US Department of Homeland Security Looking at Shock Bracelets for All Air Travelers – A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below). This bracelet would:
Take the place of an airline boarding pass
Contain personal information about the traveler
Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage
Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.†Welcome to the ideal world of patriotic conservatives.
McCain Was President of the Group Which Became the Key Architect of the Bush Administration’s Foreign Policy – According to his senate biography, John McCain served as a president of the New Citizenship Project (NCP) is an organization funded by large right-wing foundations. Founded in 1994, NCP initiated the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), one of the key behind-the-scenes architects of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and whose members included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and Paul Wolfowitz. One of the major funders of this group is the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., which grew out of a chemical and munitions business. During a town hall event in Portsmouth, OH on Wednesday, McCain was asked by a member of the audience whether his links to NCP and PNAC explain why he has been reluctant to support calls for a new investigation of 9/11.
McCain grimaced, turned his back and walked away, but the questioner insisted, “It’s a serious question.” McCain responded that he supported the original 9/11 Commission and its findings. He did not address the question about calls for a new investigation of 9/11.
McCain’s Top Economic Adviser Says Recession Is “Mental,” America Is “Nation Of Whiners” – In an interview with the Washington Times, McCain’s top economic adviser Phil Gramm tells America to suck it up and stop complaining about the economy. Gramm, whose extensive ties to Enron proved problematic during the firm’s implosion several years ago, was serving as a lobbyist for the international banking and subprime mortgage giant UBS until April. As Mother Jones documented, Gramm played a key role in the subprime meltdown during his time in the Senate.
During This Republican Administration, Exports to Iran Have Increased from $8.3 Million in 2001 to $146 Million in 2007 – Under the Bush Administration’s careful eye, our exports to Iran have increased tremendously. The Bush administration says it is trying to squeeze Iran’s economy. At the same time U.S. businesses are boosting trade with Iran. According to U.S. government data, over the past seven years, exports to Iran exploded, from $8.3 million in 2001 to $146 million in 2007.
Bush to G8: ‘Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter’ – President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit. As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.”
John McCain Makes Another Crude Joke About Killing Iranians – Here’s an example of violet language discussed above. Someone in John McCain’s campaign needs to tell him that he’s not funny and that making crude jokes about killing innocent people is not presidential and inappropriate.
Most of you have heard of McCain’s Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran gaffe, and now the GOP presidential hopeful has made another crude joke about killing Iranians and again, its wholly inappropriate.
PITTSBURGH — … Republican presidential candidate John McCain was asked about an Associated Press report that $158 million in cigarettes have been shipped to Iran during George W. Bush’s presidency despite restrictions on U.S. exports to that country.
“Maybe that’s a way of killing them,†McCain told reporters,….”
McCain Skips Vote on Medicare Bill
Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) puts out a statement ripping McCain: “Senator Kennedy managed to make it back [to vote] from treatment for cancer, but Senator McCain couldn’t be bothered. Senator McCain, who wants to be our next President, has skipped this vote three times now. Clearly, he’d rather hide than face up to the insurance industry. You can do that when you’re in the U.S. Senate, maybe voters should leave him there.”
This isn’t rhetoric, friends, this is hard cold fact gathered from government websites using official census data and US Department of Treasury numbers. No bumper sticker slogans, no five second sound bites, it’s the real deal and you can double-check it yourself.
Just three Republican Presidents are responsible for 70% of the National debt which is currently $9.5 Trillion and is growing at $1.7 Billion per day. The size of our debt adversely affects the value of the dollar against other international currencies. The bigger the debt the more foreign imports cost, like oil for example. The debt is growing that fast because the Republicans are borrowing from China and Japan to spend more on defense than the rest of the world combined, fund the War in Iraq and pay interest on those loans.
(data from the Department of Treasury) Please notice that in the last year of Bush 41’s presidency the size of the debt fell. That was because he raised taxes in an effort to fix what Ronald Reagan’s VooDoo economics had done to America (he lost the Presidency because of it). Clinton immediately raised them again and it ENDED the Reagan recession. Raising Taxes to reduce the deficit is GOOD for the economy, Bush 41 and Clinton proved it.
If that isn’t enough to convince you the Republicans don’t know what the frack they’re doing, new research from Larry Bartels out of Princeton shows middle class wage growth is double when a Democrat is president compared to when a Republican is president.
“… Even more remarkable, the real incomes of working-poor families…grew six times as fast when Democrats held the White House. Only the incomes of affluent families were relatively impervious to partisan politics, growing robustly under Democrats and Republicans alike…” It isn’t a zero sum game, we don’t have to hurt the poor to grow the rich.
“Under Democratic presidents poor families did slightly better than richer families (at least in proportional terms), producing a modest net decrease in income inequality; under Republican presidents, rich families did vastly better than poorer families, producing a considerable net increase in income inequality.”
So, you might ask, what will the Democrats do for me today? Fortune Magazine outlined both presidential candidate’s economic policy platforms. Not surprisingly McCain’s looks remarkably like Dubya’s. Tax cuts for the rich with no way to pay for them, thus increasing the national debt even more. Obama’s plans adhere to the pay-go policy adopted by the Democratic Congress; every increase in spending or decrease in revenue must be accompanied by an offset. According to Fortune Magazine this is what the two candidate’s tax proposals would do for you:
Keep in mind that these are after-tax incomes, take home pay as it were. Everybody taking home less than $50,000 a month would break even or get a tax cut under Obama and he’d pay for it with an increase on the top 5% of incomes. McCain, not so much, just borrow more from China.
US Exports to Iran grew tenfold under Bush presidency – The value of U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold during President Bush’s years in office even as he pressed for tougher international limits on trade and accused Iran of nuclear ambitions and helping terrorists. Records show that at least $148,000 of weapons and other unspecified military gear has been sent to Iran.
Cheney reportedly wanted cuts in climate testimony – Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.
When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.
But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney’s office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC’s original draft testimony removed.
Company That Made Defective Body Armor is Awarded Contract to Make More – Point Blank Body Armor made shoddy vests that had to be recalled. Its top company officials were arrested. But, the Pentagon announced July 3rd that once again Point Blank Body Armor has been awarded an $86 million contract for Army “improved outer tactical vests.” This comes about a year after the Army awarded the first series of contracts to Point Blank and Specialty Defense Systems at the initial launch of its IOTV.
61-Year-Old Librarian Booted From McCain Public Town Hall Meeting – On orders from Senator John McCain’s security detail, Denver police escorted a 61-year-old woman away who was waiting in line to attend a so-called town hall meeting with McCain that was billed as open to the public. Carol Kreck, who works as a librarian in Denver, held a homemade sign reading “McCain = Bush.” On orders from McCain’s security detail, police cited her for trespassing and escorted her to the sidewalk. She was told if she returned she would be arrested.
Polls about health care in 10 developed countries by Harris Interactive revealed a range of opinions about what works and what doesn’t.
In the United States a third of Americans believe their system needs to be completely overhauled, while a further 50 percent feel that fundamental changes need to be made.
“Given that all countries other than the U.S. have universal health care systems in place, this may invite questions on why the U.S. remains the only wealthy, industrialized country without such a system,” Harris president George Terhanian told Reuters.
The U.S. model, widely criticized on its combination of private insurance and publicly-funded programs, spends more on health care than any other nation worldwide but ranks low on overall quality of care, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
World Leaders Enjoy 18-Course Banquet as They Discuss How to Solve Global Food Crisis – Just two days ago, Gordon Brown was urging us all to stop wasting food and combat rising prices and a global shortage of provisions. But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis. The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.
FISA Sham Bill is an Attack on the Rule of Law – Senator Feingold took to the Senate floor today and, with the help of Sen. Arlen Specter, challenged his colleagues to wrap their minds around what granting retroactive telecom immunity would mean for the rule of law:
“This is an amazingly inappropriate use of legislative interference, a push by this administration, and Senators should take a real hard look at whether they want to be associated with such an attack on the rule of law.â€
Glenn Greenwald has more:
“Once passed by the Senate, the FISA bill will then immediately be sent by the Democratic Congress to an eagerly awaiting and immensely pleased President Bush, who will sign it into law, thereby putting a permanent and happy end to the scandal that began when — in December, 2005 — he was caught spying on the communications of American citizens in violation of the law. …”
Republican Candidate Who Talks About Alternative Fuels Rides in a Hummer – On Friday’s Fourth of July parade in Scottsville, VA, Democratic congressional nominee Tom Perriello threw candies at bystanders while riding in a trailer pulled by a bio-diesel fueled tractor. How did Republican incumbent Virgil Goode (he who is petrified of Muslims being elected to Congress and talks about alternative fuels) participate in the same parade? That’s right, he rode in a Hummer H3.
Fox News Attacks Their Critics – Fox News, says New York Times columnist David Carr, is run more like a political campaign than a media outlet. “Once the public relations apparatus at Fox News is engaged,” Carr wrote of requesting interviews, “there will be the calls to my editors, keening (and sometimes threatening) e-mail messages, and my requests for interviews will quickly turn into depositions about my intent or who else I am talking to.” “Despite repeated calls,” Carr said, “the public relations people at Fox News did not return his requests for comment. (In a neat trick, while they were ignoring his calls, they e-mailed his boss asking why they had not heard from him.) Carr himself recalls being called a “crack addict” by Bill O’Reilly.
Republican Party Plans To Redistrict Itself Back Into Power – Republican officials now believe that the party’s best hope for retaking seats in Congress may come during gubernatorial elections in 2010. Should the GOP win back the majority of these seats (Democrats currently occupy 28 state capitols), they would be extremely well positioned to influence the redistricting of the political map that will come after the 2010 census.
“The 2010 elections are almost as important or equally important as the elections this year. After redistricting in 2011, the governors are going to have a huge influence in determining the political makeup of this country,” said Chris Schrimpf, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association. “We could feasibly see 25 to 30 congressional seats swing as the result of redistricting.”
Because redistricting follows the 2010 census, each state will be reevaluating its congressional map in 2011. And in almost every one of these states, a tremendous amount of authority for this endeavor is placed in the governor’s hands.
U.S. Missed the Opportunity to Avert High Oil Prices – Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current oil crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries. What’s more, for all the surprise at just how high oil prices have climbed, and fears for the future, this is one crisis we were warned about. Ever since the oil shortages of the 1970s, one report after another has cautioned against America’s oil addiction.
McCain and Republican Party Lie About Obama’s Tax Votes – The McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee both claim that Obama has voted 94 times “for higher taxes.†After looking at every one of the 94 votes that the RNC includes in its tally, FactCheck.org finds:
Twenty-three were for measures that would have produced no tax increase at all; they were against proposed tax cuts.
Seven of the votes were in favor of measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals.
Eleven votes the GOP is counting would have increased taxes on those making more than $1 million a year – in order to fund programs such as Head Start and school nutrition programs, or veterans’ health care.
The GOP sometimes counted two, three and even four votes on the same measure. We found their tally included a total of 17 votes on seven measures, effectively padding their total by 10.
The majority of the 94 votes – 53 of them, including some mentioned above – were on budget measures, not tax bills, and would not have resulted in any tax change. Four other votes were non-binding motions related to conference report negotiations.
McCain’s Iraq Plan Would Cost Tens-of-Billions (Perhaps Hundreds-of-Billions) More – The Congressional Budget Office has put out several possible templates for an American presence in Iraq and Afghanistan that offer an approximation of the costs of Obama and McCain’s policies. Should the candidates follow through with their proposals, taxpayers would be spending, perhaps, tens-of-billions (if not hundreds-of-billions) more under McCain.
Bush Not Planning Any Good Deeds After His Presidency – In a series of interviews, George W. Bush confirmed that the banality – and venality – that defined his presidency will also characterize his post-presidency as well:
First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets – it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”
Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”
Bush’s plans are not exactly like Jimmy Carter’s charitable works and efforts for world peace, or Bill Clinton’s foundation and campaigns to battle AIDS, disease and natural disasters.
This court has done some frightening. frightening things….If I’m president of the US, I would go on National television and say—’ladies and gentlemen, the Supreme Court said that we don’t have Gitmo so that is over. We’re going to release all of them, but I want you to know from here on out our policy is to not have prisoners. We’re going to shoot them all in the head.’
If we think they are against us, we’re going to shoot them and kill them—period because that’s the only thing we’ve got going for us—cause we can put them away and get information. If we can’t put them away and they’re going to use our court system—kill them.
He needs to touch on, and – some of the social issues which energize the right. In particular, gays in the military for one. We know Barack Obama is for allowing gays in the military, and Bill Clinton tried to do and then backed off. This is not a popular issue. Gay marriage is another one. These are both issues that I think McCain’s gonna have to use. He can’t ignore the right. If he does, he’ll lose.
Nation’s Poorest 1% Now Controls Two-Thirds Of U.S. Soda Can Wealth 😉 – A report on growing disparities in the concentration of U.S. aluminum-can wealth, released Tuesday by the Department of Commerce, revealed that 66 percent of the nation’s recyclable assets are now held by the poorest 1 percent of the population.
According to the sobering report, the disproportionate distribution of soda-can wealth is greater than ever before, and has become one of the worst instances of economic inequality in the nation’s history. Data showed that over-salvaging of cans by a small and elite group of can-hoarders has created a steadily growing and possibly unbridgeable gap between the rich and the mega-poor.
“Although our nation’s upper middle class actually consumes the most beverages, a staggering percentage of these cans wind up in the hands of a very few,” said economist Cynthia Pierce, who worked as a consultant on the three-year, $14 million government study.
The US Occupation of Iraq is Causing More US Deaths in Afghanistan – The nation’s top military officer said yesterday that more U.S. troops are needed in Afghanistan to tamp down an increasingly violent insurgency, but that the Pentagon does not have sufficient forces to send because they are committed to the war in Iraq. Violence in Afghanistan has increased markedly over recent weeks, with June the deadliest month for U.S. troops since the war began in 2001.
Fox News Lies About Barack Obama’s Voting Record – Last September, Barack Obama voted to condemn the “Betray Us” attack on General David Petraeus, but over the past few days, FOX News hosts have repeatedly made the exact opposite claim. At the link [above], FOX’s lies are exposed and the record is set straight with video from the Senate floor.
Fox News – More Lies
Monica Crowley Plagiarizes Then Stonewalls About It – A few weeks ago, 23/6 made a parody of the “You Can’t Have Alex” MoveOn.org ad. They called it “John McCain, Meet William.” On Saturday, June 21, on The Monica Crowley Show on radio, she began tearing apart the MoveOn ad and she played the 23/6 parody ad as she went to commercial, without crediting 23/6. When Monica came back from commercial, she played the parody again but this time she claimed she created it. “We put together a little spoof there of that MoveOn.org where the woman holds up her baby…” Then she tried to cover-up that she did it by not answering e-mail about it and hiding her podcast of that broadcast.
Crowley also stole material for her book about how wonderful Richard Nixon was. And then she stonewalled about that too.
State Department Ignored Policy for Bush’s Buddy – Bush administration officials knew that a Texas oil company with close ties to President Bush was planning to sign an oil deal with the regional Kurdistan government that ran counter to American policy and undercut Iraq’s central government, a Congressional committee has concluded. United States policy is to warn companies that they incur risks in signing contracts until Iraq passes an oil law and to strengthen Iraq’s central government. The Kurdistan deal, by ceding responsibility for writing contracts directly to a regional government, infuriated Iraqi officials. But State Department officials did nothing to discourage the deal and in some cases appeared to welcome it, the documents show.
The company, Hunt Oil of Dallas, signed the deal with Kurdistan’s semiautonomous government last September. Its chief executive, Ray L. Hunt, a close political ally of President Bush, briefed an advisory board to Mr. Bush on his contacts with Kurdish officials before the deal was signed. Hunt is also a member of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
Top Communications Aide for Bush-Cheney Now Heading McCain’s Campaign – Steve Schmidt is taking over the day-to-day operation of John McCain’s campaign, according to multiple campaign sources. McCain sources say Schmidt, who ran Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s reelection campaign and was a top communications aide in Bush-Cheney ‘04, will coordinate the campaign’s daily pro-McCain and anti-Obama message but also will have an increased role in shaping most every facet of the organization including scheduling, policy, coalitions and surrogates.
U.S. In Last Place on G-8 Climate Scorecard – The U.S. has done the least among the world’s eight largest economies to address global warming, a study released Thursday found. The G-8 Climate Scorecards 2008, released Thursday ahead of next week’s gathering of the Group of Eight on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, also found that none of the eight countries are making improvements large enough to prevent temperature increases that scientists think would cause catastrophic climate changes.
For a people to be controlled, they must first be robbed of honest discourse and open debate. Distorting language and stripping it of real and honest meaning is the first tool and the best mechanism for transforming a democracy into an authoritarian state.
Patriotism is the word that authoritarians most like to distort. Miriam -Webster defines patriotism as “love for or devotion to one’s country.” Every other dictionary I have consulted provides a similar if not exact definition.
Nationalism is a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups. Are those the kind of ideal set forth in the Declaration of Independence? I remember something about all men being created equal, not just all Americans.
Nowhere does the term or the idea of patriotism in general require one to believe one’s country is “great.” Nowhere does the term or the idea of patriotism in general require a ban on dissenting views, on criticism of one’s government, indeed even of one’s nation.
When someone is critical of their country and especially when their country strays from its course, it does not mean the person is not patriotic. It means that the person loves their country enough to want only the best for it. They want it to be greater than what it already is or they want it to be as great as it once was. But criticism of a country is not akin to being un-patriotic. Only a rabid nationalist would make such an argument.
Our founding fathers did not think that our country and its leaders would be inherently good. Instead they tried to make our government idiot-proof with a system of checks and balances. That system that is now being dismantled by those that favor a strong Executive so that we can be protected from evil.
Nationalists, the rabid right-wing advocates of symbol worship, are entirely what the right-wing authoritarians define as patriots. It may entirely be possible that some of these boot-marching androids are simply ignorant and accept whatever canned-pro-America products they are sold. They are in essence, the perfect vessel for an authoritarian regime. But others, who have spent their lives devoting themselves to the art of conflation, distortion, and revisionism, know exactly what they are doing. They tell us that our government can do no wrong. They tell us that you must never doubt your government or question its ways. So when my America began to openly torture people and publicly denounced the Geneva Conventions as “quaint,” I should have been waving my little Chinese-made American flag while admiring the inherent goodness of my government? At what point does the ugly truth become more important than the pretty lie?
No, that is not the definition of patriotism. That is exactly what Il Duce demanded from his citizens; a total abandonment of self, conscience, and all things individual and human to the mechanism of the state, for the state could do no wrong. That was nationalism used to promote Fascism.
If we truly love our country, we must ask at what point does the ugly truth become more important than the pretty lie? As Americans, we have many things to be proud of. But we must also be honest enough to recognize what must be set right, and committing ourselves to getting it done.
Regards,
Jim
Related Web Article: <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/07/obamas-real-pat.html" target="_blank"> Obama's real patriotism problem </a>
Almost Like Iraq on a Texas Lawn – Last year, a Houston-area man shot and killed two burglars he saw breaking into his neighbor’s house, even after a 911 dispatcher warned him repeatedly against going outside with his shotgun.
Texas had recently passed a law allowing people to use deadly force to protect their own property, as Joe Horn was well aware, but it was unclear at the time whether the law would apply to protecting someone else’s property. However, last Monday, a grand jury cleared Horn of any criminal liability.
MSNBC’s Dan Abrams discussed the case with two Houston defense attorneys, Brian Wice and Nicole De Borde. “Texas law allows you to shoot an intruder in certain circumstances,” Abrams began, “but in the back? While 911’s telling you not to do it?”
De Borde was supportive of Horn, explaining that “in Texas, the law gives you the right to shoot a person, even when they’re fleeing from a property crime, and to kill them. And deadly force was what the grand jury determined in this case was appropriate.”
Is that what Jesus would do? Even if Jesus was in Texas?
Guantánamo Bay Interrogation Techniques Were Coped Directly From the Communist Chinese – The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
John Cornyn’s Senior Staffer Posting Comments Under Fake Name On Liberal Blog – A commenter calling himself “Buck Smith” — who claimed on a the Burnt Orange web site’s comments to be a liberal and who was critical of Texas Democrats and their candidates — was in fact none other than David Beckwith, a senior staffer who works for Republican Senator John Cornyn.
Evangelist Tells Senate: My Financial Records Belong to God – Every year America’s best known TV evangelists bring in hundreds of millions of dollars from donors all over the world. But some of the evangelists’ own lifestyles have begun to ring alarm bells and have prompted a Senate investigation into their activities.
Last fall, Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, began probing the finances of six TV evangelists whose lifestyles include mansions, Rolls-Royces, and private jets, all paid for out of church funds.
Rev. Kenneth Copeland, whose congregation recently bought him a $20 million private jet to preach the gospel, is holding out against the inquiry, which he claims is “aimed at publicly questioning the religious beliefs of the targeted churches.â€
“It’s not yours, it’s God’s, and you’re not going to get it,†Copeland says of his financial records. He has launched a website to publicize his crusade and has received support from several leading conservatives, including Paul Weyrich and Kenneth Blackwell.
Fox News Looking for Fact Writer – Notice that they are not looking for a fact finder, but a fact-writer. Also notice, spelling, grammar and context are important, and the applicant must be able to write in a concise, conversational and colorful style, but apparently accuracy of the facts is optional.
Fox News Airs Altered Photos of NY Times Reporters to Make Them Look Ugly – On the July 2 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe “attack dogs,” claiming that Steinberg’s June 28 article on the “ominous trend” in Fox News’ ratings was a “hit piece.” During the segment, however, Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered — the journalists’ teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and portions of Reddicliffe’s hair moved further back on his head. Fox News gave no indication that the photos had been altered.
After putting up the photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe, Fox & Friends also featured a photograph of Steinberg’s face superimposed over that of a poodle, while Reddicliffe’s face was superimposed over that of the man holding the poodle’s leash.
Fox News airs altered photos of NY Times reporters
McCain Backer’s Firm Funded Terrorist Group In Colombia – The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”
Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.
According to the Justice Department, the payments “were reviewed and approved by senior executives” of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 “that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.”
Tom DeLay: Still Crazy After All These Years – Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has resurfaced, appealing for contributions to the Coalition for a Conservative Majority, which lists him as chairman and founder. DeLay suggested that this be enclosed with any contribution: ”I am thrilled to learn that you have gotten back in the fight against the left by forming “the new organization.”
DeLay, who has endorsed John McCain after expressing misgivings, takes positions to the right of the Republican presidential candidate in his fund-raising appeal. DeLay asks: ”Are you concerned by the growing evidence that there are powerful forces inside our government and out who are quietly moving to have America absorbed into a globalist style ‘North American Union’ with Canada and Mexico?”
Bush Hiding Truth: Global Warming Regulations Worth $2 Trillion Benefit – An “intense private battle†has broken out between officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Environmental Protection Agency over “the publication of a document that could become the legal roadmap for regulation of greenhouse gas emissions across the U.S. economy.†The White House has been suppressing it since December of last year.
Even after major cuts from the December version, this document makes a mockery of President Bush’s claim in April that applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution “would have crippling effects on our entire economy.†In fact, after spending all of 2007 working with the Departments of Transportation and Energy to model the effects of motor vehicle greenhouse gas regulations, the EPA found the exact opposite.
Assuming gas prices in the range of $3.50 per gallon, “the net benefit to society could be in excess of $2 trillion†through 2040. With higher gasoline prices, the benefits of high carbon-dioxide standards would be even greater. The EPA’s findings, completed last year, raise serious questions about whether Bush’s statements to the American public were made in good faith, and why he is now asserting executive privilege to block the Congressional investigation.
FOX News Guest Says Oil And Coal Are Good For The Environment– Global warming skeptic Chris Horner, whose ties to the fossil fuel industry were not disclosed by the “We report. You decide†network, made the laughable claim on last night’s (7/1/08) Hannity & Colmes that using oil and coal is good for the environment because they make us wealthier. As Horner said in his snappy little soundbite, “Wealthier is healthier. Healthier is cleaner.”
McCain Truth Squad Defender Was Swift Boat Vet Member – One of the members of John McCain’s new Truth Squad — which his campaign says was launched to respond to unfair attacks on his record of military service –- was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, and appeared in an attack ad for the group in 2004. The group was created to attack 2004 Democratic nominee John Kerry’s military service record.
McCain’s Failed to Pay Taxes on Their Beachfront Condo for Last Four Years – The McCains have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front condo in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are currently in default. The McCains own at least seven homes through a variety of trusts and corporations controlled by Cindy McCain. The report notes that the McCains paid the bulk of their back taxes a few days ago after inquiries by Newsweek magazine, but they continue to owe additional taxes.
Homophobia Can Have Bad Side Effects – Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.
The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website, for example, takes its AP articles and replaces the word “gay†with the word “homosexual.†I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.
The problem, of course, is that “gay†does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. It was reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed†the article.
That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.†The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.â€
Cronyism in the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives – A former top official in the Faith-Based Office was awarded a lucrative Department of Justice grant, despite the strong objections of several DOJ civil servants. This example of cronyism further demonstrates that this office needs further additional oversight, and has since the start of the Bush administration.
How Republicans perfected a propaganda system that could fool tens of millions of Americans, intimidate Democrats, and transform the vaunted Washington press corps from watchdogs to lapdogs – Democrats’ softness on the Iran-Contra report during Ronald Reagan’s presidency allowed key information to be omitted in order to make the report more bipartisan. The American people thus were spared the chapter’s troubling finding: that the Reagan administration had built a domestic covert propaganda apparatus managed by a CIA propaganda and disinformation specialist working out of the National Security Council. The failure of the Iran-Contra report to fully explain the danger of CIA-style propaganda intruding into the U.S. political process had profound future consequences. It was the beginning of government links to Robert Murdoch (Fox News) and Sun Myung Moon (Washington Times) to promote government propaganda. In the two decades since the Iran-Contra scandal, both Murdoch and Moon have continued to pour billions of dollars into media outlets that have influenced the course of U.S. history, often through the planting of propaganda and disinformation
CIA Ignored Iran Facts According to Ex-Agent – A former CIA operative who says he tried to warn the agency about faulty intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs now contends that CIA officials also ignored evidence that Iran had suspended work on a nuclear bomb. The former operative alleged in a 2004 lawsuit that the CIA fired him after he repeatedly clashed with senior managers over his attempts to file reports that challenged the conventional wisdom about weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. “On five occasions he was ordered to either falsify his reporting on WMD in the Near East, or not to file his reports at all,” said the ex-agent’s attorney.
Bush’s Top General Quashed Torture Dissent – The former Air Force general and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, helped quash dissent from across the U.S. military as the Bush administration first set up a brutal interrogation regime for terrorism suspects, according to newly public documents and testimony from an ongoing Senate probe.
In late 2002, documents show, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all complained that harsh interrogation tactics under consideration for use at the prison in Guantánamo Bay might be against the law. Those military officials called for further legal scrutiny of the tactics. The chief of the Army’s international law division, for example, said in a memo that some of the tactics, such as stress positions and sensory deprivation, “cross the line of ‘humane treatment'” and “may violate the torture statute.”
Myers, however, agreed to scuttle a plan for further legal review of the tactics, in response to pressure from a top Pentagon attorney helping to set up the interrogation program for then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
US Held Gitmo Detainee On Bare And Unverified Claims – In the first case to review the government’s secret evidence for holding a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a federal appeals court found that accusations against a Muslim from western China held for more than six years were based on bare and unverifiable claims. With some derision for the Bush administration’s arguments, a three-judge panel said the government contended that its accusations against the detainee should be accepted as true because they had been repeated in at least three secret documents. The court compared that to the absurd declaration of a character in the Lewis Carroll poem “The Hunting of the Snarkâ€: “I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.†“This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true,†said the panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Waterboarding is a Tragic Waste of Natural Resources – National Water Watch, a Washington-based conservation group, criticized the government’s use of waterboarding Monday, calling the practice of stuffing a cloth into a detainee’s mouth, immobilizing him, and pouring water over his face and body to simulate the sensation of drowning “a tragic waste of resources.” “The idea that the United States could condone the despicable act of squandering several pitchers of water is shameful,” NWW spokesman Gregory Hammil said. “It is amoral, unconscionable, and in direct opposition to all internationally recognized water-saving techniques.” Hammil recommended the government switch to more eco-friendly means of enhanced interrogation, such as waterboarding with a return-hose device in order to reuse old water, or simply beating suspected terrorists to a bloody pulp. 😉
The ad portrays Obama as saying “no” to energy “innovation” and to “the electric car.” In fact, Obama proposed a $150 billion program of research into a wide variety of clean-energy technologies last year, long before McCain proposed to award a $300 million prize for developing a commercially viable battery package capable of powering automobiles.
The ad also has Obama saying “no” to “clean, safe nuclear energy.” In fact, Obama has said, “I have not ruled out nuclear… but only [would support it] so far as it is clean and safe.”
Obama’s Ad Inflates His Resume – Obama has released his first post-primary ad. FactCheck doesn’t find this ad egregiously misleading, but says it paints a picture of Obama’s accomplishments that could leave viewers with a misimpression or two. The ad talks about laws that Obama “passed,” but in fact, he sponsored only one of the three bills mentioned and cosponsored another. The third included provisions from some bills he’d sponsored earlier, but his name wasn’t attached to the one that passed. And two of the three laws were accomplishments of the Illinois Legislature, not the U.S. Senate.
Afghanistan: Allied Death Toll Reaches 7-Year High – The number of U.S. and allied troops killed in Afghanistan in June has reached 40 — the highest monthly toll of the seven-year-old war. Taliban militants have increased their attacks this year. The top U.S. commander in southeastern Afghanistan, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Schloesser, said Tuesday that attacks on his troops were up 40 percent in the first five months of 2008.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, asked about Schloesser’s comments at a Thursday news conference, said one of the reasons for the increase was that more people are “coming across the border from the frontier area [he was referring to Pakistan].”
How John McCain Views How History Will View Things – Here’s what John McCain said about Nixon and Watergate at the time, according to the book entitled Man of the People: The Life of John McCain by Paul Alexander, pp. 81-82:
“I feel that, in the context of history, Watergate will be a very minor item as compared with the other achievements of this Administration.”
Conservative Anti Tax Activist Calls Barack Obama “John Kerry with a Tan” – Grover Norquist, the conservative activist who specializes in promoting an anti-tax agenda, dropped by The Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau yesterday and, as part of his negative critique of Obama’s liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “John Kerry with a tan.”
McCain believes it’s bad luck for someone to hand him a salt shaker.
McCain believes it’s bad luck to throw a hat onto a bed.
McCain regularly carries 31 cents in lucky change in his pocket.
McCain carries a lucky feather, a lucky compass, a lucky penny, a lucky nickel, a lucky quarter, and a laminated four-leaf clover.
McCain believes it’s bad luck to pick up a coin if it isn’t heads up.
McCain’s been known to have an aide carry his lucky pen at all times.
And now he’s having the elevator labels changed in his campaign’s building to eliminate the 13th floor.
After FOX News Suggests That The Press Will Not Report North Korea As “A Clear Foreign Policy Victory†For Bush, Their Own Expert Blasts It As Colossal Failure – There was a hilarious disconnect on Hannity & Colmes last night (6/26/08) in a discussion about the latest developments in the nuclear negotiations with North Korea. In his scripted introduction, Sean Hannity called the news “a clear foreign policy victory for the Bush administration.†But, he asked suggestively, “Will the press report it that way?†I don’t know about the other media but FOX News’ own expert, former Bush administration appointee John Bolton, the sole guest, called it a victory for the North Koreans, only. Bolton’s not-so-subtle implication was that we should not make the same mistake of negotiating with Iran. With video.
Andy Hailey