Know Bush Fact #21

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:


Two years ago, on Earth Day, Robert Martin, National Ombudsman of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response) for over nine years, resigned.

The Ombudsman’s job was to stand apart from the EPA and perform independent investigations of complaints from citizens to ensure that the EPA remained accountable and true to its mission of protecting human health and the environment, particularly in cleaning up toxic sites.

Even before Bush was in office, Bob Martin was investigating an EPA deal made with Citigroup and one of its several toxic waste sites, Shattuck Chemical Company site in Denver’s Overland Park.

Then Bush arrived, and appointed Christine Todd Whitman, whose husband John Whitman is a top investment manager for Citigroup, to the position of Director of the EPA.

As Martin’s investigation grew to question the obvious conflict of interest here, Ms. Whitman turned on him and announced that his previously independent office would be closed and he would be moved into the office of the EPA Inspector General, under the authority of . . . the Director of the EPA, Christine Todd Whitman.

In the spirit of the Bush opposite-meaning philosophy, Ms. Whitman said, "The General Accounting Office report recommended that the Agency ‘take steps to strengthen the independence' of the ombudsman. By relocating the position to the Office of the Inspector General we are doing just that."

While Martin was out of town on business, she had his files seized and his locks changed. He no longer had access to his files on the Citigroup/Shattuck/Whitman connection. The EPA declared that he no longer had any defined duties and would be stripped of his title.

No longer able to help those he cared about, he resigned.

There is no longer a truly independent Ombudsman for the EPA. The Bush policies that favor industry deals and questionable science are rubber stamped, and calls from residents of toxic neighborhoods are ignored.

Meanwhile, there are pictures of Bush in the wetlands for Earth Day.

To verify/research, Google: "Martin +ombudsman."

- April 23, 2004

Know Bush Fact #20

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

In 2003, promoting his tax cuts, Bush said, "These tax reductions will bring real and immediate benefits to middle income Americans. Ninety-two million Americans will keep an average of $1,083 more of their own money."

However, according to such organizations as The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, The Urban Brookings Institute Tax Policy Center, Citizens for Tax Justice, and many other analysts, these numbers were concocted via mathematical calculations that reveal the unreliability of the word "average".

For example, you take a group of ten people: 9 are unemployed and 1 makes $1,000,000; mathematically you can calculate the average income to be $100,000. It is a number that has nothing to do with truth. This is the same mathematical method that ends with the great-sounding numbers Bush uses to sell his tax cuts.

In actuality that $1083 "average" sits above 80 percent of those filing taxes. The top 20% would make that much and lots more. 80% would receive less than $1083. 50% would get less than $100.

To verify/research, Google "Bush +$1083."

- April 13, 2004

Know Bush Fact #19

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

With many states rejecting Bush’s "No Child Left Behind Act," it is worth learning who benefits from it.

McGraw-Hill is the big winner. "President Bush knows students can succeed if they are using the best materials, proven lesson plans and textbooks aligned with state standards," says the NCLB website under "Investing in What Works."

McGraw-Hill happens to provide all the above materials, and more.

"Education President" Bush promotes Phonics as the best method for teaching reading. Two major phonics courses, "Direct Instruction" and "Open Court Reading," are both published by McGraw-Hill.

McGraw-Hill authors also wrote the official summary of the report of the National Reading Panel presented to explain No Child Left Behind to educators. However, there were important discrepancies between the original report of the National Reading Panel, and their summary.

To wit, the McGraw Hill summary, reviewing the "scientific research" of the NRP stated, "Systematic phonics instruction produces significant benefits for students in kindergarten through sixth grade." The actual NRP report stated, "There were insufficient data to draw any conclusions about the effects of phonics instruction with normally developing readers above first grade."

Apparently McGraw-Hill itself needs further tutoring in comprehensive reading.

Gerald Coles, author of Reading Lessons: The Debate Over Literacy, notes that with phonics, "To cure illiteracy, presumably all children need is a new set of textbooks."

Leading us back to McGraw Hill, textbook publisher.

McGraw-Hill also happens to produce the worksheets, standardized tests, the accountability system in charge of research, development, scoring, reporting, tracking, intervention programs, and the remedial initiatives that are now officially a part of the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as a new website as a school evaluation service.

In addition, McGraw-Hill goes far beyond basic publishing and education, with divisions specializing in homeland security, international investing, and consultation on outsourcing, serving "more than one million professionals within the $3.4 trillion global construction community" and more.

Not surprisingly, the McGraw family and the Bush family go way back, to the 1930's, when great-grandfather Prescott Bush vacationed with James McGraw, Jr at Jupiter Island, Florida, a haven for moneyed people from the Northeast. Through the years since, the back rubbing has been mutual: reflected in board memberships, awards, endorsements, keynote addresses, executive employment, presidential appointments, transition teams, ambassadorships, global marketing and the United Nations.

In March 2003, as the U.S. pre-emptively invaded Iraq, McGraw-Hill published Team Bush: Leadership Lessons from the Bush White House.

McGraw-Hill also published My Pet Goat.

To verify/research, Google "Bush +McGraw."

– April 8, 2004

Know Bush Fact #18

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

While the spotlight is focused on the heightened drama of gay marriage, the Bush administration is withdrawing protection for federal employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Last year, Bush nominated Scott Bloch as head of the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel, to start in January 2004. Mr. Bloch is the former Deputy Director of the Justice Department’s Task Force for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He was a research fellow for the Claremont Institute, an ultra-conservative think tank in California which boasts of "fighting the gay rights initiative." He has hired at least two religious conservative advocates to his staff and offered the #2 post at the OSC to Prof. Robert Carlson of Casper College, Wyoming, known for helping to form an anti-gay campus group.

In February 2004, Bloch removed from the OSC’s printed documents, training slide show, and website all references to discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workforce being illegal.

Bloch doesn’t believe the 1978 law, intended to protect federal employees and job applicants from adverse personnel actions taken against them for reasons unrelated to their job performance, has to be applied to discrimination based on sexual orientation — as it has since 1999.

Bloch argues that there is a distinction between one’s conduct as a gay or lesbian and one’s status as a gay or lesbian. "Someone may have jumped to the conclusion that conduct equals sexual orientation, but they are essentially very different. One is a class... and one is a behavior," Bloch said in a March 10 interview with Federal Times.

Bloch does not equate conduct based on sexual orientation with sexual orientation itself. Such a link would mean gays, lesbians and bisexuals are covered as a protected class, even though they are not protected under the nation’s civil rights laws.

Bloch’s predecessor at the OSC, Washington attorney Elaine Kaplan, called his reading of the law, "dead wrong."

"A member of George Bush's administration is altering decades of federal employment policy based on some of the shoddiest legal reasoning I have seen in my professional career," said Rep. Elliot L. Engel, New York Democrat, in a press conference.

To verify/search, Google: Bush +Bloch +gay

- April 2, 2004

Know Bush Fact #17

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

Despite Bush’s pushing for invasion of Iraq specifically because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was actively developing a nuclear weapons program, Bush and the Pentagon failed to make a serious, high-priority attempt to locate and secure the WMDS or the catalogued nuclear research sites.

Two days after U.S. forces gained control of Iraq on April 9, a good three weeks after invading, Rumsfield said, "When there happens to be a weapon of mass destruction suspect site in an area that we occupy and if people have time, they’ll look at it."

One of the greatest dangers was that the nuclear materials known to exist could get in the hands of terrorists.

In mid April, the International Atomic Energy Agency found the U.S. forces had done nothing to secure Iraq’s major nuclear sites, and requested they move quickly to do so, specifically emphasizing concern for the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research facility.

By April 25, The Washington Post reported that Defense officials couldn’t say if the vast nuclear repository’s deadly contents had been stolen, because they hadn’t dispatched investigators to the site yet. The Pentagon and U.S. Central Command was aware at that time that Tuwaitha, only 11 miles from Baghdad, lay unguarded for days and that looters had been inside.

Five other nuclear facilities were looted as well. Files and containers were missing, barrels containing radioactive material were dumped and for three weeks locals drank and bathed in water containing radioactive material.

Finally, in June, the U.S. and IAEA secured Tuwaitha. While much of the missing material was eventually found and purchased back, there is no way of knowing in whose hands the remaining radioactive materials landed.

High-ranking U.S. officials had to acknowledge that the war that was supposed to make us safer, may prove to have aggravated the proliferation threat Bush said he fought to forestall.

To verify/research, Google: IAEA +Tuwaitha.

- March 30, 2004

Know Bush Fact #16

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

On the eve of the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration issued the following directive through the Pentagon:

"There will be no arrival ceremonies for, or media coverage of, deceased military personnel returning to or departing from Ramstein (Germany) air base or Dover base."

The Dover Air Base is the location of the largest Defense Department mortuary for the remains of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines.

Defense Department spokeswoman Lt. Col. Cynthia Colin stated that the ban on media coverage stemmed from a respect for the families, "to protect their wishes and privacy during the time of greatest loss and grief." Though the "Dover policy" has existed since its creation by George H. W. Bush during the first Gulf War, it went unheeded by the Clinton administration.

"This year," Lt. Col. Colin said in late 2003, "we've really tried to enforce it."

To further sanitize the repercussions of the war, today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" - a familiar term from the Vietnam War. During Bush's father's 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them "human remains pouches."

Now, under Bush, the term for the returning dead is "transfer tubes."

To verify/research, Google: "Bush +Dover +directive."

- March 20, 2004

Know Bush Fact #15

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

Forty-eight hours before ordering U.S. troops into Iraq a year ago, Bush told the American people, "There’s no certainty in war but the certainty of sacrifice."
For some.

In the spring of 1997, while serving as Mobilization Plans Officer for the Texas National Guard at the state headquarters in Austin, Texas, Ret. Lt. Col. Bill Burkett came to the office of Adjutant General Daniel James to ask a question.

The door was open about 8 inches and Burkett could hear the voice of Joe M. Allbaugh, then-Governor Bush’s chief of staff, on the speakerphone. The General and Allbaugh were discussing sanitizing Bush’s records in preparation for Karen Hughes' official biography in preparation for Bush's re-election campaign. Burkett heard Allbaugh tell General James, "We certainly don’t want anything that is embarrassing in there."

Ten days later, Chief Warrant Officer George Conn, in whom he'd confided, walked Burkett over to a remote room in the museum on base where the head of the museum, General John Scribner, was sitting at a folding table with a 15-gallon trashcan next to him, going through papers. Looking down, Burkett saw 20-40 pages of performance documents in the can. At the top of the pages he could see was the "Bush, George W., 1LT."

Joe M. Allbaugh was appointed by Bush to be the Director of FEMA where he stayed until March 2003, when the war began. He is now Chairman and Director of New Bridge Strategies, LLC, a company created to assist businesses in getting the lucrative contracts in "rebuilding" Iraq.

Adjutant General Daniel James was nominated by Bush on September 20, 2001 to be Director of the Air National Guard, where he has been serving since June 2002.

To research/verify, Google "Bush +Guard +Trash."

- March 17, 2004

Know Bush Fact #14

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:


One of every four Americans lives within 3 miles of a toxic waste site. Bush included in his 2004 budget a plan to generate money for the depleting EPA Superfund trust.

By 2002, the $3.3 billion that was left in 1995 was down to $100 million, because the tax collected for the Superfund clean ups from the chemical industry was stopped in 1995 as part of Newt Gingrich’s "Contract on America."

So that year, Bush’s appointee, Christine Whitman, de-funded 89 Superfund cites in 13 states, including a New Jersey site where a residential neighborhood had developed around a deserted plant where the herbicide Agent Orange was mixed and disposed, where the green-yellow watered drainage ditches empty into a brook that flows past a McDonalds hamburger bun bakery.

But now, Bush is willing to do something about it. He’s included it in his budget. The money will come from "general revenues" - that means the taxpayers. Not the polluters. Nor those who have benefitted by far the most from the tax cuts. Meanwhile, the chemical corporations have saved over $9 billion since 1995, or roughly $4 million per day.

In 1994, Monsanto, Dow, and Union Carbide wrote the checks that put Bush in the Texas Governor’s Mansion.

To verify/research, Google "Superfund +Bush".

Know Bush Fact #13

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:


In 1995, a Pakistani terrorist linked to bin Laden was arrested in the Phillipines and admitted plans to fly a plane into a U.S. federal building.

In 1998, terrorism analysts briefed the Federal Aviation Administration on the possibility of terrorists crashing planes into such targets as the World Trade Tower, the Pentagon, the Capitol, and other targets.

In January 2001, prior to leaving the White House, President Clinton and his security team warned Bush and his team that Al Queda and its sleeper cells in the U.S. were the major security threat facing the U.S.

On April 18, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an advisory warning for U.S. carriers to "demonstrate a high degree of alertness."

On June 26, the State Department issued a worldwide caution to Americans traveling or living abroad. The National Security Agency's ECHELON electronic spy network gave warning that Mideast terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American culture.

On July 5, NSA Counter-Terrorism Chief Richard Clarke reported to the White House, "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Bush was warned that bin Laden was about to mount a major attack.

Bush went on vacation in Crawford, Texas for the entire month of August.

Bush's Cabinet-rank advisors didn't hold their first meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001.

Because Bush failed to increase the Air Defense readiness levels, when the 2nd plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11, the nearest approaching fighter jet was still seventy miles away.
To verify/research, Google: "September 11 +Bush +warn +planes"

- March 8, 2004

Know Bush Fact #12

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:


On Friday, March 3, officially beginning his election campaign, Bush addressed "The White House Conference on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" where he proudly reported a 41% increase in Health & Human Services grants (from $477 million to $568 million) in 2003.

Expanding faith-based initiatives has always been (or at least since his conversion) a major focus for Bush. As the Governor of Texas, he personally pushed through the Legislature the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, requiring the state government to demonstrate a "compelling interest" before interfering with any religious group or practice, and use a "least restrictive means" test when enforcing regulations. This allowed the Texas Association for Christian Child Care Agencies to "license" faith-based social services which were not held to professional training standards, criminal background checks, or other regulatory conditions.

With this in place, Roloff's Homes returned to Texas in 1999. This organization was created by Lester Roloff, a powerful radio evangelist out of Corpus Christi, Texas, who barnstormed around Texas in his single-engine Cessna, preaching and stumping for Karl Rove's gubernatorial candidate, "Brother Bill" Clements. A few years later, Roloff, a reckless flier who believed "the touch of an unseen hand" would bring him back safely to earth, no matter the weather, flew into the hereafter, taking 4 young singers from his choir with him.

His replacement at his Roloff's Homes for wayward boys, girls, and women (what - no men?) was the Reverend Wiley Cameron. Under Cameron, Roloff's Homes were under investigation by State Attorney General John Hill. Apparently, the Biblical model of discipline ("Withhold not correction from this child, for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die") was going too far. By the mid-80s, Cameron packed up and left for friendlier grounds in Missouri, where John Ashcroft was Attorney General and later Governor.

Bush's Religious Freedom Restoration Act made it safe to return. But old habits of righteousness are dangerous, and while Bush was campaigning for President, Cameron was convicted after a young girl was bound with duct tape, kicked in the ribs, and locked in solitary for 32 hours of taped Roloff's sermons and two boys were abused to the point of "torture".

The other huge benefactor of the new Texas law was Teen Challenge, a Bible-based drug program, run by Henry Lozano. By the time Mr. Lozano was an invited guest visibly sitting right behind Laura Bush at the 2003 State of the Union address, there was a 49-page report in the office of the Texas Freedom Network, an advocacy group monitoring extremist evangelicals, on the almost complete lack of compliance with basic safety requirements, such as first aid & CPR training, faulty electrical outlets, gas lines, and smoke alarms.

To veryify/research, Google "Roloff +Bush +Religious Freedom".

- March 4, 2004

Know Bush Fact #11

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:

On September 11, 2001, the best scientists in the world on toxicity/air testing were busy in Libby, Wyoming investigating the damages of asbestos and vermiculite from the Grace Corporation in that community, when the World Trade Towers were attacked, collapsed, and filled the New York air with glass fibers, concrete dust, fiberglass, asbestos, mercury, PCBs, lead, benzene, fire and smoke. These scientists were certain they would be asked to come test the air around Ground Zero.

But no such thorough testing was requested.

Early on September 12, Christine Todd Whitman, the Bush-appointed head of the Environmental Protection Agency, issued a memo throughout the agency: "All statements to the media should be cleared through the National Security Council before they are released."

According to a 165-page report from the Inspector General of the EPA released in August 2003, under pressure from the White House and the NSC (Bush's top cabinet members), "reassuring information was added" and "cautionary information was deleted" from the official EPA press releases. Warnings and safety recommendations were removed while statements of encouragement to get back to such activities as business and shopping were emphasized.

By September 16, the public was told, "Ambient air quality meets OSHA standards and consequently is not a cause for public concern," and on September 18, Christine Todd Whitman officially announced that the air in lower Manhattan was "safe to breathe."

The impact of the government's lies is evident for the 78 percent of tens of thousands of WTC rescue, recovery and cleanup workers who suffer serious lung ailments, the 88 percent who have ear, nose and throat problems, or the approximately 500 NYC fire fighters who remain out of work on disability because of lung and organ problems, most of whom are expected never to return to work.

The August 2003 report indicates that the agency was essentially hijacked by the Bush administration and its National Security Council, and that "final approval came from the White House."

To verify/research this information, Google: "Ground Zero +Whitman +asbestos +Bush".

February 28, 2004

Know Bush Fact #10

Based on the belief that the truth shall set you free:



Last Friday, February 20th, he did it again. Late in the afternoon, at the end of a week-long Congressional recess, Bush appointed Alabama Attorney General William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Once again, he "recessed-in" a controversial ultra-conservative judge who could not get the support of the Senate.

And for good reasons.

When 36 state attorneys general urged the Supreme Court to uphold the Violence Against Women Act, Pryor alone argued that the law was unconstitutional.

He submitted a brief supporting Texas's law criminalizing gay sex.

He testified in favor of repealing a key part of the Voting Rights Act.

He urged the Supreme Court to take away the rights of 5 million state employees to sue under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Perhaps most interesting (and least reported) is his founding of the Republican Attorneys General Association, an organization which actively solicited campaign contributions for its members from industries that were at risk for large state lawsuits (such as firearms, paints, and tobacco), and laundered the money through a Republican PAC to conceal the identities of its donors.

To curb "lawsuit abuse," Pryor said before the Civil Justice Reform Group in 1999, "the business community must be engaged heavily in the election process as it affects legal and judicial offices."

Critics have charged that Pryor's RAGA effectively sells protection from state litigation.

Austin, Texas RAGA conference participants who contributed at least $5,000 were originally scheduled to attend an opening reception at then - Governor Bush's state mansion. But the event was cancelled the day that reporters questioned Bush's office about RAGA's stealth fundraising tactics.

To verify/research, Google: "Pryor +recess."

- February 25, 2004