Fri, Oct 08 2004
Debate Tonight
written by: Owlet at 03:06:52 PM | link comments
Job Creation Estimates vs Job Creation Reality
The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which took effect in July 2003, its "Jobs and Growth Plan." The president's economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA, see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004 — 306,000 new jobs each month starting in July 2003. The CEA projected that the economy would generate 228,000 jobs a month without a tax cut and 306,000 jobs a month with the tax cut. Thus, it projected that 4,284,000 jobs would be created over the last 14 months. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect, there are 2,668,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. The August job growth of 144,000 fell 162,000 jobs short of the administration's projection. As can be seen in the chart below, job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 12 of the past 14 months. more
written by: Owlet at 11:14:22 AM | link comments
Gallup Organization Selected the "Uncommitted" Voters
These are the people who will make up the audience and ask the questions at tonight's debate. Gallup has been criticized by many, including Move-on.org, for weighting its surveys in favor of Republican voters.
Screened and selected by the Gallup Organization, a group of more than 100 residents of the St. Louis area will be the on-site audience. Many who will participate have said they are leaning toward -- but are not committed to -- either major candidate, said Frank Newport, editor in chief of The Gallup Poll. In the parlance of political polling, these are known as "soft leaners."
Full story here.
A few of the 'uncommitted'
written by: Owlet at 07:02:16 AM | link comments
Tue, Oct 05 2004
The State Department's extreme makeover
"A veteran Foreign Service officer
warns that when Colin Powell departs in a second Bush term, America will lose its
last bulwark against the radical ideologues who are planning more Iraqs."
This is the start of a really disturbing article on Salon. If you have the Acrobat plug-in, left-click to read the .pdf file, or right-cick to download it.
written by: Owlet at 05:24:49 PM | link comments
Good Luck, John
Vice Presidential debate - 9:00pm EDT
written by: Owlet at 04:08:04 PM | link comments
Mon, Oct 04 2004
The full story is at Z-Mag
"Iran is the next U.S. and Israeli target, so the mainstream U.S. media are once again serving the state agenda by focusing on Iran’s alleged menace and refusing to provide context that would show the menace to be pure Orwell—that is, while Iran is seriously threatened by the U.S. and its aggressively ethnic-cleansing client, Iran only threatens the possibility of self-defense."
"The second rule in supportive propaganda is to frame the issues in such a way that the premises of the propaganda source are taken as given, with any inconvenient considerations ignored and any sources that would contest the party line bypassed or marginalized. This technique is well illustrated in David Sanger’s “Diplomacy Fails to Slow Advance of Nuclear Arms,” the front-page feature article in the New York Times of August 8, 2004—a virtually perfect model of propaganda service.
The frame of Sanger’s article is the threat of the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea, the efforts to contain that threat via diplomacy, the difficulties encountered in these efforts, U.S. and Israeli concerns over the matter, and the opinions of Western officials and experts over what should be done. All seven quoted sources in Sanger’s piece are present or former U.S. officials, which allows the establishment frame to be presented without challenge.
A basic Sanger premise is that the United States and Israel are good and do not pose threats worthy of mention, so that any “advance” in nuclear arms, or the possession and threat of use of such weapons by these states, is outside the realm of discourse. Thus, the ongoing and well-funded U.S. program of developing “blockbuster” and other tactical nuclear weapons, the Bush plan to make nuclear weapons not merely a deterrent, but usable in normal warfare, and the U.S. intention to exploit space as a platform for nuclear as well as other technologically advanced weapons systems, do not fall under the heading “advance of nuclear arms” and they are not mentioned in the article. These are not the views of the global majority, but they represent the official U.S. view, hence serving as a premise of the Times reporter."
The full David Sanger article is here
written by: Owlet at 04:21:59 PM | link comments