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: |
![]() 10/26/2002 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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. More on Here It Comes TBOGG has a story about Americans for Job Security, which I wrote about earlier. 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. Long List of Bush Lies PLA published a long list and discussion of Bush lies here. (Thanks Eschaton.) 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. 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 FBI Whistle Blower Being Fired Not THAT whistle-blower - yet. MN Star Tribune: Minneapolis whistle-blower may face dismissal from FBI 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. 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.This is a big one, folks. Pay attention. 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. 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 ALLIANCEDemocratic 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. 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. Read Everything I've been meaning to say that everything over at The Sideshow lately has been a great read. 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.Oh yeah, and the Subject line of his message was, "If I had a blog." Copyright © 2002-05. |
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