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For The Trees
Who is our economy FOR, anyway? About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 8/31/2002 Ideology Meets Reality Earlier this week the New York Times had a story about implementation of Bush's big-deal Education Act. After all the talk about "failing schools" and freeing children from the grip of the socialist school systems, and national priorities, here's what happened "In Baltimore, of 30,000 children eligible to transfer to better schools, 347 have applied to fill 194 slots, school officials said." In my opinion the "education crisis" is a good example of a phony issue, whipped up to support ideological objectives, and driven to the top of the national agenda by use of large amounts of money and the Republican marketing machine. The Republicans poured so many millions and millions of dollars into getting their message out that public schools are bad, pounded the public with message after message that "the public schools are failing." It's a relentless drumbeat, and this week's smear story about the NEA "blaming America" is part of their strategy. You've probably seen the polls that show that most people think the education system is failing, but at the same time most people think THEIR local schools are just fine. It's those OTHER schools. EVERYONE knows that the schools are failing, but no one sees that in their OWN school districts. There MUST BE a problem, everyone says so, except not in the schools WE see, so it must be a problem in those OTHER schools. (It's like the Social Security system. EVERYONE knows it won't be there for them, even though the figures show that it's solid. Or like how before the 1984 election the got everyone believing that Congress is bad, but not THEIR member of Congress.) So Bush campaigned for President, playing on the belief the Republicans have created in the public mind about the terrible schools and how bad they are for the children and how so many parents are trying to escape, etc. It became the highest concern among those polled (except THEIR schools). He got his big-deal Education Act passed. Now they're implementing it and what are they finding? "In Baltimore, of 30,000 children eligible to transfer to better schools, 347 have applied to fill 194 slots, school officials said."Maybe the ideology got a little bit ahead of the reality? --- Posted at 8/31/2002 05:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
8/30/2002 Reforming Labor Law, and a Great Blog Thanks to Joe Kenehan Center for pointing out this Boston Globe Op-Ed piece about reforming labor law. "The view that the corporation exists only to enrich its stockholders has been accepted for too long. Corporate failure to similarly value other objectives - including the well-being of employees and their community - has helped produce today's scandals. Any reform package that fails to give employees the power to monitor executive behavior and protect their human capital investments fails to complete the job." --- Posted at 8/30/2002 05:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
War or Recession And on another point, I noticed that in the August 25, 2001 story referenced below Bush says that he would dip into the Social Security in the event of war or recession. He first said that five days before, on August 20. Unfortunate timing to start talking about the U.S. getting into a war. --- Posted at 8/30/2002 04:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Incredibly Positive News'' President Bush has been trying to deflect blame for the deficits. He tells his "trifecta" joke (lie, actually), and says Democrat spending is the cause. Here are some examples: CBS News, Jan. 23, 2002, "Republicans have blamed the worsening budget picture on the recession and the campaign against terrorism. They say annual surpluses will return shortly if the economy rebounds and if Democratic efforts to boost spending are rebuffed." NY Times, Aug. 28, 2002, "But White House officials and Congressional Republicans argued that the new deficits merely reflected the recent economic slowdown, the price of the war in Afghanistan and the costs of beefing up domestic security against terrorism. Dan L. Crippen, the director of the budget office, said the recession and the plunging stock markets appeared to have played a bigger role than the tax cuts in reducing tax revenues." Wash. Post, Aug. 27, 2002, "The president believes the lesson from today's CBO numbers is that Congress needs to hold the line on spending," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said from the president's ranch in Crawford, Tex. "And if Congress won't do it, the president will do it for Congress." And in another article, same paper, same day, "The real danger to the budget comes from pork-barrel spending by the Congress," declared White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "We should control what we can," said Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels, "which is spending." MaxSpeak today gets into this with a very good piece suggesting that Republicans want deficits on purpose as a way to limit the size of government. Let me help sort this out, and note the date as he tries to blame 9/11. New York Times, August 25, 2001 President Bush said today that there was a benefit to the government's fast-dwindling surplus, declaring that it will create "a fiscal straitjacket for Congress." He said that was "incredibly positive news" because it would halt the growth of the federal government. --- Posted at 8/30/2002 03:27:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Light Blogging I know I haven't been putting much up here since the Sopranos 3rd season came out Tuesday on DVD. I have to return them by next Tuesday. --- Posted at 8/30/2002 12:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/29/2002 8/27/2002 Today's Google Experiment - Watch a Smear Spread The Daily Howler has been exploring an ongoing smear against the NEA, claiming that the teacher's union is asking teachers to "blame America first" for the 9/11 terrorism. The initial smear appeared in the Washington Times, the newspaper published by the Moonies. The original article referenced a paper by Brian Lippincott, saying that we should be careful not to blame all Muslims for 9/11. The smear twists this into a claim that the NEA says to teach children that we shouldn't blame the terrorists but should instead "blame America." So let's search on the words "Brian Lippincott NEA" and see what we find. Guess what? It's the usual web of Scaiff-funded right-wing organizations leading the list - Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Townhall (Heritage Foundation). Now let's try searching on "NEA Blame America First". Look at this gem from Ollie North! "The NEA -- and other 9-11 Deniers -- cannot be trusted to "Remember Sept. 11," when they refuse to forthrightly acknowledge what really happened on that terrible Tuesday morning. Wouldn't it be nice to have a teacher's union that didn't want to blame America first?" Keep in mind that this is just a bald-faced LIE, and click beyond the first page of Google results, at all the organizations and "columnists" repeating this lie! Look at this one, "NEA exploits 9/11 as propaganda tool" This is how it's done, folks. The Republicans have a huge machine out there and we know that about half the public believes this stuff! Question 1 - How many "reputable" journalists do you see standing up to this, and denouncing the lies? Question 2 - Isn't it time to restore the "Fairness Doctrine" so we can get more than the Republican side of issues discussed on the radio and TV networks that WE license to operate and serve THE PUBLIC INTEREST? --- Posted at 8/27/2002 11:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Do You Know Where YOUR 401K Is? Arianna Huffington in today's LA Times talks about a big mutual fund conflict of interest. They get fees for managing 401K accounts of large companies. If they vote against management of these corporations, or dump their stocks from their mutual funds, the owners of the shares of the fund (you) might do better, but the fund's management (them) rick having the companies dump them from managing the company's 401K plan, and the resulting revenues of the are in peril. THEIR money comes from management fees, NOT from how well their funds perform. "For instance, the nation's largest mutual fund, Fidelity, which owns 5.3% of Tyco's stock, also earned $2 million in 1999 for its part in running Tyco's 401(k) plans. Last year, more than 50% of Fidelity's $9.8 billion in revenue was generated by administering 401(k) plans and other employee benefit services for about 11,000 companies, including Philip Morris, Shell, IBM, Monsanto and Ford."Whose interests do you think they are going to choose? Yours or their own? --- Posted at 8/27/2002 11:16:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/26/2002 Ongoing Questions - Keeping Them In Your Face Why won't Bush release those SEC files that he says clear up all the questions about his Harken transactions? And what about the minutes of the Harken Board meetings, so we can find out if Bush approved of the Aloha Petroleum scam? Did Bush pay taxes on that Harken loan money? Did Bush pay taxes when he sold the Texas Rangers? Why isn't there an INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION of Harken and Haliburton? Why isn't there an INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION of what we knew, and where we failed, regarding 9/11? (See Bartcop today, "Partners in Crime") Why aren't there any jobs programs for people whose unemployment benefits are running out? Who is our economy for? What Bush Says Now - What Bush Did Then. (I know, it's not a question, but it does start with the word "what.") --- Posted at 8/26/2002 02:14:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
From a Reader I received a message from a reader (THANKS!) in response to what I wrote about corporate ownership of news sources. From the September Harper's Index;And I suspect that the bulk of those 31 representatives of labor were on PBS, which is funded but not owned outright by corporations. --- Posted at 8/26/2002 01:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/25/2002 I just discovered Flashpoints. I'm not sure if white on orange is good for you, though. --- Posted at 8/25/2002 07:58:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
There's an interesting stock market poll on Newstrolls. --- Posted at 8/25/2002 07:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
They're Not Listening Today's Washington Post talks about the politics of the deficit. Voters trust Bush and the Republicans on the economy more than the Democrats, even after it is explained that the deficit has soared, unemployment is up, the economy has collapsed, etc. A poll for the Democratic Leadership Council this spring by Mark Penn dramatically illustrates Dowd's point. Voters trusted Bush over congressional Democrats, 47 to 40 percent, to handle the economy. Penn then went for the jugular: "Before President Bush took office, the country was experiencing the fastest economic growth, the first budget surplus in a generation and the lowest unemployment in history. Since President Bush took office, the economy has entered a recession, the trillion-dollar surplus is now a serious deficit and 1.4 million people have lost their jobs," his poll states, before again asking who voters trust.I think they're not listening. I think "we" - moderates and progressives - underestimate just how many people are listening to Rush Limbaugh. It doesn't matter what the facts are. If Rush says it's Clinton's fault, about half the people in this country are going to repeat that. Illustrating my point is a line in today's New York Times article, The Selling of America, Bush Style. The idea that advertising could "sway the ideas of whole populations, change their habits of life, create belief, practically universal in any policy or idea" ...Democrats aren't going to get their message across until they are ready to start doing what it takes to counter the right-wing message machine. Yesterday I wrote about Democrats needing to push to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. AM radio has become a 24/7 advertisement for the Republican Party. Equally important, moderate and progressive foundations must start funding organizations that counter the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute and other parts of the right-wing web. --- Posted at 8/25/2002 09:50:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/24/2002 Corporate Ownership of News Sources Here's an interesting and very rare story about the problems workers have when trying to organize a union. This story covered a June 20 Senate heading on obstacles workers encounter when trying to organize unions. Rather than get into the specifics of the story, I want to get into why this is a story that you just don't see on TV, hear about on the radio or read about in your newspaper. (Did you know that the Senate was holding hearings on union organizing? Did you hear even a mention of this anywhere? Did you know that in 1998 24,000 workers were fired for trying to organize unions, even though it is illegal to fire someone for trying to form a union?) I propose a simple test of how much of what we see and hear as "news" has shifted toward the pro-corporate perspective: How many stories about unions and working people do you see, hear and read in the news media? We need to recognize just how pervasive corporate control of news issues has become. When discussing the idea that corporations are controlling what you see and hear in the news, ask how many stories cover unions, union organizing, workers rights or other similar topics? Anyone would have to admit that these are very rare stories. Compare the amount of coverage of worker issues with the coverage of business issues in the news, stories about what different companies are doing, their products, etc. Certainly most of the people watching the news are working people, as are most of the people in the country. There are between 16 and 17 million union members in the U.S. That is 14% of all wage and salary workers. How does this compare to the Christian Coalition (2.8M)? The NRA (4M)? U.S. Chamber of Commerce (3M)? But which do you see represented on news shows? Whose spokespeople do you see talking? The media used to cover these stories. Radio and TV stations used to be required to cover stories of concern to working people in exchange for getting their licenses. Reagan managed to get this requirement pulled, and the Democrats have not worked to restore public control over the public airwaves. As a result there has been a major change in what is discussed. The change has happened gradually so it hasn't jumped out at us, but if you think back there used to be quite a bit of coverage of stories important to regular working people, and stories about workers and their issues. It would seem that restoring the Fairness Doctrine would be the #1 issue for Democrats for their own career interests as well as the interest of the working people they say they represent! --- Posted at 8/24/2002 12:22:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/22/2002 Today's Google Experiment Today's Google experiment reminds members of the media how right-wingers feel about them. Go to Google and look up, "Bill Stewart ABC Nicaragua" or click here. Executed in front of the camera by Samoza's National Guard, later to become Reagan & Bush's friends the Contras. (I haven't seen the video since that day. Is it on the web anywhere? I can't find it.) The history of right-wing treatment of the press is not good. Media people - do you really think it's a good idea to be shilling for right-wingers? "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." - Ann Coulter, author of New York Times #1 Best Seller, Slander --- Posted at 8/22/2002 11:06:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Man I enthusiastically refer you to sticking it to the man.com. --- Posted at 8/22/2002 09:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/21/2002 Sharon Telling Us How to Vote? Isn't it grossly inappropriate for foreign leaders to campaign for candidates in the U.S.? Has this ever happened before? Americans used to resent foreign leaders attempting to influence our elections. I remember it cost Major severely when he tried to help Bush I against Clinton, but at least he did that from England and didn't come over here to tell us how to vote. --- Posted at 8/21/2002 06:51:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/20/2002 The Retirement Plan of the Unemployed Man I took a trip down to the local liquor store to put a couple of dollars into the retirement plan. It’s up to $86 million this week. So I was thinking about what I’ll do with the money, and I started thinking about the taxes. Then I realized that rich people get rich by inheriting money, while working people (or unemployed people) get rich by winning the lottery. The Republicans say that people who get their money from inheritance shouldn’t have to pay any taxes. But I’m going to have to pay a huge amount of taxes when I win tomorrow night. It’s just one more way The Man beats you down. (update - "The Man" website is gone. But the wayback machine has "the man" archived) --- Posted at 8/20/2002 02:45:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
WOW The coming populist revolution? By Arianna Huffington. Everybody, read this twice. "This time we have a story to organize around, a story that has it all: narrative power, colorful crooks, sympathetic victims, juicy details (who can forget Kozlowski's $6,000 shower curtain?), political intrigue, global fallout. A story so compelling that even our part-of-the-problem media giants can't ignore it." --- Posted at 8/20/2002 10:19:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fixing Demand While I'm fixing everything (see below), how about this: I keep reading that the economy is being saved by consumer spending. The stock market is up 17% in the last few weeks because consumers are still spending. It's good to see the Wall Street types praising the economic value of consumer demand. Maybe this is a good time to push for policies that put more money into the hands of average Americans and increase consumer demand, like raising the minimum wage, increasing and extending unemployment benefits, job training programs, income redistribution programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit and other DEMAND SIDE government programs! --- Posted at 8/20/2002 10:00:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fixing the Energy Problem In the 1992 campaign Jerry Brown made a suggestion that I haven't forgotten. He suggested putting the unemployed to work retrofitting buildings and homes to be energy efficient. It requires an up-front investment but it returns a more efficient economy (everyone paying less for energy) and national energy independence as a foreign policy bonus. Meanwhile all those unemployed people are getting and spending paychecks, boosting the economy. It helps everyone but the oil companies. Oh. I guess not, then. --- Posted at 8/20/2002 09:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fixing Taxes I wrote below that we paid $359 billion debt interest last year. The numbers are here - warning, this is a spreadsheet to download. Look at row 1038. $359 billion is a huge number. And that's $359 billion every year. Imagine what we could do with that money. We could cut taxes, fix every social problem, and still have money left over to clean up pollution, feed the world, maybe even colonize mars. OK I'm exaggerating but it's a lot of money It seems to me that this level of debt interest proves cutting taxes means higher taxes later if it involves borrowing or not paying off debt. We got in this mess by cutting taxes for the rich. We're digging the hole deeper with the Bush tax cuts. (Just wait until the resulting Social Security bomb goes off, and we have to raise taxes to pay for that.) It also seems to me that imposing a big fat "pay off the debt tax" now would mean everyone would pay much lower taxes later. Of course, we don't want to hurt consumer demand so the tax would have to be on the higher brackets. And not on income - as I wrote below we'll need to be raising the cap on income for Social Security. So it would have to be a tax on wealth, like Ken Lay's 18 homes, or the other billions that CEOs took while their companies went down in flames. (Get the money FROM where the money WENT.) Cut taxes now, higher taxes later. Raise taxes now, world prosperity later. I think that paying down this massive debt would help, not hurt the economy. Maybe an economist will explain why this isn't a good idea - or at least offer an alternative that pays off this debt. Please don't write if your income is above $85,000 - I'll just chalk it up to cognitive dissonance. --- Posted at 8/20/2002 09:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fixing Social Security This letter in the Washington Post today points out that raising the cap on earnings that are subject to Social Security taxes would cover any anticipated shortfall. We keep hearing that Social Security is "in crisis" and might not be able to pay our retirement benefits, when raising this cap would fix everything. That sounds complicated, but it is significant, so let's look at what it means. Everyone who gets a paycheck pays a Social Security tax. This is the largest tax that most Americans pay. But most people don't know that you don't even pay this tax on money you make after you make $85,000. And you only pay it on money you earn by working. You don't pay it on income from an inheritance, or from stock gains, or the other ways that the very rich get their money. Only on money you get in a paycheck from working. Got that? If you make MORE than $85,000 you stop paying this tax. If you inherit or make your money from stocks or real estate or other ways money is made if you already have a lot of money you don't pay this tax. Only working people pay this tax. The largest tax that average working Americans pay, and it isn't even paid on working incomes above $85,000. But it gets worse. Keep reading. Where does this Social Security tax money go? We're told that Social Security is a "ponzi scheme" and people paying in now are paying the retirement of people who are retired now. But actually much more is being paid in than is being paid out. This surplus, (the largest amount taken from most of our paychecks and which is not paid when you make more than $85,000), is loaned to the government, used to pay for general budget items, and the government owes that money to the Social Security fund. The government is borrowing this because huge tax cuts for the rich, starting under Reagan and continuing under Bush, leave the government without enough money to pay its bills. Got that? The largest tax paid by average working people goes back out to cover tax CUTS for the rich. But it gets even worse. Keep reading. When we get to the point where there is no more Social Security surplus Social Security will need to start collecting the money that the government borrowed. It has to collect this in order to meet its payments to retired people. If the government can't pay back these loans, retired people won't get their Social Security checks. Where will the government get this money? The only way the government is meeting its obligations NOW is by borrowing money FROM Social Security. What happens when Social Security needs to start getting money BACK instead? The money that is supposed to be there will have been spent on tax cuts for the rich. But who depends on this Social Security money? The very working people who are getting soaked now to cover these tax cuts for the rich. So if we raise the cap on income that is taxed for Social Security, making high-income working people pay THE SAME amount as people who make less, it covers any anticipated Social Security shortfall. Yet if this money just goes back out as tax cuts for the rich we still won't get our Social Security when we retire. But wait, I have to throw this in. Last year the government paid out $359 billion for debt interest. That's money paid to cover the interest on the "Reagan debt," which accumulated because of tax cuts for the rich. This is the largest item in our budget. We pay tax money, and $359 billion of it is paid out to people who had the means to loan trillions to the government. (Guess who.) I'm just trotting out some of that there (forbidden) populism to see how it sounds. --- Posted at 8/20/2002 07:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/19/2002 Populists Eschaton has a good one today, pointing to a TAP piece. He says the Republicans became the Populists, calling the Democrats the "elitists". A friend of mine says, "Republicans know how to fight a class war. And then they say you're the class warrior, and usually you even don't know what's happening to you." --- Posted at 8/19/2002 10:30:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on Iraq Truthout has a story about the possibility that the Iraq war has already begun. "The fact of the matter is that American military concentrations are already unobtrusively present in northern and southern Iraq." Here is what I wrote yesterday. --- Posted at 8/19/2002 09:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/18/2002 Fed Intervening in Stock Market? This article is from June, but it discusses something I've been noticing in the stock market. At the end of a bad day the market suddenly rallies, so it closes up or at least well off the day's lows. --- Posted at 8/18/2002 06:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Really Funny Dubya French-Roast sent me this really funny Dubya link! THANKS!! --- Posted at 8/18/2002 05:57:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Terminus Joins the Club Terminus has joined the club. "Ladies and gentlemen, your humble blogger is umemployed. " --- Posted at 8/18/2002 05:43:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Has the War Already Begun? This story in Asia Times offers a very interesting perspective - that Bush may have already secretly started the war. Earlier this year, a British journalist asked Bush how exactly he was going to get rid of Saddam Hussein. He replied, "Wait and see." The journalist, like many of his colleagues, may well still be waiting - for lack of ability to see that the war is on. Some high-speed, high-intensity strikes may later be called "The Iraq War", but it began no later than March. --- Posted at 8/18/2002 03:44:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Good Op-Ed Piece Today's LA Times, The Rah-Rah Boys. Definitely worth a read. Here's just a little bit of it: The prominence of these people [media commentators] and others like them were, to a great degree, unrelated to their skills as economic prognosticators. Their trade was politics, and at it they were wildly successful. Americans were indeed persuaded to roll back the regulatory state in the 1990s, to give the corporations whatever they wanted, to slash welfare, to smash the labor unions and even to (sort of) elect the most pro-corporate administration since Herbert Hoover's, headed by a man who promised to privatize Social Security. --- Posted at 8/18/2002 03:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Iraq Comment I want to ask a few questions of logic on the issue of going after Iraq based on fear they are developing weapons of mass destruction. If they really are developing such weapons then aren't our armed forces at great risk of being attacked with them? Also, isn't there a grave likelihood of those weapons being used against nearby Israel? And what about the likelihood of an attack on Iraq provoking a biological attack on us at home? But the Administration argues that overthrowing the regime will be "a cakewalk." That's a contradiction - If there are such weapons to justify the attack how can they say it will be so easy? If such weapons are used, are we going to retaliate? Is Israel? If so, how, and who to retaliate against? Since part of the justification for the idea of attacking Iraq is that the Iraqi people oppose the current government how can we in any way justify attacking a city full of our supposed supporters? Maybe we could attack ANOTHER country! All of this is in response to the World Trade Center attack of 9/11 even though there is no evidence at all that Iraq had anything to do with that. Using our logic for attacking Iraq in response to 9/11, if Iraq uses weapons of mass destruction would this justify our going after, perhaps North Korea. None of this is to say that we shouldn't do something about Iraq if there really is evidence that they are again developing weapons of mass destruction. The Administration has not seen fit to share with us any evidence. None at all. Again, if it really is the case, we need to do something. But we also need to think it through, and make an HONEST case to the public. Bush is not doing this. --- Posted at 8/18/2002 12:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fuming This story, Bush Pledges to Balance Budget and the Bush radio address it reports on, has me fuming. I just read it, and I'm reacting. I ran to the computer to type this. I probably should wait a bit, but here goes... The cynicism is beyond astounding! When you think you're ready for anything this administration will put out, they find something that will just shock you. This cynical and hypocritical attempt to trick the public and shift blame is just astonishing. "We cannot go down the path of soaring budget deficits," Bush said. Bush's tax cuts and huge spending increases PUT US on the path of soaring deficits! Tough sounding words like these are an attempt to trick the public into thinking Bush is trying to solve the problem, when it is his tax policies and spending increases that are making things so much worse. He accused the Democrat-led Senate of "ignoring fiscal discipline" and all but threatened to veto its spending bills if senators persist in trying to increase funds for programs such as public housing and agricultural research by hundreds of millions of dollars more than Bush wants. According to our constitution spending bills originate in the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, NOT THE SENATE! This is the most cynical thing I have seen in a long time. Trying to trick the public into thinking that the Democrats in the Senate are the cause of this huge deficit, through spending, when the Democrats didn't even control the Senate when the budget was passed. The Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the White House. Why does the press fail to point out basic facts such as this? After watching what happened under Reagan I fear that the public could very well fall for this. As you read this next, keep in mind that the Republican House of Representatives originating the budget, and a Republican Senate, signed by Bush, passed nearly the largest spending increase in our history, while passing huge tax cuts that only go to the very wealthy. "For the good of our economy, for the good of the people who pay taxes, my administration will spend what is truly needed, and not a dollar more," Bush said in the radio broadcast. "A common theme among many panelists was that we must leave every dollar we can in the hands of the people who have earned it," Bush said. If you read this weblog you already know how I feel about this. (Blogger's links never seem to work on Sundays. Scorll down to the piece titled, "What?" and then the one above it titled, "Wait". --- Posted at 8/18/2002 09:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/17/2002 Huge Media Scandal The news that President Bush has been rewarding campaign donors with sleepovers at the White House has generated a major media scandal reminiscent of the Clinton years, with special reports on all network news broadcasts, hour upon hour of talk radio discussion, front-page newspaper headlines, nonstop coverage on the cable news channels, congressional hearings and a Justice Dept. investigation. Not. --- Posted at 8/17/2002 07:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/16/2002 Prius Brad DeLong, says the financial side seems to make buying a Toyota Prius "nearly irresistible." --- Posted at 8/16/2002 04:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fix It It's not about whether the recession started under Clinton, it's what the current administration is going to DO ABOUT IT!! (From a year ago.) --- Posted at 8/16/2002 01:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Job? Me? skippy the bush kangaroo has a good piece titled, "of course i don't have a job, that's why i can spend all day blogging" I'm in Silicon Valley, living a few blocks from the empty Excite@Home campus. Somewhere between 20% and 30% of all office space in this area, including San Francisco, is vacant. (How does that square with unemployment being only 7.6%?) Quite a few people I know are unemployed. Of course, that's why I go on morning walks with them and spend so much time blogging myself. ;-) I wonder if one of those friends writes an anonymous blog? I wonder if they wonder that about me? Is one of them skippy? Do we need a blogTIPS program? --- Posted at 8/16/2002 12:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Income Tax Evasion? Long ago I read about Ed Meese (Reagan's Atty General) receiving $200,000 "loans that he didn't have to repay." Since then I've wondered whether he ever paid the taxes. The rule is that if you get a loan and don't repay it, it must be reported as income, and you must pay taxes on it. Because it really IS income and really ISN'T a loan. (This also happens when you default on a loan that you can't pay, but you can get out of that to the extent you can prove you really were insolvent.) Also, if you get a loan with very low interest, the difference between that interest and current market interest rates must be reported as income. You read about corporate executives getting these "loans" and not having to repay them, but you never hear whether they paid taxes on the income. I've always wondered if they're paying the taxes. Finally someone else is wondering the same thing. Democrats.com asks the question, "So the question we ask is this: did George W. Bush report the full value of his forgiven Harken loans as income on his 1993 tax return?" Bush has not released his tax returns for that year, which tells me that maybe there's something there he doesn't want us to know. He refused to release the SEC records of the Harken insider trading probe. He refuses to release the Harken Board minutes that will show to what extent he took part in the Aloha Petroleum scam sale. And he hasn't released the tax returns that will show if he engaged in income tax evasion. From the Democrats.com story, "The very core of Mr. Bush's presidential campaign was to "restore honor and integrity" to the White House. Without that promise, Mr. Bush would never have left Texas. This promise requires Mr. Bush to not only talk about "honor and integrity," but to prove it." --- Posted at 8/16/2002 09:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The cable modem was down all day yesterday. --- Posted at 8/16/2002 06:55:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/14/2002 Multiplier Effects If consumers are holding on to record debt (stories here and here and here) how are they going to spend us out of this economic trouble? Maybe it isn't really over. But if not, are current policies causing a multiplier effect if the economy does dip back to recession? From what I read, the economy is currently being propped up by what most people seem to agree is a "bubble" in housing prices. So far this housing bubble has allowed consumers to keep spending just enough to keep the economy afloat for now. But if refinancing houses rather than rising incomes is the source of funds to keep up the spending binge, won't this have a multiplier effect on any downturn? (Economy propped up by housing bubble, spending slows, economy slows, pops the housing price bubble, people stop spending, economy slows more, many lose houses, economic drop accelerates.) Multiplier effects are worrying me lately. We have had a period where stock prices rather than the underlying strength of the companies became an underpinning of the economy. For example, the pension problem - pension funds invested in stocks, stocks rise, companies don't have to make contributions, AND their books look better because the pension funds are claimed as assets. As long as the market was going up everyone's books looked great but now underfunded pension plans will have to drain cash out of companies, lower that previously claimed asset, all lowering earnings, eventually causing the market to go even lower, accelerating any downturn. Same thing with insurance companies - reserves in the stock market, market drops, not enough reserves to cover obligations. As I said, many companies were propped up by their stock prices not their own strength. So when the market drops it multiplies the effect. By the way, I'm not an economist or an expert, just a worrier. Take a look at this chart and decide for yourself if we are past the stock bubble. --- Posted at 8/14/2002 11:35:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/13/2002 Wait Wait. Later he said "We're working hand in hand to see to it that Congress finally gets the message that we need a terrorism insurance bill to get American hard hats back to work. (Applause.) People say, does it matter? Of course it matters. There's over $8 billion of commercial construction that has been suspended last year. That means $8 billion worth of projects in which somebody is going to be able to work and put food on the table for their family." So he at least understands that if the government spends money on construction, that means construction jobs putting money into the hands of American families. Did I read it right? Or is he saying that if the government bails out big insurance companies that will lead to construction? I'm confused. If the government spends it means money in the hands of the big insurance companies which leads to construction of insurance company buildings? (The big insurance companies had their money in the stock market and now don't have the cash to cover their obligations. It might be as big as the pension problem story) but that's another story. --- Posted at 8/13/2002 06:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What? I saw Bush on TV saying "More money spent in Washington means less money in the hands of American families and entrepreneurs; less money in the hands of risk-takers and job creators." Read the transcript here. What? The guy who signed the farm bill said this? Does he think that the money the government spends disappears into outer space? (And into the hands of large corporate farms.) That comment has cost me any last bit of hope I was holding on to that the economy is going to recover. Not as long as this guy's in the White House. --- Posted at 8/13/2002 06:20:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/12/2002 Thin Line Between Company and Party (Part 1) I know that Enron has fallen off of the front pages lately but I think looking back with hindsight might offer insight into the “corporate responsibility” problems. A few months back I was reading about all the cash that Enron had been giving to the Republicans. Then I learned that Enron was also making significant indirect contributions to The Party. That got me tracing campaign money in general, and the question occurs to me, “Where does the company end, and "The Party" begin?” Here’s an example of Enron company money indirectly used to benefit The Party. Perhaps you remember reading that Enron employed Ralph Reed while he really worked for the Bush campaign. Enron payroll -> Bush campaign employee. Here’s four stories about this – one, two, three, four. Now take a look at Ed Gillespie, former communications director at the RNC and a top communications advisor to the Bush campaign. He was paid at least $525,000 from Enron for "lobbying" immediately after the campaign ended. This sounds a lot like the Reed arrangement. This year-old story (from before Enron's collapse) seems very relevant today. From Page 2: In May, Gillespie launched the 21st Century Energy Project, financed by such pro-Bush conservative groups as Americans for Tax Reform and Citizens for a Sound Economy. Ostensibly, the group's aim is to advance Bush's energy plan. But its other mission is to kill any attempt by Democrats to institute price caps to alleviate the energy crisis in the West. Which also happens to be the main goal of one of Gillespie's newest clients, Enron--the energy behemoth with closer ties to the Bush administration than perhaps any other corporation. (The company's employees and executives have given more to Bush than has any other single company.) Last week the project ran its first round of ads, which will neatly complement the series of town meetings the White House is conducting on energy policy. With the energy project, which expects to spend $500,000, Gillespie not only helps Enron but also serves as the "bad cop" attacking the Democrats on energy policy while the White House remains above the partisan fray.We can get into Citizens for a Sound Economy and Americans for Tax Reform later. (There’s a lot there.) This leads us into Enron “lobbying” cash that is really just more indirect cash to The Party. Here's an article that tracks $1,785,000 of "lobbying" money that Enron spent just in the first half of 2001. How much of that money really went to activities to benefit The Party? Yet another path for Enron corporate contributions to The Party is the so-called “think tanks.” There are several supposedly independent think tanks that are really just extensions of The Party. Here's a story. OK, OK, you get the point, Enron found lots of ways to give a LOT of money to the Republicans. Where am I going with this? I'm only writing about Enron tonite. There's much more. (In Part 2) Amway, tobacco companies, drug companies, and many others are operating as if they are the funding arm of The Party! Where does the company end and The Party begin? How does it benefit the shareholders of a company when the executives are pouring untold millions into The Party rather than to shareholders as profits? We might cynically say that they are buying government benefits, tax breaks, etc. that increase profits, but it's ILLEGAL to donate money with the expectation of political favors, isn't it? And if they don't KNOW they'll be granted favors they're pissing away shareholder money. So either they're acting unethically by donating with the understanding that it's a bribe or by pouring shareholder money into The Party. It is one or the other. “Corporate Reform" reforms nothing if it does not address the freedom with which Boards and Executives are working hand-in-hand with the Republicans! Independent Boardmembers are not independent at all if they are merely ideological soldiers of The Party, infiltrating our corporations to carry out Party funding missions. Fat Chance the Congress will address this, but the shareholding public needs to be made aware of this additional way that their Boards and Officers have their hands in the till. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 09:36:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush's PR Summit Bush is holding a PR summit tomorrow, and Demcorats are not invited. It seems to me that if the Democrats were smart about PR, they would have a few Democratic members of Congress camping outside, occasionally banging on the doors, for the benefit of the news cameras. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 07:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why the Dems? Nathan Newman has a good piece titled WHY THE DEMS? He looks at California where the Democrats got control of the Assembly, Senate and Governor's office in 1998 (except for issues that require 2/3 votes), and what they have since accomplished. Greens, please go read it. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 03:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
On the Radio I had to drive my wife to work. On the radio Paul Harvey said that Saddam Hussein "blew the top off of New York." I wonder how many of the right's audience even knows the difference between Bin Laden & al-Queda, Afghanistan and Iraq. Or even knows that there IS a difference. I think the Bush people are counting on them not knowing. And they'll use the "don't you hate those know-it-alls" against anyone who does know the difference. Sean Hannity says Time Magazine made up their big story, that Time is just lying, this is all just the Liberal Media working to defeat Bush, don't believe them, etc. Hannity says that the Clinton people not only didn't put together a plan to go after al-Queda and present it to the new Bush administration, but that the Clinton people didn't do anything to try to get al-Queda and even rejected offers from several countries to hand Bin Laden over. The Bush people are really scared that people are going to find out they sat on their hands and ignored the terrorist threat, so they're pulling out the stops on this one. They seem really afraid of the consequences of the Time article. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 02:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Trees Over at Blah3 there's a boint-by-point rebuttal to a letter from a Rush fan. It's a fairly long piece, he does a good job rebutting each point. But this is what I've been saying about trees. A lot of energy went into this. And each point made by the letter-writer was just a repeat of a Republican lie. What's worse, you'll see all of these points repeated over and over and over by this letter-writer, Rush, right-wing pundits, candidates, etc. for years. See the forest -- It's what they do. Blah3's piece starts with the dittohead writing, "Last year on January 20 we said good bye to 8 years of crime, cover-ups, and smokescreens." Never mind that President Clinton was cleared of every single accusation except that he got a blow job. Every single accusation was a phony made-up lie that was part of a coordinated attempt to destroy a presidency - and which led to the election of Bush with all of its consequences. And of course the complete and utter lack of evidence is proof there was a massive cover-up, right? But there I go arguing trees. It's hard not to get into it when you see that kind of nonsense repeated. It's hard not to try to refute each lie. But it wastes energy. We need to find ways to more effectively fight this. I think that getting people to see when they're being bombarded with lies might help. By the way, Clinton didn't "play golf with" Enron's Ken Lay. The true story will tell you how far the Republicans go to make up these lies. Check out this Daily Howler piece. Here's what the Republicans use as the basis of their claim that Clinton "played golf with" or was a "golf partner with" Ken Lay: "Clinton began his vacation with a bipartisan golf match Saturday at the Country Club of the Rockies in Vail, Colo., teaming up with fellow Democrat (and golf pro) Jack Nicklaus to take on the Republican duo of former president Gerald Ford and Houston businessman Ken Lay." THAT becomes "golf partner." Understand what they do - that is the forest. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 10:03:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Disgusted I was reading the San Francisco Chronicle's Op-Ed pages this morning and came across this, about Al Gore. It contains the following: This from a man who was raised in a Washington hotel penthouse by Sen. Al Gore Sr., who groomed him for the presidency.The op-ed piece reads like a parady of Daily Howler. If you're not familiar with Daily Howler please go take a look. Bob Somerby has spent at least 2 years looking into how the press covers politics, particularly the coverage of Al Gore during the election and the lies and how they were started by the Republicans and endlessly repeated by the press. Gore was not raised in a Washington penthouse, and Somerby has gone into great detail about how the Republicans planted that, and how the press continues to repeat the lie. In fact, Somerby has done such a good job going into this, and his work, or similar debunking of the Republicans lies, has been written about in enough places that it is inexcusable to think that any journalism professional would STILL be writing these lies. The SF Chronicle should not have allowed this lie to (again) get into print. Here's something I wrote a month ago on a similar subject. --- Posted at 8/12/2002 08:05:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/11/2002 Blog Plug I happened upon "Let it Begin Here" and I recommend taking a read. --- Posted at 8/11/2002 02:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/10/2002 So What Are You Going to DO About It? Anybody who has found this weblog is probably in agreement with what I'm writing about, and is probably spending time reading other online political sites, like BuzzFlash, and other weblogs. So we feel the same way, we're tuned in, we're getting info that is very different from the stuff that is in most of the papers and on almost all of TV (except maybe the new CrossFire.) Do I have to write about how "we" feel? Corporations replacing one-person-one-vote with one-dollar-one-vote and all the consequences that flow from that - pollution, cronyism, corruption, Federalist Society judges, corporate crimes of all kinds, and the stuff coming from the White House. What are you going to DO about it? That's the question. What are you going to actually DO about it? Here's my suggestion. Do something. There's an election coming up. I have started spending a little bit of my Saturdays or Sundays with a little voter registration table at a shopping center or the local Farmer's Market. There's a big "Democrats Register Here" sign taped to the table (but I sign up anyone who wants to register.) I have only done this a few times now, but I'm calling up people from a local Democratic Club's member list, asking if they would like to volunteer to put in an hour or two, so we can turn this into a full-time operation. This got started after I decided to get involved and contacted my local Democratic Club. (To contact your local Democrats go here and choose your state where it says Get Local, over on the left of the page. From there you should be able to find your way to your local Demcoratic Party organization.) Yes, I'm suggesting the boring Democrats. I used to think it was a good idea to help the Greens start a new party, but now I think that just breaks up the coalition that can get the Republicans out. Being out there getting people registered is a rewarding experience. It's also a lot more than just registering them - it's "showing the flag" - to people who think like "us" and feel isolated. I find that they really appreciate seeing people like me out there. I tell them they can be a person "like me" and help out, too. It is surprising how many are signing up to help out. It's encouraging. Talking to people at this table has been a great experience. I'm in a Democratic area (it used to be Republican but the Democrats got organized and changed that) so most people are positive. But I find that almost NO ONE is tuned in to the kind of news we get online. So I point people to BuzzFlash as a starting point. I need one place to tell them to go to, and that's a great place to get started. Here's some things YOU can do: - Join your local Democratic Club. It's more fun than most of the computer user groups I used to speak at. - Start registering voters. It's about more than just signing up new voters, it's about being out there talking to people. It was HARD for me the first time I set up that table. There's something about putting yourself out there like that that is hard. Maybe I was buying into all the years of scorn from right-wingers laughing at mushy liberals. Anyway as soon as I sat down at the table with the sign I felt GOOD about what I was doing. - Donate money. It's important. It sounds stupid but it's what makes politics run - until we can pass public financing and we aren't going to do that without getting "our people" elected. - Donate time. It takes work to win an election but working on a campaign is FUN and rewarding. - Get other people connected to what's going on online. - Send e-mails to people you know, letting them know about places to visit online, encouraging them to get involved or at least vote. - If you are a blogger you can encourage your readers to get actively involved before this election. You know the formula, if each of us can get just two people activated... --- Posted at 8/10/2002 08:06:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hogs The Daily Enron has an opinion piece by Stephen Pizzo that is worth reading. It's another "Are the Democrats ready to step up to the plate?" piece. From the piece: "Down in Louisiana, scandal-hardened voters have a saying when they change control of the state legislature from one party to the other: "It was just time to let the fat hogs out and the lean hogs in." Also, as you can see, I realized I should use blockquote when I'm quoting, so my posts will look better from now on. Blog evolves. --- Posted at 8/10/2002 04:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/09/2002 Today's Google Experiment Salon debunks the story about Gore trying to get free Springsteen tickets. Just another lie. This is a tree. Here's the forest: Does anyone remember the May, 1993 Clinton $200 Haircut story? The story was that President Clinton held up all traffic at LAX for 45 minutes while his plane sat on the runway and he got a haircut that cost $200. This story helped shape public attitudes about his new administration, coming 4 months after he took office. Except that it never happened. (Scan this story for the word "haircut.") SOMEone sent FAXes with this story to newspapers and radio stations across the country. Further faxes claimed to be from passengers who missed flights. Some even claimed to be from people who missed funerals, etc. This was a very well-coordinated and very effective smear job - a sign of things to come. Google Experiment: Click here to go to Google and search on the keywords "clinton haircut runway" and see how many press articles, etc. you can find that refer to this smear as fact. Remember, it not only never happened, but very quickly was shown to be phony. This one is cute. You'll see a lot more stories like the Springsteen Ticket story as the Presidential campaign gets going. The stories are trees. See the forest. See the bigger picture. Learn how it's done so you don't fall for it yourself. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 12:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Go Watch This! WOW! Take a look at this great Flash piece! To see others, go to this site, click on the links on the upper left. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 10:26:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Democrats Not Invited The Bush Administration motto may as well be, "Democrats Not Invited." --- Posted at 8/09/2002 08:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on that Pension Problem I have been writing about the corporate pension problem - the "other" corporate accounting problem that could be as serious as the falsely reported earnings scandal. This is an important problem worth paying attention to. In a nutshell, when stocks were climbing corporations didn't have to contribute to their pension funds, and could report higher profits. Now stocks are lower, the pension funds are underfunded, and the companies have to come up with cash and put it into the funds. Today's New York Times has a story about this. "The fine print in G.M.'s 2001 annual report shows that its retiree benefit plans, including pensions and health care, have unfinanced liabilities of a staggering $61 billion. That is up from $34 billion in 1999 and reflects how the market has affected companies that made big promises to their workers. Some of that shows up in liabilities on the balance sheet, but about $11.5 billion does not." ... "In the first half of this year, G.M.'s pension funds lost about 3 percent of their value. If the accounting rules required G.M. to report based on actual performance, rather than the 10 percent annual gains it optimistically assumes, I estimate that it would have posted a net loss of $2.3 billion rather than a $1.5 billion profit. Similarly, reported profits from 2000 and 2001 would have vanished." In other words, a $11.5 billion problem not showing up on the books, GM reports a profits of $1.5 billion, when actually it is a loss of $2.3 billion, and their profits from 2000 and 2001 were not really profits. --- Posted at 8/09/2002 08:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/08/2002 Funding Progressives and Moderates I've been thinking about that American Prospect article that I referred to a few days ago. Tomasky writes, "The fact that this imbalance exists, however, is partly the Democrats' fault. Democrats don't have the money Republicans have, and they never will. They can never match Republicans dollar-for-dollar on message creation and dissemination. That said, it's also true that they have not set up the structures to do that. Republican backers slowly and methodically set out to build those structures in the 1970s, knowing full well that they wouldn't bear fruit for a generation or two. Democratic money people, and party leaders, have not been as engaged in such long-term thinking. As one leading Democrat told me not long ago, they'd rather spend their money on a full-page ad in the Times than seed and water a long-range, partisan strategy group or think tank. Accordingly, Democrats have developed no organic relationship with the intellectuals and activists on their side, while Republicans have." I agree with Tomasky that moderate and progressive money would do better if it were applied with a long-range view. I've recently been talking to the people at The Commonweal Institute (CI). CI is just starting up now, and hopes to get full funding to develop a multi-issue policy "think tank" that will be able to support moderate and progressive groups by building up mainstream support for moderate and progressive philosophy in general and for the moderate and progressive perspective on a broad range of particular issues that are so important to all of us. Let me explain their view of this. There are moderate and progressive foundations with money for progressive projects, and there are lots of well-to-do moderates and progressives with a philanthropic attitude. But moderate and progressive philanthropy has been directed differently from how the right-wingers are doing it. Clearly the right-wingers have been much more successful. Right-wing-oriented foundations are funding organizations like The Heritage Foundation, The American Enterprise Institute and The Cato Institute. (Note, these links point to a list of their funding sources so you can see how this works.) By funding multi-issue organizations like these, right-wingers have used foundation money to build a general policy "infrastructure" that supports the web of right-wing organizations while appealing to a broader mainstream audience. I think that moderate and progressive foundations have focused their grants and donations toward more narrow-target projects, like environmental groups or community housing projects as just a couple of examples. These groups are great and support great causes, but they reach narrower, usually sympathetic audiences and focus only on their particular issues. But here's what happens. Because the right-wingers have a well-coordinated (and very, very well-funded) web of organizations that provide underlying SUPPORT for the efforts of their own narrow-project groups by pumping out right-wing propaganda to the masses, their investment in those narrow projects is able to achieve maximum bang-for-buck. Moderate and progressive investment in individual projects, on the other hand, shows a lower ROI (return on investment) because the effectiveness of that right-wing web has put enough right-wingers in powerful positions that the achievements of moderate and progressive organizations are wiped out with one Presidential Directive, or one ruling by a well-placed Federalist Society judge! In other words, the well-funded right-wing multi-issue, broad-based, mainstream audience work gets people like Bush and his Federalist judges in position to support their causes and destroy moderate and progressive achievements. If the moderate and progressive foundations were willing to support more general, multi-issue, "infrastructure" organizations, like Commonweal Institute, which could help progressive politicians and activists and organizations make their case to the public on a broad range of issues, and moderate and progressive philosophy in general, then perhaps the achievements of environmental and other organizations wouldn't be in peril and they wouldn't always be trying to hold on to what they have achieved, constantly fighting to keep from being pushed backwards instead of building on their achievements. It's great to fund narrow-focus environmental and other groups, but that funding is always in danger of being wasted, doing no one any good at all, if the success of the right's web of organizations allows them to wipe out so much of the progress that moderates and progressives are trying to make. The moderate and progressive foundations need to fund organizations like the Commonweal Institute - "Heritage Foundations of the left" - because their work will PROTECT the work of environmental and other moderate and progressive organizations. --- Posted at 8/08/2002 10:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/07/2002 The Party of the Confederacy The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of the Confederacy. The Republicans have been working hard to become a regional party, and we should do everything we can to reinforce this trend. The entire Republican leadership is from the South. Their policies are "states rights" and anti-"big-city". They are shifting the government's spending to the South. They talk about "the heartland" and they mean southern former-Confederate states. I can go on but I'll pause here so you can envision more examples. There is a political opportunity here for Northern Democrats. Republican candidates should be asked why they are running for office in the North under the banner of the Party of the Confederacy. They should be asked if they're trying to bring the South to Vermont or Wisconsin or New York. --- Posted at 8/07/2002 01:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Quiz Go take a look at Bush Impeachment Countdown and today's quiz! --- Posted at 8/07/2002 09:53:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush Gave Corporate Lawbreakers Green Light Bush is on TV giving a speech saying corporate lawbreakers will be punished. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this two-faced lying crap, acting like the big hero, after what he did when he took office. I wrote about this a few days back. When Bush got into office he repealed Clinton administration rules that blocked companies that repeatedly broke the law from getting government contracts. He gave companies the green light to feel free to break the law! Now he is saying those same lawbreaking companies should be punished. --- Posted at 8/07/2002 09:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/06/2002 Saying it a Different Way An article in The American Prospect has better words for what I said below, "Never in modern American history has a party so failed its core constituents as the Democratic Party has during this period." --- Posted at 8/06/2002 10:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
People vs Powerful The press is playing up a Gore vs Lieberman debate over whether the Democratic Party should stand for "The People vs the Powerful," as Gore worded it, or follow Lieberman's position: "The people versus the powerful unfortunately left that track and gave a different message, which may have been caused by the pressure that the Nader campaign was giving us," Mr. Lieberman said, referring to Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate. "But I think it was not the New Democratic approach." I think Lieberman hit the nail on the head, but completely missed the point. There IS pressure from the Greens and it is there for a reason - too many people feel that the Democratic Party has stopped supporting their interests. If the Democratic Party isn't going to stand up for the people vs. the powerful, then the Green Party is going to get the votes. It's called "losing your base". Look what happened in 2000 - enough of the left of the Democratic Party voted Green instead of Democrat. If you want to be Republicans, than just BE a Republican, but don't try to tell Democrats they shouldn't stand up for "The People vs The Powerful." --- Posted at 8/06/2002 08:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/05/2002 Seeing the Forest III Yesterday I wrote about Time Magazine's big story describing how the Clinton Adminisration handed Bush a plan to get rid of al-Queda, the Bush people sat on it, and then after 9/11 attempted to blame Clinton for the attack while taking credit for the Clinton plan as their own. These are trees. See the forest. Take a look at this story from February, "PR CAMPAIGN BLAMES CLINTON FOR SEPT. 11 ATTACKS." Now, take a look at who is behind the group launching that PR campaign and the increadible amounts of money put into just this one right-wing attack group (there are so many). It's funded by the Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, etc. - the usual suspects you see funding all of these Republican attack groups. Here's the forest: THIS IS WHAT THEY DO! If you try to argue the individual points that Republicans put out, you will go crazy. Those are the trees. You can argue about whether Clinton is to blame. You can argue about whether tax cuts cause tax revenue to increase. You can argue about whether Bush and Cheney knew their companies were about to tank when they make fortunes selling their stock to unsuspecting buyers. These are just trees. See the forest. See the bigger picture. Look at what they do and who is doing it, not at what they say. When you see the signs of a coordinated PR campaign coming from the right, IT MEANS THEY ARE UP TO SOMETHING! Don't look at what they are saying, look at the pattern, look at what they are doing. I'll go so far as to say this, When you see them spreading a story about Democratic or "liberal" wrongdoing it often means it's really about something THEY have been doing and they are "innoculating" themselves by accusing the other side before the real story can start coming out. When you see the signs of a coordinated right-wing propaganda attack, get on Google, look up the names of the spokespersons or organizations spreading the story, see what else they have been doing and saying, see if you can track down who funds them. Guess what you're going to find? In every single instance you are going to find one of these right-wing attack groups, and they are going to be funded by the Bradley Foundation or Scaife or one of the others, and the spokesperson is going to have published pro-tobacco and/or anti-environmentalist articles. And one other thing - you're going to hear the smear story on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and O'Reilly or Hannity, and you'll se it in the Washington Times, etc., etc. and pretty soon it will seem like you are hearing everyone in the media saying exactly the same things! In this instance the Republicans got caught with their pants down, letting the country get attacked on 9/11. So they immediately started the usual response. A coordinated campaign to smear the opposition - in this case blaming Clinton for letting it happen (as well as other efforts, like blaming multiculturism, etc.) - combined with a coordinated campaign to make Bush look like the hero, saving us from the mess Clinton got us into. Ignore what they say and look at what they do. See the forest. It works every time. Update - the PR CAMPAIGN article mentioned above can still be found here. --- Posted at 8/05/2002 10:31:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/04/2002 WTF - I already link to WTF Is It Now?? in my links section, but I'm mentioning it again because just love reading it. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 04:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Funny cartoons here. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 03:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Whoosh, Bye! Please! Looking at the bad news and opposing forces moving in -- the economy might be tanking, stock market diving, Time Magazine's major piece on Bush screw-ups leading to 9/11, Gore's great, great piece in today's NY Times, the polls starting to show that the Democrats could do very well in the upcoming election -- it strikes me that this is the point in corporate life where the top executives sell all their stock to the unsuspecting public and bail just before things fall apart, flying away to the Cayman Islands in their private jets. Whoosh, bye! Maybe Bush, Cheney and the rest of that crowd will stick to their previous instincts and do what they did at Harken and Halibutron and Enron and the rest of the companies these guys and their cronies looted, and skip town one of these nights. Wish they would. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 09:47:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Now We Know Now we know why the Bush administration has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent an independent look at intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Time Magazine has a story about an extensive Clinton plan to attack al-Queda, developed after the Cole bombing. Leaving office, they handed the plan to the incoming Bush administration, who did nothing with it because they didn't see al-Queda as an important enough problem. The plan is an outline of the very same extensive anti-terrorist activities that the Bush administration is getting so much credit for. After blaming the Clinton administration for 9/11, claiming Clinton did nothing and taking full political credit for "their" plan to attack al-Queda, we now see why they fought so hard to keep the truth from coming out. --- Posted at 8/04/2002 09:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/02/2002 Bush Gave Go-Ahead to Corporate Lawbreakers Buzzflash picked up on my previous blog piece pointing out that Bush gave corporate lawbreakers the go-ahead back in March, 2001. (Had to write to them a few times, though.) Back then Bush reversed a Clinton rule prohibiting corporate lawbreakers from getting government contracts. Now Bush gives speeches about how corporate lawbreakers need to be punished. Bush puts lax regulators in the EPA and his crony corporations know they are free to pollute. He puts lax regulators on the FERC, and his crony corporations cause power blackouts in California so they can jack prices through the roof. He puts lax regulators on the SEC because his crony corporations have been complaining that they're getting flack for doing what Bush and Cheney did. (I think I could develop quite a long list of how many oversight boards and commissions Bush has gutted. Labor, removing the Bar Assoc. from approving judges, civil rights...) And then he says if somehow you get convicted of CRIMES, the government is going to GIVE THEM CONTRACTS!!! A while ago I wrote, "Republicans delegitimized government, and act surprised when corporate executives act as if government were not legitimate." --- Posted at 8/02/2002 12:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
8/01/2002 Tax Cuts Don't Raise Revenue I’m so tired of hearing Republicans claim that cutting taxes increases tax revenues and that Reagan's cut taxes caused revenue to double by the end of his term. Here’s the numbers. In 1981 the on-budget (not from Social Security) tax receipts were $469 billion which was a 16% increase over the prior year. Then the Reagan tax cuts started. 1982 tax receipts were $474.3 billion, 1.1% over 1981, and the on-budget deficit shot up to $120 billion, an increase of 62% in a single year!. 1983 receipts were $453.2 billion, a DROP of 4.4% creating a deficit of $208 BILLION, an increase of 73%! Tax Increases - Revenues Went Up (Duh!) This huge jump in deficits panicked Congress enough to pass the 1984 Deficit Reduction Act, the largest tax increase in our history. Tax receipts climbed to $500.3 billion, a 10.4% increase, and the deficit shrank almost 11% to $185.6 billion. In 1985 Congress passed the Gramm-Rudmann-Hollings Anti-Deficit Act. In 1985 tax receipts were $548 billion, a 9.5% increase. But now the huge military spending increases AND the debt interest were kicking in and the deficit rose to $221 billion, and increase of 19%. That's another story - the TAX RECEIPTS were climbing again, leading to the doubling Republicans claim was brought about by cutting taxes, conveniently leaving out that the largest tax increase in the history of the world occurred in between. An Aside. Also during this time Congress passed the huge Social Security tax increase, dramatically increasing a tax ONLY paid by poor and middle class working people. This is the largest tax item in most people's paychecks and is not counted when we're told that the rich pay a large share of taxes. In 1984 and 1985 Social Security tax receipts jumped 12%!, and continued to increase through the 80’s, generating huge surpluses which were used to make the huge deficits look lower. This money collected from the poor and middle class workers went out to pay for Reagans's tax cuts for the rich. (And now it is being used to pay for Bush's huge tax cuts for the rich.) See for Yourself. You can look at the numbers here. It's table 1.1, in Excel file format, so I'm not linking directly to it. So when they say that Reagan's tax cuts led to tax revenue doubling, IT'S A TRICK! Why they constantly use tricks to get support for their policies is a good topic for another piece. --- Posted at 8/01/2002 05:30:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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