Did you see Bush at the Daytona race, by the way? First time he hasn't screwed up a speech. Of course, it wasn't much about politics, but that merely suggests that he's in the wrong line of business.
I'm going to be starting up a series of editorials regarding the state of healthcare in the U.S. and what can be done about it, and as a way to introduce that series, Paul Krugman's latest editorial (below) serves as a good starting point:
The Economic Report of the President, released last week, has drawn criticism on several fronts. Let me open a new one: the report's discussion of health care, which shows a remarkable indifference to the concerns of ordinary Americans ...Indeed it does.
Krugman highlights a number of important points:
- "Although more than 40 million people lack health insurance, this doesn't matter too much because 'the uninsured are a diverse and perpetually changing group.' This is good news?" It's good news so long as you don't become ill during that time. It's good news so long as you don't lose you job when you become ill.
- "The report also seems to have missed the point of health insurance. It argues that it would be a good thing if insurance companies had more information about the health prospects of clients so 'policies could be tailored to different types and priced accordingly.'" Krugman doesn't miss the point. While insurance companies rightly seek to reduce risk in their pricing, the actual elimination of risk makes insurance itself pointless.
- "... the report turns to a criticism of health insurance in general, which it blames for excessive health care spending." This is the Right's overutilization argument, which they blame for a substantial portion of the run-up in healthcare costs. Sure, it's a problem, but not nearly so much as they believe. Insurance companies have been dealing with this problem since the advent of healthcare insurance, and no legislative solution could do any better.
- "A recent study found that private insurance companies spend 11.7 cents of every health care dollar on administrative costs, mainly advertising and underwriting, compared with 3.6 cents for Medicare and 1.3 cents for Canada's government-run system. Also, our system is very generous ... because ... it doesn't bargain for lower prices." A key to funding a better healthcare system, but only one of many sources from which to draw such funding. In my series of editorials on healthcare, you'll be amazed at how many other ways you are paying for our current system. And even the Right will will love some of the places I'll be tapping for that funding.
- "The result is that American health care, which at its best is the best in the world, offers much of the population a worst-of-all-worlds combination of insecurity and high costs. And that combination is getting worse ..." And this is indeed the bottom line. How much worse can it get before the bottom falls out in our healthcare system?
Most Americans rank healthcare coverage among their leading concerns, and many rank it as their overriding concern. Yet this administration is virtually powerless to address this because of its strong ($$$) ties to the status quo.... the administration can't offer such an answer, both because
of its ideological blinders and because of its special interest ties.... let's just note that this is an issue the public cares
about -- an issue the administration can't address ...
The lesson from this is obvious. If healthcare is among your primary concerns, a vote to re-elect Bush is a roll of the dice on whether you will still have healthcare coverage four years from now.
I'll be getting into all of these issues and and more in my upcoming editorial series. Look for the first in my series, "You don't know what you're talking about."
Yet credible estimates of Iraqi deaths and severe injuries from the war run as high as several hundred thousand, and as Escobar points out:
This means that many Iraqis now know that in the name of their "liberation", the Americans have killed or maimed 200,000 people. When something like this happens, you don't need any help from al-Qaeda to fuel your anger.But is there really even an al-Qaeda acting as a directing force to the terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere around the globe, or has al-Qaeda merely become a myth and a rallying point for various local terrorist efforts? French Ministry of Defense expert Alain Chouet believes the latter to be the case, and further believes that the Bush administration's effort to highlight al-Qaeda as a key force in the world (and Iraqi) terrorism is a double-edged sword. Just as it allows the administration to continue to sell its "War on Terrorism" to the American people, so too does it allow small groups of local dissidents to identify with a greater cause, that of curbing and rolling back what is viewed as American imperialism.
As Pepe Escobar concludes:
As for a weakened, disabled al-Qaeda, it is definitely voting Bush next November. Al-Qaeda wants the Iraq occupation to be prolonged, with or without a puppet government: there could not be a better advertisement for rallying Muslims against the arrogance of the West.Al-Qaeda likely has little if any capability left in the United States to carry out another 9/11 scale attack. But even a small-scale attack in a major city before the election "would be like help from above for the Bushites", and a Bush re-election is the exact outcome needed to advance the myth of al-Qaeda.
"The United States now runs the risk, so familiar to historians of the rise and fall of Great Powers, of what might be called 'imperial overstretch': that is to say, decision-makers in Washington must face the awkward and enduring fact that the total of the United States's global interests and obligations is nowadays far too large for the country to be able to defend them all simultaneously."Imperial has since been replaced by "empire" in the halls of the administration, but the "overstretch" part remains; empires are very expensive to maintain:
But while empire in all its imperial, multicolored, geopolitical hues may be an alluring sight, there is one thing to keep in mind. The process of creating and maintaining an empire, like making sausage or passing congressional legislation, is not a pretty process. In fact, it is costly, very costly, in terms of lives, money and liberty. It requires a large military establishment, which can consume a substantial, if not disproportionate amount of the national treasury. And it requires stationing and deploying forces around the world.David Isenberg looks a the plans being made and executed in the name of the New American Empire. The question isn't really whether we want one however, but rather whether we can even afford one if we do.
would be the mother of all national security issues
At the root of this is a giant climate engine known as "The Great Conveyor Belt," which includes what we call the Gulf Stream. A simple look at mercator projection (flat map) of the world reveals the key element of this: most of Europe lies well to the north of the United States, and it is the Gulf Stream and its warm waters that provides most of the moderating effect that allows Europe to enjoy a climate similar to the U.S. If the Gulf Stream were to slow or even stall, the effect on Europe's climate would be sudden and dramatic, with Europe potentially entering a new Ice Age.
So how exactly might global warming cause such a sudden change in "The Great Conveyor Belt"? A detailed and excellent explanation of this is provided by Thom Hartmann in "How Global Warming May Cause the Next Ice Age... "
Of course, Europe would not be alone in being effected by this. As the heat in the waters of the Gulf Stream failed to be moved to Europe, it would increasing concentrate off the east coast of North America, and this in combination with the rising ocean levels caused by glacial and polar ice cap meltdowns would likely cuase far more severe weather here which would particularly effect the highly-populated low-lying costal areas of the continent. As pointed out in an additional commentary, "Secretive Pentagon Forecasts Climate Wars" (mirror), this could result in large refugee flows from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean, and an ensuing "food war" scenario that has Pentagon planners scurrying to address.
Many additional links on this are provided by the Woods Hole Ocean and Climate Change Institute's Abrupt Climate Change page.
[Thanks to thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse for of several links here.]
Bush spoke at a window factory, the latest such plant he has chosen to showcase what he says are the favorable impacts of his tax policies on small business. His makeshift stage was near the production floor, and he was flanked by small business owners and an employee.No shame whatsoever.The White House bills these events as "conversations on the economy," but there is never disagreement, only positive reinforcement of Bush's message. Each of Bush's "conversation" partners Monday gave testimonials about the positive effect of his tax cuts.
"Mr. President, we have to keep this tax cut," said Sam Leto, chairman of Tampa Brass & Aluminum Corp.
Bush's tour of the factory floor was also highly stage-managed by the White House.
As he entered, a half-dozen workers were steadily polishing windows, as if Bush had walked into an ordinary shift on President's Day. News cameras snapped away as Bush picked up a caulking gun and hugged workers.
Five minutes after Bush and his entourage of journalists left, the factory floor was deserted, and there was no sign later in the day that production had resumed.
If you're not familiar with Black Box Notes, I started the blog a bit back to provide links related to electronic voting issues and articles, and also frequently comment at length on some of those issues. I think you'll find a lot of my commentary there to be unique on the the web, as I write from the perspective of having 40 years of computer and systems development experience. If fact, one of our biggest problems in computerizing the vote (second only to attempts to make it a partisan issue and the inevitable conspiracy theories that this generates), is that too few of the people responsible for this change really have a talent sufficient to understand the complexity of their undertaking. Sadly also, this includes many of the people responsible for developing these systems.
Black Box Notes also takes on issues relating to voter enfranchisement and disenfranchisement, because after all, black box voting is actually a subset of this. If your votes are not counted properly, you have effectively been disenfranchised, even if the improper count was in your favor.
You'll also find links there to many other sites which also chronicle these issues, and I'll be adding a number more in the near future. Once that is done, I'm also planning to provide links to the major e-vote manufacturers and, where available, links to their press release pages. (Some of these press releases can be quite humerous when compared to releases by independent sources.)
Anyways, if you're interested in this issue, Black Box Notes is a good place to start. And if you're not, why aren't you?
US voters will go to the polls in November using electronic voting machines which cannot be verified, a computer scientist warned yesterday.The Guardian also maintains an extensive page of links of election coverage, US Election 2004, a US Vote 2004 weblog, and and interactive graphic, State by state guide to the elections, which covers the Democratic primariy.David Dill, of Stanford University, told the American As sociation for the Advancement of Science meeting in Seattle, that 1,600 technologists and 53 elected officials had joined his crusade for a "paper trail" so that electronic voting machines could be checked. ...
"The system is in crisis," Professor Dill said. "A quarter of the American public are voting on machines where there's very little protection of their votes. I don't think there's any reason to trust these machines."
This article has previously appeared on Black Box Notes.]
State elections officials banned any attempt to recount votes cast on touch-screen voting machines Friday, reversing an earlier decision as counties prepare for the presidential primary less than a month away.This can only be called insane. Remember Bush v. Gore, the Election 2000 Supreme Court case that effectively handed that election to George Bush? The basis of their decision was essentially that if different standards for recounting ballots were used in different voting districts, irreperable harm would befall Bush. It was a quite tortured decision that even the Court itself said should not be used as precident for future decisions. But it wasn't only tortured, it was idiotic, as we will soon see.
Fast forward to 2004 and the advent of E-votng terminals in some Florida voting districts. State election officials initially decided that it would be left to the individual counties to decide if they wanted their terminals to produce paper ballots for use in audits and recounts. (Note that at the present, no E-vote terminals that produce paper ballots have been certified for use in Florida.)
These same officials however have recently reversed this decision, saying that no counties can produce paper ballots produced by E-vote terminals. Why? The Bush v. Gore decision. Here's the logic. If only some counties produce paper ballots, only those counties will be able to do recounts using those ballots. That creates "different standards" for recounting ballots, something that Bush v. Gore declares to be illegal.
Let's look at what they are saying here because it's important. What they are saying here effectively is that no Florida county can adopt a better voting system than any other Florida county. What they are saying here is that if all Florida counties cannot do a paper recount, then no Florida county is allowed to do a paper recount. What they are saying here is that all Florida counties must adopt the least secure voting system chosen by any Florida county. This is nonsense, and yet it is nonsense mandated by Bush v. Gore; that all recounting of votes must be as bad as the worst recounting of votes!
I would be remiss here is I did not point to my easlier post, Budgeting for Another Florida, which pointed out that the new White House budget only funds 5% of the $800 million legislated for the upgrade of voting systems around the country. The net result of this budget when combined with this recent Florida decicion is that counties in Florida will almost certainly not be seeking to use the now far more limited funds they will be receiving on paper e-ballot technology that they may not even be allowed to use. Local Florida voting supervisors will now not even have to take a position for or against paper e-ballots; they need only say that there is no money for them.
Is this some sort of conspiracy between the national Bush administration and the Florida Bush administration to sabotage the Florida 2004 election? One could hardly be faulted for noticng the "complimentary" nature of these decisions, but far more likely we are simply seeing a parallel lack of concern for the integrity of our voting systems that is all too common among members of today's Republican Party.
[The article originally appeared on Black Box Notes.]
If this is a joke, it's not funny. If it's serious, it is funny. Even the Washington Post is flabberghasted:
IT'S HARD TO RECALL a more brazen display of political chutzpah than the Bush campaign's assault on Sen. John F. Kerry as a captive of special interests. ...It's really not too hard to see what the Bush campaign is trying to do here. They know that if they allow the subject of special interests quid pro quos to come up during the campaign, Bush will go down in flames on it. They are trying to tar Kerry with the charge early on then so that they won't have to face it later. But while it's true that Kerry does well with special interest groups, placing him in the same league as Bush on this is simply laughable. If the public falls for it, we're in deep trouble.Mr. Kerry's fundraising and his relationships with Washington lobbyists are a legitimate topic, ... But -- how can we say this politely? -- let's consider the source.
Mr. Bush's acceptance of special-interest money and his subsequent rewards to the industries doing the giving dwarf anything in Mr. Kerry's record. ... Mr. Bush has raised more than four times as much from lobbyists during the 2004 race as Mr. Kerry has -- $960,000 for Mr. Bush to $235,000 for Mr. Kerry.
Dave was laid off after he disclosed this. Efforts are being made to bring Dave (a quite ordinary guy) before Congressional commitees that address the beef industry. You can find out about contributing to this effort by e-mailing Peter Collins, by going to Dave's website, or by simply sending a check designated for the Dave Louthan effort to:My name is Dave Louthan. I'm the guy who killed that mad cow.
Collins Media Services
Box 100
Mill Valley CA 94942
I just listened to Dave: I got this stuff all over me. I'll probably die from it. I'm OK with that. But maybe I can help some others to live. "It's necessary."
Indeed.
We are talking about people's dinner here. People's lives. I don't care how much money Big Beef loses. I want to enjoy my food not sit there wondering is this meat going to kill me? Is it going to kill my kids? That's a bunch of crap. It's not necessary. All those greedy yahoos have to do is start testing all the beef for BSE. Not some of the beef, all the beef.Indeed.
We have just witnessed a defining moment of this year's American presidential election. Rather than helping George W. Bush, as the pundits have it, his hour-long televised interview last Sunday will haunt him, so laced was it with falsehoods and impregnated with questions.If you add his other recent pronouncements, and those of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others, it becomes clear that the administration has decided not to come clean on the invasion of Iraq. It is going to tough it out.
That guarantees a continuation of the ever-shifting rationale on why about 16,000 Iraqis and 525 Americans are dead, so far.
Jude's problem here is in regard to an Alan Greenspan comment about helping the trade deficit by devaluing the dollar. In his "open letter" to Greenspan:
I watched both days of your testimony before the House and Senate banking committees this week and for the most part enjoyed your performance. The one real problem I had was in your prepared testimony, where you said the cheaper dollar will help close the U.S. trade deficit. I’ve known you for more than 30 years, Alan, and I don’t remember you ever saying such nonsense.Jude goes on to explain the appeal of this idea, but points out how and why it has never worked in the past.
One more "trick down" idea? Jude thinks so.
I must have made a spelling error somewhere along the way, but why are so many people finding me by repeating that same spelling error? Could someone clue me in on this?
So what's wrong with that? Weren't the OSP and the VP's Office effectively a part of the intelligence community that examined pre-war evidence? Well yes, they were (and they are the two parts of that community that are being accused of fraud), but the order goes on to define the "Intelligence Community" by the definition set forth in the National Security Act, and that act references neither the OSP nor the VP's Office. In other words, regardless of what the OSP and the VP's Office played in pre-war intelligence, their actions are beyond the scope of the committee!
Dean sums this up:
Bush's Executive Order only pretends to look at the issue of pre-war Iraqi WMD intelligence. In fact, it does not look at what is really the issue: the use of that intelligence by policy makers. The questions of what the intelligence said, and how it was used -- specifically, was it exploited or distorted? -- are quite separate. Bush's Commission will answer only the first question.But read the whole article because there is a lot more:
- How the commission has no authority to deliver its findings to anyone but the President.
- Why the commission will not be able to complete even its limited mission by the March, 2005 deadline.
- How Dick Cheney's experience in past administrations suggests his strong hand in the crafting of this executive order.
Have I mentioned lately how much I despise these people?Bush should be given an honorary membership in the International Brotherhood of Magicians for his latest political handiwork.
The fight over Iraq's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction is turning surreal. As one post facto justification for the war after another is erased by incontrovertible reality--the WMD threat by the absence thereof, the Al Qaeda threat by simple logic, the liberation argument by the bombs Iraqis are setting off at every American they can--the Bushies are circulating a list of quotes by such leading Democrats as John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and President Bill Clinton slamming Saddam. ... Bush "had the same intelligence [on Iraq] President Clinton had," adds Laura Bush. Now there's a GOP talking point with legs.In other words, George W. Bush is trying to bolster his sinking credibility by equating his personal integrity to that of Bill Clinton. I won't argue the point, but Karl Rove is losing his touch.
. . ."I expected to find the weapons," Bush told Tim Russert last week. I believe him. They bet everything on that conviction. But Bush knew that he didn't have hard evidence. So he and his cabinet vamped it, figuring that the postwar discovery of vast stockpiles would silence critics. Now that there are no WMDs, the preemptive doctrine is toast. So is presidential credibility. Since Bush has lost his trillion-dollar gamble, it's time for him to pay off the casino and vacate the high rollers' suite.
...when administration officials are challenged about the blatant deceptions in their budgets ? or, for that matter, about the use of prewar intelligence ? their response, almost always, is to fall back on the president's character. How dare you question Mr. Bush's honesty, they ask, when he is a man of such unimpeachable integrity? And that leaves critics with no choice: they must point out that the man inside the flight suit bears little resemblance to the official image. ... Old history, you may say, and irrelevant to the present. And perhaps that would be true if Mr. Bush was prepared to come clean about his past. Instead, he remains evasive. On "Meet the Press" he promised to release all his records ? and promptly broke that promise.And that is the point exactly. What George Bush did or did not do during his National Guard service really does not matter. What matters is whether George bush takes responsibility for his actions, and on that front, his National Guard service simply becomes one more item on a long list that says he does not.I don't know what he's hiding. But I do think he has forfeited any right to cite his character to turn away charges that his administration is lying about its policies.
[NYTimes articles move to a paid ($) archive. Use this link afterwards.]
From the editor of the Progress Report (CAP):
After publishing the Progress Report this morning, Fox News called to protest our description of Ann Coulter as a “Fox News contributor." Fox News said Ann Coulter "is not a contributor to this network" and "has not been a contributor the last couple of years." Though Fox News’ Sean Hannity described Ms. Coulter in December of 2002 as "a Fox News contributor," and despite Coulter appearing 50 times on Fox News since 2002, we regret any confusion this may have caused.Who says FOX doesn't have any sense of shame?
Chris Floyd:Well, that's it then. The show is over. The scales have fallen. The monstrous gears of the dark satanic mills that spewed their poison fog across the land have ground to a halt at last."... the public drew the only possible conclusion: Their president was either a murderous liar or a dangerous fool."George W. Bush's performance in his nationally televised interview this week was so abysmal, so completely divorced from the waking reality of the rest of the world, that even his faithful spear-carriers in the far-right horde -- not mention the power-worshipping poltroons of the mainstream media -- reacted as if they'd been slapped upside the head with a particularly dank and smelly mackerel. They're shocked -- shocked! -- to find incompetence in this establishment!