The Economist's POV for its 450K readers in the US

"When Mr Bush decided to frame his foreign policy in the sort of language and objectives previously associated with Woodrow Wilson, John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan, he was bound to be greeted with cynicism. Yet he was right to do so. To paraphrase a formula invented by his ally, Tony Blair, Mr Bush was promising to be “tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism”, and the latter he attributed to the lack of democracy, human rights and opportunity in much of the world, especially the Arab countries. To call for an effort to change that lamentable state of affairs was inspiring and surely correct. The credibility of the call was enhanced by this month's Afghan election, and may in future be enhanced by successful and free elections in Iraq. But that remains ahead, and meanwhile Mr Bush's credibility has been considerably undermined not just by Guant?namo but also by two big things: by the sheer incompetence and hubristic thinking evident in the way in which his team set about the rebuilding of Iraq, once Saddam Hussein's regime had been toppled; and by the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, which strengthened the suspicion that the mistreatment or even torture of prisoners was being condoned.



Invading Iraq was not a mistake. Although the intelligence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction has been shown to have been flimsy and, with hindsight, wrong, Saddam's record of deception in the 12 years since the first Gulf war meant that it was right not to give him the benefit of the doubt. The containment scheme deployed around him was unsustainable and politically damaging: military bases in holy Saudi Arabia, sanctions that impoverished and even killed Iraqis and would have collapsed. But changing the regime so incompetently was a huge mistake. By having far too few soldiers to provide security and by failing to pay Saddam's remnant army, a task that was always going to be long and hard has been made much, much harder. Such incompetence is no mere detail: thousands of Iraqis have died as a result and hundreds of American soldiers. The eventual success of the mission, while still possible, has been put in unnecessary jeopardy. So has America's reputation in the Islamic world, both for effectiveness and for moral probity."

Series: 21 Reasons to Elect Kerry

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/endorsement/9999756.htm?1c

The delusions and deceit on Iraq just keep coming


President Bush wishes to be viewed, and judged, as a "war president." Fair enough.

How has he done in leading the "war on terror" that was thrust upon him? Less well than his chest-thumping would have you believe.

How has he done in leading a second war - Iraq - in which he exalted his gut instinct over advice and evidence?

Very poorly, indeed.

The President's central claim is that these are prongs of the same war, that the Iraq invasion was the logical, urgent next step in the battle against those who attacked us on 9/11. He repeats this with ever more fervor as evidence mounts that he is flat wrong.

No Iraqi weapons stockpiles were found. The case that Saddam Hussein had major ties to al-Qaeda or 9/11, always tissue thin, has evaporated.

Predictions his team made about how a liberated Iraq would morph smoothly into a model democracy have collapsed amid blood and chaos.

Yet the President takes it as gospel that his gut instinct was right. Patriotism does not require Americans to indulge this President's delusions. They should view these wars with clear eyes. Iraq is a scary but salvageable mess from which the United States can make no easy exit.

The Iraq-terrorism linkage has become, with awful irony, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Iraq, by our own doing, has now become a magnet and rallying point for Islamic jihadists. Creating a stable, self-governing Iraq is imperative. A strife-torn Iraq would be a calamitous breeding ground for terror.

Americans also need to grasp that the struggle to thwart and roll up the terrorist network that really did attack us on 9/11 is not going as well as Bush campaign rhetoric claims.

The Afghanistan invasion was justified and the recent election there was a strikingly hopeful sign. But the United States pulled its punches in Afghanistan (saving some for Iraq?) and failed to eradicate al-Qaeda. Rather than cowering in a corner, since 2001 al-Qaeda and its allies have struck hideous blows in Bali, Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta and elsewhere.

Yet, polls still show Americans trust President Bush over John Kerry to protect them from terror attacks.

Why? First, they are scared, with reason. They want to believe and trust their commander in chief. And they are decent folks. They don't want their country to kill, or U.S. soldiers to die, for no good reason. So the truth of Iraq - a war based on false premises, where military victory was undermined by errors that left America less safe - is hard to accept.

What's more, this election offers two views of Iraq: the President's blithe confidence that all will work out, and Kerry's honest assessment that this is a mess that will be difficult to clean up. Which view is more appealing when you're scared? Unfortunately, not the realistic one that stands the best chance of salvaging the situation. The President and his team add to the confusion with distortions.

They are masters at insisting, with straight faces and indignation that anyone could doubt them, that the sky is green. They invented a new rationale for the Iraq war every time an old one frayed. Now, they rewrite history feverishly to excuse their mistakes. Let's review and debunk:

War is unpredictable; no plan could have anticipated what's gone wrong in Iraq. Funny, a prewar State Department study - along with many think-tank experts and journalists - predicted quite accurately what could go wrong and how to avoid it. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shelved the State study, and did his own thing. It was as if he, Bush and Vice President Cheney had rose-colored glasses surgically attached to their noses. Their plan relied on a shared fantasy: joyous liberation followed by a swift, oil-financed transition to a new government led by their pet, the liar Ahmed Chalabi.

The generals in Iraq got whatever they asked for. Everybody outside the Bush-Cheney campaign now agrees too few troops were sent to secure Iraq. That mistake, along with the bad decision to disband the entire Iraqi army, enabled the insurgency. But generals who disputed Rumsfeld's faith in lean force levels felt the lash of his disapproval. So they shut up.

Everyone, including John Kerry, thought Hussein was a threat before the war. They thought that because the administration's National Intelligence Estimate screamed it. That estimate was, in the phrase of Greg Thielmann, the State Department's top Iraq weapons analyst until late 2002, "chock full of hypothetical exaggerations intended to scare the bejeezus out of people."

Yes, Mr. Cheney, it would be awful if a terrorist strolled down Market Street with WMD in a suitcase. But the real question in 2003 was: What were the chances of Hussein's making that happen? The real answer: about the same as of Philly being hit by a comet. What were the chances of grave threats (al-Qaeda, Iran, North Korea, loose nukes in Russia) growing worse as Bush pursued his Iraq obsession? Answer: a lot higher.

A campaign is under way to scapegoat the CIA for the wrongful estimate. The CIA did lack solid intelligence on Iraq. But some of its analysts tried, as did Theilmann, to dispute the tall tales of WMD that Chalabi and others peddled. But the wild stories fit the preconceptions of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who hustled the false data to the President's desk.

The Duelfer Report confirms we were right. Give this claim high marks for chutzpah. Chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer concluded Hussein had no biochemical weapons stockpiles and no nuclear weapons program to speak of. In other words, the main rationale for war was false. Inspections and sanctions had in fact done a fair job of containment. Hussein was, in Thielmann's image: "posting a 'Beware of Dog' sign without buying the dog." Hussein bet that worries about WMD would keep Iran and the United States at bay.

A key point in Duelfer's report, which Bush seizes upon and the Michael Moore crowd glibly ignores, is that Hussein would have rebuilt weapons if sanctions had been lifted. But this did not, as Bush now claims, justify invasion. If Bush hadn't short-circuited inspections by invading, he would have learned the glad news: Iraq was a paper tiger. Then the challenge would have been maintaining a tough inspections regime while cleaning up the corrupt oil-for-food program. Not easy, but nowhere near as risky as invading and occupying an Islamic nation.

We're fighting the terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here. This claim has gained amazing currency, given that it makes no sense. Sadly, Osama bin Laden can walk and chew gum at the same time. What kind of moral thinking is that anyway? Is it really OK for U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians to be sacrificed as targets in a Baghdad shooting gallery - just as long as nothing blows up in Abington?

It's dangerous to switch leaders in midwar.Let's say you're riding in a car. The driver, ignoring road signs and your warning cries, drives into oncoming traffic and crashes. Would you insist on having him drive you home from the accident site?

How can Kerry lead a war he calls a mistake? If an onlooker took charge at the scene, asking for help to clear the wreckage and avoid more accidents, others might pitch in, even if they thought the driver had been a fool.

Kerry's plan for Iraq is the same as the Bush team's. Largely true, but not because Kerry's aping the other guys. The cascading failures in Iraq have forced the Bush team to adopt policies it had mocked when others, including Kerry, proposed them.

Kerry remains too optimistic about the level of help he can extract from European allies. He'll have a hard sell. But it's possible that a new president with fresh credibility - derived from admitting U.S. errors and recognizing others' interests - might obtain some useful aid. Bush couldn't. Nor, his credibility in tatters, could he easily rouse old allies to meet a new, genuine threat.

There is no magic plan for Iraq. The choice is between a candidate who is at least clear about the stakes and problems - and a President who isn't, because he can't admit the deceits, delusions and errors that got us into this fix.

Guess the Source

Kerry's the One: During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. Of course there has always been “anti-Americanism.” After the Second World War many European intellectuals argued for a “Third Way” between American-style capitalism and Soviet communism, and a generation later Europe’s radicals embraced every ragged “anti-imperialist” cause that came along. In South America, defiance of “the Yanqui” always draws a crowd. But Bush has somehow managed to take all these sentiments and turbo-charge them. In Europe and indeed all over the world, he has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States. It’s the same throughout the Middle East. "

... give up?

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_11_08/cover1.html

Catch of the Day

"Last week we brought you the news that Larry Russell, head of the South Dakota GOP's get-out-the-vote operation (Republican Victory Program) had resigned along with several of his staffers amidst a burgeoning vote fraud scandal.

The Bush campaign promptly brought Russell and several of his newly-resigned staffers to Ohio to run the get-out-the-vote effort there.

Now South Dakota officials have handed down indictments against six of Russell's South Dakota staffers, including at least three he brought with him to take care of business in Ohio.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

" the Bush administration ... bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq."
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/13/news-cooper.php


WASHINGTON -- Supporters of President Bush are less knowledgeable about the president's foreign policy positions and are more likely to be mistaken about factual issues in world affairs than voters who back John F. Kerry, a survey released yesterday indicated.

A large majority of self-identified Bush voters polled believe Saddam Hussein provided "substantial support" to Al Qaeda, and 47 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion. Among the president's supporters, 57 percent queried think international public opinion favors Bush's reelection, and 51 percent believe that most Islamic countries support "US-led efforts to fight terrorism."

No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, the Sept. 11 Commission found no evidence of substantial Iraqi support for Al Qaeda, and international public opinion polls have shown widespread opposition to Bush's reelection.

In contrast, among Kerry supporters polled only 26 percent think Iraq had such weapons, 30 percent say Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda, and 1 percent said foreign public opinion favors Bush.

The polls results, said Steven Kull, the head of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which conducted the survey, showed that Americans are so polarized two weeks before the election that many lack even a common understanding of the facts."

... no, not quite -- it's not the lack of a common understanding of facts that is polarizing. It's the willful ignorance of Bush supporters, i.e. those from the latter half of The Coalition of the Conniving and the Clueless.


http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/10/22/divide_seen_in_voter_knowledge/

Poll: Too many facts, so little time ...

what are your Top 10?

(from www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041108&s=facts)




55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.

Source: Washington Post, realcities.com

63. In a case before the Supreme Court, the Bush Administrations sided with HMOs--arguing that patients shouldn't be allowed to sue HMOs when they are improperly denied treatment. With the Administration's help, the HMOs won.

Source: ABC News


84. The Bush Administration, without ever charging him with a crime, arrested US citizen Jos? Padilla at an airport in Chicago, held him on a naval brig in South Carolina for two years, denied him access to a lawyer and prohibited any contact with his friends and family.

Source: news.findlaw.com

99. The Bush Administration has spent millions of dollars and defied numerous court orders to conceal from the public who participated in Vice President Cheney's 2001 energy task force.

Source: Washington Post



#101 (NOT LISTED - I WONDER WHY...) The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Plans
"Kwiatkowski got there just as war fever was spreading, or being spread as she would later argue, through the halls of Washington. Indeed, shortly after her arrival, a piece of NESA was broken off, expanded and re-dubbed with the Orwellian name of the Office of Special Plans. The OSP’s task was, ostensibly, to help the Pentagon develop policy around the Iraq crisis.

She would soon conclude that the OSP — a pet project of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld — was more akin to a nerve center for what she now calls a “neoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon.”

Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq.

www.laweekly.com/ink/04/13/news-cooper.php

BoomChicago

check 'em out...

http://www.boomchicago.nl/Section/Videos

No-Brainer

 

Catch of the Day

DYNAMITE posts ...

[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Memo for the President-Elect
2004-10-20 12:57:01
from a straight shooter ...





By David H. Hackworth



Since our commander-in-chief announced “mission accomplished” on May 1, 2003, the insurgents have seized the initiative in Iraq. And we’re also not winning the even-more-consequential worldwide battle against the Islamic jihadists. All because our forces are trying to do too much with too little the wrong way.



Lately, I’ve been shoveling through literally truckloads of reader queries along the lines of “OK, Hack, you spent most of the past two years griping, so what’s your solution?” It’s a question that needs an answer. So, as a long-term student of insurgent warfare and a soldier who’s fought guerrillas in post-World-War-II Italy, during the Korean War and for more than four years in Vietnam, here’s what I would do:



* Immediately fire SecDef Donald Rumsfeld, all of his Pentagon senior civilian assistants and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers.



* Replace Rumsfeld with retired Gen. Anthony Zinni and give this tough, smart, proven leader a free hand to bring in the best people to reshape and streamline our armed forces for the long counterinsurgency fight ahead.



* Fire National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and replace her with retired Gens. Wes Clark or John Sheehan.



* Establish a military objective – an often-neglected Principle of War – that will include: how the U.S. is going to regain the lost initiative (another neglected Principle of War) and how we’re going to take and hold the turf seized by insurgents; how we will then win the Iraqi people to our side in the fight against the insurgents; how the nascent Iraqi defense shield will eventually replace our forces; and a detailed, coherent exit plan.

www.hackworth.com/




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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Hersh uncovers another atrocity
2004-10-20 12:20:11
Hersch claims to have spoken with a first lieutenant in charge of a unit stationed halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border.

"His group was bivouacking outside of town in an agricultural area, and had hired 30 or so Iraqis to guard a local granary. A few weeks passed. They got to know the men they hired, and to like them. Then orders came down from Baghdad that the village would be "cleared." Another platoon from the soldier's company came and executed the Iraqi granary guards. All of them.
"He said they just shot them one by one. And his people, and he, and the villagers of course, went nuts," Hersh said quietly. "He was hysterical, totally hysterical. He went to the company captain, who said, 'No, you don't understand, that's a kill. We got 36 insurgents. Don't you read those stories when the Americans say we had a combat maneuver and 15 insurgents were killed?'"


... History repeats itself, first as tragedy, ...



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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Elmer Andersen, former Republican governor
2004-10-20 11:56:46
of Minnesota:

"I am more fearful for the state of this nation than I have ever been [you are not alone on that score, Elmer]-- because this country is in the hands of an evil man: Dick Cheney. It is eminently clear that it is he who is running the country, not George W. Bush.

Bush's phony posturing as cocksure leader of the free world -- symbolized by his victory symbol on the aircraft carrier and "mission accomplished" statement -- leave me speechless. The mission had barely been started, let alone finished, and 18 months later it still rages on. His ongoing "no-regrets," no-mistakes stance and untruths on the war -- as well as on the floundering economy and Bush administration joblessness -- also disappoint and worry me."




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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Media conglomerates using the PUBLIC airwaves
2004-10-20 11:11:26
to further their private POLITICAL agendas?

Oops, I forgot -- it's the Politics of Anything Goes now.



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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
William Milliken, former Republican governor
2004-10-20 10:40:01
of Michigan:

"This president has pursued policies pandering to the extreme right wing across a wide variety of issues and has exacerbated the polarization and the strident, uncivil tone of much of what passes for political discourse in this country today,'' Milliken said in the statement.

Milliken, a moderate Republican, has been critical of Bush and has faulted the GOP on such issues as same-sex marriage, flag-burning and abortion.

The Bush campaign dismissed Milliken's endorsement, saying he led under a different time."

... yeah, back when integrity was valued and hypocrisy scorned.




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[lax] Politics - World (context)
Does that mean they'll rehire their Washington
2004-10-20 10:20:54
bureau chief? ...

"Sinclair Broadcast fired its Washington bureau chief, saying he revealed company business when he discussed its upcoming program on a documentary critical of John Kerry's anti-Vietnam War activities.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. said in a statement late Monday that it fired reporter Jon Leiberman and that "we are disappointed that Jon's political views caused him to violate company policy and speak to the press about company business."

In his initial remarks, published Monday by The (Baltimore) Sun, Leiberman called the Sinclair show "biased political propaganda, with clear intentions to sway this election."

Leiberman said he was fired Monday by Joseph DeFeo, Sinclair's vice president for news, and escorted out of the company's headquarters in Hunt Valley, Md."

... somehow I rather doubt it.





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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Marlow Cook, former Republican Senator
2004-10-20 10:00:50
from Kentucky:

"Lyndon Johnson said America could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says you can have guns, butter and no taxes at the same time. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is wrong, and we live by it to our peril. We in this nation have a serious problem. Its almost worse than terrorism: We are broke. Our government is borrowing a billion dollars a day. They are now borrowing from the government pension program, for apparently they have gotten as much out of the Social Security Trust as it can take. Our House and Senate announce weekly grants for every kind of favorite local programs to save legislative seats, and it's all borrowed money."

... it's almost like they were leaving letters saying, "stop me before I borrow again!" and nobody was paying attention.



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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Name your poison: Why Deficits Matter
2004-10-20 09:56:28
Deficit spending drives up the interest we pay every year.

When the interest is a fairly small fraction of the budget, it is easy to hide without specifically addressing it -- it gets absorbed in tax, spending, and budget financing (debt limit) bills that are flowing through Congress that year. But if you've just run a big deficit, say $500B, you've gotta come up with an ADDITIONAL $25 billion every year--FOREVER. Now it starts to hurt. And if you run $500B deficits every year for 8 years, you've added $4,000B to the debt and now you gotta come up with $200 billion MORE.

Name your poison: spending cuts, taxes, inflation, or more borrow&pray.



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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Kerry pulling away in key states
2004-10-20 09:47:09
"latest Zogby Interactive Battleground States poll released today shows that no lead that Bush has in any battleground state is safely beyond the MOE, and are therefore all in play. On the other hand, Kerry seems to have moved out to safe leads in six of the nine states he leads in, including Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, and importantly Pennsylvania. Kerry is closing in on Bush in West Virginia and is adding to a small lead in Wisconsin."

... just like the RedSox: gonna build up your hopes again, then break your heart and smash it flatter than yesterday's roadkill.


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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Kerry supporters expect Bush victory
2004-10-20 09:39:32
"Two polls indicate the majority of John Kerry's Democratic supporters expect him to lose to U.S. President George Bush, the Washington Times said Wednesday.

In polls by Fox News and the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and Politics, roughly a quarter of Kerry supporters who have an opinion on the outcome of the election predict the Massachusetts senator will lose.
...
Popularity polls by Gallup, Fox and ABC News have Bush ahead by 8, 7 and 5 points, respectively. However, those same polls show the president leading by margins of 20, 17 and 23 on the question of who respondents expect to win the election. "

... or at least on who the Supreme Court will say the winner is.




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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Bush must be the Annointed One
2004-10-20 09:17:58
One more from the "Bush-Detached From Reality" file, and a made-to-order Kerry commercial in swing states:

The founder of the U.S. Christian Coalition said Tuesday he told President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that he should prepare Americans for the likelihood of casualties, but the president told him, "We're not going to have any casualties."

Pat Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, said he had that conversation with the president in Nashville, Tennessee, before the March 2003 invasion. He described Bush in the meeting as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life."

www.theleftcoaster.com/

... but will Kerry get any traction from this? History says NO.



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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Bush suppressing CIA report
2004-10-20 09:07:43
"The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.

"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer19oct19,1,6762967.column?coll=la-util-op-ed

... excuse me! "look like " ??? They weren't and they didn't. Period.





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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Bush sent our troops out there to die!
2004-10-19 16:34:27
His own general blows the whistle...

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40321-2004Oct17.html

my favorite part :

"He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time."


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[sfo] Politics - World (context)
Have a look at my crystal ball
2004-10-19 15:44:15
Not many places to raise a trillion -- when are they gonna start feeling used?

We're already largely dependent on foreign gov'ts (principally China & Japan) to fund the deficit every year with their purchases of our bonds. With a less-than-robust economy of late they've been content with 10-year notes near historic lows of 4%. But with the dollar in decline and the skyrocketing $500B current accounts deficit (which is also funded by IOUs to foreigners) showing no sign of slowing down, you should not expect these benevolent entities to fund our government's reckless adventure in faith-based budgeting indefinitely. The 10-year note could easily romp up to 8% fairly quickly. Mortgage rates will follow right behind. Adjustable mortgage holders will by paying upwards of 10% (if not simply defaulting) and fixed mortgage holders won't be taking out new mortgages either by selling and moving up or cashing out with another refi anymore, and property values are poised to take a tumble -- that could rip a huge chunk of money per household out of consumer spending as well as plunge some property value-dependent communities heavily into the red.

Goodbye expansion, hello rip-roaring inflationary recession.

Bush left our troops out there to die

2004-10-18 17:49:06
Where is the f***ing OUTRAGE ???...

"The top U.S. commander in Iraq complained to the Pentagon last winter that his supply situation was so poor that it threatened Army troops' ability to fight, according to an official document that has surfaced only now.
The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to combat operations, such as tanks and helicopters, was causing problems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a letter to top Army officials, that "I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with rates this low."



Sanchez, who was the senior commander on the ground in Iraq from the summer of 2003 until the summer of 2004, said in his letter that Army units in Iraq were "struggling just to maintain . . . relatively low readiness rates" on key combat systems, such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-mortar radars and Black Hawk helicopters.



He also protested in his letter, sent Dec. 4 to the number two officer in the Army, with copies to other senior officials, that his soldiers still needed protective inserts to upgrade 36,000 sets of body armor but that their delivery had been postponed twice in the month before he was writing. There were 131,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at the time."

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40321-2004Oct17.html

"BLUNDERING IN BAGHDAD"

2004-10-18 10:23:48
From the Hoover's Larry Diamond,

"...Iraq today falls far short of what the Bush administration promised. As a result of a long chain of U.S. miscalculations, the coalition occupation has left Iraq in far worse shape than it need have and has diminished the long-term prospects of democracy there. Iraqis, Americans, and other foreigners continue to be killed. What went wrong? ...



In truth, around 300,000 troops might have been enough to make Iraq largely secure after the war. But doing so would also have required different kinds of troops, with different rules of engagement. The coalition should have deployed vastly more military police and other troops trained for urban patrols, crowd control, civil reconstruction, and peace maintenance and enforcement. Tens of thousands of soldiers with sophisticated monitoring equipment should have been posted along the borders with Syria and Iran to intercept the flows of foreign terrorists, Iranian intelligence agents, money, and weapons.

But Washington failed to take such steps, for the same reasons it decided to occupy Iraq with a relatively light force: hubris and ideology. Contemptuous of the State Department's regional experts who were seen as too "soft" to remake Iraq, a small group of Pentagon officials ignored the elaborate postwar planning the State Department had overseen through its "Future of Iraq" project, which had anticipated many of the problems that emerged after the invasion. Instead of preparing for the worst, Pentagon planners assumed that Iraqis would joyously welcome U.S. and international troops as liberators..."



...Yadda-yadda-yadda. Wussamatter, Larry -- didn't you get that memo?

www.foreignaffairs.org/20040901faessay83505/larry-diamond/what-went-wrong-in-iraq.html

The Triumph of the Trivial

Paul Krugman reviewed 60 days' worth of transcripts from the major cable and broadcast TV networks and finds [SURPRISE!] little of substance and plenty of bias. Why don't they just say "The TRUTH? You can't HANDLE THE TRUTH!"...

"...Never mind the details - I couldn't even find a clear statement that Kerry wants to roll back recent high-income tax cuts and use the money to cover most of the uninsured.

When reports mentioned the Kerry plan at all, it was usually horse race analysis - how it's playing, not what's in it.

On the other hand, everyone knows Teresa Heinz Kerry told someone to "shove it," [but] none of the transcripts I've read mention the target of her ire works for Richard Mellon Scaife, a billionaire who financed smear campaigns against the Clintons - including accusations of murder...And viewers learned nothing about Scaife's long vendetta against Heinz Kerry herself.

There are two issues here, trivialization and bias, but they're related.

Somewhere along the line, TV news stopped reporting on candidates' policies and turned instead to trivia that supposedly reveal their personalities.

We hear about Kerry's haircuts, not his health care proposals. We hear about George Bush's brush-cutting, not his environmental policies.

...

And since campaign coverage as celebrity profiling has no rules, it offers ample scope for biased reporting.

Notice the voter's reference to "these millionaires." Columbia Journalism Review [finds] a press prone to needlessly introduce Sens. Kerry and Edwards and Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, as millionaires or billionaires, without similar labels for President Bush or Vice President Cheney. ...the Bush campaign has been "hammering away with talking points casting Kerry as out of the mainstream because of his wealth, hoping to influence press coverage."

The campaign isn't claiming Kerry's policies favor the rich - they manifestly don't, while Bush's manifestly do. Instead we're supposed to dislike Kerry simply because he's wealthy (and not notice his opponent is, too).

Republicans, of all people, are practicing the politics of envy, and the media obediently go along. In short, the triumph of the trivial is not a trivial matter.

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:N7LCFipfAsgJ:www.dailystar.com/dailystar/relatedarticles/32363.php+%22krugman%22++crisis+kerry&hl=en&lr=lang_en


... BOHICA, baby. It's 4 years until Jeb's turn.

NYT for JFK -- sums it up for me

< RoughJustice > 10/17 08:21:39

or maybe more like "NYT for ABB", but let's not quibble ...

www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17sun1.html?oref=login&hp

We have specific fears about what would happen in a second Bush term, particularly regarding the Supreme Court. The record so far gives us plenty of cause for worry. Thanks to Mr. Bush, Jay Bybee, the author of an infamous Justice Department memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique, is now a federal appeals court judge. Another Bush selection, J. Leon Holmes, a federal judge in Arkansas, has written that wives must be subordinate to their husbands and compared abortion rights activists to Nazis.

Mr. Bush remains enamored of tax cuts but he has never stopped Republican lawmakers from passing massive spending, even for projects he dislikes, like increased farm aid.

If he wins re-election, domestic and foreign financial markets will know the fiscal recklessness will continue.
We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

...we enthusiastically endorse John Kerry for president.

What, my lai?

Seymour Hersh, as transcribed by Jonathan Schwarz:

"I got a call last week from a soldier -- it's different now, a lot of communication, 800 numbers. He's an American officer and he was in a unit halfway between Baghdad and the Syrian border. It's a place where we claim we've done great work at cleaning out the insurgency. He was a platoon commander. First lieutenant, ROTC guy.
It was a call about this. He had been bivouacing outside of town with his platoon. It was near, it was an agricultural area, and there was a granary around. And the guys that owned the granary, the Iraqis that owned the granary... It was an area that the insurgency had some control, but it was very quiet, it was not Fallujah. It was a town that was off the mainstream. Not much violence there. And his guys, the guys that owned the granary, had hired, my guess is from his language, I wasn't explicit -- we're talking not more than three dozen, thirty or so guards. Any kind of work people were dying to do. So Iraqis were guarding the granary. His troops were bivouaced, they were stationed there, they got to know everybody...

They were a couple weeks together, they knew each other. So orders came down from the generals in Baghdad, we want to clear the village, like in Samarra. And as he told the story, another platoon from his company came and executed all the guards, as his people were screaming, stop. And he said they just shot them one by one. He went nuts, and his soldiers went nuts. And he's hysterical. He's totally hysterical. And he went to the captain. He was a lieutenant, he went to the company captain. And the company captain said, "No, you don't understand. That's a kill. We got thirty-six insurgents."

www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000172.html

... Perfect. Just freaking perfect.

Voter registration, GOP style

2004-10-15 15:04:38
Isolated incidents or a pattern of abuse? .... The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Block the Vote: "Officials have begun a criminal investigation into reports of similar actions by Sproul in Oregon.
Republicans claim, of course, that they did nothing wrong - and that besides, Democrats do it, too. But there haven't been any comparably credible accusations against Democratic voter-registration organizations. And there is a pattern of Republican efforts to disenfranchise Democrats, by any means possible.
Some of these, like the actions reported in Nevada, involve dirty tricks. For example, in 2002 the Republican Party in New Hampshire hired an Idaho company to paralyze Democratic get-out-the-vote efforts by jamming the party's phone banks.
But many efforts involve the abuse of power. For example, Ohio's secretary of state, a Republican, tried to use an archaic rule about paper quality to invalidate thousands of new, heavily Democratic registrations.
That attempt failed. But in Wisconsin, a Republican county executive insists that this year, when everyone expects a record turnout, Milwaukee will receive fewer ballots than it got in 2000 or 2002 - a recipe for chaos at polling places serving urban, mainly Democratic voters.
And Florida is the site of naked efforts to suppress Democratic votes, and the votes of blacks in particular.
Florida's secretary of state recently ruled that voter registrations would be deemed incomplete if those registering failed to check a box affirming their citizenship, even if they had signed an oath saying the same thing elsewhere on the form. Many counties are, sensibly, ignoring this ruling, but it's apparent that some officials have both used this rule and other technicalities to reject applications as incomplete, and delayed notifying would-be voters of problems with their applications until it was too late.

Whose applications get rejected? A Washington Post examination of rejected applications in Duval County found three times as many were from Democrats, compared with Republicans. It also found a strong tilt toward rejection of blacks' registrations."

www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?oref=login&hp

... more important, where is everyone's GODDAMN SENSE OF OUTRAGE?
What DOES it take to get you out into the street?

Whose side are the veterans on?

Depending on whether you mean veterans elected to office or vets in general,
ya still gotta wonder ...

DEMOCRATS

Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.

David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.

Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.

Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.

Bob Kerrey: LtJG. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.

Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-'47; Medal of Honor, WWII.

John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V Purple Hearts.

John Edwards: did not serve.

Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.

Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star, Vietnam.

Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-1953.

Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.

Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.

Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII, receiving the Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.

Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Soldier's Medal.

Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.

Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.

Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V.

Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.

Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57

Chuck Robb: Vietnam

Howell Heflin: Silver Star

George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWII.

Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received 311.

Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.

Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953

John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and Air Medal with 18 Clusters.

Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.

Wesley Clark: U.S. Army, 1966-2000, West Point, Vietnam,

Purple Heart, Silver Star. Retired 4-star general.

John Dingell: WWII vet

John Conyers: Army 1950-57, Korea



REPUBLICANS
Dennis Hastert: did not serve.

Tom Delay: did not serve.

House Whip Roy Blunt: did not serve.

Bill Frist: did not serve.

Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.

George Pataki: did not serve.

Mitch McConnell: did not serve.

Rick Santorum: did not serve.

Trent Lott: did not serve.

Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.

John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.

Jeb Bush: did not serve.

Karl Rove: did not serve.

Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." (Please note: this is the man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.)

Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.

Vin Weber: did not serve.

Richard Perle: did not serve.

Douglas Feith: did not serve.

Eliot Abrams: did not serve.

Richard Shelby: did not serve.

Jon Kyl: did not serve.

Tim Hutchison: did not serve.

Christopher Cox: did not serve.

Newt Gingrich: did not serve.

Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as aviator and flight instructor.

George W. Bush: six-year Nat'l Guard commitment (incomplete).

Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.

Gerald Ford: Navy, WWII

Phil Gramm: did not serve.

John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bob Dole: an honorable veteran.

Chuck Hagel: two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, Vietnam.

Jeff Sessions: Army Reserves, 1973-1986

JC Watts: did not serve.

Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.

G.H.W. Bush: Pilot in WWII. Shot down by the Japanese.

Tom Ridge: Bronze Star for Valor in Vietnam.

Antonin Scalia: did not serve.

Clarence Thomas: did not serve


Bonus Category:
CONSERVATIVE PUNDITS AND PREACHERS

Sean Hannity: did not serve.

Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')

Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.

Michael Savage: did not serve.

George Will: did not serve.

Chris Matthews: did not serve.

Paul Gigot: did not serve.

Bill Bennett: did not serve.

Pat Buchanan: did not serve.

Bill Kristol: did not serve.

Kenneth Starr: did not serve.

Michael Medved: did not serve.

Anne Coulter: did not serve.



... How's that working for ya?

Bush has always had a trick memory, apparently. I just hope this is true...


What Bush's Harvard Business School Prof Has To Say
Originally Posted by salon.com

By Mary Jacoby
Sept. 16, 2004

For 25 years, Yoshi Tsurumi, one of George W. Bush's
professors at Harvard Business School, was content
with his green-card status as a permanent legal
resident of the United States. But Bush's ascension to
the presidency in 2001 prompted the Japanese native to
secure his American citizenship. The reason: to be
able to speak out with the full authority of
citizenship about why he believes Bush lacks the
character and intellect to lead the world's oldest and
most powerful democracy.

"I don't remember all the students in detail unless
I'm prompted by something," Tsurumi said in a
telephone interview Wednesday. "But I always remember
two types of students. One is the very excellent
student, the type as a professor you feel honored to
be working with. Someone with strong social values,
compassion and intellect -- the very rare person you
never forget. And then you remember students like
George Bush, those who are totally the opposite."

Tsurumi said. "He showed pathological lying habits and
was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and
biases. He would even deny saying something he just
said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students
jumped on him; I challenged him." When asked to
explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, Bush would
respond, "Oh, I never said that."

Bush, he recalled, "made this ridiculous statement and
when I asked him to explain, he said, 'The government
doesn't have to help poor people -- because they are
lazy.' I said, 'Well, could you explain that
assumption?' Not only could he not explain it, he
started backtracking on it, saying, 'No, I didn't say
that.'"

Bush once sneered at Tsurumi for showing the film "The
Grapes of Wrath," based on John Steinbeck's novel of
the Depression. "We were in a discussion of the New
Deal, and he called Franklin Roosevelt's policies
'socialism.' He denounced labor unions, the Securities
and Exchange Commission, Medicare, Social Security,
you name it. He denounced the civil rights movement as socialism. To
him, socialism and communism were the same thing. And when challenged to
explain his prejudice, he could not defend his argument, either
ideologically, polemically or academically."

Students who challenged and embarrassed Bush in class
would then become the subject of a whispering campaign
by him, Tsurumi said. "In class, he couldn't challenge
them. But after class, he sometimes came up to me in
the hallway and started bad-mouthing those students
who had challenged him. He would complain that someone
was drinking too much. It was innuendo and lies. So
that's how I knew, behind his smile and his smirk,
that he was a very insecure, cunning and vengeful
guy."

Bush sometimes came late to class and often sat in the
back row of the theater-like classroom, wearing a
bomber jacket from the Texas Air National Guard and
spitting chewing tobacco into a cup.

"At first, I wondered, 'Who is this George Bush?' It's
a very common name and I didn't know his background.
And he was such a bad student that I asked him once
how he got in. He said, 'My dad has good friends.'"
Bush scored in the lowest 10 percent of the class.

"I used to chat up a number of students when we were
walking back to class," Tsurumi said. "Here was Bush,
wearing a Texas Guard bomber jacket, and the draft was
the No. 1 topic in those days. And I said, 'George,
what did you do with the draft?' He said, 'Well, I got
into the Texas Air National Guard.' And I said, 'Lucky
you. I understand there is a long waiting list for it.
How'd you get in?' When he told me, he didn't seem
ashamed or embarrassed. He thought he was entitled to
all kinds of privileges and special deals. He was not
the only one trying to twist all their connections to
avoid Vietnam. But then, he was fanatically for the
war."

Tsurumi told Bush that someone who avoided a draft
while supporting a war in which others were dying was
a hypocrite. "He realized he was caught, showed his
famous smirk and huffed off."

Tsurumi's conclusion: Bush is not as dumb as his
detractors allege. "He was just badly brought up, with
no discipline, and no compassion," he said.

He said other professors and students at the business
school from that time share his recollections but are
afraid to come forward, fearing ostracism or
retribution. And why is Tsurumi speaking up now?
Because with the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq and Osama
bin Laden still on the loose -- not to mention a
federal deficit ballooning out of control -- the
stakes are too high to remain silent. "Obviously, I
don't think he is the best person" to be running the
country, he said. "I wanted to explain why."

"Let me FINISH!"

"a technical expert who designs and makes such devices for the U.S. military tells Salon that he believes the bulge is indeed a transceiver designed to receive electronic signals and transmit them to a hidden earpiece lodged in Bush's ear canal. "
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/13/transmitter/index_np.html

... all we need now is Marty Feldman's "What hump?"

5 Nails in our Economic Coffin

Self-inflicted wounds will do what Osama can't ...

"5 big questions for the last debate


Promises to grow jobs or protect retirees don't mean much without specifics. Here's what I need to hear from Bush and Kerry on the financial issues they haven't yet touched.

By Jim Jubak

I give up. After months of campaigning and one vice presidential and two presidential debates, it’s clear that no candidate for national office is going to talk about the economic issues that I want to hear about.

Why? Not because these issues are unimportant or peripheral to the lives of most Americans. On the contrary, they’re even more important than how to stimulate job growth or the future of Social Security. Unless we address the five problems I outline below, we don’t stand a chance of coming up with effective policies on the economic issues the candidates are talking about.

U.S. voters deserve the whole economic truth and nothing but the truth from President Bush and Sen. Kerry, especially since we’re about to vote on who will lead this country for the next four years. Complex issues should be discussed on the stump and in debates, not filed away as position papers that no one ever reads.

So here are the economic issues that I think are most critical to our future -- and that no one is talking about in this election.Check out your options.
Find the best rate
before you borrow.



Unchecked pork-barrel spending
On Oct. 6, House and Senate negotiators approved $145 billion in tax cuts to fix what they claimed was a $50 billion tax problem. The original goal was to compensate U.S. exporters for the loss of tax breaks that the World Trade Organization had declared illegal and that had led the European Union to impose retaliatory tariffs.

Once again, Congress demonstrated that once it starts spending money -- and a tax cut is an expenditure -- it can’t stop handing out the goodies, like $20 billion in tax cuts on foreign earnings, $500 million in tax breaks for railroads and $26 billion in tax breaks for “exporters” like oil and gas producers who don’t export anything.

Reining in Congress isn’t impossible. A first step is to get the candidates to pledge to veto pork-barrel spending bills. Without fiscal restraint from Congress and the president, Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve wind up with all the economic power that counts. When is the last time you voted for Greenspan or any other Federal Reserve member?

Outsourcing and offshoring of jobs
The demographic logic isn’t hard to follow: A 28-year-old worker and a 55-year-old worker who lose their paychecks because their jobs have been sent abroad face very different problems. The younger worker isn’t likely to have as many financial obligations as the older employee, and he has a much longer time horizon to make up lost financial ground after retraining, which can take up to two years to complete.

Neither candidate has even broached a plan on how to fill that gap for demographically challenged workers. And that seems a terrible oversight given the rapidly aging U.S. workforce.

The failure of private pensions and health benefits
Fixing Social Security is relatively simple (raise the taxable income ceiling, raise the retirement age, raise the tax rate or lower benefits). It’s the government health-care trust funds that are in the really deep red ink.

That’s an especially big problem for the older population, because it’s those workers who are most likely to have a private, defined-benefit plan. (Younger workers probably never had a defined-benefit plan to begin with and commonly rely on plans such as 401(k)s.) If their private pension plan falters and their payments are reduced or wiped out, the U.S. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. (PBGC) will pay a maximum benefit of only $44,386 (in 2004) to workers who retire at 65. It does not, however, pay or guarantee any health-care benefits to retirees.

The PBGC has already been overextended by the steel and airline industries’ consolidation and bankruptcies, and it was never intended to meet the needs of an entire generation as the country made the tough transition from one type of retirement coverage to another.

The decline of the U.S. dollar
The financial crisis that gets all the attention is the government’s $415 billion deficit. That’s a startling figure in absolute terms but, as 3.6% of the Gross Domestic Product, we’re not in the historical danger zone yet. (The trend is certainly troubling since the government has gone from a surplus of 2.4% of GDP in 2000 to a deficit of 3.6% in just four years. And, mind you, all these figures use government accounting which is, shall we say, creative.)

At 3.6% of GDP, the government deficit is much smaller than the U.S. trade deficit (or the current account deficit, to be precise), which now stands at 5% of GDP. To keep accounts in balance, the United States ships money overseas in exchange for goods, and since the U.S. household savings rate is now a paltry 1.5% of disposable income (down from a high of 11% in 1984), the money that we ship abroad is usually borrowed.

That works as long as foreigners are willing to sell us their things for dollars, but over time, it’s a good bet that the constant flow of dollars overseas will lead to a cheaper dollar. Some part of the current run-up in oil, which is priced in dollars, may indeed be related to oil producers’ desire to get more dollars for their oil. A falling dollar makes U.S. goods cheaper for overseas customers to buy, which is how trade deficits eventually get resolved.

But a cheaper dollar also means that U.S. consumers wind up paying more for everything they buy from abroad, whether it’s oil or computer chips or flip flops. The question isn’t whether the dollar will decline, but how fast and by how much. Estimates by economists range from 10% to 30%. At the high end of the range, a dollar decline would produce massive cost increases for some American consumers. The burden is likely to fall hardest on low-income households and fixed-income retirees who stretch the buying power of their retirement checks by buying cheaper imported goods.

The need for national economic security.
No one is talking about the threat to the extraordinary era of domestic economic peace that the Unites States has enjoyed for the last 60 or 70 years.

The foundation of that peace has been the promise that each generation of Americans would be better off than the preceding generation. That made possible the intergenerational transfer of wealth from young to old that is at the heart of our existing Social Security system and the rising national debt. It was OK to pay the oldsters more out of the pockets of younger workers, for example, because those younger workers knew their future was going to be more comfortable than that older generation's present.

But that implicit economic contract is in danger. Looking at my own two young children I feel that there is a real possibility that their generation won't do as well as mine did. It's hard to overestimate the dangers of breaking this implicit contract with younger workers just when an aging society and growing twin deficits makes the international transfer of wealth much more critical -- and much more burdensome.

While we're all worrying about how to pay those bills, we also need to be debating a plan that would give the bill-paying younger generation hope for their own future.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P95342.asp

The Economist (Leftist, pinko rag) blasts Bush.

"Despite their diverse assessments of today's economy, the professors are overwhelmingly critical of the central plank of Mr Bush's economic policy—tax cuts. More than seven out of ten respondents say the Bush administration's tax cuts were either a bad or a very bad idea, and a similar proportion disapproves of Mr Bush's plans to make his tax cuts permanent. By contrast, Mr Kerry's plan to roll back the tax cuts for people with incomes over $200,000 wins the support of seven in ten of them."

www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3262965

The dollar will do what Osama couldn't

or, "It's the Economy AND the Deficits, Stupid! "

"While both candidates have talked almost exclusively about the next four years, the nation's long-term fiscal problems have loomed ever larger.

It may sound like a tired refrain by now, but the real action is in Social Security and Medicare. Yes, pity the nation's biggest entitlement programs. No one seems to want to cure what ails them.

In testimony before Congress last month, Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, said the budget's longer-term prospects remained troubling. "With the baby boomers starting to retire in a few years and health spending continuing to soar," he said, "our budget position will almost surely deteriorate substantially in coming years if current policies remain in place."

JUST how substantially the budget position will deteriorate or, in plain English, how much the government will dip into the red, has been a popular subject among economists of late. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a professor at Boston University, has offered figures in the tens of trillions of dollars.

The government would not have to borrow those trillions all at once. The debts would climb over decades. It would, however, have to make sure it was in a position to borrow at least some of the money.

That means it would need a plan. Just as investors will not lend to a struggling airline with no strategy to control its debts, investors will not lend to a government whose ability to repay looks as if it can only worsen.

www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/business/yourmoney/10view.html?oref=login&8ym

...sure, making the Bush tax cuts permanent is only gonna make it a few trillion or so worse over 10 years, and the rise in health care costs will suck another 1.5 trillion annually, but I plan to retire and put my money in foreign bonds and commodities before it reaches critical mass.

Jobs Report Lays Yet Another Egg for W

He's already got the makings of one helluvan omelette ...

"Nonfarm payrolls increased just 96,000 last month while the unemployment rate held steady at 5.4%, as 221,000 people dropped out of the labor force. The consensus among economists was for 150,000 job gains, although estimates ranged from 10,000 jobs lost to 250,000 jobs added.

The details of the report were equally lackluster. Some 18,000 manufacturing jobs were shed last month, and the manufacturing workweek declined. Meanwhile, average hourly earnings rose just 0.2%, below the 0.3% estimate. The household survey showed that employment fell by 201,000.
.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said bad weather "appears to have held down employment growth" during the month but noted that it was "not enough to change materially the Bureau's assessment of the employment situation in September."

...

Meanwhile, the government released a preliminary revision of employment growth for the period of March 2003 through March 2004.

The BLS said 236,000 more jobs were created during that period than originally thought, but it noted that this is below the 10-year average.

President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers had predicted that payrolls could be revised up by 288,000, and possibly as much as 384,000, although economists said those assumptions were aggressive. Benchmark revisions are based on more complete data from unemployment insurance tax records.

George W. Bush School Test Finally Graded

bush_results

... How's that working for ya?

facts still don't matter, but let's run 'em down fwiw:

1) Bush and Cheney advocated invading Iraq on intelligence that Iraq was developing WMDs.

2) The intel was irrefutably proven to be wrong. Bush and Cheney stood fast behind their position on the war anyway.

3) The recent US weapons inspector's report (published this week) proves conclusively there was only the tattered remnants of a WMD program in Iraq; the report concludes that their WMD program was stronger in 1991 than it was when we invaded the country in 2002.

4) In light of this overwhelming evidence (which they haven't refuted to date) against their claims, Cheney said today - that's October 7, 2004 - in a town hall meeting in Miami the this report justifies (!!!!) rather than undermines Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Why? Well, here's Cheney's logic: although Iraq clearly was no threat to the world, they were focused on getting export sanctions lifted, and as soon as they were, he'd've resumed his WMD program.
And therefore (I'm not making this up -- this IS Cheney's logic), we needed to invade Iraq because even though they didn't have a WMD program, they would've started one as soon as the UN inspectors determined he didn't have one, because once they determined Iraq didn't have a WMD program e-e-everyone would be feel safe and they could therefore start a WMD program again.

hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHENEY?SITE=NWCN&SECTION=HOME

NOW let's put that in perspective: it was necessary to spend $200B, lose 1100 American Special Forces' lives (and continue to lose 30 or more per month with increasing, not decreasing casualties), kill/maim 10,000 or more Iraqi civilians, separate military members families from their families, and for America to lose favor in the world for this pseudologic. In so doing, a president who mathematically lost his election and who faced significant opposition at home and abroad to this action went ahead anyway and sacrificed those precious resources on his personal whim.



... How's that working for ya?

Diebold expands collection of black eyes

"Diebold, the much-criticized electronic voting machine company, got another black eye last week. A federal court in California ruled that it had violated federal law when it falsely charged two students with violating its copyrights by posting critical information about its voting machines on the Internet. The case raises more questions about Diebold's honesty and its commitment to transparency.

The story began early last year when someone - it is unclear who - posted internal Diebold e-mail messages on the Internet that discussed flaws in the company's electronic voting machines. Two students from Swarthmore College then posted those messages on various Web sites. Diebold sent out a flurry of cease-and-desist letters claiming that the postings violated its copyrights. The students sued, charging that Diebold knowingly misrepresented its rights under copyright law.

The United States District Court for the Northern District of California agreed. Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is illegal to send a cease-and-desist letter while knowing that the claim of copyright infringement is false. The court held that Diebold knew that its e-mail messages "discussing possible technical problems" with its voting machines were not copyrighted, but went ahead anyway.

This is the second recent setback to Diebold's already troubled reputation. Last month, California's attorney general, Bill Lockyer, joined a false-claims suit against Diebold charging it with lying to the state about the security of its voting systems. Now, a federal court has ruled that Diebold made knowing misrepresentations to get damaging information about its machines' security off the Internet.

Diebold has a great deal to do to make its work transparent and its company trustworthy if it wants to remain in the elections business.


Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/opinion/04mon3.html?ex=1097553600&en=89b97ef416c602a8&ei=5065

Town wants its idiot back

(Crawford, Texas-NBC) Sept. 29, 2004 - The newspaper in President Bush's adopted Texas hometown is throwing its support to his opponent, Senator John Kerry.

The Weekly Lone Star Iconoclast in Crawford, Texas, criticized the president's handling of the war in Iraq and for turning tight budget surpluses into record deficits.

The editorial also criticized Bush's proposals on Social Security and Medicare. Its publishers backed Bush four years ago, but now say he didn't come through on campaign promises.

The editorial urged Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.

There's Lies and Then There's Lies That Get People Killed

On the one hand we have Dan Rather's forged documents with response: "...we have been misled."

Consequences:

* Hit to Rather's reputation
* Hit to CBS's reputation
* Hit to the media's (already questionable) reputation

Conservative response:

* Unmitigated, eye-popping outrage
* Calls for Rather's resignation
* Calls for an investigation by the House of Representatives

... And then there's the White House's forged documents with response: "We fell for it."

Consequences:

* American public misled and frightened into an invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to the U.S.
* Hit to America's reputation
* Over 1,000 Americans dead
* Over 7,000 Americans injured
* Tens of thousands of Iraqis dead
* Iraq turned center for terrorist recruitment
* Hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayers' dollars gone
* Anti American sentiment at record highs
* Iraq on the verge of civil war

Conservative response:

* (Crickets chirping)
... How's that working for ya?

Blair Does Some Splainin

BRIGHTON, England (Reuters) - Tony Blair offered his Labour party on Tuesday a partial apology for waging war in Iraq, striving to pull angry supporters behind him ahead of an election next year.

But as two more British soldiers died in Iraq and a hostage remained under threat of death, the prime minister's hopes of drawing a line under two years that have wrecked his public trust ratings are far from secure.

"The evidence about Saddam having actual biological and chemical weapons ... has turned out to be wrong," Blair told Labour's annual conference, his nearest yet to a "mea culpa."

"The problem is I can apologize for the information that turned out to be wrong but I can't, sincerely at least, apologize for removing Saddam," he said. "The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."

Blair's speech was interrupted twice by protesters, one yelling that the prime minister "had blood on his hands," others opposing a planned ban on fox-hunting. They were bundled out of the hall.

...

"I don't think this speech changed anything on Iraq," former minister Clare Short, who resigned over the war, told Reuters. "Iraq will go on being a mess but the party wants to win the election and will pull together for that."

Blair acknowledged terrorism would never be defeated unless Israelis and Palestinians were reconciled -- expressing frustration at a lack of progress ahead of U.S. elections.

"After November, I will make its revival a personal priority. Two states, Israel and Palestine, living side-by-side in an enduring peace would do more to defeat this terrorism than bullets alone can ever do," he said.

... but Jolly Old England may never be the same with all those foxes overrunning the heath.

The Wadical White Wing, Bush's Best Buds

Sitting at the right hand of the Air Texas Chowder and Marching Society's Fearless Leader, the Wadical Whites are stalwart defenders of the the One True Faith, making them standard bearers for the Coalition of the Conniving and the Clueless ...

Grand Old Party Values for the New Millenium


God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says (Wash Post, Sep14 '01)

"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve," said Falwell, appearing yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network's "700 Club," hosted by Robertson.

"Jerry, that's my feeling," Robertson responded. "I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population."

Falwell said the American Civil Liberties Union has "got to take a lot of blame for this," again winning Robertson's agreement: "Well, yes."

Then Falwell broadened his blast to include the federal courts and others who he said were "throwing God out of the public square." He added:

"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' "

People for the American Way transcribed the broadcast and denounced the comments as running directly counter to President Bush's call for national unity. Ralph G. Neas, the liberal group's president, called the remarks "absolutely inappropriate and irresponsible."

Robertson and others on the religious right gave critical backing to Bush last year when he was battling for the GOP presidential nomination. A White House official called the remarks "inappropriate" and added, "The president does not share those views."

Falwell was unrepentant, saying in an interview that he was "making a theological statement, not a legal statement."

"I put all the blame legally and morally on the actions of the terrorist," he said. But he said America's "secular and anti-Christian environment left us open to our Lord's [decision] not to protect. When a nation deserts God and expels God from the culture . . . the result is not good."

Robertson was not available for comment, a spokeswoman said. But she released a statement echoing the remarks he made on his show. An ACLU spokeswoman said the group "will not dignify the Falwell-Robertson remarks with a comment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A28620-2001Sep14¬Found=true

... but that ain't all. Not by a long shot mister!



On May 4, 2004 Alan Keyes said:

Now, you think it's a coincidence that on Sept. 11th, 2001, we were struck by terrorists an evil that has at its heart the disregard of innocent human life? We who have for several decades killed not thousands but scores of millions of our own children, in disregard of the principle of innocent human life — I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a warning. I don't think that's a coincidence, I think that's a shot across the bow.

I think that's a way of Providence telling us, "I love you all; I'd like to give you a chance. Wake up! Would you please wake up?

And on Aug 17, he elaborated:

As I often point out to folks, the evil is the same. And that means, quite frankly, in fighting the war against terror, as I have often put it to audiences, the evil that we fight is but the shadow of the evil that we do.

This kind of slimy rhetoric is typical in the Republican Party. Right now they are feverishly preparing to remake themselves for their prime-time show in New York — and their decision to put pro-choice Republicans like Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Pataki, and Rudy Giuliani on the main stage during TV hour is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to cover up the real agenda of their party — an agenda set by Keyes's ideological partners and leaders in the party, like John Ashcroft, Tom DeLay, and Karl Rove.

And Keyes isn't the first Republican to link mainstream support of a woman's right to choose with terrorism.

[Here's the topper:]

On April 25, as more than a million women were marching on Washington in support of women's rights, influential Bush advisor Karen Hughes said:

I think that after September 11, the American people are valuing life more and we need policies to value the dignity and worth of every life. President Bush has worked to say, "let's be reasonable, let's work to value life, let's reduce the number of abortions, let's increase adoptions." And I think those are the kinds of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy and, really, the fundamental issue between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life.

Bush-Cheney Ignored Numerous 9/11 Warnings

1/15/01 President Clinton and Nat'l Security Advisor Sandy Berger each tell Bush and Cheney al Qaeda planning "tremendous" and "imminent" attack, gives them plan of action (e.g., identify terrorists already in US, seize terrorist funding, bomb Taliban sites, etc.)

1/20/01 Bush & Cheney inaugurated.

1/25/01 Richard Clarke, Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG), gives Bush a similar plan, but is told the Energy Task Force is the priority. Bush pulls submarines, gunships from 6-hour alert in Arabian Sea. Clarke meets with Rice to emphasize threat. She asks him to prepare a policy paper and he does, but it "languished", Rice later admits, on her desk.

1/31/01 Bipartisan US Commission on National Security, issues report predicting terrorist attack in US, calls for urgent action. Co-chairs Gary Hart and Warren Rudman meet with Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell to emphasize the need for action. The report and their pleas are ignored. Bush says Cheney to "study the problem" and FEMA to handle domestic security but, instead, Cheney dissolves the Commission and reduces FEMA budget $200M.

4/30/01 Ahmed Ressam, foiled Y2K terrorist, tells investigators al Qaeda plans to attack the US using airplanes.

5/01 Cofer Black, CIA Counterterrorism Center, tells Bush administration about increased terrorist chatter about significant attack being planned.

5/01 Bush abandons Financial Action Task Force, which identifies sources of terrorist funding.

7/01 Egypt warns Bush that al Qaeda may try to "Kamikazee" a plane into any site where Bush might be. Bush sleeps on an aircraft carrier during the G-8 conference instead of on land with the other leaders.

7/01 CSG issues report entitled "Threat of Impending al-Qaeda Attack".

7/01 CIA Counterterrorism Center (CTC) announces al Qaeda is "planning something spectacular".

7/01 Senator Dianne Feinstein gives Dick Cheney draft legislation on counterrorism and urges swift action. (On 9/10/01, Cheney told her he needed more time to study it, to which Feinstein replies that there isn't time to spare.)

8/01 Bush goes on monthlong vacation.

8/6/01 Bush receives PDB "Bin Laden Determined To Strke in U.S."

8/15/01 Cofer Black tells the DOD's annual Convention on Counterterrorism "we are going to be struck soon, many Americans are going to die, and it could be in the U.S.".

Cheney was right

-- given this administration's success as the recruiting impetus for terrorism, a bad choice on Nov 2 could mean a bigger threat to us.

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

There are two kinds of walls: < RoughJustice > 09/10 05:47:36

Walls that keep people out, and those that keep people in. One kind is inherently bad, the other is just sensible...

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed Wednesday to changes in the route of Israel's West Bank barrier but insisted on keeping key Jewish settlement blocks inside, political sources said.

Israel's Defense Ministry had proposed changes after the Jewish state's highest court judged that the planned route of the barrier should take up less Palestinian land. The International Court of Justice ruled the barrier was illegal.

Israel says completed sections of the barrier, a network of razor-tipped fences and concrete walls, have already helped to prevent dozens of suicide bombings nearly four years into a Palestinian uprising.

Palestinians call it a grab for land they want for an independent state."


... well, yes, I suppose it is a de facto land grab. I'd be a bit more blunt about it if I were Ariel: "Kill a Jew, Lose a Mile -- It's the Law."

Inquiry Proposes Penalties for Hiding Medicare Data

WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 - The Bush administration illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and as a penalty, the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months of his salary to the government, federal investigators said Tuesday.


The investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said Mr. Scully had threatened to fire the chief Medicare actuary, in violation of an explicit provision of federal appropriations law.

Accordingly, they said, federal money could not be used to pay Mr. Scully's salary after he began making the threats to the actuary in May 2003.

The conclusion came in a formal legal opinion by the accountability office, an investigative arm of Congress formerly known as the General Accounting Office. The agency applied its interpretation of the law to factual findings previously made by the inspector general at the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Bush administration did not quarrel with those facts, but said on Tuesday that it was unconstitutional for Congress to compel the disclosure of data over objections from the executive branch.

Mr. Scully's salary in 2003 was $145,600, the department said. He would owe the government $84,933 under the legal opinion issued on Tuesday.

Asked in an interview if he would repay the money, Mr. Scully said: "No. I'm not required to. It's a matter of principle. I never did anything wrong, and I am proud of every minute of my three years at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.''

Mr. Scully, who now works for a law firm and a private investment firm, has registered as a lobbyist for Abbott Laboratories, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Caremark Rx and other health care companies, but says his actions in government were motivated solely by a desire to help Medicare beneficiaries and taxpayers.

The White House had no immediate comment. William A. Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department would not try to recover the money because Mr. Scully had "acted within his legal authority.''

But Senator John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, cited the report as evidence that "the Bush administration broke the law by covering up the true cost of their phony Medicare bill.''

Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, one of 18 Democratic senators who requested the legal opinion, said the administration had purposely hidden information about "its flawed Medicare plan,'' and he asserted, "This was a corruption of the process at the highest levels.''

President Bush signed the Medicare law, widely seen as one of his major domestic achievements, on Dec. 8. Less than two months later, the White House said the law would cost much more than Congress had assumed - $534 billion over 10 years, as against $400 billion.

Lawmakers of both parties said the law would not have passed in its current form if Congress had known of the higher cost estimates, prepared by the chief actuary, Richard S. Foster, a career civil servant who has worked for the government since 1973 and received an award for outstanding service in 2001.

The law under which Mr. Scully could be penalized says that no federal money can be used to pay the salary of any federal employee who "prohibits or prevents, or attempts or threatens to prohibit or prevent, any other officer or employee of the federal government'' from communicating with Congress.

Similar laws have been on the books since 1912, when Senator Robert M. La Follette, a progressive Republican from Wisconsin, inveighed against "gag rules'' imposed by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Laura Kopelson, a spokeswoman for the Government Accountability Office, said lawyers there were "not aware of any similar case'' in which a federal official was found to have violated the law. "This is the first time we have been asked to rule on this point of law,'' she said.

The finding is the latest development raising questions about the new statute, which offers drug benefits to all 41 million Medicare recipients and gives private insurers a huge new role in the program. The changes represent the biggest expansion of Medicare since its creation in 1965.

The Government Accountability Office said the Department of Health and Human Services should try to recover the money, just as it would try to secure payment of any debt owed to the department.

The department itself found that Mr. Scully had threatened to dismiss the actuary if he provided information and estimates sought by Congress last year in the heat of debate over Medicare.

But lawyers at the health department and the Justice Department said the law requiring the disclosure of information to Congress violated "executive privilege,'' the constitutional separation of powers and the president's right to control communications with Congress.

The Government Accountability Office rejected that argument. No court has ever held the law unconstitutional, it said, and the cost estimates were neither classified nor privileged. Indeed, it said, Mr. Scully's threats to the actuary were "a prime example of what Congress was attempting to prohibit'' when it outlawed "gag rules."

"Midlevel employees provide much of the information Congress needs to evaluate programs'' and legislation, the Senate said when it adopted the language of the 1912 law as part of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978. Similar language was included in spending bills for 2003 and 2004.

Anthony H. Gamboa, general counsel of the Government Accountability Office, said the administration was "prohibited from paying Mr. Scully's salary after he barred Mr. Foster from communicating with Congress.'' The money appropriated by Congress was simply "unavailable for the payment of his salary,'' Mr. Gamboa wrote.


...Bad executive! No biscuit!

Arab Street may finally be getting the picture

"Muslims worldwide are the main perpetrators of terrorism, a humiliating and painful truth that must be acknowledged, a prominent Arab writer said today, as Middle East media and officials registered their horror at the bloody rebel siege of a Russian school.

Unusually forthright self-criticism followed the end of the hostage crisis, along with warnings such actions inflict more damage to the image of Islam than all its enemies combined could hope to do.

Arab leaders and Muslim clerics denounced the school seizure as unjustifiable and expressed their sympathy.

“Our terrorist sons are an end-product of our corrupted culture,” Abdulrahman al-Rashed, general manager of Al-Arabiya television wrote in his daily column published in the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper."

breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=47847100&p=4784739x&n=47847482

... How's that working for ya?

I think Michael Kinsley nailed it with this one:

"In four years, this small man had two historic opportunities to reach for greatness, to lead this country to a new and better place, and he passed up both. The first was when the Democrats patriotically bowed to a Supreme Court decision they believed to be wrong, if not corrupt, so that the U.S. could avoid a further constitutional crisis. What a moment for bipartisanship! Maybe put more than a token Democrat in the Cabinet? Not a chance.

George W. Bush's second opportunity came on Sept. 11, 2001. Past grievances suddenly seemed petty, current disagreements seemed irrelevant, and, even among Bush's opponents, desperate hope replaced sullen doubts that our nation's leader would be up to the task. Bush got this gift from the opposition—the suspension of dislike and disbelief—without doing anything to deserve it. He could have asked for and got anything he wanted in the weeks and months after 9/11. And he decided to invade Iraq.

For once, George W. Bush was tested. And he flunked. "

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101040906/nkinsley.html


It's been a dreadful performance, a train wreck of an administration, and nobody to blame but themselves. Oh, yes, and Clinton. Dubya hasn't forgotten his A-B-C's -- Always Blame Clinton.

The Politics of Anything Goes - Obama is behind the curve

"Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. "

... Wake up, Barack. They've already divided us. Now they're giving us the wedgie.

We're In Charge and We're Not Gonna Take It Anymore!

We've been in charge of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court for 4 years and we're not gonna take it anymore!

The Bush speech sounds like he's running against himself...

"My plan begins with providing the security and opportunity of a growing economy. We now compete in a global market that provides new buyers for our goods, but new competition for our workers. To create more jobs in America, America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation, and making tax relief permanent. To create jobs, we will make our country less dependent on foreign sources of energy. [I love that bit!] To create jobs, we will expand trade and level the playing field to sell American goods and services across the globe. And we must protect small business owners and workers from the explosion of frivolous lawsuits that threaten jobs across America."


... what were these bozos doing for the last 4 years?

See Paul Krugman's column at

www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp

"...a third [delegate] said, Mr. Soros "is a self-admitted atheist; he was a Jew who figured out a way to survive the Holocaust."
The suggestion that Mr. Soros, who has spent billions promoting democracy around the world, is in the pay of drug cartels came from Dennis Hastert, the speaker of the House, whom the Constitution puts two heartbeats from the presidency.

The claim that Mr. Soros's political spending is driven by his desire to legalize heroin came from Newt Gingrich. And the bit about the Holocaust came from Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of The [Moon-owned] Washington Times, which has become the administration's de facto house organ.

Why are the Republicans so angry? One reason is that they have nothing positive to run on (during the first three days, Mr. Bush was mentioned far less often than John Kerry).

The promised economic boom hasn't materialized, Iraq is a bloody quagmire, and Osama bin Laden has gone from "dead or alive" to he-who-must-not-be-named.

Another reason, I'm sure, is a guilty conscience. At some level the people at that convention know that their designated hero is a man who never in his life took a risk or made a sacrifice for his country, and that they are impugning the patriotism of men who have.

That's why Band-Aids with Purple Hearts on them, mocking Mr. Kerry's war wounds and medals, have been such a hit with conventioneers, and why senior politicians are attracted to wild conspiracy theories about Mr. Soros.

It's also why Mr. Hastert, who knows how little the Bush administration has done to protect New York and help it rebuild, has accused the city of an "unseemly scramble" for cash after 9/11. Nothing makes you hate people as much as knowing in your heart that you are in the wrong and they are in the right."

Bush's ruinous economic plans

By Robert Kuttner | September 1, 2004

WE WILL shortly hear from the president himself, but the outlines of his domestic program for a second term are already all too clear. Take five key areas of economic policy -- health, Social Security, energy, taxes, and the deficit.



All five have this in common: In each case the administration program doesn't really address the underlying problem. Rather, the purpose is either to help an industry ally, stir up the party base, or advance an ideological goal (or all three).

Health Coverage. Health insurance premiums have risen by more than one-third since Bush took office, leaving more and more people uninsured or underinsured. Families USA calculates from Census Bureau data that one nonelderly American in three was without health insurance at some point from 2002 to 2003. Meanwhile, employers and insurers are moderating their own costs by increasing copays and deductibles paid by consumers.

The president's proposed health program, a massive expansion of so-called health savings accounts, doesn't address the twin problem of dwindling coverage and rising costs. It simply accelerates the shift of those costs onto consumers and gives affluent people one more tax break. Health savings accounts are useful mainly for the healthy and the wealthy because they don't buy coverage that is both comprehensive and affordable.

Social Security. The Bush plan to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part, is back. But there is no way that privatizing the system will shore up its finances. Rather, it will do just the opposite by diverting payroll tax revenue needed for Social Security payouts into new private accounts. To keep the promise of Social Security intact, Bush would need either massive new borrowing or massive tax hikes. But the more likely result is reductions in benefits. Of course, these cuts, like the damage from his deficits, would hit long after Bush left office.

Energy. There's a growing consensus among experts that the most recent wave of oil price hikes is not mainly the result of market manipulation, refining bottlenecks, or the Iraq occupation but the harbinger of the long-predicted depletion of the world's extractable oil reserves. With the huge populations of China, India, and other emergent economies joining the global consumer society, demand is simply outstripping supply.

Bush's program is essentially deeper and wider drilling, lubricated by friendly tax and environmental policies. His support for conservation or alternative energy sources is token at best. Last week three Bush Cabinet secretaries, just in time for the Republican National Convention, belatedly conceded that science has proven the reality of global climate change caused by carbon emissions. Bush said he was unaware of the report.

Taxes. The tax program for a second Bush term will be more of the same. One goal will be to make the tax cuts of 2001 to 2004 permanent. A new twist will be a shift to consumption taxes -- either a value-added tax, a national sales tax, or new tax breaks for money saved rather than spent. The result will be an overall reduction of taxes paid by those wealthy enough to save substantially and a shift onto workaday voters who spend most of what they earn. This will be advertised as a program to create jobs and reward entrepreneurship, but it sure didn't work in Bush's first term -- the only presidency since Hoover with fewer payroll jobs at the end than the beginning.

The deficit. Hardly anyone, Republican or Democrat, truly believes that the Bush tax-and-spending program will do anything other than make the deficit problem worse. The Congressional Budget Office, whose director is appointed by congressional Republicans, projects endless deficits in excess of $400 billion a year. If Bush succeeds in making recent tax cuts permanent and adding new ones, the deficits will be even more serious. With military outlay rising, the administration's only game plan is to backload the effect of tax cuts until after this president leaves office and cut domestic spending even further.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/01/bushs_ruinous_economic_plans/