Earlier today C-Span2 rebroadcast a Sam Waterston reenactment of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 Cooper Union address. The anti-slavery speech, delivered 27 February 1860 at the Great Hall of Cooper Union in New York City, is claimed to have propelled Lincoln to the presidency that year.
At the end of the performance, Waterston said it had been planned as an “experiment” and wanted feedback? Why? To see how a modern audience could handle a political speech of yore. Back in that day political speeches were a form of entertainment. Lincoln’s speech alone lasted over 1 1/2 hours, in an evening that included at least three other speakers.
Quite a contrast from today. Can you imagine a modern presidential candidate giving a 1 1/2 hour speech? And a TV network covering it? Heck, the TV networks barely devote that much to the political conventions anymore. We just don’t have the attention span as people used to have.

If this idea gets any traction, we’ll soon see what Iraqi sovereignty really means:

Iraq’s prime minister, less than a week after taking power, may offer amnesty to insurgents and could extend it to those who killed American troops in an apparent bid to lure Saddam Hussein loyalists from their campaign of violence.
A spokesman for Iyad Allawi went as far as to suggest attacks on U.S. troops over the past year were legitimate acts of resistance — a sign of the new government’s desire to distance itself from the 14-month U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
“If he (a guerrilla) was in opposition against the Americans, that will be justified because it was an occupation force,” the spokesman, Georges Sada, said Saturday. “We will give them freedom.”

I don’t think this would go over very well with many of those who have been touting Iraqi freedom.

What is the purpose of a church?

If you’re a traditionally-minded person, you might answer that a church is a place where people of like-minded religious beliefs gather to worship, fellowship, and learn about God.

But if you’re part of Bush/Cheney America, the church has a more important function: it’s a fundamental building block in your political empire.
Take a look at this Bush/Cheney ’04 campaign instruction sheet, obtained by the Washington Post. It outlines the “duties” of good Christian campaign coordinators. Some highlights:

• Send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney ’04 Headquarters or give to a BC04 Field Rep.
• Identify another conservative church in your community who we can organize for Bush.
• Recruit 5 people in your church to help with the voter registration project.
• Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive.
• Begin to organize a voter registration drive at your church.
• Have a coffee/pot luck dinner/ “Party for the President” with church members — July 15th, 2004.
• Talk to your Church’s seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney ’04.
• Receive a list from you [sic] County Chair of all non-registered church members and Pro-Bush Conservatives.
• All non-registered church members must be registered to vote.
• Distribute Voter guides in your church.
• Get-out-the-vote program in your church-place reminder bulletin about all Christian citizens needing to vote in Sunday program or on a board near the church entrance.

This document illustrates the extent to which the Bush administration/campaign is working to merge politics with religion. It’s one thing to make friendly campaign overtures to religious voters. But this is a clear effort to marshal institutional churches in support of Bush/Cheney.
I don’t think there’s ever been a president who has so overtly worked to eradicate the separation between church and state. And whether you agree with that position or not (I don’t), it’s an issue which deserves more public attention.

Here’s some ironic timing. On the same day that President Bush commemorates the 40th Anniversary of Civil Rights Act, a Florida court has to force the state to release the names of “suspected felons” it is purging from the eligible voter rolls.
Recall that in 2000, the sounds-like felon name trick was used to remove many minority (i.e., Democratic) people from the voter list.
Fourty years hasn’t changed everything.

The “Bush boom” finally brings jobs to the working class . . . with no benefits:

The economy started creating jobs again last year, but the number of working-age adults who went without health insurance for more than a year jumped sharply, the government reported Wednesday.
An additional 2.6 million people ages 18 to 64 were uninsured for more than a year, raising the total to 24.5 million, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
. . .
The increase in the number of long-term uninsured, which Robin A. Cohen of the statistics center called “quite a significant jump,” underscored the chronic nature of the problem and the decreasing likelihood that a job guaranteed access to health insurance, analysts said.

Unsurprisingly, a leading contributor to the lack of coverage is cost:

Kate Sullivan Hare, executive director of health policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said rising healthcare costs were making it more difficult for employers of all sizes to offer coverage to workers. As businesses that still offer health insurance pass on more of the costs to employees, greater numbers of workers are deciding that the coverage is not worth the cost, she said.
Health insurance premiums that employed Americans pay for family coverage have increased by almost 50% over the last three years, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and voters questioned in public opinion polls consistently cited rising healthcare costs and worries about losing health coverage among their top concerns.

But there is a bright economic spot here. Despite the decline in customers, there’s no need to shed tears for the health insurance industry. They’re doing quite well, thank you very much:

By the end of 2000, revenues were rising faster than expenses and operating margins swung into the black, according to Sanford Bernstein, a Wall Street research firm. By 2003 they had reached 5.1%, possibly an all-time high. That may sound low, but health insurers have huge operating leverage. They do not have to finance inventory. Quite the opposite, in fact: they receive premiums up front and pay out later. Although capital demands in health care are enormous, they are mostly the responsibility of hospitals and labs, not health insurers, whose investments are limited to the technology needed to accept or reject claims. Unlike life and property-and-casualty insurers, health-care insurers have no long-lasting liabilities. Their obligations usually last no more than one year. As a result, margins in the mid-single digits can produce returns on equity in the mid-teens or higher.

Accordingly, insurance shareholders and executives have been handsomely rewarded:

Shares of health insurers bottomed in early 2000�as it happened, just when tech stocks reached their peak. Since then, the prices of many have quadrupled. And if shareholders have done well, executives have been more than amply rewarded, according to Graef Crystal, a compensation expert. Presumably, boards judged that the industry-wide resurgence was the product of their companies’ individual strokes of genius. William McGuire, head of UnitedHealth Group of Minnesota, earned $30m in pay in 2003 and exercised $84m in stock options from earlier years. This left him with options worth $840m at the company’s current share price. Mr McGuire’s number two, Stephen Hemsely, earned $13.7m in compensation and holds options worth $350m. John Rowe, the head of Aetna, earned $16m, Larry Glasscock of Anthem $51m and Leonard Schaeffer of WellPoint $27m.

So, in short, working class people are being hosed, while the upper-tier folks are prospering.
Looks like the Bush economic plan is in full effect.