... fed by deflationary mortgage rates, right?

uh, oops:

U.S. mortgages in foreclosure climbed to a record high in the first three months of 2003 as job losses and personal bankruptcies forced more people out of their homes, a mortgage industry group said on Friday...

While benefiting from the lowest borrowing costs in more than four decades, Americans have been straining to meet their mortgage payments and credit card bills.

... California. The hard right running the country will spend $30 million to overturn last year's gubernatorial race in California.

California Gov. Gray Davis was reelected just seven months ago.... But for Republicans in George W. Bush's America, defeat is not an option. If the vote in Florida goes against you, make them stop counting the ballots. If the Senate Democrats won't confirm your most extreme judicial nominees, change the rules so they can't filibuster anymore. If Texas Democrats won't show up to vote on your crudely partisan redistricting plan, tell the federal Homeland Security forces to hunt 'em down and bring 'em in.

Who do they intend to put into office instead?

Darrell Issa is a second-term Republican congressman from Southern California. He's as conservative as they come -- pro-business and anti-abortion, supports prayer in school, opposes affirmative action, never met a tax cut or an oil well he didn't like. In socially liberal California, he's got exactly no chance of ever winning statewide office.

And yet, he just might be the state's next governor.

Dems use MoveOn.org for an Internet straw poll;

Launched in 1998 by two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to oppose the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, Moveon.org says 1.4 million people have participated in its petition and mobilization efforts.

Boyd said he expects “hundreds of thousands” to vote in next week’s event, which will be conducted Tuesday and Wednesday. For comparison, about 156,000 voted in the 2000 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary.

and some activists cry foul...

Playing down the importance of the Moveon.org vote, one operative working in a 2004 campaign said, “It is widely recognized that this is Howard Dean’s guaranteed win.”

Meanwhile, Repubs use the net to recall the just-elected California Gov...

For instance, there is a proliferation of Web sites, such as www.RescueCalifornia.com, that makes the once-arduous process of signature gathering a lot easier.

At www.RecallGrayDavis.com, the Web site for the recall organization started by former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, it's possible to download and fill out the petition form in a matter of seconds. You have to mail it in, but it still means that if you're listening to the radio at work and another story about the California budget crisis airs, you no longer need to vent your civic frustration at the water cooler. Instead, log on and turn your anger into action.

The same Times article reminds that blogs have influence;

Web logs — "blogs" — the increasingly popular online diaries, are fast becoming another recall tool. PrestoPundit.com and similar sites have a small audience, but they have outsized influence because journalists and news junkies spend a considerable amount of time searching blogs for story ideas, commentary and political dish. When an issue catches fire in the blogosphere, it can boost the buzz and prolong the life cycle of a story. Just ask Trent Lott.

In a delicious irony it turns out that the Bush tax cut will in fact increase taxes for the wealthy, too:

By Urban-Brookings's figuring, 95% of families and individuals with incomes from $100,000 to $500,000 will fall into the AMT zone by 2010. Yes, virtually everyone in that group. And here's the bill: You'll be paying an extra $10,000 a year in taxes, on average. (The Congressional Budget Office has run these numbers too, and got similar results.)

Some tax cut, huh? But wait, there's one last bitter irony. One of the things that will do the most to push you into the AMT, believe it or not, is the tax cut you thought you just got.

I mentioned earlier that in my case, local property tax increases will more than wipe out the benefits from the Bush tax cut.

The Wall Street Journal shows that this is true for the country as a whole:

All part of the 'starve the people' Republican strategy -- cut revenue at every level so severely that there is no money left for anyone but white upper class male Republicans....

...AKA my full analysis of the 102-page Pentagon report to Congress on Poindexter's Total Information Awareness initiative, is here. Read it if you're worried about privacy or if you're into cutting-edge technologies (note to speech technology vendors; pitch DARPA now!)....

Bottom line?;

While it is compelling to imagine Agent Sally in Wichita touch-screening her way, in a live-time collaborative futures-market war-game with a virtual network of other agents, through beautiful 3D blobs of fresh, and completely relevant data to discover that sleeper cell X has just woken up, the probabilities of that happening by virtue of these initiatives don't seem higher than the probability that, for example, some of those identified as sleeping cell members .... aren't.

... by petulantly keeping American companies and military brass out of the Paris Air Show:

As part of Rumsfeld's directive, no U.S. military official above the rank of colonel can attend the show. So, the American presence has dwindled. About 181 U.S. companies are exhibiting this year, compared to 350 at the 2001 Paris Air Show, which is held every other year.

I spitfire in your general di-rection....

... please take pension effects out of the earnings you report for the equity I hold in your company.

Just like you're doing when calculating executive bonuses...

If you can artificially prop up earnings to goose bonuses for management, you can fake your reported income to the public, too, right?

Oh wait, that would be ... Worldcom ... Qwest ... Enron ....

Goose stock market for 'em, take $200 million of those goose eggs for your campaign, then send out campaign fliers taking credit for 'turning the economy around'...

As I said...

Why should a rich Republican care if,

two-thirds of employers don't expect to hire any additional workers this summer, and 9% will reduce jobs ... contributing to the worst employment market since the early 1990s?

While it is a cause for celebration that the racist Texas imprisonment of most of a small town's African-American population on trumped-up drug charges has finally been reversed.... nothing can rectify imprisoning a race of people for four years in this country. Nothing

I propose that all Texas Republican legislators' pay be cut by whatever is required to reimburse the 12 people freed Monday for time and suffering while imprisoned.

Any Texas Repub in arrears should be tracked down by the Office of Homeland Security, and sent across the Mexican border to serve as day farm laborers at $1 a day until the fines are paid.

The JeffCo Sheriff saga continues in both the Post and the News.

While it continues to amaze that the guy's campaign manager is leading the public charge for his resignation, it's equally striking that his family has been 'on vacation' for a month while all this has gone down, and is returning tomorrow based on....

... an understanding that by the time they returned he needed to be out of the house," said sheriff's spokeswoman Jacki Tallman.

This guy is clearly in a terrible way, with no support structure. He can't continue as our Sheriff. All who know him and have influence (sic) over him need to continue the sad campaign...

Governor Bill Owens fled the state again recently, this time to D.C. to campaign with neocons for the '08 Republican nomination for President. (This was announced by the 27 year-old, $55k per annum aide Owens planted a while back in Jeb Bush's office in D.C.)

Now anyone who lives in Colorado knows that Owens is a mild-mannered do-nothing puppet of the extreme right -- which is exactly what's recommending him to neocons like Grover Norquist ("bipartisanship is date rape!") and Paul Weyrich, who are busy lining up bucks for the post-Bush (in their view that means '08, of course) era.

Owens has also announced that he intends to use his new 'think tank' (oxymoron alert!), the imperialist-sounding Center for the New American Century (remember the one funded by the admission charge to his Inaugural Ball?) as a 'rapid response center', which means an attack post for neocon positions spewing forth from Colorado. (Watch for more on this organization)

I'll post regularly on Bill's wanderings; earlier sightings are here and in my published letter to the News here ....

Ann Schrader of the Post has been all over the Jefferson County Sheriff debacle, and scores again with her reporting on the burgeoning recall efforts underway.

Led by the Sheriff's campaign manager!:

"He refuses to get any help, and he truly has had a lot of time to do this, a lot of time," said Angie D'Aurio, who managed his successful campaign last year. Cook took office in January.

"If he doesn't resign, our only recourse is to go forward with the recall," she said.

I hope Ann will tackle the process that made Cook the candidate -- his problems aren't new, and an open campaign with a watchful media should have forced the Republicans to avoid this mess a year ago.

The Republicans in Colorado continue to spend money to dominate media and silence debate.

One of the very few television shows in the region that features both left and right points of view, “Head On”, airs weekly on one of our local PBS stations (KBDI Channel 12). It is hard-hitting, particularly from the left in the person of Dani Newsom. Dani was the communications point person for the state Democratic party for some time, and has been a vocal activist in the area for years.

Well, Dani took strong exception to the Republicans' back-room redistricting, and said so.

And was promptly fired.

Because it turns out that the show, while airing on 'public interest television', is in fact owned and paid for by Republican State Senate President John Andrews. Whose paleoconservative hide couldn't take the whuppin' Dani put on it regularly.

So, scotch one voice from the left.

Nice to see that taxpayer-supported public television is in fact a paid mouthpiece for the right. Email KBDI-12’s General Manager Wick Rowland (or at askkbdi@kbdi.pbs.org), and ask him why he’s using your money to promote the radical right in Colorado. You can follow Pen Tate’s lead:

Some people think the show should be eliminated if Newsum isn't on it. Penfield Tate III, a former state senator who ran for mayor of Denver, is one of them. He fired off a letter to KBDI general manager Wick Rowland.
Tate, in the letter co-authored by Maggie Fox, wife of U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said allowing the Senate president to "dictate the content and on-air talent of any program airing on KBDI is completely at odds with the station's commitment to diversity and inclusivity."