Tumble Weed (Bush) Watch 

archived: 16 - 22 Oct, 2005         Back                 Next

UPDATED:  October 20, 2005 

                        UBER REPUBLICAN     

On occasion, conservative voices perceptively document the reality that drives the radical Republican right.  Philip Giraldi, a former CIA agent, states the case that Democrats must be making: 

The United States invaded Iraq with a high-minded mission: destroy dangerous weapons, bring democracy, and trigger a wave of reform across the Middle East. None of these have happened.

When the final page is written on America’s catastrophic imperial venture, one word will dominate the explanation of U.S. failure—corruption. Large-scale and pervasive corruption meant that available resources could not be used to stabilize and secure Iraq in the early days of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), when it was still possible to do so. Continuing corruption meant that the reconstruction of infrastructure never got underway, giving the Iraqi people little incentive to co-operate with the occupation. Ongoing corruption in arms procurement and defense spending means that Baghdad will never control a viable army while the Shi’ite and Kurdish militias will grow stronger and produce a divided Iraq in which constitutional guarantees will be irrelevant.

The American-dominated Coalition Provisional Authority could well prove to be the most corrupt administration in history, almost certainly surpassing the widespread fraud of the much-maligned UN Oil for Food Program. At least $20 billion that belonged to the Iraqi people has been wasted, together with hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. Exactly how many billions of additional dollars were squandered, stolen, given away, or simply lost will never be known because the deliberate decision by the CPA not to meter oil exports means that no one will ever know how much revenue was generated during 2003 and 2004.

Some of the corruption grew out of the misguided neoconservative agenda for Iraq, which meant that a serious reconstruction effort came second to doling out the spoils to the war’s most fervent supporters. The CPA brought in scores of bright, young true believers who were nearly universally unqualified. Many were recruited through the Heritage Foundation website, where they had posted their résumés. They were paid six-figure salaries out of Iraqi funds, and most served in 90-day rotations before returning home with their war stories. . . .

Once in Iraq, there was virtually no accountability over how the money was spent. There was also considerable money “off the books,” including as much as $4 billion from illegal oil exports. The CPA and the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Board, which it controlled, made a deliberate decision not to record or “meter” oil exports, an invitation to wholesale fraud and black marketeering.

Thus the country was awash in unaccountable money. British sources report that the CPA contracts that were not handed out to cronies were sold to the highest bidder, with bribes as high as $300,000 being demanded for particularly lucrative reconstruction contracts.  . . .

Money also disappeared in truckloads and by helicopter. The CPA reportedly distributed funds to contractors in bags off the back of a truck. In one notorious incident in April 2004, $1.5 billion in cash that had just been delivered by three Blackhawk helicopters was handed over to a courier in Erbil, in the Kurdish region, never to be seen again. Afterwards, no one was able to recall the courier’s name or provide a good description of him.

Paul Bremer, meanwhile, had a slush fund in cash of more than $600 million in his office for which there was no paperwork. One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag. Three-quarters of a million dollars was stolen from an office safe, and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.”  . . .

The only certified public-accounting firm used by the CPA to monitor its spending was a company called North Star Consultants, located in San Diego, which was so small that it operated out of a private home. It was subsequently determined that North Star did not, in fact, perform any review of the CPA’s internal spending controls. . . .

Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, has a no-bid monopoly contract with the Army Corps of Engineers that is now estimated to be worth $10 billion. In June 2005, Pentagon contracting officer Bunny Greenhouse told a congressional committee that the agreement was the “most blatant and improper contracting abuse” that she had ever witnessed, a frank assessment that subsequently earned her a demotion.  . . .

Responding to complaints, Halliburton refused to permit independent auditing and inspected itself using so-called “Tiger Teams.” One such team stayed at the five-star Kuwait Kempinski Hotel while it was doing its audit, running up a bill of more than $1 million that was passed on to U.S. taxpayers. . . .

The CPA also spread its largesse around the U.S. armed forces, distributing over $600 million in cash to four regional commanders to fund reconstruction projects as part of the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program. An audit of one region disclosed that 80 percent of the funds could not be accounted for, and more that $7 million in cash was missing. It is widely believed that many of the contracting agents working under the regional commands literally stole the money. In one reported instance, an American contracting officer doubled the price of a multimillion-dollar contract and brazenly explained that the extra money would be for his retirement fund.

Unfortunately, the corruption of the occupation outlived the departure of Paul Bremer and the demise of the CPA. A recent high-level investigation of the Iraqi interim government concluded that the corruption is now so pervasive as to be irreversible. One prominent businessman estimates that 95 percent of all business activity involves some form of bribery or kickback. The bureaucrats and fixers who live off of bribery are referred to by ordinary Iraqis as “Ali Babas,” named after the character in The Thousand and One Nights who was able to access riches from a treasure cave by saying “open sesame.” For the average Iraqi businessman, there was formerly only one hand out, that of Saddam’s designated minion. Now every hand is out. The educated and entrepreneurial are leaving the country in droves, as is most of the beleaguered Christian minority. Huge government appropriations are approved by Iraqi lawmakers and then simply disappear. Meanwhile, life for the average Iraqi does not improve, and oil production, water supplies, and electricity generation are all at lower levels than they were when the U.S. took control in 2003. The only thing that everyone knows is that all the money is gone and daily life in Iraq is worse than it was under Saddam Hussein.  . . .

In yet another instance of take-it-while-you-can, a senior Interior Ministry official flew to Beirut in a helicopter accompanied by $10 million in newly printed Iraqi dinars. He has yet to return. Interim Iraqi President Iyad Allawi’s Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan transferred $500 million to a bank account in Lebanon, allegedly to buy weapons, in a case that continues to be murky. Shaalan is reportedly vacationing abroad and has not returned to Iraq. A Bremer favorite at the Defense Ministry, Ziad Tareq Cattan, was responsible for a number of shady arms-procurement deals. A warrant has been issued for his arrest, an unusual occurrence, and he is avoiding detention by staying with family in Erbil in Kurdistan.

Countless billions will never be accounted for, and the full cost of corruption has yet to be tallied. Sources report that much of the money that was designated for the development of a national army and police force is actually going to units that are exclusively Kurd or Shi’ite in expectation of a day of reckoning over the country’s oil supplies. The Kurds have made no secret of their desire to continue their autonomy-bordering-on-independence and have stated that they regard Kirkuk as their own. The Shi’ites have possession of the oil-producing region to the south and are using their control of the Interior Ministry to fill police ranks with their own pro-Iranian Badr Brigade members as well as militiamen drawn from radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Sunnis are the odd men out, virtually guaranteeing that, far from becoming the model democracy the U.S. set out to build, Iraq will descend deeper into chaos—aided in no small part by the culture of corruption we helped to fortify. – The American Conservative (emphasis added). 

Giraldi’s article is well worth reading in its entirety.  The numerous examples of corrupt acts in Iraq are breathtaking. 

On a larger scale, the neoconservatives in Iraq have operated on the same plane as the leaders of the radical Republican Party.  For example, the Republican Party sops businesses and the uber wealthy with tax breaks while dismantling environmental protections that it has taken generations to build and threatens a Social Security system that has provided financial protection for millions of Americans.   

Perhaps the saddest fact of all is that America is driving itself deeper it debt and putting its economic fate in the hands of our Chinese bankers to support the corruption.  Now, that is Uber Republican.

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UPDATED:  October 18, 2005 

                 SPOOKS

George Friedman of Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (subscription service) cogently encapsulates the essence of the Valerie Plame affair.  Strategic Forecasting specializes in private security work around the world.  It certainly cannot be categorized as a liberal organization. 

Friedman writes (emphasis added): 

As we discussed in previous weeks, scandals become geopolitically significant when they affect the ability of the president to conduct foreign policy. That has not yet happened to George W. Bush, but it might happen. There is, however, one maturing scandal that interests us in its own right: the Valerie Plame affair, in which Karl Rove, the most important adviser to the president, and I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to the vice president, apparently identified Plame as a CIA agent -- or at least did not vigorously deny that she was one when they were contacted by reporters. Given that this happened during a time of war, in which U.S. intelligence services are at the center of the war -- and are not as effective as the United States might wish -- the Plame affair needs to be examined and understood in its own right. Moreover, as an intelligence company, we have a particular interest in how intelligence matters are handled.  . . .

[NOCs are covert agents with non-official cover.  They are the core of the espionage system. NOCs have no protection and the CIA denies their identity.] There is an explicit and implicit contract between the United States and its NOCs. It has many parts, but there is one fundamental part: A NOC will never reveal that he is or was a NOC without special permission. When he does reveal it, he never gives specifics. The government also makes a guarantee -- it will never reveal the identity of a NOC under any circumstances and, in fact, will do everything to protect it. If you have lied to your closest friends for 30 years about who you are and why you talk to them, no government bureaucrat has the right to reveal your identity for you. Imagine if you had never told your children -- and never planned to tell your children -- that you worked for the CIA, and they suddenly read in the New York Times that you were someone other than they thought you were.

There is more to this. When it is revealed that you were a NOC, foreign intelligence services begin combing back over your life, examining every relationship you had. Anyone you came into contact with becomes suspect. Sometimes, in some countries, becoming suspect can cost you your life. Revealing the identity of a NOC can be a matter of life and death -- frequently, of people no one has ever heard of or will ever hear of again.

In short, a NOC owes things to his country, and his country owes things to the NOC. . . .

What we do know is this. In the course of events, reporters contacted two senior officials in the White House -- Rove and Libby. Under the least-damaging scenario we have heard, the reporters already knew that Plame had worked as a NOC. Rove and Libby, at this point, were obligated to say, at the very least, that they could neither confirm nor deny the report. In fact, their duty would have been quite a bit more: Their job was to lie like crazy to mislead the reporters. Rove and Libby had top security clearances and were senior White House officials. It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a "bodyguard of lies" -- in Churchill's phrase -- around the truth concerning U.S. intelligence capabilities.

Some would argue that if the reporters already knew her identity, the cat was out of the bag and Rove and Libby did nothing wrong. . . . But the fact is that legally and ethically, nothing relieves them of the obligation to say nothing and attempt to deflect the inquiry. This is not about Valerie Plame, her husband or Time Magazine. The obligation exists for the uncounted number of NOCs still out in the field.

Americans stay safe because of NOCs. They are the first line of defense. If the system works, they will be friends with Saudi citizens who are financing al Qaeda. . . . And that is what makes the Rove-Libby leak so stunning. The obligation they had was not only to Plame, but to every other NOC leading a double life who is in potentially grave danger.

Imagine, if you will, working in Damascus as a NOC and reading that the president's chief adviser had confirmed the identity of a NOC. As you push into middle age, wondering what happened to your life, the sudden realization that your own government threatens your safety might convince you to resign and go home. That would cost the United States an agent it had spent decades developing. You don't just pop a new agent in his place. That NOC's resignation could leave the United States blind at a critical moment in a key place. Should it turn out that Rove and Libby not only failed to protect Plame's identity but deliberately leaked it, it would be a blow to the heart of U.S. intelligence. If just one critical NOC pulled out and the United States went blind in one location, the damage could be substantial. At the very least, it is a risk the United States should not have to incur.

The New York Times and Time Magazine have defended not only the decision to publish Plame's name, but also have defended hiding the identity of those who told them her name. Their justification is the First Amendment. We will grant that they had the right to publish statements concerning Plame's role in U.S. intelligence; we cannot grant that they had an obligation to publish it. There is a huge gap between the right to publish and a requirement to publish. The concept of the public's right to know is a shield that can be used by the press to hide irresponsibility. An article on the NOC program conceivably might have been in the public interest, but it is hard to imagine how identifying a particular person as part of that program can be deemed as essential to an informed public.

But even if we regard the press as unethical by our standards, their actions were not illegal. On the other hand, if Rove and Libby even mentioned the name of Valerie Plame in the context of being a CIA employee -- NOC or not -- on an unsecured line to a person without a security clearance or need to know, while the nation was waging war, that is the end of the story. It really doesn't matter why or whether there was a plan or anything. The minimal story -- that they talked about Plame with a reporter -- is the end of the matter.

We can think of only one possible justification for this action: That it was done on the order of the president. The president has the authority to suspend or change security regulations if required by the national interest. The Plame affair would be cleared up if it turns out Rove and Libby were ordered to act as they did by the president. Perhaps the president is prevented by circumstances from coming forward and lifting the burden from Rove and Libby. If that is the case, it could cost him his right-hand man. But absent that explanation, it is difficult to justify the actions that were taken.

Ultimately, the Plame affair points to a fundamental problem in intelligence. As those who have been in the field have told us, the biggest fear is that someone back in the home office will bring the operation down. . . . If the agent determines that his well-being is not a centerpiece of government policy, he won't remain an agent long.

On a personal note, let me say this: one of the criticisms conservatives have of liberals is that they do not understand that we live in a dangerous world and, therefore, that they underestimate the effort needed to ensure national security. Liberals have questioned the utility and morality of espionage. Conservatives have been champions of national security and of the United States' overt and covert capabilities. Conservatives have condemned the atrophy of American intelligence capabilities. Whether the special prosecutor indicts or exonerates Rove and Libby legally doesn't matter. Valerie Plame was a soldier in service to the United States, unprotected by uniform or diplomatic immunity. I have no idea whether she served well or poorly, or violated regulations later. But she did serve. And thus, she and all the other NOCs were owed far more -- especially by a conservative administration -- than they got.

Even if that debt wasn't owed to Plame, it remains in place for all the other spooks standing guard in dangerous places.

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                        THE ISSUE IN MIERS    

Anthony Lewis, a former New York Times columnist, authors a wonderfully perceptive op ed piece on Miers’ nomination.  From Lewis’ perspective, the critical issue is Miers’ position on the extent of presidential power.   

Lewis contends: 

THE most profound issue that will face the Supreme Court in the coming years is not the one animating many of the conservatives angry at Harriet Miers's (sic) nomination to the court, abortion. It is presidential power.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush and his lawyers have asserted again and again that the "war on terror" clothes the president as commander in chief with extraordinary, unilateral power - the power, for example, to designate an American citizen as an enemy combatant and imprison him indefinitely, without trial or a real opportunity to demonstrate innocence.   . . .

The framers of the Constitution, when they met in Philadelphia in 1787, feared concentrated power. In constructing a new federal government, they divided its powers among three branches: legislative, executive, judicial. The idea, as Madison explained, was that if one branch overreached, another would check it.

The Bush administration has often resisted checks on executive branch decisions taken under the heading of war power. In memorandums in 2002 and 2003 on the torture of prisoners, for example, the administration argued that the president could order the use of torture even if it was forbidden by treaty or by Congressional statute.

When those memorandums leaked out last year, the administration withdrew them. But Alberto Gonzales, who as White House counsel rejected objections to them, is now attorney general. And one of their principal authors, John Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, continues to argue forcefully for dominant presidential power. To hear him tell it, the framers constructed a political system on the model of King George III.

The administration has also maintained that decisions taken under the president's power as commander in chief should not be subject to effective review by the courts. Thus, it argued that detaining a citizen as an enemy combatant could be justified by a government statement of alleged facts, without any meaningful legal process to verify them.

Last year the Supreme Court rejected that argument in the case of one detained American, Yaser Esam Hamdi. In the prevailing opinion, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said such a detainee must have his case decided by a "neutral decision maker."

In another case before the Supreme Court last year, the administration said that prisoners detained in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, could not go to court to challenge their status because the president had "conclusively" determined it. The court rejected that position.

In the Senate hearings on the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice, one exchange highlighted the historic danger of accepting that presidential decisions must be presumed correct because we are "at war." Senator Patrick Leahy asked about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which the Supreme Court sustained in 1944: Would that be held constitutional now? Judge Roberts said he would be "surprised if there were any arguments that could support it."

The detention of thousands of Americans because of their race would surely be rejected today. But it is worth remembering that the crux of the Supreme Court's 1944 decision, Korematsu v. United States, was the court's refusal to examine the government's claims that intelligence showed the likelihood of Japanese-Americans acting as spies or saboteurs - claims that in fact had no basis.

How [is] Harriet Miers, if she is confirmed, likely to decide on issues of presidential power?  . . .

Harriet Miers has no public record on these issues. But Professor Yoo, writing in The Washington Post after her nomination, said, "She may be one of the key supporters in the Bush administration of staying the course on legal issues arising from the war on terrorism." He did not explain.  . . .

Claims of presidential power during wartime have particularly large consequences today. In the past, when a president made such claims, the war involved lasted a limited time. The war on terrorism has no definable end. In passing judgment on these issues, the justices of the Supreme Court will be defining American freedom for the future. They should guide by the light of Justice O'Connor's statement last year in the Hamdi case:

"A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation's citizens." – New York Times 

Lewis emphasis on Miers’ vision of the balance of powers in the constitution is critical.  Miers’ decisions as a Supreme Court justice will effect not only Americans, but people throughout the world.  The urgency of the issue is exemplified in just these two examples: 

A senior United Nations official has accused US-led coalition troops of depriving Iraqi civilians of food and water in breach of humanitarian law.  Human rights investigator Jean Ziegler said they had driven people out of insurgent strongholds that were about to be attacked by cutting supplies.  Mr Ziegler, a Swiss-born sociologist, said such tactics were in breach of international law. -- BBC 

_____   

A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.  . . . [O]fficials, who say they got their information in the field or by talking to Special Operations commanders, say that as American efforts to cut off the flow of fighters have intensified, the operations have spilled over the border - sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. – New York Times

 
However, Republicans have a different focus, a focus on Meirs’ nomination that is becoming a holy jihad.  The Pittsburgh-Post Gazette editorially tackles the issue head on:
 

President Bush's statement that White House officials are conducting an "outreach effort" to reassure his supporters about Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers' religious beliefs is astonishing and, possibly, inconsistent with the First Amendment's stricture on separation of church and state.

White House officials are public employees whose salaries are paid by the American taxpayer. The idea of people on the federal payroll going out or telephoning other Americans to explain what Ms. Miers' religious views are -- to tell them not to oppose her because her church affiliation and beliefs make her almost certainly anti-choice on abortion -- is truly repellent. 

Moreover, Republicans are already applying a religious “litmus test” to their nominee that is dividing the conservative movement.  Pat Robertson is openly threatening conservatives and Senators who would oppose Miers: 

On today’s “700 Club” broadcast, the Rev. Pat Robertson responded to criticism from the Right regarding the Miers nomination and also offered a stern warning to those conservative senators who might be thinking of voting against her. Rev. Robertson suggested that people should look at who is supporting Miers before they doubt her conservative credentials. He named James Dobson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Jay Sekulow of the Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice, and himself as proof of support for Miers’ nomination from the Right. Robertson concluded by noting: “These so-called movement conservatives don’t have much of a following, the ones that I’m aware of. And you just marvel, these are the senators, some of them who voted to confirm the general counsel of the ACLU to the Supreme Court, and she was voted in almost unanimously. And you say, ‘now they’re going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative President and they’re going to vote against her for confirmation?’ Not on your sweet life, if they want to stay in office.”  -- PFAW (emphasis added) 

Americans are now getting a small taste of what a government dominated by the radical religious right would mean – an ever increasing internecine battle for religious correctness.  Perhaps Americans will understand why the Founding Fathers chose to separate church and state. 

                        BUSH’S VERY REPUBLICAN TAX       

 Energy prices are up and so is inflation: 

Consumer prices surged in September by the largest amount in more than 25 years . . . .

The Labor Department reported Friday that inflation jumped 1.2 percent last month. It said that 90 percent of that increase came from a record-setting 12 percent surge in energy prices which reflected gasoline prices that briefly topped $3 per gallon last month after widespread shutdowns of refineries and oil and natural gas platforms along the Gulf Coast. -- Breitbart (emphasis added)  

Interest rates are also headed higher.  “An expanding economy and rising costs for oil, gasoline and natural gas will keep the Federal Reserve raising interest rates and cause imports to rise faster than exports in coming months . . . .”  -- Bloomberg

Republican policy that has led to higher energy prices and higher interest rates are a tax. Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, John Snow, admits that higher energy prices acts as a tax: 

``Energy is one of those things that is holding back global growth,'' Treasury Secretary John Snow said . . . . ``It acts as a tax on everyone because you have less disposable income available.'' – Bloomberg   

The Republican tax on every American is far greater than the average tax cuts Republicans allotted middle class Americans.  For example, families who heat their home with natural gas will pay 48% more this winter in heating bills, an average of $350.00, which is approximately the average tax cut Americans received.  Higher interest rates will also take income out of every American’s pocket as the cost of home mortgages and credit card payments will go up.   

With higher inflation and interest rates there should be no surprise that consumer confidence in the American economy slipped to a 13 year low this week.  And, Americans overwhelmingly believe America is headed in the wrong direction: 

                        DAMN THE FACTS 

Bush and the radical Republicans continue their onslaught on integrity this week.   

In 2003, Congress directed that the Federal Government undertake a study of off shoring jobs in the information technology sector.  Dept. of Commerce professional wrote the report,  but not the report released to the public.  Here is the story: 

According to those who have tracked the report's whereabouts, it was completed well before the November 2004 presidential election but was delayed for clearance by the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress due to the controversial nature of the subject. Outsourcing had become a contentious campaign issue, particularly in the swing states.

After the November election, a draft of the report prepared by a "braintrust" of Technology Administration analysts went into a vetting process among political appointees at the Commerce Department and White House. It never resurfaced. The analysts never received any feedback on their work, which is unusual, say those who have written similar reports.

The 12-page version that was released focuses on the allegedly positive impacts for the U.S. economy of the offshore outsourcing -- and "insourcing" -- of jobs in the IT, semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries, argue those who have read it. The report quotes research conducted by organizations and individuals that have been funded by multinationals that benefit from shifting jobs overseas. No mention is made of the conflict of interest inherent in the studies cited by the Commerce report. – Manufacturing and Technology News           

In the hierarchy of news stories, the M&T story received virtually no mainstream media attention.  M&T’s story is, however, just one more example of Bush administration officials sanitizing research and reports that would conflict with their preconceived radical ideologies.   

The stories below are just a few that TPJ has run exemplifying Bush administration dishonesty in altering the facts as they see fit:

Bush ordered sections of an EPA report “scrubbed” of references to global warming – even conclusions in scientific reports sponsored by Bush.  Public reports in June 2003 document the White House’s involvement: -- TPJ, “A BLIND EYE – DEADLY IGNORANCE”   

Medicare's chief actuary told lawmakers he gave analyses to the White House and the president's budget office -- which were not shared with Congress -- predicting that prescription drug benefits being drafted on Capitol Hill would cost about $150 billion more than President Bush said he wanted to spend.  . . . [H]e confirmed two weeks ago that administration officials threatened to fire him if he directly provided lawmakers with his cost estimates on the changes to Medicare, which were among Bush's top domestic priorities.  . . . TPJ, “IN THE DARK”   

More revelations prove that Bush is concealing the potentially deadly truth about global warming.  The conclusion reached is that White House officials have undermined their own government scientists' research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming. – TPJ, “THERE ARE TRUTHS WHICH CAN KILL A NATION.”   

White House officials were steamed when Andrew S. Natsios, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said that U.S. taxpayers would not have to pay more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq -- which turned out to be a gross understatement of the tens of billions of dollars the government now expects to spend. The government has purged the offending comments by Natsios from the agency's Web site. The transcript, and links to it, vanished. – TPJ, “LYING TO CONCEAL THE TRUTH” 

Bush ordered sections of an EPA report “scrubbed” of references to global warming – even conclusions in scientific reports sponsored by Bush.  Public reports in June 2003 document the White House’s involvement. The New York Times editorially admonished Bush for repeatedly censoring official government reports. – TPJ, “ASSAULT ON THE MIND”   

Bush Administration--aided by right-wing allies . . . and conservative think tanks to further their goals--are engaged in a campaign to suppress science that is arguably unmatched in the Western world since the Inquisition. Sometimes, rather than suppress good science, they simply order up their own. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is purging, censoring and blacklisting scientists and engineers whose work threatens the profits of the Administration's corporate paymasters or challenges the ideological underpinnings of their radical anti-environmental agenda. – TPJ, “ASSAULT ON THE MIND II”  

NEXT - THEM DEMS

Last Update: 05/07/2006