By: Bob Herbert  

When you have 5½ million young people wandering around without diplomas, without jobs and without prospects, you might as well hand them T-shirts to wear that say "We're Trouble".

Without help, they will not become part of a skilled work force. And they will become a drain on the nation's resources. One way or another, the rest of us will end up supporting them.

"It's just heartbreaking", said Jack Wuest, who runs the Alternative Schools Network in Chicago, which commissioned the study. "These kids need a fair shake and they're not getting it."

The Bush administration, committed to a war with Iraq and obsessed with tax cuts for the wealthy, has no interest in these youngsters. And very few others in a position to help are willing to go to bat for them.

By: Gene Lyons  

...What worries many in the Pentagon nervous about President Junior's scheme to occupy Iraq is not knowing whether soldiers who fled in terror during Desert Storm will fight desperately to defend their homes and families against foreign invaders.

Will U.S. and British troops, as everybody assumes, race through the Iraqi desert as easily as German tanks penetrated Poland on Sept. 1, 1939? (Historical analogies, see, can cut both ways.) Or will they meet determined resistance, sabotage, booby traps, and other nasty surprises? Nobody knows. The administration's strategy of loudly proclaiming that Iraq poses a dire threat to U.S. security while making a public spectacle of massing troops along its border as if it were scarcely capable of self-defense makes no sense. The Germans, at least, knew that Polish horse cavalry posed no real danger. We Americans are new at this business of pre-emptive war.

By: Phyllis Bennis  

The most compelling part of Powell's presentation was his brief ending section on the purported al Qaeda link with Iraq and on the dangers posed by the al Zarqawi network. However, he segued disingenuously from the accurate and frightening information about what the al Zarqawi network could actually do with biochemical materials to the not-so-accurate claim about its link with Iraq - which is tenuous and unproven at best.

A key component of the alleged Iraq-al Qaeda link is based on what Powell said "detainees tell us...". That claim must be rejected. On December 27 the Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had acknowledged detainees being beaten, roughed up, threatened with torture by being turned over to officials of countries known to practice even more severe torture. In such circumstances, nothing "a detainee" says can be taken as evidence of truth given that people being beaten or tortured will say anything to stop the pain. Similarly, the stories of defectors cannot be relied on alone, as they have a self-interest in exaggerating their stories and their own involvement to guarantee access to protection and asylum.

"...I don't trust a crook who stole power, who hides his actions, who hides Reagan's papers so we can't get the truth of Iran-Contra, who hires felons for black bag jobs, who formed a secret "shadow" government, who outlawed the Bill of Rights, who laughs when he kills, who has the brain of Reagan and the heart of Nixon. I don't trust him one goddamn bit. He's emptying the Treasury - that right there should get him impeached."

- BartCop, tell'n it like it is about the Chump-in-Charge

Action Alert

"When they say the economy is cyclical, you should reply: 'Yes, it grows under Democrats and the Republicans crash it when they have power.'"

- BartCop

By: Christian Berthelsen and Mark Martin  

A former Enron Corp. trader who helped devise the company's "Get Shorty" trading scheme pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges that he conspired to manipulate California's power market during the state's energy crisis two years ago and also admitted lying to federal agents when first questioned about it last year.

Jeffrey S. Richter, 33, of Houston pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a government agent. He has agreed to cooperate with a federal investigation into power companies' efforts to manipulate the energy markets.

Editorial from:  

The nominees being whisked through all have records that cry out for greater scrutiny. One, Jeffrey Sutton, is a leading states' rights advocate who in 2001 persuaded the Supreme Court to rule against a nurse with breast cancer on the ground that the Americans With Disabilities Act does not apply to state employers. Another, Deborah Cook, regularly sides, as a state judge, with corporations. In one case she maintained that a worker whose employer lied to him about his exposure to dangerous chemicals should not be able to sue for his injuries.

Jay Bybee, who was heard from yesterday, has argued that United States Senators should be elected by state legislators, not the voters. Questions have also been raised about whether, as a White House aide, Mr. Bybee attempted to suppress a criminal investigation of financing of Iraqi weapons purchases.

The committee's new leadership showed similar recklessness when it waved Miguel Estrada through on a straight party-line vote. Mr. Estrada, a conservative lawyer with almost no paper trail, refused to answer Senators' questions on crucial issues like abortion. Meanwhile, the White House refused to hand over memos Mr. Estrada wrote as a government lawyer that could have shed light on his beliefs.

By: David Leonhardt  

The economy has fallen into its worst hiring slump in almost 20 years, and many business executives say they remain unsure when it will end.

The employment decline has become even worse than it was at a comparable point in the so-called jobless recovery of the early 1990's, according to recently revised statistics from the Labor Department. The economy has lost more than two million jobs, a drop of 1.5%, since the most recent recession began in March 2001, as layoffs have continued despite the resumption of economic growth more than a year ago. The decline was 1.3% at the same point in the business cycle a decade ago.

Editorial from:  

The 2004 budget President Bush submitted this week suffers from multiple personality disorder. In part, it is the budget of a cautious, sober-minded administration shepherding the country through a time of reduced revenue and increased demands. In part, it is the work of a throw-caution-to-the-wind administration willing to gamble the nation's fiscal health.

All this happens as major bills come due. The cost of a war with Iraq is not included in this budget. The costs of Medicare and Social Security will outstrip their revenue by $18 trillion over the next 75 years, according to administration estimates. And, with a return to deficits, the government will be paying more and more interest on the national debt - more than $1 trillion over the next five years. Pressed about this, the administration breezily asserts that tax cuts will spur economic growth that will take care of all these worries. President Reagan's tax cut was sold with the same logic - and the nation spent the better part of two decades digging out. At least Mr. Reagan had the sense, when deficits started to pile up, to undo some of his tax cuts. Mr. Bush just wants to just plow in deeper.

By: Bernard Weiner  

There is a direct connection between the Columbia shuttle disaster, the U.S. reaction to the Twin Towers/Pentagon attacks, and the coming war with Iraq: the arrogance of power.

The Bush Administration believes it has a lock on all wisdom, it knows what is best for us Americans, and for everyone else in the world - because, as Bush told us in his State of the Union address, America acts in the world under God's divine protection, and he, Bush, is the representative of the nation and thus, we are led to believe, operates under God's aegis as well.

By: Joe Conason  

"We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other Presidents, and other generations", Dubya promises, to loud applause. His "boldness" is widely praised.

Meanwhile, Dubya's henchmen have designed a series of additional tax cuts and breaks for the top bracket that will continue to drain off hundreds of billions of dollars annually. What he doesn't mention is that over the 10 years projected by his own accountants, these proposals will reduce federal revenues by $1.46 trillion, emptying the Treasury and leaving millions who depend on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid with no visible means of support. Two-thirds of those costs won't occur until after 2008.

By then, of course, Dubya, Big Time, and Boy Genius will have skipped town. As the credits roll, they ride off into the sunset, in their golf carts.

"As we struggle to understand how our administration can seriously plan to unleash this unimaginable horror, terror, devastation, and sorrow on children and the planet, it's helpful to understand the mindset of the leader. He and millions of Christian fundamentalists are convinced that he has been placed here personally by God to "shepherd us through the end times". Once you understand this about him, it all makes sense. This is how he can refuse to understand that we need to address environmental concerns. This is why he can feel no pain or concern over thousands upon thousands of non-Christian deaths around the world. He and his followers have nothing to lose. Shallow, blinded, and shielded as he's always been, he's completly uncapable of understanding that with the aid of uninformed and propagandized Americans he's leading us straight to hell on earth. Or no earth at all."

- Fabiana, in the Smirking Chimp forum

By: Bill Berkowitz  

Paul Weyrich, widely recognized as one of the founding fathers of the Christian Right, is advancing his own McCarthy-like "modest proposal", bridging the gap between the Cold War witch hunts and TIA. Weyrich wants the Department of Homeland Security or Congress to launch an investigation into the funding sources behind the "neo-Communist" groups involved in the anti-war movement. While Weyrich's charge that Communists are leading the movement is nothing new - the Center for the Study of Popular Culture's David Horowitz beat him to that by several months - he is the first to openly call for widespread investigations into the peace movement that are eerily reminiscent of the dark days of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

"It seems that no matter what the cause, some of these groups have the money to go wherever there are demonstrations", Weyrich wrote in a recent column for the online conservative NewsMax.com. "If you read the names of the participating groups, you will see that they are hardcore leftists. They are the front groups created by the Soviet Union when it was pouring millions of dollars into the Communist Party USA, which in turn dispensed it to these phony organizations."

"We are the United States of Amnesia, which is encouraged by a media that has no desire to tell us the truth about anything, serving their corporate masters who have other plans to dominate us."

- Gore Vidal

"This President couldn't eat a pretzel and watch a football game at the same time. I would focus al Qaeda and take care of Iraq later."

- Paul Begala, on CNN's Crossfire

By: Molly Ivins  

In 1987, FCC commissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan repealed the Fairness Doctrine, and that has already had a stunning effect on political debate in this country. That same year, Congress put the Fairness Doctrine into law, but Reagan vetoed it with this memorable rationalization: "The Fairness Doctrine is inconsistent with the tradition of independent journalism." The Fairness Doctrine had been upheld by the Supreme Court in a 1969 decision that viewed the airwaves as a "public trust" and said fairness required the public trust to accurately reflect opposing views. In a 1986 decision, the D.C. Federal Court of Appeals in a 2-to-1 decision upheld a new FCC rule refusing to apply the Fairness Doctrine to television text. The two prevailing judges were Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork.

To point out the obvious, broadcasters and their national advertisers have a clear stake in promoting the views of those who advocate lower taxes on the rich and on big corporations. What is so perfectly loony about the FCC's proposal to unleash yet another round of media concentration is that it is being done in the name of "the free market".

Everything will work out just fine, the President says. But a close look at his economic record so far suggests that he has a "fuzzy math" problem.

By: Allan Sloan  

It sure sounds like the President has things under control. Not to worry, right? But actions speak louder than words, so let's look beyond the President's upbeat rhetoric at some numbers the economy and financial markets have posted in his first two years.

The highlights: U.S. stocks have lost almost $5 trillion of value since Bush took office two years ago, a mind-blowing decline. The market has fallen more (in percentage terms) during Bush's first two years than in the first two years of any modern President, including Herbert Hoover, who was in charge when the Great Depression began. And you can't blame the Bush Market on the trauma of 9-11: stocks fell at a much faster rate from Bush's Inauguration through Sept. 10, 2001, than they have since. Unemployment is up more than 40% (to 6%, from 4.2) since Bush took office; gigantic projected federal-budget surpluses have turned into deficits; the dollar has fallen sharply against the euro. The good news: interest rates have fallen, juicing consumer spending.

None of this is to say that Bush is fated to go down in history as an economic failure like Herbert Hoover. It's only halftime, the game's not over. But so far, the President has talked a great game, but he hasn't played anything resembling a great game. It's time to start watching what the scoreboard has to say, rather than relying on the mere word of the Cheerleader-in-Chief. Optimism certainly matters - but the numbers are what really matter. And they're not good.

By: William Rivers Pitt  

In essence, the King is calling for war while his own castle walls lay in ruin around him. The battlefield will not be in some faraway land, but right here, inside the moat.

What is this war worth to you? Are you willing to have it come to your city, to your family? It will. Bank on it. The U.S. military may be all set to fight. We as a nation are not at all prepared to defend ourselves against it here at home. Bank on that, as well.

"We only have one political party in the U.S., and that is the property party, which essentially is corporate America, which has two right wings, one called Republican and one called Democrat..."

- Gore Vidal

By: Ronald Gerughty  

Is there no end to the deception and blatant manipulation of the Bush administration? Is there not one issue they will address honestly? Apparently not, as now they have begun their campaign of obfuscation concerning medical malpractice. There is no malpractice crisis, it's just a ploy to accomplish yet another Republican rollback. Jury awards and trial lawyers are not the culprits of this contrived exigency, as he would have us believe; the real miscreants are the insurance scalawags and the doctors. Yet, Mr. Bush would have us believe he can solve this problem merely by capping the compensation granted to deserving victims.

Mr. Bush has ratcheted up his rhetoric for tort reform. Long an advocate of limiting corporate and medical liability, he hopes to advance his agenda at the expense of the Democratic-leaning trial lawyers and the people of this nation. It is payback time. By enacting his "reforms", he can reward the fat cats who supported his appointment as President. He is not concerned with the injuries done to individuals by malpracticing doctors, or how to equitably reform the system, but only about limiting the amount paid out so that those who would benefit from this legislation could further their unmitigated greed.

Editorial from:  

North Korea's rapidly advancing nuclear weapons program is the most urgent threat facing America today. Yet the administration, intent on dealing with Iraq first, has been reluctant to give diplomacy with North Korea the priority it warrants. Yesterday's reaffirmation by Washington that it recognizes the need for direct talks with North Korea is fine, but not good enough. Those talks will probably never take place unless the administration drops its preconditions.

While the White House frets about the appearance of rewarding North Korean misconduct with unconditional talks and worries about temporarily shifting the spotlight off Saddam Hussein, North Korea seems to be getting ready to build bombs on a very fast timetable. It could have an additional five or six by July. Punishing past duplicity and focusing on one crisis at a time are sound diplomatic precepts. But this crisis is far too pressing for such niceties to stand in the way of the best remaining chance for a peaceful solution.

By: John D. Briner  

The U.S. has always needed the support of its allies, in both defense and moral backing. The importance of allies in every conflict spanning from the Second World War to the Gulf War cannot be understated. More recently, during the war in Afghanistan following September 11, allies played a crucial role in securing early victory. In fact, in his first State of the Union address following Sep. 11, Bush publicly thanked those countries who had helped form a coalition in Afghanistan, including Latin countries such as El Salvador.

And the U.S. is not yet finished in Afghanistan; just last week, U.S. troops came under fire from 80 rebels in southeastern Afghanistan. Military action against Iraq appears likely, if not inevitable. And with the U.S. currently considering opening a third front in North Korea, now is not the time to be losing the support of its closest neighbors.

Mr. Bush is brave to state that the U.S. is prepared to fight alone if necessary. Such comments are dangerous, however. The U.S. requires, at the very least, ideological support for its actions, if not military support. Even those that call themselves allies are quick to distance themselves when it appears that a country is acting out of aggression. Unilateralism can be too easily interpreted as aggression, and aggression endears itself to no one. No one except for the very rogue states that Mr. Bush feels compelled to defeat.

"We are meeting at a moment of world history that is in many ways unique - a moment that is ominous, but also full of hope. The most powerful state in history has proclaimed, loud and clear, that it intends to rule the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme... The doctrine is not entirely new, nor unique to the U.S., but it has never before been proclaimed with such brazen arrogance - at least not by anyone we would care to remember."

- Noam Chomsky, in Confronting the Empire

By: Bryan Zepp Jamieson  

You can start with his ascension to power. Conservatives, both the real ones who adhered to Jeffersonian ideals and the bigots who adhered to Jeffersonian personal frailties, staunchly upheld the doctrine of states' rights, and maintained that federal powers were tightly contained and proscribed. Now the ones on the net are circumspect about mentioning that, since they know that someone is going to say: "Yeah? What about Bush vs. Gore?"

That wasn't exactly a resounding victory for states rights. A federal court - the Supreme Court - had interceded in a process that the Constitution unequivocally assigned to the states - the time and manner of elections - and had peremptorily declared that the decision was not to be considered a part of the body of law or the legally all-important process of precedence. Right wingers tend to scowl and change the subject when that comes up. It also puts a dent in their supposed disdain for "activist judges" who "make law from the bench". It's pretty hard to square that with Scalia's crazed statement that permitting a full count of the votes in Florida would "cause irreparable harm" to the Bush candidacy.

Yeah. He would have lost. Scaly thought that was pretty harmful.

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