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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: |
 9/30/2003 Californians - Take A Look At Garrett Gruener for Governor If you're in California, take a look at Garrett Gruener for Governor. He should be getting more exposure in this election! (I am acquainted with Garrett from a previous job.) --- Posted at 9/30/2003 09:15:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
9/29/2003 COVER UP! So it's going to be another cover-up. White House Rejects Independent Counsel for Leak: "The White House on Monday rejected Democratic demands that an independent counsel be appointed to find out who leaked secret information apparently aimed at discrediting a vocal critic of prewar intelligence on Iraq."There is no law. --- Posted at 9/29/2003 04:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Party Over Country Bush Aides Say They'll Cooperate With Probe Into Intelligence Leak (washingtonpost.com): "But the aides said Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, one of the most visible critics of Bush's handling of intelligence about Iraq."Party over country. Every single f*&king time. --- Posted at 9/29/2003 06:54:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/28/2003 Party Over Country There have been some who doubted that the Bush administration operates to benefit The Party rather than the country. The latest news in the scandal over the "outing" of a covert CIA agent will show them they have been wrong about that. This story, Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry (washingtonpost.com) reveals that "two top White House officials" outed an undercover agent whose job was to stop weapons of mass destruction from coming into the U.S. They did this because her husband had embarrassed Bush by revealing that his claim that Iraq was close to having nukes was a lie.: "Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq. "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak. Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut Wilson's credibility. "The investigation -- if The Party doesn't block it -- might reveal how many of her foreign contacts have been imprisoned or executed as a result of this leak. It might reveal how many WMD purchases occurred because of this leak. However, The Party controls the White House, the Congress, the Justice Department, much of the Federal Court System, and almost all other agencies of our government that might otherwise be able to bring some oversight and accountability -- and the press has mostly ignored what has been going on -- and they have been successful at blocking every investigation, even things as big as investigations of intelligence failures that led to 9/11. Let me repeat that: The Party has successfully blocked every inquiry into possibly unethical or criminal or other embarrassing activities. They have operated with absolute impunity. Even things as small as an inquiry into who met with Cheney's energy task force (remember how they forced public the records of Hillary's health care task force?) Even investigations of Bush's insider trading at Harken Oil, and the cover-up by his father's SEC. Even of their involvement with Enron. Even of the no-bid contracts awarded to contributors and cronies. Even of Cheney's continuing ties to Haliburton. Even of their hiring of felons, convicted of crimes of subverting our government. This list could go on and on... Party over country. This time, absolute proof. --- Posted at 9/28/2003 07:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/27/2003 I'll Be Back Soon. --- Posted at 9/27/2003 12:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/24/2003 Arnold Robert Scheer found this quote in an article interviewing Arnold Schwarzenegger, at Salon.com | Family values, down the toilet: ''As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet bowl,' says Schwarzenegger, an impish smile crossing his face. 'How many times do you get away with this -- to take a woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating in there,' he adds. Apparently, he was vetoed. 'They thought it was my typical Schwarzenegger overboard,' he says. 'The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn't do it to a woman -- she's a machine! We could get away with it without being crucified by who-knows-what group.' (Note to California's Democratic strategists: The soccer-mom set is now yours for the taking!)' "So Arnold relishes the opportunity to "get away with this." Republicans! --- Posted at 9/24/2003 10:43:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Special Interest Brothel The Special Interest Brothel. Click "Play." --- Posted at 9/24/2003 09:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
VOTING MACHINES ALERT! If you try to go to Black Box Voting's web page you see this, apparently put up by their ISP: This is BIG NEWS and should be circulated widely! Apparently Diebold has gotten Bev Harris's website provider to shut down her page! Update - Bev is up at Blackboxvoting.com! --- Posted at 9/24/2003 09:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/23/2003 Another Voting Machines Story Global Eye -- Vanishing Act: "Who's behind these private companies? It's hard to tell: The corporate lines -- even the bloodlines -- of these 'competitors' are so intricately mixed. For example, at Diebold -- whose corporate chief, Wally O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser, has publicly committed himself to 'delivering' his home state's votes to Bush next year -- the election division is run by Bob Urosevich. Bob's brother, Todd, is a top executive at 'rival' ES&S. The brothers were originally staked in the vote-count business by Howard Ahmanson, a member of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing 'steering group' stacked with Bushist faithful. Ahmanson is also one of the bagmen behind the extremist 'Christian Reconstructionist' movement, which openly advocates a theocratic takeover of American democracy, placing the entire society under the 'dominion' of 'Christ the King.' This 'dominion' includes the death penalty for homosexuals, exclusion of citizenship for non-Christians, stoning of sinners and -- we kid you not -- slavery, 'one of the most beneficent of Biblical laws.' Ahmanson also has major holdings in ES&S, whose former CEO is Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. When Hagel ran for office, his own company counted the votes; needless to say, his initial victory was reported as 'an amazing upset.' Hagel still has a million-dollar stake in the parent company of ES&S. In Florida, Jeb Bush's first choice for a running mate in his 1998 gubernatorial race was ES&S lobbyist Sandra Mortham, who made a mint installing the machines that counted Jeb's votes." --- Posted at 9/23/2003 12:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines At Salon today, An open invitation to election fraud: "Not only is the country's leading touch-screen voting system so badly designed that votes can be easily changed, but its manufacturer is run by a die-hard GOP donor who vowed to deliver his state for Bush next year." --- Posted at 9/23/2003 11:47:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Clark Despite his early lead, Clark is still untested Poll reveals a few strengths: "Democrats haven't been drawn to retired general Wesley Clark because of his detailed policy positions. He doesn't have any." --- Posted at 9/23/2003 10:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Afghan Massacre There is a documentary available describing what may have happened to 3,000 Afghan prisoners. There is a five-minute trailer for the documentary online at Afghan Massacre - acftv. This film exposes the deaths of thousands of Afghans who had surrendered to Americas Allies after the siege of Kunduz. Eye witnesses tell of the disposal of the bodies in an operation controlled by American Special Forces.BuzzFlash interviews the producer-director of this documentary. --- Posted at 9/23/2003 09:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Comes Out Against Unions Kerry Attacks Rival Dean Over Protectionism: "Speaking in Detroit, Mr. Kerry said that Dr. Dean and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who have staked out traditional pro-labor positions on trade, were pandering to unions and advocating a 'retreat from the global economy.'"Yep, that's the way to win the Democratic nomination. Come out against unions and workers. Next I suppose he'll make a bold statement by hiring telemarketers from India, as Bush did, to make calls on behalf of his campaign. In the past year I have moved from being a big Kerry supporter, to being disillusioned with Kerry, to discovering Dean but saying I think Kerry would be a great president, to thinking Kerry's way out of touch and should retire. With this statement by Kerry I'm wondering what kind of morons he is surrounding himself with, and why he listens to them and what positions he is willing to hold on to out of principle. I don't want to use the 'M' word to describe the man himself - the man who once headed up VietNam Veterans Against the War and who brought to light the CIA's possible trade in cocaine - but he's pushing me there. --- Posted at 9/23/2003 08:33:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/22/2003 Campaign School Check out Campaign School. This is Dean-oriented, but it's useful regardless of who you support. Do you know about GOTV? --- Posted at 9/22/2003 09:35:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Compassiongate Compassiongate: Moral Clarity. --- Posted at 9/22/2003 09:34:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Pledge Take The Pledge and pass it on. --- Posted at 9/22/2003 04:51:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
New Search I've added a Google search. It's on the left -- scroll down. --- Posted at 9/22/2003 03:46:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Info On The Right TBOGG has a post about the Bradley Foundation today. Go take a read. This is important stuff. I have some stuff coming soon along these lines. Here's a previous piece, Some History of the Conservative Movement. --- Posted at 9/22/2003 03:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Click The Bat Click the bat over there on the left of this page. Scroll down. Under the picture I have a message for you. --- Posted at 9/22/2003 11:14:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/21/2003 It's That Time Again It's the last ten days of the quarter. The Dean campaign has set a goal of raising $5 million over the Internet before September 30. This will make history, and will make news. Over on the left of Seeing the Forest you'll see the Dean "Bat" indicator, showing their progress, until the end of the month. Click on the Bat picture and you'll be taken to my Dean fundraising page. I'm trying to raise $2000. Please contribute, even if it is only $5. --- Posted at 9/21/2003 12:03:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Getting Rid Of Public Schools This Washington Post commentary, No Illusion Left Behind explains how Bush's much-touted education bill is actually a Trojan Horse designed to destroy public schools by 2014. This People For the American Way study, Voucher Veneer: The Deeper Agenda to Privatize Public Education, shows that privatization has been the agenda behind "vouchers" all along, so don't be surprised that Bush has slipped a time bomb into a bill they said would strengthen public schools. How many Democrats voted for Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act? Did they even read it? --- Posted at 9/21/2003 07:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Here It Comes Iraq to Open Most of Economy to Investors: The wide-ranging reforms, undoing years of rigid control of the economy imposed by Saddam's one-party rule, will permit the sell-off of Iraq's numerous state-owned companies to foreigners and introduce new taxes. [. . .] Al-Gailani said the reforms would be implemented in the near future. He pledged Iraq would "allow up to 100 percent foreign ownership in all sectors except natural resources."Get it? Who will decide the price to sell off Iraq's assets - factories, banks, etc.? And who get's to bid? And why is this happening BEFORE Iraq elects a government of its own? As if I need to answer those questions. --- Posted at 9/21/2003 07:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/20/2003 Talking About Race Was Dean correct when he said he is the only white politician who talks about race to white audiences? From Dean Faces Uphill Battle in Courting S.C. Blacks: "Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) fired off a statement on his chats with audiences about marching with Martin Luther King Jr. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) released a statement about growing up in the segregated South, watching black people get shoved aside for jobs, education and health care. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) appeared to be more upset than the rest. 'We hit the roof when we heard that,' said Jeff Cohen, Kucinich's campaign spokesman. 'I think Dean's deluded. Representative Kucinich brings up racial issues that Dean hasn't even touched. He talks about the racially biased death penalty at campaign stop after campaign stop. He talks about the drug war and the racially unjust 'three strikes you're out' law."Lieberman only makes Dean's point -- as if talking about having walked with MLK is talking about race. Earlier Edwards said he talks about civil rights, which again makes Dean's point. Edwards words it differently here, and does a much better job -- here he's starting to talk about race, not civil rights -- but because of his earlier response it feels like someone explained it to him. Kucinich gets it, except I've heard Dean talk about these things. --- Posted at 9/20/2003 11:37:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/19/2003 The Economy Econo-eyes animation. Who is our economy FOR? --- Posted at 9/19/2003 09:57:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Too Ugly? I've been fiddling with things, trying to make Seeing the Forest more readable. Have I made it better, or is it too ugly now? I'll be investigating new templates, and maybe Movable Type instead of Blogger... --- Posted at 9/19/2003 09:45:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Subscribing to Seeing the Forest You can subscribe to Seeing the Forest, and receive a daily e-mail with links to and summaries of that day's posts, at Bloglet. It is very convenient, and speeds up your day. To subscribe, scroll down until you see the following on the left. For now you can just use the following. --- Posted at 9/19/2003 09:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
AOL Bribes The Right Newsday.com: AOL to Buy Post for a Day to Plug New Service The unusual move also is designed to draw attention to a free concert by the Dave Matthews Band in Central Park to benefit New York City public schools; it is underwritten by AOL.The right wing New York Post? All it draws attention to for me is that AOL-Time-Warner is giving a huge wad of cash to the right - just as the Congress is considering replealing the FCC's media consolidation decision. --- Posted at 9/19/2003 08:25:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
No Smallpox U.S. weapons hunters find no evidence Iraq had smallpox. No weapons of mass destruction? No al-Queda link? No nuclear bombs? Then what did Iraq have? --- Posted at 9/19/2003 12:28:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19 Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19 --- Posted at 9/19/2003 12:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Operation Beat Hasty Retreat The other day in What They're Going To Do I wrote, "It's starting to look to me like the Bush adminstration is going to simply declare victory in Iraq and go home soon. Billmon agrees. --- Posted at 9/19/2003 12:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/18/2003 Show Up At Democratic Party Meetings The comments following this post at Brad DeLong's weblog are talking about Eric Alterman's words about Ralph Nader, which I wrote about earlier. Nader had said he wanted to throw the election to Bush to "force" the Democrats to move to the left. I left a comment: There IS a way to "force" the Democratic party to the left and that is to show up at meetings and vote. That's all there is to it. That's how the Christian Right has taken over the Republican Party, so you can see for yourself how effective it can be. The Democratic Party is nothing more than who shows up and votes. It is not some "they" who run everything and work with corporations and decide who does what and where. You show up at your county meetings and you VOTE and that's all there is to it. Imagine if instead of leaving the party, the Greens had done THAT! Where would we be today? Where would the country be today? And by the way, people reading this, have YOU been to YOUR local Democratic club, or county central committee meetings? Try it. You'll be surprised. Go here, look for "Get Local" and choose your state. --- Posted at 9/18/2003 07:24:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
DNC Weblog I pointed to the new Democratic National Committee weblog, DNC: Kicking Ass, yesterday. But I wanted to point to it again today. Good work! --- Posted at 9/18/2003 04:15:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I'll Just Steal It I'm going to just steal something from Altercation, instead of quoting pieces of it. Here it is, just to piss off all my Green friends: "FINE GREEN WHINES Speaking of people who need their (metaphorical) butts kicked, but good, Ralph Nader whines, “Old-timers years ago would have wondered what the Mayor means by marketing NYC. Cities were viewed more benignly when they were more livable, more employable at good wages, more replete with public institutions like good libraries, good public transit, good schools, good hospitals and clinics and good recreational facilities in the neighborhoods. New York City is crumbling on these measurements.” Hey Ralph, no one, and I mean no one on the planet, is more responsible for the deterioration in the quality of life of my city than you are, bud. All you had to do was say, “I ran a great race and thanks for your support but this guy Bush is scary. Vote for Al, not me and we’ll we what we can get at the bargaining table….” But no, you wanted to elect Bush. And you did. Congrats."Update - All I had to do was scroll down and I would have seen that I wasn't stealing the whole thing... So go read the rest. --- Posted at 9/18/2003 03:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Clark -- A Comment I Left I left a comment about Clark's candidacy over at annatopia. Here it is (heavily edited to make me look better.) I think Clark's a great guy, and if he's giving Dean's speech that's all the better. Clark is for the Washington-type people who think that image and perception are the ONLY thing that matters. And as far as it DOES matter it's great to have a 4-star general out there supporting everything Dean is saying. Because that alone gets rid of the "McGovern" problem. THE non-McGovern says the same things as Dean does. But in my opinion Clark can't win the nomination. The Washington/Perception/Image people hope that just having a general running will cause everyone to rush away from Dean and over to Clark. I just don't see it happening. Dean is about substance, issues, honesty and respecting the public. And THAT is what is driving Dean. The people behind Clark (not Clark himself) are not about that - they are about presenting an image, and essentially using it to trick the public. It's the very same people who screwed up Gore in 2000 by stopping him from speaking his mind and making him act like a phony. I mean the very same individual people that screwed up the Gore campaign are running the Clark campaign. I think Dean is inoculating the body politic against that sort of thing now. He is speaking frankly, he is involving the public in his campaign, he is actually speaking about the issues that matter and talking about the reality of what has to be done - previously forbidden in politics - and he is acting like an adult. This is inoculating the public against the phony, poll- and consultant-driven conventional wisdom of campaigning. And Clark doesn't even HAVE positions on issues - at least that I know about, and I am heavily following these things. I mean he probably does but they are not articulated, or known, or on his web site, etc... and issues will drive this primary. He can't have thought through the issues, or even be aware of all the issues that matter - and if he WAS aware and HAD thought them through he would have been spending a lot more time publicly talking about his ideas. So he doesn't have time or experience to formulate the issues into policies. He doesn't have the background of public office to translate the issues into realistic positions that reflect the needs of the nation. Clark also doesn't have experience delivering a stump speech six or seven times a day. He doesn't have the background of dealing with crowds, and crowds of reporters, and all the other things that make a campaign. Put simply, he doesn't have ANY experience in politics and that is no place to be coming from and running for President. Especially THIS campaign, with Dean in the race, raising more than any previous Democratic primary candidagte, with his HUGE well-organized base of support. It will show. He can't win the nomination. But if he does win the nomination and win the Presidency the country will be better off than it is now by far. He is a good man, he is on the right side, he clearly has the right instincts and certainly has a background of leadership. Those are my thoughts. --- Posted at 9/18/2003 09:23:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/17/2003 From A Soldier Paths of Glory Lead to a Soldier's Doubt - a moving testimony from one soldier in Iraq. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 09:09:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
From The DNC The GOP Record of Negative Attacks --- Posted at 9/17/2003 08:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Funny? Lean Left found it. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 08:56:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
THE Follow-Up Question Today Bush admitted "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th." Combine that with the fact that it looks like there have not been any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq for 12 years, and one of these days maybe some reporter will ask Bush the obvious follow-up question: Then why, Mr. President, DID we go to war with Iraq? --- Posted at 9/17/2003 07:25:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pensions Someone wrote me a message about this commentary talking about the "social contract." I replied: Something that the public doesn't understand yet - the huge deficits that the government is running now means that we likely will not be able to get Social Security and Medicare when we retire. That money is going out now, mostly as tax cuts, military spending increases, and to the war in Iraq. And there's another factor at work. Companies used to provide pensions - the company sets aside money for the employee's retirement. It's called a "defined benefit" system. But in the early 80's the government passed the 401K idea. That means that the employee is supposed to set aside the money, not the company. It's called a "defined contribution" system. Some companies also put some money in as "matching contributions," where they match some percentage of the money an employee puts in, but that is happening less and less often. So where did that money go that used to be set aside for employee pensions? The great stock run-up started at the same time. (Because money that used to go to pensions was now reported as profits.) So in essence what happened was that all the pensions of people from then on instead went to the owners of stocks. (Almost all stock is owned by the top few percent of wealthy people.) One of the great Reagan tricks from the 80's that people still haven't figured out - employee pensions were instead handed off to the really, really rich. And, of course, many employees are not setting aside enough money in these plans - 401K plans are usually only in larger companies and IRAs don't let you put very much away - for their own retirement. Not to mention the amount of money in 401K plans and IRAs that went away in the crash. So along with the problem of the deficits risking wiping out the government's ability to pay our Social Security and Medicare, few people are saving enough to provide for their retirement. BUT WAIT -- there's more. Those companies that DO still have pension plans are in trouble. During the stock boom the value of their pension funds was going up, so they stopped putting money into the pension plans. And then the market dropped, and the companies found themselves way short of what is supposed to be in the pensions plans and do not have money to put into the plans to make up the difference. This is called "underfunded" pension plans. If you go to Google and search for that, you'll see what's going on. (Really, look at a few pages of the Google listings.) This problem is so bad that several large companies are technically nearly insolvent, if they had to report this shortfall. But the government is doing a few things to keep this under wraps because of the damage this could do to the economy. Currently the government is allowing these companies to pretend they are getting 5%, 6%, even 10% return on their pension holdings, as a way of letting them off the hook until things get better. But, of course, they are not getting that kind of a return right now. AND when they have to put money into the plans, this money comes out of profits, so these companies will see their stock values drop, and this will bring the market down more, which means they are even MORE underfunded in the pension plans... Several state pension plans are also in trouble. "As of last year, 79 percent of state pension plans were underfunded, up from 51 percent in 2001 and 31 percent in 2000, according to a survey of 123 state plans by Wilshire Associates of Santa Monica, Calif."It really, really does matter who you elect. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 06:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"Likely" Yahoo! News - Congress Watchdog Warns on Budget Deficit: "Earlier on Wednesday, the Treasury said in its August budget statement that the year-to-date deficit was a record $400.46 billion dollars. With less than a month left in the fiscal year, the fiscal 2003 deficit will likely handily outstrip the previous record of $290 billion seen in 1992.""Likely." The deficit is ALREADY over $400 billion. Yes, it is likely that the deficit will break the previous record of $290 billion. Do we have the reporters we deserve? --- Posted at 9/17/2003 04:31:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Good For Them! Labor activists picket outsourcing event. People in unions are paid more. They have better benefits. They have greater job security. Have YOU thought about joining a union? --- Posted at 9/17/2003 01:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
White House denies tying Iraq to September 11 attacks White House denies tying Iraq to September 11 attacks. His comments came a week after a public opinion poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans believe that Saddam's regime, which US-led forces toppled in April, was linked to the attacks that prompted the global war on terrorism. Asked how that could be, McClellan dismissively replied that he was not a pollster and could not explain those findings, but said Saddam had a "long history" of ties to terrorism. "We learn more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the (19)90s," he said in the interview.Oh, please! GIVE. ME. A. BREAK. Not a pollster. JUST LAST SUNDAY Cheney said Iraq was tied to 9/11. On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC television "it's not surprising that people make that connection" and hinted at a growing body of evidence tying Saddam's regime to Osama bin Laden's network.My friend Ron says, "The most troubling quotes I read came from soldiers in Iraq ready to kill any Iraqi they saw to avenge 9/11. I dont care if he lied to me but to lie to the soldiers to ge them to fight thats beyond the pale." I replied, "Show that White House quote to soldiers with friends who died." Ron replied, "Imagine the rage a brave soldier will feel when he realizes how many fellow soldiers died or were seriously wounded because of this lie." --- Posted at 9/17/2003 12:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Democrats Weenie Out Again Dems Scrap Plans To Look Into Claims White House Manipulated Intel On Iraqi Threat: David Helfert, a spokesman for Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, who criticized the White House for relying too heavily on murky intelligence to get support for the war, said Friday that Congressional Democrats would no longer pursue hearings on the intelligence matter. "WeÂ’re past that," Helfert said, referring to the intelligence issue. "Those questions were eclipsed by the supplemental request by President Bush for $87 billion" to fund the Iraq war. "Congress is focusing on asking questions about the $87 billion, what it will be used for and whether itÂ’s worth it. It would be a good characterization to say that the intelligence questions on Iraq and how the President came to believe that it had weapons of mass destruction are no longer an issue."NO LONGER AN ISSUE????!!!! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE???!!! Don't they get ANYTHING? Don't they take their jobs even a LITTLE bit seriously? Both historically and politically this is THE most important question I can imagine. Historically, lying to the country in order to get us into a war -- what could be more serious? This MUST be investigated! Politically, 70% of the public believes that Iraq was behind 9/11. Imagine what would happen to the Republican Party if the public came to understand that this is a lie, that they were tricked, that the Republicans USED the 9/11 tragedy for their own gain, that they DROPPED the war on terrorism to invade Iraq (and dropped doing what's needed to protect the public), that Iraq was NOT about terrorism, was NOT about weapons of mass destruction and was NOT about an imminent threat to the public? !! Update - I left a nasty comment over at the DNC'S EXCELLENT NEW WEBLOG. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 10:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
What You'll Lose I'm a little behind on this, but Nathan Newman has a weblog entry pointing out what we lose if California recalls the governor. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 10:44:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
SBC DSL And Really, Really, Really, Really Bad Service At home I have a cable modem, and I love it. It's fast and never has problems. But at work we have DSL from SBC. It used to work OK, but in the last few months we have had intermittent service problems. All day long the connection is off and on. It will go off for a few seconds, then come back for a while. Sometimes it goes off for 10 second three times a minute. Sometimes it goes off for a minute, comes on for ten seconds, then goes out again. Like I said, this has been going on for months. I call SBC tech support, and they "ping" the modem and tell me everything is working OK. We must have a virus. I e-mail tech support and get back a form letter telling us we must have a virus. They have a tech support chat room, but it never connects. For a while they took tech support off of their phone system, instead providing a message telling everyone they have a virus. Yesterday I finally got through to a tech support person who cared, and spent quite a bit of time with her, working on this. It turns out we have a line problem. (Duh!) But after quite some time, she informed me that the "Line Department" refuses to "open a ticket" to fix intermittent line problems. New policy - they just don't fix intermittent line problems. Period. She said she went past procedure to talk to the line department at all and couldn't take this any further without risking her job. Anyone reading this, don't get DSL. Try not to do business with SBC (except that they are the phone company here.) Get a cable modem - DSL sucks, and is much slower than cable. Pass this on. --- Posted at 9/17/2003 09:56:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why Did J. Lo and Ben Split? Go add your reason to Max's "TOP TEN REASONS FOR J. LO/BEN SPLIT" --- Posted at 9/17/2003 06:51:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/16/2003 Scam This one's fun. This SPAM came in just now. I received another the other day, too... Dear eBay User, During our regular udpate and verification of the accounts, we couldn't verify your current information. Either your information has changed or it is incomplete. As a result, your access to bid or buy on Ebay has been restricted. To start using your eBay account fully, please update and verify your information by clicking below : https://scgi.ebay.com/saw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?VerifyInformation Regards, eBay **Please Do Not Reply To This E-Mail As You Will Not Receive A Responce**DON'T ACTUALLY DO IT! It's a scam. I'm just posting it for your viewing pleasure. Note that the address you are taken to is NOT the address you see. They actually ask for your credit card number, Social Security number, birthday, password and PIN number! --- Posted at 9/16/2003 08:21:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Where's Bush? Play this funny game. --- Posted at 9/16/2003 04:41:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines Here is where you can find the transcript, audio and video of yesterday's Lehrer Newshour segment on voting machines. I mentioned this yesterday. --- Posted at 9/16/2003 04:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Economy The Federal Reserve decided today that the economy is in so much trouble that they had better keep interest rates at the lowest rates since 1958. In response the stock market posted its biggest gains in more than a month. n (Or maybe they see this as the Fed trying to pump up the economy at any cost before the next election.) --- Posted at 9/16/2003 01:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/15/2003 What They're Going To Do It's starting to look to me like the Bush adminstration is going to simply declare victory in Iraq and go home soon. The problems are growing, and the Bush people are not the type to stick with anything if it gets tough. They will blame the resulting chaos and huge national security threat on Democrats "for insisting on bringing the troops home," which is, of course, a lie. --- Posted at 9/15/2003 04:55:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Excellent Voting Machines Story Coverage On The Jim Lehrer NewsHour The Jim Lehrer NewsHour just finished an excellent story on the problems with electronic voting machines. It is likely to be repeated at different times on different stations, so look for it tonite! I believe that transcripts of the NewsHour will be available here soon as well. --- Posted at 9/15/2003 03:32:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More On Where Your Job Is Going Zeitgeist: Backlash? You bet. What exactly will it be that America does when the IT industry is destroyed?He has a great quote from Neal Stephenson's great book, Snow Crash. And you know what I always ask: "Who is our economy FOR?" It's a good question to repeat to others. --- Posted at 9/15/2003 10:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Blatant Corruption Through Atrios, we find this at Orcinus. The woman who started the Whitewater investigation as a partisan Republican operation to smear the 1992 Democratic Presidential candidate -- and was caught violating agency polices and perjuring herself -- is now appointed to a job as chief of staff in the traditionally nonpartisan Defense Department's inspector general office. Yes, she is now in charge of watching out for corruption in Defense Dept. contracts -- like the no-bid contracts being given to companies with ties to The Party and to cronies of the President and Vice President. (Not to mention $50 million bridge contracts awarded in spite of $300,000 bids from other companies.) "The really germane question is this: How exactly did L. Jean Lewis rise suddenly from the ranks of minor RTC investigator to the overseer of a massive Defense Department bureau? What exactly were her qualifications? The ones she put on display for the RTC: Namely, ginning up scandals against Democrats, and covering up scandals against Republicans. Where there is smoke, there is fire. If I were a Beltway reporter, I know I would be immediately sniffing around Lewis' department to figure just what kind of fraud vis a vis corporate dealings in Iraq she may now be in charge of covering up. Are there any real journalists left there?"Appointing an operative like this to the job of investigating corruption in the awarding of Defense contracts can ONLY mean one thing: THEY ARE STEALING MONEY. The Party knows it is operating with impunity now, and is becoming more overt and blatant with its corrupt practices. Just two more examples: The Party appoints CONVICTED FELONS John Poindexter and Elliott Abrams to key positions. How much of the Defense budget is being funneled straight into the pockets of the Bush Crime Family? (Haliburton, Carlyle Group, etc.) How much is being funneled into The Party. (Remember, Bush is raising $170 million to campaign during the PRIMARIES - even though he has NO OPPOSITION.) Here is the action question -- What are you doing about this? Are you telling people? Are you writing to people and letting them know they can get news at websites like BuzzFlash and Seeing the Forest? Are you registering people to vote? Have you committed to bring at least one new voter to the polls? --- Posted at 9/15/2003 09:24:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/13/2003 Laid-Off Steel Workers Blaming CLinton As Factory Jobs Disappear, Workers Have Few Options: "Ask laid-off workers what is to blame for the woes, and they point to imports, low wages in China, the strong dollar, production moving overseas, President Bill Clinton for embracing the North American Free Trade Agreement and President Bush for focusing only recently on the crisis. Robert White, a laid-off steelworker who voted for Mr. Bush three years ago, said: 'He's slowly getting his eyes awakened to what's going on. The air has been going out of the balloon for a long time, and he's trying to stop it. But the air is almost out of the balloon.' "This reminds me of the poor people in Alabama who voted to keep their taxes high and their schools unfunded so that the rich people in Alabama don't get a tax increase. Also reminds me of the 70% of Americans who believe Iraq is behind 9/11. There is a HUGE gap in the information you and I get, and the information that people out there in the mainstream of America get. --- Posted at 9/13/2003 07:47:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/12/2003 Scoobie Davis / Buzzflash / Krugman Scoobie Davis Online quotes a bit of the Buzzflash interview with Paul Krugman. Be sure to see it. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 02:14:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Party Of The Confederacy Republican poll seeks to identify Rebel flag supporters. The Republicans know who their voters are. What I don't understand is why Democratic candidates, especially in the North, don't brand the Republicans as the Party of the Confederacy. No one in the North has any business voting for candidates from a party that supports, more and more openly, neo-Confederates. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 01:18:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines Story Newsday.com - Gaffe Casts Doubts on Electronic Voting Silicon Valley computer experts have long criticized touch-screen voting machines, which do not normally provide a paper receipt and which send digital votes directly to a computer server. Programmers say software bugs, power outages or clever hackers could easily delete or alter data -- and recounts would prove impossible without paper backups. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 01:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
"A Nation Remembers" Animation "A Nation Remembers" --- Posted at 9/12/2003 12:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How The Right Spins Take a look at this story, Jupiter homeowner faces foreclosure for flying U.S. flag. What a terrible thing! What is our country coming to? A man is losing his home for flying the American flag! Those damn libruls! Defiant flag flier George Andres once again is facing the prospect of losing his Jupiter home after a Palm Beach County judge ruled Wednesday that his homeowners association could go forward with a foreclosure sale next month to collect legal fees.Wait a minute -- the headline said he was facing foreclosure for flying a flag, but the story says something else! He is facing foreclosure because he refuses to pay legal bills for refusing to go along with homeowner association rules. The homeowner association had a rule against flagpoles. He knew about the rule and moved in anyway, violated the rule, and then refused to pay after a court ruled that homeowners associations have the right to make rules! This reminds me of the right's tactic of saying a person is "arrested for praying" when the person was blocking a major intersection by sitting down in the middle of the street and shouting about Jesus. Or the right's tactic of saying people are forbidden from "praying in school" when teachers aren't allowed to try to convert the classes to one or another religion or version thereof. Anyone can pray whenever (not necessarily wherever) they want. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 10:40:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Big Voting Machines Story See Scoop: Diebold Confirms U.S. Vote Count Vulnerabilities. Read these e-mails from Diebold. Their ONLY concern is making the sale (of the voting machines), and if it involves hiding the security problems from the customer, so be it. If you have been in business, you will see in these e-mails that they are sales-driven, and you will be familiar with people with sales-driven attitudes. It's natural they will see anyone complaining about problems with their product as pests and threats. The e-mails show they (and who else?) have known about security problems for ten years -- which means that ten years of elections handled by Diebold election machines are suspect. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 10:04:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
skippy salutes we salute the veterans of our nation over at skippy's blog. --- Posted at 9/12/2003 09:42:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/11/2003 Where Your Job Is Going The Zeitgeist talks about where YOUR job is going, so your CEO can pocket more millions - and send a big check to The Party. Who is our economy FOR? --- Posted at 9/11/2003 09:23:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines Issue Reaching Senators Following is an e-mail from Senator Corzine, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It reads like someone in Washington has heard that some people are upset about something to do with voting machines, didn't bother to find out WHAT people are upset about, but let's see if we can get them to contribute money. Republicans have sunk to a stunning new low. First there was Florida and the theft of the 2000 presidential election by the Supreme Court. Then there was the California recall. And of course, there is Tom DeLay trying to rig the Congressional elections in Texas to ensure that the Republicans keep the majority in the U.S. House so they can advance their radical agenda. Now to show that Republicans will truly stop at next to nothing to win elections and hand the keys of the national treasury over to their fat cat donors - there is Walden O'Dell, the CEO of Diebold Inc. Diebold is the company that wants to get the contract to provide and program voting machines in every state for the 2004 election and O'Dell is raising money exclusively for President Bush and the Republican National Committee (RNC). O'Dell, in a fundraising letter on August 14th, committed "to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year" according to the Associated Press. In the 2002 election cycle, O'Dell gave $5,965 to the RNC while Diebold gave the RNC $95,000. This is outrageous!! Not only does Mr. O'Dell want the contract to provide every voting machine in the nation for the next election he wants to "DELIVER" the election to Mr. Bush. In fact, Mr. O'Dell's fundraising appeal on behalf of President Bush came one day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three companies eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election. INCREDIBLE!! On the day before the Ohio Secretary of State was set to qualify Diebold to provide voting machines for the state of Ohio, its CEO said in a letter he will "DELIVER" Ohio for President Bush. There are enough conflicts in this story to fill an ethics manual but suffice it to say when it comes to an issue as sensitive as how and who tabulates the votes of the American people this episode is truly outrageous. Either Diebold should cease seeking the contracts for voting machines or Mr. Bush, the RNC and its affiliated committees should return the campaign cash they have received from Mr. O'Dell and his fundraising appeals and from Diebold. HELP US STOP ANOTHER ELECTION FROM BEING STOLEN! Today, I'm asking you to sign a petition to the Chairman of the DSCC, Senator Corzine, to show your support for fighting back. Republicans must stop trying to steal elections. Sign our petition and send them a message today: http://www.dscc.org/information/stopvotingmachines/ After you sign the petition, forward this to everyone you know. People MUST be educated about the tactics Republicans embrace. Their sickening attempts to hijack fair elections must be stopped. Florida 2000, California 2003, Texas redistricting I could go on and on. Don't let Republicans get away with it. Sign the petition today. Sincerely, Andrew Grossman, Executive Director, DSCCRight, return the money you gave to the RNC and everything will be all right. Right. But what about fixing the machines with a voter-verified paper trail, so we can see for sure that they recorded votes correctly? They don't get it yet. But hey, it's still good news -- awareness of the voting machines issue IS penetrating to the top. One of these days they'll actually stop to learn what it is ABOUT the voting machines that is a problem! --- Posted at 9/11/2003 03:11:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Voting Machines I just had a thought about a simple way to scam elections that use electronic voting machines that do not have paper trails. You go to polling places in areas that traditionally vote a certain way, and bring a big magnet. Maybe it's a really big electromagnet in a truck. Maybe it's a device (and here) that generates an electromagnetic pulse. You go near the machines, turn the magnet on, and wham - everything in those machines is erased or screwed up, and the votes from that polling place cannot be counted, swinging the election toward the preferences of people in other precincts. Call your Congressional Representative and demand voter-verified paper trails. It doesn't MATTER how secure they say these machines are. If I can't see for myself how that my vote is recorded correctly and backed up, I simply will not trust the election results. --- Posted at 9/11/2003 11:53:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Diversions Two years ago our country was attacked by an organization called al-Queda, based in Afghanistan. Now, two years later, our country is tied up in an occupation of Iraq -- a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the September 11, 2001 attack. ONE country - Afghanistan - provided territory and resources to the al-Queda organization. For reasons that are still not entirely clear to any of us, our government has convinced much of the public that this OTHER country - Iraq - was responsible for what happened to us, and attacked that country. Meanwhile, while diverting unbelievable amounts of money to cronies of the president's family, (both from revenue reductions and sweetheart contracts,) driving the once-wealthiest country into severe debt, money needed to protect the public for further attack is not forthcoming. So much is happening so fast. We are all overwhelmed by the attack on our country's traditional values. Overwhelming the opposition is a tactic. Bush said yesterday, in another context, that the way to win wars "is to stay on the offensive..." The right knows what they're doing. And we're on the defensive, not even able to catch our breath before being hit by next attack on our values. "Healthy Forest Initiative" that lets logging companies profit by cutting down the trees. "Clean Air Initiative" that lets companies profit by polluting the air. School vouchers designed to gut public school funding because "government schools" (and here and here and lots more) indoctrinate children into socialism. The far-right nonsense is endless but THEY ARE IN CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT! The historical implications of current events are almost too enormous to hold in the mind. Update - I left out one important point. While ONE country - Afghanistan - provided territory and resources to the al-Queda organization, the terrorists involved in the September 11, 2001 attack themselves, came primarily from, and are rumored to have been financed by ANOTHER country, Saudi Arabia -- A country where the Bush family has extensive business interests. al-Queda's leader is a member of a family with whom the Bush family has extensive business interests. Meanwhile, Bush and the Republican Party are blocking investigations into failures of government agencies that led to the September 11, 2001 attacks, and into the relationship between Saudi Arabis and the terrorists. What is that all about? And why does Bush and the Repubican Party continue to block attempts to answer those questions? I report, you decide. --- Posted at 9/11/2003 10:59:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Repost - $50 Million Crony Contract In this post I referenced a story about an Iraqi company that bid $300,000 to fix a Bhagdad bridge, but, instead, an American company was awarded $50 MILLION to do the job. This should be a big story. If a $300,000 bridge repair becomes a $50,000,000 graft deal, where is the rest of that $87 billion going? Come to think of it, where is ALL of the money that the Bush administration manages really going? A year ago I wrote about Koch Oil getting the contract to supply the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That is worth billions and billions, especially at the inflated price of oil. Koch is one of the major funders of the far-far-far right. Just how much of our tax money is being paid out to Bush cronies or companies that have direct links to the Bush Crime Family? --- Posted at 9/11/2003 10:08:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/11 Tribute to President Clinton On his radio show, Tom Hartmann just reminded us that the Republicans mocked Clinton for being obsessed with Bin Laden. They accused him of "wagging the dog" for sending cruise missiles to try to kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and mocked him for "bombing an aspirin factory" for sending cruise missiles to destroy a chemical manufacturing plant owned by Bin Laden & suspected of manufacturing components of nerve gas. While the Bush administration has, so far, effectively blocked any serious investigation into the failures of government agencies that occurred before 9/11, we do know that the outgoing Clinton administration tried very hard to get the incoming Bush administration interested in pursuing Bin Laden, and that the Bush administration refused to do anything -- even blocking funding for several anti-terrorism efforts. Also, see the post below about the unanswered questions. --- Posted at 9/11/2003 10:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
MUST READ! The Philadelphia Daily News - WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANSWERS TO THESE 9/11 QUESTIONS? --- Posted at 9/11/2003 09:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fuzzy Jobs Bad news on jobs. New claims for unemployment rose by 3,000 from 413,000 to 422,000. (Remember, Bush = fuzzy math...) The Labor Department said first-time filings for state jobless benefits rose by 3,000 to 422,000 in the week ended Sept. 6. The climb, which pushed claims to their highest level since early July, defied predictions on Wall Street for a drop to 400,000 from the 413,000 originally reported for the Aug. 30 week. The 400,000 level is seen by economists as a dividing line between a deteriorating and improving labor situation.Except Brad DeLong shows that it isn't 400,000, it's 357,000. More fuzzy math. How come the fuzzy math always makes things look better than they really are? --- Posted at 9/11/2003 06:52:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/10/2003 NOOOO!!! "I am shutting down PLA." --- Posted at 9/10/2003 07:50:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Webloggers If you see your weblog listed on the left, please put a link to Seeing the Forest on your weblog! (The technical term for this is "linkslutting.") --- Posted at 9/10/2003 04:59:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Tales from the Left Coast Welcome Tales from the Left Coast. --- Posted at 9/10/2003 01:40:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Suckers Voters in Alabama overwhelmingly rejected a plan to cut their own taxes and raise taxes on the rich a bit. Instead the state services they receive will be cut dramatically. The beneficiaries are a coalition of "bankers, farmers, small-business owners, timber interests and conservative groups like the Alabama Christian Coalition and Americans for Tax Reform." Never forget what we're up against -- the Right's marketing people are the same people who convinced millions of people to kill themselves, but hand over their money first. These people are GOOD at what they do. Update -From a Washington Post story: Alabama has the nation's lowest state and local taxes per capita and ranks near the bottom in tests of public school performance. It also has more than 28,000 inmates in a prison system built for 12,000, and its state police force has only six troopers patrolling 67,500 miles of roadway after midnight. Riley's plan also aimed to shift the tax burden to the wealthiest Alabamians, who pay an effective tax rate of 3 percent, from the poorest, who pay 12 percent. [. . .] Perhaps most striking was opposition among low-income voters, whose taxes would have been cut dramatically. A poll conducted late last week by University of Alabama at Birmingham communications professor Larry Powell found that low- and middle-income voters opposed the plan by a margin of about 30 percentage points. Upper-income voters, who would face tax increases, opposed it by a margin of 14 percentage points.What can I say? The right OWNS them. I was in the car earlier and Rush was saying that the librulmedia can't "get away with" anything anymore because there are enough people getting their information from him, and Fox, and Drudge and other far-right sources... He's right. ("Right" -- get it?) Update - Read the comment from Romberry, who was working on this in Alabama! --- Posted at 9/10/2003 09:46:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Republicans Say Howard Stern Show Is News Program The "Family Values" Republicans now say that Howard Stern Show Is News Program. This is a technicality, so Stern can plug Arnold. Actually Arnold is another great example of Republican family values -- on AND off the screen. This all shows just how dedicated the Republicans really are to "Family Values" when it comes up against the interests of The Party. --- Posted at 9/10/2003 07:07:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/09/2003 Your Tax Dollars At Work From the weblog Bhagdad Burning: (Please read the whole piece) As May was drawing to a close, his manager told him that someone from the CPA wanted the company to estimate the building costs of replacing the New Diyala Bridge on the South East end of Baghdad. He got his team together, they went out and assessed the damage, decided it wasn’t too extensive, but it would be costly. They did the necessary tests and analyses (mumblings about soil composition and water depth, expansion joints and girders) and came up with a number they tentatively put forward- $300,000. This included new plans and designs, raw materials (quite cheap in Iraq), labor, contractors, travel expenses, etc. Let’s pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let’s pretend he hasn’t been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let’s pretend he didn’t work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let’s pretend he’s wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated- let’s pretend it will actually cost $1,200,000. Let’s just use our imagination. A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around- brace yourselves- $50,000,000 !!And we all just know that the company getting the $50 million contract is kicking back a percentage to The Party. (Or maybe just the Bush Crime Family.) Update - Read this too, it's informative. --- Posted at 9/09/2003 01:48:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Never Mind It looks like I may have miswrote earlier. I read summaries of the PNAC report, which made it sound much more like the PNAC report was asking for the US to develop "biological weapons 'that can target specific genotypes." For example, the commentary written by the former British cabinet minister said, "It also hints that the US may consider developing..." Now I am reading the report itself (see page 60) FOR MYSELF and it says that this is a potential aspect of warfare in the future. The report does not specifically call for the US to develop these weapons. Mistakes were made. Never mind. It isn't saxaphones and violins that people are upset about. (Let me know if you get that.) --- Posted at 9/09/2003 01:04:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Suckers Thanks to Sideshow I found this post by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, To put it bluntly: "I’m not going to call you a sucker for voting for him. I’m telling you that he thinks you’re a sucker. That’s when he thinks about you at all, which isn’t often." --- Posted at 9/09/2003 10:18:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Repost Please read this again. I think it's important, but I buried it among other posts. In case it isn't jumping out at you, here's what this means. "Target specific genotypes" means viruses that kill only people of a certain race -- or even narrower characteristics. And "politically useful tool" means the ability to threaten to kill everyone of a specific race unless they do what we want.Someone needs to find out quick if the United States is developing biological weapons that can target characteristics such as what we call "race." Most of the rest of the PNAC plan became Bush administration policy -- why not this? Keep in mind that Bush has rejected the bioweapons treaty. And people who describe biological weapons that can target specific races as a "politically useful tool" are now RUNNING OUR GOVERNMENT! --- Posted at 9/09/2003 08:34:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Not Important Until October, 2004 New Passport Rules Are Put Off by U.S.: The rules, arising from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, were intended to stop terrorists from trying to use false passports to enter the United States and make it easier for officials to gather information on people arriving here.But stopping the use of false passports isn't important until October, 2004. Gotta have them tax cuts! --- Posted at 9/09/2003 08:26:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Cost Of The War From this story: "With $166 billion spent or requested, Bush's war spending in 2003 and 2004 already exceeds the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined, according to a study by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus. The Iraq war approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."Just to keep things in perspective. Yes, that's inflation-adjusted costs. And one more thing, from the story: "In the president's speech last night, there was a glaring omission," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "While he fully funded the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, he failed to talk about anything that would beef up homeland security at home, such as making our airlines, ports, nuclear power systems and the like more secure." --- Posted at 9/09/2003 07:01:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/08/2003 Was Bush Behind 9/11? I didn't write enough about this earlier when I pointed to this commentary. A former member of Britain's cabinet is dancing around making an accusation that the Bush administration was behind 9/11. That's pretty serious. I report, you decide. --- Posted at 9/08/2003 03:16:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
I Met Joe Trippi! I met Joe Trippi (Gov. Dean's campaign manager) at a Dean fundraising event yesterday. He reads Seeing the Forest. I told him I need to say this: "My mother lives a few blocks from the World Trade Center in Manhattan. Please don't let the Bush people get away with politicizing 9/11." I know that was corny, but I meant it. It's personal. My mother had to breath that cloud that rose after the buildings fell, and now we learn that Bush ordered the EPA to lie, and they told the public not to worry about what they were breathing. One day we will know the consequences of that lie, when we learn whether all the people who took no precautions -- because they were assured it was OK -- were harming their health. I saw a few things on TV over the weekend looking back on the Trade Center attacks. It brought it back, and made me really mad to think about how Bush has used that event to push a right-wing agenda, and to attack Iraq! Then they used it to manipulate the 2002 elections. And now they've moved their convention into September in Manhattan so they can make the association with 9/11 in the public's mind. They should not get away with using that tragedy as they did. It should be exposed as blatant politicizing of a tragedy and the entire nation should react by turning every single Republican out of office. Oh yeah, there was another guy at the Dean fundraiser yesterday -- Dean. He spoke shortly after President Bush's speech. Before he came out to speak he was giving press interviews nationally, in response to the President's speech. (Fortunately, too, because if he had come out when scheduled the sun would have been directly behind him as he spoke.) He was excellent. If you ever, ever get a chance to go see Gov. Dean speak live, do not miss it. This was the fourth time I have attended an event where he spoke. I am more convinced than ever that he is the right person at the right time. The event was a "Garden Party" at Rep. Zoe Lofgren's house in San Jose. They had a pretty good turnout: the $100 even attracted 1,200 people. Rep. Lofgren said that was the cutoff because there wasn't more room, and upwards of 2,000 people wanted to come. That's $120,000, and it's NOT from 60 $2,000 donors. (They DID have a $1,000+ donor reception as well, before the garden event. I don't know how much was raised.) This is being done the RIGHT way! The RIGHT way to beat Bush and the corporate money people is for lots of regular people to get involved and win with "people power." --- Posted at 9/08/2003 01:19:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who Started The Fires In August Bush flew to Oregon to push his "Health Forests Initiative" -- cutting down the trees to stop forest fires. Just before he got there, several suspicious forest fires started, creating a prefect backdrop for the photo-op. --- Posted at 9/08/2003 01:08:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Significant And Particularly Terrifying I'm reading this from The Guardian, "This war on terrorism is bogus" -- written by a former British cabinet member, the Environment Minister from May 1997 to June 2003 -- and came across this about the infamous PNAC document. (That's the think tank report, adopted as policy by the Bush administration, from before 9/11 calling for the invasion of Iraq, etc.): "The document also calls for the creation of 'US space forces' to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons 'that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool'. "I missed this back when I first read about the PNAC report. Well, I looked this up (especially here), and it appears to be for real that it's in the PNAC report. This is extremely significant and particularly terrifying, especially when you consider the extent of secret research in the military budget under Bush, and the Bush administration's rejection (and here) of the biological weapons treaty. In case it isn't jumping out at you, here's what this means. "Target specific genotypes" means viruses that kill only people of a certain race -- or even narrower characteristics. And "politically useful tool" means the ability to threaten to kill everyone of a specific race unless they do what we want. --- Posted at 9/08/2003 11:51:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/05/2003 Halliburton employee killed in Iraq Will we see this in the mainstream news? The Agonist: Halliburton employee killed in Iraq. --- Posted at 9/05/2003 01:07:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Debate I haven't seen the Democratic candidates' debate yet. I taped it, and I'll watch it tonite or over the weekend. (From a local PBS channel at 11pm. And no one covered it live -- this is really lousy coverage of issues so important to an informed democracy by our "liberal media.") Today I see news stories with headlines like "Democrats turn fire on Bush." So I'm thinking, a while back Bush was perceived as really popular, and the public was perceived as wanting to support war and tax cuts, so the campaign consultants were telling the manufactured candidates to act like Bush. But now Dean is really popular. So all the campaign consultants are telling their manufactured candidates to act like Dean. (Except, apparently, Lieberman's consultants, who are telling him to BE Bush.) --- Posted at 9/05/2003 09:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Rick Makes A Good Point In his post Momentum, Rick Klau makes a good point. We've been hearing the bad news that 2/3 of Democrats can't even name a single one of the presidential candidates. (Thanks to the lousy coverage of issues so important to an informed democracy by our "liberal media.") Rick points out: "This presidential campaign is very, very different. We have candidates who are raising more money from more people than ever before (proving that people are interested in politics, and willing to put their money where their mouths are). We have campaigns who are redefining what it means to build grassroots organizations. And at a time when 2/3 of Democrats still can’t name a single candidate in the race, campaigns are turning out tens of thousands people to hear them speak."That's right - never before have we seen crowds of 5,000 or 15,000 people turning out to see candidates before the first primary. This time, both Dean and Kerry have been drawing crowds like that! When people start to pay attention to the campaign, it's going to be just amazing! --- Posted at 9/05/2003 09:22:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/04/2003 "Chocolate Makers" Not found in the regular US press anywhere (Washington Moonie Times doesn't count for anything), this from Hi Pakistan (also found it here): In unusually blunt language that drew surprised gasps from reporters, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher scoffed at Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg for continuing to support the proposal that they first introduced at a mini-summit in April. He described the April meeting as one between "four countries that got together and had a little bitty summit" and then referred to them collectively as "the chocolate makers."I know this has been noticed in blogistan, but I was wondering if it made it into any regular press so I checked here. This is really serious. This happened as part of the official State Department press briefing. Here is the actual transcript. Isn't this the kind of thing the public has a right to learn about? Isn't this the kind of information that helps us make informed decisions when we choose who our leaders will be? Oh yeah, "chocolate makers," we're in a jam and need your help in Iraq. --- Posted at 9/04/2003 04:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Hartmann At Common Dreams A Thom Hartmann article, Blood, Oil, and Tears - and the 2004 Bush Campaign Strategy: "These former oil industry executives know their priorities. When George W. Bush spoke on national television to announce the start of 'war' against Iraq, he looked into the camera and asked to speak directly to the Iraqi people. He could have appealed to their nationalism, and asked them to join our soldiers (or at least not shoot at them) in toppling Saddam. He could have appealed to their knowledge of the peaceful side of Islam and asked them to go to their mosques, which we would protect from bombing, and pray for a quick resolution of the conflict. He could have apologized in advance for the death and destruction he was about to unleash on their land, that would kill many times more innocent civilians than died in the World Trade Center, and promise that the US would do our best to make it good after the war. But these were not the things on Bush's mind. Instead, he said, 'And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning. In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells...' "Good point. --- Posted at 9/04/2003 03:01:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Your Overtime Pay This just came in: My name is XXX and I work in the media outreach department of the AFL-CIO. I realize that you also think it is important to save overtime for 8 million working families and I was wondering if you would be willing to put our URL on your blog as a link for people to write their representatives to vote for the Harkin amendment. The URL is www.saveovertimepay.org Thank you. In Solidarity, XXXXX --- Posted at 9/04/2003 01:35:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
How Much Harm Bush Has Done What if... What if North Korea, observing that our forces are stretched too thin in Iraq, completed a couple of their nuclear weapons, and sold one of them to al-Queda? What if the administration learned of this, and needed to warn the public and quickly draft and mobilize civilian defense forces to watch all of our ports and borders? What if... What if Libya or Iran or the IRA or the Aryan Nations was about to do something terrible and Bush needed to come to the public and ask for sacrifice and preparation? Would anyone believe Bush, if he came to us with this? What if this happened just before the election? Would anyone believe him? SHOULD anyone believe him? The problem is that Bush did something like this, just before the LAST election, and used it to take the Senate and solidify the House, and then got us into a war, and gave fat war contracts to campaign contributors and family friends -- and now it turns out that it was all entirely based on forged evidence and lies and distortions. The whole adventure was entirely for political and economic gain and not for reasons of national security. So he has used up all of the good will a President has. And he has completely politicized the national security arena. Look at a thousand potential scenarios and think about the damage Bush and the right-wingers have done to the country with their lies and their military adventures. What if...? --- Posted at 9/04/2003 12:57:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pensions Again I have occasionally (and here) written about the huge problem of underfunded corporate pensions. There's a bit of news on this today: Underfunded Pensions Double in U.S. --- Posted at 9/04/2003 11:32:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Last Night's Dean Meetup Following is an e-mail I just sent to a friend who asked about the Dean meetups: This meetup was special. The next one will be the first Wednesday in October. At the previous two meetups we did a special project of writing letters to voters in Iowa, then New Hampshire, because those are the states with the first primaries. Since then, and maybe partly as a result of these letters Dean has surged way out ahead in the polls in those states. But this time we did something different. Let me tell you about it. Dean's campaign theme is "The Great American Conversation." The idea is to get Americans talking to each other again, as a community. So after finishing the usual meetup activities -- announcing campaign news, then asking people to come up and tell the crowd why they came (sort of like an AA meeting), then showing some short videos -- we took a break and then broke the group up into groups of 5-10 to just talk to each other about what is going on in America and how they feel about it, and what Dean's positions are on the issues. The idea is to get people used to talking about these things, so they will go out and start these kinds of conversations with other groups, and encourage THOSE people to do the same. The bigger idea behind this is to change politics in America, and bring it back to being about regular people talking to each other and being involved. It went over so well that when the meetup ended, three of the tables all stayed just to keep talking. There were about 100,000 people signed up to attend meetups around the country last night, so there is a real potential for this to have an effect! The Dean website is http://www.deanforamerica.com. Also there is a very interesting campaign weblog, which brings people into the campaign as participants, and people leave their own comments there: http://www.blogforamerica.com. To see comments, look at the bottom of each weblog entry and click where it says "Comments." Dave --- Posted at 9/04/2003 09:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
F**king Deregulation The profit incentive: Hundreds of Rule Violations Tied to Possible Blackouts. What do you f**king expect? All deregulation means is letting corporate executives do whatever they want in order to pocket the most money. I was home a couple weeks ago with a cold, so I was watching the cable news channels a bit. I came across Dennis Kucinich talking about the East Coast power blackout. I think it was Lou Dobbs, but I'm not sure. The anchor asked Kucinich what "incentive" energy companies would have to provide electricity to the public if they were regulated. Kucinich answered something along the lines of, "They're ENERGY COMPANIES! They're SUPPOSED TO provide ENERGY to the public. That's what energy companies are supposed to f**king DO!" (Emphasis added. Actually most of the words except 'the' and 'to' were added, but it loosely expresses the nature of what he said.) (Also: Good for him!) Duh! What's all this crap about companies and executives needing "incentives" to do their f**cking jobs? Oh yeah, speaking of doing their jobs, where were the FERC (That stands for F**king ENERGY REGULATION Commission) when these companies were violating these regulations? --- Posted at 9/04/2003 09:17:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/03/2003 Join A Union New union welcomes all -- working or not AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is expected to announce in Detroit today the formation of a newfangled national labor union that is specifically for employees who don't have union representation at work. Working America will serve as a voice for nonunion -- and even unemployed -- workers on labor issues such as jobs, health care and education, Sweeney is to tell the Detroit Economic Club during a luncheon at the Cobo Conference Center. Unlike many unions, such as the UAW, Working America will not be industry- or workplace-based and will have no bargaining power. Instead, it will recruit members through a neighborhood-based, door-to-door campaign that the AFL-CIO tested in Cleveland and Seattle. In August, the executive council of the AFL-CIO gave Sweeney authority to issue a charter to Working America on a provisional basis and to issue bylaws for the union, including an initial dues structure. Information about fees was not available Tuesday or on the group's Web site, www.workingamerica.org The goal of the new union, though, seems to be less about money and more about promoting a social and political agenda for working-class people. So Working America may be likened to the AARP, which collects dues to advance its platform for retired Americans. The AFL-CIO's push for the union comes as the U.S. presidential campaign heats up, and the union federation begins more loudly challenging President George W. Bush's record on jobs, the economy and other workers' issues. "The overwhelming majority of working Americans rejects this anti-worker, antifamily agenda and is ready to overturn it, but lacks a movement to make its voices heard," the AFL-CIO said on its Web site, referring to the new union.I'm joining! --- Posted at 9/03/2003 01:37:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/02/2003 The Magic 400,000 400,000 is supposed to be the magic number for "new jobless claims." New Jobless Claims the number that comes out on Thursdays, telling how many people filed new unemployment claims the prior week. 400,000 is a "rule of thumb number." They say if the number is above 400,000, the jobs situation is getting worse. Under 400,000 they say it's getting better. In other words, if the economy is not gaining or shedding jobs roughly 400,000 people are expected to lose their jobs and 400,000 other people will find new jobs every week. So it turns out the magin number is really 357,000. --- Posted at 9/02/2003 10:12:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Some Math I was reading this article, Combat wounds proving less deadly: "American soldiers in Iraq are surviving combat-related injuries at a markedly higher rate than in past wars, according to a review of casualty figures from Iraq and other recent US conflicts."I have a math degree. That means I know this means there are many more injuries happening per death in this Iraq qWagmire than we would tend to expect. Update - I was right. The number of those wounded in action, which totals 1,124 since the war began in March, has grown so large, and attacks have become so commonplace, that U.S. Central Command usually issues news releases listing injuries only when the attacks kill one or more troops. The result is that many injuries go unreported. [. . .] Fifty-five Americans were wounded in action last week alone, pushing the number of troops wounded in action since May 1 beyond the number wounded during peak fighting. [. . .] Since the war began, more than 6,000 service members have been flown back to the United States. The number includes the 1,124 wounded in action, 301 who received non-hostile injuries in vehicle accidents and other mishaps, and thousands who became physically or mentally ill.It says something that the press is less afraid to report things like this. --- Posted at 9/02/2003 03:05:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
This Is Heavy "This Is Heavy" - That's 60's talk. Sorry. Anyway, this is worth reading. And look who wrote it! AVRAHAM BURG: A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent --- Posted at 9/02/2003 03:00:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
This Will Be Interesting To See Exit Polls From '02 Election to Be Released (washingtonpost.com). I'll be especially interested to see the results from states like Georgia that were using electronic voting machines with no way to verify whether the machines recorded what the voter wanted, and where the election results did not reflect the polls just before the election. --- Posted at 9/02/2003 02:13:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Kerry Makes It Official CBS News | Kerry Makes It Official: "'In challenging times we need leadership that knows how to make America safer, that knows how to put America back to work,' Kerry told the crowd. 'The president has misled America and he has made our path more difficult as a result.' [. . .] "I reject George Bush's radical new vision of a government that comforts the comfortable at the expense of ordinary Americans," Kerry said. "George Bush's vision does not live up to the America I enlisted in the Navy to defend." [. . .] Kerry was joined by crew members of a Navy gunboat he commanded in Vietnam, where he won a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Introducing Kerry was former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam combat. It is all part of Kerry's core argument that his military experience gives him unique credibility among the Democratic contenders to confront Mr. Bush on national security issues. "I am running so we can keep America's promise -- to reward the hard work of middle class Americans and pull down the barriers that stand in their way and in the way of those struggling to join them," Kerry said. [. . .] "Americans have always had the extraordinary courage to do what's right for the country," said Kerry. "He (Bush) has turned it into a game for the privileged."And then the oops: "Some in my party want to get rid of all tax cuts -- including those for working families," he said. "That's wrong. We need to be on the side of America's middle class and I've proposed a tax cut for them because it's the right way to strengthen our economy."My plan was to blog Kerry's announcement, let him speak for himself, and congratulate him. I was so READY to give him a good day as he announces. And if the wins the nomination, to enthusiastically support him. And then he does that, and the nature of this blog post has to change because he slams other Democrats for doing the right thing. It's like the guy REALLY just doesn't get it. Dean was slamming other Democrats for NOT doing the right thing, for supporting the right's agenda of tax cuts and causing massive deficits and getting rid of the government so corporations could take over. But Kerry tries to distort Dean's position as a trick to get votes. The POINT of Dean's campaign is no more tricks to get votes, no more kowtowing to the right, adult responsibility with money, restore the soul of the Democratic Party... Kerry indicates here that he sees politics as posturing and playing to what he thinks the public wants to hear. Update - Just to be clear, what Dean wants to do is repeal the Bush tax cuts. He doesn't want to get rid of "all" tax cuts, as Kerry said. And the Bush tax cuts didn't go to "the middle class' and certainly not to "working families." Kerry should pretend they did, just to get votes. --- Posted at 9/02/2003 08:29:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
9/01/2003 Who Is Our Economy For? "If the idea is for business to employ as few people as possible and keep their pay as low as possible — well, how's that good for me? Who speaks for me?'" --- Posted at 9/01/2003 03:28:00 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Photo-Op Uh-Oh I love this headline: Bush Visiting Union Workers for Labor Day. Especially when you remember that every time Bush shows up for a photo-op like this, something bad happens to whoever or whatever he posed with. If it's a special program for kids, they gut the program the next week. If it's a special forest program, we find out that the forest is going to be cut down. And considering what Bush has ALREADY done to the labor movement, you really gotta worry about what's about to happen to the International Union of Operating Engineers. You'd think that people would be figuring this out and not letting the guy come anywhere near them. --- Posted at 9/01/2003 07:48:00 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
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