September 30, 2005
Florida Tourists Warned that Locals Could Shoot Them
Florida tourists warned that locals could shoot them.
September 28, 2005
Proposal to Cleanup Katrina with Medicaid Funds
This from MoveOn's attempts to highlight attempted cuts to crucial social programs.
Here are just some of the most egregious cuts:
$225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
$200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
$25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control
$6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children
$7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS
$5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
$3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities
$8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students.
$2.5 billion cut from Amtrak
$2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative
$417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency
$4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program
Last week, congressional Republicans responded to Hurricane Katrina by proposing to cut nearly a trillion dollars from vital national services, like health care for the poor and elderly, student loans, Amtrak, and eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (again!).1 Republican leaders in Congress are now gauging the public's response to see if they can get away with their plan. We need to show them the answer is "no."
The cost of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, while huge, is far less than what President Bush has given away in tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent.2 National crises like Hurricanes Rita and Katrina are times for all Americans to stick together and put in our fair share.
So today we're launching an urgent petition to Congress to fully rebuild the Gulf Coast and pay for it by ending Bush's tax cuts for the very wealthy, not by slashing vital services that Americans need. If we can gather a quarter million signatures this week, we can show them that this destructive plan just won't fly.
Please sign today:
http://www.political.moveon.org/rebuild/?id=6043-5859053-nCe2zbCtTK2SmQM6YKFzSw&t=3
The Republican proposal, titled "Operation Offset," was authored by the Republican Study Committee, a group of over 100 influential members of Congress, including powerful committee chairs and members of the Republican leadership.3 The proposal starts with support from at least these 100 representatives, and they are looking to quickly build momentum.
A full reconstruction of the Gulf Coast region is generally estimated to cost around $200 billion.4 We could more than meet this cost by rolling back Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for just the wealthiest one percent of the country, which would save us an estimated $327 billion.5
"Operation Offset," however, calls for an astounding $949 billion dollars in cuts over 10 years to vital national services.6—almost five times the full cost of reconstruction. To further put that in perspective, it's also more than 4 times what we've spent in Iraq.7
This plan is not about "offsetting," or rebuilding—it's about exploiting this crisis to push their longstanding goals for America. As conservative movement leader Grover Norquist has often put it, the goal is to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."8 This proposal is their latest attempt to drown the public sector.
The excess of the Republicans' proposed cuts is almost unbelievable. You can read the full proposal here:
http://www.political.moveon.org/images/operation_offset/operation_offset.htm?id=6043-5859053-nCe2zbCtTK2SmQM6YKFzSw&t=4
Here are just some of the most egregious cuts:
$225 billion cut from Medicaid, the last-resort health insurance program for the very poor.
$200 billion cut from Medicare, the health care safety net for the elderly and the disabled.
$25 billion cut from the Centers for Disease Control
$6.7 billion cut from school lunches for poor children
$7.5 billion cut from programs to fight global AIDS
$5.5 billion to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
$3.6 billion cut to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities
$8.5 billion cut to eliminate all subsidized loans to graduate students.
$2.5 billion cut from Amtrak
$2.5 billion to eliminate the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative
$417 million cut to eliminate the Minority Business Development Agency
$4.8 billion cut to eliminate all funding for the Safe and Drug-Free schools program
And the list goes on and on.
Which and how many of these cuts move forward in Congress depends largely on the public response this week.
As the reconstruction begins our country faces a basic question: Will we respond to Katrina by banding together to solve national problems, or by helping the wealthy and powerful cut and run while those left behind fend for ourselves?
The radical Republicans have spoken up loud and clear with their answer, and we must respond with ours.
Please sign today:
http://www.political.moveon.org/rebuild/?id=6043-5859053-nCe2zbCtTK2SmQM6YKFzSw&t=5
Thanks for all that you do.
–Ben, Tanya, Matt, Justin and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Monday, November 26, 2005
September 27, 2005
September 26, 2005
Imperial Grunts
This was forwarded to me by my Father-in-law, who returns to work today after his fulough given upon return from Iraq.
I recently learned that my Fox News-watching, Republican-voting mother thinks that our troops should not be in Iraq. An example of a growing phenomenon?
God-Fearing Spartans
A look at America's "imperial grunts."
BY DANIEL FORD
WSJ
Thursday, September 22, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT
"Forget the crap about it ain't being a culture war," says an American sergeant in Zamboanga, trying to explain why he regards the local Muslims as hostile. In "Imperial Grunts," Robert Kaplan surveys the U.S. military presence around the world. He finds brighter spots than this southern Philippine island but never a more succinct statement of the problem: In "Injun country," as the sergeant notes, you can't afford to be nonjudgmental.
It is Mr. Kaplan's conceit that the U.S. now governs the world and, for efficiency, has carved it into six territories or "commands." For good measure, we have a Special Operations Command to perform unconventional tasks anywhere, though they are required much more in the Middle East or South America than in, say, "Northcom," an area comprising the continental U.S., Canada, Alaska, the Caribbean--and the west coast of Greenland.
Mr. Kaplan set out to visit a hotspot in each command. His grand tour occupied him for two years, during which time he developed an abiding fondness for the men who guard the marches of the American imperium. "I was beginning to love these guys," he writes of a special-forces team in Colombia. "They had amassed so much technical knowledge about so many things at such a young age. They could perform minor surgery on the spot. Yet they had such a reduced sense of self compared to everyone I knew in the media and public policy worlds."
One of the more surprising of Mr. Kaplan's findings is that evangelical Christianity helped to transform the military in the 1980s, rescuing the Vietnam-era Army from drugs, alcohol and alienation. That reformation, together with the character-building demands of Balkans deployments of the 1990s (more important, in his judgment, than the frontal wars against Saddam Hussein), created our "imperial grunts."
The phrase is slightly misleading--even off-putting. As a synonym for American troops, "grunt" came and mostly went with the Vietnam War, evoking the dispirited soldiery of that era. And "imperial," with its adjectival nod to "imperialism," concedes too much to those who argue that the U.S. and the world would be better served if we withdrew behind our own borders. But Mr. Kaplan intends something positive--a way of suggesting that our far-flung troops are the descendants of the cavalry, dragoons and civilian frontiersmen who fought the Indian wars of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, his opening chapter is titled "Injun Country," a term that was also popular in the early days of the Vietnam War and one that soldiers use with respect.
The book is replete with such catchphrases. The military would grind to a halt without them, as surely as if it ran out of gasoline or computer chips. So nouns become verbs: templating, civilianizing, unassetting (which means emptying a helicopter of troops and which in turn is reduced to unassing). Ideas become acronyms, mostly mind-numbing but sometimes soaring to poetry: I was delighted to learn that what we used to call nation-building is now MOOTWA, for military operations other than war.
And in quiet moments the troops explain themselves in terms that call to mind an earlier America: God, country, honor, duty. "The clichés were spoken with utter seriousness," Mr. Kaplan assures us. "That's ultimately why these guys liked George W. Bush so much. . . . He spoke the way they did, with a lack of nuance, which they found estimable because their own tasks did not require it."
The book's structure--an author introducing himself to six geographical areas, then introducing them to us--can be repetitive, so the book sometimes drags. It is most compelling when the subject is the U.S. Army Special Forces. The Green Berets are everywhere. Mr. Kaplan visits them, among other places, at Firebase Gardez in southern Afghanistan, a mud-walled fort over which fly the flags of the U.S., Texas and the Florida Gators.
"We're the damn Spartans," explains Maj. Kevin Holiday of Tampa, "physical warriors with college degrees." A civil engineer with three kids, he is a National Guardsman with an attitude. "God has put me here," he tells Mr. Kaplan. "I'm a Christian. . . . You see this all around you"--the dust, deprivation and anxiety of Injun Country--"well, it's the high point of my life and of everyone else here." It's not just officers, and not only the Green Berets. Cpl. Michael Pinckney, a Marine, tells Mr. Kaplan: "I don't want to be anywhere else but Iraq. . . .This is what manhood is all about. I don't mean macho [stuff] either. I mean moral character."
If "Imperial Grunts" serves no other purpose, it is a wonderful corrective to the disenchanted troops we sometimes see on the television news or in the new TV series "Over There," or read about in the dispatches of reporters and pundits who are themselves disenchanted by the war on terror.
September 22, 2005
Borrowing Trouble (from China) in Katrina's Wake
There is an excellent editorial on NPR.org about something Jeff has brought up a couple of times here.
“The future beneficiaries of that policy will be our creditors, including China and her neighbors... in the long run, creditor nations tend to rise as debtor nations decline.”
Borrowing Trouble (from China) in Katrina's Wake
By Ron Elving
NPR.org, September 19, 2005 ·
If you think the costs of war in Iraq and recovery from Hurricane Katrina will force President Bush to raise taxes, think again. No matter how high the price may go for rebuilding the Gulf Coast while staying the course in the Persian Gulf, this White House will not choose the revenue option.
If you think the Congress is going to cut enough spending to offset Katrina's costs, think again. Nothing in memory suggests our lawmakers will risk the ire of their constituencies with the massive rescissions that would be required.
That leaves one way to meet the new obligations of disaster relief while sustaining the rest of Uncle Sam's commitments, foreign and domestic. It is the path of least resistance, the well-worn path to the international credit markets. No sooner had the Congress approved more than $60 billion in hurricane relief than the Treasury Department readied a new issue of 30-year bonds.
So we will borrow what we need to rebuild Louisiana and her neighbors. The future beneficiaries of that policy will be our creditors, including China and her neighbors. Right now, they like investing in America by owning our debt. And in the long run, creditor nations tend to rise as debtor nations decline.
Why do our policymakers accept this trajectory? Why can't the United States government raise the cash domestically or reduce other spending? The reasons are several, and they are not hard to understand.
Four years ago this month President Bush stood in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center and said "whatever it takes." Last week he stood in an eerie, empty Jackson Square in New Orleans and said "whatever it costs."
In both cases, he spoke to a nation convulsed with shock, grief and anger. In both cases, his words of resolve could be taken as a source of inspiration. But such open-ended promises also commit the nation to sacrifices that are hard to foresee and harder still to manage -- sacrifices that are unequally shared. We are finding that out in Iraq, and we will get another demonstration in the Deep South.
We are at war in Iraq without raising taxes, even though this will add as much as $100 billion to our budget deficit this year. The Bush administration has made an economic calculation here and a political one. His economic thinking says higher taxes would undercut economic growth and worsen the deficit, so putting a war on the cuff is the lesser evil. The political side assumes it's suicidal to raise taxes to pay for a war that a majority in opinion polls say was a mistake.
By similar logic, we will also rebuild the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast without raising taxes, even though this could add $200 billion to our federal debt in the near future (using the cost estimate of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist). The economic calculation here is that a short term spike in borrowing will hurt the economy less than a tax increase would. Borrowing, the thinking goes, allows the economy to continue growing and supplying richer revenue streams to the federal treasury (as indeed it has in the fiscal year ending this month).
The political calculation on Katrina's costs is a product of the Bush family's experience in the Oval Office. The first President Bush was elected in 1988 after taking the anti-tax pledge. "Read my lips, no new taxes," was the centerpiece of his nomination acceptance speech (delivered in the Superdome in New Orleans). In the summer of 1990, in the midst of budget negotiations with a Democratic Congress, the president agreed to some new revenue measures in order to get a deal.
It should be remembered that the first President Bush had lots of reasons to hit the tax button. In the summer of 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and the buildup to the Persian Gulf War of 1991 began. The federal deficit was already a bigger percentage of the budget than it is today. And as the savings and loan industry crisis hit its peak, the federal government was facing projected bailout costs in the hundreds of billions. (The total cost wound up being about $150 billion, four-fifths of which was borne by the federal government.)
Despite all that, Bush's compromise played as a broken promise. On TV the "read my lips" clip replayed endlessly. Rebellion broke out among Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the country. Pat Buchanan entered the GOP primaries against the incumbent President Bush in 1992, weakening him for the general election against Democrat Bill Clinton and independent Ross Perot. The first Bush was a one-term president.
That wound remains fresh in the family and in the current White House. No matter how embattled it may become, Fortress Bush will not be taken that way again.
As for spending cuts to offset the Katrina costs, they are embraced at once by all, as always, in public. But privately, there is no agreement on what to cut. If you oppose the war in Iraq you'll say save the money there, but the administration and Republican Hill leaders will hear none of it.
What about domestic spending? An anticipated $10 billion reduction in Medicaid payments to states was on the congressional agenda this month. It was postponed because of Katrina, and in effect it is now doomed.
The addition of prescription drug coverage to Medicare is scheduled to kick in next year. This new benefit could be delayed -- saving tens of billions -- but so far no one has made a move to do so. Perhaps the protests of AARP and other seniors' groups that backed the new benefit would be too much to bear in the midterm election year of 2006.
How hard is it to cut spending in the 109th Congress? No less a conservative than Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader, now says that after 11 years of Republican majority in his chamber, there's just not much fat left to cut.
So that leaves borrowing, the option that requires nothing but letting it happen.
No wonder there are people in Asia who believe the yuan will be the world currency standard in their lifetimes.
September 21, 2005
September 16, 2005
Consistent Compassion
Check out this Newsweek editorial. Among the highlights:
"The genius of the whole Republican program, in fact, is that it not only offers tax cuts and morality, but tax cuts as morality."
September 15, 2005
Workers' Family Coverage Reaches $10,880 Average
"The cost of health insurance for working Americans climbed 9.2 percent this year, the lowest rate of increase since 2000 but still far ahead of both general inflation and workers' pay increases, according to a nationwide survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
On average, health insurance for a family cost $10,880 this year, with the employer paying $8,167 and the worker $2,713, the survey found. The total cost almost exactly matches the total annual earnings of a person working full time at the minimum wage, the survey noted."
September 14, 2005
Spurning the Free Market
I'm interested in your feedback on this article in my local paper that I'll be using in my 12th grade Economics class on Friday.
September 13, 2005
Confirmation
If you get a chance, listen to the confirmation hearing. It just started.
Click NPR Program Stream.
September 12, 2005
Fox News
One month ago my wife and I had cable TV hooked up so that she could watch her old roomate on The Real World.
An unintended byproduct of this dive into mass culture was my recent exposure to Fox News.
You know, all of the things everyone says about Fox's bias? It really is true.
I'm mainly talking about the little stuff, how questions are phrased and things of that sort.
Huh.
September 09, 2005
Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk
Why is tax money being spent to support partisan politics?
Tight Constraints on Pentagon's Freedom Walk
Event Remembering 9/11, Troops to Be Kept 'Sterile,' Limited to Preregistered
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 9, 2005; A01
Organizers of the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial Freedom Walk on Sunday are taking extraordinary measures to control participation in the march and concert, with the route fenced off and lined with police and the event closed to anyone who does not register online by 4:30 p.m. today.
The march, sponsored by the Department of Defense, will wend its way from the Pentagon to the Mall along a route that has not been specified but will be lined with four-foot-high snow fencing to keep it closed and "sterile," said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense.
The U.S. Park Police will have its entire Washington force of several hundred on duty and along the route, on foot, horseback and motorcycles and monitoring from above by helicopter. Officers are prepared to arrest anyone who joins the march or concert without a credential and refuses to leave, said Park Police Chief Dwight E. Pettiford.
The event, the America Supports You Freedom Walk, is billed as a memorial to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks and a show of support for those serving in the military, topped off with a concert by country singer Clint Black, known for his pro-troops anthem, "Iraq and Roll." Organizers said they expect 3,000 to 10,000 participants.
Barber said that organizers would rather not have such stringent measures on their event but that police had requested them.
Pettiford said officers would patrol to keep interlopers out because the Pentagon restricted the event in its permit application. "That is what their permit called for, so we have those fences to keep the public out."
Once the National Park Service approves the permit, it is normal for police to do what they can to adhere to the organizers' requests. "It's a permitted event. That means [organizers] are allowed to say who is in and who's out," said Sgt. Scott Fear, a Park Police spokesman. He declined to say how many officers were in the Park Police, which had a Washington detail of about 400 two years ago.
What's unusual for an event on the Mall is the combination of fences, required preregistration and the threat of arrest.
Park Police officials said security and safety were concerns, especially because Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld will participate in some of the day's events. They said they have approved a permit for a small group of protesters that plans to stand along Independence Avenue.
Barber at first said this week that event organizers would rather not be so strict but that they were complying with police orders. But yesterday she said Park Police offered two options: Screen participants at the Mall, as police did for the Fourth of July fireworks and concert, where bags would be searched and restricted items such as alcohol, weapons, animals or glass bottles would be seized; or screen them at the Pentagon and, by restricting access throughout the march, "make sure the same people who were screened at the Pentagon are the same people going to the concert," she said.
Barber added: "We didn't want a bottleneck at the concert. We didn't want people to miss the concert while waiting to be screened. So we decided to do the screening at the Pentagon. That means the entire route has to be kept closed."
Some military supporters have welcomed the event as a way to counter the antiwar movement and back the troops abroad. Antiwar groups say they are convinced that the event was orchestrated to boost the war effort and link the war to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks -- and to undercut an antiwar protest planned for Sept. 24.
One restricted group will be the media, whose members will not be allowed to walk along the march route. Reporters and cameras are restricted to three enclosed areas along the route but are not permitted to walk alongside participants walking from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge to the Mall.
The Washington Post and other corporate entities initially signed on as co-sponsors. But critics from within the newspaper and from the antiwar movement said partnering with the Pentagon raised questions about objectivity, and three weeks ago The Post pulled its co-sponsorship.
Other media co-sponsors -- WTOP radio, WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 -- support the effort with advertising.
Opponents of the Freedom Walk took issue with the way the Pentagon is staging the event. When the walk first was publicized, participants were required to submit their names, ages, e-mail addresses and home addresses. After some groups accused the Pentagon of using the registration as a recruiting tool for the military, the requirements were changed.
Barber said the government now asks for a full name, age group, T-shirt size and e-mail address (each registered walker will get a T-shirt). Walkers have until 4:30 p.m. today to register, which must be done online ( http://www.asyfreedomwalk.com/ ).
Officials at the Pentagon, where 184 people died in the attack, decided to open the attack site and memorial chapel to the public tomorrow for the first time.
Visitors will be welcome from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and can see the stone that marks the crash site of American Airlines Flight 77 and the memorial chapel built there.
There is no need to register to visit the memorial chapel tomorrow.
September 07, 2005
The Health of Social Security
This is an excerpt from Jim Wallis' efforts to save Social Security.
Social Security is an expression of national values. It is about protecting the American dream, but also honoring God's community by providing opportunity and dignity. People of faith should be troubled by the narrow focus thus far in the Social Security debate. Government philosophies that gamble with critical social supports are not new. But at this time, with Social Security and basic supports for all people at risk, we must raise a prophetic voice about national commitments.
We must push Congress to understand what is at stake for all Americans. It's up to us and others who care about a better, broader national discussion to bring that about. Call to Renewal and Sojourners will work to put the people back in the conversation, help move the discussion to higher ground, and urge leaders to keep the promise for all God's people. But we need your help.
September 05, 2005
The Economic Divide
The Economic Divide:
In Tale of Two Families, a Chasm Between Haves and Have-Nots
September 02, 2005
Depravity
I'm not really hoping for a discussion on this one, but this article about conditions in the Superdome before it was evacuated was so striking that I wanted to share it.