http://www.wage-slave.org/scorecard.html
Evil index Evil act Evil details
8-23-2003
Washington Post
Bush relaxes clean air rules. We have to be honest with you: we
thought this was a done deal back in November 2002. (See 11-22-2002
below.) But apparently the EPA is now getting around to implementing
the rules that will gut the Clean Air Act. Under the new Bush rules,
older power plants will be able to expand their operations without
installing new anti-pollution technology. But why should Bush care?
Prevailing wind patterns push all that pollution toward the northeast,
and those states didn't vote for him anyway.
8-22-2003
Associated Press
Bush lies about air quality after September 11 attacks. There's
nothing funny about this at all. After the September 11 attacks, the
EPA told New Yorkers it was safe to live and work near Ground Zero. It
turns out that under White House pressure, the EPA lied about the data
it had and omitted important information about the quality of the air
and what New Yorkers needed to do to stay healthy. It may take years
to see the effects -- possibly birth defects or increased cancer rates
-- of what may be Bush's worst lie yet.
8-18-2003
Time
Bush defunds Teach for America. If you run a nonprofit organization,
beware the photo-op with George W. Bush. It's like the kiss of death:
it may seem friendly at the time, but you'll learn to regret it later.
While those who run Teach for America were optimistic after meeting
Bush the presidential candidate, they found their funding taken away
under Bush the president. Now the program, which gives top students
money for college for teaching in underprivileged communities, has to
eliminate scholarships.
8-17-2003
Washington Post
Bush blocks plan to upgrade nation's power grid. You would think that
in the wake of an enormous power outage that paralyzed much of the
northeast United States and southeast Canada, it wouldn't be difficult
to unite behind a plan to upgrade the power grid. But President Bush
opposes his own handpicked chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission and sides with (surprise, surprise) the energy industry to
oppose the plan. Instead, the administration thinks that more
deregulation is the solution, even though deregulation is largely the
problem in the first place. A deregulated power industry has no
financial incentive to pay the costs of upgrading the grid.
Apparently, Bush hasn't quite learned the lessons from Enron that he
needs to learn yet.
8-14-2003
San Francisco Chronicle
Bush cuts pay for soldiers in Iraq. "And tonight, I have a special
word ... for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United
States: America is grateful for a job well done," said President Bush
as he declared an end to fighting "major" combat operations in Iraq.
Bush has a funny way of showing he's grateful. Under Bush, the
Pentagon cuts imminent danger pay as soldiers die every day in Iraq
and family separation pay as soldiers are separated from their
families for months.
8-12-2003
New York Daily News
Bush uses the IRS and federal funds to send out a campaign letter --
again. Just as with his enormous tax cut in 2001 (see 6-22-2001
below), President Bush is spending millions of taxpayer dollars to
send a letter to folks letting them know about the rebate checks
they'll receive in the mail. The purpose of the letter is nothing more
than to associate Bush's name with the checks, providing a little
campaign boost for the president's reelection.
8-11-2003
Associated Press
Bush pushes plan to make it easier for timber companies to plunder
national forests. Just as President Bush fights the freedom-hating
terrorists by taking away our freedoms, so he fights tree-burning
forest fires by selling off the trees. (See 8-21-2002 below.) On a
break from his annual month-long vacation, Bush takes the opportunity
to promote his tree-destroying program and pretend to be an
environmentalist.
8-9-2003
New York Times
Bush proposes eliminating protections for historical sites from
highway projects. Another no-brainer that's no-brained by the Bush
administration. Of course protecting historical sites should be of
vital importance when you're deciding where to put a major interstate.
And those protections are written into federal law. But if the Bush
administration has its way, they'll be taken out, opening all kinds of
historical sites to desecration and even destruction.
8-7-2003
LA Times
Bush gives oil companies in Iraq blanket immunity from lawsuits.
Whether you think Iraq's oil was a small factor in the decision to go
to war or the main reason, you cannot deny the potential that some of
the companies given contracts to deal with the oil in post-Saddam Iraq
may abuse their new privileges. After all, any company can abuse any
contract. But Bush ensures that oil companies can engage in all the
abuse they want with an executive order that gives them blanket
immunity from lawsuits.
8-7-2003
Washington Post
Bush seeks retribution for judges who use their discretion in
sentencing. Laws that restrict the ability of judges to use their
discretion when sentencing criminals can be the source of grave
miscarriages of justice. Attorney General John Ashcroft wants to make
sure those miscarriages happens as often as possible, so he has asked
federal prosecutors to report any instances of judges imposing more
lenient sentences than the law allows. The law is a blunt instrument,
and discretion in sentencing allows judges to take appropriate action
based on mitigating circumstances. Is it any surprise that Ashcroft
doesn't approve?
8-6-2003
New York Times
Bush proposes cuts to Medicare funding for cancer drugs. Cutting
government healthcare costs is a good goal. When it involves cutting
services for cancer patients, you'd hope the compassionate would rule
out the conservative. But not for the Bush administration, as the
Department of Health and Human Services proposes cutting the amount of
money the government spends on cancer drugs. The administration says
we overpay, but patient advocates say "instead of expanding access to
lifesaving drugs, [the cuts] would limit access to cancer treatments
for some of the most seriously ill Medicare beneficiaries."
7-31-2003
CBS News
Bush promotes a federal ban on gay marriage. Conservatives believe
that gay people getting married somehow threatens heterosexual
marriages. (They never seem particularly clear on how that works.)
President Bush believes that an unsatisfied conservative base somehow
threatens his reelection chances. (It's pretty clear how that works.)
The solution is clear. Bush attacks gay marriage, suggesting that his
administration is working on a way to make it illegal everywhere in
the country. His attack comes at the expense of equality and dignity
for homosexuals, values that Bush has never seemed to hold in high
regard.
7-31-2003
Guardian
Bush shuts down nuclear weapons advisory panel. President Bush has
been pushing for new kinds of nuclear weapons (see 7-6-2003 below),
and there's nothing more inconvenient for that kind of goal than
independent oversight. So the Bush administration eliminates the
independent advisory board to the National Nuclear Security
Administration. Members of the committee had criticized Bush's plans
for new nukes, and the administration hadn't called the committee
together in the year before it was disbanded.
7-29-2003
New York Times
Bush creates a system where people can invest in the possibility of
terror attacks and international upheaval. This one didn't last long,
and it showed just how important it is to have open government. From
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the same folks who
brought us "Total Information Awareness" (and, years ago, the
Internet), comes a project that would encourage investors to risk real
money against the possibility of future events, like the overthrow of
Jordan's king, or terrorist attacks. The idea would be to see whether
such a system would have a predictive effect that would help us see
world events before they happen. But the obvious ethical problems of
essentially betting on chaos, death, and destruction forces the
Pentagon to shut down the sickening project the day it becomes public.
7-22-2003
Reuters
Bush threatens veto if Congress overturns new FCC rules. When
President Bush eased media ownership rules (see 6-3-2003 below), he
never expected trouble from the Republican-controlled Congress. But an
unprecedented public outcry against the new rules has put pressure on
Congress to overturn the FCC's decision. But Bush isn't one to let
something like "the will of the people" get in the way of his
pro-corporate agenda. So he lets Congress know that if it overturns
the new rules, he'll exercise his first veto. How appropriate that it
will go to protect the profits of megacorporations!
7-16-2003
The Nation
Bush exposes an undercover CIA agent in an act of petty vengeance.
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson recently went public to say that he
had investigated President Bush's State of the Union claim that Iraq
tried to purchase uranium from Africa and had found the story not
credible nearly a year before Bush's speech. Given the Bush
administration's record, you'd expect some kind of retaliation or
attempt to discredit Wilson from the White House or its surrogates.
But Bush hits a new low when "senior administration officials" expose
Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA agent to reporter Robert Novak,
ruining her career and possibly endangering her life. Wilson calls it
"a shot across the bow" to others who would speak out against the Bush
administration. Seems like a pretty direct hit to me.
7-9-2003
New York Times
Bush obstructs September 11 investigation. Remember when President
Bush's complaint with the weapons inspectors was that all their
interviews were conducted in front of Iraqi government "minders"?
Apparently he objected to the instance but likes the principle. When
the independent commission (long opposed by Bush) investigating the
attacks of September 11 interviews intelligence personnel, the Justice
Department insists on having a "minder" in the room, chilling
testimony before the commission. And that's just the tip of the Bush
administration obstructionism iceberg. The commission complains of
interference and noncooperation from all over the administration,
noting that "problems that have arisen so far with the Department of
Defense are becoming particularly serious."
7-8-2003
Washington Post
Bush proposes weakening Head Start. Head Start is that rarest of
gems: an effective and universally lauded educational program. So why
mess with success, right? But instead of expanding this preschool
program that has been proven to give children a jump on learning,
President Bush proposes changing the specific federal outlays to block
grants that will give states more "flexibility" to spend the money.
Given that states are in their worst fiscal crises since World War II,
it's likely that they'll stretch the money and direct as much as
possible away from Head Start.
7-6-2003
USA Today
Bush continues to push for new nuclear weapons. Radical conservative
activists like the current President Bush a lot more than they did his
father, and here's one reason why. Where Bush 41 put a moratorium on
U.S. nuclear weapons tests in 1992, Bush 43 not only wants to resume
tests, but wants to create entirely new kinds of nuclear weapons.
Continuing with earlier efforts (see 2-20-2003 below), the Bush
administration argues for smaller nukes that are much more likely to
be used in combat.
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