A Democratic Response to Job Loss

George Bush is very vulnerable on the issue of jobs, but any Democratic candidate who wants to do more than just list statistics is going to have to offer a real alternative to Bush's fairly simple message of "make the tax cuts permanent". Accurate or not, it's too easy for Bush to label even a partial repeal of the tax cuts as a tax increase. So what can a Democratic candidate bring to the table when they're asked what they would do differently?

I think there are two good ideas that, when presented together, offer a realistic alternative to the Bush economic plan -- an alternative that would appeal to both the traditional Democratic base and any fiscally conservative swing voters

1. Balance any repeal of the tax cuts with new incentives for investment.

Bush's insistence that deficits in times of economic recession are necessary is, on the surface, hard to refute. Keynes said that much, and any Democrat who comes out against Keynesian economics is going to look fairly foolish. There are two ways for a government to run a deficit: increase spending relative to income, or decrease income relative to spending. But Bush has managed to take a third route by decreasing income while simultaneously increasing spending. This is where he is most vulnerable. All Bush can offer as alternatives to tax increases are more privatization and fewer benefits, neither of which are particularly appealing solutions to the lower and middle class.

The Democratic candidate needs to hit Bush where it hurts: right in the supply side. By reversing the tax cuts on the highest wage earners and simultaneously offering tax incentives on investment in, say, American jobs, the Federal government can both raise revenue and increase job growth simultaneously. Wesley Clark's plan to offer tax breaks to small businesses that hire new workers is spot on. We need to encourage businesses to reinvest, as opposed to simply giving them more money and hope they do the right thing with it.

2. Federally funded wage insurance.

I can't take credit for this idea. I found it here, on The American Street. Nevertheless, it's an idea that I can support wholeheartedly. One of the major difficulties in dealing with job loss during a time of recession is that most new jobs have lower wages than the jobs that are lost. Anyone who's been downsized is presented with the alternative of waiting as long as possible in the hopes that a job with a wage equivalent to their old one will come along, or taking a new job with a lower salary and adjusting their lifestyle accordingly. That lifestyle adjustment can be extremely painful and only hurts the economy further as families spend less.

Wage insurance can play a significant role in making up that difference. It allows families to weather hard times without having to make major sacrifices and, most importantly, encourages the unemployed to find work as quickly as possible. By offering incentives to keep the workforce strong while simultaneously maintaining income levels, the government helps keep demand for goods up, which is exactly what the government is supposed to be doing during an economic downturn.

Bush's insistence that supply side economics is the key to economic recovery is a major weak spot for him, but pointing that out simply isn't enough. The Democratic candidate needs to be able to offer a positive message. A strong economic plan that doesn't rely on reactionary protectionism is about as positive a message as they could send.

Editors: A Fifth Column?

The Bush Administration (specifically, the Treasury Department) has recently issued new rules forbidding American publishers from providing editorial services to works from Iran, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and any other nations with which trade is severely restricted. Un-edited works can still be published, however.

The idea is that by providing editorial services, publishers would be trafficking with the enemy in contravention of trade embargoes. The government cannot, however, forbid the actual publishing and distribution of the works because of the Berman Amendment to our trade embargoes (from the article):

"Since 1988, it has prohibited the executive branch from interfering 'directly or indirectly' with such trade. That exception is known as the Berman Amendment, after its sponsor, Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat."

How exactly this doesn't qualify as "indirect" inteference is a little confusing to me. For a little more perspective on what this means for the free exchange of ideas, see Teresa Nieslen-Hayden's (senior editor for Tor Books) blog post on the subject.

See the statute in question for more info. The Berman Amendment is sec. 15 (4).

Air National Guard Ads

Just an interesting tidbit: the Air National Guard is advertising on the Rush Limbaugh program. You can do the math.

Gay Marriage Goes Bi

Coastal, that is. The Mayor of New Paltz, NY has just announced he'll begin performing same-sex marriages on Friday.

"We as a society have no right to discriminate in marriage any more than we have the right to discriminate when someone votes or when someone wants to hold office," (New Paltz Mayor Jason) West told the AP. "The people who would forbid gays from marrying in this country are those who would have made Rosa Parks sit in the back of the bus."

A revolution led by mayors. Who would have thought?

Former MP: Britain Bugged Annan's Office

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain spied on U.N. chief Kofi Annan before the Iraq war, former minister Clare Short said on Thursday, threatening a fresh crisis for Prime Minister Tony Blair and drawing an angry response from the United Nations.

Blair declined to address the claim, beyond saying British security services acted within domestic and international law.

But the U.N. declared any such operation would be illegal.

"We want this action to stop if indeed it has been carried out," U.N. chief spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.

(for full text click here)

The Hill: Bush May Give Acceptance Speech at Ground Zero.

According to a veteran GOP insider, quoted in an article posted at The Hill, "this is a real possibility, we could see President Bush giving his acceptance speech at Ground Zero," he added. "It's clearly a venue they're considering."

Bush's Constitutional Ban on Gay Marriage.

Wouldn't it make more sense to make divorce illegal than to prohibit gay marriage? I mean, if Bush is serious that we're trying to save "the most fundamental institution of civilization" it would seem that we need to consider all options. This is pretty serious stuff. Perhaps we need a War Against Divorce to smoke all nuptual-breakers out of their holes. See article.

There is also an interesting article in today's Guardian that contrasts Bush (and the American political mainstream in general) with the British Conservative party. The Conservatives, far from opposing equal rights, will soon be hosting a "gay summit" at the House of Commons.

The article also references a new Annenberg poll that shows that while most Americans oppose gay marriage, most do not favor a Consitutional amendment banning it (the good ole' states righters, no doubt).

Gay Marriage Killed Our Family

As has been previously noted, there seems to be a small kerfluffle going on about gay marriage. The State of California is being sued by the city of San Francisco over it's law outlawing gay marriage. Massachusetts will begin issuing same-sex marriage licenses within the year. And yesterday the President of the United States weighed in, calling for a Constitutional amendment to codify marriage as a purely heterosexual union.

In all this, I think it's essential to be familiar with the arguments for and against same-sex marriage. While I'm of the opinion, previously shared, that the opponents of gay marriage are working from religiously based prejudices, they probably don't agree. Let's look at the arguments as we're likely to hear them in the coming weeks and months.

By far the most complete exposition of the "Hetero Only" argument I've found is here. I'll do my best to address what they've said here, but if you want the real unabridged version, follow the link. We'll wait.

Okay, our friends begin by outlining two broad thrusts of their argument: that homosexuals cannot marry, because marriage by definition refers to a heterosexual union, and that homosexual relationships are harmful in and of themselves.

The first argument takes roughly the following form: Marriage is a public sexual union for the purpose of producing children and creating "kinship-obligations." This definition spans cultures and eras. Homosexuality, by it's nature, is not reproductive and does not result in any blood kinship, therefore it cannot by definition partake in marriage.

This suffers from several misconceptions. First of all, it is by no means obvious that marriage is between a man and a woman and is solely or primarily for producing children and "kinship-obligations." Marriage has been many things in the past, and it's function in society varies from culture to culture even today. Some examples from our history and present day societies (rural India, for example) include its use as a political contract between families and sects or as payment of debts (with the woman as payment). Marriage hasn't even always been exclusively monogamous, either - cultures past and present have practiced various forms of polygamy. Today, as a result of the expansion and evolution of our notions of individual liberty marriage, in our society marriage is far more about the love two individuals share for each other than about specifically producing children or satisfying familial obligations. The definition of marriage presented by the folks at NoGayMarriage.com is neither universal nor is it even really the norm in our own society today. While bringing same-sex relationships into the fold may change what marriage is in America, it's hardly the first time or most radical way it has happened.

Of course, marriage is also more than merely an expression of love between two individuals. While the production of offspring has become less central to the concept of marriage over the years, marriage is still very important in the *rearing* of offspring. Marriage is by far the best method for giving children the stable and loving environment they need growing up, which NoGayMarriage.com (henceforth NGM) takes pains to point out. If homosexuals cannot reproduce, isn't a major chunk still missing from their marriages?

Anyone familiar with the state of reproductive sciene today no doubt already has several answers to this. In fact, homosexual couples already adopt or foster children all over the country. Women in lesbian relationships can become pregnant through artificial insemination. So while homosexual couples cannot reproduce by themselves, they can and do acquire children via the same methods available to infertile heterosexual couples. (This very fact has been used as an argument *for* allowing same-sex marriage, in order to extend the benefits of marriage to these non-traditional families.)

So we see that in fact same-sex relationships can and do share the same characgteristics as heterosexual relationships that we find important in our society today. Homosexual relationships are expressions of love between two individuals just as much as heterosexual relationships. Homosexual couples can and do raise children. On the issues important to our society, a hypothetical homosexual marriage differs only from a heterosexual marriage in the genders involved.

Which brings us to the second argument preseentd by NGM. Is this difference harmful? And if so, to whom? NGM claims only indirectly that homosexual marriage (or a non-married homosexual relationship) is harmful to the children of such a couple, but the argument is made often enough elsewhere that it is worth addressing here. In fact, "not a single study has found children of gay or lesbian parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents." (American Psychological Association, Lesbian And Gay Parenting: A Resource For Psychologists (1995))

NGM attempts to list ways in which homosexual marriages harm "traditional" marriages. They argue that homosexual marriage will reinforce existing trends in the deterioration of marriage: the de-stigmatization of divorce and loosening of public sexual mores including great acceptance of pornography, single parent families, and pre-marital sex. Homosexuals, they argue, are much more promiscuous than heterosexuals and are more inclined to all of the activities above.

This is perhaps the strongest argument that the opponents of same-sex marriage have, if you think these trends are a bad thing (this is a different, though related, argument and beyond the scope of this post). In fact, studies have shown that homosexuals are more promiscuous as a group than heterosexuals. Several "family values" sites have pointed to a recent study in the Netherlands that purports to show that this applies as well to homosexuals in committed relationships.

I do not have ready access to this study, but I can come up with a few possible answers to this. The first is that, because they have been pushed outside the mainstream in the first place, homosexuals likely have less incentive and less conditioning to conform to "traditional" rules of monogamy. If they are already condemned for their sexual preference, why worry about bothering to adhere to any other "traditional" strictures about sex?

Secondly, the references to the Dutch study never tell us whether homosexuals in marriages (legal in the Netherlands) have significantly less stable or less healthy unions than their heterosexual counterparts. The numbers given refer only to "steady partnerships," a phrase so vague as to be useless in this discussion.

It is not immediately obvious that homosexuals would remain significantly more promiscuous than heterosexuals if welcomed into the sexual mainstream. In fact, the institution of marriage would likely select for those homosexuals who are less promiscuous and more interested in long term, committed, monogamous relationships (as it does in the heterosexual population). NGM disagrees, but without further scientific study on the subject the argument has to end there.

The arguments presented that homosexual relationships don't need the legal protections and privileges of marriage (because these are all available individually with a little forethought) are severely undercut by NGM's subsequent insistence that "The legal and financial benefits of marriage are not an entitlement to be distributed equally to all," and "Society grants benefits to marriage because marriage has benefits for society." Saying "You don't need these rights" out of one side of your mouth and "You can't have these rights because you don't deserve them" out of the other seems a little disingenuous.

There were several other claims - that homosexual relationships provide a temptation for married heterosexuals to leave their spouses, that homosexual parents are more prone to abuse children, and that they put their children at a disadvantage whether or not they are actually abused - that are either laughable or in blatant contradiction of the studies done on the subject. As such, I won't go into depth in rebutting them here. I suggest reading the run-down the ACLU has posted on the subject (it's geared towards the question of gay adoption, but the issues are largely the same). They also have some good pointers to studies on the subject.

The claims that same-sex marriage (and relationships) harm "traditional" marriage made by our friends at NGM are fairly weak. Whether or not same-sex marriage harms other marriages or the actual participants (spouses or children) are falsifiable claims. Indeed, for the most part they have already been widely falsified. The argument against the notion that same-sex unions cannot be marriages is a bit more complicated, but - as demonstrated - ultimately wins through. Without these two arguments, opponents of same-sex marriage have only cultural inertia and prejudice on their side. Not very good company.

Outspoken Clothing Gets Visit from Ashcroft

I'm not too up and up on the specifics of technology, but this article from a dissident political clothing outfit details some interesting visits they've had to their web site.

Bush's Budget and New York

The proposed budget that Bush released in early February has been broken down by state interests, including provisions that are purported to be of specific interest to New York. These provisions include:

Liberty Bonds for New York: President Bush's FY 2005 budget includes an extension of the New York Liberty Bonds program until 2009. New York Liberty Bonds were signed into law by President Bush in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The Liberty Bonds program allows the State of New York and New York City to issue up to $8 billion in special tax-exempt private activity bonds to help finance capital projects in the newly-designated Liberty Zone, located in lower Manhattan. Approximately $2 billion in Liberty Bonds have been issued or authorized to date.

Energy Assistance for low-income Americans (LIHEAP) The President's Budget provides $2 billion in total funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, including a $100 million increase in contingency funds which will allow the Administration to respond to both winter and summer emergencies. LIHEAP helps eligible families pay the costs of heating and insulating their homes in the winter, and cooling their homes in the summer. New York will receive more than $224 million under the President's FY 2005 budget.

Brownfields Cleanup The President recognizes that clean-up and management of hazardous waste and abandoned industrial sites (brownfields) can provide significant economic, environmental, and public health benefits to communities. The budget provides $210 million, a $40 million or 24% increase over the 2004 enacted level, to continue the President's commitment to accelerate the clean-up and redevelopment of our nation's brownfields, revitalizing neighborhoods and stimulating local economies.

Superfund: The budget provides $1.4 billion for the Superfund, a $123 million (10%) increase over the 2004 enacted level. The budget includes a $124 million (48%) increase for the Superfund's remedial program over the 2004 enacted level. This increase will allow 8-12 additional construction starts in 2005 and a similar number of completions by 2006.

Clean Air: To help the Nation meet new stringent, health-based air quality standards, the President's budget will fund his Clear Skies Initiative to cut power plant pollution by 70%, the Interstate Air Quality rule, and the Administration's new regulations on diesel engines and fuel. The President's budget protects public health and improves air quality through a significantly expanded

Clean School Bus USA: program that will reduce harmful bus emissions and help protect human health in a way that promotes local solutions to air quality problems. Funding for this program will be increased from $5 million to $65 million.

Counter-Insurgency

As American troops struggle to neutralize a covert guerilla movement concealed by Iraq's civilian population, I think it's important to remember how incredibly horrible such warfare is. The enemy strikes and vanishes, and the occupying force must subject the civilian population to martial law - at the very least - and often to brutality which is indistinguishable from the very terrorism this war is supposedly in opposition to. The following is an open letter from a Vietnam-era commando to American troops in Iraq. It's a reminder of the high price this counter-insurgency is exacting from our troops in the field, even from those who are physically uninjured:

http://truthout.org/docs_03/111703D.shtml

Links to State Constitutions

We've got to bone up on the actual contents of state constitutions since this is the battleground for most of the important social issues (gay marriage, voting, etc) This web site has links to full text versions of all 50 of them. If equal protection is spearheading the gay marriage movement, why not voting reform?

A Gay Marriage Test

I'm freaking out about this gay marriage stuff. There is some kind of spontaneous groundswell occuring, which is bringing a little spine out of a few standout politicians, and activists in disparate states seem to be gaining confidence by watching what others are doing, what's working, what's not (one of the strange but nice consequences of our federal system, using states as little laboratories of democracy). There have been a few interesting articles, by Thom Hartmann and, about Bush's views on it from News Max. At the same time, groups all around the nation seem to have realized that their state constitution's Equal Protection Clauses are their most valuable tool in showing that legislated definitions of marriage as limited to men and women are unconstitutional. Years of slow building and organizing are beginning to take a firm hold. In fact, the beautiful thing about San Francisco, Massachussetts, New Mexico and, now it seems, Chicago (and probably others soon), is that it has shown clearly that the Republican stance against gay marriage has no basis other than religious conviction.

Republicans denied this for years, claming that the law was on their side. Well, I suppose that this still has yet to be tested, although the dockets are being loaded up as we speak with vigorous Constitutional tests. Anyway, libertarians who have given the Republican party the benefit of the doubt (as the protectors of small, unobtrusive government) should take note: Republicans are now spending record amounts on defense and a big bloated overhaul of Medicare that not even those big-spending Democrats like. And...they are now dedicating endless hours to making sure that a man and man or a woman and woman (or a tranny and tranny or whatever, who cares) can't decide to enter into a stable and loving relationship (which, it would seem, would do a lot of good for that family spirit Bush said he was all for, but now finds "troubling"). This debate has at the very least shown that it is not about solving problems that opponents of gay marriage are concerned, but creating a Christian theocracy. It's so nice when things get cleared up so that we can move on. I wonder if the same people who fear gay marriage would like to execute people for getting divorced and destroying the American hetero-conjugal dreamstate?

Bloomberg counters Edwards belief GOP will exploit 9/11

According to the Daily News, John Edwards made his first campaign visit to NYC yesterday, to find that Bloomberg rejecting the possibility that Bush may have (and might in the future) use 9/11 for political purposes.

Bush Manipulates Science.

What about the economy? According to an article in today's New York Times, "The Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals". While many people intuitively knew this already, it is nice to have the weight of 20 Nobel Laureates behind an actual judgment. Not that we need such a judgment on the economy, but I wonder if there are any economist collectives out there taking a similar approach (aside from obviously controversial folks like Paul Krugman).

The actual 37-page report is online at the web site for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

No Tax Cut = Tax Hike?

From today's Boston Globe: "HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. -- President Bush wrapped up a two-day campaign swing through Florida yesterday at a window manufacturing plant outside Tampa, where during what the White House described as a discussion on the economy, he told audience members that calls to repeal tax cuts he pushed through Congress were essentially calls to raise taxes." This is a fascinating rhetorical shift, and a thoroughly dishonest one.

While it is technically true that a repeal of the Bush tax cut would raise taxes from where they are now (duh), any effort to redistribute the tax burden in a way that would put more cash in the hands of people more likely to actually spend it (ie. people at the lower echelons of society), would be a step closer to an economic recovery benefitting a greater portion of society. The only political problem for Bush and Co. is that a progressive tax cut wouldn't put recovery in the hands of some faith-based trickle-down scheme (which funnels the cash through the hands of his biggest supporters). Economic indicators show that whatever cash he's given back to Americans is being held on to (just look at the almost unprecidented lack of job creation despite other positive indicators). This is not surprisingly considering the lack of faith in the nation's longterm stability in the face of the huge deficit caused by the tax cut. If the tax cut were actually geared toward economic recovery it would go directly to those who need it the most, but who aren't likely to vote for Bush. Now, this isn't a radical socialist position or anything, it's just what serious economists not funded by the Heritage Foundation are seeing (and not just Paul Krugman).

New Polls, Good News

The latest national Quinnipiac poll found that if the presidential elction were held today John Kerry would beat Bush 51-43. It also indicates that Bush's overall approval rating has dropped below 50 percent for the first time since he rose to power. There are all sorts of other findings available on their web site.

But look at this. "Only 2 percent of Democrats admire Bush and 18 percent are “satisfied” with him, but 51 percent are “dissatisfied” and 26 percent are “angry” with the President." The "anger" component, I think, is extremely relevant. The only problem is that the poll doesn't have an anger calculus for Republicans. That is where the real meat and potatoes of the election are going to be, and I suspect that the Republican number would be quite high, or at least high enough to result in some kind of attritrion rate.

According to Maurice Carroll, the director of the Poll, there is “Trouble for President Bush: Almost every American is worried about the federal deficit. Trouble for the Democrats: Most Americans disapprove of any form of recognition for same-sex couples.”

Gay marriage versus the deficit? I wonder what's going to get people out to vote.

Palabris, Meet John

Since the democratic establishment has all but crowned him candidate, I think that it's about time we learn a little something about John Kerry, besides that he's the richest member of congress and a war "hero." Kerry's web site has a nice rundown of his urban "agenda," which is very broad and perhaps a little silly in its vagueness. But a few standout features are: indexing the minimum wage to inflation, fair housing and lending laws, tax write-offs for college tuition, etc. One strange thing is his call for increased revenues into "faith-based organizations." Sound familiar? Oh well. ABB infinity.

Currency Connexions

The International Herald Tribune offers world news without quite so much Americacentrism, which is particularly relevant when thinking about the world economy and the U.S.'s unique role in it.

This article in the Tribune, written by a professor of political economy at the London School of Economics, discusses the effects of the failing U.S. economy on currency valuation around the world, and a proposition (introduced by George Soros) to extricate the rest of the world from the paradox created by linking the international reserve currency to the U.S. dollar.

I'm not sure how seriously this sort of proposal is being taken worldwide, or whether it's an inevitable debate regarding an inherently flawed system, but the most relevant thing to me is that this can be seen as evidence, on a real, practical level, that our current administration's behavior is affecting the U.S.'s position in the global economy in unprecedented ways, extending both geographically and temporally.

Could our economy really tank, like Argentina's did, like East Asia's did? Are dependency relationships like one described here undergirding the relative economic stability we've enjoyed for so many years? What, truly, separates the United States from any other economically depressed post-industrial state ruled by an illegitimate warlord (er, I mean "war president") whose sole concern is exploiting its resources to the advantage of himself and his supporters?

Michael Moore: "Dude, Where's My Country?"

This is apparently a book with amazing powers.

I heard about it first from my aunt, a person whose television set holds the honor of having transmitted every single hideous moment of both the Afghanistan and the Iraqi "military engagements" (whether or not she herself was in the room, or even in the house, to witness the broadcasts), and whose political leanings could, I would say fairly, be described as "reactionary," as in, she formed her opinions "in reaction" to the shock and awe (sturm und drang) constantly playing across her screen.

Even before I was hearing talk within the uber-political set of Michael Moore's most recent political manifesto, my aunt had sent a copy to my grandfather, in florida (yes, the most renowned of the "swing states"), who had started off by enthusiastically becoming more and more incensed, only to put the book down halfway through, with a mixture of horror and respect, declaring it "too much." (It should be noted, as a point of information, that my grandfather and his wife work as poll attendants at their local polling place, even in midterm elections; and also that my grandfather has historically been a great fan of the author Tom Clancy, although to his credit I must add that he will basically read anything handed to him.)

Now my father: accountant; tail end of the baby boom; was starting to do the natural thing and go conservative until GW came on the scene, at which point he reverted fully to his previous left-leaning allegiances. Not only has he read the book, but he bought two extra copies to lend out. A political discussion cannot be had with the man without reference to this genius opus. "Six hours," he insists. "Just spend six hours and read this book."

No, I haven't yet. But with these recommendations, I surely will.

And that's where my little story would end, but there's one more thing. Apparently Mr. Moore has suggested in his book that everyone donate their "tax cut" to efforts dedicated to ousting GW. (Three cheers for irony! Nobody ever said Mike didn't have a sound sense of humor to recommend him!) And Moore himself, that self-effacing reluctant millionaire, proposes to do the same with his cut. On his website he solicits suggestions for local candidates he should send money to, and for "the names of any groups who are working toward the kind of change we all seek" (this whole everyone-knows-it's-true idea is apparently at the root of his book, so we can forgive him for being a bit subjective here). Which is to say, I guess:

1/ This might be a good book.
1a/ Maybe it's worth reading.
2/ Michael Moore is apparently gaining in popularity among the casually political.
2a/ The idea that interesting leftist figures, who had previously been fringe even to the fringe, have suddenly gained credibility among the sturm-und-drang crowd is, I think, remarkable.

But what does it mean?

Return of the Line Item Veto

According to The Hill, Bush has a plan to revive the line item veto. Even though it was declared unconstitutional as a usurpation of Congress's legislative powers (contrary to what the article claims), it seems that Bush is trying to narrowly construct such a power around appropriations only, with a fund to take the "waste" of Congress and use it to pay off the people's deficit. This, of course, fits in nicely with his claim that the deficit is mostly due to spending in Congress. I don't know, this whole debate is being mangled by using and misusing categories of spending and institutional blame interchangeably. The issue and the terminology needs to be sorted out, lest the whole election go forth with Bush claiming that it is a Congress hell-bent on spending that has caused the deficit, while we still don't know how much Irag/Afghanistan or the Medicare bill really cost. I'm no economist, but this stuff is elementary.

2000 Swing States

I've posted a list of contested states for the 2000 presidential election. While so much energy and focus was spent on Florida, it is good to remember that Oregon, Wisconsin and New Mexico were almost as close. These are only the very closest races, but I think that they are enough to begin doing some work on this general concept of adopting a state. Hasta la vista electoral college. For more details on Swing State info see The Swing State Project.

The question now is how to develop a strategy to encourage people in states that aren't really very close (such as New York or Massachusetts) to expend whatever energy they have on those states that really matter. A good way to begin doing this might be to become a bit more familiar with the issues in these states. For example, a quick breeze through the editorial sections in Ohio newspapers shows what a big deal the steel tariff issue is (was) there. Perhaps we could talk about this issue and try and find an approach that exposes Bush's machinations without advocating what was in fact an illegal act on the part of the administration.

Robert Fisk

This website compiles insightful articles written by Robert Fisk, the Middle East correspondent for the UK newspaper The Independent. They provide a sample of the latest news under the heading "Latest News" from several mostly Liberal news sources. It also has several articles under the headings: "Muslim views on America's 'War on Terrorism,'" "Views on why America is hated," and "Understanding America's Enemies," which includes transcripts of several of Fisk's interviews with Osama Bin Laden.