posted 01-21-2004 09:04 PM            

Wednesday 21 January 2004

It took a little less than a half hour for George W. Bush to taint the 215th State of the Union address with a bald-faced lie about Iraq. It was, in the end, merely an accent in the symphony.

The nonsense began in this order: The economy is growing stronger. The tax cuts are working. Public schools are flourishing. The Patriot Act is excellent. Everything is rosy in Afghanistan. The people of Iraq are free. Throughout the vacuous peroration were more shooting-fish-in-a-barrel applause lines than has ever been heard in any major speech in American history. “I love God! I love soldiers! I love America! I love freedom!” went the drumbeat. Once upon a time, we had standards.

Let’s take a few of these in order.

• The Iraq lie came when Bush claimed that David Kay’s weapons inspection teams had found materials and equipment to construct weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In point of fact, Kay and his people found no such thing, just as the denigrated UNMOVIC inspectors likewise found no such thing. The promised 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 1,000,000 pounds of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent, the 30,000 munitions to deliver this stuff, the mobile biological weapons labs, and the uranium from Niger that so disgraced the last State of the Union speech Bush gave, somehow failed to turn up. Bush dared, in the speech, to claim that “No one can now doubt the word of America.” Unfortunately, a vast majority now doubts the word of the American President. Perhaps this failure is a matter of syntax. According to Bush, once again, we should be looking for ‘nucular’ materials. Maybe the inspectors just misread the package labels in Tikrit.

• Iraq is now free, and the only people killing American soldiers are lingering defenders of Saddam Hussein. In fact, most of the insurgents against the American occupation despise Hussein. They are nationalists defending their country against a force they see as usurpers. As for freedom, it is not nearly on the table. Shia, Sunni and Kurd tremble on the edge of explosive civil war, and the American administrators are using spit and baling wire to keep the lid on. Meanwhile, pipe dreams about a power transfer become less tenable by the hour.

• According to Bush, it is “condescending” to suggest that democracy can never take root in the Middle East. There are two bitterly amusing facets to this one. First, it is axiomatic that true democracy can never be brought anywhere effectively at the point of a gun without razing the existing society completely to the ground, as was done in Japan and Germany. If Bush had suggested we grind every aspect of culture and infrastructure to powder in the Middle East, a necessary aspect of the plan proposed, that particular bit of applause would have been muted. Second, the main reason why democracy will have a hard time in the Middle East is because it has been viciously repressed in places like Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia under the American direction of a number of people at the speech – Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle specifically – while they worked in other administrations.

• Afghanistan is apparently a wonderland of freedom where the children are learning and all is well, according to Bush. The fact that the Taliban is reforming there in strength, that the warlords are once again dominant, that the opium industry is flourishing, that civilians continue to be killed by American bombs, and that women are again being oppressed, never made it into the speech. For the second year in a row, the name ‘Osama bin Laden’ went completely unmentioned.

• The tax cuts are working, and the economy is sound because of them. In fact, there are two million fewer jobs in America than when Bush took office. The tax cuts, which promised 300,000 new jobs a month, never reached a third of that goal. Whatever new jobs have been created pay far less than the ones which were lost. Bush demanded that Congress make the cuts permanent, apparently taking Karl Rove’s advice about “Sticking to principle.” The transcript of the meeting discussing the second round of tax cuts, revealed recently by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, had Bush openly questioning the policy of giving government money to rich people again. In that meeting, he was basically shouted down by the people who purportedly work for him, and the cuts went through. It appears they won another argument about this, putting the Commander in Chief in his place.

• The math in this speech was pretty specious. Bush praised the No Child Left Behind bill, which he underfunded by $7 billion, and asked for a whole new program called ‘Jobs for the 21st Century.’ He wants to make the tax cuts permanent. He wants to spend federal money to shore up the energy grid. Simultaneously, he wants to continue to pour money into the occupation of Iraq, an action that has cost nearly $200 billion already. Yet he promised to cut the budget deficit in half within five years. Recent poll numbers suggest Bush will be in retirement in five years, however, so he won’t be around when the incredible inaccuracy of these numbers become apparent.

• Gambling Social Security in the stock market is back on the table. Never mind that his Enron buddies blew a wide hole in the markets a couple of years ago; had Social Security been invested in the markets then, it would have been completely gutted. That, perhaps, is the rub. When the stock market takes a beating, the money lost by investors doesn’t just disappear. It is adjusted upwards into the holdings of the richest 1% of investors, who have enough capital to survive a downturn and have money on hand to scoop up devalued stock on the chance it retains value later. This 1% owns a disproportionally massive majority of all the stocks traded on the markets. If Social Security cash is fed into the markets, it is ripe for the poaching. Besides, it rids Bush of the pesky need to provide seniors with safety-net funding better used by the Pentagon, Halliburton and other close friends.

• The sops thrown to the most extreme elements of the Republican party were many and varied. If children are to be taught sexual education, they must be taught only abstinence, because clearly teenagers will never have sex again and shouldn’t learn about protecting themselves from disease and unwanted pregnancies. The Massachusetts judges who decided, using the clear language of the law, that there is no aspect of the constitution denying same-sex marriages were attacked. Bush dismissed their decision as “arbitrary,” and threatened a constitutional amendment to defend marriage against the queer onslaught. In doing this, Bush says he is defending the “sanctity” of marriage. Once upon a time our office-holders defended the law, and left the defense of sanctity to ministers. His faith-based federal funding concept is back on the table again. Bush said that religious groups are denied federal money “because they have a cross, or a Star of David, or a crescent on the wall.” Actually, George, it’s because the separation of church and state is clearly outlined in the constitution you want to revise to keep gay people from enjoying the same human rights as straight people.

We could go on in this vein, but you get the idea. This speech was, in the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, a nest of gibberish. Columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times holds the opinion that this was deliberate. “Karl Rove and other insiders must know all this,” wrote Krugman in a Tuesday editorial titled ‘Going for Broke.’ “So they must figure that once they have won the election, they will have such a complete lock on power that they can break many of their promises with impunity. What will they do with that lock on power? Their election strategy — confuse the middle, but feed the base — suggests the answer.”

The best moments in the speech came from a completely unexpected realm. Bush’s people salted the room with young soldiers resplendent in their uniforms. The cameras flashed to them every time Bush pledged his undying respect for them, and every time he said matters in Iraq are going famously well. The soldiers reacted with dead faces, muted clapping, and about as much enthusiasm as one might find in the waiting room outside a proctology clinic.

One soldier in particular, a young African American man, summed up the night. Bush was waxing rhapsodic about a letter he received from a ten year old girl named Ashley Pearson. Ashley, it seems, asked Bush to tell the soldiers she loved them. As Bush slogged through the saccharine, the camera found this soldier. When Bush was done with Ashley, and the room rose yet again to applaud, this soldier visibly rolled his eyes, laughed in obvious disgust, clapped once, and sat back down. The other soldiers with him showed no emotion whatsoever.

The troops know the score. Believe it. Hopefully, by now, the American people do as well.

-------

William Rivers Pitt is the Managing Editor of truthout.org. He is a New York Times and international best-selling author of three books - "War On Iraq," available from Context Books, "The Greatest Sedition is Silence," available from Pluto Press, and "Our Flag, Too: The Paradox of Patriotism," available in August from Context Books.

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posted 01-21-2004 11:19 PM            

Evasions, Half-Truths, and the State of the Union
Can we trust this year's speech?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004, at 2:35 PM PT

How's that again?

This time, at least, there were no blatant lies in the national-security section of the State of the Union address. The speechwriters, no doubt watched over by a hyperalert Condoleezza Rice, made sure to avoid a reprise of last year's scandal over false claims of an Iraqi hunt for yellowcake. Instead, however, the scribes piled on so many half-truths and evasions, often in disingenuous phrasings, as to erase the customary distinction between mere deceit and sheer falsehood.

Let's take them one by one.

"We must continue to give our homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us."

Yet this is precisely what President Bush has failed to do. His homeland security budget for fiscal year 2004 was smaller than the budget for FY 2003. He has yet to order a serious effort to develop or procure WMD-detecting sensors. Security of cargo on ships and commercial airliners is riddled with holes. The borders are sieves. Most local police and fire departments lack the money, gear, and training to prevent, or to deal with the aftermath of, terrorist attacks.

war stories Military analysis.

Evasions, Half-Truths, and the State of the Union
Can we trust this year's speech?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2004, at 2:35 PM PT

How's that again?

This time, at least, there were no blatant lies in the national-security section of the State of the Union address. The speechwriters, no doubt watched over by a hyperalert Condoleezza Rice, made sure to avoid a reprise of last year's scandal over false claims of an Iraqi hunt for yellowcake. Instead, however, the scribes piled on so many half-truths and evasions, often in disingenuous phrasings, as to erase the customary distinction between mere deceit and sheer falsehood.

Let's take them one by one.

"We must continue to give our homeland security and law enforcement personnel every tool they need to defend us."

Yet this is precisely what President Bush has failed to do. His homeland security budget for fiscal year 2004 was smaller than the budget for FY 2003. He has yet to order a serious effort to develop or procure WMD-detecting sensors. Security of cargo on ships and commercial airliners is riddled with holes. The borders are sieves. Most local police and fire departments lack the money, gear, and training to prevent, or to deal with the aftermath of, terrorist attacks.

"Nearly two-thirds of [al-Qaida's] known leaders have now been captured or killed."

Good. But the remaining one-third constitutes a distressingly large number still at large—not least Osama Bin Laden, President Bush's "Wanted Dead or Alive" poster-villain of last year's chest-pounding address. More worrisome still is that phrase "known leaders." The real concerns, as Donald Rumsfeld's hand-wringing memo of last October acknowledged, are the unknowns (or, as he put it in a different context, the "unknown unknowns"—the stuff we don't even know we don't know) and the haunting question of whether, through our (for the most part quite proper) tactics in tracking down terrorists, we might be spawning new recruits in the process.

"[In Afghanistan], our coalition is leading aggressive raids against the surviving members of the Taliban and al-Qaida."

Now we are. The Taliban are not so much "surviving" as returning, re-entering the country through the many doors we left open—and exploiting the discontent we allowed to seethe—after proclaiming that mission complete. To its credit, the Bush administration has renewed its attention to Afghanistan, even to the point of getting NATO to help, but it took a while.

"[In Iraq] men who ran away from our troops in battle are now dispersed and attack from the shadows."

First, that happened because the Bush administration decided the war was over after the statue of Saddam toppled and because the occupation forces weren't nearly large enough to secure the country in any serious way. Second, as the CIA and others have observed, the insurgents attacking U.S. troops aren't just Saddam loyalists and foreign jihadists. They're also Iraqis—Sunnis and, more and more, Shiites—who simply don't like the occupation.

"Our forces are on the offensive, leading over 1,600 patrols a day and conducting an average of 180 raids a week."

It's a puzzle why Bush's staff wrote this sentence or, having done so, kept it in the speech. It inexorably brings to mind related, but less assuring, statistics—the weekly rate of Iraqi attacks and U.S. casualties.

"We're working with Iraqis and the United Nations to prepare for a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty by the end of June."

Again, now we are, sort of. Until very recently, when the realities on the ground finally pressed too hard to ignore, the Bush administration did everything it could to keep the United Nations out of such preparations, to deny that any outside powers were necessary.

"Because of American leadership and resolve, the world is changing for the better. Last month, the leader of Libya voluntarily pledged to disclose and dismantle all of his regime's weapons of mass destructions programs. … Nine months of intense negotiations involving the United States and Great Britain succeeded with Libya."

Almost certainly the war in Iraq, especially the collapse of Saddam's reign, had a sobering effect on Col. Qaddafi. Still, it is worth noting that his weapons of mass destruction program amounted to little more than a handful of centrifuges and a smattering of uranium; he wasn't close to mounting a real project, much less to building a bomb. Also, the reference to "nine months" raises questions. That indicates the "intense negotiations" got under way last March—before the war began. Bush didn't say much about, at best, uneven attempts to dash the nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Korea—a failing that, in North Korea's case, can be placed squarely on Bush's refusal to negotiate.

"Some in this chamber, and in our country, did not support the liberation of Iraq."

This is a low blow. In last year's address, the war was sold only peripherally as a campaign of liberation; its main pitch was to chop off the world's most dangerous possessor of biological, chemical, and—any day now—nuclear weapons.

"The Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities…"

Here is where the speechwriters most fastidiously avoid last year's dread "16 words" syndrome. Note that the sentence mentions not "weapons of mass destruction" but "weapons of mass destruction-related," and not even "programs" but "program activities." This careful phrasing is in keeping with David Kay's report, which is replete with phrases that, skimmed swiftly, suggest much danger but, read closely, indicate next to nothing. (For a detailed analysis of the report, click here.)

"Some critics have said our duties in Iraq must be internationalized. This … is hard to explain to our partners in Britain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, the Netherlands, Norway, El Salvador, and the 17 other countries that have committed troops to Iraq."

Let's go to the numbers (courtesy of globalsecurity.org). Some of these countries do have fairly substantial numbers of troops in Iraq. Britain has about 11,000. A few of them have something like the equivalent of a battalion: Italy, 3,000; Ukraine, 2,000; Spain, 1,300; the Netherlands, 1,100; Australia, 1,000; Poland, 630. The others can only be called token: Bulgaria, 470; Thailand, 443; Denmark, 367; El Salvador, 360; Hungary, 150; Japan, 41. (Norway has only naval forces in the area; the Philippines' numbers are unrecorded but doubtless minuscule.) Few of these troops are detailed, or even trained, for combat. None (except Britain's and Italy's) comes close to the levels committed by the genuine coalition of forces that President Bush's father amassed for the Gulf War of 1991. In that earlier war, several Arab and European countries deployed whole divisions on the ground and wings of jet fighters in the air.

More to the point, Bush's critics on this point are concerned not just with spreading the costs and the burdens but also with legitimizing the transition to Iraqi sovereignty. The issue isn't so much which countries send troops as who's making the decisions.

"There is a difference, however, between leading a coalition of many nations and submitting to the objections of a few. America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people."

posted 01-21-2004 11:22 PM            

MIA in the SOU
Bush stops pretending that he cares about the environment.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004, at 8:45 PM PT

posted 01-21-2004 11:25 PM            

NO CHILD'S BEHIND LEFT
The New Educational Eugenics in George Bush's State of the Union
Wednesday, January 21, 2004

by Greg Palast

Go ahead, George, and lie to me. Lie to my dog. Lie to my sister. But don't you ever lie to my kids.

Deep into your State of the Siege lecture tonight, long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen, you came after our children. "By passing the No Child Left Behind Act," you said, "We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing."

You said it ... and then that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, "He knows."

And what you know, Mr. Bush, is this: you've ordered this testing to hunt down, identify and target for destruction the hopes of millions of children you find too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate.

Here's how No Child Left Behind and your tests work in the classrooms of Houston and Chicago. Millions of 8 year olds are given lists of words and phrases. They try to read. Then they are graded, like USDA beef: some prime, some OK, many failed.

Once the kids are stamped and sorted, the parents of the marked children ask for you to fill your tantalizing promise, to "make sure they have better options when schools are not performing."

But there is no "better option," is there, Mr. Bush? Where's the money for the better schools to take in the kids getting crushed in cash-poor districts? Where's the open door to the suburban campuses with the big green lawns for the dark kids with the test-score mark of Cain?

And if I bring up the race of the kids with the low score, don't get all snippy with me, telling me your program is color blind. We know the color of the kids left behind; and it's not the color of the kids you went to school with at Philips Andover Academy.

You know and I know that the testing is a con. There is no "better option" at the other end. The cash went to end the inheritance tax, that special program to give every millionaire's son another million.

But you'll tell me, you took tests as a youth. I know you did. And you scored on the Air Guard flight test 25 out of 100, one point above too dumb to fly. But you zoomed past the other would-be flyboys. They were stamped, "Ready for 'Nam."

And you took a test to get into Yale. And though your pet rock scored a wee bit higher than you, your grandpa on the Yale board provided the "better option" which got you in.

Here in New York City, your educational Taliban, led by Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has issued an edict to test the third-graders. Winnow out the chaff - the kids stamped 'failed' - and throw them back, exactly where they started, to repeat the same failed program another year. The ugly little irony is this: the core of No Child Left Behind is that failing children will be left behind another year. And another year and another year.

You know and I know that this is not an educational opportunity program - because you offer no opportunities, no hope, no plan, no funding. Rather, it is the new Republican social Darwinism, educational eugenics: identify the nation's loser-class early on. Trap them, then train them cheap.

No Child Left Behind is of one piece with the tax cuts for the rich, the energy laws for the insiders, the oil wars for the well-off. Someone has to care for the privileged. No society can have winners without lots of losers - but drug-free, functional and cheaply maintained.

posted 01-22-2004 09:54 AM            

THE STATE OF THE NATION
Jobs, Trade, Health Care, Housing, Retirement Security

Dennis J. Kucinich
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Bedford, New Hampshire

Our nation is in a perilous condition due to fear, war, tax cuts to wealthy Americans, and trade policies leading to widespread unemployment in manufacturing and high tech industries. The rising costs of health care threaten the financial stability of all Americans. The retirement security of tens of millions of Americans is in doubt. Social Security is under attack with another privatization scheme.

National economic trends are discouraging. The official unemployment rate for all of 2003 was 6%, but this figure masks the number of people who have not been able to find work and who have given up looking for work and are no longer recorded in the totals. Tax cuts produced only a fraction of the jobs promised. The economy would have to create 375,000 new jobs per month in order to keep the Administration from having the worst job creation of any administration since the beginning of the Great Depression. There are 2.4 million more people unemployed now than when the Administration took office.

In less than three years, a projected ten year surplus of $5.6 trillion has turned into a projected deficit of $3.6 trillion.

The official poverty rate is up, from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.1% in 2002. Nearly 34.6 million Americans live in poverty. About 1.7 million more than in 2001.

In New Hampshire, 11,255 workers have become unemployed since this Administration took office and 22,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost.

It is urgent that we immediately institute a job creation program patterned after the WPA of the Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. America has hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure needs. We must rebuild our roads, our bridges, water systems, sewer systems, roads, libraries; build new schools and colleges and new sustainable energy systems. It will be a $500 billion program funded. The Federal Reserve holds a large amount of treasury securities, a certain portion would be transferred to a newly created Federal Bank of Infrastructure Modernization. The money would be loaned to the states at zero interest. The states would pay the principal back which would replenish funds in the bank. The zero interest loan would cut the cost of projects in half for states, by eliminating interest expense.

Every state and local government would have access to $185 per capita per year for ten years for infrastructure improvements. We can put millions of people back to work with this program.

It is clear that the tax cuts to those in the top bracket have not improved the economy. They must be cancelled because they have created a system that favors the wealthy over the middle class. The tax cuts have complicated the tax code with loopholes and caused massive deficits.

We must stop the shift in wealth occurring in our tax code and we must stop the loss of jobs occurring through our trade policies.

Since July of the year 2000, America has lost three million manufacturing jobs in textile, steel, automotive, aerospace, and shipping industries. A$550 billion trade deficit is looming as a long-term threat to our national economic security.

The tax code is not the only area where the Administration is helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It has spent $155 billion for an unnecessary war driven by fear. It spends half of the nation’s resources for military purposes.

The urgent needs of the American people are for health care, education, housing, job creation, retirement security and veterans benefits.

A new direction and strong measures are needed to repair the hopes of Americans for physical and economic security.

Health Security

Forty three million Americans do not have health insurance, including 125,000 residents of New Hampshire. Seventy percent of the uninsured live in a family with at least one full time worker. Health insurance premiums have increased about 50% in the past three years. Over the past three years, senior citizens total spending on prescription drugs has increased by almost 50%. American seniors will spend $1.8 trillion dollars on prescription drugs over the next ten years. Everyone knows Americans pay more for prescription drugs than people in other countries, including Canada. The Administration’s Medicare plan will increase profits of the drug companies and undermine Medicare through eliminating cost containment measures. And not everyone receives the meager benefits. In New Hampshire, for example, 18,300 seniors are worse off under this new plan.

It is time for a universal, single payer, not-for-profit system, extended Medicare for All. Such an approach is contemplated in HR 676, a bill I have cosponsored in the House of Representatives, which will phase in a full coverage plan over a ten year period.

This approach to health care emphasizes patient choice and puts doctors and patients in control of the system, not insurance companies.

The fact is that the American people are already paying for a universal standard of care, but are not getting it. Over $1.6 trillion, fully 15% of our gross domestic product, is spent for health care. This amount would be sufficient today to provide full health care coverage for all medically necessary procedures, plus care for vision, dental, mental health, long term care and a prescription drug benefit. It could all be covered if all the health care dollars went for health care. Unfortunately, hundreds of billions of that $1.6 trillion goes for the benefit and activities of a private, for profit health care system. Consider what you actually pay for when you pay your health insurance premium: Corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, lobbying, the cost of private sector administration 15% - 30%. Executives of health insurance corporations routinely make millions a year while their agents routinely refuse doctors requests for tests and procedures for patients. Premiums, deductibles and co pays are soaring while a few profit at the expense of the many and while health insurance companies are busy with expensive acquisitions which allow them to achieve increasing market dominance.

In New Hampshire, Anthem raised premiums substantially after it acquired Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Executive of pharmaceutical companies also make millions while charging American consumers three times what people in other countries pay for the same prescription.

I am offering the American people a plan which will remove private insurance companies and all their tricks from the system, along with their profits, excessive executive salaries, their waste and their paperwork and redirect resources to actual treatment.

Insurance companies make money not providing health care. They do not treat or heal anyone; physicians and health practitioners do. A study by researchers of Harvard Medical School and Public Citizen found that health care bureaucracies last year cost the United States almost $400 billion and that a single payer system would save at least $286 billion annually, enough to cover all the uninsured and to provide a fully funded prescription drug benefit.

A not-for-profit, national health care system will actually decrease the total health care spending while providing more treatment and services.

Funding for a not-for-profit system will come primarily from existing government health care spending (more than $1 trillion) and a phased-in tax on employers of 7.7%, which would yield about one trillion. Employers who provide coverage are already paying 8.5% on average.

The cost effectiveness of a not-for-profit, universal system of health care has been affirmed by several studies, including those by the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Budget Office. The GAO has said, “If the US were to shift to a system of universal coverage and a single payer, as in Canada, the savings in administrative costs would be more than enough to offset the expense of universal coverage.

Housing Security

Twelve million households pay half of their incomes for housing. There is an urgent need for subsidized housing. Programs for the preservation of public housing, project based Section 8 and tenant based subsidized housing programs must be fully funded and expanded. This will lower the amount of family income that goes to housing, so that millions of American families can meet other basic needs for food, shelter, utilities and transportation.

The Department of Justice must investigate, prosecute and eliminate predatory lending practices of high interest rates, balloon payments and inflated lender fees which lead to people losing their homes. These sharp practices are often aimed at low income and minority communities which often lack legal recourse.

Social Security

Social Security is essentially sound. The Social Security Trust Fund, according to an analysis by the fund’s trustees, is solvent through the year 2042, without any congressional action being necessary. Social Security is projected to pay all of its promised benefits for the next four decades without any changes whatsoever. A shortfall projected to occur in 2042 is not a crisis.

There is a political crisis looming for Social Security, however.

The same Administration which looked the other way while millions of investors were defrauded by chicanery in mutual funds and unscrupulous Wall Street operators such as those at Enron, Global Crossing and WorldCom now wants to take your Social Security funds and invest them in the stock market in a plan called "private savings accounts."

Most people understand that investment in the stock market is risky. What goes up must come down. For every winner there is a loser. Social Security is the only guaranteed income for old age and for disability. It is what protects many Americans from poverty. Proponents of this scheme to invest Social Security funds in the stock market assume that the stocks will earn a 7% annual rate of return over the next 75 years. Social Security trustees are predicting the growth of the economy will slow to 1.45% per year over that period, meaning that it will be impossible to get a 7% rate of return on stocks in a slow growth economy.

Additionally, we must insist on a critical inspection of the actuarial assumptions for privatization.

There is no sound reason to privatize Social Security. Simply put, the money belongs to main street, not Wall Street. People work a lifetime to gain a small measure of economic security through Social Security and no one's future ought to be jeopardized just because of the greed of a few who want to fuel the growth of the market.

Social Security is solid. But the same is not true for the private pension plans of tens of millions of Americans which are in jeopardy. More and more corporations are failing to fully fund their defined benefit pension plans and using bankruptcy to cheat hardworking American out of their full retirement benefits while dumping pension obligations onto the taxpayer backed Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation.

The PBGC assumed liabilities of 152 plans in the last year. A $7.73 billion dollar surplus in the year 2001 has turned into a deficit of over $11 billion. The takeover of several giant plans, together with its own faltering stock portfolio has led the PBGS to incur a $7.6 billion loss in 2003, the largest in its history.

What’s more, the under funding of pension plans is so severe that it is anticipated that $85.5 billion in pension claims are under funded.

According to the LA Times, nearly 90% of the 343 companies in the S&P 500 that offered traditional, defined-benefit pension plans in 2002 were under funded, despite the fact that in 1999 these corporations had a total pension surplus of $251 billion. By the end of 2002 that surplus became a shortfall of over $350 billion.

posted 01-22-2004 12:42 PM            

I recieved Palast's in my inbox and conincidentally saw him speaking on CSpan to a watchdog organization -- a press group -- and loved hearing him!

You know I also received Kucinich's as as well and appreciate your including it -- knew ya would!

The others were excellent finds, too!

Today the Senate plans on passing the Omnibus spending bill which includes a provision to federally mandate that overtime pay be slashed for all workers without 4 year degrees! Can you believe it? Nurses, policemen, agricultural workers, veterans in the private sector, and millions of workers will be affected! This is soooo maddening! On average it will decrease income by $160 a week! The Dems are speaking out, but the Repubs are not budging! In fact, an amendment to the bill (presented by Harkin-Kennedy)extricating this and another provision about preventing food labelling as to origin is being ignored by Repubs as well! Last night, a secret conference community meeting was held with the administration, too, I might add in reference to this bill and its inclusions pandering to special interests! "Why have a Senate and Congress when you can have a King?" asked Hillary Clinton this morning on the floor of the Senate! I do so hope the CSpan Repub junkies are watching! Creeps!

How will this affect the job situation that was so outlined above? Please! It's not hard to imagine the plans to create a vast class of poor and another class of rich with no middle class!

Yes, I'm mad! Steaming!

bc

posted 01-22-2004 02:22 PM            

How do der Fuhrer's speechwriters get those 'rose colored glasses' figures?

>BUSH HIDES 1.5 MILLION UNEMPLOYED AMERICANS

How do you keep you unemployment figures down? If you are President Bush, you just hide more than a million out of work Americans. On seeing the September employment figures released earlier this month, one expert said:

"The increase of 57,000 new jobs is positive news for America's workers but is with a deep regret that while reading the Department of Labor's most recent report I have discovered an addition 1.5 million unemployed persons.

In the Department of Labor's Employment Situation Summary, released on October 3rd 2003, we find that, 'The number of unemployed persons, 9.0 million, was about unchanged in September, and the unemployment rate was 6.1 percent, the same as in August.'

Upon further reading of the report I was unfortunate enough to stumble across an additional 1.5 million unemployed citizens who had not been counted. The report reads, 'In September, 1.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force...These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months...388,000 were discouraged workers...The other 1.2 million marginally attached had not searched for work because they were in school or had family responsibilities. They were not counted as unemployed.'

While I am happy that we have had an increase in 'temporary help employment' of 57,000, I feel that this somehow cannot compensate for the discovery of 1.5 million unemployed citizens who were not counted simply because they were looking for jobs."
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posted 01-22-2004 03:57 PM            

President Bush's State of the Union: More Deceptions
Also see e-survey results

clw@clw.org
http://www.clw.org

Dear friend,

The President's January 20 "State of the Union" address perpetuates his distortions about Iraq and American security. It was more a campaign speech -- complete with slogans and boasts -- than a realistic assessment of the mess in which we find ourselves. (complete text of the President's speech)

The President discussed Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." This vague assertion about "activities" stands in sharp contrast with Bush's speech last year in which he warned of an imminent threat to the U.S. and our allies from Saddam's existing weapons of mass destructions. Bush neglected to mention in this year's speech that no such weapons have been found.

The President also said "No one can now doubt the word of America." In point of fact, most of the rest of the world doubts George W. Bush's word after our pre-emptive strike against Iraq based on faulty intelligence and lies. The President's go-it-alone policies have left us isolated and distrusted.

The President listed many countries helping the U.S. in Iraq. In fact, 90% of the troops in Iraq are American and the U.S. is bearing most of the cost in casualties and dollars -- over 3,500 casualties and over $120 billion.

The President promised stability and democracy in Iraq and
Afghanistan. The reality on the ground is that both occupations are heading for disaster. Moreover, the U.S. has failed to find Osama bin Laden and has let the dangerous Israeli-Arab conflict fester with little attempt to work for a peaceful solution.

As the Washington Post reported on January 21: "Other experts said some of the president's rhetoric exceeded the reality on the ground, and would do little to restore the administration's credibility with allies angered by the administration's decision to go to war." (complete text)

In short, threats to U.S. security and global stability are the highest in recent memory as a direct result of Bush Administration policies. The U.S. and the world cannot afford another four years of George W. Bush. Council for a Livable World has made it a top priority in 2004 to rid the White House and Congress of George W. Bush and his neo-conservative allies:
http://www.Anyone But George W. Bush.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Council for a Livable World Survey Results

We had many replies to our e-survey about key issues in 2004. The responses have been very informative.

The top issue -- from 90% of the respondents -- is opposing the Bush Administration's development of a new generation of nuclear weapons.

But you also said that opposing the war in Iraq and Star Wars, controlling defense spending and stopping proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are important.

In addition, over 95% said that electing a President and Congress that agrees with you on issues is very important.

Council for a Livable World will work hard on both the issues and the elections for the next 10 months.

Remember, regime change begins at home.

Complete set of survey responses.

posted 01-22-2004 09:25 PM            

Anonymous
Ass-hole in the Oval Orifice.
Wed Jan 21 13:01:14 2004
67.1.159.15

Dear Fuck-Head Bush

Ass-hole in the Oval Orifice.

The latest joke making the rounds on the internet is that truth
has become so valuable that the government has embarked on a
conservation program.

Lying is something we normally take very seriously. Certainly we
ourselves are exhorted by schools and clergy to always be truthful. We
demand truthfulness of those around us and those we employ, and while we
may wink tolerantly at the "white" lie, most of us realize that society
as a whole cannot function smoothly without a certain assurance of
honesty. We therefore punish children who lie. We fire employees who
lie. We choose to not associate with, listen to, or trust people who
lie. We are most demanding for the truth in the matter of commerce. We
demand that products and services we spend our hard-earned money on
function exactly as promised by the salesperson. We generally tolerate
nothing less.

For most Americans, government is the single largest expense in
our lives. Combined taxes and fees for all levels of government devour
roughly half of all that we ever earn. Most Americans spend more money
on the government than on their homes. Yet for this particular "product"
and these particular "salespeople", we the consumers seem strangely
reluctant to demand the same honesty we expect of, for example, the
people we buy our cars from. Somehow, We The People have been lured into
accepting a double standard; that the government which takes so much of
our money is exempt from the normal requirement for truth upon which at
least in part our civilization is built.

I don't know where this acceptance of lies by the government
came from. It is certainly not in the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution lays out exactly what the government is allowed to do.
The Tenth Amendment makes it very clear that the government may not
assume a right or power. If something isn't in the Constitution, then
the government may not legally do it. Now, I've read the Constitution,
many times. Nowhere in that document is the government explicitly given
the right and power to lie to the people. It isn't in there. That means
that when a government official does lie, he or she is acting
unconstitutionally and exceeding the legal limits of their office. When
a government official, ANY official, lies, they cease to be legally a
part of the government of the United States. And just as the
Constitution does not authorize the government to lie to the people, the
Constitution does not bind the people to accept ay lies by the
government, or to follow any dictates by the government built on that
lie. In short, the Constitution mirrors the values of the society. Truth
is required of the government. Nothing less will serve.

While we have all grown up more or less used to the idea that
politicians lie to us, never before in US history have the lies been as
bold, in-our-faces, arrogant, or unrepentant. The American people can no
longer pretend that lying politicians are just a joke. It is real. The
government has been caught lying to us, and lying to us on a matter of
utmost seriousness, a war of conquest.

Those who would defend the liars when they are caught lying
usually resort to one of three arguments. The first is that we must
assume that the lie is for our own good. This is nonsense. If it is for
our own good then tell us the truth and we will likely agree with
anything that is for our own good. The use of a lie by a government
official is an open admission a priori that the official is up to
something the people would NOT agree with, such as spending our tax
money for things that benefit the official but not the people.

The second argument used by those trying to defend the liars is
that so many others have lied who were not caught and punished that it
would "be unfair" to single out the one who was caught lying. But do we
stop arresting muggers because of all the muggers who were never caught?
Or do we catch and punish those that we can to deter others from a life
of crime?

The third argument used by those who defend the liars is to
claim that it was "only one lie" and to consider all the times the
official told the truth. But again, do we free the murderer for all
those whom he or she did not kill, or do we jail the murderer for the
one victim that died?

A lot of people, afraid of the government, found comfort in the
illusion that government lies happened long ago, or far away, or somehow
didn't really impact them and therefore require no response. No more.
The present morass of lies regarding the wars in the Mideast touches us
all, impoverishes us all, and has brought death to many Americans who
would otherwise be alive today.

Current headlines surround the claim made in George Bush's State
of the Union Speech that Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Niger.
CIA Director George Tenet has fallen on his sword for the President, but
only for not trying hard enough to remove the claim from the speech.
Left unexplained is just how the claim was put into Bush's speech in the
first place, and why if the CIA did in fact remove the claim from a
previous Bush speech in October of 2002, the White House felt justified
in using the same claim again three months later. The claim that Iraq
was trying to buy uranium from Niger was based solely on documents since
revealed to be forgeries, and clumsy ones at that, laundered through
Italy and Great Britain before arriving at the US. Iraq hardly needs to
buy uranium ore from Niger, having naturally occurring uranium mines of
its own. This claim was not only a lie, it was an obvious one.

But while the present focus is on this one lie, the fact is that
most, indeed maybe ALL, of the claims made to justify the invasion and
conquest of Iraq have failed to withstand close scrutiny. Prudence
demands that we not forget these other examples of mendacity, because
the war in Iraq was not built on just one lie, but on a great many lies,
deceptions, and falsehoods.

Let us be clear, there were no weapons of mass destruction found
in Iraq. Many Americans may not be aware of that fact because of a
little game the US mainstream media played, in which suspected WMDs were
given constant play throughout the day, with the retraction and
admission of a benign explanation issued late at night when few people
would see it. The swindle worked like this. All day long barrels of
white powder "suspected" of being chemicals used for biological weapons
would be the lead story on all the news shows. Then late at night, there
would be a single report on how the barrels turned out to be pesticide.
The media could claim to have reported the facts truthfully, yet most
viewers were left with the impression that weapons of mass destruction
had indeed been found in Iraq, thereby justifying the war.

Perhaps the most egregious example of this media spin involved
the trailers claimed by Colin Powell to be mobile biological weapons
labs in photos shown to the United Nations. When the actual trailers
were captured by US Forces, photos, captioned as suspected mobile
biological weapons labs, were omnipresent no the network news and major
newspapers. When experts studying the photos pointed out that the
trailers lacked essential components needed to be biological weapons
labs, the Bush administration then claimed that the trailers were used
on conjunction with other, not-yet-discovered trailers, to form the
weapons labs. This too was given a great deal of play on the networks
and major newspapers. But when the trailers were positively identified
as part of a weather balloon system sold to Iraq by Great Britain, the
network news barely noticed!

A major portion of the case for invading Iraq were the two
"Dossiers" provide by Great Britain. The second Dossier, and more
recently the first, have both been revealed to have been assembled from
material collected from the internet, including a plagiarized student
paper based on 12 year old data! The revisions history contained in the
original Word Document of the second Dossier confirms that it was being
edited and revised by Tony Blair's staff.

Why was Blair's staff writing their own dossier from 12 year old
material? Because the intelligence Blair was getting from British
Intelligence, just like the intelligence that Bush was getting from the
CIA, did not support the need for immediate war. Blair went back to 12
year old data, and so did Rumsfeld, because there was no current data
that supported the claim that Iraq posed a threat to the United States
of America.

That claim, that Iraq posed any kind of threat to the United
States, is also a lie. Iraq has never posed a threat to the United
States, which is why the United States had no problems PROVIDING weapons
of mass destruction to Iraq in the first place. Iraq had no missiles
able to reach across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. And even
if it had, Iraq would not have used them.

You see, the thing the US Government and the media is hoping you
have forgotten is that $5 trillion dollar "investment" your parents were
forced to make in nuclear weapons, and the silo-launched missiles,
nuclear subs, and bombers to deliver them anywhere on Earth. The promise
was that this horrific assemblage of monster weapons would deter an
attack.

That has to apply to Iraq. Saddam was many things, but he wasn't
crazy, and he had an ego of the huge size one finds in a head-of-state.
He wasn't going to attack the US when such an attack would destroy Iraq
and all those Iraqis Saddam expected to revere his memory after he was
gone. So, if the US nuclear deterrent works, then neither Saddam nor
anyone else is going to attack us. The cost is too high. If, on the
other hand, the nuclear deterrent does not work, then the taxpayers have
all been the victims of a $5 trillion dollar swindle by the US
Government.

In fact, given the existence of the US Nuclear deterrent, it
only makes sense to attack the United States if the attacker plans to
plant the blame for the attack on an innocent nation, for the express
purpose of bringing down the military wrath of the US on that innocent
nation.

Which brings us to those anthrax letters sent out just after
9-11.

For weeks after the anthrax letters appeared, the media focused
on Arab Muslims as the prime suspect, based on the letters included with
the anthrax, written to appear to be from semi-literate Arab Muslims.
But this too turned out to be a lie. The letters contained a strain of
Anthrax that traced back to a US Government laboratory! As of now, there
are only two real suspects in the anthrax letters case. One is Dr.
Stephen Hatfill, famed by constant TV reportage of his being a "person
of interest" to the FBI. The other suspect is Dr. Philip Zack, who was
caught by the security system entering the storage area where the
anthrax was kept, after being fired from his job.

The key point is that neither of these men are Arab, or Muslim.
Therefore, the letters enclosed with the anthrax, written to appear to
be from Arab Muslims, are incontrovertible proof of a plan to frame Arab
Muslims for terror attacks in the United States. Just how far that plan
to frame Arabs may reach is still unknown. But that it exists is beyond
doubt.

Lie after lie after lie. It's probably simpler to wonder what if
anything we have been told about Iraq is the truth. But now that the
government has been caught in multiple lies, only a fool and idiot would
assume that anything we have been told by the US Government or the media
is true. The burden of proof is not on We The People to prove the
government lies from this point on, the burden of proof is on the
government and media to prove that they are telling the truth.

The US Government lied to justify an invasion of Iraq and its
oil fields. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Had there been,
Saddam would have used them to save himself during the invasion. All the
lies about WMDs fail on this point, that at the time and place where
Saddam had everything to gain and nothing left to use by employing such
weapons, he clearly had none to use.

Trust is a delicate thing. It can take decades to build and a
single careless moment to destroy. To judge by the current polls, the
people of the United States have lost all trust in the government. And
that is a fatal affliction for a government, because were a real
emergency to occur now, the government would be unable to lead the
people who, wary of being made fools of yet again, will not accept what
the government says at face value.

Just think what it means knowing that the government lies to
you. Is that tax really legal, or necessary? The government says so, but
now you know that this does not mean it is true. Maybe that tax you pay
isn't really legal at all. How do you know that a leader you liked
really died because of an accident, or a "crazed lone assassin"? You
don't know it. You cannot know it. Not when you live under a government
and media that lies, as this government and this media provably do.

Science fiction movies portray mind control as a zombie like
state involving drugs and flashing lights and lots of special effects.
But in truth all mind control means is controlling the brain by
controlling what it knows, by lying, by feeding the brain of the citizen
only those bits and pieces of information that would cause that brain to
decide to do what the government wants it to decide, and of its own
supposed free will. In a nation of total information control, one could
be a slave and not even realize it.

How did we get into this mess? Yes, because officials lie and
the media has abandoned their role to watch for lies. But in the end, WE
THE PEOPLE must share the blame for the degeneration of our government,
because we saw the lies and chose not to act. Because as long as We The
People tolerate lies in government, we will live under a government that
lies to us. But when we decide to have the courage to make the cost of a
single lie immediate expulsion from office, when we have the will to
make the cost of a lie outweigh its benefit by throwing the liars into
the streets in the most humiliating manner possible, then officials will
discover that truth is a virtue.

It's still out country. The government is our employee, and we
have caught our employee lying to us. What happens next is up to you.

--
"All history is a set of lies agreed upon".
Napoleon Bonaparte

posted 01-22-2004 11:50 PM            

Here's one where the U.K. jumped on the bandwagon! I was qutie surprised! Guess the whole world is keeping track huh?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947

George W Bush and the real state of the Union
Today the President gives his annual address. As the election battle begins, how does his first term add up?
20 January 2004

232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and January 2004

501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the war - so far

0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945

0: Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed

0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq

100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2003

13: Number of meetings between Bush and Tony Blair since he became President

10 million: Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, setting an all-time record for simultaneous protest

2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into the White House

9.2: Average number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq each day since the invasion in March last year

1.6: Average number of American soldiers killed in Iraq per day since hostilities began

16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of war

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi civilians killed since the beginning of the conflict

$100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American citizens by the end of 2003

$13 billion: Amount other countries have committed towards rebuilding Iraq (much of it in loans) as of 24 October

36%: Increase in the number of desertions from the US army since 1999

92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to drinkable water a year ago

60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to drinkable water today

32%: Percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq this year that were not precision-guided

1983: The year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs

45%: Percentage of Americans who believed in early March 2003 that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 11 September attacks on the US

$127 billion: Amount of US budget surplus in the year that Bush became President in 2001

$374 billion: Amount of US budget deficit in the fiscal year for 2003

1st: This year's deficit is on course to be the biggest in United States history

$1.58 billion: Average amount by which the US national debt increases each day

$23,920: Amount of each US citizen's share of the national debt as of 19 January 2004

1st: The record for the most bankruptcies filed in a single year (1.57 million) was set in 2002

10: Number of solo press conferences that Bush has held since beginning his term. His father had managed 61 at this point in his administration, and Bill Clinton 33

1st: Rank of the US worldwide in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per capita

$113 million: Total sum raised by the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, setting a record in American electoral history

$130 million: Amount raised for Bush's re-election campaign so far

$200m: Amount that the Bush-Cheney campaign is expected to raise in 2004

$40m: Amount that Howard Dean, the top fund-raiser among the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls, amassed in 2003

28: Number of days holiday that Bush took last August, the second longest holiday of any president in US history (Recordholder: Richard Nixon)

13: Number of vacation days the average American worker receives each year

3: Number of children convicted of capital offences executed in the US in 2002. America is only country openly to acknowledge executing children

1st: As Governor of Texas, George Bush executed more prisoners (152) than any governor in modern US history

2.4 million: Number of Americans who have lost their jobs during the three years of the Bush administration

221,000: Number of jobs per month created since Bush's tax cuts took effect. He promised the measure would add 306,000

1,000: Number of new jobs created in the entire country in December. Analysts had expected a gain of 130,000

1st: This administration is on its way to becoming the first since 1929 (Herbert Hoover) to preside over an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office

9 million: Number of US workers unemployed in September 2003

80%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce now unemployed

55%: Percentage of the Iraqi workforce unemployed before the war

43.6 million: Number of Americans without health insurance in 2002

130: Number of countries (out of total of 191 recognised by the United Nations) with an American military presence

40%: Percentage of the world's military spending for which the US is responsible

$10.9 million: Average wealth of the members of Bush's original 16-person cabinet

88%: Percentage of American citizens who will save less than $100 on their 2006 federal taxes as a result of 2003 cut in capital gains and dividends taxes

$42,000: Average savings members of Bush's cabinet are expected to enjoy this year as a result in the cuts in capital gains and dividends taxes

$42,228: Median household income in the US in 2001

$116,000: Amount Vice-President Cheney is expected to save each year in taxes

44%: Percentage of Americans who believe the President's economic growth plan will mostly benefit the wealthy

700: Number of people from around the world the US has incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

1st: George W Bush became the first American president to ignore the Geneva Conventions by refusing to allow inspectors access to US-held prisoners of war

+6%: Percentage change since 2001 in the number of US families in poverty

1951: Last year in which a quarterly rise in US military spending was greater than the one the previous spring

54%: Percentage of US citizens who believe Bush was legitimately elected to his post

1st: First president to execute a federal prisoner in the past 40 years. Executions are typically ordered by separate states and not at federal level

9: Number of members of Bush's defence policy board who also sit on the corporate board of, or advise, at least one defence contractor

35: Number of countries to which US has suspended military assistance after they failed to sign agreements giving Americans immunity from prosecution before the International Criminal Court

$300 million: Amount cut from the federal programme that provides subsidies to poor families so they can heat their homes

$1 billion: Amount of new US military aid promised Israel in April 2003 to offset the "burdens" of the US war on Iraq

58 million: Number of acres of public lands Bush has opened to road building, logging and drilling

200: Number of public-health and environmental laws Bush has attempted to downgrade or weaken

29,000: Number of American troops - which is close to the total of a whole army division - to have either been killed, wounded, injured or become so ill as to require evacuation from Iraq, according to the Pentagon

90%: Percentage of American citizens who said they approved of the way George Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 26 September, 2001

53%: Percentage of American citizens who approved of the way Bush was handling his job as president when asked on 16 January, 2004

posted 01-28-2004 09:50 PM            

Threat to Bush alleged
By TERRIE MORGAN-BESECKER
tmorgan@leader.net
SECURITY

NEWPORT TWP. - A man who said he didn't like President's Bush's State of the Union address was arrested Wednesday night after he phoned the county's 911 center and said he was a terrorist and was going to "kill the president," authorities said.

Myron Demchak Jr., 40, last known address of 2641 S. Main St., Hanover Township, made a second call moments later and said he was going to "kill the son of a bitch," according to a criminal compliant filed by the U.S. Secret Service agent Mindy Pretzman.

According to the complaint, the 911 center dispatcher traced the call to a phone booth near the Variety Stop store on East Main Street in Glen Lyon. Newport Township police immediately responded and located Demchak at the scene. He was detained until the Secret Service arrived.

Pretzman said Demchak appeared to be intoxicated and was extremely uncooperative. He eventually admitted making the calls and later said he did so because he "did not like what (the president) had to say."

Handcuffed and dressed in prison garb, Demchak appeared before U.S. Magistrate Malachy Mannion on Thursday on a single charge of making a threat against the president, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Demchak appeared unfazed by the charges, speaking casually with court personnel. He did not respond to questions from a reporter.

U.S. Attorney Barbara Kosik Whittaker said federal authorities take any type of threat against the president very seriously. Demchak's alleged intoxication is not a defense against the charge, she said.

"He called 911. You just don't do that. It sets all kinds of bells and whistles off," she said.

Kosik Whittaker requested Demchak be detained because he is charged with a "crime of violence." Mannion granted the request and Demchak was taken to the Lackawanna County prison, where he will be held pending a formal detention hearing on Jan. 28.

posted 01-28-2004 11:11 PM            

And that dude who got drunk? What a sweetie!

Hehehehe!