Blogs For Bush, that round table of right wing bloggers, took a little time out of spreading lies about Sandy Berger to trumpet the latest non-discovery of WMD in Iraq.
This is desperation at its sweatiest. "We'll have to wait and see," indeed.
I never claimed to debunk Bush's claim, Wilson says. We warned you about this last year:
Go read. Somerby has Wilson's number.
When I was a kid, I loved logic problems. You'd get a few statements about a situation and a grid. By matching up the information in statements, you could eventually develop a complete picture of the situation.
So when I started reading the Senate Intelligence Committee report - which I quoted below - I was excited to find a small logic problem buried inside the report. The report is minutely concerned with the several major products of American intelligence that sold us on the Iraq war, one being Secretary Colin Powell's February 5, 2003 speech to the United Nation.
According to the Senate report, Secretary Powell went in with guns blazing against "single source" intelligence - intelligence based on the word of a single person. One particular "single source" is singled out for immense contempt by the Senate report - a source codenamed CURVEBALL (CB). This source was never in US custody and met with a US intelligence agent only once before Operation Iraqi Freedom, yet he became the backbone of one particularly damning claim in Powell's speech: that Iraq had produced several mobile biological weapons laboratories. Why? Because this source was backed up by three other intelligence sources. Powell gives us the details in his UN speech:
Although Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, U.N. inspectors at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the year 2000.You will note that CB isn't mentioned by name in this quote, nor are any of the other three sources that Powell uses. That's as it should be. I don't care to know any actual names.
The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998. Twelve technicians died from exposure to biological agents.
He reported that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent production always began on Thursdays at midnight because Iraq thought UNSCOM would not inspect on the Muslim Holy Day, Thursday night through Friday. He added that this was important because the units could not be broken down in the middle of a production run, which had to be completed by Friday evening before the inspectors might arrive again.
This defector is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile production facilities has been corroborated by other sources.
A second source, an Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the program, confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers.
A third source, also in a position to know, reported in summer 2002 that Iraq had manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road trailer units and on rail cars.
Finally, a fourth source, an Iraqi major, who defected, confirmed that Iraq has mobile biological research laboratories, in addition to the production facilities I mentioned earlier.
IV. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY ANALYSIS OF IRAQ'S BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS PROGRAM 143In section 2-5, the Senate report discusses four human intelligence sources.
A Background 143
B. Baghdad Has Transportable Facilities for Producing Bacterial and Toxin BW Agents 148
1. Other Sources 150
2. CURVE BALL 152
3. [censored] 157
4. INC Source 160
5. [censored] 161
6. Intelligence Community Mind Set Concerning Mobile BW Programs 161
A large part of the NIE's discussion of the alleged mobile BW production units was based on information provided by a source described in the NIE as "a credible source" and "an Iraqi defector deemed credible by the IC." The source was an Iraqi defector who had been the subject of debriefings [Like Powell's engineer, CB sprung onto the scene in the year 2000.censored] since 2000. He was believed by the IC to have been a project engineer involved in the design and production of [censored] biological production facilities in Iraq. [Entire sentence censored.] The source is hereafter referred to by the codename he was given [phrase censored] "CURVE BALL".
The detailee also expressed concern about this source in his e-mail concerning Secretary Powell's UN speech. He noted that the source was "[The Senate's point is that each of these four sources were impeachable. There was a corruption of the analytical processes of the American IC, one that overwhelmed even Colin Powell's vendetta against "single source" information. Why were these four sources considered reliable at all, even when specific information existed to impeach them all?phrase censored], but one whose reliability nor reporting has been evaluated," and said the reporting had inconsistencies that needed further checking. The detailee added, "we sure didn't give much credence to this report when it came out. Why now?"
The Washington Monthly
Kevin wants to know how CEO pay (which rose 27% in 2003) fits into the law of supply and demand. Here's my entry:
CEOs who can supply large profit margins are in great demand, hence their pay is skyrocketing.
By "supply large profit margins", I mean "ax enough laborers without endangering productivity". This floods the labor market with more unemployed (greater supply), which lowers the demand for higher wages.
CEOs with the requisite lack of a soul are in short supply. That's why they're getting paid so well.
I have a lazy summer Sunday afternoon in which to do nothing but look for interesting angles on public documents. Wouldn't you know that I might find one?
I started reading the US Senate Intelligence Commitee report on the handling of Iraqi WMD information. I didn't get very far before I ran across the phrase "single source to whom the Intelligence Community did not have access." That's one heck of a phrase to find, don't you think? And since Josh Marshall was kind enough to give a link to a searchable pdf file of the report, I searched for the phrase "single source" in that document to see if the report referred to this single source again.
There are ten hits. Here they are:
Page 23 (pdf 33): Similarly, the IC based its judgment that "all key aspects - research & development (R&D), production, and weaponization - of Iraq's offensive biological weapons (BW) program are active and that most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf War" primarily on its assessment that Iraq had mobile biological production vans. While this assessment was based on direct intelligence that indicated Iraq had mobile biological production units, the reporting was largely from a single source to whom the Intelligence Community did not have direct access. The Committee believes that the IC's expectation that Iraq would move to mobile biological weapons production, focused their attention on reporting that supported that contention and led them to disregard information that contradicted it. This exemplifies Dr. Kay's concerns that the IC made large new conclusions based on only a few pieces of new evidence that were joined to previous conclusions and that pieces that did not fulfill its expectations tended to be thrown aside.The report itself is pretty harsh on the IC, and they certainly share any blame for the sorry state of intelligence about Iraqi WMD. But there's a trail here to follow, and this search gave me a method of focusing on it. Still working on that post, but it will be out soon. In the meantime, chew on those quotes.
Page 67 (pdf 77): According to the CIA's former ADDI for Intelligence for Strategic Programs, who was the point person for coordinating the [Powell UN] speech, the CIA removed some of the information that the White House had added to the speech, gathered from finished and raw intelligence, because the information was single source and uncorroborated.
Page 144 (pdf 154): Quoting the December 2000 ICA on Iraqi WMD - We cannot confirm whether Iraq has produced ... biological agents, although in the case of biological weapons, credible reporting from a single source suggests it has done so on a large scale and had developed a clandestine production capability.
Page 145 (pdf 155): Quoting the December 2000 ICA on Iraqi WMD - According to [censored- as above, was this word "credible"?] reporting from a single source, Iraq has constructed seven transportable - via trucks and rail cars - plants, some of which have produced BW agents. Although the information is unconfirmed, it tracks with UNSCOM evidence acquired in the mid-1990's that Iraq was considering such a program.
Page 156 (pdf 166): Because of Committee staffs concerns about the IC's reliance on a single source and questions about CURVE BALL'S reporting, the Committee requested an IC assessment of CURVE BALL and his reliability. The DHS provided the Committee with an information paper on December 17, 2003 that stated ". . . the Iraqi design engineer [CURVE BALL] is not a biological weapons expert nor is he a life science expert. Source simply designed [censored] production facilities. He never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents." The DHS assessment also noted that "the source's reporting demonstrates a knowledge of and access to personalities, organizations, procurement, and technology related to Iraq's BW program." Concerned that the assessment had said the primary source behind the IC's assessments of the Iraqi mobile BW production program had "never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents," Committee staff asked DHS to clarify what appeared to be a serious discrepancy. The DHS was unable to respond to the request for several weeks, noting to Committee staff that the matter was being handled by the DCI's staff. The DHS then issued a correction to the Committee on January 15, 2003 that stated the information in the December 17, 2003 paper contained several errors and [about two lines censored here - the ellipses and quotation mark following is part of the report] . . . ." The DHS correction also stated that "by virtue of his position, and as reflected in the published Intelligence Information Reports, the source demonstrated extensive knowledge of Iraq's BW program. As the project manager, he had intimate details of the mobile BW program." The author of the December 2003 DHS paper which stated that CURVE BALL "never claimed that the project he was involved in was used to produce biological agents" was the DHS intelligence officer who had primary responsibility [censored] for collecting and reporting the intelligence from CURVE BALL'S debriefings. In an interview with Committee staff, the DHS officer stated that in his haste to provide an assessment of the source to the Committee, he had misread some of the intelligence reports from the source.
Page 241 (pdf 251): According to a State Department foreign affairs officer in the Bureau of Nonproliferation and the NIO, the general operating principle set by Secretary Powell in preparing his presentation was that any intelligence that was included had to be corroborated. The foreign affairs officer told Committee staff that "single source information did not go in the speech." CIA analysts who participated in these meetings told Committee staff that the Secretary only wanted to use solid intelligence in the speech and wanted the language carefully reviewed by the analysts. One CIA analyst and one official told the Committee they were not aware of any guidance that single source information should not be used in the speech. The NIO for Science and Technology, who also worked on Secretary Powell's speech, told Committee staff that DCI Tenet specifically told him to check the speech for classification issues and to "back [] up the material and mak[e] sure we had good solid stuff to support everything."
...CIA analysts told Committee staff that during the coordination meetings on the speech, information was removed in some instances because Secretary Powell was not comfortable with it and because some information was based on single source raw reporting which the CIA could not corroborate.
Page 366 (pdf 376): According to State Department officials, the general operating principle set by Secretary Powell in preparing his presentation was that any intelligence that was included had to be corroborated. The official told Committee staff that, "single source information did not go in the speech." The CTC analyst interviewed by Committee staff indicated that in the final weeks leading up to the February 5 presentation, the CIA analysts responsible for preparing the terrorism portion were heavily engaged with Secretary Powell on "... everything from substance to style to Secretary Powell's personal 'I don't like that' . . . ."
Page 450 (pdf 460): When United Nations inspectors departed from Iraq in 1998, the Intelligence Community lost a major source of information on the ground and failed to take remedial actions to replace it with a human intelligence collection program essential for understanding the clandestine nature of proliferation activities and Saddam Hussein's intentions. As a result, the intelligence collected in the intervening period was primarily through overhead imagery and signals intercepts of limited value and from Iraqi defectors, often single sources of unknown credibility that were provided by the now suspect Iraqi National Congress, a group promoting the use of U.S. military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Negative Capability (Harpers.org)
The President of the United States is not a fact-checker.Some enterprising young blogger should locate all these video clips and build a great complilation.
I’m not a statistician.
I’m not a numbers-cruncher.
I’m not one of these bean counters.
I’m not very analytical.
I’m not a precision guy.
The President is not a micromanager.
I’m not a member of the legislative branch.
The President is not a rubber stamp for the Congress.
I’m not a censor-guy.
I’m not a lawyer.
I’m not a doctor.
The President is not an economist.
I’m not a stockbroker or a stock-picker.
I’m not a forecaster.
I’m not a predictor.
I’m not a pollster, a poll-reader guy.
I’m not a very good prognosticator of elections.
I’m not a committee chairman.
I’m not of the Washington scene.
I’m not a lonely person.
I’m not a poet.
I’m not a very good novelist.
I’m not a textbook player.
I’m not an emailer.
I’m not a very long-winded person.
I’m not a very formal guy.
I am not a revengeful person.
I’m not an Iraqi citizen.
I’m not a divider.
I am not a unilateralist.
I’m not a tree, I’m a Bush.
I'm trying to lose some weight, and have set up a website to provide a little accountability. It's called Big Belly Burnoff. There's no need to go there unless you care to. Now on with the show...
On Friday night, I got a call from Moscow: my friend Paul Klebnikov, the editor in chief of Forbes Russia, a Russian version of the American business magazine, had been fatally shot as he left work. Paul's wife, Musa, was in Italy with their three children and had just spoken to him on the phone before he was shot. She was heartbreakingly brave the next day. Please gather articles about her husband, she asked, for his boys.Liberal Oasis points out that "Bush's curtailing of support for democracy is worsening the situation".
Then the anger rose. I am among those former Moscow correspondents, and those people of Russian descent, who have tried to stay optimistic about today's Russia and President Vladimir Putin, even in the face of all the distressing reports about Chechnya, the Yukos oil company, the media clampdown and the swelling powers of the Kremlin. You have to remember where they were a scant 15 years ago, I would argue: Mr. Putin has to restore control over the government and economy, and the oligarchs have to be reined in.
It will be far harder to argue this, now that someone has pumped four bullets into a journalist who earnestly thought that he could help Russia make it by writing the truth about its dark underside. It's tough to continue pretending that Russia is just in transition, struggling to emerge from Communism's rubble. Twenty journalists have now been assassinated in Russia for their work; 14 since Mr. Putin became president. Not one of the murders has been solved.
America isn't safer as a result of Bush's military action
So, no, Americans are not safer, Mr. Bush. They face the threat of substantial narco-terrorism from Afghanistan. Iraq is a security nightmare that could well blow back on the American homeland. Pakistan remains a military dictatorship with a host of militant jihadi movements that had been fomented by the hardline Pakistani military intelligence. Saudi Arabia is witnessing increased al-Qaeda activity and attacks on Westerners. And the Israeli-Palestine dispute is being left to fester and poison the world.The Republicans aren't fit to govern.
These are not achievements to be proud of. This is a string of disasters. We are not safer. We face incredible danger because of the way the Bush administration has grossly mishandled the Middle East
BeatBushBlog
Bush consults a criminal defense lawyer in the ongoing inquiry into the outing of Valerie Plame. It turns out that this same lawyer, Jim Sharp, is representing Ken Lay in the Enron debacle.
They don't even pretend anymore, you know?
Bush's Guard service has been a topic of controversy ever since he started running for public office. Controversy quickly centered on his fifth year of service (May 1972-73), because very few records exist to document him doing any service at all. And how can we evaluate his fitness to lead the American people without having the actual facts of his past service?
After much stalling, Bush yielded to public pressure and released many more documents to the press at the beginning of this year. Among them were payroll records for almost every quarter Bush was in the Guard. Two quarterly payroll records were missing, however, and one of those was the third quarter of 1972, a quarter in which Bush missed a required flight physical and was grounded from flying.
Now they tell us this payroll record was destroyed in a microfilm restoration project. The mainstream media is treating this destruction as the end of the story, as if we will never know the real story behind Bush's service during this period. However, the payroll information for this missing quarter has been preserved in other payroll records, and a complete picture of Bush's fifth year of service can easily be reconstructed, if you take a little time to put the records together.
Since larger media sources seem reluctant to do the legwork, I did it in about six hours Friday evening. And it's no wonder that Bush has been dragging his heels releasing this documentation, because the final picture isn't very flattering.
Bush's payroll records for that fifth year of service are not complete. We lack the third quarter (July-September) 1972 and always will, apparently. Further gaps include an incomplete record of the fourth quarter 1972 and a partial copy of the first quarter 1973 record.
Let's look at a complete payroll record to see what we are dealing with. This is Bush's 3rd quarter pay record from the year 1973:
That's a lot of information, right? But there's a calendar right in the middle that's easy to understand. When Bush showed up and performed some kind of service for the Guard, then a code denoting what service is entered into that date. Here's the above calendar in a closeup.
As you can see, the months of October, November, and December are still labeled 1972. That's because it's showing Bush's service from those three months in 1972, even though this is a 1973 document.
Redundancy.
The way that the Guard keeps records, you see, is by overwriting. The military likes redundancy, because real mistakes are made all the time. So on the pay records that are filed quarterly, the previous three quarters are printed on that record as a backup.
This third quarter 1973 payroll record is then official documentation to the previous three quarters. That's why the recent revelation of destroyed Bush documents doesn't mean anything. Unless you want to question how that particular microfilm set was selected for "restoration". That's fine.
But if you want the actual information about Bush's service during that period, that we have, from the redundant records.
To find our missing quarter, let's look at the next quarter's payroll record. Here's the calendar of Bush's fourth quarter pay record from 1972:
It was released as a negative image, so it's easier to read. All the months are labeled 72, so this is the fourth quarter's record.
However, there are no service dates listed for the last two quarters at all! In the 1973 calendar, the fourth quarter 1972 had some dates listed here, but not on the actual fourth quarter 1972 record. Why is this record incomplete?
Because, I believe, this is a record of Houston service only. Houston would have had no information on any service that Bush did in Alabama. Why would they? So they didn't record any service for those two quarters.
This means, by the way, that if the destroyed microfilm were available to us, we would learn nothing new. If this fourth quarter document didn't have anything in the third quarter, then why would we expect to find anything in the actual third quarter record? The media handwringing over this lost record is laughable: there wouldn't be anything on it anyway about Bush's service.
But this payroll record confirms that Bush did no service time whatsoever in Houston in the last two quarters of 1972.
Let's move on to the next quarter: the first quarter 1973. I'm reproducing this payroll record in full:
This document is oddly truncated. Though it's showing how Bush got paid for the first quarter, those months (Jan-Mar) aren't listed here! And from the complete pay record I reproduced above, there's a lot of header information that isn't on this document.
Let's go ahead and grant that it is a partial copy of the first quarter 1973, the second page of a two page report. It'd be nice to see that first page, though, wouldn't it?
On this record, the Oct-Dec 72 spaces now have some service time listed. This is consistent with Houston learning the extent of Bush's service in Alabama and putting it in their records. More redundancy.
But there's no service listed for the third quarter whatsoever.
I won't reproduce it here, but the second quarter 1973 record gives exactly the same information for the missing quarter as this record. Bush served a couple of days in late October, and a few days in November. This service was in Alabama.
This service was in Alabama. But he didn't serve in Alabama during the third quarter at all.
So, according to the actual records we have, Bush didn't serve in Houston or in Alabama during the third quarter of 1972, the time period that's been obscured by the "inadvertently destroyed" records.
Only in the 3rd quarter 1973 pay record (the complete record reproduced above) is the 3rd quarter 1972 information overwritten. So that gives us two documents that show conclusively that Lt. Bush skipped out on a quarter of his service.
But wait! There's more!
It bugged me that the first quarter 1973 record was so truncated. So I rebuilt the entire calendar for that period, as it would have appeared if the entire record was available to us. Since the second quarter 1973 pay record is available, I grabbed the calendar from that record and digitally replaced the second quarter 1973 with the second quarter information from 1972, which I got from the negative image up above. The reconstructed record has been checked for complete accuracy, and I ask you to show me where it's wrong
And here it is, Lt. Bush's entire year of service for April 1972 - March 1973.
We're getting close to the record Bush doesn't want you to see. This calendar would have appeared on the partial payroll record, if that payroll record had been complete. It's a clear picture of how George W. Bush blew off his National Guard duty, and how he's covering it up to this very day.
Now is this a fair way to evaluate Bush's service time? This isn't Bush's complete fifth year, after all. Bush entered the service on May 27, 1968, so a complete picture of his fifth year would be May 27, 1972 though May 26, 1973.
Okay, fine. Here's Bush's complete fifth year on a digitally reclaimed calendar:
How about that May 1973 record! Suddenly Bush jumps from strictly inactive duty (done mostly in Alabama) to 9 days of active duty training. It's a trend that continued into the next months; by looking at the complete third quarter 1973 record, Bush doesn't seem to have done anything in May, June, and July of 1973 but pull duty at the National Guard.
What a remarkable jumpstart! Someone lit a fire under that grounded pilot's posterior in late April 1973. And here's the reason why:
The above is Bush's record of service from May 1972 to April 1973. This is what his superiors were looking at in late April 1973 when it came time to evaluate Lt. Bush's Guard duty in his fifth year of service.
It's not the picture of someone who considers his sworn duty in the military a priority, is it?
So someone sat young George down for a little talk. A talk which resulted in a very hard summer indeed for Lt. Bush, a summer of extraordinary attendance to his Guard duties. A talk in which the words "showing up and doing the job" probably figured prominently.
A talk which appears nowhere in disciplinary records at all. Any paperwork related to this documentable jumpstart in Lt. Bush's Guard career has not yet been released.
And then there's the partial first quarter 1973 payroll record, and the missing Flight Inquiry records that would have been convened when Bush was grounded from flying, and the missing DD214 that would have been issued when Bush was discharged 6 years and 6 months after he enlisted (six months longer than his initial commitment).
Despite repeated requests for all of these documents, Bush doesn't want us to see them, claiming that everything has been released.
I wonder why that is.
NOTE: This is version 2.0. It's a major rewrite which incorporates the actual start time of Bush's Guard service, and corrects details in two of the payroll calendars (thanks, Susie Dow from Table Talk).
The New York Times
They're talking about payroll records from 1972-73, though. We have those! Bush has (finally) released that. It was in the document dump.
What we're after now are the Flight Inquiry Board records, which have never been located or even admitted to. Among other things - the Deserter article that I blogged about below is talking about his last year or so of service, when he was attending Harvard Business School. Nothing pertinent in that time period has ever been released as far as I know...
Bush is blowing smoke again about this. Or the New York Times is hopelessly confused about the issue...
...or both.
The New Republic Online
Bush has recently been hammering the Pakistani government to deliver high level al-Qaeda officials. Why?
Because the Democratic Convention will soon be underway, and they want the capture of Bin Laden to knock the Democrats off the news networks.
A third source, an official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed (The New Republic) that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of (High Value Targets) before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington." Says McCormack: "I'm aware of no such comment." But according to this ISI official, a White House aide told ul-Haq last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing of [any] HVT were announced on twenty-six, twenty-seven, or twenty-eight July"--the first three days of the Democratic National Convention in Boston.Well, now. Who's the real enemy here, Mr. Bush? Osama bin Laden? Or your political opponents?
I'm in rehearsals for Annie, Get Your Gun! at Chaffin's Barn Dinner Theater. We open July 13, so posting will be very infrequent until then.
Reuters
It's official: John Edwards is John Kerry's running mate. He's an excellent choice, an excellent man, and kudos to Kerry for making the choice.
ABCNEWS.com
Perhaps so. The winner, according to ABC, was John McCain. A Kerry-McCain ticket beat Bush-Cheney by 12-15 points, resulting in a Reaganesque electoral college landslide.
No wonder we've been hearing so much about McCain as a potential veep. A 12-15 point margin is worth floating a few baloons over...
Regardless, that's not going to happen. The only person that's said No more than McCain to being Kerry's veep is Hillary Clinton. So enough already.
(One thing more: The constant speculation has forced McCain to very publicly show his true colors. This is something that can only be a good thing. Anyone enamored of McCain as a Democratic running mate should check out his basic positions - he is not one of us.)
Two statements in this article got me to chuckling, though:
When told about the polling, Republicans said it indicated Kerry was inconsistent in what he says he's looking for in a running mate.Ignore the flip-flop spin: that seems to be required of any Republican talking about Kerry these days. It's the idea that polling wouldn't pick the best running mate.
"If true, this is glaring example of Kerry being for and against picking the best person for the job," said one Bush adviser.
The adviser went on to contrast Kerry's selection process with Bush's decision to choose Dick Cheney as his running mate for the 2000 election. "President Bush picked the best man for the job with zero political calculation or polling," he said.Zero political calculation?
Think Positive About Our Future and Work Like Hell
In New Hampshire. Dang. I'd love to vote for this lady...
HOW BUSH FAILED TO FULFILL HIS DUTY
The Democratic Veteran points us to this post that examines the military record of George W. Bush most thoroughly. All the documents released to us so far have been explained. All the relevent military law has been read and applied. And the picture doesn't seem to be a pretty one.
Who'd a-thunk it?
baltimoresun.com
By his request, his coffin was covered with a United Nations flag. His mother said that though Mattie suffered much pain in his life, the hardest he ever cried was last year when we invaded Iraq.
Another man of peace passes too quickly into the night. Thank you for your life, Mattie. Thanks for raising the standard.
Guardian Unlimited
That's the title for the sixth Harry Potter book.
As well as confirming that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince had at one point been a contender for the title of the fourth volume in the series (now Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets), Rowling further piqued readers' curiosity by admitting that the "half blood prince" of the title is neither Lord Voldemort or Harry himself. However, fans should not expect any further revelations; Rowling ended her message with "That's all I'm saying on THAT subject until the book's published."Well, the Chamber of Secrets is the second book - Goblet of Fire is the fourth, the one they're filming now.
LiberalOasis
Shucks. He's just taking after his mentor, Pat Robertson, who never met a dollar he wouldn't chase.
CNN.com
Now that couldn't have anything to do with the early transfer of power, could it? BushCo wouldn't have bumped the ceremony to knock Michael Moore off of the top story of the day...right?
Right?
(special thanks to GenTaggerd, who pointed this out over at SmirkingChimp.com)
Tax Policy Center
Check out this nice report from the Tax Policy Center: Distributional Effects of the 2001 and 2003 Tax Cuts and Their Financing.
It's not as wonkish as the title suggests. It considers two ways that the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 could have been financed (besides the heavy borrowing of this Republican government, which will only delay and aggravate the effects of this analysis).
One is by assuming that every household pays an equal amount in lost benefits and/or other taxes to finance the tax cuts. The second assumes that all households pay an equal percentage of household income (2.6%) to finance the cuts.
The results? Far more households lose more than they gain from the Bush tax cuts. The "equal money" scenario is especially brutal to the poor and middle class households, but both clearly favor the richer households on the spectrum.
Bush's borrow-and-spend policies are masking the true effects of the ruinous effect of his tax cuts for America, but the piper will have to be paid one day. It's time to get some grownups back in charge in Washington.
U.S. Edicts Curb Power Of Iraq's Leadership (washingtonpost.com)
Details are emerging of how sovereign Iraq will be on June 30. Bremer is making the rules and appointing his favorites to five-year terms.
So the people we installed are going to do things the way we say to do it, and that's a sovereign nation. Didn't you just know this is the way it was going to happen?
UPDATE: Doonesbury has another tidbit to chew on today. I don't know how long the link will be good for, though...
