The Staton Jones Report

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November 24, 2004

FORTRAN?!

Posted by at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2004

First Shot Across the Abortion Bow

Hidden in the Omnibus bill that also contained language allowing Congress to look at anyone's tax return was language barring states from enforcing laws that require medical providers to pay for abortions. This means NY and MA cannot legally enforce their pro-choice laws.

Do the math.

Posted by Steven at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2004

Expansion of H1-B Sought

Major technology firms are trying to raise the H1-B visa count, despite 700,000 IT American jobs lost under Bush.

The tech industry is redoubling its lobbying efforts to raise the cap on the number of foreign nationals permitted to fill skilled jobs in the United States. With slim hope of seeing legislation passed this year exempting the industry from visa limits on foreign workers, IT companies are setting the groundwork for the next Congress to raise the cap further.

The current limit on visas for foreign professionals with special skills, known as H-1B visas, will prevent the industry from hiring the workers they need next year, according to IT companies that include Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Intel Corp. and Oracle Corp. The software companies joined manufacturers and several universities in warning Congress last week that U.S.-educated experts will be forced to work for the country's competitors because the H-1B quota for next year was reached last month.

The visa initiative primarily targets software developers, according to Dan Johnson, general counsel for the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which Microsoft joined this month.

"Our engineering schools are not producing the numbers we need to stay on the competitive edge," Johnson said. "Long term, we should look at the education aspect and why we are not producing enough Americans to fill these jobs, but we're trying to run businesses now."

The H-1B program covers a wide range of professions, including doctors, lawyers, architects and accountants, but it is the IT sector that is clamoring for more leeway. With the economic downturn, the cap was reduced to 65,000 hires at the end of last year, from 195,000 the previous year.

What hubris it takes to use the lack of college grads to justify a program that guts the middle class IT job market and discourages people from studing engineering. But, as we've learned in the last four years, up is down, black is white, blah blah blah. When will the H1-B program for managers begin?

Posted by Steven at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2004

The Blue State Tax

Bush's upcoming tax proposals are aimed squarely at the Blue States: eliminate employer deductions for health coverage and eliminate state income tax deductions on the federal tax return.

The first part of the plan -- which would get rid of federal tax deductions for state and local income tax -- would fall disproportionately hard on Democratic-voting states, which already pay more in taxes than they receive from the federal government. On his blog MaxSpeak, the economist Max Sawicky calls the proposal "The Bush Blue State Tax." Experts say the second part, which would do away with the tax deduction granted to employers for providing health insurance, would likely throw millions of people out of group plans, forcing them to buy far more expensive individual insurance.

...

Right now, people who itemize their tax returns -- about 30 percent of taxpayers, according to Sawicky -- can write off the money they pay in local taxes, thus reducing their federal taxes. "If you're in New York and you're a high-income person, you pay more state income tax, but the blow is less severe because you can deduct it," says Sawicky. "So in effect the price of your state income tax has been reduced. If you pay a dollar in state income tax and you're in the 35 percent bracket, you can deduct $.35, so in effect your state income tax is only costing you $.65 on the dollar."

"If you take away those deductions, you're in reality increasing the taxes on high-taxing, generally blue states," says Press.

Because this proposal would increase the sting of state income taxes, it would make it harder for states and cities to raise their taxes and build up state programs like childcare and health insurance. It would allow small-government conservatives to exert their influence on blue-state social policy. "If you take away the deduction for state income taxes, their logic is that you'll force government to be smaller," says Press.

Payback is a bitch, Blue States.

Posted by Steven at 09:07 PM | Comments (0)

Disenfranchise This!

Take a gander at this voter registration. Do you think he had to fill out a ... ballot?

VOTER REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE FORT BEND COUNTY			U.S. REP.	STATE SEN.	STATE REP.	COMM. PREC.	CITY
			22	17	26	4	SL-SL4
Cert. No	Gender	Valid From	MUD	LID	ESD	JUSTICE PCT.	ISD
5532	M	Jan. 01, 2004
Date of Birth	Prec. No	Thru				4	FB
Apr. 08, 1947	4119	Dec. 31, 2005
Name and Permanent Residence Address:			Alternate Mailing Address:
DELAY, THOMAS DALE			DELAY, THOMAS DALE
2806 SAINT ANNES DR			2806 SAINT ANNES DR
SUGAR LAND TX 77479			SUGAR LAND TX 77479
Status:  * ACTIVE *

Posted by Steven at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2004

The Feds Just Charged $2000 In Your Name

The Federal Debt Ceiling was raised to 8.18 TRILLION dollars yesterday.

That's:

8,180,000,000,000 $US.

It's about 10,000,000,000,000 miles to the next star. This debt is LITERALLY astronomical. And it cost each and every American $2000 today to increase the ceiling (that's $8000 for a family of four). How much did you get back on your taxes, again?

The strict rules that once limited tax cuts and entitlement spending increases lapsed two years ago. Limits on spending lost their teeth. This year, Congress failed to pass a budget altogether.

Last night, with the federal government warning that it was on the verge of defaulting on its debts, the House rejected efforts to reimpose restrictions on tax cuts and spending, then joined the Senate to raise the federal debt limit by $800 billion, to $8.18 trillion.

The collapse of statutory restraints on the growing budget deficit has alarmed Wall Street, befuddled the Treasury Department and elicited calls for a rethinking of the way the government handles its authority to tax its citizens and spend those proceeds.

"The fact is, very little [budgetary restraint] is left in any real form or substance," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, now president of the Urban Institute.

With last night's passage of the debt ceiling increase, the government's borrowing limit has climbed by $2.23 trillion since President Bush took office: by $450 billion in 2002, by a record $984 billion in 2003 and by $800 billion this year. Just the increase in the debt ceiling over the past three years is nearly 2 1/2 times the entire federal debt accumulated between 1776 and 1980.

A recession, a sluggish economy and five tax cuts in four years -- coupled with soaring defense spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and rising domestic spending -- have turned record surpluses that Bush inherited into a record deficit of $413 billion in the past fiscal year.

Posted by Steven at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

Secretary of Sugar

Has President Bush got some on the side?

Judging from the look on her face, it seems that power really is an aphrodisiac. Just try not to stain the dress.

The president kissed only Rice's right cheek, and in the case of Spellings, planted a single kiss just off-center of the lips. He did not execute the double buss that is used as a greeting throughout much of Europe, organized crime and the fashion industry. The double buss is not based on gender or age. In some ways it is a perfect greeting: intimate but not sexual, androgynous but warm. A man can use it to greet a male buddy, for instance. Women say hello to their girlfriends by bussing each cheek. Teenagers use the greeting among friends. As one might expect, there was nothing international about Bush's kisses.

His kisses were more substantial than the single air smooch favored by Hollywood and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. In the execution of this kiss, no direct contact is made between lips and cheek. Instead, two cheeks touch gently and if the lips pucker at all, it is for naught.

Bush delivered his kisses at announcements where gender distinctions were obvious but only vaguely suggested. He noted that the world will see this country's "grace" in Rice. It is a word that can mean decency and kindness, but it comes intertwined with connotations of physical beauty, elegance and femininity.

Remember, Condi has referred to him as "husband" on more than one occasion. Could this be what it really does look like?

Posted by Steven at 11:29 AM | Comments (1)

Where Did the Productivity Come From?

Wonder where all that magical productivity came from during the recession? How about from workers off the clock? I've suspected that this was going on, especially when Wal-Mart got caught doing it (locking employees into the building after hours and forcing them to clock off). Now it turns out that it's a nationwide scam. This is going to explode in employer's faces, that is, until the GOP passes new "tort reform" laws making it illegal to sue your employer for cheating you.

Workers at hair salons, supermarkets, restaurants, discount stores, call centers, car washes and other businesses who have murmured only to one another about off-the-clock work are now speaking up and documenting the illegal practice.

In interviews and in affidavits supporting employee lawsuits, Ms. LeBlue and more than 50 workers from a dozen companies said they were required to do such unpaid work despite federal and state laws that prohibit it and despite recent lawsuits against Wal-Mart and other companies that have highlighted the problem.

"It is prevalent," said Alfred Robinson, director of the wage and hour division of the Labor Department. "It is one of the more common violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act."

Though there have been no formal studies of the practice or of its overall cost to employees, the workers interviewed said off-the-clock work took place at a variety of companies: A&P, J. P. Morgan Chase, Pep Boys, Ryan's Family Steakhouses, TGF Precision HairCutters and Ms. LeBlue's company, SmartStyle, which is part of the Regis Corporation, the nation's largest chain of hairstylists. SmartStyle and many of the other companies say they bar off-the-clock work, and they are fighting the lawsuits.

Over the last year, the Labor Department has brought enforcement actions against several companies that required off-the-clock work, seeking back pay and demanding compliance. The agency has grown more aggressive after plaintiffs' lawyers filed scores of off-the-clock lawsuits, some resulting in multimillion-dollar settlements with prominent companies, including Radio Shack and Starbucks.

...

Many people who study business practices say off-the-clock work has become more prevalent because middle managers face greater pressure to lower labor costs and because the managers' bonuses may even be tied to cutting those costs. Off-the-clock work is most often found, they say, at workplaces that employ many immigrants, like farms and poultry-processing plants, but the phenomenon has spread, especially among low-wage companies in the service sector.

Posted by Steven at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2004

Ohio Recount

I know a lot of you think this is ridiculous or at least, pointless, but Recount Ohio is trying to count every vote, despite what the GOP did going in, and what Kerry didn't do afterwards. Sign the petition (unless you're a spineless Democrat).

Posted by Steven at 11:03 PM | Comments (0)

The Middle Americans

Time magazine chose "Middle Americans" in 1969 to be the "Person of the Year", and from the article it's clear these are are the same bozos who voted for Bush.

The Middle Americans tend to be groped in the nation's heartland more than on its coasts. But they live in Queens, N.Y., and Van Nuys, Calif., as well as in Skokie and Chillicothe. They tend toward the middle-aged and the middlebrow. They are defined as much by what they are not as what they are. As a rule, they are not the poor or the rich. Still, many wealthy business executives are Middle Americans. H. Ross Perot, the Texas millionaire who organized a group called "United We Stand Inc." to support the President on the war, is an example. Few blacks march in the ranks of Middle America. Nor do the nation's intellectuals, its liberals, its professors, its surgeons. Many general practitioners, though are Middle Americans. Needless to say, Middle America offers no haven to the New Left, although Middle Americans might count a number of old leftists—unionists, for example—in their numbers. They are not extremists of the right despite the fact that some of them voted for George Wallace in 1968. They are both Republicans and Democrats: many cast their ballots for Richard Nixon, but it may be that nearly as many voted for Hubert Humphrey.

Above all Middle America is a state of mind, a morality, a construct of values and prejudices and a complex of fears. The Man and Woman of the Year represent a vast, unorganized fraternity bound together by a roughly similar way of seeing things.

The more things change ...

Posted by Steven at 05:39 PM | Comments (0)

Shrinking the Red Menace

Maps can convey all sorts of useful information, which explains why most Americans are utterly unfamiliar with them. Of course, that rule of thumb goes out the window when someone comes up with a map that's essentially inaccurate.

For example, any one with a standard 50-state map of the US can see that Texas is twice the size of Alaska. Wrong. Not only is Texas the second largest State, but the fact is that Alaska could split into two smaller States making Texas the third largest State.

Similarly, the map of the continental U.S. in the upper left, promotes the false impression that the vast majority of the United States is dominated by Republicans (shown in Red). This is, again, inaccurate, so expect to see this map a lot over the next four years. Don't expect to see much of this map, however:

This map shows the continental U.S., colored Republican Red and Democrat Blue, but with the surface area of each region scaled by population density. It's the work of M. T. Gastner, C. R. Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman of the University of Michigan, and it summarized here. There is free software to draw your own maps and everything.

Heil Bush.

Posted by at 05:13 AM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2004

Oh the Irony

The CIA spent decades studying what the various purges in Soviet Russia meant. Now they can just read office gossip e-mails to find out what a Stalinist purge looks and feels like.

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

The CIA is infested with liberals? WTF? Bush has gone mad inside the "bubble" and now sees enemies in the agency his dad ran thirty years ago. When will the general population be "purged"?

Condi Rice will be the next Secretary of State, but the guys who told us about bin Laden are getting the axe because they don't kiss the President's ass. Amazing. Nothing, but nothing, sticks to these monsters.

Posted by Steven at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. Soldiers Join Iraqis in Quitting

The 100,000 Iraqis trained to be their nation's next army are notoriously quitting at the worst possible times, like just before strapping bombs on themselves and killing U.S. troops.

Now former U.S. soldiers are refusing to return to service in large numbers. Looks like Bush will have to accelerate the draft sooner than they planned.

In the last few months, the Army has sent notices to more than 4,000 former soldiers informing them that they must return to active duty, but more than 1,800 of them have already requested exemptions or delays, many of which are still being considered.

And, of about 2,500 who were due to arrive by Nov. 7 at military bases for refresher training, 733 had not shown up.

Army officials say the call-up is proceeding at rates they anticipated, and they are trying to fill needed jobs with former soldiers as they did in the Persian Gulf war of 1991.

Still, the resistance puts further strain on a military that has summoned reserve troops in numbers not seen since World War II and forced thousands of soldiers in Iraq to postpone their departures when their enlistment obligations ended.

Tensions are flaring between the Army and some of its veterans, who say they are surprised and confused about their obligations and unsure where to turn.

"I consider myself a civilian," said Rick Howell, a major from Tuscaloosa, Ala., who said he thought he had left the Army behind in 1997 after more than a decade flying helicopters. "I've done my time. I've got a brand new baby and a wife, and I haven't touched the controls of an aircraft in seven years. I'm 47 years old. How could they be calling me? How could they even want me?"

Between "stop-loss" and this farce of recalling long retired soldiers, we already have a de facto draft, but look forward to the real draft getting a full head of steam next year, shortly after the Iraqi elections implode and the Iraqi civil war starts.

Posted by Steven at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2004

Well, this explains a lot!

But, I guess it doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know...

Posted by at 04:58 PM | Comments (0)

Norwegian Homos Destroy the Earth!

Here's the latest from Mullah Dobson, courtesy of TPM:

Dobson warned those attending the Friday afternoon rally at Oklahoma Christian University that the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman must be protected. He cited examples of countries such as Norway that have allowed same-sex couples to marry as proof that fewer men and women get married. Dobson said 80 percent of children are born out of wedlock in Norway.

“Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage,” Dobson said.

“It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

So, I guess it doesn't matter that the arctic ice cap is melting. Homos are going to destroy the earth anyway.

Posted by at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2004

We're Sorry!!

49% of America apologizes to the world at sorryeverybody.com. The gallery is fairly impressive. Be sure to submit your very own apology.

Posted by at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2004

The IT Diaspora

When I got my degree in computer engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1985, the last thing I thought I'd be doing twenty years later was ... being a migrant worker.

Welcome to my reality.

The Washington Post offers a compelling tale of the shift in IT work from stable, high paying middle-class income to migrant, unstable and wildly varied earnings.

Update: Read question and answers to the story reporter here.

Packman is among a wave of Americans taking to the highway to preserve a middle-class life. While few people nowadays expect to spend a career rooted to one spot, some information technology workers are having mobility thrust upon them as companies change the way they staff computer-related jobs. Foreign workers are cheaper for some basic programming and technical jobs, and short-term contract workers give companies more flexibility to add and subtract employees as needed.

Many displaced workers have been able to retrain and find new positions, often switching careers, or making one big cross-country move. But some who are unable to get permanent jobs have to keep roaming to find work, sometimes leaving families behind, sometimes bringing them along in a quest for something better.

A generation ago, it was blue-collar workers who confronted a grim future of layoffs and factory closures. Many turned to computer work as a way out. Thanks to the 1990s boom in personal computing and the Internet, jobs in information technology -- known as IT, or simply "tech" -- were supposed to spread the prosperity of a "New Economy" based on digital technology instead of on bending metal or stamping plastics.

But it's not working out the way many had hoped. Unemployment among tech workers, once almost nonexistent, is now higher than the overall jobless rate for the first time in more than 30 years, according to an analysis of federal statistics by Ronil Hira, assistant professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Between 1983 and 2000, the field was among the fastest-growing U.S. job markets. Employment in all tech-related jobs peaked at nearly 6.5 million in 2000, according to a survey of government statistics by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Those jobs have declined every year since and slipped by more than 10 percent between 2002 and 2003 alone, the survey found. A recent study by the job placement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas Inc. found that 16 percent of all U.S. jobs cut this year were from high-tech companies.

Millions of people still make good livings in technology, and many economists think the industry will continue to generate jobs. It's a broad category that includes entrepreneurs such as Jeffrey P. Bezos at Amazon.com Inc., computer system managers making $100,000 a year and technicians averaging about $45,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average wage for all tech occupations last year, according to the engineering group, was $53,728 -- better than the $17-an-hour average (roughly $35,000 annually) for the nation's workforce as a whole.

But wage prospects for many are shrinking, the group's survey found. The average technology worker got an 8.7 percent pay hike in 2000, but only a 3.3 percent increase in 2002. Wages bounced back in 2003, rising an average of 4.9 percent, but growth was concentrated in higher-end jobs. Workers in some of the broadest categories saw far less; computer programmers, for instance, posted two straight years of 1.3 percent raises -- less than inflation.

...

The challenges facing tech workers vary around the country. Many regions that boomed during the tech bubble -- such as San Francisco, Denver and parts of Utah and Texas -- have lost population as workers flee shrunken job markets, said Marc Perry of the U.S. Census Bureau.

A study released this summer of people laid off in the Dallas area found that 13 percent had to leave the region to find work [ed. -- that's ME]. Nearly two-thirds of the 573 survey participants had lost technology-related jobs. Next-biggest was manufacturing, at 8 percent.

Those who stayed in the region sent out an average of 85 applications and waited more than 13 months before getting a new job, according to the study performed by the North Texas Technology Council and the University of Texas at Arlington. More than half of the workers said their new jobs paid less than the ones they left and were in unrelated fields.

This article is damning, and startling. If you are in the middle-class (or think you still are) you owe it to yourself to read this piece.

And if you voted for Bush, I hope you never get to work near your family again, dumbass.

Posted by Steven at 09:50 AM | Comments (1)

For Us, Against Us

From a good friend in the United States of Canada:

Posted by Steven at 08:55 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2004

Bush Rode (Unexpected) Wave of Evangelicals Back to WH

Here's a new twist. Rove didn't engineer Bush's victory. He is taking credit for the work of millions of Christian Fundamentalists who were energized by the "gay marriage" issue.

Some Democrats suspected that the ballot initiatives were engineered by Rove and the GOP, but religious activists say otherwise. In Michigan, state Sen. Alan Cropsey (R) introduced a bill to ban same-sex marriage in October 2003 and assumed it would have the support of his party. Instead, the Roman Catholic Church in Michigan became the amendment's main booster, spending nearly $1 million to secure its passage.

"I couldn't say anything publicly, because I would have been blasted for it, but the Republican Party was not helpful at all," Cropsey said. "It's not like they were the instigators. They were the Johnny-come-latelies, if anything."

Michael Howden, executive director of Stronger Families for Oregon, said it was a similar situation in his state. "There's been no contact whatsoever, no coordinating, no pushing" by anyone at the White House or in the Bush campaign, he said.

Charles W. Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries, recalled a meeting early this year when Christian leaders warned White House aides that the marriage issue was likely to appear on state ballots and be a factor in the presidential election. "The White House guys were kind of resisting it on the grounds that 'We haven't decided what position we want to take on that,' " he said.

Remember, Bush was trying to stay close to the middle on the "Defense of Marriage Amendment" but now that he has been propelled back into office thanks to these loonies, he's loudly proclaiming his support for the Amendment.

Since the GOP is now going after the NAACP for mixing politics and 403(c) functions, when will the violation of separation of Church and State become an issue against this Administration?

Posted by Steven at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)

GOP Voters Are Just Plain Dumb

Bob Herbert's column in the New York Times today points out that among "values" voters, factual accuracy is also a victim.

I think a case could be made that ignorance played at least as big a role in the election's outcome as values. A recent survey by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found that nearly 70 percent of President Bush's supporters believe the U.S. has come up with "clear evidence" that Saddam Hussein was working closely with Al Qaeda. A third of the president's supporters believe weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. And more than a third believe that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion.

This is scary. How do you make a rational political pitch to people who have put that part of their brain on hold? No wonder Bush won.

The survey, and an accompanying report, showed that there's a fair amount of cluelessness in the ranks of the values crowd. The report said, "It is clear that supporters of the president are more likely to have misperceptions than those who oppose him."

I haven't heard any of the postelection commentators talk about ignorance and its effect on the outcome. It's all values, all the time. Traumatized Democrats are wringing their hands and trying to figure out how to appeal to voters who have arrogantly claimed the moral high ground and can't stop babbling about their self-proclaimed superiority. Potential candidates are boning up on new prayers and purchasing time-shares in front-row-center pews.

A more practical approach might be for Democrats to add teach-ins to their outreach efforts. Anything that shrinks the ranks of the clueless would be helpful.

If you don't think this values thing has gotten out of control, consider the lead paragraph of an op-ed article that ran in The LA. Times on Friday. It was written by Frank Pastore, a former major league pitcher who is now a host on the Christian talk-radio station KKLA.

"Christians, in politics as in evangelism," said Mr. Pastore, "are not against people or the world. But we are against false ideas that hold good people captive. On Tuesday, this nation rejected liberalism, primarily because liberalism has been taken captive by the left. Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology."

Mr. Pastore goes on to exhort Christian conservatives to reject any and all voices that might urge them "to compromise with the vanquished." How's that for values?

Bush voters believe the untrue. They think he found WMD. They think Saddam was part of Al-Qaeda. No matter how well intentioned they are, these "values" voters are just plain stupid. The Democratic Party would do well by getting them a free newspaper written to their reading level (which used to be eight grade in this nation, but now averages around third grade level -- true!).

Posted by Steven at 10:01 AM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2004

War on Moderates

Well, it looks like Republicans didn't waste any time in reaching for each other's throats. Now that those Satan-loving Democrats are vanquished, it's time to rid the party of any trace of moderation. It seems that Arlen Specter isn't quite getting with the program.

The head of a leading conservative group said Sunday that Sen. Arlen Specter "is a big-time problem" and that his quest to serve as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee "must be derailed."

The comments from James Dobson, founder of the nonprofit Christian organization Focus on the Family, came four days after the moderate Republican from Pennsylvania told reporters that any Supreme Court nominee intent on overturning Roe v. Wade probably would not win Senate approval...

Hey, Dobson! I hear Dick Cheney's daughter is gay! You're not gonna put up with that kinda crap are ya?

Posted by at 11:45 PM | Comments (0)

November 05, 2004

Conason on Debacle 2004

Joe Conason offers some historical perspective:

In the dark post-election mood that lingers, the defeated should find history both restorative and instructive. Restorative because the past reminds us that both victors and vanquished tend to mistake the dimensions of the immediate event, whose true significance cannot be known until years or even decades later. Instructive because the past tells us so much about how the conditions of our present distress came to exist -- and, most important, how we can change them.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath.

Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, in the post-election autopsy. Sweeping pronouncements about this year's close, hotly contested campaign should be considered skeptically, especially when Republican propagandists start to talk about their "mandate" and their "permanent majority." Such claims are convincing only to citizens (and journalists) suffering from amnesia.

Only six years ago, the self-appointed guardians of "moral values" wailed their despair when midterm voters rejected the Republican impeachment jihad, and pundits pondered the political demise of the religious right. Paul Weyrich, architect of the modern religious right, described Bill Clinton's escape from judgment in near-apocalyptic terms, as a signal for the "godly" to withdraw from politics. The Republican House members defenestrated the outspoken proponent of "moral values" then serving as speaker, and his would-be successor, too. But in the next election two years later, the Republicans came back to win the White House (with the assistance of Florida state officials and the Supreme Court), and kept control of both houses of Congress.

Twelve years ago, Clinton won the presidency and ousted a Republican president whose humiliation included receiving only 37 percent of the popular vote. The Democrats began the Clinton administration with control of both House and Senate. Two years later, they lost both houses in the stunning "Contract With America" midterm, which brought Newt Gingrich to power as speaker. (We all know what soon happened to him -- see 1998 above.) The great minds of the nation declared Clinton "irrelevant," predicting in their wisdom that he could not possibly win reelection and must be replaced by the Democrats. They were wrong, of course...

If I recall correctly, Bill Clinton had approval ratings north of 70%, even while he was being impeached.

There are, of course, many differences between all those past elections and this one. None of this historical review is meant to suggest that Democrats shouldn't reassess their message, their vision, and their means of communicating with voters -- or that the nation and the world won't suffer the effects of another four years of misrule by the Republicans. Both tone and substance obviously require improvement. It is meant to suggest, however, that the Democratic Party and its progressive allies began this year to create the conditions for future advances -- and that with resources, determination and commitment, those advances may be much nearer than they seem. Building for the future is also the best and only way to resist the worst excesses of the next four years.

Posted by at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Culture War Just Got "Hot"

An Air National Guard F-16 fired on a blue state school today, the first act of aggression in a Bush Administration "pre-emptive" action against the Blue State of New Jersey.

Was this the same unit that Bush served in?

Posted by Steven at 01:25 PM | Comments (0)

Dollar Falling Against Euro

The dollar is dropping against the euro, down to $1.28/€. If you drive a European car, expect to pay more for parts soon.

Posted by Steven at 01:01 PM | Comments (1)

They Won't Govern, They'll Rule

In case you think still the Democrats will be the opposition party, consider this from TPM:

But what is it about the president's victory on Tuesday that provides a moral authority or logic to changing the rules under which nominations are now approved?

This is a critical difference.

Democrats have to deal with the fact that President Bush is now no longer a minority president, however slim his majority may have been. They also need to contend with his expanded senate majorities.

But this is what I fear will be a growing pattern in this second term: an effort to use a narrowly secured majority not only to govern, even govern aggressively, but to make institutional changes that strip away the existing powers and rights of large minorities. These formal and informal checks and balances constitute the governmental soft-tissue that allows our political system to function.

An earlier example of this was the DeLay double-dip redistricting from last year. I believe we'll see much more. And it's a pattern that everyone should be watching closely.

This goes to the heart of my feeling that both the battle and the war are lost.

The GOP isn't playing the same game we are. Neither were the Nationalists Socialists in Germany. They pretended to be democratic, but were really fascists. This administration doesn't respect rule of law, doesn't honor the Constitution's Bill of Rights, and doesn't believe that the minority party has any business in their governing of the nation. They were never shut out of the process (when they were the minority party) like they are shutting out the Democrats now.

Their past Presidents have all been men of terribly poor character who lied, cheated, dealt with terrorists, and looted the national economies for the benefit of their caste, the ultra-wealthy. They are just using us to make themselves richer, and using the delusional Christians to maintain power. Now that they control all branches, they will move swiftly to eliminate even the possibility of reform in the future.

Posted by Steven at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

Help Is Coming From Canada

Calling all single, liberal Americans! Help is coming from Canada!

Posted by Steven at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2004

Picking up the Pieces

Good post from TPM:

For the Democrats, what I fear most (and what I've privately worried about for months) is this: Energy cools after an election. That's inevitable. But organization and institutions can survive. And it is within institutions and organizational infrastructure that energy and power exist and persist.

Certainly it would have been more pleasant (and perhaps better) to nurture all the organization and infrastructure that has been built up over the last two years under a President Kerry. But my concern over the last few months has been that if Bush won, all of these groups and organizations and incipient infrastructure would simply be allowed to wither, as though it had been tried and found not to have worked.

That, as a factual judgment, I think is just plain wrong. And if that were allowed to happen it would truly be tragic. The truth is that what Democrats have begun to build over the last two years is tremendously important. It just wasn't enough, not yet.

I remember talking to Simon Rosenberg, the head of the New Dem Network, at the Democratic convention last summer. You'll remember, he and his group were profiled in the Times magazine around that time. The article, in brief, was about plans to create a Democratic-leaning counter-establishment along the lines of what Republicans did two generations ago -- with an alternative media, activist groups, organized political giving, in short a political infrastructure.

He told me he thought it would take ten years to accomplish. And I told him my one worry was that it could all be strangled in its crib if Kerry didn't win.

Well, here we are. And this is the test for people who care about this kind of politics and these sorts of values -- making sure that what has been started is not allowed to falter. This isn't 1964 or 1972 or 1980. This wans't a blow-out or a repudiation. It was close to a tie -- unfortunately, on the other guy's side. Let's not put our heads in the sand but let's also not get knocked of our game. Democrats need to think critically and seriously about why this didn't turn out 51% for Kerry or 55% for Kerry (and we'll get to those points in the future). But it would be a terrible mistake to stop thinking in terms of those ten years Simon described.

Take time to feel the desolation and disappointment. But I remain confident that time is not on the side of the kind of values and politics that President Bush represents. It took conservatives two decades to build up the institutional muscle they have today. Though I was always nervous about the result, I thought we could win this election. But it was always naive to believe that that sort of institutional heft could be put together in 24 or 36 months.

President Bush and the Republicans now control the entire national government, even more surely now than they have over the last four years. They do so on the basis of garnering the votes of 51% or 52% of the population. But they will use that power as though there were no opposition at all. That needs to be countered.

I also think the chances are pretty good that the GOP will overreach on their mandate and produce a backlash. The chickens are going to come home to roost on this administration's reckless policies, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Bush at approval ratings below 40% in a couple of years. The wall of denial is already starting to crumble. It just couldn't happen fast enough for Kerry.

Posted by at 08:52 PM | Comments (5)

Jesusland

Here's the new map:

Make sure you're in the right country.

Posted by Steven at 10:26 AM | Comments (7)

November 03, 2004

Top Ten List for 2004

This was posted on the Boston Globe's blog:

Here's the Top Ten List of what we can look forward to, especially after 2006 when the Republicans get a filibuster-proof majority in the senate:

10. We'll finally get to know who is really rich, because they will be the only ones with access to health care.

9. The Democratic Party will cease to be a national force, and will go the way of the Whigs.

8. Enron is just the beginning of corporate fraud. SEC regulations will be decimated so that corporations can say whatever they want without fear of punishment.

7. Because of tort reform, Merkk will only be allowed to be penalized by $20,000 in wrongful death lawsuits, even though they knew of the risks and criminally hid them. They made millions from the deaths of hundreds of people and they'll get away with it.

6. Requhist will retire in about a month. He will be replaced by someone like Alan Keyes, a well known black ultra-conservative nutcase who just lost an election.

5. Jews, Atheist and other Non-God fearing people, look out, because the Ten Commandments will become the law of the land, and by simply existing, you're violating commandment number 2

4. Abortion will be banned, and practitioners will face the death penalty (Because the religious right only cares about babies until they are born, then they can go to hell as far as they are concerned.

3. No Billionaire Left Behind: The government will borrow from rich banks, then pay them back with interest from money collected from the average working stiff.

2. The government will run up the deficit so high that the government will never be able to recover. Government will exist simply to collect taxes to pay interest to large banks and funnel money to defense contractors. The government will be weakened to the point that no progressive could ever put it back together again, ensuring a perpetual raping of the people by the big corporations.

1. We'll get government out of the boardroom and into the bedroom.

Posted by Steven at 04:23 PM | Comments (1)

What To Expect

I've calmed down a bit, and feel I can write something that isn't just an anguished cry of agony.

Rove won the popular vote by scaring the red-necks into believing that above all the problems the Bush Administration has caused in the world and at home, homosexuals are taking over. That's right ... the gay marriage movement was their winning card.

Incredible. The people in this nation are some of the stupidest dipshits on Earth, and since half of them have Internet connectivity and the rest have TVs, there's really no excuse. They go to church, and while there, the GOP tells them to vote for them lest gays take their children in the night (like the Cheney's!).

So, oppressing the gays is going to be the show piece of the next four years, but hardly the event that will impact the majority of us. That little gem will be the "privatization" of Social Security. Which means, of course (translating from Bush-speak) the end of Social Security. This will come from a combination of efforts to divert funds from the FICA to Wall Street (which will syphon off a lion's share of fees before blowing it all on investments in Iraq) and from messing with the FICA tax itself to hide the numbers. And the numbers are scary, dear Baby Boomers, since you're going to crater the system anyway unless progressive reforms are enacted (e.g. raising the FICA ceiling nearly infinity and lower the tax rate as a side effect, or better yet, a graduated FICA).

The War on Terror™ will be extended to Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It will result in another OPEC oil embargo as even Saudi Arabia turns on us lest the natives revolt. We don't have enough troops to do this, so some kind of draft will be enacted by the GOP Congress. Bush will, of course, have cover. Nuclear war in Asia will become a reality (and we may toss the first nuke for good measure). Islam will fight Christianity (again) and who knows who'll win? They have the oil our civilization craves, and we have the technology to kill almost all of them brutally. I think it'll be "the girl dies, you die, everyone dies" but hey! I'm an optimist.

The Sectarianism of Government will grow, as Bush nominates fundamentalist loonies to the Supreme Court. Abortion will be eroded and Roe vs. Wade, the canary in the cave of the Women's Rights Movement, will fall. Churches will be further politicized and 527s will be made illegal. Kiss MoveOn.org good bye. Rove might even pull off The Handmaiden's Tale where a bunch of fascist corporate CEOs take over American and fashion it into a kind of pseudo-Christian Nation that more closely resembles Orwell's 1984 but with pollution, ruin and infertility thrown into the mix.

Did I mention the Federal Debt will break ten million million dollars? That's 10,000,000,000,000 $US. That's almost two goddamned LIGHTYEARS (in dollars-miles). Half way to the nearest star. All bet on your 2nd mortgage and your children's future. There's no one to stop the GOP from spending like a drunk sailor now. BTW, the current debt is a mere 1.27 Lyr in dollar-miles.

Posted by Steven at 02:10 PM | Comments (4)

November 02, 2004

Michael Moore's Final Post Before the Elections

Check it out at this link.

Posted by Steven at 02:23 PM | Comments (1)

Sad But True Dept.

Check out this blog:

Posted by Steven at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)

Bin Laden: I'm Crushing Your Economy

In the Washington Post today Usama bin Laden is boasting of damaging the U.S. economy with the Iraq war.

Osama bin Laden boasted that the invasion of Iraq has bogged down the United States in a hopeless war that advances al Qaeda's recruitment goals and bin Laden's aim of bankrupting the U.S. economy, according to a translation of the full text of the terrorist leader's remarks on a videotape that surfaced last week.

"The thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war" about the dangers of invading Iraq, bin Laden said on the tape, according to a U.S. government transcript released yesterday. "But the darkness of the black gold [oil] blurred his vision. . . . The war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threatened his future."

On the tape, the Saudi millionaire brags that he is succeeding beyond his dreams in destabilizing the U.S. economy and bankrupting the U.S. government, asserting that President Bush is easily manipulated into taking military and security steps that harm American interests.

The results of the U.S. war in Iraq, he said, "have been by the grace of Allah positive and enormous, and have by all standards exceeded all expectations."

"The policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations -- whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction -- has helped al Qaeda to achieve these enormous results," bin Laden said. "And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and we are playing as one team toward the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ."

Bin Laden added, "Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all of those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business," referring at one point to the Halliburton energy services company, which Vice President Cheney led before his election.

Now I hate this scumbag as much as any American, but he's nailed it on the head, economically speaking. Bush's war is ruining the U.S. economy. Higher oil prices alone have stripped $75B from the GNP, and worse is yet to come. And the cost of Iraq will greatly exceed $200B, which probably translates into a point or two more in the interest rate paid by Americans thanks to the booming deficit.

Posted by Steven at 08:58 AM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2004

Kerry Wins!

Looks like some smart federal judges are putting the kabash on the GOP voter suppression efforts in Ohio. I'll go out on a limb and predict that this will put Kerry over the top on Tuesday.

Two federal judges on Monday barred parties from posting challengers at polling places throughout Ohio, saying poll workers, not outsiders, should determine voter eligibility. State Republicans planned to appeal.

An order by U.S. District Judge Susan Dlott of Cincinnati found that the application of Ohio's statute allowing challengers at polling places was unconstitutional.

You're damn right it's unconstitutional! These bastards are just trying to gum up the works in heavily Democratic districts.

Update

Feh on the 6th Circuit court. They reversed the judges' ruling and now GOP thugs will be harrassing African-American voters in urban districts in Ohio. Why the GOP isn't excoriated for this racist policy is beyond me.

Update

I still think Kerry is going to win Ohio and win the election, even with these rat bastards trying to turn away Dems from the polls.

Posted by at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)

Video Vote Vigil

This website is exposing GOP voter fraund and intimidation efforts in real time.

We are going to catch some thugs red-handed. And we're going to deter others. To the right is a woman a blogger caught in the act on Sunday trying to convince African-American voters in Fort Lauderdale that she was a "pro-abortion, lesbian Kerry supporter from San Francisco." We think that a strong possibility of being captured on video will have a deterrant effect that will prevent these shenanigans. So help us lift the curtain on these anti-democratic agitators. Help us protect our vote.

The supression machine is fully aware that voter turnout is their enemy, and they are doing everything in their power to suppress the vote, especially in key battleground states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Joe Bob sez check it out.

Posted by Steven at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

Kerry Campaign Video

John Kerry has released a new video that he would like any fence-sitters who cannot decide to see. Take a look if you're still not sure who should be the next President.

During this campaign I have asked you for so much -- your time, your energy, and your financial support. Today, I ask you for one final thing -- your vote.

Tomorrow, Americans will face a choice.

How will we find our way forward? How will we keep America safe, and keep the American dream alive?

I believe we begin by giving this country we love a fresh start. This morning, I would like to give you as a plainly as I can the summary of my case on how -- together -- we can change America.

I believe we begin by moving our economy, our government, and our society back in line with our best values.

I believe we do whatever it takes to lead our troops to success and bring them home safe. And when they do come home, I believe we begin by rebuilding an America with a strong middle class where everyone has the chance to work and the opportunity to get ahead.

Tomorrow, you can choose a fresh start. You can choose a president who will defend America and fight for the middle-class.

You can choose between four more years of George Bush's policy to ship jobs overseas and give tax breaks to the companies that do it -- or a president who will reward the companies that create and keep good jobs here in the United States of America.

Tomorrow you will face a choice between four more years of George Bush's giveaways to the big drug companies and the big HMOs -- or a president who will finally make health care a right, and not a privilege, for every American.

This election is a choice between four more years of tax giveaways for millionaires along with a higher tax burden for you -- or a president who will cut middle-class taxes, raise the minimum wage, and make sure we guarantee women an equal day's pay for an equal day's work.

Tomorrow, America faces a choice between four more years of an energy policy for big oil, of big oil, and by big oil -- or a president who finally makes America independent of Mideast oil in ten years. A choice between George Bush's policy that just yesterday showed record profits for oil companies and record gas prices for American consumers. I believe that America should rely on our own ingenuity and innovation, not the Saudi Royal family.

Tomorrow this campaign will end. The election will be in your hands. If you believe we need a fresh start in Iraq; if you believe we can create and keep good jobs here in America; if you believe we need to get health care costs under control; if you believe in the promise of stem cell research; if you believe our deficits are too high and we're too dependent on Mideast oil then I ask you to join me and together we'll change America.

I ask for your vote and I ask for your help. When you go to the polls bring your friends, your family, your neighbors. No one can afford to stand on the sidelines or sit this one out.

And in return for your hard work, you have my commitment to always fight for you, to always be on your side. In the words of Bruce Springsteen that have become the theme of this campaign. "We've made a promise we swore we'd always remember...no retreat and no surrender."

Tomorrow we will change America and with your help I will always keep that promise to you.

Thank you,

John Kerry

Posted by Steven at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

Electoral Vote Update

The guys at Electoral Vote are calling the election 306-218 for Kerry (in the Electoral College). This prediction is based on Kerry winning FL and OH, and even more strangely, in NM and CO being exact ties (and thus not contributing to either's total).

I think FL will fall to Bush because they just have too many ways to scare Black voters, cheat (Diebold), and otherwise disenfranchise Dem. voters. But if Bush loses OH (which he should), he's going down in flames. Also, today a judge ruled that the GOP cannot challenge voters (mostly Black) at the polling sites like anti-abortion protestors do at clinics (and the analogy is apt, terrifying and says a lot about the real differences in the two parties).

Posted by Steven at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

Voter Intimidation Rising

COLUMBIA, S.C. - A bogus letter circulating in South Carolina, purporting to be from the NAACP, threatens the arrest of voters who have outstanding parking tickets or failed to pay child support. The NAACP said Friday the letter is a scare tactic and called for an investigation.

"I'm outraged," said Jill Miller, director of the Charleston County Board of Election and Voter Registration. "This is so bogus."

The Rev. Joe Darby, vice president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (news - web sites), said he received the one-page letter — which had a Columbia postmark with no return address — at his Charleston home.

He said it was an attempt to frighten minorities from voting Tuesday because the letter-writer assumes black people are in trouble with the law.

"This is old South Carolina politics," said Darby. "I don't think anybody will fall for this."

Darby said he wants the State Law Enforcement Division to investigate.

The letter also says voters must have a credit check, provide two forms of photo identification, a Social Security (news - web sites) card, a voter registration card and a handwriting sample.

"None of that is true," said Miller. "I certainly hope no voter would be taken in by this."

Miller said voters need to show just one piece of identification — a voter registration card, a South Carolina driver's license or a motor vehicles department-issued photo ID card.

Some old tricks just never lose their punch in the South. Gotta love those GOP fanatics.

Thanks to Dennis for pointing this one out.

Posted by Steven at 10:08 AM | Comments (0)