"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr., 9/15/95
We should all fear this 'man' !!
"Welcome to Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
"[It's] time for the human race to enter the solar system." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -George W. Bush, Jr.
"We're all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr. to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93
"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit...Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -Governor George W. Bush, Jr., 8/11/94
"I've got a record, a record that is conservative and a record that is compassionated."
"...The term for this failure of mental word-processing is dyslexia, and it can occur in mild and severe forms. I used to have the job of tutoring a dyslexic child, and I know something about the symptoms. So I kicked myself hard when I read the profile of Governor George W. Bush, by my friend and colleague Gail Sheehy, in this month's Vanity Fair. All those jokes and cartoons and websites about his gaffes, bungles and malapropisms? We've been unknowingly teasing the afflicted. The poor guy is obviously dyslexic, and dyslexic to the point of near-illiteracy. Numerous experts and friends of the dynasty give Sheehy their considered verdict to this effect.
The symptoms and clues have been staring us in the face for some time. Early in the campaign, Bush said that he did indeed crack the odd book and was even at that moment absorbed by James Chace's biography of Dean Acheson. But when asked to report anything that was in the damn volume, the governor pulled up an empty net. His brother Neil is an admitted dyslexic. His mother has long been a patron of various foundations and charities associated with dyslexia. How plain it all now seems.
Does any of this matter? Of course it does. Bush has already claimed with hand on heart that he personally scrutinized the death-row appeals of more than a hundred condemned wretches in the shocking Texas prison system; we now have to face the fact that he not only did not review the clemency petitions but could not have read them even if he wanted to. Aides now remember the times they presented the governor or the candidate with that crucial briefing paper, only to see him toss it on the desk and demand a crisp, verbal, "bottom line" summary of its contents."
Now I realize that this next story is old news, but if you join the dots you can see why this man is having such a disasterous impact on the future of our planet. After all he is only human - the antichrist wouldn't be dyslexic, would he?
Prison politics
Under Gov. George W. Bush, Texas has the largest -- and fastest growing -- incarcerated population in America.
By Bruce Shapiro - - - - - - - - - -
August 29, 2000 | Candidates for president make much of what the elder George Bush used to call "the vision thing." But the real vision isn't in politicians' rhetoric: It is found embedded in the quotidian details of policy.
So how is this for a "vision thing": According to a study to be released Tuesday by a nonpartisan think tank, under Gov. George W. Bush, Texas has become the world capital of imprisonment. The Justice Policy Institute in Washington reports that more than 200,000 people are locked up under the jurisdiction of the Lone Star State's prison system, more than in any other state.
Not only that: "If Texas was a nation separate from the United States, it would have the world's highest incarceration rate" -- higher than China or Russia -- and the number keeps increasing.
The Lone Star State's prison population is also growing at twice the national average. As the Justice Policy Institute points out, "Since 1990, nearly one in five new prisoners added to the nation's prisons was in Texas." This astonishing rise is not owed entirely to George W. Bush. In Texas, as in the rest of the country, prison expansion is a relentlessly bipartisan enterprise. Many of the reforms that have tripled Texas' incarcerated population in just a decade began under his Democratic predecessor, Ann Richards.
Yet the Justice Policy Institute's study "Texas Tough?" is profoundly relevant to this year's presidential race. For one thing, much of that growth can be traced to harsh reforms touted by Bush as governor: returning record numbers of ex-offenders to prison for technical violations of parole, tripling the juvenile incarceration rate, and broadening the nonviolent offenses that lead to prison time (according to the JPI study, nearly 90,000 individuals are locked up in Texas for nonviolent crime, more "than the entire incarcerated population of the United Kingdom ... and bigger than New York's prison system).
But the study also challenges today's conventional wisdom about crime and punishment in ways that go well beyond the presidential race. "There is little evidence," the Justice Policy Institute's researchers find, "that Texas' severe correctional system is responsible" for lower crime rates. To the contrary: When it comes to reducing crime, "a state-by-state comparison shows the Lone Star State to be lagging behind other jurisdictions which have not increased their prison systems as dramatically."
In fact, during the five years of Bush's prison-building tenure, Texas had the smallest drop in crime among other large states, and half that of the nation as a whole. New York, for instance, had one of the slowest-growing prison populations in the U.S. during the past five years -- yet crime fell four times faster. In other words, higher incarceration does not lead to falling crime.
George W. Bush says he wants to do for America what he has done for Texas.
Air Pollution: State rank based on total air pollution emissions in 1997: #1 (worse)
Toxic Waste: State rank of most toxic chemicals released into the environment in 1997: #1 (worse)
Children in Poverty: Percentage of children below the federal poverty line in 1997: 26%
2-6-98 "I'm satisfied that everybody who has been put to death in the state of Texas has been given full accord under the law. I believe our system has treated people on death row fairly," Bush said. (source: Associated Press)
6/26/98 "As a supporter of the death penalty for those who commit horrible crimes, I feel a special obligation to make sure the State of Texas never executes a person for a crime they may not have committed. I take this action so that all Texans can continue to trust the integrity and fairness of our criminal justice system." (source: Office of the Governor)
3/2... "I've got a record, a record that is conservative and a record that is compassionated." -- NYT Debate Transcript
GW Bush has executed 152 people (avg. 1 every 2 weeks) - many with seriously flawed trials - 9 confirmed innocent.
When asked about the unusual number of death penalty executions in Texas--about 40 percent of the U.S. total each year--self-proclaimed "compassionate conservative" Governor George W. Bush said that maybe other states are not executing enough people. During the presidential debate, Bush boasted on Larry King's CNN radio talk show: "There's no doubt in my mind that each person who has been executed in my state was guilty of their crime." How would he know? His Board of Pardons and Paroles never held so much as a hearing on any death row clemency appeal. Refusing to open his Board of Pardons and Paroles to public scrutiny, Bush said that it would only provide "a chance for people to rant and rail." When David Letterman questioned Bush about capital punishment, Bush acknowledged that his support of the death penalty was based on the belief that executions deter crime. But when Letterman asked how he could be sure, Bush replied: It's a hard statistic to prove." In other words, Bush has "compassionately" presided over 150 executions--odds are some of them were judicial murders--and he's done so without knowing even if deterrence is valid, his prime justification for capital punishment.
Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, recently asserted that "Texas has one of the least adequate or reliable systems of death penalty defense in the country." Texas executes more prisoners than any other state. But, despite all its executions, Texas has a violent crime rate almost identical to the national average. Moreover, while the federal government and most states in the U.S. have a death penalty, our European counterparts do not. Yet the murder rate in the U.S. is six times higher than that in Britain, seven times higher than in France, five times higher than in Australia, and five times higher than in Sweden.
