29 June 2004

7:45am and we found this on www.buzzflash.com at the suggestion of a reader. A little humor in these times is appreciated. Thanks to Nerdeaux in Idyho for the chuckle.

Subject: Teacher/Terror Suspect Arrested

At New York's Kennedy Airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule, and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying Weapons of Math Instruction.

"Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashcroft said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns,' but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the "Axis of Medieval," with coordinates in every country.

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better Weapons of Math Instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

From Nerdeaux in Idyho

9:45am this is what Adam Nagourney writes about polling results in the NYT this morning.

Among those who do have an opinion, Mr. Kerry is disliked more than he is liked. More than 50 percent of respondents said that Mr. Kerry says what he thinks voters want to hear, suggesting that Mr. Bush has had success in portraying his opponent as a flip-flopper.

In an earlier paragraph Nagourney noted that 40% of those polled say they have no opinion of Kerry. So for the total number polled, 30% have a negative opinion of Kerry which approximates the number of hard core Republicans in the country.

In that same poll more folks had a negative opinion 51% of Bush than positive 42%.

Thus the paragraph that Nagourney wrote that used the 50% number is certainly misleading. But that’s the way of the NYT and Democrat Presidential candidates.

If we were writing the paragraph we would say 51% of registered voters disapproved of Bush while 30% of registered voters disapproved of Kerry.

Numbers can often be made to reflect any point of view. But when major media outlets skew the results in a story as opposed to the editorial page they are taking sides.

10:40am and a good idea from www.americablog.blogspot.com :

Here's what to do with you "Fahrenheit 9/11" ticket stub....

After you go to Fahrenheit 911, keep your ticket stub and mail it to:

George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC 20500

with a note attached, "I saw what you did last summer".

28 June 2004

8:02am and it seems that Shrub was ticked off at a reporter in Ireland who had the temerity to interrupt him as he wandered in never-never land with an answer to her question as he usually does when answering any reporter’s question. The White House admonished the reporter for interrupting Bush and refused reporters an interview with Laura Bush as punishment for the impudence of the reporter who interviewed Bush. Big loss there. The following commentary is from ATRIOS at www.atrios.blogspsot .com.

The White House has lodged a complaint with the Irish Embassy in Washington over RTE journalist Carole Coleman's interview with US President George Bush.

And it is believed the President's staff has now withdrawn from an exclusive interview which was to have been given to RTE this morning by First Lady Laura Bush.

It is understood that both RTE and the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the exclusive arrangement, scheduled for 11am today. However, when RTE put Ms Coleman's name forward as interviewer, they were told Mrs. Bush would no longer be available.

The Irish Independent learned last night that the White House told Ms Coleman that she interrupted the president unnecessarily and was disrespectful.

She also received a call from the White House in which she was admonished for her tone.

And it emerged last night that presidential staff suggested to Ms Coleman as she went into the interview that she ask him a question on the outfit that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern wore to the G8 summit.

8:15am and in what passes for commentary and reasoned discussion Ann Coulter the Republican family values’ commentator had the following to say as reported by David Brock’s new website which is devoted to correcting the rubbish emanating from right wing cable TV.

The website is: http://mediamatters.org/items/200406250007

On June 23, both Scarborough Country and Hannity & Colmes gave Ann Coulter -- right-wing pundit and author of Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right and Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism -- plenty of airtime to smear former President Bill Clinton and to smear Americans who do not support President George W. Bush. On Scarborough Country, Coulter compared Clinton to O.J. Simpson, who was tried for murder in 1995, and called Clinton "a pathological liar, a sociopath, and felon." On Hannity & Colmes, Coulter called "all the American people that don't support" President George W. Bush "traitors." June 25, 2004

8:25am and Monica Lewinsky gave an interview to the Daily Mirror, a Murdoch owned newspaper, in London last week in which she bemoaned the fact that Bill Clinton didn’t explain the truth of their love affair in his book. Neither she nor the Mirror would say whether she was paid for the interview. It is about time that Monica accepts the fact that Clinton used her, as he said he did in his book.

A more interesting point is that very few folks realize that when Lewinsky originally set up her million dollar deal with the Mirror at the end of the impeachment stuff, her lawyer for the negotiations was Ted Olson, the right wing lawyer who was on the board of and legal representative of The American Spectator Magazine. The American Spectator was the entity though which Richard Mellon Scaife funneled over $2 million dollars to a lawyer in Virginia to be used to create phony stories about the Clintons.

Ted Olson also just resigned as Solicitor General of the United States which post he was given as a reward for winning Bush’s case before the Supremes and his card playing buddies Scalia and Rhenquist. Olson had been given the job of representing Lewinsky by his fellow Federalist Society compatriot Grand Inquisitor Kenny Starr.

8:32am and ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ did $21 million in box office at less than 900 theatres over the week-end. The Movie hasn’t reached us here in the boonies yet but we plan on seeing it. We notice that many TV and print outlets are spending time discussing the discrepancies in Moore’s rendition of the facts as told by the movies. What’s funny is that we don’t remember these same news outlets dissecting the distortions that occur on the Limbaugh and Hannity and O’Reilly cable shows on a daily basis and in their books, or in the daily pronouncements of Bush and Cheney.

9:06am and www.bostonphoenix.com is reporting that the Republicans are going to go after John Kerry’s divorce records ala Jack Ryan. The irony would be delicious for Republicans and Democrats alike. But we’ll bet that Kerry tells them to take a hike and that no judge will release them.

If Kerry is forced to release them next would be Giuliani’s two divorces and Limbaugh’s three divorces just for starters.

11:12am and the Washington Post does a decent job today pointing out one of the policy differences between Bush and Kerry.

Kerry wants to spend $900 million over ten years providing additional health coverage for 27 million folks. Moreover Kerry wants to:

Give Every American Access to the Same Health Plan As Members of Congress:

Nine million Federal employees get health care through the Federal Employees Benefits program (FEHBP), which offers a wide range of health plans with good benefits and affordable premiums. The Kerry plan will allow every American access to this system. With tax-based incentives to employers and tax credits to individuals and the self-employed, the Kerry plan will ensure that this coverage is affordable. The most vulnerable groups, including the unemployed and people ages 55-64 who are retired or not covered by their employer, will also receive tax credits. To hold down premiums, the federal government will reimburse companies for 75 percent of catastrophic claims - lowering premiums by almost 10 percent or up to $1,000 per family.

Bush want to cut taxes by an additional $990 billion over the next decade by making the sun setting tax cuts that he passed in the last few years permanent.

That’s a clear choice of using $900 million to reduce health insurance costs and allow folks who aren’t part of company plans but have been forced to take early retirement to be able to buy decent health coverage no questions asked or more tax cuts.

12:20pm and Sky television is reporting that former Pro-Consul Paul Bremer left Iraq immediately after the sign over to the Iraqi Governing Council. One reason given for the early signing was because a plot to disrupt the formal signing had been discovered. Bremer’s quick departure would seem to give credence to that rumor.

If so, rather than showing strength and genius might the early signing not be interpreted to demonstrate that the terrorists can control events just by threat?

Poor CNN, they were all set to begin Countdown to Turnover tonight.

1:03pm and in honor of the turnover of power and in keeping with the practice of most of the governments that the U.S. has helped into power over the years, the Bushies and Blair have agreed with the imposition of Martial law by the new Iraqi Governing Council on the Iraqi citizens.

1:31pm and we have below David Kendall’s letter to the Washington Post concerning their editorial taking Bill Clinton to task for Whitewater. Yes WaPo still won’t bite the bullet and admit they were WRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNG.

"The Post's June 23 editorial on former president Bill Clinton's autobiography is aptly titled ['Alternate Universe'] but not in the way intended."

"'My Life' contains acknowledgments of error and personal mistakes, but the editorial contains not a whisper that the paper's coverage of Whitewater was frequently over hyped, under-skeptical and just plain wrong. The Post said, 'The tangled real estate investments that became known as Whitewater merited investigation, and the inquiry produced numerous convictions.'"

"It appears that denial is not just a river in Egypt."

"'Investments'? There was only one, made in 1978 for about $200,000. It was financed by bank loans, which were repaid with interest. Bill and Hillary Clinton lost almost $50,000 on this investment. As even the Office of the Independent Counsel conceded, the Clintons 'invested a substantial amount of personal funds and realized no profit from the venture.'"

"As for the 'numerous convictions,' most were guilty pleas wrested by the overwhelming resources of the independent counsel -- small, sad cases involving misstatements in loan applications and personal bankruptcy filings. Many of these pleas were to misdemeanors; none involved the Clintons."

"The office led by Kenneth W. Starr spent more than $70 million on its seven-year investigation, and it was the first independent counsel to lose a jury trial. Indeed, it lost three out of four cases and both cases it appealed to the Supreme Court."

"One of the most devastating parts of 'My Life' is its description of how the media overplayed and misreported the ever-shifting controversies of Whitewater, seeing in its faux 'scandals' the glimmer of a new Watergate. The Post was in the vanguard here from 1994 to 1996, churning out story after story about Whitewater questions and allegations, but underreporting when these were answered and disproved. For example, Resolution Trust Corp.'s December 1995 exculpatory findings about the Clintons' Whitewater investment were barely mentioned in The Post."

"The former president has acknowledged his personal mistakes that led to his impeachment. Isn't it time for The Post to confess its own journalistic mistakes over its Whitewater coverage?"

DAVID E. KENDALL

Washington

The writer is personal counsel to former president Bill Clinton.

2:05pm and Ron Brownstein in the LA Times lists the economic accomplishments of Bill Clinton for minorities:

The benefits of the Clinton boom were dispersed far more broadly than the gains under Ronald Reagan, in part because Clinton systematically implemented policies that encouraged and rewarded work for those on the economy's bottom rungs.

Consider the scorecard. During Clinton's two terms, the median income for American families increased by a solid 15% after inflation, according to Census Bureau figures. But it rose even faster for African Americans (33%) and Hispanics (24%) than it did for whites (14%).

The growth was so widely shared that from 1993 through 1999, families in the bottom [20%] of the income distribution saw their incomes increase faster than those in the top 5%. By comparison, under President Reagan in the 1980s, those in the top 5% increased their income more than five times faster than the bottom 20%.

26 June 2004

From the NYT:

Cheney Owns Up to Profanity Incident and Says He 'Felt Better Afterwards'

Our comment: the VP sure is changing the atmosphere in Washington as promised. Republicans and other members of the family values morality police used to reserve those expletives only for Hillary and Bill.

25 June 2004 - Comment

7:45am and do our leaders really talk like this?

From www.wonkette.com : on family speech and values

CNN is reporting that on the floor of the Senate yesterday, Dick Cheney told Sen. Pat Leahy, "Go xxxx yourself."

. . . Wonkette operatives tell us that the fighting words sprang from an exchange in which Cheney told Leahy he didn't like what Leahy had been saying about Halliburton, to which Leahy replied that he didn't like Cheney calling him a bad Catholic. So you'd see how "Go xxxx yourself" is the only appropriate response.

By the way the Washington Post is reporting that Cheney said “Xxxx off.” or “Xxxx you.” That of course changes the whole meaning of the exchange and since Cheney didn’t cheat on his wife or violate Senate rules against using profane language since the Senate was not in session we presume that what was said is of no import. Unless of course the exchange was seen on C Span in which case according to new rules proposed by Congress either Cheney or the Senate or C Span are liable for a $270,000 fine for using obscene language.

The Busies do seem to be getting a bit testy lately.

Cheney using foul language, Limbaugh on his third divorce, Jack Ryan the Republican Senate candidate in Illinois in favor of whips and chains and public sex-with only his wife, Bill Bennett gambling and Arnold grabbing women. What has the Republic and the Republican Party come to? We do know it is all Bill Clinton’s fault.

Update, the Washington Post has now returned to reporting that the expletive uttered by the Vice President of the United States on the august floor of the United States Senate was and we quote, “ ‘Xxxx yourself,’ said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.” With info from www.billmon.com .

Finally, we wonder whether White House Chief of Staff Morals Andrew Card will rebuke Cheney as he did Kerry. In case you forgot in December 2003:

John Kerry used profane language to assess President Bush's Iraq policy, and Bush's chief of staff said yesterday the Democratic presidential candidate was out of line. "That's beneath John Kerry," the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card, said on CNN's "Late Edition." "I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language. I'm hoping that he's apologizing at least to himself, because that's not the John Kerry that I know."

And other Republicans of note:

People are registering shock at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's profanity in an interview for Rolling Stone magazine. But why should this shock anyone? In recent times, crudeness has virtually become a rite of passage for Democratic presidential candidates (and presidents).

--David Limbaugh

...when a man who runs for president deliberately uses the f-word in an interview with a national magazine, it is cause for concern. Nearly all non-liberals and even some liberals would regard such a person as one who has a different understanding of what preserves our civilization.

[...]

If you are a Democrat and it troubles you that...Senator Kerry uses the f-word in a magazine interview, you might want to reconsider your party affiliation. The Democratic Party has earned a reputation as a poor defender of our civilization against external threats. In fact, it has become a poor defender of our civilization.

Period.

--Dennis Prager

...another sign of desperation from a dying campaign.

--Michael Medved

9:43am ; donuts and holes

We read this morning about the lottery for, as Tommy Thompson calls them, “50,000” lucky Americans. There is going to be a lottery to offer free drugs to 50,000 of the estimated 500,000 elder Americans eligible.

What is this all about? It is outrageous and elders should be up in arms about the idea of having a lottery to apportion health care. If health care needs to be rationed how about offering it to the 50,000 neediest elders? We swear the Bushies have no idea of the pain and suffering many elder Americans endure.

No one makes that point better than Thompson himself when he says, "Only a cynical pessimist can look at a doughnut and complain about the hole.” When talking about holes the Republicans should be careful.

11:14am; what color is the kettle?

It looks like Jack Ryan is going to have to go. Among Republicans calling for him to step down is Henry Hyde. Henry Hyde is the congressman who as a young fellow of 35 had an extramarital affair. His comment on Ryan was, "People are affronted by this bizarre conduct.''

We hate to see Ryan go because it has been so much fun to listen to Moral Majority Republicans defend him and his actions.

23 June 2004 - Comment

Below are some political or other comments that readers only interested in our economic thoughts may wish to avoid.

7:35am and according to the NYT the Bushies- who don’t negotiate with terrorist nations- are willing to make a deal with North Korea to promise not to invade that evil empire if the North Koreans will give up their ‘nuclar’ weapons program. And if they do the countries that surround North Korea would provide tens of thousands of tons of heavy fuel oil for the NK economy. If the North Koreans agree the Bushies will be back to where the relations with NK were in the Clinton administration, which relationship was disavowed by the Bushies upon taking office.

7:45am and we reported yesterday that we had read that Israel was training Kurds. Israel has denied that report and the Turks have conditionally accepted that denial.

7:52am and in Illinois the Republican candidate for Senate Jack Ryan has denied that he broke any laws when news of his trips to sex clubs to encourage his wife to have sex with him in front of others was revealed from divorce documents. Since no one was accusing him of breaking laws that is known as a denial not needed except to change the subject. He also says he was faithful to his wife which also is not at issue.

In fact we don’t have a problem with anything that consenting adults do, but then we are liberals and thus hedonists in the Republican way of thinking. But we are enjoying watching the Republican Morals Police squirm.

We think Jack Ryan is very close to finding Jesus and being born again. That will forgive all his past transgressions of the Republican moral code and make him a sterling candidate for Senator. At least it worked for Arnold and GW. It doesn’t work for Democrats and especially not for Liberals because everyone knows they cross their fingers when making such pronouncements.

8:02am and it looks like the Iranians will let the British sailors go with an apology. That’s good.

8:05am and in a “know your patient” story news organizations are reporting that over 10 million women who have had hysterectomies and their cervixes removed have pap smear tests every year at a cost of $20 to $40 per test. They don’t need the test because they can’t get the cancer the test is designed to find. That’s a waste of $200 to $400 million.

Remember yesterday the WHO needed only $25 million to inoculate 75 million children in Africa against polio.

8:10am and surprise surprise, HCA the large hospital Company run by the family of the Republican Senate Majority Loser Bill Frist has not been providing the discounts it said it would to low income folks. HCA is the outfit that over billed the Federal Government by billions and settled for hundreds of millions a few years back. But that’s patriotic if you are a Republican business with an in at the Senate.

It’s almost as patriotic as moving your company headquarters offshore to avoid state and U.S. taxes even though most of your business is conducted in the U.S.