News For the New Year

The Bush economy is a house of cards, and it won’t take much to knock it down.

"Democrats were quick to point out that President Bush's budget creates a 1 trillion dollar deficit. The White House quickly responded with 'Hey, look over there, it's Saddam Hussein.'"--Craig Kilborn

The Bush Administration is, has, and will use every trick in the book to keep this house of cards standing long enough to get George W. Bush re-elected. I do not even want to imagine what they have planned for their second term.

See also Fed's Folly Will Come Due at the end of 2004 in TheStreet.

America has no easy way out of the trap that the Fed has built for the country. No nation has splurged quite like this one without ultimately having to pay the piper.

NYTimes gets an editorial from someone who has never believed in mad cow disease. Surprised he works for agri-business?

Dennis Kucinich: the Kuro5hin interview

What is radical about healthcare for all? What is radical about education for all? What is radical about jobs for all? When that starts to be radical, we have to ask ourselves, what in the heck has happened to this country? All of a sudden somebody starts talking about peace and prosperity and is seen as a radical? My God, where are we going as a nation? What does that say? All of a sudden "mainstream" is supporting monopolies? Mainstream is supporting war? Mainstream is supporting a healthcare system that is stopping people from being able to get care?

el - Yep, too radical to be elected.

Ashcroft Recuses Self From Leak Case

el - Everyone is wondering - why now?

William Saletan needs to grow up.

el - Don't mock the speck in Dean's eye when the President is standing there with boulders.

As Dylan Otto Krider, local Houston SF writer, journalist and now political commentatorr explains: Democrats have a character problem: an insistence on objectivity, truth and moral consistency. The problem is that when facing an enemy that respects no trait other than winning, it puts all those who exhibit these character traits at a distinct disadvantage. For years now right-wing pundits have lied with absolute impunity, yet whenever someone dares to call them on their bullshit, there is no shortage of those on the left who jump at the chance to point out the left's far milder offenses.

E.J. Dionne Jr. bucks the Washington Conventional Wisdom.

Here's what's interesting for 2004: The conventional wisdom, fed by shrewd Republican operatives and commentators, is that Democrats, so out there in their antipathy for Bush, will push their party into an extremist wonderland and lose white men, security moms and anybody else who does not share their desire for revenge.

The opposite is true. Democrats will not have to spend inordinate amounts of time or money in this election year "uniting their base." Opposition to Bush has already done that.

Battling to be the anti-Dean

Democratic nominating contests are set to begin in just weeks, with the race shaping up to be Howard Dean vs. Someone Else. The real competition now is among the eight other candidates who are engaged in a fierce fight to become that "someone else."

Bush Dumps 2 Years of Work By EPA Panel On Mercury Pollution

"It is as though the working group never existed," said Paul, supervisor of Ohio's Regional Air Pollution Control Agency. "Just when we think we have a process in action to control mercury from every power plant, they walk away from it."