|
GEORGE
W. BUSH: ace of spades
($, CS, CH, CW, L, B, J) (what
do these signs mean?)
Dereliction
of duty - big time
Dereliction of duty seems to be a habit with George
W. Bush. Going AWOL
was nothing to be proud of. But it pales when compared
to his admitted behavior in the ongoing scandal over
the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.
The outing occurred in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert
Novak, who alone among reporters contacted by Senior
White House officials, ignored the CIA's request to
keep Plame's name private, and published the classified
information.
On
September 30, after the issue had become national news,
George W. Bush went on record as saying "Leaks
of classified information are bad things, and we've
had too many lately in Washington. We've had leaks from
the executive branch and leaks from the legislative
branch. I want to know who the leakers are."
Oddly,
on October 1, 2003, according to Nina Totenburg of NPR,
"the White House also asked for and got permission
earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive
to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned
federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait
a day, and who at the Justice Department told them they
could do that, and why?"
See:
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=1-Oct-2003
But
even setting this suspicious behavior aside, if Bush
is so concerned, where was he July 14? (Actually, he
was telling us another whopper that day - see below.)
Or any day until national attention forced him to address
this crime by his own people? Why did Press Secretary
McClellan say Bush has no intention of trying to find
out who committed serious felonies undermining national
security? Plame's work was in uncovering ways in which
WMDs could be used against the US. Her work was destroyed,
her field operatives possibly exposed to death, or killed.
So the White House could settle a grudge against a man
who told the truth.
Such
is our national security for George W. Bush.
This
story is continually deepening. The best sources are
the blogs. Check especially
http://atrios.blogspot.com/
http://www.calpundit.com/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
Hear
his biggest lie for yourself!
On July 14, 2003, George W. Bush said the following:
"We gave him [Saddam] a chance to allow the inspectors
in, and he wouldn't let them in." Of course, anyone
not brain dead or an infant during the months leading
up to our attack on Iraq was aware that Saddam did after
considerable pressure let UN inspectors in, and that
it was George W. Bush who opposed extending their inspections
because they were supposedly not effective. Are we making
this up? Check here:
See:
The
Washington Post
Joe
Conason has thoughtfully made it possible for you to
actually hear the broadcast in which Bush told what
is perhaps the most amazing lie of our times:
See:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2003/07/15/bush/
The
list of George W. Bush's acts of utter incompetence,
brazen dishonesty, and ruthless immorality given below
is by no means exhaustive. It is, however, big enough
to cause anyone who says that Clinton lied to hang their
head in shame if they think the records are in any way
similar. For more, and more depth, please go to Presidency
of Lies and Conservatives,
Liberals and the Radical Right.
Bush
and Big Government
- Bush
created the largest government department bureaucracy
in the history of the United States, called the "Bureau
of Homeland Security."
-
Bush set the all-time record for biggest annual budget
spending increases, more than any other president
in US history. The Congressional Budget Office has
forecast a federal budget deficit of $480 billion
in 2004, a record shortfall that many in Congress
say could go even higher. This is far above the previous
record of $290 billion reached in 1992. Once the cost
of the Iraqi war is included, the deficit will probably
exceed $500 billion.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082703I.shtml
-
After assurances to the contrary, Bush has requested
Congress to eliminate the sunset provision in the
Patriot Act, making it permanent. The act is now being
applied to many crimes having nothing to do with terrorism.
See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/28/politics/28LEGA.html
- Bush
is the first President to have the Federal Government
interfere in school content.
- Budget
growth under Bush was almost 5 times larger than under
Clinton, over twice as large as under Reagan, and
almost twice as large as under his father.
And
the economy
- Bush
spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury.
He falsely claimed that during his campaign he said
he would only run a deficit if war, recession, or
national emergency struck. Al Gore had said it, Bush
had not. Another lie.
See:
The
Washington Post
-
Bush has enabled the wealthiest part of America to
play an ever smaller role in supporting the country
as whole while between 2001 and 2002, an additional
1.7 million Americans fell into poverty and the poverty
rate increased 3.4 percent -- the largest absolute
and percentage increase in 10 years. (Poverty in the
United States: 2002, Census Bureau (news - web sites),
09-26-03)
See:
The
New York Times
-
Bush lied repeatedly about expert reactions to his
tax cuts.
See:
Spinsanity.org
And
the average working american and family
- In
his first two years in office over 2 million Americans
lost their job.
See:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0703-03.htm
- In
the first few months of 2003, the economy lost another
525,000 jobs.
See:
http://www.cardin.house.gov
- The
rate at which Americans are running out of their regular
unemployment benefits was higher last month than any
other February on record (going back to 1972). Nearly
327,000 workers exhausted regular unemployment compensation
in February - meaning that a record one out of every
two workers is running out of benefits. The total
number of workers exhausting unemployment benefits
has nearly doubled over the last two years.
See:
http://www.cardin.house.gov
- He
lied in his telling the American people that his tax
cut would go primarily to middle Americans.
"Most small businesses pay at the 39.6 percent
rate."
--President George W. Bush, March 22, 2001
"In fact, fewer than five percent of these 17.4
million individual and business owners and entrepreneur
pay the top rate. A total of only 691,000 taxpayers
in the nation (including taxpayers who are not small
business owners) paid the top rate in 1997, the latest
year for which these data are available."
--March 20 press release by the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.
See:
http://slate.msn.com/id/1007350/
- After
two years of tax cuts supposed to raise wages, in
September, 2003, non-farm wages and work hours remained
stagnant. In a separate report, the Labor Department
reported 8.9 million workers were unemployed in August,
essentially unchanged from July. Nearly 22% of them
had been without work for more than six months. Not
counted in the unemployment rate were 1.7 million
jobless people described as marginal or discouraged
workers. The number of discouraged or marginal workers
was 209,000 higher than August 2002.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/090603E.shtml
But, average pay increases for defense industry CEOs
rose 79% from 2001 to 2002.
See:
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=45307
- Bush
is trying to eliminate overtime provisions for millions
of workers,
See:
Bob
Herbert's piece in The New York Times
And
the environment
- Allowed
a net increase in air pollution from electric utilities
by unilaterally rolling back the Clean Air Act. Key
EPA administrators in making that decision then left
the agency within days to work for these utilities
and their lobbyists.
See:
http://www.nrdc.org/news/newsDetails.asp?nID=1091
This change in regulations occurred within a few weeks
of Northeastern states winning court cases against
utilities for violating the Clean Air Act. Very convenient
timing for Bush's corporate contributors.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/080903J.shtml
- The
White House directly interfered with EPA warnings
about the toxic fallout from the World Trade Center
collapse. It had "competing considerations"
that came before protecting the health of the people
of New York, particularly re-opening the stock exchange
as quickly as possible, and limiting clean-up costs
and liability claims. The agency was prevented from
publishing clean up instructions, while its warnings
about air quality were replaced by sunny statements
that all was safe.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/090503E.shtml
- Bush
is attempting to undermine the treaty that has successfully
ended destruction of the ozone layer. Ironically,
the Reagan administration ensured the treaty was adopted
in the first place. Bush is seeking to perpetuate
the use methyl bromide, the most ozone-destructive
chemical still employed in developed countries, otherwise
soon to be phased out. The US is responsible for a
quarter of the world's consumption of the chemical.
Under an extension to the 1997 Montreal Protocol,
the pesticide is being gradually phased out and replaced
with substitutes; its use in the West is due to end
completely in 2005.
See:
The
Independent of UK
- the
Bush administration has cut enforcement for key environmental
programs through steadily slashing budgets. Consequently,
environmental laws that should otherwise be enforced
by the Bush administration lie dormant on the books
for lack of funding. For example, the EPA is required
to review endangered species status reviews every
five years. Lack of funds and staff prevents it from
carrying out the law. This failure to fund executive
branch agencies so they can carryout their duties
violates Bush's pledge upon taking office to see that
the laws of the land are enforced.
-
In the case of toxic waste the Bush administration
has opposed requiring polluters to clean up their
own messes at toxic waste sites - unlike Presidents
Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
In fact, Bush has begun to use taxpayer money to pay
for the mess of corporate polluters and to cut back
overall on cleaning up existing sites. Then he does
not appropriate the funds needed to do the job. Last
year, the Bush administration cleaned up only 42 Superfund
toxic waste sites and expects to clean up approximately
40 sites this year. This is a more than 50 percent
decrease from the late 1990's when EPA cleaned up
an average of 87 sites per year. According to a congressionally
requested study completed in 2001, the Bush administration
has under-funded the Superfund program by between
$1.2 and $1.8 billion from 2001-2004, leaving communities
across America at risk of chemical exposure and the
diseases caused by toxic chemicals.
See:
http://uspirg.org
- Deceptive
labeling is the norm for environmental bills pushed
by the administration. For example, Bush's so-called
"Healthy Forests" proposal would open up
20 million acres of national forests to logging and
waive environmental laws. It would not require thinning
of forests close to communities threatened by fire,
but open up forests with more profitable timber far
from these towns for logging.
See:
http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/41431
The Bush administration claims that fuel-reduction
projects are being stalled by citizen appeals and
lawsuits, hence the need to make government more immune
from citizen input, but the General Accounting Office
(GAO) found that of the 1,671 Forest Service fuel-reduction
projects in fiscal year 2001, not one had been litigated
and only 1% of the projects had been appealed.
See:
http://www.nativeforest.org/press_room/release_8_22_02.htm
http://www.wildcalifornia.org/html/pressreleases-number-30.shtml
For
more on the environment and Bush go to this archive:
http://www.truthout.org/
also
see his environmental report card:
http://www.wweek.com/flatfiles/News4238.lasso
And
education
- The
"Education President's" education budget
for 2004 actually cuts $200 million from the president's
No Child Left Behind Act. This is a real cut - $200
million less than is being spent on a program that
was never funded to the extent that Bush claimed in
his speeches.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903F.shtml
-
Bush was elected in part because of his claims that
he drastically improved education in Houston. Rod
Paige, Houston's former superintendent of education
became Secretary of Education under Bush. The whole
charade is now demonstrated to be based on fraud.
See:
The
New York Times
- Fraud
also has been found to be common in Texas testing,
Bush style, and his centralized approach of one-size-fits-all
command-and-control education has already been rejected
by Montana as foolish and unwarranted.
See:
http://www.billingsnews.com/story?storyid=6731&issue=169
- Bush
urged expansion of Teach For America in his 2002 State
of the Union address. In September, 2003, House and
Senate negotiators stripped all government support
for the organization that sends talented teachers
into our poorest school districts. Bush spent no apparent
effort trying to back his cheap words with action
- and many poor students will suffer as a result.
See:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0926/p11s03-coop.html
- Bush
lied on October 25, 2002: "In return for the
biggest increase in education spending in a long,
long time we expect every child to be educated."
TRUTH: the 15.8 percent increase in Department of
Education discretionary spending for fiscal year 2002
(the figures the White House supplied when asked about
Bush's statement) was below the 18.5 percent increase
under Clinton the previous year-and Bush had wanted
a much smaller increase than Congress approved.
See:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2073164
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61903-2002Oct21.html
And
corporations and crony capitalists
- Using
the confusion of war, on May 22, 2003, Bush issued
an Executive Order creating a new American aristocracy
enjoying special privileges mere citizens are denied.
This covers immunity from any wrong doing by American
corporations involved in the Iraqi oil industry. The
new aristocrats are, of course, his corporate friends.
See:
The
Los Angeles Times
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8466
- Bush
is the all-time US (and world) record holder for most
corporate campaign donations. For an unopposed Republican
primary race in 2004, he will raise more than Ronald
Reagan, his father, and Robert Dole, combined.
- Bush
presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud
in any market in any country in the history of the
world. Many of the fraudulent techniques used were
apparently also done by Bush himself, but he refuses
to allow the SEC investigation of his actions to be
released.
- Bush
set the record for most campaign fund raising trips
by any president in US history. Bush raised $200 million
for a primary where he is unopposed. He then sent
out letters claiming that he was short of cash compared
to his Democratic opponents.
- Bush
presided over the biggest energy crises in US history
and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
His administration blamed environmentalists for the
blackouts which were caused by corporate energy manipulators.
- The
biggest lifetime contributor to his campaigns, who
is (was?) also one of his best friends, presided over
one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in
world history (Kenneth
Lay, former CEO of Enron
Corporation).
- Halliburton,
the company formerly headed by Vice President Cheney,
has won contracts worth more than $1.7 billion under
Operation Iraqi Freedom and stands to make hundreds
of millions more dollars under a no-bid contract awarded
by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The size and
scope of the government contracts awarded to Halliburton
in connection with the war in Iraq are significantly
greater than was previously disclosed. Independent
experts estimate that as much as one-third of the
monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping U.S. troops in
Iraq is going to independent contractors.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/082903B.shtml
- Bechtel
has accused Halliburton of a monopoly on federal contracts
in Iraq.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/080903A.shtml
- While
involved with Harken,
Bush personally participated in and benefited from
the same kinds of corporate shifty business he later
denounced after the fall of Enron. He gave hypocrisy
a bad name here.
See:
http://www.salon.com/
- The
average Californian was bilked of more than $250 by
energy companies during the manipulated "energy
crisis," but the state will receive compensation
of about 3 cents. In addition, California wanted out
of contracts signed under duress. Bush's FERC had
the power to abrogate those contracts. But in June,
on a 2-to-1 vote (yes, two Republicans against one
Democrat), the commission upheld those contracts.
Paul Krugman concluded "So California, the victim
of one of the worst abuses of market power since the
robber baron era, will get no redress."
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/090303F.shtml
Foreign policy
- Bush
gave the American people relentlessly and almost uniformly
false reports as to why we should attack Iraq. (The
one truthful one was that Hussein was a bad man.)
See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html
- The
Bush administration refused to act on information
about terrorist attacks against the US provided to
them by the out going Clinton administrations foreign
policy experts. For details, see Sidney Blumenthal,
The Clinton Wars, pp. 795-7.
- Bush
has done all he can to prevent a serious investigation
of the events leading up to 9-11. The latest commission
on the issue has concluded a cover up exists. If this
does not prove he has something to hide, it is difficult
to imagine what would?
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/081603A.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/081203A.shtml
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/073003A.shtml
Article
in The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54724-2003Sep23.html
-
Bush unilaterally dissolved more international treaties
than any president in US
history.
-
Bush was the first president in US history to order
a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign
nation, and did so on the basis of relentlessly false
reports to the American people.
See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39500-2003Aug9.html
- He
lied in his promise to fund Afghanistan's rebuilding
after the war.
See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1044925,00.html
-
Bush launched this war against the will of the United
Nations and the vast majority of the international
community. If the UN didn't support him, it would
be "irrelevant" he said. Now he seeks that
same community to pull our chestnuts out of the fire
by putting their troops under his "leadership"
in Iraq and their money under his control.
-
George Bush declared, "The terrorist threat to
America and the world will be diminished the moment
Saddam Hussein is disarmed." (March 13, 2003)
Yet many months after the end of major combat operations,
no evidence has been found linking Saddam with any
terrorist organization and Americans are dying every
day in Iraq from terrorist attacks conducted by Iraqis
in their own country.
-
Bush withdrew from the World Court of Law. The treaty
would only require extradition of accused criminals
who were not going to be tried in their own country.
See:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/070703H.shtml
-
Bush refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners
of war and by
default no longer abides by the Geneva Conventions,
which used to be a means of distinguishing between
civilized and uncivilized governments.
See:
http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forum/forumnew47.php
- Bush
set the all-time record for most people worldwide
to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me
(15 million people), shattering the record for protest
against any person in the history of mankind.
- Bush
took the world's sympathy for the US after 9/11,and
in less than
a year made the US perhaps the most resented country
in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure
in US history).
- Bush
has squandered his opportunity to keep Afghanistan
from reverting to the oppressive and anti-western
society it was before we ousted the Taliban.
See:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1044925,00.html
Bush and the military
- During
wartime, Bush cut health care benefits for war veterans.
See:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1222-01.htm
- "We
will not cut corners when it comes to the defense
of our great land," Bush said in 2002. In September,
2003, Bush then quietly abandoned a plan to protect
troop-transport airliners from missile attack by terrorists
or Saddam loyalists.
See:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/09/27/missiles/../index.html
- Under
Bush, the Army and Air Force failed to obey Congress'
orders to create baseline medical records for soldiers
sent to overseas war zones, in this case Iraq, Congress'
General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded in a September,
2003 report. Failure to follow the law rates were
as high as 98%. The law was passed so the health effects
of fighting with modern weapons that resulted in breathing
depleted uranium dust and such would be more clear,
unlike in the first Gulf War. Administration concern
for our troops seems limited to photo ops.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/8995
-
Bush went AWOL after using connections to get into
the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War. For
full documentation, see
See:
http://www.awolbush.com/
-
The US now spends as much on defense as the rest of
the world combined yet under Bush we have not spent
the vastly smaller sums needed to safeguard our ports
against terrorist attacks.
And
democracy
- The
greatest threat to democracy in American history is
the efforts by Bush and his allies to create a one
party machine through graft and corporate favoritism.
See this important essay by Paul Krugman, as well
as our own discussion in the essay
on conservatism.
See:
The
Krugman essay in The New York Times
And
moral corruption in government
And
personal failings
-
Bush is the first president in US history to enter
office with a criminal record.
See:
http://pearly-abraham.tripod.com/htmls/bush-arrests.html
- In
his first year in office Bush set the all-time record
for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation,
he presided over the worst security failure in US
history. He then sought to eliminate overtime for
millions of American working people.
- All
records of his tenure as governor of Texas have been
spirited away to his father's library, sealed in secrecy
and unavailable for public view.
- All
records of any SEC investigations into his insider
trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy
and unavailable for public view.
- All
minutes of meetings of any public corporation for
which he served on the board are sealed in secrecy
and unavailable for public view.
- Any
records or minutes from meetings he (or
his VP) attended regarding public energy policy
are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public revie
|
