Bush's Uncle Is Executive At Bank Fined for Lax Oversight of Saudi Money

As if the Bush-Saudi ties couldn't get any deeper, check this out (you really can't make this up):

RIGGS BANK FINED FOR LAX OVERSIGHT OF SAUDI MONEY, WHICH MIGHT HAVE GONE TO TERRORISTS
According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank." The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, "may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists." According to the Washington Post, federal regulators "called Riggs actions a "'willful, systemic' violation of anti-money-laundering law." Riggs officials have "acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia."

PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK
According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.

For more, read this AP article or this NY Times expose.

Why Don't Those Drug Cards Actually Save Anyone Any Money?

You may be wondering whether the highly-touted Medicare drug cards are actually going to save you any money, as the President has repeatedly promised. The fact is, they probably won't. Why would the Administration create a program that doesn't actually help consumers, but would enrich drug companies? Maybe its because the provisions creating the drug cards were written by a long-time Bush crony from a Texas company Bush himself used to own stock in:

"A Texas company owned by a campaign contributor and former business associate of President Bush could profit if Medicare endorses its drug card program under guidelines set by legislation the president signed into law...David Halbert, a longtime friend and contributor to several of Bush's campaigns, helped craft the portion of the Medicare bill that allows seniors to buy discount drug cards they can use to purchase medicine from May of 2004 until 2006...Halbert's company, Irving, Texas-based AdvancePCS, is one of the nation's largest pharmacy benefit management companies and would be well-positioned to compete for Medicare's endorsement to issue the discount cards...Bush had been an investor in a Halbert-owned predecessor company to AdvancePCS, called Advance Paradigm... Halbert contributed to Bush campaigns from his 1994 gubernatorial race through his White House bid in 2000."
- Boston Globe, 12/12/03

"Public records give no precise amount of how much he earned on the Advance stock sale, but Bush's financial disclosure form made public last year shows that he realized a capital gain, or profit, of as much as $1 million on the sale" of the same firm that he allowed to write portions of the Medicare bill, and who will now benefit from the drug card provisions.
- Center for Public Integrity, 3/7/04

Mitch Daniels: The Most Fiscally Irresponsible Official In American History

From Citizens Against Government Waste, a purportedly non-partisan organization that conveniently ignores factual reality to support only Republicans:

"Throughout his career, Mitch Daniels has understood the need for fiscal discipline. Now, more than ever, we need people like Mitch Daniels in the [Indiana] governor's seat. Faced with a $1 billion state budget deficit this year, our children and grandchildren will be left with an enormous burden that cannot easily be repaid."

Last I checked, Mitch Daniels as Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, personally oversaw the worst budget deterioration in American history. Daniels was the principle architect of budget policies that, took a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2000 and turned it into a projected deficit of $4.4 trillion today by the time he left the White House to run for governor in 2003. That is a$10 trillion deterioriation. To put it another way, in the 29 months Daniels served as the nation's top budget official, the nation's budget picture deteriorated by more than $12 million a day, every single day, 7 days a week. Just think how much bigger Daniels could make the $1 billion deficit in Indiana...

Did You Get - Or Read - That Memo?

It seems National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has made a hobby of receiving memos/reports with dire information, and then doing absolutely nothing about them:

RICE RECEIVED RED CROSS MEMO WARNING ABOUT PRISON ABUSE:

"ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger spoke about prison conditions in January with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice." No action was taken.
- AP, 5/11/04

RICE CLAIMS TO NOT HAVE SEEN OR NOT HAVE REMEMBERED URANIUM MEMO:

Rice admits she received repeated memos and warnings from the CIA not to include a claim that Iraq had acquired Uranium in the President's 2003 State of the Union. Nonetheless, the claim was included by Rice and others in the State of the Union. To defend herself, she actually said “I can tell you, I either didn't see the memo or I don't remember seeing the memo.”
- Condoleezza Rice, 7/30/03

RICE RECEIVED MEMO ABOUT BIN LADEN ATTACK BEFORE 9/11, AND DID NOTHING:

Rice claimed that the Administration had no warning about an imminent Al Qaeda attack before 9/11, but then acknowledged receiving a memo in August 2001 which was titled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." She had also received “a stream of other alarming reports on al Qaeda’s intentions.” She claimed that these memos “were focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests” but sources have made clear that the memos “were focused on attacks within the United States.”
- Rice 9/11 Testimony, 4/8/04; Washington Post, 4/13/04 & 5/19/02

Not Protecting Our Troops

CLAIM:

"Our troops continue to face serious danger, and this government is giving them every means of protecting themselves and every means necessary to gain victory."
- President Bush, 5/10/04

FACT:

"Many soldiers who are there say the Pentagon is failing to protect them with the best technology America has to offer…That has translated into a lack of armor… A breakdown of the casualty figures suggests that many U.S. deaths and wounds in Iraq simply did not need to occur. According to an unofficial study by a defense consultant that is now circulating through the Army, there have been 142 casualties by land mines or improvised explosive devices, while 48 others died in rocket-propelled-grenade attacks. Almost all those soldiers were killed while in unprotected vehicles, which means that perhaps one in four of those killed in combat in Iraq might be alive if they had had stronger armor around them, the study suggested."
- Newsweek, 5/3/04

FACT:

“The military already has identified unmet funding needs, including initiatives aimed at providing equipment and weapons for troops in Iraq. The Army has publicly identified nearly $6 billion in funding requests that did not make Bush's $402 billion defense budget for 2005, including $132 million for bolt-on vehicle armor; $879 million for combat helmets, silk-weight underwear, boots and other clothing; $21.5 million for M249 squad automatic weapons; and $27 million for ammunition magazines, night sights and ammo packs. Also unfunded: $956 million for repairing desert-damaged equipment and $102 million to replace equipment lost in combat. The Marine Corps' unfunded budget requests include $40 million for body armor, lightweight helmets and other equipment.”
- Washington Post, 4/21/04