Has anyone kept careful notes on the Bushco legacy?

[Dover]

Is there a website or blog that lists all the laws, amendments, doctrines and new policies that the GOP has put in place since Bushco took the White House? IMO, Bushco is far from being a failure if one examines their agenda. They have successfully pushed through an enormous number of changes that have, in effect, erroded the Constitution, and the government in general. Rumsfeld recently hinted that our government needed vast changes, and the PNAC also has outlined their global plans. The question is, where do the Dems stand on globalization. What's THEIR plan? For instance, the DLC has been very pro-privatization and have very similar foreign policy goals.

At any rate, I'd just be interested in seeing a list of what changes have already taken place since 2000.

And curious which, among these changes, the Dems (when they win) will go after and what they will leave in place.

Also how many GOPers took and then left or lost their positions within the administration?

[kdmorris]

1. I thought about doing that

when he was first selected. But if you pay THAT much attention to it, you start feeling amazing amounts of anxiety and become suicidal. So, now, I pay attention when I can and take a break when I need it. I think that any sort of list like that would take multiple people working in tandem, or just someone who is braver and stronger than I am.

I think I would like to see them go after raising the taxes on the upper class (those making more than a million dollars a year), and use that money to fund health care and prescription drugs. Of course, that's just one thing that comes to mind. It's very overwhelming to think of all the things that need to be done or undone. Like, should we take on getting Iraq fixed first? Or minimum wage? Or healthcare? Or getting corporations out of our election system?

I could name the one thing that I want them to concentrate on and someone else will post something else that is equally important. I just want them to put the brakes on Bush fucking everything up.

[ariellyn]

4. "if you pay THAT much attention to it, you start feeling ...suicidal"

Tell me about it.

I have backed off a lot. I never thought the coup would last this long. Anyone who would have tried to chronicle all six years would have to be depressed at the overwhelming inaction against all that BushCo has done. It's surreal.

[Ice4Clark]

2. This is all I have at the moment....to 2004 election

January 2001
20 - On the day of George W. Bush’s inauguration, Chief of Staff Andrew Card issues a sixty-day moratorium halting all new health, safety, and environmental regulations issued in the final days of the Clinton administration.
23 - On the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Bush reinstates the “global gag rule” barring U.S. funding for abortion counseling abroad.
February 2001
5 - Bush suspends Clinton’s “roadless rule” protecting nearly sixty million acres of forests from logging and road-building.
17 - Bush signs four anti-union executive orders, including measures to prohibit “project labor agreements” at federal construction sites and to remove job protections for union employees whose companies lose federal contracts.
26 - Senate Republicans introduce a bill to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.
March 2001
7 - At the urging of President Bush, Congress repeals ergonomic regulations designed to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries.
9 - Bush issues an executive order to prevent mechanics at Northwest Airlines from going on strike.
14 - Bush abandons his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
20 - Bush administration moves to overturn a Clinton regulation reducing the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water.
28 - Bush backs out of Kyoto treaty on global warming.
April 2001
4 - United States Department of Agriculture proposes lifting a requirement that all beef used in federal school lunch programs must be tested for salmonella; the proposal is dropped two days later.
9 - Department of Interior proposes a limit on lawsuits seeking protection of endangered species.
May 2001
11 - Bush administration abandons international effort to crack down on offshore tax havens.
16 - Vice President Dick Cheney’s task force releases its “National Energy Policy” report, calling for weaker environmental regulations and massive subsidies for the oil and gas, coal, and nuclear power industries.
26 - Congress passes $1.35 trillion tax cut.
29 - Bush meets with California governor Gray Davis but refuses to impose federal price controls to curtail California’s energy crisis.
June 2001
19 - Cheney refuses to release records of energy task force meetings to the General Accounting Office.
21 - Bush threatens to veto McCain-Kennedy patients’ bill of rights legislation.
28 - Attorney General John Ashcroft announces a policy that would require gun records be destroyed one day after a background check rather than ninety days later.
July 2001
9 - Bush administration opposes UN treaty to curb international trafficking in small arms and light weapons.
26 - Bush administration rejects international treaty on germ warfare and biological weapons.
August 2001
6 - Presidential Daily Briefing warns “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.”
9 - Bush limits stem cell research to “existing lines.”
September 2001
6 - Justice Department drops effort to break up Microsoft, hoping to speed settlement of antitrust lawsuit.
11 - Terrorists crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands.
22 - Bush signs $15 billion airline bailout.
October 2001
26 - Bush signs the USA Patriot Act.
29 - Justice Department acknowledges but won’t identify more than one thousand individuals, mostly immigrants, detained since September 11 attacks.
31 - Ashcroft authorizes monitoring of attorney-client conversations in terrorism investigations.
November 2001
1 - Bush issues executive order blocking the release of presidential records.
13 - Bush orders that “enemy combatants” be tried in military tribunals.
14 - Justice Department issues regulations allowing illegal immigrants to be detained indefinitely if their release could pose “serious adverse foreign-policy consequences.”
December 2001
11 - White House commission recommends privatizing Social Security.
12 - Bush informs congressional leaders that he intends to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty unilaterally.
18 - Congress passes $26.4 billion “No Child Left Behind” Act.
27 - Bush repeals “responsible contractor rule” that had required scrutiny of safety and environmental law violations in the awarding of federal contracts.
January 2002
11 - First Afghan prisoners arrive at “Camp X-Ray” in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares them “unlawful combatants” with no rights under the Geneva Convention.
16 - Cheney refuses to provide details of his multiple meetings with Enron officials.
25 - In a memo to the president, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales writes that “the new paradigm” of the war on terror “renders obsolete” the Geneva Conventions’ “strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
February 2002
14 - White House unveils its “Clear Skies” initiative calling for voluntary reductions of three major pollutants; the plan would delay by a decade reductions required under existing law.
15 - Bush approves Yucca Mountain—located ninety miles northwest of Las Vegas—as the nation’s lone repository for high-level nuclear waste.
28 - IRS records reveal increases in audits of the working poor; audits of large corporations and the rich drop to all-time lows.
March 2002
1 - News reports reveal that Bush activated a “shadow government” after September 11 attacks without telling Congress; civilian administrators are being sequestered in underground bunkers in case of a terrorist attack.
5 - Bush’s welfare reform proposal advises paying “workfare” recipients less than the minimum wage.
10 - Pentagon’s “Nuclear Posture Review” calls for new, “low-yield” nuclear weapons and lists seven “rogue” nations as possible targets for a nuclear attack.
27 - Bush signs McCain-Feingold bill banning soft money behind closed doors, then departs immediately for a fund-raising trip.
April 2002
2 - Bush administration opposes the reappointment of climatologist Robert Watson as head on the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change.
5 - Office of Management and Budget prevents the EPA from declaring a public health emergency over dangerous asbestos fibers that come from a Montana mine and are used in insulation throughout the country.
12 - Bush officials express support for the ouster of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez; a day after Chavez returns to power, White House admits that U.S. officials had met with coup plotters.
17 - Administration insiders admit military tactical errors allowed Osama bin Laden to escape December 2001 battle at Tora Bora.
May 2002
3 - EPA alters its definition of “fill material” to allow coal companies to dump rubble from “mountaintop removal” mining into valleys and streams.
6 - Bush voids the U.S. signature on the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court.
23 - Senate joins the House in approving “fast-track” trade authority for the president.
30 - Ashcroft removes restrictions on domestic spying by the FBI in counterterrorism investigations; new guidelines permit monitoring of political and religious groups without probable cause.
June 2002
1 - President unveils “Bush doctrine” of preemptive war in a speech at West Point.
5 - National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration weakens standards on under-inflated tires despite problems at Firestone that caused hundreds of deaths.
10 - Ashcroft announces that alleged “dirty bomber” José Padilla, an American citizen arrested a month earlier at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, is being held indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”
July 2002
14 - SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt says he’ll release the entire files on the investigation into Bush’s sale of $800,000 in Harken Energy stock if asked by the president; the president doesn’t ask.
15 - Bush administration unveils the “Terrorism Information and Prevention System,” or Operation TIPS, a toll-free hotline encouraging meter readers and truck drivers to report “suspicious activity.”
22 - State Department announces it will withhold $34 million in international family planning funds from the United Nations.
25 - Bush threatens to veto Homeland Security bill unless workers in the new department are stripped of civil service protections.
August 2002
9 - Bush administration issues new medical privacy regulations that don’t require patient consent to share records with insurance and pharmaceutical companies or restrict use of medical information for marketing purposes.
26 - In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney says there is “no doubt” Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq could have nuclear weapons “fairly soon.”
September 2002
5 - Bush administration presents “Healthy Forests Initiative” that would allow more logging of old-growth forests by limiting environmental impact reviews and public comment.
19 - Bush asks Congress for authority to use “all means that he determines to be appropriate” against Iraq.
October 2002
5 - North Korea admits to having secret nuclear weapons program; Bush officials don’t publicly disclose the news until Oct. 16.
8 - Bush invokes the Taft-Hartley Act to end an 11-day lockout of longshore workers that has shut down West Coast ports.
November 2002
5 - Harvey Pitt resigns after failing to disclose that newly appointed accounting oversight board chairman William Webster had headed the audit committee of a firm accused of accounting improprieties and fraud.
20 - Pentagon defends development of the “Total Information Awareness” system, a scheme developed by Iran-contra veteran John Poindexter to mine private data for terrorism clues.
27 - Bush names Henry Kissinger to head independent commission investigating September 11 attacks.
December 2002
6 - Bush dismisses treasury secretary Paul O’Neill and economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey as the unemployment rate hits 6 percent.
17 - Bush orders initial missile defense system to be in place by 2004.
19 - Office of Management and Budget instructs Environmental Protection Agency to value the lives of senior citizens at 63 percent that of younger Americans in a cost-benefit analysis of imposing new air pollution regulations.
January 2003
9 - Transportation Security Administration bars 56,000 airport screeners from unionizing.
10 - Bush administration issues guidelines that could exempt up to twenty million acres of “isolated” wetlands and seasonal streams from protection under the Clean Water Act.
15 - Bush denounces affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan as an unconstitutional “quota system.”
29 - Bush claims in his State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein “recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
30 - Bush administration seeks exemptions to international treaty banning the ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide for use on golf courses, among other things.
February 2003
5 - Secretary of State Colin Powell appears before the UN Security Council to make the case for war with Iraq.
March 2003
7 - U.N. official exposes as fakes documents showing Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger.
8 - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awards no-bid contract with a $7 billion limit to a Halliburton subsidiary for fighting possible oil well fires in Iraq.
19 - War on Iraq begins.
27 - Department of Labor proposes new overtime rules that could strip millions of extra pay by increasing the number of exempt “white-collar” workers.
April 2003
7 - Education Secretary Rod Paige says he prefers schools that have a “strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community.”
12 - Congress approves Bush’s request for $79 billion to fund the Iraq War and reconstruction.
28 - Bush administration refuses to sign international anti-tobacco treaty without a “reservation clause” allowing any country to opt out of portions it doesn’t like.
May 2003
1 - Aboard an aircraft carrier—with a banner touting “Mission Accomplished” as his backdrop—Bush declares victory in Iraq.
22 - Bush issues an executive order shielding oil companies in Iraq from legal liability.
27 - One third of the prevention funds in the $15 billion AIDS bill signed by Bush are earmarked for abstinence education.
28 - Bush signs $350 billion tax cut-half the size of his original proposal-slashing tax rates on dividends and capital gains.
29 - On a trip to Poland, Bush says: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”
June 2003
2 -FCC increases media ownership cap, allowing one company to own TV stations reaching up to 45 percent of the country, and lifts the ban on a single company’s owning newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations in the same city.
2 - Inspector general finds that the Justice Department violated the civil rights of hundreds of immigrants detained after 9/11.
25 - Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejects California’s request to cancel $12 billion in long-term contracts signed during the state’s energy crisis despite evidence of market manipulation by energy companies.
July 2003
1 - Bush administration suspends military aid to thirty-five countries that refused to grant U.S. citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court.
14 - Columnist Robert Novak outs the wife of retired ambassador Joseph Wilson as a CIA agent after discussions with “two senior administration officials.”
15 - SEC chairman William Donaldson endorses House bill seeking to limit the ability of state regulators to oversee the securities industry.
24 - Congress publishes report on September 11 attacks, but the White House omits major portions (reportedly about Saudi Arabia) for “national security” reasons.
28 - Congress exposes Pentagon plans to create a futures trading market to forecast terrorist attacks.
August 2003
9 - EPA inspector general finds that the agency downplayed health risks from the collapse of the World Trade Center under pressure from the White House.
20 - Ashcroft begins nationwide tour to promote the Patriot Act.
27 - EPA repeals “New Source Review” rule that had required electric utilities to install anti-pollution equipment when making major upgrades at coal-fired power plants.
September 2003
1 - Job losses over the past three years top 2.7 million.
7 - Bush asks Congress for another $87 billion to fund the occupation of Iraq.
17 - Bush admits there is no evidence tying Saddam Hussein to September 11 attacks.
22 - FCC approves the merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting, handing over 80 percent of the Spanish-language radio and television market to one company.
October 2003
21 - Congress bans late-term abortions.
29 - U.N. official warns of “a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists.”
31 - 13,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants are in deportation proceedings as a result of special registration programs; none has been charged in connection to terrorism.
November 2003
21 - Senate blocks energy bill, a massive boondoggle that traces its origins to Cheney’s secretive energy task force and would provide billions of dollars in subsidies to some of Bush’s biggest supporters in the oil and gas, coal, and electric utility industries.
23 - FBI admits collecting intelligence on antiwar protesters.
24 - Congressional Republicans and the White House agree to a “compromise” media ownership cap of 39 percent—ensuring that neither Viacom nor News Corp. will be forced to sell any television stations.
25 - Senate passes $400 billion, Bush-backed Medicare bill, which guarantees a prescription drug benefit starting in 2006 but prevents the government from negotiating lower prices with pharmaceutical companies.
December 2003
3 - Medicare chief Tom Scully announces he’s stepping down to consider job offers from three lobbying and two investment firms.
23 - Bush administration opens 300,000 acres of old-growth timber in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging.
30 - After first case of “mad cow” disease is detected in the United States, USDA bans sale of “downer” cattle—a measure quashed by the agency just weeks earlier.
January 2004
5 - Cheney and Justice Antonin Scalia go duck hunting together three weeks after the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case about the vice president’s energy task force records.
16 - During a congressional recess, Bush appoints Charles Pickering—whose nomination has been blocked twice by the Senate—to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
22 - Interior Department opens nearly nine million acres of wilderness on Alaska’s North Slope to oil drilling.
23 - Chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay resigns, saying he doesn’t believe Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction ever existed.
29 - Bush administration reports that the new Medicare law will cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, 30 percent more than Congress was told it would cost.
February 2004
6 - Bush relents and appoints commission on pre-war intelligence, calls for it to report findings after the presidential election.
9 - President’s Council of Economic Advisers suggests positions at fast-food restaurants should be counted as manufacturing jobs.
18 - A group of 60 top U.S. scientists, including a dozen Nobel Prize winners, accuses the Bush administration of “misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes.”
23 - Rod Paige calls the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”
March 2004
12 - Medicare actuary says Bush administration threatened to fire him if he told Congress that the White House Medicare plan would cost more than $400 billion.
24 - At the Radio and Television Correspondents’ dinner Bush presents slides of himself looking under tables and out the windows of the Oval Office while commenting “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere!” and “Nope, no weapons over there!”
April 2004
1 - Bush signs the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act.”
2 - Bush and Cheney appear at a private retreat for the more than five hundred “Rangers” and “Pioneers” who have collected at least $100,000 for the president’s campaign.
10 - After two years of stonewalling, Bush releases declassified version of the Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing warning “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.”
13 - In just the third prime-time press conference of his term, Bush is stumped when asked to name one mistake he’s committed since September 11. He replies, “I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hasn’t yet.”
28 - CBS television airs first images of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
28 - Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tells Congress the number of U.S soldiers who have died in Iraq is “approximately 500, of which—I can get the exact numbers—approximately 350 are combat deaths.” The actual figures: 722 soldiers killed, 521 of them in combat.
29 - Bush and Cheney appear together behind closed doors in the Oval Office to answer questions from commissioners on the September 11 attacks panel.
30 - Sinclair Broadcasting refuses to air “Nightline” broadcast reading the names of the U.S. dead in Iraq on its ABC affiliates.
May 2004
4 - Army acknowledges it is investigating at least thirty-five cases of abuse or torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
6 - FDA blocks RU-486, the “morning after pill,” from being sold over the counter.
19 - General Accounting Office rules that taxpayer-funded “video news releases” touting the Medicare bill are illegal covert propaganda.
20 - Bush campaign fundraising haul hits the $200 million mark.
June 2004
3 - CIA Director George Tenet resigns because of the “well-being of my wonderful family—nothing more, nothing less.”
8 - John Ashcroft refuses to give the Senate Judiciary Committee a Justice Department memo outlining a legal justification for the torture of suspected terrorists.
16 - U.S. commission investigating September 11 finds “no credible evidence” linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks; Dick Cheney continues to claim “overwhelming evidence” of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.
24 - Supreme Court rules that Dick Cheney doesn’t have to give up records of secretive energy task force, sends case back to a lower court.
28 - In a secret ceremony—held two days ahead of schedule to thwart attacks—United States hands over formal sovereignty of Iraq to interim government; U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer declares Iraq “a much better place” and immediately leaves the country.
28 - Supreme Court rules against the Bush administration, insisting that “enemy combatants”—whether U.S. citizen or foreigners—must be allowed to challenge their imprisonment before an American judge.
July 2004
8 - Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warns that Al Qaeda may strike on Election Day, seeks advice from Justice Department on necessary steps to postpone the election in case of a terrorist attack.
15 - Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board reverses earlier decision and rules that graduate teaching assistants at private universities do not have the right to organize unions.
20 - Bush administration lawyers move to block lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers, arguing that consumers may not seek damages for injuries received from products approved by the FDA.
22 - Congress passes resolution declaring that genocide is taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan; Washington Post characterizes action taken by the Bush administration to stop the killing as “murderously modest.”
28 - After 24 years in Afghanistan, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders pulls out of the country; the group criticizes U.S. forces for endangering aid workers by using humanitarian assistance as “a support for its military and political ambitions.”
30 - Republican Party requires a signed endorsement of the president before giving out tickets to New Mexico campaign rally starring Dick Cheney.
30 - Bush issues 20 recess appointments, skirting Senate approval to install, among others, a new head of the Federal Trade Commission, a new manufacturing czar, and three new ambassadors—two of whom are major Bush fundraisers.
August 2004
1 - Two days after the Democratic convention, Tom Ridge raises terror alert level to “orange” for New York and Washington; heightened security based on three- to four-year-old intelligence.
5 - At a ceremony to sign a $417 billion Defense appropriations bill, Bush tells the assembled Pentagon brass: “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
11 - With two months left in the fiscal year, federal deficit hits a record $395.8 billion.
15 - FBI acknowledges interviewing dozens of people in at least six states about protests planned for the Republican National Convention; officials insist they’re only targeting crimes, not political dissent.
24 - Bush-Cheney campaign’s top outside counsel admits advising the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
27 - For third consecutive year, more Americans in poverty and without health insurance; national poverty rate hits 12.5 percent, 45 million people lack health coverage.
September 2004
7 - Dick Cheney declares at a campaign stop in Iowa: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, that we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.”
8 - 1,001 U.S. soldiers killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
13 - President Bush and House Republicans allow the federal ban on assault weapons to expire.
13 - Iranian official announces that the country could resume uranium enrichment “within a few months”; Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs concludes “the real long-term geopolitical winner of the ‘War on Terror’ could be Iran.”
23 - Donald Rumsfeld hints that Iraqi election may be limited to three-fourths of the country because of increasing violence. “If there were to be an area where the extremists focused during the election period, so be it,” he testifies before the Senate. “You have the rest of the election and you go on. Life’s not perfect.”
23 - Standing beside Prime Minister Allawi in the Rose Garden, Bush claims “nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today”; Pentagon documents show only 8,169 have completed full, eight-week training.
25 - Iraqi Health Ministry statistics show U.S. and allied forces and Iraqi police are killing twice the number of Iraqis—mostly civilians—as the insurgents; officials announce that Health Ministry will no longer provide casualty statistics to reporters.
October 2004
2 - One-third of “individual ready reserve” soldiers called up by the Army to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan fail to report for duty.
6 - Chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer reports that Iraq had no biological or chemical weapons and no nuclear program before the U.S. invasion; in fact, Duelfer finds no evidence that Iraq had produced any WMDs after 1991.
11 - International Atomic Energy Agency reports that equipment and low-level radioactive materials that could be used to build nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq during the U.S. occupation.
21 - Program on International Policy Attitudes shows that vast majorities of Bush supporters believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and gave Al Qaeda “substantial support” or was directly involved in September 11. Bush backers also think the majority of the world supported the U.S. invasion.
22 - Aboard Air Force One, with no public ceremony, Bush signs $136 billion corporate tax cut bill—which includes special pork-barrel earmarks for tobacco companies, oil refineries, SUV buyers, Home Depot ceiling fans and much, much more.
24 - Iraqi interim government announces that 380 tons of explosives vanished from the Al Qaqaa facility after the U.S. invasion, when the site was not secured despite warnings from U.N. weapons inspectors.
November 2004
8 - The Battle of Fallujah begins.
December 2004
19 - The pressure on the beleaguered U.S. defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, intensifies amid revelations he used a mechanical signature writer to sign his name on letters of condolence to relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
January 2005
1 - It is revealed that Armstrong Williams, a conservative pundit, was paid $240,000 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to promote the president’s No Child Left Behind initiative.
20 - President Bush is inaugurated into his second term. The festivities cost $40 million when soldiers in Iraq are using scrap metal to armor them Humvees.
21 - After the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a complaint with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against U.S. Defense Secretury Donald Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Rumsfeld cancels plans to travel to Germany for the Munich Security Conference in February.
25 - The White House announces the 2005 budget deficit will reach $427 billion, topping the 2004 deficit of $412 billion, and $377 billion the previous year.
25 - President Bush requests from Congress an additional $80 billion for the Iraq war.
26 - Amid controversy over her misleading statements about Iraq and mushroom clouds, Condoleeza Rice is confirmed as Secretary of State.
28 - Two staff members of the Social Security Administration reveal that internal memos direct employees to promote the president’s proposal to privatize Social Security.
30 - Parliamentary Elections in Iraq are held and President Bush declares victory for democracy in action. 44 Iraqis are killed at voting stations.
February 2005
2 - President Bush delivers the State of the Union Address his promoting Social Security privatization plan that will require $2 trillion in loans to support but will do nothing to address the coming shortfall.
4 - Alberto Gonzales is confirmed as Attorney General. The vote, 60 to 36, reflects the deep split between Republicans and Democrats over the administration's counterterrorism policies and whether they led to prisoner torture and abuse in Iraq and elsewhere.


edited to add a few more

[Hugin]

5. Great work!

Wow!

I really think this needs to extend back to 1994 when Newt's 'Contract on America'
congress took office.

They've made many cuts during those years which have really caused many of the
disasters duing the last 12 years.

*Cuts to the National Park System.
*Cuts on Infrastructure... (Think: Katrina Floods)

to name a couple.

Good job!

Thanks.

[kdmorris]

6. Wow.. great job!!!

You are either stronger than I, or started taking Prozac immediately when he was inaugurated.

[Dover]

7. Wow! You should get a medal of honor for this work. Amazing.

And yet, as long as your list is, I'm sure the totality of the changes are many times more.

I think they were purposely overloading an already burdened system...to hurry its demise.
It made it impossible for any organized response from the People.

And unfortunately, based on the Dems performance going back even before Bushco, I have to wonder if they would WANT to undo many of these policies such as the Patriot Act or even the current foreign policies.

[derby378]

10. 9/13/04 - What's an "assault weapon?"

Never saw a concrete definition for that term - near as I can figure, it's a semi-automatic rifle that has certain safety features and/or cosmetic touches that the Brady Campaign doesn't trust law-abiding citizens with.

Just my two cents. I think I'm with you on everything else, though.

[benEzra]

11. Don't let the repubs take the credit

for the expiration of the 1994 restrictions on protruding rifle handgrips. Bush supported the Feinstein ban, as did his daddy, and it never would have passed in the first place without a bit of Gingrich sleight-of-hand in conference committee (knowing that Dems would take the fall for it because of Feinstein).

That idiotic law deserved to die, and a lot of Dems and indies are glad to see it dead. It needs to stay dead.

[Jcrowley]

3. Go here- Feel free to re-post

Posted by Jcrowley in General Discussion
Sun Oct 08th 2006, 09:13 PM
1. Lying to Congress: cost of Medicare bill
2. Crony Appointment: Michael Brown, fundraiser, to FEMA head
3. Disastrous Legislation: Healthy Forests
4. Theft of 2000 Election
5. Theft of 2004 Election
6. Rescinding the Davis-Bacon act requiring paying employees of govt. contractors the area's prevailing wage for work. Not even sure its legal for a president to unilaterally suspend an act of congress.
7. Alteration of Presidential Records Act through Executive Order to effectively nullify the law.
8. Increasing government secrecy through reclassification of documents and encouraging Executive branch agencies to resist FOIA requests.
9. Failure to act immediately on Aug. 6, 2001, PDB.
10. War crimes: Total annihilation of Fallujia
11. War crimes: Use of white phosphorus as a weapon
12. War misdeeds: failure to secure weapons stockpiles after invasion
13. War misdeeds: Intentional use of smaller military force than needed
14. Lying about Clinton staffers trashing the White House.
15. Fake "terror" alerts whenever Bush fell behind in the polls during the 2004 election campaign.
16. Exposing an active undercover CIA agent.
17. Flouting the Geneva Conventions and making torture legal.
18. Republican Congress suspends Habeas Corpus.
19. Circumventing the 1978 FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) to engage in illegal surveillance of people residing within the United States since 9/11/2001 without judicial review, in *direct* conflict with the 4th Amendment to the Constitution, and therefor an impeachable offense. (Note: during the 2004 campaign, Bush *specifically* addressed "roving wiretaps" as part of the Patriot Act and defended them on the grounds that they were still required obtaining a warrant.) Link
20. Used the NSA to wiretap both the offices and private residences of UN Ambassadors in 2002-2003 to try and discern how members were likely to vote on the Iraq war resolution before the crucial vote in 2003.
21. According to Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, claims he was given authorization to leak details of the still classified National Intelligence Estimate (with regards to the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame) by Cheney, who received that authorization by President Bush himself. If true, never before has a President selectively "declassified" classified information without going through the normal National Security vetting process and then pass that information along only to specific individuals (eg: Bob Novak) in the media rather than broad public disclosure. The White House claims it did nothing wrong, but why then would Novak attribute his source to "a former high-ranking WH official" if nothing improper was taking place?

--------- Reasons to hate Bush - by Mugsy (not all are crimes) ---------

o A draft-dodging, coke snorting, professed former (and current?) alcoholic that got *everything* he ever "achieved" in life thanks to who his daddy is.

o Despite best evidence that Osama bin Laden was in hiding out in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in December 2001, President Bush did not send in ANY U.S. ground troops to surround the area and move in to capture bin Laden ("Sadly, there were more American journalists on the ground at the battle of Tora Bora than there were U.S. soldiers" - Vanity Fair, January 2005, pg 153), instead relying on Afghani rebel fighters coordinated by a handful of CIA agents, supported only by air-to-ground bombing runs. 300 Taliban and al-Qa eda forces managed to hold off Afghani forces long enough for bin Laden to escape. General Tommy Franks, who ridiculed Senator John Kerry's allegation during the 2004 Presidential campaign that President Bush allowed bin Laden to slip away at Tora Bora, wrote in his autobiography "American Soldier" that in December 2001 he advised President Bush, "Unconfirmed reports have it that Osama has been seen in the White Mountains, Sir. The Tora Bora area."

o Ignoring the Aug 6, 2001 PDB that warned of a possible terrorist attack by bin Laden, and his first meeting with his "terrorism czar" not taking place until just ten days before 9/11 and lasting all of ten minutes.

o Spending over a quarter of his entire time in office "on vacation" (the most in history, surpassing even Reagan) clearing brush on his "ranch" ("Ranch" is in quotes because there are no animals on it, and you'll never see a photo of Dubya on a horse because he is rumored to be afraid of them).

o Took the focus off Osama... the guy who actually attacked us... not just on 9/11, but the USS Cole just before the 2000 election... to go after someone who was not a threat to the United States, on wildly exaggerated accusations of "stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons", "mobile weapons laboratories" and "uranium yellowcake from Niger"

o The infamous "17 words" from his 2003 State of the Union Address where he knowingly lied before Congress and the American people by citing a long-disproved report as "proof" of Saddam's actively attempting to build a nuclear weapon, in order to frighten the American people into supporting a costly, unnecessary and illegal revenge war.

o "Mission Accomplished"

o Nation Building

o Starting a war with no exit strategy that is costing $135 MILLION DOLLARS A DAY.

o The vindictive outing of an undercover CIA agent (former President Bush Sr... former head of the CIA himself under Ford... once called anyone that outed a covert CIA agent "the most insidious of traitors") in a veiled attempt to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson who dared reveal that he told the Bush White House that the claim of Saddam seeking uranium from Niger, later found to be based upon some REALLY badly forged documents, was completely false.

o Telling reporters "Anyone involved in leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent would no longer be working in my administration", but when it is discovered that it was his own top advisor Karl Rove that leaked the information, changed his promise to "Anyone convicted of leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent...". Is that really the bar we want to set for working in the White House? Anyone just short of conviction is welcome to work in this administration? Apparently so, Republicans tried to change the House ethics rules for Tom DeLay that say "you can not remain Majority Leader if you've been indicted", but were shamed into backing off pushing for the rules change once the press got ahold of it.

o 13 major negative news stories for the Bush Administration are coincidentally followed, sometimes by just mere hours, by "major terrorism events", many of which result in the raising of the White House's color-coded "Traffic Light of Fear" (link)

o The Vice President's former company, of which he still has financial ties to, raking in BILLIONS in hand-delivered no-bid contracts that last for years

o Appointing unqualified cronies to positions of power within the government, even resulting in a massive logistical failure that costs over 1,000 lives (and counting).

o Giving coveted "day passes", intended for visiting reporters from out of town access to the WH Press Briefing room, to a gay-prostitute owing $20,000 in back taxes (can you say "blackmail risk"?) from an extreme Right-Wing "web-only" news outlet, every day for over a year, often within 15 feet of the President of the United States in a time of war?

o The doubling of the price of gas, $66/barrel oil, a 142% increase in the price of natural gas in just one year after condemning the previous administration during the 2000 campaign for "not getting tough with the Saudis" to bring oil prices down (gas was under $1.40/gal at the time).

o Raising the National Debt ceiling to $9 TRILLION DOLLARS (3/16/06) and rubber-stamping some of the most pork-laden spending bills in history while continuing to push for further tax cuts that benefit only the top 1/2 of 1% of the wealthiest Americans while cutting food stamps, student loans and social services.

o "Uniter not a divider"

o "A new era of morality and personal responsibility"

o Fake reporters & paying reporters to push propaganda: Other than Gannon/Guckert mentioned above, "fake news" propagandists include Armstrong Williams, who was paid to promote/praise President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" (a program Williams had previously criticized). Various other, lower-profile reporters were also paid to push WH propaganda, and the WH itself produced "Fake News" segments, complete with authentic looking "reporters" using fake names, that were distributed to TV stations across the country for broadcast.
....Finally in 2005, after "fake news" was disavowed in the U.S., it was revealed that the Pentagon had started paying Iraqi reporters to print "news stories" touting successes in Iraq, that were written by a public relations firm in the U.S. and printed in Iraqi newspapers with no mention or attribution to the United States government as having written them. The White House justifies the stories as "counter-propaganda", but never explained the need for "deception" in not revealing the source of the story.

o Enron - During the 2000 Presidential campaign, Presidential Candidate Governor George W. Bush flew around the country on the personal private jet of family friend Ken "Kenny-Boy" Lay, CEO of Houston-based Enron. Candidate Bush even floated the possibility of appointing Lay to the job of "Energy Secretary". Following the scandalous fall of Lay's company Enron and the loss of hundreds of millions of pension dollars owed to employees, only two people (CFO Andrew Fastow and his wife) have yet to be convicted of any crime.

o 6,700+ dead Americans as a direct result of incompetence. (3,000 on 9/11, 2,300 in Iraq/Afghanistan and at least 1,400 - and growing - from hurricane Katrina)

o The Patriot Act

o Cherry picking Iraq intelligence

o Party-girl daughters arrested for underage drinking with "fake ID's" (like no one would recognize them???)

o Staged photo ops, then claimed they weren't staged.

o "Loyalty oaths" to attend campaign rallies "open to the public".

o Protester "free speech zones".

o Incessant lying to the media.

o "The Nuclear Option"

o Repeatedly breeching the separation of Church and State.

o Flying back early to "save" Teri Schiavo, but attends John McCain's B-day Party the day after Katrina hits.

o "Conservatizing" PBS.

o Massive media conglomeration (Clear Channel, etc.)

o The crippling of stem-cell research (only one usable line among the few that were permitted.)

o "No Child Left Behind", an unfunded mandate

o The "Clear Skies initiative"

o Ignoring the UN to bomb Iraq for "ignoring the UN".

o Trying to privatize Social Security.

o Banned the re importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.

o Abu Ghraib

o Army recruitment in the toilet.

o Deploying the National Guard overseas for three years (use of the National Guard as "active duty troops" was meant to be permitted only in "extreme circumstances" where a direct threat to the security of the United States exists. Most states have laws limiting NG/R deployment to a maximum of 18 months as anything longer is an undo burden on the families, employers and communities to be without their services.

o A White House that's overrun with draft dodging Chicken Hawks that don't hesitate to send others off to die, but had "other priorities" when their time to serve came.

o Sending troops into harms way in a war of choice w/o the necessary armor.

o Paul Bremmer disbanding the Iraqi Army.

o George Tenant's "Slam Dunk".

o "Purple heart band-aids"

o Pissing away a ground-swell of global compassion after 9/11.

o Author of most costly Medicare entitlement program in history with a "Prescription Drug Program" that actually forbids bargaining and competition to control costs (showing just how loyal Republicans really are to the concept of a "free market economy").

o Too "buddy buddy" with the religious right.

o Diebold/CS&S

o Bush always "flipping off" someone.

o Bush is in fact inconsequential. They don't even bother to interrupt his bike ride when Capitol Hill is evacuated (Cessna violates airspace).

o Appoints "I'm not qualified" Porter Goss to head CIA.

o Appoints "UN hating" John Bolton as Ambassador to the U.N.

o Spirted away members of the bin Laden family in the U.S. immediately after 9/11.

o Long-time family ties to the bin Laden family.

o Disturbingly close ties to the Saudi royal family.

o Never said "imminent threat".

o The looting after the fall of Baghdad.

o Attempting to cut veterans benefits while soldiers are at war.

o Rampant chronyism: Michael "Brownie" Brown (7 of top ten FEMA officers)

o Harriet "Harry" Miers

o Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan - Undercover "double agent" spying for Brittish Intelligence (MI6) within al-Qaeda, outed by the Bush Administration in mid-sting during the 2004 Presidential Campaign in order to justify the raising their "Traffic light of Fear" terrorist threat level immediately following the Democratic DNC Convention that gave Kerry a boost in the polls. Exposing Khan forced MI6 to move in before they were ready, sweeping up only minor terrorism figures, while simultaneously destroying a valuable intelligence asset and jeopardizing future investigations.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2349262

[Dover]

8. Excellent list! Thanks.

Gonna bookmark this thread.

[earth mom]

9. Kicked & Recommended & Bookmarked! nt

[hfojvt]

12. there used to be a "scorecard of evil"

at the Wageslavejournal.com, but then the owner of that site got hired by the DNC to run their blog "kicking a$$". Now I cannot find the "scorecard of evil" online. Matt Bivens used to do a "daily outrage" on the Nation's website too, but quit shortly after the 2004 election.