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October 25, 2006
War on poverty slips from election agenda
Great new article from Reuters:
NEW ORLEANS - On a boat stranded in a street in New Orleans, two words are scrawled: "No politicians."It's not clear if the boat is a remnant of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated this city more than a year ago, but the message of the graffiti is unmistakable: politicians failed to deliver for those who lost their homes in the hurricane.
"They sent boys over there (to Iraq) to fight in a war that never ends. Why didn't they keep the money over here when Americans are suffering," said Gwen Brown, 51, whose home in New Orleans was flooded by Katrina.
Hurricane Katrina exposed an underclass of poor Americans to the rest of the world, but poverty has slipped off the agenda in the runup to midterm congressional elections next month.
"After the hurricane it was easier for a time (to interest people in poverty) but it is ... very hard to maintain national attention unless there is national leadership," former Democratic senator John Edwards said in an interview.
Edwards ran for president in 2004 arguing there were two Americas, one for the well-off and another for those who struggle. When that effort failed, he ran for vice president on John Kerry's ticket. He said he has not decided whether to run again in 2008.
Poverty has been a Democratic issue since President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty" in 1964, but Edwards said Democrats see risks in promoting the issue, fearing they would be painted as big-government spenders.
An illustration of that is Harold Ford, running for the U.S. Senate for Tennessee, who campaigns on reforming health care but also advocates issues attractive to conservative voters such as opposition to gay marriage and cutting taxes.
U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson warned there were dangers for Democrats who abandoned social justice issues to win elections.
"There is a need to have politicians whose positions represent change for the better and not an accommodation with the worst of our status quo," he told Reuters.
The U.S. Census Bureau said in August one in eight Americans and one in four black people lived in poverty last year.
In all, some 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 for a single person or $20,000 for a family of four, it said.
Robert Rector of the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank argued there is little actual poverty in the United States and most poor people had a house, car, television, air conditioning, food and medical care.
Democrats only employed the word to stir emotions and "low income status" would be a better description in most cases, Rector said in an interview.
That case gains traction in the United States, a society with a fiercely competitive ethic and a belief that hard work and self-reliance are a sure route to success, making it risky to promote a national goal of helping the poor.
What makes it still harder is that the religious right has hijacked the agenda for Christian voters promoting opposition to abortion and gay marriage but pushing poverty off the agenda, said Jim Wallis, leader of Sojourners, a Christian ministry that promotes spiritual renewal and social justice.
Wallis cited recent research by the Center for American Values in Public Life which indicated that 85 percent of Americans say poverty and affordable health care are more important issues than abortion and same sex marriage.
"The conventional wisdom is that poverty isn't sexy and that nobody wants to talk about poverty ... You need political leaders with the courage to test the proposition," he said.
For many voters in New Orleans, talk of political courage may come too late to dent their cynicism.
Near the stranded boat, the owner of a newly-rebuilt house near the stranded boat has created a mock Hurricane Katrina cemetery, with colorful headstones bearing epitaphs for local politicians and President Bush. One reads: "Bush rebuilt the city -- Baghdad."
Posted by Mike at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 24, 2006
What next? "Harold the Pimp" attack ads?
GOP attack ad draws heat for racial overtones
WASHINGTON — A new Republican Party television ad featuring a scantily clad white woman winking and inviting a black candidate to "call me" is drawing charges of race-baiting, with critics saying it contradicts a landmark GOP statement last year that the party was wrong in past decades to use racial appeals to win support from white voters.Critics said the ad, which is funded by the Republican National Committee and has aired since Friday, plays on fears of interracial relationships to scare some white voters in rural Tennessee to oppose Democratic Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. Ford is locked in a tight race, hoping to become the first African American senator since Reconstruction to represent a state in the former Confederacy.
"It is a powerful innuendo that plays to pre-existing prejudices about African American men and white women," said Hilary Shelton, head of the Washington office of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, the country's oldest civil rights organization.
A former Republican senator, William S. Cohen of Maine, was more blunt. Cohen, who was also Defense secretary under President Clinton, said on CNN that the ad was "a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment."
The 30-second ad features fictional characters satirizing Ford.
A black woman notes that Ford "looks good" and asks, "Isn't that enough?" Others suggest Ford backs privacy for terrorists, accepts money from the pornography industry, wants to raise taxes and backs letting Canada deal with the North Korea nuclear threat.
The character who has raised complaints is a blond woman who speaks in a hushed, suggestive tone and says that she met Ford at "the Playboy party."
At the end of the ad, she reappears and says: "Harold, call me." She winks and holds her hand up as if holding a phone.
Shelton said the ad contradicted the spirit of remarks delivered at last year's NAACP convention by the Republican National Committee chairman, Ken Mehlman, in which he decried those in his party who had tried to "benefit politically from racial polarization." He was referring to the party's so-called Southern strategy of energizing white voters with race-baiting messages about integration and civil rights.
"I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong," Mehlman said in the July 2005 address, in which he also said the party would now use positive messages to draw African Americans to the GOP.
Ford's Republican opponent, former Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker, has asked Tennessee television stations not to run the spot, calling it "over the top." But the ad has continued to run — and on Monday the Republican National Committee was unapologetic.
Posted by Mike at 08:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thank you to John Snow
For helping drive down the value of the dollar, so that we can all pretend we are doing well, not on the brink of economic collapse.
Wake me when the Stock Market peaks for real.by Nylund
A big deal has been made recently about how the Dow is now at new peaks, but people forget that the dow is supposed to go up. Over its history it should be making new peaks practically every week.
The truth is, we are now barely above where we were six years ago, and this is hardly something to be proud of. A deeper look into the numbers reveals there is even less to be proud of and that in fact, we have yet to reach the peak of 2000.
Its fairly common knowledge that the DJIA is hardly the ideal index for the market as a whole. If anything, its a quaint relic from the past with a moderate ability to express market trends. That being said, it is a number that the public understands and one that gets a lot of press. So lets take a closer look at the new peaks reached by the Dow.
First thing's first. Is it a big deal that the Dow recently broke new high's? Not really. The Dow is supposed to go up over time. As such, it should be reaching new highs all the time. In fact, its now reaching new highs every few days. On October 3, 2006, the Dow closed at a new high of 11,727.34 and people went crazy. It was the highest it had been in six years. That seems pretty spectacular, but since then, it has reached a new closing high every few days:
11,850.61 October 4, 2006
11,947.70 October 12, 2006
12,011.73 October 19, 2006
12,116.91 October 23, 2006This is much closer to what we'd expect to see from the Dow.
Going back to the last peak six years ago, and looking at the data, you will see that it also "peaked" a week before that, and it peaked another week before that time, and a month before that, and a couple months before that, and a week before that time, and a few days before that time.
It was basically peaking ALL THE TIME, just as it is now. To hear people talk now, you'd think that the DOW has only peaked like 3 times in the entire history of the stock market. This is hardly the case.
In fact, by my count, the Dow reached an "all-time high" 76 times during the Clinton administration.
What should be noted is that under Clinton it went from roughly 3,200 to 11,722. In other words, it went up by 366%.
And now we are supposed to be impressed that in the last 6 years we've gone up around 3%?
As everyone knows, a dollar today ain't want it used to be. Even ignoring grampa's stories about getting a burger for a nickel, we all know that a dollar now is not the same as a dollar six years ago.
Inflation over the last six years has been much higher than 3%, meaning, adjusted for inflation, we still have not yet hit a new peak. to be fair, I should do the same for the Clinton years, but I don't recall inflation being anywhere near 366% during the 90's.
But even if you want to ignore inflation, all we have to do is ask the the rest of the world whether or not we've hit a new peak or not.
At the 2000 peak, the Dow was 7,162 pounds. Now, it is 6,470 pounds. In Euros, the 2000 peak was 11,570, now it is 9,656. In Canadian dollars, it was 16,881, and now its 13,666.
To the rest of the world, we are still a ways off from reaching the peak of 2000.
So has the dow really peaked, or has the dollar just become more worthless? The evidence suggests the latter.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see the market making its way back up, but we still have plenty of way to go, so keep the cork in the champagne a little bit longer people, for even after six years we're really not back to where we once were.
Many of us cheer as the bell rings 12,000 on Wall Street. But we know there are millions for which that bell doesn't toll. In a new Wall Street Journal poll, a huge majority of Americans say the stock market's new heights have had no effect on them. Eighty percent of the work force find their paycheck barely keeping up with inflation. These are the economic strugglers out there who worry not just that they can't get ahead, but they can't hold on.You see their despair in what Democrats are promising voters this year: an uptick in the minimum wage, a promise to leave Social Security alone, a new Medicare drug deal, and government protection of pensions. You feel it in Democratic promises to use subpoena power to probe no-bid government contracts to Halliburton, the giant corporation once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. To punish the oil companies for price-gouging. To probe the secret meetings with the energy executives. And to freeze Congress's own pay until it raises the minimum wage.
It's a far cry from the optimistic 60s, when Jack Kennedy told us, `A rising tide lifts all boats.' [...] The Democrats are saying we're not all in this together---the bells ringing on Wall Street may be clanging for those at the top, but hardly for everyone. The mid-term election results will tell us if voters agree.
-From The Chris Matthews Show
Posted by Mike at 02:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
October 13, 2006
Warner Drops Out
Former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner stunned fellow Democrats Thursday by announcing that he would not be a candidate for president in 2008, citing family considerations.Warner, a centrist, had been one of the most aggressive early campaigners among the large group of Democrats pursuing possible presidential bids. He had already lined up considerable financial support, made 67 trips to 28 states and hired a large number of advisers with national campaign experience.
There had been speculation that he would be the first candidate to formally announce a 2008 candidacy. But in a statement posted on his Web site and, later, at a hastily called news conference, Warner said that, for personal reasons, it was not "the right time for me to take the plunge. At this point, I want to have a real life."Warner's pullout could help New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the early favorite for the nomination.
So far so good, but what is this about?
It could also assist others who have been maneuvering to make themselves the leading alternative to Clinton. These include Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, whose message--that he is a Democrat who has won in a Republican state--was similar to Warner's, and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee who now is the lone Southerner in the likely '08 field."It's a huge boost to Evan Bayh," said Kenneth Baer, a speechwriting and policy consultant to Warner's organization. "I think it puts pressure on Edwards, because now he'll have to win in South Carolina," the first Southern primary state.
Okay, who was born in South Carolina and won the state by a wide margin in the 2004 primary? Didn't the DNC just make South Carolina one of the four early primary state when they added it plus New Mexico to offset New Hampshire and Iowa, where Edwards almost won. The only better news Edwards could get would be if Clark dropped out.
Posted by Mike at 12:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)