[Mb-civic] '100 Facts and 1 Opinion' from The Nation

[Kevin Walz]

>
> FYI
>
>    100 Facts and 1 Opinion
>    by Judd Legum
>
>
>    Click here to download, circulate and distribute a PDF version of
>    this article.
>
>    IRAQ
>
>      1. The Bush Administration has spent more than $140 billion on a
>         war of choice in Iraq.
>
>    Source: American Progress
>
>      2. The Bush Administration sent troops into battle without 
> adequate
>         body armor or armored Humvees.
>
>    Sources: Fox News,
>
>    The Boston Globe
>
>      3. The Bush Administration ignored estimates from Gen. Eric
>         Shinseki that several hundred thousand troops would be required
>         to secure Iraq.
>
>    Source: PBS
>
>      4. Vice President Cheney said Americans "will, in fact, be greeted
>         as liberators" in Iraq.
>
>    Source: The Washington Post
>
>      5. During the Bush Administration's war in Iraq, more than
>         1,000 US troops have lost their lives and more than 7,000
>         have been injured.
>
>    Source: globalsecurity.org
>
>      6. In May 2003, President Bush landed on an aircraft carrier in a
>         flight suit, stood under a banner proclaiming "Mission
>         Accomplished," and triumphantly announced that major combat
>         operations were over in Iraq. Asked if he had any regrets about
>         the stunt, Bush said he would do it all over again.
>
>    Source: Yahoo News
>
>      7. Vice President Cheney said that Iraq was "the geographic base 
> of
>         the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, 
> but
>         most especially on 9/11." The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found
>         that Iraq had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks and no
>         collaborative operational relationship with Al Qaeda.
>
>    Source: MSNBC , 9-11 Commission
>
>      8. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said that
>         high-strength aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq were "only really
>         suited for nuclear weapons programs," warning "we don't want 
> the
>         smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." The government's top
>         nuclear scientists had told the Administration the tubes were
>         "too narrow, too heavy, too long" to be of use in developing
>         nuclear weapons and could be used for other purposes.
>
>    Source: New York Times
>
>      9. The Bush Administration has spent just $1.1 billion of the 
> $18.4
>         billion Congress approved for Iraqi reconstruction.
>
>    Source: USA Today
>
>     10. According to the Administration's handpicked weapon's 
> inspector,
>         Charles Duelfer, there is "no evidence that Hussein had passed
>         illicit weapons material to al Qaeda or other terrorist
>         organizations, or had any intent to do so." After the release 
> of
>         the report, Bush continued to insist, "There was a risk--a real
>         risk--that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or
>         information to terrorist networks."
>
>    Sources: New York Times, White House news release
>
>     11. According to Duelfer, the UN inspections regime put an 
> "economic
>         strangle hold" on Hussein that prevented him from developing a
>         WMD program for more than twelve years.
>
>    Source: Los Angeles Times
>
>    TERRORISM
>
>     12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin
>         Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued
>         his monthlong vacation.
>
>    Source: CNN.com
>
>     13. The Bush Administration failed to commit enough troops to
>         capture Osama bin Laden when US forces had him cornered in the
>         Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in November 2001. Instead, they
>         relied on local warlords.
>
>    Source: csmonitor.com
>
>     14. The Bush Administration secured less nuclear material from 
> sites
>         around the world vulnerable to terrorists in the two years 
> after
>         9/11 than were secured in the two years before 9/11.
>
>    Source: nti.org
>
>     15. The Bush Administration underfunded Nunn-Lugar--the program
>         intended to keep the former Soviet Union's nuclear legacy out 
> of
>         the hands of terrorists and rogue states--by $45.5 million.
>
>    Source: armscontrol.org
>
>     16. The Bush Administration has assigned five times as many agents
>         to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track 
> Osama
>         bin Laden's and Saddam Hussein's money.
>
>    Source: sfgate.com
>
>     17. According to Congressional Research Service data, the Bush
>         Administration has underfunded security at the nation's ports 
> by
>         more than $1 billion for fiscal year 2005.
>
>    Source: American Progress
>
>     18. The Bush Administration did not devote the resources necessary
>         to prevent a resurgence in the production of poppies, the raw
>         material used to create heroin, in Afghanistan--creating a
>         potent new source of financing for terrorists.
>
>    Source: Pakistan Tribune
>
>     19. Vice President Cheney told voters that unless they elect George
>         Bush in November, "we'll get hit again" by terrorists.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     20. Even though an Al Qaeda training manual suggests terrorists 
> come
>         to the United States and buy assault weapons, the Bush
>         Administration did nothing to prevent the expiration of the 
> ban.
>
>    Source: sfgate.com
>
>     21. Despite repeated calls for reinforcements, there are fewer
>         experienced CIA agents assigned to the unit dealing with Osama
>         bin Laden now than there were before 9/11.
>
>    Source: New York Times
>
>     22. Before 9/11, John Ashcroft proposed slashing counterterrorism
>         funding by 23 percent.
>
>    Source: americanprogress.org
>
>     23. Between January 20, 2001, and September 10, 2001, the Bush
>         Administration publicly mentioned Al Qaeda one time.
>
>    Source: commondreams.org
>
>     24. The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission $3 million
>         to investigate the September 11 attacks and $50 million to the
>         commission that investigated the Columbia space shuttle crash.
>
>    Source: commondreams.org
>
>     25. More than three years after 9/11, just 5 percent of all
>         cargo--including cargo transported on passenger planes--is
>         screened.
>
>    Source: commondreams.org
>
>    NATIONAL SECURITY
>
>     26. During the Bush Administration, North Korea quadrupled its
>         suspected nuclear arsenal from two to eight weapons.
>
>    Source: New York Times
>
>     27. The Bush Administration has openly opposed the Comprehensive
>         Test Ban Treaty, undermining nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
>
>    Source: commondreams.org
>
>     28. The Bush Administration has spent $7 billion this year--and
>         plans to spend $10 billion next year--for a missile defense
>         system that has never worked in a test that wasn't rigged.
>
>    Sources: www.gao.gov/new.items/d04409.pdf, Los Angeles Times
>
>     29. The Bush Administration underfunded the needs of the nation's
>         first responders by $98 billion, according to a Council on
>         Foreign Relations study.
>
>    Source: nationaldefensemagazine.org
>
>    CRONYISM AND CORRUPTION
>
>     30. The Bush Administration awarded a multibillion-dollar no-bid
>         contract to Halliburton--a company that still pays Vice
>         President Cheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred
>         compensation each year (Cheney also has Halliburton stock
>         options). The company then repeatedly overcharged the military
>         for services, accepted kickbacks from subcontractors and served
>         troops dirty food.
>
>    Sources: The Washington Post, The Tapei Times, BBC News
>
>     31. The Bush Administration told Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan
>         about plans to go to war with Iraq before telling Secretary of
>         State Colin Powell.
>
>    Source: detnews.com
>
>     32. The Bush Administration relentlessly pushed an energy bill
>         containing $23.5 billion in corporate tax breaks, much of which
>         would have benefited major campaign contributors.
>
>    taxpayer.net, Washington Post
>
>     33. The Bush Administration paid Iraqi-exile and neocon darling
>         Ahmad Chalabi $400,000 a month for intelligence, including
>         fabricated claims about Iraqi WMD. It continued to pay him for
>         months after discovering that he was providing inaccurate
>         information.
>
>    Source: MSNBC
>
>     34. The Bush Administration installed as top officials more than 
> 100
>         former lobbyists, attorneys or spokespeople for the industries
>         they oversee.
>
>    Source: Source: commondreams.org
>
>     35. The Bush Administration let disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay--a 
> close
>         friend of President Bush--help write its energy policy.
>
>    Source: MSNBC
>
>     36. Top Bush Administration officials accepted $127,600 in jewelry
>         and other presents from the Saudi royal family in 2003,
>         including diamond-and-sapphire jewelry valued at $95,500 for
>         First Lady Laura Bush.
>
>    Source: Seattle Times
>
>     37. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge awarded lucrative
>         contracts to several companies in which he is an investor,
>         including Microsoft, GE, Sprint, Pfizer and Oracle.
>
>    Source: cq.com
>
>     38. President Bush used images of firefighters carrying flag-draped
>         coffins through the rubble of the World Trade Center to score
>         political points in a campaign advertisement.
>
>    Source: The Washington Post
>
>    THE ECONOMY
>
>     39. President Bush's top economic adviser, Greg Mankiw, said the
>         outsourcing of American jobs abroad was "a plus for the economy
>         in the long run."
>
>    Source: CBS News
>
>     40. The Bush Administration turned a $236 billion surplus into a
>         $422 billion deficit.
>
>    Sources: Fortune, dfw.com
>
>     41. The Bush Administration implemented regulations that made
>         millions of workers ineligible for overtime pay.
>
>    Source: epinet.org
>
>     42. The Bush Administration has crippled state budgets by
>         underfunding federal mandates by $175 billion.
>
>    Source: cbpp.org
>
>     43. President Bush is the first President since Herbert Hoover to
>         have a net loss of jobs--around 800,000--over a four-year term.
>
>    Source: The Guardian
>
>     44. The Bush Administration gave Accenture a multibillion-dollar
>         border control contract even though the company moved its
>         operations to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes.
>
>    Sources: The New York Times, cantonrep.com
>
>     45. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush said "the vast majority of my
>         tax cuts go to the bottom end of the spectrum." He passed the
>         tax cuts, but the top 20 percent of earners received 68 percent
>         of the benefits.
>
>    Sources: cbpp.org, vote-smart.org
>
>     46. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to pay down the
>         national debt to a historically low level. As of September 30,
>         the national debt stood at $7,379,052,696,330.32, a record 
> high.
>
>    Sources: www.georgewbush.com , Bureau of the Public Debt
>
>     47. As major corporate scandals rocked the nation's economy, the
>         Bush Administration reduced the enforcement of corporate tax
>         law--conducting fewer audits, imposing fewer penalties, 
> pursuing
>         fewer prosecutions and making virtually no effort to prosecute
>         corporate tax crimes.
>
>    Source: iht.com
>
>     48. The Bush Administration increased tax audits for the
>         working poor.
>
>    Source: theolympian.com
>
>     49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the 
> Social
>         Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it.
>
>    Sources: georgewbush.com, Congressional Budget Office
>
>     50. The Bush Administration proposed slashing funding for the
>         largest federal public housing program, putting 2 million
>         families in danger of losing their housing.
>
>    Source: San Francisco Examiner
>
>     51. The Bush Administration did nothing to prevent the minimum wage
>         from falling to an inflation-adjusted fifty-year low.
>
>    Source: Los Angeles Times
>
>    EDUCATION
>
>     52. The Bush Administration underfunded the No Child Left Behind 
> Act
>         by $9.4 billion.
>
>    Source: nwitimes.com
>
>     53. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to increase the
>         maximum federal scholarship, or Pell Grant, by 50 percent.
>         Instead, each year he has been in office he has frozen or cut
>         the maximum scholarship amount.
>
>    Source: Source: edworkforce.house.gov x
>
>     54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige,
>         called the National Education Association--a union of
>         teachers--a "terrorist organization."
>
>    Sources: CNN.com
>
>    HEALTHCARE
>
>     55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to
>         allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of
>         Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they
>         repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.
>
>    Source: Washington Post, realcities.com
>
>     56. The nonpartisan GAO concluded the Bush Administration created
>         illegal, covert propaganda--in the form of fake news 
> reports--to
>         promote its industry-backed Medicare bill.
>
>    Source: General Accounting Office
>
>     57. The Bush Administration stunted research that could lead to new
>         treatments for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, spinal
>         injuries, heart disease and muscular dystrophy by placing 
> severe
>         restrictions on the use of federal dollars for embryonic
>         stem-cell research.
>
>    Source: CBS News
>
>     58. The Bush Administration reinstated the "global gag rule," which
>         requires foreign NGOs to withhold information about legal
>         abortion services or lose US funds for family planning.
>
>    Source: healthsciences.columbia.edu
>
>     59. The Bush Administration authorized twenty companies that have
>         been charged with fraud at the federal or state level to offer
>         Medicare prescription drug cards to seniors.
>
>    Source: American Progress
>
>     60. The Bush Administration created a prescription drug card for
>         Medicare that locks seniors into one card for up to a year but
>         allows the corporations offering the cards to change their
>         prices once a week.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     61. The Bush Administration blocked efforts to allow Medicare to
>         negotiate cheaper prescription drug prices for seniors.
>
>    Source: American Progress
>
>     62. At the behest of the french fry industry, the Bush
>         Administration USDA changed their definition of fresh 
> vegetables
>         to include frozen french fries.
>
>    Source: commondreams.org
>
>     63. In a case before the Supreme Court, the Bush Administrations
>         sided with HMOs--arguing that patients shouldn't be allowed to
>         sue HMOs when they are improperly denied treatment. With the
>         Administration's help, the HMOs won.
>
>    Source: ABC News
>
>     64. The Bush Administration went to court to block lawsuits by
>         patients who were injured by defective prescription drugs and
>         medical devices.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     65. President Bush signed a Medicare law that allows companies that
>         reduce healthcare benefits for retirees to receive substantial
>         subsidies from the government.
>
>    Source: Bloomberg News
>
>     66. Since President Bush took office, more than 5 million people
>         have lost their health insurance.
>
>    Source: CNN.com
>
>     67. The Bush Administration blocked a proposal to ban the use of
>         arsenic-treated lumber in playground equipment, even though it
>         conceded it posed a danger to children.
>
>    Source: Miami Herald
>
>     68. One day after President Bush bragged about his efforts to help
>         seniors afford healthcare, the Administration announced the
>         largest dollar increase of Medicare premiums in history.
>
>    Source: iht.com
>
>     69. The Bush Administration--at the behest of the tobacco
>         industry--tried to water down a global treaty that aimed to 
> help
>         curb smoking.
>
>    Source: tobaccofreekids.org
>
>     70. The Bush Administration has spent $270 million on
>         abstinence-only education programs even though there is no
>         scientific evidence demonstrating that they are effective in
>         dissuading teenagers from having sex or reducing the
>         transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
>
>    Source: salon.com
>
>     71. The Bush Administration slashed funding for programs that
>         suggested ways, other than abstinence, to avoid sexually
>         transmitted diseases.
>
>    Source: LA Weekly
>
>    ENVIRONMENT
>
>     72. The Bush Administration gutted clean-air standards for aging
>         power plants, resulting in at least 20,000 premature deaths
>         each year.
>
>    Source: cta.policy.net
>
>     73. The Bush Administration eliminated protections on more than 200
>         million acres of public lands.
>
>    Source: calwild.org
>
>     74. President Bush broke his promise to place limits on carbon
>         dioxide emissions, an essential step in combating global
>         warming.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     75.  Days after 9/11, the Bush Administration told people living
>          near Ground Zero that the air was safe--even though they knew
>          it wasn't--subjecting hundreds of people to unnecessary,
>          debilitating ailments.
>
>    Sierra Club , EPA
>
>     76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for
>         SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost 
> of
>         a new Hummer.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     77. The Bush Administration put former coal-industry big shots in
>         the government and let them roll back safety regulations,
>         putting miners at greater risk of black lung disease.
>
>    Source: New York Times
>
>     78. The Bush Administration said that even though the weed killer
>         atrazine was seeping into water supplies--creating, among other
>         bizarre creatures, hermaphroditic frogs--there was no reason to
>         regulate it.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>     79. The Bush Administration has proposed cutting the budget of the
>         Environmental Protection Agency by $600 million next year.
>
>    Source: ems.org
>
>     80. President Bush broke his campaign promise to end the 
> maintenance
>         backlog at national parks. He has provided just 7 percent of 
> the
>         funds needed, according to National Park Service estimates.
>
>    Source: bushgreenwatch.org
>
>    RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
>
>     81. Since 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft has detained 5,000
>         foreign nationals in antiterrorism sweeps; none have been
>         convicted of a terrorist crime.
>
>    Source: hrwatch.org
>
>     82. The Bush Administration ignored pleas from the International
>         Committee of the Red Cross to stop the abuse of prisoners in
>         US custody.
>
>    Source: Wall Street Journal
>
>     83. In violation of international law, the Bush Administration hid
>         prisoners from the Red Cross so the organization couldn't
>         monitor their treatment.
>
>    Source: hrwatch.org
>
>     84. The Bush Administration, without ever charging him with a 
> crime,
>         arrested US citizen José Padilla at an airport in
>         Chicago, held him on a naval brig in South Carolina for two
>         years, denied him access to a lawyer and prohibited any contact
>         with his friends and family.
>
>    Source: news.findlaw.com
>
>     85. President Bush's top legal adviser wrote a memo to the 
> President
>         advising him that he can legally authorize torture.
>
>    Source: news.findlaw.com
>
>     86. At the direction of Bush Administration officials, the FBI went
>         door to door questioning people planning on protesting at the
>         2004 political conventions.
>
>    Source: New York Times
>
>     87. The Bush Administration refuses to support the creation of an
>         independent commission to investigate the abuse of foreign
>         prisoners in American custody. Instead, Secretary of Defense
>         Donald Rumsfeld selected the members of a commission to review
>         the conduct of his own department.
>
>    Source: humanrightsfirst.org
>
>    FLIP FLOPS
>
>     88. President Bush opposed the creation of the 9/11 Commission
>         before he supported it, delaying an essential inquiry into one
>         of the greatest intelligence failure in American history.
>
>    Source: americanprogressaction.org
>
>     89. President Bush said gay marriage was a state issue before he
>         supported a constitutional amendment banning it.
>
>    Sources: CNN.com, White House
>
>     90. President Bush said he was committed to capturing Osama bin
>         Laden "dead or alive" before he said, "I truly am not that
>         concerned about him."
>
>    Source: americanprogressaction.org
>
>     91. President Bush said we had found weapons of mass destruction in
>         Iraq, before he admitted we hadn't found them.
>
>    Sources: White House, americanprogress.org
>
>     92. President Bush said, "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda 
> and
>         Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," before he
>         admitted Saddam had no role in 9/11.
>
>    Sources: White House, Washington Post
>
>    BIOGRAPHY
>
>     93. George Bush didn't come close to meeting his commitments to the
>         National Guard. Records show he performed no service in a
>         six-month period in 1972 and a three-month period in 1973.
>
>    Source: boston.com
>
>     94. In June 1990 George Bush violated federal securities law when 
> he
>         failed to inform the SEC that he had sold 200,000 shares of his
>         company, Harken Energy. Two months later the company reported
>         significant losses and by the end of that year the stock had
>         dropped from $3 to $1.
>
>    Source: The Guardian
>
>     95. When asked at an April 2004 press conference to name a mistake
>         he made during his presidency, Bush couldn't think of one.
>
>    Source: White House
>
>    SECRECY
>
>     96. The Bush Administration refuses to release twenty-seven pages 
> of
>         a Congressional report that reportedly detail the Saudi Arabian
>         government's connections to the 9/11 hijackers.
>
>    Source: philly.com
>
>     97. Last year the Bush Administration spent $6.5 billion creating 
> 14
>         million new classified documents and securing old secrets--the
>         highest level of spending in ten years.
>
>    Source: openthegovernment.org
>
>     98. The Bush Administration spent $120 classifying documents for
>         every $1 it spent declassifying documents.
>
>    Source: openthegovernment.org
>
>     99. The Bush Administration has spent millions of dollars and 
> defied
>         numerous court orders to conceal from the public who
>         participated in Vice President Cheney's 2001 energy task force.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>    100. The Bush Administration--reversing years of bipartisan
>         tradition--refuses to answer requests from Democratic members 
> of
>         Congress about how the White House is spending taxpayer money.
>
>    Source: Washington Post
>
>    OPINION
>
>    If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush
>    Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United
>    States and the world.
>
> The Nation