:: Has the whole world gone mad or is it just me. ::

:: Saturday, September 06, 2003 ::

Tax Cut Claims Gain Criticism As Employers Shed More Jobs

INDIANAPOLIS, Sept. 5 -- Three months after passage, President Bush's $350 billion tax cut package is eliciting fresh criticism that it has failed to stem nearly 20 months of job losses or produce a promised surge in employment.

The perils of presidential promises hit the White House anew when the Labor Department reported this morning that employers shed 93,000 jobs from payrolls in August. It was the seventh consecutive month companies had slashed payrolls, up sharply from the 43,000 positions lost in July. This time, the losses came just as the president's $350 billion tax cut package was showing up in consumers' pockets.

"Today's unemployment report shows we've got more to do," Bush said in a brief acknowledgement of the issue. But pointing to strong economic growth statistics, he later added his standard boast, "Tax relief is stimulating job creation all across the country."

Before the latest tax cut plan passed, White House economists had predicted it would add 1.4 million new jobs through 2004, on top of 4.1 million jobs that a growing economy would have generated anyway, a rate of 344,000 jobs created a month. By its own accounting, the Bush administration fell 437,000 jobs short of its own projections in August, a shortfall not lost on the president's critics.

"The administration sold the tax cuts as a solution to the jobs problem," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that tracks White House claims about job creation. "Just like the schools, the administration should be held accountable for performance."

The White House is sticking to its bullishness. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview today that this summer's cuts in income, capital gains and dividend tax rates have boosted consumer spending and business investment. He said that will ramp up business and consumer demand, ultimately leaving reluctant companies no choice but to hire more workers to meet that demand.

"That gets translated into job creation, with a lag," he said, counseling patience. "Firms often look to see their sales rising and production rising before they choose to hire new workers."

Since the tax cut was signed in late May, employers have shed 225,000 jobs.

"Of all the broken promises of this president, the most hurtful has been the broken promise to create new jobs and protect the ones that exist," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), who is hoping to unseat Bush in next year's presidential election.

:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:59 PM [+] ::
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Bush Numbers Hit New Low; Dean Tops List of Democratic Presidential Contenders, New Zogby America Poll Reveals

President George W. Bush’s job performance ratings have reached the lowest point since his pre-Inauguration days, continuing a steady decline since a post-9/11 peak, according to a new Zogby America poll of 1,013 likely voters conducted September 3-5.

Less than half (45%) of the respondents said they rated his job performance good or excellent, while a majority (54%) said it was fair or poor.  In August Zogby International polling, his rating was 52% positive, 48% negative.  Today’s results mark the first time a majority of likely voters have given the president an unfavorable job performance rating since he took office.

Bush Job Performance
September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 March 2003 September 2002 September2001
Positive % 45 52 53 54 64 82


Negative %54 48 46 45 36 17



A majority (52%) said it’s time for someone new in the White House, while just two in five (40%) said the president deserves to be re-elected.  Last month, 45% said re-election was in order, and 48% said it was time for someone new.

A like number (52%) said the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 40% said it is the right direction.

Overall opinion of President Bush has also slipped to 54% favorable – 45% unfavorable, compared to August polling which indicated 58% favorable, 40% unfavorable.

Just two in five (40%) said they would choose Bush if the election were held today, while 47% said they would elect a Democratic candidate.  In August polling, respondents were split (43% each) over President Bush or any Democratic challenger.

In the same poll, likely Democratic primary voters give a plurality of their support to former Vermont Governor Dr. Howard Dean (16%), whose campaign has been gathering support in recent polling.  He is followed by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (13%), Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (12%), and Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt (8%).  No other candidate polled more than 3%. 

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the likely Democratic primary voters said it is somewhat or very likely that President Bush will be re-elected in November 2004, regardless of how they intend to vote.

The Zogby America poll involved 1,013 likely voters selected randomly from throughout the 48 contiguous states using listed residential telephone numbers.  Polling was conducted from Zogby International’s Call Center in Utica, NY.  The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2%. The Democratic candidates’ portion of the poll involved 507 respondents, and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 2:30 PM [+] ::
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Bush Numbers Hit New Low; Dean Tops List of Democratic Presidential Contenders, New Zogby America Poll Reveals

President George W. Bush’s job performance ratings have reached the lowest point since his pre-Inauguration days, continuing a steady decline since a post-9/11 peak, according to a new Zogby America poll of 1,013 likely voters conducted September 3-5.

Less than half (45%) of the respondents said they rated his job performance good or excellent, while a majority (54%) said it was fair or poor.  In August Zogby International polling, his rating was 52% positive, 48% negative.  Today’s results mark the first time a majority of likely voters have given the president an unfavorable job performance rating since he took office.

Bush Job Performance
September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 March 2003 September 2002 September 2001 Positive %45 52 53 54 64 82
Negative%54 48 46 45 36 17



A majority (52%) said it’s time for someone new in the White House, while just two in five (40%) said the president deserves to be re-elected.  Last month, 45% said re-election was in order, and 48% said it was time for someone new.

A like number (52%) said the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 40% said it is the right direction.

Overall opinion of President Bush has also slipped to 54% favorable – 45% unfavorable, compared to August polling which indicated 58% favorable, 40% unfavorable.

Just two in five (40%) said they would choose Bush if the election were held today, while 47% said they would elect a Democratic candidate.  In August polling, respondents were split (43% each) over President Bush or any Democratic challenger.

In the same poll, likely Democratic primary voters give a plurality of their support to former Vermont Governor Dr. Howard Dean (16%), whose campaign has been gathering support in recent polling.  He is followed by Massachusetts Senator John Kerry (13%), Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (12%), and Missouri Congressman Richard Gephardt (8%).  No other candidate polled more than 3%.

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the likely Democratic primary voters said it is somewhat or very likely that President Bush will be re-elected in November 2004, regardless of how they intend to vote.

The Zogby America poll involved 1,013 likely voters selected randomly from throughout the 48 contiguous states using listed residential telephone numbers.  Polling was conducted from Zogby International’s Call Center in Utica, NY.  The poll has a margin of sampling error of +/- 3.2%. The Democratic candidates’ portion of the poll involved 507 respondents, and has a margin of error of +/- 4.5%.
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 2:24 PM [+] ::
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-vo-carter6sep06,1,6334390.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

VOICES / A FORUM FOR COMMUNITY ISSUES

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

 

Schoolkids Go Begging as Military Gets Billions
By John Carter
John S. Carter is a salesman in Los Angeles.

September 6, 2003

Like many of my friends on both sides of the political spectrum, my frustration has been rising of late. Recently it reached the boiling point and spilled over at my local office supply store.

Standing in line behind a woman and her packed shopping cart, I felt my usual impatience express itself silently. I figured she was a small-business person or an office manager restocking the supply cabinet. The line grew longer behind me.

As the customer began to unload her basket, I took silent inventory. A couple of dozen small crayon packs, construction paper, several reams of lined writing paper, pencils, paste.

"You must be a schoolteacher," I said. "How can you tell?" she responded with a harried half-smile. "Preschool?" I continued. "No, first grade."

The reason I asked whether she taught preschool was because I'd learned some time ago that most preschool teachers were required to buy their own classroom supplies. But first-grade teachers? This was a new and puzzling development to me.

"L.A. Unified?" I pressed. "Yes," she replied matter-of-factly. "But you get reimbursed, right?" I asked. No reimbursement, she told me, but that didn't matter. She cared about the kids. Seems that the district doesn't always provide what's needed, and the ones who suffer, in addition to the frustrated teachers, are the kids.

That was my breaking point. Without pause for thought or propriety, I blurted out, "You mean we can spend $4 billion a month to keep the military in Iraq, but we can't afford crayons for first-graders?"

Well, that silenced the line and the passersby. I proceeded with some bombast about how the time had come to speak out against this madness.

I'm not schooled in politics but I love this country. After the horror of 9/11, my heart swelled with pride and the community spirit that swept our country and the international community. Now, two years later, I fear the worst for the republic and for our standing as the bastion of liberty and champion of the world's oppressed. Our nation cries for leadership. Our ship of state is piloted by mean-spirited bureaucrats and their cronies who are robbing the commonwealth. They are building prisons at record rates while our schools, parks, air, water and, yes, the economy deteriorate before us.

Enough is enough. I told the teacher that we must work for a real change in Washington. The teacher confessed that she too wanted to do something but felt that it had become "unpatriotic to speak against the president or his policies." I told her not only was it not unpatriotic but it was her civic duty to do so. This is America, and our speaking out ensures our liberty.

I was a combat medic with the 4th Infantry Division in Vietnam — the same division that today occupies central Iraq. In the last decade I've been a registered Democrat, a Republican and a Green. Now I don't know where to turn. I beg the media to turn up the heat on these political scoundrels. Alert the citizenry. Demand that they tell us why corporate criminals who steal millions and ruin the livelihoods of their workers and shareholders go free.

And where is the money for crayons for our children? I'm not talking about test scores, I'm talking about the basics. Millions for bombs, but not one penny for crayons. Get thee to a polling place!





If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives .
Click here for article licensing and reprint options


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 2:16 PM [+] ::
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Joe Conason's Journal
The truth about how the White House helped the bin Laden family flee the U.S. finally comes out. Will the "liberal" press pay attention?

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Sept. 4, 2003  |  Up, up, and away with Prince Bandar
Americans who want to understand an important aspect of what has gone wrong with the Bush "war on terrorism" must read Craig Unger's stunning investigative story in the October issue of Vanity Fair. He provides a definitive account of how members of the bin Laden family and relatives of the House of Saud were spirited out of the country on private aircraft during the days following the Sept. 11 attacks -- when almost all aviation was prohibited.

Boarding a series of flights that crisscrossed the country, from Florida to Kentucky to Los Angeles, Washington and Boston, they were permitted to leave on orders from the "highest level" of the United States government -- without any real interrogation or investigation by the FBI. As Unger points out, at least two bin Laden male kinsmen had been probed for connections with the U.S. branch of the World Association of Muslim Youth, a suspected terrorist front group.

Why were individuals connected with the prime suspect in the worst crime in American history allowed to leave the country so abruptly? Unger examines the role of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the suave Saudi ambassador and longtime crony of the Bush family, who apparently used his influence to win the release of as many as 140 of his compatriots, including the bin Ladens.

Former National Security Council counterterror chief Richard Clarke says that the decision to let the Saudis leave was made with FBI approval. "I asked [the FBI] to make sure that no one inappropriate was leaving. I asked them if they had any objection to the entire event -- to Saudis leaving the country at a time when aircraft were banned from flying." But the FBI's spokesman on counterterrorism issues told Unger: "I can say unequivocally that the F.B.I. had no role in facilitating these flights one way or another."

Determining who is telling the truth about the fleeing Saudis isn't easy. With the sort of candor that has become its hallmark, the White House is still denying that any such flights ever occurred. That denial is simply exploded by Unger, who interviewed a former police officer hired to work security on the private jet that took several Saudis from Tampa, Fla., to Lexington, Ky. (where another group of Saudi royals had been buying horses).

With outrage that any American can share, Allan Gerson, an attorney for the 9/11 victim families who are suing the Saudi government and the bin Laden interests, wonders why some obvious questions weren't put to the passengers on those planes before they were released.

"They should have been asked whether they had contacts or knew of any other Saudi contacts with Osama bin Laden," said Gerson. "What did they know about the financing of al-Qaeda? What did they know about the use of charitable institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere as conduits for terrorism financing? Why was the Saudi government not responsive to U.S. pleas in 1999 and 2000 that they stop turning a blind eye to terrorist financing through Saudi banks and charities?" Yet as Dale Watson, the FBI's former counterterrorism chief admits, "They were identified, but they were not subject to serious interviews or interrogations."

Among the various explanations for this undue leniency, Unger examines certain ties that bind the Bush family to the bin Laden clan and the Saudi hierarchy. He writes: "Vanity Fair has learned that as senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, the gigantic private-equity firm, former president George H. W. Bush, who has long been a close friend of Prince Bandar, has played a key role in raising millions of dollars from Saudis for a Carlyle investment fund."

While Unger acknowledges that there may have been valid reasons of state to allow the Saudis to exit unmolested by law enforcement, he leaves the final comment to John L. Martin, former national security chief in the Justice Department. "What happened on September 11 was a horrific crime. It was an act of war. And the answer is no, this is not any way to go about investigating it."

Unger reveals much, much more -- and we shall see whether the "liberal" American media arouses itself to expand on his findings. So far, the first media outlet to pay any serious attention to the Vanity Fair article was the Edinburgh Evening News. (Yes, the city in Scotland.) But this morning, the New York Times suddenly appears interested, too.

This hectic life
As promised, here are a few of the events on my current schedule, but please remember that change remains the only constant. On Friday afternoon I will appear on WNYC radio's "Leonard Lopate Show" (93.9 FM, 820 AM in the New York metropolitan area or www.wnyc.org), at around noon Eastern. That evening I will be signing books at the Upper West Side Barnes & Noble, located on Broadway and 82nd Street, at 7:30 p.m. And later still, at 10 p.m. Pacific time, I'll be on the Bernie Ward Show (KGO, 810 AM in San Francisco or www.kgo810am.com). Next Monday evening at 7 p.m., I will return to Olsson's, my favorite Washington bookstore, at 1200 F Street N.W., to read and sign copies of "Big Lies."


[9:26 a.m. PDT, Sept. 4, 2003]



- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Joe Conason writes a daily journal for Salon. He also writes a weekly column for the New York Observer. His new book, "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth," is now available.



:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 4:44 PM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News  Thu, Sep 04, 2003

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France, Germany Not Ready to Back U.S. Draft on Iraq

36 minutes ago

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DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said on Thursday they were not ready yet to accept a U.S. draft for a new United Nations ( news -web sites ) resolution on Iraq ( news -web sites ).

 

"We are ready to examine the proposals but they seem quite far from what appears to us the primary objective, namely the transfer of political responsibility to an Iraqi government as soon as possible," Chirac told a news conference with Schroeder.

Facing almost daily casualties in Iraq, Washington has drafted a new U.N. resolution aimed at getting more countries to contribute soldiers and cash to its occupation but which insists on full U.S. military control and a dominant political role.

Schroeder said that the proposals showed movement in the U.S. position but did not go far enough. He said that while France and Germany opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, they now wanted to help bring stability and democracy to the country.

"Such a perspective can only develop if the United Nations takes over responsibility for the political process and if an Iraqi administration is installed," he said.

The proposed U.N. resolution marked a policy reversal for the administration of President Bush ( news -web sites ), which had resisted U.N. involvement after the Security Council's failure to approve the war that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein ( news -web sites ).

France, Russia, China and Germany were among nations on the Security Council which opposed the war.



:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 8:01 AM [+] ::
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 Thu, Sep 04, 2003

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IRAQ: WHAT WENT WRONG

Wed Sep 3, 8:02 PM ET

Add Op/Ed - Ted Rall to My Yahoo!

By Ted Rall

A Fair and Balanced Look at America's New Vietnam


Ted Rall


Related Links

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Ted Rall's Editorial Cartoons
 

KIRKSVILLE, MISSOURI--In my March 25th column, I wrote that Bush could salvage a war based on lies only if he played the earnest liberator rather than the crusading colonizer. He had already abandoned Afghanistan; few cared or noticed. But Iraq ( news -web sites ) wasn't nearly as remote. The world would be watching, and we would only have one chance to make a good first impression.

I wish I could pick stocks as accurately.

The bombing of Najaf's Imam Ali mosque, killing pro-U.S. Ayatollah Mohammed Bakr al Hakim and at least 90 Shiite faithful, marks the start of full-fledged religious warfare in the U.S.-occupied central and southern sectors. (Our de facto recognition of a future Kurdistan has effectively ended the prospect of a unified Iraq.) Possible suspects include fellow Shiite cleric Mukhtader al Sadr, an Iraqi nationalist opposed to the U.S. occupation, Iranian intelligence agents and Sunnis affiliated with Saddam Hussein ( news -web sites )'s deposed government.

Iraqi complaints that U.S. forces failed to provide adequate security only tell part of the story. Hoping that Iraq's next leaders would organically emerge from the mish-mash of former exile groups, Administrator Paul Bremer refused to create a new U.S. puppet regime or to allow Iraqis to hold elections. This faith-based occupation policy has sparked a violent struggle among the opposition parties. DeBaathification and random sweeps of homes in Sunni-dominated regions are alienating the Sunni minority while emboldening insurgent Shiite militants. And the Iranians, worried that Bush will invade them after next year's presidential election, are funding radical Shiites to keep us tied up.

Saddam kept Iraq's federation of conflicting tribes and religions together through intimidation and bribery. The Pentagon ( news -web sites ) has doesn't have enough troops to accomplish the former and none of the cash needed for the latter, making the old tyrant look great by comparison--and sparking paranoia in the Muslim media. "The Zionists want to divide Iraq into three separate states, a Shiite, a Sunni and a Kurdish state," posits Charles Ayoub in Beirut's Ad-Diyar newspaper. "The United States is ruled by the Zionists. The...announcement by U.S. authorities in Iraq that the perpetrators of the [Najaf bombing] belonged to the Sunni Muslim community and to the Al Qaeda organization was aimed at triggering such strife between the Sunnis and Shiites."

Even if we had proved ourselves to be the most benevolent occupiers to ever march through their streets, Iraqis would still have yearned to have their nation back to themselves. We've been anything but.

Our early emphasis on seizing oil fields, and schemes to funnel revenue from the U.N. oil-for-food program into lucrative contracts with Halliburton (which still pays Dick Cheney ( news -web sites ) a huge salary) and MCI-WorldCom (a major Bush-Cheney campaign donor) belie our stated commitment to liberation and spreading democracy. We're more Genghis Khan than Dwight Eisenhower.

Bush, a former businessman, is treating "liberated" Iraq like the victim of a hostile leveraged buy-out. In an LBO, you borrow a target company's purchase price and saddle its balance sheet with the resulting debt, layoffs and possible bankruptcy. In Iraq Bush hopes to defray rising costs of occupation--$1 billion a week for the Pentagon, plus $30 billion to fix water, electricity and oil production facilities--by selling Iraq's oil.

But it's Iraq's oil, not ours.

Our soldiers disposed of Saddam's army, but they haven't been nearly as effective as good will ambassadors. Partly because they don't speak Arabic or understand Islamic culture, jumpy U.S. soldiers are killing so many Iraqi civilians that the Pentagon is deliberately not keeping a count of accidental casualties. Our troops are swaggering about the desert like Gestapo thugs, robbing locals of their cash, kicking down doors, roughing up women (a no-no under Islam) and brown-bagging innocent men's heads before dragging them off screaming into the night.

The good news, such as it is, is that Bush's neo-con wolf pack is finally beginning to admit that the facts didn't fit with all their bluster. "Some conditions were worse than we anticipated, particularly in the security area," acknowledges Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. Richard Armitage, the radical right's number two at State, now wants the U.N. to get involved. The Defense Policy Board's Richard Perle, newly concedes that we should have prepared a postwar Iraqi government. "The answer is to hand over power to Iraqis as soon as possible," says Perle.

Getting warmer...but still wrong.

The real answer is to get the hell out before one more American or Iraqi gets killed in a lost cause. "Leaving now would place Iraqis under violent usurpers and set a precedent that could haunt the U.S. government for years," argues The New York Times' Christopher Marquis, but we've already blown our chance to make a good first impression. More money, more men, more international involvement--those were good ideas back in March. Now it's too late to avoid the ostracizing of the United States or the Afghanistanization of Iraq.

For God's sake, cut our losses--and Iraq's--and bring our troops home.

(Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan ( news -web sites ) and Back," an award-winning recounting of his experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It is now available in a revised and updated paperback edition containing new material. Ordering information is available at amazon.com.)



:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 7:04 AM [+] ::
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Los Angeles Times: Shedding Some Light on Bustamante's Dark Activist Past
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez3sep03,1,544974.story

STEVE LOPEZ POINTS WEST








a d v e r t i s e m e n t








 





Shedding Some Light on Bustamante's Dark Activist Past
Steve Lopez

September 3, 2003

Pssst!

Guess what.

Cruz Bustamante doesn't just want to be governor of California.

Have you heard?

He's got ties to an allegedly racist, separatist Latino group called MEChA. Sure, he might act and look like a governor once he takes office. But that would just be a front.

Behind the scenes, Cruz "Bandolero" Bustamante would wage war on the gringo, carrying out a bold plot to return California and six other Western states to Mexico.

He might seem kind of bland, moderate and unexcitable. You wouldn't confuse him with Che Guevara. But that's part of the scam. Bustamante is the Latino version of the Manchurian Candidate. Once he gets in, we'll all be speaking Spanish.

How do I know this?

Because readers keep telling me about Bustamante's dark past. They indignantly ask why I don't expose the lieutenant governor for his membership in MEChA back when he was at Fresno State in the 1970s.

"Are you also a member of MEChA?" one reader demanded, assuming that because of my last name, I might be in on the revolution.

Actually, I'm not a member of MEChA. But more and more, I do like the idea of creating a separate state.

What I'd like to do is take all the yahoos who have nothing better to do than circulate paranoid e-mails and regurgitate every hysterical inanity they hear on talk radio, load these folks onto buses, and create a hideaway for them somewhere in Death Valley, or preferably Idaho.

Yes, it's true that when MEChA took root on college campuses in the 1960s, its ambitious literature referred to the "brutal gringo invasion of our territories." That would be an offensive charge, I suppose, except that it's accurate.

In the wild and crazy idealism of the era, MEChA also endorsed "revolutionary acts" of nationalism. But there was no war, and Bustamante got involved after the rhetorical fires died out. MEChA had gone soft by then, and was primarily a campus social club for Latinos.

"It was about recruiting more Latinos to school and selling burritos to pay for graduation," says David Ayon, who started a Latino group similar to MEChA at Princeton University around the same time. Later, when Ayon was at Stanford University, nobody dredged up the early rabble-rousing of MEChA.

"It was way too absurd to even talk about it," says the Loyola University senior research associate.

Bustamante has said pretty much the same thing about his 10 minutes as an alleged activist. But it hasn't prevented shrill demands for him to confess his sins.

"I believe that Cruz Bustamante has a great deal of explaining to do, if he still supports the aims of that organization," Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom McClintock told a conservative weekly publication. On a radio show, McClintock equated MEChA with the Ku Klux Klan.

You gotta admit, the sombrero is a handy place to hang a sheet. But just who are the bigots here? Bustamante, or the Republicans who started playing dirty when he unexpectedly took the early lead?

The idea of Bustamante as an extremist, or even a Chicano activist, is seen as laughable to many in the Latino community. Ayon calls the lieutenant governor a practiced, calculating moderate, his tax hike plan notwithstanding. In the Central Valley, for instance, he's at least as comfortable hanging out with white growers as brown pickers.

That's one reason why, when I scoured East L.A. and Boyle Heights looking for people who were chatting up Bustamante, I couldn't find any. In an L.A. Times poll two Sundays ago, only 51% of Latinos said they would vote for Bustamante.

"The Latino vote is not monolithic," Luis Rodriguez told me one night at his Sylmar bookstore, Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural. Some of his customers said they don't trust politicians, period, whether they're Latino or not.

And yet for some people, the Latino community is monolithic, and the specter of a Bustamante victory is their worst nightmare.

I'm talking about people who get through the day on fear and anger, and find comfort in their own misery.

People for whom the problem isn't Bustamante's few days in MEChA, but the chance that he could become governor and symbolize the continued browning of California.

I hate to be the one to break the news, but the retaking of the Southwest has already happened. California, in particular, has Latinos of every political persuasion in every socioeconomic class, and it's going to have more.

And you're right, I am in on it, along with everybody else whose last name ends with the letter Z.

Just to give you a head's up, on Gobernador Bustamante's first week in office, we're moving the state capital to Tijuana.


Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com


























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Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 9:01 AM [+] ::
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washingtonpost.com: Pentagon May Have to Reduce U.S. Forces in Iraq -CBO: "washingtonpost.com

Pentagon May Have to Reduce U.S. Forces in Iraq -CBO



Reuters
Tuesday, September 2, 2003; 8:32 PM









By Vicki Allen



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration may have to cut U.S. troops in Iraq by more than half to keep enough forces to face other threats, a congressional agency said on Tuesday in a report that fueled calls for more international help for peacekeeping in Iraq.



The Congressional Budget Office said under current policies, the Pentagon would be able to sustain an occupation force of 38,000 to 64,000 in Iraq long term, down from the existing 150,000 that a number of lawmakers said is not enough to confront the spiraling violence.



Sen. Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat who requested the CBO study, said it showed that President Bush's policies in Iraq were 'straining our forces to the breaking point.'



Byrd, one of Bush's harshest critics on Iraq, also said it showed the administration must formally ask for help in peacekeeping from the United Nations and NATO.



'Every day frittered away by the administration is another day that our troops will bear the staggering burdens of the dangers of occupation alone,' he said.



Bush on Tuesday directed Secretary of State Colin Powell to open negotiations at the U.N. Security Council on a resolution aimed at getting international support for U.S. efforts in Iraq, a senior U.S. official said.



Some lawmakers are pushing to increase overall military manpower for Iraq and other needs.



The CBO said it would cost up to $19 billion and take three to five years to recruit, train and equip two more divisions with about 80,000 in troops and support personnel.



Keeping the 20,000 in additional forces and support personnel the divisions would provide in Iraq would cost about $10 billion annually, boosting occupation costs to some $29 billion a year, it said.



A U.S. occupying force of less than 64,000 would cost between $8 billion and $10 billion a year, the CBO said, while a force of up to 106,000 adding Marines and other ground forces would cost $14 billion to $19 billion.



The Pentagon estimates it is costing $3.9 billion a month to keep the roughly 150,000 troops now in Iraq, where they make up 90 percent of the peacekeeping forces.



The report said the active Army, which is bearing the brunt of Iraq duty, will have to start reducing forces in Iraq in March next year if it keeps its plan to limit deployments without relief to a year.



Under existing policies, the CBO said, the Army could sustain a long-term occupation force there of 38,000 to 64,000 after the winter of 2004-2005.



The CBO also offered alternative scenarios if the Pentagon made more use of National Guard, reserves, Marines and civilian personnel in Iraq.







© 2003 Reuters "
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 6:08 AM [+] ::
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washingtonpost.com

TV's New 'Whoopi' Takes on Race, Terror and Bush


Reuters
Tuesday, September 2, 2003; 1:40 PM

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Whoopi Goldberg's new NBC sitcom features an Iranian immigrant unhinged by terror alerts, a conservative black lawyer with a hip-hop-talking white girlfriend and jokes about President Bush mispronouncing "nuclear" (as NEW-kyoo-ler).

So far, NBC hasn't blinked.

In fact, says the Oscar-winning actress, executives at the General Electric Co.-owned network think she could even be "a little riskier."

"They're fearless about what it is we're trying to do. We haven't heard from anyone saying, 'No, you can't do this,"' she said.

That also goes for some of the more unsavory aspects of the character she plays on "Whoopi" -- Mavis Raye, a tart-tongued, menopausal former singer turned hotelier in New York City who smokes like a chimney and drinks on the job.

The series pilot opens with a cigarette joke. A hotel guest admonishes Goldberg that "second-hand smoke kills," to which she retorts, "So do I, baby, walk on!"

Goldberg's on-screen puffing already has drawn the ire of anti-tobacco activists. But she is unrepentant about her character's nicotine habit, an extension of a real-life vice.

"I think people are smart enough to be able to say to their kids, 'Now you see this is not the greatest behavior Whoopi could be having right now,"' she told Reuters in an interview.

"This is a show about real people. And real people do have these flaws. Is (Mavis) going to have them forever? Maybe not, but she's damn well going to start out with them. ... I mean, she's not shooting dope. She's not killing anybody."

RETURNING TO PRIME TIME

"Whoopi," which debuts on Sept. 9, marks Goldberg's first stab at her own prime-time series since the short-lived 1990 CBS sitcom "Bagdad Cafe," in which she played the proprietor of a diner-motel in the California desert. She also was a regular for five years on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

An Oscar winner for her turn as a spiritual medium in the 1990 film "Ghost," Goldberg, 47, said her return to the small screen comes at an ideal time.

"I'm a little bit older now, and I like the idea of being in a steady gig," said the actress, who acts as executive producer as well as stars in "Whoopi." "There's not a lot of offers coming my way, either. You get into that awkward stage of late 40s, and things slow down."

Cigarettes notwithstanding, her new show draws much of its humor from subjects that may strike some viewers as just this side of taboo for prime-time network TV.

The comedy features an interracial couple consisting of Mavis' buttoned-down, decidedly un-hip brother, Courtney (Wren Brown) and his white girlfriend, Rita (Elizabeth Regen), who dresses and acts "like a sister."

"She's introduced me to rap, hip-hop and just a whole world I've never known," Courtney exclaims on the series pilot, to which Mavis dead-pans: "So, she's teaching you to be black."

Goldberg says the Rita character merely reflects one of many cultural mixes that have grown so common in society.

"Lots of parents in the suburbs are raising black children and don't know it," she said.

PERSIAN FLAVOR

The show also co-stars British-born Iranian comic Omid Djalili as Goldberg's sidekick Nasim, a hotel handyman from Iran who immediately takes offense whenever anyone mistakes him for an Arab.

Nasim: "I'm not Arab. I'm Persian! It's so obvious. You can't tell the difference?"

Mavis: "Hell, no, I can't tell the difference. You people all look alike to me."

Later, Mavis confides to Nasim that "your people do scare me .... I mean I see three of four of you guys on an airplane, and I'm off." Nasim replies he feels "exactly the same way about the Portuguese."

Goldberg says such exchanges, aside from hopefully winning laughs, are intended to deconstruct some of the fears that pervade post-9/11 America.

"Omid's character is a guy who has his own fears about being here and about what's going on," she said. "Everybody has their finger pointing, and that's really what we wanted to say, that we've all got fears of something."

Indeed, in episode two, it is Nasim's paranoia about an unattended briefcase in the hotel lobby during an "orange alert" that leads police to blow it up. The briefcase turns out to have been a present from Rita to Courtney.

But Goldberg insists she's not making light of terror alerts. "These are the things that are happening in our lives," she said. "It's part of the world that I live in. It's the world that I can comment on."

As for making fun of Bush at a time when other performers' criticism of the president has caused their patriotism to be called into question, Goldberg is likewise unapologetic.

"We're all patriots. We all want the world to be a better place," she said. "I don't have any problems with it and will continue to have as much fun with our president as every comic has since comedy began."

© 2003 Reuters
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Los Angeles Times: Manufacturing Strengthens in August: "http://www.latimes.com/business/la-090203econ_lat,1,7888311.story?coll=la-home-headlines


a d v e r t i s e m e n t








 





Manufacturing Strengthens in August
By Jesus Sanchez
Times Staff Writer

9:52 AM PDT, September 2, 2003

A surge in new orders and production helped boost U.S. factory activity in August for the second month in a row, but manufacturing employment continued to shrink, according to an industrial survey released today.

The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity rose to 54.7 in August from 51.8 in the previous month. The August Manufacturing Business Survey results were the strongest since December, indicating that the nation's factories have staged a comeback from the disruptions triggered by the U.S. war in Iraq this year.

The strong manufacturing report and other positive economic news failed to have much impact on Wall Street, where investors were returning to the market after the normal summer slowdown. The Dow Jones average was up 37.34 to 9453.16 at about 9:30 a.m. The Nasdaq rose 9.76 to 1820.21, while the S&P 500 increased 6.29 to 1014.30.

The August manufacturing survey, based on the responses of 3,000 purchasing managers, reflected a boost in demand as the New Orders Index rose to 59.6 from 56.6 in July. The Production Index increased 8.3 points to 61.6 - the highest level since June 1999.

'Though two months of growth do not establish a trend, there is strength in the various segments of this report that we have not seen for some time,' said Norbert J. Ore, who oversees the manufacturing survey. 'The continuation of a second-half recovery appears on track.'

However, manufacturers continued to increase production without adding workers, sending the Employment Index down 0.2 to 45.9 for August. The Employment Index has been on the decline for nearly three years as employers have remain wary of expansion amid signs of economic uncertainty.

'The lack of improvement in the employment component may prove a disappointment to many,' said economist Mat Johnson in a report for Quantit Group. But 'it's far too early for a recovering sector to be adding much in the way of jobs.'

In a separate report today, the number of layoffs announced in August fell 6% from the previous month to 79,925, according to the outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. The telecommunications industry led in job cuts, with 18,739 layoff notices reported.

Despite the decline in layoffs, Challenger Gray warned that employment reductions have traditionally increased in the fall and winter months and that human resource executives have said they do not expect any major pickup in hiring.

'While job cuts have fallen and there have been some positive signs of an uptick in manufacturing, there has yet to be any significant indication of a rebound in capital spending that would support the view that employers will begin hiring en masse,' Challenger Gray executive vice president Rick Cobb said in a statement.


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Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times"
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ellwood2sep02,1,2279217.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

COMMENTARY

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

 

Fiscal Health Calls for Painful Remedies

California's governor -- whoever holds the office -- will have to bite the bullet.
By John W. Ellwood
John W. Ellwood is a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley.

September 2, 2003

When it comes to California's ballyhooed financial woes, there's more than enough blame being passed around.

One camp will tell you that Proposition 13 is the culprit; another cites tax-and-spend liberals. Some say the fault belongs to Gov. Gray Davis, but others are sure his policies just need a full second term to work. And still others claim that the answer is leadership that's greener, more populist or more Latino.

One thing is certain, they can't all be right. So what's a California voter to do? Start by separating the money myths from the facts. And be prepared: We can't dig out of our budget mess without paying a price.

Myth 1: California's economy is in truly terrible shape.

The truth is California has tracked the national economy over the last several years. People are hurting, and times are not great, especially in Northern California, but the state has not experienced a deep recession. That came in 1991 through 1994, when California's unemployment rate averaged 8.8%. Since 2001 the rate has averaged 6.3%. After inflation is taken into account, California's gross state product declined in 1991, 1992 and 1993. For the last three years, by the same measure, the state's economy has continued to expand, though at a lower rate.

Myth 2: The overall economic decline has caused California's budget shortfall.

Most states have experienced deficits because of the 2001 national recession and the weak recovery. But California's massive shortfall is mostly the result of the collapse of a single state revenue source — the tax on capital gains and stock options.

During the high-tech boom in the second half of the 1990s, individual income tax revenues from capital gains and stock options surged and provided the state with $10 billion to $15 billion above typical growth patterns.

Then in 2001 the high-tech bubble burst, and the tax revenue gains disappeared, with no chance of returning for the foreseeable future. (That's why they call it a bubble.)

Myth 3: The state has a $38-billion budget gap.

California got rid of its $38-billion problem this year, "balancing" its 2003-04 budget by making some permanent cuts and tax increases, but also by borrowing heavily and using a series of gimmicks and one-time accounting tricks.

The good news is that even using the most pessimistic set of assumptions, the deficit has been cut by half. The bad news is that we've largely run out of budgeting gimmicks. Which means that a $9-billion-to-$15-billion "structural" shortfall — about the amount of the lost bubble revenue — will be an annual problem until we permanently make more cuts or raise more taxes.

Myth 4: California is wildly wasteful; if we just make government more efficient we can make up the shortfall, maintain the services we want and not raise taxes.

California already has one of the most efficient state governments in the nation. It has the fewest number of state and local government employees per population of any state, and traditionally it has led the nation in the quality of its efficiency watchdogs. Its legislative analysts' office, which calculates the costs of proposed laws, was the model the U.S. Congress turned to when it created the Congressional Budget Office; the state has an auditor, and it even has a Little Hoover Commission that seeks out duplication of effort in state government.

More to the point, however, long experience with efficiency commissions shows that one voter's streamlined program is another voter's lost service.

Myth 5: Californians are overtaxed and can't be taxed any more.

It depends. The average California state and local tax burden is somewhere between the sixth-highest in the nation (calculating on a per capita basis) and 14th (calculating on a percent-of-income basis).

But an average can be misleading when some are taxed at higher rates than others. Using a model created by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, it turns out that the bottom 80% of Californian households by income (those earning $80,000 or less) have a combined state and local tax burden that is below the national average for their income group. On the other hand, the top 20% of California households by income pay much more than the national average, with those in the top 1% (with household incomes above $567,000) having the second-highest state and local tax burden in the country.

Some would say that even if a household is at the national average it's paying too much in taxes. Others would say there's room and reason to raise at least some of the rates.

Myth 6: Capping state budget expenditures will solve our problems.

Caps do lead to lower spending levels, but only by providing fewer public services. And, because the cost of services varies, capping schemes tend to create distortions.

For example, if growth in state spending is capped based on the inflation rate plus the population growth rate, and the cost of medical care continues to rise faster than the cost of other goods and services, health care will eat up the budgetary space. Which means that things like education, corrections and the arts will have to be cut. No expenditure limitation formula can change the basic facts: Something will have to go.



In fact, once you clear away the myths, there's a painful message behind all the facts that define the California economy. These are our choices: Raise taxes to make up the lost bubble revenue, cut spending, or both.

So where are the point-by-point plans from the 135 candidates who would take his place?

Don't be surprised if they never materialize. That's because a specific plan means someone will get burned. Back in the early 1990s, solving the national deficit required President George H.W. Bush to renege on a promise and raise taxes. He lost the next election. President Clinton had to raise taxes again — one reason why the Democrats lost control of Congress.

No matter how much blame is passed around during the campaign, or how many "painless" solutions are put forward, whoever sits in the governor's chair after Oct. 7 will have to spend political capital, and hurt some voters, to do the right thing.

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer2sep02,1,969608.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

COMMENTARY

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

 

Bush Was All Too Willing to Use Émigrés' Lies

American experts urged the White House to be skeptical, but they hit a stone wall.
Robert Scheer

September 2, 2003

Oops. There are no weapons of mass destruction after all. That's the emerging consensus of the second team of weapons sleuths commanded by the U.S. in Iraq, as reported last week in the Los Angeles Times. The 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group found what the first wave of U.S. military experts and the United Nations inspectors before them discovered — nada .

Nothing, not a vial of the 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin or the 25,000 liters of anthrax or an ounce of the materials for the 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent claimed by George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech as justification for war. Nor any sign of the advanced nuclear weapons program, a claim based on a now-admitted forgery. Nor has anyone produced any evidence of ties between the deposed Hussein regime and the Al Qaeda terrorists responsible for 9/11.

The entire adventure was an immense fraud.

"We were prisoners of our own beliefs," a senior U.S. weapons expert who worked with the Iraq Survey Group told The Times. "We said Saddam Hussein was a master of denial and deception. Then when we couldn't find anything, we said that proved it, instead of questioning our own assumptions."

How distressing that it turns out to be Bush, leader of the world's greatest democracy, who is the true master of denial and deception, rather than Hussein, who proved to be a paper tiger. Bush is such a master at deceiving the American public that even now he is not threatened with the prospect of impeachment or any serious congressional investigation into the possibility that he led this nation into war with lies.

But lie he did, at the very least in the crucial matter of pushing secret evidence that even a president of his limited experience had to know was so flimsy as to not be evidence at all. U.S. intelligence officials now say the administration was lied to by Iraqi émigrés.

That excuse for the U.S. intelligence failure in Iraq would be laughable were the circumstances not so appalling. It means Bush ignored all the cautions of career diplomats and intelligence experts in every branch of the U.S. government over the unsubstantiated word of Iraqi renegades.

Clearly, the administration, from the president on down, did not want expert advice and intelligence that would have undermined its excuse for invading Iraq. This was a shell game from beginning to end in which Americans' legitimate fear of terrorism after Sept. 11 was almost immediately and cynically exploited by the neoconservative gang that runs U.S. foreign policy.

American soldiers standing guard over the White House's imperial ambitions — a new Middle East as linchpin to a new world order — are now being shot like fish in a barrel.

Had Congress dared question Bush's claim of an immediate Iraqi military threat, there would have been no excuse for invasion. But Congress is kept on a tight leash by Republican leaders, subverting its basic role as a check and balance on executive power. Shame on congressional Democrats, especially those running for president, who went along with this disgusting charade.

In the disarray and dissolution of the U.S. role as leader of the free world, we sadly witness America's pathetic and isolated effort to rule Iraq with some of the same émigrés who deceived us with the false information that led us into a war that suited their ambitions.

One of those Iraqi exile leaders who clearly misled the U.S., Ahmad Chalabi, is now a senior figure in the fig-leaf Iraqi shadow government in U.S.-colonized Baghdad. Chalabi is a fugitive from Jordan, where he was convicted of major financial fraud, and he has no real base of support in Iraq. But Bush still backs him, trafficking all too easily with a liar who tells him what he wants to hear.

The British public, raised on a higher standard of official honesty, is properly shocked. Prime Minister Tony Blair is in deep trouble as Parliament and a high judge are embarked on a truth-finding investigation into their government's rationale regarding the reasons for war. On Friday, Blair's media spokesman, Alistair Campbell, accused by the BBC of "sexing up" the intelligence data used to justify going to war with Iraq, suddenly resigned.

The Brits don't like being fooled. That's not the case in the United States, where for too many pundits and politicians, accepting official mendacity has become a mark of political sophistication.

More American soldiers have died since Bush declared the war over than during the war itself. This misadventure is costing nearly $4 billion a month just for the troops, and billions more for reconstruction by U.S. companies like Dick Cheney's old firm Halliburton. But too many Americans betray the proud tradition of an independent citizenry by buying into the "aw shucks" irresponsibility of a president who daily does a grave injustice to the awesome obligations of the office that he has sworn — in the name of God, no less — to uphold.

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Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times
:: Beauxbeaux's Daddy 7:41 AM [+] ::
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We Have Poisoned Them Forever

DRUDGE REPORT FLASH 2002®: "


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PAPER: DANGEROUSLY HIGH LEVELS OF RADIATION MEASURED AROUND BAGHDAD
Mon Sep 01 2003 15:05:42 ET
EXPRESS [LONDON]

SOLDIERS and civilians in Iraq face a health timebomb after dangerously high levels of radiation were measured around Baghdad.

Levels between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal were recorded at four sites around the Iraqi capital where depleted uranium (DU) munitions have been used across wide areas.

Experts estimate that Britain and the US used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armour-piercing shells made of DU during attacks on Iraqi forces.

That figure eclipses the 375tons used in the 1991 Gulf War. Unlike that largely desert-based conflict, most of the rounds fired in March and April were in heavily residential areas.

DU rounds are highly combustible and tiny particles of the radioactive material are left on the battleground.

If inhaled the material can attack the body causing cancers, chronic illness, long-term disabilities and genetic birth defects - none of which will be apparent for at least five years.

Veterans of the first Gulf War believe that DU exposure has played a role in leaving more than 5,000 of them chronically ill and almost 600 dead.

The Royal Society, Britain's leading scientific body, described America's failure to confirm how much or where they used DU rounds as an 'appalling situation'.

Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the society's working group on DU, said: 'The Americans are really giving us no information at all and think it is a pretty appalling situation that they are not taking this seriously at all.

'We really need someone like the UN Environment Programme or the World Health Organisation to get into Iraq and start testing civilians and soldiers for uranium exposure.'

Evidence of massive uranium radiation has emerged in recent weeks. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle analysed swabs from bullet holes in Iraqi tanks and confirmed elevated radiation levels.

Last month Scott Peterson, of the respected Christian Science Monitor, took Geiger counter readings at several sites in Baghdad. Near the Republican Palace, his radiation readings were the 'hottest' in Iraq at nearly 1,900 times background radiation levels.

Even the Ministry of Defence, which has consistently refused to accept there are dangers involved in DU exposure or that it has played role in Gulf War illnesses is addressing the problem. Soldiers returning from this year's conflict will be routinely tested for uranium poisoning. Professor Malcolm Hooper, who sits on two committees advising the Government on Gulf health issues, said he is not surprised by the radiation levels.

He said: 'Really these things are dirty bombs. Exactly the sort of device that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair keep talking about being in the hands of terrorists.'

Dozens of US soldiers, backed by armoured vehicles and helicopter gunships, searched farms on the outskirts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday in their hunt for followers of Saddam Hussein.

THOUSANDS of Iraqis packed into northern Baghdad yesterday for the funeral of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer al-Hakim, a Shi'ite Muslim cleric slain by a car bomb which also killed scores of his followers.

A senior official in Hakim's Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said the Americans bore some blame for Friday's attack as they had failed to ensure adequate security measures.

Up to five suspects, all of them Iraqi, have been detained over the car bomb attack, the local governor said yesterday.

END

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