No Fear of Freedom

March 20, 2004

Kerry Soft On Defense, Record Shows . . . .

Or his opponents are soft in the head. This is from Kitty Seelye, the Kerry hatchet mistress, so, ya know.

After 19 Years in Senate, Kerry of Today Is Far From Kerry of 1985

Of the 19 defense authorization bills he has voted on during his Senate career, he supported 16.

Criminy! Whatta ya have ta do ta be hard on defense? Vote fer ev'y thing, no mattah what?

posted 10:26 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bombing Group Reportedly Wants Bush Re-Elected

Uncommon Thought Journal indeed.

An Islamic militant group that had claimed responsibility for the train bombings in Spain says it supports the re-election of President George W. Bush. The group said it needs what it calls Bush's "idiocy and religious fanaticism" to "wake up" the Islamic world.

So Kerry's got unnamed leaders, and Bush is endorsed by terrorists. Which thoughtful people already knew.

posted 7:47 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Faith Based Con Jobs - Elmer Gantry, now Bushwa

The Fruit of the Tree. This is a great post on the dangers of wolves in sheeps clothing, such as journalist Jack Kelly, the serial fabricator at USA Today who wore his evangelical Christianity as a shield, and maybe one or two other folks.

George Bush often speaks of his compassion. I've yet to see him show it. Am I missing something?

The Washington press corps knows him to be a mean and vindictive man with a long memory.

People are naive, God bless 'em. They think evil wears horns. It hasn't occurred to enough of them that true evil will surely cloak itself in the appearance of faith.

Yep, the devil's gonna be a Baptist preacher, or something similar.

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves."

An' that's all I gotta say about Bushie boy for the moment. Fundamentalists'll b'lieve anything.

posted 7:28 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Global Warming Set To Get Its Party Started

Carbon Dioxide Reported at Record Levels

That year-to-year increase of about 3 parts per million is considerably higher than the average annual increase of 1.8 parts per million over the past decade, and markedly more accelerated than the 1-part-per-million annual increase recorded a half-century ago, when observations were first made here.

Asked to explain the stepped-up rate, climatologists were cautious, saying data needed to be further evaluated.

[snip]

"People are worried about `feedbacks.' We are moving into a warmer world."

He explained that warming itself releases carbon dioxide from the ocean and soil. By raising the gas's level in the atmosphere, that in turn could increase warming, in a "positive feedback," said Keeling, of San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by 2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per million. As a result, the panel estimates, average global temperature would probably rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius (2.7 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit) between 1990 and 2100.

Pre-industrial era, it was only 280 parts per billion, and I got swell news, peebles. Five point eight degrees Celsius could well be no friggin' way in the world you can adapt bad. It could result in the die off of most mammal life, including us'ns. So what's "Who, me? Worry?" Bushwa doin' 'bout it?

The United States, the world's biggest carbon dioxide emitter, signed the [Kyoto Protocol] but did not ratify it, and the Bush administration has since withdrawn U.S. support, calling instead for voluntary emission reductions by U.S. industry and more scientific research into climate change.

In other words, nothin'. 'Nother bit a news. Kyoto ain't nearly good enough, we're gonna have ta do a lot more'n that. But Bushwa's doin' nothin'.

UPDATE: U.N. Urges Russia to Save Climate Plan

IRREVERSIBLE DAMAGE?

"We are quickly moving to the point where the damage will be irreversible," said Jonathan Pershing, director of the Institute's Climate, Energy and Pollution program.

Many environmentalists say that global warming is the biggest long-term threat to life on earth. Rising temperatures may drive thousands of species to extinction, trigger more floods or droughts and sink low-lying islands as icecaps melt.

Klaus Toepfer, the head of the U.N. Enviroment Program, urged the United States and opponents of Kyoto in Russia to reconsider their belief that Kyoto is an economic straitjacket.

"The Kyoto protocol is not a recipe for economic disaster," he said. "In the long run, it is likely to generate prosperity and financial savings rather than economic suicide."

He said insurer Munich Re estimated that economic losses as a result of mainly climate-related disasters totaled $65 billion in 2003. And he said one study showed air pollution in Britain alone cost $5 billion a year, mainly in health bills.

OK, grandkids, say, "Thank you, President Bushwa."

posted 6:38 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

AP's Solomon Cribs Kerry Bashing Article From RNC

CJR's Campaign Desk has uncovered evidence that AP reporter John Solomon lifted parts of his article, Kerry's 1994 Effort to Cut Defense Eyed, directly from the RNC's research brief EVEN FELLOW DEMOCRATS WARNED KERRY ABOUT HIS DANGEROUS CUTS. The RNC has twenty-three quotes from "fellow Democrats," (The horror!) but all of them come from only two senators, Dennis DeConcini, AZ, and Daniel Inouye, HI. John Solomon's AP article brings the number of critical senators quoted up to a nice round three with the addition of Robert Byrd.

Solomon wrote, ""And that's just what Kerry's fellow Democrats had to say," and he used two quotes identical to those in the RNC research brief. Could be a coincidence, but not very likely.

The budgets from which Kerry wanted to cut $1 billion per year totaled $25.8 billion at the time. The RNC's hit piece claims, "KERRY PROPOSED SLASHING INTELLIGENCE BUDGET." Yes. "Slashing" it by 3.9%. Admittedly, that's a pretty decent sized cut, but if I slashed my personal budget, which is quite small, by 3.9%, it would be uncomfortable, but I don't think it would be all that painful. Was it a good idea? I really don't know, but by the eighth paragraph (The arrangement of paragraphs is one of many ways to subtly bias a news story.) Solomon finally quotes Kerry himself on the issue.

"What we have offered to the Senate is an opportunity to register our votes for real choices, for a set of choices that reflect what the American people would really like to be spending their money on as opposed to being forced to spend it by the continuation of programs that the president has asked to have cut; that the National Academy of Sciences boards have said are worthless; that most of the evaluations say are wasteful," Kerry argued.

Now, if that last bit's true, and I don't know of any reason to think it's not, t'would seem Sen. Kerry might've had a good point. The fact that 75 senators voted against might only prove how beholden most are to the military-industrial complex.

Campaign Desk titled their post "Echo Chamber." It sure looks like the AP is part of the mighty Wurlitzer. Considering this and other recent articles, and the beating the press gave Al Gore in the last presidential campaign, why would anyone suspect a conservative bias in the media?

posted 5:53 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bush The Terror Destroyer, & Other Jokes

Aide: Rumsfeld Urged Iraq Attack Sooner

[Richard A. Clarke, the White House counterterrorism coordinator at the time (of 9/11)] also criticized President Bush for promoting the administration's efforts against terrorism, accusing top Bush advisers of turning a blind eye to terrorism during the first months of Bush's presidency.

[snip]

"Frankly, I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism," Clarke told CBS. "He ignored it. He ignored terrorism for months, when maybe we could have done something."

Clarke spent 30 years in government service. He's a counterterroism pro, not a wild-eyed partisan. What inna hell we gotta do ta get this gun ta smoke? If the "war on terror" is really Bush's strength, he oughta lose in a landslide.

posted 2:23 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Capitalism More Important Than Democracy To Bush

BBC Newsnight carries an interview with Jay Garner by Greg Palast. Turns out one of the ways Garner ran afoul of the Bushies was by focusing on Democratic institutions instead of forcing a radical "free" market economy on the Iraqis. About that Iraqis could not be allowed a choice. "Democracy," Republican style. The Guardian also did a piece on the interview.

Kind of amazing how many generals, both active and retired, have run afoul of the Bushies. But you know how left wing the military is.

Thanks to Ungodly Politics.

posted 1:34 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Cut "Waste & Fraud," Cut The "Fat"

Jus' like I allays thought, people're people wherever ya go. Turns out Georgia's a lot like Cal-ee-forn-eye-ay. Dipshits (I consider most people dipshits, so it's not all that strong an epithet coming from me.) all over the golden state voted for Schwarzenwhoopie cuz he promised he'd balance the budget by cutting waste an' fraud, not raising taxes. He could'n find any significant waste an' fraud, so now he's cuttin' tha shit outta programs for the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the mentally ill. The dipshits blame the failure to cut waste an' fraud on the Democratic legislature, but then there's Georgia.

Legislators cut 'fat' that state needs

During their long years in the political wilderness, Georgia Republicans would preach endlessly about the thick layers of fat that they knew existed in state government. If voters ever showed enough wisdom to put the GOP in power, they promised, they would cut all that fat and be able to cut taxes, too.

Today, they're trying to make good on that talk. Republicans now control both the state Senate and the governor's office, and the state's current fiscal crisis has given them the opportunity to slice all that fat and thus avoid tax increases.

So what kind of spending cuts are they making? The 2005 budget proposed by Gov. Sonny Perdue includes cuts that would knock 27,000 children and pregnant women off Medicaid health insurance, slice more than $200 million from public schools, gut environmental protection programs and dramatically reduce the amount of state money appropriated to state colleges and universities, among many other things.

Apparently, that's what "fat" looks like.

[snip]

These are admittedly hard times, and in hard times painful cuts are necessary. In fact, a fiscal crisis from time to time can be healthy because it forces state leaders to make tough choices and purge questionable programs. Unfortunately, though, most of those easy cuts in the state budget have already been made, and the cuts now being contemplated will end up costing taxpayers much, much more than we save.

For example, local mental health facilities and clinics will have to be closed all over the state, pushing clients of those agencies into hospitals and prisons, where their care will be much more expensive. Cuts in prenatal care for pregnant women will result in more difficult births and unhealthy babies, adding to future costs. Cuts in the Medicaid program that covers uninsured and low-income Georgians endangers the financial health of hospitals and other health care facilities, particularly in rural areas.

We allays blame tha politicians for this shit but tha truth is we oughta blame the voters. Most seem ta b'lieve that there's endless room to cut "waste and fraud." My grandmother was like that. Went around chanting, "Waste and fraud, aauckk! If they'd just cut the waste and fraud." Like a goddamned parrot. She also new the secret to making money on the stock market. "Buy low, sell high. Aauckk! Buy low, sell high." Who knew it was so fuckin' easy?

T'other thing is, all most voters ever ask is how much a program costs. They never ask how much it costs not to do it. But thass a pretty fuckin' impo'tant question. What both Georgia and California need is a tax hike, but any politician who calls for a tax hike during his campaign is dead on arrival. Hope ta hell that don't hold true wit' Kerry. An' most politicians involved in actually raising taxes're in trouble come tha next election.

The truth about the voters is, they really, really want the services. They just don't want to pay for 'em. I guess they ain't no hope we'll ever grow up.

Tip O'The Tam to Omnium.

posted 12:35 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Racism As Sickness - In New Zealand As In The US

Antipodean Pain: The Psychopathology of Don Brash

The idea that the event of the Orewa speech is symptomatic of psychic disturbance is suggested by the most striking aspect of Brash’s speech and its aftermath: the insistence that Maori enjoy both privilege and special legal rights. Brash articulated this fantasy of special privilege and legal rights for Maori in two key passages of the Orewa speech. The first invoked the imaginary of Maori privilege, while the second fantasized about greater legal rights for tangata whenua:

1. "There can be no basis for special privileges for any race, no basis for government funding based on race, no basis for introducing Maori wards in local authority elections, and no obligation for local governments to consult Maori in preference to other New Zealanders."

2. "One principle above all others guides my thinking: The Treaty of Waitangi should not be used as the basis for giving greater civil, political or democratic rights to any particular ethnic group…"

Geez, where have I heard similar arguments? Shall we take a look at these "special privileges" the Maoris receive?

Unemployment: in the past six years, Maori unemployment has fallen from 19% to 10%. Meanwhile, Pakeha unemployment went from 8% in 1991 to just 3.3%.

Incomes: Maori remain concentrated in low-income occupations. Median incomes for Maori stand at $37,700 compared to Pakeha at 39,600. Meanwhile, Te Puni Kokiri states that Maori are significantly underepresented in the top 20% income bracket.

Living standards: three years ago, 39% of Maori families lived in low-income households compared with just 22% of the general population.

Education: only 6% of Maori have a tertiary degree compared to 14% among Pakeha…

And the list goes on. Colin James, in his article The indigenisation of Aotearoa-New Zealand: the politics of the Treaty of Waitangi underlines the importance of this dislocation and exclusion to New Zealand’s society as a whole:

"New Zealand has to get it right. Maori are around 15 per cent of the population and increasing. They underperform on all social and economic indicators. The coherence of this society and its economic wellbeing require Maori to feel wholly part of this society and be full participants in an internationally competitive economy."

Just substitute black for Maori and nothing fundamental changes about the tale. Whites like me oughta be damn grateful that we don't get the same fuckin' "special privileges." Gotta warn ya, it's rather a deep post.

posted 11:42 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

World Should Clean Up George's Mess - On His Terms

Bush: Iraq Is 'Global Responsibility'

Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket. Bush started it over the opposition of the UN and much of the world, Bush refuses to turn over the rebuilding to the UN (which would stop the Spanish pullout) because they might not rebuild Iraq the way he (not Iraqi's) wants to, but it's a global responsibility. That attitude shouldn't alienate any allies.

posted 9:23 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The War On Terra Is Bush's Strong Suit?

Clinton Aides Plan to Tell Panel of Warning Bush Team on Qaeda

Senior Clinton administration officials called to testify next week before the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks say they are prepared to detail how they repeatedly warned their Bush administration counterparts in late 2000 that Al Qaeda posed the worst security threat facing the nation -- and how the new administration was slow to act.

They said the warnings were delivered in urgent post-election intelligence briefings in December 2000 and January 2001 for Condoleezza Rice, who became Mr. Bush's national security adviser; Stephen Hadley, now Ms. Rice's deputy; and Philip D. Zelikow, a member of the Bush transition team, among others.

Zelikow not only served on the transition team, he co-authored a book with Rice, and Zelikow is on the 9/11 Commission. How inna hell duzzat make sense?

There ought not to be any doubt that the Clintonista's warned the Bushies. There ought to be no doubt because the Bushies admit it.

"The president and his team received briefings on the threat from Al Qaeda prior to taking office, and fighting terrorism became a top priority when this administration came into office," Sean McCormack, a White House spokesman, said.

Yet what was the result?

STOPPING TERRORISM VS. PROMOTING THE RIGHT: NO CONTEST

Since the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, followed by attacks on U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and the suicide ramming of the U.S.S. Cole only 11 months before 9/11, there were growing signs, picked up by the CIA, U.S. military intelligence, and their counterparts in Europe and the Middle East, that more such attacks were in the offing. Yet on September 10, 2001 (yes, that's the right date), Attorney General John Ashcroft submitted the final budget request for the Justice Department for fiscal 2003 to Budget Director Mitchell Daniels. Ashcroft dismissed FBI requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts, and 54 additional translators. Instead, he proposed reductions in 14 such programs; one was a $65 million cut for state and local governments for counterterrorism equipment, including radios and decontamination suits and training for preparedness.

But in a May 10 letter to department heads setting out the Bush policy agenda, Ashcroft made no mention of terrorism. Among the goals he announced were these: "securing the rights of victims of crimes," "securing the nation's borders and cutting the immigration backlog," "reducing gun violence and drug trafficking" and "reducing overcrowding and drug use in prisons." All should lead to more spending on the increasingly privatized incarceration industry complex. On August 9, a chart entitled "Strategic Plan-Attorney General Priorities" was distributed inside the Justice Department. The same goals were listed, this time with 36 objectives under them, 13 of which were highlighted in yellow as "Highlight-AG Goal." One of the 36 referred to intelligence concerning terrorists; it was not highlighted. According to a former FBI official, Ashcroft's attitude "really undermined a lot of effort to change the culture and mind-set" of FBI agents.

Cute, huh? At least Condi Rice was on the ball. David Corn wrote of the 9/11 Commission report in July, 2003:

The report is a good start in establishing the historical record. It reads at times like tragedy, at other times almost as farce. The signs were there. Few paid attention. Two, if not more, of the hijackers were within reach of US law enforcement, but nobody saw that. Five days after the attacks, Bush said, "No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society." And in May 2002, Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Actually, the report has proof that the attacks of 9/11 were foreseen. Not in terms of date and time. But intelligence reporting indicated and terrorism experts warned that Al Qaeda was interested in mounting precisely these types of attacks. Yet the US government – the Bush II and Clinton administrations – did not prepare adequately. The attacks were far less outside the box than Bush and his aides have suggested. Thwarting them was within the realm of possibility.

Now, either Condi Rice is a flat-out liar or she's too lazy or stupid to be the National Security Advisor. I wonder which epithet she'd prefer? That such attacks had been planned had been well known in the intelligence community for years.

David Corn can't quite understand this little matter:

One crucial matter is missing from the report: how the White House responded to the intelligence on the Al Qaeda threat. That is because the Administration will not allow the committees to say what information reached Bush. The Administration argued, according to a Congressional source, that to declassify "any description of the president's knowledge" of intelligence reports -- even when the content of those reports have been declassified -- would be a risk to national security. It is difficult to see the danger to the nation that would come from the White House acknowledging whether Bush received any of the information listed above or the other intelligence previously described by the committees. (The latter would include a July 2001 report that said bin Laden was looking to pull off a "spectacular" attack against the United States or US interests designed to inflict "mass casualties." It added, "Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning. They are waiting us out, looking for a vulnerability."

It is unusual -- if not absurd -- for an administration to claim that the state of presidential knowledge is top-secret when the material in question has been made public. But that's what Bush officials have done. Consequently, the public does not know whether these warnings made it to Bush and whether he responded.

Luckily, I can explain this. See, if that information were released, it would demonstrate just how fucking stupid the president is, which would embolden terrorists and damage our national security.

The administration can always claim that they did a heckuva darn good job after 9/11, but what's 'at prove? What prez would'n a gotten serious about terrorism after 9/11? Oh, wait, this president, since he felt it was more important to pursue a massive and poorly planned diversion in Iraq. Whiskey Bar posts:

A Nice Tight Bombing Pattern

Rumsfeld was saying we needed to bomb Iraq....We all said, 'but no, no. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. And Rumsfeld said, 'There aren't any good targets in Afghanistan and there are lots of good targets in Iraq.' I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with [the September 11 attacks].'"
Former NSC Official Richard Clarke
60 Minutes Interview
March 2004

Colonel Korn gave Major Danby's shoulder a friendly squeeze without changing his unfriendly expression. "Carry on with the briefing Danby. And make sure they understand the importance of a tight bomb pattern."
"Oh, no, Colonel," Major Danby blurted out, blinking upward. "Not for this target. I've told them to space their bombs sixty feet apart so that we'll have a roadblock the full length of the village instead of just in one spot. It will be a much more effective roadblock with a loose bomb pattern."

"We don't care about the roadblock," Colonel Korn informed him. "Colonel Cathcart wants to come out of this mission with a good clean aerial photograph he won't be ashamed to send through channels. Don't forget that General Peckem will be here for the full briefing, and you know how he feels about bomb patterns."

Joseph Heller
Catch-22
1961

posted 8:36 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 19, 2004

The Party Of Honor And Integrity - And Elephant Shit

The Carpetbagger Report lists Republican Scandal after scandal after scandal, 13 that are currently under investigation, and all since Bush first took office. The WaPo adds several more ethics violations by GOP members of the House. Seems like all Repuke politicians have the morals of Rush Limbooby, a man you can trust with your wife and daughters in a motel room overnight because you can be sure he'll be too loaded on hillbilly heroin to get it up.

Thanks to Salon.com.

posted 9:17 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Common Man Speaks - In The UK

And this just in...

The GOP National Committee announced today that it is changing the Republican emblem from an elephant to a condom because it more clearly reflects the party's political stance, i.e., a condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives one a sense of security while screwing others.

(thanks Erik ;))

posted 8:00 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Google Bomb The Anti-Semites

I've never participated in a Google bombing before, but this one seems truly worthwhile.

Google Bomb Them Back To The Stone Age!

If you've ever Googled the word Jew, you may have noticed that an antisemitic hate site, Jew Watch, inexplicably and disturbingly comes up as the top result on what is beyond a doubt the most frequently relied upon search engine in the world. Troubled by his recent discovery of this fact, a staff reporter at San Francisco's j. magazine brought this matter to the attention of Google's executives, who showed little more than indifference towards the revelation.

Offering a convenient (though entirely plausible) explaination, one of Google's representatives suggested that the placement of the hate site is a result of a Google bomb, "A technique through which a group of bloggers working together can make a webpage come up when someone searches Google for certain keywords," my all-time favorite example of this, of course, being "miserable failure."

That being said, I'd like to propose a j-blogger Google bombing campaign, to push Jew Watch, as well as the other questionable high-ranking sites which appear in the search results for "Jew" (such as a Jews for Jesus ministry and Henry Ford's antisemitic tractate The International Jew), down in their Google rankings, replacing them with sites that, well... Jews can feel a bit more comfortable with.

Wanna participate? Just drop Jew into your next blog post, or put it anywhere on your website. Be sure to spread this around to your mailing lists and your friends on IM too, so that we may actively engage in defining ourselves, as opposed to allowing others (with vicious intentions) to do so for us.

The URL for "Jew" above is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jew

posted 6:56 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Democracy And Neocon Treachery

Orcinus sure got this right. The Neocon reaction to the Spanish elections is utterly anti-democratic. But neocons have never believed in democracy. What they believe in is Machiavellian tactics coupled with the appearance of democracy. If you don't realize you're not free, you won't struggle for your freedom. Won't work on everybody, but maybe enough.

posted 5:29 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Democratic Mr. Bush

He don't even bother to pretend. From Salon.com:

It was July 4, 2001, and we were both at one of those things that the late historian Daniel Boorstin would have labeled a "pseudo event": a church picnic in Philadelphia, designed to help promote George W. Bush's faith-based policies. Because I had serious misgivings about the president's performance to that point, my own involvement in the whole operation had left me feeling a bit like a pseudo person, so when I had the chance to shake Bush's hand, I said, "Mr. President, I hope you only serve one term. I'm very disappointed in your work so far."

His smiling response was swift: "Who cares what you think?"

Hell, he's only an American citizen, why the hell should King George I of Amerika care what he thinks?

Thanks to Orcinus.

posted 5:13 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

My Sentiments Exactly

From a commenter on Talk Left:

Vote for Kerry or Bush, and you'll be left in a field of shi* a foot deep.
But Kerry would probably just make us stand in it. Bush would have us standing on our heads.
Easy choice.
Posted by: letharjk on March 19, 2004 04:05 PM

posted 4:38 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Idiot Culture? So It's Not Just Me Thinks So.

Ex-Watergate writer laments 'idiot culture'

But mostly he talked about an epidemic that troubles him deeply these days. He calls it "the triumph of idiot culture."

Speaking to a crowd of about 200 at the Wyndham Westshore, he placed most of the blame on modern media outlets.

Gossip, sensationalism and manufactured controversy passing for news, Carl sez.

He said the modern press lacks true leadership, citing such examples as AOL Time Warner and mogul Rupert Murdoch as media owners that have increasingly abandoned the principles of meaningful reporting.

"Their interest in truth is secondary to their interest in huge profits," Bernstein said.

And not a damned thing we can do about it as long as we place capitalism (greed) uber alles.

Bernstein also turned his attention Thursday to the coming election, calling President Bush "the most radical president of my lifetime and perhaps in the century."

Bernstein said Bush "is radical in every degree," from a favoritism of the wealthy to a pre-emptive foreign policy to a lack of concern for civil rights.

"He certainly seems more ideological than any of our presidents," Bernstein said.

posted 2:54 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Iraq Roundup - Bush's Excellent Quagmire

Much news on Iraq today. Let's start with stuff the Bushies were wrong about -- or lied about. One's as bad as the other. These excerpts are from the WaPo.

--WMDs
--Links to Al Qaeda
--Cost

On April 23, 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. "The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this."

That turned out to be off by orders of magnitude. The administration, which asked Congress for another $20 billion for Iraq reconstruction five months after Natsios made his assertion, has said it expects overall Iraqi reconstruction costs to be as much as $75 billion this year alone.

It's only cost 44 times as much as administration estimates so far. We ain't done spendin' yet. Wolfowitz and the OMB were similarly off and they had no excuses. They were given better estimates and chose to ignore them.

--The welcome we would receive in Iraq.

"I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators," Vice President Cheney said in a March 16 interview.

Six hundred and seventy-four dead coalition soldiers and more than 3200 wounded later, I'm hopin' nobody ever greets me as a liberator.

The presence of U.S.-led forces in Iraq is opposed by 51 percent of Iraqis.

-- That Neocon wave of democracy in the Middle East.

The administration's forecast that the toppling of Hussein would start a wave of democracy and a disavowal of terrorism in the region has not yet happened. There has been progress; Libya, for example, has since relinquished its nuclear weapons program. But while the administration had often predicted that Hussein's ouster could resolve the impasse between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the standoff between the two has worsened.

A poll released this week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that Muslim countries are highly skeptical that the ouster of Hussein will make the Middle East more democratic.

"Iraqi democracy will succeed -- and that success will send forth the news, from Damascus to Tehran -- that freedom can be the future of every nation," the president said in October.

I'd like to see the odds the bookies are makin' on that.

-- Making us safer from terrorism.

Blix: War didn't help world

The one positive result Blix sees from the war: Independent inspection teams should gain greater credibility in international weapons crises because the UN team's work in Iraq has held up so well.

"The independent inspections that we were able to provide and reported to the [UN] Security Council came closer to the truth than the ideology-based intelligence from the national agencies," Blix said.

[snip]

As for the impact of the Iraq war, Blix thinks it has backfired. "The Iraqi people are better off, but the world is not safer," he said. "How can the world be safer with what has happened in Baghdad and Madrid?"

No doubt right dingbats will ridicule Blix' statement, but remember, Blix has been ridiculed by right dingers before on WMD in Iraq. Look who turned out right.

So can we call it quagmire yet? Salon thinks so.

Welcome to the quagmire
The Bush administration invaded Iraq a year ago expecting a shower of rose petals. Today, the country is on the verge of chaos, and there may be no way to stop it.
By Juan Cole, who knows a little 'bout tha Middle East.

And now, it seems, the so-called "coalition of the willing" may not be all that willing anymore. Spain and Poland have announced plans to pull out, and South Korea is gettin' pretty damn squishy. It wasn't much of a coalition ta begin wit'. Ninety countries (Wow!) contributing an average of 267 soldiers each (Not so wow.), less in the hot stages of the war. Twelve thousand of those troops are British. Take them away and you have 89 countries contributing 135 soldiers each, about one tenth of one percent of all troops in Iraq. That kinda international support just makes me all tingly inside.

This is one of the accomplishments Bush intends to base his campaign on? How come every time Bush "accomplishes" something it puts the US deeper in the shit?

Thanks, in great part, to Salon.com.

posted 10:04 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Then Bush Is Insane

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
-- Albert Einstein

"No jobs yet? More tax cuts!"
-- Bush in essence.

posted 7:36 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 18, 2004

McCain The Voice Of Reason. Last One In The GOP?

Holy Shit! I think I could kiss John McCain if he promised to keep his lips clamped.

McCain Comes to Kerry's Defense on National Security

Senator John McCain added a rare bit of restraint to the escalating tone of the presidential campaign today, rejecting assertions by other Republicans that his colleague, Senator John Kerry, would endanger national security if elected.

"I don't think that," Mr. McCain said on CBS this morning. "I think that John Kerry is a good and decent man. I think he has served his country. I think he has different points of view on different issues and he will have to explain his voting record. But this kind of rhetoric, I think, is not helpful in educating and helping the American people make a choice."

Mr. McCain also defended Mr. Kerry in an appearance on NBC's "Today," saying in response to a question that he did not believe Mr. Kerry was "weak on defense."

I've said it before, McCain belongs to a seemingly dying breed of decent, thoughtful conservatives. Use ta be a lotta them back in tha day. Ya know yer an ol' fart when ya start talkin' 'bout the good ol' use ta be. But watcha gonna do?

posted 5:46 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Typical Right Winger, Sullivan Will Say Anything

I am ever impressed by the right's willingness, one might say eagerness, to lie shamelessly. Andrew Sullivan writes:

MoveOn's ad attacking Donald Rumsfeld is not entirely fair. Rumsfeld never said that the threat from Iraq was imminent, or immediate, but that he could not know for sure.

Yet the transcript of Face The Nation, quoting Rumsfeld, reads (pg. 6):

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'

Now if anyone claims that his statement was not intended to convey the idea that the threat from Iraq was "immediate," which means the same thing as imminent, then I'm gonna have ta bring up Bill Clinton trying to parse a 2-letter word.

posted 5:14 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

None Dare Call It Fascism II

Lemme see now. Fascists and Nazis hated communists, socialists, liberals, dissidents, trade unionists and homosexuals. They liked (among other things) nationalism and super-patriotism with a sense of historic mission (American exceptionalism.), aggressive militarism even to the extent of glorifying war as good for the national or individual spirit; and reaction against the values of Modernism, usually with emotional attacks against both liberalism and communism. They also hated equality and fraternity, and had a peculiar view of liberty.

All this reminds of some political movement in America, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Course, we got lots a good, God fearin' (And if you've read your Old Testament, you know why they're afraid.) Christians in America, and I'm sure they'd save us from fascism, except that Christianity is a natural ally of the bosses and authoritarian government. Christianity, after all, is authoritarian. Nobody gets to vote for God. Nobody gets to question God either. Yet God is an absolute ruler. Fascists and Christianity can get along just fine.

Ya know, historically, the left has championed democracy, though there've been a few wrong turns. I'd like to know what the right has done to promote democracy. Historically. Iraq don't count. I suspect Iraq really don't count.

posted 4:36 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

None Dare Call It Fascism

Little Soldiers in the Culture War

While the students at the Charter School of Excellence are divided fairly evenly between blacks and whites, they dress alike, with the boys in dark blue pants and green buttoned-up golf shirts and the girls wearing white blouses under plaid jumpers. All eyes are focused on their young and attractive teacher, Mrs. Blocker, who leads them in song:

Obedience is listening attentively,
Obedience will take instructions joyfully,
Obedience heeds wishes of authorities,
Obedience will follow orders instantly.
For when I am busy at my work or play,
And someone calls my name, I'll answer right away!
I'll be ready with a smile to go the extra mile
As soon as I can say "Yes, sir!" "Yes ma'am!"
Hup, two, three!

[snip]

In addition to instantly obeying their authority figures, they are to be grateful for the chance to follow orders ("I will show appreciation/To my authorities/I will write them notes of gratefulness/For all they've done for me").

[snip]

A bill encouraging the use of Character First! in public schools passed unanimously last year in the state legislature. If that is any indication, then a Character First! bill will likely land on the desk of Gov. Jeb Bush, who, according to a spokeswoman, would support the bill. Bush, who wasn't available for an interview, is implementing Character First! into his own charter school in Liberty City.

Yep, outstanding character training. Servile Character First! Sounds like they forget to tell 'em to spy on their neighbors and friends, though.

David Clark, the spokesman for the 65,000-member Florida Teaching Profession-National Education Association, said:

"We are suspicious and leery of those types of things. This is not Mao's China. It sounds innocent on its face, but it smacks of thought police and a lock step mentality."

It sounds innocent on its face? To who? Stalin, Hitler, Pinochet, the Bush Family? That rumbling sound you hear is George Orwell's body breaking the sound barrier as he spins in his grave.

Character First! has been taught in more than 250 public schools across the country, according to CTI's representatives.

Welcome to Amerika.

In an interesting sidelight, the article shows how easy it is to buy government in Florida -- and probably everywhere else.

Tip O'The Tam to Jesus' General.

posted 12:46 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Are The Humans Leaving The Sinking Rat?

Spain's announced they will pull out of Iraq, now this:

Poland 'Misled' on Iraq, President Says

President Aleksander Kwasniewski, a key Washington ally, said Thursday he may withdraw troops early from Iraq and that Poland was "misled" about the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

We were all deliberately misled, including we the people. When will the people realize that Bushwa is a compulsive, serial liar? And is this a sign that "democratic" governments may finally listen to their people? Polling the Poles on their military presence in Iraq:

A poll last week found 42 percent of adults in favor and 53 percent opposed. The CBOS survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

posted 11:48 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Asscroft's Internet Snooping On The Wrong Track

And it's headed for you.

From: Matt Howes, National Internet Organizer, ACLU
To: ACLU Action Network Members
Date: March 18, 2004

Not satisfied with the new snooping powers granted by the PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice is now asking the Federal Communications Commission to allow law enforcement the power to regulate the design of Internet communications services to make them easy to wiretap.

If implemented, the new request by Attorney General John Ashcroft would dramatically increase the government's surveillance powers and set a precedent for opening the entire Internet to law enforcement. By forcing technology companies to build "backdoors" in their systems for wiretapping, the Ashcroft plan would also create weaknesses that hackers and thieves could use to invade your privacy and steal personal information like credit card numbers.

The government already has more than enough power to spy on individuals suspected of wrongdoing. This measure is the equivalent of requiring all new homes be built with a peephole for law enforcement agents to look through.

Take Action! Tell the FCC and Congress that you oppose these new wiretapping requirements.

Click here for more information and to send a free fax to the FCC Chairman and your Members of Congress.

It's a free fax, man, how can you pass that up?

posted 11:06 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Some Economists Rethinking "Free" Trade - Finally

If you can call what economists do thinking. I think of it more as faith-based number-crunching. Old joke about economists: A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are stranded on a desert island with nothing to eat but a can of beans, but they have no way to open the can. The physicist says, "Maybe if one of us climbs that tree and drops the can onto that rock it will burst open and then we can eat." The chemist says, "We could use seawater to corrode the can so it weakens to the point that we could open it." And the economist says, "No, no, you guys are going about this all wrong. First, we assume a can opener."

Too much truth in that joke. Too much of economics is based on assumptions rather than fact. Hiding in the NYT Business section (We reported it, honest. Just not where regular people might read it.), because regular people aren't interested in trade and its affect on their jobs, I guess, was this:

Questioning Free Trade Mathematics

Economist's generally assume that free trade is a net benefit to society. So far, their studies still support that, but the support is declining. And how come nobody ever asks, "Benefit to whom?" I mean, if it benefits the rich and hurts everyone else, I don't call that a benefit. If it benefits the top 20% or 40% and hurts everyone else, that ain't a benefit.

In general, most economists believe that the "consumer surplus" that results from lower prices far outweighs the cost of lost jobs or lower wages. In other words, there are many more winners than losers. But recent research suggests that the magnitude of this advantage has been exaggerated. Also, the plight of the losers has clearly been sorely neglected in the economic literature.

[snip]

A 1972 study by Stephen P. Magee, for example, toted up the welfare benefits of trade and set them against the costs of unemployment. The study purportedly showed that the benefits of hypothetically eliminating all trade restrictions outweighed the costs of unemployment induced by international competition by a ratio of 100 to 1.

Jesus. A 100-1. Does the system have that much slack in it? Actually, no.

It is hard to argue with such a lopsided benefit. But Mr. Klein, Mr. Schuh and Mr. Triest note that Mr. Magee neglected crucial costs of job dislocation, like the likelihood of displaced workers being paid a lower wage when they got new jobs. A 1980 study took into account more job dislocation costs, but found that benefits from a 50 percent cut in global tariffs still exceeded dislocation costs 20 to 1. Such results understandably led economists to neglect the costs of job dislocation.

The 1980 adjustments were still not nearly enough, however, Mr. Klein, Mr. Schuh and Mr. Triest argue. The main reason is that such early studies assumed that net changes in jobs - the difference between those destroyed and those created - were a good proxy for those who suffered from job dislocations. But in fact, many more jobs are destroyed and created in the United States than is immediately apparent.

Tol' ya economists make stupid assumptions. Astonishingly stupid in this case.

For example, the authors find that in a large sample of manufacturers, 1.3 jobs per 100 were lost on balance each year from 1973 to 1993. But 10.2 jobs per 100 were destroyed, while 8.8 were created. (The discrepancy is a result of rounding.)

Such a high rate of job destruction carries serious costs for workers, even when they eventually find new jobs. There are long periods of unemployment, retraining costs and costs of searching for a job. And the new jobs usually pay less than the old ones. In the meantime, skills are lost as well.

So roughly 10% of workers suffered serious expenses and dislocations in their lives that usually resulted in downward mobility every year for 20 years. That's a staggering burden on the average American.

The authors estimate that if some of these costs of job dislocation were taken into account, the benefits of trade would outweigh the costs by a far smaller margin. For example, the ratio in the 1980 study would be reduced from 20 to 1 to only 2 to 1.

The authors remain advocates of free trade; a benefit of 2 to 1 is still hefty. But the findings suggest at the very least that a sizable number of workers are inevitably hurt by free trade.

Yeah, 2-1 sounds nice, but the benefit's gone down with each successive study. Who's to say the latest study is right? And again I ask, where does that benefit go? Sure don't look like it's goin' ta tha workers.

On the other hand, keeping domestic wages high adds to the demand that can generate productivity gains.

Yeah, we're doin' a real good job a keepin' wages high.

Moreover, the basic tenets of free trade assume that the economy is operating at full employment - in other words, almost everyone who wants a job can find one.

And there's another major, stupid assumption. And this stuff is stupid on its face. A PhD ought to spot it easily, yet they don't. When's the last time we saw full employment? So ya can't trust a fuckin' one a these studies.

If there is a big net gain from trade, as there is from technological improvements which also result in dislocation, why is it morally wrong to take some money in taxes from the winners to help those who've lost through no fault of their own? Because the winners earned it? Bullshit. Nobody has truly earned everything they have. There's all kinds of luck involved. Because "free" market theology demands it? Armadillo shit.

Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy.
- Wendell Barry, farmer, author, environmentalist (1990)

Goddamn right. Are we right wing rats or decent human beings? You have to choose. You right wing dingbats who don't give a fuck who gets hurt in the service of you capitalist theology are going to lose in the long run. You're gonna lose because you're factually wrong, and because you're morally wrong. And ya jus' might wind up in hell.

posted 10:38 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Paperless Electronic Voting Machines - Lefties Just Paranoid

Ya know, lefties like Fortune Magazine and state Senator Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, California. Knight-Ridder Election 2004 reports"

Paperless electronic voting machines were chosen by Fortune magazine as the "worst new technology" of 2003 for good reason. Not only are they horribly insecure, but they make it enormously difficult to detect error or fraud (see "Diebold PR department files early entry in 2004 "Black is White" contest, Electronic voting machines able to simulate Daley-era Chicago") And yet by November of this year, almost every state in the union will be using them to count votes in the upcoming presidential election. So it's reassuring to read of the efforts of two California legislators who are calling for a ban on the use of touch-screen voting machines this fall. Citing malfunctions in e-voting machines during the recent primary, state Sens. Don Perata, D-Oakland, and Ross Johnson, R-Irvine, asked Secretary of State Kevin Shelley to decertify all touch-screen voting machines before the upcoming general election. "[The March 2 primary] was a test-flight of widespread use of these machines. I think it's fair to say the test flight crashed and burned," said Perata. "None of us wants California to be the sequel to Florida."

Though conflicted about it, I've added Knight-Ridder's election blog to the blogroll. They're union busters, for which I carry a personal grudge, but they have damn good reporters and we need the information.

posted 8:00 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 17, 2004

Iraq On The Record

This is good. They got a report, they got a searchable database containing 237 misleading or false statements, and that's conservative. Perfect for convincing that undecided voter that the White House is chock full o' lying sacks o' salamander shit.

The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq, compiled by Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee.

The Special Investigations Division compiled a database of statements about Iraq made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice. All of the statements in the database were drawn from speeches, press conferences and briefings, interviews, written statements, and testimony by the five officials.

This Iraq on the Record database contains statements made by the five officials that were misleading at the time they were made. The database does not include statements that appear in hindsight to be erroneous but were accurate reflections of the views of intelligence officials at the time they were made.

posted 8:24 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Right's Spin Machine Waves Red Flag At Terrorists

The right wing's Might Wurlitzer has been spinning away, insisting that the Spanish elections were a victory for Al Qaeda. It's dangerous blather. They're practically begging for more of the kinds of attacks that hit Madrid. The terrorist attacks in Madrid did not lead to Aznar's party's defeat. First, the Socialists might have won without the attacks. They were down 42-38 in the polls, well within the margin of error. Second, if public opinion did shift after the attacks, it wasn't as a result of the attacks. It was a result of the Aznar government's lies about the authors of the attacks. The conservatives said ETA, the people knew better and heckled Aznar at the polls, calling him a liar.

So it's blather, political spin, no doubt. But why dangerous blather? Because perception matters more than facts. If terrorists believe that the attacks in Spain brought down the Spanish government, some terrorist group will certainly pick their targets based on that perception. Probably several times. And the "conservatives" are deliberately reinforcing that perception.

Terrorists never actually "win," nor does anyone actually "lose." Terrorism is not an enemy. It's not a country, it's not an ideology, it's not a group, it's not a person. It's not a thing. Capturing bin Laden won't end terror. Rolling up Al Qaeda won't end terror. A "war" on terror can't be won, because terror is a tactic. As somebody I can't remember said, it's like fighting a war against the flanking maneuver, which is silly. So puffing people up to fight a "war on terror" is not only an exercise in futility, it's an exercise in idiocy.

This behavior won't bother the so-called consciences of professional "conservative" spinmeisters. They care much more about politics than they do about people's lives. Besides, terrorism's good for the conservative cause. When people are scared, they tend to run to the right. They forget that the father figure they run to often turns out to be a bully, and bullies don't make good protectors.

posted 6:21 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Everybody Wants To Come To America

Well, not quite. Though this is one of the dingers' favorite claims, and though I think they sincerely believe it, it's yet another example of what dipshits they are. Second and Third World people may well think, correctly for the most part, that they will have better lives in America, but people from advanced countries don't share that view. According to a Pew Research Center poll, A Year After Iraq War:

Americans overwhelmingly believe this to be the case -- 88% say people who move to the U.S. from other countries have a better life. By contrast, just 14% of Germans, 24% of French and 41% of British think that people who have moved to the U.S. from their countries have a better life.

Anyone with a functioning brain figured this out on their own. But, hey, long as we compare ourselves to Third World hell-holes we come off lookin' pretty good. So that's nice. Here's another thing people with half a brain ought to be able to figure out without Kerry having to "name names." Much of the world hates George Bush's guts.

Majorities in every country surveyed except the U.S. have an unfavorable opinion of President Bush, with negative ratings ranging from 57% in Great Britain (with 39% favorable) to 85% negative in both France and Germany. Six-in-ten have an unfavorable view of Bush in Russia, and two-thirds (67%) feel this way in Turkey. Feelings about Bush are nearly unanimously negative in Jordan (96% unfavorable) and Morocco (90%), and are nearly as low in Pakistan (67% unfavorably, 7% favorable, 25% no opinion).

posted 11:22 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Tax Cuts Worked, The Tax Cuts Worked!

How do we know? Because Bush says so. But -- worked for who? From the Center for American Progess' Progress Report:

"Morgan Stanley now calculates private payrolls are running 8.2 million jobs [below] what would have occurred in a normal recovery - that's more than $400 billion in forgone growth and wages."

'Bout the worst recovery on record and Bush is braggin' that the tax cuts are responsible. And that's a good thing -- how? Oh, well, on the bright side, the tax cuts have contributed a great deal to the deficit.

Deficit Study Disputes Role of Economy

posted 6:35 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Fact-Checking Bush Ads - Endless Deception

Did Kerry Vote "No" on Body Armor for Troops?
Yes, along with $87 billion worth of other things. But Bush didn't send enough in the first place.

Announcer: Few votes in Congress are as important as funding our troops at war. Though John Kerry voted in October of 2002 for military action in Iraq , he later voted against funding our soldiers.

Whoopsy. Got a lie right off the bat.

The Bush ad says Kerry "voted . . . for military action in Iraq" and then "voted against funding our soldiers." In fact, Kerry did vote October 11, 2002 to grant Bush authority to use military force against Iraq at his discretion, and a year later Kerry also voted against Bush's request for $87 billion to fund military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Voting to grant authority to use military force is not at all the same thing as voting to use military force, though I've no doubt the distinction is too subtle for most right dingers.

Senate Clerk: Mr. Kerry:

Announcer: No.

That's a no on the whole bill, the only honestly related vote in this whole ad. What did Kerry have to say about this vote?

Kerry: And I might add, that vote for the $87 billion, which was was a vote to change our policy and get other nations involved and get other people on the ground and take the target off of American troops by sharing the responsibility, it was also a vote that took place long after they already committed the troops, long after they should have had the equipment that they needed.

Really, all this shit shouldn't be wrapped up in a take-it-or-leave-it package, but that's the way the American government makes sausage.

Announcer: Body armor for troops in combat.

Senate Clerk: Mr. Kerry:

Announcer: No.

Eehhnnt! Bullshit alert. No such vote was taken. Don't you think that if an individual vote had been taken to provide body armor to the troops the support would have been unanimous?

For the record, the body-armor money amounted to just over 1/3 of 1 percent of the $87 billion supplemental bill that Kerry opposed.

. . . it's also true that as many as 40,000 US troops were sent to Iraq without the best-grade body armor.

Hmm. Sent to Iraq without vital equipment. Was that Kerry's fault too?

Announcer: Higher combat pay.

Senate Clerk: Mr. Kerry:

Announcer: No.

Announcer: And, better health care for reservists and their families…

Senate Clerk: Mr. Kerry:

Announcer: No.

Same deal, same deal. No specific votes were taken on those issues.

Announcer: Wrong on defense.

I'm George W. Bush and I approved these blatant lies and distortions of Senator Kerry's record.

posted 6:12 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Balanced News Is Unfair News

There's good reason to believe that Hollywood's favorite environmental gadfly is running a scam, and most reporters failed to notice because it was easier to run "balanced" stories. I detest any attempt at balance in the news.

Muckraker 90210
A Most Unlikely Reporter Nails Erin Brockovich

Journalists noted that there were two sides of the story: Brockovich-Ellis said there was a problem, while the city and the wells' owner, a company named Venoco, said there wasn't. The New York Times's coverage was typical, offering dueling quotes while leaning toward Brockovich-Ellis's position: a celebrity school's students say oil wells are making them sick, announced a June 17 story.

Just because there are two sides doesn't mean the sides should be presented more or less equally.

"Is there any evidence that benzene at the levels found at Beverly causes cancer? No," says Thomas Mack, chief of the epidemiology division at the University of Southern California's medical school. "You're just as likely to get cancer from your car stereo."

See, that's the story. Ed Masry and Brockovich-Ellis had no evidence for their claims, a fact they only revealed under court order.

"Norma works really hard, and she's honest," says USC's Mack, who is less impressed with other journalists' efforts on the Beverly story. "Reporters tend to rely on balance because they're unsure of themselves or not knowledgeable enough to put something in context. So they make it a 'he said, she said' rather than going to a third or fourth source to resolve or try to understand the apparent conflicting information."

Norma Zager is editor-in-chief of the Beverly Hills Courier, a free weekly. It's a powerful position. The paper has two editorial employees, counting Zager. Yet she got the story right when few, if any, of the major news outlets did. Why? Because the majors watch the corporate bottom line. That means fewer reporters. It's much cheaper to run "balanced," he said/she said stories than it is to do some digging and get at the facts. One result is the stories we got for years and years about global warming. Many scientists believe we're heading for trouble, but on the other hand some say we're not.

Those stories left a lot of people, maybe even the majority of Americans, thinking that whether global warming was a problem we should do something about was an open question. Those stories should have reported that a strong majority of atmospheric scientists thought the problem was both real and serious, and only a minority disagreed. But that would have screwed with the "balance" formula and might have required the stenographers we call reporters to do some actual digging.

"Balanced" reporting will bury this country.

posted 5:32 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 16, 2004

Trust Bush - Gitmo Holds Only "Worst Of The Worst"

Yet we're letting an awful lot of the worst go free. Twenty-six more released and returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Freed Afghans condemn Cuba prison

Seems nearly all of them say the US treated them badly on Gitmo. Seems the US still holds about 600 prisoners and 119 have been released, many after being held two years or more. So more than 15% of the "worst of the worst" have been released without charges. So far. Sounds like Just Us to me.

posted 9:25 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

No Labor Rights, No Freedom, No Democracy

They go hand in hand. A liberal writing at The American Street criticized unions as elitist organizations that had failed in their duty to organize low-wage and, in particular, agricultural workers. Agricultural workers have no protection under US labor law. They are excluded from the Wagner Act. Liberals and everyone else better understand that the fault does not lie in unions, it lies in US labor law which fails to protect a basic human right, the right of free association of workers. Said right is considered, internationally, a major bulwark of freedom and democracy. Welcome to America, land of the sort of free, home of the getting poorer but still brave.

All of the excerpts below come from the Human Rights Watch 2000 report on human rights violations in the US involving labor and the right to organize. The excerpts are lengthy, but if you haven't had personal experience with this stuff you really need to read the whole report. None of this is news to me, and I know HRW ain't makin' it up. I've served on a union bargaining committee, I've been a shop steward, I've taken part in an organizing campaign. I've see this bullshit up close.

UNFAIR ADVANTAGE
Workers' Freedom of Association in the United States
under International Human Rights Standards

Everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions.
-International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ratified by the United States in 1992)

Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other mutual aid or protection.
-National Labor Relations Act (passed by Congress in 1935)

I know the law gives us rights on paper, but where's the reality?
-Ernest Duval, a worker fired in 1994 for forming and joining a union (speaking in 1999)

According to Prof. Theodore St. Antoine, former dean of the University of Michigan School of Law and president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, the nation's leading organization of labor-management neutrals, "[t]he intensity of opposition to unionization which is exhibited by American employers has no parallel in the western industrial world."

[snip]

Reviewing NLRB records, Prof. Paul Weiler at Harvard Law School found that unfair labor practice charges against employers increased by 750 percent between 1957 and 1980, while the number of NLRB elections (a measure of workers' organizing activity) increased by less than 50 percent.

Research in the 1990s continued examining workers' right violations in light of domestic legal principles and the original intent of the NLRA. In 1994 a report by Prof. Richard Hurd of Cornell University documented one hundred recent cases of flagrant workers' rights violations by employers and the failure of U.S. labor law enforcement authorities to remedy the violations. Hurd concluded that "the right to an independent voice for workers has become a mirage."

The following case is pretty typical. HRW has many other examples.

V. CASE STUDIES OF VIOLATIONS OF WORKERS' FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

Abuses by Management

A complaint issued by the NLRB finding merit in unfair labor practice charges filed by the union tells what happened next. PTP management fired Gilbert Gardner and eight other workers active in the union organizing effort. In addition to the firings, PTP managers and supervisors:

-- threatened to close the plant if a majority of workers voted in favor of union representation;

-- threatened to move work to Mexico;

-- threatened to move the AOL production line to another country;

-- threatened that Eveready Battery would pull its business from PTP;

-- threatened to fire workers who attended union meetings;

-- threatened to fire anyone who joined the union;

-- threatened to replace American workers with foreigners if the union came in;

-- threatened to transfer workers to dirtier, lower-paying jobs if they supported the union;

-- told workers not to take union flyers from union organizers;

-- told workers upper management was going to "get them" for supporting the union;

-- asked employees to report to management on the activities of union supporters;

-- stationed managers and security guards with walkie-talkies to spy on union handbilling and report on workers who accepted flyers;

-- interrogated workers about their union sympathies and activities;

-- denied wage increases and promotions to workers who supported the union.

Those are all illegal acts by the company, but obtaining judgments from the NLRB and the courts takes years, and then the penalties are puny, a miniscule cost of doing business for the company, far cheaper than allowing a union.

In a national poll, 59 percent of workers said it was likely they would lose favor with their employer if they supported an organizing drive. And 79 percent agreed that it was "very" or "somewhat" likely that "nonunion workers will get fired if they try to organize a union." Among employed nonunion respondents, 41 percent believed that "it is likely that I will lose my job if I tried to form a union."

How easy is it to intimidate workers who already believe such stuff? One firing should be plenty, but they usually fire more than that.

A 1997 study by the Secretariat of the North American Commission for Labor Cooperation under NAFTA's labor side accord reported that employers threaten to close the workplace in half of the organizing campaigns undertaken by workers in the United States, but rarely in Canada or Mexico. Such threats are used even more intensively in U.S. industries where workers feel most vulnerable to shutdowns and relocations. Employers threatened closings in nearly two-thirds of organizing efforts in manufacturing facilities and warehouses.

[snip]

Researching workers' exercise of these rights in different industries, occupations, and regions of the United States to prepare this report, Human Rights Watch found that freedom of association is a right under severe, often buckling pressure when workers in the United States try to exercise it.

Yep, we sure got a right to organize -- on paper. And that's all.

International human rights law prohibits the use of state power to repress workers' exercise of their right to freedom of association. Forming and joining unions, bargaining collectively, or exercising the right to strike may not be banned or rendered impotent by force of law. Officially or unofficially, authorities may not harass workers, arrest them, imprison them, or physically abuse or kill them for such activities.

Moreover, governments must take affirmative measures to protect workers' freedom of association. Governments have a responsibility under international law to provide effective recourse and remedies for workers whose rights have been violated by employers. Strong enforcement is required to deter employers from violating workers' rights.

The failure to affirmatively protect the right to organize is a failure to protect a basic human right under international law.

In the United States, millions of workers are excluded from coverage by laws to protect rights of organizing, bargaining, and striking. For workers who are covered by such laws, recourse for labor rights violations is often delayed to a point where it ceases to provide redress. When they are applied, remedies are weak and often ineffective. In a system replete with all the appearance of legality and due process, workers' exercise of rights to organize, to bargain, and to strike in the United States has been frustrated by many employers who realize they have little to fear from labor law enforcement through a ponderous, delay-ridden legal system with meager remedial powers.

[snip]

In the 1950s such union "density" reached more than 30 percent of the total workforce and nearly 40 percent in the private sector.

Those figures have fallen to around 13% total and less than 9% in the private sector, and not because unions are outdated. Other democracies have not had similar declines. The US drop in union density began with the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 over the veto of Harry Truman, who denounced it as a "slave-labor bill". The effects didn't show up for some years and were accelerated by the passage of the Landrum-Griffith Act in 1959. The orginal Wagner Act, creating the NLRB, by-de-by, is named for a Republican Senator. Try to imagine a Republican voting for it today.

This is supposed to be government of, by, and for the people. What are the majority of Americans? They're workers. So how come workers have no real rights in this great "democracy?" What do you call a country that ignores a basic human right? Certainly, authoritarian comes to mind. As does evil/savage/facist/fuck-the-worker land.

posted 8:25 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Stop One-Party Rule In America

The Republicans are out to destroy any chance of the Democratic Party having any significant influence on America. John Kerry is launching a $10 million in 10 days fundraising drive today. Bushwa has already raised $160 million, mostly from the rich. If you like the idea of a one-party plutocracy, then please, don't donate. Otherwise, contribute to John Kerry.

posted 11:01 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Nonsensical Threat From Iraq

What they said, and what they meant to add.

"There's no question that Iraq was a threat to the people of the United States."
-- White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan, 8/26/03

If by people of the United States you mean the president's dad.

"We ended the threat from Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction."
-- President Bush, 7/17/03

We also eliminated the threat from Saddam Hussein's alliance with the Klingon Empire.

Iraq was "the most dangerous threat of our time."
-- White House spokesman Scott McClellan, 7/17/03

We will now address the second greatest threat of our time -- untreated hangnails.

Iraq poses "terrible threats to the civilized world."
-- Vice President Dick Cheney, 1/30/03

Because, as we all know, civilization is a wimpy house of tissue thin cards that could be brought down by a Black Cat firecracker.

Iraq "threatens the United States of America."
-- Vice President Cheney, 1/30/03

Much the way an ant fuckin' an elephant threatens vaginal tearing.

"The Iraqi regime is a threat to any American. ... Iraq is a threat, a real threat."
-- President Bush, 1/3/03

How many times did the Nazis say you have to repeat a lie?

"The world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq whose dictator has already used weapons of mass destruction to kill thousands."
-- President Bush, 11/23/02

And what I mean by unique is, it's an urgent threat that's not actually an urgent threat. That's pretty darn unique.

"I see a significant threat to the security of the United States in Iraq."
-- President Bush, 11/1/02

I also see that a grain of sand on the surface of the moon is a significant blemish.

"The Iraqi regime is a threat of unique urgency."
-- President Bush, 10/2/02

Because not all urgency is the same. Some urgency requires immediate action, while other urgency, uh, hmm, what the hell was it Dick told me?

"There's a grave threat in Iraq. There just is."
-- President Bush, 10/2/02

Bush, stamping his foot, "Because I said so, that's why!"

"This man poses a much graver threat than anybody could have possibly imagined."
-- President Bush, 9/26/02

Yet, I imagined it.

"No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."
-- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 9/19/02

(In sing-song voice.) Nah, na, na-na, nahh. I didn't say imminent.

Thanks to the Center for American Progress for the quotes.

Keep lyin' about Iraq, guys. I think it's doin' ya a world a good. After all, it's never the coverup what gets ya inta trouble, it's the scandal. That is how that goes, id'n it?

posted 10:17 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Wastrel's "War" On Terror, And It's Discontents

What in the hell does Bushwa think he has to brag about in the "war on terror?"

Weak on Terror, by Paul Krugman.

Polls suggest that a reputation for being tough on terror is just about the only remaining political strength George Bush has. Yet this reputation is based on image, not reality. The truth is that Mr. Bush, while eager to invoke 9/11 on behalf of an unrelated war, has shown consistent reluctance to focus on the terrorists who actually attacked America, or their backers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

This reluctance dates back to Mr. Bush's first months in office. Why, after all, has his inner circle tried so hard to prevent a serious investigation of what happened on 9/11? There has been much speculation about whether officials ignored specific intelligence warnings, but what we know for sure is that the administration disregarded urgent pleas by departing Clinton officials to focus on the threat from Al Qaeda.

Yeah, but it's all Clinton's fault. Because Repukes say so, that's why!

After that, the administration appeared to lose interest in Al Qaeda; by the summer of 2002, bin Laden's name had disappeared from Mr. Bush's speeches. It was all Saddam, all the time.

This wasn't just a rhetorical switch; crucial resources were pulled off the hunt for Al Qaeda, which had attacked America, to prepare for the overthrow of Saddam, who hadn't. If you want confirmation that this seriously impeded the fight against terror, just look at reports about the all-out effort to capture Osama that started, finally, just a few days ago. Why didn't this happen last year, or the year before? According to The New York Times, last year many of the needed forces were tied up in Iraq.

So Bush pulled resources off a real, honest to God imminent threat in order to go after a vague, almost non-threat.

And the administration is still covering up for Pakistan, whose government recently made the absurd claim that large-scale shipments of nuclear technology and material to rogue states -- including North Korea, according to a new C.I.A. report -- were the work of one man, who was promptly pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf. Mr. Bush has allowed this farce to go unquestioned.

Pakistan really has been in the business of nuclear proliferation, but we go after nebulous threats in Iraq instead. Course, Pakistan has real nukes, ya unnerstan', not Saddam's ghost nukes. That does make it a little tougher to go after them. So Saddam had to stand in as straw man.

posted 9:13 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Keep Harassing The Bush-Liars

From the Democratic National Committee:

Take Action on Medicare
Bush Administration Lied to Congress About Medicare Costs,
Threatened to Fire Expert for Revealing the Truth

Sign the Petition

To: House Democrats

I am outraged that the White House lied to Congress about the cost of the Bush Medicare bill -- written by and for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries -- and that the administration threatened to fire a top Medicare budget expert if he told the truth to Congress and the American people.

I strongly support your call for an investigation into this latest deception from the Bush White House. Once again President Bush is keeping the truth from the American people, and I stand with you as you fight to bring the truth to light.

CJR's Campaign Desk notes that Health and Human Services has been pushing new lies.

Bring Us The Heads of "Karen Ryan" and "Alberto Garcia"

Television stations in Oklahoma, Louisiana and other states have aired "news" segments about the recently enacted Medicare law, featuring "reporters" Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia (in the Spanish language version). Unbeknownst to viewers, however, writes Robert Pear in today's New York Times, the "news" was in fact a free videotape produced and directed by the federal government.

These were commercials masquerading as news. If we don't start holding the bastards accountable, we got no chance at democracy. Please sign the petition.

posted 6:36 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 15, 2004

Authoritarianism Equals Courage To Bush

Spain's blow to Bush

"Time after time, President Bush has responded to critics who say he has alienated America's closest allies by pointing to Mr. Aznar as a courageous example of a leader who ignored poll numbers -- upward of 90 percent of Spaniards opposed the war -- and who acted in Spain's best interests."

Our leaders are supposed to be our representatives. We don't elect them to "courageously" ignore our wishes. That's my understanding of democracy. In a democracy, the people have a right to be wrong. The people have the right to decide. Elected representatives should not have the right to ignore our wishes.

posted 6:21 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry A Coward? Only If You're A Flying Pig.

Here's one for the right wing jackasses that have either said or implied that Kerry was a coward in Vietnam.

Repaying a Big Debt to Lt. Kerry

The eyes still get watery 35 years later, and Jim Rassmann -- former Green Beret, retired California cop -- doesn't want anybody to see. He turns away or uses his beefy hands to cover up.

[snip]

Rassmann was 21 at the time, a Special Forces lieutenant in charge of a company of American and Chinese fighters. On that day, they traveled on a convoy of five patrol boats led by the 25-year-old Kerry, a Navy lieutenant -- and they were on the run, being chased down the Bay Hap River by enemy soldiers firing guns and rockets.

The group had already lost one soldier that day. As they sped down the river, one boat was blown out of the water, and then another. An explosion wounded Kerry in the arm and threw Rassmann into the river. Rassmann dove to the bottom to avoid being run over by the other boats. When he surfaced, he saw the convoy had gone ahead.

Viet Cong snipers fired at him, and Rassmann submerged over and over to avoid being hit. The bullets came from both banks, and Rassmann had nowhere to go. He began thinking his time had come, but the fifth time he came up, he saw the convoy had turned around. Kerry had ordered the boats back to pick up the man overboard.

Kerry's boat, under heavy fire, sidled up to the struggling soldier. Rassmann tried to scramble up a cargo net at the bow but was too exhausted to make it all the way. He clung to the net as bullets whizzed past.

"Next thing I knew, John came out in the middle of all this," Rassmann says. "I couldn't believe it. He was going to get killed. He ran to the edge, reached over with his good arm [Kerry had been wounded in his right arm] and pulled me over the lip."

Rassmann later recommended Kerry for the Silver Star, and was upset when the Army instead awarded Kerry a lesser Bronze Star with a "V" for valor. The medal citation described Kerry's actions on the river that day.

The actions of a coward. I could tell ya who the friggin' cowards are, but I betchya already know. Rassman, by-de-by, is a retired cop and a registered Republican. And very good with orchids.

posted 5:44 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Phaedrus To Bush: Prove Assertion

Two posts down, the White House demands that Kerry prove his assertion that some foreign leaders have privately supported him. Whether true or false, name six Americans who actually give a fuck. So what? Bush, on Saturday made a much more substantive assertion dealing with a critical policy issue.

Bush Radio Address Raps Kerry's Tax Plans

President Bush used yet another forum to issue a thinly veiled attack against Democratic rival John Kerry, saying Saturday in his weekly radio address that higher taxes and new trade barriers would be "a recipe for economic disaster."

See, Bush doesn't think he needs to prove this assertion cuz it's one of those things "everybody knows." Yeah, well, guess what? A lotta times the stuff everybody knows is wrong. I dug into the data in Table 1.1.1 at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and here's what I found:

Under FDR, our high taxing, socialist president, GDP growth averaged 6.3% from 1933-1940, and 15% from 1941-1944, basically the war production years. Production financed with government spending in large part. For 12 years of Roosevelt, we averaged 9.2%.

The top marginal tax rate climbed as high as 91% and remained high by modern Repukelican standards until Ronnie Raygun took over in 1981. From 1945-1980, GDP growth averaged 3.2%. After the mighty tax-cutter saved us from economic disaster, growth surged to 3% from 1981-1992, a drop off of 6.7%.

When the evil Bill Clinton raised taxes, Repukes predicted economic disaster, just as Bushwa is doing now. Boy, were they ever right. During the Clinton years the growth rate plummeted to 3.7%, more than 20% better than the Reagan-Bush years.

And, of course, the current might tax-cutter has had a stellar economic performance, averaging 1.9% growth. Ooo, that's not all that stellar, is it? Well, not to worry, it's actually worse than it looks.

The overall score of the high tax years vs. the low tax years is an average of 4.66% to 2.78%. Under high tax presidents the economy only beat the performance of low tax presidents by about 68%. So where's that lying Puke Bushwa's proof for his assertion?

posted 4:59 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Regulation Is Always Wrong - Let The Market Decide

Because the market is more important than human life. AP: Mexican Worker Deaths Rise Sharply

The jobs that lure Mexican workers to the United States are killing them in a worsening epidemic that is now claiming a victim a day, an Associated Press investigation has found.

[snip]

The greatest frustration is that so many deaths are avoidable.

"Ninety-five to 99 percent of the time, there's going to be noncompliance with a standard that could have prevented the fatality," says Joe Reina, the No. 2 OSHA official for Texas and neighboring states and a leader of the Hispanic Taskforce.

Just because it would probably save a huge percentage of lives is no reason to think regulation is a good idea. People don't realize that if you let the market decide everything, the market will always decide that some human life is cheap. Economically, it is. Are we humans or economists?

OSHA's own officials say their resources are insufficient and note the agency's own policies generally provide for punitive action only after an accident.

Thank you, Repukelicans know best. This is not a contest of pure opinion. Republican policies cost lives -- lots of 'em. This is only a small example.

posted 3:26 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Spokespig Expresses Typical Republican False Dichotomy

White House to Kerry: Prove Assertion

Kerry should identify the (foreign) leaders who purportedly hope he beats President Bush in November, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "Either he is straightforward and states who they are, or the only conclusion one can draw is that he is making it up to attack the president," the spokesman said.

Another completely idiotic statement that right dingers will eat right up. Exactly how, Spokespig McClellan, is that the only logical conclusion that can be drawn? F'r instance, yer sayin' it's impossible to conclude that the leaders expressed support fer Kerry, but wish to remain anonymous. That's completely impossible. And it's completely irrational to think that there might be foreign leaders who support Kerry because -- well, because, uh, it's, uh, common knowledge that Bush is universally popular among foreign leaders. Listen, Spokespig, have we slipped once again into that parallel reality where black is white and up is down?

posted 1:08 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Rumsfeld Spinning Like A Drunken Top

When interviewed on CBS Face The Nation, Rummy staggered like a rummy. First, he denied that the administration had ever claimed Iraq posed an immediate threat. The interviewer screwed him up on that question because he failed to follow the script. He was supposed to say that the administration called Iraq an imminent threat, something Rummy could then blithely deny, using the typical right wing "it depends on what the definition of is is" semantic argument. Ya know, we didn't use that exact word, therefore we never said any such thing. But the interviewer said immediate threat, and Rummy denied that any of the major players in the administration ever said that. Small problem. Rummy said it.

Second, we have this gem:

SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about a criticism that's been leveled by the Military Officers Association of America--that's 300,000 retired and active duty officers--who say that your plan to increase the size of the Army by the policy they call stop-loss is simply a backdoor way to reinstitute the draft. They say that when you decided to increase the force levels up to, I think, 30,000--I may not be exactly right on that figure--that instead of doing that by recruiting more people, what you're doing are telling people who are already in the service that they're going to have to stay an extra amount of time, maybe as much as 16 months. And he--and what they say--this is their criticism--is that this is the most unfair kind of draft because what you're doing is drafting people who have already served the country. What is your response to that?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, obviously, they're not well informed. First of all, the...

I'm not gonna tell ya I've always had great respect for officers, but let's think about this. All officers today have college educations. Hell, my battalion commander was a Rhodes Scholar. These guys ain't dummies, and here they're addressing an issue that affects not only their carreers but their chances of surviving combat. But, obviously, they're not well informed about it. Typical Bushwa. First, anyone opposed to the Iraq war was at least wrong if not a traitor. Then liberals were traitors. Then Gen. Zinni, Joe Wilson, Wes Clark and anyone else who disagreed with the Booshies was a traitor. Now, the Military Officers Association of America is obviously wrong. The Bushies and those who agree with them are always right, everyone else is always wrong. These are just the kind of arrogant assholes I want defending America.

Tip O'The Tam to Eschaton.

posted 9:41 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Middle Class Imperiled & How To Save It

I love the beginning of this article because it echos my own thoughts. Democracy - Not "The Free Market" - Will Save America's Middle Class, by Thom Hartmann.

Here are a couple of headlines for those who haven't had the time to study both economics and history:

1. There is no such thing as a "free market."

2. The "middle class" is the creation of government intervention in the marketplace, and won't exist without it (as millions of Americans and Europeans are discovering).

The conservative belief in "free markets" is a bit like the Catholic Church's insistence that the Earth was at the center of the Solar System in the Twelfth Century. It's widely believed by those in power, those who challenge it are branded heretics and ridiculed, and it is wrong.

In actual fact, there is no such thing as a "free market." Markets are the creation of government.

[snip]

But, conservatives say, government is the problem, not the solution.

Of course, they can't explain how it was that the repeated series of huge tax cuts for the wealthy by the Herbert Hoover administration brought us the Great Depression, while raising taxes to provide for an active and interventionist government to protect the rights of labor to organize throughout the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s led us to the Golden Age of the American Middle Class. (The top tax rate in 1930 under Hoover was 25 percent, and even that was only paid by about a fifth of wealthy Americans. Thirty years later, the top tax rate was 91 percent, and held at 70 percent until Reagan began dismantling the middle class. As the top rate dropped, so did the middle class it helped create.)

By 1980 pseudo-conservative activists had moved the Republican party well to the right and, because many middle class voters forgot their roots, the right moved into political ascendancy. Now, for 24 years, it's been downhill for everyone but the wealthy. I suspect, however, that people are beginning to recognize that.

My grandad, who lived near 90 years, almost the whole of the 20th century, frequently told me that in politics, "The pendulum always swings." It seemed a true statement, but I had come to doubt it in recent years. Yet now, I think I feel that pendulum slowing, maybe even beginning its downward arc. I only wonder if it will be in time. The far right has done great damage to the nation. Four more years of GDub might just finish us off. It's even possible that it's too late already, but best not to worry about that. Too defeatist.

A dinger commenter at Seeing The Forest, where I found this, called Hartmann's article "anti-market," unwittingly demonstrating that he doesn't know the difference between markets on the one hand and "free market" ideology on the other. Free markets, as Hartmann points out, are an impossibility. The right believes in free markets based on faith alone. Theology as economics. There're better ways to handle economics than the right wing believes, which is an enormously good thing. The system we have is not sustainable. If the right wing is right about economics, we're all doomed.

posted 6:54 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 14, 2004

The Right Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies Lies

And Oliver Willis has the goods of the moment on Instapundit in Insty Leads The Kerry Smear Machine. As ODub says, "It's like they don't think we're looking, or something."

posted 3:34 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Maybe Spain's A Democracy After All

Wish I could say the same about the US. Spain's Socialists Defeats Popular Party. Looks like Aznar wasn't foolin' too many Spaniards. Good. The son of a bitch betrayed his people in a major way by supporting the Iraq war when 90% (!) of Spaniards were opposed. Now it looks like Al Qaeda may have retaliated by slaughtering 200 innocent Spaniards and wounding many, many more. But, hey, long as no Americans were killed, the war on terror's still a big success. Screw the Turks and the Iraqis and the Spaniards and anybody else who gets killed as long as their are no attacks on Americans. Sad thing is, I think most of us really think that way.

posted 3:13 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Right's Determination To Rape The Poor

I don't really know because I never get a chance to have an actual discussion with the right -- all I get is trolls who leave one to four or so nasty, irrational comments and never come back (Don't tell me to try discussion threads. Been there, done that. Arguing with the right is like tryin' to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.) -- but some may wonder why I'm so angry and mean when it comes to the right wing. I don't mind the trolls' nastiness, I'm nasty myself towards them. I do mind the refusal to present rational arguments based on factual evidence.

I'll tell you why I'm so angry, mean and nasty. It's because the right wingers, with their airy-fairy theories and faith-based solutions are doing real harm to real people. A lot of harm. Their only excuse is that they're sure they're not doing such harm. Well, in my book, willful ignorance equals criminal negligence. Criminal!

I almost hesitate to post this stuff because the hate the poor crowd picks what it wants to out and uses it as another reason to hate the poor. Sick fucks! But here we go anyway. Jeanne at Body and Soul posts What we see, and what we can't, a moving bit of her personal experience with poverty, and she links to A Poor Cousin of the Middle Class, by David K. Shipler, a NYT Magazine article. I know a little about this stuff. I've spent a lot of my life in poor neighborhoods, and I don't mean just driving through with the windows rolled up and the doors locked like the right wing cowards. I know harder stories, and sadder.

A lot of poor people, most of 'em really, irritate the shit out of me. But that's true of most people, period. I'm a long ways from being a saint. And just like the rich people, and the right wingers, and the middle class people, and the new age freaks and who knows who all else that irritate the shit out of me, poor people are people too, and they're entitled, entitled, do ya hear me? Entitled to be treated decently, to have healthcare, including eye care and dental, to have a decent place to live, decent clothes, nutrition, and, yes, Goddamnit, even leisure time and recreation. They're entitled to a decent job. For anyone to deny people any of that is, quite simply, indecent. The way that Caroline Payne, from Shipler's article, and her family have been treated is simply indecent.

And to you "free" market fairies (When I use the term fairies, I'm not insulting gay people. I'm speaking of wood nymps and the like, magical creatures.), you laissez-faire loons, who try to say oh, that's all up to the market, we have to let the market decide, I say BULLSHIT! You're just trying to lay off the blame on mechanical forces because you want to evade responsibility. Only an amoral machine or a sociopath would treat people the way the poor are treated in this country. You know they don't even have slums in Canada? There's no good reason for life to be this way, there's just the right wing's evil behind it, just greed and prejudice and unreasoning meanness. And you assholes on the right can't even begin to comprehend just how angry I really am.

UPDATE: Kerim's Website posts some useful figures on poverty and what it would take to address the problem.

In 1998, the poverty line for a family of three was $13,003 and $16,660 for a family of four. That year, half the median income for a family of three was $24,466 and $28,030 for a family of four - 88% and 68% above the official poverty lines. Even the modest assumption that the poverty line should be half again as high as it is would suggest a poverty rate of 22% in 1998, rather than the official 12.7% figure...

As I've maintained for some time, poverty is much worse in the US than the government tells us. Oh, but it would be so hard to do anything about it.

The amount of money it would take to bring all officially poor households up to the pverty line is amazingly small: 0.5% of GDP, or jsut over 3% of the income of the richest fifth of households. It would take a bit more money to bring the poor up to a civilized standard, but not that much. Doubling the incomes of the poorest 20% of households - form an average of $10,136 (in 2001) to $20,272, which is still less than half the median - by taxing the richest 20% would require the affluent fifth to sacrifice less than 7% of their income, bringing it down from an average of $145,970 to a mere $135,834. That would reduce their share of the national pie to late-1980s levels, hardly a period when the upper orders were suffering. But clearly it's much more important that the affluent be able to buy Hummers than to accomplish this bleeding-heart goal.

Yeah, that'd be rough. Course, you do have to remember that on principle it's wrong to take money from people who earned it and give it to people who didn't. That's what the right dingers say. Well, I got a little moral principle for them. People suffer because of poverty. People die. When you have the ability to alleviate the suffering of millions of people, the majority of them children, and it would cost so little yet you still refuse to do it, I don't care how you dress it up with principle. That's just plain evil. That's greedy-mean, suckin' Satan's scaly dick evil. I'm not in the habit of wishin' people into hell. People're so weak, I'm not sure any of 'em deserve it. But by Goddamn, if anybody deserves to go to hell, people who would act so evil do. And I'd be more than happy to send you there myself.

Told you I was pissed.

posted 1:44 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bush's Determination To Rape The Earth

Got a letter from Barbara Boxer. Yep, me an' Babs is tighter'n the hatches on a submarine. It concerned the Clean Water Act and the second paragraph read:

While the conditions of many of our waterways have improved, much more still needs to be done. Therefore we must oppose efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act. On three separate occasions, I joined my colleagues in sending letters to the President urging the Administration to rescind plans to stop regulating waters such as non-navigable streams, creeks, ponds, small tributaries, and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. If regulation is lifted, the way would be opened for polluters to degrade water that has been protected for 30 years.

Yeah, Booshwa's got a hell of a record on the environment. I am so sick of people who think the differences between the parties and between the far right mirage and everybody else is purely a matter of opinion. If it is, then here's the real difference: The non-right is of the opinion that there is an objective reality and we need to do our best to discover it and deal with it as it is. The Republican right thinks it makes more sense to invent or imagine reality to suit their preconceived notions. The right believes in faith-based science, economics, politics, everything. Idiots.

posted 11:12 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry's Shown Political Courage And Heart

There's a real tendency to focus on what's wrong with John Kerry, and not just among Republicans. Disillusioned Democrats, Naderites, and people like me have shown the same tendency. It's true Kerry has some serious flaws, but so do nearly all our politicians. We need to understand that the system is seriously flawed. Nonetheless, Kerry has done a number of good things in the Senate, as David Corn points out in What's Right With Kerry.

I'm dyin' to see the equivalent What's Right With Bush, which I think will have to pretty much consist of, "Um, uh, uh, no, wait a minute, something will come to me . . . ." Of course, there's always the war on terror, in which we've made no progress, possibly regressed, and along the way we've wasted hundreds of American lives, thousands of civilian lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars, and what's their big sign of success? Libya's given up its WMDs, something it's only been tryin' to do for about a decade. OK, it's nice an' all, but at 200 billion bucks a pop, I'm not sure it's really cost effective.

From Corn on Kerry:

There is, as evidence, his nineteen-year Senate record, during which he has voted consistently in favor of abortion rights and environmental policies, opposed Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, led the effort against drilling in the Alaskan wilderness, pushed for higher fuel economy standards, advocated boosting the minimum wage and pressed for global warming remedies. But what distinguishes Kerry's career are key moments when he displayed guts and took tough actions that few colleagues would imitate.

[snip]

In early 1986 Kerry's office was contacted by a Vietnam vet who alleged that the support network for the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras (who were fighting against the socialist Sandinistas in power) was linked to drug traffickers.

Kerry investigated and found the connection which was confirmed 10 years later by the CIA inspector general.

After the contra investigation, Kerry next turned to a far more sensitive target: a bank connected to a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser. During their investigation of Noriega, Kerry's staff discovered that the Bank of Credit and Commerce International had facilitated Noriega's drug trafficking and money laundering.

Kerry had to buck the CIA, the Repulicans, and the Democrats on this one. He did, and he got at the ugly truth.

While Kerry was in the middle of the BCCI muck, Senate majority leader George Mitchell asked him to assume another difficult task: investigate the unaccounted-for Vietnam POWs and MIAs.

Talk about a thankless job. But Kerry did it, apparently well, in collaboration with Republicans like John McCain and Bob Smith.

On September 10, 1996, as he was in a tight re-election contest against William Weld, the popular Republican governor of Massachusetts, Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which would deny federal benefits to same-sex couples and permit states to not recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states. He was one of only fourteen senators to oppose the measure. Several leading Senate liberals--including Paul Wellstone, Tom Harkin and Pat Leahy--had voted for it. But on the floor of the Senate that day, Kerry, who noted that he did not support same-sex marriage, said, "I am going to vote against this bill...because I believe that this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political." He refused to pretend that the bill was not a wedge-issue trap devised by conservative Republicans. The legislation, he charged, was "meant to divide Americans," and he argued fiercely that it was unconstitutional. "If this were truly a defense of marriage act," he said, "it would expand the learning experience for would-be husbands and wives. It would provide for counseling for all troubled marriages, not just for those who can afford it. It would provide treatment on demand for those with alcohol and substance abuse.... It would guarantee daycare for every family that struggles and needs it."

This one's huge with me:

The following year, a re-elected Kerry was in another lonely position as one of only five original sponsors of the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act, to provide for full public financing of Congressional elections. The measure would remove practically all special-interest money from House and Senate campaigns. (Kerry's colleagues were Wellstone, Leahy, John Glenn and Joe Biden--all Democrats.) "Kerry was totally into it," says Ellen Miller, former executive director of Public Campaign, a reform group pressing for the legislation. "He believes in this stuff."

Kerry has taken special-interest money, and Bush has taken a hell of a lot more yet thinks he can tar Kerry with the issue. Here's one little difference, though. When has Bushwa ever lifted a finger to get special interest money out of politics?

Kerry's had more than a few high points, and they ought to count for something.

posted 10:50 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bush Soft On Terrorism And Dems Should Say So

It's the President who's been weak on fighting terrorism, instead pouring enormous resources into a war that had very little to do with keeping America safe. Atrios covers this in some detail. A small excerpt:

What Kerry - and the Democrats - need to do is to overturn conventional wisdom by re-framing the debate. September 11th happened on Bush's watch, after his administration completely ignored the threat of terrorism. Right now, We All Know that George Bush showed "great leadership" after 9/11. How do we know that? Well, because the goddamn Democrats keep saying it. Truth? Bush ran and hid and then didn't stop wetting his pants until 3 days later. He then went and bombed a stone age country back to the stone age, and then didn't provide the resources to rebuild it. Thousands of Taliban and al Qaeda members were allowed to escape to Pakistan, defeating much of the purpose of said bombing, and we never found Bin Laden, the stated architect of the 9/11 attack.

We now know that we haven't been devoting the resources to find Bin Laden, because we're now "stepping up" that attempt with Operation Mountain Storm. Why we didn't step up that threat two years ago is obvious - we had to mobilize for Iraq and this gang can't walk and chew gum at the same time (frankly, they can't do them separately either).

posted 7:11 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 13, 2004

Air America Radio Preaching To The Choir

That's the right wingers' criticism of the new liberal radio network which is to begin broadcasting Mar. 31, in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. They say it like it's a bad thing. To right wingers all three cities are "liberal bastions," although if you live in Los Angeles you know that's a trait well-hidden from Angelenos. I don't doubt we're a little to the left of Alabama, but hell, who isn't?

Saw a right wingnut blogger who made what I'm sure was his typically cogent criticism of the nasty lefty radio venture, arguing that there was no point in preaching to the converted. So I'm guessin' every church in America needs to fire it's priest or pastor or minister right now, before they have to pay for another pointless sermon on Sunday. There's a lot to be said for preaching to the converted. What the hell do they think the Limboobies, insanity-Hannities, and all the other right wing lie machines on talk radio do? They sure as hell ain't preachin' to the liberals.

What's more, preachin' to the choir is sorely underrated. Unopposed preaching from the far right on the airwaves has convinced far right dingers that they are the majority and, at the same time, convinced those who lean left of the Republican party that they're in the minority, which is impressive. They've actually convinced the majority that it's the minority.

A new voice of moderate liberalism preaching to the converted can convince the converted that they're not alone, that they too are allowed to speak out in America, that maybe it really is worthwhile to get off their duffs and work for change, because the right really doesn't dominate America. And the more people on the left who feel emboldened to stand up and speak out, the more people will publicly support their cause. I know I'm not dreamin' this up, cuz I've watched it work for the right. Christ, for years liberals in Orange County, and even many parts of LA, were scared to open their mouths. Too much chance they'd either get shouted down contemptuously or even physically attacked.

All of which ignores the business aspects of the decision. You'd think that would leap immediately to a right dinger's mind, such as it is. They all think they're so damn smart about business. I don't know what this network's chances for success are, but if their first three cities were Charleston, SC, Tupelo, Mississippi, and Macon, Georgia, where they surely wouldn't be preaching to the converted, I think we could assume they'd go under almost overnight. And wouldn't that just suit right dingers?

My general rules of thumb are: If a right dinger criticizes, you're doing something right. If a right dinger gives you helpful advice, do the opposite. You'll hardly ever go wrong.

posted 10:02 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 12, 2004

Emperor George I's Feet Can't Touch The Ground

My buddy (who has no idea I exist) Jimmy Breslin delivers Money in his coffers, but no dirt on his shoes

For days now, the job at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County has been to follow the order from the White House through the Secret Service and down to the park workers:

"The president's feet are not to touch the dirt."

So they're building temporary walkways everywhere the Resident might go. That's some Texican cowboy, ain't it? George Bush's feet cannot be allowed to touch the earth directly, even with his shoesies on. Lord only knows how he'd feel about cowshit or horseshit. But Kerry's the elitist.

Tip O' The Tam to Omnium.

posted 10:38 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

As Long As We Understand What Democracy Means

US revealed to be secretly funding opponents of Chavez

Washington has been channelling hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the political opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - including those who briefly overthrew the democratically elected leader in a coup two years ago.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that, in 2002, America paid more than a million dollars to those political groups in what it claims is an ongoing effort to build democracy and "strengthen political parties". Mr Chavez has seized on the information, telling Washington to "get its hands off Venezuela".

[snip]

Jeremy Bigwood, a Washington-based freelance journalist who obtained the documents, yesterday told The Independent: "This repeats a pattern started in Nicaragua in the election of 1990 when [the US] spent $20 per voter to get rid of [the Sandinista President Daniel] Ortega. It's done in the name of democracy but it's rather hypocritical. Venezuela does have a democratically elected President who won the popular vote which is not the case with the US."

I'm sure nobody'd mind if Nicaragua found a way to return the favor. Now here's a basic lesson in what the right wing means by democracy:

But critics of the NED say the organisation routinely meddles in other countries' affairs to support groups that believe in free enterprise, minimal government intervention in the economy and opposition to socialism in any form. In recent years, the NED has channelled funds to the political opponents of the recently ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide at the same time that Washington was blocking loans to his government.

Here and I'm so Goddamned stupid that I thought democracy meant the people decide. If they want socialism, they should have socialism. If only I was a right dinger I'd be so much smarter.

In Venezuela, the NED channelled the money to three of its four main operational "wings": the international arms of the Republican and Democratic parties - the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs respectively - and the foreign policy wing of the AFL-CIO union, the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity.

The AFuckinL-CIO. That's pleasant. Sell-out bastards.

Thanks to Ungodly Politics.

posted 9:59 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Stupid Bush Tricks

No More Excuses on Jobs, by Paul Krugman.

As the Economic Policy Institute points out, if [people] hadn't dropped out [of the work force], the official unemployment rate would be an eye-popping 7.4 percent, not a politically spinnable 5.6 percent.

Franklin Roosevelt, in his efforts to combat economic woes, was famously willing to try anything until he found something that worked. George Bush, by contrast, seems determined to try the same thing, over and over again.

Bush is a one trick pony on the economy, and it ain't much of a trick. Big tax cuts for the affluent. Didn't work? More big tax cuts for the affluent. Repeat until broke.

posted 8:39 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kennedy Has The Antidote To Right Wing Lies

"Creating a Genuine 'Opportunity Society'"

This is a great speech by Ted Kennedy, a veritable progressive manifesto. Short version: When the country mostly followed progressive policies from the turn of the century until about 1980, we had strong economic growth and everyone benefited. Once the far right became ascendant, starting with Reagan, everything's gone to hell, except for the rich. People need to listen to the right wingers, for Christ sake. They're all theory and no facts. They regularly make claims that contradict the facts. They're all religion and no worldly reality. It's faith-based economics and faith-based politics. How 'bout we start doing things that make sense based on the known facts for a change?

Tip O' The Tam to ConNiPtioNs.

posted 6:35 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Update On Kerry "Gutting" Intelligence

The tangled web

"In terms of accuracy, the parry by the president is about half right. Bush is correct that Kerry on Sept. 29, 1995, proposed a five-year, $1.5 billion cut to the intelligence budget. But Bush appears to be wrong when he said the proposed Kerry cut -- about 1 percent of the overall intelligence budget for those years -- would have 'gutted' intelligence. In fact, the Republican-led Congress that year approved legislation that resulted in $3.8 billion being cut over five years from the budget of the National Reconnaissance Office -- the same program Kerry said he was targeting."

[snip]

"Bush's charge that Kerry's broader defense spending reduction bill had no co-sponsors is true, but not because it was seen as irresponsible, as the president suggested. Although Kerry's measure was never taken up, Specter's plan to reduce the NRO's funds, which Kerry co-sponsored with Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), did become law as part of a House-Senate package endorsed by the GOP leadership."

But, ya know, the Prez ain't a liar or nothin'.

posted 5:10 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

What Bush Has Done

Key Republicans Admit Anxiety Over Campaign

Repukelicans is skeered. Admittedly, they skeer purty easy but, still, it strikes me as a good thing. One Repuke has a solution:

Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi, an Ohio Republican who represents Columbus and its northeastern suburbs, agreed. "The president himself is going to have to take the offensive and be aggressive in talking about what he's done," he said.

So I asks m'self, what has Bush done? Off the top a my head, he's:

Totally dropped the ball on terrorism prior to 9/11.

Pressured the EPA to lie about the air quality in New York after 9/11.

Pushed through a Medicare bill that does more for corporations than for seniors. In fact, it's highly debatable whether it does anything for seniors. The cost is over $500 billion over 10 years, and the White House lied about that to the tune of around $130 billion.

Lied us into a war that hasn't turned out anything like he told us it would. The war has actually been a distraction from fighting terrorism, no WMDs have been found; the Iraqi people, though happy that we toppled Saddam, don't want us there anymore, and we've been tied down in a guerrilla war for most of a year.

While we're on the subject of lies, he's told more lies more continuously than any administration in my memory, and LBJ, Tricky Dicky, Ronnie Raygun, Poppy Bush, and Clinton weren't no pikers.

Failed to catch Osama Bin Laden and, if he's done such a good job making us safe from terrorism, how come the threat level never seems to drop below orange?

After having all but completely screwed up the Iraq war, from vastly overstating the threat to failing to prepare the troops (No decent flak jackets, shortages of ammo and armor and food and water.) to blowing the occupation in nearly every way possible, nobody even gets canned. The buck stops -- well, apparently, anywhere but with the administration.

Lost more than two million jobs, and wages are doing badly too, and he brags about how well he's handled the economy.

Got huge tax cuts for the rich that don't seem to have helped the economy one bit.

Spent the Social Security trust fund he promised to keep in a lockbox.

Done his damndest to drive the country toward bankruptcy.

And I'm sure I'm leavin' lots a stuff out. Hell, I'm dyin' for Bush to campaign on what he's done, but I doubt even he's that stupid. The Pukes have been sayin' that Kerry and the Dems only talk about how bad Bush is and don't talk about their own agenda for the future. That's really not true, but even if it was, so what?

I don't like the modern Democratic Party, but you only get two choices in this country. Even of the Democratic candidates, none of whom would be my first choice, Kerry was maybe my 3rd or 4th, maybe even 5th choice. But Bush really is so bad that it doesn't matter. Some woman said that if they put a duck up as the Dem nominee, she'd vote for it. I would too. A duck obviously couldn't handle the job, but doing absolutely nothing would be a massive improvement over Bush.

posted 4:49 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Madrid Bombings Blamed On Basque Terrorists - Why?

At least 190 dead, as many as 1500 wounded, the numbers perhaps not final. A terrible, terrible thing. The Spanish government has already gotten the UN Security Council to condemn ETA, the Basque terrorist group, for the bombings. I find that interesting because I don't think ETA did it.

This doesn't fit ETA's MO at all. They haven't carried out mass attacks on the populace before, they've usually attacked government buildings and government figures. They've usually issued warnings before attacks. They don't usually deny that they're behind the attacks.

OK, MO's can change. But Aznar's Popular Party is the most hardline anti-ETA party in Spain. Elections are Sunday. Popular was leading in the polls by 5% at the time of the attacks, but if they had won, they would have had to form a coalition government. Some political scientists in Spain are now saying Popular may win an outright majority and be able to form a government without a partner. These attacks almost certainly helped the Popular Party. Why would ETA want to do that? If these were ETA attacks, they'd make more sense after the election than before.

Aznar insists it was ETA, but I'm sure he feels that such a claim is helpful to his Popular Party. In fact, since campaigning has been suspended since the attacks, the Popular Party, in effect, is the only party still campaigning. They're doing so by blaming ETA, though they don't have solid evidence yet that it was ETA.

Would Aznar and his party do something so cynical? Of course they would. I believe in government. Anarchy sounds tempting, but in hard reality, given human nature, it's only a pipedream. So I think government is a necessity, but I also think you're a damn fool if you trust government. There's never been a government worthy of trust and, given human nature, there never will be.

posted 11:46 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

How Do You Define Democracy?

All kinds of countries claim to be democracies these days, yet several allegedly democratic countries supported the US invasion of Iraq despite strong opposition among their citizens. Let's just take Spain for example.

Madrid Train Blasts Kill at Least 190

The Aznar government's support for the Iraq war was deeply unpopular among citizens, with polls indicating that 90 percent of the population was against it. Spain's involvement in Iraq had become a campaign issue, with the opposition Socialist Party promising to reverse the policy and bring troops home.

Now it's just possible that the citizens of Spain have paid a heavy price for their government's failure to heed their wishes. How in the hell does that happen in a democracy? Just callin' it democracy don't make it so.

posted 11:12 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Pro-Life Movement Out Of Control

Mother charged in Caesarean row

A US woman who allegedly ignored medical warnings to have a Caesarean section has been charged with murder after one of her twins was stillborn.

Goin' by this story there's some doubt whether the woman even did what prosecutor's claim, but even if she did, should ya be able ta charge a woman wit' murder fer refusin' a C-section? C'mon, pibbles, we cain't criminalize ever' damn thing we don' like.

UPDATE: The woman's attorney reports that she has a long history of major mental illness.

posted 10:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Why Call 'em Liars And Crooks? Well . . . .

because they are. Howard Kurtz of the WaPo has asked, as reported in Crooked Scream, "Is John Kerry's muttered aside the new Dean Scream?" The old "Dean Scream" was media bullshit to begin with, and if they make a deal about Kerry's remark, that'll be more bullshit with road apples on top. Kerry was absolutely right, and the evidence just keeps piling up.

Medicare plan cost estimates ordered withheld

The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan.

The White House knew at least five months before the Medicare bill passed that it would cost over $500 billion, not under $400 billion as claimed. But they also knew the bill would never pass if they admitted it, so they didn't.

Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers.

"This whole episode which has now gone on for three weeks has been pretty nightmarish," Foster wrote in an e-mail to some of his colleagues June 26, just before the first congressional vote on the drug bill. "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons."

Knight Ridder obtained a copy of the e-mail.

[snip]

Cybele Bjorklund, the Democratic staff director for the House Ways and Means health subcommittee, which worked on the drug benefit, said Thomas A. Scully - then the director of the Medicare office - told her he ordered Foster to withhold information and that Foster would be fired for insubordination if he disobeyed.

[snip]

[Scully said,] " ... I don't think he ever felt - I don't think anybody (in the actuary's office) ever felt - that I restricted access. ... I think it's a very nice tradition that (the actuary) is perceived to be very nonpartisan and very accessible, and I continued that tradition."

Scully said Liz Fowler, the chief health lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, could confirm the actuary's independence. Fowler didn't.

"He's a liar," she said of Scully.

Wow, way ta pick yer backers, Scully.

Scully left the administration and in January took a job with Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based law firm that represents numerous hospitals and health insurers. He was exploring jobs in the private sector while he was pushing for passage of the prescription drug bill, thanks to a waiver from Thompson that allowed him to conduct job interviews while he was still a federal employee.

So at least there warn't no confleect o' een-terest.

For years before Scully's arrival in 2001, key lawmakers had direct access to Medicare actuaries.

All in all it's just another brick off the wall.

posted 10:01 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 11, 2004

Support The Troops, Goddamnee!

Bush losing support from military families

The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or evidence that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaida, lengthy deployments of active-duty soldiers and reservists and proposed cuts in veterans' benefits and perks to military families are threatening to erode Bush's once-strong support among military voters."

"A bipartisan Battleground poll of likely voters conducted in September found that Bush's approval rating among relatives of military personnel was only 36 percent.

Who'd a thunk lip service would'n a been plenty enough support?

posted 10:17 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Karen Kwiatkowski - Freaky, Anarchist Bitch

The Big Story on Faux News

The big story on Fox News last night was Karen Kwiatkowski, the Pentagon whistleblower who wrote this exclusive insider's account in Salon about how the administration manufactured its case for war in Iraq. From the transcript, it's clear Kwiatkowski doesn't change the mind of "The Big Story" host John Gibson, who goes on to call Kwiatkowski an anarchist and sympathizes with the counterpoint guest, an RNC spokesman who has zero inside information about the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans but joins us to provide political cover for the administration. What is the GOP to do "when people like that are talking and scoring points with people in the public," Gibson wonders?

Karen Kwiatkowski, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, twenty years in the military, the fuckin' military, which has been such a good home to so many anarchists, is an anarchist. Shit, no wonder they call it Faux News. Whatever it takes to sell it, right guys? Geez, if the average American is buyin' this crap, then he's a lot dumber than I think, an' I don't have a lotta respect for most people's intelligence.

posted 9:58 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Could Kerry Win The Macho Vote?

Ak-shully, I don' see why not. Kerry's a helluva lot more macho than that pissant pretend warrior who did the carrier deck prance.

Domestic issues lift Kerry in new poll

Another sign of trouble for Bush: Men, usually a Republican strength, split 47% for Kerry, 46% for Bush. Kerry has his party's typical lead with women, 53%-43%.

Good Gawd amighty! A Dem-o-crat leadin' wit' men! Sure, it's widdin tha margin o' error, but it's still very bad news for Boy George. Hell, come ought five, he may have ta go back ta Crawford an' content hisself with stickin' firecrackers down tha throats a unwillin' frogs. Praise be.

posted 9:20 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry Just Might Have The Fire This Time

Kerry Says He Will Not Apologize for Critical Comments Against Republicans

Good! Why the hell should he? Kerry said he was referring to the Republican "attack squad," and they sure as hell are crooks and liars. Kerry's shown plenty of guts before, in Vietnam, and in opposing the war in Vietnam. It's lookin' like Bush is gonna find out what it's like to run against a real man. (Sorry Al, but ya din't have the courage of your convictions, man.) Could be tough for a pretend war hero/goat ropin' Texican. Hell, id'n he a pretend Texican, too?

posted 8:55 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

No Worries On Trade - All We Give 'em's Paper

What Goes Abroad Usually Comes Back, With Benefits, By HAL R. VARIAN

Think about it. If Oracle sends $10,000 abroad to pay an Indian programmer, then that money either finds its way back to the United States or it doesn't. If it comes back, it can be used to buy American goods and services, employing American workers. If it doesn't come back then it's even better from the viewpoint of the country: we've sent them paper, while they've sent us valuable goods and services.

Hal R. Varian is a professor of business, economics and information management at the University of California at Berkeley.

Forgive me if I seem a tad bejangled, but I bumped my head on the floor after I was stunned unconscious by that last sentence. I had no idea I was gettin' such a good deal on everything I buy. I pay the rent, they let me stay in my apartment, and all they get from me is paper. The grocery store gives me food, and all I give them is worthless, meaningless paper. Everything I buy is absolutely free! Except, wait a minute, when I work, all they give me is . . . . Those sons of bitches! Fuckin' paper! Plain, ordinary, worthless paper!

Actually, I'm quite worried about the UC system. They hired this guy as a professor, and he's either violently stupid or a vicious liar. How much ya wanta bet he votes Repukelican?

posted 8:09 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Here's Why US Would Like Venezuela's Chavez To Fall

The Oil Company as Social Worker

All across this oil-rich and poverty-riddled country, the state oil giant, Petróleos de Venezuela, the country's economic engine, is embarking on a radical and wide-ranging social spending program that includes building homes, running literacy programs and developing agriculture. In all, the company, known worldwide as Pdvsa (pronounced peh-deh-VEH-sah), is increasing its social spending from less than $40 million in previous years to $1.7 billion this year, according to the company's 2004 budget: $616 million on various programs, $600 million on agricultural development and $500 million on low-income housing.

The new spending measures are transforming a state company long run like a private concern into President Hugo Chavez's primary vehicle for social change in the world's fifth-largest oil exporter.

"Pdvsa used to function as a transnational company only interested in maximizing oil sales," said Pdvsa's president, Ali Rodriguez. "Now, Pdvsa is working with other state institutions to reduce Venezuela's exceedingly high rate of poverty." According to Venezuelan research groups, more than 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Social spending initiatives are crucial for the embattled President Chavez, who has recently faced violent opposition protests as electoral authorities announced setbacks in a recall referendum.

How dare that commie SOB help the people who put him in office. That's not how democracy's s'posed to work. Although it is how things work in the US, where the rich people decide who get's into office. That's how democracy's s'posed to work.

posted 7:37 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Justice? Or Just Bush?

Britain Frees 5 Citizens Sent Home From U.S. Jail

The police have freed all five Britons flown home from the jail at the American base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, raising questions about why they were held for two years, and on Thursday a lawyer for one of the men denounced their captors.

The men were turned over to British custody on Tuesday, and by late Wednesday, the British police and prosecutors had released all of them without charge.

Shouldn't that read 'concentration camp?' Two years in captivity on Gitmo, taken into British custody, held for less than two days and released without charges. Didn't Boy King George tell us the Gitmo captives were the "worst of the worst?" Din't he basically say, "Trust your government, we know what we're doing?" Now an awful lot of the "worst of the worst" have gone free, no charges, no trials. Obviously our government didn't know what it was doing and can't be trusted. Vote for Bush! Four more years of evil!

posted 6:51 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Almost As Silly As Electing Schwarzenwhopper

Should 14-year-olds vote? OK, how about a quarter of a vote?

The question: Should kids as young as 14 be able to vote?

Four California legislators proposed just that in the Golden State this week, with the twist that 14- and 15-year-olds would get only a one-quarter vote and 16- and 17-year-olds would get one-half.

I only have one thing to say. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, oh, hell no. An' I don't care if that puts me in agreement with right dingers.

posted 6:23 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Bushies'll Do Anything To Win

Bush campaign to challenge legality Media Fund election ads

Bush-Cheney officials said they won't ask for the ads to be pulled off the air because the FEC doesn't have that authority, and because a court is unlikely to act before the FEC finishes its review of the new campaign finance laws. The object of the complaint is to highlight what Bush campaign officials say are Democratic hypocrisies and to prod the FEC to act more quickly than it has in the past, the officials said.

Oh. Iss not a settled matter, but BushROVECheney din't mind sendin' threatenin' letters to 250 government-regulated TV stations claimin' that tha ads were a clear an' obivious violation of law an' that airin' tha ads would make tha stations complicit in tha crime. Ya know, iss jus' gamesmanship an' all.

posted 5:18 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

A Conservative Colonel Tells How We Were Lied To War

The new Pentagon papers
A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.

I was present at a staff meeting when Bill Luti called Marine Gen. and former Chief of Central Command Anthony Zinni a "traitor," because Zinni had publicly expressed reservations about the rush to war.

He called Zinni a traitor. Hell, an' I thought it was bad when they was callin' liberals traitors. Now, I'm purty sure that General Zinni an' me would not become good buddies, was we ta meet. I pride myself on never havin' met an officer I thought was qualified ta carry a top kick's (1st Sgt) testicles, butcha don't go callin' a fuckin' general a traitor 'less you got some awful good evidence ta back it up. Thass truly disgustin'.

Instead of developing defense policy alternatives and advice, OSP was used to manufacture propaganda for internal and external use, and pseudo war planning.

[snip]

The message sent by Policy appointees and well understood by staff officers and the defense intelligence community was that senior appointed civilians were willing to exclude or marginalize intelligence products that did not fit the agenda.

[snip]

The OSP list of crime and evil had included Saddam's attempts to seek fissionable materials or uranium in Africa. This point was written mostly in the present tense and conveniently left off the dates of the last known attempt, sometime in the late 1980s.

Yeah, that was mighty convenient, wan't it? Ya might even, if you was the indiscrete sort, call it a flat fuckin' lie.

It is interesting today that the "defense" for those who lied or prevaricated about Iraq is to point the finger at the intelligence. But the National Intelligence Estimate, published in September 2002, as remarked upon recently by former CIA Middle East chief Ray McGovern, was an afterthought. It was provoked only after Sens. Bob Graham and Dick Durban noted in August 2002, as Congress was being asked to support a resolution for preemptive war, that no NIE elaborating real threats to the United States had been provided. In fact, it had not been written, but a suitable NIE was dutifully prepared and submitted the very next month. Naturally, this document largely supported most of the outrageous statements already made publicly by Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld about the threat Iraq posed to the United States. All the caveats, reservations and dissents made by intelligence were relegated to footnotes and kept from the public. Funny how that worked.

An' here's me not laughin'. Go figger.

That other shoe fell with a thump, as did the regard many of us had held for Colin Powell, on Feb. 5 as the secretary of state capitulated to the neoconservative line in his speech at the United Nations -- a speech not only filled with falsehoods pushed by the neoconservatives but also containing many statements already debunked by intelligence.

In other words, Colin Powell knowingly lied to the UN. Don't seem like it's worth admirin' anybody anymore.

War is generally crafted and pursued for political reasons, but the reasons given to the Congress and to the American people for this one were inaccurate and so misleading as to be false. Moreover, they were false by design. Certainly, the neoconservatives never bothered to sell the rest of the country on the real reasons for occupation of Iraq -- more bases from which to flex U.S. muscle with Syria and Iran, and better positioning for the inevitable fall of the regional ruling sheikdoms. Maintaining OPEC on a dollar track and not a euro and fulfilling a half-baked imperial vision also played a role. These more accurate reasons for invading and occupying could have been argued on their merits -- an angry and aggressive U.S. population might indeed have supported the war and occupation for those reasons. But Americans didn't get the chance for an honest debate.

Democracy, democracy, democracy! What the hell's 'at s'posed ta mean, anyway?

President Bush has now appointed a commission to look at American intelligence capabilities and will report after the election. It will "examine intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and related 21st century threats ... [and] compare what the Iraq Survey Group learns with the information we had prior..." The commission, aside from being modeled on failed rubber stamp commissions of the past and consisting entirely of those selected by the executive branch, specifically excludes an examination of the role of the Office of Special Plans and other executive advisory bodies. If the president or vice president were seriously interested in "getting the truth," they might consider asking for evidence on how intelligence was politicized, misused and manipulated, and whether information from the intelligence community was distorted in order to sway Congress and public opinion in a narrowly conceived neoconservative push for war. Bush says he wants the truth, but it is clear he is no more interested in it today than he was two years ago.

So tha commission, no surprise ta us'n, is jus' another damn dog an' pony show.

Ya know, not so very long ago, peops was doin' an awful lotta referrin' ta Boy George Bushwa as the Commander in Chief. In order ta puff his wussy ass up, ya know. Well, technically he is, but he ain't my Commander in Chief, an' he ain't Commander in Chief ta most of tha American people. We ain't obligated to take his orders or follow him. I ain't ever had but one Commander in Chief, an' that was tricky Dick Nixon, cuz I was in tha Army back then. Bushwa's only tha CINC ta tha military, an' this an' way too many similar stories make it obious he ain't qualified ta even be that. WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

posted 3:41 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Defeating Bush Ain't Nearly Enough

Watched Michael Moore's "The Big One" today and I gotta tell ya, I like the guy. Yes, he's guilty of some inaccuracies, as Spinsanity and some others have pointed out, but not nearly the kind of bald-faced lies intended to distort reality that many right wing authors are guilty of. But is he right in general and in principle? It'd be hard to be more right.

In this film he's asking CEO's, when they'll actually speak to him, why extremely profitable companies are laying off American workers. At Johnson Controls, which closed a profitable American factory to move the work to Mexico at 80 cents an hour, he questions a company representative, a woman, about the layoffs. As she becomes aggravated (Moore has that effect on company representatives) she says, "I think our employees have a better understanding of this than you do."

An' I'm thinkin', "Yeah, they sure ina fuck do, babycakes. They understand it better'n you do, too, bitch. They understand how their lives and community will be devastated for the sake of ever greater profit. They understand how much trouble they'd have sleepin' if they had to do your job. They understand what it means to have a conscience."

Moore also says in the film that the richest 1% have two parties and we don't have any. We need a political party that speaks for us. We sure ina hell do. So why am I supporting Kerry 100%? Why do I support the Democratic party? Because they're all we've got. It's either them or the damn Repukelicans and Bushwa. We gots ta face facts, peebles. This is a two party system. Without a redesign of our government, it will always be a two party system.

What we need to do is take over the Democratic party from the bottom up and make it the party of the people again. I know it's fun ta go around sayin', "Don't vote. It only encourages them," but you'd be better off jackin' off. At least that does no harm. In fact, the opposite is true. When you don't vote, it only encourages them. If we ever want the country to belong to all the people, instead of the just the top 1%, most people are gonna have to vote and a lot of us are gonna have to do a lot more than that. Organizing, educating, infiltrating the Democratic party structure. There's just no other way, and third parties are a cop-out.

posted 1:20 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Stern On The Warpath

Via Ratboy we get "Culture War May Find WMD," By Laurie Spivak, AlterNet, arguing that Clear Channel and their protege, Boy George B, may have really stepped in it when they fucked with Howard Stern. From their pixels to God's Palm Pilot.

posted 12:47 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

THE ART OF THE WELL-PLACED ELLIPSIS

Campaign Journal, at TNR, notes an intentionally dishonest twisting of John Kerry's words by the Bush campaign. How dare Kerry call these assholes liars. Can't he think of a stronger word?

posted 10:45 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Mark Your Calendars - O'Franken Factor Airs 3/31

Franken, Garofalo to Host Liberal Radio

The backers of Air America announced their programming lineup on Wednesday and said they planned to launch the network on March 31 in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

[Al] Franken will be joined by fellow TV comedian Janeane Garofalo (news), both of whom will have co-hosts for their live three-hour shows. Other shows will be hosted by Randi Rhodes, a radio personality from southern Florida, and Lizz Winstead, a co-creater of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central.

Franken, in a swipe at Fox News host Bill O'Reilly, plans to call his midday show "The O'Franken Factor."

Me, I'd just as soon not have a bunch of professional comedians out after my ass, especially if I was as naturally comical as Bushwa.

posted 8:26 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry Hurts L'il Chillun's Delicate Feelings

Kerry Comment Riles Bush Campaign

Earlier Wednesday in Chicago, Kerry toughened his comments about his GOP critics after a supporter urged him to take on Bush. "Let me tell you, we've just begun to fight," Kerry said. "We're going to keep pounding. These guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group I've ever seen. It's scary."

[snip]

Bush-Cheney campaign chairman Marc Racicot called on Kerry to apologize.

"Senator Kerry's statement today in Illinois was unbecoming of a candidate for the presidency of the United States of America, and tonight we call on Senator Kerry to apologize to the American people for this negative attack," Racicot said in a statement. "On the day that Senator Kerry emerged as his party's presumptive nominee, the president called to congratulate him. That goodwill gesture has been met by attacks and false statements."

Whew, that is awful. Repukelicans would never resort to attacks and false statements. Never mind that they're undoubtedly liars and I'd make it odds-on that they're crooks, and I'm sure Kerry knows more about that than I do.

"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but, boy, they look at you and say, `You have got to win this; you have got to beat this guy; we need a new policy.' Things like that," Mr. Kerry said at a campaign appearance in Hollywood, Fla.

The Republican National Committee responded that perhaps Mr. Kerry was referring to North Korea, which the committee said had been broadcasting Mr. Kerry's speeches on radio.

In other words, Kerry's a communist, according to the RNC, or, at the very least, a fellow traveler. Never mind that every reasonably intelligent, reasonably well-informed person knows that a great many foreign leaders fear and oppose Bush. But that's not an attack on Kerry. Nor is this.

"Senator Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, for Nafta, for the No Child Left Behind act and for the use of force in Iraq," Mr. Bush told supporters in Dallas. "Now he opposes the Patriot Act, Nafta, the No Child Left Behind act and the liberation of Iraq. My opponent clearly has strong beliefs -- they just don't last very long."

The only way that statement could be even close to accurate would be if Bush had said, "My opponent clearly has strong beliefs and, as with me, they don't last very long. See here (7th post down).

I voted for the Patriot Act right after September 11th -- convinced that -- with a sunset clause -- it was the right decision to make. It clearly wasn't a perfect bill -- and it had a number of flaws -- but this wasn't the time to haggle. It was the time to act.

But George Bush and John Ashcroft abused the spirit of national action after the terrorist attacks. They have used the Patriot Act in ways that were never intended and for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism. That's why, as President, I will propose new anti-terrorism laws that advance the War on Terror while ending the assault on our basic rights.

So I guess it's supposed to be a terrible sign of weakness that Kerry changed his mind on the Patriot Act. No, weakness would be if you were too chickenshit to admit when you're wrong. NAFTA? Hell, much of the country has changed it's mind about NAFTA. Even Georgie had a little wiffle-waffle on free trade when he imposed steel tariffs, then took 'em off again. A double waffle. What about NCLB? Near as I can tell, Kerry opposes the failure to fully fund No Child Left Behind. That would mean he actually supports it, and would make Gee Whiz Bush a -- gasp -- liar. As Kerry says:

By signing the No Child Left Behind Act and then breaking his promise by not giving schools the resources to help meet new standards, George Bush has undermined public education and left millions of children behind.

And Iraq? From Josh Marshall's column in The Hill:

As nearly as I can figure it, Kerry's position was to get inspectors back in the country and then see if America's national interests could be safeguarded short of war.

If war was necessary, he was willing to wage it. But if he did so, it would be with the mix of planning and international support that would avoid the parade of deadly misjudgments we've seen over the last few months.

To me, that sounds not like waffling but like a much sounder approach than the one we've been following for the past year.

[snip]

But from where I see it, we already have enough folks in the field who spout dogmatism, inflexibility and maximalism and mistake those qualities for leadership.

But none of those lies and attacks is a lie or an attack on Kerry. He really should apologize to the frail flowers of the Republican party, to the girly-men of the RNC, and above all to Boy George Bush. Those guys throw shit like a steam shovel, but aren't men or women enough to stand one thimbleful thrown back at them.

"When the facts change, I change my mind -- what do you do, sir?"
-- John Maynard Keynes

posted 7:15 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 10, 2004

Support The Troops! Or Give 'em Lip Service, Anyway.

Unknown Soldier Speaks Out To Bring Troops Home

This really is a must read interview. These excerpts only scratch the surface.

What's it like being a medical corpsman?

I'm thinking about a 19-year-old who was on my table. This guy could have been your next door neighbor. Smart kid, excited kid. But his life as he knew it was basically over. His legs were gone. It's hard for these soldiers to believe. I've seen lots of people with severe, permanent injuries. They're going to need a lot of help when they get back home, because their lives are going to change forever. And to have the guy [President Bush] cutting billions from the VA [Veterans Administration] budget, at a time when you've got all those guys coming back from overseas with major injuries, that's disgusting! That hurts every person who ever served this country. I don't understand how someone can stand up and say, "I'm pro-military," when you want to cut $16 billion from the VA and close VA hospitals.

[snip]

What else is lacking in terms of training?

The type of training that you need for guerilla warfare. Some units get it and some don't. Urban training is real tough. You've got to pick the enemy out before he picks you out, and you've got to know what spot to look for. OJT is not going to work.

What's OJT?

On-the-job training. It's not going to work. And that's what we're going through now. It's completely OJT. These guys are learning as we go along.

I know something about OJT. It's a deceptive name. What OJT means in the military is, "Here's the job. Figure it out." You sink or swim. What OJT in a combat zone is gonna mean is if you don't get killed or have your limbs blown off in the first few months, you might begin to get the hang of it.

To what extent do you feel that U.S. soldiers in Iraq have the proper equipment for what they face there?

We were supposed to have bulletproof vests, where we actually put the plates inside our flak jackets. We never got those. The money had been paid for those things, but we never got them. My brother had to send me a flak jacket. There's all sorts of stuff that we had to buy on our own before we left. The types of canteens you need, water pouches that go on your back.

[snip]

What did you think about President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Iraq?

I was there when President Bush came to the [Baghdad] airport. The day before, you had to fill out a questionnaire and answer questions, that would determine whether they would allow you in the room with the President.

What was on the questionnaire?

"Do you support the president?"

Really!

Yes.

Members of the military were asked whether they support the president politically?

Yes. And if the answer was not a gung-ho, A-1, 100 percent yes, then you were not allowed into the cafeteria. You were not allowed to eat the Thanksgiving meal that day. You had an MRE.

What's an MRE?

Meals ready to eat. We also call them "meals refused by Ethiopians."

About this questionnaire, it raises a serious question about whether military personnel, or civil servants for that matter, should ever be asked questions by their supervisors about their political beliefs. It also raises the whole question of freedom of speech. In particular, the circumstances under which members of the military have freedom of speech.

There is none.

Is a soldier free, for example, to speak to the media if it is in support of the president and his policies, but not free to do so if in opposition or if raising uncomfortable questions?

If you are spouting good things about the president, you are allowed to speak. If you are saying anything negative, you are not allowed to speak.

This is just fucking sick/ugly. I can understand restrictions on free speech in the military, but restrictions that only muzzle one side? Bullshit. Everybody's restricted or nobody is. The Bushit administration is using the military to push happy talk propaganda. And no, your supervisors should never be allowed to ask anything about your political beliefs. That was Bushit, too.

How did you feel when you saw President Bush arrive in a flight suit on the aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego, with the banner "Mission Accomplished"?

We laughed.

Why?

We have a saying about people who dress up in military uniforms, like Idi Amin or Mussolini. People like that have something to hide. The reason they wear the uniform is to make themselves feel big, feel proud.

Gee, wonders whatever Bush might be hidin'? The fact he's a cowardly, lying goatroper, perhaps?

Dingers're gonna question whether this guy's for real. I can't say for certain, but I can tell ya I was in the infantry, my baby doll was in the Air Force, and this guy sure sound's like the real thing to us.

posted 12:21 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Unions Outdated, Like Democracy In The US

Kerry Asking Wealthy to Pay Old Tax Rate

The Massachusetts senator won the labor federation's endorsement last month and hopes to use labor's organizational muscle and money to boost his campaign. While labor's share of the work force has declined over the years, union members are reliable voters, with 26 percent of those casting ballots in the 2000 election coming from union households.

OK, the excerpt doesn't reflect the headline. I found this more interesting. Union workers only represent about 13% of workers, but union households accounted for 26% of ballots cast in 2000. I think it'd be fair to say that turnout among union households was considerably higher than among the general population. If we could just organize more workers (Roughly 50% of non-union workers say they want to be union.), especially lower class workers, we could raise voter turnout in ways that would favor pro-worker policies. It would make America more democratic because more people would be represented. No, unions ain't perfect. What is? It's easy to see why cheap labor conservatives hate unions. Not only would more unions indirectly result in more votes against their policies, but there would be rather serious direct affects on them:

Wage differential. (bottom of page) Union wages grew faster than nonunion wages in 2003, so the union wage differential rose from 25.7 percent in 2002 to 26.9 percent in 2003. If benefit costs were factored in, the total compensation differential would be much larger because unions were able to preserve benefits for their members in 2003 to a much greater extent than nonunion workers were.

If you're not a cheap labor conservative and you think unions are bad in general, somebody's sold you a bill of goods. To organize more workers, we need serious changes in labor law. Sure ain't gonna happen if Bushwa wins.

posted 10:24 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Torture The Religious Right

Email,
I get email,
Right wing email
And I don't know why.

The American Family Association exists to motivate and equip citizens to change the culture to reflect Biblical truth and traditional family values. . . .

And they want people to vote in their online presidential campaign poll. I did it, it's fun, cuz the results so far are:

John Kerry 90.18%
George Bush 3.75%
Ralph Nader 6.07%

Gotta love it. So let's keep it going.

posted 9:26 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 09, 2004

Tucker Carlson, Enlightened Conservative Male

He musta been drinking. Lowers inhibitions, ya know?

posted 8:10 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

That Communist/Terrorist Kerry Gutted Intelligence

Dishonest injun. And now, some perspective

President Bush is attacking John Kerry for supposedly trying to "gut" U.S. intelligence services in the mid-90s. Here to refute him is former general counsel of both the CIA and Senate Armed Services Committee, Jeffrey Smith.

[snip]

The bill [Kerry] sponsored in 1995, S. 1290, which is now being criticized by the Bush Campaign, is essentially similar to other measures sponsored by many other Senators in the mid-90s, including Republican Senators, that were attempts to ensure that money appropriated to the Intelligence Community was wisely spent and to re-assert adequate Congressional oversight of the intelligence budget."

Smith makes it clear that Kerry was very much in the mainstream on this issue. But you know Bush/Rove. Never let the truth get in the way of a good lie.

posted 7:57 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

You Must Sign Zee Paper, Old Man!

Sign the Petition to Save Overtime Pay. Unless you think America needs fewer jobs and lower pay.

posted 7:30 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Aww, Shucks, Peoples. We Jes' Folks.

A conservative group called Citizens United has run an ad in which the announcer says:

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Hairstyle by Christophe's: $75. Designer shirts: $250. Forty-two-foot luxury yacht: $1 million. Four lavish mansions and beachfront estate: Over $30 million. Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he's a man of the people. Priceless.

Yep, we best ta jus' stick wit' dem po' boys in da White House, who dragged they raggedy asses inta Washington from da hinterlands an' da hollers a corporate America.

Tip O'The Tam to CJR Campaign Desk.

posted 7:22 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Goddamnit! I Told You! Racism's Over!

The impact of '3 strikes' laws a decade later

The California three strikes law, the harshest in the nation, seriously needs amending. The argument that the law passed and crime went down is utterly typical of stupidly simplistic far right dingers, as one can glean from the article. Having my own pet causes, I'll just excerpt a little bit.

The study also found that almost 60 percent of the third-strikers were in for nonviolent offenses, most of them drug possession. In fact, there are 10 times as many third-strikers serving time for drug possession as for second-degree murder.

Add to that the finding that African-Americans are 12 times as likely to have three strikes applied to them as whites, and critics say the law has proved to be draconian and inhumane. "The law costs too much, does too little, and targets the wrong people," says JPI's Vincent Schiraldi, who coauthored the report. "Those are outrageous racial disparities."

Butcha know, racism's over, at least in the imagination of many white people.

posted 6:48 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry Soft On Terrorism (Hah!) - In 1995, But . . .

'Twould appear the Bush administration, particularly they're pet holy-roller, were only soft on terrorism up till about, say, Sept. 10, 2001. After that they got the picture. No dumbies they. G Dubya criticized Kerry for "cutting" intelligence spending in 1995. Atrios says:

You know what, bitches? Bring it on. You really want to start digging into what people were doing about terrorism before September 11? You really want to ask how high a priority it was for the Bush "oops we shelved the Hart-Rudman report" administration? You want to remember just how important Bush's attorney general thought it was?

More proof of Bush administration bullshit rescued from the memory hole. Apparently it takes a real man to get tough on terrorism.

Under Mr. Ashcroft's predecessor, Janet Reno, the department's counterterrorism budget increased 13.6 percent in the fiscal year 1999, 7.1 percent in 2000 and 22.7 percent in 2001.

posted 12:27 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

"My opponent clearly has strong beliefs -- they just don't last very long," Mr. Bush said.

Be careful what you criticize.

Bush is against a Homeland Security Department; then he's for it.
Bush is against a 9/11 commission; then he's for it.
Bush is against an Iraq WMD investigation; then he's for it.
Bush is against nation building; then he's for it.
Bush is against deficits; then he's for them.
Bush is for free trade; then he's for tariffs on steel; then he's against them again.
Bush is against the U.S. taking a role in the Israeli Palestinian conflict; then he pushes for a "road map" and a Palestinian State.
Bush is for states right to decide on gay marriage, then he is for changing the constitution.
Bush first says he'll provide money for first responders (fire, police, emergency), then he doesn't.
Bush first says that 'help is on the way' to the military ... then he cuts benefits.
Bush: "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. Bush: "I don't know where he is. I have no idea and I really don't care."
Bush claims to be in favor of the environment and then secretly starts drilling on Padre Island.
Bush talks about helping education and increases mandates while cutting funding.
Bush first says the U.S. won't negotiate with North Korea. Now he will
Bush goes to Bob Jones University. Then say's he shouldn't have.
Bush said he would demand a U.N. Security Council vote on whether to sanction military action against Iraq. Later Bush announced he would not call for a vote.
Bush said the "mission accomplished" banner was put up by the sailors. Bush later admits it was his advance team.
Bush was for fingerprinting and photographing Mexicans who enter the US. Bush after meeting with Pres. Fox, he's against it.

Bush is steady all right. A steady flip-flopper. That's 18 and counting. Kos plans to add to the list.

Via Daily Kos via Salon.

posted 9:55 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Are Bush's 9/11 Ads Inappropriate?

TCF, of ThatColoredFellasweblog, asked me if I thought the 9/11 ads were hurting Bush. I said I thought they probably were, but not very badly. Their appropriateness is a different issue and I haven't spoken directly to that issue, but now the people have.

Kerry leads Bush in new poll

Poll respondents were also asked whether they thought it was appropriate for the Bush-Cheney campaign to use images from the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in its campaign ads.

Fifty-four percent said it was inappropriate and 42 percent said it was appropriate.

Among voters who had actually seen the ads, 48 percent thought the images were appropriate, compared to 51 percent who said they were inappropriate, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

The response is about what I expected, I think. Not good, but not real bad either. Still, for a political boy genius, Karl Rove sure seems to have tin ear when it comes to guaging the public.

posted 9:01 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Lies: The First Refuge Of Scoundrel "Patriots"

Bush Blasts Kerry on U.S. Intelligence

John Kerry's Defense Defense, Setting his voting record straight. By Fred Kaplan

Kerry's not tha on'y one, neither. Look what some other commie/socialist hate America left/liberals had to say back in tha day:

After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. . . . The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office.(1)

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. . . . And now we're adding to that another $50 billion . . . of so-called peace dividend.(2)

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. . . . You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s -- all great systems . . . but we have enough of them.(2)

Who are these hate America first jerkwads? Well, (1) George Herbert Walker Bush, and (2) Penis Cheney his ownself. Colin Powell was in on it too. What's that? Those quotes have been taken out of context? A course they have. Lucky we c'n trust tha universally honorable Repukelicans to never do such a t'ing.

At a re-election fund-raiser Monday, Bush contrasted the Massachusetts senator's oft-stated support for intelligence gathering as a crucial component of the war on terror with his support -- two years after a deadly 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center -- for cutting intelligence funding by $1.5 billion.

"Once again, Senator Kerry is trying to have it both ways. He's for good intelligence, yet he was willing to gut the intelligence services,'' Bush told 1,100 donors at a Houston event that raised $1.5 million for his campaign. "And that is no way to lead our nation in a time of war.''

Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket. What a fool Kerry is, except:

The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money -- not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues.

Whillikers, the Repukes aren't bein' dishonest about this're anything. But what about all those votes against national defense? Huh? Huh?

In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty.

Kaplan does a job examining the Repukes lying representation of Kerry's record, but I don't know if it does any good. Lies make better soundbites and soundbites are all the "liberal" media care about, and all most people hear. Proud to be an American, where facts don't mean a thing.

posted 8:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Allays Said The Markets Were Rigged

Well, not allays, but fer quite a while now. Advantages go to big institutional investers, corporate insiders, and, so 'twould appear, senators. The disadvantages go to the little guy. Who'd a thunk?

In stock market, US senators beat averages

The study found that during the boom years of 1993-98, a majority of US Senators were trading stocks - and beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent.

Financial experts interviewed for this story say the senators' collective achievement is a statistical stunner, too big to be a mere coincidence.

[snip]

"We have the date of the transaction, then watch the stock after that date in time. They had an uncanny ability to pick the right things on the right days," says Mr. Ziobrowski.

Ya know, uncanny actually means "beyond what is natural." As is mentioned in the article, there's no real enforcement of ethics in Congress. Damn it's good to live in a "meritocracy."

posted 6:28 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 08, 2004

Lies From The Right - Let's Just Call This A Continuing Series

I realize no sane person actually gives a shit about The New York Post, but still, it's always good to document right wing lies, because they're such obsessive/compulsive liars. The CJR Campaign Desk transmits the heat:

Distortion

Hats off to Geraldine Sealey, writing on Salon, who catches the New York Post in a flagrant distortion of written comments by Sen. John Kerry on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

In a Post "exclusive," Deborah Orin breathlessly reports, "Kerry called Yasser Arafat a 'statesman' and a 'role model' in a 1997 book."

Flagrant distortion. That's the journalisticly polite way of saying lie. It's a habit with these guys.

But as for the term "role model," Kerry used it only in quotes, in reference to the question of whether terrorists might or not view Arafat as a role model. To say that Kerry called Arafat a "role model" comes close to being a flat-out lie.

Close to a flat-out lie. It's close to being a flat out lie. Journalists just can't bring themselves to say it. Is no one ever objectively guilty of a flat-out lie? Ever?C'mon, ya big wusses. IT'S A FLAT-OUT FUCKING LIE! SAY IT!

posted 12:45 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Home Schooled Hacks Aim For Theocracy

College for the Home-Schooled Is Shaping Leaders for the Right

The legal defense association, located on the Patrick Henry campus, established the college as a forward base camp in the culture war, with the stated goal of training home-schooled Christian men and women "who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values."

Timeless biblical values like, f'r instance, genocide, infanticide, slavery, sexual mutilation, tha subjection of women, well, it goes on and on. These folks b'lieve they should be runnin' tha country accordin' ta God's will. They also b'lieve tha Bible's lit'rally true. Only problem wit' that is:

A) The Bible can't be lit'rally true. The Skeptics Bible lists 13 verses sayin' yer saved by faith alone and 14 sayin' yer saved by works, one a which is Old Testament. So which is it? An' thass jus' scratchin' tha surface a tha Bible's self-contradiction. Yet evangeli-fundies say they read tha Bible lit'rally an' fin' no contradictions. Ya point out tha contradictions to 'em, an' all-uff-a sudden these biblical lit'ralists start interpretin' their asses off.

B) Even if the Bible was lit'rally true, all that'd prove izzat God's 'n asshole. Ipso whacko:

John 12:37-40
But though he [Jesus] had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:

That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,

He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

Blinded their eyes, hardened their hearts, guaranteed they'd go ta hell through no free choice a their own. If ya wanta quibble with that, then explain ta me God hardenin' Pharaoh's heart so he would'n interfere wit' God's mass slaughter of innocent babies. If any a dozens, scores, mebbe 100's a things in tha Bible're lit'rally true, then God's clearly a prick.

Nobody who b'lieves the Bible's lit'rally true should be in any position o' authority 'r governance. Since, as a matter a human rights, we can't ban tha pinheads from office, all we can do's try ta get all sane people ta vote against anyone who's shown hints a religious weirdness. Pentecostalism should qualify automatically. An' ya can't trust anyone who'd make a believer in holy-rollin', gibberish-jabberin', snake-hanldin', poison-drinkin, and faith-healin tha Attorney General a tha United States. An' iffen John Ashcroft don' b'lieve in all that stuff, he should. Iss in tha Bible.

posted 9:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Power Of Traditional Values

The conservatives' unreasoning faith in "traditional values" baffles me. I'm not prone to unreasoning rejection of tradition, cuz there's always the danger of throwin' the baby out with the hog slops. Which'd be bad. Really, really bad. But that don't hardly mean tradition is always right or that there's no competin' values, not by a long shot.

For More Afghan Women, Immolation Is Escape

Accounts like Madina's are repeated across Afghanistan, doctors and human rights workers say. They are discovering more and more young women who have set themselves on fire, desperate to escape the cruelties of family life and harsh tribal traditions that show no sign of changing despite the end of Taliban rule and the dawn of democracy.

[snip]

"It takes different forms in different provinces," she said in a telephone interview. "Some take tablets. Some cut their wrists. Some hang themselves. Some burn themselves.

"But the reason is very important. The first reason is our very bad tradition of forced marriage. Girls think this is the only way, that there is no other way in life."

[snip]

Qadri Gul, 20, one of Dr. Naseem's patients, was less fortunate, dying after 11 days. Married for five years, she was the mother of two children. Her husband took a second wife shortly after they had wed, and she told the hospital staff and her family that her husband and her in-laws had beaten her daily, and had even encouraged her when she had threatened to burn herself.

She visited her parents and her numerous sisters in Jalalabad for the Muslim festival of Id al-Fitr in November. "Her body was completely bruised," her sister Basmina recalled. "She had marks on her buttocks and said, `I don't know if I will get better.' "

[snip]

She went home after the holiday with a toy car for her son, but when the children started fighting over it, she took it away. That sparked a fight with her husband. He slammed a glass into her head, knocking her out. When she regained consciousness, she threatened to kill herself by setting herself on fire.

"He laughed and said: `There are the matches and the kerosene. Burn yourself,' " Basmina recounted.

An' had'n nobody better start in on me 'bout the "superiority" of Western culture. They's plenty o' examples of cruelty and evil in our traditions includin' slavery, forced marriage, and treatin' women as property. Yeah, we've gotten better on some stuff, but not cuz a conservatives. Conservatives are always tha ones arguin' fer stagnation, which is another name for never changin' tradition. M'self, I think conservatives jus' don't like thinkin'. Easier to jus' follah tha "rules."

posted 5:43 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 07, 2004

Unions Outdated - Just Like The Middle Class

I wish that fuckin' troll would come back, the one who called me an outdated loser for supporting unions. But they never do. They're half-witted, hit-and-run cowards. They're all borrowed theory that they really don't even understand, and seriously short on facts. Unions played a big part in building the broad-based middle class in America and if the unions die, so will most of the middle class.

What Wal-Mart Has Wrought

Anyone who doubts the ability of these unions to transform dead-end jobs into productive careers should check out the improbable union city of service-sector America: Las Vegas. By organizing almost every Strip hotel, HERE has created an employer-funded training academy where maids and dishwashers can become cooks and servers and wine stewards, and a hotel workforce that makes enough to purchase new homes. The biggest housing boom in the nation today spreads across the Vegas desert and, as in Los Angeles a half-century ago, it is largely the consequence of unionization.

I really wanted to introduce that troll to a few ILWU members, West coast longshoremen, let him tell them what a stupid idea unions are. That could be pretty funny to watch, if ya don't mind gettin' sprayed with someone else's blood.

posted 8:20 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Federal Bankruptcy's Exactly The Point

Greenspan Testimony Highlights Bush Plan for Deliberate Federal Bankruptcy, By Michael Meurer at Truthout.

"Moderates," as well as right wingers, will tell you you're crazy if you tell them this. That's the beauty of the right wing's plan. It's so bold, so audacious, that few can believe they're really doing what they're doing. I hate to overestimate the intelligence of anyone in the Bush administration, but come on. They can't be so dumb that they don't know they're driving the country into bankruptcy. And it can't be for any short-term goal, because the tax cuts and spending are so long-term in nature. Plus, Meurer is right about right wing thinktanks. They've been pushing privatization of everything for as long as they've been around, despite the following facts:

Privatization deserves to be front and center in this country's political debate, and privatization's history of miserable failure needs to be placed squarely on the table in plain language for the electorate to consider. The history of failed privatization schemes includes doomed water privatization projects in South America and the U.S. (Atlanta is the poster child), rail privatization in Britain, and school and prison privatization in the U.S.

Hey, ya gotta give it to the right. They never let facts get in the way when there's truckloads of money to be made.

The Bushies lie so much, few are willing to believe that they really lie that much. They're so radical that few really believe they could be that radical, as Paul Krugman has observed from time to time. It's a variation on the big lie technique. The reality is so strange that most are certain it can't be the reality. But it is.

posted 7:46 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bush 9/11 Ads - I Won't Comment Directly

Not yet, anyway, if ever. But I will post this link: Partygirl's Response to Glenn Reynolds (After the Instapundit Attacked People That Were Offended By Bush's Campaign Ad, at a friend's request. Partygirl was 50 blocks from the World Trade Center when the first plane hit. She lost friends in the towers. I think she has every right and then some to comment. I also recommend reading the links in it to Instapundit and James Lileks. Is it just me, or is Lileks' brain actually doin' da loop-de-loop?

posted 7:06 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Did The US Support A Coup D'etat In Haiti?

Rowan at Uncommon Thought Journal asks the guestion, and the answer looks an awful lot like yes. There are good links in the post, especially to Democracy Now's reporting on a Congressional Subcommittee hearing. Roger Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State, dances like a fat slug in hot oil until the Golden State's own Maxine Waters gets a hold of him, saying, ". . . and I do want yes or no answers. Don't take up my time." Then she basically makes him look silly.

Obviously, I can't prove it was a US backed coup d'etat, though it was certainly a coup d'etat, but if I was Hugo Chavez, I'd start mining the Venezuelan oil facilities right now. It seems like it's OK for the US to support the overthrow of any left of center government. Pretty soon this may include moderate right of center governments. Or do we just have the right to overthrow any government that dares to cross us? American exceptionalism. It makes me so proud.

posted 4:50 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Most Critical Issue

And I have no clue what we can do about. The truth is, it's not up to the people. Earth at risk, at Uncommon Thought Journal says it's the environment, and I agree. Rowan lays out his case and gives a few frightening examples, and somehow manages to avoid the subject of global warming altogether. I think, though I'm not certain, that we still have time to save ourselves, but can we gather the political will? It's gonna take a lot, and we don't have a lot of time. The people with all the money and all the power are adamantly opposed to doing what needs to be done because it would hurt their profits. Can the rest of us ever pull together?

posted 3:19 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

RNC Threatens TV Stations Regulated By GOP Appointees

Republican National Committee Letter Requesting that Television Stations Pull Illegal MoveOn.org Ads.

They've gone after 250 stations with this threatening letter. Repukes say the ads are illegal, MoveOn's lawyers say no they're not, and I don't know. Since when is it up to the RNC to determine what's legal or illegal? Campaign finance law is arcane, but I imagine all this will be settled eventually by the proper authorities. The RNC, though, couldn't wait for the proper authorities. Instead, it sent this letter warning the stations that they might be complicit in violations of the law and, they imply, could suffer accordingly if they dare to continue running ads the RNC don't like. Seems underhanded to me.

UPDATE: Political Mugging In America, Anatomy of an "independent" smear campaign, talks about the general shenanigans involved in evading campaign finance reform. It also talks about how Democratics seemingly affiliated with other primary candidates got together to put a surreptitious hit on Howard Dean's campaign. The Republicans, of course, are pure as the driven shit storm.

Hit-and-run political organizations are the bane of any open democracy. Who can forget the infamous Willie Horton commercial in the 1988 presidential campaign or the dozen groups all coincidentally friendly to George W. Bush that suddenly materialized in the 2000 GOP primary in South Carolina, spending millions of dollars and spreading the worst kind of vituperative bile to defame Senator John McCain and his wife? Who can forget the below-board tactics used to bring down incumbent Democratic Georgia Senator Max Cleland two years later, in which his opponent paid for TV commercials questioning the patriotism of Vietnam War hero Cleland. In an interview for The Buying of the President 2004 (HarperCollins), McCain told me that the same people who quietly assisted Bush in South Carolina in his 2000 primary showdown there also were involved in Georgia. The slander was "run by the same people, [former Christian Coalition executive director and Bush "Pioneer"] Ralph Reed . . . The same outfit, the same organizations, and I will never, ever get over them running a picture of Max Cleland, Saddam Hussein, and Osama bin Laden, [this about] a man who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam. That's just something I will never get over."

[snip]

The strutting and braggadocio of ostensibly independent organizations with impeccably and indubitably dependent pedigrees give the impression of a wild, wild west town with no sheriff and no jail. For example, according to National Journal, we have the Republican 501(c)(4) organization, Progress for America, which expects to raise $40 million to $60 million for television ads, direct mail and other "outreach" and "issue truth squads" on behalf of President Bush during 2004. Unlike 527s, this group is not required by law to publicly disclose its donors. The counsel for the group is Ben Ginsberg, also the chief outside counsel to the Bush campaign. Ken Mehlman, manager of the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, and Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, were among 150 party poobahs at a Willard Hotel bash for the organization last October.

I guess we can all rest easily knowing these lumbering elephants will never, never coordinate with the Bush campaign. The Dems are busy little jackasses as well, of course.

This, actually, is why campaign finance reform will always fail. Money is like water, it will always find a way to flow. The only real solution, I'm convinced, is to substantially reduce inequality in our society. Money is power. Great concentrations of money are great concentrations of power, including, maybe especially, political power. So long as we have great concentrations of wealth, we will never have democracy. It's really that simple. Make your choice. The radical inequality of our current economic system, or democracy. One or the other. You can't have both.

posted 1:16 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Lesson Unlearned From 9/11

Billmon at Whiskey Bar discusses the implications of Americans' declining preoccupation with 9/11.

Meanwhile, only 1 in 6 Americans believes the war against terrorism is the nation's most important issue, according to a survey of 1,013 adults conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University.

As far as that goes, the people are right. Terrorism's not the nation's most important issue. But it's still a far cry from being unimportant and if the people are coming to that conclusion, it would worry me.

The nuclear genie is well and truly out of the bottle, and all those years of treating nonproliferation as an afterthought, or as simply another bleeding-heart liberal fantasy, are finally catching up with us.

[snip]

To be completely blunt about it: The USA simply cannot fuck with rest of the world with impunity any more. There's now a very real, and potentially huge, price to be paid for playing the role of global cop (or global empire) while indulging in an essentially isolationist mindset at home. Little items like America's dependence on foreign oil, or its lockjawed support for the state of Israel, or the arrogance and corruption of the IMF, or the relentless drive to open up foreign markets to international trade and capital (what conservative scholar Andrew Bacevich calls the "ideology of openness") -- these all have consequences that extend way beyond the small coterie of intellectuals and interest groups that have traditionally dominated the U.S. foreign policy debate.

People tend to forget the lessons learned in the schoolyard, too. When the bully goes too far, the other kids find a way to bring the bully down. The USA's time may have come. Billmon addresses the broad range of issues facing us.

posted 12:31 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Kerry's Knowledgeable Questions, Or Bush's Gut Instinct?

Since the right wing media, blogs especially, are so busily telling lies based on idle speculation about John Kerry's Vietnam service, it might be nice to see how the WaPo, a publication with at least a little more credibility, tells the tale in Kerry Dots Deliberation With Decision:

As a Navy lieutenant during the Vietnam War, Kerry won the Silver Star. The story of how he won the medal, in February 1969, has been recounted many times:

Kerry, then 25, captained a patrol boat on the Mekong Delta. One day, after taking fire from the Vietcong and after the boat's windows had been blown out by a rocket, Kerry spotted a guerrilla along the shore aiming a B-40 rocket launcher at his boat. Navy training prescribed an immediate retreat. But in a rush of adrenaline, Kerry made a snap decision. Impulsively, he beached the boat, jumped off and shot the guerrilla.

It makes a great story. Except that's not quite how it happened.

"It was completely planned," said Del Sandusky, Kerry's second-in-command. "He had a number of different scenarios. This was all in his head."

From the day Kerry boarded, Sandusky, a veteran helmsman, noticed something different about his commander.

"Most of the boat officers, they figured they knew what they needed to know. John was not like that. He was not above asking questions," Sandusky said. "He pumped me for information. He asked me about ambush sites, what to look for on the river."

The two men sat at the stern in their jungle greens, swatting mosquitoes and breathing diesel fumes, as Sandusky shared the Mekong's secrets. Two or three times a day, snipers shot at the boat. They couldn't see the gunmen in the brush.

"I could hear a clak-clak, and I knew it was an AK-47. I began to distinguish which weapon I was dealing with," Kerry said in an interview. "I was very frustrated. I began to think about how we could win."

Sandusky: "We'd talk about contingencies. He never said he was going to beach the boat. He just . . . asked questions."

Those who know Kerry from childhood nod when they hear that word.

"Questions," Cameron Kerry said. "It evolved from his hard-wiring, his high-energy curiosity, a restlessness. Some of it comes from my father and his intellectually rigorous, Socratic approach. Dad would play devil's advocate."

[snip]

"On some issues, you have the luxury of picking and poking," he said. But when the moment arrives, he decides. "One thing I'm very good at is urgency and imperatives."

His Vietnam crewmates agree, especially those who watched him charge the guerrilla with the rocket launcher. Kerry had discussed strategy with Sandusky days before, citing his motto in hockey and chess: "Offense is the best defense." So when Kerry, his jaw tight, signaled a sharp turn to port, the helmsman immediately understood.

"I said, 'Oh, [expletive],' 20 times, 'here we go, he's going to do it,' " said Sandusky. "The bow was going to the beach."

"No time to pray," Kerry said, recalling the moment. "I had to make an instantaneous decision. But it was not rash. In the back of my mind, I thought the element of surprise would work in our favor."

The boat, said Sandusky, was loaded with fuel and ammunition. If the guerrilla had hit his target, "we would have gone up like a Roman candle," Sandusky said. "If John hadn't made that decision, we would all be dead."

Course, if ya'd rather believe some far right winger vomiting shit (F'right dingers are always a little confused about which way things ought to go.) instead of the men who were there, well, it's not my fault yer an idiot. I'd recommend reading the whole article and deciding fer yerself who the best decision maker for our country would be. Mr. "Write a book? I don't even read books. I just magically know in my gut what's right." Bush, or the Socratic yet decisive Sen. Kerry.

posted 11:14 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Subjectivization Of Objectivity In The "Liberal" Media

How a WaPo reporter turned a cold, hard, objective fact into mere opinion, from the Columbia Journalism Review's Campaign Desk:

Fact Check
You Could Look It Up

Does The Washington Post give its reporters a day-off from fact-checking on Fridays? That was what we were asking after a perceptive reader brought to our attention the following line from Mike Allen’s story on President Bush and the economy:

“Employment figures remain disappointing, and Democrats are accusing him of having the worst record on jobs since President Herbert Hoover.”

“Democrats are accusing him of”? Aren’t job losses a pretty easy statistic to verify?

Sure, they're easy to verify, but doing so would interfere with the important mission of convincing people that all politics is mere opinion, and one opinion is as good as another. If people were given the facts, they might actually vote for the best candidate, and that would be the end of democracy as we know it.

posted 8:55 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Honor, Integrity, And Stolen Dem Files

I don't know how else to put it. Senate Seargent-at-Arms William H. Pickle's report is in and Republicans certainly appear to have stolen huge numbers of Democratic files. If the alleged culprits get off, it will be on technicalities and not because they are innocent of wrongdoing. That should be obvious to anyone but a blind partisan.

GOP Aides Implicated In Memo Downloads

A three-month investigation by the Senate's top law enforcement officer found a systematic downloading of thousands of Democratic computer files by Republican staffers over the past few years as well as serious flaws in the chamber's computer security system.

[snip]

Pickle made no recommendations about whether to pursue criminal prosecutions in the case, but he cited several federal laws that might be considered, including statutes involving false statements and receipt of stolen property.

One of the trial balloon defenses that's been sent up is that it's really the Democrats' fault. They didn't properly protect their files. Isn't that like saying it's okay to steal a car if someone leaves the keys in it? Here's how Dems failed to protect their files:

According to Pickle's report, Lundell learned how to access the files by watching a systems administrator work on his computer.

See? They should have anticipated that an unscrupulous Repukelican staffer would spy on a systems administrator.

Some Republicans on the committee -- and many conservative groups on the outside -- said the Senate should have probed the contents of the memos, which they contended demonstrated the collusion between Democrats and liberal advocacy groups, rather than how the memos ended up in Republican hands.

Don't investigate the thieves, investigate the stolen goods. Why? Because Democrats are always wrong and immoral. By definition.

The Senate should've probed the contents of memos that were wrongfully obtained by government employees? Sounds, at least morally, a lot like illegal search and seizure to me. But, they contend, the memos demonstrate collusion between Dems and liberal advocacy groups, and that would be wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I'm sure Republicans never, ever collude with conservative advocacy groups. Aren't you?

And if we're going to scrutinize Demo memos (couldn't resist), shouldn't we also get to look at Repuke memos? I mean, fair's fair. Just because Dems didn't have the foresight to steal Repub memos doesn't mean Repub memos shouldn't be looked at. I'm sure the Repubs will volunteer to make a similar number of memos, selected by Dem staffers, public. I'm sure because everybody knows conservative equals moral, just as liberal equals immoral. Oops, I forgot the rest of it. Conservative equals moral regardless of actual behavior. Conservatives are moral by grace alone. And all the angels sing . . . ."

Regardless of whether any criminal law was broken, the improper access was wrong and unjustifiable," [Utah Sen. Orrin G.] Hatch said. "It will go down as a sad chapter in the Senate."

It's startling when a Republican tells the truth, idd'n it? I don't know for sure why Hatch seems to be doing the right thing, but Hatch is a Mormon. I'm gonna tell ya a little Mormon story. Corporations like to have a few Mormon executives. Mormon businessmen have a reputation for telling the truth, and corporations like to have at least a few executives they can trust. That's why Howard Hughs surrounded himself with Mormons. I didn't know how well-deserved that reputation was until I served on union grievance committee.

We had a hearing before an arbitrator on a grievance, and exec after exec sat down in the chair and solemnly lied in their testimony. I know this because the facts were pretty well known and people I trusted had been involved in the incident, and because of what happened next. One of our Mormon executives testified next, and he told the truth. Everything he said substantiated what union witnesses said. It was as if all the management witnesses had said, "Black!" and he'd said, "White." That can't have made him more popular with his superiors. A course, the union lost anyway, but that's not the point. The point is that Mormon's are more likely than most to tell the truth, and Hatch is a Mormon.

posted 7:58 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 06, 2004

Economists See Truth, How Come Bushies Can't?

In the Latest Numbers, Economists See the Cold, Hard Truth About Jobs

Economists, including Ms. Utgoff, say the economy needs to add about 125,000 jobs a month just to keep up with growth in the number of workers. But the rate has been only half that high since last August, when the economy finally stopped losing jobs.

More ominous, analysts say, is that hundreds of thousands of workers have stopped looking for jobs. About 392,000 workers dropped out of the work force last month, and the size of the labor force has contracted in six of the last eight months.

In most recoveries, exactly the opposite occurs. As they become more optimistic, people who had been too discouraged to look for work jump back into the work force. That phenomenon often leads to a misleading rise in the unemployment rate, because the number of people classified as workers jumps faster than the number of new jobs.

During this recovery, the number of discouraged workers has risen so markedly that the official unemployment rate has edged down since last summer. Since March 2001, the share of the population that is officially in the work force has declined to 65.9 percent from 67.1 percent.

Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center research group here, estimated that unemployment would be 7.3 percent today, rather than the official level of 5.6 percent, if the rate of work force participation was as high today as it was three years ago.

We're in a recovery that's not a recovery for most Americans, but Republicans think everything's rosey. I want some a the happy pills they're takin'.

posted 5:52 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Jobs, Tax Increases, Nonsensical Spin

Job Data Provides Ammunition for Two Sides in Presidential Race

Now how in the hell can February's job data provide ammo to the Repukes?

The latest unemployment statistics escalated the political war over the economy on Friday, with Democrats asserting that lackluster job growth underscored the failures of the Bush administration's economic policy while Republicans countered that a tax-raising Democratic president would only make it worse.

Ya know, I remember another tax raising Democrat the Republicans said would only make things worse. In fact, they confidently predicted economic disaster. That would be Bill Clinton and the Repukes were almost right. All that followed Clinton's tax increases was a dramatic drop in the deficit, eventually turning it into a surplus, and the longest economic expansion in US history. But don't vote for that damn tax increasing John Kerry. Tax increases. Booga-booga!

posted 5:32 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Warren Buffet, Billionaire Who Don't Bullshit

Does any dance with Warren Buffet when he goes to the Billionaires' Balls? Does he even get an invitation anymore?

Buffett Says Bush Tax Cuts Favor Wealthy

"If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning," Buffett said in Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s annual report.

Except for 1983, the percentage of federal tax receipts from corporate income taxes last year was the lowest since data was first published in 1934, Buffett said.

posted 4:40 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Gummint's Gonna Need More Credit Cards

I don't know if they're just plain crazy, or crazy like foxes. I'd believe anything of the radicals who are seemingly in control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

Senate GOP Moderates May Back Tax Cuts

Congressional Republican leaders hope to avoid an insurrection from their own Senate moderates over a drive to win a fresh round of major tax cuts.

[snip]

"The long-term budget outlook is far worse than our 10-year, $5.5 trillion forecast" of deficits suggests, due to soaring costs for benefits like Medicare, the investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. said Friday in the latest warning from private experts.

Right. We're facing horrendous long term deficits, programs Americans want are short of money, tax revenues are at their lowest level as a share of GDP in over fifty years. Mercy me, whatever will we do? I know! More tax cuts!

posted 4:26 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

I'm Movin' Ta Venezuela

From Neologic:

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President Bush an "asshole" on Sunday for meddling, and vowed never to quit office like his Haitian counterpart as troops battled with opposition protesters demanding a recall referendum against him.

posted 12:08 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Shit I Never Expected In My Life.

I just realized that G. Dubya Bush is the only president I've ever wanted to personally beat the shit out of. What's more, I never imagined there would ever be a president I'd want to personally beat the shit out of.

Tricky Dick was a terrible disappointment, cuz I voted for the sonuvabitch. Ya might think that's when I swore off voting for Republicans, but you'd be wrong. It's just that there hasn't been a Republican candidate since that's deserved my vote.

Gerald Ford . . . . was he actually president? Did anyone care?

Jimmy Carter, hell, I liked Jimmy Carter.

Ronnie Da Raygun? I hated his politics, I hated that people voted for a man who had clearly been deranged for a long time, but I can't imagine anybody wanting to beat the shit outta Reagan. It'd be like kickin' yer grandad.

G. Herbert Walker? Never felt any personal animosity towards him. I did wanta kick the shit outta Babs, though. Hell, who didn't?

Clinton, in his second term, I did wanta slap him a time or two but, hell, who didn't?

But this smirking fratboy with his false macho and his constant lying, his pretending to be a modern day saint, and his getting people killed left and right -- if it isn't in a needless war, it's with pollution he allows to please his corporate benefactors -- him I'd like to kick the holy crap out of. And there's a lot of holy crap in 'im.

PS -- If the Secret Service is reading, I just wanta let you know, I wouldn't actually do it. I'd just like to.

posted 11:44 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Yeah, But It Depends On The Definition Of . . . .

Iraq Threat Deliberately Inflated, Kennedy Says

Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts today delivered a blistering indictment of President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, accusing Mr. Bush of deliberately exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

Huh. I wonder what was his first clue?

Mr. Bush announced last month the appointment of an independent commission to review intelligence problems, particularly as related to the proliferation of illicit weapons, including nuclear devices.

Thank God we've got an independent commission, even if it doesn't, conveniently, report until way after the election. As an earlier article reported:

Bowing to political pressure, President Bush will name a bipartisan, independent commission this week to review prewar U.S. intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs, administration sources said Sunday.

President Bush will name an independent commission. President Bush will name an independent commission. Am I the only one who has trouble believing that the media reports that with a straight keyboard?

Ya know why Kennedy takes point on this shit, don'tcha? No, it ain't cuz he's so "liberal." It's cuz he's politically invulnerable. He ain't ever gonna be anything more than the Senator from Massachusetts, an' he ain't ever gonna lose an election in Massachusetts.

Mr. Kennedy accused the president of resorting to "pure, unadulterated fear-mongering, based on a devious strategy to convince the American people that Saddam's ability to provide nuclear weapons to Al Qaeda justified immediate war."

[snip]

The senator singled out George J. Tenet . . . as having failed in his obligation to correct statements by Mr. Bush that described the Iraqi threat as "unique and urgent" and "grave."

[snip]

In his criticism of President Bush, Mr. Kennedy said: "The most important decision any president makes is the decision on war or peace. No president who misleads the country on the need for war deserves to be re-elected. A president who does so must be held accountable. The last thing our nation needs is a sign on the desk in the Oval Office in the White House that says, 'The buck doesn't stop here anymore.' "

Actually, the official Bush motto is, "The buck never stops here, but coded $2000 checks are most welcome."

posted 11:18 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

GOP Bible Verses

"Yea, whosoever shall despoil the widow and the orphan, and possibly the occasional homeless beggar, preferably without the use of a lubricant, shall be considered blessed in my sight, and shall have riches heaped upon him." Hezekiah 9:32-33.

Or sumpin' heaped upon 'im, anyway.

posted 10:32 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Honor And Integrity - Bushit Campaign II

Bush Ads Use World Trade Center Imagery

The campaign had said it would not use Sept. 11, 2001, for political reasons, yet footage from the aftermath of the terrorists attacks is shown in the ads.

Jesus H. crappin' green crud on a footstool! "We're not gonna use 9/11 for political reasons, we're just gonna use it for political ads. And, by-de-by, Kerry's a despicable flip-flopper."

Tip O'The Tam to In Search Of Utopia.

posted 9:58 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Lies Of Omission Aren't Lies To The GOP

How can you tell when a Repuke is lying? His lips either are or are not moving. The Real Face of "Compassionate Conservatism": Florida Tells Sick Kids to Get Lost, at Omnium, should help explain why I call the bastards Repukes. They're not only going to deny care to kids who need it, the're going to make sure the media and the public won't find out how many they deny.

posted 9:40 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

All Politicians Are Flip-Floppers, Yet Only Dems Draw Scrutiny

Why do we hear so much about John Kerry's flip-flopping? Sure, he's flip-flopped on some issues. Hell, I thought he was gonna give hisself a hernia leapin' on that 'Hussein captured' bandwagon. That's not exactly unusual in a politician. On other issues it's been a matter of nuance and reasonable changes of mind. People who think the world is black and white and facts don't change are -- how can I put this diplomatically? -- idiots.

But why do we hear so much about Kerry? George "Smilin' In Your Face" Bush promised to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Spun around on that one so fast he coulda given himself a brain injury. How can we tell? He promised to put Social Security in a lockbox, though it's true he didn't promise to lock the box. Bush has lied (or been lied to) throughout his campaign and throughout his presidency. But Kerry's a flip-flopper! The horror!

The NYT looks at the issue today in Kerry's Shifts: Nuanced Ideas or Flip-Flops?, and Josh Marshall takes a look at Kerry's position on Iraq in a piece republished on the Kerry website, Kerry isn't waffling on war; the others are being simplistic.

Things are never as simple as Republicans try to make them seem.

posted 7:32 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

How Money Makes Government Go

How Industry Won the Battle of Pollution Control at E.P.A.

Just six weeks into the Bush administration, Haley Barbour, a former Republican party chairman who was a lobbyist for electric power companies, sent a memorandum to Vice President Dick Cheney laying down a challenge.

[snip]

The battle engaged some of the nation's largest power companies, which were also among the largest donors to President Bush and other Republicans. They were represented by Mr. Barbour and another influential lobbyist, Marc Racicot, who also would later become chairman of the Republican National Committee.

[snip]

One of the most important decisions was Mr. Bush's reversal of a campaign promise to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that many scientists say contributes to global warming.

Reversal. I guess that's the polite way a puttin' it.

The coal-fired power companies, which are among the nation's largest sources of carbon dioxide, were alarmed when Mrs. Whitman in her first days at the agency said Mr. Bush would carry out his promise.

Talk about worryin' for nothin'. Bush never kept a promise that didn't pay in his life.

There were more executives from energy than from any other industry group among Mr. Bush's most elite fund-raisers, called "Pioneers," who each generated more than $100,000 in donations.

[snip]

C. Boyden Gray, who was White House counsel during the first Bush administration and represented some utilities . . .

[snip]

The industry's main lobbying group, the Edison Electric Institute, already had meetings with White House and Energy Department officials about relaxing the pollution rules. The group's president, Thomas R. Kuhn, had been a Yale classmate of President Bush, and was also a Pioneer.

[snip]

The splinter group, organized by Mr. Barbour in the spring of 2001, was called the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council.

[snip]

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the six utility companies now in the council and their employees made more than $10 million in political donations over the last five years, nearly three-fourths of that going to Republicans.

[snip]

As [Cheney's energy] task force neared its end, Southern and other utilities in Mr. Barbour's group were busy on another front. On May 15, 2001, they gave $100,000 to the Republican party.

[snip]

Mr. Barbour and Mr. Racicot joined a parade of industry lobbyists seeking out Energy officials. Between July 2001 and November 2001, Francis S. Blake, then the deputy energy secretary, held seven meetings with industry groups about the pollution rules, attended by more than 60 executives and lobbyists, records show. During that time he met with only one lobbyist from an environmental group.

[snip]

Environmental officials in charge of enforcement grew alarmed at the proposals emanating from [Energy Secretary Spencer] Abraham's department, which often echoed the industry's demands.

[snip]

Mr. Cheney, Mr. Abraham, Mr. Racicot and Mr. Barbour -- now the governor of Mississippi -- declined to comment.

What the hell could they have said that wouldn't get them into trouble?

"They are packaging this as a pollution cut, but in fact it is a pollution delay imposed on a program that the Clean Air Act requires to go faster," said Dave Hawkins, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

What is clear is that the energy industry is satisfied with the way the Bush administration has gone. "Cost-effective, and effective, are reasonable ways to describe the Bush administration's clean-air policy," said Mr. Segal of the electricity lobbying group. "The administration has a lot to be proud of on its air policy."

Well, as long as industry's happy, then everybody who matters has been taken care of. If you wanted ta matter, ya shoulda had God make you one a the elect. It's too late now, bubby, you goin' ta hell.

This is like watchin' sausage made with sawdust (The Jungle, Upton Sinclair.). You, too, can have a say in gummint, if only you and your friends can come up with a few million dollars in campaign contributions. I'm takin' up a collection in my neighborhood right now. That is how democracy's supposed to work, isn't it? Two thousand dollars for one little bitty vote, an' ya better bundle that if ya expect to get anything fer it, right?

I love the little toadies who repeat all the official GOP/Limboob lines. They flatter themselves that they, too, are among the elite, and they are. They're dogs sniffin' the crotches of the real elite. I hope they like the smell, cuz that's all they're ever gonna get from their heros.

posted 6:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bad News, Good News, Best News - Maybe

Motorists Chafing Under a Steady Rise in Gas Prices

The national average for regular unleaded gas on Friday was a fraction over $1.71, just below the record of $1.73 set on Aug. 30 last year and up 9.4 cents from a month ago. Some drivers and oil industry analysts see a potential for gas prices this summer to rise to $3 .

Bad news in the sense that people're gonna have ta pay those prices, and that's gonna hurt. Good news if you'd like ta see these nimrods climb the hell outta their Ford Extinctions and World Heating Hummers. They're gonna max out the platinum cards fillin' those tanks. Best news in the sense that if gas prices really go to $3 a gallon this summer, it's gonna be very bad for the bushRove re-election machine.

A little extra bad news on the side, not that Americans care about foreign countries:

Reasons for the increases include prices for crude oil, which sold for a high of $37.45 a barrel on Friday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Worldwide supply of crude appears to be tight, partly because O.P.E.C., the world's largest oil cartel, plans to cut production next month and because of political and industrial turbulence in Venezuela, a major provider of oil for the United States.

What? Trouble in Venezuela? And they sell us oil? And Hugo Chavez leans left? Only one solution. Regime change! "I will not let oil exporting nations hold this country hostile."

posted 4:31 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 05, 2004

Hot Damn! We're All Gonna Be Rich!

A whole 21,000 new jobs in February. We rollin' now!

February Job Growth Surprisingly Weak

For the third straight month, America's expanding economy failed to produce significant job growth, the Department of Labor reported this morning.

[snip]

The unemployment rate itself held steady at 5.6 percent, with 8.2 million people unemployed. But almost 400,000 people left the job market discouraged. And January's job growth was revised downward from original figures from about 120,000 to 97,000.

Revised downward. Funny how often that happens.

"Americans have a clear choice in this election," Kerry said in a statement. "They can either suffer with more and more job losses that rip the heart out of our economy, or they can give George Bush a new job in November and start putting America back to work."

Kerry, Kerry, he's our man. If he can't do it . . . . . . we're fucked.

Economists say gains near 150,000 are needed each month just to keep pace with labor force growth.

In other words, 150,000 just to tread water. And we've averaged 60,500 per month for the last six months. Only 42,000 over the last three months. Even worse before that. We're drownin'. So don't b'lieve the unemployment rate. It's much worse than 5.6% and getting worse every month.

More fun available at the Center For American Progress. Anti-Labor Secretary Elaine Chao lies to Congress. Penis Cheney accidentally tells the truth. And Bushwa gets all excited cuz a company in Bakersfield might add two new jobs this year.

WORST PRESIDENT EVER!!!

posted 3:46 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Hooray, Hooray, The Troll's Come Out To Play

Got a visit from a f'right dinger (far right winger) troll yesterday. To me a troll is not somebody who merely disagrees with me, nor someone who merely calls me names. It is a commenter who is either too lazy or too incompetent to make a coherent, rational argument supported by evidence and, in this case, someone to stupid to even understand what I'm saying. I'm not going to go into all his comments in detail (he left 4 or 5), but I've gotten this one from dingers before, so I thought I'd lay out the facts. Dinger Boy Curtis sez:

yeah...and why are all Democrats racists? I mean..they all voted AGAINST civil rights and tried like hell to keep blacks in their place about 30-40 years ago....what's that ? Things have completely changed? Oh..but comparing republicans today to republicans over 60 years ago, and basing it on a wafer thin guilt by association and "presumptions" is ok? ahh..i see..

hypocrite...

damn..I have seen some idiots with blogs, but you are on a roll....

try again...

And I've seen some idiots who couldn't recognize a joke when they see it, but you are a roll. Hope it's not a cwahsahnt. I imagine that'd be kinda embarrassin' for ya. OK, I will try again, using something you're apparently completely unfamiliar with. Facts. See, things have changed, though not nearly so much nor in the same direction as you think, mad cow boy.

From Congress Link.

The House of Representatives debated the bill for nine days and rejected nearly one hundred amendments designed to weaken the bill before passing H.R .7152 on February 10, 1964. Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it. Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. It is interesting to note that Democrats from northern states voted overwhelmingly for the bill, 141 to 4, while Democrats from southern states voted overwhelmingly against the bill, 92 to 11. A bipartisan coalition of Republicans and northern Democrats was the key to the bill's success.

[snip]

Senator Hubert H. Humphrey led the Democrats who supported the bill and worked actively for its passage. As Senate majority whip, Humphrey enjoyed the support of Mike Mansfield, Senate majority leader. Together they were determined to pass the legislation and even arranged grueling twelve-hour daily sessions to wear down the opposition.

[snip]

Forty four Democrats and 27 Republicans supported cloture; 23 Democrats and 6 Republicans opposed it.

The Senate voted 73-27 to pass. Democrats vote 46-21 in favor, Republicans 27-6 in favor. So the civil rights bill of 1964 (Forty years ago. I'm sure you have trouble adding and subtracting.) was pushed by the Democratic president, supported by over 60% of Democrats in the House, and nearly 70% of Democrats in the Senate, and the whole thing was orchestrated by LBJ knowing that it would cost the Democratic party the South for generations. (As, so far, it has. Who gets the racist votes now, Bunky?) And all of that proves "they all voted AGAINST civil rights and tried like hell to keep blacks in their place about 30-40 years ago...." In your corroded mind, I suppose it could.

Yeah, things have changed. Democrats today are pretty solid supporters of human rights. White racists today vote Republican. And with the election of G. Dubya, the Republican party has completed it's flying leap off a far right wing cliff.

This yokel also made a leap of idiocy to conclude that I'm a religious person. Some might find a chuckle there. And he called me "kid." My younger brother is a grandfather.

posted 10:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Sane Republicans - A Breath Of Fresh Reason

Ya might a noticed I joined a Kerry for President Webring. Tryin' ta do what I can. On that webring I saw Conservatives For Kerry. They're more opposed to Bush than in favor of Kerry, but that's reason enough to support 'em. I was pleasantly surprised by how reasonable they are. Not that I agree with them, but if the mainstream Republican party was much more like them, I'd have to change my whole schtick. I can't be nasty to be people like that, even if they do think I'm a wingnut. Republicans that aren't stupid. At least in the last couple a decades, what a concept.

posted 4:04 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 04, 2004

Public Citizen Performs A Public Service

Bush Campaign Ads Brought to You by Special Interests; Industries That Give to Bush Get Their Money's Worth

In the report, Bush Campaign Ads: Brought to You by . . . Special Interests, Public Citizen details how much money representatives from key industries -- including finance, real estate, communications, energy, health care, and insurance -- have helped raise and lists the tax breaks, regulatory changes, legislative favors and plum appointments Bush has given his backers.

[snip]

Public Citizen's report finds that the 416 Bush Rangers and Pioneers have bundled together at least $58.1 million for the 2004 campaign and that 90 percent of them (374) represent the special interests of America’s corporations.

[snip]

Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook [said], "More important, [the people] should know that these industries got their money's worth from Bush administration decisions worth billions of dollars."

Put in millions, get back billions. Not a bad deal. Where do I sign up? And Bush/Rove had the brass balls to claim Kerry was unduly beholden to special interests. That's like the ancient pot calling the brand new, freshly polished copper kettle black. I can't even b'lieve right whoofers argue with me about this shit. The only people who can deny the takeover of democracy by the corporate plutocracy are idiots, ignoramuses, or liars. That's it.

The full Public Citizen report is at WhiteHouseForSale.org.

posted 7:22 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Callin' It For Kerry Early

Jimmy Breslin's always been one of my favorites. I still remember a column he wrote long ago about having a hangover so bad that he called an ambulance to take him to work. Very funny. I guess I got a soft spot for tough old lefties. Mean bastards with bleeding hearts and not a lick a quit in 'em. It's endearing.

Already I have assigned the general election in November to him. This is by a simple arithmetic. George Bush lost the last election by 500,000 votes. Most people don't know that. He lost, and to a boring, abysmal Democratic candidate, Gore. And nobody who voted for Gore the last time could ever vote for George Bush this time. And Ralph Nader got more than 100,000 votes in Florida. That did more than a fixed Supreme Court.

This time, a populace is numbed by unemployment, the first white unemployment in a long time. Then there is the Patriot Act with this fellow Ashcroft, and that scares anybody in any party. The economy is not good. See what people have left at the end of a month. And, finally, and over all, the drip of a Middle East war, with an American body a day coming back, dead of lies by a president who ducked any chance of going to his own war, but has no shame in sending others to die.

From his keyboard to God's email.

posted 7:02 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

On Bush's Non-Watch

Don't let Bush use 9/11 again.

I'd like to see a TV ad with this script:

"3000 people were killed on his watch, our worst national tragedy, when he was on vacation. He had already taken more time off than any president before him, but he went to his ranch in Texas, after he had been warned by the FBI, by the CIA and by the outgoing Clinton Administration, that we could be attacked at any time.

Before 9/11 Bush blocked funding for anti-terrorism. He blocked the FBI from looking into the bin Laden family and other Saudi connections to terrorism.

The rest is at Seeing The Forest where Dave adds:

Make suggestions for changes to this script. Maybe we can get something going, raise some money to put it on the air.

posted 6:47 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Latest Bush Coup D'etat

From a letter from Haiti:

I can't believe that MY country (I am a US citizen and have been an Orthodox missionary priest in Haiti for 18 years!) has used its brute force to topple the elected president of Haiti.

[snip]

To put it succinctly: THE USA HAS PULLED A COUP D'ETAT ON HAITI! Other coups (and I have lived through many)in Haiti were pulled by opposition politicians and military leaders, but this one was pulled by the US Government.

Democracy so long as the right wing approves of the results, and no longer. The letter was written by Father Michael Graves. For the whole letter and more of the sad story see Conniptions.

posted 5:16 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

How To Spot A Liar

Watch this. Thanks to Conniptions.

posted 5:00 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Real Fight's On. Let's Come Together.

Kerry's money vs. Bush's

Senator John Kerry fought his way through a tough and expensive Democratic primary season only to find himself on Wednesday with relatively little cash and facing an advertising onslaught by President Bush, whose campaign has roughly 10 times more money.

In other words, Kerry's in trouble. The money men made their pick five or six years ago and they're stickin' with him. I added a Kerry lawn sign to my site, top of the sidebar, that links to the Kerry website. The words beneath it link directly to the contribution page. I donated and I signed up to participate in the campaign. We all gotta get goin' now. So go!

posted 3:26 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Young Georgie's Political Philosopy

This poor bastard had G Dubya in one a his classes at Harvard Business school some many years ago. Imagine tha intellekshul stimuhlation that musta provided.

President George Bush and the Gilded Age

During the last economic recovery period of March 1991 to April 1993, a 10% increase in GDP increased manufacturing jobs and service jobs 3% and 5.9% respectively. However, for the present economic recovery since November 2001, a 10% increase in GDP is increasing manufacturing and service jobs only 0.7% and 0.9% respectively. Just to keep up with her population growth, the U.S. needs to create about 230,000 jobs a month.

Boy, those tax cuts were some hellacious stimuli, warn't they? An' they were so broad-based.

President Bush's tax cuts have given over 93% of their benefits to large corporations and well-to-do households with over 250,000 dollars of annual income (about 10% of the U.S. households).

The prof also says the tax cuts have encouraged US jobs ta migrate overseas.

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy."

Well, there's one astonishingly ignorant statement by the sheltered, overgrown fratboy who's never worked hard in his life and who still, as president, won't bother with actually readin' up on critical policy issues.

He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism."

And there's another. Socialism is state ownership of the means of production. The US government has never owned any significant portion of the means of production. Do we have to go over this and over this? Jesus, it's harder'n tryin' ta housebreak a puppy. And less rewarding.

Tip O'The Tam to Atrios.

posted 12:57 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Hate America. Vote For The Enemy.

Hell, Republicans do. Most Republicans in WWII supported Adolf Hitler, and Atrios can prove it.

posted 11:11 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Good We Listened To The Con Artists On Global Warming

Insurer warns of global warming catastrophe

The world's second-largest reinsurer, Swiss Re, warned on Wednesday that the costs of natural disasters, aggravated by global warming, threatened to spiral out of control, forcing the human race into a catastrophe of its own making.

Now, nobody know's what's gonna happen. Could be fairly bad, could be catastrophic, could be even worse. Maybe even nothin' serious will happen, but I doubt it. I sure get the feelin', though, that "conservatives" would never, ever marry anyone name a Prudence, despite the fact they seem scared a they own shaduhs.

Tip via Talking Dog via Atrios.

posted 10:57 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Godfather Of The Neoconmen: An Elitist Prick

Seeing The Forest takes a pretty lengthy (counting the links) and valuable look at the Straussians, including their malign influence on Bush's Bioethics Council, in Straussians With Nukes. M'self, I think the Straussians and the Neoconmen represent evil incarnate, the devil in dirty, smoking blue suede shoes, or modern Machiavelli's. They're all about the same thing.

The following excerpts come from a column in FrontPage, published by David Horowitz, a man who was a lunatic leftist until he saw the light and became a lunatic rightist. Such conversions always remind me of the Cheech and Chong bit:

"Before, I was all messed up on drugs. Now, I'm all messed up on the Lord!"

"Yeah, I can see that, buddy."

Leo Strauss, Conservative Mastermind

The holy grail of Straussian scholarship has been to understand the ancient philosophers not from a modern point of view but from their own point of view. The implication is that then we become free to adopt the ancient point of view towards modern political affairs, freeing us from the narrowness of the modern perspective and enabling us to step back from the distortions and corruptions of modernity. Strauss contends that the modern view of politics is artificial and that the ancient one is direct and honest about the experience of political things.

See, back in the good ol' days, there were no distortions because, um, uh, cuz there was no air pollution, I guess. And there were no corruptions, neither. No sir. Them ancient Greeks (Or should that be Greeks of ancienity?) knew that you only married women to produce a traditional family, and that you fooled around with adolescent boys for pleasure, like modern conservatives. I guess.

There've been arguments about whether Strauss was pro- or anti-democracy. I mean to settle 'em.

The philosophical price of freedom is purposelessness, which ultimately gives rise to the alienation, anomie, and nihilism of modern life.

Freedom is bad. Strike one.

Admittedly, the concept of the Straussian text is one susceptible to intellectual mischief in the form of wild claims about the esoteric meaning of texts, not to mention rather off-putting for anyone who doesn't like know-it-all elites. But before getting too huffy about this elitist view of the good society, it is best to remind oneself that it is strikingly similar to the view cultivated for centuries by the Catholic and Orthodox churches and by Orthodox Judaism, not to mention other religions: there is a small number of men who know the detailed truth; the masses are told what they need to know and no more. Free inquiry outside the bounds of revelation is dangerous.

Elitism and lying to the people, at least by omission, is good. Strikes two and three. Yyeerrrr outta there, ya lying, elitist fuck.

If ya have no faith in tha people, ya have no faith in democracy. If you think it's acceptable to lie to the people, whether by omission or comission, ya don' b'lieve in democracy. If yer an elitist, religious, capitalist, philosophical or otherwise, yer inherently anti-democratic. None a this is hard ta figger out. Anyone can say they b'lieve in democracy, and nearly everyone in America's required ta say it, no matter how much of a whopper it is. But ask 'em what they b'lieve about other things. Then ya get tha pitcher.

posted 10:28 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Why Do Some Men Hate Homosexuals?

New Study Links Homophobia with Homosexual Arousal

Well, it's not new anymore. It's from a 1996 press release from the American Psychological Association.

Psychoanalytic theory holds that homophobia -- the fear, anxiety, anger, discomfort and aversion that some ostensibly heterosexual people hold for gay individuals -- is the result of repressed homosexual urges that the person is either unaware of or denies. A study appearing in the August 1996 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA), provides new empirical evidence that is consistent with that theory.

Now don't get too excited. It says consistent with, not proves. They showed a bunch a "straight" men various porno videos and measured their tallywhackers to guage their reaction.

'The homophobic men showed a significant increase in penile circumference to the male homosexual video, but the control [nonhomophobic] men did not.'

Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did.

Evidence, but not proof. It seems, according, to the study authors that anxiety could also explain arousal. Can't say as I've noticed that myself, but people differ.

Now, I been theorizin' along the same lines muhself. Not that I hold any brief for psychoanalytic theory, I don't. And I think Freud would've had ta work a lot harder ta be any more wrong. But, ya know, a lotta times I reason backward. A lot of the right wing, anti-gay shit I've read expresses a fear that if we don't condemn homosexuality, it will inevitably spread through all of society.

Now I strongly suspect that sexual orientation is a continuum. Some people're at one end or the other, probly a lotta people somewheres in between. It happens that I'm pretty close to the totally straight end. I don't think I chose that. Just happened. I would think all those he-men of the right would claim that they're totally straight. Yet about half (or mebbe 54%) of all right wing condemnation of gays revolves around the fear that if we allow any gay behavior, pretty soon ever'body gonna doin' it, and the human race will die out. What in the hell would make a straight person think that? Betcha c'n guess.

This is why I suggest that whenever you're around a bunch a right wingers, but still have 'em outnumbered, try yellin' "Quit starin' at my crotch!" This is good for women as well as men, but remember chillun, only yell it at those of the same sex. Otherwise there could be more trouble than you was plannin' on.

Tip O'The Tam to The American Street

posted 7:46 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 03, 2004

A Bible Based Marriage Code

Sense from across the pond:

A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women (Genesis 29:17 - 28; II Samuel 3:2-5).

B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives (Samuel 5:13; IKings 11:3; II Chronicles 11:21).

C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).

D. Marriage of the believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden (Genesis 24:3; Numbers 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Nehemiah 10:30).

E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce (Deuteronomy 22:19; Mark 10:9).

F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law (Genesis 38:6-10; Deuteronomy 25:5-10).

G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your father drunk and have sex with him (even if he previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old, tag-teaming with any sisters you may have). Of course this rule applies only if you are female (Genesis 19:31-36).

Thanks to The (Un)Common Man.

posted 9:06 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The Nutjobs Who Would Be Dictators

Laughter of the Gods

[Michael] Ledeen is possibly the most dangerous and influential neocon of all the Iran-Contra madmen who are back in power. In his book, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership, Ledeen says, "Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically...It is time once again to export the democratic revolution."

"God," Ledeen explains, "understands that all men are evil, and the only way to achieve peace is through total war." Ledeen believes "the sparing of civilian lives cannot be the total war's first priority...The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people."

What a cutie pie.

For example, Tom Delay, Texas Republican and House Majority Leader, once told a group of evangelical Christians that God was "using him" to promote a biblical worldview. "Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and thought -- every aspect of creation," DeLay said. "Only Christianity offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in this world. Only Christianity." (Emphasis added) Like his counterparts, DeLay believes that fundamentalists should "overturn the separation of church and state and bring government under religious control."

And listen to Gary Potter, president of Catholics for Christian Political Action -- "When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil."

Tol' ya. All Americans looking forward to this theocracy, please raise your hands. That way we'll know who to shoot first when the trouble starts. I wish the relatively moderate Republicans would listen. They don't understand the kind of radicals they're supporting.

posted 8:44 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Blair's Goin' Down, But He'll Be All Right

US told UK Attorney General to alter legal advice on Iraq war

The attorney general initially told Tony Blair that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal without a new resolution from the United Nations and only overturned his advice when Washington ordered Downing Street to find legal advice which would justify the war.

The devastating claim will be made by eminent QC and Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy in a television interview today.

Ya know the Bushies are gonna take care a ol' Tone when UK voters toss him out on his arse. He'll get a high payin' job, probly with the Carlyle group. I jus' hope he has trouble sleepin' nights, is all.

posted 8:20 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies, Lies . . .

Hussein ties to al Qaeda appear faulty
The administration's case on ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda relied on intelligence that was weaker than that on Iraq's illegal weapons programs.

A Knight Ridder review of the Bush administration statements on Iraq's links to terrorism and what's now known about the classified intelligence has found that administration advocates of a preemptive invasion frequently hyped sketchy and sometimes false information to help make their case. Twice they neglected to report information that painted a less sinister picture.

The Knight-Ridder article has the details. I'm still carryin' a grudge against Knight-Ridder because of their union-busting efforts and bargaining lies, but I gotta admit they're doin' a job on the administration's bullshit.

posted 6:04 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

F'right Dingers Condemn A Left That Doesn't Exist

Arguing with right wingers is like the old joke about arguing with women. They ask ya the questions, they tell ya the answers, and yer still wrong. Dennis Prager, oddly enough, is semi-mainstream. He's a truly mainstream pseudo-conservative, yet he's saying stranger and stranger things all the time. Not long ago he declared civil war in America. Now this:

San Francisco and the Islamists: Fighting the same enemy

America is engaged in two wars for the survival of its civilization. The war over same-sex marriage and the war against Islamic totalitarianism are actually two fronts in the same war -- a war for the preservation of the unique American creation known as Judeo-Christian civilization.

What I hear is, "Anyone who doesn't agree with me and my values is no better than a terrorist." Not that I find that a tad arrogant or anything.

America leads the battle against both religious and secular nihilism and is hated by both because it rejects both equally.

Why do dingers keep calling us nihilists. It's a total misuse of the word. You could look it up. Online even.

As Alexis de Tocqueville, probably the greatest observer of our society, wrote almost 200 years ago, America is a unique combination of secular government and religious (Judeo-Christian) society.

So a secular government's a wonnerful t'ing, which justifies discriminating against people for religious reasons. And, apparently, logic is a distant and useless galaxy to this nimrod.

In theory, the Left should be at least as opposed to the Islamists as is the Right. But the Left is preoccupied first with destroying America's distinctive values – a Judeo-Christian society (as opposed to a secular one), capitalism (as opposed to socialism), liberty (as opposed to equality) and exceptionalism (as opposed to universalism, multiculturalism and multilateralism). So, if the Islamists are fellow anti-Americans, the Left figures it can worry about them later.

See what I mean? They ask ya tha questions . . . I don't know of anyone on the left who fits that description. Such people probably exist, but they exist well outside the mainstream left. I'll admit to opposing American exceptionalism cuz, uh, thass jus' a tad arrogant, ain't it?

Those who oppose same-sex marriage understand that redefining the central human institution marks the beginning of the end of Judeo-Christian civilization.

Which, a course, is meant ta imply that it marks the end of civilization. Myself, I'm still pissed off about the loss of good, ol' fashioned, silly-ass pagan civilization. We all got our heartaches.

I used to listen to Prager on the radio when I was workin'. At the time, I thought he was one of the more reasonable conservatives. Not all that clearheaded but, ya know, light years ahead a Limbooger. Now, well, is it just me, or has Prager become seriously deranged?

Now, if I wuz you, I wouldn't argue with any dingers about this. Arguin' with a "conservative" is like tryin' ta teach a pig ta sing. It wastes your time, an' annoys tha pig.

posted 5:21 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Black Box Voting Gets Helluva Start In California

Glitches Hinder Casting of Votes

Problems with new electronic voting systems caused some Orange County residents to vote in the wrong district elections Tuesday and prevented some San Diego County voters from casting any ballot at all.

All right, I admit, if anybody was gonna get screwed on election day I'd just as soon it was Orange and San Diego counties. Both counties are as Republican as the residents of hell. But that's a bad attitude. Everyone should have their vote fairly counted.

[Brett Rowley, a spokesman for the Orange County registrar of voters], said the problems can be traced to poll workers, whose job it was to provide voters with an access code for the proper ballot, not to the county's $26-million electronic voting system.

Oh, yeah, blame it on the poll workers. It wasn't the machines, and that makes me feel a lot better. Looky chere, those machines need to be literally fool proof. Have you seen the people who work the polling places? Some of 'em can't stay awake, some are confused by the simplest tasks, some probably have Alzheimers, and some, I know for a fact because I know some people who've done it, are mentally ill. If there's a way to screw up, they'll find it.

Without the tangible paper ballots, [Mark] Petracca, [a political science professor at UC Irvine,] added, any recount would inevitably be complicated.

But we don't need no steenking paper trail.

posted 9:49 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Calvinism, Exploitation, And Evil

Okey-Dokey, I was slow on this too. I've always thought of the alliance between the corporatists and the religious right as a marriage of convenience. The corporatists funded the religious right because they were reliable Republican, and therefore corporatist, voters. The religious right supported the Republicans because they pandered to the evangeli-fundies concerns about "traditional values." Suddenly I see there's more to it than that. The evangeli-fundies are mostly Calvinists, and Calvinism and capitalism are natural allies.

The concept of 'the calling' in Calvinism, held that God should be worshiped through work, that worldly enterprises were satisfying to God, and that God would bestow worldly success on 'the saved'. Weber suggested that this, combined with the idea of the 'elect' -- that is, that a predetermined number of people would be 'saved' -- drove capitalism into the 19th century.

From this idea comes the notion that the poor and the unemployed are bad, or at least inferior, people. If God will bestow worldly success on "the saved," then obviously the unsuccessful are headed for hell. The corporations would love it if everyone became a Calvinist and believed in work as an end in itself, and success as a sign that God likes you. They'd work us to damn death. It's an unpleasant view, it's bad, but it's not the whole of why I consider Calvinism (not Calvinists) truly evil.

My biggest problem with Calvinism is about the same as my problem with the "saved by grace alone" crowd.

[Martin] Luther despised [the book of James], calling it an "epistle of straw" since it so clearly contradicted his perverted belief that salvation comes from faith alone, independent of one's actions.

James has always been one of my favorite books in the Bible (You din't think I had any favorite books in the Bible, didja? Sometimes a heathen'll surprise ya.), and James sez:

1:9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: 1:10 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

But God likes the rich. Seems like he got a funny way a showin' it.

2:8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:

But iss perfectly OK to refuse to help the poor. Wait a minute, James din't say that.

2:15 If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, 2:16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

Don' seem ta me that line a thought works real well with social Darwinism.

2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

The evangeli-fundies have to read the Bible selectively. It's the only way they can maintain their ridiculous belief that the Bible is literally true. James says you're justified by works. Paul says you're saved by grace alone. Which is it?

What the hell good is a mythology that doesn't encourage good behavior? If you're predestined to heaven or hell, or if you're saved by faith alone, then you're actual behavior doesn't matter. Such a belief is immoral, reprehensible, shit, it's evil. And that's why I hate Calvinism. Thank ya verruh much.

posted 8:21 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

US In Iraq: Makin' Friends Wherever We Go

It's a damn good thing the US has moral authority. Otherwise, we could start ta piss people off.

"Guantanamo on steroids"
Abu Ghraib was an infamous prison under Saddam. Now, for Iraqis seeking relatives detained by the U.S. military, it is still a place where men disappear.
(Today's events in Iraq acted as a disturbing example of just how antagonistic Iraqis have become toward American troops. In my house in Baghdad, I watched footage from the aftermath of the bombings in Karbala and Baghdad's Khadamiya neighborhood on television. At one point CNN cameras captured American troops arriving in Khadamiya to restore order. Iraqis responded by hurling rocks, bricks and even chairs at the soldiers, necessitating their withdrawal.)

[snip]

"When we get rid of Saddam," the woman said, "we feel happy because this is a new time for Iraq. Now I hate the Americans."

Welcomed as liberators. Yeaahh, buddy.

posted 5:09 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

An End To Scarcity?

I wouldn't get too excited just yet, but this is damn interesting.

Experts Say New Desktop Fusion Claims Seem More Credible

The experiment could conceivably shrink the science of fusion -- slamming hydrogen atoms together, producing heat and light -- from giant, expensive reactors to the tabletop.

Controlled nuclear fusion would be a transformative technology. Clean, limitless energy. This could save our butts, if true. Course, as Repukes are fond of pointing out (when it suits 'em), there are always unintended consequences.

Most of us probably remember the fusion in a bottle hoax back in the 80s. This is different. It isn't cold fusion, which has been discredited, and the reasearchers have published articles in two different scientific journals. That's a helluva lot more than the cold fusion yokels ever managed. We shall see.

posted 3:38 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 02, 2004

Democracy, Goddamnee -- Long As We Like The Results

U.S. political maneuvering behind the ouster

The departure of Haiti's Jean-Bertrand Aristide is a victory for a Bush administration hard-liner who has been long dedicated to Aristide's ouster, U.S. foreign policy analysts say.

[snip]

Washington diplomats have seen Aristide as a leftist who is often fierce in his denunciations of the business class and slow to make recommended changes such as privatizing state-run industries.

Somehow it's always okay to topple left wing politicians, whether they're democratically elected or not. The US supports democracy, so long as you vote for the right wing.

posted 8:15 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Another Champeen Liar For The Right

The following is drawn from the UC Davis psychology website.

Paul Cameron, chairman of the Family Research Institute, is beloved by the right wing for saying nasty things about gay people, mainly that they're terrible child molesters.

One individual has claimed to have data that prove homosexuals to be child molesters at a higher rate than heterosexuals. That person is Paul Cameron. As detailed elsewhere on this site, Cameron's survey data are subject to so many methodological flaws as to be virtually meaningless. Even so, his assertions are often quoted by antigay organizations in their attempts to link homosexuality with child sexual abuse.

Course, Cameron has been booted from the American Psychological Association for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists, his psychologist's license in Nebraska is inactive, the Nebraska Psychological Association formally dissociated itself from his claims, and:

The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research.

However:

The Mainstream View

For example, in one review of the scientific literature, noted authority Dr. A. Nicholas Groth wrote:

Are homosexual adults in general sexually attracted to children and are preadolescent children at greater risk of molestation from homosexual adults than from heterosexual adults? There is no reason to believe so. The research to date all points to there being no significant relationship between a homosexual lifestyle and child molestation. There appears to be practically no reportage of sexual molestation of girls by lesbian adults, and the adult male who sexually molests young boys is not likely to be homosexual (Groth & Gary, 1982, p. 147).

So why does the right grasp at the crumbling straw of such a discredited critter? Cuz he tells 'em what they want ta hear. They don' care iffen iss true. Cameron tells 'em what dey wanna hear. An' thass whass impo'tant.

UPDATE: I got into a world o' shit back when I wuz on da school paper (b'lieve it was about 1642) an' I wrote in a column what is now, essentially, the mainstream view. Journalism advisor jumped my ass big time, I think cuz I ran afoul of his prejudice. I wrote what I knew ta be true, but he gimme all kinda shit about not havin' a source. Now I got one, ya ol' fart. Victory is mine!

Tip O'The Tam ta Atrios.

posted 5:45 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Greenspan A Master Liar

As are most right wing leaders. Discussing the way the most of us been played, Paul Krugman refers to Alan Greenspan as the Maestro of Chutzpah

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.

See Paul for all the details of this magnificent heist. I think I was a little slow, but I eventually figured out many years ago that the right wing's ascendancy was built on lies. Some time ago, I figured out why they lie. They have no choice. If they ever tell the truth, the whole movement goes right down the crapper. If the American people understood the right's true agenda, no more than 30% would ever vote Republican.

posted 3:38 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

What's Happened To The Jobs - And The Workers

Now I see where those ridiculously high productivity increases come from.

No Gain, Know Pain

By melding computer advances, updated management techniques and the sort of immediate reinforcement most people haven't seen since kindergarten, Countrywide is a model of how American companies are boosting worker productivity.

As falling interest rates unleashed a massive demand for refinancings, Countrywide became more efficient.

More efficient. That's one word for it. Speedup's another. Criminal exploitation would be yet another way of putting it.

Sales agents in Countrywide's Rosemead office are suing the company, saying they regularly put in overtime without pay. Other Countrywide workers in California have been warned that their jobs are likely to be transferred to states with laws less favorable to employees.

Countrywide also is accelerating plans to move operations offshore. By the end of next year, it will have 250 employees at a call center in India, each of whom will represent a savings of $35,000 over a U.S. worker.

Multiply Countrywide's example by thousands of hungry companies, and an explanation emerges for the nation's tremendous productivity gains in the last two years — as well as the toll on workers.

Employee productivity rose 4.2% in 2003, a jump Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Alan Greenspan (news - web sites) labeled "stunning." That was on top of a 4.9% gain in 2002. Together they marked the best back-to-back growth in worker output in five decades. The gains stoked corporate profits, which rose 10.3% in the second quarter of 2003 and 9.9% in the third.

Yet average wages barely budged. Many workers say they're pushed to put in additional hours without proper compensation. Some are retaliating in court.

In 2002, Starbucks Corp. agreed to pay $18 million and RadioShack Corp. said it would pay $29.9 million to settle overtime cases. T-Mobile USA Inc. said in November that it would pay $4.8 million as the result of a similar action. Last month, the closeout retailer Big Lots Ltd. said it would pay $10 million to settle claims.

The number of such overtime cases has nearly tripled over the last five years, to the point where they exceed employment discrimination cases.

Gee, iss a lot cheaper to work people more hours widdout more pay than it is ta hire more workers. Think that might 'splain a jobless recovery? Wage stagnation?

Countrywide maintains that its sales agents are exempt from overtime laws because they are management.

And what, exactly, do they manage, you lying sacks of dog pus?

Linda Dardarian, a lawyer with Goldstein, Demchak in Oakland who is representing the agents, said it was an increasingly common tactic to give rank-and-file workers fancy titles to lull them into thinking they were executives and thus not entitled to overtime.

But, but , but, that would be unethical. As we should be able ta figger out from sports, competition within an ethical framework (sportsmanship) can bring out the best in people, but when competition becomes extreme, ethics and decency got out tha winduh. I know this is kinda common, but the older I get, the smarter my grandad gets. Even if he did mostly use cliches. He use ta always say, "People think if a little bit's good, more must be better." But that usually ain't so.

Answering phones for Countrywide is "a hard job," acknowledged Victoria Kelly, who runs the Simi Valley center.

And getting harder. The minimum number of calls to which the reps are supposed to respond each day has risen from 55 last summer to 62 in the fall to the current 68.

Vicious speedups, overtime without pay, ahh, the magic of American capitalism.

The suit gives examples of e-mail messages from Rosemead managers: "If you want to make it here … put in lots of extra hours." Another says: "Work your tails off. That means 10 hour plus days."

[snip]

Marlene Veal, a former Rosemead agent, says she worked as hard as she could, missing years of watching her children grow up. "In order to meet production demands and pressures, I worked approximately 50 to 55 hours per week," Veal said in a court declaration. On the instructions of management, she regularly worked through lunch, eating the Chinese food or pizza the company supplied.

This was called a "lunch-in." On lunch-in days, sales agents said they needed special permission to leave the office. According to court papers filed last June, lunch-ins were ordered nearly every day from 2000 to 2003, with the exception of a few months.

[snip]

"When the desk isn't good anymore, they get a new desk. And when the human isn't good anymore, they get a new human."

[snip]

When productivity levels first rose in the late '90s, economists attributed it to the hundreds of billions that had been invested in technology. But when they increased again in 2002 and 2003, some moved beyond amazement into disbelief.

"Something looks fishy," Richard Freeman, director of the Labor Studies Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research, said after the third-quarter 2003 rate jumped 9.5%. It was the second-highest quarter since 1971.

"Maybe white-collar workers are being squeezed," Freeman said. "Maybe their hours are being understated."

They's mo'. Whot a bonch o' shweethahts. An' Countrywide ain' no aberration.

posted 9:41 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Champions O' Democracy - If We Approve Of The Results

Foes of Chavez Clash With Troops for 4th Day in Venezuela

The latest troubles are of deep concern to the Bush administration, which has clashed repeatedly with Mr. Chavez. Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, told reporters today that a recall referendum should be a priority.

"The focus should remain on the efforts by the Venezuelan people to exercise their constitutional and democratic rights, and on the efforts to try to resolve the political polarization through a transparent and internationally monitored presidential recall referendum," he said.

Spokespig Mclellan sez a recall should be a priority. Not so very long ago the administration got caught cheering for a coup, a violent overthrow of Hugo Chavez. Why is any of this Bushwa's bidness? Oh, I know:

Enraged opposition leaders, accusing the left-leaning president of unfairly influencing the electoral process, stepped up protests against the government.

No question in my mind, all the facts on the ground could be essentially the same and, if it was a right-leaning president, the presidential spokespig would be lying out the other side a his mouth.

The right wing today believes passionately in democracy as long as it gets the right results. That's exactly the kind of "democracy" that's in the works for Iraq. Near as I can figger, the f'right dingers really don't understand that their version of democracy ain't democracy at all. If ya only b'lieve in democracy when y agree wit' tha results, ya hate democracy.

posted 7:32 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

March 01, 2004

Why Does Bush Hate Real Americans?

A Budget of Gimmicks, False Promises, And Unrealistic Expectations

Read it all, Goddamnee, and see how the Bush administration is screwin' real people, the real patriots, those of us who oughta fuckin' matter.

posted 3:48 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

The USA's "Moral Authority"

Mr. Pot, Meet Mr. Kettle links to a Haaretz story that pretty much gives us our due:

If Israel were to publish a report on the state of human rights in the world, the document would generate bitter scorn. The only thing separating Israel's moral right to issue such a report from the right of the United States to do so is the power of the latter - it has no moral primacy.

Yeah, but evybody knows might makes right.

posted 9:42 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Criticism of Kerry On Defense Is Offensive

Look, you're probably gonna need this stuff to sell your "moderate" or "centrist" neighbor or coworker. I'm aiming to be the armorer to the choir. I make no effort to convince the right wing dingbats. Most of 'em ain't got a brain in their heads to begin with. Fred Kaplan at Slate has the straight scooby on Kerry's defense votes which, remarkably, in no way resemble what the Bushies are sayin' about 'em.

John Kerry's Defense Defense
Setting his voting record straight.

Fred mentions a few other left wing traitors who wanted to cut the defense budget: Poppy Bush, Penis Cheney, and Colin Powell. Check it: Knowledge is power. Not all that much power, but every little bit, ya know?

Thanks to Oliver Willis.

posted 8:40 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Thank God For Free Market Media

Super propagandist Rupert Murdoch collects a partial return on his investment:

Bush's ads target conservatives, Hispanics

About half the buy so far is for airtime on Fox News Channel, which Bush opponents contend reports most favorably on the GOP among the 24-hour news networks, and Fox Sports Net, mostly during NASCAR programs. The sport is watched heavily by white males, many with Southern or rural roots.

Tip O'The Tam to Oliver Willis.

posted 8:14 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Why Do Repukes Oppose Paper Trails?

Votelaw has two posts on this, ""It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting," and, "Can you vote on a lottery ticket?" The right keeps coming up with supposedly reasonable, and therefore supposedly nonpartisan, objections to providing a paper trail and a genuine recount option with electronic voting machines. Printers are too expensive, f'r instance, and printers are unreliable.

As to the first, why would we want to be cheapskates when it comes to counting votes? Isn't an accurate vote count one of the most important things in a democracy? Second, ATMs and Lotto machines seem to have pretty reliable printers. The technology already exists, and having enough voting machines should cover whatever printer failures occur.

How come only the right keeps objecting? For some odd reason they don't seem at all worried about their votes not counting. Do they know something the rest of us don't? Do the dingers fear a paper trail?

posted 8:01 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Bush Lies, Bush Lies, Bush Lies. Yeesh!

I'm really gettin' tired of calling Bush a liar, so see Atrios for the details of his lie on the Federal Marriage Amendment.

posted 7:19 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Gays, Blacks, Etc. Are They Not All Human?

Both Sides Court Black Churches in the Debate Over Gay Marriage

A day after the president's remarks a group of black Baptist ministers in Chicago held a news conference applauding his stance. It was the first of several such events in coming weeks planned by black conservative clergy members as a result of the meeting with Ms. Wood.

"If the K.K.K. opposes gay marriage, I would ride with them," said the Rev. Gregory Daniels, organizer of the Chicago event, taking a far more provocative stance than the vast majority of black -- or white -- clergy members speaking out on the issue.

That's fucking sick. How can you hate people who've never done anything to you so much that you'd ride with your worst enemy against them? Because the Bible condemns homosexuality? Hey, the Bible condones slavery. How far would the Rev. Daniels like to run with this? If this is what social conservatism does to a person, then it's obviously a malign influence.

Perhaps trying to appease both sides, the Rev. Jesse Jackson remarked briefly on the issue in a recent speech at Harvard Law School, saying that he supported "equal protection under the law" for gays. But he added that he viewed comparisons to the historical struggles of blacks as "a stretch."

"Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution," he said, "They did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote."

Sorry, Jesse, yer wrong on this one. At root, the civil rights movement was about human rights and the struggle for recognition of the full humanity of blacks. Quibbling over details amounts to nitpicking. Everybody wants to make a special case for their own particular group's suffering. Our suffering was worse than their suffering therefore, in a weird way, we're better than they are. That amounts to a form of bigotry itself.

Gays and lesbians are human. Fuckin' look at em. What the hell else could they be? And they are being denied equal human rights, to which they have as much moral claim as any other human, on the basis of prejudice and bigotry. How is fighting for those rights, in principle, any different from the civil rights struggle?

posted 6:03 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

February 29, 2004

The Bushy Boys' Selective Definition Of Terrorism

Terrorism? What terrorism?, by Dave Neiwert, looks at what the government does or does not choose to call terrorism, and how their choices hurt Americans. Any Muslim hostility, a course, is terrorism. Also:

-- An administration official -- the education secretary, no less -- declaring the National Education Association a "terrorist organization."

-- The chairman of American International Group referred to lawyers who are opposed to Republican plans for tort reform as "bar terrorists."

On the other hand, someone sends a mail bomb to the black director of Scottsdale's Office of Diversity and Dialogue, is definitely not a terrorist. The ricin attack on U.S. Senate offices, definitely not terrorism. Apparently the actual guidelines are: If yer either a Muslim or oppose administration policies, yer a terrorist. If yer a white, right wing extremist plotting the overthrow of the gummint, yer not. But there's nothing political about, even if Dave seems ta think there is.

posted 10:11 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Calvinist's Hate The Poor. I'm Not Making That Up.

The Worker Worthy of Hire, a post by Melanie at Just a Bump in the Beltway, discusses the evil Calvinist influence on American thinking in the context of the grocery strike and a comment on Calpundit.

There is a pernicious Calvinism in our culture, a piece of bad theology which has infected the secular, popular culture and it damns the ordinary working man. Kevin's commentor was probably an upper middle class white guy who has no clue about how hard it is to make a living in this counry if you don't come out of that upper middle class white culture to start with.

Every group and every culture has a myth about how its society works. America has one, too, the land of utter opportunity where anyone willing to work hard can be a John Edwards, a millworkers son, and aspire to the presidency after acheiving millions in personal wealth.

[snip]

The facts look a little different. If you have an average IQ, about 100 on the Standford Benet exam, you are unlikely to have a lot of success in higher education, and probably won' t have a stellar high school career.

She's got a lot more, but that IQ thing caught my eye. All this happy, Horatio Alger horseshit about working hard and getting a good education or you deserve to suffer not only crappy-ass jobs but crappy-ass pay for the rest of your life effectively amounts to saying, "Fuck average people. They ain't good enough." Well, oddly enough, I don't agree. I happen ta think average people deserve decent lives. A course, opinions're like assholes, but if you actually believe in that viciously elitist claptrap, then SAY IT! Quit packin' it in bull patties and pretendin' that it's high minded. God I hate elitists. I would gladly kick the crap out of every one I meet, 'twere it only legal. Half-educated, Social Darwinist dickheads.

Thanks to Allen at The [Truly] Right Christians for the tip.

posted 9:39 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Greenspan's Broken Promise: Social Security

The Social Security Promise Not Yet Kept

Since 1983, American workers have been paying more into Social Security than it has paid out in benefits, about $1.8 trillion more so far. This year Americans will pay about 50 percent more in Social Security taxes than the government will pay out in benefits.

Those taxes were imposed at the urging of Mr. Greenspan, who was chairman of a bipartisan commission that in 1983 said that one way to make sure Social Security remains solvent once the baby boomers reached retirement age was to tax them in advance.

[snip]

So what has happened to that $1.8 trillion?

The advance payments have all been spent.

[snip]

[C. Eugene Steuerle, a tax policy advisor to President Reagan] said that voters were promised in 1983 that the federal debt would be paid off with the surplus Social Security taxes.

The average deficit through the Raygun, Bush I, and Bush II years has been $191.2 billion a year and it looks like we're facing an average of around $500 billion a year for the next 10 years. Clinton's average deficit was $24.1 billion, lower than the Democratic average, and you can probably lay that at the feet of Raygun and Bush I. Just in case boomers are wondering who spent their retirement money. But, ya know, iss really the Demorats fault.

And don't talk to me about Democratic Congresses. The staggering runup in the debt coincided exactly with the ascendancy of the pseudo-conservative "Reagan Republicans" and has continued under every Republican president since, reaching nose-bleed heights under Bushwa.

Mr. Greenspan told Congress earlier that Mr. Bush's tax cuts should be kept in place. The biggest beneficiaries would be the top 400 taxpayers, whose average income in 2000 was $174 million each. They paid 22.2 cents on the dollar in federal income taxes and, under the Bush tax cuts, would have paid about 17.5 cents.

Over all that year, Americans paid 15.3 cents on the dollar of income in income taxes, but many middle-class Americans paid a larger share of their incomes to the federal government than the top 400 when both income and Social Security taxes are counted.

Gee, Mr Re-poob-li-CAN, tell me again about those tax the rich radicals. Don't sound like the rich're hurtin' any ta me.

posted 11:13 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Magical CEOs Not So Magical After All

I almost didn't read the bidness section today yet, once a gain, I'm glad I did.

For the Boss, Days of Sweat and Fumbles

"Now Who's Boss?," TLC's new reality series, for once based on an idea I actually like, puts corporate leaders to work for five days in rank-and-file jobs in their companies. How dey do?

"The truth is, we would have been fired from every job we undertook," Mr. Flax said. "We were completely incompetent."

Now, folks is gonna say, "They're not trained for those jobs. That's not what they get paid to do." Yeah, that's right. But here's my attitude. If you think you're worth 100 or 200 or 500 times as much as the average employee, and that's the kind of money CEOs get today, you better be able to fly and fart perfume, buddy. Or at least spin straw inta gold.

This system is obviously screwed up. We have extreme inequality in this society, and extreme inequality is unhealthy, both socially and physically. Nobody is worth 500 times the average workers wages. Ya bring that up and the dingbats come at ya wit' their usual dualistic bullshit. "Life's not fair. Inequality is natural. You can't make things perfectly equal." Well no shit, dipwads. Notice how they present a false choice: It's either allow extreme, irrational, runaway inequality; or coerce extreme, irrational, absolute equality. As though there is no possibility of a rational option in between. I suppose for extremists there isn't.

posted 10:26 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Anti-Govt, Anti-Regulation: Ya Been Eatin' Lead Paint Chips?

"Government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem," said Ronnie da Raygun.

Agencies Brushed Off Lead Warnings

The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and the Army Corps of Engineers rejected warnings from consultants who said as early as 1994 that lead contamination was a serious threat because of the way the two agencies were managing the water supply, according to records and interviews.

[snip]

Of the 6,118 tests WASA conducted last summer, more than 4,000 came back with lead levels above the federal limit of 15 parts per billion. About 157 homes had water with lead levels of more than 300 parts per billion, a toxic content so high that it has astounded water quality experts.

It appears there's plenty of blame to go around on this, but one thing I do know is this problem screams for more gummint, more regulation, not less. And if you believe that monopolistic privatizing of the water supply, as is happening in South America and elsewhere, would have prevented or solved the problem, then you must sprinkle fairy dust on your fruit loops.

According to the Centers for Disease Control:

Approximately 434,000 U.S. children aged 1-5 years have blood lead levels greater than the CDC recommended level of 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.

Lead poisoning can affect nearly every system in the body. Because lead poisoning often occurs with no obvious symptoms, it frequently goes unrecognized. Lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, behavioral problems, and, at very high levels, seizures, coma, and even death.

Hmm, don't those problems seem to disproportionately affect minorities?

Children of some racial and ethnic groups living in older housing are disproportionately affected by lead. For example, 22% of black children and 13% of Mexican-American children living in housing built before 1946 have elevated blood lead levels compared with 6% of white children living in comparable types of housing.

Whaddaya t'ink da chances are that minorities are more likely to live in housing built before 1946? Or 1978, for that matter. I just thank God, every night, that the US never regulated lead paint, because regulation is evil:

The major source of lead exposure among U.S. children is lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust found in deteriorating buildings. Lead-based paints were banned for use in housing in 1978. However, approximately 24 million housing units in the United States have deteriorated leaded paint and elevated levels of lead-contaminated house dust. More than 4 million of these dwellings are homes to one or more young children.

Certainly there's such a thing as too much government, too much regulation. Now, am I gonna hear a chorus from the ideo-doofuses (I believe that's pronounced doo-fuh-sees.) on the right that there's such a thing as too little? I don't remember Ronnie "The Fabulist" Raygun ever sayin' so.

posted 7:28 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

February 28, 2004

What's Bush's Strategy In The "War" On Terror?

Kerry Says President Is Weak on Defense

An' about damn time, sez I.

Democrat John F. Kerry charged Friday that President Bush sent troops to war unprepared and pursued policies that have undermined the U.S. military and the nation's safety -- one of his harshest attacks yet on Bush's national security credentials.

[snip]

"Far too often, troops have been going into harm's way without the weapons and the equipment they depend on . . ." Kerry said. "Families across America have had to collect funds from their neighbors to buy body armor that is state-of-the-art for their loved ones in uniform, because George Bush has failed to provide it."

Man, that sendin' American soldiers into battle unprepared has been drivin' me nuts. I've repeatedly emailed my Congress critters about it. What's the fuckin' excuse for that? I'd at least like to hear one.

The Bushies struck back.

"Today, John Kerry ignored the real progress being made on all fronts of the war on terror," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said in a written statement.

Ummm, what progress would that be, Steve? Uhh, lessee, gimme a sec . . . Oh. I know. Now we're safe from the WMDs Iraq didn't have. These jackasses think they're gonna run on Resident Wimpy's (I would gladly pay you in a generation for an unnecessary war today.) magnificent record on national security, and I think Kerry should shove that shit right back in their faces. It looks like he's going to.

posted 11:20 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

10 Years In Prison For Thought Crime

Now you see why I call 'em Repukelicans: Cause they're about as welcome in a democracy as vomit at a dinner party. And much harder to clean up. David Grenier, anarchist, reports that Repukelican Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri has proposed a bill, the pertinent parts of which read as follows:

State of Rhode Island
In General Assembly
An Act
Relating to Homeland Security

It is enacted by the General Assembly as follows:

11-43-12 Advocating anarchy or unlawful destruction of property. -- Any person who shall willfully teach or advocate anarchy . . . or opposition to organized government, or any person who shall become a member of or affiliated with any organization teaching and advocating disbelief in or opposition to organized government . . . shall be guilty of a felony and, upon conviction, shall be punished by a fine of not more than ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or imprisonment not exceeding ten (10) years, or both.

Grenier has a copy of the full bill on his site. The parts I cut out involve stuff I think should be against the law.

I know what you're thinking. Nothing to get upset about here, this is patently unconstitutional, and it is, and The Common Man reports that the bill has been withdrawn to be rewritten and re-introduced.

And yeah, I doubt the bill would have stood up as written, but what made him think he had the right to try to pass such a law? Are you sure such a bill won't stand up after another four years of Bushbug and his probable appointments to the Supreme Court?

How many more years of far right Republican dominance can this country stand? How long before America comes to resemble the wild Canuckistani's (Adam Yoshida) wet dreams? Carcieri himself is certainly anti-freedom and democracy, and nobody knows what the rewritten bill will look like.

posted 9:47 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Welcome To Oceania

Perpetual war, perpetual surveillance. Juan Cole writes, in We may as Well Just Record all our Telephone Calls and send them to Maryland, of the agreement between the British and American versions of No Such Agency that allows unhindered spying on citizens of both countries with no need for a warrant or for suspicion of criminal activity.

Dear heart thinks our phone is bugged. If she's right, it must be a result of my political exceptionalism. I'd find it kinda darkly amusing. See, I don't talk on the phone except to make doctors appointments or refill prescriptions. Which means all they're hearing are dear heart's conversations, over half of which are with mentally ill people. Even I can't bear listening to these people. Everything said on our phone is innocuous, though a lot of it sounds a little odd, not to say exasperating. I figure whoever has to listen is either going out their mind with boredom, or going out of their mind trying to break the non-existent code.

An intriguing sidelight to the story that Cole mentions is that Hans Blix was bugged everywhere he went. The Bushies knew what he was saying in "private" conversations. Did they know, from that bugging, that Iraq had no WMDs?

What bothers me about these kinds of revelations is the reaction of the public. It seems like it's, "Eh. Well. Doesn't surprise me. Ain't no BFD." I got a feelin' that if we found out there're little cameras and microphones hidden in our TVs, the reaction would be the same. No BFD. I got a nasty suspection that most people know we don't live in a democracy and that, too, ain't no BFD ta them.

We're living in Orwell's 1984 and nobody cares!

I'm just a twisted freak screaming in the wilderness, and nobody's listening. Don't think that'll stop me, though. I plan to go right on screaming anyway, at least until the people wake up or I lose my voice.

posted 7:15 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Nader's Not The Enemy, Corporatism Is.

An Enemy of the People, by John Chuckman. I totally disagree with him about Nader's campaign being worth the risk, and I'd quibble on a couple of other points, but overall Chuckman has written a cogent essay delineating the kind of elitist, corporate government that has evolved in America. It explains, at least to me, why so many "liberals," such as Nicholas Kristof, say such seemingly stupid things. They're part of the second tier of the elite, and few people at that level honestly even think about, much less care about, the rest of us, the proles. Well worth a read.

posted 2:38 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

February 27, 2004

One Marriage Threat Or Another

Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry of Georgia, on introducing an anti-miscegenation amendment to the Constitution in 1911.

Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery to black beasts will bring this nation to a fatal conflict.

I'm one a those natural born dog fuckers that dared ta marry a black woman, an' I predict more of tha same sort a disaster that I, an' dear heart, bless her, have brought upon America if same-sex marriage is accepted. Atrios be da man, Goddamnee.

Too bad Roddenberry's dead, cuz I got a broken baseball bat that was made fer his asshole.

posted 5:43 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Tell The Repukes Whatfer 'Bout Tha 9/11 Commission

I'm liftin' this motherfucker wholesale from Kevin Hayden at The American Street, an' I hope he don't mind. This is important. Kevin also has a link to what Gary Hart said to Deb Norville, case ya need encouragement.

Dear Representative _________;

Initially, the president opposed the creation of the commission. After the will of the people became clear, he changed to a position of support. It took a year to get the process started. It has taken numerous efforts for the commission to overcome resistance in the Pentagon, the White House and State Department to gain access to materials necessary for their work, even though the White House permitted a journalist previous access to some of those documents.

Now that 9-11 Commission needs a two-month extension to properly complete its work. The president supports that. The Republican Speaker of the House has refused.

This is an issue above politics. As an American, I believe we need to have this investigation completed properly. As a caring neighbor, I think the families of nearly 3,000 victims deserve to know exactly what happened and why. It would dishonor the dead to do any less.

As a citizen, I want to know how a band of renegades and rogues and murderers were able to penetrate the defenses of the strongest military in the world and successfully strike one of its major command centers at the Pentagon. Though the guilt falls on the murderers and the people who supplied, funded and sheltered them, I want to know why not a single person in our intelligence agencies, military command or appointive office has been held accountable for anything at all when there is a significant body of public evidence that indicates a number of errors were made.

How else can we know what occurred and how we might prevent future occurrences? How can we have confidence in the leadership we have in the present war against terrorists when our president can not even lead the Speaker of the House to grant sixty more days to complete this job properly?

The Speaker's response lacks reason, lacks conscience, lacks compassion for the families and does a disservice to us all. I encourage you to use your good office and all means at your disposal to persuade Representative Hastert to grant this extension. It is imperative to our trust in our government that complete disclosure and full accountability occur in this matter.

Respectfully;

You can contact your Senators and Representative here.

UPDATE: 'Pears like this sucker might be won. Billmon reports:

Reversing course, House Speaker Dennis Hastert has told the commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks that he will not oppose granting it the 60 additional days it requested to file its report.
The move came after Sens. John McCain and Joe Lieberman launched a bipartisan effort Friday to force House Republicans to extend the deadline.

I sure don't always agree with McCain, but he's like a throwback to the days when it was honorable to be a Republican. Lieberman, too. Whaddaya mean, Lieberman's not a Republican? Are ya crazy?

posted 4:59 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

"The Passion of The Christ" Dissected

I don't try to make any secret of my admiration for both Dave Neiwert's intellect and his writing. Orcinus gotta be my favorite blog, an' I read a lotta blogs. This, The Passion of Mad Max Beyond Braveheart, may be the best review of Mel Gibson's movie you'll ever read. I can't say for sure, cuz I ain't seen tha movie, an' I ain't a'tall sure I wanta. What I might be capable of in extreme anger and what I wanta see, in a dispassionate mood, on tha moovee screen is two very different things. It's long, it's intellekshul, but it's very interesting and has good links to boot. An' it bust's Mel's bullshit big time.

posted 4:38 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Dying For Insurance Industry Profits

Looks like the grocery strike here in SoCal is just about over. Since one of the major issues in the strike was health care, I figger it's time to take a look at the giant clusterfuck we call the US health care system. If you think this is a long post, it's drawn from a seven article series in the San Francisco Chronicle that every American ought to read.

More than 43 million Americans now lack health insurance and account for as much as $130 billion in annual economic losses resulting from poor health or early death, according to the influential Institute of Medicine in Washington.

[snip]

"It's conservatively estimated that 18,000 adults die every year because they don't have insurance," she observed. "That means at least 1,500 people will die this month and about 50 people are dying today, as we speak."

[snip]

"We're already spending enough money each year to pay for a national health plan," Hellander said. "The problem is that we're throwing a lot of that cash down the drain."

[snip]

The United States squanders more money every year on health care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide medical coverage for the 43 million Americans now lacking insurance.

[snip]

But if a national health care plan like Canada's were implemented in this country, the researchers found, administrative overhead would be slashed by about $286 billion.

That's just administrative savings. Because of access to primary and preventive care, we'd also save on emergency room and hospitalization costs.

In 2002, the California Health and Human Services Agency asked the Lewin Group, a prominent health care consulting firm, to evaluate nine different proposals for expanding coverage in the state. The proposals included reforms similar to Bodaken's [Blue Shield] plan along with establishment of a single-payer system.

The Lewin Group concluded that only a single-payer system would guarantee universal coverage and control future costs, while also reducing health care spending by as much as $7.6 billion per year through economies of scale.

[snip]

UCSF's Grumbach says the time will come when taxpayer-backed universal coverage is seen as the only true solution to the state's health care woes. It won't be tomorrow, though, or the day after.

"It could take 10 years," Grumbach said. "But the current system is so bloody awful and so many people are suffering, something eventually has to happen."

[snip]

. . . one of the best kept secrets in the United States, according to the American Hospital Association, is that 80 percent of our emergency rooms are overcrowded and the average wait is four hours.

[snip]

a single-payer system would reduce the burden on emergency rooms by providing everyone with primary care in physicians' offices and outpatient facilities.

[snip]

Last week, the independent Institute of Medicine, affiliated with the prestigious National Academy of Science, urged the United States to adopt universal health coverage by 2010.

[snip]

Unlike HMOs, which eat up to 35 percent of their revenue with administrative overhead, advertising and profits, single-payer systems such as Medicare or the Canadian health system direct 97 to 98 cents of every dollar to health-care delivery.

The major reason we don't have single-payer in the US is the powerful, and very well financed, opposition of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. When we do get it, it will be because of the support of all the other industries that can no longer afford to pay for a broken system. Ain't it grand livin' in a "democracy?"

posted 1:24 PM by Phaedrus | Link | |

God's Supreme Court Justice Above Reproach

Scalia Took Trip Set Up by Lawyer in Two 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."

No. Nor could having sons employed by law firms representing the litigant (Florida, 2000), nor could hangin' out with the litigant (Cheney). I'm guessin' nothin' could give anyone reasonable cause to question Scalia's impartiality.

Federal law says that "any justice or judge shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might be questioned."

Whatever happened to the venerable concept of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety?

posted 11:26 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Let The Mass Bloodletting Begin

Susan Sanford, copy editor at the Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle, and, apparently, one of those nasty-mean evangeli-fundies, approvingly quotes tha Bible in her opinion piece:

"If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." Leviticus 20:13.

Oookaayy, but all I gotta say is, if Christians get ta kill homosexuals, then, equal rights under the law, right? I get to kill anybody who crosses my religion, which I pretty much just make up as I go along. I figger I'll start with tha coveters and tha usurers. It'll be open season on rich folk. This could get ta be quite a bloodbath.

Thanks to Ungodly Politics.

posted 9:00 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Boomer Retirement: Another Disaster Waiting To Happen.

Baby boomers face retirement squeeze

Sorry, gotta say it. No shit, Sherlock. Greenspan wants to cut Social Security and:

Evidence is mounting that the other two pillars of retirement security - private-sector pensions and personal savings - are no longer adequate to ensure that most Americans will have enough to live on when then retire.

[snip]

"Tens of millions of Americans are seriously underprepared to meet their financial needs in retirement," says Benjamin Stein, of the National Retirement Planning Coalition. As many as 40 percent of Americans have saved almost nothing for retirement, he told a congressional panel Wednesday.

I've known that for many years. The reason for it seriously undercuts much of the right wing's silly personal responsibility arguments. They say people should put aside money to cover their own retirement and healthcare and God knows what all else, and not rely on government or their employer. Only one problem. It's a should'n all over people argument. Should don't mean shit in the real world, though I can understand why dingers don't know that.

The problem with the seemingly logical argument that people should prudently provide for their own needs is that it ignores the fact that most people just aren't made that way. Most people spend most of their money. It's human nature. You can should all ya want ta, ain't gonna change a thing. When you make an argument that ignores human nature, it can be logical as all hell and still be totally unreasonable.

Most people need somebody ta take the money for those needs outta their paycheck before they get it. That's why pensions and health insurance work and prudent self-provision doesn't. A course, doin' that would cut into discretionary spending, which would cost corporations money, at least in the short term, and all they care about is the short term. Maybe that's why the corporatist conservatives are opposed.

I'm never married to a single approach to a problem. I'm willing to entertain solutions other than Social Security, f'r instance. What I am utterly unwilling to do is pretend there's no problem and do nothing, which seems to be the usual right wing "solution."

posted 8:15 AM by Phaedrus | Link | |

Who Qualifies As A Bisexual, Anyway?

Eugene Volokh has a post up that quotes numbers from a survey on sexuality. It's notoriously difficult to get accurate information on this stuff, but he says this is the best he's seen. The differences between reported attraction and reported sexual activity are startling. F'r instance, 0.6% of men report being attracted to both genders and 3.1% report attraction to either mostly same gender or only same gender, but 25% of those who'd had some same sex partners reported having partners of both sexes within the last year alone. Going by this survey, apparently I'm freakishly straight. Who knew? Check it out, I found it fascinating.

posted 7:21 AM by Phaedrus | Link |