Sunday, February 06, 2005
Patriots’ win. 3 championships here in 53 weeks. Congrats to rooters here …and in Carolina.
Ossie Davis: Decent Times obituary
The two [wife Ruby Dee] also fought in broader arenas. They helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and were master and mistress of ceremonies.
At a news conference in Manhattan yesterday, Harry Belafonte, with tears in his eyes, compared Mr. Davis to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, W. E .B. DuBois and Fanny Lou Hamer, all of whom were Mr. Davis's friends. In particular, Mr. Davis remained fiercely loyal to Robeson even as he was denounced by other show-business figures for his openly Communist sympathies.
In 1965, Mr. Davis delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X, calling him "our shining black prince," and he spoke it again in a voiceover for the 1992 Spike Lee film, "Malcolm X." In 1968, he eulogized Dr. King. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/theater/05davis.html?oref=login
Back to the gore:
Love that Mercury
The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general.
Staff at the EPA were instructed by administrators to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then had to work backward from the predetermined goal to justify the proposal, according to a report by Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61762-2005Feb3.html
NPR and Bush Jobs Record. Oh, that Liberal Media. While other sources termed the jobs report “modest” or “puny” or “disappointing”, NPR’s report terms January’s job growth to be “heartening”, for Bush, since the added 146,000 jobs gives the Administration a net job growth for his term... of .03%.
Gads.
For the nth time, we need to produce 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. So, we needed to produce 7.2 million jobs in the 4 years. So, Cheney-Bush was 7.15 million short.
NPR is NOT a liberal network; they’re just not Right wing.
Middle East: Response to State of Union: “Nothing new”, or condemnation:
The Syrian and Iranian governments reacted angrily Thursday to George W. Bush's vow to confront them over their alleged harboring of terrorists and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The American president's State of the Union speech on Wednesday night identified Syria and Iran as the primary obstacles to his administration's declared mission to spread peace and democracy in the Middle East. It sent tremors through the region, raising fears that the administration may have more military action on its second-term agenda.
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced the United States as "like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon," menacing his country under the direction of "Zionist and non-Zionist capitalists." "Bush is the fifth U.S. president seeking to uproot the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. [Jimmy] Carter, [Ronald] Reagan, father Bush and [Bill] Clinton failed. This president will also fail," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
The response from Damascus, Syria, also reflected growing nervousness at Bush's intentions. "Freedoms cannot be exported by tanks and planes, death and destruction," said Syria's information minister, Mehdi Dakhlallah. "Everyone knows that Syria is cooperating in fighting terrorism, but the definition of terrorism cannot be selective and based on ideology and politics," he said. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/04/iran_syria/print.html
Guantanamo Abuses. Ongoing reports, not pleasant, but need to be acknowledged In this one, the Brits helped screw their own.
British intelligence officials played a crucial part in the secret abduction of UK citizen Martin Mubanga to Guantanamo Bay. There, he reveals today in an exclusive interview, he endured 33 months of ill-treatment and often abusive interrogation.
Documents seen by The Observer disclose that even the Pentagon's own lawyers now accept that the intelligence that consigned him to Guantanamo may have been deeply flawed. Mubanga, who was released without charge after his return to Britain on 25 January, now plans to sue the British government.
In his interview today, the first by any of the four Britons who returned from Guantanamo last month, Mubanga, 32, describes a horrifying catalogue of abuse:
· In one interrogation session, he was forced to urinate in the corner of the interview room while chained hand and foot.
· He was treated to a regime known as 'BI [basic item] loss'. This meant his thin mattress, trousers, shirts, towel, blankets, and flipflops were all taken away, leaving him naked except for boxer shorts in an empty metal box.
· Last autumn, while Pentagon lawyers were writing memos suggesting that Mubanga may not have had any involvement in terrorism at all and may not have been given a fair hearing, the Guantanamo authorities subjected him to the harshest treatment in his 33 months in Guantanamo, with three brutal assaults by the 'Instant Reaction Force' riot squad for trivial violations of the camp rules. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1407040,00.html
Social Security:
Bush in Florida. More humor. Really.
About 1,000 ticket-holders can expect to see Bush in the Tampa Convention Center for about an hour starting at 4 p.m., a White House spokesman said Wednesday. A handful of individuals ``who have a vested interest in strengthening Social Security and have an important story to tell'' will join him onstage.
Among those invited to apply for the appearance were stockbrokers at Raymond James & Associates, a company spokeswoman said. Tampa's Blake High School jazz band was invited to perform, the school district said. http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBEID4KQ4E.html
Get it? Stockbrokers have a vested interested in Social Security. Precious.
Another critical voice
Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, is criticizing President Bush's plan to privatize part of Social Security.
Gross, managing director at Pimco, called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said it was an example of the president not focusing on more important issues, such as the budget deficit.
The president's argument for individual Social Security accounts is meant "to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush, his ownership society, and ultimately his domestic legacy alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan and FDR," Gross wrote in comments posted on Pimco's Web site. http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/04/markets/gross_social_security/index.htm?cnn=yes
Cheney Admits: Lots of Borrowing ahead. So, they admit that it doesn’t help “save” Social Security, and it results in trillions of new debt. Clearly a wonderful idea.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday acknowledged trillions of dollars in future borrowing may be needed to cover the cost of private retirement accounts under President Bush's plan to retool the Social Security system. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=5&u=/nm/20050206/pl_nm/retirement_borrowing_dc
Nick Kristof: Shame
…these days both parties are behaving irresponsibly. Mr. Bush is disingenuous - and perhaps fiscally reckless - by refusing to explain who will pay the bill, and the Democrats are trying to shout him down without offering solutions of their own. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/opinion/5kristof.html?oref=login&hp
Sorry column: Forget the even-handedness, Nick. The Democrats- and I’m not usually a defender- are offering an alternative: they seek to maintain Social Security!
Bush Budget: Not news, in that it was previewed in the Fall. Not surprising as it’s part of the design, developed by the first Reagan Group in the early 80’s: create deficits then slash the budget claiming you’re getting the deficit under control. Robert Pear of the Times had a stream of reports:
President Bush's budget for 2006 cuts spending for a wide range of public health programs, including several to protect the nation against bioterrorist attacks and to respond to medical emergencies, budget documents show.
Faced with constraints on spending caused by record budget deficits and the demands of the war in Iraq, administration officials said on Friday that they had increased the budget for some health programs but cut many others, including some that address urgent health care needs.
The documents show, for example, that Mr. Bush would cut spending for several programs that deal with epidemics, chronic diseases and obesity. His plan would also cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 9 percent, to $6.9 billion, the documents show. http://nytimes.com/2005/02/05/politics/05cuts.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Facing the prospect of record deficits, Bush administration officials laid out proposals on Thursday for deep cuts in spending on housing and community development.
At the same time, the nation's top health official fleshed out proposals to cut $60 billion from the projected growth of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people, in the next decade…
Don Plusquellic, the mayor of Akron, Ohio, who is president of the United States Conference of Mayors, said: "The new proposal in unconscionable. It will cut programs that help the poorest and the neediest."
Mr. Plusquellic, a Democrat who has led his city for 18 years, said the reshuffling of federal programs obscured the likely effects. "It would be more honest if the federal government simply said, 'We don't care about these poor people,' " he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/politics/04cuts.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1107612003-/57ZjxIBf58B75xx4on0lw&pagewanted=print&position=
President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday…
Mr. Bush's farm proposal found support from some people who frequently criticize his policies.
Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy group, said the proposal would reduce payments to big agribusiness operations. The savings, he said, would ease pressure on Congress to cut conservation programs financed in the same legislation.
"This proposal is a very big deal," Mr. Cook said. "I am stunned and impressed. The Bush administration is opening the door to reform on the most contested issue in agriculture policy today. Taxpayers will no longer have to subsidize every bushel of grain or bale of cotton. They will no longer have to subsidize the demise of the family farm." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/politics/06budget.html
President Bush's budget will propose slashing grants to local law enforcement agencies and cutting spending for environmental protection, American Indian schools and home-heating aid for the poor, The Associated Press learned Saturday. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=716&e=4&u=/ap/20050205/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget
And, let’s not forget Orwell:
The White House will brandish independent studies on program effectiveness, appeals for lawmakers to set priorities, and, on occasion, some rhetorical creativity. The deep cuts to community development, for example, have been titled the "Strengthening America's Communities Initiative." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1462-2005Feb5.html
Dean as Chair of DNC: The Response. They’ve stockpiled…
Robert Novak says Democrats "are concerned about the massive negative research" about Howard Dean "stockpiled by President Bush's political operatives.""The Dean file was compiled by Bush's re-election campaign when it appeared that the former Vermont governor was going to be nominated for president. It is a carefully researched compendium of Dean's often bizarre utterances." http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20050205.shtml
-R
Ossie Davis: Decent Times obituary
The two [wife Ruby Dee] also fought in broader arenas. They helped organize the 1963 March on Washington and were master and mistress of ceremonies.
At a news conference in Manhattan yesterday, Harry Belafonte, with tears in his eyes, compared Mr. Davis to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, W. E .B. DuBois and Fanny Lou Hamer, all of whom were Mr. Davis's friends. In particular, Mr. Davis remained fiercely loyal to Robeson even as he was denounced by other show-business figures for his openly Communist sympathies.
In 1965, Mr. Davis delivered the eulogy at the funeral of Malcolm X, calling him "our shining black prince," and he spoke it again in a voiceover for the 1992 Spike Lee film, "Malcolm X." In 1968, he eulogized Dr. King. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/theater/05davis.html?oref=login
Back to the gore:
Love that Mercury
The Environmental Protection Agency ignored scientific evidence and agency protocols in order to set limits on mercury pollution that would line up with the Bush administration's free-market approaches to power plant pollution, according to a report released yesterday by the agency's inspector general.
Staff at the EPA were instructed by administrators to set modest limits on mercury pollution, and then had to work backward from the predetermined goal to justify the proposal, according to a report by Inspector General Nikki Tinsley.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61762-2005Feb3.html
NPR and Bush Jobs Record. Oh, that Liberal Media. While other sources termed the jobs report “modest” or “puny” or “disappointing”, NPR’s report terms January’s job growth to be “heartening”, for Bush, since the added 146,000 jobs gives the Administration a net job growth for his term... of .03%.
Gads.
For the nth time, we need to produce 150,000 jobs per month just to keep up with population growth. So, we needed to produce 7.2 million jobs in the 4 years. So, Cheney-Bush was 7.15 million short.
NPR is NOT a liberal network; they’re just not Right wing.
Middle East: Response to State of Union: “Nothing new”, or condemnation:
The Syrian and Iranian governments reacted angrily Thursday to George W. Bush's vow to confront them over their alleged harboring of terrorists and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. The American president's State of the Union speech on Wednesday night identified Syria and Iran as the primary obstacles to his administration's declared mission to spread peace and democracy in the Middle East. It sent tremors through the region, raising fears that the administration may have more military action on its second-term agenda.
Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced the United States as "like one of the big heads of a seven-headed dragon," menacing his country under the direction of "Zionist and non-Zionist capitalists." "Bush is the fifth U.S. president seeking to uproot the Iranian nation and the Islamic Republic of Iran. [Jimmy] Carter, [Ronald] Reagan, father Bush and [Bill] Clinton failed. This president will also fail," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.
The response from Damascus, Syria, also reflected growing nervousness at Bush's intentions. "Freedoms cannot be exported by tanks and planes, death and destruction," said Syria's information minister, Mehdi Dakhlallah. "Everyone knows that Syria is cooperating in fighting terrorism, but the definition of terrorism cannot be selective and based on ideology and politics," he said. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/02/04/iran_syria/print.html
Guantanamo Abuses. Ongoing reports, not pleasant, but need to be acknowledged In this one, the Brits helped screw their own.
British intelligence officials played a crucial part in the secret abduction of UK citizen Martin Mubanga to Guantanamo Bay. There, he reveals today in an exclusive interview, he endured 33 months of ill-treatment and often abusive interrogation.
Documents seen by The Observer disclose that even the Pentagon's own lawyers now accept that the intelligence that consigned him to Guantanamo may have been deeply flawed. Mubanga, who was released without charge after his return to Britain on 25 January, now plans to sue the British government.
In his interview today, the first by any of the four Britons who returned from Guantanamo last month, Mubanga, 32, describes a horrifying catalogue of abuse:
· In one interrogation session, he was forced to urinate in the corner of the interview room while chained hand and foot.
· He was treated to a regime known as 'BI [basic item] loss'. This meant his thin mattress, trousers, shirts, towel, blankets, and flipflops were all taken away, leaving him naked except for boxer shorts in an empty metal box.
· Last autumn, while Pentagon lawyers were writing memos suggesting that Mubanga may not have had any involvement in terrorism at all and may not have been given a fair hearing, the Guantanamo authorities subjected him to the harshest treatment in his 33 months in Guantanamo, with three brutal assaults by the 'Instant Reaction Force' riot squad for trivial violations of the camp rules. http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1407040,00.html
Social Security:
Bush in Florida. More humor. Really.
About 1,000 ticket-holders can expect to see Bush in the Tampa Convention Center for about an hour starting at 4 p.m., a White House spokesman said Wednesday. A handful of individuals ``who have a vested interest in strengthening Social Security and have an important story to tell'' will join him onstage.
Among those invited to apply for the appearance were stockbrokers at Raymond James & Associates, a company spokeswoman said. Tampa's Blake High School jazz band was invited to perform, the school district said. http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBEID4KQ4E.html
Get it? Stockbrokers have a vested interested in Social Security. Precious.
Another critical voice
Bill Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, is criticizing President Bush's plan to privatize part of Social Security.
Gross, managing director at Pimco, called the argument about the solvency of Social Security "silly" and said it was an example of the president not focusing on more important issues, such as the budget deficit.
The president's argument for individual Social Security accounts is meant "to promote an agenda that has little to do with seniors and more to do with Bush, his ownership society, and ultimately his domestic legacy alongside the likes of Ronald Reagan and FDR," Gross wrote in comments posted on Pimco's Web site. http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/04/markets/gross_social_security/index.htm?cnn=yes
Cheney Admits: Lots of Borrowing ahead. So, they admit that it doesn’t help “save” Social Security, and it results in trillions of new debt. Clearly a wonderful idea.
Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday acknowledged trillions of dollars in future borrowing may be needed to cover the cost of private retirement accounts under President Bush's plan to retool the Social Security system. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=5&u=/nm/20050206/pl_nm/retirement_borrowing_dc
Nick Kristof: Shame
…these days both parties are behaving irresponsibly. Mr. Bush is disingenuous - and perhaps fiscally reckless - by refusing to explain who will pay the bill, and the Democrats are trying to shout him down without offering solutions of their own. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/opinion/5kristof.html?oref=login&hp
Sorry column: Forget the even-handedness, Nick. The Democrats- and I’m not usually a defender- are offering an alternative: they seek to maintain Social Security!
Bush Budget: Not news, in that it was previewed in the Fall. Not surprising as it’s part of the design, developed by the first Reagan Group in the early 80’s: create deficits then slash the budget claiming you’re getting the deficit under control. Robert Pear of the Times had a stream of reports:
President Bush's budget for 2006 cuts spending for a wide range of public health programs, including several to protect the nation against bioterrorist attacks and to respond to medical emergencies, budget documents show.
Faced with constraints on spending caused by record budget deficits and the demands of the war in Iraq, administration officials said on Friday that they had increased the budget for some health programs but cut many others, including some that address urgent health care needs.
The documents show, for example, that Mr. Bush would cut spending for several programs that deal with epidemics, chronic diseases and obesity. His plan would also cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 9 percent, to $6.9 billion, the documents show. http://nytimes.com/2005/02/05/politics/05cuts.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Facing the prospect of record deficits, Bush administration officials laid out proposals on Thursday for deep cuts in spending on housing and community development.
At the same time, the nation's top health official fleshed out proposals to cut $60 billion from the projected growth of Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income people, in the next decade…
Don Plusquellic, the mayor of Akron, Ohio, who is president of the United States Conference of Mayors, said: "The new proposal in unconscionable. It will cut programs that help the poorest and the neediest."
Mr. Plusquellic, a Democrat who has led his city for 18 years, said the reshuffling of federal programs obscured the likely effects. "It would be more honest if the federal government simply said, 'We don't care about these poor people,' " he said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/04/politics/04cuts.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1107612003-/57ZjxIBf58B75xx4on0lw&pagewanted=print&position=
President Bush will seek deep cuts in farm and commodity programs in his new budget and in a major policy shift will propose overall limits on subsidy payments to farmers, administration officials said Saturday…
Mr. Bush's farm proposal found support from some people who frequently criticize his policies.
Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy group, said the proposal would reduce payments to big agribusiness operations. The savings, he said, would ease pressure on Congress to cut conservation programs financed in the same legislation.
"This proposal is a very big deal," Mr. Cook said. "I am stunned and impressed. The Bush administration is opening the door to reform on the most contested issue in agriculture policy today. Taxpayers will no longer have to subsidize every bushel of grain or bale of cotton. They will no longer have to subsidize the demise of the family farm." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/politics/06budget.html
President Bush's budget will propose slashing grants to local law enforcement agencies and cutting spending for environmental protection, American Indian schools and home-heating aid for the poor, The Associated Press learned Saturday. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&ncid=716&e=4&u=/ap/20050205/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_budget
And, let’s not forget Orwell:
The White House will brandish independent studies on program effectiveness, appeals for lawmakers to set priorities, and, on occasion, some rhetorical creativity. The deep cuts to community development, for example, have been titled the "Strengthening America's Communities Initiative." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1462-2005Feb5.html
Dean as Chair of DNC: The Response. They’ve stockpiled…
Robert Novak says Democrats "are concerned about the massive negative research" about Howard Dean "stockpiled by President Bush's political operatives.""The Dean file was compiled by Bush's re-election campaign when it appeared that the former Vermont governor was going to be nominated for president. It is a carefully researched compendium of Dean's often bizarre utterances." http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20050205.shtml
-R
