Gen. Franks Doubts Constitution Will Survive WMD Attack

Gen. Tommy Franks says that if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government.
Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado.
In the magazine’s December edition, the former commander of the military’s Central Command warned that if terrorists succeeded in using a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) against the U.S. or one of our allies, it would likely have catastrophic consequences for our cherished republican form of government.
Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that “the worst thing that could happen” is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties.
If that happens, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.”
Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack.
“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”
Franks didn’t speculate about how soon such an event might take place.
Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent.
But Franks’ scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government.

MoveOn.org Launches Online Fox Watch Group to Track Fox News’s Partisan Bias

The wall between objective journalism and partisan politicking at Fox News fell last week when it became clear that Fox News staff contributed to the orchestration of the Republican-led 39-hour Senate talk-a-thon intended to counter the Democrat filibuster against four of President Bush’s most radically conservative judicial nominees.
“While Howard Dean has claimed the mantle of the ‘Democratic wing of the Democratic Party,’ Fox News has clearly become the public relations wing of the Republican Party,” said Eli Pariser, international campaigns director for MoveOn.org.
The idea for the food-and-cot political spectacle, also known as “Justice for Judges Marathon,” had its origins on the editorial pages of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard. Also owned by Murdoch, Fox News took the idea a step further. Fox News anchors Brit Hume and Tony Snow pitched the idea outright to Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist on the October 26th broadcast of Fox News Sunday. Two weeks after Frist appeared on the show, the two-day marathon was announced.
To chart this alarming disintegration of journalistic standards, MoveOn.org recently created an online “FoxWatch” group made up of thousands of Americans who have signed up to monitor Fox News daily and hold it accountable for specific instances of manipulations or distortions of truth and partisan bias.
In recent weeks, the evidence of partisan bias at Fox News and in other Murdoch-owned media outlets has been rolling in from watchdog sources. Here are some additional highlights:
May 19: The Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard publishes an editorial calling for “marathon, stay-up-all-night sessions like those of yesteryear” in response to Senate Democrats’ efforts to block Bush’s four most radical judicial nominees.
October 26: Fox News anchors Hume and Snow, in an interview with Senator Frist, challenge the Senator’s repeated contention that an all-night protest session would be counterproductive. Snow prods, “Make people stay in all night. Make it the central political event in Washington. Why won’t you do it?”
November 12: According to a leaked email, a producer for Hume’s evening news show, Special Report with Brit Hume, worked directly with a staffer for Senator Frist, in an effort to choreograph the launch of the Republican protest as a “live opening shot” for Hume’s November 12 newscast. As reported in The Hill, the leaked memo read: "It is important to double efforts to get your boss to S-230 on time ... Fox News Channel is really excited about this marathon and Brit Hume at 6 would love to open with all our 51 senators walking onto the floor -- the producer wants to know will we walk in exactly at 6:02 when the show starts so they get it live to open Brit Hume's show? Or if not, can we give them an exact time for the walk-in start?"
9/11 Commission News Blackout: Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Congress created a 10-person commission over intense White House objections. Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor and chair of the commission has called it “the largest investigation of the United States government in U.S. history.” Yet Murdoch-owned media including Fox News, New York Post and Weekly Standard have virtually blacked out all commission-related news. In the case of the Standard, there has not been one single mention of the commission in the nearly 50 issues that have come out since the commission was formed.
November 17 Sun exclusive: President Bush granted a single one-on-one interview to the British press for his visit to England: the Murdoch-owned London tabloid The Sun. No surprise here. This is the same newspaper responsible for a recent story, “Bush Shows Tax Cuts Can Boost Economy.”
The credibility of Fox’s so-called commitment to ‘fair and balanced’ reporting has been completely shattered,” said Eli Pariser, international campaigns director for MoveOn.org. “Brit Hume and others on his staff need to ask themselves if their job is to cover the news or make the news by orchestrating PR coups for Bush Republicans.”

Patriot Act Expansion Moves Through Congress

Congress is poised to approve new legislation that amounts to the first substantive expansion of the controversial USA Patriot Act since it was approved just after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Acting at the Bush administration's behest, a joint House-Senate conference committee has approved a provision in the 2004 Intelligence Authorization bill that will permit the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand records from a number of businesses--without the approval of a judge or grand jury--if it deems them relevant to a counter-terrorism investigation.
The measure would extend the FBI's power to seize records from banks and credit unions to securities dealers, currency exchanges, travel agencies, car dealers, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other business that, according to the government, has a "high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters." Such seizures could be carried out with the approval of the judicial branch of government.
Until now only banks, credit unions, and similar financial institutions were obliged to turn over such records on the FBI's demand.
Shortly after the conference agreement was reached, the House of Representatives approved the underlying authorization bill by a margin of 263 to 163. The measure is expected to pass the Senate shortly.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said it was "disappointed" with the House's approval, but also expressed satisfaction that a number of lawmakers on both left and right decided to oppose the bill because they oppose the records provision, whose inclusion in the bill was discovered by staff aides only last week.
Particularly notable in Thursday's House vote was the defection by several conservative Republicans from the administration's fold.
"This PATRIOT Act expansion was the only controversial part of this legislation, and it prompted more than a third of the House, including 15 conservative Republicans, to change what is normally a cakewalk vote into something truly contested," said Timothy Edgar, ACLU Legislative Counsel.
"One need look no further than this vote to get an effective gauge of the PATRIOT Act's lack of popularity on Capitol Hill and among the American people," he said.
The USA PATRIOT Act--which gives unprecedented powers to the FBI and the federal government as a whole and was rammed through Congress at the administration's behest just six weeks after the 9/11 attacks--has evoked great controversy.
An unusual coalition of liberal, left, and right-wing groups is convinced that the law's expansion of the government's surveillance and investigatory powers threatens individual freedoms and privacy rights.
More than 200 local governments, including some of the country's largest cities, have approved resolutions upholding the full enjoyment of the rights guaranteed in the Constitution and urging a narrowing of the USA PATRIOT Act, while the Senate Judiciary Committee has been holding a series of critical hearings over the past month about the Act's impact.
Members of the Judiciary Committee, including Republican Larry Craig of Idaho and five Democratic senators, sent a letter to the conference committee earlier this week urging it strip the new provision from the intelligence bill so that it could be taken up by their Committee in public hearings. The provision has never been publicly debated.
"I'm concerned about this," Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, who tried unsuccessfully to limit the life of the new provision, told the New York Times. "The idea of expanding the powers of government gives everyone pause except the Republican leadership."
The government wants these powers in order to more effectively prosecute the "war on terrorism," although critics warn that, once given these powers, the FBI may use them in cases that are not relevant to terrorism in order to gather evidence against other targets of investigation.
Indeed, recent Senate hearings have covered incidents in which information about individuals was obtained by the FBI through the use of its counter-terrorism powers even though the such investigations were directed against what the ACLU called "garden-variety criminals."
The provision not only permits the FBI to seize records from more kinds of businesses; it also forbids businesses from informing their clients about the seizures.
In that respect, it is comparable to a particularly controversial section of the PATRIOT Act permitting the FBI to seek an order for library records for an "investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities" and imposing a gag order on librarians, who are prohibited from telling anyone that the FBI demanded the records. Librarians and civil-liberties groups have sued the government to have that section declared unconstitutional.
"The more checks and balances against government abuse are eroded, the greater that abuse," said the ACLU's Edgar. "We're going to regret these initiatives down the road."

G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue

NEW YORK TIMES
After months of sustained attacks against President Bush in Democratic primary debates and commercials, the Republican Party is responding this week with its first advertisement of the presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping.
The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: "Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he says after the screen flashes the words, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."
By indirectly invoking the Sept. 11 attacks, the commercial plays to what White House officials have long contended is Mr. Bush's biggest political advantage: his initial handling of the aftermath of the attacks.
Republican Party officials said that television stations in Iowa were to begin broadcasting the commercial on Sunday, the day before a televised Democratic debate there. The commercial is to continue running through Tuesday and will also probably be broadcast in New Hampshire about the time of the next debate, which is scheduled to take place there two weeks later. The party said it was spending roughly $100,000 for the initial broadcast of the advertisement, which seemed intended for voters in the states with the first contests, as well as for the journalists who cover the race.
The Bush campaign has sought to keep a low profile and put off overt electioneering for as long as possible. But some Republicans are worried about Mr. Bush's popularity, and, officials acknowledge, some Bush supporters have pressed for a response to the avalanche of Democratic critiques of his performance in office, which have been extensively covered on television.
Still, the White House has sought to keep distance from this first commercial. It is not a product of the president's campaign committee, but was paid for and produced by the Republican National Committee.
The party has acted as a proxy for Mr. Bush while he tries to maintain the appearance of being above the political fray.
Bush campaign officials have been reluctant to discuss when they intend to broadcast their own commercials, but suggest they will come in mid-March, when they expect the Democrats to settle on their nominee.
Jim Dyke, the Republican National Committee's communications director, said the party did not believe that the Democrats' attacks were hurting Mr. Bush. Even so, he said, the time seemed right to provide a contrast to what Mr. Dyke called the negativism of the Democratic field — which he said had rallied around policies that are in sharp contrast with Mr. Bush's and, he argued, out of step with mainstream America.
"It's fine to say Iraq's wrong, Afghanistan's wrong," Mr. Dyke said. "But what we're talking about is the safety of the American people and who's putting forth the policies to address it."
Mr. Dyke added, "What we're going to start doing is point to the positive policies of this president and this party and present the sharp contrast in approach and also in tone."
The 30-second advertisement gives the first sampling of the powerful array of images Mr. Bush's campaign team will have at its disposal when it begins what is expected to be a formidable advertising campaign.
With somber strings playing in the background, the commercial flashes the words "Strong and Principled Leadership" before cutting to Mr. Bush standing before members of Congress. Intended to call out the Democrats for their opposition to Mr. Bush's military strategy of pre-emptively striking those who pose threats to the nation, the screen flashes "Some call for us to retreat, putting our national security in the hands of others," then urges viewers to tell Congress "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self defense."
As the Democrats have seized on Mr. Bush's tenure as a rallying cry for the party's primary voters, some analysts and political scientists have questioned why Republicans have not responded more strongly.
According to the Wisconsin University Advertising Project, which has access to a computer system owned by a media research firm called TNS/CMAG that tracks political advertisements shown on television, many of the roughly $10 million worth of Democratic candidate and issue ads that have run so far have been either directly or indirectly critical of Mr. Bush.
A new commercial for Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts superimposes Mr. Bush's likeness over images of toxic clean-up crews and smog-spewing smokestacks while a narrator says the president "sided with polluters, not taxpayers," and "let corporate lobbyists rewrite our environmental laws."
In one ad, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri says, "I want to stop George Bush and fight for America's middle class" after speaking with a man and woman who discuss financial problems.
It is unclear whether these commercials have hurt Mr. Bush much at this point. Democrats can point to poll numbers that show his support has fallen since the primary season began. For instance, the latest Los Angeles Times poll found a drop of 11 points in the number of people who said they believed the president had a clear notion of where he wanted to lead the country since March, falling to 45 percent from 56 percent.
"It is clear that the cumulative weight of it all has inflicted a fair amount of damage," Jim Mulhall, a communications strategist for the Democratic National Committee, said of the candidates' critiques. "The fact that the president is going on television a year out from the election is a reflection of nervousness on their part about his continued political deterioration."
He also said use of the State of the Union address ran the risk of reminding people of the disputed intelligence Mr. Bush relied on to claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
But in a recent memorandum to Republican Party and Bush campaign officials, Matthew Dowd, a chief Bush adviser, noted that several polls showed his approval rating as steady or moving slightly higher.
Still, some experts warned that the Republican Party would ignore the Democratic attacks at its own peril.
"Advertising matters when there's a one-sided flow of information," said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin advertising project. "Clearly the R.N.C. and the Bush campaign were beginning to believe that the drum beat of Democratic advertising, in addition to the attention the Democrats were getting in the free media, created a one-sided drum beat against the president."
Compared with the last time a sitting president ran for re-election without a primary opponent, the Republicans are behind the advertising curve.
President Bill Clinton presented his first advertisements in June 1995, an extraordinarily early campaign that some of his strategists credited with having an important role in preparing the way for his re-election.
Bill Dal Col, a Republican consultant who ran Steve Forbes's primary campaigns in 1996 and 2000, argued that Mr. Clinton was a far weaker candidate then than Mr. Bush is now, and was under even greater political fire when he started his campaign.
Still, he said, the new Republican commercial was a smart bid to shape the Democratic debate from the sidelines. "In this case you balance the harsh attacks coming, but you also suck up resources they're raising and force them to spend money now," he said.
Darrell West, a political scientist at Brown University, called the commercial a "clever strategy."
"It gives Republicans one more means to defend the president," Mr. West said. "If they stay silent, the next six months are going to be filled with Bush bashing. It's never good to leave an information vacuum."

VOTE

In November 2000
209,128,094 could vote
105,405,100 voted
50,999,897 voted for Gore
50,456,002 voted for Bush
Nearly half did not vote,
and more than half who voted did not vote for Bush
Take your country back!
Register and vote!

Robert L. Jackson, Chief U.S. Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals

"We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."

A guy walks in and asks the bartender, "Isn't that Bush and Powell sitting over there?" The bartender says, "Yep, that's them." So the guy walks over and says, "Wow, this is a real honor. What are you guys doing in here?"
Bush says, "We're planning WWIII. And the guy says, "Really? What's going to happen?"
Bush says, "Well, we're going to kill 140 million Iraqis this time and one bicycle repairman."
The guy exclaimed, "A bicycle repairman!!! Why kill a bicycle repairman?"
Bush turns to Powell, punches him on the shoulder and says, "See, dummy! I told you no one would worry about the 140 million Iraqis!"

The discovery that Bush's resting heart rate is 43 has led some observers to speculate that this is the first time we've had a president with a heart rate that matches his IQ.

A group of Texans are driving down the road, whooping it up, drinking beer and shooting off their guns when they get into an accident with busload of nuns and orphans, killing everyone. The Texans go straight to Hell. When they arrive the Devil is shocked to see that they are not in agony over the heat and he demands an explanation.
"Well, sir, we're from Texas, and we're used to the heat," says one. This infuriates the Devil and he cranks the thermostat up to its highest setting. The lost souls all over hell start wailing. "I'll check on them in the morning and see how they like THIS." He snorts and disappears in a ball of fire.
The next morning, the Devil shows up at the Texans' camp site, and sure enough they are showing some signs of discomfort. They have taken off their 10 Gallon hats and are fanning themselves. One has even rolled up his sleeves. "Well, sir," explains a Texan, "when you have been on a cattle drive in Lubbock during August, this ain't hardly nothing." The Devil is now so angry he is seeing red.
"Those damn Texans seem immune to heat, let 's see what happens when I turn OFF the heat," he says as he heads to the thermostat. "I'll check on them tomorrow."
So in the morning the Devil arrives at the Texans' campsite, and they are all whoopin' and hollerin' and drinkin' the beers from the ice chest in the back of the pick up, now that they have ice to chill them with. The wail of the lost souls is deafening but the Texans are partyin' like there is no tomorrow.
"I don't get it," the Devil says, completely defeated. "I tried to roast you and it had no effect, and then I tried to freeze you and you are partying. You Texans are made of tough stuff. But why are you celebrating?"
A Texan takes a swig from a Bud in a longneck and replies, "Look around! Hell is frozen over. That's just gotta mean there is another Bush in the White House."

A lady bought a new Lexus. Cost a bundle. Two days later, she brought it back,complaining that the radio was not working.
"Madam," said the sales manager, "the audio system in this car is completely automatic. All you need to do is tell it what you want to listen to, and you will hear exactly that!"
She drove out, somewhat amazed and a little confused. She looked at the radio and said, "Nelson." The radio responded, "Ricky or Willie?" She was astounded. If she wanted Beethoven, that's what she got. If she wanted Nat King Cole, she got it.
She was stopped at a traffic light enjoying "On The Road Again" when the light turned green and she pulled out. Suddenly an enormous sports utility vehicle coming from the street she was crossing sped toward her, obviously not paying attentionto the light. She swerved and narrowly missed a collision.
"Idiot!" she yelled and, from the radio, "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States."

Asked by his teacher to compare three presidents Johnny thought for a moment and said: "Well, George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Richard Nixon couldn't tell the truth. And George W. Bush can't tell the difference."

Bill Clinton, George Bush, a spectacular looking blonde woman and an enormously large woman with an unfriendly scowl are in a train car. The train passes through a tunnel, and in the darkness the unmistakable sound of a slap is heard. As the train pulls out of the tunnel, the daylight reveals a big red slap mark on Clinton's cheek.
The blonde thinks: "That rascal Clinton wanted to touch me and by mistake, he must have put his hand on the fat lady, who must have slapped his face"
The fat lady thinks: "That dirty old Bill Clinton touched the blonde and she smacked him."
Bill Clinton thinks: "George put his hand on that blonde and by mistake she slapped me."
George Bush thinks: "I hope there's another tunnel soon so I can smack Clinton again."

A man walked into a cowboy bar and ordered a beer just as President Bush appeared on the television. After a few sips, he looked up at the television and mumbled, "Now, there's the biggest horse's ass I've ever seen." A customer at the end of the bar quickly stood up, walked over to him, and decked him. A few minutes later, as the man was finishing his beer, Mrs. Bush appeared on the television. "She's a horse's ass too," the man. This time, a customer at the other end of the bar quickly stood up, walked over to him, and knocked him off his stool. "Damn it!" the man said, climbing back up to the bar. "This must be Bush country!" "Nope," the bartender replied. "Horse country!"

Republican Proverb: Teach a man to light a fire and he will be warm forever. But throw him into the fire and he will never again complain about being cold.

3 Sharks meet in the ocean. They talk about the people they recently have eaten. The first one says: I swallowed the Ayatollah yesterday, but the guy had eaten so much garlic I still feel sick. The second shark says: That's nothing pal! I swallowed Boris Jelzin last week and the old guy had so much vodka in him that I'm still drunk. The 3rd shark laughs and said: You lucky guys! I swallowed George W. Bush 3 weeks ago and the guy has so much air in his head, I still can't dive!

His closest advisors came to visit Dubya at the White House one evening and found him slamming down beers and whooping it up. They were astonished since he had given up drinking years ago. When asked why he was off the wagon, Dubya replied that he was celebrating finishing a jigsaw puzzle. They smiled and told him that wasn't much of an accomplishment. "Ah, but you're wrong. I did it in record time." When asked what that record was, he replied that he had finished it after only 6 months. Again, they told him that wasn't that great. "Oh yeah?" said the commander in chief, "Well the box says 3-5 YEARS!"

Three brothers Neil, Jeb and Dub, were stumbling home late one night and found themselves on the road that led past the old graveyard.
"Come have a look over here", says Neil, "It's Obidiah Jones' grave, God bless his soul, he lived to the ripe old age of 87."
"That's nothing", says Jeb, "here's one named Butch Smith. It says here that he was 95 when he died."
Just then, Dub yells out, "But here's a fella that died when he was 145 years old!"
"What was his name?" asks Neil.
Dub lights a match to see what else is written on the stone marker, and exclaims, "Miles, from Austin."

George Bush and George Bush were dragging the deer they had just shot back to their truck. Another hunter approached, pulling his along, too.
"Sirs, I don't want to tell you how to do something," he said, " But I can tell you that it's much easier if you drag the deer the other way. Then the antlers won't dig into the ground."
After the third hunter left, they decided to try it. A little while later George said to George, "You know, that guy was right. This is a lot easier!"
"Yeah," says George, "but we're getting farther from the truck."

A liberal came upon a genie and said, "You're a genie. Can you grant me three wishes?" The genie replied, "Yes, but only if you're feeling generous enough to share your good fortune." The liberal said, "I'm a liberal. I'm always happy to share." The genie said, "O.K., then, whatever you wish for, I'll give every conservative in the country two of it. What's your first wish?" "I would like a new sports car." "O.K., you've got it, and every conservative in the country gets two sports cars. What's your second wish?" "I'd like a million dollars." "O.K., you get a million dollars, every conservative gets two million dollars. What's your third and final wish?" "Well, I've always wanted to donate a kidney."

Cheney gets a call from his "boss", W.
"I've got a problem," says W.
"What's the matter?" asks Cheney.
"Well, you told me to keep busy in the Oval Office, so, I got a jigsaw puzzle, but it's too hard. None of the pieces fit together and I can't find any edges."
"What's it a picture of?" asks Cheney.
"A big rooster," replies W.
"All right," sighs Cheney, "I'll come over and have a look."
So he leaves his office and heads over to the Oval Office. W points at the jigsaw on his desk.
Cheney looks at the desk and then turns to W and says, "For crying out loud, Georgie - put the corn flakes back in the box."

A couple of years back, a Midland, Texas guy who was sound asleep on a rainy wet night was aroused from his slumbers by a drunk pounding on his door at 3:00 AM. His wife tells him to go answer the door so he grudgingly gets up and goes to the door.
A neighbor, slurring his words and obviously drunk says, "I need a push!". The guy says, "Dagnabit Georgie, it's 3:00 AM. No! I can't help you." He slams the door and goes back to bed.
And his wife says, "What was that all about?"
The guy says, "It was the Bush boy -- been a drinking again too -- big time. He wanted a push. I sent him packing. It's 3 o'clock in the morning. I'm not about to go out in the rain at this hour for that dang fool!"
The wife reminded him that they had been in a similar situation down in the creek at Red Rock and that at about the same hour in the morning, they pounded on a door and got the help they needed. She shamed him and, feeling guilty, he got back up, put on his pants and raincoat and went outside. George the Lesser was nowhere to be seen.
He hollered, "Do you still need help?" Hey Georgie, do you still need a push?" Off in the distance, he hears a slurred response, "Yeah! I still need a push." The guy says, "Well where in tarnation are you boy?" The drunk responds, "I'm over here on the swing!

While visiting England, George Bush is invited to tea with the Queen. He asks her what her leadership philosophy is. She says that it is to surround herself with intelligent people. He asks how she knows if they're intelligent.
"I do so by asking them the right questions," says the Queen."Allow me to demonstrate."
She phones Tony Blair and says, "Mr. Prime Minister. Please answer this question: Your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or sister. Who is it?"
Tony Blair responds ,"It¹s me, ma'am."
"Correct. Thank you and good-bye, sir," says the Queen. She hangs up and says, "Did you get that, Mr. Bush?"
"Yes ma'am. Thanks a lot. I¹ll definitely be using that!"
Upon returning to Washington, he decides he¹d better put the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the test. He summons Jesse Helms to the White House and says, "Senator Helms, I wonder if you can answer a question for me."
"Why, of course, sir. What¹s on your mind?"
"Uhh, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?"
Helms hems and haws and finally asks, "Can I think about it and get back to you?"
Bush agrees, and Helms leaves. He immediately calls a meeting of other senior Republican senators, and they puzzle over the question for several hours, but nobody can come up with an answer. Finally, in desperation, Helms calls Colin Powell at the State Department and explains his problem.
"Now lookee here, son, your mother has a child, and your father has a child, and this child is not your brother or your sister. Who is it?"
Powell answers immediately, "It's me, of course, you dumb cracker."
Much relieved, Helms rushes back to the White House and exclaims, "I know the answer, sir! I know who it is! It's Colin Powell!"
And Bush replies in disgust, "Wrong, you dumb shit, it's Tony Blair!"

The far right extremists of FreeRepublic.com, WSJ.com, Nazi.com, and KKK.com finally get it together and overthrow the government. Then they start rounding up politicians to execute. A firing squad is convened and Al Gore, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are all marched to a wall to be shot. As the right wing nuts are loading their guns Al Gore thinks, "I've got to cause a diversion so I can get away." He yells "Oh, no. A TORNADO" and points behind the firing squad. As the ultraconservative fruitcakes turn around to see if there is a tornado approaching, Al Gore jumps over the wall behind him and runs away. The firing squad turns their attention back to the two men who are left. Clinton quickly observes how well Gore's ruse has worked and yells "EARTHQUAKE". As the firing squad frantically looks for a place to take cover Clinton jumps over the wall and he too escapes. The firing squad resumes their stance and proceeds to take aim at George W. Bush. Dubya, believing that he, too, can create a diversion, frantically searches his mind for another natural disaster to use. Smiling to himself, he yells "FIRE".

As Governor, Bush got to ceremonially act as a state trooper for a day. While operating a speed trap Bush pulled over a Texas farmer. He lectured the farmer about his speed and the necessity of obeying laws made by his superiors, and in general threw his weight around. Finally, he got around to writing the ticket, and as he was doing so he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head. The farmer said, "Having some problems with circle flies there, are ya, Sir?" Bush stopped writing the ticket and said, "Well yeah, if that's what they are -- I never heard of circle flies." So the farmer says, "Well, circle flies are common on farms. See, they're called circle flies because they're almost always found circling around the back end of horses." Bush says, "Oh," and goes back to writing the ticket. After a minute he stops and slowly says, "Hey... wait a minute, are you trying to call me a horse's ass?" The farmer says, "Oh no, Governor, I have too much respect for you to even think about calling you a horse's ass." Grinning broadly, Bush says, "Well, that's a good thing," and goes back to writing the ticket. After a long pause, the farmer says, "Hard to fool them flies though."

George W. Bush takes his fancy new hot air balloon out for a ride. After soaring over the country side for an hour he realizes he is lost. After spotting a young girl on a farm below he descended and shouted, "Hey little girl, can you help me? I promised a friend an hour ago I would meet him, but I don't know where I am." The young girl replies, "You are in a hot air balloon over my daddy's corn field making a racket and scaring the chickens!" Peeved, Bush says, "Your daddy must be a Democrat." "He is," says the girl, "but how did you know that?""Well," answers Bush, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I still have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. You aren't being much help." The girl below responds, "You must be a Republican." "I am," replies Bush, "but how did you know?" "Well," says the girl, "You're way up there full of hot air looking down on the world, you don't know where you're at and you don't know where you're going. You promised something to somebody you can't deliver on, and you were in this spot before we met but somehow your predicament is all my fault."

George W. was asked what he thought about Roe v. Wade. He said he thought it was just about the most important decision George Washington had to make before crossing the Delaware.

Bob Packwood, Dick Cheney and George Dubya Bush go into a bar. Packwood orders first. "I'll have a B and C." The bartender asks, "What is a B and C?" "Bourbon and Coke," Packwood says. Cheney orders. "And, I'll have a G and T." The bartender asks, "What's a G and T?" "Gin and tonic," Cheney replies. Dubya wants to be cute, too. He says, "I'll have a 15." “OK,” the bartender asks, "What's a 15?" Dubya says, "A 7 and 7."

A first grade teacher in the Midwestis explaining to her class that she is a Republican and how nice it is that a new Republican president has taken office. She asks her students to raise their hands if they, too, are Republicans and support George Bush. Everyone in class raises their hands except one little girl. "Mary," says the teacher with surprise, "why didn't you raise your hand?" Because I'm not a Republican," says Mary. "Well, what are you?" asks the teacher. "I'm a Democrat and proud of it," replies the little girl. The teacher cannot believe her ears. "My goodness, Mary, why are you a Democrat?" she asks. “Well, my momma and papa are Democrats, so I'm a Democrat, too." "Well," says the teacher in an annoyed tone, "that's no reason for you to be a Democrat. You don't always have to be like your parents. What if your momma was a criminal and your papa was a criminal, too, what would you be then?" "Then," Mary smiled, "then we'd be Republicans."

George W. Bush, John Ashcroft, and Kathrine Harris go fishing on the lake by George W.'s ranch. While speeding across the lake they hit a tree trunk which cracks a hole in the bottom of the boat. The boat starts to sink so they look for life preservers and find only one. George W. Bush says: "I'm the President selected by the Supreme Court. The people need me to protect the nation from the new world order and the growth of the new economy and computers and such." John Ashcroft says: "I'm the Attorney General and as the nations's chief law enforcement officer I must live so that there will be no fear or panic in the streets, if you two shall die. And besides I have to outlaw abortion, affirmative action, campaign finance reform, environmental protection, and same sex marriages to save the moral fiber of this country." Finally, Kathrine Harris says: "I'm the Florida Secretary of State and the state Republican Chairwoman, and I must survive so that I can deliver the votes needed by all the Republican officials throughout the state, and disenfranchise those minorities who vote for Democrats, so that Republicans may continue to be elected even though more people vote for Democrats." And the three of them all agree that each has very good and moral arguments for the life preserver, so that they decide the only fair way to decide is by a vote. They cut up three squares of paper and vote by secret ballot. Then they open the ballots to tally them. The first ballot says "George W. Bush - one vote," the second ballot says "John Ashcroft - one vote", and the third ballot says "Kathryn Harris - 37 votes."

George W. Bush, Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso have all died. Due to a glitch in the mundane/celestial time-space continuum, all three arrive at the Pearly Gates more or less simultaneously, even though their deaths have taken place decades apart. The first to present himself to Saint Peter is Einstein. Saint Peter questions him. "You look like Einstein, but you have NO idea the lengths certain people will go to, to sneak into Heaven under false pretenses. Can you prove who you really are?" Einstein ponders for a few seconds and asks, "Could I have a blackboard and some chalk?" Saint Peter complies with a snap of his fingers. The blackboard and chalk instantly appear. Einstein proceeds to describe with arcane mathematics and symbols his special theory of relativity. Saint Peter is suitably impressed. "You really are Einstein! Welcome to heaven! The next to arrive is Picasso. Once again Saint Peter asks for his credentials. Picasso doesn't hesitate. "Mind if I use that blackboard and chalk?" Saint Peter says, "Go ahead." Picasso erases Einstein's scribbles and proceeds to sketch out a truly stunning mural. Bulls, satyrs, nude women: he captures their essences with but a few strokes of the chalk. Saint Peter claps. "Surely you are the great artist you claim to be! Come on in!" The last to arrive is George W. Bush. Saint Peter scratches his head. "Einstein and Picasso both managed to prove their identity. How can you prove yours?" George W. looks bewildered, "Who are Einstein and Picasso?" Saint Peter sighs, "Come on in, George."

George w. Bush is out jogging one morning, notices a little boy on the corner with a box.
Curious, he runs over to the child and says, "What's in the box kid?"
The little boy says, "Kittens, they're brand new kittens."
George W. laughs and says, "What kind of kittens are they?"
"Republicans," the child says.
"Oh that's cute," George W. says and he runs off.
A couple of days later George is running with his buddy Dick Cheney and he spies the same boy with his box just ahead.
George W. says to Dick, "You gotta check this out" and they both jog over to the boy with the box.
George W. says, "Look in the box Dick, isn't that cute? Look at those little kittens. Hey kid tell my friend Dick what kind of kittens they are."
The boy replies, "They're Democrats."
"Whoa!", George W. says, "I came by here the other day and you said they were Republicans. What's up?"
"Well," the kid says, "Their eyes are open now"

On one of his first nights in the White House, Dubya is awakened by the ghost of George Washington. Bush is frightened, but asks: "George, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" Washington advises him: "Be honest above all else and set an honorable example, just as I did." This makes Bush uncomfortable, but he manages to get back to sleep. The next night, the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moves through the dark bedroom. "Tom," Dubya asks, "what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" Jefferson replies, "Throw away your prepared remarks and speak eloquently and extemporaneously from your heart," Jefferson advises. Bush isn't sleeping well at all the next night, and sees another figure moving in the shadows. It's Abraham Lincoln's ghost and Dubya thinks finally, a Republican, I'll get some advice that I can use. "Abe, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" Bush asks hopefully. Abe answers: "Go see a play."

A country doctor is suturing a laceration on the hand of an old farmer. Old man: "All you need to know about politics is that young Bush is a post turtle." Doctor: "Oh? What is a post turtle?" Old man: "When yer driving down a country road, and ya come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top? That's a post turtle. Ya know he didn't get there by himself, he don't belong there, he cain't get anything done while he's up there, and you just want to help take the poor thang down."

A tourist walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at the exotica, he notices a very lifelike life-sized bronze statue of a rat. It has no price tag, but is so striking he decides he must have it. He takes it to the owner: "How much for the bronze rat?" "$12 for the rat, $100 for the story," says the owner. The tourist gives the man $12. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story." As he walks down the street carrying his bronze rat, he notices that a few real rats have crawled out of the alleys and sewers and begun following him down the street. This is disconcerting, and he begins walking faster. But within a couple of blocks, the herd of rats behind him has grown to hundreds, and they begin squealing. He begins to trot toward the Bay, looking around to see that the rats now number in the MILLIONS, and are squealing and coming toward him faster and faster. Concerned, even scared, he runs to the edge of the Bay, and throws the bronze rat as far out into the water as he can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the Bay after it, and are all drowned. The man walks back to the curio shop. "Ah ha," says the owner, "you have come back for the story?" "No," says the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Republican."

Linking the Occupation of Iraq With the "War on Terrorism"

Reuters is one of the more independent wire services. So, a recent news story from Reuters -- flatly describing American military activities in Iraq as part of "the broader U.S. war on terrorism" -- is a barometer of how powerfully the pressure systems of rhetoric from top U.S. officials have swayed mainstream news coverage.
Such reporting, with the matter-of-fact message that the Pentagon is fighting a "war on terrorism" in Iraq, amounts to a big journalistic gift for the Bush administration, which is determined to spin its way past the obvious downsides of the occupation.
Here are the concluding words from Bush's point man in Iraq, Paul Bremer, during a Nov. 17 interview on NPR's "Morning Edition" program: "The president was absolutely firm both in private and in public that he is not going to let any other issues distract us from achieving our goals here in Iraq, that we will stay here until the job is done and that the force levels will be determined by the conditions on the ground and the war on terrorism."
Within hours, many of Bremer's supervisors were singing from the same political hymnal:
On a visit to Europe, Colin Powell told a French newspaper that "Afghanistan and Iraq are two theaters in the global war on terrorism."
In Washington, President Bush said: "We fully recognize that Iraq has become a new front on the war on terror."
Speaking to campaign contributors in Buffalo, the vice president pushed the envelope of deception. "Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror," Dick Cheney declared.
Whether you're selling food from McDonald's or cars from General Motors or a war from the U.S. government, repetition is crucial for making propaganda stick. Bush's promoters will never tire of depicting the war on Iraq as a war on terrorism. And they certainly appreciate the ongoing assists from news media.
For the U.S. public, the mythological link between the occupation of Iraq and the "war on terrorism" is in play. This fall, repeated polling has found a consistent breakout of opinion. In mid-November, according to a CBS News poll, 46 percent of respondents said that the war in Iraq is a major part of the "war on terrorism," while 14 percent called it a minor part and 35 percent saw them as two separate matters.
A shift in such perceptions, one way or another, could be crucial for Bush's election hopes. In large measure -- particularly at psychological levels -- Bush sold the invasion of Iraq as a move against "terrorism." If he succeeds at framing the occupation as such, he'll get a big boost toward a second term.
Despite the Bush administration's countless efforts to imply or directly assert otherwise, no credible evidence has ever emerged to link 9/11 or Al Qaeda with the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Now, if "terrorism" is going to be used as an umbrella term so large that it covers attacks on military troops occupying a country, then the word becomes nothing more than an instrument of propaganda.
Often the coverage in U.S. news media sanitizes the human consequences -- and yes, the terror -- of routine actions by the occupiers. On Nov. 19, the U.S. military announced that it had dropped a pair of 2,000-pound bombs 30 miles northeast of Baghdad. Meanwhile, to the north, near the city of Kirkuk, the U.S. Air Force used 1,000-pound bombs -- against "terrorist targets," an American officer told reporters.
Clearly, the vast majority of the people dying in these attacks are Iraqis who are no more "terrorists" than many Americans would be if foreign troops were occupying the United States. But U.S. news outlets sometimes go into raptures of praise as they describe the high-tech arsenal of the occupiers.
On Nov. 17, at the top of the front page of the New York Times, a color photo showed a gunner aiming his formidable weapon downward from a Black Hawk helicopter, airborne over Baghdad. Underneath the picture was an article lamenting the recent setbacks in Iraq for such U.S. military aircraft. "In two weeks," the article said, "the Black Hawks and Chinooks and Apaches that once zoomed overhead with such grace and panache have suddenly become vulnerable."
"Grace" and "panache." Attributed to no one, the words appeared in a prominent mash note about machinery of death from the New York Times, a newspaper that's supposed to epitomize the highest journalistic standards. But don't hold your breath for a correction to appear in the nation's paper of record.

War Critics Astonished as US Hawk Admits Invasion was Illegal

International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal.
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defense permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defense policy board, which advises the US defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
"They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits them that they want to use it."
Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in Tuesday's event.
Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq".
The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between the British government and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law".
Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defense, including pre-emptive self-defense On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad.
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat.
Coalition officials countered that the security council had already approved the use of force in resolution 1441, passed a year ago, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to give a complete ac counting of its weapons programs.
Other council members disagreed, but American and British lawyers argued that the threat of force had been implicit since the first Gulf war, which was ended only by a ceasefire.
"I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal.
"And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along."
The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of the defense policy board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board.
Meanwhile, there was a hint that the US was trying to find a way to release the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay.
The US secretary of state, Colin Powell, said Mr Bush was "very sensitive" to British sentiment. "We also expect to be resolving this in the near future," he told the BBC.

Job market continues to weaken and to set records for severity

Payroll jobs increased by 126,000 in October. While far preferable to further job losses, those job gains fall short of the 150,000 jobs a month necessary to prevent the slack in the labor market from worsening. Jobs remain 2.4 million below the level of March 2001 when the last recession began. This post-recession labor slump has now become the first (since the collection of monthly jobs data began in 1939) without a full recovery of jobs within 31 months of the start of a recession.
Instead of losing jobs over the last two and a half years, the economy should have added 4.5 million jobs just to keep up with growth in the working-age population. Actual job losses instead of needed job gains have created a total gap of 6.9 million jobs.
The record-long labor slump has caused many people to give up on finding a job and created a “missing” labor force of 2.3 million. If added to the 8.8 million officially unemployed, the “missing” labor force would raise the unemployment rate to 7.4%.
The weakening labor market has also brought an unprecedented 1.2% decline in total real wage and salary income over the last two and a half years. Americans today would have $61 billion more to spend today if their wages and salaries had kept pace with inflation and $346 billion more if their pay had kept up with the value of their output.
For more details on the severity of the current labor slump, see the new EPI Briefing Paper, Understanding the Severity of the Current Labor Slump.
Bush Administration’s tax cuts falling short in job creation
The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which took effect in July 2003, its “Jobs and Growth Plan.” The president’s economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would raise the level of growth enough to create 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004—306,000 new jobs each month, starting in June 2003. Last month, October 2003, the jobs and growth plan fell 180,000 jobs short of the administration’s projection. The cumulative shortfall since June 2003—the amount by which the projected jobs exceeded actual job growth—is now 995,000.
Greatest employment contraction since the Great Depression
Since the recession began 31 months ago in March 2001, 2.4 million jobs have disappeared, a 1.8% contraction. This is the first time since the Great Depression that jobs have failed to fully recover within 31 months of the start of a recession. The picture is bleaker for private sector jobs, which have dropped by 2.9 million since March 2001, a 2.6% contraction.
Since the official end of the recession in November 2001, total jobs have shrunk by 0.8 million (an 0.6% contraction) and private sector jobs have dropped by 0.9 million (or 0.8%).
Lowering the bar
On October 21, The New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary John Snow projected that the economy will generate two million additional jobs, about 200,000 per month, before next year’s election. This new number is a huge retreat from the administration’s previous projection made when it was selling its tax cuts. In February the Council of Economic Advisers projected 306,000 per month job growth starting in mid-2003 if the tax cuts were passed and roughly 228,000 jobs created per month without the tax cuts.
Monthly job creation of 200,000 and maintaining unemployment at its current level is far from a satisfactory economic performance. It takes monthly gains of about 150,000 payroll jobs and 155,000 in household employment just to keep the gap in jobs since March 2001 from widening further. Even with job gains of 306,000 a month, as promised by the Administration early this year, it would take more than four years to close the jobs gap that two and a half years of job losses have created.

Many Retirees Criticize the AARP on Medicare

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Senior citizens in the cavernous Senate Caucus Room - once the scene of hearings on the sinking of the Titanic - this week heartily booed the organization that is arguably the flagship in Washington's fleet of powerful lobbying groups.
The meeting, while focused on a controversial Medicare deal making its way through Congress, also revealed a growing rift among seniors over the AARP - once known as the American Association of Retired Persons - as well as the strategy for improving healthcare for seniors.
More than 500 seniors hissed at the mention of pharmaceutical companies and at another backer of the proposed prescription drug plan: former GOP Speaker Newt Gingrich, who once called for an end to the Medicare system altogether.
But when the AARP came up, they roared disapproval. "Down with the AARP!" the crowd shouted. "I'm shocked and outraged and I want to give up my membership," says Bill Toto, a retired teacher from Huntington, Long Island. He added, repeating a claim by Democratic lawmakers who organized the rally: "They're in the drug and insurance business and they stand to gain."
On one level, the scene was skewed. These seniors were a select group, bused in by labor unions to protest the Medicare drug plan and cheer its Democratic critics. But it also signals deeper rifts within the senior community going into this fight, expected to come to a House vote Friday.
Old allies diverge
For decades, the 35-million strong AARP has been the most reliable ally of Democrats on Medicare issues. They were present at the creation of the Medicare system in 1965 and lobbied hard to expand the system to include prescription drugs - a move they said should cost at least $750 billion over the next 10 years.
The $400 billion plan announced this week falls far short of that goal. But national AARP leaders say it's the best seniors can do for now, and are backing that claim with a $7 million media campaign: "The proposed prescription drug Medicare bill isn't perfect. But millions of Americans can't afford to wait for perfect."
Senior Democrats cried foul. "The AARP has forgotten where they come from, because once you get into the business of making money with the devil you forget your mission," says Rep. Charles Rangel (D) of New York, referring to royalties the AARP receives from insurance marketed to its members. Opponents of the largely GOP-crafted Medicare bill worry that the clout of an AARP endorsement will be enough to win passage of what they say is a deeply flawed bill.
Longer lives, more political power
American seniors are living longer and gaining political clout. During this decade, the 65-and-over demographic will grow at a higher rate than the total US population, and three to four times as high after 2011, when the baby boomers begin to retire, according to US census data.
But as this group matures, significant differences are surfacing on once monolithic, so-called senior issues, such as healthcare. Many Americans work into their 70s, and live active, independent lives well beyond that. That's one reason the AARP in 2001 dropped the words "retired persons" from its full name, retaining just the initials.
Such splits are also surfacing in voting patterns. "The senior vote was always viewed as people over 65 and always viewed as a slam-dunk Democratic vote ,and during the '90s it wasn't," says pollster John Zogby.
The challenge of representation
For senior organizations such as the AARP, representing such a big tent group is a challenge, never more so than in the complex and wide-ranging Medicare bill.
The bill aims to add a prescription drug benefit to a system still focused on acute care for seniors in hospitals. It offers seniors a choice between a stand-alone drug plan for a private health plan that offers drug coverage.
To get the bill under the $400 billion limit, lawmakers are also proposing gaps in coverage for prescription drug costs between $2,200 and $3,600. Premiums and deductibles would be waived for the lowest-income seniors.
What especially alarms Democrats and some senior groups is the prospect of a competition between traditional fee-for-service Medicare and private coverage by 2010.
In final negotiations over the bill, that competition was reduced to demonstration projects in six metropolitan areas. But it's still a lightning rod for critics who say it could undermine traditional Medicare.
"It's hard to explain the AARP's decision on this. If you look at this plan narrowly from the point of view of middle- and upper-income elderly who form the bulk of AARP membership, they will get more in benefits than they pay in taxes," says Henry Aaron, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
"From a self-interested standpoint, it's a good deal, but it is a bad deal for many elderly and disabled people," he adds.
In response to the AARP decision, Democrats release a new poll by Peter D. Hart Research that found that 61 percent of AARP members view the pending Medicare bill unfavorably. AARP spokesman call the poll "slanted."
Senior Democrats also called on AARP CEO William Novelli to avoid appearance of a "conflict of interest" by make a commitment not to market "discount cards, pharmacy drug benefit plans, or any other managed care health plan offerings to Medicare beneficiaries called for in this bill."
Republican leaders hailed the AARP decision, which they say will help secure a favorable vote in the House, where the plan is under fire both from Democrats and from GOP conservatives, who say the plan does not ensure enough competition with private plans to drive down Medicare costs.
Medicare reform passed the House by a single vote last June. GOP vote counters say the AARP endorsement may give them a slightly higher margin, when the renegotiated bill comes up for a final vote this week.

Don’t let the AARP destroy Medicare in your name!
send a message to Congress:
AARP Doesn't Speak for Me. Defeat the Drug Deal.
http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/medicare/06_25_03_ma.cfm

AARP is selling out on Medicare

For years, Democratic lawmakers have been working to make sure that seniors have access to prescription drugs and reasonable healthcare.
Now, in an attempt to score political points, the Republican Congressional leadership is pushing through a bill that appears to offer a solution. Actually, the bill undermines the entire Medicare program, pushing people into the very HMOs which contribute heavily to Republican lawmakers and barring the government from negotiating for lower drug prices.
Given the danger to seniors, one might expect that the millions-strong American Association of Retired People (AARP) to be on the case.
But after huge contributions from pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, and pressure from Republican lawmakers, the AARP is selling out its membership and backing the bill.
In response, 85 members of Congress (so far) have canceled their AARP memberships, or announced that they will never join (if they're not yet old enough to be eligible). [1] Today, we urge you to do the same. If the AARP won't stand up for the elderly when it comes to health care, what good is it? You can reach the AARP at:
VA Branch: 804-819-1902
National hotline: 1-800-424-3410
If you're a member, tell them you're quitting.
If you're too young to be eligible, tell them you'll never join.
You also may want to let your Representative and Senators know that you're keeping the AARP accountable. You could also tell them that you expect them to demand real health care reform -- not this industry-backed bill.
The AARP has endorsed a bill that would make two fundamental changes in Medicare:
1. First, it would force people to make a stark choice: either pay
sharply increased premiums to stay in traditional Medicare, where
they can choose their doctor; or be forced out, into an HMO.
Newt Gingrich, the former House Republican leader, said in 1995
that he wanted to let Medicare to "wither on the vine." This
change would lead to that result, with cost incentives driving
people out. (Not coincidentally, AARP CEO William Novelli
recently wrote the forward to Gingrich's book. [2])
2. Second, it offers a prescription drug benefit, but requires people
who want this coverage to buy it from private insurance plans.
This part of the bill also bars the government from doing the one
thing it could do to actually reduce the cost of these drugs --
negotiate for lower prices, using the size of the Medicare program
as leverage. Drug prices are soaring now, and unless they're
brought under control, they will eventually bankrupt Medicare.
AARP itself sells insurance and also sells prescription drugs, so
the group stands to reap huge financial gains from this change.
The bill has been opposed by a host of liberal groups [3] as well as by major conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, The Heritage Foundation, the American Conservative Union, The Cato Institute, and the National Taxpayers Union. It's also been assailed by virtually every one of the Democratic presidential candidates. [4]
In endorsing this bill, the AARP has broken faith with its members. In a recent poll, 65% of AARP members said they're opposed to it. [5] The group has also violated its own written principles. In July, CEO William Novelli wrote to Congress stating the requirements for AARP's support of a Medicare bill. [6] Yet the bill AARP has just endorsed fails to meet nine separate requirements stated in that letter. [7]
We need to hold the AARP responsible for selling out its members. If the organization sees sufficient backlash from its members and prospective members, it could still change course and effect the outcome of this legislation. Please call your local AARP branch today.

"Clean Coal" Trumps Energy Efficiency in Bush-Supported Energy Plan

President Bush unveiled his energy plan in May 2001, vowing to "make this country the world's leader in energy efficiency and conservation in the 21st century."1 But the energy bill under final consideration by the Senate and supported by the President devotes less than ten percent of the $25.7 billion in tax breaks to energy efficiency.2
The president acknowledged that money would be required to achieve the goal of increased conservation saying, "Conservation on a wide scale takes more than good ideas; it takes capital investment."3 But the bill allocates only $1.5 billion over ten years in new energy efficiency spending, $300 million less than for "clean coal" technology, considered by environmentalists to be an oxymoron.4
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of the bill, "Not only did we call for increased exploration and production at home, in an environmentally sensitive way, we called for expanding energy efficiency and for expanding conservation efforts. It was a very comprehensive plan."5
The bill is comprehensive, coming in at 1,700 pages. But around $14.5 billion of the tax breaks, about 62%, go to fossil fuels and nuclear power subsidies.6
The bill also does not include the repeal, within the Senate version, of a $100,000 tax deduction for heavy equipment, passed in President Bush's 2002 tax cut. The tax loophole was designed for farmers and small businesses to deduct the cost of their equipment, but has instead been used for the purchase of heavy sport utility vehicles like the Hummer H2.7
The energy bill is moving to passage as China announced on Monday its intent to impose minimum fuel economy standards on new cars for the first time, citing energy security as the primary reason for doing so. The New York Times reported that the rules being drafted call for new vehicles to get as many as five miles more per gallon of fuel than the average required in the United States by 2008.8

Call Me a Bush-Hater

Molly Ivins
THE PROGRESSIVE
Among the more amusing cluckings from the right lately is their appalled discovery that quite a few Americans actually think George W. Bush is a terrible president.
Robert Novak is quoted as saying in all his 44 years of covering politics, he has never seen anything like the detestation of Bush. Charles Krauthammer managed to write an entire essay on the topic of "Bush-haters" in Time magazine as though he had never before come across a similar phenomenon.
Oh, I stretch memory way back, so far back, all the way back to--our last president. Almost lost in the mists of time though it is, I not only remember eight years of relentless attacks from Clinton-haters, I also notice they haven't let up yet. Clinton-haters accused the man of murder, rape, drug running, sexual harassment, financial chicanery, and official misconduct. And they accuse his wife of even worse.
For eight long years, this country was a zoo of Clinton-haters. Any idiot with a big mouth and a conspiracy theory could get a hearing on radio talk shows and "Christian" broadcasts and nutty Internet sites. People with transparent motives, people paid by tabloid magazines, people with known mental problems, ancient Clinton enemies with notoriously racist pasts--all were given hearings, credence, and air time. Sliming Clinton was a sure road to fame and fortune on the right, and many an ambitious young rightwing hit man like David Brock, who has since made full confession, took that golden opportunity.
And these folks didn't stop with verbal and printed attacks. From the day Clinton was elected to office, he was the subject of the politics of personal destruction. They went after him with a multimillion-dollar smear campaign funded by Richard Mellon Scaife, the rightwing billionaire. They went after him with lawsuits funded by rightwing legal foundations (Paula Jones), they got special counsels appointed to investigate every nitpicking nothing that ever happened (Filegate, Travelgate), and they never let go of that hardy perennial Whitewater.
After all this time and all those millions of dollars wasted, no one has ever proved that the Clintons did a single thing wrong. Bill Clinton lied about a pathetic, squalid affair that was none of anyone else's business anyway, and for that they impeached the man and dragged this country through more than a year of the most tawdry, ridiculous, unnecessary pain. The day President Clinton tried to take out Osama bin Laden with a missile strike, every right-winger in America said it was a case of "wag the dog." He was supposedly trying to divert our attention from the much more breathtakingly important and serious matter of Monica Lewinsky. And who did he think he was to make us focus on some piffle like bin Laden?
"The puzzle is where this depth of feeling comes from," mused the ineffable Mr. Krauthammer. Gosh, what a puzzle that is. How could anyone not be just crazy about George W. Bush? "Whence the anger?" asks Krauthammer. "It begins of course with the 'stolen' election of 2000 and the perception of Bush's illegitimacy."
I'd say so myself, yes, I would. I was in Florida during that chilling post-election fight, and am fully persuaded to this good day that Al Gore actually won Florida, not to mention getting 550,000 more votes than Bush overall. But I also remember thinking, as the scene became eerier and eerier, "Jeez, maybe we should just let them have this one, because Republican wing-nuts are so crazy, their bitterness would poison Gore's whole presidency." The night Gore conceded the race in one of the most graceful and honorable speeches I have ever heard, I was in a ballroom full of Republican Party flacks who booed and jeered through every word of it.
One thing I acknowledge about the right is that they're much better haters than liberals are. Your basic liberal--milk of human kindness flowing through every vein, and heart bleeding over everyone from the milk-shy Hottentot to the glandular obese--is pretty much a strikeout on the hatred front. Maybe further out on the left you can hit some good righteous anger, but liberals, and I am one, are generally real wusses. Guys like Rush Limbaugh figured that out a long time ago--attack a liberal and the first thing he says is, "You may have a point there."
To tell the truth, I'm kind of proud of us for holding the grudge this long. Normally, we'd remind ourselves that we have to be good sports, it's for the good of the country, we must unite behind the only president we've got, as Lyndon used to remind us. If there are still some of us out here sulking, "Yeah, but they stole that election," well, good. I don't think we should forget that.
But, onward. So George Dubya becomes president, having run as a "compassionate conservative," and what do we get? Hell's own conservative and dick for compassion.
His entire first eight months was tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich, and he lied and said the tax cuts would help average Americans. Again and again, the "average" tax cut would be $1,000. That means you get $100, and the millionaire gets $92,000, and that's how they "averaged" it out. Then came 9/11, and we all rallied. Ready to give blood, get out of our cars and ride bicycles, whatever. Shop, said the President. And more tax cuts for the rich.
By now, we're starting to notice Bush's bait-and-switch. Make a deal with Ted Kennedy to improve education and then fail to put money into it. Promise $15 billion in new money to combat AIDS in Africa (wow!) but it turns out to be a cheap con, almost no new money. Bush comes to praise a job training effort, and then cuts the money. Bush says AmeriCorps is great, then cuts the money. Gee, what could we possibly have against this guy? We go along with the war in Afghanistan, and we still don't have bin Laden.
Then suddenly, in the greatest bait-and-switch of all time, Osama bin doesn't matter at all, and we have to go after Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11. But he does have horrible weapons of mass destruction, and our president "without doubt," without question, knows all about them, even unto the amounts--tons of sarin, pounds of anthrax. So we take out Saddam Hussein, and there are no weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the Iraqis are not overjoyed to see us.
By now, quite a few people who aren't even liberal are starting to say, "Wha the hey?" We got no Osama, we got no Saddam, we got no weapons of mass destruction, the road map to peace in the Middle East is blown to hell, we're stuck in this country for $87 billion just for one year and no one knows how long we'll be there. And still poor Mr. Krauthammer is hard-put to conceive how anyone could conclude that George W. Bush is a poor excuse for a President.
Chuck, honey, it ain't just the 2.6 million jobs we've lost: People are losing their pensions, their health insurance, the cost of health insurance is doubling, tripling in price, the Administration wants to cut off their overtime, and Bush was so too little, too late with extending unemployment compensation that one million Americans were left high and dry. And you wonder why we think he's a lousy president?
Sure, all that is just what's happening in people's lives, but what we need is the Big Picture. Well, the Big Picture is that after September 11, we had the sympathy of every nation on Earth. They all signed up, all our old allies volunteered, everybody was with us, and Bush just booted all of that away. Sneering, jeering, bad manners, hideous diplomacy, threats, demands, arrogance, bluster.
"In Afghanistan, Bush rode a popular tide; Iraq, however, was a singular act of presidential will," says Krauthammer.
You bet your ass it was. We attacked a country that had done nothing to us, had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, and turns out not to have weapons of mass destruction.
It is not necessary to hate George W. Bush to think he's a bad president. Grownups can do that, you know. You can decide someone's policies are a miserable failure without lying awake at night consumed with hatred.
Poor Bush is in way over his head, and the country is in bad shape because of his stupid economic policies.
If that makes me a Bush-hater, then sign me up.

Colorful Cavalcade Protests Bush's Britain Visit

LONDON - George W. Bush and Queen Elizabeth lookalikes in an open-top coach, a giant inflatable missile and a pink "peace tank" wound through London on Wednesday in a cavalcade of protest against the U.S. president's visit to Britain.
London protesters prepare statue of George Bush. During Thursday's large march through London, protesters plan to use the Bush figure in a re-enactment of the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad.
The march was a colorful prelude to demonstrations on Thursday, when some 100,000 people are expected to take to capital's streets to express their anger about the war in Iraq.
"I'm ashamed to be British. I'm ashamed Tony Blair and the Queen are entertaining this megalomaniac," said Cherry Bennet, 40, a scriptwriter from London.
"I'm not a mad left-winger," she added. "I'm middle England."
Bennet was among hundreds of people gathered on the south bank of the River Thames where Wednesday's "Alternative State Procession" began. Security concerns meant Bush himself missed out on the traditional open-carriage parade along the Mall by Buckingham Palace.
The protest cavalcade rumbled away, led by a horse-drawn carriage carrying "Bush and the queen." Behind the coach was an 18-foot-long inflatable Trident missile and a pink "peace and love" tank, driven by a young boy.
Around 50 police were in attendance. They estimated the number of demonstrators at 350 although organizers said the turnout was higher.
A black cab represented "taxi drivers against the war" and a red bus advertised its route as London-Baghdad. Some marchers were dressed as U.N. weapons inspectors or Guantanamo Bay detainees.
"This is really street theater symbolizing all the different elements of the peace movement. It presages tomorrow which we hope will be the largest weekday demonstration," said Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition, one of the organizers.
"George Bush may leave Friday but Tony Blair is going to pay the consequences for a very long time."
Banners proclaimed the United States was the "excess of evil" and declared Bush was "one piece of garbage we are prepared to dismantle here" -- a reference to the so-called "ghost fleet" of U.S. ships on its way to Britain for scrapping.
Airline worker Dawn Totten, 50, said she had flown from her home in the United States to join the protest. "I came all the way from San Francisco because demonstrations go unrecognized and unreported there."
Asked if she had a message for Bush, she said: "I'd like to tell him to stay here."
© Reuters 2003.

President Bush broke the $100 million mark in fundraising

This week President Bush broke the $100 million mark in fundraising for his campaign. This breaks all presidential fundraising records in history. No candidate has ever had this much cash in the bank this early -- or ever -- in an election.
And Bush is running unopposed in the GOP primary. Worse yet -- it's not even 2004.
What does this mean for America? Bush will use his unlimited funds for the sole purpose of distorting his own failed record to the American people while unleashing a vicious attack on our eventual Democratic nominee.
Bush will spare no expense trying to convince Americans that he is a "compassionate conservative" while behind the scenes he and his Republican allies will fervently work to cut and gut the programs that support working families. Why? To pay for more tax cuts for big corporations and the superwealthy. And he'll have unlimited funds to convince the American people:
That his policies are good for the economy.
That his foreign policy makes us more -- not less -- secure.
That his destructive "Clean Skies" and "Healthy Forests" programs are victories for the environment.
That the unfunded mandates in his No Child Left Behind Act somehow magically help our schools without providing the resources they desperately need.
That his extremist right-wing judicial nominees are fair and balanced.

Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform by Bill Moyers

I’m flattered to be speaking to a gathering as high-powered as this one that’s come together with an objective as compelling as “media reform.” I must confess, however, to a certain discomfort, shared with other journalists, about the very term “media.” Ted Gup, who teaches journalism at Case Western Reserve, articulated my concerns better than I could when he wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 23, 2001)
that the very concept of media is insulting to some of us within the press who find ourselves lumped in with so many disparate elements, as if everyone with a pen, a microphone, a camera, or just a loud voice were all one and the same. …David Broder is not Matt Drudge. “Meet the Press” is not “Temptation Island.” And I am not Jerry Springer. I do not speak for him. He does not speak for me. Yet ‘the media” speaks for us all.
That’s how I felt when I saw Oliver North reporting on Fox from Iraq, pressing our embattled troops to respond to his repetitive and belittling question, “Does Fox Rock? Does Fox Rock?” Oliver North and I may be in the same “media” but we are not part of the same message. Nonetheless, I accept that I work and all of us live in “medialand,” and God knows we need some “media reform.” I’m sure you know those two words are really an incomplete description of the job ahead. Taken alone, they suggest that you’ve assembled a convention of efficiency experts, tightening the bolts and boosting the output of the machinery of public enlightenment, or else a conclave of high-minded do-gooders applauding each other’s sermons. But we need to be – and we will be – much more than that. Because what we’re talking about is nothing less than rescuing a democracy that is so polarized it is in danger of being paralyzed and pulverized.
Alarming words, I know. But the realities we face should trigger alarms. Free and responsible government by popular consent just can’t exist without an informed public. That’s a cliché, I know, but I agree with the presidential candidate who once said that truisms are true and clichés mean what they say (an observation that no doubt helped to lose him the election.) It’s a reality: democracy can’t exist without an informed public. Here’s an example: Only 13% of eligible young people cast ballots in the last presidential election. A recent National Youth Survey revealed that only half of the fifteen hundred young people polled believe that voting is important, and only 46% think they can make a difference in solving community problems. We’re talking here about one quarter of the electorate. The Carnegie Corporation conducted a youth challenge quiz of l5-24 year-olds and asked them, “Why don’t more young people vote or get involved?” Of the nearly two thousand respondents, the main answer was that they did not have enough information about issues and candidates. Let me rewind and say it again: democracy can’t exist without an informed public. So I say without qualification that it’s not simply the cause of journalism that’s at stake today, but the cause of American liberty itself. As Tom Paine put it, “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth.” He was talking about the cause of a revolutionary America in 1776. But that revolution ran in good part on the energies of a rambunctious, though tiny press. Freedom and freedom of communications were birth-twins in the future United States. They grew up together, and neither has fared very well in the other’s absence. Boom times for the one have been boom times for the other.
Yet today, despite plenty of lip service on every ritual occasion to freedom of the press radio and TV, three powerful forces are undermining that very freedom, damming the streams of significant public interest news that irrigate and nourish the flowering of self-determination. The first of these is the centuries-old reluctance of governments – even elected governments – to operate in the sunshine of disclosure and criticism. The second is more subtle and more recent. It’s the tendency of media giants, operating on big-business principles, to exalt commercial values at the expense of democratic value. That is, to run what Edward R. Murrow forty-five years ago called broadcasting’s “money-making machine” at full throttle. In so doing they are squeezing out the journalism that tries to get as close as possible to the verifiable truth; they are isolating serious coverage of public affairs into ever-dwindling “news holes” or far from prime- time; and they are gobbling up small and independent publications competing for the attention of the American people.
It’s hardly a new or surprising story. But there are fresh and disturbing chapters.
In earlier times our governing bodies tried to squelch journalistic freedom with the blunt instruments of the law – padlocks for the presses and jail cells for outspoken editors and writers. Over time, with spectacular wartime exceptions, the courts and the Constitution struck those weapons out of their hands. But they’ve found new ones now, in the name of “national security.” The classifier’s Top Secret stamp, used indiscriminately, is as potent a silencer as a writ of arrest. And beyond what is officially labeled “secret” there hovers a culture of sealed official lips, opened only to favored media insiders: of government by leak and innuendo and spin, of misnamed “public information” offices that churn out blizzards of releases filled with self-justifying exaggerations and, occasionally, just plain damned lies. Censorship without officially appointed censors.
Add to that the censorship-by-omission of consolidated media empires digesting the bones of swallowed independents, and you’ve got a major shrinkage of the crucial information that thinking citizens can act upon. People saw that coming as long as a century ago when the rise of chain newspaper ownerships, and then of concentration in the young radio industry, became apparent. And so in the zesty progressivism of early New Deal days, the Federal Communications Act of 1934 was passed (more on this later.) The aim of that cornerstone of broadcast policy, mentioned over 100 times in its pages, was to promote the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” The clear intent was to prevent a monopoly of commercial values from overwhelming democratic values – to assure that the official view of reality – corporate or government – was not the only view of reality that reached the people. Regulators and regulated, media and government were to keep a wary eye on each other, preserving those checks and balances that is the bulwark of our Constitutional order.
What would happen, however, if the contending giants of big government and big publishing and broadcasting ever joined hands? Ever saw eye to eye in putting the public’s need for news second to free-market economics? That’s exactly what’s happening now under the ideological banner of “deregulation.” Giant megamedia conglomerates that our founders could not possibly have envisioned are finding common cause with an imperial state in a betrothal certain to produce not the sons and daughters of liberty but the very kind of bastards that issued from the old arranged marriage of church and state.
Consider where we are today.
Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and – in defiance of the Constitution – from their representatives in Congress. Never has the so powerful a media oligopoly – the word is Barry Diller’s, not mine – been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the people’s need to know. When the journalist-historian Richard Reeves was once asked by a college student to define “real news”, he answered: “The news you and I need to keep our freedoms.” When journalism throws in with power that’s the first news marched by censors to the guillotine. The greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.
Which brings me to the third powerful force – beyond governmental secrecy and megamedia conglomerates – that is shaping what Americans see, read, and hear. I am talking now about that quasi-official partisan press ideologically linked to an authoritarian administration that in turn is the ally and agent of the most powerful interests in the world. This convergence dominates the marketplace of political ideas today in a phenomenon unique in our history. You need not harbor the notion of a vast, right wing conspiracy to think this more collusion more than pure coincidence. Conspiracy is unnecessary when ideology hungers for power and its many adherents swarm of their own accord to the same pot of honey. Stretching from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to the faux news of Rupert Murdoch’s empire to the nattering nabobs of no-nothing radio to a legion of think tanks paid for and bought by conglomerates – the religious, partisan and corporate right have raised a mighty megaphone for sectarian, economic, and political forces that aim to transform the egalitarian and democratic ideals embodied in our founding documents. Authoritarianism. With no strong opposition party to challenge such triumphalist hegemony, it is left to journalism to be democracy’s best friend. That is why so many journalists joined with you in questioning Michael Powell’s bid – blessed by the White House – to permit further concentration of media ownership. If free and independent journalism committed to telling the truth without fear or favor is suffocated, the oxygen goes out of democracy. And there is a surer way to intimidate and then silence mainstream journalism than to be the boss.
If you doubt me, read Jane Kramer’s chilling account in the current New Yorker of Silvio Berlusconi. The Prime Minister of Italy is its richest citizen. He is also its first media mogul. The list of media that he or his relatives or his proxies own, or directly or indirectly control, includes the state television networks and radio stations, three of Italy’s four commercial television networks, two big publishing houses, two national newspapers, fifty magazines, the country’s largest movie production-and-distribution company, and a chunk of its Internet services. Even now he is pressing upon parliament a law that would enable him to purchase more media properties, including the most influential paper in the country. Kramer quotes one critic who says that half the reporters in Italy work for Berlusconi, and the other half think they might have to. Small wonder he has managed to put the Italian State to work to guarantee his fortune – or that his name is commonly attached to such unpleasant things as contempt for the law, conflict of interest, bribery, and money laundering. Nonetheless, “his power over what other Italians see, read, buy, and, above all, think, is overwhelming.” The editor of The Economist, Bill Emmott, was asked recently why a British magazine was devoting so much space to an Italian Prime Minister. He replied that Berlusconi had betrayed the two things the magazine stood for: capitalism and democracy. Can it happen here? It can happen here. By the way, Berlusconi’s close friend is Rupert Murdoch. On July 3lst this year, writes Jane Kramer, programming on nearly all the satellite hookups in Italy was switched automatically to Murdoch’s Sky Italia
So the issues bringing us here tonight are bigger and far more critical than simply “media reform.” That’s why, before I go on, I want to ask you to look around you. I’m serious: Look to your left and now to your right. You are looking at your allies in one of the great ongoing struggles of the American experience – the struggle for the soul of democracy, for government “of, by, and for the people.”
It’s a battle we can win only if we work together. We’ve seen that this year. Just a few months ago the FCC, heavily influenced by lobbyists for the newspaper, broadcasting and cable interests, prepared a relaxation of the rules governing ownership of media outlets that would allow still more diversity-killing mergers among media giants. The proceedings were conducted in virtual secrecy, and generally ignored by all the major media, who were of course interested parties. In June Chairman Powell and his two Republican colleagues on the FCC announced the revised regulations as a done deal.
But they didn’t count on the voice of independent journalists and citizens like you. Because of coverage in independent outlets – including PBS, which was the only broadcasting system that encouraged its journalists to report what was really happening – and because citizens like you took quick action, this largely invisible issue burst out as a major political cause and ignited a crackling public debate. You exposed Powell’s failure to conduct an open discussion of the rule changes save for a single hearing in Richmond, Virginia. Your efforts led to a real participatory discussion, with open meetings in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, New York and Atlanta. Then the organizing that followed generated millions of letters and “filings”at the FCC opposing the change. Finally, the outcry mobilized unexpected support for bi-partisan legislation to reverse the new rules that cleared the Senate – although House Majority Leader Tom De Lay still holds it prisoner in the House. But who would have thought six months ago that the cause would win support from such allies as Senator Trent Lott or Kay Bailey Hutchinson, from my own Texas. You have moved “media reform” to center-stage, where it may even now become a catalyst for a new era of democratic renewal.
We working journalists have something special to bring to this work. This weekend at your conference there will be plenty of good talk about the mechanics of reform. What laws are needed? What advocacy programs and strategies? How can we protect and extend the reach of those tools that give us some countervailing power against media monopoly – instruments like the Internet, cable TV, community-based radio and public broadcasting systems, alternative journals of news and opinion.
But without passion, without a message that has a beating heart, these won’t be enough. There’s where journalism comes in. It isn’t the only agent of freedom, obviously; in fact, journalism is a deeply human and therefore deeply flawed craft – yours truly being a conspicuous example. But at times it has risen to great occasions, and at times it has made other freedoms possible. That’s what the draftsmen of the First Amendment knew and it’s what we can’t afford to forget. So to remind us of what our free press has been at its best and can be again, I will call on the help of unseen presences, men and women of journalism’s often checkered but sometimes courageous past.
Think with me for a moment on the reasons behind the establishment of press freedom. It wasn’t ordained to protect hucksters, and it didn’t drop like the gentle rain from heaven. It was fought and sacrificed for by unpretentious but feisty craftsmen who got their hands inky at their own hand presses and called themselves simply “printers.” The very first American newspaper was a little three-page affair put out in Boston in September of 1690. Its name was Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick and its editor was Benjamin Harris, who said he simply wanted “to give an account of such considerable things as have come to my attention.” The government shut it down after one issue – just one issue! – for the official reason that printer Ben Harris hadn’t applied for the required government license to publish. But I wonder if some Massachusetts pooh-bah didn’t take personally one of Harris’s proclaimed motives for starting the paper – “to cure the spirit of Lying much among us”?
No one seems to have objected when Harris and his paper disappeared – that was the way things were. But some forty-odd years later when printer John Peter Zenger was jailed in New York for criticizing its royal governor, things were different. The colony brought Zenger to trial on a charge of “seditious libel,” and since it didn’t matter whether the libel was true or not, the case seemed open and shut. But the jury ignored the judge’s charge and freed Zenger, not only because the governor was widely disliked, but because of the closing appeal of Zenger’s lawyer, Andrew Hamilton. Just hear him! His client’s case was:
Not the cause of the poor Printer, nor of New York alone, [but] the cause of Liberty, and. . . every Man who prefers Freedom to a Life of Slavery will bless and honour You, as Men who. . .by an impartial and uncorrupt Verdict, [will] have laid a Noble Foundation for securing to ourselves, our Posterity and our Neighbors, That, to which Nature and the Laws of our Country have given us a Right, -- the Liberty – both of exposing and opposing arbitrary Power…by speaking and writing – Truth.
Still a pretty good mission statement!
During the War for Independence itself most of the three dozen little weekly newspapers in the colonies took the Patriot side and mobilized resistance by giving space to anti-British letters, news of Parliament’s latest outrages, and calls to action. But the clarion journalistic voice of the Revolution was the onetime editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, Tom Paine, a penniless recent immigrant from England where he left a trail of failure as a businessman and husband. In 1776 – just before enlisting in Washington’s army – he published Common Sense, a hard-hitting pamphlet that slashed through legalisms and doubts to make an uncompromising case for an independent and republican America. It’s been called the first best seller, with as many as 100,000 copies bought by a small literate population. Paine followed it up with another convincing collection of essays written in the field and given another punchy title, The Crisis. Passed from hand to hand and reprinted in other papers, they spread the gospel of freedom to thousands of doubters. And why I bring Paine up here is because he had something we need to restore – an unwavering concentration to reach ordinary people with the message that they mattered and could stand up for themselves. He couched his gospel of human rights and equality in a popular style that any working writer can envy. “As it is my design,” he said, “to make those that can scarcely read understand, I shall therefore avoid every literary ornament and put it in language as plain as the alphabet.”
That plain language spun off memorable one-liners that we’re still quoting. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.” “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.” “Virtue is not hereditary.” And this: “Of more worth is one honest man to society and in the sight of God than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.” I don’t know what Paine would have thought of political debate by bumper sticker and sound bite but he could have held his own in any modern campaign.
There were also editors who felt responsible to audiences that would dive deep. In 1787 and ‘88 the little New-York Independent Advertiser ran all eighty-five numbers of The Federalist , those serious essays in favor of ratifying the Constitution. They still shine as clear arguments, but they are, and they were, unforgiving in their demand for concentrated attention. Nonetheless, The Advertiser felt that it owed the best to its readers, and the readers knew that the issues of self-government deserved their best attention. I pray your goal of “media reform” includes a press as conscientious as the New-York Advertiser, as pungent as Common Sense, and as public-spirited as both. Because it takes those qualities to fight against the relentless pressure of authority and avarice. Remember, back in l79l, when the First Amendment was ratified, the idea of a free press seemed safely sheltered in law. It wasn’t. Only seven years later, in the midst of a war scare with France, Congress passed and John Adams signed the infamous Sedition Act. The act made it a crime – just listen to how broad a brush the government could swing – to circulate opinions “tending to induce a belief” that lawmakers might have unconstitutional or repressive motives, or “directly or indirectly tending” to justify France or to “criminate,” whatever that meant, the President or other Federal officials. No wonder that opponents called it a scheme to “excite a fervor against foreign aggression only to establish tyranny at home.” John Ashcroft would have loved it.
But here’s what happened. At least a dozen editors refused to be frightened and went defiantly to prison, some under state prosecutions. One of them, Matthew Lyon, who also held a seat in the House of Representatives, languished for four months in an unheated cell during a Vermont winter. But such was the spirit of liberty abroad in the land that admirers chipped in to pay his thousand-dollar fine, and when he emerged his district re-elected him by a landslide. Luckily, the Sedition Act had a built-in expiration date of 1801, at which time President Jefferson – who hated it from the first – pardoned those remaining under indictment. So the story has an upbeat ending, and so can ours, but it will take the kind of courage that those early printers and their readers showed.
Courage is a timeless quality and surfaces when the government is tempted to hit the bottle of censorship again during national emergencies, real or manufactured. As so many of you will recall, in 1971, during the Vietnam War, the Nixon administration resurrected the doctrine of “prior restraint” from the crypt and tried to ban the publication of the Pentagon Papers by the New York Times and the Washington Post – even though the documents themselves were a classified history of events during four earlier Presidencies. Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the Times, and Katherine Graham of the Post were both warned by their lawyers that they and their top managers could face criminal prosecution under espionage laws if they printed the material that Daniel Ellsberg had leaked – and, by the way, offered without success to the three major television networks. Or at the least, punitive lawsuits or whatever political reprisals a furious Nixon team could devise. But after internal debates – and the threats of some of their best-known editors to resign rather than fold under pressure – both owners gave the green light – and were vindicated by the Supreme Court. Score a round for democracy.
Bi-partisan fairness requires me to note that the Carter administration, in 1979, tried to prevent the Progressive magazine, published right here in Madison, from running an article called “How to Make an H-Bomb.” The grounds were a supposed threat to “national security.” But Howard Morland had compiled the piece entirely from sources open to the public, mainly to show that much of the classification system was Wizard of Oz smoke and mirrors. The courts again rejected the government’s claim, but it’s noteworthy that the journalism of defiance by that time had retreated to a small left-wing publication like the Progressive.
In all three of those cases, confronted with a clear and present danger of punishment, none of the owners flinched. Can we think of a single executive of today’s big media conglomerates showing the kind of resistance that Sulzberger, Graham, and Erwin Knoll did? Certainly not Michael Eisner. He said he didn’t even want ABC News reporting on its parent company, Disney. Certainly not General Electric/NBC’s Robert Wright. He took Phil Donahue off MNBC because the network didn’t want to offend conservatives with a liberal sensibility during the invasion of Iraq. Instead, NBC brought to its cable channel one Michael Savage whose diatribes on radio had described non-white countries as “turd-world nations” and who characterized gay men and women as part of “the grand plan to cut down on the white race.” I am not sure what it says that the GE/NBC executives calculated that while Donahue was offensive to conservatives, Savage was not.
And then there’s Leslie Moonves, the chairman of CBS. In the very week that the once-Tiffany Network was celebrating its 75th anniversary – and taking kudos for its glory days when it was unafraid to broadcast “The Harvest of Shame” and “The Selling of the Pentagon” – the network’s famous eye blinked. Pressured by a vociferous and relentless right wing campaign and bullied by the Republican National Committee – and at a time when its parent company has billions resting on whether the White House, Congress, and the FCC will allow it to own even more stations than currently permissible – CBS caved in and pulled the miniseries about Ronald Reagan that conservatives thought insufficiently worshipful. The chief honcho at CBS, Les Moonves, says taste, not politics, dictated his decision. But earlier this year, explaining why CBS intended to air a series about Adolf Hitler, Moonves sang a different tune: “If you want to play it safe and put on milquetoast then you get criticized…There are times when as a broadcaster when you take chances.” This obviously wasn’t one of those times. Granted, made-for-television movies about living figures are about as vital as the wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s – and even less authentic – granted that the canonizers of Ronald Reagan hadn’t even seen the film before they set to howling; granted, on the surface it’s a silly tempest in a teapot; still, when a once-great network falls obsequiously to the ground at the feet of a partisan mob over a cheesy mini-series that practically no one would have taken seriously as history, you have to wonder if the slight tremor that just ran through the First Amendment could be the harbinger of greater earthquakes to come, when the stakes are really high. And you have to wonder what concessions the media tycoons-cum-supplicants are making when no one is looking.
So what must we devise to make the media safe for individuals stubborn about protecting freedom and serving the truth? And what do we all – educators, administrators, legislators and agitators – need to do to restore the disappearing diversity of media opinions? America had plenty of that in the early days when the republic and the press were growing up together. It took no great amount of capital and credit – just a few hundred dollars – to start a paper, especially with a little political sponsorship and help. There were well over a thousand of them by 1840, mostly small-town weeklies. And they weren’t objective by any stretch. Here’s William Cobbett, another Anglo-American hell-raiser like Paine, shouting his creed in the opening number of his 1790s paper, Porcupine’s Gazette. “Peter Porcupine,” Cobbett’s self-bestowed nickname, declared:
Professions of impartiality I shall make none. They are always useless, and are besides perfect nonsense, when used by a newsmonger; for, he that does not relate news as he finds it, is something worse than partial; and . . . he that does not exercise his own judgment, either in admitting or rejecting what is sent him, is a poor passive tool, and not an editor.
In Cobbett’s day you could flaunt your partisan banners as you cut and thrust, and not inflict serious damage on open public discussion because there were plenty of competitors. It didn’t matter if the local gazette presented the day’s events entirely through a Democratic lens. There was always an alternate Whig or Republican choice handy – there were, in other words, choices. As Alexis de Tocqueville noted, these many blooming journals kept even rural Americans amazingly well informed. They also made it possible for Americans to exercise one of their most democratic habits – that of forming associations to carry out civic enterprises. And they operated against the dreaded tyranny of the majority by letting lonely thinkers know that they had allies elsewhere. Here’s how de Tocqueville put it in his own words:
It often happens in democratic countries that many men who have the desire or directed toward that light, and those wandering spirits who had long sought each other the need to associate cannot do it, because all being very small and lost in the crowd, they do not see each other and do not know where to find each other. Up comes a newspaper that exposes to their view the sentiment or the idea that had been presented to each of them simultaneously but separately. All are immediately in the shadows finally meet each other and unite.
No wandering spirit could fail to find a voice in print. And so in that pre-Civil War explosion of humanitarian reform movements, it was a diverse press that put the yeast in freedom’s ferment. Of course there were plenty of papers that spoke for Indian-haters, immigrant-bashers, bigots, jingoes and land-grabbers proclaiming America’s Manifest Destiny to dominate North America. But one way or another, journalism mattered, and had purpose and direction.
Past and present are never as separate as we think. Horace Greeley, the reform-loving editor of the New York Tribune, not only kept his pages “ever open to the plaints of the wronged and suffering,” but said that whoever sat in an editor’s chair and didn’t work to promote human progress hadn’t tasted “the luxury” of journalism. I liken that to the words of a kindred spirit closer to our own time, I.F. Stone. In his four-page little I.F. Stone’s Weekly, “Izzy” loved to catch the government’s lies and contradictions in the government’s own official documents. And amid the thunder of battle with the reactionaries, he said: “I have so much fun I ought to be arrested.” Think about that. Two newsmen, a century apart, believing that being in a position to fight the good fight isn’t a burden but a lucky break. How can our work here bring that attitude back into the newsrooms?
That era of a wide-open and crowded newspaper playing field began to fade as the old hand-presses gave way to giant machines with press runs and readerships in the hundreds of thousands and costs in the millions. But that didn’t necessarily or immediately kill public spirited journalism. Not so long as the new owners were still strong-minded individuals with big professional egos to match their thick pocketbooks. When Joseph Pulitzer, a one-time immigrant reporter for a German-language paper in St. Louis, took over the New York World in 1883 he was already a millionaire in the making. But here’s his recommended short platform for politicians:
1.Tax luxuries
2. Tax Inheritances
3. Tax Large Incomes
4. Tax monopolies
5. Tax the Privileged Corporation
6. A Tariff for Revenue
7. Reform the Civil Service
8. Punish Corrupt Officers
9. Punish Vote Buying.
10. Punish Employers who Coerce their Employees in Elections
Also not a bad mission statement. Can you imagine one of today’s huge newspaper chains taking that on as an agenda?
Don’t get me wrong. The World certainly offered people plenty of the spice that they wanted – entertainment, sensation, earthy advice on living – but not at the expense of news that let them know who was on their side against the boodlers and bosses.
Nor did big-time, big-town, big bucks journalism extinguish the possibility of a reform-minded investigative journalism that took the name of muckraking during the Progressive Era. Those days of early last century saw a second great awakening of the democratic impulse. What brought it into being was a reaction against the Social Darwinism and unrestrained capitalistic exploitation that is back in full force today. Certain popular magazines made space for – and profited by – the work of such journalists – to name only a few – as Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell, Upton Sinclair, Samuel Hopkins Adams and David Graham Phillips. They ripped the veils from – among other things – the shame of the cities, the crimes of the trusts, the treason of the Senate and the villainies of those who sold tainted meat and poisonous medicines. And why were they given those opportunities? Because, in the words of Samuel S. McClure, owner of McClure’s Magazine, when special interests defied the law and flouted the general welfare, there was a social debt incurred. And, as he put it: “We have to pay in the end, every one of us. And in the end, the sum total of the debt will be our liberty.”
Muckraking lingers on today, but alas, a good deal of it consists of raking personal and sexual scandal in high and celebrated places. Surely, if democracy is to be served, we have to get back to putting the rake where the important dirt lies, in the fleecing of the public and the abuse of its faith in good government.
When that landmark Communications Act of 1934 was under consideration a vigorous public movement of educators, labor officials, and religious and institutional leaders emerged to argue for a broadcast system that would serve the interests of citizens and communities. A movement like that is coming to life again and we now have to build on this momentum.
It won’t be easy, because the tide’s been flowing the other way for a long time. The deregulation pressure began during the Reagan era, when then-FCC chairman Mark Fowler, who said that TV didn’t need much regulation because it was just a “toaster with pictures,” eliminated many public-interest rules. That opened the door for networks to cut their news staffs, scuttle their documentary units (goodbye to “The Harvest of Shame” and “The Selling of the Pentagon”), and exile investigative producers and reporters to the under-funded hinterlands of independent production. It was like turning out searchlights on dark and dangerous corners. A crowning achievement of that drive was the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the largest corporate welfare program ever for the most powerful media and entertainment conglomerates in the world – passed, I must add, with support from both parties.
And the beat of “convergence” between once-distinct forms of media goes on at increased tempo, with the communications conglomerates and the advertisers calling the tune. As safeguards to competition fall, an octopus like GE-NBC-Vivendi-Universal will be able to secure cable channels that can deliver interactive multimedia content – text, sound and images – to digital TVs, home computers, personal video recorders and portable wireless devices like cell phones. The goal? To corner the market on new ways of selling more things to more people for more hours in the day. And in the long run, to fill the airwaves with customized pitches to you and your children. That will melt down the surviving boundaries between editorial and marketing divisions and create a hybrid known to the new-media hucksters as “branded entertainment.”
Let’s consider what’s happening to newspapers. A study by Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America reports that two-thirds of today’s newspaper markets are monopolies. And now most of the country’s powerful newspaper chains are lobbying for co-ownership of newspaper and broadcast outlets in the same market, increasing their grip on community after community. And are they up-front about it? Hear this: Last December 3 such media giants as The New York Times, Gannett, Cox, and Tribune, along with the trade group representing almost all the country’s broadcasting stations, filed a petition to the FCC making the case for that cross ownership the owners so desperately seek. They actually told the FCC that lifting the regulation on cross ownership would strengthen local journalism. But did those same news organizations tell their readers what they were doing? Not all. None of them on that day believed they had an obligation to report in their own news pages what their parent companies were asking of the FCC. As these huge media conglomerates increase their control over what we see, read, and hear, they rarely report on how they are themselves are using their power to further their own interests and power as big business, including their influence over the political process.
Take a look at a new book called Leaving Readers Behind: The Age of Corporate Newspapering published as part of the Project on the State of the American Newspaper under the auspices of the Pew Charitable Trusts. The people who produced the book all love newspapers – Gene Roberts, former managing editor of The New York Times; Thomas Kunkel, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism; Charles Layton, a veteran wire service reporter and news and feature editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well as contributors such as Ken Auletta, Geneva Overholser, and Roy Reed. Their conclusion: the newspaper industry is in the middle of the most momentous change in its three hundred year history – a change that is diminishing the amount of real news available to the consumer. A generation of relentless corporatization is now culminating in a furious, unprecedented blitz of buying, selling and consolidating of newspapers, from the mightiest dailies to the humblest weeklies. It is a world where “small hometown dailies in particular are being bought and sold like hog futures. Where chains, once content to grow one property at a time, now devour other chains whole. Where they are effectively ceding whole regions of the country to one another, further minimizing competition. Where money is pouring into the business from interests with little knowledge and even less concern about the special obligations newspapers have to democracy.” They go on to describe the toll that the never-ending drive for profits is taking on the news. In Cumberland, Maryland, for example, the police reporter had so many duties piled upon him he no longer had time to go to the police station for the daily reports. But newspaper management had a cost-saving solution: put a fax machine in the police station and let the cops send over the news they thought the paper should have. In New Jersey, the Gannett chain bought the Asbury Park Press, then sent in a publisher who slashed fifty five people from the staff and cut the space for news, and was rewarded by being named Gannett’s Manager of the Year. In New Jersey, by the way, the Newhouse and Gannett chains between them now own thirteen of the state’s nineteen dailies, or seventy three percent of all the circulation of New Jersey-based papers. Then there is The Northwestern in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with a circulation of 23,500. Here, the authors report, is a paper that prided itself on being in hometown hands since the Johnson administration – the Andrew Johnson administration. But in 1998 it was sold not once but twice, within the space of two months. Two years later it was sold again: four owners in less than three years.
You’d better get used to it, concluded Leaving Readers Behind, because the real momentum of consolidation is just beginning – it won’t be long now before America is reduced to half a dozen major print conglomerates.
You can see the results even now in the waning of robust journalism. In the dearth of in-depth reporting as news organizations try to do more with fewer resources. In the failure of the major news organizations to cover their own corporate deals and lobbying as well as other forms of “crime in the suites” such as Enron story. And in helping people understand what their government is up to. The report by the Roberts team includes a survey in l999 that showed a wholesale retreat in coverage of nineteen key departments and agencies in Washington. Regular reporting of the Supreme Court and State Department dropped off considerably through the decade. At the Social Security Administration, whose activities literally affect every American, only the New York Times was maintaining a full-time reporter and, incredibly, at the Interior Department, which controls five to six hundred million acres of public land and looks after everything from the National Park Service to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, there were no full-time reporters around.
That’s in Washington, our nation’s capital. Out across the country there is simultaneously a near blackout of local politics by broadcasters. The public interest group Alliance for Better Campaigns studied forty-five stations in six cities in one week in October. Out of 7,560 hours of programming analyzed, only 13 were devoted to local public affairs – less than one-half of 1% of local programming nationwide. Mayors, town councils, school boards, civic leaders get no time from broadcasters who have filled their coffers by looting the public airwaves over which they were placed as stewards. Last year, when a movement sprang up in the House of Representatives to require these broadcasters to obey the law that says they must sell campaign advertising to candidates for office at the lowest commercial rate, the powerful broadcast lobby brought the Congress to heel. So much for the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.”
So what do we do? What is our strategy for taking on what seems a hopeless fight for a media system that serves as effectively as it sells – one that holds all the institutions of society, itself included, accountable?
There’s plenty we can do. Here’s one journalist’s list of some of the overlapping and connected goals that a vital media reform movement might pursue.
First, we have to take Tom Paine’s example – and Danny Schecter’s advice – and reach out to regular citizens. We have to raise an even bigger tent than you have here. Those of us in this place speak a common language about the “media.” We must reach the audience that’s not here – carry the fight to radio talk shows, local television, and the letters columns of our newspapers. As Danny says, we must engage the mainstream, not retreat from it. We have to get our fellow citizens to understand that what they see, hear, and read is not only the taste of programmers and producers but also a set of policy decisions made by the people we vote for.
We have to fight to keep the gates to the Internet open to all. The web has enabled many new voices in our democracy – and globally – to be heard: advocacy groups, artists, individuals, non-profit organizations. Just about anyone can speak online, and often with an impact greater than in the days when orators had to climb on soap box in a park. The media industry lobbyists point to the Internet and say it’s why concerns about media concentration are ill founded in an environment where anyone can speak and where there are literally hundreds of competing channels. What those lobbyists for big media don’t tell you is that the traffic patterns of the online world are beginning to resemble those of television and radio. In one study, for example, AOL Time Warner (as it was then known) accounted for nearly a third of all user time spent online. And two others companies – Yahoo and Microsoft – bring that figure to fully 50%. As for the growing number of channels available on today’s cable systems, most are owned by a small handful of companies. Of the ninety-one major networks that appear on most cable systems, 79 are part of such multiple network groups such as Time Warner, Viacom, Liberty Media, NBC, and Disney. In order to program a channel on cable today, you must either be owned by or affiliated with one of the giants. If we’re not vigilant the wide-open spaces of the Internet could be transformed into a system in which a handful of companies use their control over high-speed access to ensure they remain at the top of the digital heap in the broadband era at the expense of the democratic potential of this amazing technology. So we must fight to make sure the Internet remains open to all as the present-day analogue of that many-tongued world of small newspapers so admired by de Tocqueville.
We must fight for a regulatory, market and public opinion environment that lets local and community-based content be heard rather than drowned out by nationwide commercial programming.
We must fight to limit conglomerate swallowing of media outlets by sensible limits on multiple and cross-ownership of TV and radio stations, newspapers, magazines, publishing companies and other information sources. Let the message go forth: No Berlusconis in America!
We must fight to expand a noncommercial media system – something made possible in part by new digital spectrum awarded to PBS stations – and fight off attempts to privatize what’s left of public broadcasting. Commercial speech must not be the only free speech in America!
We must fight to create new opportunities, through public policies and private agreements, to let historically marginalized media players into more ownership of channels and control of content.
Let us encourage traditional mainstream journalism to get tougher about keeping a critical eye on those in public and private power and keeping us all informed of what’s important – not necessarily simple or entertaining or good for the bottom line. Not all news is “Entertainment Tonight.” And news departments are trustees of the public, not the corporate media’s stockholders
In that last job, schools of journalism and professional news associations have their work cut out. We need journalism graduates who are not only better informed in a whole spectrum of special fields – and the schools do a competent job there – but who take from their training a strong sense of public service. And also graduates who are perhaps a little more hard-boiled and street-smart than the present crop, though that’s hard to teach. Thanks to the high cost of education, we get very few recruits from the ranks of those who do the world’s unglamorous and low-paid work. But as a onetime “cub” in a very different kind of setting, I cherish H.L. Mencken’s description of what being a young Baltimore reporter a hundred years ago meant to him. “I was at large,” he wrote,
in a wicked seaport of half a million people with a front seat at every public . . [B]y all orthodox cultural standards I probably reached my all-time low, for the heavy reading of my teens had been abandoned in favor of life itself. . .But it would be an exaggeration to say I was ignorant, for if I neglected the humanities I was meanwhile laying in all the worldly wisdom of a police lieutenant, a bartender, a shyster lawyer or a midwife.
We need some of that worldly wisdom in our newsrooms. Let’s figure out how to attract youngsters who have acquired it.
And as for those professional associations of editors they might remember that in union there is strength. One journalist alone can’t extract from an employer a commitment to let editors and not accountants choose the appropriate subject matter for coverage. But what if news councils blew the whistle on shoddy or cowardly managements? What if foundations gave magazines such as the Columbia Journalism Review sufficient resources to spread their stories of journalistic bias, failure or incompetence? What if entire editorial departments simply refused any longer to quote anonymous sources – or give Kobe Bryant’s trial more than the minimal space it rates by any reasonable standard – or to run stories planted by the Defense Department and impossible, for alleged security reasons, to verify? What if a professional association backed them to the hilt? Or required the same stance from all its members? It would take courage to confront powerful ownerships that way. But not as much courage as is asked of those brave journalists in some countries who face the dungeon, the executioner or the secret assassin for speaking out.
All this may be in the domain of fantasy. And then again, maybe not. What I know to be real is that we are in for the fight of our lives. I am not a romantic about democracy or journalism; the writer Andre Gide may have been right when he said that all things human, given time, go badly. But I know journalism and democracy are deeply linked in whatever chance we human beings have to redress our grievances, renew our politics, and reclaim our revolutionary ideals. Those are difficult tasks at any time, and they are even more difficult in a cynical age as this, when a deep and pervasive corruption has settled upon the republic. But too much is at stake for our spirits to flag. Earlier this week the Library of Congress gave the first Kluge Lifetime Award in the Humanities to the Polish philosopher Leslie Kolakowski. In an interview Kolakowski said: “There is one freedom on which all other liberties depend – and that is freedom of expression, freedom of speech, of print. If this is taken away, no other freedom can exist, or at least it would be soon suppressed.”
That’s the flame of truth your movement must carry forward. I am older than almost all of you and am not likely to be around for the duration; I have said for several years now that I will retire from active journalism when I turn 70 next year. But I take heart from the presence in this room, unseen, of Peter Zenger, Thomas Paine, the muckrakers, I.F. Stone and all those heroes and heroines, celebrated or forgotten, who faced odds no less than ours and did not flinch. I take heart in your presence here. It’s your fight now. Look around. You are not alone.

The Conning of Black America

The Bush administration is pushing a dangerous agenda that will set back the gains of the Civil Rights movement for generations. The administration has been taken over by an extremist ideology referred to as “neo-conservatism” or, for short, “neo-con.”
The name neo-con is misleading because there is nothing new, or “neo,” about this con.
Neo-cons put forth an agenda of less government to protect us (the average American), more government to enrich themselves (the economic elite). Less government means dismantling laws that protect public health and well-being from money-driven corporations. Less government means massive tax cuts for the rich. These tax cuts have already taken over three trillion dollars away from serving the American people.
More government means not only the enrichment of the elite, but also increased subsidies to corporate interests. Military spending is a masterful way of taking public funds, collected in taxes from the general population, and funneling them to multinational corporations in the name of “defense.”
The current effort to make Iraq into a U.S. gas station is a great case in point. Congress has approved $87 billion to “rebuild Iraq.” This is in addition to the $79 billion spent to date on the war. Politically well-connected companies are war-profiteering off military contracts. CEO pay at defense contractors rose 79% from 2001 to 2002, compared with 6% raises at the average company. Their $5.4 million average pay was 577 times as much as the pay of Army privates in Iraq.
When Americans think of defense spending, they think of money to ensure the safety of the general public. Now the question must be raised, have the billions of dollars spent on Iraq for “national defense” protected America?
The answer is clearly no. American soldiers are dying almost every day in Iraq. It has become clear that Iraq was never an imminent threat to the United States. The imminent threat is that the half-trillion dollar deficit will drain funds for basic social service programs. The imminent threat is Bush under-funding his “No Child Left Behind” Act, so that children will be left behind to the tune of $11 billion. The imminent threat is that hundreds of thousands of students will receive less government help to go to college. The imminent threat is that 2 million jobs have been lost since 2001, and that Black unemployment is rising faster than at any time since the mid-1970’s.
For the neo-cons, the suffering of the American people is irrelevant. They see subsidized healthcare, education, and Social Security as nothing but wasteful “big government,” obstacles to making bigger profits. Neo-cons want to con the American public out of these programs and limit government aid to only wealthy people and corporations.
The American public has other ideas about how their money should be spent. Seventy-six percent of Americans support overturning Bush’s tax cuts for the rich in order to pay off the cost of the ill-advised war with Iraq. Seventy-two percent oppose increasing the deficit to pay for this war, and 82% oppose cutting domestic programs. Yet Bush is ignoring the will of the American people in order to stay true to the con of the Neo-Conservatives, just as he ignored the will of the world in deciding to go to war with Iraq.
We African-Americans are the constituency with the most to lose from this conning of America. We must be at the forefront of making America live up to its ideals. From the Homestead Act to the GI Bill, America has invested billions in making sure its citizens have the opportunity to attain a middle-class lifestyle. Just as America began to acknowledge Blacks as citizens, it is now pulling up the economic ladder that had been so readily available previously to white Americans. Pouring funds into “national defense” and tax cuts for the rich will institutionalize the racial wealth gap for generations to come. If we follow the neo-conservative agenda, the U.S. will not be able to leave the legacy of racism behind. Black America must not fall victim to this con.

Stop Bush Nominee Who Says "Wife Should Be Subordinate to Husband"

Following last week's 2-night slumber party in the Senate, anti-choice leaders are now faced with their worst nightmare: President Bush has put forward a judicial nominee who's so extreme that even conservative lawmakers don't want to vote on him.
It's impossible to overstate how far outside the mainstream James Leon Holmes is. He has compared pro-choice advocates (that's you) to Nazis. He has written that the proper role of "...the wife is to subordinate herself to her husband." He has even suggested that women can't get pregnant from being raped. And George W. Bush thinks he should get a lifetime seat on the federal bench.
Contact your Senators today to oppose Holmes' nomination to a lifetime federal judgeship!

Ozone talks fail over US demands

BBC NEWS
UN talks on protecting the ozone layer have ended without a deal, after the US asked permission to continue using a chemical it had earlier agreed to ban.
The US team at the Nairobi conference said its farmers needed methyl bromide, but other delegates disagreed.
Developed nations have already cut their use of the chemical by 70%, pledging to phase it out by 2005.
But the row has raised fears that the US may now ignore some of its commitments on ozone protection.
'No alternative'
At the Nairobi conference a number of countries requested small exemptions from the Montreal Protocol, the international treaty on ozone-destroying chemicals.
But the US asked to be allowed to increase methyl bromide use in 2005 rather than eliminating it.
Methyl bromide is used to kill agricultural pests, and US farmers argue there is no effective alternative.
But David Doniger of the environmental group the Natural Resources Defence Council, who was at the talks, said the US government gave in to the demands of business.
"The Bush administration is tilted way over towards the polluters and caters to their wish-list of regulatory weakenings," Mr Doniger said.
"And here you had a section of the chemicals industry and agribusiness saying 'we want ours too'," he added.
Environmentalists concerned
The dispute will now go to a special meeting next year.
US negotiators said they remained committed to the protocol.
But the head of their delegation admitted there would now be pressure inside the US simply to ignore its obligations on methyl bromide.
Environmental groups are concerned that if the US does not abide by the Montreal Protocol, some poorer countries will also decide to ignore it.
Although the damage to the ozone layer is continuing, scientists say the protocol is having an effect and should eventually return the atmospheric layer to health later this century - but only if nations stay committed to the cause.
Continued use of methyl bromide could significantly slow progress, they say.

Interior official says the law should be revised to give economic and other interests equal footing with endangered animals and plants.

LA TIMES
A senior official of the U.S. Interior Department, in a wide-ranging critique of the Endangered Species Act, said Thursday that the needs of an expanding population, agriculture interests and burgeoning development in the West should be given equal consideration with endangered plants and animals.
Attending an endangered species conference in Santa Barbara, Assistant Secretary of Interior Craig Manson criticized the critical-habitat provision of the law, which limits development in areas favored by threatened species, saying such designations aren't necessary for the perpetuation of many plants and animals.
Manson oversees the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency responsible for enforcing the Endangered Species Act.
In an interview before his speech here, Manson said the 30-year-old environmental law is "broken" and should no longer be used to give endangered plants and animals priority over human needs.
"The problem is the act was not written with a great deal of flexibility," he said, adding that the interests of developers and private property owners in some cases should prevail over endangered species.
"There are so many things we did not anticipate 30 years ago. It was almost written in a public policy vacuum, without any consideration of the potential impacts of the act on larger and different issues. We didn't anticipate the potential conflicts. We have to recognize that, A, we can't protect everything, and, B, we have to carefully examine whether we should try to protect everything, and at what cost?"
But former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, who also was a speaker Thursday, was sharply critical of the Bush administration's stewardship of endangered and threatened species.
"There is nothing wrong with the Endangered Species Act. It works," said Babbitt, who served during the Clinton administration. "The problem is this administration is not enforcing it and it doesn't want it to work. They want it to fail."
Babbitt said the act can be highly flexible, citing a compromise involving the San Francisco Bay delta. There, state and federal officials came up with a plan for diverting water to San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California city dwellers that left enough to sustain native fish in the delta. Babbitt said the agreement is a model of how the act can foster positive change.
But Babbitt agreed with Manson on critical habitat, saying the statute could be struck down today with "no real-world consequences," noting that habitat provisions lie elsewhere in the act.
The Bush administration has placed fewer plants and animals on the endangered species list than any other in the act's 30-year history. Bush has listed 20 species since taking office. President Clinton listed 211 during his first three years in office.
Conservationists note that none of the listings made during Bush's tenure were done voluntarily by the Fish and Wildlife Service. All came as a result of lawsuits or petitions from private groups.
This week, the Senate passed a bill that would exempt military bases from some sections of the act, including the critical-habitat provision. Manson said he supports the bill.
Manson, a former California Superior Court judge, served six years as general counsel for the California Department of Fish and Game.
In a recent interview with The Times, Manson questioned the wisdom of extreme efforts to stave off extinction of all species. "If we decide we are going to spend $100 million to save a species we've imperiled, why are we doing that? Are we doing that because it serves human interests to do that? Are we doing that for the exercise of saving something that nature can't take care of … regardless of our efforts? If we are saying that the loss of species in and of itself is inherently bad — I don't think we know enough about how the world works to say that."
The act's purpose, he said, "is not to create a perpetual hospice for threatened or endanged species. It's our responsibility to get them to the point of recovery."
Conservation groups are highly critical of Manson's stance toward critical habitat, citing the Fish and Wildlife Service's own statistics that show endangered species with critical habitat designation are twice as likely to be improving as species without.
"The reason groups like mine pursue protection with critical habitat is that the science is absolutely clear that species with critical habitat are doing better," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Jessica Lynch's story is turning 'into a monster' for the Bush administration

TORONTO STAR
Pity the poor PR boys at the Pentagon. It may be hard, but try.
They thought they had it made:
A pretty, blonde soldier ambushed by the Iraqis, courageously firing until her ammo runs out, shot and stabbed and carried off by the enemy who, after taking time out to rape her, deposit her unconscious body in a hospital, where she is slapped around by evil medical staff, then, nine days later, is rescued in a daring, nighttime raid that is videotaped and can be shown repeatedly around the world and who, as soon as she recovers, will tell what it's like to be an all-American hero. It was a gift from the propaganda gods.
Just two problems: It didn't happen that way, and the designated hero, Pte. Jessica Lynch, refuses to say it did.
In fact, Lynch is telling anyone who asks that she is no hero: "That wasn't me. I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do ... I'm just a survivor."
Okay so far, modesty and all.
But Lynch is also a mite angry about the Pentagon's manipulation of events and can't seem to stop correcting the record.
She says she never got off a shot because her gun jammed. The Iraqi medical staff were kindness itself. She was out cold for three hours after her Humvee crashed in the grenade attack, so she doesn't remember any sexual assault. And shocked Iraqi doctors deny it.
As for the dramatic, Rambo-style hospital raid on April 1, she says there was no resistance, no Iraqi military in the hospital, and staff even offered the rescuers a key.
The Pentagon "used me to symbolize all this stuff," Lynch told a fawning Diane Sawyer on ABC last week. "It's wrong."
Yikes. Time for Plan B: It isn't our fault.
A senior military official tells Time magazine that, contrary to appearances, the Saving Private Lynch story was not, no way, a calculated PR ploy, but more a "comedy of errors," based on patchy battlefield intelligence. The media just ran with it.
What the Lynch story actually is, say critics, is a star-spangled metaphor for the confusion and deceit that's marked the Iraq foray from the start.
"This White House believes they can spin their way out of anything and they assume reality will surrender to their spin," says Mark Crispin Miller, a media analyst at New York University.
"In this case, they believed Jessica would play along. But she hasn't. She may not appear self-assertive, but she can clearly tell illusion from reality. Good for her."
What irks him and other analysts is how the American media went along with the fraud for so long.
The Toronto Star's Mitch Potter was one of the first to report the actual facts of the rescue on May 4. The BBC followed up on May 15. But those stories got no traction in the U.S., says Miller. "The media here should have exposed the lie long before they did."
Indeed, the Washington Post — which ran the first story, on April 3, of Lynch fighting until her last bullet, while 11 of her colleagues lay dead on the ground — took until mid-June to print an accurate version, whereupon its ombudsman dryly noted that the tale "didn't get knocked down until it didn't matter so much anymore."
But true or not, the air dates have been booked and The Jessica Show must go on.
Walking with crutches and still undergoing two hours of physiotherapy a day for her shattered legs, Lynch, barely 20, has contractual commitments to promote her newly released biography, I'm a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story, and there's no backing out.
The book was written by Rick Bragg, the former New York Times reporter who resigned this spring after a brouhaha over his failure to credit a freelance journalist. Bragg and Lynch split the million-dollar advance.
Last week, Lynch appeared with Sawyer and got a standing ovation on The David Letterman Show; tomorrow night, it's the inevitable Larry King.
By then, she will have completed her warp-speed transformation from war hero to whistle-blower to innocent pawn to ... what? Pop celebrity? Or scapegoat for Americans' growing anger over the handling of post-war Iraq?
If her head is spinning, think what's happening in the Pentagon PR office.
"They learned the wrong lessons from Vietnam and still think lying to the public is the best course," says Vince Carlin, former head of CBC Newsworld.
As for Lynch, born and bred in Palestine, W. Va., pop. 900: "She was an ordinary person placed in a situation she didn't anticipate and now her life is playing out in the media," he says.
"She's not a hero, but a `war celebrity.' The truth rarely has anything to do with celebrity."
Resentment, however, often does.
Critics are pointedly asking why the other surviving woman in Lynch's convoy, Army Specialist Shoshanna Johnson, also injured and taken prisoner, is set to receive only a 30 per cent disability benefit, while Lynch gets 80 per cent — a difference of $700 a month. Anything to do with Johnson being black?
Her parents, among others, think so and are enlisting perennial activist Jesse Jackson to stir up the waters on the double standard.
Then, there are the veterans. Many of them are furious that, despite the now-known facts of her capture, Lynch still was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery, along with a Purple Heart for being injured and a PoW medal on her discharge from the army in August.
It's been deemed an "insult to the sacred awards system," and some are threatening to return their own medals.
Other vets are claiming military "feminists" cooked up the entire story. "Trust me, the troops — past and present — are unhappy," the outspoken war critic Col. David Hackworth wrote last week.
"Jessica was used right from the first to sell the war to the American people and to encourage their daughters to join up and be heroes."
Hard to imagine how Lynch's experiences in Iraq would set off a female rush to the enlistment office. If anything, say analysts, they'll reignite the slumbering hostility to the use of women in combat zones.
The more organized veterans groups, meanwhile, are outraged that while Lynch is everywhere in the media, there is little coverage of the wounded, maimed and dead of Iraq.
They hugely resent the White House's good-news-only policy that prohibits pictures of flag-draped coffins or returning soldiers missing their arms and legs, says Seth Pollack, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense.
"Am I angry about the amount of coverage she's received rather than the soldiers who've come home and aren't getting proper medical support? Yes," he says.
"We're focused on Iraq and how we get out of this mess. Nothing against Jessica. She's a victim of circumstance, used by the Pentagon and used by the media machine."
Not to mention some of her old basic-training buddies back at Fort Bliss, Texas.
Just before Lynch's public unveiling last week, word came that they'd sold photos of her frolicking nude in the barracks to Larry Flynt. He insists he has no intention of running them in his Hustler magazine.
"They wanted it known she's not all apple pie," said Flynt. This offended him because "she's a good kid who is very much a pawn for the government."
Lynch must be wondering what's hit her.
All she wants is to walk unaided down the aisle next June when she marries her fiancé, Sgt. Ruben Contreras. The two met at the Taco Bell at Fort Bliss, back when she — not the Pentagon, not the media, not critics of the war — was in control of her own life.
Will she remain an enduring image?
"No," says Miller. "They'll have dropped her by Christmas."
Indeed, the Daily Telegraph reported last week that senior administration officials now regard the episode as an embarrassment they wish would go away.
"The Saving Private Lynch story," one bleakly said, "is becoming a monster."
Tell it to Jessica.

London Mayor Livingstone Denounces President Bush

London Mayor Ken Livingstone today denounced US President George Bush – who arrives in the capital tomorrow for the start of his state visit – as a threat to life on Earth.
Mr Livingstone is planning an “alternative reception” during Mr Bush’s visit for those who were opposed to the war in Iraq.
And he said that he did not formally recognise Mr Bush as President, because of the uncertain result of the 2000 election, which saw the former Texas Governor win fewer votes than Democrat rival Al Gore and claim victory on the basis of a contested count in Florida.
Mr Livingstone’s comments in The Ecologist magazine are certain to infuriate Prime Minister Tony Blair, at a time when delicate negotiations are reported to be under way for his readmission to the Labour Party in time to stand as its candidate in next year’s mayoral election.
The mayor told the magazine: “I was in California over Easter and I was denounced by all and sundry for being rude about George Bush at the Stop the War Rally.
“Well, I think what I said then was quite mild. I actually think that Bush is the greatest threat to life on this planet that we’ve most probably ever seen.
“The policies he is initiating will doom us to extinction.”
Explaining why he was holding a party for opponents of the President, Mr Livingstone said: “I don’t formally recognise George Bush because he was not officially elected.
“So we are organising an alternative reception for everybody who is not George Bush. We are trying to get (radical author) Michael Moore over as our guest as the alternative voice of the US and then get all the environmental and peace movements here in this building for a ‘not the George Bush reception’.”
Mr Livingstone also voiced support for a United States of Europe to provide a powerful bloc to rival the US globally with a “less rapacious form of capitalism”.
In a side-swipe at the Prime Minister, he said he was “amazed” when Mr Blair pressed ahead with the policies in the party’s 1997 manifesto, which he had assumed were simply “guff” to placate the right-wing press and would be dropped as soon as Labour took power.

Bush's War Strategy Looks Like a Steal of Nixon's

NEWSDAY
The Republican president knew that the unpopular foreign war was hurting him politically. Indeed, the Democrat challenging him in the upcoming national election had based his come-from-nowhere campaign on a strong anti-war message.
So the Republican in the White House devised a two-part strategy to win re-election.
First, he would arrange for U.S. troops to be mostly withdrawn before Election Day. In doing so, the Oval Office holder was abandoning all the reasons for going to war in the first place, but that was the way it had to be.
Second, he kept the Republican base pumped up by promising "victory." That also helped to keep the remaining American troops motivated, since the administration couldn't afford to lose the war before the election.
These two messages were, of course, completely contradictory. On the one hand, the White House said, America would be getting its troops out of harm's way. On the other hand, the United States was going to win. Just a few days before the election, the incumbent sealed the deal; his top diplomat came home from negotiations with the enemy, bringing news of an honorable end to the war. That peace pledge cut the legs out from under the anti-war Democrat. The Republican was overwhelmingly re-elected.
We don't know yet if this is the scenario for the 2004 presidential campaign, but we do know that it was the scenario for the 1972 campaign, in which the Republican president was Richard Nixon, the Democratic challenger was George McGovern, and the war was Vietnam. Today, it looks as if Nixon's role will be played by George W. Bush, McGovern's by Howard Dean - and Iraq is the new Vietnam.
Interestingly, the mastermind of Bush's '04 campaign, White House politico-in-chief Karl Rove, remembers that '72 election contest quite well. He was a young Nixon campaigner back then, but he was old enough to see what worked.
So let's go back in time three decades, so that we can know what Rove knows - and maybe guess what his Bush White House will do. By the early '70s, the American public had turned against the Vietnam War. So Nixon embarked upon "Vietnamization" - the idea was that the South Vietnamese would take over the fighting.
The official line was that a democratic South Vietnam would repulse the Communist North Vietnam. It was all a lie, of course, because the South Vietnamese government was neither democratic nor effective on the battlefield. But the prospect of American withdrawal played well in what would later be known as the "blue states," those more liberal, dovish places in the North and along the Pacific Coast.
Yet at the same time, Nixon had to keep the "red states" happy, too. So he declared that America would never "cut and run," that the United States would insist on "peace with honor." Those words always got cheers from red staters, from the Okies from Muskogee, to draw upon the title of a popular country-and-western song of the day.
Nixon clinched his re-election on Oct. 26, 1972, when his national security adviser Henry Kissinger, returning from talks with the North Vietnamese, announced, "Peace is at hand." That was good enough to sew up both red and blue states; Nixon won 49 of 50 a week later.
Of course, since it was all a fraud, it wasn't long before the peace treaty unraveled. Less than three years later, in April 1975, the North Vietnamese conquered South Vietnam.
Today, echoing "Vietnamization," the Bush administration touts "Iraqification." Mysteriously, that process keeps accelerating as the election draws nearer. Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), who voted for the war, recalled recently, "When I was in Iraq in June, I was told it would take five years to recruit and train 75,000 cops and three years to recruit and train a 40,000-man army." And now, just five months later, the administration claims that it has 130,000 Iraqis under arms. Is that huge improvement a miracle of nation-building, or is it a miracle of election-spinning?
Like Nixon before him, Bush insists that the war is going well, that our ally is democratizing. And maybe Bush, who is no Nixon, really believes it. But Karl Rove, ex-Nixon man, believes in re-election, and that means getting out of the war before Election Day 2004. It's a plan that's worked before.

Bush Veto Threat May Lead Congress to Reverse Itself on Overtime Pay

With the White House "show[ing] no inclination to compromise,"1 House and Senate conferees are likely to strip a provision protecting overtime from proposed Labor Department changes that would deny overtime pay to as many as 8 million workers.2
Earlier this fall, both the House and Senate voted for the provision to block the proposed overtime rules from enactment. However, the White House has repeatedly threatened to veto any legislation that blocks implementation of its overtime overhaul.3
President Bush says in almost every speech in which he discusses tax relief, "when Americans have more take home pay to spend, to save, or invest, the whole economy grows and people are more likely to find a job. So we're returning more money to the people to help them raise their families."4 But the White House insistence that the overtime rules be allowed to take effect will guarantee that millions of U.S. workers will receive less pay for the same amount of work.
Analysis by the Economic Policy Institute shows that 2.5 million salaried workers will lose their right to overtime pay and that an additional 5.5 million hourly workers are at risk of being shifted to salaried employment and losing their status -- 8 million workers total.5
The administration claims the proposed rule will guarantee overtime pay to 1.3 million workers who were previously ineligible,3 while minimizing the point that roughly hundreds of thousands, by the administration's own calculations, will become ineligible under the new rule change.6
The administration's assertion that 1.3 million new workers will become eligible for overtime pay takes the number of workers who earn between the current minimum salary level of $8,060 and the proposed level of $22,100. But the figure includes 600,000 workers who are not white collar workers covered under the current regulations, and therefore would not be considered under the revised regulation.7

Administration Grants Restricted Access to President's Intelligence Briefing

Nearly one year after its creation, the 9/11 Independent Commission announced an agreement with the Bush administration Wednesday about access to the Presidential Daily Briefing.1
President Bush, who originally opposed the formation of an independent commission, said at the ceremony signing it into law that the investigation should, "carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the fact [sic], wherever they lead."2 But last month, frustrated by the lack of response by the administration in key areas, Republican Chairman Tom Kean warned the White House that the commission may subpoena the documents it wanted, indicating that no document can be "beyond [the commission's] reach."3
Two days later, the President offered a milder statement of support for the commission's access, saying, "I do want to be helpful to Chairman Kean and [Vice Chairman] Lee Hamilton."4
But the deal struck this week allows the White House to edit the documents before they are released to the commission representatives, and limits the number of commission members who have access to the report.
The specifics of the agreement were not released publicly, but two Democrats on the panel objected to its limitations. Former Congressman, Timothy Roemer, pointed out, "Our members may see only two or three paragraphs out of a nine-page report."5 And former Senator Max Cleland has described the agreement as unconscionable.
The White House had refused for months to grant access to the Presidential Daily Briefing, or PDB, citing security concerns. The commission is required to present its final report on May 27, 2004, which the law states should be "a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks."6

Bush Drops Push for Energy Bill Provision That Would Help Solve Long-Term Reliability Issues

President Bush praised Congress for passing his long-sought energy legislation, saying, "America will be safer and stronger with a national energy policy that will help keep the lights on, the furnaces lit, and the factories running."1 But the energy legislation now moving toward final passage is viewed by many experts as "minuscule compared to what needs to be done to have any impact."2
When the legislation was revived in August after the blackouts across the Northeast and Midwest, Bush dropped his insistence on a provision to grant the Federal Electricity Reliability Council (FERC) authority to "improve the reliability of the interstate transmission system and to develop legislation providing for enforcement by a self-regulatory organization subject to FERC oversight,"3 after "broad recognition that voluntary adherence with reliability standards is no longer a viable approach in an increasingly competitive electricity market."4
The provision was one of the seven recommendations related to the power grids offered by Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force. Bush unveiled his Energy Task Force Report in May 2001 with great enthusiasm, saying, "I've told the people of America...we would address this problem, and we would address it in a comprehensive way."5
Bush now praises the current bill6, which includes a different provision that essentially blocks FERC from implementing a strategy to bring together utilities in independent regional power grids until 2007.7
Just a few years ago, President Bush campaigned for president arguing that, "federal legislation is needed to assure the reliability of the nation's electrical grid."8
Critics of the bill insist that the federal reliability standards with the bill insufficiently address the whole of the problem, "because control and authority is fractured."9

Number of Wounded in Action on Rise

Iraq Toll Reflects Medical Advances, Resistance Troops Face
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 2, 2003
U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq are increasing dramatically in the face of continued attacks by remnants of Saddam Hussein's military and other forces, with almost 10 American troops a day now being officially declared "wounded in action."
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.
The rising number and quickening pace of soldiers being wounded on the battlefield have been overshadowed by the number of troops killed since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations May 1. But alongside those Americans killed in action, an even greater toll of battlefield wounded continues unabated, with an increasing number being injured through small-arms fire, rocket-propelled grenades, remote-controlled mines and what the Pentagon refers to as "improvised explosive devices."
Indeed, the number of troops wounded in action in Iraq is now more than twice that of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The total increased more than 35 percent in August -- with an average of almost 10 troops a day injured last month.
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. From March 19 to April 30, 550 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq. Since May 1, the number totals 574. The number of troops killed in Iraq since the beginning of May already has surpassed the total killed during the height of the war.
Pentagon officials point to advances in military medicine as one of the reasons behind the large number of wounded soldiers; many lives are being saved on the battlefield that in past conflicts would have been lost. But the rising number of casualties also reflects the resistance that U.S. forces continue to meet nearly five months after Hussein was ousted from power.
Although Central Command keeps a running total of the wounded, it releases the number only when asked -- making the combat injuries of U.S. troops in Iraq one of the untold stories of the war.
With no fanfare and almost no public notice, giant C-17 transport jets arrive virtually every night at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, on medical evacuation missions. 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.
"Our nation doesn't know that," said Susan Brewer, president and founder of America's Heroes of Freedom, a nonprofit organization that collects clothing and other personal items for the returning troops. "Sort of out of sight and out of mind."
On Thursday night, a C-17 arrived at Andrews with 44 patients from Iraq. Ambulances arrived to take the most seriously wounded to the nation's two premier military hospitals, Water Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Dozens of others stayed overnight at what the Air Force calls a contingency aeromedical staging facility, which has taken over an indoor tennis club and an adjacent community center.
On Friday morning, smaller C-130 transports began arriving to take the walking wounded and less seriously injured to their home bases, from Fort Bragg in North Carolina to Fort Lewis in Washington state. Another C-17 was due in Friday night from Germany, with 12 patients on stretchers, 24 listed on the flight manifest as ambulatory and nine other passengers, either family members or escorts.
"That's going to fill us right back up by the end of today," said Lt. Col. Allen Delaney, who commands the staging center. Eighty-six members of his reserve unit, the 459th Aeromedical Staging Squadron, based at Andrews, were called up for a year in April to run what is essentially a medical air terminal, the nation's hub, for war wounded from Iraq.
At Walter Reed, a half-hour drive from Andrews, Maj. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, the hospital's commanding general, said there were only two days in July and four in August that the hospital did not admit soldiers injured in Iraq.
"The orthopedic surgeons are very busy, and the nursing services are very busy, both in the intensive care units and on the wards," he said, explaining that there have been five or six instances in recent months when all of the hospital's 40 intensive care beds have been filled -- mostly with battlefield wounded.
Kiley said rocket-propelled grenades and mines can wound multiple troops at a time and cause "the kind of amputating damage that you don't necessarily see with a bullet wound to the arm or leg."
The result has been large numbers of troops coming back to Walter Reed and National Naval Medical with serious blast wounds and arms and legs that have been amputated, either in Iraq or at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where virtually all battlefield casualties are treated and stabilized.

Dems Hold Firm Against GOP Push for Right-Wing Judges

Republicans stopped Senate business for 39 straight hours to complain that Democrats are standing up to Bush on his right-wing judicial nominees. Here are the facts:
The Senate has confirmed 168 of President Bush's judicial nominees.
Democrats have filibustered just four of Bush's nominees because they hold extremist, ultraconservative views far outside the mainstream.
Republicans blocked 63 of President Clinton's nominees to the federal bench.
Republicans refused to give many of Clinton's nominees hearings at all, and even blocked some of them with anonymous holds from a single Republican Senator.
The federal judiciary has fewer vacancies now than any time for the past 20 years.
This Republican publicity stunt is about one thing: packing the court with ultraconservative ideologues who will reverse decades of progress on civil rights, worker's rights, reproductive rights, environmental protections, and much more.
Democratic Senators Take a Stand...
Faced with hour upon hour of hypocritical speeches from Senate Republicans, Democrats responded by standing up for all our values and refusing to give in to pressure from the GOP.
They promised to continue to fight for an independent federal judiciary free from extremist ideologues.