Here's your raise, Yepsen
David Yepsen asks in his May 22 Register column, "Democrats, Heed the Errors of Losing Class of '84," "Isn't repealing a planned tax cut the same thing as increasing taxes?"
If Yepsen worked for me, I'd say, "We plan to cut your salary by 10 percent starting July 1." Then, on July 1, I'd say, "We've decided to repeal that salary cut we planned. So enjoy your salary increase."
Dick Heimer
Sheffield.
Basu dishonored men and women in uniform everywhere by implying the rescue of a prisoner of war behind enemy lines was nothing more than an elaborate theatrical performance.
Robert Zeis Jr.
Des Moines.
"He keeps promoting people up from the farm club to jobs that once were reserved for giants," said Paul C. Light, a specialist in bureaucracy who is a New York University professor of public service. "That means a relatively green team, but one that will take direction from the coach. It could be interpreted as a sign of extraordinary hubris."
Aides said Bush's preference for promoting from within gives him a hardworking, committed team beholden only to him, without their own agendas. But other people close to Bush used the term "echo chamber" as they described their worry that a culture so driven by "loyalty for loyalty's sake" could produce a White House that was deaf to brewing political or governing crises
Bush aides said they were standing by their earlier predictions that the package will add 1 million jobs to the U.S. economy
"When ideological people find themselves in a hole, they ask for a bigger shovel."
-former President William Jefferson Clinton
According to the White House's own numbers, the federal government is looking at deficits from now until, well, basically forever. (Today's Financial Times reports that the Treasury Dept. commissioned a study, since downplayed by the White House, that found that the government is now facing "chronic" deficits.) As for jobs, as Slate's Daniel Gross, among others, has noted, the one million or so paying gigs that Bush predicts will be created are 1) not all that much considering the number of jobs the economy has been shedding 2) darn expensive on a per job basis.
Against Iran
The drumbeat against Iran has begun.
I see George Bush's econoomic plan.
Perpetual war.
Robert Price
Prairie City.
No Iraqi smoking gun
The weapons of mass destruction (WMD)were the main reason for waging the Iraqi war.
Now our troops can't find any WMD.
Will WMD come to stand for "Words of Monstrous Deception," lies told by President Bush and his henchmen and women?
Robert W. Gernes
Des Moines.
"Rarely," said Rumsfeld, "had so many been so wrong about so much."
And if one shifts the focus of his remarks, he was absolutely right! The whole rationale for the war put forwarded by Rumsfeld, President Bush, Colin Powell and all their cohorts was wrong.
WASHINGTON -- The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were made possible by gaping holes in airline security, government cover-ups that prevented problems from being fixed and a failure to respond to a growing threat that terrorists might use airliners as weapons, witnesses told an independent commission this week.
"The notion that these hijackings and terrorism were an unforeseen and unforeseeable risk is an airline and FAA public-relations management myth," said Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general at the Department of Transportation, in testimony Friday.
The papers all lead with the Israeli cabinet's narrow, but expected, approval of the U.S.-backed peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians, otherwise known as the "road map." The vote marks the first time the Israeli government has officially accepted the Palestinian claim to statehood, but some on the cabinet made clear they had only voted for the plan to avoid a standoff with the U.S., and they expect, or perhaps even hope, that it will fail.
Some tourists aren't even aware of the city's myriad regulations, Fuller said, such as the one prohibiting loud car stereos or Ordinance 22-10, otherwise known as the Thong Law, which prohibits exposure of "buttocks, with less than a fully opaque covering."
"I really am outraged. I express that to you with the respect and affection you know I have for you. This is not the way democracy is meant to work." - Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., to Grassley at the single meeting of the GOP-run conference committee on the tax cut, which lasted a half-hour.
U.S. intelligence also intercepted communications between bin Laden supporters discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, according to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
(see www.foxnews.com)
Congress watches its power ebb
Overhaul without oversight
Military waste under fire
Disunited Nations
Democratic presidential candidates and Republican congressional staffers are making claims about the greater fairness of government health insurance and the greater efficiency of private health insurance, respectively. Some tout the virtues of managed care, others believe the solution lies in tort reform. But the real problem is far deeper. We have come to expect, in this country, very high-tech health care, delivered without reference to price and thorough to the point of parody. Our doctors meet our expectations. No disease is too rare to test for, no technology is too expensive to use, and fear of litigation is not the only explanation.
Last month, as Congress was departing for a two-week recess, the Defense Department submitted a 200-page draft "transformation" bill that requests extensive new authorities. It is not an understatement to say that this bill, taken as a whole, is the most sweeping defense reform legislation proposed since the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which changed both the structure and the policies governing our military. The only thing that is obvious and consistent throughout the 50 provisions included in this bill is the aggregation of power sought for the Department of Defense, removing the legal restrictions and congressional oversight that should safeguard against any abuses, however unintentional. This approach is a rush to judgment that will affect vast numbers of people and, in many cases, will enshrine bad policy in law.
In an unusual protest, about 600 Beit Hanoun residents blocked a main thoroughfare with trash cans, rocks and burning tires to show their anger at the militants and Palestinian Authority officials
The two-hour finale of ABC's reality romance hit "The Bachelor" was the big winner Sunday in the ratings race for young adult viewers, while the first half of a CBS miniseries about Hitler finished third, according to preliminary figures from Nielsen Media Research.
The two-hour special broadcast of 60 Minutes delivered a 9.1/16, 12.86 million. The first part of Hitler: Rise of Evil, focusing on the Nazi dictator's youth, earned a 9.0/14, 13.52 million. CBS placed first on Sunday in viewers and households with a 9.0/15 and an average of 13.22 million viewers. The other networks were NBC (7.9/13, 11.57 million); ABC (6.7/11, 10.62 million) and Fox (5.6/10, 9.66 million).
Final Blair thought ... There are no doubt a number of institutional and management issues that in some way or another helped Blair snooker the Times and readers. Here's one to add to the pile: The NYT makes it unnecessarily difficult for readers to contact staffers. The LAT, WP, and WSJ all use a standard e-mail naming scheme. So, if you know the name of a reporter or editor, you can e-mail them. The LAT helps that along by publishing an editorial staff directory, while the WP has an easily contactable ombudsman. The NYT has none of that. Nor does it seem to have an e-mail address exclusively devoted to corrections
Among the U.S. electorate, though, the concern about Hussein's weapons programs has been swiftly replaced by an increased sense of security that came with the successful military action. Even fiercely partisan Democrats say privately that they fear criticizing Bush for overstating Hussein's weapons capability could make Democrats appear to be defending Hussein's regime.
"Inasmuch as we've already done the deed, the need for that as a rationale is less," he said.
White House officials express confidence that Bush is not vulnerable on the absence of banned weapons in Iraq, if only because few people in either party doubted that Hussein had such weapons. "Both Republicans and Democrats alike know that Saddam Hussein had a WMD program," said White House communications director Dan Bartlett. "In fact, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution that confirmed it. So why would you criticize something the entire world knows to be true?"
In November, the Security Council's unanimously approved Resolution 1441, which found Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations and gave it a "final opportunity to comply." But now even some close allies of the Bush administration say they have serious doubts about the intelligence evidence Bush and his aides used to win passage of that resolution.
Before the war, the administration said that Iraq had not accounted for 25,000 liters of anthrax; 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent; and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Bush said at the start of the war that Hussein "threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder."
U.S. troops will remain in place and allied officials will remain in charge, thereby delaying Iraqi self-rule for the time being. The allied rationale, according to the NYT¸ is that an interim government would not have the strength and resources to rule effectively at present—and that it's failure would tarnish the allied victory.
The divisions are similar to those that first appeared among the candidates over the war in Iraq with a few exceptions. U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, who backed the president on Iraq, is joining anti-war Democrats who back a full or partial repeal of the Bush tax cuts.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, who opposed the war, is lining up with pro-war Democrats who back keeping in place the 2001 tax cuts already in effect.
The FedBudget Factoid: Average per capita expenditures of industrial countries on international aid: $66. Per capita expenditures of US on international aid: $33. Per capita expenditure of US on military: $1,202
Let me be clear on what the U.S. objectives are: The United States wants Iraq to rejoin the family of nations as a freedom-loving and law-abiding member. This is in our interest and that of our allies within the region.
The United States favors an Iraq that offers its people freedom at home. I categorically reject arguments that this is unattainable due to Iraq's history or its ethnic or sectarian make-up. Iraqis deserve and desire freedom like everyone else. The United States looks forward to a democratically supported regime that would permit us to enter into a dialogue leading to the reintegration of Iraq into normal international life.
My Administration has pursued, and will continue to pursue, these objectives through active application of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions. The evidence is overwhelming that such changes will not happen under the current Iraq leadership.
"It's ironic that we're now talking about going into Iraq to clean up these weapons," Mr. Pitts added.
Here we suddenly discover that Iran is much further along, with a far more robust nuclear weapons development program than anyone said it had," Powell said Sunday on CNN's "Late Edition." "It shows you how a determined nation that has the intent to develop a nuclear weapon can keep that development process secret from inspectors and outsiders if they really are determined to do it."
Inspectors found centrifuges and other evidence that Iran had made more progress than anyone had thought
"Perhaps for the first time in this country's history, most Americans could no longer expect their children and grandchildren to have higher living standards than their own."
"Only very idealistic people in Russia can believe that when it comes to dividing the control over Iraqi oil resources, Bush will listen to Putin rather than to his friends from Texan oil companies," he said. "The Americans are not giving us any guarantees yet anyway."
Says a 23-year-old Iranian student at a cafe, "Can they hurry up with Iraq already, so they can get on with attacking us?"
And despite the inference from the Register, which neglected to mention any countries, European or otherwise, that support American efforts, most European countries actually support U.S. actions toward Iraq.
It clearly falls into the category of political satire that we see and hear in the mainstream media every day. It is unlike humor based on race, ethnicity and sexual preference, whose targets suffer hostility and persecution that produce severe consequences on the basis of inherent human characteristics.
The final irony is that Mann's detractors have given him another diabolism for his list: "Republicans believe satire is a hate crime."
And peace activists can generate a lot more press attention than the hawks. Let 750 people show up at a church to relive their youth singing "60s peace songs and it's a bigger TV story than the fact that a growing number of Iowans - 59 percent - tell pollsters they support the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein from power. And 20 people carrying anti-war pickets get more ink and airtime than the fact that hundreds of Iowans are showing up at send-off ceremonies for our troops.
