http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/polls/2004-03-29-poll_x.htm

Majority supports Bush on terrorism

By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most Americans still approve of President Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism, even after a week of accusations that he failed to pay enough attention to intelligence warnings before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Although a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds that 53% believe the Bush administration is "covering up something" about its handling of intelligence before 9/11, 67% say it could not have prevented the attacks. But 54% say Bush still could have done more beforehand (Complete poll results).

For the first time since mid-February, Bush leads Democrat John Kerry, 51%-47%. With independent Ralph Nader in the race, Bush leads 49%-45%, and Nader receives 4%.

The poll suggests that Bush's recent campaign ads, which say Kerry has a record of flip-flopping while serving in the Senate, are taking a toll.

Before the ads began running, 60% rated Kerry favorably and 26% unfavorably. Now, 53% view him favorably and 36% unfavorably. In "battleground" states where the ads have run — states where polls and historic trends indicate the race will be close — Kerry has gone from a 28-point lead to a six-point deficit.

"Bush seems to be having some success in selling the idea that Kerry's voting record in the Senate is all over the place," says Maurice Carroll, polling director at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

Stephanie Cutter, spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign, sees the poll another way. "What is surprising is that after $28 million in negative, misleading ads (by Bush), that the race is neck-and-neck," she says.

When the poll asked who would be more trustworthy in making a decision about sending U.S. troops to war, Bush beat Kerry, 52%-41%. That's a considerable shift from Feb. 1, when Kerry led 50%-45%.

Those polled were split on whether to believe Bush's former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who said last week in interviews, at a Capitol Hill hearing and in a just-released book that Bush mismanaged the use of intelligence before the Sept. 11 attacks and made poor decisions in the aftermath. Clarke said Bush was more interested in ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein than battling al-Qaeda. The White House said it was fighting both al-Qaeda and Saddam.

The split — 44% believe Clarke and 46% back the Bush administration — is largely along party lines: 76% of Democrats side with Clarke, and 83% of Republicans with Bush.

"The media played up this story pretty good, and Bush and his people were pushed onto the defensive," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "It is appropriate in a democracy to have such open discussions. But the Democrats are in danger of overplaying their hand by looking like they are rooting for things to go wrong."

Bush has made his leadership in the war on terrorism the centerpiece of his campaign. Most still approve, but at 58%, that approval is the lowest since the Sept. 11 attacks. It is down seven percentage points from December and 28 points from its peak just after the attacks.

The president's overall job approval is up three points to 53%. Matthew Dowd, a Bush pollster and strategist, says that is a key measure. "No incumbent president with a job approval over 50% in March has lost re-election," he points out.

Bill Clinton was at 52% approval in March 1996 and won re-election. Bush's father was at 42% approval in March 1992 and lost. Ronald Reagan, who won a second term in 1984, was at 54% in March of that year.

Kerry pollster Mark Mellman says charges that Bush has not performed well in the war on terrorism are undermining confidence in his ability to carry the fight and will further erode over time.

"A lot of questions have been raised about his core issue," Mellman says.

Overall, 56% of those polled say it was worth going to war in Iraq, little change from the 55% who said that in early March. And 50% see Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, down from 57% last August.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-03-28-troop-shifts_x.htm?csp=24Shifts from bin Laden hunt evoke questions

By Dave Moniz and Steven Komarow, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — In 2002, troops from the 5th Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures.
The CIA, meanwhile, was stretched badly in its capacity to collect, translate and analyze information coming from Afghanistan. When the White House raised a new priority, it took specialists away from the Afghanistan effort to ensure Iraq was covered.

Those were just two of the tradeoffs required because of what the Pentagon and CIA acknowledge is a shortage of key personnel to fight the war on terrorism. The question of how much those shifts prevented progress against al-Qaeda and other terrorists is putting the Bush administration on the defensive.

Even before the invasion, the wisdom of shifting resources from the bin Laden hunt to the war in Iraq was raised privately by top military officials and publicly by Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., and others. Now it's being hotly debated again following an election-year critique of the Bush administration by its former counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke.

"If we catch him (bin Laden) this summer, which I expect, it's two years too late," Clarke said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press. "Because during those two years when forces were diverted to Iraq ... al-Qaeda has metamorphosized into a hydra-headed organization with cells that are operating autonomously, like the cells that operated in Madrid recently."

The Bush administration says the hunt for bin Laden continued throughout the war in Iraq. Officials say it's wrong to speculate that he would have been captured, or other terrorist attacks prevented, if the Iraq war hadn't happened. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, speaking on ABC's This Week, called the example of the Special Forces switch "simplistic."

But the Pentagon tacitly acknowledged a problem last year, after the Iraq invasion. It created a new organization, Task Force 121, to better oversee commando operations in the region and ensure a faster response when terrorists can be struck.

Now gaps in capability are being closed as the administration puts record amounts of money into military and spy agencies. More spy aircraft such as the Predator drone are arriving. More troops are getting Arabic training at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. CIA Director George Tenet said this month that the agency is filling shortfalls, especially among translators.

Still, the question lingers: Did opening a second front hurt the main effort to defeat terrorism?

Bob Andrews, former head of a Pentagon office that oversaw special operations, says that removing Saddam Hussein was a good idea but "a distraction." The war in Iraq, Andrews notes, entailed the largest deployment of special operations forces — about 10,000 —since the Vietnam War. That's about 25% of all U.S. commandos.

It also siphoned spy aircraft and light infantry soldiers. Iraq proved such a drain, one former Pentagon official notes, that there were no AWACS radar jets to track drug-trafficking aircraft in South America.

Saddam was not an immediate threat. "This has been a real diversion from the longer struggle against jihadists," especially in the intelligence field, he says.

Stan Florer, a retired Army colonel and former Green Beret, agrees that Iraq diverted enormous military and intelligence assets. But he argues that long-standing disputes with Saddam needed to be addressed: "This was tearing at us all the time. It was a bleeding wound with Saddam calling the shots in the Middle East."

http://www.wvgazette.com/webtools/print/News/2004032632

March 27, 2004
Rockefeller sounds off on Iraq


By Paul J. Nyden
STAFF WRITER

"If I had known then what I know now, I would have voted against it,” Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said Friday. “I have admitted that my vote was wrong.”

The key Senate vote authorizing a war against Iraq came Oct. 11, 2003. It passed 77 to 23. The opponents included Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., an outspoken opponent of President Bush’s war plans. (The House of Representatives voted to pass a similar resolution, 296 to 133.)

“The decision got made before there was a whole bunch of intelligence,” Rockefeller said. “I think the intelligence was shaped. And I think the interpretation of the intelligence was shaped.

“You had a president who we now know was determined to go to war. He was going to be a war president,” Rockefeller said during an interview with editors at The Charleston Gazette on Friday.

“We had this feeling we could be welcomed as liberators. Americans don’t know history, geography, ethnicity,” Rockefeller said. “The administration had no idea of what they were getting into in Iraq. We are not internationalists. We border on being isolationists. We don’t know anything about the Middle East.”

Rockefeller also said he is disturbed at the failure to involve the United Nations in creating a new government and finding peace in Iraq.

“He [Bush] has been stiffing the United Nations,” the senator said. “He doesn’t believe in the United Nations. He doesn’t understand the United Nations.”

The political atmosphere in Washington, D.C., changed dramatically after Bush took office, said Rockefeller, who has served in the Senate since 1985. “Republicans fell totally in line since Bush came into office. They have a loyalty I have never seen before.

“They are true believers. It started with [Rep.] Newt Gingrich [R-Ga.] in 1994. Nothing gets in their way. Facts don’t get in their way.

“And three chairmen of major [Senate] committees were told by Dick Cheney not to investigate anything in the administration.”

Many of the senator’s feelings were strengthened during his five-day trip with four other senators to Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations last week.

In Iraq, the senators visited a team of researchers investigating the presence of weapons of mass destruction. “They have three million pieces of paper,” Rockefeller said. “But it is a sham. There is nothing to point to any weapons of any kind.”

Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the influence of terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida, is growing. “But only about five percent of the insurgents in Iraq are coming across the borders into the country. Most of them are homegrown.”

Domestic problems will continue to grow, Rockefeller believes, since Bush administration tax cuts could put the nation in a deficit for the next 50 years.

Tax cuts are hurting all federal social, educational and medical programs. The only agencies currently getting significantly increased funding today are military, homeland security and intelligence operations.

Rockefeller said he was particularly outraged by recent revelations that Bush administration leaders failed to provide Congress and the public with honest estimates of the costs of prescription drug benefits in the Medicare program.

When Bush signed the new bill late last year, he said costs for prescription drugs would be $400 billion over the next 10 years. Then, in late January, Bush admitted those costs actually would be $534 billion.

“Bush withheld the real costs of Medicare. That is absolutely unheard of,” Rockefeller said. “There will be an investigation of that.”

Rockefeller had high praise for Richard A. Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism chief who served for 30 years under three Republican presidents and one Democratic president.

Clarke has sparked a major controversy with testimony and public statements that Bush administration leaders ignored reports of possible terrorist attacks before Sept. 11, 2001. (His new book, “Against All Enemies: Inside the White House’s War on Terror — What Really Happened,” has just been published.)

“Clarke is a master. He is not particularly liked, not a pleasant person. But he is bright, smart and tough,” Rockefeller said. “He disdains politicians of whatever stripe, whatever party. But if you have done something all your life and take great pride in it, then see it crumbling, you get angry.”

To contact staff writer Paul J. Nyden, use e-mail or call 348-5164.

Claudia just sent me this link:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/

The new Pentagon papers

A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the the truth to drive the country to war.



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Ex-Watergate writer laments 'idiot culture'

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/03/19/Tampabay/Ex_Watergate_writer_l.shtml

Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein told about 200 people in Tampa that today's media is more gossip and trash than news.

By BRADY DENNIS, Times Staff Writer
Published March 19, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


TAMPA - Legendary reporter Carl Bernstein riffed Thursday night about President Bush, the Martha Stewart trial, the war in Iraq and his affection for Florida.

But mostly he talked about an epidemic that troubles him deeply these days. He calls it "the triumph of idiot culture."

Speaking to a crowd of about 200 at the Wyndham Westshore, he placed most of the blame on modern media outlets.

Bernstein, the former Washington Post journalist who, along with fellow reporter Bob Woodward, unearthed the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, said much of today's news has deteriorated into gossip, sensationalism and manufactured controversy.

That type of news panders to the public and insults their intelligence, ignoring the context of real life, he said. Good journalism, Bernstein said, "should challenge people, not just mindlessly amuse them."

He said the modern press lacks true leadership, citing such examples as AOL Time Warner and mogul Rupert Murdoch as media owners that have increasingly abandoned the principles of meaningful reporting.

"Their interest in truth is secondary to their interest in huge profits," Bernstein said.

Still, he said people can change that trend by exploring the Internet and piecing together from reputable sources their own news about important world matters.

He offered another solution to avoiding the trash that fills the airwaves: "Change the damn channel. Simple."

Bernstein also turned his attention Thursday to the coming election, calling President Bush "the most radical president of my lifetime and perhaps in the century."

Bernstein said Bush "is radical in every degree," from a favoritism of the wealthy to a pre-emptive foreign policy to a lack of concern for civil rights.

"He certainly seems more ideological than any of our presidents," Bernstein said.

Even so, Bernstein said he hopes a genuine debate can take place this year about the future of the country, rather than the petty quarrels and meaningless accusations that so often dominate campaign coverage.

"Let's move beyond the absurd name-calling and sound bite journalism," he said. "It is our job ... to force a real debate."

Try as he might, Bernstein could not escape the ghosts of Watergate, even for one night. A man stood during the post-speech question-and-answer session and asked if Deep Throat, the anonymous source used by Woodward and Bernstein, was a real person.

Bernstein smiled and broke into an impression of Nixon, grumbling to an assistant and wondering himself about Deep Throat's identity.

"It is one person," Bernstein said, finally. "We did not make it up."

And when Deep Throat dies, he said, "We will reveal him."

© Copyright 2003 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com >^..^<
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

Claudia sent this to me . . .she forever finds real news:

God, I'm going to miss him!



http://www.pbs.org/now/commentary/moyers29.html

It's true what you have read and heard. I will leave NOW after the election later this year. I am not leaving because anyone is pushing me, but because something is pulling me. I turn 70 this year and while there's no marker at the border, I know I'm entering unfamiliar territory.

It's as if some imaginary trip wire breaks and the little odometer on your psychic dashboard starts clicking faster and faster. All of a sudden the horizon that once seemed far, far away, looms right there in front of you. You feel an irresistible urge to slow down, take your foot off the accelerator, touch it to the brake-gently, but surely-and start negotiating yourself out of the fast lane. You begin to think about that side road you never took, the country lane you once spotted in the rearview mirror and promised yourself you would return to one day, but never did. All of a sudden you want to get to know the person who's been sitting there in the seat beside you all these years, when the only thing zipping by faster than the traffic was life itself. You don't want to quit altogether. You keep thinking of those lines from Tennyson's "Ulysses,"

how dull it is to pause, to make an end
to rust unburnished, not to shine in use

But slowing down is not quitting. And you also think about the legendary black pitcher Satchel Paige, who spent most of his career in what was then called the Negro Baseball League. By the time the racial barriers were relaxed he was, as baseball measures the life span, an old man. That didn't stop him from doing the one thing he knew how to do well -- he just kept on pitching, and pitching, and pitching. When a reporter asked him, "How old are you?" He replied: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you was?" One day, though, he found out, and even Satchel Paige handed the ball to a younger man and left the mound for good. Knowing when is the trick; timing is what counts.

All the septuagenarians I've interviewed through the years have taught me something. They lived long enough to turn their experience into wisdom, and to share it, which is the reason I wanted to talk to them in the first place; listening to the wisdom of the elders can be like tasting vintage wine. Recently I interviewed the actor Hal Holbrook, who has been performing as Mark Twain for 50 years. He's 79 now, and still at it — just as good as Hal Holbrook as he is as Mark Twain. I learned that acting is not his only gig; he's a sailor, too. Once he traveled 2400 miles through the Pacific in a 40-foot boat…alone. What wisdom could he share from that experience? "You have to learn to give to nature just enough to stay alive and stay upright," he said. It comes down to that, on sea, or shore, on television, in life. You learn to give to nature just enough to stay upright… perhaps to make your way back to that road never traveled.

Truth is, the foreign country ahead of me — the seventies — is not as exotic in my imagination as my long-ago twenties or thirties. Trying to remember those years is like taking down an old map from a musty attic to discover the world laid out there is gone forever. So you give a quick check in the rearview mirror and a light touch on the pedal; all that's left is the open road and you're grateful once again to be on it.



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040310/ap_on_el_pr/kerry_mccain_3

McCain 'Would Entertain' Being Kerry's VP
Wed Mar 10, 5:35 PM ET


WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. John McCain allowed a glimmer of hope Wednesday for Democrats fantasizing about a bipartisan dream team to defeat President Bush — a far-flung notion the senator's staff quickly squashed.

McCain said in a television interview that he would consider the unorthodox step of running for vice president on the Democratic ticket — in the unlikely event he received such an offer from the presidential candidate.

"John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years," McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. "Obviously I would entertain it."

Within hours, the Arizona senator's chief of staff, Mark Salter, closed the door on that idea. "Senator McCain will not be a candidate for vice president in 2004," Salter told The Associated Press, saying he spoke for the senator.

McCain had emphasized how unlikely the whole idea was.

"It's impossible to imagine the Democratic Party seeking a pro-life, free-trading, non-protectionist, deficit hawk," the senator told ABC's "Good Morning America" during an interview about illegal steroid use. "They'd have to be taking some steroids, I think, in order to let that happen."

McCain gained a reputation as a party maverick who appeals to independent voters during his 2000 race against Bush for the Republican nomination. This year, McCain has campaigned for the president and said he would continue to do so.

Unlike some other Republican senators, he hasn't railed against Kerry, a fellow Vietnam veteran. McCain called the Kerry-Bush contest "the nastiest campaign so far that we have seen" and said he preferred campaigning for candidates instead of against their opponents.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&e=5&u=/ap/20040309/ap_on_el_pr/kerry

Kerry Shifts on Views of Arafat

By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer

TAMPA, Fla. - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says he no longer considers Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to be a statesman, but rather "an outlaw to the peace process" in the Middle East who has been rightly shuffled aside.

In a 1997 book, Kerry described "Arafat's transformation from outlaw to statesman." But in an interview with The Associated Press, he said he no longer views Arafat favorably.

"Obviously, Yasser Arafat has been an impediment to the peace process," said Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting. "He missed a historic opportunity and he's proved himself to be irrelevant."

On Tuesday, Kerry visited a coffee shop in a Cuban-American neighborhood in Tampa before flying to Chicago for campaign appearances. He was awaiting results in four Southern states — Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — with delegate elections.

In a wide-ranging interview Monday with the AP, Kerry said Arafat "blew his opportunity" to be effective in 1999 and 2000.

"He was (a statesman) in 1995," Kerry said, recalling frequent White House meetings between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in search of peace in the Middle East. "As far as I'm concerned, he's an outlaw to the peace process."

The Bush administration has ruled out dealing with Arafat, a veteran Palestinian activist, claiming he is tainted with terror against Israel, a close U.S. ally. In the peace process, the administration has dealt only with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and senior Palestinian officials appointed by Arafat.

Of the campaign against Bush, Kerry said, "It's not personal."

"He's an enjoyable person to be with," Kerry said. "He's funny and so forth, but he doesn't keep his promises."

Kerry added: "It has nothing to do with him being a good man, bad man. I'm not here to judge him personally, that's up to other people, that's up to God."

In discussing foreign policy, the Massachusetts senator said he couldn't guarantee that Saddam Hussein would now be out of power in Iraq if he had been president over the past year.

"I can't tell you that," said Kerry, who faults Bush for not allowing continued U.N. inspections in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction Saddam was said to be hiding.

"If we had exhausted that process and built a legitimate coalition and Saddam Hussein had not complied, I would not have hesitated to march with that coalition against him," said Kerry. "You don't know how an appropriate global coalition with the proper amount of patience might have coerced him into a different set of behaviors."

Kerry, who was on the final day of a swing through the four Southern states that vote Tuesday, said the South has "changed dramatically" since the last election.

Al Gore, the nominee in 2000 and a native Tennessean, fared poorly in the region, which Kerry said was largely due to Gore's staunch support for gun control. A hunter and gun owner, Kerry said he expected to fare better.

Kerry also rejected suggestions that the gay marriage issue would be a potent weapon against him in the South. Kerry opposes same-sex marriage, but favors giving such couples certain rights. He also said he didn't think Bush's support for a constitutional amendment banning such unions would sell well in the South.

"The people of the South who are conservative would never want to disrespect the Constitution of the United States for wildly political purposes," Kerry said. He said economic issues will resonate more.

Kerry, meanwhile, said his former rivals have largely fallen into line and that he was meeting this week with Howard Dean (news - web sites) and John Edwards (news - web sites), both of whom want to "be part of the team."

"I think our party is more united than it has been in years," he said.

Kerry declined to address any aspect of his search for a running mate. "I have not talked to anyone on my staff about this," he said. "I want to keep it personal and I want to keep it private."

http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president/

Clauida just sent this to me. The below is an opinion piece written by one of President Bush's ex-law proffessor's at Harvard:

March 1, 2004

Center for Global Communications, International University of Japan


President George Bush and the Gilded Age

Yoshi Tsurumi (Professor of International Business, Baruch College, the City University of New York )


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something really strange has happened to the U.S. under the Bush Administration. With her ever bulging budget deficits and foreign debts, America's skewed income distribution is rapidly making the U.S. resemble Argentina or Mexico. The "Jobless Recovery" is not a political mirage, but a serious problem. America's GDP is increasing at an annual rate of about 4.0% this year. But, only those Wall Street "money gamers" and self-dealing "management aristocrats" of Corporate America are dizzy with their huge bonuses, padded salaries, and self-dealt stock options. The remaining hard working Americans cannot eat "GDP." The U.S. has widening income gap between a few "haves" and many "have-nots."

During the last economic recovery period of March 1991 to April 1993, a 10% increase in GDP increased manufacturing jobs and service jobs 3% and 5.9% respectively. However, for the present economic recovery since November 2001, a 10% increase in GDP is increasing manufacturing and service jobs only 0.7% and 0.9% respectively. Just to keep up with her population growth, the U.S. needs to create about 230,000 jobs a month. If the U.S. wants to employ the 3 million unemployed workers thrown out of work under the Bush Administration, the U.S. would have to create a lot more jobs monthly. Last month, however, the U.S. only created 115,000 jobs. President Bush has now abandoned his earlier declared promise of "creating 2.6 million jobs by the fall of 2004."

The unemployed rate of January this year was 5.6%, dipping only 0.1 percentage point. President Bush hailed it as the "unemployment declines for four months in a row." In reality, however, the U.S. has had four months of consecutive decline in the unemployment rate because so many formerly "unemployed" became too discouraged to keep seeking jobs and were eliminated from the unemployment statistics. The U.S. has over 5 million part-time job holders who want full time jobs but cannot find them. In addition, the U.S. has 8 million persons who have had to settle for full time jobs paying far less than their previous jobs. The "jobless recovery" and the widening income gaps are aggravated by massive migrations of good paying manufacturing and service jobs abroad. Such migrations have been accelerated by President Bush's misguided tax cuts.

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.

In June 2003, Bill Moyers said that "Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William Mckinley (1897-1901) and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley. Mark Hanna saw to it that Washington was ruled by business, railroads, and public utility corporations." President Bush's tax cuts have given over 93% of their benefits to large corporations and well-to-do households with over 250,000 dollars of annual income (about 10% of the U.S. households). Moreover, President Bush's tax cuts are abolishing taxes on such asset-based income as stock dividends and capital gains. He is opposed to taxing management aristocrats' self-dealt stock options (salary payment in kind). He is opposed to requiring the corporations to treat such stock options as their personnel expenses. More than anything else, management aristocrats' stock options are encouraging many corporations to abandon manufacturing-and-supply procurements at home and switching to imports from China and other lower-wage countries. He is phasing out estate taxes. All these measures are transforming the past "potbelly flower vase" shape of the U.S. income distribution to the "bottom-heavy hour glass" shape.

This was the same kind of income distribution that the U.S. built during the McKinley-Gilded Age. There was no Securitiesy Exchange Commission to check "creative accounting" and Enron-WorldCom like malfeasance of corporations. America had poor public schools and medical care. There was no minimum wage or labor standard. Both federal and state governments and courts were hostile to labor unions and civic groups protesting the "injustices" of the society. The natural environment was ravaged by railroads, mining, lumbering, and newly emerging oil and gas firms. Abortion was illegal. Women did not even have the vote. In the South, Christian fundamentalists were pressuring public schools to stop teaching Charles Darwin's evolution theories. During the McKinley-Gilded Age, America's democracy atrophied. And America embarked on her imperialistic expansions of colonising Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines.

Great Quotes by Great Ladies!

Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the hell
happened.
-Cora Harvey Armstrong-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
-Helen Hayes (at 73)-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray
eyebrows.
-Janette Barber-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
-Lily Tomlin-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
-Carrie Snow-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your
girlfriends.
-Laurie Kuslansky-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my
head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
-Erma Bombeck-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
-Bette Davis-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
-Rhonda Handsome-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
The phrase "working mother" is redundant.
-Jane Sellman-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
-Jennifer Unlimited-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought
half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
-Charlotte Whitton-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body
starts falling apart.
-Caryn Leschen-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at
once.
-Jennifer Unlimited-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible
warning.
-Catherine-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
When I was young, I was put in a school for retarded kids for two years
before they realized I actually had a hearing loss. And they called ME
slow!
-Kathy Buckley-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb
.. and I'm also not blonde.
-Dolly Parton-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
-Sue Grafton-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.
-Roseanne Barr-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade
another country.
-Elayne Boosler-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
-Maryon Pearson-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man- if you want anything
done, ask a woman.
-Margaret Thatcher-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a
career.
-Gloria Steinem-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.
-Zsa Zsa Gabor-
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-
++++++++++++++++++++++++

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4467791

2004 Campaign: A 'Shocking' Stumble

Newsweek

March 15 issue - The controversy over President George W. Bush's new TV ads featuring fake firefighters and fleeting images of the 9/11 attacks threw campaign officials on the defensive—and raised questions about the Bush team's ability to effectively spend its massive $150 million war chest, some GOP insiders say. The president's ad team, led by Austin, Texas-based media maven Mark McKinnon, had carefully road-tested the spots in focus groups, and Bush himself signed off. But the rollout of the ads, which argue that Bush has made the country "safer, stronger," was quickly marred by charges from some 9/11 families that the Bush team was seeking to exploit the attacks for political gain. One scene shows footage of a flag-draped coffin of a terror victim; another has an American flag waving in front of World Trade Center wreckage. Publicly, Bush aides were dismissive and insisted the flap had only strengthened their plan to make 9/11 "a central topic of the campaign." "There's no way you can talk about George W. Bush without talking about September 11," said one campaign adviser. "It's like talking about Franklin Roosevelt without mentioning World War II." But privately, some GOP strategists were disturbed by the backlash and suggested the ad team had misjudged how the imagery would play. "It's quite shocking to a number of Republicans to watch them stumble out of the block like this," said one veteran GOP consultant, who added that the big question in GOP circles is "Do they [the Bush-Cheney campaign] know how to spend" their huge budget?

Another less-publicized aspect of the ad flap: the use of paid actors—including two playing firefighters with fire hats and uniforms in what looks like a fire station. "Where the hell did they get those guys?" cracked Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, which has endorsed John Kerry, when he first saw the ads. (A union spokesman said the shots prompted jokes that the fire hats looked like the plastic hats "from a birthday party.") "There's many reasons not to use real firemen," retorted one Bush media adviser. "Mainly, its cheaper and quicker."

The flap is likely to put renewed attention on the White House's continuing wrangle with the 9/11 Commission. Kristin Breitweiser, a leader of a 9/11 family group, charged it was "hypocritical" of the Bush team to use September 11 when the president has refused to turn over sensitive intelligence documents to the full commission and, more recently, insisted that Bush himself will meet with the panel's chair and co-chair for only one hour. Even some GOP panel members are miffed at the White House stand—and blame it on administration lawyers. In what appears to be an attempt to defuse some of the controversy, NEWSWEEK has learned, White House officials have privately signaled to the commission that Bush will not rigidly stick to the one-hour time limit. When time is up, Bush won't walk out if there are still more questions, an aide said.

—Michael Isikoff and T. Trent Gegax, with Tamara Lipper in Crawford, Texas

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc

http://www.madison.com/captimes/opinion/editorial/69612.php

Editorial: Bush ads exploit tragedy of 9/11

An editorial
March 7, 2004

President Bush took American political discourse to a new low last week when his re-election campaign began airing television commercials that exploit the horror and misery of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The president's willingness to pick at the still open wounds of that tragedy in a crass appeal for political support illustrates the desperation of the man and his political team to cling to power.

But this time Bush has gone too far.

Families and friends of the thousands of people who died as a result of those attacks are condemning the president's grotesque exploitation of their suffering. "After 3,000 people were murdered on his watch, it seems that that takes an awful lot of audacity," says Kristen Breitweiser, who lost her husband in the attacks. "Honestly, it's in poor taste."

"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people. It's unconscionable," says Monica Gabrielle, who also lost her husband in the collapse of the twin towers. Gabrielle, like many of the families that are complaining, is angry with Bush for refusing to cooperate with the commission that is investigating the attacks. The president continues to reject requests that he testify in open session before the commission.

Tom Roger, whose daughter was a flight attendant on a hijacked American Airlines flight that day, explains, "I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty. But to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab people by the throat."

The Bush ads feature images of remains being lifted from ground zero. "How heinous is that?" asks Mindy Kleinberg. "That's somebody's (loved one)."

The Bush camp has been rattled by the whole controversy.

Veteran Bush aide Karen Hughes started taking partisan jabs, declaring that "some Democrats might not want the American people to remember the great leadership and strength the president ... brought to our country in the aftermath of that." Hughes seems to think that anyone who criticizes the president, even someone who lost a family member in the collapse of the twin towers, is automatically a Democrat.

Hughes also seems to think that the commercials are "tasteful." But the taste that is being left in the mouths of those who continue to suffer the pain of their 9/11 losses is a bitter one.

"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place," said New York City firefighter Tommy Fee. "The image of firefighters at ground zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics."

Tommy Fee is right. President Bush should order his campaign to take the offending advertisements off the air.

To allow these ads to continue being broadcast adds unnecessary, and unreasonable, insult to injury.

List of Divorced Republicans

To those wonderful conservatives who are worried about gay and lesbian combinations hurting the sanctity of marriage, look at what our conservative leaders have done with their matrimonial connections. Our present president preaching abstinence, has only impregnated his wife once. I suppose he also practices
what he preaches!!!

Ronald Reagan - divorced the mother of two of his children to marry Nancy Reagan who bore him a
daughter only 7 months after the marriage.

Bob Dole - divorced the mother of his child, who had nursed him through the long recovery from his war wounds.

Newt Gingrich - divorced his wife who was dying of cancer.

Dick Armey - House Majority Leader - divorced

Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas - divorced

Gov. John Engler of Michigan - divorced

Gov. Pete Wilson of California - divorced

George Will, conservative columnist - divorced

*Sen. Lauch Faircloth - divorced

Rush Limbaugh - Rush and his current wife Marta have six marriages and four divorces between them.

Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia - Barr, not yet 50 years old, has been married three times. Barr had the audacity to author
and push the "Defense of Marriage Act." The current joke making the rounds on Capitol Hill is "Bob Barr...WHICH
marriage are you defending?!?

One addition-- Barr, a staunchly anti-choice crusader. Drove his (then) wife to an abortion clinic and signed the check for
her to have the abortion and then left her there to go back to work. I've seen a copy of the cancelled check! That muck-
raking thanks to Larry Flint.

Sen. Alfonse D'Amato of New York - divorced

*Sen. John Warner of Virginia - divorced (once married to Liz Taylor.)

Gov. George Allen of Virginia - divorced

Henry Kissinger - divorced

Rep. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho - divorced

*Sen. John McCain of Arizonia - divorced

Rep. John Kasich of Ohio - divorced

Rep. Susan Molinari of New York - Republican National Convention Keynote Speaker - divorced

Don't let homosexuals destroy the institution of marriage? The Christian Republicans are doing a fine job without
anyone's help!

Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usleak0305,0,2896503.story?coll=ny-top-span-headlines

Air Force One phone records subpoenaed
Grand jury to review call logs from Bush’s jet in probe of how a CIA agent’s cover was blown


BY TOM BRUNE
STAFF WRITER



WASHINGTON -- The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday.

Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.

The three subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, three weeks after Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed special counsel in the probe and during the first wave of appearances by White House staffers before the grand jury.

The investigation seeks to determine if anyone violated federal law that prohibits officials with security clearances from intentionally or knowingly disclosing the identity of an undercover agent.

White House implicated

The subpoenas underscore indications that the initial stages of the investigation have focused largely on the White House staff members most involved in shaping the administration's message on Iraq, and appear to be based in part on specific information already gathered by investigators, attorneys said Thursday.

Fitzgerald's spokesman declined to comment.

The investigation arose in part out of concerns that Bush administration officials had called reporters to circulate the name of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, in an attempt to discredit the criticism of the administration's Iraq policy by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

In 2002, Wilson went to Niger at the behest of the CIA to check out reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium "yellow cake" to develop nuclear weapons. He reported that Iraq sought commercial ties but that businessmen said the Iraqis didn't try to buy uranium.

All three subpoenas were sent to employees of the Executive Office of the President under a Jan. 26 memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez saying production of the documents, which include phone messages, e-mails and handwritten notes, was "mandatory" and setting a Jan. 29 deadline.

"The president has always said we would fully comply with the investigation, and the White House counsel's office has directed the staff to fully comply," White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said Thursday.

The Novak column

Two of the subpoenas focus mainly on White House records, events and contacts in July, both before and after the July 14 column by Robert Novak that said "two senior administration officials" told him Plame was a CIA officer.

The third subpoena repeats an informal Justice Department document request to the White House last fall seeking records about staff contacts with Novak and two Newsday reporters, Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps, who reported on July 22 that Plame was a covert agent and Novak had blown her cover.

The subpoena added journalists such as Mike Allen and Dana Priest of the Washington Post, Michael Duffy of Time magazine, Andrea Mitchell of NBC's "Meet the Press," Chris Matthews of MSNBC's "Hardball," and reporters from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. There have been no reports of journalists being subpoeaned.

The subpoenas required the White House to produce the documents in three stages -- the first on Jan. 30, a second on Feb. 4 and the third on Feb. 6 -- even as White House aides began appearing before the grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C.

The subpoena with the first production deadline sought three sets of documents.

It requested records of telephone calls to and from Air Force One from July 7 to 12, while Bush was visting several nations in Africa. The White House declined Thursday to release a list of those on the trip.

That subpoena also sought a complete transcript of a July 12 press "gaggle," or informal briefing, by then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer while at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria.

That transcript is missing from the White House Web site containing transcripts of other press briefings. In a transcript the White House released at the time to Federal News Service, Fleischer discusses Wilson and his CIA report.

Finally, the subpoena requested a list of those in attendance at the White House reception on July 16 for former President Gerald Ford's 90th birthday.

The White House at the time announced the reception would honor Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, but said the event was closed to the press.

The White House Thursday declined to release the list and the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, which paid for the event, did not return phone calls.

The subpoena with the second production deadline sought all documents from July 6 to July 30 of the White House Iraq Group. In August, the Washington Post published the only account of the group's existence.

What about Karl Rove?

It met weekly in the Situation Room, the Post said, and its regular participants included senior political adviser Karl Rove; communication strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; policy advisers led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen J. Hadley; and I. Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Wilson alleged in September that Rove was involved in the leak but a day later pulled back from that, asserting that Rove had "condoned" it.

Hughes left the White House in the summer of 2002. Matalin, who left at the end of 2002, did not return a call for comment. Matalin appeared before the grand jury Jan. 23, the day after the subpoenas were issued.

The subpoena with the last production date repeated the Justice Department's informal request to the White House last fall for documents from Feb. 1, 2002, through 2003 related to Wilson's February 2002 trip to Niger, to Plame and to contacts with journalists.

Current White House press secretary Scott McClellan, press aide Claire Buchan and former press aide Adam Levine have told reporters they appeared before the grand jury Feb. 6. At least five others have reportedly been questioned.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/170291p-148587c.html

Furor over Bush's 9/11 ad


By MAGGIE HABERMAN in New York
amd THOMAS M. DeFRANK in Washington
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

The Bush reelection campaign yesterday unveiled its first three campaign commercials showcasing Ground Zero images, angering some 9/11 families who accused President Bush of exploiting the tragedy for political advantage.
"It's a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," said Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin tower attacks. "It is unconscionable."

Gabrielle and several other family members said the injury was compounded by Bush's refusal to testify in open session before the 9/11 commission.

"I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty," said Tom Roger, whose daughter was a flight attendant on doomed American Airlines Flight 11. "But to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, that's just some advertising agency's attempt to grab people by the throat."

Mindy Kleinberg said she was offended because the White House has not cooperated fully with the commission and because of the sight of remains being lifted out of Ground Zero in one of the spots.

"How heinous is that?" Kleinberg asked. "That's somebody's [loved one]."

Firefighter Tommy Fee in Rescue Squad 270 in Queens was appalled.

"It's as sick as people who stole things out of the place. The image of firefighters at Ground Zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics," Fee said.

But Jennie Farrell, who lost her brother, electrician James Cartier, called the ad "tastefully done," adding: "It speaks to the truth of the times. Sept. 11 ... was something beyond the realm of imagination, and George Bush ... led us through one of the darkest moments in history."

The gauzy, upbeat spots, aimed at shoring up Bush's sagging approval numbers, begin airing today on national cable networks and 50 media markets in 17 states that Bush-Cheney strategists consider electoral battlegrounds.

Two ads, including a Spanish version, show fleeting images of the World Trade Center devastation. The 30-second spots include a poignant image of an American flag fluttering defiantly amid the WTC wreckage.

One, titled "Safer, Stronger," also features a one-second shot of firefighters removing the flag-draped remains of a victim from the twisted debris.

Both ads reinforce the Ground Zero imagery with frontal shots of two firefighters. Unlike the paid actors and actresses in most of the footage, they are not ringers, but their red headgear gives them away as non-New Yorkers. The Bush campaign declined to reveal where the burly smoke-eaters actually work.

Bush officials defended the imagery as totally appropriate.

"9/11 was the defining moment of these times," campaign manager Ken Mehlman told reporters. "Because of that day, America is at war and still is."

Charging Democratic rival John Kerry with politicizing the attacks by alleging Bush has turned his back on the city, Mehlman added: "The President's never forgotten. It's a central part of his leadership."

The spots, pegged to the theme of "steady leadership in time of change," do not mention Kerry. Instead, their uplifting message hopes to refurbish Bush's battered image after two months of harsh Democratic attacks and a series of missteps by the normally surefooted White House political apparatus.

"We've been off our game for weeks," a senior Bush strategist conceded. "Thank goodness, there's plenty of time to get well, and plenty of grist to chop Kerry down to size."


With Kenneth R. Bazinet and Michele McPhee

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20040303/ap_on_el_pr/democrats

Kerry Lays Claim to Democratic Nomination

By CALVIN WOODWARD, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - John Kerry (news - web sites) laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination after a decisive round of primary and caucus victories cleared the field for a feisty head-to-head battle against President Bush — a struggle already in motion.

Kerry's New York-to-California victories in the 10-state Super Tuesday series knocked the fight out of his spirited rival, John Edwards. The North Carolina senator, who had been the only one left with the ghost of a chance against Kerry, let the word out that he was quitting even before polls closed in the West and just as Minnesotans gathered in caucuses.

Suddenly, the Democrat-to-Democrat sniping is over, replaced by calls for unity, and Kerry is left with his hard-fought reward — as well as the weight of Democrats' expectations that he can beat Bush in the fall.

"Tonight, the message can now be heard all across our country: Change is coming to America," said Kerry, 60, a four-term Massachusetts senator whose understated ways disguise a hotly competitive streak. "We will fight to give America back its future and its hope."

There were grace notes in the first blush of his victory: a polite exchange with Bush, who called to congratulate him. But there is to be no grace period in their campaign fight.

The Republican president opens a multimillion-dollar TV ad blitz Thursday to try to win back favor in a time of slipping poll numbers, and has a war chest of more than $100 million to draw from in the months ahead, more than Kerry can muster.

Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Kerry on the airwaves Tuesday as a frequent foe of defense and intelligence budgets, seeking to neutralize Kerry's draw as a decorated Vietnam veteran and his Senate experience in foreign policy.

And the courteous phone call aside, Kerry kept up the drumbeat of recent weeks against Bush, giving him no quarter on the war on terrorism or anything else. "We will renew our alliances and we will build new alliances because they are essential to the final victory and success of a war on terror," he told supporters.

"The Bush administration has run the most inept, reckless, arrogant and ideological foreign policy in the modern history of our country."

Kerry dominated the six-week Democratic competition from the Iowa caucuses on, once he shook off a torpid start and overcame the fading phenomenon of Howard Dean. He has won 27 of 30 contests, putting him well on his way to winning the nomination formally once he has collected 2,162 delegates.

The Super Tuesday states awarded a mother lode of 1,151 delegates, more than half those needed, and pushed Kerry's total over 1,100.

Kerry had 1,292 delegates to Edwards' 438. Dean had 182, Al Sharpton 24 and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich 18. In a bit of cold comfort, Kucinich won his primary for re-election to the House.

Kerry won nine of the 10 states Tuesday, losing only in Vermont, where voters made Dean, their former governor, the sentimental favorite even though he ended his campaign two weeks ago.


In all regions and among practically all groups, voters interviewed about their choice spoke of making the same political calculation — they picked Kerry because they thought he could defeat the president.

That imperative helped him win Tuesday in states such as Ohio, Minnesota and Georgia, even though Kerry — unlike Edwards — backed trade agreements that voters blamed for costing their communities jobs.

"I really want to win," Angie Kline, a St. Paul, Minn., caucus-goer, said in explaining her vote for Kerry. "Kerry has the breadth of experience. He's had umpteen years in the Senate working on both domestic and foreign policy issues."

Although relentlessly upbeat and dogged, Edwards knew he had to quit, and aides tipped his hand on that plan on the eve of his formal departure.

"We have been the little engine that could," the North Carolina senator told supporters. Edwards proved an animated campaigner and sharp debater, but won only in his native South Carolina and posted several strong second place finishes.

He immediately started closing ranks with his rival, calling Kerry an "extraordinary advocate for jobs, better health care, a safer world," and declaring: "These are the causes of our party, these are the causes of our country, and these are the causes we will prevail on come November."

Kerry responded in kind, calling Edwards "a compelling voice to our party" who holds "great promise for leadership for the years to come." Edwards' name will stay in play as a possible choice for running mate, although Kerry has given no hint of his pick for the ticket.

Kerry ordered his staff to prepare a process to review potential vice presidential candidates, senior advisers said. They said it was possible, but not likely, that Kerry would choose a nominee well before the Democratic nominating convention in his hometown of Boston in July.

Kucinich finished in single digits in most of the night's contests, lagging in his own state, and Al Sharpton was weighing whether to keep his quixotic campaign going after finishing in single digits on his New York home turf.

Altogether, Kerry won in California, Rhode Island, Ohio, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland and Georgia.

For the opening of his general election campaign Wednesday, Kerry picked Florida, site of the historic 2000 recount election that gave Bush the presidency.

Kerry said several of his former rivals had offered to help raise money and he was confident he could put together the necessary war chest, though it won't be easy. As well, Democratic interest groups, required to act independently of the Kerry camp, plan to start ads soon critical of Bush.

"The president has an enormous lead," Kerry told The Associated Press. "He has extraordinary sums of money ... and we're going to have to fight hard to raise money and compete."

And he told supporters to expect a rough battle.

"Before us lie long months of effort and of challenge, and we understand that," he said. "We have no illusions about the Republican attack machine and what our opponents have done in the past and what they may try to do in the future. But I know that together we are equal to this task. I am a fighter."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20040301/pl_nm/campaign_dc_8

Super Tuesday Push

Mon Mar 1, 5:29 PM ET


By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry and rival John Edwards made their final pitches for support on Monday on the eve of a potentially decisive coast-to-coast Super Tuesday showdown in 10 states.

Kerry, hoping to deal a final blow to Edwards' candidacy on Tuesday during the campaign's biggest single day of voting, hopscotched across Maryland, Ohio and Georgia and turned up his attacks on President Bush ahead of their likely November match-up.

Edwards hunted for votes in Ohio and Georgia, two of his best shots at upset victories that could keep his underdog White House bid alive.

Up for grabs on Tuesday are big states like New York, California and Ohio with a total of 1,151 delegates to July's nominating convention -- more than half of the 2,152 delegates needed to win the nomination and the campaign's biggest one-day haul.

Kerry, the Massachusetts senator who has won 18 of the first 20 contests, stepped up his criticism of Bush over the war in Iraq and promised to directly confront the president for his handling of the economy and national security.

If you will trust me with this nomination, I will go right at George W. Bush," Kerry told a packed rally at Ohio State University. "This isn't going to be some kind of ... wishy-washy, mealy-mouthed, you can't tell the difference deal."

Earlier, at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, Kerry said, "There is a better way to make America safe than this president has chosen. This president has, in fact, created terrorists where they did not exist."

Edwards, who has put his plans to create more opportunities for American workers and stem the flow of U.S. jobs to foreign countries at the centerpiece of his campaign, held three rallies in Ohio before finishing the day in Georgia, two of the states he has targeted on Tuesday along with Minnesota.

In Toledo, Ohio, the senator from North Carolina laid out his job-creation message and plans to lift millions of Americans out of poverty, telling voters "you give me a chance at George Bush and I'll get you back the White House."

Kerry is hoping another in his long string of dominating performances will knock Edwards out of the race. While a coast-to-coast sweep would not give Kerry enough delegates to clinch the nomination, it could eliminate the last flickers of hope for Edwards.


NOT TAKING VICTORY FOR GRANTED


But Kerry said he would not take victory for granted.

"This is a contested race, so I'm fighting in every state and I'm campaigning hard and after Super Tuesday, we'll see where we are," he said.

Edwards has turned his attention elsewhere after early campaign appearances in New York and California as he hunts for fertile ground against Kerry. He has focused on Ohio because of the state's heavy job losses under Bush and Georgia because of his Southern roots.

He shrugged off repeated questions about the future of his campaign.

"I think we'll do well tomorrow," he said. "We have always been going up and surging at the end. We'll have to wait and see what happens."

"At some point I've got to get more delegates or I'm not going to be the nominee," conceded Edwards, who trails Kerry by more than 3-to-1 in the current delegate count. The bottom line, he said, was to "compete well" and win "substantial delegates."

Edwards said he expects to do well in places where he has had time to campaign and meet people.

"My responsibility is to get this message through to voters," he told reporters. "There's no question that national momentum has an impact on these races. But as long as people hear this message of hope and optimism and real change from outside Washington, it works."

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran, won the endorsement of the Baltimore Sun newspaper in Maryland and the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, which said his "obvious understanding of the world's complexities and their effects on America," made him the best candidate to face Bush.

I'm laughing so hard! It's the best!
________________________

Chavez calls Bush 'asshole' as foes fight troops

http://www.reuters.com/locales/newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&locale=en_US&storyID=4463411

By Patrick Markey

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called U.S. President George W. Bush an "asshole" on Sunday for meddling, and vowed never to quit office like his Haitian counterpart as troops battled with opposition protesters demanding a recall referendum against him.

Chavez, who often says the U.S. is backing opposition efforts to topple his leftist government, accused Bush of heeding advice from "imperialist" aides to support a brief 2002 coup against him.

"He was an asshole to believe them," Chavez roared at a huge rally of supporters in Caracas.

The Venezuelan leader's comments came as fresh violence broke out on the streets of the capital, where National Guard troops clashed with opposition protesters pressing for a vote to end his five-year rule.

Military helicopters roared in low runs overhead as soldiers fired tear gas and plastic bullets to repel several hundred opposition demonstrators who threw stones and set up burning barricades in eastern Caracas late into the night.

Troops and opposition activists also skirmished in other cities.

"We call on the country to continue with peaceful resistence," opposition leader Enrique Mendoza said. "This fight will last as long as necessary."

A soldier and a cameraman were shot and injured during the clashes and an opposition protester was wounded in the head by gunmen firing from motorbikes, witnesses and officials said.

Electoral authorities, citing the need to preserve peace in the country, said they were postponing until Monday the preliminary results of their verification of the opposition's petition for a recall vote.

One demonstrator carried a banner reading: "Bye bye Aristide, Chavez you're next," referring to Haiti's leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who fled into exile on Sunday in the face of an armed rebellion.

TENSIONS AHEAD OF POLL RULING

But the firebrand populist vowed to defeat any attempt to unseat him and threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States from the world's No. 5 crude oil exporter should Washington try an invasion or trade sanctions.

"Venezuela is not Haiti and Chavez is not Aristide," he said.

Tens of thousands of Chavez supporters marched earlier on Sunday to protest what they condemned as U.S. meddling in Venezuelan affairs. The U.S. State Department routinely dismisses the president's accusations.

The referendum campaign is the latest political fight for Chavez, who survived the short-lived 2002 coup and a strike last year by opponents who fear his self-styled "revolution" is slowly turning Venezuela into a Cuban-style communist state.

Since his first election in 1998, the president has vowed to improve the lives of the impoverished who see little of the country's oil wealth. But his opponents say he has failed and has instead pushed the country into economic ruin.

Political tensions have flared again recently as setbacks delayed a ruling by the National Electoral Council on whether to allow the recall referendum to go forward. Two protesters were shot and killed on Friday during an opposition march.

The Organization of American States (OAS) and the Carter Center, which are observing the referendum process, appealed for calm on Sunday ahead of the council decision.

Electoral authorities said they would make a preliminary ruling Monday on whether the opposition collected the minimum 2.4 million valid signatures required for a vote. The opposition says it handed over 3.4 million signatures.

Opposition leaders accuse pro-government officials in the electoral council of trying to block the poll by disqualifying many valid signatures. Chavez says his opponents' petition is riddled with forgeries.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher, Magdelena Morales)


Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/10026

Code Red


Arianna Huffington is a syndicated columnist and author of Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America (Random House, 2003).


If he’s smart enough to use it, the Democratic nominee may have just been handed the perfect cudgel with which to pummel President Bush—and cripple Karl Rove’s attempts to position his man as America’s go-to guy on national security.

The weapon in question is a new report on the grave and gathering threat posed by global climate change—and the potentially cataclysmic consequences of the Bush administration’s obstinately ignorant approach to global warming.

And the thing that makes the report so frightening—and the prospective bludgeon so crushing—is that it wasn’t authored by some crunchy granola think tank or a band of tree-hugging EarthFirsters, but by the U.S. Department of Defense.

That’s right, the Pentagon—Rummy’s playpen. In fact, the report, which was slipped to the press earlier this month after being kept under wraps by the White House for four months, was commissioned by Andrew Marshall, a legendary DOD figure, nicknamed "Yoda" for his sagacity. As head of the Pentagon’s secretive Office of Net Assessment, Marshall has offered national security assessments to every president since Richard Nixon.

And this latest assessment pegs climate change as a far greater danger than even the scourge of international terrorism.

Dryly entitled "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security," the report reads like the plot summary of the upcoming Dennis Quaid doomsday flick, The Day After Tomorrow, in which global warming pushes the planet to the edge of anarchy and annihilation.

But this scenario is not science fiction. According to the Pentagon study, the question is not if abrupt climate change will happen, but when. It could be, according to the report’s authors, as soon as the next three years, with the most devastating fallout potentially occurring between 2010 and 2020.

At that point, we could find ourselves in the midst of a new ice age in which mega-droughts devastate the world’s food supply, drinkable water becomes a luxury worth going nuclear over, 400 million people are forced to migrate from uninhabitable areas, and riots and wars for survival become commonplace.

I believe that would qualify as a Red Alert in Tom Ridge’s color-coded book.

But the Bush White House remains unwilling to address—or even acknowledge—this looming peril. Instead, the oiligarchs in the administration continue to fiddle while the atmosphere starts to burn, routinely ignoring scientific evidence and international consensus, and casting a questioning eye on the very idea, let alone the fact, of global warming. It’s a stance that has warmed the hearts—globally, no doubt—of the Bush Pioneers and Rangers in the oil and energy industry, making them feel very generous indeed.

As last week’s release of a scathing letter signed by 60 prominent scientists—including 20 Nobel laureates and former science advisers to both Republican and Democratic administrations—makes clear, the Bush administration has made an art out of ignoring science. Particularly when it comes to the issue of global warming.

Who can forget the president’s famous CO2 flip-flop, or the way the White House tried to force so many changes to a section of an EPA report dealing with climate change that Christie Todd Whitman finally threw up her hands and decided to eliminate the section on global warming altogether?

But blinding the voters with pseudo-science may no longer be an option now that the Pentagon report threatens to put the issue front and center—and reframe it as a key component of our national security debate.

This is particularly good news for John Kerry, should he prevail, given his long history of leading the charge in the Senate to cut down on greenhouse gases by raising fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. The president, of course, has done just the opposite, giving Kyoto the kiss-off, and pushing through unconscionable loopholes that reward gas-guzzling monster SUVs and allow carmakers to effectively reduce fuel economy for millions of the vehicles they sell.

One of the defining traits of leadership is the ability to see not just the crisis right in front of you, but the one lurking around the next corner. Bush’s steadfast refusal to act upon the potential desolation that awaits us if we do nothing to confront global warming makes him a major national security liability.

Everyone in the Bush administration acted shocked and surprised when 9/11 happened—even though there had been red flags aplenty warning of Al Qaeda’s evil intentions. Well, let there be no surprise this time. We have all been warned.

While the Pentagon is sounding the alarm on an environmental Armageddon, the president is covering his eyes, crossing his fingers, and whistling about the "national importance" of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

The Democratic nominee needs to remind the White House—and the American people: It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.



Claudia D. Dikinis
http://starcats.com
Political & Personal Astrology for a New Millennium

"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus