Some disturbing facts about George W. Bush's administration (LOOK INSIDE!!!!)

[Danospano]

With all the praise bestowed upon America's el presidente, I thought I should shed light on a few less that flattering facts concerning our golden boy, George W. Bush and his administration. If anything, this will serve as great gospel for the watercooler

� Quoted as saying �It�s amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and incumbency.� (June 14, 2001, refering to his presidental victory).
� During the 1930�s and 1940�s, Prescott Bush, W.Bush�s Grandfather, was one of seven directors in the Union Banking Corporation, owned by Nazi industrialists. After filtering their money through a Dutch bank, they hid as estimated $3 million in Bush�s bank. As a principal player, it�s unlikely that Bush would have been unaware of the Nazi connection. The government eventually seized the assets and the bank dissolved in 1951, after which Prescott Bush---and his father, Sam Bush received $1.5 million.
� Got into Yale in 1964 when other applicants had higher SAT�s and much better grades. Earned a C average at Yale University
� Bush raised a record-breaking $190 million during his 2000 campaign. 2/3�s came from just over 700 individuals.
� Cut $39 million from federal spending on libraries.
� Cut $35 million in funding for advanced pediatric training for doctors.
� Cut funding for research into renewable energy sources by 50%
� Delayed rules that would reduce �acceptable� levels of arsenic in drinking water.
� Cut funding for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks by 28%
� Revoked rules strengthening the power of the government to deny contracts to companies that violate federal laws, environmental laws, and workplace safety standards.
� Allowed Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton to request suggestions for opening up national monuments for foresting, coal mining, and oil and gas drilling.
� Broken campaign promise to invest $100 million per year in rain forest conservation.
� Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program, which coordinated care for people without health insurance among public hospitals, clinics, and other health care providers.
� Nullified a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential ramifications of chemical plant accidents.
� Cut funding for the Girls and Boys Clubs of America programs in public housing by $60 million.
� Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement on global warming, which was ultimately signed by 178 other countries.
� Rejected an international accord to enforce the 1972 treaty banning germ warfare.
� Cut $200 million from workforce training program for dislocated workers.
� Cut $200 million from the Childcare and Development grant, a program that provides childcare to low-income families as they are forced from welfare to work.
� Eliminated prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though Viagra is still covered).
� Cut $700 million in funds for public housing repairs.
� Cut half a billion dollars from the Environmental Protection Agency�s budget.
� Overturned workplace ergonomic rules designed to protect worker�s health and safety.
� Abandoned campaigns pledges to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, a major contributor to global warming.
� Prohibited any federal aid from going to international family planning organizations that provide abortion counseling, referrals, or services with their own funds.
� Nominated former mining company executive Dan Lauriski as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
� Appointed Lynn Scarlett, a global warming skeptic and an opponent of stricter standards on air pollution, as Undersecretary of the Interior.
� Approved Interior Secretary Gale Norton�s controversial plan to auction off areas close to Florida�s eastern shore for oil and gas development.
� Announced plans to allow oil drilling in Montana�s Lewis and Clark National Forest.
� Threatened to shut down the White House AIDS office.
� Decided no longer to seek guidance from the American Bar Association on federal judicial appointments.
� Denied college financial aid to students convicted of misdemeanor drug charges (though convicted murderers are still eligible for financial aid).
� Allocated only 3% of the amount requested by Justice Department lawyers in the government�s continued litigation against tobacco companies.
� Pushed through tax cut, 43% of which goes to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
� Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even when facing overwhelming medical bills.
� Appointed affirmative action opponent Kay Cole James to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
� Cut $15.7 million from programs dealing with child abuse and neglect.
� Proposed elimination of the �Reading in Fundamental� programs, which gives free books to poor children.
� Pushed for development of �mini-nukes�, designed to attack deeply buried targets, a violation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
� Tried to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
� Appointed John Bolton, an opponent of nonproliferation treaties and the United Nations, as Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
� Made Monsanto executive Linda Fisher deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
� Nominated Michael McConnell, a leading critic of the separation of church and state, to a federal judgeship.
� Nominated civil rights opponent Terrence Boyle to a federal judgeship.
� Canceled the 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high-mileage cars.
� Names John Walters, an ardent opponent of prison drug treatment programs, as drug czar.
� Appointed oil and coal lobbyist J. Steven Giles as Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
� Named Bennett Raley, who has called for the repeal of the Endangered Species Act, as Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science.
� Sought the dismissal of a class-action lawsuit files in the United States against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves in World War II.
� Appointed as solicitor general Ted Olson, your chied lawyer in the Florida voting debacle.
� Proposed the selling of oil and gas tracts in the Alaska Wildlife Preserve.
� Stated his favorite childhood book was �The Very Hungry Caterpillar� which wasn�t even released until he graduated from college.
� In 1976 he was arrested and held in jail for a drunk driving (DUI). His sister was in the car at the time.
� Wife, Laura Bush killed a high school friend at the age of 17, when running a stop sign and hitting his car.
� As governor of Texas, he held what is commonly referred to as a �ceremonial job�.
� Vice President Dick Cheney has had 2 drunk driving arrests in the past 25 years.
� Quote from Saturday Night Live, �George Bush said he didn�t reveal the drunk driving charge because of what his daughters might think of him. He had preferred that they think of him as a man with numerous failed business ventures who now executes people�. Ironically his daughter have numerous alcohol charges themselves.
� Claimed in 1999 that he hadn�t committed a felony related to drugs in the past 25 years, which sheds suspicion on the time period pre-dating 1974. If he did use the drug cocaine, he proves to be a hypocrite in requiring all financial aid to college students go to non-drug offenders.
� Annual salary as President: $400,000.
� Served in the Texas Air National Guard, but according to the �Boston Globe�, he skipped out and failed to report back for a year and a half.
� There is a time period during the 1970�s that never appears on Bush�s official biography.
� Became a partner in the Texas Rangers baseball program despite only putting up 1/100th of the money for the team.
� Conned the taxpayers of Arlington to spend millions of dollars on a new Texas Rangers' stadium.
� Bush�s �hatchet man�, James Baker once said in 1992, �Fuck the Jews, they don�t vote for us anyway.�
o He reneged on our agreement with the European Community to cut our carbon dioxide emissions.
o He started a New Cold War, this time with China, over an American spy plane that knocked one of their planes out of the sky, killing the pilot.
o He allowed the peace process in the Middle East to crumble, resulting in some of the worst slaughter we�ve ever seen between Israelis and Palestinians.
o He started a new Cold War with Russia by actively preparing to violate the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaties of the 1970�s.
o He threatened to unilaterally reduce our presence in the former Yugoslavia, resulting in renewed violence between the ethnic groups in the region.
o He defied UN human rights agreements, resulting in the United Nations removing the United States from its Human Rights Commission.
o He bombed civilians in Iraq, just like his Daddy did.
o He stepped up the drug was in South American, resulting in the United States helping the Colombians to shoot down a plane full of American missionaries, killing a Michigan mother and her child.
o He cut off any hope of reducing tensions with North Korea, guaranteeing not only that mass starvation there will continue but that its leader, film-nut Kim Jong II, will never return his overdue videos from Blockbuster.
o He turned basically every country in the world against us by stating he was going to go ahead and build the nutty �Star Wars� missile defense system.
o Pardoned David Lamp, Vincent Mietlicki, John Wadsworth, and James Weathers Jr. who were executives at Koch Industries, the largest privately held Oil Company in America, whose CEO and vice president are the brothers Charles and David Koch. In Sept 2000, the federal government brought a 97-count indictment against Koch Industries and its four employees mentioned above for knowingly releasing 91 metric tons of benzene, a cancer-causing agent, into the air and water, and for covering up the deadly release from federal regulators. It wasn�t Koch�s first run-in with the law; it wasn�t even their first THAT YEAR. Earlier that year Koch had been fined $35 million for illegal pollution in six states. Koch Industries gave over $800,000 to Bush�s campaign and fellow Republian campaigns. Bush and his Attorney General John Ashcroft dropped the charges from 97 to a mere 9. None of the men faced prison time, paid any fines.

[Lilly]

[Danospano]

Lilly, did you not JUST read about actions taken by Bush's administration? Sure, there are a few mentions concerning his family history, but you're comment leads me to believe you didn't read past the first few facts.

[Lilly]

Originally posted by Danospano
Lilly, did you not JUST read about actions taken by Bush's administration? Sure, there are a few mentions concerning his family history, but you're comment leads me to believe you didn't read past the first few facts.

i did.


at any rate, i'm at a point now where i am so fed up with this type of shit. like, if gore were our president now, we couldn't find this type of stuff on him or anyone who is in high politics. and i am so sick of it. when will we wake up and realize that voting the party line, or voting for someone just cos we know the name, or not voting at all hurts us more than it helps? i am not saying that i am anti-republican, because i certainly am not (same goes for democrats). i'm just saying that we need to figure out how to educate the public in a more effective and, more importantly, non-partisan manner before the elections are held. the more informed we are the less likely we are to make a poor choice. and these issues with bush...i disagree that they should become water cooler talk. perhaps instead of just posting this here, you should go out and spread the facts as you wish so you can get some progression done.

[Diemen]

You know, we all know that Bush has done some shady things. I'm sure if you dig long enough, you'll find shady stuff that nearly every president has done. It's the nature of the job, you've got to make compromises *not that I'm condoning everything Bush has done of questionable integrity*. However, I have to take issue with some of these...

Conned the taxpayers of Arlington to spend millions of dollars on a new Texas Rangers' stadium.

Conned? Hmmm...I bet if you asked the average citizens of Arlington about it, most would say they like the new stadium. Attracts more business, which in turn generates more money for surrounding businesses, etc. I'll take the time now to say that a lot of these horrors of Bush's career are all just convenient wording on your part. Conned my ass. You don't con an entire city into paying for a ballpark unless the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, in which case they would want it, in which case, it wouldn't be conning!

Bush�s �hatchet man�, James Baker once said in 1992, �Fuck the Jews, they don�t vote for us anyway.�

So?? that's James Baker, not George Bush.

o He started a New Cold War, this time with China, over an American spy plane that knocked one of their planes out of the sky, killing the pilot.

Excuse me, but exactly where is any news on this New Cold War? I don't see China beefing up it's missiles pointed at us, I don't see high tensions and tense moments of conflict between our armies...all I see is one unfortunate event that really isn't anywhere NEAR as significant as something that would start a cold war. And I really don't see how Bush figures into that affair at all, other than as a president of a nation who responded appropriately. Cold war my ass.

o He allowed the peace process in the Middle East to crumble, resulting in some of the worst slaughter we�ve ever seen between Israelis and Palestinians.

Waaaaait a minute. You're pinning all this slaughter on Bush? Give me a break. The Middle East has long been a powder keg for violence that goes off from the slightest spark. In essence this statement says that all this violence came about because Bush "allowed the peace process...to crumble." In case you hadn't noticed, the violence was going on while Clinton was president, while Bush sr was president, while Reagan was president...get the point? And to say that Bush just let the peace process crumble is, on top of amazingly inaccurate, very very sloppy and sophomorish journalism.

o He started a new Cold War with Russia by actively preparing to violate the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaties of the 1970�s.

See my reply on that other "new Cold War." What new cold war?

o He threatened to unilaterally reduce our presence in the former Yugoslavia, resulting in renewed violence between the ethnic groups in the region.

Once again you're making direct connections where only indirect connections lie. I don't think Bush ever "threatened" to reduce the presence, and, just for curiosity's sake, what is your stance on our presence over there? Since you seem to think the US can't do anything right and mess up things in foreign relations, shouldn't we pull out of there and stop playing the world's policeman? Or should we send our troops over there to clean up other people's messes? Damned if you do, damned if you don't seems apt in this situation...

o He stepped up the drug was in South American, resulting in the United States helping the Colombians to shoot down a plane full of American missionaries, killing a Michigan mother and her child.

Once again, creating your own connections...

[Diemen]

Hit submit before I'd finished.

I'll just say that it's nice to point out some of the US's flaws every now and then, but it becomes really f*cking annoying when it seems that you're just bent on showing us what a crappy nation under crappy leadership we have. You think you're doing us all a service or enlightening our poor indoctrinated American minds with the truth? Bullshit. Half of the stuff in your post is so minor that it's laughable. *Gasp!* he got a DUI? O the horror! - Oh no he lied about his favorite childhood book - what immorality! Give us a break and spare us the petty bullshit that doesn't really show anything other than an overwhelming bias on your part.

You can take lots of things and make them sound horrible by wording them differently. For instance "Bono fights for poverty relief in Africa" could, under the type of wording found in your post, be easily turned into "Bono cons American taxpayers into sending their money to foreigners" or some other crap like that. "Boy swats bee before it stings him" could turn into "Boy thoughtlessly murders millions of flowers' main source of pollination."

Bush has done some shady things, we all know that. So did Clinton, so did Gore, so did Reagan, so did Carter, so did virtually every politician who has had to deal with national issues.

Quit shoving it in our faces every chance you get.

[Salome]

I think Diemen summed it up nicely
*case closed