The Rational Radical's Weblog

Saturday, April 10, 2004

In Study, Most Companies Reported No Taxes

Nearly two-thirds of the companies operating in the United States reported owing no taxes from 1996 through 2000, according to a recent government study.

Wow, an awful lot of companies aren't making any money (wink, wink).

Jack Clark 8:56 PM [+]   
Post #108165578853240806

Another great Condomskeezer Lice picture.

Jack Clark 3:52 PM [+]   
Post #108163752963777028

When Condomskeezer Lice said no one could have imagined terrorists using a plane as a missile, I immediately thought back to Japanese kamikaze pilots in WWII. Lice doesn't even know about them, let alone all the recent intelligence that had pointed to just such a type of strike?

Jack Clark 3:21 PM [+]   
Post #108154930500898220

Giving Retirees a Fair Shake

To the Editor:

Of course privatization of Social Security is the choice of President Bush and his fellow conservatives (editorial, April 4). They would like nothing better than to eliminate Social Security completely. Wealthy conservatives do not count on nor do they need Social Security in the first place.

Wall Street, big corporations and wealthy individuals who are heavily invested in the stock market must be drooling over the potential for fresh billions pouring into the stock market. Just don't be surprised if the market rallies before the new money arrives, and the little guy investing his Social Security dollars arrives just in time for the big boys to cash out.

Yes, the "big boys" generally play the rest of the population for suckers in the market. Just one more mechanism by which those who set up the entire structure aggrandize wealth unto themselves.

Jack Clark 3:19 PM [+]   
Post #108154915340508244

Bill O'Reilly recently used this teaser, which takes the cake for sheer bluster: "The Factor will be back in a moment with the real story behind Jesus the man." I guess O'Reilly went back in time to find out, and he has the "real story" no one else does.

Jack Clark 3:16 PM [+]   
Post #108154896331433068

Last night, Fox's token eunuch, oops, I mean liberal, Alan "The Doormat"Colmes, was so happy to say that Condomskeezer Lice's testimony was "credible and articulate." Is Rupert now giving Colmes a script to read?

Jack Clark 3:13 PM [+]   
Post #108154878879053745

The Mercury Scandal

[T]he foxes have been put in charge of the henhouse. The head of the E.P.A.'s Office of Air and Radiation, like most key environmental appointees in the Bush administration, previously made his living representing polluting industries (which, in case you haven't guessed, are huge Republican donors). On mercury, the administration didn't just take industry views into account, it literally let the polluters write the regulations: much of the language of the administration's proposal came directly from lobbyists' memos.

E.P.A. experts normally study regulations before they are issued, but they were bypassed. According to The Los Angeles Times: 'E.P.A. staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. . . . E.P.A. veterans say they cannot recall another instance where the agency's technical experts were cut out of developing a major regulatory proposal.'

If the Bushians don't kill ya with bullets, bombs and missiles, they'll do you in with poison.

Jack Clark 3:11 PM [+]   
Post #108154866055863385

On Visit to Haiti, Powell Says the U.S. Weighs Prosecution of Aristide on Corruption Charges  Colon 'Third World People Killer' Powell is at it again: after engineering the overthrow of a democratically elected leader of a Black nation, now Powell wants to throw him in jail.

Jack Clark 3:08 PM [+]   
Post #108154850050177428

Bush Presidency Could Be Ultimate Casualty of War

But it is not only Democrats who are expressing doubts. On his radio program earlier this week, Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly suggested the situation in Iraq was 'like South Vietnam redux' and predicted that 'if it gets worse, there's no way [Bush] wins.'

'The American people are not going to absorb this kind of chaos for several years,' said Reilly, who had supported Bush on the war. 'I know this country, I know myself. If I'm seeing 10 bodies a weekend over the last weekend in October, that's going to influence my vote.'

Michael Harrison, publisher of the trade magazine Talkers, predicted other conservative radio hosts would turn against the president, after serving as one of his most loyal constituencies.

Many of them 'were out on a limb' in support of the war 'because of their respect for the presidency,' Harrison said. 'The fact is, it's a very uncomfortable position to be in, in conflict with the facts.'

The beginning of the end?

Jack Clark 1:32 PM [+]   
Post #108154275356982513

Too Much Hatred in Iraq for U.S. to Stay

In Iraq, the U.S. is now fighting on two fronts, against both those Sunnis still loyal to Saddam and against those Shiites, mostly young and poor, who follow the quasi-cultist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. For the first time, the generals are talking of the possible need for more troops.

All moderate leaders, whether religious or clerical, are bound to come under increasing pressure to take extreme 'Yanks out' stands, or risk losing their followers.

The risk is real that the U.S. could find itself trying to deal with a genuine, popular uprising.

This kind of explosion of general rage against the occupation would, in fact, be an expression of what most Iraqis actually want. In other words, it would be a genuine expression of democratic feeling.

If the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the Americans to go, they have to go. In the end, it's as brutal and as simple and as irrevocable as that.

Could this happen?

Jack Clark 8:47 PM [+]   
Post #108148246277268511

W.'s Second Term: If you Think the First is Bad ...  Scary stuff. Read it, anyone thinking of voting for Nader.

Jack Clark 8:42 PM [+]   
Post #108148212601521343

Claim vs. Fact: Rice's Q&A Testimony Before the 9/11 Commission  Facts, something the Bushians have a hard time relating to. Great -- and quickly produced -- stuff from the Center for American Progress, a recently-created liberal think tank that's already performing a crucial role.

Jack Clark 12:34 PM [+]   
Post #108145287765572030

Brazilian Efforts at Progress Are Mired in Political Scandal

Newly released government statistics show that the money Mr. da Silva invested in development projects in his first year in office was barely one-tenth that of his predecessor the previous year.

Going backwards is not good.

Jack Clark 4:31 PM [+]   
Post #108138067077964150

O'Reilly's far right ranting gets worse and worse. Last night he said "Tompaine.com bashes anything that isn't Fidel-Casto-like." Could any person with a scintilla of rationality go to the TomPaine website and liken it in any manner to Fidel Castro?! O'Reilly's unusually off the farm regarding this site because its editor is Bill Moyers's son, and O'Reilly is insanely and publicly jealous of the acclaim and respect Bill Moyers gets in the broadcasting industry.

Jack Clark 4:28 PM [+]   
Post #108138048662260891

New Demand Drives Canada's Baby Seal Hunt
 "Commercial hunting of baby seals is back and even bigger than when it stirred a global outcry two decades ago."

I wish some alien race would come and club these hunters and the people who buy this stuff in the head and then skin them alive.

Jack Clark 4:24 PM [+]   
Post #108138025911992307

Altering of Worker Time Cards Spurs Growing Number of Suits

Experts on compensation say that the illegal doctoring of hourly employees' time records is far more prevalent than most Americans believe. The practice, commonly called shaving time, is easily done and hard to detect — a simple matter of computer keystrokes — and has spurred a growing number of lawsuits and settlements against a wide range of businesses.

These guys and any superiors who encourage or tolerate it should go to jail for a long time.

Jack Clark 4:05 PM [+]   
Post #108137913971453800

We're More Productive. Who Gets the Money?

"This is the first time we've ever had a case where two years into a recovery, corporate profits got a larger share of the growth of national income than labor did. Normally labor gets about 65 percent and corporate profits about 15 to 18 percent. This time profits got 41 percent and labor [meaning all forms of employee compensation, including wages, benefits, salaries and the percentage of payroll taxes paid by employers] got 38 percent."

...The study is very clear on this point. The bulk of the gains did not go to workers, "but instead were used to boost profits, lower prices, or increase C.E.O. compensation."

This is a radical transformation of the way the bounty of this country has been distributed since World War II. Workers are being treated more and more like patrons in a rigged casino. They can't win.

...I have to laugh when I hear conservatives complaining about class warfare. They know this terrain better than anyone. They launched the war. They're waging it. And they're winning it.

The greed of those at the top seemingly knows no bounds.

Jack Clark 4:02 PM [+]   
Post #108137896995256832

Even Foxnews is calling what's going on in Iraq an "intensified and growing uprising involving Sunni and Shiites stretching from Kirkuk in the north to near Basra in the south."

Jack Clark 11:14 AM [+]   
Post #108136166932066286

IRAQ AT THE BOILING POINT  I don't agree with every position or analysis of this organization, but this article is a lot more honest and accurate than anything you will hear on the corporate-owned media.

Jack Clark 11:08 AM [+]   
Post #108136128824256351

California Voters Reject Wal-Mart Initiative

Voters in Inglewood, Calif., a racially diverse and economically struggling suburb of Los Angeles, soundly rejected on Tuesday a ballot initiative to permit construction of a Wal-Mart complex that would have exempted the 60-acre development from virtually all local oversight.

The vote against the Wal-Mart project, by a 2-to-1 margin, was a victory for a coalition of unions and community groups who said the shopping development would have driven local retailers out of business and gutted the city's legal, environmental and planning powers.

Great news, and massive kudos to the coalition that defeated Wal-Mart.

Jack Clark 10:55 AM [+]   
Post #108136055712792621

US Ties Bolster Kazakhstan's Soviet-Style Leader  As long as the guy does our bidding, our government doesn't really give a damn what he does to his own citizens, as our support for scores of dictators throughout the Third World over the past several decades proves.

Jack Clark 8:31 PM [+]   
Post #108130871735740668

The More We Try, the Worse Iraq Gets

Under the false conceit that the adventure made sense as part of the fight against terror, the U.S. seized a country containing a major portion of the world's most valued and scarce resource. Yet our leaders expect the natives to believe that the corporate camp followers of the U.S. military are only swarming over their country for the purpose of humanitarian reconstruction.

Just how dumb do we think they are? After all, Iraqis know their own tortuous history. Theirs is a country patched together at the end of a gun barrel by previous colonizers. The common denominator of those imperial designs was the exploitation of oil rather than the desire to produce a harmonious, let alone democratic, society.

Powerful column with other plain-spoken truths that you rarely hear from others in the mass media.

Jack Clark 8:28 PM [+]   
Post #108130851160655274

Violence in Iraq, Gibson's 'The Passion' and the Forgetting of Empire  Great piece analyzing the relationship between the distracting effect of Gibson's film and the imperial war of the Bushians.

Jack Clark 8:22 PM [+]   
Post #108130816379380951

Pentagon Report on Afghanistan Criticizes War Strategy: Report

A retired army colonel commissioned by the Pentagon to examine the war in Afghanistan concluded the conflict created conditions that have given 'warlordism, banditry and opium production a new lease on life.'

..."The failure to adjust US operations in line with the post-Taliban change in theater conditions cost the United States some of the fruits of victory and imposed additional, avoidable humanitarian and stability costs on Afghanistan," Rothstein wrote in the report.

"Indeed, the war's inadvertent effects may be more significant than we think."

...The war "effectively destroyed the Taliban but has been significantly less successful at being able to achieve the primary policy goal of ensuring that al Qaeda could no longer operate in Afghanistan," he wrote.

And here's the kicker, de rigueur for all stories about the Bushians when confronted with truths they don't like:

The Pentagon returned the report to Rothstein with a request he cut it drastically and soften his conclusions, the magazine reported.

Jack Clark 9:49 PM [+]   
Post #108122694592375193

White House Vetting Could Delay 9/11 Report Until After Election  If the report helps them, the Bushians will vet quickly and release it. If the report doesn't help them, the vetting will take a long time and not be finished before the November elections. Is there any doubt about this?

Jack Clark 9:45 PM [+]   
Post #108122673757726785

Rice Never Spoke About Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden Before 9/11, Investigation Shows

Rice was interviewed by dozens of print and broadcast journalists between January and September 2001. An extensive search of more than 400 news stories available on Lexis Nexus between January 1, 2001 and September 10, 2001 show that Rice never once spoke about the threat posed by al-Qaeda or its leader Osama bin Laden.

When Rice discussed terrorism in public speeches and interviews in 2001, she only utters the word to describe rogue nations such as Iraq and then follows it up by promoting President Bush’s National Missile Defense strategy.

Isn't Lexis Nexus wonderful for exposing liars!

Jack Clark 9:42 PM [+]   
Post #108122654408739529

A Vietnam-era Lesson in Telling the Truth  Wow, read this. In case you're not from that era, this piece shows that we can expect that we may be in for disclosure of even bigger lies by the Bushians.

Jack Clark 9:36 PM [+]   
Post #108122616122190365

Parable

CLN National Committee member, Rev. Conrad A. Braaten had this to say upon hearing President Bush's campaign speech on Wednesday evening:

The Bush administration's faith-based initiative works like this: Upriver, a pirate raiding party ravages a city, looting the middle-class and poor [of jobs, homes, health care, education, workplace protection...] and after throwing the hungry, homeless, jobless and disenfranchised into the Poverty River, hoping they will just disappear [a majority of whom are people of color], takes some of the loot taxed from these same victims to distribute to churches strategically located downstream and out of sight (i.e..awareness and understanding) of the big city carnage to help them pull a few folks from the current and give them a sandwich before they are dragged back into the raging waters. Then the pirate's PR people take pictures of the sandwich program and say to the world: 'We are not pirates pillaging the big city and pummeling people into the river. Look! we are the ones giving 'our money' to help those poor people get a bite to eat.' Meanwhile the churches, so grateful for the sandwich support, hail the pirate as 'great benefactor' and vote for him. 'Give them bread', said Caesar, 'and you will have their heart'.

A wonderful expansion on the throwing babies in the river parable.

Jack Clark 10:51 PM [+]   
Post #108114427279960121

Kerry, Candidate and Catholic, Creates Uneasiness for Church

Senator John Kerry's support for abortion rights and stem cell research has prompted discussions among Roman Catholic bishops and Vatican officials over how to respond to a presidential candidate who professes Catholicism while taking stands contrary to church teaching.

...[L]ast year... the Vatican released a forceful "doctrinal note" on Catholics in public life, which said, "A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals."

...The senator is aligned with his church on many social justice issues, including immigration, poverty, health care and the death penalty. But he diverges on the litmus issues, like abortion and stem cell research, that animate church conservatives and many in the hierarchy.

Why is abortion a litmus issue to these pseudo-Christians? Jesus never said a word about abortion. But he said plenty about the absolute requirement to help the "least of these." Right-wing pseudo-Christians consistently violate this most fundamental of the Church's teachings.

Jack Clark 9:58 PM [+]   
Post #108114112241825300

Senate, Torn by Minimum Wage, Shelves Major Welfare Bill

The minimum wage has been $5.15 an hour since 1997. Democrats wanted to increase it to $7 over two years. A person who works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year would then make $14,560, rather than the current $10,712. Under federal guidelines, a family of three is considered poor if its annual income is less than $15,670.

These statistics are morally repugnant. The minimum wage should be a living wage in each locality. If you work full-time, you should earn enough to survive.

Jack Clark 9:46 PM [+]   
Post #108114036518417520

This letter makes a good point about the mercenaries I haven't seen elsewhere:

Barry Yeoman, in 'Need an Army? Just Pick Up the Phone' (Op-Ed, April 2), points out that, unlike our country's own men and women in the military, soldiers for hire can be deployed with 'far less accountability to the American public and to international law.' This is a disturbing point indeed.

But how about the fact that a private-sector army is in it for the money, not for the country, and is therefore far less likely to raise moral or political objections to wars and military activities?

I think of John Kerry, whose experience in Vietnam led him to return both a decorated war hero and a vocal opponent of the war. Would a mercenary's on-the-ground experience ever contribute to public debate about our nation's military policy? Isn't this a dangerous subversion of democracy?

Jack Clark 9:43 PM [+]   
Post #108114021369369454

Need an Army? Just Pick Up the Phone

Blackwater, which operates from a 5,200-acre training ground in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, is a private military firm that provides an array of services once performed solely by military personnel.

...Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater, envisions a day when any country faced with peacekeeping duties will simply call him and place an order.

...According to Myles Frechette, who was President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Colombia, private companies performed jobs in Latin America that would have been politically unpalatable for the armed forces. After all, if the government were shipping home soldiers' corpses from the coca fields, the public outcry would be tremendous. However, more than 20 private contractors have been killed in Colombia alone since 1998, and their deaths have barely registered.

This method will be employed more and more by the Bushians to fly under the public radar.

Jack Clark 9:41 PM [+]   
Post #108114008563476300

Blair Told US Was Targeting Saddam 'Just Days After 9/11'

George Bush asked for Tony Blair's backing to remove Saddam Hussein from power just nine days after the 11 September attacks, over a private dinner at the White House, a US magazine reported last night.

More evidence of the Bushian obsession.

Jack Clark 9:33 PM [+]   
Post #108113960213573524

10 U.S. Troops Killed in Iraqi Violence  How much longer before the war-supporters with loved ones over there wisen up?

Jack Clark 9:31 PM [+]   
Post #108113947847084960

McCain Praises 'Fine' Democrats, Blasts 'Astray' GOP and Bush  Wow, could there really be something to those Kerry-McCain ticket rumors? I can't believe that could happen. McCain's just too far right on domestic policy issues.

Jack Clark 9:29 PM [+]   
Post #108113937741902972