Keywords For Misc. (A-C): Abortion, Affirmative Action, Aristocracy, Bigotry, Corporate Interests, Criminal, Despicable Behavior, Election 2000, Ethics, Honor and Integrity, Hypocrisy, Labor, Un-American, Women's Rights

NICKNAMES: Right Wingers, Nazis, Fascists, Aristocrats, Fanatics, Zealots

Claude Allen (Abortion, Women's' Rights, Despicable behavior) 

FACT: Claude A. Allen is named Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. Allen has been criticized as Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources because he said, "abortion was a sticking point" in implementing Virginia's Children's Health Insurance Program. Allen said the federal Health Care Financing Administration, which provides two-thirds of the money for the program, wanted Virginia to allow abortion coverage in instances of rape and incest, rather than just when the life of the mother is endangered.

COMMENT: Apparently Mr. Allen has no problems with rape and incest. Ahhhhh. Conservative values working for us all. 

American Taxpayers Alliance (Corporate Interests, Despicable Behavior)

FACT: The American Taxpayers Alliance started running a TV ad in California last week attacking Governor Gray Davis for failing to protect the public from rising energy costs. Despite their seemingly altruistic motives, the "American Taxpayers Alliance" is actually a front group for hundreds of corporations, including Texas-based Reliant Energy, a firm with board members that include James Baker and Bush fundraiser Steve Ledbetter. 

COMMENT: So, Californians - energy companies are selling electricity to you at vastly over-inflated prices, then spending the profits on TV ads attacking your governor for failing to stop them. How do you feel? 

George Argyros (Aristocracy, Despicable Behavior, Criminal, Honor an Integrity) 

FACT: George Argyros, a Newport Beach billionaire who is the administration's pick for ambassador to Spain owns nearly 5,000 apartments in Orange County, CA, which he rents to poor and middle-class tenants. A recent OC Weekly investigation discovered that he "rewarded employees with bonuses for illegally withholding security deposits, overcharging tenants for apartment repairs and billing tenants for imaginary expenses," not to mention "reprimanded employees when they did not defraud tenants," and let's not forget how he "angrily complained to top managers on at least two occasions that they were not sufficiently padding tenant charges." 

COMMENT: the $50 million that Argyros raised for Bush's presidential campaign heavily overshadowed Argyros's lack of qualifications for an ambassadorial role. 

Arkansas Project (Lies) 

FACT: Billionaire rightwing media mogul Richard Mellon Scaife funded the Arkansas Project as an Anti-Clinton, Scandal mongering propaganda machine.

COMMENT: Employees would research, exploit, exaggerate and lie in order to bring down the Clintons.

David Bunning (Bigotry, Hypocrisy, Nepotism, Aristocracy, Affirmative Action) 

FACT: David Bunning, a 35-year-old kid whom the American Bar Association deemed "not qualified," was nominated for a federal judgeship. It turns out that David Bunning is the son of Republican Senator Jim Bunning so you can rest assured that he was approved.

COMMENT: It is well known that conservatives believe jobs should be awarded entirely on the basis of merit. This is the basis for their opposition to affirmative action of any kind. So all this talk of so-called "merit" is just a smoke screen to filter out those pesky minorities and woman. Oh well, that's OK, cuz rich kids deserve this support while others don't. (See also Strom Thurmond Jr., Scalia Jr., Bush Jr., Michael Powell - FCC Chief) 

Al Cárdenas (Election 2000, Bigotry)

FACT: Florida Republican Party chairman Al Cárdenas appeared in the Weekly Standard to denounce the credibility of the African-American leadership. "We need to call into question the African-American leaders and what they're saying,'' Cárdenas announced. "If we don't do that, [voters are] going to take the Democrats' and the African-American leadership's word for it. The only way we break that cycle is to call into question the credibility of those who are parlaying that message." Black leaders were understandably furious about the remarks. Frederica Wilson, chairwoman of the Florida Conference of Black State Legislators, said, "During the struggle for civil rights, it was common for those who wanted to protect segregation and deny minorities equal rights to attack black leaders physically and through more personal attacks on their credibility." 

Chris Carman (Election 2000, Criminal, Honor and Integrity) 

FACT: Carman, who resigned as a member of Manatee County's Republican Executive Committee in January, faces felony charges for voter fraud after casting two votes for George W. Bush in last year's election. After intercepting an absentee ballot mailed to his roommate Blair Hanner, Carman cast a vote for Bush, forged Hanner's signature, and mailed it in. When Hanner showed up to vote at the polls, Carman was exposed. In his defense he said, "I made a boo-boo." 

Census Bureau (Bigotry, Lies) 

FACT: It was reported last week that the Census Bureau has recommended against any adjustment in the 2000 census, even though estimates indicate that more than three million Americans, primarily minorities, were overlooked in Census 2000. Republicans have pushed for this result because if will affect the redrawing of electoral districts in their favor - for the next ten years. The Census Bureau decide not to use statistical sampling because they couldn't resolve the count in time to meet an (arbitrary) April 1st deadline. 

COMMENT: Deja vous - Election 2000. You can imagine that there was some Bush administration pressure on that decision given its consistency with excluding millions of American citizens from the electoral process. 

Lynne Cheney (Un-American, Freedom of Speech) 

FACT: Last week, the conservative group "American Council of Trustees and Alumni" (founder: Lynne Cheney) named 40 college professors whom they considered to be unpatriotic. These professors have been labeled as part of the "blame America first crowd" for, as an example, daring to suggest that there may be a similarity between the suffering of American citizens after September 11 and the suffering of Afghan citizens who are living in a war zone. 

Linda Chavez (Lies, Anti-Labor) 

FACT: If you recall, Linda Chavez was dismissed before she could be confirmed as Secretary of Labor, because she was employing an illegal alien as a live-in housework slave. Soon after that, Chavez appeared on CNN to make her case. "I think organized labor, I think quite mistakenly, somehow thought that I was going to be their worst nemesis," she told Wolf Blitzer. "I think I would have actually been very helpful in trying to bridge a gap that exists between the Republican Party and organized labor." A subsequent fundraising letter from Chavez says, however, "big labor has a radical socialist agenda." And in the letter, Chavez recalls that after she was nominated, "members of the media were calling me Big Labor's Worst Nightmare. And they were right!" 

Linda Chavez (Anti-Labor, Hypocrisy, Criminal, Ethics) 

FACT: Linda Chavez-Thompson is nominated as Secretary of Labor. It is discovered that she has been using Guatemalan immigrant Marta Mercado as a house servant for two years, paying her about $14 per week, a total of $1,500 over that span. She withdraws her nomination. Chavez had led the charge against Clinton nominee Zoe Baird, who had hired an illegal immigrant as nanny and paid her prevailing rates. Chavez also is a foe of minimum wage laws. Elaine Chao, wife of Senator Mitch McConnell, replaces her. 

John Cooksey (Bigotry) 09/2001

FACT: Rep. Cooksey told Louisiana radio stations that the police should crack down on anyone who might be "wearing a diaper on his head." After hearing that Attorney General John Ashcroft had announced that racial profiling is, and will remain, illegal, Cooksey said, "Well, I hope that no additional Americans die because of a failure to recognize that some people, that 100 percent of the people who were involved in this, met a certain profile."