We currently have half a million people, more or less, behind bars for drug dealing, an increase of something like twentyfold over the past two decades. Over that period, prices of heroin and cocaine have fallen by more than 80%.
"[Consider] extending unemployment benefits for 760,000 people who have exhausted benefits. According to Economy.com, a consulting firm, every $1 invested in extended benefits generates $1.70 of increased economic activity because the money is spent quickly. By contrast, each $1 spent cutting dividend taxes pumps just 9 cents into the economy, the firm says."
$1.70 vs. 9 cents. Which one would you choose? We know which one George Bush prefer.
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From the Washington Post:
"Federal authorities responsible for ensuring the safety of Washington's water knew about the toxic levels of lead and the likely solution more than a year ago but took no action, according to records and interviews.
"On Nov. 21, 2002, a staff member in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's regional office in Philadelphia told his supervisors in writing that 'fast action' might be needed to solve the lead contamination problem in the water.
"Local officials and experts on lead say the EPA's decisions have had broad consequences. More than 1 million residents relied on a water supply that for at least two years showed unsafe levels of lead. By the summer of 2002, lead levels in the city's water had reached 75 parts per billion, as measured by the EPA, five times the level considered safe."
Meanwhile, from the other coast, the Los Angeles Times reports:
"Political appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency bypassed agency professional staff and a federal advisory panel last year to craft a rule on mercury emissions preferred by the industry and the White House, several longtime EPA officials say.
"The EPA staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. At the same time, the proposal to regulate mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants was written using key language provided by utility lobbyists."
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"Balanced" response in the Middle East
Israeli forces kill 27 Palestinians in 5 days. Not a peep from the West. Palestinians respond with suicide bombers who kill 10 Israelis. The Bush administration condemns the bombing. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemns the bombing. Israel retaliates by firing missiles at alleged Gaza "workshops." Not a peep from the West.
Countless headlines described the latter action as Israel "striking back" against the Palestinians. Not a single headline I could find described the Palestinian suicide bombings as "striking back" or "retaliation."
Followup: And what is wrong with this picture: "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said no talks with Palestinians are possible because their leaders don't have the power or courage to tackle terrorism"? Gee, maybe if Sharon lent the Palestinians some of his tanks, jets, and helicopter gunships, they could take on terrorism just like he's doing. The terrorism that runs over innocent people with bulldozers.
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Filmmaker Mel Gibson has told talk host Sean Hannity he has "doubts" about President Bush and his re-election, saying he is troubled by claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The Drudge Report says the hour-long interview will air tomorrow. Hannity is host of a daily three-hour syndicated radio program and co-host of Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes."
"I am having doubts, of late," Gibson said, according to the report. "It mainly has to do with the weapons [of mass destruction] claims."
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Look at what contempt the administration holds the media in the first place. This took place yesterday on CNN:
BLITZER: "...Looking back, was it a mistake to go to war at that time instead of giving the UN more time to continue their own inspections?"
RUMSFELD: "Well the UN inspectors were not in there. The UN inspectors were out."
Wolf at least followed up, by pointing out that Rumsfeld was spouting nonsense, and the inspectors were only out because the Bush administration told them to leave. But the president has made this nutty claim now twice. Remember he said after the war, "Did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is: absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in," and repeated this claim in January while hosting the Polish president at the White House.
Rumsfeld's is a third. How can we continue to take any of their assertions about Iraq seriously when they don't even bother to lie in believable ways? (Eric Rauchway adds, "How do they not laugh when they say this: "I believe to this day that it was an urgent threat," White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. "This could not go on and we are safer as a result because today Iraq is no longer going to be a state of weapons of mass destruction concern.")
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Bush's assertion that he'll cut the deficit in half by 2009 includes the following explicit assumptions: Spending on defense and homeland security will fall by 14 percent as a share of the economy by 2009. Total domestic appropriations will plummet by 24 percent, with huge cuts in science (minus 19 percent), pollution control (minus 27 percent), transportation (minus 18 percent), disaster relief (minus 49 percent), education (minus 22 percent), housing assistance (minus 33 percent), and law enforcement (minus 20 percent). The alternative minimum tax will be fixed, but at no cost -- rather than the $65 billion that even a modest correction would cost in 2009 alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
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Administration sources tell TIME that employees at the Department of Homeland Security have been asked to keep their eyes open for opportunities to pose the President in settings that might highlight the Administration's efforts to make the nation safer. The goal, they are being told, is to provide Bush with one homeland-security photo-op a month.