Shrub Was "Campaign Mgr" for Winton M. BLOUNT While A.W.O.L.

[UTUSN]

In about all of the A.W.O.L. stories, it is only mentioned that Shrub was working on "a senatorial campaign in Alabama." Meet Winton M. BLOUNT. Despite the fellow's having SOME personal accomplishments, including patron of the arts, his chief claim to fame appears to be boiling down to have been the senate campaign Shrub supposedly was working on during his A.W.O.L year. Wonder why BLOUNT's campaign staff, family, or other associates haven't come forward with personal recollections of Shrub as "campaign manager"? What, was he A.W.O.L. from there, too? And, predictably for the B.F.E.E., there is the CA-CHING factor, ties to Saudi Arabia and rebuilding Kuwait after Desert Storm.



************QUOTE******
http://www.archives.state.al.us/famous/academy/w_blount.html

.... 1968 President, Chamber of Commerce of the United States.
1969-70 Postmaster General of the United States and member of the President's Cabinet.
1970-71 Postmaster General and Chairman of the Board, U.S. Postal Service.
1972 Candidate, U. S. Senate, State of Alabama. ....


http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebios/01bios/blount01.htm

.... Winton and his brother Houston started Blount Brothers Construction Company (now Blount International) by digging fish ponds, paving streets, and installing storm drains; a far cry from the complex structures Blount International is known for today. They soon completed their first $1 million contract in Birmingham, Alabama, and in the 1950s the company erected Launch Pad 39A at Cape Canaveral in direct response to Sputnik, an atomic energy plant in Tennessee, a radar and electronics building and flight operations hangar for Lockheed Aircraft, and a portion of the wind tunnel at the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center in Tennessee. It was from Blount’s launch pad that Apollo 11 lifted off in 1969 on its historic trip to the moon. Blount International also built the huge space environment simulator at Sandusky, Ohio, the New Orleans Superdome, and the nation’s first Atlas intercontinental missile base near Cheyenne, Wyoming. The 1980s saw Blount International flourish with the completion of the world’s largest fixed-price contract, $2 billion, for the King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Following Operation DESERT STORM, Blount International "turned the lights back on" in Kuwait by rebuilding its infrastructure. ....

http://www.nixonfoundation.org/nrc/021025bBlount.shtml

Among Mr. Blount's accomplishments was the transformation of the U.S. Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service. At the time, Rep. Thaddeus J. Dulski (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, described

Mr. Blount this way: "He has a cast-iron stomach and a skin like a rhinoceros. But he may be the only man who could have brought about postal reform."
*******UNQUOTE*******

[SoCalDem]

1. "The Blount time"

http://home.twcny.rr.com/cazenoviajoe/Bush_record.htm


For more than a year, controversy about George W. Bush's Air National Guard record has bubbled through the press. Interest in the topic has spiked in recent days, as at least two websites have launched stories essentially calling Bush AWOL in 1972 and 1973. For example, in "Finally, the Truth about Bush's Military Record" on TomPaine.com, Marty Heldt writes, "Bush's long absence from the records comes to an end one week after he failed to comply with an order to attend 'Annual Active Duty Training' starting at the end of May 1973... Nothing indicates in the records that he ever made up the time he missed." And in Bush's Military Record Reveals Grounding and Absence for Two Full Years" on Democrats.com, Robert A. Rogers states: "Bush never actually reported in person for the last two years of his service - in direct violation of two separate written orders."

Neither is correct.

It's time to set the record straight. The following analysis, which relies on National Guard documents, extensive interviews with military officials and previously unpublished evidence of Bush's whereabouts in the summer and fall of 1972, is the first full chronology of Bush's military record. Its basic conclusions: Bush may have received favorable treatment to get into the Guard, served irregularly after the spring of 1972 and got an expedited discharge, but he did accumulate the days of service required of him for his ultimate honorable discharge.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the Republican convention in Philadelphia, George W. Bush declared: "Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, 'Not ready for duty, sir.'" Bush says he is the candidate who can "rebuild our military and prepare our armed forces for the future." On what direct military experience does he make such claims?

George W. Bush applied to join the Texas Air National Guard on May 27, 1968, less than two weeks before he graduated from Yale University. The country was at war in Vietnam, and at that time, just months after the bloody Tet Offensive, an estimated 100,000 Americans were on waiting lists to join Guard units across the country. Bush was sworn in on the day he applied.

Ben Barnes, former speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, stated in September 1999 that in late 1967 or early 1968, he asked a senior official in the Texas Air National Guard to help Bush get into the Guard as a pilot. Barnes said he did so at the behest of Sidney Adger, a Houston businessman and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, then a Texas congressman. Despite Barnes's admission, former President Bush has denied pulling strings for his son, and retired Colonel Walter Staudt, George W. Bush's first commander, insists: "There was no special treatment."

The younger Bush fulfilled two years of active duty and completed pilot training in June 1970. During that time and in the two years that followed, Bush flew the F-102, an interceptor jet equipped with heat-seeking missiles that could shoot down enemy planes. His commanding officers and peers regarded Bush as a competent pilot and enthusiastic Guard member. In March 1970, the Texas Air National Guard issued a press release trumpeting his performance: "Lt. Bush recently became the first Houston pilot to be trained by the 147th and to solo in the F-102... Lt. Bush said his father was just as excited and enthusiastic about his solo flight as he was." In Bush's evaluation for the period May 1, 1971 through April 30, 1972, then-Colonel Bobby Hodges, his commanding officer, stated, "I have personally observed his participation, and without exception, his performance has been noteworthy." In the spring of 1972, however, National Guard records show a sudden dropoff in Bush's military activity. Though trained as a pilot at considerable government expense, Bush stopped flying in April 1972 and never flew for the Guard again.

Around that time, Bush decided to go to work for Winton "Red" Blount, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in Alabama. Documents from Ellington Air Force Base in Houston state that Bush "cleared this base on 15 May." Shortly afterward, he applied for assignment to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron in Montgomery, Ala., a unit that required minimal duty and offered no pay. Although that unit's commander was willing to welcome him, on May 31 higher-ups at the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver rejected Bush's request to serve at the 9921st, because it did not offer duty equivalent to his service in Texas. "n obligated Reservist can be assigned to a specific Ready Reserve position only," noted the disapproval memo, a copy of which was sent to Bush. "Therefore, he is ineligible for assignment to an Air Reserve Squadron."

Despite the military's decision, Bush moved to Alabama. Records obtained by Georegemag.com show that the Blount Senate campaign paid Bush about $900 a month from mid-May through mid-November to do advance work and organize events. Neither Bush's annual evaluation nor the Air National Guard's overall chronological listing of his service contain any evidence that he performed Guard duties during that summer.

On or around his 27th birthday, July 6, 1972, Bush did not take his required annual medical exam at his Texas unit. As a consequence, he was suspended from flying military jets. Bush spokesperson Dan Bartlett told Georgemag.com: "You take that exam because you are flying, and he was not flying. The paperwork uses the phrase 'suspended from flying,' but he had no intention of flying at that time."

Some media reports have speculated that Bush took and failed his physical, or that he was grounded as a result of substance abuse. Bush's vagueness on the subject of his past drug use has only abetted such rumors. Bush's commanding officer in Texas, however, denies the charges. "His flying status was suspended because he didn't take the exam,not because he couldn't pass," says Hodges. Asked whether Bush was ever disciplined for using alcohol or illicit drugs, Hodges replied: "No."

On September 5, Bush wrote to then-Colonel Jerry Killian at his original unit in Texas, requesting permission to serve with the 187th Tactical Reconnaisance Group, another Alabama-based unit. "This duty would be for the months of September, October, and November," wrote Bush.

This time his request was approved: 10 days later, the Alabama Guard ordered Bush to report to then-Lieutenant Colonel William Turnipseed at Dannelly Air Force Base in Montgomery on October 7th and 8th. The memo noted that "Lieutenant Bush will not be able to satisfy his flight requirements with our group," since the 187th did not fly F-102s.

The question of whether Bush ever actually served in Alabama has become an issue in the 2000 campaign-the Air Force Times recently reported that "the GOP is trying to locate people who served with Bush in late 1972 ... to see if they can confirm that Bush briefly served with the Alabama Air National Guard." Bush's records contain no evidence that he reported to Dannelly in October. And in telephone interviews with Georgemag.com, neither Turnipseed, Bush's commanding officer, nor Kenneth Lott, then chief personnel officer of the 187th, remembered Bush serving with their unit. "I don't think he showed up," Turnipseed said.

Bush maintains he did serve in Alabama. "Governor Bush specifically remembers pulling duty in Montgomery and respectfully disagrees with the Colonel," says Bartlett. "There's no question it wasn't memorable, because he wasn't flying." In July, the Decatur Daily reported that two former Blount campaign workers recall Bush serving in the Alabama Air National Guard in the fall of 1972. "I remember he actually came back to Alabama for about a week to 10 days several weeks after the campaign was over to complete his Guard duty in the state," stated Emily Martin, a former Alabama resident who said she dated Bush during the time he spent in that state.

After the 1972 election, which Blount lost, Bush moved back to Houston and subsequently began working at P.U.L.L., a community service center for disadvantaged youths. This period of time has also become a matter of controversy, because even though Bush's original unit had been placed on alert duty in October 1972, his superiors in Texas lost track of his whereabouts. On May 2, 1973, Bush's squadron leader in the 147th, Lieutenant Colonel William Harris, Jr. wrote: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit" for the past year. Harris incorrectly assumed that Bush had been reporting for duty in Alabama all along. He wrote that Bush "has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp, Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama." Base commander Hodges says of Bush's return to Texas: "All I remember is someone saying he came back and made up his days."

Two documents obtained by Georgemag.com indicate that Bush did make up the time he missed during the summer and autumn of 1972. One is an April 23, 1973 order for Bush to report to annual active duty training the following month; the other is an Air National Guard statement of days served by Bush that is torn and undated but contains entries that correspond to the first. Taken together, they appear to establish that Bush reported for duty on nine occasions between November 29, 1972-when he could have been in Alabama-and May 24, 1973. Bush still wasn't flying, but over this span, he did earn nine points of National Guard service from days of active duty and 32 from inactive duty. When added to the 15 so-called "gratuitous" points that every member of the Guard got per year, Bush accumulated 56 points, more than the 50 that he needed by the end of May 1973 to maintain his standing as a Guardsman.

On May 1, Bush was ordered to report for further active duty training, and documents show that he proceeded to cram in another 10 sessions over the next two months. Ultimately, he racked up 19 active duty points of service and 16 inactive duty points by July 30-which, added to his 15 gratuitous points, achieved the requisite total of 50 for the year ending in May 1974.

On October 1, 1973, First Lieutenant George W. Bush received an early honorable discharge so that he could attend Harvard Business School. He was credited with five years, four months and five days of service toward his six-year service obligation.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

3. Thanks for the link-I'm re-posting this on the flamewar thread!

:hi:

[0007]

4. According, junior was arrested for cocaine in 1972

"Oct. 18, 1999 | A new book by Texas author J.H. Hatfield claims that George
W. Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972, but had his record
expunged with help from his family's political connections. In an afterword
to his book "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American
President" (St. Martin's), Hatfield says he took a second look at the Bush
cocaine allegations after a story in Salon reporting allegations that Bush
did community service for the crime at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community
Center in Houston's Third Ward."

...more

http://mail.psychedelic-library.org/show.cfm?postid=4984&row=20

Somehow these stories don't jive .....
"The center's executive director, Madgelean Bush (no relation to George W. Bush), had told Salon News and others that Bush did not do community service there, and the Bush campaign likewise denied the allegation. But the Texas governor had admitted to working at Houston's Project P.U.L.L. in 1972, and Hatfield says he began to wonder if that was actually the community service sentence. Hatfield says he confirmed those suspicions with three sources close to the Bush family he had cultivated while writing his biography, which publishes Wednesday.

more......

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/cocaine/

Now check out this PROJECT P.U.L.L. site. Can you image junior doing community service here?

http://www.projectpull.org/projpull.html

Lots of covering up going on, where are the investigative reporters? Or did the bucks stop at J.H. Hatfield?

[grasswire]

5. Hatfield is dead, you know.

Found "suicided" in a motel room. His computer was seized by the local sheriff. Some ginned up accusation of him using someone else's credit card.

The most recent contact between Hatfield and Karl Rove was in October of 2000, IIRC. It was Rove who fed Hatfield the info about the cocaine bust.

[0007]

18. I'm very well aware -

[SoCalDem]

8. Look what's missing from the web.. note the url

Homeland Security or Homeland Repression? - ... showed up while working on the US Senate campaign of Winton Blount in Alabama ... Instead, he got a job at an inner city outreach program Project PULL As reported ...
http://ipncomm.org/Library/Bush_Military/Main.htm

[0007]

19. The full court press it on - and it ain't even March

[Rebellious Republican]

20. Freeps prep for the battle..........

I posted this in another thread.....
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1082952&mesg_id=1083513

[SalParadise]

2. Really good point.

Surely someone who wants to "put this story to rest" will dig into his "work" on this campaign.

[newyawker99]

33. Hi SalParadise!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Stephanie]

6. Fascinating history.

Jr. apprenticed under one of the early U.S. businessmen to court the Saudis.

There was a letter on Atrios tonight that claimed Bush was in rehab during that time. Did you see it?

[demgrrrll]

7. What caught my eye was the Blount's business interests in space

NASA related industry. They really are a band of grifters of the first order and they do take care of their own.

[UTUSN]

9. Hadn't Seen It. Is It for Real?

*******QUOTE*******

http://atrios.blogspot.com/

Another Email

Obviously I can't vouch for this one either, but, you know, it's The Corner Standards for Journalism Day.

Dear Atrios,

I met George W. Bush back in 1972. I was getting my Ph.D. in clinical psychology and interning at a private drug rehab clinic for the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful in North Carolina. It was tucked away in the hills, away from the lime light and promised the utmost discretion. I had to sign a half-dozen forms swearing me to secrecy to get my internship.

In the late summer, this kid shows up, looking like shit, wild-eyed, thin as a rail. It was Bush, strung out on coke. When he first came, he was trembling with the shakes and almost hallucinating. (He wasn?t my patient, so I am not violating any therapeutic relationship by revealing this.) Current news reports indicate that he was supposed to be in Alabama, working on some political campaign. He wasn?t in Alabama, he was in North Carolina going through rehab. I heard his father was some sort of political big wig, but that was no surprise; every kid in there had rich parents. It went with the territory. So Bush didn?t attract much attention.

His father never showed up, but his mother came twice. She just tore him to pieces. Even though she was in his room, with the heavy door closed, everyone could hear her perfectly well, just ripping him up one side and down the other, how he was a worthless piece of shit and if he didn?t shape up he would be cast out of the family, penniless. She would go on and on for hours. She made everyone there feel so sorry for George.

The thing is, he did shape up while he was in rehab.

Needless to say, don?t release my name.


...lighten up people - I posted this to make fun of the Corner, not to claim it is a true story. Us liberals can't even play dirty in jest...
-Atrios 3:55 PM
********UNQUOTE*******

[Stephanie]

12. I'm doubtful that it is real. This is why:

The thing is, he did shape up while he was in rehab.

We know that he did not shape up. By his own admission he did not shape up until he was 40, and many are even doubtful of that.

What does he mean about Corner Standards? Journalism in-joke?

[UTUSN]

14. I Don't Know. But My Local Wingnut

is totally convinced that Shrub "of today is not the (Shrub) of back then." The wingnut totally BELIEVES that Shrub had "a come-to-Jesus moment".

[SoCalDem]

10. This was his " South America adventure with Dad's Saudi pal

http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/vn1/wwwhbiobush.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
During this period, George W. worked for a former partner of his father's, who had left the oil-drilling business to start an agricultural company in Houston that had interests in a wide variety of things, from cattle and chickens to tropical plants. George's job was to travel around the United States and to countries in Central America looking for plant nurseries his company might want to acquire. // _{sure ..the only plants he was interested in were the coca plants}

[UTUSN]

11. Did He Actually Travel?

I thought his mental barrenness kept him from contact with furriners.

[starroute]

27. Washington Post piece gives more details

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072899.htm

Bush called Robert H. Gow, a Yale man who had roomed with the senior Bush's cousin Ray in college and who had been an executive at the senior Bush's Zapata Off-Shore Co. In 1969, Gow left Zapata and started Stratford of Texas, a Houston-based agricultural company with diverse interests: from cattle to chickens to indoor, non-blooming tropical plants.

"We weren't looking for someone, but I thought this would be a talented guy we should hire, and he was available," Gow said. In early 1971, Gow gave Bush a job as a management trainee. He was required to wear a coat and tie and dispatched around the country and even to Central America, looking for plant nurseries that Stratford might acquire. The newly buttoned-down businessman also moved into a garage apartment that he shared with Ensenat off Houston's North Boulevard, an old 1920s neighborhood close to downtown.

"We traveled to all kinds of peculiar places, like Apopka, Florida, which was named the foliage capital of the world," said Peter C. Knudtzon, another Zapata alumnus who was Stratford's executive vice president and Bush's immediate boss.


Gow is a Skull and Bones alumnus, but aside from that I couldn't find anything particularly interesting about him.

[SoCalDem]

13. Another good source of information here

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3308.htm

[SoCalDem]

15. More here

http://www.hereinreality.com/familyvalues.html

[SoCalDem]

16. MotherJones timeline

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/01/ma_217_01.html

[0007]

21. Thanks for the wonderful link -

junior is sure a great guy 'eh? What a family

[CHIMO]

17. Hmmm.....

Sounds to me that this needs an expert..
Bev.

[DoYouEverWonder]

22. I don't know whether or not this applies to when Bu$h was in the NG

but aren't active duty military banned by law from participating in political campaigns?



Edit: To add info

This is the law in 2000, does anyone know what the laws were when Bu$h worked on this campaign and how they apply to his situation?




DoD Directive 1344.10 says that an Active Duty member of the Armed Forces MAY NOT:

- Use official authority or influence to interfere with an election, affect the course or outcome of an election, solicit votes for a particular candidate or issue, or require or solicit political contributions from others.

- Be a candidate for civil office in Federal, State or local government or engage in public or organized soliciting of others to become partisan candidates for nomination or election to civil office.

https://www.fra.org/onwatch/2000-11/ow2000-11b.html

[SoCalDem]

25. Is National Guard service considered "active"??

That would need to be defined.. But I think he should never have been allowed to "campaign" while he was supposed to be doing his "service"..

The overriding question here is ..."How would an "unconnected-just an ordinary guy" have been responded to if he had asked for the same things..?

The fact is/was/and will always be..GWB was the son of an importnat government official who "could" affect the lives of the commanding officers of "his boy".. He pulled rank to get junior in, and there is no reason to believe that he could have/would have pulled strings again..

Junior is the typw of guy who would have "reminded" his c/o of jsy who his daddy was..:(

El stinko grande :(

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. It sure is now a days.

n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

23. I worked for Blount Brothers in the 80s!

Blount Brothers were moved out of DuPont, Union Carbide and the other big chemical plants here and the scabs from Brown&Root moved right in under Reagan! Blount Brothers were just barely union, but after Reagan got into his second term Brown&Root's Scabs moved in and they are still in most of the chemical plants here! The jobs in the chemical plants that were manned by trained and skilled craftspeople, who kept the plants up and running and safe for 60 years, were handed over to unskilled people that Brown&Root hired off the street for a fraction the wages that had been paid to skilled workers before the Reaganomics unemployment blight hit!

Now Bush wants the chemical spills and toxic waste dumping kept top SECRET nation wide, because of(wink)9/11! The people working in and maintaining these plants are for the most part unskilled now, so the public is far more at risk of another Bophal India class disaster than ever before! The bright side is, that the shareholder's income is up because the companies cut KKKosts and they can afford to pay Bush $2000.00 for his plates of swill at his fundraiser/bagman type pick up dinners!

[KamaAina]

32. Scabs from Brown & Root, you say?

(Kellogg) Brown & Root = Halliburton subsidiary

there you go...

[Logansquare]

34. That's one interesting post, Hubert

Yet another tale of the Military-Industrial Complex. How long have they planned on getting one of their own into the Executive Office?

[Richardo]

24. Thanks UTUSN - I always wondered who the unnamed candidate was...

Now I know - great research. :thumbsup:

[CreekDog]

26. Well, No Wonder Blount Lost!

[9215]

28. Wasn't a General Blount one of the higher ups in this

Iraq war?

Seems I remember that.

[SoCalDem]

29. There are Blounts all over Tennessee & Alabama

:shrug:

I am lousy at finding the sites to track the family trees.. I bet there are a lot of rotten apples on that tree :)

[SoCalDem]

30. Here's more I found on some Blounts..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1083181&mesg_id=1083181