Interesting news about Bush's partner in war, Tony Blair:
THE jottings of ... Peter Foster and his ex-girlfriend Carole Caplin will soon put besieged British Prime Minister Tony Blair under further pressure.
A newspaper serialisation of Foster's autobiography is set to be published in Britain this week amid reports Ms Caplin, "lifestyle guru" to Tony and Cherie Blair, is also threatening to write her memoirs after being banned from visiting Downing Street.
Foster, who was at the centre of last year's Cheriegate furore which rocked Downing Street, has reportedly been paid $1.2 million for his memoirs....
The book is claimed to be a "literary weapon of mass destruction" that will further rock the shaky foundations of the Blair Government, reeling over the war on Iraq and the death of weapons adviser David Kelly.
It is said to lift the lid on the Cheriegate scandal, in which Foster secured a discount for Mrs Blair on a real estate deal.
After initially denying her links with Foster, whom she met through her friend Ms Caplin, Mrs Blair made a tearful public admission that Foster had indeed acted on her behalf.
Mr Blair has distanced himself from Foster but his 140,000-word autobiography is said to contain a "smoking gun" with the potential to topple his government....
At the weekend, The Daily Mail reported the Blairs were working on a strategy to end their association with Ms Caplin, 41, a former topless model who has advised them on fashion, diet and fitness for more than a decade.
But friends of Ms Caplin said it was increasingly likely she would spill the beans on her relationship with the Blairs for up to $1 million.
--The Courier-Mail (Queensland, Australia)
Funny, I see no mention of this story here.
(First link via Publishers Lunch.)
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
If you're going to try to debunk something, it helps if you're right and the debunkee is wrong. Donald Luskin, the National Review Online columnist, is an Ahab with a white whale named Paul Krugman; he has made taking the Times columnist to task his life's work. In this column, he rails against four Krugman "lies." I'll leave it to others to deal with "lies" #2, #3, and #4 and stick with #1. Luskin writes:
Krugman's first lie about lying is an all-too-familiar sound-byte. In his New York Times column Tuesday, he wrote that "Mr. Bush and his officials portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an imminent threat," and he told Terry Gross [on her NPR show],
... if he says ... that some country is an imminent threat when in fact the evidence points the other way, people in the journalistic profession are very, very reluctant to say, "Hey, he's lying."
Perhaps they are "very, very reluctant" because of the fact that President Bush said exactly the opposite. In his state of the union address this year, Bush was at pains to disclose that the Iraq threat was not imminent, but that a controversial pre-emptive strike was nevertheless justified. Bush said,
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?
Gross didn't correct him.
Where in this passage does Bush argue that the threat from Saddam isn't imminent? I see no sign of that.
Here's the passage with the two sentences that follow:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Bush says the threat, unannounced now, quite possibly could emerge both "suddenly" and "fully" -- and if it does, it would be "too late" for a response. He's saying action is required now.
So he's not saying the threat isn't imminent -- he's saying it is imminent.
Krugman 1, Luskin 0.
Krugman's first lie about lying is an all-too-familiar sound-byte. In his New York Times column Tuesday, he wrote that "Mr. Bush and his officials portrayed the invasion of Iraq as an urgent response to an imminent threat," and he told Terry Gross [on her NPR show],
... if he says ... that some country is an imminent threat when in fact the evidence points the other way, people in the journalistic profession are very, very reluctant to say, "Hey, he's lying."
Perhaps they are "very, very reluctant" because of the fact that President Bush said exactly the opposite. In his state of the union address this year, Bush was at pains to disclose that the Iraq threat was not imminent, but that a controversial pre-emptive strike was nevertheless justified. Bush said,
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?
Gross didn't correct him.
Where in this passage does Bush argue that the threat from Saddam isn't imminent? I see no sign of that.
Here's the passage with the two sentences that follow:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.
Bush says the threat, unannounced now, quite possibly could emerge both "suddenly" and "fully" -- and if it does, it would be "too late" for a response. He's saying action is required now.
So he's not saying the threat isn't imminent -- he's saying it is imminent.
Krugman 1, Luskin 0.
What Crisis?
The stories are legion: pregnant women unable to find doctors to deliver their babies because disgruntled obstetricians have closed their practices or retired in droves; white-coated physicians hitting the picket lines and threatening to shut down emergency rooms; desperate patients forced to travel long distances to find a specialist willing to perform lifesaving surgery.
The culprit, according to the American Medical Association (AMA) and President Bush: multimillion-dollar jury awards in malpractice cases that have resulted in insurance premium increases so huge that they are forcing doctors out of business and jeopardizing patients' access to health care.
But a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has reached a very different conclusion about the effect of rising malpractice premiums on consumers. Investigators who studied nine states found instances of localized but not widespread problems of access to health care mostly in "scattered, often rural, areas" that have long-standing problems attracting doctors.
And many of those highly publicized accounts of doctors who have retired or moved are, according to the GAO, either "not substantiated," temporary or involved only a few physicians....
--Washington Post
The sob stories? Some of them seem to be out-and-out lies:
In Florida, where the state medical society told congressional investigators that all the neurosurgeons in Collier and Lee counties had stopped practicing, the GAO found at least five such specialists at work in each county. Although medical groups have repeatedly warned that doctors are reluctant to come to Florida because of escalating premiums, the GAO found that the number of new medical licenses issued by the state has increased in the past two years.
Limits were put on civil suits in George W. Bush's Texas. He wants the same thing to happen nationwide. He became president and -- what do you know? -- suddenly we started hearing this was a crisis.
Why do we ever give credence to any assertion that advances the Bush agenda?
(Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link.)
The stories are legion: pregnant women unable to find doctors to deliver their babies because disgruntled obstetricians have closed their practices or retired in droves; white-coated physicians hitting the picket lines and threatening to shut down emergency rooms; desperate patients forced to travel long distances to find a specialist willing to perform lifesaving surgery.
The culprit, according to the American Medical Association (AMA) and President Bush: multimillion-dollar jury awards in malpractice cases that have resulted in insurance premium increases so huge that they are forcing doctors out of business and jeopardizing patients' access to health care.
But a new study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, has reached a very different conclusion about the effect of rising malpractice premiums on consumers. Investigators who studied nine states found instances of localized but not widespread problems of access to health care mostly in "scattered, often rural, areas" that have long-standing problems attracting doctors.
And many of those highly publicized accounts of doctors who have retired or moved are, according to the GAO, either "not substantiated," temporary or involved only a few physicians....
--Washington Post
The sob stories? Some of them seem to be out-and-out lies:
In Florida, where the state medical society told congressional investigators that all the neurosurgeons in Collier and Lee counties had stopped practicing, the GAO found at least five such specialists at work in each county. Although medical groups have repeatedly warned that doctors are reluctant to come to Florida because of escalating premiums, the GAO found that the number of new medical licenses issued by the state has increased in the past two years.
Limits were put on civil suits in George W. Bush's Texas. He wants the same thing to happen nationwide. He became president and -- what do you know? -- suddenly we started hearing this was a crisis.
Why do we ever give credence to any assertion that advances the Bush agenda?
(Thanks to BuzzFlash for the link.)
Monday, September 15, 2003
GEORGE W. BUSH: OBJECTIVELY PRO-MASS MURDER, POLITICAL ASSASSINATION, AND DRUG DEALING
From The New York Times:
President Alvaro Uribe, who enjoys strong public support for vowing to bring order to Colombia, is proposing a law that would effectively grant impunity to right-wing death squads that lay down their arms.
...The proposed law would allow militiamen from the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to avoid jail for widespread human rights abuses that include the mass killings of thousands of villagers and the assassination of two presidential candidates. The group's leaders, several already convicted in absentia for murder, would instead be compelled to admit their crimes and make symbolic acts of contrition, compensating victims by providing community services, turning in their land and paying fines.
In exchange, the militia — a private, antiguerrilla army financed through cocaine trafficking and donations from wealthy Colombians — would make peace....
The proposed law also appears to contradict American policy in Colombia — the State Department lists the Self-Defense Forces as a terrorist group, and a federal court in Washington last year indicted three leaders for trafficking cocaine.
Western diplomats here and American officials who work on Colombia policy, though, say the United States has not only offered support for Mr. Uribe but also has been consulted as his administration drafted the legislation.
(Emphasis mine.)
Oh, and I love this statement:
"Everybody here understands that you're not going to do a peace process unless you have some sort of arrangement," a Bush administration official who has helped shape policy toward Colombia said by telephone from Washington....
"Arrangement" -- it sounds like something out of Chinatown or L.A. Confidential or some other deeply cynical movie about thugs and corrupt cops: "Well, y'know, we have a sort of...arrangement."
Disgusting.
From The New York Times:
President Alvaro Uribe, who enjoys strong public support for vowing to bring order to Colombia, is proposing a law that would effectively grant impunity to right-wing death squads that lay down their arms.
...The proposed law would allow militiamen from the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to avoid jail for widespread human rights abuses that include the mass killings of thousands of villagers and the assassination of two presidential candidates. The group's leaders, several already convicted in absentia for murder, would instead be compelled to admit their crimes and make symbolic acts of contrition, compensating victims by providing community services, turning in their land and paying fines.
In exchange, the militia — a private, antiguerrilla army financed through cocaine trafficking and donations from wealthy Colombians — would make peace....
The proposed law also appears to contradict American policy in Colombia — the State Department lists the Self-Defense Forces as a terrorist group, and a federal court in Washington last year indicted three leaders for trafficking cocaine.
Western diplomats here and American officials who work on Colombia policy, though, say the United States has not only offered support for Mr. Uribe but also has been consulted as his administration drafted the legislation.
(Emphasis mine.)
Oh, and I love this statement:
"Everybody here understands that you're not going to do a peace process unless you have some sort of arrangement," a Bush administration official who has helped shape policy toward Colombia said by telephone from Washington....
"Arrangement" -- it sounds like something out of Chinatown or L.A. Confidential or some other deeply cynical movie about thugs and corrupt cops: "Well, y'know, we have a sort of...arrangement."
Disgusting.
Does America hate its veterans -- or just the ones who have the nerve to get sick?
The Portland Phoenix reports:
This summer, VA secretary Anthony Principi said during a San Antonio speech that his department was weathering "the perfect storm" of too many veterans enrolling in the VA and not enough money from Congress to take care of them all.
"I think most health-care systems in America would collapse under the burden," he told his audience.
...The VA’s financial woes were compounded in 1996, when Congress mandated that all veterans be allowed to enroll in the VA health-care system, without fully funding the expansion.
"We [the DAV and other veterans organizations] went out on a big recruitment to find those people who may not have been service-connected," says Brodeur, "but they did spend some time in the military and now they may have some health problems, or they lost their job and they’re having a hard time just getting prescriptions.
"And we really went crazy doing that, and we found a lot of people who needed assistance," he says. "And we started flooding the system with them, and we choked it."
So bad did they choke the system, in fact, that incoming veterans now routinely wait six months to a year for their initial VA medical appointments. Meetings with specialists often take just as long....
(Click on the link, by the way, and you can read about the guy who couldn't get the VA to pay for a hearing aid for his stepfather, a World War II vet, because they couldn't provide specific information about the weapons that damaged his hearing: "To go back and ask the day, the time, the type of gun, the commanding officer — I mean, these are things that are 40, 50 years old, and it’s almost impossible, unless you kept a diary, to be able to convey in any kind of manner that can make sense on paper, like they’re trying to produce.")
*******
Meanwhile, USA Today reports this:
Scores of private factories that helped make the nation's first atomic bombs stayed polluted for decades. And thousands of people who later worked in them were exposed to radiation and toxins without knowing it, federal records show.
The government is refusing to compensate workers who say they have illnesses from the latent contamination. It says only those who had jobs while the weapons work was going on are eligible for money.
About 250 chemical plants, steel mills, machine shops and other private factories got classified contracts in the 1940s and '50s to process radioactive and toxic material for atomic bombs for the government. Officials knew contamination at many sites remained above federal safety limits for years after weapons work ended, declassified records on conditions at the factories show. A few stayed polluted into the early '90s.
...Most workers were not told of the contamination or its health risks....
We really hate to admit that there are any negative consequences to our military might, don't we?
The Portland Phoenix reports:
This summer, VA secretary Anthony Principi said during a San Antonio speech that his department was weathering "the perfect storm" of too many veterans enrolling in the VA and not enough money from Congress to take care of them all.
"I think most health-care systems in America would collapse under the burden," he told his audience.
...The VA’s financial woes were compounded in 1996, when Congress mandated that all veterans be allowed to enroll in the VA health-care system, without fully funding the expansion.
"We [the DAV and other veterans organizations] went out on a big recruitment to find those people who may not have been service-connected," says Brodeur, "but they did spend some time in the military and now they may have some health problems, or they lost their job and they’re having a hard time just getting prescriptions.
"And we really went crazy doing that, and we found a lot of people who needed assistance," he says. "And we started flooding the system with them, and we choked it."
So bad did they choke the system, in fact, that incoming veterans now routinely wait six months to a year for their initial VA medical appointments. Meetings with specialists often take just as long....
(Click on the link, by the way, and you can read about the guy who couldn't get the VA to pay for a hearing aid for his stepfather, a World War II vet, because they couldn't provide specific information about the weapons that damaged his hearing: "To go back and ask the day, the time, the type of gun, the commanding officer — I mean, these are things that are 40, 50 years old, and it’s almost impossible, unless you kept a diary, to be able to convey in any kind of manner that can make sense on paper, like they’re trying to produce.")
*******
Meanwhile, USA Today reports this:
Scores of private factories that helped make the nation's first atomic bombs stayed polluted for decades. And thousands of people who later worked in them were exposed to radiation and toxins without knowing it, federal records show.
The government is refusing to compensate workers who say they have illnesses from the latent contamination. It says only those who had jobs while the weapons work was going on are eligible for money.
About 250 chemical plants, steel mills, machine shops and other private factories got classified contracts in the 1940s and '50s to process radioactive and toxic material for atomic bombs for the government. Officials knew contamination at many sites remained above federal safety limits for years after weapons work ended, declassified records on conditions at the factories show. A few stayed polluted into the early '90s.
...Most workers were not told of the contamination or its health risks....
We really hate to admit that there are any negative consequences to our military might, don't we?
Atrios thinks the momentum in the California recall election is going "our way," as does Tarek at Liquid List. I wouldn't be so sure. Yes, opposition to the recall is 47%, according to this AP story, while support for the recall is at 50%. But that's among "likely voters" -- which probably means people who vote regularly. Arnold Schwarzenegger, if the Jesse Ventura campaign is any indication, will win (if he does win) on the strength of votes from unlikely voters -- young white males who usually don't give a damn about politics.
AP notes that Bustamante is down 5 percentage points since August, while Schwarzie is up 3. That's certainly not good news. A bright spot is that the hard-right-purist candidate, Tom McClintock, is up 6 points -- but if his momentum keeps up, you can bet he'll soon find a horse's head in his bed and drop out of the race.
So maybe it's good that an appeals court has ruled that the recall should be delayed -- assuming the ruling stands.
AP notes that Bustamante is down 5 percentage points since August, while Schwarzie is up 3. That's certainly not good news. A bright spot is that the hard-right-purist candidate, Tom McClintock, is up 6 points -- but if his momentum keeps up, you can bet he'll soon find a horse's head in his bed and drop out of the race.
So maybe it's good that an appeals court has ruled that the recall should be delayed -- assuming the ruling stands.
OPRAH -- THANKS FOR THE HUGE NON-MONETARY CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION! LOVE, ARNOLD + MARIA
Story here.
(For coverage from Oprah's own Web site, go here and -- in case you think Oprah could be objective in this situation -- here.)
Yeah, I suppose there's a chance she'll do the same thing for Cruz Bustamante. I also suppose pigs might fly in my lifetime.
Story here.
(For coverage from Oprah's own Web site, go here and -- in case you think Oprah could be objective in this situation -- here.)
Yeah, I suppose there's a chance she'll do the same thing for Cruz Bustamante. I also suppose pigs might fly in my lifetime.
BUSH REVEALS FOREIGN POLICY WAS STUNT FOR MTV’S “JACKASS”
In a nationally televised address on Sunday, President George W. Bush revealed that his foreign policy has been an elaborate stunt for the popular MTV series "Jackass."
Mr. Bush told the nation that he had been a fan of the prank-based television program "for some time" and had been actively searching for a stunt worthy of the show.
The President said he was first inspired to emulate a "Jackass" stunt in which a prankster poured scalding water on a sleeping friend, but when he sought to play the same prank on Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Cheney was "nowhere to be found."
Instead, Mr. Bush said, he decided to concoct a "Jackass"-style foreign policy, diverting resources away from the search for Osama bin Laden and towards the invasion of Iraq.
While Mr. Bush said his stunt had been a success, he warned viewers, "Do not – I repeat – do not try this at home."...
--Andy Borowitz
(Thanks to Billmon for the link.)
In a nationally televised address on Sunday, President George W. Bush revealed that his foreign policy has been an elaborate stunt for the popular MTV series "Jackass."
Mr. Bush told the nation that he had been a fan of the prank-based television program "for some time" and had been actively searching for a stunt worthy of the show.
The President said he was first inspired to emulate a "Jackass" stunt in which a prankster poured scalding water on a sleeping friend, but when he sought to play the same prank on Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Cheney was "nowhere to be found."
Instead, Mr. Bush said, he decided to concoct a "Jackass"-style foreign policy, diverting resources away from the search for Osama bin Laden and towards the invasion of Iraq.
While Mr. Bush said his stunt had been a success, he warned viewers, "Do not – I repeat – do not try this at home."...
--Andy Borowitz
(Thanks to Billmon for the link.)
Richard N. Smith, a Republican political historian and director of the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas, said of the Bush administration: "My sense is that they may be paying a price, short term or not, about not being more explicit about the possible costs and long-term commitments that, quote, rebuilding, unquote, Iraq would necessarily require. They needed to do a much better job of explaining what the $87 billion is for. I think it shocked people."
--New York Times
Sure, Bush wasn't explicit, but if this shocked people, why did it shock them? Did they really believe a war could be fought and a country could be occupied at essentially no cost?
Is this what happens when virtually every member of one political party, and virtually all the commentators sympathetic to that party, tell people over and over again for twenty-five years that all tax money is poured down a rathole, and imply that all government services just appear by magic, as if they're provided by elves and fairies, so we can cut taxes whenever we want to by as much as we'd like?
--New York Times
Sure, Bush wasn't explicit, but if this shocked people, why did it shock them? Did they really believe a war could be fought and a country could be occupied at essentially no cost?
Is this what happens when virtually every member of one political party, and virtually all the commentators sympathetic to that party, tell people over and over again for twenty-five years that all tax money is poured down a rathole, and imply that all government services just appear by magic, as if they're provided by elves and fairies, so we can cut taxes whenever we want to by as much as we'd like?
From Paul Krugman's article "The Tax-Cut Con":
...the estate tax is a tax on the very, very well off. Yet advocates of repeal began portraying it as a terrible burden on the little guy. They renamed it the ''death tax'' and put out reports decrying its impact on struggling farmers and businessmen -- reports that never provided real-world examples because actual cases of family farms or small businesses broken up to pay estate taxes are almost impossible to find. This campaign succeeded in creating a public perception that the estate tax falls broadly on the population. Earlier this year, a poll found that 49 percent of Americans believed that most families had to pay the estate tax, while only 33 percent gave the right answer that only a few families had to pay.
So "Saddam = Osama" isn't the only lie the GOP Big Liars have persuaded Americans to believe.
...the estate tax is a tax on the very, very well off. Yet advocates of repeal began portraying it as a terrible burden on the little guy. They renamed it the ''death tax'' and put out reports decrying its impact on struggling farmers and businessmen -- reports that never provided real-world examples because actual cases of family farms or small businesses broken up to pay estate taxes are almost impossible to find. This campaign succeeded in creating a public perception that the estate tax falls broadly on the population. Earlier this year, a poll found that 49 percent of Americans believed that most families had to pay the estate tax, while only 33 percent gave the right answer that only a few families had to pay.
So "Saddam = Osama" isn't the only lie the GOP Big Liars have persuaded Americans to believe.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
There was general gratitude in the Nice Blog household today for Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine article “The Tax-Cut Con.” But as we were passing the article back and forth, an objection was raised: Isn’t Krugman a bit too quick to dismiss the complaints of middle-class people that their taxes have increased over the years? Isn’t the problem not merely that the rich have received tax cuts, but that the non-rich really have been squeezed?
Krugman can’t seem to find the data to justify this dismissal, which seems odd, given that he’s an Ivy League economics professor. He writes:
On average, families in the middle of the income distribution find themselves paying about 26 percent of their income in taxes today. This number hasn't changed significantly since 1989, and though hard data are lacking, it probably hasn't changed much since 1970.
We wondered if there was anything about this in the books those old-school liberals Donald Barlett and James Steele wrote back in the 1990s. Sure enough, there is. In their 1992 bestseller, America: What Went Wrong?, they cite statistics that perfectly fit the hole in Krugman’s data:
In 1970, a Philadelphia family with an income of $9,000 to $10,000 -- median family income that year was $9,867 -- paid a total of $1,689 in combined local, state and federal income and Social Security taxes.
In 1989, a Philadelphia family with an income of $30,000 to $40,000 -- the median family income that year was $34,213 -- paid $8,491 in combined local, state and federal income and Social Security taxes. Thus, while these taxes consumed 17.8 percent of a middle-class family’s earnings in 1970, by 1989 they took 24.3 percent of the family’s income.
(Emphasis mine.)
A partial explanation for this is found in their 1994 follow-up, America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?:
From 1977 to 1990, the Social Security tax rate was raised nine times on Middle America. It went from 5.85 percent to 7.65 percent ... an increase of 31 percent.
(High earners, of course, pay this tax on only a fraction of their income, while middle-class earners pay it on every dime they make -- this year the tax is paid on the first $87,000 of a person’s income.)
If the Barlett and Steele numbers are right, middle-class taxes are noticeably higher than they were in 1970. Why shrug that off?
Krugman can’t seem to find the data to justify this dismissal, which seems odd, given that he’s an Ivy League economics professor. He writes:
On average, families in the middle of the income distribution find themselves paying about 26 percent of their income in taxes today. This number hasn't changed significantly since 1989, and though hard data are lacking, it probably hasn't changed much since 1970.
We wondered if there was anything about this in the books those old-school liberals Donald Barlett and James Steele wrote back in the 1990s. Sure enough, there is. In their 1992 bestseller, America: What Went Wrong?, they cite statistics that perfectly fit the hole in Krugman’s data:
In 1970, a Philadelphia family with an income of $9,000 to $10,000 -- median family income that year was $9,867 -- paid a total of $1,689 in combined local, state and federal income and Social Security taxes.
In 1989, a Philadelphia family with an income of $30,000 to $40,000 -- the median family income that year was $34,213 -- paid $8,491 in combined local, state and federal income and Social Security taxes. Thus, while these taxes consumed 17.8 percent of a middle-class family’s earnings in 1970, by 1989 they took 24.3 percent of the family’s income.
(Emphasis mine.)
A partial explanation for this is found in their 1994 follow-up, America: Who Really Pays the Taxes?:
From 1977 to 1990, the Social Security tax rate was raised nine times on Middle America. It went from 5.85 percent to 7.65 percent ... an increase of 31 percent.
(High earners, of course, pay this tax on only a fraction of their income, while middle-class earners pay it on every dime they make -- this year the tax is paid on the first $87,000 of a person’s income.)
If the Barlett and Steele numbers are right, middle-class taxes are noticeably higher than they were in 1970. Why shrug that off?
Saturday, September 13, 2003
Don’t say I didn’t warn you about David Brooks. A few weeks ago, when it was announced that he’d be writing a regular New York Times column, I wrote:
he sees a world out of balance, a world in which flabby, effete coastal moral relativists lord it over upright real Americans with a clear, God-given sense of right and wrong. In other words, he holds a lot of us in utter contempt -- and he’ll be using The New York Times to tell the world why.
In his second column, published today, he’s starting to do just that. Sure, he praises Howard Dean -- but he does so bizarrely, by describing Dean and George W. Bush as representatives of a sort of Master Race, easily distinguished from their inferiors:
Both were inculcated with something else, a sense of chivalry. Unlike today's top schools, which are often factories for producing Résumé Gods, the WASP prep schools were built to take the sons of privilege and toughen them into paragons of manly virtue. Rich boys were sent away from their families and shoved into a harsh environment that put tremendous emphasis on athletic competition, social competition and character building.
For the moment, let’s ignore the fact that "manly virtue" and “chivalry” and “character” are the last two words any rational person would associate with Bush, a man who’ll go to his grave never once having accepted responsibility for a mistake. Let’s think about what Brooks is doing in this paragraph: He’s saying, yet again, that white-collar Americans who went to “today’s top schools” utterly lack a value system and a moral compass. (And I think it’s safe to say that he assumes most of these characterless go-getters are blue-state Democrats.)
Here’s the end of his column:
The Protestant Establishment is dead, and nobody wants it back. But that culture, which George Bush and Howard Dean were born into, did have a formula for producing leaders. Our culture, which is freer and fairer, does not.
About that “nobody wants it back”: Don’t believe it for a second. David Brooks wants it back. He’d be pleased at any development that diminished the influence of people with high SAT scores who’ve eaten Ben & Jerry’s.
Yes, by the way, I'm an Ivy Leaguer, though my father drove trucks for a living and I haven't parlayed my sheepskin to a particularly high notch on the career ladder. What Brooks says, or implies, these days sticks in my craw. I keep waiting for him to start complaining about "rootless cosmopolitans."
he sees a world out of balance, a world in which flabby, effete coastal moral relativists lord it over upright real Americans with a clear, God-given sense of right and wrong. In other words, he holds a lot of us in utter contempt -- and he’ll be using The New York Times to tell the world why.
In his second column, published today, he’s starting to do just that. Sure, he praises Howard Dean -- but he does so bizarrely, by describing Dean and George W. Bush as representatives of a sort of Master Race, easily distinguished from their inferiors:
Both were inculcated with something else, a sense of chivalry. Unlike today's top schools, which are often factories for producing Résumé Gods, the WASP prep schools were built to take the sons of privilege and toughen them into paragons of manly virtue. Rich boys were sent away from their families and shoved into a harsh environment that put tremendous emphasis on athletic competition, social competition and character building.
For the moment, let’s ignore the fact that "manly virtue" and “chivalry” and “character” are the last two words any rational person would associate with Bush, a man who’ll go to his grave never once having accepted responsibility for a mistake. Let’s think about what Brooks is doing in this paragraph: He’s saying, yet again, that white-collar Americans who went to “today’s top schools” utterly lack a value system and a moral compass. (And I think it’s safe to say that he assumes most of these characterless go-getters are blue-state Democrats.)
Here’s the end of his column:
The Protestant Establishment is dead, and nobody wants it back. But that culture, which George Bush and Howard Dean were born into, did have a formula for producing leaders. Our culture, which is freer and fairer, does not.
About that “nobody wants it back”: Don’t believe it for a second. David Brooks wants it back. He’d be pleased at any development that diminished the influence of people with high SAT scores who’ve eaten Ben & Jerry’s.
Yes, by the way, I'm an Ivy Leaguer, though my father drove trucks for a living and I haven't parlayed my sheepskin to a particularly high notch on the career ladder. What Brooks says, or implies, these days sticks in my craw. I keep waiting for him to start complaining about "rootless cosmopolitans."
Look at this shit-eating grin. Iraq is a quagmire where U.S. soldiers are still being wounded and killed, Afghanistan is a mess, the second anniversary of 9/11 just passed, and Bush is the happiest man on the planet.
Remember this picture (which, incidentally, took up most of the top half of the front page in today's print New York Times) the next time Bush solemnly declares that the U.S. fought in Iraq "reluctantly."
Remember this picture (which, incidentally, took up most of the top half of the front page in today's print New York Times) the next time Bush solemnly declares that the U.S. fought in Iraq "reluctantly."
Friday, September 12, 2003
Remember those long-ago promises that Republicans could "run government more like a business"? Kirk Anderson remembers -- and now he's wondering about one particular employee....
(Thanks to Susan for this one.)
(Thanks to Susan for this one.)
Right-wingers think that lefties hate the flag, and that lefties impose all sorts of "politically correct" restrictions on expressions of "traditional values" -- but when some group of people actually seeks to foreclose on a guy because he tried to fly a flag in front of his house, please note that it's not lefties, it's believers in private-property rights uber alles.
In, you'll notice, one of the Bush family's favorite states.
In, you'll notice, one of the Bush family's favorite states.
Well, this made me laugh:
At the height of a solemn moment on a solemn day, a little bit of personal sunshine crept onto the floor of the Atlantis Casino Resort in south Reno.
It was signaled by the bells of an ordinary slot machine, dinging out the familiar celebratory notes that a gambler had hit a jackpot.
The mini-windfall came during a two-minute moment of silence at noon, in honor of the thousands of people killed by terrorists in New York City, Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania two years ago Thursday.
...nobody moved until the period of silence was over, including the jackpot’s winner, an unnamed woman of about 65 who walked away with $375 after playing just two quarters....
--Reno Gazette-Journal
Yeah, that's the kind of tribute I think the 9/11 dead would have wanted -- a moment of silence at the slots in Reno.
I'm pleased that the casino paid this woman and that, apparently, nobody tried to lynch her. Me, I don't blame her one bit. I say if we stop playing the quarter slots, then the terrorists have won.
At the height of a solemn moment on a solemn day, a little bit of personal sunshine crept onto the floor of the Atlantis Casino Resort in south Reno.
It was signaled by the bells of an ordinary slot machine, dinging out the familiar celebratory notes that a gambler had hit a jackpot.
The mini-windfall came during a two-minute moment of silence at noon, in honor of the thousands of people killed by terrorists in New York City, Washington, D.C. and rural Pennsylvania two years ago Thursday.
...nobody moved until the period of silence was over, including the jackpot’s winner, an unnamed woman of about 65 who walked away with $375 after playing just two quarters....
--Reno Gazette-Journal
Yeah, that's the kind of tribute I think the 9/11 dead would have wanted -- a moment of silence at the slots in Reno.
I'm pleased that the casino paid this woman and that, apparently, nobody tried to lynch her. Me, I don't blame her one bit. I say if we stop playing the quarter slots, then the terrorists have won.
WHAT I LEARNED FROM FREE REPUBLIC TODAY
In a terrorist attack, fire and police departments are not really "first responders."
The NYPD isn't any more important to our national defense than, say, the police department of Helena, Montana.
The fact that George W. Bush spent a few hours at Ground Zero without a mask a few days after 9/11 and is still healthy means that there couldn't possibly be a health risk to workers who were at The Pile day in and day out for weeks and months, sometimes working extraordinarily long days.
All of this, of course, is being said because the call for more federal aid to New York City cops and firefighters is coming from the hated Hillary Clinton, who has also criticized the EPA's cover-up of the toxicity of Ground Zero's air.
If these right-wingers had kids with cancer and Hillary Clinton personally discovered the cure, I swear I seriously believe some of them would choose to let the kids die.
In a terrorist attack, fire and police departments are not really "first responders."
The NYPD isn't any more important to our national defense than, say, the police department of Helena, Montana.
The fact that George W. Bush spent a few hours at Ground Zero without a mask a few days after 9/11 and is still healthy means that there couldn't possibly be a health risk to workers who were at The Pile day in and day out for weeks and months, sometimes working extraordinarily long days.
All of this, of course, is being said because the call for more federal aid to New York City cops and firefighters is coming from the hated Hillary Clinton, who has also criticized the EPA's cover-up of the toxicity of Ground Zero's air.
If these right-wingers had kids with cancer and Hillary Clinton personally discovered the cure, I swear I seriously believe some of them would choose to let the kids die.
David Plotz's "What You Think You Know About Sept. 11 …" in Slate is an interesting complement to the Philadelphia Daily News "20 Unanswered Questions" column I linked last night. The Slate column is way too agnostic on the subject of an Iraq link to 9/11 ("Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida share a pathological hatred of the United States, so it's entirely possible that they collaborated, even if we don't know how"), but otherwise it demonstrates that the relationship between accepted stories (e.g., that 9/11 plotters had plans to use crop-dusters) and reality is more tentative than we realize.
In a new Gallup poll, President Bush's approval rating has plunged to 52%.
As you can see if you check the summaries of Gallup's poll and other polls at Polling Report (here and here), Gallup's numbers have always skewed somewhat high -- since 9/11/01, Bush hasn't previously been below 57% in the Gallup survey (in virtually every other poll he dipped to the mid- to low 50s between January and March of this year). So this is bad news for the White House.
There's a lot to chew on at the Gallup link. One thing of note:
Slightly more than half of Americans -- 52% -- say that things are going badly for the United States in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended.
That's a muted way of describing the Gallup result on Iraq. This is the first time a majority of Americans have said things are going badly in the poll. That's important.
As you can see if you check the summaries of Gallup's poll and other polls at Polling Report (here and here), Gallup's numbers have always skewed somewhat high -- since 9/11/01, Bush hasn't previously been below 57% in the Gallup survey (in virtually every other poll he dipped to the mid- to low 50s between January and March of this year). So this is bad news for the White House.
There's a lot to chew on at the Gallup link. One thing of note:
Slightly more than half of Americans -- 52% -- say that things are going badly for the United States in Iraq now that the major fighting has ended.
That's a muted way of describing the Gallup result on Iraq. This is the first time a majority of Americans have said things are going badly in the poll. That's important.
On the basis of their recent pronouncements, the position of the Democratic Party seems to be that Saddam Hussein did not hit us on 9-11, but Halliburton did.
--Ann Coulter's column, 9/11/03
No, that's not a misprint. She said "Saddam Hussein." That's from her own site, and she hasn't made any effort to correct herself there, or at the other sites where her column appears -- here, or here.
Atrios spotted this first, but I think we ought to start piling on here.
Unless, of course, this isn't an embarrassing gaffe, but a deliberate escalation in the right-wing psywar that's already convinced a majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. Call me paranoid, but I can't rule that out. Bush and his underlings have been careful never to utter the Saddam-masterminded-9/11 lie in so many words, but Coulter's always been willing to take the "respectable" right's message and kick it up a notch. No "respectable" righty ever quite embraces her, but the best-known righties have never repudiated her either, even when, for instance, she's gleefully fantasized about a terrorist bombing of the New York Times building. I think it's perfectly plausible that she's taken on the task of saying what Karl Rove wants you to hear but Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz can't say.
Whatever's going on, this disinformation campaign has achieved such astonishing success that fin the near future I expect conservatives to become even more blatant in suggesting, and arguing outright, that Saddam toppled the Towers.
--Ann Coulter's column, 9/11/03
No, that's not a misprint. She said "Saddam Hussein." That's from her own site, and she hasn't made any effort to correct herself there, or at the other sites where her column appears -- here, or here.
Atrios spotted this first, but I think we ought to start piling on here.
Unless, of course, this isn't an embarrassing gaffe, but a deliberate escalation in the right-wing psywar that's already convinced a majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks. Call me paranoid, but I can't rule that out. Bush and his underlings have been careful never to utter the Saddam-masterminded-9/11 lie in so many words, but Coulter's always been willing to take the "respectable" right's message and kick it up a notch. No "respectable" righty ever quite embraces her, but the best-known righties have never repudiated her either, even when, for instance, she's gleefully fantasized about a terrorist bombing of the New York Times building. I think it's perfectly plausible that she's taken on the task of saying what Karl Rove wants you to hear but Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz can't say.
Whatever's going on, this disinformation campaign has achieved such astonishing success that fin the near future I expect conservatives to become even more blatant in suggesting, and arguing outright, that Saddam toppled the Towers.
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Here are twenty unanswered questions about 9/11, from William Bunch at the Philadelphia Daily News -- along with answers, or, more precisely, what (little) we know so far. Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11? Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept the four hijacked jets? Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I wouldn't mind getting some answers.
(Link courtesy of corrente.)
(Link courtesy of corrente.)
So, I learned a new thing today. I learned that it's categorically impossible for the government to do two things at once.
I always thought the need to handle multiple tasks simultaneously was why we had a large government in the first place, but Lawrence Kaplan, writing for The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, assures us that's not so.
You see, people were asked in a couple of polls which should be a bigger priority for government -- terrorism or the economy. Far more Democrats than Republicans chose the economy. Now, according to Kaplan, if the government prioritizes the economy, that means it can't do anything whatsoever about terrorism.
At least that's how I interpret Kaplan's argument that if Democrats want the economy to be the bigger priority, that means we completely lack "a willingness to do something about [terrorism]." (His exact words are "Fear of terrorism cuts across all demographic sub-groups. Yet a willingness to do something about it, to adjust our priorities, does not.")
Apparently, if you don't make something the #1 priority, you're unwilling to do anything about it at all. And if that something is terrorism and you're a Democrat, then you're a dangerous "September 10 American."
Or maybe I'm being too literal-minded -- after all, this is an article on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, and Kaplan, though he's an editor at The New Republic, wrote a book recently with William Kristol and got it published by David Horowitz's old partner, Peter Collier.
So maybe this is just more right-wing group slander, and not to be taken seriously at all.
I always thought the need to handle multiple tasks simultaneously was why we had a large government in the first place, but Lawrence Kaplan, writing for The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, assures us that's not so.
You see, people were asked in a couple of polls which should be a bigger priority for government -- terrorism or the economy. Far more Democrats than Republicans chose the economy. Now, according to Kaplan, if the government prioritizes the economy, that means it can't do anything whatsoever about terrorism.
At least that's how I interpret Kaplan's argument that if Democrats want the economy to be the bigger priority, that means we completely lack "a willingness to do something about [terrorism]." (His exact words are "Fear of terrorism cuts across all demographic sub-groups. Yet a willingness to do something about it, to adjust our priorities, does not.")
Apparently, if you don't make something the #1 priority, you're unwilling to do anything about it at all. And if that something is terrorism and you're a Democrat, then you're a dangerous "September 10 American."
Or maybe I'm being too literal-minded -- after all, this is an article on The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, and Kaplan, though he's an editor at The New Republic, wrote a book recently with William Kristol and got it published by David Horowitz's old partner, Peter Collier.
So maybe this is just more right-wing group slander, and not to be taken seriously at all.
FAIRYTALES VS. REALITY
First, from that Bill O'Reilly interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the fairytale:
O'REILLY: All right. If it's true, though, that the L.A. Times is taking their cues from the Davis campaign, why would a newspaper that's supposed to be objective do that?
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, have you ever seen how many times they've put Davis on the cover and Bustamante on the cover, and I'm on page 12 or page 20 or something like that?
Now the reality, from Reuters:
The actor did not make clear whether he was referring to photographs or stories in the paper, but a search of the Lexis-Nexis database showed that Davis has been mentioned on the paper's front page 64 times since Schwarzenegger joined the race on Aug. 6, while Schwarzenegger appears 61 times over the same period. Bustamante is mentioned 48 times.
Are Republicans utterly incapable of shame?
(Thanks to Cursor for this.)
First, from that Bill O'Reilly interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the fairytale:
O'REILLY: All right. If it's true, though, that the L.A. Times is taking their cues from the Davis campaign, why would a newspaper that's supposed to be objective do that?
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, have you ever seen how many times they've put Davis on the cover and Bustamante on the cover, and I'm on page 12 or page 20 or something like that?
Now the reality, from Reuters:
The actor did not make clear whether he was referring to photographs or stories in the paper, but a search of the Lexis-Nexis database showed that Davis has been mentioned on the paper's front page 64 times since Schwarzenegger joined the race on Aug. 6, while Schwarzenegger appears 61 times over the same period. Bustamante is mentioned 48 times.
Are Republicans utterly incapable of shame?
(Thanks to Cursor for this.)
At National Review Online, Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Laurie Mylroie -- you know, the "terrorism expert" who thinks Saddam Hussein was behind both WTC attacks, the anthrax killings, and possibly Oklahoma City.
One thing I didn't know about Mylroie until now: While she blames Iraq for everything, she pretty much lets Saudi Arabia -- you know, the home of the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers -- off the hook.
Iran was not involved in 9/11. If it were, we would have gone to war with Iran. The same with Saudi Arabia. This is not to say that there are not serious problems with those countries. Iran's nuclear program has to be stopped, and the Saudi export of Wahhabism and funding of Islamic militancy should be stopped too.
That said, many people, I realize, believe the Saudis had more to do with the 9/11 attacks than Iraq. Indeed, that is the preferred explanation of the Beltway, including the Democrats, who vehemently oppose the notion that Iraq was involved.
Hmmm...she thinks Iraq is involved in everything and Saudi Arabia is involved in nothing. We're at war in Iraq and we handle the Saudis with kid gloves. Coincidence? Is Laurie Mylroie actually in charge of U.S. foreign policy?
How nuts is Mylroie? Well, she says this:
The post-9/11 investigation into al Qaeda has produced a lot more information than we had before. Most importantly, it is now understood that at the core of the astonishingly lethal terrorism — beginning with the 1993 Trade Center bombing and culminating in the 9/11 strikes — there is a family, or what is supposed to be a family, that includes:
Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing; 2) Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 9/11 mastermind, said to be Yousef's uncle; 3-4) two older "brothers" of Yousef, also al Qaeda masterminds; 5) a younger "cousin," Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, now known to have sent most of the money to the hijackers; and 6) Yousef's childhood "friend," Abdul Hakam Murad.
This is the claim of the U.S. government.
Yet it is strange. It is without precedent. No terrorist organization has a family at its core. Moreover, all these individuals, with the possible exception of the younger "cousin," are said to be born and raised in Kuwait. Their identities are based on documents in Kuwait, above all interior-ministry files, that pre-date Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991.
Those documents are not reliable, because Iraq had custody of those files, while it occupied Kuwait. This is self-evident and beyond dispute.
Moreover, at least one file in Kuwait was tampered with to create a false identity for Yousef. A summary of that file was read to me. Quite possibly, other files were also altered. In fact, a colleague retired from the number two position in Israeli military intelligence believes exactly this: Iraq used Kuwait's files to create false identities for intelligence agents.
Got that? In the six months when Iraq controlled Kuwait in 1990 and 1991, the entire brain trust of global terrorism was assigned fake identities. Over the next dozen years, these people pulled off a series of devastating attacks, and some of them were caught and are currently in custody, but no one -- except for Mylroie and one friend of hers -- knows who the captured people really are. And what's her evidence?
A summary of that file was read to me.
A summary of the file was read to her! What is that, quadruple hearsay?
Nuts. Utterly nuts. And the right wing of this country accords her more respect than it does the longest-serving State Department diplomats.
One thing I didn't know about Mylroie until now: While she blames Iraq for everything, she pretty much lets Saudi Arabia -- you know, the home of the vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers -- off the hook.
Iran was not involved in 9/11. If it were, we would have gone to war with Iran. The same with Saudi Arabia. This is not to say that there are not serious problems with those countries. Iran's nuclear program has to be stopped, and the Saudi export of Wahhabism and funding of Islamic militancy should be stopped too.
That said, many people, I realize, believe the Saudis had more to do with the 9/11 attacks than Iraq. Indeed, that is the preferred explanation of the Beltway, including the Democrats, who vehemently oppose the notion that Iraq was involved.
Hmmm...she thinks Iraq is involved in everything and Saudi Arabia is involved in nothing. We're at war in Iraq and we handle the Saudis with kid gloves. Coincidence? Is Laurie Mylroie actually in charge of U.S. foreign policy?
How nuts is Mylroie? Well, she says this:
The post-9/11 investigation into al Qaeda has produced a lot more information than we had before. Most importantly, it is now understood that at the core of the astonishingly lethal terrorism — beginning with the 1993 Trade Center bombing and culminating in the 9/11 strikes — there is a family, or what is supposed to be a family, that includes:
Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 bombing; 2) Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 9/11 mastermind, said to be Yousef's uncle; 3-4) two older "brothers" of Yousef, also al Qaeda masterminds; 5) a younger "cousin," Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, now known to have sent most of the money to the hijackers; and 6) Yousef's childhood "friend," Abdul Hakam Murad.
This is the claim of the U.S. government.
Yet it is strange. It is without precedent. No terrorist organization has a family at its core. Moreover, all these individuals, with the possible exception of the younger "cousin," are said to be born and raised in Kuwait. Their identities are based on documents in Kuwait, above all interior-ministry files, that pre-date Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation in 1991.
Those documents are not reliable, because Iraq had custody of those files, while it occupied Kuwait. This is self-evident and beyond dispute.
Moreover, at least one file in Kuwait was tampered with to create a false identity for Yousef. A summary of that file was read to me. Quite possibly, other files were also altered. In fact, a colleague retired from the number two position in Israeli military intelligence believes exactly this: Iraq used Kuwait's files to create false identities for intelligence agents.
Got that? In the six months when Iraq controlled Kuwait in 1990 and 1991, the entire brain trust of global terrorism was assigned fake identities. Over the next dozen years, these people pulled off a series of devastating attacks, and some of them were caught and are currently in custody, but no one -- except for Mylroie and one friend of hers -- knows who the captured people really are. And what's her evidence?
A summary of that file was read to me.
A summary of the file was read to her! What is that, quadruple hearsay?
Nuts. Utterly nuts. And the right wing of this country accords her more respect than it does the longest-serving State Department diplomats.
A stray thought, inspired by the editorial I linked in the post immediately below:
Why doesn't the U.S. just kill Stephen Hatfill, the "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation? Why doesn't the government just bomb his house, and make it known that it will kill or capture or bomb the house of anyone who harbors him? Why doesn't the president put a bounty on his head, dead or alive?
After all, the government suspects that Hatfill might have been tinkering with biological weapons around the time that innocent Americans were killed by terrorists, just as the government suspects Saddam was. There's no proof in either case, or even any solid evidence, although in each case investigators have pretty much turned over every rock.
But that's not the point. The point is that the attacks were unspeakably awful -- and isn't the goal to make sure that nothing worse ever happens, despite what some whiny liberals say about civil liberties?
So why doesn't the government just kill Hatfill? Doesn't the "logic" that led to the Iraq War follow in this case?
Why doesn't the U.S. just kill Stephen Hatfill, the "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation? Why doesn't the government just bomb his house, and make it known that it will kill or capture or bomb the house of anyone who harbors him? Why doesn't the president put a bounty on his head, dead or alive?
After all, the government suspects that Hatfill might have been tinkering with biological weapons around the time that innocent Americans were killed by terrorists, just as the government suspects Saddam was. There's no proof in either case, or even any solid evidence, although in each case investigators have pretty much turned over every rock.
But that's not the point. The point is that the attacks were unspeakably awful -- and isn't the goal to make sure that nothing worse ever happens, despite what some whiny liberals say about civil liberties?
So why doesn't the government just kill Hatfill? Doesn't the "logic" that led to the Iraq War follow in this case?
Well, now the right-wingers are just making stuff up:
They [i.e., "many in the nation's elite"] forget that we were attacked not just by a shadowy terrorist group called al Qaeda, but also by an anti-American and anti-Western ideology emanating from the Islamic world.
They forget that the foremost exponent of that anti-American and anti-Western ideology in the Islamic world was Saddam Hussein.
--New York Post op-ed piece by John Podhoretz today
The foremost exponent? Is he serious? Bin Laden, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas -- what are they, chopped liver?
They [i.e., "many in the nation's elite"] forget that we were attacked not just by a shadowy terrorist group called al Qaeda, but also by an anti-American and anti-Western ideology emanating from the Islamic world.
They forget that the foremost exponent of that anti-American and anti-Western ideology in the Islamic world was Saddam Hussein.
--New York Post op-ed piece by John Podhoretz today
The foremost exponent? Is he serious? Bin Laden, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Taliban, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas -- what are they, chopped liver?
BILL O'REILLY PULLS NO PUNCHES IN FOX NEWS INTERVIEW WITH SCHWARZENEGGER
Yeah, as if. Mr. Can-You-Survive-My-No-Spin-Zone? threw so many softballs my grandmother could have hit one out of the park, and she's been dead for thirteen years. Here's his final question to Schwarzie:
O'REILLY: Last question for you. This is just a vicious game. I mean, this makes acting and show business look like patty-cake, politics, and you said it, you're going to stand there and you're going to absorb the punishment. But it must hurt you. It must, as a human being. It must hurt you. It's just dirty, dirty, dirty.
The whole interview is like that.
Doesn't quite resemble O'Reilly's usual fair, balanced work -- this, say ("you have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country"), or this ("Now, is it possible that pain and rage could be bogus?"), does it?
Yeah, as if. Mr. Can-You-Survive-My-No-Spin-Zone? threw so many softballs my grandmother could have hit one out of the park, and she's been dead for thirteen years. Here's his final question to Schwarzie:
O'REILLY: Last question for you. This is just a vicious game. I mean, this makes acting and show business look like patty-cake, politics, and you said it, you're going to stand there and you're going to absorb the punishment. But it must hurt you. It must, as a human being. It must hurt you. It's just dirty, dirty, dirty.
The whole interview is like that.
Doesn't quite resemble O'Reilly's usual fair, balanced work -- this, say ("you have a warped view of this world and a warped view of this country"), or this ("Now, is it possible that pain and rage could be bogus?"), does it?
Wonder how the Bush administration is responding to the fact that ABC News was able to ship depleted uranium into the country undetected for the second year in a row? Well, it's doing just what you'd expect: It's shooting the messenger.
...federal authorities are threatening criminal charges against ABC News reporters who smuggled harmless depleted uranium into the country for a second time during an investigation of border inspections.
--AP
Some quoted in the AP article think the Justice Department may not really file charges. But the strategy is still to focus on the people who breached security rather than the people -- or policies -- that failed to prevent the breach.
Oh, and since it's 9/11, you might want to read David Corn's Nation article on all the things we're not doing to make the country more secure, with some speculation on the reasons for the administration's priorities (short version: Bush hates regulation, prefers war). I love this:
...one good example of bureaucratic lack of imagination was provided (unintentionally) by Al Martinez-Fonts, a top [Tom] Ridge aide, in an interview for PBS's NOW With Bill Moyers this past March. Asked why the government had not moved to regulate security at chemical plants, he replied that on September 11 "it was not chemical plants that were blown up."
Great.
...federal authorities are threatening criminal charges against ABC News reporters who smuggled harmless depleted uranium into the country for a second time during an investigation of border inspections.
--AP
Some quoted in the AP article think the Justice Department may not really file charges. But the strategy is still to focus on the people who breached security rather than the people -- or policies -- that failed to prevent the breach.
Oh, and since it's 9/11, you might want to read David Corn's Nation article on all the things we're not doing to make the country more secure, with some speculation on the reasons for the administration's priorities (short version: Bush hates regulation, prefers war). I love this:
...one good example of bureaucratic lack of imagination was provided (unintentionally) by Al Martinez-Fonts, a top [Tom] Ridge aide, in an interview for PBS's NOW With Bill Moyers this past March. Asked why the government had not moved to regulate security at chemical plants, he replied that on September 11 "it was not chemical plants that were blown up."
Great.
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Three Brooklyn fishermen breached Kennedy Airport security in August ("'I was hoping somebody would drive up to us and say, "Hey guys, what are you doing here?" And when that didn't happen we just kept walking.' They kept walking for nearly an hour, past the runways, past the jets, and they were never stopped or questioned once because, apparently, no one ever knew they were there"). A guy shipped himself from Newark to Dallas a couple of days ago, undetected, on a cargo plane ("Airport lighting in cargo areas sometimes consists of a Coleman generator with a light stand on it....There may be a chain link fence with a lock. There may or may not be a guard"). And now ABC News slips depleted uranium past Customs (on a ship from Indonesia) -- even though the network did essentially the same thing a year ago and reported it.
Tomorrow is September 11. Feel safe?
Tomorrow is September 11. Feel safe?
William F. Buckley's latest column begins:
In a private forum the question arose, Why do they hate Bush so? And ... what will they do with that hatred? How far can they carry it? How will it affect the next presidential election?
A couple of paragraphs later, Buckley tries to answer the first question:
The answer, as agreed upon in this improvised study, was: 1) He is not legitimately president of the United States. The other guy got more votes. Bush slipped in because of capricious conduct by the courts. 2) Bush is a Christer. He takes every opportunity to inform the American people that he is in touch with the Lord and therefore that, by deduction, what he does is the Lord's work.
3) He gravely miscalculated the onus of what he set out to do in Iraq. The consequences of that miscalculation are deaths unending, and more money spent than King Solomon dreamed of. 4) The economy lacks the kind of resiliency it might have shown if more resourcefully tended. 5) His truckling to the rich in his tax cuts shows a callous disregard of civil adjudications between America's poor and America's rich.
And finally, 6) He is a liar. He specifically informed the public that Iraq had in hand instantly deployable weapons of mass destruction. These, it proved, did not exist.
After this summation, he moves on to the other two questions. But here's the weird part: the summation is careful, surprisingly accurate, and sarcasm-free, and after he completes it he never tries to refute any of its particulars. He never tries to belittle our complaints or suggest that we have a poor grasp of the facts.
Do you think he's trying to tell us something? Do you think, just possibly, he kind of gets it?
In a private forum the question arose, Why do they hate Bush so? And ... what will they do with that hatred? How far can they carry it? How will it affect the next presidential election?
A couple of paragraphs later, Buckley tries to answer the first question:
The answer, as agreed upon in this improvised study, was: 1) He is not legitimately president of the United States. The other guy got more votes. Bush slipped in because of capricious conduct by the courts. 2) Bush is a Christer. He takes every opportunity to inform the American people that he is in touch with the Lord and therefore that, by deduction, what he does is the Lord's work.
3) He gravely miscalculated the onus of what he set out to do in Iraq. The consequences of that miscalculation are deaths unending, and more money spent than King Solomon dreamed of. 4) The economy lacks the kind of resiliency it might have shown if more resourcefully tended. 5) His truckling to the rich in his tax cuts shows a callous disregard of civil adjudications between America's poor and America's rich.
And finally, 6) He is a liar. He specifically informed the public that Iraq had in hand instantly deployable weapons of mass destruction. These, it proved, did not exist.
After this summation, he moves on to the other two questions. But here's the weird part: the summation is careful, surprisingly accurate, and sarcasm-free, and after he completes it he never tries to refute any of its particulars. He never tries to belittle our complaints or suggest that we have a poor grasp of the facts.
Do you think he's trying to tell us something? Do you think, just possibly, he kind of gets it?
The burning ruins of the World Trade Center spewed toxic gases "like a chemical factory" for at least six weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite government assurances the air was safe, according to a study released on Wednesday.
The gases of toxic metals, acids and organics could penetrate deeply into the lungs of workers at Ground Zero, said the study by scientists at the University of California at Davis and released at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York.
Lead study author Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and engineering, said conditions would have been "brutal" for workers at Ground Zero without respirators and slightly less so for those working or living in adjacent buildings.
"The debris pile acted like a chemical factory," Cahill said. "It cooked together the components and the buildings and their contents, including enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids and organics for at least six weeks."
...Last month, an internal report by Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General Nikki Tinsley said the White House pressured the agency to make premature statements that the air was safe to breathe. ...
--Reuters
The gases of toxic metals, acids and organics could penetrate deeply into the lungs of workers at Ground Zero, said the study by scientists at the University of California at Davis and released at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York.
Lead study author Thomas Cahill, a professor of physics and engineering, said conditions would have been "brutal" for workers at Ground Zero without respirators and slightly less so for those working or living in adjacent buildings.
"The debris pile acted like a chemical factory," Cahill said. "It cooked together the components and the buildings and their contents, including enormous numbers of computers, and gave off gases of toxic metals, acids and organics for at least six weeks."
...Last month, an internal report by Environmental Protection Agency Inspector General Nikki Tinsley said the White House pressured the agency to make premature statements that the air was safe to breathe. ...
--Reuters
It would be nice to think that the FCC's decision to declare The Howard Stern Show a news program (so Stern can interview Arnold Schwarzenegger without having to offer equal time to the candidates) could lead to an embarrassing, sex-saturated chat in which Schwarzie sinks his own candidacy while Howard eggs him on.
I strongly doubt that will happen.
Stern, despite his reputation as an insult comedian who has nothing but disrespect for power, tends to swoon in the presence of A-list stars, and the rest of his crew does the same.
The author of this Stern fan page describes an appearance by Schwarzie a couple of months ago:
A-List Superstar, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in to promote T3. Howard and Robin kiss his ass a little about how great he looks for being 55. There's a part in the movie, just like the first 2, where he shows up from the future butt-naked. They're talking about Lou Ferrigno mentioning yesterday on the phone that he could probably beat Arnold in a posedown. Robin doesn't think so.
Insults? Nah -- Schwarzie is a Hollywood god, so Stern just lets him hold forth:
Arnold started talking about how bad his $30 million dollar deal for T3 was....He said he's not gonna see any of that $30 million, his wife is is spending. Then of course he back pedaled and said it was a joke, but you gotta believe that to be true. He said not only don't his kids have TV's in their rooms, they're not even allowed to watch TV during the week! ...
Schwarzie's too cool to insult, even if insulting him would be entertaining radio. A nerd is on hand for that purpose:
Loser intern wore an Arnold S. t-shirt to the show in honor of his appearance on the show today. The shirt says "Vote for Arnold or he'll kick your ass". Wannabe stand-up comedian with no personality. He's a Dork. They're thinking of ways to torture him in order to meet Arnold.
...The loser intern in the t-shirt came in and got goofed on. His one question he got to ask his idol was "Did you want to say Hasta la vista baby?". Arnold actually answered it with a valid response....
Stern interviewing Schwarzie is going to be a campaign contribution.
I strongly doubt that will happen.
Stern, despite his reputation as an insult comedian who has nothing but disrespect for power, tends to swoon in the presence of A-list stars, and the rest of his crew does the same.
The author of this Stern fan page describes an appearance by Schwarzie a couple of months ago:
A-List Superstar, Arnold Schwarzenegger comes in to promote T3. Howard and Robin kiss his ass a little about how great he looks for being 55. There's a part in the movie, just like the first 2, where he shows up from the future butt-naked. They're talking about Lou Ferrigno mentioning yesterday on the phone that he could probably beat Arnold in a posedown. Robin doesn't think so.
Insults? Nah -- Schwarzie is a Hollywood god, so Stern just lets him hold forth:
Arnold started talking about how bad his $30 million dollar deal for T3 was....He said he's not gonna see any of that $30 million, his wife is is spending. Then of course he back pedaled and said it was a joke, but you gotta believe that to be true. He said not only don't his kids have TV's in their rooms, they're not even allowed to watch TV during the week! ...
Schwarzie's too cool to insult, even if insulting him would be entertaining radio. A nerd is on hand for that purpose:
Loser intern wore an Arnold S. t-shirt to the show in honor of his appearance on the show today. The shirt says "Vote for Arnold or he'll kick your ass". Wannabe stand-up comedian with no personality. He's a Dork. They're thinking of ways to torture him in order to meet Arnold.
...The loser intern in the t-shirt came in and got goofed on. His one question he got to ask his idol was "Did you want to say Hasta la vista baby?". Arnold actually answered it with a valid response....
Stern interviewing Schwarzie is going to be a campaign contribution.
I'm sorry the Alabama tax referendum was defeated yesterday. Part of the reason for the defeat is the usual one, the fact that Americans have a simpleminded view of taxes -- they think all tax money is poured down a rathole, and then government services arrive courtesy of elves and fairies. But it looks as if the real problem was that the plan tried to do three things -- close a budget shortfall, reverse some of the shocking regressivity of Alabama's tax code, and establish new state programs, particularly in education -- and that was one or two goals too far.
That regressivity is ugly. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has summarized the problem:
Alabama families earning less than $13,000 -- the poorest fifth of Alabama non-elderly taxpayers -- pay 10.6% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes.
Middle-income Alabama taxpayers -- those earning between $21,000 and $36,000-- pay 9.8% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes.
But the richest Alabama taxpayers -- with average incomes of $682,000 -- pay only 4.9% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes before taking account of tax savings from federal itemized deductions, and only 3.8% after the federal offset.
(The ITEP's report is available here as a PDF and here as HTML.)
That "federal offset" is, as The New York Times reminds us today, the complete deductibility of federal taxes on the Alabama state tax form, a deduction that, needless to say, disproportionately helps the well-to-do.
And as Susan Pace Hamill, the Alabama law professor whose article "An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics" influenced Governor Riley's call for the tax increase, points out,
Timber acres, which cover 71 percent of Alabama's real property and account for substantial profits earned in the state, pay less than two percent of the property taxes, averaging less than one dollar an acre. The minimal property taxes paid by timber is the principal reason that rural parts of the state have no ability to adequately fund their public schools.
That argument seems to have held sway with voters in the state's "Black Belt" (the only counties that voted yes were there), but not elsewhere.
Voters may have been dubious because the tax plan would have raised more money ($1.2 billion) than the state's current shortfall ($675 million). The Birmingham News reports today:
"It was a huge, huge mistake to ask for twice what you need," said Roger McConnell, founder of the anti-plan Tax Accountability Coalition....
Another complaint was that
None of the state money Riley's plan would have raised would have been earmarked, or reserved, for specific purposes such as funding his proposed college scholarships.
That opened the door for opponents to say Riley wanted to create a $1 billion-plus slush fund for lawmakers, said state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills.
The "rathole" argument again. Also,
People disliked the part of Riley's plan that would have imposed state and local sales taxes on labor charges for repairs and installations. Waggoner said people complained to him the most about the services tax.
Marty Connors, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the services tax would have affected everyone, including poor people, which undercut Riley's claim that the package would have eased the overall tax burden on the poor.
Of course, the current tax structure imposes income taxes on a family of four once its income hits $4,600, and the proposed change would have raised that to $17,000, then, in three years, to $20,000, as The New York Times points out. Surely that would have offset some of the fees for the poor. But that argument didn't wash.
That scholarship fund wasn't the only improvement Governor Riley proposed as a possible result of the tax increase, as The Birmingham News noted a couple of days ago:
Riley says the money could fill a state budget shortfall that he says will total $675 million in the budget year starting Oct. 1, and also raise enough money to create a world-class education system in Alabama.
Riley's plan also would set up a college scholarship program, streamline the appeals process for fired teachers, make public schools hire a total of 1,550 teaching specialists and make other changes, such as making it a crime to hide in state budgets money for lawmakers' special "pork" projects.
In this country it's hard enough to sell the notion of raising taxes to close a budget gap -- I don't know why the governor thought he could also sell the idea of making improvements, of any kind, even if they're crucial to keeping his state from being an undereducated, underdeveloped backwater.
Oh, well. The Anniston Star tells us today what comes next:
The deficit, Riley has said, could cause the state to eliminate nursing home eligibility for 6,900 seniors on Medicaid, close 60 senior centers, eliminating nearly 800,000 meals for seniors, and cut state trooper forces by one-third and release 5,000 prisoners early.
The Department of Education estimates it will cut funding to local school systems by $100 million next year. State education officials said that means cutting funding for classroom materials and supplies, libraries, technology equipment and software, staff development training and textbooks for next year.
... next year, roughly 6,600 teachers and 2,000 support personnel may be laid off, and schools will face a 10 percent cut, said Ed Richardson, state superintendent of education....
...it will be hard to avoid massive cuts, said Jim Williams, head of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, a non-partisan tax reform organization....
The cuts... will likely come in three forms: layoffs, elimination of eligibility for health insurance and retirement benefits, decreased funding for things such as museums and cultural centers and increases in tuition for higher education students and more fees for K-12 students....
...Sen. Gerald Dial, D-Lineville, is planning to introduce a bill this special session to allow schools in financial trouble to close 25 days early....
That regressivity is ugly. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has summarized the problem:
Alabama families earning less than $13,000 -- the poorest fifth of Alabama non-elderly taxpayers -- pay 10.6% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes.
Middle-income Alabama taxpayers -- those earning between $21,000 and $36,000-- pay 9.8% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes.
But the richest Alabama taxpayers -- with average incomes of $682,000 -- pay only 4.9% of their income in Alabama state and local taxes before taking account of tax savings from federal itemized deductions, and only 3.8% after the federal offset.
(The ITEP's report is available here as a PDF and here as HTML.)
That "federal offset" is, as The New York Times reminds us today, the complete deductibility of federal taxes on the Alabama state tax form, a deduction that, needless to say, disproportionately helps the well-to-do.
And as Susan Pace Hamill, the Alabama law professor whose article "An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics" influenced Governor Riley's call for the tax increase, points out,
Timber acres, which cover 71 percent of Alabama's real property and account for substantial profits earned in the state, pay less than two percent of the property taxes, averaging less than one dollar an acre. The minimal property taxes paid by timber is the principal reason that rural parts of the state have no ability to adequately fund their public schools.
That argument seems to have held sway with voters in the state's "Black Belt" (the only counties that voted yes were there), but not elsewhere.
Voters may have been dubious because the tax plan would have raised more money ($1.2 billion) than the state's current shortfall ($675 million). The Birmingham News reports today:
"It was a huge, huge mistake to ask for twice what you need," said Roger McConnell, founder of the anti-plan Tax Accountability Coalition....
Another complaint was that
None of the state money Riley's plan would have raised would have been earmarked, or reserved, for specific purposes such as funding his proposed college scholarships.
That opened the door for opponents to say Riley wanted to create a $1 billion-plus slush fund for lawmakers, said state Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills.
The "rathole" argument again. Also,
People disliked the part of Riley's plan that would have imposed state and local sales taxes on labor charges for repairs and installations. Waggoner said people complained to him the most about the services tax.
Marty Connors, chairman of the state Republican Party, said the services tax would have affected everyone, including poor people, which undercut Riley's claim that the package would have eased the overall tax burden on the poor.
Of course, the current tax structure imposes income taxes on a family of four once its income hits $4,600, and the proposed change would have raised that to $17,000, then, in three years, to $20,000, as The New York Times points out. Surely that would have offset some of the fees for the poor. But that argument didn't wash.
That scholarship fund wasn't the only improvement Governor Riley proposed as a possible result of the tax increase, as The Birmingham News noted a couple of days ago:
Riley says the money could fill a state budget shortfall that he says will total $675 million in the budget year starting Oct. 1, and also raise enough money to create a world-class education system in Alabama.
Riley's plan also would set up a college scholarship program, streamline the appeals process for fired teachers, make public schools hire a total of 1,550 teaching specialists and make other changes, such as making it a crime to hide in state budgets money for lawmakers' special "pork" projects.
In this country it's hard enough to sell the notion of raising taxes to close a budget gap -- I don't know why the governor thought he could also sell the idea of making improvements, of any kind, even if they're crucial to keeping his state from being an undereducated, underdeveloped backwater.
Oh, well. The Anniston Star tells us today what comes next:
The deficit, Riley has said, could cause the state to eliminate nursing home eligibility for 6,900 seniors on Medicaid, close 60 senior centers, eliminating nearly 800,000 meals for seniors, and cut state trooper forces by one-third and release 5,000 prisoners early.
The Department of Education estimates it will cut funding to local school systems by $100 million next year. State education officials said that means cutting funding for classroom materials and supplies, libraries, technology equipment and software, staff development training and textbooks for next year.
... next year, roughly 6,600 teachers and 2,000 support personnel may be laid off, and schools will face a 10 percent cut, said Ed Richardson, state superintendent of education....
...it will be hard to avoid massive cuts, said Jim Williams, head of the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama, a non-partisan tax reform organization....
The cuts... will likely come in three forms: layoffs, elimination of eligibility for health insurance and retirement benefits, decreased funding for things such as museums and cultural centers and increases in tuition for higher education students and more fees for K-12 students....
...Sen. Gerald Dial, D-Lineville, is planning to introduce a bill this special session to allow schools in financial trouble to close 25 days early....
Tuesday, September 09, 2003
Scattered in among my links now are Nathan Newman, Open Source Politics, Opinions You Should Have, and corrente. Good luck finding 'em -- to paraphrase the sign in Travis Bickle's apartment, someday I'm gonna get my links organiz-iz-ized -- but find them you should, and check them out if you haven't.
(Oh, and skippy, too.)
(Oh, and skippy, too.)
$87 BILLION: COMPARE AND CONTRAST
A Washington Post chart puts it in perspective.
(Thanks to Atrios, who also has the chart, here.)
A Washington Post chart puts it in perspective.
(Thanks to Atrios, who also has the chart, here.)
THE CENTRAL BATTLE IN THE WAR ON TERR... WHOOPS, NEVER MIND
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — Nine of 25 people arrested in the deadly car bombing that killed a prominent Shiite cleric have links to al-Qaeda, a senior police official said Tuesday.
--USA Today, September 2, 2003
NAJAF, Iraq — U.S.-led occupation forces in this holy city have released four of seven suspects arrested in the car bombing here last month that killed more than 100 people, and they have yet to find any direct evidence linking the blast to Al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist groups, officials said Monday.
The four were released because of a lack of proof against them, said Lt. Col. Chris Woodbridge, who heads the Marine battalion occupying Najaf. They were turned over to Iraqi police, Woodbridge said, but U.S. authorities are convinced they were not involved in the attack.
The three suspects still held by U.S. forces remain in custody while authorities check inconsistencies in their statements, but they too may eventually be cleared, Woodbridge said. All seven detainees appear to be Iraqis, despite initial reports that several foreigners were detained....
Early reports after the bombing said that as many as 19 suspects had been detained by Iraqi police, but U.S. officials now say that number appears to be inflated. At one point, Najaf police said two Saudis had been arrested. Another suspect was described as a Jordanian but turned out to be an Iraqi with business dealings in the neighboring Arab nation, Woodbridge said....
Authorities now say those assertions linking the bombing to Al Qaeda or foreigners appear to have been premature.
"This bombing in Najaf could have been done by any number of groups, or even by people who just want to cause trouble and don't want stability in Iraq," Thomas Fuentes, chief FBI investigator in Baghdad, said Monday.
--L.A. Times, September 9, 2003
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) — Nine of 25 people arrested in the deadly car bombing that killed a prominent Shiite cleric have links to al-Qaeda, a senior police official said Tuesday.
--USA Today, September 2, 2003
NAJAF, Iraq — U.S.-led occupation forces in this holy city have released four of seven suspects arrested in the car bombing here last month that killed more than 100 people, and they have yet to find any direct evidence linking the blast to Al Qaeda or other foreign terrorist groups, officials said Monday.
The four were released because of a lack of proof against them, said Lt. Col. Chris Woodbridge, who heads the Marine battalion occupying Najaf. They were turned over to Iraqi police, Woodbridge said, but U.S. authorities are convinced they were not involved in the attack.
The three suspects still held by U.S. forces remain in custody while authorities check inconsistencies in their statements, but they too may eventually be cleared, Woodbridge said. All seven detainees appear to be Iraqis, despite initial reports that several foreigners were detained....
Early reports after the bombing said that as many as 19 suspects had been detained by Iraqi police, but U.S. officials now say that number appears to be inflated. At one point, Najaf police said two Saudis had been arrested. Another suspect was described as a Jordanian but turned out to be an Iraqi with business dealings in the neighboring Arab nation, Woodbridge said....
Authorities now say those assertions linking the bombing to Al Qaeda or foreigners appear to have been premature.
"This bombing in Najaf could have been done by any number of groups, or even by people who just want to cause trouble and don't want stability in Iraq," Thomas Fuentes, chief FBI investigator in Baghdad, said Monday.
--L.A. Times, September 9, 2003
This is inspired:
How about we pitch in to get our troops in Iraq those cutesy license plate holders for their Humvees? You know, the ones that read "We're spending our children's inheritance"?
--Tresy, posting at Corrente (inspired by this L.A. Times story about how even $87 billion won't be enough money for rebuilding in Iraq)
How about we pitch in to get our troops in Iraq those cutesy license plate holders for their Humvees? You know, the ones that read "We're spending our children's inheritance"?
--Tresy, posting at Corrente (inspired by this L.A. Times story about how even $87 billion won't be enough money for rebuilding in Iraq)
Several Dead, 30 Wounded in Israel Homicide Bombing
--headline of a breaking story at Fox News
I'm sorry, but every time Fox resorts to this tic of right-wing political correctness it sticks in my craw. Several people are dead -- is there any need for the word "Homicide" in that headline?
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you have to understand that it's politically incorrect at Fox News, and elsewhere on the Right, to call such a terrorist act what rational people call it -- what CNN calls it in its headline:
Five Killed in Suicide Bombing Near Tel Aviv
Yes -- it's a suicide bombing.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: When you know that the bomber committed suicide, you know something about that bomber's willingness to part from a reasonable attachment to self-preservation. When your news source follows right-wing-PC diktats and calls the attack a "homicide bombing," you don't know (at least from the headline) that salient fact about the act. (The Fox story does go on to say that "the bombing left at least four dead, including the bomber," but the use of the word "suicide" is apparently strictly forbidden -- it never appears in the story.)
(UPDATE: On what has turned out to be a truly horrible day in the Middle East, CNN now speaks of two suicide bombers, while Fox sticks with "homicide bombers" and stubbornly avoids the un-PC "s" word.)
--headline of a breaking story at Fox News
I'm sorry, but every time Fox resorts to this tic of right-wing political correctness it sticks in my craw. Several people are dead -- is there any need for the word "Homicide" in that headline?
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you have to understand that it's politically incorrect at Fox News, and elsewhere on the Right, to call such a terrorist act what rational people call it -- what CNN calls it in its headline:
Five Killed in Suicide Bombing Near Tel Aviv
Yes -- it's a suicide bombing.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: When you know that the bomber committed suicide, you know something about that bomber's willingness to part from a reasonable attachment to self-preservation. When your news source follows right-wing-PC diktats and calls the attack a "homicide bombing," you don't know (at least from the headline) that salient fact about the act. (The Fox story does go on to say that "the bombing left at least four dead, including the bomber," but the use of the word "suicide" is apparently strictly forbidden -- it never appears in the story.)
(UPDATE: On what has turned out to be a truly horrible day in the Middle East, CNN now speaks of two suicide bombers, while Fox sticks with "homicide bombers" and stubbornly avoids the un-PC "s" word.)
How pathetic is this paragraph from the 9/11 column Christopher Hitchens published yesterday in Slate?
Let me take the strongest objection to my interpretation, which is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were exploited by conservatives to settle accounts with Saddam Hussein and that many Americans have been fooled into war by thinking that Iraq was behind the attacks. Leave aside the glaring and germane fact that Saddam was and is in partnership with the forces of jihad; not even the sorriest illusion is in the same category as a book published by The Nation, written by Gore Vidal and flaunted at "anti-war" rallies, which argues that it was essentially George Bush who helped organize and anticipate the atrocity. That's a level of degeneration unplumbed by any other faction. So, the pitiful peaceniks are the chief moral losers, whichever way you slice it.
Let's translate that into plain English:
Some people think Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and so we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Well, those people are wrong and I’m right -- Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots, because I said so. And even if belief in a Saddam–Al Qaeda alliance were looney (which it isn't, because I said so), some people think Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, which is way loonier, and if some people who oppose the war believe something that’s really looney, that makes all criticism of the war, even by people who don’t believe anything looney, morally bankrupt (and looney).
OK, that last "(and looney)" isn't really reflected in the Hitchens text. He just thinks we're all moral degenerates.
(And apparently we're far worse degenerates than government officials who coddle the Saudis -- Hitcheypoo criticizes Saudi-coddling elsewhere in the column, but barely has an unkind word to say about the coddlers themselves. I guess Hitchens believes that a private citizen who waves a Gore Vidal book in the street is more reprehensible than a White House that looks the other way while terrorism is enabled.)
Let me take the strongest objection to my interpretation, which is that the events of Sept. 11, 2001, were exploited by conservatives to settle accounts with Saddam Hussein and that many Americans have been fooled into war by thinking that Iraq was behind the attacks. Leave aside the glaring and germane fact that Saddam was and is in partnership with the forces of jihad; not even the sorriest illusion is in the same category as a book published by The Nation, written by Gore Vidal and flaunted at "anti-war" rallies, which argues that it was essentially George Bush who helped organize and anticipate the atrocity. That's a level of degeneration unplumbed by any other faction. So, the pitiful peaceniks are the chief moral losers, whichever way you slice it.
Let's translate that into plain English:
Some people think Saddam had nothing to do with Al Qaeda and so we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq. Well, those people are wrong and I’m right -- Al Qaeda and Saddam were in cahoots, because I said so. And even if belief in a Saddam–Al Qaeda alliance were looney (which it isn't, because I said so), some people think Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks, which is way loonier, and if some people who oppose the war believe something that’s really looney, that makes all criticism of the war, even by people who don’t believe anything looney, morally bankrupt (and looney).
OK, that last "(and looney)" isn't really reflected in the Hitchens text. He just thinks we're all moral degenerates.
(And apparently we're far worse degenerates than government officials who coddle the Saudis -- Hitcheypoo criticizes Saudi-coddling elsewhere in the column, but barely has an unkind word to say about the coddlers themselves. I guess Hitchens believes that a private citizen who waves a Gore Vidal book in the street is more reprehensible than a White House that looks the other way while terrorism is enabled.)
Conservatives will apparently buy any book that says Bill Clinton was evil. Think that means they'll buy the forthcoming book by Joseph Stiglitz, The Roaring Nineties? John Cassidy talks about it in this week's New Yorker.
Stiglitz writes as something of an insider: from 1993 to 1995, he was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers; from 1995 to 1997, he was its chairman. At the time, he was not known to have voiced serious concerns, but now he argues that many of the problems afflicting the country date back to the Clinton Administration. “Americans should face up to the fact that in the very boom were planted some of the seeds of destruction, seeds which would not yield their noxious fruits for several years,” Stiglitz writes. Accounting standards were allowed to slacken, deregulation was mindlessly pursued, and corporate greed indulged. In short, he says, “we were too swept up by the deregulation, pro-business mantra.”
... It was the Clinton Administration, Stiglitz reminds us, that deregulated the two sectors at the center of the boom-bust cycle: telecommunications and finance. It was the Clinton Administration that shifted tax policy in a regressive direction, by cutting the capital-gains tax in 1997. And it was the Clinton Administration that stood idly by as corporate executives exploited captive boards and lax accounting standards to enrich themselves beyond all economic justification.
This is going to be a tough one for conservatives. If they pass up the book, they'll miss a chance to wallow in Clinton-bashing -- which for many of them would be as unthinkable as a junkie passing up a score. But if they embrace the book, they're embracing a critique of their favorite economic patent medicines -- incessant deregulation, tax cuts for the well-to-do, and the cosseting of tycoons.
Me, I have no problem with criticism of Clinton's decision to embrace right-wing snake oil. It used to make me crazy when Clinton failed to articulate the arguments for more progressive policies, while Gingrich and right-wing chat-show blowhards were out there day after day, laying out their case and thus dictating the terms of the debate -- after which Clinton would "accept the inevitable," compromising with the Gingrichoids once again. Blame Clinton? For often being a crypto-Republican, sure, why not?
Stiglitz writes as something of an insider: from 1993 to 1995, he was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers; from 1995 to 1997, he was its chairman. At the time, he was not known to have voiced serious concerns, but now he argues that many of the problems afflicting the country date back to the Clinton Administration. “Americans should face up to the fact that in the very boom were planted some of the seeds of destruction, seeds which would not yield their noxious fruits for several years,” Stiglitz writes. Accounting standards were allowed to slacken, deregulation was mindlessly pursued, and corporate greed indulged. In short, he says, “we were too swept up by the deregulation, pro-business mantra.”
... It was the Clinton Administration, Stiglitz reminds us, that deregulated the two sectors at the center of the boom-bust cycle: telecommunications and finance. It was the Clinton Administration that shifted tax policy in a regressive direction, by cutting the capital-gains tax in 1997. And it was the Clinton Administration that stood idly by as corporate executives exploited captive boards and lax accounting standards to enrich themselves beyond all economic justification.
This is going to be a tough one for conservatives. If they pass up the book, they'll miss a chance to wallow in Clinton-bashing -- which for many of them would be as unthinkable as a junkie passing up a score. But if they embrace the book, they're embracing a critique of their favorite economic patent medicines -- incessant deregulation, tax cuts for the well-to-do, and the cosseting of tycoons.
Me, I have no problem with criticism of Clinton's decision to embrace right-wing snake oil. It used to make me crazy when Clinton failed to articulate the arguments for more progressive policies, while Gingrich and right-wing chat-show blowhards were out there day after day, laying out their case and thus dictating the terms of the debate -- after which Clinton would "accept the inevitable," compromising with the Gingrichoids once again. Blame Clinton? For often being a crypto-Republican, sure, why not?
Monday, September 08, 2003
The most heartening recent poll is, of course, the Zogby poll that shows Bush with a 45% positive and 54% negative rating; of this poll's respondents, "a majority (52%) said it’s time for someone new in the White House, while just two in five (40%) said the president deserves to be re-elected."
A new ABC News poll isn't nearly as satisfying, but it contains some signs that the public is starting to get the point:
...71 percent [of Americans] still worry about further major [terrorist] attacks — and fewer than half, 45 percent, are confident the government can prevent them.
Indeed, one of the biggest changes in the last year is a decline in the number of Americans who think the Bush administration is doing a good job handling the war on terrorism — still a majority, but down 18 points from a year ago, to 55 percent....
Another concern is Osama bin Laden: With reports of continued al Qaeda-inspired attacks, the number of Americans who say he must be killed or captured for the war on terrorism to be a success has jumped, from 44 percent a year ago to 62 percent now.
Bush's overall job approval rating, which soared to a record 92 percent shortly after the attacks, dipped to 56 percent in this poll, its lowest since before 9/11.
ABC ascribes the dip in Bush's approval to the economy, but
...Forty-nine percent now approve of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, down from 56 percent in late August and from 75 percent in late April.
Interesting.
A new ABC News poll isn't nearly as satisfying, but it contains some signs that the public is starting to get the point:
...71 percent [of Americans] still worry about further major [terrorist] attacks — and fewer than half, 45 percent, are confident the government can prevent them.
Indeed, one of the biggest changes in the last year is a decline in the number of Americans who think the Bush administration is doing a good job handling the war on terrorism — still a majority, but down 18 points from a year ago, to 55 percent....
Another concern is Osama bin Laden: With reports of continued al Qaeda-inspired attacks, the number of Americans who say he must be killed or captured for the war on terrorism to be a success has jumped, from 44 percent a year ago to 62 percent now.
Bush's overall job approval rating, which soared to a record 92 percent shortly after the attacks, dipped to 56 percent in this poll, its lowest since before 9/11.
ABC ascribes the dip in Bush's approval to the economy, but
...Forty-nine percent now approve of Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq, down from 56 percent in late August and from 75 percent in late April.
Interesting.
Today, as you may know, Donald Rumsfeld essentially accused anyone who disagrees with the administration of treason, but he wasn't the only one throwing around charges of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Joining him was the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF), which ran this ad, headlined "Unwittingly Aiding Al-Qaeda" (warning: it's a PDF file), on the op-ed page of today's print New York Times. Sample text:
instead of putting their ideological biases aside, professional activists have worked to obstruct common-sense anti-terror tactics with a torrent of lawsuits and media demagoguery....How amused our enemies must be to find some Americans pushing to extend absolute rights and other legal courtesies to deadly al-Qaeda foot soldiers.
Back in January, Dwight Meredith of P.L.A. (who's giving up blogging and will be missed) noted that the WLF was trying "to prevent funding of legal representation for the poor by attacking the constitutionality of IOLTA (Interest On Lawyer Trust Account) programs." Meredith wrote,
WLF has litigated a case with a potential recovery of $20 all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to, in its own words, “deal a death blow” to groups that provide legal representation for the poor.
(Meredith gives details of the case here.)
Meredith (with an assist from blogger Skimble) notes that WLF pursues ideological lawsuits like this despite the fact that it's a 501(c)(3) corporation, which means that contributions to it are tax-deductible. Meredith also links to a list of WLF's many fat-cat donors (tobacco companies, big drug companies, etc.) and a list of foundation donors (Scaife, Scaife, Olin, Scaife, Olin, Olin...).
Here's the WLF Web site. The foundation specializes in, among other things "business civil liberties" litigation. In other words, it's a plucky fighter attempting to obtain justice for poor, downtrodden megacorporations.
With tax-deductible contributions.
Some of which are used to lecture us on patriotism.
instead of putting their ideological biases aside, professional activists have worked to obstruct common-sense anti-terror tactics with a torrent of lawsuits and media demagoguery....How amused our enemies must be to find some Americans pushing to extend absolute rights and other legal courtesies to deadly al-Qaeda foot soldiers.
Back in January, Dwight Meredith of P.L.A. (who's giving up blogging and will be missed) noted that the WLF was trying "to prevent funding of legal representation for the poor by attacking the constitutionality of IOLTA (Interest On Lawyer Trust Account) programs." Meredith wrote,
WLF has litigated a case with a potential recovery of $20 all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in order to, in its own words, “deal a death blow” to groups that provide legal representation for the poor.
(Meredith gives details of the case here.)
Meredith (with an assist from blogger Skimble) notes that WLF pursues ideological lawsuits like this despite the fact that it's a 501(c)(3) corporation, which means that contributions to it are tax-deductible. Meredith also links to a list of WLF's many fat-cat donors (tobacco companies, big drug companies, etc.) and a list of foundation donors (Scaife, Scaife, Olin, Scaife, Olin, Olin...).
Here's the WLF Web site. The foundation specializes in, among other things "business civil liberties" litigation. In other words, it's a plucky fighter attempting to obtain justice for poor, downtrodden megacorporations.
With tax-deductible contributions.
Some of which are used to lecture us on patriotism.
From a story on the search for bin Laden at ABCNews.com:
U.S. special forces are stationed across the border [with Pakistan] in Afghanistan with approximately 45 checkpoints should bin Laden head there, but authorities said there are many unfrequented routes and it is impossible to seal the entire border.
Special forces in Afghanistan, however, are not as specialized as they once were, [former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince] Cannistraro told ABCNEWS. This specifically hurts the hunt because, he added, in order to deploy intelligence resources to collect information on bin Laden, the U.S. needs Arabic speakers.
"If you've drawn off many if not all of your Arabic language resources and sent them off to Iraq you're shorthanded in terms of dealing with intelligence collection problem of fixing bin Laden's location," said Cannistraro. "So there are fewer resources to deal with in trying to basically find and capture, the principal leader of a terrorist organization that's killing Americans."
(Emphasis mine.)
U.S. special forces are stationed across the border [with Pakistan] in Afghanistan with approximately 45 checkpoints should bin Laden head there, but authorities said there are many unfrequented routes and it is impossible to seal the entire border.
Special forces in Afghanistan, however, are not as specialized as they once were, [former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince] Cannistraro told ABCNEWS. This specifically hurts the hunt because, he added, in order to deploy intelligence resources to collect information on bin Laden, the U.S. needs Arabic speakers.
"If you've drawn off many if not all of your Arabic language resources and sent them off to Iraq you're shorthanded in terms of dealing with intelligence collection problem of fixing bin Laden's location," said Cannistraro. "So there are fewer resources to deal with in trying to basically find and capture, the principal leader of a terrorist organization that's killing Americans."
(Emphasis mine.)
"The front lines of freedom": Did that strike you as a memorable phrase in Bush's speech last night? Did it strikes you as a phrase that might make its way into our national memory? Or let me try this another way: Did you even notice that Bush said "the front lines of freedom"? National Review Online's Jonah Goldberg and (again) Kathryn Jean Lopez claim to think it was one for Bartlett's. Are they desperate for straws to grasp, or what?
From The Corner, National Review Online's group blog, last night:
THE SPEECH: I CONFESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I was half expecting a WMD surprise.
She's kidding, right? No, she's not kidding. She still thinks massive quantities of WMDs are going to be found in Iraq.
Hey Kathryn Jean, wanna buy a bridge?
THE SPEECH: I CONFESS [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
I was half expecting a WMD surprise.
She's kidding, right? No, she's not kidding. She still thinks massive quantities of WMDs are going to be found in Iraq.
Hey Kathryn Jean, wanna buy a bridge?
U.N. inspectors found Iraq's nuclear program in disarray and unlikely to be able to support an active effort to build weapons, the atomic agency chief said in a confidential report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reiterated that his experts uncovered no signs of a nuclear weapons program before they withdrew from Iraq just before the war began in March.
The United States and Britain invaded Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein's regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons.
"In the areas of uranium acquisition, concentration and centrifuge enrichment, extensive field investigation and document analysis revealed no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities," ElBaradei said in the report, made available to the AP by a diplomat.
"No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq," he said....
--AP
And, beyond that, there's the Newsweek story that reports,
U.S. analysts are also taking more seriously stories detained Iraqi leaders are telling about what happened to Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. U.S. sources say that captured Iraqis insist Saddam’s top strategic objective was to persuade the United Nations to relax sanctions on his regime. So, after Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel, head of his unconventional weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, Saddam ordered intensified efforts to hide or destroy blueprints, “dual use” technology and any remaining germs or chemicals. Not only was material stashed or obliterated, but records showing what had been destroyed were also pulped. Some U.S. and British intel officials still say stockpiles of chemical or biological agents will turn up. But U.S. Defense analysts are paying more attention to a “working hypothesis,” based on stories told by Iraqi captives, that no live WMD may ever be found.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei reiterated that his experts uncovered no signs of a nuclear weapons program before they withdrew from Iraq just before the war began in March.
The United States and Britain invaded Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein's regime was developing nuclear arms as well as chemical and biological weapons.
"In the areas of uranium acquisition, concentration and centrifuge enrichment, extensive field investigation and document analysis revealed no evidence that Iraq had resumed such activities," ElBaradei said in the report, made available to the AP by a diplomat.
"No indication of post-1991 weaponization activities was uncovered in Iraq," he said....
--AP
And, beyond that, there's the Newsweek story that reports,
U.S. analysts are also taking more seriously stories detained Iraqi leaders are telling about what happened to Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. U.S. sources say that captured Iraqis insist Saddam’s top strategic objective was to persuade the United Nations to relax sanctions on his regime. So, after Saddam’s son-in-law Hussein Kamel, head of his unconventional weapons programs, defected to Jordan in 1995, Saddam ordered intensified efforts to hide or destroy blueprints, “dual use” technology and any remaining germs or chemicals. Not only was material stashed or obliterated, but records showing what had been destroyed were also pulped. Some U.S. and British intel officials still say stockpiles of chemical or biological agents will turn up. But U.S. Defense analysts are paying more attention to a “working hypothesis,” based on stories told by Iraqi captives, that no live WMD may ever be found.
Remember the little " ____ days without U.S. death" sign in this cartoon? Well, now life imitates art.
(And it appears that there's yet more damage to the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.)
(And it appears that there's yet more damage to the Iraq-Turkey pipeline.)
Iraq Pipeline May Be Out for 2 Weeks
--CNN/Money, August 17, 2003
Iraq-Turkey Oil Pipeline Down Another 5 Weeks - Army
--Reuters, September 8, 2003
--CNN/Money, August 17, 2003
Iraq-Turkey Oil Pipeline Down Another 5 Weeks - Army
--Reuters, September 8, 2003
GOP chairman Ed Gillespie whined on Meet the Press yesterday about tough rhetoric from Democratic presidential hopefuls.
So I guess that means he'll immediately distance himself from Ben Stein, the actor, game-show host, former Nixon speechwriter, and proud Bush supporter, who said in an interview published Saturday that Gray Davis is "a thug...a thug in a gray flannel suit."
Right?
So I guess that means he'll immediately distance himself from Ben Stein, the actor, game-show host, former Nixon speechwriter, and proud Bush supporter, who said in an interview published Saturday that Gray Davis is "a thug...a thug in a gray flannel suit."
Right?
The weirdest thing about the speech last night was Bush's demeanor. We got Sincere, Earnest, Almost Contrite Bush; gone was Desperately Trying to Refrain from Calling Everyone Who Disagrees with Me an Idiot Bush, whom we saw in the press conference just before the war and, most recently, in a Labor Day speech defending his tax cuts.
You could say the speech had an Eddie Haskell quality, except that Eddie Haskell used to shift gears only to fool the Cleavers; Bush almost seemed to be fooling himself. Does he really think he's the nice guy he strained to be last night? If so, that's close to pathological.
He said "free" and "freedom" 21 times (in a speech of 2,276 words); he said "Osama" and "bin Laden" 0 times.
Bush was an oil man and his father was an oil man. What you do when you're an oil man is go for the big win, the huge strike that will make you not merely successful but wildly successful all at once, and until the time comes that you have that huge success you continually ask people for money so you can stay in the game.
As writers on Bush (Bill Minutaglio, Molly Ivins/Lou DuBose) have pointed out, oil men call the object of their quest an "elephant field" -- a stretch of land that provides gusher after gusher. Iraq was supposed to be an elephant field. A victory in Iraq was supposed to transform the region completely and almost instantly, producing one nice, compliant Middle East regime after another, as if by magic. It was a ridiculous, outlandish notion, but Bush was a second-generation oil man -- in his experience, mature, rational adults are supposed to believe in ridiculous, outlandish notions of instant transformation.
We have to pony up to keep him in the game, but I bet on some level he still thinks this will someday pay for itself, if not pay off big time -- after all, that's the way things work in Midland, Texas.
You could say the speech had an Eddie Haskell quality, except that Eddie Haskell used to shift gears only to fool the Cleavers; Bush almost seemed to be fooling himself. Does he really think he's the nice guy he strained to be last night? If so, that's close to pathological.
He said "free" and "freedom" 21 times (in a speech of 2,276 words); he said "Osama" and "bin Laden" 0 times.
Bush was an oil man and his father was an oil man. What you do when you're an oil man is go for the big win, the huge strike that will make you not merely successful but wildly successful all at once, and until the time comes that you have that huge success you continually ask people for money so you can stay in the game.
As writers on Bush (Bill Minutaglio, Molly Ivins/Lou DuBose) have pointed out, oil men call the object of their quest an "elephant field" -- a stretch of land that provides gusher after gusher. Iraq was supposed to be an elephant field. A victory in Iraq was supposed to transform the region completely and almost instantly, producing one nice, compliant Middle East regime after another, as if by magic. It was a ridiculous, outlandish notion, but Bush was a second-generation oil man -- in his experience, mature, rational adults are supposed to believe in ridiculous, outlandish notions of instant transformation.
We have to pony up to keep him in the game, but I bet on some level he still thinks this will someday pay for itself, if not pay off big time -- after all, that's the way things work in Midland, Texas.
Sunday, September 07, 2003
Another New York Times story from Friday that's well worth reading is this one on Big Pharma's rather spectacularly successful efforts to keep any government price controls out of legislation providing prescription drug benefits for seniors. And, gee, guess which of the two major parties was key to Pharma's victory?
In a letter dated April 9, 1999, Jim Nicholson, then the Republican National Committee chairman, wrote to Charles A. Heimbold Jr., then the chief executive of Bristol-Myers, to discuss plans for a coalition to lobby for issues important to drug companies.
"We must keep the lines of communication open if we want to continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry," Mr. Nicholson wrote in the letter....
Like that one? Here's another:
...when Mr. Bush won the election, the drug makers celebrated. As one industry executive said, "There were a lot of high-fives around here."
One more:
"Having both houses of Congress Republican-controlled was great," one drug lobbyist said. "Like in Monopoly, when you get to add hotels."
But read the whole story, and get mad.
In a letter dated April 9, 1999, Jim Nicholson, then the Republican National Committee chairman, wrote to Charles A. Heimbold Jr., then the chief executive of Bristol-Myers, to discuss plans for a coalition to lobby for issues important to drug companies.
"We must keep the lines of communication open if we want to continue passing legislation that will benefit your industry," Mr. Nicholson wrote in the letter....
Like that one? Here's another:
...when Mr. Bush won the election, the drug makers celebrated. As one industry executive said, "There were a lot of high-fives around here."
One more:
"Having both houses of Congress Republican-controlled was great," one drug lobbyist said. "Like in Monopoly, when you get to add hotels."
But read the whole story, and get mad.
A story from Friday I neglected to link....
More than 100,000 low-income families could lose their rent subsidies next year under a spending bill passed today by a Senate committee and recently approved by the House, housing advocates said.
The advocates cited a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
If the nonpartisan budget office's forecast of housing costs next year proves accurate, it could be the first time in the 30-year history of the federal housing voucher program that Congress has failed to renew all existing vouchers. Under the program, known as Section 8, the vouchers pay the difference between the market rent of an apartment and 30 percent of a household's income....
To ensure that all vouchers were paid for, Congress has in previous years often appropriated more money than necessary. This year, Congress changed the financing to focus on the target of vouchers more closely. The new formula requires an extremely accurate prediction of costs to keep all vouchers renewed....
--New York Times
Look, I'm sure there are conservatives who can make eloquent arguments for cutting this program back or even eliminating it altogether. If so, they should step up to the microphone and explain why it's good for the country to throw widows and orphans out on the street. Instead, the White House and the GOP Congress are changing course after three decades, yet they're claiming not to be ("At the present time," an assistant housing secretary says, disingenuously, "we believe what has been allocated will be sufficient to take care of the number of vouchers we have"). It's cruel, but it's standard operating procedure for these guys, isn't it?
More than 100,000 low-income families could lose their rent subsidies next year under a spending bill passed today by a Senate committee and recently approved by the House, housing advocates said.
The advocates cited a new study by the Congressional Budget Office.
If the nonpartisan budget office's forecast of housing costs next year proves accurate, it could be the first time in the 30-year history of the federal housing voucher program that Congress has failed to renew all existing vouchers. Under the program, known as Section 8, the vouchers pay the difference between the market rent of an apartment and 30 percent of a household's income....
To ensure that all vouchers were paid for, Congress has in previous years often appropriated more money than necessary. This year, Congress changed the financing to focus on the target of vouchers more closely. The new formula requires an extremely accurate prediction of costs to keep all vouchers renewed....
--New York Times
Look, I'm sure there are conservatives who can make eloquent arguments for cutting this program back or even eliminating it altogether. If so, they should step up to the microphone and explain why it's good for the country to throw widows and orphans out on the street. Instead, the White House and the GOP Congress are changing course after three decades, yet they're claiming not to be ("At the present time," an assistant housing secretary says, disingenuously, "we believe what has been allocated will be sufficient to take care of the number of vouchers we have"). It's cruel, but it's standard operating procedure for these guys, isn't it?
Unidentified assailants fired at least one surface-to-air missile at a C-141 U.S. military cargo plane as it took off from Baghdad International Airport, but failed to hit it, coalition provisional authorities said.
The attempted strike occurred around 5:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Saturday, hours before U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapped up his visit to Iraq. Details of the incident were made available on Sunday.
The missile was detected both visually and instrumentally, officials said.
The incident -- which caused no injuries or damage -- is the third of its kind since Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1...
--CNN
According to a later CNN story, that three-attack figure isn't exactly accurate:
Without offering any details, coalition military spokesman Col. George Kirvo said that such incidents have happened "many times" in the past....
Don't say I never told you that this kind of thing is happening.
The attempted strike occurred around 5:30 a.m. (0130 GMT) on Saturday, hours before U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wrapped up his visit to Iraq. Details of the incident were made available on Sunday.
The missile was detected both visually and instrumentally, officials said.
The incident -- which caused no injuries or damage -- is the third of its kind since Washington declared an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1...
--CNN
According to a later CNN story, that three-attack figure isn't exactly accurate:
Without offering any details, coalition military spokesman Col. George Kirvo said that such incidents have happened "many times" in the past....
Don't say I never told you that this kind of thing is happening.
Friday, September 05, 2003
COMFORT, Texas -- The father of a Texas soldier killed in an ambush in Iraq that former prisoner of war Jessica Lynch survived said that Lynch's million-dollar book deal will taint the memory of the soldiers killed in the ambush.
"Pretty severe, isn't it?" Randy Kiehl, the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, said Wednesday from his home in Comfort, Texas. "That she makes money off the death of my son and off the deaths of so many others."
James Kiehl was among seven members of the 507th Maintenance Company stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, killed in the ambush on March 23 near An Nasiriyah. Lynch survived the attack and was taken prisoner of war. She was later rescued from a hospital and became a national hero.
On Tuesday, a publisher announced that Lynch signed a $1 million deal for a book that will tell the story about her capture and rescue.
"Where's the million-dollar book deal for the other members of the 507th who were killed?" Randy Kiehl said. "How do they tell their story?..."
--WDIV TV (Detroit)
Unfortunately, Jessica Lynch is blond, cute, photogenic, and alive. She was a poster child for the war at a moment when it wasn't going as well as expected. For a while she made it possible for the Pentagon to tell a simple story of an ordinary young person who found courage under fire and defied the malign wishes of swarthy embodiments of pure evil. Real life, of course, is more complicated than that -- Jessica Lynch's story wasn't as well shaped as the myth that formed around her, and James Kiehl's story was, well, unpleasant, so the administration certainly wouldn't have wanted anyone to dwell on it.
The families of the Iraq War dead are, unfortunately, going to have to watch another round, or several more rounds, of Jessica Lynch hype. I hope these waves of hype are brief. I hope somehow the families find solace.
(Link via Publishers Lunch.)
"Pretty severe, isn't it?" Randy Kiehl, the father of Army Spc. James Kiehl, said Wednesday from his home in Comfort, Texas. "That she makes money off the death of my son and off the deaths of so many others."
James Kiehl was among seven members of the 507th Maintenance Company stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, killed in the ambush on March 23 near An Nasiriyah. Lynch survived the attack and was taken prisoner of war. She was later rescued from a hospital and became a national hero.
On Tuesday, a publisher announced that Lynch signed a $1 million deal for a book that will tell the story about her capture and rescue.
"Where's the million-dollar book deal for the other members of the 507th who were killed?" Randy Kiehl said. "How do they tell their story?..."
--WDIV TV (Detroit)
Unfortunately, Jessica Lynch is blond, cute, photogenic, and alive. She was a poster child for the war at a moment when it wasn't going as well as expected. For a while she made it possible for the Pentagon to tell a simple story of an ordinary young person who found courage under fire and defied the malign wishes of swarthy embodiments of pure evil. Real life, of course, is more complicated than that -- Jessica Lynch's story wasn't as well shaped as the myth that formed around her, and James Kiehl's story was, well, unpleasant, so the administration certainly wouldn't have wanted anyone to dwell on it.
The families of the Iraq War dead are, unfortunately, going to have to watch another round, or several more rounds, of Jessica Lynch hype. I hope these waves of hype are brief. I hope somehow the families find solace.
(Link via Publishers Lunch.)
One more good find from Rational Enquirer -- and this one, from MSNBC, might be the most infuriating:
A $20 million budget shortfall is forcing cuts at U.S. ports of entry that could impact security, MSNBC.com has learned. The deficit has led officials to make a series of security compromises that include replacing INS inspectors with their less-qualified, lower-paid Customs counterparts on heavily trafficked Sundays and holidays....
“It is imperative that we react quickly at all our locations and that we do not spend money we do not have,” says the July 2 memo written by Denise Crawford, who oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection field operations in North Florida. Crawford’s memo also notes that, although it’s possible additional money could be found, “any supplemental money that could be allocated will likely fall far short of what we would need based on our current spending levels.”
...In some cases, INS inspectors are simply removed from all overtime work and the port operates short-staffed. In other instances, Customs inspectors are used to fill the jobs typically done by INS personnel.
The sense you get from this story is that some of what's being done is intended, at least in part, to undermine Depression-era pay rules for INS workers -- because, I guess, union-busting is way more important than, you know, preventing another 9/11. Of course, the real question is why we're not committed to paying whatever price is necessary to have the best security we can. But of course we aren't -- this is the Bush administration, after all.
Please read this one.
A $20 million budget shortfall is forcing cuts at U.S. ports of entry that could impact security, MSNBC.com has learned. The deficit has led officials to make a series of security compromises that include replacing INS inspectors with their less-qualified, lower-paid Customs counterparts on heavily trafficked Sundays and holidays....
“It is imperative that we react quickly at all our locations and that we do not spend money we do not have,” says the July 2 memo written by Denise Crawford, who oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection field operations in North Florida. Crawford’s memo also notes that, although it’s possible additional money could be found, “any supplemental money that could be allocated will likely fall far short of what we would need based on our current spending levels.”
...In some cases, INS inspectors are simply removed from all overtime work and the port operates short-staffed. In other instances, Customs inspectors are used to fill the jobs typically done by INS personnel.
The sense you get from this story is that some of what's being done is intended, at least in part, to undermine Depression-era pay rules for INS workers -- because, I guess, union-busting is way more important than, you know, preventing another 9/11. Of course, the real question is why we're not committed to paying whatever price is necessary to have the best security we can. But of course we aren't -- this is the Bush administration, after all.
Please read this one.
Experts say the driving force behind the opium trade - those with the men, muscle, and motive to keep it going - are Afghanistan's warlords, both within the outlawed Taliban movement and within the ranks of pro-US military commanders who work in the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants.
So says The Christian Science Monitor.
Lovely -- sort of like the Crips and Bloods, I guess.
(Another one spotted by the Rational Enquirer.)
So says The Christian Science Monitor.
Lovely -- sort of like the Crips and Bloods, I guess.
(Another one spotted by the Rational Enquirer.)
The United States acknowledged it will miss -- by more than three years -- an important international deadline for destroying its arsenal of chemical weapons.
The US Defense Department said in a statement it will not to able to liquidate 45 percent of its chemical stockpile by April 29, 2004, as required by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
...The military is now expected to reach the elusive milestone by December 2007, the Pentagon said.
No detailed explanation for the postponement was given. But the department pointed out that its chemical demilitarization program "has had several delays due to unresolved political and operational issues that forced operational shutdowns or postponed start-up dates."....
--AFP/Yahoo News
So does this mean that some other country can now declare the U.S. a "rogue nation" that deserves to be bombed to within an inch of its life until "regime change" is accomplished?
(Link via Rational Enquirer.)
The US Defense Department said in a statement it will not to able to liquidate 45 percent of its chemical stockpile by April 29, 2004, as required by the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
...The military is now expected to reach the elusive milestone by December 2007, the Pentagon said.
No detailed explanation for the postponement was given. But the department pointed out that its chemical demilitarization program "has had several delays due to unresolved political and operational issues that forced operational shutdowns or postponed start-up dates."....
--AFP/Yahoo News
So does this mean that some other country can now declare the U.S. a "rogue nation" that deserves to be bombed to within an inch of its life until "regime change" is accomplished?
(Link via Rational Enquirer.)
Sen. Trent Lott says he'll sign a deal with an unidentified publisher this week to pen his memoirs.
--Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger
The success of Hillary's book must be killing him.
Not much to add, but this is mildly intriguing:
While Lott said he would "let the chips fall where they may," the senator assured Congressional Quarterly that his memoirs would not be "a revenge book."
Marty Wiseman, head of the Stennis Institute for Government at Mississippi State University, expects Lott to write about his betrayal by people he considered friends as he struggled to keep his leadership job.
"I know he thinks people turned on him," Wiseman said.
The political science professor also said he expects Lott to disclose how his relationship with President Bush has changed....
Ronald Reagan used to say that GOP's Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." If Trent's prepared to break that commandment, I am delighted.
--Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion-Ledger
The success of Hillary's book must be killing him.
Not much to add, but this is mildly intriguing:
While Lott said he would "let the chips fall where they may," the senator assured Congressional Quarterly that his memoirs would not be "a revenge book."
Marty Wiseman, head of the Stennis Institute for Government at Mississippi State University, expects Lott to write about his betrayal by people he considered friends as he struggled to keep his leadership job.
"I know he thinks people turned on him," Wiseman said.
The political science professor also said he expects Lott to disclose how his relationship with President Bush has changed....
Ronald Reagan used to say that GOP's Eleventh Commandment is "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." If Trent's prepared to break that commandment, I am delighted.
This relates to what I posted immediately below:
U.S. employers cut jobs in August at the fastest pace since March, the government said in an unexpectedly grim report on Friday showing Americans are struggling to find jobs even as other areas of the economy are recovering.
The number of workers on U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector slid 93,000 in August, the seventh consecutive month of declines, after dropping 49,000 in July. The number was far worse than the increase of 12,000 expected by economists.
A recent string of better than expected data on retail sales, durable goods, consumer sentiment and housing had led economists to believe the tough labor market might be starting to improve....
The economy shed jobs in a wide range of sectors. Manufacturing jobs fell 44,000, the 37th straight month of decline while service jobs tumbled 67,000....
--Reuters
What's unexpected about this? Employers have us where they want us -- working harder because we're afraid not to. They don't need to hire more of us.
U.S. employers cut jobs in August at the fastest pace since March, the government said in an unexpectedly grim report on Friday showing Americans are struggling to find jobs even as other areas of the economy are recovering.
The number of workers on U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector slid 93,000 in August, the seventh consecutive month of declines, after dropping 49,000 in July. The number was far worse than the increase of 12,000 expected by economists.
A recent string of better than expected data on retail sales, durable goods, consumer sentiment and housing had led economists to believe the tough labor market might be starting to improve....
The economy shed jobs in a wide range of sectors. Manufacturing jobs fell 44,000, the 37th straight month of decline while service jobs tumbled 67,000....
--Reuters
What's unexpected about this? Employers have us where they want us -- working harder because we're afraid not to. They don't need to hire more of us.
Thursday, September 04, 2003
The productivity of U.S. companies in the second quarter posted the biggest gain in more than a year as businesses produced more with fewer workers. New claims for unemployment benefits climbed last week to the highest level since the middle of July.
--ABC News
I know this will never happen, but I'd like to see American workers go on a productivity strike. Not a traditional strike -- we'd all go to work, we just wouldn't do overtime or stay late or take work home or go in on the weekend or do whatever it is we might have started to do whenever it was that the boss said we'd "all have to work a little bit harder" to get through some temporary tough spot that seems to have become permanent. We'd do this, in my fantasy, until unfilled positions were filled and workloads became a bit more reasonable.
The bosses would piss and moan, and the conservative pundits would say we were radicals who were going to drive the country into a depression. But the new workers would take their new paychecks and buy stuff. The economy would improve. It would be win-win.
I admit I can't really imagine this happening.
Before it could happen, we'd need to get over our national Stockholm syndrome -- we'd need to worry a little less about whether there are barriers to getting rich and a little more about whether there are barriers to getting a job.
--ABC News
I know this will never happen, but I'd like to see American workers go on a productivity strike. Not a traditional strike -- we'd all go to work, we just wouldn't do overtime or stay late or take work home or go in on the weekend or do whatever it is we might have started to do whenever it was that the boss said we'd "all have to work a little bit harder" to get through some temporary tough spot that seems to have become permanent. We'd do this, in my fantasy, until unfilled positions were filled and workloads became a bit more reasonable.
The bosses would piss and moan, and the conservative pundits would say we were radicals who were going to drive the country into a depression. But the new workers would take their new paychecks and buy stuff. The economy would improve. It would be win-win.
I admit I can't really imagine this happening.
Before it could happen, we'd need to get over our national Stockholm syndrome -- we'd need to worry a little less about whether there are barriers to getting rich and a little more about whether there are barriers to getting a job.
Back in March 2002, Karl Rove made a defiant speech about judicial nominations. He didn't mention Estrada, but he was talking about judges like Estrada. I think today is a good day to remember Rove's words, because today he had to eat them:
As the Senate Judiciary Committee was voting Thursday evening to reject U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering for an appellate court position, presidential adviser Karl Rove was telling an influential Christian political action group that President Bush would continue to nominate conservatives as federal judges.
"We're not going to have a pleasant day today [in the Senate]," Rove told the Family Research Council at the Willard Hotel, according to a tape recording given to The Washington Post by an attendee. ". . . This is not about a good man, Charles Pickering. This is about the future. This is about the U.S. Supreme Court. And this is about sending George W. Bush a message that 'You send us somebody that is a strong conservative, you're not going to get him.'
"Guess what?" Rove added. "They sent the wrong message to the wrong guy."
Har-de-har-har.
By the way, I have to give two thumbs up to my homeboy, Charles Schumer -- he's steady and relentless in this fight (in other words, he fights with the tenacity of a Republican, and I say that as a compliment). I disagree with the guy sometimes, but I often wish he were the Democratic leader in the Senate. Too Eastern? Too, er, ethnic? That shouldn't matter. Do the Republic ever worry about naming one Southerner after another to leadership positions? The number of people below the Mason-Dixon Line who'd be put off by Schumer is roughly equivalent to the number of people up here who find Tom DeLay repellent (or, in the old days, Trent Lott). If Daschle loses his reelection bid next year, I say give the job to Chuck.
As the Senate Judiciary Committee was voting Thursday evening to reject U.S. District Judge Charles W. Pickering for an appellate court position, presidential adviser Karl Rove was telling an influential Christian political action group that President Bush would continue to nominate conservatives as federal judges.
"We're not going to have a pleasant day today [in the Senate]," Rove told the Family Research Council at the Willard Hotel, according to a tape recording given to The Washington Post by an attendee. ". . . This is not about a good man, Charles Pickering. This is about the future. This is about the U.S. Supreme Court. And this is about sending George W. Bush a message that 'You send us somebody that is a strong conservative, you're not going to get him.'
"Guess what?" Rove added. "They sent the wrong message to the wrong guy."
Har-de-har-har.
By the way, I have to give two thumbs up to my homeboy, Charles Schumer -- he's steady and relentless in this fight (in other words, he fights with the tenacity of a Republican, and I say that as a compliment). I disagree with the guy sometimes, but I often wish he were the Democratic leader in the Senate. Too Eastern? Too, er, ethnic? That shouldn't matter. Do the Republic ever worry about naming one Southerner after another to leadership positions? The number of people below the Mason-Dixon Line who'd be put off by Schumer is roughly equivalent to the number of people up here who find Tom DeLay repellent (or, in the old days, Trent Lott). If Daschle loses his reelection bid next year, I say give the job to Chuck.
Press release from Tom DeLay:
DeLay: Estrada the Victim of a “Political Hate Crime;" Democrats' Campaign Against Qualified Nominee Ugly, Dishonest
WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today condemned Senate Democrats' dishonest and vicious campaign against federal appellate court nominee Miguel Estrada, who withdrew his name from consideration for the bench this morning.
“The Democrat's character assassination of Miguel Estrada was a political hate crime,” DeLay said. “We have witnessed the Democrats at their ugliest.”
Hmm, let's see ... James Byrd was beaten, chained by his ankles and dragged for three miles along a logging road until his head came off ... Matthew Shepard was lashed to a fence post, beaten and left to die ... Miguel Estrada will be offered a six-figure job in the private sector and get a cushy deal from Regnery or Crown Forum or HarperCollins for a ghostwritten book ...
Yeah, I see the similarities.
DeLay: Estrada the Victim of a “Political Hate Crime;" Democrats' Campaign Against Qualified Nominee Ugly, Dishonest
WASHINGTON – House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) today condemned Senate Democrats' dishonest and vicious campaign against federal appellate court nominee Miguel Estrada, who withdrew his name from consideration for the bench this morning.
“The Democrat's character assassination of Miguel Estrada was a political hate crime,” DeLay said. “We have witnessed the Democrats at their ugliest.”
Hmm, let's see ... James Byrd was beaten, chained by his ankles and dragged for three miles along a logging road until his head came off ... Matthew Shepard was lashed to a fence post, beaten and left to die ... Miguel Estrada will be offered a six-figure job in the private sector and get a cushy deal from Regnery or Crown Forum or HarperCollins for a ghostwritten book ...
Yeah, I see the similarities.
Miguel Estrada, after two years of waiting for U.S. Senate confirmation, has decided to withdraw from nomination to a federal appeals court, a source close to the Washington attorney said on Thursday.
The source said Estrada, who has been blocked by Senate Democrats who see him as part of President Bush's attempt to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues, simply got tired of waiting and having his legal career on hold.
--Reuters
Grown-ups accept reality, even when it's not to their liking. Estrada is being a grown-up. When will Bush and Rove follow suit and stop trying to nominate judges who are far out of the mainstream?
The source said Estrada, who has been blocked by Senate Democrats who see him as part of President Bush's attempt to pack the courts with right-wing ideologues, simply got tired of waiting and having his legal career on hold.
--Reuters
Grown-ups accept reality, even when it's not to their liking. Estrada is being a grown-up. When will Bush and Rove follow suit and stop trying to nominate judges who are far out of the mainstream?
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