Behind the BushesTHE NEW GENERATION
more recent stories
earlier stories2001 BARBARIANS INSIDE THE GATES
JACQUELINE TRESCOTT WASHINGTON POST - The Bush administration informed the Smithsonian Institution that it plans to proceed with a series of dramatic cuts in the museum's fiscal 2003 budget. The proposals would delay reopening two major museums for a year and strip the Smithsonian of much of its scientific research money. The Office of Management and Budget has rejected a formal appeal by the Smithsonian of the controversial proposals in the next federal budget, according to officials at the Smithsonian who are familiar with the budget procedures. In its response to the Smithsonian, the OMB said it was drafting a "war-winning budget."
"The president's next budget will focus on winning the war against terrorism and securing the homeland, while moderating the growth in overall spending and bringing back balanced budgets and surpluses," wrote Marcus Peacock, the OMB associate director for natural resource programs on Nov. 27. MORE
TIME - Each Wednesday Rove dispatches a top administration official to attend the regular conservative-coalition lunches held at Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation. When activists call his office with a problem, Rove doesn't pass them off to an aide. He often responds himself. When Weyrich heard a few weeks ago that Bush's budget slashed funding for a favorite project called the Police Corps, which gives scholarships and training to police cadets, he complained to the White House. To Weyrich's surprise, Rove called back. "We've taken care of it," Rove said. "The problem is solved." Weyrich, who says his memos to the Reagan and Bush Sr. White Houses were rarely read, was impressed. "That," he gushes, "is what it means to have friends in the White House." MORE
LAWSUIT: BUSH BUDDY BURIED
BODIES IN BUSHES BADLY
*** JANE SUTTON, REUTERS - The world's largest funeral company was accused in a Florida lawsuit of digging up bodies and dumping them in the woods to make room for new burials, the plaintiffs' lawyers said. Distraught families filed a class action lawsuit in a state circuit court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, accusing Menorah Gardens and Funeral Chapels and its parent company, Service Corporation International, of desecrating graves and destroying human remains . . . It said cemetery workers broke open some burial vaults and dumped the bodies in the woods, and crushed down other coffins to make room for new coffins on top of them. It also alleged that body parts of different people were mixed together when the buried vaults were broken open and that people who bought side-by-side plots were actually buried head-to-toe or on top of each other. The plaintiffs' lawyers said hundreds of bodies were mishandled and that there were some 700 people with claims against the two cemeteries . . . The lawsuit was filed a day after Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth subpoenaed all of SCI's Florida burial records dating back to 1990 as part of an investigation into its business practices. Service Corporation International, based in Houston, said the allegations in the lawsuit were disturbing and ``completely contrary to our policies and procedures as well as the excellent performance record we have established.''
*** ROBERT BRYCE, SALON, SEP 29, 1999 - In 1993, funeral baron Robert Waltrip told the New York Times that people who don't buy his company's stock "just don't like money." For a time, Waltrip, the founder and CEO of the world's largest funeral company, Service Corporation International, was right. SCI was the darling of Wall Street. Analysts praised it as a recession-resistant company with a great financial outlook and huge profit margins. After all, just as baby boomers shook the culture with every developmental milestone, soon they'll be dying in record numbers, and the titan of "death care," as SCI describes its business, seemed poised to profit from that long goodbye.
But over the past eight months, SCI's fortunes have faltered. In January, the company's stock price tumbled 44 percent in one day after it announced it wouldn't meet its quarterly revenue projections. A year ago, SCI's stock was trading at about $45 per share. On Tuesday, it closed at $11.25 and Wall Street analysts are decidedly bearish.
In recent months, SCI stumbled into the national media spotlight thanks to the presidential race. In March, Waltrip and SCI were named as defendants in a whistleblower lawsuit in Texas that involves allegations that presidential front-runner George W. Bush intervened on SCI's behalf to help stop an investigation by the state's regulatory agency. Waltrip and SCI are big financial contributors to Bush, and Waltrip is also a personal friend of former President Bush, endowing the Bush library with $100,000.
SCI has powerful friends in both political parties. Former Rep. Tony Coelho, chairman of Al Gore's presidential campaign, sits on SCI's board of directors. It's a lucrative job. According to the company's proxy statement, SCI pays Coelho $21,000 per year just to sit on the board and an additional $6,000 for each meeting he attends. Coelho also owns more than $450,000 worth of SCI stock.
Despite those influential friends, a number of troubling specters are creeping up on the company. Tort lawyers, consumer advocates and regulators are all taking aim at the Houston-based death care giant. Plaintiff's lawyers in Florida are suing SCI, claiming the company sold an exorbitantly expensive funeral to an elderly, mentally incompetent widow. In Washington state and Texas, lawyers are suing the firm, maintaining it has mishandled corpses. Company shareholders have filed a class-action lawsuit, alleging SCI officials withheld troubling earnings data that caused the stock price to dip.
Consumer advocates are constantly taking swipes at the company. Karen Leonard, the head of the Sebastopol, Calif.-based Redwood Funeral Society, who worked as the late Jessica Mitford's research assistant on her last book, "The American Way of Death Revisited," has become one of the country's leading critics of SCI. She claims SCI has "made price gouging state of the art.
"They've been able to take the emotions that make people spend more - guilt and fear of death - and have played those like an orchestra and have made tremendous amounts of money. They are taking advantage of consumers on all fronts, by secrecy, by their ability to control regulations and their ability to give money to politicians." MORE
*** ROBERT BRYCE, SALON, Aug 31 1999 - Gov. George W. Bush scored a major victory in a Texas courtroom Monday, when a judge ruled the presidential front-runner will not have to testify in the so-called Formaldegate trial. Bush's testimony was sought by attorneys for Eliza May, the former executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, in a whistle-blower lawsuit against the state of Texas. After an all-day hearing, Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz ruled that May's attorneys, who filed suit against the state in March, did not present enough evidence to compel Bush to testify in the case Attorney General John Cornyn, who appeared in court on Bush's behalf, said he was there to "defend an important principle." He said the state of Texas is sued about 10 times a day and that if Bush were required to testify in the lawsuit brought by May, "then this governor and future governors will have little time to do anything else." . . . May, who was fired by the TFSC's board, claims that state legislators and Bush's office interfered with her agency's investigation in order to help SCI, the world's largest funeral company. Waltrip is a longtime friend of the Bush family and has contributed at least $45,000 to Bush's political campaigns. The state and SCI deny that May was fired for political reasons. During the hearing, the attorney general's office released affidavits from five TFSC commissioners, all of which said that May was terminated because they had lost confidence in her. The affidavits also said that May failed to collect licensing fees, failed to properly supervise employees and had "a general lack of accountability." MORE
*** ROBERT BRYCE, SALON, July 21, 1999 - After a May 1998 meeting in Bush's office between SCI CEO Robert Waltrip and Allbaugh - and possibly Bush - the Funeral Service Commission completed no more inspections of SCI's facilities, and the agency's general counsel quit. In February 1999, commission Executive Director Eliza May was fired. A few months later, the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature passed a bill to reorganize the agency and strip it of its general counsel position. (The bill's sponsor received more campaign funds from SCI than anyone in the Texas House.) The legislature also forced out the agency's current chairman, Dick McNeil, a Fort Worth funeral director who had approved the investigation into SCI's operations . . . Adding intrigue to the lawsuit are a conflicting set of documents recently issued by SCI's lawyers. On June 11, Waltrip's lawyers issued documents that say Waltrip talked with Bush on April 15, 1998, in the governor's office about SCI's problems with the state investigators. Five days later, Waltrip's lawyers changed their story. In a highly unusual "supplemental" response to the interrogatories, the lawyers said Waltrip did not talk to Bush about his problems with state investigators. The supplemental document says that while Waltrip was in Bush's office waiting to talk with Allbaugh, the governor "passed by on the way to a press conference or other appointment," and although Bush "exchanged pleasantries" with Waltrip, their discussion was "not substantive; they did not discuss the content" of a letter Waltrip wrote complaining about the investigation. Perhaps that's true. But why, then, did SCI's in-house lawyer, Daniel Reat, swear that Waltrip talked to Bush? In a sworn, notarized court statement that accompanied the June 11 interrogatory, Reat said that Waltrip's answers "are either within his personal knowledge or based on information obtained from other persons, and are true and correct." MORE
*** MARK CURRIDEN AND GEORGE KUEMPEL, DALLAS MORNING NEWS, Aug 19, 1999 - A former state official accused Gov. George W. Bush of lying in a sworn affidavit in an effort to avoid testifying in a whistle-blower lawsuit. Lawyers for former Texas Funeral Service Commission executive director Eliza May asked a state judge to find Mr. Bush in contempt of court. In a 17-page petition, the lawyers cited numerous witnesses who they believe can contradict Mr. Bush's assertion that he "had no conversations" and "no personal knowledge" of the commission's investigation into a funeral company owned by a Bush family supporter. Linda Edwards, a Bush spokeswoman, described Wednesday's petition as "nothing more than a publicity stunt and an example of the frivolous misuse of the civil justice system." . . . In her lawsuit, Ms. May accused Houston-based Service Corporation International, the nation's largest funeral home operator, of using its influence with Mr. Bush to thwart her inquiry into company embalming practices. The one-time state Democratic Party treasurer charges that Service Corporation International officials pressured the governor into firing her . . . In Wednesday's petition, Ms. May's lawyers say Mr. Bush's "statements are intentionally false, misleading and deceptive." The lawyers list several instances in which they say Mr. Bush appears to know about the investigation. They point to an April 1998 meeting involving Mr. Waltrip and Service Corporation International lawyer Johnnie B. Rogers in the office of the governor's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh. They had come to Mr. Bush's office to deliver a letter protesting the agency's investigation. Mr. Rogers recently told Newsweek magazine that during the meeting, Mr. Bush popped his head into the room and said to Mr. Waltrip, "Hey, Bobby, are those people still messing with you?" When Mr. Waltrip responded "Yes," the governor turned his attention to Mr. Rogers, the magazine reported. "Hey, Johnnie B., are you taking care of him?" Mr. Rogers quoted the governor as saying. Mr. Bush said Wednesday that the exchange lasted only several seconds. "I don't remember what I said," he said. "The conversation lasted 20 seconds and that is hardly enough time to say hello, let alone have a substantive discussion." The petition also cites two meetings between Ms. May, Mr. Allbaugh and the governor's general counsel, Margaret Wilson, in the governor's office as evidence that Mr. Bush was aware of the investigation. "That no one talked to the governor about those meetings and no one from SCI spoke to him about this subject of those meetings is simply not believable," the petition says. MORE
HORSE RABBIT STEW
THE TEXAS FUNERAL SERVICE COMMISSION chief executive earns $43,680, has ten employees and a budget of $495,000. SCI CEO Robert Waltrip earns $20.3 million, has 23,000 employees and SCI has revenues of $2.8 billion.
CHILD'S COFFIN
THE BACK STORY
OUR MAN OF THE DAY, Robert Waltrip, also started the nation's "largest collection of funeral service memorabilia," now housed at the National Museum of Funeral History, in Houston. Among the artifacts: a classic glass preparation table and buckets; old ice box and iron coffins of the sort used before embalming, a coffin made of glass, another designed to hold a family of three, and a video, "The Value of a Funeral." There are several motorized and horse-drawn hearses including a funeral sleigh, a black Toyota pickup outfitted with a gold pagoda camper and speakers to broadcast music in a Japanese funeral procession, and a 1916 Packard funeral bus. Used only once, it was retired after its faulty design allowed the rear end of the vehicle to tilt as it climbed a hill toward the cemetery sending pallbearers, mourners, and the casket tumbling.
There is also a picture of a "life signals" coffin, designed to reassure people afraid of being buried alive, especially during the frenzy of a deadly epidemic. One design used an arrangement of wires and pins and a spring lid to enable the occupant of the coffin, by the slightest movement of the hand or head, to cause the coffin lid to spring open. Another consisted of a square tube containing a ladder and a cord, one end of which was placed in the hand of the person laid in the coffin, while the other extended up to a bell on top of the tube, which was attached to the head of the coffin.
The museum also has a gift shop where you can buy Undertakers Spring Bottled Water with your name on the back should you wish to give it out as a public relations item.
ARTHUR ALAN, SALON - When President Bush last summer picked University of Chicago philosopher Leon Kass to head a new bioethics advisory council, murmurs of approval rose from the pundit class, which swoons for Kass' fashionably unfashionable moralism. Most of the secular bioethicists struggling with the challenges of cutting-edge medicine and biology plod forward with pragmatic ideas about limiting harm from science. Kass, on the other hand, has always seemed less worried by the practical risks than by what technology is doing to our souls. Sensitive to the "wisdom of repugnance," he has opposed in-vitro fertilization, stem cell research and cloning, often citing a personal reverence for the mystery of life. And he has done so from his chair at Chicago's lofty Committee on Social Thought . . . Kass is no ayatollah -- he's generally considered to be an open-minded academic -- but his newly appointed right hand, Dean Clancy, can come off like a mini-mullah. The 37-year-old Republican, a senior staffer for Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey since 1993, is passionately opposed to abortion, public schools, federal taxes and Democrats. As a Georgetown student in the 1980s, he once made an impression by tearing up his libertarian roommates' porno films with his bare hands. Prior to working for Armey, Clancy was a speechwriter for Dan Quayle and Jack Kemp. His writing tends to reflect a fanatical verve. In a 1998 letter to a right-wing magazine called the Journal of American Citizenship Policy Review, for example, Clancy attacked Steve Forbes' tax reform plans as namby-pamby, raged against Teddy Roosevelt and called for the repeal of the 16th and 17th amendments, which establish federal taxes and the directly elected Senate. The federal tax, Clancy fulminated, "bribes the states with their own citizens' money, shackles them with intolerable mandates, forbids them from curbing such crimes as abortion and pornography and now threatens to nationalize health care." MORE
*** JUDY MANN, WASHINGTON POST: At a time when the United States needs friends abroad more than ever, President Bush has nominated to head the Peace Corps a discredited California party hack whose principal public achievement to date has been to help bankrupt the richest county in his state. The nomination of Gaddi H. Vasquez has aroused a storm of protest among former Peace Corps volunteers, a formidable group of people who have made names for themselves in every rank of American life. And they, perhaps more than other Americans, know the abysmal conditions of poverty and hopelessness that spawn terrorism . . . The Peace Corps has been a crown jewel in our ever-diminishing foreign aid efforts. With 7,000 volunteers a year, it has taught and served people in nearly 80 of the poorest and most-troubled countries in the world. Volunteers from the get-go won respect from host countries, and they won respect for the United States. So who does Bush nominate to head the agency? Somebody who is singularly unqualified to head anything, let alone the Peace Corps. Vasquez was a member of the notorious Orange County Board of Supervisors that fiddled while the county lost $1.64 billion in risky investments. The news became public in December 1994, and the Board of Supervisors decided to file for bankruptcy. It became the largest municipal bankruptcy in the nation's history. A month later, Vasquez was named chairman of the Board of Supervisors. He resigned nine months later, just a step ahead of a recall effort. The hard-shell conservative Orange County Register, normally no critic of right-wing functionaries, said that "too often" Vasquez "has been a slave to the 'finger in the wind' impulse, emerging as someone always running to board the caboose rather than staking out a place in the locomotive's cabin. . . . [Trying] to pin him down on a strategy for plowing us out of bankruptcy without plowing taxpayers deeper into the hole has been an exercise in exasperating frustration." The Register noted that Vasquez had a campaign war chest of $300,000 or more and asked what he planned to do with the money: "Will he return it to donors? Or give it to the county treasury?" Turns out that Vasquez did neither, and so in the election year 2000 he had $100,000 to give to the Republican National Committee. That has bought him a ticket to Washington. MORE
*** BEN EHRENREICH, MOTHER JONES - George Argyros might be the next ambassador to Spain, though he's got plenty to deal with at home. George Argyros, President George W. Bush's pick to be the next US ambassador to Spain, breezed through his only appearance before congressional lawmakers. Only three members of the Senate committee reviewing his nomination showed up for the session on Oct. 31, and they asked only one question of the California billionaire. Happily for Argyros, a Southern California real estate developer and landlord, that question was not in Spanish, a language he does not speak. More importantly, perhaps, the question had nothing to do with allegations of rent gouging which have followed Argyros for the last two years. Last September, the California Attorney General's office reached a settlement with the Argyros-owned Arnel Management Co. under which the firm was ordered to pay $1.1 million to tenants who claimed Arnel illegally withheld millions of dollars in security deposits. Some of those tenants are still suing Arnel for millions more. The tenants' individual claims rarely exceeded more than a few hundred dollars, although one of the pending lawsuits is seeking $32 million in damages. "If in fact everything that's been alleged is true, then it's a big deal," says Elizabeth Pierson, president of the non-profit Orange County Fair Housing Council. "It's a lot of money from a lot of people. We're talking about millions of dollars over the years." MORE
AUGUST 2001
IN CIRCUMVENTION OF federal open meetings laws, the Bush Social Security commission plans to meet in private. The commission is splitting into two groups, since private subcommittee meetings are permitted. This falls into a pattern of White House law-skirting that has included:
- a refusal by Vice President Dick Cheney to turn over documents to the General Accounting office requested documents related to energy policy.
- giving a Senate committee requested documents on environmental issues only after being threatened with a subpoena.
JOHN BERLAU, INSIGHT: IRS Commissioner Charles Rossotti has been filling plum positions at his agency with employees of his information-technology company and others who steered business to it. Already under fire for holding on to millions of dollars worth of stock in an information-technology company that he used to run and that does substantial business with the IRS, Commissioner of Internal Revenue Charles Rossotti has hired another large stockholder in the same company to advise the agency on computer modernization and technology purchases, Insight has learned. Rossotti just installed his former employee, Fred L. Forman, as executive program adviser for business-systems modernization, a new position that pays $186,300 a year, the same salary Vice President Dick Cheney earns.
AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR LEADER
George Bush on his ranchI love to go walking out there, seeing the cows - occasionally they talk to me, being the good listener that I am . . . It's important for all of us in Washington to stay in touch with the values of the heartland, because they're values that really are unique. It basically says that values -- a value system of basic, inherent values, that override politics and different demographies and different religions. It's what makes America so unique and great." - Bush speech to Future Farmers of America as transcribed by the Washington Post
WALTER PINCUS & VERNON LOEB, WASHINGTON POST: The CIA and its director, George J. Tenet, have developed a close relationship with President Bush over the past six months, rivaling the bond between the agency and the first Bush White House, according to senior administration officials. Tenet meets several times a week with Bush, a sharp contrast to what former CIA director R. James Woolsey recently called his "nonexistent" relationship with former president Bill Clinton. By most accounts, Tenet is not a policy player. Unlike Secretary of State Colin L. Powell or Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, his official role is not to set policy but to provide information to the government's top policymakers, including Powell, Rumsfeld and other Cabinet members as well as the president and vice president. Still, Tenet is the sole holdover from the previous administration in Bush's inner circle, and he has gained unusual access to the Oval Office.
WIRED: A Double Click executive has taken a top post at the Department of Commerce. Nuala O'Connor, Double Click's vice president for data protection and chief privacy officer, will start Aug. 13 as Commerce's deputy director of the Office of Policy and Strategic Planning. Long the target of lawsuits and public outcry -- even earning an infamous "Big Brother" award from Privacy International - Double Click's demographic profiling database targets advertisements to Web users based on their Internet habits.
J ROBERT BRAME, under consideration for head of the National Labor Relations Board . . . As a former member of the NLRB Brame supported employer interrogation of workers engaged in a union drive, said an employer could distribute literature while banning workers from doing the same, supported employers photographing and filming workers even at union meetings, and argued that employers shouldn't have to bargain with temporary workers . . . Brame is on the board of American Vision, a group "dedicated to the restoration of America's Biblical foundation." . . . From one of its publications, this quote from Jerry Falwell: "Homosexuals are masters of diversion and deception. They hide the realities of their perverse lifestyle by calling themselves 'gay.' . . . They need our children to perpetuate their 'alternative lifestyle.'" . . . Other excerpts: "[In] the matter of homosexuality. God defines it as a sin worthy of death." . . . "In the public debate on abortion God has been bypassed as having no legitimate public interest in the matter . . . "The college experience has been feminized. In years past, (mostly) men went to college to gain the knowledge and skills to increase their chances for better jobs, where now they are subjected to forms of social engineering rather than chemical, electrical, and civil. The hard sciences have been replaced by soft and squishy 'social sciences.' Feminist themes now predominate."
"THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH. This is an impressive crowd. The 'haves,' and the 'have-mores.' Some people call you the elite. I call you my 'base'." George W. Bush "joke" at a Republican dinner, October 2000.
REPORTERS' COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM OF THE PRESS: The Bush administration is blocking the release of thousands of President Ronald Reagan's White House records, despite a law that requires the disclosure of the documents. The 68,000 pages, which include communications between Reagan and his advisers, are currently in vaults at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. They were supposed to be released in January under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, a law passed in the wake of Watergate that was designed to improve openness in government. But President George W. Bush has twice invoked a little-known executive order signed by Reagan just before he left office to delay releasing the records. The order requires the National Archives and Records Administration to notify the sitting president of the release, giving the White House time to review the papers to determine if they contain sensitive information. Dozens of officials who serve Bush, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, Budget Director Mitchell Daniels, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, also worked for Reagan. Many historians argue that Bush delayed the release to protect those officials from potentially embarrassing information. "I think what Bush is doing is protecting the people who were in the Reagan administration and his father's administration who are still around," American University historian Anna Nelson told Newsday. "I think this is part of that everlasting fear that somebody did something in the past that they can't remember."
JULY 2001
DIANA JEAN SCHEMO, NY TIMES: The Bush Administration has nominated Gerald A. Reynolds, a lawyer and staunch opponent of affirmative action, to head the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, the division responsible for protecting the civil rights of minorities, women and disabled people from kindergarten through graduate school. Mr. Reynolds, senior regulatory counsel at Kansas City Power and Light, is the former president of the Center for New Black Leadership, a conservative nonprofit organization that opposes mainstream civil rights groups on issues like minority set-asides, quotas and affirmative action. He has also served as counsel to the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Washington organization with a long history of attacking affirmative action and government-mandated advantages for minorities and women. Though not highly visible, the Office of Civil Rights plays a powerful, behind-the-scenes role on matters of race for the nation's public schools and universities. It is charged with enforcing all laws dealing with discrimination based on race, nationality, disability, sex or age. Last year, it received 6,000 complaints of discrimination, many of them through a dozen regional offices Mr. Reynolds will oversee in his new job.
DEMOCRATS: In 1999, a Guatemalan truth commission, which had received historical records from the Clinton administration, concluded that about 200,000 people were killed in the political violence that dated back to a CIA-sponsored coup in 1954. Some of the worst bloodletting occurred during the 1980s, when the Reagan-Bush administration backed a right-wing military dictator, Rios Montt, who was blamed for massacres in 626 Mayan Indian villages in a butchery judged 'genocide' by the commission." Last December, a spokesman said Bush's travel had included "business" in Guatemala. Robert Parry of 'Consortium News' asks: "What was his 'business' in Guatemala and when was he conducting it? Who were his business associates? ... When he was there, what did George W. Bush know about the atrocities and did they matter to him?... Bush's aides have put these supposed business dealings in Guatemala on the public record... It seems reasonable for reporters to ask what, where, when, why and with whom."
CULTURE OF IMPUNITY
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The new Army secretary is pressing to speed efforts to let private contractors run utilities on military bases as the energy company he recently left seeks millions of dollars from the Pentagon for providing just such services. Army Secretary Thomas White has said he would remove himself from decisions involving Enron Energy Services, where he served as vice chairman until this year, if there was a clear conflict of interest . . . White is in the process of selling $25 million in Enron stock, the Army says
ARI FLEISHER
EXPLAINS AMERICA[From Ari Fleischer's White House briefing, May 9]
Q: Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles? Does the president believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the president believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?
Fleischer: That's a big no. The president believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country.
Q: So Americans should go on consuming as much [or] more energy than any other citizens in any other countries of the world, as long as they want?
Fleischer: Terry, the president believes that the American people are very wise and that, given the right incentives, they will know how and they will make their own right determinations about how much they can conserve..... But the president also believes that the American people's use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.
BEHIND THE BUSHES
* Drug Czar Nominee John Walters *
"Federal marijuana penalties need to be stiffened and federal eradication efforts need to be invigorated.""Pre-employment testing ought to be able to be done everywhere" (1996 congressional testimony)
* DEA prospective chief Asa Hutchinson *
Proposed jailing individuals who post information pertaining to marijuana on the Internet.
Favors incarceration of marijuana users
Vehemently opposes the use of medicinal marijuana by seriously ill patients, even in those states that have legalized its use. In 1999, he backed legislation preventing Washington DC from implementing a ballot initiative legalizing medical marijuana -- even though it had been approved by 70 percent of DC voters.
Opposed funding a 1999 Institute of Medicine study on marijuana's medical potential, arguing that such research may compromise the war on drugs. The study concluded, "Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs ... for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation. ... Except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications."
In 1999, Hutchinson criticized government officials for failing to spend federal dollars to persuade voters to reject state initiatives aimed at legalizing medical marijuana. Upon learning that would be in violation of federal law (Federal tax dollars may not be used to influence state elections), Hutchinson proposed Congress override the law so that federal monies could be specifically used to influence voters in states with pending drug reform initiatives.
As U.S. Attorney in Arkansas, one of the most drug infested states in the union, looked the other way in the face of serious allegations of drug trafficking at Mena NORML o TPR STORY
BEHIND THE BUSHES
Campaign for America's FutureOn May 2, President Bush appointed a Commission that will recommend details to privatize Social Security. The White House handpicked the members of the Commission. In the words of Ari Fleischer, White House Press Secretary, they all "share the President's view that personal retirement accounts are the way to save Social Security." Following is a brief profile of each Commission member:
Co-Chair: Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner Co-Chief Operating Officer Richard Parsons has a proven track record as a corporate executive willing to undermine the retirement security of his employees. Parsons managed a "permatemps" system at Time Warner where many employees were falsely classified as temporary workers or independent contractors. These workers did not get the same benefits - including pensions and employer contributions to Social Security - as other Time Warner employees. In 1998, the Department of Labor sued Time Warner on behalf of these employees, forcing them to pay $5.5 million in back-compensation through a settlement reached in 2000.
Co-Chair: Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Former Senator Moynihan once was a defender of Social Security; he now advocates a position that combines a return to pay-as-you-go with substantial benefit cuts and partial privatization.
Carolyn Weaver, American Enterprise Institute Carolyn Weaver served on the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security, and was the prime architect of the most radical of its two personal account privatization plans. Her plan would have diverted forty percent of Social Security revenues into investment accounts.
John Cogan, Hoover Institution. John Cogan served in the Reagan Administration Office of Management and Budget. Earlier this year, Cogan was quoted as saying that the money to pay for the privatized accounts could come out of the Social Security surplus that is building up for the baby boom generation: "Right now, if you look at the next 10 years, one could allow individuals to invest 25% of their payroll taxes into PRAs without jeopardizing benefits paid to current retirees"
Thomas Saving, Texas A&M. Thomas Saving is a public trustee of Social Security and Medicare. He has acknowledged that moving to a system of privatized accounts will impose a harsh penalty on many people. "It's good in the end, but during the transition to the new, better world, somebody is going to be worse off. Who that somebody is makes a big difference" In 1995, when Saving was director of the Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University, he wrote in an article advocating complete privatization, "Strange as it sounds, we must destroy the social security system, as we know it, to save it"
Fidel Vargas, Reliant Equity Investors. Fidel Vargas was once the mayor of Baldwin Park, CA, but now works for an investment firm. He also was a member of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security, and supported the most radical of its two personal account privatization plans. That plan would have diverted forty percent of Social Security revenues into investment accounts.
Robert Pozen, Fidelity Investments. Robert Pozen runs a $450 billion financial services company that could make billions in profits annually from the privatization system that Pozen will recommend through his service on this commission. Along with Estelle James, he served on a conservative commission that recommended partial privatization - financed by raising the retirement age, reducing spousal benefits, and severely lowering the benefit payments to middle-income retirees.
Robert De Posada, Hispanic Business Roundtable. Robert De Posada and HBR have proposed a privatization plan that is fairly specific about the size and nature of the investment accounts - but fails to grapple with the question of financing the investment accounts, saying only that "transition costs must be spread evenly and fairly across generations."
Olivia Mitchell, Wharton School. Olivia Mitchell is perhaps the only independent expert on the panel, although she supports privatization and raising the retirement age. Mitchell co-authored a 1998 paper directly refuting the most prominent claim put forward by the Bush White House, that Social Security provides a poor rate of return and that private accounts could do better: "A popular argument suggests that if Social Security were privatized, everyone could earn higher returns. We show that this is false...the net advantages of privatization and diversification are substantially less than popularly perceived."
Gerald Parsky, Aurora Capital Partners. In addition to being Chairman of a large financial firm, Parsky was chairman of the Bush California presidential campaign. He was Assistant Treasury Secretary under Ford, and his name was floated as a candidate for G.W. Bush's Treasury Secretary.
Robert Johnson, Black Entertainment Television. Robert Johnson has a limited record around retirement security issues - although he has been involved in a protracted dispute with entertainment artist unions over his refusal to pay fair wages or contribute towards benefits - including pensions - for the comics on BET's show "Comic View." He is also involved in a significant effort to create a new airline, DC Air, which requires regulatory approval from the Bush Administration.
Gwendolyn King, Marsh and McLennan. Gwendolyn King, a former Commissioner of Social Security under the first President Bush, serves on the board of Marsh and McLenna, a financial services firm.
Bill Frenzel, former U.S. Representative. Bill Frenzel is a former Republic representative from Minnesota. He is co-chair of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (with Tim Penny).
http://www.ourfuture.org/readarticle.asp?ID=807
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Aides say President Bush was not aware that Time Warner Inc. paid $5.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit alleging pension abuses before he named a top company executive co-chairman of his new Social Security commission.
But the White House said that Bush remains confident in his appointment of Richard Parsons, chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner, to head the commission along with former New York Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan . . . The Labor Department filed suit against Time Warner Inc. in 1998, alleging that the media giant had wrongly classified hundreds of workers as temporary employees and independent contractors to keep from paying them health and pension benefits . . . Two years later, Time Warner settled the lawsuit, without admitting any wrongdoing, by agreeing to pay $5.5 million to employees who had been denied health and pension benefits because of their temporary or contractor classifications.BUSH WHACKING: This is the longest list of Bush whacking sites we've seen, including 270 links to anti-Bush sites, 65 links to anti-Bush T-Shirts & merchandise, and 64 links to progressive sites.
WELL OILED WHITE HOUSE
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: The White House, already criticized for its connections to Big Oil, now is facing renewed questions over Chevron's decision to name an oil tanker for national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. The double-hulled giant, Condoleezza Rice, is part of the international tanker fleet of the San Francisco-based multinational oil firm, named several years ago in honor of Rice when she was a Chevron board member and stockholder. Rice, the former Stanford University provost, served on Chevron's board from 1991 until Jan. 15, when she resigned after President Bush named her to the national security post. But with California's energy crisis intensifying and human rights groups spotlighting abuses in countries where Chevron does business, critics say the tanker now poses serious diplomatic and ethical issues for Rice and the administration. Even more sensitive, they say, is the appearance of a far too cozy relationship among multinational energy giants, Bush and his key advisers -- including Vice President Dick Cheney and Rice. "It does underscore that there's never been an administration in power in this country that has been so close to a single industry -- in this instance, the oil-and-gas industry," said Chuck Lewis, who heads the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity, which first raised the issue of the tanker's moniker last month. "Look at the president and his background, the vice president (who is a former executive at Halliburton), (Commerce Secretary) Don Evans and his oil interests . . . and now this."
SKULL AND BONES RITE FILMED
RON ROSENBAUM, NY OBSERVER: It's the primal scene of American power, of Bush family values. For two centuries, the initiation rite of Skull and Bones has shaped the character of the men who have shaped the American character, including two Presidents named Bush. And last Saturday, April 14-for the first time ever-that long-secret rite was witnessed by a team of outsiders, including this writer. Using high-tech night-vision video equipment able to peer through the gloom into the inner courtyard of the Skull and Bones "Tomb" in New Haven, The Observer team witnessed:
o The George W. effect: intoxicated by renewed proximity to presidential power, a robed Bonesman posing as George W. harangued initiates in an eerily accurate Texas drawl: "I'm gonna ream you like I reamed Al Gore" and "I'm gonna kill you like I killed Al Gore."
o Privileged Skull and Bones members mocked the assault on Abner Louima by crying out repeatedly, "Take that plunger out of my ass!"
o Skull and Bones members hurled obscene sexual insults ("lick my bumhole") at initiates as they were forced to kneel and kiss a skull at the feet of the initiators.
o Other members acted out the tableau of a throat-cutting ritual murder.
It's important to remember this is not some fraternity initiation. It is an initiation far more secret-and far more significant, in terms of real power in the United States-than that of the Cosa Nostra. If the Bushes are "the WASP Corleones"-as the ever more stingingly waspish Maureen Dowd has suggested-this is how their "made men" (and women) are made.* It's an initiation ceremony that has bonded diplomats, media moguls, bankers and spies into a lifelong, multi-generational fellowship far more influential than any fraternity. It was-and still remains-the heart of the heart of the American establishment.
JOSEY BALLENGER, ENS: President George W. Bush's choice as undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Energy is Robert Card, who was CEO and president of the company overseeing cleanup of the mothballed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons factory near Denver, Colorado. Card would be the third ranking official in the department, which oversees the nation's energy programs and nuclear facilities, including Rocky Flats . . . While Card was in charge of Kaiser-Hill, the nuclear cleanup contractor was fined or penalized more than $725,000 for numerous worker safety, procurement and other violations . . . A manager from the Department of Energy reprimanded the company for having poor management and a "serious deficiency" in safety performance. Card himself acknowledged earlier this year to DOE and to the U.S. General Accounting Office that the company had "a particularly disturbing negative trend in safety performance over the last quarter of calendar year 2000." Four different state and federal agencies have criticized, if not fined, Kaiser-Hill for its performance at Rocky Flats over the past five years.
TRIMMING THE BUSH
LEGACY IN TEXASWAYNE SLATER, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: When [campaign] reporters quizzed Mr. Bush about warnings that $2.6 billion in tax cuts he was touting on the campaign trail might leave the next legislature in a budget squeeze, he brushed the criticism aside. "As you know," he said in July, "I hope I'm not here to have to deal with it. I'm seeking another office." Once they returned in January for their work session, legislators discovered that the budget surpluses of recent years had, indeed, evaporated. "We've gotten ourselves in a financial hole," said Rep. Kevin Bailey, D-Houston. "There's a recognition that we could have made a lot of improvements with that money and would have been in a much better position. Now it's going to be very hard. We may never see these surpluses again," he said . . . Other efforts to tweak, amend or dismantle Mr. Bush's policies - just four months after he left office - have followed on several fronts:
o Although Mr. Bush has expressed confidence that no innocent person had been executed in Texas, lawmakers are considering bills to put a moratorium on the death penalty, give juries the option of imposing life without parole as a punishment in capital cases, and ban the execution of the mentally retarded.
The Legislature also is moving on a bill to provide better legal representation for the poor, a measure that Mr. Bush vetoed.o Some lawmakers have taken aim at Bush education initiatives. Opponents of charter schools, pointing to poor student performance and financial irregularities at some of the schools, are proposing a cap on new campuses, which operate with less state regulation.
o The House has voted to end the voluntary program that encourages companies to get state permits aimed at curtailing pollution . . .
o Opponents want to end the fingerprinting of welfare applicants, part of Mr. Bush's welfare-reform policies designed to weed out fraud and abuse .
WRONG TARGET
WHILE THE DEMOCRATS are trying to get even with Ted Olson for beating them in the Supreme Court, some truly hazardous Bush appointees are getting a free pass. At worst, Olson appears to be a good Republican lawyer who represents his clients just as, say, Greg Craig represented his. If he represented the American Spectator while it was exposing some of the Arkansas portion of Clinton's corrupt career, it is a mark to his credit. One of the great disservices of the national media was not to inform Americans who Bill Clinton really was while there was still time to do something about it. And if the Spectator was backed by Richard Mellon Scaife to the tune of $2.4 million, it is not all that different from the Pew Foundation pouring more than twice that amount into the Jim Lehrer Show to foster its extreme centrist views.
The get-Ted campaign continues despite character references from such Democratically reliable sources as Laurence Tribe ("His briefs and arguments have treated the applicable law and the underlying facts honestly and forthrightly, not disingenuously or deceptively"), Floyd Abrams ("I've always been impressed with his talent, his personal decency and his honor. He would serve with distinction as Solicitor General")and Robert Bennett ("a truth teller whose explanation of the events can be relied upon.")
Meanwhile, the Iran Contra repertoire theater - starring Richard Armitage, John Negroponte, and Otto Reich - is back in business with hardly a mumbling word from the Democrats. And then there is the strange silence concerning Asa Hutchinson, newly named to be DEA chief, not just from Democrats on the Hill, but from the liberal media and even from anti-drug prohibition groups.
As the Review has reported, Hutchinson played a highly dubious role as U.S. Attorney in Arkansas during a time when a reported $10 million a week in drugs were coming through his district thanks to a little airport in Mena. This is a crucial story of our times but to consider it honestly would mean also discussing:
- The CIA's operation in Mena where arms went south to the Contras and drugs came back to the States.
- George Bush I's role in setting up the Mena operation
- Governor Clinton's role in blocking any investigations into, or interference with, the Mena operation.
- Why the Washington Post killed a planned story on Mena early in the Clinton administration.If we knew what really happened in Arkansas in the 1980s we might begin to understand how the war on drugs has corrupted our country. But that might make us a tad uncomfortable and so Washington pretends that there's no problem with Hutchinson while the Arkansas Times runs editorials like this:
"If dirty little wars require dirty little warriors, then U.S. Rep. Asa Hutchinson is an apt choice to lead the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Asa has demonstrated that he's scruple-proof, most famously as a House prosecutor in the attempted lynching of fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton, whom Hutchinson has always opposed bitterly. A man eaten up with character would have declined the assignment, knowing the duplicity of the proceeding and the depth of his own bias. We assume the Clinton impeachment is mainly what Asa is being rewarded for, although his DEA appointment may be compensation as well for having kept his mouth shut about whatever it was that went on at the Mena Airport - drugs, guns, treason? - while Asa was a U.S. attorney and the first President Bush was a fellow partisan that Asa was more interested in protecting than investigating. Thanks to Asa and judicious use of the pardoning power, George I managed to keep his skirts clean. No felony convictions, anyway."
Even though Hutchinson's role in the Mena scandal has been an open political campaign topic in Arkansas, it remains off the record in the capital, where drugs are just meant to be a policy issue and not the source of some of the deepest corruption America has ever seen. And so the deadly, pointless, unconstitutional war continues, now to be headed by a man full of unanswered questions. EARLIER STORY
GRAVITAS
PRESIDENT BUSH has prayed every single day since he was elected. Well, who hasn't?" - Jay Leno
SITE for those who can't discuss the Bush administration within the parameters of rational discourse
THE BUSH II ERA: YEAR 1
David A. Sprintzen- Significantly eased controls and safeguards on field-testing of genetically engineered crops.
- Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
- Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training.
- Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
- Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
- Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who would readily fire up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would-be Hispanic voters.
- Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands of California and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii.
- Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks.
- Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violate workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws.
- OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and foresting.
- Appointed John Negroponte - a high-level Iran Contra figure - to the post of United Nations ambassador.
- Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million in rain forest conservation.
- Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
- Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
- Suspended rules that would require hard rock miners to clean up sites on Western public lands.
- Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program for public housing.
- Proposed to eliminate a federal program (used successfully in Seattle) designed to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
- Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
- Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
- Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
- Cut program to provide childcare to low-income families as they move from welfare to work.
- Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
- Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing.
- Appointed Otto Reich - a high-level Iran Contra figure - to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
- Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
- Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
- Rescinded rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
- Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety.
- Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2), the waste gas that contributes to global warming.
- Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
- Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach.
- Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
- O.K.'d Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast eastern of Florida.
- Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil and drilling.
- Proposed re-drawing the boundaries of national monuments, which would technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
- Gutted the White House AIDS Office.
- Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate safeguards for the environment and workers' rights.
- Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association on federal judiciary appointments.
- Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior.
- Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
- Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
- Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness.
- Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research projects.
- Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
- Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium slag heap in Utah.
- Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit.
- Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to a handful of the wealthiest of Americans.
- Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
- Selected as his Vice President a man who said on "Meet the Press, "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants."
- Appointed Diana ("There is no gender gap in pay") Roth to the Council of Economic Advisers.
- Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
- Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect.
- Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get credit cards.
- Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children.
- Is pushing for development of small nuclear weapons to attack deeply buried targets; which weapons would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
- Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act - to federal appeals court judgeship.
- Proposes to reverse regulations protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
- Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which taught schoolchildren about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship.
- Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
- Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - to the number two slot at the Environmental Protection Agency.
- Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the doctrine of separation of church and state - to a federal judgeship.
- Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
- Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high-mileage cars.
- Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to head EC.
- Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs - to be Drug Czar.
- Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - to be Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
- Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species act - to be Assistant Secretary for Water and Science.
- Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
- Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents.
- Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
- Nominated Ted Olson - who has repeatedly lied about his involvement with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton - to be Solicitor General.
- Nominated Terrance Boyle - foe of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
- Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction.
- Proposes to give government the authority to take private property through eminent domain for power lines.
- Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
- Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck, and appointed a timber industry lobbyist
[Compiled by David A. Sprintzen, Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director, Institute for Sustainable Development, C.W. Post College, Long Island City, NY]
AMAZINGINGLY, THESE PHOTOS HAVE NOT BEEN DOCTORED. AND THEY'RE NOT THE ONLY ONES. IS THAT BUSH OR AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE MODULE? GENE WEINGARTEN OF THE WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATES AND SPECULATES
THE LATIN AMERICAN CONNECTION
As we move towards another Latin American war, you might like to meet Bush's experts in the field, all of whom played key roles in the notorious Contra war of the 1980s:
COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE. Military assistant to Secretary of Defense in the 1980s. In his autobiography, Powell claims to have been the Pentagon's "point man" for US support for the Contras. Played a key role in funding Contras through illegal arms sales to Iran.
JOHN MAISTO, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL ADVISER for Inter- American affairs. Maisto was ambassador to Nicaragua during the war against the Sandinista government.
JOHN NEGROPONTE, UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS. As ambassador to Honduras between 1981 and 1985, Negroponte oversaw the military build-up that turned much of that country into a springboard and refuge for the anti-Sandinista contras.
OTTO JUAN REICH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE for Western Hemisphere Affairs. First director of the State Department's Office of Public Diplomacy for Latin America and the Caribbean from 1983 to 1986. From that position, he engaged in "prohibited, covert propaganda activities" in his efforts to promote the Reagan administration's policies toward Nicaragua.
RICHARD ARMITAGE. According to the Iran-Contra Special Counsel's report, "Independent Counsel declined to prosecute Armitage because the OIC's limited resources were focused on the case against Weinberger and because the evidence against Armitage, while substantial, did not reach the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
For more on the above, see the "Bush League" links at top of page
THE LIST
Bush appointees
with connections to MonsantoJUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: Appointed by George Bush Sr. Was Monsanto lawyer.
DONALD RUMSFELD, Secretary of Defense, was President of Searle
Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.ANN VENEMAN, Secretary of Agriculture was on the board of directors of Calgene Pharmaceuticals, purchased by Monsanto.
TOMMY THOMPSON, Secretary of Health was a supporter of Monsanto in Wisconsin. He received $50,000 from biotech firms is his election run, and used state funds to set up a $317 million dollar biotech zone in Wisconsin.
MITCH DANIELS, Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Daniels was the vice president of corporate strategy at Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical company. Eli Lilly and Monsanto developed the genetically engineered bovine growth hormone. Lilly "owns" the European "franchise."
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL. As senator deeply involved in representing the interests of Monsanto, a constituent corporations, especially in its international activities.
LOUIS DUBOSE & CARMEN COIRO, MOTHER JONES, March/April 2000 - Shortly before Bush announced his own campaign for president, he had received a visit from Carlos Saul Menem, the right-wing leader of Argentina for the past decade. The two men retired to an Austin country club, where they were joined by Bush's father. Governor Bush had the flu, so he contented himself with riding along as the former president and Menem played a round of golf. The capitol press corps trailed along, dutifully recording the governor's cordial relationship with a visiting head of state. Unknown to the assembled reporters, however, was the story of how Bush and his family became immersed in Argentine politics. The little-known tale begins with George W. making a phone call to secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline company - a deal that provoked a political firestorm in Argentina, drawing scrutiny from legislators and a special prosecutor. The episode marked one of George W.'s first ventures into foreign affairs, demonstrating the fundamental rule by which the Texas governor and his family conduct business: Always know that the Bush name is a marketable commodity . . .
In 1988, [public works director] Rodolfo Terragno was considering two proposals for the $300-million pipeline, one from an Italian firm called Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi and the other from Pérez Companc, an Argentine company working in partnership with Dow Chemical. After a year of consideration, the minister was close to making a decision when Enron, the largest pipeline company in the United States, suddenly entered the bidding . . .
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