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Democracy: Crippled Election Commission (1)
The White House is removing a member of the Federal Election Commission for standing up for clean elections, while trying to install another member whose specialty is keeping eligible voters from casting ballots. The Senate, which must confirm nominees, should insist that President Bush appoint commissioners with a proven record of supporting voting rights and fair elections.
New York Times May 8, 2008

War: U.S. deploys more than 43,000 unfit for combat (2)
WASHINGTON — More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
USA Today May 8, 2008

Environment: New Policy Prolongs EPA Chemical Reviews (3)
The Bush administration has changed Environmental Protection Agency reviews of chemicals in a way that will delay scientific assessments of their health risks and open the process to politicization, congressional investigators said yesterday.
Washington Post April 30, 2008

Torture: Scratch torture from U.S. rule book (4)
When it comes to torture, the Bush administration wants the United States to have it both ways. President Bush believes America can be a country governed by laws, even though it may break the law under special circumstances. This is a morally bankrupt position that diminishes America's stature in the world, and puts U.S. citizens and soldiers at risk. Moreover, it is not necessary. The United Stat
Miami Herald April 29, 2008

War: The Tarnished Brass (5)
As it prepared to invade Iraq five years ago, the Bush administration called up retired military officers to help sell the war. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his propaganda team courted as many as 75 retired military officers who could best market the Pentagon line, particularly on television. As detailed in The Times on Sunday, many of these officers used their access to Pentagon bigwigs to promote their private businesses.
New York Times April 26, 2008

Environment: Our Favorite Planet (6)
Imagine if President Bush announced a plan for Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs that declared: They will cease accumulating nuclear weapons by 2025. We will accomplish this through incentives and voluntary action, without mandates.

Mr. Bush would be ridiculed, but in essence, that’s the plan he announced for climate change on Wednesday. He set a target for halting the growth in carbon di
New York Times April 20, 2008

Liberty: U.S. Plans to Collect DNA on Any Federal Arrest (7)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency, a move intended to prevent violent crime but which is also raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.
New York Times April 17, 2008

International: Memo to Bush on Darfur (8)
President Bush seems genuinely troubled by the slaughter in Darfur and has periodically suggested to Condoleezza Rice: Why can’t we just send troops in and take care of it? Each time, Ms. Rice patiently explains: You can’t invade a third Muslim country, especially one with oil. And so Mr. Bush backs off and does nothing.
New York Times April 10, 2008

Law: Going Soft on Corporate Crime (9)
The Bush administration has a well-known aversion to regulating big business. As it turns out, it is also reluctant to prosecute corporations that break the law.
New York Times April 10, 2008

Government: Another Heck of a Job (10)
Any remaining hope for a modern, efficient and precise census in 2010 has cratered, brought low by managerial incompetence and the administration’s relentless antipathy for effective government.
New York Times April 10, 2008

Environment: More Stalling On CO-2 (11)
After refusing to lead the nation by implementing regulations for carbon-dioxide emissions from motor vehicles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Bush administration are now refusing to get out of the way.
Hartford Courant April 6, 2008

Environment: Ignoring the Supreme Court (12)
THE BUSH administration never had any intention of doing what the Supreme Court commanded it to do a year ago today: regulate greenhouse gas emissions. We infer this because, even though President Bush ordered his agencies last May to work together to meet the court's directive, and even though the Environmental Protection Agency delivered to the White House last December its finding that those po
Washington Post April 2, 2008

Government: My Way or the Highway (13)
President Bush likes to talk about not being swayed by public opinion, especially the views of Democrats. At a news conference last December, he said the most important criterion for picking a president is “whether or not somebody’s got a sound set of principles from which they will not deviate as they make decisions.”

Unhappily for the country, we have learned that Mr. Bush has no idea when stan
New York Times March 29, 2008

Environment: More Flimflam on Warming (14)
On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the Clean Air Act clearly empowered the Environmental Protection Agency to address greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. The ruling instructed the agency to determine whether global warming pollution endangers public health and welfare — an “endangerment finding” — and, if so, to devise emissions standards for motor vehicles.
New York Times March 29, 2008

Environment: EPA chief bides time on court's emissions order (15)
EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson has shelved his agency's findings that greenhouse gases are a danger to the public, and on Thursday told Congress that he will initiate a lengthy public comment period about whether such emissions are a risk before responding to a U.S. Supreme Court order.
Los Angeles Times March 28, 2008

Immigration: A Foolish Immigration Purge (16)
Leave it to the Bush administration to throw thousands of law-abiding American workers and companies off a cliff in perilous economic times. That would be the effect of its decision to press ahead with a bad idea: to force businesses to fire employees whose names don’t match the Social Security database.
New York Times March 27, 2008

Health: Pentagon admits postponing brain screenings (17)
The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.
Guardian March 18, 2008

Liberty: President weakens espionage oversight (18)
WASHINGTON - Almost 32 years to the day after President Ford created an independent Intelligence Oversight Board made up of private citizens with top-level clearances to ferret out illegal spying activities, President Bush issued an executive order that stripped the board of much of its authority.
Boston Globe March 14, 2008

Energy: No Action on Auto Fuel Economy Despite EPA's Urging (19)
Congressional investigators said yesterday that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen L. Johnson recommended raising automobile fuel economy standards three months ago based on a staff assessment that carbon dioxide emissions threaten the public's health and welfare, but the Bush administration has taken no action.
Washington Post March 13, 2008

Justice: Going to Jail for Being a Democrat: How Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman Got Roved (20)
Don Siegelman, a popular Democratic governor of Alabama, a Republican state, was framed in a crooked trial, convicted on June 29, 2006, and sent to Federal prison by the corrupt and immoral Bush administration.
AlterNet March 3, 2008

Environment: A Toxic Time Bomb in the Northwest (21)
Buried in President Bush's proposed budget for next year is a story of broken promises. It's a story that puts our nation's honor -- and our environment, economy and families -- on the line.

The president wants to increase spending on every major category of our government's nuclear program except one: cleaning up the toxic legacy that lurks at nuclear reservations and facilities around the natio
Washington Post March 3, 2008

Torture: Horrifying and Unnecessary (22)
In the next few days President Bush is expected to again claim the right to order mistreatment of prisoners that any civilized person would regard as torture.

Mr. Bush is planning to veto a law that would require the C.I.A. and all the intelligence services to abide by the restrictions on holding and interrogating prisoners contained in the United States Army Field Manual. Mr. Bush says the Army
New York Times March 2, 2008

Government: Congress to Bush: You've Lost Mail (23)
The Bush White House has made a mockery of the Presidential Records Act and its requirement that official White House records -- including e-mails -- be preserved for posterity.

At a congressional hearing yesterday, it became clear for the first time that top White House officials knowingly adopted a new e-mail system in 2002 that was riddled with technical problems that not only risked data loss
Washington Post February 27, 2008

Environment: EPA threatened states wanting tougher mercury limits (24)
WASHINGTON (AP) — While arguing in court that states are free to enact tougher mercury controls from power plants, the Bush administration pressured dozens of states to accept a scheme that would let some plants evade cleaning up their pollution, government documents show.
USA Today February 16, 2008

Government: Bush Administration Hides More Data, Shuts Down Website Tracking U.S. Economic Indicators (25)
The U.S. economy is faltering. Family debt is on the rise, benefits are disappearing, the deficit is skyrocketing, and the mortgage crisis has worsened. Conservatives have attempted to deflect attention from the crisis, by blaming the media’s negative coverage and insisting the United States is not headed toward a recession, despite what economists are predicting.

The Bush administration’s latest
Think Progress February 13, 2008

Government: The Cult of Secrecy at the White House (26)
There’s no end to President Bush’s slyness in subverting new Congressional law and clinging to the secrecy that has been the administration’s executive cloak. When a vital measure to strengthen the tattered freedom-of-information law won unanimous approval by both houses of Congress, the president was forced to soften his stand and quietly sign it into law on New Year’s Eve.

But, of course, even
New York Times February 7, 2008

Torture: CIA says used waterboarding three times (27)
WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - The CIA on three occasions shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks used a widely condemned interrogation technique known as waterboarding, CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress on Tuesday.
Reuters February 5, 2008

Health: Bush cuts health and community services (28)
WASHINGTON—President Bush's $3 trillion budget for next year slashes mental health funding and rural health care and freezes spending on medical research, among the cuts outlined in budget documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Boston Globe February 1, 2008

War: Bush fights move to rein in war contractors (29)
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers say they will push ahead with a presidential commission designed to root out waste and fraud in military contracts despite President Bush's concerns that it could usurp his authority.
MSNBC February 1, 2008

Environment: 24 Hours After Touting Clean Coal In SOTU, White House Drops Ambitious Clean Coal Project (30)
President Bush has long touted clean coal technology as a potential solution to global warming. In 2006, he insisted that the United States is “spending quite a bit of money here at the federal level to come up with clean-coal technologies.” During Monday’s State of the Union address, Bush said, “Let us fund new technologies that can generate coal power while capturing carbon emissions.”
Think Progress January 31, 2008

Environment: Bush opens 3m acres of Alaskan forest to logging (31)
The US government has announced plans to open more than 3m acres (about 5,000 square miles) of Alaskan wilderness to logging, mining and road building, angering environmental campaigners who say it will devastate the region. Supporters say the plan for the Tongass National Forest, a refuge for grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and wild salmon, will revive the state's timber industry.
Guardian January 29, 2008

Health: Vetoing History’s Responsibility (32)
President Bush’s threat to veto a bill intended to improve health care for the nation’s American Indians is both cruel and grossly unfair.
New York Times January 28, 2008

Environment: Bush Administration Strips Protections from America's Largest Forest (33)
Juneau, AK (January 25, 2008) -- Today, the Bush administration took its third swipe in recent weeks at opening protected areas in America’s national forests to logging before it leaves office. A Bush plan announced today puts a “for sale” sign on trees in vast swaths of the nation’s largest national forest – the Tongass rainforest in Alaska.
NRDC January 25, 2008

Health: Bush Threatens Veto of Indian Health Care Bill (34)
The Bush administration threatened to veto Senate legislation designed to improve health care on Indian reservations, objecting to provisions involving pay and benefits for workers on some projects.
New York Times January 23, 2008

Women's Rights: Are U.S. Policies Killing Women? (35)
Even as we commemorate the landmark 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade this year, U.S. reproductive-health policies are having an inordinately negative effect outside of our borders. They're causing women to die or be maimed. Harsh words, but true.
AlterNet January 22, 2008

Government: Bush 'gutted' State Dept. nuke efforts (36)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- A former State Department official says the Bush administration "gutted" counter-proliferation initiatives by pushing ideology over experience.
UPI January 18, 2008

Government: The 'pocket veto' peril (37)
Pundits and pols who have been tracking President Bush's constitutional transgressions can add another to the list: his Dec. 28 "pocket veto" of the massive defense spending bill. Instead of issuing a regular veto, which allows Congress the opportunity to override if it can muster the votes, Bush stated that he needed to pocket veto the bill -- a power the Constitution says may only be used when "Congress by their Adjournment prevent [the bill's] Return." Bush argued that he was "prevented" from "returning" the bill to Congress because the House had adjourned.
Los Angeles Times January 8, 2008

Environment: Bush Administration Plans to Remove Protection from Colorado's National Forests (38)
DENVER (December 26, 2007) – The Bush administration revealed today its intentions to remove existing legal protections from over 4.4 million acres of roadless areas in the national forests of Colorado. The Forest Service formally announced that it is beginning a process to establish a new rule for managing Colorado's roadless areas. The public was given 60 days to submit comments.
NRDC December 26, 2007

War Crimes: Warnings Unheeded On Guards In Iraq (39)
The U.S. government disregarded numerous warnings over the past two years about the risks of using Blackwater Worldwide and other private security firms in Iraq, expanding their presence even after a series of shooting incidents showed that the firms were operating with little regulation or oversight, according to government officials, private security firms and documents.
Washington Post December 24, 2007

International: Weakening Pakistan (40)
Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, insists his outrageous power grabs are aimed at stabilizing and protecting his country. His authoritarian maneuvers only weaken the country’s already feeble political institutions and fuel more political turmoil.
New York Times December 22, 2007

Torture: 9/11 Panel Study Finds That C.I.A. Withheld Tapes (41)
WASHINGTON — A review of classified documents by former members of the Sept. 11 commission shows that the panel made repeated and detailed requests to the Central Intelligence Agency in 2003 and 2004 for documents and other information about the interrogation of operatives of Al Qaeda, and were told by a top C.I.A. official that the agency had “produced or made available for review” everything tha
New York Times December 22, 2007

Liberty: FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics (42)
CLARKSBURG, W. Va. -- The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.
Washington Post December 22, 2007

Environment: Arrogance and Warming (43)
The Bush administration’s decision to deny California permission to regulate and reduce global warming emissions from cars and trucks is an indefensible act of executive arrogance that can only be explained as the product of ideological blindness and as a political payoff to the automobile industry.
New York Times December 21, 2007

Energy: A Shameful Presidential Threat (44)
The Senate should ignore an incredibly mischievous last-minute veto threat from the White House and vote resoundingly in favor of an energy bill that could come before it as early as today. The bill represents a historic opportunity to ease America’s dependence on foreign oil and to take steps in the battle against global warming, and its passage would send a message to the worlds’ negotiators in
New York Times December 13, 2007

Environment: Environmentalists: Bush Backtracks on Vow (45)
After years of saying U.S. involvement in a mandatory global greenhouse reduction plan is contingent upon participation by China and other developing nations, the Bush administration is now rejecting such proposals, according to environmental leaders observing Bali's climate change conference.
US News & World Report December 11, 2007

Labor: Labor Dept. Accused of Union Sabotage (46)
Political operatives in the Department of Labor are using federal reporting requirements to undermine trade unions and conduct a "political misinformation campaign" against them, a report released yesterday charges.
Washington Post December 11, 2007

International: A Blow to Bush's Tehran Policy (47)
President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.
Washington Post December 4, 2007

Energy: White House threatens to veto energy bill (48)
WASHINGTON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The White House on Monday threatened to veto legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that would require the first big increase in three decades in the country's automobile fuel efficiency.
AlterNet December 3, 2007

Government: You’re Eating That? (49)
A few years ago Americans walked into the grocery store and plucked items from the shelves with a confidence that the world could only envy. Now, according to a survey for the Food Marketing Institute, only 66 percent of consumers in the United States are confident that the food they buy is safe, down from 82 percent last year. With news of killer spinach, tainted hamburger patties and imported seafood that can provide as many toxins as omega-3s, who can blame them?
New York Times November 26, 2007

Budget: Bush vetoes bill to fund health, education programs (50)
WASHINGTON - President Bush on Tuesday vetoed a spending measure for health and education programs prized by congressional Democrats. He also signed a big increase in the Pentagon's non-war budget.
New York Daily News November 13, 2007

Government: Playing Games With Toy Safety (51)
With the holiday season approaching, there is more bad news about the federal agency charged with protecting children from unsafe toys. Nancy Nord, acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, joined industry lobbyists in opposing a Senate bill intended to strengthen her enfeebled agency. That was followed by the revelation that Ms. Nord and her predecessor took free trips from the
New York Times November 4, 2007

Corruption: Industries Paid for Top Regulators' Travel (52)
The chief of the Consumer Product Safety Commission and her predecessor have taken dozens of trips at the expense of the toy, appliance and children's furniture industries and others they regulate, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Some of the trips were sponsored by lobbying groups and lawyers representing the makers of products linked to consumer hazards.
Washington Post November 2, 2007

Government: Strengthening of Consumer Agency Opposed by Its Boss (53)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 — The top official for consumer product safety has asked Congress in recent days to reject legislation that would strengthen the agency that polices thousands of consumer goods, from toys to tools.
New York Times October 29, 2007

Government: NASA refuses to disclose air safety survey (54)
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. - Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.
MSNBC October 22, 2007

Energy: Bush's "Poor Kids First" Kept Sick and Freezing (55)
George W. Bush explained his recent veto of the bipartisan-supported Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, because he says he wants to put "poor kids first."

The president's (and his supporters') logic here is that expanding funding for the popular State Child Health Insurance Plan would mean that more people than those living in rock-bottom poverty might get access to government-subsidized healthcare, and that would be a grievous wrong. He contends that only kids born into the most desperate poverty should get help outside of private, market-priced insurance--whether they can afford it or not.
Huffington Post October 22, 2007

Justice: Empty Seats on the Bench (56)
NEXT WEEK, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is scheduled to hear al-Marri v. Wright, an important case involving the rights of those captured in the war on terrorism to challenge their detentions. Under normal circumstances, the full court, which reviews federal cases from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas, would have a complement of 15 judges. These are not normal times.
Washington Post October 21, 2007

Environment: Temporary Victory on Clean Air (57)
Last week’s record-breaking consent decree requiring American Electric Power, the nation’s largest utility, to pay $4.6 billion to clean up its act represents a satisfying, if delayed victory for the Clinton administration and other plaintiffs who brought the suit eight years ago. More than anything, though, it is a victory for millions of people downwind of the company’s plants who have been forced to breathe dirty air.
New York Times October 15, 2007

Environment: EPA Joins Settlement of Lawsuit but Adds a Waiver (58)
Although the Environmental Protection Agency joined in a legal settlement this week to force the largest power-plant pollution cleanup in U.S. history, the Bush administration signaled in the agreement that it has no intention of taking enforcement actions against the utility for the same kind of Clean Air Act violations in the future.
Washington Post October 11, 2007

Human Rights: Carter says U.S. tortures prisoners (59)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Carter said Wednesday. "I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
CNN October 10, 2007

Security: Report: White House Ruins Terrorist Intel (60)
A small, privately run intelligence analysis company says that a Bush administration leak has ruined years of clandestine work to find and exploit al Qaeda secrets on the Internet, the Washington Post reports.
CBS News October 9, 2007

International: The damage is done (61)
ATLANTA - Just imagine that Vice President Dick Cheney went on a visit to a foreign country - Great Britain, let's say - and that one of his Secret Service agents was shot several times and killed by a drunken bodyguard hired by the Brits. Let's say the British government quickly hushed up the crime and spirited the bodyguard out of the country, leaving him free to go about his life.
Baltimore Sun October 8, 2007

Government: Bridges to Somewhere (62)
You'd be hard-pressed to convince the American people that we don't need to spend more on infrastructure after the tragic collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minneapolis in August. Signs of decay are everywhere, from crumbling bridges to pothole-ridden streets to exploding manhole covers and underground steam pipes.

Yet Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is making precisely that argument. S
Washington Post October 8, 2007

Human Rights: More Torture Memos (63)
PRESIDENT BUSH said Friday, as he has many times before, that "this government does not torture people." But presidential declarations can't change the facts. The record shows that Mr. Bush and a compliant Justice Department have repeatedly authorized the CIA to use interrogation methods that the rest of the world -- and every U.S. administration before this one -- have regarded as torture: techni
Washington Post October 6, 2007

Government: Feds waited weeks to warn on tainted meat (64)
Bush Administration officials whose job is to protect the nation's food supply waited an 18 days to warn consumers that millions of pounds of ground beef might be contaminated with E.coli bacteria.
New York Daily News October 5, 2007

Honesty: Bush's Veto Lies (65)
To say that George W. Bush spends money like a drunken sailor is to insult every gin-soaked patron of every dockside dive in every dubious port of call. If Bush gets his way, the cost of his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will soon reach a mind-blowing $600 billion. Despite turning a budget surplus into a huge deficit, the man still hasn't met a tax cut he doesn't like. And when the Republicans were
Washington Post October 5, 2007

Liberty: Stop the Raids (66)
Armed squads bursting into homes in the dead of night with shotguns and automatic weapons, terrorizing families and taking away anyone who lacks identity papers, even if they have raided the wrong house. It may sound like Baghdad, but it is the suburbs of New York City, the latest among hundreds of communities around the country where federal agents have been invading homes and workplaces in searc
New York Times October 4, 2007

Health: Bush Vetoes Children’s Health Insurance Bill (67)
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — President Bush vetoed the children’s health insurance bill today, as he had promised to do, setting the stage for more negotiations between the White House and Congress. Mr. Bush wielded his pen with no fanfare just before leaving for a visit to Lancaster, Pa. The veto was only the fourth of Mr. Bush’s presidency.
New York Times October 3, 2007

Environment: Bush's EPA Is Pursuing Fewer Polluters (68)
The Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration, with the number of prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions all down by more than a third, according to Justice Department and EPA data.
Washington Post September 30, 2007

Environment: White House Taking Unearned Credit for Emissions Cuts (69)
Seeking to counter international pressure to adopt binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions, the Bush administration has been touting the success of three mandatory programs to curb U.S. energy consumption: gas mileage standards for vehicles, efficiency standards for home appliances and state laws requiring utilities to increase their use of renewable energy sources.

But for most of the Bush pr
Washington Post September 26, 2007

Budget: BUSH'S FISCAL LEGACY: BIGGER DEBT (70)
WASHINGTON - Whatever happens over the next 16 months, President Bush will leave office having presided over one of the fastest accumulations of government debt in the history of the United States.

During his time in office, federal debt held by the public – Washington's equivalent of a credit-card balance – will have increased by more than 50 percent, to about $5.5 trillion. Uncle Sam will be pa
Christian Science Monitor September 26, 2007

Environment: U.S. Trying to Block Calif. on Emissions (71)
The Bush administration has conducted a concerted, behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to try to generate opposition to California's request to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, according to documents obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Washington Post September 25, 2007

International: Forsaking the Egyptian Free Press (72)
The Egyptian publisher Hisham Kassem was in Washington last week to pick up the National Endowment for Democracy's prestigious annual Democracy Award, in recognition of his role in jump-starting a free Egyptian press. Along with two other honorees, he spent nearly an hour in the Oval Office with President Bush, who spoke with feeling about his "freedom agenda" and his intention to pursue it after he leaves office.
Washington Post September 24, 2007

Democracy: A 'Palpable Injustice' (73)
THE U.S. SENATE had a chance yesterday to make history. It chose instead to add another unconscionable chapter to that well-worn volume that could be titled "The Second-Class Status of the People of the District of Columbia." A few Republicans showed enough gumption to vote for principle and against party interest. Most Republicans, led by their leaders and egged on by President Bush -- who talks
Washington Post September 19, 2007

Government: Department of Brazen Bureaucracy (74)
The Bush administration seems intent on flouting Congress’s mandate to restore the primacy of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in dealing with disasters. At the core of the government’s dreadful performance when Katrina crushed New Orleans two years ago was the confusion of responsibility in which the new and untested Department of Homeland Security superseded FEMA as the manager of disaste
New York Times September 13, 2007

Government: Audit Cites Overpaid Medicare Insurers (75)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 9 — Private insurance companies participating in Medicare have been allowed to keep tens of millions of dollars that should have gone to consumers, and the Bush administration did not properly audit the companies or try to recover money paid in error, Congressional investigators say in a new report.
New York Times September 10, 2007

Security: Lagging on Homeland Security (76)
In response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the federal government began the most sweeping bureaucratic overhaul in half a century. The result was the creation in 2003 of the Department of Homeland Security — a behemoth designed to consolidate 22 separate agencies and 220,000 employees into a battle-ready shield against terrorists and natural disasters.

Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina glaringly a
New York Times September 10, 2007

Terrorism: Fighting war on terror in wrong places (77)
ATLANTA - What about Afghanistan? What about Pakistan? Add this to the sins of the Bush White House: Its foolish misadventure in Iraq has diverted our politics and our military away from those places that gave aid and comfort to the jihadists who staged the Sept. 11 attacks.
Baltimore Sun September 10, 2007

Liberty: F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets (78)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 — The F.B.I. cast a much wider net in its terrorism investigations than it has previously acknowledged by relying on telecommunications companies to analyze phone-call patterns of the associates of Americans who had come under suspicion, according to newly obtained bureau records.
New York Times September 8, 2007

Security: National Security Bubble (79)
THE GOAL OF the Bush administration after Sept. 11, 2001, was simple and clear: Protect the country from another devastating attack. But in its quest to counter unprecedented threats, the White House deliberately avoided seeking the advice of Congress -- and even that of some of its own top officials -- for fear of encountering opposition to novel or aggressive tactics. This go-it-alone approach l
Washington Post September 8, 2007

Health: Denying Children’s Health Care (80)
The Bush administration reached a deplorable, preordained verdict yesterday when it denied New York State permission to expand a valuable health insurance program to help cover middle-class children. The administration, which makes no effort to disguise its disdain for government insurance programs, imposed new, excessively stringent requirements last month that not only guaranteed New York’s deni
New York Times September 8, 2007

Government: Safety Agency Faces Scrutiny Amid Changes (81)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 — In March 2005, the Consumer Product Safety Commission called together the nation’s top safety experts to confront an alarming statistic: 44,000 children riding all terrain vehicles were injured the previous year, nearly 150 of them fatally.
New York Times September 1, 2007

Democracy: A Rigged Report on U.S. Voting? (82)
After the 2000 Florida election debacle, Congress established a body called the Election Assistance Commission to improve voting and democracy in this country. Two years ago, the commission approached me about doing a project that would take a preliminary look at voter fraud and intimidation and make recommendations for further research on the issues.

Because my approach to election issues tends
Washington Post August 30, 2007

Security: Air cargo end-run (83)
A MONTH AGO, it looked as if Congress had finally plugged one of the gaps in air travel security: the failure of officials to inspect the commercial cargo that passenger airplanes carry in their holds. Now the Transportation Security Administration is considering an interpretation of the new law to allow companies to ship cargo that they have certified as safe, without X-ray or physical inspection
Boston Globe August 25, 2007

Democracy: Squelching the Citizenry’s Back Talk (84)
The White House certainly has been guilty of mismanagement and lack of preparation on the big things, like the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina. But it turns out that President Bush’s encounters with ordinary Americans have been micromanaged and laboriously controlled for the past five years to weed out the merest whiff of protest. Citizen volunteers are enlisted to vet cranky-looking sorts outside
New York Times August 25, 2007

Environment: Unfathomable: EPA Decides Oil Refinery Air Pollution is Clean Enough to Ignore (85)
WASHINGTON (August 23, 2007) – Flouting common sense as well as the law, the Environmental Protection Agency today announced a proposed rule that concludes that tens of thousands of tons of toxic air emissions from U.S. oil refineries are not risky enough to warrant any additional safeguards for the breathing public. If it stands, the decision will impose a significant cancer risk on nearly half a
NRDC August 23, 2007

Environment: Rule to Expand Mountaintop Coal Mining (86)
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22 — The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams. It has been used in Appalachian coal country for 20 years under a cloud of legal and regulatory confusion.
New York Times August 23, 2007

Honesty: Bush Lies About Al-Qaeda Captures in Iraq (87)
Some distortions are so massive and so deliberate as to constitute outright lies. See if you can spot the dishonesty in this line in President Bush's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars' national convention today: U.S. forces have killed or captured an average of more than 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists and other extremists every month since January.
TPM August 22, 2007

Government: Federal No-Bid Contracts On Rise (88)
Under pressure from the White House and Congress to deliver a long-delayed plan last year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security's counter-narcotics office took a shortcut that has become common at federal agencies: They hired help through a no-bid contract. And the firm they hired showed them how to do it.
Washington Post August 22, 2007

Environment: Judge Orders Reports on Global Warming (89)
The Bush administration violated federal law by missing deadlines to produce a study on the impact of global warming, now as much as two years overdue, and must issue a summary by March, a federal judge ruled.
New York Times August 22, 2007

Government: White House Fights Disclosure (90)
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said Tuesday that records about missing White House e-mails are not subject to public disclosure, the latest effort by the Bush administration to expand the boundaries of government secrecy.
Huffington Post August 22, 2007

Health: New Bush Admin Rules Aim To Block Child Health Care Programs (91)
The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.
Huffington Post August 21, 2007

Health: Crack downs on lead paint thwarted by China, Bush Administration (92)
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration and China have both undermined efforts to tighten rules designed to ensure that lead paint isn't used in toys, bibs, jewelry and other children’s products. Both have fought efforts to better police imported toys from China.
McClatchy Newspapers August 21, 2007

Law: Commerce, Treasury funds helped boost GOP campaigns (93)
WASHINGTON — Top Commerce and Treasury Departments officials appeared with Republican candidates and doled out millions in federal money in battleground congressional districts and states after receiving White House political briefings detailing GOP election strategy.
McClatchy Newspapers August 17, 2007

Honesty: Gonzales' Top Lies (94)
The verdict is clear: Alberto Gonzales is the lying-est attorney general in recent history. "I don't trust you," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) told him last month. Ranking member Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) sounded him out for his "lack of credibility." "He tells the half truth, the partial truth and everything but the truth," said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Gonza
TPM August 17, 2007

Government: Searching for the Miners (95)
It is beyond belief that in this Information Age, when new technologies can eavesdrop on any conversation and track people around the globe, rescue teams have no way to communicate with the six miners trapped underground in the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah. Instead they are drilling holes in the ground to where they guess the miners might be.

It needn’t be so. For too long, the Bush administratio
New York Times August 16, 2007

Environment: Wolfowitz 'tried to censor World Bank on climate change' (96)
The Bush administration has consistently thwarted efforts by the World Bank to include global warming in its calculations when considering whether to approve major investments in industry and infrastructure, according to documents made public through a watchdog yesterday.

On one occasion, the White House's pointman at the bank, the now disgraced Paul Wolfowitz, personally intervened to remove the
Independent August 13, 2007

Human Rights: Deported Canadian Was No Threat, Report Shows (97)
OTTAWA, Aug. 9 — Canadian intelligence officials anticipated that the United States would ship Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian who was detained in New York in 2002 on suspicion of terrorism, to a third country to be tortured, declassified information released on Thursday shows.

Mr. Arar was sent by American intelligence officials in October 2002 to Syria, where he was tortured and jailed for a
New York Times August 10, 2007

Honesty: Lying Again, This Time About Iran's Nuclear Program (98)
Has the United States ever had to endure a president who lies as often as George W. Bush? He repeatedly lied to the American people in order to invade Iraq. Now he is lying about Iran. Who is going to hold him accountable?
Huffington Post August 9, 2007

Health: HHS Hacks Plant Lies in Letters (99)
Four regional directors of the Department of Health and Human Services signed their names on copycat letters sent to editorial pages across the country, spreading misinformation about opposing children's health insurance proposals.
Huffington Post August 7, 2007

Liberty: In Bush we trust - or else (100)
It doesn't require a subpoena of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales or a brave whistle-blower to find President Bush's latest affront to the U.S. Constitution. It's in plain view on the White House Web site: "Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq."

This far-reaching order of July 17 may be Bush's most brazen defiance of the Constitution, w
San Francisco Chronicle August 5, 2007

Middle East: The Mideast needs more guns? (101)
THE LAST THING the Middle East needs is a new round of arms sales, but that is what the Bush administration wants Congress to approve, the better to contain Iran's bid for dominance in the region. Under its current leadership, Tehran is a threat to regional stability. But that threat is best contained through diplomacy and a clear statement that, whatever happens in Iraq, US forces will not leave
Boston Globe August 5, 2007

Human Rights: Report: Harsh Methods Used On 9/11 Suspect (102)
Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was subjected to the CIA's harshest interrogation methods while he was held in secret prisons around the world for more than three years, part of an interrogation regimen that the International Committee of the Red Cross has called "tantamount to torture," according to a New Yorker article to be published on
Washington Post August 5, 2007

Environment: The Owl and the Forest (103)
The spotted owl, once famously referred to by the first President Bush as “that little furry-feathery guy,” was not exactly a popular little guy among angry timber workers in the Pacific Northwest.
New York Times August 5, 2007

Liberty: Senate passes Bush-backed spy bill (104)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-led U.S. Senate, amid warnings of further attacks on the United States, approved a bill on Friday that would allow President George W. Bush to maintain his controversial domestic spying program.
Reuters August 4, 2007

Government: When a Government Won't Own Up (105)
Rescue and cleanup workers, who put their lives on the line in our nation's darkest hour, weren't given information about environmental risks and are now paying the price with financial hardship, illness, and even death.

Hundreds of thousands of people living on the Gulf Coast survived a horrific natural disaster and a failed government response, only to be placed in trailers that FEMA knew were
The Nation August 2, 2007

Honesty: Gonzales's Truthfulness Long Disputed (106)
When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."

But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
Washington Post July 30, 2007

Health: Bush Aide Blocked Report (107)
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
Washington Post July 29, 2007

Security: Losing sleep over Iraq (108)
AS THE U.S. Senate prepared for an all-night session on legislation to bring the troops home from Iraq, fresh evidence to support the case for withdrawal was coming from the unlikeliest quarters.
San Francisco Chronicle July 18, 2007

Politics: Drug czar deployed for GOP, papers show (109)
WASHINGTON — As President Bush fought to keep Congress in Republican hands last year, the White House political director enlisted the nation's drug czar to attend events with vulnerable GOP incumbents, documents made public on Tuesday disclosed.
Los Angeles Times July 18, 2007

Government: F.D.A. Inspections Lax, Congress Is Told (110)
WASHINGTON, July 17 — It did not take exporters and importers long to learn that the safety net for goods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration is full of holes. According to testimony Tuesday before a House subcommittee, they have been able to bring tainted products into this country because the F.D.A. has neither enough resources nor inspectors to stop them
New York Times July 18, 2007

War: Pentagon balked at pleas from officers in field for safer vehicles (111)
Pfc. Aaron Kincaid, 25, had been joking with buddies just before their Humvee rolled over the bomb. His wife, Rachel, later learned that the blast blew Kincaid, a father of two from outside Atlanta, through the Humvee's metal roof.

Army investigators who reviewed the Sept. 23 attack near Riyadh, Iraq, wrote in their report that only providence could have saved Kincaid from dying that day: "There was no way short of not going on that route at that time (that) this tragedy could have been diverted."
USA Today July 16, 2007

Health: Bush Is Prepared to Veto Bill to Expand Child Insurance (112)
WASHINGTON, July 14 — The White House said on Saturday that President Bush would veto a bipartisan plan to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program, drafted over the last six months by senior members of the Senate Finance Committee.

The vow puts Mr. Bush at odds with the Democratic majority in Congress, with a substantial number of Republican lawmakers and with many governors of both partie
New York Times July 15, 2007

Health: Former Bush Surgeon General Says He Was Muzzled (113)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research.

"Anything that doesn't fit into the political appointees' ideological, theological or political agenda is ignored, marginalized or simply buried," Dr. Richard Carmona, who serve
New York Times July 10, 2007

Security: Job Vacancies At DHS Said To Hurt U.S. Preparedness (114)
The Bush administration has failed to fill roughly a quarter of the top leadership posts at the Department of Homeland Security, creating a "gaping hole" in the nation's preparedness for a terrorist attack or other threat, according to a congressional report to be released today.
Washington Post July 9, 2007

Environment: E.P.A. Scaled Back Rules on Wetlands (115)
WASHINGTON, July 5 — After a concerted lobbying effort by property developers, mine owners and farm groups, the Bush administration scaled back proposed guidelines for enforcing a key Supreme Court ruling governing protected wetlands and streams.
New York Times July 5, 2007

Government: Cheney Defiant on Classified Material (116)
Vice President Cheney's office has refused to comply with an executive order governing the handling of classified information for the past four years and recently tried to abolish the office that sought to enforce those rules, according to documents released by a congressional committee yesterday.
Washington Post June 22, 2007

Government: Waxman questions legality of Cheney's secrecy (117)
Rep. Henry Waxman has caught on to something that the Tribune first reported in April of 2006: Vice President Dick Cheney exempts his office from a demand that executive agencies report each year on the volume of documents that they classify or declassify – something required by a presidential executive order his boss signed.
The Swamp June 21, 2007

Science: Bush vetoes bill aimed at promoting stem cell research (118)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Vetoing a stem cell bill for the second time, President Bush on Wednesday sought to placate those who disagree with him by signing an executive order urging scientists toward what he termed "ethically responsible" research in the field.
CNN June 20, 2007

Middle East: Takeover by Hamas Illustrates Failure of Bush's Mideast Vision (119)
Five years ago this month, President Bush stood in the Rose Garden and laid out a vision for the Middle East that included Israel and a state called Palestine living together in peace. "I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror," the president declared.

The takeover this week of the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group dedicated to the elimination
Washington Post June 15, 2007

Government: Another Sorry Ascension (120)
It apparently wasn’t enough for the Bush administration to pack the Department of Justice with political operatives. The White House has now nominated one of the most meddlesome of those partisans, Hans von Spakovsky, to a powerful post on the Federal Election Commission.
New York Times June 14, 2007

Liberty: FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data (121)
An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.
Washington Post June 14, 2007

Government: A Questionable Nominee (122)
PRESIDENT BUSH has nominated Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. to be the next surgeon general of the United States. His would be the leading voice on health issues in the nation, and as such, he would be looked to for unbiased information grounded in sound science and tailored to the common good. That's why a 1991 paper written by Dr. Holsinger titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality" has raised re
Washington Post June 14, 2007

Government: FDA called 'cozy' with drugmakers (123)
While revising their drug-review policy last year, Food and Drug Administration officials met 112 times with industry representatives but only five times with consumer and patient groups, according to data out Monday from the House Appropriations Committee.
USA Today June 11, 2007

International: Pakistan’s Dictator (124)
If Gen. Pervez Musharraf were the democratic leader he indignantly insists he is, he would not be so busy threatening independent news outlets, arresting hundreds of opposition politicians and berating parliamentary leaders and ministers from his own party for insufficient loyalty to his arbitrary and widely unpopular policies.

But nobody takes General Musharraf’s democratic claims seriously anym
New York Times June 11, 2007

Liberty: European agency details alleged secret prison activity (125)
PARIS — The CIA held suspected Al Qaeda militants in secret prisons in Poland and Romania, enlisting top officials in those countries to create and conceal the facilities, a European intergovernmental agency alleged Friday.

Current and former intelligence officials in Europe and the United States told the Council of Europe that the interrogation facilities were hubs of a global anti-terrorism cam
Los Angeles Times June 9, 2007

Environment: President Shows Up Late, Comes Up Short on Global Warming (126)
WASHINGTON (May 31, 2007) – The vague, voluntary global warming goal announced today by President Bush confirms again that the administration continues to lag far behind leading American businesses and a growing list of leaders in both political parties that are pressing for concrete legal limits to cut global warming pollution according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
NRDC May 31, 2007

Government: Forget Ethics, Remember Politics (127)
The Bush administration’s never-ending push to turn federal agencies into favor-filled partisan clubhouses has just been confirmed in red-handed detail at the General Services Administration, the government’s main housekeeping agency. Investigators found that Lurita Doan, the Bush appointee running the agency, violated the Hatch Act, which forbids federal workers from politicking on the job.
New York Times May 28, 2007

Human Rights: U.N. rights investigator accuses U.S. of abuse (128)
GENEVA - A U.N. investigator accused the United States on Friday of human rights violations in its fight against terrorism, criticizing the use of military commissions to try civilians and interrogation practices.
MSNBC May 26, 2007

Environment: U.S. rejects German climate position - G8 draft (129)
LONDON, May 25 (Reuters) - The United States has rejected Germany's bid to get the Group of Eight to agree to tough cuts in climate warming carbon emissions, according to a draft of the communique to be presented to next month's meeting.
AlterNet May 25, 2007

Government: Appointed Hobblers of Government (130)
Across six years, the Bush administration has mocked all standards of conflict of interest by choosing private industry zealots for high regulatory posts — where they worked to roll back hundreds of rules on transportation, workplace and mine safety, the environment and other issues. The latest in this subversive chain must surely take the fox-in-the-henhouse statuette: President Bush has nominate
New York Times May 18, 2007

Government: U.S. Attorneys, Reloaded (131)
As the United States attorney scandal grows, so does the number of prosecutors who seem to have been pushed out for partisan political reasons. Another highly suspicious case has emerged in the appointment of Bradley Schlozman, a controversial elections lawyer, to replace a respected United States attorney in Missouri. From the facts available, it looks like a main reason for installing Mr. Schloz
New York Times May 10, 2007

Environment: Bush Administration Sets All-time Record for Denying Protection to Endangered Species (132)
WASHINGTON— Today marks exactly one year since the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service last protected any new U.S. species under the Endangered Species Act. Fittingly, on this same day, the House Natural Resources Committee is holding important oversight hearings on implementation of the Endangered Species Act by a recalcitrant Bush administration. The last time the agency
Center for Biological Diversity May 9, 2007

Environment: Bush Appointee Could Endanger Public Health (133)
WASHINGTON (April 4, 2007) – A radical reactionary who believes in allowing arsenic in drinking water and that smog is actually beneficial because it can protect people from sunburn has been appointed by President Bush to the position of administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). OIRA is little known to the public, but has enormous power to weaken, delay and eliminat
NRDC May 3, 2007

Liberty: Spying on Americans (134)
For more than five years, President Bush authorized government spying on phone calls and e-mail to and from the United States without warrants. He rejected offers from Congress to update the electronic eavesdropping law, and stonewalled every attempt to investigate his spying program.

Suddenly, Mr. Bush is in a hurry. He has submitted a bill that would enact enormous, and enormously dangerous, ch
New York Times May 2, 2007

War: Bush Vetoes Troop Withdrawal Bill (135)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush vetoed legislation to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq Tuesday night in a historic showdown with Congress over whether the unpopular and costly war should end or escalate.
Washington Post May 1, 2007

Liberty: After the Lawyers (136)
It can be hard to tell whom the Bush administration considers more of an enemy at the Guant?mo Bay detention camp: the prisoners or the lawyers. William Glaberson reported in The Times yesterday that the Justice Department had asked a federal appeals court to remove some of the last shreds of legal representation available to the prisoners.
New York Times April 27, 2007

Government: Crippling Government From Within (137)
The Bush administration has proved indefatigable at finding industry foxes to upend the regulatory chicken coops. The result has been an undermining of restraints on everything from strip miners to long-haul truckers and corporate executives intent on consumer-unfriendly mergers.
New York Times April 27, 2007

Government: Wrong Time, Wrong Place (138)
REMEMBER the PowerPoint campaign briefing that White House deputy political director Scott Jennings gave to political appointees at the General Services Administration -- the briefing that helpfully identified the GOP's top 20 House targets for 2008, the most vulnerable Democratic senators and the like? The one that inspired the GSA administrator, Lurita Alexis Doan, to ask her troops to think abo
Washington Post April 25, 2007

Education: Testimony alleges mismanagement of federal reading program (139)
Federal advisors mismanaged President Bush's $1 billion-a-year reading program and profited from close ties to the Bush administration, according to testimony released Thursday — in one case repeatedly rejecting one state's funding proposal until state officials dumped a successful reading test and bought one written by a top Bush advisor.
USA Today April 19, 2007

Democracy: Administration pursued aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout (140)
WASHINGTON - For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for cont
McClatchy Newspapers April 19, 2007

Disaster: Broken Promises to a Broken Gulf (141)
President Bush has reneged on his promises to Katrina’s victims. Shamefully, the president has chosen the interests of bureaucracy over those of American towns on the brink of failure.
New York Times April 18, 2007

Health: White House threatens veto of U.S. drug price bill (142)
WASHINGTON, April 17 (Reuters) - The White House threatened on Tuesday to veto a Senate bill proposing to allow the U.S. government to negotiate prices for prescription drugs under the Medicare program.
AlterNet April 17, 2007

Science: Loosening the Stem Cell Binds (143)
The Senate easily approved a bill this week that would free embryonic stem cell research from the worst shackles imposed by the Bush administration. The House passed its version earlier. A substantial majority of Americans tell pollsters they support embryonic stem cell research. Yet one man, President Bush, and a minority of his party, the religious and social conservatives, are once again trying
New York Times April 13, 2007

International: The Real Fumble in Damascus (144)
There is at least one point on which we and the critics of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Damascus can agree: It is the White House, not the speaker of the House, that should be taking the diplomatic lead. But the Bush administration has far more appetite for scoring political points than figuring out whether talking to Syria might help contain the bloodletting in Iraq or revive efforts to negotiate peac
New York Times April 7, 2007

Liberty: Fundamental rights (145)
AS PRESIDENT Bush purports to export democracy to Iraq and other nations, he continues to deny it at home. He gained the support this week of six Supreme Court justices, who refused to hear the appeals of 45 detainees at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Each of the 45 has been held prisoner for more than five years without a criminal charge, and without legal protections that have been treasured by
Boston Globe April 7, 2007

Environment: U.S., China Got Climate Warnings Toned Down (146)
Some sections of a grim scientific assessment of the impact of global warming on human, animal and plant life issued in Brussels yesterday were softened at the insistence of officials from China and the United States, participants in the negotiations said.
Washington Post April 7, 2007

Government: New regulatory head favors hands-off approach (147)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday appointed as his top regulatory official a conservative academic who has written that markets do a better job of regulating than the government does and that it is more cost-effective for people who are sensitive to pollution to stay indoors on smoggy days than for the government to order polluters to clean up their emissions.
Los Angeles Times April 5, 2007

Government: Bush To Recess Appoint Swift-Boat Scumbag Fox (148)
In a move that should disgust all and surprise nobody, the White House announced today that George W. Bush will recess-appoint Sam Fox, who gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat Liars to help finance their 2004 smear of John Kerry, to be the new U.S. Ambassador to Belgium.

The nomination was withdrawn last week, when it became clear to Bush that Fox, who was instrumental in derailing Kerry's presidentia
Huffington Post April 4, 2007

Democracy: Manipulating Justice to win elections (149)
As we reported in Salon beginning more than a week ago, the Bush administration's partisan grip on the Department of Justice has reached well beyond the U.S. attorneys fired en masse last year. Over the past six years, the administration maneuvered to spread voter-fraud fears and recast the Civil Rights Division -- doing so in ways "that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections,
Salon March 30, 2007

Environment: Endangered Species Act changes in the works (150)
Bush administration officials said Tuesday that they were reviewing proposed changes to the way the 34-year-old Endangered Species Act is enforced, a move that critics say would weaken the law in ways that a Republican majority in Congress was unable to do.
Los Angeles Times March 28, 2007

Liberty: FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants (151)
FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials.
Washington Post March 27, 2007

Government: Prosecutor Says Bush Appointees Interfered With Tobacco Case (152)
The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Washington Post March 22, 2007

Environment: Bush-Cheney Administration Issues Polar Bear Gag Order (153)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska– Today the Center for Biological Diversity denounced a Bush administration directive restricting the ability of government scientists traveling abroad to discuss global warming, sea ice, and polar bears. The memo requires employees traveling in situations where these topics could arise to submit a statement of assurance that the employee understands “the administration’s position
Center for Biological Diversity March 8, 2007

Education: Playing School In Katrina's Wake (154)
President George Bush traveled to New Orleans last week. Coincidentally, I was there at the same time. But like a tourist who just visits the French Quarter for Mardi Gras, the president missed the full story by only stopping in on one of the new, well-resourced charter schools in the city.
Tom Paine March 5, 2007

Health: FDA Rules Override Warnings About Drug (155)
The government is on track to approve a new antibiotic to treat a pneumonia-like disease in cattle, despite warnings from health groups and a majority of the agency's own expert advisers that the decision will be dangerous for people.
Washington Post March 4, 2007

Liberty: Extend Legal Rights to Guantanamo (156)
For more than 200 years, the courts have served as the ultimate safeguard for our civil liberties. A critical part of this role has been the judicial branch's ability to consider writs of habeas corpus, through which people who have been imprisoned can challenge the decision to hold them in government custody. In this way, habeas corpus has provided an important check on executive power. However,
Washington Post March 4, 2007

Government: White House Backed U.S. Attorney Firings, Officials Say (157)
The White House approved the firings of seven U.S. attorneys late last year after senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush's policies on immigration, firearms and other issues, White House and Justice Department officials said yesterday.
Washington Post March 3, 2007

Environment: NRDC Sues EPA for Failing to Ban Two Highly Toxic Pesticides (158)
WASHINGTON (February 28, 2007) -- The Environmental Protection Agency has failed to protect the public from exposure to two highly toxic pesticides -- DDVP (dichlorvos) and carbaryl -- found in common household products that have been demonstrated in laboratory studies to cause severe neurological and developmental harm, according to a lawsuit filed today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (
NRDC February 28, 2007

Law: Evidence against Muslim charity appears fabricated (159)
When the Bush administration shut down the nation's largest Muslim charity five years ago, officials of the Dallas-based foundation denied allegations it was linked to terrorists and insisted that a number of accusations were fabricated by the government. Now, attorneys for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development say the government's own documents provide evidence of that claim.
Los Angeles Times February 25, 2007

Health: Medicaid cuts would cost public hospitals, other facilities (160)
WASHINGTON — At a time when states are striving to expand healthcare coverage, the Bush administration is pressing ahead with plans to cut nearly $4 billion in aid for public hospitals and other providers of last resort for the uninsured.
Los Angeles Times February 24, 2007

Government: Justice Department Fires 8th U.S. Attorney (161)
An eighth U.S. attorney announced her resignation yesterday, the latest in a wave of forced departures of federal prosecutors who have clashed with the Justice Department over the death penalty and other issues.
Washington Post February 24, 2007

International: Misguided Missiles (162)
Fifteen years after the cold war’s end, it would seem that everyone involved should know better. But the Bush administration’s tone-deaf plan to station parts of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and Moscow’s snarling response show that all sides could use a refresher course in diplomatic sense and civility.
New York Times February 24, 2007

Liberty: American Liberty at the Precipice (163)
In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guant?mo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution.
New York Times February 22, 2007

Government: U.S. Official Admits to Big Delay in Revamping No-Fly Program (164)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 — The federal takeover of checking passenger names against terrorist watch lists, a top priority for aviation officials since the 2001 terrorist attacks, is not expected to be complete until 2010, more than five years behind schedule, a top Department of Homeland Security official acknowledged on Tuesday.
New York Times February 21, 2007

Environment: States sue Bush administration over cement plant emissions (165)
ALBANY, N.Y. --Massachusetts and eight other states have sued the Bush administration for what officials claim is a failure to regulate mercury and other pollutants from cement plants.
Boston Globe February 20, 2007

Liberty: Making Martial Law Easier (166)
A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. So it was with a provision quietly tucked into the enormous defense budget bill at the Bush administration’s behest that makes it easier for a president to override local control of law enforcement and declare martial law.
New York Times February 19, 2007

Government: DOJ Denies Access to Eavesdropping Documents (167)
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., blasted the Justice Department Monday for denying his committee access to information about President Bush’s domestic eavesdropping program to catch terrorists.

“We are extremely disappointed,” said Conyers, noting that his panel has jurisdiction over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a court that the Bush administration bypasse
Cox February 16, 2007

Justice: White House Is Reported to Be Linked to a Dismissal (168)
WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 — A United States attorney in Arkansas who was dismissed from his job last year by the Justice Department was ousted after Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, intervened on behalf of the man who replaced him, according to Congressional aides briefed on the matter.
New York Times February 16, 2007

Liberty: The Government Wants to Tap Your Internet Calls (169)
Over the past several months, the FCC and Justice Department have been working overtime, and fighting hard to tap not only your land line phone and cell phone, but to tap Internet calls, as well.
AlterNet February 14, 2007

Media: Bush Proposes Steep Cut to PBS Funding (170)
President Bush is reopening the fight over government support of public television, unveiling a 2007 government fiscal year budget that would cut federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting by nearly 25 percent.
TV Week February 7, 2007

International: U.S. Declines to Join Accord on Secret Detentions (171)
PARIS, Feb. 6 -- Representatives from 57 countries on Tuesday signed a long-negotiated treaty prohibiting governments from holding people in secret detention. The United States declined to endorse the document, saying its text did not meet U.S. expectations.
Washington Post February 7, 2007

War: Bush to Request Billions for Wars (172)
President Bush will ask Congress for close to three-quarters of a trillion dollars in defense spending on Monday, including $245 billion to cover the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and other elements of the "global war on terror," senior administration officials said yesterday.

Democrats said the gigantic spending request will precipitate "sticker shock" on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers
Washington Post February 3, 2007

Liberty: An Iron Curtain is Descending (173)
"Why are you travelling so often to Canada?" the tough U.S. border guard barked. I was on Amtrak, going from New York to Montreal, as I'd done dozen of times before over several decades. This was my first experience (summer 2006) of the increasingly standard and intrusive "U.S. Exit Interviews" on trains crossing the border. I've been hassled on every train crossing since then, most recently Janua
CounterPunch January 30, 2007

Honesty: Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and the New Definition of 'Honesty' (174)
Dick Cheney worked in the White House of Richard Nixon, who had to resign as Congress began impeachment proceedings that grew out of his dishonest and disreputable stewardship of the presidency

Dick Cheney worked with the White House of Ronald Reagan, which was investigated by Congress and the courts for establishing – and then lying about -- a secret plan to violate the law by directing resource
The Nation January 15, 2007

Liberty: Military Expands Intelligence Role in U.S. (175)
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 — The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
New York Times January 13, 2007

Environment: Environmental rules waived for fence (176)
TUCSON, Ariz. --Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff waived environmental rules Friday to clear the way for a border fence to be constructed along the Mexican border. The move circumvented a series of laws, from the Endangered Species Act to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, outraging environmentalists.
Boston Globe January 13, 2007

Health: Pediatricians try to rescue child health study (177)
CHICAGO — In private conversations across the country this holiday break, pediatricians are buttonholing their congressmen and making a heart-felt plea: Save the National Children's Study. This is the latest attempt to rescue the most important study of children's health and the environment in the United States.
Star-Tribune December 25, 2006

Liberty: A Gag on Free Speech (178)
The Bush administration is trampling on the First Amendment and well-established criminal law by trying to use a subpoena to force the American Civil Liberties Union to hand over a classified document in its possession. The dispute is shrouded in secrecy, and very little has been made public about the document, but we do not need to know what’s in it to know what’s at stake: if the government prev
New York Times December 15, 2006

Environment: Muzzling Those Pesky Scientists (179)
The Environmental Protection Agency disclosed last week that it had revised — stood on their head is more like it — procedures it has used for 25 years to set standards for air pollutants like soot and lead. The administration said the change will streamline decision making. Perhaps it will. It will also have the further effect of decreasing the role of science in policy making while increasing th
New York Times December 11, 2006

Health: Memo: Administration tried to cut payouts to nuke workers (180)
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration repeatedly sought ways to limit payouts to nuclear weapons workers sickened by radiation and toxic material, according to a memo written by congressional investigators and obtained by USA TODAY.
USA Today December 5, 2006

Environment: EPA Relaxes Rules On Pesticides (181)
(AP) The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that pesticides can be applied over and near bodies of water without a permit under the federal Clean Water Act. The decision brought immediate criticism from an environmental watchdog group and from a senator involved in environmental issues. They said it would make it easier to pollute the nation's lakes and streams.
CBS News November 22, 2006

Government: Bush Choice for Family-Planning Post Criticized (182)
The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."
Washington Post November 17, 2006

Honesty: Fantastic Job, Mr. President (183)
There is something refreshing about George Stephanopoulos. After George Bush announced that he was firing Don Rumsfeld, Stephanopoulos -- on the air at the time -- actually seemed shocked that just a week earlier the president had said he would do no such thing. Stephanopoulos not only suggested that the president had lied but that he was wrong to have done so. In Georgetown, where the ABC newsman
Washington Post November 14, 2006

International: U.S. vetoes condemnation of Gaza strikes (184)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council draft resolution Saturday that sought to condemn an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip and demand Israeli troops pull out of the territory. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said the Arab-backed draft resolution was "biased against Israel and politically motivated."
USA Today November 12, 2006

Government: Investigators Say Appropriations Panel Lost Appetite for Oversight (185)
Last month’s mass firing of House Appropriations Committee investigators followed years of declining appetite for tough oversight and partisan squabbles that the investigators say often stalled their work.

Several members of the team, some of whom spoke on the condition that they not be identified by name, defend their record against committee spokesman John Scofield’s charge that recent work was
CQ November 4, 2006

Human Rights: U.S. Fights Detainee Access to Attorney (186)
WASHINGTON Nov 4, 2006 (AP)— A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques.
ABC News November 4, 2006

Health: Conservative moral crusaders are 'impeding health goals' (187)
RELIGIOUS fundamentalists in the US and the Vatican are damaging attempts to reduce sexually transmitted diseases and improve reproductive health, according to a new study. Right-wing religious leaders and their political allies are hampering the work of experts treating people for diseases such as gonorrhoea and syphilis, the report says.
Times (UK) October 31, 2006

War: U.S. Is Said to Fail in Tracking Arms for Iraqis (188)
The American military has not properly tracked hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for Iraqi security forces and has failed to provide spare parts, maintenance personnel or even repair manuals for most of the weapons given to the Iraqis, a federal report released Sunday has concluded.
New York Times October 30, 2006

Environment: Bush Appointee Said to Reject Advice on Endangered Species (189)
A senior Bush political appointee at the Interior Department has rejected staff scientists' recommendations to protect imperiled animals and plants under the Endangered Species Act at least six times in the past three years, documents show.

In addition, staff complaints that their scientific findings were frequently overruled or disparaged at the behest of landowners or industry have led the agen
Washington Post October 30, 2006

Government: No Taxes Until After the Election (190)
To avoid looking like Scrooge, the Internal Revenue Service typically lets up around the holidays in its hounding of tax delinquents.

But this month, the indulgence began even before Macy’s was decorated. The Times’s David Cay Johnston reported yesterday that on Oct. 10, the I.R.S. commissioner Mark Everson told his troops to delay tax enforcement in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina — until after the midterm elections and the holiday season.
New York Times October 28, 2006

Government: Weakening the Fight for Mine Safety (191)
Despite being twice rebuffed by the Senate, President Bush has named Richard Stickler, a stolid mining industry careerist, to run the mine safety agency whose serial ineptitude has been laid bare this year by the deaths of 42 mineworkers. Waiting until the Senate left town for the elections, Mr. Bush resorted to a recess appointment to place Mr. Stickler at the heart of enforcing new safety reform
New York Times October 26, 2006

War: U.S. Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances (192)
The United States took another step yesterday toward building a new stockpile of up to 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that would last well into the 21st century, announcing the start of a multiyear process to repair and replace facilities where they would be developed and assembled and where older warheads could be more rapidly dismantled.
Washington Post October 20, 2006

Government: Bush defies Senate, appoints mine agency head (193)
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush appointed former energy executive Richard Stickler to head the federal mine safety agency on Thursday, even though the U.S. Senate rejected Stickler's nomination twice in two months.
AlterNet October 19, 2006

Liberty: A Dangerous New Order (194)
Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the pen
New York Times October 19, 2006

International: Bush Sets Defense As Space Priority (195)
President Bush has signed a new National Space Policy that rejects future arms-control agreements that might limit U.S. flexibility in space and asserts a right to deny access to space to anyone "hostile to U.S. interests."
Washington Post October 18, 2006

Environment: Science Ignored, Again (196)
The Bush administration loves to talk about the virtues of “sound science,” by which it usually means science that buttresses its own political agenda. But when some truly independent science comes along to threaten that agenda, the administration often ignores or minimizes it. The latest example involves the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to reject the recommendations of experts insid
New York Times October 14, 2006

Church & State: Religious right wields clout (197)
For six decades, CARE has been a vital ally to the US government. It supplied the famed CARE packages to Europe's starving masses after World War II, and its work with the poor has been celebrated by US presidents. So the group was thrilled when it received a major contract from the Bush administration to fight AIDS in Africa and Asia.

But this time, instead of accolades came attacks. Religious c
Boston Globe October 9, 2006

International: Reported Test 'Fundamentally Changes the Landscape' for U.S. Officials (198)
North Korea's apparent nuclear test last night may well be regarded as a failure of the Bush administration's nuclear nonproliferation policy. Since George W. Bush became president, North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor and increased its stock of weapons-grade plutonium, so it may now have enough for 10 or 11 weapons, compared with one or two when Bush took office.
Washington Post October 9, 2006

Democracy: American Elections and the Grand Old Tradition of Disenfranchisement (199)
The House of Representatives struck a major blow against democracy last month. It passed a bill that would deny the vote to anyone who shows up at the polls without a government-issued photo ID. The bill’s requirements are so onerous and inflexible that they could prevent millions of eligible voters without driver’s licenses — who are disproportionately poor, minority or elderly — from casting a ballot.
New York Times October 7, 2006

Government: Big Government Gets Bigger (200)
The federal government keeps getting bigger. The Republican Party's oft-stated affinity for smaller government has not applied during the Bush administration. According to a recent study, not only is the number of federal civil servants on the rise, but so are the numbers of employees working for government-funded contractors and for organizations that receive government grants.
Washington Post October 6, 2006

Security: Blowing the Easy Ones (201)
THE BUSH administration has pushed aggressively for expanded surveillance powers, military commissions and rough interrogation techniques. When it comes to fighting the war on terrorism, just about anything goes. Except, that is, those routine steps with no civil liberties implications at all that might significantly interrupt terrorism -- such as, say, reading the mail of convicted terrorists hou
Washington Post October 6, 2006

Law: Bush cites authority to bypass FEMA law (202)
WASHINGTON -- President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Boston Globe October 6, 2006

Honesty: Bush the Nation-Builder (203)
One of the biggest promises made by George W. Bush as a candidate – no more nation-building – has turned out to be his biggest lie as president.

In the final weeks of the 2000 campaign, Bush slammed the Clinton administration for doing exactly what he's doing now, only worse. He warned voters his opponent Al Gore would turn more U.S. soldiers into "nation-builders" and "peacekeepers." Bush pledge
Anti-War October 6, 2006

Government: 'Anything Goes' Administration (204)
THE INTERIOR Department's inspector general says the department suffers from an "anything goes" ethical culture.

"Simply stated, short of a crime, anything goes at the highest levels of the Department of the Interior," Inspector General Earl E. Devaney told a House Government Reform subcommittee last month. "Ethics failures on the part of senior department officials -- taking the form of appearan
Washington Post October 2, 2006

International: Embrace for a Strongman (205)
PRESIDENT BUSH once made the authoritarian president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, a focus of his freedom agenda. He urged the ruler of the energy-rich Central Asian nation to allow more freedom for political parties and media and to hold a fair election for president. The effort failed utterly: Mr. Nazarbayev was awarded 91 percent of the vote last December in an election condemned by international observers. Two months later, a leading opponent was brutally murdered by members of the state security forces. In July, Mr. Nazarbayev ignored Western objections and approved a law tightening already-strict controls on the media.
Washington Post September 29, 2006

Government: Something's Rotten in Food Oversight (206)
Federal agents are scurrying across the Salinas Valley -- the nation's "salad bowl" -- in search of the source of the E. coli contaminating the spinach supply. They won't find it without a mirror, because the real culprit in this case is the U.S. government. A half-dozen federal agencies administer a patchwork quilt of outdated standards, inadequate inspections and porous statutes that allow pollu
Washington Post September 24, 2006

Education: Audit: Bush reading program beset by favoritism, mism