Dan Burton (Taxpayers' Money, Ethics, Lies, Hypocrisy)

FACT: Dan went to Frankfurt to investigate the German postal system. Strangely, Burton traveled without any congressional aides, and had no formal agenda or briefing papers - highly unusual for an official "fact-finding" tour. Truth be told, Burton's wife is in Frankfurt right now undergoing experimental cancer treatment. To sum it up, Burton traveled abroad at taxpayer expense for the purposes of visiting his sick wife and then lied about it. He was taking a government-paid trip, including per diems and Air Force transport, but he'll never be investigated because the congressman in charge of the committee which investigates government waste is none other than….Dan Burton.

Bush Administration (Honor and Integrity, Illegal Contributions, Special Interests)

FACT: Recently, news broke of a secret NT$3.5 billion slush fund which was used to buy favors for Taiwan in Washington, DC, and elsewhere around the world. Leaked documents indicate that two Bush Administration officials received payments from the slush fund before they were tapped to join the administration. One official, Carl Ford, is now the assistant secretary of defense for intelligence and research, and the other, James Kelly is the assistant secretary of state of East Asia. Online Journal reports that Carl Ford was responsible for millions of dollars donated to the Bush campaign and the RNC. 

COMMENT: This raises questions of possible indirect foreign campaign contributions, something that the GOP tried to pin on Al Gore. We'll see how much face time these illegal Chinese campaign contributions receive.

Bush Administration (Corporate Interests, Oil, Pro Terrorism, Personal Interest, Aristocracy) 

FACT: According to the Boston Herald, Saudi Arabia is, "perhaps the biggest incubator for anti-Western Islamic terrorists." The Bush administration seems skillfully able to overlook this minor detail, what with all the money flowing into their pockets and all. W may like to "root out the evil-doers" but certainly not if they're lining his pockets. Take for example former president George H.W. Bush, senior adviser with the Carlyle Group, an organization which has deep ties to the Saudi royal family. Or Dick Cheney, who as head of Halliburton, Inc. worked to secure several large contracts with Saudi companies. Or Condoleeza Rice, who was a member of the board of directors of Chevron, another company with numerous Saudi business connections. 

George H. W. Bush (Terrorist Connection, Conflict of Interest, Carlyle Group, 911) 

FACT: The New York Times reported back in March 2001 that ex-President Bush was touring Saudi Arabia on behalf of the Carlyle Group, using his political contacts to further his business interests. According to Judicial Watch, the bin Laden family has a substantial investment in the Carlyle Group, and have met with George Bush Sr. on several occasions. The Bin Laden family is currently under investigation following the September 11 attacks. The FBI subpoenaed their bank records to find out whether they're funding Osama or not. 

COMMENT: As of this point, George Bush Senior is still working for the company. 

George W. Bush (Aristocracy, Foreign Policy, Stupidity, Nepotism) 

FACT: It is not unusual for an incoming Administration to reward their friends and big donors with ambassadorships to largely innocuous posts in places like the Bahamas, Andorra, or Micronesia. But President Bush has a different idea. According to USA Today, so far Bush has given 22 out of 27 ambassadorships (81%) to "people with political or personal connections and no diplomatic experience". He even nominated a former college fraternity brother to be ambassador to China. 

COMMENT: Sino-U.S. relations are already strained and in need of an experienced diplomat to mend the wounds. Old frat brothers don't quite make it. So here is another threat to world stability resting on the pseudo-nepotistic preferences of an illegitimate president.

Dick Cheney (Lies, Criminal, Imperiling the lives of others)

FACT: Cheney was arrested for driving drunk.

COMMENT: Let’s remember that this is no laughing matter. Thousands of people are killed or otherwise have their lives ruined every year by such grossly negligent and selfish imbeciles as Bush and Cheney. They shouldn’t be allowed to laugh this off.

Clinton Administration (Exonerated)

FACT: The eight-year, nearly $80 million investigation has yielded no indictments on the Lewinsky
matter. No indictments on Whitewater. No indictments on the travel office. No indictments
on the FBI files. No indictments on the Vince Foster suicide. No indictments all up and
down the line. 

Clinton Administration (Ethics)

FACT: Do you know how many Reagan administration officials were convicted -- not just indicted, but convicted -- of crimes while, for conduct while they were in office? Thirty. Do you know how many Clinton
Administration officials were? One. The Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Agriculture, in a case that involved football tickets. One person.  After eight years and seven independent counsels, dozens of congressional committees, scores of right-wing lawsuits, tens of thousands of investigative journalist
pieces -- one person. And that, the Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Trent Lott (Nepotism, Corporate Interests) 07/2002

FACT: The son of Senator Lott has been quietly lobbying Congress for over a year, according to Roll Call. Lott Jr. was paid $60,000 by BellSouth for work he did while the telecom company was engaged in a battle over the Tauzin-Dingell bill to deregulate the broadband Internet business. A BellSouth VP deneys that his contact had anything to do with his hiring "I literally didn't think about what was going on in the Senate," said the BellSouth VP. "We didn't hire them because of the familial relationship." 

Trent Lott (Misuse of Government Resources, Ethics, First Ammendment Rights) 

FACT: Last week the Senate Minority Leader called for the IRS to audit the NAACP, on the grounds that "They were acting totally as an arm of the Democratic National Committee in a totally vicious, inaccurate television ad." 

COMMENT: This was not only a gross violation of any standard of ethics, but also a blatent shot across the bow to all who wish to express their Constitutional right to free speech.

Mark Racicot (Conflict of Interest, Corporate Interests) 

FACT: When Jim Gilmore was fired as head of the RNC earlier this year his replacement was chosen quickly. Marc Racicot - successful politician and close friend of George W. Bush, was nominated to fill the empty chair. However, according to the Washington Post, Racicot is also a "major player in Washington's lobbying industry." And he has no intention to step down from that role, even as he heads the party that holds both the White House and the House of Representatives. Racicot is currently registered as a lobbyist with seven organizations, (including Enron) but he is sticking with the National Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, who is currently engaged in intensive lobbying to weaken the Clean Air Act. Last week, Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the DNC, said, "There is a real potential there for abuse, but the decision is ultimately up to the Republican Party." 

Reagan Administration (Ethics, Criminal, Convictions, Iran-Contra)

FACT: Do you know how many Reagan administration officials were convicted -- not just indicted, but convicted -- of crimes while, for conduct while they were in office? Thirty. Do you know how many Clinton
Administration officials were? One. The Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Agriculture, in a case that involved football tickets. One person.  After eight years and seven independent counsels, dozens of congressional committees, scores of right-wing lawsuits, tens of thousands of investigative journalist
pieces -- one person. And that, the Chief of Staff of the Secretary of Agriculture.

Karl Rove (Conflict of Interest, Lies, Criminal, Corporate Interest) 

FACT: Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove owned more than $250,000 of stock in Intel Corporation while he met with the company's chief executive and two lobbyists as they pushed for federal approval of a corporate merger. The administration approved the deal less than two months later, bringing Rove a fat profit.

George Argyros (Aristocracy, Punish the impoverished/Citizenry, Criminal, Honor an Integrity) 

FACT: George Argyros, a Newport Beach billionaire who is the Bush2 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. 

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) 

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

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. 

Tom Feeney (Corporate Interests, Cronyism) 04/2002

FACT: It was reported that the Orlando regional transit authority (Lynx) voted to ask Jeb Bush to deny a bill proposed by Florida House Speaker Tom Feeney. The bill would shut down the agency's transportation program for the poor and elderly. In addition, if the bill is passed, a firm represented by a very good friend of Tom Feeney gets to take over Lynx's $47 million transit contract. 

Kay Bailey Hutchison (Indictment, Taxpayer's Money, Aristocracy, Ethics) 

FACT: "Senate staff are compensated for the purpose of assisting senators in their official legislative and representational duties, and not for the purpose of performing personal or other non-official activities." - so says the Senate Ethics Manual. But now Kay Hutchison, the junior senator from Texas, is causing a bit of a stir on Capitol Hill. It was alleged last week that she is indeed using her staff for unofficial and personal duties - duties which include chauffeuring her husband around town, checking out the mall sales at Tyson's Corner, Virginia, and bringing bagels and coffee to her home every morning and waiting on the doorstep without knocking until the door is opened. In fact, a source in her office reported that Hutchison threw a fit when a staffer showed up one morning with bagels from Union Station and not from her favorite bagel shop at Dupont Circle (halfway across town). However, it's not the first time that Hutchison has been in trouble for this kind of behavior - when she was Texas' state treasurer back in 1993, several staffers publicly accused her of making them perform personal tasks, and she was indicted by a grand jury for official misconduct that same year. 

Eugene Scalia (Nepotism, Taxpayers Expense, Payback, Election 2000, Labor)

FACT: The New York Post reported last week that Eugene, the nominee for Labor Department attorney, will be up before the Health, Education and Labor Committee in September. However, Eugene didn’t quite get the free ride that Strom Jr. received. You see, Eugene face a tough time over some comments he made, "Ergonomics is quackery" - it's not like he’s ever had to actually do any hard work in his life before, so how would he know? Although it's lucky for him that his daddy was in charge of deciding who won last year's election, otherwise he probably wouldn't have been nominated at all.

COMMENT: It seems that affirmative action is a-okay with the GOP when you're talking about rich white men.

Strom Thurmond Jr. (Nepotism, Aristocracy)

FACT: There's always nepotism. When Congress returns, Strom Thurmond Jr. will almost certainly be appointed to the post of U.S. Attorney, despite the fact that the 28-year-old is only three years out of law school. But his dad is the senior senator for South CarolinaSo what other credentials must one have to determine the fate of others.