The Jaker

Johnson said he told the president that night, “Syria is the problem. Syria is where those weapons of mass destruction are, in my view. You know, I can fly an F-15, put two nukes on ‘em and I’ll make one pass. We won’t have to worry about Syria anymore.”

In case you missed it, here are the results from the 2005 CPAC poll of
conservative activists conducted by Fabrizio McLaughlin. N=641.
One question asked attendees who they thought would be the Democratic nominee in 2008:
68% Clinton
6% Edwards
5% Richardson
4% Warner
3% Bayh
2% Kerry
2% Clark
1% Vilsack
1% Feingold

Another question asked who participants thought would be the Republican nominee in 2008.
19% Giuliani
18% Rice
11% Allen, Frist, McCain
4% Owens, Romney, Santorum
5% Gingrich
2% Pataki
1% Hagel, Huckabee, Pawlenty, Santorum
0% Barbour
** = figures provided to ABC News by CPAC.

The average earnings of those who earn more than the cap grew by 98 percent between 1980 and 2000. In contrast, the earnings for a typical worker have risen only modestly over the last two decades. For instance, the earnings of someone in his or her early 40s today are only 11 percent higher than someone comparably aged in 1980. Similarly, the earnings of the median worker -- the “middling worker” who earns, by definition, more than half of all workers and less than the other half -- rose 20 percent over that same time period, with the median male’s earnings up only 6 percent. Consequently, the distance between high earners (those earning more than the cap) and typical earners has increased markedly: In 1980, a high earner had ages 4.8 times more than the typical earner, a ratio that reached 7.9 in 2000.

What a budget!

There's so much I like about it, but I want to thank you specifically for your efforts to slash 150 programs that benefit middle-class and working-class Americans. Who needs the Centers for Disease Control? Who needs a world-class public education system? Who needs police officers on the streets? Not me. That's why you cut the successful COPS program by 96 percent. That's right, 96 percent!
...
In no time, the middle class will struggle further to make ends meet, working three jobs while we reap even greater profits off their backs. I can't wait!

Just as terrorists learned to be pilots for 9/11, terrorists may now be learning to be pirates. Purposely grounding a crude carrier hauling two million barrels of oil at a place like Batu Berhanti, where the strait is little more than a mile wide, would close the waterway indefinitely. The delay in oil supplies to China, Japan and South Korea could devastate their economies, setting off a global economic crisis.

when the markets turned sour and the reserves of insurers shriveled, [insurance] companies began to double and triple the costs for doctors.

More soldiers have already died in February of 2005 than in February of 2004.
More soldiers died in January of 2005 than January of 2004.
More soldiers died in December of 2004 than December 2003.
More soldiers died in November of 2004 than November of 2003.
More soldiers died in October of 2004 than October of 2003.
More soldiers died in September of 2004 than September of 2003.
More soldiers died in August of 2004 than August of 2003.
More soldiers died in July of 2004 than July of 2003.
More soldiers died in June of 2004 than June of 2003.
More soldiers died in May of 2004 than May of 2003.
More soldiers died in April of 2004 than April of 2003.
March looms.

The Times sent veteran political reporter Ed Tibbetts to Washington for a special White House briefing with President Bush specifically to share insight with readers about this important debate.

Among the most critical questions: What is the president willing to accept in terms of raising the retirement age, curtailing benefits, increasing payroll deductions or extending the taxation to higher incomes?

On almost all, our president declined to share his thoughts. “The more I preclude ideas, it’s less likely something might come forth. This is going to have to be written by the Congress along with our input,” the president said.

...

We know from experience our President’s administration has a tough time processing information. Recall that cost estimates of the Medicare drug benefit weren’t even in reality’s ballpark. The Bush administration’s newest estimates are more than double what they swore to 20 months ago when pitching the plan to Congress.

And the president and staff missed wildly on weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of the war’s present outcome, Congress authorized a search and destroy mission for weapons, not the liberation of a country. That misinterpretation cost 1,462 American lives so far and affected millions more whose families have been directly touched by war.

Social Security affects many, many more — less violently for sure. But for the millions who will be absolutely reliant on that retirement or disability income, Social Security can be a life or death matter.

If the system indeed is in crisis, we can’t afford to guesstimate our way out of it.

So as a result of my background, I’ve never done anything outdoorsy. I don’t hike, I don’t ski, I don’t fish . . . I would if you could catch conservatives. I wouldn’t throw them back so fast, either. I’d let them flop around on the deck for a while. “It was wrong to lie about Saddam having nuclear weapons, wasn’t it?” “Yes, yes.” “In fact, the whole war was a big mistake!” “Yes, maybe.” “No, not maybe! It was a mistake!” “OK, it was a mistake. Throw me back. Please!”

By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote. Now how smart is that?

Trans fat is artificial, and acts in the body like grains of sand do in the workings of a clock.

The hard right has never forgiven F.D.R. (and later L.B.J.) for his efforts to reduce [pre New Deal economic insecurity], and now that the right is running Washington, it's trying to turn the clock back to 1932.

End of the line
There apparently won't be a Bush on the 2008 presidential ballot after all. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush let it be known to administration folks during his recent tour with ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell of tsunami-ravaged countries that he doesn't want to run for president in the next election.

You know what? If this holds up, I predict that just as in Mass., there will be a big political movement to amend the state constitution, and that it will blow over, and people will get used to the idea.

That's what happened here. We have same sex marriage, and hardly anybody is upset by it any more. In fact, after the election, the legislature has more gay marriage supporters than it did before. It's not even an issue.

If "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il of North Korea and George W. Bush ever meet, I suspect the two will bond like long-lost brothers. Both men are first-born sons of powerful fathers who partied like adolescents well into their adult lives, after which they submitted to their dynastic fates as heads of state.

Both avoid critical thought, preferring to surround themselves with yes men and apply propagandistic slogans to the onrushing complexities of justice, culture, economics, and foreign policy.

• On his current social security roadtrip, he's still using the campaign trick of carefully screening the crowd so only rabid supporters and volunteers are in the room to cheer him on. He's afraid of dissent.
• He fabricates a crisis in social security, saying it will go "broke" or "bust", when experts on both sides and non-partisans in the middle say nothing of the sort will happen.
• His administration paid off at least 3 reporters, who are supposed to be neutral, to push his message on certain programs. There are probably lots more of these arrangements that haven't been found.

We're supposed to admire our President. This guy's just an asshole.

the White House griped that various pay-and-benefits incentives added to the 2004 defense budget by Congress are wasteful and unnecessary — including a modest proposal to double the $6,000 gratuity paid to families of troops who die on active duty

The American Dream has always been chiefly economic...

[Europeans] certainly they would never put up with the lack of social protections afforded in the American system. Europeans are aware that their systems provide better primary education, more job security and a more generous social net. They are willing to pay higher taxes and submit to regulation in order to bolster their quality of life. Americans work far longer hours than Europeans do, for instance. But they are not necessarily more productive—nor happier, buried as they are in household debt, without the time (or money) available to Europeans for vacation and international travel. George Monbiot, a British public intellectual, speaks for many when he says, "The American model has become an American nightmare rather than an American dream."

The inspiration, says Giddens, comes not from America, but from social-democratic Sweden, where universal child care, education and health care have been proved to increase social mobility, opportunity and, ultimately, economic productivity.

"In Sweden, you are three times more likely to rise out of the economic class into which you were born than you are in the U.S."

the United States is the only developed democracy without a universal guarantee of health care

the World Health Organization rates the U.S. healthcare system only 37th best in the world, behind Colombia (22nd) and Saudi Arabia (26th), and on a par with Cuba.

Virginia Sen. George Allen (R) is introducing a bill essentially condemning the Senate for filibustering anti-lynching laws earlier in the 20th century. It's a laudable bill – but its author has anything but a laudable record on civil rights and racial issues. According to the Associated Press in 2000, Allen was discovered to have been displaying a hangman's noose and the confederate flag in his law office. As governor, Allen "signed a Confederate Heritage Month proclamation without denouncing slavery." Allen also "opposed a state holiday honoring Martin Luther King" and referred to the NAACP as an "extremist group."

According to reporters, Allen did not apologize, but instead "defended the flag and noose as mere decorations." What sensitivity.