Wampum

More Medicare hijinks

Yesterday morning, while herding kids through their morning routines with Morning Edition as a backdrop, I was half-listening to a story on the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. My brain fully engaged, however, when the interviewee admitted there could come a point where enrollees would be paying their monthly premiums, yet receiving no benefit. This commentary has been since itching at the back of my mind, and so this morning I sat down with my trusty calculator and Google at hand, looking at how such a scenario might play out.

First, since the House and Senate plans are distinctly different, I needed specifics on each. Fortunately, that was easy enough to find:

Each bill would create a drug benefit with $35 monthly premiums and a subsidy to help low-income recipients cover the cost. But the Senate bill has a $275 deductible and pays half of drug costs from $276 to $4,500. Then there is a gap: Medicare pays nothing until catastrophic coverage is triggered by drug costs over $5,800. The House bill has a $250 deductible. It pays 80 percent of drug costs from $251 to $2,000, and ties the threshold for catastrophic coverage to income.

Next, throw the average monthly cost ($400) for a senior on five of the most common drugs (Prilosec, Norvasc, Lipitor, Celebrex and K-Dur 20), see how each of the plans pan out.

So, under the House plan, for that $35 outlay, such seniors would find some relief for the first five months, but then for the rest of the year would incur higher monthly costs, as, after having maxed out the $1400 benefit ($2000 max - deductible x 80%), they were forced to pay their full drug costs, plus the $35 premium.

Under the Senate plan, monthly costs, while on average higher, would be spread out over more of the year, as benefits do not max out until a total outlay of $4800 per year. The symbolic value here shouldn't be downplayed; the chances that participant will feel they're paying the $35 premium for "nothing", or in essence, as insurance for catastrophic coverage (as both plans cover costs above $5800) is essentially headed off under the Senate plan. Under the House plan, I suspect some seniors might even feel compelled to cancel their coverage, if allowed, after receiving the initial benefit, and unwilling (or unable) to continue to pay the premium for questionable benefit.

Of course, as I was doing research for this morning's post, I ran across even more concerns and possible glitches, but they'll have to wait until later. Kids are up and it's vacation week, so real life intrudes for now.

The pocketbook as economic barometer...

I've been thinking a lot recently about much of the Democrats' lack of historical perspective. It's as if they've bought into Bush&Co. revisionist mantra, that although Bush II looks remarkably like Bush I, there are in fact few similarities, and thus one should in no way expect a repeat of Poppy's 1992 election defeat for Junior. Even the mainstream press is beginning to wonder the same thing:

There are reasons to believe that Democratic morale is excessively low -- including recent polls that show that despite Bush's approval ratings, no more than half the country, and perhaps as little as 45 percent of the country, would vote to reelect him in 2004. The economy has not rebounded, and George H. W. Bush had similar ratings to his son's at this point in his presidency before losing to Bill Clinton.

I was 27 in 1991, struggling as a single-parent, laid off from my teaching job for the second time in two years. But even then, I don't know if I was fully cognizant as to just how bad the economic downturn was, and the effect it could have on the election the following year. I didn't have to make the mortgage, didn't have a retirement fund which was now a fraction of its former worth, didn't worry that state budget cuts would directly impact my sons' services. In essence, I didn't vote my pocketbook.

Now, at near middle age (gasp!), I do. And from what I realized when I looked at the 2000 Census yesterday was that, for all the pandering politicians do to seniors, those 65 and over only make up an eighth of the population. Granted, they vote at the highest rate, but my age cohort, the 35-44 age group, accounted for 16% of the population, the largest single segment. And while I don't worry so much about Social Security and Medicare, after a year of unemployment after the dot.bomb, I do worry about the battered job market. In fact, after fretting about whether our 401K has rebounded enough to cash it in should the technology sector shed my partner's current job, I essentially only look at employment as an indicator of the economy's health. I suspect many of the 2+ million other Americans who lost their jobs under Bush Jr.'s watch may feel much the same way. So while the Administration and their media flunkies can point to the stock market or consumer confidence as an indication that "Happy Days are Here Again", as long as my pocketbook shudders at the prospect of another pink slip, it knows which way I'll be voting come next November.

Is Bush now Medicare's savior?

GOP May Get a Boost With Seniors

'Full-court press' by Bush plays part in Medicare victory

G.O.P. Steals Thunder

If one were to judge by these headlines, you might conclude that Democrats just lost the votes of the nearly 35 million voters age 65 and older. Not that the "senior bloc" was ever owned in toto by the Democrats. But it appears that such a leap by the media may have been a bit premature, as witnessed by coverage of those in the trenches, not on the Hill:

Local seniors find little to like about proposed Medicare changes
Susan Jaffe
Plain Dealer Reporter
06/28/03

Euclid - The day both houses of Congress approved separate bills for the largest expansion of Medicare since it was created 38 years ago, few seniors at the Indian Hills Senior Center seemed very happy about it.

The unprecedented drug coverage that Congress wants to add to the health insurance program for 40 million older and disabled Americans comes with more than one catch.

"With the premiums and the gap in coverage, I don't see how it's going to help," said Geraldine Pointer, 76, who volunteers at the center's gift shop. Indian Hills is home to almost 2,100 seniors. Pointer spends $242 a month on eight drugs, some of which she buys from a mail-order pharmacy in Canada.

Even the AARP, with its 30 million members age 50 and older, has grave misgivings, according to yesterday's statement by CEO Bill Novelli on the recently passed Medicare Prescription Drug Bills by both houses of Congress:

The passage of Medicare prescription drug bills in the House and Senate clearly mark progress toward the most significant milestone in Medicare since its creation in 1965. Many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have worked hard to get to this point. But no one should declare this a final victory.

I wish the media would give Americans, whether age 25 or 75, a little more credit when it comes to determining the criteria which determines which way we pull the voting lever. A convoluted, half-assed approach to prescription drug coverage will, on its own, and in the face of Republican attempts to privatize, or even dismantle, Social Security, provide little incentive for Democratic-leaning seniors, to switch their vote.

And we haven't yet seen the final plan. Even the media appears willing to admit that process will be as appealing to watch as making sausage, and with the possibility of the results being palatable to few, including the majority of seniors.

Move on...nothing to see here...

I originally joined MoveOn.org after the 2000 election fiasco, and was generally happy with its focus and message. I was particularly thrilled to see the organization raise a hefty chunk of cash to help my candidate in the final days of her 2002 Senate race. But I grew disillusioned with the organization during the debate over the Homeland Security bill, when in their extensive critique of the last minute "midnight" provision added on to the final version of the legislation, they ignored the Eli Lilly thimerosal exemption. It appeared that while a few corporations setting up tax havens in Bermuda ended up on their radar, the potential injury of millions of American children wasn't worth even a mention in their appeal. Ironically, it was pressure from autism advocacy groups which in the end influenced moderate Republican Senators to demand the removal of the provisions. But it was disappointing that MoveOn.org seem to see such groups as outside the Progressive mainstream, versus knee deep in such waters, and after 2 years of unrelenting support, I cancelled my membership.

Thus, I wasn't one of the 1.3 million subscribers who received via email information regarding the MoveOn primary. I also didn't have my mailbox flooded with appeals from all the participating candidates, as I suppose current MoveOn.org members did. Or so I thought. I was more than a little surprised to read this in the closing paragraph of yesterday's New York Times editorial anticipating the results of the "primary":

Inexplicably, the group decided to give only the top three in a preliminary straw poll — former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio — special access to MoveOn members.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm thrilled to see Kucinich do as well as he did. [Disclaimer: my partner is on Kucinich's technology task-force.] But I don't see how, by so handicapping the field, anyone can even pretend this doesn't reek of being a fixed race. That the potential winner had the prize of millions in MoveOn.org PAC contributions is even more distressing. I'm also left wondering if the poor turnout of MoveOn.org's membership in the primary, only 25%, had anything to do with the apparent favoritism displayed.

As a Democratic hack with 20 years of activist and campaign experience, I welcome efforts by liberal PACs to increase the organization and political clout of Progressives. But in the midst of our bashing the Administration for its obvious failures in the credibility department, we don't want to even open the door a crack to any similar charges, no matter how seemingly minor. We all know the SCLM's ability to make a mountain out of a molehill, a la Al Gore, as well as the Republicans in turn transforming such into Mount Everest. MoveOn.org's "primary" was in essence a "runoff", and should have been advertised as such. In addition, the three major beneficiaries, Dean, Kucinich and Kerry, rather than tout their broad leads over the rest of the field, should acknowledge their incommensurable advantage, and call for changes in subsequent MoveOn.org events, particularly ones with so much at stake.

Flashback Friday

IRAQIS IN DISTRESS
Washington Post
June 27, 1991

The Gulf War has left two groups of Iraqi citizens in distress requiring special attention from the United States and its allies. The Kurds of the north have received considerable publicity, policy focus and care. But, less tended, a wide swath of the civilian population, especially children, is in dire straits as a result of difficulties stemming from the war...

FOR BUSH, SOME OF THE CHEERS ARE TURNING TO JEERS
David Nyhan, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991

Far more ominous for George Bush than the knives finding their way into John Sununu's back was the booing that drowned out the president's videotaped love note to the Teamsters union convention.

The collective raspberry, from a union whose discredited leadership endorsed Bush with a big wet kiss in the last election, should ram home to the White House the cost of indifference to the economic pain suffered by many Americans...

BOSKIN: ECONOMY IS STARTING 'RECOVERY'
Steven Mufson, Washington Post
June 28, 1991

President Bush's chief economist, who first used the dreaded R-word -- "recession" -- in January, cautiously used the other R-word -- "recovery" -- in describing the economy yesterday.

"It certainly looks like this is the early stages of an economic recovery," said Michael J. Boskin, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers.

Boskin pointed to a variety of recent indicators, including rising consumer confidence and consumer spending, ...

MARSHALL TO RETIRE FROM HIGH COURT BUSH EXPECTED TO NAME CONSERVATIVE SUCCESSOR
Ethan Bronner, Boston Globe
June 28, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights champion who is the only black justice ever to sit on the Supreme Court, announced his retirement yesterday after 24 years, citing advancing age and declining health.

Marshall, 82, the bench's most fervent liberal, had said repeatedly he would serve on the high court until he died. But he appeared to grow embittered over the court's turn to the right in recent years as decisions on civil rights and individual liberties in which he...

AT EDUCATION, A QUESTION OF PREROGATIVES
CAN SECRETARY NULLIFY 'DIVERSITY STANDARDS'?
Kenneth J. Cooper, Washington Post
June 27, 1991

Rep. Ted Weiss (D-N.Y.) yesterday challenged Education Secretary Lamar Alexander's criticism of cultural diversity as an accrediting standard for colleges and universities.

In April, Alexander questioned a private accrediting body's consideration of racial, gender and age diversity in college enrollments, faculties and governing boards. He described such "diversity standards" as "coercive restrictions" that could prompt hiring quotas and undermine academic...

TIME TO DECLARE A NUCLEAR-FREE KOREA
William J. Taylor, Washington Post
June 25, 1991

North Korea's foreign minister has just stated that his government will not permit international inspection of North Korea's nuclear facilities unless the United States permits inspection of its nuclear weapons in South Korea. This presents a major opportunity that should be seized immediately. When South Korea's President Rho and President Bush meet in Washington July 1-3, they should shoulder aside their bureaucrats and make a fundamental and easy decision on this matter...

CONSERVATIVE COURT COULD HARM GOP, ANALYSTS SAY
Thomas B. Edsall, Washington Post
June 29, 1991

While the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall solidifies a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, the ideological ascendancy could have substantial political costs for the Republican Party, according to GOP and Democratic analysts.

For a generation, from 1955 into the 1980s, the court issued rulings that comforted liberals while angering and politically mobilizing forces on the right, especially in presidential campaigns. In the process, the Democratic Party was put in the position ...

BEHIND THE SCENES OF BUSH'S FIRST WAR
Philip Bennett, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991

The US invasion of Panama 18 months ago left such a benign impression on most Americans that few have challenged the Bush administration's greatest conceit about its first war: that it was a smashing success.

This makes it difficult to understand today why the majority of Panamanians, who once embraced US soldiers with happy abandon, now believe the invasion brought more bad than good. Or why international drug traffic has continued unchecked. Or why Gen. Manuel (Tony) Noriega, behind...

THE RESULT DOES NOT NECESSARILY JUSTIFY THE MEANS BALANCED BUDGET'S HIGH COST
Robert L. Turner, Globe Boston
June 27, 1991

Big decisions will be made in the next few days by the committee of conference on the state budget.

Workfare, a tax break for business, a shift in MBTA funding, tax support for the Hynes Convention Center, loss of legal representation by some criminal defendants who are poor -- these are among the many issues to be decided by the committee.

The fiscal 1992 budget will be balanced (or close to it)re agreed...

BEYOND THE OLD BOY NETWORK
Washington Post
June 29, 1991

Saundra Torry's June 17 financial column helps explain the Bush administration's position on the pending civil rights legislation. At the District's federal judicial conference, the white male dominance among 32 panelists was alleviated by only three women and one person of color. Judge Laurence Silberman, conference chair, explained this by telling Saundra Torry that he "did not think to apply a quota." Judge Silberman, like the Bush administration, considers quotas...

SENATE CURBS INMATE APPEALS 58-40 VOTE REFLECTS A VICTORY FOR BUSH
Associated Press
June 27, 1991

WASHINGTON -- The Senate voted yesterday to adopt President Bush's proposal to limit the legal maneuvers prisoners may use in federal court to challenge their convictions and sentences.

The 58-40 vote to pass the measure as an amendment to the Democrats' anticrime bill reflected a growing frustration with death-row inmates who file repeated appeals to delay their executions.

The new restrictions are high on the administration's legislative wish list this year, and the vote...

4 NEW ENGLAND STATES DOWN TO THE WIRE ON BUDGET PLANS
Adam Pertman, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991

AUGUSTA -- Asked whether Maine will meet its June 30 deadline for adopting a new budget, Rep. Dan Gwadosky responded with the polite equivalent of saying that politicians do some of their best work when a gun is pointed at their heads.

"Deadlines," the state House majority leader said in an interview, "are usually good for any legislative body."

Indeed, with the end of the current fiscal year only three days away, lawmakers in the four New England states that have not...

FINANCIAL SECTION
Washington, Post

ECONOMY
Consumer spending rose 1.1 percent in May, while personal incomes rose 0.5 percent, the Commerce Department said in reports bolstering analysts' views that the recession was ending. In another report with similar implications, the Labor Department said new unemployment claims fell 17,000 during the second week of June, to 431,000...

$1,000-PER-CHILD TAX CREDIT PROPOSED
IN PRO-FAMILY REPORT, PANEL RECOMMENDS REPLACING EXEMPTION
Paul Taylor, Washington Post
June 25, 1991

A bipartisan National Commission on Children yesterday proposed a $1,000-per-child tax credit as the centerpiece of a report that faulted everyone from parents to policymakers for short-changing children.

"We are deeply disturbed that a nation so captivated by youth is leaving so many of its young behind," the commission wrote in its introduction. "Some adults take on the responsibilities of parenthood with little thought or planning; others shed them with equal abandon. In the...

DEMOCRATIC GROUP SAYS PARTY MUST TARGET 'ORDINARY PEOPLE'
Larry Tye, Boston Globe
June 27, 1991

Democrats must convince voters they can "put government on the side of ordinary people again" to win back the White House in 1992, officials from the Democratic Leadership Council said yesterday during a stop in Boston.

Crucial to getting that message across is finding the right messenger, council president Al From said, adding that there is "a good possibility" the group's first choice -- Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton -- will run for the Democratic presidential...

New claims fall...but...

Jobless claims fall to 3-month lows

(Reuters) — Applications for initial U.S. jobless aid plunged to three-month lows last week, the government said Thursday in a report showing a better-than-expected improvement in the still-weak job market.

The Labor Department said 404,000 idled workers filed for unemployment insurance payments in the June 21 week, down 22,000 from a revised 426,000 a week earlier and the lowest since March 22.

Well, it's about time! Pop out the champagne, thumb your nose at all those "jobless recovery" naysayers.

What do you mean that's not the whole story? You mean there's bad news too?

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week ending June 14, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate of 2.9 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 14 was 3,741,000, an increase of 43,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,698,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,724,500, an increase of 5,250 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,719,250.

So while there were 22K fewer new claims, nearly twice as many people failed to find jobs, and so had to continue to draw unemployment benefits.

And since no Wampum day is complete without at least one reference to Bush I, should we take a quick peek and see if there are, once again, any similarities between Poppy and son on this issue?

[The x-axis represents the corresponding week during the 3rd year of the term.]

Not surprisingly, new claims peaked just after war with Iraq, and trended downward thereafter. But what the media seems to have missed, is that although an increase in new claims almost always results in a higher unemployment rate, a subsequent decrease in new claims need not have the same corresponding effect. Take the above chart, for example. In April, 1991, at the peak of new claims, the unemployment rate was 6.7%, up 1.5% from its low the previous spring [I put up a nifty graph back here, data courtesy of the BLS. But even as the number of new claims fell during the summer of '91, the unemployment rate continued to climb, albeit more slowly. This was due in part to the fact that although fewer people were losing their jobs, companies were still not hiring, and so new entrants into the job market, recent graduates, immigrants, moms returning to work, soldiers retiring from active duty, etc., while not laid off, were still counted, rightly so, as unemployed.

That the continued claims are still increasing should be a red flag to the current Bush Administration. Millions of students just graduated from high school, college and grad school, and will be pounding the pavement looking for work. If laid off experienced workers are still not finding jobs, and today's help wanted index is still at near record low levels, chances are the recent drop in claims will spell as much for job growth as it did in 1991.

If you can't beat 'em...screw 'em...

For anyone familar with the Indian Trust Fund case, aka Cobell v. Norton, weaving it's way through federal court and piling up more than a few contempt orders for Interior Department staff, including the Secretary herself, this action by the Legislative branch of the federal goverment should raise a whole slew of red flags:

As the NCAI analysis sums it up, putting Secretary Norton in charge of settling the trust fund issue is like having Ken Lay square up the Enron shareholders accounts. Or worse, asking Phillip Morris to fairly compensate victims of smoking related injuries. While Indians have generally welcomed Congressional input in the trust fund case, this action by House Republicans was done without consultation with Indian groups, including the Native American Rights Fund, which is overseeing the trust fund case for the plantiffs. At the ongoing trial, presiding Judge Royce Lamberth has become so disgusted with the government's machinations, he has threatened to remove the fund from Interior's oversight and place it in receivership.

Please contact your Representative and Senators and urge them to reject this bid by Republicans to further empower a department which has shown itself time and again to have acted in bad faith. While it may eventually be necessary for Congress to help mediate a solution to the trust fund problem, Cobell v. Norton should be allowed to conclude uninterrupted.

Mixed economic reports...

First, the bad news:

Durable Orders Dip Unexpectedly in May Wed June 25, 2003 08:55 AM ET By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Orders for costly U.S.-made goods fell in May for the second month in a row, the government said on Wednesday in a report showing economic weakness as Federal Reserve officials meet to discuss interest rates.

U.S. durable goods orders sank 0.3 percent last month -- in contrast to the expectations of private economists that they would rise 0.8 percent. The data from the Commerce Department showed April orders plunged 2.4 percent, revised down from an earlier reported 2.3 percent drop.

The report showed broad-based weakness in demand for big-ticket items, with categories such as cars, computers and machinery showing declines.

The good news is that both new and existing home sales increased in May, new homes by a record 12.5%. This is not surprising, as mortgage rates are at record lows, and the housing market has been remarkably resilient even during the height of the downturn.

The durable goods report, in my opinion, is somewhat more troubling, particularly in light of the continued weakness in the employment sector, industrial production and consumer confidence. I'm now curious as to whether it will have an impact on the Fed's rate decision this afternoon.

The return of poll-driven headlines...

Although AP writer Will Lester really could benefit from the use of a thesaurus, it's hard as a Democrat/Progressive not to love this headline:

Economy Downs Bush's Re-Election Support

Lester's report comes from the latest Gallup poll on the 2004 Presidential campaign, and should be rather heartening for the Democratic contenders as Bush's lead over an unnamed Democratic candidate slips to 50% to 38%.

The Gallup Organization, in its own press release, cautions against reading too much into the data:

While these results give an early read on Bush's re-election chances, it is unclear at this point how predictive they are of the actual outcome of next November's election. Comparable data are available only for the elder George Bush, who stood at 51% support (versus 30% for the Democrat) in June 1991. Bush fell below 50% support in October 1991, and was in the mid-40s in January 1992, 10 months before being defeated for re-election by Bill Clinton.

[Note: Gallup here is actually citing Bush's re-election support, not approval ratings, which were above 70% in June, 1991, and did not fall below 50% until January 1992.]

Predictive or not, it's still heartening to see Bush Jr. in a weaker position than his father at the same point in the campaign.

Of course, while you wouldn't know it from the headlines, the thrust of this Gallup Poll is that it's time for the monthly check-in on the Democratic horse race for the nomination.

2003 Jun 12-18

Joe Lieberman 20%
Dick Gephardt 15%
John Kerry 13%
John Edwards 7%
Al Sharpton 7%
Bob Graham 6%
Carol Moseley Braun 6%
Howard Dean 6%
Dennis Kucinich 1%

So the gist of all this is, on the top tier, Lieberman is holding steady, Gephardt is gaining a little ground, and Kerry is slipping. For those in the rest of the pack, Graham, Mosely-Braun and Dean have gathered some support, Edwards and Sharpton are holding their own, and Kucinich has lost some traction.

I'll look at how they played in the news later today.

Tuesday Blog Powwow

The Tough Democrat has some insightful commentary, and useful critique, of the Dean campaign. Emma at Notes on the Atrocities offers her comments as well, specifically regarding Dean's Meet the Press appearance. Granted, due to my open bias against the governor-doctor, I personally hope they don't take such constructive criticism to heart, as it can only help them, but I though I'd offer it anyway.

Speaking of biases, I'll come right out and admit it, Magpie is at the top of my list of favorite new blogs. Just read everything.

Over at The Watch, Natasha has put together a most compelling series (parts 1, 2 and 3) on living, and thriving, with Asperger's Syndrome. I look forward to the day that my son Sam can describe his own life with such eloquence.

And there's still some time to vote in the MoveOn.org Primary, if you've registered. My favorite American Indian blogger, Lisa English of Ruminate This, has all the details.

Got WMDs? Yes, it makes a good bumpersticker, but...

Perhaps it's the loaded, not the smoking gun, critics of the Iraqi war and occupation should be stressing. According to yesterday's Washington Post/ABC News poll, while 63% of surveyed Americans believe that the war with Iraq is still justified even if no WMDs are found, only 51% find the cost in US military casualties acceptable at this point.

While Googling more on this poll, I found I wasn't alone in this assessment; a half hour ago, the Christian Science Monitor nearly identically echoed these thoughts (which frankly, have been knocking around my head since my youngest son woke me at 4 this morning.)

As fatalities rise, will support wane?

With six British casualties Tuesday, troop deaths in Iraq keep climbing - and American public patience ebbs a bit.

By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – Every morning, Americans wake up to the possibility that, yet again, one of their own has been killed in Iraq. Since May 1, when President Bush declared the end of major hostilities, at least 55 US troops have died in Iraq, either under attack or by accident - more than a third of the US death toll during the war.

It is a subject that makes administration officials uneasy. They know that American military deaths in Iraq could sap public support for the US role there, and eventually precipitate an early withdrawal. The question, for a White House as sensitive as any to public opinion, is how long the drip, drip, drip of US casualties can continue without major erosion of support for US policy.

Public concern is beginning to register. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Tuesday shows a decline in the percentage of Americans who believe the US casualty figures are "acceptable," from two-thirds in early April to about half now.

I've personally wondered about the usefulness of harping on the WMD issue as a means of undermining support for Bush. Not that I don't support an open and public review of questions like "what did Bush know and when did he know it", but I'm concerned about focusing all our attention on what may be perceived as a partisan game of "gotcha". "Quagmire" is a term I've heard less these days than even before the war, yet clearly a majority of Americans, 72%, if one has any faith in such polls, are frankly quite concerned about such a possibility.

The acceptable costs of occupation appear to resonate strongly with the Democratic base. According to the Post poll,

Concerns over mounting U.S. military casualties have soared largely among Democrats and independents, the survey found. In April, 56 percent of all Democrats believed U.S. troop losses had been acceptable; today 35 percent share that view. The proportion of those who viewed current casualty levels as acceptable dropped by 23 percentage points among political independents, to 43 percent. There was no change among Republicans.

Concern among women also has increased, with the proportion calling the casualties unacceptable increasing from 33 percent to 50 percent in the past seven weeks.

Thus, in a mere 6 weeks, nearly half of the public which initially supported Bush's plan for Iraq, no matter the costs, are having buyer's remorse, and for good reason, obviously. I suspect that while there may be a strong desire for those of us who never supported the war in the first place to demand accountability before all else, while we may thus win the game, we'll surely lose the match.

Clearly, such a significant change of heart emanates from the desire to see US forces come home as a group, in one piece, not one-by-one in body bags. Democrats, legislators as well as Presidential candidates, need to offer solutions, not just blame. Democrats won't win control of the Executive or Legislative branches, let alone dog catcher, if we limit our audience to that +/- 27% which did not eventually support the war back in March. I suspect that the candidate who realizes that first, cashes in heavily among those rapidly swelling ranks.

Expectation versus Reality

Ever vigilant to spin economic news in the best possible fashion, the media put the best face on this morning's consumer confidence report:

Consumer Confidence Steady in June
By ADAM GELLER
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP)--Consumer confidence held steady in June as growing optimism about the future offset worsening sentiments about current conditions, a private research group said Tuesday.

The New York-based Conference Board said its Consumer Confidence Index edged back to 83.5 in June from a revised 83.6 in May, following two consecutive months of increases. Still, the reading was better than analysts projected reading of 82.

Economists called the report modestly positive and said it shows that consumers, continuing to exhibit the optimism that followed the end of the war in Iraq and buoyed by reports of coming tax cuts, see better times ahead.

So, even though the index fell slightly, because it wasn't as bad as some market analysts expected, it's now good news. And what about those predictions anyway? With the passage of the purportedly stimulus-heavy Bush tax cuts, shouldn't economists expect that consumers would be brimming with confidence, anticipating that hefty check they'll be getting in the mail next month?

Well, it turns out that even that bad-but-not-so-bad number was only as good (bad?) as it was due to consumer expectations that things will soon get better. When asked about their current situations, it turns out things are actually getting worse:

[T]he report's present situation index declined to 64.9 in June from 67.3 in May. The number of consumers who say business conditions are good and jobs are plentiful both fell.

If the jobless recovery continues for any length of time, as those same analysts seem to indicate it might, how long before consumer expectations reflect reality, versus merely hoping for reality to match expectations?

The Perfect Storm

In late October, 1991, a series of unrelated weather systems converged in the waters off the coast of New England, creating a spectacular, and devastating, extra tropical meteorological event now known, due to the popularity of Sebastian Junger's best seller, as the Perfect Storm. Striking the coast just two months after the surprisingly powerful Hurricane Bob, the storm added an additional $200 million to the $1.5 billion clean-up bill from the earlier late-summer cyclone. Thousands of coastal properties were severely damaged, including the Maine home of then-President George H.W. Bush.

I suspect that although the damage to the Kennebunkport compound was worrisome, Bush was distracted by events brewing inside the Beltway. Despite the overwhelmingly sunny forecasts predicted for his bid for re-election, events were developing which threatened to sink his presidency faster than the Andrea Gail. His stellar poll numbers, buoyed by the success of the Gulf War, but remarkably resilient despite a sputtering recovery from the recession of the previous fall, suddenly began to plummet.

I first noted this drop when research sent me back into the poll vaults, but I couldn't at the time discern a reason behind such a precipitous drop. No scandals screaming from the headlines, no stock market crash. I found it somewhat heartening, as Bush Jr.'s poll numbers had up to this point nearly mirrored his father's, and if the trend continued, it only spelled good news for the Democratic contender in 2004. But it itched at the back of my brain, particularly as I watched Bush Jr.'s mostly successful campaign to rewrite the history of his father's failed re-election bid. Or I should say recreate the public perception of that period. But more on that in a later post.

I've been using my self-imposed vacation to revisit the Fall of 1991, to try and glean from the historical record the reasons for Bush Sr.'s sudden freefall in popularity. As in my previous efforts, I found no single cause, but a series of unrelated events which appear to have converged in a particularly negative fashion; a political Perfect Storm.

Somewhat ironically, the actual storm provides an appropriate metaphorical backdrop for it's political counterpart. The rapidly cooling Atlantic Gulf Stream, the listless economic recovery into which a number of political cyclones converge; to the east, a strong extra-tropical low forms, the Robert Gates confirmation for CIA Director, churning up from the depths the wreckage of the Iran-Contra affair; to the south, the Clarence Thomas nomination, a weak Hurricane Grace on track to safely navigate past the growing low pressure system, suddenly makes a hairpin turn straight into its path as the Anita Hill allegations surface. Various strong upper air currents in the form of a spate of negative economic reports and a failing Middle-East peace initiative, deepen the pressure. Finally, a cold front sweeps in from the Great Lakes, Bush's vetoing of a popular bill to extend unemployment benefits, wrapping around the other two systems and sends them spinning.

The results? Despite a recent foreign policy coup of a large arms reduction agreement with the Russians which sends his favorable rating in late September to over 70%, the "Perfect Storm" of October sees his poll numbers plummet over 20 points by early December. And despite a strengthening, albeit jobless, economic recovery in early 1992, Bush's favorables topple to a low of 30% by midyear.

Judging from the apparent randomness of the events of Bush Sr.'s 1991 "Perfect Storm", it seems nearly inconceivable that such a thing could ever happen a second time, let alone to the son of the former President. But although my expertise in meteorology extends barely beyond The Weather Channel, even I can see the storm clouds gathering. The similar climatological conditions are eerie enough, namely a stumbling, jobless recovery with ineffective attempts at needling growth through a bullish stock market. Add to that any of the myriad of potential political tempests lurking on the horizon, including the possibility of one or more Supreme Court nomination battles, and the forecast for Bush Jr., whether it be a hurricane or a steady, flooding monsoon, could turn out to be a lot less sunny than his current supporter's predict.

I, for one, am keeping my galoshes nearby.

What a gift...

Last night, exactly 6 hours shy of my 39th birthday, I got it. Not diamonds or furs or a gold-plated Hummer. Nope, something far more valuable.

I was carded! And at my local supermarket. Okay, it's not the first time it's happened, but still... what timing.

Now all I need is a home-made birthday card from my kids, throw in an impeachment article or two for Bush and I'll be set for another year...or two, since I'm skipping my next birthday.

The Niger evidence?

You know, I never thought twice about sending this piece of spam below to my trashcan until I came across this article from the Christian Science Monitor. Now I'm left wondering...

TO: MR. RICHARD CHENEY
VICE PRESIDENT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FROM: DR.SANNI AHMED
PLOT 1121
ADETOKUNBO ADEMOLA STREET
NIAMEY
NIGER

Dear Sir,

RE: BUSINESS PROPOSAL - STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

I am DR.SANNI AHMED, Chairman to the Nuclear Proliferation Review Panel that was recently inaugurated by the President of the Republic of Niger, President MAMADOU TANDJA, to review the activities of past military governments with particular reference to nuclear activities by our Ministry of Energy between 1990 to 2002. In the course of carrying out our assigned duties, we discovered top secret documents regarding attempts by agents of SADDAM HUSSEIN to purchase uranium in violation of United Nations resolutions. These documents were in a safe deposit box along with $40.5 (forty million, five hundred thousand dollars) lying idle in our apex bank. The documents emanated from a source in a conglomerate of foreign firms soliticted by the Petroleum Ministry on behalf of the Niger National Petroleum Corporation. The funds derive from grossly over-invoiced contracts awarded to France upon Niger independence.

On completion of our assignment, these documents and funds were deliberately not included in our report because we want to capitalize on this once in a lifetime opportunity to benefit and make a fortune out of it. The only option we have to achieve our aims and objective is to have these materials transferred to a country of our choice where it can be kept in trust and safe custody for us. We are however handicapped at the moment by our status as civil servants, which barred us from operating foreign accounts while still in government service.

Thus, through some discreet inquiries from our Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you and your organization were revealed as being quite astute in private entrepreneurship.

On this premise, we have no doubt in your ability to handle a business of this nature, which informed our desire and wish to enter into a partnership with you.

This business involves the remittance of this amount into your bank account with the hope of travelling down to meet you physically in order to receive our share, and to pass on the top secret documents.

We hope to invest some in profitable ventures in your country based on your advise while the balance will be repatriated home as foreign earnings. We have mapped out strategies and all paperwork is in place to ensure a 100% success.

The nature of your business at present does not really matter because in the world over, bigger firms do bid for big contracts especially in third world countries like ours and can subcontract part of it to other firms for execution. That is you or your firm will be regarded as one of those that executed one of such projects and therefore entitled to receive the over-invoiced amount of the contract value since the original contractor has been paid. Be rest assured that this transaction is 100% risk free as there is actually no risk is involved either now or in the future for we are well connected in official circle. Given our level of commitment at the moment, we want to assure you that with full dedication on your part, the objective of having these materials and funds remitted would have been realized within a period of two weeks. It is hereby expressly agreed in principle that at the end of the transaction, you will be entitled to 25% of the entire sum, 74% will be for my colleagues and I while 1% has been earmarked to take care of any expenses that might arise in the course of this transaction.

If you are interested in this proposal, please call or send me an e-mail with via:sanniahmed@ecplaza.net for more clarifications. If however you are not interested, still let me know to enable me search for someone else to carry out this business with.

I anticpate a timely response from you.

Thanks.

Yours Sincerely,

DR.SANNI AHMED

[Okay, so the original was doctored a little. But remarkable, very little.]

Just this once...

am I going to do this...well, maybe once more if my friend Emily ever decides to go public with her blog.

This one's for you, Allison. Good luck.

[Disclaimer: It's not that I don't like the new blog showcase, but blogging seems competitive enough, and exposing the neophytes to that culture seems counterproductive to promoting non-competitive changes. However, seeing that Allison is one of the few bloggers I know from my pre-blogging days, as well as a fellow Wesleyan alum, I'll bend my own rules.]

Flashback Friday returns

BUSH ADVISERS SEE REBOUND AHEAD
Boston Globe
June 20, 1991

The US economy is likely to resume growth in the second half of the year at an annual rate of up to 3 percent, President Bush's chief economic adviser said. Michael Boskin, who heads the Council of Economic Advisers, said the administration sees no reason to make major changes in the forecast it issued late last year. That forecast was for growth in the second half of 1991 at a yearly rate of 2 percent to 3 percent "and we pretty much still are looking like that," he told the...

ADMINISTRATION DROPS PLAN FOR SECRET TRIALS ON ALIENS
Helen Dewar, Washington Post
June 21, 1991

The Bush administration yesterday abandoned a highly controversial proposal to allow secret deportation trials for aliens suspected of terrorism in an unsuccessful bid by Senate Republicans to win a largely symbolic victory for President Bush in an early showdown over anti-crime legislation

"It was becoming a distraction, and we have things of a lot higher priority to consider," said Assistant Attorney General Lee Rawls in confirming that the Justice Department dropped the....

FOR BUSH'S SPEECH, A NEW WORD ORDER
COMPLETE SENTENCES SUPERSEDE FAVORED FRAGMENTARY BURSTS
John E. Yang, Washington Post
June 22, 1991

Tony Snow. Writing speeches for the president. Working on that . . .

rhetoric thing.

When he became chief White House speechwriter in March, Snow, 36, a former newspaper editorial writer, faced a formidable challenge in writing for a man who shuns rhetorical flourishes, and whose speaking style, distinguished by short bursts of words, is a running gag on "Saturday Night Live."

One of Snow's first orders to his staff of five was the complete-sentence rule....

BUSH: CONGRESS TOUGHER THAN IRAQ
WHEN IT COMES TO WAGING A WAR, PRESIDENT PREFERS GULF TO HILL
John E. Yang, Washington Post
June 21, 1991

President Bush has always shown a preference for foreign matters over domestic policy, taking a personal, hands-on role in world issues by telephoning foreign leaders while approaching matters at home as a necessary and bothersome chore

Like many previous presidents, he has enjoyed a freer rein to manage foreign affairs without the close scrutiny Congress gives domestic matters. Over the weekend, for example, Bush said that waging war against the forces of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was...

TURBULENCE AHEAD FOR AIRLINES AFTER RECORD LOSSES IN 1990
Stanley Ziemba, Chicago Tribune
June 21, 1991

Despite a record number of passengers and cargo, U.S. airlines experienced the worst business year in their history in 1990, according to the annual report issued Thursday by the Air Transport Association, a Washington, D.C.-based airline industry group.

The nation's airlines lost $4 billion, almost all in the fourth quarter, as a result of a doubling of fuel costs and the Persian Gulf crisis, ...

FEDERAL LANDS: USER-FRIENDLY
Ben Brown, USA Today
June 20, 1991

The lesson hasn't been lost at Interior. Targeted by critics for his unsympathetic remarks about endangered species, [Manuel Lujan] now might have found in outdoor recreation an issue that just about everybody can agree on.

Wednesday, Secretary of the Interior Manuel Lujan told recreation industry leaders, ``Our recreation goals include selecting and promoting at least one new trail in each state this ...

HEALTH INSURANCE HARD TO GET FOR MANY UNDER 65, GROUP SAYS
Associated Press
June 20, 1991

WASHINGTON -- Nearly a third of all Americans under 65, including an estimated 2 million Massachusetts residents, have medical conditions that could make it difficult or impossible for them to get or maintain health insurance, an advocacy group reported yesterday.

"Private health insurance can no longer provide us with security and peace of mind," said Robert M. Brandon, vice president of Citizen Action, a national nonprofit consumer group with chapters in Massachusetts and...

U.S. TRADE DEFICIT RISES TO $4.8 BILLION
AMERICANS SET OVERSEAS SALES RECORD BUT BUY MORE FOREIGN GOODS
Stuart Auerbach, Washington Post
June 20, 1991

Overseas sales by American companies reached a new high in April but Americans also increased their purchases of foreign goods, nudging the U.S. trade deficit upward to $4.8 billion from its eight-year low the month before, the government reported yesterday

Exports totaled $35.6 billion, $1 billion higher than the previous record set in October, as foreign buyers snapped up American-made planes, computers, heavy-duty trucks and construction equipment, and capital goods such as refinery...

THE SCHOOL REFORM FRAUD ...
Robert J. Samuelson, Newsweek, Inc.
June 19, 1991

Lamar Alexander, the ex-governor of Tennessee and the new secretary of education, is a charming man. Like all education secretaries, he talks tough about the need to raise school standards. But the "education strategy" he's peddling for the Bush administration is mostly a fraud.

Even if the plan were fully adopted, it wouldn't result in better-educated Americans or improved schools.

Grade inflation is the national norm: Through high grades and easy college admissions...

U.S. SEEKS TO VACATE RULING ON IRAQ CASE
DAMAGE AWARD SAID TO CONFLICT WITH ADMINISTRATION WAR CLAIMS PLAN
Tracy Thompson, Washington Post
June 19, 1991

The Justice Department wants to vacate a federal judge's decision awarding $64.1 million in damages from the government of Iraq to a New Jersey firm that sold Iraq several blast furnaces, saying payment would conflict with the Bush administration's plan to process war claims.

The Justice Department made that argument in a brief filed Monday in federal court here in connection with a breach of contract case between Iraq and Consarc Inc. over four blast furnaces that Iraq reportedly...

U.S. OIL PRODUCTION SLIDING: MORE FOREIGN OIL EXPECTED TO FUEL USA
James Cox, USA Today
June 20, 1991

John Herrington, secretary of energy under Ronald Reagan, argues that the gulf war was far from a wasted effort: It demonstrated U.S. resolve in the Middle East and further weakened OPEC - both good for the U.S., he says. ``But we're not more energy independent. That is clear.''

- A continuing slide in U.S. oil production. U.S. crude production, which has dropped ...

SUNNY, WITH A MILD RECESSION
Art Buchwald, Los Angeles Times
June 18, 1991

You hear the figures being quoted by financial reporters. The economy is up -- it's down -- and the big turnaround will be on Babe Ruth's birthday. Where do the forecasts come from?

They are released by government economists like Jim Warner.

Warner works in a small windowless room on the third floor of the U.S. Bureau of Highs and Lows. He has been there for 20 years and has never seen the sun...

BLACKS IN HOUSTON SEE QUOTAS AS WORKING TO THE ADVANTAGE OF WHITES
David Maraniss, Washington Post
June 18, 1991

In the black neighborhoods of the South's largest city, racial quotas have a different meaning than they have assumed in the long debate in Washington over a civil rights bill: They are not an arbitrary way of forcing minorities in, but an all-too-familiar means of keeping them out.

"President Bush is using the Q word as though blacks are now on top and gaining an unfair advantage in society," said MacPherson Uwaifo, an economics student at Texas Southern University.

WHEN THE WORDS GET IN THE WAY
Don Aucoin, Boston Globe
June 20, 1991

The Persian Gulf War is over, but it soldiers on as a political buzzword.

Whenever one of the mayors meeting in San Diego wanted to decry the federal government's abandonment of cities, he or she would unlimber some variation of the following: "If we can spend billions on the Persian Gulf War to save Kuwait, why can't we do the same to save our cities?" Other mayors replaced Kuwait with "the S & L bailout."

GREENSPAN: ECONOMY HAS HIT BOTTOM BUT NOT YET EXPANDING
June 19, 1991
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Recent economic data indicate the economy has hit bottom but any renewed expansion so far is too small to measure, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, said yesterday.

Greenspan, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, said statistics "over the last several weeks strongly suggested that the bottom is somewhere in the second quarter," ending June 30.

However, he added, "we see no measurable upward thrust" and said employment is likely to...

And this little tidbit, for my friend Jim Capozzola:

PAGLIA GOES BALLISTIC IN BU JOURNAL
Mark Feeney, Boston Globe
June 19, 1991

Camille Paglia strikes again.

Paglia, the literary critic whose scorched-earth prose got her on the cover of New York magazine last winter, goes ballistic for 74 pages in the spring issue of Arion, the Boston University journal of humanities and the classics. An excerpt ran as an essay in the May 5 New York Times Book Review under the relatively demure headline "Ninnies, Pedants, Tyrants and Other Academics." That was fairly tame stuff compared to the full version, "Junk Bonds....

Back from DNS hell...

Note to all... If you did not plan on attending the ICANN meeting in Montreal this weekend, please send lots of mean, nasty, complaints about the scam which is termed the "redemption period". It's a misnomer. Just try redeeming your website, even if there was an innocent miscommunication between you and your registar, and not have your website being lost in the belly of Verisign for upwards of a week. Oh, then they'll demand your first-born, or a pound of flesh, to let you have it....eventually. Scam, scam, scam.

In other news, due the incredible outpouring of support from a whole boatload of people, the Wampum lodge will not be pulling down its poles and birchbark permanently. Return is not imminent; I have walls to paint and beans, spinach and pumpkins still to plant (not to mention all the weeding and thinning), but sometime in the next few weeks, I'll be dropping in to spout off about whatever strikes my fancy.

I'll be archiving the two previous posts, and will provide pointers here and here when done. I'll be burning copious amounts of sweetgrass over the next few weeks, but I do think it's time to move on. Some things I know I've learned, and I hope others have as well? Maybe the next time anyone receives accusatory emails, they'll clear them with the subject; if GWB can manufacture evidence regarding WMDs, anyone with a keyboard can set up ficticious websites. And burying my head in the sand is only an option 95% of the time... That other 5% - that's the part that will bite you when you're not looking. And I realize that I am in fact part of a community, a community which is not easily dissolved by a dose or two of hemlock or spite.

Again, thank you all for wishing me back. Now I'm off to dealing with a bunch of wild Indians fighting their bedtimes.

A closer look at the numbers

Like every first Friday of the month, today I'll spend the morning poring over the new employment report, looking for those little tidbits which seem to be overlooked by the mainstream media.

This morning, it took all of a minute to find the report's first inconsistency, in reference to the increase in "discouraged workers". Today's release places the number at 482,000 and asserts that level was "essentially unchanged from May 2002." I guess BLS isn't expecting anyone to be fact-checking their claims, as a simple glance at the May 2002 report shows the number of discouraged workers at 407,000. No biggie, really: one unemployed loser, 75,000 unemployed losers, a 20% increase over the year; it's really just nitpicking, isn't it?

More nitpicking:

- The unemployment rate for adult males "edged up" .3% again in May for the second straight month, leading to a downright "hop" from 5.3% to 5.9% since March.

- The BLS reported that unemployment for Hispanics "increased" to 8.2%. What they conveniently left out was that the increase was a whopping .7% jump from the previous month.

- "Professional and business services added 48,000 jobs in May, bolstered
by strong growth in temporary help services (58,000)." In other words, 10,000 permanent accounting or secretarial positions were lost, most with good benefit packages, and were replaced by lower paying temp jobs, with no health insurance or pension plan.

Although buried deep in the report, there is evidence that the BLS hasn't not become a complete pawn in Rove's strategy for the 2004 election.

Manufacturing employment decreased by 53,000 in May, about the same as its average monthly decline for the prior 12 months. Since July 2000, the industry has lost 2.6 million jobs, a decline of about 15 percent.

I'm going to continue to review the report, but there's a quick once-over for other econoholics. One intriguing bit of data was the drop, for the first time in years, of the size of the labor force, by nearly 200K workers. I haven't yet figured that fits into the larger puzzle, and am open to suggestions.

Economic revisionism has begun...

So, yes, the US unemployment rate was released this morning, and no real surprises there - up .1% to 6.1%, the highest level in 9 years. Economists actually expect the rate to continue to climb over the next few months, even if the economy turns around, as only phenomenal economic conditions could accommodate the millions of high school and college graduates expected to enter the job force this summer.

But the real story is the one mentioned here yesterday, newly instituted changes in the "Establishment Survey Data", which essentially counts the number of jobs created or eliminated in any given month. Not only does the BLS plan on using these new "adjustments" going forward, but it plans on revising previous data as well. I got my first clue as to just exactly what that might mean from this snippet in this morning's AP report on the jobless numbers:

Payrolls fell by 17,000 in May following a revision in April, in which no jobs were lost (my emphasis). Industries driving the cuts were manufacturing, transportation and government.

Now, I seem to remember that somewhere around 50,000 jobs were reported to have been lost in April, but I couldn't pull up that data on the BLS website, as, in place of the usual archives, I found this notice:

The data from the Employment, Hours, and Earnings from the Current Employment Statistics survey (National) program is currently unavailable. We will restore the data as soon as possible. For immediate assistance, contact our data specialist listed below. Thank you for your interest in BLS data, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Well, fortunately, I wasn't kidding yesterday when I suggested people download the old data, and took my own advice. Lo and behold, when I looked up it up in my trusty Excel spreadsheet, as of yesterday, prior to today's "revisionism", the BLS reported a loss of 48,000 jobs in April. I sometimes hate it when I'm right.

I guess it's one more thing to add to the list of MIA under this Administration:

WMDs in Iraq
The Child Tax cut for the working poor
Indictments for Ken Lay
Jobs
BLS reporting of jobs

Cassandra Revisited (or Vindicated?)

Earlier today, I hinted as to some developing controversy regarding tomorrow's unemployment numbers. This has its roots the Cassandra Complex (tm) I unfortunately developed back in January, when I first began to read the raw unemployment reports from the BLS. I noted back then that January's employment picture looked particularly rosy not due to any major upswing in the economy, but because the Administration had altered the way it was collecting and reporting data, conveniently skewing results in the process. February and March's results were also tampered with, but decidedly less so than January's. Then, in April, I noticed that the BLS had planned in June to once again institute major changes to the employment reports. Whether these changes will effect the spinning of tomorrow's unemployment report, I can't say. But it's also a question I noticed was asked by at least two media sources today:

Before investors react to Friday's report, however, they may spend some time scratching their heads about it. The Labor Department is revising the numbers in its surveys of employers' payrolls.

In addition to changing seasonal adjustments and updating benchmark figures, the department is shifting some job descriptions and moving some jobs from manufacturing into services in what it says is an effort to more accurately reflect the current economy.

Economists, on average, expect employers cut 39,000 jobs outside the farm sector last month, according to a Reuters poll, down from 48,000 job cuts in April -- but prior data, going all the way back to 2001, are being revised, so comparisons to prior months might be difficult.

When I went over to the BLS press release on the changes, it stated that reports were being revised back to at least 1990! Talk about having the ability to rewrite economic history. In fact, for the sake of the historic record, maybe it's time to start downloading the old data.

Since only CNN Asia and the Post noted the changes today, I'll be curious to see how the report is spun tomorrow, particularly if it differs substantially from the 30-50K job loss forecasted by analysts and the market. But then again, if the unemployment rate jumps more than .1%, I suspect some great WMD (Weapon of Media Distraction) to suddenly appear.

[Update] I've been thinking about what these changes in the report might entail from a political perspective, and this fictitious exchange popped into my head:

Fox News, June, 2004

Sean Hannity: So, Terry McAuliffe, what again are these charges you're making against our fearless leader's stewardship on economic issues?

Terry McAuliffe: Under George Bush's watch, this economy has lost 2.7 million jobs.

Hannity: 2.7 million? Who says?

McAuliffe: The Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Hannity: Really. Well, I'm looking at the website right now, and its says that George Bush has created 2.7 million jobs.

McAuliffe: Yes, but, but, but... that's only because last summer, he had the BLS change all the numbers.

Hannity: Yes, sure he did, Terry (winking to the camera.) By the way, Terry, have you seen my Pulitzer, er, Peabody?

Okay, so now maybe I really am suggesting that people do in fact download the current statistics at the BLS website. Just in case.

[Update2] Nathan Newman points to a great story in the NYPost on the "Bias Factor", which also allows the BLS to play a shell game with job numbers.

There's really no way to sugar-coat this one

Just when I was beginning to think that a recovery, albeit a jobless one, might in fact be in the short-term future:

April Factory Orders Plunge
Reuters
Thursday, June 5, 2003; 10:09 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for U.S. factory goods posted their largest drop in 17 months in April, the government said on Thursday in a report showing declines in many sectors and painting a far worse than expected picture of manufacturing.

Orders sank 2.9 percent in April, the biggest fall since November 2001, the Commerce Department said, after rising 2.1 percent in March. Analysts were expecting a drop of just 1.5 percent.

What's particularly disconcerting about this report is that it contrasts sharply with this week's private industry ISM Manufacturing Report, which asserted that new orders in May were in fact "growing". While it certainly is possible that the manufacturing sector turned around dramatically in May, there have been few other indicators which support such a Lazarian rebound the recent slump.

My colleagues over at It's Still the Economy, Stupid have recently admitted to being unduly perplexed over economic reports. Add me to that bench.

Claims on the rise...again

Employment trend watchers were somewhat surprised today by a surge in first time unemployment claims:

Jobless Claims Rise
By JEANNINE AVERSA
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, June 5, 2003; 8:40 AM

The number of American workers filing new claims for jobless benefits climbed to a five-week high last week as companies coped with an economy that is struggling to get back on firm footing.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications for unemployment insurance rose by a seasonally adjusted 16,000 to 442,000 for the work week ending May 31. The increase pushed claims to their highest level since the week ending April 26.

Last week's rise surprised economists, who were predicting claims would fall to 421,000.

Some of last week's sharp increase in claims probably reflected seasonal adjustment difficulties related to the Memorial Day holiday, a Labor Department analyst said.

Even so, for 16 straight weeks new claims have been running above the 400,000 mark - a level associated with a largely stagnant job market, economists say.

The more stable, four-week moving average of new claims, which smooths out week-to-week fluctuations, rose last week by 3,000 to 430,500, the highest level in two weeks.

Analysts were expecting a more modest 421K, which in my estimation was Pollyanna-ish, as thousands of public service employees - teachers, firefighters, law enforcement, sanitation workers, etc., are finding pink slips in their paychecks as the state and local government fiscal years come to a close. In June 1991, just as Greenspan declared the first Bush recession over, I received my first pink slip, after finishing my inaugural year as a high school teacher in Connecticut. A week later, I joined the lines at the local claims office, just as hundreds of thousands of laid-off workers did this week (and last week, and the week before.)

Unemployment that month stood at 6.9%, up 1.9% from its Administration low of 5.0% in March of 1990. In comparison, since April 2001, the unemployment rate has risen 2.2%, to 6.0%. May's rate is due out tomorrow, and is expected to rise once again (I'll write later on today why I believe that will not happen.) And while the official unemployment rate (versus de facto rate, explained back here) appears lower in Bush II, the unemployment situation is much more dire now than in 1991. Even through recession, Poppy had added 1.5 million jobs to his economy by this point; Junior, in comparison, has lost nearly two million, including 500K since February. Advertised jobs are at their lowest levels in 40 years, and even purported good economic news, such as this week's ISM reports, warn of continued contraction in employment.

Historians, or, more aptly, those who pretend to be such, opine that Poppy Bush lost his bid for a second term because Americans felt he did care enough about the economy, and that Junior may have been able to immunize himself from similar criticism by his much publicized wrangling for his tax cut plan. However, I'm not sure the American public is so easily fooled. Well, regarding pocketbook issues, that is. Missing WMDs, yes. Missing jobs, no.

Bush's tax plan promised a net of over a million new jobs by the election. If the number of new claims filed continues to rise, and the availability of jobs continues to fall, another term from the earlier Bush years may make a comeback in reference to Bush II's handling of the economy:

"Where's the beef?"

Great way to start the day...

Lots to write about today, but first, another one of those personal milestones.

This time it was Jonah, who at three and a half and autistic, just started saying a few discernible words recently.

Today's new word: "Mommy".

I don't know if he'll say again any time soon, as the first time resulted in having the life nearly hugged out of him. Guess I need to rethink those reinforcers.

"Might as well be sucking on bug spray"

So perhaps because it was the favorite film of my son Sam, but whenever I think of Tom Delay's war on working-class America, I can't help but picture the heinous, dictatorial "Hopper" from Pixar's A Bug's Life. (Granted, maybe I just can't mentally divorce the current House Leader from his previous profession as exterminator, but I don't think it's just that.) This week, I kept replaying the scene in my mind where Hopper's locust thugs question the import of reprimanding the rebellious Flick. After disposing of the subversive minions under a pile of grain, Hopper rallies the remaining troops:

"You let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up to us. Those puny, little ants outnumber us a hundred to one, and if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life. It's not about food, it's about keeping those ants in line."

Then, this story broke yesterday:

DeLay Rebuffs Move to Restore Lost Tax Credit
By DAVID FIRESTONE
June 4, 2003 WASHINGTON, June 3 — The House majority leader, Representative Tom DeLay, said today that the House would not consider a Democratic measure to provide an increased tax credit to 6.5 million low-income families who did not receive it in the new tax law.

Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, said the increased tax credits would be approved only if they were part of a broader tax-cut package, possibly including permanent repeal of the estate tax or making state sales taxes deductible. A package of that size would require 60 votes to pass in the Senate, and Democratic opposition to big new tax cuts would make such passage almost impossible.

Clearly irked at the mounting criticism of Republicans for the last-minute decision not to give the credit to minimum-wage families, Mr. DeLay said those who favored the increased credit had had their chance in the debate over the bill.

"There are a lot of other things that are more important than that," Mr. DeLay said in a news conference today. "To me, it's a little difficult to give tax relief to people that don't pay income tax."

Of course, the working poor in fact do pay taxes, but such small details are of no matter to Mr. Hopper, er, DeLay. This is a war, and giving in on even the smallest concession might open up the flood gates.

The question then remains, who will play the parts of the ants comical circus saviors (or the Seven Samurai, if you're more partial to the original inspiration.) While there have been rumblings from the media and Op-Ed pages, relief may come, as in the films, from unexpected sources.

In response to DeLay's objections to the Snowe/Lincoln amendment, House Democrats began engaging in a bit of administrative "civil disobedience". On the other side of the Hill, Senate Republicans were the mutinous ones:

DeLay's statement came as key Sens. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) jumped behind the bill. "I would certainly vote for it," McCain said. "I don't understand how you left enlisted men and women out of this tax package. I don't get it."

John Warner, irate at the 200,000 military families left out of the current tax plan, threatened to jump ship as well.

So will the ants American electorate and their circus clown Congressional rescuers prevail over the oppressive grasshoppers House Republican leadership? Stay tuned.

Of course, one can always hope for a large yellow bird to swoop down on the House Leader's offices.

No posting today...

Pneumonia-redux. Going to go climb under the covers while the babe naps.

Milestone

I've been so busy the past couple days, I forgot to note this monumental event: On May 31, 2003, at approximately 7:30pm, Keziah Lily Williams, age 10 months, 7 days and 4 hours, took her first unassisted steps.

I expect available blogging time will be less frequent in upcoming months.

Editorial Watch

Over on DailyKos a few weeks back, the question was posed, somewhat rhetorically, whether or not Bush had "jumped the shark" with his publicity stunt on the USS Lincoln. Always the econoholic, I now wonder the same, but in regards to the Bush tax cut deficit growth plan. With, not one, but two reports on different aspects of the plan released in just the past few days, both pointing to working poor populations left out of the plan's purported monetary benefits, has Bush's economic popularity, never very high as it was, peaked, with nowhere else to now go but down? Has he "jumped the shark" as it was?

To answer this question, I thought perhaps it was time to take a look at this weekend's editorial pages from around the US.

First stop, Wilmington North Carolina's Morning Star starts off with,

GOP's choice: not working families

The White House is trying to explain why giving tax breaks to well-off investors is more important than giving $1,000 to poor children.

It isn't easy.

With Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials playing the crucial role in getting the Republican Congress to pass a $350 billion tax bill, a choice had to be made between keeping tax breaks for investors or giving $1,000 per child to millions of families making between $10,500 and $26,625.

The bigwigs in the backrooms cheerfully stiffed working families with children...

Ouch!

Next, let's head up to the Beltway, where the generally Bush-friendly Post op-ed desk is a-buzzing:

Children Left Behind

Monday, June 2, 2003

EVEN FOR A DEBATE over taxes, the public discussion taking place right now about child credits in the new tax law is particularly galling, hypocritical and ill-informed. The new law bumps up the credit for each child from $600 to $1,000 (though the benefit phases out for families that earn more than $110,000). This increase, part of the 2001 tax law, was pushed forward to this year under the new law. The 2001 law also allowed some low-income families that don't pay income taxes to benefit from the child tax credit; these families receive money from the government, just as with the Earned Income Tax Credit. Those amounts were set to increase in 2005 -- but that part was not speeded up under the new law. If it had been, it would have cost $3.5 billion, or 1 percent of the supposed cost of the tax bill, and would have helped almost 12 million children whose families make between $10,500 and $26,625.

Stiffing these children was not a last-minute oversight or the unfortunate result of an unreasonably tight $350 billion ceiling...

Heading out to the Left Coast, we find not a lot of empathy for the Republican conundrum of keeping the tax cut with the Senate's parameters:

Poor families miss out in tax cut

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

In accepting a federal tax cut much smaller than what he'd asked for, President Bush told lawmakers, "Sometimes I get everything I want, sometimes I don't."

Millions of poor American families can sympathize with the president, because they come up short in the tax cut, too....

So something had to go. And it could hardly be the cuts in taxes on stock dividends and capital gains, which benefit primarily wealthy taxpayers, now could it?

And back to the RedState district, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial desk opines:

Perhaps that explains why it has been remarkably easy for the GOP to launch an all-out assault on the poor. With little opposition, the Bush administration and hard-right Republicans in Congress are squeezing or eliminating essential programs that assist the poor --- from the HOPE VI program, which has razed slums and rebuilt them as mixed-income communities, to Medicaid, which provides health care.

Now, according to The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group, Congress has excluded millions of families earning just above minimum wage from the increased child tax credit in the new $350 billion tax cut bill.

My own hometown paper, which almost never criticizes its beloved (and endorsed) Republican Senators, twice last week lashed out at Susan Collins for her vote on the bill, and was particularly brutal on Friday:

EDITORIAL: Tax bill proves nasty for struggling families

Even as President Bush signed it into law Wednesday, the ugly nature of a package of tax cuts narrowly approved in Congress grew more apparant.

Also growing more obvious is the missed opportunity Sen. Susan Collins had to affect positive change in the bill.

Attention is now turning to a particularly nasty provision in the legislation that exempts some of the neediest working families from substantial tax relief. This is appalling given that wealthy taxpayers will do quite well under the bill, which slashes taxes on corporate dividends and capital gains.

Knowing that they no longer needed the votes of Sen. Olympia Snowe and other moderates, Republicans in a House-Senate conference changed the tax bill at the last minute. Where most parents will receive a $400 tax rebate for each child, those who make the least have been excluded from this benefit. Families making from $10,500 to $26,625 a year will get no checks this summer. Meanwhile, estimates are that Vice President Dick Cheney will get a $100,000 break on his taxes annually because of the new law.

Fortunately for the Administration, the revolt hasn't spread to the editorial desk at the Wall Street Journal. I expect if that were to occur, Laura would be packing up The Residence for transport back to Crawford.

Besides, Bush knows that once the new FCC rules take effect, he won't have to worry about no stinkin', off-the-rez Op-Ed pieces, will he?

When "not as bad" news is now good news

Manufacturing Activity Slides, but Shows Improvement
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 10:55 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- Business at the nation's manufacturers declined for the third consecutive month in May, but at a much slower rate, a private business group reported Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index was 49.4 percent last month, up from 45.4 in April. A reading below 50 means manufacturing activity is slowing; above 50 indicates the industry is growing.

The result was somewhat better than forecasts by analysts, who had expected the long slowdown in the manufacturing sector to continue and had projected a reading of 48.5.

Buried in the otherwise upbeat article was a minor red flag; "there was a split among supply managers surveyed by his group, with some seeing an uptick in business while others still saw their business stalled or are uncertain."

So the good bad news is not completely good, or, maybe just a little worse than first reported. Huh?

Ironically, UPI, usually the Administration's cheerleader, reported other bad news as just that:

Construction spending falls 0.3 percent
Published 6/2/2003 10:59 AM

WASHINGTON, June 2 (UPI) -- The Commerce Department said Monday new construction spending on office buildings, roads, public-works projects and homes fell during April for the third consecutive month.

The government agency said construction spending declined 0.3 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $862.56 billion after falling 1 percent in March. Economists were expecting it to rise 0.2 percent during the month.

New construction spending is the dollar value of new construction activity on residential, non-residential, and public projects. The data is available in nominal and real (inflation-adjusted) dollars.

Since the economic backdrop is the most pervasive influence on financial markets, construction spending has a direct bearing on stocks, bonds and commodities.

In a more specific sense, trends in the construction data carry valuable clues for the stocks of home builders and large-scale construction contractors. Commodity prices such as lumber are also very sensitive to housing industry trends.

Businesses put money into the construction of new factories or offices when they are confident that demand is strong enough to justify the expansion. The same goes for individuals making the investment in a home. That's why construction spending is a good indicator of the economy's momentum...

So now bad is good and Moonies are economic realists. What next? I can't even begin to imagine.

Outrageous jury awards, or corporate greed?

The following article appeared yesterday in my local paper, the center-right (for Maine) Portland Press Herald. I usually don't include entire articles, but this one is just so spot on in its fingering the real reasons behind skyrocketing medical malpractice premiums, and the PPH removes past articles from its site within a day or two of posting. The article extends into the link (a neat MT feature I recently discovered.) I'll have more to say on this later as well.

Malpractice reform: A bitter pill for victims
By WAYNE M. O'LEARY

Call it the Frist effect, after the Republican Senate's new physician/majority leader. George W. Bush wants to operate. Simply put, he wants to cut the nation's trial lawyers - and their clients - off at the knees, through an invasive surgical procedure called medical liability reform.

The scene at the American Medical Association's National Advocacy Conference, held in Washington in early March, was enough to gladden the hearts of AMA members, insurance-company executives and GOP fund-raisers alike. The president, featured speaker at the event, was welcomed by the gathered physicians as a genuine soul mate. Calling for federal action, Bush honed in immediately on the much-publicized national malpractice-insurance crisis. To the delight of his audience, he pandered directly to its foremost fears, angers and prejudices.

Recent premium increases in the malpractice coverage doctors purchase could, the president intoned, be entirely blamed on the legal system; it was all the fault of personal-injury lawyers "fishing around for a lawsuit." There were too many "frivolous" actions brought against good doctors, he said, adding that "for the sake of the system," noneconomic damages - i.e. pain and suffering - should be capped at $250,000. A bill to do just that is presently working its way through the Republican-controlled Congress.

By Bush's inference, none of our contemporary malpractice litigation has arisen from substandard hospitals or incompetent doctors, whose existence was barely acknowledged by the AMA assemblage. That would come as news to the Mexican parents of Jesica Santillan, the victim of fatal transplant errors at the Duke Medical Center in North Carolina, whose tragic death made national news last winter. It would also surprise the litigants represented over the years by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards, one of those ambulance-chasing malpractice solicitors, whose mostly working-class clients have testified to a panoply of horrific outcomes at the hands of the American medical establishment.

The political bottom line

President Bush and his enthusiastic audience brushed aside such concerns. For the president, the calculation was simple: Most trial lawyers are Democrats, and most doctors are Republicans. Doctors, in fact, gave $17.5 million ­ two-thirds of their total campaign contributions ­ to the GOP in 2001-02, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The AMA itself, which according to the Washington Post has warned Democrats against opposing the Bush settlement cap, contributed $1.6 million to GOP congressional candidates in 2002. The White House wants to ensure that those funds continue to flow into Republican coffers.

There is more than just campaign money and a confluence of interests at play here, however. George W. Bush, his medical-policy point man Bill Frist, and the members of the AMA are similar kinds of people: country-club Republicans. They share certain perceptions and biases: Making money is sacred, medicine should be a business, and legal or regulatory interference with those who know best, medically or otherwise, is bad for society.

The president did his part for class solidarity when he was governor of Texas. He made "tort reform" - restrictions on the right to sue - a centerpiece of his pro-corporate state policy, forcing enactment of caps on legal damages and higher standards of proof for plaintiffs in medical-malpractice and other injury cases. He also presided happily over a state that consistently ranks first in the number of for-profit hospitals and first or second in the percentage of its citizens lacking health insurance. Those dubious distinctions apparently cost him no lack of sleep.

America's medical elite, for their part, have shown little appetite for any implied humanitarian mission. News reports indicate that a fifth of all U.S. physicians have stopped taking Medicare cases because of insufficient reimbursement, and that another fifth have acquired business degrees, the better to pad their bottom lines. This is unbecoming behavior for a class of individuals who, according to wealth analyst Andrew Hacker of New York's Queen's College, have constituted America's highest-paid occupation for most of the past century, with six-figure incomes a standard feature of their profession. On the other hand, it renders the AMA membership's enthusiasm for taking its legal costs out of the hides of its victimized patients unsurprising.

To be fair, America's 297,000 AMA doctors - about a third of all doctors nationwide - are exceptional in their abysmal lack of social consciousness. They belong, after all, to a quasi-fraternal lobbying organization that has steadfastly opposed any national health insurance system for almost 70 years and even fought Medicare in its inception, an organization whose inner councils were dominated by the rightist John Birch Society as late as the 1960s. There are medical practitioners who reject the AMA - the 20,000 members of Physicians for Social Responsibility, for example - but most of their contemporaries have been content to follow the AMA's lead in health policy. The malpractice-insurance furor is just the latest instance of that blind acquiescense.

The root of the problem

Few, if any, of the doctors who walked off the job earlier this year in several states to protest premium increases focused on the obvious source of their unhappiness: the insurance companies, including those run by their fellow physicians, which now issue more than half of all malpractice policies. While liability premiums are certainly rising in about a dozen states, in-depth studies by USA Today and Americans for Insurance Reform (AIR) indicate conclusively that average jury awards, statistically flat since 1990, are not a significant contributing factor. Rather, the problem lies in the foolish financial strategies of the medical-malpractice insurance firms, which routinely invest collected premiums in what has become a casino stock market, in order to add to their profits.

Throughout the booming 1990s, insurers made 10 percent or more on their investments; last year, they lost money or earned less than 2 percent. Their answer: Raise rates. Or, as major insurer The St. Paul Companies has done, drop malpractice coverage, lobby for tort reform, contribute to the GOP, and wait for a government cap on lawsuit damages before re-entering the market. The problem for the insured: Those rising malpractice rates are not adequately regulated by the states, which are theoretically responsible for insurance oversight. AIR, a coalition of nearly 100 consumer groups, offers a sensible three-part solution:

More meaningful insurance disclosure laws;

Stronger control over insurance rates by state commissions;

Prevention of monopoly pricing by repeal of the insurance industry's federal antitrust exemption under the 1945 McCarran-Ferguson Act.

In the meantime, a key finding by AIR researchers may serve to illuminate the unhealthy symbiotic relationship that has developed between conservative politicians, heedless or self-interested doctors, and greedy insurers. The current liability-insurance "crisis" is the third of the past 30 years, following others that arose in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. Each time, a stock-market downturn ate into malpractice-insurer profits, leading them to raise premiums, cut coverage, proclaim a crisis and blame the nation's legal system. Their champion in the latest contrived emergency, George W. Bush, is less a knight-errant than the boy who cried wolf - one too many times.

Wayne M. O'Leary is an Orono writer specializing in labor and economics.

Another Aroostook War (of words?)

On Thursday morning, I heard a similar story as this print one, but on Maine Public Radio:

Battle brewing over tax-free cigarettes
Thursday, May 29, 2003, 8:32 AM

AUGUSTA (AP) -- A battle is shaping up between state and federal governments over a plan by Micmac Indians to sell tax-free cigarettes in Presque Isle.

The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs is backing the tribe's right to open a convenience store and sell tobacco products tax-free to the public. But Governor Baldacci is demanding that the feds withdraw their support.

He cited concerns about potential violence between state law enforcement officers and BIA agents that might be sent to defend the Micmac operation.

The state is disputing claims by Micmac leaders that the tribe is a sovereign nation not subject to state laws.

Baldacci's chief counsel, Kurt Adams, says the state wants to avoid direct confrontation, but must also enforce its tax laws.

The Micmac are one of the five bands of the Wabanaki Confederacy; the other four are the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Maliseet of eastern and northern Maine, and the Abenaki, of western Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Quebec. We are bound by treaty, tradition and history to each other. I knew from previous correspondence with William (Billy) Phillips, the principal chief of the Aroostook Micmac, that their view of Micmac tribal sovereignty did not jibe with that of the Maine state executive, otherwise known as the Governor. That differing perception, now backed by the federal government, is the crux of the problem, which the Democratic Governor, John Baldacci, has warned may lead to a confrontation, not between Indians and his state law enforcement, but between the latter, and federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents sent from Washington to protect the Micmac's tribal sovereignty.

Although the issue is a fairly complex one, it can be summed up thusly: In the early 1980s, the State of Maine entered into an agreement with three of the state's Indian tribes, the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy and Maliseet. Under this agreement, the tribes would received $80+ million for the settlement of land claims, as well as state and federal recognition, and in return, they, and all other Indians in the state (even those who were not consulted and certainly did not agree), terminated their inherent sovereignty, and subordinated the tribal governments to state jurisdiction. This is different from most other federally recognized tribes, which are subordinate only to the federal government. The Micmac (and Abenaki) were left out of this agreement, but in the 1980s, the Micmac initiated an action to achieve federal recognition. The State agreed to add them to the earlier Settlement and Implementing Acts, with the stipulations that 1) Congress would ratify a bill granting federal recognition, and 2) the Micmac tribal government would certify the State's offer of their inclusion in the earlier Indian legislation within 60 days of adjournment of the State Legislature.

Congress did in fact recognize the Micmac in 1991 with the Federal Micmac Settlement Act (MICSA); however, the Micmac tribal council did not certify the state legislation (also known as the MMA). The State maintains that such certification really wasn't necessary, even though directly set out in the MMA. The Bureau of Indian Affairs disagrees, and supports the Micmac's claim that they never subordinated themselves to the state, and thus, are not subject to state laws governing issues such as taxation.

Governor Baldacci has asked Interior Secretary Norton to intercede, and order the BIA to withdraw its support for the Micmac's, or force them to apply to the courts to resolve the issue. On Friday, Chief Phillips dropped by my home on his way back from Washington. He gave me copies of Baldacci's letter to the Secretary, a letter of support from the BIA, and other related documents. He also expressed confidence that the feds would in fact stand behind his people, even if it meant a confrontation with state law enforcement. I assured him that our band of Abenaki would stand beside the Micmac as well.

While litigation is generally preferable to conflict, the Micmac have waited nearly 25 years to have these issues resolved; Chief Phillips was in grade school when his elders first wrote up the application for federal recognition. The Micmac are the poorest tribe in the Eastern US, in one of the most depressed regions as well. They do not have the resources for another long drawn out court battle, and with a billion dollar revenue shortfall, I'd argue Maine doesn't either. While other tribes seek large gambling operations, all the Micmac are currently asking for is a convenience store to sell gas and tobacco tax-free. And for that, the Governor is waving the state's rights banner, threatening the tribe and federal agents sent from Washington to protect them.

Governor Dean wrapped himself in a similar state's rights mantle in his infamous dealing with the Vermont Abenaki's application for federal recognition and tribal sovereignty; in his instance, he arrested Indians for fishing without state papers and there was no one but the tribe to pay the fines. Governor Baldacci inherited this situation, and a smart man would cut his losses and let it go - All Indians but the Micmac are subordinate to the state. They won four and lost one - not a bad record. And as Indians around the country have traditionally supported Democrats at the polls by an overwhelming majority, perhaps, facing a skin-of-the-teeth election, this is just not the time to be teeing off your base.

Besides, tax free gas and cigarettes are a draw not only from Maine consumers, but Canadians just a few miles across the St. John's River. With the falling dollar, there will be even more incentive to cross the border, and maybe stick around to do some non-tax-free spending after filling up the tank at Micmac Mart in Presque Isle.

[Note: Edited slightly to decrease the implication of physical conflict brewing... While the Governor has alarmingly suggested such an outcome, the Micmac foresee a peaceful resolution to the problem.]

Who says POAs have no sense of humor...

Dwight of PLA lives to debunk that myth. On dining out with autistic children:

Choose the restaurant carefully. White table cloths are out. Restaurants with busy decors provide far too many things to touch, grab and break... The best choice is a restaurant on the verge of bankruptcy. They are happy to have the business and are less likely to complain and there are usually fewer other patrons to offend. The downside is that the food is generally lousy.

For those of you who do not have special needs kids, I'm sure the post will be somewhat humorous; but for POAs, be forewarned to cover your keyboards with plastic before drinking liquids and reading the post at the same time. I'm still sponging Harpoon IPA out between the keys.

Dwight also points us to Autism Watch, a new international team blog for which I'll actually soon be contributing on US autism issues. I think I'll be tapping Dwight for much needed humor.