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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: |
 11/12/2002 Sold Out the Unions! Two Senate Dems sold out the unions. Democrats John Breaux of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted with Bush Daschle added to the betrayal, "Though Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat opposed to the department, may try to wage a filibuster against it, Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle has said he would oppose any such delay." What? The REPUBLICANS filibustered this bill for months AND IT DIDN'T COST THEM A THING IN THE ELECTION! In fact, their tactics energized their base, and their base turned out to vote! Now it's the Democrats' opportunity to stand up for workers, and what does Daschle say? I take back what I said defending Daschle. DUMP HIM! Additionally, "In addition, the new department would effectively be able to bypass civil service rules in promoting, firing and transferring workers, the aides said." This means patronage - only Republicans will get jobs in the government now. Democrats will be fired. Maybe some recall petitions are in order here! Maybe if they started hearing from us maybe this stuff would stop. --- Posted at 11/12/2002 06:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
More Job Cuts Coming In the last couple of weeks a number of people I know have been laid off. Anyway, from Financial Times today: The Business Roundtable, an association of 150 CEOs whose companies employ over 10m workers, said a survey of its membership showed that 60 per cent were expecting to cut jobs next year against just 11 per cent who said employment in their companies would grow. More than 80 per cent said they expected to hold or cut capital expenditure over the coming year.What, we're here with no paddle? And the stock market will react by going up another 200 points. --- Posted at 11/12/2002 06:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Path Out of the Bush Let me write some more about the research that led me to hook up with the Commonweal Institute. My own path into this adventure was through the Clinton impeachment and what led up to it. If you followed the news closely, you started hearing that much of the anti-Clinton sleaze was coming from organizations financed by just ONE GUY – Richard Mellon Scaife. After Hillary Clinton referred to the “vast right-wing conspiracy” articles began to appear documenting pieces of this web of organizations. The American Spectator, funded by Scaife, was the lead sleaze-spreader. The Federalist Society, funded by Scaife (and a few others), was supplying the worker bees. Ken Starr, of the Federalist Society, wanted to leave to take a University position funded by Scaife. Many of those employed by Starr were from the Federalist Society. Scaife money was bankrolling Paula Jones and her legal representatives. Etc... Then I started noticing that Scaife and some others were behind a hell of a lot more than JUST the anti-Clinton effort. For example, from a 1998 Salon article about Scaife's anti-Clinton efforts, The man behind the mask: "The victories we're celebrating today didn't begin last Tuesday," Heritage Foundation president Edwin Feulner Jr. told a meeting of supporters in 1994 just after the Republican sweep of the House of Representatives. "They started more than 20 years ago when Dick Scaife had the vision to see the need for a conservative intellectual movement in America. These organizations built the intellectual case that was necessary before political leaders like Newt Gingrich could translate their ideas into practical political alternatives."I started looking into this on the web. But at that point it still seemed more like paranoid conspiracy theory stuff than something real. Then, earlier this year, I read David Brock’s book, Blinded By The Right. This book, written by the very journalist who had initiated the attacks on Clinton, talked about this web of organizations, some of the participants, and the money behind it. It was a revelation – it wasn’t just some paranoid fantasy, it was really happening! Here was confirmation that this web existed. Blinded By The Right crystallized this in my mind. From talking to people about all of this I realize that I am not alone in this. The book brought it together for many people. It became real. Please visit Commonweal’s information page and read some of what is there. This information takes a while to percolate, but then you start to see that there is a path back out of the Bush. --- Posted at 11/12/2002 01:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why I Don't Use the Term "Conservative" I don't use the term "conservative" to describe this current crop of right wingers. That's THEIR description of themselves. These people stole the term from the honest and honorable traditional conservatives, like John McCain, and then booted them out of their "movement." (Look what they did to McCain in South Carolina.) These right-wingers are the same crowd that used to talk about "The Jew York Times" and the Jew Media." (I wrote about this in September.) They've learned to tone that stuff down but much of their nonsense really is largely the same crackpot message - "government schools are socialist," "ban the teaching of evolution and put prayer back in the schools," "we're a Christian Nation." Back then they were not called "conservatives." They were called the "far right" and the "ultra right" and the "Christian Right." In fact, in the 50's and 60's the originators of this movement, the John Birchers and Libertarians and Liberty Lobby types were known as the "kooks." Real, honest conservatives wanted nothing to do with them. In fact, their very use of the word "conservative" shows how this movement works. The word "conservative" has positive connotations in the public's mind so these far-right ideologues took over the word, and used their bullying tactics to toss the old-fashioned conservatives out of the Republican Party. They needed a respectable cover for what they're up to. Suppose they decided to describe themselves as "those-who-are-best-for-your-interests". I don't think I would be using that phrasing when referring to them. For the same reasons I don't use "conservative." Perhaps the term "regressives" is the best description. Who was it that thought that up the other day? --- Posted at 11/12/2002 11:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Commonweal Institute - "the Heritage Foundation of the Left" Some time ago I wrote that I have taken a position at a public policy institute. I have been working with the Commonweal Institute , which I like to describe as “the Heritage Foundation of the Left.” I’ve been helping them get organized, get their new website up, and commence fundraising activities. Our hope is that we can raise sufficient seed money to launch the kind of PR and fundraising campaign that is required to develop the research and education institute and communications “engine” that is needed to start to bring the public back toward the center, and bring progressive and moderate voices back into the public “marketplace of ideas.” The Nov. 5 election confirms just how bad things are. Do I have to describe the problem? The far-right is now the government. Everywhere we turn – us “liberals” or “progressives” or “moderates,” or whatever we choose to call ourselves – we suffer heartbreaking setbacks. We see environmental protections removed, industries allowed to violate laws, women's health programs losing funding, huge tax cuts for the ultra-rich – resulting in less and less money available for education, health care and all kinds of other social necessities. The list goes on and on and seems to get worse every day. An approach to this problem One approach to doing something about it is to learn how the right did it – and then do that. So I’d like to write about the right-wing movement's campaign to move the public to the right. By examining how it was done we can learn how to counter it, and move the public and the country back into balance, back to the center – back to sanity. And then I’ll describe the Commonweal Institute’s plan to do something about it. Part 1 – What has been happening to us Part 2 – What Commonweal Institute plans to do about it (Scroll down about 250-300 paragraphs) Part 1 – What has been happening to us"What did the Republicans do in the 1970s? They went back to their roots and created institutions for the long-term. They spent money on think-tanks and local organizations and decided to build a new party from the ground up that appealed to conservatives. They elected Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the party they built then is the same party that Karl Rove is orchestrating today. The fringe-y think tanks of the '70s -- like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute -- now provide an endless supply of talking-head and op-ed support for right-wing policies. And, give them credit, they're just full of ideas." Part 2 – What Commonweal Institute plans to do about itThe Commonweal Institute is a multi-issue research and educational institute - a think tank - committed to advancing moderate and progressive principles through strategic marketing and aggressive communication of ideas. Our goals: to restore balance to the marketplace of ideas; to revitalize and reenergize the democratic process; to advance the values of fairness, justice, and opportunity and to help create a equitable society with sustainable economic development.The Commonweal Institute is a "think tank" and "communications engine" that will use methods like those used to market everyday products—just like those that the right wing has used so effectively to dominate our nation’s marketplace of ideas. We are committed not only to developing ideas through the think tank part – the research and education institution part – of our concept, but also to advancing moderate and progressive principles through strategic marketing and aggressive communication of ideas. This is the communications engine part of the concept. The Commonweal Institute will pursue a long term strategy. Our long-term goal is to move people’s underlying attitudes away from the right wing’s agenda and back to a moderate/progressive perspective. A very important distinction. Let me get one thing out of the way right now. When I say Commonweal Institute is going to “do what the right does,” I do NOT mean we are going to lie, deceive, mislead, trick and/or fool the public. We progressives and moderates have a clear advantage in this battle of ideas. Put simply, our task is not to convince blue-collar workers to give up their Social Security, pensions, healthcare, environmental protections, worker protections and all the rest of the social benefits and protections we have built over the years so that some rich white guy can have a bigger jet. That’s what the right wing movement does. That’s why with all the billions spent and all the domination of the media they STILL can’t get past 50%, even after convincing most people not to even vote! We don’t have to lie, trick or otherwise fool the public to get them thinking our way. Changing underlying attitudes takes work. People respond best to stories that trigger an emotional response, using words that evoke images in the mind and metaphors that hook facts to their deeper feelings, giving them a sense of “Oh yeah, that's right.” Just like the right, we will use contemporary marketing and public relations techniques such as polling, interviewing and focus groups to identify the deeper concerns of target groups. We will “translate” the “idea product” of think tanks and organizations into this kind of specialized language. Creating our own conventional wisdom. Just as the right has repeated “public schools are failing” and “Social Security is going broke,” in order to lead people to their agenda, the Commonweal Institute will create honest conventional wisdom that reflects moderate and progressive principles. Infrastructure. The kind of organization we’re talking about creating with Commonweal Institute is “infrastructure.” This is the kind of organization that the right has built up. It does not necessarily support particular causes – it is “multi-issue.” The particular infrastructure need that Commonweal Institute will address is to change underlying public attitudes, by putting out a more general message to a wide mainstream audience. It will translate particular issues into a wider framework of understanding and communicate that perspective to a wide, mainstream audience. Reaching a wide audience. One of the methods the Commonweal Institute will use is to reach out to wide, diverse audiences, using multiple channels of communication. Commonweal will also target specific demographic groups with targeted messages. Commonweal’s channels of communication will include books, articles, columns, commentaries, letters to the editor, newsletters, on-line information, expert speakers, scholars, talk show guests, video clips, tapes, media training for activists and advertisements, as well as providing talking points and other ready-to-go materials for use by opinion leaders, candidates, public speakers, educators, activists and the general public. While single-issue organizations offer similar resources for their issues, they tend to be financially dependant on regularly reaching out to their own base of supporters. Many have limited budgets and cannot reach as many as they would like. Fundraising is difficult and ongoing, and it makes sense to reach people who will tend to support your cause. It isn’t typically economical for single-issue organizations to spend the money to reach out to the mainstream general public. So out of necessity there is a lot of preaching to the converted. Also they tend more and more to be fighting shorter-term defensive battles, as they are under constant attack by the right-wing movement. To reach out to wide general audiences, talking about a number of issues, you need a different kind of organization. We need to fund and develop infrastructure – a multi-issue research and communications engine. This is what Commonweal Institute is. Return on investment. Let’s say you support an organization that is working to protect the remaining California redwoods. Let’s say that this organization has spent $200,000 a year for 10 years, or $2 million. Now, after the November 5 election, let’s say that one Federalist Society judge gets a chance to make a ruling on logging, or the Bush Administration gets their “forest fire protection” initiative passed. Those redwoods are under immediate threat. How much of that $2 million is down the drain? This kind of loss is happening more and more, because progressives and moderates have not built up the kind of infrastructure that works to change the underlying attitudes that would have prevented the losses suffered on November 5, and would bring forth immediate public reaction to nonsense like “forest fire protection” that is clearly intended to benefit logging companies. An organization like the Commonweal Institute will increase the return on investment for organizations working on particular causes. It’s Not About Politicians. It’s not enough just to support organizations that fight for individual issues, or politicians with attractive programs and political parties with good platforms. Politicians and parties follow where the people are. And it especially isn’t enough to talk to others who are just like ourselves—we need to reach out to others, to involve more people. We must expand the base of citizens who actively support progressive and moderate programs and principles. Bringing the public back home is a big task, one that moderate and progressive politicians and parties can’t handle alone. It is important to understand that there is a distinction between the idea development & communication process, and the political process. We aren’t going to change the country by choosing better politicians – we’re going to have to change the public’s underlying attitudes and willingness to get involved. It is after the attitude change occurs that the politicians and political parties can step in – they reap the results from a public that is primed to accept their programs. If we can do this work to change underlying attitudes our politicians will have an easier job – running on issues that the public understands, with programs they are ready to accept, rather than trying to introduce and explain our issues as part of their campaigns. Growing the base. Another effect of changing underlying public attitudes toward the moderate/progressive perspective will be the growth of the base of support for moderate and progressive organizations and politicians. Environmental, social, health, and other types of organizations will see their own funding base increase. They will also have some of their burden reduced as government again picks up some of the load. Some good news. Lack of money is not what has been handicapping moderates and progressives. There is actually a lot of money available on the moderate/progressive side. It just hasn’t been used as effectively as the money poured into right-wing idea machine infrastructure. Much of the philanthropic money of moderates and progressives is donated on a program basis – funding specific programs attempting to achieve specific results, lots of pilot programs – but not enough general support for ongoing operations and not enough discretionary money directed to specific programs. The right has provided general operating funding – money that can be used any way the organizations want – as long as it is spent to further the right-wing ideological movement, according to their specific long-term strategic goals. Moderate and progressive philanthropy needs to do much more of this. Until this funding pattern changes, organizations like the Commonweal Institute will need to be funded by individual donors who understand the necessity of the task at hand and want to help out. Whew! OK, I wrote a lot here today. Let me sum up: Please visit Commonweal Institute’s new website. There are four points on the front page, each leading to more info on that subject. Please take a look at the collection of resources on Commonweal’s Information Page. No matter what else you take from this, learning about what the right-wing has been doing and telling others is one of the most effective ways to immunize yourself and combat their pervasive messaging! And, of course, if you agree that it is time to work “to restore balance to the marketplace of ideas,” please help build the Commonweal Institute. And please, leave a comment here about all of this by clicking on the word "Comment" just below this sentence. --- Posted at 11/12/2002 06:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/10/2002 The Black Box Has anyone heard what became of the "black box" flight recorder on Paul Wellstone's plane? The plane was legally required to carry one. Have they found it, and what did it show? --- Posted at 11/10/2002 04:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Petition to Fire Terry McAuliffe Angry Democrats has a petition. --- Posted at 11/10/2002 04:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dems Moving to the Right -- Should Check BuzzFlash Instead The NY Times today has this analysis claiming that the Democrats lost so many races because "White Moderates" voted Republican. This is probably true, but what does it mean? Does it mean that Democrats need to move to the right to get votes? My thinking on Democrats moving to the right in response: --- Posted at 11/10/2002 12:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/09/2002 Investigate Sept. 11 Counterspin Central says the #1 item on the Democrat's agenda should be to demand a public, independent investigation into September 11. I wholeheartedly agree. Go read about it. --- Posted at 11/09/2002 09:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/08/2002 Too funny This story is funny, with a great photo. On a more serious note, The most recent Democratic travesty dates back to a precise moment in time: May 23, 2001. On that day, twelve Democratic senators voted to defund the Democratic agenda on which they had been elected. They supported the Bush scheme to award most of the Clinton surplus to wealthy Republicans. From that time forward, the game plan was to protect the Dirty Dozen from the embarrassment that would come with exposing the moral bankruptcy of Bush economics. The Democratic Party refused to advocate the Democratic economic platform and, in the process, lost credibility with its own voters. Now it has also lost many of the Quislings who supported the tax heist, which means that the party discarded principle in exchange for failure.Actually this is a different (and better) way of saying what I wrote in Mostly Zell. Daschle was hamstrung having to protect the Democratic Senate majority, with Zell maybe going to leave the party. To go forward from here, perhaps we need to ask some of these "Republicans Lite" to please leave the party. A good criteria for that might be the ones that voted for the Bush tax cut. --- Posted at 11/08/2002 09:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/07/2002 The Donor Class How do you get the Democrats to be something other than Republicans Lite, when politics depends on money? Campaign consultants get a cut of the money a candidate spends on TV ads. So campaign consultants tell candidates it is vitally important to spend tons of cash on TV. So candidates need to raise tons of cash in a limited time period. So they need to appeal to people with the means to give $1000 contributions. Any way you cut it people who can freely give $1000 contributions are rich people. So the candidate spends his or her time associating with the rich - The Donor Class - appealing to them for money. So the candidate's viewpoint naturally amends itself to the concerns of the people the candidate spends time with and depends on. While money is always important, campaigns USED TO have get-out-the-vote (GOTV) mechanisms in place. Poll watchers, block captains, precinct captains and volunteers - all geared toward getting out the vote. Several years ago the national Democrats largely abandoned local GOTV in favor of putting their resources behind TV ads. Poll watching works - I know it does because I increased the Democratic turnout in my precinct by 20%. It wasn't a matter of great skill, mostly it was a phone call telling them where the polling place was, maybe offering a ride. (Increasing by 20% meant getting 6 more people to vote in a precinct where 30 Democrats had already voted, but increasing is increasaing and that is a good thing.) While unions contributed to a GOTV effort this time, it wasn't enough and was starting largely from scratch. The old way, the block captain knew everyone on the block and talked to them about why they should vote Democratic and then got them to the polls on election day. I was calling strangers, starting that afternoon. We just had an election where more money than ever was spent on TV ads, with the lowest voter turnout ever. Maybe now you know where I'm going with this. Maybe Democrats DON'T need to put all that money into TV ads. If we're going to rebuild a Democratic Party that isn't a Republican Party Lite, we will have to reduce the dependence on the Donor Class. Building a strong GOTV machine, precinct-by-precinct is the way to get the job done. --- Posted at 11/07/2002 04:22:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Iraq and Election Suppose the Democratic leadership had taken Bush's war vote demand and said, "It is inappropriate to bring this to use immediately before the election. We'll be glad to take this up after the election, but we are not going to bring this to the Senate floor now." 1) It places a focus on Bush's motives for bringing this to the Congress just before the election. One lesson we learned from VietNam is that the country must be united behind any military action we undertake. Nothing could be more divisive than introducing this war vote into the election campaign. Sensible leadership would do everything they could to AVOID the divisiveness of having the war debate occur during campaign season. But this was planned to occur DURING campaign season. Bush is a divider,not a uniter. 2) It changes the Iraq debate to a question of the immediacy of the threat, which then changes the debate to a question of the necessity of the action. If it isn't immediate - he's a month from getting a nuke, or something like that - then why not have inspectors in there instead of invading? 3) It places the Democrats on the side of "dealing with Iraq," but at an appropriate time. But this didn't happen. The country is divided about 50/50 on whether to go to war, with most of those in favor erroneously believing that Iraq was behind 9/11 AND that they have nukes now, and many of those opposed convinced that the President has lied to the public and manipulated the election. --- Posted at 11/07/2002 02:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Rove's Current Scam Karl Rove's current spin scam is that the Republicans have won the right to make major changes to the country just because they've got a couple more votes in the Congress than the Democrats have. This is an evenly divided country, which means there should be legislation right in the middle, not on the far right. Government is supposed to be about what's good for the country and what the people want, not what's good for the Party and what the Party wants. It's really early here - I'll write more later. --- Posted at 11/07/2002 06:39:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/06/2002 More Worldcom Corruption Get used to coincidental news stories like the following: (Really, read down to the punchline, I mean, the third headline.) SEC Expands Charges Against WorldCom, "The government on Tuesday expanded its civil fraud charges against WorldCom and the company raised its estimate of inflated earnings to more than $9 billion in one of the most stunning accounting scandals of the past year." WorldCom fraud reaches $9bn, "In a court filing in New York, the SEC said that WorldCom has admitted that it concealed $9bn in expenses, all of which was converted into false profits." Also in the news today today, WorldCom Gets Veterans Affairs Deal, "WorldCom Inc., a recent target of labor and consumer groups seeking to bar it from government work, has won a contract to provide long-distance services for the Department of Veterans Affairs" Remember when Bush came into office, and promptly changed the rules so that corporations convicted of breaking laws - including defrauding the government - could again get lucrative government contracts? Read about it here. --- Posted at 11/06/2002 09:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Blog to Check Out Thanks to a comment below I discovered a great blog to check out, Hindsight Aforethought. --- Posted at 11/06/2002 06:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Mostly Zell Today I've ranted about how the Democrats let the Republicans fight dirty, how the public doesn't get information to make informed choices, and how us bloggers need to read what we write and not be so optimistic that things will turn out. Now I'll try to write about what happened and what to do. I blame Zell, and at the same time I thank him for sticking around until now and saving the country. Daschle did what he had to do to lead the Senate. Keeping the majority in the Senate was literally saving the country. So Daschle had to make the sacrifices that had to be made to try to hold that majority, with Senator Zell Miller of Georgia ready to bolt at any time, and other Democrats running for the Senate who had voted for Bush's tax cuts. This is why the Democrats could not run against Bush's tax cuts. That's over now and I can't blame Daschle at all. Now things are different. I think now would be a good time to politely ask Zell to leave the Democratic Party and confirm the Republicans as the Party of the Confederacy. And maybe a few others should think about leaving. The Democrats are the minority party now and do not have to try to hold Zell and those others in the party just to keep the majority. Goodbye, thanks for helping save the country, but it's time to rebuild the Demcoratic Party as the party of working people. --- Posted at 11/06/2002 04:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Democrats (Written this morning, not posted until now.) The Democrats showed up at a hockey game with badminton rackets. The Republicans weren't there to play hockey, either - they brought machine guns. Here's what I'm talking about. In Georgia, (as had been done with Bush vs McCain in the South Carolina primary), the Republicans ran a draft-dodger against a war hero and won by questioning the war-hero's patriotism. (Meanwhile, in Washington, the Republicans were quietly cutting Veterans' benefits and health care.) They pulled it off by, as Joe Conason put it, fomenting an atmosphere of war to scare the shit out of the public and silence opposing voices. Was that good for the country? WHO CARES? The Republicans didn't care, and the Democrats didn't make it an issue. The Democrats don't get it. The Republican Party has been completely taken over by the far-far-right, and it is a new game. It isn't about policy. It isn't about what is good for the country. The Republican approach is, "What is it that we need to get the public to believe in order to get them to vote for us, how do we get them to believe it, and how do we keep them believing it?" Look at it this way, if focus groups showed that a certain key group of South Dakota Democrats would not vote for Tom Daschle if they learned that he had secretly received a medal from the King of Siam, there would be a story on the Drudge Report that he had received a medal from the King of Siam, and it would be repeated in the Washington Times, and Rush Limbaugh would pick it up, and soon every media outlet in the country would be talking about it. The story would have no basis in reality whatsoever – and that would not matter. Remember the story about Clinton selling Arlington National Cemetery plots? The public thinks there were "Clinton Scandals," even though every single charge was proven false! That's how it works. You don't fight this kind of accusation by saying "No, I didn’t." You can't fight this sort of thing that way. You fight it by exposing the operation so the public sees what is going on underneath the phony stories. The Democrats need to get in the game. --- Posted at 11/06/2002 03:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
It's the Information Sources, Stupid Those of us who get our information over the internet have lost sight of the current state of America. WE are informed. They are not. WE get information. We are referred to articles from British or Indonesian or Israeli papers. They get fed stuff by those same news sources that we spend our time complaining about. We are reading The Daily Howler. They're reading the blatantly biased stuff that The Daily Howler laughs at! We mustn't forget that polls show that most people believe that Iraq was behind 9/11, that Iraq has nuclear weapons, etc. The public believes that this economy is Clinton's fault. The public believes that tax cuts for the rich "create jobs" and that the "Death Tax" will cost their kids. WE know these are false, they don't. How could they know? The aren't reading Seeing the Forest. They aren't reading Eschaton. The stuff we are writing about is for real. This isn't just a bunch of people with computers fooling themselves. By and large the bloggers GET IT. The Republicans get it, too. That's why they have made such an effort to bring the sources of information under their influence. The question is what to do about it. --- Posted at 11/06/2002 07:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/05/2002 Bitter Blogger How much of what the liberal political bloggers write is about how manipulative is was to launch the Iraq war debate just before the election? How much of what we write is about how the press is totally slanted? How much of what we write is about how the timidity of the National Democrats drives people away from supporting them? How much of what we write is about how the information that the public receives is one-sided? How much of what we write is about the influence of money? How much of what we write is about the way that illogical emotional propaganda wins people over against their own interests? How much of what we write is about how the Republicans appeal to people through trickery and bribes? How much of what we write is about Republican voter suppression and intimidation in minority areas - not to mention purging voter roles? How much of what we wrote about the election was hopeful denial of the very realities we write about? Considering what we write, what did we fucking expect? --- Posted at 11/05/2002 09:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Back to Work OK I'm going back to poll watching. Might not post again today... --- Posted at 11/05/2002 04:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Poll Watching I'm taking a short break from election activities. This morning I was calling voters, using lists prepared by the Democrats. This afternoon I've been working at "poll watching." THIS is how you win elections. I am assigned to a polling place. I have a list of registered Democrats from the precincts that vote at this polling place. Every few hours the polling place posts a list of people who have voted. (Actually they post the whole list of voters, and the people who have voted are crossed out.) I take that list, and cross out anyone that has voted who is also on my list of Democrats. Then I start trying to reach the ones who have not voted. Later in the day this will likely turn into a frenzy, and if there is time I'll be calling, maybe looking for people, and offering rides to the polls. My job is to get the rest of the people to vote. I hope the Democrats are doing this everywhere, precinct by precinct. Here they are organized enough to be doing this, and we are looking for a Democratic "sweep" of every statewide office. They way it used to work is every precinct had a "captain." That person lived in the precinct, walked from door to door through the year, got to know everyone and how they would vote, talked to anyone who could be persuaded and most important rounded them all up and got them to vote on election day. We need to bring that system back. --- Posted at 11/05/2002 04:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Going Out to Help I'm leaving now, to go help with Get Out The Vote efforts. I hope I'll be at a victory party late into the night. See you tomorrow. You shouldn't be reading this because you should also be out helping. --- Posted at 11/05/2002 07:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Oil Carve-up of oil riches begins, The leader of the London-based Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, has met executives of three US oil multinationals to negotiate the carve-up of Iraq's massive oil reserves post-Saddam. Disclosure of the meetings in October in Washington - confirmed by an INC spokesman - comes as Lord Browne, the head of BP, has warned that British oil companies have been squeezed out of post-war Iraq even before the first shot has been fired in any US-led land invasion. --- Posted at 11/05/2002 07:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Left Dumbs Down Nicholas Kristoff has a column in today's NY Times, The Left Dumbs Down, in which he complains about "The Left" (it's actually a few people on the left) resorting to name-calling and conspiracy theories. And what about people who AREN'T engaging in this stuff? They're singled out for extra criticism, It's true that Democratic politicians like Tom Daschle haven't joined the conspiratorial hysteria, but that's because they're ducking controversial issues and are frightened of offending centrists. Al Gore's speech last month on the economy blasted the administration without offering a single specific suggestion of what should be done.So the people who AREN'T engaging in incivility are only not doing so because they are cowards! He says it sounds like Rush Limbaugh, that the White House team that executed Vince Foster must have struck again, and that this is a good day to reflect on this incivility. OK, I will. It worked. They won. And where were people like Kristoff in the Clinton years, when the Republicans were going nuts with conspiracies and accusations and insults and ridicule and incivility (all planned by polls, and focus group tested)? Criticizing Clinton. --- Posted at 11/05/2002 07:36:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/04/2002 Bush Untruths There's a great article titled, Bush's Life of Deception over at Consortiumnews.com. --- Posted at 11/04/2002 09:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Nasty in Espanol I've been getting this really nasty campaign e-mail, in Spanish. Anyone else getting it? I'll bet it is being masively spammed. Muy queridos familiares y amigos: Tengo urgentes noticias sobre las posiciones del partido demócrata sobre el aborto y la homosexualidad. Debido a que nuestra fe, nuestra familia y nuestros hijos son tan importantes, creo que es de vital importancia que ustedes estén en conocimiento de esto antes de que vayan a votar. el próximo Martes 5.de Noviembre. CON RESPECTO AL ABORTO Sabia usted que los demócratas en el Senado de Estados Unidos han votado vez tras vez a favor de mantener legal el aborto aun hasta el tercer trimestre de embarazo! Este cruel procedimiento implica que un bebé que esta por nacer, lo voltean para que salgan primero los pies y luego, antes de sacarle la cabecita, el medico le corta el cuello con un cuchillo punzante, le abre un hoyo al cerebro y le succiona los sesos al bebé. Todo esto lo hacen estos médicos sin anestesia. Debido a los Demócratas, esta practica de aborto, o mejor dicho, infanticidio, es legal hoy día hasta los 9 meses de embarazo! Si señores, este criminal proceso es 100% legal y el partido demócrata quiere que permanezca legal. Los Republicanos han tratado de prohibir el “aborto de nacimiento parcial”, (como se llama oficialmente), por casi 10 años y los Demócratas han parado los esfuerzos de los Republicanos.... and ... ADOPCIONES DE NINOS POR HOMOSEXUALES Como si el matrimonio entre homosexuales no fuese lo suficientemente depravado, casi todos los Demócratas apoyan la adopción de niños por homosexuales aun cuando padres de familia normales, hombre y mujer, esten listos y dispuestos para adoptar al mismo niño. Si los Demócratas continúan bloqueando las nominaciones de los nombramientos judiciales del Presidente Bush, incluyendo el caso de Miguel Estrada a la segunda Corte mas alta del país, y continúan ganando mas puestos estatales, las adopciones entre homosexuales y cuidado de niños por los sodomitas, se volverá algo generalizado y los niños sufrirán eternamente la implementación de estas medidas degeneradas.It goes on... White people can translate this at Bablefish. Just paste this URL where it says Translate a Web Page: http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/ (And remember to choose Spanish to English.) --- Posted at 11/04/2002 04:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Economic News Factory Orders Continue to Decline, "Orders to U.S. factories fell for a second straight month in September. It was another setback for manufacturing, which has seen almost 2 million jobs evaporate over the last two years and is struggling not to sink even deeper into the quicksand of economic uncertainties. " Layoffs soar 151 percent in October, "U.S. companies more than doubled their planned job cuts in October, a job placement firm said Monday." Bets are on for an interest-rate cut, "The economic recovery is idling and financial markets think the Federal Reserve is ready to goose the accelerator." October sales hint at problems ahead, "On a year-over-year basis, sales fell more than 30 percent for the Big Three. Even highly profitable Toyota (TM: news, chart, profile) saw sales fall more than 20 percent while more double-digit declines jarred the rest of the industry. Most important, the reports drive home the tenet that discounts can be very effective but do lose their impact over time." My personal favorite from last week: Consumer Gloom May Cause Recession-Report, "Nearly six in 10 Americans rated the economy as poor in October, more than during last year's recession, a separate CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll said, despite optimism for better days next year. That gloom could soon drag on a recovery being driven almost entirely by consumer spending. " TAKE TOMORROW OFF AND HELP GET OUT THE VOTE! Update - Applied Materials to cut 11% of staff, "Applied Materials will cut 11 percent of its workforce due to an ongoing slowdown in the semiconductor industry, the world's largest maker of chip equipment announced on Monday." --- Posted at 11/04/2002 01:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Economy Not Helping Democrats New story, Polls: Voters Eye Domestic Issues. Some political analysts have suggested that Democrats don't have an advantage on the economy because they haven't offered a clear alternative. Republican National Chairman Marc Racicot, also on NBC, said he isn't surprised Democrats haven't gained a clear advantage on the economy. He cited international problems like terrorism that have affected the economy, and added: "This recession started before (President Bush (news - web sites)) took office. The American people know precisely what's going on."It isn't when the slowdown started, it's what are they DOING ABOUT IT?!! And whether their policies, like tax cuts for the extremely rich, are helping or not. If the Democrats wanted to run on economic issues, they could have made a lot more noise about the minimum wage, extending unemployment benefits, JOBS PROGRAMS, and other legislation to help working families. (Remember working families? They're the ones you represent, not the ones you get our money from.) To be fair, they've tried to talk about these things outside of the Congress, and the networks and papers won't cover them. But they could have done a LOT in the Congress to bring these issues front and center, and they didn't. They should have help everything up - expecially the war vote - pending action on programs for working people. Think about where they would be now, in this election, had they chosen to represent their constituents instead of rolling over for the Republicans. --- Posted at 11/04/2002 12:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Microsoft Going back in time, I took a look at Common Cause's 2000 report The Microsoft Playbook. My personal favorite, "Just before the 1998 election, Microsoft gave $25,000 to the South Carolina Republican Party. Three weeks later, South Carolina Republican Attorney General Charles Condon pulled the state out of the anti-trust lawsuit filed against Microsoft." --- Posted at 11/04/2002 12:02:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/03/2002 Go See at Blah3 There's a great new spot over at Blah3, and it's about voting Tuesday so it's important. Go see it! Then send an e-mail to your friends about going to see it, too. AND about voting! --- Posted at 11/03/2002 05:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hackers Take Down Black Commentator From Black Commentator: "During the night of October 25, 2002 hackers destroyed approximately 6-8 servers owned by the company that provides hosting services for our Website." They also say: "We do not believe the hacker attack was directed specifically at www.BlackCommentator.com." However, "The hacker attack has delayed publication of issue 15 until Monday, November 4, 2002." The day before the election. --- Posted at 11/03/2002 01:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Absolute and Total Bushit Blame Game on Economy Seen as Pointless In fact, the blame game is a pointless one to some degree because economists say there's little the occupant of the White House Oval Office can do to directly affect the $10 trillion U.S. economy.How many times have you heard this repeated? The President can't do anything about the economy. It makes no difference. Don't vote. Don't blame Republicans when the stock market goes down, unemployment and deficits soar, wages drop, benefits go away, and the money concentrates at the top. Obviously Clinton made a difference. A huge difference. They don't want people to think about that as they head down to vote. Obviously FDR made a huge, huge difference that raised the country to a level of prosperity unimagined before he came along. And obviously Bush has made a difference - largely by inaction with a touch of take from the poor and give to the rich. Long-term unemployment. Falling from huge surpluses to massive deficits in a single year. Hell, I don't need to go on with the list, do I? --- Posted at 11/03/2002 09:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/02/2002 Get on Board? OK I'm thinking of throwing in the towel and buying 100 shares of Microsoft on Monday. What do you think? There isn't anything that's going to stop them. They've got $40 BILLION in cash so they're either going to buy up a bunch of tech companies and/or start giving a dividend. This is special - if you knew my history with Microsoft (it goes back to 1978 and none of it is good) you would be amazed that I'm writing this, but hey, if you can't beat 'em... Maybe I'll get on board and vote Republican, too. Maybe start smoking again? I'm serious. What do you think? Should I buy the stock? --- Posted at 11/02/2002 06:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Imminent National Emergency Bush is out campaigning every day now. What happened to the imminent national emergency that required the Congress to vote before the election? --- Posted at 11/02/2002 05:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Today's Paper Two articles from this morning's paper, U.S. retreating on mahogany limit - (Subhead: POSITION ON DWINDLING FORESTS CALLED BETRAYAL) The Bush administration is backing off a key global environmental initiative launched by the president's father, who proposed restricting trade in the wood from world's dwindling mahogany forests.and, U.S. ending support of world health plan - (Subhead: WHITE HOUSE, IN MOVE AGAINST ABORTION RIGHTS, REJECTS GLOBAL ACCORD) The Bush administration has intensified its battle against abortion rights worldwide by stating that it can no longer support a landmark international agreement that established reproductive health care as a means to curb population growth.Take a moment to reflect on just how stunning and horrible these two stories are, and then a moment to reflect on all the reasons these two stories are not headlines in every paper in the country, with horrified citizens running out into the streets in protest. --- Posted at 11/02/2002 03:33:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
11/01/2002 The Check Arrived Looks like Microsoft made sure their check to the RNC arrived on time. You can not purchase a computer that has Windows and another OS installed. You can not purchase a computer with a non-Microsoft word processor or spreadsheet or database program installed. The proof is in the pudding. Does the Microsoft settlement open up competition? Answer - not a single competitor has received funding since the settlement. In the time since the "settlement" almost all Microsoft's competitors in these areas have been wiped out. There will be no incentive to invest in a competing company. Companies in areas that Microsoft is thinking of entering will not receive funding. Everyone will pay more for computers and software. Windows is the most expensive single component in a computer. Microsoft Office costs more than $400 and you can't really use a computer without it. But the worst part of this is that it demonstrates that the best way to deal with America's justice system is to pay cash to the Republican Party, not to follow the law. --- Posted at 11/01/2002 01:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bubbling Stocks are bubbling along. Earlier this week stocks rose because the economic data was so bad that investors decided that the Fed will cut interest rates 1/2 point next week. Today's report, stocks are rising because the really bad economic data, though worse than expected, wasn't as bad as it could have been. "Stocks ticked higher in late morning trade on Friday as October's momentum swept into a fresh month with investors reckoning that weak jobs and manufacturing data could have been worse." The new Standard & Poors "core earnings" - earnings without lots of gimmicks and tricks - showed the S&P 500 at a P/E ratio of 57 last week. Stocks are up since then. The current non-core PE of the S&P 500 is 23.6. For perspective, the PE of the S&P in October 1929 was 21, and of the DOW was 17 - BEFORE THE CRASH. Stocks are currently priced higher than where stocks crashed from in 1929. Using "core earnings" we are higher by a factor of about 2.3 times. --- Posted at 11/01/2002 09:10:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/31/2002 2004 Everyone should go read William Burton's post titled 2004. --- Posted at 10/31/2002 08:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Well, DUH! Bush, and the whole right wing crowd, like to say that taxes "take money out of the economy." The New York Times has an article, Do Lower Taxes Mean Faster Economic Growth? But the degree of misleading information emanating from both Washington and the media about how taxes affect the economy is disturbing. As I listen to the radio, watch TV news and read a variety of newspapers, it seems that quite a few Americans, including economics writers and media hosts, think that low-tax countries unquestionably grow faster than high-tax economies. Right and left, they seem to attribute more rapid growth in America to lower taxes. What may surprise them is that there is no evidence for that. "You can make a theoretical case that high taxes impede economic growth, but it is just not supported by the evidence in the U.S. or across countries," said William Easterly, a former World Bank economist soon to join the faculty of New York University.I thought that this was a settled question decades ago. Redistribution of income from the top to the broad consuming public stimulates our CONSUMER ECONOMY. Clinton raised taxes at the top and cut taxes at the bottom and look what happened. Bush cut taxes at the top and cut services for the middle and bottom and look what happened. Well, DUH! There's more - the whole article is worth reading. --- Posted at 10/31/2002 02:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
MyDD Are they going to have Reagan die? Seeing the Wellstone effect, the Republicans might have Reagan die this weekend. Check out this at MyDD. --- Posted at 10/31/2002 08:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Didn't Take Long The Bush people appointed William Webster to head the accounting oversight board, when was it, Friday? This was after corporate types got Bush to kill the appointment of a serious investigator who would clean up the corporate mess. So take a look at this story, SEC to Investigate Watchdog Pick. It seems that SEC Chair Harvey Pitt concealed from the SEC that his choice to head the accounting oversight board had headed an auditing committee of a company facing fraud charges. These clowns think they can get away with anything. Can they? --- Posted at 10/31/2002 08:10:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/30/2002 FAIR Tom Tomorrow points to Fair's page, "Why U.N. inspectors left Iraq--then and now." It has examples of what various news organizations said back when the inspectors were pulled out, and say now to better fit Bush's lie that they were kicked out. Well worth a look. Here's one example: The U.N. orders its weapons inspectors to leave Iraq after the chief inspector reports Baghdad is not fully cooperating with them. -- Sheila MacVicar, ABC World News This Morning, 12/16/98 To bolster its claim, Iraq let reporters see one laboratory U.N. inspectors once visited before they were kicked out four years ago. --John McWethy, ABC World News Tonight, 8/12/02Soon Winston Smith will be changing old videotapes to reflect today's line. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 03:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sideshow, About Iraq First I was pretty upset about Paul Wellstone's death. Then I was too busy to write much. Still am. So go read what Sideshow writes about Iraq. My comment, and my entry on the subject, is, "Yeah, what she said." Well, more, actually. Sideshow writes, "Having already proceeded on a course to create a diplomatic nightmare prior to 9/11..." I've been meaning to say a few words about this. I think US policy leading up to 9/11 deserves more attention. I remember how Bush was swinging US Middle Eastern policy entirely away from the previous (and necessary) role of semi-neutral mediator. After Bush made statements entirely blaming Arafat and the Palestinians for the conflict, I remember saying to my wife that it seemed as though Bush was intentionally trying to start a war. This should be part of any investigation of events leading up to 9/11. Fat chance. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 02:49:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Got a Letter Today I got a letter today: This new Bush/Harken insider trading revelation has really got me steamed: Board was told of risks before Bush stock sale Harken memo went to SEC after probe By Michael Kranish and Beth Healy, Globe Staff, 10/30/2002 WASHINGTON - One week before George W. Bush's now-famous sale of stock in Harken Energy Corp. in 1990, Harken was warned by its lawyers that Bush and other members of the troubled oil company's board faced possible insider trading risks if they unloaded their shares. These fucking pukes. Bush had the audacity to lie to the American people and suggest that matter had been looked into and he had been cleared. But now we learn that not only was he warned by Harken's legal team, they hid the warning form the SEC when it investigated HIM for insider trading. Seems to me that means they or Bush are guilty of Obstruction of Justice, in addition to insider trading. I gotta go for a walk and calm down. The hypocrisy is of these people is so damn maddening.So I asked him if I can post the message, and he writes: You can print it and use my name. I want the whole damn country to know what liars, swindlers and cheats these people are. The GOP Thugs spent $70,000,000 destroying Clinton over lying about sex under oath and alleged crimes as involving the Whitewater affair. Bush's Harken dealings are text book insider trading dealings, and Harken Energy's off the balance sheet manipulations and phony profit reporting behavior/dealings pre-dated ENRON yet could have been used by ENRON as a how to guide.But I didn't post his name. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 12:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Wellstone I'm late getting this posted. The Hamster has suggested that a fitting tribute to Senator Wellstone would be to read Wellstone's 2001 book, "Conscience of a Liberal." I agree. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 10:02:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Radio Day Relating directly to the previous entry, President Bush is planning an election-related "Radio Day" today, with radio talk show hosts setting up on the White House lawn. The tent will be open from 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for about 50 radio hosts and reporters to broadcast live to millions of listeners. Syndicated conservative hosts Oliver North and Sean Hannity will be there. ... Guests for eight- to 10-minute interviews will include Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General John Ashcroft, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Even White House staffers who rarely do interviews will make the rounds, including chief of staff Andy Card, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and senior adviser Karl Rove.All on paid government time, by the way. And what's this with allowing Ollie North back at the White House? Just how blatant can the election manipulation get, before the public reacts? No, wait a minute, if you listen to AM radio, or watch TV, or read local newspapers, you aren't going to get a chance to hear anyone suggest that there's anything improper about this -- or about the timing of the Iraq war vote. You're only going to hear about why you should vote Republican, and about how stupid "liberals" are, and about how markets are the best way to decide policy, and about how raising wages costs jobs, and about how estate taxes are "death taxes" rather than taxes on inherited income, etc. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 08:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Free Airtime Republicans are complaining that Sen. Paul Wellstone's memorial service was broadcast on TV in Minnesota. They say it was giving "free airtime" to Democrats. I guess we'll be hearing that complaint all day, nonstop, from now until the election on AM radio, and on the Fox News Network, and the Sunday talk shows, with no opposing voices whatsoever. We will if that's what the focus groups say works best for The Party. --- Posted at 10/30/2002 07:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/29/2002 War and Election I think the Republicans are planning to try to force the UN to vote just before the election, bringing it back into the spotlight. This will be a test to see how blatantly they can try to manipulate the public and get away with it. --- Posted at 10/29/2002 03:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/28/2002 Didn't get it. A few people didn't get what I was saying. It was like they were saying, "The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat." OK? I guess I was being obscure. --- Posted at 10/28/2002 10:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Only Good Indian Over the weekend and continuing today I heard a lot of right-wing pundits talk about how Senator Paul Wellstone was such a great liberal, a man who stood on his principles, who stood for something, who was honest, how much they respected him, etc., not like those other Democrats who run with the polls, only do what they need to do to get elected, etc. Listening to them, it would seem that Paul Wellstone was the only Good Democrat. --- Posted at 10/28/2002 01:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/26/2002 Body and Soul Check out Body and Soul. --- Posted at 10/26/2002 04:38:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Just Around the Corner Barron's poll: Hopes for recovery Prosperity is just around the corner. --- Posted at 10/26/2002 04:22:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/25/2002 Yeah, I'll Just Bet Bush, "I would like to express my deep condolences for the loss of the Senate," Bush said shortly after hearing of Wellstone's death Friday. "And also, I would like to express my condolences to the bereaved family." Yeah, right. If grief for Wellstone is what's on your mind here, how come you said "loss of the Senate?" Update:Bush might not have said it. --- Posted at 10/25/2002 02:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
1968 This year is starting to remind me of 1968. A lot has happened. I feel like I felt after Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed. --- Posted at 10/25/2002 12:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/24/2002 Blog Recommendation I want to recommend a blog called Thinking It Through. Seems to agree with me on many issues: must be brilliant. He does some good in-depth writing. Read his column, Does the NRA Mistrust Democracy? And today's entry, THE TALENT-CARNAHAN RACE AND POLITICS IN MISSOURI --- Posted at 10/24/2002 04:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
MoveOn's New Website MoveOn.org has a new website! --- Posted at 10/24/2002 03:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More No Law Thanks to Tapped, here's a press release from the Dept. of Education, announcing a $600,000 government grant for a PR campaign to help The Party gain votes from black people. A previous entry about Bush's education legislation. --- Posted at 10/24/2002 11:18:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Go Read William Burton is writing some good stuff. --- Posted at 10/24/2002 09:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
No Law Anymore Today's Washington Post, Bush Enlists Government in GOP Campaign. Most of it, of course, illegal. Blatantly illegal. Not only that, but much of it is being paid for by the government, not The Party. The 24/7 use of AM radio as a full-time Republicans Party advertisement is, of course, illegal as well. But who is going to enforce these laws, the Bush Justice Department? HA! Update - Imagine the uproar if Clinton were doing any of this. --- Posted at 10/24/2002 08:41:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/23/2002 Voter Fraud I've said a few times that I see the Republicans often using a sophisticated trick, where they accuse their opponents of doing something that they are actually doing themselves. It's called "inoculation." It masks their own activities, and makes the opponent look silly if they come back with an accusation of the Republicans doing the same thing they're accusing the opponent of. Like Bush accusing Gore of being willing to say or do anything to win, or Bush accusing Gore of being a liar. They've become such smokescreen specialists, because they're usually trying to do things that they know the voters don't want. So sometimes to understand what the Republicans are up to you need to listen to what they're accusing the Democrats of being up to. (I said it's sophisticated, but maybe I meant it takes a lot of words to explain it.) The Republicans have been making lots of accusations of voter fraud, and it's building up. Right now Drudge has no fewer than 5 voter fraud stories posted. Meanwhile, in Dallas the voting machines are acting funny. (Eschaton again.) Remember, these are machines that do not generate paper which can be checked against the totals! These are voting machines from one of the companies in the story I wrote about a ways back, about how right-wingers are quietly buying up all the voting machine companies. --- Posted at 10/23/2002 07:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More on Here It Comes TBOGG has a story about Americans for Job Security, which I wrote about earlier. --- Posted at 10/23/2002 03:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Blogger Not Publishing I don't know when you-all are reading this. Blogger is not publishing posts today. (Maybe it's the same thing that happened to Eschaton.) I suppose at some point it will publish all the posts I've written and can see here - and then you'll read this and understand what's going on. But until then, you're not even seeing this. --- Posted at 10/23/2002 02:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Long List of Bush Lies PLA published a long list and discussion of Bush lies here. (Thanks Eschaton.) --- Posted at 10/23/2002 02:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Mighty Wurlitzer Have I pointed to this article, The Mighty Wurlitzer, before? Robert Borosage describes how the right-wingers are able to accomplish so much. --- Posted at 10/23/2002 01:06:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Here It Comes Most of the public doesn't realize that this is a crucial election. The Republicans do. So far they've taken advantage of the terrorist attack to push their agenda (examples - phony Dept. of Fatherland Security to get rid of public employee unions and employee protections, phony Terrorism Insurance bill to get rid of corporate liability laws...), terrified the public with phony terrorist alerts just as the President or Vice President are implicated in corporate scandals, and most recently blatantly timed a war scare to manipulate the campaign. What's next? Here's a sign that things are starting: Mysterious group spends $1 million on anti-Wellstone campaign --- Posted at 10/23/2002 09:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
FBI Whistle Blower Being Fired Not THAT whistle-blower - yet. MN Star Tribune: Minneapolis whistle-blower may face dismissal from FBI --- Posted at 10/23/2002 09:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/22/2002 Suckers Bush Declares U.S. Is Using Diplomacy to Disarm Hussein, "if the Iraqi leader complied with every United Nations mandate it would "signal the regime has changed." The Iraq scare is over. It has served its purpose: the election. I look at the opinion columns in the NY Times, and see, "The Price of Stability By MICHAEL O'HANLON Until we face up to the possibility that a multiyear occupation will be needed, we have not yet accepted what war to overthrow Saddam Hussein could entail." I think, "What's this guy writing about IRAQ for? Occupation? Doesn't he GET it? That's OVER. That's so last week. Suckers. --- Posted at 10/22/2002 07:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/21/2002 Pensions, Again I've been writing about the corporate pension fund problem. Today: Alcoa pension liability to jump $700 mln-$1 bln. Wow! And check this, "Pittsburgh-based Alcoa is also lowering its expected rate of return on its pension assets from 9.5 percent, but did not provide a new figure. Uncertainty over future stock market returns is leading many companies to reduce their fund expectations from recent high levels." That means that they've been reporting an expectation of a 9.5% return. Yeah, right. "Alcoa's comments are the latest in a string of corporate warnings over the health of their pension plans, as company after company discloses huge funding shortfalls. To make up for this funding gap, executives are being forced to divert billions of dollars to pension plans in moves that will lower earnings, limit spending and choke expansion plans. Pension fund troubles also raise the specter of debt downgrades, which will put additional pressure on profits by raising borrowing costs. 3M Co. (NYSE:MMM - News), the diversified manufacturer whose products range from Post-It notes and Scotch tape to industrial adhesives, said on Monday it would take a $1 billion charge in the fourth quarter against shareholder equity -- essentially a measure of its net worth -- because of a funding shortfall in its pension plan. Also on Monday, United States Steel Corp. (NYSE:X - News), the largest domestic steelmaker, said it may have to take a $750 million charge against equity later this year to account for possible shortfalls in its union employee pension plan. A recent study by Credit Suisse First Boston estimates that of the 360 companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index that have pension plans, 325 will have shortfalls by year end. Only 33 will be overfunded. The airline and automobile industries are the hardest hit. "This is a big one, folks. Pay attention. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 04:45:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Estate Tax Just want to get this out there. The Republicans came up with the cute name, "Death Tax," for the Estate Tax. This probably took a few focus groups and polls to come up with. The Estate Tax is paid on the transfer of assets when a zillionaire dies. It is AN INCOME TAX on the income received by heirs of someone who is really, really rich. The Republicans cast it as a tax that causes farms and small businesses to be sold to pay the tax, but this is yet another lie. From NYTimes, Focus on Farms Masks Estate Tax Confusion, While 17 percent of Americans in a recent Gallup survey think they will owe estate taxes, in fact only the richest 2 percent of Americans do. That amounted to 49,870 Americans in 1999. And nearly half the estate tax is paid by the 3,000 or so people who each year leave taxable estates of more than $5 million.Let's be clear on this. You and I pay income taxes on OUR income, but Bush and the Republicans repealed the Estate Tax and now rich kids won't have to pay taxes on THEIR (inherited) incomes. People are not as upset about this as they should be, probably because of the cute name the Republicans were able to apply to the debate. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 03:17:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Correction Earlier I wrote that Enron was paying for the anti-Davis ads. Articles I found point to Reliant Energy more than Enron. The problem is that the group placing the ads, American Taxpayer Alliance, has been allowed to conceal their donors. From Organized Labor: (scroll down to "Hard Hat Rally") The American Taxpayer Alliance is paying for the ads with money from energy companies like Reliant, and money raised by Enron lobbyists. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Reliant Energy of Houston, the largest independent generator of electricity, reported earnings in the first quarter of 2001 that were double those for the first quarter of the previous year, (4/17/01). Two of the directors of Reliant Energy, James Baker and Steve Letbetter have strong ties to the Bush White House. Looking at the Enron Corporation of Houston, we find that revenue increased by 500% over the three-year period from 1997 to 2000, from $20.3 billion to $100.8 billion. Even more interesting, Enron CEO, Kenneth Lay, energy advisor to the Bush administration, made $27.2 million through insider trading of Enron stock in the 12-month period ending April 2001. Not bad for a years work, and this is only his bonus money.From the Davis Campaign: DAVIS WINS INJUNCTION AGAINST AMERICAN TAXPAYERS ALLIANCE California Superior Court Judge David Garcia granted an injunction requested by the Governor Gray Davis Committee requiring the American Taxpayers Alliance, which had been airing anti-Davis television commercials, to abide by the State’s Political Reform Act by registering as a political committee with the Secretary of State and filing a list of its contributors. “California law – and basic fairness – demand that organizations making campaign attacks identify themselves so the voters can evaluate the message against those who are funding it,” said Joseph Remcho, the attorney representing the Governor’s political committee. “It is gratifying that Judge Garcia agreed such groups must tell California voters who their donors are. They can say whatever they want, but they have to play by California’s rules.” Based in Washington, D.C., the American Taxpayers Alliance is a tax-exempt entity headed by former Republican National Committee executive director Scott Reed. The group adamantly has refused to reveal who paid for the media campaign, although Time magazine reported in June that Reliant Energy Inc., one of the Houston-based energy suppliers Davis has accused of gouging consumers, is one of its major contributors. A July analysis by the D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics also said the group’s prime donors were from the oil and gas industry.Democratic Underground: American Taxpayers Alliance - NEW! Weeks on chart: 1 - The American Taxpayers Alliance started running a TV ad in California last week attacking Governor Gray Davis for failing to protect the public from rising energy costs. The campaign-style ad doesn't promote a rival candidate, but features fuzzy, unflattering close-ups of Davis while assailing his record. So who are the American Taxpayers Alliance? Surely they're a group of concerned citizens who are worried about spiraling energy prices in California, right? Um, wrong. The "American Taxpayers Alliance" is actually a front group for hundreds of corporations, including Texas-based Reliant Energy. Reliant Energy are proud to list James "rent-a-hatchet" Baker and Bush fundraiser Steve Ledbetter on their board of directors. So, Californians - energy companies are selling electricity to you at vastly over-inflated prices, then spending the profits on TV ads attacking your governor for failing to stop them. How do you feel?And the whole story at CorpWatch. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 02:10:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Best I've Ever Seen Last year the "energy crisis" hit California. Big coincidence, the country had just "elected" two corrupt oil-industry men to "lead" the country and suddenly energy prices shot through the roof. (Remember the gas crisis in the Chicago area that ended immediately as soon as the Senate announced they would investigate?) In California we had "rolling blackouts" and a huge surge in electricity, natural gas and gasoline prices. The Bush FERC, of course, refused to intervene. The Governor had to start purchasing energy on the spot market to try to stop the blackouts. Then nasty TV ads started appearing, blaming Governor Davis. Davis had been a sort-of invisible Governor until then. No one really knew what to think of him. He was "undefined." Those ads stuck, like nothing I've ever seen before. They completely defined Davis, his poll numbers fell through the floor, even good Democrats I knew were blaming Davis for "bungling the energy crisis." He has not recovered from those ads. Those ads were the best I've ever seen. They took that guy and defined him and the public STILL blames him for the energy crisis. When you ask people why they don't like Davis, they'll tell you it is because he bungled the energy crisis, they're not sure about the details. It was later that other ads tagged him with accepting too many campaign contributions. (Imagine, a Democrat being tagged with that, in the Bush era! Shows the power of propaganda, doesn't it?) Turns out that Enron was paying for those ads, while Enron and a few other energy companies were manipulating the energy supply and raking in a huge bundle. (How much of that cash was funneled to The Party?) And now that is part of the public record. Doesn't matter, though. The public blames Davis. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 06:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Read Everything I've been meaning to say that everything over at The Sideshow lately has been a great read. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 06:45:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Dick and George Take Over the World Over at Counterspin Central they've posted a GREAT cartoon. --- Posted at 10/21/2002 06:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/20/2002 What He Wrote I was asked to post the message I received from a reader that led to this entry. Here it is: Recently I've discovered the world of Blogs and yours is one of my daily reads. I've been running around the idea of a journal on our website (I used to always keep a journal when I traveled after high school) but obviously the blog is the way to go. Anyway, I got an email link from a friend in NY (worked across the street from the WTC, all his buddies worked at Cantor-Fitzgerald) that was obviously written by what you call a chickenwarblogger. I whipped out a response (I had a tee time approaching) and sent it without much thought. I think it really got to him. He wants me to be running for office now [laughable]. When I reread today what I had written yesterday morning I couldn't believe I had written it. Reading blogs like yours has definitly sharpened my knife. I'm still a ways off from starting my own blog (gotta blow a lot of glass for the coming holiday season) but I wanted to pass on what you helped inspire. (Feel free to use any of it) [my friend] > I liked what this guy had to say [link any typical chickenwarblogger rant], just wanted your take on it. [my response] I feel like a mosquito at a nudist camp, I don't even know where to begin. I'll try and avoid going into it point by excruciating point and instead give my general reaction. First, the fact that the writer continues to frame this as a "Lefty" issue ignores the reality that a lot of conservatives have serious misgivings about staging this war and instead it comes across as little more than a heavy handed diatribe against the left. I refer you to a recent speech by General Zinni http://www.mideasti.org/html/zinnispeech.htm . I don't think anyone, including the writer, could mistake this person for a Lefty. For my own part, though I come across as left-center to most, if not all, of my right-center friends, I have in reality voted for more GOP candidates than DFL in my lifetime and still morn the loss McCain suffered in SC. If you could remove all the republicans with a gun in one hand and a bible in the other I would be comfortable back in the 'Big Tent". If it helps, I was just making the case for going to war with Iraq to someone yesterday (I really can play both sides of the isle). My rational was that because the US in essence created Saddam in the first place we owed it to the world to go in and clean up after ourselves, followed by a big apology and a promise to stop installing brutal regimes just because they suit some short term geopolitical purpose. They always seem to end up embarrassing us or somehow coming back to bit us on the butt. I believe in democracy but too often it seems that our government is more concerned with spreading capitalism than democracy, confusing the two and pissing off a lot of people who get left out. I've never heard a lefty advocate assassinating Saddam, but I did hear Ari go there (is Ari a closet lefty?). For more reasons than I care to delve into, comparing Saddam to Hitler is a gross disservice to history. For one thing, Hitler never asked our position on attacking Poland whereas Saddam checked with our envoy as to the position of the US regarding Kuwait. The day after we responded that we had no official position on middle east boarders Saddam attacked. I have a whole group of in-laws that survived Nazi Germany (concentration camps and all) and I see firsthand how that effects the next two, three generations. Nobody who has any idea what really happened during WWII would seriously put forth such an insulting comparison. That the world joined forces and repelled Saddam out of Kuwait shortly after his invasion shows that we have indeed learned the lesson that ignoring the takeover of Poland taught us. Likewise, the example of postwar Japan to Iraq is another put forward by people ignorant of history. Again, for more reasons than I care to delve into, Tommy Franks is no MacArthur, and the Iraqis of today are nothing like the Japanese of the 1930s - 1950s. We're talking about a battle between Judeo/Christian-fascism (Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter anyone?) and Islamo-fascism that's been going on for over 1500 years. To think that by simply going in and installing a pro-western government we can make everything better (as in Panama, Grenada? Please) displays ignorance of recent history. We tried that in Iran in the 50's when their newly elected - democratically elected I might add - government wanted to nationalize their oil industry. The US helped stage an overthrow and installed the Shaw of Iran. This radicalized their religious leaders which lead directly to their takeover in the 70's, which in turn lead to our creation of Saddam (and now we've gone full circle). Now anti-Americanism is again fueling insurgencies in simi-stable regimes otherwise friendly to the US (see Pakistan, see Brazil). If dropping bombs doesn't create terrorists, why is it that the US (and immediate allies) are the only countries to suffer terrorists? There are a lot of flourishing democracies around the world who don't worry about terrorists. Near the beginning of this I said that I was making a case for war with Iraq yesterday. My other reason for going to war was that too many people have obviously forgotten what war is really like. In some religions it's said that you have to be 'reborn' to be saved. Well, if we're really going to ever have true world peace we'll have to have that final big battle. Hawks are quick to point out that if the pacifists are wrong the worst case outcome is a nuke in NY or Washington. I’d like to point out that if we go to war and the Hawks are wrong, the worst case outcome is Armageddon. How many US lives are you willing to forfeit? How many foreign lives? How many is too many? If this really was a viable route to peace we wouldn’t still be trying this same approach for the last 2-3,000 years. But what the hell, let’s give it another try. It’s not like it’s you or me or our children that will have to give their lives in this battle.Oh yeah, and the Subject line of his message was, "If I had a blog." --- Posted at 10/20/2002 11:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/19/2002 What the Republicans Think They Can Get Away With Zizka posted a comment to my Iraq Again posting earlier, "God, those people in Georgia must be dumshits if the Republicans think they can get away with this." Well, I had JUST finished looking at Eschaton when I saw his comment. Eschaton has posted two different entries about Republicans lying, and just lying, and no one calling them on it. One was pointing to today's Daily Howler. It's about the long history of the Republican National Committee sending lies around, and no one calling them on it. Flat out lies, that everyone knows are lies at this point. The second referenced a Crossfire transcript about Republicans lying - JUST LYING - about where the term "privatization" originated. So to respond to Zizka, the Republicans don't THINK they can get away with this stuff, they KNOW they can get away with this stuff! They just lie, they send out "talking points" full of lies, they post lies on their website, they publicly change their story sometimes in the middle of sentences, and THEY JUST GET AWAY WITH IT. It's all there for anyone to see. Anyone with half a brain knows they just lie. Listen to Rush Limbaugh for ten minutes and you will hear a ten-minute-long series of lies. AND IT WORKS! That's why they do it! They lie ENOUGH and some of it sticks, and people start to believe it. People still believe that Clinton got a $200 haircut while his plane held up traffic on the LAX runway. How many of you remember when Clinton was acused of selling an Arlington National Cemetery plot to a campaign contributor? It was just a lie and within a few days the press stopped reporting it, so the Republicans just moved on with the next lie. Go to Google and see if that lie is still in circulation. (And read some of the slime-pages this search brings up.) When one lie fades from the headlines, they start up another lie. It works. Oh, man, this is getting to me. I'm using ALL CAPS in the middle of what I'm saying. The last post I used BOLD ALL CAPS. I think I'll go take a pill. --- Posted at 10/19/2002 05:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bush the Uniter Republican House Speaker Hastert, reflecting the improved "tone" in Washington after two years of Bush the Uniter, who promised to change the tone in Washington, "When partisanship becomes so rigid it makes deal making impossible, the result is a breakdown in the system, and that breakdown is widely seen as simple incompetence" said the statement by Hastert's office. More changed tone from the Uniting Republicans, same article, "House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, asked as the House adjourned this week why al-Qaida can organize itself after a U.S.-led assault "and the Senate cannot organize itself." His answer: "Al-Qaida doesn't have a Senator Daschle who has another focus." Ads with bin Laden's face morphing into Democratic candidates. Timing the Iraq campaign for the election. Ready-to-go with ads with Democratic walking with Saddam Hussein. Gotta hand it to those Republicans, they know how to win elections, saying they'll "change the tone" and saying they are "uniters not dividers." WATCH WHAT THEY DO, NOT WHAT THEY SAY. --- Posted at 10/19/2002 02:53:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Iraq Again I wrote this in a reply to an e-mail from a reader today: Man, if you get me started about Iraq... point-by-point it just doesn't add up, and then we get this Korea nuke situation, where so many of the Bush people's points DO apply, and you find out that they sat on the news for 12 days because it would interfere with their Iraq-war-vote strategy... So for Korea we will have diplomacy but for Iraq we will have war. I think that the plan from the beginning was to frame this as "liberals" and Democrats against patriotic Republicans. I think this was the plan even before they came up with specifics of which country would get the war beat! It was about the election, not about Iraq. I'll bet that they took polls and found out that x% more people would hate Iraq than would hate Korea, so they decided to use Iraq for the election. It's a "wedge issue" they can use to divide people into camps, with the plan being that their camp gets the most people. Republicans have one issue right now - military - so they needed to create an election around the only issue that works for them. Here's my case - Max Cleland. You can't get much more of war hero material than Max Cleland. (Maybe John McCain.) So here we are with Cleland voting with the President on every single vote. But the Republicans are running ads against him with a picture of bin Laden morphing onto Cleland anyway. (And they're running a draft dodger against him.) So it wasn't about Iraq or supporting the President at all. It was about getting the public stirred up so they could run ads like that against Democrats. Here's a war hero supporter of the President and he gets ads comparing him to bin Laden. --- Posted at 10/19/2002 02:42:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Suckers Washington Post: N. Korea Issue Irks Congress - Key Democrats Kept in Dark On Admission Before Iraq Vote The White House withheld North Korea's admission about a nuclear weapons program from key Democrats until after Congress had passed its resolution authorizing war with Iraq, prompting complaints on Capitol Hill that the administration has let politics influence its conduct of foreign affairs.Suckered again. Never gonna learn. --- Posted at 10/19/2002 02:39:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/18/2002 Send West Wing to BartCop Someone needs to send this week's West Wing to BartCop. Scroll down below where Dorothy's shoes are clicking heels (until I can figure out how to link to a particular item.) --- Posted at 10/18/2002 02:29:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Blah, Blah, Blah, Yada, Yada A good piece over at Blah3, scroll to "The MBA who wasn't" (until I can figure out how to link to a particular item.) Remember when the wingnuts were telling us that the corporate scandals were all Clinton's fault because of the moral tone he set during the 90's? (Never mind the tone set by Bush regarding corporate responsibility, when he took office.) I know, I know, I'm always saying don't pay attention to the specific nonsense the wingnuts spew, those are trees, see the forest, etc., yada, yada. BUT ANYWAY go see this one. --- Posted at 10/18/2002 02:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Talkleft does Altercation Take a look. --- Posted at 10/18/2002 01:54:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
It's the Radio, Stupid! Reading this story in USA Today, about how the economy isn't getting traction as an issue, and listening to the radio in the car while I ate a sandwich today, I'm thinking about how the public's political information process has changed. The Republicans have greatly increased their control over the information that the public receives. I drove across the country in 2001, and once you get away from the coasts, news is ENTIRELY a Republican media operation. Every town is right-wing radio, right-wing newspapers, FOX in the motel rooms, etc. There are very few other sources of information. Coming back from my lunch I'm thinking about how AM radio has been completely taken over by the Republican Party and is being used used as a 24/7 running Republican Party political advertisement. Today's Hannity show, while I was listening, was a blatant full-scale Republican Party ad, asking people to donate, to volunteer to work on Republican campaigns, etc. AS WELL as spewing out the right-wing lies, like that Democrats are blocking the Fatherland Security Bill so you have to vote for Republicans if you want the country protected. (Facts - The Democrats PROPOSED the agency, and the Republicans are filibustering it.) This use of the AM band is illegal, and it shows where The Party wants to take the country. The Democrats should grow spines and demand that the these stations be fined for making in-kind donations to The Party, and that they put some opposing voices on the airwave. --- Posted at 10/18/2002 01:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Career Change I have recently changed careers. I have taken a position at a public policy institute, and will be writing more about this soon. Until June I was VP Marketing at a tech company competing with Microsoft in an age when big companies can purchase their way out of legal verdicts. I wrote one of my personal favorites, The Retirement Plan of the Unemployed Man in the period of unemployment following the demise of my employer. 2.5 years ago Microsoft was convicted of violating antitrust laws but bought a deal with the Bush administration that effectively set aside the verdict. Yesterday Microsoft reported profits more than doubling, based on a new licensing scheme forcing business users to pay even more for their software. "Results for the first quarter were exceptionally strong, exceeding our expectations," John Connors, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said in a statement. "During the quarter, we saw broader customer adoption of our licensing programs than we anticipated, as customers recognized the value of entering into long-term licensing agreements for our products."The "value" is that there isn't any alternative. After fighting Microsoft, battling right wingers won't be so bad. At least there are alternatives. --- Posted at 10/18/2002 09:38:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Talk, Talk, Talk Bush says, "Now, listen, the foundation for growth is strong, interest rates are low, inflation is low ... productivity is high in America," he said. "But so long as somebody's looking for work can't find work, I think we have a problem." How come no one is asking him what is he DOING about it??!! Look at what they DO, not what they SAY! And, by the way, interest rates are low BECAUSE the economy sucks. It is NOT a sign that the economy is doing well. DUH! And someone should tell him that economists are worried about deflation. Inflation being this low is an ominous sign, not something to brag about right now. --- Posted at 10/18/2002 09:24:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/17/2002 Agrees With Me, Must Be Brilliant! Mary McGory in today's Washington Post, on the subject I wrote about earlier today. Are Democrats making a major effort to reduce voter turnout in the coming election? Or are they just trying to fight free of the trap they diligently fashioned for themselves on the subject of war with Iraq? By their conduct on the issue in the recent congressional debate, they seemed eager to show there was no difference between them and the Republicans -- a strategy that guarantees voters will ask themselves, when it comes to digging out on a cold November morning, "Why bother?" --- Posted at 10/17/2002 11:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reward the Heroes, Still Not in the News MoveOn.org is up to $1,250,000 in three days. This is just phenomenal! It's worth putting their whole letter up: Dear MoveOn member, Amazing. You blew away all our goals with an incredible $1,250,000 raised in three days, from more than 30,000 individual donations. You've really made a difference for these candidates, and you've sent an important message to politicians and pundits. We raised more than $560,000 for Senator Wellstone, and the campaign's ecstatic. But believe it or not, it's not all about money. The Wellstone campaign believes that in the end the decisive factor will be people on the ground. Today's recommended action is to get out and help. Here's a note from the Wellstone campaign: "When you ask people to help at the end of the campaign, you should mention that our goal is to have 10,000 volunteers who spend all day on Election Day in a get out the vote effort. These people will be making phone calls, knocking on doors, driving people to the polls, and dropping iterature, all over the state. This race has been a dead heat in the polls from the very beginning, and will remain so until the end. Our grass roots army will be the decisive factor in Paul's victory." (if you can help in Minnesota, see the campaign contact info below) Volunteer for a campaign. Now. Why? Reason #19 -- We can't let money in politics win. We need each of you to be part of the political process and wrest it back from big money and professional politicians. Many folks have given up, and that's exactly why big money has taken over. Believe me, there's a real vacuum of power in the political parties, because they now turn around and find that the meeting halls are empty, that real people have deserted them. With campaign finance reform, they'll have to find another way. Now is the time to take the parties back for real people. Ideally you will help with a local swing race, where the impact of your efforts will be magnified a thousand times. We've included a list of tight congressional races and other volunteering resources below. But even if you can't find a local swing race, get out and work. Work for a great candidate running for dog catcher, if that's the best race in town. Call or email their campaign today. Take back your party. Let us know how you intend to volunteer this election. We'd really like to know how people are making a difference. Go to: (Oops, had my personal info in it...) Try here: http://www.moveonpac.org/moveonpac/index.phtml Thanks for everything. The countdown continues, -Wes, Eli, Joan, Peter, Doug and Carrie for MoveOn.org PAC October 16, 2002 --- Posted at 10/17/2002 10:49:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Punishing Who? I'm starting to hear people saying that they are so mad at the Democrats for voting for war with Iraq that they'll sit out this election. This is sort of a Naderist view, and I can almost sympathize with it. There really wasn't a difference between the Republicans and many Democrats when it came down to the vote on whether to go to war. And what could be more important than that? The problem is that sitting out the election might punish the Democrats, but it is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If the Democrats lose the Senate it's US who are really punished. Look at the terrible things Bush has done so far and imagine what will happen if there is nothing in place to hold him back. But why do the Democrats have to make it so difficult to support them? --- Posted at 10/17/2002 10:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/16/2002 Reward the Heroes, Day 2 Yesterday I wrote about MoveOn.org's 'Reward the Heroes' campaign. This update just came in and it speaks for itself: Our fundraising effort for heroes in Congress has been wildly successful, with almost $900,000 raised in under 48 hours from more than 25,000 individual donations. You folks are amazing. Let's make it a cool million. Just go to http://www.moveonpac.org/moveonpac/viewcandidates.phtmlI did. I hope you will, too. --- Posted at 10/16/2002 12:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Make Your Own Bush Speech Make your own Bush speech here. --- Posted at 10/16/2002 10:43:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/15/2002 William Burton William Burton is writing great stuff lately. Go take a look. --- Posted at 10/15/2002 09:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Reward the Heroes If you don't know about MoveOn.org, I recommend you go take a look and sign up for their action updates. They sent a message out yesterday, "Reward the Heroes," asking us to donate some campaign cash to the candidates in tight races who went ahead and voted against Bush because it was the right thing to do. Here's a bit of yesterday's letter: "As strategists look back at this election over the years to come, either they'll say, "President Bush manufactured a war and won at the polls" or they'll say, "President Bush manufactured a war and lost at the polls." Your gift today can make the difference."Well, today they sent another message out. Here's a piece of it: Good news: in just 24 hours, ten thousand of us have given more than $400,000 for our four heroes in Congress. That's $180,000 to Senator Wellstone's campaign alone. The campaigns are ecstatic. One campaign manager said, "You have no idea what this means to us."These candidates did the right thing, MoveOn.org did the right thing, now you do the right thing. Get your credit card out and click here. --- Posted at 10/15/2002 07:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What the Right is Saying about Carter I subscribe to the far-right Heritage Foundation's TownHall, and they send me a list of right-wing articles every day. Today brings, The Nobel Prize Should Go To Those Who Really Support Peace. Here's some quotes: Jimmy Carter has "continuously betrayed the principles on which peace depend." He espouses "collectivist ideals", "supported the dictator Castro", "understands nothing of rights and peace." "In choosing Carter the Nobel Committee has shown yet again that it does not understand the cause of war and so of peace." "Shamefully, the Nobel Committee has repeatedly awarded its Peace Prize to the bringers of war." Such pleasant people, those right-wingers. Always ready to speak well of others. --- Posted at 10/15/2002 10:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Using War Here's a story about the Republicans using "the war" against them in this election? In television ads and campaign speeches, Republican candidates have become increasingly bold about using war with Iraq and the threat of terrorism as issues against their Democratic opponents -- even when there is little or no difference between the candidates on issues such as the recent congressional vote to give President Bush the authority to invade Iraq.Were these Democrats thinking that voting with the President would make a difference in the Republicans using "the war" for politics? "The war" IS politics. (I put quotes around "the war" because I'm not sure that jet planes chasing a bunch of guys on horseback around the desert - and not catching them - merits calling Bush the great "wartime President" they make him out to be.) Maybe I'm old, maybe I'm not ready for the new millennium where it's OK to politicize these things, and to send kids off to die so you can win an election and vote to get rid of programs for regular people to open the way for ever lower taxes for the rich. And maybe it isn't OK. The Democrats aren't doing this sort of thing. They aren't running ads that say, "While Bush was on another vacation, and Republicans were busy helping CEOs steal your 401K, the Democrats were trying to warn them to pay attention to the terrorist threat." --- Posted at 10/15/2002 09:13:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
10/14/2002 Really Good News From Yahoo News, An MSNBC-Zogby poll last week, after Wellstone announced he would vote against the resolution, suggests the decision not only didn't hurt his re-election chances but also might have helped them. In a major reversal, the poll showed voters choosing him over Coleman 46% to 37%. A similar poll in September had the Republican leading 47% to 41%. Other polls show Wellstone, who won his last two races with 50% of the vote, a smidgen ahead of Coleman.Voting against the President, Wellstone moves from behind 41%-41% to AHEAD 46%-37%! --- Posted at 10/14/2002 05:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Skippy, This is How They Do It Skippy is fuming about a NY Post column. So I go look the column's author up on Google, which, 5th entry down, leads me to this page at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Now, look up FPI at Media Transparency then click on Foreign Policy Institute, and you find ... millions and millions of dollars form ... guess who ... Scaife, Olin, Bradley and Smith Richardson Foundations. The "four sisters." Why waste your time fuming, once you know that it comes from Scaife? Start here, for more details on How It's Done, and see the bottom of this piece for a bunch of links to articles about these foundations, where it says, "here, here, here" etc... --- Posted at 10/14/2002 04:26:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why No Draft? Immediately undoing my "light blogging" pledge, I want to ask why there is no talk of reimposing the draft? We're about to enter into a major ground war against a country BECAUSE they have weapons of mass destruction. Isn't there any concern that they'll USE them? If we're not concerned that they'll use them then why are we entering into the war? And if there IS concern that they'll use them, why aren't we starting up the draft? If Iraq USES weapons of mass destruction we will need to replace the troops killed. That's why they're called weapons of MASS DESTRUCTION. So why no draft? What kind of contingency planning is that? What is going on? --- Posted at 10/14/2002 03:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Light Blogging I've been very busy so I won't be putting much up. It seems to be the convention among "bloggers" to post a message that they're doing "light blogging," even though it seems this would be obvious -- you go to the blog, there's very little there that's new, hence there is "light blogging" going on. Maybe people don't want to upset the readers, worried that they'll think the blogger died unless the blogger posts a message saying "light blogging." Anyway, light blogging today. I'm not dead. P.S. why doesn't Blogger Pro's spelling checker know the words "blog," "blogger," blogging," or "bloggers?" I used to own a spelling checker company and got so many letters like that... It feels good to complain about someone else's. --- Posted at 10/14/2002 03:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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