Global Warming:
What We Can Look Forward To

And now for the juicy details on what a warmer planet means to you and me: decimation of species, disease, fires and, uh, disease. Sounds like a fun-filled future!

Maybe the rising sea levels will expand the habitats of porcelain crabs? Uh, no, I guess that isn't likely. Then again, porcelain crabs won't be the only things we lose if the world climate warms by 4 to 6 degrees - think of all the world's cities that are located on coasts.

West Nile virus isn't the only disease that will spread on a warmer planet. Thank god we'll have universal health care to take care of us! Oh, right, never mind.

Extreme weather will be fun. When it rains, it will flood. When it's dry, there will be drought. And forests will burn, bringing respiratory disease. If the Bush administration just accepted the reality of global warming, then maybe they could use it as justification for their Healthy Forests Initiative! Too bad scientists like Dr. Paul Epstein from Harvard Medical School would rain on that parade:

"Global warming or climate change is associated with more extreme weather.

The rise of U.S. wildfires is turning global warming into a real and direct health threat for American adults and children. The chief concern has to be that global warming, if left unchecked, will mean more intense weather extremes, including drought. The resulting -- and worsening -- wildfire problems in the United States could well mean a steadily increasing toll in the related health problems."

William Schlesinger of Duke University has similarly blunt words about global warming's effect on the environment:

"We are altering the climate of the earth to a point that we've never experienced before in human society. And this has consequences for sea level rise, for the frequency of fire and for drought that could very well impact the occurrence of fire.

The most important thing for the public to understand about this is that our nation needs to curb its emissions of carbon dioxide. We are altering the climate of the planet to a point never before seen ... Limiting the amount of carbon dioxide we produce and release into the world's atmosphere through fossil-fuel burning cars, along with coal and oil energy, would greatly assist in slowing down our unstable and abruptly changing ecosystem ... There will be no relief from the drought that fuels the wildfires until our nation's leaders get serious about curbs on CO2 emissions."

Fortunately, global warming isn't a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans, except the Bushies who just can't resist oil dollars, have an obvious interest in a sustainable environment. Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP) is leading the charge from the right to hold Bush accountable for his reckless pursuit of policies which benefit no one but energy producers.

REP America President Martha Marks said, "First, the administration watered down language about global warming in EPA's recent state of the environment report. Then, the administration dismissed federal scientists' concerns in declaring that Yellowstone National Park is in no danger. Now, we see that senators were not given vital information about cleaning up unhealthy power plant emissions."

"The administration should treat the American people and their Congressional representatives like adults and give them the unvarnished truth about the environment," she said.

Global Warming and the Bush Administration

Global warming is a hot topic in the news this week, and not just because the Bush administration suppressed an EPA Report on the subject. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution expressed an appropriate amount of outrage at the Bush administration's behavior:

There is a dangerous pattern emerging from the Bush administration: If the facts don't suit President Bush's policies, distort them.

Now comes news that an important Environmental Protection Agency report leaves out critical scientific facts on global warming -- even facts confirmed by a special study requested by the president himself last year. That study substantiated the Earth's alarming temperature increase over the last decade and its major cause, increased carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The biggest sources are automobiles and coal-fired utilities.

Deleted from the report, for example, is even the simple statement upon which scientists agree: "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment." That statement is replaced with one meant to obfuscate and confuse; it cites the complexities of the issue and the need to resolve uncertainties. The White House changes were so extensive, according to an April 29 EPA staff memo given to the media by a former EPA official, that the report's climate section "no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change."

The president's refusal to face the facts on global warming cannot be construed as anything other than blatant pandering to his friends in Big Oil. They have spent years minimizing scientific facts and refusing to concede the need for conservation and alternative energy sources that could save our children from serious economic and environmental consequences.

Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), the ranking minority member on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, along with several Democratic committee members, has asked the White House for the original drafts of the climate change section. Members on both sides of the aisle are obligated to find out to what extent the American people are being misled on a matter at least as important to the future security of the nation as Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In case you were wondering whether the evidence of global warming is overstated, or just a bunch of treehugging, hippie hype, a report from the United Nations' World Meteoroligical Organization puts warming into numbers that only an idiot would ignore:

In a startling report, the WMO, which normally produces detailed scientific reports and staid statistics at the year's end, highlighted record extremes in weather and climate occurring all over the world in recent weeks, from Switzerland's hottest-ever June to a record month for tornadoes in the United States - and linked them to climate change.

It is possible that 2003 will be the hottest year ever recorded. The 10 hottest years in the 143-year-old global temperature record have now all been since 1990, with the three hottest being 1998, 2002 and 2001.

Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean had a few choice words for the Bush administration's attitude on global warming at a debate hosted by the League of Conservation Voters:

OLNEY: Governor Dean, is there any, in your mind, any scientific disagreement about global warming that’s significant, or do you think it really is an established fact?

DEAN: It’s an established fact unless you’re in the Bush Administration. It’s clearly a scientific—I agree with Joe [Lieberman]—one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy, in all areas, not just the environmental area, is this president is willing to discard science because he doesn’t care about science. This is an administration that has substituted ideology for thought. You can’t run a country, you can’t run a state, your can’t run a company if facts don’t matter. And facts don’t matter to this administration.

I still say Bush commissioned the attacks
The amount of evidence in this case is overwhelming. Just following the links in these links will take you awhile.

Read "The Attack Has Been Spectacular" by Maureen Farrell. Bush lied about his intelligence failures. Bush lied about his justifications for going to war in Iraq. Bush lied about the investigation. Bush lied about his connections to bin Laden.

"But even if WMDs aren't found (or planted), the Inquirer's Dick Polman assures that "Americans might overlook Bush's claims because the war in Iraq was brief and had few U.S. casualties." As a matter of course, Polman also compares George Bush's lies to Bill Clinton's, as if saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" is somehow comparable to spilling both blood and treasure. Given that thousands of Iraqis and more than 200 Americans have already lost their lives (even as US soldiers are ambushed and murdered daily) and that the illegal occupation of Iraq is expected to last somewhere between 5 and 60 years, weighing the consequential trauma of Monica's soiled blue dress against the long-term consequences of Bush Doctrine-related fabrications is like wondering if Martha Stewart is as criminally diabolical as John Wayne Gacy."

But why would Bush lie? Why would he cover up? Why would he order the attacks in the first place? Why indeed.

Remember BEFORE the attacks when the Government Accounting Office sued the White House to see records of Cheney's Energy Task Force? Why was the White House so intent on stifling THIS investigation? Was it just because Enron and Ken Lay were in the middle of the largest corporate scandal in US history? Or might there be something else?

"The Enron-Cheney-Taliban Connection?" takes some careful reading, as well as fair knowledge of the geography of the region.

"It's clear the Cheney had his own conflicts of interest with Enron. A chief benefactor in the trans-Caspian pipeline deal would have been Halliburton, the huge oil pipeline construction firm which was previously headed by Cheney. After Cheney's selection as Bush's Vice Presidential candidate, Halliburton also contributed a huge amount of cash into the Bush-Cheney campaign coffers."

As you study this article, keep in mind the man who represented Bush in the case of "The People Vs. Bush and Co." in December 2000 - James Baker.

"Through his law firm, Baker & Botts, he is also working to assist American oil companies in the Caspian Region. This work right now involves a pipeline to be built through Afghanistan, a pipeline that Texas oil companies were negotiating with the Taliban to build before 9-11.

Another discomforting starting point chronicles Cheney's efforts to stifle the Enron investigation.

If you need a refresher on recent history this site gives you a timeline. Chronology - The Bush White House's Refusal to Cooperate with a Congressional Investigation of the Energy Task Force

So why isn't the media all over this?

What media? Remember the FCC "debates" last month? "Rove told him [Jack Welch] a Bush administration would initiate comprehensive deregulation of the broadcast industry. Rove guaranteed that deregulation would be implemented in a way that would create phenomenal profits for conglomerates with significant media holdings, like GE. Rove forcefully argued that General Electric and the other media giants had a compelling financial interest to see Bush become president."

Enron - Bush - Baker - Cheney - bin Laden - AFGHANISTAN! - IRAQ! - Halliburton

Can someone explain this to me? Like I'm a six year old?

Breaking News: Rich Get Richer, Pay Fewer Taxes

This should come as no surprise to anyone who understands the politics of taxation.

IRS: Rich Paying Less In Taxes

The Associated Press

The nation's richest people paid a lower proportion of their income in federal taxes in 2000 than in 1992, new government figures show.

New figures from the Internal Revenue Service, released Wednesday, show that the adjusted gross income of the country's top 400 taxpayers totaled almost $70 billion in 2000, for an average of $173.9 million. The richest 400 in 1992 accumulated just under $19 billion, for an average of only $46.8 million.

Over the nine-year period, the minimum adjusted gross income to get on the top 400 list more than tripled, from $24.4 million to $86.8 million.

In 2000, the 400 paid 22.3 percent of their income to federal income taxes, down from 26.4 percent in 1992.

The richest 400 made 1.09 percent of U.S. income in 2000, more than double the percentage in 1992, when they accounted for just 0.52 percent, the IRS said.

George W. Bush says he needs $200 million to get elected in 2004 - twice what he spent in 2000. (I would say "reelected," but that wouldn't be accurate now, would it?) How much money will America's richest 400 give to the Bush campaign? As much as they have to.

I'd like to meet the Newsday readers who answered yes to the question: "Is the US tax system fair to taxpayers at all income levels?"

What's on your ballot?

Why we must demand paper audit trails to have valid elections

Just as the attacks of 9/11 allowed the right-wing to implement a more extreme agenda than anyone would have otherwise let them get away with, the debacle of the 2000 elections has allowed them to hijack the election process itself, without a peep of protest.

When you have a guy in office who lost the election by half a million votes and who only "won" after gross election irregularities in the state where his brother was governor and the election supervisor was his campaign chairperson, you have to expect a certain amount of hindsight adjustment.

"Hanging chads" weren't the problem in 2000.  It was Florida's inability to conduct a legitimate election upon which the national results hinged.  The chads became the symbol of the evidence of this incompetence.  So, instead of addressing the problem, they have worked to remove the evidence. 

Florida "fixed" its election process by purchasing electronic voting machines.  Most of the machines used in Florida were purchased from the company that owns the monopoly on voting machines (as well as the vote counting machines) in Nebraska - ES&S (Election Systems & Software). ES&S was owned by Chuck Hagel until he decided to run for office himself.  He sold the company to Michael McCarthy's AIS (American Information Systems) and then ran for Senator (with McCarthy as his campaign treasurer). This is the "fix" he sold to Florida.

Even if you can get over the incredibly obvious conflict of interest, there are some technical irregularities you simply can't ignore.   Little things like control of the code that runs the machines, the presence of internal modems, accountability of the machines themselves, unsecured vote counting, and the lack of any sort of paper audit trail  - all these are real issues and valid security considerations that are not being addressed. 

Now add money to the mixture. Campaign funding, kickbacks, contract awarding, foreign involvement in and  ownership of companies.

"But what about the exit polls?" you ask.  What exit polls? Voter News Service announced the day before mid-term elections in 2002 that it wasn't going to do them anymore. 

So here you have Republican companies selling Republican officials the very machines that will get them elected.  You can't see the code, you can't watch the counting process, you have to trust the election officials not to have ghost machines out there, you don't even get a paper printout of your own vote, there are no independent sources to compare against, and you can't challenge the results after the fact because there is nothing left to investigate.

So what can you do?

1) Investigate NOW.  Find copies of your state's election laws.  Most states have amendments to existing laws to address the new presence of voting machines. 

2)  Find out the following:

  a)  Who makes purchasing decisions for election equipment in your _____ (district, county, precinct, parish, state)?

  b)  Who is manufacturing the machines used in your district?  Who owns the company?  Where else has that company sold machines?  What kind of results have they seen?

  c)  What does your state law say regarding the control of electronic voting machines?  Who reviews the programs running the machines?  Who approves the vendors or machines for quality and security? 

  d)  What does your state law say about physical control?  Where are the machines programmed?  Can they be reprogrammed once deployed?  Who can reprogram them?  Who services the machines in the field? 
What kind of training is required for them?  What reporting do they do when they work on machines in the field, and to whom?

3)  Find out who your (district/county) election supervisor is, who he or she is accountable to, and how he or she was selected.

4)  Volunteer.  Find out how you can become an election monitor, counting supervisor, or poll worker. Get a part-time or volunteer gig installing the machines for the company.  See if you can get certified to service the machines or provide security for the polls and counting.

5)  Contact Jimmy Carter and see if you can get his group to monitor your elections. 

6) Proactively verify your voting status.  Don't risk getting turned away on election day because of some bogus technicality that they'll tell you to clear up after the election.  Don't let that happen to others.

7)  Let them know that you are watching  and that you will hold them accountable.

Bush Tax Cuts Aim to Defund US Government

Thomas Frank remarked on Public Radio's Marketplace last week:

"The reason the administration wants to do away with dividend, estate and other taxes is to de-fund the government: to pull the rug out from under the New Deal social order once and for all," says Frank. The goal is not to jump-start consumer spending, he says, but to "throw a wrench into the works of this despised institution."

I've long suspected the same thing myself. You may recall that I posted excerpts from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's interview with Jim Lehrer suggesting the real motivation for Republican tax cuts.

Not much has been made of this in the press and what little attention there has been tends to focus on the fact that the cuts almost exclusively benefit the wealthy. That doesn't seem to bother the average American too much. As unbelievable as it sounds, that's not even the worst of it. A few bloggers picked up on the story and the long-term implications of Bush's third round of cuts.

You don't have to read too far between the lines to realize that what is happening here is a fundamental restructuring of the federal government so that it is incapable of providing for the middle and lower classes or effectively policing itself against the abuse of industry. As devastating, it will exacerbate the already alarming divide between the rich and poor which today leaves us a divided nation of haves and have-nots. We are the richest nation on Earth, if not the richest nation in history and yet we have a health care system that fails over 20 million of our citizens, an education system that is partially funded by state-sponsored gambling, over 1.35 million of our children living on the street, one out of every 147 residents housed in prisons, a minimum wage so low that working full-time still lands you below the poverty line, and the largest, most destructive military ever assembled.

Another blogger quotes Bill Clinton, who had these sage words about Bush's tax cuts:

"The real reason for the tax cuts and their particular design in 2001 and 2003 was ideological, almost theological, the notion that we're all just put upon by this onerous government of ours taking our hard earned money away and that there's no such thing as a bad tax cut and no such thing as a good spending program unless it lays concrete or builds a missile. These tax cuts are too small in the short run to do any good and way too big in the long run to avoid serious harm."

This blogger dishes a juicy quote from Frank's piece in Harper's:

One of the reasons the Bush people love tax cuts is that tax cuts defund government - but gradually and indirectly, allowing plenty of time for blame evasion later. Although it may not look like much now, this tax cut is a time bomb planted in the heart of activist government: as it grows, the whopping giveaway to the rich will compel massive cuts in government spending somewhere down the road. Imagine as all the deficit-reduction battles of the early nineties are fought all over again, only with much greater stakes. Imagine the look of dawning desperation on those politicians' faces as they begin to understand Bush's masterful fait accompli. Like the U.N. delegates Bush has similarly outmaneuvered, they will vote and speechify in vain. The public will laugh at their impotence. And then will come the moment of hard truth. On whom will death set his fateful hand? Who will be defunded?" (38).

It might sound mildly hysterical or overly dramatic to say this, but assuming that nothing is done to reverse the conservative anti-tax tide, the United States in 2023 will be unrecognizable from the country as it exists today. Ultimately, I suppose that we get the government that we deserve, and in this case, that may not be much.

MoveOn.Org Interviews Democratic Presidential Candidates

See their responses on a variety of topics. The site has links to each candidate's letter to MoveOn, as well as links to their campaign site.

Topics

*  Peace (war, preemptive stikes)  *  Freedom (Patriot Act I and II, Ashcroft, Poindexter)  *  How to overcome the population's Bush-soma induced stupor  *  Truth  *  The role of government in social support systems  *  Energy  *  Environment

Candidates

*  Braun  *  Dean  *  Edwards  *  Gephardt 
*  Graham  *  Kerry  *  Kucinich  *  Sharpton 

While I have my favorite, I know I have to be aware of the positions of the others.  One of these people is going to get the nomination and run against Bush.  Whichever one it is, we need to know where they stand and be able to support them.

[Editor's note: While Senator Joe Lieberman did not respond to the MoveOn interview, he did submit a letter to MoveOn's 1.4 million members. MoveOn will be conducting an Internet primary from Tuesday, June 24th 12:00 am to Wednesday, June 25th 11:59 pm (Eastern time.) To participate in this historic event, register at MoveOn.org.]

Enquiring Minds Want to Know

Which is worse: a Democratic presidential candidate's son driving the getaway car in a failed country club alcohol heist, or a Republican president's twin daughters getting caught drinking underage and smoking pot with a young movie heartthrob?

Given the choice, which matters more to Republicans: spending $1 billion to improve military family housing or reducing a tax cut for "200,000 Americans who make over $1 million a year?" What if it meant that "these taxpayers would receive a cut of $83,546 this year instead of the $88,326 they are currently scheduled to receive?"

Which is better: an EPA report on global warming that aspires to scientific validity or policy consistency? What if it had included a reference to a study on the effects of global warming which was partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute?

Social Security Numbers For Sale: Cheap

In a move that infuriated some California lawmakers, The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) published "the first four digits of the social security numbers of California politicians who voted" against proposed privacy legislation today in the California Assembly Banking and Finance Committee.

FTCR purchased those social security numbers on the Internet for $26 as a demonstration of how at risk individuals' personal financial information is without new privacy protections.

In addition, FTCR also published on the Internet the first three digits of Governor [Gray] Davis's social security number because, although the governor declared support for the bill, Davis could force passage of the bill by using his personal influence with reluctant committee members or with the Speaker of the Assembly to appoint new committee members for the day if he chose to.

The eight legislators whose partial social security numbers were published were not amused by the strategy, which the San Francisco Chronicle called "extreme lobbying." Assemblyman Ed Chavez, D-La Puente (565-4X-XXXX) said:

"We should be free to vote our conscience and not be threatened or harassed if we choose to vote contrary to people who are lobbying for special legislation."

Chavez makes a good point. He was just voting his conscience by voting not to protect privacy. So what if the FTCR wants to raise his consciousness. He shouldn't be harassed for his stupidity, right? Oh, were it only stupidity that motivated these politicians ...

Oddly enough, Assemblywoman Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, the chair of the Assembly Banking Committee, voted in favor of SB 1, but said the FTCR tactic "borders on extortion." Now there's a helluva idea! Maybe the FTCR could add a new digit each day that the bill is still not passed. That gives them until next Tuesday to come to their senses, stop acting like lackeys for the financial industry and start representing their constituents. For the record, the other legislators who opposed the bill were:

BOGH, RUSSELL VINCENT
CHERRY VALLEY, CA
550-6X-XXXX

CALDERON, RONALD S
MONTEBELLO, CA
546-2X-XXXX

HOUSTON, GUY S
SAN RAMON, CA
562-2X-XXX

LESLIE, TIM
PLEASANTON, CA
559-5X-XXXX

MONTANEZ, CINDY
SAN FERNANDO, CA
553-9X-XXXX

STRICKLAND, ANTHONY A
THOUSAND OAKS, CA
573-0X-XXXX

VARGAS, JUAN C
SAN DIEGO, CA
550-1X-XXXX

The committee could reconsider the bill as early as Monday.

Basic Talking Points:
A Political Terms Primer

liberal  adj. 1. Free by birth; hence, befitting a freeman or gentleman; refined; noble; independent; free; not servile or mean;  2. Bestowing in a large and noble way, as a freeman; generous; bounteous; open-handed; 3. Bestowed in a large way; hence, more than sufficient; abundant; bountiful; ample; profuse;   4. Not strict or rigorous; not confined or restricted to the literal sense; free; 5. Not narrow or contracted in mind; not selfish; enlarged in spirit; 6. Not bound by orthodox tenets or established forms in political or religious philosophy; independent in opinion; not conservative; friendly to great freedom in the constitution or administration of government; having tendency toward democratic or republican, as distinguished from monarchical or aristocratic, forms.

conservative adj 1: resistant to change;  2: opposed to liberal reforms;  3: unimaginatively conventional.

[Editor's note: Take the World's Smallest Political Quiz to find out where you fall on the political map. Or if you have a few minutes, try the Political Compass.]

de·moc·ra·cy  n. 1.  Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.  2.The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.  3. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

republic n.  1. Common weal. [Obs.]   2. A state in which the sovereign power resides in the whole body of the people, and is exercised by representatives elected by them; a commonwealth.

Note: In some ancient states called republics the sovereign power was exercised by an hereditary aristocracy or a privileged few, constituting a government now distinctively called an aristocracy. In some there was a division of authority between an aristocracy and the whole body of the people except slaves.

plu·toc·ra·cy    n.   1.  Government by the wealthy.  2.  A wealthy class that controls a government.  3. A government or state in which the wealthy rule.

ol·i·gar·chy  n.   1.  Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.  2. A state governed by a few persons.

monarchy  n.;  1. A state or government in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of a monarch.  2. A system of government in which the chief ruler is a monarch.

aristocracy  n 1: a privileged class holding hereditary titles;  2: the most powerful members of a society.

fas·cism   n. 1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.  2.  A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.