By Norwood
Elaine Cassel thinks average Americans might be getting a clue:
A young salesperson in Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue asked me if I thought it odd that Ashcroft was holding rallies to promote the Patriot Act. Isn’t there a law against that, he said?
Another young man asked if I thought that the Patriot Act’s provisions would be extended. Weren’t many of the provisions “against the law,” he asked?
The people I spoke with were reluctant to suggest that Bush was “evil.” The young man in Neiman Marcus asked, “Do you really think he is trying to do the right thing?” Another, does he only care about his father’s buddies? Or does he care about “us”? Did Bush knowingly lie about intelligence that indicated Iraq was an imminent threat?
Is something wrong with Ashcroft, another young man asked? I mean, why would anybody cover up a statute (sic) to hide breasts?
Despite all the Orwellian pronouncements, despite the stage sets and the managed messages, Bush and his cronies seem to be losing their grip on power. This is double plus good. I just hope there are still some average citizens alive and solvent to enjoy the rest of the century.
Posted as Uncategorized
Other posts by Norwood.
2 Comments »
By Norwood
Gee, how shocking. The phone companies, who wrote this bill regulating themselves, are now using the law to screw consumers. From Tampabay: the SP Times:
The PSC must approve or reject the requests within 90 days. If approved, the increases would go into effect immediately.
The new state rules on phone rates, which were crafted by the major phone companies, permit them to increase their base phone rates if they agree to corresponding decreases in the fees they charge long-distance providers to access their networks.
The law marked a dramatic easing in Florida’s regulation of phone rates, which until recently had permitted base rates to increase 1 percentage point less than the rate of inflation.
The major phone companies argued that the changes would benefit consumers because wider profit margins for local phone services would encourage more companies to enter the market, spur competition and expand consumer choice. They also noted the law requires long-distance companies to pass along their cost savings to customers.
Consumer advocates scoffed at that, arguing long-distance rates aren’t regulated so any customer savings could be short-lived.
Posted as Tampa
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
Jeb is still trying to mess with individual rights. MJ fills us in:
What a chance for the governor to chase the prize he’s really after. He’d like nothing better than for a judge to declare a fetus a person with legal rights, including the right to have a guardian.
That would turn Florida law on its head. It would open the door to a flood of challenges to abortion and a woman’s right to decide about the most private parts of her life.
One of the most offensive elements of Bush’s position in the Orlando case is his opportunism. He has taken advantage of a woman attacked while unable to care for herself and turned her plight into a weapon with which to wage war on women.
Posted as Florida
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
From the NY Times, Bob Herbert picks a theme familiar to BlogWood readers: (those are 2 different links, but both to BlogWood archives. Click away!)
He was going to be the education president, and during the campaign in 2000 he hugged kids from coast to coast, crowing about the education miracle in Texas and promising to spread the Texas model nationwide.
He said he was a different kind of Republican, a man of honor and compassion who would look out for the kids.
It was all smoke, of course — photo-ops in a cynical campaign. You knew it was smoke when the “compassionate” George W. Bush put Dick Cheney on the ticket, a former congressman who had voted against funding for Head Start, against subsidizing school lunches and against federal aid for college students.
In other words, against kids.
Next week the Senate will take up the education budget proposed for next year by the White House and Senate Republicans. From the perspective of those who are pro-children, it’s loaded with bad news. Not only does the bill fall far short of the photo-op promises Mr. Bush made to provide funding for programs to improve public education, but it would actually cut $200 million from the president’s very own (and relentlessly touted) No Child Left Behind Act.
…
As for the Texas education miracle — more smoke. The largest and most frequently praised district, Houston, is being monitored by the state after an audit showed that more than half of the 5,500 students who left school in the 2000-2001 year should have been counted as dropouts, but were not.
President Bush was apparently serious about bringing the Texas model to the nation. He made the superintendent of the Houston school district the nation’s education secretary.
Posted as National
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
The Washington Post reports that a buck can still be made on human suffering:
Halliburton, the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney, has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion out of Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, according to newly available documents.
The size and scope of the government contracts awarded to Halliburton in connection with the war in Iraq are significantly greater than previously disclosed and demonstrate the U.S. military’s increasing reliance on for-profit corporations to run its logistical operations. Independent experts estimate that as much as one-third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in Iraq is going to independent contractors.
Posted as Imperialism
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
David Lindorf, writing in Counterpunch, takes on the oil comapnies:
Remember that $400 family credit that you got from the IRS (assuming you weren’t one of those 8 million poor families that the Republicans and the president decided didn’t deserve a tax rebate)?
Well, if your family has the typical two cars and two drivers, and you each drive the typical 15,000 miles a year and get the typical 20 miles per gallon, that windfall will be more than eaten up by New Years by what might be called the Bush/Cheney oil price surcharge, which has seen gas prices soar in recent weeks to the high they reached last March on the eve of the war against Iraq.
click to continue
Posted as Misc
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
From today’s SP Times, where Mary Jo Melone is ignoring statistics and attempting to prove that violent crime in Tampa is a massive problem:
I sometimes think that the bay area is particularly dangerous.
Then I think that the impression is false, that we are still just small enough that the police disclose to the press some serious crimes that larger police forces, in larger cities, would prosecute, but otherwise ignore.
In other words, I sometimes think that talking about crime is a matter of perception, that the bay area picture isn’t nearly as grave as last week indicated.
But last week in Tampa was a whopper.
Last week was one of those reminders to check your reflexes in elevators and parking lots, to make sure the car and house doors are properly locked, to remember that no possession - no car, no wallet, no jewelry - is worth a life, and that, in the face of terror, there is only so much you can do.
She ALMOST gets it. And then she sells out to the hype machine. Her last thought
in the face of terror, there is only so much you can do
completely neutralizes her previous reasonable statements about perception and reality.
Listen: violent crime is ultra-hyped by local media, especially TV. Violent crime makes for good TV and good ratings, so the TV stations naturally hype it. Having a populace which is under the impression that violent crime is a problem is advantageous to government leaders and police departments, as long as the problem isn’t seen as having been allowed to fester uncontrolled by those same leaders and police.
So, TV and other local media play up the incidence of violent crime by running columns like MJ’s, and the populace naturally thinks violent crime is a big problem that must be dealt with. The populace rallies behind their government leaders and the police, seeking protection from the rapists and killers who are lurking behind every corner. Politicians talk tough, police get bigger budgets, civil liberties of poor and minority residents are often trampled, and everyone is happy.
According to statistics, violent crime is down right now, but studies show that regular TV news viewers think that violent crime is up. MJ dredges up a 12 year old case to further skew citizens’ impressions. It was a horrible and violent crime, but this sort of thing simply does not happen every day around here.
Posted as Tampa
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
MediaChannel.org | News Dissector Web Log (scroll down for Pallast piece)
So who are these “experts” who revealed The Truth to the The Times? The authors quote seven in the article, beginning with David Owen, the industry’s chief lobbyist. That paid shill is followed by James Hoecker, identified by his former title only, as a “independent” regulator. Just from the article, you’d think the poor guy is unemployed these days. In fact, he’s walked comfortably through the revolving door and onto the industry payroll. His law firm represents, among others, First Energy, the characters who started the black-out rolling. I guess that fact was not “fit to print” in The Times.
“My favorite is the Times giving us the expert advice of the “director of Transmission for the National Grid Transco which owns and runs the grid in England and Wales.” This Brit says Americans should pay more money to grid operators. What he doesn’t say — and the Times is happy to keep his secret — is that his corporation owns Niagara-Mohawk Power Corporation, the company that spread the power outage into New York. Undoubtedly, NiMo’s failure to react to the emergency resulted from the corporation’s eliminating 800 workers in New York over the past two years and radically cutting investment in the grid system it operates in the USA.
Posted as Uncategorized
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
By Norwood
While Dubya golfs, we need to get active!
Not Geniuses: Flood the Zone Fridays, brought to you by Karl Rove
Flood the Zone Fridays, brought to you by Karl Rove
Posted by Ezra Klein
George W. Bush has a new website up, and upon seeing it, you have to admit — this is a campaign that “gets” the web. Their website consolidates many of the tools that the Democratic challengers and their supporters have been experimenting with, and they are well implemented. Particularly impressive is their Action Center, which has one the the coolest, most useful tools I’ve ever seen:
If you scroll about halfway down the page, you’ll see a field where you can input your zip code — once you do, you’ll be given a large list of newspapers and radio shows in your area, complete with contact information for each of them. It’s mighty impressive.
Well, George Bush might have some good tools, but we have the online organization — and tools mean nothing without good, motivated activists. However, we can do a lot with those tools, and we mean to.
Matt Singer and I originally conceived of this as a project for the DDF, but we quickly realized this wasn’t candidate specific — this is for every lefty in America. So here is what we propose. We want to get a coalition together — every influential and non-influential lefty site with the ability to direct readers and members over to the Bush action tools. And every Friday, we want to use those tools to write letters and make calls highlighting a different part of the Bush disaster. This Friday will be fiscal irresponsibility day — where we blanket the media with calls and letters about Bush’s absurd fiscal policies. We’re even going to get you the info, for instance, behold the Bush Record (if you’re not a Dean supporter, just ignore the stuff about Dean).
But this week, we have to pull together the players. That’s where you all come in. This needs to move through the blogosphere in much the same way that the “Fair and Balanced” day did. Matt and I can get to a lot of people, but we don’t know everybody and we don’t have the manpower to do it on our own. So E-mail this around, or simply E-mail your favorite blog-owners and ask them to be part of “Flood the Zone” Fridays, brought to you by Karl Rove and the good folks running the Bush Campaign.
Come Friday, Matt or I will post up some talking points and sample letters, and then watch the fun begin. Lets show Rove who owns the ‘net.
Posted as National
Other posts by Norwood.
No Comments »
By Norwood
From the Sp TImes:
House Speaker Johnnie Byrd used a list of “Choose Life” license tag owners to promote a new parental-notice abortion law, an aide confirmed Wednesday.
Byrd spent $14,000 in tax money on the mailing last month, days after he announced his bid for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination. A letter sent to about 30,000 holders of the tags, signed by Byrd and Rep. Sandra Murman, R-Tampa, criticized the Florida Supreme Court for ruling that a parental notification law violated the state Constitution’s privacy clause.
Byrd’s use of the Choose Life database to send a political message shows that the tag is a political statement against abortion, not a pro-adoption plea as its supporters claim, says a lawyer who is suing the state to outlaw the tag.
“It’s totally improper, but it’s consistent with the agenda demonstrated up there,” said Boca Raton lawyer Barry Silver, a former Democratic legislator. “They’re totally responsive to the radical right. . . . The Legislature knew that the license plate was designed to be antiabortion.”
The targeted mailing stirred criticism of Byrd from Republicans, too. Sue Banks of Palm Beach Gardens, of the Florida chapter of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition, said she was angry that Byrd tailored his message to a select group.
“He did not communicate this issue to his constituents across the board. He chose a very narrow band to get the word out,” Banks said. “And there’s the implication, because of the narrow band of people that he sent this to: Support me for election, send me money, send me votes.”
Posted as Florida
Other posts by Norwood.
1 Comment »
