Big Money Comes Out for the Inauguration

randall_burns writes "Open Secrets is running an interesting story about major donors to Bush's inauguration. The founder of Dell is one of the high rollers funding Bush's party."

Comments

Points about the money

[ghereheade]

For those that think companies are buying access to the White House or special treatment, one might compare some of the donation levels to see which party the company favors (thus implying which party would best serve the company's special interests)

BIGGEST DONOR LISTED:
Ameriquest Capitol (4 divisions worth)
$1M to inaugural, $2.25M to the republicans, $470k to the democrats, $1M to Bush

OIL (for the Iraq invasion fans):
T. Boone Pickens $250k for inaugural, $125k to Reps, $1k to Dems, $4k to Bush

Chevron $250k to inaugural, $416k to Rep, $81k to Dems, $23.7k to Bush

Exxon Mobile $250k, $726k, $85k, $72k

Occidental Pertroleum $250k, $296k, $61k, $15k

and so on......

There can definately be a case made for certain companies and industries trying the old "I'll scratch your back if you'll scratch mine." And this is all occuring while the republicans are weakening ethics legislation because their own people (e.g., Tom Delay) are being caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Re: Money is bad

[Kick the Donkey]

SS is just another slight of hand. His proposal is not that different from the British system implemented under Margrett Thatcher. And look how well that turned out.

His plan is just an excuse to give more money to investment houses...

Re:It's time to bury this lie

[Seumas]

If you've got REAL proof Bush 41 said this, post it.

Okay. How about this. Though I'm sure you'll nit-pick and say that he doesn't explicitely say the same phrase here. But he does elude to his initial comment over a decade ago and re-affirms it, in the context of being president rather than being a patriot. When he first made the statement (I remember it, I was about twelve years old when it happened), he had continued by saying something to the effect that an atheist could not be president, because an atheist can not be a patriot.

Here is the MSNBC transcript of George Herbert Walker Bush being interviewed by Don Imus on his radio program on September 1st, 2004. He does not make the same statement word for word, but eludes to having made the statement about atheists not being able to be patriots. He actually says an atheist can not be president, but he is clearly nodding toward his original statement a decade and a half ago in which he had said explicitely that atheists can not possibly be patriots.

Not only is the entire transcript right there, but so is a video of the interview.

Now, you could quibble and say "but he doesn't say atheists can't be patriots - just that they can't be president", but it's clear from his comment what he is asserting. I certainly don't see how this specific statement is any less offensive. Hell, just imagine if he made this statement about any other race, sex or religion? He'd be in incredibly hot water.


"Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that." -- George Herbert Walker Bush, 2004

Re:Money is bad

[CrimsonAvenger]

And just two days later while facing a mere fraction of the German army (the bulk of which was fighting in Poland) the British and French military masterminds launched the hugely successful Operation Sitzkrieg in an all out assault on Hilter's regime in an attempt to save Poland.

One must keep in mind that Britain only began mobilization for war the day after the invasion of Poland. Shifting from a peacetime stance to wartime mode is not done overnight - the British didn't even get conscription going for another month, much less have any ability to fight a war, in western Europe or anywhere else so quickly.

In fact, the French invaded western Germany only a week after the declaration of war, though, as far as I recall, they didn't push very hard, and were ultimately wasting their time - WW1 was still too much on everyone's mind at that point in the game.

It took a month and a half or two months for the BEF to even reach France, much less be in condition for offensive operations. Note also the existance of the Siegfried Line, and the refusal of Belgium to allow Anglo/French access to Germany through Belgium.

Note that by the time the BEF was in France, the German Army was back in Germany, Poland having surrendered.

Note further the German-Soviet Pact signed just the week before the invasion of Poland. Which leaves a great deal of room for doubt on the part of the Anglo-French General Staffs, since they now have to take into account the possibility (remote, but uncertain then and there) of Soviet intervention on behalf of the Germans.

I've never been terribly impressed with either British or French early actions in WW2, or in their decisions leading up to the War. But they didn't have a whole lot of options in late '39 and early '40.

It really wasn't until it became clear that they USA would violate its stated neutrality to aid the British that it became obvious that the British had the wherewithal to actually carry on a serious fight against the Germans. Note that pretty much all US support for Britain before 8 Dec 1941 was technically a violation of both international law and US law - being neutral means that you can't supply one combatant with warships, planes, tanks, guns, oil, steel, food, etc. Which we did almost from the beginning of the War in Europe.