Here are some more points of outrage, just part of the massive waves of dirty dealing, scandal and incompetence that has become apparent over recent weeks and months. To punctuate this, I would like to point out that if Clinton had done any of this, Republicans would be calling for his head. It is useful to imagine the name Clinton wherever you see Bush in this post and the last one, and you’ll have a slightly better ability to imagine the massive Republican outrage should that have been the case–and the total double standard that now exists, with the right wing claiming that we’re tired of scandal (until the next Democrat comes into office), and making weak attempts to rationalize, excuse, or much more often obfuscate Bush’s malfeasance.

One of those points is honesty. Remember how Bush was supposed to bring “honor and dignity” back to the White house? How they claimed that Clinton lied so much, and painted Gore as a liar even more so? And then it turns out Bush was lying through his teeth all along. He lied about not wanting to do nation-building, lied about his criminal record (I still can’t believe we elected, if you can call it that, a man with a criminal record, with a DUI, and a VP with two DUIs!); they lied about willingness to delve into deficit spending; they lied about the vandalism at the White House, about how the Clinton team ripped out the “W”s on the keyboards. And that was just the beginning. There were the unending lies about Iraq and Saddam Hussein and WMD. Now we have Bush lying to Congress about Medicare, Rice lying to everybody about everything, and even the formerly statesmanlike Colin Powell admitting that is “ironclad” evidence was, in retrospect, not so “solid” after all. Gee whiz, ya think?

Another lie being propagated right now is that Bush did everything possible to catch bin Laden–no, wait, he didn’t, but they were going after al Qaeda–no, no, that’s not right either, but they were all over the terrorism problem–well, actually not. But at least we can take heart in the reassurance that Bush & Co. couldn’t really have done anything to prevent 9/11. After all, the Clinton administration were such slackers, the election thing meant they had to get off to a late start, and by the time it was humanly possible to act, the terrorists were already in place and nothing could be done. Right? BZZZT. Nope. That’s wrong too. They were occupying their offices from early on, they were warned from the outset, vividly, about al Qaeda, a plan of action (let’s not quibble over words, Clinton’s people had a set of actions to take and it was thoroughly transmitted to Bush’s people), and Clarke was there trying and trying to push them into action–but they were too caught up in Star Wars missile defense, and terrorism played badly in that scenario, and they just gave it no credence. But most importantly, Clarke painted a very clear picture of how 9/11 could have been prevented, just as the Clinton WHite House prevented massive attacks planned by al Qaeda on American soil for the millennium celebrations:

CLARKE: Well, we’ll never know. But let me compare 9/11 and the period immediately before it to the millennium rollover and the period immediately before that. In December, 1999, we received intelligence reports that there were going to be major al Qaeda attacks. President Clinton asked his national security adviser Sandy Berger to hold daily meetings with the attorney general, the FBI director, the CIA director and stop the attacks. And every day they went back from the White House to the FBI, to the Justice Department, to the CIA and they shook the trees to find out if there was any information. You know, when you know the United States is going to be attacked, the top people in the United States government ought to be working hands-on to prevent it and working together.

Now, contrast that with what happened in the summer of 2001, when we even had more clear indications that there was going to be an attack. Did the president ask for daily meetings of his team to try to stop the attack? Did Condi Rice hold meetings of her counterparts to try to stop the attack? No.

And if she had, if the FBI director and the attorney general had gone back day after day to their department to the White House, what would they have shaken loose? We now know from testimony before the Commission that buried in the FBI was the fact that two of the hijackers had entered the United States. Now, if that information had been able to be shaken loose by the FBI director and the attorney general in response to daily meetings with the White House, if we had known that those two — if the attorney general had known, if the FBI director had known, that those two were in the United States, Larry, I believe we could have caught those two.

Now with Sibel Edmonds coming forward and saying that the information not only existed but was passed up to the administration, this suggestion has even more merit to it. There is an extremely high probability that had Gore been elected, then the information would have gotten through, and 9/11 would never have happened. Under Bush, though, the terrorists walked right in, because Bush & Co. were far too busy looking for missiles in the sky.

Then there is the business side, the money scandals. Has Ken Lay, Bush’s biggest contributor since 1994, been charged, let alone punished, for his massive fraud that so damaged the economy and stole the life savings of so many Americans? He never acted when Enron and other oil companies ripped Californians off to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. Cheney included all the oil companies, including Enron, to write the nation’s energy policy, and then tried like crazy to keep all of that a secret (it is now before the Supreme Court, where it will be ruled on by Cheney’s best bud, Antonin Scalia–gee, I wonder what he’ll decide on the matter?). And let’s not even get started on Halliburton.

What fewer people know is that Bush has long-time relations with the bin Laden family and the Saudi royal family. Bush Sr. as well as Jr. were getting massive funding and investment out of these people since the late 1970’s, the current Bush’s involvement beginning with his first business, Arbusto (“Bush” in Spanish), which Bush promptly bankrupted. But the relationship continues to this day, and was most clearly evidenced by Bush’s redacting a few dozen pages from an important terrorism report, pages which would have shown the Saudis as being very much behind Islamic terrorist groups; it was demonstrated strongly also in the few days following 9/11, when Bush had the entire bin Laden clan resident in the U.S. airlifted out, even as Americans were not allowed to fly.

On Al Franken’s new radio show, Michael Moore was a guest and they discussed a very applicable analogy to this situation. Imagine the following: after the Oklahoma bombing of the Murrah building by Timothy McVeigh, the FBI suspects McVeigh is the bomber and wants to talk to his family members. Clinton, however, gets the entire McVeigh family together, loads them on a plane, refuses to let the FBI question them in full, and instead carts the whole lot off to Paris, outside U.S. jurisdiction. And then we learn later that Clinton had substantial financial relationships with the McVeighs over the past two decades or more.

If that had ever happened, the right wing would have gone nuclear. Impeachment hearings would have started within minutes, and conservatives everywhere would be blasting Clinton from here to doomsday–and the Democrats probably would have been with them. But when the exact same scenario is played out by Bush, airlifting the entire bin Laden family from the U.S. while no U.S. citizen was allowed to fly, not letting the FBI question them thoroughly–and now we know that the bin ladens were financing Bush for many, many years… it defies belief that Bush can get away with this and no one seems to think that it is worthy of much attention.

For further information, I would direct you to buy House of Bush, House of Saud, and wait for Michael Moore’s new movie, Farenheit 911, slated for release this summer, before the election. It is absolutely unforgivable how slimy these associations Bush has and how he has unabashedly given massive favors to Halliburton, Enron execs, the bin Laden family and the Saudis in return for their long financial support for Bush and Cheney. You can say this about Bush: he is loyal, and is a politician that, when bought, stay bought.

And how about outright criminal activity? You know that Republicans were systematically stealing Democratic Senators’ files for a year and a half, leaking them to Fox News and conservative columnists, in violation of law. And even if you don’t consider lying to Congress about Medicare, or spending millions of federal dollars on fake Medicare ads that were thinly disguised campaign commercials, as crimes, then how about the Plame affair? First, Bush lies to Congress, the people and the world about Saddam building nukes, saying the he knew it was true because of British intel that said Hussein tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger–when in fact, his own intel people told him the claim was fake. Then former Ambassador Joseph Wilson had the courage to come forth and tell the truth about that, in response to which, the vicious Bush attack dogs made public the fact that Wilson’s wife was an undercover CIA operative, a federal felony punishable with prison time, and a crime that ruined the career of Wilson’s wife, and could have placed her and those she’d recruited in danger of being killed. The investigation into that now spans from Karl Rove’s office to Dick Cheney’s chief of staff and others in his office.

Truly, this administration’s staff has a vicious, bloodthirsty vindictive streak a mile and a half long. You speak out against them, and they will lie, cheat, steal, and commit federal crimes to dirty your name, ruin your career and drive you into hiding. And yet so many people–Paul O’Neill, Joseph Smith, Lawrence Lindsay, Anthony Zinni, Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary, John DiIulio, and Richard Clarke–all viciously smeared by Bush & Co., and that’s just the people who used to work in the Bush administration!

Again, this is just too much, I’m getting overloaded by all of this. And again, there is so much more.

People, we have to talk about this! get these facts down, print these posts, email them to friends, get people talking and aware of all this, because the conservative media is hiding so much of it. I don’t know how many times I have spoken about facts like these with family and friends, and have gotten the reaction, “when did that happen?” because the news shows they watch and newspapers they read don’t report on them much at all. And yet, these are all documented facts, people. Talk! Let people know! Don’t wait, do it now!