It's a little bit over a week until election time, so it's time to pull out all the stops. I have spent all night compiling and thoroughly researching this list. The ultimate, definitive, undeniable list of reasons why Bush has been bad, and will continue to be be bad, for America. It has no attacks on his complete inability to speak English. It has no attacks on Halliburton. It has no attacks on Dick Cheney's daughter (if you seriously care about that, you're an idiot). It's just the facts, ma'am, based on Bush's policy choices and his treatment of the American public.
The result? Empirical proof that Bush is the worst President this country has ever had. Again, I have spent quite a bit of time researching this stuff, so I put sources for the points you're not likely to have heard before or likely to believe. If you still want to doubt any of these points, I have sources and quotes all from reputable publications, so if you try to challenge me without being really educated on a particular issue, I will embarrass you horribly.
On to the fun part!
1. War on Terror: PATRIOT Act
Self-explanatory. Way too over-reaching, has no checks/balances written in. 2. War on Terror: Exposing cover of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan
We blew Khan's cover to the media as a means of saying "Look! We're making progress!" That's fucking stupid. 3. War on Terror: Exposing cover of Valerie Plame
Plame's cover was blown by the White House in retaliation for her husband (Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Gabon) who was a whistleblower. 4. Iraq: the invasion was premeditated
The Project for a New American Century (a neo-con think tank) planned the Iraq war before Bush took office. Its membership includes Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and more undersecretaries/assistants of the Cabinet than you'd like to know. 5. Iraq: 9/11 was used to take us to Iraq unnecessarily
The 9/11 commission report shows no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq EVER existed. If you say "We thought they could have been there, so we went," you are an idiot. Here in the real world, not having evidence for something gets you nowhere. 6. Intelligence: the CIA is being used to political ends
"Intelligence failure" is a term the White House gave to an intelligence service that couldn't fit its political needs. Remember Condoleeza's testimony that *she saw the memo* entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US"? 7. Intelligence: the CIA is still being used to political ends
LA Times (10/19) reports that the White House is suppressing the release of a new CIA report on 9/11 until after the election. And this one "names names." 8. Wendy's: OK, this isn't Bush-related, but Mr. Wendy seriously is just plain lame. 8. Domestic Fascism: RIAA/MPAA poised to take power
If re-elected, Ashcroft will push through Congress a set of laws requested by the entertainment lobby, making filesharing a felony and banning any device that can conceivably copy a copyrighted work. 9. 9/11: It IS Bush's fault
As one of his first acts in office, Bush cut the FBI Counter-Terrorism budget to 1/3 of its amount as Clinton left office. Clinton, meanwhile, was criticized for being "obsessed about Bin Laden." 10. Environmental policy: reclassification
Changing designations of certain environmental hazards saves the government money, and it's also very dangerous. Dumping of waste from coal mining is now "fill" and "high-level" radioactive waste is now "incidental." You can piece that together, right? 11. Environmental policy: Clean Skies
It's an opposite name. It allows the release of more mercury than under the Clean Air act, for example. 12. Environmental policy: Healthy Forest
See above. No longer does the Forest Service report to the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service - and don't take the fish talk to mean it was an irrelevant agency, those are actually authorities on rare/endangered species. The Forest Service is in charge of the American logging industry. 13. Homeland Security: Assault Rifles are on the market
The Assault Weapons ban sunset at the beckon of the NRA. The statistics all show this ban worked like a miracle, so if you're a gun nut shut the hell up, you're wrong. 68% of Americans wanted it renewed. 2,000 law enforcement agencies wanted it renewed. 14. Iraq: We're cheating in reconstruction
Forget Halliburton: We can't account for 8.8 billion dollars spent because the money was accounted as paying guards that don't exist. See Reuters 8/19/04. 15. Economic policy: Christmas Tree condemned by McCain
A giant economic bailout was handed out last week to the "manufacturing industry," which by the White House's definition included completely irrelevant firms and workers like the fast food industry. 16. Education: "No Child Left Behind" Left Behind
Bush is cutting the funding, because the money isn't even being found in the budget to pay for it. As of now it's short by 9.4 billion of the $34b expenditure. 17. Education: Is your college tuition going up?
Because mine went up 50% between my freshman and sophomore years. Seriously, $2200 to $3300 (per semester) at the University of Texas. Bush's tax cuts and program cuts broke the state of Texas and the Texas legislature took it upon itself to jack the funding from the public school system. Most other states did the same. 18. Separation of Church and State: No President has been as tied to the Church as Bush.
Abortion is a moral issue so I'm sitting out of that one, but abstinence-only education has left 46% of America's kids having sex. Give them (and our adult women) contraception and sterilization education, please. 19. Environmental policy: Bush ignores global warming by human causes
Even Bush's administration put out a report citing CO as the cause of global warming, yet Bush denies any knowledge of it. The scientific community argues a lot about global warming, the concensus IS that it exists and has human causes. See Popular Science magazine (spring 2004) for details. 20. 9/11: the White House knew
In July 2001, Ashcroft was warned by an FBI threat assessment not to use commercial air travel. He used a private jet from then on. (Wash. Post 3/22/04) 21. Corruption: Koch Industries let off the hook
Halliburton aside, the Bush administration is taking it easy with oil companies everywhere. Koch was sued at the end of the Clinton administration for illegal emissions and stealing oil from Native American land, and the Bush administration allowed Koch to settle for less than 10% of the charges levied against the firm. Oh, and Koch has donated $7 million to the Republican cause since 1998. (Center for Public Integrity) 22. Campaign lies: Bush can lie again
"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming."
—George W. Bush, accepting the Republican nomination for president, August 3, 2000
(Bush promises no draft this time. Keep that in mind.) 23. Education: Bush is leaving facilities behind
Bush attempted to repeal the America's Better Classroom Act, which promised funding for the maintenance of public school buildings. You guys know how bad those are, unless you live in a cave. 24. Mmmmm. Kim Bauer.... huh? where were we? 24. Health: Bush wants veto on WHO experts
The WHO just laughed at Bush for this, but the fact that he would even try to get health experts approved by a political appointee is just ridiculous. (LA Times 6/26) 25. Iraq: Bush cheated to get American support, and not just 9/11
The White House released in October 2002 the status of pilot Captain Michael Scott Speicher as "missing/captured" in Iraq, leading us to think he had been shot down and captured. Small problem: Speicher had been shot down and KILLED in Iraq in 1991. (AP 7/17/04) 26. Environmental policy: Bush water causes cancer
Clinton's EPA implemented a $2.5m/yr program to lower arsenic in drinking water. Bush reversed it, resulting in water that could easily up the risk of cancer. (The Nation 9/23/03) Oh, and that cancer bit? That's from the National Academy of Sciences. I did my homework, bitch. 27. Health: Bush refuses $1B for AIDS aid
Why? National AIDS programs only allow American name-brand drugs to be involved (no generics), and the international money goes to programs in foreign countries that allow contraception. Bush's religion hurts the world. 28. Church and State violations: Christ Day?!
WHAT THE HELL?! 29. Environmental: Energy Star not fully funded since 2001
Energy Star may look familiar to hardcore computer users, but that's just a fraction of the large EPA campaign to reduce energy consumption by most large household appliances. 30. Important people hate Bush
A group called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, consisting of 27 retired officers hailing from both parties, called for Bush to get out in November. The group includes officers from the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, including pivotal officers in the First Gulf War. 31. Propaganda: Bush illegally supplies fake journalism to TV stations to promote Medicare
Remember this story? The White House gave a piece to the networks to run about the Medicare prescription drug bill? The "journalists" there were actors. That constitutes propaganda, and since it was done with federal funds, the General Accounting Office (Congress's investigative branch) declared it illegal. Nothing happened. 32. Irresponsible political allies: Bush engineers election of white supremacist
Haley Barbour won the governorship of Mississippi with Bush's help in 2003, despite Barbour's connections to the Council of Conservative Citizens: a group that supports Back-to-Africa, denies the Holocaust, and wants Asians and Latinos out of the country. Backwards and stupid, simple as that. 33. Justice System: Bush appointed a white supremacist
In January '04, while Congress was off on ski trips, Bush appointed Charles W. Pickering, a notorious civil rights opponent, to the US Court of Appeals. This HAD to be done on vacation because the Senate blocked his appointment for the last two years. 34. Communications freedom: Bush allows monopolization
Bush's appointment of the new FCC chair in June 2003 deregulated media company control of multiple outlets in the same market. Dislike ClearChannel? Dislike Sinclair? Dislike News Corporation? If you vote Bush, expect more of the same, and enjoy your newly strengthened distrust of the media. 35. Economics: My prediction was wrong
It's 2 weeks to the election, and gas prices didn't dramatically fall. In fact, they're still drastically higher than they were 4 years ago despite the administration's massive help to energy companies. 36. Military: Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Bush claimed in debate to be raising military pay. He's actually cutting it for active-duty soldiers and veterans, as well as extra benefits such as dependent care. 37. Iraq: We're not ready at all
The back-door draft complaints have some gravity, if only because we're calling Ready Reserves (soldiers who have long returned to civilian life and have gone months/years without training) into duty to go to Iraq. 38. Paging Mr. Skywalker: Star Wars, anyone?
Is the man insane? Ballistic missile defense? The scientific community is still laughing at this. Even with the ridiculous amount of money Bush has put into it, it's nowhere near enough to produce a system that's accurate or reliable. The money is better spent covering more of the US borders - it's more likely an explosive will hit us that way. 39. Foreign Policy: Afghanistan's a mess, does anyone care?
The media seemed to overlook the fact that we are, in fact, still in Afghanistan. Bush touted the free elections about to happen in the debates, but they were actually so chaotic it made Central America look tame. There were 15 men running for head of state and on election day, more than half decried the election as a fraud. 40. If the only reason you're going to vote is because P. Diddy said so, that's really sad. 40. Cheating: Bush cuts funding for Help America Vote Act
The almost $4b promised to the HAVA Act, which aimed to clarify voting regulations to citizens and prevent voters from getting turned away, was cut down to $500m. Blacks everywhere would be enraged, if they knew it happened. 41. Cheating: Bush/Cheney using church to recruit votes
The campaign is beating around the bush to spread the campaign into the church by spreading pamphlets to church volunteers who happen to be Republican. Some instructions include: "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04," and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign." (Wash Post 7/1/04) 42. Cheating: Voters Outreach for America destroying Democrat voter registrations
Eric Russell, a former employee, blew the whistle to media around Las Vegas. He personally witnessed his supervisor and her assistant destroy Democrat registrations. It's founded by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona Republican. He was found collecting almost 14,000 false signatures to get Nader on the ballot in Arizona as well. 43. Cheating: Ohio absentee ballots DON'T HAVE KERRY ON THEM.
Sorry! This one isn't true. I missed the story where this is only double-digit numbers of ballots sent to voters and the counties involved fixed it. So it's 42 reasons.
It doesn't get any more obvious. Vote Kerry - if they'll let you. That is it! If you still aren't convinced that Bush is wrong, and for that reason alone putting Kerry in the White House is right, you are stupid beyond redemption. Sorry. You seriously just are. Update: Please get this thing circulating, especially to your friends and family outside Texas. Do the really gay email mass-forward thing, post it on a forum, send it around, take credit for writing it yourself, I really don't care. The only thing I care about with this is getting this list moving and letting the 43 points speak for themselves.
Self-explanatory. Way too over-reaching, has no checks/balances written in. 2. War on Terror: Exposing cover of Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan
We blew Khan's cover to the media as a means of saying "Look! We're making progress!" That's fucking stupid. 3. War on Terror: Exposing cover of Valerie Plame
Plame's cover was blown by the White House in retaliation for her husband (Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Gabon) who was a whistleblower. 4. Iraq: the invasion was premeditated
The Project for a New American Century (a neo-con think tank) planned the Iraq war before Bush took office. Its membership includes Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and more undersecretaries/assistants of the Cabinet than you'd like to know. 5. Iraq: 9/11 was used to take us to Iraq unnecessarily
The 9/11 commission report shows no connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq EVER existed. If you say "We thought they could have been there, so we went," you are an idiot. Here in the real world, not having evidence for something gets you nowhere. 6. Intelligence: the CIA is being used to political ends
"Intelligence failure" is a term the White House gave to an intelligence service that couldn't fit its political needs. Remember Condoleeza's testimony that *she saw the memo* entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the US"? 7. Intelligence: the CIA is still being used to political ends
LA Times (10/19) reports that the White House is suppressing the release of a new CIA report on 9/11 until after the election. And this one "names names." 8. Wendy's: OK, this isn't Bush-related, but Mr. Wendy seriously is just plain lame. 8. Domestic Fascism: RIAA/MPAA poised to take power
If re-elected, Ashcroft will push through Congress a set of laws requested by the entertainment lobby, making filesharing a felony and banning any device that can conceivably copy a copyrighted work. 9. 9/11: It IS Bush's fault
As one of his first acts in office, Bush cut the FBI Counter-Terrorism budget to 1/3 of its amount as Clinton left office. Clinton, meanwhile, was criticized for being "obsessed about Bin Laden." 10. Environmental policy: reclassification
Changing designations of certain environmental hazards saves the government money, and it's also very dangerous. Dumping of waste from coal mining is now "fill" and "high-level" radioactive waste is now "incidental." You can piece that together, right? 11. Environmental policy: Clean Skies
It's an opposite name. It allows the release of more mercury than under the Clean Air act, for example. 12. Environmental policy: Healthy Forest
See above. No longer does the Forest Service report to the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service - and don't take the fish talk to mean it was an irrelevant agency, those are actually authorities on rare/endangered species. The Forest Service is in charge of the American logging industry. 13. Homeland Security: Assault Rifles are on the market
The Assault Weapons ban sunset at the beckon of the NRA. The statistics all show this ban worked like a miracle, so if you're a gun nut shut the hell up, you're wrong. 68% of Americans wanted it renewed. 2,000 law enforcement agencies wanted it renewed. 14. Iraq: We're cheating in reconstruction
Forget Halliburton: We can't account for 8.8 billion dollars spent because the money was accounted as paying guards that don't exist. See Reuters 8/19/04. 15. Economic policy: Christmas Tree condemned by McCain
A giant economic bailout was handed out last week to the "manufacturing industry," which by the White House's definition included completely irrelevant firms and workers like the fast food industry. 16. Education: "No Child Left Behind" Left Behind
Bush is cutting the funding, because the money isn't even being found in the budget to pay for it. As of now it's short by 9.4 billion of the $34b expenditure. 17. Education: Is your college tuition going up?
Because mine went up 50% between my freshman and sophomore years. Seriously, $2200 to $3300 (per semester) at the University of Texas. Bush's tax cuts and program cuts broke the state of Texas and the Texas legislature took it upon itself to jack the funding from the public school system. Most other states did the same. 18. Separation of Church and State: No President has been as tied to the Church as Bush.
Abortion is a moral issue so I'm sitting out of that one, but abstinence-only education has left 46% of America's kids having sex. Give them (and our adult women) contraception and sterilization education, please. 19. Environmental policy: Bush ignores global warming by human causes
Even Bush's administration put out a report citing CO as the cause of global warming, yet Bush denies any knowledge of it. The scientific community argues a lot about global warming, the concensus IS that it exists and has human causes. See Popular Science magazine (spring 2004) for details. 20. 9/11: the White House knew
In July 2001, Ashcroft was warned by an FBI threat assessment not to use commercial air travel. He used a private jet from then on. (Wash. Post 3/22/04) 21. Corruption: Koch Industries let off the hook
Halliburton aside, the Bush administration is taking it easy with oil companies everywhere. Koch was sued at the end of the Clinton administration for illegal emissions and stealing oil from Native American land, and the Bush administration allowed Koch to settle for less than 10% of the charges levied against the firm. Oh, and Koch has donated $7 million to the Republican cause since 1998. (Center for Public Integrity) 22. Campaign lies: Bush can lie again
"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam: When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming."
—George W. Bush, accepting the Republican nomination for president, August 3, 2000
(Bush promises no draft this time. Keep that in mind.) 23. Education: Bush is leaving facilities behind
Bush attempted to repeal the America's Better Classroom Act, which promised funding for the maintenance of public school buildings. You guys know how bad those are, unless you live in a cave. 24. Mmmmm. Kim Bauer.... huh? where were we? 24. Health: Bush wants veto on WHO experts
The WHO just laughed at Bush for this, but the fact that he would even try to get health experts approved by a political appointee is just ridiculous. (LA Times 6/26) 25. Iraq: Bush cheated to get American support, and not just 9/11
The White House released in October 2002 the status of pilot Captain Michael Scott Speicher as "missing/captured" in Iraq, leading us to think he had been shot down and captured. Small problem: Speicher had been shot down and KILLED in Iraq in 1991. (AP 7/17/04) 26. Environmental policy: Bush water causes cancer
Clinton's EPA implemented a $2.5m/yr program to lower arsenic in drinking water. Bush reversed it, resulting in water that could easily up the risk of cancer. (The Nation 9/23/03) Oh, and that cancer bit? That's from the National Academy of Sciences. I did my homework, bitch. 27. Health: Bush refuses $1B for AIDS aid
Why? National AIDS programs only allow American name-brand drugs to be involved (no generics), and the international money goes to programs in foreign countries that allow contraception. Bush's religion hurts the world. 28. Church and State violations: Christ Day?!
WHAT THE HELL?! 29. Environmental: Energy Star not fully funded since 2001
Energy Star may look familiar to hardcore computer users, but that's just a fraction of the large EPA campaign to reduce energy consumption by most large household appliances. 30. Important people hate Bush
A group called Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, consisting of 27 retired officers hailing from both parties, called for Bush to get out in November. The group includes officers from the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations, including pivotal officers in the First Gulf War. 31. Propaganda: Bush illegally supplies fake journalism to TV stations to promote Medicare
Remember this story? The White House gave a piece to the networks to run about the Medicare prescription drug bill? The "journalists" there were actors. That constitutes propaganda, and since it was done with federal funds, the General Accounting Office (Congress's investigative branch) declared it illegal. Nothing happened. 32. Irresponsible political allies: Bush engineers election of white supremacist
Haley Barbour won the governorship of Mississippi with Bush's help in 2003, despite Barbour's connections to the Council of Conservative Citizens: a group that supports Back-to-Africa, denies the Holocaust, and wants Asians and Latinos out of the country. Backwards and stupid, simple as that. 33. Justice System: Bush appointed a white supremacist
In January '04, while Congress was off on ski trips, Bush appointed Charles W. Pickering, a notorious civil rights opponent, to the US Court of Appeals. This HAD to be done on vacation because the Senate blocked his appointment for the last two years. 34. Communications freedom: Bush allows monopolization
Bush's appointment of the new FCC chair in June 2003 deregulated media company control of multiple outlets in the same market. Dislike ClearChannel? Dislike Sinclair? Dislike News Corporation? If you vote Bush, expect more of the same, and enjoy your newly strengthened distrust of the media. 35. Economics: My prediction was wrong
It's 2 weeks to the election, and gas prices didn't dramatically fall. In fact, they're still drastically higher than they were 4 years ago despite the administration's massive help to energy companies. 36. Military: Liar Liar Pants on Fire
Bush claimed in debate to be raising military pay. He's actually cutting it for active-duty soldiers and veterans, as well as extra benefits such as dependent care. 37. Iraq: We're not ready at all
The back-door draft complaints have some gravity, if only because we're calling Ready Reserves (soldiers who have long returned to civilian life and have gone months/years without training) into duty to go to Iraq. 38. Paging Mr. Skywalker: Star Wars, anyone?
Is the man insane? Ballistic missile defense? The scientific community is still laughing at this. Even with the ridiculous amount of money Bush has put into it, it's nowhere near enough to produce a system that's accurate or reliable. The money is better spent covering more of the US borders - it's more likely an explosive will hit us that way. 39. Foreign Policy: Afghanistan's a mess, does anyone care?
The media seemed to overlook the fact that we are, in fact, still in Afghanistan. Bush touted the free elections about to happen in the debates, but they were actually so chaotic it made Central America look tame. There were 15 men running for head of state and on election day, more than half decried the election as a fraud. 40. If the only reason you're going to vote is because P. Diddy said so, that's really sad. 40. Cheating: Bush cuts funding for Help America Vote Act
The almost $4b promised to the HAVA Act, which aimed to clarify voting regulations to citizens and prevent voters from getting turned away, was cut down to $500m. Blacks everywhere would be enraged, if they knew it happened. 41. Cheating: Bush/Cheney using church to recruit votes
The campaign is beating around the bush to spread the campaign into the church by spreading pamphlets to church volunteers who happen to be Republican. Some instructions include: "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04," and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign." (Wash Post 7/1/04) 42. Cheating: Voters Outreach for America destroying Democrat voter registrations
Eric Russell, a former employee, blew the whistle to media around Las Vegas. He personally witnessed his supervisor and her assistant destroy Democrat registrations. It's founded by Nathan Sproul, an Arizona Republican. He was found collecting almost 14,000 false signatures to get Nader on the ballot in Arizona as well. 43. Cheating: Ohio absentee ballots DON'T HAVE KERRY ON THEM.
Sorry! This one isn't true. I missed the story where this is only double-digit numbers of ballots sent to voters and the counties involved fixed it. So it's 42 reasons.
It doesn't get any more obvious. Vote Kerry - if they'll let you. That is it! If you still aren't convinced that Bush is wrong, and for that reason alone putting Kerry in the White House is right, you are stupid beyond redemption. Sorry. You seriously just are. Update: Please get this thing circulating, especially to your friends and family outside Texas. Do the really gay email mass-forward thing, post it on a forum, send it around, take credit for writing it yourself, I really don't care. The only thing I care about with this is getting this list moving and letting the 43 points speak for themselves.