Bush Economic Records

Recently Bush has been claiming that "our economy since last summer has been growing at the fastest rate in 20 years." Mark Weisbrot at the Center for Economic and Policy Research takes a deeper look at the Bush record on the economy here. You won't be surprised by Bush's use of carefully selected numbers and time periods. Unfortunately, Bush is still likely to be the "first president since the Great Depression to preside over a net loss of jobs for the country." And of course, the actual Gold Medals that Bush has won are for the budget deficit, the fall in "real wages - adjusted for inflation" and Bush policies designed to divide the country by increasing the gap between rich and poor. And remember what republican Peter Peterson says - "tax cuts today are tax increases for out children."

Doctors Without Borders Pulls Out of Afghanistan

After 24 years of independent aid to the people of Afghanistan, Doctors Without Borders withdraws. Following the murder of five aid workers, Doctors Without Borders is leaving. In a press conference, the international aid organization said "Although government officials have presented MSF (Médecins Sans Frontière) with credible evidence that local commanders conducted the attack, they have neither detained nor publicly called for their arrest. The lack of government response to the killings represents a failure of responsibility and an inadequate commitment to the safety of aid workers on its soil." This sounds ominous.

"You cannot lead if our leaders mislead."

I confess that I have always liked Jimmy Carter. His activities since leaving the oval office on behalf of human rights, world peace, habitat for humanity and fair elections define Carter as a respected world citizen and leader. And because Carter is a world citizen, he knows first hand about the appalling deterioration of America's international standing under the Bush Administration. This is why Monday's speech at the Democratic convention rings true.

"Today, our dominant international challenge is to restore the greatness of America -- based on telling the truth, a commitment to peace, and respect for civil liberties at home and basic human rights around the world. Truth is the foundation of our global leadership, but our credibility has been shattered and we are left increasingly isolated and vulnerable in a hostile world. Without truth -- without trust -- America cannot flourish. Trust is at the very heart of our democracy, the sacred covenant between the president and the people.

When that trust is violated, the bonds that hold our republic together begin to weaken. After 9/11, America stood proud, wounded but determined and united. A cowardly attack on innocent civilians brought us an unprecedented level of cooperation and understanding around the world. But in just 34 months, we have watched with deep concern as all this goodwill has been squandered by a virtually unbroken series of mistakes and miscalculations. Unilateral acts and demands have isolated the United States from the very nations we need to join us in combatting terrorism."

"In repudiating extremism we need to recommit ourselves to a few common-sense principles that should transcend partisan differences. First, we cannot enhance our own security if we place in jeopardy what is most precious to us, namely, the centrality of human rights in our daily lives and in global affairs. Second, we cannot maintain our historic self-confidence as a people if we generate public panic. Third, we cannot do our duty as citizens and patriots if we pursue an agenda that polarizes and divides our country. Next, we cannot be true to ourselves if we mistreat others. And finally, in the world at large we cannot lead if our leaders mislead."

Skinny Kid, Funny Name

Great speech! If you missed Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention last night, you may have missed a little history in the making. Check it out here .

"John Kerry believes in America. And he knows it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga.

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It’s that fundamental belief—I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sisters’ keeper—that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. “E pluribus unum.” Out of many, one."

You can watch the video here. Learn more about Barack Obama here.

Send Me

Amy Sullivan over at the Washington Monthly has an informed post on how faith and values were addressed last night at the Democratic Convention by Rev. David Alston and by Bill Clinton.

"Send Me" Clinton began with this passage -- "During the Vietnam War, many young men--including the current president, the vice president, and me--could have gone to Vietnam but didn't. John Kerry came from a privileged background and could have avoided it, too. Instead, he said, 'send me.'" He continued on, outlining Kerry's lifetime of public service by noting that everytime his country has asked something of him, John Kerry has replied, "Send me." It was a nice little phrase for the audience to yell back at Clinton, but it comes from the prophet Isaiah (6:8) -- "Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

John Kerry: Courage, Judgment and Intellect

Thomas Oliphant describes John Kerry's grit in this article from The American Prospect. He singles out two constant themes - "that encouraging and rewarding work as a government priority should dwarf rewarding wealth, and that combating international terrorism and promoting America’s interests in a dangerous world are tasks that require allies." I buy that.

Progressives Rising

Speaking of patterns, in the New York Times Magazine, Matt Bai describes the funding for "the conservative message machine" in a piece called Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. He goes on to highlight the emerging influence of Moveon.org and ACT and progressive "venture capitalists" who are "champions of activist government at home and multilateral cooperation abroad." He quotes Harold Ickes: Moveon.org "has cachet. There is no cachet in the Democratic Party."

Project 21: "A Make-Believe Black Organization"

So what's the deal behind black conservative groups? Joshua Holland describes a C-SPAN interview with the white Director of Project 21 here. Project 21 describes itself as "The National Leadership Network of Conservative African-American" on its website. But Joshua helps you learn the truth by "following the money" and uncovering an intriguing pattern.

Turns out, all the black conservative organizations that Joshua has researched "receives a significant portion of their funding (in some cases all of their funding) from at least three of four ultra-conservative foundations (the Lincoln Institute gets its share funneled indirectly through the conservative Hoover Institution). The four are the usual suspects of the Right's political ATM: Richard Scaife's family foundations, Adolph Coors' Castle Rock Foundation, The John M. Olin Foundation, and the Linde and Harry Bradley Foundation. What's striking about these groups' underwriting of "minority organizations" is that some of them have at times displayed what many would consider a frankly racist agenda."

Where Was Rummy on 9/11?

Gail Sheehy poses some interesting questions concerning the whereabouts of our top leaders on 9/11 in Who's in Charge Here? from Mother Jones.

Even The Fox Poll Goes Negative

And at PollingReport.com here is the first Fox poll showing Kerry beating Bush!

State by State

The new and improved Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 now has a more user friendly map of up-to-date state polls. Run your curser over each state, and the map shows the latest poll results and the source. Nice work.

The World's Most Dangerous Weapons

The Carnegie Endowment For Interational Peace analyzes today's 9/11 Commission Report which "includes several key recommendations to reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism. The commission concluded that any strategy to combat terrorism must be combined with a comprehensive effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. According to the commissioners, 'The greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will materialize if the world’s most dangerous terrorists acquire the world’s most dangerous weapons.'"

The Bush Administration has been and continues to be negligent in funding the effort to reduce stockpiles and secure all nuclear materials - especially those in the former U.S.S.R.

The People's Choice or the Corporations' Choice

MoveOn PAC has two new ads which you can view here. One contrasts Kerry as the choice of the people with Bush as the choice of corporations. The other contrasts the optimism of the Kerry/Edwards campaign with the fear mongering of the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Obliviously On He Sails

Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Calvin Trillin's new book called "Obliviously On He Sails" and subtitled "The Bush Administration In Rhyme." Here is just one wonderful bit of doggerel.

DON RUMSFELD MEETS THE PRESS
With condescending smile so tight,
He seems to take a great delight
Explaining to the press this fight,
As if they're kids who aren't too bright.
When wrong he needn't be contrite:
Don't might and arrogance make right?

"Less Safe and More Vulnerable To Terrorists"

London’s “Economist” (subscription only) which supported the war in Iraq, now has this to say in its lead editorial:

“To understand, however, is not to forgive. For hyped-up salesmanship brings clear consequences: customers become even more skeptical, once they find they have been gulled. The basic claim made by Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair is true: we do live in dangerous times, in which the threat of catastrophic attack by WMD -armed terrorists is real. But the next time politicians call for military action to deal with such threats, on the basis of intelligence warnings, even more people will refuse to believe them. Well-intentioned or not, such salesmanship has made us all less safe, and more vulnerable to terrorists.”

That’s pretty clear – “less safe.” And to drive the point home:

“Mr. Bush still needs to bear the responsibility for having made things harder and more dangerous in several ways. One is the dishonesty already outlined, and its consequence for public trust. Another is his failure to deal with the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison by demanding accountability at a senior level, preferably by requiring the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, his defense secretary. A third is the negligent lack of preparation and initial resource-provision for rebuilding Iraq.”

That sums it up pretty well.

"Too Bad They Ignored the Lessons of History"

In the new Foreign Policy Magazine, John B. Judis revives an interesting bit of history - America's flirtation with empire at the turn of the last century in Imperial Amnesia. Judis, by the way, is a senior editor for The new Republic and co-authored "The Emerging Democratic Majority" with Ruy Teixeira.

"The United States invaded a distant country to share the blessings of democracy. But after being welcomed as liberators, U.S. troops encountered a bloody insurrection. Sound familiar? Don’t think Iraq—think the Philippines and Mexico decades ago. U.S. President George W. Bush and his advisors have embarked on a historic mission to change the world. Too bad they ignored the lessons of history."

The Nation Leads The Nation

Oh, to be able to write like Katrina vanden Heuvel and Robert L. Borosage in the Nation! Learn how to we can achieve Victory in 2004--and Beyond and then stay organized to keep the new administration honest. Looking for just the right words to explain why our county is going in the wrong direction? Borrow these:

"Bush is in trouble, and the reason is simple. With the right controlling both the White House and Congress, he has pushed through much of the right-wing agenda--and it has proved bankrupt once again.

Pre-emptive war and an arrogant unilateralism produced the debacle in Iraq, which has left America more isolated, more reviled and more vulnerable. Pre-emptive top-bracket tax cuts have run up record deficits as far as the eye can see, while generating the worst jobs record of any President since the Great Depression. Bush's policies have worsened our Gilded Age inequality, while working Americans find it harder to afford healthcare, college, retirement security or even to keep up with the rising cost of food and gas. Privatization and deregulation contributed to the worst corporate scandals since the 1920s, symbolized by the collapse of Enron, one of Bush's leading contributors in the 2000 race. Corporate looting reached new shamelessness in Iraq, led by Dick Cheney's Halliburton.

The Administration's assault on workers has helped to hike corporate profits to their highest portion of GDP since the 1920s. The rollback of environmental regulation has enhanced the threat of global warming, which even Pentagon planners now suggest is more destabilizing than terrorism. And the Bush White House has encouraged the religious right's jihad against family planning, reproductive rights, even evolution. In the midst of an AIDS pandemic, this Administration continues to enforce its gag order muzzling doctors from providing common-sense information that can save lives. In stem-cell research and elsewhere, it has crippled science to cater to the evangelical right. In its assault on affirmative action and judicial nominations, it practices a race-baiting politics of division, wholly at odds with the diversity that is America's strength."

How Kerry Can Win

In 1969, Kevin Phillips wrote "The Emerging Republican Majority" and he was right. But he now explains How Kerry Can Win in The Nation. Phillips recommends courtship of the "unbase" and suggests that "to win this election decisively, John Kerry is going to have to feel the same outrage that Howard Dean felt."

"Republicans...have been successful in thinking strategically since the late 1960s. From 1968 until Bill Clinton's triumph in 1992, Republicans won five of the six presidential elections, and even Jimmy Carter's narrow victory in 1976 was in many respects a post-Watergate fluke. The two main coalitional milestones were Richard Nixon's 61 percent in 1972 and Ronald Reagan's 59 percent in 1984.

The two Bushes, notwithstanding their dynastic achievement, represent the later-stage weakness of the coalition, which would have been more obvious without the moral rebukes of Clinton that were critical in the 1994 and 2000 elections. In the three presidential elections the Bushes have fought to date, their percentages of the total national vote have been 53.9 percent (1988), 37.7 percent (1992) and 47.9 percent (2000)--an average of 46.5 percent. Keep in mind that in 1992, Bush Senior got the smallest vote share of any President seeking re-election since William Howard Taft in 1912, while in 2000, the younger Bush became the first President to be elected without winning a plurality of the popular vote since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. The aftermath of 9/11 created transient strength, but the essential weakness of the Bushes was palpable again by mid-2004. "

Longer Hours, Less Pay

This analysis published today by the Economic Policy Institute predicts that the Bush Labor Department's new overtime rules will "strip away the overtime pay for over six million workers." Can you say compassionate conservative?

Defending The Indefensible

Matthew Rothschild at The Progressive explains why Bush's choice never was to "take the word of madman or defend America" under any circumstances.

Tax Cuts Today Are Tax Increases for our Children

In June of 2003, Pete Peterson wrote a blistering attack in the New York Times Magazine on Deficits and Dysfyunction caused by the Bush Administration. He notes that the 10-year budget balance when Bush took over was projected to be a surplus of $5.6 trillion and that Bush tax cut policies quickly turned that into a projected deficit of well over $4 billion. "So there you have it: in just two years there was a $10 billion swing in the deficit outlook. Coming into power, the Republican Leaders faced a choice between tax cuts and providing genuine financing for the future of Social Security. (What a landmark reform this would have been!) They chose tax cuts. After 9/11, they faced a choice between tax cuts and getting serious about the extensive measures needed to protect this nation against further terrorist attacks. They chose tax cuts. After war broke out in the Mideast, they faced a choice between tax cuts and galvanizing the nation behind a policy of future-oriented burden sharing. Again and again, they chose tax cuts."

Bankrupting Our Future

In his scary new book "Running On Empty, Peter G. Peterson renews his charge that "this administration and the Republican Congress have presided over the biggest, most reckless deterioration of America's finances in history." However, he does not reserve his criticism just for the Republican Party. Check out 10 Partisan Myths in Newsweek. Peterson is a Republican and a public servant and he is clear that Bush's "tax cut ideology is not fact-driven. It is faith driven."

Common Sense From Common Cause

Common Cause details "What Went Wrong - How the United States Got Into the Mess in Iraq" in a compelling new report. It concludes that "The road to war in Iraq was strewn with failed and undermined democratic principles - secrecy, deception and a refusal to listen to expert advice by the administration coupled with lack of oversight by Congress." Will we hold "power accountable?" Read the whole report in PDF form here.

Health Policy and John Kerry

Paul Krugman lays out the Kerry Health Plan here. On November 2, 2004 voters will be able to chose between better health care coverage or tax breaks for the truly wealthy.

Get In On The ACT

Yesterday's Washington Post has a good profile of ACT's Steve Rosenthal. Learn what ACT is doing to send Bush back to his ranch in Crawford, Texas where he can "spend the next several years trying to figure out if he really did make mistakes." Find out how you can help restore democracy in America and watch the video.

A Closer Look at the June Job Data

Speaking of jobs, if you create 77,000 new jobs in a month but realize that you overstated job creation the previous couple of months by 35,000 jobs, what do you report ? 112,000 new jobs, of course. Afterall, who's gonna notice. Richard Torgerson has the goods here.

So What Do The Voters Think?

Ruy Teixeira provides the "boatload of bad news for the Bush Campaign" from the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll at The Emerging Democratic Majority WebLog. Ouch!

Reagan Pyramid

You've gotta hand it to The Onion. In their latest issue they report on the near completion of the Reagan Pyramid in Simi Valley. According to reliable sources "builders expect the Reagan Pyramid to be ready in time for the Great Communicator's mummification and ascension into the Afterworld upon death. Among the items to be entombed with Reagan are 2,500 MX missiles, a golden chalice of jelly beans, and his beloved servant, George Bush Sr."

Census Reveals Texas Education Miracle...Or Not.

Kevin Drum over at The Washington Monthly notes the new data from the census bureau concerning high school graduation rates. The good news is that country wide we are at an all time high of 85%. Sadly Texas is dead last with 77%.

Quoting Kevin: "But there's good news for Texans: both George Bush and Rod Paige, the superintendent of the Houston school district and the man most closely associated with the "Texas Miracle," are gone. The bad news is that George Bush is now president of the United States and Rod Paige is his Secretary of Education."

Clueless, Duplicitous or Corrupt?

Or perhaps all three. Check this scathing report in Newsday today. Ken Fireman reminds us that "Bush ended every rally in 2000 by vowing to restore 'the honor and dignity' of the presidency." Sadly, things have not turned out as expected. The fecklessness, oh the fecklessness.