Madam speaker Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall tax all stock market profits (including Retirement fund, 401K's and Mutual Funds! alas it is true. All to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed Minorities!

Boy, are we in trouble... This woman is frightening. Take special note of the last paragraph. Is she really this whacked out?

Nancy Pelosi condemned the new record highs of the stock market as "just another example of Bush policies helping the rich get richer". "First Bush cut taxes for the rich and the economy has rebounded with new record low unemployment rates, which only means wealthy employers are getting even wealthier at the expense of the underpaid working class".

She went on to say, "Despite the billions of dollars being spent in Iraq our economy is still strong and government tax revenues are at all time highs. What this really means is that business is exploiting the war effort and working Americans, just to put money in their own pockets".

When questioned about recent stock market highs she responded "Only the rich benefit from these record highs. Working Americans, welfare recipients, the employed and minorities are not sharing in these obscene record highs". "There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100% rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class". "Profits from the stock market do not reward the hard work of our working class who, by their hard work, are responsible for generating these corporate profits that create stock market profits for the rich. We in congress will need to address this issue to either tax these profits or to control the stock market to prevent this unearned income to flow to the rich."

When asked about the fact that over 80% of all Americans have investments in mutual funds, retirement funds, 401K's, and the stock market she replied "That may be true, but probably only 5% account for 90% of all these investment dollars. That's just more "trickle down" economics claiming that if a corporation is successful that everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper benefit from higher wages and job security which is ridiculous". "How much of this 'trickle down' ever get to the unemployed and minorities in our county? None, and that's the tragedy of these stock market highs."

"We democrats are going to address this issue after the election when we take control of the congress. We will return to the 60% to 80% tax rates on the rich and we will be able to take at least 30% of all current lower Federal Income Tax payers off the roles and increase government income substantially. We need to work toward the goal of equalizing income in our country and at the same time limiting t he amount the rich can invest."

When asked how these new tax dollars would be spent, she replied; "We need to raise the standard of living of our poor, unemployed and minorities. For example, we have an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country who need our help along with millions of unemployed minorities. Stock market windfall profits taxes could go a long ways to guarantee these people the standard of living they would like to have as "Americans"."

Carnivorous Prophets

William F. Buckley

Howard Dean is at the center of the controversy because he chewed out Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic chairman. He told McAuliffe he should have used his good offices to get the other candidates to shut up about him and how he couldn’t win if nominated. Everybody is now mad at everybody else but mostly at Dean. One mostly gets mad at front runners.

I contribute an experience: In July 1987, I brought together in Houston all the Democratic candidates for president, for their first joint appearance. I enlisted as co-host Robert Strauss, who was the most revered, fair-minded (and humorous) Democrat on the national scene. We sat down surrounded by attentive and nervous courtiers and inquisitive members of the press. One of the following men would be nominated in 1988 to challenge the Republican successor to Ronald Reagan.

I had questions written for our Firing Line guests. They were Bruce Babbitt of Arizona, Joe Biden of Delaware, Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, Dick Gephardt of Missouri, Al Gore of Tennessee, and Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon of Illinois.

One of my bright ideas was to begin Hour #2 by asking each candidate to enumerate a weakness of the other candidates. As in, "Senator Biden, Governor Dukakis is contending for the same position you are and there are months ahead in primaries for all of you. What is a singular weakness of Senator Dukakis in winning those?"

My co-chair Robert Strauss leaned over and whispered into my ear, "Brother Bill, you’re not going to get anywhere doing this, you watch." Well of course, seasoned politico Brother Bob was correct. Senator Biden was not about to say anything that drew attention to the weaknesses of Senator Dukakis. Even if he had suspected, back then, that Dukakis would look silly wearing a helmet while riding in a tank, he didn’t say so. Nobody during the entire hour would say anything derogatory about anybody else, stressing only his own superior qualifications and inchoate appeal to the primary voters.

Nothing of the sort in 2003! Howard Dean’s spurt to the head of the line using childlike magic-toy solutions to such questions as the containment of terrorists, the reform of the tax code, and the plight of education at first astonished such onlookers as Lieberman, Gephardt, and Kerry; and finally drove them quite mad. To share time in national forums with the thaumaturgist from Vermont, who with a bright and engaging smile waves his hand eastward and proclaims an end to the problem there by simply shipping our boys home, does two things to the other contenders. They want to say: Stop! stop! stop! The world doesn’t work that way! There are terrible, ridiculous complications! etc. etc.

Their first defense against baby-talk political solutions was to carry on as they did in a half dozen debates. But their frustration has led them to criticize Dr. Dean straight-out, and to enumerate and express contempt for his weaknesses.

So that for two weeks, Dr. Dean read the papers in the morning and turned on television at night and saw himself criticized trenchantly by the only candidates he cares about: Gephardt, Lieberman, and Kerry. So what did he think to do? Call Bob Strauss?

But Strauss, after a long life of public service, has retired, and probably wouldn’t welcome getting into this line of fire. So he called Democratic party head Terry McAuliffe.

What is happening is that Howard Dean’s exhilarating nostrums have got the headier members of the young Democratic population absolutely carried away with enthusiasm. Is there any sound on earth more pleasing than END WAR? Or, ELIMINATE POVERTY? And the First Amendment guarantees free speech even if it is hypnotic.

It is, to be sure, easier to take in that kind of thought with deep draughts of toke, but I don’t think Bob Strauss would have permitted us to ask that question in the company of Democratic contenders who are trying to find out why this sudden enthusiasm for Peter Pan. Probably Strauss would say what McAuliffe pretty well has to say. Nothing can interrupt the scheduled train of events. Reality may just decide to sit it out. Until November '04.

Via Fox News

WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential candidates sought new grounds for criticism of White House foreign policies Monday as President Bush basked in the capture of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

And who suspected anything else?

Anti-war candidates Howard Dean and Wesley Clark prepared broad foreign affairs addresses while Sen. John Edwards, who supported the Iraq war resolution, zeroed in on what he said is a greater threat than any posed by Saddam Hussein: The spread of weapons of mass destruction.

The threat is one and the same, IDIOT.

"It was great news for the Iraqi people, the world, and the United States that Saddam Hussein was captured. But that alone is no substitute for a comprehensive strategy to deal with the world's most dangerous weapons, no matter how welcome the news," Edwards said in a text of his address in Iowa, site of the Jan. 19 caucuses.

Bullshit, and he knows it. He doesn't have a chance, and he knows it. Why is he still wasting our time? Does he want run in the Dopefull ribbon cutter slot? The last time we had a ribbon cutter, it was Gore.

Titled "Strategy of prevention, not pre-emption," the address urges Bush to reverse plans to try Saddam through the U.S.-selected Iraqi Governing Council. "Yes, Iraqis should take the lead in coming to terms with their own past. But they should do so with the assistance and the involvement of the international community, including the United Nations," the North Carolina senator said. He also urged Bush to reverse an order denying lucrative reconstruction contracts to nations that did not back the war.

He's a traitor, period.

On nuclear proliferation, Edwards said he would convene a world summit to create a Global Nuclear Compact that reinforces the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nations that opt out of the pact or violate its anti-proliferation rules would be subject to strong, immediate penalties aimed at their military capabilities.

(immediate penalties aimed at their military capabilities) Just how are we going enforce that without an army?

"To win the global war on terror, America does not need a new doctrine of pre-emption; we need a new strategy of prevention," he said, criticizing Bush's approach to the proliferation crisis.

This guy HAS NO CLUE.

Edwards promised to triple the amount of U.S. money spent to secure Russia's nuclear arsenal, and said he would appoint a proliferation czar to oversee the issue.

Yeah, right.

"This Administration's approach to protecting America from weapons of mass destruction can be summed up simply: wait until our enemies gather strength, and then use force to stop them," he said. "We should be exercising every option we have to stop the spread of deadly weapons before war becomes our only option."

What in the hell do you think we're doing? What are those options?

In addition to Edwards, Clark and Dean, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., was giving a foreign policy address Monday.

I feel better now, Hillary is getting involved.

Democrats have been hammering Bush for failing to capture Saddam and Usama bin Laden, despite months of manhunt. The arrest of Saddam took away one symbol of Bush's failings, but several of the Democrats argued the goal could have been met in less time if a different president were in office.

Al Gore? Thank our lucky stars we didn't have to test that statement.

"I congratulate our troops on capturing Saddam Hussein," Dean, front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Sunday night. "He's a bad person and we're all better off with him in captivity, but you should know that my views on Iraq have not changed one bit."

What else can you say? Damn, I'm done now. Hehe. Why not the usual backpedaling?

Saddam's capture Saturday also underscored a wedge issue dividing several fellow candidates from Dean, who has based much of his campaign on opposition to the war in Iraq.

Good!

"The fact is that if Howard Dean had his way, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today, not in prison," said Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, a leading Democratic backer of the war.

I agree, and we would have also suffered more major attacks.

Saddam's capture was the second major event in a week that has shaken up the Democratic race. On Tuesday, former Vice President Al Gore endorsed Dean, citing his opposition to the Iraq war. Dean's rivals sought to use news of the former Iraqi leader's arrest to deflate his case.

Al Gore should move to France.

Those Democrats who supported the congressional resolution authorizing the war basked in Saddam's capture. Their vote has not been popular with some peace activists in their party, who occasionally booed them for supporting the war and cheered on Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Great, maybe they'll defect.

"I supported this effort in Iraq without regard for the political consequences because it was the right thing to do," Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt said in a statement. Clark also said he hasn't changed his view that going to war in Iraq was unnecessary.

Dick, you weren't named that for nothing. Wesley, didn't know you made it to Deep Space Nine. You are out there.

"It seems to me that all of the concerns that I have voiced about Iraq remain. I stand by every concern," Clark said in a conference call from The Hague, where he was preparing to testify in the U.N. war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

The last photo I saw of you two together, ya'll were wearing each others hats.

The Democrats are giving credit for the capture to American troops, not the president. Most of the Democrats say the United States still needs a new leader who would unite the world in the aftermath of victory.

Well, it if wasn't for the President there would be no troops. Hypocrites

General enlists Hollywood to ignite campaign
By Julian Coman in Washington
(Filed: 30/11/2003)

In an unlikely attempt to gain star backing for a slow-burning campaign, the Democratic presidential candidate, General Wesley Clark, is spending late nights talking politics with Madonna and wooing sympathetic supergroups such as The Eagles, with whom he recently shared the stage during a rendition of Hotel California.

Gen Clark, who had a cerebral and somewhat austere reputation during his military career, has spent much of the past month seeking out the late-night company of west coast rock stars, screen idols and movie producers. While his rivals preach to the worthy but unglamorous residents of early-voting Iowa and New Hampshire, Gen Clark is dressing snappily and going out on the town in LA.

After a 90-minute policy discussion with Madonna in her Los Angeles home recently, a friend of the star was authorised to disclose that "Madonna was very impressed with Gen Clark's intelligence and his vision for America". Another associate added: "Don't under-estimate this. Madonna is often ahead of the curve."

The showbusiness strategy reflects a change of direction by the Clark campaign team, which has already decided not to compete in the rural Iowa caucuses that launch the primary season.

The general's tacticians believe that Howard Dean, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, has already won the support of most left-wing grassroots activists. Gen Clark's goal is to emulate Bill Clinton in the 1990s by capturing the heart of Hollywood, a centre of liberal power and influence in America.

"He wants to be the chosen candidate of Tinseltown," said one sympathetic film producer. A Clark aide confirmed to The Telegraph: "We're reaching out to the entertainment community. Entertainers have a lot to offer any campaign. They have a platform, a pulpit, and they obviously get more attention than the average citizen."

They also earn a great deal of money. Gen Clark has calculated that popularity on the West Coast would help him to catch up with his rivals financially, after a late entry into the race, as well as achieve a nationwide "buzz" to match Mr Dean. Before his second election victory in 1996, Mr Clinton benefited from a $500,000 cheque from Steven Spielberg alone.

The apparent decision by Hillary Clinton to stay out of the 2004 presidential campaign has reinforced the Clark campaign's conviction that the general has the chance to fill a "charisma gap" on the moderate wing of the Democrats.

Gen Clark's Eagles night was judged a political triumph by his team and a model for similar events throughout next year. The group, who hope to influence a future Democratic president on environmental issues, agreed to play for over an hour at the Hollywood fundraiser.

Dressed in black, the general told the audience that Hotel California had been his favourite song since the days of his military service in the state. The Eagles obligingly placed it first on their playlist. According to a campaign aide, "Gen Clark and his wife, Gert, stood by the stage, holding hands and singing along."

The concert, hosted by the original founder of the Hard Rock Cafe, Peter Morton, attracted sympathetic film stars such as Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, and raised $500,000 for the campaign. Ms Lopez spent a quarter of an hour with the candidate and reportedly emerged a confirmed Clark fan.

Mr Morton, who has also thrown a dinner party for Gen Clark with Aaron Sorkin, the creator of the hit television series, West Wing, said: "I haven't been this moved by a politician since I had lunch with Bill Clinton prior to his becoming President. Clark is the Democrat's best chance."

After the concert, Gen Clark and his wife went directly to Madonna's mansion, where the discussion ranged from Iraq to President Bush's recent tax cuts.

The general's strategic incursion into Hollywood appears to have caught his chief rival rival, Mr Dean, off-guard. In Iowa, the fight for the nomination is expected to be a two-horse race between Mr Dean and mid-west candidate Richard Gephardt. Mr Dean is also the overwhelming favourite to win the New Hampshire primary.

To stay in the race, Gen Clark needs both the funds and the profile to play a longer game. His team claims that he is finding both on the West Coast. Taking advantage of the time freed up by the decision not to fight Iowa, Gen Clark has even worked to win the support of Hollywood figures who, during the summer, had declared an interest in Mr Dean.

Norman Lear, the creators of some of America's most famous sitcoms, gave Mr Dean a $2,000 campaign contribution last April. Last week, he was at Gen Clark's Eagles concert, having declared: "I'm inclined to the general."

A lunch with Mr Spielberg has also taken place. According to Mr Spielberg's spokesman, Andrew Spahn: "Gen Clark was a very bright articulate guy. We talked about Iraq, North Korea, foreign policy and tax cuts."

Mr Dean may be winning the early battles in Iowa and New Hampshire, but Gen Clark has taken the lead in Hollywood's unofficial "primary". In a Democratic race constantly criticised as lacklustre, an injection of star quality on the side of the General may yet prove a tactical masterstroke.

washingtonpost.com

2004 Is Now for Bush's Campaign
Early Advantage in Funds, Voters Sought

By Dan Balz and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page A01

President Bush's reelection team, anticipating another close election, has begun to assemble one of the largest grass-roots organizations of any modern presidential campaign, using enormous financial resources and lack of primary opposition to seize an early advantage over the Democrats in the battle to mobilize voters in 2004.

Bush's campaign Web site already has signed up 6 million supporters, 10 times the number that Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean has, and the Bush operation is in the middle of an unprecedented drive to register 3 million new Republican voters. The campaign has set county vote targets in some states and has begun training thousands of volunteers who will recruit an army of door-to-door canvassers for the final days of the election next November.

The entire project, which includes complementary efforts by the Republican National Committee (RNC) and state Republican parties, is designed to tip the balance in a dozen-and-a-half states that both sides believe will determine the winner in 2004.

"I've never seen grass roots like this," said a veteran GOP operative in one of the battleground states.

Dean, a former governor of Vermont, has made major strides in organizing a grass roots-based campaign in a bid for his party's nomination. His advisers say it is the largest in the history of presidential politics.

While saying he is not familiar with all the details of Dean's grass-roots and Internet efforts, Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman said, "Our goal is for the largest grass-roots effort ever."

Organization alone cannot elect Bush to a second term. Given the reality that the president's campaign team cannot control such potentially decisive factors as the economy or events in Iraq, officials are determined to maximize their advantage in areas they can control. Rarely has a reelection committee begun organizing so early or intensively -- or with the kind of determination to hold state party and campaign officials, and their volunteers, accountable for meeting the goals of the Bush team.

In Ohio, for example, more than 70 elected officials and volunteer workers dial into a conference call every other Wednesday at 7 p.m. to report on their efforts to recruit leaders and voters, and to hear updates from Bush's campaign headquarters in Arlington. Roll is called, which initially surprised participants used to less regimented political operations.

The massive ground war now in the early stages underscores the latest turn in political campaigns, in which there is renewed interest in applying the shoe-leather techniques of an earlier era, enhanced with advances in technology. Campaigns, both Democratic and Republican, have rediscovered the importance of putting people back into politics, after years of focusing on television commercials.

"We live at a time of the greatest proliferation of communications technology in history, and in an ironic way that technology has taken us back to the politics of an earlier time," said Ralph Reed, former Georgia GOP chairman and now a regional official in Bush's reelection campaign.

Having the biggest presidential campaign treasury ever -- more than $105 million raised already and heading toward $170 million -- and no primary opposition gives Bush the luxury of focusing now on general-election organizing. The RNC and the Bush team have begun planning across a wide range of fronts, even including an analysis of which supporters are likely targets for absentee ballots or early voting, an increasingly critical aspect of turning out the vote.

The Bush campaign not only has started early, but also has set deadlines for developing its organization. In Ohio, there is a Dec. 1 deadline for recruiting county chairmen in the state's 88 counties. In Florida, the first three of a dozen planned training sessions have been held, and two campaign staffers are working out of an office in Tallahassee; county offices -- complete with plenty of lines for phone banks -- are scheduled to open shortly after Jan. 1.

In Iowa, the campaign's state chairman, David M. Roederer, said volunteers have been identified in all 99 counties, and they are working to expand their rosters down to the precinct level.

The Bush team hopes to build on techniques first employed in 2000 and honed in 2002 through what is called the "72-hour project," which is shorthand for mobilization operations during the final days before the election. Democrats acknowledge these techniques proved highly effective as a counter to their mobilization efforts in earlier campaigns.

"They've proven they can do it," said Gina Glantz, of the Service Employees International Union, who will join the Dean campaign as a senior adviser next month.

The absence of unlimited "soft money" donations to parties and tighter rules on coordination between a presidential campaign, the national committee and state parties -- all part of the new campaign finance law -- make this organizing more difficult and put a premium on volunteer labor. Mehlman said that, despite those challenges, "we want to take it a step further in this campaign" than in 2002.

Republican officials say these efforts are necessary to counteract voter mobilization by Democrats and their allies in organized labor and liberal interest groups, who plan to spend substantially more than $100 million on get-out-the-vote efforts.

Although Republicans have their own network of outside groups, from the National Rifle Association and the National Federation of Independent Business to the Christian Coalition, GOP strategists say privately none of them comes close to matching the resources, sophistication or fealty of organized labor and liberal groups.

"This party has no infrastructure," one Bush adviser said. "We have to build it from the ground up."

Both parties have rediscovered the importance of communicating personally with people, rather than assuming that television ads or direct-mail brochures will motivate someone to vote. From their analysis of previous contests, including this month's gubernatorial elections in Mississippi and Kentucky, GOP officials said someone who votes only infrequently is four times more likely to go to the polls after having a face-to-face conversation with a campaign volunteer about a candidate than after receiving a phone call or direct-mail brochure.

Thus, the Bush team is trying to build an army of millions of volunteers to go door-to-door next year to talk to potential voters. Officials have concluded that old-fashioned literature drops should be replaced by in-person contact with voters whenever possible, and they are trying to change old habits among veteran GOP workers in the states.

The Bush campaign will devote a portion of the estimated $170 million it will raise during the primary season to grass-roots organizing, although spending on television ads will still outstrip expenditures for the ground war. Any excess money in the Bush account can be given to the RNC at the time of the national convention next summer for get-out-the-vote efforts for Election Day in November.

The Bush campaign is focused now on building its state organizations, while the national committee is working on a variety of organizing efforts, including voter registration. Registration is important because, at a time when Bush enjoys about 90 percent support from self-identified Republicans, GOP officials believe there is no surer way of producing votes than getting more people registered with the party. The party is registering voters at NASCAR events and naturalization ceremonies, on college campuses and in targeted precincts.

The RNC has set state-by-state goals for registering voters, based on a formula that attempts to determine Bush's maximum potential vote percentage, all with an eye toward turning states that he narrowly lost or won in 2000 into winners next year.

In Oregon, which Bush lost to Al Gore by about 7,000 votes in 2000, the national committee's goal is to register 45,000 GOP voters by next year, enough to provide a cushion in a close election.

Republicans are using several techniques to reach and register voters. In New Hampshire, new homebuyers receive a postcard from the state GOP welcoming them to their neighborhood, explaining the party's historic opposition to higher taxes and urging them to register as Republicans. Party officials follow up with phone calls, often from volunteers in the same community, and next spring will begin going door to door.

In Arkansas, RNC officials recently hosted a breakfast for nearly 100 ministers, outlining ways they can assist parishioners in registering. Party officials plan to follow up by identifying volunteer coordinators in the churches to oversee those efforts.

In Illinois, Republicans have hired field operatives who will concentrate their efforts -- by telephone and sometimes face-to-face -- to identify and register likely GOP voters.

"If you've got a precinct where 50 percent [of registered voters] are Republicans and 30 percent are independents, there's probably gold to be mined in that precinct," said Bob Kjellander, one of 11 regional chairmen for the Bush reelection committee.

The campaign has staged splashy events to announce leadership teams in 14 of its targeted states, usually featuring Mehlman or campaign chairman Marc Racicot. The campaign's ambitions are evident from the depth of the organizations being assembled.

In each county, for example, the Bush operation will include an overall chairman; chairmen for surrogates, volunteers and voter registration; and an "e-chairman," whose responsibility is to communicate with supporters registered with the campaign Web site.

Campaign officials look for specific tasks to keep people involved. Team leaders have been asked to recruit five other team leaders and sign up 10 friends to receive campaign e-mails.

The campaign Web site includes an easy way for supporters to send letters in support of Bush's policies to local newspapers and has generated 28,000 letters since August. At training sessions, campaign workers are urged to help recruit participants for coalitions the campaign plans for teachers, farmers, Hispanics, African Americans, disabled people, law enforcement officials and sportsmen.

Bush officials say they have one advantage over Democrats: Enthusiasm for the president among the GOP base makes it far easier to organize a grass-roots army.

Sally D. Florkiewicz of Cleveland has signed up 196 people since mid-September to serve on Bush's committee, and has a list of 225 more e-names she wants to call. "They're so surprised we're calling them this early," she said. "I tell them it's going to be a very, very close election."