BUSH: USING THE MEDIA FOR LIES

Conservative control of the media has utterly devastated the right of Americans to have access to truth.

That, more than any other single factor, was the reason why Americans were almost alone in the world in pushing for the war in Iraq. Whereas other industrialized nations still have at least the rudiments of a free press, the US has a media that is dominated by conservative ideologues who simply blanket the nation with right-wing propaganda.

As a case in point, check out this article from Salon, showing how Fox News was instrumental in packing the Bushite lies about Iraq as fact, in stifling criticism of the Bushite junta, and in agitating for war (subscription required):

Salon: The Fox of War

Here is an excerpt:

The Fox of war
The Bush administration's case for invading Iraq may have been riddled with unreliable claims, but that didn't stop White House-friendly Fox News from pumping it into America's living rooms.

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By David J. Sirota

March 30, 2004 | Before the Iraq invasion, the Bush administration made many declarations to build its case for war: There was "no doubt," as the president said, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, making it an imminent threat to America; Saddam Hussein was working closely with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida; and the invasion would minimize civilian casualties.

While many intelligence and military experts knew how hollow these claims were, there was one place where the Bush administration was given an open microphone: Fox News. By the time U.S. soldiers were headed across the desert to Baghdad, the "fair and balanced" network, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, looked like a caricature of state-run television, parroting the White House's daily talking points, no matter how unsubstantiated.

Of course, Fox and the White House had forged their nexus well before Iraq. Immediately after 9/11, for instance, Fox chief Roger Ailes (a former Republican Party media consultant) wrote a confidential memo to President Bush saying that America wanted him to "use the harshest measures possible" in the war on terrorism. On the eve of the Iraq invasion, the Washington Post reported that neoconservative Fox contributors, such as Murdoch-owned Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, were "well wired" into the White House, meeting periodically with top administration national security officials and "huddling privately" every three months with Karl Rove, who was urging Republicans to seek maximum political advantage from a war in Iraq. Fox News became the White House's most reliable amplifier -- claims went from the podium, into the news scripts, and out to the American public as fact.

Fox News began by broadcasting the Bush administration's line that there was "no doubt" Iraq had WMD, despite repeated warnings by the intelligence community that the WMD case for war was weak and dubious. As early as August 2002, Fox News contributor Fred Barnes said, "We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that [Saddam Hussein] has been pursuing aggressively weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons." He was refuted a month later by UPI, which reported that "a growing number of experts say that the administration has not presented convincing evidence" that Iraq was pursuing WMD or nuclear weapons. (UPI is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who also publishes the conservative Washington Times.)

But that did not stop the drumbeat. By spring, Fox was rolling full steam ahead. On March 23, 2003, Fox headline banners blared "Huge Chemical Weapons Factory Found in Southern Iraq" -- a claim that never panned out. On April 11, a Fox News report announced: "Weapons-Grade Plutonium Possibly Found at Iraqi Nuke Complex." Sourced to an embedded reporter from the right-wing Richard Mellon Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the story was soon debunked by U.S. officials.

Bill O'Reilly, host of the most popular Fox News show, "The O'Reilly Factor," took to the airwaves on March 4, 2003, to ramp up the claim that not only did Iraq have WMD, but nuclear weapons. He stated definitively that "a load of weapons-grade plutonium has disappeared from Nigeria" and that the theft "should send a signal to all Americans that a nuclear device could be planted here." When he was challenged on his assertion, he insisted, "You cannot refute, and neither can anyone else, that we have plutonium missing in Nigeria, we have two rogue governments, North Korea and Iraq, who are certainly capable of aiding and abetting people who will plant an atomic device, a nuclear device in a city in this country."

O'Reilly was referring to a story that week about radioactive material missing in Nigeria. But it was not plutonium, as he claimed, or anything nearly as lethal as plutonium. It was a compound called Americium 241, wholly unsuitable for the creation of the imaginary "atomic device" O'Reilly referred to. The compound is commonly used for industrial purposes, as opposed to plutonium, which is used primarily for weapons and nuclear reactors. The compound, in fact, was misplaced by Vice President Cheney's old oil firm, Halliburton. (The Nigerian operation under Cheney has sparked an international bribery investigation by the Justice Department.)

On the Saddam-al-Qaida connection, Fox never considered that the connection was nonexistent. Barnes declared on Oct. 9, 2002, that "the CIA now believes there's a real connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the terrorist group that attacked the United States." He provided no evidence. For years, in fact, the CIA was reporting the opposite.

Sean Hannity, host of the Fox talk show "Hannity and Colmes," claimed with no proof on Dec. 9, 2002, that al-Qaida "obviously has the support of Saddam." He specifically ignored a Los Angeles Times report of a month earlier that found "U.S. allies have found no links between Iraq and al Qaeda." Hannity later announced on April 30, 2003, that he possessed documents proving a "direct link between Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network" and the Iraqi regime, and disparaged critics of the war, saying, "If you listen to the people on the left, they're not fazed by this evidence." They may not have been fazed because earlier that month the Miami Herald reported that senior U.S. officials confirmed they had found "no provable connection between Saddam and al Qaeda."

In June, the chairman of the U.N.'s terrorist monitoring group reiterated that there was "no evidence linking al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein." A month later the L.A. Times reported that declassified documents from the 9/11 commission had "undercut Bush administration claims before the war that Hussein had links to al Qaeda." That was of no concern to Fox News contributor Ann Coulter, who went on the air in September to proclaim: "Saddam Hussein has harbored, promoted, helped, sheltered al Qaeda members. We know that."

Before the war began, Fox tried to minimize the inevitable human cost. Hannity echoed the administration line, claiming in January of 2003 that "Iraqis are not going to be bombed by the United States. The United States will use pinpoint accuracy, like we always do." Within the first few days of the invasion, the New York Times noted that aid groups estimated "thousands of civilian casualties, many more than in the recent conflict in Afghanistan or the Persian Gulf War of 1991."

Before the war, O’Reilly issued a promise. "If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again, all right?" This February, on ABC's Good Morning America, he offered an apology. "My analysis was wrong and I'm sorry. What do you want me to do? Go over and kiss the camera?" But he explained that his lack of skepticism wasn't his fault. "All Americans should be concerned about this, for their families and themselves, that our intelligence isn't as good as it should be." The next day, back on Fox, O'Reilly claimed the controversy over his apology was a plot by the "left wing press" who "used my words to hammer the President." Then he introduced his next guest on what he called "the no spin zone."

But Fox didn't reflect when the network's talking heads were proved wrong. Instead the talkers blamed others. Hannity said on Aug. 20, 2003, that "all the predictions of liberals and Democrats in this country were wrong about thousands of people [being] dead, innocent civilians murdered, and we'd anger the Arab world." Yet, the U.S. military reports that it "has received more than 15,000 claims" for compensation for noncombatant Iraqi deaths, with Amnesty International reporting at least 10,000 civilian Iraqi casualties. Meanwhile, the latest Pew Poll shows burgeoning anti-Americanism, not only throughout the Arab world, but worldwide after the Iraq war.

The Fox-Bush alliance was summed up, apparently without irony, by Bill O'Reilly himself. In his column this week, O'Reilly observed, "There is nothing wrong with news organizations endorsing a candidate or a columnist writing about his or her political preferences. But actively participating in political campaigns ... is absolutely against every journalistic standard, and it is happening -- usually under the radar."

After a review of the record, however, it is clear that Fox was an enthusiastic participant in the White House's campaign of disinformation leading the country into war. And it was not under the radar -- it happened in our living rooms every night.

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About the writer
David J. Sirota is the editor of the Progress Report at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC. Additional research was provided by Christy Harvey and Judd Legum.

The right believes in nothing but winning. If lies must be told, if bodies must be bagged, if the innocent must suffer, if democracy must fall--as far as they are concerned, it's all fine so long as they win.

Which is why they must be trounced. Ignorance is bad enough; belligerent ignorance

BUSH: WILL THREATS WORK THIS TIME?

W and his handlers get their "loyalty" by means of threats and intimidation.

The current flap being stirred up by Richard Clarke, former NSC terror czar, about the Bushites obsession with Iraq and its disinterest in al-Qaeda has drawn the viciously self-justifying Bushite trolls into their most unflattering public posture: the false posture of the indignant innocent victim. They do it whenever they're caught with their hand in the till: deny everything, answer no questions substantively, attack the character or the sanity of anyone who offers criticism, spout aggressive rhetoric, swagger, and demand retractions for impugning their (non-existent) integrity.

Apparently, this kind of bluster works with the sort of Neanderthal brutes who support Bushite thuggery. That's why they think it doesn't hurt them to do it. But the rest of America--the decent America--feels and knows that there is something wrong with them when they put on this false front of indignation.

Whether it will work on Richard Clarke--whether they will once again succeed in having their media surrogates bury this story under mounds of irrelevant, Bush-justifying twaddle and in intimidating the rest of the media into giving Clarke short shrift--has yet to be seen.

But have no doubt that they will try every dirty trick their amoral teams of troglodytes can devise to try to bury Clarke. The past gives more than enough evidence that Bushites enforce "loyalty" with threats, and punish "disloyalty" ruthlessly. Here is a backgrounder from the Center for American Progress on the Bushite record of intimidation:

White House Intimidation: A Brief History of Threats and Defamation

March 12, 2004

A look at the historical record shows that the Bush Administration has summarily fired, threatened, intimidated and defamed anyone who has had the courage to tell the truth about major policies facing America.

MEDICARE ACTUARY THREATENED WITH FIRING IF HE TOLD TRUTH TO CONGRESS: "The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan. Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers." [Source: Knight-Ridder, 3/11/04]

FMR. TREASURY SECRETARY THREATENED WITH INVESTIGATION AFTER TELLING TRUTH: Three days after Paul O'Neill criticized the Bush Administration's Iraq policy, the Administration "began an investigation into whether any laws or regulations had been violated by O'Neill." The probe came despite O'Neill having specifically "cleared all of the documents with the Treasury general counsel's office." The probe ended up fully absolving O'Neill. [Source: AP, 1/13/04; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 1/14/04; CNN, 2/6/04]

LINDSEY FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COSTS: "Top White House adviser Larry Lindsey [was fired] when he told a newspaper that an Iraq war could cost $200 billion." [Source: Christian Science Monitor, 12/17/02]

ZINNI FIRED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT FOREIGN POLICY: "General Anthony Zinni, a retired Marine general who was Bush's Middle East mediator, angered the White House when he told a foreign policy forum in October that Bush had far more pressing foreign policy priorities than Iraq and suggested there could be a prolonged, difficult aftermath to a war. He was not reappointed as Mideast envoy." [Source: AP, 7/27/03]

TROOPS THREATENED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT COMBAT IN IRAQ: After soldiers in Iraq raised questions about the Bush Administration's deceptive WMD comments, Gen. John Abizaid said no soldiers "are free to say anything disparaging about the secretary of defense, or the president of the United States. Whatever action may be taken, whether it's a verbal reprimand or something more stringent, is up to the commanders on the scene." [Source: ABC News, 7/16/03]

REPORTER DEFAMED FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT TROOPS: "A White House operative alerted cyber-gossip Matt Drudge to the fact that [ABC News correspondent Jeffrey] Kofman is not only openly gay, he's Canadian. Drudge said he was unaware of the ABC story until 'someone from the White House communications shop tipped me to it'…White House press secretary Scott McClellan tried to be nonchalant, indicating that he wasn't planning an investigation of the incident." [Source: Washington Post, 7/18/03 and 7/20/03]

GENERAL DISPARAGED FOR TELLING TRUTH ABOUT TROOP LEVEL NEEDS: Despite the fact that it appears he was probably accurate, "Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require 'several hundred thousand troops.' Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate 'wildly off the mark.'" [Source: USA Today, 6/3/03]

CIA BLAMED FOR TELLING TRUTH ABOUT BOGUS IRAQ-NUCLEAR CLAIM: Despite the CIA having made advance objections to the White House about the false Iraq/nuclear claim, "President Bush and his national security adviser yesterday placed full responsibility on the Central Intelligence Agency for the inclusion in this year's State of the Union address of questionable allegations that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was trying to buy nuclear weapons." [Source: Washington Post, 7/12/03 and 7/14/03]

CIA OPERATIVE EXPOSED BECAUSE HUSBAND TOLD TRUTH ABOUT IRAQ: According to government sources, "Administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore from Africa. 'Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,' a senior official said of the alleged leak." [Source: Washington Post, 9/28/03]

Given the Soviet-style secretiveness of the Bushite junta, it could only be an insider who could make their infamous behind-closed-doors behavior known to the unsuspecting public. Others have tried to let America know what their unelected tyrants were doing in secret. They have been squashed for their pains.

Let us hope that Clarke has the right stuff to stand up to the Bushite barrage and pull the string that finally brings down the whole rotten house of cards.

CONSERVATIVE LUNATICS

W stands at the head of an army of religious wackos and regressive lunatics that are driving the world to destruction.

We have never been more convinced of this than after seeing the following piece by Chris Floyd from The Moscow Times. Here is the link:

Chris Floyd: Pin Heads

And here is the piece:

Pin Heads
If enacted, the Constitution Restoration Act will effectively transform the United States into a theocracy, where the arbitrary dictates of a "higher power" can override law.
By Chris Floyd

One of the sticking points in crafting the just-signed "interim constitution" of the Pentagon cash cow formerly known as Iraq was the question of acknowledging Islam as the fundamental source of law. After much wrangling, a fudge was worked out that cites the Koran as a fundamental source of legal authority, with the proviso that no law can be passed that conflicts with Islam.

We in the enlightened West smile at such theocratic quibbling, of course: Imagine, national leaders insisting that a modern state be governed solely by divine authority! Governments guaranteeing the right of religious extremists to impose their views on society! What next -- debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Oh, those poor, ignorant barbarians in Babylon!

Well, wipe that smile off your face. For even now, the ignorant barbarians in Washington are pushing a law through Congress that would "acknowledge God as the sovereign source of law, liberty [and] government" in the United States. What's more, it would forbid all legal challenges to government officials who use the power of the state to enforce their own view of "God's sovereign authority." Any judge who dared even hear such a challenge could be removed from office.

The "Constitution Restoration Act of 2004" is no joke; it was introduced last month by some of the Bush Regime's most powerful Congressional sycophants. If enacted, it will effectively transform the American republic into a theocracy, where the arbitrary dictates of a "higher power" -- as interpreted by a judge, policeman, bureaucrat or president -- can override the rule of law.



The Act -- drafted by a minion of television evangelist Pat Robertson -- is the fruit of decades of work by a group of extremists known broadly as "Dominionists." Their openly expressed aim is to establish "biblical rule" over every aspect of society -- placing "the state, the school, the arts and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere under Christ the King." Or as Attorney General John Ashcroft -- the nation's chief law enforcement officer -- has often proclaimed: "America has no king but Jesus!"

According to Dominionist literature, "biblical rule" means execution -- preferably by stoning -- of homosexuals and other "revelers in licentiousness"; massive tax cuts for the rich (because "wealth is a mark of God's favor"); the elimination of government programs to alleviate poverty and sickness (because these depend on "confiscation of wealth"); and enslavement for debtors. No legal challenges to "God's order" will be allowed. And because this order is divinely ordained, the "elect" can use any means necessary to establish it, including deception, subversion, even violence. As Robertson himself adjures the faithful: "Zealous men force their way in."

Again, this is no tiny band of cranks meeting in some basement in Alabama, as recent reports by investigators Karen Yurica and David Neiwert make clear. The Dominionists are bankrolled and directed by deep-pocketed, well-connected business moguls and political operatives who have engineered a takeover of the Republican Party and are now at the heart of the U.S. government. They've made common cause with the "American Empire" faction -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, the neo-conservatives -- who seek "full-spectrum dominance" over the globe. The Dominionists provide money and domestic political muscle for the Dominators' imperial ambitions; in return, the Dominators provide a practical vehicle -- overwhelming military might and state power -- for making the Dominionists' dreams a reality.

The Dominionist movement was founded by the late R.J. Rushdoony, a busy beaver who also co-founded the Council for National Policy. The CNP is the politburo of the American conservative movement, filled with top-rank political and business leaders who set the national agenda for the vast echo chamber of right-wing foundations, publishers, media networks and universities that have schooled a whole generation in obscurantist bile -- just as the extremist Wahabbi religious schools funded by Saudi billionaires have poisoned the Islamic world with hatred and ignorance.

One of the chief moneybags behind the rise of Dominionism was tycoon Harold Ahmanson, Rushdoony's protege and fellow CNP member. In addition to establishing theocracy in America, Ahmanson has another abiding interest: computerized voting machines. As reported here last year, Ahmanson, a fervent Bush backer, was instrumental in establishing two of the Republican-controlled companies now rushing to install their highly hackable machines -- with untraceable, unrecountable electronic ballots -- across the country in time for the November election.

The Dominionists also have strong backing on the Supreme Court, Yurica notes. Justice Antonin Scalia, author of the unconstitutional ruling that gave Bush the presidency, declared in the theological journal First Things that the state derives its moral authority from God, not the "consent of the governed," as that old licentious reveler Thomas Jefferson held in the Declaration of Independence. No, government "is the 'minister of God' with powers to 'revenge,' to 'execute wrath,' including even wrath by the sword," Scalia wrote. He railed against the "tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government."

Meanwhile, the tools of dominion keep expanding. Just days after the Congressional Bushists launched their theocratic missile, General Ralph Eberhart, head of America's first domestic military command, said the Regime must now bring the experience learned on foreign battlefields to the "Homeland" itself, including the integration of police, military and intelligence forces, "wide-area surveillance of the United States" and "urban warfare tactics," GovExec.com reports.

Put this juggernaut at the service of democracy-hating extremists with no legal restraints on their enforcement of "God's sovereign authority" -- plus a proven track record of subverting the law to gain political power -- and what would you have? A mullah state? A military theocracy?

Or should we just call it "a second term"?

Let's get real, folks! We absolutely must mount a sustained campaign, first to remove the Bushniks from power, and then to crush conservatism until is has approximately the same amount of social acceptance as child molestation.

Conservatism, and its close ally fundamentalism, and the most dangerous forces on the planet today.

Let us hope that the decent people of the world can overcome these forces before they destroy themselves and the rest us of along with them.

BUSH: ALL THE IRAQ LIES

W and his minions lied massively about Iraq in order to get the US into war. Now there is an easy to access compendium of the 237 (minimum) lies they told.

You can find it here:

Iraq on the Record

It is searchable, so if you want to find W's lies, or Cheney's or Rice's, you can look them up by name. Or you can search for keywords, like "urgent threat," "mushroom cloud," or any of the other fear-mongering terms used by this utterly debased group of liars and confidence-people who have usurped our government.

At least someone has catalogued their lies so that they cannot keep denying that they said them, as Rumsfeld tried to do on CBS's Face the Nation last Sunday. Check out his embarrassingly baldfaced lying at this video link:

MoveOn: Rumsfeld Caught Lying on Camera

These liars think that they can rewrite history anytime they open their mouths and get away with it. And why do they think that, because the press has let them get away with it for so long that have no shame any more. What Bob Schieffer and Tom Friedman did to Rumsfeld last Sunday--that is, simply throw up his own lies in his face--should have been done by the press at every news conference ever given by any member of the Bushite junta since they usurped office.

But the press either is too scared or is paid off--and so they let these cretins get away with everything, from despoiling the environment and calling it "good science," to transferring wealth to the rich and calling it "economic stimulus," to invading Iraq and calling it "liberation."

We understand why the press might be scared. The Bushites know nothing about fairness, and have demonstrated time and again that they will stop at nothing, ruin anyone, endanger and even destroy lives, to get what they want. Working reporters would be extremely naive to imagine that a negative report on the Bushites would not cost them their jobs once the Bushites get on the phone to their bosses. We understand their timidity; it is not easy to give up one's livlihood for the sake of truth.

But those who take payoffs from the Bushites, those who pimp Bushite sophistry and develop ever new convolutions to "explain" how their patently mendacious, anti-social, selfish, and power-hungry schemes are actually beneficial using contrafactual "evidence," faulty logic, and base appeals to demagogical nationalistic jingoism--those people are traitors to the American people.

The only solution: removal of all Bushites from office, and a sustained, multi-front attack on the twin sources of all these evils--unrestrained capitalist corporatism and mindless conservative fundamentalism.

BUSH: LYING ABOUT OUTSOURCING

W lies so much that it is literally impossible to keep up with the never-ending stream of mendacity.

The trouble with lying so much is that people can't keep track of what they're supposed to be lying about and what they can say honestly.

When one of W's economic advisors got caught saying in public that outsourcing is good, he just slipped up; he just made the mistake of saying in public the same sort of thing he says every day to his Bushite colleagues. He just happened to be on camera when he uttered the same kind of thing he says every day behind closed doors.

But as much as conservatives try to paint themselves as the voice of the REAL America (do they still imagine that they represent Nixon's "silent majority"?), the American people recognize hard-hearted, inhumane capitalism when they see it--and they don't like it. So Bushites are supposed to keep a lid on their real attitude toward the workers when they are in public.

That's why this slip-up was so embarrasing; it reveals too clearly what the Bushites are really all about. And that's why W and his handlers had to come out so fast trying to deny it.

But, of course, the denials are all lies. Here is today's missive from The Daily Misleader, which shows that Colin Powell has confirmed the Bushite support for outsourcing:

Daily Misleader: Bush Supports Outsourcing

POWELL ADMITS BUSH SUPPORTS OUTSOURCING

Last month President Bush strongly endorsed (1) the loss of U.S. jobs to foreign labor markets, personally signing a report (2) that touted overseas outsourcing despite more than 8 million (3) Americans being out of work. After the public reacted with outrage, the White House tried to back off (4) its endorsement of outsourcing, with the president reassuring America that he is concerned about "people looking for work because jobs have gone overseas" (5) and saying that "we need to act to make sure there are more jobs at home." However, as the controversy subsides, the president is apparently endorsing outsourcing once again.

Specifically, the president has deployed Secretary of State Colin Powell (6) to India "to assure Indians that the Bush administration would not try to halt the outsourcing of high-technology jobs to their country." The admission came despite a new study showing that up to 14 million American jobs (7) could be lost to outsourcing in the coming years. Instead of endorsing congressional action (8) to prevent such a tide of lost jobs,"the White House endorsed Mr. Powell's comments" that outsourcing is just "a natural effect" that cannot be stemmed.

The president's support for outsourcing is less puzzling when considering who is funding his campaign. As an earlier Daily Mislead (9) report showed, the president's campaign pocketed more than $440,000 and his party more than $3.6 million from the companies that are most exploiting outsourcing to ship U.S. jobs overseas.

Sources:

1. "Bush Econ Advisor: Outsourcing OK," CBSNews.com, 2/13/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22817.
2. "Exporting American Jobs: Bush Adviser's Comments Ignite Firestorm, Bring Attention to Trend," ABCNews.com, 2/13/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22818.
3. "Employment Situation Summary," Bureau of Labor Statistics, 3/5/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22819.
4. "Bush adviser backs off pro-outsourcing comment," CNN, 2/13/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22820
5. "Presidential Speech," WhiteHouse.gov, 2/12/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22821
6. Powell Reassures India on Technology Jobs," New York Times, 3/17/04,http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22822
7. "Outsourcing Hits Close to Home for Workers in Northwest Ohio," Miami Herald, 3/14/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22823.
8. "Senate votes to stop outsourcing," BBC News, 3/5/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22824.
9. "NEW REPORT: Why Bush Supports Outsourcing," Daily Mislead, 3/10/04, http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1165583&l=22825.

Just another of the tens of thousands of reasons why we MUST get rid of the debased, amoral, power-hungry, self-aggrandizing bunch of political terrorsts that is the current so-called administration.

BUSH: LYING WITH "NEWS"

Lying in speech is not nearly enough for W. He also lies (or his handlers have his people lie--which is much the same thing, since they put the words in his mouth as well) in every other conceivable way.

Take, for example, the fake favorable "news" stories that the Bushites have been concocting to feed to ususpecting local news outlets as legitimate "reporting." The local stations run the stories thinking that they are sincere news reports, when they are actually just Bushite propaganda in the guise of journalism.

Check out the story in today's New York Times:

NY Times: Bushites Push Fake News Reports

And here is an excerpt:

Federal investigators are scrutinizing television segments in which the Bush administration paid people to pose as journalists praising the benefits of the new Medicare law, which would be offered to help elderly Americans with the costs of their prescription medicines.

The videos are intended for use in local television news programs. Several include pictures of President Bush receiving a standing ovation from a crowd cheering as he signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8.

The materials were produced by the Department of Health and Human Services, which called them video news releases, but the source is not identified. Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."

But the production company, Home Front Communications, said it had hired her to read a script prepared by the government.

Another video, intended for Hispanic audiences, shows a Bush administration official being interviewed in Spanish by a man who identifies himself as a reporter named Alberto Garcia.

Another segment shows a pharmacist talking to an elderly customer. The pharmacist says the new law "helps you better afford your medications," and the customer says, "It sounds like a good idea." Indeed, the pharmacist says, "A very good idea."

The government also prepared scripts that can be used by news anchors introducing what the administration describes as a made-for-television "story package."

In one script, the administration suggests that anchors use this language: "In December, President Bush signed into law the first-ever prescription drug benefit for people with Medicare. Since then, there have been a lot of questions about how the law will help older Americans and people with disabilities. Reporter Karen Ryan helps sort through the details."

The "reporter" then explains the benefits of the new law.

Lawyers from the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, discovered the materials last month when they were looking into the use of federal money to pay for certain fliers and advertisements that publicize the Medicare law.

In a report to Congress last week, the lawyers said those fliers and advertisements were legal, despite "notable omissions and other weaknesses." Administration officials said the television news segments were also a legal, effective way to educate beneficiaries....

But Democrats disagreed. "These materials are even more disturbing than the Medicare flier and advertisements," said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey. "The distribution of these videos is a covert attempt to manipulate the press."

Mr. Lautenberg, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and seven other members of Congress requested the original review by the accounting office.

In the videos and advertisements, the government urges beneficiaries to call a toll-free telephone number, 1-800-MEDICARE. People who call that number can obtain recorded information about prescription drug benefits if they recite the words "Medicare improvement."

Documents from the Medicare agency show why the administration is eager to advertise the benefits of the new law, on radio and television, in newspapers and on the Internet.

"Our consumer research has shown that beneficiaries are confused about the Medicare Modernization Act and uncertain about what it means for them," says one document from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Other documents suggest the scope of the publicity campaign: $12.6 million for advertising this winter, $18.5 million to publicize drug discount cards this spring, about $18.5 million this summer, $30 million for a year of beneficiary education starting this fall and $44 million starting in the fall of 2005.

"Video news releases" have been used for more than a decade. Pharmaceutical companies have done particularly well with them, producing news-style health features about the afflictions their drugs are meant to cure.

The videos became more prominent in the late 1980's, as more and more television stations cut news-gathering budgets and were glad to have packaged news bits to call their own, even if they were prepared by corporations seeking to sell products.

As such, the videos have drawn criticism from some news media ethicists, who consider them to be at odds with journalism's mission to verify independently the claims of corporations and governments.

Government agencies have also produced such videos for years, often on subjects like teenage smoking and the dangers of using steroids. But the Medicare materials wander into more controversial territory.

Bill Kovach, chairman of the Committee of Concerned Journalists, expressed disbelief that any television stations would present the Medicare videos as real news segments, considering the current debate about the merits of the new law.

"Those to me are just the next thing to fraud," Mr. Kovach said. "It's running a paid advertisement in the heart of a news program."

Whether you call it fraud, deception, or just plain lying, the Bushites have mastered every possible version of it, from the little white lie all the way up to the blatant denial of clear-cut evidence.

Check out this transcript of Donald Rumsfeld's aggressive attampt on CBS's Face the Nation yesterday to lie his way out of having deceived the American people about WMD in Iraq before the war:

BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard use the phrase "immediate threat." I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.

Mr. THOMAS FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says "some have argued that the nu-"--this is you speaking--"that the nuclear threat from Iraq is not imminent, that Saddam is at least five to seven years away from having nuclear weapons. I would not be so certain.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: And--and...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: It was close to imminent.

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be accurate. I'm s--suppose I've...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: "No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq."

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed and we still do not know--we will know."

These people are all inveterate liars. And they do not stop their lying just because people will die because of it. They lie to get power, to use power, and to hold power.

And they all should be in jail because of it.

At the very least, we need to get them all out of government so they can spend the rest of their miserable lives trying to justify their perfidy against the judgment of history.

BUSH: LYING ABOUT MEDICARE

Master liar W did it again: he lied about the true cost of his Medicare boondoggle until the bill got through Congress.

The enormity of W's lies is even beginning to bother REPUBLICANS, who normally don't have any problem with lying themselves. But they know that massive lying in public is a losing strategy. And that means that master liar W is now a losing strategy, since the endless trails of lies streaming out of the White House ever since inauguration on every conceivable topic are finally beginning to be notice by an apathetic public and a bought-and-paid-for conservative media.

Here is the link to the article explaining the brazen lying of the White House on the outrageous Medicare Bill they got the Republicans to strong-arm through Congress last fall.

Knight Ridder: Bush administration ordered Medicare plan cost estimates withheld

And here is an excerpt:

The government's top expert on Medicare costs was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescription-drug plan.

When the House of Representatives passed the controversial benefit by five votes last November, the White House was embracing an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office that it would cost $395 billion in the first 10 years. But for months the administration's own analysts in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had concluded repeatedly that the drug benefit could cost upward of $100 billion more than that.

Withholding the higher cost projections was important because the White House was facing a revolt from 13 conservative House Republicans who'd vowed to vote against the Medicare drug bill if it cost more than $400 billion.

Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, one of the 13 Republicans, said she was "very upset" when she learned of the higher estimate.

"I think a lot of people probably would have reconsidered (voting for the bill) because we said that $400 billion was our top of the line," Myrick said.

Five months before the November House vote, the government's chief Medicare actuary had estimated that a similar plan the Senate was considering would cost $551 billion over 10 years. Two months after Congress approved the new benefit, White House Budget Director Joshua Bolten disclosed that he expected it to cost $534 billion.

Richard S. Foster, the chief actuary for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which produced the $551 billion estimate, told colleagues last June that he would be fired if he revealed numbers relating to the higher estimate to lawmakers.

"This whole episode which has now gone on for three weeks has been pretty nightmarish," Foster wrote in an e-mail to some of his colleagues June 26, just before the first congressional vote on the drug bill. "I'm perhaps no longer in grave danger of being fired, but there remains a strong likelihood that I will have to resign in protest of the withholding of important technical information from key policy makers for political reasons."

Knight Ridder obtained a copy of the e-mail.

Foster didn't quit, but congressional staffers and lawmakers who worked on the bill said he no longer was permitted to answer important questions about the bill's cost.

Anyone who is still trying to defend W and his handlers is either: a) a pure partisan hack who will do and say anything to keep reactionary Republicans in power; b) a seriously delusional fundamentalist wacko for whom reality fades in favor of irrational millenial religious "visions" of W as the second coming of Christ; c) just plain stupid.

John Kerry was exactly right when he called them the most crooked, lying bunch he had ever seen--whether he meant the Bushites themselves or their shills in the Republican mean machine.

The sooner we get rid of them the better off the world will be.

But don't think that dumping W will end the problem. The conservative machine will not give up. The next battle will be to convert the hearts and minds of Americans to regard conservatism as the regressive evil that it is.

And that will be even harder than getting rid of W.

BUSH: FROM A GAGGLE OF LIARS

W. is not the only master liar in the Republican herd. They make a specialty of it.

Check out this story from today's Washington Post, which shows how a conservative court blatantly favors Republicans over Democrats in deciding about reimbursements for legal costs incurred during government investigations of the President.

Washington Post: Court Loves Conservatives, Hates Liberals

And here is an excerpt:

A little-known Washington court that oversees the investigations of presidents has approved more than a million dollars in legal-fee reimbursements for Republican administration officials caught up in the probes while rejecting similar requests from Clinton-era officials.

The three-judge panel has in recent months rejected the bulk of five requests for reimbursements totaling $5.5 million from former president Bill Clinton and associates involved in the Whitewater independent counsel investigation. It has granted small parts of three requests worth $114,000, or about 2 percent of the total.

After the Iran-contra independent counsel investigation of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, the court ordered government repayment of $1.5 million to 17 Republican officials and associates. It rejected five requests worth about $1.5 million, mostly from people who did not qualify because they had been indicted.

In a series of decisions over the past decade, the panel has justified the disparity in writing. It said the Iran-contra figures were unnecessarily embroiled in a highly unusual probe, whereas the Whitewater figures were properly interrogated in an investigation that ultimately uncovered federal crimes.

Democrats and academics who have studied the court disagree. "The partisan pattern is undeniable," said John Q. Barrett, a St. John's University law professor who was a lawyer in the independent counsel's office for the Iran-contra investigation. "Republican petitions have been getting reimbursed. And people connected with Democratic administrations are getting turned down. And it makes the court look bad."

But Michael A. Carvin, senior partner at Jones Day and a Reagan administration Justice Department official who has advised clients on the Independent Counsel Act, called allegations of partisan bias "utterly unjustified paranoia." Carvin said the judges have correctly noted the differences in the two investigations....

The Iran-contra investigation, led by independent counsel Lawrence Walsh, opened in December 1986 and focused on whether Reagan's administration had covered up the sale of arms to Iran to finance contra rebels in Nicaragua. The probe cost taxpayers $47 million....

The Whitewater investigation, led chiefly by Kenneth W. Starr, began in August 1994 as a probe of Bill and Hillary Clinton's role in a failed Arkansas savings and loan. Starr ultimately alleged that Bill Clinton gave false testimony to conceal a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica S. Lewinsky....

The panel has been consistent in rejecting the claims of indicted people, whom the law automatically bars from reimbursement. It turned down Reagan's deputy director of CIA operations, Clair George, who was indicted for lying to Congress and later pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, just as it turned down Susan McDougal, a business partner of the Clintons in the Whitewater deal, who was indicted but pardoned by Bill Clinton.

But the judges ruled last month that Lewinsky did not qualify for fee repayment despite her assertion that her responses to a civil suit never would have been prosecuted if the answers did not involve a sitting president. The judges wrote that they would also have had to reject automatically any fees the former White House intern incurred after she signed an immunity agreement with Starr, because she was then no longer an official "subject" of the probe.

Similar issues received different treatment in the past. The division found Reagan was entitled to legal expenses incurred throughout the Iran-contra investigation, which ended in 1994, even though Walsh notified the former president in July 1992 that he was no longer a subject of the investigation. And, the panel awarded legal fees to Edwin Corr, Reagan's ambassador to El Salvador, deciding that the kind of immunity deal he had with Walsh did not assure him of safety from charges.

Former Clinton White House adviser Bruce Lindsey, who was denied most of his $245,000 fee request, said the rejections penalize public employees of modest means -- the opposite of what Congress intended by allowing reimbursement.

"It makes it more difficult certainly for people who are not wealthy to go into government if the first thing they have to do is hire a criminal defense lawyer," Lindsey said.

The vague reimbursement law forces the judges to rely on their gut instincts about a prosecution's merits when considering fee requests, some experts say. Barrett said the "automatic reimbursement" era of Iran-contra was the judges' way of saying Walsh had gone too far and swept up too many public servants in his investigation.

Katy J. Harriger, a political science professor at Wake Forest University and author of a book on the independent counsel's office, said that to consider fees, judges are pressed to engage in "pure speculation" about whether a typical prosecutor would have viewed a matter as seriously as the counsel did.

Academics note that Sentelle's panel criticized Walsh's investigation and moved to shut it down. Later, Sentelle's panel chose Starr, a former federal judge who was solicitor general in the first Bush administration, to run the Whitewater investigation and gave him wide leeway.

"It does depend largely on whose ox is being gored," Harriger said. "The people who thought Iran-contra was a totally bogus case by and large thought Whitewater and Lewinsky were a fabulous case. And vice versa."

Clark says the panel, with its unsigned opinions, has made its view crystal clear: "It's real simple," she said. "Starr good, Walsh bad."

That's what Republicans are really all about: rewarding their allies and stomping their enemies. Justice doesn't enter the picture.

So why does it surprise anyone that W struts around with his fake cowboy strut, caring nothing about the rights of others, trampling everyone who he imagines to be "in his way," and driving the nation to ruin? What, him care? Why should he? He's always been on the free-lunch end of the Republican gravy ladle.

It's the rest of us who have to care. And care enough to send him and his conscienceless conservatives into political exile forever. Only then will the decent people of America be able to breathe freely.

BUSH: THE LIAR KING

W is the most egregious liar ever to occupy (unjustly) the White House.

Not only does he tell whopper after whopper (the only way to stop him is not to let him do press conferences); not only does he change his story repeatedly (how many different rationales have we heard for attacking Iraq?); not only does he make up "evidence" for his benighted policies (don't like what science says?--buy some new science!); but his whole persona is a huge lie.

Like, for example, his Crawford, Texas "ranch" that was put up just in time for the 2000 election: why did he need a ranch all of a sudden when he hadn't shown the slightest interest in living in the country for the first fifty years of his misbegotten life? Why, because his puppetmasters wanted him to do "the Reagan-thang" in the hopes he could make the dimwitted masses believe he's a good ol' boy.

Everything about W and his faux administration is fake. It has to be, in order to hide the real agenda behind him--namely to return America to the halcyon oligarchic days before FDR, crystallizing a movement that began with Teddy Roosevelt, took the country away from the wealthy and gave the common people real rights for the first time.

So of course W and his handlers have to hide the fact that they aim to destroy all entitlements. Would anyone vote for them at all if they just came out and said what they were doing--dismantling Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public education, the minimum wage, and every progressive program ever devised? Of course not.

Anyway, just to present more of the endless evidence that W is as phony as a three-dollar bill here is a piece from The Center for American Progress on W's shamless shamming:

CAP: Windshield Cowboy

Windshield Cowboy

AP reports that President Bush is trying to shore up his "regular-guy image," recasting himself "as a plain-talking boots-wearer with Middle America tastes — an image he has cultivated for years to counter his background." Specifically, the President is driving a pickup truck around his Crawford, Texas estate, referring to himself as a "windshield cowboy," attending sporting events, and "painting [opponents] as out of sync with much of the country." The act contrasts not only to the President's "background as an Ivy Leaguer from an old, wealthy, New England-based family" – but also to his Administration's policies. Over the last three years, the White House has repeatedly showered its millionaire campaign contributors with tax breaks while ignoring the economic hardships that millions of "regular folks" are struggling with. And a review of the latest news shows that the Administration has no plans to let up.

THE "REGULAR GUY" CHARADE: All told, more than eight million Americans are out of work (with a fifth of those out of work for more than 6 months) and almost no jobs were created last month. Worse still, "job growth in December and January was worse than previously believed" with the Labor Department on Friday downgrading their previous estimates. And yet, despite the bad news, the "regular guy" President says that "the economy is getting stronger." Instead of extending unemployment aid for 760,000 "regular folks" who are running out of unemployment benefits who will lose their benefit, the President is spending hundreds of taxpayer dollars shoring up his "regular guy image" by flying Air Force One over the Daytona 500. Instead of releasing the millions of dollars in aid for jobless workers the Administration has withheld, the President is spending Monday squeezing in a photo-op at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo after two multi-million-dollar fundraisers.

"REGULAR GUY" OR OUT OF TOUCH ELITIST?: One day after the Labor Department reported that just 21,000 jobs had been created in February, President Bush "defended his economic record," saying "the economy is getting stronger" and that Congress needed "to make sure that the tax cuts are permanent." But the happy talk was in sharp contrast to the facts: since the President signed his tax cut, America has shed 2.2 million jobs. While the President couched his tax cuts in "regular guy" rhetoric, the data shows that most of the benefits went to the richest 1% of the population (those making about $1 million per year), who received than $1 trillion from the first tax cut alone. Meanwhile, the White House's policies have effectively raised taxes on millions of middle class Americans. Even conservatives weren't buying the President's happy talk: Glen Bolger, the President's pollster said, "you'd like to see the job growth a little more robust than 21,000" while a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert said "No one should be happy about these numbers." American Progress Senior Economist Christian Weller writes that American working families are disenchanted with the labor market, and with good reason.

"REGULAR GUY" OR OUT OF TOUCH ELITIST, PART II: While the Administration continues to defend its record, it has left one area almost completely unaddressed: wages. Currently, Americans' take-home pay is stagnating at the very same time health care costs are skyrocketing and pension plans are being scaled back. As the Labor Department reported last month, "7 of the 10 occupations with the greatest growth through 2012 will be in low-wage, service fields requiring little education: retail salesperson, customer service representative, food-service worker, cashier, janitor, waiter and nursing aide and hospital orderly. Many of these jobs pay less than $18,000 a year." A "regular guy" might try to push policies that address the situation, like an increase in the minimum wage. Instead, the "regular guy" President has responded by strongly supporting the outsourcing of good-paying American jobs, eliminating overtime protections for 8 million "regular people," and denying a minimum wage increase for "regular people." For more, see this American Progress backgrounder.

MORE AMERICANS DROPPING OUT OF WORKFORCE: The President has pointed to the fact that the "unemployment rate fell" as proof that "the economy is strong, and growing stronger." Yet, the main reason the unemployment rate dropped in January is because the economy is so weak that more and more of the jobless have simply stopped looking for work. As Bloomberg reports, "1.6 million Americans have dropped out of the workforce in the past year" with "the percentage of those working or looking for jobs falling in February to 65.9%, a 16-year low." Last month alone, "588,000 people left the labor force as the economy created just 21,000 jobs, a sixth of the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 65 economists." For more, see this exposé by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

BIG GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY: President Bush last week chastised opponents for pursuing "policies that grow the federal government." Yet, it appears President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have shepherded a rapid increase in the size of the federal government. Friday's Labor Department report showed "All of the 21,000 new jobs last month were government jobs, with none in the private sector." Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) said "Did you see the category where the largest employment was created? Government jobs. That's not good. The recovery should not be built on more bureaucrats getting hired." The new data is consistent with a recent Brookings Institution report that showed "the government's largely-hidden workforce created through contracts and grants has reached its highest level since before the end of the Cold War." Of course, there is one job the Bush Administration promised to create six months ago but still has not filled: a manufacturing employment czar.

There is no issue more pressing to the fate of humanity today than the removal of George W. Bush from the presidency of the United States.

Let us all work as hard as we can from now until November to make sure that it happens.

Because if it does not, the United States--indeed the world--will not be recognizable (if it still exists at all) by the next scheduled elections.