Friday, September 24, 2004
What’s Happening, Afghanistan: The Vote: Eric Alterman and Paul McLeary report on the sadly absurd claims about “voter registration”. The P.R. is so out of control.
{There’s been a] more successful registration campaign than even the State or Defense departments may wish to admit. While it's true that over 10 million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan, the untidy and largely unreported fact of the matter is that the country only has a voting age population of about 9.5 million overall. The 10 million figure has grown to the level of absurdity given the fact that a mere three months ago, President Hamid Karzai maintained that only five million names were on the electoral list, in response to reports from the Independent and the Christian Science Monitor of registration figures numbering between 1.6 and 3 million. So a registration figure of 10 million leads one to wonder whether, secretly, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris have emigrated to Afghanistan. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=192754
What’s Happening, Iraq: Utter chaos, steadily worsening. Yet, bizarrely and predictably, Bush talks of progress. The public / media continue to struggle with handling reality. Case in point: MSNBC last night laid out the deteriorating scene, yet posted on its web site: "Violence surges even as conditions improve."
Israel And Iran: A Request is Made. Anticipating trouble…
The United States plans to sell Israel $139 million worth of air-launched bombs, including 500 "bunker busters" able to penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said on Tuesday.
The Haaretz newspaper quoted a Pentagon report as saying the planned procurement sought "to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests."
The U.S. embassy in Israel had no comment, referring queries to Washington. Israel's Defense Ministry also declined comment.
But a senior Israeli security source who confirmed the Haaretz story told Reuters: "This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria." http://www.iranexpert.com/2004/israel21september.htm
Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, November, 2001.
The state department document, that listed the whereabouts of al-Qaeda cells around the world. It’s a treat. Hit the link and notice the 45 countries. Not one of them is spelled I-R-A-Q. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/12.htm
Summary of Rathergate: Tina Brown:
A further symptom of the nervous breakdown was the spectacle of the intrepid CBS producer Mary Mapes -- she who was set to win all the prizes for her Abu Ghraib exposé -- crossing the line between independent journalism and political intrigue when she gave in to her source's request to put him in touch with the Kerry campaign. The way things have unraveled must be Karl Rove's wet dream: a living, breathing example of ostensible liberal media bias with which to bludgeon the rest of the press into an even deeper defensive crouch.
Documents or no documents, everyone knows Bush's dad got him out of Vietnam. Everyone knows he thought he had better, funner things to do than go to a bunch of boring National Guard drills. (Only a killjoy like John Kerry would spend his carefree youth racking up high-minded demonstrations of courage and conscience, right?) Like O.J. Simpson's infamous "struggle" to squeeze his big hand into the glove, the letter was just a lousy piece of evidence that should never have been produced in court. Now because CBS, like Marcia Clark, screwed up the prosecution, Bush is going to walk.
Or maybe not. There are lies floating around that are a lot bigger than anything CBS or Bush is saying or hiding about what happened thirty-odd years ago in Texas and Alabama. They're about Iraq and they're about now, and Kerry is finally talking about them coherently enough to have a chance of getting some traction. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43478-2004Sep22?language=printer
If the CBS Bush Piece Hadn’t Aired…
In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same “60 Minutes” broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger…
Some CBS reporters, as well as one of the network’s key sources, fear that the Niger uranium story may never run, at least not any time soon, on the grounds that the network can now not credibly air a report questioning how the Bush administration could have gotten taken in by phony documents. The network would “be a laughingstock,” said one source intimately familiar with the story. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/
Soldiers for Kerry:
But bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from Iraq more quickly.
"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush - they'd vote for them," said a US soldier in the southern city of Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known. "People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with Bush."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0921/p02s02-usmi.html
Republican Techniques:
The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush.
The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaign/24bible.html?pagewanted=all
Tax Cuts for Whom?
Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.
The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.
But the fight over the child tax refunds during the negotiations revealed a split among GOP tax writers.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sided with Democratic leaders in pushing for changes in the child tax credit to ensure that millions of poor families would not see their credits shrink or disappear next year.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) opposed the move, as did Sens. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.). That effectively scuttled changes to existing law. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43278-2004Sep22?language=printer
Corporate Taxes Plummet. Surprise!
America's largest and most profitable companies paid less in corporate income taxes in the last three years, even as they increased profits, according to a study released yesterday.
Companies have always used write-offs, depreciation, deductions and loopholes to lower their taxes, but the study, by Citizens for Tax Justice and its affiliate, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, suggested that tax breaks and subsidies enacted during the Bush administration had accelerated the decline in tax payments.
The study also cited the proliferation of abusive tax shelters and increasingly aggressive corporate lobbying as fueling the decline in tax payments by corporations.
The study was done by nonprofit research and advocacy groups that have been supported in part by labor unions. They contend that the tax system favors wealthy corporations and individuals.
The study, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, surveyed public filings by 275 of the nation's largest and most profitable companies, based on revenue from the Fortune 500 list of 2004. The 275 companies reported pretax profits from operations in the United States of $1.1 trillion from 2001 through 2003, the study said, yet reported to the Internal Revenue Service and paid taxes on half that amount.
Robert S. McIntyre, the lead author of the study, wrote, "The fact that America's companies were allowed to report less than half of their actual U.S. profits to the I.R.S., while ordinary wage earners have to report every penny of their earnings, has to undermine public respect for the tax system." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/business/23income.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
That Unemployment Rate: Is it declining? (No) Helpful info. to give us perspective
In addition, the unemployment rate does not count all the people who are forced into part-time work because of the weakness in the labor market. In our increasingly agile labor market, many people are choosing to work part-time to balance their competing needs. But the number of people who, when surveyed, said they are working part-time only because they could not find full-time jobs has increased by 35 percent since Bush took office, the largest increase for any President on record. If we were to count these 4.5 million involuntary part-time workers as 'part-unemployed' the overall unemployment rate would increase further.
In August alone 150,000 workers left the labor force. They no longer tell surveyors that they are seeking work. They have given up the job hunt to help out at home, take classes or simply wait until a job hunt is more likely to produce results. When Bush took office, the labor force participation rate – which measures the fraction of the civilian population over 16 that is either working or looking for work – was 67.2 percent. Today that percentage has dropped to 66.0 percent. If the same share of the population had remained in the work force it would be 2.7 million workers larger than it is today. That would push the unemployment rate up to 7.1 percent. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=186379
The Draft:
Kerry and Edwards said ‘no way’: Bush said, "No, I'm -- we don't need the draft. We don't need a draft at all." …but there is legislation out there. It calls for reinstatement for men and women, ages 18-34, not only for military service but also for linguists, medical workers and anyone else with skills the Government would find useful in war. This is not related to the bills filed by Democrat Charley Rangel.
This is the reality that feeds the possibility:
A Pentagon-appointed panel of outside experts has concluded in a new study that the American military does not have sufficient forces to sustain current and anticipated stability operations, like the festering conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and other missions that might arise. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/24military.html?pagewanted=all
Old Link: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html
Who’s the Flip Flopper? Rare Media Clarification:
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label [John F. Harris]
One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.
The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43093-2004Sep22.html
Polls:
*National polls consistently have Bush with a narrow lead.
*The good news remains Bush’s low approval. The bad news is that Kerry’s negatives are higher, and that Blue-Gore states have slipped, most notably, Wisconsin and Oregon.
Fox News poll-Bush ahead of Kerry by 45% to 43%.[within margin of error]
state polls:
Wisconsin: Bush 53, Kerry 43 (ABC News)
Oregon: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (Survey USA)
Washington: Kerry 51, Bush 46 (Survey USA)
Washington: Kerry 52, Bush 38 (Elway Poll)
Texas: Bush 58, Kerry 37 (Survey USA)
South Carolina: Bush 58, Kerry 38 (Survey USA)
Nevada: Bush 52, Kerry 43 (Gallup)
West Virginia: Bush 51, Kerry 45 (Gallup)
California: Kerry 55, Bush 40 (Los Angeles Times)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 41 (Quinnipiac)
Iowa: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Research 2000)
Wisconsin: Bush 52, Kerry 38 (Badger Poll)
California: Kerry 51, Bush 39 (Public Policy Institute)
-R
{There’s been a] more successful registration campaign than even the State or Defense departments may wish to admit. While it's true that over 10 million people have registered to vote in Afghanistan, the untidy and largely unreported fact of the matter is that the country only has a voting age population of about 9.5 million overall. The 10 million figure has grown to the level of absurdity given the fact that a mere three months ago, President Hamid Karzai maintained that only five million names were on the electoral list, in response to reports from the Independent and the Christian Science Monitor of registration figures numbering between 1.6 and 3 million. So a registration figure of 10 million leads one to wonder whether, secretly, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris have emigrated to Afghanistan. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=192754
What’s Happening, Iraq: Utter chaos, steadily worsening. Yet, bizarrely and predictably, Bush talks of progress. The public / media continue to struggle with handling reality. Case in point: MSNBC last night laid out the deteriorating scene, yet posted on its web site: "Violence surges even as conditions improve."
Israel And Iran: A Request is Made. Anticipating trouble…
The United States plans to sell Israel $139 million worth of air-launched bombs, including 500 "bunker busters" able to penetrate Iran's underground nuclear facilities, Israeli security sources said on Tuesday.
The Haaretz newspaper quoted a Pentagon report as saying the planned procurement sought "to maintain Israel's qualitative advantage and advance U.S. strategic and tactical interests."
The U.S. embassy in Israel had no comment, referring queries to Washington. Israel's Defense Ministry also declined comment.
But a senior Israeli security source who confirmed the Haaretz story told Reuters: "This is not the sort of ordnance needed for the Palestinian front. Bunker busters could serve Israel against Iran, or possibly Syria." http://www.iranexpert.com/2004/israel21september.htm
Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, November, 2001.
The state department document, that listed the whereabouts of al-Qaeda cells around the world. It’s a treat. Hit the link and notice the 45 countries. Not one of them is spelled I-R-A-Q. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/terrornet/12.htm
Summary of Rathergate: Tina Brown:
A further symptom of the nervous breakdown was the spectacle of the intrepid CBS producer Mary Mapes -- she who was set to win all the prizes for her Abu Ghraib exposé -- crossing the line between independent journalism and political intrigue when she gave in to her source's request to put him in touch with the Kerry campaign. The way things have unraveled must be Karl Rove's wet dream: a living, breathing example of ostensible liberal media bias with which to bludgeon the rest of the press into an even deeper defensive crouch.
Documents or no documents, everyone knows Bush's dad got him out of Vietnam. Everyone knows he thought he had better, funner things to do than go to a bunch of boring National Guard drills. (Only a killjoy like John Kerry would spend his carefree youth racking up high-minded demonstrations of courage and conscience, right?) Like O.J. Simpson's infamous "struggle" to squeeze his big hand into the glove, the letter was just a lousy piece of evidence that should never have been produced in court. Now because CBS, like Marcia Clark, screwed up the prosecution, Bush is going to walk.
Or maybe not. There are lies floating around that are a lot bigger than anything CBS or Bush is saying or hiding about what happened thirty-odd years ago in Texas and Alabama. They're about Iraq and they're about now, and Kerry is finally talking about them coherently enough to have a chance of getting some traction. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43478-2004Sep22?language=printer
If the CBS Bush Piece Hadn’t Aired…
In its rush to air its now discredited story about President George W. Bush’s National Guard service, CBS bumped another sensitive piece slated for the same “60 Minutes” broadcast: a half-hour segment about how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger…
Some CBS reporters, as well as one of the network’s key sources, fear that the Niger uranium story may never run, at least not any time soon, on the grounds that the network can now not credibly air a report questioning how the Bush administration could have gotten taken in by phony documents. The network would “be a laughingstock,” said one source intimately familiar with the story. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/
Soldiers for Kerry:
But bitterness over long, dangerous deployments is producing, at a minimum, pockets of support for Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, in part because he's seen as likely to withdraw American forces from Iraq more quickly.
"[For] 9 out of 10 of the people I talk to, it wouldn't matter who ran against Bush - they'd vote for them," said a US soldier in the southern city of Najaf, seeking out a reporter to make his views known. "People are so fed up with Iraq, and fed up with Bush."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0921/p02s02-usmi.html
Republican Techniques:
The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush.
The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/campaign/24bible.html?pagewanted=all
Tax Cuts for Whom?
Congressional negotiators beat back efforts yesterday to expand and preserve tax refunds for poor families, even as they added $13 billion in corporate tax breaks to a package of middle-class tax cuts that could come to a vote in the Senate today.
The House-Senate negotiations concluded last night with the approval of a five-year $146 billion tax cut, the fourth tax cut in as many years. By the end of this week, Republican leaders expect to pass extensions of three tax cuts primarily aimed at middle-income taxpayers -- a $1,000-per-child tax credit, tax breaks for married couples and a 10 percent income-tax bracket that was expanded last year.
But the fight over the child tax refunds during the negotiations revealed a split among GOP tax writers.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) sided with Democratic leaders in pushing for changes in the child tax credit to ensure that millions of poor families would not see their credits shrink or disappear next year.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) opposed the move, as did Sens. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.). That effectively scuttled changes to existing law. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43278-2004Sep22?language=printer
Corporate Taxes Plummet. Surprise!
America's largest and most profitable companies paid less in corporate income taxes in the last three years, even as they increased profits, according to a study released yesterday.
Companies have always used write-offs, depreciation, deductions and loopholes to lower their taxes, but the study, by Citizens for Tax Justice and its affiliate, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, suggested that tax breaks and subsidies enacted during the Bush administration had accelerated the decline in tax payments.
The study also cited the proliferation of abusive tax shelters and increasingly aggressive corporate lobbying as fueling the decline in tax payments by corporations.
The study was done by nonprofit research and advocacy groups that have been supported in part by labor unions. They contend that the tax system favors wealthy corporations and individuals.
The study, Corporate Income Taxes in the Bush Years, surveyed public filings by 275 of the nation's largest and most profitable companies, based on revenue from the Fortune 500 list of 2004. The 275 companies reported pretax profits from operations in the United States of $1.1 trillion from 2001 through 2003, the study said, yet reported to the Internal Revenue Service and paid taxes on half that amount.
Robert S. McIntyre, the lead author of the study, wrote, "The fact that America's companies were allowed to report less than half of their actual U.S. profits to the I.R.S., while ordinary wage earners have to report every penny of their earnings, has to undermine public respect for the tax system." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/23/business/23income.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position
That Unemployment Rate: Is it declining? (No) Helpful info. to give us perspective
In addition, the unemployment rate does not count all the people who are forced into part-time work because of the weakness in the labor market. In our increasingly agile labor market, many people are choosing to work part-time to balance their competing needs. But the number of people who, when surveyed, said they are working part-time only because they could not find full-time jobs has increased by 35 percent since Bush took office, the largest increase for any President on record. If we were to count these 4.5 million involuntary part-time workers as 'part-unemployed' the overall unemployment rate would increase further.
In August alone 150,000 workers left the labor force. They no longer tell surveyors that they are seeking work. They have given up the job hunt to help out at home, take classes or simply wait until a job hunt is more likely to produce results. When Bush took office, the labor force participation rate – which measures the fraction of the civilian population over 16 that is either working or looking for work – was 67.2 percent. Today that percentage has dropped to 66.0 percent. If the same share of the population had remained in the work force it would be 2.7 million workers larger than it is today. That would push the unemployment rate up to 7.1 percent. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=186379
The Draft:
Kerry and Edwards said ‘no way’: Bush said, "No, I'm -- we don't need the draft. We don't need a draft at all." …but there is legislation out there. It calls for reinstatement for men and women, ages 18-34, not only for military service but also for linguists, medical workers and anyone else with skills the Government would find useful in war. This is not related to the bills filed by Democrat Charley Rangel.
This is the reality that feeds the possibility:
A Pentagon-appointed panel of outside experts has concluded in a new study that the American military does not have sufficient forces to sustain current and anticipated stability operations, like the festering conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and other missions that might arise. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/24/politics/24military.html?pagewanted=all
Old Link: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html
Who’s the Flip Flopper? Rare Media Clarification:
Despite Bush Flip-Flops, Kerry Gets Label [John F. Harris]
One of this year's candidates for president, to hear his opposition tell it, has a long history of policy reversals and rhetorical about-faces -- a zigzag trail that proves his willingness to massage positions and even switch sides when politically convenient.
The flip-flopper, Democrats say, is President Bush. Over the past four years, he abandoned positions on issues such as how to regulate air pollution or whether states should be allowed to sanction same-sex marriage. He changed his mind about the merits of creating the Homeland Security Department, and made a major exception to his stance on free trade by agreeing to tariffs on steel. After resisting, the president yielded to pressure in supporting an independent commission to study policy failures preceding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Bush did the same with questions about whether he would allow his national security adviser to testify, or whether he would answer commissioners' questions for only an hour, or for as long they needed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43093-2004Sep22.html
Polls:
*National polls consistently have Bush with a narrow lead.
*The good news remains Bush’s low approval. The bad news is that Kerry’s negatives are higher, and that Blue-Gore states have slipped, most notably, Wisconsin and Oregon.
Fox News poll-Bush ahead of Kerry by 45% to 43%.[within margin of error]
state polls:
Wisconsin: Bush 53, Kerry 43 (ABC News)
Oregon: Bush 48, Kerry 47 (Survey USA)
Washington: Kerry 51, Bush 46 (Survey USA)
Washington: Kerry 52, Bush 38 (Elway Poll)
Texas: Bush 58, Kerry 37 (Survey USA)
South Carolina: Bush 58, Kerry 38 (Survey USA)
Nevada: Bush 52, Kerry 43 (Gallup)
West Virginia: Bush 51, Kerry 45 (Gallup)
California: Kerry 55, Bush 40 (Los Angeles Times)
Florida: Bush 49, Kerry 41 (Quinnipiac)
Iowa: Bush 47, Kerry 45 (Research 2000)
Wisconsin: Bush 52, Kerry 38 (Badger Poll)
California: Kerry 51, Bush 39 (Public Policy Institute)
-R
