Stupid White Men-- and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! - Michael Moore [12]
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 that 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 cases 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. 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 may 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 backgroundcheck files on persons 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 longer 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