Gotham Notes...

Monday, October 20, 2003

Congratulations...

... You are now officially $1,247.33 in debt, and growing!

That's over and above any debt you've incurred on your own, of course.

This new debt for every man, woman and child in the United States is brought to you by the happy folks in the Bush Administration. As they always say, "We're here for you!"

For more info, look here.

***

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posted by Gotham 4:00 PM

Saturday, October 18, 2003

Fightin' Words...

Rarely have I been as angry reading a news story as I was reading this one from The New York Times:

How to Recover From a Bad Economy, and Win

We all knew that desperation would be settling in over at the White House as their poll numbers dropped and we get closer to the 2004 election. This is no great news flash.

But here is the section that rankled me most:

"Job growth is an issue, but there are two things President Bush will benefit from," said Representative Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican. "People have a more sophisticated understanding of the economy, and don't expect miracles from fiscal policy or monetary policy from here in Washington. Second, there's a realization that he has pushed hard to do something about it."

Oh, has he, now...

That would be awfully good to know.

This is right out of the We-assume-you-CAN-fool-all-of-the-people-all-of-the-time school of politics.

This screams: We're incompetent, but you won't hold it against us, would you? Especially not while I'm holding this flag here, right?

Yes, Rep. Portman, the American people do have a more sophisticated understanding of the economy than earlier generations might have had.

While you may not have been looking, they spent eight years entering the stock market through retirement plans and increased wages, which they were encouraged to invest—in order to help the country "grow the economy" (remember that one?) and to improve their own, new portfolios. They were instructed to fend for their own futures. A very Republican type of idea, you must admit.

Knowing little about this brave new world of finance, Americans flocked to instructional sources, and, voila, a new cottage industry and a whole new small investor class were created.

Americans started reading The Wall Street Journal for the first time. They started to watch CNBC and CNNfn; poured over web sites like Motley Fool and The Street.com; read Business Week and Money and Fortune and Forbes and CBS MarketWatch.com, absorbing as much as they could in as short a period of time as possible. What they didn't understand, they ended up doing more research on. Most importantly, they learned. Seniors, kids, the working class, the middle class, the newly affluent, those on the bottom who finally had jobs and money in their pockets. People everywhere finally understood the age-old Republican notion of Self-Reliance, which Bill Clinton stole and made his own, then sold to the American people.

Americans watched and understood as George W. Bush went through the 2000 Republican primaries saying that what we needed were tax cuts to spread the massive surplus back around the country. With all this cash floating around, didn't sound too bad an idea.

When the Market began to cool, they also understood what was needed. But then immediately after election day, they watched Bush's panicked response to Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan's statements about the need to let the air out of the tech bubble slowly in order to acheive "a soft landing," thereby avoiding a crash. They saw Bush's attempt to further his own aims by saying, See? See? the economy's in horrible shape, always has been and now we desperately need tax cuts, before we go Crash! We're gonna Crash, I say! This became his mantra all during the Surpeme Court haggling over the election's winner, and afterwards. And of course it panicked investors, and not surprisingly, we ended up with the crash instead of the soft landing.

They understood for three full years as they saw the Bush administration stand by impotently as the stock markets (and Americans' dreams for a better life) lost up to 70% of their value.

They understood as they saw the administration's only course of action over three years was to push successive tax cuts through Congress, only to see them fail as stimulants while the wealth of average Americans slid still further.

They understood the severity of the problem. They saw Greenspan throw a series of interest rate cuts at the economy, only to have no impact, separately or together. They saw that every arrow he shot at the economy failed to land without any thoughtful or effective help from the White House. They now clearly see and understand that the Fed Chairman is barely hanging on, down to one last arrow. But still, no help comes from the White House.

They understood the economy too well when they saw their savings, retirement funds and college savings accounts disappear.

They understood the economy when they saw their co-workers laid off, doubling or tripling their own workloads.

They understood the economy fully when they themselves were laid off, first blowing through what was left of their savings, then their unemployment funds. All the while they've been watching more jobs flow to other countries for cheap labor and, increasingly, cheap management. They also see the slew of companies incorporating overseas to avoid fair taxation.

They looked for policy from the White House to lead them out of financial terrorism. They understood fully when the White House called for more tax cuts.

"People have a more sophisticated understanding of the economy, and don't expect miracles from fiscal policy or monetary policy from here in Washington"

Correct, we do understand. We've never expected miracles. Just basic, core competency. We've been denied both.

"Second, there's a realization that he has pushed hard to do something about it."

They also understand bullshit when they see it.

Rep. Portman, we've watched. We've looked to the White House for leadership.

At no point has anyone in this administration put forth a policy that has been any more creative than the tired refrains of "Let's try another tax cut," or "Let's deregulate something," or "The invasion of Iraq should stimulate the economy."

Both Treasury Secretaries we've suffered through, and everyone involved on the Council of Economic Advisors, have failed miserably in their mandate to come up with creative ways to expand the economy and protect the financial security of the American people.

I challenge anyone to lay out a more comprehensive approach than "tax cuts" that they've heard from anyone in this administration. It doesn't exist.

This administration has done nothing about the utter destruction of the economic health of the United States. In fact, you could go so far as to say that they could not have made matters worse had they planned it this way.

Now, in time for the 2004 elections, they're starting to get creative. Not with policy, mind you, just with rhetoric and spin.

Intent on taking—or at least being seen to take—further action, Mr. Bush has repackaged his existing domestic proposals, many of which are stalled on Capitol Hill, as "efforts to create jobs." At nearly every public appearance, he suggests that encouraging more oil and gas drilling in the United States, limiting lawsuit awards and providing tax incentives to businesses for providing health insurance will help spur more employment.

Forgive me. I simply fail to understand how raping Alaska, taking away the ability of Americans to sue those companies which callously cause irreparable harm or death to them or their families, and taking the coward's way out of offering more tax cuts to businesses instead of attacking the runaway greed of insurance companies are all supposed to translate somehow into more jobs for people who are running out of unemployment benefits.

Or improve the lot of the "lucky" ones still employed—many of whom are doing the work of 6-12 people, while being denied raises, vacations and days off, and forced to pay ever soaring rates for increasingly inferior health coverage.

Maybe there's actually nothing there to really understand. Just accept it on faith and move on. I see.

So in essence, for the next year and a half, every time someone in Bush's White House takes a crap, you'll hear they're working on stimulating the water, chemical and waste treatment industries and create jobs. Gotcha.

This is called a Domestic Agenda.

The American people understand perfectly.

***

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posted by Gotham 1:11 PM

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The Rape of Iraq Begins in Earnest

Josh Marshall passes along an extremely disturbing piece from the Financial Times in his latest Talking Points Memo.

I tried to track down the original, but I couldn't find it on the FT.com site, and I don't have a subscription to FT in any event. So I pass on a quote from it from Marshall's site.

According to an article in Tuesday’s Financial Times, US sub-contractors in Iraq are importing cheap labor from South Asia rather than hiring Iraqis.

...

"In the dusty backyard of the US administrators' Baghdad palace, south Asians, housed 12 to a Saudi-made temporary cabin, organise 180,000 meals a day for US troops and administrators.

A Tamimi manager says the company pays an average salary of one Saudi riyal (Dollars 3) a day and grants leave once every two years. The contracts are awarded by Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, which in 2001 won its second Logistics Civil Augmentation Program, or Logcap, contract to sub-contract the supply of US military provisions. The Logcap is open-ended and its Iraqi share is worth 'in excess of Dollars 2bn', according to officials of the Defence Contract Management Agency in Baghdad."

Let's see...

They're pulling in over $2 billion dollars on an open-ended contract and paying $3.00 a day to non-Iraqis.

I hope we're teaching the Iraqi Councilmembers the fine points of being a crooked politician, or they just won't be prepared to take over from us.

Disgusting.

***

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posted by Gotham 2:46 AM

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Another New York Angel

It's true.

Real New Yorkers come from every place on the globe.

posted by Gotham 2:10 AM

Friday, October 17, 2003

See the Exotic Orient...

President Bush has embarked on a jaunt around Asia, possibly looking for other places to invade...er, develop.

Our brave and staltwart leader does face serious perils however.

Especially this:

Bush and 20 other leaders are holding a meeting of Pacific Rim nations in Bangkok, Thailand, on Monday and Tuesday. Security for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit - 20,000 troops and policemen, fighter jet escorts, mice to test food for poison - underscores the gravity of Asia's terrorism threat.

But have no fear. Reports state that he's brought along House Speaker Dennis Hastert to help out at those State dinners.

posted by Gotham 6:30 PM

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Show Us the Jobs, George!

Let's return to the Gotham Notes theme of Context for a moment.

The White House is waging a full-court press effort to steer the public's focus away from the men behind the curtain, and back onto the glory of their vision.

A major component of this Happy Talk campaign entails pointing to the stock market's consistent rise since March. In essence, they are taking zippo credit for any of the country's slide along the Down side of the economic cycle and all of the credit for its coming back on the Up side of the cycle.

Even the Fed is getting into the act.

But before we rush right out and applaud, let's look at this Context thing.

Despite the chatter coming out of the White House to the effect that Happy Days Are Here Again So You Should Allow Us to Establish One-Party Rule, the Labor Department released their employment numbers last week. So, let's take a look.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the fact that there has been NO correlation between the improvement in the stock market over the last six months and employment. In fact, there has been a total disconnect.

According to the Labor Department:

Unemployment Rate (April 2003) — 6.0%
Unemployment Rate (August 2003) — 6.1%

Over a six-month period, the Unemployment rate actually WENT UP. Not a great deal, mind you, but UP nonetheless at a time it should be going DOWN. During a period which saw the Dow rise 2,000-odd points. Even given the "drag time" concept, this is unseemly.

OK, let's look at it by state. The Labor Dept. includes the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in their numbers, so I do as well. Scroll down to find your locale.

STATE — March 2003/August 2003

Alaska — 6.8/8.0
Arkansas — 5.0/5.4
Arizona — 5.9/6.1
California — 6.7/6.7
Colorado — 5.7/5.7
Connecticut — 5.2/5.2
District of Columbia — 6.5/7.2
Delaware — 4.1/4.6
Florida — 5.4/5.3
Georgia — 4.6/4.6
Hawaii — 3.7/4.3
Iowa — 4.0/4.5
Idaho — 5.4/5.7
Illinois — 6.6/6.8
Indiana — 4.8/5.2
Kansas — 4.7/4.7
Kentucky — 5.7/5.7
Louisiana — 6.3/7.2
Massachusetts — 5.7/5.8
Maryland — 4.5/4.2
Michigan — 6.7/7.4
Minnesota — 4.4/4.3
Missouri — 4.8/5.6
Mississippi — 6.0/6.3
Montana — 4.2/4.7
North Carolina — 6.0/6.5
North Dakota — 3.7/3.8
Nebraska — 3.8/3.8
New Hampshire — 4.1/4.4
New Jersey — 5.9/5.9
New Mexico — 5.9/6.1
Nevada — 5.5/5.2
New York — 6.0/6.2
Ohio — 6.2/5.8
Oklahoma — 5.1/5.4
Oregon — 7.6/8.0
Pennsylvania — 5.8/5.2
Puerto Rico — 12.2/11.2
Rhode Island — 5.3/5.3
South Carolina — 5.9/6.2
South Dakota — 3.2/3.4
Tennessee — 4.8/5.0
Texas — 6.7/6.6
Utah — 5.7/5.1
Virginia — 4.2/3.7
Vermont — 4.1/4.0
Washington — 7.1/7.5
Wisconsin — 5.5/5.9
West Virginia — 5.7/6.6
Wyoming — 4.1/4.1

Feeling better?

A quick glance shows that while Bush & Co. have been pointing to the markets' rise to prove that things were JUST FINE, only SIX states saw their unemployment percentages drop as much as even a measely 0.3% over six months. Everywhere else stayed the same or GOT WORSE.

The biggest drop was seen in Puerto Rico, with 10,000 jobs added—a full 1.0% improvement. Sounds great. Until you realize that the lower current number includes normal gearing up for the beginning of the regular tourist season, and that even with that the improved number is STILL 11.2% unemployed.

Feel better? I know I do.

Remember the following factors as you process all of the Happy Talk wafting from the White House.

One: Wall St. analysts have been complaining for at least four months that the market has overextended itself once again and has gone back to being overvalued. They claim it cannot possibly keep up the pace of growth it's seen recently—i.e., look out for Bears.

Two: The rotten economy has speeded the process of companies shipping their jobs overseas. That's ideal for making their stock prices improve, and relieves all pressure to start taking on the costs of more wages and benefits. So, as business improves, they only need bring in temps to work on a per-project basis. Life is good.

Three: The only stories that will really count are the ones where you, your family members and your neighbors will be able to talk about the new jobs you've finally gotten. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors.

Do not pay any attention to the men behind the curtain.

Just show us the jobs, George!

***

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posted by Gotham 3:01 PM

Thursday, October 16, 2003

It Continues...

When conservative newspapers get nervous, I get VERY nervous.

posted by Gotham 7:48 PM

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Here's a new White House parody site (well, new to me...), that takes a slightly different tack than whitehouse.org.

posted by Gotham 7:33 PM

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Federal Personnel Office

It seems there are a number of nominations coming from the White House for second- and third-tier Cabinet positions, which is, of course, where a goodly amount of the actual policy that impacts us on a daily basis is written.

President George W. Bush has nominated one Michael David Gallagher to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees management of government spectrum resources. This is the Agency which oversees ICANN and, therefore, the entire Internet. The position was formerly held by Nancy Victory. Gallagher has been holding the job on an interim basis. He also currently serves as Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Commerce.

I noticed a couple of interesting items in Gallagher's bio, considering he's up for a telecommunications/Internet oversight job:

Career: Administrative Assistant to Congressman Rick White (R-Washington), 1995-1997; Managing Director for Government Relations, AirTouch Communications, Inc., Bellevue, WA, 1998-2000; Vice President for State Public Policy, Verizon Wireless, Bellevue, WA; Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce, Washington, DC, 2001-present.

He certainly has had an interesting, fast-track career path.

He goes from (I assume) school to a Congressman's office for three years. Then parlays that nifty item on his resume into senior-level lobbying jobs for succesive telecommunications firms who have business before state and federal governments. Then, after maybe a year total working for these two companies, he slides smoothly into a Deputy Assistant Secretary's position in the Agency within the Cabinet Department which is charged with regulating the very companies he's just been working for. Then within two years, he gets a shot at the Agency's top job.

Either he can't hold a job in the private sector or he's making a lot of friends very quickly along the way.

In either event, it's worth keeping an eye on this lad's progress. And on his confimation process. It's often difficult to advance this quickly merely on the result of your scores on the written exam.

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Could it be?

Is it possible?

Might the Bush administration actually do something that may not do damage to the under-$250,000/yr. crowd?

Be still my heart!

If right-to-work advocate Mark Mix can be so hopping mad at President Bush, then perhaps a political nomination has promise. Mix is the head of the ultra-conservative National Right To Work Committee, which claims 2.2 million members and is located in (where else?) Virginia.

[Have you noticed how over time the great state of Virginia has gradually replaced Ohio as the eastern seat of right-wing crackpot-ism—be it religious or temporal? In California, however, Orange County maintains its grasp on the western office.]

Over at the Department of Labor, it seems that one Howard Radzely [who as a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia certainly has his Republican papers in order], has been acting-Solicitor of Labor since January of this year. He has finally been nominated by Bush for the full job. According to Mix's overwrought press release, Radzely's nomination is currently pending in the U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chaired by Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH).

In his capacity as Acting Solicitor, Radzely, it seems, has inspired the ire of the anti-union crowd by tempering new Labor Dept. union financial disclosure regulations under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, which is dear to the hearts of far right apologists for big corporations.

A lot seems to not be enough when you seek it all.

Has the greed for power so settled in with those on the right—and replaced mere lust for power—that anything short of total victory and vindication is seen as abject failure in the pursuit of their aims?

Despite whatever levity any of us who disagree with them might bring to the silliness of it all, this is the level where things get truly scary for the future of the Republic. This is where the most grievous damage is done. These people want the whole enchilada and will not tolererate dissent, even from within their own ranks.

Keep in mind, it was one grocery chain owner/idealogue from Syracuse in the late '40s whose ideological boycott of radio progams fanned the flames under the blacklist.

***

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posted by Gotham 1:26 PM

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Personal Growth

U.S. President George W. Bush has given up on speaking with God. He has decided simply to become God.

Trust us, cutting out the middleMan makes everything much simpler. And much quicker.

***

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posted by Gotham 4:06 PM

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

It's Official...

...The Bush administration has lost in Iraq.


As reported in The New York Times, this is the type of butchered diplomacy the administration excels in:

In the newly amended draft resolution circulated at the Security Council, the administration also proposed that the United Nations recognize the Iraqi Governing Council [appointed by the U.S.] as a unit that "will embody the sovereignty" of Iraq during the time that the nation returns to self-rule.

It was not clear what the term "embody" meant, but an administration official said it did not mean that the Governing Council would actually exercise control over Iraq's affairs. As a result, the change came across to many at the United Nations as more linguistic than substantive.

France has demanded that the Governing Council be vested with authority as the legitimate government of Iraq, and that the United Nations be given a central authority over the Iraqi occupation, steps endorsed by Secretary General Kofi Annan more than a week ago.

It's clear that the members of the UN see right through all of the torturerd machinations pouring out of the White House. And they will not be moved or impressed. How many ways can we say the same thing repeatedly, with childlike hope that this will be the time the UN gives us what we want: their money and our control.

Other than being duped by their masters, the American people have had little to do (other than not stopping it, of course) wtih the madness that keeps spewing out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Since things have been botched in such a high-handed way, people are saying now that they are embarrassed to be American (the Dixie Chicks just said they were embarrassed to be Texan). That these incompetants do not speak for America. That they are ashamed to be an American.

This mob of racketeers in the White House has taken away our money, taken away our jobs and our dignity, stolen our hopes, taken away our rights, embarrassed us as a people before the world community, robbed us of the touchpoints of right and wrong, taught our children that lying is the right thing to do, and killed our young in vainglorious efforts in foreign lands; plus they have heightened the very risk they were supposed to be vigoriously defending us against.

And all they have given back to us is shame.

***

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posted by Gotham 12:04 AM

Saturday, October 11, 2003

Age of the Enlightenment

Vice President Dick Cheney continues his efforts to convince Americans that the world is flat, and that we need to track down and kill Christopher Columbus to protect ourselves from falling off the edge of the earth.

Bellicose, irrational behavior. Aggressiveness and constipation. There's a reason Rush Limbaugh has been so vicious to his fellow human beings over the years. IT WAS THE DRUGS!!!

Televangelist Pat Robertson explains the Fourteenth Amendment to us in layman's terms.

Happily, Rev. Pat could stick around to give us a Civics lesson on how to approach those in civil authority.

President George W. Bush has begun to address the residue of the "hanging chad" problem that dogged him in Florida.

***

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posted by Gotham 2:17 AM

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

The Simple Truth

Through all of the upcoming episodes, remember one simple fact:

The Leaker comes from an extremely small pool of presidential advisors. These are Cabinet-level folks we're talking about here. Or someone on the top or second level of a Department or Agency, or a high-level White House staffer.

Being the CEO he constantly reminds us that he is, it is Bush's responsibility, duty and, basically his job, to call his top advisors into the Oval Office, pound the desk and say he's not going to tolerate it! Then, he'd demand the culprits leave their resignations on his desk the next morning.

That's how a man who could really fill out a flight suit would handle it. But not this White House. Not this administration. It's been over ten days since the scandal broke, and still no desk-pounding from the Oval Office.

What we do have here instead is a coverup. Plain and simple.

Instead of flushing out the perpetrator from their midst, they have encouraged tail-chasing, dissembling, character assassination and sleight of hand.

In a case like this, that qualifies for being a cover-up.

Plus, this excerpt from the Washington Post about sums up the madness:

White House press secretary Scott McClellan has ruled out involvement by Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove; I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff; and Elliott Abrams, Bush's senior adviser on the Middle East. "None of them were involved in the leak of the classified information, nor would any of them condone it," McClellan said.

It's good to know that the well-known investigator/prosecutor Scott McClellan is on the case, but it brings up a couple of questions.

How does he know to exonerate these men, when the Govt. Investigator still has no clue about these men?

What gives McClellan the expertise to be able to clear these men?

Could it be that Scott talked to them? Could it be that it is as simple as Bush's demanding an answer from his staff?

It is now clear that the White House of the United States is harboring traitors within its walls.

Nothing is accidental here...

posted by Gotham 3:33 AM

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Rush to War?

I think that it's now safe to say that Rush Limbaugh has more dangerous chemicals floating around in his system than the entire country of Iraq has in a land mass the size of California.

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posted by Gotham 3:19 AM

Monday, October 06, 2003

A Peak Inside...

Tom Delay's world.

This Washington Post article gives an interesting overview of the inner workings of the Congress these days.

It's clear from the lock-step response to DeLay's grip that whenever you see the word Congress used anywhere, it's referring to the Republican-run Congress. For good or for ill. They wanted it; they got it. In the upcoming elections, the Republicans will be hard-pressed to get the concept of Democratic obstruction to stick. The Republicans own a well-oiled machine, and all Democrats can do is watch it roll by.

Hell, as you read in this article, experienced Representatives claim they don't even get to write legislation anymore—which is supposed to be their job. Nowadays, they just get handed the legislation already written by DeLay's staffers, then complain while the Republican members vote in unison to pass it as is almost every time.

Question:
For those of you with Republican Representatives, when is the last time your Representative voted on some measure in your interest, rather than being part of the House leadership's agenda?

***

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posted by Gotham 2:05 AM

Sunday, October 05, 2003

Newsweek Signs On...

This item ran in this space recently:

Has anyone else seen the growing similarity between President George W. Bush and Alfred E. Neuman, Mad Magazine's poster boy? It's getting eerie.
—Gotham Notes, September 9, 2003

Now, it seems that Newsweek has come to a similar conclusion. Here's their take on it:
What, Me Worry?

***

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posted by Gotham 1:46 AM

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Will Bush Reinstitute the Draft?