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Bush Scandals List:
updated 7/8/07, recent changes in red. please contact us with corrections and additions.
INTRODUCTION: George Bush, the Connecticut cowboy, the good old boy from Yale is a man of mediocre intelligence, little imagination, and great stubbornness and vindictiveness. He may be the Decider but his handlers have long known how to manipulate him. The key is to hook him with short, simple sells. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice know that once he has consulted his gut and perhaps his higher father his decision is forever. So whoever gets to him first is likely to carry the day because he doesn't like to be challenged and is, quite simply, too lazy to change his mind. The Bubble is a natural consequence of this decision making process where logic, reason, and facts have little or no role.
....Bush's Presidency began in the shadow of a contested and likely stolen election and promised to be unsuccessful in a largely forgettable and unremarkable way. 911 changed all that and transformed a plodding, and essentially AWOL one termer into an accidental hero. Enormous power flowed to his office but Bush had no idea how to use it. He liked to campaign, not govern. In those around him, he prized loyalty over competence and honesty. A believer in the notion of "to the victor go the spoils," he was the perfect mark for every conniver, bumbler, bungler, hack, hanger on, and would be crony that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and their friends could find. In the normal course of things, this would have spelled failure. Post-911, it was catastrophic.
....At this critical juncture in our history we needed an adult but got an adolescent. Instead of responsibility, we got a truant. In place of flexibility we got obduracy. In the face of great and complex challenges, we got strawmen, a black and white universe, my way or the highway, regurgitated stump speeches, and a steadfast refusal to compromise not just with opponents but with reality.
....What all this comes down to is that George Bush should never have become our President. He is not just a bad President but the worst one we could have had, the worst our country has ever seen. This is a judgment that many Americans have come to but which our political establishment and media, even after 6 years, have yet to acknowledge, accept, and act on. This is the tragedy and crime of our times.
1. Walter Reed outpatient treatment, poor living conditions, undelivered mail, lack of caseworkers to oversee and facilitate patient care for amputees, brain injured, and psychologically disabled veterans; Walter Reed is not the only military hospital about which questions have been raised; also out there the underfunding of the VA.
....The problems at Walter Reed came to the public's attention through a series of articles by Dana Priest beginning February 18, 2007. Following them, Gen. George Weightman who ran Walter Reed for 6 months resigned March 1, followed by the forced resignation of Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey the next day. Weightman's boss Army Surgeon General Gen. Kevin "I don't do barracks inspections at Walter Reed" Kiley who lived across from the notorious Building 18 and who had run the hospital from 2002-2004 lasted one day as the new head of Walter Reed before he was removed. He resigned from the Army on March 12.
....One source of the difficulties at Walter Reed was the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) decision on August 25, 2005 to close Walter Reed. Planned renovations were canceled. Another was the privatizing of support services at the hospital. The workforce dropped from 350 experienced professionals to 50 who were not and the contract was given to IAP. IAP began work at Walter Reed in 2003. In 2004, IAP lobbied successfully against an Army recommendation not to privatize the workforce. The OMB reversed the Army finding and the services contract was given to IAP in January 2006 although its implementation was delayed a year. IAP is run by two former KBR executives and had a well connected board of directors as well as being owned by a powerful holding company the Cerberus hedge fund.
....However, the generally low priority given to ongoing patient care for wounded soldiers was probably the single greatest reason for the woes at Walter Reed. It bears remembering that there were problems noted as early as 2004 and certainly by 2005 and that Walter Reed is located in the nation's capital minutes from the White House, the Congress, and the offices of major media outlets. Washington didn't know about Walter Reed because it didn't want to know.
2. Firing of US attorneys. Most of the country's 93 US attorneys are usually replaced within the first 2 years of a new administration and this is what happened when Bush came into office in 2001. US attorneys are political appointees and are chosen to reflect the policy priorities of a President. Still their primary job is to uphold the law, and the law is not supposed to be partisan. Karl Rove, of course, had other ideas. He believes that government should be politicized and populated with compliant partisan hacks loyal to him and his.
....The plan was to create a list of political hires and fires of US attorneys under the direction of the White House (i.e. Rove and Harriet Miers) which Gonzales (and Bush) would then dutifully sign off on. There were two components. First, on February 7, 2006, regulations were published giving Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the power to hire and fire all non-civil service employees of the Justice Department (DOJ). On March 1, 2006, Gonzales signed an order delegating this power (subject to his nominal final approval) to two fairly junior and inexperienced staffers: Monica "Loyalty oaths" Goodling his senior counselor and liaison with the White House and his Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson. Second, sometime late in 2005 (shortly before the conference report for the Patriot Act Extension was filed on December 8, 2005), language originating at the DOJ was surreptitiously inserted into the act by Brett Tolman which allowed Gonzales to make indefinite interim US attorney appointments without Senate approval. The conference report was passed and became law on March 9, 2006. So again, the two parts were first to set up a system where Rove could control the hiring and firing of US attorneys and second to bypass the Senate confirmation process which might interfere with the first part.
....On December 7, 2006, eight US attorneys were notified that they would be fired. Most came from swing states. Most were considered not to have aggressively enough prosecuted Democrats or voter fraud cases in the run up to November 2006 elections, the idea being that such prosecutions would have helped Republicans in close elections. Worse some were investigating and had even prosecuted prominent Republicans. And then there were those partisan hacks waiting in the wings to replace them.
1. Carol Lam, Southern California, convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham and indicted the former No. 3 at the CIA Dusty Foggo.
2. H. E. Cummins III, Eastern Arkansas, had been asked to investigate the Republican Governor in the neighboring state of Missouri. He announced the investigation finished in October 2006 a month before the election but was fired anyway to make way for Timothy Griffin, an aide to Karl Rove who had been the principal opposition researcher in the Bush 2004 campaign.
3. David Iglesias, New Mexico, angered Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Representative Heather Wilson when he refused to push for indictments of Democratic officials before the election after they inappropriately contacted him.
4. Daniel Bogden, Nevada, similarly was replaced by Brett Tolman who was crucial to bypassing Senate scrutiny of these appointments.
5. Paul K. Charlton, Arizona, was investigating Republican Representative Rick Renzi for corruption.
6. John McKay, Western Washington, angered state Republicans for not creating voter fraud cases in the 2004 Governor's race which Democrat Christine Gregoire won by 129 votes.
7. Margaret Chiara, Western Michigan. It is not clear why she was fired. She was on the Native American Issues Subcommittee (NAIS) of US attorneys. It may have been to make way for Russell Stoddard who had been languishing out in Guam as First Assistant Attorney after Frederick Black got demoted for investigating Abramoff's activities in the North Marianas.
8. Kevin V. Ryan, Northern California, is the only one of the 8 who deserved to be on the list because he did run his office poorly. DOJ actually wanted to keep him on but a federal judge forced the issue and his name was added to the list.
....As they say, it is not the crime but the coverup. Gonzales has given so many different and contradictory stories about the firings that it is hard to keep up and then there is his memory. In his Senate testimony of April 19, 2007, he answered he couldn't remember by some counts 71 times. He didn't know who had called for such a list. He couldn't remember having been very involved in the process. He even forgot to mention the March 1, 2006 order in his testimony. In fact, he knew very little about what were major decisions at the department he supposedly ran but, despite this, he did know there was nothing improper in any of it. Testifying in the House on May 10, 2007, his memory and his believability were little improved. Kyle Sampson too had memory problems but did contradict Gonzales' claim that he had not been involved. For his part, Sampson described himself as just the guy that others dropped their files off to and his contribution to the process was to keep them in his desk drawer. Initially, Monica Goodling took an indefinite leave of absence, then resigned, then said she would take the 5th in any Congressional testimony. On May 23, 2007, after a grant of immunity she testified that Paul McNulty the Deputy Attorney General was more aware of events surrounding the firings (although this is far from clear), that she had crossed the line (i.e. broken the law) in asking career DOJ hires about their political affiliations, that Gonzales' statements were inaccurate (i.e. he lied), and that Gonzales had sought to harmonize their stories (i.e. obstruct justice). Goodling, like Sampson, tried to portray herself as a bit player despite Gonzales‚ extraordinary grant of authority to them both. On June 21, 2007, Paul McNulty testified before the Congress and basically stonewalled, saying that he was out of the loop, that he didn't know who created the firing list, that there was no problem at the DOJ, and that there was no contradiction between his testimony and that of anyone else, including Monica Goodling. In any case, it is clear that the White House, and more specifically Karl Rove, was calling the shots in this affair, and that those at Justice, including the Attorney General, were just the eager, if dim, facilitators of it.
....In addition to the Sampson and Goodling resignations, Michael Battle Director of the Executive Office for US Attorneys (EOUSA) who informed the US attorneys of their firing left the DOJ on March 16, 2007. Paul McNulty the No. 2 at the DOJ and Deputy Attorney General announced his resignation on May 14, 2007 to become effective later in the summer. Although left out of the loop on the details of the firings and giving false Congressional as a result for which he apologized, McNulty did approve the firings and through his Chief of Staff Michael Elston warned several of those fired to stay quiet about them. Elston announced his resignation on June 15, 2007. The DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) informed the Senate in June 2007 that it was investigating Goodling's claim that Gonzales had tried to tamper with her testimony.
....Congress intervened and changed the relevant provision of the Patriot Act to re-instate the Senate's role in confirming US attorneys (May 22, 2007). This was signed into law June 14, 2007. Provocatively, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales continued to make interim appointments right up to the Presidential signing.
3. Plamegate. Scooter Libby Chief of Staff to the Vice President was convicted on March 6, 2007 on two counts of perjury before the Grand Jury and one count each of obstruction of justice and making false statements to the FBI. Placing political payback (against an individual and an agency) above national security, the Vice President's office orchestrated the outing of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, her cover company Brewster Jennings, other agents which had used this same cover, and her contacts. All this was done in retaliation for an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003 written by her husband ambassador Joe Wilson. In it, he publicly debunked the "16 words" in Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union which claimed that Saddam Hussein had sought to obtain uranium from Africa (Niger). This undercut the argument that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat and showed that the Bush Administration had known this was so in advance of the war. Wilson had been sent to Niger to investigate this charge in February 2002 at the request of the CIA and had reported nearly a year before its use in the SOTU that it was false. After several attempts by among others Karl Rove to pitch Plame's identity to the media, on July 14, 2003, Valerie Plame was outed in a column by Robert Novak In his closing argument at the Libby trial, Patrick Fitzgerald detailed Cheney's guiding hand in the conspiracy behind the outing and spoke of a "cloud" over the Vice President. That cloud remains.
....On June 5, 2007, Scooter Libby received a preliminary sentence of 30-month term in federal prison, with a 2-year term of supervised release following the completion of that sentence, a $250,000 fine, and a requirement of 400 hours of community service. This was confirmed June 14 and bail during appeal was denied. Scooter's defense solicited letters on his behalf from Washington's conservative elite. These praised his legal expertise and national security credentials and were likely counterproductive since they made clear he was well aware of the legal ramifications of lying to a grand jury and the security implications of outing a CIA agent. A group of conservative attorneys led by Robert Bork also filed an unsuccessful, last minute amicus brief questioning the legitimacy of Patrick Fitzgerald's appointment as prosecutor. It called the appointment a "close" question although its rationale depended upon a lone Supreme Court dissent in a case that was not closely decided and its effect would be to prevent independent investigations of high US officials. On July 2, 2007, a three judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit unanimously denied Libby's appeal. Hours later George Bush commuted Libby's sentence eliminating any jail time. This is an Administration that believes it is outside the law and acts accordingly. It is not so much that they have contempt for the law. Rather they have contempt for us. The cloud that was over Cheney now covers Bush as well.
4. Iraq: axis of evil, lack of preparation for occupation, looting, including the National Museum, too few troops, lack of training, lack of equipment, lack of securing loose Iraqi munitions, disbanding the Iraqi army, banning the Baathists, the CPA, cronyism, Paul Bremer, losing tons of money literally, lack of international inclusion in reconstruction and security, weak Constitution, formation of sectarian parties, weak government, denial of actual conditions in Iraq, for example, its civil war, ignoring 4 years of failed policies and the basic proposal of the Iraq Study Group to withdraw, escalating instead, continuing lack of any discernible mission
5. Afghanistan, transferring resources to Iraq before the job was finished, the results: a resurgent Taliban, continuing warlordism, and exploding opium production
6. Iran and saber rattling, axis of evil, lack of engagement, refusal to talk to, addressing the nuclear issue through threats, clumsy attempts to blame Iran for the debacle in Iraq and a failure to recognize their very real interests there.
7. North Korea, axis of evil, ditching the 1994 agreement and freezing of bank accounts because of dubious uranium program, the plutonium program which led to a fizzled first nuclear test, and something like a return to the 1994 agreement
8. Osama bin Laden, where are you? The blown opportunity at Tora Bora. Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the roles of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in terrorism. Pakistan's intelligence service the ISI created the Taliban. The government of Pervez Musharraf continues to give it safe haven in Pakistan and its efforts against al Qaeda in Pakistan which do occur are limited and often timed to the visits of American dignitaries. The Saudis for their part fund radical madrassas throughout the Moslem world and have a domestic educational system run by the most extreme of their homegrown extremists. Saudi and Gulf oil dollars find their way to many terrorist groups as well as the Sunni insurgency in Iraq.
9. Civilian contractors; also no bid contracts; in Iraq Halliburton tainted food and water, overpriced gas; Blackwater use of private security contractors, what used to be called mercenaries, with little or no accountability
10. The Military Commissions Act: torture, indefinite detention, the end of habeas corpus, and kangaroo courts. One of the last acts of the Congress before the November 2006 elections, it passed the Senate on September 28 and the House the next day and was signed into law by Bush on October 17. The short story on this is that, pre-election, the Republicans pushed it and the Democrats caved on it. As bad as the military commissions envisioned in the act are, the Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) which designate who is to be tried are even worse. They were complete shams. Decisions were made on the flimsiest and most general information without challenge or taking into account the methods (torture) used to obtain it. Detainees lacked effective legal representation, and the CSRTs did not come close to meeting minimal standards of judicial process, even a preliminary one. To top it off, as later military judges have found, the CSRTs designated detainees "enemy combatants" which does not meet the Military Commissions Act standard of "unlawful enemy combatants" vitiating their findings to date. Even when they make up the rules they can't get it right.
11. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, the destruction of New Orleans, FEMA and "Heck of a job, Brownie," lack of preparation, lack of emergency aid, slowness of reconstruction, Bush ignores for days then gives address from Jackson Square in New Orleans promising aid which never comes or much of which goes to politically connected outstate no bid contractors, disparity between response to Louisiana and Republican Trent Lott's Mississippi; Bush refuses to waive 10% state match for federal funds (waived in many previous disasters) increasing the bureaucratic paperwork, reducing aid to affected areas, and further slowing and complicating rebuilding.
12. Bush authorized warrantless NSA wiretapping in October 2001. The program was targeted at domestic telephone and internet communication in violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) which itself set a fairly low bar for wiretaps. It may also have included massive data mining of domestic communications. In March 2004, Deputy Attorney General James Comey and Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to refuse a periodic DOJ signoff on its legality. This resulted in the extraordinary scene where then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to get Ashcroft to sign an authorization while Ashcroft lay in an ICU bed suffering from gallstone pancreatitis. Comey who was acting Attorney General was present as Ashcroft resisted. Despite the refusal by the DOJ to vouch for the program's legality, Bush re-authorized it anyway. The program became public when the New York Times reported on it in December 2005. In 2006 various unsuccessful attempts were made to accommodate the program. This included the infamous attempted "compromise" by Arlen Specter to legalize its worst excesses and retroactively amnesty any illegalities. Under mounting pressure and with a new Democratic Congress, Alberto Gonzales announced on January 18, 2007, a "deal" with the FISA court which would put the program under its supervision. Gonzales maintained, however, that Bush still had Article II power to go outside the court if he wanted to. Despite previous abuses, April 10, 2007 intelligence czar DNI John McConnell proposes changes to FISA to permit domestic surveillance of foreign nationals completely outside of FISA, extend from 3 days to one week surveillance without seeking FISA permission "in emergency situations," immunize telecoms, and extend FISA warrants from 120 days to one year
13. SWIFT surveillance of international financial transactions
14. Black prisons and extraordinary rendition to facilitate interrogation by torture
15. Homeland Security: white elephant (organization), black hole (money), Tom Ridge and threat levels, Michael Chertoff and general incompetence
16. K Street Lobbyists, Jack Abramoff, North Marianas, removal of investigating US attorney Frederick Black (Guam), Gale Norton and Steven Griles at Interior, go betweens Italia Federici for Norton and Susan Ralston for Rove, tribal casinos; conviction of Rep. Bob "Freedom Fries" Ney (R-OH) for conspiracy and false statements re Abramoff's Indian casinos scam
17. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, No. 3 at the CIA under Porter Goss, tied to the Duke Cunningham scandal, and poker "read money laundering" parties with limos and hookers for government officials and representatives. Foggo was indicted for fraud February 13, 2007 by fired US attorney for Southern California Carol Lam two days before she left office. On May 10, 2007, an expanded, superseding indictment was filed against Foggo, and Cunningham associate and co-conspirator Brent Wilkes.
18. Duke Cunningham convicted of receiving $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion, the MZM connection
19. Tom Delay, creator of the K Street Project, squeezing lobbyists to finance Republicans only, indicted for conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws (money laundering) in Texas, also connections to the Abramoff scandal. Major figure in Washington culture of corruption
20. Mark Foley, chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, resigned over the House page scandal: sending sexually explicit messages to pages
21. Cheney's Energy Policy, Big Oil's writing of it, and refusal to divulge that participation
22. Tax cuts for the wealthiest, corporations and on capital gains; retention of the AMT
23. Global warming: denial of manmade origin, followed by minimization of the effects of the manmade contribution, continued reliance on fossil and carbon based fuels, little movement on CAFE standards and conservation, and political interference in scientific reports
March 13, 2001, Bush rejects Kyoto Protocols (finished December 1997 but never ratified by the US Senate) and casts doubt on the causes of climate change.
June 11, 2001, in reference to a report by the National Academy of Sciences, Bush questions both the extent of global warming, its impact, and the manmade contribution to it.
February 14, 2002, Bush announces his Clear Skies Initiatives which lacks any limits on CO2.
April 2002, at the urging of ExxonMobil Bush blocks reelection of Robert Watson, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and advocate of reducing greenhouse gases.
June 3, 2002, an EPA report to the UN admits global warming largely due to human activities.
June 4, 2002, Bush dismisses the report as "put out by the bureaucracy" and reiterates his opposition to Kyoto.
September 2002, for the first time in six years, the annual EPA report on air pollution "Latest Findings on National Air Quality: 2001 Status and Trends" omits the section on global warming.
June 23, 2003, the EPA issues "Draft Report on the Environment 2003" in which the section on global warming was pulled after the Administration sought to replace data showing sharp increases in global temperatures with references to a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute questioning the evidence for global warming.
Early 2005, Bush meets with author, non scientist, and global warming skeptic Michael Crichton. Bush had read his novel "State of Fear" which depicts global warming as a conspiracy.
June 1, 2005, Rick Peltz a scientist at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (USCCSP) resigns and accuses Phillip Cooney, the then chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, and a non scientist, of editing scientific papers so that they would agree with Administration policies on climate change.
June 10, 2005, Cooney resigns
June 13, 2005, Cooney is hired by ExxonMobil
December 2005, NASA climatologist James Hansen reported his work was being monitored and his access to the press limited by a 24 year old Bush political appointee in NASA's PR department George C. Deutsch. Deutsch also tried to qualify references to the Big Bang as this conflicted with his fundamentalist beliefs.
February 7, 2006, Deutsch resigns after it becomes known that he lied on his resume about having a college degree.
April-November 2006, the Smithsonian (almost all of whose $1.1 billion budget comes from the government) self censors an exhibit on climate change in the Arctic which it had delayed six months while trying to tone it down.
May 31, 2007, in an NPR interview, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin admits that global warming exists but doubts that it is a problem "to be wrestled with".
(see also item 42)
24. Terri Schiavo (family and privacy rights in end of life cases); Senate Majority leader Bill Frist making his famous (and erroneous) video diagnosis; the memo written by Brian Darling, the legal counsel for Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) that the Schiavo case was a great political issue which could be used against the Democratic Senator from Florida Ben Nelson. Republicans who had cast the Schiavo case as a "moral" issue initially declared the memo a Democratic plant and dirty trick before the real source came out.
25. Big budget deficits and vastly increased national debt; the national debt as of the date of Bush's 2001 inauguration was $5.7 trillion in mid-April 2007 it was $8.8 trillion an increase of 35%.
26. The stacking of SCOTUS with right wing conservatives Roberts and Alito; the threat to Roe v. Wade; April 18, 2007 in a 5-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart SCOTUS upholds a ban on "partial birth" abortions (intact dilation and extraction). The procedure is rare and performed for medical reasons. Such a ban has been a goal of abortion foes who see it both as a step in a direct overturning of Roe and as part of an indirect approach to place so many restrictions on abortions as to effectively eliminate them
....The opinion written by Kennedy is remarkable for its inflammatory use of language (partial birth abortion, abortion doctors, killing the fetus, etc.) and example (an account of the procedure by an anti-abortion nurse). Kennedy manages to condescend not only to women but to their physicians as well. He essentially gives them both his considered medical opinion, as a lawyer, and orders them to follow it. The word hubris comes to mind.
27. Medicare: a bigger time bomb than Social Security left unaddressed
28. Medicare Part D: the 3 hour vote in the House, the doughnut hole, hitting elders with confusing multiple plans, boon to insurance and drug companies, prohibition on Medicare using its market power to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices
29. Healthcare (in general)
30. Cooked intelligence and the Office of Strategic Plans/ Doug Feith; stovepiping and Cheney's alternate intel operation; pitching stories to credulous compliant reporters like Judy Miller then citing these stories as independent evidence; Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress feeding fake stories and dubious sources like "Curveball" into the mix; the subsequent coverup and Republican delayed and deep sixed Congressional investigations into the politicization of intelligence; an Inspector General's report of February 9, 2007 declared Feith's activities inappropriate but stopped short of calling them illegal. The IG's rationale seemed more political than legal since Feith was running an intelligence operation which would be illegal.
31. 2000 Presidential election; voter suppression and cooked felons list, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, Governor Jeb Bush, Bush consigliere Jim Baker oversaw the recount, Theodore Olson argued Bush v. Gore: SCOTUS decided 7-2 to stop recounts because of inconsistent procedures and 5-4 insufficient time to begin new recount, giving Bush the election
32. 2004 Presidential election; Ohio voter irregularities that consistently favored Bush; Ken Blackwell was the Republican Secretary of State and honorary co chair of the Bush campaign who oversaw the election in Ohio. He opted for touch screen voting machines which left no paper trail and were sold by Diebold whose CEO Walden O'Dell was a Republican fundraiser. Long lines and too few machines in traditionally Democratic and minority areas also occurred.
....The Ohio Republican Party was unusually corrupt and was largely voted out in the November 2006 elections. It was epitomized by Tom Noe a Bush Pioneer who made illegal contributions to the Bush campaign at the same time he was looting millions from the state's workers comp program in a kooky coin investment scheme. He's currently serving ~20 years on state and federal charges.
33. Attempts to torpedo the 911 Commission
34. Failure to implement the 911 Commission recommendations
35. Marginalization of the UN; UN hating John Bolton made our UN ambassador (in a recess appointment); as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Bolton requested raw NSA transcripts 10 times in an effort to spy on and embarrass his bosses and coworkers. NSA transcripts are required to have the names of Americans redacted. Raw transcripts contain the names. It later came out that the release of unredacted transcripts was much more common than previously thought and that up to 10,000 names had been so released to various departments of government
36. Preventive war doctrine, aka Cheney's one percent doctrine and the Bush doctrine. Bush first enunciated it at a speech at West Point on June 1, 2002. Preventive war is different from pre-emptive war. In preventive war, there is no imminent threat and this type of war is considered a war crime. (Think of Hitler attacking Poland.) In pre-emptive war, there is an imminent threat and this type of war is sanctioned by international law. (Think of the Israelis striking the Egyptian army in the Sinai in 1967) After the failure to find WMD in Iraq, the Administration dropped any pretense of imminence and overtly embraced the preventive war doctrine, asserting the right to eliminate threats before they develop.
37. Loss of US reputation internationally after massive post-911 world support
38. No serious attempt to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The epitome of this was Condoleezza Rice's announcement in Luxor on January 15, 2007 of talks on talks to develop a "political horizon" for a return to the "road map" leading to a final Israeli-Palestinian settlement. This is not serious.
39. Underfunding of basic research
40. Alberto Gonzales: politicization of the department, even down to the intern program, decimation of career lawyers and evisceration of divisions, like civil rights. The US attorney firings and the use of political litmus tests in hiring. The use of corruption, voter suppression, and voter fraud cases to influence elections.
....Gonzales was counsel to the President before becoming Attorney General. This should have meant that he moved from being the President's lawyer to the people's lawyer but it is clear that he continues to see his main client as the President. Some think that he is dishonest; others say he is incompetent. He is both.
41. FDA: drug testing; food safety: underfunding, cutback in inspections and inspection staff (a decrease of 12% between 2003 and 2006), reliance on self-policing, lack of inspection of imported foods, and inability to force recalls.
42. EPA: mercury levels for coal plants, delay in release of climate change reports; failure to address CO2 levels in global warming: Massachusetts v. EPA April 2007. On May 14, 2007, Bush asked government agencies to come up with a plan and submit it to him 3 weeks before he leaves office. The stalling continued on May 31, 2007, when Bush called for what was termed an aspirational goal of coming up with voluntary limits to greenhouse gases in the next 18 months (or again just before he leaves office) to go into effect after Kyoto expires in 2012.
43. Porter Goss and the gutting of the CIA: Goss a conservative Republican Congressman who chaired the House Intelligence Committee was chosen to replace George Tenet in 2004. He promised to be non-partisan in his new role, a promise he did not keep and which it is difficult to imagine anyone took seriously at the time. He brought with him some of his House staff, the "goslings". Their doctrinaire style produced confusion, demoralization, resignations, and not much else. Having done what damage he could and being largely isolated, he resigned suddenly on May 5, 2006, achieving the distinction of being one of the few people who was too big an embarrassment even for the Bush Administration, well that and that he was outmaneuvered and marginalized by the Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte.
44. Militarization of intelligence: Rumsfeld perhaps out of pique that the Afghanistan operation was largely a CIA affair and conceiving the world as one big turf battle pressed to put all special operations under Pentagon control. The vast majority of intelligence funding is already funneled through the Defense Department. In addition to this, the current intelligence czar the Director of National Intelligence John Michael McConnell is a retired vice admiral. The CIA is currently headed by an active duty general Michael Hayden (USAF). The top man at the NSA (formerly headed by Hayden) is Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander (Army). And the National Counterterrorism Center is headed by another retired vice admiral John Scott Redd. General James R. Clapper Jr. is Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, Lt. Gen. William J. (Jerry) Boykin is Deputy Under Secretary for Intelligence, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Michael Ennis is Deputy Director for Human Intelligence at the CIA. And retiring Army Lt. General Dell Dailey, currently the Director of the Center for Special Operations at the Pentagon which runs black ops, has been nominated to head the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (S/CT) at the State Department.
45. Rampant cronyism
46. Signing statements: As of early 2007, there have been 147 signing statements challenging over 1,140 provisions in about 150 federal bills. In the past signing statements were used to establish grounds for a possible future challenge of a law by the Executive branch or to assert that signing a specific bill did not imply a surrender of an underlying Presidential power. Bush has used them to maintain that he will only obey a law or a part of a law when it suits him.
47. Unilateral (aka Unitary) Executive doctrine: the brainchild of John Yoo and David Addington which seeks to establish a legal framework through misreading the Constitution for a Presidential dictatorship
48. Overuse and abuse of the National Guard and Reserves; posse comitatus; decreased ability to deal with natural disasters; also much National Guard equipment is now in Iraq and there is currently a $24 billion shortfall in equiping National Guard units in this country.
49. Increasing unpreparedness of US ground forces (Army and Marines): too many tours, extended tours, too little rest between tours, insufficient training
50. US balance of trade deficit. This is a measure both of our general indebtedness and our competitiveness. In 2001 it was $389 billion. In 2006 it was $758.5 billion, a 95% increase. The deficit in goods (as opposed to services) accounts for almost all of this.
51. 2005 Grassley Bankruptcy bill heavily favoring lenders
52. Mexican cross border trucking and safety concerns
53. Karl Rove did not lose his security clearance after his participation in the Valerie Plame case. Instead it was quietly renewed in late 2006. Henry Waxman would like to know why.
54. Detention of families for immigration violations; large ICE raids which leave children of detainees unaccounted for; immigrant detentions for long periods in a hodgepodge of facilities without adequate medical care (resulting in deaths), suicide prevention, or legal representation.
55. Dubai Ports deal
56. The Patriot Act that no one had time to read and passed anyway; the Patriot Act extension that people had the time to read and passed anyway.
57. Attempts to privatize Social Security dating all the way back to a stacked commission report of December 11, 2001; Andrew Biggs who favors privatization made deputy director of Social Security in a recess appointment after the Senate made it clear it would not take up his nomination because of his privatization views.
58. The War on Science
59. Conviction of David Safavian for lying and obstruction June 20, 2006 re his dealings with Jack Abramoff. In the 1990s, Safavian was a business partner of Grover Norquist. In 2002, he was named Senior Advisor and Acting Deputy Chief of Staff at the GSA and in November 2003 was made head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the OMB in the White House
60. Presidential adviser Claude Allen stealing from Target
61. Bush casually admits to lying about decision to fire Rumsfeld
62. Armstrong Williams and paid propagandists
63. Decimation of the Labor Department presided over by Elaine Chao, married to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell; job safety, job creation, wage increases, unions, and workers' rights have languished under her stewardship. Edwin Foulke who heads OSHA continues the Administration policy of trusting to self-regulation of industry, by industry, for industry.
64. Net neutrality and media content and ownership policies
65. Backing Israel while it destroyed Lebanon July 12, 2006-August 14, 2006
66. Presidential Daily Brief August 6, 2001: Bin Laden determined to attack in US
67. EPA chief Christie Todd Whitman declares toxic filled Ground Zero safe for cleanup. On August 9, 2003 the EPA Inspector General finds differently. In Congressional testimony June 25, 2007, Whitman states that it was not her fault and blames the terrorists for the site being toxic.
68. Sago mining disaster hearings and MHSA's David Dye who walked out of the hearings; Bush push for reduction in fines for safety violations and non-collection of them since 2001.
69. Bush nominates Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court on October 3, 2005. She was serving as White House counsel after Alberto Gonzales went to the DOJ. A typical Bush crony appointment, nevertheless it quickly runs into problems. Miers has little knowledge of Constitutional law, but what dooms her nomination is that conservatives don't think she is conservative enough. Think Roe v. Wade. The nomination is withdrawn October 27, 2005. A few months later Miers' involvement in the firings of the US attorneys begins.
70. Bush vetoes a stem cell research bill July 19, 2006 (Bush's first veto). Bush vetoes a second stem cell research bill June 20, 2007 (Bush's third veto).
71. Attack on Plan B contraception, staffing Women's Health positions with religious conservatives: Dr. Eric Keroack at Health and Human Services who thought birth control demeaning to women and Dr. David Hager at FDA who tried to keep Plan B prescription only. His wife contended in divorce proceedings that he had repeatedly sod*mized her without her consent.
72. Clear Skies Act of February 14, 2002 a failed attempt to weaken the Clean Air Act. Bush reacted by changing standards on nitrogen oxide, SO2, and mercury through the EPA. The Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 based on bad science in how to protect communities from forest fires and on the effects of "thinning" forests, i.e disrupting ecosystems. The real aim was to remove public scrutiny on sweetheart deals with logging companies by claiming such deals were to protect communities even when there were no communities in the vicinity.
73. Missile defense shield that doesn't work. So far the only tangible result is that Vladimir Putin has used it as an excuse to introduce a new class of MIRVed (multiple warhead) ICBMs and threaten the Europeans. This is payback for the US withdrawal from the ABM Treaty announced December 12, 2001 and entered into effect June 13, 2002. On June 14, Russia announced that it was pulling out of START II (negotiated in the 1990s) which covered the de-MIRVing of ICBMs and which Russia had never gotten around to ratifying anyway. Putin knows that Russia is not threatened by such an ineffective system and that Russia has plenty of conventional ICBMs to overwhelm it even if it did work. As for targeting Europe, although it sounds scary, this represents little change from current policy. De-targeted Russian (and US) missiles can be re-targeted in a matter of seconds to minutes.
74. Leandro Aragoncillo naturalized Filipino-American in Cheney's office (previously Gore's) accused of spying for the Philippines and possibly France, pled guilty to unlawfully possessing secret US government documents
75. Defunding overseas AIDS programs that promoted condom use for prevention; ineffective abstinence only programs. With these should be mentioned domestic abstinence only programs directed at teens which have proven to be abysmal failures.
76. Call for a constitutional amendment declaring marriage to be between one man and one woman.
77. Opening up Bristol Bay, the last pristine large-scale salmon fishery in the world, to oil drilling. Congress has also sanctioned further drilling in the Gulf of Mexico including off the coast of Florida. Interior has proposed drilling off the coast of Virginia which would need Congressional approval which isn't likely.
78. Accusation that Clintons trashed the White House before leaving, including stealing the Ws from keyboards
79. Gannon/Guckert a working male prostitute in the White House press corps
80. Native American trust funds and Trust Responsibility to Indian Country
81. Selling creationist materials at the Grand Canyon gift shop claiming it was 6000 years old
82. Banning photographing return of coffins of slain American soldiers
83. False military reporting: Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch
84. AIPAC espionage scandal; former DOD employee Lawrence Franklin pled guilty to passing information on Iran to Israel through two AIPAC employees
85. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, Bagram; the Marine massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha and its coverup. A few cases:
Rasul: On June 28, 2004 SCOTUS in a 6-3 decision ruled that the US court system had jurisdiction over non US nationals held at Guantanamo. Rasul had been released to the UK before the ruling on March 29, 2004.
Hamdi: On June 28, 2004 SCOTUS 8-1 ruled that U.S. citizens can not be detained indefinitely as enemy combatants without due process. Hamdi was released to Saudi Arabia on October 9, 2004 on condition that he give up his US citizenship.
Hamdan: On June 29, 2006, SCOTUS in a 5-3 decision ruled that Bush's military tribunals were illegal under the UCMJ and the Geneva Conventions and needed Congressional authorization (which was supplied by the Military Commissions Act or MCA of September 2006)
Khadr/Hamdan: On June 4, 2007, a military court dismissed charges against them because their Combat Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) had designated them enemy combatants. The MCA authorizes trials for "unlawful" enemy combatants only, which they had not been designated.
al Marri: On June 11, 2007, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that a legal US resident (similar to Hamdi) can not be denied due process and held indefinitely as an enemy combatant outside the purview of the US judicial system.
86. Asserted right to open US mail
87. The housing bubble, its collapse, subprime mortgage crisis
88. Bush connections to Enron and Ken Lay. Lay was connected to the elder Bush but helped finance the younger Bush's gubernatorial campaign. In 2000 he was a Bush Pioneer, and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund the Republican convention and the Bush inaugural celebration. Through Enron, he also contributed more than a million dollars in soft money to the Republican party. In exchange, Bush stayed out of the California energy crisis and Lay participated in Cheney's Energy Task Force which wrote Bush's business friendly energy policy. When Enron collapsed, Bush could barely remember ever having met the man.
89. Refusing to intervene in the California electricity crisis in early 2001
90. Lack of action on Darfur despite Congress declaring it genocide in a resolution of June 22, 2004 and Bush's own Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 9, 2004
91. Failure to adequately fund programs to reduce poorly secured nuclear material in Russia
92. Refusal to grant security clearances to OPR (Office of Public Responsibility) lawyers investigating the role of Gonzales both as WH counsel and later as AG in authorizing warrantless NSA wiretapping thus quashing the investigation
93. Political interference in the Justice Department lawsuit against Big Tobacco
94. White House involvement in election day phone jamming of Democrats in New Hampshire November 5, 2002; Charles McGee, former executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party pled guilty to conspiracy; James Tobin New England head of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee made two dozen calls to the White House over a three day period during this time. He was convicted for his participation. This was reversed on appeal March 21, 2007 and his case was sent back to the district court.
95. Sweetheart plea deal for Steven Griles former No. 2 at the Interior Department. Griles and his then girlfriend Italia Federici worked with Jack Abramoff and later lied to Congress about it. The proposed deal by the government: no cooperation demand, the minimum 10 months, 5 to be served at the home of his now wife Sue Ellen Wooldridge who had just left Justice where she was an assistant attorney general heading the environment division. She signed a generous consent decree with ConocoPhillips despite being friends with a Conoco vice president and despite the fact that Conoco was being represented by Griles.
....On June 26, 2007, US District Judge Ellen Huvelle sentenced Griles. Griles asked for probation and blamed the Senate for his lying. The judge didn't buy this or the government's deal and doubled his prison time to the full 10 months. He was also fined $30,000 and given 3 years probation.
96. The unfired (Bush appointed) US attorneys who targeted 80% of their political corruption cases against Democrats
97. Insertion into the Patriot Act extension of language allowing US attorneys to be named without Senate approval. This provision originated with Daniel Collins a former Associate Deputy AG back in 2003 but was taken by then Assistant AG for Legislative Affairs (now Principal Associate Deputy AG) William Moschella in 2005 and forwarded to Brett Tolman, a protege of Utah Senator Orrin Hatch on Arlen Specter's staff who snuck it into the bill. Specter denied knowledge of the insertion and said he had not read the bill. He admitted, however, that his chief of staff Michael O'Neil did know. As a reward, Tolman was nominated US attorney for Utah and confirmed by the Senate July 21, 2006 in the usual way and not the one he slipped into the Patriot Act. Gonzales approved but maintained he didn't know how it happened.
98. Massive and illegal abuse by FBI of National Security Letters (administrative warrants) or NSLs. An inspector general report at the DOJ estimated that 143,000 NSLs had been issued between 2003 and 2005. An exact number was not possible because recordkeeping was so bad that an unknown number were never properly recorded. On June 15, 2007, DC federal district court judge John Bates ordered the FBI to begin producing documents related to NSL abuse pursuant to a FOIA request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation by July 5.
99. Attempted use of GSA to promote Republican candidates; presentation by Scott Jennings deputy political director to Karl Rove at a video conference of 40 political appointees hosted by GSA head Lurita Doan in violation of the Hatch Act. Later, Doan testifying before Congress had severe memory loss. Doan at GSA has been involved in various contract irregularities. In a letter to Bush on June 8, 2007, the Office of Special Counsel which investigates this kind of thing called for Doan to be punished to the fullest extent for violations of the Hatch Act and obstructing its investigation.
....At least 20 other meetings involving senior officials from 15 government agencies and the White House discussing political prospects were held before the 2006 elections also in violation of the Hatch Act. The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has begun investigations into these.
100. Karl Rove and the culture of corruption
101. Voter suppression, voter ID laws, exaggerating the problem of voter fraud, attempts to eviscerate the Voting Rights Act on its renewal; Hans von Spakovsky, a Republican volunteer in the Florida recount, was Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ's Civil Rights division where he signed off on Tom Delay's 2003 Texas redistricting plan and a 2005 Georgia voter ID law overruling staff recommendations that they were discriminatory. Both were struck down in the courts. In the Georgia case, a federal appeals judge compared the ID system to Jim Crow poll taxes. Spakovsky went on to be a Commissioner at the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) in a January 6, 2006 recess appointment.
....The head of the voting section of the Civil Rights Division during this period was Bradley Schlozman. Schlozman was highly political. He wanted to know if prospective hires were Republicans and forced out employees who committed the sin of not agreeing with him. Although having no prosecutorial experience, Schlozman was named US attorney for Western Missouri on March 23, 2006. In a blatant attempt at voter suppression and in contravention of DOJ guidelines, he filed voter fraud cases days before the November elections. His was one of the first of the "interim" appointments made under the revised provisions snuck into the Patriot Act and there have been suggestions that his predecessor Todd Graves was forced out to make way for him. He left in April 2007 to work at the Executive Office for US Attorneys (EOUSA). Schlozman testified about his activities before the Senate on June 5, 2007. Like most recent DOJ witnesses, he suffered from extreme memory loss. He testified that Craig Donsanto OK'ed the pre-election Missouri cases although Donsanto is the one who wrote the DOJ guidelines.
....The current head of the Civil Rights Division is Wan J. Kim, an Orrin Hatch protege.
102. Campaign finance and political corruption
103. Swift boating of John Kerry (2004); push polling and McCain's black baby in the South Carolina primary (2000); Sam Fox made Ambassador to Belgium in a recess appointment. Fox's nomination was withdrawn in the Senate where it faced certain defeat. Fox was controversial because he had given $50,000 to the anti-Kerry smear campaign of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth
104. No Child Left Behind, based on flawed and false data, chronically underfunded, capricious in its evaluations, places test scores above knowledge; allegations have arisen that people at the Department of Education pushed reading programs as part of NCLB that they had financial interests in.
105. Susan E. Dudley made administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget. Dudley who doesn't believe in regulation except in extreme cases when the "market fails" was named to this powerful regulatory post in a recess appointment on April 4, 2007.
106. Paul Wolfowitz, after his disastrous hyping of the Iraq war, did a McNamara and went to the World Bank to do good. He brought his neocon values, a doctrinaire, secretive management style, and a real gift for poor leadership to rail against corruption in 3rd world countries while practicing some of it himself closer to home. Prohibited from supervising his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, a senior communications officer at the bank, he detailed her to the Department of State, gave her a raise of $47,340 twice what was permitted, and then a further raise of $13,000 bringing her salary to $193,000 tax free and making her the highest paid official in the State Department and that includes Condoleezza Rice. Wolfowitz's eventual defense of the raise was that Riza was very angry at leaving the Bank and might have sued although as the Bank later pointed out she did not have grounds to do so. Her initial boss at state was none other than Liz Cheney. Her job through State was to set up the Foundation for the Future to promote civil society in the Middle East. After 1 1/2 years there, it still has no permanent office, executive officers, or staff and has yet to disperse a grant. There is also the matter of a security clearance that Riza, a non-citizen unaffiliated with an allied government, would need to work at Defense (through an earlier contract with the defense contractor SAIC arranged by Wolfowitz through Doug Feith) or more recently at State and which would be extremely unusual to give to someone in her situation.
....Wolfowitz dragged out his departure from the Bank for nearly a month doing serious damage to the institution. He was eventually forced to announce his resignation on May 17, 2007 effective June 30, 2007. In keeping with his double standard on corruption and despite his disastrous stewardship at the Bank, he will not go cheaply into the night. His severance package will be in the neighborhood of half a million dollars. The poor should get such deals. On June 25, 2007, pro-business, free trader (and like Wolfowitz) neocon Robert Zoellick was approved as the World Bank's new president.
107. Kenneth Tomlinson chairman of the CPB politicized public broadcasting, commissioned a biased study to monitor liberalism on Bill Moyer's show NOW, resigned after an IG report alleged political tests and inappropriate dealings in the creating of a new show; later he was put on the board of governors for the Voice of America where there were further allegations of hiring a friend, misuse of staff, improper billing, and use of his office to run a horse racing operation
108. Matteo Fontana, a general manager in the Office of Federal Student Aid in the Education Department held and sold shares worth at least $100,000 in Student Loan Xpress whose activities he was ostensibly overseeing. He was placed on paid leave. Fontana's boss who oversees the student loan program Theresa Shaw resigned on May 8, 2007 a few days before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was to testify before Congress. The official reason given for Shaw's leaving was that she had "plans to take some time off." This is part of the larger scandal of sweetheart deals between universities and companies making loans to students to the detriment of students. On June 1, 2007, the Department of Education came out with new rules to regulate the $85 billion student lending business.
109. A 9th US prosecutor Tom Heffelfinger in Minnesota was replaced by Rachel Paulose. Paulose at age 33 joined the DOJ and after less than 2 months as a senior counsel to deputy attorney general Paul McNulty she was named to the USA position in Minnesota. She was also reputed to be good friends with Monica "Loyalty oaths" Goodling and had a reputation for quoting the bible and dressing down staff. As a result on April 5, 2007, three of her top assistants, career prosecutors, resigned their administrative positions and voluntarily demoted themselves rather than work with her in a sign of their complete lack of faith in her abilities
....The push to oust Heffelfinger appears to have resulted from an attempt to suppress the Native American vote in 2004. In Minnesota, many Native Americans vote Democratic, live off reservation, and have tribal IDs as their principal source of identification. The Republican Secretary of State Mary Kiffmeyer refused to accept these for voting purposes. An assistant US attorney in Heffelfinger's office Rob Lewis contacted Joseph Rich a career prosecutor and the head of the voting section of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division. Rich recommended an investigation which was vetoed by Bradley Schlozman. Attempts to gather further information were effectively derailed by Hans von Spakovsky. Shortly before the November election, federal District Judge James Rosenbaum ruled that tribal IDs could be used. Heffelfinger who was cited in testimony by Monica Goodling as spending too much time on Native American issues (He headed the US attorneys subcommittee on Native American issues) resigned effective February 28, 2006. As one of her first acts, interim USA Paulose got rid of Rob Lewis.
110. Use of GWB43.com email servers through the RNC to transact government business outside the White House logging and archiving system in contravention of the law; also similar use of Blackberries; a large but unknown number of emails have now been reported "lost", a situation that is nearly impossible given current backup systems.
111. Georgia Thompson a purchasing agent in Wisconsin was convicted of steering a contract to a company in which 2 executives had contributed the maximum to Democratic Governor Jim Doyle's re-election campaign. Thompson had been a hire of the previous Republican governor and no evidence was produced at trial that she knew of the contributions. Remanded by the Republican judge who heard the case, she served 4 months of an 18 month sentence before an appeals court overturned her conviction after oral arguments where one judge typified the government's case as "beyond thin" and ordered her freed the same day. The case was brought by Bush appointed US attorney Steven Biskupic during the campaign and was used in Republican campaign ads to accuse Doyle of corruption
112. US attorney for New Jersey and former Bush "Pioneer" Chris Christie issued subpoenas in a corruption probe of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez two months before the Nov. 2006 elections. Menendez was in a tight race with Tom Keane. After Menendez won, the investigation went away
113. Kay Coles James, dean of Pat Robertson's Regent's government school, made director of the Office of Personnel Management in 2001. In 2002, John Ashcroft eases qualifications for DOJ hiring. The influx into the DOJ of young, poorly qualified lawyers on a conservative religious mission begins
114. In a rushed process, Bernard B. Kerik, a Rudy Giuliani protege and former New York City Police Commissioner, was nominated to be Secretary of Homeland Security December 3, 2004. He withdrew his name a week later ostensibly because of his employment of an undocumented immigrant as a nanny. However, it quickly came out that Kerik was also involved in a dubious stock sale of stun gun manufacturer Taser International shortly before a critical report by Amnesty International, a sexual harassment suit, connections to a construction company tied to organized crime, use of an apartment donated for 911 relief as a love nest where he could meet his girlfriends, including Judith Regan, and accepting gifts in contravention of ethics rules (for which he paid a $221,000 fine). Kerik was also the inept Interim Minister of the Interior in Iraq under Paul Bremer's CPA in 2003
115. The Bush back story: The time in the TANG, the transfer to the Alabama National Guard, the lost years, the 1976 DUI in Maine, the business bailouts, the governorship, hardline on drug crimes despite his own past history and a fast and loose approach to the death penalty
116. As of February 2006, the terrorist watchlist of the National Counterterrorism Center: the bizarrely named Terrorists Identity Datamart Environment (TIDE) has 400,000 names representing 300,000 people. The Transportation Security Administration's no-fly list had 44,000 names on it as of October 2006. 75,000 others are on an extra screening list (CBS). The size of the lists, that they contain numerous errors, that it is difficult or impossible to remove names or correct errors, the presence of common names, and the ease with which these lists can be subverted by real terrorists raise questions why such large, sloppy lists exist at all
117. Insta-declassification in contravention of Bush's own Executive order 13292 and without consultation with the original classifying agency. Also abusive and indiscriminate classification (secrecy for secrecy's sake) of government documents
118. Vice President Cheney shoots 78 year old lawyer Harry Whittington Feb. 11, 2006 during a quail hunt at the Armstrong ranch in Texas. The shooting is not reported until the next day and then by the ranch owner to a Corpus Christi reporter. Under pressure and despite his disdain for the press, Cheney finally breaks his silence Feb. 15 on Fox News. Any real investigation is smothered by the powerful Armstrong family (who by the way are the ones who set Cheney up in his job at Halliburton) and the story remains incomplete
119. Homeland Security's Automated Targeting System (ATS) database which makes a terrorist risk assessment on anyone traveling to or from the US by any means and keeps it for 40 years
120. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refuses to recuse himself from Cheney's appeal of a Sierra Club lawsuit to keep records of his 2001 Energy Task Force secret. Shortly after SCOTUS agreed to take up the case, Scalia flew with Cheney on Jan. 5, 2004 on Air Force Two to Louisiana for a duck hunting trip. Cheney stayed two days and Scalia four. June 24, 2004, SCOTUS decides 7-2 to send the case back to the district court for reconsideration of the government's separation of powers argument. Scalia and Thomas going further concurred and dissented thinking that the appellate court should have been the one to deny the Sierra Club's discovery request. May 1, 2005, the DC Court of Appeals dismisses the Sierra Club case holding that Cheney could keep the participation of oil companies in his Energy Task Force secret.
121. The Election Assistance Commission which was created to do election research after the 2000 election debacle issued a December 2006 report which changed the conclusions of its experts and exaggerated the problem of voter fraud. Previously, the Commission released a report only under Congressional pressure that indicated that voter ID programs suppressed voter turnout among minorities. The EAC also has oversight of voting machines and voting software in which it has failed.
122. Bush tried unsuccessfully to kill the confirmation of Mohammed ElBaradei to a third term as head of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). ElBaradei and the IAEI had stated in the runup to the Iraq war that the famous aluminum tubes were for rockets not centrifuges, that the Niger documents were fakes, that there was no evidence that Iraq was trying to reconstitute a nuclear program, and that the Iraqis had been cooperative with IAEA inspections. As part of the Bush campaign in 2005 to oust him, the NSA tapped his phones in an unsuccessful attempt to show he was being soft on Iran. John Bolton unsuccessfully lobbied for more aggressive surveillance of him. ElBaradei was reconfirmed and later that same year won the Nobel Peace Prize
123. Alice Fisher named to head the Criminal Division at the DOJ in a recess appointment, later confirmed September 19, 2006 (just before the Nov. 2006 elections). A protegee of Michael Chertoff, she worked under him as deputy head of the Criminal Division but has no experience as a criminal prosecutor. She also worked on the Senate investigation into the Clinton era Whitewater scandal and was a lobbyist of HCA the healthcare company controlled by the family of the recent Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist. She has opposed rescinding the more gratuitous aspects of the Patriot Act, favored its extension unchanged, participated in discussions of abusive interrogation methods at Guantanamo, and reportedly has social ties to Tom Delay's defense team. Under her leadership, the investigation into Abramoff's many connections (some of which go back to Delay) has gone nowhere.
124. After being admonished 3 times by the House Ethics Committee in 2004, Tom Delay through Dennis Hastert had the Republican head of the committee replaced and staff fired. Ethics rules were also changed making it easier to kill ethics investigations. An initial provision to allow an indicted member of the House leadership to continue to hold his position was rescinded after negative publicity.
125. Collusion of the media: the NYT, WaPo, Time, Newsweek, cable and network news in the Bush disasters through silence, lack of investigation, and above all accepting uncritically whatever spin came out of the White House on anything
126. Failure of the Democratic Party to act as an opposition party for nearly 5 years
127. A supreme lack of oversight by a rubberstamping Republican Congress over the same 5 years
128. The use of the 2002 AUMF against Iraq to justify the Bush invasion and an ongoing US military presence there. The UN Resolutions it cites, including those sanctioning military force, are from the 1990-1991 Gulf War. The UN never passed a resolution that authorized the use of military force in the Second Gulf War. On June 28, 2004, the US returned sovereignty to the reconstituted state of Iraq and in doing so acknowledged that the Iraq referenced in the AUMF as well as the legal rationale for a US presence in (and occupation of) the country no longer existed.
129. President Bush awards the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, to General Tommy Franks, George Tenet, and Paul Bremer for their efforts to create the disaster that Iraq has become
130. Real ID Act of 2005 mandates essentially a national identity card by forcing states to have nationally compatible driver's licenses. The program has multiple goals: facilitate surveillance and data mining and make it harder for illegal aliens to get jobs and for the poor to vote
131. Jose Padilla. This is not about a bad and deluded man, but rather that an American citizen held in the United States could be held for 3 1/2 years (May 8, 2002-January 3, 2006) outside the purview of American courts and tortured. He was transferred to the regular US legal system only because his case challenging Bush's power to declare him an illegal enemy combatant was wending its way to the Supreme Court. The transfer successfully pre-empted this when the Court declined April 3, 2006 to hear the case. The lack of a Supreme Court determination and passage of the Military Commissions Act mean that any American can still be declared an illegal enemy combatant and held indefinitely without charge, and if the MCA is to be believed (and unlike the Padilla case) without any right to habeas corpus.
....On May 14, 2007, Padilla who was initially accused of being a terrorist mastermind behind a plot to detonate a dirty bomb inside the US was put on trial for being a minor member of a conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim outside the US. Among the many dubious and disturbing aspects of this case: the length and nature of detention, his mental fitness to stand trial, the change in jurisdiction from military to civilian, and the major reduction in the scope of the charges and Padilla's role in them, the government claims it "lost" lost evidence, specifically a DVD of Padilla's last interrogation as an enemy combatant from March 2, 2004.
132. National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act of 2005. This sets up a state by state but nationally compatible data base of prescribed controlled substances available to many agencies. The substances include not only painkillers taken for more than a couple days but also tranquillizers and sleeping pills.
133. Jean-Bertrand Aristide the President of Haiti who was certainly no Boy Scout was flown out of the country on February 29, 2004 in the midst of an insurrection that was not exactly opposed by the Bush Administration "willingly" according to American authorities, "kidnapped" according to Aristide.
134. Hugo Chavez the controversial President of Venezuela was briefly deposed in a military coup April 11, 2002. The Bush Administration initially recognized the interim government of Pedro Carmona the head of the national business federation and said that Chavez had brought the coup on himself. The coup collapsed and Chavez resumed power two days later on April 13, 2002. Later the Bush Administration condemned the coup.
135. Bush's ethanol program will not solve America's energy problems. It is a boon to corn state farmers and the politicians who represent them but depletes soil that would be better reserved for food production. Ethanol is also a carbon based fuel and contributes to global warming directly through its burning and indirectly through its production.
136. Post the November 2006 elections, the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has repeatedly used the filibuster to obstruct Congressional action. This has happened so far on Iraq resolutions (even some co-sponsored by Republicans), an intelligence bill requiring greater accountability, and a bill to allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies. This is especially egregious in light of the last Congress where then Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist repeatedly threatened Democratic Senators contemplating a filibuster with the "nuclear option" of doing away with it by changing Senate rules.
137. The stacking of the federal judiciary with unqualified rightwing hacks; the role of the Gang of 14 (7 Democrats and 7 Republicans) who came together to avoid the nuclear option and push hyper-conservative judicial choices: Janice Rogers Brown (DC Circuit), William Pryor (11th Circuit), and Priscilla Owen (5th Circuit); no agreement could be made on two others William Myers and Henry Saad and their names were eventually withdrawn. The Gang of 14 was also involved in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh (also to the important DC Circuit). Kavanaugh had no trial experience but had worked for essentially partisan causes, such as Kenneth Starr's Clinton investigations for 5 years, the 2000 Florida recount, and as an Associate Counsel in the current Bush Administration where he worked to nominate and confirm unqualified, radically conservative candidates rather like himself.
....On June 27, 2007, Senator Patrick Leahy raised the possibility that Kavanaugh might be prosecuted for lying to Congress. In testimony, Kavanaugh said he had taken no part in developing the Administration's policy with regard to enemy combatants. Recent articles in the Washington Post indicate that he had.
138. Ralph "I need to start humping in corporate accounts" Reed led the Christian Coalition in the 1990s and was an associate of both Jack Abramoff and Grover Norquist. Abramoff funneled millions in 1999 and 2000 to Reed in exchange for Reed's mobilizing evangelicals in support of Abramoff's various schemes. These included: spiking an Alabama law which would have allowed gaming at dog tracks in competition with Choctaw casinos which were Abramoff clients; similar opposition to an Alabama state lottery; opposition to the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act (the rationale, a major stretch, was that it didn't go far enough) for his client eLottery; opposition to a Tigua casino in Texas to the benefit of his clients the Lousiana Coushatta; and then in 2002 persuading the Tigua that he Abramoff could use his connection to Reed to help them get back their casino. Reed was an indispensable cog in the Abramoff machine.
139. Aggressive proselytizing by Christian evangelical faculty and students of cadets at the US Air Force Academy. A report was issued June 2005 but it is not clear if much has changed. The USAF Academy also has a recurrent history of sexual assault and cheating.
140. The Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, an idea for those who don't believe in the separation of church and state or the Establishment Clause in the Constitution (First Amendment). A political and financial sop to rightwing Christians, the program has given no money to non-Christian groups. It is unclear how much money has actually gone through the program. The real problem is that any money should be distributed in this way.
....On June 25, 2007, SCOTUS ruled 5-4 in Hein, Director, White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives et al v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, Inc. et al that taxpayers do not have standing to contest this spending in violation of the Establishment clause A) because they can not show direct harm and B) because Establishment challenges under Flast v. Cohen are only allowed if a specific Congressional statute is at issue. SCOTUS held that the Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives had been created wholly within the Executive Branch and that no specific monies had been appropriated to it by Congressional statute so no challenge could be made. This is fairly squirrely reasoning (increasingly typical of the Roberts Court) because the money didn't just appear out of nowhere and what money the Congress does appropriate and how it is spent by the Executive must meet Constitutional requirements such as the Establishment Clause. In any case, the bottom line is that in the view of SCOTUS the Congress and/or another President are the ones to change this. Ordinary Americans need not apply.
141. Military disability ratings: A 30% rating is the cutoff between receiving payments, staying within the military healthcare system, and eligibility for family coverage and is now given out more rarely than before the beginning of the Iraq war, despite the large number of soldiers with severe injuries.
142. Earmarks: Special interest funding directed to a specific project by an individual legislator. The most famous example was Republican Senator Ted Stevens' $223 million for a bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Earmarks exploded in number and expense under the Republicans. Bush only decided that there was something bad about them (nearly 6 years into his Presidency) when Democrats won control of the Congress.
143. Medicare privatization. This began in 1982 and grew throughout the 1990s with 17.3% of Medicare recipients enrolled in 1999 in private plans when it went into decline. Since the start of Medicare Part D (passed 2003, went into effect January 1, 2006), numbers have begun to rise again. One of the reasons for this increase is that they are being aggressively, and often unscrupulously, marketed to unsuspecting elders. In addition, private plans receive government subsidies to make them competitive with Medicare itself. This is money that could go to reducing Medicare premiums generally but instead goes to higher overhead and profits for private providers.
144. Signing of a nuclear cooperation deal with India December 18, 2006. This is another example of the Bush Administration and Congress's selective approach to nuclear non-proliferation. Israel's nuclear program is ignored. Iraq is, in part, invaded for a mythical program that existed only in the fevered imaginations of Cheney, Feith, Bush, and Rice. At the same time, nuclear moves in North Korea and Iran are opposed. Meanwhile the deal with India will allow it to dedicate some of its facilities completely to nuclear arms production.
145. Julie MacDonald, who has a degree in civil engineering and no background in the natural sciences, was named the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks in the Interior Department on May 2004. She altered and reversed conclusions in scientific reports to prevent species from being protected. The Bush Administration to date has listed 58 species (54 as the result of litigation) as endangered as opposed to 512 in the Clinton years and 234 by the first President Bush. MacDonald also hired Todd Willens who worked with the former Republican Representative and anti-environmentalist Richard Pombo. According to a March 2007 Inspector General report, she also passed on internal department documents to the oil industry and land developers in contravention of federal rules and to aid filing of lawsuits against the department. Facing oversight hearings, she resigned April 30, 2007.
146. From tales of the revolving door. Darleen Druyun was a principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management where she negotiated a sweetheart deal worth $23 billion for leasing air tankers from Boeing. She was also negotiating at the same time for an executive position at Boeing. The deal was made. She left the Air Force and took up her new position at Boeing. In a 2004 plea agreement, Druyun pled guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 9 months in a minimum security prison, 7 months of home detention, 150 hours of community service, and required to pay a $5,000 fine.
147. Luis Posada Carriles is an anti-Castro terrorist who masterminded the October 6, 1976 bombing of a Cubana airliner killing 73. He had worked before this with the CIA and after the Cubana bombing during the Reagan Administration helped funnel aid to the Contras. In 1997, he directed a series of bombings in Cuba against the growing tourist industry there. In April 2005, running out of places to hide, he requested asylum in the US but the following month was detained for entering the country illegally. Despite his terrorist past, he was released on bond to home detention on April 19, 2007. On May 8, 2007, a federal judge in Texas dismissed the case against him for lying to immigration authorities. Contrast his treatment to that of terrorists like the "waterboarded" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Apparently it is not what you bomb but who you bomb that counts.
148. James Knodell, Director of the Office of Security at the White House, in testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform chaired by Henry Waxman said that no internal White House investigation was ever initiated (contrary to Executive order 12958 requiring one) in the period between July 14, 2003 when Valerie Plame a covert CIA agent was outed in a column by Robert Novak and September 29, 2003 when the Department of Justice asked the FBI to investigate pursuant to a request from the CIA of September 16, 2003.
149. Robert Cobb, NASA's tame Inspector General since 2002, tipped off former NASA head Sean O'Keefe to audits he would be performing and search warrants the FBI would be executing. O'Keefe, primarily known for his forceful dealing with the 1991 Tailhook scandal, was an accountant by training without a scientific or engineering background whose tenure at NASA was marked by drift. He got the top NASA job in December 2002 through his connection with Dick Cheney and, while still NASA administrator, campaigned for Bush in 2004 as a "private citizen". He left in February 2005. The inappropriate contact between NASA administrators and the NASA Inspector General continues as well as its coverup. The NASA General Counsel Mike Wholley illegally destroyed a tape of a meeting (between the current NASA head Michael Griffin and Cobb and his staff) to avoid it ever becoming public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
150. Evangelos Dimitros Soukas a convicted felon serving 8 years for tax fraud was scheduled to testify on April 12, 2007 before the Senate Finance Committee on identity theft and filing false tax returns. The Department of Justice challenged the right of the Congress to order a prisoner in federal custody to appear before it, even though this has happened numerous times in the past. A federal district judge did not agree with the DOJ and Soukas testified. The DOJ move appeared baffling, an empty assertion of Executive power, but, may have been pre-emptive to prevent more controversial prisoners from testifying in the future.
151. Excessive corporate pay, retirement, and severance packages in the Bush era. Even post-Enron, control over executive compensation still rests largely in the hands of the executives themselves and the compliant boards of directors they often select. Pay is still not coupled to performance and stock options still encourage executives to manipulate stock prices (which is very much not the same thing as performance as the Enron case showed) for their own benefit. Reporting the cost of stock options was not mandated by the SEC until August 2006. The total cost of multi-year options is still not reported fully but treated as a year by year expense making the true cost look smaller. Back dating of options so they could be purchased at a lower price was also fairly common until somebody noticed it constituted fraud. Spring loading, a variant of insider trading, i.e. exercising an option and buying just before news that will drive up the stock price, still occurs.
152. Eliot Spitzer the then New York State Attorney General (and not the SEC or the Bush Administration) announced on May 21, 2002 that Merrill Lynch had agreed to sever contacts between its analysis and investment divisions and to pay a $100 million fine. The lack of such separation was behind a lot of the dot com bubble in the 1990s as well as propping up Enron and facilitating its scams. It is a recognition of sorts of a systemic problem, although the fine was a tiny fraction of what investors lost and it is unclear how "objective" analysts are going to be even with the supposed wall to the investment side.
153. Scott Bloch initially deputy director for the Task Force for Faith Based and Community Initiatives became the head of the Office of Special Counsel (whose function is to protect whistleblowers) on January 5, 2004. Once there he summarily closed hundreds of ongoing cases, decried cases that had a "homosexual agenda", tried to use the office to protect a non-governmental employee who was a defender of Intelligent Design, gave 12 of his in-office critics the choice of immediate re-assignment to field offices or be fired, and was the subject of complaints filed with his own office. In April 2007, Bloch announced an investigation into Karl Rove's political machinations. The real aims of such an investigation probably do not include carrying out a real probe but are more likely an attempt by Bloch to hold on to his job, derail efforts to remove the OSC from the purview of the White House, stymie other investigations into Karl Rove, conduct a whitewash, and/or run out the clock.
154. Lax security at US nuclear facilities and airports exposed by whistleblowers Richard Levernier and Bogdan Dzakovic for which they were punished.
155. The 120,000 hours of counter terrorism related recordings that the FBI had not translated by September 2004; related to this is the case of Sibel Edmonds. She blew the whistle on the backlog and the dubious skills and allegiances of some of the translators the FBI was employing. For this she was rewarded by being fired.
156. Monica "Loyalty oaths" Goodling comes up again in an investigation of the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) into whether she used party affiliation in determining hires of entry level prosecutors. Did she? Given Gonzales‚ March 1, 2006 order delegating hiring authority to her and her role in the US attorney hiring and firing scandal, the answer is obvious.
157. Michael Baroody who was Executive Vice President of the National Association of Manufacturers a powerful K Street lobbying group was nominated by Bush on March 1, 2007 to head the Consumer Products Safety Commission. NAM has sought to limit or even eliminate corporate liability for unsafe products and environmental practices. NAM decided to give Baroody a $150,000 extraordinary payment on his way out the door. It is hard to say whether this is simply a further conflict of interest or just straightforward bribery. On May 23, 2007, Baroody withdrew his nomination, one day before the beginning of hearings.
158. The Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) created February 19, 2002 created a database the Joint Protection Enterprise Network (JPEN) [sorry for the acronym gobbledygook] composed of TALONs Threat and Local Observation Notices. These are basically raw unvalidated reports of threats posed by dangerous civilian group like the Quakers. The idea of the military spying on civilians is unsettling. The Founding Fathers after all fought a revolution over such abuses and in the 4th Amendment enunciated: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." Beyond this, CIFA did not follow its own guidelines in how it managed the material it obtained. The story does not end there. Duke Cunningham swung CIFA work to Mitchell J. Wade's company MZM in exchange for bribes. He was aided in this by CIFA Director David A. Burtt II and his top deputy Joseph Hefferon. In August 2006, Burtt resigned and Hefferon retired when the Cunningham-MZM connection was made public.
....On November 30, 2005, two days after Duke Cunningham enters into a plea agreement, all TALON reports were deleted from the JPEN database. However, the TALON program continues. (These programs never really die.) In keeping with the DOD (Department of Defense) Inspector General's usual lackluster performance, a report requested by Congresswoman Anna Eshoo in January 2006 and released June 27, 2007 on TALON failed to address who was responsible for violations in following the program's guidelines or why they occurred. The report also didn't examine if current safeguards were adequate or if the program should continue.
159. Bush's March 6, 2003 news conference. Less than two weeks before the start of the Iraq War, the "independent" press willingly play-acted spontaneity in what was a heavily scripted propaganda piece promoting the war.
160. An investigation into Bill Frist former Senate Majority Leader was closed on April 27, 2007. He was not indicted for insider trading in selling his stock in the family's large healthcare company HCA shortly before a major fall in its stock price. It was all just a coincidence, a very profitable coincidence.
161. Julie Myers was made Assistant Secretary of DHS to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a recess appointment on January 4, 2006 after the Senate failed to vote on her nomination. Bush re-nominated her January 9, 2007. Myers is another Bush hire whose lack of experience is overshadowed by who she is related to. At ICE, she has sponsored aggressive, high profile, and controversial raids against illegal immigrants. The irony of someone whose success is based not on hard work but on connection imprisoning those who are hard working but without connection is I suspect lost upon her.
162. Randall Tobias, US Director of Foreign Assistance and head of US Agency for International Development (USAID) with the rank of Deputy Secretary of State since March 29, 2006. Before this he was our first Global AIDS Coordinator (October 2003) where he criticized condom use, discouraged outreach to sexworkers, and promoted abstinence only programs. As Director of Foreign Assistance, he continued to oversee the Global AIDS program. He resigned April 27, 2007 after it came out that he had been named as using a Washington escort service. I am not a prude about these things but I do see a problem between his personal activities and his public positions.
163. Robert E. Coughlin II, deputy chief of staff of the Criminal Division at the DOJ, resigned on April 6, 2007. He was a friend and colleague of Kevin Ring who was an Abramoff associate.
164. Stuart Bowen was Inspector General for the Bremer's CPA and documented that $8.8 billion had gone missing. He stayed on as Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) chronicling waste, abuse, and fraud. In the 2007 Defense appropriations act an item was snuck in terminating Bowen's job, because well, he was doing his job. When this became known, funding was restored. In April 2007, Bowen released reports showing that in a sample of what reconstruction projects there were and which were deemed successful, most were not being maintained and were no longer usable for their original functions.
....Bowen a Republican whose investigations have proved an embarrassment to the Bush Administration is now under investigation himself subject to a complaint by a group of former employees who left his office on less than amicable terms. The complaint has been taken up by the President's Council on Integrity and Excellence headed by Clay Johnson III, a longtime friend of the President, and by Thomas Davis III the ranking Republican on the House Government Reform Committee. Davis says this is not about retribution although at this point that is exactly what it looks like.
165. Continued Republican support of the Iraq war after the November 2006 elections flying in the face of public opinion, the election results, and reality. Republican losses were largely attributable to Iraq but have done little to change the minds of Republican lawmakers. Bush and Republicans demanded that Democrats come up with an Iraq plan. When they proposed withdrawal, they were accused of micromanagement. Yet withdrawal is precisely what Republicans pushed for during the Clinton Administration when they tried to force legislative ends to deployments in both the Balkans and Somalia. War resolutions have been filibustered by Senate Republicans, sometimes and even despite the fact they co-sponsored them. Opposition to Bush's war policies are portrayed as "fringe" although they are supported by 60%-70% of the American people. They accuse Democrats of not backing the troops and then vote on a near perfect party line basis against a supplemental to fund the troops and applaud the President's veto of it on May 1, 2007 (the 4th anniversary of Bush's catastrophically wrong Mission Accomplished speech). They ask for patience and to give the surge a chance even after a record of 4 years of failure, constantly worsening conditions in Iraq, and inaction by the Iraqi government.
166. George Bush signed the "Secure Fence Act" into law on October 26, 2006. Its purpose is to construct a barrier to stem illegal immigration into the country along the Mexican border. How a 700 mile fence along a 2100 mile border would accomplish this or what effect it would have on the 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the country is unclear. The initial estimate for its cost was $2 billion, and $1.2 billion was budgeted for it. The final cost, however, if it is ever built (which is unlikely), could be between $8 billion and $30 billion. In other words, it is an expensive, pointless gesture to anti-immigrant feeling without addressing what an immigration policy could or should be.
167. Development of a coverup strategy to fight Congressional oversight that involves more than a little Karl Rove and obstruction of justice. In addition to the public relations campaign that there is nothing to see and they have cooperated anyway, we have
1. Threatening witnesses (Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General Michael Elston acting, he says, on Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty's orders to tell 3 of the 8 fired US attorneys to stay quiet or else)
2. Preventing witnesses from testifying (Condi Rice directing Simon Dodge not to testify about his early identification of the uranium from Niger for Iraq documents as fakes and Rice's knowledge of this as National Security Advisor)
3. Large but incomplete docudumps that are missing key information (for example, the November 15-December 4 email gap around the time that the US attorney firings were being finalized)
4. Attempted destruction of evidence and/or Claiming that evidence has been lost (Rove's deleted emails, Monica Goodling's instruction to remove older versions of files)
5. Slow response or non-response (the failure of Rice to answer written questions; dragging out the document production process)
6. Claims of executive privilege regardless of merit (to keep Karl Rove and Harriet Miers from testifying under oath or to block production of emails, even those on non-White House servers, and even after the assertion that Bush was not part of the firing process)
7. Coaching of testimony known to be false by the coachers (Karl Rove and Kyle Sampson misleading Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty into giving testimony that attorneys were fired for "performance" reasons, which Rove and Sampson knew to be false)
8. Testifying but with severe amnesia (Gonzales, Kyle Sampson, Lurita Doan)
9. Lying (as evidenced by Gonzales' numerous stories, Sampson misstating his role in the attorney firings, or Victoria Toensing in defining who is and is not a covert agent)
168. When Oregon Senator Gordon Smith was up for re-election in 2002, Dick Cheney working with Sue Ellen Wooldridge (Stephen Griles' current wife who was deputy chief of staff to Gale Norton at the Interior Department before moving on to Justice) moved to divert more water from the Klamath River for irrigation purposes to help the area's Republican farmers. In February 2002, Bush and Karl Rove announced their support for the idea. In March after a preliminary report by the National Academy of Sciences requested by Cheney, Interior's Gale Norton approved the diversion and quashed scientific views to the contrary. As a result, in the following months, water levels dropped resulting in a large die off of salmon but Senator Smith won his election. In March 2006, a federal judge put limits on the draw off in an attempt to protect Northwest fisheries.
169. Debra Wong Yang the US attorney for Central California (Los Angeles) left office on November 11, 2006 a month ahead of the more well known firings of 8 US attorneys on December 7, 2006. She had been investigating Representative Jerry Lewis. Part of this was an offshoot of USA-San Diego Carol Lam's investigation into Representative Duke Cunningham and defense contractor and briber Brent Wilkes. I say part because Jerry Lewis has been rated one of the most corrupt members of Congress. And then there are the interesting connections. The Cerberus group, for example, which gave large contributions to Lewis and his organizations, owns IAP the outfit involved in the Walter Reed scandal. As for Debra Yang, after resigning for "personal" reasons, she joined the law firm representing Lewis and received a highly unusual $1.5 million dollar signing bonus.
170. Nepotism Cheney-style. Although she had no background in Middle Eastern affairs, in the run up to the Iraq war in 2002, Elizabeth Cheney, Dick Cheney's daughter, was named to the newly created position of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (where she could keep an eye on things for her father at a critical juncture in the fabrication of the case for war). She left in 2003 to work on her father's re-election campaign but returned after the election in 2005 as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and as such was the second ranking diplomat at State for the Middle East. She was Shaha Riza's boss when she came to State. She also headed the Iran-Syrian Operations Group (ISOG) with a budget of $80 million. This was a kind of reprise at State of what Douglas Feith's Office of Strategic Plans had been at the Pentagon. It was aimed at regime change in the two countries, especially Iran. She left State in 2006. She is married to Philip Perry, general counsel at the Department of Homeland Security.
171. Dick "I had other priorities in the 60s than military service" Cheney received 5 deferments to avoid service in Vietnam. He did no more than what many did at the time. Still it is a very strange start for one who prides himself on being a superhawk and who views our relations with the rest of the world as a matter of will, and paranoia. As Vice President, he has been the extremist behind the throne, one of the few for whom 911 was a godsend because it furnished him the opportunity to realize his most radical tendencies. Unlike Karl Rove who believes in turning government into an extension of the Republican Party, Cheney believes in making government a direct extension of the President. And if that President is weak and uninvolved, well then all that accumulated power flows quite naturally to the next person in line who is more engaged, the Vice President say. Of course, Cheney will only use this power against our enemies. Unfortunately, he sees enemies everywhere.
....Cheney understands that sometimes lies must be used to serve a higher truth and that even after being exposed they still have power, hence the repetition of even the most thoroughly debunked assertions, like the connection between Saddam and al Qaeda or that the Vice Presidency is not part of the Executive Branch. It doesn't matter that they are untrue. They take up time and energy. They delay, misdirect, and confuse action on issues.
....While Cheney has been spectacularly successful in acquiring power, he has been a disaster in using it. The results are a preventive and preventable war in Iraq, domestic spying, welfare for the rich, largesse for Halliburton, a mania for secrecy, and a whittling away of Constitutional rights and safeguards, in other words a country less safe, more unequal, and less free.
172. Johnnie Burton, director of the Minerals Management Service since 2002 resigned May 7, 2007 after an Interior Inspector General report of December 2006. During her tenure, she reduced audits and depended on self-reporting by energy companies resulting in underreporting and underpayment of royalties. The first auditor Bobby Maxwell who noticed a problem had his job eliminated.
....As part of this, Burton also failed to review leases. Only 9% have been since 2000. In a particularly egregious case, approximately 1100 bungled oil and gas leases for the Gulf of Mexico dating from 1998-1999 which failed to tie royalties to changes in oil and gas prices were left unexamined for years and then not promptly addressed and renegotiated once they were known. The GAO estimates that $1 billion in royalty payments has been lost on these leases and that another $6.4 billion to $9.8 billion could go uncollected over their lifetime.
173. Punishment of defense counsel at Guantanamo for doing their jobs. Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift who won the Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case which held that the Executive could not set up military tribunals on its own without approval by the Congress was forced out of the Navy JAG corps as a result. Major Michael Mori who defended Australian Guantanamo detainee David Hicks got for him a plea deal on March 26, 2007 whereby he was given 7 years all but 9 months of which were suspended and which he could serve in Australia. As a reward, Mori was passed over for promotion, offered remote postings, and rejected as a judge trainee. To date, 4 of 6 military defense attorneys up for promotion have been similarly passed over. Another Lieutenant Commodore Matthew Diaz has been convicted of giving secrets to the benefit of a foreign government for having given a list of Guantanamo detainees to a New York law firm the Center for Constitutional Rights in 2005. On May 18, 2007, he was sentenced to 6 months in the brig and discharge. At the time (before the Military Commissions Act), the Center had won the right in Rasul v. Bush to file habeas briefs on behalf of detainees but the US sought to block these by refusing to turn over the names and so preventing the detainees from getting legal representation. The US has fought such disclosure despite Rasul and even though it is obligated to release this information at least to the Red Cross under the Geneva Conventions and failure to do so is a violation of international law.
174. Despite backlogs and a 2005 budget that resulted in a $1.3 billion deficit, VA officials received $3.8 million in bonuses. About half a million went to officials who sat on the review boards giving out the bonuses.
175. The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was recommended by the 911 Commission to make sure that in countering terrorism the privacy rights and civil liberties of Americans were respected. Established by law on December 17, 2004, it first met more than a year later on March 14, 2006. Its first public meeting was on December 5, 2006. Its 5 members currently are chosen by the President although there is currently legislation to make it an independent agency. The Board's chairwoman is Carol Dinkins a former law partner of Alberto Gonzales. Theodore Olson who argued Bush v. Gore is also a member. In its first report (2007) to Congress, the Administration made over 200 changes even after the final draft had been approved by the committee, resulting in the resignation of the one of the board members Lanny J. Davis.
176. Johnnie Frazier, the Commerce Department's Inspector General who is supposed to investigate and prevent this kind of thing, was found by the government's whistleblower agency the Office of Special Counsel to have wrongly demoted his top deputy, Edward Blansitt, and his chief counsel, Allison Lerner, after Blansitt refused to sign off on expenses Frazier incurred during an August 2006 junket to Boston and New York. When Frazier learned of the investigation, he sought to destroy emails concerning his activities. Additionally, Frazier's Deputy Assistant Inspector General Thomas Phan has filed a civil rights complaint against him charging harassment and has also sought an investigation by the OSC. Frazier is also facing an inquiry by the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency (PCIE).
177. In 2007, Bill Roderick the Acting Inspector General for the EPA tried to cut his staff of 360 by 60. They are tasked with making sure that the EPA enforces its pollution rules. Roderick cited potential budget cuts for the proposed reductions just before he got a $15,000 bonus.
178. Janet Rehnquist, daughter of the late Chief Justice, was Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services from August 2001 to March 2003. She replaced numerous senior staff including all six of her deputy inspector generals through involuntary retirements and reassignments. She delayed an audit of Florida's pension fund before the 2002 election in which the President's brother Jeb Bush was running for re-election. The audit would have shown that the fund had lost $300 million in the Enron collapse.
179. Karla Corcoran was strictly speaking a Clinton appointment having been made the Post Office's Inspector General in 1997. Nevertheless, she extends into the Bush era and no discussion of Inspector General misconduct would be complete without her. She resigned in August 2003. Her tenure was marked by "rampant waste, cronyism, questionable management and personnel practices, and substandard performance." Her office was incredibly inefficient in uncovering fraud and waste. On the other hand, she held really good parties bringing her whole staff of 750 to Washington once a year for a week at a cost of $1 million each time.
180. Russian scientists in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund set up a meeting to discuss the problem of increased human-polar bear interactions. These have become more frequent and dangerous as the bears are forced out of their usual ranges due to the melting of arctic ice packs. A polar bear expert Craig Perham from the Fish and Wildlife Service was invited along by Margaret Williams of the WWF. Perham was told by the Interior Department in February 2007 that he could not talk about global warming at the meeting because it was not part of the agenda, even though the meeting had no agenda and global warming was the cause of the change in polar bear movements.
181. The American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund (AVCR) is a fake "voting rights" group created by Republicans to give "non-partisan" testimony on the dangers of that most Republican of obsessions and inexistent of problems, voter fraud. It was registered on March 17, 2005 and was the only voting rights group to testify 4 days later on March 21, 2005 in House hearings held by now convicted Representative Bob Ney on voting problems in Ohio in 2004. The group was put together by Thor Hearne, both national and Missouri counsel for the 2004 Bush campaign, and Missouri's Republican Senator Kit Bond. Like the Swiftboaters, this is another group with a highly partisan agenda masquerading as an impartial observer.
182. In 2000 the EPA announced plans to phase out over 4 years the gasoline additive MTBE which had been found to be contaminating ground water supplies. These were canceled when Bush took office. As a result, MTBE is still in use but, due to law suits against oil companies, state bans, and lack of Congressional agreement in 2005, its production is half of what it was.
183. On May 30, 2002 Attorney General John Ashcroft removed restrictions on domestic spying by the FBI in counterterrorism investigations, including political and religious groups without probable cause. Unsurprisingly, the FBI used its new powers (as it admitted on November 23, 2003) to spy on antiwar protesters
184. On August 23, 2004, the Labor Department changed regulations contained in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 to raise the minimum salary (from $155 to $455/week) at which executive, administrative, and professional employees must be paid overtime. I expect the idea was that they should be happy to have a job and that there was no reason to go overboard and actually pay them for their work.
185. In a show of rare prescience, on May 6, 2002 George Bush voided the US signature on the treaty (signed by Clinton) establishing an International Criminal Court at the Hague and so set the US and its leaders effectively outside its jurisdiction.
186. On August 9, 2002, the Department of Health and Human Resources changed its medical privacy regulations. While patients were given the right to review and correct their medical records and not have medical information disclosed to their employers without their consent, doctors, hospitals, and healthcare providers could do so among themselves and with insurance companies for treatment and billing purposes. Pharmacies were also allowed to enter into agreements with drug companies to promote their brands to patients without disclosing this relationship.
187. The Public Utilities Holding Company Act of 1935 is one of those acts which no one has ever heard of and since its repeal in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 it is likely no one ever will. PUHCA kept regulated energy companies from moving into unregulated businesses and so placed limits on their size, activities, and abilities to manipulate markets. You might think that was a good idea after the 2000-2001 electricity debacle in California. The Bush Administration and a Republican Congress more responsive to lobbyists than facts disagreed.
188. May 24, 2007 Bush nominates James Holsinger as the next Surgeon General. Holsinger believes that homosexuality is a lifestyle not an orientation and that it is incompatible with Christian teaching. The Surgeon General is described as the nation's top health educator.
189. In June 2007, Italia Federici agreed to plead guilty to tax evasion and obstructing a Congressional investigation. She was Jack Abramoff's go between for the Interior Department. She headed the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, a fake pro-business anti-environmental group created by Gale Norton (who went on to become Secretary of the Interior 2001-2006) and Grover Norquist. At the time of her Abramoff related activities, she was romantically involved with the Deputy Secretary of the Interior Stephen Griles who has also pled guilty to obstructing a Congressional investigation. Her sentence (~ 16 months) will depend on her cooperation.
190. Thomas Barnett entered the DOJ's antitrust division in April 2004 and became its head (assistant attorney general) on February 10, 2006. Barnett sent a memo to state prosecutors in May 2007 urging them to drop an investigation into a complaint by Google that Microsoft's new Vista operating system slowed Google's search engine in preference to Microsoft's own version. The Google complaint has its origins in a consent decree monitoring Microsoft's antitrust compliance. Before coming to the Justice Department, Barnett was the Vice Chair of the Antitrust and Consumer Protection Practice Group of Covington & Burling, the Washington law firm which had represented Microsoft in the antitrust proceedings. Barnett's efforts seem to have backfired for now, but not for want of trying on his part. On June 19, 2007, Microsoft agreed to modify Vista later this year to allow users to disable the Microsoft version and choose another search engine, thus solving the speed problem.
191. The Palestinian civil war. January 2006 the populist and rejectionist Hamas (one of the Islamist organizations that Israel had supported in the past as a counterweight to Fatah) wins Parliamentary elections pushing out of government a corrupt but well entrenched Fatah. Clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants begin almost immediately. Despite Bush's oft stated support of democracy in the Middle East, the US organizes a boycott of Hamas. The US and the Europeans cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel holds back tax receipts. International banking transactions are blocked preventing aid from other countries. The result is a sharp increase in unemployment, poverty, and radicalism in the Territories, especially Gaza where Hamas is strongest. At the same time, the background pattern of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks continues. In the deepening humanitarian and political crisis, Western governments led by the US seek to do end runs around Hamas funneling aid directly to the Palestinian people bypassing the PA and backing the Fatah Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as an alternative to Hamas. In addition to political support, the US supplies Fatah security forces with weapons. A national unity government is finally cobbled together in February 2007 but doesn't last. In May, 500 Fatah fighters enter Gaza from Egypt with Israeli approval and Bush okays $40 million to train 4,000 troops directly under Abbas' control. Violence flares in June 2007 and greatly outnumbered and outgunned Fatah fighters are kicked out of Gaza. On June 14, 2007, Abbas dissolves the "national unity" government. A few days later on June 16, Fatah forces effectively expel Hamas from the West Bank. Instead of accepting the results of a democratic election and engaging with its opponents, the Bush Administration fomented a civil war. As has happened so many times before, it didn't do its homework or the math, and the consequences were once again not those it expected. The Palestinians are even weaker and more divided. Gaza has real potential to become a full blown humanitarian crisis. The situation is more dangerous and peace even further away.
192. Selling the war: Part 1. Iraq the reasons. Some say there was no reason for the war. This is untrue. Many reasons were given for it, just no good one. Here are a dozen of them grace of Bush, Cheney, the neocons from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and the 2002 AUMF.
1. WMD
2. Saddam Hussein behind 9/11
3. Saddam Hussein connected with al Qaeda
4. Fighting terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here
5. Spread democracy
6. Saddam Hussein was a bad man
7. Iraqi violations of UN Resolutions
8. The 1993 assassination attempt against GHW Bush
9. Oil
10. Bases
11. Defend Israel
12. Bad intel
193. Selling the war: Part 2. Iraq the turning points. While enough for a pentadecagon, not enough to make a difference.
1. May 1, 2003 End of major combat operations announced on board the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln: Mission accomplished
2. July 22, 2003 Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusai killed
3. December 13, 2003 Saddam Hussein captured
4. March 8, 2004 Interim Constitution
5. June 28, 2004 Interim government formed/Sovereignty returned
6. November 2004 Second siege of Fallujah
7. January 30, 2005 First elections for transitional assembly
8. May 3, 2005 Transitional government formed
9. October 15, 2005 Vote on constitution
10. December 15, 2005 Elections for permanent assembly
11. April 22, 2006 Nuri al Maliki replaces interim PM Ibrahim Jaafari in forming a permanent government
12. May 20, 2006 Maliki presents permanent government: the key ministries of Defense, Interior, and National Security are left unfilled
13. June 7, 2006 Jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi killed; June 8, 2006 last ministries filled in permanent government (175 days after the elections)
14. December 30, 2006 Saddam Hussein executed by hanging
15. January 10, 2007 Bush announces his New Way Forward plan, aka the "surge". Deployment of surge forces completed June 15, 2007. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and General David Petraeus claim progress is being made.
194. Torture and Guantanamo
September 25, 2001, John Yoo at the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) writes a memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales in which he opines that in the war on terror the President's decisions are "for him alone and are unreviewable."
January 9, 2002, John Yoo together with Robert Delahunty assert in a memo to the Pentagon that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the Taliban and al Qaeda.
January 22, 2002, Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General and head of the OLC, communicates this finding to White House counsel Gonzales.
January 25, 2002, Gonzales sends a memo (written by David Addington) to George Bush in which he argues that the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions."
January 26, 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell writes to Gonzales arguing that the Geneva Conventions should be applied to Taliban and al Qaeda whether or not there is a legal duty to do so.
January 27, 2002, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declares that Guantanamo detainees are not prisoners of war, i.e. not covered by the Geneva Conventions.
January 29, 2002, Bush agrees with Rumsfeld.
February 1, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft weighs in and agrees with Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, and Bush that the Geneva Conventions to do not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda detainees.
February 2, 2002, agreeing with Colin Powell, the State Department's top lawyer William Taft IV points out that non-observance of the Geneva Conventions could endanger American troops.
Febraury 7, 2002, Bush signs an executive order that says the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda detainees and further asserts his authority to suspend compliance with the Conventions in future conflicts.
February 26, 2002, it having been decided that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda detainees, Jay Bybee further informs the Pentagon that these detainees have no protection against self incrimination since they are outside the purview of US courts.
August 1, 2002, Jay Bybee writes to Gonzales his now infamous memo (drafted by John Yoo with the help of then legal counsel to the VP David Addington and then deputy White House counsel Timothy Flanigan) in which he asserts that "Physical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death."
October 2002, officers at Guantanamo request permission to use "harsh interrogation techniques" (i.e. torture) on detainees.
November 4, 2002, Major General Geoffrey Miller takes command of the prison at Gunatanamo with a mandate to get actionable information from detainees.
November 27, 2002, Rumsfeld signs off on harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo.
January 15, 2003, Rumsfeld looking for greater legal cover both for himself and interrogators rescinds his order and directs Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes II to create a review panel to come up with new interrogation rules. Haynes chooses Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker to head the panel. (Walker's previous claim to fame was that she had been behind a coverup of sexual abuse scandals at the Air Force Academy.)
March-April 2003, Judge Advocate Generals of the Army, Navy, and Air Force protest the dumping of the Geneva Conventions and the well established doctrine of the UCMJ.
March 13, 2003, Jay Bybee confirmed as federal judge to the 9th circuit (West Coast) Court of Appeals.
March 14, 2003, Yoo delivers a memo to DOD General Counsel Haynes addressing issues before the Walker panel and is taken as the controlling legal opinion for it. The memo has, I believe, never been released.
April 4, 2003, the Walker panel accepts the definition of torture outlined in Bybee's August 2002 memo and okays harsh interrogation techniques.
April 16, 2003, Rumsfeld signs off on some of the recommended harsh interrogation techniques.
Summer 2003, John Yoo leaves the OLC and returns to UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law.
December 2003, things begin to unravel. The new head of the OLC Jack Goldsmith (although he had worked for DOD General Counsel Haynes) informs his former boss that the March 2003 Yoo memo is under review and "should not be relied upon for any purpose."
July 14, 2004, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the OLC (acting head) Patrick Philbin in Congressional testimony puts the onus back on the Secretary of Defense saying that harsh interrogation techniques must be conducted "in accordance with the limitations and safeguards specified by the Secretary," and that the President's Article II powers as Commander in Chief can not be used as a justification.
December 2004, General Craddock head of Southern Command appoints Air Force Lieutenant General Randall Schmidt to investigate FBI allegations of torture at Guantanamo. He finds abuses and recommends that Major General Geoffrey Miller be held accountable and admonished, a recommendation which General Craddock who had been Rumsfeld's senior military assistant rejects.
February 4, 2005, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the OLC Daniel Levin writes to DOD General Counsel Haynes reminding him again of both Goldsmith's opinion and Philbin's testimony. He informs Haynes that the March 2003 Yoo memo has been formally withdrawn.
March 17, 2005, Haynes rescinds the Walker panel report based on the March 2003 Yoo memo and sanctioning harsh interrogation techniques, writing "I determine that the Report of the Working Group on Detainee Interrogations is to be considered a historical document with no standing in policy, practice, or law to guide any activity of the Department of Defense."
December 30, 2005, Bush signs into law the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill which contains the McCain Detainee Treatment Act which ostensibly limits harsh interrogation techniques. The act is weakened by the Kyl-Levin amendment which allows evidence gained by torture and restricts habeas corpus rights of detainees to challenge their treatment. Bush completely vitiates the provision by appending a signing statement which states that the President will abide by its limitations, if he feels like it.
October 17, 2006, Bush signs the Military Commissions Act into law. It immunizes torturers retroactively to November 26, 1997.
195. Torture and Iraq
March 2003, Stephen Cambone is made Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.
Summer 2003, Stephen Cambone almost certainly with Rumsfeld's blessing sends Lt. General William G. (Jerry) Boykin to Guantanamo to see Major General Miller about prisons in Iraq. Boykin a born again Christian gained a reputation for his anti-Islamic remarks. He is currently the Deputy Undersecretary for Intelligence at the DOD.
Aug. 31-Sept. 9, 2003, Miller goes to Iraq and Abu Ghraib where he recommends that prisons become part of the intelligence gathering process. Per Brig. General Janis Karpinski commandant of Abu Ghraib, Miller pushes to gitmo-ize the prison. Miller later denies this.
October-December 2003, period of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib.
January 13, 2004, Army Spec. Joseph M. Darby, an MP with the 800th at Abu Ghraib, leaves a disc with photographs of prisoner abuse on the bed of a military investigator.
February 26, 2004, Major General Antonio Taguba issues a classified report on the abuse at Abu Ghraib.
April 28, 2004, Sixty Minutes II airs the photos after a 2 week delay, setting off an international firestorm.
April 30, 2004, Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib appears online; Major General Geoffrey Miller is picked to replace Janis Karpinski and oversee detainee operations in Iraq.
Early May 2004, the Taguba report is leaked.
May 6, 2004, Taguba meets with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who professes ignorance of his report, asks whether torture occurred, and claims not to have seen the photos from Abu Ghraib although 4 months have passed from the initial report and more than 2 months from the in house release of Taguba's report.
May 7, 2004, Rumsfeld testifies before the Senate and professes surprise and ignorance of events at Abu Ghraib.
The aftermath: Despite numerous reports, no attempt was made to investigate up the military chain of command or the civilian political leadership of the Pentagon and the White House. So far, about a dozen enlistees have been convicted of various Abu Ghraib related offenses. One special forces officer Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan is facing charges. Colonel Thomas Pappas who ran the intelligence section where the abuses occurred received a reprimand. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski was demoted and some of her underlings were also reprimanded. Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez the military commander in Iraq retires without his extra star. And, of course, Major General Antonio Taguba who did his duty in a professional manner was forced to retire as of January 1, 2007, no sir, can't have people behaving like that in this Administration.
196. Vice President Cheney's bizarre assertion that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) is not part of the Executive Branch. (If it isn't, where does it fit in our Constitutional system, or does it?) As a result, since 2003, he has unilaterally exempted his office from compliance with Executive Order 12958 which requires information about its classification and declassification activities be provided to the National Archives so that national security materials can be safeguarded. In 2004, the OVP blocked an on-site inspection by the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) part of the National Archives. In mid 2006, the ISOO wrote to Cheney's Chief of Staff David Addington twice on the subject but received no answer. In January 2007, the ISOO asked Alberto Gonzales and the DOJ to resolve the matter. Cheney's response was to seek to abolish the ISOO and eliminate the National Archives' ability to refer disputes to the DOJ.
....Additionally, in 2001 the OVP refused to tell the GAO as part of its oversight function who had participated in Cheney's Energy Task Force. This was a governmental request and is different from the Sierra Club lawsuit. Cheney has also refused to disclose travel paid for by special interests as required by law. Since 2004, he has denied requests to name the political appointees on his staff. He has asserted control over Secret Service documents which detail visitors to his residence and exempted these from Freedom of Information requests. Finally, per Executive Order 13233 of November 2001, the Vice President is given authority to prevent public release of his (the OVP's) papers after he leaves office.
197. Another wrinkle on the US attorney scandal. On June 22, 2007, Bill Mercer Acting Associate Attorney General (from September 2006) withdrew his nomination for the permanent No. 3 position at the DOJ 4 days before his confirmation hearings. Mercer has been US attorney for Montana since April 20, 2001. In June 2005, he was given a second position as Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General in Washington. On October 20, 2005, US District Chief Judge Donald Molloy of Billings informed Attorney General Gonzales that Mercer was in violation of federal law since he no longer lived in the district. On November 10, 2005, Gonzales wrote back to the judge stating that Mercer still had a domicile there, returned on a regular basis, and would return permanently as soon as his "temporary" assignment was finished. The same day at Mercer's request, Brett Tolman (who had snuck in the interim US attorney language into the Patriot Act extension) inserted a second provision which allowed US attorneys to live outside their districts and hold other jobs. Mercer's confirmation hearing would have raised embarrassing questions about his role as an absentee US attorney and changing the language in the Patriot Act. His name also appeared in emails concerning the US attorney firings. He has stated his intention to return to his US attorney position in Montana.
198. On June 19, 2007, John Rizzo testified in confirmation hearings for the position of CIA General Counsel. Rizzo has been Acting Counsel for the last 3 years and is a 30 year veteran of the agency. He has also served as Senior Deputy General Counsel and as Deputy General Counsel for Operations. This means that he was part of or headed the CIA legal team that gave guidance to CIA personnel at the time that the CIA was engaged in running black prisons, conducting kidnappings and renditions to countries that practiced torture, and using interrogation methods that amounted to torture. In this last regard, there is the question of an unreleased August 2002 memo (not the Bybee one) from Justice to the CIA listing approved interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, hypothermia, refusal of pain medication for injuries, sleep deprivation, light and sound bombardment, and forced positions for prolonged periods of time. At his hearings, Rizzo described the CIA's interrogation program based on the 2002 memo as humane. He also didn't deny that the CIA could kidnap an American citizen overseas, saying only that it would be "extremely problematic". In other words, Rizzo is a classic enabler of policy no matter how dubious or illegal that policy is.
199. The Public Interest Declassification Board (PIDB) is another obscure governmental body that has no reason to exist. Created in 2000, its nine members (actually still two short at seven) were not appointed until 2004, and it was not funded until 2005. Meant to cut down on unnecessary classification, it has to date made no recommendation to declassify anything. Most recently, a Senate attempt to declassify the Intelligence Committee's report on pre-Iraq war assessments of WMD, including Ahmed Chalabi's input into them hit a brick wall when members sought to go through the PIDB. The PIDB noted that it could only consider a request to declassify if it originated with the President. This is a classic Catch-22. If a President classified something and wanted it kept classified, he/she would not make such a request. If the President wanted something declassified, it is unclear why he/she would bother going through the PIDB. So why does the PIDB exist?
200. On June 28, 2007, the Supreme Court 5-4 in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 eliminated the use of racial classification to avoid racial segregation in public schools. Its version of color blindness is to ignore the effects of past discrimination. The ruling is another indication that the two Bush appointees Roberts and Alito have no intention of honoring stare decisis (respect for precedent) which they swore to uphold at their confirmation hearings. It effectively undermines the 1954 landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka by leaving school districts few or no options to address and prevent segregation or re-segregation in their educational systems.
....The pattern of the Roberts court with respect to precedent is becoming clear. Using a majority of 5 conservative judges: Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy, the court has embarked on a course to overturn hallmark decisions like Roe and Brown, not by direct reversal but by dismantling them piece by piece until all the meaning in them is gone. It has also sought to roll back other laws and time elsewhere as well. In doing so, its reasoning has been remarkable for its inconsistency. This is Bush's court and with Iraq it may well be his most enduring and pernicious legacy.
201. On May 29, 2007, SCOTUS decided 5-4 in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Inc. that Ledbetter had only 180 days to file an EOCC complaint of salary discrimination based on sex and that although the discrimination had been going on for years, the court would consider only wage discrimination that had occurred within 180 days of her filing.
....It further stipulated the unrealistic and onerous condition that "Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC charge within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory employment decision was made and communicated to her." This was an example of the Court ignoring how the world actually functions. Corporations often prohibit employees from discussing their remuneration and make doing so grounds for dismissal. Employees may not come to know that they are being discriminated against for some time, what means are available to challenge such discrimination, if it is worth their while to contest it, and if they have the courage to do so. The decision greatly reduces the scope of discrimination claims and effectively gives corporations a Get Out of Jail Free card for patterns of long term discrimination.
202. On June 25, 2007, SCOTUS decided 5-4 in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc. that corporations could use their general funds to run "issue" oriented ads, even those naming candidates, within 30 days of a federal primary election or 60 days of a federal general election in contradiction of requirements of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. This is a continuation of the infamous dictum that money equals free speech. Apparently SCOTUS thinks there isn't sufficient money in our political system or that it is not sufficiently bought. Another interesting aspect of the case is that the specific timeframe in question occurred during the 2004 election cycle and had long been rendered moot. Nevertheless, it was resurrected by invoking the notion that the controversy was capable of repetition, yet evading review. In other words, the Court will, if it wants to and regardless of the facts, look at a case long over (as here), take a very restricted view of time limits as in Ledbetter, or declare it moot as in Padilla.
203. On June 25, 2007, SCOTUS decided 5-4 in Morse et al v. Frederick that a school principal acted appropriately in confiscating a banner from a student which read Bong Hits 4 Jesus because it appeared to advocate drug use in violation of school policy. The decision confirmed the view that SCOTUS has a solid majority of prigs who were never teenagers and were born with their sense of humor and proportion permanently disconnected. SCOTUS did not have to take up this case but, having done so, it did not need to be so mindlessly Victorian about it. Curiously, while the Court was eager to rush to protect children's Fourteenth Amendment rights in the Seattle/Louisville case, it showed little regard for their First Amendment rights in Morse v. Frederick. Go figure.
204. On June 28, 2007, SCOTUS decided 5-4 in Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc., DBA Kay's Kloset . . . Kay's Shoes that a manufacturer/distributor can fix the minimum price at which its goods can be sold by a retailer. The theory championed by Robert Bork among others is that by giving a manufacturer/distributor more control of its brand (including its price) it can better protect its brand. Putting it another way, by reducing competition within a brand, competition can be encouraged between brands. Such an approach may have some validity in high end niche markets for limited periods of time, but the key here is that it only may have a beneficial effect (albeit a highly restricted one) not that it will have one. Under such circumstances, is a potential, ephemeral advantage really worth undermining the Sherman Anti-Trust Act with its well understood and well accepted ban on price fixing? The current hyper-conservative (and extremely activist) Court thinks so. Once again, so much for stare decisis.
205. A no bid Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract to the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton beginning in May 2003 ballooned over 4 years from $2 million to $124 million. This is part of the saga of the privatizing of intelligence services and the ongoing mismanagement and incompetence at DHS. It was presided over by Cheney crony and Booz Allen Vice President James Woolsey. When the contract (now split into 5 parts) was finally put up for bid by DHS, Booz Allen won them all. You have to wonder what message DHS was trying to send by rewarding those who had effectively screwed them over.
206. April 28, 2006, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson stated in a speech that he cancelled a contract with a minority advertising firm because the contractor had said he did not support Bush. Later, Jackson in the face of mounting criticism said he made the story up. However, his chief of staff testified (as part of an Inspector General's investigation) that Jackson had intervened in the contracting process when contractors had known Democratic ties. In keeping with the pattern of tame IGs who permeate the Bush bureaucracy, the HUD IG downplayed the issue by saying, "there were some limited instances where political affiliation may have been a factor in contract issues involving Jackson." Even if limited, such instances violate department policies and more importantly violate the law by establishing a political test, something that neither Jackson nor his IG seem to have any problems with.
207. Donald Rumsfeld Defense Secretary from 2001-2006, master of Shock and Awe and Abu Ghraib, famously said on December 8, 2004, "As you know, you go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." This was in response to a question about raiding garbage dumps to cobble together armor for flimsily protected Humvees. The problem was that this was over two years from when the buildup to the Iraq invasion began and over a year and a half after Bush's Mission Accomplished speech declared major hostilities over. At the same time, Pentagon spokesmen defended Rumsfeld saying that he was not involved on a day to day basis with Iraq due to his work on the Pentagon's quadrennial review. In other words, he was too busy with the Army he wished to have as opposed to the one he had or the one he needed for Iraq. This was all supposed to result in "force transformation" of the military into small, light but lethal units for future wars, again the very opposite of the no frills but numerous boots on the ground that General Shinseki had correctly predicted were needed for Iraq. Rumsfeld's treatment of Shinseki sent a clear message to the uniformed military that they could agree with Rumsfeld and his minions or else. This was a sure guarantee for compliant generals and bad military advice.
....Rumsfeld also took on the Pentagon's arcane and antiquated procurement process. Under his leadership, he made a bloated and inefficient system even more so. Examples can be found here (An excellent resource for waste in government and in the Pentagon in particular.)
....Rumsfeld ran the gamut from arrogantly dismissive to insincerely reflective. He told us that he not only knew that Saddam had WMD but he knew where they were. On March 30, 2003, he assured us, "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." When massive, uncontrolled looting broke out in Baghdad, his response on April 11, 2003 was "Stuff happens" and "freedom is untidy." Yet in his October 16, 2003 memo to General Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and General Peter Pace, victory which he continued to believe in to the end had already become "a long, hard slog." Such an admission might have been expected to lead to a certain belated humility or at least a change in policy, but in the event it resulted in neither.
....Rumsfeld could be unintentionally revealing, "illustrative" he would call it, as when he opined, "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." While comically convoluted, in the end he missed the point. It was not all the knowns that were the problem. It was what he thought he knew and didn't that was. Long after the insurgency got started Rumsfeld was still talking about "deadenders". By the time Rumsfeld got around to admitting the insurgency's existence, Iraq was already well on its way to civil war. Rumsfeld couldn't see past his preconceptions. He punished those who disagreed with them. The result was he was constantly behind the curve addressing issues that had moved on.
....In his list of accomplishments which he left at the Pentagon before leaving, Rumsfeld cites the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the training and equipping of 131,000 Iraqi Ministry of Defense and 180,000 Iraqi Ministry of Interior forces as number one and two. Guantanamo is number four. Can anything be more telling? One country in civil war, another trending that way, a shell army, a cover for militias and death squads, and an international human rights controversy, these are what Rumsfeld without irony points to as his monuments.
208. January 10, 2003, the Bush administration issues guidelines that would exempt up to twenty million acres of "isolated" wetlands and seasonal streams from protection under the Clean Water Act (CWA). This went to court and in Rapanos v. United States June 19, 2006, Kennedy's opinion was controlling but his definition of what constituted wetlands was unclear. He defined them as those that "alone or in combination with similarly situated lands in the region, significantly affect the chemical, physical, and biological integrity" of the navigable waters covered by the CWA. However, land adjacent to non-navigable tributaries must be decided on a case by case basis. This was a recipe for regulatory mayhem. In September 2006, draft guidelines prepared by the EPA and the Corps of Engineers to address the issues raised by SCOTUS were pulled at the urging of big coal, developers, and cattle ranchers. They were reworked by the White House's Council on Environmental Quality and re-issued in June 2007 to track more closely with commercial concerns.
209. As with wetlands, a goal of the Bush Administration has been to open up all federally held lands and resources to commercial exploitation, no matter how short term, no matter now destructive. A case in point is the Roadless Rule.
January 12, 2001, in the last days of Bill Clinton's Presidency, the Roadless Rule is published in the Federal Register. It prohibits roadbuilding in 58.5 million acres of roadless wilderness. This accounts for about 1/3 of the nation's forests.
February 5, 2001, Agriculture Secretary Anne Veneman suspends the Roadless Rule.
December 12, 2002, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the Roadless Rule overturning an Idaho challenge to it.
December 23, 2002, the Bush Administration announces plans to give governors the right to seek exemptions to the Roadless Rule.
June 9, 2003, Undersecretary for Natural Resources and the Environment Mark Rey repeats the Administration's intention to change the Roadless Rule to grant governors waivers to it.
December 23, 2002, the 17 million acres (about 4% of which is old growth) of Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the planet's largest temperate rainforest, is exempted from the Roadless Rule.
July 12, 2004, Ann Veneman proposes a new rule which would give governors an 18 month window in which to petition the US Forest Service to open up "roadless" areas to roadbuilding to facilitate logging and drilling for gas and oil.
May 13, 2005, Bush issues the new rule allowing state petitions.
August 5, 2005, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocks the Tongass National Forest management plan and bars roadbuilding pending revision of it.
August 28, 2005, several states and environmental groups sue and the case is assigned to federal District Judge for Northern California Elizabeth Laporte
September 20, 2006, Judge Laporte reinstates the Roadless Rule nationwide with the exception of the Tongass National Forest.
February 6, 2007, Judge Laporte enjoins roadbuilding in conjunction with drilling permits and leases issued since May 2005.
April 9, 2007, the Forest Service with the timber industry appeal Judge Laporte's decision to the 9th Circuit.
After 6 years, the Administration has neither given up on nor cut back on its plans. It goes to show how singleminded and persistent the Bush Administration is. The Roadless Rule is popular and supported by most Americans. We would like to see some of our national patrimony preserved both for ourselves and future generations. This has not caused the Administration to hesitate for a second in its attempts to overturn it. Only the efforts of states and environmental groups in the courts have kept them so far from succeeding.
210. The invocation of national security can be used to cover so many faults. On March 6, 2006, there was a leak of 35 liters of highly enriched uranium at the Nuclear Fuel Services plant in Erwin, Tennessee. If this material had pooled anywhere to a depth of a few inches, a nuclear reaction would have ensued with subsequent release of radiation and potential for (non-nuclear) explosion and fire. As it was, the plant was closed for 7 months. Neither the public nor the Congress was informed until an annual report 13 months later in April 2007. As a result of the accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) modified the facility's license in a confirmatory order dated February 21, 2007. By law, such a change requires a period of public comment but the notice for public comment was itself stamped Official Use Only and not made public. This was pursuant to a memo of August 24, 2004 in which all correspondence whether sensitive or not (including the memo stating this policy) was to be kept out of public view. After talks with staff from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the NRC agreed to re-release its order for public comment.
211. How it gets done. Back in the 1990s, the state of Utah challenged the Bureau of Land Management's grant of interim protection from mining, drilling, and logging on 2.6 million acres of the San Rafael Swell pending a Congressional decision on whether it would receive wilderness status. In 1998, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Utah on all but one count of its complaint and the suit became moribund. That should have been the end of it. But in 2003, Utah Governor Mike Leavitt and Interior Secretary Gale Norton came to an agreement. In March 2003, Utah amended its complaint re-opening the suit and on April 11, 2003, the Bush Administration settled it on Utah's terms. It did this by capping wilderness areas at the 22 million acres already so designated, effectively excluding the San Rafael Swell and opening it up to commercial exploitation. On August 11, 2003, Bush nominated Leavitt for the post of Administrator at the EPA. Leavitt had no experience in the field but he had helped out in the Utah deal and favored in general the Bush policy on the environment of voluntary controls and weakened oversight. He was confirmed October 28, 2003 and served 2 years before replacing Tommy Thompson at Health and Human Services.
