By: William Rivers Pitt  

"Lucky me", says Bush, in the face of a horrendous torrent of woe that will sweep across all but the most fortunate and fortune-fattened few. Americans live in terror today, both of their lives and of their jobs - not to mention those Americans who live in terror for the lives of their loved ones serving in Afghanistan - and George W. Bush is feeling lucky.

This is our war leader. This is the man who is supposed to be the penultimate representative of the people. There he sits, feeling lucky that his mistakes are covered by the death of thousands. Are you feeling lucky to have him where he is?

By: R.B. Ham  

The best question was from a young lad who asked, "What were you feeling when you first found out about the WTC attacks?".

You could tell he was spinning furiously as he started out by saying what originally went through his mind when the first plane hit New York's World Trade Center: "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on - and I use to fly myself, and I said, 'There's one terrible pilot', and I said, `it must have been a horrible accident'."

There's a problem here, first brought up at a popular web site I contribute to by a reader named Walt Starr.

"Nobody saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center live on television. There was no film of that event for at least two hours after it. The only live coverage of a plane hitting the tower was the second plane. When the second plane hit the tower, Bush was reading to the class.

Bush lied, there is no way he could have been watching television and seen an airplane hit the tower live. He is deliberately re-writing history."

By: Gene Lyons  

If Senate Democrats wanted to spend all their time investigating their opponents like another political party I could name, the Bush administration provides a growing list of suspects. The spectacular collapse of the Houston-based Enron Corp., whose stock was valued as high as $63 billion last spring when California officials accused it of rigging a phony "energy crisis" to drain hundreds of millions from that state's electrical ratepayers, could keep an infinite number of congressional committees busy indefinitely.

By: Paul Krugman  

It will take time, and many legal proceedings, before the full story of Enron's collapse becomes known. But one thing is already clear: The case shows how adept corporate executives have become at shifting risk away from themselves and onto others, in particular onto their employees. Enron's leaders have walked away from the debacle chastened but very, very rich. Many of Enron's employees - no doubt including the loyalists who sent irate letters every time I criticized the company - have lost their life savings.

By: Jeremiah Bourque  

Enron was more than a company. It was a symbol. Enron was part and parcel of the Mark Rich school of business: Pry yourself into the middle of transactions that ought not require you and add a layer of expense. The paradox of this is that if Enron did its job properly, Enron would drive itself out of business, due to the rise in the efficiency of the market. Only the INefficiency of the marketplace kept Enron rich.

Besides this, Enron made a mistake, the mistake that is made by all who rely on penis-size politics and business theory: the belief that everything that had risen to the sky, would continue to rise amid the crumbling all around. Put more plainly, Enron had a net long position in a falling market and didn't stop gambling.

Enron was the pentultimate symbol of American success. When President Bush (the Younger) spoke of institutions of democracy, he meant Enron. When Cheney spoke of American success stories, he meant Enron. When all of these men spoke of the needy, the truly needy of American society, they meant Enron. When Republicans spoke of the deserving, they meant Enron. They meant Enron and often cited Enron by name, and most certainly were thinking of Enron as they said these things. Enron was success. Enron was good. Enron was just.

Now Enron... is dust.

By: A. McLaughlin and D. Chinni  

As he sits down before the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow (12/6/01), Attorney General John Ashcroft can expect a grilling not seen since his Senate confirmation hearing. The line of questioning will likely boil down to one issue: whether he and the Bush administration have been overly authoritarian in prosecuting the war on terrorism and protecting the public.

The hearing hints at a shift in the political landscape in Washington. A growing willingness to criticize the antiterrorism tactics of President Bush's team is displacing the near-total support the administration has enjoyed up to now.

By: Molly Ivans  

With all due respect, of course, and God Bless America too, has anyone considered the possibility that the Attorney General is becoming unhinged?

Poor John Ashcroft is under a lot of strain here. Is it possible his mind has started to give under the weight of responsibility, what with having to stop terrorism between innings against doctors trying to help the dying in Oregon and California? Why not take a Valium, sir, and go track down some nice domestic nut with access to anthrax, OK?

By: Arianna Huffington  

The opponents of campaign finance reform keep trying to convince us that it's a non-issue: a matter of inside-the-Beltway baseball that no one cares about except a few money-hating policy wonks.

Rep. Dick Armey derided it as "the lowest thing on the American radar screen" while Sen. Mitch "Money Is Free Speech" McConnell took time out from his busy fund-raising schedule to chastise the editors of The New York Times for "continuing to obsess" about an issue that has completely "dropped off the list" of the public's priorities. In other words, "No one cares, why should we?".

The answer is simple. So simple, in fact, it can be summed up in one word: Enron. Its chairman, Kenneth Lay, is the former 800-pound gorilla of Washington power brokers who is looking more and more like the spiritual offspring of Charles Ponzi.

Enron stands accused of, basically, cooking its books, fraudulently pumping up the company's value by concealing massive amounts of debt in an array of complex partnerships set up by Enron officers...

From:  

Republican senators will vote against $15 billion in additional anti-terrorism spending opposed by President Bush, even if it means blocking a wartime Pentagon spending bill, a top GOP lawmaker says.

By: Paul Corrigan  

How can it be that astronomers can detect the atmosphere of a planet 150 million light years away and the Bush administration cannot budget less than a year in advance? The Bush administration announced, just five months after telling voters that surpluses would pay for the Bush $1.35 trillion tax cut, that federal deficits were likely through 2005, a date beyond the 2004 presidential election. It is clear that the Bush administration did not tell the truth. Only the most naïve observers would believe this was unintentional. According to Bush, if America has a large surplus it needs a tax cut and if it has large deficits it need a tax cut. During the campaign, I kept waiting for the media to ask Bush under what circumstances his tax cut would be inappropriate. That question never came. It would have stumped him. The Bush tax was, is, and forever will be about redistributing the wealth of America from the middle class to the upper class.

The Bush presidency is science fiction come to life. Alas, it relies very little on science and a lot on fiction.

By: Rose Moss  

At Thanksgiving dinner, a lawyer argued that secret trials might be necessary. Too bad about torture. Another asked what I would do about people who refuse to talk - "Get legal permission to wiretap. Put microchips in their shoes. Watch them breathe with infrared surveillance."

Our sophisticated technology means we do not need executive end runs around the judiciary and Congress. If torture and secret trials worked, the Inquisition would still rule Europe; Hitler and Stalin would still be heroes. I hope that we the people will not accept blindness. I want to hear, "You can't do that. This is America".

The Thanksgiving lawyer warned that next year I'll be in prison for my views. He had already said, "Scratch an Arab and you'll find an anti-Semite". That is, a terrorist. Ouch! I was back in apartheid South Africa, my heart cut by that scratch. I am heartsore.

By: Marleen S. Barr  

When John F. Kennedy initiated the race to the moon, he drew upon a plausible science fiction tradition. Setting a time limit somewhat analogous to the stipulation articulated in Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days," he challenged Americans to reach the moon before the end of the 1960s - and, of course, we did. We took the fictional trip that Verne and his fellow science fiction writers had imagined. The technology was available; incremental testing of earlier forms of rocketry had been done over many years.

In contrast, Bush seems to be under the influence of the kind of science fiction that generates the power fantasies that captivate male adolescents when they imagine themselves firing "Star Trek" photon torpedoes. It is all in the mind.

Editorial from:  

No matter that they were unaffordable at the time. No matter, either, that they are a principal cause of the prospective deficits that Mr. Daniels deplores; nor that they are mainly a generous gift to the richest people in the country, who least need them. Those tax cuts are what this administration is determined to protect. To talk of fiscal responsibility after having pocketed the tax cuts is a sham.

"In seven years, we could save the same amount of oil [as is] available in the Arctic Refuge by requiring light trucks and SUV's to meet the same efficiency standards as regular cars."

- Sen. Barbara Boxer, citing EPA figures

By: Leonard Pitts Jr.  

George Bush faces a historical opportunity here. Once upon a time not so very long ago, we prided ourselves on suspicion and cynicism. But suddenly, people trust their government again. Perhaps more to the point, they need to trust it in a way they have not since the days when father knew best. And because they trust it, they give it leeway.

That's why Bush enjoys the sort of political elbow room his father and Bill Clinton only dreamed of. But as he plots how to use that room, the president would do well to remember how we became suspicious and conspiracy-obsessed in the first place. It was because the government abused the trust we gave it. It lied about Watergate, lied about Vietnam, lied about the domestic threat of communism. And did so, not to further the national interest, but to promote the careers and protect the backsides of a series of slimy men. The government lied so prolifically that mistrusting it became a self-defensive reflex. We learned to question everything and believe nothing.

Editorial from:  

For the last 20 years, while a wealthy elite has waged class war against the majority, the media have helped sell the idea that self-government is wrong and the market is right, that faceless corporate executives can be entrusted with the welfare of the nation and that leaders we choose for ourselves cannot.

Using a federal court system debased by the extremist appointees of Ronald Reagan and the first George Bush, the anti-democrats tried for eight years to bring down a twice popularly elected president. They failed in that, but a majority of the United States Supreme Court, which once embodied the best of American ideals, cynically stole the 2000 presidential election from the American people.

To think the elitists would be satisfied now is to underestimate their contempt for the common man. Their latest scheme is to weaken the people's influence in the very branch of federal government that is closest to the people, the House of Representatives.

"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

- Abraham Lincoln, November 12^th, 1864

"You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier."

- Governor G. W. Bush, describing what it's like to be governor of Texas (Governing Magazine 7/98)

"I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

- President Select Bush, reported on CNN (12/18/00)

"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."

- pResident Bush, reported by the Associated Press (7/27/01)

Ashcroft Will Use F.B.I. to Spy on Political and Religious Organizations

By: David Johnston and Don Van Natta Jr.  

Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a plan to relax restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious and political organizations in the United States, senior government officials said today. The proposal would loosen one of the most fundamental restrictions on the conduct of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and would be another step by the Bush administration to modify civil-liberties protections as a means of defending the country against terrorists, the senior officials said.

By: The (Original) Die Hard  

What does it take, America? How long can you angrily wave your stupid, meaningless flags at stone-age third-world countries, while ignoring home-grown dictators who have slimed that flag and everything it stands for? When will you realize that your indignant blathering about freedom and democracy means nothing when our own unelected oligarchs have stolen it right here at home? How many more of your and your family's hopes and livelihoods must be destroyed, how many more insults must you suffer, how many more rights must you lose, before you WAKE UP?

By: Gene Lyons  

A religious crackpot utterly unsuited to be Attorney General, as recently as 1997, Ashcroft appeared in a Phyllis Schlaffly-sponsored video arguing that Bill Clinton was conspiring with other Democrats to hand over the U.S. to a cabal of "international bankers". It doesn't take a psychic to know where he and Asa Hutchinson, his running buddy at DEA, would like to take this thing. Shoot, I could write Ashcroft's speech myself. Didn't the Taliban traffic in heroin? They did. Don't the NARCOTRAFFICANTES of Latin America finance terrorism? They do. So why not merge the "war on terrorism" with the "war on drugs" into a righteous crusade against America's deadliest enemies? Think Bush would object? Ponder the consequences. If the Congress and the courts, backed by strong public opinion, don't stop them now, you can kiss your constitutional freedoms goodbye.

By: Michael Gabriel  

The war on terrorism has presented a golden opportunity for the fraudulent Bush Administration - heretofore known as the Talibush - to grab a stranglehold on the use of the media for its own selfish means. It is important to understand what is really happening when you listen to any member of the Talibush speak in front of a camera. I have become the nation's leading authority on interpreting what the Talibush really means and what they are trying to get you to believe. And you can become an authority too, if you listen carefully. Here is a brief primer.

By: Matilda Lipscomb  

The explanation we are being given for all these new secret measures being taken by the Bush administration is "national security". And we are further being told that these measures are needed because we are "at war".

By: Jack M. Balkin  

Many see the central issue before us as how to balance civil liberties and national interests. This is wrong. The danger we face today is not that government officials will make hasty decisions out of fear or that they will strike the wrong balance between liberty and security. It is that they will use a national crisis as an opportunity to make themselves more powerful and less accountable for what they do - not because they are corrupt and venal but because they are so utterly convinced of their uprightness.

Editorial from:  

Enron is now shorthand for the perfect financial storm. Take a high-flying company terribly impressed with its sense of unique mission and ingenuity, and correspondingly contemptuous of its obligations to fully comply with the spirit of accounting rules. Then add fawning investors, Wall Street analysts, journalists and accountants unwilling to allow a company's lack of transparency about its business to get in the way of a dizzying ride, until they realize the destination is the top of a steep cliff. What you have then is an Enron.

By: Arlen Specter  

America is fighting against "the most evil kinds of people", President Bush said last week, explaining his executive order creating special military tribunals for foreign terrorists. "I need to have that extraordinary option at my fingertips."

But the administration has yet to show where the president gets the authority for this extraordinary executive order. I have called for hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, beginning today, to allow the administration the opportunity to explain itself. I am pleased that Attorney General John Ashcroft has agreed to testify before the committee next week.

By: Jerald Cumbus  

Eisenhower's farewell speech in which he warned of the growing power of the military industrial complex should have much resonance today. By Eisenhower's time, it had become clear that America's Imperial goals were being permanently instilled in our society in the name of National Security... In America, National Security equals the preservation of the American Empire at any cost. While I could argue who is Marius and who is Sulla, I propose there is something much greater at stake in the loss of our civil liberties and the stolen selection of George W. Bush as President: we risk losing Democracy itself if we follow the path of Imperialism. It doesn't happen overnight. It moves from Marius to Sulla and to Caesar. And while Augustus is not too bad, it also gives us Caligula and Nero. This is the same anti-Democratic system that has given us George W. Bush.

As Cicero argues, if we do not act it is our own fault. These acts cannot stand in a true Democracy. Getting rid of Bush alone will not do, the mechanisms of Imperialism must be dismantled in our country. If we fail at this, another will rise in his place. We cannot forget that the blades that killed Caesar engendered in the womb of Rome the Imperial state. In these times we indeed find that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

"Dubya loves to wear the uniform - whatever the correct one happens to be for a particular moment. I counted no fewer than four changes of attire during the day trip we took to Fort Campbell in Kentucky and back. He arrived for our interview in a dark blue Air Force One flight jacket. When he greeted the members of Congress on board, he wore an open-necked shirt. When he had lunch with the troops, he wore a blue blazer. And when he addressed the troops, it was in the flight jacket of the 101^st Airborne. He’s a boomer product of the ‘60s - but doesn’t mind ermine [weasle fur] robes."

- Howard 'ass kisser' Fineman, from his article on his exclusive interview with G. W. Bush

Site content © 2001-2002 J. Mekus - - except wherein noted.
All rights reserved.