So if jobs are scarce and wages are flat, who's benefiting from the economy's expansion? The direct gains are going largely to corporate profits, which rose at an annual rate of more than 40 percent in the third quarter. Indirectly, that means that gains are going to stockholders, who are the ultimate owners of corporate profits.
According to the most recent estimate, only 8 percent of corporate taxes were paid by the poorest 60 percent of families, while 67 percent were paid by the richest 5 percent, and 49 percent by the richest 1 percent. ("Class warfare!" the right shouts.)
But how Bush can do this much damage and still expect to get re-elected? That is the true genius of his plan. He sweetened the plan with some little tax breaks, like increased child care credit, easing the marriage penalty, and expanded the lower tax brackets to include more low-income people. The only problem—those things are all due to expire in 2005, after he is re-elected. On the other hand, his tax breaks for the rich (i.e. rate reductions and capital gains and dividend tax breaks) don’t expire. The final touch is the incentives for businesses to invest in equipment also expire at the end of 2004, so they have to use it or lose it, thus making the economy appear to surge.
The Bush Administration is, has, and will use every trick in the book to keep this house of cards standing long enough to get George W. Bush re-elected. I do not even want to imagine what they have planned for their second term.
•“Having been here and seeing the care that these troops get is comforting for me and Laura. We are -- should and must provide the best care for anybody who is willing to put their life in harm's way.”-- Walter Reed Army Hospital, 1/17/03 (That same day the Bush Administration cut off access to its health care system from approximately 164,000 veterans.)
• “We're working hard to make sure your job is easier, that the port is safer. The Customs Service is working with overseas ports and shippers to improve its knowledge of container shipments, assessing risk so that we have a better feel of who we ought to look at, what we ought to worry about.”-- 6/24/02 (Bush’s 2003 and 2004 budgets provide nothing for port security grants. In August, he vetoed all $39 million for the Container Security Initiative that he specifically touted.)
And as an example of giving people what they want, the night Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) was captured was the biggest tip night for pizza deliverers of the year. No. 2 was the night Madonna (news - web sites) and Britney Spears kissed on the MTV Music Video awards.
"Excuse me, a chemical weapon was found in the home state of George Bush," says Levitas. "I'm not saying the Justice Department deliberately decided to downplay the story because they thought it might be embarrassing to the US government if weapons of mass destruction were found in America before they were found in Iraq. But I am saying it was a mistake not to give this higher profile."
• “Liberty and order will never be completely safe until a trespass on the Constitutional provisions for either, shall be felt with the same keenness that resents and invasion of the dearest rights.”-- James Madison, 4th U.S. President and “Father of the Constitution”, 1792
• "The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."-- Patrick Henry (1736-1799) American Revolutionary
• "When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1821
• "The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers."-- Thomas Jefferson, 1825
• “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”-- Thomas Paine (1737-1809), American Revolutionary and Author
• "We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts--not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution”-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President
Moreover, the Federal Aviation Administration had published a warning on its website months earlier that “Bin Laden’s anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.” Please note that last phrase—“particularly to U.S. civil aviation.”
Actually, Bush first received warning of an impending Al Qaeda operation the previous July. According to the Washington Post, Richard Clarke, the government’s top counter terrorism official, told officials of a dozen federal agencies at a White House meeting July 5, ”Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” C.I.A. Director Tenet “had been ‘nearly frantic’ with concern since June 22,” the Post said. And Ms. Rice, herself, no less, warned on June 28, “It is highly likely that a significant al Qaeda attack is in the near future, within several weeks.”
Didn’t the date September 11 ring a bell with anyone in the administration? To Islamic guerilla organizations, September 11 is what December 7 is to Americans. It commemorates the date the Jordanian army expelled the PLO from Jordan. The terrorists who attacked the Israeli village at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich were known as the September 11 Movement. In other words, September 11 was not some mere random date chosen by bin Laden’s gang to carry out their attacks. It had symbolic meaning.
FBI Intelligence Bulletin no. 89 also alerts local police that "activists often communicate with one another using cell phones or radios to coordinate activities or to update colleagues about ongoing events. Other types of media equipment (video cameras, photogenic equipment, audiotape recorders, microphones, and computer and radio equipment) may be used for documenting potential cases of police brutality and for distribution of information over the Internet."
But why does this brooding FBI bulletin contain so many references to entirely legal protest activities? Like this one: "Activists may use intimidation techniques such as videotaping" during demonstrations. Who is intimidating whom?
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
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