The wonderfully comedic and intelligent Al Franken, with help from AirAmerica radio, is sponsoring The Great American Shout-Out. I recommend everyone check it out. It’s definitely worthwhile.
Archive for August, 2004
Gore Vidal, a fabulous playwright and essayist, has written a wonderful piece for The Nation magazine. The piece is here.
While I certainly don’t agree with everything Vidal says, he offers significant intellectual insight into the current status of the nation. He certainly is indeed a great man.
A couple of my favorite lines:
Vidal’s contempt for Ann Coulter–
Anorexic, vacant-eyed blonde women on TV now describe as the “liberal elite”…
The conservative definition of law and order:
A code phrase meaning “get the blacks.”
And finally, Vidal’s comparison of 1972 and 2004:
I should note that in the thirty-two years since this particular state of the union, our political vocabulary has been turned upside down. Although the secret core to each presidential election is who can express his hatred of African-Americans most subtly (to which today can be added Latinos and “elite liberals,” a fantasy category associated with working film actors who have won Academy Awards), and, of course, this season it’s the marriage-minded so-called gays. So-called because there is no such human or mammal category (sex is a continuum) except in the great hollow pumpkin head of that gambling dude who has anointed himself the nation’s moralist-in-chief, William “Bell Fruit” Bennett.
He truly has a gift for storytelling and language.
Anybody remember that old show on CBS where the guy gets his paper a day before it really comes out and goes out and saves people who would be killed and such? Well, the September issue of Harper’s Magazine makes us all that guy.
As Reason Online alterted me before I even had a chance to read it, Lewis Lapham, editor of the really old magazine and a man I usually hold in high esteem, has an article in the most recent issue called “Tentacles of Rage : The Republican propaganda mill, a brief history.” Which is probably bad enough. But, it goes on to say…
“…and provides the the current Bush Adminstratioin with the platform on which the candidate was trundled into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants. The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal…”
No, you didn’t miss it, the Republican National Convention is still in the future. And I’ve had this magazine for a week. So, it’s either some parallel universe or a really bad CBS pilot.
On Monday, August 23, the federal government is set to enact a new set of labor laws entitled “FairPay” as an overhaul to the overtime pay system among workers in the United States.
The claim on the Department of Labor’s FairPay website says (link here):
Under the new FairPay rules, workers earning less than $23,660 per year — or $455 per week — are guaranteed overtime protection. This will strengthen overtime rights for 6.7 million American workers, including 1.3 million low-wage workers who were denied overtime under the old rules.
However, many have begun to counter these statistics, most notably the Economic Policy Institute.
In testimony before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education of the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations on May 4, 2004, Ross Eisenberry, Vice President and Policy Director of the EPI, listed eight substantial misconceptions and flaws of the new legislation, as well as analysis as to the impact it will have on blue-collar workers in many different fields. The link to his testimony is here. I highly recommend reading it.
According to the EPI:
Contrary to the Bush Administration’s claims, it is not the case that 1.3 million low-wage workers who are not getting overtime pay now will. The Administration is engaged in consumer fraud, selling this new regulation on the promise of benefits it knows full well will not materialize. Part of the problem is that the Department’s estimate assumes that every employee among these 1.3 million low-wage workers actually worked overtime during the year, even though the evidence is that they did not, and even though only about one employee in seven generally works overtime. If the Department had made this same assumption with respect to the proposed rule, it would have found that almost 5 million employees would have lost overtime pay, rather than the 644,000 it claimed. Moreover, the number of employees who will be guaranteed coverage by the $23,660 threshold will diminish over time because it is not indexed for inflation. An administration that cared about low-wage workers would have raised the threshold to at least keep pace with inflation since 1975, in other words, to at least $28,075.
…
A bizarre and poorly explained new exemption for “team leaders” creates the potential for hundreds of thousands of currently exempt non-supervisory workers to lose their overtime rights. The use of self-managed teams of non-managerial, non-supervisory, front-line employees is widespread in American industry, and millions of employees are routinely involved in them. The regulations provide no definition of “team leader,” it has never been defined in FLSA case law, and the Department’s assertion that it is clarifying current law is patently false.
…
Despite the Department’s claims in power point presentations to public officials that blue-collar workers are entitled to overtime, the rule limits overtime rights to “ blue-collar employees,” begging the question of who gets classified as a non-managementmanagement blue-collar worker, a seemingly new class of exempt workers that will grow significantly under these new rules.
All of these new explanations seem to show only one thing: thanks to a Republican president and congress, big business interests win again while the little guy is stomped on like a bug.
Bob Herbert wrote another interesting column today about the Florida state troopers investigating possbile voterfraud among black Floridians. Evidentally, the investigation was considered closed in May. However, today it still goes on. This is ridiculous and disturbing that we’re moving all the way back to the 1950s and 1960s.
A link to the NY Times here (registration required).
UPDATE: Evidentally the Army will indeed withhold the money from Halliburton after all. On Monday, Halliburton announced that they would be receiving a 45-day extension. However, the company said today that the Army would begin withholding 15% of Halliburton’s payments.
In a statement released today, Halliburton said their initial statement was based on “clear oral assurances from senior Pentagon representatives.” I wonder if that senior representative might’ve been a former CEO named Dick Cheney.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting the story here.
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The New York Times is reporting today about more and more breaks Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company Halliburton (and its subsidiaries) are getting at the behalf of the Bush Administration.
Halliburton has been granted additional time by the U.S. Army to substantiate its costs in Iraq and Kuwait, staving off a threat of having 15 percent of its payment withheld.
Government contractors normally cannot be paid more than 85 percent of their invoices until they fully account for their costs, but Halliburton said on Monday that it had been given a respite.
Twice this year, the army set this rule aside for Halliburton as the company cataloged its costs and explained how it was billing the government. The most recent reprieve expired on Sunday.
The story is here on the International Herald Tribune’s website (via the NY Times).
Halliburton is the largest corporate recipient of contracts from the US government for rebuilding Iraq. They have received more than $8 billion in contracts. They have also been charged in Congress for overcharging and overspending in Iraq, then passing the bill to the government.
Furthermore, Halliburton was fined $7.5 million by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting changes that were not reported under the tenure of former CEO Dick Cheney and now Vice President.
Evidentally the majority of the money in the fine comes from an attempt to hinder the SEC investigation, which began mid-2002. From the SEC press release:
Halliburton’s penalty for the disclosure failure reflects lapses in the company’s conduct during the course of the Commission investigation, which commenced in mid-2002.
Moreover, there’s nothing like doing business with the enemy. A Halliburton subsidiary in the Cayman Islands offers contracts and services to Iran.
Halliburton isn’t the only company that does this, however it is illegal for any American company to do business with “rogue states.” However, these companies have found a loophole to help them: The law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans.
So, thanks to this law, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd. is able to safely do business with the Iranian government. According to a CBS News report:
Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands – a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.
Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO in 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian Government.
Just another example of how being in a position of power can help your former employer (who still gives you benefits) keep in business and only worry about the bottom line, not worrying about what is right and what is wrong.
The CBS News story is here.
The New York Times is reporting today that the nation’s charter schools are beginning to (or continuing to, however you look at it) fall behind in the statistics when compared to United States public schools.
According to the Times, the information was released in a stack of data without any sort of public announcement. The information came from the Education Department and was a study approved by President Bush.
The data shows fourth graders attending charter schools performing about half a year behind students in other public schools in both reading and math. Put another way, only 25 percent of the fourth graders attending charters were proficient in reading and math, against 30 percent who were proficient in reading, and 32 percent in math, at traditional public schools.
Graphic courtesy of the New York Times.
This definitely must cause concern for the Bush Administration and their education policies. After the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act, the number of charter schools was expected to grow exponentially. And this has indeed begun to happen with numbers increasing over the years. But these figures will most likely put a halt to their growth because it is evident that the quality of the education is not comparable to that a student will receive in a public school.
The story is here (membership required, but is free).
An interesting report released only proves what every liberal has claimed since Bush came into office: the middle class squeeze is real.
The Washington Post has a story link here(via MSNBC).
As the wealthiest 1% receive tax breaks, the middle class receives tax increases, upping the amount of taxes they have to pay.
The CBO study…found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.
This is big news, especially since the CBO is an independent and bipartisan group, actually chaired by an economist from the Bush White House.
Just another reason to vote for John Kerry and John Edwards this fall.
Well, I’m finally back from New York City after a nice vacation. Updates will hopefully resume on a day-to-day basis.
Here’s the big story for today, at least in my eyes. New York Times editorial columnist Bob Herbert had an interesting column in today’s issue. The text of it follows–
Suppress the Vote?
By BOB HERBERTThe big story out of Florida over the weekend was the tragic devastation caused by Hurricane Charley. But there’s another story from Florida that deserves our attention.
State police officers have gone into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando and interrogated them as part of an odd “investigation” that has frightened many voters, intimidated elderly volunteers and thrown a chill over efforts to get out the black vote in November.
The officers, from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which reports to Gov. Jeb Bush, say they are investigating allegations of voter fraud that came up during the Orlando mayoral election in March. Officials refused to discuss details of the investigation, other than to say that absentee ballots are involved. They said they had no idea when the investigation might end, and acknowledged that it may continue right through the presidential election.
“We did a preliminary inquiry into those allegations and then we concluded that there was enough evidence to follow through with a full criminal investigation,” said Geo Morales, a spokesman for the Department of Law Enforcement.
The state police officers, armed and in plain clothes, have questioned dozens of voters in their homes. Some of those questioned have been volunteers in get-out-the-vote campaigns.
I asked Mr. Morales in a telephone conversation to tell me what criminal activity had taken place.
“I can’t talk about that,” he said.
I asked if all the people interrogated were black.
“Well, mainly it was a black neighborhood we were looking at - yes,” he said.
He also said, “Most of them were elderly.”
When I asked why, he said, “That’s just the people we selected out of a random sample to interview.”
Back in the bad old days, some decades ago, when Southern whites used every imaginable form of chicanery to prevent blacks from voting, blacks often fought back by creating voters leagues, which were organizations that helped to register, educate and encourage black voters. It became a tradition that continues in many places, including Florida, today.
Not surprisingly, many of the elderly black voters who found themselves face to face with state police officers in Orlando are members of the Orlando League of Voters, which has been very successful in mobilizing the city’s black vote.
The president of the Orlando League of Voters is Ezzie Thomas, who is 73 years old. With his demonstrated ability to deliver the black vote in Orlando, Mr. Thomas is a tempting target for supporters of George W. Bush in a state in which the black vote may well spell the difference between victory and defeat.
The vile smell of voter suppression is all over this so-called investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Joseph Egan, an Orlando lawyer who represents Mr. Thomas, said: “The Voters League has workers who go into the community to do voter registration, drive people to the polls and help with absentee ballots. They are elderly women mostly. They get paid like $100 for four or five months’ work, just to offset things like the cost of their gas. They see this political activity as an important contribution to their community. Some of the people in the community had never cast a ballot until the league came to their door and encouraged them to vote.”
Now, said Mr. Egan, the fear generated by state police officers going into people’s homes as part of an ongoing criminal investigation related to voting is threatening to undo much of the good work of the league. He said, “One woman asked me, ‘Am I going to go to jail now because I voted by absentee ballot?’ ”
According to Mr. Egan, “People who have voted by absentee ballot for years are refusing to allow campaign workers to come to their homes. And volunteers who have participated for years in assisting people, particularly the elderly or handicapped, are scared and don’t want to risk a criminal investigation.”
Florida is a state that’s very much in play in the presidential election, with some polls showing John Kerry in the lead. A heavy-handed state police investigation that throws a blanket of fear over thousands of black voters can only help President Bush.
The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State.
I don’t know what’s going on here, but something sure does seem fishy. I don’t think it’s a direct result of a directive from the Bush Administration, but the efforts here are intent on helping GW in November election. The cruelty of discrimination, racism, and fear are coming back in Florida, and that is dispicable.
NEW YORK – Roland Martin reeled in a big one for his weekly fishing show on the Outdoor Life Network.
Baiting a hook beside him on a dock in Crawford, Texas, was President Bush, whose leisurely afternoon casting for bass was chronicled for “Fishing with Roland Martin” in an episode that first aired Friday. (It re-airs Wednesday and Thursday at 5:30 p.m. Fort Wayne time.)
If you’re wondering what the leader of the free world is doing fishing on an obscure cable TV show, you don’t know politics. In a tight presidential campaign, the candidates seek any edge they can get, and will find it all over the TV dial.
Okay, so obviously this is a move to once again place POTUS as the “man of the people” who fishes just like we do. Yet another contrast between him and Sen. Kerry, who obviously wouldn’t be caught dead on a fishing show. Though, as the article points out, Kerry did throw out the first pitch at the Yankee-Red Sox game.
In one of my favorite movies of all time, The American President, Aaron Sorkin wrote a very good monologue where the lead character and President defends his character valiently, poetically, and specifically to the White House Press Corps. Has that kind of character illustrating excersize been replaced by this one of implying a candidate’s character? (He likes fishing or baseball, therefore he understands people like me.) Did it ever really exist?
As Andrew Shepard put it, “We’ve got serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.” And I don’t think fishing or baseball come even close to judging a candidate’s devotion to this country and enthusiam for the cause. In fact, it may just deter from it.
The New York Times ran a graphic from the Center for American Progress today, basically illustrating other uses for the money spent on the Iraq war.
I worry that this will make people think that the reason that we’re not spending national security money is because of the war, or that, if we weren’t in the war, politicians would automatically spend that extra money on national security. However, given the administration’s claim that the war was to the benefit of US national security, it’s certainly a worthy notion in the debate.
Republicans constantly criticize the United Nations as an international institution that doesn’t work or that we don’t need it’s support to take military action. Now, while their positon may become hypocritical once in a while (such as this instance), I choose not to dwell on that in this post.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) on Friday visited with refugees fleeing from the Darfur part of Sudan, where the militia known as Janjaweed is executing thousands of people.
Frist called the crisis “one of the greatest humanitarian challenges of our time” and said the killing was “genocide.”
I’m glad we support the UN in this case. I just wish we could act sooner. Innocents are dying with the expressed purpose of wiping out a race. Its not right…and it is definitely not human what is occurring.
This is a time when we do have a moral obligation to domething other than sitting idly by.
A Washington Post story here.
The New York Times is reporting, this morning, that job growth in the US slowed quite rapidly. Only about 32,000 jobs were added, way under experts estimates.
This poses a critical political problem for incumbent President George W. Bush, who claims that under his administration, the economy has turned around recently.
Read the story here.
President Bush has launced a new ad campaign targeting Hispanic voters in key states in the 2004 election. The message begins with “Soy el presidente, George W. Bush, y yo apruebo este mensaje.” Translated, it means I am President George W. Bush and I approve this message. The rest of the ad features a voice-over in Spanish, appealing to Hispanics. I wonder how long it took Bush to learn that phrase? I can picture a Saturday Night Live skit with him practicing the phrase right now.
Yahoo! News has the story here.
I think this is a wise move by Republicans, however, I think it would be more appealing to actually have Bush offer stump speeches in these states speaking, at least part of the time, in Spanish. But I do realize that most conservatives favor English as the national language, so we know Bush can’t do that, or it would be abused by the ‘liberal media’ if it ever became a big national issue.
It would’ve been interesting to see how former candidate Howard Dean would’ve fared with the Hispanic vote since he speaks fluent Spanish and did speak oftentimes in Spanish when it was necessary.
I’m actually surprised that Dean knows Spanish fluently and Bush does not. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2000, the Texas Hispanic population was 32%. The percentage of people that spoke a language other than English in their home was 31.2. When almost a third of the people you are governing are Hispanic and speak a language other than English at home (presumably the language spoken the most was Spanish), you would assume the person representing your state as governor would at least be able to connect to the people via an oral form of communication.
When you look at Vermont, where Dean was governor, the Hispanic population breakdown is interesting. Again, from the US Census Bureau, in 2000, Hispanics represented 0.9% of the population. And the percentage of folks speaking something other than English at home was 5.9%. Obviously, it was not critical for Dr. Dean, or Gov. Dean, whichever you prefer, to speak Spanish. But understanding this nation’s cultural and ethnic diversity, he chose to speak the native language of the largest minority group in this nation.
Thank you, Howard Dean, for recognizing all people and communicating with them in their native tongue.
A group of Vietnam veterans was set to launch a 60-second ad today in three battleground states charging that Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry had lied about his war record, had engineered the injuries that led to combat medals and was unfit to be commander in chief.
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose members have spoken out against the Massachusetts senator in recent months, were scheduled to spend $500,000 to run the stark ad in Wisconsin, Ohio and West Virginia as part of a multimedia effort to discredit Kerry’s wartime record, a cornerstone of the Democratic campaign.
(LA Times, registration required)
The ad itself is visible here. Among the specifics include a charge that Kerry’s first purple heart and his bronze star were fraudulent. Sen. McCain has apparently already denounced it, and is calling on the White House to do the same.
It’s difficult to judge the warrents of their claim, however, if the Kerry campaign continues to campaign on the three purple heart strategy, this may be what they’re left open to. I’ve always claimed that the big character attacks of the campaign wait until two weeks before the election (allegations of cocaine use and a DWI for Prez. Bush came out then), so I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this.
UPDATE: (Thanks InstaPundit) The Kerry campaign is now threatening to sue SBVFT, saying the people in the ad aren’t who they claim to be. So, who truly knows anymore?
UPDATE 2: (Thanks to MSNBC) McCain has denounced the commercial, and so has the White House. The Kerry campaign has produced his Vietnam medical records that prove the guy in the commerical who said he treated Kerry didn’t sign anything. In fact, all of the swift boat members in the commerical weren’t on any of his boats and “served” with him in the sense that they all fought in the same war.
