Friday, March 28, 2008

Protests Continue in Buenos Aires

This Friday (March 28th) Argentinian farmers announced they would suspended a 16-day strike against higher taxes on grains exports. The farmers noted that they were responding to a speech given on Thursday by Cristina Kirchner, the country's president.

"The objective is to facilitate a meeting with the national government, after which we will evaluate the results, which will be submitted to the rank and file nationwide," the four biggest farming groups said in a statement on Friday.

Nevertheless, there were still many demonstrations nationwide and here in Buenos Aires. I had the opportunity to observe two such marches today and thought I would share some of the photographs with you all.





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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Chocolate Mousse Tart with Fresh Fruit



Chocolate Mousse Tart with Fresh Fruit
Servings: 8



Ingredients:

CRUST

1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup macadamia or cashew nuts
¼ cup dates, pitted, chopped
¼ teaspoon sea salt
1 pinch cayenne pepper


FILLING

2 medium avocados, peeled and pitted
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon sea salt
5 tablespoons cocoa or carob powder
½ cup Rapadura (or regular, unrefined sugar)


FRUIT LAYER

1 pint strawberries, sliced or 2 bananas

Directions:

1. To make the crust place the dry coconut in a food processor and process into a fine powder. Add the nuts, salt and cayenne and blend to a course meal.
2. Add the dates and process until the texture is like a graham cracker crust – it should be loose and crumble but if you squeeze it it should hold together.
3. Press the crust into a 9” ungreased tart pan pressing firmly to get the crust to hold together. Put it in the freezer to set up while you prepare the filling.
4. To make the filling place avocados, vanilla, salt, cocoa and Rapadura in a food processor and process until completely smooth.
5. Divide the filling into two equal parts. Spread the first layer on top of the crust and smooth it out. The spread a layer of strawberries or bananas or both on top of that. Then spread the remaining filling on top. Put the remainder of the strawberries/bananas on the top.
6. Put in refrigerator for an hour to set up before serving.

You can dehydrate the filling in very thins sheets for a few hours, roll the resulting leather and cut it into bite size pieces to make raw tootsie rolls.
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Sunday, March 2, 2008

George W. Bush: A Timeline of Failure


January 2001

20th

On his inauguration day, President Bush orders all federal agencies to cease proposing new regulations, withdraw all new regulations not yet posted in the Federal Resister and postpone implementing for 60 days any new regulations that had been published. With a roaring start, the Bush administration's full tilt systematic dismantling of the safeguards that protect our nation's clear air, clean water, national forests and other public lands is full-speed ahead. These safeguards had been put in place over many decades by both Republican and Democratic administrations.

23
On the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Bush reinstates the “global gag rule” barring U.S. funding for abortion counseling abroad.

February 2001

5
Bush suspends Clinton’s “roadless rule” protecting nearly sixty million acres of forests from logging and road-building.

17
Bush signs four anti-union executive orders, including measures to prohibit “project labor agreements” at federal construction sites and to remove job protections for union employees whose companies lose federal contracts.

26
Senate Republicans introduce a bill to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.

March 2001

7
At the urging of President Bush, Congress repeals ergonomic regulations designed to protect workers from repetitive-stress injuries.

9
Bush issues an executive order to prevent mechanics at Northwest Airlines from going on strike.

14
Bush abandons his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

20
Bush administration moves to overturn a Clinton regulation reducing the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water.

28
Bush backs out of Kyoto treaty on global warming.

April 2001

4
United States Department of Agriculture proposes lifting a requirement that all beef used in federal school lunch programs must be tested for salmonella; the proposal is dropped two days later.

9
Department of Interior proposes a limit on lawsuits seeking protection of endangered species.

May 2001

4
The Bush administration announces that it will uphold the popular Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects 58.5 million acres of intact wild forests in our national forest system from most forms of logging and road construction. This law passed with overwhelming public support. However, it was soon to be reversed.

11
Bush administration abandons international effort to crack down on offshore tax havens.

14
The Bush Administration launches a lengthy effort to exempt the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) from some of the nation’s key environmental laws, such as the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Among other things, the far-reaching proposals would give the DOD a free pass to ignore key facets of endangered species recovery. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, 02/04/04]

15
FEMA chief Kenneth Allbaugh tells the Senate Appropriations Committee that FEMA needs downsizing: "Many are concerned that federal disaster assistance may have evolved into both an oversized entitlement program and a disincentive to effective state and local risk management," he said. "Expectations of when the federal government should be involved and the degree of involvement may have ballooned beyond what is an appropriate level." [Independent Weekly, 09/22/2004]

16
Vice President Dick Cheney’s task force releases its “National Energy Policy” report, calling for weaker environmental regulations and massive subsidies for the oil and gas, coal, and nuclear power industries.

26
Congress passes $1.35 trillion tax cut.

29
Bush meets with California governor Gray Davis but refuses to impose federal price controls to curtail California’s energy crisis.

June 2001

19
Cheney refuses to release records of energy task force meetings to the General Accounting Office.

21
Bush threatens to veto McCain-Kennedy patients’ bill of rights legislation.

28
Attorney General John Ashcroft announces a policy that would require gun records be destroyed one day after a background check rather than ninety days later.

July 2001

9
Bush administration opposes UN treaty to curb international trafficking in small arms and light weapons.

10
President Bush nominates Mark Rey - a long-time timber industry lobbyist - to oversee the U.S. Forest Service as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment. After serving 18 years as the logging industry's principle lobbyist, Rey made his name in politics as a staff member with the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. There, he was the "key architect" (National Journal, 1997) of the "logging without laws Salvage Rider," which The Washington Post called, "arguably the worst piece of public lands legislation ever." Under the Salvage Rider - with environmental laws suspended and meaningful pubic participation banned - enough trees were cut from America's national forests to fill log trucks lined up for over 6,800 miles.

26
Bush administration rejects international treaty on germ warfare and biological weapons.

August 2001

6
Presidential Daily Briefing warns “Bin Ladin [sic] Determined to Strike in U.S.”

9
Bush limits stem cell research to “existing lines.”

12
The Forest Service - led by Bush-appointed Chief Dale Bosworth - issues a policy that temporarily exempts Alaska's Tongass National Forest and 11 other national forests from the Roadless Rule until all logging industry legal challenges to the rule are resolved. In this policy, Bosworth, in a misuse of authority, allows road building and logging in roadless areas on all other national forests at his discretion while the legal challenges are under review.

16
Despite a recent court decision that federal dams must comply with the Clean Water Act (CWA), the administration allows water temperatures in the lower Snake River to exceed the CWA standard by 10°F, reaching up to 78.4°F. Summer water temperatures approached or exceeded lethal levels for salmon 83% of the migration time in the lower Snake and 85% of the time in the lower Columbia. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, 02/04/04]

September 2001

6
Justice Department drops effort to break up Microsoft, hoping to speed settlement of antitrust lawsuit.

11
Terrorists crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands.

20
In an Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, Bush makes this prophetic declaration: "Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated." [White House, 09/20/01]

22
Bush signs $15 billion airline bailout.

October 2001

2
Former logging industry lobbyist Mark Rey is sworn in as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment, giving him the responsibility for managing America's 155 national forests and 19 national grasslands on 192 million acres of public lands.

26
Bush signs the USA Patriot Act.

29
Justice Department acknowledges but won’t identify more than one thousand individuals, mostly immigrants, detained since September 11 attacks.

31
Ashcroft authorizes monitoring of attorney-client conversations in terrorism investigations.

November 2001

1
Bush issues executive order blocking the release of presidential records.

13
Bush orders that “enemy combatants” be tried in military tribunals.

14
Justice Department issues regulations allowing illegal immigrants to be detained indefinitely if their release could pose “serious adverse foreign-policy consequences.”

27
In order to push through one of the largest logging projects in agency history - the Bitterroot National Forest's Burned Area Recovery Plan - Forest Service Chief Bosworth circumvents the public appeals process by having his boss, Mark Rey, sign the massive logging plan. This blatant disregard for public involvement left the 4,400 citizens who commented on the draft plan out in the cold. A federal judge later criticized the Forest Service's move by saying the agency had elected "to take the law into its own hands."

December 2001

11
White House commission recommends privatizing Social Security.

12
Bush informs congressional leaders that he intends to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty unilaterally.

14
The Forest Service announces new guidelines that further reduce protections for roadless areas. Smaller, undeveloped forests adjacent to larger roadless areas are no longer protected from development. The changes also end mandatory environmental impact reviews of logging and road building impacts on roadless areas as well as squash the requirement for public participation in project planning.

18
Congress passes $26.4 billion “No Child Left Behind” Act.

27
Bush repeals “responsible contractor rule” that had required scrutiny of safety and environmental law violations in the awarding of federal contracts.

January 2002

11
First Afghan prisoners arrive at “Camp X-Ray” in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declares them “unlawful combatants” with no rights under the Geneva Convention.

16
Cheney refuses to provide details of his multiple meetings with Enron officials.

18
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, under former industry lobbyist, Gale Norton, concludes that 150 years of logging "has not appreciably affected" spotted owls, despite the fact that 90 percent of the spotted owl's habitat has been destroyed. This opens the floodgates for increased logging in the last ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest.

25
In a memo to the president, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales writes that “the new paradigm” of the war on terror “renders obsolete” the Geneva Conventions’ “strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

February 2002

6
President Bush's 2003 budget authorizes the creation of "charter forests" whereby the management of publicly-owned national forestland would be turned over to local private partnerships.

14
White House unveils its “Clear Skies” initiative calling for voluntary reductions of three major pollutants; the plan would delay by a decade reductions required under existing law.

15
Bush approves Yucca Mountain—located ninety miles northwest of Las Vegas—as the nation’s lone repository for high-level nuclear waste.

28
IRS records reveal increases in audits of the working poor; audits of large corporations and the rich drop to all-time lows.

March 2002

1
News reports reveal that Bush activated a “shadow government” after September 11 attacks without telling Congress; civilian administrators are being sequestered in underground bunkers in case of a terrorist attack.

5
Bush’s welfare reform proposal advises paying “workfare” recipients less than the minimum wage.

10
Pentagon’s “Nuclear Posture Review” calls for new, “low-yield” nuclear weapons and lists seven “rogue” nations as possible targets for a nuclear attack.

27
Bush signs McCain-Feingold bill banning soft money behind closed doors, then departs immediately for a fund-raising trip.

April 2002

2
Bush administration opposes the reappointment of climatologist Robert Watson as head on the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change.

5
Office of Management and Budget prevents the EPA from declaring a public health emergency over dangerous asbestos fibers that come from a Montana mine and are used in insulation throughout the country.

12
Bush officials express support for the ouster of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez; a day after Chavez returns to power, White House admits that U.S. officials had met with coup plotters.

A draft report by the U.S. Forest Service reveals that the agency intends to "streamline" rules protecting the environment and limit public challenges to its decisions. Within two years the agency would implement regulations limiting external review of the impacts of projects on endangered species.

17
Administration insiders admit military tactical errors allowed Osama bin Laden to escape December 2001 battle at Tora Bora.

30
The Bush Administration refuses to defend critical habitat designations – a key component of endangered species recovery – for 19 salmon and steelhead species up and down the west coast in a lawsuit filed by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). Instead, the Bush Administration agrees to a deal for NAHB that eliminates the habitat protections in over 150 river basins covering four states. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, 02/04/04]

May 2002

3
EPA alters its definition of “fill material” to allow coal companies to dump rubble from “mountaintop removal” mining into valleys and streams.

6
Bush voids the U.S. signature on the treaty to establish an International Criminal Court.

21
The Bush Administration lifts a mining ban on 1.2 million acres in southwest Oregon, 90% of which is in the Siskiyou National Forest. This area contains five National Wild and Scenic Rivers and has the largest concentration of wild, undammed watersheds on the west coast. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, 02/04/2004]

23
Senate joins the House in approving “fast-track” trade authority for the president.

30
Ashcroft removes restrictions on domestic spying by the FBI in counterterrorism investigations; new guidelines permit monitoring of political and religious groups without probable cause.

June 2002

1
President unveils “Bush doctrine” of preemptive war in a speech at West Point.

5
National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration weakens standards on under-inflated tires despite problems at Firestone that caused hundreds of deaths.

10
Ashcroft announces that alleged “dirty bomber” José Padilla, an American citizen arrested a month earlier at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, is being held indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”

July 2002

14
SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt says he’ll release the entire files on the investigation into Bush’s sale of $800,000 in Harken Energy stock if asked by the president; the president doesn’t ask.

15
Bush administration unveils the “Terrorism Information and Prevention System,” or Operation TIPS, a toll-free hotline encouraging meter readers and truck drivers to report “suspicious activity.”

22
State Department announces it will withhold $34 million in international family planning funds from the United Nations.

25
Bush threatens to veto Homeland Security bill unless workers in the new department are stripped of civil service protections.

August 2002

9
Bush administration issues new medical privacy regulations that don’t require patient consent to share records with insurance and pharmaceutical companies or restrict use of medical information for marketing purposes.

22
President Bush unveils the so-called "Healthy Forests Initiative," which would limit citizen involvement and undermine the nation's environmental laws in order to dramatically increase logging in national forests. Predictably, the logging industry - which has given more than $10 million in campaign contributions to Bush and the Republican Party since the 2000 election cycle - hails the initiative as the best thing since the invention of the chainsaw and the perfect way to restore "forest health."

26
In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Cheney says there is “no doubt” Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq could have nuclear weapons “fairly soon.”

30
Allan Fitzsimmons is handpicked by the Bush administration to serve as Wildlands Fuel Coordinator for the Department of Interior. Fitzsimmons has published articles denying the existence of ecosystems and stated that the extinction of the nation's 1,200 threatened and endangered species, "would be a disconcerting loss but would not constitute a crisis." Fitzsimmons not only lacks experience in the field of forest ecology and fire management, but also considers efforts to manage ecosystems to be an opportunity for new federal controls that infringe on economic activity and property rights.

September 2002

5
Bush administration presents “Healthy Forests Initiative” that would allow more logging of old-growth forests by limiting environmental impact reviews and public comment.

17
At East Literature Magnet School in Nashville, Tennesse, Bush ad libs: "There's a lot of talk about Iraq on our TV screens, and there should be, because we're trying to figure out how best to make the world a peaceful place. There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again." [White House, 09/17/02]

19
Bush asks Congress for authority to use “all means that he determines to be appropriate” against Iraq.

30
Reacting to a federal court ruling halting timber sales in the Pacific Northwest ancient forests, the Bush administration proposes to eliminate those regulations because the government had failed to comply with environmental regulations.

October 2002

5
North Korea admits to having secret nuclear weapons program; Bush officials don’t publicly disclose the news until Oct. 16.

8
Bush invokes the Taft-Hartley Act to end an 11-day lockout of longshore workers that has shut down West Coast ports.

November 2002

5
Harvey Pitt resigns after failing to disclose that newly appointed accounting oversight board chairman William Webster had headed the audit committee of a firm accused of accounting improprieties and fraud.

20
Pentagon defends development of the “Total Information Awareness” system, a scheme developed by Iran-contra veteran John Poindexter to mine private data for terrorism clues.

26
The Bush administration proposes a radical rewrite of the regulations implementing the National Forest Management Act. The rewrite would eliminate habitat protection, public participation and scientific review in order to increase logging, mining, grazing, drilling and other commercial activities on 192 million acres of national forests.

27
Bush names Henry Kissinger to head independent commission investigating September 11 attacks.

December 2002

6
Bush dismisses treasury secretary Paul O’Neill and economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey as the unemployment rate hits 6 percent.

11
The Bush administration proposes "streamlining" rules by eliminating environmental regulations on logging projects whenever the Forest Service claims that the purpose of the logging is to reduce fire risk. The change includes limiting the ability of the public to challenge illegal logging projects on public lands, despite the fact that a recent Department of Agriculture report found, "The removal of large, merchantable trees from forests does not reduce fire risk and may, in fact, increase such risk."

17
Bush orders initial missile defense system to be in place by 2004.

19
Office of Management and Budget instructs Environmental Protection Agency to value the lives of senior citizens at 63 percent that of younger Americans in a cost-benefit analysis of imposing new air pollution regulations.

January 2003

9
Transportation Security Administration bars 56,000 airport screeners from unionizing.

10
Bush administration issues guidelines that could exempt up to twenty million acres of “isolated” wetlands and seasonal streams from protection under the Clean Water Act.

15
Bush denounces affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan as an unconstitutional “quota system.”

27
Under the guise of "fuel reduction," the U.S. Forest Service issues a draft plan to resume the logging of giant ancient sequoia trees in the Giant Sequoia National Monument and two national forests in California's Sierra Nevada mountain range. The plan would sidestep wildlife and watershed protections to allow logging companies to cut down enough of the nation's oldest and grandest trees to fill more than 2,000 log trucks every year.

29
Bush claims in his State of the Union speech that Saddam Hussein “recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

30
Bush administration seeks exemptions to international treaty banning the ozone-depleting chemical methyl bromide for use on golf courses, among other things.

February 2003

5
Secretary of State Colin Powell appears before the UN Security Council to make the case for war with Iraq.

28
The Bush administration completes a court-ordered analysis of potential wilderness areas on the Tongass National Forest in Alaska - part of the world's largest remaining coastal temperate rainforest. The Bush administration eliminates protections for the 9.8 million remaining acres of intact ancient temperate rainforest, opening them to road construction and logging.

March 2003

6
President Bush holds his last prewar news conference. The New York Observer writes that he interchanged Iraq with the attacks of 9/11 eight times, “and eight times he was unchallenged.” The ABC News White House correspondent, Terry Moran, says the Washington press corps was left “looking like zombies.”

7
Appearing before the United Nations Security Council on the same day that the United States and three allies (Britain, Spain and Bulgaria) put forth their resolution demanding that Iraq disarm by March 17, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, reports there is “no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq.”. He adds that documents “which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transaction between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.” None of the three broadcast networks’ evening newscasts mention his findings.

8
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awards no-bid contract with a $7 billion limit to a Halliburton subsidiary for fighting possible oil well fires in Iraq.

19
War on Iraq begins.

12
A senior military planner tells The Daily News “an attack on Iraq could last as few as seven days.”
“Isn’t it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?” - John McCain [N.Y. Times op-ed, sub required]

14
Senator John D. Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, asks the F.B.I. to investigate the forged documents cited a week earlier by ElBaradei and alleging an Iraq-Niger uranium transaction: “There is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.”

16
On “Meet the Press,” Dick Cheney says that American troops will be “greeted as liberators,” that Saddam “has a longstanding relationship with various terrorist groups, including the Al Qaeda organization,” and that it is an “overstatement” to suggest that several hundred thousand troops will be needed in Iraq after it is liberated. Asked by Tim Russert about ElBaradei’s statement that Iraq does not have a nuclear program, the vice president says, “I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong.”

18
Barbara Bush tells Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she will not watch televised coverage of the war: “Why should we hear about body bags and deaths, and how many, what day it’s going to happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?”

27
Department of Labor proposes new overtime rules that could strip millions of extra pay by increasing the number of exempt “white-collar” workers.

30
Donald Rumsfeld states: “We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” [ABC This Week, 3/30/03]

April 2003

1
Jessica Lynch recovered by U.S. forces. What the Pentagon framed as a heroic rescue was later revealed to have been staged. [Guardian, 5/15/03]

7
Education Secretary Rod Paige says he prefers schools that have a “strong appreciation for the values of the Christian community.”

12
Congress approves Bush’s request for $79 billion to fund the Iraq War and reconstruction.

28
Bush administration refuses to sign international anti-tobacco treaty without a “reservation clause” allowing any country to opt out of portions it doesn’t like.

May 2003

1
Aboard an aircraft carrier—with a banner touting “Mission Accomplished” as his backdrop—Bush declares victory in Iraq.

20
During a White House ceremony, President Bush urges the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003." This deceptively-named bill restricts citizen involvement, circumvents key environmental laws, ties the hands of judges and increases taxpayer subsidies by $125 million. Moreover, the bill includes no specific provisions or resources to help rural homeowners protect themselves from wildfire.

22
Bush issues an executive order shielding oil companies in Iraq from legal liability.

27
One third of the prevention funds in the $15 billion AIDS bill signed by Bush are earmarked for abstinence education.

The Bush administration allows logging companies in Oregon to stop requiring federal land managers to survey for sensitive plant and animal species before allowing logging in ancient, old-growth forests.

28
Bush signs $350 billion tax cut-half the size of his original proposal-slashing tax rates on dividends and capital gains.

29
On a trip to Poland, Bush says: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.”

30
The Bush administration puts new regulations in place exempting the Forest Service from analyzing environmental impacts on logging projects of up to 1,000 acres. Incredibly, the administration claims that logging an area the size of 930 football fields will result in "no significant environmental impact." The exemptions apply to projects throughout national forests, including the remote backcountry.

The Bush administration continues undermining the protection for threatened species with a proposal enabling the Forest Service to avoid consulting federal wildlife agencies during the planning of logging projects and other developments that may jeopardize these species and their habitat.

June 2003

2
FCC increases media ownership cap, allowing one company to own TV stations reaching up to 45 percent of the country, and lifts the ban on a single company’s owning newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations in the same city.

Inspector general finds that the Justice Department violated the civil rights of hundreds of immigrants detained after 9/11.

5
The Bush administration announces it will scrap the current Sierra Nevada Framework - a plan adopted in 2001 following eight years of scientific study - with another that will triple logging levels in 11 national forests in California. The Bush plan opens spotted owl reserves to logging and allows the cutting of fire-resistant trees as large as eight feet in circumference under the guise of "fuel reduction."

9
Mark Rey announces the Bush administration will completely dismantle the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. According to Rey, the administration will settle a lawsuit with the logging industry and remove protection under the Roadless Rule for 14.7 million acres of ancient rainforest in Alaska's Tongass and Chugach National Forests. He also announces the Bush administration will give governors the ability to open national forest wilderness areas in their states to the logging industry.

25
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejects California’s request to cancel $12 billion in long-term contracts signed during the state’s energy crisis despite evidence of market manipulation by energy companies.

July 2003

1
Bush administration suspends military aid to thirty-five countries that refused to grant U.S. citizens immunity before the International Criminal Court.

14
Columnist Robert Novak outs the wife of retired ambassador Joseph Wilson as a CIA agent after discussions with “two senior administration officials.”

15
SEC chairman William Donaldson endorses House bill seeking to limit the ability of state regulators to oversee the securities industry.

23
During a press conference with the media and the logging industry, Mark Rey announces a new regulation allowing the Forest Service to log live trees on 70 acres and dead, dying or diseased trees on 250 acres with absolutely no environmental analysis or public input.

24
Congress publishes report on September 11 attacks, but the White House omits major portions (reportedly about Saudi Arabia) for “national security” reasons.

28
Congress exposes Pentagon plans to create a futures trading market to forecast terrorist attacks.

August 2003

9
EPA inspector general finds that the agency downplayed health risks from the collapse of the World Trade Center under pressure from the White House.

20
Ashcroft begins nationwide tour to promote the Patriot Act.

21
Clearly reveling in the practice of breaking negotiated agreements, the administration announces plans to settle a timber industry lawsuit over the Northwest Forest Plan. The court-approved plan protects old-growth in Pacific Northwest national forests. Although the administration had been chipping away at the plan all year, caving-in on the suit gave them the opportunity to dismantle the plan.

27
EPA repeals “New Source Review” rule that had required electric utilities to install anti-pollution equipment when making major upgrades at coal-fired power plants.

September 2003

1
Job losses over the past three years top 2.7 million.

3
A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that ‘limited the focus’ for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations. [Washington Times, 9/3/03]

7
Bush asks Congress for another $87 billion to fund the occupation of Iraq.

17
Bush admits there is no evidence tying Saddam Hussein to September 11 attacks.

22
FCC approves the merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting, handing over 80 percent of the Spanish-language radio and television market to one company.

October 2003

10
The Bush Administration announces a proposal to grant federal dam operators in Oregon a virtual exemption from the Clean Water Act’s protections against water temperatures that are lethal to salmon. The proposal would cripple Columbia Basin salmon recovery efforts and set a dangerous precedent nationwide. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy. 02/04/04]

21
Congress bans late-term abortions.

29
U.N. official warns of “a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drug cartels and narco-terrorists.”

31
13,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants are in deportation proceedings as a result of special registration programs; none has been charged in connection to terrorism.

November 2003

12
The administration and the Forest Service propose one of the largest post-fire logging projects in modern history on the Siskiyou National Forest in Oregon. The "Biscuit Fire Recovery Project" calls for logging over one-half million board feet of timber from the Wild Rivers Area that could result in the disqualification of over 60,000 acres of potential wilderness. This is enough timber to fill logging trucks bumper to bumper from Canada to Mexico.

21
Senate blocks energy bill, a massive boondoggle that traces its origins to Cheney’s secretive energy task force and would provide billions of dollars in subsidies to some of Bush’s biggest supporters in the oil and gas, coal, and electric utility industries.

A so-called "compromise version" of the Healthy Forest Restoration Act of 2003 passes the Senate on a "voice vote" after Democrats Feinstein (D-CA) and Wyden (D-OR) cut a deal with Republican backers. The House of Representatives passes the bill later in the day. Some terrible provisions of the bill are watered down, but to quote George Bush Sr., "It's baaad!"

23
FBI admits collecting intelligence on antiwar protesters.

24
Congressional Republicans and the White House agree to a “compromise” media ownership cap of 39 percent—ensuring that neither Viacom nor News Corp. will be forced to sell any television stations.

Species Protection Exemptions Signed into Law - President Bush signs into law a bill that exempts the U.S. Department of Defense from key species protection provisions in the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act, setting a dangerous precedent for future federal exemptions. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, 02/04/04]

25
Senate passes $400 billion, Bush-backed Medicare bill, which guarantees a prescription drug benefit starting in 2006 but prevents the government from negotiating lower prices with pharmaceutical companies.

26
Bush continues his sleazy tactic of announcing anti-environment rule changes when the media will be inattentive. On the day before Thanksgiving, plans are revealed to gut the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) which has guided planning on 155 national forests since 1976.

December 2003

3
Medicare chief Tom Scully announces he’s stepping down to consider job offers from three lobbying and two investment firms.

4
With great fanfare and Feinstein and Wyden nowhere in sight, Bush signs the deceptively named, "Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003."

8
Shortly after President Bush signed the so-called “Healthy Forest Act” into law, the Bush Administration finalized regulations that gut key endangered species protections on public lands in the name of forest fire prevention. The new regulations allow the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to decide for themselves whether their logging projects under the National Fire Plan will jeopardize threatened or endangered species, essentially cutting wildlife management agencies out of the process. [A Timeline of Failure - The Bush Administration's NW Salmon Policy, o2/04/04]

23
For Christmas, Bush decided to give the timber industry much of the best remaining old-growth in Alaska's Tongass National Forest. The Tongass was exempted from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and the lower 48 states are next on the chopping block.

30
After first case of “mad cow” disease is detected in the United States, USDA bans sale of “downer” cattle—a measure quashed by the agency just weeks earlier.

January 2004

5
Cheney and Justice Antonin Scalia go duck hunting together three weeks after the Supreme Court agrees to hear a case about the vice president’s energy task force records.

16
During a congressional recess, Bush appoints Charles Pickering—whose nomination has been blocked twice by the Senate—to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

22
Interior Department opens nearly nine million acres of wilderness on Alaska’s North Slope to oil drilling.

The Sierra Nevada Framework ensured sound management practices in 11.5 million acres of the Sierra Nevada National Forest. The Bush administration significantly changes the Sierra Nevada Framework to allow increased logging which triples the levels of logging in the region and allows cutting of large, old-growth trees.

CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said Wednesday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment that President Bush gave in his State of the Union address. [Knight-Ridder, 1/22/04]

23
Chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay resigns, saying he doesn’t believe Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction ever existed.

29
Bush administration reports that the new Medicare law will cost at least $530 billion over 10 years, 30 percent more than Congress was told it would cost.

February 2004

6
Bush relents and appoints commission on pre-war intelligence, calls for it to report findings after the presidential election.

9
President’s Council of Economic Advisers suggests positions at fast-food restaurants should be counted as manufacturing jobs.

18
A group of 60 top U.S. scientists, including a dozen Nobel Prize winners, accuses the Bush administration of “misrepresenting and suppressing scientific knowledge for political purposes.”

23
Rod Paige calls the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”

March 2004

10
Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card make nighttime visit to bedside of ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft to get DOJ approval of a domestic spying program that is up for renewal. Acting Attorney General James Comey later describes in testimony before Congress (in May 2007) how Ashcroft rejected the request: "He [Ashcroft] lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me -- drawn from the hourlong meeting we'd had a week earlier -- and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, 'But that doesn't matter, because I'm not the attorney general.'" [S.F. Chronicle, 05/16/2007]

12
Medicare actuary says Bush administration threatened to fire him if he told Congress that the White House Medicare plan would cost more than $400 billion.

23
To further demonstrate its ability to overlook water quality, wildlife and fisheries in favor of giving industry more trees to log, the Bush administration overhauls the Northwest Forest Plan's Aquatic Conservation Strategy and exempts logging projects from complying with existing water quality objectives. It also eliminates the "Survey and Management" provisions of the plan which required consideration of logging effects on over 500 imperiled species.

24
At the Radio and Television Correspondents’ dinner Bush presents slides of himself looking under tables and out the windows of the Oval Office while commenting “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere!” and “Nope, no weapons over there!”

April 2004

1
Bush signs the “Unborn Victims of Violence Act.”

2
Bush and Cheney appear at a private retreat for the more than five hundred “Rangers” and “Pioneers” who have collected at least $100,000 for the president’s campaign.

10
After two years of stonewalling, Bush releases declassified version of the Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing warning “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.”

13
In just the third prime-time press conference of his term, Bush is stumped when asked to name one mistake he’s committed since September 11. He replies, “I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hasn’t yet.”

28
CBS television airs first images of torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz tells Congress the number of U.S soldiers who have died in Iraq is “approximately 500, of which—I can get the exact numbers—approximately 350 are combat deaths.” The actual figures: 722 soldiers killed, 521 of them in combat.

The Bush administration decides to count hatchery-bred (incubated then let free into the wild) fish during the same time it decides stream-bred wild salmon are entitled to protection under the Endangered Species Act. Will the Administration's next assault on the ESA entail counting factory-farmed salmon?

29
Bush and Cheney appear together behind closed doors in the Oval Office to answer questions from commissioners on the September 11 attacks panel.

30
Sinclair Broadcasting refuses to air “Nightline” broadcast reading the names of the U.S. dead in Iraq on its ABC affiliates.

May 2004

4
Army acknowledges it is investigating at least thirty-five cases of abuse or torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

6
FDA blocks RU-486, the “morning after pill,” from being sold over the counter.

19
General Accounting Office rules that taxpayer-funded “video news releases” touting the Medicare bill are illegal covert propaganda.

20
Bush campaign fundraising haul hits the $200 million mark.

June 2004

3
CIA Director George Tenet resigns because of the “well-being of my wonderful family—nothing more, nothing less.”

8
John Ashcroft refuses to give the Senate Judiciary Committee a Justice Department memo outlining a legal justification for the torture of suspected terrorists.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports: “for the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.” [Times-Picayune, 06/08/07]

16
U.S. commission investigating September 11 finds “no credible evidence” linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks; Dick Cheney continues to claim “overwhelming evidence” of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

24
Supreme Court rules that Dick Cheney doesn’t have to give up records of secretive energy task force, sends case back to a lower court.

28
In a secret ceremony—held two days ahead of schedule to thwart attacks—United States hands over formal sovereignty of Iraq to interim government; U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer declares Iraq “a much better place” and immediately leaves the country.

28
Supreme Court rules against the Bush administration, insisting that “enemy combatants”—whether U.S. citizen or foreigners—must be allowed to challenge their imprisonment before an American judge.

July 2004

8
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warns that Al Qaeda may strike on Election Day, seeks advice from Justice Department on necessary steps to postpone the election in case of a terrorist attack.

15
Republican-controlled National Labor Relations Board reverses earlier decision and rules that graduate teaching assistants at private universities do not have the right to organize unions.

20
Bush administration lawyers move to block lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers, arguing that consumers may not seek damages for injuries received from products approved by the FDA.

22
Congress passes resolution declaring that genocide is taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan; Washington Post characterizes action taken by the Bush administration to stop the killing as “murderously modest.”

28
After 24 years in Afghanistan, the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders pulls out of the country; the group criticizes U.S. forces for endangering aid workers by using humanitarian assistance as “a support for its military and political ambitions.”

30
Republican Party requires a signed endorsement of the president before giving out tickets to New Mexico campaign rally starring Dick Cheney.

30
Bush issues 20 recess appointments, skirting Senate approval to install, among others, a new head of the Federal Trade Commission, a new manufacturing czar, and three new ambassadors—two of whom are major Bush fundraisers.

August 2004

1
Two days after the Democratic convention, Tom Ridge raises terror alert level to “orange” for New York and Washington; heightened security based on three- to four-year-old intelligence.

5
At a ceremony to sign a $417 billion Defense appropriations bill, Bush tells the assembled Pentagon brass: “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

11
With two months left in the fiscal year, federal deficit hits a record $395.8 billion.

15
FBI acknowledges interviewing dozens of people in at least six states about protests planned for the Republican National Convention; officials insist they’re only targeting crimes, not political dissent.

24
Bush-Cheney campaign’s top outside counsel admits advising the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

27
For third consecutive year, more Americans in poverty and without health insurance; national poverty rate hits 12.5 percent, 45 million people lack health coverage.

September 2004

7
Dick Cheney declares at a campaign stop in Iowa: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, that we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again.”

8
1,001 U.S. soldiers killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

13
President Bush and House Republicans allow the federal ban on assault weapons to expire.

Iranian official announces that the country could resume uranium enrichment “within a few months”; Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs concludes “the real long-term geopolitical winner of the ‘War on Terror’ could be Iran.”

23
Donald Rumsfeld hints that Iraqi election may be limited to three-fourths of the country because of increasing violence. “If there were to be an area where the extremists focused during the election period, so be it,” he testifies before the Senate. “You have the rest of the election and you go on. Life’s not perfect.”

23
Standing beside Prime Minister Allawi in the Rose Garden, Bush claims “nearly 100,000 fully trained and equipped Iraqi soldiers, police officers, and other security personnel are working today”; Pentagon documents show only 8,169 have completed full, eight-week training.

25
Iraqi Health Ministry statistics show U.S. and allied forces and Iraqi police are killing twice the number of Iraqis—mostly civilians—as the insurgents; officials announce that Health Ministry will no longer provide casualty statistics to reporters.

October 2004

2
One-third of “individual ready reserve” soldiers called up by the Army to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan fail to report for duty.

6
Chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer reports that Iraq had no biological or chemical weapons and no nuclear program before the U.S. invasion; in fact, Duelfer finds no evidence that Iraq had produced any WMDs after 1991.

11
International Atomic Energy Agency reports that equipment and low-level radioactive materials that could be used to build nuclear weapons have disappeared from Iraq during the U.S. occupation.

21
Program on International Policy Attitudes shows that vast majorities of Bush supporters believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and gave Al Qaeda “substantial support” or was directly involved in September 11. Bush backers also think the majority of the world supported the U.S. invasion.

22
Aboard Air Force One, with no public ceremony, Bush signs $136 billion corporate tax cut bill—which includes special pork-barrel earmarks for tobacco companies, oil refineries, SUV buyers, Home Depot ceiling fans and much, much more.

24
Iraqi interim government announces that 380 tons of explosives vanished from the Al Qaqaa facility after the U.S. invasion, when the site was not secured despite warnings from U.N. weapons inspectors.

January 2005

12
WMD search in Iraq is declared over [CNN, 1/12/05]

30
The CPA provided less than adequate controls for approximately $8.8 billion of Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) funds provided to Iraqi ministries through the national budget process. [CPA Report, 1/30/05]

March 2005

2
Death toll of U.S. troops in Iraq hits 1,500 [London Telegraph, 3/3/05]

May 2005

1
Downing Street Memo revealed - Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. [Downing Street Memo, 7/23/02]

30
Dick Cheney: I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency. [CNN Larry King Live, 5/30/05]

August 2005

29
7AM CDT — KATRINA MAKES LANDFALL AS A CATEGORY 4 HURRICANE [CNN]

11AM CDT — BUSH VISITS ARIZONA RESORT TO PROMOTE MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: [White House]
11:13 AM CDT - WHITE HOUSE CIRCULATES INTERNAL MEMO ABOUT LEVEE BREACH: “Flooding is significant throughout the region and a levee in New Orleans has reportedly been breached sending 6-8 feet of water throughout the 9th ward area of the city.” [AP]

4:30PM CDT — BUSH TRAVELS TO CALIFORNIA SENIOR CENTER TO DISCUSS MEDICARE DRUG BENEFIT: “We’ve got some folks up here who are concerned about their Social Security or Medicare. Joan Geist is with us. … I could tell — she was looking at me when I first walked in the room to meet her, she was wondering whether or not old George W. is going to take away her Social Security check.” [White House]

8PM CDT — GOV. BLANCO AGAIN REQUESTS ASSISTANCE FROM BUSH: “Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]

LATE PM — BUSH GOES TO BED WITHOUT ACTING ON BLANCO’S REQUESTS [Newsweek]

30
MIDDAY — CHERTOFF CLAIMS HE FINALLY BECOMES AWARE THAT LEVEE HAS FAILED: “It was on Tuesday that the levee–may have been overnight Monday to Tuesday–that the levee started to break. And it was midday Tuesday that I became aware of the fact that there was no possibility of plugging the gap and that essentially the lake was going to start to drain into the city.” But later reports note that the Bush administration learned of the levee breach on Aug. 29. [Meet the Press, 9/4/05; AP]

2PM CDT — PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP]
BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]

31
PRESIDENT BUSH FINALLY ORGANIZES TASK FORCE TO COORDINATE FEDERAL RESPONSE: Bush says on Tuesday he will “fly to Washington to begin work…with a task force that will coordinate the work of 14 federal agencies involved in the relief effort.” [New York Times, 8/31/05]

EARLY AM — BLANCO AGAIN TRIES TO REQUEST HELP FROM BUSH: “She was transferred around the White House for a while until she ended up on the phone with Fran Townsend, the president’s Homeland Security adviser, who tried to reassure her but did not have many specifics. Hours later, Blanco called back and insisted on speaking to the president. When he came on the line, the governor recalled, “I just asked him for help, ‘whatever you have’.” She asked for 40,000 troops.” [Newsweek]

4PM CDT — BUSH GIVES FIRST MAJOR ADDRESS ON KATRINA: “Nothing about the president’s demeanor… — which seemed casual to the point of carelessness — suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.” [New York Times]

September 2005

1
7AM CDT — BUSH CLAIMS NO ONE EXPECTED LEVEES TO BREAK: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.” However, as former FEMA Director Michael Brown told CNN, “the president knew from our earlier conversations that that was one of my concerns, that the levees could actually breach.” [Situation Room, 3/2/06]

2
EARLY AM — BUSH WATCHES DVD OF THE WEEK’S NEWSCASTS CREATED BY STAFF WHO THOUGHT BUSH “NEEDED TO SEE THE HORRIFIC REPORTS”: “The reality, say several aides who did not wish to be quoted because it might displease the president, did not really sink in until Thursday night. Some White House staffers were watching the evening news and thought the president needed to see the horrific reports coming out of New Orleans. Counselor Bartlett made up a DVD of the newscasts so Bush could see them in their entirety as he flew down to the Gulf Coast the next morning on Air Force One.” [Newsweek]

BUSH USES 50 FIREFIGHTERS AS PROPS IN DISASTER AREA PHOTO-OP: A group of 1,000 firefighters convened in Atlanta to volunteer with the Katrina relief efforts. Of those, “a team of 50 Monday morning quickly was ushered onto a flight headed for Louisiana. The crew’s first assignment: to stand beside President Bush as he tours devastated areas.” [Salt Lake Tribune; Reuters]

BUSH COMMENTS ON SEN. TRENT LOTT’S HOUSE: “Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott’s house — he’s lost his entire house — there’s going to be a fantastic house. And I’m looking forward to sitting on the porch.” Time called the remarks “astonishingly tone-deaf to the homeless black citizens still trapped in the postapocalyptic water world of New Orleans.” [White House; Time]

5
FORMER FIRST LADY PATRONIZES POOR REFUGEES: Former First Lady Barbara Bush says, “Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this, this is working very well for them.” [American Public Media, 9/5/05]

9
Colin Powell, on his pre-war speech to the UN: "It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now." [ABC News, 9/9/05]

October 2005

13
A review by former intelligence officers has concluded that the Bush administration ‘apparently paid little or no attention’ to prewar assessments by the Central Intelligence Agency that warned of major cultural and political obstacles to stability in postwar Iraq. [NYT, 10/13/05]

26
American military death toll reaches 2,000 [MSNBC.com, 10/26/05]

November 2005

8
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004 [Independent, 11/8/05]

December 2005

17
Lieberman: "The last two weeks have been critically important and I believe may be seen as a turning point in the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism." [AP, 12/17/05]

January 2006

12
PRESIDENT BUSH TRAVELS TO NEW ORLEANS; SPENDS LESS THAN 24 HOURS IN THE REGION: He congratulated Mayor Ray Nagin for getting the city’s infrastructure “back on its feet,” but he met the locals in an area that wasn’t flooded and saw little of the city, save for the view from the interstate as he arrived. “I will tell you, the contrast between when I was last here and today…is pretty dramatic,” he said. “It’s a heck of a place to bring your family.” [WSJ, 01/13/06]

23
The White House acknowledges the existence of photos showing President Bush meeting Abramoff but refuses to release them. [U.S. News and World Report, A timeline of events in the Jack Abramoff case, 3/29/06]

24
WHITE HOUSE REFUSES TO COOPERATE WITH A SENATE INVESTIGATION OF KATRINA: “The Bush administration, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications, said Tuesday that it did not plan to turn over certain documents about Hurricane Katrina or make senior White House officials available for sworn testimony before two Congressional committees investigating the storm response.” [New York Times, 1/24/06]

25
ADMINISTRATION REJECTS RECONSTRUCTION PLAN: The White House rejects a Congressional reconstruction plan — the “most broadly supported plan for rebuilding communities,” and instead backs $6.2 billion in block grants that Congress provided last year, which Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) called “unacceptable.” [Times-Picayune, 1/25/06]

31
PRESIDENT BUSH DOES NOT MENTION KATRINA ONCE IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS [Bush, 1/31/06]

February 2006

2
"Is Iraq going to be a long war?" Rumsfeld: “No, I don’t believe it is.” [Washington Times, 2/2/06]

28
Another report reveals - The Bush administration never drew up a comprehensive plan for rebuilding Iraq after the March 2003 invasion. [Washington Times, 2/28/06]

March 2006

9
Bush signs U.S.A. Patriot Act Reauthorization but, after the signing ceremony, he quietly issues a statement saying he isn't going to inform Congress about how the FBI is using its expanded police powers, as the Act requires. [Boston Globe, 03/24/06]

19
Time Magazine reveals that U.S. Marines killed at least 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha the previous November - "According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children." [Time, 3/19/06]

April 2006

18
Facing calls for Rumsfeld to resign, Bush declares: "I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense." [source: CNN.com, April 18, 2006]

23
A former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller, reveals evidence that Bush was told before the war by a high-level Iraqi informant that Iraq did not possess WMD [CBS News, 4/23/06]

June 2006
Number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq reaches 2,500 [Reuters, 6/15/06]

September 2006

24
New York Times: “A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.” [New York Times, 9/24/2006]

November 2006

8
Donald Rumsfeld resigns as Secretary of Defense. One day after the midterm elections that turned control of Congress over to the Democrats, Bush announced Rumsfeld would step down and be replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates. [CNN, 11/8/2006]

27
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales meets with top Justice Department officials and signs off on plan to fire several U.S. attorneys for purely political reasons. [AP, via HuffPo, 03/23/07]

28
A classified Marine Corps intelligence report concludes that in Western Iraq, “the social and political situation has deteriorated to a point” where U.S. and Iraqi troops “are no longer capable of militarily defeating the insurgency in al-Anbar.” [Washington Post, 11/27/2006]

December 2006

4
Deputy White House Counsel William K. Kelley e-mails Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson, authorizing the dismissal of seven U.S. Attorneys. "We're a go for the US Attny plan. WH leg, political, and communications have signed off and acknowledged that we have to be committed to following through once the pressure comes." [Timeline: The Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, 03/18/07]

7
The Justice Department fires Carol Lam [prosecutor of Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham] and six other U.S. attorneys. [Timeline: The Firing of U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, 03/18/07]

19
11 percent of Americans support escalating the war in Iraq by adding at least 20,000 additional U.S. forces. [CNN, 12/19/2006]

January 2007

10
“The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said.” [Baltimore Sun, 1/10/2007]

30
The Army and Marine Corps “are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply” the extra 21,500 troops President Bush plans to send to Iraq. “It’s inevitable that that has to happen, unless five brigades of up-armored Humvees fall out of the sky,” one senior Army official said. [Washington Post, 1/30/2007]

"Federal Climate Scientists Report at Least 435 Incidents of Inappropriate Interference with Their Work
A survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Government Accountability Project (GAP) bolsters allegations that the Bush administration is pressuring climate scientists to produce material that does not contradict its position on global warming. The survey was distributed to 1,600 climate scientists at seven federal agencies. Of those, 279 responded. [...] 150 climate scientists said they personally experienced political interference in the past five years, for a total of at least 435 incidents." [Union of Concerned Scientists, 1/30/2007 ; Reuters, 1/30/2007]

February 2007

2
National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq declares Iraq is worse than a civil war. The document states that the term civil war “accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict,” though it “does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict.” [Washington Post, 2/3/2007]

18
A Washington Post investigation reveals that returning soldiers face deplorable conditions at Walter Reed’s outpatient center - "The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses." [Washington Post, 2/18/2007]

A longitudinal study by Donald Shields (Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, University of Missouri-St. Louis) and John F. Cragan (Professor Emeritus, Department of Communication, Illinois State University) indicates "that the offices of the U.S. Attorneys across the nation investigate seven (7) times as many Democratic officials as they investigate Republican officials, a number that exceeds even the racial profiling of African Americans in traffic stops." [The Political Profiling of Elected Democratic Officials: When Rhetorical Vision Participation Runs Amok, ePluribusMedia, 02/18/2007]

26
Laura Bush: “Many parts of Iraq are stable. But of course what we see on television is the one bombing a day that discourages everyone.” [Larry King Live,” Feb. 26, 2007]

March 2007

14
The Pentagon acknowledges Iraq is a civil war - “In its bleakest assessment of the war to date, a quarterly Pentagon report said that last October through December was the most violent three-month period since 2003. Attacks and casualties suffered by coalition and Iraqi forces and civilians were higher than any other similar time span, said the report.” [AP, 3/14/07]

19
New York Times reports: "A House committee [House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform] released documents Monday that showed hundreds of instances in which a White House official who was previously an oil industry lobbyist edited government climate reports to play up uncertainty of a human role in global warming or play down evidence of such a role." [New York Times, 02/20/07]

20
DOJ fails to release all documents related to attorney firings: "In DOJ documents that were publicly posted by the House Judiciary Committee, there is a gap from mid-November to early December in e-mails and other memos, which was a critical period as the White House and Justice Department reviewed, then approved, which U.S. attorneys would be fired while also developing a political and communications strategy for countering any fallout from the firings." [The Politico, 03/21/07]

21
Summarizing his March 6th testimony before Congress, fired U.S. Attorney David C. Iglesias writes in the New York Times: "Politics entered my life with two phone calls that I received last fall, just before the November election. One came from Representative Heather Wilson and the other from Senator Domenici, both Republicans from my state, New Mexico. Ms. Wilson asked me about sealed indictments pertaining to a politically charged corruption case widely reported in the news media involving local Democrats. Her question instantly put me on guard. Prosecutors may not legally talk about indictments, so I was evasive. Shortly after speaking to Ms. Wilson, I received a call from Senator Domenici at my home. The senator wanted to know whether I was going to file corruption charges — the cases Ms. Wilson had been asking about — before November. When I told him that I didn’t think so, he said, 'I am very sorry to hear that,' and the line went dead.
A few weeks after those phone calls, my name was added to a list of United States attorneys who would be asked to resign — even though I had excellent office evaluations, the biggest political corruption prosecutions in New Mexico history, a record number of overall prosecutions and a 95 percent conviction rate." [Why I was Fired, New York Times, 03/21/07]

29
House Oversight Committee asks White House to explain why White House staffers and officials access political e-mail accounts to circumvent the automatically-archived White House e-mail system. [House Oversight Committee letter, 03/29/07]

April 2007
12
CREW [Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington] learns "that the Executive Office of the President (EOP) has lost over FIVE MILLION emails generated between March 2003 and October 2005. The White House counsel’s office was advised of these problems in 2005 and CREW has been told that the White House was given a plan of action to recover these emails, but to date nothing has been done to rectify this significant loss of records." [ CREW, 04/12/07]

18
The Supreme Court upholds a federal law "banning a controversial abortion procedure, giving the anti-abortion movement one of its biggest legal victories in years." [N.Y. Times, 04/18/07]

24
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) introduces resolution impeaching Richard B. Cheney [Kucinich web site, 04/25/2007]

May 2007

1
Julie MacDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, submits resignation, just "a week before House Congressional Oversight Committee was to hold a hearing on accusations that she violated the Endangered Species Act, censored science and mistreated staff of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service." [AP, 05/02/2007]

July 2007

1
George W. Bush commutes 30-month sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.[Seattle Times, 07/01/2007]

August 2007

27
Attorney General Gonzales, his tenure "marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress," resigns [N.Y. Times, 08/27/2007]

September 2007

17
Iraq cancels "the licence of the private security firm, Blackwater USA, after it was involved in a gunfight in which at least eight civilians died." [BBC News, 09/17/2007]

SOURCES:

http://www.inthesetimes.com
http://thinkprogress.org
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org
http://the-bush-disaster-timeline.blogspot.com
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com

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