Dan Balz

also summarizes the forum, and he does mention Kucinich being the "aggressor" and mentioned the retirement age bit (though forgetting the 1995 statement mentioned on MTP). I don't quite understand Balz's statement that Dean "took that off the table." Actually, it's on the table and so is every other contradictory statement Dean has ever made. The rest will all come out in short order.

This Isn't

one of my most prolific days since I have a lot more on my mind.

NYT Summarizes

tonight's forum. No mention is made of Kucinich's attack on Dean, just that he was merely "frustrated."

Probably pissed off is more like it, but it's all intentional.

Thanks to a Poster at DU

here is the MTP Dean interview segment about what he said about Social Security and raising the retirement age. Attempts to claim Dean was merely "entertaining" the thought don't cut it when in 1995 he supported raising the retirement age to 70 in order to balance the budget.

Make no mistake about it: Dean went out of his way tonight to brazenly lie about something that is clearly on the record.

And there is no doubt in my mind I am correct that the Democratic Party organization as a whole, and not just the DLC, is going to go after Dean with full force. And they should. There are plenty of us who are sick and tired of the cynical bullshit eminating from His Highness's mouth.

This

issue was touched upon in tonight's forum: the problem with pensions and the schemes companies are pulling to screw workers out of what is coming to them.

I liked Bob Graham's proposal to require ALL pensions, both defined benefit and defined contribution, to be protected/insured by the federal government.

While Some Democrats

want to knife Gray Davis in the back, he does at least have the support of the AFL-CIO. The article also notes Arianna Huffington plans to run for the governorship. Apparently her inflated ego is far more important than the fact democracy is being hijacked in that state.

I Just Saw

the forum on C-SPAN. Unfortunately, God incurred His or Her wrath upon Dennis Kucinich when he gave his closing statement because there was a problem with the transmission of the program. To look at D.C., it had one hell of a fierce lightning storm.

Maybe it was Howard Dean's revenge upon Kucinich. After all, Kucinich had the balls to tell the truth about Howard Dean's previous statements on raising the retirement age for Social Security to 70 and then 68. Dean had the fucking goddamned gall to LIE on national television and deny ever saying he said it. Especially when those who saw the disastrous MTP interview know better and saw the quote.

But hell, to read the discussion boards, it was all Kucinich's fault for pointing out Dean's comments, and it was all Kucinich's fault Dean was caught in a brazen lie. They are upset that Kucinich was "mean" and all of that. To be fair, Kucinich did mention other candidates for criticism, but it was the Dean comments that were the most biting. I swear to God, the Dean people just don't care if this candidate will say anything to get himself elected. It is clear to this person that the Democratic Party from both the "right" (Lieberman) and the "left" (Kucinich) are going after Dean with full force.

That was the highlight, and I couldn't believe it. I can't believe people still support the doc.

I felt that Kerry didn't get enough air time, though it is likely he got the same as everybody else. He also seemed to have lost his voice once again. He was pretty good, as were most of the candidates. Edwards was very polished and communicated his points extremely well. He probably fared the best of all of the candidates, and he just keeps getting better and better. Lieberman clearly didn't get too much support from the audience on his positions on trade and school vouchers. Gephardt was pretty animated, for once, and was in his element.

There's no doubt I will be watching the forum again and again.

Bush

has a chronic aversion to tell things like they are.

It isn't likely to change anytime soon, either.

If These

so-called Democrats abandon their support of Davis in favor of having a backup candidate, they don't deserve to be called Democrats.

The problem with this idea is if they actually pull this off, they have sold not Davis down the river but democracy. The Republicans will pull this shit again and again unless or until they are beaten back.

Slate

on Bob Graham's foreign policy beliefs.

Kurtz

reports on a Harvard study showing the conservative editorial pages are much more partisan and less likely to criticize Republican administrations than liberal editorial pages.

In case the reader doesn't care to click on Kurtz, here is the link to the Harvard study.

Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 31, C&P 33.

Dick Gephardt

picks up still more union endorsements with the United Steelworkers of America endorsement. This is his eleventh endorsement from a union, although the AFL-CIO endorsement will likely prove elusive (since there are so many candidates for the Democratic nomination to get the two-thirds needed).

At Least

there is some show of unity among the nine Democratic candidates. They all support Davis in the coup attempt. After all, they recognize the recall isn't about Davis at all.

I Watched My Tape

of Dean's appearance on LKL last night, and it was just the usual talking points, with the same bullshit about how he has the "spine" to stand up to the Republicans and nobody else does, the same old rot he has said over and over the past year or so.

At least he didn't smear Lieberman for his remarks, unlike Dean's more Moonie-like supporters.

This Is

not the day for blogging. I found out the district has opened up the needs list, and I've heard absolutely nothing from any of the schools.

I am so angry I can't stand it. Here I have almost my five years vested in PERS in with only one year to go, and that will be going down the drain. I received post-probationary as an employee, I have several years of teaching experience, I have a master's degree, I have full benefits, I have had training through the district, and all of it--ALL of it--has gone down the drain.

William Saletan

critiques Joe Lieberman. Obviously, he doesn't give Lieberman a rave review.

I agree Joe is the wrong man with a message that's sometimes correct, sometimes not. He's just too blah for the job of president even if he had a perfect message.

The Whole World Knows This

of course: another Senate seat will be up for the Republicans' taking, and that's Fritz Holling's seat.

Since it is South Carolina, and that state is one of the most Republican in the United States, I expect Democrats to lose that seat next year.

aer

Yet Another

article about Bush's obscene fundraising prowess, and how these bribes (why call them "donations") are making public financing a moot point. Democrats are under increasing pressure to opt in favor of private donations, too. But they can't, yet they are in a terrible bind for months since they can no longer get "soft money" donations thanks to that rotten McCain-Feingold.

Naturally this doesn't just affect the presidential "election" but also the money somehow gets funneled into state and local races, again favoring the fascistic party. There's no way in hell Bush is going to need anywhere near that much money to finance television ads and the like. The money's going elsewhere, either legitimately or not.

When Old Randy Rudy

married his shack-up Judith Nathan some weeks ago, his ex-wife wasn't crying in her champagne, dying of loneliness. It appears she rekindled an old relationship, one with a high school sweetheart, in fact.

Anyway to live up to this site's motto about getting to the point, Donna Hanover, 53 married Edwin Oster, 52, yesterday. It was her third time down the aisle. Some 200 people attended the festivities, including airhead anchor Paula Zahn.

Paul Krugman

observes that everything is political:

"But under the Bush administration the Treasury takes its marching orders from White House political operatives. As The New Republic points out, when John Snow meets with Karl Rove, the meetings take palce in Mr. Rove's office."

Krugman provides the example of the Howard Dean interview on MTP on how tax policy is political:

"...Tim Russert asked the Treasury Department to prepare examples showing how repealing the Bush tax cuts would affect ordinary families. Presumably Mr. Russert thought Treasury would provide a representative selection--that is, like many in the media, he doesn't yet understand the extent to which Treasury has become an arm of the White House political machine.

"In any case, the examples Treasury provided to Mr. Russert and others in the media were wildly unrepresentative. To give you a sense: the Treasury's example of a 'lower income' elderly household was one receiving $2,000 a year in dividend income. In fact, only about one elderly household in four receives any dividend income, and only one in eight receives as much as $2,000. Not surprisingly, the 'Russert families' gained far more from the Bush tax cuts than a representative sample. As Mr. Sullivan put it, 'If this continues, the Treasury's Office of Tax Policy may have to change its name to the Office of Tax Propaganda.'"

Which of course it is, but so is everything eminating out of every department in the Bush administration.

WP

report on Lieberman's remarks, though it is always better to read the complete remarks of a candidate.

Here

is the text of the speech by NEA president Reg Weaver critiquing the truly destructive NCLB.

Snips:

"The newly re-enacted Elementary and Secondary Education Act--ESEA--has been given a very deceptive yet affable title--No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

""'No Child Left Behind' is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is rhetoric not reform.

"Now, this causes our critics to say that NEA is focused on keeping the status quo. They will say that NEA isn't for anything. They will say that NEA is against everything! Well, my friends, they are either misinformed, uninformed, ill-intentioned, or a combination thereof. NEA supports that which will ensure every child receives a quality public education. NEA supports the goals of 'No Child Left Behind.' As a matter of fact, we have long appealed for and advocated for that which would lead to:

"Improving academic achievement

"Closing the achievement gap

"Ensuring every child has a 'highly qualified' teacher in every classroom, and

"Having high expectations and 'shared' accountability.

"NEA has always been dedicated to leaving no child left behind--that is nothing new to us!

"The stated goals of NCLB are a page from our very own book! NEA's concern with this legislation lies with the implementation of, and lack of adequate and equitable funding, for these laudable goals...The law has an implementation plan that is critically flawed, and funding that is woefully inadequate...

"To echo what countless teachers, ESPS, administrators, parents, community and religious leaders and others from all across the country have told me: NCLB, as currently written, is:

"Setting up public schools to fail. It is setting up children to fail. It is setting up teachers and other education professionals to fail.

"It will force many teachers to do nothing more than teach to the tests.

"It will drive inspired and experienced teachers and paraprofessionals from the classroom.

"It will pave the way for privatization and voucher proponents.

"And it will definitely leave millions of children behind. Millions!"

There's a whole lot more in the lengthy speech.

I Taped

the Dean appearance on Larry King Live, but I haven't seen it yet. I have seen some of the comments on various boards and some weren't impressed and some were.

I doubt it was as disastrous as MTP (any of the appearances), but he had only a half hour and only had a softball interviewer.

And many of the so-called liberals have their panties in a bunch because the despised Joe Lieberman dared to criticize the nutball notion the Democratic Party needs to go to the left where there are few votes. Here is the speech in question, and while I take issue with a lot of what old Joe says, the idea that we need to go to the discredited route of the past is a recipe for disaster.

Obviously

some people read the discussion boards and blogs. It seems San Francisco mayor Willie Brown is threatening to push a recall of any candidate who succeeds in winning the California governorship should Gray Davis be recalled.

It can be done, and why shouldn't Democrats retaliate?

More to the point, why were Republicans on the radical right so wild about ousting Davis when such a move would tarnish their party?

But if they were getting their marching orders from Washington, which I think they have, they frankly don't give a damn. All they want is the power at any cost.

Craig Aaron

of In These Times writes about how Wall Street language and logic have polluted political discourse this season. You know, whoever has the most money is the most credible, whoever has raised the most money is in the "top tier," and all of that other crap that's been going on this election cycle.

Candidates are like companies in which those who raise the most money are better investments than those who don't. To hell with public service, to hell with whether the candidate is the best person for the vast majority of people in the country. What matters is the opinion of the economic elite and corporations.

Aaron does have a point, a very good point.

Slate

reports on Dick Gephardt's foreign policy positions.

Ruth Rosen

makes a strong case against the privatization of the National Park Service, an outrage the administration seems intent on forcing on everybody.

No other administration in the 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt helped begin the park system has been as hostile to conservation as this group of crooks who want to turn everything into a profit-making venture.

Another Good Editorial

from my hometown newspaper about the crisis in pensions guaranteed by the federal government (i.e., the traditional defined benefit plans):

"Demographics are playing a big role in today's crisis. In 1980, nearly 80 percent of traditional pension fund participants were workers who had yet to draw a retirement dime; by 2000, nearly half were retirees drawing benefits. But government also has stuck with unrealistic accounting rules that lead to painful surprises for workers when fund managers suddenly say they can't pay promised benefits--as happened at U.S. Airways when the bankrupt airline walked away from a pension fund for thousands of pilots.

"Despite enough bad news to make an actuary choke, employers are asking for rule changes that would allow overly optimistic assumptions about interest rates. Congress and the White House should reject these proposals, which would let companies delay contributions and conceal plan weaknesses. Corporations should be required to prove that pension funds contain sufficient assets to pay out promised benefits..."

And here is an article about how senior Oregon public employees are having to retire early so that they don't lose money in their retirement plans when the new PERS rules go in.

I Will

be returning later on today.

No,

John Edwards is not the anti-Christ of North Carolina. Barbara Ehrenreich writes about the current flap at the University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill over its putting her book, Nickel and Dimed, on its reading list for incoming students.

WSWS

on the trend toward long-term unemployment in this country:

"Some 470,000 people stopped looking for work in July, dropping out of the total workforce figure used in calculating unemployment percentages. As a consequence, the official unemployment rate fell slightly, from 6.4 percent to 6.2 percent. However, manufacturing employment dropped 71,000 and retail employment fell by 14,000. Since January payroll employment has fallen by 486,000. The official unemployment figure is only a pale reflection of the actual situation, since it does not include some 2 million long-term unemployed--workers who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work altogether.

"One economist, Larry Mishel of the Employment Policy Institute, called the ongoing U.S. manufacturing cuts, 'the greatest contraction in private sector employment since the Great Depression.' In fact, two years after the 2001 recession, private sector employment has fallen by 2.5 million..."

There is also a list of recent layoffs, some of which haven't been posted here.

I Am Not So Sure

Gray Davis's lawsuit to delay the rcall election is such a good idea. However, there are several good points in the proposed suit, including the fairness issue (that Davis's name cannot be on the ballot as a candidate if he's recalled) and the apparent rigging of the recall election because of the consolidation of some polling places.

Even Though

our little dictator seems vulnerable, could he pull off a landslide next year? According to this column, it's very possible, but it depends on a lot of factors.

I would also add a suckass media in favor of Bush and likely vote rigging if the candidate is Edwards or (a drafted) Gore to turn the tide in favor of Usuper Boy.

BusinessWeek

asks and attempts to answer who in the hell Howard Dean really is. It's really not very flattering to Dean, unless you are the pro-business, anti-govmint type. The Republicans there really liked him.

But why not? Dean was and is really "Bush Lite."

Snips:

"Still, Dean had a knack for positioning himself and never lost an election. Those who know him best believe Dean is moving to the left to boost his chances of winning the nomination [and losing the election if by chance he got the nomination he will never get]. 'But if he gets the nomination, he'll run back to the center and be more mainstream,' presdicts Stenger [and risk losing his left-wing support and opening himself to charges of flip-flopping]. Says Garrison Nelson, a political science professor at the University of Vermont: 'Howard is not a liberal. He's a pro-business, Rockefeller Republican.'"

Then why should liberals bother to support somebody like this? The only explanation I can think of is it isn't what he says or stands for that gets liberals all charged up: it's that he trash talks constantly that gets their support.

Here is Dean's interview with the magazine.

In response to critics who hail him as the next George McGovern, the doc has this to say:

"I don't worry about it, because people will eventually find out what really went on [when I was governor] in Vermont. I'll govern the same way I did in Vermont. I am fiscally conservative and a social progressive."

You better hope and pray, Howard, your followers don't find out you are just another evil DLCer, only even more to the right than Lieberman. Some would take issue with your "progressive" stance on social issues, what with the civil unions law being forced down your throat, your deep cuts in Medicaid, and your screwing with the public school system by shifting funds from rich towns to poorer towns.

There's Plenty

of hype out there because Howard Dean made the covers of the newsmagazines Time and Newsweek, regardless of whether those articles were actually all that flattering to the doctor. They weren't of course, and a few of Dean's fans have yowled and howled about it.

If Dean had made the cover of Sports Illustrated as well this week, I'd have been a lot more impressed. But this one-time dark horse is no Secretariat, though some nonfans might consider Dean more of a horse's hindquarters than a thoroughbred candidate.

Predictably, or maybe not, Kurtz doesn't flatter Dean all that much in today's column. Well, my fear is the media's giving the man a free pass to begin with helped create the "phenomenon" we are seeing, and few of the Dean supporters are actually taking a critical look at the man's record. I still believe, though, Dean is merely a flash in the bedpan and will fizzle early.

Kurtz's unlinked snips of the AP report about Dean's sealed records will alone sink Dean's candidacy if he refuses to open them up. No protestations that "others" have done it in Vermont will suffice. The "others" haven't run for president. The last thing we need is another George W. Bush.

Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 22, C&P 37.

Just as

people interpret the shapes of clouds, so many people have interpretations of Howard Dean's personality or the lack of it.

He's feisty, he's abrasive, he's arrogant, he's flinty, he's charming, he's charismatic, he's combative, he's cranky, he's fill-in-the-blank. Describing the doc's bedside manner is as elusive as trying to explain what in the hell he stands for.

What's laughable is the notion Dean is actually "charismatic." He's about as charismatic as a doorknob. He's no Clinton, no JFK, no John Edwards in that regard.

I truly don't doubt the man is nice in person and away from the podium. I have always gotten the impression that the "mouth that roared" schtick is mostly fake and scripted by Joe Trippi and other advisors. It's a concerted attempt to ape the McCain persona, and like McCain, the good doc will have a mercy killing done on his candidacy once the campaign season gets off into high gear.

The Way Things

are going, I might have to go out and look for work within the next week. The district still isn't hiring on the outside as of today.

I just can't stand this waiting and wondering.

There's Still a Lot

of underestimating of John Edwards by the media because he hasn't been out shooting off his mouth and hogging all of the media attention.

There's little doubt we will be hearing a lot more about him and from him, and the "inexperienced" crap is just that--crap. It's crap because our little dictator had even less experience going into the election which he had stolen for him. So any criticism won't cut it there.

Edwards is following Clinton's lead on how to pace a campaign, and I am sure that a year from now people will have forgotten certain insurgent candidates and will be focusing on real issues.

Kurtz Kount for July

Kurtz 548, C&P 800.

Kurtz Kount for 7/27-8/2

Kurtz 112, C&P 140

With Richard Gephardt

getting major endorsements from unions such as the Teamsters, he is now going after the biggest union fish, the AFL-CIO. But the problem is there are so many candidates running for the nomination, and the membership must have 2/3rds voting for a candidate to endorse, so that may be an impossible hill to climb at this juncture. Individual unions, however, can endorse candidates.

They might wait until the primary season plays itself out before endorsing anybody.

If Democrats Would

get off the petty squabbles and if certain candidates would quit trashing their party, they could have a unifying force in their collective disgust with the dictator. This by no means indicates the party should turn "left" and reject centrism at all; if anything, it represents just how much the government is in the hand of extremists and that they need to be stopped.

A Lot of People

hail the Dean's Texas campaign ad some kind of stroke of genius. As far as I'm concerned, it's an idiotic waste of money which could be better spent in states where Dean has a chance of getting some delegates.

There is no way in hell ANY Democrat can even carry Texas and no way Dean could get delegates from that state, so what the hell is the fucking point except for grandstanding purposes.

Yet another reason for me to never support this candidate.

It Appears

state pension systems are having some problems because they lost billions in the stock market. Note that in some states public employees cannot collect full social security benefits if the state does not pay into the system (if the employee worked in s.s.-covered employment previously). In other words, if the state pension systems start having severe problems, the employees in those states will REALLY be screwed over. That's one of the reasons I don't want to stick around Nevada.

link

Lengthy Editorial

in the San Francisco Chronicle about the energy mess and who is to blame.

Some choice bits:

"One of the main charges in the recall rap sheet against Gov. Gray Davis is that he was responsible for the California energy crisis and the high rates consumers are now paying. Even if he wasn't the architect of the deregulation debacle, the folk wisdom goes, at the least he 'mishandled,' 'mismanaged,' or 'failed to address' the energy crisis quickly enough.

"Like the regulation plan itself, these arguments are deeply flawed. Blaming Davis for the energy crisis is nothing more than a politically convenient way to explain away one of the most complex--and enduring--problems facing the state.

"In hindsight, it would have been great if Davis had done more earlier on to avert the crisis. But it is not clear what exactly he could have done. For months, he pressed the federal government to place caps on wholesale prices, but was repeatedly rebufed...For months, he unsuccessfully asked FERC to look into potentially manipulative schemes. For months, he was ridiculed by the White House and other Republicans for trying to shift the blame to greedy energy traders..."

There's a whole lot more in this excellent editorial, which gives people a sense of what in the hell is really going on down in California.

Editorial

in today's Oregonian about the state's budget mess:

"The Oregon Legislature has torn another page off the calendar, entering its eighth month in session. The assembly will become the longest in state history this week, with no end in sight.

"The parties in the Legislature are dug in like World War I armies, rising from their trenches only to shoot from the lip in news conferences and op-ed pieces, wounding one another's credibility...

"Yet the state Capitol stands empty again this weekend, a metaphor for the hollow debate and frequent absent leadership that has represented state government for the past 18 months...

"Yet the Republican-controlled House continues to grind out political sausage unpalatable to the Senate, the governor and all Oregonians unwilling to again accept early school closures and hurtful cuts in human services. The House is expected to vote Monday on an inadequate human services budget...

"On Friday, when lawmakers once again called it a day and scattered for home after brief morning floor sessions, it was painfully obvious where all this is leading: more political bickering, more delays in a grim session headed for the record books and more damage to the Oregon economy, its credit rating and its reputation across the country..."

Again, thank the Republican Party for the dismal state of affairs in Oregon.

I Will Return

later today, if there's anything worth writing about.

More About Recallmania

While many aren't crazy about Gray Davis, a lot of them aren't crazy about Dianne Feinstein, either.

Which makes it more and more likely Davis will prevail.

Joe Klein seems to understand what the Davis recall is all about:

"Feral fund raising, negative ads and visionless governance are not unique to Sacramento, nor are the efforts of right-wing populist extremists to use constitutional gimmickry to subvert democracy. The impeachment of Bill Clinton was part of the latter trend, as is the current effort in the Texas legislature--orchestrated by Congressman Tom DeLay--to redraw district lines. As a nation, we seem to be losing the habits of civility and citizenship. Public life is becoming a pricey boutique, catering only to special interests and political eccentrics. The California recall is goofy, irresponsible--and not a bad way to remind politicians that their work involves more than raising money and spending it on nasty nonsense."

There Are Also

many other articles over at the Online Journal website. They are also worth reading.

Online Journal

eviscerates NCLB, which virtually every teacher and administrator in the public schools despises:

"As the consequences of NCLB emerge, it is time to talk about the real issues: what schools are being held accountable for, and what the unfunded mandates actually require. The law deals in such obscure jargon that the truth can be difficult to ferret out. The more one learns, however,
the more one understands why National Education Association President Reg Weaver calls Bush's education policy 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' that will 'pave the way for vouchers and privatization.'"

Not to mention destroy the teachers' unions, which are big supporters of the Democratic Party. More:

"Simply put, the NCLB holds public schools accountable for perfection. By the year 2014, 100 percent of students in every state must score 'proficient' in state tests. People often assume the 100 percent requirement is somehow figurative, that it is merely a lofty goal towards which to strive. In fact, the 100 percent requirement is the linchpin of a rigid accountability formula that will impose rigid sanctions on great numbers of schools."

The right-wingers couldn't care less whether NCLB works. It isn't supposed to improve public schools, but instead it is designed to create a crisis. That way, public education will be undermined, the nutjobs will force taxpayers to support private schools and turn the current public education system over to the privatizers, where teachers will be making the shit pay of the private schools.

Why in goddamned hell ANY Democrats EVER supported this travesty is beyond me. I hope the NEA sues the government and prevails.

Since Next Year

is an election year, Republicans are covering their collective asses just in case Bush goes down in flames. They are not kissing His Fraudulency's royal ass but are instead being "Democratic lite." For example, the tax cuts for poor families, the FCC rules reversal, prescription drugs (all the while, of course, supporting privatization).

But just wait. Just wait if Bush manages to steal the White House a second time and the Republicans still maintain their stranglehold on Congress. Then the whole country will go to pieces.

Right now the fascists can afford to act like Democrats.

Davis News

He signs the $99.1 billion budget, which was long overdue.


And this article depicts Davis as finally taking the recall seriously. But apparently the reporter can't or won't understand that there is no "public" clamor for Davis to step down, but it is a very clear attempt by the fascists to remove a Democratic governor for purely partisan reasons.

I still believe he will prevail--provided the Democrats don't fuck up and put in some alternative. That merely gives the Republicans MORE ammo and will attempt to recall THAT person, should he or she win.

Scroll Clear Down

to the bottom of the previous link. It's hilarious:

"D.C. records show White House adviser Karl Rove in arrears on his Northwest home. Taxes due March 31 on the house totaled $3,797.44, according to the city's computerized records. The city lits penalties and interest on the amount, bringing the current balance to $4,405.03."

But there was an error because Rove was paying into an escrow account, but the mortgage company hadn't paid the city. But everything will be put back straight.

A potential issue for the Republicans has been defused since Kerry and Edwards paid up, too.

Willie Nelson

goes on the road again, but this time it's a different road. It's a road to the White House, and Nelson is an enthusiastic supporter of Dennis Kucinich.

Speaking of Kucinich, yesterday I went to a play over in Ashland. On the town's plaza were several supporters of Kucinich, bearing campaign signs and homemade signs saying "impeachment." It can be easily assumed the "impeachment" signs were with regard to Bush's countless lies on Iraq. Anyhow, I walked past them, and I thought of telling them that at least they weren't supporters of Howard Dean. But I changed my mind.

The God

has made the covers of Newsweek and Time for this week. The heat is turning up on the good doc, and not all of it is flattering.

Example from Time:

"At this early stage it's likely that Dean enjoys support from those to his left who don't know the fine points of his proposals as well as they know the fine volleys of his rhetoric. In that sense, it's hard to imagine Dean's glorious season ending without disappointment. Either he will alienate the mainstream by tacking left in order to keep his troops in their combat sandals, or, more likely, they will shed a tear when they learn who he really is. Last week I asked Dean's mother Andree Maitland Dean of East Hampton, N.Y., whether her son is truly a liberal insurgent. 'He's not really,' she said. A beat passed, and she added with a chuckle, 'I hope they don't find that out just yet.'"

This snip from Newsweek:

"The dilemma for the Democrats tempted by Dean is whether to go with their hearts or their heads. Their hearts soar at Dean's bare-knuckle attacks on Bush and patented Rx on social issues. Their heads tell them that the only time Democrats have won in four decades was when they nominated moderate Southerners--Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton [why are we forgetting LBJ and Gore?] with a natural connection to black and working class Democrats and independents. Under this analysis liberals--especially if they didn't serve in Vietnam--are in danger of being depicted [and they WILL be depicted] as 'soft on terrorism' post-September 11, just as an earlier generation was derided as 'soft on communism' during the cold war."

Game, set, match.

He is apparently ahead in Iowa according to the latest poll there, but it's a long, long way from the caucuses. Plus Dean doesn't have any real endorsements to speak of, unlike Gephardt.

No Surprise

that the Davis recall in part is being spearheaded by talk radio (and not surprisingly in this case, on a station owned by Clear Channel).

"At what point does a radio station's participation in a political campaign cross the line and become a legally defined campaign donation, subject to limits and spending requirements? Some will argue that talk radio is the constitutionally protected expression of opinion and should never be subject to this kind of governmental regulation. Others may argue that KFI is even now crossing that line."

Of course it's advocacy and not journalism. Of course it's propaganda and not serving the public interest. But nobody is doing a damned thing about it.

I Really

wasn't going to link this piece of opportunistic garbage by Hitchens, but it is an example of somebody who hasn't really said anything about his subject but has rather said everything about himself.

The man is consumed with envy.

The hit piece reminds me of what Steve Allen once said in an interview with U.S. News and World Report following the death of Elvis Presley. Allen in effect said that fact that someone as untalented as Presley got as far as he did said something about the state of our culture (I don't have the exact quote since I am out of town). It was extremely tacky and totally uncalled for. My respect for Allen went completely and totally down the toilet from then on.

So Hitchens has the same problem with Hope. His career will never amount to anything resembling Hope's success; he will be forgotten as soon as he goes to that big bar in the sky if not long before. He should stick with writing things he knows something about, but that would amount to nothing but a blank book.

The only funny part of the article is Hitchens pointing out the man who wrote the NYT obituary on Hope himself croaked three years ago. Which probably means the article was written 20 or 30 years ago. Whoever does Hitchens's obituary had better be still alive when he's gone.

Followup Article

on the Ferdinand scandal:

"In the wake of the disturbing news of Ferdinand's demise in Japan, letters and e-mails from fans expressing both regret and anger have flooded in-boxes. It is likely, however, that the legacy Ferdinand leaves by virtue of his unseemly death will rival his achievements on the racetrack...

"'I would include a clause in contracts from here on out to retain the right of first refusal when a buyer contemplates selling the horse,' said Bill Farish of Lane's End Farm. Lane's End, in partnership with Bob and Beverly Lewis, sold Charismatic to the Japan Racing Association, and he now stands at the Japan Bloodhorse Breeders Association Stallion Station near Shizunai...

"Trainer Bob Baffert said he has attempted to have an agent look into buying back 2002 Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner War Emblem, who was sold to Shadai Stallion Station last year. War Emblem displayed a lack of interest in covering mares, and now is in the hands of insurance companies that paid off a multi-million-dollar claim. 'They haven't called back yet, so I don't know where he is or what's going on with him,' noted Baffert. 'He retired sound, so he could go back into training, or be turned out. That Ferdinand deal is really bad.'"

Let's hope this situation doesn't happen again.

Arnold S.

plans to announce his expected intention not to run for the California governorship next Wednesday.

The moral of the story is this: if you have political ambitions and you're a Republican, don't marry into the Kennedy family.

Articles

like this WP piece on Howard Dean should have been written MONTHS ago. Many of us knew he basically governed like a Republican, but many others took his phony liberalism at face value.

Here are a few snips:

"Dean's emerging national reputation as a liberal tribune, a man whose rhetorical fires have seared President Bush for invading Iraq and cutting taxes for the wealthy, obscures the centrist course he steered during his tenure as governor of Vermont. In this small, northern New England state where the sole House member is a self-proclaimed socialist and the state legislature tends to come in three ideological flavors (moderate Republicans, liberal Democrats and left-wing Progressives), Dean gained a reputation as a careful, even cautious, steward.

"That gubernatorial record could turn off some liberal true believers. Or it could allow Dean to execute a political pivot in next year's presidential primaries. A New England governor with a budget-balancing reputation might prove useful as the primaries move south of the Mason-Dixon line. 'The national role reversal is that Democrats have become the party of the balanced budget,' said Eric Davis, a Middlebury College political scientist. 'Howard Dean can lay claim to that.'"

Unfortunately, he cannot break out of the mold he has cast for himself. He's sunk. If he goes to the center, his (virtually only) support on the left goes by the wayside, and if he continues to cast himself to the "left" of the Democrats despite his record, he loses the middle and everybody else. Dean is doomed, and no amount of changing his image will change that fact.

More of Mr. Liberal:

"Dean was elected governor in his own right in 1992 and embarked on a reform campaign: to bring a single payer health system to Vermont. He waged vigorous battles with the insurance companies. But his efforts came asunder in the 1994 legislative session.

"It was a watershed for Dean. He became a devotee of the small step forward. Over the next decade, he successfully expanded a health insurance program to guarantee health coverage for every child in the state and insisted that the state health plan pay for mammograms. The state now has a prescription drug benefit for those with incomes up to 400 percent of the poverty level.

"Critics, particularly on the left, say he lost his nerve. They note that Medicaid costs have soared, that Dean pushed higher deductables for patients, and 9 percent of Vermonters remain uncovered by insurance..."

It is the closer examination of Dean's record by the media that will be the candidate's undoing. He's going to have to explain and explain and somehow reconcile everything he's been saying with what he actually has done in the past. Dean simply won't survive such scrutiny.

More Idiocy

out of California: Maxine Waters is fretting that Democrats will lose the governorship in California if they don't provide a backup to Davis.

Shit, Maxine. Why don't you and Loretta Sanchez go to work for the other side? Don't either of you realize what this whole recall is about? Your antics are merely giving the fascists legitimacy.

ALL Democratic politicians MUST resist the temptation to get on the recall ballot.

There's Little Doubt

this is proof the California recall race is an absolute insane asylum.

Not that all of the prospects will actually pony up the money and the signatures, but it still goes to show you how absolutely fucked up things have gotten there.

In Spite of All the Hype

surrounding candidates Howard Dean and John Kerry as the alleged "frontrunners," one should not count out other candidates like Dick Gephardt and especially John Edwards.

Dionne asks why Edwards's campaign hasn't taken off. Well, the answer is that it's early yet, and he is pacing his campaign accordingly. Clinton was also in the microscopic league in the early polls.

It may be true that 9/11 and Iraq have dominated the campaign so far, and Edwards's supposed weakness in the field of national security may have derailed his campaign, but I doubt it. I don't think those issues will be the ones which galvanize the workers, but instead it will be the "class war" issue which Edwards (and Gephardt) has brought up time and time again which will resonate with the voters. The Republicans are especially weak there.

Booming Economy Casualty List 7/27-8/2

Pep Boys--860 jobs

Pillowtex--6,000 jobs

Unemployment rate down, but about a half million people have given up looking for work.

Nicholas von Hoffman

Wonders if it is growth or if it is cancer:

""The watchword from the administration and its opponents is growth. What kind of growth? More jobs growth. That kind of growth. Growth that cranks out more stuff, that gives us what we have too much of already, and too little of what we want and need. We need growth that will finally attack our chronically disastrous child-care non-system and our permanently impaired educational systems. We need growth to shore up and revamp a retirement/pension system which is dissolving before our eyes. We need growth to address the medical-care miasma, but what is being promised is the same-old, same-old, jobs to gin up more of the consumer products we're already choking on. This is old growth, cancerous growth, carecly the growth that will inspire a new rush of fresh spirit."

I Truly Strive

on this blog to write my feelings about issues and/or provide links to those articles which I feel are of interest to readers and myself.

And I always try to write about and post the most important things in the world.

Today, I have come across an S.F. Chronicle piece of some vital historical importance: It appears that Lucky Lindy wasn't just lucky in the air. He appears to have been lucky in some other realms of his life. Unfortunately for Anne Morrow Lindbergh, she wasn't so lucky that her husband was an alleged cheat.

According to the story, a German woman named Brigitte Hesshaimer had a seventeen-year affair with old Lucky when he was 55 and she was 31. But it was no one-night stand. She allegedly had three kids by Lindbergh, and none of them were aware of the identity of their real daddy until after his death in 1974.

But this alleged mistress, like her alleged lover and his wife, are all dead and can't support or refute the allegations. However, there is the possibility money can be made, so the alleged mistress's family decided to come forward. According to the tale, Chase Me Charlie first met Brigitte in 1957. They supposedly fell in love, but naturally Lindy never ditched his wife. However, Lindbergh made frequent trips to his "second family" during the 1960s. It is not known whether he flew by himself or flew on a commercial jet for these rolls in the hay. In any case, the "Spirit of St. Louis" survived long after 1927.

To counter the skeptics who might say the story is a lot of bull and might be a hoax equivalent to the infamous "Hitler diaries," Hesshaimer's family has produced "evidence" in the form of some 100 letters written by Lindbergh to the girlfriend, which some have said are authentic.

Time will tell.

Californians' Tax Dollars

at work: the coup attempt is going to cost the state $67 million.

Just think of what programs could have been saved with that kind of money. Just think of how many jobs that could have been rescued from the chopping block. Just think, period, which is apparently what the fascists aren't doing.

And some Democrats are wavering in their support of Davis. This is bad. What the hell makes them think that the same recall shit wouldn't be pulled on THEIR choices if those choices prevailed in the vote? How many times does one have to yell and scream that this recall ISN'T about Davis?

Analysis

of the Bush administration's Orwellian description of the dictator's lies as not really lies, and also of its use of a legalistic-sounding bit of crackpottery called "fact witness."

link

Hillary Clinton's

book is still holding fast to the number two spot, just under Kate Remembered. Unfortunately, Coulter's latest screed has received more bulk orders and is now at the number three slot.

The WSWS

review of Bush's most recent press conference:

"The administration's aversion to press conferences has two root causes: concerns on the part of Bush's handlers about his general lack of knowledge and limited mental capabilities, and an obsession with secrecy that reflects the White House's contempt for democracy.

"Based on Bush's performance July 30, his aversion to appearing before the press--even the servile crowd that comprises the White House press corps--is well founded. Despite the efforts of most reporters to lob innocuous questions, Bush proved himself incapable of formulating a coherent argument on any substantive issues. The 50-minute session was a confused collection of lies and evasions, interspersed with sound bites taken from the grab-bag of Bush administration propaganda..."

At the Convention

of the below-mentioned American Constitution Society, Senator Hillary Clinton said the United States Supreme Court, despite some positive rulings of late, still merited mistrust.

That's putting it mildly.

"'In addition to installing an American president, the current Supreme Court has invalidated federal laws at the most astounding rate in our nation's history,' she said then."

The Court lost its prestige for good when it illegimately installed the popular vote loser after halting the counting of the votes in Florida, and no amount of positive rulings will ever make up for the fatal blow to democracy in Bush v. Gore. Not only does the Court not merit trust, the majority of them ought to be serving prison terms.

Democratic Candidates

are trying to make their pitch to the rust belt, where not only manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, but also the so-called high tech jobs. The focus of the article is on candidate and vice president in exile Joe Lieberman and his proposals to stop the exportation of jobs overseas and to provide incentives for businesses to keep jobs here.

Of course, the whole point of exporting jobs is to undercut unions, lower the standard of living virtually worldwide to the level of the Chinese (who seem to make EVERYTHING now), and create obscene profits for the CEOs. Never mind the fact it is ultimately suicidal for business.

"As an

entertainer, Hope was le tout package. He sang, danced, told jokes perfectly, could occasionally play it straight. If he'd had the time, interest or nerve, he might have made a great Archie Rice, the music-hall monster of John Osborne's "The Entertainer."

More of Richard Corliss's review of the life of Bob Hope here.

I didn't always like everything Bob Hope did, but compared to the shit called comedians we have now, he was head and shoulders above any of them.

It is

absolutely crucial for California Democrats to hang together on the Davis matter rather than play into the fascists' hands. Too many of them are more worried about their egos or about saving face than they are about the principle of having a democracy and the people having the right to have their elected officials serve without harassment.

Salon piece about the alleged "division" of California Democrats is here. Again, the media love to play up the division angle.

I Am Done

for now, and whether or not I blog tonight depends on when I return from Farewell Bend.

Robert Hilburn

of the L.A. Times writes his appreciation of the life of Sam Phillips.

"Rock 'n' roll's roots are so deep and twisted that fans and critics often throw their hands up in frustration when trying to search through the various branches to explain its origins.

"It's a quest that frequently ends up in debates over such minutae as which artist first used the word 'rock' in a song [certainly Billy Ward and the Dominoes' 1951 classic "Sixty Minute Man" has one of the earliest references to it when they croon they are going to "rock 'em, roll 'em all night long"], or who established the guitar as a rallying point for youthful rebellion.

"But the real story of the birth of rock may be a simple as a single man's dream..."

And there's much more in this excellent piece.

One Suzi Parker

of Alternet tries to figure out former general Wesley Clark, the mystery figure of the 2004 campaign.

I'd say at this late date, Clark ain't gonna run, and a draft is simply a waste of time. Furthermore, I seriously doubt Clark is Clinton's "man" for the job anyway. If Clinton supports anybody at this stage of the campaign, it would be John Edwards.

The Governor of Oregon

is preparing for a shutdown of the state government if the legislature can't balance the state budget:

"The governor [Ted Kulongoski] 'reluctantly' signed a stopgap spending measure Thursday that allows the state to keep operating through August, the second such bill he has signed since the 2003-05 budget cycle began July 1.

"He directed Gary Weeks, head of the Department of Administrative Services, to come back in two weeks with a plan for how to close many government operations if the legal authority to spend money runs out.

"It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will see the governor's call to plan for a possible government shutdown as a threat or whether it will add a sense of urgency to the Legislature's budget deliberations."

But they simply can't bear to raise beer taxes. They are afraid the stupid, beer-guzzling crowd will vote them out.

Today's NYT

has an obituary of Sam Phillips.

Snips:

"Much of his legendary status revolves around just five singles--10 songs--that he recorded for Presley. Although he later made many fortunate investments, including an early stake in Holiday Inn, Mr. Phillips, to his chagrin, remained almost equally famous for the decidedly unprescient move of selling Presley's contract in 1954 to RCA for about $35,000, a minuscule fraction of what he would prove to be worth."

But I remember what Phillips said later on to the effect Elvis couldn't have stayed with the label since he proved to be too big. Phillips really didn't regret selling his contract.

More:

"But Sun was having trouble paying the bills when Presley, an 18-year-old truck driver, came by the summer of 1953 to make a record. Mr. Phillips thought that Presley was probably the most introverted man he had ever seen, the family said.

"Presley recorded two songs, 'My Happiness' and 'That's When Your Heartache Begins,' ostensibly to give to his mother, Gladys, for her birthday. Because her birthday wasn't until the spring, some have suggested that it is more likely that Presley made the record for himself or to get Sun's attention.

"This led to a recording session on July 5, 1954. Scotty Moore, a session guitarist, and Bill Black, a bassist, accompanied Presley, who began unimpressively. He considered himself a ballad singer exclusively and was singing ballads. Mr. Phillips called for a break.

"Presley picked up a guitar and started fooling around. He began playing an old blues song by Arthur Crudup called 'That's All Right.' Except Presley wasn't playing the blues. The rhythm was fast and the voice was almost euphoric. There were no drums, so Mr. Black slapped his bass to keep time, while Mr. Moore's guitar leaped in and out of the melody line.

"Mr. Phillips asked what they were doing, and the musicians said they didn't know.

"'Well, back it up, try to find a place to start, and do it again,' Mr. Phillips said."

And the rest as we all know is history.

Gray Davis

is going through enough shit without being scolded by an alleged fellow Democrat to knock off the "trash talk" Davis allegedly pulled last year if he wants to knock out a possible challenge by Riordan.

I think there is a lot more important matter here than how Davis talks.

That Unemployment

rate doesn't look so great when you recognize that many have quit looking for work:

"The nation's unemployment rate slid to 6.2% in July as nearly a half a million discouraged Americans stopped looking for jobs.

"Payrolls were cut for a sixth month, suggesting businesses remain cautious and want to keep work forces lean despite budding signs of an economic revival [how can the economy "revive" if more people are out of work and more companies are not hiring?]. Businesses cut 44,000 jobs in July."

Howard Kurtz

writes about Bush's timidity when it comes to holding press conferences.

Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 31, C&P 32. It should be the other way around, but I gave Kurtz a demerit for tackily referring to Clinton in passing when posting an article about his beloved Kobe Bryant.

Oh Gawd

Now the Rove dirty tricks department is beginning to take hold.

First we have this horrible, horrible scandal about John Edwards, the great shakedown artist, who is now a tax dodger because he and his wife didn't receive a property tax bill, so they were deliquent, but when the bill finally arrived, they paid it.

Pretty damned cheap on the part of the Moonie Times, a mouthpiece for RNC talking points.

And then a bank fuck up caused the Kerrys to be late on property taxes on their vacation home.

Karl Baby, you are desperate, desperate to get the candidates who have a better chance of throwing you and your puppet out, so you have to resort to utterly stupid crap like these nonstories.

Speaking of Booze Taxes and Speaking

of Nevada, apparently the new hike on booze taxes hasn't hurt business at all there.

WSWS

on the Freddie Mac scandal.

Sometimes the Best

editorials come from small-town newspapers. Today my hometown paper, the Medford Mail Tribune, pulled no punches when it blasted the Republicans in Salem.

Some snips:

"Democrats in the Oregon House were angered when the Republican majority circumvented the usual process to ram through an education funding bill. They shouldn't be upset, however, because the bill tells all Oregonians just where the GOP stands on education funding.

"Our local Republican House members, Rob Patridge, Dennis Richardson and George Gilman, voted with the majority to approve a $5.05 billion funding package for Oregon schools. That amount not only does not begin to restore the health of a damaged system, it almost guarantees that schools will continue with fewer teachers, larger class sizes, cut programs and shortened years..."

Now get this part, which just beats all, even more than the antics of the clowns in Carson City:

"Republicans say there just is not enough money. Meanwhile, they are prepared to kill a measure that would raise beer taxes by 2 cents a bottle. It seems the voices of the beermeisters are heard more clearly than the voices of Oregon's school children. At least Messrs. Patridge, Richardson and Gilman will still be able to proclaim that Oregon has one of the lowest beer taxes in the nation. Congratulations, guys...

"Well, at least voters will know who's responsible for Johnny and Suzy being home on weekdays in May. Say, that would be about the time of the next primary election, wouldn't it? Let's see if voters remember who voted for beer and who voted for kids.

"Perhaps then we'll raise a farewell toast to some current politicians."

link

These antics by the Republicans should get national attention.

Hustling for Votes.

Now I've seen it all: Larry Flynt, 61, the porn king himself, is running for the California governorship against the embattled Gray Davis.

"They said the person with the best name recognition stood the best shot [a poor choice of words considering what happened to the Hustler himself], so why not?" Then, when he was asked why in God's name he wanted the job, Flynt claimed he could do a better job balancing the budget than the idiots in Sacramento.

However, the governor doesn't "balance" the budget; it's the goddamned legislature that is supposed to do it, and then the governor signs it. And it screwed around forever on it because that was a way to pin the whole thing on Davis and thus fuel the resentment which in turn fueled the recall (apart from the Rovians and Issa).

Flynt is going to definitely pay the filing fee to run for office and has obtained help from some political consultants whose names Flynt refused to mention. They would have to wrap themselves up in plain brown wrapping paper to do it, though.

I suspect Davis will withstand this challenge.

Mark Morford

tells the world the little dictator doesn't mean a damned thing to him.

This Will Be

a shorter than normal blogging day. It looks like I will be going back up to Farewell Bend this afternoon for a fish fry (I know, what else would you do on Friday?). I probably wouldn't be back until much later tonight and doubt I would do my usual evening blogging.

I almost didn't make it at all because I choked this morning. I threw up for a bit and recovered, but I still felt sick to my stomach when I cycled. Then, after I got home, it appeared my dog had another flea attack. I am going to watch that carefully, but it's very possible he will have to be taken to the vet.

So Will the California

coup attempt be a rerun of the Fraudida fiasco of 2000 and result in disenfranchisement of poor and minority voters? Some precincts are consolidating in order to save money, and this means that voters will have a harder time getting to the polls.

And you know it won't be wealthy voters, either.

Paul Krugman

writes about the mess in California, culminating in the coup attempt against Gray Davis.

"The recall isn't just a case of hardball politics. It's also a grand act of evasion: in the face of a severe fiscal crisis, voters are being invited to focus not on hard choices but on personality. Replacing Gray Davis with someone more likable isn't going to pay the bills."

The Boys Can't Help It.

This is enough to make me want to stop blogging and go walk my dog. So we have yet another bunch of "experts" giving excuses for many men's rotten behavior in terms of screwing around on their significant and insignificant others, using "studies" to prove their dubious theories.

Yes, and one could argue murder and war are natural and "hard wired" because they help keep down the population. So what's the goddamned point except to justify a stupid double standard in men and women's behaviors?

There is the matter of free choice and responsibility for those choices, after all.

The Newly Formed

American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, a legal group counteracting the poisonous philosophy of the ultraright Federalist Society, is holding its convention this weekend.

The link to the organization is here.

If You Don't Like

John Edwards, ignore this post and link, but if you do, you can see why this blogger feels as she does that of all of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination, he has the best shot at beating George W. Bush to a pulp:

"Edwards spent the first half of the year largely focused on raising money, and he now barely tops Carol Moseley Braun in most polls. But, for months, his advisers have cautioned that it is all part of the plan. 'We've been operating under this quaint theory that the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary take place in January, and we've calibrated our strategy accordingly,' says David Axelrod, one of Edwards's top advisers. The town-hall-style meeting in Nashua is just one in a long series of late summer stops in Iowa and New Hampshire to finally introduce the senator to the voters. But, while this tour has long been anticipated, what wasn't foreseen was the metamorphosis that has accompanied it. Whereas the old Edwards often replied to queries with Southern-accented platitudes, the new Edwards spews statistics and answers voters' questions with a sometimes overwhelming arsenal of specific proposals [Gasp! Shades of policy wonks Clinton and Gore!]. Indeed, while the media have focused on the improbable success of Howard Dean, over the last few months Edwards has developed perhaps the most detailed and coherent domestic agenda of any of the Democratic candidates."

The author of this piece, Ryan Lizza, notes Bill Clinton is very close to John Edwards (and Democrats should pay close attention to this fact, which says everything to me about where the party should go), and he goes on to make many comparisons between the two.

Snip:

"However he came to it, the Clinton echoes are loud. Clinton, in his 1992 campaign manifesto, Putting People First, talked about 'providing opportunity, taking responsibility, rewarding work.' In his tax speech, Edwards said he wanted the campaign to be a debate about the values of 'opportunity, responsibility, hard work.' Just as Clinton declared, 'Our policies are neither liberal nor conservative, neither Democratic nor Republican,' Edwards now argues that 'American politics has been stuck in the grip of two competing and unsatisfactory theories.' Where Clinton railed that the 'average CEO at a major American corporation...is paid about one hundred times more than the average worker,' Edwards explains, 'We live in an America where, over the last thirty years, working people's pay has gone up ten percent. CEO pay has gone up three thousand percent!' And so on."

While Edwards's critics dismiss him as not being able to break out of the bottom tier, the middle tier, whatever tier, they are fools for dismissing a surefire winner who is the antiBush who could take out little George the way Bill Clinton took out the old man.

Now That the Filing

deadline is close for those who want to usurp the duly elected governor of California, Arnold S. and Richard J. Riordan still are staying quiet about their intentions. It's doubtful in the extreme Arnold S. will want to be foolish enough to take on the ludicrous task, thanks to pressures from home, and Riordan will have one hell of a time putting together a statewide campaign of only a couple of months' duration if he runs. If he's smart, he'll pass, too.

link

While Our

economy is supposed to be recovering since unemployment benefit claims have declined for two straight weeks, if you are like me and are unemployed, you don't have much faith the economy is getting any better. It would have to take a miraculous sort of growth to get the economy back to where it was when the dictator began to squat in President Al's White House.

And that isn't going to happen. It's not supposed to.

Robert Kuttner

lets us know that globalization is a good deal only when corporations benefit.

Harold Meyerson

of AmPro might be a little too overly optimistic about the Davis recall. After all, weirder and worse things have happened:

"They're [Republicans] dreaming. While it is possible that Gray Davis could be recalled and a Republican installed in the statehouse until 2006, there are profound and irreversible reasons why the California of Richard Nixon, Howard Jarvis and Ronald Reagan has vanished, and why California has become just about the most solidly Democratic state in the nation."

But that is why the far right put in mechanisms so they can exercise power even when they don't have the majority, such as the 2/3rds supermajority for budgets and tax increases and term limits, and why they are abusing the recall and initiative processes. They KNOW they don't have the votes, but they will try anything and everything to hinder progress. So talk of the Republicans being all but dead in California is a bit premature, whether or not Davis prevails.

The Teamsters

union, according to this report, plans to endorse Richard Gephardt for president.

Despite the jokes about Hoffa and so on, this is a major deal. This should give Gephardt an added boost to his campaign, and even if he doesn't prevail, his endorsement for another candidate could be important to that candidate in terms of ready-made volunteers and cash.

This is also a major slap in the face to our dictator because the Teamsters in the past supported his daddy, Reagan, and Nixon. Evidently they didn't want to make the same mistake again by backing the another horse's ass.

I think we can assume amateur hour is over with, and the serious campaign season is getting underway.

Slate Article

on the many problems with electronic voting machines.

It doesn't help matters the writer thinks the likelihood of rigging the machines is a part of some conspiracy thinking on the part of black helicopter-style nutballs. The threats are very real and shouldn't be treated dismissively.

Since the 2000 election was tainted by fraud and a corrupt Supreme Court decision, what in the world makes any writer think that the Bush gang can't pull it off again, only this time through even more sophisticated means?

Interesting little bit at the NYT about a lawsuit alleging voting machines missed 60,000 votes in New York City during the 2000 election. I doubt if these had been counted Bush would have carried the state.

The Spineless

Democrats in the Senate once again got together and killed yet another far right Bush judicial nominee: William Pryor.

And that's it for me until later today.

There Were a Couple

of Republican critiques of the Davis recall movement in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

Scott Holleran

Bob Gardner


The editorial page also had a Pat Buchanan column about the California mess, which predictably included statements about unrestricted immigration and so on that Buchanan is famous for uttering, but I have no link to that piece.

Richard Gephardt

continues getting a slew of union endorsements, this time getting the endorsements of three maritime unions.

Contrary to the feelings of some, endorsements ARE important, and the lack of them signals a serious problem with a particular candidate.

With No Vitriolic Commentary

in this post about his contradictory record on the environment, Howard Dean speaks or has spoken in S.F. today about it and related issues.

Let's Hope to God

Governor Davis is right and the Democrats will be unified going into the October recall fight.

There's been gossip about Dianne Feinstein being interested in running, and I've seen Loretta Sanchez's name being thrown about. But I don't think any Democrat in his or her right mind would run for that seat. There's no time to campaign, no money, and it's too confusing.

Leave the stupidity up to the Republicans who fueled this coup attempt in the first place.

Enough of That

rant. I get so tired of being bullshitted by bullshit artists who couldn't care less that the one party, warts and all, that actually cares about the working and middle class sectors of the population, goes down in flames and guarantees there will be only the fascists and a lunatic fringe party on the left.

We've been down this road before, and it didn't work, and there is no way in the world, with the massive shift of the debate to the right, it will work now. But it makes it only that much easier for the fascists to demonize the Democrats while working in states like Texas and California to create political coups against elected Democrats and criminalize the Democratic Party.

Kurtz

ponders in his pandering, ponderous column today whether Democrats are hurling themselves over a cliff by trying to go back to the tried, tested, and discredited notion of embracing the "left." He even links to Joan Walsh's idiotic Salon article where she questions whether Rove has taken over the DLC (no, Joanie, it's more likely the Rovians have infiltrated the Dean campaign, what with its relentless hatred of moderate Democrats, while the God himself ruled Vermont exactly like a Republican).

But back to the lemming theory. Is the sky blue on an unsmoggy day? Was Bush appointed and not elected? Of course the "progressives" are sending the party over a cliff, fed in part by the Rovians and fed in part by a lapdog media which is encouraging the split.

This stuff always reeked from the get-go, ever since the Republicans managed to rig some Senate elections last year to create a "disaster" for the Democrats. You know, the Democrats, who had no real majority to begin with, lost so horribly, fewer than 50,000 votes nationally, even when various senate candidates' messages were drowned in a continuous media drumbeat over Iraq and the D.C. sniper case. Don't think for a minute all of that wasn't intentional. But almost immediately after the alleged "debacle," I started reading on discussion boards and a few articles that Democrats needed to "regroup," that they needed to throw out the "failed" "moderate" stance of successful Democratic campaigns which kept the party from going the way of the Whigs, that they needed to reject the money people in the Democratic Leadership Council, that they should demonize anybody who wasn't a card-carrying "progressive" who didn't trash talk the establishment (which was everybody except the good doctor) by accusing moderate or even liberal candidates of being "Democrats in name only" (often supporting a candidate who really IS a DINO!) while invoking the memory of a dead man who would cringe at the thought he was being used in such a cynical manner by cynical individuals supporting a cynically-run campaign. It reeked and still reeks.

After all, if these "progressives" were honest, it wasn't the moderates who attacked their boy in the first place, but it was their boy who went after them in a cynical attempt to get the activist vote. Well, he and his campaign got enough of them, but now it will be virtually impossible for him to branch out to the despised moderate Democrats and middle-of-the-road voters in the general electorate without losing the "liberal" base. Nobody with any money apart from the few in Hollywood will support him, nobody would ever be caught dead on the same ticket with him if he ever got the nomination, and none of this will happen anyway. All it will do is weaken the Democrats to the point that they will not be able to mount an effective challenge to the vulnerable dictator next fall.

Which is exactly what Karl Rove wants.

And now we have publications on the so-called "left" like American Prospect and Salon, both of which should know better, fueling this crap, crap that I am almost certain as I am sitting here has Karl Rove's blessing. It's shameful, disgraceful. Tragic that anti-Democratic Party propaganda has infiltratred so-called liberal publications, and people by the thousands are swallowing the Rovian talking points that Democrats must embrace the "left" while leaving out the 80 or 90 percent of the voters who are not ultraliberal.

Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 24, C&P 36.

Slate

summarizes Howard Dean's foreign policy. It's not a blank page, either.

One Thing About

the coup attempt against Gray Davis: Nobody likely to challenge him has won a goddamned thing, unlike Davis:

""Bill Simon, Dick Riordan, Michael Huffington, Darrell Issa, Al Checchi, Peter Camejo and Tom McClintock faced California voters during the past decade and failed. Now, they're circling around the strange and historic recall campaign as possible candidates again."

link

This should bode well for Davis, although we know good and well we can't assume victory against these fascistic types.

WSWS

also analyses the scheme of Verizon to demand more and more concessions of union workers thanks to executives screwing up, as usual.

I don't feel too hopeful of the workers' chances. Verizon has already prepared for the worst, including hiring scabs and others to work in the event of a strike.

WSWS

reports on the Pentagon scheme of a "futures market" in terrorism. And the media, as always, were and are asleep at the switch:

"It is already clear that the mass media has decided to bury the issue of the Pentagon's futures market in terror. In keeping with their consistent policy of covering up the crimes of the Bush administration and concealing its anti-democratic and gangster-like methods, the most prominent newspapers reported the PAM revelations in a semi-jocular tone and the cable news networks barely noticed them at all."

Thank God

I missed Bush's press conference of yesterday, which most reports had of our dictator supporting bans on gay marriage. A nonissue which only serves to galvanize the Republican base and marginalize Democrats who are foolish enough to even make this an issue. And naturally, the Republicans are making hay out of it because they know there's not that much support out there in Middle America for such an idea as gay marriages.

Timothy Noah for one wasn't impressed with the little dictator's press conference, the first one he's held in months.

I Got a Late Start

today, but there isn't all that much to blog about.

Since Sam Phillips died late last night, the print newspapers of today have little or no reporting of his death (except for the AP report of last night). I suspect there will be some write-ups tomorrow about his life and career.

After all, he was somebody who was important in the field of popular music and helped launch the careers of many famous entertainers, and his style of music remains influential today.

Thinking About Sam Phillips and Elvis

This is one of the times I wish I was back in Reno, for I have literally dozens and dozens of books on Elvis Presley and could have many, many posts about Phillips and Sun Records.

I will say this much, though. Although it is my belief that the Sun recordings are not Elvis's best work, I believe the most enjoyable of all of his recordings is the famous December 4, 1956 jam session at the studio, where Elvis dropped in with his girlfriend at the time and joined Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and earlier in the day, Johnny Cash for the so-called "million dollar quartet" session. It is available on CD, and it is one of those "desert island" recordings I would never be without.

In case the reader doesn't know, the recordings are mostly of gospel and rhythm-and-blues songs, and bits of songs. Listening to it is like being a fly on the wall witnessing something that would never happen again. Elvis, I believe, was at his best in these kinds of sessions (only the rehearsed "unrehearsed" Burbank sessions of 1968 rival this session for pure enjoyment), singing with others. My favorite part of the recording is when Elvis talks about his visit to Las Vegas in 1956, and he happened to see Billy Ward and the Dominoes. He raved about the lead singer, who happened to be one of the all-time great singers, Jackie Wilson, and how Wilson did a "takeoff on me" singing the hit "Don't Be Cruel." Elvis then sings "Don't Be Cruel" (and later a version of "Paralyzed") doing a takeoff on Wilson doing a takeoff on Elvis. It was great. When Elvis finishes, he goes on to say how he went to that nightclub four nights straight just to see Wilson do that takeoff. Elvis remarked Wilson did the song better than he did.

Who says imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery?

As Far as I'm Concerned

this is far more important than reading bullshit from so-called journalists telling what the DLC or the Democratic Party should do in order to further these journalists' Republican interests.

Sam Phillips, one of the most important figures of 20th century music, the founder of the legendary Sun Records of Memphis, Tennessee, and the man who first put Elvis Presley on the road to musical immortality, has died at the age of 80. The report said he died from respiratory failure and had been in failing health for the past year.

Unlike many people, I do not believe Elvis Presley made his best records for Phillips and Sun. In fact, I would submit that the records were rather inhibited by comparison with his RCA work a few months after Elvis left Sun. But what is important is that Phillips helped mold Elvis' style, which was frankly an accidental combination of both black and white musical influences. The Sun recordings are Elvis' most important recordings, perhaps the most historically important recordings of twentieth century music, but they are not Elvis's best.

Elvis had the raw talent, and Phillips help mold it into something truly new, truly revolutionary.

So MWO

actually thinks it should put a link up by one of our media whores, Joan Walsh of Salon, who is going to tell Democrats how to fight their wars? That the centrists, who just happen to have the money the alleged "grassroots" do not, are risking being irrelevant? It also cuts both ways--people who support Dean especially need to quit attacking moderates because they cannot win without them. And above all Dean himself needs to quit trashing other Democratic candidates. That's what started the whole goddamned thing, and not the DLC, though Reed and From should have just shut up after their first memo.

Goddamn these fuckers. It's pretty clear they are egging on any kind of "division" within the Democratic Party so as to help their boy George actually win a first term. Walsh is as bad as the rest of them. I also suggest that MWO and other bloggers actually know what that "evil" DLC does before running their keyboards off half-cocked and half-assed.

More Children Are

not only being left behind, but they are actually being pushed out. This article has a New York slant, but it might as well be nationwide:

"Educators nationwide are waking up to the problem of pushouts. With the advent of high-stakes testing in dozens of statse, and the fact that under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, schools with low graduation rates risk being deemed failing schools, schools are facing real temptations to make their results look good by getting rid of low performers."

And where do these "low performers" end up? Well, they will struggle forever in the low-wage jobs that the fascists want people who aren't rich already to work in, turn tricks, deal drugs, or end up in prison. They could even end up getting the G.E.D. Or else, as has happened to some high school students in northern Nevada who couldn't pass the state-mandated tests, go to private high schools which weren't required to have the same standards of testing. That way, the students could eventually graduate with a diploma.

More from the Same Site,

this one about the voting rights struggle of our time. This piece focuses on efforts in California to rig elections.

""The biggest problem with computerized voting systems is that they are not transparent. There is simply no good reason for voters to trust a 100-percent computerized, paperless voting system run on proprietary software. People are not asked to exercise this kind of blind trust in any other important transaction, and voting is the most important transaction of them all."

How Stealing Elections

is just a computer chip away:

"Many citizens believe, however, that turning the programming and maintenance of voting over to corporations that can share their profits openly with politicians (or, like Hagel, become the politicians), puts democracy itself in peril."

But installing touch screen voting machines is going along smoothly, with little in the way of effective protest.

Court Action on

the Davis coup front.

The Case Against

actors stating their political beliefs:

Q: So you think Bush is smart?

A (aka James Woods): Because he's president of the United States and we aren't [never mind the fool was appointed, not elected]. It's facetious and fallacious to assume that you could be in a position of power like that and on some level not have the ability to be pretty shrewd and careful, and yes, intelligent, things to be involved in intelligent enterprises."

Gee, Jimmy, haven't you ever heard of advisors?

Little Woods also likes Bush and thinks Clinton and Nixon are truly loathesome.

I am sure the recall people are just dying to get this clown on the gubernatorial ticket now that Arnold S. apparently is not running.

There is Little Doubt

in my mind that the Speaker's autobiography will be titled The Second Coming of McCarthyism, as in Charlie McCarthy.

No doubt the Hammer will ghostwrite some of it for Hastert.

Kurtz Today

writes about the gay issue and how that's becoming the wedge issue of the year.

It always was a loser for Democrats to go on about civil unions and so on because it feeds right in to the Rove talking points. If the USA Today poll was remotely accurate, and I don't doubt it is, most people aren't ready for such a "radical" idea as civil unions, much less gay marriages. I personally would rather see candidates focus on the economy and health care.


I also noticed Kurtz's little bit about the AmPro bit about a former DLC person giving money to Bush's campaign. True to the belief of the moronic "progressives," they no doubt believe moderate Democrats are really Republicans in sheep's clothing while at the same time many of them back a governor who governed exactly like a Republican! I also suggest to AmPro, which is good in many ways but also often as useless as tits on a boar, investigate "Republicans for Dean" or pay more attention to Karl Rove's cheerleading of the Dean candidacy. He's NOT using reverse psychology, either.

Kurtz Kount: Kurtz 25, C&P 38.

This is Rather a Disturbing

development, also in the NYT: more pickups (as opposed to sport utility vehicles) are selling more and more and are displacing cars.

Again, it's no doubt due to owners' belief that these vehicles are safer than cars. But the reporter points out that they are even less safe than SUVs, especially to those driving other cars. They also burn up a hell of a lot more gas, which is the last thing we should have in motor vehicles given the need to save on fuel (Bush and Cheney notwithstanding). Although these vehicles have utilitarian purposes, many if not most people buy them to show off.

I was a fan of pickups from way back. I liked the way they handled, even though they never handled as well as a car, and frankly, I liked sitting way up high. Apparently, a lot of other people agree with me, and sales have shot way, way up.

Gene Lyons

should probably write a column about the latest development in the NYT: the hiring of an ombudsman to help the newspaper's sagging credibility.


link

If it weren't so disgusting it would be funny. NOW they are worried about the paper's sagging credibility? Hell, they needed an ombudsman back during the Whitewater fiasco.

Chris Suellentrop

of Slate is now following John Kerry around.

And no, I don't think Kerry should act like that unelectable loudmouth, Howard Dean, which I suspect isn't Dean's true self. Kerry should be himself and not some goddamned pandering phony.

I Am Back

for a little bit. The temperature according to WeatherBug is now 105 degrees, but it didn't seem to feel that hot when I returned from Farewell Bend near Union Creek, which means absolutely nothing to anybody who isn't a resident of southern Oregon. But I had a great time, a lot better time than if I had stayed at my brother's house all day.

Okay,

I am gone for the next few hours, but I should be back in full force sometime this afternoon.

The Right-Wing Media

doesn't have control just in this country, but it also has control in places such as Australia. It seems the unions there are kissing up to them, much to their detriment.

At Least Some Good News

I think, before I head out the door: New York City seems to be making a turnaround financially.

Well,

it looks as if I spoke too damned soon. I just got invited to go with my sisters to "fish," even though I don't fish at all.

I hope to hell I don't get bored to death.

It's Supposed to

"cool" off today to only 106 degrees. Right now it doesn't feel too bad outside, but it is still warm when I try and go for a run at 6:45 a.m.

Nobody in the family wants to do a damned thing, and outside of my brother, I haven't seen anybody since I came up Saturday.

From Obscurity

to here and hopefully back to obscurity, this nonfan says, but here is a NYT piece about Howard Dean, who defies all labels since nobody can figure him out.

"With his early and intense opposition to the American-led attack on Iraq, his call for universal health insurance and his signing a bill that created civil unions for gay couples in Vermont, Dr. Dean, 54, is seen as the most liberal of the major Democratic candidates [deliberately calculated, I might add, to get the party activists' support]. Many of the people donning his 'Give 'em hell, Howard' buttons hail from the left wing of the party and beyond.

"But in Vermont, whose political center of gravity lands left of the nation's, one of the secrets of Dr. Dean's success was keeping the most liberal politicians in check. Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn in a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in faor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests."

Gee, he sounds just like a Republican.

More:

"But as Dean has transformed himself to a valid contender in the race, examinations of what he says and thinks have intensified.

"Among the most carefully scrutinized are his evolving critiques of the Iraq war. With other Democrats now criticizing the administration for overstating intelligence concerns about Iraq and uranium, Dr. Dean has been claiming that he was the only major Democratic candidate who had been unconvinced by President Bush's evidence on weapons of mass destruction. But earlier this spring, he said repeatedly that he did believe Iraq had such weapons and just did not think an American-led invasion was the right solution."

And there's a whole lot more, and a lot of it is not going to make Dean's supporters very happy. Still, the public needs to know as much about the man's record as possible.

Well, Time Will Tell

if this rumor is true. It seems doubtful at this time, however.

As I've written before, if the Democrats end up with no clear winner of delegates, there could be pressure for President Al to step in and take the mantle.

Interesting Little Statistics

from the press release of the study discussed immediately below:

"Although some employers notified workers of their impending job loss, as required by federal law (for employers with more than 100 workers), 64% of workers were laid off with less than two weeks notice. The majority of workers have returned to full-time work since being laid off, but for many, particularly African-American workers, the job hunt continues. Although 68% of white workers found a new full-time job in the recent period, only 44% of African-American workers have done so, and only 54% of workers of other races."

And how does our Fraud-in-Chief fare with these displaced workers?

"Overall, only 8% of workers say that President Bush is doing an excellent job handling issues related to jobs, while 31% say he is doing a poor job. Similarly, only 2% of workers say that Congress is doing an excellent job, while 33% say it is doing a poor job. Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say that Bush is doing a good or excellent job on these issues (67% to 19%), but African-American workers are more than twice as likely than white workers to rate Bush's performance on the economy as poor (51% to 24%)."

Again, it raises the question of how anybody can possibly be a Republican after being laid off thanks to his economic policies which put them there in the first place.

More Good News

from the booming Bush economy: only about one person in five was laid off during this recession [we would call such a deal depression, but who's quibbling]. That means, of course, four people in five weren't laid off. So why is anybody complaining?

Moreover, many of these people didn't receive unemployment insurance benefits, and a lot of them can't afford the obscene premiums of COBRA coverage, a "reform" benefiting only the affluent, if their companies provided it at all.

Here is the webpage with the report referred to in the article about the "disposable" American worker.

The Problem with John Dean

is he asks too many questions. This time he raises questions about the 9/11 report with regard to White House statements on intelligence.

Well, we know the answers to these questions, ultimately.

Welcome to the Bush Economy,

where all of the high-wage jobs will be either eliminated or "outsourced" to other countries. But the question is rarely asked of those who promote such anti-worker policies: Who will buy the products here if there are no high-paying jobs left?

Time:

"Jobs that stay put are becoming a lot harder to find these days. U.S. companies are expected to send 3.3 million jobs overseas in the next 12 years, primarily to India, according to a study by Forrester Research. If you've ever called Dell about a sick PC or American Express about an error on your bill, you have already bumped the lip of this 'offshore outsourcing' iceberg. The friendly voice that answered your questions was probably a customer-service rep in Bangalore or New Delhi. Those relatively low-skilled jobs were the first to go, starting in 1997.

"But more and more of the jobs that are moving abroad today are highly skilled and highly paid [that's the point, especially the latter]--the type that U.S. workers assumed would always remain at home. Instead [Sab] Migliore is one of thousands of Americans adjusting to the unsettling new reality of work [which is the same bullshit done to manufacturing jobs in the 1980s, during the last stretch of anti-worker, anti-union sentiment]. 'If I can get another three years in this industry, I'll be fortunate,' he says. Businesses are embracing offshore outsourcing in their drive to stay competitive [my ass--only if "competititve" means a huge profit for those assholes at the top of the corporate ladder], and almost any company, whether in manufacturing or services, can find some part of its work that can be done off site. By taking advantage of lower wages overseas, U.S. managers [the very ones who should be losing their jobs] believe they can cut their overall costs 25% to 40% while building a more secure, more focused work force in the U.S. [WHERE, praytell, if there are no decent jobs left except the handful of assholes running corporations?]. Labor leaders--and nonunion workers, who make up most of those being displaced--aren't buying that rationale. 'How can America be competitive in the long run sending over the very best jobs?' asks Marcus Courtney, president of the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. 'I don't see how that helps the middle class.'"

It isn't supposed to. There isn't supposed to BE a middle class, in the far right's dream of destroying the very fabric of this country and putting in its place a modern-day feudal society, where people will toil forever in bad jobs with no upward mobility, toiling away for those plutocrats who actually believe they are of a superior stock than everybody else.

Miracles

never cease: The California Assembly finally passed a compromise budget today. Governor Davis plans to sign it. Unfortunately there are a number to deep cuts in it to satisfy the Republicans.

By the way, the budget passed with two votes to spare to get the 2/3rds supermajority vote.

This should--but probably won't--knock the sails out of the get-Davis movement. There is also this story about a federal judge throwing out part of the state's recall law.

This is on the Level

of former jockey Bill Shoemaker suing Ford and others for his goddamned irresponsibility for driving drunk (causing his paralysis). Of course, I am referring to that other Bill, Bill "the Greek" Bennett. It seems he is considering suing the casinos for leaking information about his outrageous gambling addiction, er, habit.

Is he trying to recover all the money he's lost since his career must have been damaged a bit over the revelations of a few months ago? Or is he a typical Republican who's screaming victim when he's been caught?

This NYT Piece

also appeared in today's Oregonian, about the family feud over the Jimi Hendrix estate. I suppose it's inevitable.

snips:

"The fight between his brother Leon Hendrix and his stepsister Janie Hendrix over the estate intensified last year after Hendrix's father, Al, who had inherited the estate, died in April. There is the new exhibition at the Experience Music Project in downtown Seattle, a hugely popular collection of Hendrix memorabilia that started with a large donation by Paul Allen, a hard-core Hendrix fan, and then vastly expanded last month with mementos from the family. There was the completion of a granite memorial to Hendrix [which can be seen at this link], constructed by his family, at a cemetery near Seattle, where his remains were exhumed last November and relocated to the memorial, about 100 feet away...

"'You'd be hard-pressed to find any hard-core Hendrix fan that approves of the way Janie has handled the estate or Jimi's image or the marketing,' said Ray Rae Goldman, director of archival research for the James Marshall Hendrix Foundation, started by Al Hendrix. 'They've topped Elvis or the Stones or anybody for crass marketing.'

"Goldman is close to Leon Hendrix, who sued Janie Hendrix last year, contending that she illegally persuaded Al Hendrix to leave Leon Hendrix out of his will. Leon, 55, who lives in Seattle and plays guitar for several bands, inherited nothing from the Hendrix estate except a gold record...

"Leon Hendrix said moving his brother's body upset him. 'If Jimi was alive right now,' he said, 'he wouldn't be happy about this stuff. They moved Jimi from his grave to the memorial. We've got Indian blood. We don't move people.'"

There are major bucks involved in the estate dispute, money that eluded the free-spending, debt-ridden Jimi during his lifetime. It's estimated to be worth somewhere in the range of $100 to $160 million.

Remember What Happened

two years ago after Bush took a month long vacation?

Bush will be still attending fundraisers to try and get his obscene campaign war chest to at least $170 million. He plans to attend fundraisers on the West Coast, the region most hospitable to Bush and his compassionate conservative ideas.

"I Think

this is the worst government we have ever had in its more than 200 years of history."

More of this interview here.

More Reason to Thank

the Republicans: one high-tech job in ten may go overseas by 2004.

I wonder how many of those displaced workers would still vote for Bush, assuming many of them did in the first place?

Las Vegas of Oregon

Currently the temperature outside in Medford, Oregon, is 108 degrees.

The hottest I remember it getting--if not officially--was back in 1981 when the temperature got to 116 degrees. It was miserable beyond belief.

I will return later on today.

Peter Schrag

tells us that the administration's shitty treatment of the states may be a way for it to punish them for being liberal.

Of course it's all a matter of ideology. Everything this administration does is political in intent.

Now, are the Democrats going to get out of their slumber and do something about this before the entire country goes down in flames?

Snips from this lengthy article:

"Some of that you can ascribe to the Administration's efforts to suck every possible dollar of the cost of Bush's tax cuts from the states. But behind the fiscal policies--the unfunded mandates (i.e., new federal requirements without funds to help states comply); the cost of NCLB, Bush's 'No Child Left Behind' education law; the childcare expenses made necessary by the Administration's proposed new federal work rules for welfare recipients--there seemed to be an ideological thrust, bordering on vindictiveness, aimed at teaching the liberal states a lesson...

"Bush-era unfunded mandates and impositions, like expenses for homeland security, however, have been particularly hard on the so-called blue states. In part that's because they tend to be states with the poorer people, the larger welfare and Medicaid loads, and, no coincidentally, the tougher environmental regulations, none of them beloved by the Administration...

"And what of the intense, relentless campaign launched by Attorney General John Ashcroft and drug czar John Walters to gut voter-enacted state medical marijuana laws? At a time when federal law-enforcement authorities are supposedly stretched thin by terrorism threats, what perverse passion would drive them to devote precious investigative and prosecutorial resources to that dubious purpose? Eight states, including Arizona, have approved such laws in the past seven years, all but one by voter initiative, but it's California and Californians that have been virtually the sole target.

"The same Justice Department vehemence has been directed toward eviscerating Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law, approved twice by voters in that state. That attempt, still blocked in the courts, has implications far beyond assisted suicide, since it could subject any physician using morphine or other drugs to relieve the pain of cancer or other diseases in terminally ill patients to prosecution or denial of the right to prescribe, which is tantamount to a denial of the right to practice..."

And on and on. All against these states merely because they voted Democratic.

It

gets weirder and weirder in California. Now Arianna Huffington is considering making a run for the California governorship.

If she does it, then that wrecks what little trust I had in her to begin with. There's an awful lot more at stake than egos or trying to con progressives into supporting a fascistic-run coup. As far as I am concerned, if she runs she's giving legitimacy to something that isn't legitimate to begin with.

It stinks to high heaven.

This is Kind

of a silly article about how Dean's Net fundraising outdid Cheney's.

Four days of fundraising does not "beat" what some rich fat cat can raise from similar plutocrats over lunch. Apples and oranges, people, just because Dean can get that much money from some 6,000 donors more than Cheney. That's why such a "grassroots" campaign will fall on its ass. They can NEVER raise the kind of money these fascists can without some major donors not of the Hollywood stripe.

In Spite of

the recall election seemingly being a done deal, there are three lawsuits challenging the recall.

Pobably none of them will get very far.

WSWS

reviews the Bush scheme to in effect abolish overtime.

Note the details in the article of how the definition of "salaried exempt" would be broadened. This proposal is nothing but a handout to McDonalds and Wal-Mart.

The Biggest Threat

to world peace could well be the plutocrats who own and operate Bush and their twisted philosophy of shoehorning the world into their image.

link

Harvey Wasserman

of Online Journal wonders if this country is finally turning a corner as the Bush junta's polls continue to slide.

don't bet on it.