Are they really hiding something or just a pack of stubborn, mule-headed fools?...

'Nearly a year after first requesting documents related to the Air Force's planned multi-billion dollar deal to acquire Boeing KC-767 refueling tankers, John McCain is still unhappy with the Pentagon's response, according to a Senate aide. While the Pentagon has turned over some documents and offered to arrange restricted viewing of others, the DoD has never fully complied with the McCain's requests, according to an aide. 'This matter of the documents had been elevated to Senate leadership,' the aide said. In September of that year, McCain made a new request seeking internal communications between Michael Wynne, the Pentagon's acting acquisition chief, and James Roche, the Air Force secretary. While McCain initially made his request as chairman of the SAC, the issue eventually was handed over to the SASC. SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld replied formally to SASC last month, saying that the Pentagon would allow the relevant oversight committees to view some internal correspondence. However, he placed restrictions on which documents could be reviewed, and would not allow the members to have their own copies. McCain said the Pentagon's offer was unacceptable. The documents issue continues to cause problems for the Pentagon's civilian leadership. McCain has placed a hold on all civilian nominations to Pentagon positions until the issue is resolved. (Defense Daily) "

USCG is quietly going about its business

Almost entirely overlooked in the war on terror is what looks to me to be a significant step in the right direction -- "New international security measures took effect Thursday at seaports worldwide. As a result, the Coast Guard barred at least six ships - of 265 that were expected to arrive on Thursday - from entering U.S. ports. The United Nations-imposed rules are designed in part to prevent terrorists from smuggling themselves or materials such as radioactive 'dirty bombs' aboard cargo ships. The rules allow the Coast Guard to board every foreign vessel that approaches a U.S. port to make sure it has a security officer, an alarm system, a way to check the identification of everyone on board and a way to restrict access to the ship's bridge and engine rooms. DHS Secretary Tom Ridge said the rules will add to measures already in place. According to the Homeland Security Department, more than 95% of the nation's overseas cargo moves through U.S. ports"

Meanwhile, back at the Halliburton ranch (aka Iraq) a

"former Army chaplain working for Halliburton was so upset by attacks on the company, she e-mailed the CEO with a strategy on how to fight the political slurs. But today, after five months inside Halliburton‘s operation in Kuwait, Marie deYoung has radically changed her opinion.

MARIE DEYOUNG, FORMER HALLIBURTON EMPLOYEE: It‘s just a gravy train.

MYERS: DeYoung audited accounts for Halliburton subsidiary KBR. She claims the there was no effort to hold down costs because all costs were passed on directly to taxpayers and that she repeatedly complained to superiors of waste and fraud. The company‘s response?

DEYOUNG: Quote: “We can as dumb and stupid as we want in the first year of a war and nobody is going to care.”

MYERS: DeYoung produced documents detailing alleged waste even on routine services, $50,000 a month for soda at $45 a case, $1 million a month to clean clothes or $100 for each 15-pound bag of laundry.

DEYOUNG: That money could have been used to take care of soldiers.

MYERS: DeYoung also claims people were paid to do nothing. This man says he was one of them. Paid $82,000 a year to be a labor foreman in Iraq, Mike West claims he never had any laborers to supervise.

MIKE WEST, FORMER HALLIBURTON LABOR FOREMAN: They said, just log 12 hours a day and walk around and look busy. OK. So we did.

MYERS: Both deYoung and West have since left the company.

Pentagon documents obtained by NBC News support the whistle-blowers‘ charges. In December, auditors complained of Halliburton‘s serious deficiencies, including lack of cost control and cost consciousness, examples, purchase of hundreds of high-end SUVs and pickup trucks loaded with options like C.D. players, which most KBR employees do not need, duplication and gold plating in purchases of computer and high-tech equipment, Halliburton employees living in five-star hotels.

The company declined an interview, but suggests critics are politically motivated—quote—“When Halliburton succeeds, Iraq progresses. Sadly, a few people don‘t want either of those results.”

Halliburton also says the soda problem has been corrected and the laundry charges are being investigated, but insists it absolutely not true the company is cavalier about taxpayer money.

DEYOUNG: They‘re using the war as an excuse, but it‘s not the war.

It was very bad management.

MYERS (on camera): Pentagon auditors apparently agree. They‘re withholding $186 million from the company and threatening to hold back even more unless Halliburton corrects the problems.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5344023

... We are shocked - SHOCKED!

With the economy hitting on at least 6 or 7 cylinders and Iraq out of ICU

think what Shrub's polling numbers will look like in 3 months if he's already even now...

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- ...A newly released CBS News poll shows Kerry and Bush running neck-and-neck just a month after the Massachusetts senator held an eight point lead over the president.

Still, Bush's overall approval ratings are close to all-time lows. Slightly more than half of Americans -- 51 percent -- now disapprove of the way Bush is doing his job, while 42 percent approve of his performance. These ratings are almost unchanged from 52 percent and 41 percent recorded one month ago.

The nationwide poll was conducted in a telephone survey of 1,053 adults from Wednesday through Sunday, before news of the early transfer of sovereignty for Iraq, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent. Read the entire poll.

On the economy, 58 percent of Americans believe the economy is in "good" shape, compared to 52 percent in late May. Forty-one percent believe it is in "bad" shape, down from 47 percent in late May. Thirty percent of Americans believe the economy is "getting better," up from 25 percent a month earlier.

....

Despite the early transfer of power, Americans are still pessimistic about progress in Iraq. Forty percent think things are "going well" in Iraq, compared to 60 percent a year ago. And 57 percent believe things are "going badly" in Iraq, compared to 36 percent a year ago.

Asked whether the result of the war was worth the cost, in both dollars and human life, about one-third of Americans said it was "worth it." Sixty percent of respondents said it was "not worth it." That's roughly unchanged from last month.

About 48 percent of respondents said the United States "did the right thing" in Iraq, while 46 percent said it did not. That's roughly unchanged from April and down sharply from December."


... hell, he won't even need to purge a few voters, much less activate the Diebold Trapdoor.

SCOTUS surprises Bush on detainees

This will be considered a lamentable aberration in the near future ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court dealt a setback to the Bush administration's war against terrorism Monday, ruling that both U.S. citizens and foreign nationals seized as potential terrorists can challenge their treatment in U.S. courts.

The court refused to endorse a central claim of the White House since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001: That the government has authority to seize and detain suspected terrorists or their protectors and indefinitely deny access to courts or lawyers while interrogating them.

...

O'Connor was joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Stephen Breyer in her view that Congress had authorized detentions such as Hamdi's in what she called very limited circumstances...Two other justices, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would have gone further and declared Hamdi's detention improper. Still, they joined O'Connor and the others to say that Hamdi, and by extension others who may be in his position, are entitled to their day in court."

...Pop QUIZ:
1. who dissented?
2. how many court seats are going to change hands in the next administration?
3. how will the court be aligned for the next 30 years if Bush gets another term?

and 4. How's that working for ya?

Econometrics point to rough sledding in our future

http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20040621-mon.html

"The equity bubble of the late 1990s was a transforming event in many ways for the US economy. But there is one lasting implication that stands out above all - an important transition in the character of the American growth dynamic. The income-driven impetus of yesteryear has increasingly given way to asset-driven wealth effects. For consumers, businesses, policymakers, and investors, the asset economy turns many of the old macro rules inside out. In the end, it could well pose the most profound challenge of all to sustainable recovery in the United States.

The genesis of the asset economy can be traced back to the late 1980s. Prior to that period, there was little change in the role of assets as a driver of US economic activity. Over the 1952 to 1985 time span, the ratio of household sector assets to GDP fluctuated in a fairly tight range centered around 3.75. But then, as the all-powerful secular bull markets in stocks and bonds took hold, that ratio started to drift upward. In the latter half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, it moved up to around 4.25. And then, courtesy of the Great Equity Bubble, it took off. Over the 1994 to 2003 period, household sector assets expanded by 84% - more than 50% faster than the growth of nominal GDP over the same interval. As a result, the ratio of US household sector assets to GDP pierced the 5.25 threshold in 1999. While the asset base was then pruned in the post-bubble carnage that was to follow, by the end of 2003, household sector assets still stood at 4.9 times US GDP, well in excess of earlier norms. "

...and 4.9% of a hugely expanded 11 trillion GDP, by the way...


"The emergence of the asset economy over the past decade is traceable to two developments - the equity bubble of the late 1990s and the sharp appreciation of property in the early 2000s. Over the 1994-99 period, equity holdings rose from about 19% of total household assets to about 35%. For most of the long sweep of modern economic history, the home had been the American family's most important asset. As the equity bubble expanded, there was an extraordinary role reversal. In both 1998 and 1999, the equity share exceeded the property share of total household sector assets for the first time ever. In the post-bubble shakeout that was to follow, there was a reversion back toward earlier norms. However, while the equity share of total household sector assets fell back to 24% by the end of 2003, it was still double the average from the mid-seventies though the 1980s. Meanwhile, the tangible property share of consumer assets had risen back to about 37% at the end of 2003, near the upper end of historical experience.

It didn't take long for the American consumer to uncover the miracle of the Roaring Nineties. The "wealth effect" - the ability to monetize asset inflation and convert it into consumer purchasing power - quickly became the rage. The macro role of wealth effects is very much dependent on context. In a vigorous income generation climate, wealth effects are the "icing on the cake" - in effect, allowing households to indulge in excess spending or build saving for the future. In an income-constrained environment, the wealth effect takes on a very different role; it can plug the gap brought about by a shortfall in income generation, thereby enabling consumers to defend the lifestyles they had grown accustomed to. Both roles have come into play in recent years.

In the asset economy, there are critical distinctions between the wealth effects of equities and property. The equity wealth effect is largely a "mark-to-market" translation of the household sector's success (or failures) as investors; as such, it reflects the monetization of both realized capital gains as well as the psychological boost imparted by recent and expected appreciation. The "feel good" element of this latter effect cannot be minimized in a frothy stock market climate. It has the potential to convert the excesses of the asset bubble into the excesses of the consumer spending climate. The property wealth effect is a very different animal. The monetization of wealth from tangible assets takes two forms - realizing the gain by selling property or extracting the gain through mortgage refinancing. In recent years, the "refi" bonanza has been on the ascendancy in allowing the American consumer to capture the benefits of the property wealth effect.

Largely for those reasons, economists have found that the impacts of the property wealth effect are well in excess of the impetus provided by the equity wealth effect. Whereas econometric studies demonstrate that consumers spend about 3-4 cents of every dollar's worth of equity appreciation, the spending propensity out of property appreciation is closer to 7 cents on the dollar (see Karl Case, John Quigley, and Robert Shiller, "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus the Housing Market," NBER Working Paper, October 2001). This differential wealth effect is very important for the asset economy in one other way - it underscores the critical role of debt as the means by which asset appreciation can be converted into purchasing power. In property markets, equity extraction and debt go hand in hand. The property wealth effect is a far more debt-intensive phenomenon than the equity wealth effect.

This "leverage factor" shows up dramatically in the recent debt binge of the American consumer. While there has been a clear secular upturn in the household sector's appetite for debt over the past 50 years, the increases in leverage in the past seven years have dwarfed earlier trends. By the end of 2003, total household sector debt had hit 85% of GDP, up fully 15 percentage points from pre-bubble readings of 70% prevailing as recently as 1995. This development, of course, is widely depicted as the "rational" response to two developments - record low interest rates and rapid house-price appreciation.

Yet the evidence raises some serious warning signs about the potential ramifications of this debt binge. Although market interest rates had fallen to 40-year lows, debt service burdens remained near the upper end of historical experience, according to the Federal Reserve. It is also common to believe that rational consumers have locked in fixed rate debt in funding their wealth effects - in effect, securing a guaranteed insulation from any back-up in interest rates. The recent shift to adjustable-rate rate mortgages draws this assertion into serious question; the ARMs portion of the dollar value of new mortgage origination exceeded 50% in May 2004, well in excess of the 20% share prevailing in early 2003.

Stepping back from the data flow, it is important to appreciate the consequences of the asset economy. A more chilling picture emerges. Courtesy of the Great Bubble of the late 1990s, the American consumer discovered the sheer ecstasy of converting asset holdings into spending power. Households learned to spend beyond their means - as those means are defined by growth in disposable personal income. Yet when the equity bubble popped, the consumer never skipped a beat. There was a seamless transition to another asset class -property. And the joys of asset-driven consumption continued unabated. Income-based consumption had, in effect, become pass?, and American households went on an unprecedented debt binge. No one seemed to care that the personal saving rate had fallen from 5.7% in the pre-bubble days of early 1995 to 1.0% in late 2001 (and now stands at just 2.3%). In the asset economy, who needs to save out of his or her paychecks? Who needs to worry about debt? Asset markets, goes the argument, had emerged as a new and presumably permanent source of saving for the American consumer.

The role of the wealth effect took on added importance in the current economic recovery. With jobs and real wages under extraordinary pressure, there has been an unprecedented shortfall in the cyclical rebound in this key wages and salaries component of personal income. As job growth has picked up in recent months, that gap has started to close. But through April 2004, real wages and salaries had still risen less than 3% from levels prevailing at the recession trough in November 2001; that's far short of the nearly 10% gains that had occurred in the first 29 months of the preceding six cyclical recoveries. This translates into a shortfall of $280 billion in "missing" real personal income. In such an income-short recovery, there is an added urgency to draw on the wealth effects as a supplemental support to spending. In the asset economy, the idea of cutting back on discretionary consumption - a classic pattern of the American business cycle - had also become pass?.

America's policymakers have joined in celebrating the miracles of the asset economy. The Federal Reserve has taken the lead in this regard, providing the rock-bottom interest rates that have taken asset markets into uncharted territory. But the Great Enabler has now created the ultimate moral hazard: overly-indebted consumers and overly-exposed financial institutions, both of which are exceedingly vulnerable to a long overdue normalization of monetary policy. The fiscal authorities have also been seduced by the siren song of the asset economy. Income-short consumers have drawn ample support from open-ended tax cutting and the massive government budget deficits such initiatives have spawned.

That takes us to one of the greatest pitfalls of the asset economy - ever-widening twin deficits. Increasingly, asset-based saving has come to be viewed as a substitute for the income-based impetus to consumer demand. This has resulted in an unprecedented shortfall of domestic saving: America's net national saving rate - the combined saving of households, businesses, and the government sector (net of depreciation) - fell to a record low of about 2% of GDP in 2003. Lacking in domestic saving, the US has had to import surplus saving from abroad and run massive current account and trade deficits to attract that capital. The record current account deficit of about $580 billion just reported for 1Q04 — 5.1% of GDP — is a grim reminder of how serious these deficits are. Such twin deficits are part and parcel of the asset economy. That also underscores the important role that foreign investors - especially foreign central banks - have played in funding the excesses of a saving-short, asset-long US economy. The world is hooked on America's asset economy as never before.

In the asset economy, the rules of traditional macro have been rewritten. Income-based metrics that have long been used to scale deficits, debt, and saving are depicted as irrelevant. Instead, the balancing act is now evaluated relative to asset-determined wealth. I must confess to being just as suspicious of this new paradigm as I was of another such scheme back in the late 1990s. As the bursting of the equity bubble should forever remind us, there is no guarantee of permanence to asset values and the wealth effects they spawn. That's even more the case when assets are artificially inflated by unsustainably low interest rates. Saving-short, overly-indebted, and more reliant on foreign lending than ever before, the United States has pushed the limits of its asset dependency.

That takes us to the weakest link in this daisy chain - the striking juxtaposition between the imbalances of the income-based US economy and the purported soundness of the asset-based alternative. In a rush to abandon the old and embrace the new, America has pushed the concept of income-based imbalances into uncharted territory. This could not have happened, in my view, were it not for the high-octane fuel of extraordinary stimulus of monetary and fiscal policies. As those policies are now normalized, the asset economy should be subjected to its toughest test.

meanwhile, back at the boardroom, the looting continues.

Stock options are compensation, compensation is an expense. Why is this so hard to understand?

" the House Financial Services Committee voted to override the Financial Accounting Standards Board's decision to force companies to account for all stock options as a compensation expense.

The bill, which has an alarming number of co-sponsors in the House, would instead require the expensing only of options granted to a company's top five executives. Plus, according to Reuters, it would delay implementing any change for a year so that the Securities and Exchange Commission could study its potential impact.


Wow. As if the options-expensing rule, which was first proposed about a decade ago, hasn't been studied enough. As if expensing options granted to an arbitrary number of employees makes more sense than expensing all of them. Would Congress be so agreeable if, say, FASB decided that Intel didn't report any of its debt other than the money owed its top five creditors?

The dumbest thing here, though, is how so many congressmen have convinced themselves that -- with the help of a few meetings with lobbyists and a few big-pocketed constituents -- they know better how to accurately write up financials than do the professionals who have been debating accounting theory for years.

Yes. Congress has done such a good job with the public sector's finances that it can't help cleaning up the private sector's, too."

... The Coalition of the Conniving and the Clueless strikes again!

meanwhile, back in the boardrooms, the looting continues ...

our CEOs are pirates compared to Europe's
2004-06-23 07:28:33
"BusinessWeek, which has tracked executive pay for half a century, figures that CEOs of the country's largest corporations last year were paid about 300 times the average factory worker. In Europe, in contrast, chief executive pay tops out at 30 times the average worker. Americans might defend this disparity by declaring that U.S. companies are better run, but are these companies more than 10 times better run?"

...Not when they're imploding their companies, they're not.



"What makes a “worst” CEO in the minds of so many investors and employees is not merely poor decision-making on the allocation of capital and other resources. Almost everyone can tolerate well-intentioned plans that go awry. Instead, it is the ugly way that CEOs have normalized the behavior of compensating themselves at increasingly more obscene levels -- often on the basis of self-set relative performance targets that fail to account for the absolute performance that matters most to all stakeholders: long-term corporate value as reflected in a higher stock price.

Massive payday for WellPoint execs

In Southern California, anger at CEOs has reached the boiling point over the recent discovery last week that the proposed purchase of local insurer WellPoint Health Networks by Indiana-based Anthem (ATH, news, msgs) could trigger $357 million in bonuses to WellPoint executives. Chief executive Leonard Schaeffer alone would pocket $37 million in cash, plus $45 million in pension rights. All this at a time when HMOs are increasing premiums due to the allegedly rising cost of health care.

Why did these guys believe they could get away with such a massive payday from a public company’s treasury at a time of soaring medical costs nationwide? The jackpot, buried deep in a 200-page proxy statement, was explained away by a WellPoint consultant at a hearing before state lawmakers with the comment that the pay package fell within industry norms."

moneycentral.msn.com/content/P85061.asp


...Hey! We don't need no steeenking regulations!

W blew 3 chances to get Zarqawi

Somehow, I'm sure this is Clinton's fault...

By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News

Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.

The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.

“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.

The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.

Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.

Former diplomats & soldiers speak up

“Over nearly half a century we have worked energetically in all regions of the world, often in very difficult circumstances, to build piece by piece a structure of respect and influence for the United States that has served our county very well over the last 60 years,” Phyllis Oakley, a member of the group, told the National Press Club in Washington earlier today. Others include Gen. Merrill McPeak, former chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force; Chas Freeman, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia; Adm. William Crowe, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H.W. Bush, was America's top military officer, and Adm. Stansfield Turner, a former director of the CIA. “Today we see that structure crumbling under an administration blinded by ideology and a callous indifference to the realities of the world around it," said Oakley. Never before have so many of us felt the need for a major change in the direction of our foreign policy.”
...


"You see this as a moral issue?
Yes. We do feel that it is our duty and that the fate of the United States—its status, our ultimate well-being, that of our children and grandchildren—is tied up in how the United States acts."

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5227192/site/newsweek/

...If you only vote once in your entire life this should be the one.

Under God stays in the Pledge ... for now

Actually, although I strongly favor separation of church & state, unconstitutional is hard to discern here. How long has 'in God we Trust' appeared on our money? Is THAT unconstitutional too?

What if we said 'atheism shall be the official religion of the US; any official mention in text or symbol of a deity is prohibited' -- would that be unconstitutional? It's a question I think needs to be asked because that's where we're headed.

CEO Pay Explodes, Wall Street Fiddles

Stumbled on this worthy column today about bandits of the boardroom...

"Re-thinking rules and regulations
Commentary: What if disclosure's not enough?

By Michael Collins, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 1:36 PM ET April 29, 2004

WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- I believe in a free market, and was taught the less government interferes, the better. I've also been writing for years about the fight for more disclosure in the financial world, thinking that if the information was just out there, the market would take care of the other problems.

Perhaps it's time to think again.

Part of the problem is too many corporations, investment companies and financial services providers approach disclosure issues the same way drug companies list possible ugly side effects quickly at the end of advertisements.

But part of the blame lies with investors, us in the media, boards of directors, and investment advisors who don't pay enough attention to things that are disclosed but just don't seem right.

Take executive pay. It's one of the best-disclosed items in corporate America -- at least the basic elements. But pay packages still go up, sometimes regardless of how outrageous the compensation or how unrelated to the fate of the stock or the employees.

Data compiled by Bloomberg shows CEO pay at 70 of the largest 100 US firms rose to an average of $14.1 million last year -- which the Corporate Library notes is equivalent to 384 years of an average employee's pay of $36,764. The 2003 studies are showing executive pay isn't rising as fast as it has in the past, more compensation is tied to company performance, and some executives actually saw their packages shrink -- but are we getting our $14-million worth?

Shareholder value flies away

Another study out recently, by Professor David Yermack of the Stern School of Business at NYU, found that "CEOs' personal use of company aircraft is associated with severe and significant under-performance of their employers' stocks." Yermack found that firms that grant this perk under-perform market benchmarks by about 4 percent a year -- after controlling for other factors.

And the underperformance can't be attributed to the cost of providing the aircraft. Yermack speculates "CEOs who consume excessive perks may be less likely to work hard, less protective of the company's assets, or more likely to tolerate bloated or inefficient cost structures."

When it comes to outrageous pay and perks, and how they affect shareholder value, you can blame greedy executives, compliant boards of directors or misguided compensation consultants. But it's not a problem of disclosure. The pay and perks are right there in the filings -- and mailed to every shareholder every year. We just need to pay attention, and find a way to hold the companies and executives accountable.

In five years writing the Gadfly, I can't count the number of times I've heard aggrieved investors use a version of "If we had only known..." The answer seemed to be insisting that investors could get the information they needed, rather than counting on more policing from regulators.

But more frequently now, I'm seeing that even when investors could know, they either don't bother to find out, don't seem to care, or feel they can't do anything about the problem that is disclosed."

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&dist=nwtpf&guid=%7BA4126696%2DA6E8%2D48EB%2D8A30%2DF3ED3E9765A5%7D

... you were right the last time -- individuals have no power to effect change in the boardroom. The same problem with unregulated monopolies applies in every executive boardroom -- there is no natural restraining mechanism to the natural proclivity toward gouging the maximum out the system. It only gets worse over time as each board looks at the behavior of the others and says "they're getting theirs, I'll get mine"

What Mr Collins fails to point out is that while CEO pay in overseas corporations is getting ever more disproportionately higher than the average worker's, the ratio is still far lower and climbing less rapidly than our bandits of the boardroom.

The Grand Old Hypocritical Party stoops again

Bush Asked for Vatican's Reelection Help
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/13/politics/13george.html
Published: June 13, 2004


n his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper's Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."

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Mr. Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that the president had pledged aggressive efforts "on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican's help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken." Cardinal Sodano did not respond, Mr. Allen reported, citing the same unnamed people.

A spokesman for the Vatican declined yesterday to disclose the contents of the meeting, which followed the president's brief meeting with the pope. Jeanie Mamo, a spokeswoman for the White House, said: "They had a good, private discussion. They discussed a number of priorities of shared concern, and the president's and the Vatican's positions on these issues are well known."

The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the report "mind-boggling."

"It is just unprecedented for a president to ask for help from the Vatican to get re-elected, and that is exactly what this is," Mr. Lynn said. Linda Pieczynski, a spokeswoman for Call to Action, a liberal Catholic group, said, "For a president to try to get the leader of any religious organization to manipulate his fellow clergymen to support a political candidate crosses the line in this country."

But some with experience in Roman Catholic politics said they were hardly shocked. "Any head of state who goes to the Vatican will attempt to present a case," said Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete, a professor of theology at St. Joseph's Seminary in New York. Monsignor Albacete, who has served as a translator for Catholic officials in meetings with heads of state, said: "If it is done in a very rude way, then the Vatican will remember and you won't get invited again. But if it is done in a diplomatic way, that is why they go to the Vatican anyway. It is not an act of devotion. It is a political thing."

Mr. Bush's campaign is betting heavily on churchgoers in his re-election effort, and how Catholic voters apply their faith to politics is emerging as a focal point of the race. There are an estimated 63 million Catholics in the United States. Bush campaign pollsters have said that in the last election, people who attended church regularly voted disproportionately for Mr. Bush, though Catholics were much more evenly split than Protestants were.

Once a reliably Democratic constituency, Catholics have become divided, with traditionalist Catholics making common cause with conservative evangelical Protestants on social issues like opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. But Mr. Bush is also a born-again Methodist who is likely to face a Roman Catholic opponent, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts. And the pope and other Catholic officials have repeatedly criticized the Bush administration over the war in Iraq.

In the last six months, a handful of Catholic bishops in the United States have already weighed in on the presidential race by threatening to withhold communion from Catholic politicians who disagree with the church's stance on abortion, a group that includes Senator Kerry.

Other bishops, however, have said that threatening to withhold communion goes too far, and the pope has warned of "the formation of factions within the church" in the United States. The bishops are expected to take up the matter at a closed-door conference this week in Colorado.

Pope John Paul II praised Mr. Bush last week for "the promotion of moral values" but reminded the president of the pope's "unequivocal position" on Iraq."


... One can only imagine the vitriol that Savage & Limbug would be spewing if it were Kerry that asked the Vatican to pressure American bishops to support his campaign.

McCain is the voice in the deficit wilderness

the Progressive Policy Institute, in conjunction with eight other Washington think tanks ranging from the right to the center to the left, convened a forum entitled Restoring Fiscal Sanity -- While We Still Can. The forum showed that even at a time of deep partisan divisions, all serious thinkers, regardless of party or ideology, agree that the federal government has gone fiscally insane, and needs radical therapy to recover.

...McCain promised the audience the he would offend "each and every one of you in some way." Citing the general loss of bipartisan spirit in Congress, McCain said: "[T]here is one thing that unites Republicans and Democrats: Fiscal irresponsibility has become the great unifier of late, and for that we should all be ashamed."

But McCain reserved his strongest words for his own GOP. "The party that was long known to be the guardian of the treasury is now its routine raider," he said. "I'm a Barry Goldwater Republican. I revere Ronald Reagan and his party of limited government. Sadly, that party is no longer."

McCain also excoriated the misguided priorities of the GOP-controlled federal government during the war on terrorism. "I don't remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes," he observed. "Throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice.... Name one thing that Congress has told the special interests and their fat-cat lobbyists to do without since this war began?"

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=450007&subid=900060&contentid=252648

... How's that working for ya, John?

Fail to plan, plan to fail

"Thousands of soldiers nearing discharge learned last week that the Army was extending their tours of duty to keep them with their units in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's another clear sign, if Americans still needed one, that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon disastrously underestimated the number of troops and the amount of time it would take to secure these two countries. The men and women of America's volunteer Army are being required to bridge the gap.

The Bush administration now talks about maintaining large numbers of American ground troops in Iraq through at least the end of next year. Most of that burden will fall on the Army, with limited help from the National Guard and the Marines. That is more than the Army, at its present strength, can handle without paying a heavy price in future combat readiness and re-enlistment rates.

The Army can comfortably station no more than about one-third of its 33 combat brigades in front-line zones. Today, some 18 of those 33 brigades are on front-line duty — roughly 14 in Iraq, 2 in Afghanistan and 2 elsewhere, including, at least for now, Korea. To field those nearly 7 extra brigades, discharges are being delayed, troops sent back to combat faster, and training exercises skipped.

Simply expanding the Army to the point where it could easily handle current demands would be neither practical nor wise. It would require having more than 50 combat brigades, as the Army did at the end of the cold war. Such a buildup would take at least two years to complete and would cost tens of billions a year at a time of record and unsustainable deficits. Reinstating the draft, which almost no military professional favors, would not shorten this timetable or substantially reduce the cost."

www.nytimes.com/2004/06/08/opinion/08TUE1.html?ex=1087358400&en=7ef95daeaeb96585&ei=5065

... they knew the job was dangerous when they took it, Fred.

Pundits for Ahnold thought he'd actually balance the books by cutting waste

Are they still smoking whatever they were puffing last fall? ...


From Oct '03 Cavuto on Business: Can Arnold Save the Golden State?

Neil Cavuto: He wanted it, now he's got it. Arnold Schwarzenegger (search) said he'd take on California's problems. Now he'll get his chance. So what should he do first to fix the world's 5th largest economy? Jack Welch, you came into General Electric years ago. A huge company with money problems, similar to what Schwarzenegger is walking into. What should Arnold do?

Jack Welch: He needs to capitalize on the success he had with the election. I hope there are good young stars on his team. I like the diversity on his team. He has to lay out his issues, but he better not go near taxes.

Neil Cavuto: He seems to have put himself in a box by saying he can do this buy cutting through waste and fraud without hiking taxes. Can he?

Meredith Whitney: California mirrors a lot of what happened in corporate America, where the idea was why hire one guy when you can hire one guy and five guys to watch that one guy. Arnold needs to cut costs. The state is spending money like it still has revenues coming in during the height of the bull market back 1999 and 2000.

Neil Cavuto: The governor doesn't have a great deal of power in that state, right Jim?

Jim Rogers: That's right. The democrats control the state congress and they are waiting for him so they can hack him out at the knees. Jack is right. He has to come in strong with his vision, but he has to have more than just vision. If they go back to what they had expended in 1998 or 1999, there would be no problems. The Democrats, under Gray Davis, shot spending through the roof.

Gregg Hymowitz: Arnold's charisma is only going to get him so far. Any budget or tax bills need to be passed by 2/3 of the legislature. As Jim said before the legislature is controlled by the Democrats. He's already said he's not going to cut education and education is 50 percent of the budget. Ultimately, the guy is going to have to raise taxes. And by the way Jack, in 1967 Governor Reagan raised taxes. In 1991, Governor Wilson raised taxes. And in 2003 or 2004 Governor Schwarzenegger will raise taxes.

Jack Welch: That's your answer for everything Gregg.

Jim Rogers: Gregg, you said Arnold said he won't cut back education. I don't want Arnold to cut back on education but if he cuts back the education bureaucracy, we don't need all these bureaucrats.

Gregg Hymowitz: You can't cut that much. The most aggressive analysts say the most you may be able to cut would be about $5 million. You're facing a $10 billion budget deficit. That's as large as the aggregate deficits of the other 49 states.

Neil Cavuto: Let's say that Arnold does do what Jack wants him to do. What do investors buy in that environment?

Meredith Whitney: I think a pure play is California Municipal bonds. I don't own them though.

Jim Rogers: I would also buy California bonds. It's the only thing you can buy. Just because California is getting better doesn't mean you should buy stocks. I would buy municipal bonds, but I wouldn't have them for very long. I would sell them into a rally.

Gregg Hymowitz: In order for California to improve, Silicon Valley will have to improve. And if that happens, I own and like Microsoft (MSFT). Although, I think Microsoft will rally before California improves. Also, I didn't hear Jack comment when I mentioned two very well known Republicans who raised taxes in California. One of which is, I'm sure one of Jack's idols, President Reagan.

Jim Rogers: Gregg, raising taxes has never made an economy get better.

Gregg Hymowitz: Balancing budgets makes economies better. I don't see how you don't agree with that. "


... well, one of 'em nailed it. Amen, Gregg. Sadly, I doubt the gullible fools that swallowed that line even remember what they ate.

Take a break

This is killer. Did it get a Cleo?

http://www.pocketmovies.net/detail_91.html

Enron screwed us, Ashcroft covered it up

Ashcroft had these recordings for THREE YEARS and what has Big John done? Nada, of course. Why doesn't he just hang a "BOHICA, California" sign on the Hoover Bldg?

"According to the Snohomish County Public Utility District, which obtained audiotapes of trader conversations from the Justice Department and transcribed them, traders openly discussed creating congestion on transmission lines, taking generating units offline to pump up electricity prices and overall manipulation of the California power market.

For example, in one transcript a trader asks about "all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California."

To which the Enron trader responds, "Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she's the one who couldn't figure out how to (expletive) vote on the butterfly ballot."

Conversations that involve Forney, Belden and Richter appear throughout the transcripts.

In one of those transcripts, a trader says to Richter, "So, uh, somebody's figured out how to set congestion?"

Richter: "Well, we ... we can set it if we want. I mean, it's not a hard game to do ..."

In another, an Enron trader identified as David discusses shutting down a steamer from a generating unit to increase prices.

"I was wondering, um, the demand out there is er ... there's not much, ah, demand for power at all and we're running kind of fat. Um, if you took down the steamer, how long would it take to get it back up?

"Oh, it's not something you want to just be turning on and off every hour. Let's put it that way," another trader says.

"If we shut it down, could you bring it back up in three — three or four hours, something like that?" David asks.

"Oh, yeah," the other trader says.

"Well, why don't you just go ahead and shut her down, then, if that's OK," David says.

Eric Christensen, a lawyer for the utility district, said it is seeking to convince a FERC administrative law judge that Enron should be ordered to surrender as much as $2 billion in unjust profits.


www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2004-06-02-enron_x.htm

Educated Shia Condemn Sadrists

From free Iraqi press ...

"Radical movement’s attacks on senior clergy seen as contradicting calls for unity.

By Hussein Ali in Baghdad (ICR No. 64, 25-May-04)

While charismatic preacher Muqtada al-Sadr might be a hero to a good number of young and poor Shia for his defiance of the Coalition, many of their older and middle-class co-religionists condemn his movement for causing divisions within their community.

In particular, middle-class Shia object to the movement's newspaper al-Hawza, whose closure helped trigger an April uprising across Iraq.

Ever since Coalition troops shut down the title in late March, curious Iraqis have snapped up back issues of what was formerly a fairly limited-circulation weekly.

Reading through them, they claim to have discovered attacks on senior scholars, which they say contradict Sadr’s public calls for Shia unity.

"When we started reading the back issues, we found many strange things written between the lines," said surgeon Ahmed Nasser, 45. "I found that it seeks disunity among Shia…There is a big contrast between what is published in the paper, and what [the Sadrists] declare on TV."

Kadhim Haider, 39, a teacher at al-Khowarnek secondary school, keeps a clipping of an article which suggests that many senior clergy are foreigners who do not take an interest in the lives of ordinary Iraqis.

"The basements of Najaf, cool in the summer and warm in winter, house scholars who are Persian, Afghani, and Pakistani, along with Iraqis who prefer not to appear in front of the public," the article says.

Several of Iraq's senior scholars - including Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Sayydi Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani – are foreigners.

For some Shia, such criticism of senior clergy justifies the US crackdown on the Sadr militants and their newspaper.

"The Shia benefit from the closure of the paper as it writes against our Marjeeya[ religious leadership],” said Ali Jaffar, 35, an engineer.

"Muqtada's followers claim that they are [loyal] to the marjaeya in Najaf, but they write the opposite in their newspaper."

Although hostility to al-Hawza is most marked among professional Shia, some working class members of the faith also support the closure of the title.

"If the paper was still issued, it might cause a civil war among the Shia themselves," said a day labourer. "It is great to have the paper closed. We thank the occupying forces."


http://iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_64_4_eng.txt


..hoodathunkit????

Police adviser: Snafu in Najaf

CNN.com - Police adviser: Snafu in Najaf - May 31, 2004: "BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An American adviser said the U.S. Army 'dropped the ball' by providing inadequate accommodations for Iraqi police officers who were to begin joint patrols with coalition troops in Najaf on Sunday.
About 100 police officers arrived in Najaf on Saturday to help calm the Shiite Muslim holy city, which has been besieged by fighting between U.S. forces and a militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
But when coalition troops arrived the next day to begin the joint patrols, the Iraqis were gone.
The Iraqis left their posts because they felt they received second-class treatment when they arrived from Baghdad, the American adviser said Monday.
The U.S. adviser said no sleeping arrangements had been made for the Iraqis, they had no personal gear for their duties or changes of clothes, and they were given military rations for meals that included pork. Muslims are forbidden to eat pork.
'They were not even given a mattress to sleep on,' the adviser said. 'The U.S. Army really dropped the ball here.'


... we're getting to the "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" point

They told his mother yesterday

on Memorial Day. Single mom Karen Ballard's only child, Ken, taken out by small arms fire. His tank company was on extended tour operating in Kufa. 77 days to go.

The brass hats and Guys in Ties continue to screw up their jobs and get our kids killed. It's time to declare victory and set the pullout date.

Mission Accomplished

The bad guys chalk up another one...

"May 30 (Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabian security forces stormed a housing compound in the Persian Gulf city of Khobar, freeing hostages held by militants who were surrounded after a shooting spree yesterday, a U.S. embassy spokesman said.

The troops this morning rescued 25 hostages at the Oasis compound, a residential complex for foreign workers, Agence France- Presse reported. Nine of the captives were killed when they tried to escape during the night, the news service said, citing one of the former hostages.

The U.S. embassy in the capital, Riyadh, called on its nationals to leave the country. ``It's the bad guys that choose the time-table,'' embassy spokesman Bob Keith said.

The departure of foreigners would rob Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, of workers it relies on to provide technical and managerial expertise for its oil industry and other businesses."

... when do we get off the oil crack pipe?

The first step: admit you have a problem

Key neo-con takes the first step:

"Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted today what everyone has known for months: The United States underestimated the determination of Saddam Hussein and his intelligence service to resist the occupation in Iraq. Wolfowitz said, “I would say of all the things that were underestimated, the one that almost no one that I know of predicted was to properly estimate the resilience of the regime that had abused this country for 35 years.”
This is an extraordinarily important statement. Wolfowitz is one of the key American strategists. Until Wolfowitz-and by implication Rumsfeld-publicly acknowledged their miscalculation of the regime’s resilience, there was no possibility of a serious adjustment of strategy. That and the admission that the United States did not know how many troops would be required and for how long set the two poles in place for a strategic re-evaluation. Having been wrong about the enemy’s capabilities and intentions, prior strategic estimates are out the window. There is no valid forecast at this point. In the world of strategy, the lack of a forecast on something as basic as troop levels means there must be a comprehensive review. No one can argue any longer that what the United States is doing is working. That opens the door to the inevitable strategic re-evaluation.

While Wolfowitz’s statement finally opens the door to the future, we will permit ourselves one final look at the past. Wolfowitz said that almost no one he knew “properly” estimated the level of resistance. That is certainly true, if by “properly” you mean describing the nature of the guerrilla war"

--STRATFOR.COM

Warnings ignored, says retired Marine

Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni wondered aloud yesterday how Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could be caught off guard by the chaos in Iraq that has killed nearly 100 Americans in recent weeks and led to his announcement that 20,000 U.S. troops would be staying there instead of returning home as planned.

"I'm surprised that he is surprised because there was a lot of us who were telling him that it was going to be thus," said Zinni, a Marine for 39 years and the former commander of the U.S. Central Command. "Anyone could know the problems they were going to see. How could they not?"

...I'd just like to ask Rummy, "How's that working for ya?"

And now I hear Gen Karpinski has been suspended. Got the word by email. BOHICA, baby

Hook, Line, & Sinker ?

hooo, boy, anybody got a shot of this twerp sitting in the gallery for the State of the Union? -- musta been '03:

WASHINGTON -- The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources.

"Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein," said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents.

The Information Collection Program also "kept the Iranians informed about what we were doing" by passing classified U.S. documents and other sensitive information, he said. The program has received millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years.

An administration official confirmed that "highly classified information had been provided [to the Iranians] through that channel."

The Defense Department this week halted payment of $340,000 a month to Chalabi's program. Chalabi had long been the favorite of the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Intelligence sources say Chalabi himself has passed on sensitive U.S. intelligence to the Iranians.

www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uschal0522,0,7406020,print.story?coll=ny-top-span-headlines

......and:

"At a hearing on Capitol Hill, some Democratic members of the House Armed Services Committee expressed puzzlement over the latest turn of events regarding Chalabi.

"We support our troops, and we support you gentlemen -- it's your civilian bosses in the Pentagon I'm increasingly worried about," Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said to Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and two other senior officers testifying before the panel. "This seems to be a substantial development in the war, when one of the most highly paid and trusted advisers may have deliberately misled our nation for months and years and some of our officials may have swallowed it hook, line and sinker."


www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46417-2004May21?

As Cos tells it, we ain't learnt nuthin yet

The Washington Post

May 21, 2004

Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks at a Constitution Hall bash in Washington commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. To everyone's astonishment, laughter and applause, Cosby mocked everything from urban fashion to black spending and speaking habits.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal," he said Monday night. "These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids - $500 sneakers for what?

"And they won't spend $200 for 'Hooked on Phonics.' ...

"They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English," he said. "I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't.' 'Where you is.' ... And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. And then I heard the father talk. ... Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. ... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

When Cosby finally concluded, Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and NAACP legal defense fund head Theodore Shaw came to the podium looking stone-faced. Shaw told the crowd that most people on welfare are not African-American, and many of the problems his organization has addressed in the black community were not self-inflicted.


... How's that working for ya?

Since credibility is so scarce on both sides

I'm suffering from sodium overdose with the grains of salt I have to consume. Seven enlisted soldiers thought it might be fun to fuck with the prisoners. Yeah, right. A wedding near the Syrian border was attacked ... or was it a terrorist waystation? A good analysis of the conflicting accounts:
http://belmontclub.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_belmontclub_archive.html#108505314871225337

Still, some reports are credible. I had coffee with a local reporter a couple of weeks ago. Her colleague recently back from Iraq had gotten word that their translator and his 4 year-old son had been assassinated in their home a few days after they left. The wife was not home, and has been evacuated to Europe.

We need to (1) train an Iraqi army and (2) get the hell out ASAP. (That first part is optional.)

How you can tell the terrorists are winning

Terrorists are Winning Dept (courtesy of This Is True) ...
#1 The Office of Foreign Assets
Control, the division of the U.S. Treasury Department that has been
tasked with tracking down and freezing the financial assets of
terrorists, has admitted it only has four full-time agents working on
the task. By comparison, it has 21 full-time agents investigating
violations of the U.S.'s economic embargo on Cuba. (AP)

#2 Girl Scout troops in Martin County, Fla.,
decided to have a Mother's Day "scavenger hunt" at the Treasure Coast
Square Mall. Fathers would accompany their daughters and go "window
shopping" for items on the hunt list, marking them off as they spotted
them, and then shop for a nice present for Mom when they were done. At
least 150 father/daughter pairs signed up, but mall management wouldn't
allow the hunt, citing "security" concerns in the post-9/11 world.
"Since Sept. 11, we have looked at our security procedures very
closely," said mall spokeswoman Rachelle Crain. First, "How do we know
they're Girl Scouts?" she said of the uniformed 5- to 18-year-old
girls. But, more importantly, "Our enhanced security prohibits us from
hosting events that allow participants to wander freely around the mall
area." (Stuart News)

Charities May Not Engage in Political Campaign Activities

Much as I would love to see a cardinal or two take one in the shorts for this, the chances of the IRS going after the Catholic Church (or at least after their profits) are just about zero unless Il Papa has Kerry excommunicated ...

Charities May Not Engage in Political Campaign Activities:

IR-2004-59, April 28, 2004
WASHINGTON пїЅ Charities should be careful that their efforts to educate voters comply with the Internal Revenue Code requirements concerning political campaign activities, the tax agency said today in a presidential election-year advisory.
Organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the Code that are exempt from federal income tax are prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. Charities, educational institutions and religious organizations, including churches, are among those that are tax-exempt under this code section.
These organizations cannot endorse any candidates, make donations to their campaigns, engage in fund raising, distribute statements, or become involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any candidate. Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3).
Whether an organization is engaging in prohibited political campaign activity depends upon all the facts and circumstances in each case. For example, organizations may sponsor debates or forums to educate voters. If the debate or forum shows a preference for or against a certain candidate, however, it becomes a prohibited activity."

Republican Case for Kerry

Essentially the Republican Case for Kerry is three-fold:

1. FAITH-BASED FISCAL POLICY: Mountainous deficits extended over enough years eventually have long term consequences. Not only do interest rates rise, the payments on the national debt will rise to truly ruinous levels. (Granted this is a shared problem with Congress, but Bush has not shown the slightest understanding of economic fundamentals.)

2. FAITH-BASED FOREIGN POLICY: In two years we managed to piss away in less than two years the largest store of international goodwill ever gifted to a nation. Regardless of whether you see the Iraq War as a worthwhile endeavor, the willful disregard of dissenting voices in the Pentagon and the clear absence of thoughtful planning should tell you that a regime change is needed here.

3. ONE-PARTY RULE: Despite the surge of satisfaction at seeing the Dimmocreeps tossed out on their keisters, we're already seeing the effects of unrestrained GOP rule in terms of budgets (the GOP Congressional budget proposal provides an even bigger deficit than Bush's!), corporate welfare programs like the Medicare drug plan, congressional oversight of the executive branch (which admittedly has improved considerably of late), and court appointments -- given Four More Years, we'll have to deal with 3 more Scalia clones looking down from the bench for THIRTY MORE. That kind of imbalance is inherently dangerous to a pluralistic society.

None dare speak its name

The prosecutor of the '93 WTC bombinb, Andy McCarthy observes it isn't a War on Terror. "Terrorism is not an enemy. It is a method...You cannot, and you do not, make war on a method. War is made on an identified — and identifiable — enemy.

In the here and now, that enemy is militant Islam"


Not just in Gaza but far beyond the reach of Hamas & Hezbollah, Muslim kids everywhere are being indoctrinated in this madness. McCarthy does not overstate the case when he says "a five-year-old Muslim boy has already gotten a sizable dose of the venom that is found in the madrassas and the Arabic media.

I can assure you that that five-year-old kid does not hate American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. He does not hate the intractable nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. What he hates is Jews. What he hates is Americans. It is in the water he drinks and the air he breathes."

http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200405130837.asp

And for whatever reasons, the danger is virtually ignored by our media. It will probably take something worse than 9-11 to wake us up.

Stan Goff: 'Hold on to your humanity: An open letter to GIs in Iraq'

From last November, worth another look ...

Stan Goff: 'Hold on to your humanity: An open letter to GIs in Iraq': "refuse illegal orders, and orders to abuse or attack civilians are illegal. Ordering you to keep silent about these crimes is also illegal.

I can tell you, without fear of legal consequence, that you are never under any obligation to hate Iraqis, you are never under any obligation to give yourself over to racism and nihilism and the thirst to kill for the sake of killing, and you are never under any obligation to let them drive out the last vestiges of your capacity to see and tell the truth to yourself and to the world. You do not owe them your souls."

Rose colored lenses at Merrill

What are these guys smoking?

"We think that policymakers will eventually boost the federal funds rate by 75 basis points to 1.75%. The moves are likely to come in increments of 25 basis points, in our view, and they will probably be "measured" (i.e., they won't occur at successive meetings).
Our work shows that the Fed under Chairman Alan Greenspan has not begun to raise rates until at least one million jobs have been created in a four-month span. The economy is now closing in fast on that metric; 708,000 net jobs were created in the February-April period. If the economy adds 300,000 or so jobs in May, the Fed could pull the tightening trigger at the June meeting and use Greenspan's semiannual testimony before Congress to explain the rate hike and to provide some hints about the future path of tightening.
The report for April showed healthy gains in employment, as well as increases in overall aggregate hours worked (0.3%) and earnings (0.3%). The increase of 288,000 in non-farm jobs for April followed upwardly revised readings of 337,000 for March (a revision of +29,000) and 83,000 (+37,000) for February. Because revisions tend to be pro-cyclical (i.e., if employment is rising, revisions are on the upside, and vice versa), the upward revisions support the case that the labor market is improving.
Because the funds rate tends to rise sharply during Fed tightening cycles, the yield curve tends to flatten. On average, there has been a 50% flattening in the slope of the yield curve (10-year — federal funds). The current spread between the 10-year Treasury yield and the funds rate is about 350 basis points. If an average cycle were to materialize, the slope would be cut to 175 basis points, implying that the 10-year note would end up yielding about 5.25%. "

... I'll put it on the line now: the Fed goes for at least double that meagre 3/4% and the 10-yr tops out over 6% in 2-3 years. Odds anyone?

And we're going to entrust our future to these clowns?

Diebold insider memos reveal the rot:

"Subject: RE: alteration of Audit Log in Access
From: "Ken Clark"
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 09:55:02 -0700
Importance: Normal
In-reply-to:
Its a tough question, and it has a lot to do with perception. Of course everyone knows
perception is reality.
Right now you can open GEMS' .mdb file with MS-Access, and alter its contents. That
includes the audit log. This isn't anything new. ... Now, where the perception comes in is that its right now very *easy* to change the
contents. Double click the .mdb file. Even technical wizards at Metamor (or Ciber, or
whatever) can figure that one out."



... and this gem:


Fw: Battery Status & Charging---and too much bull!!
To:
Subject: Fw: Battery Status & Charging---and too much bull!!
From: "Mike"
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 10:57:40 -0500
It does not matter whether we get anything certified or not, if we can't even get the foundation of Global stable.
This company is a mess! We should stop development on all new, and old products and concentrate on
making them stable instead of showing vaporware. Selling a new account will only load more crap on an
already over burdened entity.
Everyone is waiting for Diebold to come and save us. What do you think Diebold will say when they see what a
mess everything is, or more to the point what Global has not shown them, or maybe it will not matter at that time,
hmmm...
Every time I look at the support list there is another sales person or manager screaming we can't go forward
without having to fix this or to fix that. You are taxing the development team beyond what they can handle. This
is not there problem, it is yours.
Elections are not rocket science. Why is it so hard to get things right! I have never been at any other
company that has been so miss managed. I see blame being put on anything that moves.
Communication does not exist! All I here from upper management is "That’s fine, he or she will be removed".
Upper management seems to think they know what is going on. They are to caught up in to much politics, and to
much self importance, to even realize that there are employees watching them, waiting for some direction... We
have allot of bright people in Global, why is it so hard to get things right....
I just received a call from Ingrid, she says she is tired of getting calls from clients asking for help. No one at
Global is giving them the time of day. Ingrid is the only name I will use in this conversation. I have had calls from
other ex-employees stating the same thing.
We have a management team that is so redundant, it is pathetic, and yet we don't have enough employees to get
the work done. Wake up! We keep loosing good people, and yet management does not see this, or more to the
point, "just keep everything going, Diebold is coming and everything will be fine". Bull!!
My views are my views only. If you wish to fire me for speaking the truth, bring it on... or fix this crap. The
employees of this company are watching, waiting to see if you are the leaders that will keep them going, or the
pathetic fools that will drive this company into the ground. I believe Global has great products, great ideas, great
people, just get things right and we will be the best.



http://americanapologyshirt.com/diebold.pdf


... How's that working for ya?

More Cons Getting Restless

BeYOOtifull...

Conservatives Restive About Bush Policies
Fresh Initiatives Sought On Iraq, Domestic Issues
By Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, May 10, 2004
After three years of sweeping actions in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its ability to produce fresh policies.

The centerpiece of President Bush's foreign policy -- the effort to transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy -- has been undermined by a deadly insurrection and broadcast photos of brutality by U.S. prison guards. On the domestic side, conservatives and former administration officials say the White House policy apparatus is moribund, with policies driven by political expediency or ideological pressure rather than by facts and expertise.

Conservatives have become unusually restive. Last Tuesday, columnist George F. Will sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policy, writing: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Two days earlier, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative supporter of the Iraq war, wrote: "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."

The complaints about Bush's Iraq policy are relatively new, but they are in some ways similar to long-standing criticism about Bush's domestic policies. In a book released earlier this year, former Bush Treasury secretary Paul H. O'Neill described Bush as "a blind man in a room full of deaf people" and said policymakers put politics before sound policy judgments.

Echoing a criticism leveled by former Bush aide John J. DiIulio Jr., who famously described "Mayberry Machiavellis" running the White House, O'Neill said "the biggest difference" between his time in government in the 1970s and in the Bush administration "is that our group was mostly about evidence and analysis, and Karl [Rove], Dick [Cheney], [Bush communications strategist] Karen [Hughes] and the gang seemed to be mostly about politics."

Michael Franc, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, said the criticism by O'Neill, Will and Kagan has a common thread: a concern that the administration is "using an old playbook" and not coming up with bold enough ideas, whether the subject is entitlement reform or pacifying Iraq. Conservative intellectuals "are saying, 'Don't do things half way,' " he said.

"It's the exhaustion of power," said a veteran of conservative think tanks who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Ideology has confronted reality, and ideology has bent. On the domestic side, it has bent in terms of the expansion of the government embodied in the Medicare prescription-drug law. On the foreign policy side, it has bent because of what has transpired in the last few weeks in Fallujah."

A Bush spokesman quarreled with that notion, saying there has been no let-up in Bush's policymaking. "We are marching ahead," said the spokesman, Trent Duffy, pointing to Bush's plans for community-college-based job training, space exploration and modernizing health records. "He's continuing to push the policies that have made the country better and stronger."

Part of the current perception of policy fatigue in the White House is a reflection of the political calendar: With a presidential election approaching, there is little possibility that the closely split Congress will enact serious legislation this year regardless of what the White House proposes. "It's a combination of how very challenging it is to move anything in the Senate these days, and it is an election year," said one former Bush aide, who like some of the conservatives interviewed for this article declined to be identified to avoid offending the White House.

But conservative policy experts and a number of former Bush administration officials say there are more systemic reasons for the policy sclerosis. For three years, the president pushed policies conceived during his 2000 campaign for the White House, but with most of those ideas either enacted or stalled, policymaking has run out of steam, they said.

Bush has also discouraged the sort of free-wheeling policy debates that characterized previous administrations, and he relies on a top-down management style that has little use for "wonks" in the federal bureaucracy. At the same time, many of the top domestic policy experts in the Bush White House have moved on to other jobs; in many cases they have been replaced by subordinates with much less experience in governing.

Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist with the National Center for Policy Analysis, said policy ideas typically bubble up from experts deep inside federal agencies, who put together working groups, draft white papers, sell their wares in the marketplace of ideas and hope White House officials act on their suggestions. In this case, ideas are hatched in the White House, for political or ideological reasons, then are thrust on the bureaucracy, "not for analysis, but for sale," Bartlett said.

The result is a White House that has become unimaginative with domestic policy and, in foreign policy, has struggled to develop new policies to adapt to changing circumstances in Iraq, according to several conservatives.

"In Iraq, you don't see the thinking, 'Things have not happened as we had planned. What do we do now?' " said David Boaz, executive vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute, who last week organized a Cato forum entitled "The Triumph of the Hacks?"

Richard W. Rahn, a prominent Republican economist, excoriated the administration's telecommunications, antitrust and international economic policies in a Washington Times column April 30 along similar lines. "From the beginning of the Bush administration, sympathetic, experienced economists have warned its officials about the need to avoid some obvious mistakes," he wrote. "Unfortunately, these warnings have gone unheeded."


In an interview, Rahn said he has grown concerned over what he sees as "a lack of vision and policy consistency" in the Bush administration. "I mean, we knew where [President Ronald] Reagan was heading; at times there were deviations from the path, but we knew what it was all about," he said. In contrast, he said, now "there doesn't seem to be a clear policy vision."

Some attribute the policy lethargy to personnel changes, particularly on the domestic side. For example, three veterans of previous White Houses with lengthy experience in Washington have left their policymaking roles; their successors, though capable, have significantly less policymaking experience.

Joshua B. Bolten, the deputy chief of staff for policy, has been replaced by Harriet Miers, a Texas lawyer and former chairman of the Texas Lottery Commission. Jay Lefkowitz, director of the Domestic Policy Council, has been replaced by Kristen Silverberg, who was a young aide to Bolten. And Lawrence B. Lindsey was replaced as top economic adviser by investment banker Stephen Friedman.

Likewise, John Bridgeland, a former director of the Domestic Policy Council, was replaced as director of Bush's USA Freedom Corps initiative by Desiree Sayle, the former director of correspondence in the White House. And public-policy professor DiIulio was replaced as chief of Bush's "faith-based" initiative by Jim Towey, who had ties to the president's brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. Leading experts in welfare and health policy have left the White House and been replaced by less experienced hands.

"It would be fair to say the policy shop is less policy-oriented in its apparatus and more administratively managed," said a Republican with close ties to the White House.

In interviews, former officials of the current and three previous administrations described Bush's domestic policy team as unusually green -- particularly compared with Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove. At the Cato forum last week, former Bush speechwriter David Frum said Rove is "the top hack and the top wonk" in the White House.

"I don't think he should be the most important wonk in the White House," said Bruce Reed, former domestic policy chief to Bill Clinton and author of an article about how policy "wonks" had been bested by political "hacks" in the current White House. "Every White House takes on the enthusiasms and the interests of the president, and most of the time this president seems to take more joy in the politics than in the policy."

Defenders of the Bush policymaking apparatus agree that the volume of policymaking has diminished significantly from 2001 and 2002, when the White House was fighting for passage of policies developed during the presidential campaign, such as tax cuts and education accountability. But they say the cause is outside the administration.

Frum said much of the policy energy has been channeled into fighting terrorism at home and abroad because of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "On the most critical issue of our time, they have been bold, creative, and in some cases, they have shocked the intelligentsia with their assertiveness," he said.

Whatever the cause, conservatives say the remedy to policy malaise won't come until the election. Conservative strategist Jeffrey Bell said the big items on the policy agenda -- such as an overhaul of Social Security -- are necessarily on hold as Bush fights for reelection. "He's having to defend the forward motion he's already had," Bell said. "Reagan in '84 was the same way. People who thought Reagan's creative period was going to end after '83 were wrong. I think Bush will be the same way."

В© 2004 The Washington Post Company

The first one to say "Manhattan Project for Energy Independence" gets a million votes

"Oil is a resource in finite supply; no major oil fields have been found since 1976, and experts suspect that there are no more to find. Some analysts argue that world production is already at or near its peak, although most say that technological progress, which allows the further exploitation of known sources like the Canadian tar sands, will allow output to rise for another decade or two. But the date of the physical peak in production isn't the really crucial question.

The question, instead, is when the trend in oil prices will turn decisively upward. That upward turn is inevitable as a growing world economy confronts a resource in limited supply. But when will it happen? ...

During the 1980's, oil consumption dropped around the world as the delayed effects of the energy crisis led to the use of more fuel-efficient cars, better insulation in homes and so on. Although economic growth led to a gradual recovery, as late as 1993 world oil consumption was only slightly higher than it had been in 1979. In the United States, oil consumption didn't regain its 1979 level until 1997.

Since then, however, world demand has grown rapidly: the daily world consumption of oil is 12 million barrels higher than it was a decade ago, roughly equal to the combined production of Saudi Arabia and Iran. It turns out that America's love affair with gas guzzlers, shortsighted as it is, is not the main culprit: the big increases in demand have come from booming developing countries. China, in particular, still consumes only 8 percent of the world's oil but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in world oil consumption over the last four years. ...

So what should we be doing? Here's a hint: We can neither drill nor conquer our way out of the problem. Whatever we do, oil prices are going up. What we have to do is adapt. " - Paul Krugman

www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/opinion/07KRUG.html

A jolly good republican time: rape, murder, and the ever-popular sexual humiliation

From Limbaugh, yesterday:

"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?"

... can you imagine the vitriol that hypocritical sumbitch would be spewing if a Democrat were running things?

Hasta la Vista to $9 Billion

The news last fall:

"The wannabe governor has yet to deny that on May 17, 2001, at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, he had consensual political intercourse with Enron chieftain Kenneth Lay. Also frolicking with Arnold and Ken was convicted stock swindler Mike Milken.

Now, thirty-four pages of internal Enron memoranda have just come through this reporter's fax machine tell all about the tryst between Maria's husband and the corporate con men. It turns out that Schwarzenegger knowingly joined the hush-hush encounter as part of a campaign to sabotage a Davis-Bustamante plan to make Enron and other power pirates then ravaging California pay back the $9 billion in illicit profits they carried off.

Here's the story Arnold doesn't want you to hear. The biggest single threat to Ken Lay and the electricity lords is a private lawsuit filed last year under California's unique Civil Code provision 17200, the "Unfair Business Practices Act." This litigation, heading to trial now in Los Angeles, would make the power companies return the $9 billion they filched from California electricity and gas customers.

It takes real cojones to bring such a suit. Who's the plaintiff taking on the bad guys? Cruz Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor and reluctant leading candidate against Schwarzenegger.

Now follow the action. One month after Cruz brings suit, Enron's Lay calls an emergency secret meeting in L.A. of his political buck-buddies, including Arnold. Their plan, to undercut Davis (according to Enron memos) and "solve" the energy crisis -- that is, make the Bustamante legal threat go away.

How can that be done? Follow the trail with me.

While Bustamante's kicking Enron butt in court, the Davis Administration is simultaneously demanding that George Bush's energy regulators order the $9 billion refund. Don't hold your breath: Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is headed by a guy proposed by … Ken Lay."

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1004-05.htm

... How's that working for ya so far? Now fast forward and, oh look! ... " it appears that Schwarzenegger’s staff is also operating under a veil of secrecy. On April 27, Schwarzenegger’s aides released a letter the governor wrote to Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, in which Schwarzenegger called for the state to return to a fully competitive, deregulated electricity market. A copy of the letter can be found at http://www.governor.ca.gov/govsite/pdf/press_release/PUC_Letter.pdf

In a teleconference with reporters Wednesday, April 28, to discuss the plan, one of Schwarzenegger’s aides (who instructed reporters that his name could not be used for attribution) was asked who advised Gov. Schwarzenegger on his energy plan.

The aide refused to disclose the names of the individuals the governor met with nor would he say how many meetings took place before Schwarzenegger formulated an energy policy. The aide would only say that the governor had “many, many” meetings with consumer groups, legislators and experts in the energy sector.

But officials with three of California’s most prominent consumer rights groups, all of whom spent the past four years at the forefront debate surrounding the state’s energy issues, said they never met with Gov. Schwarzenegger or anyone from his staff to discuss the governor’s future electricity plans for the state.

“We never met with him, never,” said Bob Finkelstein, the executive director of The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco based consumer. “Either somebody in (Schwarzenegger’s) office decided they knew what the consumer groups were going to say about his plan or the governor came to the conclusion that he didn’t care about consumers.”

Finkelstein said consumer groups are wary of Schwarzenegger’s energy plan because it calls for a complete return to retail competition, which was supposed to reduce electricity costs for consumers and businesses, but ended up costing the state as much as $70 billion due to a flawed design that allowed energy companies to manipulate the market.

“It’s almost 10 years to the day since we unleashed competition in California,” Finkelstein said. “If we do it again following the same pattern history will repeat itself and we can’t afford to do that again.”

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0503-09.htm

From a former chief of Anesthesiology

My cousin writes "as one who has spent my life looking at the healthcare system from "inside" my views may be biased - but I truly blieve they are fairly clear on what the MAIN problem with our healthcare is. I have had the opportunity to sit on the board of a Liability Insurance Company and I have dealth with many "Third Party" companies who's stated goal is to provide "insurance" for the general public (ie, to spread the risk equally among a large number of people.)

I know that without a doubt the true goal of medical insurance companies is not to provide coverage for the health care costs of the general public (their policy holders.) It is rather to generate as large a profit for their share holders as possible - which means to pay out as little as possible for health care. I have first hand knowledge directly from the "horses mouth" that if their payouts exceed 15% annually they feel they have miscalculated and they adjust their premiums up and their payment schedule down. How else do the insurance companies live in tall steel and glass buildings on high dollar real estate and pay outrageous salaries and bonuses to their executives?
And of course - they are in bed with the government so that the rules and regulations which "control" their behavior work in their favor. The man on the street has little if any control over the operation of a health insurance companies policies and procedures. Certainly the medical community - widely viewed by the public as making a fortune from their sick patients - has no control over the insurance companies; in fact they are cut annually to the point that many medical services are now delivered by paramedical personell rather than by physicians as in the past - all in the name of cost cutting.

When money talks people listen. What money? Your money which is in the accounts of the insurance companies. Who does it talk to? The government. Who listens? The government - and they respond by protecting the insurance companies - not the individual who has an illness and generates the expenditure of health care dollars. That person is "the enemy." You and me !"

[rant ends] ... and beyond that, about all you can say is "we have the best government money can buy !"

Vanishing Votes

On October 29, 2002, George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Hidden behind its apple-pie-and-motherhood name lies a nasty civil rights time bomb.

First, the purges. In the months leading up to the November 2000 presidential election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election supervisors to purge 57,700 voters from the registries, supposedly ex-cons not allowed to vote in Florida. At least 90.2 percent of those on this "scrub" list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent. Notably, more than half--about 54 percent--are black or Hispanic. You can argue all night about the number ultimately purged, but there's no argument that this electoral racial pogrom ordered by Jeb Bush's operatives gave the White House to his older brother. HAVA not only blesses such purges, it requires all fifty states to implement a similar search-and-destroy mission against vulnerable voters. Specifically, every state must, by the 2004 election, imitate Florida's system of computerizing voter files. The law then empowers fifty secretaries of state--fifty Katherine Harrises--to purge these lists of "suspect" voters.

www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=palast

how terrorism is seen by Islam

When a mother and four children shot dead in Gaza, it's an "heroic operation"

From Islam Online:

"Palestinian Fighters Kill Five Israeli Settlers

GAZA CITY, May 2 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Five Israeli settlers were killed Sunday, May 2, and three soldiers injured in a Palestinian resistance attack on an Israeli settlement in occupied southern Gaza.

Two Palestinian fighters disguised as shepherds ambushed two cars of Israeli settlers near the Kissufim road, which leads to the major Gush Katif settlement bloc, witnesses told IslamOnline.net.

The Palestinian resistance groups Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed the attack.

Earlier, media outlets said the operation was claimed Hamas’ armed wing Ezzudin Al-Qassam Brigades, which later denied responsibility, but praised the "heroic operation".

www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-05/02/article06.shtml



Oh, and let's not forget their mission statement:
"Our Mission:
To create a unique, global Islamic site on the Internet that provides services to Muslims and non-Muslims in several languages. To become a reference for everything that deals with Islam, its sciences, civilization and nation. To have credibility in content, distinction in design, and a sharp and balanced vision of humanity and current events. "

... How's that working for ya, Muslims?

The Kurds are to the rest of Iraq as Democrats are to Republicans (USATODAY poll)

holding absolutely opposite views of the US from the rest of Iraq, and if things run true to form, they'll get screwed again before this is over...

USATODAY.com:

a. The U.S. is very serious about improving the economic lot of the Iraqis

B = Baghdad
Sh = Shi’ite areas
Su = Sunni areas
K = Kurdish areas
NK = Non-Kurdish areas


Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 54 74 64 56 * 62
Agree 37 16 27 31 98 27

b. U.S. is very serious about establishing a democratic system in Iraq

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 50 74 56 54 * 58
Agree 37 14 30 30 98 28

c. U.S. will allow Iraqis to design their own political future as they see fit without direct u.s. influence

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 57 76 68 61 2 65
Agree 28 10 16 20 92 18

d. U.S. is completely serious about preserving the political and geographical unity of Iraq

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 51 72 61 53 1 59
Agree 33 10 20 29 96 23

e. If the U.S. were to pull out its troops any time soon, Iraq will fall into anarchy

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 44 41 56 43 5 50
Agree 41 43 29 34 92 33

f. A civil war will not happen in Iraq

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 24 23 24 29 21 25
Agree 58 56 64 44 66 57

g. The old regime has been smashed forever

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 5 5 3 7 1 6
Agree 86 89 91 78 98 85

h. The U.S. will not leave Iraq unless it is forced to do by force by the Iraqis

Total B Sh Su K NK
Disagree 28 16 18 14 88 19
Agree 55 69 63 58 7 62

The Fog of War Commercials

Kerry may have voted to drop weapon programs but Cheney was the stone killer assassin...

"The Bush team is trying to undermine Mr. Kerry's personal military record as a campaign asset by painting him as an opponent of a strong military. More specifically, the Republicans have accused Mr. Kerry of trying to kill the very weapons that are essential to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. At best, these charges are rather sloppy interpretations of complicated votes on military budgets. At worst, they are flat wrong. All are sad examples of the sort of election-year gimmickry that makes it hard for members of Congress to vote responsibly on military spending, lest they be denounced as opponents of a strong national defense.

The most glaring flaw in the Bush-Cheney assault is that the bulk of the votes for which Mr. Kerry is being castigated were cast in the early and mid-1990's, when there was a bipartisan consensus in Washington for slashing the huge Reagan-era military budgets to reflect the post-Soviet world. Mr. Cheney actually got the ball rolling by pushing through the biggest military spending cuts in a generation as defense secretary for the first President Bush. At the time, Mr. Cheney's aides liked to brag that, like Nixon going to China, the staunchly conservative Wyoming Republican had the necessary credibility to make those cuts.

•

In 1990, Mr. Cheney's first budget canceled, among other things, production of the M-1 tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle, and made big cuts in the F-18 fighter. That makes President Bush's newest commercial seem particularly cynical. It shows weapons disappearing from Iraq while actors in uniform watch in dismay, and an announcer accuses Mr. Kerry of trying to kill these very programs. The same commercial says Mr. Kerry "opposed" the B-2 stealth bomber, a relic of the cold war that was supposed to fly over Russia and blow up anything left after the missiles were fired. Mr. Kerry may have been less a fan of the B-2 than Mr. Cheney was, but the vice president cut production of that multibillion-dollar plane by 45 percent in his first year at the Pentagon."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/02/opinion/02SUN1.html?ex=1084161600&en=df82ee4e75670602&ei=5065