BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie

Subject: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 01:55 PM

A retrospective of the Bush era, from Harper's Magazine, Jan. 2009

Year in which a political candidate first sued Palm Beach County over problems with hanging chads : 1984

Seconds it took a Maryland consultant in 2004 to pick a Diebold voting machine's lock and remove its memory card : 10

Percentage of Bush's first 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration : 42

Minimum number of Bush appointees who have regulated industries they used to represent as lobbyists : 98

Months before September 11, 2001, that Cheney's Energy Task Force investigated Iraq's oil resources : 6

Number of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African men detained in the U.S. in the eight weeks after 9/11: 1,182
Number of them ever charged with a terrorism-related crime : 0
Number charged with an immigration violation : 762

Number of box cutters taken from U.S. airline passengers since January 2002 : 105,075

Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA PATRIOT Act, according to the ACLU : 50

Minimum number of laws that Bush signing statements have exempted his administration from following : 1,069

Estimated number of U.S. intelligence reports on Iraq that were based on information from a single defector : 100
Number of times the defector had ever been interviewed by U.S. intelligence agents : 0

Factor by which an Iraqi in 2006 was more likely to die than in the last year of the Saddam regime : 3.6
Factor by which the cause of death was more likely to be violence : 120

Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003 : ¾

Chance that an Iraq war veteran who has served two or more tours now has post-traumatic stress disorder: 1 in 4

Number of all U.S. war veterans who have been denied Veterans Administration health care since 2003 : 452,677

Estimated number of juveniles whom the United States has detained as enemy combatants since 2002 : 2,500

Minimum number of detainees who were tortured to death in U.S. custody : 8

Minimum number of extraordinary renditions that the United States has made since 2006 : 200

Number of incidents of torture on prime-time network TV shows from 2002 to 2007 : 897
Number on shows during the previous seven years: 110

Percentage change since 2000 in U.S. emigration to Canada : +79

Portion of all U.S. income gains during the Bush Administration that have gone to the top 1 percent of earners: 3/4

Increase since 2000 in the number of Americans living at less than half the federal poverty level: 3,500,000

Percentage change since 2001 in the average amount U.S. workers spend on out-of-pocket medical expenses : +172

Estimated percentage by which Social Security benefits would have declined if Bush's privatization plan had passed : -15

Number of times FDA officials met with consumer and patient groups as they revised drug-review policy in 2006 : 5
Number of times they met with industry representatives: 113

Number of Republican officials who have been investigated by the Justice Department since 2001 : 196
Number of Democratic officials who have been : 890

Percentage change since 2001 in U.S. government spending on paper shredding : +466

Percentage of EPA scientists who say they have experienced political interference with their work since 2002 : 60

Change since 2001 in the percentage of Americans who believe humans are causing climate change : -4

Portion of the $3.3 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina relief spent by Mississippi that has benefited poor residents : 1/4

Minimum amount that religious groups received in congressional earmarks from 2003 to 2006 : $209,000,000
Amount such groups received during the previous fourteen years : $107,000,000

Year by which the third and final phase of the 2003 "road map" to a Palestinian state was to have been reached : 2005
Estimated number of the twenty-five provisions of the first phase that have yet to be completed : 12

Percentage change during the first ten months of the Iraq war "surge" in the number of Iraqis detained in U.S.-run prisons : +63
Percentage change in the number of Iraqis aged nine to seventeen detained : +285

Ratio of the entire U.S. federal budget in 1957, adjusted for inflation, to the amount spent so far on the Iraq war : 1:1

Percentage change in U.S. discretionary spending during Bush's presidency : +31
Percentage change during Reagan's and Clinton's, respectively : +16, +0.3

Ratio in 1999 of the number of U.S. federal employees to the number of private employees on government contracts: 15:6
Ratio in 2006 : 14:15

Total value of U.S. government contracts in 2000 that were awarded without competitive bidding : $73,000,000,000
Total in 2007 : $146,000,000,000

Rank of Bush among U.S. presidents with the highest disapproval rating : 1
Average percentage of Americans who approved of the job Bush was doing during his second term : 37 Percentage of Russians today who approve of the direction their country took under Stalin : 37

Estimated amount Bush-era policies will cost the U.S. in new debt and accrued obligations : $10,350,000,000,000

Subject: RE: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 09 - 02:25 PM

That's the skeleton of the whole of both "Popular VIews of the Bush Administration" threads in a nutshell.


Wodda maroon.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 03:50 PM

reef

Subject: RE: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: skipy
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 05:52 PM

You voted him in!

Subject: RE: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Jan 09 - 11:18 PM

I'd be more interested and impressed if the writers could come up with a few good ideas (or even one good idea) for improving things.

Odd that they waited till after the election...

Like a lot of people, I didn't vote for any Bush or for Reagan before them.

Subject: RE: BS: Harper's Index: Numbers don't lie
From: artbrooks
Date: 05 Jan 09 - 12:08 AM

While I don't really have either the time or interest in checking all of that data, I would like to point out that the US government has not contained an organization called the Veterans Administration for slightly more than 20 years.