Pope Paul II has an approval rating among evangelicals of 60%...
That's Pope John Paul II.
;)
Posted by muckcat at October 5, 2004 12:19 PMGW is supposed to be devout right?
Exactly what faith does he follow and what are the tenets of that faith? Does he in fact know the scripture or what it means to be humble, love thy neighbor, protect and uplift the poor, and watch out for the children? Does he know these? And if so, exactly what examples are there that he follows these? Anyone can claim to be saved, but being saved means more than camera shots of you at prayer or at a pew in church...
This progressive tradition of religions in America hasalways been present since the beginning of the republic, and Jim Wallis has devoted his life and ministry to nurturing and expanding it nationwide for more than 20 years. If the progressive tradition is now emerging again, Jim Wallis will have done more than most to foster its re-emergence.
Re: Anthony. GWB is a nominal United Methodist, If you check the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church (adopted and updated in General Conference every four years), andthe Church's position on the war in Iraq, you will see that Bush's policies violate most of the UM principles.
Charles
muckcat
thanks
Posted by soccerdad at October 5, 2004 12:47 PMCharles,
Thank you. I figured as much, but its nice to have confirmation to one's suspicions, no?
Posted by anthony at October 5, 2004 12:57 PMAnthony - Many United Methodists (like me and my wife, who's an ordained elder) are wondering what the hell he's smoking. Not only does Bush's beliefs and action violate namy of the social principles and the Discipline, Bush has been on record that he doesn't attend a church regularly because of security reasons, but chats occasionally with an Episcopalian pastor near Lafayette Park and the White House. In June 2003, over hundred clergy posted a public letter for Bush to repent.
The Sojourners article in soccerdad's post is great. I'd also recommend everyone check out the Mark Fiore Shockwave animation that's on the right hand side (registration req., sorry).
Posted by idiosynchronic at October 5, 2004 12:58 PM"We are United Methodists bringing a letter of complaint against United Methodist Church members George W. Bush and Richard "Dick" Cheney for their chargeable offenses of crime, immorality, disobedience to the order and discipline of The United Methodist Church (UMC), and dissemination of doctrine contrary to the established standards of doctrine of The UMC. We are calling for accountability and repentance from these two members for their sinful behavior. This specific letter of complaint originates from two United Methodist members, Rev. Courtney Ball and Josh Steward, from the Iowa Annual Conference, but we are encouraging anyone who reads the letter below and agrees with it to sign their name to the letter as well. When the letter has had time to circulate and gain signatures, it will be presented to the various recipients listed on the letter in order that they may investigate the claims and push for a resolution to the complaint."
Posted by idiosynchronic at October 5, 2004 01:02 PMThank you all for answering my question. Now for the Million, why don't these clergy, and others that follow this come forward and denounce this for what it is. It is pretty hard to defend oneself if your religious elders denounce you and your actions to your face.
Posted by anthony at October 5, 2004 01:25 PMdidn't bush leave the methodists for the baptists?
Posted by flatulus benjoya at October 5, 2004 01:43 PMAnthony - are you kidding? Trying to get private face time with Bush to rebuke him or demand his repentance? I think it was tried in the arly days of the administration, but I think most of the UMC leadership has quit seeing as Bush only sees those beholden to him. Seriously, if the UMC clergy who feel as they do could even get a ticket to one of Bush's closed-crowd rallies, I'd be surprised.
The most that's occured is the public rebuke issued in June 2003 following the Iraq invasion. I think those leaders realized their efforts would be better spent with more flexibile activities . . like brick wall demolition.
They Must Repent (http://theymustrepent.com)is the first re-emergence I've seen of the UMC pastorate and laity to bring Bush & Cheney to notice for their actions in the Christian church.
Posted by idiosynchronic at October 5, 2004 02:42 PMFormer Christian Coalition member and "Bull Moose" Republican, Marshall Wittmann, has endorsed Kerry and is now working for the DLC. His reasons should wake up some of his fellow Christians:
Anyone who was involved in the 2000 McCain campaign, as I was, knows exactly who is responsible for the "Swift boat" slime attack on Senator Kerry -- in Bush World, all low roads lead to Rove.Posted by Ron In Portland at October 5, 2004 03:17 PM
When I was at the Christian Coalition, I witnessed first-hand the alliance of the deregulation, no-tax crowd with the religious conservatives. Ironically, the rank and file of the religious right are hardly the country club set. They are largely middle-class Americans who don't rely on trust funds or dividend checks for their livelihoods. But the leaders of the religious right have betrayed their constituents by failing to champion such economic issues as family leave or access to health insurance, which would relieve the stresses on many working families. The only things the religious conservatives get are largely symbolic votes on proposals guaranteed to fail, such as the gay marriage constitutional amendment. The religious right has consistently provided the ground troops, while the big-money men have gotten the goodies.
The realization that the religious right had essentially become a front for the money men of the Republican Party was a primary source of my disenchantment with that movement. And without a doubt, the GOP has merely become a vehicle for unbridled corporate power. Such a party cannot provide a home for a movement that strives for national greatness.
MIDLAND, Texas ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004
An alert for American voters and humane educators everywhere appeared on May 21 in the 61st through 64th paragraphs of a 76-paragraph NEW YORK TIMES feature on the childhood of Republican candidate for U.S. president George W. Bush -- if anyone noticed.
«One of the local rituals for children,» reported Nicholas D. Kristof of Life in Midland, Texas, when George W. was a boy, «were meetings with cookies and milk at the home of a nice old lady who represented the SPCA. The cookies were digested more thoroughly than the teachings.»
«`We were terrible to animals,' recalled [Bush pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. `Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Throckmorton said. `Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'»
Kristof made plain that «we» explicitly included George W. Bush, and that George W., the Safari Club International «Governor of the Year» in 1999 for his support of trophy hunting, was the leader among the boys who did it.
George W. Bush, 56, apparently learned hunting and alleged sportsmanship the National Rifle Association way, from his father, former U.S. President George H. Bush. NRA vice president Kayne Robinson boasted at a members-only meeting in early 2000 that Bush, if elected, would be «a president where we work out of their office.»
That got some attention, along with the role of NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre in raising $250,000 at a recent Republican Party fundraiser honoring Bush, and the Bush record as Texas governor of signing bills allowing people to carry concealed handguns and take guns to church, and barring cities from suing gun-makers.
Yet no one, not even Representative Tom Lantos (D-California), raised with reference to Bush the character issue implicit in having recreationally shot and blown up frogs -- or talked about the failure of humane education to dissuade Bush from cruelty which must have been known by his famous father, as the evidence would have been hard to conceal.
On May 25, however, Lantos and 20 other Representatives showed that they should've recognized the character issue by introducing House Concurrent Resolution 338. The Resolution, according to Lantos' press release, urges «greater attention to identifying and treating individuals who are guilty of violence against animals because of the link between abuse of animals and violence against humans. In addition, it urges federal agencies to further investigate the link between cruelty toward animals and violence against humans.»
Offered Lantos, «It is commonsense knowledge that any individual who harms animals cruelly and deliberately is not otherwise well-adjusted. A man who abuses the family dog or cat may turn that violence on his spouse or children. Those children involved in school shootings weren't just `having fun' or `just being boys' -- they were engaged in torturing and hurting animals. As a society, we cannot overlook the fact that a person who hurts animals is committing an act of violence and may eventually turn on human beings.»
But the only people George W. Bush is known to have had a part in killing were the 135 convicts whose executions he has authorized during his five-and-a-half years as Texas governor. Bush mocked the executed killer Karla Fae Tucker's plea for her life in a falsetto, and reportedly giggled when asked by a journalist how he could send the executed Gary Graham to die, when Graham's court-appointed attorney was judicially admonished for sleeping through much of his trial.
DOPPELGANGER? If accused serial killer Robert Yates, 48, of Spokane, Washington, had been caught and convicted in Texas, be might have been among those whose killing by lethal injection Bush approved.
If Bush and Yates had been closer in age and geography, they might have been friends, sharing their love of church, baseball, and -- especially -- using their guns to kill small animals. Instead Yates grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington. An April 26 investigative report on Yates' youth by Jessie Stensland of the WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES and SOUTH WHIDBEY RECORD buried mention of Yates' hunting in the l7th paragraph of 21.
Like George W. Bush, Yates evidently graduated to trophy hunting. But instead of blasting exotic species on Texas hunting ranches, be allegedly hunted young suspected prostitutes. He allegedly terrorized them, robbed them, and shot at least 18 of them at close range with a handgun. Yates shares his background as a teenaged hunter not only with George W. Bush but also with at least 42 other adults and 35 teens who have been charged with murder in recent years, whose hunting backgrounds have surfaced -- albeit often just barely -- in news coverage of their alleged crimes.
The WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES and SOUTH WHIDBEY RECORD did not publish a letter by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton citing the statistics; discussing the traits that studies have found are often shared by hunters, serial killers, and child abusers; and noting that early involvement in legal sport hunting -- not just illegal animal torture -- also was in the reported backgrounds of convicted school massacre perpetrators Luke Woodham, Andrew Golden, Mitchell Johnson, Kip Kinkel, Michael Carneal, Barry Loukatis, and Evan Ramsey.
Press, public, and politicians who are just barely beginning to recognize the link between illegal violence against animals and violence against humans remain far from understanding the distinction between the inhibition about getting caught that discourages illegality, and the inhibition about causing suffering that George W. Bush's humane education teacher tried unsuccessfully to encourage."
From: ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2004, p. 18.
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Posted by Bush history of animal cruelty at October 29, 2004 12:46 AMI think this will illustrate why Bush is the way he is and what he has done to us.
MIDLAND, Texas ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000
An alert for American voters and humane educators everywhere appeared on May 21 in the 61st through 64th paragraphs of a 76-paragraph NEW YORK TIMES feature on the childhood of Republican candidate for U.S. president George W. Bush -- if anyone noticed.
«One of the local rituals for children,» reported Nicholas D. Kristof of Life in Midland, Texas, when George W. was a boy, «were meetings with cookies and milk at the home of a nice old lady who represented the SPCA. The cookies were digested more thoroughly than the teachings.»
«`We were terrible to animals,' recalled [Bush pal Terry] Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush borne turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. `Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Throckmorton said. `Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'»
Kristof made plain that «we» explicitly included George W. Bush, and that George W., the Safari Club International «Governor of the Year» in 1999 for his support of trophy hunting, was the leader among the boys who did it.
George W. Bush, 54, apparently learned hunting and alleged sportsmanship the National Rifle Association way, from his father, former U.S. President George H. Bush. NRA vice president Kayne Robinson boasted at a members-only meeting in early 2000 that Bush, if elected, would be «a president where we work out of their office.»
That got some attention, along with the role of NRA executive vice-president Wayne LaPierre in raising $250,000 at a recent Republican Party fundraiser honoring Bush, and the Bush record as Texas governor of signing bills allowing people to carry concealed handguns and take guns to church, and barring cities from suing gun-makers.
Yet no one, not even Representative Tom Lantos (D-California), raised with reference to Bush the character issue implicit in having recreationally shot and blown up frogs -- or talked about the failure of humane education to dissuade Bush from cruelty which must have been known by his famous father, as the evidence would have been hard to conceal.
On May 25, however, Lantos and 20 other Representatives showed that they should've recognized the character issue by introducing House Concurrent Resolution 338. The Resolution, according to Lantos' press release, urges «greater attention to identifying and treating individuals who are guilty of violence against animals because of the link between abuse of animals and violence against humans. In addition, it urges federal agencies to further investigate the link between cruelty toward animals and violence against humans.»
Offered Lantos, «It is commonsense knowledge that any individual who harms animals cruelly and deliberately is not otherwise well-adjusted. A man who abuses the family dog or cat may turn that violence on his spouse or children. Those children involved in school shootings weren't just `having fun' or `just being boys' -- they were engaged in torturing and hurting animals. As a society, we cannot overlook the fact that a person who hurts animals is committing an act of violence and may eventually turn on human beings.»
But the only people George W. Bush is known to have had a part in killing were the 135 convicts whose executions he has authorized during his five-and-a-half years as Texas governor. Bush mocked the executed killer Karla Fae Tucker's plea for her life in a falsetto, and reportedly giggled when asked by a journalist how he could send the executed Gary Graham to die, when Graham's court-appointed attorney was judicially admonished for sleeping through much of his trial.
DOPPELGANGER? If accused serial killer Robert Yates, 48, of Spokane, Washington, had been caught and convicted in Texas, be might have been among those whose killing by lethal injection Bush approved.
If Bush and Yates had been closer in age and geography, they might have been friends, sharing their love of church, baseball, and -- especially -- using their guns to kill small animals. Instead Yates grew up in Oak Harbor, Washington. An April 26 investigative report on Yates' youth by Jessie Stensland of the WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES and SOUTH WHIDBEY RECORD buried mention of Yates' hunting in the l7th paragraph of 21.
Like George W. Bush, Yates evidently graduated to trophy hunting. But instead of blasting exotic species on Texas hunting ranches, be allegedly hunted young suspected prostitutes. He allegedly terrorized them, robbed them, and shot at least 18 of them at close range with a handgun. Yates shares his background as a teenaged hunter not only with George W. Bush but also with at least 42 other adults and 35 teens who have been charged with murder in recent years, whose hunting backgrounds have surfaced -- albeit often just barely -- in news coverage of their alleged crimes.
The WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES and SOUTH WHIDBEY RECORD did not publish a letter by ANIMAL PEOPLE editor Merritt Clifton citing the statistics; discussing the traits that studies have found are often shared by hunters, serial killers, and child abusers; and noting that early involvement in legal sport hunting -- not just illegal animal torture -- also was in the reported backgrounds of convicted school massacre perpetrators Luke Woodham, Andrew Golden, Mitchell Johnson, Kip Kinkel, Michael Carneal, Barry Loukatis, and Evan Ramsey.
Press, public, and politicians who are just barely beginning to recognize the link between illegal violence against animals and violence against humans remain far from understanding the distinction between the inhibition about getting caught that discourages illegality, and the inhibition about causing suffering that George W. Bush's humane education teacher tried unsuccessfully to encourage."
From: ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 2000, p. 18.
Return to Animals in Print 3 Nov 2000 Issue
| Home Page | Newsletter Directory |
Please send comments and submittals to the Editor: Linda Beane Ljbeane1@aol.com
Animals in Print - A Newsletter concerned with: advances, alerts, animal, animals, attitude, attitudes, beef, cat, cats, chicken, chic
Posted by clwillis at October 29, 2004 12:49 AM
Kerry Will Restore American Dignity
2004 Iconoclast Presidential Endorsement
The Lone Star Iconoclast (Crawford, Texas)
Few Americans would have voted for George W. Bush four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would:
Empty the Social Security trust fund by $507 billion to help offset fiscal irresponsibility and at the same time slash Social Security benefits.
Cut Medicare by 17 percent and reduce veterans’ benefits and military pay.
Eliminate overtime pay for millions of Americans and raise oil prices by 50 percent.
Give tax cuts to businesses that sent American jobs overseas, and, in fact, by policy encourage their departure.
Give away billions of tax dollars in government contracts without competitive bids.
Involve this country in a deadly and highly questionable war, and
Take a budget surplus and turn it into the worst deficit in the history of the United States, creating a debt in just four years that will take generations to repay.
These were elements of a hidden agenda that surfaced only after he took office.
The publishers of The Iconoclast endorsed Bush four years ago, based on the things he promised, not on this smoke-screened agenda.
Today, we are endorsing his opponent, John Kerry, based not only on the things that Bush has delivered, but also on the vision of a return to normality that Kerry says our country needs.
Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding terrorism and Iraq.
President Bush has announced plans to change the Social Security system as we know it by privatizing it, which when considering all the tangents related to such a change, would put the entire economy in a dramatic tailspin.
The Social Security Trust Fund actually lends money to the rest of the government in exchange for government bonds, which is how the system must work by law, but how do you later repay Social Security while you are running a huge deficit? It’s impossible, without raising taxes sometime in the future or becoming fiscally responsible now. Social Security money is being used to escalate our deficit and, at the same time, mask a much larger government deficit, instead of paying down the national debt, which would be a proper use, to guarantee a future gain.
Privatization is problematic in that it would subject Social Security to the ups, downs, and outright crashes of the Stock Market. It would take millions in brokerage fees and commissions out of the system, and, unless we have assurance that the Ivan Boeskys and Ken Lays of the world will be caught and punished as a deterrent, subject both the Market and the Social Security Fund to fraud and market manipulation, not to mention devastate and ruin multitudes of American families that would find their lives lost to starvation, shame, and isolation.
Kerry wants to keep Social Security, which each of us already owns. He says that the program is manageable, since it is projected to be solvent through 2042, with use of its trust funds. This would give ample time to strengthen the economy, reduce the budget deficit the Bush administration has created, and, therefore, bolster the program as needed to fit ever-changing demographics.
Our senior citizens depend upon Social Security. Bush’s answer is radical and uncalled for, and would result in chaos as Americans have never experienced. Do we really want to risk the future of Social Security on Bush by spinning the wheel of uncertainty?
In those dark hours after the World Trade Center attacks, Americans rallied together with a new sense of patriotism. We were ready to follow Bush’s lead through any travail.
He let us down.
When he finally emerged from his hide-outs on remote military bases well after the first crucial hours following the attack, he gave sound-bytes instead of solutions.
He did not trust us to be ready to sacrifice, build up our public and private security infrastructure, or cut down on our energy use to put economic pressure on the enemy in all the nations where he hides. He merely told us to shop, spend, and pretend nothing was wrong.
Rather than using the billions of dollars expended on the invasion of Iraq to shore up our boundaries and go after Osama bin Laden and the Saudi Arabian terrorists, the funds were used to initiate a war with what Bush called a more immediate menace, Saddam Hussein, in oil-rich Iraq. After all, Bush said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction trained on America. We believed him, just as we believed it when he reported that Iraq was the heart of terrorism. We trusted him.
The Iconoclast, the President’s hometown newspaper, took Bush on his word and editorialized in favor of the invasion. The newspaper’s publisher promoted Bush and the invasion of Iraq to Londoners in a BBC interview during the time that the administration was wooing the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Again, he let us down.
We presumed the President had solid proof of the existence of these weapons, what and where they were, even as the search continued. Otherwise, our troops would be in much greater danger and the premise for a hurried-up invasion would be moot, allowing more time to solicit assistance from our allies.
Instead we were duped into following yet another privileged agenda.
Now he argues unconvincingly that Iraq was providing safe harbor to terrorists, his new key justification for the invasion. It is like arguing that America provided safe harbor to terrorists leading to 9/11.
Once and for all, George Bush was President of the United States on that day. No one else. He had been President nine months, he had been officially warned of just such an attack a full month before it happened. As President, ultimately he and only he was responsible for our failure to avert those attacks.
We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.
What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern’s dress. America’s reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice.
Iraq is now a quagmire: no WMDs, no substantive link between Saddam and Osama, and no workable plan for the withdrawal of our troops. We are asked to go along on faith. But remember, blind patriotism can be a dangerous thing and “spin” will not bring back to life a dead soldier; certainly not a thousand of them.
Kerry has remained true to his vote granting the President the authority to use the threat of war to intimidate Saddam Hussein into allowing weapons inspections. He believes President Bush rushed into war before the inspectors finished their jobs.
Kerry also voted against President Bush’s $87 billion for troop funding because the bill promoted poor policy in Iraq, privileged Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration to profiteer from the war, and forced debt upon future generations of Americans.
Kerry’s four-point plan for Iraq is realistic, wise, strong, and correct. With the help from our European and Middle Eastern allies, his plan is to train Iraqi security forces, involve Iraqis in their rebuilding and constitution-writing processes, forgive Iraq’s multi-billion dollar debts, and convene a regional conference with Iraq’s neighbors in order to secure a pledge of respect for Iraq’s borders and non-interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.
The publishers of the Iconoclast differ with Bush on other issues, including the denial of stem cell research, shortchanging veterans’ entitlements, cutting school programs and grants, dictating what our children learn through a thought-controlling “test” from Washington rather than allowing local school boards and parents to decide how young people should be taught, ignoring the environment, and creating extraneous language in the Patriot Act that removes some of the very freedoms that our founding fathers and generations of soldiers fought so hard to preserve.
We are concerned about the vast exportation of jobs to other countries, due in large part to policies carried out by Bush appointees. Funds previously geared at retention of small companies are being given to larger concerns, such as Halliburton — companies with strong ties to oil and gas. Job training has been cut every year that Bush has resided at the White House.
Then there is his resolve to inadequately finance Homeland Security and to cut the Community Oriented Policing Program (COPS) by 94 percent, to reduce money for rural development, to slash appropriations for the Small Business Administration, and to under-fund veterans’ programs.
Likewise troubling is that President Bush fought against the creation of the 9/11 Commission and is yet to embrace its recommendations.
Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton has been awarded multi-billion-dollar contracts without undergoing any meaningful bid process — an enormous conflict of interest — plus the company has been significantly raiding the funds of Export-Import Bank of America, reducing investment that could have gone toward small business trade.
When examined based on all the facts, Kerry’s voting record is enviable and echoes that of many Bush allies who are aghast at how the Bush administration has destroyed the American economy. Compared to Bush on economic issues, Kerry would be an arch-conservative, providing for Americans first. He has what it takes to right our wronged economy.
The re-election of George W. Bush would be a mandate to continue on our present course of chaos. We cannot afford to double the debt that we already have. We need to be moving in the opposite direction.
John Kerry has 30 years of experience looking out for the American people and can navigate our country back to prosperity and re-instill in America the dignity she so craves and deserves. He has served us well as a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and has had a successful career as a district attorney, lieutenant governor, and senator.
Kerry has a positive vision for America, plus the proven intelligence, good sense, and guts to make it happen.
That’s why The Iconoclast urges Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country.
The Iconoclast wholeheartedly endorses John Kerry.
In the 2000 general election, this publication endorsed George W. Bush for President.
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Byrd, Major Media Spread Coverage of Bush-Nazi Nexus
by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
US Senator Robert Byrd, on the floor of Congress, on October 17, has explicitly compared the Bush media operation to that run by Herman Goering, mastermind of the Nazi putsch against the German people.
On the same day, the Associated Press ran a national story linking Prescott Bush to Adolf Hitler. The lead read: "President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show."
That night, CNN ran a "streamer" on the bottom of its all-news programming confirming that "declassified documents show Prescott Bush connections to Nazi finance."
Stories reminding the public that the grandfather of George W. Bush and his United Trust Bank were cited by the US government in 1942 for helping Hitler under the Trading With the Enemies Act, have now spread widely through the major meda.
What's going on here? Are these stories linking Team Bush to the Nazis irrelevant? Mere partisan politics? Or do they indicate a growing public concern with what is actually happening in Washington?
Coming on the floor of the US Senate, Byrd's searing critique indicates that the equation of Team Bush with the Nazi elite has gained a certain mainstream credibility. A conservative Democrat who has represented West Virginia in the Senate for decades, Byrd is one of America's leading Constitutional scholars. He is known as the master of Senate procedures. A passionate student of the English language, his epic orations for peace and the preservation of historic American freedoms are likely to grace school texts for decades to come.
That the cautious, thoughtful Byrd has conjured explicit comparisons between the infamous mass murderer Hermann Goering and the administration of George W. Bush is a stunning commentary on how far to the right the Republicans have really gone. Goering was convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes tribunal after World War II. He killed himself just before he was to be executed.
That the mainstream media has again found newsworthy the long-established connections between the Bush family and the Nazi Party is also instructive.
For sixty years it has been a matter of public record that Prescott Bush helped finance Hitler's rise to power and world war. Later a US Senator from Connecticut, Prescott was father to President George H.W. Bush and grandfather to George W. Bush. Because legal action was taken, Bush's deeds have been a matter of public record since 1942. They were widely covered in newspapers and electronic media at the time. The history is readily accessible.
But right-wing Bush fanatics continue to deny those ties existed. In a nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talk host Michael Medved recently claimed that Prescott Bush's bank's ties to the Nazis had not been established.
Similar denials have surrounded Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a matter of public record that his father volunteered for the Austrian Nazi Party and the infamous SA, which engaged in brutal mass murder. Arnold himself has attempted to distance himself from his family's Nazi past. He has made large donations to the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which has tracked Nazi fugitives. His backers now claim he attended an anti-Nazi rally at an early age.
On the other hand, he has been linked to statements admiring Hitler for his speaking ability and his ability to gain a huge following. A past indicating a strong authoritarian nature has also been cause for alarm. In 1975, Schwarzenegger yearned for his own Nazi-style rally, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being [in] total agreement whatever you say."
Widespread allegations linking Karl Rove to family ties of explicit Nazi origin have been withdrawn by Al Marten, who originally publicized them through his web site. But Rove is quoted in Bob Woodward's best-selling BUSH AT WAR as comparing the reaction of a New York Yankee crowd to an appearance by Bush as being "like a nazi rally."
Known as "Bush's Brain," Rove is the GOP's political mastermind. Widely feared for his harsh, vindictive actions, Rove is at the center of allegations that the CIA's Valerie Plame was "outed" in retaliation for a report filed by her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that contradicted the Bush-Rove line on Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. The disclosure could involve a breach of national security and a ten-year felony.
The ultimate GOP operative, Rove helped engineer the recent redistricting of Texas for expanded Republican control of the Congressional delegation. He may also have helped choreograph the Schwarzenegger campaign, where control of the California state house could vastly enhance the likelihood that Bush will hold the White House in 2004. Along with the Executive, Congress, Judiciary and major media, the GOP now controls governorships of the four largest states, the largest one-party concentration of power in US history.
Bush supporters deny his Nazi family ties have anything to do with Republican policies. Visiting the "sins of the father" (or grandfather) on an offspring has not been considered fair game in US politics.
But after eight years of total assault on Bill Clinton and his family, one can only imagine the media frenzy had Clinton's grandparents been linked to the Soviet Union. Would Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove have found such ties "irrelevant"?
Does Rush's apparent narcotic addiction resemble that of Hermann Goering? Is he the Right's real minister of propaganda? Do his "dittoheads" resemble the unthinking brownshirts that terrorized millions?
Such things can be hard to hear. In polite society, they can strain "credibility." But blood ties and shallow images were not what Sen. Byrd's comparisons between Bush and Goering were about: they were about Bush's actual behavior.
Like Senator Byrd, tens of millions of Americans are deeply worried that this administration has waged an unprecedented assault on American civil rights and liberties. It has shredded the Constitution and the natural environment as none other in US history. Its unprovoked attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq have prompted thoughtful comparisons to the unprovoked Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. Its illegal detainment center at Guantanamo and its cavalier use of the drug war, the prison system and the powers arrogated through the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security apparatus have brought the US to the brink of dictatorship.
Given the horrific reality of what the GOP is now doing to America and the world, we should be profoundly thankful that the public is uneasy. If Team Bush objects to being compared with the Nazi elite, perhaps it should act less like it.
Too much sad history has been told over the centuries by those who failed to speak plainly and forcefully when the times demanded it.
What the Republicans are doing to America and the world has been seen before. And, it's been stopped before, but only by facing reality.
Speaking Truth to illegitimate power makes dictatorships temporary. That's the only way the SuperPower of Peace can ultimately prevail...which it will.
Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis are co-authors of 'GEORGE W. BUSH VERSUS THE SUPERPOWER OF PEACE', available November 1 from www.freepress.org.
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Byrd, Major Media Spread Coverage of Bush-Nazi Nexus
by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
US Senator Robert Byrd, on the floor of Congress, on October 17, has explicitly compared the Bush media operation to that run by Herman Goering, mastermind of the Nazi putsch against the German people.
On the same day, the Associated Press ran a national story linking Prescott Bush to Adolf Hitler. The lead read: "President Bush's grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler's rise to power, government documents show."
That night, CNN ran a "streamer" on the bottom of its all-news programming confirming that "declassified documents show Prescott Bush connections to Nazi finance."
Stories reminding the public that the grandfather of George W. Bush and his United Trust Bank were cited by the US government in 1942 for helping Hitler under the Trading With the Enemies Act, have now spread widely through the major meda.
What's going on here? Are these stories linking Team Bush to the Nazis irrelevant? Mere partisan politics? Or do they indicate a growing public concern with what is actually happening in Washington?
Coming on the floor of the US Senate, Byrd's searing critique indicates that the equation of Team Bush with the Nazi elite has gained a certain mainstream credibility. A conservative Democrat who has represented West Virginia in the Senate for decades, Byrd is one of America's leading Constitutional scholars. He is known as the master of Senate procedures. A passionate student of the English language, his epic orations for peace and the preservation of historic American freedoms are likely to grace school texts for decades to come.
That the cautious, thoughtful Byrd has conjured explicit comparisons between the infamous mass murderer Hermann Goering and the administration of George W. Bush is a stunning commentary on how far to the right the Republicans have really gone. Goering was convicted of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Nazi war crimes tribunal after World War II. He killed himself just before he was to be executed.
That the mainstream media has again found newsworthy the long-established connections between the Bush family and the Nazi Party is also instructive.
For sixty years it has been a matter of public record that Prescott Bush helped finance Hitler's rise to power and world war. Later a US Senator from Connecticut, Prescott was father to President George H.W. Bush and grandfather to George W. Bush. Because legal action was taken, Bush's deeds have been a matter of public record since 1942. They were widely covered in newspapers and electronic media at the time. The history is readily accessible.
But right-wing Bush fanatics continue to deny those ties existed. In a nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talk host Michael Medved recently claimed that Prescott Bush's bank's ties to the Nazis had not been established.
Similar denials have surrounded Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a matter of public record that his father volunteered for the Austrian Nazi Party and the infamous SA, which engaged in brutal mass murder. Arnold himself has attempted to distance himself from his family's Nazi past. He has made large donations to the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which has tracked Nazi fugitives. His backers now claim he attended an anti-Nazi rally at an early age.
On the other hand, he has been linked to statements admiring Hitler for his speaking ability and his ability to gain a huge following. A past indicating a strong authoritarian nature has also been cause for alarm. In 1975, Schwarzenegger yearned for his own Nazi-style rally, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being [in] total agreement whatever you say."
Widespread allegations linking Karl Rove to family ties of explicit Nazi origin have been withdrawn by Al Marten, who originally publicized them through his web site. But Rove is quoted in Bob Woodward's best-selling BUSH AT WAR as comparing the reaction of a New York Yankee crowd to an appearance by Bush as being "like a nazi rally."
Known as "Bush's Brain," Rove is the GOP's political mastermind. Widely feared for his harsh, vindictive actions, Rove is at the center of allegations that the CIA's Valerie Plame was "outed" in retaliation for a report filed by her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that contradicted the Bush-Rove line on Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. The disclosure could involve a breach of national security and a ten-year felony.
The ultimate GOP operative, Rove helped engineer the recent redistricting of Texas for expanded Republican control of the Congressional delegation. He may also have helped choreograph the Schwarzenegger campaign, where control of the California state house could vastly enhance the likelihood that Bush will hold the White House in 2004. Along with the Executive, Congress, Judiciary and major media, the GOP now controls governorships of the four largest states, the largest one-party concentration of power in US history.
Bush supporters deny his Nazi family ties have anything to do with Republican policies. Visiting the "sins of the father" (or grandfather) on an offspring has not been considered fair game in US politics.
But after eight years of total assault on Bill Clinton and his family, one can only imagine the media frenzy had Clinton's grandparents been linked to the Soviet Union. Would Rush Limbaugh or Karl Rove have found such ties "irrelevant"?
Does Rush's apparent narcotic addiction resemble that of Hermann Goering? Is he the Right's real minister of propaganda? Do his "dittoheads" resemble the unthinking brownshirts that terrorized millions?
Such things can be hard to hear. In polite society, they can strain "credibility." But blood ties and shallow images were not what Sen. Byrd's comparisons between Bush and Goering were about: they were about Bush's actual behavior.
Like Senator Byrd, tens of millions of Americans are deeply worried that this administration has waged an unprecedented assault on American civil rights and liberties. It has shredded the Constitution and the natural environment as none other in US history. Its unprovoked attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq have prompted thoughtful comparisons to the unprovoked Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. Its illegal detainment center at Guantanamo and its cavalier use of the drug war, the prison system and the powers arrogated through the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security apparatus have brought the US to the brink of dictatorship.
Given the horrific reality of what the GOP is now doing to America and the world, we should be profoundly thankful that the public is uneasy. If Team Bush objects to being compared with the Nazi elite, perhaps it should act less like it.
Too much sad history has been told over the centuries by those who failed to speak plainly and forcefully when the times demanded it.
What the Republicans are doing to America and the world has been seen before. And, it's been stopped before, but only by facing reality.
Speaking Truth to illegitimate power makes dictatorships temporary. That's the only way the SuperPower of Peace can ultimately prevail...which it will.
Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis are co-authors of 'GEORGE W. BUSH VERSUS THE SUPERPOWER OF PEACE', available November 1 from www.freepress.org.
All content © 1970-2003 The Columbus Free Press
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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior
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100 Facts and 1 Opinion
by JUDD LEGUM
[from the November 8, 2004 issue]
Click here to download, circulate and distribute a PDF version of this article.
IRAQ
1. The Bush Administration has spent more than $140 billion on a war of choice in Iraq.
Source: American Progress
2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without adequate body armor or armored Humvees.
Sources: Fox News, The Boston Globe
3. The Bush Administration ignored estimates from Gen. Eric Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be required to secure Iraq.
Source: PBS
4. Vice President Cheney said Americans "will, in fact, be greeted as liberators" in Iraq.
Source: The Washington Post
5. During the Bush Administration's war in Iraq, more than 1,000 US troops have lost their lives and more than 7,000 have been injured.
Source: globalsecurity.org
6. In May 2003, President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit, stood under a banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," and triumphantly announced that major combat operations were over in Iraq. Asked if he had any regrets about the stunt, Bush said he would do it all over again.
Source: Yahoo News
7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda.
Source: MSNBC , 9-11 Commission
8. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." The government's top nuclear scientists had told the Administration the tubes were "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be of use in developing nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes.
Source: New York Times
9. The Bush Administration has spent just $1.1 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction.
Source: USA Today
10. According to the Administration's handpicked weapon's inspector, Charles Duelfer, there is "no evidence that Hussein had passed illicit weapons material to al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, or had any intent to do so." After the release of the report, Bush continued to insist, "There was a risk--a real risk--that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or information to terrorist networks."
Sources: New York Times, White House news release
11. According to Duelfer, the UN inspections regime put an "economic strangle hold" on Hussein that prevented him from developing a WMD program for more than twelve years.
Source: Los Angeles Times
TERRORISM
12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued his monthlong vacation.
Source: CNN.com
13. The Bush Administration failed to commit enough troops to capture Osama bin Laden when US forces had him cornered in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November 2001. Instead, they relied on local warlords.
Source: csmonitor.com
14. The Bush Administration secured less nuclear material from sites around the world vulnerable to terrorists in the two years after 9/11 than were secured in the two years before 9/11.
Source: nti.org
15. The Bush Administration underfunded Nunn-Lugar--the program intended to keep the former Soviet Union's nuclear legacy out of the hands of terrorists and rogue states--by $45.5 million.
Source: armscontrol.org
16. The Bush Administration has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money.
Source: sfgate.com
17. According to Congressional Research Service data, the Bush Administration has underfunded security at the nation's ports by more than $1 billion for fiscal year 2005.
Source: American Progress
18. The Bush Administration did not devote the resources necessary to prevent a resurgence in the production of poppies, the raw material used to create heroin, in Afghanistan--creating a potent new source of financing for terrorists.
Source: Pakistan Tribune
19. Vice President Cheney told voters that unless they elect George Bush in November, "we'll get hit again" by terrorists.
Source: Washington Post
20. Even though an Al Qaeda training manual suggests terrorists come to the United States and buy assault weapons, the Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the expiration of the ban.
Source: sfgate.com
21. Despite repeated calls for reinforcements, there are fewer experienced CIA agents assigned to the unit dealing with Osama bin Laden now than there were before 9/11.
Source: New York Times
22. Before 9/11, John Ashcroft proposed slashing counterterrorism funding by 23 percent.
Source: americanprogress.org
23. Between January 20, 2001, and September 10, 2001, the Bush Administration publicly mentioned Al Qaeda one time.
Source: commondreams.org
24. The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission $3 million to investigate the September 11 attacks and $50 million to the commission that investigated the Columbia space shuttle crash.
Source: commondreams.org
25. More than three years after 9/11, just 5 percent of all cargo--including cargo transported on passenger planes--is screened.
Source: commondreams.org
NATIONAL SECURITY
26. During the Bush Administration, North Korea quadrupled its suspected nuclear arsenal from two to eight weapons.
Source: New York Times
27. The Bush Administration has openly opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, undermining nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
Source: commondreams.org
28. The Bush Administration has spent $7 billion this year--and plans to spend $10 billion next year--for a missile defense system that has never worked in a test that wasn't rigged.
Sources: www.gao.gov/new.items/d04409.pdf, Los Angeles Times
29. The Bush Administration underfunded the needs of the nation's first responders by $98 billion, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study.
Source: nationaldefensemagazine.org
CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION
30. The Bush Administration awarded a multibillion-dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton--a company that still pays Vice President Cheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation each year (Cheney also has Halliburton stock options). The company then repeatedly overcharged the military for services, accepted kickbacks from subcontractors and served troops dirty food.
Sources: The Washington Post, The Tapei Times, BBC News
31. The Bush Administration told Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan about plans to go to war with Iraq before telling Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Source: detnews.com
32. The Bush Administration relentlessly pushed an energy bill containing $23.5 billion in corporate tax breaks, much of which would have benefited major campaign contributors.
taxpayer.net, Washington Post
33. The Bush Administration paid Iraqi-exile and neocon darling Ahmad Chalabi $400,000 a month for intelligence, including fabricated claims about Iraqi WMD. It continued to pay him for months after discovering that he was providing inaccurate information.
Source: MSNBC
34. The Bush Administration installed as top officials more than 100 former lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries they oversee.
Source: Source: commondreams.org
35. The Bush Administration let disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay--a close friend of President Bush--help write its energy policy.
Source: MSNBC
36. Top Bush Administration officials accepted $127,600 in jewelry and other presents from the Saudi royal family in 2003, including diamond-and-sapphire jewelry valued at $95,500 for First Lady Laura Bush.
Source: Seattle Times
37. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge awarded lucrative contracts to several companies in which he is an investor, including Microsoft, GE, Sprint, Pfizer and Oracle.
Source: cq.com
38. President Bush used images of firefighters carrying flag-draped coffins through the rubble of the World Trade Center to score political points in a campaign advertisement.
Source: The Washington Post
THE ECONOMY
39. President Bush's top economic adviser, Greg Mankiw, said the outsourcing of American jobs abroad was "a plus for the economy in the long run."
Source: CBS News
40. The Bush Administration turned a $236 billion surplus into a $422 billion deficit.
Sources: Fortune, dfw.com
41. The Bush Administration implemented regulations that made millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay.
Source: epinet.org
42. The Bush Administration has crippled state budgets by underfunding federal mandates by $175 billion.
Source: cbpp.org
43. President Bush is the first President since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs--around 800,000--over a four-year term.
Source: The Guardian
44. The Bush Administration gave Accenture a multibillion-dollar border control contract even though the company moved its operations to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes.
Sources: The New York Times, cantonrep.com
45. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush said "the vast majority of my tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum." He passed the tax cuts, but the top 20 percent of earners received 68 percent of the benefits.
Sources: cbpp.org, vote-smart.org
46. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to pay down the national debt to a historically low level. As of September 30, the national debt stood at $7,379,052,696,330.32, a record high.
Sources: www.georgewbush.com , Bureau of the Public Debt
47. As major corporate scandals rocked the nation's economy, the Bush Administration reduced the enforcement of corporate tax law--conducting fewer audits, imposing fewer penalties, pursuing fewer prosecutions and making virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes.
Source: iht.com
48. The Bush Administration increased tax audits for the working poor.
Source: theolympian.com
49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the Social Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it.
Sources: georgewbush.com, Congressional Budget Office
50. The Bush Administration proposed slashing funding for the largest federal public housing program, putting 2 million families in danger of losing their housing.
Source: San Francisco Examiner
51. The Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the minimum wage from falling to an inflation-adjusted fifty-year low.
Source: Los Angeles Times
EDUCATION
52. The Bush Administration underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by $9.4 billion.
Source: nwitimes.com
53. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to increase the maximum federal scholarship, or Pell Grant, by 50 percent. Instead, each year he has been in office he has frozen or cut the maximum scholarship amount.
Source: Source: edworkforce.house.gov x
54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association--a union of teachers--a "terrorist organization."
Sources: CNN.com
HEALTHCARE
55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.
Source: Washington Post, realcities.com
56. The nonpartisan GAO concluded the Bush Administration created illegal, covert propaganda--in the form of fake news reports--to promote its industry-backed Medicare bill.
Source: General Accounting Office
57. The Bush Administration stunted research that could lead to new treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal injuries, heart disease and muscular dystrophy by placing severe restrictions on the use of federal dollars for embryonic stem-cell research.
Source: CBS News
58. The Bush Administration reinstated the "global gag rule," which requires foreign NGOs to withhold information about legal abortion services or lose US funds for family planning.
Source: healthsciences.columbia.edu
59. The Bush Administration authorized twenty companies that have been charged with fraud at the federal or state level to offer Medicare prescription drug cards to seniors.
Source: American Progress
60. The Bush Administration created a prescription drug card for Medicare that locks seniors into one card for up to a year but allows the corporations offering the cards to change their prices once a week.
Source: Washington Post
61. The Bush Administration blocked efforts to allow Medicare to negotiate cheaper prescription drug prices for seniors.
Source: American Progress
62. At the behest of the french fry industry, the Bush Administration USDA changed their definition of fresh vegetables to include frozen french fries.
Source: commondreams.org
63. In a case before the Supreme Court, the Bush Administrations sided with HMOs--arguing that patients shouldn't be allowed to sue HMOs when they are improperly denied treatment. With the Administration's help, the HMOs won.
Source: ABC News
64. The Bush Administration went to court to block lawsuits by patients who were injured by defective prescription drugs and medical devices.
Source: http:///Washington Post
65. President Bush signed a Medicare law that allows companies that reduce healthcare benefits for retirees to receive substantial subsidies from the government.
Source: Bloomberg News
66. Since President Bush took office, more than 5 million people have lost their health insurance.
Source: CNN.com
67. The Bush Administration blocked a proposal to ban the use of arsenic-treated lumber in playground equipment, even though it conceded it posed a danger to children.
Source: Miami Herald
68. One day after President Bush bragged about his efforts to help seniors afford healthcare, the Administration announced the largest dollar increase of Medicare premiums in history.
Source: iht.com
69. The Bush Administration--at the behest of the tobacco industry--tried to water down a global treaty that aimed to help curb smoking.
Source: tobaccofreekids.org
70. The Bush Administration has spent $270 million on abstinence-only education programs even though there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that they are effective in dissuading teenagers from having sex or reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
Source: salon.com
71. The Bush Administration slashed funding for programs that suggested ways, other than abstinence, to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.
Source: LA Weekly
ENVIRONMENT
72. The Bush Administration gutted clean-air standards for aging power plants, resulting in at least 20,000 premature deaths each year.
Source: cta.policy.net
73. The Bush Administration eliminated protections on more than 200 million acres of public lands.
Source: calwild.org
74. President Bush broke his promise to place limits on carbon dioxide emissions, an essential step in combating global warming.
Source: Washington Post
75. Days after 9/11, the Bush Administration told people living near Ground Zero that the air was safe--even though they knew it wasn't--subjecting hundreds of people to unnecessary, debilitating ailments.
Sierra Club , EPA
76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost of a new Hummer.
Source: Washington Post
77. The Bush Administration put former coal-industry big shots in the government and let them roll back safety regulations, putting miners at greater risk of black lung disease.
Source: New York Times
78. The Bush Administration said that even though the weed killer atrazine was seeping into water supplies--creating, among other bizarre creatures, hermaphroditic frogs--there was no reason to regulate it.
Source: Washington Post
79. The Bush Administration has proposed cutting the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency by $600 million next year.
Source: ems.org
80. President Bush broke his campaign promise to end the maintenance backlog at national parks. He has provided just 7 percent of the funds needed, according to National Park Service estimates.
Source: bushgreenwatch.org
RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
81. Since 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft has detained 5,000 foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps; none have been convicted of a terrorist crime.
Source: hrwatch.org
82. The Bush Administration ignored pleas from the International Committee of the Red Cross to stop the abuse of prisoners in US custody.
Source: Wall Street Journal
83. In violation of international law, the Bush Administration hid prisoners from the Red Cross so the organization couldn't monitor their treatment.
Source: hrwatch.org
84. The Bush Administration, without ever charging him with a crime, arrested US citizen José Padilla at an airport in Chicago, held him on a naval brig in South Carolina for two years, denied him access to a lawyer and prohibited any contact with his friends and family.
Source: news.findlaw.com
85. President Bush's top legal adviser wrote a memo to the President advising him that he can legally authorize torture.
Source: news.findlaw.com
86. At the direction of Bush Administration officials, the FBI went door to door questioning people planning on protesting at the 2004 political conventions.
Source: New York Times
87. The Bush Administration refuses to support the creation of an independent commission to investigate the abuse of foreign prisoners in American custody. Instead, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld selected the members of a commission to review the conduct of his own department.
Source: humanrightsfirst.org
FLIP FLOPS
88. President Bush opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission before he supported it, delaying an essential inquiry into one of the greatest intelligence failure in American history.
Source: americanprogressaction.org
89. President Bush said gay marriage was a state issue before he supported a constitutional amendment banning it.
Sources: CNN.com, White House
90. President Bush said he was committed to capturing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" before he said, "I truly am not that concerned about him."
Source: americanprogressaction.org
91. President Bush said we had found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, before he admitted we hadn't found them.
Sources: White House, americanprogress.org
92. President Bush said, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," before he admitted Saddam had no role in 9/11.
Sources: White House, Washington Post
BIOGRAPHY
93. George Bush didn't come close to meeting his commitments to the National Guard. Records show he performed no service in a six-month period in 1972 and a three-month period in 1973.
Source: boston.com
94. In June 1990 George Bush violated federal securities law when he failed to inform the SEC that he had sold 200,000 shares of his company, Harken Energy. Two months later the company reported significant losses and by the end of that year the stock had dropped from $3 to $1.
Source: The Guardian
95. When asked at an April 2004 press conference to name a mistake he made during his presidency, Bush couldn't think of one.
Source: White House
SECRECY
96. The Bush Administration refuses to release twenty-seven pages of a Congressional report that reportedly detail the Saudi Arabian government's connections to the 9/11 hijackers.
Source: philly.com
97. Last year the Bush Administration spent $6.5 billion creating 14 million new classified documents and securing old secrets--the highest level of spending in ten years.
Source: openthegovernment.org
98. The Bush Administration spent $120 classifying documents for every $1 it spent declassifying documents.
Source: openthegovernment.org
99. The Bush Administration has spent millions of dollars and defied numerous court orders to conceal from the public who participated in Vice President Cheney's 2001 energy task force.
Source: Washington Post
100. The Bush Administration--reversing years of bipartisan tradition--refuses to answer requests from Democratic members of Congress about how the White House is spending taxpayer money.
Source: Washington Post
OPINION