Let's run the numbers

Back to Alabama National Guard Remember how Gary Trudeau promised he'd donate $10,000 to the USO if somebody would come forward saying that he had served with Lt. W. Bush? Nobody came forward. David Neiwart has the details: Orcinus: No AWOL takers Why isn't the media making more of this? Or, why is there a double-standard between what Republicans have to do for military service, and what Democrats have to do?

This is what scares me most about the November elections The Republicans have the money. They can fund the ads. And by the time an honest man or woman has deconstructed the bullshit, and shown the Republicans to be liars, the Kerry campaign or some other Section 527 outfit doesn't have the money to run ads correcting the lies. Thus the lies become truth. Sorry to be a pessimist. I've been getting more and more concerned about this lately, and I haven't seen anything to make me feel better. The only thing that does cheer me is the total ineptness of the Bush responses to Kerry's public statements. Eventually, though, Bush is going to get the upper hand, just because he has $100 million dollars and can afford to run ad after ad until John Kerry runs out of money. Josh Marshall has a potential solution to this; I hope he's right, and I hope that the media and public pick up on it. This country cannot afford another Bush presidency. Talking Points Me...

Isn't this surprising? Jonathan Weisman is about to become the least popular person at Republican cocktail parties. Why? This article that smacks around their conventional wisdom about taxes and employment. Link Between Taxation, Unemployment Is Absent (washingtonpost.com) : When President Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, the unemployment rate dropped, from 6.9 to 6.1 percent, and kept falling each of the next seven years. When President Bush cut taxes in 2001, the unemployment rate rose, from 4.7 to 5.8 percent, then drifted to 6 percent last year when taxes were cut again. It has become conventional wisdom in Washington that rising tax burdens crush labor markets. Bush castigated his political opponents last week for "that old policy of tax and spend" that would be "the enemy of job creation." Yet an examination of historical tax levels and unemployment rates reveals no obvious correlation. (snip) [S]ome prominent conservative economi...

Spanish Train Bombings again Looks like I was wrong, and it is Moroccan militants. I haven't had time to get into the articles to see exacly what their beef is with Spain, but it does look like they have Al-Qaeda ties. Yahoo! News - Spain, Morocco Attack Links Investigated BBC NEWS | Europe | Police 'identify' Madrid bombers

Spanish Train Bombings I still think ETA is involved. The ruling Popular Party has taken a very hard line with them. What better way to get the Popular Party out of office, and the Socialists back in, than make a bombing look like Al-Qaeda. The Iraq war was not at all popular in Spain, and the Popular Party's support of it was already a sore point. Making it look like Al-Qaeda was attacking them for the support of the Iraq war is a good strategy to get the Popular Party defeated. I'm still going with the theory that it was ETA, possibly with a former Al-Qaeda bombmaker that found himself unemployed when the United States destroyed the camps in Afghanistan. According to the BBC, the purported military head of the European branch of Al-Qaeda is unknown to security services. I cannot believe that if there was such a person, security services wouldn't know about him. BBC NEWS | Europe | Al-Qaeda claim clouds Spain vote : In the video, a man speaking Arabi...

Tragedy in Spain Summary: This tragedy occurred 2 1/2 years to the day after 9/11. 10 explosions occurred on commuter trains between 7:30 and 8:00 AM local time today, March 11. 3 more bombs were found by police and defused. 192 people killed, thousands injured. Conventional wisdom suggests that ETA, the Basque separatist group was behind this. They had tried to blow up trains back on Christmas Eve 2003, which was found out, and had recently tried to send vans with explosives into Madrid in February, which was also prevented. The type of explosive used in today's attacks was also used in the February attempt. There are also potential Al-Qaeda ties, although they are tenuous. First, there was a van found with detonators and an Arabic language tape. This was reported in other sources as having Quaran verses in it. The BBC is now reporting that this is a tape with verses related to education. Also, a group called the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades has claimed responsibili...

Sorry I'm behind I've gotten hung up at work on a couple of projects. Also, the few I've gotten started on, people like Brad Delong have covered much more succinctly than I. In the meantime, Kash had a rather interesting post at The Angry Bear . Click on the link to go check out his graph. Ever since last Friday’s weaker-than-expected employment report, the bond market has been going like gangbusters. Yields on 10 year government bonds have plunged from over 4.0% to 3.7% in a matter of just a few days – a truly remarkable drop. The financial press has mainly been explaining this as due to the fact that the employment report reassured investors that the Fed won’t raise rates any time soon. Perhaps. But were bond market participants really expecting the Fed to increase rates that soon? And do moves in the Fed funds rate really affect the 10-year bond yield so dramatically? I'm not convinced. Here’s another theory to try on for size: maybe Friday’s employ...

Bush and the 9/11 ads Family members of 9/11 victims are getting upset that Bush is using images from the terrorist attacks in his campaign ads. His former staffer, Karen Hughes, dismissed these complaints because they were only from "Democrats". Scary thing is, she's right. Even scarier, she's willing to say their strategy out loud. Let me explain: New York is a Democratic state, and will be so in November. The Bush Campaign will not be able to pry it loose from the Democrats. So, they REALLY DON"T CARE what the 9/11 victim's families think about the ads. Their votes wouldn't count for Bush anyway, because New York is going Democratic anyway. It plays well in the heartland, though, in Ohio, Missouri, and such, and those are the battleground states for this election. There is a chart floating around the blogosphere of what states are in Kerry's camp, which one's are in Bush's camp, and which one's are in play right now....

It's not as good as the book. For those going to see the Passion of Christ, but feel like you might be left out by your lack of knowledge of Aramaic, here is a crib sheet from the Guardian (U.K.) newspaper. (link via Kevin Hayden at The American Street )

John Edwards will drop out tonight So says Wolf Blitzer, quoting an AP report. Here's the AP report. I'm watching him speak right now, so I'll update this when he says something. His staff claimed he wouldn't be making "news" in this speech, but I don't know if I believe those staffers given the AP report. Edwards to Drop Out of Presidential Race UPDATE: No news in Edwards speech on CNN, however Wolf Blitzer said that CNN had confirmed that he was headed home to Raleigh, NC to announce it officially tomorrow. It's sort of a shame. John Edwards spoke with the voice of a Southern Populist, which really resonates with me. I'm not that far removed from the family farm in Tennessee.

I guess Colin Powell's statements are no longer operative That big sucking sound is the last bit of credibility Colin Powell had going down the tubes. I've not had much faith in him since the whole U.N. "Chemical Weapons in Iraq Revue". But this was lying for nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. Yahoo! News - Aristide Tells AP the U.S. Forced Him Out : Mon Mar 1,11:14 PM ET By ELIOTT C. McLAUGHLIN, Associated Press Writer ATLANTA, Ga. - Jean-Bertrand Aristide said in a telephone interview Monday that he was 'forced to leave' Haiti by U.S. military forces. Aristide was put in contact with The Associated Press by the Rev. Jesse Jackson (news - web sites) following a news conference, where the civil rights leader called on Congress to investigate Aristide's ouster. When asked if he left Haiti on his own, Aristide quickly answered: 'No. I was forced to leave. 'They were telling me that if I don't leave they would start sh...