The Bush Legacy
George Walker Bush - 43rd president of the United States. First ever
with a criminal record. Our third story tonight, his presidency: eight
years in eight minutes. early in 2001 the U.S. fingered Al Qaeda for
the bombing of the USS Cole.
Bush counter terrorism adviser Richard Clarke had a plan to take down
Al Qaeda.
instead by February the NSC had already discussed invading Iraq, and
had a plan for post-Saddam Iraq. by March 5 Bush had a map ready for
Iraqi oil exploration
and a list of companies.
Al Qaeda?
Rice told Clarke not to give Bush a lot of long memos. Not a big reader.
August 6, 2001, a CIA analyst briefs Bush on vacation:
"Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."
Bush takes no action tells the briefer—quote all right, you've
covered your ass now. next month Clarke requests using new predator
drones to kill Bin Laden. the Pentagon and CIA say no. September 11th
Bush remains seated for several minutes to avoid scaring school children
by getting up and leaving. he then flies around the country and promises
quote a full scale investigation to find those folks who did it.
The Bush Legacy –Eight years of Criminal Conspiracy and Abject Stupidity
January 03
Bush and Blair agree to invade in March. Mr. Bush still telling us
he has not decided telling Blair they should paint an airplane in UN colours
fly it over Iraq and provoke a response a pretext for invasion. The man
who said it would take several hundred thousand troops fired the man who
said it would cost more than a hundred billion fired the man who revealed
Bush's yellowcake lie smeared his wife's covert status exposed the White
House liars who did it and covered it up not fired one convicted.
Bush commutes his sentence then in Iraq, stuff happens: Iraq's army,
disbanded, the government de-Baathified, 200,000 weapons, billions of
dollars just lost, foreign mercenaries immunized from justice, political
hacks run the Green Zone, religious cleansing forcing one out of six Iraqis
from their homes, Abu Ghraib, the insurgency, Al Qaeda in Iraq. Other
stuff does not happen:
WMD, post-war planning, body armour, vehicular armour, the payoff?
Oil, and billions for Halliburton, Blackwater and other companies,While
Mr. Bush denies VA healthcare to 450,000 veterans tries to raise their
healthcare fees blocks the new G.I. Bill and increases his own power with
the USA PATRIOT Act with the Military Commissions Act public orders exempting
himself from a thousand laws and secretly from the Presidential Records
Act.
The Geneva Conventions, FISA, sparking a mass rebellion at the Justice
Department. Secret star chambers for terrorism suspects, overturned
by Hamdan v Rumsfeld. denying habeas corpus, overturned by Boumediene
v Bush. 200 renditionings, sleep deprivation, abuse.
Rumsfeld warned in 2002 that he was torturing that it would jeopardize
convictions out of 550 at Gitmo. Hundreds ultimately go free with no
charges dozens are tortured, eight fatally, three are convicted on
U.S. soil. Twelve hundred immigrants rounded up without due process,
without bail, without court dates, without a single charge of terrorism.
It wasn't just Mr. Bush no longer subject to the rule of law. He slashed
regulations on everyone from banks to mining companies. Appointed 98
lobbyists to oversee their own industries weakening emission standards
for mercury and 650 different toxic chemicals.
Regulators shared drugs and their beds with industry reps. The Crandall
Canyon mine owner told inspectors to back up because his buddy, Republican
Mitch McConnell was sleeping with their boss. McConnell's wife is Bush
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. her agency overruled engineer concerns
about Crandall Canyon and was found negligent after nine miners died
in the collapse there.
Mr. Bush's hands off as Enron blacks out California doubling electric
bills after months of rejecting price caps Mr. Bush bows to pressure.
The blackouts end.
Mr. Bush further deregulates commodity futures, midwifing the birth of unregulated oil markets which just like Enron jack up prices to an all time high until Congress and both presidential candidates call for regulations and the prices fall deregulating financial services and lax enforcement of remaining rules created a housing bubble creating the mortgage crisis creating then a credit crisis devastating industries that rely on credit from student loans to car dealers firms that had survived the Great Depression could not survive Bush those that did got seven hundred billion dollars no strings, no transparency no idea whether it worked unlike the auto bailout which cut workers' salaries. A GOP memo called it a chance to punish unions but Bush failed even when his party and his patrons did not stand to profit. Investigators blamed management cost cutting communication for missed warnings about Columbia. Bush administration convicts include sex offenders at Homeland Security convicted liars every kind of thief in the calendar and if you count things that were not prosecuted the vice president of the United States actually shot a man in the face the man apologized.
Mr. Bush faked the truth with paid propaganda in Iraq on his education policy tried to silence the truth about global warming rocket fuel in our water industry influence on energy policy politicised the truth of science at NASA, the EPA, the National Cancer Institute, Fish and Wildlife and the FDA. His lies exposed by whistleblowers from the cabinet down. "Complete BS" the treasury secretary said of Mr. Bush on his tax cuts.
Rice's mushroom cloud,Powell's mobile labs, Iraq and 9-11, Jack Abramoff,
Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Pat Tillman again, Pat Tillman, again.
The air at Ground Zero. Most responders still suffering respiratory
problems. Global warming, carbon emissions a Clear Skies initiative
lowering air quality standards the Healthy Forests initiative increasing
logging faith based initiatives the cost of Medicare reform, fired US
attorneys, politically synchronized terror alerts, the surge causing
insurgents to switch sides, that abortion causes breast cancer, that
his first recession began under Clinton, that he did not wiretap without
warrants that we do not torture. That American citizen John Walker Lindh's
rights were not violated that he refused the right to counsel heck of
a job Brownie, some survivors still in trailers, New Orleans still at
just two-thirds its usual population. The lie that no one could have
predicted the economic crisis except the economists who did. no one
could have predicted 9-11 except one ass-covering CIA analyst or thirty.
No one could have predicted the levee breach except literally Mr. Bill
in a PSA that aired on TV a year before Katrina Bush actually admitted
that he lied about not firing Rumsfeld because he did not want to tell
the truth.
Look it up. All of it. All of it and more leaving us with ten trillion
in debt, to pay for 31% more in discretionary spending, the Iraq War,
a 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut median income down two thousand dollars.
Three-quarters of all income gains under Bush going to the richest
one percent. Unemployment up from 4.2 to 7.2 percent. the Dow, down
from ten thousand five hundred eighty seven to eighty two hundred seventy
seven. Six million now more in poverty seven million more now without
health care. Buying toxic goods from China. Deadly cribs. Outsourcing
security to Dubai. Still unsecured in our ports and at our nuclear plants.
More dependent on foreign oil.
out of the international criminal court, off the anti ballistic missile
treaty, military readiness and standards down, with two unfinished
wars, a nuclear North Korea, disengaged from the Palestinian problem,
destabilizing eastern European diplomacy with
anti missile plans, and unable to keep Russia out of Georgia, 2000
miles of Appalachian streams, destroyed by rubble from mountaintop
mining, at his last G-8 summit, He actually bid farewell to other world
leaders saying quote—goodbye from the world's greatest polluter.
Consistently undermining historic American reverence for the institutions
that empower us. Education, now "academic elites"
and the law, "activist judges"capping jury awards and Bin Laden?
living today unmolested in a Pakistani safe haven created by a truce
endorsed and defended by George W. Bush and among all the gifts he gave
to Bin Laden the most awful, the most damaging not just to America but
to the American ideal was to further Bin Laden's goal by making us act
out of fear rather than fortitude leaving us with precious little to cling
to tonight.
Save the one thing that might yet suffice:
Hope.
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