By: Mary McGrory  

George W. Bush ends the year with a genuine nuclear crisis on his hands. He has been assiduously trying to foment one with Iraq, dropping bombs on the country and expletives on its leader. But North Korea, which is not just suspected of working on the bomb but of having at least two, has muscled Saddam Hussein off the front pages and made our crusade against Baghdad seem crass: We're starting a war not just for oil or for Ariel Sharon but because we can win it.

North Korea is a different story. It has a million men under arms. It has a built-in hostage situation at hand in the presence of 37,000 U.S. soldiers who guard South Korea. Kim Jong Il, the Communist leader of North Korea, almost makes Saddam Hussein look like Rotarian of the Year. While Hussein is welcoming U.N. arms inspectors, Kim is throwing them out. He has dismantled the international surveillance equipment installed by a treaty in 1994; he has announced he is going to make all the weapons-grade plutonium he wants. He is, in short, behaving like the radioactive lunatic he is.

And what is George W. Bush, defender of the free world, scourge of terrorists, doing about all this? As of this moment, nothing.

By: Richard Reeves  

Investment now, at least in the reign of Bush, is about cutting taxes on the rich, who will, presumably, then hire us as wrappers, trainers, secretaries, drivers, nannies, and dog-washers and -walkers. The money to pay us - which we must spend immediately - will come from eliminating or cutting the taxes on high incomes, investments, dividends, and the estates of what the President's father liked to call the "investing classes".

The rest of us can be a nation of servants. Actually, in this new age, we will be less than servants. The code of old-time servitude meant that the more marginal classes were sort of adopted by the rich, provided with some security in terms of medical care and old age. That has changed. You're on your own, buddy! The new servers are, more often than not, independent contractors - "independent contractors" is usually a euphemism for "no benefits" - who are, more often than not, paid in cash. Many in the investing classes hate government interference in the workplace, but demand government responsibility for the health and maintenance of the serving class.

By: Bernie Sanders  

President Bush may or may not go to war against Iraq, but we do know that he has already declared war against the economic well-being of the middle class and working families of this country.

While he cuts back on Medicare and the needs of veterans, he wants even more tax breaks for the very richest people in this country. While he pushes efforts to privatize Social Security, there is no attempt to raise the minimum wage above its paltry $5.15 an hour. While he expands our disastrous trade policies that have already cost us millions of decent paying manufacturing jobs, he is proposing to slash the pay and benefits of federal employees through a massive and dangerous contracting-out scheme. While our healthcare system disintegrates and prescription drug costs soar, his Administration proposes legislation written by and for the pharmaceutical industry.

And now, in the midst of all of this, there is a new economic assault being waged by the Bush Administration against older American workers. The Bush Administration has recently proposed IRS regulations that would allow corporations to undertake a major raid on the pension benefits that older workers have accumulated...

By: Andrew Schneider  

Last spring, the Environmental Protection Agency was on the verge of warning millions of Americans that their attics and walls might contain insulation that was contaminated with asbestos.

Interviews and documents show that days before EPA was set to make the declaration, the plan was thwarted by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which had been told of the proposal months earlier.

Both the OMB and the EPA acknowledge that the White House agency was involved, but neither agency would discuss how or why.

"2002 arrived discharging sparks of hope. The 'Take the Money, Enron' scandal emitted such a new-year stench that it seemed at least plausible that Americans might finally see Court-appointed President George W. Bush not as an heir apparent but as an apparent error."

- Barry Crimmins

By: Adam Nagourney  

Democratic contenders for President are beginning to challenge President Bush's record on terrorism, arguing that Mr. Bush has failed to do enough to prevent another fatal attack on American soil and that the nation is barely safer than it was before Sept. 11, 2001.

Former President Bill Clinton pointed the way to this new Democratic line of criticism in a speech in New York a month ago, in which he said the Democrats needed to directly challenge the Bush administration on terrorism. Mr. Clinton is in regular touch with some of the presidential contenders, particularly Mr. Edwards, though aides to Mr. Edwards said he had decided on his own to make this a central part of his campaign. Republicans said they were startled by the brazenness of the Democratic attacks, and suggested they would have little effect.

"It's a very tricky play because you're going to try to assign blame", said Russ Schriefer, a Republican consultant. "It's almost like you're trying to make political hay out of a disaster."...

"Bill Frist is a major shareholder in HCA, a for-profit hospital chain founded by his father and brother. HCA reportedly provides abortions to its customers, so now Republicans face this question: If it is disqualifying for their Senate leader to make offensive remarks interpreted as endorsing an immoral policy to deny African Americans equal rights, is it also disqualifying for their Senate leader to make money from a hospital chain that denies unborn babies their right to life?"

- Terry Jeffrey, editor of Human Events

By: James A. Thompson  

The Bush administration has finally found someone to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, the nation's stock market watchdog, after the disastrous tenure of Harvey Pitt, who resigned November 4.

Asking anyone but the most faithful to head a non-Cabinet level, foundering agency at the lowest point in its history is like asking someone to captain the Titanic, post-iceberg. Hence the large number of rejections before William H. Donaldson, a Wall Street insider with tight links to the Bush family, agreed to take the job.

But the naming of the chairman-designate raises more questions than it answers...

By: William Rivers Pitt  

I want to see the proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before we engage in a war that will send tens of thousands of civilians to their deaths, enrage the Muslim world against us, grievously wound the American economy, and guarantee more terrorism here at home. I am sure the Bush administration's incontrovertible proof that these weapons exist is a sheaf of shipping manifests from roundabout 1984, when we sent the stuff to Saddam in the first place, but I want to see it anyway.

I want to hear about the endgame for our Iraq war. Who will rule in Saddam's place, and how will that person be an improvement? How will the Shiites and Kurds be represented and protected? How long will American forces have to be there? How much will it cost? Who gets the payout from the oil fields? How much of this war is based upon business decisions? Will we stop at Iraq, or will we move on to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt in the manner that Richard Perle has often envisioned?

I want to know what happened on September 11^th, and why, and who messed up. This does not count as a gift - as a citizen, I am owed this, and so are you.

I want to know what was in the smallpox shot Bush got. Was it distilled water or Maker's Mark?

I want to watch John Ashcroft pet a calico cat with a big grin on his face.

By: Bryan Zepp Jamieson  

Of course, you aren't a bit safer from terrorism now than you were on September 10^th, 2001. The police agencies are the first to admit that, and routinely issue warnings of possible terrorist attack.

But a fascist regime that operates in secret and answers to Der Leader rather than the people, the legislature, or the courts, becomes corrupt and viciously jealous of its power very rapidly. This isn't my opinion, it's something that's happened every time a free government has collapsed, whether violently, or in a bloodless coup like we've suffered.

That means that as an American subject, you are considerably LESS safe than you were as an American citizen. Not only do you still have to worry about terrorists from Saudi Arabia, but you have to worry about terrorists from Washington, DC.

I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2003. I really would. But looking at what has happened to America since December 2000, I think I'll just settle for hoping that at the end of this coming year, you aren't all dead, in jail, or a slave.

Fight to take your country back. There is still time.

By: Marc Ash  

So why then did Al Gore abruptly end his lifelong pursuit of the U.S. Presidency? Simple: the support was not there. Al made an assessment of the insider support, the public support, and the potential determent to his family, and could not justify going forward.

For Americans - all Americans - truth and justice remain luxuries. We want them, but we want them on our terms: quickly, conveniently, and absolutely without sacrifice. Unfortunately, those terms do not lead to truth and justice. They lead to the road we now travel.

Who will be the Democratic front runner in 2004? who cares? No candidate, Democratic or otherwise, has a prayer of defeating George W. Bush as long as Mr. Bush is not held accountable for his actions. Bluntly stated, this is - by far - the most corrupt and criminal administration the country has ever known. Why is war so urgent? Because without it Bush and his friends would likely be going to jail.

By: Dennis Rahkonen  

Christmas is upon us.

A time of caring, sharing, rejoicing, and extending warm wishes to others.

Or at least so it was in the America of my youth.

But Scrooge Herod is in the White House now. And this Holy season sees him trying to violently overthrow the governments of two oil-rich nations (Venezuela and Iraq) so that the moneychangers in whose behalf he dutifully rules can grab the fabulous wealth they shamelessly covet.

Of course, when you have militarism and world-rule obsession running rampant, it takes dollars. Lots of them. And that means a staggeringly costly diversion from citizens' worsening needs.

By: John M. Berry  

The Treasury Department yesterday asked Congress to raise the government's $6.4 trillion ceiling on the national debt, setting the stage for a major political conflict early in the 108^th Congress.

In a carefully worded letter sent yesterday to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Deputy Treasury Secretary Kenneth W. Dam said that because of responses to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and "the economic slowdown which began in the summer of 2000", government debt will reach the $6.4 trillion limit in the latter part of February. By dating the slowdown to mid-2000, Dam tied it to the Clinton administration rather than to Bush; that argument has been part of the administration's defense of its handling of the economy.

By: Jon Carroll  

Not to bum anyone out at this jolly time, but did you notice what the non-jolly Immigration and Naturalization Service did down in Los Angeles? It sent notices to males 16 years and older from selected countries, nations in what we might call the "swarthy triangle", and invited them to come on down to the INS for a special registration program, because some swarthy people recently flew two planes into some big buildings in New York.

So they came on down, and they were arrested! What a fun surprise for the holidays! (Of course, most of them do not celebrate Christmas at all and therefore are not real Americans in the sense that we now understand the term.)

They were arrested because they had overstayed their tourist visas. And why had they done that? Because they had applied for green cards or citizenship or some other form of more permanent status, but the INS hadn't gotten around to processing them yet.

By: Fred Grimm  

Three Broward-based nonprofit providers for the developmentally disabled organized the press conference at the Storck Center Monday to protest the sudden, unexpected $16 million cut in state funding by the Florida Department of Children & Families.

The local cuts come to a half-million bucks in Broward. Twice that much in Miami-Dade. The stunned administrators of nonprofits, who must slice $100,000 or $150,000 out of budgets already plagued by deficits, seem bent on shaming DCF into backing off.

Not that public outrage is so likely. Another news story about DCF failings won't stir up much reaction. The news conference Monday, even with the heart-wrenching examples of the profoundly disabled on full display, only reprises the familiar story of cheapskate Florida once again failing to provide for its neediest citizens.

White House Aides Push for 50% Cut in Dividend Taxes

By: Edmund L. Andrews  

Many economists are skeptical that a cut in dividend taxes would provide much immediate stimulus to the economy, which has been Mr. Bush's most important justification for new tax cuts. It would be at least a year before shareholders see any extra money, and the measure would not leave extra money in corporate coffers.

As envisioned, a person would be able to exclude a substantial share of all stock dividends - probably about half - from taxation. There would be no upper limit on the dollar value of dividends that would be tax free, which means that most of the relief would flow to the largest investors.

The Urban-Brooking Tax Policy Center, a research center here, recently calculated that, if the government completely eliminated taxes on corporate dividends, 42% of the tax benefits would flow to the wealthiest 1% of all taxpayers.

By: Matthew Engel  

Now, you know me, I'm not one to swank, but I've had a Christmas card. Not just any Christmas card either, but one of those very fancy ones you would think no one could afford any more: with an inner lining of fake vellum. We will come to who sent it shortly, but actually that is the least remarkable thing about it.

First, there is the front cover. No robins, no smiling Santa, no baby Jesus and, emphatically, no Dove of Peace. Instead, there is a grand piano on a polished floor in a cold-looking room. It looks like a photograph, but turns out to be an oil painting, of a drearily representational kind: "1938 Steinway Piano in the Grand Foyer. The White House", the caption says. Frankly, it looks like a card from a couple that only speak to each other through their lawyers.

Inside there is a gold-embossed seal and a biblical quotation: "For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations (Psalm:100,5)." It is an odd line to pick - especially in view of what comes next.

By: Sean Gonsalves  

On the off chance you're not completely convinced by those scientifically sound and entirely accurate gauges of public opinion, popularly known as polls, then the bad news being reported about the tourism business ought to persuade you that U.S. policy planners are losing the international public relations war.

The Associated Press reported last week that America's $91 billion foreign tourism industry "is in peril because of a growing perception overseas that the United States has become 'Fortress America'".

In the year following the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, 66 million fewer visitors tried to enter our well-guarded borders. That's 66 million pockets that the tourism industry couldn't access.

After WW-III we'll have a Nuclear Winter!
Merry Christmas!

By: Ben Roberts  

Brace yourself folks. We now have on our hands another axis of evil if you can believe, and swallow without gagging, what Congressman Henry Hyde, and his advisor, Dr. Constantine Menges, are trying to serve up to us. After some deliberation it seems that these two men have concluded that we have a second axis of evil on god's green earth. This one is in South America. No. This is no joke. Congressman Hyde, after consulting with Dr. Menges, has actually written a letter to President Bush, apprising him of the existence of an axis of evil made up of Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina. At this point things get murky. It seems Guatemala was also in the running, but for some reason its involvement is downplayed. Maybe that's because an axis of evil is usually three, as in WWII axis powers, Germany, Japan, and Italy, and Bush recent axis designation of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Adding Guatemala makes four, breaking the cardinal rule by destroying the required trio. Given Bush paintbrush style of labeling axes of evil and terror groups, I wonder how long before we hear bogus alarm bells.

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag."

- Huey Long

By: Molly Ivins  

Cheap irony and Christmas don't go well together. Christmas and war is another bad combination. But there it is. The only President we've got went down to the Capitol Area Food Bank in Washington, DC, the other day for a photo op with people who can't afford to eat.

"I hope people around this country realize that agencies such as this food bank need money. They need our contributions. Contributions are down. They shouldn't be down in a time of need", said GeeDubya Bush.

Right away, we notice real progress. When Bush was running for the presidency in 2000, the feds released their annual report on hunger in America, and Texas was once again in its perennial spot at the top of the list, No. 1 in Hunger.

Bush thought it was some dastardly scheme by the Clinton administration to make Texas, and hence Bush, look bad. He denied there were any hungry people in Texas and said: "You'd think the governor would have heard if there are pockets of hunger in Texas." Yeah, you would. But look on the bright side: so he didn't know there's hunger in Texas after six years in office; after only two years in Washington, he's discovered the problem.

By: Paul Krugman  

Time magazine's persons of the year are three whistle-blowers: Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, and Coleen Rowley of the FBI.

They deserve to be celebrated. After all, thanks to Ms. Watkins and Ms. Cooper, Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers have been indicted, and the politicians who did their bidding have been disgraced. Thanks to Ms. Rowley, incompetent officials at the FBI and CIA have been removed from their posts, and we've had a searching inquiry into what went wrong on Sept. 11.

Oh, I'm sorry. None of that actually happened. The bravery of the whistle-blowers was real enough, but Time seems to be celebrating what should have been, not what was.

By: Gene Lyons  

Immediately after securing the 1980 Republican nomination, Reagan opened his campaign at a fair in Neshoba County, Mississippi, scene of the infamous 1964 murder of three civil rights workers - "outside agitators", people like Lott called them. Reagan's endorsement of "states rights" was all the more shameful, in my view, because privately he was almost certainly not a racist. He was motivated by sheer opportunism.

Lott's longtime affiliation with the Council of Conservative Citizens, a lineal descendant of the White Citizens Council, was given a thorough airing in the Washington Post in 1999. He was clearly lying then when he said he didn't know about its stridently segregationist views. His uncle was one of the CCC's grand poobahs. Back then, however, the vigilant Washington press was too preoccupied with Bill Clinton's sexual adventures to bother with anything so trivial as the Senate majority leader's buddying up to a bunch of segregationist sheetheads.

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