"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."   Shrub, 8/5/04

54 US soldiers were killed in Bush's Iraqi folly in July- up from 42 in June.

The very best on-line article detailing the regime's lies about Iraq is They Knew  by David Sirota and Christy Harvey in the August In These Times.

9 million have lost health coverage since Bush was installed. Details

A CBO report proves the regime has shifted the tax burden from the rich to the middle class.

An unabashed racist won a congressional republican primary in Tennessee with 83% of the ripublican vote.  Just a typical a ripublican.  Well, maybe not too typical- he's upfront about his racism unlike most other ripublicans!

A measly 32,000 workers were added to payrolls in 7/04-  far short of the aggrete 150,000 folks entering the job market in a typical month and much less than the 228.000 predicted by the regime.  We've lost 1.1 million jobs since the Bush regime took- this makes  him the first president since Hoover to have a net loss of jobs during his term.   Adding insult to injury, the average "tenured" workers who lost therir job during Bush's rein and found new ones ended up taking a record 18.7 percent pay cut.  Maybe these white collar folks will vote against the idiot this fall....

Consumer spending plunged in June at the steepest rate since September 2001.  With the jump in gas prices and the Fed's impending interest rate hike, spending will further decrease.  The good news is that this spells trouble for the regime in the elections!

The regime's puppet Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has been described by Newsweek  as "Iraq's New SOB" and by the NY Times and Washington Post as as a ruthless strongman.  In Iraq, he is widely referred to in Iraq as "Saddam without the mustache."  A 7/11 NY Times article reported that Allawi cut off one prisoner's hand to make him confess about "terrorist" activities.  A 7/17 Sydney Morning Herald report said he shot handcuffed suspects.   Now, he's shut down the offices of Al-Jazeera.  Just Bush's sort of guy!    Details

An ex-reservist says the Iraqi prisioner abuse was directed and encouraged by military intelligence officers.  A republican congressman said "Responsibility for this goes way, way up the line."  (source)   Yes- right up to Shrub!

James Leon Holmes, the idiot that said rape exceptions to abortion bans are unnecessary because conception from rape happens "as often as snow falls in Miami" was nominated by Bush as federal judge.   25,000 rape victims end up pregnant each year in the US.

Over a hundred lawyers, including seven past presidents of the American Bar Association and former FBI Director William Sessions, issued a statement strongly condemning the legal opinions of government attorneys which said that torture was legally defensible.  They also called for an investigation of the linkage between those opinions and the torture of prisioners at Abu Graib and elsewhere.  (details)

Halliburton was let off with a measly $7.5 million penalty by the SEC for it's frauds while Cheney was CEO.  This pales in comparison to the estimated $120 million which the frauds boosted Halliburton’s profits and hence lines Cheney's pockets.  The SEC (most of whom are regime members) chose to penalize the chief financial officer and controller but not the person they reported to- Cheney.   (details)

The regime's NRC is allowing the nuclear industry’s leading lobby and the company that supplies the guards for over 1/2 of the US nuke plants to develop the teams of mock terrorist attackers who'll test security at nuclear power  plants.  The company will have a very good reason to go easy on those plants it supplies the guards for.   (details)

Bush's deficit for '04 (so far...) is a record $395.8 billion.   The regime has called for yet another (the third) increase in the federal borrowing limit.  Clinton left a $127 billion surplus which Bush has squandered on tax cuts for his buds- the rich- and on his Iraq folly. (details)

Sidney Blumenthal on Alan Keyes: "...screeching religious right fanatic, Keyes, who has worn a lapel pin featuring the feet of a foetus, is Kerry Falwell as played by Little Richard".   The Guardian 8/12/04

The New York Times cites an independent analysis of IRS data that "shows that tax enforcement has fallen steadily under President George W. Bush, with fewer audits, fewer penalties, fewer prosecutions and virtually no effort to prosecute corporate tax crimes." And, CFO Magazine cited statistics that show IRS prosecutions are "about half of what they were 10 years ago."  They've also decided to get tough by increasing audits on the working poor.

Last week, President Bush said he is working to "restore, improve and protect at least 3 million wetland acres over the next five years."  But according to a new report, the regime has actually done the reverse by using a key court ruling to encourage a severe degradation of wetlands throughout the country.

While the regime's favorite Iraqi was at his vacation home in Iran (one of the "axis of evil" countries that actually has a nuclear weapons program), he was charged with counterfeiting by a judge in Iraq and ordered arrested.  He's also calling on fundamentalist Shiites to expel the regime's troops. (details)

"You are at liberty to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble and to protest, so long as you do so from behind chain-link fences and razor wire, or miles from the audience you seek to address"   In 2002 Brett Bursey, a South Carolinian, was arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign near a hangar where Bush was speaking. The West Virginia police have reported that the Secret Service had directed them to arrest a couple sporting anti-Bush T-shirts at a public speech this year.  (From a Jim Hightower column)

"This madness has to stop, and the fastest way of doing that is to elect John Kerry, not because he will be different but because in most key areas - Iraq, the "war on drugs", Israel/Palestine, free trade, corporate taxes - he will be just as bad. The main difference will be that as Kerry pursues these brutal policies, he will come off as intelligent, sane and blissfully dull.   That's why I've joined the Anybody But Bush camp: only with a bore such as Kerry at the helm will we finally be able to put an end to the presidential pathologising and focus on the issues again."  Naomi Klein in the Nation article "Anybody But Bush - then back to work!"

In an open letter from a FBI whistle-blower to the "ommission commission" chairman:

"Unfortunately, I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of.  Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations.

Gradually the 9/11 families will begin to realize that treating merely the symptoms of terrorism is quixotic; that the soil and roots of terrorism must be dug and uncovered; that, as the 9/11 report acknowledges in a very subdued way, it is Washington's strong and uncritical bias toward Israel and its invasion of Iraq that have fueled Al Qaeda; that our current approach to defeating terrorism by trying to kill all the terrorists is akin to trying to eradicate malaria by shooting as many mosquitoes as possible; that moving the intelligence director's chair one deck higher on the Titanic holds no promise.

After it was reported that the recent terror alert timed to divert attention from the Democratic convention was based on 4 year old info, the regime leaked the name of a terrorist who had been captured and was actively helping find other terrorists.  This allowed those not captured to escape.  Larry Johnson, a former senior counterterrorism official at the State Department and CIA, said Tuesday that the leaks were part of a pattern in which the administration had undercut its own efforts to fight terrorism by divulging details when doing so was deemed politically advantageous.  Tim Ripley, a security expert who writes for Jane's Defense publications said, "The whole thing smacks of either incompetence or worse," said . "You have to ask: what are they doing compromising a deep mole within al Qaeda, when it's so difficult to get these guys in there in the first place? "It goes against all the rules of counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, running agents and so forth."  The brits had to prematuraly round up 12 suspects based on what the cooperating terrorist had divulged but one has already been released due to lack of evidence and more will likely be released.    Details:  12345678

A 8/5/04 AP article reports Sen. John McCain calling the attach ad "dishonest and dishonorable" and asked Bush  to also condemn it.    "It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me," McCain said, referring to his bitter Republican primary fight with President Bush and the nasty, lying rumor campaign Shrub and his minions used on him in S. Carolina.

I think its now fair to tar Bush with attack ads- e.g., his cocaine use, being a drunk, DUI convictions, draft evasion arranged by his Daddy, AWOL from Air Guard duty, insider trading, having Daddy and his Arab buds bailing his ass out of businesses he ruined.   In summary a spoiled rich kid born with a silver coke spoon up his nose.

• Bush's dad had him appointed to the Texas Air Guard despite a long waiting list, a 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test, a series of driving convictions that should have required a special waiver.  He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School.
• He was AWOL for a year in Texas then got a transfer to an Alabama guard unit which he had requested.
• Bush when AWOL in Alabama also-  no one on the base remembers seeing him, including the commanding officer and several other officers who say they were actively looking to network with the hot-shot Texan with the influential father.
• He was ordered to report for a flight medical exam in July 1972, he either didn't show up or failed it.   Why?  I suspect it was because the military had started testing for drugs and his mouth pieces have said he hasn't used narcotics since '74.
• He  was then allowed to terminate his service early so he could go to Harvard Business School.

Earlier this week, President Bush claimed "we all thought we would find stockpiles of weapons"[1]  in Iraq, and claimed that he had no inkling that his pre-war claims about the Iraqi threat were weak.    But as a major new story released today shows, the President and other top administration officials were repeatedly warned before the invasion that its case for war was weak.

The cover story for this month's In These Times analyzes declassified government documents and intelligence reports given to the White House before the war. These documents either warned the administration about its WMD and Iraq-al Qaeda claims, or totally debunked them. In some cases, intelligence experts explicitly warned top officials not to make the claims they were making, and yet they were ignored. The story wholly  refutes assertions by the White House and Republicans that it was the intelligence community to blame. In fact, as the data shows, the White House deliberately ignored intelligence to mislead America.

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?
....
I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.
....
Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of  "one nation indivisible."

The 8/16/04 local paper reported that the ripublicans have taken out ads urging a boycott of Bruce's music.  I plan on buying some of his CDs ASAP and attending a concert if one is close.  The next day it reported a bunch og redneck country "music" types in Nashville are organizing to support Bush.

President Bush has promised to prosecute those who leak sensitive classified information, saying, "We can't have leaks of classified information."[1]   Attorney General John Ashcroft said, "leaks of classified information do substantial damage to the security interests of the nation."[2]   Ashcroft promised swift prosecution of leaks, saying, "Until those who, without authority, reveal classified information are deterred by the real prospect of productive investigations and strict application of appropriate penalties, they will have no reason to stop their harmful actions."[3]    But according to a new report, the Bush administration is refusing to prosecute a top Republican who leaked classified information.

As the Washington Post reports, "Federal investigators concluded that Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) divulged classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence." The Post also reports, "Though the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office pursued the case, and a grand jury was empaneled ... the Justice Department decided to forgo a criminal prosecution."[4]

Also, AP reports Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) apparently divulged classified information about how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted, and about a terrorist threat on an Indiana community.[5]   Harris is the woman who as Florida Secretary of State helped deliver the election to President Bush. There is no word on whether the Bush Justice Department will investigate Harris.

A huge debt burden has built up. Since 1997, the total of home mortgage debt for Americans has risen 94% to a colossal $7.4 trillion.  There's a real estate "bubble" much like the "internet bubble" that recent popped-  Average US home prices have risen by 50% in the period since 1998.  All this economic consumption has created the illusion of a recovering economy.

 The US Congress has passed new laws making it even easier for families to buy homes with no penny of their own money required initially as "down payment." This has meant a huge rise in mortgage loans to economically marginal or risky families. The number of such risky or "sub-prime" mortgage loans has risen by 70% this year alone, and now makes up 18% of all US mortgages. Many of these risky mortgages are made under "adjustable rate mortgages". Today adjustable rates are low, just above 4%. Because of this some 35% of all new mortgages are adjustable today.

So long as rates stay low, the roulette wheel of debt rolls on. The problem begins when interest rates rise and families, lured into buying a home with variable interest rate payments, suddenly find their monthly cost of paying the mortgage has exploded as interest rates rise. At that point, US banks will face a serious bad loan problem, far worse than that of 1990-92 when several of the largest US banks were on the brink of failure....  As US interest rates continue to rise over the next twelve months or so, that will trigger a wave of mortgage defaults. Some industry experts fear a "bloodbath" in 2005.

The United States is the world's largest debtor, with some $3.7 trillion in net foreign debt...  Since 2001, the central banks of Asia, led by Japan and China, have bought huge sums, some 43% of all US Government debt.... Were foreign buying of US bonds to reverse or even slow, the US Treasury would have to offer higher interest rates to lure investors to buy the debt. That would make interest rates on homes more expensive very fast. Millions of homeowners would face default. Prices would collapse in many regions, leading to higher unemployment.

The US debt bubble depends on maintaining the myth of a US recovery to lure foreign capital to invest, helping keep the dollar from collapse. Should foreign pension funds or the central banks of China and Japan be convinced the US recovery is in danger, there could be a major shift of funds out of dollars.   Yet China and Japan, fearing the dollar crisis, have recently begun heavy buying of commodities, from oil to iron ore to copper to gold. They are using their trade dollars to buy real commodities, instead of US Treasury debt, which is mere paper. Chinese panic buying of oil for stockpiling reserves is a major factor pushing oil prices again to record levels of $42 barrels despite two major OPEC quota rises. Steel prices have exploded due to China demand.

A CBO report says Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to the middle class.  The wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.  taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase.  Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.

The effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen from 33.4 percent to 26.7 percent, a 20 percent drop. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers (average income of $51,500 in 2001) saw their tax rates drop only 9.3 percent.

For the bottom 20 percent of households, the combined Bush tax cuts averaged only $250 each. The middle 20 percent received $1,090, while the top 1 percent garnered $78,460.  (source)

A Greg Palast essay reports that Asscroft offered up to $67 million of our taxpayer money to ChoicePoint in a no-bid deal for computer profiles with private information on every citizen of half a dozen nations.  While the September 11 highjackers came from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and the Arab Emirates,  ChoicePoint's menu offered records on Venezuelans, Brazilians, Nicaraguans, Mexicans and Argentines.

"What do these nations have in common besides a lack of involvement in the September 11 attacks? Coincidentally, each is in the throes of major electoral contests in which the leading candidates - presidents Lula Ignacio da Silva of Brazil, Nestor Kirschner of Argentina, Mexico City mayor Andres Lopez Obrador and Venezuela's Chavez - have the nerve to challenge the globalization demands of George Bush.  The last time ChoicePoint sold voter files to government it was to help Governor Jeb Bush locate and purge felons on Florida voter rolls. Turns out ChoicePoint's felons were merely Democrats guilty only of
VWB- Voting While Black. That little 'error' cost Al Gore the White House."

With the public's attention diverrted by the regime's war in Iraq and the sorry economy, they have been savaging regulations which its sponsors, the corporations, do not like.  Just a few examples (from a NY Times 8/14/04 article):

The regime has forbid the public release of automotive warranty-claim information, industry reports on safety issues and consumer complaints, among other data, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.   Public Citizen has filed suit.

After a study indicated thousands are dying on the highways due to sleepy truckers, the regime increased the number of hours a week they can drive.

Last August  the administration relaxed its clean-air rules by allowing thousands of corporations to upgrade their plants without having to install expensive pollution-control equipment.  In December, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked the rule, at least temporarily.

The Department of Energy announced in May 2002 that it would weaken a standard issued during the Clinton administration to make home air-conditioners more efficient.

At the request of lumber and paper companies the regime gave Forest Service managers the right to approve logging in federal forests without the usual environmental reviews.

In March of 2003, the Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed new regulation that would dilute the rules intended to protect coal miners from black-lung disease.

In May 2003, the Bush administration dropped a proposed OSHA rule that would have required hospitals to install facilities to protect workers against tuberculosis although  the number of tuberculosis cases has risen.

The Department of Labor, responding to complaints from industry, dropped a rule that required employers to keep a record of employees' ergonomic injuries.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11 we, the translators at the FBI's largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down, even stop, translation of critical information related to terrorist activities so that the FBI could present the United States Congress with a record of 'extensive backlog of untranslated documents', and justify its request for budget and staff increases.
...
Today, almost three years after 9/11, and more than two years since this information has been confirmed and made available to our government, the administrators in charge of language departments of the FBI remain in their positions

A Turkish Translator was hired by the FBI after September 11 and was placed in charge of translating the most sensitive information related to terrorists and criminals.  She was granted Top Secret Clearance.  She used to work for a semi-legit organizations that were the FBI's targets of investigation and had on going relationships with two individuals who were FBI's targets of investigation. For months she blocked all-important information related to these semi-legit organizations and the individuals.  She stamped hundreds, if not thousands, of documents related to these targets as ' Not Pertinent' and to prevent others from translating these documents.  With the assistance of her direct supervisor, she took hundreds of pages of top-secret sensitive intelligence documents outside the FBI to unknown recipients.  With the assistance of her direct supervisor, forged signatures on top-secret documents related to certain 9/11 detainees.  After all these incidents were confirmed and reported to FBI management, she was allowed to remain in her position, to continue the translation of sensitive intelligence received by the FBI, and to maintain her Top Secret clearance.

The translator and several FBI targets of investigation hastily left the United States in 2002, and the case still remains uninvestigated criminally. Not only does the supervisor facilitating these criminal conducts remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted to supervising Arabic language units of the FBI's Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence investigations.

Your report has omitted these significant incidents.
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Four months prior to the 9/11 attack, a FBI informant reported that 1) Osama Bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting 4-5 major cities, 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes, 3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States, 4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months.  The info was sent to FBI HQ.  The Phoenix Memo, received months prior to the 9/11 attacks, specifically warned FBI HQ of pilot training and their possible link to terrorist.  Coleen Rowley likewise reported that specific information had been provided to FBI HQ.  Yet, the 9/11 report claims that not having a central place where all intelligence could be gathered as one of the main factors in our intelligence failure.
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A month after 9/11 a field agent beleived a previously translated document wasn't translated correctly, contained important info and requested retranslation.  All of which turned out to be true.  It revealed blueprints, pictures, and info on building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas. It also revealed info on visas be illegally obtained in the our Mideast embassys.  Instead of informing the agent as the translator requested, the supervisor stated that sending the accurate translation would hurt the original translator and would cause problems for the FBI his department.  After all of this was reported to the FBI, the FBI IG, the congress and the 9/11 commission, the supervisory was promoted.  The 9/11 report does not mention any of this.
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"If Counterintelligence receives information that contains money laundering, illegal arms sale, and illegal drug activities, directly linked to terrorist activities; and if that information involves certain nations, certain semi-legit organizations, and ties to certain lucrative or political relations in this country, then, that information is not shared with Counterterrorism, regardless of the possible severe consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents cited ' direct pressure by the State Department,' and in other cases 'sensitive diplomatic relations' is cited....   Your report did not even attempt to address these unspoken practices, although, unlike me, you were not placed under any gag. Your hearings did not include questions regarding these unspoken and unwritten policies and practices. Despite your full awareness and understanding of certain criminal conduct that connects to certain terrorist related activities, committed by certain U.S. officials and high-level government employees, you have not proposed criminal investigations into this conduct, although under the laws of this country you are required to do so...  Your report's coverage of FBI translation problems consists of a brief microscopic footnote."