URGENT PLEA to Ohio DUers.

[gcomeau]

Write the Columbus dispatch some CALM, SINCERE, PERSUASIVE letters about why they should endorse Kerry.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000681331

This is important. Do NOT lash out. Do NOT rant. Do NOT use anything that could be construed as "conspiracy theorizing" no matter how much good reason you think you have for believing it's truthful. Stick to the main issues. The mess in Iraq. Health Care (Nail the Flu shots and the "we can't import drugs from Canada because it's not safe... oh wait, Help us Canada!" angle). The fiscal irresponsibility. And DON'T STOP at bashng Bush. Give them some solid, detailed reasons to go with Kerry. Borrow from other pro-Kerry editorial endorsements if you need material. Be strictly and painstakingly factual. Double and triple check everything you send them... but write some letters.

Their editorial board is apparently in a toss-up between a Bush and Kerry endorsement even though they haven't endorsed a Democrat since Wilson. A Dispatch Defection would be MASSIVE. Give them some compelling reasons to do it.

-Grant

[Lorien]

1. Kick

[blondeatlast]

2. VERY important, try to frame it as a "don't support Bush" thing,

and steer away from pushing them to endorse Kerry. That will keep you in a more rational state of mind as you write.

I did this with my criticism of the Arizona Republic's endorsement of Bush and it turned out quite well.

[Lorien]

5. Here's 94 reasons, for starters:

FEEL SECURE?

1. Former President Bill Clinton briefing President-elect Bush on security issues in December 2000: "I think you will find that by far your biggest threat is Bin Ladin and the al Qaeda. One of the great regrets of my presidency is that I didn't get him for you, because I tried to." Source: Testimony by Clinton, published in the 9/11 Commission Report

2. Upon taking office, Bush proposed cutting more than $500 million in counterterrorism funding from the Justice Department. Source: "Condi gets a reality check," Center for American Progress, April 8, 2004

3. On Sept. 10, 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft rejected an appeal from the FBI for more money to fight terrorism in the 2002 budget. Source: Toronto Star, April 13, 2004

4. On Sept. 11, 2001, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice planned to deliver a speech about national security that made no mention of Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda or Islamic fundamentalists. Source: CNN.com, April 1, 2004

5. National security advisor Condoleezza Rice: "The title of the was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Source: Testimony before the 9/11 Commission, April 8, 2004

6. George W. Bush, April 11, 2004: "The P.D.B. was no indication of a terrorist threat." Source: The New York Times, April 12, 2004

7. On July 24, 2001, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial jets and started traveling only on chartered government planes. When asked about the change, Ashcroft cited a "threat assessment" by the FBI. Source: The Village Voice, April 13, 2004

8. In the week after Sept. 11, 2001, at least eight planes carried 140 passengers out of the country. Many of the passengers were Saudi Arabian royalty, while about 24 of them were members of the bin Laden family. One of the flights, on Sept. 13, took off from Tampa to Lexington, Ky. The White House denied that the flight ever took place, but records produced in June under a Freedom of Information Act request prove that it did. Sources: The Boston Globe, April 11, 2004; St. Petersburg Times, June 9, 2004

9. An agency of the Treasury Department assigned to blocking the financial resources of terrorists has five times as many agents investigating Cuban embargo violations than it does tracking Osama bin Laden. Source: Associated Press, April 29, 2004

10. In April, the State Department announced that terrorism incidents worldwide had dropped from 198 in 2002 to 190 in 2003. In June the State Department announced that it had made a mistake, and that terrorism incidents had actually risen, from 205 in 2002 to 208 in 2003. Source: The New York Times, June 23, 2004

11. The 9/11 Commission reported in June that there is "no credible evidence" linking Al Qaeda to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Vice President Dick Cheney continues to assert that the two are connected. Source: The New York Times, June 16, 2004

12. The Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO), a group of Iranian Marxist rebels, is officially considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. But members of the same group under American guard in an Iraqi camp are classified as "protected persons" under the Geneva Convention. The MKO, which assassinated several Americans in the 1970s, is dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government. Source: The Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2004

13. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.: "When you realize that only 3 percent of the cargo containers coming into this country are being inspected, you see the opportunity for a great deal of mischief by terrorists." Source: Associated Press, Feb. 17, 2004

14. According to Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., Gen. Tommy Franks, the man who ran the war in Afghanistan, thinks the war in Iraq has diverted attention from where it should be: Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia. Source: Associated Press, Sept. 6, 2004

15. "West Virginia's top Army Reserve spokesman says the Iraq war was a mistake, and President Bush should be voted out of office." Source: The Charleston Gazette, Sept. 6, 2004

16. George W. Bush responding to NBC-TV reporter Matt Lauer Aug. 29, regarding the war on terror: "I don't think you can win it." Source: The New York Times, Aug. 31, 2004

CHRISTIAN = CHRIST-LIKE, W

17. Bush is in hot water with Southern Baptists for urging churches to turn over lists of congregations for his campaign. "I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Source: USA Today, July 4, 2004

18. An evangelical Christian website, BushRevealed.com, urges Christians not to vote for Bush because he "continues, to justify the wicked; from advancing the homosexual agenda, to funding abortionists, to praising Islam, to signing unconstitutional bills into law that further socialism and shred our Bill of Rights," according to a press release on the website.

19. Bush has not done enough to end abortion, says Dr. Patrick Johnson, vice chairman of the Ohio Constitutional Party. "G.W. Bush has the power as the President of the United States to overturn this legal child-killing, but refuses to exercise this power, and so is responsible for all the child-killing he is allowing." Source: "Why Christians should not vote for George W. Bush," published on the website IntellectualConservative.com

20. Bush is defiling God's creation with his environmental policies, says the National Council of Churches, a New York group that represents 50 million churchgoers in Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox congregations. "In the spirit of shared faith and respect, we feel called to express grave moral concern about your 'Clear Skies' initiative – which we believe is The Administration's continuous effort to weaken critical environmental standards to protect God's creation." Source: CNN.com, April 22, 2004

21. Pope John Paul II strongly opposed the war in Iraq, calling it a defeat for humanity which could not be morally or legally justified. Source: Houston Catholic Worker, July-August, 2003

22. Cardinal James Francis, former archbishop of Denver, accused Bush of moral failure in launching the war in Iraq. "Why did the president, the vice president and the secretary of defense say there was an immediate danger to the peace of American society by the proximate use of weapons that would come from Iraq, either directly or through al Qaeda? Why did they say that when they didn't have direct evidence?" Source: Reuters, May 18, 2004

23. The Bush administration has established new eligibility requirements for a range of government programs, resulting in 36,000 seniors being cut off from meal programs, 532,000 families losing assistance with home heating, 8,000 homeless kids being tossed out of education programs, 50,000 kids being cut from after-school programs, and 33,000 kids no longer being eligible for childcare benefits. Source: Bushwhacked, Life in George W. Bush's America, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, 2003

THESE TWO ARE IN CHARGE?

24. Bush was arrested for drunk driving Sept. 4, 1976. He was also arrested for stealing a Christmas wreath while a student at Yale University, an incident he denied in a 1998 interview with the Dallas Morning News. Sources: Associated Press, Nov. 3, 2000, The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2000

25. "You teach a child to read and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." Source: George W. Bush, Tennessee, Feb. 21, 2001

26. In speeches Bush has confused the names of two international terrorists at least 11 times, crediting Abu Nidal – who attacked airports in Rome and Vienna in 1985, killing 20 – with the work of Abul Abbas, the infamous mastermind behind the hijacking of the cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985. Source: Associated Press, Sept. 20, 2004

27. Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom was furious with Bush after his state visit in 2003 caused extensive damage to her gardens at Buckingham Palace. Bush's army of "clod-hopping security service men" trampled exotic plants, and his helicopter damaged trees, some almost 200 years old, and traumatized her flock of flamingos. Source: Daily Mirror, Nov. 23, 2003

28. "It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine, that this president sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice for all my children." White House chief of staff Andrew Card, at a speech to Republican delegates from Maine and Massachusetts. Source: The Boston Globe, Sept. 2, 2004

29. Pentagon recruiters were spotted in Quebec and Ontario in the winter of 2003 trying to recruit Inuits and other natives to join the U.S. Army. The recruiters claimed that under the 1794 Jay Treaty, they had the right to be there because aboriginal Canadians held dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship. Source: The Village Voice, Dec. 24, 2003

30. During his time in Congress, Vice President Dick Cheney opposed Nelson Mandela's release from a South African prison, voted against banning "cop killer" bullets and voted against nutrition programs for children 10 times. Source: Dick, The Man Who Is President, by John Nichols, The New Press, 2004

31. From 1995 to 2000, while Cheney was the chief executive office of Halliburton, he frequently urged lifting economic sanctions in Iran. The company is under investigation for violating sanctions and doing business with Iran while Cheney was in charge. Source: The Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2004

TOUGH CRITICS

32. Richard Clarke, former White House counterterrorism chief under four presidents (including George W. Bush), a Republican with 30 years of government service under his belt, a hawk who believes in an assertive foreign policy and the author of Against All Enemies, says he tried for nine months before Sept. 11 to get someone in the Bush administration to take the threat of Al Qaeda seriously. Source: Salon.com, March 3, 2004

33. Fox News talking head Bill O'Reilly in February after weapons inspectors concluded Iraq has no WMDs: "I am not pleased about it at all and I think all Americans should be concerned about this." Source: The New York Times, Feb. 10, 2004

34. Bush was determined to oust Saddam Hussein from the beginning of his presidency, according to ex-treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. "But I've been around a long time and know the difference between evidence and assertions and illusions or allusions …." Source: The New York Times, Jan. 12, 2004

35. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who spoke at the Republican National Convention in New York: Bush is not being "as straight as maybe we'd like to see" on Iraq. Source: CNN.com, Sept. 19, 2004

36. Navy Lt. John Oliveira, a 16-year military veteran, who was the top public affairs officer aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt during the Iraq invasion before being honorably discharged: "I think it is very typical Bush administration callousness towards our military and to the American public, people all over the world, in the way they've handled their foreign affairs and callously going into combat." Source: Democracy Now! transcript, March 26, 2004

37. Al Lorentz, an Army Reserve staff sergeant with 20 years experience currently deployed in Iraq: "It is tragic, indeed criminal that our elected public servants would so willingly sacrifice our nation's prestige and honor as well as the blood and treasure to pursue an agenda that is ahistoric and un-Constitutional." Lorentz wrote that statement in an essay titled "Why we cannot win" that was posted on the conservative web site LewRockwell.com Sept. 20. His superior officers have threatened to charge him with disloyalty and insubordination for the essay, meaning he could go to prison for up to 20 years. Sources: LewRockwell.com, Sept. 20; Salon.com, Sept. 29, 2004

38. David Kay, the CIA's former chief weapons inspector, says Iraq never had weapons of mass destruction. Source: The New York Times, Jan. 27, 2004

39. Conservative stalwart Richard A. Viguerie, chairman and CEO of American Target Advertising Inc., a right-wing direct mail company: "It doesn't look like the White House is as astute as we thought they were." Source: The New York Times, April 19, 2004

40. Conservative commentator and CNN anchorman Tucker Carlson: "I supported the war and now I feel foolish. I'm struck by how many people like me who were instinctively distrustful of government forgot to be humble in our expectations. The idea that the federal government can quickly transform the Middle East seems odd to me for a conservative." Source: The New York Times, May 16, 2004

41. David Brooks, former editor of The Weekly Standard and now a conservative columnist at The New York Times: "… over the past two years many conservatives have grown increasingly exasperated with the administration's inability to execute its policies semicompetently." Source: Salon.com, April 21, 2004

42. Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg, a U.S. contractor beheaded on video in Iraq in May: "George Bush's ineffective leadership is a weapon of mass destruction, and it has allowed a chain reaction of events that led to the unlawful detention of my son which immersed him in a world of escalated violence." Source: The Guardian, May 21, 2004

43. Richard Perle, former chair of the Defense Policy Board, advisor to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a Bush ally and a leading advocate for the Iraq war: "I would be the first to acknowledge we allowed the liberation (of Iraq) to subside into an occupation. And I think that was a grave error, and in some ways a continuing error." Source: Toronto Star, May 26, 2004

44. Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the top American official in Iraq until the handover of power June 28, told private audiences that the Bush administration did not send enough troops to Iraq to establish security after toppling Saddam Hussein. Source: The New York Times, Oct. 5, 2004

45. Official statement from Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, a group of 27 government officials who have served every president since Harry S. Truman: "Instead of building upon America's great economic and moral strength to lead other nations in a coordinated campaign to address the causes of terrorism and to stifle its resources, the Administration, motivated more by ideology than by reasoned analysis, struck out on its own. It led the United States into an ill-planned and costly war from which exit is uncertain." Source: Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, June 16, 2004

CAN YOU SAY 'QUAGMIRE'?

46. As of Oct. 6, 1,061 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, 920 since Bush declared the end of major combat in May 1, 2003. Another 7,730 American soldiers have been wounded. Between 13,086 and 15,149 Iraqi civilians have been killed, an estimate because the Department of Defense doesn't track the number. Sources: Department of Defense; Iraqbodycount.net

47. September was one of the bloodiest of the 18 months that Americans have been in Iraq, and marked the first time that the death toll has risen for four straight months. Seventy-six U.S. troops were killed in September, 66 were killed in August, 54 in July and 42 in June. Source: Reuters, Sept. 30, 2004

48. The Bush administration has decided that bad news from Iraq is hurting their man's chances of re-election. The solution? Help write the all-is-well speech recently delivered by Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to Congress, send Iraqi Americans out on a PR tour, and restrict distribution of reports that say the insurgency is growing. Source: Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2004

49. A report by the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College concludes that invading Iraq was a "strategic error of the first order" that has resulted in an "unnecessary preventive war of choice against a deterred Iraq that has created a new front in the Middle East for Islamic terrorism and diverted attention and resources away from securing the American homeland …." Source: "Bounding the global war on terrorism," U.S. Army War College, December 2003

50. The CIA's primary source for information indicating that two mobile labs found in Iraq were weapons labs was an Iraqi defector code-named "Curveball." Source: The Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2004

51. According to the top American weapons inspector in Iraq, Saddam Hussein probably destroyed all stockpiles of banned weapons months after the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and had no ability to produce them when Bush invaded in March 2003. Source: The New York Times, Oct. 6, 2004

52. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a 20-year military veteran assigned to the Pentagon in 2002: "There was a sort of groupthink, an adopted storyline: We are going to invade Iraq and we are going to eliminate Saddam Hussein and we are going to have bases in Iraq. This was all a given even by the time I joined them, in May of 2002." Source: LA Weekly, Feb. 20, 2004

53. In 2002, Congress spent $5 million to fund the "Future of Iraq" project to plan for the aftermath of the invasion. Members of the project – Iraqi exiles and experts – ultimately issued 13 reports addressing likely postwar problems, including looting. When former Gen. Jay Garner was named to run postwar Iraq, before Paul Bremer took over, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told him not to bother reading the reports, and ordered him to fire the person in charge of the project. Source: "Blind into Baghdad," Atlantic Monthly, Jan. 27, 2004

54. An official Army history of the Iraq war written by the Army's Combined Arms Center states that U.S. troops were plagued by supply shortages from the beginning. "Tank engines sat on warehouse shelves in Kuwait … . Broken-down trucks were scavenged for usable parts. Artillery units cannibalized parts from captured Iraqi guns to keep their howitzers operating. Army medics foraged medical supplies from combat hospitals." Source: The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2004

55. "In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures." Source: USA Today, March 29, 2004

56. Vice President Dick Cheney, March 17, 2003: "I think we'll be greeted as liberators, but there are scores to be settled. It's a tough neighborhood. We'll provide security." Source: Plan of Attack, by Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster, 2004

57. The Bush administration secretly diverted $700 million in terrorism-prevention funds for Afghanistan in 2002 to prepare for invading Iraq. Source: Ibid.

58. According to the Army, Bush's proposed defense budget for 2005 did not include $132 million for bolt-on vehicle armor; $879 million for helmets, underwear, boots and clothing; $21.5 million for automatic weapons; and $956 million for repairing equipment damaged in Iraq. The Marines said Bush's budget shorted them $40 million for body armor, helmets and other equipment. Source: MSNBC News, April 21, 2004

59. A 2002 Justice Department memo released by the White House suggests that in the war on terrorism, the president can authorize coercive interrogation methods with few limits, short of killing prisoners. Source: The New York Times, June 27, 2004

60. President Clinton took part in numerous ceremonies honoring war dead. Bush has yet to attend a single military funeral for a soldier killed in Iraq. In March 2003, the Pentagon issued a directive banning news coverage of dead soldiers returning to or departing from air bases. Source: The New York Times, June 22, 2004

61. Bush, in his State of the Union speech, Jan. 28, 2003: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Prior to the speech, U.S. intelligence analysts had already decided the claim was based on forged documents. They drew their conclusion on the findings of Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador who traveled to Africa in February 2002 to investigate the "yellowcake incident" for the CIA. An underling working for National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice eventually took the blame for the infamous "16 words." Sources: Associated Press, July 10, 2003; BBC News, July 22, 2003

62. Joseph Wilson later stated he believes Bush advisor Karl Rove leaked his wife's identity as an undercover CIA operative in retaliation for Wilson refuting the yellowcake story. Source: CNN.com, Sept. 29, 2003

63. The invasion of Iraq was a "tremendous gift" to Osama bin Laden, according to the author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. The book was officially written by "Anonymous," but it is widely known that CIA intelligence analyst Michael Scheuer is the author. Source: Agence France-Presse, Aug. 9, 2004

IT AIN'T HIS MONEY

64. The federal deficit for Fiscal Year 2004 is $422 billion, down slightly from the Congressional Budget Office's prediction of $477 billion, but still a historical record in terms of nominal dollars (though a smaller percentage of the Gross Domestic Product than under President Reagan in the 1980s). Source: "The Budget and Economic Outlook, Fiscal Years 2005 to 2014," January 2004

65. Bush's military budget request for fiscal year 2005 is $420.7 billion, almost as large as military spending for the entire rest of the world. Source: Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Washington, D.C.

66. George A. Akerlof, a winner of the Nobel prize and professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley: "Future generations and even people in 10 years are going to face massive public deficits and huge government debt. Then we have a choice. We can be like a very poor country with problems of threatening bankruptcy. Or we are going to have to cut back seriously on Medicare and Social Security." Source: Der Spiegel, July 29, 2003

67. "We believe that good government is based on a system of limited taxes and spending." Source: 2004 Republican Party Platform: A Safer World and a More Hopeful America

68. In 2005, the Bush administration has earmarked $10 billion for the Missile Defense Agency to build the so-called "Star Wars" missile defense system, which is twice the amount of money allotted to both the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard. The Pentagon's chief of testing has questioned whether the system would ever be able to distinguish between an enemy missile and a Mylar balloon decoy. Source: The New Yorker, Oct. 4, 2004

69. A Pentagon audit of the contractor Halliburton, formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney, found "wide-spread deficiencies" in tracking billions of dollars. Halliburton sub-contractors charged the U.S. government $100 to wash a 15-pound bag of laundry, and abandoned trucks worth $85,000 when the tires went flat. Source: Financial Times, June 14, 2004

70. Bush refused to comply with United Nations auditors examining no-bid contracts awarded to Halliburton worth more than $1 billion. Source: The Washington Post, July 16, 2004

71. Between May 2002 and July 2003, the Republican National Committee farmed out Bush's fund-raising and vote-seeking work to HCL BPO Services in Noida and Gurgaon, India. Seventy-five workers, making $9.25 per hour, called at least 20,000 Republican donors asking for money. Source: The Hindustan Times, May 24, 2004

TYCOON W

72. Ken Lay, the imprisoned CEO of Enron, was Bush's single largest campaign donor in the 2000 election. Source: Bushwhacked, Life in George W. Bush's America, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, 2003

73. "Oil-field losses followed GeeDubya the way that cloud of dirt used to follow Pig Pen in 'Peanuts.'" Source: Ibid.

74. On at least three occasions, Bush has sold stock in a company in which he was a board member without filing the necessary disclosure forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Source: Ibid.

75. Bush took 20 times more money out of Harken Energy Corporation than Bill and Hillary Clinton took out of a failed Arkansas land deal infamously known as Whitewater. Source: Ibid.

76. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of payroll jobs has declined by about 900,000 since Bush took office. Source: The New York Times, Oct. 6, 2004

NO CHILD LEFT

77. For Fiscal Year 2005, Bush has proposed eliminating 38 programs from the Department of Education's budget, including Arts in Education, a program that provides scholarships for Olympic athletes, a program that puts technology centers in low-income neighborhoods, a foreign-language assistance program, literacy programs for prisoners and a program that promoted educational equity for girls and women. Source: United States Department of Education Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Summary

78. U.S. Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont: Bush's No Child Left Behind is a maneuver "that will let the private sector take over public education, something the Republicans have wanted for years." Source: Rutland Herald, Feb. 5, 2003

79. Bush passed his signature No Child Left Behind legislation in January 2002 on the promise that he would overhaul public education in this country. In September 2003, the Senate passed an education funding bill that included an increase of only 5 percent, the smallest in eight years. Source: "Funding a Movement: U.S. Department of Education Pours Millions into Groups Advocating School Vouchers and Education Privatization," published by People for the American Way, Nov. 18, 2003

80. The Fiscal Year 2004 budget underfunds No Child Left Behind by more than $8 billion. No Child Left Behind was underfunded by $6 billion in Fiscal Year 2003. Source: Ibid.

81. Bush's Fiscal Year 2004 Budget allocated $320 million to support private, for-profit charter schools. Source: House Budget Committee Briefing Book, Fiscal Year 2004

82. "The first national comparison of test scores among children in charter schools and regular public schools shows charter schools students often doing worse than comparable students in regular public schools." Source: The New York Times, Aug. 17, 2004

SCIENCE SCHMIENCE

83. In 2002, the Bush administration planned to appoint Dr. W. David Hager, a Kentucky obstetrician/gynecologist, head of the Food and Drug Administration's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee, until a Time magazine article noted that Hager refused to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women and recommended Scripture readings for headaches and premenstrual syndrome. Bush appointed him as a committee member instead. Source: Time magazine, Oct. 5, 2002

84. When William Miller, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico, was asked to join a panel that advises the National Institute on Drug Abuse, he thought he had been selected for his expertise on drug addiction. But when a Bush administration official called later and asked Miller if he had voted for the president, Miller said no. He was not appointed to the panel. Source: Los Angeles Times, Dec. 24, 2002

85. "… senior Bush officials suppressed and sought to manipulate government information about mercury contained in an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on children's health and the environment." Source: Excerpt from the Union of Concerned Scientists' report "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking," 2004

86. "A fact sheet on the website that included information on proper condom use, the effectiveness of different types of condoms, and studies showing that condom education does not promote sexual activity was replaced in October 2002 with a document that emphasizes condom failure rates and the effectiveness of abstinence. When a source inside the CDC questioned the actions, she was told that the changes were directed by Bush administration officials at the Department of Health and Human Services." Source: Ibid.

87. Despite objections from the staff of the Centers for Disease Control, information suggesting a link between abortion and breast cancer was posted on the National Cancer Institute website by Bush administration officials. Scientific studies have long refuted such a link. After The New York Times reported the story, the information was taken down. Source: The New York Times, Jan. 6, 2003

88. "Misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes can have serious consequences. Had Richard Nixon also based his decisions on such calculations he would not have supported the Clean Air Act of 1970, which in the following 20 years prevented more than 200,000 premature deaths and millions of cases of respiratory and cardiovascular disease." Source: Statement issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, signed by more than 5,000 scientists, physicists, public health officials and ecologists since February

89. Women on the Bush staff are paid an average of $59,917, while men are paid an average of $76,624. The gap is due to the predominance of men in the highest-paying jobs. Source: The Washington Post, July 13, 2004

SCREW THE BIRDS, TREES

90. In June, the Bush administration presided over the largest lease sale ever, both in terms of acres leased and total bids received, when the Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 203,077 acres of public land in Utah for oil and gas exploration. Source: National Resources Defense Council

91. According to a biologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a branch of the U.S. Department of the Interior, officials at the FWS knowingly used bad science when assessing the endangered Florida panther's habitat and viability in order to pave the way for proposed development in southwest Florida. Source: "Scientific Integrity in Policymaking," Union of Concerned Scientists, July 2004

92. " … new rules the EPA has finally proposed for regulating power plants' mercury emissions were discovered to have no fewer than 12 paragraphs lifted, sometimes verbatim, from a legal document prepared by industry lawyers." Source: Ibid.

93. President Jimmy Carter signed the Superfund Trust – a tax on chemical companies to pay for cleaning up the country's most toxic contaminated areas – into law in 1980. The tax was killed in 1995 as part of Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America." President Clinton tried twice to reinstate it, but couldn't. Bush said he has no intention of reinstating the tax. Superfund, which had $3.3 billion in the bank in 1995, has essentially run out of money. Sources: Bushwhacked, Life in George W. Bush's America, by Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, 2003; CNN.com; Feb. 24, 2002

94. New rules approved in July allow the Environmental Protection Agency to approve pesticides without consulting the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries regarding potential harm to wildlife. Source: The Washington Post, July 30, 2004

[Ksec]

3. will do.

right now as a matter of fact. I plan on ripping them up one side and down the other.....kidding:)

[gcomeau]

6. Nice... and kick.

-Grant

[deadparrot]

4. Thanks, Ohioans! nt

[bush equals idiot]

7. Hope it helps.

Dear Sir/Maam,


I'm not going to make this a long email. I'm sure it is very difficult to sway from your long history of past Republican endorsements. But special circumstances call for special action.

How many past Republican presidents thought it was enough to stand on a pile of rubble, put his arm around a fireman, proclaim to the world that these terror orchestrators would be brought to justice--and then attack a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the attack. Further to not be concerned about the mastermind who is widely known to have been the architect of the terror.

Then as evidenced by the screaming news story making headlines today, that Pat Robertson, a die-hard Bush supporter and religious evangelist, revealed Bush told him confidently there would be no casualties in Iraq. This is after a pleading request by Robertson to prepare the people of America for the bloodshed that would be sure to come. It boggles the mind that a president, who is the only individual that can order people to a foreign land to die, would not have any worries about this decision. It borders on virtual malfeasance and is unparalleled in its gravity.

President of the United States is not a job which you learn through on the job training. You have the lives of Americans in your hands. Both at home and abroad. This President has turned what used to be television in our homes, into terror-vision. Only about five countries in the world want Bush to be re-elected. Iran is one of them. This is the world relationship we want to continue? This is the president that deserves re-election?

The international picture is in shambles. We are in another Viet Nam that did not have to be. This is only equalled or superseded by the economic picture here at home. More records of incompetent distinction have been set by this President than any in my lifetime of nearly sixty years. Not a single job created, biggest deficit in history, social security in danger of privatization, the draft almost inevitable. The list would fill a legal pad.

Standing with your arm around a fireman and making a comforting statement to America in a time of tragedy does not make you a President. What that gives you, more appropriately described, is a photo opportunity that you can flaunt during your re-election campaign. Having the intelligence, foresight and correct decision making ability is what makes you a President. Having the gift to keep us out of war, is what makes a President.

John Kerry has more of that combination in his little finger than one hundred George Bush's. A president should not be rewarded for incompetence or receive four more years to do what they have promised for four years. They should not have Americans in daily fear for their lives and proudly proclaim that is the reason they must be in office.

I ask that you endorse John Kerry for president, and let him get on the course to saving this country. Before it is too late.

xxxxxx

[blue sky at night]

8. Done

Sorry but I sent the whole shit-load of 94 reasons.

[gcomeau]

9. kick

-Grant