The greatest country on earth huh? Under the Bush administration the Argentinian Peso, British Pound, Cyprus Pound, Irish Punt, Jordan Dinar, Kuwaiti Dinar, Oman Riyal, are all worth more than the US dollar. The economy went into Recession in March, and while Bush and the GOP & RNC make wild claims of the economy being bad in 1999 under Clinton, there is no such proof to back up that assertion and plently of proof to the contrary. It is Bush's boat and he sunk it. - BL

Bill Clinton gave 7 percent ($19,452) of his adjusted gross income in 1992; 6 percent ($17,000) in 1993; 10 percent ($30,310) in 1995; 57 percent ($609,300--but almost all of it was royalties from Hillary Clinton's book, It Takes a Village) in 1996; 48 percent ($270,725--again, nearly all of it royalties from It Takes a Village) in 1997; 32 percent ($161,938--most of it book royalties) in 1998; and 9 percent ($39,200--about half of it book royalties) in 1999.

George Bush Sr. gave 8 percent ($37,272, a bit more than one-third of it book royalties from Bush's autobiography, Looking Forward) in 1989; 9 percent ($38,997) in 1990; and 62 percent ($818,803--nearly all of it royalties from Barbara Bush's Millie's Book) in 1991.

Ronald Reagan gave 3 percent ($11,895) in 1981; 2 percent ($15,563) in 1982; and 6 percent ($23,298) in 1985.

Jimmy Carter gave 20 percent ($38,551) in 1977 and 7 percent ($18,636) in 1978. http://slate.msn.com/Code/chatterbox/chatterbox.asp?Show=4/23/2001&idMessage=7544

GW Bush - 0

[Recall Cheney's daughter is a lesbian. IS she in this book?]

Elaine Showalter, an English professor at Princeton University, was browsing a used-book stall in Paris in the early 1990's when she came upon an astonishing find: an Old West romance, replete with whorehouses, lesbian affairs and attempted rapes, written by an author whose name was all too familiar to academics in the humanities.

Dr. Showalter had stumbled across an old and obscure novel by Lynne Cheney, who until recently was known mainly for her tenure as the conservative chair of the National Endowment of the Humanities and as a crusader against American educational decline, multiculturalism and relativism. These days, she is best known for being married to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Dick Cheney.

The book, entitled "Sisters," was printed in 1981 only in a Signet Canadian paperback, Dr. Showalter said, and is now extremely hard to find.

In the typically hyperbolic language of romance novels, the book's jacket promises the tale of Sophie Dymond, a beautiful, strong-willed widow who leaves New York to investigate her sister's death in Wyoming, and finds herself in a world "where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands' hungers . . . where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerrilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted."

This week, in a scholarly review published in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dr. Showalter discussed what she considered some of the more surprising aspects of "Sisters," from its open-minded attitudes toward feminism — penned by an outspoken opponent of women's studies programs — to its deliciously Gothic plot elements.

Mrs. Cheney's brief biography on the official Bush campaign Web site lists only two books to her credit: a history of the House of Representatives she wrote with her husband, and "Telling the Truth," which argues that political correctness is breaking down America's morality.

She has also written two other novels, "Executive Privilege" in 1979 and "The Body Politic," which was written with Victor Gold in 1988 and concerns the wife of a dead vice president.

But it is "Sisters" that dominates Dr. Showalter's review; she said the book struck her in part because of the use it made of work by several feminist historians. It showed knowledge of their work, and also sympathy for 19th-century women's advocates, she said.

In an interview this week, Mrs. Cheney said she wrote the book while her husband was running for Congress and said her goal was "to write a thriller set in the 19th- century West."

But she had another goal too. "In the 1970's feminists did important work recovering women's history," she said. "I tried to do some of that myself."

In the book, Sophie Dymond is described as a successful magazine publisher so savvy and strong- minded she carries about a little lacquer box of contraceptives. She goes to Cheyenne, Wyo., in 1886 to find out how her sister Helen had died. As Dr. Showalter writes, Sophie comes upon a group of women who are convinced of female moral superiority and the value of powerful woman-to-woman bonds of friendship, and she comes to understand their grievances even as she rejects their "lesbian ardor."

In one passage Dr. Showalter pointed out, Sophie watches two women embrace in a wagon. "She saw that the women in the cart had a passionate, loving intimacy forever closed to her. How strong it made them. What comfort it gave."

What really struck her, Dr. Showalter said, was that Mrs. Cheney "approaches these issues in a very open-minded way, and a way very sympathetic to the women and very sympathetic to the feminist arguments."

But those qualities apparently did not appeal much to the book buyers of the early 80's.

"I think `Sisters' sold about 500 copies," Mrs. Cheney said. "I hope the renewed interest in it will send it flying off the shelves."

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company

Over the past decade, U.S. trade deficits have grown steadily from $29.5 billion in 1991 to a forecasted $450 billion in 2000.

The current figure is the largest trade deficit in U.S. history in absolute terms, and it is also the largest trade deficit measured as a share of U.S. gross domestic product. As each monthly report of the latest trade statistics is released, the print media and the broadcast news carry commentaries and debates over the causes of the deficit and its consequences.

Chapter 6 Trade Policy Recommendations

We identified three major goals for U.S. trade policy:

1.Ensure a high and rising standard of living for all Americans.

2.Create new rules for the global economy that help workers and protect the environment.

3.Promote new approaches to trade deficit reduction.

4.We call for thirty specific policy initiatives, in six major groups. Highlights include the following:

5.Measures to increase manufacturing competitiveness. Key proposals include boosting federal research and development spending and new, pooled capital funds for smaller firms.

6.Macroeconomic and monetary policy initiatives. The United States must develop crisis contingency plans in case the trade deficit causes a currency or financial crisis.

7.Enhanced trade enforcement. The United States must adopt and enforce policies to attack hidden and nontariff barriers in countries such as China and Japan; to improve enforcement of our fair trade laws; and to effectively counter or challenge foreign subsidies for research, development, and exports.

8.New rules for the global trading system. The administration must ensure that enforceable labor and environmental standards are incorporated into all trade agreements, including the World Trade Organization, that build upon those that have just been incorporated in the U.S.-Jordan Free Trade Agreement.

9.Improved oversight, monitoring, compliance, and enforcement of our trading rights and agreements. It is too soon to launch a new WTO round of negotiations-- too many issues are unresolved, including labor rights and environmental standards, agriculture, and services. Progress is needed on all these issues before starting a new round. We differ from the Republican Commissioners on this point: we do not call for a new round of WTO trade negotiations at this time, unless enforceable labor rights and environmental standards are included in any final agreement that is negotiated.

10.Wage insurance, training and adjustment assistance. We support a large expansion of retraining and adjustment assistance for all displaced workers.

11.Creation of a nonpartisan Congressional Trade Office (CTO), modeled after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which would provide Congress with trade data and analysis to support Congress in fulfilling its constitutional responsibility to regulate foreign commerce and oversee the conduct of trade policy.

2001 LAYOFFS IN USA http://www.transnationale.org/anglais/dossiers/finance/emploi.htm

As China on Wednesday said new U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would inflict “devastating damage,” President Bush issued the strongest pledge by any U.S. president to defend Taiwan, vowing to do "whatever it took" to protect the island from its communist neighbor.

"The Chinese government and people express strong indignation and absolute opposition to this decision of the United States government," state television quoted Vice Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, "will have a grave impact on China-U.S. cooperation in the sphere of non-proliferation and bring devastating damage to China-U.S. relations," In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told reporters that China "reserves the complete right to take further actions" in response to any arms sales to Taiwan.

April 20 - ABC

Missionaries’ Pilot Made Frantic Radio Calls as Peruvian Jet Shot Down His Plane. Missionary Veronica "Roni" Bowers and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, of Muskegon, Mich., were killed in the Friday morning incident. Pilot Kevin Donaldson was wounded in the legs, and two others survived.

A U.S. surveillance aircraft, mistakenly suspecting the plane to be part of a drug-running operation, gave the Peruvian military the location of the plane. "Our role was to simply pass on information," Bush said.

April 19 - WP

Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the Pacific Fleet, will conclude that the collision was the result of unprofessional conduct by Waddle and lead sonar analyst Petty Officer Patrick Seacrest.

He will accept Waddle's resignation during an administrative hearing known as an "admiral's mast," and grant him an honorable discharge with a pension, Nine Japanese, including four schoolboys, were killed when the Greeneville slammed into it many where outraged over the discovery that 16 VIP civilian "guests" were aboard the submarine and in the control room during the collision. At least two visitors were seated at control positions. The sub was taken out that day for the purpose of giving the visitors a ride.

April 16, 2001 - InTheseTimes.com

"Zack Exley has a knack for attracting attention. His parody Web sites have created such a stir that one target--George W. Bush--went so far as to proclaim: "There ought to be limits to freedom. Exley decided to check out the official Bush Web site, and discovered that the domain GWBush.com was unreserved. He snatched it up in December 1998."

"But that was amateur night compared to the wizardry of Commerce Secretary Don Evans. At a March press conference witnessed by dozens of reporters, Evans caused 3.3 million Americans to vanish without a trace.

How'd he do it? Evans refused to allow the Census Bureau to use the scientific process of sampling, which would have adjusted the population figures to correct for undercounts in minority and immigrant neighborhoods."

April 4, 2001 - WP

"Tension between China and the United States heightened today as the White House said it doesn't plan to apologize for Sunday's midair collision, which resulted in China's detention of 24 U.S. military personnel and their surveillance plane."

China allowed two U.S. diplomats to meet early today with 24 American crew members held by the Chinese military since their Navy surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter and made an emergency landing on Hainan Island."

President Bush appeared before television cameras at the White House on Tuesday to again urge China to allow the crew to leave Hainan and to turn over the damaged EP-3E Aries II aircraft without further delay. Failure to do so, Bush suggested, could result in more damage to already strained U.S.-China relations.

"It is time for our servicemen and women to return home," Bush declared. "It is time for the Chinese government to return our plane."

He did not say whether U.S. officials could tell what the Chinese were doing with the aircraft, which is loaded with sensitive eavesdropping and tracking gear. By 9:23 a.m. the second F-8 had returned to the Lingshui air base, Zhu said, and 10 minutes later, the U.S. plane landed there, too. "It is illegal," Zhu said of the plane's landing in Hainan.

"Not a week goes by without the discovery that some feature of the plan will cost far more than originally admitted. Last week's bombshell was a report from the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation that repealing the estate tax would offer wealthy Americans an array of new strategies that would allow them to legally avoid paying hundreds of billions in income taxes. That original "trillion-dollar tax cut" is now at $2.7 trillion and rising. For all those chants of "no fuzzy math," Mr. Bush's people have never actually refuted independent estimates that about 40 percent of his tax cut goes to the richest 1 percent of families. In fact, a table released by the Treasury Department last month, although it was designed to convey the impression that the tax cut favored the middle class, actually contained enough information to show that if Treasury officials had calculated the share of the benefits going to the top 1 percent (they didn't), and if they had included the effects of estate tax repeal (they didn't), they would have come up with about the same number." NYT

"Had all canvassing boards in all counties examined all undervotes, thousands of votes would have been salvaged in Broward County, Palm Beach County and elsewhere long before the election dispute landed in court -- and the outcome might have been different, The Herald found.

"In that scenario, under the most inclusive standard, Gore might have won Florida's election -- and the White House -- by 393 votes, The Herald found. If dimples were counted as votes only when other races were dimpled, Gore would have won by 299 votes." Miami Herald

April 3, 2001 - WP

Yesterday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, visiting the White House, urged vigorous involvement by the United States in the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. "Reality is going to impinge on him whether he's ready or not," said Joseph Montville, an expert in preventive diplomacy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Sooner or later, the sheer burden of American leadership will require him to take risks and get involved. Presidents of the United States don't have the option not to lead.

Mead said the number and urgency of foreign policy issues confronting Bush are particularly great because China, Russia and other countries are reacting to the more confrontational approach adopted by the administration during its first months.

Some European officials, fearing the outbreak of a new Balkans war, say they are frustrated with the reluctance of U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo to take a more prominent role in restraining Albanian extremists who launched an insurgency across the border in Macedonia a month ago.

The Bush administration has proven far more reluctant than its predecessor in trying to broker a solution to a range of regional conflicts, notably those in the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

Moussa warned that the Arab-Israeli conflict could not be resolved unless the United States played the role of "honest broker."

The Palestinians, meanwhile, attacked the Bush administration for having "disengaged" from the Middle East conflict, which they said allowed Israel to spurn negotiations "and to pursue a policy of escalation."

"Budget documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show that these programs, providing "health care access for the uninsured," would be reduced 86 percent, to $20 million, from $140 million in the current fiscal year. Mr. Clinton persuaded Congress last year to expand the programs so they could provide more comprehensive care, and the effort was praised by witnesses at a Senate hearing just two weeks ago." NYT

MARCH 30, 2001 - NYT

"The Bush administration has decided to severely scale back a popular Clinton-era program that has put tens of thousands of new police officers on the streets. The decision, due to be unveiled next month, would mark a major departure from a federal law enforcement policy that some criminologists say helped spur a marked nationwide decline in crime in the 1990s."

"History will not judge George Bush kindly. It is hard to exaggerate the significance of his repudiation of the Kyoto treaty. It is not simply that the US President thinks his nation cannot meet the solemn commitments on global warming which it signed three-and-a-half years ago. It is that he does not care. The supposed "leadership of the free world" is in the hands of a man determined to visit greater misery on the generations to come." Independent / UK

March 27, 2001 - NYT

"Citing national security, the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month rescinded a Clinton administration proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences of chemical plant accidents. "It is just a smoke screen to shut down public information that is embarrassing to an industry that continues to use obsolete chemicals and processes that are inherently dangerous," Mr. Hind said about the national security issue."

March 26, 2001 - WP

"The Bush administration moved to expel some 50 Russian diplomats in retaliation for the recently discovered mole in the FBI. Russia immediately announced the expulsion of four U.S. diplomats."

Environment: Bush plunged ahead with a most conservative program to gut environmental regulations. At the behest of the mining industry, he canceled Clinton administration rules aimed at toughening standards for arsenic in drinking water. EPA administrator Christie Whitman said she intended to ease emission standards on autos, taking the pressure off car manufacturers to build cleaner vehicles.

March 26, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham worried the California brownouts are here to stay, and might even spread across the U.S.

These scare tactics had no visible effect on Congress, where Republicans wrote their own budget, which totally ignores the Arctic drilling program."

Taxes: Bush hung tough on his tax program, hoping the recession would push reluctant members of Congress into adapting the $1.6 trillion measure as pump priming to avoid recession—even as an increasing number of economists argued the tax relief would be too little, too late."

Courts: Having expressed his distaste for the American Bar Association's tradition of helping pick federal judges, Bush pulled the ABA—considered a liberal organization by many on the right wing—out of the screening process."

MARCH 25, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"Under President Bush, the outlook for the average worker may grow much worse. Already, steep declines in the stock market have stripped value from the 401(k) plans that for some 22.3 million Americans have become a kind of unsecured pension. Bush has long advocated allowing laborers to invest part of their payroll deductions rather than having the government automatically stash the earnings in Social Security. This would represent one of the greatest windfalls in history for Wall Street, but in the current economic climate would be an unmitigated disaster for the nation's elderly."

Seniors aren't the only group in trouble. Last week, the Senate, with Bush support, endorsed what Washington's feel-good lobbyists term a "bankruptcy reform" bill. This disgusting piece of legislation is nothing more than a relief package for credit card companies and a set of shackles for the working stiffs in the "subprime" market." What's really going on here is passage of a law literally bought by the credit card industry, which has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of members of Congress. For starters, reports Time, Florida senator Bill McCollum received $225,000 from the credit industry; New Jersey senator Robert Torricelli took $150,00 from MBNA. Under the old law, the credit card companies had to stand in line with other lenders while the borrower first worked out a schedule for paying alimony, child support, student loans, and taxes. The lenders couldn't get at retirement funds. Once Bush makes good his promise to sign the new law, the corporations, with their sophisticated collection departments, can squeeze a single mother, robbing her of child support in order to repay the card. They can also seize debtors' private property."

MARCH 21 - villagevoice.com

"Confronted with growing opposition to his let-it-rip environmental policies, President Bush and his cabinet—from Christie Whitman to Spencer Abraham—are beating the drums for what they claim is an immediate and unprecedented energy crisis. The doomsday talk is meant to provide justification for unpopular choices like drilling in pristine wilderness and ditching promises to curb carbon dioxide emissions."

The only way to make all that exploration profitable is to drive the price up. And the best way to do that is to manufacture an energy crisis."

March 17, 2001 - WP

"Bush wants us to spend $2 trillion on a tax cut that would primarily benefit those citizens making over $1 million a year. One part of his plan is to allow the children of billionaires to receive tax-free inheritances. Another part would give an average tax cut of over $28,000 to those making over $1.1 million a year.

In contrast, most families who depend on a paycheck--not an inheritance--to support their families, would receive annual tax cuts of only several hundred dollars per year--or less. And many lower-and middle-income families would receive nothing--not a dime." MARCH 15, 2001 - NYT

"The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said today that two companies that sold electricity to power- plagued California might have engaged in actions designed to inflate prices there, potentially earning $10.8 million in excessive profits. The agency said that unless the two companies, Williams Energy Marketing and Trading and AES Southland, could show within 20 days that they did not violate federal laws, the agency would require them to refund profits earned in April and May 2000."

"Sounding like a man caught in a house afire, President George W. Bush flailed as he tried to reassure the public yesterday that he still has great faith in the American economy. That may not go far enough for the people worst hit by the precipitous stock market slide, workers whose retirement money is tied up in 401(k)s. According to reports cited by the Labor Department, which nominally oversees pension plans, some 22.3 million people have invested in more than 228,000 401(k)s. This would be one of the greatest windfalls in history for Wall Street. It's an idea Bush has stumped for again and again. But in the cold light of a tumbling market, it doesn't look so sweet anymore." VV

MARCH 14, 2001 - villagevoice.com

A “cabinet-level” review, wrote The New York Times, “had concluded that Mr. Bush's original promise had been a mistake inconsistent with the broader goal of increasing domestic energy production.”

The oil industry, with its long-term interest in pollution-producing fossil fuels, gets credit for this policy reversal. Its players permeate the Bush cabinet. Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, who once led a Denver-based energy company, was a partner with the president in an oil-drilling operation. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, an academic by profession, also sat on the board of directors of Chevron, which named an oil tanker named after her.

The White House acknowledges that Vice President Dick Cheney, the former oil exec who's now the prime minister of Bush's government, and Spencer Abraham, the former Michigan free-market nut who runs the Energy Department, exerted the greatest influence in getting Bush to change his mind.

Bush could hardly say no. Both he and his father hail from the Texas oil patch. Shrub owes his political life to the state's behemoth power producers—namely Enron, Dynergy, and Reliant—which have been making a killing selling juice in the deregulated California market. Enron in particular has been a big giver to Bush since his gubernatorial days and led the pack in pumping dough into his presidential campaign. Kenneth Lay, Enron's chief executive and a big contributor to Bush, is an adviser to the Energy Secretary Abraham.

MARCH 13, 2001 - CNN

"The environmental group, Sierra Club, was outraged by the president's decision, claiming Bush was bowing to "big business, rather than protecting our children." "We're royally disappointed with this one. He's betraying his campaign promise," said Sierra spokesman Allen Mattison. "Now that he's in the White House, he's taking a dive on the issue."

MARCH 9, 2001 - CNN

"The mechanics' union criticized the White House position. "What President Bush has done is tell the company you don't have to negotiate with us. Wait for the Presidential Emergency Board. They'll negotiate for you. And this is a sad affair for labor in this country," said O.V. Delle-Femine of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association."

MARCH 8, 2001 - AP Wire

"Trade analysts viewed Zoellick's comments with some surprise given that Bush during the campaign stressed the traditional Republican support for free trade and opposition to protectionist barriers."

MARCH 7, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"When Congress sends me a bill against partial-birth abortion," Bush the candidate told the nation, "I will sign it into law."

Even before his inauguration, Bush tapped as attorney general John Ashcroft, a man who spent much of his public life opposing not only abortion but forms of birth control, like IUDs, that prevent a fetus from taking hold."

Elsewhere, women are taking matters into their own hands, calling for a revival of the Jane Collective, a network of guerrilla activists who taught themselves and other laypeople to perform safe abortions. They rely on readily available equipment to conduct menstrual extraction, the method favored in developing countries."

MARCH 2, 2001 - Reuters

"But she (Whitman EPA) added the U.S. government felt no obligation to return to a compromise that was nearly agreed at November's United Nations conference in The Hague on the future of a 1997 U.N. pact to cut the pollution thought to cause climate change."

February 27, 2001 - WP

"Let's take a closer look: First, the president's tax plan is far more expensive than the $1.6 trillion he claimed.

When you add the interest on the debt and all the other hidden costs, the true cost of the president's tax cut is well over $2 trillion. It will consume nearly all of the available surplus, at the expense of prescription drug coverage, education, defense and other critical priorities.

Even worse, instead of strengthening Social Security and Medicare, the president's plan actually takes money from both programs, and that is irresponsible, and it's wrong."

"Last Night Bush told Congress that he wanted to "break down barriers to equality for the disabled." Last week the five conservative members of the Supreme Court who elected him "overruled Congress and held that state governments can arbitrarily deny jobs to disabled people without violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution." LAT

Febuary 17, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"President George W. Bush put the heat on an otherwise quiet week by ordering an airstrike against Iraq. Cnn.com reported some 24 planes hit a total of five targets, in the first action of its type in nearly two years."

"Submarine Disaster: After a submarine carrying dignitaries crashed into a Japanese fishing boat in Hawaii, killing several people, Bush ordered a review of the military's policy of allowing civilians to participate in military exercises. The navy ordered a halt to civilian tours following the disaster."

Mexico: At week's end Bush traveled to Mexico for talks with new president Vicente Fox, aimed at allowing more Mexican workers into the U.S. and developing Mexico's huge oil and gas deposits for export to the U.S.

By contrast, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans would receive 43 percent of the total tax cuts, receiving an average tax cut of $46,000 each. The top five percent of filers would garner a little more than half of the tax cuts.

"Others point out abolition of the estate tax, which Clinton vetoed last year, would reward only the very rich. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research argues: "Two-thirds of this tax is paid by the richest two-tenths of 1 percent of all taxpayers."

"The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, says: "About 12 million low- and moderate-income families with children—nearly one in every three U.S. families—would not receive any assistance from the tax provisions that President Bush is likely to send to Congress on February 8. An estimated 24 million children under age 18—one in every three children—live in these families."

"Mexican Trucks: Ten days before the president's trip to Mexico, the Bush administration announced it was reversing Clinton policy and, adhering to a NAFTA ruling, would allow Mexican trucks to haul goods throughout the U.S."

"In his first interview, the attorney general said his top goals were to step up gun prosecutions, pump up the war on drugs, end racial profiling, and combat discrimination in voting and housing—all of which he proposes to do as the White House reportedly gets set to cut the Justice Department budget by $1 billion."

CENSUS RECOUNT: "The sampled numbers, if approved, could be used to redraw political district boundaries and redistribute over $185 billion in federal funds. The secretary's action is a perilous step toward disenfranchising the estimated millions of minorities, children and rural residents who were not counted by the 2000 census." said House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. AP Wire

February 13, 2001 - VV "Genetically Engineered Food: The Department of Agriculture, in an initial policy move sure to please agribusiness, announced it plans to ease field-testing controls of genetically engineered corn, cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, and soybeans." "After a campaign in which he derided the Clinton administration's handling of the military, Mr. Bush has said he does not intend to increase the Pentagon's budget significantly until Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld completes a review of military strategy and the armed services." NYT

February 10, 2001 - The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

"The Greeneville collided with a Japanese fishing boat carrying high school students learning to fish, leaving nine people missing after the boat sank off the Hawaiian coast on Friday."

"John Hammerschmidt also said Tuesday that the crew member responsible for tracking sonar contacts stopped performing that task less than an hour before the collision because of the presence of 16 civilian guests in the submarine's control room." AP 3/26/2001

February 9, 2001 - Reuters

"Democrats lashed out at President George W. Bush's budget priorities on Friday, allegedly he was considering a $1 billion cut in the Justice Department's budget to help finance his sweeping tax cut plan. The Democratic National Committee said the proposed cutbacks would hurt the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local police, while helping to fund Bush's $1.6 trillion tax-cut package, which Democrats oppose. DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe said it was "clearly a case of misplaced priorities."

February 8, 2001 - Gallup News Service

"The 25% disapproval that President George W. Bush receives is the highest initial disapproval that any president has received since Gallup began measuring approval over half a century ago....Bush’s disapproval is 19 points higher than what his father, George H.W. Bush, received in January, 1988."

February 7, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"Every year, an estimated 600,000 American workers suffer some form of serious ailment as a result of performing the same workplace tasks over and over again. Painful, possibly disabling injuries strike nurses, hospital orderlies, typists, assembly line workers, and couriers."

"Scientific evidence and industry data strongly indicate that properly implemented strategies to reduce the incidence, severity, and consequences of work-related musculoskeletal disorders can be effective," stated the neutral National Academy of Sciences."

February 6, 2001 - NYT

"Bush, who campaigned on a promise to bring Republicans and Democrats together on legislation defining patients' rights, raised objections today to the major bipartisan bill addressing the issue in Congress....He said the McCain-Kennedy bill would make it too easy for patients to sue health maintenance organizations and insurance companies."

February 3, 2001 - WP

"Government economists predict we could see a federal budget surplus every year for the next 10 years. The surplus is the result of hard work by the American people and smart economic leadership from the Clinton administration.

Over the last eight years, we got rid of the deficit, but we still have $3.5 trillion of national debt. Interest on the debt alone costs more than $200 billion a year. A lower national debt means lower interest rates, it means lower mortgage payments, lower car payments, lower credit card payments and more jobs. Paying down the debt has to be a top priority."

January 29, 2001 - WP

"As long as there are secular alternatives, faith-based charities should be able to compete for funding on an equal basis and in a manner that does not cause them to sacrifice their mission. And we'll make sure that help goes to large organizations and to small ones as well. We value large organizations with generations of experience. In a few moments, I will sign two executive orders. The first executive order will create a new office called the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives."

"Mr. Blattmachr, (an estate tax lawyer at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York, who counsels some of the nation's wealthiest families on how to minimize their taxes), who called himself a "card-carrying Republican," This will shift the tax burden from the wealthy to everyone else," he said." --NYT, 1/29/01

January 28, 2001 - Reuters Democrats have objected to the voucher initiative because they say it would drain federal funds from already financially strapped public schools" and that it would further break down the distinction between church and state."

January 26, 2001 - Politex

"Greenspan also scoffed at the Bush "notion that tax cuts are needed to stimulate the slowing economy."

January 24, 2001 - villagevoice.com

With some 20,000 anti-Bush protesters crashing the inaugural party, you couldn't walk 10 feet without bumping into a Bush dissenter. Falling in behind an elderly Native American man with a ponytail and a prosthetic leg, Carr quickly joined the throng headed for the U.S. Supreme Court building, along the way detailing in a delicate Virginia accent the causes that had drawn her here: civil rights, environmentalism, a woman's right to choose, social justice. "The voting system in the United States is flawed. Not everybody's votes are counted, so we're not equal," she said, passing clusters of police officers asking for tickets from anyone who wanted to go near the Capitol.

Carr and the other marchers were determined, but the 7000 police and military personnel soon took their toll. Wet and cold and herded like cattle, people had difficulty getting to several rallies around the city.

"They missed the boat on the magnitude of how historic this is," she says. "People who never protested before in their lives were out here in the rain."

January 22, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"On Monday, in one of his first acts as president, Bush moved to block funding for international groups that provide abortion counseling abroad."

"Bush has decided to block U.S. funds to international family-planning groups that offer abortion and abortion counseling, a White House official said Monday."

"Calling the FDA decision to permit distribution of RU-486 "wrong," Bush said, "I fear that making this abortion pill widespread will make abortions more and more common, rather than more and more rare." —Fort Worth Star-Telegram

January 21, 2001 - Reuters

"Moving quickly upon taking office, President George W. Bush on Saturday issued an order that essentially blocked some of the last-minute executive orders and rules laid down by outgoing President Clinton. The order was believed to apply to such orders as new regulations for managed care programs under Medicare and new environmental rules on runoff from animal feeding operations."

Issued a proclamation declaring today a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving, urging Americans to spend their Sunday in prayer and reflection, recalling "all that unites us" and ,supposedly, having us give thanks for his inauguration.

January 19, 2001 - WASHINGTON

"Democrats, led by Joseph Biden, opened Mr Powell's confirmation hearing by expressing deep concern that the new Bush administration may rush to withdraw American troops from Bosnia and Kosovo, endangering the fragile Balkan peace."

January 10, 2001 - villagevoice.com

"In a report posted at the nonprofit's Web site (www.pfaw.org), the group reveals that Ashcroft has voted against abortion rights and even common forms of birth control, and systematically turned aside the judicial nominations of woman after woman."

January 2, 2001 - Daily Voice, Bosnian national daily from Sarajevo

"According to the “Sunday Times“ the newly elected US President intends to start an American troop withdrawal from the Balkans immediately after entering the White House. “The Sunday Times ”assessed that Bush’s move will upset America’s European allies."

One British diplomat said that Americans most likely would not get the allies’ approval for a significant withdrawal from the Balkans, because American presence there is crucial. Bush’s plans have upset the Clinton administration, which has warned that a withdrawal could jeopardize relations with European allies.

"The incoming team at the State Department, under Secretary designate Colin Powell's leadership, must evaluate the situation on the ground in the short-to-medium term as discussions among the Allies about the implementation of the European Rapid Defense Force continue. Any added pressure on the President designate from Congress or the American people to pull American troops out of the Balkans will have to be countered with a strong rationale for maintaining troops in that region as part of an overall presentation of foreign policy priorities by the new administration."