By: E.J. Dionne Jr.  

It was Goldwater's campaign, of course, that began the era of the Republican South. Post-Goldwater Republicanism swept in millions of States' Rights Democrats, as Thurmond's supporters called themselves, including an ambitious young Mississippian named Trent Lott. Goldwater carried only six states in 1964: South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and Arizona. The first four of these had been the only states to vote for Thurmond in 1948. Apropos of some of Lott's comments, the overlap did not occur because Goldwater and Thurmond shared some views on national defense. At issue were civil rights - and states' rights.

One can now hear Republicans groaning: "But that's ancient history and Lott is a problem because he's letting all our opponents dredge it up."

That sentence is true except for the part about ancient history. While most Republicans now support the old civil rights measures, they continue to cast themselves as the party of states' rights, and proudly so. Republican court appointees, from the Supreme Court on down, are busily fashioning a new jurisprudence that uses states' rights as grounds for overturning progressive national legislation...

By: Matilda Lipscomb  

I used to be so proud of our American Press - the noble Fourth Estate - so proud of their fiercly investigative abilities and honest reporting. But that was back in the 70's. Today, they have become the fourth branch of our government... and Bush has all four of them in his pocket.

As it is in America today, even Micky Mouse could win the presidential election if the press decided to support him. I'm already feeling sorry for anyone who runs against George Bush in 2004. His victory (barring a media turnaround) is a foregone conclusion. And with the fraudulent voting machines now in use, and other criminal practices (like another terrorist attack) by the Republican party, I can't see how anyone would have much of a chance.

I cannot find it in my heart to forgive the American people for not protesting by the MILLIONS all over the country the day after the Supreme Court stopped the vote and gave away our government...

By: Kurt Nimmo  

During war, as they say, the first causality is truth. And war - all the time and everywhere people resist - is what Bush will deliver. It will be easier for him to accomplish this if you can't read the truth, if you remain ignorant, or if you are obstructed from organizing and speaking out on the Internet against war and madness. Bush knows this - or, at least, those around him know this. The Internet, regardless of its trashy and lame commercial characteristics, is a nearly perfect medium for organizing. It's a thorn in the side of neo-cons and fascists everywhere.

Enter Dubya's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board (CIPB), which the unelected one created with a flourish of his pen (another executive order, a most popular way to rule vassals). The men and women around Bush want to require Internet service providers, ISP's, to build a centralized network capable of monitoring where you go, what you look at and read, what you write in your e-mail - and all in real-time...

By: John M. Berry  

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said last night that there are few signs that the U.S. economy has regained any vigor since hitting a "soft patch" in the summer.

In a speech to the New York Economic Club, Greenspan ticked off some of the gloomy developments that caused the central bank last month to reduce its target for overnight interest rates to its lowest level in more than 41 years.

Although Greenspan never mentions it in defending the Fed's policies, he and his policymaking colleagues began raising interest rates in June 1999 and continued to do so until early 2000. During that period stock prices, particularly of high tech firms, soared.

Once the bubble burst and it became clear the economy was headed for a slump, the Fed cut rates 11 times during 2001, an unusually aggressive set of policy moves.

By: William Spain  

After the bell Tuesday, transportation giant CSX announced that it would sell a majority stake in its domestic container shipping unit - CSX Lines - to the Carlyle Group for approximately $240 million in cash and $60 million in securities.

The deal, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2003.

According to Michael Ward, CSX president: "Completion of this transaction is consistent with our long-stated strategy of becoming a more rail-based organization, strengthens our balance sheet, and provides shareholders with significant value."

Hey 'Monkey Boy'... You sure turned the country around!
Thanx for Nothing!

T he U.S. Corporations Named in the Top-Secret Iraqi Report:

Honeywell Spectra Physics Semetex TI Coating Unisys Sperry Corp. Tektronix Rockwell Leybold Vacuum Systems Finnigan-MAT-US Hewlett-Packard Dupont Eastman Kodak

American Type Culture Collection Alcolac International Consarc Carl Zeiss Cerberus Electronic Associates International Computer Systems Bechtel EZ Logic Data Systems Inc. Canberra Industries Inc. Axel Electronics Inc.

Reference

By: Arianna Huffington  

The battle between the public interest and the special interests can be a demoralizing one. It sometimes seems like every dispatch from the front brings bad news. A judge appointed by President Bush rules that Dick Cheney can keep all the secrets he wants. Major GOP donor Eli Lilly gets a legislative gift worth billions anonymously slipped into the Homeland Security Bill at the last minute. The President's pick to take over the Treasury is CEO of a company that, despite close to a billion dollars in profits, paid not a penny in federal taxes in three of the last four years.

It's enough to make a decent citizen throw up his hands - and his lunch - and accept the cynical notion that nothing any of us says or does can make a difference anymore.

Then along comes a week like the last one. And you think, maybe there is a Santa Claus.

"Ronald Reagan entered the presidency promising to rid the nation of government borrowing and, of course, ended up tripling the national debt. But Reagan never let his crystalline beliefs be fogged by reality, including the reality of his own behavior."

- Michael Kinsley, in an article from Slate

"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but for only a limited period of time. Why, then, should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?"

- Ronald Reagan, first inaugural address, 1981

"Glenn Hubbard, chairman of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers... derides the 'current fixation' with budget deficits, and labels as 'nonsense' and 'Rubinomics', the view espoused by former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin that higher deficits lead to lower growth."

- from the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 17, 2002

By: Kent Southard  

Boy, the post-election 'surprises' just keep coming, don't they? Of course, to those of us paying attention, it's like pilots watching an airshow or race drivers watching a race - they can spot an accident in progress well before the general crowd knows anything's amiss. Saudi funding of Al Qaeda? We knew that. Bush gutting clean air and water rules? We could've told you. (And who could be in the least bit surprised?) Total Information Awareness to track each citizen's every movement? We expected nothing less.

The arrogance of it all provides a kind of gothic amusement, gallows humor for the soon to be dispossessed. On the PBS Newshour, discussing TIA with the pundits from the civil liberties side and the Bush Reich side, the Bush guy didn't even make an effort to sound sincere: "Oh, yes, it's true all domestic surveillance programs have gotten out of control in the past, but, ya' know, I really don't think that will happen this time. No, really. [Nudge-nudge! Wink-wink!] I'm sure this administration will follow the rule of law. [Chortle! Snicker! Guffaw!]" Every fiber of his being was saying 'if you're dumb enough to believe me, then you deserve this'.

Of course, since Dec. 2000, the rule of law seems to be whatever Antonin Scalia and four like-minded Supreme Court justices say it is, so pardon me if I'm not comforted by the affirmation that Bush will "follow the rule of law".

By: William Rivers Pitt  

In many ways, this was a non-nomination. Kean has much to lose and little to gain from chairing this investigation. In the final analysis, it appears that Bush has nominated someone who will be easily controlled by the administration. Kean does not possess, by dint of experience, the wherewithal to ask the difficult questions that must be pressed if this investigation is to be successful. His is not, and never has been, the kind of boat-rocker that will be necessary to pry the truth from the administration, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Department of Defense.

It is vital in this to remember that the Bush administration thwarted this independent investigation for 18 months, until they got the two things they wanted. One was a requirement that any subpoenas would be issued only after six of the ten people on the commission voted for it. The commission is composed of five Democrats and five Republicans. If a particular subpoena seems to cut too close to the political bone, the Republicans on the committee need only stand shoulder to shoulder to stop it.

The other requirement the Bush administration demanded was the right to pick the chairman of the commission...

By: Don Hazen  

As years go, they don't get much worse than 2002. The year's main saving grace - that we haven't yet invaded Iraq - suggests that, believe it or not, 2003 could be even worse.

A year that came on the heels of 9/11 was probably doomed from the start. Yet the ongoing War on Terrorism that most characterizes our times has cast a muddy shadow on public life that hints of the paranoia and knee-jerk nationalism of the 1950's.

Although we have experienced no acts of domestic terrorism in the 15 months since the Sept. 11 attacks, our country is becoming increasingly unrecognizable - constricted by fear, hysteria, xenophobic intolerance, and a whole new set of laws and government intrusions that most of us couldn't have imagined in the relatively rosy days of pre-9/11.

By: Bob Herbert  

Strange things are happening.

Trent Lott is suddenly in favor of affirmative action. And despite his well-known reverence for Jefferson Davis and his close ties to the rancid Council of Conservative Citizens, the junior Senator from Mississippi insists he is now a fervent follower of the teachings of Martin Luther King.

Very strange.

And then there's Ward Connerly, a black man who spends his days dancing passionately to the tune of the anti-affirmative-action zealots. Some of the folks in that crowd are less than progressive when it comes to race relations, and it looks as if Mr. Connerly, who heads the ironically named American Civil Rights Coalition, has decided to shimmy with the worst of their beliefs. In a television interview last week he argued that segregation of the races was not necessarily racist.

That is extremely strange.

By: Bill Clinton  

What is America's responsibility at this moment of its dominance? I believe it is to build a world that moves beyond interdependence to an integrated global community of shared responsibilities, shared benefits, and shared values.

America must support the institutions of global community, beginning with the United Nations. The United Nations is an organization still becoming, still imperfect. We Americans have not always done our part in it, but it is all we have, and now that we live in an interdependent world, it must have our full support in building an integrated global community.

The United States must have a sound security strategy using the power of America to prevent the actions of and punish the people who mean it harm.

Editorial from:  

Legal services for the poor across the country are seriously underfinanced. One key source of money for them is an ingenious program that exists in all 50 states. It pools the short-term deposits that lawyers hold in trust for their clients and uses the interest produced to finance indigent legal services. The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a challenge to these programs, brought by a conservative legal group that says this practice is an unconstitutional taking of property. It is not. Striking down these programs would be a serious blow to poor people's ability to defend their rights in court.

The real purpose of this case is not to restore taken property, but to defund legal services. Money raised through lawyer trust account programs helps poor people fight wrongful evictions, get heat in the winter, and challenge corporations that are taking advantage of them. If the Supreme Court uses a baseless claim that property is being taken to deprive poor people of legal representation, this nation's commitment to equal justice before the law will be the real loser.

Did George Violate the Fourth Amendment Rights of Some Philadelphians?

By: Bruce S. Ticker  

Dubya visited my town last week and injected police-state tactics into the lives of some of my fellow Philadelphians.

These tactics raise questions as to whether their Fourth Amendment rights over search and seizure were violated.

George flew to the city to announce his new faith-based directive and rebuke Trent Lott for embracing Strom Thurmond's 1948 pro-segregation presidential campaign platform.

Yet in practice he treated the mostly black neighborhood he visited like a World War II Polish village invaded by the Nazis.

By: W. David Jenkins III  

Okay, so Trent Lott isn't really a racist because he said he was sorry for making racist remarks, right? Actually, he didn't really say he was "sorry" - he just said he felt bad for anyone who took his racist remarks "out of context".

Oh, give me a break.

Trent, you're a racist. Go ahead. Just admit it. It's okay, the world needs ugly people too. You've spent your life idolizing Jefferson Davis and Strom Thurmond. They are racists. So are you. It's okay. We understand. You don't have to do that despicable balancing act that the Republicans have been doing for decades. We all know when you say state's rights you really mean segregation. It's really not a big secret out here so you can stop making excuses - most of us know better.

"How do [the Republicans] think they got a majority in the South anyway? I think what they are really upset about is that [Senator Trent Lott] made public their strategy. They try to suppress black voting, they ran on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina, and from top to bottom the Republicans supported it."

- President William Jefferson Clinton

By: Lloyd Grove  

Oklahoma Sen. Don Nickles - a longtime Trent Lott rival who has called on fellow Republicans to consider ousting the embattled Mississippian as the Senate's GOP leader - might have some explaining of his own to do about his membership in the men-only Burning Tree Club.

We hear that Senate Minority Whip Nickles, who announced Sunday that Lott's Strom Thurmond gaffe "may jeopardize his ability to enact our agenda and speak to all Americans", is a fixture at the prestigious Bethesda club that enforces Saudi-like rules when it comes to females: No women are allowed - not as members, not even as guests.

"The Rectification of Names consists in making real relationships and duties and institutions conform as far as possible to their ideal meanings... When this intellectual reorganization is at last effected, the ideal social order will come as night follows day - a social order where, just as a circle is a circle and a square a square, so every prince is princely [and] every official is faithful..."

- Confucius (as described by Hu Shih)

By: Boyce Brown  

...Even today, limited educational opportunity remains the central factor in keeping down the income and - more importantly - asset development levels of the working poor, a trend which continues to impact blacks disproportionately. For example, in the 1990's they earned about 80¢ for every $1 in income earned by whites but only owned a shocking 10¢ for every $1 in assets owned by whites.

This inequity makes it extremely difficult for the working poor to gain access to the higher education, home ownership, and small business development they need to pass on even modest amounts of wealth to their children. This is, of course, greatly exacerbated by a regressive tax system, in spite of recent editorials in the Wall Street Journal about some working poor being "lucky duckies" for paying little or no income tax, asinine comments designed to hide innumerable examples of outright legalized property theft, such as the fact that half of the recent "tax cut" stolen from Social Security went to the richest 1%....

"The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the [Party's] world-view and mental habits... but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought - that is, a thought diverging from the principles of [the Party] - should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words. Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words, and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings... Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought..."

- George Orwell, "The Principles of Newspeak", in the novel 1984

Kissinger didn't convince you that Bush is on tilt? OK, how much do you know about Elliot Abrams?

By: Sean Gonsalves  

Investigative journalist David Harris' book Shooting the Moon: The True Story of An American Manhunt provides lots of insider details about Abrams diplomatic career south of the border.

A high school friend of Abrams recalled a day when the esteemed Latin American specialist was staring out of a window at his father's law firm, high above Fifth Avenue and said: "Look at all the tiny people down there. Someday, I'll have control over them all." You got to love his ambition.

In fact, Abrams went so far as to draft plans to invade Panama. The plan was to use a "surgical strike" deploying commando troops armed with extradition papers and the backing of the world's most powerful military.

"When news of this plan eventually reached the Department of Defense, the reviews were unanimous", Harris writes. "'Off the wall', 'cockamamie', 'comic strip', 'sloppy', and simply 'bull(expletive)' were perhaps the nicest things said about it there."

"We live in a country where the guy who stole the election has no rules, no laws, and no limits. A former ruler's son takes over, mobilizes the army against the citizens, and consolidates his power with a secret "shadow government", whose members are loyal only to him. That's scary shit."

- BartCop

"Trent Lott should not have to resign over those stupid birthday remarks. He should have to resign because he's a racist and always has been. The people of Mississppi knew that when they elected him and the Senate Republicans knew that when they put him in charge."

- Bill Maher, on CNN

FBI Warns Corporate Leaders of Possible Attacks by Antiwar Activists

By: Bill Berkowitz  

At a time when the peace movement appears to be gaining traction, it is troubling to read the latest e-mail advisory from the FBI's Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) program. A December 4 communication, sent to thousands of "corporate security professionals", warns that "a loose network of antiwar groups" opposed "to possible U.S. military action against Iraq, are advocating 'explicit and direct attack upon the war machine'".

Does the FBI know more about upcoming activities of the antiwar movement than the antiwar movement itself? Or is its recent communiqué a blatant attempt to scare the public, smear the antiwar movement and discourage antiwar protests?

By: Stephen P. Pizzo  

Twice in the past two decades, supply-siders have tried to prove that a booming economy can be created by deep tax cuts - resulting in more tax revenue - buttressed by ending mettlesome federal oversight and bureaucratic regulations.

Unfortunately, the Republicans' attempts to do this have left taxpayers saddled with hundreds of billions of dollars of debt, fomented waves of corporate corruption, and may end up costing pension funds and small investors trillions of dollars.

Nevertheless, no sooner had this fall's election results been announced than House and Senate Republicans were proposing additional tax cuts and lining up to whack away once again at the federal regulatory apparatus.

Maybe the third time will be the charm. We better hope so, because current government obligations already exceed projected tax revenues by over $20 trillion dollars. (Yes, trillion.)

By: Stephanie Nebehay  

This year has been the second warmest since 1860, extending a quarter-century pattern of accelerated global warming linked to greenhouse gas emissions, United Nations scientists said Tuesday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a United Nations agency, said that 1998 remained the hottest year on record, with 2002 surpassing last year as the next warmest. The 10 warmest years had all occurred since 1987, nine since 1990.

"Clearly for the past 25 or 26 years, the warming is accelerating... the rate of increase is unprecedented in the last 1,000 years", Kenneth Davidson, director of WMO's world climate program told a news briefing.

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