100 Facts and 1 Opinion
100 Facts and 1 Opinion
I disagree that all 100 facts are compelling, but they serve as reminders of what the Bush Administration says and does.
Examples of facts about the Bush Administration that make my head hurt are below (italics) with my comments beneath (standard font).
12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued his month long vacation.
And he sat with this thumb in his butt in a classroom for seven minutes after he was notified that the second World Trade Center building was hit by a airliner.
30. The Bush Administration awarded a multibillion-dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton--a company that still pays Vice President Cheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation each year (Cheney also has Halliburton stock options). The company then repeatedly overcharged the military for services, accepted kickbacks from subcontractors and served troops dirty food.
One of the companies on the short list to do work in Iraq was the Washington Group, formerly Raytheon Engineers, a company I worked for in the US and Ireland for six years. Washington Group is coming out of Chapter 11 reorganization and they could have really used the work. Also, the engineers I worked with at Raytheon Engineers were among the smartest and best engineers I had the privilege of working with in my life. They had experience and contacts in the mid-East and they designed various systems from oil and gas processing to desalinization plants in Saudi.
When your trying to determine if an action is ethical, one of the criteria can be the "perception of impropriety". How is it POSSIBLE that Cheney and the Bush Administration allowed no-bid contracts to go to Halliburton when there were so many other engineering companies who could do the same work considering Cheney's close (and continuing) ties to the company? It just baffles me.
49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the Social Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it.
Just as a point of reference, until recently, the year I turn 65 is the same year Social Security is expected to run out of money. I am the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation. Bush is not doing anything to improve my retirement status and he has endangered it for many others. Unless there is a fundamental change in the way Social Security is funded, I will pay in, but there will not be any money for my wife and I when I retire.
Do you really expect to get anything more than McDonald's money for your grand kids from Social Security? I don't.
52. The Bush Administration underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by $9.4 billion.
Every Child Left Behind. My kids are pulled from class to take MAPS tests. How do the MAPS test work? As an example, for any grade level you have three children. One gifted, one autistic, one ADD and one mentally challenged. They all get the same test. No additional instruction is provided. The exam is proctored, but the proctor can not assist in any fashion. The gifted child finishes the exam. The autistic child may or may not finish the exam. The ADD child connects the dots. The mentally challenged child cries because he does not know what to do and feels stupid. The school district is 'scored' based on performance on the MAPS tests. If the district has a disproportionate number of low grades, they have to take remedial action or risk lose of federal funding.
The school district I live in gets 92% of its funding from local property taxes. My taxes have increased 50% since moving back to New Jersey. I wonder what would happen if we just REFUSE to participate in No Child Left Behind.
One of the principles of the Republican Party is minimal government and the concept of States Rights. The federal government should provide for National Defense and other infrastructure and the States should determine local and regional issues. If this is the case, why the heck is the Bush Administration mandating testing and standards for my kids? Geez! Leave me alone!
53. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to increase the maximum federal scholarship, or Pell Grant, by 50 percent. Instead, each year he has been in office he has frozen or cut the maximum scholarship amount.
Don't get me started. My oldest daughter was accepted to RPI, Drexel University, Rutgers University, Georgia Institute of Technology. The *average* cost of an engineering education is on the order of $25,000 to $30,000 per year. We received NO federal scholarships. None. Na da. Nothing. They should be freaking BEGGING women to enter engineering, but the Bush Administration has done little to support technology and engineering.
Until the United States graduates more engineers than lawyers, we are headed in the wrong direction.
54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association--a union of teachers--a "terrorist organization."
Way to win over the teachers, whose life you just made a little more difficult with the Every Child Left Behind Act.
55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.
I personally assume this was one of the many things orchestrated by Carl Rowe.
70. The Bush Administration has spent $270 million on abstinence-only education programs even though there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that they are effective in dissuading teenagers from having sex or reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
This just reinforces my comment about science and technology. You have panels of experts, but just ignore their advice and a body of scientific evidence and waste my tax money.
76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost of a new Hummer.
Don't make me cry. Every time I see a Hummer I get a knot in my stomach. If I was a teenager, I would be removing the core from the tires of every Hummer and uber-SUV and taping it to the fenders. Not that I ever did that to one or more Corvette/Porche/Ferrari parked sideways taking up two spots in a parking lot. In Atlanta. In 1974-1979. No, not me.
95. When asked at an April 2004 press conference to name a mistake he made during his presidency, Bush couldn't think of one.
It all started with the 2000 election and the Supreme Court...
97. Last year the Bush Administration spent $6.5 billion creating 14 million new classified documents and securing old secrets--the highest level of spending in ten years.
We 'got nothing to hide...
I disagree that all 100 facts are compelling, but they serve as reminders of what the Bush Administration says and does.
Examples of facts about the Bush Administration that make my head hurt are below (italics) with my comments beneath (standard font).
12. After receiving a memo from the CIA in August 2001 titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack America," President Bush continued his month long vacation.
And he sat with this thumb in his butt in a classroom for seven minutes after he was notified that the second World Trade Center building was hit by a airliner.
30. The Bush Administration awarded a multibillion-dollar no-bid contract to Halliburton--a company that still pays Vice President Cheney hundreds of thousands of dollars in deferred compensation each year (Cheney also has Halliburton stock options). The company then repeatedly overcharged the military for services, accepted kickbacks from subcontractors and served troops dirty food.
One of the companies on the short list to do work in Iraq was the Washington Group, formerly Raytheon Engineers, a company I worked for in the US and Ireland for six years. Washington Group is coming out of Chapter 11 reorganization and they could have really used the work. Also, the engineers I worked with at Raytheon Engineers were among the smartest and best engineers I had the privilege of working with in my life. They had experience and contacts in the mid-East and they designed various systems from oil and gas processing to desalinization plants in Saudi.
When your trying to determine if an action is ethical, one of the criteria can be the "perception of impropriety". How is it POSSIBLE that Cheney and the Bush Administration allowed no-bid contracts to go to Halliburton when there were so many other engineering companies who could do the same work considering Cheney's close (and continuing) ties to the company? It just baffles me.
49. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to protect the Social Security surplus. As President, he spent all of it.
Just as a point of reference, until recently, the year I turn 65 is the same year Social Security is expected to run out of money. I am the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation. Bush is not doing anything to improve my retirement status and he has endangered it for many others. Unless there is a fundamental change in the way Social Security is funded, I will pay in, but there will not be any money for my wife and I when I retire.
Do you really expect to get anything more than McDonald's money for your grand kids from Social Security? I don't.
52. The Bush Administration underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by $9.4 billion.
Every Child Left Behind. My kids are pulled from class to take MAPS tests. How do the MAPS test work? As an example, for any grade level you have three children. One gifted, one autistic, one ADD and one mentally challenged. They all get the same test. No additional instruction is provided. The exam is proctored, but the proctor can not assist in any fashion. The gifted child finishes the exam. The autistic child may or may not finish the exam. The ADD child connects the dots. The mentally challenged child cries because he does not know what to do and feels stupid. The school district is 'scored' based on performance on the MAPS tests. If the district has a disproportionate number of low grades, they have to take remedial action or risk lose of federal funding.
The school district I live in gets 92% of its funding from local property taxes. My taxes have increased 50% since moving back to New Jersey. I wonder what would happen if we just REFUSE to participate in No Child Left Behind.
One of the principles of the Republican Party is minimal government and the concept of States Rights. The federal government should provide for National Defense and other infrastructure and the States should determine local and regional issues. If this is the case, why the heck is the Bush Administration mandating testing and standards for my kids? Geez! Leave me alone!
53. In 2000, candidate George W. Bush promised to increase the maximum federal scholarship, or Pell Grant, by 50 percent. Instead, each year he has been in office he has frozen or cut the maximum scholarship amount.
Don't get me started. My oldest daughter was accepted to RPI, Drexel University, Rutgers University, Georgia Institute of Technology. The *average* cost of an engineering education is on the order of $25,000 to $30,000 per year. We received NO federal scholarships. None. Na da. Nothing. They should be freaking BEGGING women to enter engineering, but the Bush Administration has done little to support technology and engineering.
Until the United States graduates more engineers than lawyers, we are headed in the wrong direction.
54. The Bush Administration's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called the National Education Association--a union of teachers--a "terrorist organization."
Way to win over the teachers, whose life you just made a little more difficult with the Every Child Left Behind Act.
55. The Bush Administration, in violation of the law, refused to allow Medicare actuary Richard Foster to tell members of Congress the actual cost of their Medicare bill. Instead, they repeated a figure they knew was $100 billion too low.
I personally assume this was one of the many things orchestrated by Carl Rowe.
70. The Bush Administration has spent $270 million on abstinence-only education programs even though there is no scientific evidence demonstrating that they are effective in dissuading teenagers from having sex or reducing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.
This just reinforces my comment about science and technology. You have panels of experts, but just ignore their advice and a body of scientific evidence and waste my tax money.
76. The Bush Administration created a massive tax loophole for SUVs--allowing, for example, the write-off of the entire cost of a new Hummer.
Don't make me cry. Every time I see a Hummer I get a knot in my stomach. If I was a teenager, I would be removing the core from the tires of every Hummer and uber-SUV and taping it to the fenders. Not that I ever did that to one or more Corvette/Porche/Ferrari parked sideways taking up two spots in a parking lot. In Atlanta. In 1974-1979. No, not me.
95. When asked at an April 2004 press conference to name a mistake he made during his presidency, Bush couldn't think of one.
It all started with the 2000 election and the Supreme Court...
97. Last year the Bush Administration spent $6.5 billion creating 14 million new classified documents and securing old secrets--the highest level of spending in ten years.
We 'got nothing to hide...
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home