Bad Deeds for 9-4-2007

More Untruths from Republican Presidential Candidates – Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed U.S. job growth had been nearly 17 times faster than Europe’s. Actually, European Union employment grew faster than that of the U.S. last year.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused Democratic candidates of “appeasement” toward Islamic terrorists. In fact, leading Democratic candidates have spoken out strongly against terrorism.
Sen. John McCain claimed American families spend $140 billion of their income preparing federal income tax returns. We find no support for that figure, which the Internal Revenue Service puts at $19 billion.
Rep. Tom Tancredo claimed illegal immigrants “are taking a large part of our health care dollars.” But the independent Rand Corp. estimates that undocumented immigrants account for 1.5 percent of health care spending or less.

Bill O’Reilly Would be 100 % Right if it Weren’t For the Fact That He is 100% Wrong – Bill O’Reilly says, “The stakes in Iraq are enormous, and that point has been consistently hidden from the American public by a media that despises the Bush administration and is openly rooting for a Democratic president in 2008.” But a 12-year old shows Bill-O is wrong again. (This is a fun read!)

White House Scrubs Site in Attempt to Make Office Exempt From Freedom of Information – The White House has scrubbed its Web site of evidence it has reversed its policies on allowing public access to information to which it is legally entitled. Sometime over the weekend, White House computer technicians removed from government Web sites any references to the Office of Administration or its previous compliance with Freedom of Information Act requests.

How the White House Strategized to Expand Executive Power – Bush administration officials, including then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Vice President Cheney’s current chief of staff David Addington, promoted strategies for expanding executive power following the Sept. 11 attacks, including broad legal justifications for controversial secret surveillance plans and detention procedures for enemy combatants.

White House Legal Memos Were “Advance Pardons” for Lawbreaking – The purpose of the Office of Legal Counsel’s review process is supposed to be to collect legal guidance about courses of prospective policies an administration might want to pursue. Under the Bush administration, however, OLC review became a waiver of immunity for breaking the law.

Push to Change California Electoral Voting Linked to Texan Bob “Swift Boat’ Perry – Lawyers behind a California ballot proposal that could benefit the 2008 Republican presidential nominee have ties to Texas homebuilder Bob Perry who financed attacks on Democrat John Kerry’s Vietnam War record in the 2004 presidential campaign.

For the first time on record, two Atlantic hurricanes have made landfall at category five in the same year.

Regards,

Jim