Sunday, May 18, 2003

Old Memos Detail Link of Money to Influence: "piles of documents unearthed in the ongoing lawsuit over the nation's campaign finance law, widely known as McCain-Feingold ... the documents, many of which were subpoenaed over the past year and made public for the first time this month, provide an unusually detailed look at how the Washington money culture operates. In them, political operatives privately worried that their political attack ads might skirt the edge of legality. Senators shamelessly courted campaign contributors. And corporate executives plotted how to pursue their legislative goals by answering the parties' never-ending call for campaign funds."

Friday, April 25, 2003

Bush Goes AWOL: "Bush has inspired new terrorist threats to the United States--according to the official testimony of his own CIA--where none existed. At the same time, he purposely starves those localities and institutions on which the complex and expensive task of terrorist protection ultimately falls. " TRO - "55 Most Wanted" Playing Card Deck Aims for Regime Change in U.S.: In the wake of the U.S.'s "pre-emptive" destruction of Iraq, her people, and her culture, the Trade Regulation Organization is issuing a "55 most wanted" playing-card deck similar to the one that the Pentagon issued two weeks ago in Iraq.

Sunday, April 20, 2003

The Carlyle Group - Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Make Billions from the War on Terrorism: "How will President George W. Bush personally make millions (if not billions) from the Wars on Terror and Iraq? The old fashioned way. He'll inherit it. Meet the Carlyle Group Former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism"

Tuesday, April 15, 2003

'Fearless' Dean Wins Converts: "Dean, 54, a doctor who served as governor of Vermont for 11 years, gets his biggest applause when he starts his closing choruses of, "We want our country back." It is now as much a part of his stump speech as was the line borrowed and paraphrased from the late Sen. Paul Wellstone that he used repeatedly in February and March: "I am Howard Dean, and I'm here to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Dean said he believes that line -- "We want our country back" -- generates such a visceral response among Democratic activists because "people are in despair about what is going on. "

Thursday, April 10, 2003

House Democrats Want Halliburton Probe: "Questioning whether Vice President Dick Cheney's former company has received favored treatment from the Pentagon, senior House Democrats asked Congress' investigative agency Tuesday to delve into contracts awarded Halliburton Co. over the past two years.    Halliburton's KBR subsidiary has a record of gouging the government in contracts awarded without competition, Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan contended in a letter to the General Accounting Office.    Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the lawmakers have ignored the exemplary record of the Houston-based firm that employed Cheney as chief executive officer from 1995 to 2000 and still pays him deferred compensation for his services during that period.    ....  -A GAO finding in 1997 that the company billed the Army for questionable expenses for work in the Balkans, including charges of $85.98 per sheet of plywood that cost $14.06.    -A year 2000 follow-up report on the Balkans work that found inflated costs, including charges for cleaning some offices up to four times a day.    -$2 million in fines paid in February, 2002, to resolve fraud claims involving work at Fort Ord, Calif. The Defense Department inspector general and a federal grand jury had investigated allegations by a former employee that KBR defrauded the government of millions of dollars by inflating prices for repairs and maintenance.    The Securities and Exchange Commission already is investigating Halliburton's accounting practices, looking into an accounting change made in 1998, during Cheney's tenure as CEO

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Arrogance of Power: Today, I Weep for my Country. by US Senator Robert Byrd Speech delivered on the floor of the US Senate:   ... We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance. We treat UN Security Council members like ingrates who offend our princely dignity by lifting their heads from the carpet. Valuable alliances are split.    After war has ended, the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.     The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice.

Friday, February 14, 2003

George W. Queeg: Krugma - What really has the insiders panicked, however, is the irresponsibility of Mr. Bush and his team, their almost childish unwillingness to face up to problems that they don't feel like dealing with right now. I've talked in this column about the administration's eerie passivity in the face of a stalling economy and an exploding budget deficit: reality isn't allowed to intrude on the obsession with long-run tax cuts. That same "don't bother me, I'm busy" attitude is driving foreign policy experts, inside and outside the government, to despair. Reckless Administration May Reap Disastrous Consequences By US Senator Robert Byrd, February 12, 2003     To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.     Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.     We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war.     And this is no small conflagration we contemplate. This is no simple attempt to defang a villain. No. This coming battle, if it materializes, represents a turning point in U.S. foreign policy and possibly a turning point in the recent history of the world.     This nation is about to embark upon the first test of a revolutionary doctrine applied in an extraordinary way at an unfortunate time. The doctrine of preemption -- the idea that the United States or any other nation can legitimately attack a nation that is not imminently threatening but may be threatening in the future -- is a radical new twist on the traditional idea of self defense. It appears to be in contravention of international law and the UN Charter.

Sunday, February 09, 2003

Ralph Nader on Oil and the War Against Iraq: "The connections between the Bush administration and the oil industry are clear and pervasive. A remarkable 41 members of the administration have ties to the industry, and both the President and the Vice President are both former oil executives. National Security Adviser Condaleeza Rice is a former director of Chevron. President Bush took more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industries in the 2000 election. The Bush people and the oil moguls do agree with one another in part because they are one another...   The American people have a right to know what is being discussed in these meetings about the oil industry's designs on this gigantic pool of petroleum and what, if any, assurances they are being given by what is supposed to be our government.   Clearly, there is a better means of achieving U.S. energy security. Instead of relying on costly military ventures in unstable countries to ensure a steady source of oil, we need a national energy security strategy that is expeditious, self-sufficient and environmentally sustainable.  "

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Crowd Estimates: 30,000 to 500,000 (washingtonpost.com): "U.S. Capitol Police suggested yesterday's antiwar street march drew 30,000 to 50,000 people. Protest organizers said that the number was closer to 500,000. District police settled on "an awful lot of people." The truth might fall somewhere in between the guesses, or it might fall somewhere beyond the edges. That's because no one really knows how many people showed up."

Thursday, January 16, 2003

The honorable Mario Cuomo: Mario Cuomo Talks To The National Press Club January 7th, 2003 Chicago Passes Anti-War Resolution 46-1 - Vote Follows Extensive and Personal Debate (Chicago, Jan. 16, 2003) (from yahoogroups portside group)   After one of the most mesmerizing, impassioned and personal debates ever to occur in Chicago's City Council Chamber, Chicago has become the largest and most prominent city in the nation to formally oppose a unilateral pre-emptive strike on Iraq.   One by one, black and white, Latino and Jewish, men and women, the Aldermen stood to draw attention to their own particular concerns with the current path of the Bush Administration. Many pointed out that the real dangers this nation faces today are the rising rates of unemployment and economic stagnation. Others were concerned about the double standard the administration is showing with respect to North Korea. And some drew attention to the prospect of young sons and daughters coming home in body bags from an ill-conceived war.

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Dick Cheney, chickenhawk (captimes.com): "Vice President Dick Cheney has never shown much interest in meeting his responsibilities as a citizen or an elected official. During the Vietnam War, Cheney avoided military service. Like so many of the current advocates for war with Iraq, he did not want to upset his career plans by wearing the uniform of his country. The political career that got a jump-start during the Vietnam era has been a successful - and lucrative - one for Cheney. But he has never gotten over his aversion to fulfilling his public responsibilities...    So when it was revealed Friday that Cheney would not be coming to Madison - because, his office said, "his calendar wouldn't allow" the visit - no one was surprised.   The prospect that Cheney might come to Madison inspired widespread organizing by religious, political and community groups that oppose war with Iraq. "

Thursday, January 09, 2003

Why Does President Bush Want to Drop Bombs on Innocent Iraqis?: Transcript of White House Briefing - January 6, 2003

Friday, December 20, 2002

Ashcroft's tough Sell: "Jan. 16, 2001 | [John Ashcroft's] ultraconservative record on such issues as abortion, affirmative action and civil rights has already stimulated intense controversy. And opponents of his nomination have sharply questioned the Missouri Republican's racial attitudes because of his opposition to a Federal judgeship for African-American jurist Ronnie White and his endorsement of the Southern Partisan, a racist, pro-Confederate magazine which has praised the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Now Ashcroft has been asked to explain why he met last fall with Thomas Bugel, the president of the militantly racist Council of Conservative Citizens and a veteran leader of segregationist groups in the St. Louis area. "

Thursday, December 19, 2002

t r u t h o u t - Carlyle Group Buys Chunk of CSX

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

GOP right long frustrated with Lott: "Lott flounders - not just because of his words, but because his tenure has disappointed conservatives...   Should Lott lose the leadership job and opt to resign from the Senate, Mississippi's Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, a Democrat, would name his replacement, likely returning the Senate to a 50-50 split until a special election is held next November. A resignation before year end would trigger a special election in 90 days." The Evil of Access: Mark Green - "with President Bush loudly beating his war drums, who heard any discussion about the escalating cost of campaigns? Spending in the New York and Pennsylvania gubernatorial elections, for example, tripled within one election cycle. The evidence that money shouts is mountainous: Ninety-four percent of the time, the bigger-spending Congressional candidate wins--and 98 percent of House incumbents win. The average price of a House seat rose from $87,000 in 1976 to $840,000 in 2000. It cost Ken Livingstone 80 cents a vote to win the London mayoralty last year, compared with Michael Bloomberg's $100 a vote in New York City. As money metastasizes throughout our political process, the erosion of our democracy should be evident to left and right alike: "

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

Gotta Have Faith: Krugman - "years from now, when it becomes clear that much public policy has been driven by a hard-line fundamentalist agenda, people will say "But nobody told us." " Black Republicans Speak of Their Outrage at Lott: "a fury has been building among black Republicans who believe that Mr. Lott has significantly damaged their standing within the party and among their fellow African-Americans, many of whom already view them with suspicion. Within the Bush administration and around the country, many black Republicans are privately urging the party to dump Mr. Lott from the leadership for its own good. "They've been fighting the good fight for the party, often enduring tremendous abuse that they are Uncle Toms or traitors," Robert A. George, a conservative black columnist, said of black Republicans. "Lott's statement seems to confirm what Democrats and many blacks have believed about Republicans all along.""

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Lott Often Opposed Measures Identified With Civil Rights: "In his 30 years in Congress, 16 in the House and the last 14 in the Senate, Trent Lott has voted consistently against measures that could be identified as civil rights legislation, and often he was one of a small number of lawmakers to vote that way.   A review of his voting record shows, for example, that Mr. Lott, a Mississippi Republican, opposed extension of the Voting Rights Act, expansion of fair-housing laws, establishment of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and payment of lawyers' fees to people who bring successful civil rights suits.   Last year, Mr. Lott was the only senator to vote against President Bush's nomination of Roger L. Gregory to be the first black judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va.   Over the years, he favored measures to outlaw busing for school desegregation, to extend a design patent owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and to eliminate affirmative action in federal contracts."

Friday, December 13, 2002

Republican Party's 40 Years of Juggling on Race: "Ever since the Republican Party in the South was reborn by hostility to the civil rights legislation of the 1960's, the national party has increasingly depended on Southern votes while insisting to Northern moderates that it is still the party of Lincoln."

Thursday, December 12, 2002

William Rivers Pitt | The Pure Essence of Stupid: "George W. Bush has tapped John J. Snow to replace blabbermouth former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill. Snow rises to his post from a corporate executive background, having served as the CEO of railroad giant CSX... Mr. Snow ran a company whose 2001 annual report claimed this as its company motto: "CSX will pursue all available opportunities to pay the lowest federal, state and foreign taxes." They succeeded admirably in this. CSX has not paid taxes in three of the last four years. In fact, CSX supplemented its $934 million in pretax U.S. profits over those four years with a total of $164 million in tax rebates from the federal government. "

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

A Liberal With a Wrestler's Stance: by Bill Holm - " Paul Wellstone was an unlikely politician in a place like Minnesota -- land of walleyes, cornfields and phlegmatic Scandinavians. He was an urban Jew, son of immigrants, a college professor at the fanciest of Minnesota's private colleges. And, probably worst of all for his non-talkative constituents, he was a passionate orator, a skilled rouser of rabble over issues he loved and an unapologetic populist liberal."

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

After Top Job at Yosemite, He's Hanging Up the Ranger Hat: "After 30 years with the National Park Service, Mr. Mihalic is at the top of his career in a high-visibility assignment, a member of the federal government's prestigious Senior Executive Service, and recently picked by the Bush administration as the next superintendent for Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the country's most visited national park. But Mr. Mihalic is saying goodbye to it all. On Jan. 3, he will retire...   Mr. Mihalic said the Bush administration wanted him to push through two contentious proposals at Great Smoky. The proposals, a land swap and a road project, had long been opposed by the National Park Service because of environmental concerns but had been backed by some influential Republicans in North Carolina and Tennessee. "

Monday, December 09, 2002

Abrams Back in Capital Fray at Center of Mideast Battle: "Mr. Abrams's selection this week as President Bush's director of Middle Eastern affairs at the White House plunged him into one of the sharpest disputes in the nation's capital -- the one in the administration over how to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Abrams's appointment thrilled those who had criticized the administration for being too tough on Israel and too deferential to the Palestinians. But it dismayed those, especially at the State Department, who want Israel to ease its crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza. An administration official said Mr. Abrams's ascension had created "serious consternation" at the State Department. It was seen there, he said, as likely to impede the efforts of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to work with European nations to press Israel and the Palestinians to adopt a staged timetable leading to creation of a Palestinian state in three years."

Thursday, December 05, 2002

Capital Games: David Corn on Kissinger - "Asking Henry Kissinger to investigate government malfeasance or nonfeasance is akin to asking Slobodan Milosevic to investigate war crimes. Pretty damn akin, since Kissinger has been accused, with cause, of engaging in war crimes of his own. Moreover, he has been a poster-child for the worst excesses of secret government and secret warfare...  Consider the record: " Into the Breach: Borosage: "Contrary to the DLC, the Democratic Party is not a dirigible that can be repositioned to fit the passing winds. It is a party of working people against the Republican Party of corporations and wealth. It is a party of diversity against the whites-only Republican Party. It is a party of prochoice women against the party of the radical right. It is a party of unions and of environmentalists against the party of Ken Lay and Dick Cheney. It won't ever be more muscular than Republicans on war abroad or guns at home. "

Saturday, November 30, 2002

Union Chief to Return $200,000 From Stock Deal Under Inquiry: (11/1/02) "The president of the carpenters' union, Douglas J. McCarron, President Bush's closest friend in organized labor, has agreed to return more than $200,000 in profits he made in a stock deal that is under federal investigation. On Tuesday, Mr. McCarron informed the Union Labor Life Insurance Company, a labor-owned carrier known as Ullico, that he would pay back the money, which he earned when he sold Ullico shares in what is being investigated for the possibility of insider trading." S.E.C. Facing Deeper Trouble: "Bowsher said there were ominous parallels to the problems facing the commission and the difficulties that confronted regulators during the onset of the savings and loan collapses of more than a decade ago, when he led the General Accounting Office. As was the case then, he said, the regulators are sharply underfinanced, face ferocious corporate lobbying interests with friends in Congress who want to weaken the rules, and are often unable to anticipate or prevent major infractions that can wind up costing investors huge sums of money." The Latest Kissinger Outrage - Why is a proven liar and wanted man in charge of the 9/11 investigation? By Christopher Hitchens

Monday, November 25, 2002

Whose Hands Are Dirty?: Bob Herbert "Last week the Senate approved legislation to establish a Department of Homeland Security and it will soon be signed into law by the president. Buried in this massive bill, snuck into it in the dark of night by persons unknown (actually, it's fair to say by Republican persons unknown), was a provision that -- incredibly -- will protect Eli Lilly and a few other big pharmaceutical outfits from lawsuits by parents who believe their children were harmed by thimerosal. Now this has nothing to do with homeland security. Nothing. This is not a provision that will in any way protect us from the ferocious evil of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. So why is it there? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the major drug companies have become a gigantic collective cash machine for politicians, and that the vast majority of that cash goes to Republicans. Or maybe it's related to the fact that Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, is a former Eli Lilly big shot. Or the very convenient fact that just last June President Bush appointed Eli Lilly's chairman, president and C.E.O., Sidney Taurel, to a coveted seat on the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council."

Saturday, November 23, 2002

Changing of Republican Budget Guard Could Create Waves: "The question being asked throughout the Capitol and in the institutes that track budget and tax matters is whether the officials who replace Ms. Paull, Mr. Crippen and Mr. Hoagland -- none have been named yet -- will mainly be honest evaluators of tax and budget policy or primarily facilitators of the Republican political agenda. The three who are leaving were squarely in the camp of honest brokers. Year after year, they spoke their minds and resisted all efforts to alter their designs to fit the latest Republican fashions. For example, Republican leaders were furious this year when Mr. Crippen said publicly that the federal budget would still show a surplus if not for the president's $1.35 trillion tax cut." E.P.A. Says It Will Change Rules Governing Industrial Pollution: "Bush administration today announced the most sweeping move in a decade to loosen industrial air pollution rules. The administration said the changes would encourage plant improvements that would clean the air. But critics denounced the changes as a retreat from tougher rules now in place that require factories to make costly investments in pollution control equipment when they modernize."

Wednesday, November 20, 2002

Proud, patriotic & green | csmonitor.com: "In ads, articles, and websites, environmentalists have pulled a page from President Bush's patriotic playbook, selling their cause of energy conservation against a backdrop of national security." Where Republicans invaded Democratic turf | csmonitor.com: "GOP expanded its support among white men and rural voters. More striking, the party also made inroads into traditionally Democratic constituencies such as women and union members, Catholics and Hispanics. " Senate Votes, 90-9, to Set Up Homeland Security Department Geared to Fight Terrorism: "Eight Democrats voted against the bill: Senators Daniel K. Akaka of Alaska, Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina, Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Carl Levin of Michigan and Paul S. Sarbanes of Maryland. Senator James M. Jeffords, Independent of Vermont, also voted against it, and Senator Frank H. Murkowski of Alaska was not present." Byrd, at 85, Fills the Forum With Romans and Wrath: ""That Department of Homeland Security will not add one whit of security in the near future to the American people," he said. "In the meantime, the terrorists are going to be very busy. I'm concerned that in our drive to focus on the war in Iraq and the Department of Homeland Security, we're going to be taking our eyes off what the terrorists may do to us." Mr. Byrd advocated slowly creating the department, with Congress overseeing the process, and he pulled out the ever-present copy of the Constitution from his breast pocket to make his point. "We're being recreant in turning over to this president the power shift that is included in that bill," he said.... Mr. Byrd, who will celebrate his 50th anniversary in Congress in January, said he had no illusions that his oratory was going to change the outcome of the final vote. So why was he on the floor day after day? What was he accomplishing? "To me, that question misses the point, with all due respect to you for asking it," he said. "To me, the matter is there for a thousand years in the record. I stood for the Constitution. I stood for the institution. If it isn't heard today, there'll be some future member who will come through and will comb these tomes."

Tuesday, November 19, 2002

Victors and Spoils: Krugman - "The federal civil service, with its careful protection of workers from political pressure, was created specifically to bring the spoils system to an end; but now the administration has found a way around those constraints. We don't have to speculate about what will follow, because Jeb Bush has already blazed the trail. Florida's governor has been an aggressive privatizer, and as The Miami Herald put it after a careful study of state records, "his bold experiment has been a success -- at least for him and the Republican Party, records show. The policy has spawned a network of contractors who have given him, other Republican politicians and the Florida G.O.P. millions of dollars in campaign donations." What's interesting about this network of contractors isn't just the way that big contributions are linked to big contracts; it's the end of the traditional practice in which businesses hedge their bets by giving to both parties. The big winners in Mr. Bush's Florida are companies that give little or nothing to Democrats... It's as if firms seeking business with the state of Florida are subject to a loyalty test. "

Wednesday, November 13, 2002

Inquiries on Gun and Ousters Focus on Health Dept. Official: " Federal officials said today that they were investigating whether the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services had kept a gun in her office without authorization and whether she violated personnel rules by ousting career employees.... Mr. Grassley said Ms. Rehnquist's dismissal, demotion or reassignment of 19 senior executives could "hinder the performance of an office that has a stellar reputation for fighting fraud, waste and abuse in federal health care programs." The federal government spends more than $400 billion a year on the largest of those programs, Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health insurance for 70 million people who are elderly, disabled or poor.... Ms. Rehnquist, a former assistant United States attorney who is the daughter of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, refused to discuss the accusations. " 2002 Election Results Bill Moyers on Election 2002: "it is a heady time in Washington -- a heady time for piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money. " "There is, of course, no guarantee of success. But politics is not about observations or predictions. Politics is what we create by what we do, what we hope for, and what we dare to imagine."- Paul Wellstone Minnesota's shame - Republicans don't like my criticism? Too bad. They have to answer for Norm Coleman's campaign, which exploited 9/11 in a way that was truly evil. By Garrison Keillor (creator and host of the nationally syndicated radio show "A Prairie Home Companion," broadcast on more than 500 public radio stations nationwide.) From salon.com, Nov. 13, 2002 The hoots and cackles of Republicans reacting to my screed against Norman Coleman, the ex-radical, former Democratic, now compassionate conservative senator-elect from Minnesota, was all to be expected, given the state of the Republican Party today. Its entire ideology, top to bottom, is We-are-not-Democrats, We-are-the-unClinton, and if it can elect an empty suit like Coleman, on a campaign as cheap and cynical and unpatriotic as what he waged right up to the moment Paul Wellstone's plane hit the ground, then Republicans are perfectly content. They are Republicans first and Americans second. The old GOP of fiscal responsibility and principled conservatism and bedrock Main Street values is gone, my dear, and something cynical has taken its place. Thus the use of Iraq as an election ploy, openly, brazenly, from the president and Karl Rove all the way down to Norman Coleman, who came within an inch of accusing Wellstone of being an agent of al-Qaida. To do that one day and then, two days later, to feign grief and claim the dead Wellstone's mantle and carry on his "passion and commitment" is simply too much for a decent person to stomach. It goes beyond the ordinary roughhouse of politics. To accept it and grin and shake the son of a bitch's hand is to ignore what cannot be ignored if you want your grandchildren to grow up in a country like the one that nurtured and inspired you. I would rather go down to defeat with the Democrats I know than go oiling around with opportunists of Coleman's stripe, and you can take that to the bank. I've run into plenty of Coleman supporters since the election and they see me and smirk and turn away and that's par for the course. I know those people. To my own shame, I know them. I'm ashamed of Minnesota for electing this cheap fraud, and I'm ashamed of myself for sitting on my hands, tending to my hoop-stitching, confident that Wellstone would win and that Coleman would wind up with an undersecretaryship in the Commerce Department. Instead, he will sit in the highest council in the land, and move in powerful circles, and enjoy the perks of his office, which includes all the sycophancy and bootlicking a person could ever hope for. So he can do with one old St. Paulite standing up and saying, "Shame. Repent. The End is Near." The Republican exploitation of 9/11 for political gain is the sort of foulness that turns young people against the whole business, and for good reason. All sorts of people went down in the World Trade Center, execs and secretaries and bond traders and also the dishwashers in Windows on the World and secretaries and cleaning ladies. Think of all those portraits of the victims that ran daily week after week in the Times that we read, read tearfully, saw ourselves in those lives, and the wave of patriotic tenderness that followed was genuine and included us all. For a cynic like Norman Coleman to hitch his trailer to that tragedy is evil -- call it by the right name. To exploit 9/11 and the deaths of those innocent people on that beautiful day in Manhattan -- to appropriate that day and infer so clearly that there is a Republican and a Democratic side to it, is offensive to our national memory and obscenely evil, and it was rewarded by the voters of Minnesota. Ordinarily, there should be a period of good feeling after an election, of relief, or relaxation, when we join hands and become one people again, but Norman Coleman doesn't deserve any Democrat's hand. We had come together as one people already -- the precious gift of 9/11 -- and he used that as a campaign ploy against us, suggesting that Democrats are unpatriotic, and he is not to be forgiven for it. I personally don't believe he had anything to do with the crash of Paul's plane. Plenty of people suspect he did. I don't. But I do think he is a cynical politician who should make himself scarce for the next few years until people start to forget his campaign. Lord, America does love a winner. When you're riding high, people can't do enough for you, and when you fall down low, they don't want to be around to see. I know something about that -- every performer does -- and you quickly recognize your false friends, the people who clutch your hand and grab your elbow and give you a gigantic smile and tell you how much they love your work but they get the name of the show wrong, or the day of the week, or they mispronounce your name, and you see them clear for the phonies they are. Norman Coleman is that very person, the false knight upon the road, and he always has been and always will be. Paul Wellstone was a real person who led an authentic life. The contrast couldn't be clearer. All you had to do was look at Coleman's face, that weird smile, the pleading eyes, the anger in the forehead. Or see how poorly his L.A. wife played the part of Mrs. Coleman, posing for pictures with him, standing apart, stiff, angry. Or listen to his artful dodging on the stump, his mastery of that old Republican dance, of employing some Everyguy gestures in the drive to make the world safe for the privileged. What a contrivance this guy is. Paul Wellstone identified passionately with people at the bottom, people in trouble, people in the rough. He was an old-fashioned Democrat who felt more at home with the rank and file than with the rich and famous. (Bill Clinton, examine your conscience.) He loved stories and of course people on the edge tend to have better stories than the rich, whose stories are mostly about décor and amenities. Paul walked the walk. He was a wonder. Everyone who ever met him knew that he lived a whole life and that he and Sheila were crazy about each other. To be in love with one person for 38 years is nothing you can fake: Even the casual passerby can see it. To die at 58, having lived so well and so truthfully, is enviable, compared to the longevity of a man who invents his own life in order to achieve the desired effect and advance himself. To gain the whole world and lose your own soul is not a course that Scripture recommends. You can do it so long as God doesn't notice, but God has a way of returning and straightening these things out. Sinner beware. (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is posted without profit for educational purposes.)

Tuesday, November 12, 2002

G.O.P. Victory Sets Stage for Pro-Business Agenda: "Waking to a new power configuration in Washington yesterday, business leaders began to revise their wish lists for action on contentious issues like taxes, health care costs, personal-injury lawsuits and the ability of government employees to strike" USATODAY.com - Maintain CIA's independence: by James Bamford "As the White House searches for every possible excuse to go to war with Iraq, pressure has been building on the intelligence agencies to deliberately slant estimates to fit a political agenda. In this case, the agencies are being pressed to find a casus belli for war, whether or not one exists. "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements, and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," Vince Cannistraro, the agency's former head of counterterrorism, told The Guardian, a London newspaper." Chokehold on Knowledge: LA Times Editorial - "The Bush administration's plan to strip the Government Printing Office's authority is a threat to democracy. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels wants to transfer control of information management from the printing office to individual Cabinet agencies. That would spell the end of the current system, in place since the Jeffersonian era, which requires executive branch agencies to send their documents and reports to neutral librarians, who then make them available to the public both online and in 1,300 public reading rooms nationwide. Daniels would replace that system with a more secretive one in which individual agencies would manage -- and possibly sanitize -- their own electronic databases. " William Rivers Pitt | The Desert of the Real: "One way or another, we must deal with the conservative freight train of legislation that is ramrodding towards us. A brief look at who will be taking control of the congressional agenda in January proves to be revealing..... "

Monday, November 11, 2002

Sunday Herald - Ian Bell: "can liberal Americans really despise [Bush] so much if they cannot even be bothered to vote against his party? And does a result unthinkable in European terms not remind us, finally, that our American allies have become very distant cousins indeed? Isolationism is a fact of US history. American power, meanwhile, is now the only relevant fact in world affairs. The decay of American politics, its simul taneous surrender to money and voter apathy, is a third fact we now take for granted -- while listening to all those lectures on freedom -- yet we rarely make the connection between these truths.... A nervous people fearing attack have chosen the promise of security, have watched bemused as their leaders have lurched back and forth between bombast and paranoia, but have not all become subscribers to the weird Republican doctrine of interventionist isolationism. If -- and it is a big if -- the Democrats can begin to articulate reasoned dissent then America's multiple personalities, its extraordinary diversity, will again assert themselves.  Two apparently contradictory things are clear. First, according to all the rules, Bush won his electoral prize hands- down. Second, this president has yet to forge the sort of coalition among his own people that makes a long war possible -- let alone convince the rest of the world. Vietnam is too often called in evidence -- this time the stakes are much higher -- but the history of that conflict contains an important truth. It began with a broad consensus and ended in acrimony so profound that America was almost torn apart. It was launched by Democrats and continued by Republicans, but in the end neither party was capable of sustaining the effort, or of explaining away its sheer pointlessness. "

Saturday, November 09, 2002

Salon.com Politics | Letters: Readers respond to Michelle Goldberg's "Peace Kooks."  "While I too disagree with the more radical positions ascribed to Not In Our Name and the International Action Center, I have questions for Gitlin. Where is your more moderate protest organization? What are you doing to lead the hordes of people who want to work through the U.N. to stop both the more dangerous weapons development of Saddam Hussein and the war with Iraq under Bush's plan? IndyMedia Center Behind the Placards The Odd and Troubling Origins of Today's Anti-War Movement by David Corn. If public-opinion polls are correct, 33 percent to 40 percent of the public opposes an Iraq war; even more are against a unilateral action. This means the burgeoning anti-war movement has a large recruiting pool, yet the demo was not intended to persuade doubters. Nor did it speak to Americans who oppose the war but who don’t consider the United States a force of unequaled imperialist evil and who don’t yearn to smash global capitalism. This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, MoveOn Peace: Bulletin Back Issues in English Bush and Iraq: By Anthony Lewis "What is President Bush's ultimate objective in Iraq? Is it to make sure that Saddam Hussein does not have weapons of mass destruction? Or is it to remove Saddam by force and remake the politics of Iraq? And if the latter, would it be the first step toward a new American imperium?" MoveOn.org: MoveOn Bulletin: Past Bulletins November 6, 2002: Media Concentration October 16, 2002: Conscientous Objection October 2, 2002: Iraq and the Art of Misdirection September 19, 2002: Selling the War on Iraq July 31, 2002: American Kleptocracy July 17, 2002: Can Democracy Survive an Endless 'War'? July 10, 2002: Who is Dick Cheney?

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Michael Moore.com : Mike's Message: "Yesterday, Larry Bennett, a 16-year old, was shot in the head after he was involved in a minor traffic accident. You probably didn't hear about it because, well, how could he be dead if he wasn't shot by The Sniper? Yesterday, an unidentified woman was shot to death in her car in Fenton, MI. You probably didn't hear about it because she had the misfortune of not being shot by The Sniper. Two nights ago, Charles D. Bennett, 48, an apartment security guard, was shot to death after confronting two teenagers in his parking lot in Memphis, TN. You probably didn't hear about it because the sniper was too busy sleeping in his car that night, and thus, poor Charles was not shot by The Sniper. Yes, The Sniper has apparently been caught, so we can go back now to NOT reporting the DOZENS of gun deaths that occur every day, the ones that just aren't newsworthy because they happen in all those old boring ways -- unlike the ways of The Sniper, who was interesting and creative and exciting and scary! He played so much better on the news. ... Thank you, Mr. Heston for this unnecessary carnage. Thank you, Mr. Bush, for supporting Mr. Heston and his group's agenda -- which protects only the criminals. And thank you, Bushmaster Firearms, Inc., for providing the gun used to shoot the 13 people in the DC area. Bushmaster's president, Richard E. Dyke, was the Maine finance chairman of George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign. According to Business Week, Dyke had to step down as Bush's finance chair "after reporters began quizzing him about his business dealings. Bushmaster Firearms Inc., is notorious for using loopholes to sidestep a 1994 federal ban on assault rifles." Bush and Bushmaster. Too tragically perfect. Capital Games on Paul Wellstone: David Corn "Politics, he once said, "is what we dare to imagine." Before he came to Washington, many Americans could only imagine a senator like Paul Wellstone. But he proved that the dream of having passionate, caring, for-the-people representation in Washington--of having an utterly unabashed populist liberal who lived his principles in the hallways of power--could happen. He demonstrated that he could find his place in Washington, even if he was not embraced by the town; that he could find common ground with ideological foes in pursuit of the public interest; that he could joust with the pundits; and that he could serve nobly and effectively without ceding too much to the capital's culture of calculation and compromise. Wellstone showed progressives how much is possible. His presence here, these past twelve years, expanded their imagination. " Senator Wellstone was one of twenty-three Senators to vote against the White House's recent resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq. Twenty-one Democrats, joined by one Republican, Lincoln Chafee (RI), and one Independent, Jim Jeffords (VT), all voted no to war. In addition to Wellstone, the Democrats were: Daniel Akaka (HI), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Barbara Boxer (CA), Robert Byrd (W. VA), Kent Conrad (ND), Jon Corzine (NJ), Mark Dayton (MN), Richard Durbin (IL), Russell Feingold (WI), Bob Graham (FL), Daniel Inouye (HI), Ted Kennedy (MA), Patrick Leahy (VT), Carl Levin (MI), Barbara Mikulski (MD), Patty Murray (WA), Jack Reed (RI), Paul Sarbanes (MD), Debbie Stabenow (MI) and Ron Wyden (OR). Paul Wellstone, 1944-2002: "for the family-farm activists with whom Wellstone marched and rallied across the 1980s and 1990s and into the twenty-first century, the Minnesota Democrat was more than a representative. He was their champion. And the news of his death Friday in a Minnesota plane crash struck with all the force of a death in the family. " Rally in Washington Is Said to Invigorate the Antiwar Movement: "Emboldened by a weekend antiwar protest in Washington that organizers called the biggest since the days of the Vietnam War, groups opposed to military action in Iraq said they were preparing a wave of new demonstrations across the country in the next few weeks. The demonstration on Saturday in Washington drew 100,000 by police estimates and 200,000 by organizers', forming a two-mile wall of marchers around the White House. "

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

For the People: Krugman - "Paul Wellstone took risks. He was, everyone acknowledges, a politician who truly voted his convictions, who supported what he thought was right, not what he thought would help him get re-elected. He took risky stands on many issues: agree or disagree, you have to admit that his vote against authorization for an Iraq war was a singularly brave act. Yet the most consistent theme in his record was economic -- his courageous support for the interests of ordinary Americans against the growing power of our emerging plutocracy. In our money-dominated politics, that's a dangerous position to take."

Sunday, October 13, 2002

Floor Statement by Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay Congress debates the Administration's resolution to authorize military action against Iraq September 2002    As Congress debates the Administration's resolution to authorize military action against Iraq, I urge my colleagues to consider the very dangerous consequences of unilateral military action.    If the United States rushes into war without concrete evidence of Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction - and without the backing of the UN and key international allies - we face the loss of much-needed support in our war against terrorism. Without a valid reason to remove Saddam Hussein from office our integrity is at risk and it may be assumed that the U.S. mission is aimed at allowing oil companies access to Iraqi oil reserves.    Up until now, the Bush Administration has completely failed to address the need for peace in the Middle East. This Administration has only watched the turmoil escalate and ignored the Arab-world's blossoming hatred of the United States. At this point in time, a war with Iraq only ensures Iraqi retaliation against Israel and more upheaval and instability throughout the Middle East.    I urge my colleagues to be more cognizant of the real immediate threats to our nation. An invasion of Iraq poses a costly economic burden and we simply cannot afford to commit American lives and resources to overthrow a regime which does not pose an imminent danger to our nation. At present, American families are facing many far more immediate threats. Americans are experiencing growing unemployment, an unstable stock market, a rising poverty level and an escalating need for homeland security protections.    Finally, it is unconscionable to expose thousands of young Americans to the perils of war before it is established that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and we have exhausted all diplomatic and peaceful means of eliminating such a threat. The American people will not tolerate sending their sons and daughters off to fight another war that serves no certain purpose.    A war with Iraq is bound to inflame Arab-world hostility toward the United States, invite more terrorism and jeopardize our children's future. I am cosponsoring H.J. Resolution 110, which authorizes the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq to defend our national security interests and sets forth Congressional mandates which must be met before the President engages the U.S. military. This resolution would ensure that all conceivable diplomatic options have been explored and exhausted and that a preemptive strike is our nation's only option. I am also supporting H. Con. Res. 473 which asserts that there are alternatives to a war with Iraq and the United States should work through the United Nations to resolve the matter of ensuring that Iraq is not developing weapons of mass destruction and employ mechanisms such as weapons inspections, negotiations, enquiry, mediation regional arrangement and other peaceful means to address the Iraqi threat.

Wednesday, October 09, 2002

Truth on Iraq seeps through- Robert Scheer : " Plainly put, Bush's big bad Boogeyman is a bunch of bull. In truth, the invasion is required not to meet a pressing threat to our security but rather to meet the threat to GOP control of Congress posed by a sagging U.S. economy and a stock market that has wiped out the savings of many Americans. That and the pent-up desire of frustrated wannabe imperialists among top Bush advisors to find a way to use our high-tech weaponry to micromanage the world. The CIA report makes it clear there is no plausible national security reason for pushing for war with Iraq at this time, other than the ill-advised imperial goal of directly controlling the world's oil supplies." Molly Ivins - Death of Corporate Reform: "We just lost the whole ballgame on corporate reform -- without the news even making it to the front page. The sick, sad tidings were tucked away discreetly on the business pages: "SEC Chief Hedges on Accounting Regulator." Now there's a sexy headline. All of you who were shafted by Enron, shucked by Worldcom, jived by Global Crossing, everyone whose 401(k) is now a 201(k) (I think that's Paul Begala's line), you just got screwed again. They're not going to fix it. They've already called off the reform effort; it's over. Corporate muscle showed up and shut it down. "

Saturday, September 14, 2002

All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che, By Max Elbaum, Review By Tony Platt

Friday, September 06, 2002

Senator Dianne Feinstein: More Questions Than Answers on Iraq: " I believe any action in Iraq at this time, without allied support, without United Nations support, and without a compelling case for just cause, would be both morally wrong and politically mistaken. I just returned from a trip to Europe.... I was shocked at how dramatically perceptions in Europe have shifted since September 11 toward our country. All of the sympathy and concern we received in the wake of the terrorist attacks has apparently vanished, replaced by the sense that the United States is becoming an arrogant and aggressive power, a nation that simply gives orders, a nation that neither listens nor hears. "

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Cheney Stumps for War, Ignores His Own Ties to Hussein: "According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1998 and [early 2000], Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad. "

Thursday, July 25, 2002

Ashcroft's Terrorism Policies Dismay Some Conservatives: "Many religious conservatives who were most instrumental in pressing President Bush to appoint John Ashcroft as attorney general now say they have become deeply troubled by his actions as the leading public figure in the law enforcement drive against terrorism." Embattled, Scrutinized, Powell Soldiers On: "A string of internal policy differences and defeats -- most recently on the Middle East and international family planning -- have set off speculation from the Pentagon to Foggy Bottom that Secretary Powell might not last through President Bush's term. Tensions with the White House and Pentagon hawks that Secretary Powell has long sought to minimize are no longer possible to disguise. In public, Secretary Powell, the four-star-general-turned-diplomat, has done what he always does: soldier on, shaping his commander's policies as best he can from within, with some success."

Wednesday, July 10, 2002

Slouching Toward Populism: "How can Mr. Bush crack the whip on Big Business when he's a wholly owned subsidiary of it? His dynastic ties to business gave him his career in oil and baseball, provided the record-breaking $100 million that made him president, and spawned his C.E.O. administration. "

Monday, May 27, 2002

Church & State - June 2001: "With Help From Congressional Republicans And The Bush 'Faith-Based' Initiative, Controversial Korean Evangelist Sun Myung Moon Is Trying To Expand His Religious-Political Empire"

Monday, May 20, 2002

Bush Faces Pressure From Congress to Alter Cuba Policy: "after decades in which the forces for isolating Cuba have dominated the policy, a new crop of lawmakers have demanded change. Advocates say that a majority in the House and Senate favor lifting the travel ban, but that the House Republican leadership has stymied any action. Farm groups, with substantial Republican support in Congress, are the most important growing organized constituency pressing to open lucrative overseas markets to American agriculture."

Saturday, May 11, 2002

Here is a wonderful moment from the Nixon tapes that captures Nixon re Jews, others, and his general obtuseness. Mitchell and Nixon are considering Rehnquist for a Supreme Court seat: N: Incidentally, what is Rehnquist? I suppose he is a damn Protestant? M: I'm sure of that. He's just WASPish as WASPish can be. N: Yeah, well, that's too damn bad. Tell him to change his religion. M: All right, I'll get him baptized this afternoon. N: Well, baptized and castrated, no, they don't do that, I mean they cirucmci-, no that's the Jews. Well anyway, however he is, get him changed

Monday, May 06, 2002

True Blue Americans: " what's really outrageous is the claim that the heartland is self-reliant. That grotesque farm bill, by itself, should put an end to all such assertions; but it only adds to the immense subsidies the heartland already receives from the rest of the country. As a group, red [Bush-vote] states pay considerably less in taxes than the federal government spends within their borders; blue [Gore-vote] states pay considerably more. Over all, blue America subsidizes red America to the tune of $90 billion or so each year.... There's no mystery about why the heartland gets such special treatment: it's a result of our electoral system, which gives states with small populations — mainly, though not entirely, red states — disproportionate representation in the Senate, and to a lesser extent in the Electoral College. In fact, half the Senate is elected by just 16 percent of the population." Dick Armey Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians: "House Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey ( R-TX) called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the occupied territories and endorsed Israel's conquests of those lands. Armey said that he "is content to have a Palestinian state" but is "not content to give up any part of Israel for the purpose of a Palestinian state." He defined the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel-East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip-as Israel. He also said he has "thought this through for a lot of years" and believes that Palestinians living in the West Bank should be removed. Armey stated that "there are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land, soil, and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state." "

Saturday, May 04, 2002

The Conservative Cabal That's Transforming American Law "With 25,000 members plus scores of close affiliates nationwide--including Supreme Court justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, and University of Chicago brainboxes Richard Epstein and Frank Easterbrook (also a federal appellate judge)--the Federalist Society is quite simply the best-organized, best-funded, and most effective legal network operating in this country.  Its rank-and-file includes conservative lawyers, law students, law professors, bureaucrats, activists, and judges.  They meet at law schools and function rooms across the country to discuss and debate the finer points of legal theory and substance on panels that often include liberals--providing friction, stimulus, and the illusion of balance.  What gets less attention, however, is that the Society is accomplishing in the courts what Republicans can't achieve politically.  There is nothing like the Federalist Society on the left." Profile of a right-wing conspirator: The case of Theodore Olson: Soberly written and apparently well researched but with no footnotes

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

'Master of the Senate': LBJ's Friendly Persuasion: "MASTER OF THE SENATE The Years of Lyndon Johnson. By Robert A. Caro. Illustrated. 1,167 pp"

Thursday, April 11, 2002

White--It Gets Worse: "If [Army Secretary Tom] White does not resign, he must be fired. The recent revelations [of evasions] show that White continues to practice the same squirrelly ethics that made Enron infamous."

Monday, April 08, 2002

St. Louis - GOP questions role union, nonprofit group play in Carnahan race: "Republicans are suggesting that the Service Employees International Union and Pro Vote are engaging in partisan campaign activities and questionable fund raising for Sen. Jean Carnahan. Democrats say the accusations are meant to take away attention from controversy over Jim Talent's work as a lobbyist. Every time President George W. Bush shows up in Missouri, several groups plan to greet him with pickets and protests. Their signs so far have singled out Bush, but Republican leaders say that the groups' real target is Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jim Talent. As evidence, the Missouri GOP points to the protest last month by the Service Employees International Union and Pro Vote, a nonprofit coalition, outside the America's Center. Inside, Bush was helping Talent raise money."

Sunday, April 07, 2002

Drive to Ban Gay Marriage Is Accused of Duping Signers: "Lowell Finley, a California lawyer for the group, said signature collectors have said they were coached to use the horse petition to snag marriage signatures"

Thursday, April 04, 2002

Riverfront Times - Hartmann - Ashcroft $$: "Post-Enron, Ashcroft is finally getting recognition as someone willing to participate in that smarmy all-American game: politics as usual. Sure, Ashcroft remains holier than thou. But there's a growing recognition that his moral piety doesn't mean he acts like some goody-two-shoes when there are lucrative favors to be called in. ... What Monsanto gave Ashcroft over his Senate years amounted to more than $50,000, according to the Post-Dispatch. What its spin-off got was a consent decree -- blasted by state officials as a "sweetheart deal" -- that could save the company millions. ...What Adam's Mark gave Ashcroft was a total of $15,700 in contributions -- from CEO Fred Kummer, his family and his employees -- according to the Washington Post. What it was slated to get was early release from a costly consent decree stemming from a bodacious discrimination case involving black hotel guests in Florida. "

Monday, April 01, 2002

An Open Letter To The Reform Community: "As citizen groups that have worked to support campaign finance reform for the last 25 years, the State PIRGs feel compelled to register our strong opposition to the McCain-Feingold legislation. While we understand the desire of our fellow reformers to win something, we believe this victory will ring hollow once the public sees the results. Far from capitalizing on the public outcry from scandals that ranged from the renting of the Lincoln bedroom to Enron's purchase of a national energy policy, the current McCain-Feingold bill represents more of a capitulation to Sen. Mitch McConnell and other anti-reformers than a victory over them. "

Saturday, March 30, 2002

Plugging Up Loopholes: "Was McCain-Feingold Really A Victory?" Enron Democrats - the Nation, WILLIAM GREIDER "If left-labor-liberal progressives had the cohesion and muscle of their right-wing opposites, they would be articulating a simple-to-understand litmus test for the Democratic Party--no "Enron Democrats" on the presidential ticket in 2004. That precondition would eliminate a number of presidential wannabes ... Joe Lieberman..Tom Daschle... Joe Biden ... do not pass the Enron smell test. "

Thursday, March 28, 2002

The Smoke Machine. The "vast right-wing conspiracy" is not an overheated metaphor but a straightforward reality, and it works a lot like a special-interest lobby. By Paul Krugman.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Army Secretary Defends Timing of His Sale of Enron Stock: "Thomas E. White, a former Enron executive who is now Army secretary, today defended the timing of his sales of millions of dollars in Enron stock late last year, saying that dozens of conversations he had with Enron executives at that time did not guide his decisions"

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

From Algeria to a Dream: Elias Adam Zerhouni: "In the 1980's, Dr. Zerhouni, then an associate professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins University, found a way to use magnetic fields to create a grid ... that could track the heart. ... Today, as expected, President Bush announced that Dr. Zerhouni was his choice to become the next director of the National Institutes of Health. For Dr. Zerhouni, who was born in Algeria and came to the United States 27 years ago " A Man of Many Professions: Richard Henry Carmona. Dr. Richard H. Carmona, the man chosen by President Bush to be surgeon general of the United States, has an M.D. and a master's degree in public health, but he also has experience in law enforcement and on the battlefield, which may help him cope with the threat of biological terrorism.

Saturday, March 23, 2002

Why Republicans Are in Love With the Voting Rights Act: "a challenge to Georgia's new Congressional districts. The redistricting plan has the support of every major black elected official in the state. But Georgia's Republican Party, which has no black elected officials to speak of, has gone to federal court to claim that the plan discriminates against blacks." A Company's Gain From Energy Report's Recommendation. The national energy report released in May 2001 embraced a reactor being developed by a company that has provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republicans. By Don Van Natta Jr. The Soul of George W. Bush: ""On tactics, he may be listening to Colin Powell," said Norman Podhoretz, the influential conservative editor and author. "But he's very clear as to his strategic objectives -- not just to clean up Al Qaeda cells but to effect regime changes in six or seven countries and to create conditions which would lead to internal reform and modernization in the Islamic world.""

Friday, March 22, 2002

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Law firm calls anti-Talent accusations absurd: "Talent worked for almost 10 months for the Washington firm of Arent Fox Kinter Plotkin and Kahn. The firm's expertise includes lobbying Congress and the federal government on behalf of its clients. Missouri Democratic Party Executive Director Mike Kelley has asked Talent to make public his billing records because at least six of Arent Fox's new clients last year were Missouri firms or groups with ties to Talent. Kelley is accusing those clients of funneling money through Arent Fox to give Talent a private income while he considered running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Jean Carnahan, a Democrat. The companies deny it. Arent Fox registered all six with Congress as new lobbying clients on the same day. " Soft-Money Record: Democrats Take in $12 Million (2 Gifts): "Haim Saban, the billionaire chairman of Saban Capital Group and the creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and other children's entertainment programming. Mr. Saban said he gave $7 million specifically for the construction of the Democratic National Committee's high-tech headquarters here. The building will cost $32 million, a sum that will be paid entirely with soft money donations that will be illegal after Nov. 6." The $2,000 Answer: "Though Democrats pressed most energetically for the legislation, its biggest immediate beneficiary will be President Bush. A group of Mr. Bush's backers called the Pioneers raised $113 million in private money, the most in presidential campaign history. And it was all in chunks of $1,000. ... Now that the measure doubles the limit per donor to $2,000, the job of the Pioneers will be easier. "

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

As Easy as 1, 2, 3? San Franciscans Will Rank Candidates for 'Instant Runoffs': "Chris Bowman, a Republican political consultant and former member of the San Francisco citizens advisory committee on elections, said the instant runoff violated the one-person-one-vote principle." [What a ludicrous claim!] Bush Revives Tax-Cut Plan Providing Aid to Businesses: "he helped raise roughly $1.5 million at the $1,000-a-plate dinner" in St. Louis... and the article makes no mention of the spirited protest outside the hotel, linking Enron and the Bush administration.

Friday, March 15, 2002

Of All The Republican Chicken Hawks, Tom Delay Takes The Cake: "DeLay's excuse for having a yellow streak as wide as the Rio Grande down his back is truly imaginative, if you take a delight in the bizarre. The man who believes Dioxin is good for you (again, we are not making this up), claims that he volunteered for Vietnam, but all the spots were taken up by minorities, so he was not allowed to serve. "

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Why Congress Has to Ask Questions: Byrd oped - "Congress has a constitutional responsibility to weigh in on war-related policy decisions. Yet in this war on terrorism, Congress, by and large, has been left to learn about major war-related decisions through newspaper articles." California's Senators Oppose $275,000 Farm Subsidy Limit: "cited concerns about its effect on cotton and rice farmers in their state, the nation's largest agricultural producer. The two senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats, are asking the Senate's negotiators in a conference committee on new farm legislation to back off the payment limit."

Wednesday, March 06, 2002

President Rewards 43 Members of Fund-Raising Club With Prominent Posts

Tuesday, March 05, 2002

Freedom From the Press: Frank Rich oped "Not since the Nixon years has an administration done as much to stymie reporters who specialize in the genre of investigative inquiry " State Department Post for Cheney Daughter: "as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Near East bureau, ... a mandate to promote economic liberalization and American trade and investment in the region. ... executive corps distinct from most federal employees... pay between $126,000 and $138,000 "

Saturday, March 02, 2002

They Give, but They Also Take: Voters Muddle States' Finances: "Democrats used the initiative process for new spending programs on education, health care and the environment, and Republicans used it to cut taxes or limit states' ability to raise taxes. Many voters punched yes for both sides. "This puts us in somewhat of a civic death spiral,""

Friday, March 01, 2002

Top G.O.P. Donors in Energy Industry Met Cheney Panel: "Eighteen of the energy industry's top 25 financial contributors to the Republican Party advised Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy task force last year, according to interviews and election records. "

Thursday, February 28, 2002

Judge Orders Release of Energy Panel's Files: "In a setback to the Bush administration, a federal judge has ordered the Energy Department to release thousands of documents related to Vice President Dick Cheney's national energy task force. The judge, Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court here, ordered the department to turn over 7,584 pages of records that the Natural Resources Defense Council had sought in April under a Freedom of Information Act request."

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

Axis of Evil... As the Financial Times Reported November 3, 2000: "Halliburton, the largest US oil services company, is among a significant number of US companies that have sold oil industry equipment to Iraq since the UN relaxed sanctions two years ago. From 1995 until August this year Halliburton's chief executive officer was Richard Cheney, US secretary of defense during the Gulf war and now Republican vice-presidential running mate of George W. Bush. From September 1998 until it sold its stake last February, Halliburton owned 51 per cent of Dresser-Rand. It also owned 49 per cent of Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, until its sale in December 1999. During the time of the joint ventures, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump submitted more than $23.8m worth of contracts for the sale of oil industry parts and equipment to Iraq. Their combined total amounted to more than any other US." And on May 21, 2001 the Financial Times ran a similar story on Cheney's sales to Iran despite U.S. sanctions against that member of the Axis of Evil. Source: GWBush.com (satire site) A Fair Vote in San Francisco: "March 5 San Franciscans will have the opportunity to vote for an electoral system that elected "Red Ken" Livingstone as London's Mayor and Mary Robinson as Ireland's President and catapulted Albert Wheeler, Ann Arbor's first African-American mayor, into office in 1975. With widespread adoption of instant-runoff voting, progressive third parties would have the opportunity to grow and gain influence without the adverse effect of throwing elections to the GOP.  The campaign for Proposition A pits supporters of instant-runoff voting--the local AFL-CIO Labor Council, Common Cause, CalPIRG, the Sierra Club, Greens and the city's Democratic Party, among others--against establishment Republicans, political consultants and the Chamber of Commerce"

Monday, February 25, 2002

An Unworthy Judicial Nomination: NYT oped "In his 11 years as a federal trial-court judge, Mr. Pickering has displayed an undue skepticism toward cases involving civil rights. In voting rights cases, he has been troubled by well-settled legal principles like "one person, one vote" and overly concerned about the burdens that Congress, in enacting the Voting Rights Act, placed on local government. In employment discrimination cases, he has been too willing to accept employers' arguments that such suits are based on disgruntlement, rather than valid claims. He has also shown a hostility to awarding attorneys' fees in civil rights cases; without the fees, few such cases could be brought."

Tuesday, February 19, 2002

Blacks at Home Support a Judge Liberals Assail: "many say they admire his efforts at racial reconciliation, which they describe as highly unusual for a white Republican in the state." A Judge's Past: By BOB HERBERT Charles W. Pickering history of contact with the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. Judicial Confirmation Hearing Evokes Civil Rights Struggle The Two Enron System: Frank Rich "Because Democrats, and not just Mr. Lieberman, are terrified both by President Bush's poll numbers and the number of dollars they have themselves received from Enron, Andersen and Global Crossing, they don't have the guts to join the California congressman Henry Waxman in pursuing former Enron executives like Thomas White into the current administration. " Letters Show Bush and Lay Shared Much: "The letters are included in 350 pages of correspondence between Enron executives and Mr. Bush when he was Texas governor" "When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors."  -- Ann Coulter, nationally syndicated columnist, in her address at the 2002 Christian Political Action Conference (CPAC) [Quote of the Week, from SojoNet Publisher of Sojourners magazine http://www.Sojo.net Promoting faith, reason, compassion, and justice in days of violence and fear]

Monday, February 18, 2002

For Executives of Enron Unit, the Skill Was in Leaving: "Thomas E. White served 23 years in the Army, rising to the rank of brigadier general. But it was his second career a decade spent as a top executive of the Enron Corporation that won him inclusion in the circle of businessmen whom President Bush appointed last year to run the armed services. " Ersatz Climate Policy: Krugman oped "greenhouse gas intensity? It is the volume of greenhouse gas emissions divided by gross domestic product. The administration says that it will reduce this ratio by 18 percent over the next decade. But since most forecasts call for G.D.P. to expand 30 percent or more over the same period, this is actually a proposal to allow a substantial increase in emissions. " Backward on Global Warming: NY Times editorial "The obvious conclusion to be drawn from President Bush's latest global warming strategy, unveiled this week, is that he does not regard warming as a problem. " Bush Plan Expected to Slow, Not Halt, Gas Emission Rise: "The one thing the climate policy would not do is require anything of anybody" Bush Offers Plan for Voluntary Measures to Limit Gas Emissions The Axis of No Access: Maureen Dowd oped "The Bushes' attitude toward disclosure is embodied in Mr. Cheney: We know best. Leave it to us. In their view, the American public has been cleared for very little information about the American government. " Bush Featured in G.O.P. Ads Criticizing 5 Senators: "Democratic senators who voted against his economic stimulus package. The advertisement is directed at Max Baucus of Montana, Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Tom Harkin of Iowa, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Paul Wellstone of Minnesota." Enron Owns the GOP: Texas GOP Threatens Enron Parody Site With Lawsuit

Sunday, February 17, 2002

U.S. Tightening Rules on Keeping Scientific Secrets: NYT "But critics say the most extreme steps proposed could make it impossible for scientists to assess and replicate the work of their colleagues, eroding the foundations of American science. They fear that government officials eager for the protections of secrecy will overlook how open research on dangerous substances can produce a wealth of cures, disease antidotes and surprise discoveries."