For my 1000th post,can we list all the scandals for this adm?

I suppose that the most frustrating component of the Bush Administration is the sheer number of scandals associated with Bush,Cheney,et al.It's easy to lose track of the multiple conflicts of interest,scandals,security breaches,screw-ups,crimes against Americans,treasonous acts,impeachable offenses,etc.Can you help me compile a list of these for future reference?I love each and every one of you at DU.You all contribute to this board with your individual gifts,and together,it is<usually> a beautiful thing.Thank you all.

Happy 1000th! :hi:

http://www.sfbg.com/reality/04.html

According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1988 and last winter(2000), Cheney, as CEO of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad....

You got your Abu Grhaib's
Your Halliburtons
Your Sibel Edmonds
Oh hell, just go here for 34 of the best from the 1st 4 years..

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/18/scandal/

Congressman Henry Waxman wants information on pacts awarded to a defense contractor whose board of directors includes President Bush's uncle.

by Walter F. Roche Jr., The Los Angeles Times
March 4th, 2005

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11935

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=5633

-snip-
The controversy with Cheney came to a head in December after U.S. District Court Judge John Bates, citing separation of powers, ruled that Walker lacked sufficient grounds to compel Cheney to disclose the records of a White House energy task force that he had headed.

Walker had filed the suit against Cheney in February 2002 at the request of House Democrats. This was the first time in its 81-year history that the GAO, acting in its capacity as the investigative arm of Congress, sued the executive branch to obtain withheld information
-snip-

by Timothy J. Burger, New York Daily News
January 18th, 2002





Vice President Cheney tried to help Enron collect a $64 million debt from a giant energy project in India, government documents obtained by the Daily News show.

"Good news is that the veep mentioned Enron in his meeting with Sonia Gandhi yesterday," a National Security Council aide wrote in a June 28 e-mail.

Two other e-mails indicate that President Bush was to bring the subject up with Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but the idea was scrapped before they met.

The documents are the latest indication that there were contacts between the Bush administration and Enron on issues directly related to the company's business. The White House maintains Enron enjoyed no special favors from the White House or Cheney.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans have conceded that they spoke with Enron chief Kenneth Lay last fall about the energy giant's impending failure, but they insist they refused to help.

The new documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, indicate Cheney took a key role in pushing the Maharashtra State Electricity Board to make good on the huge debt claimed by Enron for a power plant it built in Dabhol, India.

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1343

Propaganda, civilian killing, and generally conspiring against the United States since Day 1!

We'd have to list every single thing the repigs have done for the last 5 years in order to list all their crimes. It would fill all the newspapers and internet sites and then some.

Frist's insider trading, DeLay's illegal redistricting, Cunningham's bribery and fraud, Abramhoff's corruption, Libby - Rove and Cheney's treason, Chimp's lie during a SOTU address, the Supreme Court selection in 2000, the OSP, The WHIG, the Swift Boat Vets, Powell's lies to the UN, the Schiavo Act pandering, all the Katrina lies, it just goes on and on and on.

My obscure favorite: Jeb Bush's son was arrested for being drunk in public on National Prayer Day.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0129-05.htm
The Bush administration was confronted with fresh evidence of a far-reaching clandestine campaign to influence public opinion yesterday after a third conservative commentator admitted receiving payments for championing its policies.
-snip-
Michael McManus, a newspaper columnist, was paid up to $10,000 (£5,300) to praise the administration's marriage initiative, which diverts funds from welfare to marital counseling, the Los Angeles Times reported.
-snip-

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday that Ms Gallagher received $21,500 from the department of health and human services, and $20,000 from the justice department for championing the initiative in her syndicated newspaper columns.
-snip-

The first sign of a political payola scandal erupted this month when USA Today reported that Armstrong Williams, a conservative African-American columnist, had been paid $240,000 by the education department to champion the administration's controversial policies in his print, radio and television outlets.

Mr Williams was paid through Ketchum PR, the public relations firm also involved in producing fake "news pieces" last year that touted the administration's prescription drug bill. Some US television stations put the clips straight on the air.

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has sharply limited the information he is willing to let Congress see on a controversial defense contract that is the focus of multiple investigations.

Rumsfeld took a hard line even with fellow Republicans who want information from him about a proposed $23 billion deal for the Air Force to buy and lease 100 Boeing 767 aerial refueling tankers. Rumsfeld's refusal to give senators all the materials they requested could provoke a rare congressional subpoena
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11366

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6532
Last month, multi-billionaire Riley Bechtel was sworn in as a member of President Bush's Export Council to advise the government on how to create markets for American companies overseas.
-snip-
Last week when the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the contract, Tom Hash, president of Bechtel National, released a brief statement: "Bechtel is honored to have been asked to help bring humanitarian assistance, economic recovery, and infrastructure reconstruction to the Iraqi people."

The initial contract is capped at $680 million over 18 months, although experts say this may be one of the biggest export bonanzas in history that could eventually be worth up to $100 billion. Eventually Iraqi citizens will probably be handed the bill, most likely to be financed out of the country's oil revenues
-snip-

For Bechtel was just like old times. Twenty years ago, in December 20, 1983 Middle East peace envoy Donald Rumsfeld arrived in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, on a special mission from George Shultz (then secretary of state for President Ronald Reagan) to meet with Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld asked the Iraqi dictator to support Bechtel's bid on construction of an oil pipeline from Iraq to the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Last September, the Army signed a $665m (£460m) contract to develop the Crusader Advanced Field Artillery System, a $12bn weapons programme being built by United Defense Industries (UDI). Last week, Mr Bush signed a defence appropriation bill which included $487m for the programme.

This has helped Carlyle Group, the well-connected Washington-based investment group, which controls UDI, to float the defence contractor on the New York stock exchange.

-snip-

Last month Carlyle sold $225m of shares in UDI in the flotation, retaining a 54 per cent stake worth $560m. But questions are being asked on Capitol Hill because of close links between Carlyle and the Bush administration, and because a Pentagon advisory panel recommended cancelling the Crusader
-snip-
Its chairman is Frank Carlucci, who was Defence Secretary in the Reagan administration and is a close friend of Donald Rumsfeld, the current Defence Secretary. The two were members of the same wrestling team at Princeton University. The chairman of Carlyle Europe is John Major, the former British Prime Minister. An adviser to Carlyle in Asia is George Bush Snr, the former president and father of the current president. And George W Bush himself was, for five years, on the board of Caterair, a business Carlyle backed.

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1331

The Defense Department is unable to track how it spent tens of millions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the U.S. war on terrorism, Congress's top investigator said. While there was no doubt that appropriated funds were spent, "trying to figure out what they were spent on is like pulling teeth," he said, referring to an accounting effort that is under way for Congress.
-snip-
While there was no doubt that appropriated funds were spent, "trying to figure out what they were spent on is like pulling teeth," Walker said, referring to an accounting effort he said was under way for Congress.

The Defense Department had no immediate comment.

Overall, Walker said the Defense Department, which is seeking $419.3 billion for its fiscal 2006 budget, was wasting billions of dollars a year because of ineffective management of its business operations.

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12083

http://www.truthout.org/docs_05/011905D.shtml

Print it out, send it to Harry Reid, or just read it and weep. Here are 34 scandals from the first four years of George W. Bush's presidency - every one of them worse than Whitewater.

corruption.

http://www.zipcon.net/stdale/scorecard.htm

1. Cheney's secret Energy Task Force

2. Ashcroft's illegal campaign contributions in 2000

3. Boeing I - the $23 billion tanker lease deal

4. Boeing II - the $1.3 billion surveillance aircraft boondoggle

5. Bush-Cheney 2000's failure to report $14 million spent on "recount" activities

6. Haliburton in Iraq

7. Haliburton in Nigeria

8. The Valerie Plame outing

9. Withholding information about the Medicare bill costs

10. Daniel Montgomery, Director of the ATSB, accepting illegal gifts from airlines.

11. John Korsmo, FHFB chair and his wife Michelle, a DOL official, involved in illegal political fundraising.

12. The suspension of Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers in violation of Title 5 whistleblower protections.

13. The Iraqi National Congress' use of government funds to lobby for war.

14. Misuse of the Secret Service and other security to shield the President and Vice President from dissent on the campaign trail.

15. Abuse of the Presidential Records Act, to shield Reagan, Bush I and Bush II from scrutiny, and leaking information about Clinton pardons.

16. DOJ and Interior blocking the investigation of oil leases that cheated American Indian nations.

17. Charges by John Dean that Bush knowingly violated the terms of the Iraq war resolution.

18. Diversion of $700 million in Afghan war funds to preparations for Iraq invasion.

19. Failure to account for $40 billion in 9/11 emergency response funds.

20. Use of IRS web site to disseminate political messages from RNC press releases.

21. Administration appointees with fraudulent academic credentials, including an Assistant and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and a member of the National Commission on Presidential Scholars.

22. HHS ethics investigations, including Thomas Scully negotiating a new job representing companies that directly benefit from his work as Medicare chief.

23. The non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the administration engaged in illegal propaganda with its fake news segments about the new Medicare law.

24. Rumsfeld's phony list of Iraqi contractors, provided to Rep. Ike Skelton, that doesn't include key Abu Ghraib players Titan and CACI, or Vinnell, MPRI Int., SAIC, Eagle Group, etc.

25. The Defense Department failure to submit the required quarterly reports on how supplemental authorizations have been spent since May 9, 2003, a report that covered spending through February 28, 2003.

26. A dozen current and former truckers say they risked their lives driving across Iraq in empty trucks more than 100 times while "dodging bullets, bricks and homemade bombs" -- trips their employer, a Halliburton subsidiary, billed to the U.S. government.

27. Deputy AG James Comey's attempt to improperly influence the Supreme Court deliberations and/or poison any potential jury pool in the Jose Padilla 'unlawful combatant' case.

28. The DoD/DoJ coverup of the chain of command responsibility for Abu Ghraib tortures. As of 6/9/04, no commissioned officer is facing Court Martial charges for the events at the prison.
<
29. Attorney General John Ashcroft's obstruction of Congressional investigators by refusing to provide an unclassified memorandum reported to instruct Administration officials on methods to avoid culpability for torture and other war crime violations against prisoners.

30. Using Doug Feith, a political employee, to award no-bid contracts, coordinated with the Vice President's Chief of Staff, to the Vice President's former firm, Haliburton.

31. Bush's putting ideology above science in policy development, resulting in, among other things, allowing a Cabinet Secretary to withhold evidence in a Congressional Hearing and permitting idustry lobbyists to write mercury pollution legislation according to their profit desires instead of sound science.

32. Attorney General John Ashcroft giving false evidence under oath, according to the testimony of two FBI agents.

33. The Justice Department release without trial of terror suspect Nabil al-Marabh for deportation to Syria.

34. The Department of Homeland security awarding a high-level security clearance to Faisal Gill despite his submitting an application that concealed his association with indicted terrorist Abdurahman Alamoudi.

35. John A. Shaw, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, conducting "...unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts," and using the results "...to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients."

36. Bush officials editing the EPA report on NYC air quality after 9/11 in a way that "added reassuring statements and deleted cautionary statements."

37. Misuse of a technology contract with Affiliated Contract Services to employ interrogators at Gitmo.

38. Leaking the identity of Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan, the al Qaida double agent in Pakistan.

39. The EPA delivered an advance copy of a rule for commercial laundries to industry representatives for editing, letting the industry define the regulation.

40. A GAO audit finds the Defense Department has an error rate of 95% in payroll accounting for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

41. The neo-con cabal operating out of Doug Feith's DoD office, ranging from the espionage investigation of Larry Franklin through the House and Senate investigations of a broader pattern of misbehavior surrounding Feith's operation.

42. The GAO reports that corporations are permitted to bid for US government contracts while using subsidiaries in foreign tax havens to gain a competetive bidding advantage.

43. HHS deleting a chart from its annual report that revealed the cost increases for Medicare recipients until Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) noticed its absence and demanded disclosure.

44. John Ashcroft's publicity tours to support passage of the PATRIOT, which, as Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) points out, apparently violate laws that prohibit lobbying by executive branch officials.

45. Conditions in the prisons operated by the BIA, which Interior officials report have produced at least 11 fatalities, 236 suicide attempts and 632 escapes since the Bush administration took office.

46. Department of Interior mismanagement of the Indian land trusts, and their legal battles against tribal efforts to gain compensation, despite repeated judical sanctions for misconduct and malfeasance.

47. The GAO found the Bush administration vioalted the law by allowing the insurance industry to impose illegal limits on Medicare recipients under a managed care trial program.

48. A serious breach of homeland security reponsiblities has occured as the Bush administration has sent an aging fleet of Coast Guard vessels into an expanded mission with an understaffed, inexperienced corps of Coasties.


Congress:


49. The NRCC's illegal transfer of $500,000 in soft money to ineligible recipients during the 1999 primary season.

50. The House leadership censored the C-SPAN cameras in the chamber during the three hours the they were harassing members to switch their votes, locking the cameras on the Democratic side of the chamber.

51. DeLay selling influence to Westar Energy.

52. DeLay using the FAA to chase the Texas "Killer D's."

53. Rep. Tom Davis using his chairmanship of the House Government Reform Committee to block the Haliburton investigations.

54. Rep. Joe Barton using his franking privelege to contact voters outside the District he was elected to represent.

55. DeLay's PAC contributions to House Ethics investigators.

56. DeLay directing Texas Republican Peter Cloeren to channel contributions to out of state PACs in order to evade FEC contribution limits in a Texas Congressional race.

57. The Republican Congress not only failed to tighten of the rules requiring pensions to set aside enough money to meet their obligations, but actually loosened them, giving the biggest flexibility was given to the most troubled industries.

58. Senate Judiciary Committee computer theft.

59. The Nick Smith bribe.

60. Tom DeLay's illegal Texas legislative contributions.

61. Tom DeLay's bogus “Celebrations for Children” charity, used as a front for political receptions.

62. Tom DeLay's abuse of Treasury Department personnel for political puposes by ordering a a partisan analysis of John Kerry’s tax plan.

63. Bill Frist's financial stake in a medical malpractice insurer, while pushing malpractice "reform" in the Senate.

64. Rep. Henry Bonilla's American Dream PAC, which has contributed less than 9% of its funds to the minority candidates it was chartered to assist.

Why are Dems allowing them to remain in office....shouldn't we do SOMETHING? I know, dumb question.

..after i assemble a good amount of links,I plan to send this to EVERY one of them,plus Olberman.

http://www.onrc.org/press/072.salmongate.html

In 2002, the Administration overturned efforts to improve water flows to protect salmon in the Klamath River, ignoring pleas from Native Americans, commercial fishermen, local governments, and conservationists. The move benefited politically-powerful irrigation interests, but in September of 2002 the resulting low flows sparked a catastrophic fish kill.

http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/pioneers04/who_scandal.html

Corporate Scandals
At least 148 of the 642 elite 2000 and 2004 Bush donors (23 percent) have been involved in corporate scandals or helped run companies involved in them. At least 100 of the 2004 elite donors (19 percent) have corporate-scandal status.

:hug:




Demand category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana!!!

Join me in flooding Washington! Louisiana groups have launched an effort to generate 300,000 e-mails demanding category 5 protection for New Orleans and Southern Louisiana. That means effective levees and flood control projects as well as comprehensive coastal wetlands restoration to give Southern Louisiana a critical storm buffer. Please take a second to help spread the word!

Take action now at http://www.democracyinaction.org/GRN/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=1521

:yourock:

:hug:

waiting for knee surgery..he keeps getting bumped for the inconsiderate soldiers who keep getting their arms and legs blown off:sarcasm:

... all those poor kids. :cry:

Led by President George W. Bush's own clan, 13 U.S. families bred two or more elite donors who raised at least $100,000 for the 2000 or 2004 campaigns. Seven Bush family members raised $100,000 or more for at least one of his campaigns. Brother Neil Bush and cousin Elsie Walker also took the 2000 Pioneer pledge but failed to reach their $100,000 Pioneer target.
http://www.tpj.org/pioneers/pioneers04/who_multi.html

...I just want to wish for you that your son could be home,safe & sound, with you.

Best wishes to you, w8liftinglady :hug:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm

There are several ways in which the Bush family plays into the Savings and Loan scandal, which involves not only many members of the Bush family but also many other politicians that are still in office and still part of the Bush Jr. administration today. Jeb Bush, George Bush Sr., and his son Neil Bush have all been implicated in the Savings and Loan Scandal, which cost American tax payers over $1.4 TRILLION dollars (note that this is about one quarter of our national debt).

UNDER-REPORTING BUSH'S AWOL PROBLEM

From the very beginning, the mainstream media neglected to adequately report on Bush's failure to complete his six-year obligation to the Texas Air National Guard. They gave the story a superficial glance, but there was virtually no deep investigative reporting. In short, Bush got a free pass by the Guard and by the mass media, presumably because his father was a political heavy.

Although the circumstantial evidence certainly seemed to point to Bush being AWOL from duty -- key payroll and medical records went mysteriously missing, no comrades in arms stepped forward to verify that Bush had completed his tour of duty (even when thousands of dollars were offered to anyone who could provide evidence of such), etc. -- there seemed to be no definitive proof, one way or the other. "This story is Old News," the Bush Campaign kept saying, hoping that incantation would work its disappearing magic.
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays/awol-scandal.htm

Early in stolen term one, * ,by executive order IIRC, prevented Bush I's papers to be released as well as Reagan's. Previously after Watergate the law was that after a # of years pass after a president's term (20?) all of their papers are to released publicly unless it would threaten National Security (this was back when this wasn't you know, everything.)

I think Reagan's were about to be released when * took (and I mean took) office so the * administration kept fighting it in court and then 9/11 happened and then he had the nerve to just say no to releasing it and that's that.

It's so sick that they did this especially it wasn't just to protect people in his own party but his own father? The fact that this was a blip on the media radar made it hurt the most for me at the time. This was the first thing that popped into my mind. As so many scandals that weren't.

Happy 1000th!

Members of the Bush 41 cabinet held sizeable and conflicting financial positions in Gulf War-related companies. And the results of a financial assets analysis by his Attorney General, Richard Thornburgh, forced the elder Bush to employ a “conflict of interest waiver” -- kept secret from Congress -- to absolve his cabinet from future culpability or prosecution should Congress or surviving Gulf War military families ever question or litigate their private and/or undisclosed financial links to Iraq.
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/GovOfficialsProfited.htm

The horror in that word. How could we forget?

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO202C.html

The Enron scandal is but the tip of the Iceberg. Fully documented by the US and British media, the Bush family has been implicated in a string of financial scams since the 1980's

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0312/S00040.htm

Think you're already amazed, alarmed or appalled enough by the state of US journalism today? Chew on this a while and think again.

Grieving New Hampshire widow who lost her man on 9/11 refuses the government's million dollar hush money payoff, studies the facts of the day for nearly two years, and comes to believe the White House "intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen" to launch a so-called "War on Terrorism" for personal and political gain.

She retains a prominent lawyer, a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, who served with distinction under both Democrats and Republicans and was once a strong candidate for the governor's seat.

The attorney files a 62-page complaint in federal district court (including 40 pages of prima facie evidence) charging that "President Bush and officials including, but not limited to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft and Tenet":
1.) had adequate foreknowledge of 911 yet failed to warn the county or attempt to prevent it;
2.) have since been covering up the truth of that day;
3.) have therefore abetted the murder of plaintiff's husband and violated the Constitution and multiple laws of the United States; and
4.) are thus being sued under the Civil RICO (Racketeering, Influence, and Corrupt Organization) Act for malfeasant conspiracy, obstruction of justice and wrongful death.

The suit text goes on to document the detailed forewarnings

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/05/06_daniels.html

Well, well, well, Mitch Daniels may be the first Bush administration official to resign over allegations of insider trading

http://www.voxfux.com/features/bush_child_sex_coverup/article_archive.htm

In the high stakes world of global politics, it is common practice to procure sexual favors in the hopes to gain leverage or to gain power through blackmail. It's done all the time. The Soviets did it. The Americans do it, and many other countries as well. This following is the bizarre and very real child sexual prostitution ring involving the Republican elite of Washington. And the trail leads right up to George H. W. Bush. Read the chilling story

In light of falling poll numbers, pressure is building for a top-level scapegoat to be sacrificed at the Pentagon as a sign that someone is being held accountable for what have become widely acknowledged failures in the Bush administration's occupation of Iraq.

http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0311feith_body.html

http://www.nrdc.org/legislation/rollbacks/rollbacks.pdf

large pdf file

http://www.attackonamerica.net/BushAdministrationLinksToPre911InsiderTrading.htm

There is growing evidence that the FBI and other government intelligence entities are more closely linked to the documented accumulation of pre-9/11 insider trading profits than was originally thought

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/702/op61.htm

This article will attempt to shed some light on the forms of human rights abuses under the US-British occupation of Iraq.

The practices of the occupation forces have cast into relief the profundity of Iraq's humanitarian tragedy. The lives of Iraqis are daily threatened by the most powerful war machine in the world, one which makes no distinction between military and civilian targets.

Stepping into a key affirmative action fight, President Bush said Wednesday that his administration would join a Supreme Court challenge to a University of Michigan admissions policy that gives preference to minority students.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/11/politics/main536148.shtml

The FBI, no longer content with working to maintain order at political events, is now preemptively identifying and interrogating ("interviewing") possible demonstrators. It has summarized this strategy in a memo.

To make matters worse, the Department of Justice blessed the FBI strategy in its own memo - suggesting that no First Amendment concerns are raised by the interrogations.

As I will explain in this column, however, the truth is quite to the contrary: The strategy, as outlined in the memo, is a serious threat to free speech.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/scripts/printer_friendly.pl?page=/commentary/20040825_barr.html

In a speech this week at a Cincinnati social service center that specializes in prisoner re-entry and alcohol and drug addiction, Bush talked anew about armies of compassion. He was back to pushing faith-based initiatives. He exhumed his education mantra of "challenging the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you've got low expectations, you're going to get lousy results."

-snip-
Earlier this month, Bush delivered a speech at a White House conference on faith-based initiatives. The speech was intended to revive interest in a program which stalled in Congress over concern that loosening up the rules for federal dollars to go to religious based organizations for social and educational work dangerously blurs the lines between church and state. Bush bypassed Congress and signed an executive order that allowed him to give away $1.1 billion last year under the initiative.

-snip-

Adjusted for inflation and population growth, the National Priorities Project says Bush's 2005 budget would cut $2.3 billion in housing assistance, $900 million from justice programs, $1 billion in temporary assistance to needy families and $570 million from vocational education.

If Bush is reelected, he plans $2.3 billion of more cuts in 2006, according to a White House memo recently obtained by the Post. The cuts include $1.5 billion in discretionary education funding, $177 million for Head Start, $53 million from a home ownership program, $910 million for veterans affairs, and $122 million for Women, Infants, and Children. The cuts would either significantly reverse or negate election-year increases in several of those programs.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/06/25/bushs_compassion_is_all_talk/

both campaigns, Republicans sought not to educate the public but to create doubt in voters, not to discuss the issues, but to undermine the character and reputation of two honorable men. Republicans twisted John McCain's and then Max Cleland's heroic service in Vietnam into a political liability here in America and rendered both men ineffective politically.
http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=840

Enron chief Ken Lay's own words and campaign contributions undercut President Bush's assertion this week that he merely inherited the energy executive's support from former Democratic Gov. Ann Richards.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/1208785.html

"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair. "

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-05-30-wolfowitz-iraq_x.htm

he Bush administration has deliberately and systematically distorted scientific fact in the service of policy goals on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry at home and abroad, a group of about 60 influential scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement issued today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/18/science/18CND-RESE.html?ex=1134622800&en=dfb11b7f642549cb&ei=5070

-snip-
Not only did Rove work for Ashcroft in the 80s, but he was one of the main forces behind Ashcroft's controversial appointment to the job he currently holds, attorney general. Rove lobbied intensely for his former employer's nomination after Ashcroft lost his senate seat to a dead man, the late Mel Carnahan.

http://www.democracynow.org/static/roveashcroft.shtml

-snip-
Cigarette companies adopted a much lower profile in the last election than drug companies, in part because Republican strategists worried that featuring close ties to tobacco would anger many voters. But the money flowed liberally. Tobacco interests contributed roughly $90,000 to Mr. Bushís campaign, part of the $6.7 million they provided to the Republican

Party and its candidates in the last election cycle.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/corporate.cfm

-snip-
The Bush economic team has snuffed its own reports when they reach conclusions that don't match the administration's rosy scenarios. The administration deep-sixed a study commissioned by then Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that predicts huge budget deficits well into the future
http://www.slate.com/id/2085481/

At the request of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, Governor Perry has called a special legislative session to begin June 30 to redraw the boundaries of the state's 32 congressional districts. Three federal judges drew the current map in 2001 because state lawmakers did not do so after the 2000 census.

http://lonestar.sierraclubaction.org/showalert.asp?aaid=179

The Department of the Treasury analyzes John Kerry’s tax proposals, and the numbers quickly find their way to the Republican National Committee. The Department of Health and Human Services spends millions on ads promoting President George W. Bush’s prescription drug plan. The House Resources Committee posts a diatribe against Kerry’s "absurd" energy ideas on its Web site.

With friends like these, who needs a re-election campaign
http://www.showmenews.com/2004/Apr/20040408News017.asp

(Turn the boat around so we can see the homeland.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells about Bush administration disregard for international agreements on global warming.

During his presidential campaign, George W. Bush threw a bone to environmentalists. Global warming, he said in his second debate with Al Gore, "needs to be taken very seriously."

While Bush opposed the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement to slow down global warming, he proclaimed that under his leadership, the United States would tackle the problem by strictly regulating carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas.

Barely three months into office, Bush walked away from his pledge to regulate CO{-2}. The move revealed the depth of industry clout at the White House. But as Bush and his advisers would learn, backpedaling on the environment doesn't play well.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/184710_kennedy04.html

Published on Wednesday, October 13, 2004 by Knight-Ridder
Environment Worsened Under Bush in Many Key Areas, Data Show
by Seth Borenstein

WASHINGTON - In the second presidential debate, President Bush said: "I'm a good steward of the land. The quality of the air's cleaner since I've been the president. Fewer water complaints since I've been the president."

Sen. John Kerry responded this way: "The president, I don't think, is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment. We're going backwards." He vows to reverse many of Bush's policies.



The record is not good. The word is going out to go easy (on polluters).

Russell Train, who ran the EPA under former Presidents Nixon and Ford
Which presidential candidate is right? How has America's environment fared under Bush?

Over the past 30 years, the nation's air and water have become dramatically cleaner, but the steady improvement has stalled or gone into reverse in several areas since Bush took office, according to government statistics. On Bush's watch, America's environment deteriorated in many critical areas - including the quality of air in cities and the quality of water that people drink - and gained in very few.

Knight Ridder compiled 14 pollution-oriented indicators from government and university statistics. Nine of the 14 indicators showed a worsening trend, two showed improvements and three others zigzagged

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1013-12.htm

When the federal government called it the No Child Left Behind Act, we didn't know they meant they didn't want to leave any of our children behind when they marched into Baghdad.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/1207-02.htm

The China Spy Plane Fuck-up. A mere 2 months after assuming, and I mean "assuming," office.

WE WILL shortly hear from the president himself, but the outlines of his domestic program for a second term are already all too clear. Take five key areas of economic policy -- health, Social Security, energy, taxes, and the deficit.


All five have this in common: In each case the administration program doesn't really address the underlying problem. Rather, the purpose is either to help an industry ally, stir up the party base, or advance an ideological goal (or all three).

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/09/01/bushs_ruinous_economic_plans/

THE BUSH administration announced last week its revised figure for this year's budget deficit: $445 billion. This, or so the spin goes, is good news, because the original forecast was even higher -- $521 billion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41149-2004Aug4.html

The 2002 election was a juicy delight to two kinds of people: those who want to shift more of the tax burden from the investor class to wage earners; and those who want to further starve the Internal Revenue Service of the resources needed to catch tax cheats. It is no secret that Republican leaders serve those who seek an end taxes on capital gains, corporate profits and investment income. The party's motto should be: The tax man cometh, but only for those subject to withholding.

http://www.sptimes.com/2002/12/01/news_pf/Columns/Republican_Party_is_v.shtml

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Opinion pieces and speeches by EPI staff and associates.





Grading the Bush "Jobs and Growth Plan"

By Lawrence Mishel and Jared Bernstein

Introduction
Thank you for this opportunity to present testimony about these critical issues.

Despite the fact that the economy has been expanding for over a year, our labor market remains mired in a jobless recovery, and these conditions are now hurting the living standards of working families. At a time like this, when the private sector is simply not generating enough economic activity to lower unemployment and broadly raise incomes, it is appropriate, indeed essential, for economic policy makers to act to stimulate growth. The President and the Congress claim to have done so with the passage of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, but as our testimony argues, this plan is unlikely to provide the boost the economy needs.

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=1425

(The White House man-whore.)

I would think that a president who was willing to send 200,000 U.S. troops to Iraq because of Hussein's mass graves might want to check out firsthand the 20 mass graves recently unearthed in Congo, freshly filled with close to 1,000 victims of genocidal massacres. There's your casus belli right there. That is, if there is any substance to this new Bush doctrine that evil dictators who abuse their own people must be deposed, by force if necessary, even if they pose no imminent threat to the U.S.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0702-09.htm

As one blogger wrote (http://www.blogd.com/archives/001465.html) September 12, 2005: "So we have Bush hiring cronies who hire even more cronies. And this happening even after Bush has been criticized openly for cronyism. I guess its their nature, like the scorpion riding on the fox's back. ... Though Bush himself ran several businesses into the ground and never earned an honest dollar, it seems that the soundest investment of all was in giving Bush your money and joining the crony bandwagon. ... even as Bush's cronyism is proving to have cost hundreds if not thousands of lives, Bush and his cronies are still hiring yet more cronies and paying them off with taxpayer dollars."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Bush_administration_cronyism_and_incompetence

An Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/66E32EAF-0E4E-4765-9339-594C323A777F.htm

Happy 1,000.
Energy rape of California
Death of Paul Wellstone
Arnold pushed on Caleeefawneeea
Nuclear Non- proliferation Treaty dropout
Kyoto Global Warming dropout
Nuclear Test Ban treaty dropout
World Court dropout
UN dropout until Hero bolton
911 Pearl Harbor Event
Israil/Palestine on ignore until roadmap
What were those other planes dropping from the skies right after 911?
Kissing and holding hands with Saudi's
and coverup of Saudi involvement in 911
Disappearance of a good portion of the Weapons Declaration from Iraq

:dem:

Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/health/article-page.html?res=9E07EED7123FF93AA25756C0A9629C8B63

WASHINGTON, May 7 - Elderly people with low incomes may lose some of their food stamps if they sign up for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, the Bush administration said Saturday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/08/politics/08drugs.html?ex=1273204800&en=d8e91447242022d7&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Responding to a series of corporate scandals last month, President Bush castigated businessmen who practice moral "relativism" and "cut ethical corners." "Our leaders of business must set high and clear expectations of conduct," he said. But this month, Bush appointed to a top post in his Agriculture Department a confessed corner-cutter:
http://www.slate.com/?id=2070322

Last month in Beijing, Robert Zoellick, President George W. Bush's international trade ambassador, had nothing but praise for China's growing trade surplus. Meanwhile in St. Louis in January, the president stumped for more tax cuts, standing before a facade of boxes with the words "Made in China" covered over in tape.

Why the illusion?

What the politicians didn't want us to notice is the flip-side of China's surplus— the U.S. trade deficit with China—which surged 24% last year to a record $103 billion.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_vanishing_jobs

Let's not get bogged down in whether George W. Bush broke the law when he pocketed $848,000 in 1990 by selling off shares in a Texas oil company before the firm announced a huge loss, causing its stock to plunge.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/07/05/BULAZ.DTL

A little more than a year after No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was signed into law, states are rolling out school improvement plans that call for new testing programs, improved teacher quality, and greater accountability. However, as states face shrinking state budgets, many governors, state lawmakers, and educators are concerned that the federal government doesn’t provide the necessary funding to enable states to meet NCLB’s new federal requirements, leaving the states to foot the bill.

http://www.naesp.org/ContentLoad.do?contentId=739

The number of people in the United States without health insurance rose to 45 million last year, the government reported Thursday, and new statistics show that the increase outpaced that for people getting coverage.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2004/08/26/hscout520885.html

Republicans are again trying to stick the country with one of their favorite bad ideas: drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/117458_oiled.html

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION RECENTLY REQUESTED MORE than $500 billion in military spending, and few in Congress, the media, or the public have paid much attention. That's worth repeating: half a trillion dollars. Liberals are largely silent about the Pentagon budget because of the futility of opposing military spending during wartime. Fiscal conservatives are quiet because they would rather go after Medicaid spending or Social Security. Pentagon hawks speak up only to ask for more money for "shortchanged" programs.
http://www.clw.org/archive/oldclw/pages/8_673.html

The organisation says Gulf states, along with the US, show a "disturbing disregard for the rule of law and fundamental human rights standards
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3827785.stm

In the battle over the release of Dick Cheney’s secret “energy policy” papers, a Department of Commerce numbered document (DOC-013-0056—0074), has come to light. It may explain why Mr. Cheney has fought so hard to keep his energy group’s records from the public. The policy paper dated September 29, 2000 begins to reveal the war against Iraq was carefully developed and planned in increments, including even the detail of introducing the term “weapons of mass destruction.” The document takes the reader back to the campaign of 2000. At stake was the presidency of the United States. During Mr. Bush’s campaigning, he and his team prepared a nineteen page position paper titled, “Comprehensive National Energy Policy.”

http://www.yuricareport.com/Energy/BushWarPlansFoundInEnergyPolicy.html

President Bush has taken not one ounce of personal responsibility for the failings of our intelligence. Pathetically, that is the custom in American politics, but it still reflects poorly on the president
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/14/opinion/meyer/main629670.shtml

The United States, which has not manufactured antipersonnel mines since 1997, will make a decision in December whether to begin production of a new antipersonnel mine called Spider. The Pentagon has requested a total of $1.3 billion for development and production activities for another new antipersonnel mine called the Intelligent Munitions System, with a full production decision expected in 2008.
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/08/03/usint11568.htm

I thinking listing all the scandals would use up all my bandwidth.

Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.

A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30099-2004Aug24.html

Bond was especially harsh on President Bush, saying he has appointed racially hostile, conservative Republicans to key civil rights positions, including the voting rights section of the Department of Justice.

"While the administration is busy asserting sweeping police powers over the American people, it is sweeping voting rights violations from the 2000 election under the rug," Bond said. "The Justice Department whittled 11,000 election complaints down to five potential lawsuits, including a mere three in Florida. Those focus on Florida's failure to provide language assistance to Spanish- and Creole-speaking voters in three counties."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/topstory/1486111.html

Several dozen government officials have vacated their posts since the Bush administration took office. We speak with Nick Turse about some of the more well-known figures who compile the list of “the fallen." http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/25/1412252

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has been drafting comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation for the past several months. The draft legislation, dated January 9, 2003, grants sweeping powers to the government, eliminating or weakening many of the checks and balances that remained on government surveillance, wiretapping, detention and criminal prosecution even after passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, Pub. L. No. 107-56, in 2001
http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17203leg20030214.html

The Bush administration is actively seeking to gag or punish social service organizations that challenge the party line on such matters as health care for poor children and HIV prevention, according to a new report http://villagevoice.com/news/0332,lee,46039,6.html.

In fiscal year 2002, the Big Three received a total of more than $42 billion in Pentagon contracts, of which Lockheed Martin got $17 billion, Boeing $16.6 billion and Northrop Grumman $8.7 billion. This is an increase of nearly one-third from 2000, Clinton's final year. These firms get one out of every four dollars the Pentagon doles out for everything from rifles to rockets. In contrast, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act is underfunded by $8 billion a year, with the additional assistance promised to school districts swallowed up by war costs and tax cuts.
http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=7859

Since January 2001 the AFL-CIO has tracked President Bush's record on working family issues. Compiled here is his record on the issues America's workers and families care about
http://www.ualocal475.org/bush.htm

President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and dozens of pundits reacted with outrage last week when a U.S. diplomatic convoy traveling through Gaza was hit by a bomb attack, claiming the lives of three security guards. What few bothered to mention was that the victims -- John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Linde, Jr. -- weren't U.S. soldiers or State Department staff. They were employees of Dyncorp, a Virginia-based defense contractor hired to provide security to U.S. diplomats in Israel.

http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11192

once lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.

In a New York City ballroom days before Christmas, a powerful Bush administration lawyer made an unprecedented offer to drug companies, one likely to protect their profits and potentially hurt consumers
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0523-02.htm

Vice-president Dick Cheney has brought new meaning to the term "revolving door" says Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute in New York. His easy transition from the army to private industry and then to the White House has earned him millions, Dallas-based Halliburton billions.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=2469

Washington, DC, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- Newly appointed CIA director Porter Goss has picked a career Republican communications professional who was most recently a spokeswoman for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign to be the head of public affairs at the agency, United Press International has learned. Jennifer Millerwise's appointment has not yet been finalized, according to administration officials who declined to be identified. But a former senior CIA official who maintains contacts at the agency's Langley, Va., headquarters confirmed to UPI that she was Goss's choice.

"It's part of a trend," the former official said, "like the appointments of (White House Counsel Alberto) Gonzales (to be attorney general) and (White House national security adviser Condoleezza) Rice (as secretary of State), it's the White House sending its people out to assert greater control over these agencies."

http://www.spinwatch.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=331

On December 2, 2002, Texas resident Margie Schoedinger, filed a lawsuit against President George W. Bush, claiming he and others committed "individual sex crimes" against her and her husband. The proper paperwork was filed, a detailed court petition was submitted, and it was apparent this case was serious; President Bush would be served with papers to appear before the court on charges of rape.

On September 22, 2003, she was found dead, with an apparent "gunshot wound to the head". Margie was 38 & the incident was ruled a suicide.

There isn't enough bandwidth in the WORLD!

Oh, okay. It all goes back to a hot, steamy night in... Kennebunkport, Connecticut. George and Barbara didn't have much to do, so when Barbara got that gleam in her eye...

As they puffed away, Big George looked up and saw the moon outside the bedroom window. There was a ring around it. And he could hear coyotes howling in the distance. No big deal, here in the wild prairie of... Connecticut.... but when the statue of the Virgin Mary down at the Catholic church started crying what appeared to be real tears...

The AIPAC espionage scandal refers to allegations that information regarding United States policy towards Iran was passed to Israel through the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Larry Franklin, a former Defense Department employee, has pled guilty to several espionage-related charges. Two former AIPAC employees have been indicted as well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC_espionage_scandal

the millions of words written in the national news media about Neil Bush and his part in the Silverado Savings & Loan scandal, no reference has been made to an extremely significant fact of his life.
Neil Bush, son of the then vice president of the United States, was scheduled to have dinner on March 31, 1981, with Scott Hinckley, brother of John Hinckley, the day after a bullet came within an inch of making Neil Bush's father the new president of the United States.
Even though John Chancellor had let slip out this most remarkable assassination coincidence shortly after John Hinckley tried to kill President Reagan, it was censored by NBC News and the other organs of the national news media during the subsequent 10 years. And even in the several months of extensive coverage of Neil Bush's part in the massive savings and loan fraud, no mention was made of his role in the continuing coverup of the most significant story in the 1980s.

http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/neil.htm

The Lincoln Group (formerly known as Iraqex is a Washington, DC subcontractor with operations in Iraq hired by the United States military to perform public relations. They operate from the Green Zone at Sector 222, 34th St, Bldg 5 Karatet Mariam, Baghdad, Iraq and 1130 17th St. NW Suite 400 Washington, DC. On November 30, 2005, the Los Angeles Times revealed that the company had been planting false news stories in Iraqi newspapers and at the U.S controlled al-Arabiya television run by Norm Pattis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Group

Please,let's not forget the real agenda.Familiarize yourself with their crimes against US,America...

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=1148
Secret documents have revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a former senior CIA scientist

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe080703.html
An ad hoc office under US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith appears to have acted as the key base for an informal network of mostly neo-conservative political appointees that circumvented normal interagency channels to lead the push for war against Iraq.

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe111303b.html
Between 21,000 and 55,000 people have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and its aftermath, according to a new report that also warned of rapidly deteriorating health conditions for those who survived.

http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/25/news/companies/cheney/index.htm?cnn=yes
WASHINGTON (CNN) - A congressional report concludes that, under federal ethics standards, Vice President Dick Cheney still has a financial interest in Halliburton, the energy services company he used to run.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,198862,00.html

Dick Cheney has taken a hard line against the General Accounting Office, refusing its efforts to get information on meetings held by his energy task force. Critics suspect that Cheney is stonewalling to conceal the Administration's links with bankrupt energy giant Enron. But Cheney may be hiding more than that. Several other energy companies had opportunities to influence the Administration's energy policy, with both persuasion and money.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0204-11.htm
Already under fire for its contracts in Iraq, the company now faces a Justice Department inquiry about business done during Dick Cheney’s tenure

by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenrball

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16458
Finding the bottom of American politics these days is as easy as looking up the latest column by Ann Coulter. In fact, it’s the same thing. Her act may be wearing thin now that she has accused half of the population of treason, but don’t underestimate the kooky commentator. Just the other day, she again managed to shock the conscience of any decent citizen who happened to read her latest screed.
Her current target is Max Cleland, the former United States Senator who left three limbs in Vietnam. The courageous Mr. Cleland prevailed over his terrible injury, and the depression that followed; he was appointed Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Clinton administration and then elected to the Senate from his home state of Georgia

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm

(signed)

Elliot Abrams William J. Bennett Jeffrey Bergner

John R. Bolton Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama Robert Kagan

Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol Richard Perle Peter Rodman

Donald Rumsfeld William Schneider, Jr. Vin Weber Paul Wolfowitz

R. James Woolsey Robert B. Zoellick

http://www.platypuspool.com/axisofevil.html
The Real Axis Of Evil Photo Gallery

I have included the faces of nearly every founding member of the PNAC as well as most of those who signed PNAC's first open letter to President Bill Clinton advocating war referred to above.

Of course, not all the people who took us to this war belonged to the PNAC. About two thirds did. There were some others in the Bush Administration, such as Douglas Feith, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell, who were not in PNAC. I have included their faces as well in this gallery, because the war in Iraq was just as much their creation.

As you scan this gallery, you may notice that there are 54 faces in the gallery. I did not deliberately pick this many people. It just happened that way. This number is equal to the number of cards in a regular deck, plus two jokers. I think this is also the same number of cards as was in the deck issued by the Department of Defense back in 2003 which identified the most wanted Iraqis. Unlike the Department of Defense, I didn't assign a particular person to a particular card, though. As far as I'm concerned, they're all jokers.

http://americaforsale.org/mt/archives/000183.php

By the time President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein of the deadly weapons he was allegedly trying to build, every piece of evidence had been tested -- and disproved -- by U.N. inspectors, according to a report commissioned by the president and released Thursday.

The work of the inspectors -- who had extraordinary access during their three months in Iraq between November 2002 and March 2003 -- was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and the intelligence community in the run-up to the war, according to the commission led by former senator Charles S. Robb and retired appellate court judge Laurence H. Silberman.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-09-16-oplede_x.htm

Beware of war hawks who never served in the military.
That, in essence, was the message of retired four-star Marine Corps general Anthony Zinni, a highly decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and the White House point man on the Middle East crisis. Zinni is one of a growing number of uniformed officers, in and out of the Pentagon, urging caution on the issue of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3051709.stm
BBC News Online charts the escalation of arguments in a row over Iraq's alleged attempts to buy uranium from Niger.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/27/perle.resigns/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- One of the Pentagon's top civilian advisers resigned Thursday, saying he wanted to defuse a controversy over charges he stood to profit from the war in Iraq.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20041101/klein

When President Bush appointed former Secretary of State James Baker III as his envoy on Iraq's debt on December 5, 2003, he called Baker's job "a noble mission." At the time, there was widespread concern about whether Baker's extensive business dealings in the Middle East would compromise that mission, which is to meet with heads of state and persuade them to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq.

http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=412

Washington, DC -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has directed to its staff to "refrain from answering" inquiries from the news media in order to "prevent EPA management from being surprised by news coverage," according to an agency memo released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49647-2004Dec8.html

A senior CIA operative who handled sensitive informants in Iraq asserts that CIA managers asked him to falsify his reporting on weapons of mass destruction and retaliated against him after he refused.

The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/politics/10terror.html?ex=1134709200&en=a8c22dfddd0db646&ei=5070&ei=5065&en=0548ca01617f739d&ex=1108616400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&position=

-snip-
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it.

Must be some good dang coffee. :toast:

I'm sure there are many many more scandals but I can't think right now.
Can somebody nominate this!
:dem:

My son want's me to get this up to 200,now ...shouldn't be too hard :)

I think you are doing an outstanding job of collecting this stuff. I don't even know how to sort or collate it.
Has JFK been mentioned?
:hide:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3243266.stm

A British intelligence officer charged with leaking a top secret e-mail says she was trying to prevent an "unlawful war" in Iraq.
Katharine Gun, who worked at the government communications headquarters (GCHQ), appeared in court on Thursday charged under the Official Secrets Act.

The former translator claims she leaked an e-mail from US spies asking British counterparts to tap telephones.

http://www.detnews.com/2004/specialreport/0409/26/a01-284666.htm
The Bush administration and Congress have scaled back programs that aid the poor to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that went primarily to those who earn more than $288,800 a year.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=417&row=0

Why was Paul Wolfowitz pushed out of the Pentagon onto the World Bank? The answer lies in a 323-page document, secret until now, indicating that the allies of Big Oil in the Bush Administration have defeated neo-conservatives and their chief Wolfowitz. BBC Television Newsnight tells the true story of the fall of the neo-cons. An investigation conducted by BBC with Harper's magazine will also reveal that the US State Department made detailed plans for war in Iraq -- and for Iraq's oil -- within weeks of Bush's first inauguration in 2001.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7306162/site/newsweek/

Watchdogs are warning that corruption in Iraq is out of control. But will the United States join efforts to clamp down on it?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4838246/
10 reconstruction firms have been charged with bid rigging,
fraud, other allegations since 2000

http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=363&sid=200

Private defense contractors have been given the authority to help prepare the president's national defense budget—another job the Department of Defense has outsourced.

The Center for Public Integrity has found that at least three private-sector contracting firms have advertised employment positions for analysts to work in the development of America's defense budget.

Everything they do and have done is wrong.
He now admits responsibility for going to war on fauly intelligence.
:patriot:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/bop2004/report.aspx?aid=199&sid=200
If history is any guide, George W. Bush will not seek to undo the regulations that help shroud so many financial transactions from view. After all, his presidency has been characterized by a zeal for secrecy, an unrelenting push to stem the free flow of information.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901859.html

The Bush administration's top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=316582&page=1

The man who has issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the Department of Homeland Security was told Wednesday night that he was out of a job.

Clark Ervin made himself very unpopular by issuing a series of stinging reports on security programs that he said had failed, officials he called inept, and fraud that he suspected. His year-end report, out today, alleges that millions of dollars have been wasted or are unaccounted for by the department.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=8656

But today the Maehyang-ri bombing range isn't run by the US Air Force and it isn't run by the US Army. Five years ago, the bombing range was privatized and its management turned over the multinational weapons contractor Lockheed Martin. Then, in July, the bombing range changed hands. An Alaska-based company called Arctic Slope World Service took over the contract.

Affirmative Action Contractor?

The company is on the Fortune 500 and boasts annual revenues of more than $1 billion but Arctic Slope isn't your average weapons contractor.

Lost in the media hubbub over Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, and Karl Rove's role in disclosing the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame, was a brief item reported by ABC News on July 14. In a follow-up to the London bombings of July 7, investigative reporter Brian Ross disclosed that maps of the London subway system, and names linked to a cell in Luton, England, where the July 7 bombers set out on their mission, had been found on the computer of Pakistani computer technician Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested a year ago. What even Ross's report did not highlight, however, was that, like Valerie Plame, Khan had been providing intelligence to US authorities when his identity was revealed directly or indirectly by the Bush administration, in an action apparently timed for maximum political impact. The disclosure compromised terrorist investigations in progress in Britain and elsewhere, possibly including individuals who would eventually participate in the London attacks
http://www.thedubyareport.com/london-bombings1.html

http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2005/04/04/fourth_man_indicted_in_republican_phone_jamming_scheme/

CONCORD, N.H. -- A fourth man has been charged with taking part in a Republican scheme to jam Democrats' get-out-the-vote phone lines on Election Day 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/3956129.stm

secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state's African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/223201_west06.html
Spokane Mayor Jim West, who championed an anti-gay agenda during his tenure as one of the most powerful Republicans in the Legislature, yesterday admitted to using the trappings of his current office to entice what he thought was a young adult man but denied allegations that he molested two young boys more than 20 years ago.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA | Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.
-snip-
The company has been largely, if not entirely funded, by the Republican National Committee. Similar complaints have been received in Reno where the registrar has asked the FBI to investigate.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101404Z.shtml

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth_Republican_Connection
Bush-Cheney campaign's web of connections:

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/03/Pentagon1.html

OF the 30 members of the Defense Policy Board, the government-appointed group that advises the Pentagon, at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002. Four members are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors.

http://billstclair.com/911timeline/main/AAsaudi.html

This story is so complicated and long, I've tried to break it into threads of different colors to make it easier to digest, as well as the main page, the page for the day of September 11, and the abridged timeline.
(this is a huge,well-researched timelne)

http://www.portlandphoenix.com/archive/features/01/02/16/cabinet.html

Big Money got its candidate into the White House, and now Big Money is going to run the White House

By Jim Hightower

Greetings can be quite different around the world. I’m told that New Zealand’s Maori tribesmen rub noses when they meet, that Tibetans stick out their tongues to say hello, and that some East Africans might say howdy by spitting at your feet.

We the people have now been greeted by the full-fledged presidency of Bush the Second — and although Little George didn’t literally spit at us or stick his tongue out at us, he did rub our noses in the fact that Big Money got him into the White House and, by golly, Big Money is going to govern.

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

FBI AND US SPY AGENTS SAY BUSH SPIKED BIN LADEN PROBES BEFORE 11 SEPTEMBER
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=103&row=1

Bush-Taliban allegations remain cloudy
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=26022002-055134-3212r

Republican-controlled Carlyle Group poses serious Ethical Questions for Bush Presidents, but Baltimore Sun ignores it
http://baltimorechronicle.com/media3_oct01.shtml

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm

The Secrets of September 11
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3067907/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1114150.htm

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in United States Army installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, The Business newspaper reported on Sunday.

Quoting a Pentagon source, the paper said the US Defence Department believes that some of the damning photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad were taken with camera phones.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

"Regardless of whose responsibility I think it is, somebody has screwed up. ... it should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this?"
Gen. Anthony Zinni

http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/EricShine.htm
Subject: Whistle Blower - Congressionally and Presidentially appointed Federal Officer under attack by United States of America/ Department of Homeland Security/ Department of Transportation/ US Coast Guard and others....

http://www.slate.com/id/2089674/

For all the debate over President Bush's $87 billion supplemental request for military operations and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, no one seems to have noticed that the sum includes a slush fund of at least $9.3 billion, which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld can spend pretty much as he pleases.

http://prorev.com/bush4.htm

has tons of really inflammatory,and maybe untrue-but still fun,dirt on Bush,et al

http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATCheney.htm

Who's Really Running America?

Meet US (Vice) President Dick Cheney
www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/WATCheney.htm

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/02/020522_de_Big_Business.html
-snip-
World Policy Institute review of major Bush appointees published this month, found that 32 major policy makers had significant financial ties to the arms industry prior to joining the administration, as compared with 21 appointees with ties to the energy industry.

Take Lockheed Martin, the largest US defence contractor, with Pentagon contracts worth a total of nearly $30 billion in 2000 and 2001 alone. The company is the biggest US player in nuclear weapons and missile defence, and is one of the "big four" NMD contractors. The company stands to make billions from its ongoing production of the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile, which will receive additional funding as part of the Bush administration's focus on submarine-based missiles over land-based ICBMs. Lockheed Martin also has more connections to the Bush administration than any other arms maker. This is a small sample of the ugly truth revealed by the World Policy Institute:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/national/nationalspecial/07barbour.html?ex=1134795600&en=4ad6989f68912218&ei=5070

SS CHRISTIAN, Miss., Dec. 6 - Rosemary Barbour happens to be married to a nephew of Mississippi's governor, Haley Barbour. Since the Reagan administration, when Mrs. Barbour worked as a White House volunteer as a college student, she has been active in the Republican Party

She also happens to be one of the biggest Mississippi-based winners of federal contracts for Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0703tavares.html

Even as bombs were raining down on Baghdad, a short list of private beneficiaries was being drawn up behind closed doors. As the invasion entered its final phase, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Army Corps of Engineers (funded through the Pentagon) began doling out contracts.

kill some Japanese students?
http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Bush%20Scandals
Sub Commander Says GOP Joyriders Distracted The Crew
18-Apr-01
Bush Scandals
"Cmdr. Scott Waddle…now believes the presence of 16 civilians in the crowded control room broke the crew's concentration at a critical time, said Waddle's attorney, Charles Gittins." During the naval inquiry, "none of the civilians was called to testify nor was the retired admiral who arranged for them to be aboard the Greeneville…Gittins indicated he plans to ask about the public relations program if his client is ordered to a court martial. Testimony showed the Greeneville was ordered to sea Feb. 9 solely to provide the civilian VIPs with a show, a violation of Navy rules." Like the rest of the media reports, this article fails to mention the joyriders' GOP connections. We will repeat it again – the majority of the 16 joyriders were from the Texas oil and energy industry. Some were contributors to the Bush campaign. Many were associated with the USS Missouri Restoration Association that has George Bush Sr. as an honorary chairman.



http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/02/17/sub/

Submarine accident sparks debate over Navy policy
Some say putting civilian contributors at the controls of our warships is reckless -- but did that cause the deaths of nine Japanese?


A number of the civilians on board were contributors to the Missouri Memorial Association, a nonprofit organization helping to preserve the USS Missouri, the ship on which the treaty that brought an end to World War II was signed. Because the accident involved donors being allowed questionable access to government areas, comparisons were made to recent Washington campaign finance scandals. Had the Greeneville become a seafaring Lincoln Bedroom?

"It's all very well to have people fundraising," says Jane's Beaver, who agrees in theory with allowing donors on the sub. "By all means take them to see a nuclear-powered submarine, but don't allow them to be in the control room. Don't allow them to have the access that they've got."

http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Bush%20Scandals
Right after 9/11 Two Bin Ladens Investigated for Terrorist Ties Were Allowed to Leave the US
22-Jul-04
Bush Scandals
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (NJ) just released a list of some bin Laden family members allowed by the Bush Administration to leave the US in the week after 9/11. Two of the bin Ladens who departed were investigated for terrorist ties before 9/11. Omar Awad bin Laden, a nephew of Osama bin Laden, was allowed to leave even though his brother and housemate, Abdullah, was a long-time American head of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY). WAMY is a suspected terrorist organization raided by the FBI this past spring. A 2003 TomPaine.com article by Greg Palast revealed the Omar and Abdullah bin Laden apartment was also just blocks away from both the listed address of two of the 9/11 hijackers and from WAMY headquarters. Also allowed to leave was Khalil Binladin, whom Brazilian police investigated for suspected terrorist ties.

Bush May Be Testifying Under Oath Within the Year
01-Feb-01
Bush Scandals
Can the US Supreme Court protect baby Bush from the law? Looks like Dubya got some stuff on his boots in Texas, and it still stinks! They're calling it Funeralgate - Bush has been named as a defendant in the whistleblower lawsuit brought by Eliza May, the former executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission. The suit alleges that Bush and others who got campaign contributions from funeral giant Service Corporation International worked to thwart an investigation into SCI's hiring of improperly licensed embalmers. Al Gonzales, who is now the White House general counsel, will do all he can to keep Bush out of situations in which he must swear to tell the truth. But the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that President Clinton could be sued for actions taken as Governor of Arkansas, so it's gonna take a Texas-size backflip to keep Bush out of the dock.

http://www.socialismtoday.org/74/spoils.html
EVEN BEFORE US-BRITISH forces entered Iraq, USAID (US Agency for International Development) and USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) awarded initial contracts worth up to $1 billion to several corporations closely connected to the right-wing leadership of the Republican Party. Only US firms were in the running and the usual competitive tendering process was bypassed on grounds of speed and security.

http://www.caci.com/about/news/news2005/02_14_05_NR.html

CACI International Inc (NYSE:CAI) announced today that it has been awarded a $2.8 million contract by the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New Jersey to extend the E Team Crisis Management System to every county and key allied and state agency in New Jersey

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/07.13C.bush.stock.htm

Secrecy Surrounds Bush Stock Deal
By The Associated Press | New York Times

Friday, 12 July, 2002

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It is a stock market whodunit that has withstood a decade of scrutiny. Who bought George W. Bush's problem-plagued oil company stock just before its value dropped?

The 1990 transaction involving shares of Harken Energy Corp. allowed the future president to pay off a bank loan for his now-famous stake in the Texas Rangers baseball team. The identity of the buyer of the stock has escaped public disclosure.

Federal regulators who examined the deal as a possible insider trade never asked. President Bush says he doesn't know and the White House declines to ask the broker who handled the transaction. Reporters have fared no better in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

Was Bush's sale of Harken stock another instance of a helping hand from family friends? Or was it a simple case of a buyer trying to make a killing in a high-risk investment?
snip

Write to Us About OneWorld Contact Us
Post-Katrina Efforts Spawn Diverse Complaints and Inquiries
Abid Aslam
OneWorld US
Wed., Sep. 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sep 27 (OneWorld) - Multibillion-dollar White House plans to aid recovery from Hurricane Katrina have spawned complaints by a broad array of civil rights, economic justice, and environmental groups even as congressional investigators look into possible corruption.

At issue are measures that critics--including People for the American Way, the AFL-CIO labor federation, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), and the National Education Association--said would roll back wages just when local workers need decent pay more than ever, sap affirmative action requirements designed to protect minorities from discrimination, and enfeeble public schools even as they scramble to enroll evacuee children.

The accusations have come amid reports that more than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) were awarded without bidding or with limited competition.


http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/119523/1/68

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000775.html

TWN has posted a great deal in the past about James Woolsey and his personal enrichment in a network of national security-oriented firms, investment funds, and other activities.

Woolsey was the first person on national television on September 11, 2001 to allege the connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda without disclosing on these shows his legal relationship representing Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress.

CREW Files FEC Complaint Requesting Investigation into Foreign Donations to Hastert's Campaign
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0816-06.htm

WASHINGTON - August 16 - Earlier today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requesting an investigation into whether Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s campaign committee illegally accepted campaign contributions from foreign nationals in 2000 and 2001.

http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-5170987.html

Two Republican Senate staffers accessed and leaked information from thousands of Democratic files over an 18-month period, an investigation by the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms has concluded.

We've got a Watergate-sized scandal for almost every day of the year.

Republican operative Nathan Sproul's company is under investigation for allegedly destroying voter registration forms signed by Democrats. Now comes new evidence about Sproul's connections to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2004101711.html

http://www.lossless-audio.com/usa/index3.php
It is interesting to look at how the Bush Administration has backpedalled in their WMD rhetoric after no WMDs were found following the Iraq war. This timeline of quotes is taken largely from this page.

See also this or this selection or this great article summarizing Fox News' lies and contradictions regarding the Iraq war and the WMD hunt.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/04/05/medicare/index_np.html

April 5, 2004 | Last year as the Bush White House tackled overhauling Medicare and invading Iraq, it used strikingly similar political methods for both. Today the two would-be victories have morphed into mirror-like crises and scandals. Both are subjects of widening investigations.

A Strategy of Lies: How the White House Fed the Public a Steady Diet of Falsehoods
by repost Saturday November 15, 2003 at 01:12 PM


According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world.

A STRATEGY OF LIES: HOW THE WHITE HOUSE FED THE PUBLIC A STEADY DIET OF FALSEHOODS
By Colonel Sam Gardiner
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/11/1659542.php

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1115-08.htm

Americans deserve straight answers from George Bush, and they deserve them now:


1. Mr. President, as you ask us to spend $87 billion in Iraq -- the second richest oil nation in the world -- in order to supposedly defend our national security, what do you say to the 1.7 million Americans who you have allowed to slip below the poverty line in the last 12 months, without any promise of help? What do you say to the 34.6 million Americans -- 1 in 8 of our people, including 13 million children -- who live in poverty and upon whom you, the Congress, and your party have turned your backs? We, the richest nation in all of history, have the worst child poverty rate and worst life expectancy of all the world's industrialized countries. These facts, being true, why should we believe you care about our working poor, or the "national security" of hungry American children?

....cont.

Thomas Scully is administrator of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In the Dec. 3 New York Times, Robert Pear reported that Scully, who was the Bush administration's point man on the recently passed Medicare prescription-drug bill, was at the same time discussing job offers from various interested parties. Scully told the Times that his multitasking complied with governmentwide ethics regulations for departing officials.

http://www.slate.com/id/2091986/

Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/politics/15cnd-program.html?ex=1292302800&en=46373698e4101aca&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#funeral
In a (so far successful) attempt to stop a scandal, Bush perjured himself under oath, according to the sworn testimony of two of his political allies. The situation is amazingly similar to Clinton's Lewinsky problem: a potentially damaging lawuit arose (see below) that threatened to involve him. Just like Clinton, Bush swore an affidavit that he had no involvement in the case, which got him excused from testifying. And just like Clinton, the affidavit was proven false months later by new evidence. In this case, it's the recent sworn testimony of Robert MacNeil, a Bush appointee, that he had discussed the case with Bush at a fundraiser.
This scandal isn't as sexy as Monica's, but perjury is perjury, and this scandal actually involves the governor's job, not his sex life. Texas' state commission on funeral homes (the TFSC) started an investigation of SCI, the world's largest funeral home company (with 3,442 homes, plus 433 cemeteries) after complaints that unlicensed apprenctices were embalming corpses at 2 SCI embalming centers. The commission visited a couple of these, and ended up fining SCI $450,000.

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#partied

George Bush likes to present himself as a straight-talking, regular guy. But it's an act -- regular guys don't go to Andover Prep, Yale and Harvard Business School, and straight-talking guys don't pretend to be regular guys after growing up in one of the most privileged homes in world history. Not only was Bush's dad president, his grandpa was a U.S. Senator and wealthy Wall Street banker, and his mom's blueblood family owned (among other things) the estate in Maine that Bush still hangs out at.

Now, as Bush's regular guy act is wearing thin, some of his other deceptions are becoming more obvious.

Click on the allegation of your choice:

http://www.politicalamazon.com/bush-chinese.html
TAIWAN-GATE: Do We Have Bush-Appointed Foreign Agents
Influencing our Foreign Policy?
In an ever-widening scandal involving a Taiwan government secret "slush fund," the purpose of which was to covertly influence other countries' (including the United States and Japan) politics, leaked Taiwan government documents name two Bush appointees as receiving money from this "slush fund" for services including convincing Bush to agree to $4billion worth of sophisticated arms sales to Taiwan. (#3: Source)

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush has said that he had authorized the use of highly secret wiretaps by the National Security Agency, saying the wiretaps have "saved American lives" in the US "war on terror

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051217/ts_afp/usattacksbushwiretaps_051217161640

contrast that with this story from 2002

Bush administration appeals court ruling restricting searches, wiretaps

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-08-23-spy-court-appeal_x.htm

http://www.ariannaonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2064
In June 2001--three months before the September 11 attacks, Al-Arian was briefed by Senior Presidential Advisor Karl Rove on Bush's faith-based agenda and other issues in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.

The Secret Service requires White House complex visitors to submit a Social Security number and birth date for the purpose of undergoing a security check which would have revealed that Al-Arian was already under a six-year-long FBI investigation.

WASHINGTON - The government requested and won approval for a record number of special warrants last year for secret wiretaps and searches of suspected terrorists and spies, 75 percent more than in 2000, the Bush administration disclosed Friday
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7361416

The use of court-authorized secret wiretaps skyrocketed in 2004, as state and federal judges approved every single law enforcement request for permission to listen in on private electronic communications.

In all, 1,710 applications for wiretaps were approved, an increase of 19 percent from the prior year. This number does not include court-ordered wiretaps for terrorism-related investigations. Those taps are handled under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and accounted for a record 1,754 in 2004.
http://www.lp.org/yourturn/archives/2005_04.shtml

ACLU Says White House Is Engaged in Patriot Act Misinformation Campaign; Releases Point-By-Point Response to Bush Falsehoods
http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17461prs20040422.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,61112,00.html

WASHINGTON — A special court with power over sensitive law enforcement surveillance misinterpreted a broad anti-terrorism law when it ordered the Justice Department to alter new guidelines for FBI terrorism searches, the agency said in an appeal made public Friday.
(august 2002)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, issued a scathing statement Thursday in response to new Justice Department guidelines on terrorism investigations.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/05/30/congress.guidelines/index.html

Secret wiretaps. Seized bank records. Unconsented physical searches. Secret computer tracking. Enter the ever-growing government world of domestic spying.

A recent Washington Post report (Monday, Oct. 24, 2005; A01) stated, "The FBI has conducted clandestine surveillance on some U.S. residents for as long as 18 months at a time without proper paperwork or oversight, according to previously classified documents to be released today.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2005/291005domesticsurveillance.htm

If Robert Fiske finds that Bill and Hillary have committed crimes in the so-called Whitewater-gate matter, they should pay the price. But according to our Special Prosecute-o-Meter (to come), it would seem that the Clintons' behavior is being measured differently from alleged banking misdeeds by the Bush family--Neil (Silverado Savings), $1 billion; Jeb (Broward Savings), $221.8 million; and George (BNL-Iraqgate), $5 billion. All proved a good deal more costly than the up-to-$50 million involved in the Madison Savings-Whitewater mess.

But while the national media--and specifically the New York Times--has focused its high-caliber lens on the Clintons, they apparently have forgiven and forgotten the Bushes' banking practices.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/1994/03/pizzo.html