Harper’s Index
Some excerpts:
Total amount the Bush campaign paid Enron and Halliburton for use of corporate jets during the 2000 recount: $15,400 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 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 Date on which Bush said of Osama bin Laden, “I truly am not that concerned about him”: 3/13/02 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 Chance that an Iraqi has fled his or her home since the beginning of the war: 1 in 6 Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003: 3/4 Percentage of U.S. veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have filed for disability with the VA: 35 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 Number of eligibility restrictions for admission into the Army that have been loosened since 2003: 9 Percentage change from 2004 to 2007 in the number of Army recruits admitted despite having been charged with a felony: +295 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 Percentage change since 2000 in U.S.emigration to Canada: +79 Percentage of Republicans in 2005 who said they would vote for Bush over George Washington: 62 Seconds it took a Maryland consultant in 2004 to pick a Diebold voting machine’s lock and remove its memory card: 10 Number of states John Kerry would have won in 2004 if votes by poor Americans were the only ones counted: 40 Number if votes by rich Americans were the only ones counted: 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 Percentage change since 2002 in the number of U.S. teens using illegal drugs: –9 Percentage change in the number of adults in their fifties doing so: +121 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 Amount the Justice Department spent in 2001 installing curtains to cover two seminude statues of Justice: $8,650 Number of Republican officials who have been investigated by the Justice Department since 2001: 196 Number of Democratic officials who have been: 890 Years since a White House official as senior as I. Lewis Libby had been indicted while in office: 130 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 Days after Hurricane Katrina hit that Cheney’s office ordered an electric company to restore power to two oil pipelines: 1 Days after the hurricane that the White House authorized sending federal troops into New Orleans: 4 Portion of the $3.3 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina relief spent by Mississippi that has benefited poor residents: 1/4 Percentage change in the number of Louisiana and Mississippi newborns named Katrina in the year after the storm: +153 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 Estimated amount Bush-era policies will cost the U.S. in new debt and accrued obligations: $10,350,000,000,000 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 Number of the five directors of the No Child Left Behind reading program with financial ties to a curriculum they developed: 4 Amount by which the federal government has underfunded its estimated cost to implement NCLB: $71,000,000,000
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