So, You Think You Know All About George W. Bush?

[Ruth]

So, what happened to the article "So, you think you know all about George W. Bush?"??

Hmm? One minute there, and the next minute... pooof? Wow, how things change.

 

[Laura]

Well, the thing is, I wouldn't put anything past Dubya, even that. And considering the FACT that he did show favoritism to Lucas and ridiculed Karla Faye, says a LOT. It even suggests, though it is only a suggestion, that there is something there lurking in the background and I'd like to find it.

I remember the Karla Faye Tucker situation acutely. Ark was teaching at the Uni in Gainesville and we had a rented hotel room during the weeks and went home on Friday nights. During the day, I spent most of my time reading research volumes I had borrowed on his card from the library, or watching the news. I was really curious about the Karla Faye thing, and avidly watched everything that was going on leading up to her execution including an interview with her. I guess it was kind of early training for understanding psychopathy. I wondered if she really had reformed or if it was just a ploy.

After watching her interview, observing every muscle twitch, every expression, I became convinced that she was, truly sorry and had experienced a "positive disintegration" experience. It also taught me a lot about what a psychopathic society can do to a normal person - how they can be so totally pathologized that it is hard to tell them from a true psychopath.

So, after all the appeals and everything, when Dubya would not relent, a terrible feeling came over me. When I heard the news that she had been executed, my heart just sank. I realized that, in this case, Bush was the monster with no compassion in his heart - probably no heart.

I didn't know much about politics then; wasn't really interested. But later, when Bush was running for president, all I could think about was Karla Faye and I had the feeling that what Bush had done to her, he was going to do on a mass scale. I was right.

I suspect that there are some articles out there in newspaper or magazine archives somewhere. Maybe in small towns where they never make it to the newswires.

 

[allenb]

Mistakes happen and I made one. You will note that I placed various disclaimers through the article because I wasn't sure about all of the outrageous info that I came across. I must have known something subliminally. I wish I could undo it but that is out of my hands now.

Mistakes do happen, but in this case I still think the "mistake" has revealed an interesting thread in a very tattered fabric. This will take some serious pulling, but something might unravel from it.

The facts that we know are interesting enough to raise eyebrows. What was it about Lucas and Toole that lead to the commutation of their sentences? The most obvious thought is that they knew something and would've given a deathbed confession if a deal wasn't cut. So, what could they have known?

I've heard suspicions that daddy Bush's offshore oil rigs were used as staging areas for drugs being moved into the U.S. That could be wishful thinking, of course. The only tie in is that the Brownsville area cult was heavily involved in drugs. If this cult along with Lucas and Toole were used as tools by the Bush clan for some covert operations, they might have had some sensitive information.

The next question I'd have is why they wouldn't just have them killed in prison before their death sentence was carried out? That couldn't be too difficult, I'd think. Mass murderers don't always fair too well in prison, especially when they've murdered kids and/or engaged in acts like cannibalism. One of the reasons prisoners like that are generally kept out of the general prison population is that they will likely be dead very quickly. No one would question the untimely demise of prisoners like that.

So, the most obvious answer to the question of why they shouldn't be killed is that they were not working alone and that the other people involved were not behind bars and not easily disposed of. What all of that leads me to wonder about is whether there is a connection between the Bush family and this cult in terms of them using the cult to further their ends?

 

[Mr. Premise]

Just a little correction, in case someone wants to follow up: The article was in the Washington Times not the Washington Post.

Which is interesting in and of itself since the Times is a right wing daily owned by the Moonies. No wonder Bush I supported the moonies after that!

I dunno Keenan, I thought like you thought - that this stuff was just too outrageous to be true, and then i started following the links...

A

Then there's this:
Which was on the front page of the Post 6/29/89.

 

[allenb]

''The only reason we were looking for them was so we could extradite them to Mexico so they could be tried there,'' Mr. Nixon said.

Since when do law enforcement officers express relief that people who have killed U.S. citizens did so in a foreign country so that they don't have to deal with them? What a strange blurb. Generally, it is the other way around.

 

[noise]

Another link I found. I had found this before, a couple years ago, looking for images.

_http://www.h2-pv.us/Bush-Hitler/ Bush Family Connections to Genocide and Financing Hitler

 

[Mr. Premise]

The fact that the leader was identified in the news articles as a Cuban-American is a red-flag, too, since George Bush senior was deeply involved with right-wing Cubans in Florida and Texas and with right-wing groups in Mexico. Mexico seems to be his area of specialization during his early, covert CIA days (see Tarpley).

I've heard suspicions that daddy Bush's offshore oil rigs were used as staging areas for drugs being moved into the U.S. That could be wishful thinking, of course. The only tie in is that the Brownsville area cult was heavily involved in drugs. If this cult along with Lucas and Toole were used as tools by the Bush clan for some covert operations, they might have had some sensitive information.

 

[herondancer]

Here's a link from Information Clearing house to a two part article. It sound as if this William Bowles was trying to do something like this connection/timeline project: The second page neatly describes the family business ("Frauds-R-Us") a being divided between the members thus:

_http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3255.htm

"You have to look at the entire Bush Family in this context -- as if the family ran a corporation called ‘Frauds-R-Us,’

George Jr.’s specialty was insurance and security fraud.

Jeb’s specialty was oil and gas fraud.

Neil’s specialty was real estate fraud.

Prescott’s specialty was banking fraud.

And George Sr.’s specialty? All of the above." -- Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin, US Navy,(Ret)

The last paragraph on a pretty good list of the scandals as of 2003 gives plenty of directions to go in:

Other Bush Men (and the odd woman) that at some point, I'll get around to adding to this dossier.
Dick Cheney, Ari Fleisher, Asa Hutchinson, Robert Mueller, John Negroponte, Paul O'Neil, Theodore Oison, Richard Perle, John Poindexter, Colin Powell, Michael Powell, Otto Reich, Orlando Bosch, Leonel Martinez, Robert Reilly, Donald Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, John Walters, Eduardo Noriega, Richard M Nixon, Robert Mosbacher, Ferdinand Marcos, John Erlichman, Robert McFarlane, Brent Scowcroft, Donald Regan, Jim Baker, William Casey, Santos Trafficante, Miguel Recarey, Jr, Oliver North, Manucher Ghorbanifar, Sheik Abdullah Bakhsh, Tongsun Park, Sargis Soghnalian, Dan Quayle, Salem bin Laden, Prince Mohammed Ben Abdullah, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

A final word; I’m all Bushed out as the saying goes, but if I’ve learned one thing in putting this testimony together (because that’s what it is), it’s the awesome power of US capitalism to corrupt and to corrupt totally. Defeating a juggernaut of this size is going to be a long struggle, probably not in my lifetime but what the hell!

Copyright © 2003. William Bowles. All rights reserved.

For the Bush Body Count Files and other matters:

-http://www.thoughtcrimenews.com/bushrape.htm

In the western world, only one newspaper reports the suicide of the woman who accused George W Bush of rape

by Simon Aronowitz

Saturday 13th December 2003

Despite the enormity of the story, a virtual news blackout has remained in place since Margie Schoedinger first filed charges against George W Bush in 2002. Schoedinger had accused Bush of rape and other sexual crimes against both her and her husband, only one publication in the USA saw fit to print anything about her or her allegations. That publication was her local newspaper. [....]

Contains scans of local headlines and full text of the article. He was governor at the time and she says she was a minor when she "dated him". ICK!!

FYI Wayne Madsen's site has become a subscription site. This is was mirrored at Daily Kos. Again a lot of info to be followed up on: _http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/31/175217/25

* JamBoi's diary :: ::
*

[JamBoi note: The raw version was very dense and hard to find the most salient points, so I've done a lot of bolding and underlining (and occasional spell correcting and punctuating ). My edits are in square brackets. The only other editorial bias I have added is to alter the misleading phrase '"dominionist" Christian' to simply Dominionist, since these people have nothing to do with Jesus.]

From: [Wayne Madsen]
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 17:27:11 EST

Subject: End of Year Update on Investigation

To: [JamBoi]

Here is an update of where the investigation is heading -- many strings must be tied together but a clearer picture of how this Election Fraud 04 was done is beginning to emerge. The follow the money trail is leading to some interesting places.

(JamBoi edit note. There's a picture here -- I'll have to figure out if I can load it somehow -- )

Kay Stephenson, CEO of Datamaxx (she looks like her, but it's not Laura Bush)

She is close to both Jeb Bush and Colin Powell. Powell has visited her a number of times in Tallahassee.

Before Datamaxx was formed, its contracts were about to go to Seisint, a Tampa company allegedly tied to mob money. It operates Accurint, and was recently bought out by Lexis.

Interesting note is that Datamaxx uses Accurint for its database. Datamaxx has made a killing in law enforcement/homeland security contracts after 911.

-- Now people will wonder what this has to do with the election fraud. Here it is in a nutshell. These people, along with ChoicePoint of Dallas, TX, are personal data miners. And Datamaxx is tied to Ohio law enforcement data bases and communications.

Where did the Katherine Harris get the info to throw all those African American voters off the rolls in 2000 in Florida? Public and commercial database records, everything from DMV files to education and insurance records. They red lined poor African American and working class white districts just like credit card and mortgage companies do. And how did they know where to put only 2 voting machines in polling places in Ohio for use by over 3000 voters? Same process. They red lined those districts and knew where to put the Election Day squeeze on.

Fundie churches with names like the Abundant Love Tabernacle and Fellowship Worship Center were great places to pull off this fraud with Blackwell's election officials conspiring with local fundie preachers. (Just a thought, if we have separation of church and state in this country, why the hell do we permit voting to take place in churches, especially where the preachers and lay leaders are corrupt and in on the fix?) Al Gore visited a Buddhist temple in California once and the right wing wanted him impeached!!

Datamaxx has Homeland Security contracts in Ohio, Florida, Iowa and West Virginia. In Ohio, they can send out homeland security alerts using computer networks and wireless PDAs. Guess what? All were swing states and in Warren County, Ohio an unofficial "threat" was "transmitted" to Election Board HQ on Nov. 2. FBI and police said it wasn't them. Well, maybe it was Datamaxx using their retired FBI agents and cops (who were in cahoots with the fundies, Rapps of Triad, O'Dell at Diebold, Ahmanson and McCarthy Group of ES&S, and Blackwell and Taft GOP political machines in Columbus).

As for Seisint, where do they do most of their work? Boca Raton, Florida and Orlando, Florida. Boca is in good old Palm Beach County, where absentee ballots turned up missing before election day. And Orlando -- home of good ole Rep. Tom Feeney, chief touch screen vote rigging suspect and Yang lobbyist, as well as FL Secretary of State Glenda Hood (fitting name), former Mayor of Orlando. And Seisint's new corporate parent is based where? Lexis-Nexis is in Dayton, OHIO.

You see, the more the Bushes fire additional government insiders, the more stuff is leaked to me about this election fraud. This smoking gun is just a bit different than 2000. Instead of disenfranchising over 90,000 black voters in FL by calling them "felons" (and using ChoicePoint data base to do it), this time, the election voting machine companies (all run by extreme right-wing [Dominionist], "End Timers") conspired with the homeland security and other database firms -- all conveniently located in FL, OH, and TX -- to rig the vote.

Researchers should keep focusing on Yang, Seisint, Datamaxx, Accurint, Lexis-Nexis, Triad Government Systems, Diebold, Global Election System, Hart InterCivic, DBT Online and ChoicePoint.

The jury is still out on Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) of Dallas, but a certain Stephen Goldsmith, former GOP Mayor of Indianapolis, may be into some dirty business there involving red lining districts with high college student voting population (Indiana, home of several large universities, may have had its vote "hacked" as well). Gary Webb was investigating ACS and contract fraud in CA when he committed suicide on Dec. 10.

We also know that Florida DOT investigator Ray Lemme committed suicide in 2003 when he was investigating fraud involving Yang and the FL state government. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Executive Director John Millis committed suicide in 2000 when he was investigating CIA ties toLatin American drug cartels, links that involved the Bush family. State Dept. Iraq intelligence analyst John Kokal committed suicide in late 2003 after he questioned the attack on Iraq. Former CIA official Dr Gus Weiss committed suicide after he, too, questioned the attack on Iraq in late 2003. Dr David Kelly of Britain's MOD committed suicide after he questioned the validity of Iraq WMD reports. Danny Casolaro committed suicide in 1991 after he investigated Bush ties to weapons smuggling and drug deals. Paul Wilcher, a friend of Sarah McClendon, died in his apartment after he picked up on some of Casolaro's research. Charles Ruff and HPSCI's ranking member Julian Dixon dropped dead only weeks apart after being briefed by Millis on CIA-Bush-drug connection.

What was Gary Condit, also of HPSCI, briefed on by Millis? What did Condit tell his friend Chandra Levy, an intern for the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Or what did he ask her to find out for him through her Bureau contacts? John F Kennedy Jr was working on a Bush-CIA-covert ops story for his George Magazine when his plane crashed. And what did poor Lori Klausutis discover before her body was discovered in Jan. 2001 in the FL office of GOP Congressman Joe Scarborough (the MSNBC colleague of someone who has made it his cause to rip apart my reporting on this election story)? Cliff Baxter, chief Enron witness for the govt. shot himself before he testified. John Tower had the goods on the Bushes, but his commuter plane crashed and killed him, his daughter and several other passengers. Paul Wellstone and his family and staff? Mel Carnahan? Bush biographer JH Hatfield? Athan Gibbs, the founder of TruVote International, the only clean election machine company. And the list goes on and on. At least those who are merely being fired -- the latest being the Pentagon's Jack Shaw, are getting the easier "treatment" from the Bush Mafia.

There were also anomalous Governor's Elections in Washington and Puerto Rico, where Democrats, expected to win handily, just squeaked through by a fraction of a percent. This is an indication of vote fixing a la FL in 2000 and Ohio, Iowa, NM in 2004. Elections that close with millions of people voting have never happened before in our nation's history.

Not only this last election but several previous ones were "fixed" by a dangerous group of right-wing ["Dominionists"] who dominate the election machine industry and various GOP Secretary of State and congressional offices.

They (known as "The Fellowship" ) have been planning this coup for a very long time but now that their "man" is in the White House they are not about to leave through a fair electoral process.

The Fellowship has some very unsavory founders -- all pro-Nazis: Abraham Vereide, Frank Buchman, and Gustav Gedat, J. Edgar Hoover and James Jesus Angleton were close to the Fellowship.

The use of prison ex-cons like Marion "JR" Horn in KY, John Elder and Jeffrey Dean in WA, and others in the financing and carrying out of the rigging, was mostly arranged through Chuck Colson's Prison Fellowship Ministries, an organization that has carte blanche access to anyone deemed of value, epecially computer programmers, after their incarceration and upon their release, especially if they promise service in return for parole.

It also helps that the Fellowship has established strong links to corrupt African governments via fundie missionaries. Guess who's largely behind the Nigerian scams to secretly move dirty oil money from oil-rich Nigeria (and Equatorial Guinea and Angola) into the funding corrupt election manipulators and Enron/Halliburton/AES scams? Some of those "419 emails" have been discovered by US intelligence to contain coded instructions to the money launderers and financial manipulators in the States and in off shore bank havens like the Bahamas and Tortola. The Nigerian scammers operate from the southern Christian south of the country (Lagos and the Niger River Delta) and are in league with fundie Church missions there and in the States.

The Fellowship is now trying to take over government boards in my county of Arlington, VA and are making a major power play in Annapolis, MD. Tom Feeney, Ashcroft, DeLay, Bush (Dubya and Jeb), Cheney, Sean O'Keefe, Condi Rice, John Bolton, Ed Meese, [Charles] Colson, Brownback, Ralph Reed, Frank Wolf, Ernie Fletcher, Katherine Harris, [Newt] Gingrich, JC Watts, Burr, Jindal, Lamar Smith, Zach Wamp, Scalia, Ensign, Kyl, [Kenneth]Blackwell, Bob Ehrlich, Karl Rove, Jack Kemp, James Baker, Clarence Thomas, Tom Coburn, Asa and Tim Hutchinson, Gens. Boykin and Myers, DeMint, Curt Weldon, Grover Norquist, George Allen, [Rick] Santorum, are all in this group. The late Lee Atwater was close to this group.

The Fellowship, which has strong links to the "Rev." Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, operates in cells and not only takes over governments but also local church congregations to further their goals. Two local congegations taken over by the Fellowship are Falls Church Episcopal and Cherrydale Baptist. They also maintain the private Riverdell School, another way to brainwash young children who are not already being brainwashed by home schooling.

The Prime Minister of Norway has just been outed as a member of this group. In fact, most of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing" nations' leaders are members of The Fellowship, e.g., Tonga, Macedonia, Palau, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Solomon Islands, Uganda, Rwanda, Guatemala, El Salvador, Denmark, Romania, Iceland, Fiji, Georgia, Colombia, possibly also Howard of Australia and Blair of Britain.

The Fellowship believes that ANYTHING is permitted in order to bring about a 1000-yr Kingdom of Christ on Earth, and that includes stealing elections and even murder.

Some of the money used by the Fellowship to obtain real estate and maintain their group came from Saudi Arabia through lucrative defense contracts and pass throughs like the Islamic Institute.

There are links between the Fellowship and other northern Virginia groups In their group homes in Arlington it is obvious they keep the troubled teens of GOP big businessmen and politicians out of sight through a combination of intensive Bible study and "drug treatement." Noelle Bush may have been one of their "Guests/Victims." There should be a focus on Infinity Software of Tallahassee, the place Noelle was put to work when she was busted for trying to illegally obtain prescription drugs in 2002. The Arlington VA Fellowship homes caused a stir in 2003 when one young resident broke into 4 homes in the neighborhood to steal prescription drugs. What is it that these young men and women are afraid of by doing anything to get their hands on Xanax and Valium? One of my neighbors said the teens appear to be unusually "expressionless" for people their age.

One of the really unplesant things about the Fellowship is that they have an international "Youth Corps," so these people don't appear to want to go out of business any time soon. This Youth Corps has a presence in almost every country, from Bhutan to Zambia and Brazil to Albania.

Infinity, like Datamaxx, has contracts with the FL Dept. of Law Enforcement and Dept of Education. FL state auditors chastised Gov. Jeb Bush and his administration for paying Infinity $7.5 million to set up a Web site and do another, much smaller, job in a no-bid contract. Infinity's owner, Tom Lynch, is a big Bush supporter who gave money to the governor's reelection campaign - $500 to Bush in 2002 and $1,000 to the Republican Party in 2001. Also seems that Infinity's contract had a nice little cut out for another company -- Ignite! of Houston, TX -- headed by Bush's brother Neil (of Silverado S&L criminal infamy).

I am getting great support from a number of people inside and outside the government who believe this group must be "outed" and dealt with as any other dangerous cult would be. These are not Jim Jones' followers or Marshall Applewhite's Heavens' Gate people we're talking about. These Fellowship people want to take us all with them. The earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean is just what these people are waiting for -- the more death and destruction the better as far as they are concerned. I suggest we all work together and not against one another to expose these people. Those who hide behind the veil of "non-partisanship" should just keep quiet if they are not going to join the effort. We all have enough to do without incessant carping from those who believe it is wiser to sit on the sidelines. A re-read of William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" may be in order for those who believe neutrality and non-partisanship is the better course. As the son of a WW II refugee from the Nazis, I can tell you that neutrality in times such as these just does not work and is definitely not advised.

Wayne Madsen

31 Dec 04

Let's hope 05 brings us more answers and some indictments of these bad actors!

There's some more interesting links in the comment section below the post.

Starroute has taken a shot at diagramming some of the relationships at Democratic Underground's forum It could be infinitely elaborated on. Plenty of links comments here too:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1154535#

Sorry for the ultra-long post. So how shall this elephant be cut up and eaten?

Herondancer

 

[Nienna]

For those who aren't familiar with the Karla Faye Tucker incident, here is some insight. (And this site has other links for those who would like more in depth info.)

http://www.geocities.com/rainforest/canopy/2525/karlamain.html

A Memorial to Karla Faye Tucker Brown

Executed by the State of Texas
on
February 3rd 1998


Just the Facts

My Opinions

Other Links

Pres. Bush Mocks Tucker's Clemency Plea

My Texas Quarter Design
On February 3rd of 1998, the State of Texas executed Karla Faye Tucker Brown for her part in 2 extremely brutal murders committed in 1983. Media coverage of her execution centered on several factors:

* Karla would be the first woman executed by Texas since the 1860's
* Karla was a woman (and a pretty one, at that)
* Karla was a born-again Christian

We were flooded with all sorts of information about Karla's life and got to know her. She's an extremely deep person. Her life has been through such extremes that it boggles my mind: a childhood full of abuse and neglect, a youth immersed in a world of drugs and immorality, a sensational brutal crime yielding society's ultimate punishment, personal redemption, guilt, pain, facing one's death. Regardless of her path in life, Karla's final destination was a place many of us glorify: i.e., becoming a good person.

Yes, we got to know quite a lot about Karla.

We should not forget the victims in this case: Jerry Lynn Dean and Deborah Thornton. Their lives were cut short by Karla and her accomplice in a most brutal manner. While I am philosophically opposed to the death penalty, I can easily understand why the jury sentenced Karla to die. Had "that Karla" existed today, few people would have mourned her execution. But 15 years passed between Karla's sentencing and her death. In that time, I believe Karla had rehabilitated and was no longer a threat to Society. With all due respect to the victims and their families, at the time of her execution no civilized benefit was derived from Karla's death.

Karla desired mercy from Texas. She wasn't asking for freedom; only to spend the rest of her life in prison working her very special ministry to inmates.

Karla was refused mercy and her life was extinguished. This website serves to highlight the injustice of her execution as well as being my humble attempt to honor the person Karla had become: a caring and giving person... a mentch. Her vehicle was Christianity and, although I am not Christian, I respect her journey. I triumph in her self-transformation and deeply regret her death.

The world is a sadder place without Karla Faye Tucker.

There are several links at this site that goes into a lot more detail.

And there is also this comment on Bush's non-action.

President George W. Bush Publicly Mocked Karla's Clemency Plea
In early August 1999, then Presidential candidate Governor George W. Bush mocked Karla Tucker's plea for clemency during an interview with Talk Magazine. Bush mentioned that he had watched Larry King's interview with Karla Tucker from Texas Death Row.

"I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it," Bush told the magazine. "I watched his interview with (Tucker), though. He asked her real difficult questions, like, 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

The Talk reporter asked how she answered.
" 'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'don't kill me,' " according to the magazine.
Here's the relevant clip of the interview from the September 1999 issue of Talk Magazine.

GOP Presidental Primary Opponent Gary Bauer critisized Bush for these comments.
"I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death," Bauer said of Bush.

Houston Chronicle, August 11, 1999

 

[Nienna]

Here's an article about Bush's Death Factory

Published on Wednesday, October 25, 2000 in the Boston Globe
Bush's Death Factory
by Derrick Z. Jackson

GEORGE W. BUSH'S dogged denial of factory defects in the death machinery of Texas invites memories of Lyndon Johnson telling us how we were defoliating the North Vietnamese into target range. In the beginning, one could charitably concede that the two men were merely bullheaded souls, filled with false pride and false missions, trying to persuade us we needed to slaughter some criminals or a whole nation into submission.
Johnson's stubbornness became massacres and suicide battles abroad and dead students at home. Bush's pathological denials have exploded into a time line that makes it easy to depict him, in the political sense, as a serial killer, indiscriminately dispensing with the despised and chuckling over their bodies.

Bush, remember, has gloated about the death penalty in more than just the presidential debates. He is the same Bush who last year ridiculed death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker, whining in mock exaggeration in an interview that Tucker begged, ''Please don't kill me.'' Bush, who has made his Christianity part of his resume, mocked Tucker even though she said she had found Christ.
In Texas, 232 people have been executed since 1973, and more than 450 are on death row. If Texas were a nation, it would rank fifth in the world in executions. Studies, reports, and exhaustive newspaper stories have shown that Texas is so careless in executing its executions that it, like Illinois, should call a moratorium on capital punishment.

In May, The Washington Post wrote how death penalty defendants receive lawyers who are chronically inexperienced, incompetent, and indifferent to the point of sleeping at trials. No matter. Bush said, ''I'm absolutely confident that everybody that has been put to death ... are guilty of the crime charged, and, secondly, they had full access to our courts.'' [Sort of reminds me of the statement made by Bush over and over again that the U.S. does not torture its prisoners. Lies, lies, lies.]

In June, the Chicago Tribune found that of 131 Texas executions done under Bush, there were 40 cases of the defense presenting no evidence during sentencing, 29 uses of psychiatric practices that have been condemned by the American Psychiatric Association, and 43 where a defendant was represented by a lawyer who was later disbarred or disciplined.

To that investigation, Bush said, ''I've said once and I've said a lot that in every case, we've adequately answered innocence or guilt. '' Bush said all defendents have ''had full access to the courts. They've had full access to a fair trial.''
In June, a Scripps Howard poll found that while 73 percent of Texans supported the death penalty, 57 percent believed that the state has executed innocent defendants. To that poll, Bush said, ''I analyze each case when it comes across my desk, looking at innocence or guilt.... As far as I'm concerned, there has not been one innocent person executed since I've been governor.''
Also in June, a Columbia University study found that two-thirds of death sentences in the United States and 52 percent of those in Texas from 1973 through 1995 were overturned because of bad or suppressed evidence. Bush again was unmoved. ''We have never put an innocent person to death,'' Bush said.

Last week the Fort Worth Star Telegram published a yearlong investigation that found legal services so lacking for low-income death penalty defendants that Texas ''appears to provide a different standard of justice for the poor.'' Also last week, the Texas Defender Service, which tries to defend the poor on death row, said it had found 84 cases where state officials or police presented false, misleading, or highly unreliable testimony. It found 121 cases of psychiatrist testimony based on no or extremely brief examinations of the defendant.

The Defenders Service report found rampant racial disparities. African-Americans make up 23 percent of the murder victims in Texas, but fewer than 1 percent of executions result from the murder of African-Americans. White women are only 1 percent of murder victims, but 34 percent of executions result from killings of white women. Asked if Texas should call a moratorium as Illinois has done, Bush said no. Asked why, he said, ''The reason why is I'm confident that every person that has been put to death under our state has been guilty of the crime charged.''
Such confidence in the face of the evidence borders on the deranged. Three decades ago, a president refused to change course, and it cost thousands of American lives. In two weeks, the nation may elect a president with a similar hubris. If Bush will not change course on the death penalty, there is no telling what he will not change course on if elected president.

A Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company

 

[Nienna]

Here is a site Bush Jr.s Skeleton Closet where you can find quite a bit on his past.

Here is a small bit of one his claims to fame. You can go to the above site for the longer version with all of the details.

It's really amazing how Bush is such a warmonger now, but yet in his youth he was a big chicken.

Avoided the Vietnam War
Most people have heard something about George W. Bush pulling strings to get into the Texas Air Guard. But the press, while reporting lots of details, has done a poor job of communicating how consistently and shamelessly Bush Jr. sought and received favorable treatment while he avoided Vietnam.
Furthermore, his story has repeatedly changed -- he has weaseled like Clinton at his worst and even flat-out lied when explaining what happened.

1) He got into the Guard by pulling strings, avoiding the year and a half waiting list;
2) He took a 2-month vacation in Florida after just 8 weeks, (1 of 3 leaves), to work on a political campaign;
3) Bush skipped Officer Candidate School and got a special commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, without qualifications;
4) He was assigned to a safe plane (being phased out of active service), the F-102 ;
5) During flight school, he was flown on a government jet to Washington for a date with President Nixon's daughter Tricia ;
6) Bush got an illegal transfer (later overruled) to a base with no work;
7) He simply didn't show up for a YEAR, with no penalty;
8) George W. skipped all his medical exams after they started drug tests, and was removed from flight status;
9) He ended his service 10 months early to go to Harvard Business School;

And just to finish off this one tiny piece of his infamous history.

Weasel words; his story keeps changing.

When asked about his service, Bush has lied, changed his story repeatedly, and weaseled in a manner eerily reminiscent of Bill Clinton. First of all, he has flat-out lied. In his official autobiography, ''A Charge to Keep,'' Bush said he flew with his unit for ''several years'' after finishing flight training in June 1970. His campaign biography states that he flew with the unit until he won release from the service in September 1973, nine months early, for graduate school. Both statements are lies. Bush only flew with the 111th for one year and 10 months, until April 1972 when he was suspended for failing to take his medical exam (and drug test), and never flew again.

Then there is his Clintonesque weaseling and word choice. Bush and his campaign claimed that no Bush family or friends pulled strings. Under pressure, this changed to "All I know is anybody named George Bush did not ask him [Ben Barnes] for help." By that he meant, himself or his dad. Of course, it later came out in court that a close Bush friend, Simon Adger, had asked Barnes to get Bush Jr. into the Guard, and that Barnes did so, via General Rose.

Now's it's not even clear that a George Bush didn't ask for help. When pressed, the former president's spokeswoman (Jean Becker) said he is "almost positive" that he and Mr. Adger never discussed the Guard matter. "He [Bush Sr.] he is fairly certain - I mean he doesn't remember everything that happened in the 1960s..." In any case, Bush Sr. and Adger were very close. Ms. Becker acknowledged that "President Bush knew Sid Adger well. He loved him." Adger may have needed only a hint.
Furthermore, George Bush Jr. admits that he knew Adger socially at the time, and further admits that he lobbied Col. "Buck" Staudt, the commander of the VIP unit Bush joined. Staudt claims that he, not General Rose (who he later replaced), was the one who made the decision on admissions anyway. Bush Jr. admits that he met Staudt in late 1967, during Christmas vacation of his senior year, called him later, and -- in Bush's words -- "found out what it took to apply."

When asked how Bush came to call Staudt, his spokeswoman Karen Hughes said he "heard from friends while he was home over the Christmas break that ... Colonel Staudt was the person to contact." She says that Bush doesn't recall who those "friends" were. But we know that Sid Adger was also a friend of Staudt's, served with him on the Houston Chamber of Commerce's Aviation Committee, and in 1967 held a luncheon honoring Gen. Staudt and his unit for winning an Air Force commendation. In fact, both of Adger's sons also joined General Staudt's unit, in 1966 and 1968 respectively.

Bush and his staff also claim that he vaulted ahead of the Air Guard waiting list because he was willing to fly an airplane, and there were openings. There is nothing to support this claim, however. For one thing, the F-102 was being phased out at the time and F-102 pilots were being released from service early, as indeed Bush himself was. And Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, says flatly that there was no pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at that time. Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he applied; while they were authorized for 29 pilots, there were two more already in training and one awaiting a transfer.

Bush also weasels on whether he was avoiding combat or not. He has stated on several occasions that he did not want to be an infantryman, and acknowledges that he came to oppose the war itself. He claims that he joined the guard to fly planes, and would have been happy to go to Vietnam, but ignores the obvious choice of the Air Force or the Navy -- which his dad, a genuine war hero, joined. Furthermore, when he signed up for the Guard, he checked a box saying "Do not volunteer for overseas service." Later, he made a perfunctory application to transfer to a program called "Palace Alert", which dispatched F-102 pilots to Europe or the Far East -- and just occasionally Vietnam -- for 3 or 6 month assignments. But Bush was not nearly qualified, as he must have known, and was immediately turned down, and the F-102 not used overseas after June, 1970 in any case.

And, as noted above, his story also changed on why he refused to take a medical exam -- including a drug test - in 1972. (The refusal ended Bush's flying career.) His staff first claimed that he didn't take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and there were surgeons assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living. His staff now admits that that explanation was "wrong", without saying where it came from or what the real reason was. Draft & National Guard Sources

Truth is stranger than fiction.