Jeb Bush was the Republican Governor of the State of Florida and brother of the Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush.

Republican Secretary of State, Katherine Harris was also co-chair of Bush’s Florida campaign, clearly a conflict of interest in conducting a fair and impartial election. Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris promised to “Deliver Florida” to George W. Bush as reported in numerous newspaper articles.

Secretary of State, Katherine Harris and Governor Jeb Bush had the motive and the means to make sure Florida’s decisive electoral votes were “delivered” to George W. Bush.

They accomplished this by illegally purging thousands of black voters off of the Florida voter rolls, ensuring a rigged, unfair advantage to George W. Bush, as shown in the above video.

As shown in the “2000 Election Rigged for Bush” video, ChoicePoint / DBT was given a $4 million no-bid contract under the Jeb Bush administration which wrongly and illegally purged thousands of African Americans from the Florida voter rolls.

 

Jeb Bush’s secret weapon

94,000 people on a voter “purge” list — half of them African-American — continue to be banned from voting in Florida, even though the state knows the list is wildly inaccurate.

Jeb Bush’s secret weapon

94,000 people on a voter “purge” list — half of them African-American — continue to be banned from voting in Florida, even though the state knows the list is wildly inaccurate.

 

Jame Lee, Vice President of Choicepoint / DBT testified to a panel called by US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney that the State of Florida Division of Elections stated it only wanted 80% accuracy on the list. In other words, to be identified as a convicted felon, one only need to have a similar name to that as someone listed on a Texas convicted felon’s list. You can view Mr. Lee’s testimony in the above video.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice “Florida registrants were purged from the rolls if 80 percent of the letters of their last names were the same as those of persons with criminal convictions. Those wrongly purged included Reverend Willie D. Whiting Jr., who, under the matching criteria, was considered the same person as Willie J. Whiting. Without specific guidelines for or limitations on the authority of election officials conducting purges, eligible voters are regularly made unnecessarily vulnerable. As it turned out, almost everyone on the Florida purged voters list had the right to vote”.

 

Antonin Scalia and his Corporate Republican appointed majority of 5 “justices” subverted democracy & engaged in partisan politics by stopping the 2000 election vote count. The above video explains the shocking details.

This caused George W. Bush to be installed as President. At the time the votes were stopped by the Supreme Court, there were only 154 votes separating Al Gore from George W. Bush (as detailed in the above video).

With only 154 votes separating Al Gore from George W. Bush, it’s easy to see how purging thousands of black voters being off of the Florida voter rolls rigged the 2000 election and handed it to George W. Bush on a Silver Platter.

If all of the illegally disqualified voters had been allowed to vote and all votes counted, the total votes would have decisively shown Al Gore to be the winner of the State of Florida and therefore the Presidency.

It was the Jeb Bush Administration’s illegal voter purge and Republicans who subverted Democracy by not allowing the votes to be counted that caused the installation of George W. Bush and the US to have a conservative majority in the Supreme Court.

 

 

Let’s not forget that Al Gore received 543,895 more votes than George W. Bush. Al Gore was the majority of American’s choice for president so Democracy was violated.

This is another example of how elections are “rigged” for Republicans… so even when they “lose”… they “WIN”.

 

REPUBLICANS DETERMINED TO STOP THE VOTE COUNT, OBSTRUCTED DEMOCRACY

As stated in the above article, “John Bolton was one of the pack of lawyers for the Republican presidential ticket who repeatedly sought to shut down recounts of the ballots from Florida counties before those counts revealed that Gore had actually won the state’s electoral votes and the presidency”.

“Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor David Leahy argued at the time that 2,257 voters had apparently attempted to mark ballot cards for Gore or Bush but had not had them recorded because they had been improperly inserted into the voting machines. A hand count of those ballots revealed that 302 more of them would have gone for Gore than Bush. That shift in the numbers from just one of Florida’s 67 counties would have erased more than half of Bush’s 537-vote lead in the state”.

“But attempts to conduct a hand count were repeatedly blocked by the Bush-Cheney team, culminating with Bolton’s December 9 announcement that, “I’m here to stop the count.” A few days later, the U.S. Supreme Court would stop the count permanently, with a pro-Bush ruling in which five Republican-appointed justices, in the words of noted attorney Vincent Bugliosi, “committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law.”

 

2000 Election GOP House Thugs “Brooks Brothers Riot” also helped stop the Florida Recount which might have declared Al Gore the winner.

 

In this clip from the 2015 CNN documentary Bush v Gore, John “Mac” Stipanovich admits Republicans were determined to stop the vote count to make sure George W. Bush was installed as President. This proves Republicans only cared about winning and to hell with Democracy or the will of the American people.

 

 

According to Lance deHaven-Smith, in his book entitled The Battle for Florida…

“Top Republicans used the powers of their offices to inject partisanship and instill fear down through the ranks of the state bureaucracy. In 1998 political operatives working for the Speaker of the house secretly examined voter registration records to learn the party affiliations of specific state employees and to identify agencies with high concentrations of Democrats.

After it was determined that the most Democratic agency in the state government was the Florida Department of education, the department was restructured and the positions of many of its employees were eliminated. Florida law forbids any consideration of partisan orientations in state hiring, firing, and contracting, but it fails to contemplate the more sinister possibility that highly partisan elected officials might purge the state bureaucracy indirectly by reorganization and privatization.”

According to hermes-press.com, “No sooner had he taken the oath of office than Jeb Bush began ferreting out and replacing Democrats throughout Florida state government, his first purge of Democratic voters. Jeb and his cohorts let special interests know that they expected political donations of $2 for every $1 donated to Democrats or defaulters would lose access to the governor and the legislative leadership“.

 

On Election Day 2000, rich white Republican voters stood in short lines and used up-to-date equipment, including electronic machines that let them correct their ballots.

African-American Voters Blocked from Reaching Polling Places by Police Roadblocks

Things were different in black districts. Some voters were flagged down at roadblocks, where highway patrol officers checked their drivers’ licenses. This was documented in sworn testimony to The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. (Click here for more details).

Others waited in long lines for an inadequate number of booths and ancient recording equipment. All too often, innocent citizens whose names appeared on the ex-felons list were informed for the first time that they could not vote when they showed up at the polling place.

Some votes were simply trashed by ballot handlers. In Duval County, 27,000 ballots were discarded, over half of them from black precincts in Jacksonville. No official challenges were filed within the 72-hour time limit, so thousands of mostly Democratic votes were lost. Sixteen-thousand votes for Gore disappeared overnight from the ongoing Volusia County tally and were reinstated only when an election supervisor questioned the subtraction of already registered votes. No voting machine company representative or election official was able to explain what happened.

Greg Palast, an award-winning American reporter based in England, broke the story of the scrub list and documented its sleazy origins in The Observer, London, November 26, 2000. Updates, as well as each edition of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy have added irrefutable, hard evidence of fraud. (Palast’s most recent estimate of all qualified Florida voters barred from casting a ballot in Election 2000 stands at 90,000.)

The story was huge in Europe, but the American press ignored it completely. Massive civil rights violations that subverted an election just didn’t resonate with the mainstream press. On January 10, 2001, lawyers acting for the NAACP sued and won their case against ChoicePoint’s DBT, Secretary of State Katherine Harris (who coincidentally was enthusiastically co-chairing the Bush campaign), and Bush loyalist Clay Roberts, Director of the Division of Elections. In July 2002, to atone for its staggering error rate of 95%, DBT agreed to remove innocent voters from the now infamous list of purported ex-felons. (In 2002, the purge list hadn’t been corrected. In 2004, another suspicious list appeared. (end quote from hermes-press)

 

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2000 Election Investigation Recommended that the U.S. Department of Justice should “immediately initiate the litigation process against the governor” (Jeb Bush)

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights conducted an extensive public investigation of allegations of voting irregularities during the 2000 presidential election in Florida.

“There emerges a confluence of circumstances that indicates intimidation and harassment of the Florida voters, and that was set in motion long before the November election,” said Commissioner Victoria Wilson of the US Commission on Civil Rights in their report, “Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election.” Issued June 8, 2001, the report accuses Florida election officials of “gross dereliction” and “injustice.”

To follow is some of the text from the report at http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch9.htm

“Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election”

“The investigation, utilizing the Commission’s subpoena power, included three days of hearings, more than 30 hours of testimony, 100 witnesses, and a systematic review of more than 118,000 pages of pertinent documents.

Responsibility Without Accountability

Florida’s governor is the state’s chief executive officer who “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” Florida’s secretary of state is the chief election officer and oversees the Division of Elections. Each county has an elected supervisor of elections, except one. Together, the secretary of state and the county supervisors of elections preside over Florida’s elections.

Governor John Ellis Bush

When asked about his responsibilities to ensure the election laws of Florida were faithfully executed during the November 2000 election, Governor Bush testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that he had no real legal authority over election matters except for certifying the election and serving as a member of the state canvassing board. He indicated that he recused himself from participating on the state canvassing board because his brother was one of the presidential candidates. Governor Bush testified that “governors have the moral authority . . . to make sure that the laws, not only the state laws, but . . . also federal laws are upheld. . . .” When asked what authority and responsibility he had regarding preparation for the 2000 presidential election, Governor Bush testified that he had none and that “the secretary of state and the 67 supervisors of elections were responsible for that, and they carried out their duties.”

Under the Florida Constitution, the governor is charged with ensuring that “the laws be faithfully executed,” a responsibility Governor Bush apparently delegated to others with respect to elections. Under Florida election law, the governor is also specifically empowered to “appoint special officers to investigate alleged violations of the election laws . . .” Governor Bush testified that he had not appointed any officers to do any investigation of alleged irregularities surrounding the November 2000 election but would “if there was a reason to do so.” As of the date of this report there is no indication that the governor has exercised this authority by appointing special officers to investigate the widespread allegations of violations of the Florida election law”.

Findings:

Despite the closeness of the election, it was widespread voter disenfranchisement, not the dead-heat contest, that was the extraordinary feature in the Florida election.

Disenfranchisement of Florida voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of African Americans. Statewide, based on county-level statistical estimates, African American voters were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected in the November 2000 election.

Recommendations:

• The U.S. Department of Justice should immediately initiate the litigation process against the governor, secretary of state, director of the Division of Elections, specific supervisors of elections, and other state and local officials responsible for the execution of election laws, practices, and procedures, regarding their contributions, if any, to the extraordinary racial disparity in the rate that votes were rejected, through their actions or failure to act before and during the 2000 presidential election, in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended. Appropriate enforcement action should be initiated to ensure full compliance with the election laws.

• The Civil Rights Division in the Office of the Florida Attorney General should initiate the litigation process against state election officials who violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, and/or Title IX of the Florida statutes through their actions or failure to act before, during, and after the November 2000 election. Based on the results of the investigation, appropriate enforcement action should be initiated to ensure full compliance with the election laws.

• The U.S. Department of Justice and the Civil Rights Division in the Office of the Florida Attorney General should initiate the litigation process against all state election officials who through their actions or failure to act violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended, by not obtaining preclearance either from the federal district court of Washington, D.C., or the U.S. attorney general. Based on the results of the investigation, appropriate enforcement action should be initiated to ensure full compliance with the election laws”.

END OF QUOTE:

Note that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that the “U.S. Department of Justice should immediately initiate litigation process against the governor, secretary of state, director of the Division of Elections, specific supervisors of elections, and other state and local officials responsible for the execution of election laws”.

I do not recall this significant fact ever being reported by the news media or anyone on the national level and it’s certainly not being reported or discussed now at a time when Jeb Bush is running for President.

The American people has a right to know about this.

The news media also has a duty to report why Governor Jeb Bush, the Florida Secretary of State Kathleen Harris and director of the Division of Elections were not prosecuted as recommended by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

The Complete U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2000 Election Investigation Report report can be found at the links below;

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/exesum.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch1.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch2.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch3.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch4.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch5.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch6.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch7.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch8.htm

http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/ch9.htm

 

MISSING EMAILS

According to an article posted at American Bridge

“Bush used a personal email address as governor, and there are messages missing. As the Washington Post reporters, “Bush used his personal email address, jeb@jeb.org, to conduct official, political, and personal business…” but Bush’s email disclosure website (which was already public and available at the Florida state archives) lacks many key messages, including any messages between Jeb Bush and his brother, then-President George W. Bush.

Media accounts establish that Bush, not the State of Florida, decided which private emails to disclose – apparently nothing would have stopped the Bush team from selectively leaving out politically problematic emails. As the Tampa Bay Times reported, “The Bush files, though enormous, are not complete” because they lacked “emails the governor deemed not relevant to the public record.” In other words, Bush selected what was “relevant” or not for the public record, not civil servants.

The numbers do not add up. In 2007 Bush claimed he received 2.5 million emails on his public accounts, and 550,000 emails on his private accounts (Source, Naples Daily News, 7/12/07). Bush’s “disclosure” only contains a total of 250,000 emails. (Source, New York Times, 2/9/15)

There are media reports that Bush only recently “completed” handing over emails, despite leaving office eight years ago, potentially violating the law. A Bloomberg politics reporter Michael Bender tweeted today that “FL law requires govs to turn over emails after leaving office. Jeb didn’t finish turning over emails until last year.” He further tweeted that “Bush may not have complied with FL law until considering a presidential campaign. 119.021(4)(a).” That statute requires that “Whoever has custody of any public records shall deliver [them], at the expiration of his or her term of office…”.

News reports such as the one posted at MSNBC indicate that Jeb Bush used a private, personally owned email server.   Full article at https://americanbridgepac.org/jeb-bush-hypocrisy-on-email-disclosure/

 

According to an article posted at MotherJones.com

Bush’s email archive, which includes more than 250,000 messages, has produced no piercing insights or major news stories about his gubernatorial stint. There are an immense number of emails from constituents weighing in on the issues of the day. But when it comes to the major issues of his governorship, there are—curiously—very few, if any, emails between Bush and his aides.

This email archive is not easy to search. It is comprised of 248 separate files and is hardly user-friendly. This search yielded little correspondence revealing Bush’s actions and decisions regarding pivotal events. It turns out that what’s most notable about Bush’s email trove is what’s not in it“. END QUOTE from Mother Jones. Click here to view the full article.

It is rather amazing how the News Media and Republicans are hounding Hillary Clinton about housing her emails on a personally owned email server, but you never hear Democrats or the News Media say anything about Jeb Bush doing the same thing.  And the mainstream News Media hasn’t said anything about Jeb Bush’s missing emails.

One can’t help but wonder if incriminating evidence may have been destroyed in the thousands of Jeb Bush’s emails which are missing and unaccounted for.

The News Media should be asking questions about this.

 

Florida Governor’s Office in Tallahassee Made 95 Telephone calls to the George W. Bush Presidential Campaign

When it became clear that the disputed Florida election could deliver the White House to his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush publicly stated that he recused himself from any official role in the recount, to avoid the “slightest appearance of a conflict of interest.”

Despite his stated hands-off policy, six of his staffers took unpaid leaves to volunteer on the recount.

Bush’s communications director in July 2001, Katie Baur, said, “While he recused himself from any involvement in what happened after Nov. 7, he did not recuse himself from his role as a brother.” What’s not known is that the level of direct involvement was, frankly, enormous.

The Los Angeles Times reported on July 14, 2001, “The Florida governor’s office in Tallahassee made 95 telephone calls to the George W. Bush presidential campaign, its advisers, lawyers and staffers during the 36-day recount period, records show. At least 10 calls came from an office number used primarily by Jeb Bush, including one call to a private line in George W. Bush’s gubernatorial office in Austin.

Another call from Jeb Bush’s number went to Karl Rove, his brother’s campaign strategist. One went to the Texas governor’s chief of staff, Clay Johnson. Another went to Michigan Gov. John Engler, who soon flew to Florida to monitor the ballot recount in Broward County. Additional calls were logged to cell phones assigned to Bush campaign staffers.

In an e-mail to The Times, Jeb Bush said he could not recall the purpose of the calls. “I have no clue what these calls were about,” he wrote.

Supporters of former Democratic nominee Al Gore have questioned whether Jeb Bush used his position to influence events behind the scenes after the election. It now appears he was more involved than he has publicly acknowledged.

The governor visited the state GOP headquarters in Tallahassee that functioned as the Bush campaign command center for the recount at least once, for example. He also dialed into at least one conference call with campaign operatives, aides said.

Full article at http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jul/14/news/mn-22362

 

THE RIGGED ELECTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH CAUSED THE FOLLOWING EVENTS;

Per article at (http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=4&threadid=2895278&start=271&CurrentPage=10) and copies found elsewhere on the internet, here’s just a few of the crimes and misdeeds as a result of the installation of George W. Bush as President

• Installation of George W. Bush, a illegitimate president who was not elected by the American people
• Lying to the American People about Weapons of Mass Destruction to justify War Against Iraq
• Declaring and Engaging in a Illegal and unprovoked War against Iraq
• Deaths and Injuries: Causing the deaths of 4,475 Americans, 32,331 wounded Americans and the deaths of over 112,000 Iraqi Civilians
• Debt of 10 Trillion dollars due to tax cuts and unpaid for wars
• Appointment of Radical Right Wing Supreme Court ideologue “Justices” Samuel Alito & John Roberts, who voted to destroy the Voting Rights Act, Citizens United allowing billionaires to buy elections and Hobby Lobby Decision which allows non coverage of birth control pills for companies owned by religious objectors. After the Supreme Court ruling, 22 states have passed Voter ID laws that make it more difficult to vote. Texas also rammed through their new gerrymandered districts that, prior to this decision, would have required a per-clearance from the Department of Justice.
• The creation of ISIS due to the invasion of Iraq, be-headings and people being burned alive
• War Crimes: In the case of Hamdan vs Rumsfeld, it was proven that numerous war crimes have been committed by the Bush Administration in the war against Iraq, including the preemptive invasion itself. This does not include the unaccounted-for millions of dollars lost in Iraq or the unlawful management by the US State Department regarding the US Contractors operating in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Holding and torturing prisoners being held without due process at Guantanamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal are also serious war crimes.
• Outing of a CIA Agent: The outing of Valerie Plame-Wilson by the Bush Administration, admitted by the CIA as being a covert agent, has led directly to Dick Cheney and possibly directly to the President.
• Spying on Americans: President Bush has admitted to his program of warrentless spying against millions of Americans in violation of the Forth Amendment and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
• Missing e-mails: Two federal statutes require presidential communications, including White House e-mails, to be preserved for the nation’s historical records. From 2001 to October 2003, the White House records system over-wrote all their e-mail files, and up to 2005, some e-mails still were not fully preserved. CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) and the National Security Archives allege that millions of e-mails are missing from White House servers. (It is interesting that the timing of these lost e-mails is when most of the major illegal Bush activities were occurring.)
• Misuse of e-mail systems: Both the Republican National Committee e-mail system and the White House system were used within the White House to perform partisan political activities. As the White House is public property, it is against the law to do partisan political business while on public White House property.
• Unlawful FBI Activities: The ACLU has released documents showing that the Bush Administration directed the FBI to expand the definition of “domestic terrorism” to include citizens engaged in nonviolent protest and civil disobedience. This is totally unconstitutional.
• Firing of US Attorneys: This was a successful attempt by the President to use his US Attorney General and the US Justice Department for partisan political gains. VIDEO
• Response to Hurricane Katrina: This was a demonstration of gross negligence by the Bush Administration. A major, obvious betrayal of public trust.
• Scooter Libby: Bush Obstructed and Shorted-Circuited Justice when he commuted the prison sentence of “Scooter” Libby. This was another example of TWO JUSTICE SYSTEMS… one for the “Rich and Well-Connected” and another for everyone else.
• Koch Industries was indicted by the DoJ in 2000 for knowingly dumping “at least 91 metric tons of uncontrolled benzene in its liquid waste streams” at its Corpus Christi refinery, and for conspiring to cover it up in an attempt to deceive regulators.After George W. Bush took office in 2001, however, “his Attorney General John Ashcroft dropped 88 counts against Koch for the benzene spill and cover-up” in exchange for a guilty plea to falsifying documents and a $20 million fine (a settlement from $350 million in potential fines.)The Kochs made out pretty well in exchange for their $32,200 contribution to the 2000 Bush campaign.  [Source: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8778]
• And much more…

 

 

George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq which led to the illegal invasion and war against Iraq. That war was clearly illegal because Iraq did nothing to the United States and therefore George W. Bush had no legitimate reason to attack Iraq. The Iraq war caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi citizens and over 4,000 Americans.

 

Secret 9/11 Memo Reveals the warnings George W. Bush Ignored which costs thousands of lives

 

New report reveals what President Bush knew leading up to 9/11 attack

 

UN Could Prosecute Bush for War Crimes, Says Ex-U.S. Terror Czar

Former U.S. “terror czar” Richard Clarke said George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are probably guilty of war crimes and could be prosecuted by the UN. by Alex Newman

 

Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia

By Yvonne Ridley | May 12, 2012 | Asia Pacific, News & Analysis, US | 483 | The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found George W. Bush guilty of war crimes in absentia for the illegal in…

George W. Bush has been convicted of War Crimes by a tribunal in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

 

Bush & Cheney Should Be Charged with War Crimes Says Col. Wilkerson, Former Aide to Colin Powell

Calls are increasing for the prosecution of George W. Bush administration officials tied to the CIA torture program. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch called on Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint a special prosecutor who would investigate the crimes detailed in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the program. On Monday, The New York Times editorial board called for a full and independent criminal investigation. We put the question about prosecution to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005.

 

George Bush, Dick Cheney war crimes: Torture

Rachel Maddow, guest host on countdown with Keith Olbermann, comments on the newly emerging evidence of the Bush White House’s role in promoting torture.

The ICRC report on CIA interrogation techniques concluded categorically that they were “torture”–not “tantamount to torture” as previously reported–and issued an explicit warning to the U.S. Administration that the use of these techniques was a war crime which might subject U.S. leaders to criminal prosecution. This is the real potential headline maker from the book.

– She provides a number of grueling examples of the application of the techniques including the brutal murder of Manadel al-Jamadi, the placement of prisoners in closed coffins for prolonged periods, and one instance in which a below-the-knee amputee with a prosthesis who had his prosthesis taken away and was forced to stand for hours on one foot, hanging from a rail.

– She traces the development of the torture techniques to the work of two contractors, Mitchell and Jessen, and disclosed the specific techniques they developed. She notes that the techniques rely heavily on a theory called “Learned Helplessness” developed by a Penn psychologist Martin Seligman, who assisted them in the process. All of this was done under the thin pretext of being a part of the SERE program. Seligman is a former president of the American Psychological Association. This helps explain why the APA alone among professional healthcare provider organizations failed to unequivocally condemn torture and mandate that its members not associate themselves with the Bush Administration techniques. – She describes an internal CIA investigation by IG Helgerson which concluded that the program violated the Geneva Conventions and U.S. criminal law. Vice President Cheney intervened directly, calling Helgerson directly into his office and speaking with him, after which the CIA report was stopped in its tracks.

– Steven Bradbury at DOJ was asked to resolve this by crafting opinions that gave CIA full latitude to torture, with no restraints–setting aside the opinions crafted by Dan Levin which authorized techniques only within narrow constraints. After Bradbury rendered opinions exactly as solicited on his “probation,” Bush personally expressed his pleasure with Bradbury’s performance and nominated him to head OLC. – According to James Comey, AG Gonzales repeatedly told him that he fully appreciated that the CIA program was torture and was criminal but he couldn’t oppose or block it because “Cheney wants it.”

– The role of the torture lawyers in crafting the system is far more intimate than they have acknowledged. John Yoo, Michael Chertoff and Alice Fisher reviewed specific techniques which clearly amounted to torture and blessed them as fine to use, and then lied publicly and to Congress about their involvement. Yoo is said to have given his legal blessing to torture techniques and their application by DOD operatives on the squash court as he played rounds with Jim Haynes.

– A staff attorney at DOJ names Jessica Radack was fired and then hounded by Chertoff and Fisher after she dispensed correct advice to the effect that John Walker Lindh could not be interviewed by the FBI without being Mirandized and having his attorney present. This advice was overridden by Alberto Gonzales and Jim Haynes, who then had DOJ files purged to remove any evidence that the correct advice had ever been rendered. The purging of the files was carried out by Alice Fisher, who went on to head the Criminal Division. When a district court judge demanded to see the DOJ’s internal communication on the matter, he was told that there were no records.

– Mayer believes that there was criminal obstruction, carried out by the head of the Department’s Criminal Division. – Mayer portrays Cheney as the man who introduced and pushed torture from the beginning and David Addington as his “fixer.” According to her, they never lost a battle.

 

Iraq Veteran Confronts Ex-President George W. Bush On War Deaths

 

 

50 Reasons why George W. Bush was the Worst President Ever

1. He stole the presidency in 2000. Republicans in Florida purged more than 50,000 African-American voters before Election Day, and then went to the Supreme Court where the GOP-appointed majority stopped a recount that would have awarded the presidency to Vice-President Al Gore if all votes were counted. National news organizations verified that outcome long after Bush had been sworn in.

George W. Bush was and is a illegitimate president.

2. Bush’s lies started in that race. Bush ran for office claiming he was a uniter, not a divider. Even though he received fewer popular votes than Gore, he quickly claimed he had the mandate from the American public to push his right-wing agenda.

3. He covered up his past. He was a party boy, the scion of a powerful political family who got away with being a deserter during the Vietnam War. He was reportedly AWOL for over a year from his assigned unit, the Texas Air National Guard, which other military outfits called the “Champagne Division.”

4. He loved the death penalty. As Texas governor from 1995-2000, he signed the most execution orders of any governor in U.S. history—152 people, including the mentally ill and women who were domestic abuse victims. He spared one man’s life, a serial killer.

5. He was a corporate shill from Day 1. Bush locked up the GOP nomination by raising more campaign money from corporate boardrooms than anyone at that time. He lunched with CEOs who would jet into Austin to “educate” him about their political wish lists.

6. He gutted global political progress. He pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol which set requirements for 38 nations to lower greenhouse gas emissions to combat climate change, saying that abiding by the agreement would “harm our economy and hurt our workers.”

7. He embraced global isolationism. He withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, over Russia’s protest, taking the U.S. in a direction not seen since World War I.

8. He ignored warnings about Osama bin Laden. He ignored the Aug. 6, 2001 White House intelligence briefing titled, “Bin Laden determined to strike in the U.S.” Meanwhile, his chief anti-terrorism advisor, Richard Clarke, and first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, testified in Congress that he was intent on invading Iraq within days of becoming president.

9. Ramped up war on drugs, not terrorists. The Bush administration had twice as many FBI agents assigned to the war on drugs than fighting terrorism before 9/11, and kept thousands in that role after the terror attacks.

10. “My Pet Goat.” He kept reading a picture book to grade-schoolers for seven minutes after his top aides told him that the World Trade Centers had been attacked in 9/11. Then Air Force One flew away from Washington, D.C., vanishing for hours after the attack.

11. Squandered global goodwill after 9/11. Bush thumbed his nose at world sympathy for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks, by declaring a global war on terrorism and declaring “you are either with us or against us.”

12. Bush turned to Iraq not Afghanistan. The Bush administration soon started beating war drums for an attack on Iraq, where there was no proven Al Qaeda link, instead of Afghanistan, where the 9/11 bombers had trained and Osama bin Laden was based. His 2002 State of the Union speech declared that Iraq was part of an “Axis of Evil.”

13. Attacked United Nation weapons inspectors. The march to war in Iraq started with White House attacks on the credibility of U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq, whose claims that Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons proved to be true.

14. He flat-out lied about Iraq’s weapons. In a major in October 2002, he said that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to send unmanned aircraft to the U.S. with bombs that could range from chemical weapons to nuclear devices. “We cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud,” he said.

15. He ignored the U.N. and launched a war. The Bush administration tried to get the U.N. Security Council to authorize an attack on Iraq, which it refused to do. Bush then decided to lead a “preemptive” attack regardless of international consequences. He did not wait for any congressional authorization to launch a war.

16. Abandoned international Criminal Court. Before invading Iraq, Bush told the U.N. that the U.S. was withdrawing from ratifying the International Criminal Court Treaty to protect American troops from persecution and to allow it to pursue preemptive war.

17. Colin Powell’s false evidence at U.N. The highly decorated soldier turned Secretary of State presented false evidence at the U.N. as the American mainstream media began its jingoistic drumbeat to launch a war of choice on Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

18. He launched a war on CIA whistleblowers. When a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson, wrote a New York Times op-ed saying there was no nuclear threat from Iraq, the White House retaliated by leaking the name and destroying the career of his wife, Valerie Plame, one of the CIA’s top national security experts.

19. Bush pardoned the Plame affair leaker. Before leaving office, Bush pardoned the vice president’s top staffer, Scooter Libby, for leaking Plame’s name to the press.

20. Bush launched the second Iraq War. In April 2003, the U.S. military invaded Iraq for the second time in two decades, leading to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths and more than a million refugees as a years of sectarian violence took hold on Iraq. Nearly 6,700 U.S. soldiers have died in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

21. Baghdad looted except for oil ministry. The Pentagon failure to plan for a military occupation and transition to civilian rule was seen as Baghdad was looted while troops guarded the oil ministry, suggesting this war was fought for oil riches, not terrorism.

22. The war did not make the U.S. safer. In 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate (a consensus report of the heads of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies) asserted that the Iraq war had increased Islamic radicalism and had worsened the terror threat.

23. U.S. troops were given unsafe gear. From inadequate vests from protection against snipers to Humvees that could not protect soldiers from roadside bombs, the military did not sufficiently equip its soldiers in Iraq, leading to an epidemic of brain injuries.

24. Meanwhile, the war propaganda continued. From landing on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare “mission accomplished” to surprising troops in Baghdad with a Thanksgiving turkey that was a table decoration used as a prop, Bush defended his war of choice by using soldiers as PR props.

25. He never attended soldiers’ funerals. For years after the war started, Bush never attended a funeral even though as of June 2005, 144 soldiers (of the 1,700 killed thus far) were laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetary, about two miles from the White House.

26. Meanwhile, war profiteering surged. The list of top Bush administration officials whose former corporate employers made billions in Pentagon contracts starts with Vice-President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, which made $39.5 billion, and included his daughter, Liz Cheney, who ran a $300 million Middle East partnership program.

27. Bush ignored international ban on torture. Suspected terrorists were captured and tortured by the U.S. military in Baghdad’s Abu Gharib prison, in the highest profile example of how the Bush White House ignored international agreements, such as the Geneva Convention, that banned torture, and created a secret system of detention that was unmasked when photos made their way to the American media outlets.

28. Created the blackhole at Gitmo and renditions. The Bush White House created the offshore military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as secret detention sites in eastern Europe to evade domestic and military justice systems. Many of the men still jailed in Cuba were turned over to the U.S. military by bounty hunters.

29. Bush violated U.S. Constitution as well. The Bush White House ignored basic civil liberties, most notably by launching a massive domestic spying program where millions of Americans’ online activities were monitored with the help of big telecom companies. The government had no search warrant or court authority for its electronic dragnet.

30. Iraq war created federal debt crisis. The total costs of the Iraq and Afghan wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion, when the long-term medical costs are added in for wounded veterans, a March 2013 report by a Harvard researcher has estimated. Earlier reports said the wars cost $2 billion a week.

31. He cut veterans’ healthcare funding. At the height of the Iraq war, the White House cut funding for veterans’ healthcare by several billion dollars, slashed more than one billion from military housing and opposed extending healthcare to National Guard families, even as they were repeatedly tapped for extended and repeat overseas deployments.

32. Then Bush decided to cut income taxes. In 2001 and 2003, a series of bills lowered income tax rates, cutting federal revenues as the cost of the foreign wars escalated. The tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthy, with roughly one-quarter going to the top one percent of incomes compared to 8.9% going to the middle 20 percent. The cuts were supposed to expire in 2013, but most are still on the books.

33. Assault on reproductive rights. From the earliest days of his first term, the Bush White House led a prolonged assault on reproductive rights. He cut funds for U.N. family planning programs, barred military bases from offering abortions, put right-wing evangelicals in regulatory positions where they rejected new birth control drugs, and issued regulations making fetuses—but not women—eligible for federal healthcare.

34. Cut Pell Grant loans for poor students. His administration froze Pell Grants for years and tightened eligibility for loans, affecting 1.5 million low-income students. He also eliminated other federal job training programs that targeted young people.

35. Turned corporations loose on environment. Bush’s environmental record was truly appalling, starting with abandoning a campaign pledge to tax carbon emissions and then withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases. The Sierra Club lists 300 actions his staff took to undermine federal laws, from cutting enforcement budgets to putting industry lobbyists in charge of agencies to keeping energy policies secret.

36.. Said evolution was a theory—like intelligent design. One of his most inflammatory comments was saying that public schools should teach that evolution is a theory with as much validity as the religious belief in intelligent design, or God’s active hand in creating life.

37. Misguided school reform effort. Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” initiative made preparation for standardized tests and resulting test scores the top priority in schools, to the dismay of legions of educators who felt that there was more to learning than taking tests.

38. Appointed right-wing judges. Bush’s two Supreme Court picks—Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito—have reliably sided with pro-business interests and social conservatives.

The predominantly conservative Supreme Court has been making partisan decisions including;

• Destroying the Voting Rights Act – After the Supreme Court ruling, 22 states have passed Voter ID laws that make it more difficult to vote. Texas also rammed through their new gerrymandered districts that, prior to this decision, would have required a pre-clearance from the Department of Justice.
• Citizens United allowing billionaires to buy elections
• Hobby Lobby Decision which allows non coverage of birth control pills for companies owned by religious objectors.

If George W. Bush had not been president, these rulings would never happened.

He also elevated U.S. District Court Judge Charles Pickering to an appeals court, despite his known segregationist views.

39. Gutted the DOJ’s voting rights section. Bush’s Justice Department appointees led a multi-year effort to prosecute so-called voter fraud, including firing seven U.S. attorneys who did not pursue overtly political cases because of lack of evidence.

40. Meanwhile average household incomes fell. When Bush took office in 2000, median household incomes were $52,500. In 2008, they were $50,303, a drop of 4.2 percent, making Bush the only recent two-term president to preside over such a drop.

41. And millions more fell below the poverty line. When Bill Clinton left office, 31.6 million Americans were living in poverty. When Bush left office, there were 39.8 million, according to the U.S. Census, an increase of 26.1 percent. The Census said two-thirds of that growth occurred before the economic downturn of 2008.

42. Poverty among children also exploded. The Census also found that 11.6 million children lived below the poverty line when Clinton left office. Under Bush, that number grew by 21 percent to 14.1 million.

43. Millions more lacked access to healthcare. Following these poverty trends, the number of Americans without health insurance was 38.4 million when Clinton left office. When Bush left, that figure had grown by nearly 8 million to 46.3 million, the Census found. Those with employer-provided benefits fell every year he was in office.

44. Bush let black New Orleans drown. Hurricane Katrina exposed Bush’s attitude toward the poor. He didn’t visit the city after the storm destroyed the poorest sections. He praised his Federal Emergency Management Agency director for doing a “heck of a job” as the federal government did little to help thousands in the storm’s aftermath and rebuilding.

45. Yet pandered to religious right. Months before Katrina hit, Bush flew back to the White House to sign a bill to try to stop the comatose Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube from being removed, saying the sanctity of life was at stake.

46. Set record for fewest press conferences. During his first term that was defined by the 9/11 attacks, he had the fewest press conferences of any modern president and had never met with the New York Times editorial board.

47. But took the most vacation time. Reporters analyzing Bush’s record found that he took off 1,020 days in two four-year terms—more than one out of every three days. No other modern president comes close. Bush also set the record for the longest vacation among modern presidents—five weeks, the Washington Post noted.

48. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld. Not since Richard Nixon’s White House and the era of the Watergate burglary and expansion of the Vietnam War have there been as many power-hungry and arrogant operators holding the levers of power. Cheney ran the White House; Rove the political operation for corporations and the religious right; and Rumsfeld oversaw the wars.

49. He’s escaped accountability for his actions. From Iraq war General Tommy Franks’ declaration that “we don’t do body counts” to numerous efforts to impeach Bush and top administration officials—primarily over launching the war in Iraq—he has never been held to account and was not impeached as he should have been.

50. He may have stolen the 2004 election as well.
Never in the history of exit poll data has there been there such a discrepancy which showed Kerry was winning and yet when the votes were counted, BUSH won. Phd Professors and Mathematical Scholars has certified that exit poll data has historically been accurate within 3% of the actual votes counted. They have stated that what happened in 2004 was mathematically impossible and the only explanation is that the 2004 election was rigged

Article written by By Steven Rosenfeld at http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/50-reasons-you-despised-george-w-bushs-presidency-reminder-day-his-presidential?page=0%2C2

 

This Bush Lie Mashup Will Make You Angry All Over Again

 

This is the REAL George W. Bush… responsible for THOUSANDS of DEATHS and a ILLEGITIMATE PRESIDENT.