Untold story of Bush's penchant for secrecy (US News & WR)

[kstewart33]

INVESTIGATIVE REPORT: The untold story of the Bush administration's penchant for secrecy
How the public's business gets done out of the public eye

US News and World Report

The Bush administration has removed from the public domain millions of pages of information on health, safety, and environmental matters, lowering a shroud of secrecy over many critical operations of the federal government.

The administration's efforts to shield the actions of, and the information held by, the executive branch are far more extensive than has been previously documented. And they reach well beyond security issues.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/usinfo/press/secrecy.htm

[GCP]

1. But God Bless President George Bush, he's the best thing that ever

happened to this country.

(Seen on a yahoo discussion board).

We are doomed, ladies and gents, with ignorance like the above being shown by the population at large.

[Seldona]

2. 44.5 million times?

And they have the nerve to question Dean on his records?

Getting to the point where nothing surprises me anymore.

:wtf:

[Lost4words]

4. welcome to DU Seldona!

:hi: !

[Seldona]

5. Thanks!

Normaly reside over at Yahoo, but looking forward to networking with like minded folks for a change.

Been lurking here for months though.

:)

[kimchi]

13. Welcome, Seldona!

Enjoy DU!

[The Icon Painter]

14. Enjoy!

We are really glad to have you here. Please enjoy yourself and invite your like-minded friends. We are a very nice community.

[PaDUer]

16. We welcome you Seldona! :-)

Thanks for coming out from lurking..Wish others would also and looking forward to your input. :-)

[calimary]

27. Welcome to DU, Seldona! Lots of like-minded folks here.

It's truly a breath of fresh air. An oasis of the internet.

[placton]

3. US NEWS editors continuously praise

Bush in EVERY editorial in the mag. Even former moderates Mort Zuckerman (sp?) and David Gergen are on the bandwagon, week after week.

[Flubadubya]

6. Wish I had seen the NOW presentation...

but my Dad subscribes to the magazine and certainly look forward to reading the entire article.

Is it possible that, somehow, as through the efforts of US News & World Report, PBS' NOW, etc., that the profound and insidious chicanery and corruption that this administration REALLY represents will ever become common, household knowledge? I certainly hope so, but I have very grave doubts. CASE IN POINT:

Just day before yesterday CNN's #1 Political Whoreanalyst, Bill Schneider, was talking about how closely tied the admin. was to corporate America, having the most "former CEOs" assigned to key post than any other previous administration. When questioned about how this might look suspect to the American people, he proceeded to dismiss the notion and continued by whitewashing the entire filthy situation.

When asked why the close ties to big corporations would not hurt Bush and his administration, he avowed that there were two main reasons (OK, strap on you seatbelt for this)....

1) Overall, Mr. Bush is seen by Americans as a man of integrity, honesty, and forthrightness. He is just not perceived to be capable of being involved in any underhanded dealings.

2) When the big corporate scandals, e.g. Enron, began to break, Bush did not hesitate to stand up immediately and denounce corporate villainy and to declare how he would not put up with such behaviors.

I just about broke the TV screen, I really did. I had a hairbrush in my hand and whacked the front of the set with a resounding ring from the glass. I actuallty thought for a moment that I had cracked it, but such was my wrath at the venal garbage coming from this man's mouth.

I just don't know if any of Bush's real sins will ever be revealed and accepted as truth when, every day, the Media Whores redouble their efforts even stronger to protect his larceny.

Let us CRY for America! :grr: :mad:

[gonefishing]

7. I almost had a heart attack!

What planet do these people live on? Didn't dubya say he didn't know who Kenneth Lay was when the scandle broke?
This is the guy who was a drunk until he was 35. He lied about his dui. Why do so many people have blinders on?

[0007]

8. Bill Moyers "NOW" was outstanding last night -

Also Bill Moyers interview with Dorothy Rabinowitz (Wall Street Journal) was indeed interesting. Sorry you missed it! Ms Rabinowitz is a very opinionated women.

[Pastiche423]

28. Link to Bill Moyer's Friday night NOW

http://www.pbs.org/now/

[cap]

10. we have got to take on the "Bush morality" head on...

he needs to be exposed for the sleaze that he is.

We need to take on his personal morality and destroy it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Start by exposing him for the fraud he is

I get so sick of people downgrading Kerry and Dean because they are "elite Northeasterners". Excuse me. Bush was born in CT, went to prep school and then to Yale, where he didn't show a lot of scholarship (a friend of mine calls him "the frat boy"), and then on to Harvard for an MBA (was it purchased for him? What was his GPA?). Then he's pushed into an elite Guard unit guaranteed never to see combat, over the heads of many others, and he manages to go AWOL from that after being ordered to take a physical exam. Next he's in businesses set up by his dad and his cronies, and he fails at all of them (Kind of makes you wonder if he even attended classes at Harvard).


Hmmm....oh no, this doesn't sound a bit like a privledged elitist from the Northeast at all! </sarcasm>

[gonefishing]

15. Don't forget his Gentleman C at Yale.

In other words Yale is not going to fail the grandson of Prescot Bush.

[tabasco]

20. High-flight schools actually have a very low flunk-out rate.

High 90's% graduation rate. The don't allow students to fail because it hurts their rankings. I used to work in college admissions and had to know this stuff.

[xxqqqzme]

29. In other disiplines, a thesis

is required 2 get an MA - what is the requirement 4 an MBA? Is there a thesis...start a business?....balace the books?......what? 'n why have we never been treated 2 this sterling Xample of squatter's intellectual prowess? How DID this intelligence challenged ADD plagued frat boy get an MBA?

[PaDUer]

17. Personal morality?

He doesn't have any! He's worse than pops ever was! Must take after the haggard witch!

[donsu]

19. "haggard" yes, witch no

please, Barbara Bush could never be a witch - she has no morals.

[PaDUer]

24. You're right

about that..look what she hatched..

[TeeYiYi]

23. His sins are being revealed . . .

. . . although I'm sure the freeps and hard core sheeple will dismiss them as lies.

Here is a recent Rolling Stone article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that is a real eye opener. I was glancing through my new Rolling Stone and couldn't believe my eyes when I found this story. Sadly, it was in the very back of one of their double issues but if I found it, others did too:

Crimes Against Nature

Bush is sabotaging the laws that have protected America's environment for more than thirty years

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

George W. Bush will go down in history as America's worst environmental president. In a ferocious three-year attack, the Bush administration has initiated more than 200 major rollbacks of America's environmental laws, weakening the protection of our country's air, water, public lands and wildlife. Cloaked in meticulously crafted language designed to deceive the public, the administration intends to eliminate the nation's most important environmental laws by the end of the year. Under the guidance of Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the Bush White House has actively hidden its anti-environmental program behind deceptive rhetoric, telegenic spokespeople, secrecy and the intimidation of scientists and bureaucrats. The Bush attack was not entirely unexpected. George W. Bush had the grimmest environmental record of any governor during his tenure in Texas. Texas became number one in air and water pollution and in the release of toxic chemicals. In his six years in Austin, he championed a short-term pollution-based prosperity, which enriched his political contributors and corporate cronies by lowering the quality of life for everyone else. Now President Bush is set to do the same to America. After three years, his policies are already bearing fruit, diminishing standards of living for millions of Americans.

I am angry both as a citizen and a father. Three of my sons have asthma, and I watch them struggle to breathe on bad-air days. And they're comparatively lucky: One in four African-American children in New York shares this affliction; their suffering is often unrelieved because they lack the insurance and high-quality health care that keep my sons alive. My kids are among the millions of Americans who cannot enjoy the seminal American experience of fishing locally with their dad and eating their catch. Most freshwater fish in New York and all in Connecticut are now under consumption advisories. A main source of mercury pollution in America, as well as asthma-provoking ozone and particulates, is the coal-burning power plants that President Bush recently excused from complying with the Clean Air Act.

Furthermore, the deadly addiction to fossil fuels that White House policies encourage has squandered our treasury, entangled us in foreign wars, diminished our international prestige, made us a target for terrorist attacks and increased our reliance on petty Middle Eastern dictators who despise democracy and are hated by their own people.

When the Republican right managed to install George W. Bush as president in 2000, movement leaders once again set about doing what they had attempted to do since the Reagan years: eviscerate the infrastructure of laws and regulations that protect the environment. For twenty-five years it has been like the zombie that keeps coming back from the grave. . . .

Read the whole thing: http://www.rollingstone.com/features/nationalaffairs/featuregen.asp?pid=2154

TYY

[SharonAnn]

31. Thanks for posting this. It's an excellent article although it's

so depressing. One almost feels hopeless at the scale of the devastation Bush and his cronies have wrought.

Maybe we can find a "Frodo" to overthrow the "Dark Lord"?

Sorry about mixing my space/fantasy metaphors.

[JPace]

30. "I just about broke the TV screen"

I haven't broken anything yet....but jeez does
the bush WH ever bring out the dirty language
in me. The lying repugs on t.v. make me crazy
sometimes and I have to back off politics for
a while. I am one of those bitter democrats
that will never get over having the election
stolen. At least not until we get it back!

[izzie]

9. As I hear the call in say 'we do not need to know, Bush will do the right

thing for us, as he talks to God every day.' Do you feel better?Also the world is really flat.

[farmbo]

12. While the press obsessed on Dean's 45 boxes of Gov Docs...

...look what happened.

[elfin]

18. Can't believe this was posted on Drudge - eom

[jlfreund]

22. Believe it!

Salon had a good article on Drudge recently....

"Matt Drudge, GOP scourge?"
http://archive.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/10/01/drudge/

==

"Just look at a sample of Drudge's headlines, from one week early in September:

"FORCES STRAINING IN IRAQ MISSIONS, CONGRESS IS TOLD ... Army troops, Budget Stretched to the Limit."

"COUNTRIES WARY IN REACTING TO BUSH'S SPEECH ON IRAQ ..."

"ZOGBY POLL: Bush Numbers Hit New Low; Dean Tops List of Dem Presidential Contenders ..."

"Report Finds Size of Government Up Sharply Under Bush ..."

"Secret Pentagon Report Faults War Planning for Iraq ... "

"U.S. Lacks Manpower to Keep Current Occupation Force in Iraq Past March.""

[MasonJar]

21. There is no way

that GWB received any education at Andover, Yale, and Harvard. Even back in the Gentleman C days, the students would have been expected to be able to use the most modest correct grammar. I can just see him writing "gooder" on a paper. The only way someone with his IQ could have passed would have been to buy the degrees outright or to have someone else do the work. This man is not smart; he is certainly no business man; he is arrogant with no idea of how stupid he really is. He is almost certainly a sociopath; he is the epitome of all that is wrong with this nation at this time. I have never felt this frightened by any president from either party; his ignorance is unstoppable. He does not read for himself, but is rather controlled by the neo's and doesn't even know it.

[young_at_heart]

26. Calendars of Bushisms........can you believe it?

Last year's smash best-selling desk calendar of George W. Bush's verbal acrobatics has been fully updated (evidently there is an abundance of gaffes)...... a year's worth of grammatical blunderings and manglings from the 43rd president. The ad says that this is a perfect way to start your (mis)speak collection.

Are we supposed to be glad that our "leader" has this reputation?

[SharonAnn]

32. "His ignorance is unstoppable" - I think that says it all.

"His ignorance is unstoppable".

[proud patriot]

25. Dont you feel safe that Bush is protecting you ?

:eyes:

[pdove]

33. woman who accused George W Bush of rape

Snip:
Despite the enormity of the story, a virtual news blackout has remained in place since Margie Schoedinger first filed charges against George W Bush in 2002. Schoedinger had accused Bush of rape and other sexual crimes against both her and her husband, only one publication in the USA saw fit to print anything about her or her allegations. That publication was her local newspaper.

http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/bushrape.htm