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Krugman v. Okrent, Round Two
As some of you may have read recently, Daniel Okrent, the Public Editor of the NY Times, wrote his last column on May 22, 2005.
In that column, he took a very sharp and very public shiv to the ribs of NY Times columnist Paul Krugman. Which, in and of itself is bad enough, but then he made a number of accusations without offering one shred of proof. The accusations were not of the "you're fat and ugly and your mother dresses you funny" kind. They were the "Krugman has a disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults" kind of accusations. And after firing the professional equivalent of a LARS rocket in the general direction of Krugman's credibility, Okrent left the newspaper. Not what one would call the most "professional" of departures.
Within days, Krugman responded in what I thought to be a very professional way. He didn't use his column to lambast Okrent. He wrote a letter to the new Public Editor, Barney Calame, and asked that it be printed in the space reserved for the public's response to Mr. Okrent's last column.
The situation then proceeded to heat up, as word of Okrent's public attack spread.
The fight was on, and it was getting ugly. What's a Public Editor to do?
Well, Barney Calame struck a deal with Krugman and Okrent. They would both write a rebuttal and they would be published simultaneously.
Round 2 of Krugman v. Okrent.
Krugman's Rebuttal
Krugman answers Okrent's accusations point by point and then offers the following summary:
To summarize: when I asked Mr. Okrent for evidence of my malfeasance, he provided one example in which his description of what I did was simply wrong, and another in which he accused me of pulling a fast one on readers, when all I did was use official data in a standard way.
In correspondence with Mr. Okrent, I pointed out that his specific attacks -- especially the blatantly wrong characterization of my 5/25/04 column -- were unfair. I asked him to do what he would have expected me to do, and admit that he had been in error. He refused.
Let me repeat that Mr. Okrent never raised these issues as public editor. He now says that he didn’t because he “experienced your best-defense-is-a-good-offense approach, and found it futile to deal with it.”
Maybe a description of some of my experiences with him will give some sample of what he found difficult to deal with.
On 6/8/04, I made a numerical mistake, reading from the wrong line in a table of tax rates during the Reagan years. Although the mistake didn’t change the column’s conclusions, I reluctantly issued a correction. But I forgot to use the word “correction,” which I hear got Mr. Okrent upset.
Mr. Okrent questioned my assertion (10/12/04) that Congressional Budget Office estimates show tax cuts were responsible for two-thirds of the fiscal 2004 deficit. I explained that in each of its budget projections the CBO estimates how much of the change from its previous projection is due to changes in tax law, and that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities adds these numbers up to calculate the CBO’s implied estimate of the overall cost of tax cuts since 2000. I provided Mr. Okrent with the data used for that calculation.
Mr. Okrent challenged my assertion (5/9/05) that the Bush Social Security “progressive indexing” plan would impose its largest percentage reductions in retirement income on middle-income workers.
I explained that the term “retirement income” normally refers to income from all sources, not just Social Security benefits (the Social Security Administration says on its Web site that “you should not count only on Social Security for your retirement income.”) I supplied him with a study (pdf) that used Social Security Administration data to show that because high-income workers depend much less than middle-income workers on Social Security, they would have smaller percentage cuts in overall retirement income than middle-income workers. This was similar to a point I made, using different data, a week earlier (5/1/05), so I was surprised that Mr. Okrent even raised the issue.
If Mr. Okrent was unsatisfied with my explanations in these and other cases, it was his right to demand a fuller explanation, and, if he was still unsatisfied, to say something specific in his column.
I hope we aren’t going to get into an extended period in which Mr. Okrent, who failed to air his concerns when that was his job, then failed even in private to provide examples that bear any resemblance to what he accused me of doing, keeps throwing out new accusations.
Okrent's Response
Okrent begins his rebuttal remarks with more nasty and largely personal ad hominem attacks against Krugman:
For a man who makes his living offering strong opinions, Paul Krugman seems peculiarly reluctant to grant the same privilege to others. And for a man who leads with his chin twice a week, he acts awfully surprised when someone takes a pop at it.
Because only a fool or a supply-sider would eagerly engage in a debate on economics with Prof. Krugman, I’ll try to eschew argument and stick to facts – or, at least, the sort of statements that he himself represents as purely factual:
Okrent then goes on to address the same matters, but instead of presenting actual facts to support his position, he presents his opinion of facts, and it's a calculated and childishly sneering opinion at that. And he tells us in the opening salvo, that it's okay that he is going to present these opinions instead of fact, because, in his opinion, it okay to do that because the guy you criticized for doing that, um, does that.
Okrent:
2. This was the first he heard from me on these specific issues partly because I learned early on in this job that Prof. Krugman would likely be more willing to contribute to the Frist for President campaign than to acknowledge the possibility of error. When he says he agreed “reluctantly” to one correction, he gives new meaning to the word “reluctantly”; I can’t come up with an adverb sufficient to encompass his general attitude toward substantive criticism.
So even though it is Okrent's specific job to check into these things, he didn't because it was too hard?
He continues:
But I laid off for so long because I also believe that columnists are entitled by their mandate to engage in the unfair use of statistics, the misleading representation of opposing positions, and the conscious withholding of contrary data. But because they’re entitled doesn’t mean I or you have to like it, or think it’s good for the newspaper.
Did he just say (in one of the worst sentences I have ever read) that he even though he was the Public Editor, he thinks it's okay for his columnists to lie and mislead the public because they are entitled to, because they are columnists?
Okrent continues:
3. The mixing of household and establishment numbers in his 5/25/04 column: Missing from the BLS chart he cites is any number that even resembles the 140,000 new jobs each month needed to keep up with the growing population a statistic he cites in the column, and upon which he seems to have based some of his computations. To my knowledge, that number only appeared in the household survey.
So Okrent is telling us something that he believes, to the best of his knowledge. I point out that sentence in bold, only because what follows in the next paragraph of his remarks is this part:
On Prof. Krugman’s defense of his unfamiliarity with it, he’s effectively saying, “If I didn’t know about it, it must not be important.” This is a polemicist’s dodge; no self-respecting journalist would ever make such an argument.
While that's not what Krugman said (just Okrent's opinion of what he may have meant), Okrent contradicts his previous paragraph. Suppose that number had appeared in some ten-year old research paper, or a research paper written by a ten-year old? Are we to assume we would see a vast mea culpa coming from the general direction of the Public Editor's column? Maybe it's the "no self-respecting journalist" part I am misinterpreting here...
Okrent finishes his remarks thusly:
Believe me -- I could go on, as could a number of readers more sophisticated about economic matters than I am. (Among these are several who, like me, generally align themselves politically with Prof. Krugman, but feel he does himself and his cause no good when he heeds the roaring approval of his acolytes and dismisses his critics as ideologically motivated.) But I don’t want to engage in an extended debate any more than Prof. Krugman says he does. If he replies to this statement, as I imagine he will, I’ll let him have what he always insists on keeping for himself: the last word.
I hate to do this to a decent man like my successor, Barney Calame, but I’m hereby turning the Krugman beat over to him.
Well, it's no secret that I think Okrent, not to mention the post created by the New York Times of "Public Editor", was and is, useless. And when Okrent published the name and home address of a young man who had written him a particularly nasty e-mail, I knew he viewed himself above needing to follow the rules and ethics attendant his profession.
But it wasn't until this fight with Krugman that he truly revealed himself for what he is, lazy and stupid. He's too lazy to do his own research, so he uses the letters that readers have sent him to bolster his unprovoked and cheap attack on Krugman. And since he can't or won't understand the subject matter about which he bases his attack on Krugman, he resorts to an argument of fallacy, personal attack, and sniveling rhetoric, that only he himself could find clever or competent.
The public has enough garbage like this to wade through, what with reality television saturating the airwaves. We don't need the almighty Public Editor of the New York Times to add to the general tone of collegial disrespect and further obfuscate the facts of a matter.
Enough already.
Godspeed Okrent, and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
reflections on truthtelling and impeachment from Salon:
Impeachment -- then and now
Now that we've solved the 30-year-old mystery of "Deep Throat," it may be an opportune moment to ponder some more current issues involving the man who now sits in the office that Richard Nixon once held.
George W. Bush hasn't authorized or covered up any two-bit break-ins, at least as far as we know. And if they're still making tapes in the Oval Office, they're probably not quite as colorful as the ones that ultimately forced Nixon to resign. But Bush and his administration are certainly guilty of other offenses, and some of them would seem to rise to the level of what the Constitution calls "high crimes and misdemeanors." This should go without saying, but apparently it doesn't: If lying about a blow job is an impeachable offense, then what can be said about telling lies that led a country into war?
Even before Vanity Fair brought back a flood of Watergate memories this morning, we had our minds on impeachment. Maybe it was the excerpt from John Harris' new Clinton book in the Washington Post this morning. Or maybe it was the Ralph Nader/Kevin Zeese op-ed in the Boston Globe, the one in which they said that revelations about the lead-up to the Iraq war suggest that it's "time to debate the I-word" again."
Whatever it was, we were thinking about impeachment this morning, and when the first rumblings of the W. Mark Felt story broke, we started to ask ourselves: "Where are the 'Deep Throats' of today?" But the thing is, they're there -- and they're not hiding. They go by names like Clarke and Wilson, like O'Neill and Taguba. They've told us some of the stories, connected some of the dots. The Downing Street memo takes us a long way down one trail, but how much further could we go? What would a real investigation, one conducted by an independent prosecutor or a House impeachment committee, tell us about Saddam Hussein's WMDs? What would someone like Colin Powell say under oath? What would we learn about what Bush knew and when he knew it?
We don't pretend to know all the facts about Iraq, but we do know this: If Bill Clinton were still the president, there isn't a Republican in Congress who would say that the facts we do know don't warrant at least some discussion about articles of impeachment. It's not going to happen, of course. The Republicans won't let it, and the American people won't demand it; there's such a weariness now, such an acceptance that the administration misled us into war, that the nation is incapable of working up the outrage that would be needed to embolden the Democrats and overcome the Republicans' partisan opposition. But as the country moves past the final lingering question about the last president driven from office, isn't it time to at least start asking serious questions about this one?
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/05/31/impeachment/index.html
Reminds me of a button I saw on an elderly gentleman last week..."Impeach Cheney first!"
Some interesting documentation from ThinkProgress
The Bush Administration Was For Amnesty International Before It Was Against It
Posted by Faiz May 31st, 2005 9:43 am
http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=979
Tonight, Vice President Cheney will appear on CNN’s Larry King Live and reportedly condemn a recent Amnesty International report that faults the U.S. for its treatment of detainees in the war on terror. Cheney has said: "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don’t take them seriously."
Other Administration officials have similarly been quick to lash out against the Amnesty report. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the allegations were “ridiculous and unsupported by the facts.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Richard Myers called the Amnesty International report “absolutely irresponsible.”
[edited: and as we all now know, President Bush said it was absurd and that AI listened to people who disassemble... you know, that means lie...]
But in the past, when it was convenient to the Administration, they did not hesitate to cite Amnesty to make its case. And nowhere did the Administration need more help than in selling the Iraq war. Secretary Rumsfeld repeatedly turned to Amnesty to highlight the repressive nature of Saddam’s regime. On March 27, 2003, Rumsfeld said:
We know that it’s a repressive regime…Anyone who has read Amnesty International or any of the human rights organizations about how the regime of Saddam Hussein treats his people…
The next day, Rumsfeld even cited his “careful reading” of Amnesty:
…[I]t seems to me a careful reading of Amnesty International or the record of Saddam Hussein, having used chemical weapons on his own people as well as his neighbors, and the viciousness of that regime, which is well known and documented by human rights organizations, ought not to be surprised.
And on April 1, 2003, Rumsfeld said once again:
[I]f you read the various human rights groups and Amnesty International’s description of what they know has gone on, it’s not a happy picture.
So the rule here appears to be: Amnesty is a legitimate source for human rights violations of other countries, but is an unreliable and irresponsible source for reporting on the U.S.
[With thanks to the editors of ITT... http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/ittlist/ind/you_know_it_makes_sense/ ]
The unstoppable Terry Jones of Monty Python fame lets Blair/Bush have it in his Gaurdian editorial today.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1457436,00.html
Let them eat bombs
The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling
Terry Jones
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian
A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.
This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.
It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.
These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.
A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."
But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.
And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.
In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids. You know it makes sense.
·Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. He is the author of Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror
www.terry-jones.net
Here's something from the U.S. Newswire about the "Take Back America" conference. Can't wait to hear from the DCPers who are there! It's going to be on C-SPAN, so we can watch it and keep our eyes open for people in DCP t-shirts...
Progressives Kick Off 'Take Back America' Conference
6/1/2005 7:01:00 AM
News Advisory:
The Campaign for America's Future kicks off its 3-day "Take Back America" conference today (June 1). Participants will outline the progressive promise and the failure of the right-wing, discuss how progressives plan to take back America and hold a gala dinner to celebrate recent accomplishments in the movement on Wednesday.
The conference brings together the largest group of progressive leaders since last year's election to discuss the ideas and infrastructure needed to forge a political majority.
------
TODAY'S EVENTS: WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2005
1 p.m. -- Top progressive media organizations launch the first-ever "progressive media row" featuring a live Bloggers Boulevard, Radio Row and Magazine Mile to conduct interviews and report the truth throughout the Campaign for America's Future's "Take Back America" conference. Washington Hilton Concourse, 1919 Connecticut Avenue NW. OPEN PRESS
2 p.m. -- Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage, Los Angeles Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., rally thousands of activists around the progressive promise and the failure of the right-wing. Washington Hilton Crystal Ballroom, 1919 Connecticut Avenue NW. OPEN PRESS
-- NOTE: Live coverage of this event will air on C-SPAN.**
3:45 p.m. -- Strategist Donna Brazile, pollster Celinda Lake, AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman and MoveOn.org executive director Eli Pariser discuss how progressives will take back America and build a new political majority.
Read more...http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=48202
Another swing of the pocketbook
Christian activist group goes after Ford Motor Co.
Ford Motor Co., in a magazine advertisement, offers to donate $1,000 to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for each Jaguar sold.
By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
May 31, 2005
A week after they declared victory over Walt Disney Co., Christian activists have fired another missile in their long war against companies they think are destroying traditional American values.
The target this time is Ford Motor Co., which Christians should boycott as “the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle,” the American Family Association says on a Web site it put up Monday, boycottford.com.
The AFA, the nonprofit group run by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, criticized Ford for donating money to gay-rights organizations — Ford promises to give up to $1,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination for every Jaguar and Land Rover it sells to gays and lesbians. The group also complained that Ford sponsored gay pride celebrations, advertised in gay-oriented publications and was “redefining the definition of the family to include homosexual marriage,” Randy Sharp, the organization’s director of special projects, said Tuesday.
Officials at Ford did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
Thousands respond to call for action
The quantifiable impact of a boycott based on Christian principles is all but impossible to assess, but for the AFA, which has gone after scores of giant corporations for almost 30 years, they are an article of faith. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 54,000 people had signed the AFA’s online pledge to boycott Ford, Sharp said.
The organization usually starts with a letter-writing campaign, urging its members to contact executives, local franchisers and advertisers to express unhappiness with a company’s behavior. In what it considers intractable circumstances, the AFA will escalate to a formal boycott.
Read more on the compassionate bible-loving hate-mongering Jag-Offs... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8047423/
Ahhh, the Rev. Don Wildmon and AFA, pillar of morality...
Religious leaders denounce Wildmon's anti-Semitism
http://www.buildingequality.us/ifas/fw/8906/wildmon.html
-snip-
"Perhaps the most serious charge against Wildmon," according to the May 21, 1989 Detroit Free Press, "involves anti-Semitism."
Early this year, Simon, Porteous & Associates, Inc., publishers of this newsletter, documented the anti-Semitic position of Rev. Wildmon. This documentation was delivered to 60 national Christian leaders from whom Wildmon claims support.
The documentation includes evidence of Wildmon blaming Jews for objectionable TV programs and "anti-Christian" films. For years, Rev. Wildmon has maintained that "Hollywood and the theater world is heavily influenced by Jewish people." And he has consistently expressed his belief that there is a conspiracy among television network executives and advertisers which amounts to "a genuine hostility towards Christians and the Christian faith." "This anti-Christian programming is," according to Wildmon, "intentional and by design."
Besides the religious leaders who denied any involvement with Wildmon, responses included that of James M. Lapp, executive secretary of the Mennonite Church: "I have reviewed the materials you have sent to us. I find the inferences and tone in these materials to be offensive. [W]e do not wish to be on public record in support of any writings or programs with open or implied anti-Semitic biases. In summary, we support Mr. Wildmon in his concern for decency and positive values. We do not support some of his tactics, attitudes or biases against Jewish people."
May, Archbishop of St. Louis, and head of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, responded, "I certainly do not agree with the obvious anti-Semitic bias of Reverend Donald E. Wildmon." Other church leaders stated that they had objected to Wildmon's tactics. One, Robert M. Overgaard — who is listed as a member of Wildmon's advisory board — president of the Church of the Lutheran Brethren, said, "In so far as Wildmon equates MCA [which produced "The Last Temptation of Christ"] with the Jewish race, I find his tactics unacceptable." He continued, "I do not excuse Wildmon for his racial generalizations. I have objected to them."
Posted by: monKey at June 1, 2005 10:33 AM
What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. When are Dems/Progressives going to boycott?
Watergate Proves That Even Presidents Will Break Laws To Achieve Goals
by Jason Leopold June 1, 2005
Tuesday’s revelation that W. Mark Felt, the former number two man at the FBI, was the anonymous source known as Deep Throat, who helped Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein unravel the Watergate scandal in the pages of the Washington Post 30 years ago should be seen as an important reminder that even the leader of the free world can be devious, corrupt and dishonest.
Some things never change.
The parallels between the Bush and Nixon administrations are eerily familiar. Both bullied the press, were/are highly secretive, obsessed over leaks, engage(d) in massive cover-ups and quickly branded aides as disloyal if they dared to raise questions about the President’s policies.
The Washington Post, the very paper that is credited with forcing Nixon’s resignation, summed it up perfectly in a Nov. 25, 2003 story on the similarities between the two administrations.
“Bush… structures his White House much as Nixon did. Nixon governed largely with four other men: Henry A. Kissinger, H.R. Haldeman, John D. Ehrlichman and Charles Colson. This is not unlike the "iron triangle" of aides who led Bush's campaign and the handful of underlings now -- Cheney, chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and communications director Dan Bartlett -- who are in on most top decisions. Nixon essentially ended the tradition of powerful Cabinets in favor of a few powerful White House aides -- a model Bush has followed.”
“The most striking similarity is in the area of secrecy and what Nixon staffers called "managing the news." Nixon created the White House Office of Communications, the office that has become the center of Bush's vaunted "message discipline."
Unfortunately, neither the Washington Post nor any other mainstream newspaper or magazine in this country will ever be credited with exposing another Watergate. For one, mainstream reporters just don’t have the balls to put their careers on the line to sniff around, ask tough questions, and, perhaps, find sources like W. Mark Felt. Not even Woodward has the muckraking qualities of what Woodward used to have. Worse, editors’ at large papers don’t encourage reporters to practice that kind of reporting anymore because they don’t want to rock the boat or risk losing their jobs or be seen as liberal and therefore become the ire of the blogoshpere.
The sad reality these days, however, is that it takes a scandal such as a president receiving oral sex in the Oval Office by an intern to qualify for above the fold headlines and impeachment. Leading the country into a war under false pretenses? Sorry, not juicy enough.
snip~
One of the key figures during Watergate made a compelling case a couple of years ago for impeachment if President Bush intentionally misled Congress and the public into backing a war against Iraq.
"To put it bluntly, if Bush has taken Congress and the nation into war based on bogus information, he is cooked," wrote John Dean, President Richard Nixon’s former counsel, in a June 6, 2003 column for findlaw.com. "Manipulation or deliberate misuse of national security intelligence data, if proven, could be "a high crime" under the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It would also be a violation of federal criminal law, including the broad federal anti-conspiracy statute, which renders it a felony "to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose."
Dean said that statements made by presidents that pertain to national security issues are supposed to be held to a higher standard of truthfulness.
"A president cannot stretch, twist or distort facts and get away with it. President Lyndon Johnson’s distortions of the truth about Vietnam forced him to stand down from reelection. President Richard Nixon’s false statements about Watergate forced his resignation."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0601-29.htm
Editorial Published on Wednesday, June 1, 2005 by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Iraq War: Drafting the Dead
Perhaps all presidents' remarks in military graveyards are by nature self-serving. But few have been so callow as the president's using the deaths of U.S. troops in his unjustified war as justification for its continuance.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0601-22.htm
Just take a quick look at the main headline on msnbc.com right now...
MAYHEM! 670 Iraqi's, 77 Americans killed last month.
Gee, this sure doesn't match the rosey picture painted yesterday by Mr. Rosary Colored glasses in the Rose Garden yesterday.
Result: Rows and rows of rose covered graves.
Im
Peach
Posted by: madame defarge at June 1, 2005 09:44 AM
Madame, thanks for posting some of today's events. I can't wait to find out what our DCP crew is learning and sharing at the Take Back America conference. Let the games begin!
Another swing of the pocketbook
Christian activist group goes after Ford Motor Co.
Posted by: monKey at June 1, 2005 10:33 AM
I was going to post this, but you beat me to it. Thank you.
Funny thing, the Christian death cultists are destroying their own allies. Look at the boycott targets: Ford Motor Company, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Kraft Food, Wal-Mart - all Republican companies.
I sincerely hope that these boycotts work effectively so that the Republicans get themselves shot in the foot. In the meantime, let's mobilize ourselves and buy as much from blue merchants as possible.
Ally and other blue buyers, here's another way to support the blue -- switch your phone access to Working Assets. 1% of profits go to worthy organizations.
http://workingassets.org/
And for a TBA primer:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0607-05.htm
from Congressman John Conyers:
The lessons of Watergate are so telling and important today that it is eery, not to mention depressing:
– Back than we had an aggressive press corps – at least parts of it – willing to take a story and run with it, notwithstanding blowback from the White House. Today we have a paid government propoganda machine and a largely compliant press, although we do have a blogosphere attempting to lead – or shame – the MSM into dong the right thing.
– Back than we had men of courage, such as Mark Felt, John Dean, Leon Jaworski and Archibald Cox, who were willing to challenge authority and abuses of power. Today, when individuals such as Richard Clarke or Paul O'Neil step forward, they are subject to shame and ridicule by the White House.
– Back than we had a Justice Department that was willing to take an investigation wherever it would lead. Even before the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre,” the FBI and DOJ were aggressively pursuing leads. Today we have a Justice Department that sees or hears no evil when it comes to the Administration, and has operated as a willing accomplice to torture and rendition.
– Back than we had a Congress that was willing to hold real hearings and conduct real oversight of official misconduct – see Sam Ervin and the recently deceased Peter Rodino. Today, we have one party rule, and all too many in Congress simply take their marching orders from the White House, rather than stand up for what’s right.
read more~
http://www.conyersblog.us/
on.to it's great that we have legislators willing to stand up for us. If anyone hasn't done 5 minutes for democracy yet today, here's a great way to help bring attention to the Downing St. Memo. Support Conyers' letter to President Bush by going here:
http://www.johnconyers.campaignoffice.com/index.asp?Type=SUPERFORMS&SEC={BBD20340-D3E5-447E-9094-37D7458E305B}
IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT DCP EMAIL
We've have been notified that email has been received by various people that appears to have been sent from DCP using the email address: info@democracycellproject.net
It has a zipfile attachment. It may or may not have a message about closing your email account.
DO NOT OPEN IT. DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY.
The DCP is not sending out any zip files. Good luck ... the DCP Crew
http://www.1310wdtw.com/nancy_skinner.html
Nancy Skinners website.
I sincerely hope that these boycotts work effectively so that the Republicans get themselves shot in the foot. In the meantime, let's mobilize ourselves and buy as much from blue merchants as possible.
Posted by: AllyMcLesbian at June 1, 2005 11:33 AM
Amen to that! I don't care what these corporations who gave so much to elect this radical administration do to try to repair their reputations with progressives. I buy blue. Or neutral.
Hey Casey...Good "Get" with the interview with Edwards...pics look great.