Bush Administration was Asleep at the Switch
While
the President was taking a long vacation at his ranch in Crawford, the
CIA told him that, Osama bin Laden might be planning to hijack an
airliner as part of some, who-knows-what terrorist action against the
United States.
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=60
"They want to destroy
the moral fabric of our country. They want to destroy our way of life. They want
to take away our freedom!"
Sound like a familiar rant from the conservatives? It ought to. They used the
same rhetoric when they opposed Medicare, Social Security, Civil Rights, Voting
Rights, an end to lynching, segregation, and every social improvement in history.
FYI
Who holds the record for holding the longest filibuster in the
US Senate's history?
Answer
Where
Was the Values Crowd When Dr. King Needed Them?
While Hoover and his FBI tapped his phone--you know Dr. King really
had some dangerous ideas!--"The great protectors of morality
and human rights now, were silentor even worse, critical of
Dr. King."
Ron
Rosenbaum-The Observer.com
Where
is the Outrage?
IIn order to pay for their vast tax cut for the richest 1 percent of
Americans, the Bush administration cut the most famous and
successful of all the War on Poverty programs. Where is the outrage
from the pro-life, pro-child,
pro-family advocates? They want to save
the children, but they don't want to feed them. We hear the never-ending
mantra, of "socialism" every time there's an effort to correct
an injustice, or make improvements on deplorable conditions. Well,
if thinking that pregnant women and children shouldn't starve makes
you a socialist, then we plead guilty.
TThe Fight For Children
The
GOP, they Privatize Profit's but Socialize Losses.
"The model of thought
that says we need to go out and extend unemployment benefits and health
insurance benefits and so forth, is not, I think, one that is commensurate
with the American spirit here". --Dick Armey (R-The Killing Fields, TX)
Regarding benefits for Americans who were laid off, just two weeks
after the terrorist attack, and after they bailed out the airline
industry
Democrats Tried to Prevent
the Enron Disaster
Four things the Democrats tried to do to keep the "malefactors
of great wealth" in check, but all were sandbagged by the Gingrich/Bush
"deregulation" and "free market" mantras.
Democrats Sounded the Warnings
Best Quote
"Can you believe this Enron mess? I love
how [Bush's] good friend 'Kenny Boy' suddenly turned into 'Mr. Lay.'
Give me a break!"...Johnny Carson
G.O.P. Fights Proposed Rules
on Auditors
RRepublicans led by Senator Phil Gramm of Texas and the accounting industry's
trade group worked to kill a Democratic measure that
would impose new rules on auditors.
http://www.nytimes.com 5/18/2002
G.O.P Back to Protecting
Corporado Tax Havens
Republicans (the we always need more studies
party) have pulled a tax bill (HR 4626) aiding married couples to
protect the tax havens for companies like Enron. GOP leaders are
trying to avoid a showdown over tax breaks for corporations that move
their headquarters overseas.
hhttp://www.nytimes.com 5/16/2002
Drug Industry
New York Times article on lobbying by the drug industry
during time of crisis.br>
A
Muscular Lobby Tries to Shape Nation's Bioterror Plan
Also access the complete Public Citizen report at: hhttp://www.citizen.org/documents/pharma.pdf
Airline Security
For more than a decade, the airline industry and its Washington friends
consistently blocked efforts to improve airport security, placing
the bottom line above the public's safety.
The
best lobbyists money buy
The penny-pinching, privatization-good, regulation-bad
policies of the conservatives--they were unwilling to pay the price
of public safety.
Paying
The Price/Paul Krugman-www.nytimes.com
Airlines Fought Security Changes
Despite warnings, companies wanted to avoid delays. Article
from Boston Globe 9/20/01
Trust
the Airlines?
"Not
since deregulation of the airline industry have we faced such a critical
point in the history of air transportation in this country. We are
closer than ever to seeing an industry totally dominated by three
mega-airlines", says John McCain.
Airline
Competition Restoration Act
American
Airlines get's green light to crush competitors
When
Airlines Dislike Competition
Political Intelligence
U.S. spies had the goods on terrorists and nuclear bombs
being built long ago, but the government wouldn't listen.
Reports
were politically inconvenient
Bush Rejected Terrorism Commission
Report-"White House officials failed to embrace any
of the recommendations to prevent acts of domestic terrorism delivered
earlier this year. Bush administration officials told former Sens.
Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred
instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report
by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead,
the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President
Dick Cheney 'study' the potential problem of domestic terrorism --
which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years
studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue
to [FEMA], headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh. The
Hart-Rudman Commission had specifically recommended that the issue
of terrorism was such a threat it needed far more than FEMA's attention."
http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/09/12/bush/index.html
Dirty
Money Laundering Terrorists and the Bush Team
The U.S. was all set to join a global crackdown on criminal and terrorist
money havens earlier this year. Thirty industrial nations were ready
to tighten up on offshore financial centers whose banks have the potential
to hide and often help launder billions of dollars for drug cartels,
global crime syndicates--and groups like the al-Qaeda organization.
Last year Sen. Phil Gramm R-TX (news,
bio,
voting
record) blocked a Clinton-administration proposal to ban access
to American financial markets to nations that didn't cooperate with
money-laundering investigations. The GOP railed that then-Tres. Sec.
Summers alarms were just big government meddling. Then the Bush Administration
took office, and Sec. Tres. Paul O'Neill defended the
right of banks to "slam the door in the inspector's kisser."
"The government has not been respectful of the cost it imposes
on society." he announced! Indeed, the conservative right's think
tank, that great bastion of honor and integrity the 'Heritage Foundation'
met with O'Niell, with the goal of getting the United States to cease
its pressure on nations like the Cayman Islands and Liechtenstein,
whose bank secrecy laws stand athwart law-enforcement attempts to
monitor illicit endeavors and restrict the dealings of Osama Bin Laden.
Bush Flip Flopped on Money Laundering
It took the worst terrorist
attacks in U.S. history to turn the Bush Administration around on money laundering. Top
officials, including Attorney General John Ashcroft and even O'Neill,
were suddenly declaring that tough new anti-money-laundering laws
were needed. Just prior to 9/11 the Bush administration rejected
the international efforts to strangle this corrupt racket.(Money
Laundering Efforts Abandoned by Bush) Sec.Treasurer
O'Neill recommended delays in Clinton-era money-laundering regulations
that had not yet been implemented, and essentially promoted
money laundering by drug dealers, arms traffickers, terrorists, and
crooked dictators. Why? Could it be that these criminals do business
with the Bush organized crime family?
Banking on Secrecy Time Magazine
A
Retreat on Tax Havens NYT Editors
Follow
the Money Laundering to the White House
Did America Turn a Blind Eye?
How can it be that the former President of the US and the current
President of the US have business dealings with characters that need
to be investigated?
BBC
Newsnight-Greg
Palast
Terrorists are Made, Not Born
Former House Hypocrite, Newt Gingrich said President Clinton should
have done more to wage a campaign against terrorism. Former Secretary
of State James Baker - the chief architect of the Florida coup - wants
the CIA back in the business of assassination, staging bloody coups,
to install brutal dictators. Is anyone looking
at U.S. Foreign Policy, not in an attempt to justify the hideous attacks
on our nation, but to even ask why they hate us so much?
Will American's Ever Wake Up From Their
Coma?
WWhy
Do They Hate Us?
Bush's
Dept. of Injustice - With Iran and Against Americans br>
The State Department had listed Iran as the most active
state sponsor of terrorism in the world for the year 2000. And after
Sept. 11, President Bush told Congress that America's message to the
world on terrorism was clear: "Either you are with us, or you
are with the terrorists." But where, does the Justice Department
stand on this? Americans that were held hostage by the government
of Iran for 444 days beginning in 1979. The hostages had a lawsuit
initiated against Iran last year under the Antiterrorism Act of 1996,
signed by President Clinton. But after Sept. 11, our government took
sides with Iran and against the hostages.
With
Iran, Against Americans NYT's Article
George Bush Sr. pardoned anti-Cuban
terrorist Orlando Bosch
Denise
Rich makes $1 million contribution to Clinton-Marc Rich gets a pardon.
The mining industries make a $4 million contribution to Bush, and
he reverses two campaign promises--support for benefits to miners
with Black Lung disease and lowering
carbon-dioxide emissions. Republicans
somehow don't see any relation between these two scenarios. Nor do
they see anything wrong with the pardon by former President
Bush of a terrorist, Orlando Bosch, who conspired in the bombing of
a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing all passengers and crew and now
resides freely in Miami, while they continue to carp about the Marc
Rich Pardon.
The Harboring of a Terrorist
Bush's Deal With the Taliban
Mr. Bush sanctamoniously declared that "terrorists use drug profits
to fund their terrorist cells", calling drug dealers the scourge
of society--although he has no problem with tobacco dealers. Yet six
months before the 9/11 attack he gave the Taliban drug-lords/terrorists
$43 million, to help finance their oppresive regime. "Enslave
your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige
of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will
embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the
drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes
seriously. Never mind that Osama bin Laden operates the leading anti-American
terror operation from his base in Afghanistan, from which, among other
crimes, he launched two bloody attacks on American embassies in Africa
in 1998." On May 22, LA Times columnist Robert Scheer denounced
"the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan,
the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world.
Los
Angeles Times Article
"Oil barons court Taliban
in Texas":
Was the title a December 17, 1997 article in the British paper, The
Telegraph. A Creeping Collapse in Credibility at the White House:
From ENRON Entanglements to UNOCAL Bringing the Taliban to Texas and
Controlling Afghanistan.
http://www.counterpunch.org/tomenron.htm
An Israeli doctor
says: "Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can
take a kidney out of one man put it in another and have him looking
for work in six weeks." A German doctor says: "That's
nothing, we can take a lung out of one person put it in another
and have him looking for work in four weeks." A Russian doctor
says: "In my country medicine is so advanced we can take half
a heart out of one person put it in another and have them both looking
for work in two weeks." The American doctor, not to be outdone,
says: "You guys are way behind, we just took a man with no
brain out of Texas, put him in the White House, and now half the
country is looking for work!"
Behind
the Scenes: An Auto Industry Fix
In the wake
of the Ford/Firestone tragedies, Vickie Hendricks and Julie Lockwood-Steinberg
share a tragic experience both lost loved ones in Ford/Firestone
rollover crashes in Texas. The two women traveled to Washington,
D.C. to urge Congress to pass tough new safety legislation that
would criminally punish the knowing failure to recall defective
vehicles and prevent companies such as Ford and Firestone from hiding
defects from the public and government. Rather than publicly opposing
a bill that was unanimously passed in the Senate Commerce Committee,
conservative Republican senators stopped it with a "rolling
hold," keeping the bill from coming to a vote by asking Majority
Leader Trent Lott to "hold" it up but doing so
anonymously. In this undemocratic tactic, senators pass the hold
like a hot potato from one to another before their identities can
be made public. Although McCain publicly implored senators with
holds to come forward and negotiate with him on the safety legislation,
no one stepped up. CBS
News identified Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Jim Bunning (R-Ky.)
and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as three of the culprits. Later, Sen.
George Voinovich (R-Ohio) acknowledged his role, as did Sen. Jeff
Sessions (R-Ala.) in a colloquy with McCain on the Senate floor.
The
Auto Industry Fix
March 2002- Senate Caves to Auto Lobby
again
Proposal for Fuel De-railed with Scare
Tactics
TThe GOP used the very same diatribe and scare tactics against
proposals for fuel standards, that they used decades ago to
oppose the mandatory installation of seat belts. The auto industry
can't survive, they wailed. It will destroy the economy and American's
won't be able to afford automobiles anymore! If we had listened
to them then, we'de still be driving around without safety belts
or air bags today.
Frontline Transcripts of Audio Tapes
from Nixon and Detroit
Effectiveness and Impact of Corporate
Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) Standards
Report that concludes changes to the program could cut U.S. petroleum
dependence and provide more flexibility to carmakers. From the National
Academy of Sciences.
http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076013/html/
SUVs Hidden History
What did the federal government and automakers know about risks
posed by SUVs? Why did Reagan appointee and NHTSA administrator,
Diane Steed, deny a petition to force changes in the basic design
in 1986.
Frontline Study of this Hidden History
What's Happening
to Women?
Former sex slaves, known as "comfort women,"
win a symbolic victory over Hirohito and the Japanese Imperial Army.
Court Gives Ex-Comfort Women Symbolic
Victory
Helping
Women of the World Physical abuse of women
worldwide
www.equalitynow.org
An international human rights organization dedicated to end violations
against girls and women.
www.maitinepal.org
Maiti Nepal helps victims of sexual trafficking.
www.ijm.org The International
Justice Mission helps rescue girls forced into prostitution.
www.heifer.org Through
the Heifer Project, you can donate cows, pigs, chicks and other livestock
to needy families.
www.rawa.org
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)
Freedom From Hunger
Empowering Women-through a combination of cash credit and vital health/nutrition
education. Credit with Education enables women to buy more and better
food, invest in their children's education, take control of their
families' health, and help each other to have a greater influence
in their communities. http://freedomfromhunger.org/index.html
The battle for equality never takes a day off, it demands
your ongoing attention. Please take action by visiting the Feminist
Majority Foundation.
Catholic
Hospital Mergers Curtailing Medical Services, Especially for Women
A
nationwide wave of profit-driven mergers between Catholic and non-Catholic
hospitals have forced many non-Catholic institutions to operate under
health care guidelines issued by the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops. These guidelines have already restricted access to reproductive
health services, but they also have major implications for other forms
of medical care and research.
Under
the Knife and the Cross-Tompaine.com
Ethical
and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services -Issued
by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, June 2001.
Merger
Watch
World Summit Policy Brief #4-Whats Good for Women is Good for the
World
Throughout the 1990s, several major United
Nations conferences stressed the importance of including women in sustainable
development. But despite these commitments on paper, there has been
far too little action. True and meaningful equity between women and
men will take much more than inserting a paragraph here and there in
the documents issued at a United Nations convention or in national
laws.
http://www.worldwatch.org/worldsummit/briefs/
Saudi Arabia: Religious
Police
March 11, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the
Prevention of Vice (mutawwa'in, in Arabic) interfered with rescue
efforts during a fire at a girls' public intermediate school in Mecca,
that claimed the lives of at least fourteen students because the
fleeing students were not wearing the obligatory public attire (long
black cloaks and head coverings) for Saudi girls and women.
http://hrw.org/press/2002/03/saudischool.htm
"W" Stands for Women?
Back Door Attempts to
Chip Away at Abortion Rights
Bush Administration announced that states may classify a developing
fetus as a "person". One more quiet step toward overturning
Roe v. Wade.
The 'Prenatal' Propaganda
The Quiet War on Abortion
After decades of noisy protests and violence, anti-abortion activists
are relying on a new 'stealth strategy' to shut down clinics.
http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/SO01/abortion.html
Harmful Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of
Women and Children
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs23.htm#i
Click Here
to Provide
a Free Mammogram to
an under-priviledged woman
The
Taliban Wing of the Republican Party
Pat Robertson's Gold
What, pray tell, does the Good Lord make of Pat Robertson's gold-mining
venture in Liberia with Charles Taylor, international pariah and one
of the most ruthless, greedy and terror-producing heads of state in
all of sub-Saharan Africa?
Pat
Robertson's Gold from Washington Post
More on Pat Robertson
Falwell = Terrorist says Cronkite
September 28, 2001 -- WALTER Cronkite has unleashed an unusually harsh
attack on religious broadcasters Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
The retired anchorman calls Falwell's remarks about the Sept. 11 terror
attacks as "the most abominable thing I've ever heard,"
in the upcoming TV Guide.
Cronkite's Remarks
Falwell's Opportunistic Propaganda
Before the ashes had even cooled at the World Trade Center site, Reverend
Mullah Falwell and Pat Robertson were using the tragedy to promote
their vile and hateful agenda. "The abortionists have got to
bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when
we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really
believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists,
and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that
an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all
of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in
their face and say 'you helped this happen", says Falwell. People
For the American Way Foundation has exposed some of the intolerance
expressed by the icons of the Religious Right.
Intolerance
by Radical Right in wake of September 11
People For the American Way Foundation reports on a
number of extremist statements coming from the right since September
11th.
Right
Wing Watch Online
Guerillas And Bodybags And Sharks
Oh, My!: A Short
History Of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition hhttp://www.au.org/press/pr121201.htm
The President Who Swore to "Restore
Integrity"
The Secret Presidency br>
As president watchers know, we have
a president who likes secrecy. He has hired only tested leak-proof
and loyal staffers, effectively sealing the Bush White House. He has
had his records as the Governor of Texas hidden, shipping them off
to his father's presidential library, where they are inaccessible.
He has stiffed the Congressional requests for information about how
he developed his energy policy--refusing
to respond. Then on November 1, President George W. Bush signed Executive
Order 13233, a policy enabling his administration to govern in secrecy.
Ari Fleischer made the ludicrous statement that Bush issued the order
"because of Sept. 11" - the most outstanding overreach to
date in blaming absolutely everything on the terrorists. But
the Reagan years were supposed to have been opened in January 2001.
Three times earlier this year, Bush blocked access to the papers,
and he finally issued the executive order on Nov. 1.
HHiding
Past and Present Presidencies
Protecting
Mafia Murders and a Corrupt FBI
PPresident Bush imposed executive order to deny Dan Burton
access to subpoenaed FBI documents. The the request began with
the case Joseph Salvati, whom the FBI And J.Edgar Hoover knowingly
allowed to be wrongly convicted for murder to protect Mafia murderers
who were FBI informants. font color="#000000">The interview with
Burton aired Sunday Jan. 27. The following links are for the official
hearing transcripts of the House Committee on Government Reform hosted
by the Government Printing Office (GPO).
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_house_hearings&docid=f:78051.wais
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_house_hearings&docid=f:76507.wais
Lobbying
in Secrecy
VV.P. Dick Cheney thinks he has a right to be lobbied in secret and that the energy
industries interests should not be disclosed to congress or the American
Public.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/28/business/28CHEN.html?todaysheadlines
Bush's
Iran-Contra Cabinet
Lying to Congress and Mass Murder, just a "matter of the past"?
Integrity in the Whitehouse?
Fugitive Fingers Jeb Bush
Fugitive living in Spain told ABC's "20/20" that Jeb Bush
made a crucial call to Washington when his HMO needed help. http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JA95/bush.html
How Neil Bush Does Business
President Bush said his education bill would be a boon for public
schools and underpaid teachers; what he left out was that it was also
a boon for his little brother. As Mother Jones reported last year,
Neil Bush's education software company stands to make millions as
a result of the new legislation. http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/MJ01/neilbush.html
Neil Bushs Saudi Business
Connection
What was Neil Bush doing in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, last week? Officially,
the presidents youngest brother was a keynote speaker at an
international business forum. (Among the main backers of the event:
the Saudi Binladin Construction Group and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
http://msnbc.com/news/694829.asp#deals
The Bush Clan's Family Business
Jeb and Neil Bush...the poster boys of S&L Fraud helped in looting
America's Savings and Loans. http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html
Bush
Family and Republican Corruption
The Revival of McCarthyism
and Vietnam War Rhetoric
There were only two senators who voted against the Tonkin Gulf Resolution,
during the Vietnam War, Morse and Gruening. On August 7, Morse said:
"I believe that history will record that we have made
a great mistake in subverting and circumventing the constitution
of the United states... by means of this resolution. As I argued
earlier to day at great length, we are in effect giving the president...
war-making powers in the absence of a declaration of war. I believe
that to be a historic mistake" |
Since casting the lone vote in Congress in opposition
to handing President Bush a blank check to pursue the war on international
terrorism Rep. Barbara Lee has received death threats, a slew of vile
emails, and been branded a traitor by right-wing ideologues. Using
the same neurotic, paranoid, communist tactics and rhetoric of the
Vietnam era that they used to keep Democrats from speaking out, they've
labeled Rep. Lee along with Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), former talk-show
host Phil Donahue and others as "anti-American communists"
and "heathens". After the Pentagon
Papers exposed the lies by Robert McNamara and others, and the
willful deception used to obtain The
Tonkin Gulf Resolution, you would think Americans would learn
from the mistakes of the past. But evidently not.
It's one thing for the right-wing opportunistic conservatives
to jump on the old that bandwagon, we're use to it. But when a Green
Party member, California State Assemblywoman Audie Bock, uses it to
advance her agenda it's more than a little surprising.
The
odd political imaginings of Audie Bock and California's GOP
Vietnam Ghosts
We can't shake those memories. When
the tapes show Johnson worrying about protecting himself against his
party's right wing or complaining that "the more bombs you drop,
the more people you make mad," it's impossible not to wonder
if we're looking forward as well as back. Congress gave Johnson authority
to wage the war on the basis of a North Vietnamese gunboat attack,
but on the tapes, the president told his secretary of defense "we
concluded maybe they hadn't fired at all." New
York Times
11/11/01
Peace Treaty Shenanigans
Negotiations for Peace Treaties ought to be solemn, careful enterprises.
But the foremost negotiator of our time, Henry Kissinger, and his
boss, former President Nixon, were busy posturing, while men were
dying in Vietnam. No one deserves a Nobel peace prize for worrying
about their image with the press or polishing one-liners during debates.
But leave it to Nixon and Kissinger to polish their egos and keep
sending home the body bags.
Read
more on Peace Treaty Shenanigans
More Kissinger Offenses
The Fugitive Minority Report
Ronald Reagan and his Contra
Buddies
What happens when you get a bad actor, anti-Communist rhetoric, and
some rogue assassins? Senate hearings! See--Ronald Reagan forget what
he did before. Thrill--to the stumblings of Robert McFarlane! Witness--the
Administration invoking both the Founding Fathers and the Pope erroneously,
to support their treason. Drink the waters of Lethe, forget this ever
happened, and try to name national monuments after the man in charge!
Ronald Reagan, Oliver North et al., commit treason in the Iran-Contra
scandal.
The Mozote Massacre
It was the reporters' word against the government's. Columbia
Journalism Review
A
Ronald Reagan Retrospective
Washington pundits praise the 90-year-old Ronald Reagan as a "hero"
-- a verdict delivered with no discernible dissent. The documented
record is now clear: Ronald Reagan aided and abetted some of the worst
war crimes in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Consortiumnews.com
, a site with a commitment to independent journalism, has decided
to repost three past articles about the 40th U.S. president: his real
deeds and his real legacy.
The
Chile Coup--The U.S. Hand
Twenty-five years ago, tanks rumbled
through the streets of Chile, terrified civilians were lined up before
firing squads at the National Stadium, the elected president was dead.
Yet, in Washington and at Richard Nixon's White House,
the events were a cause for celebration, a culmination of three years
of covert operations, propaganda and economic sabotage.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/consor33.html
What
Was Bush's 'Business' in Guatemala?
"In
1999, a Guatemalan truth commission, which had received historical
records from the Clinton administration, concluded that about 200,000
people were killed in the political violence that dated back to a
CIA-sponsored coup in 1954. Some of the worst bloodletting occurred
during the 1980s, when the Reagan-Bush administration backed a right-wing
military dictator, Rios Montt, who was blamed for massacres in 626
Mayan Indian villages in a butchery judged 'genocide' by the commission."
Last December, a spokesman said Bush's travel had included "business"
in Guatemala. Robert Parry of 'Consortium News' asks: "What was
his 'business' in Guatemala and when was he conducting it? Who were
his business associates? ... When he was there, what did George W.
Bush know about the atrocities and did they matter to him?... Bush's
aides have put these supposed business dealings in Guatemala on the
public record... it seems reasonable for reporters to ask what, where,
when, why and with whom."
Consortiumnews.com
The
Bush Family and Rev. Sun Myung Moon
At odds
over North Korea, George W. Bush and South Korean President Kim Dae
Jung share what might seem like an unlikely financial connection.
Both have benefited from the mysterious political largesse of the
Rev. Sun Myung Moon. US intelligence stumbled onto Moon's secret political
financing of Kim Dae Jung in 1987 when Moon was trying to unseat an
unfriendly government in South Korea. Moon also has been a benefactor
to the Bush family, both directly with payments to George W.'s father
and indirectly by backing the Bush family dynasty through Moon's newspaper,
The Washington Times. Full History at Consortiumnews.com
Shrubs Mess
Back
at the ranch, they're Busy
Cleaning up Shrubs Mess in Texas, Molly Ivins writes. "Living
with the aftermath of Bush is a bad hangover. Some people were smart
enough to see it coming. When Ronald Reagan was pushing tax cuts 20
years ago, a Republican voted against him, predicting the cuts would
lead to massive deficits. The guy's name was Jim Jeffords." (news
- bio
- voting
record)
Also see:
De-Bushing
Texas
Shrub
Flubs His Dub
What
Can You do When The Cupboard is Bare?
They
Lie...They Lie "Big Time"
During last year's presidential campaign,
Richard B. Cheney acknowledged that the oil-field supply corporation
he headed, Halliburton Co., (see The Asbestos
Act)did business with Libya and Iran through foreign subsidiaries.
But he insisted that he had imposed a "firm policy" against
trading with Iraq. "Iraq's
different," he said. According
to oil industry executives and confidential United Nations records,
however, Halliburton held stakes in two firms that signed contracts
to sell more than $73 million in oil production equipment and spare
parts to Iraq while Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer
of the Dallas-based company.
See article at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35751-2001Jun22.html
KEEPING
SECRETS
W A S H I N G T O N, June 25 A government watchdog agency is
losing patience with the White House's refusal to detail secret meetings
that produced President Bush's national energy policy and is threatening
to take steps that could land the tug of war in the courts. (A must
read...timeline of requests at the website)
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/cheney_gao010625.html
"Blinded
by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex Conservative"
David Brock, the author of the book, "The Real Anita Hill"
suggested, in a magazine article to be published, that Justice Thomas
used an intermediary to provide Mr. Brock with damaging information
about a woman who had come forward to provide support for Ms. Hill's
accusations of harassment by Justice Thomas. Ms. Hill's accusations
became the focus of Senate hearings into Justice Thomas's nomination
to the Supreme Court in 1991. Mr. Brock reported that he then used
the information to force the woman to retract her statements about
Justice Thomas. Brock goes on to say, he did everything he could to
"ruin Hill's credibility," using "virtually every derogatory
and often contradictory allegation I had collected on Hill into the
vituperative mix." "I demonized Democratic senators, their
staffs, and Hill's feminist supporters without ever interviewing any
of them," he continued. The article, in the August issue of Talk
magazine, is excerpted from Mr. Brock's new book:
Blinded
by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex Conservative
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/27/politics/27THOM.html
The Smoke Machine
The "vast right-wing conspiracy" is not an overheated metaphor
but a straightforward reality, and it works a lot like a special-interest
lobby. Report
by Paul Krugman
Bush
Wants to Eliminate Social Security and Medicare for Healthy Seniors
- and Abolish the Corporate Income Tax
In an interview with the Financial Times, Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill, "questioned the guarantees the government provides
for full public subsidy of senior citizens' health care and retirement
programmes. 'Able-bodied adults should save enough on a regular basis
so that they can provide for their own retirement and, for that matter,
health and medical needs," they should not pass part of their
own responsibility on to a broader population,' he said." On
the other hand, O'Neill says, he 'absolutely' wants to eliminate corporate
income tax and do away with capital gains taxes on businesses.
Instead,
he says, this tax burden should be shifted to the individual.
This government
"for the welfare of the corporations' can't be any more transparent
than this.
Click
Here To Read
CBO
Finds Bush Budget Full of Deficits and Trust Fund Raids
Our Tax Dollars?
If Americans want some of their tax
money back, they should be telling their congressmen, to stop taking
bacon home to renovate monuments in Alabama to the tune of $3.5 million
, $4 million to build a chopper-craft carrier that the military neither
wants nor needs. Tell them what you need instead of that nice statue
repaired, is decent health care coverage so when your kids are sick
they can go to the doctor and get medicine. If they stopped spending
OUR federal tax money on their favorite pork projects we'de be able
to provide, healthcare, drug coverage and still have money left over.
Instead of Beefing up Intelligence, Congress
Porked up at the Trough
Putting
The Fox in Charge of The Chicken Coop
Interior Secretary Gale Norton invited Robert Redford to join her
in releasing a condor into the wild. Redford did not mince words in
turning her down: "Sadly, since assuming the Interior Secretary
post, you have compiled an abysmal record of capitulating to big businesses
at the expense of the nation's public health, public lands and wildlife".
The actor and environmentalist, whose films include Three Days
of the Condor, said that instead of helping Ms. Norton he would
spend time trying to counter the devastating environmental repercussions
of the agenda you and President Bush embrace. Redford has said
that the appointment of Ms Norton was like putting the fox in
charge of the chicken coop.
Bush
vs. the American Landscape by
Robert Redford
The
Scrub List for Shrub
On November 7, tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters were wrongly
prevented from casting their ballots, nearly all were Democrats. Jeb
Bush and Katherine Harris hired Database Technologies, now DBT, to
go on a "felon-hunt". DBT provided them with a list consisting
of thousands of individuals, wrongly identified as felons. Leon County
alone, only one of Florida's 67 counties, independently researched
every name on its scrub list. The county could only verify that 34
of the 694 cited -- 5 percent -- had criminal records. Another piece
of data passed on to local officials: the voter's race. Next to every
alleged felon's name was the
designation "BLA" or "WHI." The report first appeared
in Britain's Observer. Reporter Greg Palast paid a visit to Tallahassee
in this investigation, the investigation that the American news networks
are not doing.
Full Report
by Greg Palast:
Scrub for Shrub
Click
here to watch the video
Pay
Day for Bush's Pioneers
Greg Palast reports from Texas for BBC Newsnight.
Click
here to watch the video
Palast's
other investigative reports, and more on the "Scrub List"
investigation can be found at www.gregpalast.com
where you can also subscribe to his column.
Bush
Ignores His Own Ministers
Dubya
often talks the talk, but seldom walks the walk of his "faith",
while Imposing Religious-Right Doctrines on the Nation. A born-again
Christian and a member of the Methodist Church, he has frequently
been criticized by Texas Methodist ministers, particularly over the
death penalty. The Methodists officially oppose capital punishment
and handgun ownership. Dubya supports both. And the list of disagreements
continues with abortion rights, gays in the military, school vouchers,
even Social Security policy.