The many insults and assaults of the Bush administration
Aaron, Craig
JANUARY 2001 Jan. 20?\On the day of George W. Bush's inauguration, Chief of Staff Andrew Card issues a sixty-day moratorium halting all new health, safety, and environmental regulations issued...
...6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing warning "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S...
...19?\Bush asks Congress for authority to use "all means he determines to be appropriate" against Iraq...
...March 20?\Bush administration moves to overturn a Clinton regulation reducing the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water...
...26?\Bush signs the USA Patriot Act...
...15?\Bush approves Yucca Mountain?located ninety miles north of Las Vegas?\as the nation's lone repository for high-level nuclear waste...
...29?\Bush administration reports that the new Medicare law will cost at least $530 billion over ten years, 30 percent more than Congress was told it would cost...
...5?\North Korea admits to having secret nuclear weapons program...
...MAY 2004 El May 4?\Army acknowledges it is investigating at least thirty-five cases of abuse or torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan...
...the proposal is dropped two days later...
...a day after Chavez returns to power, White House admits that U.S...
...EI Nov...
...0 June 5?\National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration weakens standards on under-inflated tires despite problems at Firestone that caused hundreds of deaths...
...AUGUST 2003 O Aug...
...6?\Bush dismisses treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey as the unemployment rate hits 6 percent...
...civilian administrators are being sequestered in underground bunkers in case of a terrorist attack...
...20?\On the day of George W. Bush's inauguration, Chief of Staff Andrew Card issues a sixty-day moratorium halting all new health, safety, and environmental regulations issued in the final days of the Clinton administration...
...El May 7?\Sinclair Broadcasting refuses to air Nightline broadcast reading the names of the U.S...
...JUNE 2002 June 1?\President unveils "Bush doctrine" of preemptive war in a speech at West Point...
...14?\White House unveils its "Clear Skies" initiative calling for voluntary reductions of three major pollutants...
...JANUARY 2002 El Jan...
...WI Sept...
...hi July 22?\State Department announces it will withhold $34 million in international family planning funds from the United Nations...
...El May 16?\Vice President Dick Cheney's task force releases its "National Energy Policy" report, calling for weaker environmental regulations and massive subsidies for the oil and gas, coal, and nuclear power industries...
...El Jan...
...21?\Senate blocks energy bill, a massive boondoggle that traces its origins to Cheney's secretive energy task force and would provide billions of dollars in subsidies to some of Bush's biggest supporters in the oil and gas, coal, and electric utility industries...
...2?\Medicare chief Tom Scully announces he's stepping down to consider job offers from three lobbying and two investment firms...
...El April 10?\After two years of stonewalling, Bush releases declassified version of the Aug...
...El Dec...
...FEBRUARY 2001 IZI Feb...
...El April 29?\Bush and Cheney appear together behind closed doors in the Oval Office to answer questions from commissioners on the September 11 attacks panel...
...22?\Interior Department opens nearly nine million acres of wilderness on Alaska's North Slope to oil drilling...
...5?\Bush suspends Clinton's "roadless rule" protecting nearly sixty million acres of forests from logging and road-building...
...El June 28?\Attorney General John Ashcroft announces a policy that would require gun records be destroyed one day after a background check rather than ninety days later...
...29?\Justice Department acknowledges but won't identify more than one thousand individuals, mostly immigrants, detained since September 11 attacks...
...El May 6?\Bush voids the U.S...
...El March 19?\War on Iraq begins...
...10?\Bush administration issues guidelines that could exempt up to twenty million acres of "isolated" wetlands and seasonal streams from protection under the Clean Water Act...
...MAY 2002 0 May 3?\EPA alters its definition of "fill material" to allow coal companies to dump rubble from "mountaintop removal" mining into valleys and streams...
...MARCH 2002 Ed March 1?\News reports reveal that Bush activated a "shadow government" after September 11 attacks without telling Congress...
...El May 30?\Ashcroft removes restrictions on domestic spying by the FBI in counterterrorism investigations...
...DECEMBER 2001 El Dec...
...AUGUST 2002 O Aug...
...El May 27?\One third of the prevention funds in the $15 billion AIDS bill signed by Bush are earmarked for abstinence education...
...JANUARY 2001 Jan...
...O Nov...
...El Sept...
...El April 29?\Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tells Congress the number of U.S soldiers who have died in Iraq is "approximately 500, of which?\I can get the exact numbers?approximately 350 are combat deaths...
...16?\During a congressional recess, Bush appoints Charles Pickering?\who has been rejected twice by the Senate?\to the U.S...
...IRI Jan...
...20?\Ashcroft begins nationwide tour to promote the Patriot Act...
...JULY 2001 July 9?\Bush administration opposes UN DISSENT / Summer 2004 n 5 COMMENTS & OPINIONS treaty to curb international trafficking in small arms and light weapons...
...EI Sept...
...11?\Terrorists crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands...
...IZI July 24?\Congress publishes report on September 11 attacks, but the White House omits major portions (reportedly about Saudi Arabia) for "national security" reasons...
...27?\Bush repeals "responsible con6 n DISSENT / Summer 2004 tractor rule" that had required scrutiny of safety and environmental law violations in the awarding of federal contracts...
...El July 14?\Columnist Robert Novak outs the wife of retired ambassador Joseph Wilson as a CIA agent after discussions with "two senior administration officials...
...11?\First Afghan prisoners arrive at "Camp X-Ray" in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba...
...23?\Rod Paige calls the National Education Association a "terrorist organization...
...El April 28?\Bush administration refuses to sign international anti-tobacco treaty without a "reservation clause" allowing any country to opt out of portions it doesn't like...
...IRI Aug...
...COMMENTS & OPINIONS EI April 5?\Office of Management and Budget prevents the EPA from declaring a public health emergency over dangerous asbestos fibers that come from a Montana mine and are used in insulation throughout the country...
...official warns of "a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists...
...RI Dec...
...5?\Cheney and Justice Antonin Scalia go duck hunting together three weeks after DISSENT / Summer 2004 n 9 COMMENTS & OPINIONS the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case about the vice president's energy task force records...
...We found biological laboratories . . . for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them...
...El Nov...
...20?\Pentagon defends development of the "Total Information Awareness" system, a scheme developed by Iran-contra veteran John DISSENT / Summer 2004 n 7 COMMENTS & OPINIONS Poindexter to mine private data for terrorism clues...
...MARCH 2001 March 7?\At the urging of President Bush, Congress repeals ergonomic regulations designed to protect workers from repetitive-strain injuries...
...JULY 2003 O July 1?\Bush administration suspends military aid to thirty-five countries that refused to grant U.S...
...official exposes as fakes documents showing Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger...
...SEPTEMBER 2001 IZI Sept...
...the president doesn't ask...
...El Dec...
...O Jan...
...0 Aug...
...29?\Bush claims in his State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein "recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa...
...funding for abortion counseling abroad...
...23?\FBI admits collecting intelligence on antiwar protesters...
...dead in Iraq on its ABC affiliates...
...7?\Bush asks Congress for another $87 billion to fund the occupation of Iraq...
...MAY 2001 May 11?\Bush administration abandons international effort to crack down on offshore tax havens...
...17?\Bush orders initial missile defense system to be in place by 2004...
...22?\Bush signs $15 billion airline bailout...
...31?\Ashcroft authorizes monitoring of attorney-client conversations in terrorism investigations...
...31-13,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants are in deportation proceedings as a result of special registration programs...
...El March 27?\Department of Labor proposes new overtime rules that could strip millions of extra pay by increasing the number of exempt "white-collar" workers...
...El March 5?\Bush's welfare reform proposal advises paying "workfare" recipients less than the minimum wage...
...scientists, including a dozen Nobel Prize winners, accuses the Bush administration of "misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes...
...El April 9?\Department of Interior proposes a limit on lawsuits seeking protection of endangered species...
...DECEMBER 2002 RI Dec...
...El May 19?\General Accounting Office rules that taxpayer-funded "video news releases" touting the Medicare bill are illegal covert propaganda...
...26?\In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney says there is "no doubt" Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq could have nuclear weapons "fairly soon...
...EI March 10?\Pentagon's "Nuclear Posture Review" calls for new, "low-yield" nuclear weapons and lists seven "rogue" nations as possible targets for a nuclear attack...
...El Feb...
...officials had met with coup plotters...
...CRAIG AARON is an investigative reporter for Public Citizen's Congress Watch and a senior editor of In These Times...
...9?\Bush limits stem cell research to "existing lines...
...He is the editor of Appeal to Reason: 25 Years In These Times...
...JANUARY 2004 10 Jan...
...new guidelines permit monitoring of political and religious groups without probable cause...
...30?\After first case of "mad cow" disease is detected in the United States, USDA bans sale of "downer" cattle?\a measure quashed by the agency just weeks earlier...
...E March 14?\Bush abandons his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants...
...19?\Office of Management and Budget instructs Environmental Protection Agency to value the lives of senior citizens at 63 percent that of younger Americans in a cost-benefit analysis of imposing new air pollution regulations...
...El May 28?\Bush signs $350 billion tax cut?half the size of his original proposal?\slashing tax rates on dividends and capital gains...
...El Dec...
...8?\Bush invokes the Taft-Hartley Act to end an 11-day lockout of longshore workers that has shut down West Coast ports...
...El April 12?\Congress approves Bush's request for $79 billion to fund the Iraq War and reconstruction...
...NOVEMBER 2002 El Nov...
...APRIL 2001 April 4?\United States Department of Agriculture proposes lifting a requirement that all beef used in federal school lunch programs must be tested for salmonella...
...RI Dec...
...weapons inspector David Kay resigns, saying he doesn't believe Iraq's weapons of mass destruction ever existed...
...22?\Congress bans late-term abortions...
...Bush officials don't publicly disclose the news until Oct...
...6?\Justice Department drops effort to break up Microsoft, hoping to speed settlement of antitrust lawsuit...
...El March 9?\Bush issues an executive order to prevent mechanics at Northwest Airlines from going on strike...
...MARCH 2003 El March 7?\U.N...
...El April 17?\Administration insiders admit military tactical errors allowed Osama bin Laden to escape December 2001 battle at Tora Bora...
...El Aug...
...14?\Justice Department issues regulations allowing illegal immigrants to be detained indefinitely if their release could pose "serious adverse foreign-policy consequences...
...9?\President's Council of Economic Advisers suggests positions at fast-food restaurants should be counted as manufacturing jobs...
...will be forced to sell any television stations...
...JANUARY 2003 El Jan...
...the plan would delay by a decade reductions required under existing law...
...11?\White House commission recommends privatizing Social Security...
...DECEMBER 2003 O Dec...
...18?\Congress passes $26.4 billion "No Child Left Behind" Act...
...May 29?\Bush meets with California governor Gray Davis but refuses to impose federal price controls to curtail California's energy crisis...
...El May 26?\Congress passes $1.35 trillion tax cut...
...Oct...
...El May 22?\Bush issues an executive order shielding oil companies in Iraq from legal liability...
...citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court...
...WI Nov...
...El March 24?\Bush shows a slide show at the Radio and Television Correspondents' dinner with pictures of himself looking under tables and out the windows of the Oval Office alongside captions such as "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere...
...Feb...
...El April 28?\CBS television airs first images of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison...
...APRIL 2003 RIApril 7?\Education Secretary Rod Paige says he prefers schools that have a "strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community...
...27?\EPA repeals "New Source Review" rule that had required electric utilities to install anti-pollution equipment when making major upgrades at coal-fired power plants...
...EI May 20?\Bush campaign fundraising haul hits the $200 million mark...
...18?\A group of sixty top U.S...
...El Nov...
...El Jan...
...El Sept...
...signature on the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court...
...El Feb...
...none has been charged in connection to terrorism...
...29?\U.N...
...El Jan...
...13?\Bush orders that "enemy combatants" be tried in military tribunals...
...1?\Job losses over the past three years top 2.7 million...
...I0 n DISSENT / Summer 2004...
...AUGUST 2001 121 Aug...
...23?\Bush administration opens 300,000 acres of old-growth timber in Alaska's Tongass National Forest to logging...
...The actual figures: 724 soldiers killed, 522 of them in combat...
...APRIL 2002 121 April 2?\Bush administration opposes the reappointment of climatologist Robert Watson as head on the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change...
...NOVEMBER 2003 O Nov...
...22?\FCC approves the merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting, handing over 80 percent of the Spanish-language radio and television market to one company...
...El June 2?\Inspector general finds that the Justice Department violated the civil rights of COMMENTS & OPINIONS hundreds of immigrants detained after 9/11...
...5?\Bush administration presents "Healthy Forests Initiative" that would allow more logging of old-growth forests by limiting environmental impact reviews and public comment...
...10 Nov...
...0 June 10?\Ashcroft announces that alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, an American citizen arrested a month earlier at Chicago's O'Hare airport, is being held indefinitely as an "enemy combatant...
...June 25?\Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejects California's request to cancel $12 billion in long-term contracts signed during the state's energy crisis despite evidence of market manipulation by energy companies...
...Army Corps of Engineers 8 n DISSENT / Summer 2004 awards no-bid contract with a $7 billion limit to a Halliburton subsidiary for fighting possible oil well fires in Iraq...
...Ef May 6?\FDA blocks RU-486, the "morning after pill," from being sold over the counter...
...El March 8?\U.S...
...17?\Bush signs four anti-union executive orders, including measures to prohibit "project labor agreements" at federal construction sites and to remove job protections for union employees whose companies lose federal contracts...
...El May 30?\On a trip to Poland, Bush says: "We found the weapons of mass destruction...
...25?\Senate passes $400 billion, Bushbacked Medicare bill, which guarantees a prescription drug benefit starting in 2006 but prevents the government from negotiating lower prices with pharmaceutical companies...
...El Sept...
...1?\Bush issues executive order blocking the release of presidential records...
...FEBRUARY 2003 El Feb...
...El Feb...
...OCTOBER 2002 El Oct...
...WI July 28?\Congress exposes Pentagon plans to create a futures trading market to forecast terrorist attacks...
...O Oct...
...SEPTEMBER 2002 O Sept...
...6?\Presidential Daily Briefing warns "Bin Ladin [sic] Determined to Strike in U.S...
...El July 25?\Bush threatens to veto Homeland Security bill unless workers in the new department are stripped of civil service protections...
...17?\Bush admits there is no evidence tying Saddam Hussein to September 11 attacks...
...El June 22?\Bush threatens to veto McCainKennedy patients' bill of rights legislation...
...EI July 15?\Bush administration unveils the "Terrorism Information and Prevention System," or Operation TIPS, a toll-free hotline encouraging meter readers and truck drivers to report "suspicious activity...
...FEBRUARY 2004 El Feb...
...El Jan...
...7?\Bush relents and appoints commission on pre-war intelligence, calls for it to report findings after the presidential election...
...27?\Bush names Henry Kissinger to head independent commission investigating September 11 attacks...
...audits of large corporations and the rich drop to all-time lows...
...SEPTEMBER 2003 0 Sept...
...El Jan...
...28?\IRS records reveal increases in audits of the working poor...
...Nov...
...EI Feb...
...O Sept...
...30?\Bush administration seeks exemptions to international treaty banning the ozonedepleting chemical methyl bromide for use on golf courses, among other things...
...23?\On the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Bush reinstates the "global gag rule" barring U.S...
...15?\Bush denounces affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan as an unconstitutional "quota system...
...El Feb...
...MARCH 2004 El March 12?\Medicare actuary says Bush administration threatened to fire him if he told Congress that the White House Medicare plan would cost more than $400 billion...
...12?\Bush informs Congress that he intends to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty unilaterally...
...El Dec...
...El April 2?\Bush and Cheney appear at a private retreat for the more than five hundred "Rangers" and "Pioneers" who have collected at least $100,000 for the president's campaign...
...9?\EPA inspector general finds that the agency downplayed health risks from the collapse of the World Trade Center under pressure from the White House...
...JUNE 2001 June 19?\Cheney refuses to release records of energy task force meetings to the General Accounting Office...
...5?\Harvey Pitt resigns after failing to disclose that newly appointed accounting oversight board chairman William Webster had headed the audit committee of a firm accused of accounting improprieties and fraud...
...RI Oct...
...and "Nope, no weapons over there...
...Ef Oct...
...El Jan...
...Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares them "unlawful combatants" with no rights under the Geneva Convention...
...5?\Secretary of State Colin Powell appears before the UN Security Council to make the case for war with Iraq...
...EIApril 12?\Bush officials express support for the ouster of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez...
...El Oct...
...9?\Bush administration issues new medical privacy regulations that don't require patient consent to share records with insurance and pharmaceutical companies or restrict use of medical information for marketing purposes...
...24?\Congressional Republicans and the White House agree to a "compromise" media ownership cap of 39 percent?\ensuring that neither Viacom nor News Corp...
...E6 Aug...
...Court of Appeals...
...Cl July 26?\Bush administration rejects international treaty on germ warfare and biological weapons...
...OCTOBER 2003 O Oct...
...9?\Transportation Security Administration bars 56,000 airport screeners from unionizing...
...hi July 15?\SEC chairman William Donaldson endorses House bill seeking to limit the ability of state regulators to oversee the securities industry...
...NOVEMBER 2001 El Nov...
...OCTOBER 2001 El Oct...
...FEBRUARY 2002 RI Feb...
...El May 23?\Senate joins the House in approving "fast-track" trade authority for the president...
...10 March 27?\Bush signs McCain-Feingold bill banning soft money behind closed doors, then departs immediately for a fund-raising trip...
...RI Dec...
...El March 28?\Bush backs out of Kyoto treaty on global warming...
...16?\Cheney refuses to provide details of his multiple meetings with Enron officials...
...MAY 2003 El May 1?\Aboard an aircraft carrier?\with a banner touting "Mission Accomplished" as his backdrop?\Bush declares victory in Iraq...
...26?\Senate Republicans introduce a bill to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration...
...JUNE 2003 El June 2?\FCC increases media ownership cap, allowing one company to own TV stations reaching up to 45 percent of the country, and lifts the ban on a single company's owning newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations in the same city...
...El Jan...
...Ed Feb...
...JULY 2002 El July 14?\SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt says he'll release the entire files on the investigation into Bush's sale of $800,000 in Harken Energy stock if asked by the president...
...Jan.23?\Chief U.S...
...APRIL 2004 El April 1?\Bush signs the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act...
Vol. 51 • July 2004 • No. 3
