost savings, do you know why we have to outsource high-tech jobs out of the u.s.?......that's right, there's not enough qualified people here in the u.s........do you know why there's not enough qualified people here in the u.s.?.......that's right, our education system has, and is failing us by not keeping up with the times
that's a mighty big besides there, zitboy. So the 'education president's' answer to our education system failing us is to attack the teacher's union as a terrorist organization? (love the 'war' anology!) Kinda figures, doesn't it. And besides cost savings, the reason we outsourced 'low-tech' (read blue collar, union) jobs the past 10-15 years was....lemme guess, 'not enough qualified people here in the u.s.'??? Get real. What about Bush's constant chirping of 'retraining' the American worker? Suppose that is also the fault of the 'decaying unionized bureaucracy'.
At least you cut to the chase, zitboy, and get to the heart of your infinite wisdom, for it is not the terrorist 'teacher's union' that is 'failing us by not keeping up with the times' but all unions that thwart a 'real progressing and progressive civilization' and thus, by your definition, 'must be replaced for the permancy of 'we the people''. You pompous windbag. The very last fiber and thought of this elitist, budget busting, deficit promoting, war mongering, in your face, our way or the highway (so much for reaching across the aisle), compassionate conservative, uniter not divider, education waaay down the list, smoke and mirrors, lunatic right administration is we the people.
Easy, wow, that is great, good for you (love that pic). Do remember, though, zit and his ilk don't believe in fair. Bush is already 'reaching across the aisle' and hinting at a Neville Chamberlain in Kerry's family tree....while he stood on the sidelines, of course. Good grief!
"good grief!.......thanks for making my point about the lunatic left........during the american revolution, i can only guess where you would have stood.......on the sidelines, of course.......is neville chamberlin in your family tree?"
That's how 'they' have reached across the aisle for the last three years...too funny zit
"Zit, your post is not worthy of a response...Sounds like you wanta fight? Gloves off and all that...Geesh!"
Excellent post bulldzr, but I hesitate to respond to you knowing our current regime is actively searching for any known terrorists or those who associate with such individuals and having heard the enlightened Mr. Paige (sp?) declare the teacher's union a 'terrorist organization' (called reaching across the aisle by zitboy) and seeming to remember you cohabitate (sanctity of marriage, I believe) with a woman (whew) having direct contact with said terrorist members, well, there could be a knock on my door...
My comment: Regardless of one's view on same sex marriage, let me get this straight: The House of Bush states the courts are not responsible enough to decide same sex marriage issues("Unless action is taken, we can expect more arbitrary court decisions")but when the outcome of a presidential election is at stake they go running to the courts for their 'arbitary decision'. The Emperor has no clothes.
And I am sure all those who feel so strongly in defending the 'sanctity of marriage' have NEVER been divorced or had an affair.
Bush endorses
constitutional ban
on gay marriage
Amendment needed to end ‘uncertainty,’ he says
BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 12:19 p.m. ET Feb. 24, 2004WASHINGTON - Jumping into a volatile election-year debate on same-sex weddings, President Bush on Tuesday backed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage — a move he said was needed to stop judges from changing the definition of the “most enduring human institution.”
“After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization,” the president said. “Their action has created confusion on an issue that requires clarity."
"Unless action is taken, we can expect more arbitrary court decisions, more litigation, more defiance of the law by local officials, all of which adds to uncertainty," he said.
Cites ‘overwhelming consensus’
Citing what he said was an "overwhelming consensus" that marriage should be only between a man and a woman, Bush criticized city officials in San Francisco, a county clerk in New Mexico and the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which has ruled that it is unconstitutional to bar gay couples from marriage, clearing the way for same-sex weddings to begin there in May.
Timeline Marriage rights battle
Key turns in fight over unions for same-sex couples
1989
Denmark becomes the first nation to legally recognize same-sex unions, offering "the same legal effects as the contracting of marriage." Half a dozen European countries begin moving in the same direction.
1996
A court in Hawaii overrules a previous state ban on gay marriage, sparking a national debate on the subject.
1996
The U.S. House and Senate overwhelmingly pass the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), a bill denying federal recognition of same-sex marriages and giving states the right to refuse same-sex marriage licenses from other states and deny benefits associated with marriage. President Bill Clinton signs the bill. Some 38 states have since adopted similar state legislation.
2000
Vermont creates a new legal relationship status called a "civil union," allowing same-sex couples to obtain all of the rights, responsibilities and benefits available through marriage within the state of Vermont, becoming the first state to do so.
April, 2001
Netherlands: Gay and lesbian couples who are Dutch are allowed to marry and adopt with the full privileges enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. The law offers the most sweeping rights to same sex couples in the world. By 2002, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Germany, France and Switzerland have all adopted laws allowing registration of same-sex unions, with most or all of the rights enjoyed by married heterosexual couples.
May, 2003
Rep Marilyn Musgrave, (R-Colo.) and five cosponsors introduce HJ Resolution 56, the Federal Marriage Amendment, a resolution to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman only. The Senate follows suit with its own resolution in November. The amendments state that no state or federal law "shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
June 2003
The U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a Texas law prohibiting same-sex sodomy. By removing criminal implications for private consensual sexual acts, the ruling changed the legal landscape for an array issues concerning same-sex couples, including the right to marry.
June-July, 2003
The Canadian provinces of Ontario and British Columbia begin allowing same-sex couples to marry, and obtain full rights of marriage under Canadian law, following a court decision that the law on traditional marriage is unconstitutional.
November, 2003
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules that it is a violation of the state constitution to bar same-sex couples from marriage. The first legal marriages for same-sex couples are due to take place in May.
February, 2004
Massachusetts lawmakers debate amending the state constitution to define marriage as a union only between a man and woman. This amendment, if passed by lawmakers, could only appear on a ballot for voter approval in 2006. By the start of this debate, 21 states had introduced or were expected to introduce similar state constitutional amendments.
Source: MSNBC Research • Print this
"A few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization," Bush said in a White House announcement.
Bush also said that allowing jurisdictions to continue to issue same-sex marriage licenses could require other states and localities to recognize them.
The conservative wing of his party has been anxious for Bush to follow up his rhetoric on the issue with action. In recent weeks, Bush has repeatedly said he was “troubled” by the Massachusetts court decision and the gay marriages in San Francisco, but stopped short of endorsing a constitutional amendment.
Sen. John Kerry, Bush’s likely Democratic opponent in this year’s election, says he opposes gay marriages. But he also opposes a federal constitutional amendment to ban them, because he says it is an issue for the states to decide, spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Tuesday.
Kerry says he prefers civil unions and rejects any federal or state legislation that could be used to eliminate equal protections for homosexuals or other forms of recognition like civil unions.
No endorsement for specific bill
Earlier, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush thinks that legislation proposed by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., "meets his principles" in protecting the "sanctity of marriage" between men and women, but the president did not embrace any specific piece of legislation in his announcement.
But White House officials say that support for Musgrave's proposed amendment has been unraveling in the Senate.
Bush called on Congress to move quickly to pass legislation that can then be sent to the states for ratification.
At least 38 states and the federal government have approved laws or amendments barring the recognition of gay marriage; last week, the Utah House gave final legislative approval to a measure outlawing same-sex marriages and sent it to the governor, who has not taken a position on the bill.
Enactment of a constitutional amendment requires affirmation by two-thirds of both the House of Representatives and the Senate and endorsement by three-quarters of the states.
A volatile social issue
With the announcement, Bush is wading into a volatile social issue. The conservative wing of his party has been anxious for Bush to follow up his rhetoric on the issue with action. In recent weeks, Bush has repeatedly said he was “troubled” by the Massachusetts court decision and the gay marriages in San Francisco, but stopped short of endorsing a constitutional amendment.
Couples from more than 20 states have flocked to San Francisco City Hall since city officials decided to begin marrying same-sex couples a few days ago. At the current pace, more than 3,000 people will have taken vows by Friday promising to be “spouses for life.”
At least 38 states and the federal government have approved laws or amendments barring the recognition of gay marriage; last week, the Utah House gave final legislative approval to a measure outlawing same-sex marriages and sent it to the governor, who has not taken a position on the bill.
Musgrave’s proposed amendment would define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.
Conservatives have been saying for a month that the White House had quietly assured them that Bush would take the step he was announcing on Tuesday.
Last week, he met with 13 Roman Catholic conservatives. They included Deal Hudson, the publisher of Crisis magazine and a friend of Bush political adviser Karl Rove; William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights; Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, former speechwriter for President Reagan; and Kathryn Jean Lopez, associate editor of National Review magazine.
President said he could support leading proposal
Bush also has indicated his support for a constitutional amendment in the past, including in a closed-door meeting with Republican lawmakers last month. At that session, according to one official in attendance, the president singled out Musgrave’s proposal as one he could support, but did not endorse it.
The amendment that Musgrave and other lawmakers are backing in the House says: “Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups.”
Bush’s comment indicating his support for language saying that the states should be left free to “define other arrangements” suggests that he does not favor using a constitutional amendment to enact a federal ban on civil union or domestic partnership laws.
But he ignored a shouted question at the conclusion of his statement asking whether he would support civil unions between gay couples.
The proposed amendment backed by Musgrave and others in Congress is consistent with that, but some conservatives favor going further.
A recent nationwide CNN poll found that by a margin of 64-32, those surveyed said gay marriages should not be recognized in law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages.
On a separate question, 48 percent of those surveyed said it should be up to the federal government to pass laws regarding gay marriages, while another 46 percent said the states should take that role.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4360783/
ahhh...good one grasshopper!!!
"confucious says...its hard to seperate the two"
Meet the Zippies
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: February 22, 2004
BANGALORE, India
We grew up with the hippies in the 1960's. Thanks to the high-tech revolution, many of us became yuppies in the 1980's. And now, fasten your seat belt, because you may soon lose your job to a "zippie" in the 2000's.
"The Zippies Are Here," declared the Indian weekly magazine Outlook. Zippies are this huge cohort of Indian youth who are the first to come of age since India shifted away from socialism and dived headfirst into global trade, the information revolution and turning itself into the world's service center. Outlook calls India's zippies "Liberalization's Children," and defines one as "a young city or suburban resident, between 15 and 25 years of age, with a zip in the stride. Belongs to generation Z. Can be male or female, studying or working. Oozes attitude, ambition and aspiration. Cool, confident and creative. Seeks challenges, loves risks and shuns fears." Indian zippies carry no guilt about making money or spending it. They are, says one Indian analyst quoted by Outlook, destination driven, not destiny driven; outward, not inward, looking; upwardly mobile, not stuck-in-my-station-in-life.
Advertisement
With 54 percent of India under the age of 25 — that's 555 million people — six out of 10 Indian households have at least one zippie, Outlook says. And a growing slice of them (most Indians are still poor village-dwellers) will be able to do your white-collar job as well as you for a fraction of the pay. Indian zippies are one reason outsourcing is becoming the hot issue in this year's U.S. presidential campaign.
I just arrived here in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, to meet the zippies on the receiving end of U.S. jobs. Judging from the construction going on every block here, the multiple applicants for every new tech job, the crowded pub scene and the families of four you see zipping around on a single motor scooter, Bangalore is one hot town.
Taking all this in, two things strike me about this outsourcing issue: One, economists are surely right: the biggest factor eliminating old jobs and churning new ones is technological change — the phone mail system that eliminated your secretary. As for the zippies who soak up certain U.S. or European jobs, they will become consumers, the global pie will grow, and ultimately we will all be better off. As long as America maintains its ability to do cutting-edge innovation, the long run should be fine. Saving money by outsourcing basic jobs to zippies, so we can invest in more high-end innovation, makes sense.
But here's what I also feel: this particular short run could be a real bear — and politically explosive. The potential speed and scale of this outsourcing phenomenon make its potential impact enormous and unpredictable. As we enter a world where the price of digitizing information — converting it into little packets of ones and zeros and then transmitting it over high-speed data networks — falls to near zero, it means the vaunted "death of distance" is really here. And that means that many jobs you can now do from your house — whether data processing, reading an X-ray, or basic accounting or lawyering — can now also be done from a zippie's house in India or China.
And as education levels in these overseas homes rise to U.S. levels, the barriers to shipping white-collar jobs abroad fall and the incentives rise. At a minimum, some very educated Americans used to high salaries — people who vote and know how to write op-ed pieces — will either lose their jobs, or have to accept lower pay or become part-timers without health insurance.
"The fundamental question we have to ask as a society is, what do we do about it?" notes Robert Reich, the former labor secretary and now Brandeis University professor. "For starters, we're going to have to get serious about some of the things we just gab about — job training, life-long learning, wage insurance. And perhaps we need to welcome more unionization in the personal services area — retail, hotel, restaurant and hospital jobs which cannot be moved overseas — in order to stabilize their wages and health care benefits." Maybe, as a transition measure, adds Mr. Reich, companies shouldn't be allowed to deduct the full cost of outsourcing, creating a small tax that could be used to help people adjust.
Either way, managing this phenomenon will require a public policy response — something more serious than the Bush mantra of let the market sort it out, or the demagoguery of the Democratic candidates, who seem to want to make outsourcing equal to treason and punishable by hanging. Time to get real.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/opinion/22FRIE.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...
"The president can't skirt the issues by hiding behind Laura's skirts forever. One way of showing character is to come out from behind all her protestations about his character."
Had to post the last line of the article...That is too funny! Looks like Bush can't take his own medicine!
I Read, I Smoke, I Spin
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: February 22, 2004
WASHINGTON
Laura Bush does not want that Chanel-wearing, shawl-draping, senator-marrying Teresa Heinz Kerry to get her house.
It's a swell house, with doting servants, fresh flowers and grand paintings.
And she does not want her Bushie to be tarred for lacking character, after he ascended by promising to restore character to an Oval Office still redolent of thongs and pizza.
So the reserved librarian who married the rollicking oilman on the condition that she would never have to make a political speech has suddenly transformed herself into a sharp-edged, tart-tongued, defensive protectrix of her husband's record.
Many White House reporters, including ones the first lady has been testy and sarcastic with, say they are thrilled with the new Laura. They found the old Laura "plastic" and "unreal," limited to treacly concerns about children, reading and being George's rock. The new Laura, they say, has "juice."
But I kind of miss the old Laura, the one who long ago shocked W.'s paternal grandmother by describing her interests in a way that sounded, heaven forfend, French: "I read, I smoke and I admire." The new Laura reads polls, fumes and admonishes. A cool Marian the Librarian morphed into a hot Mary Matalin, running around the country spinning reporters, slicing and dicing Democrats, and raking in dough at fund-raisers.
I always had a cozy image of Laura Bush curled up in a window seat in the White House solarium, reading Dostoyevsky and petting a cat dozing beside her. She seemed beyond politics, an estimably private, utterly classy presence unsullied by the nasty edge that Bush family politics takes on when a Bush pol gets in trouble, not the sort to needle political rivals and the press or rigorously catalog injustices the way Barbara Bush did.
Not that Laura was bland. I liked the confidence with which this champion of literacy blew off the poets she'd invited to the White House last year, once she realized they planned to do to her husband what Eartha Kitt did to Lyndon Johnson — turn a cultural event into an antiwar protest. It was her party, and she could cry foul if she wanted.
During the 2000 campaign, she was content to be the serene counterpoint to her husband's boyish bouncing off the walls. She rejected Hillary's two-for-the-price-of-one mantra and told The Times's Frank Bruni, "I'm not that knowledgeable about most issues. . . . And just to put in my two cents to put in my two cents — I don't think it's really necessary."
Bush advisers liked her detachment from the messy arena. They thought she made her husband seem grounded, moderate and down to earth, a contrast with the obsessive, egoistic ambition of the Clintons and Al Gore.
But this time around, it is Mr. Bush who is getting attacked on credibility and do-whatever-it-takes ambition. His strategists, panicked about chaotic Iraq, confused economic policy, cascading deficits and incoherent National Guard records, needed to draw, if you'll pardon the expression, the most unimpeachable person in the White House into the fray. They pitched her as Mr. Bush's secret weapon. Maybe, after the David Kay debacle, the White House just needed to unearth a weapon — any weapon.
The woman known for telling her husband to tone it down is now telling his critics to get lost. In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, she said of the National Guard flap: "I think it's a political, you know, witch hunt, actually, on the part of Democrats."
Speaking to The Times's Elisabeth Bumiller, a prickly Mrs. Bush defended her husband on Iraq and shared the chip on his shoulder about the East Coast elite, apparently resentful that they might consider her a 50's throwback, doing women's work.
Talking to ABC's Terry Moran, Mrs. Bush harshly responded to Terry McAuliffe's AWOL charge: "I don't think it's fair to really lie about allegations about someone." She stated flatly that W. was pulling Guard duty in Alabama. When Mr. Moran asked how she knew, she replied, "Well, because he told me he was."
The last time a powerful man from Texas got into trouble and sent his wife out to defend him, it was W. contributor Kenny Boy Lay.
The president can't skirt the issues by hiding behind Laura's skirts forever. One way of showing character is to come out from behind all her protestations about his character.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/22/opinion/22DOWD.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...
Good post bulldzr, but got to correct one point, lol. Gas in Cali-fornia (love the way Arnie says it)is over $2.00 already and going higher. Gotta love the Bush coherent energy policy (is that an oxymoron?). And we have an interesting vote coming up in March as the Governator is attempting to float a $15 billion bond to 'tide us over' (very imaginative thinking; Grey Davis could never come up with that). Now Cheney says Reagan proved deficits don't matter but I think it will be a close vote and an indication voters take these deficits seriously come November.
But you are right as it will take a big turnout to defeat Bush and his close to quarter billion spent on spreading fear and ignorance (their two biggest weapons); fear that we must keep Bush to continue our 'war' (gotta have a war) and ignorance of the real issues and policies this administration is propagating. And nasty, we ain't seen nothin' yet.
zitboy: I do try to keep myself informed and upon further review it appears you are correct. The article I read from the San Francisco Chronicle did not reference another picture. Do too understand while trying to keep myself informed I also try to keep an open mind.
F6...I wonder why the Zitster has not posted a picture of these smiling men??? when he was so quick to post a picture of Kerry and Fonda together??? which turns out to be a phony. Then there is Rooster, clucking and scratching around the hen house about Kerry having an affair...Better to smear them with lies from the past then deal with present facts. This administration and the zealot sheep that follow will stop at nothing to advance their agenda. Shameful and desperate.
"It’s a long time until November, the aide mused, but it’s starting to look a lot like 1992, when another Bush who was in the White House looked out of touch. The elder Bush’s bewilderment over his encounter with a supermarket scanning device crystallized the doubts voters had about him. An analogous moment for the current President Bush occurred when he signed the partial birth abortion ban surrounded by a phalanx of white men in blue suits. Not a single woman was pictured, even though women are principally affected by the legislation. The men were all smiling. Their celebration may have been premature."
******************************
Why Kerry should sue the Sun
Some of the British media are too happy doing Drudge's dirty work
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday February 19, 2004
The Guardian
One question remains unanswered about the politically inspired lie that Senator John Kerry had had an affair with an "intern". Which interested source planted it with the rightwing internet hooligan Matt Drudge and with the conservative British newspapers that put it into wide public play? Its timing was fortuitous. Immediately after George Bush went into a tailspin, falling behind the Democratic presidential frontrunner, John Kerry, in the polls, Kerry became the subject of smears filled with remembrance of things past.
First, a phoney composite photograph was circulated of Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam war rally. Unfortunately, not only did Fonda denounce the ploy as a "dirty trick", but so did Republican senator John McCain, heroic Vietnam prisoner of war, Bush's rival for the nomination in 2000 and a close friend of Kerry's. The attempt to revive the dread of the Nixon era failed, and the scarlet letter of the Clinton years was unfurled. The Drudge Report, claiming 15 million readers, alleged that a young "intern" had a "mystery relationship" with Kerry and that several major US news organisations were already investigating. But none published a word, though political society in Washington and New York was instantly consumed with gossip.
On February 13, on the eve of Valentine's Day, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper screeched, "New JFK rocked by sex scandal", naming the woman as Alexandra Polier and quoting her father as calling Kerry "a sleazeball". On February 15, the Tory papers, the Mail and the Telegraph, quoted her "friend": "This is not going to go away. What actually happened is much nastier than what is being reported." Murdoch's Sunday Times repeated the "sleazeball" quote and winked knowingly: "It is a tale of two Americas, as the Democrats might say."
Back in the US, frustrated rightwing media tried to force the issue, using the authority of the British imprimatur. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, broadcasting on more than 600 radio stations, boomed: "It's all over the UK press! It's front page!" He suggested that President Clinton was the source of the story in order to bump off Kerry and help Senator Hillary Clinton become president. The neoconservative former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in National Review: "Isn't it curious how after a story like this breaks there turn out to be dozens of people who were in on the secret?" On CNN, the Sunday Times columnist and Drudge pal Andrew Sullivan held forth: "Can you anymore not talk about something that's on the front page of the Times of London, front page of the Drudge Report, on everybody's minds? There comes a point at which the media has to acknowledge people are talking."
On February 16, Polier spoke for herself, declaring the story "completely false" and explaining her motive in stepping forward. "Because these stories were false, I assumed the media would ignore them. It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them." It turned out she was not even an intern. Her father said that the notorious "sleazeball" quote attributed to him had been fabricated. Drudge, ever gallant, blamed the story on the young woman's imagined seductive behaviour: "Polier's flippant remarks and flirtatious manner, according to friends, fuelled the intrigue."
The defamation, the media amplification through the conservative network, the British blowback was all well-rehearsed. Drudge initially gained his celebrity by libelling me on the day I began work in the Clinton White House in August 1997, reporting as fact that I was hiding police records of domestic violence. Within hours, conservative media were spreading the story like wildfire. Drudge admitted that Republican operatives had given him the story and that he had been used. It is his usual method.
"Screw journalism! The whole thing's a fraud anyway," Drudge once proclaimed. Though he calls himself an "information anarchist", he is anything but independent. He is a reliable submissive to his partisan "sources". One independent study of his "exclusive" stories determined that only one-third were true. His latest "intern" revelation is the sound of his master's voice at the beginning of a campaign Republicans fear losing.
In the US, there is virtually no legal protection for a public figure, especially a political one, from defamation. Libel laws are de facto defunct. Public opinion is inevitably swayed by this tainting, all journalism has fallen under suspicion and truth cannot easily be distinguished from malicious fiction. Only if Kerry (or Polier) were to sue the Sun under British libel law, for example, would this transatlantic corruption of the press be truly engaged. Then a British court would begin to set important rules in American politics.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1151345,00.html
And they're off!
Campaign 2004 is in full steam, and there's nothing quite like it
AUSTIN, Texas -- Anyone who is not enjoying American politics at this point is missing an important gene and a sense of humor. Whee, we're off! Like a dirty shirt, like a herd of turtles, it's the 2004 presidential campaign.
My friends, the media have not begun to overuse the horserace metaphor. The candidates are rounding the first turn, into the backstretch, a leader breaks from the pack. He stumbles, he falls! Now the long-faced gray from Massachusetts moves up, the showy palomino from North Carolina hangs in, and the General drops out. It's muddy out there. Splat! Splat! Splat!
My favorite campaign document of recent days is from a conservative email newsletter, Talon (you can't make this stuff up). In the Feb. 13 update, Item One is a nasty piece of gossip about a Democratic contender, whereas Item Three (I swear) is, "Gutter Politics to Get Uglier: Reacting in part to the relentless questioning of the President's service record, RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said Wednesday that despite being so early in the campaign season, the Democrats have made clear they intend to run the dirtiest campaign in modern presidential politics."
I think we need a rule calling for at least two paragraphs between spreading nasty gossip and then decrying the spreading of nasty gossip. On television and radio, 24 hours should be required. Standards must be maintained here, team.
In the category of most ludicrous attack, we have an outcry (well, sort of an outcry) over the horrible news that John Kerry takes money from special interest lobbyists. Lawsy, I swan, I had to sit down and fan myself when I heard it. Corporate special interest money in politics! What next? In fact, Kerry has compiled an enviable record by Democratic standards in this field. He's Number One in special interest money, reflecting nothing other than Washington's early conventional wisdom on the subject.
Happily for politics as usual, Kerry has surged to the fore and is now undergoing the pluperfectly idiotic political experience of being called the candidate of special interests by Republicans! Oh, this is so rich, how can you not rejoice? President Bush has only raised 28 times as much money from corporate special interests as John Kerry, and four times as much directly from lobbyists. But that didn't stop the Bush campaign from sending out an email video to 6 million supporters accusing Kerry of being the candidate of the special interests!
In another lovely development, it turns out Al Sharpton's campaign is being "financed, staffed and orchestrated" by Roger Stone, long-time Republican dirty trickster. According to Wayne Barrett in The Village Voice, Stone helped raise money in several states from his own relatives and political pals so Sharpton could qualify for federal matching funds, which is an infuriating waste of taxpayer's money and a perfect example of why public campaign financing laws need to be written carefully. Sharpton on his own doesn't have a broad enough appeal to qualify for federal funds.
Stone has a long history of political skullduggery, including heading the Republican street forces in Miami after the 2000 election that started the "riot" at the Dade County Courthouse. And Sharpton has a long history of playing footsie with Republicans, including his role in the 2001 New York City mayoral race.
But for sheer, vicious nastiness, no one cam compete with Ann Coulter, whose latest error-riddled effusion is an attack on former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, who has been critical of the Bush administration. Apparently in an effort to make George W.'s incomplete in the National Guard look better, Coulter wrote a column distributed by the Heritage Foundation saying Cleland, a triple amputee, had showed "no bravery" in Vietnam, "didn't give his limbs for his country," is not a war hero. My favorite sentence is, "Luckily for Cleland ... he happened (to lose his limbs) while in Vietnam," her point being that if he had been injured at Fort Dix, he wouldn't be a hero.
He also wouldn't have been under enemy fire at Fort Dix. She says he lost his legs in "a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends." Actually, Cleland lost his limbs when a grenade detonated after he and another soldier jumped off a helicopter in a combat zone.
As for not being a war hero, Cleland earned the Silver Star in a separate incident just four days before he was injured. The citation reads, "during heavy enemy rocket and mortar attack, Capt. Cleland disregarded his own safety, exposed himself to rocket barrage as he left his covered position to administer first aid to his wounded comrades. He then assisted them in moving the injured personnel to covered positions. Cleland's gallant action is in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflects great credit upon himself, his unit and the United Sates Army."
How lucky for Cleland...
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=16451
LOL, F6, this one had to be AKA zitboy...
“I have long restrained myself from exploding after reading the type of rotting, festering, pus covered liberal dung that you have presented in this article. I often wonder which crack in the sewer of liberal America people like yourself have oozed out from. It bewilders me to try to understand where you cockroaches lose your way in life. I just wanted to mention a few of the maggot infested piles of whipped cream on the liberal pie-of-life that I knew were near and dear to your pink heart. Your article felt like watching a horrific and brutal flesh tearing, sadistic automobile collision unfold before my eyes. Thank you for the inspiration.”
an email I received:
George W. Bush
RESUME
-I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol.
-I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days.
-My Texas driving record has been "lost" and is not available.
-MILITARY:
-I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL.
-I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use.
-By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.
-COLLEGE:
-I graduated from Yale University with a low C average.
-I was a cheerleader.
-PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:
-I ran for US Congress and lost.
-I began my career in the oil business in Midland, Texas, in 1975.
-I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas.
-The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
-I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money.
-With the help of my father and our right-wing friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.
-ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:
-I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union.
-During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog ridden city in America.
-I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.
-I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American history.
-With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President after losing by over 500,000 votes.
-ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:
-I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
-I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.
-I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.
-I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.
-I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
-I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.
-I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. stock market.
-In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month.
-I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any
administration in U.S. history.
-My "poorest millionaire," Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.
-I set the record for most campaign fundraising trips by a U.S. President.
-I am the all-time U.S. and world recordholder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.
-My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.
-My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.
-I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate ripoffs in history.
-I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.
-I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.
-I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
-I appointed more convicted criminals to administration than any President in U.S. history.
-I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States government.
-I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.
-I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.
-I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.
-I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. "prisoners of war" detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.
-I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. election).
-I set the record for fewest number of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.
-I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one year period.
-After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
-I garnered the most sympathy for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.
-I have set the alltime record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
-I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. citizens, and the world
community.
-I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in war time.
-In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq, then blamed the lies on our British friends.
-I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans(71%)view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.
-I am supporting development of a nuclear "Tactical Bunker Buster," a WMD.
-I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.
-RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
-All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.
-All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
-All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
-PLEASE CONSIDER MY EXPERIENCE WHEN VOTING IN 2004.
-PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY VOTER YOU KNOW.
P.S. I ain't no Cowboy in the White House either.
Interesting post, F6. I like this comment:
"I don't know anything about that," Marburger said, regarding a CDC fact sheet on condom use.
What I do believe is Bush doesn't know anythig about this and the "suppressing and distorting scientific findings that run counter to its own policies. " Never have I seen a President proud of the fact he doesn't read the newspapers and gets his information from those closest to him. Saddam bragged of this fact also.
Clear Skies Act, Clear Air Bill, Healthy Forest Initiative...what a regime.
F6, I believe Texas is numero uno in capital punishment and not sure, but am led to believe Jeb's Florida is second in executions. It's called compassionate conservative. But hey, Price is serious about his calling and I'd be willing to bet he is a good Christian man.
"Some folks think I'm poking fun at a serious and solemn subject," said Price, who prepared 220 such meals in a prison kitchen in Huntsville while serving time himself. "My intention is not to offend anyone."
F6, sorry I looked, lol. Things are looking good; the wait (4 plus years for me) has been good as I have been able to add shares and yet to sell any. Now, if only we can implement a regime change, I'll be a happy(ier) camper.
Another special interest comment zitboy...My comment: CBS has donated millions of dollars to the Republican Party. Do they now have a 'special interest' in who gets elected and if so, could the 'news' they provide be structured in such a way to accomplish this goal. After all, surely they do not want to waste millions of dollars of contributions. And zitboy, rooster, et al, William Safire isn't the biggest liberal out there.
The Five Sisters
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Published: February 16, 2004
WASHINGTON — If one huge corporation controlled both the production and the dissemination of most of our news and entertainment, couldn't it rule the world?
Can't happen here, you say; America is the land of competition that generates new technology to ensure a diversity of voices. But consider how a supine Congress and a feckless majority of the Federal Communications Commission have been failing to protect our access to a variety of news, views and entertainment.
The media giant known as Viacom-CBS-MTV just showed us how it controls both content and communication of the sexiest Super Bowl. The five other big sisters that now bestride the world are (1) Murdoch-FoxTV-HarperCollins-WeeklyStandard-NewYorkPost-LondonTimes-DirecTV; (2) G.E.-NBC-Universal-Vivendi; (3) Time-Warner-CNN-AOL; (4) Disney-ABC-ESPN; and (5) the biggest cable company, Comcast.
As predicted here in an "Office Pool" over two years ago, Comcast has just bid to take over Disney (Ed Bleier, then of Warner Bros., was my prescient source). If the $50 billion deal is successful, the six giants would shrink to five, with Disney-Comcast becoming the biggest.
Would Rupert Murdoch stand for being merely No. 2? Not on your life. He would take over a competitor, perhaps the Time-Warner-CNN-AOL combine, making him biggest again. Meanwhile, cash-rich Microsoft — which already owns 7 percent of Comcast and is a partner of G.E.'s MSNBC — would swallow both Disney-ABC and G.E.-NBC. Then there would be three, on the way to one.
You say the U.S. government would never allow that? The Horatius lollygagging at the bridge is the F.C.C.'s Michael Powell, who never met a merger he didn't like. Cowering next to him is General Roundheels at the Bush Justice Department's Pro-Trust Division, which last year waved through Murdoch's takeover of DirecTV. (Joel Klein, Last of the Trustbusters, now teaches school in New York.)
But what of the Senate, guardian of free speech? There was Powell last week before Chairman John McCain's Commerce Committee, currying favor with cultural conservatives by pretending to be outraged over Janet Jackson's "costume reveal." The F.C.C. chairman, looking stern, pledged "ruthless and rigorous scrutiny" of any Comcast bid to merge Disney-ABC-ESPN into a huge DisCast. Media giants — always willing to agree to cosmetic "restrictions" on their way to amalgamation — chuckled at the notion of a "ruthless Mike."
McCain's plaintive question to Powell — "Where will it all end?" — is too little, too late. This senatorial apostle of deregulation, who last week called the world's attention to the media concentration that helps subvert democracy in Russia, has been blind to the danger of headlong concentration of media power in America.
The benumbing euphemism for the newly permitted top-to-bottom information and entertainment control is "vertical integration." In Philadelphia, Comcast not only owns the hometown basketball team, but owns its stadium, owns the cable sports channel televising the games as well as owning the line that brings the signal into Philadelphians' houses. Soon: ESPN, too. Go compete against, or argue with, that head-to-toe control — and then apply that chilling form of integration to cultural events and ultimately to news coverage.
The reason given by giants to merge with other giants is to compete more efficiently with other enlarging conglomerates. The growing danger, however, is that media giants are becoming fewer as they get bigger. The assurance given is "look at those independent Internet Web sites that compete with us" — but all the largest Web sites are owned by the giants.
How are the media covering their contraction? (I still construe the word "media" as plural in hopes that McCain will get off his duff and Bush will awaken.) Much of the coverage is "gee-whiz, which personality will be top dog, which investors will profit and which giant will go bust?"
But the message in this latest potential merger is not about a clash of media megalomaniacs, nor about a conspiracy driven by "special interests." The issue is this: As technology changes, how do we better protect the competition that keeps us free and different?
You don't have to be a populist to want to stop this rush by ever-fewer entities to dominate both the content and the conduit of what we see and hear and write and say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/opinion/16SAFI.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...
Promises, Promises
By BOB HERBERT
Published: February 16, 2004
One of the main reasons for the decline in President Bush's credibility is the disconnect between the rosy economic scenarios his administration keeps touting and the much more dismal real-life experience of millions of American families.
Mr. Bush likes to say, "America's economy is strong and getting stronger." He recently boasted, "Since May 2003 we have seen the economy grow at its fastest pace in nearly 20 years." He predicted that prosperity would soon "reach every corner of America."
The president needs to get out more. He could visit the working men and women across the state of South Carolina who have watched the factories and the mills close and their jobs vanish like lights in a blackout. He could chat with the people lining up at soup kitchens and food pantries from Harlem to Oklahoma and beyond. He could take a tour of the Pacific Northwest or Silicon Valley, listening to families that have been devastated by the information technology bust and the outsourcing of high-tech jobs.
When the labor secretary, Elaine Chao, was questioned on CNN about the disappointing jobs report for January (112,000 jobs were created when 150,000 had been anticipated), she said: "Well, the stock market is, after all, the final arbiter. And the stock market was very strong this morning in reaction to the news that we have just received."
She was outdone in tone-deafness just a few days later by N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, who gave a thumbs up to outsourcing, including the outsourcing of skilled higher-wage jobs.
After an outcry from Republican politicians — including the speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert — who have been hearing from constituents filled with anxiety about employment, a chastened Mr. Mankiw beat a very public retreat. He said in a letter to Mr. Hastert that "my lack of clarity left the wrong impression that I praised the loss of U.S. jobs."
No amount of political mumbo jumbo can change the fact that the employment situation in the U.S. is grim, and the public is growing weary of the administration's repeated promises that boatloads of jobs are just around the corner. (Any boats with jobs on them are heading overseas.)
This recovery has been the weakest on record in terms of job growth. The Economic Policy Institute has found, counterintuitively, that upscale workers have been among those especially hard hit, particularly in the area of long-term unemployment.
"In all recessions, the least educated have suffered disproportionately," the institute said in a report. "However, the current recession and weak recovery are unique in the extent to which workers with substantial education are also economic victims."
The simple truth is that the Bush administration has been wrong, wrong, wrong in its job creation projections, and that pattern appears to be continuing.
A joint study released last week by the Economic Policy Institute and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that "actual employment levels in recent years have fallen far below administration forecasts" and that "it is quite unlikely that the administration's [current] target will be reached."
Back when it was hyping its tax cut plan, the administration predicted that 5.5 million jobs would be created in the 18 months from July 2003 to the end of this year. The study noted that in the first seven months of that period, only 296,000 jobs have been created — just 5 percent of the administration's projection.
Working Americans are caught in a terrific squeeze. Jobs are not being created in substantial numbers. The slow pace of job growth has dampened wage growth. Millions of Americans are underemployed, working at jobs for which they are overqualified, or working part time because they can't find full-time work, and so forth. Benefits are being scaled back. And the shipment of upscale jobs overseas is expected to accelerate.
This is all happening in an expansion. What can we expect from the next recession?
The president is in serious political trouble in large part because he has not come up with any credible proposals for dealing with these issues, which go to the very heart of the American way of life.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/16/opinion/16HERB.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...
Zitboy: you may wish to skip this as a reference is made regarding special interests...
The Health of Nations
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 17, 2004
he Economic Report of the President, released last week, has drawn criticism on several fronts. Let me open a new one: the report's discussion of health care, which shows a remarkable indifference to the concerns of ordinary Americans — and suggests a major political opening for the Democrats.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 82 percent of Americans rank health care among their top issues. People are happy with the quality of health care, if they can afford it, but they're afraid that they might not be able to afford it. Unlike other wealthy countries, America doesn't have universal health insurance, and it's all too easy to fall through the cracks in our system. When I saw that the president's economic report devoted a whole chapter to health care, I assumed that it would make some attempt to address these public concerns.
Instead, the report pooh-poohs the problem. Although more than 40 million people lack health insurance, this doesn't matter too much because "the uninsured are a diverse and perpetually changing group." This is good news? At any given time about one in seven Americans is uninsured, which is bad enough. Because the uninsured are a "perpetually changing group," however, a much larger fraction of the population suffers periodic, terrifying spells of being uninsured, and an even larger fraction lives with the fear of losing insurance if anything goes wrong at work or at home.
The report also seems to have missed the point of health insurance. It argues that it would be a good thing if insurance companies had more information about the health prospects of clients so "policies could be tailored to different types and priced accordingly." So if insurance companies develop a new way to identify people who are likely to have kidney problems later in life, and use this information to deny such people policies that cover dialysis, that's a positive step?
Having brushed off the plight of those who, for economic or health reasons, cannot get insurance, the report turns to a criticism of health insurance in general, which it blames for excessive health care spending.
Is this really the crucial issue? It's true that the U.S. spends far more on health care than any other country, but this wouldn't be a bad thing if the spending got results. The real question is why, despite all that spending, many Americans aren't assured of the health care they need, and American life expectancy is near the bottom for advanced countries.
Where is the money going? A lot of it goes to overhead. A recent study found that private insurance companies spend 11.7 cents of every health care dollar on administrative costs, mainly advertising and underwriting, compared with 3.6 cents for Medicare and 1.3 cents for Canada's government-run system. Also, our system is very generous to drug companies and other medical suppliers, because — unlike other countries' systems — it doesn't bargain for lower prices.
The result is that American health care, which at its best is the best in the world, offers much of the population a worst-of-all-worlds combination of insecurity and high costs. And that combination is getting worse: insurance premiums are rising, and companies are becoming increasingly unwilling to offer insurance to their employees.
What would an answer to the growing health care crisis look like? It would surely involve extending coverage to those now uninsured. To keep costs down, it would crack down both on drug prices and on administrative costs. And it might well cut private insurance companies out of the loop for some, if not all, coverage.
But the administration can't offer such an answer, both because of its ideological blinders and because of its special interest ties. The Economic Report of the President has only negative things to say about efforts to hold down drug prices. It talks at length about insurance reform, but it mainly complains that we rely too much on insurance; it says nothing about either expanding coverage or reducing insurance-company overhead. Its main concrete policy suggestion is a plan for tax-deductible health savings accounts, which would be worth little or nothing to a vast majority of the uninsured.
I'll talk more about alternatives for health care in future columns. But for now, let's just note that this is an issue the public cares about — an issue the administration can't address, but a bold Democrat can.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/17/opinion/17KRUG.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2...