Get Out Your Eraser And Head For Your Dictionary

Damnable flip-floppers!

Also, Frist!! It's been a long time between Frists.

But what he didn't mention is what he told a group of regional newspapers Tuesday, at the White House, that, for the first time he is now willing to consider Social Security payroll tax increases for higher income taxpayers.

Asked directly, Bush said that he would not rule out raising that cap, though he does not want to see the payroll tax rate go up. The rate is now 12.4 percent of pay, split between workers and employers.

At the White House, Bush indicated that for the first time he is now willing to consider Social Security payroll tax increases for higher-income taxpayers.

‘Interested in good ideas’
“The one thing I’m not open-minded about is raising the payroll tax rate. And all the other issues go on the table,” Bush told a roundtable of regional newspapers, according to an account Wednesday in the New Haven (Conn.) Register.

"I’m interested in good ideas. People need to come forth with good ideas. The one thing I won’t do is negotiate with myself," Bush added.

"The tendency in Washington is, ‘You play your cards now, and we’ll decide whether we want to play ours.’ Well, I’m not going to do that. I’m keeping them close to the vest," Bush said.

In his speech Wednesday, the president used his “ownership society” pitch as he appealed to the voters of New Hampshire.

“Investors aren’t just Wall Street people, as far as I’m concerned,” he told 2,000 people packed into an airport hangar. “I think every citizen, every citizen has got the capacity to manage his or her own money — and if they don’t, we’ll help them understand how to and the rules will be such that they can.”

“I believe the so-called investor class ought to be every American, regardless of his or her background,” Bush added, eliciting cheers from an audience assembled by the state’s all-Republican congressional delegation.

Bush Nominates Negroponte As Intel Chief
http://tinyurl.com/3p47m

Who is John Negroponte?
Ambassador to Death Squads
http://counterpunch.org/hassan06042004.html

John Negroponte
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/negroponte/eng.html

and this:
Negroponte speaks no Arabic and has no background in the Middle East or the Islamic world. What he does have is a good deal of experience with counterinsurgency. Bad experience. Experience dating from the waning days of the Vietnam War through the Reagan administration's policies in Central America and consisting largely of propping up right-wing dictators, violating human rights, and working to deceive the Congress and the American people.
more~
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=7615

John Negroponte
Biography
Negroponte was born in London. His father was a Greek shipping magnate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Negroponte

Negroponte: Nominee for Baghdad Embassy, a Rogue for all Seasons

snip~
· Negroponte pressed Powell to pressure Chile’s and Mexico’s weak-willed leaders to discharge their U.N. ambassadors over Iraq votes.

· Negroponte has a sordid human rights record in Honduras.

· A Cruel Joke: Negroponte, the arch authoritarian, teaching democracy to the Iraqis.

· Life under Saddam somewhat prepares you for the Negroponte era.

http://www.coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.20_Negroponte.htm

Look, a raise in the cap is a raise in payroll taxes. Sure, it may not be a raise in payroll taxes for everyone, but it's just plain dishonest to suggest that it is not a raise in payroll taxes. Period.

Posted by Casey Morris at February 17, 2005 09:33 AM

Good catch on how the NeoCONS try to hide behind false words.

It reminds me about their own "play book" which was retrieved. Let's pretend it's "not privatization--it's personal accounts" and lets not mention how a few wallstreet friends are gonna make money off of your mistakes while we "help you handle your own personal money."

And lets not mention the fact that if you mess up your perosonal account, you'll be 60 and live in poverty.

Even ABC's The Note [bu$h/cheney cheerleaders], have this to say:

President Bush's effective "openness" to raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax — without embracing the idea — reminds us that if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then in all likelihood it IS a duck, although we would like to see if the markets, over time, believe it is a duck.

and this:
Frankly, we are a little sick up and fed with Alan Greenspan's capacity to get away with saying whatever he wants in his venerable wispy and vague fashion.

It's one thing to be all things to all people — quite another to be all things to all people at the same time and in the same sentence.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238

also from ABC's The Note:

Sen. John Kerry:
Expect a statement from Sen. Kerry today on his call for troop increases, and working with Sens. Hagel and Reed to push for it. Kerry's using his johnkerry.com e-mail list to target veterans with a message on the Military Family Bill of Rights, saying that health care, penalty-free IRA withdrawals during deployments and expanded programs to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is as important as supplemental budget requests.
and this:
At 12:45 pm ET, Sens. Barbara Boxer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and other congressional leaders, hold a news conference to announce legislation to overhaul voting systems and practices. We're told that Sen. Kerry will announce 35,000 people called Sen. Frist and House Speaker Hastert's office in one day in response to an e-mail through johnkerry.com in January.

At 12:45 pm ET, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) hold a news conference with Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Senate Minority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) to unveil a new Social Security calculator on the Web to demonstrate "losses under Bush privatization plan at all levels."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238

At 12:45 pm ET, Sens. Barbara Boxer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and other congressional leaders...

Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at February 17, 2005 11:33 AM

The MSM has barely uttered a word on this, while the Blogs have been buzzing for the past 12 hours!

Here's some info from Hillary:

Legislation Would Enact Sweeping Reforms by Next Major Election Cycle in 2006
17 February 2005

From Hillary Clinton’s Senate website, comes the following press release on today’s upcoming press conference (12:45 p.m.) with Barbara Boxer, Stephanie Tubbs Jones and John Kerry:

WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today unveiled comprehensive voting reform legislation to make sure that every American is able to vote and every vote is counted. Senators Clinton and Boxer announced the legislation today in a press conference joined by Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH), who will sponsor the legislation in the House of Representatives, and voting rights advocates.

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=384

The White House Stages Its 'Daily Show'

FRANK RICH NYTimes Published: February 20, 2005

The prayers of those hoping that real television news might take its cues from Jon Stewart were finally answered on Feb. 9, 2005. A real newsman borrowed a technique from fake news to deliver real news about fake news in prime time.

Let me explain.

On "Countdown," a nightly news hour on MSNBC, the anchor, Keith Olbermann, led off with a classic "Daily Show"-style bit: a rapid-fire montage of sharply edited video bites illustrating the apparent idiocy of those in Washington. In this case, the eight clips stretched over a year in the White House briefing room - from February 2004 to late last month - and all featured a reporter named "Jeff." In most of them, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, says "Go ahead, Jeff," and "Jeff" responds with a softball question intended not to elicit information but to boost President Bush and smear his political opponents. In the last clip, "Jeff" is quizzing the president himself, in his first post-inaugural press conference of Jan. 26. Referring to Harry Reid and Hillary Clinton, "Jeff" asks, "How are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?"

If we did not live in a time when the news culture itself is divorced from reality, the story might end there: "Jeff," you'd assume, was a lapdog reporter from a legitimate, if right-wing, news organization like Fox, and you'd get some predictable yuks from watching a compressed video anthology of his kissing up to power. But as Mr. Olbermann explained, "Jeff Gannon," the star of the montage, was a newsman no more real than a "Senior White House Correspondent" like Stephen Colbert on "The Daily Show" and he worked for a news organization no more real than The Onion. Yet the video broadcast by Mr. Olbermann was not fake. "Jeff" was in the real White House, and he did have those exchanges with the real Mr. McClellan and the real Mr. Bush.
continue~
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html

more from Frank Rich, NYT today"

"The pre-fab "Ask President Bush" town hall-style meetings held during last year's campaign (typical question: "Mr. President, as a child, how can I help you get votes?") were carefully designed for television so that, as Kenneth R. Bazinet wrote last summer in New York's Daily News, "unsuspecting viewers" tuning in their local news might get the false impression they were "watching a completely open forum." A Pentagon Office of Strategic Influence, intended to provide propagandistic news items, some of them possibly false, to foreign news media was shut down in 2002 when it became an embarrassing political liability. But much more quietly, another Pentagon propaganda arm, the Pentagon Channel, has recently been added as a free channel for American viewers of the Dish Network. Can a Social Security Channel be far behind?

It is a brilliant strategy. When the Bush administration isn't using taxpayers' money to buy its own fake news, it does everything it can to shut out and pillory real reporters who might tell Americans what is happening in what is, at least in theory, their own government."
snip~
As Mr. Olbermann demonstrated when he borrowed a sharp "Daily Show" tool to puncture the "Jeff Gannon" case, the only road back to reality may be to fight fake with fake.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/arts/20rich.html?pagewanted=1

More Election Reform Press Conference News…
17 February 2005

Just posted at John Kerry’s Senate website, the following press release on today’s upcoming election reform press conference.

Statement from Senator John Kerry on election reform. Today, he will participate in a press conference on Capitol Hill at 12:45 in Russell 188 with Senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio).

Thursday, February 17, 2005

“Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy. In the last year, millions more Americans registered and went to the polls than ever before. We saw millions in Iraq and Afghanistan vote for the first time in their lives. Yet, thousands upon thousands of Americans still fear that when they walk into the polls to vote, there is a very real chance that their vote will not be counted or they will lose the opportunity to vote at all because they are forced to stand in line for hours due to a shortage of machines.

“Faulty voting machines have no place in the greatest democracy on earth. Barriers to voting are an insult to the freest, greatest nation in the world.

More - http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=385

Bush is due to come to Europe next week, and his clique is already on the spot to prepare his visit, but, but....

Jean-Claude Junkers, Luxembourg PM, and current head of EU blew the fuses today about Bush's arrival in Brussels.
"Bush m'emmerde..." did he burst out , after getting fed up at the security measures imposed by the Americans, who even see forks and knives as weapons. He got mad as well at the pressure put by the press sevices about having the press conference held here or there... "if the decor doesn't please to grandmas in Texas or Ohio, I don't care. I had enough of so many ridiculous demands.
If ridicule killed, the EU Parliament would be littered with American Corpses"...

Not very diplomatical on his side, but quite telling about the blunt manners of the presidential crew.

pam~
~~not sure we will see any coverage of the Clinton/Kerry/Boxer/Jones press conference. According to the ABC Note's snippets, there is a lot going on the Hill today...and now bu$hco has out-foxed us, announcing the appointed, uh, annointed Negroponte, so the press is busy covering that.

Another press conference of Note today:
At 3:30 pm ET. Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) hold a news conference to introduce legislation to expand the size of the U.S. Army and Marines.
[Looks like they will be following John Kerry's advice.]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238

Something else to make you guys angry. Finally, we have confirmation of what we knew all along. Our terror alert system is directly tied to Shrub's poll ratings.

"At the time of Ridge's meetings with the pollsters, President Bush's re-election campaign was reeling from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the news media was speculating that Ridge might replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, or even Vice President Dick Cheney."

AP Uncovers Ridge Meetings with Pollsters During Presidential Campaign
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000807456

Posted by: florida dem at February 17, 2005 12:31 PM

And oh how they vilified anyone who even SUGGESTED that this was happening!!

Posted by: florida dem at February 17, 2005 12:31 PM

And oh how they vilified anyone who even SUGGESTED that this was happening!!

Posted by: nancyjane at February 17, 2005 12:44 PM

The NeoCONS philosophy "win at all costs" as used in this election will help us regain our democracy. We will become the media and we will remind the people for decades to come how they ABUSED their office and ABUSED the trust of the AMERICAN people and do not deserve to be entrusted with any power.

I fully believe that the SH** is going to hit the fan and we will be the ones giving the fan LOTS of power!

They may have illegally won this time, but they sold their soul to the devil. There are many people who will hear this and see the truth and make sure they are held accountable.

~what Bu$hworld doesn't want us to know:

China overtakes US as world's leading consumer
By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON - China is quickly overtaking the United States as the world's biggest consumer of global resources, energized by a dynamic economy that is growing at a record pace, says a Washington research group. "China is no longer just a developing country. It is an emerging economic superpower, one that is writing economic history," said Lester Brown, founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of Wednesday's report.

"If the last century was America's, this one looks to be the Chinese century," he said.

The report says China is outpacing the US in four of the five most important commodities: grain, meat, coal and steel. The fifth, oil, is still consumed in the US at rates triple that of China, about 20.4 million barrels per day. But while oil use in the US rose by 15% from 1994 to 2004, its use in the Asian giant more than doubled. China has now surpassed Japan as the world's second-largest consumer of oil after the US, said the report, titled "China Replacing United States as World's Biggest Consumer".

China also consumes about 800 million tonnes of another fossil fuel, coal, which meets nearly two-thirds of the country's energy demand. "With its coal use far exceeding that of the US and with its oil and natural gas use climbing fast, it is only a matter of time when China will also be the world's top emitter of carbon," says the report. "Soon the world may have two major climate disrupters."

snip~
The report also examines China's growing influence on the US economy, which has become heavily dependent on Chinese capital to underwrite its fast-growing debt. If China ever decides to divert this capital surplus elsewhere, either to internal investment or to the development of oil, gas, and mineral resources elsewhere in the world, the US economy will be in trouble, the report says.

China's record-high domestic savings and huge trade surplus with the US are just two of the most visible manifestations of its economic strength. It is now China, along with Japan, that is buying the US treasury securities that enables the US to run the largest fiscal deficit in history. "China's eclipse of the US as a consumer nation should be seen as another milestone along the path of its evolution as a world economic leader," Brown said.
more~
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GB18Ad01.html

~this explains a lot about US plan for IraN

Psywar keeps Tehran on tenterhooks

By B Raman / Middle East Feb 18, 2005

To any intelligence analyst, it should be obvious that the United States has already embarked on a psychological warfare (psywar) campaign to keep Iran on tenterhooks in the hope of thereby breaking its will to resist US pressure to agree to the dismantling of its uranium enrichment capability.

It is in this context that one has to view the rhetoric of "no option excluded" coming at regular intervals from President George W Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other US leaders, orchestrated leaks to the media of Pakistan's cooperation with the US in a possible covert action against Iran's military nuclear capability, of increasing Israeli contacts with Pakistan, of US drones (unmanned surveillance planes) flying unhindered over Iran's nuclear establishments from bases in Iraq, and the latest reports of a mysterious blast near the southern port city of Dailam in Iran on Wednesday.
continue~
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB18Ak01.html

Bu$hco is doing well, thank-you very much:

The Carlyle Group returned $5.3 billion to investors last year, more than double the $2.1 billion it returned the previous year, according to a summary the firm released Monday, Feb. 14, of its investment activities for 2004.
"It was our best year ever," said William Conway Jr., the Washington-based private-equity group's co-founder and managing director.

http://www.thedeal.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=TheDeal/TDDArticle/StandardArticle&c=TDDArticle&cid=1107993040392&r=InFs&p=M4YD5AR2