Camp Neocon

This is satire but makes my blood run cold, as there are conspiracy theories that I would not want to even discuss on the internet that this makes me think of.

Yes - my son & I just watched part of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" & that also evokes images of "Neocon Camp"

...but there is hope...and alot of it lies with the young generation who face a short life as "cannon fodder" if they don't pay attention. This Jon Stewart-watching group helped us come really close in the last election.

Clinton and Other Democratic Leaders Urge Young Liberals to Get Involved

Special to The Washington Post

Some of the biggest names in Democratic politics convened yesterday to focus on what they believe is the long-term remedy to their party's woes: cultivating a new generation of activists.

Former president Bill Clinton and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) were the headliners among a host of operatives, writers and artists who gathered at the Washington Convention Center for a day-long series of speeches and panel discussions designed to energize about 600 visiting students.

"You don't have to wait until your party is in power to have an impact on life at home and around the world," Clinton told a hushed crowd, urging them to embrace grass-roots organizing. "This ain't supposed to be easy, and you have to work at it. I promise you our adversaries work at it."

The suspicion that the right is working harder at it, in fact, is what led the liberal Center for American Progress to organize the event. David Halperin, a former speechwriter in the Clinton White House and the conference's coordinator, estimated that conservative groups spend more than $35 million a year on such efforts. By contrast, he said, the left has invested comparatively little effort or money in cultivating the next generation of activists and would-be leaders.

"We've been on the defensive for 25 years," Halperin said. "There's been a lot of focus on the day-to-day -- just getting through the day -- without having a rollback on civil rights or environmental protections. The idea that you could do that and, at the same time, invest in the future seems a little daunting. . . . We've learned some things from what conservatives have done better, particularly in developing and communicating ideas, in promoting news leaders and in trying to bring people together who are interested in different issues but who have the same general political orientation."

In some cases, groups such as Young America's Foundation, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Leadership Institute have been doing for years the type of work Halperin wants to emulate -- supporting conservative student publications, sending favored speakers to college campuses, bringing students to Washington for conferences.

In general, colleges have long been liberal bastions, with Democratic presidential candidates routinely winning the student vote and with polls indicating that professors are on average further to the left in their views than most voters. Last year, exit polls showed that Democratic nominee John F. Kerry defeated President Bush among voters between ages 18 and 29 by more than 10 percentage points -- the only age group the Massachusetts senator won.

But this traditional advantage has not been supplemented by long-term efforts to promote an ideological movement. The center's effort, launched in February with a budget of $650,000, includes grants for liberal student publications, a program that sends its own speakers on the college lecture circuit and support for campus protests, such as a mock filibuster earlier this year at Princeton University.

But the convention, the center's first, is its most visible event. Much of the day was filled with panels teaching students how to articulate the party's message. Strategist Paul Begala, Thomas Frank -- author of "What's the Matter with Kansas?" -- and Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel hashed over the reasons Bush won a second term. MoveOn.org's Tom Matzzie and American Prospect editor Garance Franke-Ruta spoke on "advocacy writing and blogging." Indie rocker Ted Leo and cartoonist David Rees -- author of "Get Your War On" -- discussed "mobilizing the arts for change."

For Jessica Dauphin and Samantha Blanchard, two students from Middle Tennessee State University, the event was a chance to meet like-minded students that, they said, are often difficult to find in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Cathy Kunkel, a senior at Princeton, said she was looking to trade tips on how to organize disparate student issue groups around a single Democratic banner. Brandon Routman, a junior at Pomona College, said he came away inspired by Clinton's expansive defense of the Democratic Party.

Speaking of politically lame...

Gov. Cancels Magazine Contract
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-governor16jul16,0,3694236.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Friday that he would cancel his multimillion-dollar consulting contract with a publisher of health and bodybuilding magazines, amid complaints of a conflict of interest.

The announcement came a day after his top aide dubbed the controversy "much ado about nothing" and rejected calls for Schwarzenegger to end his relationship with American Media Inc. The company publishes Muscle & Fitness and Flex magazines, as well as the tabloids National Enquirer and the Globe.

"When I became governor, I pledged to put the people of California front and center," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "I don't want there to be any question or doubt that the people have my full devotion...

...Schwarzenegger's office said the governor would not return money he had already been paid for the contract, which took effect Jan. 1, 2004. The staff would not reveal that amount, but the contract called for a minimum of $1 million a year. The office said Schwarzenegger would continue to write monthly columns for Muscle & Fitness and Flex, without a paycheck.

"Vote them out now, prosecute them later."
Posted by: Toolmaker at July 16, 2005 01:03 PM

Amen to that. I put it in my email signature collection.

DiAnne, I found the article reporting on the efforts to get more young Dems involved very interesting. I love the line "I promise you, our adversaries work at it."

I used to be involved with the Republicans, and I can tell you, they work at it. Maybe not harder, but differently, much more efficiently.

Democrats do way too much talking, expressing their own personal "feelings" and complaining about their own team. They do "showy things" but the boring, tedious clerical jobs that can make a difference are less popular.

We should have lawyers working on Rovegate (which i think is the unravelling of all that cheney-halliburton did to con congress into supporting the Bush invasion of Iraq) and the rest of us should be talking constantly about getting out of Iraq.

Every day should be another day of attacking this administration on their incompetence with regard to our national security - right from the FACT that they were twiddling their thumbs while terrorist threats went unheeded and New York was attacked, to their infantile, ignorant and disastrous response to that attack - a fear REACTION that has made things a thousand times worse.

Bush-Cheney reacted in FEAR, and as a result, dragged America into an illegal and unwise military quagmire that will result in the deaths of Americans for decades. Leadership that is not; it's scaredy-cat, craven reaction.

Moderate Americans aren't going to come on side with the struggle for a return to democracy through accusations of criminal activity, immoral actions or even greed. Americans WILL come on side when they realize how inept and incompetent the Republicans have become. The Republicans are a frightened, weak-kneed bunch of bullies that use bluster in place of wisdom, bombs in place of diplomacy. We need to rein them in with a new senate, a new congress.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9482.htm
Not hate, vengeance

Mundher al-Adhami

07/16/05 "The Guardian" - - The two-minute silence brought the tears forth again, as I thought about the victims, and their tenuous connections with me. Shahara Islam, who died on the number 30 bus, is from Plaistow, where one of my daughters lives. All those others, whose pictures stare out of our newspapers, worked in London, where I also work, and I wonder if I ever crossed paths with them. Then there is the 18-year-old who killed them and himself. He is from Leeds where another member of my family lives. He too is a victim of religious madness. And then I think of the 32 children who lived in a poor area of Baghdad and died in a suicide bombing there on Wednesday. I know the area, and I cry for those children too.

Tony Blair talks about "them" hating "our values and our way of life". But I have seen atrocities like last week's London bombings taking place in Iraq over the past two years. Attacks there, as those in London, are not about hating anybody's way of life, but straightforward revenge: revenge for Falluja and al-Qaim - and for Palestine and Afghanistan, which have been subsumed in them.
The pictures of Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine, with their dust and grime, might be different to the pictures of the London bombs, but they represent a continuity. The war of revenge and collective punishment has arrived in London. And it has its own rationality. Don't give me the nonsense about why do they hate us. They don't.

The response to the neo-colonial adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq should surprise no one. Islamist extremism and terrorism, unknown in Iraq before occupation, now fights side by side with the more measured Iraqi resistance. It responds with callous bombs there, and now in the west.

The spirit of revenge becomes more planned, merging with nationalist or faith ideology such as al-Qaida's, and the targets become more diffuse. Perhaps even in the west, identification with innocent people hit by bombs and napalm - their voices unheard and names unknown - in remote lands of the prophets makes for a holy madness among susceptible youngsters.

As other suicide bombers have said, they may regret the loss of innocent lives in their political, murderous acts - but they atone with their own lives and hope God forgives them. The logic is clear: your security is only assured if ours is. If our women and children are killed, then your women and children are killed.

The policies of Bush and Blair have made life much more dangerous for all of us. Muslims in London are as much victims of atrocities as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. And, as happened after September 11, those back home phone, worrying about us here - because of the bombs as much as a racist backlash.

The British public have deep sympathy and understanding of the folly of the Iraq war, and will not condone any backlash. On the other hand, they have not yet made their mark as the people of Spain and others did, forcing their governments to withdraw from Bush's evil "coalition of the willing". And they should.

183; Mundher al-Adhami, an exile from Saddam Hussein's regime, is a co-founder of the Iraq Anti-Occupation Forum - Email -
mundher.aladhami@hotmail.com

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

Dear Polly Sigh:

This must be Satire Saturday.... or else the stars are aligned perfectly for people to be able to see the ridiculous and the sublime in the awful reality in this world, especially this country, at the present time.... and I fear it will only get worse as truth comes to light.

Since you are so very adept at satire, I believe you will also appreciate the piece written on the below link....

The World According to the Neo-Con Sympathisers
By Yamin Zakaria
Fasten your seat belts, sit tight and I will show you the world according to the neo-cons, Zionists, right-wing Republicans, fundamentalist Christians and the KKK.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9485.htm

Dear Polly Sigh -
Another cruel irony.....

Genesis of an American Gestapo
The nation's steep descent into despotism was barely greeted with a whimper of protest from the mainstream press.
By Mike Whitney
The freshly minted National Security Service, which has been dubbed the New SS, will operate under the authority of former ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, whose involvement in overseeing the terrorist activities of death squads in Nicaragua will provide him with the necessary experience for his new task.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9483.htm

did someone mention NeoCons...
Has anybody seen Cheney lately?
what if Plame/Wilson is about far more than Rove and Miller? Instead of just Rovegate, suppose we're headed for Bolton to Cheneygate?
Interesting reading:

Rove-gate: Who Leaked to the Leakers?
July 15, 2005

snip~
"There's more there. Why not find it?"

Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald is now in the process of finding it – and Rove is not his real quarry, although he and some others in the White House could wind up as collateral damage. By all indications, Bulldog's real target points more in the direction of the Office of the Vice President. Ambassador Wilson knows who

continue~
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6677

When Cheney Met Plame

(The following may be classified; or it may be fictional)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/11/53942/4622

Bravo, Polly!

I would say this time you outdid yourself, but that would be hard to do, since all your training in areas of clandestine political operations makes you one of a very select few in this nation, and indeed the world, to possess the wisdom, insight, and knowledge you do.

I wait each week with high anticipation for the release of your column, because I know you will share with us a few nuggets you have gathered along your way.

Where can I sign up for a tour of Camp Neocon?
Also, do you know where I could go to apply for a position there? I think I would be especially apt at leading fraternity games. The idea of a
"Bible Flush and Light Show" really gets my adrenaline rushing, if you know what I mean. And I would love to engage in administering any games that include the use of dog training equipment. I get more and more excited every minute, just thinking of it...

Polly, I have some friends I would love to send to Camp Neocon by providing a scholarship for them. I really think it will be an awakening experience for them, and that they will have the time of their life. Also, rumor has it that one of them really supports fraternity games at camp, because he is sure they don't violate any guidelines of the Geneva Camp Convention. (I would like to enroll him in twelve continuous camp sessions.)

Since most of my friends I mention managed to avoid service in Vietnam by various methods, (some student deferments, some multiple deferments, and one just appeared to have gone AWOL), I am sure they are tired of being labeled craven cowards, and would welcome the opportunity to redeem their image by proudly taking part in all camp activities. I'm sure they will especially love the experience of acting and performing like dogs. After they take off their bras, of course, and stop dancing nude in front of all the camp counselors. (These are upper class guys. I hope they don't confuse camp with a nudist colony.) And, woah, they haven't lived until they've been hooked up to a few electrical currents where it matters most. Makes Viagra look like baby aspirin, you know what I mean?

Here's the list of the friends I want to send to Camp Neocon. Please rush me their applications.

l. George W. Bush
2. Dick Cheney
3. Donald Rumsfeld
4. Karl Rove

Thank you. I'll be waiting very excitedly to hear back from you.

"Cathy Kunkel, a senior at Princeton, said she was looking to trade tips on how to organize disparate student issue groups around a single Democratic banner."

Posted by: DiAnne at July 16, 2005 05:04 PM

Cathy was one of the Princeton filibuster leaders and gave us some great advice afterwards (See the Tool Kit section of the DCP Forum for her advice).

It will be so wonderful to see those leaders emerge in years to come. They were great kids and emerging activists.

Frank Rich's NYT column this weekend:

"This case is about Iraq, not Niger."

Follow the Uranium

By FRANK RICH NYT
Published: July 17, 2005

WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Mr. Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him - or on most of the other supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players.

snip~
This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

So put aside Mr. Wilson's February 2002 trip to Africa. The plot that matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that Saddam was "actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." The vice president went on to repeat this charge in May on "Meet the Press," in three speeches in August and on "Meet the Press" yet again in September. Along the way the frightening word "uranium" was thrown into the mix.

continue~
http://tinyurl.com/d63t9

OTV,
Thanks for sharing that. Frank Rich is moving up in my estimation...

Karen,
Something has really been bothering the fringes of my memory, and I didn't realize what it was until I read Frank Rich's column today.

Its Sen. Pat Roberts...R-KS.
Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee....who was in charge of the hearings to look into "faulty prewar intelligence", and ended up basically saying the CIA got the facts wrong...conclusion: "everyone was at fault, so no one was held accountable"...
This was before the election...and I remember on several tv appearances he said that the Intelligence Committee was going to do a completely separate set of hearings, AFTER the election. (The timing for that didn't surprise anyone.)
But the election came & went...with the war cabal still in power, still able to hide the facts.
Sen. Roberts now essentially says, no need for another "reason for war" hearings, that's been done, we're in Iraq now, so get over it.

No new hearings on faulty intelligence on why we went to war, despite DSM.
Why are Sen Rockefeller D-WVA (Ranking member) and other DEM Senators not screaming for hearings/ Congressional oversight on "fixing the facts" in the run up to the Iraq war??????
Perhaps they need to lose some of their Senate "decorum" and start demanding answers.
They need to start grabbing microphones, pounding desks, whatever....get some REAL hearings going on Bu$h/Cheney fixing the facts...and I don't want to hear something so stupid as "but the Republicans won't let us."

If our Senate Dem leaders cannot DEMAND real oversight hearings, after ALL that has come out from under the rocks this past week, then WHEN and WHAT does it take to get them to ACT????

OTV

I agree with you. Also there is http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05237.html that explains some of this too.

This is it...this is what has been bothering me:

Credit the NYTimes, June 21, 2003
Its time for Senate Democrats to break this "deal"!

Senate Panel Strikes Deal on Inquiry Into Iraq Arms Intelligence

by James Risen Published on Saturday, June 21, 2003 by the New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 20 — Senate leaders reached a compromise agreement today on the scope of their investigation into the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq, breaking a political logjam that had threatened the chances for a bipartisan approach to the inquiry.

In effect, the compromise calls for the Republicans to agree to conduct a review, through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, while the Democrats agree not to call it an investigation. The compromise appears to allow both sides to claim victory in what had turned into a tense, partisan showdown within the normally quiet confines of one of the most secretive committees in Congress.

In a joint statement this afternoon, Senator Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who is chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is the vice chairman and ranking Democrat, announced a "joint commitment" to conduct a "thorough review" of the prewar intelligence. Neither lawmaker used the word "investigation" to describe their plan of action.

Congressional officials said the wording of today's statement was carefully crafted by both senators, underscoring the political importance to both parties of the language employed by Congress as lawmakers wade cautiously into one of the most volatile political issues facing the nation today.

Republicans appear determined to limit the damage to the Bush administration from the increasing questions about the failure to find Iraq's unconventional weapons since the end of the war. Leading Democrats, meanwhile, appear uncertain about how aggressively to pursue the issue of prewar intelligence out of fear that evidence of Iraq's weapons program might surface any day, leaving them out on a political limb.

continue~ from the archives
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0621-04.htm

OTV,

Maybe we need to do that too. Maybe that is the "draw" to freeway blogging.

OTV,

I just saw your last post. That bothers me too. Is it a Phyric victory to have a "investigation" but to have to call it by a prettier name? Or is it a complete loss and a victory to the neocons and republicans to get to call the investigation 'a review'?

I think the American people want to see backbone and no more white washing from either party.

Senate Intelligence Committee
DEMOCRATS
John D. Rockefeller IV, West Va, Vice Chairman
Carl Levin, Michigan
Dianne Feinstein, California
Ron Wyden, Oregon
Evan Bayh, Indiana
Barbara A. Mikulski, Maryland
Jon S. Corzine, New Jersey
Ex Officio Member
Harry Reid, Nevada

[I have letters to write]

I was just reading a site I try to get to once every couple of days.

A person posted something on this site that sounds pretty right on with what I have been feeling, but I sure would appreciate a few of you here giving it a quick read and letting me know what you think about the chance these predictions could come true?

Thanks.

As a bit of a lead in, a fellow has a website for Christians to discuss current events and political happenings. He has been contemplating running for office in his state. He definately knows the danger inherent in mixing church and state, but feels he can do some good in the government as a citizen, not a person of religion.
He threw the question out to others to toss around, to see what people thought of the idea. One person said it was too late, that America has been bankrupted, and in a very short time we will have conditions in the U.S. that make the Great Depression look mild. He feels that the U.S. and the current administration has not only bankrupted the nation, but the whole world.

http://www.publicchristian.com/index.php?p=258#comment-618

It is reply #5.

"Anonymous bitter fruit", etc. "The money is already gone!".......

Does anybody here know much about the world of finance? Has this government actually bankrupted us? This is a chilling reply.

more....

Reply #6.

By the way, the bankruptcy picture applies to states and municipalities throughout the US. It is a house of cards, with all the parts about to collapse as one.

Some 15% of major municipalities have now declared bankruptcy. This was the reason in part for the recent Supreme Court decision to enlarge the powers of eminent domain to include private interests seizing people’s assets for reasons other than public works. This is because Scalia and the rest of the judges know the real estate bubble will explode, and they want to clear the way for all the broke municipalities to clean up on all the defaulted mortgages which soon will happen. Right now 16% of US mortgages are in foreclosure.

Your government knows the score, knows how bad it all is. But if you think Washington cares about us, guess again. They are running the administration with boilerplate CIA techniques, beholden to confusion, fear, terror, and destruction. They‘ve been practicing up all over the world for 60 years, and now that George Sr. has a little puppet in the White House, we are experiencing what the CIA‘s victims did for all those years.

Their primary art form is terror and confusion. We will see more of that on every front, particularly with the economy. This is a snare. We now have a CIA-style government (ask around in South and Central America…). They mean us harm. It is how they get things done. All the better to keep us quarreling about abortion and gay marriage while they rob the coffers.

It will also be the worst in the US, where 2/3 of the people live 1,00 - 2,000 miles away from food production areas. We will see this nation-state fold for bad logistics. Never has a nation-state been so poorly set up, to allow a possibility of complete collapse due to the masses’ lack of proximity to food. We rely on trucks to bring us food, and most people don‘t know how to grow food anymore in the US. Kids think milk and eggs are made in factories. Once some “terrorist” event stops trucks from rolling, what happens when a couple hundred million people who have guns but not food take to the streets? This will be ugly, guaranteed. And I wish I were wrong, but it is far too late to legislate.

http://www.publicchristian.com/index.php?p=258#comment-618

MODERATORS: If you feel this is not suitable for this blog, please remove. It shook me up!
Thanks.

ENGLAND:  
White House in panic over spy scandal

MINNEAPOLIS:
A Secret Known, A Cover Blown

SOUTH AFRICA:
The Outing of a Coward

SCOTLAND:
Bush stands behind his chief adviser

JAPAN
All Hail the Land of the Free, Or Else

NEW YORK:
'Indispensable': Does It Have a Shelf Life?
The Subtle Art of Saying "No Comment"

INDIA:
Rove testifies columnist named the CIA agent

ITALY:
Case for Impeachment

DALLAS:
Karl Canned

CANADA:
Rove Framed?

LOS ANGELES:
Shades of Cover

GERMANY:
Key Bush Advisor Central Figure in CIA Leak Case

FRANCE (Collective Bellacio - rememember it's leftist):
The Screwing of America and the Stain on the Flag

ARGENTINA:
Escándalo Rove amenaza al gobierno de Bush

AUSTRIA:
Ein Sturm im Wasserglas

SWITZERLAND:
Vorwürfe gegen Bush-Intimus Rove

CANADA:
Les faucons à la rescousse de Karl Rove

CHILE:
Tal parece que Karl Rove está sobre la ley

CHINA:
÷–π˙π˙º ∑˛◊∞≥«≈∑÷fi’–…Ã≥ı’Ω∏ÊΩ› (Rove)

GERMANY:
Die Spur führt ins Oval Office

SPAIN:
Escándalo Rove amenaza al gobierno de Bush

US (World Net Daily):
Public urged to 'dump' on Rove's home

NEW ZEALAND:
Pressure Mounts on Karl Rove

MEXICO:
Karl Rove, el más poderoso asistente presidencial arriesga pena

KOREA:
roveø° ¥Î«ÿ ¿œƒ°«œ¥¬ πƺ≠∏¶ √£¿ª ºˆ æ¯Ω¿¥œ¥Ÿ.

ITALY:
«E ora Bush deve cacciare Rove» Non si placa la bufera sul Cia ..

THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING

Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at July 16, 2005 09:39 PM

Truth,
I don't know much about world finance, but I follow Krugman and other economists, as much as I can. Krugman has been trying to wake us all up for some time now, about deficits, ballooning debts, etc.
I do know Fed Chairman Greenspan is due to retire next year, and Bu$h will get to appoint his successor....yet another Bu$h appointed position, like the SC, that will have lasting effects.

I read the opinion piece you referenced, and while the writer makes some points I agree with, I'm not ready yet to go totally that pessimistic. Although I personally know a couple of elderly people who lived through the Great Depression, and their stories have always made an impression on me, to try to avoid taking on too much debt.
I think it is true, by & large, average Americans are 1 or 2 paychecks (or 1 medical crisis) away from financial disaster. Average Americans are treading water, working harder and harder to pay living expenses, and sometimes having to use credit for necessities as well as a few "luxuries".
On the national level, that is what is so insidious about this administration. Pushing mountains of debt onto future generations. Sooner or later, the bill will come due. I'm not sure anyone can stop that and the economical crisis that will cause. Maybe that's why half this country doesn't want to admit the truth.
But despite all that, I have to be optimistic. I don't know who our next President will be, and if a new administration can start turning this around. That's why the '04 election was so important, on too many levels to count.
Like JK said, "Everything is at stake."

Truth Shall Prevail

I think that's a plausible scenario but I rhink alot of the info is out there. The financial magazines and columnists encourage us to look in the short term. I'd rather trust Paul Krugman or Robert Reich anyday.

Our debt is item number 2 in the budget & I have heard that when/if that becomes number 1, then we are bankrupt. As far as I know, 40% of a typical mortgage is foreign-owned. We literally have to borrow money from China to get wholesale goods from them to sell.

I think it's a very bad time for people to be selling their houses and taking on even bigger mortgages, to be buying with interest-free and/or adjustable rate mortgage loans, to be buying low-efficiency SUVs on credit. It's a very bad time to be accepting credit cards with high interest and maxing them out. I don't even think it's a good time to start a small business, unless doing alot of market research and in an almost-guaranteed "niche".

I also don't think the government is hiding much from us, other than touting the most positive market indicators. It's so obvious that's a slant, if you look at a longer time-frame. They can say employment is up but many are holding 2-3 part-time jobs, none with benefits.

The stock market is where it was 6 years ago, just over 10,000 for the DOW. Interest on money saved is negligible so many don't save. No matter what happens with Social Security, many will rely on it as their only source of income - part of this because of bad luck, bad jobs, lack of training but also for some - bad management and denial.

The trade deficit changes depending on currency. The dollar is climbing back up against the Euro - good for travellers to Europe but not so good for our exports. Greenspan will be out of the picture soon. We may get someone worse. Countires like China depend on us alot as consumers, but if something geopolitical shakes that up (Taiwan? N Korea?), they can find others to trade with and can also stop buying our bonds.

Some people will make out like bandits - those who own alot of petrol and munitions stocks.
As we said (ironically) in the late '60s - "War's good business, invest your sons." Some people who are in the "investor class" will make out well or those who benefit from decrease in "estate tax" (heirs).

I have a friend who is panicked so is leaving Florida & has bought a parcel of land on Vancouver Island. He has been taking money out of US currency & putting it into gold for a long time. But he's moving from a "red" place - his family doesn't even know.

We would not be in this fix if we were not in a petroleum economy. We could have a hydrogen economy by now. The only waste product is water. We could have fusion energy. We will not be the first to develop these and we are not on the cutting edge.

I also heard a provocative commentary on NPR. We are falling behind on science. If countries which permit stem cell and cloning research combined (which uses embryos) come up with cures for diabetes and Parkinsons, this will cause bioethical issues in places like the US.

The other thing that could throw our economy into chaos is a terrorist attack. 9/11 was a large attack and first. Madrid, Bali and London had a smaller effect on our economy but were smaller and off our shores (not to minimize them). Even hurricanes and tsunamis influence our economy through unforeseen drains at the same time we are throwing money into Iraq and Afganistan - for wars that were supposed to be battles and were supposed to be over in 5 days, 5 weeks or maybe 5 months a la Rumsfeld.

I think the article is a bit alarmist but some good issues are raised. Also some doomsayers panic around the end of each Millennium & this has been no exception.

notmypresident: I have suspected Cheney and Libby for weeks as the power behind the Plame saga.It just fits with he and his wife's personalities. Cheney reminds me a lot of Agnew and his power thirsty ideologoy to destroy anyone in his way. Wilson was obviously in the way of W making his case about Iraq, I think many here would be glad to see Cheney removed from office, the only problem is that there is no Sam Irwin or even a Fred Thompson in Congress, and the last time I checked there are no tapes in Cheney's office. As I recall Senators Dole and Baker were apologists for Nixon right up and until the end when they heard the tapes and even then w/o a Democratic Congress who thinks that Nixon would have ever have been persued by a Republican Congress.
If this story continues throughout the rest of the summer, W's term is effectively finished, as is SS and tax reform, and it is at that time that Democratic leaders will need to show an alternative path. Perhaps that path can start with the message, let's clean up Washington.

Truth,

Truthfully, I believe the conditions are arising for that to happen. I have spoken to elderly who lived through the depression and they would say they have never seen anything as bad as what we have now.

In fact, to them, what we have now is worse than what they had then, because now we all live in separate bubbles unwilling to help each other and back then neighbors supported each other and helped each other out.

Back then, if there was a job, they gave it to someone here. Now, if there is a job, they ship it overseas for slave labor.

Back then, there were many farms, crop, and local "swaps" for making trades. Now,it's the ole hard-cold cash or credit.

Back then, there were lots of mom and pop type businesses to run and support. Now, they've run them all out of business.

Is the article pessimistic or extreme, I think it's got too many valid points to be taken off the table.

Ira,

Great message! "Let's clean up Washington!"

I concur. Time to clean up Washington. Anybody got a broom?

Chuck in Houston

Thanks NMP, DiAnne, and Sparrow, for taking a look at that article.

This may sound like yet again I need to go out and get a 4 antennaed tin foil hat, but listen:

In Feb. 2001, the economy got real sluggish, almost overnight. I worked in a travel related industry that depended on sales of luxury items like vacation real estate and airline tickets, etc. The spring and summer the year before, we had been insanely busy. We had customers coming out of our ears. Business was good, and when I took that job it was an employees market. You could negotiate on your salary and benefits, and get your desires met because everything was booming. In Feb. 2001, when it began to slow down, it was like a strange pall came over the entire industry. It was a recession, and it was affecting many across the nation. People began to be laid off, and they truly started with the oldest people, because they had more needs medically, and that affected the price of insurance premiums, and the co. was paying half, the employee the other half. They laid off, systematically, all the sales office but the manager. Several departments were closed completely. I was laid off two weeks before 9-11.
Well, we all know what happened to the economy after that, my girlfriend and I went to lunch in the city one day about a week later, and there were two tables filled, including ours. The waitress said people were afraid to come out of their homes and businesses, because they weren't sure what was going to happen next.

Jobs began to be increasingly hard to get....it was now an employers market, and wages went down considerably, along with benefits. I had real good unemployment benefits and was able to keep afloat on that, but utilities then went sky high because of California's energy "crisis", and even though our governor promised us we wouldn't have to pay for California's mistake, I later read we helped bail them out. My heat and electricity payment was $250.00 per mo. on a small home.

At that time, a lady came to see me, to try to talk me into refinancing my house. She was from Citi-Corp. Her regional manager told me that Citi-Corp was the second largest corporation in the world, second only to General Electric. The wheels started turning for me at that point, because right about that time, those people were everywhere. All my friends and acquaintences were being solicited to refinance their homes through this company. At the time I thought, well the economy is bad now, if it gets worse, what are all these people going to do? Their homes will naturally go into foreclosure, and the corporation financing them gets their property!
I told her thanks but no thanks, sold my home and left Dodge.

I was fortunate and found employment once I got resettled.

One of my relatives was laid off the Friday following 9-11 because she/he worked in a travel related business also. Almost 4 years later and this person is still unemployed. When the same relative went to an unemployment counselor here, after the war in Iraq was 6 mos. along, he was told "This is the first time in American history a war hasn't brought us out of a recession."

The whole thing is strange.

DiAnne,

I had no idea George gets to name the head of the "Federal Reserve" (which is not federal, nor is it a reserve.) ANYTHING ELSE?

(Is it happy hour yet? Make mine a double.)

Ira,

I so hope you are right. I just don't know if we can make it another 3 1/2 years.

Chuck in Houston to All:

You know, it just struck me, with prompting, that this Rove thing may actually be a Rove/Bush vs. Libby/Cheney thing. I've always thought that the Bush clan was a bit sceptical of the Neocon thing and that the Neocon thing was more of a Cheney operation. Maybe that is where the wedge needs to be driven.

Chuck in Houston

Chuck in Houston with a folow up to prior:

Let's never forget that these guys are just people. like you and me. They get into disagreements too. They make plenty of mistakes too. The facade of loyalty and unity on their part must be cracked. That may be the key. Thus has it always been with would-be dictators.

Chuck in Houston

Day after day this week there has been slaughter of civilians in Iraq. I havent seen any TV news & don[t know id the public is paying attention or not-- thre were the children earlier in the week, 3 suicide bombers Thursday, 10 suicide bombers in different parts of Bagdhad Fri (yesterday) & now, today, a suicide bomber in a fuel truck who killed at least 60 people. There must have been many others who were horribly burned. Where are the memorials of flowers? But then, it's THERE, not London or DC... just the way Bush wants it.
___________

Suicide bomber in fuel truck kills 60 in Iraq
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-07-17T013810Z_01_N16191443_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAQ-DC.XML

A suicide bomber in a fuel truck killed at least 60 people near a crowded vegetable market in a town south of Baghdad on Saturday and al Qaeda warned of more violence in a bid to seize the Iraqi capital.

The blast near a Shi'ite mosque in Musayyib, near Kerbala, also wounded 82 people and destroyed nine cars, police said.

"This is a black day in the history of the town," Musayyib police chief Yas Khudayr told Reuters by telephone.

Some people who rushed to the scene discovered they had lost loved ones. "After the bomb I went over there and found my son's head. I could not find his body," said Mohsen Jassim of his 18-year-old son.

Al Qaeda, which inspires suicide bombers from across the Arab world to wage holy war in Iraq, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing campaign in its second day and said more violence would follow.

"The 'Hassan Ibrahim al-Zaidi attack' continues for the second day in a row, with rigged cars, martyrdom attacks and clashes," said an al Qaeda statement on a Web site.

"The operation is continuing as planned and we warn the enemies of God of more to come. We ask our Muslim brothers around the world to pray for God to grant us victory."

In Amara in southeast Iraq, three British soldiers died in what the Ministry of Defense in London said was a suspected roadside bomb. A little-known Iraqi insurgent group said in a Web statement that it was behind the killing.

"Thank God, this morning ... three British soldiers were killed and at least three others were injured by exploding a package by their patrol in the Maysan province," the group, calling itself the Imam Hussein Brigades, said.

The statement was posted on a site used by the main Iraqi insurgent groups, including the al Qaeda group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But unlike those mainly Sunni groups, the name suggested it was a Shi'ite group. It said it also killed an Iraqi judge in the town of Nassiriya.

In a separate attack in northern Iraq, an explosive device killed an American soldier and wounded two others in Kirkuk province, the U.S. military said in a statement.

EXTRA CHECKPOINTS

In Baghdad, tense officers manned extra police checkpoints throughout the capital, Reuters journalists and drivers reported, after the series of blasts on Friday.

Suicide bombers have consistently undermined government promises that January elections would pacify the country and violence has raised fears Iraq could slide toward civil war.

"Through the day and the night, Baghdad rang with the music of the mujahideen's bullets and the prayers of the martyrs," al Qaeda said in another Internet statement.

The two days of spectacular attacks followed a thwarted triple suicide attack at a gate to Baghdad's fortified Green Zone government compound on Thursday. A suicide car bomb on Wednesday near a U.S. patrol killed 27 people, mostly children.

Suicide bombs, which Iraqi officials say are orchestrated by groups like Zarqawi's, have increased sharply since the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government took power in April and Sunnis once dominant under Saddam Hussein were sidelined.

On the diplomatic front, Iraqi's Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari arrived in Iran for the first visit in decades by a leader of Iraq to its Shi'ite neighbor and former foe.

Jaafari's trip is seen as a historic opportunity to mend ties with a country that Iraq fought for eight years under Saddam. But too quick a rapprochement risks alienating both the United States and Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who are suspicious of Jaafari's Shi'ite-led government's ties to Shi'ite Iran.

"We consider Iraq as our brother," Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref told reporters in Tehran.

There were no signs that al Qaeda's militants had taken over any parts of the capital but the frenzy of suicide missions was a bloody reminder that the government still has a long way to go before stamping out such attacks.

Although Iraqi officials are optimistic about the country's security forces, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said it could take up to 12 years to stamp out the insurgency by Arab Sunnis bent on toppling the Shi'ite-led government.

Militants struck elsewhere hours before the Musayyib carnage, killing at least 16 people.

Those strikes came a day after 10 militants blew themselves up across Baghdad and an eleventh attacked Iskindiriya, south of the capital. In all they killed at least 32 people, police said.

Aimzzz,

Yes, alot of those reports have been on t.v. this week. I don't know if the violence has just increased, or if they are just now starting to report more about it. Tragic.

Posted by: not my president at July 16, 2005 10:07 PM

Thanks for the headlines. I am emailing those out tonight.

test

http://www.msnbc.com/comics/daily.asp?sfile=db050716&vts=71620051958
Doonesbury

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601064.html
White House Delay On Court Nominee Is Calculated Plan
Stretching Out Time for Selection Intended to Cut Into Senate Debate
{{I see someone else figured out the delay in naming the nominees strategy that I posted a couple of days ago....}}

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/16/AR2005071601330.html
Cheney Completes Annual Physical
{{Well, now we know where he's been for a couple of days???}}

Aimzz
I do think about all the civilians & we really don't hear much about it. http://www.iraqbodycount.org

other - just returned from my friend's 50th birthday party. Her son looked her up for the first time. She got pregnant when she was 18 & her parents made her go to a Home for Unwed Mothers. It was a very positive reunion - he's about to be a father for the lst time too. I took all the "4 generation" photos & the 2 families met. I also know that it was some conservative Texas Republicans meeting with soem liberal Seattle Democrats even though politics wasn't really discussed, and that there were alot of gay/lesbian couples. None of it really mattered tonight & besides, it was on "their" turf so it was evident that they were regular people & not some kind of "bizarros" - plus very incredible food spread, wines, flowers, music, gardens, moonlight, candlelight, dancing.

Can someone explain to me how it is that Novak hasn't broken the law by publishing his article outing Palme?

I don't think anyone is saying that Novak hasn't broken the law.
He's still walking around because the indictments haven't been issued yet. Obviously Fitzgerald is going to ask for indictments (if any) when he wraps up the case before the grand jury in October. Perhaps Novak will be indicted then, along with others. Or perhaps Novak will or has spilled his guts and will be a witness against others, in a deal for lesser charges or no charges at all.
We have to wait & see what Fitzgerald comes up with. No one has been charged with anything "yet". And so therefore, no one is off the hook, "yet".

If this drags on til October, we need to keep it going on the blogosphere and hopefully in the press, including and maybe especially the world press. If this government is going to do scandal, they deserve the scandal reputation.
Justice is done, then we rebuild completely.
That's what I'm visualizing.

Rove is a thing.
The mainstream press is (at least) feeling uneasy.
What about the future? The attacks go on day after day in Irak.
A very bad memo (for Tony) was issued today, and the Brits speak about their troops starting to leave...

What is George going to do with all his big lies, that are just slapping back to his face nowadays?

"Il faut savoir jusqu'où on peut aller trop loin"
(You have to know how too far you can go)

That's it. The guy went too far, and now he is ripe...to fall. Just wait.

I'm a big Saturday Night Fan and this link takes us to the Robert Smigel cartoon of the Republican Superhero: The Divertor. How unfortunately true its message rings.
http://www.milkandcookies.com/links/30845/