Editorial from:  

The environmental community and the Bush administration are at odds again, this time over proposed changes in a key part of the Clean Water Act. The changes would give states greater leeway in deciding which waterways need to be cleaned and how rapidly to do the job. The administration says that such flexibility is necessary to make the act work. Environmentalists fear yet another rollback of existing protections.

The specific regulation at issue is known, forbiddingly, as the TMDL program - for total maximum daily load. The Clean Water Act has done an admirable job of regulating so-called end-of-pipe pollution from readily identifiable sources like factories and waste treatment plants. The TMDL regulation is aimed at controlling polluted runoff from more diffuse sources like farms, timber operations, and city streets. This runoff is the main reason that 40% of the country's waters - some 20,000 rivers, lakes, and estuaries altogether - are still too polluted for fishing or swimming.

By: Mike McArdle  

Richard Perle never met an aggressive military action that he didn't fall madly in love with. He is a think-tank hawk, one of those people who visit talk shows, work for the American Enterprise Institute, and make it their job to tell us that we're not pursuing our enemies with enough ferocity. He's also the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a panel that advises the Pentagon and apparently actually has military higher-ups pay attention to them. He makes his money thinking about wars and suggesting that they actually occur.

Now of course, Mr. Perle, for all his wild eyed desire to send other people into harm's way to rid the world of the tyrants that he so graciously identifies for us, has never been in or anywhere near a real war. He wanted to make sure that the gun-toting commies in Vietnam wouldn't deprive America of a badly needed think-tank hawk so he developed an insatiable desire for higher education during the era when men his age were being drafted to fight in Southeast Asia.

"A lecture from George Bush on business ethics? That's like getting a facial from a leper."

- Robin Williams

Editorial from:  

The Bush administration, promiscuously invoking the war against terrorism, is using its influence inappropriately to assist an American oil company that has been sued for misconduct overseas. The intervention reinforces the impression that the administration is too cozy with the oil industry.

The case involves Exxon Mobil and its activities in the Indonesian province of Aceh. The Bush administration weighed in to discourage a lawsuit against the company filed on behalf of 11 Acehnese by the International Labor Rights Fund, a Washington group. The suit alleges that the company knew about and did nothing to stop murder, torture, and other crimes by security forces guarding its gas fields in Indonesia. Exxon Mobil says Indonesia is responsible for security at the facilities. At Exxon Mobil's request, the judge in the case asked the State Department whether the case could adversely affect American interests. The administration implausibly said the case could endanger Indonesia's cooperation in fighting terrorism.

"The dogmatic, rudderless Bush regime has only two policy notions at its command - cut taxes and topple Saddam Hussein. And when things go wrong, the Bush regime has one response: 'It's all Clinton's fault.'"

- MWO

Editorial from:  

Washington was abuzz with speculation Thursday whether Scowcroft's comments reflected the views of the elder Bush. That may be wishful thinking for those who oppose a war with Iraq. The importance of Scowcroft's article was less in such unknowables than in its thoughtful rebuttal of some of the basic assumptions of the case for a war presented thus far by the Bush team, especially its argument that Saddam is allied with terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Scowcroft punctured that assertion by saying "there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks".

The point is not that Saddam Hussein poses no threat to the United States and its interests in the Middle East. He unquestionably does. The issue is how best to balance that threat against other priorities. Scowcroft and others are making abundantly clear that dealing with Iraq is a highly complicated matter that carries great potential to produce unintended and injurious consequences if handled rashly by Bush.

"If Clinton's to blame for economic shortcomings, then the Republicans should also give him credit for the longest expansion, the strongest job growth and lowest unemployment in decades. It's a two-way street."

- Gene Sperling, Clinton's former top economic adviser

From:  

Hmmm... So, by our count Dubya has made it onto the list 13 times in the last five weeks. That's pretty impressive, even for a conservative idiot of his stature. And Chimpy McCokespoon tops the chart again this week, by pissing off just about everybody who voted for him. It doesn't get much more idiotic than that, but then this is George W. Bush we're talking about. Struggling to keep up with George we have five Enron executives at number 3 - they decided that they did such a good job that they want more money from their now-bankrupt company. And John Ashcroft (4) makes a reappearance, this time calling for internment camps to house Americans who have been stripped of their Constitutional rights. No comment. Meanwhile Bill Simon (7) is becoming quite a regular, Rep. Bill Thomas (8) wields his powers recklessly, and the world's least private citizen works hard to make it into the number ten slot. Enjoy.

By: Bridget Gibson  

First it was Jeffrey Skilling, former CEO of Enron, who testified before a Congressional Hearing that he was just mentality inept and could not understand how Enron operated, then last week Bernie Ebbers, former CEO of WorldCom stated that he was "too stupid to know what my company's doing". There are others that have decided not to tell anything about what or when they knew things were not as they should be or even appeared to be.

This week in Waco, Texas (site of the Luby's Restaurant massacre and David Koresh's bonfire), we have had another spectacle: George W. Bush's Economic Summit. And a fine summit it was. The pinnacle of disgraceful "yes" men and women who could not fall over themselves quickly enough to applaud the miraculous job that Boy George had done with the American economy. And Mr. Bush was quick to say that he had the economy under control.

Excuse me. If this is control, please stop the train, I want off.

By: Zbigniew Brzezinski  

There is a right and a wrong way for America to wage war. Obviously, if it is attacked, America must respond with all its might. The same is true if an ally is attacked. But the issue becomes much more complex if a threat, but not an attack, is involved. America must then consider carefully the consequences of its actions, both for itself as the world's preeminent power and for the longer-term evolution of the international system as a whole.

The United States may have to go to war to oust Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq because the potential nexus between conspiratorial terrorism and the weapons of mass destruction that Hussein is said to be producing cannot be blithely ignored. But war is too serious a business and too unpredictable in its dynamic consequences - especially in a highly flammable region - to be undertaken because of a personal peeve, demagogically articulated fears, or vague factual assertions.

By: Mike Schiller  

How is it that an institution which preaches love can credibly convince people that expressing love is wrong, while feeling love is good? How is it that an institution can, over the centuries, be proven right about many things but wrong about many other things, yet continually resist honestly evaluating new information and admitting they are wrong - even when the rest of humanity, through education, science, and greater social understanding has already sought and drawn those conclusions? Should it not be true that the very institutions who first pioneered the new values that set the stage for the advancement of civilization should be the first to embrace the realities which will lead civilization forward into a more peaceful and loving tomorrow?

These are questions we must ask ourselves when looking at the ideas promoted by some within this world's religious institutions. If we are to build a society based on love, we must embrace not only the idea of love, but love itself in all its manifestations. We cannot have a love-filled society if people are forced, whether through physical restraint or verbal barrage, to refrain from expressing love to one another in any way. That creates a mental paradox in which people are convinced that love is wrong, and those emotions fuel suicidal behavior.

Physical expressions of love are valid expressions of love. They are not urges or temptations or sins or crimes...

"Under the way they're kind of writing it right now, out of the Senate Finance Committee, some people could spend their entire five years - there's a five-year work requirement - on welfare, going to college. Now, that's not my view of helping people become independent. And it's certainly not my view of understanding the importance of work and helping people achieve the dignity necessary so they can live a free life, free from government control."

- Dubya, the 'Ejamication' pResident, showing just how much he thinks of the value of an education

By: Molly Ivins  

The President's Economic Forum held here Tuesday raises the question, "By how much don't they get it?"

The range of opinion at this shindig went from A to B. This wasn't a forum, it was a pep rally. Sis-Boom-Bah City for the old cheerleader. President George W. Bush said Baylor University "put on a good show". Got to agree. It was one of the most sophisticated phony political events I have ever witnessed.

Such attention to the details of stagecraft - the lovely flag painting behind them at the plenary session, the helpful hints on the backdrops: "Corporate Responsibility", "Better Health Care", etc., for those too dumb to figure it out from the vapid speeches. The wonderfully artificial inclusion of "real people" - all of whom just happen to think George W. Bush is divine. This Potemkin Village of diversity lacked just one thing - anyone with a good idea. Any 10 ex-employees of Enron could come up with a long list of recommendations on how to fix things so this doesn't happen again. But they weren't invited.

The country is in a world of economic trouble because of an immense tax cut for the rich and 20 years of deregulation. So everyone at Potemkin Village favored more tax cuts for the rich and slashing that terrible government regulation that is strangling big business today.

Action Alert

"Bush killed emergency health tracking funds for rescue and recovery workers at ground zero, and emergency medical care for veterans. The firefighters and the American Legion are crying foul. White House aides know that the rescue workers and veterans, while heroes, don't live in a key swing state. Sorry guys, you don't get their money."

- Paul Begala

By: Arianna Huffington  

George W. Bush's economic forum ended with the steady whoosh of departing corporate jets instead of a fiery apocalypse. This time the conflagration wasn't in Waco but on Wall Street where one airline declared bankruptcy, another threatened to if it didn't get what it wanted, and a third announced a massive restructuring with 7,000 lost jobs. In Washington, meanwhile, Alan Greenspan declined to embarrass his boss by lowering interest rates - although the Fed did assess the current economic outlook in unusually gloomy terms.

But none of these inconvenient facts intruded on the President's revival meeting in the Lone Star State where discouraging words from non-believers were kept to the barest minimum. And while the President may have acknowledged that our economy is "challenged", an understatement akin to saying that David Koresh was "a tad kooky", the hallelujah chorus that was determined to drown out facts with blind faith clearly won the day.

Like the Branch Davidians, the Brunch Bushians found comfort by withdrawing from a world that was confusing, complicated, and just a little too unfriendly of late. Appropriately convened at the Old Time Christian Religion venue of Baylor University, the administration orchestrated a full-blown extravaganza complete with stirring words, a parade of icons, and even marching music by John Philip Sousa, designed to dazzle the gullible and win new converts. Reason was banished.

By: Nicholas D. Kristof  

In the Bush administration, the assumption is that in all these cases the fundamental issue is abortions or sex. It is not.

The central issue is that 500,000 women die each year in pregnancy or childbirth; that 100 million women and girls worldwide are "missing" because they are denied adequate food or medical care, or because they are aborted or killed at birth because they are female; that 60% of the children kept out of elementary school are girls; that 130 million girls have undergone genital mutilation; that between one and two million girls and women are trafficked into prostitution annually.

If I'm angry, it's because those figures conjure real faces of people I've met: Aisha Idris, a Sudanese peasant left incontinent after giving birth at 14, with no midwife or prenatal care, to a stillborn child; Mariam Karega, a young woman nursing her dying baby in a Tanzanian village far from any doctor; Sriy, a smart and vibrant 13-year-old Cambodian girl who was sold into prostitution by her stepfather and by now is probably dead of AIDS.

Instead of joining the fight on behalf of Ms. Idris, Ms. Karega, or Sriy, the Bush administration is allying the U.S. with the likes of Iran, Sudan, and Syria to frustrate international efforts to save the lives of some of the most helpless people on earth. Somehow we have become the core of an Axis of Medieval.

"May I say something about Ann Coulter? She is a half-wit, a termagant, a dimwit, a blowhard, a worthless silicone nothing, physically ugly and could be likened to Eva Braun. As it happens, these are all descriptions or characterizations Coulter uses for others in her book, Slander. It ought to be called Mirror..."

- Richard Cohen

By: Richard Prasad  

President Bush convened an economic summit in Waco Texas on August 13^th. Far from alleviating any fears caused by the economic slowdown, it was nothing more than a conservative echo chamber for Bush's already failed economic policies.

First off, why have the summit located in Waco? The last major event associated in the public's consciousness in Waco was a nightmare. If Bush wanted to give Waco a more positive public image, bringing CEO's from the likes of Pfizer, a huge pharmaceutical company who rips off the public with outrageous drug prices, is not the way to do it.

I watched a lot of this mundane exercise on C-SPAN, which tells the reader all he or she wants to know about my life, or lack thereof. The whole 'summit' seemed staged, and clumsily so, with the twin underpinnings of, "the economy was bad before Bush took office", and, "the economy is improving after Bush took office". This was repeated time after time by Don Evans, Paul O'Neil, and by Bush himself. With that as a premise, it is easy to understand why people did not take this 'summit' seriously.

By: Joe Conason  

The Waco forum was about as authentically significant for economic policy as the President's "ranch" in nearby Crawford is for his credentials as a cowhand.

George W. Bush has learned from experience that if he emphasizes his Texas drawl, slaps on his cowboy hat, and talks as if he'd never set foot in Andover, Yale, and Harvard (let alone Kennebunkport and Greenwich), most people will buy the down-home shtick. The ranch is a perfect backdrop for this political persona, as a New York Times reporter observed last weekend in comparing the uses of the Bush ranch with the L.B.J. ranch (although the author neglected to note that Mr. Bush only bought his place in 1999, the year he decided to run for President). Surely George W. loves that Crawford spread, but his appearances there also help everyone forget that his favorite steed is neither a horse nor a pickup. It's a golf cart.

The "economic forum" TV show performed similar functions of harmless deception and cheap reassurance. It was meant to demonstrate that this frequently vacationing President is actually a diligent executive; that he's worried about those who have trouble "making ends meet"; that he listens to (and is listened to by) the powerful and the important as well as humble wage earners and shopkeepers.

Where were the 'regular folks' at the President's economic summit?

By: William Saletan  

Indeed, nearly everybody in the two panel discussions aired on C-SPAN today was a CEO. The others were a student at Yale's graduate school of management; a woman who, combined with her husband's, had five college degrees; and a pair of union bosses who wore suits and talked only about the Bush policies they supported. Like plantation owners, the employers on hand spoke for their employees. "They are so happy to have jobs", one CEO told Bush.

Everyone wanted more tax cuts. Everyone demanded the permanent repeal of the "death tax", Some called for tort reform or local control of education. They argued that Bush's policies would cure even seemingly unrelated problems. Corporate malfeasance? Faith-based initiatives would help turn that around, said a business school dean. They repeated familiar Bush sound bites ("What we're suffering today, I believe, is an economic hangover", said one CEO) and implicitly traced the recession and weak business ethics to the Clinton years.

The coincidence of White House spin with the beliefs of these ordinary people was most remarkable in Evans' session on "Corporate Responsibility". Bush's policy on corporate corruption basically consists of moral condemnation, conspicuous punishment of fraud, and minimal regulation of bad systemic incentives. The participants in Evans' group agreed on every point, arguing that the solution was "moral responsibility" rather than more "laws", "regulation", and "bureaucracy". One CEO suggested teaching business leaders that "when you do something good, it feels good". Another proposed that simplifying the tax code would nurture "good governance in the private sector".

By: Maureen Dowd  

President Bush tried to fix the economy before lunch yesterday.

He managed to last for 20 minutes each in four economic seminars at Baylor University. He dutifully scribbled some notes as participants talked, looking as happy as a high school kid in trig class, and bounded out of his chair when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told him he could be excused.

"Yes, well, that's the life of the President, always has to go", a visibly relieved Mr. Bush said, jumping up after an exhausting 18 minutes in "Economic Recovery and Job Creation".

Or as the radical economist Groucho Marx once observed: "Hello, I must be going."

By: Carla Binion  

Before this nation invests trillions of dollars and spills the blood of innocents over war with Iraq, Congress and the American people should consider the following. The first Bush administration lied to and manipulated Congress, the American public, and the Arab peoples in order to win support for the Gulf war. Dick Cheney was then George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense, and Paul Wolfitz was a Defense Department aide.

The history of U.S. behavior in the Persian Gulf demands that Congress and the American people get second and third independent opinions before relying on the current Bush administration's "facts" about Saddam's intentions and capabilities. One good source on the subject is former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark's The Fire This Time (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1994)

Clark demonstrates that a primary motive for the Gulf War was the G.H.W. Bush administration's vision of empire and domination of the Gulf region rather than realistic threats from Saddam Hussein. He quotes a 46-page Pentagon document which says that in the Middle East and Southwest Asia the "overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil".

Eight Reasons Why the U.S. Will Attack Saddam This Year

By: Tom Newton Dunn and Ben Taylor  

America will attack Iraq on November 6, U.S. defence experts believe.

They are so sure of the date that they have posted an Iraq Countdown Clock on the Internet to show the minutes ticking away.

Five of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers will be close to the Gulf region. Weather and political factors also favour the date picked by international think tank GlobalSecurity.org for the start of the campaign to topple Saddam Hussein. Respected commentator John Pike, director of the Washington-based organization, told the Daily Mirror: "Iraq is going to happen a lot sooner than most people think."

Editorial from:  

One bubble burst, then another and another. Enron, Global Crossing, WorldCom. The rectitude of auditors - pop. Faith in corporate CEO's and stock market analysts - pop, pop. The self-righteous prestige of Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase - pop and pop again. The largest bubble is the stock market's, and it may not yet be fully deflated. These dizzying events are not an occasion for champagne music because the bursting bubbles have cast millions of Americans into deep personal losses, destroyed trillions of dollars in capital, especially retirement savings, and littered the economic landscape with corporate wreckage. Ex-drinker George W. Bush explained that a "binge" is always followed by the inevitable "hangover". What he did not say is that the "binge" that has just ended with so much pain for the country was the conservative binge.

Economic liberalism prevailed from the New Deal forward but broke down in the late 1960's when it was unable to resolve doctrinal failures including an inability to confront persistent inflation. Now market orthodoxy is coming apart as a result of its own distinctive failures. It can neither explain the economic disorders before us nor remedy them because, in fact, its doctrine of reckless laissez-faire produced them. The bursting bubbles are not accidents or the work of a few larceny-prone executives. They are the consequence of everything the conservative ascendancy sought to achieve - the savagery and injustice of unregulated markets, the blind willfulness of unaccountable corporations.

Site content © 2001-2002 J. Mekus - - except wherein noted.
All rights reserved.