Some More News - Some More News: How George W. Bush's Lawlessness Set The Stage For Donald Trump

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

Hi. It's Part Two of our George W. Bush series! This week, we look at No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, Surveillance, and how Bush's butchering of the law allowed Trump to be Trump. Fool me you can't get fooled again. Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by Thomas ReimannProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/join#somemorenews #GeorgeWBush #donaldtrumpFor a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting http://auraframes.com to get 35 dollars off Aura’s best-selling Carver Mat frames – named #1 by Wirecutter – by using promo code MORENEWS at checkout.Pluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.Sign up for your $1/month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/morenewsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Howdy! That's Texas for How'd Evening, which is nonsense. It's possible I just made that up. But speaking of nonsense and Texas, George, W. Bush. He was a president. Oliver Stone made a movie where Josh Brolin, very talented, did an S&L impression. Richard Dreyfus played Dick Cheney, which was basically just his character from the American president.

Do you remember the American president? American Dreams? That other movie where Dennis Quaid did an S&L. Bush. Anyway, weird coincidence, this video is actually part two of a series about George W. Bush, the very same guy I'm talking about right now. What are the fucking odds? Go back and watch part one if you haven't. Like that, and this video, please. Subscribe to our channel, check out our Patreon, all that stuff. I'm so hungry for weed. In our previous video, we talked about how George W. Bush, beloved old fool, was actually an asshole who did bad things. And if you're an old, you may have already known that. But more importantly, not only was W. Bad for America during his presidency, but he's still bad for America today.

His legacy was, as the scholars say, a tomb of farts. Once you open it, there's no going back. Those farts, they're still out there, so let's all inhale. George W. Bush made America worse. Remember when Clinton said he didn't inhale? Was he talking about farts? I forget. I forget a lot of things these days after the accident.

Accidentally smoked too much weed. But not Bush. He's still up in the old skull meat. And as I already alluded to, today we're talking about all the crappy stuff Wubba done that had lasting effects on America today. Much like with our Reagan episodes, it's important to remember that the decisions being made today

will fundamentally change our tomorrow. And when we speak about the harm someone like, I don't know, just gonna pull out a name Donald Trump might cause, we need to factor in the today harm, like exploding boats, with the lasting harm, like exploding the economy. And heck, that reminds me. of this other thing.

Tax cuts for me, not for thee. So, just to recap real quick, 9-11, also Hurricane Katrina, also war, and of course, the many lies about all of those things. See, in our first video, we mentioned that a lot of Bush's presidency involved a bunch of things happening that he wasn't exactly prepared for. He's not a guy who likes to do stuff. his time as governor of Texas gave us a bit of a window into what Bush wanted his legacy to be. Specifically, tax cuts for the wealthy and screwing over children. Well, it turns out,

even while bogged down with 9-11s, ah, nah, the 9-11s, he still got to do that stuff too. He found the time. While not the first, Bush, much like Trump, continued to normalize the fine tradition of giving himself and his rich friends the same tax cuts over and over again. And they tucked the cuts away behind appealing names like the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. We love growth, you see. We love relief.

This is a fun game politicians like to play, because they have nothing but contempt for the American people. That's you! They hide despicable policies behind loaded names, like the Patriot Act, or the, what are you, Pussies? resolution. Don't fret, my love, we will be getting to the Patriot Act. Nobody wanted to be the person to vote no on the Patriot Act in October of 2001. That's like voting no on the infinite candy bill, Halloween or John. And nobody wanted to be the person voting no on economic growth and tax relief

after September 11th. That's 9-11. But you may notice that it doesn't specify whose money is going to grow and whose taxes will be relieved? Hmm, clever gambit. So Bush's tax cuts were more or less identical to Trumps, in that they awarded big cuts to the richest taxpayers and provided minimal relief to the middle class. It wasn't nothing, but it was kind of nothing compared to what the rich people got.

This served the dual purpose of giving rich Republicans the thing they always want and choking off tax revenue so Congress had less to spend on those pesky everybody else's. Bush called this, putting a fiscal straight jacket on Congress. But it's ostensibly what's also known as starving the beast, the idea that reducing revenue will force the government to spend less money. Because that's how money works, right? If you don't have it, you don't spend it.

It's not like there's an entire industry around lending money to people who don't have it. My goodness, what school do I have to go to to be an economic theorist? Anyway, he can't just say he wants to give the government less money, So here he is pitching tax cuts with the same level of magical thinking, usually found in letters to Santa Claus. More jobs mean more taxpayers and higher revenues to our government. The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C. Right, so he's pitching a tax cut by claiming it will actually, increase tax revenue. See, because it will create more jobs. And more jobs means more

taxpayers, which means more taxes, which means, wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right. I was trying to convince an entire country that collecting less money will actually collect more money. But more importantly, like the theme of his entire presidency, Bush's economic strategy depended on absolutely nothing happening while he was in office. Or indeed, ever again. That's the problem with starving the beast. It would work out great. if it weren't for the existence of everything. Because life, and shit happens, as it tends to do, and that requires the federal government to spend money and resources. Things like, oh, hurricanes, two wars in the Middle East, and billions in corporate bailouts following a total financial collapse.

Because again, that's just how money works. Anyone who's ignored a toothache for a year knows that sudden expenses are just a thing, rather than starving the beast. Beast, by Bush's final year in office, spending had risen to just over 20% of America's gross domestic product. Well, that money doesn't count. That's money we'd want to spend.

When we said Starve the Beast, we meant don't feed it anything for poor or black people. Much like supply-side economics, thanks Dad's boss. Starving the Beast is popular with conservatives because it allows them to keep more of their personal wealth while cutting specific programs for specific demographics. A win-win, so long as you don't factor in most people. This is what makes the Trump tax cuts so frustrating, along with a lot of GOP policies. They keep doing it, it keeps not working, and then they're like, well, what if we did it again? And so on.

And we know Bush's cuts didn't work. By 2012, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that Bush's tax cuts already added $1.5 trillion to the debt. A report by the Center for American Progress found that the Bush and Trump tax cuts combined have added $10 trillion to the national debt since 2001. That same report found that had the dramatic tax cuts of the Bush and Trump administrations not happened, federal revenue would be at the same pace with federal spending indefinitely. Instead, we're collapsing under inflation and up to our asses in debt if you care about debt. But more importantly, the tax cuts exploded wealth inequality, a problem we are still very much dealing

with today. Of course, these crippling tax cuts are almost the only reason Republicans run a presidential candidate every four years. Some of them retire the instant after clinching the latest cut. Remember 80s teen heartthrob Paul Ryan? He pretty much secured the bag and went home. Speaking of hearts and throbbing, let's talk about health care reform. Remember my metaphor about ignoring a toothache?

In other, better countries, that metaphor probably wouldn't fly. And that's in part thanks to George. Do we have a title? Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OBGYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country. More like Medid doesn't care. Nice, nice title. Nice.

Medicare reform was a key campaign promise for Bush, specifically lowering the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. The goal of the Medicare Act of 2003 was to subsidize private insurers to partially lower out-of-pocket drug costs. Which sounds great! Who wouldn't support that? Well, remember what we learned about the What Are You Pussy's Act of 2003? They like to hide devious legislation behind appealing names. The law gave a lot of leeway to pharmaceutical companies, ostensibly in the interest of creating competition, which would in turn lower costs. Conservatives love competition because it's quasi-magical thinking that allows them to do absolutely nothing while the market works itself out. There's that George W. Bush strategy.

What the law actually did was give pharmaceutical companies greater control over the prescription drug market and the ability to manipulate it at will. This was done through a non-interference clause, which prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. But wait, isn't that the exact opposite of what Bush said he wanted to do? You ask. Well, yes, you are answered. See, that clause was written by pharmaceutical company lobbyists in exchange for their support of the bill.

In other words, in order to support it, they demanded that it included language which made it way less effective. Hey, pretty weird we're letting the pharmaceutical companies weigh in on the bill meant to fight the pharmaceutical companies. But you know what? Whatever, it's fine, I'm sure. Anyway, the Medicare Act also effectively forbade the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and made it more difficult for generic drugs to compete. So, just to recap, a bill that was meant to lower prescription drug prices for the elderly

became a bill that forbade the federal government from regulating prescription drug prices whatsoever. A 2015 study published by Carleton University and Public Citizen found that U.S. taxpayers could have saved up to $16 billion if the bill had allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices. As it stands, Americans pay more than twice what people pay for prescriptions in most other countries. Really, clinch some savings for those seniors. Seniors W, thanks, you lovable dummy. A year after the Medicare Act was passed, reports were released revealing that Big Pharma

and other healthcare companies spent $141 million and sent nearly 1,000 lobbyists to Washington to sway the bill. 1,000! Think of the additional strain on the bathrooms alone! And nearly half of those lobbyists had previously worked for the federal government, including 30 former Senator

and representatives from both parties. Congress was given less than 24 hours to read the 850-page bill, and the final vote was called at 3 in the morning. So cut to now, over 20 years later, Medicare Part D has contributed to exorbitantly high out-of-pocket costs for the disabled and elderly. The rise in drug prices has far outpaced rates of inflation, meaning they're only becoming more difficult to afford, and we've only made minimal headway on reversing it. Ultimately, this was just one more way we handed our health care to private companies

with no interest in our actual health. That's the short version of it. Anyway, it feels like we need to move on to something, something I was supposed to not leave behind. But what? More like every child left behind. Nice title. Really nailing it today.

Unlike most modern Republicans, Bush actually seemed to care about public education. Although, as we learned during his dry run as governor of Texas, caring for Bush means kicking something until it starts working. We talked about that more in part one. Go watch part one. It's weird if you didn't watch part one. Unless we didn't put part one in that title and part two in this title, in which case you're forgiven. Anyway, no child left behind.

child left behind. Do you remember that? You should. It completely transformed how public schools operated in the country by judging students' performance solely on standardized tests. The law required states to create their own standards of educational proficiency in reading and math that they would then have to meet. If students failed to meet their testing thresholds, schools would be required to make a series of changes, from firing teachers to hiring consultants, all the way up to a full state takeover or a complete restructuring. That happened to more than 6,000 schools, which were restructured after none of Bush's punitive measures

managed to improve their students' test scores. See, Bush believes in the carrot and the stick, but he also believes the carrot is the stick. This all led to the same result. Schools sacrificing vital classes like social studies, art, music, and recess in order to focus on raising math and reading scores. And many states were trying to lower the standards they'd set for themselves within a year. Subsequent studies found that no child left behind marginally improved math scores

for fourth and eighth grade students but didn't have much of an effect on reading. Because all no child left behind boils down to is a threatening note to educators. Raise your student scores or you will be punished. Trust fund kid doesn't fund or trust kids. As we already saw during his governorship in Texas, the outcome here is painfully obvious. Bush's strategy of hinging school resources and teachers' jobs against standardized test scores inevitably led to, at best, a generation of kids taught specifically for standardized testing and nothing else. At worst, it incentivizes chicanery. Now, malfeasance. No, chicanery's good. Oh, wait, no. Cheating. For example, a massive cheating scandal erupted in Atlanta shortly after Bush left office,

in which a school superintendent who had previously been praised for a district's performance under no child was found to have encouraged educators at dozens of elementary and middle schools to inflate their test scores. A grand jury wound up indicting her and 34 other educators, and in total, 11 were convicted of racketeering. Racketeering! Usually that crime results in financial gain rather than simply hanging on to your job and keeping your school afloat. And yes, the people implicated in the scandal were black educators running schools for black children in a system that skews most of its resources to wealthier majority white districts. And they charge them with racketeering, which for context is something with which nobody involved in the subprime mortgage crisis was charged.

Seems racist? Because while that Atlantic case, which was bad, got all the attention, there was evidence of cheating scandals going down in at least 40 states. Again, I keep saying it, cheating was the inevitable conclusion of this policy. The reign of no child came to an end in 2015, when Barack Obama, the president at the time, signed the Every Student Succeeds Act. Just cool it with the names, guys, seriously. This is a warning. Obama! The bipartisan legislation kept testing standards in place,

but removed the austere federal oversight mechanisms that had placed enormous pressure on schools. Hey, did I just mention the subprime mortgage crisis? That reminds me of the subprime mortgage crisis. But first, an ad break for all you ad perverts out there. You know who you are, and I know what you like. Ads. Ads is what you like.

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please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hope you like those ads, you fucking weirdos. So anyway, Bush, not the band, not the shrub, George. W, to be exact. As president, he found new and fun ways to screw over children and old people. No child left behind was a needlessly cruel and punitive measure on schools and kids for not meeting test scores.

Because kids, you see, can't make any mistakes. I mean, what are they? What are they? Banks? The big, beautiful bailout. Now, I'm not gonna get super detailed on the 2008 financial crisis, so go watch that Christian Bail movie with the Wall Street stuff.

Not that one. Or that one. That's the one. Anyway, I don't have Margot Robbie or a bubble bath, but here's the short short. A series of deregulatory moves by the federal government starting back in the 1990s created an environment of recklessness among large banks and insurance companies.

Subprime mortgages, low credit requirements for loans, and a loosening of rules by the SEC created a major lending bubble in the US economy. In 2004, the SEC loosened its net capital rule, which basically meant that investment firms like Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs could borrow more and more money compared to the amount of assets they actually owned.

During that time, the leverage ratio at Bear Stearns rose to 33 to 1,000, meaning it had $33 of debt for every $1 of equity. That's bad, right? That seems bad. But I'm not a bank, for money at least. Blood I have. This sort of laissez-faire regulatory approach was perfect for Bush's

let things work themselves out on their own philosophy because it required the least from him. Eventually, every investment firm was over-leveraged and it all came crashing down. Now, as was the case with the disastrous handling of Hurricane Katrina, there are a lot of reasons why the market crashed, including Bush. But again, much like Katrina, the response was the real disaster. Classic W. The president and his Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson spearheaded a campaign to buy out the bank's toxic assets with $700 billion in taxpayer money.

Our money. And much like his other strategies, this was. one also depended on magical thinking. Bush argued that the banks would start freely lending money again and unfreeze the economy once all that debt was off their backs. But what tends to happen when you hand a reckless private industry with little regulation or oversight an enormous pile of cash is that they keep it for themselves. A bailout also wasn't even the only option. Some economists argued that the government could have made a stock injection, giving tax taxpayers an ownership stake in every company that accepted a bailout.

But Republicans would rather launch their penises to the moon than have the government own any part of a private company because that's socialism. So instead of a stock injection, which would have allowed the American people to theoretically get that money back, but is socialism? Bush just bought all their bad debt. You're welcome banks! So what happened next? Well, of course, banks that received

taxpayer bailouts gave nearly 600 executives 1.6 billion dollars in salary bonuses and other benefits. Furthermore, bank executives received a record amount of over $140 billion in bonuses the following year in 2009. That's what happens when you lend scumbags money. What could have been a moment of much-needed reckoning for the banks became a reassurance that they could get away with anything. A lesson they clearly have not forgotten. In fact, at the time, critics argued that bailing out the banks without extracting one single concession on their part set a terrible precedent, essentially letting Wall Street know that they can play as fast and loose as they like, because if the shit hits the fan, we'll just buy all that bad debt from them

so they can start over. That's the Bush way. That's the Trump way. That's the American. American way. Speaking of the American way, let's talk about the torture. We will fight these evil ones for the cause of fascism. Making America torture again. Sweet, glad we decided that torture is cool, no way that will hurt us in the long run. So Bush operated the executive branch with the aid of a handful of lawyers and neo-conservatives that were committed to the unitary executive theory, which was spearheaded by deputy assistant attorney general John Yu. Basically, the theory argues that the president has the power to do anything he deems necessary to enforce the law and defend the country in a time of crisis.

In other words, the Constitution doesn't say he can't do this. See the president, Airbud v. Basketball. In the case of Bush and the War on Terror, the theory was used to arrest and detain people without charge or trial and then torture them. You actually wrote a memo on how to legally justify torturing a captive human being. Because Bush and his cronies wanted to follow the law in big quotes whilst doing all that waterboarding and sexual violence. Because yes, another primary method of torture was stuffing a victim's rectum full of hummus. That didn't make the news as much. But, you know, maybe there's a terrorist up there.

All of this groundwork was being done at Bush's discretion, which is so perfectly him. He just walked in the room with his little cowboy boots and cowboy hat and said, make it so we can torture these fellas. That always works in the movies. And then he waited for someone to make that happen for him. This strategy has never failed him in the short term. Anyway, here's a clip of John Yoo referring to the president as his client

while admitting he made torture kind of legal for Bush. Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion? Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the anti-torture act. I'm not a lawyer. But you've got to trust the judgment of people around you, and I do. You say it's legal, and the lawyers told me. Yeah.

And I guess he was probably pointing to you in that case, and I wonder if you feel that he's walked away from you. Look, part of the job of being a lawyer is defending sometimes on popular decisions that your clients make. And I'm willing to do that. part of the job. But I also think that there's no escaping the responsibility of people who make the policy decision. I mean, just because the law says you can drive 65 miles an hour doesn't mean you have to drive 65 miles an hour. There's still a lot of discretion and choice

that elected leaders of our government had to make. And I'm prepared and confident in saying that I think my legal judgment then was right under the circumstances. Okay. So, So... What? He's saying that, like a speed limit, just because he said torture was legal doesn't mean you should torture. He's trying to wash his hands of the torture that he allowed. John Yu took constitutional law and reinterpreted it like a fortune teller at a bachelorette

party to challenge the legal definition of torture. He wrote the president a note he could take to school to let him torture, who may he wanted. He effectively changed the law for Bush. We have it in writing, and here he's trying to downplay his role to that of a posted speed limit. Hey, you can shove hummus up that person's rectum. But you don't have to. They're the party of personal responsibility after all. Years later, John Yu would unironically write an op-ed during Trump's first term titled, Executive Power Run Amok, criticizing Trump's expansion of Exhibition. executive authority.

Apparently, he was just mad Trump wasn't giving him credit for the idea because you would go on to collaborate with the Trump administration to advise them on how to get away with human rights atrocities with ICE. Incidentally, or icidentally, I guess, a CIA black site torture method called a confinement box was used at the now infamous so-called alligator alcatraz. We love nostalgic torture folks. Of course, Bush's limitless executive powers didn't stop with the detaining and brutalizing of terror suspects.

During Bush's war on terror, his administration was relentless in backing up the notion that the president could make whatever decisions necessary in the name of national security. They argue that the president can label any American citizen suspected of terrorist activity an enemy combatant, take away their constitutional rights, and hold them indefinitely. This might sound familiar to you if you've heard the current president label anyone he doesn't like a terrorist or an enemy of the people, or in case of Venezuelan fishermen, narco-terrorists. The Bush administration also argued that war crimes aren't war crimes if they're against individuals or groups that they claim support terrorism.

And I guess this is the point where we have to finally talk about the Patriot Act. just a really terrible bill. So am I! Me too! While the Patriot Act did expand the presidency and executive powers and further normalize and exacerbate America's bungling aggression overseas, it's related to but separate from the torture and more related to America's aggression inward, domestically. It's actually one of three post-9-11 bills of which we are still experiencing the ramifications.

Some real ledge shit-slation. There's the Homeland Security Act of late 2002, which we've discussed in the past. It reorganized a bunch of agencies and created the Department of Homeland Security. Yes, the Department of Homeland Security is actually very young, though not so young that Homeland Security Director

Christy Noem would shoot it dead in a gravel pit. Homeland Security also absorbed FEMA, an action that as we discussed last week caused a lot of problems in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Oh, the act also created ice. Yes. ICE is also actually a very young organization, though not so young that Donald Trump would fuck it. Allegedly.

Via the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, he would end up making ICE the most well-funded and eventually largest federal law enforcement agency in the country. Cool! We love it! Next bill! After 9-11, Congress also passed the authorization for use of military force of 2001. AUMFs are alternatives to formal declarations of war, drafted by Congress to give the President power to deploy military force. The power can be narrow or broad. Feel free to guess which one this was, but it's broad. The answer is broad military powers.

This particular AUMF, which only one member of Congress voted against, is still being used and has been used by every president since. Yes, even the ones you're thinking of. 2012, Obama reaffirmed via the AUMF his authority to enact indefinite detention. The 2001 AUMF has been used to wage war without declaring war for decades, all in the name of fighting terrorism, a nebulous threat and target that can be defined in many ways and has been. Interestingly, before J.D. Vance was the current vice president and podcaster, he co-introduced

a bill to repeal the AUMF with the End Endless Wars Act. Of course, here he is now cheering the indiscriminate blowing up a fisherman in the name of fighting narco-terrorism. Fuck you, J.D. This now brings us to the Patriot Act, which went into effect on October 26, 2001.

It was introduced just three days earlier, and so many members of Congress didn't have time to fully read it. But they couldn't look soft on terrorism. You gotta pass the no more bad guys. and also make everyone safe forever act. The Patriot Act did many things, including but not limited to, expanding the definition of terrorism to potentially include domestic political groups or protesters that some

president might deem terrorists, expanding law enforcement's ability to surveil citizens via methods like wiretapping and data collection, allowing for sneak and peak searches, which are a type of search warrant with no warning, thus violating the Fourth Amendment. And once again, that phrase, indefinite detention for immigrants suspected of terrorism. The Patriot Act did have critics at the time, and some folks in Congress did express concerns. But it passed. It's here. It was a bipartisan rush job to expand law enforcement's power and reduce our civil liberties.

Every president and Congress has attempted to reauthorize the Patriot Act in part or in full. Yes, even the one you're thinking of. Obama did end some aspects of it, like bulk phone data collection, via the USA Freedom Act of 2015, but that also reauthorized other aspects of the Patriot Act. So although key provisions of the Patriot Act have technically expired, literally right at the start of the pandemic actually, its spirit still lives on. You can probably see how the effects of these three bills could be utilized by any president to do horrible things.

But maybe they're particularly useful to a president who, um, let's say, hates protesters and calls everyone he hates a terrorist and also likes bombing whomever. Maybe he hates non-white immigrants from shithole countries and wants to mass deport people indiscriminately by claiming their criminal terrorists, etc., detaining people without due process, etc. Which actually brings us to the Lake and Riley Act, which makes it easier for ICE to detain and deport immigrants. It ostensibly authorizes mandatory detention for alleged petty crimes without giving a conviction or even filing charges. This is not George W. Bush's doing, as it was passed earlier this year under Trump, but it is reminiscent of some of these bills in a few ways.

It exploits a tragic event. It was passed with the help of Democrats who either wanted it to pass or didn't want to seem soft on crime. It expands the powers of law enforcement and furthered degrades the idea of due process in this country. It's the kind of bill that will be cited years in the future when someone asks, how did we get here? Why are things like this? I accidentally, again, when the Lake and Riley Act was passed, ICE said they wouldn't be able to enforce it

because they would need billions more dollars. Luckily for monsters, as we mentioned earlier, Trump gave them that and then some with the one big, beautiful bill. But enough of present-day monsters. Let's get back to the past. One big beautiful Bush. So, Bush directed the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, a thing that is specifically unconstitutional.

There's an entire amendment about it. And a Joseph Gordon-Levett movie. Not that one. Quit trying to get me to watch. That's the one. Bush directed the National Security Agency to spy on the phone calls and emails of U.S. citizens without a warrant. But when the criminal conspiracy was raised,

revealed by the media, rather than mirroring their outrage or vowing to the American people that their right to privacy was intact, Bush's administration argued that they were justified in conducting widespread, warrantless surveillance on American citizens by classified legal opinions. Basically, the Patriot Act stuff and the AUNF vibes that say nothing that the president does is illegal if he's doing it to fight terrorists. In Toby Keith's name, we pray, amen. In fact, They were so not sorry when news of the illegal wiretaps leaked. Bush addressed the nation to literally scold the media for revealing the secret surveillance operation to our enemies.

Really? That's really what he said. Other officials in the Bush administration tried just as dubiously to justify the blatantly illegal surveillance of American citizens. Here's Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez basically admitting that there are a number of secret programs dedicated to subvert the Fourth Amendment.

Has the President ever invoked this authority with respect to any activity other than the program we're discussing, the NSA surveillance program? Senator, I am not comfortable going down the road of saying yes or no as to what the president has or has not authorized. He's a former judge. He's a smart lawyer. The Attorney General was speaking very carefully, but I think there could be lots of room after you read his testimony for other programs to be doing really unprecedented things.

It's kind of wild to look back at how flippantly they're trying to wave off something so blatantly and indefensibly unconstitutional. Once again, it all boils down to rhetorical games. And despite the fact that this testimony would have gotten him convicted of whatever crime he stood charged with in criminal court, Gonzalez, like the rest of the Bush administration, never faced any kind of punishment for their many crimes against the American people. And against humanity. Not even so much as a racketeering charge. I mean, the criminal conspiracy is right there. Like, zooming out to 9-11 and the war in Iraq, you may remember that in the previous episode I mentioned that a lot of Bush's people were part of a neo-conservative movement interested in pushing America as a bigger global power than what it was.

What I left out is that this movement had a specific name and stated agenda. It was called the Project for the New American Century. Hmm, a project for the future. Interesting. Not familiar at all. To quote their statement of principles, what we require is a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges, a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad, and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities. Back in 1998, the founder of this group, William Crystal, wrote an op-ed titled, Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough, that argued for a regime change in the country. Interestingly, the Trump era has apparently turned Crystal into a blue-posting lib who wants to abolish ICE.

He follows us on the websites! That same year, the New American Century put out an open letter to Clinton, saying, quote, the only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action, as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. They would go on to send a similar letter to George W. Bush after 9-11. Not that they had to. That letter to Clinton, it was signed by 18 people, 10 of whom would go on to join

the Bush administration, including John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and of course fucking Donald Rumsfeld. Oh, and another interesting detail. New American Century had also put out a report in 2000, noting that the fastest way to remake the Middle East would be after, quote, some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor. So yeah, jail, right? This was a neo-conservative group specifically conspiring to push for America to use its military to assert dominance in the Middle East, specifically hoping for a disaster to strike in order to justify it. They got their wish, kinda, and then spun it to fit the narrative they wanted, while as a bonus, using the War on Terror to enact a series of power grabs against the American people. Jail them.

Jail more of them. Like, surely, once Bush left office, he or others in his administration must have been held accountable for all the laws they broke. They had serious effects on the entire world. This wasn't like stealing the Spice World soundtrack from Walden Books. These crimes caused serious damage. They freaking tortured people. And while this absolutely doesn't matter, it's worth noting that they said torture didn't work.

It didn't get them vital information during the war in Iraq. It's kind of like, I don't know, raiding an apartment building and dragging people out on the streets resulting in zero charges. Someone should get fucking jail time. At the very least, like,

begging for the very least, the next sensible president would have reversed the Patriot Act. Bare minimum, the people who did this to us should be booted from our government so they can't erode the checks on executive power even further. Am I asking for too much? Yeah, I am.

We all know I am. Listen, we're gonna do an ad break, our final ad break of the year! And when we come back, we will talk about the single most damaging contribution of George Bush's presidency, like country, ending levels of damage, like Miles Dyson working on Skynet sort of stuff. Because, of course, Bush wasn't going to be the last president to use whatever to justify a predetermined agenda concocted by a right-wing think tank.

In fact, turns out you don't even need a 9-11 to do it. How fun. Stay tuned. 2 plus 0 plus 2 plus 2 plus 6 equals 10. That must mean something, right? It's a sign! Why not make 2026 the year you launch your business? The year you transform into an entrepreneur, founder, boss, numerologist.

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If you've ever been in the market for a new home You know home shopping Can be a lot There's so much you don't know And so much you need to know What are the neighborhoods like? What are the schools like? Who is the agent and who knows the listing or neighborhood best?

And why can't all this information just be in one place? Well, now it is on Homes.com. They've got everything you need to know about the listing itself, but even better. They've got comprehensive neighborhood guides and detailed reports about local schools. And their agent directory helps you see the agent's current listings and sales history. Homes.com collaboration tools make it easier than ever to share all this information with your family. It's a whole cold sack of home shopping information,

all at your fingertips. Homes.com. We've done your homework. Yeesh, we should have done a video about the band in retrospect. That would have been fun. We could have talked about the movie Constantine based on the comic book Constantine. Bush is in that.

His name is Bush, right? That's why they call the band that? Anyway, other Bush. Less fun, Bush. The Patriot Act was a bipartisan legislative disaster that used fear in order to allow for a grotesque amount of easily abused executive power against the nation's own citizens. Much like the Iraq War, actually, it was a way for Bush and the GOP to leverage an unthinkable attack on the country to get a thing they already wanted. I'm not saying that Bush caused 9-11, because I already know it was the lizard people, but if this was a whodunit,

He'd absolutely be the most fitting suspect. He and his little new American century certainly stood to gain the most from it. So when you stand back and look at his time as president, you're looking at a crime, a group of people using a tragedy to trick the American people into supporting a bunch of power expansions and wars that had nothing to do with the cause of that tragedy. And that wasn't even the only crime. Like, remember when Bush's staff violated the Hatch Act? That's a law designed to stop federal employees from engaging in, quote,

activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group. You can't only serve your party while in office, but rather the interests of all Americans. Quaint, right? Well, Bush's staff absolutely used government briefings to specifically discuss campaign strategies for the Republican Party. And maybe the reason that sounds quaint now is because we should have done something about it back then when it would have still mattered. You know? Instead, the opposite of that happened.

And while that's devastating for many reasons, the most devastating is that it sent a clear message to the GOP and anyone who wanted to use the presidency as a throne, and that message was sure. Everybody. President Trump wants to rule the world. America. World.

Shucks. Instead of consequences or some kind of reversal, Bush's expansion of war and surveillance powers by the executive branch would only be elevated by future presidents. Because it turns out, presidents love getting to do whatever they want. And who wouldn't? It's awesome. That's why I hang out with cowards.

No offense to everybody I hang out with. Of course, this is exactly why the Constitution didn't intend for the president to have every power it didn't explicitly forbid. I don't care how good the dog is at basketball. President Obama lobbied Congress to extend the Patriot Act in 2015, allowing the NSA to monitor phone calls. Remember that whole Edward Snowden thing. That was under Obama. Because, just to stress, every president wants more power.

wants more power. And our job as taxpayers is to understand that they shouldn't, even if we like them and they're cool and hang out with Anthony Bourdain. Because Obama wasn't that cool, at least when it came to our personal information, and drones. He signed a spending bill that allows private companies to share data with the Defense Department without the threat of litigation. Basically, they can share any of your information that the government asks for without a warrant and you are not allowed to sue them. Oh, and as an aside, the Obama administration ended up extending those Bush-era tax cuts, too. In fact, a majority of Democrats joined Republicans to extend Bush tax cuts once Obama was in office. Because they're all rich, too. Remember? Those 1,000

lobbyists that descended on the Capitol at the behest of Big Pharma weren't all Republicans. These motherfuckers go to the gym together. The point is that this is the moment. Like, yeah, this entire episode is about Bush creating a country in which Trump can thrive. But we didn't go straight from Bush to Trump, right? Obama had to curate and nurture the terrible things that Bush created. It's basically every story involving an evil and powerful artifact. Oh, sure, we don't want Sauron to get the ring, but I'll use a tick to great things. Like build an awesome water slide on the side of Minas Tirith.

You think they couldn't use a big water slide spiraling down that thing? Gondor calls for rad and tubular. What was I even talking about? Obama. The guy who could have said, let's end the overreach of power and punish the crimes, but didn't. I mean, it was over, right? Bush was gone. So what could possibly go wrong?

He asked during Trump's second term. So yeah, here we are, with the exploding boats and the mass kidnappings. Dude loves that unity. executive theory. Trump's administration has claimed that the country is in a state of emergency because of rampant crime and immigration in order to seize extraordinary executive power, including deploying the U.S. military to Democratic cities and giving ice carte blanche to operate in secrecy and with complete impunity. And it is all just an

extension of what the Bush administration did while in power. Trump literally worked with Bush's torture memo guy to figure out how to make his deconement. plausibly legal, even though they absolutely aren't. The Trump administration is routinely murdering boats full of people for social media likes, including one incident that even John Yu has criticized. And all they have to say is that the country is under attack from cartel violence, and that the boats were full of drug dealers, and we have said the right combination of words to get away with murder.

Remember, if the president says you're a terror suspect, your rights did. disappear completely. This unitary executive theory goes so far beyond interpreting the law that it's functionally a constitutional amendment, except we don't call it that. See, the Constitution still says the president isn't a king, but we know what they really meant, right? By no means did Bush introduce the idea of a sleazy executive branch taking outsized control of the government, but he made it a staple of his administration. Indeed, it is how to be it. he met every single challenge of his presidency. The passing and rampant abuses of the Patriot Act opened the floodgates for future presidents to take those powers

further and take them further they did. And most damaging, he saw no consequence for doing that. Because in our minds, at the time, the damage was done. And I guess when it comes to presidents, if the crime already happened, we just let it go now. And just like Obama did. After Bush, Biden refused to hold Trump accountable for January 6th, because again, it's over, right? The guy who tried to do the coup was gone. He's so sorry, I'm sure.

What could possibly go wrong? And then we just kind of let Trump run for president again with the distinction of being the only person in American history to refuse the peaceful transfer of power. And then he won and has used the position to do personal crimes, like a lot of personal crimes, as well as war crimes and crimes against the citizens of his own country. And everything so far tells us exactly what is going to happen when or I guess if he steps down after his second term.

We're just gonna let it slide, because we wouldn't dare prosecute a former president for doing a grotesque amount of crimes. I mean, we would if we did, but we didn't, So we can't now. It didn't start with Trump. It didn't start with Bush. I don't actually know when it started,

some power hungry amoeba. But at some point, America lost its ability to hold presidents accountable for their actions. Everyone got so gung-ho for their team that applying the law to the most powerful person in America was a partisan issue instead of a, you know, a legal one. Dare I say, a patriotic one. And from the very start, Trump knew this.

He hinged his entire political career on it. And you know what else they say about my people? The polls. They say, I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay? It's like incredible. He was so right.

Boy, was he right. We accidentally made a country where people like Trump are untouchable. Maybe it started with Clinton inhaling those farts. Or, you know, the rapist stuff. But George W. was the guy who made it the most evident, who yanked the curtain open for everyone, especially Trump, to see. And ultimately, it doesn't matter who started it. What matters is that we need to finish it. We need to set a new precedent.

A president precedent. And by that, I mean, we have to jail them all? Yeah. Yeah, jail them all. Or prison or whatever. Even the dead ones. You know what? Especially the dead ones.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, and I'll say it now. Dig up Jimmy Carter. Happy holidays. We should probably just let them rest in peace, right? Dig them up. Jail the Living Ones. Haven't done that in a while. Hi everybody, thanks for watching.

Make sure to like and subscribe. Leave a comment about whatever you want. Did you hear Katie laugh at the end there? There she is. We've got a podcast called Even More News. It's here on YouTube twice a week. You can listen to it just as a podcast if you want. You can listen to this show as a podcast.

If you don't like what we got going here, We've got merch at a merch store. The link is on the screen. Some examples are also on the screen. And you know what? It's been a long time since we've said hi to this fella. And it'll be an even longer time now. This is the next time we say hi to them.

I feel so bad. Hold on. It's okay, buddy. It's okay. It's okay. See you next year, I guess. This ad is brought to you by Veeve Healthcare, the makers of Appritude, cabotegrivir. You never skip your SPF and you carry hand sanitizer like an accessory.

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