I'm biased, but unlike Fox
I admit it.

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THURSDAY 10.14.04 / 5:34 AM / LINK / COMMENT

An anti-American Kindred Spirit

Frank Rich has written well in today's NY Times of the threat our free press faces from the neoconservative, corporate political action of the Bush years.

Reminding us of another Republican who thought he was above the constitution, Rich reminds us that Richard Nixon’s VP, Spiro Agnew, tried to discredit the press by calling it an elite. And his attorney general, John Mitchell, citing national security, wiretapped Hedrick Smith of The Times and Marvin Kalb of CBS News, and ran an FBI investigation of CBS's Daniel Schorr. Today John Ashcroft's Justice Department is up to the same thing. He invoked 'national security', to seize the phone records of Judith Miller and Philip Shenon of The Times, claiming government snooping is warranted because of articles by those reporters about Islamic charities and terrorism published nearly three years ago.

The threat of government/orporate influence over the media, or outright censorship is an even greater threat today because of the clear willingness of Republicans to use governmental power to suppress political thought, or to use the power of media ownership to control it, excusing it all with the "war on terror". This was Bush's subtext when he hyped his "ownership society" a few weeks ago: the proprietors of society get to regulate it. This is also called Plutocracy. In full bloom the top-down management of the "ownership society" will make the democratic regulation of industry seem like a golden age when history someday revisits it.

Even William Safire sounds the alarm. The conservative columnist says, "The fundamental right of Americans, through our free press, to penetrate and criticize the workings of our government is under attack as never before."

"When an alumnus of the Nixon White House says our free press is being attacked as 'never before’," notes Rich, you’d better listen. We need a free and responsible press especially now because the Ahab at the helm thinks he has a clearer vision and understanding than the rest of us, apparently because God suggests so. We need a credible counter force to these kinds of hallucinations.

For instance, the president once said of Vladimir Putin, "I looked the man in the eye ... I was able to get a sense of his soul." When Bush said this, freedom lovers everywhere assumed that what George saw in Putin's KGB soul was a closet liberty lover. But given the administration's record it's not crazy to suggest that what he was seeing was an anti-American kindred spirit. Since the day of that penetrating look Putin has assumed total control of the Russian government and abolished the freedom of the press using the same excuse used by the Bush administration here at home. The fundamental idea with all such thinkers is to smooth out the rough spots of untidy political circumstances with a steam roller. This is sometimes referred to in talking head jargon as "leveling the playing field".

But maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe a stubborn, rigid, ideologue who doesn't read books, who hates to be criticized, doesn't make mistakes, supports the suppression of news, and believes God is guiding him is the messiah of the hour. Many think we could do worse than Bush, but I don’t understand them.

I recently had a conversation with some much loved old friends during which one of the smartest, most educated guys I know --he has more degrees than a thermometer married to a sphere-- said he really didn't like Bush (said he thought he was an idiot) but was voting for him anyway because he considered him the lesser of two evils. He won't be surprised to know I think he should have his evil meter recalibrated. If incompetence and failure were Olympic events the Whited Sepulcher's rose garden would be crushed by now under tons of gold. But you don't get this very clearly from corporate TV newsdom.

Yet look at Bush's awards:
Failed to win the popular vote in an election: gold.
Failed diplomacy: gold.
Failed Iraqi war planning: Gold.
Failed effort to win Iraqi hearts and minds: gold.
Failed effort to win Islamic hearts and minds: gold.
Failed at capturing Osama bin Laden: gold.
Failed jobs creation: gold.
Failed environmental record: gold.
Failed policy to reduce oil energy needs: gold.
Failed at alternate energy policies: gold.
Failed national debt management: gold.
Failed deficit management: gold.
Failed health care insurance solutions: gold.
Failed at controlling health care costs: gold.
Failed at being a uniter not a divider: gold.

In fact the Bush administration is such an abject failure the ever-scheming Rovian elves that scurry along White House baseboards had to work 24-7 to come up with a term to cover it. It turns out that none of this has been a world class failure. It’s been a spectacular "catastrophic success"!

(One good thing that's come from all of this is that regarding success and failure this administration has helped me finally figure out what that Dylan line meant: She knows there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all.)

How anyone could think John Kerry could be more dangerous to national security and more generally disasterous than George Bush is beyond me. Kerry didn't volunteer for Vietnam duty because he was a pacifist. Despite all those who loathe Kerry for publicly stating the Vietnam war was a disaster (it was), what exactly would he do that could be more catastrophic than George Bush's successes, issue an executive order for cumpulsory same sex marriage? Turn over the INS to Al Qaeda? Cede territory to Jacque Chirac? Order abortions for all pregnant Republicans? Come on, it’d be hard for anybody, including Kerry, to make more of a mess of things than uncurious George. And Kerry, unlike president Call-Me-Unmistakeable has a willingness to consider and process new information. But you don't get this from TV news, and that's one of the major problems.

As Rich's article observes, what you get instead from the likes of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox "news" is complete fabrication with no apologies. He says, "Fox News speaks loudly for itself, to the point of posting on its Web site ... fictional John Kerry quotes. You get similar stuff from Murdoch’s NY Post, says Rich. When that paper covered the release of the C.I.A.'s Duelfer report, it played the story on page 8 and didn't get to the clause "while no stockpiles of W.M.D. were found in Iraq" until the 16th paragraph. And then, of course there's Sinclair Broadcasting, which Rich covers in his article. So much for journalistic integrity.

The Republican's legal harrassment of the press is established tradition, but it's now become potentially lethal to our democracy. In the case of the Iraq war Rich says that legal harrassment "...has escalated in direct ratio to the war's decline in support."

"What you're seeing on your TV screens," the president said when minimizing the Iraq insurgency in May, are "the desperate tactics of a hateful few."

Actually, what he says is true, only the "hateful few" are the corporate elite who have controlled the TV news media and bullied their news departments into portraying George Bush as savior and John Kerry as a turncoat in the war on terror.


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THURSDAY 10.14.04 / 5:34 AM / LINK / COMMENT

A Junkie with a Jones

Thomas Friedman in today's NY Times says the president is addicted to 9/11, and that's an excellent way to put it. It's the most important thing to his presidency. He seems to eat and sleep it. When backed into any critical corner he's got to have his 9/11 fix. For George Bush, everything in life seems to revolve around 9/11. He has no other rationale for his actions.

What Friedman says about George Bush's habit is that "The president has exploited the terrorism issue for political ends - trying to make it into another wedge issue like abortion, guns or gay rights - to rally the Republican base and push his own political agenda. But it is precisely this exploitation of 9/11 that has gotten him and the country off-track, because it has not only created a wedge between Republicans and Democrats, it's also created a wedge between America and the rest of the world, between America and its own historical identity, and between the president and common sense."

We can only hope that January 20th, 2005 will find George Bush heading off to detox. We can only hope.

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10.14.04 / 5:34 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Who Knows?

Though the realiability of voting machines remains in question they're being pushed as if computers never crash. But recently one did.

It happened in Palm Beach County Florida. Palm Beach county is also know as Hanging Chad Land. It appears this particular computer had a heat stroke. "Heat is a very serious problem for these machines, especially in Louisiana and Florida," said Dan Spillane, former senior testing engineer of touch-screens for a small equipment manufacturer in Seattle. "Basically, these things work in the secretary of state's office. Outside of that, no one knows."

Who knows? And they don't leave a paper trail. No print-outs to prove votes were accurately recorded. Even Walmart gives printouts when you pay up. What's so hard about that?

Will Florida voter's votes count? Who knows?

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WEDNESDAY 10.13.04 / 5:06 AM / LINK / COMMENT

Pravda West

I sure hope you don't still think American journalism is less corrupt that Pravda was at the height of the Soviet regime. If you want an example of anti-Americanism at its worst you don't have to hop a plane to Europe (or anywhere else in the world for that matter), just turn to Sinclair Broadcasting.

Here's the latest on Sinclair making it's way around the internet (I haven't heard a single mainstream media report of it yet --though I might have missed it).

Sinclair Strikes Again Sinclair Broadcasting Group – the same group which forbid its ABC affiliates from showing Ted Koppel's 40-minute tribute to fallen troops in Iraq because the programming appeared to be "motivated by a political agenda" – "is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War." Sinclair, the country's largest owner of TV stations, has told its stations to air "Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," produced by Carlton Sherwood, former Washington Times reporter, Bush administration official and close friend to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. The film features "former POWs accusing Kerry – a decorated Navy veteran turned war protester – of worsening their ordeal by prolonging the war." Sinclair is claiming exemption from a law prohibiting corporations from spending money to influence a federal election because they say the documentary qualifies as "newsworthy."

Why not email Sinclair President David Smith and tell him what an aniti-American slimeball you think he is. Or call your local Sinclair affiliate and make a personal statement here.


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10.13.04 / 5:06 AM / LINK / COMMENT

A little help from their friends --or how a division of the Republican slime machine prepares for an election

Here's a story that sounds like it comes right out of Florida, but this one's from Las Vegas:

"Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash."

The name of the company is Voters Outreach of America, AKA America Votes. Over the past few months "... it employed up to 300 part-time workers and collected hundreds of registrations per day, but former employees of the company say that Voters Outreach of America only wanted Republican registrations." It shit-canned the rest.

So if you're a Democrat who registered to vote outside a mall in Las Vegas, you'd better check with officials to make sure you have not been the victim of the Wizard of Id's campaign machine and its affiliates.


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10.13.04 / 5:06 AM / LINK / COMMENT

You wanna keep getting what you're getting?

There's going to be some talk in tonight's debate about jobs, and the president will be doing his best to emphasize the small recent increases in job numbers, but he'll be looking to gloss over his overall failure to save U.S. employment. But glossing over is pure Rovianism and you know how much faith George Bush has in his guru.

The truth is "...the rate of job creation lately has barely kept pace with growth in the labor force. It has been well below the average of all post-World War II recoveries in all but March and April, when it was just above average. Last month, the economy needed to add about 300,000 jobs, rather than 96,000, just to hit the average." --NY Times today.

And, as the Times goes on, "...there's more: during the Bush years, take-home pay, as a share of the economy, has fallen to its lowest level since 1929, when the government started keeping records. Corporate profits have grown faster - and wages and salaries far less - than in all other eight recoveries since World War II." In terms of Bush arithmetic, the reason George wants to stay the course is the corporate profit side of the equation.

The Times' rundown on job loss causes:

Tax cuts "... tax cuts that may be appropriate for a thriving economy are not right for a recession or a sluggish recovery." Tax cuts for affluent people "Tax breaks for affluent people ... theoretically lead to capital growth ... and ...to more jobs. But ... facing a downturn, not (a) boom ... it would have been much wiser to adjust to reality and enact measures to increase consumption, which leads more directly to job and income growth." Tax cuts despite realities "...the administration knew what it was doing ... Roger Lowenstein recounted a conversation in which Mr. Bush asked Glenn Hubbard, then his top economics adviser, what to do about the sagging job numbers. Mr. Hubbard told him not to let short-term numbers sway him from tax cuts. Those short-term numbers have been bad for nearly four years now. " Tax cuts despite the deficit Conventional wisdom holds that the deficit ...does not affect employment ...(but) that's only half-true. Hiring reflects confidence, and financial markets certainly watch the deficit. As the job situation fails to improve and the deficit restricts the nation's ability to respond, the markets react. Stocks tumbled last Friday (and) the dollar fell against most major currencies, which could make it harder to finance America's outsized deficits and lead to rapidly rising interest rates."

As Oprah's guru, Dr. Phil, likes to say, "You wanna keep getting what you're getting? Keep doin' what you're doin'."

Go ahead America, elect this incompetent, deluded and/or mendacious SOB again.


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10.13.04 / 4:13 AM / LINK / COMMENT

A lot of healthy wealthy, that's what

The administration's plan for health care is, so far, not going over very well with both employers and employees. The tax-free health care savings accounts hyped by George Bush are too new and untested some say. No doubt that's part of it. Another part, as this NY Times report points out, is that for a family with a revenue source of say, $50,000, it's hard to come up with enough disposable income to sock away in any kind of savings account, tax free or not.

The opponents of a national health care system like to say we have the best health care in the world so let's not ruin it with some socialist medical plan mumbo jumbo. Take the greed incentive out and what have we got? The USSR, that's what.

On the other hand if you can't afford to pay for health care what have you got? Compassionate conservatism, that's what. A lot of healthy wealthy, that's what.

In their never-ending intent to shove corporatism down our throats and make us the Linda Lovelace of modern feudalism, Republicans got this plan "...inserted without full House or Senate debate into last fall's 700-page Medicare legislation," the Times says. It's proponents say the savings plans are "...meant to provide basic, high-deductible insurance while letting people accumulate money tax-free to be spent on medical services or saved to pay for future health care needs," according to the article. The accumulation part's the hump most families have a problem getting over.

George Bush, in his fundamental lack of appreciation of what it's like to make a living tried to sell his plan in last Friday's debate. He said, "You own your own account you can save tax-free.''

Dear George, Where do we get the money for your freakin' savings plan when we just lost our jobs because you helped to outsource them? Sincerely, Joe Blow and Flo Blow

What's the real reason Bush Plutocrats love this plan? Well, as Uwe E. Reinhardt, a Princeton University economist and health policy expert, says, "(although) the new plans were 'a bum deal' for people with chronic illnesses ... for chronically healthy people it's another 401(k) savings account, and Wall Street is licking its chops at the prospect of managing the money."

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THURSDAY 10.7.04 / 12:01. AM / LINK / EMAIL

Gone Fishing

Actually I hate fishing. But I will be gone until Tuesday to visit my daughter in NC. Driving down the eastern seaboard into Bush country. EEEEyah! As Howard Deans likes to say.

Enjoy the weekend, I know I will. But I'll be back posting bright and early Tuesday morn.

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WEDNESDAY 10.6.04 / 6:56 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Demolition Derby at CBS

Following Dan Rather's and CBS' big document faux pax the newtwork's mea culpas have ceded precious ground to conservatives at the expense of journalist independence.

In a piece posted at TomPaine.com Richard Blow says, "The case of Dan Rather and the forged National Guard documents got a lot of attention because it involved a respected journalist making a stupid, amateurish mistake. But the hype should have ended there. CBS' decisions to hire a Republican politician to investigate the story, and, more recently, declining to run an investigative piece about Iraq, imply the network believes that politicians can and should police the media."

I agree. News media should never relinquish anything to politicians. Once politicians get the tip of their crow bar under the wall of journalistic independence cracks begin to appear in the drywall. Soon after it'll be time for the dumpster --and freedom of the press will be off to the landfill on top of the load.

What Richard Blow says is that Rather and CBS made a stupid amateurish mistake. It should be have been corrected, and they should have moved on. But insteads, "The people who run CBS have internalized the conservatives¹ argument that their mistakes were political, and that consequently their responses should be the same. On both counts they¹re wrong ... all they have to do to regain people¹s trust is admit them and fix them. That approach may take a while, but it does work better than abandoning your integrity."

Journalistic integrity has already been savaged at Fox "News" we don't need more of the same from CBS.


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0.4.04 / 6:56 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Dropping Scales

Krugman's NY Times commentary today reminds us what a corrupt administration we have running things. He says the scales have fallen from the eyes of many Americans. Is Paul being a Pollyanna? I hope not.

He says, "Style probably mattered most: viewers were shocked by the contrast between Mr. Bush's manufactured image as a strong, resolute leader and his whiny, petulant behavior in the debate.

He got that right. Whiny and petulant is exactly what I saw, but the scales fell from my eyes as far back as the 2000 debates, so I'm not a good test for scale-dropping this year.

Other things Krugman reminds us of:

"So far, Mr. Bush has paid no political price for his shameful penny-pinching on domestic security and his refusal to provide effective protection for America's ports and chemical plants."

Then there's, "...the collapse of Mr. Bush's cover story for the disastrous decision to invade Iraq. In Coral Gables, Mr. Bush asserted that when Mr. Kerry voted to authorize the use of force against Saddam, he 'looked at the same intelligence I looked at.' But as The Times confirmed last weekend, the Bush administration suppressed intelligence that might have raised doubts in Congress."

Add to this Dick Cheney's roll in corrupt and incompetent leadership: "Case in point: Mr. Cheney completely misread the nature of the 2001 California energy crisis. Although he has stonewalled investigations into what went on in his task force, there's no real question that he placed his trust in the very companies whose market-rigging caused that crisis."

And misrepresentation: "In August 2002, when Mr. Cheney declared 'we now know Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons,' he was being dishonest: the administration knew no such thing. He was also being irresponsible: his speech pre-empted an intelligence review that might have given dissenting experts a chance to make their case."

Let's hope trial attorney John Edwards can effectively pick apart Cheney's story in tonights debate.


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0.4.04 / 6:56 AM / LINK / EMAIL
Hoping for another setback

Of all the viruses infecting the U.S. government over the recent past Tom DeLay has, to me, stood out as particularly odious. The man has always seemed like a snake. Kevin Drum agrees.

This joyful report from the San Francisco Chronicle suggests DeLay may finally get his due:

"With House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, now involved directly or tangentially in a handful of ethics cases and investigations, some analysts say another setback could substantially weaken the lawmaker's ability to champion Republican causes and candidates."

I'm definitely hoping for another setback.

The reports says, "House Republicans still support their majority leader, party members said. But they are warily eyeing the pending complaint, along with a Texas grand jury's recent indictment of three of DeLay's political associates on fund- raising charges."

Keep warily eying guys.


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10.4.04 / 6:44 AM / LINK / EMAIL

Waiting for Lazarus

Life-long Republican Lincoln Chafee says he won't be voting for George Bush this year. He says he's waiting for moderate Republicans to rise again.

Please Lincoln, call the Lazari forth.


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10.4.04 / 6:31 AM / LINK / EMAIL

People actually want to vote

The NY Times reports a big surge in voter registration. There are apparently a lot of people tuned into the fact that this election is important. That's good. Let's hope they haven't been getting their info from Fox "News".


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