Freshman Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean of Illinois is facing the Republican Party machine in her re-election bid. Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have headlined money-raising events for her opponent. The National Republican Congressional Committee has budgeted $1.5 million to attack her.
But Ms. Bean has won an unexpected ally with clout to counter the Republican heavyweights: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Usually a stalwart of Republicans, the chamber has run about $700,000 in advertisements defending the Democrat and plans to help get out the pro-business vote for her in the fall.
Ms. Bean is among more than a dozen Democrats in key races across the country that the chamber is backing this year. Half of them also have benefited from the chamber's first-ever television ads for Democrats. Partly, the organization is rewarding these Democrats for votes in favor of free trade and other issues it holds dear. It also is sensing possible Republican defeats in congressional elections on Nov. 7, and is hedging its bets by spreading some of the organization's wealth to the other side of the aisle.
The chamber's move mirrors a subtle but significant shift across the business community, which has begun anticipating that the Republican majorities in Congress could shrink, if not collapse. [...]
The changes also point to an emerging rift between the Republican Party's business and social-conservative constituencies, as their interests clash over some hot-button issues. In Missouri, for example, some Republican businessmen are donating to Democrat Claire McCaskill in her challenge to incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent, largely because Mr. Talent opposes embryonic stem-cell research.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the strongest single business voice in Washington, representing thousands of trade associations and three million large and small businesses. It is the top spender on lobbying in Washington and is expected to spend $40 million on state and federal races this year. Employing an army of 36 full-time lobbyists, the chamber often takes the lead on major political issues close to the business community's heart.
The Bush brand of conservatism is anti-tax but also anti-growth, anti-public investment, anti-stock market, anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-science, and, perhaps most profoundly, anti-responsible and anti-accountable fiscally.
Any commercial enterprise not named Halliburton or Bechtel or ExxonMobil, and therefore shut out of the Bush Iraq/DHS crony economy, is suffering and now seeking alternatives. And that can only be good for Democrats and the country as a whole.
BUDAPEST -- The streets here are boiling with violence not seen since Soviet tanks rolled along the city's medieval cobblestones in 1956. This time, it is a capitalist who is pushing people to the brink.
Demonstrators protested outside Hungary's Parliament for a third straight day yesterday following clashes earlier in the week with police armed with water cannons. The protests were triggered by Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány's admission that he had lied "morning, evening and night" about the state of the economy ahead of April elections that returned him to power.
But it's only Hungary, right? We have nothing in common with them.
Actually, we have more in common with Hungary and Romania than we do with Japan or Germany — a flailing stock market, a weakening currency, massive federal and trade deficits — and it isn't pretty...
The likelihood of finding $2-a-gallon gasoline in some parts of the U.S. is increasing by the day.
The nationwide average at the pump is already below $2.50, and with a huge decline in oil and gasoline futures today analysts say the outlook for motorists is only getting better.
"We'll see sub-$2.25 a gallon retail (prices) by October [2006]," said Tom Kloza, director of the Oil Price Information Service, adding that prices below $2 can already be found in Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina and other states.
Surprise, surprise. This is exactly what happened two years ago: "Saudi Arabia may be hatching an October [2004] surprise to benefit President Bush by lowering crude oil prices before the November election, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward said in an interview aired yesterday. Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan - the longtime ambassador to the U.S. and a close Bush family friend - told the President that oil production will get a boost to strengthen the U.S. economy, said Woodward, author of a new book on White House war planning for Iraq."
Only this time, not boosted production but "lessened demand" is providing the "official" "explanation."
See also this chart and look at the overall trend in gas prices during Dubya's tenure from 2001 to the present. Contrast with the Pax Clintonia of 1993 through 2001.
Vice President Cheney ... has been the constant target of vicious attacks by mean-spirited Democrats for what they claim is his habitual obstinacy in refusing to concede that he's human and hence not blessed with perfection.
Just recently, the veep took some fierce blasts of heat when he averred that even had he known back in 2003 Saddam didn't have so much a toy mock-up of a weapon of mass destruction, "We'd do exactly the same thing."
At first blush, that's the kind of patently absurd statement that makes Mr. Cheney sound like he's absolutely convinced he walks on water, and tempts the disinterested spectator to try to persuade him on the benefits of complete rest. What both his enemies and his anxious sympathizers fail to recognize is that Mr. Cheney's very special position in the administration prevents him from ever saying he's sorry, much less acknowledging he's ever made even the most minute mistake.
For Mr. Cheney is the godfather of this administration. And as John Gotti or Marlon Brando could have told you, to fill that role successfully demands unquestioned authority, which means simply that you're always right. Always. Period. If at times, your adamancy appears irrational and monomaniacal -- no sweat, you're a godfather, in whose menacing presence underlings and enemies alike quake in their boots. If he wanted to be a goody two-shoes, Mr. Cheney confides, he'd have been secretary of state.
There they go again — praising with faint damnation.
Abelson's goofy attempt at satire is as flat-footed and repulsive as its target. For what purpose do so many Wall Street media types cast themselves as the Leni Riefenstahl propagandists of the Bush administration, always building up what deserves to be torn down, particularly when so much actual evidence of the administration's incompetence and/or evil can be found within the pages of their own publications?
See two posts down from this one for another story from Barron's, this one about someone who actually manages money instead of just writing about it in a tone of faux-cuteness.
I am very worried about the economy. I see an enormous number of negatives.
OK, go for it.
There's the price of oil. Insurance costs have skyrocketed.
What kind of insurance are you referring to?
Insurance in general. Then there are mortgage rates. We are on the verge of very big increases in mortgage rates for those people who bought adjustable-rate mortgages. Couple that with the fact that for 16 months we've had a negative savings rate. People, in order to sustain their standard of living, have had to invade their capital.
When you take those four factors into consideration and you realize that employment, although growing, is growing very slowly and wages are not going up, why, it is a very bleak picture into the future, particularly when you couple it with the housing market on the verge of decline in both price and activity, and auto sales also on the verge of a decline.
...one reason for my grim outlook is federal spending. Federal spending is so dismally distorted toward the military that it is unbelievable.
It isn't only that we're spending money for Iraq and Afghanistan, but the peacetime budget is an absurdity. We are spending $65 billion for an F22 fighter plane, for example, which is way over cost estimates. The paradox is that the plane cannot be used in combat -- because the ratio of the engine, the amount of fuel consumed is so great, that a pilot will only have five minutes in combat zones before he has to get back to the base.
If you look at the overall federal budget and see the huge percentage going to the military and what is left for medical research, education, the environment and housing, you can't believe it. They talk of reducing the federal deficit, but it is an absurdity.
What if the Democrats win back Congress in the fall?
They will rectify the deficit to a minor degree, but they also are great military spenders. [New York] Senators Clinton and Schumer voted for the Iraq war.
What is your sense of what will happen in the elections and what it means for the economy?
I think the public is completely fed up with George W. Bush and the Republicans and their incredible mismanagement of the country, and there'll be a sweep by the Democrats. That's a positive. At least the Democrats have some heart. They are sympathetic to the downtrodden. The huge disparity of income that has occurred in this country is one of the great negatives and one of the reasons that I'm pessimistic about the economy.
Are you worried about inflation?
No, I'm more worried about the possibility of deflation than of inflation.
How's that?
We don't believe what we read in the papers. The price of homes is going to come down and auto competition is tremendous, and they are giving all types of incentives that lower prices further.
There is tremendous public sentiment against the Iraqi war, and while there is a feeling we will be pulling the troops out sooner rather than later or at least reducing them, it is wise to remember we still have troops in Germany and we have troops in Japan. We'll never give up completely in Iraq. They'll be there for 50 years. The military doesn't give up and they control this country, because they get the following of the Congress and the president.
The military-industrial complex?
Eisenhower warned us, and it has happened. Don't forget, the nature of warfare has changed. There is not going to be a war like World War I or II again. The Third World War has begun. It is a war in Haiti, where they are fighting the government. It is a war in Colombia, where there are three groups fighting, and Sri Lanka, where you have the Tamil Tigers. In Nepal, the Maoists are fighting the king. It is all over the world. In Africa, there are five different countries fighting in the Congo. Not to mention Iraq, Iran or Israel or the Palestinians.
It is a war of terrorism. And you might be interested to know, there is no defense against the terrorists. There is no defense militarily. That is the big unpublished secret of modern warfare: The offensive weapons have no defense. You say, why do you have so much to say about war? War has a negative affect because the spending involved takes monies away from more constructive parts in the market.
What's your opinion of the Israel-Lebanon war?
We created it. We pushed Israel into doing what they did. Israel would never have gone on without the consent of the United States. They would never have attacked Lebanon as they did. They don't go to the john without Bush's consent.
Thanks, Seth. It's refreshing to see some actual intelligence among the monied class. We don't believe what we read in the papers either.
Previous posts about Glickenhaus were written in June 2004 (Q: If Bush gets re-elected, what happens? A: If Bush gets re-elected, he will see it as a total affirmation of all his policies, and the deficits will grow. Perhaps we will have another war in addition to the two that exist, however preposterous this seems.) and June 2003.
Right. The total lack of creativity (in the show-biz sense, not the political strategy sense) on the right is a well-established and unsurprising fact by now.
What is surprising is that ABC/Disney would so willingly foot the $40 million production bill, not including the lost advertising revenue which must also figure well into the tens of millions, producing not a real movie but ultimately a $50 to $100 million contribution to the Republican Party.
And for what? Infinite renewability of the Mickey Mouse copyright? Further relaxation of media consolidation regulations? Where's the quid pro quo?
The problem is that she was given this bully pulpit solely to rescue her own reputation at the expense of her nemesis John O'Neill. She was, after all, the person who forced him out of Yemen despite the fact that he was arguably the most experienced and knowledgeable FBI field agent to take Osama bin Laden or Al Qaeda seriously before the USS Cole bombing in October 2000.
Too bad O'Neill's not here for a rebuttal — he was killed by bin Laden on 9/11/01 in the World Trade Center. But Bodine's unfortunately still here to rewrite history, just like the Bush-Disney administration, in her own defense.
And shame on the LA Times. With so much wrong with this movie and the way it was promoted, they choose to give valuable editorial space to an Iraq invasion administrative functionary who is intent on playing revisionist CYA games.
The former head of pipeline-corrosion monitoring for BP PLC in Alaska refused to testify under oath Thursday as outraged lawmakers grilled company officials over the causes of a massive oil spill earlier this year.
Richard C. Woollam, who was transferred to BP's Houston offices in 2005 amid concerns that he intimidated potential whistleblowers, invoked the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution in refusing to answer all questions from a House subcommittee. [...]
Steve Marshall, the president of BP Exploration Alaska Inc., acknowledged that the corrosion problem could have been mitigated by more consistent inspection and removal -- or "pigging" -- of sludge that builds up on the inner walls of oil pipelines, providing shelter for the bacteria.
"Clearly, in retrospect, pigging would have been a positive step we could have taken," Mr. Marshall said.
Oddly enough, "the performance of mitigation, monitoring and inspection programs" happens to be an area of expertise for the very same Richard C. Woollam, who has chosen not to tell the truth.
Intimidates whistleblowers, refuses to tell the truth. Just what we need — another Houston sleazeball (and/or British poodle) to symbolize the mendacity of the All-Oil White House.
Mexico moved one step closer to a social explosion with the Federal Election Tribunal's decision to crown conservative Felipe Calderon as the victor in the hotly contested presidential elections of July 2. The tribunal acknowledged Calderon's campaign had "violated the norms of public order," particularly with the role played by the business associations in airing rabid TV ads attacking leftist candidate Andres Miguel Lopez Obrador. But it refused to question the fundamental legitimacy of the elections or to recount all the votes as demanded by the leftist opposition. [...]
The campaign slogan of Lopez Obrador was straightforward: "For the good of all, the poor first." His program during the campaign was actually quite reformist. In a country where half the population lives below the poverty line Lopez Obrador pledged to provide a stipend to the elderly and healthcare for the poor. Millions of jobs would also be created, particularly by undertaking large construction projects to modernize Mexico's dilapidated transportation system. He also promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States, particularly the clauses that allow the importation of cheap subsidized grains that undermine Mexico's peasant producers.
More importantly Lopez Obrador pledged to break up the corrupt economic relationship that exists between the business class and government bureaucrats. Everyone in Mexico knows that bribes and kickbacks are commonplace throughout Mexico as much of the country's wealth is skimmed off at the expense of the workers and the poor. This system existed under the previous governments of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). It became particularly insidious under the incumbent President Vincente Fox and his National Action party (PAN) because it more than the PRI, is the party of an entrenched business elite. And not only is Lopez Obrador threatening to break up the system of inside favours and corruption, he is also proclaiming that the rich will have to pay the income and business taxes that they routinely avoid.
The rich pulling their own weight — what a concept.
