| July
2001 - Present | January 2001 - June
2001 |
| Evil index |
Evil act |
Evil details |
| 11-30-2001
    
New
York Times |
Bush
tries to revive Cointelpro. |
It was the operation in which the FBI spied
on Martin Luther King, Jr. There was a time in this country when the
government considered the struggle for civil rights tantamount to
communism. It's one of those historical crimes that almost seems
worth the pain it caused only because it serves as a warning to
future generations that they must be wary in order to preserve their
liberties. But after September 11, Americans aren't so interested in
protecting their freedoms anymore, so John Ashcroft's proposal to
allow domestic spying on religious and political groups will
probably not generate significant popular dissent.
Cointelpro. It's a word that should strike fear into the
heart of every freedom-loving American. And if Bush and Ashcroft
have their way, it's coming back. |
| 11-29-2001
  
Washington
Post
|
Bush allows pesticide
experiments involving humans. |
If you want to eat
pesticide for money, there's good news: Bush's EPA has decided to
allow you to do so again. Under the Clinton administration, the
practice of experimenting on humans to determine pesticide safety
levels was banned; scientists considered them too dangerous. But
this angered the pesticide industry, since the (admittedly more
accurate) human trials allowed them to sell more product. (The
estimated data from less accurate experiments has to be multiplied
to get safe human levels, and scientists err on the side of safety.)
If it makes an industry angry, it makes Bush angry (we
can't imagine why), so he's decided to allow the tests once
again, against the advice of the
(not-connected-to-pesticide-companies) scientific
community. |
| 11-20-2001
Associated
Press |
Bush
asks Americans to "dig deep" during holiday season. |
Call it evil by irony. There's nothing
inherently wrong with President Bush's request to Americans to
increase charitable giving during the holiday season. We all should
give more. But the budget Bush released earlier in the year made it
clear that fighting poverty was not one of his priorities, while tax
breaks for the rich are at the top of his list. The president has
enormous power to eradicate poverty in America, and Bush has chosen
not to fight that battle. (The grants for homelessness he announced
today fall
far short of a real solution.) By asking Americans to fight it
for him, he is shirking his duties as the president. Yes, we should
all give during the holiday season. But the best way to fight
poverty is to get this guy out of office. |
| 11-18-2001
   
LA
Times
|
Bush orders the
destruction of public information. |
There's no doubt that
the president does not consider the public's access to information
about the government to be an important right. He recently signed an
executive order that would keep his own papers in secret for
perpetuity. (See 11-2-2001 below.) But there's other information the
Bush administration wouldn't like the public to get its hands on,
and the terrorist acts of September 11 provided a perfect excuse. So
he orders federal agencies to remove data from their Web sites and
libraries to destroy information they are storing. Terrorists didn't
need this information to plan devastating attacks. But Americans
need it to stay informed. |
| 11-14-2001
    
Washington
Post |
Bush
proposes trying suspected terrorists with military
tribunals. |
Since people in America suspected of ties to
terrorism are being refused the right to counsel (see 11-9-2001
below), it should come as no surprise that Bush doesn't plan on
protecting the rights of terrorists captured on international soil.
But Bush's decision to use military tribunals to try captured
terrorists is an unconstitutional extension of the executive
branch's powers. The Secretary of Defense choosing the burden of
proof? Only two-thirds consensus required for a conviction? No
appellate review of the tribunal's verdicts? One can't help but
suspect these tribunals will be secret and wonder whether the Bush
administration is afraid of public trials. The fact that Bush has
refused to share publicly the evidence against Osama bin Laden and
Al Queda is equally disturbing. Our judicial system is designed to
give a fair and open trial to those accused of crimes, and it's the
best in the world. Why does the president feel the need to replace
it? |
| 11-9-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush eliminates the
basic right of attorney-client privilege. |
The thing about
Constitutional rights is that there can be absolutely no exceptions.
Once you start making exceptions, even "just this one time," it
opens the door to future abuses. Today we're doing it in the name of
preventing terrorism, tomorrow it's the War on Drugs, and eventually
they're denying you a lawyer when they charge you with sedition. We
have to protect our rights at all costs, because any attack on them,
no matter how innocuous, can be the beginning of the end. The right
of a suspected criminal to have an attorney is clearly stated in the
Sixth
Amendment to the Constitution. The courts long ago recognized
that a suspect must be allowed to speak freely to counsel in order
for that Constitutional right to be fulfilled. Now, in its clearest
violation of both the letter and the spirit of that amendment, the
Bush administration announces that it will monitor calls between
people suspected of links to terrorists and their lawyers. This
means those suspects cannot speak freely to their lawyers and are
being denied the right to counsel. What's the point in defending
freedom abroad if we're denying it at home? |
| 11-7-2001
  
Washington
Post |
Bush
closes office dedicated to protecting the Everglades. |
In one
of those campaign appearances meant to emphasize the "compassionate"
part of "compassionate conservative," the Bush visited the Florida
Everglades to promise that as president, he would protect America's
natural resources. In what is now an all-too-familiar move, Bush's
Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, closes down the federal office
whose job it is to protect the Everglades. |
| 11-7-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush forces terminally
ill Oregonians to die painful deaths. |
If there's one thing we
learned from the 2000 elections, it's that Republicans like states'
rights just so long as they don't interfere with their conservative
agenda. The people of Oregon in 1994 and 1997 voted to allow doctors
to prescribe medications for terminally ill people that would let
them end their lives as they wished: peacefully, at home, with
family. Attorney General John Ashcroft informs the state that the
Drug Enforcement Agency will be prosecuting doctors who prescribe
drugs for euthanasia, ensuring those ill patients the long, slow,
undignified, painful deaths that Ashcroft's God
dictates. |
| 11-2-2001
  
CNN |
Bush
gives Microsoft a free pass. |
Both
the trial judge and the appeals court found Microsoft guilty of
antitrust violations. But Republicans don't believe in enforcing
antitrust laws, do they? That's just the government interfering with
the perfection of the free market. So Bush's Department of Justice
lets Microsoft off easy, agreeing to a settlement that only puts
minor (and temporary) restrictions on the software giant. |
| 11-2-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush overturns the 1978
Presidential Records Act. |
Nowhere in the
Constitution does it say that presidents have the power to overturn
laws with an executive order. But President Bush doesn't let that
stop him from protecting Reagan, his father, administration cronies,
and himself from the eventual release of their records. In the wake
of Watergate, Congress passed the 1978 Presidential Records Act,
which was designed to check the evil whims of future presidents with
the promise that all their papers would be released to the public 12
years after they left office. Reagan's papers were slated to be
released this year, but Bush delayed the release several times. (See
9-1-2001 and 6-9-2001 below.) Surely
this was connected to the fact that many of the worst criminals in
the Reagan administration now serve under Bush. Now the president
signs an executive order invalidating the PRA, ensuring that his
most heinous deeds can be hidden from the public eye for all
time. |
| 10-27-2001
  
Associated
Press |
Bush
urges Congress not to federalize airport security. |
Airport
screeners make an average of $6.75 per hour. They have a turnover
rate of 126 percent a year, meaning that virtually none of them
stays on the job for long. With those kinds of working conditions,
is it any surprise that a man made
it onto a plane with a gun a few days ago, in what is supposed
to be a time of heightened security? Low-wage workers are not
motivated to do a great job. (Have you ever noticed that fast-food
employees never seem as enthusiastic in real life as they are in
commercials?) So when Bush urges Congress not to make airport
security a federal law-enforcement concern, he's directly
endangering the lives of millions of American air travelers--just in
time for the holidays! |
| 10-26-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush signs the
antiterrorism bill. |
Civil liberties
officially take a backseat to law enforcement. The Senate and House
easily pass the antiterrorism bill (with the cloying and inaccurate
name, "USA
Patriot Act"), which makes it easier for the government to
conduct searches or electronic surveillance. The president quickly
and enthusiastically signs the bill. Democratic Senator Russell
Feingold of Wisconsin, who cast the sole vote in the Senate against
the bill, calls it "a wish list for the FBI, an overreach that
invades civil liberties." |
| 10-26-2001
 
Washington
Post
|
Bush
overturns mining regulations. |
The
possibility that a mine will cause "substantial irreparable harm"
seems like a pretty good reason for the Interior Department to deny
it a permit. But that standard isn't acceptable to the mining
industry, which makes it unacceptable to the Bush administration.
After the generosity
of the mining companies toward the Bush campaign, who can blame
them? Those campaign contributions don't come cheap, after all. It's
just too bad that it's the American landscape that will have to
pay. |
| 10-21-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush approves the
assassination of Osama bin Laden. |
What's so immoral about
assassinations? After all, people die in military engagements all
the time, so why should, say, slipping a political leader a dose of
heart-stopping poison be any worse than shooting a soldier? Well,
the soldier is shooting back. War is fraught with moral ambiguities,
but there are rules to military engagements. (Those rules are broken
all too often, with such incidents explained euphemistically as
"collateral damage.") You're not supposed to shoot someone who
doesn't pose immediate danger to you or others. Assassination is a
specific violation of those rules, and thus inherently immoral.
Before September 11, America was quickly losing stature on the world
stage after sabotaging treaties covering subjects ranging from
carbon dioxide emissions to biological warfare. Bush's order to the
CIA to use any means to take out Osama bin Laden is likely to chip
away at the stature we've regained since we were attacked by
terrorists. Besides, it's just wrong. |
| 10-19-2001
    
Washington
Post |
Bush
lies to Congress about affect of oil drilling in ANWR on
caribou. |
Wildlife refuges like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
exist for one reason: to protect wildlife from the whims of politics
and economic self-interest. Such self-interest has led the GOP to
argue for drilling in ANWR ever since the president took office.
They've even exploited the September 11 attacks to bolster their
argument. When Interior Secretary Gale Norton argues in front of
Congress in support of oil drilling in ANWR, she omits data from the
Wildlife Service showing that drilling would affect the caribou that
migrate through the area and lies about the calving habits of those
caribou. Both deceptions serve to promote the drilling, which would
be a boon to the energy industry that supported Bush so loyally
during the presidential campaign. |
| 10-13-2001
  
Associated
Press
|
Bush puts a lid on the
media. |
Ari Fleischer tells
Americans they need to "watch what they say." The administration
asks TV news networks to let it edit videos from Al Qaeda before
they show them. Is silencing the media the president's idea of
defending freedom? Now the administration isn't allowing interviews
of public health officials, denying citizens important information.
Reporters are even having trouble finding information on
environmental issues, which leads one to wonder just what kinds of
policies agencies like Interior and the EPA are slipping in while
our attention is elsewhere. One reporter described the
administration's actions as "irrational and
overreaching." |
| 10-5-2001
   
Associated
Press |
Bush
looks to cut taxes even further. |
Fearing
an economic slump in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the
president proposes $60 billion in tax cuts in addition to the $1.35
trillion cut Congress foolishly passed earlier this year. A disaster
like this, where there is significant physical damage and massive
unemployment across several industries, requires government
spending, not tax cuts, to boost the economy. Such spending will
create jobs and increase consumer spending, which tax cuts (aimed
toward the rich, as always) can't do. |
| 10-1-2001
   
LA
Times
|
Bush expands powers of
secret court. |
A secret court located
in the Justice Department decides whether or not Americans can be
wiretapped. There's no accountability and no appeal. How could you
appeal, after all, when you don't even know you've been tapped? In
the wake of the September 11 attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft
wants to make it even easier for the court, which in 23 years has
disapproved exactly one surveillance request, to approve wiretaps
and warrants. Ashcroft's proposal would expand the courts bailiwick;
where it now deals solely with intelligence matters, he would have
it expand to criminal investigations. Given that the court was
created to prevent Nixonian abuses of the Justice Department
revealed by the Watergate investigation, Ashcroft's proposals seem
to be a direct threat to civil rights. |
| 9-24-2001
    
Washington
Post |
Bush
tries to end arms sanctions. |
Back
when America was fighting the Cold War, we had a knack for arming
folks who would eventually turn into our enemies. We armed Manuel
Noriega, and he became "Manuel Noriega." We armed Saddam Hussein,
and he became "Saddam Hussein." We even armed Osama bin Laden, who
has since become "Osama bin Laden." This turned out to be a
short-sighted strategy. Now the president wants to revive it by
eliminating arms sanctions to a host of nations. This includes
Pakistan, who has been under an arms embargo because of its nuclear
program. While the current government of that country has indicated
that it wants to help America fight our new war on terrorism, that
attitude could easily spark a coup that would put Pakistan's
military in the hands of extremists. Thus sending arms to Pakistan,
along with Syria and Iran, might not be the best idea. This action
also lifts arms embargoes on countries like China where they were in
place because of their poor human rights records. |
| 9-17-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush looks to curb
civil liberties. |
Everyone says if we let
the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
change our lives, then the terrorists have won. Certainly any
restrictions to our freedoms would be the worst victory we could
hand them. Nevertheless, the president wants to assassinate foreign
leaders, make it easier to tap our phones, and detain foreigners
(wonder how they'll pick which ones). It sounds as though America is
going to be a little less like America for a while. |
| 9-8-2001
    
LA
Times |
Bush
delays energy assistance to the poor. |
During
his made-up energy crisis,
President Bush sought to deflect criticism that his plan was skewed
in favor of the energy industry by proposing $150 million in funds
to help the poor pay their utility bills. Congress doubled the
amount to $300 million. But now Bush blocks those very funds, a move
we can only describe as unfathomable. |
| 9-7-2001
   
New
York Times
|
Bush eases nursing home
regulations. |
Bad nursing homes can
be a horror. Government investigations have documented unimaginable
conditions for seniors over the years. This isn't terribly
surprising; it's cheaper to provide bad service than good service.
The best remedy is government oversight. Now the Bush administration
proposes to reduce that oversight, reducing inspections from once a
year to once every two or three years, easing penalties, and relying
on data given by the industry. We're sure nursing homes will line up
to give the government data on their less savory
practices. |
| 9-6-2001
  
Associated
Press |
Bush
lets Microsoft off scot-free. |
The
U.S. Court of Appeals sent back Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's
sentence in the Microsoft case for review because it felt the judge
had been too biased in his decision, not surprising considering his
ill-advised anti-Microsoft remarks to the media. But it did not ask
the court to review his verdict, agreeing with Jackson that
Microsoft was clearly guilty of antitrust violations. Now Attorney
General John Ashcroft decides not to pursue any significant
punishments for the software giant, meaning Microsoft will suffer no
consequences for what the trial judge and appeals court agree are
serious crimes. You just have to love these get-tough-on-crime
conservatives! |
| 9-1-2001
  
New
York Times
|
Bush delays release of
Reagan's presidential records--again. |
A post-Watergate law
required that all presidents release their records twelve years
after their terms end. Ronald Reagan was the first president covered
by the law, and his papers were due for release in January. But the
Bush administration (many of whose members worked for Reagan and
Vice President George Bush, whose papers from that era must also be
released) delayed the papers' release until June. In June, they
delayed the release until August. (See 6-9-2001 below.) Now that the August deadline has
passed, the current administration delays the release again, this
time with no deadline. How long will the Bush administration be
allowed to protect its cronies? |
| 8-28-2001
   
Associated
Press |
Bush
delays reparations to cancer-stricken uranium miners. |
There
was a time, believe it or not, when people didn't know that exposure
to uranium would lead to cancer. Now we know better, of course, and
dozens of miners who worked with uranium ore for the government's
nuclear program have gotten sick. The sacrifice to their health
given in service to their country is no less than that of a wounded
soldier, and they deserve similar compensation. The president wants
to push back compensation while the government conducts studies, but
these people are rapidly dying. Given another chance to prove that
he really is a compassionate human being, Bush fails
miserably. |
| 8-28-2001
   
Washington
Post
|
Bush skips an
international conference on racism. |
We've pulled out of the
Kyoto treaty, the germ warfare treaty enforcement protocols, and the
ABM treaty. We've been kicked off the UN Human Rights Commission.
Thousands of protesters face President Bush whenever he travels to
Europe. Our international standing is lower than it has been in
years. Naturally, the president decides not to send Secretary of
State Colin Powell to an international conference on racism in order
to protest language in a conference communique that condemns
Israel's treatment of Palestinians as racist. Wouldn't going to the
conference to discuss the issue be a more mature response? Isn't
establishing such dialogue the whole idea behind the
conference? |
| 8-23-2001
    
CNN |
Bush
announces that the United States will withdraw from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. |
"We
will withdraw from the ABM treaty on our timetable," the president
announces from his "working vacation" in Crawford, Texas. Apparently
the United States has returned to the days--well remembered by
Native Americans--when we honor treaties only as long as they're
convenient. If Russia doesn't like the terms of our withdrawal, too
bad. We'll just rip up the treaty when it ceases to suit our
purposes. |
| 8-23-2001
Washington
Post
|
Bush cooks budget
numbers for PR purposes. |
While the surplus
plunges, Bush's White House tries to fool the American public into
calm. His budget director, Mitch Daniels, says the country is "awash
in money." Happily, the media sees through this deception and
reports the truth about the budget. While the White House says there
is a $158 billion surplus, this is largely the untouchable Social
Security surplus. Without Social Security funds, the surplus drops
to $1 billion. Maybe Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut wasn't such a good idea after
all? |
| 8-15-2001
    
Rocky
Mountain News |
Bush
keeps protesters at bay--again. |
Back in
June, the president was speaking at a tax rally where protesters
where forced to leave. (See 6-8-2001 below.) They were only allowed in
designated "First Amendment areas," proving that in Bush's America,
the First Amendment only counts where he says it counts. Now on a
trip to the Rocky Mountain National Park, Bush does it again,
staying in areas no less than a mile away from designated First
Amendment areas. |
| 8-15-2001
  
Washington
Post
|
Bush delays Medicaid
reforms. |
Despite all the hoopla
over the recent patients' bill of rights debate, neither version of
the bill--the McCain-Edwards-Kennedy bill passed by the Senate or
the watered-down House version--does anything to protect the poor or
uninsured. For that, the government must reform Medicaid, which was
the subject of several rules passed by the Clinton administration in
order to enforce a compromise made during 1997 budget negotiations.
But Bush is delaying and narrowing those rules in order to appease
insurance companies and state governments that are worried about the
cost. |
| 8-11-2001
   
Washington
Post |
Bush
rejects request for review of Karl Rove's finances. |
Karl
Rove, the president's top political consultant and a federal
employee, met with the executives of six companies in which he holds
more than $100,000 in stock to discuss White House policy. There can
be no question that this creates at least the appearance of
impropriety, something that Bush promised to avoid during his term.
Given his oft-repeated campaign promises of an ethical
administration, one would think Bush would be extremely cooperative
with any investigation of possible ethical lapses. But no. A request
from House Government Reform committee ranking member Henry Waxman
of California to Bush for records relating to Rove's finances and
meetings goes unheeded, making it clear that Bush's promises to
restore honor to the White House are little more than empty
words. |
| 8-11-2001
  
Washington
Post
|
Bush eases ethical
restrictions on stem cells. |
It's ironic, really.
Bush's decision on stem cells limits federal funds to researchers
working on stem cell lines already created. But in doing so, Bush
also wipes out Clinton administration ethical rules on obtaining
stem cells from embryos. Those rules included not allowing
researchers to ask women for access to extra embryos during
implantation, as it is a time of extreme vulnerability for most
women. They also laid out exactly what was required for researches
to gain "informed consent" from women before using their embryos.
The Bush rules don't include these requirements, in effect opening
up women to potential exploitation. While Bush speaks of protecting
the groups of cells from which stem cells are derived, it's obvious
he never thought about protecting the fully formed humans from which
they originate. |
| 8-10-2001
 
Washington
Post |
Bush
refuses to fund research on stem cells derived from new
embryos. |
Trying
to appear wise as Solomon, the president falls on his face and looks
more like--well, himself. In a decision clearly crafted for maximum
political benefit, Bush decides that no federal funds will go to
scientists creating new stem cells from existing embryos slated to
be destroyed. Instead the federal government will only fund 60
self-sustaining lines of embryos already in existence. The decision
pleases no one apart from the president's yes-men. Catholics call it
unacceptable
because it still, from their perspective, treats human life as
something cheap. Scientists are worried
that the limitations will hurt scientific research. As with his
position on abortion, Bush tries to avoid a real stance in order to
appear blameless. |
| 8-9-2001
  
Washington
Post
|
Bush eases rules on
wetlands development. |
In direct contradiction
to an earlier
promise to protect wetlands from destruction, the Bush
administration has decided to ease rules set in place a year ago
that make it more difficult to develop real estate on wetlands.
Bush's own EPA and Fish and Wildlife Agency support the old rules,
but real
estate developers don't. Guess who wins? |
| 8-8-2001
   
Washington
Post |
Bush
eases Clinton rules on industrial pollution. |
The
story has become almost routine. The EPA under Clinton sued several
power plants for adding capacity without following Clean Air Act
regulations requiring them to reduce emissions. Now the EPA under
Bush decides, with plenty of input from the energy industry, that
these suits were unjustified. The agency will narrow the rules under
which it would bring those suits, which will have a direct impact on
the air we breathe. |
| 8-2-2001
  
Salon.com
|
Bush undermines House
efforts to develop a bipartisan patients' bill of rights. |
By negotiating solely
with Republican congressman Charlie Norwood of Georgia over the
patients' bill of rights, the president fractures a coalition of
Republicans and Democrats that had dedicated themselves to putting
the interest of patients above those of HMOs. Bush and Norwood
announce their deal without consulting other sponsors of the bill,
making the "compromise" nothing but a political game by the White
House. |
| 7-27-2001
   
USA
Today |
Bush
jails a journalist for not revealing her sources. |
During
the Clinton administration, the Justice Department never--not
once--jailed a journalist trying to protect an anonymous source.
Attorney General John Ashcroft reverses that policy by jailing
Vanessa Leggett when she refuses to turn over notes for a book she's
writing about a 1997 murder. What's worse, the proceeding that led
to Leggett's incarceration is held in secret, with even the judge's
name not released. |
| 7-27-2001
 
New
York Times
|
Bush commission
releases biased Social Security report. |
The president had an
agenda when he appointed the members of his commission on Social
Security, and it had nothing to do with protecting the nation's
elderly poor. He appointed members who were Democrats and
Republicans to give it a veneer of bipartisanship, but the
commission was ideologically homogenous with regards to the very
issue it was supposed to study. The result, its report, is a biased
prediction of the early death of the program meant to scare the
public into supporting Bush's privatization scheme. The
individualized accounts Bush proposes would shrink the Social
Security surplus at a time--baby boomers reaching retirement en
masse--when it needs to be expanded. |
| 7-26-2001
    
Washington
Post |
Bush
officially rejects germ warfare treaty protocol. |
Two
months ago, the Bush administration was considering rejecting a
protocol for enforcing a decades-old treaty banning biological
weapons. (See 5-20-2001 below.) Now Bush officially rejects the
protocol, saying that it endangers the industrial secrets of U.S.
biotech firms. Once again the president has a choice between what's
good for corporate profits and what's good for the public, and once
again he makes the wrong decision. |
| 7-24-2001
    
Washington
Post
|
Bush isolates United
States in denying support for Kyoto treaty. |
In what can only be
described as an embarrassment for the world's largest economy, the
United States is now the only industrialized nation that doesn't
support the Kyoto treaty to reduce greenhouse gases. America has 4
percent of the world's population but is responsible for 25 percent
of the greenhouse gases, which are the primary cause of global
warming. Bush's lack of world leadership on this issue is so
reprehensible that the city of Seattle has decided to implement
the pollution reductions in the treaty anyway. Perhaps enough
U.S. cities will follow suit that our president's backwards policy
will become irrelevant. |
| 7-23-2001
   
Associated
Press |
Bush
ends gun buy-back program. |
The
National Rifle Association believes that if guns were illegal, only
criminals would own guns. Government programs that buy back guns
from the community (at prices well under their market value) work on
similar logic; after all, what law-abiding gun owner would want to
give up his $400 gun for $50? They get thousands of guns off the
street--20,000 in their first year alone. Now President Bush cuts
funding to these programs at the behest of the NRA, payback for all
those campaign
contributions. |
| 7-19-2001
   
CNN
|
Bush refuses to turn
over energy task force records. |
The General Accounting
Office, the investigative arm of Congress, asks Vice President
Cheney to turn over records showing just who he consulted when
developing the nation's energy policy. Cheney boldly stands up to
the GAO's unreasonable assertion that public policy development
should be a public process. Surely the vice president has nothing to
hide, such as the fact campaign-contributing executives from the
energy industry had a disproportionate influence on the
process. |
| 7-17-2001
  
Reuters |
Bush
delays water cleanup rules. |
The
Environmental Protection agency goes to court to block
Clinton-administration rules requiring cleanup of national rivers.
EPA head Christine Todd Whitman says she needs "additional time to
listen carefully to all parties with a stake in restoring America's
waters"--Bush administration code for paying back polluting
industries for their huge campaign contributions. |
| July 2001 - Present |
January 2001 - June
2001 |
| Evil scale |
 |
Evil |
  |
Very evil |
   |
Very, very evil |
    |
Very, very, very evil |
     |
Very, very, very, very evil |
