Rogues' Gallery

Evan Bayh

Office(s) Held: U.S. Senator, Indiana
Party: Democrat

When Obama needed a co-author for his new, get tough against dads legislation known as Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007, he reached out to a man who broke ethics rules by failing to report that he is an officer of a family charity in his name.

That man is Senator Evan Bayh, who was briefly considered as a possible running mate for Obama during the 2008 election. According to watchdog group C.R.E.W. (Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington), Bayh failed to disclose he is an officer of a family charity, in violation of a law requiring members of Congress to report non-profit leadership roles (see complete articles at C.RE.W. and at USA Today .)

But this is not all.

In December 2007, C.R.E.W. published an article calling for more transparency into working relationship between Sen. Evan Bayh and his wife, Susan. According to the organization, Susan Bayh sits as a member of eight corporate boards and earned $1 million a year in recent years, and nearly $2 million in stock options. Among the boards on which she's served are: Curtis Inc., a therapeutic-drug development company; Dendreon Corporation, a therapeutic-drug development company; Dyax Corp., a biopharmaceutical company; and Wellpoint Inc., a Blue Cross and Blue Shield company.

Susan Bayh was also a director of Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc., from 2000 to 2004, and Esperion Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2000 to 2003. From 1989 to 1994, she was an attorney in the pharmaceutical division of Eli Lilly and Company. All this while Bayh voted in the Senate on issues as sensitive as healthcare (read more at Democratic Underground).

An excerpt from CREW's report: "Evan Bayh has voted on a variety of health issues in support of the Medicare drug benefits, backed allowing drugs to be imported from Canada, and supported the rights of patients to sue HMOs for punitive damages. In 2003 the American Public Health Association gave him a 75 percent rating.

While the finance industry was a major contributor of campaign funds for Bayh, in terms of individual companies, Eli Lilly, where his wife had worked, was the second-largest contributor with $54,022 last year. All told, taking into account Bayh's senatorial campaigns and, before that, his campaigns for governor, Lilly (the largest pharmaceutical company in Indiana) has been his second largest contributor since 1999."

UPDATE:

(11/20/09)

This past April, Sen. Evan Bayh co-sponsored the nefarious Cybersecurity Act of 2009, a bill which would give the President dictatorial power over the internet and compromise the privacy of internet users.

The bill, the brainchild of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, would allow the President to seize temporary control of the internet by shutting down internet access and private networks. Also, it would give the government the authority to demand security data from private networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.

It should be noted that Sen. Rockefeller, along with other members of his fantastically wealthy family, have been named in a number of conspiracy theories, among them plots to establish a totalitarian world government, to cull the earth's population, and to eradicate constitutional rights such as free speech.

Bayh's sponsorship of this bill, just like his support of the Responsible Fatherhood Act, once again demonstrates his disdain for American principles of freedom and civil rights.

Bill Bradley

Office(s) Held: U.S. Senator, New Jersey (former)
Party: Republican

As the son of a wealthy St. Louis banker, Bradley was reared with a silver spoon in his mouth. He attended Princeton and Oxford, and went on to become a highly paid basketball star with the New York Knicks. Apparently, he never had much opportunity to identify with the struggles of ordinary folks. Which is probably why he was able to concoct a eponymous piece of legislation designed to subjegate and destroy divorced dads and NCP's who may fall behind on their child support payments.

Bradley, who has been called "aloof" and a legislator with only "a basic knowledge of law" by his colleagues, was a leading figure in the 1986 Tax Reform Act. It is said that Bradley was driven towards tax reform because he felt that the taxes on his star athlete's salary was unfair.

So it is a little strange that Bradley crafted one of the most unfair laws imaginable -- an amendment which discriminates against non-custodial parents as a class, which allows courts to strip them of their financial assets on an arbitrary basis, without any hope of appeal.

An entry on the amendment in Wikipedia reports just a few of the travesties of justice wrought by Bradley's legislation:

• A veteran of the first Gulf War who was captured in Kuwait in 1990 and spent nearly five months as an Iraqi hostage being arrested the night after his release for not paying child support while he was a hostage.
• A Texas man wrongly accused in 1980 of murder. After 10 years in prison, the man sued the state for wrongful imprisonment. The state responded with a bill for nearly $50,000 in child support that had not been paid while in prison.
• A Virginia man required to pay retroactive child support even though DNA tests proved that he could not have been the father.

Wikipedia also reports that in September 1999, Marilyn Ray Smith, the Chief Legal Counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, Child Support Enforcement Division, gave the following testimony before the US House of Representatives:

"As you know, under the Bradley Amendment enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1986, a child support obligation becomes a judgment by operation of law as of the date that that it is due and unpaid. In addition, under Section 368 of PRWORA (42 U.S.C. 666 (a) (4)), an administrative lien also arises by operation of law against any unpaid child support. It is therefore not necessary to return to court after each payment is missed to get past-due support reduced to a judgment in order to obtain a lien or enforce a judgment. This means that a child support agency can move quickly to seize income and assets of a delinquent noncustodial parent without first passing through a judicial or quasi-judicial hearing process."

In 2003, Keith McLeod, author of "The Multiple Scandals of Child Support", testified before the Committee on Ways and Means that:

"The 1986 Bradley Amendment to Title IV-D forbids any reduction of arrearage or retroactive reduction for any reason, ever. This reinforces the approach that inability to pay is no excuse. Needless to say, there are endless stories of men who are now crushed by a debt they will never be able to pay because they were: in a coma: a captive of Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War; in jail; medically incapacitated; lost their job but were confident of another so did nothing until it was too late; did not know they could not ask for retroactive adjustments and waited too long; could not afford a lawyer to seek adjustment when adjustment was warranted;wouldn’t use the legal system even if they could, feeling it alien from their world, and so didn’t ask for a reduction when the legal establishment expected them to. Some say this measure is a violation of due process and cruel and unusual as it removes the use of human discretion from dealing with individual cases, not to mention removing human compassion. But non-custodial fathers do not have the money to fight a constitutional case."

This past June, conservative columnist Phyllis Schlafly penned an article entitled "Family Law Injustices to Men" in which she calls the Bradley Amendment "morally and constitutionally wrong".

Bill Bradley certainly knows that the amendment which bears his name is monstrous and afront to the ideas that this nation was founded upon. But he has not yet come forward to address the abuses his legislation has wrought on American citizens. This is because the former senator is an ethical "deadbeat".

The Center for Responsive Politics called Bradley "The King of Bundling" during his time in the U.S. Senate for pioneering new ways to evade campaign finance laws even while talking about the need for campaign finance reform. As the "King of Bundling", Bradley actively worked to evade even the loose limits on donations by having several people connected to each other donate the legal limit (for example: a friend may donate the maximum amount of $1,000 to a campaign the same day that person's parents each contribute $1,000, and that person's boss and professional colleagues each give $1,000 and so on). In this manner, Bradley was able to amass massive amounts of money from large corporations, entertainment and media outlets, banks, investment houses, and other special interests.

According to a 1997 report from the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, Bradley also ranked 2nd worst out of 535 senators for acceptng free trips (junkets) from corporate and special interests. From 1996 to mid-1997 alone, Bradley took 29 different trips, including one worth $10,000 to Switzerland. And this is especially striking, because Bradley retired halfway through the time period studied by CPI; one can only image the tons of free trips Bradley took during a full year of service in the Senate.

And when Bradley ran for President in 2000, he and his campaign engaged in a cover up about his health problems. In his irresponsible quest for power, Bradley delibrately kept secret the fact that he suffers from a potentially dangerous heart condition called "atrial fibrillation". When Bradley required treatment for his condition during a campaign stop in San Francisco, his aides continued to mislead the American public by claiming his condition was nothing to be worried about.

To all those wondering how a public servant could live with himself after crafting legislation which has wrecked millions of lives and families across out nation, we can only offer the following anecdote which sums up his morally deficient character:

In 1998, two years after leaving the Senate, Bradley told a radio talk show host: "I've been out here struggling as a small-business man." What Bradley neglected to mention was that he'd earned $2.7 million in speaking fees for that year, plus an additional $500,000 in "consulting" fees from various special interests, brokers, and bankers. This was in addition to his Senate pension and the money earned on his family wealth and his accumulated sports star wealth.

The Bradley Amendment. Named for a lifelong mooch who has trouble with the truth and makes up facts as he goes along.

George Bush Sr.

Office(s) Held: Texas Congressman (former), Vice-President, President (former)
Party: Republican

Spooky old George Bush Sr. worked for the CIA and has been named in a number of conspiracy theories related to 9/11 and the Iraq War. Indeed, Bush Sr. openly proclaimed "The New World Order" not long after he took office.

But plans for world domination wasn't all Bush was vocal about during his presidential years. When he ran for re-election against Bill Clinton, a faltering Bush lashed out at "deadbeat dads" during a debate, blaming them for all that was wrong with America.

Bush conveniently left out the fact that he had led the nation into a recession by waging an elegantly staged yet expensive military adventure in Iraq (designed to make war fun again for the American public). He also neglected to mention how his own son helped decimate the economy by participating in the savings and loan crisis. And how some of his friends -- captains of business and industry --went on a downsizing binge which saw American workers laid-off from their jobs and rehired for peanuts.

Incidentally, Bush's Gulf War caused the deaths of over 32,000 children (according to a report from Beth Osborne Daponte’s report for the U.S. Commerce Department’s Census Bureau of Foreign Countries).

>> Child of an American soldier born without arms thanks to Bush's depleted uranium.

Additionally, depleted uranium ammunition used in the war by U.S. forces has led to birth defects in thousands of children on both sides of the conflict.

Finally, Bush as commander-in-chief also presided over "The Highway of Death" incident in Iraq which is generally viewed as a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention. On the night of February 26, 1991, Bush's commanders ruthlessly bombed a retreating column of Iraqi troops which were already out of combat. Tens of thousands of Iraqi troops that had thrown in the towel were indiscriminately annihilated in a mile long path of carnage. By some accounts, the bombing raids also claimed the lives of civilians who were trapped in buses along the highway. While this last point has been a subject of debate since the end of the war, one thing is perfectly clear: Bush's inhumanity left thousands of Iraqi families without fathers.

Bill Clinton

Office(s) Held: Gov. Arkansas (former), President (former)
Party: Democrat

During his years in office, Bill Clinton kept himself busy by philandering with his young intern, harassing other female subordinates, and pretending to be a socialist when he was really an enemy of the American worker.

He was so busy, in fact, that he failed to address a growing terrorist threat which would in 2001 claim thousands of American lives and destabilize the entire world.

One can only wonder how he ever found time to sign laws hostile to divorced dads and NCP's. But that is exactly what he did when he signed the Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act. Under this law, it became a felony for a parent with arrears to move to another state or country. Or to have an unpaid debt for over a year which is greater than $5,000. Additionally under this bill, parents who owe $10,000 or more in arrears, or who fail to pay for two years, also face up to two years in prison, plus additional fines.

Clinton, in various interviews, expressed his contempt for men who fail to pay child support, but never addressed any of the reasons they might do so: sickness, disability, or refusal because they've been cut off from their children.

Ostensibly, Clinton was motivated by his concern for children. But that didn't stop him from harming and killing children both at home and abroad.

While pretending to be a champion of the downtrodden, Clinton presided over a historic widening of the gap between rich and poor. He deregulated financial institutions and paved the way for the economic collapse of 2008. He also signed legislation known as the Contract with America which shredded the safety net for millions of Americans. Most notably, Clinton ushered in a new brand of slavery known as "workfare" by which economically challenged parents were forced to work government jobs (formerly held by full-time unionized employees) for miniscule amounts of welfare benefits. Poor children saw less of their parents while corporations like defense contractor Lockheed won lucrative million dollar contracts for administering workfare programs.

But Clinton's disdain for the American family didn't end there. On February 28, 1993, Clinton's government authorized the Waco Siege which ended in the deaths of 76 people, including 20 children who were burned alive.

Americans can consider this death toll light compared to the staggering number of children his policies annihilated overseas.

>> Clinton's bombing campaign cost this little girl her legs.

For more than 3 months in 1999, Clinton ordered airstrikes on Serbia, a European nation which had never done us any harm. Over 35,000 combat missions were flown over Serbia and over 79,000 tons of explosives were dropped, in many cases on civilians (for a list of civilian casualties, see The International Action Center). Clinton's warplanes, using deadly cluster bombs, struck at schools, maternity wards, trains, residential neighborhoods, even ski resorts. By American estimates, around 500 civilians were killed, many of them children; Serbian officials put the figure much higher, perhaps around 2,000.

But this pales in comparison to the 500,000 children starved to death by Clinton's Iraq policies. Despite knowing that sanctions against dictator Saddam Hussein were not working, Clinton continued to cut off trade and vital supplies to Iraq. He would not relent even after he knew that children Iraqi were dropping like flies. In 1996, when Clinton's secretary of state Madeleine Albright was asked by "60 Minutes" if the deaths of a half million children were worth it, Albright gave an unflinching "yes" (see an excerpt of the interview on YouTube).

Finally, it must also be remembered that twice while Clinton was president, he had a chance to ban the brutal abortion procedure known as partial birth-abortion (to get an idea of just how inhuman this procedure is, see the illustrations on the Jeremiah Project -- word of warning, this is not for the faint-hearted!). Instead, Clinton vetoed the ban and allowed thousands of babies to be delivered alive and then killed by having scissors inserted into their skulls and their brains vacuumed out.

Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act. Indeed.

Danny Davis

Office(s) Held: Illinois Congressman
Party: Democrat

Like Barack Obama, this Illinois Congressman thinks that divorced dads are not being abused enough. He has therefore attached his name to Obama's Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act of 2007 -- yet another get tough policy designed to teach divorced dads and NCPs a lesson.

While Davis is not making a political show of flogging dads and NCPs, he's out not showing his support for cop killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal and taking trips sponsored by terrorist groups like the Tamil Tigers.

Davis demonstrates his own family values by the way he shares campaign funds with family members -- not too ethical according the C.R.E.W. (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington). According to a report from this watch dog group, Davis used campaign funds to pay his wife Vera Davis $14,829 for financial services in 2006. From 2001 to 2004, he listed his wife in financial statements as receiving salary from the campaign committee. In the 2002 election cycle, the campaign committee paid Ms. Davis $11,250 in salary and an additional $709 for reimbursements. In the 2004 election cycle, he paid his wife $16,150 in salary and an additional $1,036 for reimbursements.

The giving doesn't stop with his wife, though. Several other relatives also profited from Davis' campaign, including a B.L. Davis who was paid $3900 for fundraising consultation and the distribution of literature. And Wallace Davis, who earned $1,500 for catering services. According to C.R.E.W., Davis has refused to specify his exact relationship to the above-mentioned family members.

And while Davis wants to get tough with dads, he appears to be the only sitting member of Congress to have signed the demand to release the convicted cop killer Wesley "Mumia Abu-Jamal" Cook. Mumia is now on death row for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

Davis is also the 15th most prolific traveler in Congress. In 2005, he went on a trip to Sri Lanka, paid for by the Tamil Tigers -- a group that the U.S. government has designated as a terrorist organization for its use of suicide bombers and child soldiers.

Barack Obama

Office(s) Held: Illinois State Senator (former), President
Party: Democrat

Politically not much different than his predecessors, Barack Obama is the ultimate salesman of corporate Fascism -- a Manchurian candidate perfectly groomed to get us to believe one thing while he does another.

But worse than any other president, Barack Obama is an unapologetic hater of divorced dads and non-custodial parents.

More information on our Dad Basher-in-Chief can be found on this website at:

An Open Letter to Obama

Responsibility, Obama Style

What We Elected

Barack Obama: Major Threat