This week's fatal film flicker is "The Skulls," an "unintentionally hilarious Ivy League thriller, filmed through a yellowy haze perhaps intended to convey the golden light of the groves of academe, although what it actually suggests is a terrible ragweed season in Connecticut. I suppose "The Skulls" is vaguely meant to cash in on popular curiosity about George W. Bush (if there is any) and his purported connection to the secret Skull and Bones society at Yale. Surely it's also meant as a vehicle for Joshua Jackson, a star of TV's "Dawson's Creek," who in fact bears a slight resemblance to the young Dubyah. But if this attractive young man wants a vehicle, he should head out to Auto Row and buy himself a Lexus. This one's a pile of crap that won't start." --Andrew O'Hehir

POPPY, JUNIOR, KEN STARR, AND ERIN BROCKOVICH

We often think that people aren't outraged about George W. Bush's protection of corporations and industries at the expense of public health and the environment because the connection isn't immediately seen. Take Bush's tort "reform" laws that he has backed since he has been governor. Bush and his corporate backers claim that these "reforms" keep our costs down by preventing trial lawyers from ripping off businesses through "nuisance" law suits, and they provide horrific anecdotal examples to make their case. The truth of the matter is that tort "reform" laws create a higher cost to the public and a greater danger to people by giving corporations more leeway in what they do because they have less fear of being sued for doing it. And as we learn, year after year, more corporate decisions are made on the basis of the bottom line than of doing the moral or the ethical thing. In case after case, we learn that corporate lawyers instruct their clients to make decisions on the basis of what is cost effective vs. how much they would have to pay out if a case ever comes to court. Too often, the same amoral way of thinking applies to politics, and the fact is the largest share of Bush campaign contributions comes from corporate lawyers and the corporations they represent, the greatest beneficiaries of Bush tort "reform." --Politex, 3/28/00

"The plot of "Erin Brockovich, a film which stars Julie Roberts, " involves a giant electric utility that, for many years, has been casually polluting the water of a small California community with a toxic rust-prevention chemical called hexavalent chromium. Adding insult to such horrific injuries as breast and colon cancer, the utility firm has purposely misinformed its working-class neighbors, telling them that the chemical leaching from vast open pits into their water supply is good for them (which it would have been, if it had happened to be another type of chromium that is an essential human nutrient, but of course it wasn't)....

"Motivated by the awful suffering of the families who have been unwittingly poisoned by this corporate crime, Erin Brockovich organizes them to assert their rights in court against Pacific Gas and Electric. She rummages through public records and develops sources like an investigative reporter until she and her boss have enough evidence to confront the utility. But before the story reaches its exhilarating payoff -- a settlement in the hundreds of millions -- Brockovich, her boss and their plaintiffs must leap the imposing hurdles of the judicial system.

"That is where the roles of Bush, Starr, the Federalist Society and Congress become pertinent, even though the director and screenwriter didn't include them. Bush (along with his father, the former president) has pushed hard to curtail such litigation, on the grounds that punitive-damages awards are onerous to business and that frivolous lawsuits are clogging the courts. As solicitor general in the Bush administration, and later as a corporate appeals lawyer specializing in tort cases, Starr has often made the same arguments, echoing his friends in the Federalist Society and their allies on Capitol Hill.

"For reasons best known to them -- but just possibly having to do with the enormous sums of money flowing into their campaign and personal accounts from major corporate defendants -- these conservative legal philosophers apparently believe that ordinary Americans ought to be defenseless against corporate depredations of the kind chronicled in "Erin Brockovich." First, they gutted the capacity of the federally funded Legal Services Corp. to bring class-action lawsuits against corporate malefactors on behalf of clients too poor to hire their own attorneys. Then they weakened enforcement of consumer, workplace safety and environmental statutes by federal agencies. And finally, they have tried to strip away the protections provided by tort laws, under which attorneys of the sort played by Albert Finney and Peter Coyote in this movie seek justice for injured plaintiffs -- and share in the proceeds only if they win. The punitive damages awarded in tort lawsuits do more than occasionally enrich such lawyers and their clients. The loss of millions or even billions because of faulty products and polluting plants is a potent method of encouraging better corporate citizenship." --Joe Conason

"A WP front-pager announces that in 1999, federal income tax fell below 10 percent for the vast majority of Americans, the lowest level in four decades (this calculation doesn't count Social Security or Medicare taxes, which have risen since the 1970s). Apparently, George W. Bush doesn't agree; earlier this month he alleged that, "after eight years of Clinton-Gore, we have the highest tax burden since World War II." He has suggested a $1.1 trillion to $1.7 trillion cut over 10 years. The piece highlights a couple of instances of bad accounting on Bush's part. He arrived at his current estimation of the tax burden by dividing tax revenue (both personal and corporate) into the nation's gross domestic product. The GDP includes capital gains taxes but not capital gains earnings, making Bush's numbers inflated. The piece also finds flaws with the "Bush Tax Calculator" posted on the candidate's Web site: for example, it analyzes the tax burden for low-income parents without taking the earned-income tax credit into account. Bush's plan would award 60 percent of the cuts to the wealthiest 10 percent of taxpayers. However, the online calculator doesn't run numbers for those who earn more than $100,000." --Jodi Kantor

ADVISER CLARIFIES BUSH'S APPEAL TO WOMEN VOTERS

"God does not forbid women to be leaders in society, . . . but when that occurs it's usually because of the abdication of men. As in the situation of Deborah and Barak, there's a certain shame attached to it. I would vote for a woman for the presidency, in some situations, but again, there's a certain shame attached. Why don't you have a man who's able to step forward? God's Word says very plainly that an elder is to be a man; he is to be the husband of one wife. It's harder when there are women who are CEOs of companies and so forth. Still, it comes down to the question of `Do we trust God and do we believe that He has wisdom that we don't have.' " --Marvin Olasky, Bush adviser for faith-based institutions policy and creator of Bush's brand of, "compassionate conservatism," from an interview in the Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Ivins, 3/26/00. Note: A Democrat coined the term, "compassionate conservative," which was later recycled by Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich. The Bush-approved pronunciation of "conservatism" is "conservativism."

BUSH MISLEADS TEACHERS, STUDENTS RE ED RECORD

Excerpts of exchanges between George W. Bush and two panelists at an education forum Friday at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.:

Nancy Rousseau, principal of Pulaski Middle School: "I want to put in a quick plug for teachers, because that's where success lies in education."

Bush: "Absolutely."

Rousseau: "We have to, nationwide, make our teacher salaries competitive, so that we can continue to get credible teachers who want to teach and who can teach."

Bush: "Right, I agree. I just caution you not to expect the federal government to be paying teachers more money. First of all, it's just budgetarily impossible. Secondly, it flies in the face of the philosophy that I believe."

Rousseau: "Well, it's a message that needs to be sent."

Bush: "I agree with that, I agree with that. As a matter of fact, in our state, I can proudly report that I signed a teacher pay increase of $3,000 per teacher." AP, 3/25/00

While Bush is not guilty of any outright lies in the above exchange, he sure is guilty of misleading folks. First off, Bush does not believe in earmarking education funds for teachers even on the state level, let alone the federal level. Secondly, Bush is implying that he favored the teacher pay increase when he says "I can proudly report." This is simply not true. It is true that he physically signed a bill to increase teachers' pay in Texas, but that was only under duress. He started out two summers ago reminding teachers of a previous pay raise they never got. After he apologized for his error, he then said the state would send the local districts money for numerous things and the districts could use some of that money for teacher raises, if desired.

By the time the most recent Texas legislative session began, the state was to give "1 billion additional dollars to local districts to raise salaries, or hire more teachers to reduce class size." The actual bill began with only beginning teachers getting raises. It's been foot dragging by Bush every. Step. Of . The. Way. Why? Teachers don't give him money; Theocratic school voucher backers like "Sugar Daddy" Leininger do. It's that simple. The House-Dems hung in there on this one, finally getting a $1.7 billion wage package for across-the-board teacher raises. This is where some of the Bush tax-cut money went, and this is why Bush tried to cut money out of kindergarten funding at the last minute in order to beef up his tax-cut package. Bush is now claiming teacher pay raises as his victory. The facts say otherwise and those Little Rock teachers and students should be told the truth. --Politex, 3/25

GORE FIGHTS TEX FOR "MR. ED" TITLE

Gore, who is battling Republican George W. Bush to be the Mr. Education in this race, stormed L'Anse Creuse Middle School North [in Macomb, Mich.] with an entourage of aides, Secret Service agents and news media on Friday.Weirdest was Gore's foray into Sally Hannert's drama class, where the kids volunteered him for the lead role in one of their "gibberish" exercises. Gore looked wary as Hannert asked, "Can you speak gibberish?"
"Unfortunately, yes," he chuckled.
His assignment: act without using real words the part of a father scolding his daughter for bad grades. Gore performed with great flourish and animation: "Wa woo ubb wuh, wuh-bub. ..."
Asked later if Gore had practiced for his nonsense babble, campaign press secretary Chris Lehane quipped, "We're getting ready for our debates with Bush." --AP, 3/24/00

BUSH HAS A REASON FOR SPEAKING. HE IS SPEAKING THIS FOR A REASON. SPEAK BUSH, SPEAK. SEE BUSH SPEAK.

"I've got a reason for running. I talk about a larger goal, which is to call upon the best of America. It's part of the renewal. It's reform and renewal. Part of the renewal is a set of high standards and to remind people that the greatness of America really does depend on neighbors helping neighbors and children finding mentors. I worry. I'm very worried about, you know the kid who just wonders whether America is meant for him. I really worry about that. And uh, so, I'm running for a reason. I'm answering this question here and the answer is, you cannot lead America to a positive tomorrow with revenge on one's mind. Revenge is so incredibly negative. And so to answer your question, I'm going to win because people sense my heart, know my sense of optimism and know where I want to lead the country. And I tease people by saying, "A leader, you can't say, follow me the world is going to be worse." I'm an optimistic person. I'm an inherently content person. I've got a great sense of where I want to lead and I'm comfortable with why I'm running. And, you know, the call on that speech was, beware. This is going to be a tough campaign." --George W. Bush, 3/23/00

"I am terribly confused, and I'm turning to Bush Watch in my hour of need. I have complete faith that Bush Watch and its readers can help me with my problem and restore my equanimity. "Juntos pedemos," as they say in Houston. I'm counting on you all. I've been spending an enormous amount of time (several hours, in fact) trying to understand what, exactly, it is that Bush the Younger is saying about education. This is, after all, the issue on which all the pundits seem to agree that Bush has actual ideas, with actual content, which are not quite as ludicrous as, say, his tax cut or his long-standing championship of photogenic breast cancer activists. Education, in other words, is supposed to be where we're gonna fish or cut bait. Anyway, as I understand it, Bush's education "reforms" involve four key ingredients: mandatory standardized testing, funding sanctions against public schools, the creation of charter schools, and a voucher program. There appears to be a fairly complex relationship among these features of the plan. more

People are starting to get real antsy about the rising price of oil, particularly those voters who have invested in SUV's and are finding their commutes to be getting nearly as costly as their mortgage payments, as the price of gasoline begins to near the $2/gallon mark. This is a great time for one of the presidential candidates to step in and save the day, gathering in November IOU's from the voters at the same time. George W. Bush, for one, probably thinks that would be a great move, particularly since, in the mind of at least one economic pundit, he was instrumental in causing the shortage in the first place. more

1st in Children without Health Insurance %...1st in Toxic Air Releases...1st in Smog Days (Houston)...1st in poorest counties(3)...3rd in Hunger %...5th in Highest Teen Birth Rate...41st in Breast Cancer Screenings...45th in Mothers Receiving Pre-Natal Care...46th in Public Libraries and Branches...46th in High School Completion Rate...46th in Water Resources Protection...47th in Delivery of Social Services...48th in Literacy...48th in Per Capita Funding for Public Health...48 in Best Place to Raise Children (29th before Bush)*...48th in Spending for Parks and Recreation...48th in Spending for the Arts...49th in Spending for the Environment...50th in Women with Health Insurance...50th in Teachers' Salaries plus Benefits... *Children's Rights Council. further documentation
Only one accredited child-care center exists for every 2,637 children. A fourth of children still are not immunized by age 2. --Texas Freedom Network.

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