President Bush's Popularity Strong (Los Angeles Times) While War Continues:  Since the attack on the United States on September 11, President Bush's popularity has remained strong.  A Los Angeles Times poll has the President's job approval rating steady at 86%, while only one in ten disapprove.  Almost the same share of Americans (83%) approve of the way he is handling the war in Afghanistan and Iraq (with 64% saying they strongly approve).  A majority of Americans feel he is a stronger leader than they expected, while only 4% think he is weaker.  Hell, he was reelected in the 2004 Presidential Election.

Harding got sick from Ptomaine Poisoning and collapsed after having violent convulsions.  Some believe that Florence killed him.  Before his death Harding suffered numerous breakdowns and ended up in a Sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan.  He was psychologically sick all right.

Psychological studies done in the United States two decades ago proved the disastrous impact of widespread racism on children of African descent. In 1939 Kenneth & Mamie Clark conducted psychological studies of self-image and self-evaluation.  Black children were given a choice to choose between Black and White dolls.  Sixty-seven (67%) percent of the Black children chose White dolls.  The children said that the Black dolls "looked bad."  In 1985--five decades later Derek and Darlene Hopson did the same experiment and found similar results.  This time 65% of the Black children in one test all believed a doll with White skin was good and pretty -- a measure of the "self- hatred" instilled by social attitudes so prevalent as to be taken for granted  (Frazier & Warner, pp 1+). 

During Harding's time in office there were 183 African-Americans lynched.  The Tulsa, Oklahoma Race Riots of 1921 left a total of 301 dead.  This domestic terrorism event was more serious than the Oklahoma City Bombing of 1995, but America heard about this domestic terrorist attack 80 years after it happened.  White people rioted after a botched lynching of a Black man wrongfully accused of rape.  Fifteen hundred (1,500) houses and businesses and 35 blocks in the Greenwood section of Tulsa known as the “Negro Wall Street” were destroyed.  Two days of violence and arson directed by whites against African American neighborhoods left hundreds dead, hundreds injured, and more than 1500 African American homes and 600 businesses in shambles. In 1922 a Federal Anti-Lynching Bill was killed by a filibuster in the US Senate.  Warren didn't want to be found out and then lynched.  That is where Warren G. fits in—fit in where you can get in—BE WHITE YOUNG MAN!  GET ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE US.  Certainly Bush & Co. are using tactics more scandalous than Harding thought about to get over.  Like Bush, Harding also lived a political illegitimacy--although Harding's illegitimacy was a WHITE illegitimacy. Consider the following: 

President George W. was selected and elected with a proven Political Illegitimacy: in both 2000 and 2004. 

The ballots that add up to a majority for John Kerry in Ohio were locked up in two Republican hidey-holes: “spoiled” and “provisional.”  In a typical presidential election, 2 million ballots are marked “spoiled” and then chucked in the garbage, uncounted. But a dive into the electoral dumpster reveals something special about these votes. In a precinct-by-precinct analysis of the Florida 2000 race, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission discovered that 54 percent of spoiled ballots were cast by African-Americans. Nationwide, the number of black votes “disappeared” into the spoiled pile is about 1 million. The other million in the no-count pit come mainly from Hispanic, Native-American and poor white precincts, a decidedly Democratic demographic.

Vote spoilage comes in two flavors. “Overvotes” are where there are too many punches in the cards. And “undervotes” are where the hanging, dimpled and “pregnant” chads created by old punch card machines hang on. Machines can’t these kinds of under-votes, but we humans, who know a hole when we see one, have no problem … if we’re allowed to. This is how Katherine Harris defeated Al Gore: by halting the hand count of the spoiled punch cards not, as is generally believed, by halting a recount.

The civil rights group’s expert testimony concluded that Ohio’s cussed insistence on forcing 73 percent of its electorate to use punch card machines had an overwhelming racial bias, voiding votes mostly in black precincts.

In Ohio, more than 155,000 voters were shunted to these second-class ballots. The election-shifting bulge in provisional ballots (more than 3 percent of the electorate) was the direct result of the national Republican strategy that targeted African-American precincts for mass challenges on Election Day. This is the first time in four decades that a political party systematically barred tens of thousands of black voters.  (Most voters in Ohio chose Kerry by:  Greg Palast)

According to The Nation, Al Gore beat George Bush by roughly 537,000 votes nationally, but also handily defeated him among legally cast votes in Florida.  Bush will spend his term to counter his proven political illegitimacy. This is actually a pretty frightening notion. Before the much misreported results of the Florida recount, the Administration gave every indication of being so addicted to secrecy that it would happily stretch the bounds of democratic accountability beyond their breaking point—RIP!  RIP!

In Michael Moore's book:  Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation (2002) he outlines how brother Jed Bush and Katherine Harris--Secretary of State in charge of elections paid $4 million to Database Technologies to remove thousands of Black citizens from the voting rolls because they knew Black voters would vote for Al Gore.  In his movie Fahrenheit 911 (2004) Moore examines President George W. Bush and his policies after September 11, 2001.  The whole thing had to be true because Bush and his colleagues never presented a rebuttal on his behalf to the media or anybody else.

There were 173,000 registered voters in Florida who were permanently wiped off the voter rolls.  In Miami-Dade, Florida's largest county, 66 percent of he voters who were removed were Black.  In Tampa's county, 54 percent of those who were denied the right to vote were Black.  The British Broadcasting corporation ran 15-minute segments on its prime-time news program revealing the Bush Whack.  By the time the "mainstream media" made the reports, there was little attention paid to the incident.  Most Americans ignored the story. (The Los Angeles Times and Washington Post picked up the story, but it received little attention.)

Black voters were advised in writing not to bother showing up on Election Day because they would be barred from voting.  If they showed up they would be prevented from voting and would have to submit themselves for fingerprinting and let the State of Florida determine whether or not they were felons.

On election day Black voters flocked to the polls in record numbers.  They were told that they could not vote.  The polling locations were heavily infiltrated by police. Black and Hispanic voters were sent away and threatened with arrest if they protested.

AL GORE WINS THE STATE OF FLORIDA!  Declared the major television networks on November 7, 2001.  Later that evening the networks retracted their call and placed Florida in the undecided camp.  Voting machines in Black communities did not work properly and Black voters were intimidated by the police and in some instances prevented from voting.

According to the Washington Post, this tendency was evident even pre-9/11--for instance, when Dick Cheney refused repeated Congressional demands that he identify the lobbyists crafting the Administration's multibillion-dollar giveaway to the oil and gas industry. Bush people's zeal to shut down the free flow of information goes well beyond any legitimate need. Consider November's Executive Order 13233, which eviscerates the nation's access to its own history effectively overturning the Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978 by fiat.

Current law insists that all presidential papers be declassified within twelve years, with an exception made for those whose publication could demonstrably affect our national security. Bush now wants to allow Presidents to refuse to declassify the decision-making process virtually forever.

According to a relative Murrell Selden, Harding was one of America’s greatest presidents.  Harding was the first Republican president to support the right of women to vote. The election of 1920 was the first presidential election in which women were allowed to vote.  He was a leader in bringing about postwar economic development after WWI. He took responsibility and held government officials accountable. He is the first president to require budgets in all departments of the government - especially the War Department. There was much graft and corruption in defense spending, and Harding brought it under control with budgets.

In Harding’s Teapot Dome Scandal – The US Navy’s oil reserves were sold and turned over to private investors with a kickback to the Secretary of the Interior. 

There are many similarities to the recent Enron collapse.  It was believed that the public should divest itself of real property and never compete with private enterprise.   Currently, something smells rotten in Houston.  CNN reports that Energy giant Enron, which used to brag about becoming the world's biggest company, now holds the record for the country's biggest ever bankruptcy filing.  

Bill Press: Enron makes Whitewater look like peanuts—4500 employees are out of work.  Tens of thousands of investors watched their Enron stock sink suddenly from $83 per share to 26 cents, wiping out $60 billion of stockholder value.  11,000 employees invested 401K funds exclusively in Enron—and were forbidden by Enron’s own rules from diversifying.  Today they have no retirement plan at all.

It is hard to tell whether Enron is the house that Bush built, or Bush is the house that Enron built.  Bush and friends were major players in Enron’s corporate success.  The political fortunes of George W. Bush seem to be linked to the rise and fall of Enron.  Enron is the world’s biggest corporate disaster.  It can also be labeled the world’s biggest cause of corporate criminality.  

The current Bush administration has Enron connections. Secretary of the Army Thomas White is a former high-ranking Enron executive, and Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative, was a paid member of Enron’s Advisory Board. The Washington consulting firm run by Lawrence Lindsey, the White House’s top economic advisor, worked for Enron.  Other top officials include Karl Rove, Bush’s chief political strategist and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, both owned huge chunks of Enron stock when they joined the Bush Administration.  At the end of the first Bush Administration, Enron hired Chief of Staff James Baker and Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher.

• Ken Lay Chairman of Enron was George Bush’s biggest campaign contributor.
• Ken Lay was the only energy executive to meet privately with VP Dick Cheney to help shape the administration’s new energy policy.

• The Bush Whitehouse refused to help California solve its energy crisis, which were caused by Enron’s suddenly inflating the price of electricity, forcing blackouts throughout the state.  Bush refused to intervene to help consumers—wouldn’t do anything to hurt his pal’s big business.

Harding's presidency was one of total disrespect.  Authors write:  Harding's nomination and election proved the old adage that anyone could become president.  That way if the news of his blackness leaked out, he would go down in history as low man on the Totem Pole.  This Negro couldn't be lynched like the other Negroes--not a public display.  I believe that is why he was eliminated mysteriously--by poison.  God Bless America!

stewartsynopsis@yahoo.com