Tag: torture

What and when did she know?

What and when did she know?

I don’t condone torture for ordinary criminals but I have few problems with torture for those that are involved with terror. So the current issue with Pelosi and having knowledge of waterboarding is a bit hollow. To me, she would do better to say that she had full knowledge of the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and their gallant efforts to protect us.

However, she obviously would rather deny knowledge and condemn the CIA as sadists AND liars! That is her choice but now it appears that she did have knowledge and therefore endorsed the activity implicitly or explicitly.

Which begs the question: What did she know and when did she know it? This also renders another point: When has a politician ever survived that question? We all know that Nixon did not survive it so it is doubtful the Speaker will survive unscathed.

The 100 accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration

The 100 accomplishments of the George W. Bush administration

As I write this, George W. Bush is only a few days away from the end of his 8 year Presidency.  Earlier, I had graded Mr. Bush on a variety of major factors but I felt that I left off a huge number of things that he and his administration did or did not do.  This list is the result of trying to be more inclusive.  Many items on this list are actions by the Mr. Bush and his administration and some of them are inactions.


Economy
1 Increased defense R&D spending
2 Accelerated the cleanup of brownfields
3 Prescription drug benefits in Medicare
4 Ordered renovation of military housing
5 Signed Medicare Reform
6 Allowed disabled people to use up to a year’s worth of vouchers to finance down payments on homes
7 9.7% increase in government-wide homeland security funding
8 Increased budget deficit to Eisenhower levels (% of GDP)
9 New Health Savings Accounts
10 Increased the limit of Education IRA from $500 to $2,000
11 Didn’t fix economy hurt by housing crisis
12 Allowed mortgage crisis
13 Initiated 3 separate raises for US military personnel
14 Increased the Defense Department’s base budget more than 70 percent since 2001
15 Pushed through 2 separate income tax custs
16 Reduced the number of homeless veterans by 40%
17 Fixed economy inherited in 2000 and hurt in 2001 attacks

International

18 Killed the old US/USSR ABM Treaty
19 Paid off US debt to UN
20 Signed the largest nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia
21 10 ABM silos in Alaska
22 Prematurely declares “Mission Accomplished” regarding Iraq
23 Doubled foreign assistance
24 Forced Syra to leave Lebanon
25 Condemned the Russian attack on Georgia
26 Allows Secretary of State to go to UN with false evidence regarding Iraq
27 Won support for three U.N. Security Council resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran
28 Increased the number of free trade agreements from 3 to 14
29 Designated Iraq, Iran and North Korea as “Axis of Evil”
30 Implemented President’s Malaria Initiative in Africa
31 Increased money for medicine for AIDS suffering in Africa
32 Setup the Afghanistan government
33 Halved the nuclear weapon stockpile
34 Secured a commitment from N. Korea to end its nuclear weapon program
35 Watched as Israel attacked Lebanon
36 Iraq invasion
37 Massively increased aid to Africa
38 Got Libya to give up nukes
39 Tried to get Europe to deal with Iran
40 Watched as Israel attacked Gaza
41 Set up new government in Iraq
42 Forced N. Korea to work with multi-national panel
43 Dealt with China and the US spy plane
44 Remove Saddam Hussein
45 Afghanistan occupation
46 Afghanistan invasion
47 Gave Pakistan billions of dollars

Policy

48 Watched passively as Katrina hit New Orleans
49 Denied knowing Ken Lay from Enron
50 Created Project Safe Neighborhood
51 Lifted the Executive Ban on drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf
52 Kept reading children’s books on 9/11
53 Was elected in 2000
54 Made changes to allow necessary clean up of national forests to reduce fire damage
55 Reduced H1B visas from 195K per year to 66K per year
56 Substantially Increased Funding for the Great Lakes
57 Federal Energy and Carbon Sequestration Programs
58 Mandated a Cut in Mercury Emissions
59 Nuclear Power 2010 program
60 Exempt food from unilateral trade sanctions and embargoes
61 Established Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument
62 Put polar bear on endangered species list
63 Eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops
64 Tried to privatize Social Security
65 Reduced drug use among teens by 25%
66 Killed Kyoto Global Warming Treaty
67 issued an executive order that limits access to Presidential papers
68 Ethanol production has quadrupled from 1.6 billion gallons in 2000 to an estimated 6.5 billion gallons in 2007
69 Created the Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors
70 National Space Policy
71 Was re-elected in 2004
72 Created USA Freedom Corps
73 Appointed Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito
74 Appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts
75 Stopped funding of new stem cells for research purposes
76 Reversed the requirement of parental consent for abortions
77 Issued an executive order regarding union dues being used for political campaigns against individual’s wishes
78 Challenged UN to not be the League of Nations
79 Stopped US involvement in International Criminal Court
80 Issued an EO implementing the Supreme Court’s Olmstead ruling
81 Established the The White House Office and the Centers for the Faith-Based and Community Initiative
82 Started the USA Freedom Corps
83 Supported the Law of the Sea treaty
84 Strengthen the National Health Service Corps
85 Ordered a 5 year plan to restructure each agency
86 Reorganized the intelligence agencies into the Department of Homeland Security
87 Put hundreds of thousands of government jobs up for bid
88 Banned partial birth abortions
89 Double the research budget of the National Institutes of Health
90 Enacted the Do Not Call list
91 No child left behind
92 Signed Teacher Protection Act
93 Interstate Air Quality Rule
94 Clear Skies Initiative to reduce air pollution
95 Prohibited federal fund for groups providing abortions

Terrorism

96 Detained foreign citizens in prison without due process
97 Increased border security and interior enforcement funding more than 110 percent
98 Attacked Al Qaida
99 Implemented a wire-tapping scheme to detect conversations with terrorists
100 Allowed torture of suspect terrorists
101 Told American’s to shop after 9/11
102 Dealt with anthrax scare
103 Signed the Patriot Act
104 Created Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) to monitor foreign students
105 Split the Immigration and Naturalization Service into two agencies
106 Signed the workplace verification bill to prevent hiring of illegal aliens.
107 Established a six-month deadline for processing immigration applications.
108 Told Americans that Islam was a religion of peace
109 Created the TSA
110 Created a new air monitoring system to detect harmful airborne agents
111 Signed 2 bills that arm pilots with handguns in the cockpit






And of course the one accomplishment that many people feel is the most important:


A couple of comments on the above list.

  • Yes, I know that there are more than 100 items on the list.  However, I didn’t want someone to say that two items were actually duplicate of each other.  For this reason, I felt that it was prudent to overshoot my goal of 100 in case a reader felt that some should have been excluded.
  • The links to many of the items are not meant to be the definitive source on that topic.  Rather, I wanted to remind the reader of the topic in case you didn’t remember that effort.  My hope was the link would lead you to the discovery of the issue and the action of the Bush Administration.  In the cases where I didn’t include a link, I felt that nearly everyone reading this list would understand those issues or could easily find more information by do a quick web search.
  • I titled this list as the 100 accomplishments.  I fully understand that many will feel that some of these items were failures.  That really isn’t the point.  My goal in creating the list was to try and identify the top 100 or so things that the administration did (or by inaction didn’t do). This is not a scorecard.
  • The list is not ordered by time or importance.  Do not take any inference in the numbering scheme.

Did I miss anything?

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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