Spirit of America BookstoreU.S. Timeline – 2001 to Present
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America As Empire
War Film Festival - Middle-East War Movies
- 2001 Jan 20: George W. Bush was sworn in as President #43, serving two misbegotten terms.
- 2001 Feb 27: The Bush administration began illegal wiretaps of Americans, specifically of calls at coerced/cooperative national & regional telephone companies. The irony: These illegal wiretap operations did NOT prevent the attack on September 11th (and perhaps were not designed for that purpose).
- 2001 Aug 6: President Bush ignored the Presidential Daily Briefing memorandum reporting an imminent terrorist threat by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
- 2001 Sept 11: Muslim terrorists commandeered four airliners: two crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan (2,823 deaths); Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC (189 deaths); and Flight 93 crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania (44 deaths).
[next-day newspaper headlines, in new window]
- 2001 Oct 26: President Bush signed the spurious 342-page U.S.A. Patriot Act [Uniting & Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept & Obstruct Terrorism Act]
- 2002 March 13: George W. Bush stated "I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not concerned about [bin Laden]."
- 2002 June 26: Ninth Circuit Court Newdow decision against 'under God' phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance.
- 2002 June 27: U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing Cleveland Ohio school voucher program.
- 2002 Aug 26: V.P. Dick Cheney spoke at V.F.W. convention, which included the statement that "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- 2002 Oct 10: U.S. Congress passed the 'Authorization For Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002' by a vote of 296-133, which is cited as permission for Bush's unprovoked invasion of Iraq.
- 2002 Nov 25: President Bush signed the infamous Homeland Security Act.
- 2002 Dec 31: The U.N. inspection team admitted to finding no evidence of W.M.D. in Iraq.
- 2003 Feb 5: U.S. Secretary of Defense Colin Powell spoke at the United Nations, using faked-up pictures and recordings to make the case for an invasion of Iraq.
- 2003 Feb 8 [or 1st?]: The space shuttle Columbia exploded 200,000 feet above Texas, on landing approach to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, killing the seven crew members.
- 2003 Feb ?? Patriot Act II: Domestic Security Enhancement Act
- 2003 March 19: Beginning of George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. [Due to time zone differences, the bombardment of Iraq began March 20th, local time.]
- 2003 April 9: Baghdad fell to U.S.-British forces.
- 2003 May 1: President Bush declared 'end of major hostilities in Iraq' on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln off the coast of California; a total of 138 U.S. soldiers died during the Mini-War.
- 2003 May 22: President Bush signed Executive Order 13303 granting immunity from prosecution to oil companies operating in Iraq.
- 2003 June 3: Mysterious federal ceremony claiming Republican victory in ending regulation of U.S. banks.
- 2003 June 25: The twelfth consecutive reduction of the Federal Reserve's prime lending rate, to 1 percent (while the inflation rate was at 2%), which provided the conditions that permitted the housing/debt bubble.
- 2003 July 14: Columnist Robert Novak revealed the identity of covert C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame Wilson {an act of treason}, apparently based on a leak from the White House in retaliation over an op-ed article by her husband Joseph C. Wilson IV published in The New York Times.
TraitorGate / TreasonGate Timeline at Working Minds website
- 2003 July 23: Petitions gathered by Republican Darrell Issa asking for recall of California Governor Gray Davis were certified by California's Secretary of State; the speicial election was then scheduled for October 7th.
- 2003 Aug 13: California Secretary of State released a list of the record 135 candidates to replace Gov. Davis if the recall should pass.
- 2003 Oct 7: California election on the recall of Gov. Gray Davis, won by Austrian body-builder & action movie star Arnold Schwartzenegger.
- 2003 Oct 10: Columnist Robert Novak revealed the name of Plame's 'brass plate' C.I.A. front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates {his second act of treason}, resulting in the death of further clandestine American agents.
- 2003 Nov 17: Arnold sworn in as Governor of California.
- 2003 Dec 13: Fugitive Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein was captured by U.S. Army 4th Division troops, in a hole beneath a hut near Tikrit, Iraq.
- 2004 May 28: The Central American Free Trade Agreement {now DR-C.A.F.T.A.} was signed by six countries; President Bush signed the agreement into U.S. law on 2 August 2005; the Dominican Republic signed on August 5.
- 2004 June 28: Handover of power to the interim government in Iraq.
- 2004 Aug 8: Launch of the Messenger space probe to the planet Mercury.
- 2004 Oct 6: Charles Duelfer, C.I.A. Special Advisor for Strategy concluded in a final report that Iraq had no W.M.D or W.M.D. programs when the U.S. invaded the country.
- 2004 Nov 2: Dubya won, America lost.
- 2004 Nov 3: First felony convictions against internet 'spam' distributors – In a Leesburg, Virginia case, Jeremy D. Jaynes received a 9-year prison term & his sister Jessica DeGroot received a $7,500 fine.
- 2004 Nov 8: U.S. forces initiated a retaliatory takeover of Fallujah, Iraq.
- 2005 May 17: U.S. Senate unanimously approved the "Real I.D. Act", requiring Federal electronic ID cards to be in use by May 2008.
- 2005 May 31: Watergate's 'Deep Throat' was revealed as then-FBI #2 officer W. Mark Felt.
- 2005 June 6: U.S. Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Gonzales vs Raich that federal drug laws supercede state & local laws that allow medical use of marijuana.
- 2005 Aug 29: Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast from Alabama to Louisiana, followed by severe flooding due to breaks in levees & dams (caused by Bush Administration funding cuts of 80% for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers).
- 2005 Sept 9: President Bush issued an Executive Order cancelling protections of the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931, so that victims of Hurricane Katrina will not be paid minimum or prevailing wages during reconstruction.
- 2005 Sept 23: Winds from Hurricane Rita breached the levees of New Orleans again.
- 2005 Dec 20: Judge John E. Jones III of the Pennsylvania Federal District Court decided in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case that 'intelligent design' is the equivalent of religious fundamentalism's creationism myth, and thus teaching either concept in public schools is a violation of the First Amendment principle of the separation of church & state.
- 2006 Jan 30: A filibister against Judge Samuel Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a cloture vote of 75 to 25.
- 2006 Jan 31: Alito confirmed to Supreme Court, 58 to 42.
- 2006 March 9: President Bush signed the U.S.A. Patriot Act Improvement & Reauthorization Act.
- 2006 June 7: Al Qaeda #2 leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in Diyala, Iraq.
- 2006 Aug 17: Federal Judge Anna Diggs Taylor found that the Bush Administration had clearly violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act for five years by mass wire-tapping of American citizens without F.I.S.A. warrants, and that such activity was unconstitutional and illegal.
- 2006 Oct 17: The population of United States reached 300 million.
- 2006 Nov 6: Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld resigned; the event was not made public until late the next day.
- 2006 Nov 7: American people took back both houses of Congress: Democrats won 30+ seats in the house and 5 seats in the Senate.
- 2006 Nov 7: Arnold re-elected as Governor of California.
- 2006 Dec 30: Iraq President Saddam Hussein was executed by hanging, for 'crimes against humanity'.
- 2007 Jan 16: The strategically-delayed trial of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby for perjury began, on charges of lying to federal prosecutors about his actions in the outing of covert C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame.
- 2007 Jan 29: Libby's lawyers admitted into evidence a note in Dick Cheney's handwriting stating that 'The Pres' gave the order to reveal Valerie Plame's identity, final proof that Bush & Cheney & Libby & others committed treason.
- 2007 Feb 18: The Washington Post exposed the terrible conditions at Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland provided to veterans and to soldiers returning from service in Iraq & Afghanistan.
- 2007 Feb 27: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average plunged 546.02 points and closed down 416.02, or 2.8% - the worst day of trading since 11 September 2001; the S&P 500 fell 50.33, and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 96.65.
- 2007 March 6: The jury returned convictions on 4 of 5 counts against Libby; he faces 30 years in prison.
- 2007 April 18: The Supreme Court decided the Gonzales v. Carhart case, allowing a nationwide ban on 'partial-birth abortion' procedure; the vote was 5 Catholics to 4 Americans.
- 2007 April 25: Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 13,000 for the first time.
- 2007 June 5: I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby sentenced in the TraitorGate / TreasonGate scandal to 30 months in prison, two years probation, and $250,000 in fines.
- 2007 July 2: A federal appeals court 3-judge panel refused to grant a delay for Libby going to jail; the jail sentence was commuted by President Bush later the same day.
- 2007 July 7: The Live Earth Concerts, held in nine cities around the world, garnered 2 billion viewers worldwide (counting television, radio and internet) and 30 million American viewers, which is more than the Super Bowl.
- 2007 July 27: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average plunged 311.50 points (or 2.26 percent).
- 2007 Aug 1: Right-wing propagandist Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. purchased 64% of the Wall Street Journal & Dow-Jones companies for $5+ billion (pending government approval).
- 2007 Aug 9: The Dow-Jones Industrial Average closed at $13,239.54, down 387.18 points, or 2.8% - the second worst day of the year; the S&P 500 fell 44.40 to $1,453.09 (almost 3%), and the NASDAQ Composite dropped 56.49 to $2,556.49 (nearly 2.2%).
- 2007 Aug 24: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales phoned in his resignation to President Bush (on vacation at Crawford, Texas).
- 2007 Sept 16: The 'Nasur Square Incident' in Baghdad, Iraq where Blackwater Worldwide mercenaries shot 17 unarmed civilians to death without cause.
- 2007 Sept 20: Over 30,000 people marched in Jena, Louisiana in support of six Afro-American high school students denied civil rights by malicious prosecution over a schoolyard brawl in December.
- 2007 Sept 26: U.S. Senate approved the Bush plan to invade Iran; the vote was 76 to 22.
- 2007 Oct: Fire storms in California, at Malibu and several in San Diego County.
- 2007 Nov 1: Fourth worst trading day of the year on Wall Street – the Dow dropped $362.14 (2.6%) to $13,567.87, NASDAQ fell $64.29 (2.25%) to $2,794.83, the S&P 500 fell $40.94 (2.64%) to $1,508.44.
- 2007 Nov 5: Beginning of the W.G.A. writers strike (lasting just over 3 months).
- 2007 Dec: The Lakota Nation indigenous people unilaterally withdrew from all 33 treaties with the U.S. government.
- 2007 Dec 3-15: United Nations Climate Change Conference in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia (not much got done, due to U.S. intransigence).
- 2007 Dec 27: Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide bombing at a political rally in Rawalpindi.
- 2008 Jan 2: The U.S. Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the destruction of C.I.A. interrogation videotapes and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey appointed an outside prosecutor to oversee the case. {Essentially, the Bush Administration crooks are again investigating themselves for another alleged crime.)
- 2008 Feb 5: The 'Super Tuesday' Primary election for both parties in 19 states, with one-party contests in 4 states.
- 2008 Feb 12: Writers Guild of America strike ended, after three months.
- 2008 Feb 18: Cuba's dictator Fidel Castro announced his retirement, effective with the election of his successor.
- 2008 Feb 24: CBS News finally broadcast their "60 Minutes" report on Alabama political prisoner Don Siegelman; the broadcast was scheduled opposite the 2008 Academy Awards, and then thirteen minutes was blacked out in Alabama.
- 2008 March 18: Barack Obama delivered a historic speech on racism in America entitled "A More Perfect Union" at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
- 2008 April 1: First day of the 'Trucker Shutdown' national strike by independent truckers in America, in protest of diesel fuel prices being over $4.00 a gallon (while their pay has not gone up).
- 2008 May 1: One-day wildcat strike by I.L.W.U. on the U.S. West Coast to protest the war and the economy.
'Stop Bush' Page at Working Minds website
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