Pro-privatization Social Security experts on TV are paid for
by the right
A Media Matters for America analysis of guests who have appeared on cable
or network news since the November 2, 2004, election to discuss Social
Security failed to find one independent expert with a graduate degree in
economics who supported allowing workers to divert Social Security payroll
taxes into private accounts.
FOX's Angle echoed Republican's bogus $26 trillion Social
Security shortfall projection
FOX News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle echoed but declined to
correct Representative E. Clay Shaw Jr.'s
(R-FL) grossly misleading claim that "Social Security will need $26 trillion
over the next 75 years" to remain solvent. That number -- which has been
touted by the libertarian, pro-privatization href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=2776">Cato Institute and
the conservative href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/wm640.cfm">Heritage
Foundation -- vastly overstates the actual shortfall by using a so-called
"constant dollar" estimate. The so-called "net present value" estimate, which
the Social Security trustees themselves href="http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/TR04/IV_LRest.html#wp267528">use and
which is widely accepted, indicates a much smaller shortfall.
O'Reilly used phony evidence to defend Bush's handling of
torture allegations
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly used a recently released State Department href="http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/">report on human rights
around the world to argue that the Bush administration is adequately
addressing allegations of torture by U.S. interrogators. In fact, the report
did not examine alleged human rights violations by the United States.
O'Reilly on ACLU: "I think they're a terrorist group. ... I
think they're terrorists"
Fox News host Bill O'Reilly labeled the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) a "terrorist group" for filing a lawsuit against Secretary of Defense
Donald H. Rumsfeld and for opposing Bush administration anti-terrorism
measures that the group believes are unconstitutional. The href="http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17584&c=206">lawsuit
accuses Rumsfeld of approving illegal interrogation methods that led to the
torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody; the ACLU also
believes that measures such as federal href="http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12740&c=206">"no-fly"
lists and expanded investigative and surveillance powers for federal law
enforcement under the href="http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207">USA
Patriot Act are unconstitutional. O'Reilly added: "They're terrorizin' me
and my family. They're terrorizing me. I think they're terrorists."
Limbaugh: "Women still live longer than men because their
lives are easier"
Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh said the following on the
March 1 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:
couple weeks that are very relevant to America.
Financial markets shaken by US dollar scare
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/doll-f25.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/doll-f25.shtml
US-Russian
strains dominate Bush-Putin meeting in Bratislava
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bush-f28.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bush-f28.shtml
Germany:
15,000 demonstrate in Mainz against Bush visit
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/demo-f26.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/demo-f26.shtml
Bush
in Brussels: US steps up threats of wider Mideast war
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bush-f24.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bush-f24.shtml
Germany:
expansion of DNA testing--a step towards genetic registration
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/dna-f24.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/dna-f24.shtml
Narrow
majority on US Supreme Court bans juvenile death penalty
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/juve-m03.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/juve-m03.shtml
State
Department rights survey denounces as "torture" methods used by US
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/tort-m03.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/mar2005/tort-m03.shtml
Torture
charged in US case alleging plot against Bush
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/ali-f26.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/ali-f26.shtml
New
evidence of US torture in Iraq and Afghanistan
href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/tort-f23.shtml">http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/tort-f23.shtml
9/11 whistleblower
There are major developments in the case of Sibel Edmonds, a government
whistleblower who has stated that prior to 9/11, in April 2001, the U.S.
government had information about plans for airplanes to be used on suicide
missions in U.S. cities in the coming months. Her statements contradict what
administration officials told the 9/11 Commission in public testimony. Edmonds
has also charged that the FBI has been compromised in various ways and that
her raising these issues led to her dismissal.
The
American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing Edmonds, notes today
that this "development also follows the Justice Department's release of the
full Inspector General report on Edmonds's dismissal at 5:00 p.m. on Friday,
February 18, at the beginning of a holiday weekend. The ACLU said that the
executive summary released last month actually revealed more information than
the full 106-page Inspector General report, as the bulk of it was redacted."
[See: < href="http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17527&c=206">http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17527&c=206>]
The Money Behind Social Security Privatization
Push
LAURA MILLER, (608) 260-9713, href="mailto:laura@prwatch.org">laura@prwatch.org,
href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/3310">http://www.prwatch.org/node/3310,
http://www.SourceWatch.org
Editor
of PR Watch, Miller said today: "The Bush administration
ventriloquists
are out in full force these days, breathlessly hyping
'Personal Retirement
Accounts' as a way to save Social Security by
destroying it. For the
average voter, getting a handle on what the Bush
administration is
proposing to do to Social Security is quite a challenge.
The dozens of
bobbing heads and clicking fingers, holding forth on cable
news
programming and the Internet, are enough to make anyone's head spin.
Is
that spokesman from the Alliance for Worker Retirement Security speaking
as an independent economics expert, a civic-minded individual or as a paid
shill from a corporate-funded front group? If you're having trouble
keeping
track of all the players, our very own href="http://www.SourceWatch.org">www.SourceWatch.org can help. It
will tell you that the Alliance is sponsored by the National Association
of
Manufacturers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business
Roundtable,
among other pro-business groups."
MARK WEISBROT, (202)
746-7264, weisbrot@cepr.net, href="http://www.cepr.net">http://www.cepr.net
Economist and
co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research,
Weisbrot said
today: "The 'President's Reform Plan 2' has administrative
costs ten times
as high as the current system -- but even this is not as
much money for
the financial industry as they would hope to get further
down the road.
The potential for making money for financial firms from
private accounts
is enormous -- billions or even tens of billions of
dollars annually."
Weisbrot is co-author of the book "Social Security: The
Phony
Crisis."
ELLEN MILLER, (202) 955-5665 ext 102, href="mailto:emiller@ourfuture.org">emiller@ourfuture.org,
href="http://www.ourfuture.org">http://www.ourfuture.org
Deputy
director of the Campaign for America's Future, Miller said today:
"More
people are hearing about Congressman Jim McCrery, because he recently
gained great power over our future -- and is poised to abuse it. He's
President Bush's sherpa, the man charged to push Social Security
privatization through the House of Representatives. Incredibly, McCrery
has
accepted nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions from the very Wall
Street firms that stand to benefit the most from privatization. Of course
President Bush's campaign contributors reflect a who's who of the
country's
biggest corporations -- from Wall Street to health care
industries -- who
are expecting big rewards from their investment in
him."
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public
Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David
Zupan, (541) 484-9167
Dear MoveOn member,
As we write this, the Senate is debating the
nomination of mining and cattle industry lobbyist William Myers III for a
lifetime appointment to the Circuit Court of Appeals -- the second highest
court in the land. Myers is the first of 20 nominees Bush has re-submitted in
his second term. All 20 repeat nominees were rejected last term by Senate
Democrats (as compared to 204 judges they accepted) because these nominees
consistently sided with corporate special interests over the rights of
ordinary Americans.
The Senate has the power to approve or reject judicial
nominations because judges -- above all else -- must be trusted by Americans
on all sides to rule fairly. So why does Bush refuse to send new nominees both
parties can agree on? Because while his presidency will be over in 4 years,
the judges he appoints will be on the bench for the rest of their lives. This
is Bush's big push to lock in his hard right, corporate-friendly ideology for
decades to come -- and that is exactly why we must not back down now.
The
fight begins today. The Myers vote is a key test -- and may well determine
whether Bush can stack the judiciary, all the way up to the Supreme Court,
with a steady stream of hard right, pro-corporate judges. It's crucial that
our Senators know that we out here in America are counting on them to hold the
line against all 20 of Bush's rejected, partisan judges.
Please sign
today:
href="http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/">http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/
We
will deliver your comments to your Senators before the crucial votes on these
20 judicial nominees.
Here's a brief summary of just the first three of the
20 partisan judges re-nominated by President Bush.
William Myers III has never been a judge and spent most
of his career as a lobbyist for the cattle and mining
industry.[1] He has written that all habitat conservation laws
are unconstitutional because they interfere with potential
profit.[2] In 2001, Bush appointed him as the chief lawyer for
the Department of the Interior. In that role he continued as a champion of
corporate interests, setting his agenda in meetings with former employers he
promised not to speak with, and even illegally giving away sacred Native
American land to be strip mined.[3]
Terrence
Boyle was a legal aide to Jesse Helms. As a judge, his signature
decisions have attempted to circumvent federal laws barring employment
discrimination by race, gender, and disability.[4] His rulings
have been overturned a staggering 120 times by the conservative 4th District
Court of Appeals, either due to gross errors in judgment or simple
incompetence.[5]
William Pryor Jr. served
as Attorney General of Alabama, where he took money from Phillip Morris,
fought against the anti-tobacco lawsuit until it was almost over, and
cost the people of Alabama billions in settlement money for their healthcare
system as a result.[6] He called Roe v. Wade "the worst
abomination of constitutional law in our history," and has consistently
argued against the federal protections for the civil rights of minorities,
lesbian and gay couples, women, and the
disabled.[7]
If we falter now, then decades down the road dozens of judges like this
will still be ruling in favor of unchecked corporate greed and against the
basic principles of accountability and fairness.
The Bush Administration is prepared to stop at nothing to smash Democratic
resistance and stack the courts. As President of the Senate, Dick Cheney has
even threatened to push these 20 through by using a parliamentary trick so
abusive even he calls it the "nuclear option." If they can get away with it,
the "nuclear option" would eliminate the right to filibuster -- a rule that
has allowed 40 or more Senators to keep extremists from all sides off the
courts for centuries.
If that happens, when Supreme Court vacancies begin to open up in a few
months there will be no motivation for Bush to nominate justices acceptable to
both parties, and no ability for Democrats to oppose even the most dangerous
extremists.
We must draw the line here, by stopping Bush's 20 repeat nominees. They
were rejected once -- they can and must be rejected again.
Please sign the petition today:
href="http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/?id=5135-4502373-.cH5XobDjmTVO0xjwxBHkA">http://www.moveonpac.org/judges/
Thanks for all that you do,
--Ben Brandzel, Eli Pariser and the whole MoveOn PAC Team
Tuesday, March 1st, 2005
Notes:
[1] "Unfit to Judge," Community Rights Council, 4/2/04.
[2]
"Myers Troubling Legal Philosophy," People for the American Way.
[3]
"Environmental Group Calls on Senate to Block Myers Nomination: Ethical
Problems and Anti-Environmental Activism Make Him Unfit for Judgeship,"
Friends of the Earth, 2/5/05.
[4] "Federal Judge Terrence Boyle Unfit for
Promotion to Appeals Court," People for the American Way, 2/23/05.
[5]
"Eastern District of North Carolina Terrence Boyle Nominated to the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit," Alliance for Justice.
[6] Eric
Fleischauer, "Pryor Called a Tobacco Sellout," Decatur Daily News,
10/30/02.
[7] Ann Woolner, "Bush Judicial Candidate Shows How Things
Change," Bloomberg News, 5/16/03.
¶ 9:19 PM
Dear Media Reformer:
Community Internet may be the most important media policy fight
of the decade. Local communities across the country -- looking to offer
affordable, universal access to high-speed broadband services -- are squaring
off against big cable and telephone companies determined to outlaw the
competition.
In a few years, all communications -- TV, radio, Internet and
telephone -- will come through broadband Internet connections. If Big Media
has its way, access will cost more than $100 a month, and corporations -- not
communities -- will determine what information is available and what's not.
The fight for tomorrow's technology is being waged today. Here's
what you can do:
1. Watch Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott on tonight's
broadcast of NOW, the PBS news magazine. ( href="http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=7478699&url_num=2&url=http://www.pbs.org/now/sched.html">Click
here to check your local listings.) Then visit Free Press' new href="http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=7478699&url_num=3&url=http://www.freepress.net/communityinternet">Community
Internet site to learn more.
2. A rapid response from vocal citizens is the only way to stop
the cable and telephone companies when they try to sneak in bad legislation
under the radar. Help us win the next battle by href="http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=7478699&url_num=4&url=http://www.freepress.net/tellafriend.php?n=Peter Newman&e=ngrimmm@hotmail.com">getting
10 people to sign up now as Free Press e-activists for future actions.
It's free and takes only a few seconds.
3. Meet and strategize with other activists working to defend
Community Internet at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis on
May 13-15. You can href="http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=7478699&url_num=5&url=http://www.freepress.net/conference/=registration">register
for the conference online or by calling (866) 462-2838. We need you to be
there to build this important campaign.
With your help, we can stop Big Media -- and win the struggle
for the future of communications in America.
Onward,
Josh Silver
Executive Director
href="http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=7478699&url_num=6&url=http://www.freepress.net">Free
Press
