Moore: A Very American Coup
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Chap. 1 from Moore's book "Stupid White Men"
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Chapter 1 from Michael Moore's STUPID WHITE MEN titled "A Very American
Coup"
This "book liberation" (just one chapter, actually) is dedicated to both
individuals and groups around the world who work towards peace and
transparent government. The fraudulent must be stopped.
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"It's amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity, and
incumbency." --George W. Bush, June 14, 2001, speaking to Swedish Prime
Minister Goran Perrson, unaware that a live television camera was still
rolling
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THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE WAS INTERCEPTED BY U.N. FORCES ON 9/1/01, AT 0600
HOURS, FROM SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENT:
I am a citizen of the United States of America. Our government has been
overthrown. Our elected President has been exiled. Old white men wielding
martinis and wearing dickies have occupied our nation's capital.
We are under siege. We are the United States Government-in-Exile.
Our numbers are not insignificant. There are over 154 million adults
amongs us, and 80 million children. That's 234 million people who did not
vote for, and are not represented by, the regime that has placed itself in
power.
Al Gore is the elected President of the United States. He received 539,898
more votes than George W. Bush. But he does not sit tonight in the Oval
Office. Instead our elected President roams the country without purpose or
mission, surfacing only to lecture college students and replenish his
stash of Little Debbie's Snack Cakes.
Al Gore won. Al Gore, President-in-Exile. Long live El Presidente
Albertooooooo Gorrrrrrrrrrre!
So who, then is the man that now occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? I'll
tell you who:
He is George W. Bush, "President" of the United States. The
Thief-in-Chief.
It used to be that politicians would wait until they were in office before
they became crooks. This one came prepackaged. Now he is a trespasser on
federal land, a squatter in the Oval Office. If I told you this was
Guatemala, you'd believe it in a heartbeat, no matter what your political
stripe. But because this coup was wrapped in an American flag, delivered
in your choice of red, white, or blue, those responsible believe they're
going to get away with it.
That's why, on behalf of 234 million Americans held hostage, I have
requested that NATO do what it did in Bosnia and Kosovo, what America did
in Haiti, what Lee Marvin did in The Dirty Dozen:
Send in the Marines! Launch the SCUD missiles! Bring us the head of
Antonin Scalia!
I have sent a personal request to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to
hear our plea. We are no longer able to govern ourselves or to hold free
and fair elections. We need U.N. observers, U.N. troops, U.N. resolutions!
Dammit, we need Jimmy Carter!
We are now finally no better than a backwater banana republic. We are
asking ourselves why any of us should bother to get up in the morning to
work our asses off to produce goods and services that only serve to make
the junta and its cohorts in Corporate America (a separate, autonomous
fiefdom within the United States that has been allowed to run on its own
for some time) even richer. Why should we pay our taxes to finance their
coup? Can we ever again send our sons off into battle to give their lives
defending "our way of life"--when all that really means is the lifestyle
of the gray old men holed up in the headquarters they seized by the
Potomac?
Oh JesusMaryAndJoseph, I can't take it! Somebody pass me the universal
remote! I need to switch back to the fairy tale that I was a citizen in a
democracy with an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
Happy Meals. The story I was told as a child said that I mattered, that I
was equal to every one of my fellow citizens--and that not a single one of
us was to be treated differently or unfairly, that no one was to wield
power over others without their consent. The will of the people. America
the Beautiful. Land that I love. Twilight's . . . last . . . gleaming. Oh,
say, can you see--are the Belgian peacekeepers on their way? Hurry!
The coup began long before the shenanigans on Election Day 2000. In the
summer of 1999 Katherine Harris, an honorary Stupid White Man who was both
George W. Bush's presidential campaign cochairwoman and the Florida
secretary of state in charge of elections, paid $4 million to Database
Technologies to go through Florida's voter rolls and remove anyone
"suspected" of being a former felon. She did so with the blessing of the
governor of Florida, George W.'s brother Jeb Bush--whose own wife was
caught by immigration officials trying to sneak $19,000 worth of jewelry
into the country without declaring and paying tax on it . . . a felony in
its own right. But hey, this is America. We don't prosecute felons if
they're rich or married to a governing Bush.
The law states that ex-felons cannot vote in Florida. And sadly (thought
I'm confident that Florida's justice system was always unimpeachably
fair), that means 31 percent of all black men in Florida are
prohibited from voting because they have a felony on their record. Harris
and Bush knew that removing the names of ex-felons from the voter rolls
would keep thousands of black citizens out of the voting booth.
Black Floridians, overwhelmingly, are Democrats--and sure enough, Al Gore
received the votes of more than 90 percent of them on November 7, 2000.
That is, 90 percent of those who were allowed to vote.
In what appears to be a mass fraud committed by the state of Florida,
Bush, Harris, and company not only removed thousands of black felons from
the roles. they also removed thousands of black citizens who had never
committed a crime in their lives--along with thousands of eligible
voters who had committed only misdemeanors.
How did this happen? Harris's office told Database--a firm with strong
Republican ties--to cast as wide a net as possible to get rid of these
voters. Her minions instructed the company to include even people with
"similar" names to those of the actual felons. They insisted Database
check people with the same birth dates as known felons, or similar Social
Security numbers; an 80 percent match of relevant information, the
election office instructed, was sufficient for Database to add a voter to
the ineligible list.
These orders were shocking, even to Bush-friendly Database. That would
mean that thousands of legitimate voters might be barred from voting on
Election Day just because they had a name that sounded like someone
else's, or shared a birthday with some unknown bank robber. Marlene
Thorogood, the Database project manager, sent an E-mail to Emmett "Bucky"
Mitchell, a lawyer for Katherine Harris's election division, warning him
that "Unfortunately, programming in this fashion may supply you with false
positives," or misidentifications.
Never mind that, said ol' Bucky. His response: "Obviously, we want to
capture more names that possibly aren't matches and let [county election]
supervisors make a final determination rather than exclude certain matches
altogether."
Database did as they were told. And before long 173,000 registered voters
in Florida were permanently wiped off the voter rolls. In Miami-Dade,
Florida's largest county, 66 percent of the voters who were removed were
black. In Tampa's county, 54 percent of those who would be denied the
right to vote on November 7, 2000, were black.
But culling names from Florida's records alone was not enough for Harris
and her department. Eight thousand additional Floridians were thrown off
the voting rolls because Database used a false list supplied by another
state, a state which claimed that all the names on the list were former
convicted felons who had since moved to Florida.
It turns out that the felons on the list had served their time and had all
their voting privileges reinstated. And there were others on the list who
had committed only misdemeanors--such as parking violations or littering.
What state was it that offered Jeb and George a helping hand by sending
this bogus list to Florida?
Texas.
This entire incident stuck to the high heavens, but the American media
ignored it. It took the British Broadcasting Corporation to dig deep into
this story, running fifteen-minute segments on its prime-time news program
revealing all the sordid details and laying responsibility for the scam
right at the doorstep of Governor Jeb Bush. It's a sad day when we have to
look to a country 5,000 miles away to find out the truth about our own
elections. (Eventually the Los Angeles Times and the Washington
Post picked up the story, but it received little attention.)
This assault on the voting rights of minorities was so widespread in
Florida that it even affected people like Linda Howell. Linda received a
letter informing her that she was a felon--and therefore advising her not
to bother showing up on Election Day, because she would be barred from
voting. The only problem was, Linda Howell wasn't a felon--in fact, she
was the elections supervisor of Madison County, Florida! She and other
local election officials tried to get the state to rectify the problem,
but their pleas fell on deaf ears. They were told that everyone who
complained about being prevented from voting should submit themselves for
fingerprinting--and then let the state determine whether or not they were
felons.
On November 7, 2000, as black Floridians flocked to the polls in record
numbers, many were met at the ballot boxes with a blunt rebuke: "You
cannot vote." In a number of precincts in Florida's inter cities, the
polling locations were heavily fortified with police to block anyone on
Katherine and Jeb's "felons list" from voting. Hundreds of law-abiding
citizens looking to exercise their constitutional right to vote, mostly in
black and Hispanic communities, were sent away--and threatened with arrest
if they protested.
George W. Bush would officially be credited with receiving 537 more votes
than Al Gore in Florida. Is it safe to assume that the thousands of
registered black and Hispanic voters barred from the polls might have made
the difference if they had been allowed to vote--and cost Bush the
election? Without a doubt.
On election night, after the polls closed, there was much confusion over
what was happening with the counting of the votes in Florida. Finally a
decision was made by the man in charge of the election night desk for the
Fox News Channel. He decided that Fox should go on the air and declare
that Bush had won Florida and thus the election. And that's what happened.
Fox formally declared Bush the winner.
But down in Tallahassee, the counting of the votes had not yet been
completed; in fact, the Associated Press insisted it was still too close
to call, and refused to follow Fox's lead.
Not so the other networks. They ran like lemmings after Fox made the call,
afraid that they would be seen as slow or out of the loop--even though
their own news reporters on the ground were insisting that it was too
early to call the election. But who needs reporters when you're playing
follow the leader--the leader, in this case, being John Ellis, the man in
charge of Fox's election coverage. Who is John Ellis?
He's a first cousin of George W. and Jeb Bush.
Once Ellis made the call and everyone followed suit, there was no going
back--and nothing was more psychologically devastating for Gore's changes
of winning than the sudden perception that HE was being the spoiler by
asking for recounts, withdrawing his concession of defeat, tying up the
courts with lawyers and lawsuits. The truth is that during all of this,
Gore actually was ahead--he had the most votes--but that was never
how the news media played it.
The one moment from the election night I will never forget came earlier in
the evening, after the networks had first--correctly--projected the state
of Florida for Gore. The cameras cut to a hotel room in Texas. There sat
George W. with his father, the former President, and his mother, Barbara.
The old man appeared cool as a cucumber, even though it looked like
curtains for Sonny. A reporter asked young Bush what he thought about the
outcome.
"I'm not . . . conceding anything in Florida," Junior piped up,
semicoherently. "I know you've all the projections, but people are
actually counting the votes. . . . The networks called this thing awfully
earlier and people are actually counting the votes have different
perspective so . . ." It was an odd moment in that crazy night of election
result coverage. The Bushes, with their relaxed smiles, looked like a
family of cats that had just wolfed down a bunch of canaries--as if they
knew something we didn't.
They did. They knew Jeb and Katherine had done their job months earlier.
They knew cousin John was holding down the fort at Fox election central.
And if all else failed, there was always that team Poppy could count on:
the United States Supreme Court.
As we all know, that's exactly what happened for the next thirty-six days.
The forces of the Empire struck back, and they did so without mercy. While
Gore was stupidly concentrating on getting recounts in a few counties, the
Bush team was going after the holy grail--the overseas absentee ballots.
Many of these ballots would come from the military, which typically votes
Republican, and would finally give Bush the lead that denying the vote to
thousands of blacks and Jewish grandmothers hadn't.
Gore knew this, and tried to make sure the ballots underwent maximum
scrutiny before they could be counted. Sure, this ran contrary to the "let
every vote be counted" plea he'd made when calling for recounts. But he
also had Florida law, which is pretty clear about this, on his side. It
states that overseas absentee ballots can only be counted if they were
cast and signed on or before election day, and mailed and postmarked from
another country by election day.
But while Jim Baker was chanting his mantra--"it is not fair to change the
rules and standards governing the counting or recounting of votes after it
appears that one side has concluded that is the only way to get the votes
it needs"--he and his operative were doing just that.
A July 2001 investigation by the New York Times showed that of the
2,490 overseas ballots that ended up being included in the certified
election results, 680 were considered flawed and questionable. Bush got
the overseas vote by a ratio of 4 to 5. By that percentage, 544 of the
votes that went to Bush should have been thrown out. Got the math?
Suddenly Bush's "winning margin" of 537 votes is down to a chilly negative
7.
So how did all these votes end up being counted for Bush? Within hours of
the election, the Bush campaign had launched their attack. The first step
was to make sure that as many ballots got in as possible. Republican
operatives sent out frantic E-mails to navy ships asking them to dig up
any ballots that might be hanging around. They even put in a call to
Clinton Defense Secretary William S. Cohen (a Republican) to ask him to
put pressure on the military outposts. He declined, but it didn't matter:
thousands of votes poured in--even some that were signed after
election day.
Now all they had to do was make sure that as many of these votes as
possible went to W. And so the real thievery began.
According to the Times, Katherine Harris had planned to send out a
memo to her canvassing boards clarifying the procedure for counting
overseas ballots. Included in this memo was a reminder that state law
required all ballots to have been "postmarked or signed and dated" by
election day. When it was clear that George's lead was rapidly shrinking,
she decided not to send the memo. Instead she sent out a note that said
ballots "are not required to be postmarked on or prior to" election day.
Hmmm.
What caused her to change her mind--and the law? We may never know, since
the computer records that showed what happened have been mysteriously
erased--a possible violation of Florida's Sunshine Laws. Now, long after
the horse has left the barn, Harris has turned over her hard drives to the
media for inspection--but only after her own computer consultant "looked
them over." This is a woman who is now planning to run for Congress. Can
these people get any more shameless?
Armed with the blessing of the secretary of state, the Republicans
launched an all-out campaign to make sure as broad a standard as possible
was used in counting these absentee ballots. "Equal representation,"
Florida style, meant that the rules governing acceptance or denial of your
absentee ballot depended on what county you were from. Perhaps that would
explain why in counties where Gore won, only 2 out of 10 absentee ballots
with unclear postmarks were counted; in Bush counties, predictably, 6 out
of 10 such ballots made it into the final tally.
When the Democrats complained that ballots that didn't follow the rules
shouldn't be counted, the Republicans launched a fierce public relations
campaign to make it look as if the Democrats were trying to scare the men
and women who were risking their lives for our country. A Republican city
council member from Naples was typical in his hyperbole: "If they catch a
bullet, or fragment from a terrorist bomb, that fragment does not have any
postmark or registration of any kind." Republican Congressman Steve Buyer
from Indiana even obtained (possibly illegally) the phone numbers and
E-mail addresses of military personnel so that he could gather tales of
ballot-denial woe to garner sympathy for "our fighting men and women."
Even Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf weighed in with the reflection that "it's
a very sad day in our country" when Democrats start harassing military
voters.
All the pressure worked on the wimpy, spineless Democrats. They choked.
While appearing on Meet the Press, vice presidential candidate Joe
Lieberman argued that the Democrats should stop creating a fuss and not be
bothered that hundreds of military ballots were being counted, just
because they weren't "postmarked."
Lieberman, like so many other among this new breed of Democrats, should
have fought for principle instead of worrying about image. Why? Well, as
the New York Times found out:
* 344 ballots had no evidence that they were cast on or before Election
Day
* 183 ballots were postmarked in the United States
* 96 ballots lacked appropriate witness information
* 169 ballots came from unregistered voters, had envelopes that weren't
signed properly, or came from people who hadn't requested a ballot
* 5 ballots came after the November 17 deadline
* 19 overseas voters voted on two ballots--and had both counted
All of these ballots violated Florida law, yet they all were counted. Can
I say this any louder? Bush didn't win! Gore did. It has nothing to
do with chads, or even the blatant repression of Florida's
African-American community and their right to vote. It was a simple matter
of breaking the law, all documented, all the evidence sitting there in
Tallahassee, clearly marked without question--and all done purposefully to
throw the election to Bush.
On the morning of Saturday, December 9, 2000, the Supreme Court got word
that the recounts in Florida, in spite of everything the Bush camp had
done to fix the elections, were going in favor of Al Gore. By 2 P.M., the
unofficial tally showed that Gore was catching up to Bush--"only 66 votes
down, and gaining!" as one breathless newscaster put it. It was critical
to Bush that the word "Al Gore is in the lead" never be heard on American
television: With only moments to spare, they did what they had to do. At
2:45 that afternoon, the Supreme Court stopped the recount.
On the Court sat Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor and Nixon appointee
Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Both in their seventies, they were hoping
to retire under a Republican administration so that their replacements
would share their conservative ideology. On election night, O'Connor was
heard lamenting at a party in Georgetown that she couldn't hold out
another four--or eight--years. Junior Bush was their only hope for
securing a contented retirement in their home state of Arizona.
Meanwhile, two other justices with extremist right-wing viewpoints found
themselves with a conflict of interest. Justice Clarence Thomas's wife,
Virginia Lamp Thomas, worked at the Heritage Foundation, a leading
conservative think tank in D.C.; now, she has just been hired by George W.
Bush to help recruit people to serve in his impending administration. And
Eugene Scalia, the son of Justice Antonin Scalia, was a lawyer with the
firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher--the very law firm representing Bush
before the Supreme Court!
But neither Thomas nor Scalia saw any conflict of interest, and they
refused to remove themselves from the case. In fact, when the Court
convened later, it was Scalia who issued the now-infamous explanation of
why the ballot-counting had to be halted: "The counting of votes
that are of questionable legality does, in my view, threaten irreparable
harm to petitioner [Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon
what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election." In other
words, if we let all the votes be counted and they come out in Gore's
favor, and Gore wins, well, that will impair Bush's ability to govern once
we install him as "President."
True enough: if the ballots proved that Gore had won--which they
eventually would--then I guess that would tend to dampen the country's
feeling of legitimacy about a Bush presidency.
In their decision, the Court used the equal protection clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment--the same amendment they've loudly disclaimed when
used by blacks over the years to halt discrimination based on race--to
justify the theft. Because of the variation in the recount methods, they
argued, voters in each district weren't being treated equally, and
therefore their rights were being violated. (Funny, but only the
dissenters on the court mentioned that the antiquated voting equipment
found disproportionately in poor and minority Florida neighborhoods had
created an entirely different--and far more disturbing--inequality in the
system.)
Eventually the press got around to conducting their own recounts of the
votes, doing their best to spin the jumbled ball of public confusion into
orbit. The headline in the Miami Herald read: "Review of ballots
finds Bush's win would have endured manual recount." But if you read the
entire story, buried deep inside was this paragraph: "Bush's lead
would have vanished if the recount had been conducted under the severely
restrictive standards that some Republicans advocated. . . . The review
found that the result would have been different if every canvassing board
in every county had examined every undervote . . . [Under] the most
inclusive standard [that is, a standard that sought to include the
true will of ALL the people] Gore would have won by 393 votes. . . . On
ballots that [suggested] a fault with either the machine or the voter's
ability to use it . . . Gore would have won by 299 votes."
I did not vote for Al Gore, but I think any fair person would conclude
that the will of the people in Florida clearly went his way. Whether it
was the counting debacle or the exclusion of thousands of black citizens
that corrupted the results, there is little doubt that Gore was the
people's choice.
There was perhaps no worse example of the wholesale denial of the right of
each voter to have his vote properly counted than in Palm Beach County.
Much has been made of the "butterfly ballot," which made it easy to vote
for the wrong person because candidate's names and punch holes were
crammed unevenly onto facing pages. The media went out of its way to point
out that the ballot was designed by one of the county's election
commissioners, a Democrat, and then approved by the majority-Democrat
local board. What right did Gore have to complain if his own party was
responsible for the faulty design of the ballot?
Had anyone bothered to check, they would have discovered that one of the
two "Democrats" on the committee--the ballot's designer, Theresa
LePore--had actually been a registered Republican. She switched her
affiliation to Democrat in 1996; then, just three months after Bush seized
office, she resigned as a Democrat and switched her voter registration to
Independent. No one in the press bothered to question what was really
going on.
Thus, the Palm Beach Post estimates that more than 3,000 voters,
mostly elderly and Jewish, who thought they were voting for Al Gore ended
up punching the wrong hole--for Pat Buchanan. Even Buchanan went on TV to
declare that no way in hell did those Jewish voters vote for him.
posted by L. Rano 6:45 PM
* * *
On January 20, 2001, George W. Bush, positioned with his junta on the
Capitol steps, stood in front of Chief Justice Rehnquist and took the oath
that Presidents take at their inaugurations. A cold and steady rain
fell over Washington throughout the day. Dark clouds obscured the sun, and
the parade route, usually jammed with tens of thousands of citizens all
the way to the White House, was eerily bare.
Except for the 20,000 protesters who jeered Bush every inch of the way.
Holding signs denouncing Bush for stealing the election, the rain-soaked
demonstrators were the conscience of the nation. Bush's limousine could
not avoid them. Instead of cheering crowds of supporters, he was greeted
by good people moved to remind this illegitimate ruler that he did not win
the election--and that the people would never forget.
At the traditional point where Presidents since Jimmy Carter have stopped
their limos and emerged to walk the last four blocks (as a reminder that
we are a nation ruled not by kings but by, uh, equals), Bush's
triple-armored black car with its dark-tinted windows--favored by mobsters
everywhere--came to an abrupt halt. The crowd grew louder--"HAIL TO THE
THIEF!" You could see the Secret Service and Bush's advisers huddling in
the freezing rain, trying to figure out what to do. If Bush got out and
walked, he would be booed, shouted down, and pelted with eggs the rest of
the way. The limousine sat there for what must have been five minutes. The
rain poured. Eggs and tomatoes hit the car. The protesters dared Bush to
step out and face them.
Then, suddenly, the President's car bolted and tore down the street. The
decision had been made--hit the gas and get past this rabble as quickly as
possible. The Secret Service agents running beside the limo were left
behind, the car's tires splashing dirty rain from the street onto the men
who were there to protect its passenger. It might have been the finest
thing I have ever witnessed in Washington, D.C.--a pretender to the
American throne forced to turn tail and run from thousands of American
citizens armed only with the Truth and the ingredients of a decent omelet.
Once the American Lie put the pedal to the metal, it ran for cover to the
bulletproof reviewing stand in front of the White House. Many of Bush's
family and invited guests had already left to get dry. but George stood
there and waved proudly at the marching bands, their instruments disabled
by the rain, the long parade of floats wilted and crumbled by the time
they arrived at the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue. Every so often a
lucky convertible passed by, carrying the few dampened celebrities Bush
had convinced to honor him--Kelsey Grammer, Drew Carey, Chuck Norris. By
parade's end Bush stood alone in the stands, drenched, even his parents
having deserted him for shelter. It was a pathetic sight--the poor little
rich boy who came in second showing up to claim his prize, with no one
there to cheer him on.
Sadder still were the 154 million of us who had not voted for him. In a
nation of 200 million voters, I would say we constitute the majority.
And yet what could George W. have been thinking, other than "What, me
worry?" There were plenty of hired hands to be installed in the White
House, pulling the strings for their puppet President. With Daddy's old
buddies called back to D.C. to lend a hand, Georgie could sit back and
tell the public he was "delegating." The puppetmasters moved in, and the
business of running the world could easily be left to them.
And who are these fine, patriotic pillars of the Bush junta? They
represent the modest and selfless ranks of corporate America, and they are
listed below, for easy reference, to help the United Nations and NATO
forces round them up when they arrive to restore order and democracy.
Grateful citizens will line the boulevards and avenues and cheer their
arrival.
Personally, I will settle for nothing less than multiple show trials and
their immediate deportation to a real banana republic. God Bless America!
WHO'S WHO IN THE COUP
Acting President/"Vice President"--Dick Cheney
I'm not sure yet where the "compassionate" part of "compassionate
conservatism" comes from, but I do know where the conservatism resides.
For six terms Dick Cheney was a congressman representing Wyoming, and he
had one of the most conservative voting records of all 435 members of
Congress. Cheney voted against the Equal Rights Amendment, against funding
the Head Start program, against a House resolution calling for South
Africa to release Nelson Mandela from prison, and against federal funding
for abortions even in cases of rape or incest. And his record
doesn't stop there. Cheney has had his hand in all of the recent
Republican administrations, including that of Richard Nixon, when he was
deputy White House counsel under Don "Rummy" Rumsfeld. He replace Rumsfeld
as President Ford's chief of staff. Under George Bush I, Cheney was
defense secretary, leading the country in two of the largest military
campaigns in recent history: the invasion of Panama and the war against
Iraq.
In between Bush regimes, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton Industries, an oil
services company that has dealings with repressive governments like Burma
and Iraq. During the 2000 campaign, Cheney denied that Halliburton had a
business relationship with Saddam Hussein. Then, in June 2001, the
Washington Post revealed that in fact two Halliburton subsidiaries
were doing business with Iraq. Can you imagine the field day
Republicans would have had if they'd ever discovered such a thing about
Clinton or Gore? And Alaska isn't the only place Cheney has suggested we
dig up: Halliburton has a major construction deal in the development of
Mexico's Cantarell offshore oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. When
nominated for the vice presidency, Cheney hemmed and hawed about divesting
himself of his Halliburton stock. I guess he knew the good times were
still to come.
Attorney General--John Ashcroft
The man in charge of overseeing our justice system is a man who has
opposed all abortion, even in case of rape or incest; who is against
providing job discrimination protection for homosexuals; who voted to
limit the death penalty appeals process (and then oversaw seven executions
as governor); and who has been a staunch supporter of out-of-control,
over-the-top drug laws. Perhaps this record could explain why he lost his
Senate reelection bid against a dead man {the late Governor Mel Carnahan
of Missouri, killed in a plane crash before reelection}. For his efforts,
however, Ashcroft received substantial donations from AT&T, Enterprise
Rent-A-Car, and Monsanto. The Schering-Plough pharmaceutical company
contributed $50,000--perhaps as a thank-you for the bill he had introduced
that would have extended the company's patent on the allergy pill
Claritin. (The bill ultimately failed.) All this pharmaceutical funding
many also explain why Ashcroft has voted against including prescription
drugs under the Medicare program. Another campaign contributor,
Microsoft, gave Ashcroft $10,000 through his joint fund-raising committee
with the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Lucky for them he lost
the Senate race, so that he can turn his full attention to running the
Justice Department--or, that is, standing back while the software giant,
newly freed of the court ruling that would have split the company in two,
is allowed to run amok under his watchful eye.
Ashcroft is also to the right (if such a thing is possible) of the
National Rifle Association when it comes to gun control. His first pro-gun
act as attorney general was to announce that within twenty-four hours
of a purchase and background check, all background-check files on
person who purchase guns will be destroyed by the Justice Department
(leaving the government with NO record of who has a gun or what kind of
gun they have).
Secretary of the Treasury--Paul O'Neill
This champion of the abolition of corporate taxes served as president and
CEO of Alcoa, the world's largest aluminum manufacturer (and one of the
biggest polluters in Texas) before joining the Bush administration. Alcoa
no long has its own Political Action Committee (PAC) but instead does its
lobbying through the law firm of Vinson & Elkins. That firm, the third
largest contributor to Bush's campaign, was able to work a loophole into
Texas environmental regulations that allowed Alcoa to emit 60,000 tons of
sulfur dioxide each year. Alcoa has also been a big contributor to
O'Neill's pockets. O'Neill recently sold off his shares in Alcoa--which
make up a large portion of his $62 million in assets--but did so only
begrudgingly and very slowly, first watching them rise 30 percent during
his time in office. As Treasury chief, O'Neill has said that Social
Security and Medicare are not necessary. Perhaps that's because he
receives an annual pension from Alcoa of $926,000.
Secretary of Agriculture--Ann Veneman
Like many in the Bush cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman has a
long career within Republican administrations. She worked for both Ronald
Reagan and Poppy Bush and then served as director of California's Food and
Agriculture Department under Governor Pete Wilson. In California she
encouraged policies that have helped giant corporate farms squeeze out
family-owned farms--so that now, for example, a mere four companies
process 80 percent of American-produced beef. One of the least wealthy of
the cabinet members (worth a mere $680,000), Veneman supplemented her
income by serving on the board of Calgene--the first company to market
genetically engineered foods to stores. Calgene was bought out by
Monsanto, the nation's leading biotech company. Monsanto was then bought
by Pharmacia. Monsanto, which gave $12,000 to Bush's presidential
campaign, is trying to block legislation that would require food labels to
identify biotech ingredients. Veneman has also served on the International
Policy Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, a group funded by major
food manufacturers such as Nestle and Archer Daniels Midland.
Secretary of Commerce--Don Evans
Before coming to the Bush administration, Evans was chairman and CEO of
Tom Brown, Inc., a $1.2 billion oil and gas company. Evans also sat on the
board of TMBR/Sharp Drilling. As finance chair for Bush's campaign, he set
a fund-raising record of more than $190 million. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration--which controls the country's coastlines--falls
within this oil man's domain.
Secretary of Defense--Don Rumsfeld
Don Rumsfeld is an old-school Republican hawk. He was White House counsel
to Richard Nixon, where he worked alongside Dick Cheney. While serving as
President Ford's secretary of defense and then as Ford's chief of staff,
Rumsfeld was able, almost single-handedly, to kill the SALT II treaty with
the Soviet Union. He has consistently opposed any arms control, calling
the ABM treaty "ancient history" during his 2001 confirmation hearing. A
longtime supporter of "Star Wars" defense schemes, Rumsfeld oversaw a 1998
commission that measured the ballistic missile threat to the United
States. Rumsfeld, aka Chicken Little, claimed that the United States would
feel such threats from rogue nations within five years (half the amount of
time the CIA predicted). When not pushing B-1 bombs or MX missiles,
Rumsfeld has been CEO of the G.D. Searle pharmaceutical company (now owned
by Pharmacia) and General Instrument (now owned by Motorola). Before
joining the Bush administration, he sat on several boards, including
Kellogg's, Sears, Allstate, and the Tribune Company (which publishes the
Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times and owns a chain of TV
stations, including New York's Channel 11).
Secretary of Energy--Spencer Abraham
As a senator from Michigan, Abraham had such a strong antienvironment
record that the League of Conservation Voters gave him a zero rating. He
opposed research into renewable energy, wanted to repeal the federal gas
tax, and thought oil drilling in Alaska was a good idea. Perhaps that's
why he voted in 2000 to abolish the department he now leads. Abraham
received more from the automotive industry--$700,000--than any other
candidate. One of the largest contributors was DaimlerChrysler, which is
part of the Coalition for Vehicle Choice, a trade group trying to stop an
increase in fuel economy standards. This year DaimlerChrysler has plans to
introduce a longer-body SUV that gets about 10 miles per gallon. No
worries: when he was a senator, Abraham also voted against increasing
fuel-efficiency requirements for SUVs.
Secretary of Health and Human Services--Tommy Thompson
The man who will have perhaps the greatest role in dealing with the
tobacco industry should have no trouble being objective about policy.
After all, just because Thompson served on the advisory board of the
Washington Legal Fund as it filed briefs on behalf of those who would
promote smoking--or because as governor he received about $72,000 in
campaign contributions from Philip Morris, or because Philip Morris paid
for several trips abroad that Thompson made to promote free trade--is no
reason to think he won't be able to act impartially on this health issue.
Too bad he recently sold his Philip Morris stock for an amount between
$15,000 and $50,000--as these should be very good years for Big Tobacco.
Good times ahead for wire hanger manufacturers, too. Tommy T is what they
like to call "pro-life," putting up as many roadblocks to a women's right
to an abortion as possible. As governor of Wisconsin he required women to
seek counseling and wait three days before having the procedure.
Secretary of the Interior--Gale Norton
Gale Norton is already following in the footsteps of her mentor and
predecessor, James Watt. She started her legal career with the Mountain
States Legal Foundation, a conservative environmental think tank funded by
oil companies and founded by Watt. Working closely with the group, Norton
helped the state of Alaska challenge an Interior Department fisheries law.
She has declared the Endangered Species Act unconstitutional and written
legal opinions against the National Environmental Protection Act. As a
lawyer with Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, Norton represented Delta Petroleum
and lobbied for NL Industries (formerly known as National Lead) while it
defended itself in lawsuits over children's exposure to lead paint. She
was also national chairwoman of the Coalition of Republican Environmental
Advocates, a group funded by Ford Motor Company and BP Amoco.
Secretary of Labor--Elaine Chao
Chao has worked primarily in the nonprofit sector, with United Way and the
Peace Corps, but has also sat on the boards of Dole Food, Clorox, and
health care companies C.R. Bard (who pleaded guilty in the 1990s to
manufacturing faulty heart catheters and conducting illegal experiments on
the devices) and the behemoth Hospital Corporation of America (HCA). She
also sat on the board of Northwest Airlines. She is married to
conservative Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Secretary of State--Colin Powell
When not fighting wars, Powell sat on the boards of Gulfstream Aerospace
and AOL. Gulfstream makes jets for both Hollywood honchos and foreign
governments like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. During his time at AOL the
company merged with Time Warner, and Powell's stock rose in value by $4
million. At the time, Colin's son, Michael Powell, had been the only
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) member who advocated that the
AOL/Time Warner merger go through without question. Powell's son has since
been named chairman of the FCC by George W. Bush; part of his job is to
oversee the activities of AOL/Time Warner. He will also oversee any
regulation of AOL's monopolistic "instant messaging" technology.
Secretary of Transportation--Norman Y. Mineta
A leftover from the Clinton administration, the only "Democrat" in Bush's
cabinet, Mineta has his own corporate connections. When he was a
congressman representing Silicon Valley, he received campaign
contributions from Northwest Airlines, United Airlines, Greyhound, Boeing,
and Union Pacific. After retiring from the House, he went to work at
Lockheed Martin. What better place to park himself now than at the cabinet
department that "oversees" all of them?
White House Chief of Staff--Andrew H. Card Jr.
Card was General Motors's chief lobbyist before leaving to work in the
Bush administration. He was also CEO of the now-defunct American
Automobile Manufacturers Association, which lobbied against stricter fuel
emissions standards and fought over trade issues with Japan. Card
testified before Congress on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Lobbying Group against the "Passenger's Bill of Rights." He personally
contributed $1,000 each to the losing campaigns of John Ashcroft and
Spencer Abraham.
posted by L. Rano 6:44 PM
Director of the Office of Management and Budget--Mitch Daniels Jr.
Daniels was formerly a senior vice president of Eli Lilly pharmaceuticals.
In his present position, Daniels will oversee the drafting of the federal
budget, including how much money (if any) will be earmarked for a
prescription drug benefit for Medicare patients--a provision Eli Lilly and
other pharmaceutical companies are lobbying against. Daniels also owns
stock worth between $50,000 and $100,000 in GE, Citigroup, and Merck. The
chances of this administration allowing a prescription drug benefit for
seniors to pass in the next year are about as good as those of me setting
myself on fire in front of a Rite Aid.
National Security Adviser--Condoleezza Rice
For her service on Chevron's board of directors, Rice had a 130,000-ton
oil tanker named after her. She was also a director at Charles Schwab and
Transamerica, and has served as an adviser for J. P. Morgan; she also
served on Bush the Elder's National Security team.
Senior Adviser to the President--Karl Rove
A longtime supporter and friend of Bush, Rove was once an adviser to
Philip Morris. For five years, while he was an adviser to Governor Bush,
the tobacco company paid him $2,000 a month to get his inside opinion on
what was happening in the elections and with the candidates. Since Rove
took the job at the White House, he has been under constant fire for using
his position to further the interests of companies in which he owns stock.
Recently Rove was criticized for holding meetings with Intel executives
about a prospective merger while at the same time he held Intel stock
(part of an overall portfolio valued at between $1 million and $2.5
million). The merger was approved two months after the meetings, and Rove
sold his stock a month later.
Shadow Adviser to the President--Kenneth L. Lay
Lay is the head of Enron, the largest electricity trader in the United
States and a top contributor to the Bush presidential campaign. Lay has
used his close relationship with the President to pressure the chairman of
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to speed up energy deregulation.
Lay has apparently provided Bush with a list of preferred candidates for
key commission posts. Thanks in part to the California energy crisis,
Enron has quickly grown into a $100 billion company. Bush and Cheney rely
on Lay for advice; some administration appointees must first be
"interviewed" by Lay before getting the job.
As you can see, friends and neighbors, this is a regime that is intent on
lining its pockets--and who won't leave office without a fight. It is
their mission to combine their economic and (newly acquired) political
power to rule the country and help their friends get even richer along the
way.
These Stupid White Men must be stopped. I have informed Kofi Annan of the
various locations where these (mostly) men can be found and apprehended by
U.N. troops. Mr. Annan, I beseech you. You have invaded other countries
for less grievous offenses. Do not ignore our plight. We plead with you:
Save the United States of America! Demand that new, clean elections be
held. Give the junta forty-eight hours to agree--and, if they don't, then
treat them to a U.S. Air Force-style laser light show!
HOW TO STAGE THE COUNTERCOUP
We, the people, can start a groundswell that will eventually topple the
Bush/Cheney Junta--with a commitment of only a couple of hours a week.
Here's how:
1. Contact your representatives on a weekly basis, and get three
friends to do the same. Senators, members of congress, and other
elected officials PAY CAREFUL ATTENTION to the calls, letters, and
telegrams they receive. Each day they receive a tally of their
constituents' messages. Take just a few minutes each week, and let your
thoughts be known.
The Bush agenda can be brought to a grinding halt by a public outcry--and
even a few hundred letters can constitute an outcry. Several Bush policies
have already been shelved after public disapproval. IT WORKS! We all whine
too much; why not put it to good use? Pick an issue you care about and do
the following today:
a. Call 202-224-3121--the U.S. Capitol switchboard. Just tell them your
zip code, and they'll transfer you to your representative.
b. Write to: Office of Senator [Name], United States Senate, Washington,
DC 20510; or to: Office of Representative [Name], United States House of
Representatives, Washington DC, 20515.
c. E-mail: For Senators, go to www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm;
for Representatives, go to www.house.gov/writerep/
d. Send a telegram: Call Western Union--1-800-325-6000--or visit their
Web site: www.westernunion.com
2. Dog Bush Wherever He Goes. If you hear Junior's coming to town,
organize a group of friends to protest the event. Remind the media that
Bush doesn't govern by the will of the people. Be loud. Be funny.
Signs, street theater, mock trials--show him there's no safe haven from
the Truth.
3. Force the Democrats to do their job. Obviously, the easiest way
to counter the coup is to get the "opposition" to fight the good fight.
But it won't be easy: today's Democrats have little time for those who
can't make their $1,000-a-plate dinners. So here's how to start a little
Democratic behavior modification program:
* Take the Pledge. Go to my Web site (www.michaelmoore.com) and sign the
on-line petition that challenges the Democrats in Congress to stand up to
Bush/Cheney and fast--or we'll work to deny them Congressional
leadership next year by running Greens in close races where the Democrat's
just a Republican in a bad suit.
* Take over your local Democratic Party. In most counties the
local Democratic Party is run by just a few people, 'cause most citizens
would never think of showing up. Go the next county or town Party meeting,
and bring ten friends. In most cases your bunch will constitute a
majority. Use the rules and the state party by-laws (which can often be
found on the Web) and seize control.
4. YOU must run for office. That's right--YOU, the person reading
this book. It's the only way things are every going to change. Unless
normal, decent people run for government office, the job is left to
rascals. How can we carp about crooked politicians if we won't do the job
ourselves? It's time for YOU to throw your hat in the ring--and to do it
next year. You can run for school board, city council, county treasurer,
drain commissioner, city or county clerk, state representative, state
senate, state board of education, secretary of state, governor, member of
Congress, U.S. Senator, even dogcatcher--or any number of other offices.
The one you should definitely run for is precinct delegate. Every
precinct in America elects delegates from each party; it may be the
lowliest office, but it's also the foundation on which the whole house of
cards is built. Selected delegates attend the national party conventions
to nominate the presidential candidates; you should be among them.
And I'm not just saying this--I'm doing it, this year, and getting a dozen
friends to run in their precincts too. It requires collecting enough
signatures to get your name on the ballot, and qualifications vary. But so
few people vote in primaries--and so many precincts end up with no
candidates--that often getting elected isn't much harder than just showing
up. So head down to your board of elections or county clerk's office and
pick up some petitions before the deadline passes.
These are only a few of the measures we can take to stage our countercoup.
Whether you do it as a Democrat, or a Green, or just one pissed-off
citizen, the important thing is to rise up and do it.
---
NOTES AND SOURCES {bibliography}
The information about Jeb Bush's wife and her run-in with US Customs is
found in The Hill, "Gov. Jeb Bush: Florida Republican is Younger,
Taller, and More Partisan than George W.," Marcia Gelbart, July 30, 2000.
The investigation into the purged voter lists was reported in The
Nation, "Florida's 'Disappeared Voters': Disfranchised by the GOP,"
Gregory Palast, February 5,2001; The Nation, "How the GOP Gamed the
System in Florida," John Lantigua, April 30, 2001; Los Angeles
Times, "Florida Net Too Wide in Purge of Voter Rolls," Lisa Getter,
May 21, 2001; and Salon.com, "Eliminating Fraud--Or Democrats?," Anthony
York, December 8, 2000.
Problems with blockades at some polling locations are discussed in the
New York Times, "Contesting the Vote: Black Voters; Arriving at
Florida Voting Places, Some Blacks Found Frustration," Mireya Navarro and
Somini Sengupta, November 30, 2000; and also in the Washington
Post, "Irregularities Cited in Fla. Voting; Blacks Say Faulty
Machines, Poll Mistakes Cost Them Their Ballots," Robert E. Pierre,
December 12, 2000.
The House of Representatives held hearings in February on the early
calling of election results, as reported in the Washington Post,
"Election Coverage Burned to a Crisp; House Grills Networks' 'Beat the
Clock' Approach," Howard Kurtz, February 15, 2001.
The Bush cousin connection is also documented in the Associated Press,
"Fox Executive Spoke Five Times with Cousin Bush on Election Night," David
Bauder, December 12, 2000; and the Washington Post, "Bush Cousin
Made Florida Vote Call for Fox News," Howard Kurtz, November 14, 2000.
A series of articles in the New York Times chronicled the counting
of the overseas absentee ballots; "How Bush Took Florida: Mining the
Overseas Absentee Vote," David Barstow and Don Van Natta Jr., July 14-15,
2001; "How the Ballots Were Examined," July 15, 2001; "House Republicans
Pressed Pentagon for E-Mail Addresses of Sailors," C. J. Chivers, July 15,
2001; "Timely but Tossed Votes Were Slow to Get to the Ballot Box,"
Michael Cooper, July 15, 2001; and "Lieberman Put Democrats in Retreat on
Military Vote," Richard L. Berke, July 15, 2001. Following the release of
these articles, Katherine Harris allowed inspection of her hard drives as
reported in the Associated Press, "Computer Analysts Gain Access to
Secretary of State Katherine Harris' Computers," David Royse, August 1,
2001; and the New York Times, "Florida Gives Computers in November
Election to News Groups for Inspection," Dana Canedy, August 2, 2001.
The time of the Supreme Court decision can be found in The Nation,
"The God that Failed; Florida Supreme Court's Rulings on the Presidential
Elections," Herman Schwartz, January 1, 2001; CNN Saturday Morning News
Transcripts 08:00, December 9, 2000; ABC News Special Report, 2:47 pm,
December 9, 2000.
Justice O'Connor's comments regarding her retirement were reported in
Newsweek, "The Truth Behind the Pillars," Evan Thomas and Michael
Isikoff, December 25, 2000.
Information regarding the family connections between the Supreme Court and
the Administration is from the New York Times, "Contesting the
Vote; Challenging a Justice," Christopher Marquis, December 12, 2000; and
the Chicago Tribune, "Justice Scalia's Son a Lawyer in Firm
Representing Bush Before Top Court," Jill Zuckman, November 29, 2000.
Scalia's statement can be found in the text of the decision: Supreme Court
of the United States, No. 00-949 (00A504) George W. Bush et al. v.
Albert Gore, Jr. et al., Scalia, J. concurring opinion. 531__(2000).
December 9, 2000.
One of the best overall examinations on widespread illegalities and
efforts to deny the right to vote to black citizens in Florida can be
found in the report issued by the United States Commission of Civil
Rights, "Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential
Election," June 8, 2001. It can be found at www.usccr.gov/pubs/vote2000/report/main.htm
{updated link, URL provided in book was non-existent}.
Cheney's history on abortion can be found in the Boston Globe,
"Conservative Tilt in Congress Merged with a Moderate's Style," Michael
Kranish, July 26, 2000; and the Los Angeles Times, "Would vote
differently on ERA, Head Start, not Mandela," Michael Finnegan, July 31,
2000; CNN.com, "Dick Cheney voted conservative, played moderate," July 24,
2000. Cheney's defense department experience can be found in his official
biography at www.defenselink.mil/specials/secdef_histories/bios/cheney.htm.
Cheney's stock investments are detailed in Forbes.com, "Top of the News:
O'Neill to Sell," Dan Ackman, March 26, 2001; www.Corpwatch.org, "Cheney's Oil
Investments and the Future of Mexico's Democracy," Martin Espinoza, August
8, 2000; the Sacramento Bee, "A Go-Round on Foreign Policy Ride,"
Molly Ivins, March 11, 2001; The Guardian, "Eyes Wide Shut:
Scruples Fade in Dealings with Burma," July 28, 2000. Further
investigation into sales between Halliburton and Iraq is from the
Washington Post, "Firm's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said;
Affiliates Had $73 Million in Contracts," Colum Lynch, June 23, 2001.
Ashcroft's record on abortion is discussed in "Controversy on Abortion,
Civil Rights Liberties," at ABCNews.com, "An Ashcroft Justice Department,"
December 23, 2000. Ashcroft voted on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act
S.2056, vote number 1996-281, September 10, 2996; and Ashcroft's vote on
the death penalty appeals bill can be found at Senate Bill #S.735, vote
number 1996-66, April 17, 1996. Ashcroft's history with executions as
governor and his stand on the war on drugs can be found at ABCNews.com, in
the article "An Ashcroft Justice Department," December 23, 2000.
Ashcroft's vote on increasing penalties for drug offenses was a part of
Bill S.625; vote number 1999-360 on November 10, 1999. Molly Ivins writes
about Ashcroft's interest in Claritin in "Cabinet Diversity?; Check Out
the Bush Team's Corporate Logos," February 12, 2001. His NO vote on
including prescription drugs under Medicare is found on Bill HR.4690, vote
number 2000-144, June 22, 2000.
Ann Veneman's background is discussed in Molly Ivins, "The Early Days of
Bushdom are Not a Pretty Sight," Molly Ivins, January 29, 2001; and the
New York Times, "Transition in Washington: Agriculture Department,"
Elizabeth Becker, January 19, 2001. Veneman's net worth is detailed in
The Guardian, "History's Richest Cabinet Takes the Gilt off Bush's
Tax Cut," Julian Borger, February 7, 2001.
Rumsfeld's background is described in The Nation, "Rumsfeld: Star
Warrior Returns," Michael T. Klare, January 29, 2001; and In These
Times, "The Rummy," Jason Vest, February 19, 2001.
Spencer Abraham's environmental record and history with the department of
energy are from The Nation, "The Three Horsemen of the
Environmental Apocalypse," David Helvarg, January 16, 2001; the
Environmental News Network, "Energy Secretary Nominee Tried to Abolish The
Energy Department," January 8, 2001; and www.alternet.org, "Who's Who in the
Bush Cabinet," Geov Parrish, January 16, 2001.
Tommy Thompson's abortion record as governor can be found in www.alternet.org, "Who's Who in the
Bush Cabinet," Geov Parrish, January 16, 2001; and his links to Philip
Morris are described in another AlterNet article, "Bush's War on
Children," Jonathan Rowe and Gary Ruskin, July 3, 2001.
Gale Norton's background is detailed in the New York Times, "Far,
Far From the Center," Bob Herbert, January 8, 2001; and the New York
Times, "Norton Record Often at Odds With Laws She Would Enforce,"
Douglas Jehl, January 13, 2001. C.R. Bard's court troubles are detailed in
PR Newswire, "C.R. Bard, Inc. Executives Sentenced To Eighteen Month
Federal Prison Terms," August 8, 1996.
Colin Powell's relationship with AOL/Time Warner is discussed in the
Associated Press, "Stocks, Speeches Add to Powell Wealth," Greg Toppo,
January 17, 2001; and The Financial Times, "The Americas: All the
U.S. President's Very Rich Men," Peter Spiegel, March 8, 2001; Paul
O'Neill's Stock Holdings Are Detailed, The Nation, "The Man from
Alcoa," William Greider, July 16, 2001; and the Houston Chronicle,
"Alcoa Strikes Curious Water Deal with San Antonio," Nate Blakeslee,
September 3, 1999.
Karl Rove's industry connections are reported in the New York
Times, "Bush Aide With Intel Stock Met with Executives Pushing
Merger," June 14, 2001; and Abilene Reporter-News, "Mauro Raises
Questions About Bush's Aides Link to Tobacco Industry," August 31, 1997.
The information about Kenneth Lay comes from the New York Times,
"Power Trader Tied to Bush Finds Washington All Ears," Lowell Bergman and
Jeff Gerth, May 25, 2001.
Additional information about the members of the coup comes from
the Center for Responsible Politics and www.issues.org. {site no longer
exists}
{citation of alternative link--from Chapter 2 bibliography of STUPID WHITE
MEN--"Dear George"}
. . . The Center for Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org
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