Reagan/Bush Criminals

                       Lately, I bin asking if anybody had a list of Reagan/Bush felons?
 

                       Have you seen this one?

                      G.O.P. HISTORY DAY
                      Watergate Anniversary Brings Back Memories
                      The Most Criminal Party in U.S. History
                      And the Most Criminal Republics Of All?...
                      You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!

                      June 17, 2002 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in that eventually
                      led to the downfall of Richard M. Nixon.

                      And here at MWO, June 17 is also G.O.P. History Day -- the day when we reflect on the
                      annals of the most criminal national political party in U.S. history.

                      The party with the most national criminal scandals, the most convicted and jailed and
                      disgraced White House officials.

                      Political corruption in American history has, as we all know, involved members of all parties.

                      The Democratic Party has had its city machine bosses, its Boss Tweeds and Jimmy Walkers,
                      as well as its modern Koreagate and savings-and-loan finaglers.

                      But for real big-time criminality and convictions at the highest levels of American politics,
                      the G.O.P. is the all-time, once and future champion.

                      And, as the decades have passed, it's only gotten worse.

                      Let's take a walk down memory lane...or, rather, a walk around the huge G.O.P. wing of
                      the Politicians' Correctional Facility.

                      First, the Grant Administration.  Although President Grant was personally honest, and
                      has been underrated by historians, the corrupt and criminal Republicans around him
                      came to define the sordid Gilded Age.

                      There was the Whiskey Ring, a conspiracy involving high federal officials to defraud the
                      government of duties on whiskey.  Among those involved: Grant's personal secretary,
                      Oliver Babcock.  Broken up in May 1875, the Ring yielded 238 indictments, the most
                      ever in a federal corruption scandal, more than half of which led to convictions --
                      though (in part thanks to Grant's intercession) Babcock was acquitted.

                      There was also the Credit Mobilier of America scandal, involving insider trading and
                      bribery of elected officials with railroad stock. Among those involved: Vice President
                      Schuyler Colfax, Representative (and future President) James A. Garfield, and (the chief
                      inside promoter) Massachusetts congressman Oakes Ames.  The House eventually
                      condemned Ames, considered impeaching Colfax, and published a list of names of all
                      congressmen involved with Ames in the scheme.

                      And, of course, the Belknap scandal, when Secretary of War William Belknap was forced
                      to resign from office in order to avoid impeachment over accepting bribes for the rights
                      to sell supplies to Indian tribes.

                      And the Sanborn scandal, involving an irregular tax collection scheme in which Treas. Sec.
                      William Richardson came under heavy fire, and eventually stepped down after the House
                      Ways and Means Committee declared he deserved "severe condemnation."

                      After the Grant Administration, which takes up practically an entire bloc within the
                      G.O.P. Correctional Wing, we come to the Harding Administration.

                      The biggest scandal involving Harding's so-called "Ohio Gang" was the Teapot Dome
                      affair, involving the illegal leasing of federal oil reserves to private companies in
                      exchange for favors and bribes.  Secretary of the Interior Albert Fell took the fall, was
                      fined, and convicted to a year in prison.

                      But compared with what was to come, the Grant and Harding criminal scandals were small potatoes.

                      After 1928, the U.S. enjoyed forty years of largely scandal-free federal government --
                      with, incidentally, Democrats in the White House for twenty-eight of those years.  Then
                      came Richard M. Nixon, and a cavalcade of major scandals and convictions, involving
                      (among other things) such crimes against the state as  political burglery, bribery,
                      extortion, wiretapping, conspiracy, and illegal use of the C.I.A. and F.B.I. Most of these
                      crimes are  now lumped together under the collective heading of Watergate.

                      The results:

                      One presidential resignation.

                      One vice-presidential resignation.

                      40 federal officials indicted.

                      Attorney-General John Mitchell, convicted and jailed.

                      White House officials H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, John Dean, convicted and jailed.

                      Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, "plumbers" and ex-White House officials, convicted and jailed.

                      James McCord, Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP), convicted and jailed.

                      The reaction to Watergate, and to Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, brought the
                      election of Jimmy Carter to the White House.  Some relatively minor scandals here --
                      involving Bert Lance and Carter's wayward brother Billy -- brought embarrassment to
                      the Carter Administration, but nothing on the scale of Watergate -- and nothing on the
                      scale of what was to come.  (Neither Lance nor Carter was convicted of anything.)

                      Whereas Nixon had Watergate, Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra -- a catch-all term for a
                      wide assortment of crimes against the state, involving violation of federal law (the
                      so-called Boland Amendment), perjury, and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.

                      Total number of officials convicted, indicted, subject to criminal investigations:

                      138 In terms of the numbers of top officials indicted, the worst record in American history.

                      Six of the most high-profile Iran-Contra indictments and convictions were aborted when
                      outgoing George H.W. Bush issued his sweeping Christmas Eve pardons in 1992.

                      

                      Among the more celebrated Iran-Contra cases:

                      National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane guilty of withholding information to Congress,
                      fined, two years' probation, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by George H.W. Bush.

                      Lt. Col. Oliver North convicted on three criminal counts, fined, suspended sentence, set
                      aside on technicality.

                      National Security Adviser John Poindexter convicted on five criminal counts, sentenced
                      to six months imprisonment, set aside on technicality.

                      Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, indicted on five counts for lying to Congress,
                      pardoned on Christmas Eve, 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

                      C.I.A.'s Clair E. George indicted for perjury, mistrial, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by
                      outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

                      Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state, guilty of withholding information, pardoned
                      on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

                      Duane R. Clarridge, C.I.A., indicted for misleading Congress, pardoned on Christmas Eve
                      1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

                      Alan D. Fiers, C.I.A., plead guilty to charge of withholding information from Congress,
                      pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

                      But Iran-Contra, like Watergate, was only a symptom of the criminality rampant in the
                      Reagan White House.

                      In addition, there were the cases of:

                      -- Lyn Nofziger, top White House advisor, convicted on charges of illegal lobbying.

                      -- Michael Deaver, top White House advisor, convicted on charges of illegal lobbying,
                      lying to Congress, fined one hundred thousand dollars and given three years probation.

                      Then there were these additional major scandals:

                      -- The Pentagon Procurement Scandal

                      -- The H.U.D. Scandals, involving massive fraud and losses of billions of dollars to
                      taxpayers, unearthed only when Reagan left office.

                      -- The E.P.A. Scandals. E.P.A. Director Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations
                      she politically manipulated the Superfund money. Her appointee,  Rita Lavelle,  fired
                      after accusing a senior EPA official of "systematically alienating the business
                      community." Lavelle later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served
                      three months of a six-month prison sentence.

                      Quite a collection of convicts, jailbirds, and grateful pardonees, isn't it?

                      All part of the ignoble chronicle we commemorate on G.O.P. History Day.

                      Oh, and what about the Clinton-Gore Administration?  The administration that one
                      right-wing madman and liar, David Horowitz, once called "the most criminal,  most
                      corrupt, most cynical administration" of them all?

                      Well, in the Clinton-Gore years exactly no -- as in zero, zilch, nada -- top federal
                      officials were convicted of any wrongdoing connected to their White House duties.

                      Webster Hubbell, assistant Attorney-General, was convicted of embezzling funds from
                      the Little Rock Rose Law Firm, a crime that predated his coming to government and that
                      involved the defrauding of the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

                      Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy was brought up on charges of corruption, but found
                      innocent on all counts, after which the presiding judge admonished the prosecutors for
                      bringing forward such a frivolous case.

                      (Espy's chief of staff was convicted of not telling the truth about details in the case
                      where Espy was acquitted. And Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Henry
                      Cisneros was convicted for giving false information to the F.B.I. about the size of
                      payments given to a former mistress. Less than Nixonian or Reaganesque offenses, by
                      any accounting.)

                      Resulting from illegalities around a campaign event in 1996, two mid-level Democratic
                      campaign officials were found guilty of violations of federal election laws.

                      Oh yes -- and President Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives  in a
                      hard-line partisan proceeding following a perjury trap set up by the Office of the
                      Independent Counsel -- but acquitted by a large margin in the Senate.

                      That's about it.  The most investigated administration in American history (by far!)
                      turns out to have been among the very cleanest.

                      Another point to remember on G.O.P. History Day.

                      But history shouldn't only be for looking backward.

                      For, it seems, the ever upward trend of G.O.P. criminality continues.

                      What, after all, in the annals of American political criminality, can compare with the
                      stealing of an entire presidential election, as happened in 2000 -- complete with
                      Republican goon squads shutting down the vote-counting in Florida, and a Supreme
                      Court majority offering up the most transparently shameful political decision in the
                      court's history since Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 -- or maybe, even, since the Dred
                      Scott decision of 1857?

                      And there's so much more to look forward to.

                      Enron.

                      The Cheney Energy Report.

                      The Bush 9/11 coverup scandal.

                      And, just in time for G.O.P. History day, there comes this in-depth report by the
                      respected British journalist Ed Vulliamy, on the dark underside of Dubya's rise to power
                      in Texas -- and where it might all lead, someday, in the courts:

                      "Dark Heart of the American Dream," London Observer Magazine, June 16, 2002

                      So, readers, give this black-letter day the reflection it deserves.

                      Not just for the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in.  But for the whole
                      grotesque history of G.O.P. crimes, over the past century and a quarter and more.  Let
                      alone the grotesque future of that criminality.

                      Observe G.O.P. History Day!


 Thanks to Buzzflash for this report that was sent to me via e-mail

 If you have the direct link, please send it in.
 I don't want top rip off my good friends at Buzzflash

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