Consumer prices shot up in January at the fastest pace in four months as the cost of gasoline and electricity posted big gains. The Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index rose by 0.7 percent last month, with about 70 percent of that increase coming from higher energy costs.

The core rate of inflation, which excludes energy and food, was better behaved, rising by 0.2 percent. So, don't worry. Regular folk don't eat, heat their homes or drive cars. These are things that only the rich do, and they can afford the rapid increases in costs.

U.S. families' wealth stagnated during the economy's recession and recovery from 2001 through 2004, as lackluster wage growth, sagging stock prices and rising debt levels offset the gains from higher home values, the Federal Reserve reported yesterday in its latest Survey of Consumer Finances.

Under Bush (2001-04): Median family wealth rose 1.5 percent
Under Clinton (1998-01): Median family wealth rose 10.3 percent
Under Clinton (1995-98): Median family wealth rose 17.4 percent

The only weaker gain in wealth was during the Federal Reserve's first such survey (1989-92). Under the policies of Bush's father, median household net worth dropped 5.2 percent.

More importantly, the wealth gap increased in the latest survey. Median household net worth rose 4 percent for the Richest tenth of Americans and fell 11 percent for the poorest two-tenths of Americans.

Borrowing has further accelerated since 2004. Total household debt grew to a record $11.4 trillion in last year's third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, shooting up at the fastest rate since 1985.

Working class Amerians are swimming upstream. The rich are becoming more wealthy, and regular people are falling behind. We are incurring more debt, our wages aren't rising fast enough to keep up with exploding energy and food costs, rising health care, and basic goods and services.

And, you say you don't want this president impeached? He neglected us prior to 9/11. He rushed us into a terrible war in Iraq. He failed to act when Hurricane Katrina hit, and he wants to stay the course with his economic policies. Boy, these guys are sure laughing at you!

Public policy students are introduced to an old adage about public spending: a society can either have "guns" or "butter". Guns are a generic term for security concerns, and butter represents domestic programs. Bush proposed $2.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2007 is heavy on guns, and very, very light on butter. His proposal will cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control.

The neo-con agenda of $2.77 trillion in spending represents an increase by 2.3 percent from the estimated $2.71 trillion this year. Bush initially promised to decrease the size of government... In reality, we learn he has decreased taxes on the most rich, but continues to allow spending to increase.

The deficit this fiscal year will soar to an all-time high of $423 billion, reflecting increased spending for the Iraq war and hurricane relief. Yet Bush continues to demand tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans.

Defense spending will rise 6.9 percent, from $411 billion to $439 billion. Homeland security spending will rise by 3.3 percent, but all other operations of government would fall by $2.2 billion, or 0.5 percent. This does not include the cost of the Afghan and Iraq wars. Bush is requesting an additional $120 billion for this fiscal year. If approved by Congress, the war money would push spending related to the wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars.

The biggest cuts will occur in entitlement programs. The president plans to cut Medicare by $36 billion over five years, and $105 billion over a decade -- mainly by slashing payments to providers such as hospitals. Federal child support enforcement payments will fall slightly, while Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program will lose $5 billion over five years and $12 billion over 10 years.

Bush sticks it to families, students and the poor, but offers a slew of tax cuts, tax incentives and tax-cut extensions to the rich that will cost the Treasury $1.7 trillion over the next decade. This dwarfs the $172 billion savings from entitlement cuts and user fees.

Republicans Rely on Earmarks
Decreases in domestic spending cut across party lines, as they hurt both Republican and Democratic working class families. To prevent a "popular revolution," the Republican leaders have relied on "Earmarks."

An earmark is a narrowly focused appropriation. Lawmakers, claiming a need in their home districts or state, submit a request to the appropriate congressional subcommittee, and ask for support -- in private and in open hearing.

Earmarks are supposed to go through the public process, yet few are ever openly considered. Instead, they are handed out as favors in exchange for votes on key pieces of legislation. Alternatively, partisan leaders withhold earmarks as punishment when lawmakers fail to toe the party line. Importantly, earmarks are regularly slipped into legislation at the very end of the process -- during House-Senate conference deliberations -- preventing public inspection of the proposals.

Once relatively rare, these home-state projects -- which range from highways to research grants -- now are commonplace in Congress's 13 annual appropriations bills that fund the federal government.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the number of earmarks has grown from 4,155 valued at $29 billion in 1994 to 14,211 worth $53 billion a decade later.

The proliferation of earmarks began after Republicans took control of the House in 1994. Then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) directed appropriators to help GOP lawmakers with tough reelection races by giving them projects they could boast about back home.

Bush gives huge tax cuts and incentives to his base -- the haves and have mores -- and uses earrmark projects to keep the natives pacified in the various home districts. Since voters continue to focus on their self interests, they return Republicans to Congress while essentially voting against their general best interest.

Former Palestinian foreign minister, Nabil Shaath, reported George Bush told a Palestinian delegation in 2003 that God spoke to him and said: "George, go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan," "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq".

The claims will be broadcast in a three-part BBC documentary that analyses attempts to bring peace to the Middle East. Shaath, Palestinian foreign minister in 2003, claims Bush told him and other delegates he was spoken to by God over his plans for war.

He told the film-makers: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it.'"

Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who attended the June 2003 meeting, also appears on the documentary series to recount how Mr Bush told him: "I have a moral and religious obligation. So I will get you a Palestinian state."

Bush, who became a born-again Christian at 40, is one of the most overtly religious leaders to occupy the White House, a fact that brings him much support in middle America.

"History is littered with examples of people doing the most bizarre and sometimes wicked things on this basis," said Andrew Blackstock, director of the British-based Christian Socialist Movement. "If Bush really wants to obey God during his time as president he should start with what is blindingly obvious from the Bible rather than perceived supernatural messages. That would lead him to the rather less glamorous business of prioritising the needs of the poor, the downtrodden and the marginalised in his own country and abroad."

"When we see more policies reflecting that, it might be easier to believe he has God on his side. And more likely that God might speak to him."

In the last election, the Swift Boat Vets fraudulently and shamelessly smeared the heroic military service of John Kerry.

Advisors to the radical group have now been hired to use their destructive and divisive tactics against America's premiere senior citizen organization, the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).

The NY Times reported that the lobby group, USA Next, which has poured millions of dollars into Republican policy battles, now plans to spend as much as $10 million on commercials and other tactics assailing the AARP. USA Next wants to discredit the powerhouse senior organization due to their opposition to Bush's plan to privatize social security accounts.

Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, said "They [the AARP] are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts. We will be the dynamite that removes them."

Seniors who supported Bush will now understand liberal anger over the lies and distorted facts spread about John Kerry. The USA Next attack ad above suggests that American seniors have abandoned the U.S. military, and instead, support gay marriage. Obviously, millions of Americans support both causes. The intent of the ad is to divide America, and deflect us from educated debate about the merits of Bush's privatization plan. The ad originally appeared on American Spectator, linking to USA Next.

Introducing Dick Cheney on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Christopher Cox, who is the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said:
"We continue to discover biological and chemical weapons and facilities to make them inside Iraq."

The Congressman represents the Newport Beach and Orange County area in California. Take a moment to write Rep. Cox, and request an explanation.


You can access his website at: Cox Website. You can also email him directly at: Cox Email

To expedite your email, say you are from Newport Beach, CA and enter the zipcode of 92660. Don't worry about ethics. Representative Cox has none.

The world's largest producer of greenhouse gases won't join in the treaty, which targets global warming. Europe will press George W. Bush to take action before it is too late.

Nearly eight years after it was negotiated, the Kyoto Protocol to curtail greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming goes into effect today without the participation of the country that produces roughly 25 percent of the world's heat-trapping exhaust: the United States.

A total of 140 countries have ratified the pact, the first major international effort to reduce the industrial emissions that scientists believe are behind the increase in global temperatures during the last century.
See NY Times Major Polluters Illustration

The Bush administration blocked public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago. Even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

The report shows that leaders of the F.A.A. received 52 intelligence reports from their security branch that mentioned Mr. bin Laden or Al Qaeda from April to Sept. 10, 2001. That represented half of all the intelligence summaries in that time.

Five of the intelligence reports specifically mentioned Al Qaeda's training or capability to conduct hijackings, the report said. Two mentioned suicide operations, although not connected to aviation, the report said.