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Dear Politex: You know, I think we really need to lay off the Bush boys about this S&L and Social Security looting thing. That's right. I've changed my mind. What's good for me personally is good for the country, and right at the moment I'm actually making some money off of all this tomfoolery, which is why you haven't heard from me in a while.

Let me explain. I used to work for this mortgage company that had been purchased by a de-mutualized insurance company, but it went out of business and I got severed. Before that, I worked for a commercial bank, because it had acquired the savings and loan I had been working for. In those days, of course, commercial banks weren't supposed to be buying S&Ls, but the S&L was heading for receivership--like a whole lot of other S&Ls back then--and the regulators decided it was better to let a bank bail the thing out than make the taxpayers do it.

Anyway, the bank that ate my S&L got acquired not too long after I left to go work for the soon-to-be-closed mortgage company. The new bank is still operating, and like a lot of other banks, wants to sell off a whole bunch of its assets this summer, since Mr. Greenspan has been jacking up interest rates all year to the point where the banks want to get the old loans off their books while they're still worth something. But the problem is that all these banks don't have enough employees to do a big asset sale this year, because they've had to cut back on staff, because rates are up, which means lending volume is down, and you have to protect the share price, you know.

So the banks are busy hiring out-sourcing companies to come in on a temporary basis to do these deals. I'm working on one of them at the moment. I'm doing just about what I used to do for my former employer, for just about the same hourly wage, except of course that it's temporary and I don't have benefits and I have to travel and live in a hotel. But I won't have to worry about what to do when this job ends, because I'm just now informed that the bank that ate the bank that ate my S&L is going to hire the company I'm independently contracting for to do its asset sale. So I'll be working with documents I may well have signed back in the days of Poppy's presidency, when I was an employee rather than a contractor. I'm looking forward to comparing my signature from the days when I had stable employment and health insurance to my signature today, to see if they're different. I think my hands have been shaking a lot lately, but I'm probably just imagining that. How could anybody feel shaky in this great economic boom we're having?

So if the coming banking crisis ends up materializing, and it's anything like the S&L crisis was, there will be lots of exciting work for people like me. Sure, I still won't have group health coverage or a retirement plan, but we're all going to get used to that in the new global economy, right? And the mess will stir up so much more merger/acquisition activity that there will be a killing to be made on Wall Street, if you know where to look for the right stocks, so if my Social Security taxes get invested in the market, I'll be doing great for a few years. Of course, it'll all probably blow up just before I retire, but why should I worry about the future when I'm having so much fun here in the present? When you realize that unemployment is the price to be paid for low inflation and high bank profit margins, you understand that this is all working out for the best.

So there you have it. Let's all support Bush and his fabulous economic ideas, so that I can keep getting temporary jobs cleaning up the mess. Screw those Nanny-Staters who worry about bailouts and tax hikes down the road. America is about selfishness, you know, and you and I need to stop whining and get ourselves under the big tent. After a while we'll get used to the clown suits. Doris in Des Moines, 7/24/00

Politex, The link to today's top story doesn't seem to be working. --J.E., 7/9

J.E., Thanks, JE. The link to "Smoking Gun Found in the Governor's Office" is working ok, although you may not, understandably, see the relevance. ("An insurance company executive recently wrote an e-mail stating that the insurance industry was obligated to contribute $25,000 to Lt. Gov. Rick Perry's campaign fund in payment for political services rendered. As usual, everyone subsequently denied everything, but the e-mail reinforces well-founded public suspicions that money often plays an undue and improper role in the political process." (HC, 7/9) 1. When Bush is out of town, which is most of the time, Perry is Governor of Texas. 2. The implication in the e-mail is not unlike reported implications made when Bush is in town. 3. Perry, like Bush, has denied everything. --Politex

Politex, As progressives are seduced by the siren song of Ralph Nader and the Green Party, we risk falling again into the well-known trap of our two-party political system: if the Democrats aren't united, the Repulicns get elected, and vice versa. The United States doesn't have a parliamentary system, so if Nader gets 5 percent of the vote, the Greens don't get 5 percent of the seats in Congress; rather they (and we) get President George W. Bush for at least four long years.

The presidency of Bush II will include the appointment of up to three more right-of-center Supreme Court Justices to weaken the Bill of Rights and to strengthen corporate dominance for decades. Bush, who remains in denial on global warming, can also be counted on to make environmental protection "voluntary" like he has in Texas. The federal agencies will be led by people whose compassion comes well after their profit-oriented conservatism. Social Security will be partly privatized as Bush now threatens. The huge gap between rich and poor will widen. As reported on "Meet the Press," a recent poll shows Bush winning by 4 percent over Gore with Nader pulling 5 percent of the liberal vote. Nader says his purpose is to push progressive issues, and that the Democrats can use a four year "cold shower" as punishment for the inadequacies of the Clinton administration.

Is Mr. Nader, who has a long and distinguished record, on an ego trip? I understand his desire to drive the Democrats to more progressive positions on international trade, civil liberties, consumer rights, environmental protection, defense spending, etc. But that can be done much more effectively from inside the party and from inside elected positions of political power. If Bush gets elected, the Greens will have done a historic disservice to their important cause in this critical time. --Darby Riley, Chair, Texas Environmental Democrats, 7/5/00

Politex, re Marvin Olasky's "commitment towards converting Jews to Christianity"...

I just read the article by David Harris concerning Mr. Bush's "compassionate conservatism." As a Jewish woman with Jewish children who has no damn intention of seeing "the light" I find this terribly disturbing, if not downright frightening. What can I do? --Name Withheld, 6/28

Mr. Harris has some suggestions on the National Jewish Democritic Council web site.

Politex, re Molly Ivins' plagarism rap...

Ibid, op cit, hut-hut-hike! as we used to say back in the very old days, in passim, when you could still viz. a cf. from a cp. without having to flip back to the endnotes. Now, of course, we all know that all text is hypertext, all discourse is parody, and it is mere patriarchal logocentrism to attempt fascist control of the free play of the signifier. Copyright is theft. Down with the fact-checkers! Easy for us to say, of course. Nobody pays for our stuff, so it's not like we can't afford a little rectitude when it comes to footnoting copyrights that are worth something. Alas! The ceremony of innocence is drowned! The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity! At least I only steal from really good writers. I'll take Bill Yeats over Bill Gates Any Day. I think. Whatever. --Doris, 6/21

Politex, So, like, I read the thing in Salon this morning, you know, like the thing on political ads? Like, I'm so totally like informed now. First off, you know, I didn't know that Ricky Martin is like Bush's cousin or something. Totally cool! But the main point of the article, you know, was just so interesting. It says like that these political guys need a branding strategy, you know, and not to bore us--that's so important!--because we should have like emotional responses, but not too emotional. Issues, you know, but not like too heavy or too many points. Like maybe one point, you know, would be good. And the music should be cool, you know, but not too cool, because we can tell if it's like really MTV stuff or if it's just like grandpa trying to do MTV stuff, you know, and that really like turns us off to the max. I think it's so totally cool that Salon would have like these advertising people taking about these ads, you know, because like they're the experts, you know? Not like I'm going to vote or anything--that just isn't where my reality is, you know--but I think it is just so important to be informed about political ads and stuff. I think I'm maybe going to major in cultural studies, you know? This stuff is like way cool. --Dori, 6/16/00

Politex, Lost in the nice attacks on Scalia you have posted is the essential idiocy of the originalist position. Scalia believes that the Constitution must be interpreted according to the words used at the time in terms of what those words meant at the time. This seemingly non-controversial position basically covers up the fact that what Scalia means is that we shouldn't go looking too deep into what the authors of the Constitution meant it to mean, but should instead focus on the language. This is a deeply ahistorical, not to mention absurd, proposition that is masked as some sort of historical scholarship. Scalia has to avoid the authors' intentions because historical research can prove that the authors meant something that Scalia doesn't agree with. He sticks with "originalism" as the language itself because it allows for a looser interpretation in many instances, and allows Scalia to attach his retrogade legal thought to many issues where it can be shown the authors either disagreed or had no opinion at all. Scalia is no historian, and puffing him up that way to attack him does an injustice to any coherent account of the Constitution. --Name Withheld, 6/12/00

"Bush was welcomed to Pennsylvania on Thursday by Gov. Tom Ridge, who is a candidate for vice president. The two exchanged a firm handshake on an airport tarmac, then slid their fists around to interlock their thumbs, with each one patting the grip with their free hand." Washington Post, Friday, June 9.

Politex, not being a Bush insider puts me at a distinct disadvantage at times in the never-ending quest to discover just what it is the watchdogs of the press are trying to tell me. Is this a guy thing? A sports thing? A frat thing? A CIA thing? Are they Masons? Or just morons? I realize that you're just as much of an egghead as I am, but you watch more movies and you undoubtedly know more about guy things than I do. Can you tell me if I need to be worried about this? Thanks. --Doris

My best guess, Doris, is Bush and Ridge are doing a very out of date "homeboy" thing in a futile appeal to voter diversity. I could be wrong. The recent, undoctored, Washington Post photo of Bush and Colin Powell on your right has similarly puzzled observers. One thing we do know, recent gossip about "skirt chasing" candidates indicate that Bush is having the Veep field narrowed down for him, so Ridge is beginning to look good by default. --Politex

Politex, Why is it, I ask you, that so many folks seem to require, expect, or hope for a major scandal to take out Bush? Is this is a legacy of the "gate-gate" mentality spawned by our goofy mass media? Or is this a symptom of the fact that we all watch too much television, and hence have become convinced that the only satisfying resolution is one that turns on a dramatic and well-timed plot device? I mean, no one wants Bush to win less than I do, but if I were given the choice of seeing his candidacy go down in flames in some sorry scandal, versus that slow, steady sinking that comes when the electorate begins paying attention again and shows a willingness to think things through, there's no question I'd choose the latter. I wonder why so many people are left speculating on some secret skullduggery, when what's out in the open is fearful enough. The obvious answer is that the evil we know is being presented in such a tendentious and "normalized" fashion that it is no longer striking a lot of people as evil. As Shakespeare said, first we kill all the pundits. Failing that, though, how do we find a way to fall out of the news-cycle trap? At some point, one has to let the sensationalizers set the agenda, if one's plan is to dog them with commentary so that at least they don't get the last unrebutted word in. But that leaves the problem of chasing after the last media-tizzy, and shorting the project of civic education. --Doris in Des Moines, 6/5/00

Doris, As the New Jersey Dem primary is showing us, you can "normalize" a lot if you have a Bush-like pocketbook to spend on a campaign. And while Tom Brokaw tsk-tsks about campaign spending in New Jersey, what about the amount of money media spends on its own campaign to win the minds of the people? Check out the propaganda Fox pushes to convince us it lacks bias when the opposite is pretty obvious. As your man Ralph told the Fox folks Sunday, six media conglomerates control most of our news. In passing, did you know that some of Bush's major campaign funders control a large share of radio stations and billboards across the nation? Recall what Bush-backers did to Johnny Mac with under-the-radar radio spots in South Carolina. Indeed, scandals have already taken place, but the media takes a cut of the action, "normalizes" evil, and feeds a portion of its cut back into campaign funds. That's the American way according to Bush. As is so often the case in this country, follow the money. I'm waiting for a media study on the contributions of media mogals to political campaigns. Know of any? --Politex in Austin

The Techie Experience

"I wanted to comment on Gary Chapman's May 25 column "The Subculture of Techies and Geeks." I graduated from the University of Texas in 1996 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering and have been fairly successful and continue to live in Austin. I am one of those who grew up never having to "pay my dues." My first real job was at AMD making $15 an hour when I was 19. It was at that point that I knew being a geek would pay off. I am very libertarian and do not completely understand the plight of the less fortunate in this country, as things have been so easy for me. As people like me age and gain more political power in this country, we may see a shift to reduced government and fewer social services for those less fortunate. Maybe the current slight downturn in this dot-com economy will change our beliefs if some of us geeks have to get real jobs." --Name Withheld, Austin American-Statesman, 6/2

Missing the Boom

"I was certainly encouraged to open the May 24 paper and read that "the growth in wages came across the board in Austin." The article states that the lowest 10 percent of workers saw a 7.5 percent jump in wages. Not in my household. I am a registered nurse with 25 years of experience. This year, the hospital in which I work allows us to total our salaries, and 3 percent of that is divided among our unit. That is our "raise" for the year. My husband works for the Texas Department of Health as a microbiologist. The employees there have already been told there will be no merit raises for the next two years. Then our property-tax appraisal arrives. Our two acres have increased 60 percent in value this year. I feel much better to read that this economy benefits everyone. Now I can quit worrying about how to send my two children to college." --Name Withheld, Austin American-Statesman, 6/2

Politex,

Justice Antonin Scalia, dissenting in U.S. v. Playboy Entertainment Group, states, "It is not only children who can be protected from occasional uninvited exposure to what appellee calls 'adult-oriented programming'; we can all be." http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/98-1682.ZD.html

To refresh your memory, in an article entitled, "Bush Loves Scalia" (7/12/99), Dubya told the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes that Scalia is the current justice he considers the ideal judge. http://www.calnews..com/archives/Custred05.htm

So, if the Shrub's rich friends succeed in buying him the presidency, can we expect a Bush Supreme Court to protect us from serendipitous titillation? --Steve, 5/22/00

Politex,

According to census figures, Texas teachers' average salaries in 1990 ranked them 33rd in the country and in 1998 they were ranked 34th. Now you liars know that if Texas had dropped to 50th in 2 years [as you write in your rankings] the left wing liberal press would have that information on the front page every day. And you tell me when such was ever published. You left wing socialists can't win on issues only by lies and smears that are lies and you depend on the stupidity and gullability of the uneducated. --Name Witheld, 5/18/00

Bush Watch Reader,

If you'll look at our rankings, it says "50th in Teachers' Salaries plus Benefits." The census info you refer to is only about salaries, not benefits. I have no disagreement with the chart, by the way, which shows a drop in Texas teachers' salaries relative to the rest of the nation, from 33rd to 34th, during the Bush years. However, I believe we've got to look at the total workers' package, including benefits, since it's what the workers actually get paid. Bush does too, by the way. During the last session of the Texas lege, he began by refusing to raise teachers' salaries, but proposed changes in tax benefits to offset inflation, claiming that teachers should look at the total financial package. Most in the lege considered the proposal smoke and mirrors because it was so minimal, which is why the proposal didn't go anywhere. The final version of the bill featured a raise in teachers' salaries across the board. That was a Dem proposal that Bush reluctantly went along with because the Dems held the Bush property tax cut hostage. Now, Bush tells the nation that he raised teachers' salaries, which is not what he wanted to do but had no choice.

He also says he cut property taxes, which was 65% of his tax cut package, but the fact is that the tax cut only went to those who owned property in certain school taxing districts, and many of those taxing districts raised the local school taxes to offset increasing costs, which the state did not cover with its surplus, which Bush used to offset his property tax cut. In sum, then, if you didn't own property, you didn't get a tax cut. If you were in certain districts, you didn't get a tax cut. If your local school board raised its local taxes, you didn't get a tax cut. And if you owned property in a school district that got the property tax cut which was not offset by higher local taxes, the value of your tax cut averages out to a big mac for a family of four once a month. In my case, living in Austin and owning property, I didn't get a state tax cut and my local school taxes went up. Given the published results of the first Bush administration re property tax cuts vs. local school tax increases, the financial bottom line this time for the average Texan probably will be zero or even a negative number. By the time we find out for sure, of course, the presidential election will be over. Please let me know if you run across other data that appears to contradict our rankings for Texas under Bush. --Politex, 5/19/00

Politex,

Don't you find it rather interesting that most, if not all, of the so-called political experts are claiming that the people that voted for McCain (including Easterners, older men, white Catholics and independents) in the primaries will also vote for Bush in the general election? Here are just a few questions and/or comments that immediately come to mind:

1) Why would any of these voters feel any differently about Bush's treatment of McCain than McCain does himself? The tenseness between the two men was readily apparent during the presss conference in which McCain stated that he was "taking his medicine". McCain made it very clear that he was endorsing Bush as an attempt to show GOP party unity...without endorsing the candidate in the slightest.

2) How many of McCain's supporters were actually Democrats that voted in those GOP primaries that were open to all voters? Does anyone seriously think that THEY will vote for Bush?

3) How could any self-respecting Catholic of any color vote for a man that publicly sought the support of a racially, culturally, and religiously prejudiced university so that he could win the South Carolina primary? How many of those same Catholics believed Bush's weak apology when it became clear that he had to respond to the controversy?

4) How many Easterners are going to go against the historical voting grain to give Bush ANY substantial percentage of voters in the Northeast? Looking at the electoral voting patterns of the last two presidential elections is highly instructive.

5) If my Dad is any indication, older men will definitely NOT vote for Bush. My Dad is 80 years old, well-educated (has his Master's), Baptist, lives in WV, and has voted Republican since 1960. He says point-blank that Bush "scares the Hell" out of him.

6) How many so-called "independents" will vote for Bush instead of turning to a third-party candidate, or not voting at all? How many will choose to vote for Gore as part of a lesser-than-two-evils strategy?

The latest independent Pew Research poll seems to bear this out. According to their most recent poll, the presidential race between Gore and Bush is now dead even. The only way Bush will benefit from McCain's endorsement will be if McCain agrees to become Bush's VP, and what do you think the chance is of that happening? --JW, 5/11/00

Politex,

I do not like the CATO Institute and what it stands for.. I have been watching on the sidelines now for 3 years watching... they are pushing privatization.. I wrote an e-mail to them a few weeks ago saying they should be [condemned] for even suggesting it... got a reply... the privatization of government will be a reality if the gop gets the houses and the presidency.. us not so fortunate will end up being victems... that of course is my humble opinion.. the big moneies have already changed the tort system.. Texas especially... you have to be 90% right on lawsuits now.. and there is a cap on what you can sue for... check it out.. thank you Mr. Bush.. now the common man cannot get justice...--Name Withheld, 5/4

Politex,

I visited www.opensecrets.org and looked at Dubya's contributors lists. In that site you can search many different way their database compiled from the Federal Elections Commission.

I started searching for Hispanic names of contributors in Texas and the results are very telling. Here is a brief list of the names and total number of contributors found in Texas from Jan. 1999 through Jan. 2000:

Garcia 18, Rodriguez 7, Gonzales 4, Martinez 15, Mendez 2, Jimenez 1, Navarro 7, Munoz 5, Lopez 1, Guerrero 2, Flores 10, Reyes 3, Castillo 3, Diaz 1, Bonilla 1 (Henry)

These names above are pretty common and many of the names I entered showed NO contributors such as Escalera, Guzman, Juarez, Acosta, Casillas, and Aranda. This is good evidence that the Hispanics in Texas DO NOT support Gov. Bush in his bid for the presidency. He does not have any perceivable support in the whole state from the Hispanic community and these numbers prove it. --Name Withheld, May 2, 2000