1,695 Days. . .

This Is What Has Happened In Bush's 1,695 Days In Office
by The Old Hippie Because It's Revolting, Even If Americans Are Too Afraid To Revolt

Most of the following facts can be verified at the CIA's World Factbook site:
[Others can be easily looked up on the web.]

  1.  We are now the most imprisoned nation, in percentage and raw numbers, in history.
  2.  We rank 43rd in infant mortality.  43rd!
  3.  We are the only 1st world nation without universal health care.
  4.  The number of uninsured Americans has risen to 45.8 million on your watch.
  5.  The number of Americans in poverty has risen every year on your watch.
  6.  Over 1/2 of all Americans bankruptcies are because of medical costs.
  7.  But yet - Our defense budget is higher than the next 15 nations combined.  Combined!
  8.  You successfully dispersed our largest treasury surplus to your corporate friends.
  9.  And now we have the largest deficit in our history.
10.  And we now have the largest trade deficit in our history.
11.  America has never cut taxes during war, especially during war.
12.  But you did cut the taxes, to the wealthy, then did it again, then again, then again.
13.  You then, every year, attempted to make these thefts permanent law.
14.  On your watch we have lost the respect of almost all of our allies. . .
15.  The federal treasury, 2 trade centers, a part of the Pentagon, and New Orleans.
16.  You've taken more time off, then most Americans can, though you are the "war" president.
17.  You have successfully broken every single international environmental treaty that threatened
       the profits of your family's investments, and/or your friends investments.
18.  You have replaced federal regulators with those who were being regulated.
19.  These new corporatist "regulators" have successfully changed our laws, with your help, to
       protect themselves from us, the masses, and to remove our protections from their abuses.
20.  Before your administration torture was illegal.
21.  Before your administration we had never invaded a nation that was no threat to us.
22.  Before you, all sides were protected by the Separation of Church and State.
23.  Never has so many died, so much been destroyed, for the profit of so few.
24.  Never in America's history has any one administration come this close to purposely, and so
       far successfully, destroying our Constitutional Democracy at its core.
25.  But yet - Americans continue to allow the allowing - Without revolt.

No wonder you, and your cohorts, find it so difficult to restrain your open smirks.

[ Several breaking stories "Below The Fold' also. . . ]
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"Incompetence is bad enough; not taking responsibility for it is shameful.
Blaming it on others is a national disgrace."
-- Quote from Minneapolis Star-Tribune Editorial - 9/8/05 - Linked Here

Also breaking today. . .

Cover-up: Toxic Waters 'Will Make New Orleans Unsafe For A Decade'
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Correspondent - Independent/UK - 11 September 2005

Toxic chemicals in the New Orleans flood waters will make the city unsafe for full human habitation for a decade, a US government official has told The Independent on Sunday.  And, he added, the Bush administration is covering up the danger.

In an exclusive interview, Hugh Kaufman, an expert on toxic waste and responses to environmental disasters at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said the way the polluted water was being pumped out was increasing the danger to health.

The pollution was far worse than had been admitted, he said, because his agency was failing to take enough samples and was refusing to make public the results of those it had analysed.  "Inept political hacks" running the clean-up will imperil the health of low-income migrant workers by getting them to do the work.

His intervention came as President Bush's approval ratings fell below 40 per cent for the first time.  Yesterday, Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, turned the screw by criticising the US President's opposition to the Kyoto protocol on global warming.  He compared New Orleans to island nations such as the Maldives, which are threatened by rising sea levels.  Other US sources spelt out the extent of the danger from one of America's most polluted industrial areas, known locally as "Cancer Alley".  The 66 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage depots churn out 600m lb of toxic waste each year.  Other dangerous substances are in site storage tanks or at the port of New Orleans.  No one knows how much pollution has escaped through damaged plants and leaking pipes into the "toxic gumbo" now drowning the city. Mr Kaufman says no one is trying to find out.

Few people are better qualified to judge the extent of the problem.  Mr Kaufman, who has been with the EPA since it was founded 35 years ago, helped to set up its hazardous waste programme.  After serving as chief investigator to the EPA's ombudsman, he is now senior policy analyst in its Office of Solid Wastes and Emergency Response.  He said the clean-up needed to be "the most massive public works exercise ever done", adding:  "It will take 10 years to get everything up and running and safe."

Mr Kaufman claimed the Bush administration was playing down the need for a clean-up: the EPA has not been included in the core White House group tackling the crisis.  "Its budget has been cut and inept political hacks have been put in key positions," Mr Kaufman said.  "All the money for emergency response has gone to buy guns and cowboys - which don't do anything when a hurricane hits.  We were less prepared for this than we would have been on 10 September 2001."

He said the water being pumped out of the city was not being tested for pollution and would damage Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi river, and endanger people using it downstream.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

"Racism, callousness, cruelty":
Suburban police admit they blocked bridge and forced survivors back to NOLA at gunpoint"
[ Found at BuzzFlash - Two links - The N.Y.Times (9/10) and the Independent/UK (9/11) ]