“Mugsy’s Rap Sheet”

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Last week, I examined “Genocide” charges levied against Sudans’ President Bashir that also appeared to apply to the Bush Administration, including President Bush himself. Though because of the International legal definition of “genocide” as well as the charter of the International Criminal Court, George Bush is unlikely to ever be dragged in front of The Hague and charged with “Genocide” (specifically). But there can be no doubt whatsoever that many of the war crimes charges levied against others obviously apply to members of the Bush Administration today. (Since then, another war criminal has been brought to justice, former Bosnian leader Radovan Karazdic, likewise accused of Genocide, ordering the execution of thousands of Bosnian Muslims between 1992 and 1995.) Between Bashir executing Sudanese Muslims, Karadzic executing Bosnian Muslims, and George Bush declaring war on Iraq (and possibly Iran), it’s enough to make one wonder just who the real homicidal maniacs really are in this world?

Anyways…

Immediately following the end of World War II in 1945, captured Nazi war criminals were put on trial for war crimes by an International Military Tribunal comprised of the United States, France, the UK and the Soviet Union. This Tribunal later evolved into the “International Criminal Court” that we know today.

Following the surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945, top Nazi officials were arrested and put on trial for war crimes in a quickly constructed military court in Nuremberg, Germany, roughly 250 miles SSW of Berlin on August 8, 1945. The four charges were as follows:

• Count One: Conspiracy to Wage Aggressive War Addresses crimes committed before the war began, showing a plan to commit crimes during the war.
• Count Two: Waging Aggressive War, or “Crimes Against Peace” Including “the planning, preparation, initiation, and waging of wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances.”
• Count Three: War Crimes These were the more “traditional” violations of the law of war including treatment of prisoners of war, slave labor, and use of outlawed weapons.
• Count Four: Crimes Against Humanity This count involved the actions in concentration camps and other death rampages.

Over the next three weeks, I will examine each of the four changes and provide instances that support (or show otherwise) whether war crimes charges the United States charged German officers with in 1945 also apply to members of the Bush Administration today.

Charge #1: Conspiracy to Wage A War of Aggression: evidence of waging a “war of choice” vs “a war of necessity”. Evidence of a plan to commit crimes during the war.

One of the earliest excuses given by the Bush Administration for invading Iraq and overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein was, “everything changed after 9/11.” The argument was that America could no longer sit back and wait to be struck, then respond only after the fact. A doctrine of “preemption” was adopted, stating that the U.S. had the legal right to go out and confront “growing threats” to our security BEFORE they struck us rather than respond only after the fact. A case was built over the course of a year and a half (between the attacks of 9/11/2001 and the invasion of Iraq on 3/19/2003).

Why focus specifically on Iraq? Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991, the United States Air Force patrolled two “No Fly Zones” to protect Kuwait in the South and the Kurds in the North. During that time, the Iraqi government fired upon U.S. planes patrolling that air-space, violating the terms of their 1991 surrender, circumvented the “Oil-for-Food” Program as well as played frequent games of “cat & mouse” with UN weapons inspectors. The Bush Administration took all of this as evidence of a regime hostile to the United States that sought to do us harm.

As I detailed one year ago this month while outlining “the case against Scooter Libby“, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, eager to get in good with the newly elected American President with whom he agreed with in implicating Saddam Hussein in 9/11, had his newly appointed Director of Military Intelligence, Nicolo Pollari produce a report on the Iraqi President attempting to purchase raw uranium (”yellowcake”) from the government of Niger. The report was based upon third-hand rumors, shaky evidence, suspect sources, and in some cases, 20-year old intel. The report was simultaneously turned over to both the CIA and the British equivalent: MI-6 (source). The CIA “confirmed” the intel against British intelligence, neither realizing that Italian Intelligence was the source for both. Unable to find any other outside sources to confirm the Italian report, the CIA refused to sign off on it, pronouncing the claim “highly dubious” in the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. Despite that (or perhaps because of it), President Bush instead chose to cite “British Intelligence” when declaring his infamous “thirteen words” during his January 2003 State of the Union address where he accused Saddam Hussein of seeking “uranium from Africa”… a claim the CIA had already struck from three earlier speeches given by President Bush, inserted by Bush speech-writers to bolster his case for war against Iraq.

If this were a court of law, the argument for the defense might be that “after 9/11, it was better to err on the side of caution… or in other words, assume the evidence to be true and act upon it now rather than do nothing only to find out too late that it in fact was. The problem in this regard is that the evidentiary bar is significantly raised when you are seeking to justify an unprovoked attack against another sovereign nation. But not only did the Bush Administration fail to “go the extra mile” to verify any evidence it claimed to have, but it went out of its way to lax the level of certainty, accept questionable evidence from even more questionable sources (”Curveball” and “Ahmed Chalabi”), and willfully ignore evidence that contradicted their predetermined conclusions.

I introduce the following facts into evidence:

In his 1999 autobiography, “A Charge to Keep”, Governor George W. Bush told his ghost-writer, Houston reporter Mickey Herskowitz:

“One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade… if I have that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

Of course, he does not actually mention invading “Iraq” specifically in this quote, but six months later, at the very beginning of his presidential campaign, he made his feelings about Saddam Hussein a bit more clear:

Bush was on Iraq/WMD warpath LONG before 9/11.

Evidence is mounting that well before September 11, 2001, George Bush already had designs on invading Iraq and “taking out” Saddam Hussein without any evidence of being an “imminent threat” to the United States.

Following the invasion of Iraq, several “memos” surfaced, detailing how the Bush Administration was willing to twist the facts and even fabricate evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq. The most famous of these was “The Downing Street Memo”, minutes of a meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that stated:

“Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.“

A lesser known, yet even more incriminating document, often referred to as “The Bush/Blair Memo” or “The White House Memo” revealed that President Bush and PM Blair discussed painting an American U2 Spyplane in UN colors and flying it over Iraq, in hopes of luring Saddam Hussein into firing upon it and justifying an American-led invasion.

As former LA prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote in his best selling book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”, he points out the obvious… that President Bush was trying to create a pretext for war. After telling the American people (and The World for that matter) what a grave threat Saddam was:

“[Iraq has in its possession] over 25,000 liters of anthrax, materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent [...] upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several mobile biological weapons labs.”

…why on Earth would he risk provoking Saddam into possibly using the very weapons he claimed he had, against the United States? Either he did not truly believe Saddam had the weapons, or he didn’t care. Either way, it is clear President Bush was actively seeking a conflict with Iraq, desperately trying to provoke Saddam into “making the first move” to justify the confrontation he so desperately wanted.

Before “9/11 changed everything”, President Bush’s National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and his Secretary of State Colin Powell were reassuring foreign correspondents, concerned that the younger Bush might try to pick up where his father left off, possibly waging war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq and destabilize the entire Middle East:

POWELL: “He [Saddam] has not developed any significant capability with respect towards weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. - February 2001″ RICE: “We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” - July, 2001

The second part of Charge #1… evidence of an intent to commit crimes during the invasion… are manifold, though many from dubious sources. One recently discovered report, entitled “Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy in April of 2001, which suggests Oil Industry Executives urged the Bush Administration to seek “military intervention” against Iraq on the grounds that Saddam Hussein might use the supply of oil as a weapon against the United States (the argument being that Saddam might withhold oil from the market, causing gas prices to skyrocket and hurt the U.S. economy.)

On the January 9, 2004 edition of CBS’s “60 Minutes”, investigative author Ron Suskind revealed a March, 2001 Pentagon document with map of Iraq entitled: “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts”.

We do not know if these documents were included in Vice President Cheney’s Secret “Energy Task Force” meetings with oil industry executives in early 2001 devising the Bush Administrations “Energy Policy” because President Bush has since sealed those documents, citing “Executive Privilege”.

Also in 2004, Bush’s former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill revealed in his book, “The Price of Loyalty”, that George Bush was “determined to invade Iraq from day one” upon entering office.   Only 8 of the 21 Nazi officers charged under the first count were actually found guilty of the crime of “waging a war of aggression”. One of those convicted under the first count was Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of Staff of the High Command of the Armed Forces under Hitler. He attended all conferences that discussed plans for war. Although he testified he was opposed to the invasion of the U.S.S.R., he ultimately helped plan the invasion. Evidence also showed Keitel was aware of the plans to rid Poland of Jewish people and issued orders to kill Communists.

Keitel was to Hitler what Karl Rove was to George Bush during the invasion of Iraq.   Hermann Goering was Hitler’s second in command. Goering’s most memorable quote was:

“[I]t’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.“

Vice President Dick Cheney, George Bush’s second in command, said of Iraq war critics that inaction was tantamount to appeasement. See if these comments sound familiar:

“Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, we will defend the freedom and the security of the American people. … [Confronting the] “outlaw” [regime in Iraq is] “not a distraction from the war on terror, it is absolutely crucial to winning the war on terror,” Cheney said. “We will not permit a brutal dictator with ties to terrorists and a record of reckless aggression to dominate the Middle East and to threaten the United States of America.”

  In conclusion, it appears that there is more than sufficient evidence to find George W. Bush and several of members of his administration, guilty of “launching a war of aggression” against Iraq, which is a war crime. On Count 1 of “launching a war of aggression” vs “a war of necessity”, you should find the defendant Guilty.

Next week, Count #2: “Crimes Against Peace”.

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WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

Monday, the International Criminal Court (ICC)… the famed “Hague” of the Netherlands… publicly announced that it was formally charging Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with the crime of Genocide. You might remember him from this video: Sudan’s President Uses Bush’s Lies to Disavow Genocide  
I should preface this by saying that the ICC concluded Bashir was deliberately targeting civilians, ordering his military to rape, murder and pillage entire villages with the intent of wiping them out. That would be a difficult (though not impossible) charge to levee against President Bush. But the list of charges against Sudan’s President seem eerily familiar: The official report accuses Bashir of “targeting ethic groups for killing”, “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of those groups”, and “deliberately inflicting on those groups conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” The fact that Bashir did not personally carry out the crime does not indemnify him, as the charges state:

“The Prosecution does not allege that AL BASHIR physically or directly carried out any of the crimes. He committed crimes through members of the state apparatus, the army and the Militia”

Many of the examples of crimes given should give the Bush Administration pause:

• Forces and agents controlled [Ed note: not "ordered"] by AL BASHIR attacked civilians in towns and villages inhabited by the target groups, committing killings, rapes, torture and destroying means of livelihood. (Pg 2)
• In Darfur, he assessed that the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa ethnic groups, as socially and politically dominant groups in the province, constituted such threats: they challenged the economic and political marginalization of their region, and members of the three groups engaged in armed rebellions. AL BASHIR set out to quell those movements through armed force and, over the years, also employed a policy of exploiting real or perceived grievances between the different tribes struggling to prosper… (Pg 3)
• He promoted the idea of a polarization between tribes aligned with the Government, whom he labeled “Arabs”, and the three groups he perceived as the main threats, whom he labeled “Zurgas” or “Africans”. The image is only one of many devices used by AL BASHIR to disguise his crimes. Both victims and perpetrators are “Africans” and speak “Arabic”. (Pg 3)
• AL BASHIR decided and set out to destroy in part the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups, on account of their ethnicity. His motives were largely political. His pretext was a “counterinsurgency”. (Pg 3)
• From March 2003 up to the date of filing, AL BASHIR’s orders giving “carte blanche” to his subordinates to quell the rebellion and take no prisoners triggered a series of brutal attacks against the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa groups. The Armed Forces, often acting together with Militia/Janjaweed, singled out for attack those villages and small towns inhabited mainly by members of the target groups. The attackers went out of their way to spare from attack villages inhabited predominantly by other tribes considered aligned wth the Government, even where they were located very near villages inhabited predominantly by members of the targeted groups. (Pg 3)
• The Government has the right to use force to defend itself against insurgents. However the crimes covered in the Application are not the collateral damage of a military campaign. (Pg 4)
• In Darfur 35,000 people have been killed outright in such attacks; an overwhelming majority of them are from the three target [ethnic] groups. (Pg 4)
• As a result of the attacks to the villages, at least 2,700,000 people, most of them members of the target groups, have been forcibly expelled from their homes. (Pg 5)
• Girls as young as 5 years old have been raped.(Pg 5)
• Victims suffer the trauma of being forced to witness their own homes and possessions destroyed and/or looted and family members raped and/or killed. The victims thereafter endure the anguish of learning that, in many cases, prior homelands have been occupied and resettled by members of other communities – and thus, there is no prospect of ever returning. (Pg 6)
• AL BASHIR denies victims access to the criminal justice system. (Pg 8 )

That’s just a portion of the 10 page indictment. Other crimes mentioned are the direct effect of other crimes, such as starvation, homelessness and lack of access to medical care due to being displaced. One observation… “[Bashir's] dismissal of staff opposed to crimes and the appointment of key personnel to implement the crimes”… is more than a tad reminiscent of President Bush firing General after General until he found one not totally adverse to bombing Iran, or searching for an Attorney General that would greenlight the use of “torture”. And thinking of “catapulting the propaganda“:

AL BASHIR consistently denies, conceals and distances himself and his subordinates from the crimes committed. Throughout the time period relevant to this Application, AL BASHIR personally and through his subordinates denies that crimes are taking place. AL BASHIR uses the Sudanese Intelligence and Security Service (“NISS”) to further manipulate local and international public opinion. - (Pg 8 )

To summarize:

Bashir: Attacked civilians in towns and villages inhabited by target ethnic groups Exploited real or perceived grievances between the different tribes he labeled “Arabs”. Directed military to use torture against “insurgents”. Actions resulted in the displacement of over two million people. Ordered attacks by land and air that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.   Bush: Attacked civilians in towns and villages inhabited by target ethnic groups (”Shock & Awe”) Exploited real or perceived grievances between the different tribes (Sunni, Shi’ite, Kurds, Baathists, etc). Directed military to use torture against “insurgents”. Actions resulted in the displacement of over two million people. Ordered attacks by land and air that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians.

George Bush won’t ever be charged with “genocide” simply because no one could ever prove it was his intent to create chaos and exterminate an entire race of people, but there can be NO argument that he has committed war crimes, because crimes the ICC just charged Bashir with, George Bush is guilty of too, there can be no doubt about that.

In the coming weeks, I hope to bring you a series of reports reviewing the Nuremberg Trials and charges levied against Nazi war criminals in the Hague following World War II… many of whom were NOT charged with Genocide but for “war crimes” alone… and see how many of them apply to the Bush Administration today.

(UPDATE: “Harper’s Magazine: Bush Admin. Worried About Possible Criminal Prosecution“)

ADDENDUM: Tuesday, the DOW closed below 11,000 for the first time in two years. The magic number is 10,587… Bill Clinton’s last day in office.

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WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

Last Sunday, a CBS News investigation found that the ongoing “Mortgage/Foreclosure crisis might affect Voting Rolls“:

“Voters in pivotal Ohio with outdated addresses face possible pre-election challenges and trips to multiple polling places. They also are more likely to cast provisional ballots that might not be counted.”

Current economic challenges have the potential to influence the numbers of ballots cast by low-income… typically Democratic… voters come November. Another factor that seems to be getting no attention: the possibility that high gas prices may result in fewer people willing/able to make the drive to their local polling station to cast their vote. And once again, the people most likely to stay home on Election Day because of the high gas prices are low-income Democrats. During the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2006 elections (I do not remember on 2002), gasoline prices fell in the months just prior to the November election. In 2006, the price of regular unleaded fell locally to just $1.99/gal after selling for as much as $2.32/gal earlier that Summer. It is not uncommon for Administrations to pull out every trick in the book to bring gas prices down in time for the election, to create the impression that the economy is doing well. Now in 2008, gas prices are over $4.10/gal with no sign of falling between now and November. Despite President Bush traveling to Saudi Arabia, hat-in-hand… like Oliver Twist begging for a second helping of Gruel… (“More???“) to beg his Arab Masters to increase production, the Saudi’s at first refused, claiming there was insufficient evidence that they weren’t already “meeting demand“. But on June 22, through increased U.S. pressure, the Saudi’s agreed to increase production by a paltry 500,000 barrels of oil (from 9.2 million barrels to 9.7 million barrels) a day… not enough to have any measurable effect on world oil prices (and even less of an effect on gasoline prices). On July 3rd, OPEC… in a ruling pushed by major member Iran… refused to increase oil production and help out the struggling U.S. economy. And why would they, when the U.S. and/or Israel are threatening missile strikes? So despite their best efforts to help John McCain this November by creating the false impression of an improving economy, gasoline prices are likely to climb even higher by November. And should a single Hurricane of any significant strength enter the Gulf of Mexico this Summer, with all its off-shore drilling platforms, the price of oil could easily surpass $175/barrel this Summer and push gasoline over $5/gallon. Last July, two economics professors, Maarten Allers & Peter Kooreman, produced a report entitled: “More Evidence on the Effects of Voting Technology on Election Outcomes“. Among their findings:

“[A]s voting machines are expensive, their introduction usually goes along with a reduction in the number of polling stations. Since this increases individuals’ average distance to a polling station – and hence costs of voting - the polling station density is crucial to control for in establishing the causal impact of electronic voting on elections outcomes, in particular voter turnout.” - (Pg. 3)

Quite simply, not only does the high cost of electronic voting machines mean poorer districts can afford fewer machines, which results in long lines that discourage voters unwilling/unable to wait, but it also means those few machines are spread out over greater distances, meaning longer drives to get to your polling station. (The Bush Administration, rather than compensate districts to purchase machines based on population, have instead decided to let districts, regardless of income, fend for themselves). Between a Media that wants a close election and an Administration that will stop at nothing to depress Democratic turnout, the ONLY way for Democrats to lose in November is for Democrats themselves to allow this criminal administration to dissuade them from voting. KNOW that they don’t want you to vote and use that in November as motivation to make that long drive and/or stand in that long line. Get a bunch of your family & friends together and carpool to the polls if you must. Volunteer to bring others with you to the polls. Get mad. Get out and vote. And remember:

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” - (exact source unknown)

Or in this case, give in. I leave you with this thought:

George Bush… bin Laden’s best friend, let me count the ways: 1. Ignored the threat of al Qaeda before 9/11, allowing them to pull off their spectacular attack. 2. Helped bin Laden’s family flee the country in the days after 9/11. 3. Tora Bora. 4. Pulled U.S. troops, stationed in Saudi Arabia, out of the country (a stated reason OBL gave for attacking the U.S.). 5. Turned sights from completing the job in Afghanistan to focus on Iraq (even pulling troops out of Afghanistan to go to Iraq) to overthrow a secular dictator that OBL himself sought to overthrow. 6. Turned Iraq into a "terrorist training ground"… exactly what he said invading Iraq would help us avoid. 7. Befriended Pakistan, a known supporter of terrorism, in exchange for "fly-over" rights into Afghanistan. Pakistan, in return, created a terrorist sanctuary in Northern Pakistan, where bin Laden and al Qaeda are believed to be hiding, and denied the U.S. access to the region. 8. Bankrupted the U.S. economy, devalued the dollar, pushed the U.S. into a recession, and now has oil trading at over $144/barrel, exactly where OBL said it "should be" trading. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: "Just whose side is George Bush on???"

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I hope everyone is having (or had) a happy Fourth of July. Early Friday morning, I couldn’t help but notice this front-page headline on my local newspaper:  
DOCTORS SICK OF MEDICARE  
Naturally, this caught my attention. Are doctors claiming Medicare doesn’t work? That’s certainly what the headline seems to be implying. So I went home and checked out the papers’ website to find out more about the story. I didn’t spot the story right away because on the website, not only was the HEADLINE reduced to small font and buried beneath a story on “holiday travel”, but had completely changed names to now read: “More Texas doctors opting out of Medicare”… a slightly less damning headline.

So I click on the story to learn that more and more Texas doctors are tired of fighting with the government over cuts in reimbursement. The Bush Administration has seen fit to cut the amount of money Medicare pays every year since taking office and redirect those funds to doctors in private practice:

From the story (emphasis mine):

Only 58 percent of doctors in the state now accept new Medicare patients, according to a recent survey by the Texas Medical Association, down from an estimated 90 percent before 1990. Among primary-care doctors, the percentage is 38 percent. < ...> Were the 10.6 percent cut and an additional 5 percent cut scheduled for January 2009 to go through, Texas doctors would lose $860 million treating the elderly and disabled over the next 18 months, according to TMA. On average, each Texas doctor would face an $18,000 cut over that period. If that happened, said one Texas doctor, “you can’t imagine the Medicare exodus” that would follow. Congress, mired in partisan bickering about how to pay for the additional funding both parties agree is necessary, already missed a June 30 deadline to prevent the 10.6 percent cut. CMS [the Harris "County Medical Society"] intervened after the Senate voted last week not to take up legislation passed by the House. That would have dipped into a Medicare pool of money that currently goes to private, fee-for-service insurers and use it for the traditional Medicare program. President Bush had vowed to veto that bill.

Federal Medicare funds are being redirected to pay Private Insurers and starve Medicare. When Congress tries to redirect some of those funds going to private insurers back to Medicare, President Bush vows to veto the bill. And with an Administration that refuses to do anything about skyrocketing medical costs, doctors are losing more & more money as the Bush Administration cuts how much they are reimbursed. Doctors aren’t “sick of Medicare”, they’re sick of fighting with the Bush Administration over ever-diminishing funds.

Now, we are used to the Bush Administration doing a “document dump” on Friday’s knowing how few people actually read the paper or listen to the news on Saturday. But this is something completely different: a newspaper running a misleading headline to (assumedly) boost sales on a holiday weekend… and not just any misleading headline, but one that perpetuates a false Conservative misconception.

Please REGISTER to post comments or be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7 users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!

WRITERS WANTED - Keeping this blog current can be a bigger job than for just one person. “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet” is looking for VOLUNTEER guest writers to contribute to our blog to help make it worth visiting more than once a week. To contact us, please send an email to the address on our About Us page along with a sample and/or link to your writing skills. - Mugsy

One of the lead stories on the evening news Tuesday was the quarterly sales reports from the Big-3 auto manufactures (and Toyota). All of them suffered double digit loses; slumping sales due to high gas prices and a weak economy. An industry that invested heavily in high-profit-margin, low-millage SUV’s is (quite literally) starting to reap what it has sown… building and promoting gas guzzling SUV’s for over a decade like gas prices would be low forever.

Back in the mid 90’s, it bothered me daily, the sight of more and more people buying gas guzzling SUV’s that got 12-14 MPG without regard for what they were doing to the environment. I remember one local TV station polling SUV drivers while they were filling up on “record high” $1.49 gas: “Just how expensive would gas have to get” before they’d consider giving up their gas-guzzling SUV? The final conclusion: $3.50 a gallon. Well, we now know the true number was closer to $4.25.

There was a joke in the mid-90’s: “Q: How will you know when the SUV craze is over? A: When Porsche builds one.” Then in 2003, they built one. Five years later, they’re still building them.

In 1990, the state of California passed a law that “2% of all cars on the road produce zero emissions by the year 1998, and 10% by 2010″. The Clinton Administration pushed hard to make the California goal a national one, and GM produced the most advanced electric car ever made: “The EV1″ (Electric Vehicle 1… first dubbed “The Impact” before wiser heads prevailed that naming a car “Impact” wasn’t exactly conducive to sales). Then the Bush Administration took over and the tax breaks and clear air initiatives of the Clinton Administration that pushed the technology, were scrapped, as was the Federal program. Had the program of continued, the U.S. would of had an ENORMOUS jump on Toyota and the record sales of their Prius hybrid electric car. Instead, U.S. automakers instead focused on ENORMOUS gas-guzzling SUV’s. GM, once the leader in electric vehicle technology, found an eager “war time” market for a consumer version of its “HMMWV” (pronounced “Humvee”, which stands for High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle) military vehicle, which they dubbed the “Hummer” (which, as the late great George Carlin pointed out at the time, “a ‘Hummer‘ is a blowjob!”)

The U.S. is more dependent now on foreign oil than ever before, and war in the Middle East coupled with a rapidly declining dollar (as a result of a government borrowing heavily to pay for those wars) has caused oil prices… which fluctuated in the $10-$30 a barrel range for decades… to skyrocket five-fold to over $140/barrel in just five years.

With drivers now seeing $3.50/gallon in their rearview mirror and $4.25/gallon (or worse) on the horizon, the Bush Administration is doing what a decade of government programs and warning of concern about the environment couldn’t do: get drivers to give up their hungry, belching SUV’s for smaller, cleaner vehicles wih less impact on the environment.

On June 27th, Climate Change scientists released a report (video) that said the Arctic ice cap was melting FAR faster than anyone predicted due to Global Warming. Thick, millennia-old ice at the North Pole that melted away during the Summer was being replaced with much thinner, weaker ice in the Winter… a Winter that was getting increasingly shorter. As a result, the Arctic Ice cap could melt away by the end of THIS Summer. The Arctic ice cap acts like a giant “air conditioner” for the rest of the planet, reflecting much of the suns heat back into space in the Summer. A loss of all that ice would mean the polar waters would heat up instead and rapidly increase the rate of Global Warming.

Suddenly, Americans are taking notice of Global Warming and the issue is a key plank in BOTH presidential candidates platforms.

During the 2000 Presidential Campaign, Republican candidate George Bush was promising “a more humble foreign policy”… a country that “worked with its neighbors” instead of imposing its will on everyone. We now know just how seriously he took that promise.

And now, after five years of war without end in Iraq, seven years of (once low level, but now growing) war in Afghanistan, and a resurgent al Qaeda, Americans are eager for a President that will end growing U.S. militarism that truly will bring “a more humble foreign policy” to the United States.

When Bill Clinton was President and the economy saw its greatest peace-time expansion in history, the Republicans in Congress were quick to dismiss it, saying that “had THEY of been in charge”, the economy would of been “even better”. So, in 2000, the country put a Republican President in charge of a Republican Congress and the economy tanked. A Congress filled with do-nothing Yes-Men that bent over backwards to give a war-mongering, fiscally irresponsible boy-king that had never run a successful business in his life, everything his heart desired, and chaos ensued. As of last Friday, the DOW closed over 400 points LOWER than the Clinton peak of 2000, with no signs of recovering before Bush leaves office next November. Where the Clinton economy more than TRIPLED the stock market with record job growth and a balanced budget, and kept the U.S. safe from a second terrorist attack on U.S. soil (following the Feb 26, 1993 WTC bombing barely a month into his first term) for eight years (without violating the Constitution to do it) until he left office. The Boy King,on the other hand, ignored warnings of an impending attack that resulted in 9/11, used that tragic event to invade an unrelated country (Iraq) on false pretenses, doubled the National Debt, lost an entire city (New Orleans), two recessions, record job loss, quintupled the cost per barrel of oil and tripled the price of gas. Suddenly that claim in 2000 that “had THEY of been in charge”, everything would have been “MUCH better”, has not only been proven false, but SO false that if anyone dare try to make the same claim again in the next twenty years, absolutely no one will take them seriously.

Republicans are running from the “Republican” label like rats fleeing a sinking ship. Senator McCain regards suggestions that he’s “just like Bush” to be… not a compliment… but a scurrilous attack that requires immediate responding to. Republican candidate for Governor of Washington State, Dino Rossi, so recognizes the negative stigma George Bush has tainted the “Republican” brand that he requested that he be listed on the November ballot as a member of the “G.O.P. Party” (yes, that would translate as the “Grand Old Party Party”) instead of “Republican”. Yeah, that’ll fool people!

So, in conclusion: people are finally giving up their gas guzzling, pollution belching SUV’s for greener, more fuel efficient cars… which in turn is finally forcing The Big Three Automakers in Detroit to focus on more fuel efficient (and environmentally friendly) economy cars; years of ignoring Global Warming has accelerated destruction of the ice caps and causing more freakish weather (droughts in the West, floods in the East) to where people are finally taking notice of Global Climate Change; $4/gallon gas following five years of war in Iraq has even the most devoted Republican questioning “whether it was all worth it”; and abandoning thousands of poor blacks to drown in Hurricane Katrina and then fail to evacuate survivors trapped in a filthy stadium without food, water, electricity or even working bathrooms, for days, have finally opened the eyes of millions of Americans as to just how competent a Republican Administration really is.

When George Bush took office in 2001, Right-wing hack Kate O’Beirne of “National Review Onliine” uttered the now famous phrase: “the grown-ups are back in charge”. Isn’t that what kids say when Mom & Dad leave town and they get their first taste of freedom? The parents return only to find the house a total shambles and the kids sleeping off a nasty hangover with half a keg spilt on the floor?

On a happier note, one more thing to celebrate this Fourth of July: exactly 200 days left till George W. Bush leaves office. See, not everything about Bush is bad.

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SPECIAL EDITION: I reported on Wednesday that the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) closed a mere 85 points above the record high of the Clinton Administration of 11,722 on January 14, 2000, nearly wiping out all the (paltry) gains of the past eight years (seven of those under Bush). Today/Thursday, the market PLUNGED over 358 points to close at 11,453.42 as oil surged above $140 a barrel for the first time, placing the DOW some 270 points below that record high. The reason: Libya threatened to cut oil production in response to a U.S. law that allows terror victims to seize the assets of foreign governments. Apparently, Libya is concerned that all those terrorists from their country might start costing them money. You may remember that in December of 2003, President Bush and the Republican Congress crowed over the fact Libya had agreed to dismantle its WMD program and allow inspectors back in. “Proof that President Bush’s anti-terrorism strategy was working!” If Libya proved anything today, you don’t need WMD’s to hurt an America dependent on foreign oil.

In addition to this, Democrats in Congress finally took up legislation today to regulate “Commodity Speculators”, mainly oil speculators, that have been driving up the price of oil. So apparently, all those investors decided to “stock up” (pardon the pun) on oil futures before the new legislation cuts off the gravy train (they’re going to have to sell short though, before the law kicks in, if it causes a significant drop in prices, to avoid losing their shirts.)

Whatever the reason, the last time the DOW was this low was January 21, 2000… a full year before George Bush took office. So not only has President Bush managed to wipe out ALL gains in the Market during his Presidency, he is now working on wiping out gains under the Clinton Presidency! (President Clinton’s final day in office, the DJIA closed at 10,587).

(Note: While the DOW fell steeply after the Clinton peak in January to just 9,796 seven weeks later — thanks to Republican campaigners talking down the economy –, it managed to rebound to 11,310 by Sept 6, 2000… which is right about where we are now.) Nothing could keep the Clinton-Bull down, just as nothing appears to be able to stop the Bush-Bear from doing cannonballs to the bottom of the pool.)

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- Mugsy

Oh, before anything else, our new McCain Flip-Flop Master List appears to be a minor hit, drawing over 3,000 hits in just three days… and growing! For that reason, I’ve created a new, easy to remember subdomain just for the page: flipflop.bi30.org. Bookmark it!

I actually started writing this blog entry back on January 27th following a series of triple-digit plunges in the DOW that took the DJIA from 13,261.82 on January 2, 2008 to 11,971.19 on January 27, 2008… just 248 points above the Clinton peak of 11,722.98 on January 14, 2000. Expecting the trend to continue, I prepared to report that the DOW, after seven years of Bush-o-nomics, experienced a Net Gain of Zero… or worse. But instead, seeing the 11K figure threw the Market into “bargain” mode and the Market rebounded to level off in the mid 12,000 range. And there it stayed until just this past week.

As of June 20th, the DOW had lost almost 1000 points in a month (from 13,026 on May 20th to 12,062 on Friday, June 20th). The following Monday, the DOW closed below 12,000 points for the first time since January. The DOW lost another fraction of a point on Monday and an additional 34 points on Tuesday to remain below 12,000 and now stands at just 85 points above the Clinton peak of 2000.

Yes, after seven years of Republican “Bush-o-nomics”, the DJIA has gained a whopping 85 points. Compare 3,271.12 the day Bill Clinton took office on January 20, 1993 to 10,448.40 on June 23, 2000… the same point in Clinton’s second term as Bush is at now. An increase of 7,177 points to Bush’s paltry 85 point gain (a difference of 8440%). All hail Conservative economic policies! Republicans like to misdirect credit for the Clinton economy to the “tech bubble” (which incidentally was the result of that darned “Internets” thing they gave us), but we had a “bubble” under Bush too… the “housing bubble”… spurred on by outrageous and recklessly low interest rates… and the DOW reacted nothing like it did under the Clinton economy.

Republicans used to deride the “Clinton Bull Market”, saying that “if THEY had been in charge, the market would have done even better“. So then the American people voted to put Republicans in charge of BOTH the White House AND the Congress… and the result In seven years? Nearly doubling the National Debt, record unemployment, $4 a gallon gasoline and $136/barrel oil that is pushing the price of everything through the roof, two wars without end and threats of a third on the way (Iran).

This is probably my - most - frequently - covered - topic on “Mugsy’s Rap Sheet”: Not JUST the abysmal Bush economy, but how Republicans repeatedly downplayed, dismissed & criticized the economic boom of the Clinton presidency and… to this day… continue to defend the Bush economy, one that has now lost jobs two quarters in a row (with unemployment rising 0.5% to 5.5%… a 20 year record increase),

…coupled with a collapsing housing market, and NINE (wildly irresponsible) interest rate cuts since last September that have yet to arrest the sliding DOW.

As I’ve repeated on here many - MANY times before, the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) hit a record high of 11722.98 in January of 2000 before the Republicans running for President… namely George W Bush… talked the economy into a recession because they knew they could not defeat VP Al Gore unless they convinced Americans that the economy “wasn’t as great as everyone thinks”. And as the economic nose-dive became a self-fulfilling prophecy, Governor Bush was more & more able to point and say, “See! I told ya’ so!”. Between January 20 of 2000 and Inauguration Day, January 20 of 2001, the DOW lost 667 points, prompting newly elected President Bush to complain he had been “handed a recession” upon entering office. Compare that to the record peak of 14,000 points last July to Tuesday’s close of 11807, a loss of 2,200 points in just 11 months, to which the Bush Administration denies is evidence of their second Recession in seven years.

As recently as last October, former presidential candidate Fred Thompson was still calling the Bush economy: “the greatest story never told”. Well, he certainly got the “story” part right, though I’d rephrase that as “fairy tale”.

The very basis for the “privatization of Social Security” argument was the meteoric rise of the Stock Market under the Clinton Administration. Republicans argued that “had Americans of been allowed to invest that money in the stock market instead of Social Security, they would of seen an 11%-12% return on their investment instead of the paltry 3% return the government gives them.

But just imagine if the Bushies had gotten their way and all those people had invested half their retirement in the stock market instead of the DOW when Bush took office? After seven years, an 85 point increase amounts to a whopping 0.77% return (77cents for every $100) on your investment (to be fair, I won’t factor in rampant inflation for a Net Loss because inflation affects Social Security as well). The very idea that anyone might still consider Republican policies better for the economy makes my head swim. What world have these people been living on for the past 16 years??? But that hasn’t stopped even good Democrats from continuing to use the phrase “fiscal Conservative” as a positive and “liberal” as a pejorative when it comes to economic issues.

A great example of “fiscal Conservative” solutions: Last Monday, Senator McCain announced “a contest to see who can create a better electric car battery the fastest. The winner gets $300 million.“

Now, does this sound like a serious energy policy to anyone? $300 million sounds nice, but when McCain is promising the oil companies $4 Billion in tax breaks, just how serious do you think Republicans are about weaning this country off fossil fuels? A “Conservative solution” in all its glory… harnessing the American “competitive spirit” to maybe, someday, produce a technology that maybe, someday, will move this country to use less oil and help the environment. Do you think maybe, someday we need something a bit more serious?

This past months issue of Vanity Fair has a story on the creation of the Internet… a subject I learned well in college in he late ’90’s. It began as a Cold War government project in the 1960’s to maintain communications in the result of a nuclear attack… something “decentralized” that would continue to work even if parts of it were destroyed. It remained a private government program called ARPANet for decades until President Clinton entered office. Reagan and the first President Bush refused to open ARPANet up to the public, considering it a military and strategic advantage. But when the telecoms lobbied Al Gore to open it up, they found a more receptive audience. “The Internet” was born, as was a multi-Trillion dollar industry that many of us could not imagine living without today. While Republicans in the 90’s claimed the Stock Market “would of done better under them”, the truth is there would of been no tech bubble because there would of been no Internet had Republicans of been in charge. The greatest way to create new industries and spur the economy is though large government investments in public programs. We saw it in the 50’s when Eisenhower invested in the Interstate Highways project that promoted the easy spread of commerce between states as well as kick-started the U.S. automotive industry, JFK pushing the U.S. to build a rocket to the Moon… not “maybe, someday“, but by the end of the decade, drew millions of children into becoming scientists & engineers that drove American innovation for decades, followed by unleashing the Internet in the 1990’s, supercharging the U.S. economy and making us a technological leader in the world once again. But Conservatives deplore pouring tax payer dollars into government projects. They’d rather hand all that cash over to private Defense Contractors to build bombs that, if not used, don’t get replaced, meaning their buddies stop making money. So they start wars to use up that stockpile so they can give those big Defense Contractors more tax dollars to build more useless bombs… until the next war they can cook up.

Conservative solutions. Liberal solutions. Conservative economic policies. Liberal economic policies. Never mind what you’ve been trained to believe those terms mean, just look at each Party’s track record. The Conservatives solution to the current economic crisis was to give every American a $300 check. How long did it take them to think that one up? That’s the kind of brilliant economic thinking I’d expect from a third grader. Not the economic policy of the most powerful government on the face of the Earth.  

Postscript: A nod to the passing of the late great George Carlin. There was no greater spokesperson for Liberal idealism and “rational” thought… at least when it came to politics & religion (neither video Suitable For Work).