ARROGANCE AND HOMAGE Back Forward
“[TW] pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament when MEPs wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation Senior White House officials said the President would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome. A source close to negotiations said last night.‘ [TW] agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address. ‘His people also insisted there were no protests, or heckling. I believe it would be a crucial speech for Mr Bush to make in light of the opposition here to war. But unless he only gets adulation and praise, then it will never happen.’ [TW’s] every appearance in the US is stage-managed, with audiences full of supporters. It was hoped he would speak after he welcomed Warsaw pact nations to Nato in Prague last November. But his refusal to speak to EU leaders face-to-face is seen as a key factor in the split between the US-UK coalition and Europe. The source added: ‘Relations between the EU and the US are worsening fast - this won't help.’ – Mirror [Junkie: Read this twice and think about the implications of TW’s attitude.]
WAR OR PEACE?
“Senior aides to President George W. Bush say he faces a humiliating defeat before the United Nations Security Council next week. And signs emerged today that the U.S. may withdraw the resolution from security council consideration. Secretary of State Colin Powell, fresh from his latest round of meetings with representatives of countries on the Security Council, delivered the bad news to Bush on Monday. ‘You will lose, Mr. President,’ Powell told Bush. ‘You will lose badly and the United States will be humiliated on the world stage.’ Powell told Bush he has only four of the nine votes needed for approval of a second resolution. As a result, some White House advisors are now urging the President to back off his tough stance on war with Iraq and give UN weapons inspectors more time. ‘We have no other choice,’ admits one Bush advisor. ‘We don't have the votes. We don't have the support.’ Presidential spokesman Ari Fleisher, in today's press briefing, appeared to signal a U.S. retreat from demanding a vote next week, saying ‘the president has said he believes that a vote is desirable. It is not mandatory.’ . . . Powell told Bush on Monday that Turkey's refusal to allow U.S. troops to stage at the country's border with Iraq doomed any chance of consensus at the UN. ‘Many were watching Turkey,’ Powell told Bush. ‘Had they agreed, it might have helped us sway critical votes.’ Powell met privately today with Mexico Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez to try and ‘parse’ new language for the second resolution to satisfy a Mexican request to modify the text and extend the deadline for weapons inspections. ‘It (the meeting) did not produce results,’ a Powell spokesman said afterwards. Publicly, Powell is leaving the door open for the U.S. to withdraw the resolutions saying, telling a German television interviewer: ‘At the start of next week we'll decide when, depending on what we have heard, we will vote on a resolution. It will be a difficult vote for the U.N. Security Council.’ Some Bush aides now admit privately that the President, for all his tough talk, may have to back down and postpone his plans to invade Iraq in the near future, delaying any invasion until April or May at the earliest. ‘The vote in Turkey fucked things up big time,’ grumbles one White House aide. ‘It pushes our timetable back. On the other hand, it might give us a chance to save face.’ ‘The arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed gives us some breathing room,’ says a Bush strategist. ‘We can concentrate on the favorable publicity generated by the arrest and the valuable intelligence we have gained from that event.’ – Capitol Hill Blue
Hopefully, all Junkies watched TW’s “news conference” on TV. Junkie believes that the best review of TW’s call for war was written by Tom Shales of the Washington Post. Some of his comments follow. “George W. Bush kept seeming to lose interest in his own remarks last night as the president did that rarest of rare things -- for him -- and held a prime-time news conference. . . . Bush declare[ed] this to be ‘an important moment’ for America and the world, yet he spoke with little urgency and no perceptible passion. . . . There were times when it seemed every sentence Bush spoke was of the same duration and delivered in the same dour monotone, giving his comments a numbing, soporific aura. Watching him was like counting sheep. . . . Maybe Bush thought he was, indeed, coming across as cool and temperate instead of bored and enervated, and this was simply a rhetorical miscalculation. On the other hand, it hardly seems out of order to speculate that, given the particularly heavy burden of being president in this new age of terrorism -- a time in which America has, as Bush said, become a "battlefield" -- the president may have been ever so slightly medicated. He would hardly be the first president ever to take a pill. . . . But by his tone and his demeanor, he certainly didn't inspire a great burst of hopeful confidence, either. It was as if he didn't quite realize he was on national television and being watched closely by millions of people who were hanging on his every word and on his every expression and gesture, too. And that we might be a nation at war in a matter of days. Or . . . might we?” – Washington Post
WAR DOLLARS
The Dept. of Defense contracts with Halliburton to provide fire suppression in Iraqi oil fields. Junkies will recall that VP Cheney was president of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. – Forbes
TW is “buying” support for the anticipated UN resolution for war. “Bulgaria, a supporter of the Bush administration's Iraq (news - web sites) stance, is about to be bestowed with the coveted economic status of ‘market economy.’ Chile, a Security Council member which has not yet decided whether to support the U.S.-backed resolution to authorize war against Baghdad, is still waiting for congressional approval of a lucrative free trade agreement with the United States. While officials and diplomats are loath to say that money may be on the line when countries cast their votes on Iraq, the economic might of the United States isn't far from anyone's minds. In 1991, the United States withdrew $24 million in annual aid from Yemen, an impoverished U.N. member that failed to support the resolution authorizing the Persian Gulf War. At the time, U.S. diplomats told Yemen's ambassador that he had just cast the most expensive vote of his life.” – Yahoo
If that were not enough, TW will “spy’em.” Last week, TPJ ran a “breaking story” that TW was spying on members of the UN Security Council to obtain intelligence on their pending votes on Iraq. TW authorized the spying. “The NSA operation intercepted home and office telephone conversations and emails of U.N. delegates in New York. The countries targeted were Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan, whose votes are crucial to passage of a second British and US-sponsored UN resolution for authorizing military force against Iraq. Exposure of the surveillance operation is reported to be deeply embarrassing to the Bush Administration that is making efforts to win over the thus far undecided delegations. . . . Revelations of the spying also comes at a time of increasingly threatening noises from Bush towards undecided countries on the Security Council that have been warned of unpleasant economic consequences if they dare to stand up to the U.S. Sources in Washington familiar with Rice's NSA operation told the Observer that there had been a division among Bush administration officials over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery. . . . But Koza's memo reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US communications intercepts targeted against the New York-based missions. The disclosure of NSA spying on delegates comes at a time when diplomats from the uncommitted countries have been complaining about the outright ‘hostility’ of US tactics in recent days to persuade them to fall in line, including threats to withhold economic and aid packages.” – Intervention
TW’s efforts to spy on the UN are receiving little attention by the US media. “Overall, the sparse U.S. coverage that did take place seemed eager to downplay the significance of the Observer's revelations. On March 4, the Washington Post ran a back-page 514-word article headlined ‘Spying Report No Shock to U.N.,’ while the Los Angeles Times published a longer piece that began by emphasizing that U.S. spy activities at the United Nations are ‘long-standing.’ The U.S. media treatment has contrasted sharply with coverage on other continents. ‘While some have taken a ho-hum attitude in the U.S., many around the world are furious,’ says Ed Vulliamy, one of the Observer reporters who wrote the March 2 article. ‘Still, almost all governments are extremely reluctant to speak up against the espionage. This further illustrates their vulnerability to the U.S. government.’ -- Common Dreams
The Pentagon is gearing up its effort to spy on our citizens. “Nearly 200 corporations and universities submitted proposals to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, according to government documents brought to light by a privacy group Thursday. John Poindexter, who oversees the agency's Total Information Awareness (TIA) program, approved 26 of them last fall, including grants to the University of Southern California, the Palo Alto Research Center, and defense contractor Science Applications International. Over the last few months, TIA has become a lightning rod for criticism, with Republican and Democratic legislators speaking out against it on privacy and security grounds. On Feb. 20, as part of a large spending bill for the federal government, Congress approved additional scrutiny of research and development on the TIA project.” – C/NET
“Senators from both parties are accusing the FBI of excessive secrecy and demanding details of how federal agents use antiterrorist laws to spy on people's Internet activity. The Domestic Surveillance Oversight Act is called ‘the first comprehensive, public FBI oversight effort in decades’ by cosponsor Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. He is teaming with Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania to force greater accountability by investigative agencies. All three are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.” -- PCWorld
PROJECT FOR NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
Robert Scheer documents a number of TW’s lies. Sheer concludes that TW’s “construction of a new world order comes from a naive and untraveled president, emboldened in his ignorance by advisors who have been plotting an aggressive Pax Americana ever since the Soviet bloc's collapse. Bush insiders Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld are all members of something called the Project for a New American Century that has been pushing for a U.S. redesign of the Mideast since 1997. After Sept. 11, they seized on our national tragedy as a way to enlist George W. in support of their grand design. Not only was this reckless scheme never mentioned by Bush during the election campaign, it was the sort of thing renounced as "nation-building," something he would never support. Yet another lie.” -- WorkingForChange In fact the Project For New American Century has been advocating the overthrow of TW since at least 1998. This hyperlink leads to the letter to POTUS Clinton in 1998 clearly lays out the concept of “regime change” in Iraq that TW is now following. -- PFNAC
TW’S WORLD OF GOOD AND EVIL
“In an interview in the White House with Copley News Service and several other news organizations, [TW] also sent an unmistakable signal to the Mexican government that he expects them to support the U.S. position on Iraq in an upcoming key vote in the United Nations, speaking of possible “discipline” if they don’t.” – Times-Reporter
TW is being blunter with Turkey! “The timing of any invasion, earlier expected to begin in mid-March, received a major blow on Saturday when Turkey's Parliament refused to approve making bases available for up to 60,000 U.S. troops for a possible thrust into northern Iraq along with a second planned front from Kuwait to the south. . . . State Department spokesman Richard Boucher suggested the United States would be unwilling to follow through on much of an aid package for Turkey that had been the result of intensive, sometimes painful, negotiations. Washington had offered Turkey to up $30 billion in grants and loan guarantees to help shield its frail economy if fighting breaks out. ‘As far as this particular package, most of it was predicated on helping Turkey meet the costs of involvement, the direct costs for the consequences, and therefore I guess I'd have to say that much of that would not occur if there's not direct involvement by Turkey,’ said Boucher.” – Reuters Of course, the Ankara bazaar is still open. Turkey indicates that it might take a second vote under certain circumstances – namely, a better financial package. “Senior members of Turkey's ruling party said today their government would probably try again to get parliament to approve a U.S. request to base troops here for a war against Iraq. The leaders said the body could take up the matter later this week or next week, and urged Washington in the meantime to strengthen its offer of economic and political support.” – Washington Post
TW’S TERRORISTS
Sami Al-Arian and seven other people were arrested in Tampa last week on charges of financing, organizing, and materially abetting Palestinian Islamic Jihad, one of the world's deadliest terror groups. . . . Some of the details were new, but to anyone who had been following the activities of radical Muslim militants in the United States; Al-Arian's name should have been familiar. As far back as 1994, terrorism expert Steven Emerson had publicly identified Al-Arian and his Islamic Committee for Palestine as a fund-raiser for Islamic Jihad. Michael Fechter further exposed Al-Arian's ties to terrorism in the Tampa Tribune a few months later. And then there was the speech Al-Arian made in 1991 to a group of fellow radicals in Chicago: ''Let us damn America,'' he exhorted. ''Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death!'' He reviled Jews as ''monkeys and pigs'' and proclaimed: ''Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam! Death to Israel! Revolution, revolution until victory!'' A resume like that should have made Al-Arian radioactive - the kind of person anyone with political ambitions or decent instincts would shun. So why in the world would he be treated as a friend and ally by - of all people - George W. Bush? Why, for example, did Bush make a point of posing for pictures with Al-Arian and his family during a 2000 campaign stop in Tampa? Why was Al-Arian not only invited to a White House briefing given by Bush aide Karl Rove in June 2001 - against the advice of the Secret Service - but honored with a front-row seat? Why was his son Abdullah invited to yet another White House meeting a few days later?? The answer, it seems, is that Bush and his advisers have been so intent on attracting American Muslims to the Republican Party that they have closed their eyes to the fact that many of those they have embraced are Islamists - extremists who support terrorism and are linked to Saudi Arabia's fanatic Wahhabi religious establishment. Al-Arian is not the only Islamist zealot who has gained access to Bush and his inner circle. Consider, for example, Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, an extremist group with a record of defending terrorism and denouncing the United States. Like Al-Arian, Alamoudi attended the Rove briefing in the White House in 2001; a year earlier, he was one of several Muslims invited to meet with candidate Bush in Austin, Texas. Alamoudi is certainly influential - but he is also an open backer of terrorism. In October 2000, he was cheered at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, D.C., when he declared: ''We are all supporters of Hamas.... I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.'' Three months later he was in Beirut for a terrorist summit, along with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda. Is Alamoudi really the sort of Muslim with whom the administration should be involved? Or consider Khaled Saffuri, co-founder and executive director of the Islamic Institute, a pressure group launched with seed money from Alamoudi and Saudi Arabia. When Bush, in a gesture of tolerance, visited a Washington mosque on Sept. 17, 2001, Saffuri stood at his right shoulder. Yet ''under Saffuri's leadership,'' the Center for Security Policy notes, ''the Islamic Institute has attacked the Bush administration's investigations of radical Muslim groups and closures of organizations suspected of funding terrorists. The institute has been funded by groups raided in ... terrorist-financing investigations.'' Saffuri even acknowledges sponsoring the families of suicide terrorists through the Holy Land Foundation, a ''charity'' identified by the FBI as a financial conduit for Hamas.” – Boston Globe
TW’s connections to the Arab world run deep. Greg Palast, an independent reporter who works out of the US but whose material runs in the UK, has written a wonderful expose TW’s connections to the Arab oil empires and its effect on investigating 911. He concludes, “It would be absurd to say that President Bush spiked the investigation of the bin Laden family and Saudi funding of terrorists in return for packets of cash. The system is not so crude. Gentlemen of the club do not act that way. Rather, what's created is a prejudice; call it a disposition, to conclude that these smiling Gulf billionaires, whose associates made you and your family wealthy, are unlikely to have funded mass murder of Americans, despite the evidence.” – Tom Paine [This is a rather long but well written article that is thought provoking. Junkies who want to know more should read this article.]
TW’S ECONOMY
“The nation's job-cutting pace quickened in February, with announced job reductions rising about 5 percent to 138,177, according to a monthly tally compiled by outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. The job-cut scythe has mowed through the telecommunications, computer, auto, financial, aerospace, transportation and retail sectors, and it's now falling heavily on workers in government and non-profits, the Challenger data show. In February, the government and non-profit sector cut 41,559 jobs, more than any other sector. Many state and local governments are facing severe budget crunches as their revenues shrink in the face of a faltering economy.” – CBS
The economic news just keeps getting worse. “The Institute for Supply Management's index of manufacturing activity fell to 50.5 in February, a marked deterioration from January's reading of 53.9. A level above 50 indicates the manufacturing sector is expanding; below 50 means it's contracting. February's performance was significantly weaker than the 52 reading analysts were predicting. Manufacturing - hardest hit by the 2001 recession - is the weakest link in the economy's ability to get back to full health. Companies are reluctant to make big financial commitments in capital spending and in hiring, a major force restraining the recovery. While the bad winter weather that ravaged parts of the country may have played a role in the manufacturing slowdown, economists believed war worries were a bigger factor in the sector's weakness. In a second report, the Commerce Department said consumers trimmed spending by 0.1 percent in January - the first such rollback in four months.” – Sunspot
"’There's a massive deterioration of the budget going on,’ warned Edward McKelvey, an economist at Goldman Sachs. The drumbeat of bad fiscal news is beginning to lead to alarm that goes beyond partisan finger-pointing in Washington. Neutral budget experts, Wall Street analysts and even some business leaders are beginning to implore policymakers to pay attention to a worsening budget picture that threatens to spiral out of control. ‘We should not be going blithely down the path of this [Bush budget] plan without thinking about the demographic challenges ahead, without thinking about the costs that states are facing in these trying times, without thinking sufficiently deeply about how much this new role we're playing in the world is going to cost us,’ said Landon H. Rowland, chairman of the mutual fund giant Janus Capital Group, who contributed to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. ‘It's my job as a citizen to look at this and say, 'Hey, this isn't going to cut it.' In the short term, Bush administration officials and most economists believe that the current deficit projections are acceptable as the economy struggles to regain its footing and the nation prepares for possible war. But the CBO's newest forecast indicates that current and proposed policies will saddle future presidents and Congresses with intractable, long-term deficits just as the retiring baby boom generation places even higher demands on government resources. And some analysts say Bush's pursuit of additional tax cuts is bound to make matters worse. Bush's 2004 budget calls for tax cuts estimated to cost the Treasury nearly $1.6 trillion through 2013, and the cost of some of those provisions would escalate steeply from there. ‘The magnitude of this is now so great as to be inescapable,’ said Everett M. Ehrlich, director of research at the Committee for Economic Development, a business and civic organization that has been around for 56 years. "Washington will only address this issue when it's forced to do so, and the business community has to begin paying attention.’ Administration officials remain sanguine about fiscal issues, both in the short term and the longer term. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow dismissed the cost of an Iraq war and its aftermath on Thursday as ‘a one-time sort of thing.’ He said: ‘We don't have a revenue problem. We have plenty of revenue growth.’ White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. acknowledged the clamor for a shift in fiscal direction. In the face of the White House's own worsening deficit projections, the president considered dropping the plans for an economic stimulus package altogether, Daniels said. But Bush decided that only by giving the economy a boost could the government expect tax revenue to revive. ‘We hear the noise, but the logic for the president is still the same,’ Daniels said. ‘You could bet the ranch on the economy we've got, or knowingly take on more deficit to create the jobs and growth that will create a stronger economy. He opted for action.’ But the pressure for a reversal of course is mounting. The Committee for Economic Development broke this week with a publicly united business community to release a report, on the rapidly deteriorating fiscal situation, that ‘strongly opposes’ Bush's $726 billion ‘economic growth’ package.” -- Washington Post
Gasoline prices are hitting new records. “In San Francisco, regular unleaded fuel now costs an average of $2.19 a gallon, according to a survey by AAA of Northern California. In Oakland, gas averages $2.09 a gallon, and in San Jose it has hit $2.08. Statewide, the average price is $2.04, beating the previous record of $2.03 set in May 2001.” – Sacbee
TW’S WAR ON LABOR
“In December the Labor Department issued new union reporting regulations, which would require itemization of every expense greater than $2,000 spent on organizing and strike services, lobbying or political activities. This is an administrative nightmare that would cost unions many millions. The administration indicated that it would ask the Republican Congress to pass civil penalties for unions that don't meet reporting deadlines. George W. Bush's budget, unveiled in early February, cut money for enforcing workplace health and safety laws, and for investigating corporate violations of minimum wage, Family and Medical Leave mandates, and child-labor laws. But Bush dramatically increased the budget for auditing and investigating labor unions.
An assistant labor secretary expressed concern for "financial transparence" in labor unions. But as AFL-CIO General Counsel John Hiatt noted, "We're talking about an administration that opposes regulation on air quality, water quality, on forests, on food safety, on repetitive-stress injuries in the workplace ... but when it comes to unions, requiring them to itemize every expense, that doesn't seem to trouble this administration at all." Clearly the White House is ramping up an effort to ensnare unions in legal aggravations in time for the 2004 election campaign.” –TAP
THEN
TW – 3/27/2002
“We're dealing with first-time responders to make sure they've got what's needed to be able to respond. “
NOW
“[TW] had been saying that he was proposing $3.5 billion in “new” money for first responders. However, his budget tried to cut more than $1 billion out of existing grants to local police/fire departments to fund this. Then, in August of 2002, Bush rejected $150 million for grants to state and local first responders. Bush’s decision prompted the President of the Firefighters Union to say, ‘President Bush, don't lionize our fallen brothers in one breath, and then stab us in the back by eliminating funding for our members to fight terrorism and stay safe.’ The President of the Virginia firefighters association said, ‘The president has merely been using firefighters and their families for one big photo opportunity.’ -- House Appropriations
Last week, TPJ carried an article that TW’s budget deficits would extend into the future for at least the next 10 years. The Repub response was to have the Federal Government stop projecting budgets into the future for 10 years. Now, TW is taking using the same strategy with global-warming. “The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding ‘frightening’ phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable. The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has ‘lost the environmental communications battle’ and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. ‘The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,’ Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organization. ‘Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. The phrase ‘global warming’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘climate change’, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as ‘conservationist’ instead of ‘environmentalist’, because ‘most people’ think environmentalists are ‘extremists’ who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behavior... that turns off many voters’.” -- Guardian Unlimited
In a stunning announcement, the Congressional Budget Office, headed by a Republican appointee, announces that TW’s budget and tax cuts will result in federal budget deficits of 2.7 TRILLION DOLLARS over the next ten years. “[TW’s] plans for new tax cuts and more spending on Medicare and the military will swell federal budget shortfalls by $2.7 trillion over the next decade, congressional analysts said on Friday. In its annual review of the president's budget, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (news - web sites) said Bush's policies would turn the $891 billion cumulative surplus it otherwise predicts between 2004 and 2013 into a $1.82 trillion deficit.” – Yahoo
EATING YOUR OWN
“President George W. Bush has an interesting political strategy for why his domestic agenda may fail.
Blame the Republicans. Bush blames the GOP-controlled Congress for underfunding programs to guard against terrorism. saying the Hill ‘did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money’ for other unrelated programs. . . . Congressional Republicans say they now know Bush will undercut them if it serves his best political interest. In his speech to the governors, Bush said he was "disappointed" that Congress did not provide the $3.5 billion he requested a year ago for counterterrorism programs. ‘If the president wanted the money, he should have asked for it. He never did,’ a senior House GOP leadership aide said Thursday. ‘I wonder if he remembers which party controls Congress.’ Democrats wasted no time in using Bush's remarks to hammer Republicans for spending too little on homeland defense. ‘Incredibly, the president is now blaming others for the budget he himself insisted on,’ said Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.).” -- Capitol Hill Blue
Repubs in Congress fire back at TW. “A senior Republican lawmaker, firing back at President Bush for recent statements blaming Congress for underfunding emergency workers, accused the White House of factual inaccuracy and inadequate communication. In an extraordinary departure from the public unity that has characterized White House relations with congressional Republicans, House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) wrote to urge White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to ‘be responsible’ and ‘move on from this pointless and harmful debate’ over legislation passed last month that included money for ‘first responders’ involved in homeland security.” – Washington Post
“Bush's use of religious language sounds shallow and far more self-justifying than that of other recent political leaders -- including Bush's father. The most striking characteristic of the younger Bush's use of religion is its relentless triumphalism. American triumphalism is nothing new, of course. Many of the earliest Christian settlers were religious zealots who viewed America as the New Zion, the Promised Land. Today's Americans, whether overtly religious or not, are their spiritual heirs. In my experience, secular Americans are as likely as religious Americans to believe that we are the rightful beneficiaries of some kind of manifest destiny. But some on the religious right have built a theology around this hope. Many of them believe that America will be at its best if its government submits to their understanding of God's work on Earth. What they have longed for is a Davidic ruler -- a political leader like the Bible's David, who will unite their secular vision of the nation with their spiritual aspirations. All indications are that they believe they have found their David in Bush -- and that the president believes it, too. Bush's religious supporters are his greatest cheerleaders. Rather than his spiritual guides, they are his faithful disciples. He is the leader of the America they think God has ordained. Contrary to popular opinion, the religion that this group espouses is Triumphalism, not Christianity. Theirs is a zealous form of nationalism, baptized with Christian language.” – Washington Post [Junkie note: In considering the implications of TW’s fundamentalist religious views on his foreign and domestic policies please read Junkie Editor Michael Carmichael’s book review in Junkie Speak.]
THEN – TW’S SOTU
President Bush called on Americans to serve "goals larger than self" and promised to "expand and improve the good efforts of AmeriCorps and Senior Corps" to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to do so. "We've been offered a unique opportunity," he stated earnestly, "and we must not let this moment pass."
NOW – A FEW WEEKS LATER
“Yet the GOP congressional majority had other ideas. While on the surface the $275 million in funds Congress appropriated for AmeriCorps is on par with last year's funding levels, included in these provisions is a requirement that $100 million of these funds go directly into the Trust Fund for education scholarships. The $175 million left over for AmeriCorps grants is thus 30 percent less than the $240 million appropriated last year. In addition, Congress has created a 50,000-member cap ensuring that regardless of the level of funding, AmeriCorps will not only fall well short of the president's promise to expand the program to 75,000, but will be less than the 59,000 members that served in AmeriCorps in 2002.
If allowed to stand as is, this "cap and cut" approach to national service could prove crippling for both the state service commissions and proven nationwide AmeriCorps programs like City Year, Habitat for Humanity, Experience Corps, Public Allies, National AIDS Fund, and Teach for America. It will also ensure that at a time of growing challenges in communities across America there will be far fewer AmeriCorps members tutoring students, constructing houses, vaccinating children, providing disaster relief, and helping secure our homeland this year than last. Finally, it will make the bipartisan effort lead by Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) to take national service to a truly national scale even more of an uphill battle than it was when the president first lent his rhetorical support.” -- PPI
TW’s RX – YOUR ON YOUR OWN
TW announced his “Medicare reform” plan. No surprises. “Health care economists said the drug benefit President Bush proposed for Medicare yesterday would be a bonanza for the pharmaceutical and managed-care industries, both of which are huge donors to Republicans.” – Washington Post
The N&O takes TW to task on the plan. “You're on your own, was Bush's answer. Truly outrageous was his excuse: He must cut taxes for Americans who don't need the extra money. Don't expect compassion to be the result of that policy. Inevitably, some states will reduce the services Medicaid provides; 32 states are already making another round of cuts. North Carolina also cut out some prescription drugs for Medicaid patients. And its payments to dentists were already so low that just 16 percent of the state's practitioners will treat Medicaid patients anyway. What more will the states cut? In the cross-hairs are elderly people in nursing homes and the disabled, two groups that generate Medicaid's biggest expenses. But the program also covers people with serious mental illness and the profoundly mentally retarded. For many of them, private health insurance is not an option. . . . Helping Africa fight AIDS is fine, but the president need not look over the heads of his own countrymen to show compassion.” – N&O