* 57,700 Floridians are purged from voter rolls as "felons" by George Bush's brother Gov. Jeb Bush 5 months before 2000 election; most are African Americans and not felons at all, costing Al Gore the state and the election.

* Fighting a Florida recount in U.S. Supreme Court, Bush lawyers fly back and forth from Tallahassee to Washington on Enron jet.

* 2000 election is decided for Bush 5-4 by U.S. Supreme Court, which orders a halt to Florida vote recount based on an inapplicable constitutional provision and stipulates that its ruling cannot be used as legal precedent for any other case.

* California runs low on electricity immediately after election of Bush, who refuses to intervene. Texas energy companies including Enron are later convicted of creating false shortages to drive up prices.

* Secret Energy Council: Bush backers including Enron meet after election to re-write U.S. environmental laws.

* White House fights the Government Accountability Office's request for release of Energy Council documents all the way to Supreme Court, and prevails in a 5-4 decision.

* Shortly after inauguration, Bush reneges on campaign pledge to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions.

* EPA and other agencies are staffed with industry insiders who go to work reversing environmental protections in effect since 1970s.

* 60 eminent scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, send an open letter to the Bush administration, accusing it of shutting scientific advisory committees, stacking others with unqualified political appointees, and censoring reports that conflict with the administration's views.

* Bush tax giveaways deplete U.S. Treasury to reward top 1% of taxpayers.

* Bush ignores national security warning that Osama bin Laden is determined to strike U.S. targets.

* Bush sits with schoolchildren for seven minutes after being informed on September 11, 2001 that U.S. is under attack; several days later his administration over-rides the FAA ban on air travel and has bin Laden's relatives and other wealthy Saudis flown out of U.S. "for their safety."

* White House vigorously opposes creation of the 9-11 Commission.

* Bush and Cheney finally appear before 9-11 Commission together, and censor report's findings on Saudi involvement in attack.

* Judge Advocate General under Gen. Tommy Franks forbids a Predator Drone direct strike on Taliban leader Mullah Omar in first few hours of Afghan war. The hunt for Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden is then delegated to Afghan rebels in Tora Bora. Both terrorists escape and are still at large when Bush leaves office seven years later.

* Drug companies get their way as 2003 Medicare Bill prohibits government from negotiating lower prescription drug prices for seniors.

* U.N. weapons inspectors kicked out of Iraq when they find no Weapons of Mass Destruction; Bush administration uses "mushroom cloud" scare and false story of Iraqi involvement in 9-11 attacks to gain American support for Iraq invasion.

* Budgeted funds for Afghanistan war are diverted to invade Iraq.

* Any questioning of the war in Iraq is labelled "unpatriotic" as embedded U.S. press goes along for the ride.

* U.S. military defends Iraqi Oil Ministry while Baghdad museums are looted of priceless antiquities.

* Iraqi army disbanded by Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer, over objections of Gen. Garner. This throws 250,000 angry, armed Iraqis out of work, creates insurgency and helps enable flow of foreign fighters into Iraq. Asked later about how the decision was made to disband the Iraqi army, Bush says he can't remember.

* Halliburton (Dick Cheney, former CEO) secures war contracts worth billions of dollars by sealed, noncompetitive bids.

* American troops travel in unarmored Humvees and have to buy their own body armor.

* Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forced to stop sending "killed in action" condolence letters signed by autopen after an outraged father complains to his Congressman and it comes out in a hearing.

* Abu Ghraib torture photos released.

* Private contractors soon outnumber military in Iraq and operate with far less accountability.

* Valerie Plame outed as CIA agent by White House, in violation of federal law, as payback for her husband Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece disproving Bush's State of the Union claim that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase nuclear materials in Africa.

* Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby found guilty of obstruction of justice in Plame case; sentence later commuted by Bush.

* White House cites "Executive Branch confidentiality interests" in withholding information from Congress on the "friendly fire" death of Pat Tillman, former NFL player who joined the Army after 9-11.

* White House advisor Karl Rove pushes anti-gay "Defense of Marriage" constitutional amendment to whip up Republican base and helps tip eleven states for Bush in 2004, after burying his own adoptive gay father in the summer of that year.

* Character assassination of 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry with "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads funded by oil interests.

* Ohio voting irregularities hand 2004 re-election to Bush, who is asked if he'll reach out to all Americans. "I'll reach out to those who share our views," he replies.

* "Spending his political capital," Bush attempts to privatize Social Security in 2005.

* Staged town meetings on Social Security allow no dissenting views. The public doesn't buy privatization.

* "Ignite! Learning," a company headed by Bush's brother Neil and partly owned by his parents, gets federal funds to place its education product in disadvantaged school districts under the No Child Left Behind Act, without competitive bidding.

* Billions of dollars go missing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* Bush fails to increase emergency readiness after being warned by the National Hurricane Center that New Orleans levees may break during Hurricane Katrina, August, 2005. A few days later, he says, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

* New Orleans floods as FEMA mismanages disaster response under leadership of Bush political appointee Michael Brown, who previously ran horse shows.

* Halliburton (Dick Cheney, former CEO) wins post-Katrina contracts with sealed, non-competitive bids.

* Veterans scandal--injured troops return from Iraq to substandard medical care and bureaucracy.

* Eight U.S. Attorneys fired for political reasons; Congressional testimony establishes that Justice Department hired and promoted on political grounds.

* Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigns in disgrace.

* White House refuses to testify to Congress as a year and a half's emails disappear.

* Taliban regains ground in Afghanistan as U.S. military is stretched thin.

* Domestic spying without warrants.

* Guantanamo holds hundreds of "enemy combatants" who are denied fair trials--even though most were never in combat and many were sold to the Americans for bounties of $3,000 - $25,000.

* Suspension of Habeas Corpus, the right of an imprisoned person to know why he is being held.

* Torture in Guantanamo and overseas secret prisons--gaining false confessions of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.

* Longtime Bush support of Pakastani dictator Pervez Musharraf despite his feeble effort to capture Bin Laden.

* Cronyism, poor oversight and financial deregulation lead to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

* Secretary of Treasury Paulson demands $700 billion bailout with no strings attached.

* Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) ignores repeated warnings about Bernard Madoff, who is arrested in the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history.

* With all three branches of the federal government dominated by one party in lockstep, checks and balances fail; motions by Congressman Dennis Kucinich to impeach the president and vice president go nowhere.

Robert C. Keating, Editor

© 2009 Most Corrupt.com