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Thursday, March 31
SS: So Where Do We Stand?
by
Chad Thompson
on Thu 31 Mar 2005 12:49 PM CST
 SS: So Where Do We Stand?
This
morning there were reports from the latest stop on the SS Phase-Out
"Bamboozlepalooza" tour. So where do our elected officials stand?
The picture here definitely seems clearer, at least from Chuck Grassley:
From the Washington Post:
"Today, the public has not found his personal account approach compelling," Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) said in an interview late Tuesday, less than 24 hours before appearing with Bush at Kirkwood Community College here.
...Grassley, chairman of the Senate panel responsible for Social Security, said in a separate interview Tuesday afternoon: "I
don't think [Bush] has made much progress on solving the solvency issue
or what to do about personal accounts. It concerns me because as time
goes on, I was hoping [Bush] would be able to make my job
easier. We are not hearing from the grass roots that, by golly, you
guys in Congress have to work on this." Grassley supports private Social Security accounts.
The home-state Des Moines Register noted something a little different:
"I'm gaining confidence," Grassley said. "I'm gaining confidence because of the fact that [Bush] is working so hard."
But
Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the influential Senate
Finance Committee, remained skeptical about whether Americans would
embrace personal investment accounts. Bush spent most of his time Wednesday promoting the controversial proposal.
But
Grassley, who controls the agenda for the committee that oversees
Social Security and supports the idea of allowing younger workers to
invest part of their payroll taxes in government-managed accounts, said
the public is "not closer in buying into personal accounts."
The NY Times also noted this:
Representative Jim Leach, a moderate Iowa Republican who flew with Mr.
Bush back to Washington on Air Force One, said they did not discuss
Social Security on the flight. Mr. Leach is one of several Republicans
who have not taken a position on individual accounts, and he says he
has heard plenty of resistance from constituents.
So -
what's going on? It seems that the constituents (i.e. "The Iowa
Public") are against phasing out Social Security - removing the fixed
benefit plan that we've come to count on.
However, the administration is definitely convincing Iowa's GOP Representatives to "stick to principle" and vote against the will of their constituents.
Folks, write this one down and remember it come election time in 2006.
Another note from elsewhere: pstans at the Democratic Underground reported on a town hall meeting held by Tom Latham.
The verdict: Latham is also perfectly willing to defy his constituency in order to support phase-out.
I pointed out to Latham that his web site and the pamphlet he mailed
out stated he is adamantly opposed to privatization, and I was glad to
see that. But is he really opposed to Bush's privatization plan? He
then tried to redefine privatization, and he would not say one way or
another if he supported Bush's privatization plan. Others pointed out
to him how misleading he is with his stated opposition to
privatization. I think he is very vulnerable on this issue, and he came
off to many as quite evasive and deceiving on this and other issues.
So, three congressmen leaning "phase out" against their
constituents (Grassley, Latham, Leach), two going silent (King, Nussle
- hey, isn't there another race in 2006?) and two against (Boswell,
Harkin).
Wednesday, March 30
Contentious Talk Shows Really Are Hurting America
by
Trish Nelson
on Wed 30 Mar 2005 09:45 PM CST
 Contentious Talk Shows Really Are Hurting America
American Prospect
By Mary Beckman
When The Daily Show's Jon Stewart
told CNN's Crossfire hosts that their form of combative political
commentary was "hurting America," he was on to something. And when
CNN/US President Jonathan Klein agreed and canceled the show, he also
might have sensed what new research is getting at: "In-your-face"
television has the capacity to polarize viewers on political issues and
turn people off of the political process.
What
has changed in the last 50 years has been the way Americans get to know
their candidates. Voters used to gather in town squares and watch
politicians live and in person. Now citizens welcome their favorite
candidates into their homes on television. And during the last decade,
rancorous "debate" shows such as The O'Reilly Factor and Crossfire have
gained in popularity, bringing obnoxious behavior up close and
personal.
When
faced with confrontation in person, people tend to back off to preserve
their personal space. But when conflicts break out on television, the
camera zooms in. Close-ups don't allow us to step back, making the
experience somewhat unnatural. Diana Mutz, a political-science
professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues wanted
to know what effect incivility in televised political debates had on
viewers. Their results were published this month in The American
Political Science Review and presented at last month's meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
(Click here to read the entire article)
 Help stop media bias in Iowa. Click here to receive action alerts from Rapid Response - Iowa
Monday, March 28
C-Span's Washington Journal Spans to the Right
by
Trish Nelson
on Mon 28 Mar 2005 06:21 AM CST
 Washington Journal Spans to the Right
BigMedia.org – Rocky Mountain Media Watch
by Jason Salzman
C-Span’s daily TV talk show,
Washington Journal, is a valuable alternative to the pathetically
perky, celebrity-studded network morning “news” shows. And it’s a
welcome rest stop from the morning fare of hype and drama on commercial
cable outlets, like Fox and CNN.
Still,
Washington Journal could benefit from a more diverse pool of guests.
The show’s guests are primarily Washington insiders (mainstream
journalists and government officials), while outsiders (e.g., advocacy
organizations and academics) are under-represented.
Guests
from conservative think tanks outnumber guests from progressive ones by
a margin of over three to one (48 percent from conservative think tanks
versus 13 percent from progressive think tanks).
At a
minimum, representation from the widely known right-wing think
tanks—like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage
Foundation—should be matched by representation from progressive think
tanks, like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Institute
for Policy Studies.
(click here to read the entire article)
If you would like to write C-Span's Washington Journal and let them
know that you want more balance in the views that are represented on their program, send
an E-mail to: journal@c-span.org
Help stop media bias in Iowa. Click here to receive action alerts from Rapid Response - Iowa
Sunday, March 27
Congressman Latham Supports Oil Drilling in Alaska
by
Trish Nelson
on Sun 27 Mar 2005 10:19 AM CST
 Congressman Latham Supports Oil Drilling in Alaska
Radio Iowa
by Bob Fisher, KLSS, Mason City
While there's much outcry about
the recent U.S. Senate vote to permit oil-drilling in Alaska's Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge, the measure's future is uncertain in the
House. Iowa Congressman Tom Latham, a republican from Alexander, says
he'd support the move, if proper considerations are followed.
Latham says, "If things can be done in a very environmentally friendly
way, we certainly have desperate needs as far as lessening our
dependency on foreign oil."
Latham
says the budget bill that includes the oil-drilling provision also
contains opportunities for renewable resources like ethanol, soy
diesel, biomass and wind energy. Latham says he hopes the nation gets a
legitimate energy bill.
The U.S.
Geological Survey says ANWR's coastal plain represents the largest
untapped oil reserve in the United States, containing between six and
16-billion barrels. The nation currently uses about 20-millon barrels a
day.
(Click here to read the entire story)
Click here to contact Congressman Latham: tom.latham@mail.house.gov
Click here to receive action alerts from Rapid Response - Iowa
Saturday, March 26
Sign the Petition to Fight "Fake News"
by
Trish Nelson
on Sat 26 Mar 2005 11:45 AM CST
Sign the Petition to Fight "Fake News"
The Center for Media and Democracy
by John Stauber
The
Center for Media and Democracy and Free Press have filed a complaint
with the Federal Communications Commission urging an investigation of
the extensive airing of "fake news" by TV broadcasters who take
government and corporate Video News Release (VNR) stories and run them
unlabeled as real journalism. In just one week nearly 40,000 citizens
have signed the petition calling on the FCC, Congress and local
broadcasters to stop fake news.
The
petition seeks to strengthen and enforce laws against government
propaganda and demands "that the Bush administration stop using our tax
dollars to create fake news reports." The Center and Free Press hope to
gather a quarter million signatures and begin organizing citizens
locally to meet with stations in their community to sign agreements to
stop airing all VNRs unless they are clearly labeled and not pawned off
as news.
Revelations over the past year have finally moved this issue into
public consciousness. This is a corruption now deeply embedded in TV
media and corporate and government propaganda practices. Fake news has
been produced and aired covertly for decades, and is now a business
involving billions of dollars for broadcasters, PR firms and their
clients.
Click here to sign the petition.
Click here to read the entire article.
Click here to receive action alerts from Rapid Response - Iowa
Wednesday, March 23
Bush Belly-flops on Social Security Destruction Scheme
by
Linda Thieman
on Wed 23 Mar 2005 04:22 PM CST
 Bush Belly-flops on Social Security Destruction Scheme
By Jacob Weisberg, Slate.com
Looks like the fight to destroy Social Security is nearly over. It just wasn't playing in Peoria.
George
W. Bush's plan to remake the Social Security system is kaput. This is
not a value judgment. It's a statement of political fact. In the months
since [Bush] first presented the idea as his top domestic
priority, Democrats in Congress have unexpectedly unified in opposition
to any reform based on private accounts. Several Republican senators
whose votes would be needed for passage are resisting private accounts
as well. And public opinion, which has never favored any form of
privatization, is trending even more strongly against Bush's scheme. At
this point, there's just no way that [Bush] can finagle enough
votes to win.
This
means that Bush is about to suffer — and is actually in the midst of
suffering — his first major political defeat. After passing all his most
important first-term domestic priorities (a tax cut, an
"education-reform" bill, domestic security legislation, another tax cut),
Bush faces a second term that is beginning with a gigantic rebuke: A
Congress solidly controlled by his own party is repudiating his top
goal. It's precisely what happened to Bill Clinton, when Congress
rejected his health-care reform proposal in 1993. As the Clinton
example shows, such a setback doesn't doom an administration. But how
Bush handles the defeat is likely to be a decisive factor in
determining whether he accomplishes any of the other big-ticket items
on his agenda.
The
first question to ask is whether Bush can face up to defeat. Not
whether he can acknowledge defeat publicly: [Bush is reluctant to
graciously admit his screw-ups.] The issue is whether Bush can
acknowledge to
himself that he's belly-flopped on Social Security. If he can't, the
endgame is likely to be fairly ugly for the GOP. Bush will expend more
political capital twisting the arms of senators in a fruitless cause.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
Social Security Trustee Report
by
Chad Thompson
on Wed 23 Mar 2005 01:25 PM CST
Social Security Trustee Report
From tne NY Times this afternoon, the Social Security Trustees have released their report on the financial status of Social Security and Medicare.
Here's what the report stated:
The
trust fund for Social Security will go broke in 2041 -- a year earlier
than previously estimated -- the trustees reported Wednesday. Trustees
also said that Medicare, the giant health care program for the elderly
and disabled, faces insolvency in 2020.
The
new projections made in the trustees annual report were certain to be
cited by both sides in the massive battle to overhaul Social Security,
which [Bush] has made the top domestic priority of his second
term.
The go-broke date for Medicare was delayed by one year, compared to the estimate that trustees gave a year ago.
Now,
if you have some passing familarity with running "what-if" scenarios
(such as family budgeting) you're familiar with the notion of making
assumptions in the model you use to calculate that budget.
Atrios has a few notes on changing that model.
If the economy is improving by leaps and bounds (as we've heard over
and over - right?), the lifespan of the Social Security Trust Fund
should be increasing. However, according to this report the lifespan is decreasing.
What
this means: evidently, some model assumptions have been changed -
but not to truly 'drastic' effect. (Atrios states that the
changes have largely to do with the mortality tables and slightly
different assumptions about wages.)
To see the effect of changing assumptions, there is a section labeled "Uncertainty of Projections".
Here's the graph, showing three different projections of the solvency of the trust fund:
What
this shows us is that by differing the model projections, there can be
several assumptions made that either exhaust the trust fund, or make it
solvent forever.
The
point here is that the "solvency crisis" rhetoric is far from the truth
and the state of the Social Security system is far from requiring
massive overhauls of the basic structure away from a defined benefit
pension account to a defined contribution 401(k) style savings account.
For those with more time and patience than I have, you can read the entire report here.
Monday, March 21
U.S. Cosmetics Industry Fights to Continue Using Toxic Chemicals
by
Linda Thieman
on Mon 21 Mar 2005 05:53 PM CST
 U.S. Cosmetics Industry Fights to Continue Using Toxic Chemicals
By Kelly Hearn, AlterNet.org
Toxic
cosmetics ingredients were recently banned in the European Union. Here
in the U.S., the $35 billion cosmetics industry is fighting a similar
ban tooth and nail.
Phthalates,
the chemicals used in some cosmetics, may keep your nail polish hard
and shiny and your tresses thick and glossy, but in animal tests they cause birth defects, disrupt hormone systems and lead to reproductive problems.
Those are just a few of the reasons the European Union recently banned
them. Now, despite a huge outcry from the $35 billion cosmetics
industry, some California lawmakers are trying to ban phthalates in the
U.S.
California
Assemblywoman Judy Chu has introduced a bill that would ban the same
two types of phthalates as the EU did. In part because the FDA does not
conduct pre-market health testing of cosmetics ingredients (nor require
cosmetics makers to do so), Chu was moved to present a similar bill
last year that would have banned phthalates and other chemicals
blacklisted by entities like the International Agency for Research on
Cancer, the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Those
efforts were defeated. But if passed this session, Chu's Phthalates Ban
Bill (AB 908), would be the first ever phthalate ban in the United
States.
"After
three decades of extensive studies [on] carcinogens and reproductive
toxins, the EU banned two phthalates and those are the two that I am
proposing to ban," Chu said in a recent telephone interview. "It is
outrageous that American women aren't give the same protections that
European women are. How can a whole continent of women be protected yet
Americans ignore this?"
...During last year's legislative session, Chu's original bill (AB
2012), would have prohibited phthalates and forced cosmetics
manufacturers to disclose to state officials any hazardous chemicals in
their products. That bill failed to pass the Assembly Health Committee after intense industry opposition.
(Click here to read the complete article.)
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