By: Fox Butterfield  

A former senior firearms industry executive said in an affidavit filed in court in San Diego yesterday that gun manufacturers had long known that some of their dealers corruptly sold guns to criminals but pressured one another into remaining silent for fear of legal liability. It is the first time a senior official in the gun industry has broken ranks to challenge practices in the business.

The affidavit, by Robert A. Ricker, a former chief lobbyist and executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, then the main gun industry trade organization, was filed in California Superior Court in support of claims by 12 California cities and counties suing the gun makers and their wholesalers and retail dealers.

The cities, led by Los Angeles and San Francisco, contend that the gun industry has maintained a distribution system that allows many guns to fall into the hands of criminals and juveniles, creating a public nuisance and violating a California law on unfair business practices.

"Saddam heard from President Bush's State of the Union address the following message: 'I am going to kill you whether you give up your weapons of mass destruction or not.' It's hard to deter Saddam if you're telling him you're coming to kill him. It takes away his incentive to cooperate with the weapons inspectors."

- Joseph C. Wilson, who was acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the Gulf War

"Our military and people are in full combat readiness to cope with U.S. imperialist warmongers' indiscriminate military and political moves under their strategy to dominate the Korean peninsula. With confidence that we will win, soldiers and people have entrusted their fate and future to [North Korean leader Kim Jong Il] and risen as one."

- Radio Pyongyang, quoting a military official during a visit by Kim to a military base

Editorial from:  

President Bush's budget, beyond the essentials of day-to-day government, reveals the ideological core of his administration. He believes the wealthy pay too much in taxes and that Social Security and Medicare, bulwarks for the less affluent, should be privatized. Bush inherited from Bill Clinton a tax structure that was designed to eliminate the national debt in preparation for the time when the baby boomers would retire and force the government to redeem bonds in the Social Security trust fund. A federal government with little debt would also have been able to handle extra stresses in Medicare.

Bush is right that the collapse of the stock market resulted in a decrease in tax revenue. Combined with increased spending on security and the need to stimulate the economy, this would surely have caused a brief reversion to deficit spending under any President.

Bush's tax cut approved in 2001 guarantees that deficits will linger beyond these immediate difficulties. He compounded his irresponsibility yesterday by urging that Congress make the cuts permanent and approve new reductions also aimed at the wealthy.

Editorial from:  

President Bush's underlying budget philosophy can be seen in the contrast of two alarmingly aggressive proposals. In one, the administration invites states to slash Medicaid programs for many of the poor. It cynically eases the burden of deficit-ridden governors by offering them an initial budget sweetener along with the undoubtedly tempting management "freedom" to make severe cutbacks in health care benefits on their own.

Meanwhile, the White House would significantly enlarge the amount of investment income that could be permanently sheltered from taxes in savings and retirement accounts. This is a switch that would benefit mainly higher-bracket Americans who have the surplus income to save more than current Individual Retirement Account programs allow. Since current workers might withdraw money from their existing IRA's, pay taxes, and put the money in these more flexible accounts, the plan could create a one-time increase in tax revenue now, in return for sharply diminished revenue in the future. That's typical of so much of this administration's party-now-pay-later attitude toward the government's finances.

By: Mike McArdle  

O'Reilly doesn't seem to understand that it isn't un-American or anti-American to want your country to do the right thing. It isn't un-American to recognize that when you go to war for spheres of influence or oil resources or just because you want to redraw the map of the Middle East that there is a staggering human price to be paid. And it isn't the Saddam Husseins and George W. Bushes who start those wars that wind up paying it. It's foot soldiers and the ordinary citizens and the children and the elderly who are devastated by the power of modern weaponry who suffer for the machinations of morally bankrupt world leaders.

It isn't un-American to recognize that America's wars have not always been fought for the best of reasons and that some were simply fought for conquest and colonialism.

It isn't un-American to be skeptical of a leader whose reason for going to war seems to change every week and has yet to provide any evidence of a threat that doesn't involve hypothetical speculation.

By: Jonathan Weisman  

In the face of burgeoning budget deficits, the President has proposed new tax cuts that would cost the Treasury nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years, on top of the $1.35 trillion tax cut passed in 2001. The tax cuts' potential impact on government enterprises has caught many supporters and detractors by surprise.

If enacted, they would end for the vast majority of Americans the taxation of inheritances and eliminate taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends. Those are tax changes Ronald Reagan could only dream of.

On the spending side, the President would hold most domestic spending outside the military and homeland defense at or below inflation levels. Programs for rural development, family literacy, vocational education, environmental protection, and public housing revitalization would be cut from levels the White House proposed last year.

By: Steve Chapman  

Conservatives fancy themselves to be hardheaded realists, immune to cheap emotional appeals. But last week, you could barely recognize them. Hearing George W. Bush rail theatrically against the savagery of Saddam Hussein in his State of the Union address, members of the war party practically quivered in ecstasy.

"The President was able to show his resolve, his sober determination, his moral vision", exulted David Brooks in the Weekly Standard. The Wall Street Journal's editorial writers got a thrill from "the look in his eyes" as he "seethed with determination". Peggy Noonan, a speechwriter for President Reagan and the first President Bush, wrote in perfect seriousness: "For a moment I thought of earnest Clark Kent moving, at the moment of maximum danger, to shed his suit, tear open his shirt, and reveal the big 'S' on his chest."

Well, there is no accounting for what goes through Peggy Noonan's mind in the presence of a Republican politician. But it's understandable that conservatives responded to the speech with their hearts, because it didn't have much to appeal to the brain. All the inflammatory denunciations and ostentatious muscle-flexing couldn't disguise the flimsiness of Bush's case.

Editorial from:  

Administration officials annoyed at California's support of the medical use of marijuana have found someone on whom to vent their frustration. Last week, at the urging of federal prosecutors, a judge convicted Ed Rosenthal of charges that carry a five-year minimum sentence. Mr. Rosenthal is a medical-marijuana advocate who grows the drug for use by the seriously ill. His harsh punishment shows that the misguided federal war on medical marijuana has now escalated out of control.

The prosecution of Mr. Rosenthal is only the latest attempt by the federal government to frustrate the will of California voters. Washington has also tried to revoke the licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana to their patients. This strategy was struck down as unconstitutional by a federal court last fall.

Editorial from:  

Now that the administration wants - surprise! - to make the tax cuts permanent, that 10-year horizon doesn't look quite so rosy. According to estimates by the CBO, the cost of extending the tax cuts would be $600 billion in the first three years alone - money that the five-year plan deals with by simply putting it off the books. Limiting the projection to five years would also have the effect of masking the true costs of other administration proposals. For example, the administration wants to create new savings accounts that would let taxpayers contribute money now (after paying taxes on it) and withdraw it for various purposes down the road (without paying taxes on any gains). Whatever the merits of that plan, it has the short-term budgetary benefit of boosting tax revenue now (more people will put their money into the taxable accounts) without taking into account the cost later (in taxes that otherwise would have been paid eventually on the investment income). If the administration wants to emphasize the five-year instead of the 10-year forecasts, that's fine. It can educate the public about the uncertainty of such far-off fortunetelling. But there's no reason not to also show the 10-year numbers. Or, at least, no good reason.

By: Andrew Cohen  

Did the folks on the ground underestimate the nature of the damage to the tiles in which case we'd be talking about human as well as mechanical error? Or did Houston accurately evaluate what happened on liftoff and then hope for the best, figuring there was nothing they could do to prevent the worst? We ultimately must know whether key flight officials, figuring there was nothing to do but continue with the mission, leveled with the crew about its chances or purposely left the seven in the dark in whole or in part about how rough re-entry might be.

We must know whether there was an internal debate at NASA over what to tell Columbia's crew and when. We must know what NASA's textbook says about such a circumstance; what NASA officials are supposed to do in the event they learn about a potentially catastrophic event that doesn't affect a shuttle's mission but does affect its safe return to Earth.

We must know whether the evaluation of the danger to the crew of the "off-nominal" liftoff event was skewed in some way by whatever it is that could skew such an evaluation (say, the desire to save the crew from knowing how doomed it was or the need to complete all of the mission's experiments before trying the tricky re-entry maneuver).

Editorial from:  

Imagine that President Bush had a plan to dramatically reshape the federal tax system, eliminating taxes on investment income for most taxpayers, making the tax structure less progressive, and providing a boon to the wealthiest Americans. You might think he would mention it during his State of the Union address. You might think he would call it by its name: radical tax reform.

A couple with two children - and the income to do so - could put away $30,000 a year in Lifetime Savings Accounts; this money would grow tax-free and could be withdrawn at any point, for any reason. In addition, the couple could put $15,000 in tax-free Retirement Savings Accounts. (This would be on top of the $22,000 per year per child that families can already put aside to grow, tax-free, for college savings.) Meanwhile, this couple could continue to put $24,000 a year into employer-sponsored retirement plans. In other words, if you had the money, you could simply invest it and watch the tax-free earnings pile up. As a practical matter, the taxes that would remain would be on those chumps whose sole income is from their jobs.

By: Paul Corrigan  

...America's premier team of peacocks, the Bush administration, has their plumes of feathers out in full display. America is going to war.

What is an unelected President to do when the state of the union is a mess? Bush's leadership has brought about a sharp decline in the stock market, loss of faith in corporate management, declining investment in infrastructure, rising medical costs, an aging population with inadequate retirement savings, trade deficits, stagnation in the incomes of working men and women, infringement of personal liberties, increased terrorism directed at Americans, and a decrease in America's standing in the world community. Should he tell Americans the truth? No, our unelected President did not get up in front of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the American people and tell us that his administration has failed. Our un-elected President told us that our real interests lie in winning an away game, against a pitiful country halfway around the world, against a country so backward that the CIA Factbook reports that it has exactly one internet service provider.

The Challenger Disaster Jan. 28, 1986	The Columbia Disaster Feb. 1, 2003
The White House may have pressured NASA management to proceed with the launch of the shuttle - against the recommen­dations of the engineering team, who thought the temperature that day might be too cold for the booster rocket's 'seals' - so that President Reagan could use the mission's "First Teacher In Space" as a highlite in his SOTU address that evening.	In 2002 a former NASA engineer petitioned President Bush to put a moratorium - via executive order - on further shuttle flights until safety problems could be addressed... his concerns were brushed aside. The Bush White House pressed on with the "First Israeli In Space" after redirecting some of NASA's shuttle budget to "Star Wars" technology development.

"With overwhelming military strength now deployed against him and with intense monitoring from space surveillance and the U.N. inspection team on the ground, any belligerent move by Saddam against a neighbor would be suicidal. An effort to produce or deploy chemical or biological weapons or to make the slightest move toward a nuclear explosive would be inconceivable. If Iraq does possess such concealed weapons, as is quite likely, Saddam would use them only in the most extreme circumstances, in the face of an invasion of Iraq, when all hope of avoiding the destruction of his regime is lost."

- former President Jimmy Carter

Stolen from:  

Here are some of the first laws the White House hopes to move through a compassionately conservative Congress:

1. The Freedom to Worship Act
   Requires states to provide the names of all those not regularly attending church.
   
   
2. The Purple Mountains' Majesty Act
   Provides tax credits for strip mining, clear-cutting, mountain top removal.
   
   
3. Toddler Protection and Child Safety Act
   Authorizes first use of tactical nuclear weapons if an officer in the field wants to see how they work.
   
   
4. Home, Flag, and Apple Pie Act
   Removes all civil liberties not specifically removed by the Patriot Act.
   

By: Greg Colburn  

I agree in part with Raymond Cleary. George W. Bush has accomplished quite a lot in a mere two years. He squandered the largest budget surplus on a tax cut for the super rich. He let energy trading companies pillage and plunder California residents for $40 billion. Ken Lay and the other Enron thieves still aren't behind bars.

The economy is entering its third year of recession. The stock market imploded, decimating young and old investors alike.

Gas prices are skyrocketing. Unemployment is the highest it's been in a decade.

By: Frida Berrigan  

On September 4, 2001, the New York Times printed a front-page article under the headline: "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits". While the story got lost in the events of September 11, the article revealed that the United States had initiated a secret weapons program that could be in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention, the landmark 1972 treaty that prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological agents that have no "prophylactic, protective, or other peace purpose". Signers of the treaty pledged not to develop or obtain weapons "designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict".

The article's revelations shed light on why the United States, which had been the driving force behind the treaty since announcing its intention to unilaterally dismantle biological weapons stocks during the Nixon administration, rejected a July 2001 protocol that would have provided for regular inspections to verify compliance with the treaty. The Bush administration's rejection of the protocol left the treaty dead in the water.

By: Russ Rigtrup  

Bush's real justification for war is not the chemical or biological weapons that his father's cronies sold Saddam, or oil, or any of tenuous links that he claims exists between Al Quida and Baghdad, or the settling of a family vendetta. These are mere icing on the cake. Bush views the 9/11 attack as a sign from God that it his right to rid the world of Evil, as he sees it.

Anyone who thinks the fall of Baghdad will bring an end to preemptive American strikes against countries that have never launched an attack against our homeland, is woefully mistaken. Influential people within the Bush administration have made it abundantly clear that Iraq is but the first act in a global pogrom aimed at all those who fail to recognize and obey the moral authority of the Bush Cartel. The only question is whether Syria or Libya will be next.

In a real sense, Bush has gained the world while losing his soul...

By: Dana Milbank  

In a meeting with reporters last week, Bush political adviser Karl Rove said Bush's plan to abolish the dividend tax was evidence that he's "a populist. Give him a choice between Wall Street and Main Street and he'll choose Main Street every time."

As evidence, Rove argued that: "45% of all of the dividend income goes to people with $50,000-or-less incomes, family incomes. Nearly three-quarters of it goes to families with $100,000 or less family income."

Not exactly. It is true that 43.8% of tax returns with dividend income are from households with less than $50,000 in income and 73.8% of such returns are from households with less than $100,000. But that doesn't mean the little guy earning less than $50,000 gets "45% of all the income" or that the Main Street earners below $100,000 get "three-quarters" of dividend income.

In fact, those earning less than $50,000 get 14.7% of dividend income, and those earning less than $100,000 get 32.7%, according to a Brookings Institution/Urban Institute analysis. The former would get 6.8% of the benefit of Bush's dividend plan, while the latter would get 20.9%.

By: Harley Sorensen  

Bush, to his credit, recited three whole paragraphs of innocuous platitudes before he got to his first major distortion, to wit: "We will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other Presidents and other generations."

But evading responsibility and passing along problems to future generations is exactly what his speech was about. Following in the footsteps of the sainted Ronald Reagan, Bush outlined a hodgepodge of schemes that depend almost 100% on borrowed money.

Our government now spends more than it takes in. Bush, to curry favor with the voters, wants to toss yet another tax cut in their direction, thus reducing government income and forcing the government to borrow even more to stay afloat.

The conservative mantra these days alternates between "self-reliance" and "taking responsibility for one's actions". However, forcing your children or grandchildren to foot the bill for your extravagances appears to demonstrate neither quality. Still, every time Bush said "tax cut" or "spend" in his speech last week, the entire Republican contingent stood and cheered. One questions the sincerity of the Republican Party.

Editorial from:  

Even as we grieve the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew of seven, the nation must gird itself for a searching inquiry into just what happened, and why. It is not enough to accept NASA's assurances that the space agency will find the problem, fix it, and move on, carrying the nation's banner back into space. Rather this tragedy, like that which befell the Challenger in 1986, requires an aggressive, no-holds-barred inquiry by a presidential commission charged to evaluate not only the technical roots of this failure but also whether any management mistakes, budget cuts, loss of engineering talent, or deep-seated cultural traditions at NASA may have contributed.

Beyond the technical inquiry, it will be imperative to look more broadly at the space agency's management of the shuttle program. It is disquieting to note that only last year the outgoing chairman of the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel told Congress that he had never been so worried about shuttle safety as right now, mostly because safety upgrades were being postponed due to budget constraints. Although safety had not yet been compromised, he said: "Nobody will know for sure when the safety margin has been eroded too far." Five of nine members of that safety panel and two consultants were removed, with some now accusing NASA of trying to suppress their criticism.

"President Bush was a beneficiary of the ultimate set-aside program. They set aside a whole election to give him a job."

- Al Sharpton

By: Bruce S. Ticker  

The potentially impeachable offense was presented by Al Kamen in his In the Loop column in Wednesday's (Jan. 29) Washington Post. He did not mention impeachment in his column, which usually appears at the bottom of a far inside page.

The week before, George W. Bush hailed small businesss and merchandise made in America while standing behind some boxes that had tape over the words "Made in China" during an appearance in St. Louis.

This clears up my confusion over whether merchandise is still even made in America any longer. But I digress. The White House blamed this on an unnamed "overzealous volunteer". Who could it be? Did Bush or Cheney volunteer? That "overzealous volunteer" might be a common criminal. Kamen wrote that covering up the "Made In" labels violates Title 19, Chapter 4, Subtitle II, Part 1, Sec. 134.11, which "requires that every article of foreign origin (or its container) imported into the United States shall be marked in a conspicuous place as legibly, indelibly, and permanently" as possible, "in such manner as to indicate to an ultimate purchaser... [the] name of the country of origin of the article. Any person who, with intent to conceal the information... defaces, destroys, removes, alters, covers, obscures, or obliterates any mark required under the provisions of this chapter shall-(1) upon a conviction for the first violation... be fined not more than $100,000 or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both."

By: Adam Cohen  

When McDonald's first rolled out the Chicken McNugget in the 1980's, comedians could always get a laugh by asking, with a leer, just what part of the chicken the McNugget was supposed to be. But thanks to a recent federal court ruling, the composition of the McNugget is no laughing matter.

The Chicken McNugget, a lab experiment of an entree, larded with ingredients like TBHQ, a flavorless "stabilizer", and Dimethylpolysiloxane, an "anti-foaming agent", is Exhibit A in a lawsuit that could transform the fast-food industry. And it is the McNugget's artificiality - the judge labeled it a "McFrankenstein creation" - that is putting McDonald's on the legal defensive.

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