TomPaine.com is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the identification of the person or persons who inserted the special Eli Lilly Payback Provision into the Homeland Security Bill at the last minute, in the dead of night.
And Counterspin has a comprehensive rundown on Thimerosol lies and double-talk.
As a direct result of this website’s efforts, MSNBC is now reporting on the third instance of Lott remarking that Thurmond should have been elected in 1948. The clearly audible comment is made off-camera as Thurmond signs the bill. They’re running the story at the top of every half hour; it may also be on the NBC evening news tonight and in a major daily tomorrow morning. Updates to follow as I have them.
Update 1: From MSNBC’s press release:
SECAUCUS, NJ- Dec, 17, 2002- MSNBC has uncovered a third instance of Sen. Trent Lott saying Sen. Thurmond “should have been President” in 1948, when he ran for President on a segregationist platform. In the video obtained by MSNBC, Sen. Lott is emceeing the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act on Oct. 19, 2000. As Sen. Thurmond signs the bill, Sen. Lott can be heard saying, “Now this is a famous signature right here. He should have been President in 1947 (sic), I think it was.” MSNBC contacted Sen. Lott’s press secretary, Ron Bonjean, who did not deny that Lott made the comments at the event. Bonjean insists that the fact Lott made the statement at the signing of the defense act makes their case that this is not about race and that it has nothing to do with race. Bonjean told MSNBC it proves that Lott meant Thurmond would have been tougher on defense, fighting Communism and best for the economy.
Update 2: made the NBC Evening News.
Update 3: Fox News has picked it up as well.
Update 4: here’s the story on MSNBC’s website (scroll down). It is also referenced in the Lott stories in this morning’s Washington Post and New York Times. I am told it made ABC World News Tonight and the wire stories as well.
Trent Lott’s career is currently swirling down the drain in part because he has a long-standing association with a white supremacist group called the Council of Conservative Citizens and because he gave a 1984 interview to a crypto-racist magazine called the Southern Partisan. Attorney General John Ashcroft is going on Larry King Live tomorrow night. Ashcroft also has at least some connection with the very same group and he gave an interview to the same magazine only four years ago.
Is Larry going to ask him about it? If not, why not? Should Ashcroft get a pass for some of the same stuff that’s ending Lott’s career?
His Larryness has his own website. And down in the lower lefthand corner there’s a link where you can send an email suggesting a question for a guest …
When the CSX Corporation calculates pension benefits for its chief executive, John W. Snow, nominated by President Bush last week to be Treasury secretary, he will receive credit for 44 years of service to the company, though he has worked there just 25.
Moreover, Mr. Snow’s benefits will be based not just on his salary, or even his salary and bonus, but also the value of 250,000 shares of stock the CSX board gave him.
Getting credit for years not worked, and having virtually all compensation counted toward pension benefits, are two of the newest trends in pay for senior executives, said Judith Fischer, managing director of Executive Compensation Advisory Services. She calls such deals “the eternal wealth syndrome.”
Though he has renounced his claim to about $15 million in severance benefits, Mr. Snow’s pension improvements mean he will collect $2.47 million a year from CSX until he dies, according to company disclosures. If confirmed as Treasury secretary, he will be paid $161,200 annually.
— snip —
As Treasury secretary, Mr. Snow would be in the middle of pension policy-making as the subject heats up in Washington. He would oversee new pension rules announced by the Bush administration last week that experts say can be expected to strip benefits from older workers while benefiting younger workers and saving companies money.
LOTT: I’m for that. I think you should reach out to people…
GORDON: Across the board?
LOTT: Absolutely, across the board. That’s why I’m so proud of my own alma mater now, University of Mississippi, that obviously had a difficult time in the 60s and 70s, now led by an outstanding chancellor, Robert Khayat, that has gotten rid of the Confederate flag, that has now has an institute of reconciliation, that has a leadership…
GORDON: Yet your votes in the past have not suggested that you are for affirmative action.
LOTT: I am for affirmative action. And I practice it. I have had African-Americans on my staff, and other minorities, but particularly African-Americans, since the mid-1970s.
I have had a particular program…
GORDON: But to have one on one’s staff — you understand the difference, though, to have a black on your staff and to push legislation that would help African-Americans, minorities across the board, are completely different.
LOTT: You know, again, you can get into arguments about timetables and quotas.
Correspondent: Publicly, the White House today used (Al Gore’s) announcement to take a general swipe at Democrats.
ARI FLEISCHER: Somebody will emerge from the Democratic field who will ultimately seek to raise taxes on the American people.
(Ed. note: unlike Republicans, who only want raise taxes on the American people below a certain income level.)
Correspondent continues: Privately, White House officials admitted they had expected Gore to run, and weren’t relishing a Gore challenge, one official saying, quote, he did get five hundred thousand more votes than the President.
…that the story of Trent Lott’s third public comment that Strom Thurmond should have become president — made in October 2000 at the signing of the Spence/Warner Defense Spending Bill, and so far unreported in the major media — will hit one of the cable news networks today.
Maybe even around the same time Trent Lott is on BET, trying to explain the first two away.
If it happens, remember that you read it here first.
Update: well, it’s not going to happen exactly like this — but it does look likely to break big, and soon.
Some dissenting email, presented unedited and without comment:
Subject: Are you Republican or Democrat ? Do you really know the differences ?
Judging by the anti-Bush tone that your strips have we bet you are a DEMOCRAT . How could anyone write a political comic strip and know so little about politics ? Every person that I ve met that claims to be a Democrat I ve asked , why are you a Democrat ? The stupid answers fall into two catagories - well thats what my parents and our family is … and - I don t know … Sounds real intelligent to vote for people and not know what they even basically stand for . SCARY ! Every Republican that I ve asked , why are you a republican ? Has been able to tell me the basic principles of being a Republican and why they vote that way . My wife and I worked dilligently through high school and college holding full time jobs and at the same making good grades . Tough ? You bet it was . But we planned for the future and worked hard . We both graduated college , got corporate jobs and we climbed the ladder through dilligence , hard work and much planning only to be taxed at an a! bsolutely unfair 40 % of our salary !!! Unfair ? You bet it is ! Some how the Democrats think that because I worked hard , studied hard and carefully planned out my life to be sucessfull that I should support a grossly out of controll welfare system that actually promotes unemployment and having kids that I will be paying for !!! I will help people that really need it and that is about 50% of the people on welfare now .Republicans like my wife and I are Americas tax base . Democrats voting for tax hikes and lots of government programs at my expense are the tax burden . Please learn the basic principles of being both a Democrat and a Repubican . Politics is not about looks or peoples individual personalities but what the party stands for . A Democrat once told me -You just have to know how to use the system … My reply ? I am the system your referring to asshole !!!
I’ve heard Rush Limbaugh explain to his audience, which is presumably comprised of mortal beings, why they should consider health care a privilege, and not a right. I’ve heard him explain to his audience, which presumably contains its share of low- and middle-income workers, why tax cuts for the wealthy benefit all Americans.
As the Bush administration draws up plans to simplify the tax system, it is also refining arguments for why it may be necessary to shift more of the tax load onto lower-income workers.
Economists at the Treasury Department are drafting new ways to calculate the distribution of tax burdens among different income classes, which are expected to highlight what administration officials see as a rising tax burden on the rich and a declining burden on the poor. The White House Council of Economic Advisers is also preparing a report detailing the concentration of the tax burden on the affluent and highlighting problems with the way tax burdens are calculated for the poor.
It’s the “Lucky Duckies” thing unfolding.. But you know, even as I wrote this cartoon, there was still part of me thinking, nah, they wouldn’t really…would they?
I mean — they’re going to seriously start arguing that what this country really needs is an upper income tax cut coupled with a middle- and lower-income tax increase?
And not only that — but they’re talking about it a week and a half before Christmas?
Talk about tone deaf. This one’s barely out of the gate, and already they’re tying themselves in knots:
Answering critics who say the working poor do face high taxes because they pay high Social Security payroll taxes, outgoing White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey told the AEI tax forum that the 12.4 percent Social Security levy should not be considered when tax burdens are calculated. Lindsey said the Social Security tax is ultimately returned to the taxpayer as a benefit.
(snip)
When administration officials pushed the need to create private investment accounts to supplement Social Security, they specifically warned that taxes paid into Social Security would not necessarily be returned unless the system was reformed.
William W. Beach, an economist at the Heritage Foundation think tank, said he was sympathetic to Lindsey’s argument that the Social Security tax is not really a tax. But, he said, it was a dangerous argument for a Republican to make.
“Do I allow defense spending to offset my income taxes since I like to be defended? Do I allow road taxes to offset my profits taxes because I use the roads?” he asked. “If you do start down that road, it’s hard to see anything as taxes.”
