In 2004, a working mom in a red state dared to share what she learned. Part II provides Know Bush Facts #16-26. What you could/should have known, but probably didn't/don't.

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Continuing the review of doing what I had to do, when I learned what I learned, I present Know Bush Facts #16 - #26, emailed widely from March 20 to May 30, 2004, all under the heading "In the belief that the truth shall set you free". 

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KNOW BUSH FACT #16

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #17

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #18

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #19

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #20

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #21

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

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KNOW BUSH FACT #22

"The corporations don’t have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government." - Jim Hightower, former Texas Agriculture Commissioner.

For example:

Bush’s Chief Strategist, Karl Rove, was a lobbyist for Phillip Morris from 1991 to 1996.

Andrew Card, Bush’s White House Chief of Staff, was chief lobbyist for General Motors and head of American Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Thomas A. Scully, President of the Federation of American Hospital Group, lobbying for 1700 for-profit hospitals, became Bush’s Chief Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, until he resigned in December 2003, just after Bush’s Medicare Bill was forced through Congress.

Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. was Bush's Office of Management and Budget Director until recently. Prior to that he was a lobbyist for Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical for 13 years.

James Connaughton, Bush’s Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, previously lobbied on behalf of ASARCO Inc., Atlantic Richfield, Aluminum Co. of America, Chemical Manufacturers Association, and General Electric (focusing especially on Superfund toxic sites).

J. Steven Griles, Bush’s Deputy Interior Secretary, is known as one of the energy industry’s most powerful lobbyists. He was a lobbyist for United Company (a coal, oil, and gas development firm), and was also the former Vice President of National Environmental Strategies, representing the National Mining Association and Occidental Petroleum.

Rebecca W. Watson, long-time lobbyist and attorney for the extractive industries, was named Bush's Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management in the Department of the Interior.

William G. Myers, III served as lobbyist for the National Mining Association, the Public Lands Council and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, then became Bush’s Chief Solicitor for the Interior Department. This year Bush nominated him for a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the appellate court that hears cases from Alaska and the American West, where environmental law concerning 485 million acres of public lands is decided.

Bush made Nicholas Calio his Legislative Affairs Director. Calio spent the 90s lobbying for Anheuser-Busch, the Boeing Corp., AT&T, Atlantic Richfield Company, BP Amoco, and Tenneco Automotive, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of automobile exhaust systems. Calio’s top deputy at the White House, Kirsten Ardleigh Chadwick, was also a registered lobbyist for Tenneco.

Monsanto, manufacturer of such food additives as the controversial bovine growth hormone, BST, used to have to lobby the Secretary of Agriculture. Then Monsanto executive Ann Venamin became Bush’s Secretary of Agriculture through April 2003.

Linda J. Fisher was Bush’s Deputy Director of the Environmental Protection Agency until she resigned in June 2003, just one day before her boss, Christie Todd Whitman, did the same. Previously, Ms. Fisher was Monsanto’s Vice President for Government and Public Affairs, lobbying on behalf of Monsanto’s interests on agriculture, biotechnology, pharmaceutical, environment, finance and trade issues, and managing the company’s political action committee and political contribution funds.

A former top lobbyist for private banks engaged in student lending, William D. Hansen, was Bush’s Deputy Secretary at the Education Department until July 2003.

Bush picked Texan James C. Oberwetter, of Hunt Consolidated Inc. and the American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry lobby group, to be U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

And last but not least...

In December, 2001, Bush named Marc Racicot, a lobbyist whose clients included Enron Corp, railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe and the Recording Industry Association of America, to be Chairman of the Republican National Committee. In June 2003, Bush chose Mr. Racicot to be the Chairman of the Bush-Cheney Re-Election Campaign.

Bush replaced Racicot as Chairman of the Republican National Committee with Ed Gillespie, whose lobbying firm raked in $27.4 million from 2000 through 2002 working for a list of clients that includes Microsoft, Tyson Foods, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Viacom. Before its collapse, Enron paid Gillespie’s firm $700,000 to lobby against the "re-regulation" of Western electricity markets.

To verify/research, Google "Bush +lobbyist."
- May 1, 2004

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Know Bush Facts #23 A and #23B

KNOW BUSH FACT #23 A

Bush’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld received a letter from Amnesty International dated JANUARY 10, 2002 (with copies also sent to Secretary of State Colin Powell, FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director George Tenet, and Commander in Chief General Tommy Franks), expressing concern over photographs showing Al-Qaeda suspects hooded while under guard by US troops, and pointing out that the United Nations Committee against Torture had condemned the hooding of suspects, and that such treatment is also covered by the Geneva Convention.

To research/verify, Google "Rumsfeld +hooding."

And #23 B

In response to September 11, 2001, Bush’s Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commissioned a team, headed by Douglas Feith and William Luti, to scan and sort already-analyzed documents from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies to consider possible interpretations and angles of analysis that these agencies may have missed. Much of the information scanned had already been deemed "not credible" by the experienced intelligence agencies.

Eventually Rumsfeld’s team came to be named The Office of Special Plans.

Staffed by a tight group of like-minded neo-conservatives who advocated regime change in Iraq, the Office of Special Plans displaced the CIA and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency as Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al-Qaeda.

It was "the stovepipe" - a means of funneling upward directly to the White House and National Security Advisor selectively chosen intelligence to serve the ideological ends of the "neo-cons" in the Bush administration.

"They’d take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don’t belong together,"

wrote retired Pentagon Middle East specialist, Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, who worked in the office of Undersecretary for Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.

She found the work of the Office of Special Plans to be "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-option through deceit of a large segment of the Congress."

Which resulted in Congress giving Bush the authority to use military force against Iraq.

To research/verify, Google "Rumsfeld +Office of Special Plans".

- May 9, 2004

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KNOW BUSH FACT #24

On June 26, 2001 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.

That same month, the Bush Administration initiated the VISA EXPRESS service for expediting visa applications through out Saudi Arabia.

On June 25, 2001, the day before the State Department’s warning, the US Embassy in Riyadh proudly announced:

"Now all Saudis and non-Saudi applicants may obtain visas at their own convenience by submitting their applications through any of ten designated travel/courier companies operating throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. . . Applicants will no longer have to take time off from work, no longer have to wait in long lines under the hot sun and in crowded waiting rooms, and no longer be limited by any time constraints. Effective immediately, ALL APPLICANTS will be expected to use the US VISA EXPRESS service offered by any of the selected companies listed below."

To make this very clear, under this new rule instituted by the Bush Administration, both Saudis and non-Saudis could obtain U.S. visas without being photographed or having to apply in person just by going through one of ten designated travel agencies in The Kingdom.

Three of the Saudi hijackers in the September 11 attacks came into the U.S. on visas they obtained through the VISA EXPRESS program.

Still, the Visa Express program was not closed after September 11. In fact, in the first 30 days after 9/11, the U.S. Embassy at Jeddah, one of three offices in Saudi Arabia, issued 104 visas through the program, denying none.

It was not until Joel Mowbray, a journalist from The National Review, broke the story in June of 2002, pointing out that the Visa Express program was still in place, that the State Department found it necessary to make some changes.
Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, Ambassador Mary Ryan, the longest-serving career diplomat at the department, "to retire," announcing this change on the same day when two committees in Congress would be voting on legislation to remove the State Department’s visa authority.

Two days later, after questioning spokesman Richard Boucher at a State Department press briefing, Joel Mowbray was detained for about 30 minutes, as security demanded he reveal his sources. Yet a year after 9/11, the State Department had still not interviewed the single Foreign Service Officer in the Jeddah consulate who issued 10 of the visas to the Saudi hijackers.

To research/verify, Google "Bush +Visa Express."
- May 14, 2004

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KNOW BUSH FACT #25

On April 24, 2003, while promoting his tax plan, Bush stopped in Canton, Ohio at the Timken Company, a Fortune 500 company, with 2003 sales of $3.8 billion, to speak before the workers at its steel ball-bearing manufacturing plant:

"The greatest strength of the American economy is found right here, right in this room, found in the pride and skill of the American work force. . . Here at Timken, last year, productivity rose 10 percent. Which means that America can compete with any nation in the world because we got the finest workers in the world."

On May 17, 2004, century-old Timken Company announced it was closing the doors to three of its ball-bearing plants in Canton, laying off 1,300 employees.

Timken President James W. Griffith tried to blame the closure on the United Steel Workers of America, but union President Stan Jasionowski said the USWA and Timken were not in any kind of contract negotiations. The union was blindsided by Timken's decision.

Timken’s ball-bearing production will be moved. It is timely that two new Timken NSK ball-bearing plants in China began production in January, and the Randleman, North Carolina plant failed to unionize in February.

W.R. "Tim" Timken, Chairman of the Board of Timken Company, whose decision it was to close the plants, earned more than $2.6 million last year, and stands to receive $59,000 in new tax breaks from Bush this year.

By contrast, 89% of Ohio residents will receive less than $100 by 2006 from the latest Bush tax cuts.

Last summer, Timken co-hosted a fundraiser for Bush's campaign which raised $600,000, and earned Timken "Ranger" status in Bush’s multi-level marketing donation pyramid structure.

W.R. Timken was signed in as the Bush-appointed Chairman of the Board of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation on April 22, 2003 (2 days before Bush’s speech at his plant), and is also a long-time Director of Diebold, Inc., manufacturer of the highly controversial electronic voting machines.

A final note: In December 2003, Mr. Timken hosted a $2,000-per-person fundraiser, where he spoke before featured guest Vice President Dick Cheney and an audience of Ohio's wealthiest business and civic leaders. Timken denounced liberal philanthropist Peter Lewis’s multi-million dollar pledge to partially match donations to MoveOn.org’s voter fund campaign as an "attempt to buy democracy."

Meanwhile, the Gannett News Service reported that the Cincinnati, Ohio zip code 45243 ranks second only to New York City's 10021 as the most lucrative fundraising neighborhood for Bush, surpassing wealthy communities in Houston, Dallas and even Beverly Hills.

To verify/research, Google: "Bush +Timken."

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KNOW BUSH FACT #26

I apologize up front for the length of this story. It started with a simple "thanks. . . to the efforts of former Secretary of State James Baker . . . ," said by Bush last week, Monday, May 25, 2004, during his televised speech at the U.S. Army War College.

But why, out of the blue, was he thanking former Secretary of State James Baker?

He continued, ". . .many of Iraq's largest creditors have pledged to forgive or substantially reduce Iraqi debt incurred by the former regime."

Perhaps true. However, in fact, there are many other "efforts of former Secretary of State James Baker" for which Bush might offering thanks, going back many years.

It was James Baker's law firm, Baker & Botts, that wrote the contract for Bush to purchase the Texas Rangers baseball team, paying it off with the funds from his suddenly dumped shares in Harken Oil in 1990.

In 1991, that same lawyer from Baker & Botts, James Doty, was the new General Counsel for the SEC, along with his colleague from Baker & Botts, Richard Breeden, as the President Bush-appointed SEC Chairman, when George W. Bush’s insider trading at Harken Oil was investigated and dropped.

James Baker was also the man Bush called in November 2000 , when Florida’s vote came into question, to lead the battle to take the White House. Baker started the spin immediately, declaring that the votes "have not only been counted, they’ve been counted twice" (blatantly untrue), attacking Gore for his "endless challenges to the results" (the recount was required by Florida law), and finally pushing it to the Supreme Court, where he knew there were five Republican appointees who had to answer to no one. Certainly, Bush owes a lifetime of thanks for that.

Baker's enduring value has been as the Senior Counsel for Washington’s Carlyle Group. The Carlyle Group was formed by former ranking Republicans in the early 90's as an investment group which took advantage of the end of the Cold War to buy up defense and intelligence businesses cheaply.

Thanks to James Baker, Bush I was immediately hired by The Carlyle Group after his 1992 re-election defeat to be guest speaker at events where big-time investors knew the value of access to the ex-President and all his contacts, inside both U.S. and foreign governments. Bush I then could take his sizeable "speaking fee" and invest it back into Carlyle subsidiaries for his own personal investment as well. Later, when Bush I’s son took power in Washington, it made access to Bush I, and therefore II, even more advantageous for all involved with Carlyle.

In 2001, The Carlyle Group showed $12 billion in holdings. With multiple contracts in Iraq, The Carlyle Group's holdings have grown exponentially, as has Bush I’s stock portfolio in Carlyle. Bush II stands to inherit untold millions/billions from his father now, especially since he made certain the inheritance tax was completely abolished soon after occupying the White House. Thank you, James Baker.

Coincidentally, on September 11, 2001, while the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Carlyle Group was hosting an exclusive conference in Washington, D.C. Among the guests of honor was a valued investor named Shafig bin Laden, brother to Osama. He soon became one of the 140 powerful Saudis that Prince Bandar arranged to have flown out of the country immediately, despite a nation-wide ban on flights, without even being questioned by the FBI or CIA.

Currently, Baker's law firm, Baker & Botts, is defending Saudi Arabia against the trillion dollar lawsuit filed by the families of 9/11 victims. The families’ suit has forced open accounts that reveal the Saudi government’s role in funneling millions of dollars to Islamic charities that are widely suspected of covertly financing Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups.

Which brings us back to Bush thanking Baker before the whole world last Monday night – because of his efforts "many of Iraq's largest creditors have pledged to forgive or substantially reduce Iraqi debt incurred by the former regime." Sounds good. But...

The U.S. has no right under international law to handle Iraq’s debts. So in December 2003, when Bush announced that Baker would negotiating the restructure of these debts with its foreign investors (while Colin Powell happened to be in the hospital in surgery), it was said to be "at the request of the Iraqi Governing Council," thus allowing Baker to do his business without answering to Congress or revealing who was paying him.

Thus Bush facilitated Baker’s pre-empting the complete debt write-off the World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was seriously considering.

It’s worth knowing whose money Baker made sure will still have to be at least partially paid back. Most of the debt belongs to his clients, the Saudis, in the $100 billion range.

Much of this goes back as far as the 1980s, when both the United States and the Saudis covertly built up Saddam Hussein, giving him technology, biological weapons and training in his war against Iran, back when James Baker was President Reagan’s Treasury Secretary and Chairman of the President’s Economic Policy oftlineCouncil, and Bush I’s Secretary of State.

And so we come full circle.

Thank you, James Baker.

To verify/research, start your Google search with "Bush +Baker". You might want to get a cup of coffee first.

- May 30, 2004

Authors Website: http://oneperson-knowmore.blogspot.com

Authors Bio:
"Look around. You're not alone, and you know what we need to know. So go tell it on the mountains and in the cities. From your websites and laptops, tell it. From the street corners and coffeehouse, tell it. From delis and diners, tell it. From the workshop and the bookstore, tell it. On campus, at the mall, the synagogue, sanctuary and mosque, tell it. Tell it where you can, when you can and while you can. Tell America what we need to know, and we may just rekindle the patriot dream." -- Bill Moyers (as Studs Terkel calls him, "my North Star"), June 7, 2008 at the National Conference on Media Reform. . .

I am a working mom living in the very red state of Utah who began to really pay attention in 2003 and began sharing what I found out in 2004 -- with "Know Bush Facts", a series of 40 emailed statements that culminated with "Know Bush: Launching Facts That Shock & Awe, A One Person Patriot Act" -- a presentation of the best of the facts retold for theatre -- in October 2004.

I continue to write about the hypocrisies I study, believing that what the Bush administration has done goes far beyond partisan disagreement and should be known. I've learned that it isn't that hard to discover the bit of information that puts the news we see into a much greater perspective.

I don't need to bash. I don't even need to convince. I simply need to reveal what is going on behind the tap dancing.