Blowing my own horn...

...may be unseemly, but since Jesse took kind notice, I'd like to point out that Salon's list of Bushco scandals is a bit short. While they list 34 scandals, "...everyone of them worse than Whitewater," (which sets the bar somewhat low, since, as has been noted elsewhere, Whitewater wasn't a scandal at all), the Upper Left Scandal Scorecard went on hiatus with a total of 64, 48 coming directly from the Administration and 16 more from their partners in crime across Capitol Hill.

I may no claim to a complete list, and new entries have been piling up while I've been otherwise occupied (And, yeah, the Scorcard's coming back. After all, they just can't seem to avoid racking them up.), but here's a quick recap...




Administration

1. Cheney's secret Energy Task Force

2. Ashcroft's illegal campaign contributions in 2000

3. Boeing I - the $23 billion tanker lease deal

4. Boeing II - the $1.3 billion surveillance aircraft boondoggle

5. Bush-Cheney 2000's failure to report $14 million spent on "recount" activities

6. Haliburton in Iraq

7. Haliburton in Nigeria

8. The Valerie Plame outing

9. Withholding information about the Medicare bill costs

10. Daniel Montgomery, Director of the ATSB, accepting illegal gifts from airlines.

11. John Korsmo, FHFB chair and his wife Michelle, a DOL official, involved in illegal political fundraising.

12. The suspension of Parks Police Chief Teresa Chambers in violation of Title 5 whistleblower protections.

13. The Iraqi National Congress' use of government funds to lobby for war.

14. Misuse of the Secret Service and other security to shield the President and Vice President from dissent on the campaign trail.

15. Abuse of the Presidential Records Act, to shield Reagan, Bush I and Bush II from scrutiny, and leaking information about Clinton pardons.

16. DOJ and Interior blocking the investigation of oil leases that cheated American Indian nations.

17. Charges by John Dean that Bush knowingly violated the terms of the Iraq war resolution.

18. Diversion of $700 million in Afghan war funds to preparations for Iraq invasion.

19. Failure to account for $40 billion in 9/11 emergency response funds.

20. Use of IRS web site to disseminate political messages from RNC press releases.

21. Administration appointees with fraudulent academic credentials, including an Assistant and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and a member of the National Commission on Presidential Scholars.

22. HHS ethics investigations, including Thomas Scully negotiating a new job representing companies that directly benefit from his work as Medicare chief.

23. The non-partisan General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the administration engaged in illegal propaganda with its fake news segments about the new Medicare law.

24. Rumsfeld's phony list of Iraqi contractors, provided to Rep. Ike Skelton, that doesn't include key Abu Ghraib players Titan and CACI, or Vinnell, MPRI Int., SAIC, Eagle Group, etc.

25. The Defense Department failure to submit the required quarterly reports on how supplemental authorizations have been spent since May 9, 2003, a report that covered spending through February 28, 2003.

26. A dozen current and former truckers say they risked their lives driving across Iraq in empty trucks more than 100 times while "dodging bullets, bricks and homemade bombs" -- trips their employer, a Halliburton subsidiary, billed to the U.S. government.

27. Deputy AG James Comey's attempt to improperly influence the Supreme Court deliberations and/or poison any potential jury pool in the Jose Padilla 'unlawful combatant' case.

28. The DoD/DoJ coverup of the chain of command responsibility for Abu Ghraib tortures. As of 6/9/04, no commissioned officer is facing Court Martial charges for the events at the prison.
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29. Attorney General John Ashcroft's obstruction of Congressional investigators by refusing to provide an unclassified memorandum reported to instruct Administration officials on methods to avoid culpability for torture and other war crime violations against prisoners.

30. Using Doug Feith, a political employee, to award no-bid contracts, coordinated with the Vice President's Chief of Staff, to the Vice President's former firm, Haliburton.

31. Bush's putting ideology above science in policy development, resulting in, among other things, allowing a Cabinet Secretary to withhold evidence in a Congressional Hearing and permitting idustry lobbyists to write mercury pollution legislation according to their profit desires instead of sound science.

32. Attorney General John Ashcroft giving false evidence under oath, according to the testimony of two FBI agents.

33. The Justice Department release without trial of terror suspect Nabil al-Marabh for deportation to Syria.

34. The Department of Homeland security awarding a high-level security clearance to Faisal Gill despite his submitting an application that concealed his association with indicted terrorist Abdurahman Alamoudi.

35. John A. Shaw, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for International Technology Security, conducting "...unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts," and using the results "...to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients."

36. Bush officials editing the EPA report on NYC air quality after 9/11 in a way that "added reassuring statements and deleted cautionary statements."

37. Misuse of a technology contract with Affiliated Contract Services to employ interrogators at Gitmo.

38. Leaking the identity of Muhammed Naeem Noor Khan, the al Qaida double agent in Pakistan.

39. The EPA delivered an advance copy of a rule for commercial laundries to industry representatives for editing, letting the industry define the regulation.

40. A GAO audit finds the Defense Department has an error rate of 95% in payroll accounting for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

41. The neo-con cabal operating out of Doug Feith's DoD office, ranging from the espionage investigation of Larry Franklin through the House and Senate investigations of a broader pattern of misbehavior surrounding Feith's operation.

42. The GAO reports that corporations are permitted to bid for US government contracts while using subsidiaries in foreign tax havens to gain a competetive bidding advantage.

43. HHS deleting a chart from its annual report that revealed the cost increases for Medicare recipients until Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) noticed its absence and demanded disclosure.

44. John Ashcroft's publicity tours to support passage of the PATRIOT, which, as Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) points out, apparently violate laws that prohibit lobbying by executive branch officials.

45. Conditions in the prisons operated by the BIA, which Interior officials report have produced at least 11 fatalities, 236 suicide attempts and 632 escapes since the Bush administration took office.

46. Department of Interior mismanagement of the Indian land trusts, and their legal battles against tribal efforts to gain compensation, despite repeated judical sanctions for misconduct and malfeasance.

47. The GAO found the Bush administration vioalted the law by allowing the insurance industry to impose illegal limits on Medicare recipients under a managed care trial program.

48. A serious breach of homeland security reponsiblities has occured as the Bush administration has sent an aging fleet of Coast Guard vessels into an expanded mission with an understaffed, inexperienced corps of Coasties.

Congress

49. The NRCC's illegal transfer of $500,000 in soft money to ineligible recipients during the 1999 primary season.

50. The House leadership censored the C-SPAN cameras in the chamber during the three hours the they were harassing members to switch their votes, locking the cameras on the Democratic side of the chamber.

51. DeLay selling influence to Westar Energy.

52. DeLay using the FAA to chase the Texas "Killer D's."

53. Rep. Tom Davis using his chairmanship of the House Government Reform Committee to block the Haliburton investigations.

54. Rep. Joe Barton using his franking privelege to contact voters outside the District he was elected to represent.

55. DeLay's PAC contributions to House Ethics investigators.

56. DeLay directing Texas Republican Peter Cloeren to channel contributions to out of state PACs in order to evade FEC contribution limits in a Texas Congressional race.

57. The Republican Congress not only failed to tighten of the rules requiring pensions to set aside enough money to meet their obligations, but actually loosened them, giving the biggest flexibility was given to the most troubled industries.

58. Senate Judiciary Committee computer theft.

59. The Nick Smith bribe.

60. Tom DeLay's illegal Texas legislative contributions.

61. Tom DeLay's bogus “Celebrations for Children” charity, used as a front for political receptions.

62. Tom DeLay's abuse of Treasury Department personnel for political puposes by ordering a a partisan analysis of John Kerry’s tax plan.

63. Bill Frist's financial stake in a medical malpractice insurer, while pushing malpractice "reform" in the Senate.

64. Rep. Henry Bonilla's American Dream PAC, which has contributed less than 9% of its funds to the minority candidates it was chartered to assist.

And before the wingnuts weigh in, if you haven't kept up with the posts that introduced each item in more depth, details for each and every charge can be readily found at www.google.com...