Ashcroft, 9/11, and Government as Victim by Future of Freedom Foundation April 26, 2010 John Ashcroft resigned as attorney general last November. Unfortunately, few Americans are aware of how profoundly Ashcroft botched his job and abused his power. He continues to be revered by many conservatives, despite his role in dragging the Bill of Rights into the mud. Nothing better illustrates both Ashcroft’s arrogance and verbal manipulations than his testimony last April 13 to the federal commission on the 9/11 attacks. “The simple fact of September 11th is this: We did not know an attack was coming because for nearly a decade our government had blinded itself to its enemies,” he solemnly informed the commission in his opening statement. Yet, Ashcroft’s comment is true only if stupidity is considered a form of blindness. The commissioners sought information on federal failures leading to 9/11. Ashcroft turned the session on its head, portraying the government as a victim and seeking to induce guilt far and wide about the mistreatment of G-men. He declared, The single greatest structural cause for ...
Bush Profiteering from Housing Defaults by Future of Freedom Foundation April 26, 2010 President Bush is determined to end the prejudice against people who want to buy a home but don’t have any money. Since he became president the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has spent more than $120 billion. HUD public-housing projects continue to devastate poor neighborhoods. HUD largesse to local governments continues to finance the confiscation and demolition of private homes, and HUD programs continue to spur fraud and corruption around the nation. Bush has done almost nothing to reduce HUD’s damage to America. Instead, he is devoting himself to expanding home giveaways. He proclaimed on June 16, 2003, Homeownership is more than just a symbol of the American dream; it is an important part of our way of life. Core American values of individuality, thrift, responsibility, and self-reliance are embodied in homeownership. In Bush’s eyes, self-reliance is so wonderful that the government should subsidize it. Bush could ...
Gun Nuts at 30,000 Feet? by Future of Freedom Foundation April 26, 2010 After the pervasive failure of airport security on 9/11, the Air Line Pilots Association sought federal permission for pilots to carry handguns to defeat hijackers. Capt. Steve Luckey, chairman of the association’s flight-security committee, explained, “The only reason we want lethal force in the cockpit is to provide an opportunity to get the aircraft on the ground. We don’t have 911. We can’t pull over.” The Bush administration rejected the request, preferring instead to rely on jet fighters to shoot down hijacked civilian planes. U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta declared on March 4, 2002, “I don’t feel we should have lethal weapons in the cockpit” — as if airplanes themselves were not among the most deadly lethal weapons. Congress eventually trumped the administration, passing a law in September 2002 to create a program to train pilots to use firearms to defend their planes. (The Transportation Security Administration — TSA — effectively buried the program with red tape, ensuring that only ...
Bra Wars by Future of Freedom Foundation April 26, 2010 President Bush continually scapegoats foreigners for his decisions to pilfer Americans. While Bush loves to praise free trade, in reality, free trade is whatever George Bush says it is. For Bush, like other recent presidents, fairness is the magic word to sanctify whatever trade restrictions he imposes. In his speeches, President Bush has made some of ...
FBI Blunders and the First World Trade Center Bombing by Future of Freedom Foundation April 26, 2010 As Americans continue trying to understand how the government failed to stop the 9/11 hijack conspiracy, important clues can be garnered from examining the first World Trade Center bombing in February 1993. This bombing the most economically destructive terrorist attack ever to occur in the United States up to that time was partly the result of mind-numbing ...
Torture as Due Process by Future of Freedom Foundation April 1, 2010 After 9/11, the word of the president was supposedly the only protection that the rights and liberties of the American people needed. After 9/11, President Bush granted himself unlimited, unchecked power over anyone in the world suspected of being a terrorist. The Supreme Court, in a series of rulings ...
Terrorism Debacles in the Reagan Administration by Future of Freedom Foundation April 27, 2010 Many Americans are unaware of the dark side of U.S. foreign policy’s past. Some conservatives think that Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy began and ended with the thwarting of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, there were many other U.S. actions during his reign that did not reflect favorably on the U.S. government’s devotion to human rights. There were ...
Iraqi Sanctions and American Intentions: Blameless Carnage? Part 2 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 29, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 While Pentagon officials bluntly admitted in 1991 that sanctions aimed to punish the Iraqi people, candor evaporated as the death toll rose. The State Department’s website announced in June 1999, Sanctions are not intended to harm the people of Iraq. That is why the sanctions regime has always specifically exempted food ...
Iraqi Sanctions and American Intentions: Blameless Carnage? Part 1 by Future of Freedom Foundation March 29, 2010 Part 1 | Part 2 President Bush’s advisors assured Americans that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators — with flowers and hugs — when the United States invaded Iraq. That promise turned out to be one of the biggest frauds of the Iraqi debacle. One major reason for the animosity to U.S. troops is the ...
China: From Brutal Oppressor to Terrorist Victim by Future of Freedom Foundation March 29, 2010 Since 9/11, President Bush has endlessly reminded the world that he is leading a “freedom-loving coalition” to vanquish terrorists anywhere and everywhere. However, the more closely one examines the details of the Bush coalition, the more difficult it becomes to detect any love of freedom. The Bush administration’s anti-terrorism partnership with China exemplifies its hypocrisy and contempt for human rights. ...
The Greatest Ignorance of the Greatest Number by Future of Freedom Foundation April 25, 2010 The specter of an ignorant or indifferent populace has long haunted democracy. Montesquieu wrote in 1748, The tyranny of a principal in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy. James Madison warned, A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is ...
Bush at War by Future of Freedom Foundation April 2, 2010 This article was posted March 5, 2003. Bob Woodward, the famed Watergate investigator and now a senior editor at the Washington Post, was granted unprecedented access to George W. Bush and to some of the top players in his administration in the wake of September 11. The result is a new book Bush at War ...
